The Black Wish of Silver Letter

Chapters

Sadness
Happiness
Envy
Embarrassment
Darkness

Sadness

On that day he looked upon Misty, the boy known as Silver Letter felt a pain in his heart. He had heard of her once when looking at model trains in a Manehattan toy store. Hearth’s Warming Eve was coming soon. Little foals were crowding the aisles, begging parents to fulfill their heart’s wishes. Silver Letter, as usual, was alone. He could hardly recall the last holiday he had spent with his parents. Every year, the celebrations recalled in his mind all the past days of mother coming down the stairs, bringing a new train for him to play with. When Silver told her that he couldn’t have foals. That he was in fact, more attracted to other colts, she became frustrated and couldn’t look at him again the same way. When he turned sixteen, Silver left home in the middle of the night, never to return.

The posters in the store had the image of a beautiful mare whose coat reflected the majesty of the ocean tides. Known only as the sparkling Misty, foals all over Equestria were overjoyed by all the toys in her vast line. Silver had known about Misty for a few years by then. When he was roaming the streets alone, he would often walk past those very toy stores where Misty’s face was plastered like a celebrity’s on posters. The newest line of train cars was displayed like jewelry for passersby to see. In time, Silver’s attention was divided by the shining cars in front of him and the pony who built them.

Silver got a job working in a factory where many toys were manufactured. It was a thankless and often harsh position working with chemicals and abrasive bosses. It was the bottom line at all cost. Only the thought of playing with his toy trains made the day worth it. Even when he got older, each new toy caused him great joy. When the clerk smiled at him, he slipped them an excuse that the toy was for a friend or a foal of his who didn’t exist. Then it would be okay. The poster beside the clerk promised something else. Misty’s smile appeared real somehow like there would be no judgment in her fine eyes. Over time, he wished to meet and even know her.

He had saved up for over a year for the most special of events. In the Crystal Empire, where Misty lived, all the most popular toy developers would gather to showcase their newest designs. Thousands would go to this convention, and so Silver poured all of his hopes into this one chance to see Misty. The train from Manehattan to the Empire was expensive. The ticket was even worse. When he finally got it in the mail, Silver was disappointed that the tickets were tiered and only the most expensive had exclusive rights to chat with the developers themselves. Yet, Silver’s hope wouldn’t be crushed so easily.

Silver went home to a dark house as usual, a little hole in the wall between two massive factories. Even the air there smelt of smoke. When he turned his lamp on, several work friends surprised him. Apparently, it was his birthday and he had forgotten. There were several new trains wrapped in paper. Seeing them made him smile as he knew how expensive the trains had become.

“I can’t wait to see you two as best friends,” a mare named Amber said, while pinning a taped-up collage of himself and Misty on the wall. The mare was making kissing faces at the picture which made Silver lightly blush at the thought.

“Thank you, Amber,” Silver replied. “I just hope I can actually see her.”

Silver stayed positive after his birthday. Boarding the train felt like stepping through a door into a new world. The Crystal Empire was the heart of love. Such beauty was everywhere. Silver thought about his co-workers and the picture. If only such things could be real. Misty and her best friend were supposedly there. The two mares had written letters to each other for years, according to an article in Child’s Toy Magazine. If two ponies could be friends after so long then Silver reasoned that it could happen for himself too.

From his hotel room, Silver marveled at the majesty of the city. There were crystal roads, buildings, fountains. Even crystal ponies! Maybe it even rained crystals. After taking photos, Silver grabbed a snack at a nearby vendor then trotted over to the convention hall.

Ponies from all over Equestria had come. After showing his ticket, Silver gazed at the massive real life models of toy helicopters and castles made of little plastic bricks. Everything was awesome but none of it compared to the massive steam train on display. There was even a strange looking train car which had weird looking arms, and gas-powered valves which crushed apples into pulp.

Misty had to be near. In fact, there was a line which ended at a closed door next to a poster of the mare’s image.

Silver stood in line for an hour. Then, all the ponies started walking inside the room. Silver sat at the front row. He was nervous but excited like all the other guests around him. A pony came and announced the guests. There were a few ponies who Silver didn’t care to recall then lastly, Misty herself. Misty’s cutie mark shimmered like an emerald. Her colors were like a pony who ascended from the sea. Her mane looked soft as silk. Such beauty made even Silver’s heart palpitate at her sight.

Misty had set a row of gleaming model trains on the table and in such a high-pitched girly voice, talked about it with her fellow guests. There was a special humor about Misty. Everything she said was down to earth, relatable only as a celebrity who came from humble origins could be.

Ponies walked up during the question session and asked a lot from the guests. As much as he wished it, Silver couldn’t get up. All coherent questions slipped from his mind. And as soon as it had come, it was all over.

The guests were escorted backstage. Silver walked with the other attendees towards the exit when he saw an opportunity. The security was busy. He could sneak past them and maybe find Misty. It would truly be his only shot. There wouldn’t ever be another.

Silver was doing something wrong. Yet, he didn’t care. After all, he was trying to make a friend. Even the statues of Spike the Magnificent reminded him that friendship could come from the most unlikely of places.

Going backstage, there was a group of ponies in a nice room where goodie bags were being distributed by the staff. There were a lot of laughing and good cheer. Silver approached Misty, who had her back turned to him, giggling with another pretty sparkling mare, clearly a native of the Empire. Afraid of talking, Silver merely listened to their conversation, something about the newest toy line. The other fans were happy to listen, smiling and nodding the entire time. Misty then turned as if to catch her breath and saw Silver by himself.

“Oh, I didn’t see you! What’s your name?” she said.

“I’m Silver Letter.”

Misty smiled brightly. “Good to meet you.”

“Thanks. I wish I had brought one of my trains for you to sign. I’ve been waiting for a while to meet you, to thank you for all the things you’ve done for ponies everywhere…”

Of all the things he could have said, he had nothing but clichés to rely on. Nothing about the fact that her trains had kept him alive through all of his worst times, that toys like hers were his entire world. But when he was interrupted suddenly by a stern staff member, Silver knew it was too late. He was escorted outside. The guard accused him of violating the rules on purpose. It was too embarrassing for Silver to argue. The badge for the convention was taken from him.

Thinking it was over, Silver walked to his hotel room. The following day, he was walking past the convention hall towards the train station to return to Manehattan. All the fans were heading home too and the streets were packed. Having always hated crowds, Silver left and found a quieter alley to meander through. Since that moment with Misty, the mare had consumed his thoughts. She was beautiful to be sure, but there was something more. He couldn’t really pinpoint exactly what it was. He thought it irrelevant, a mere passing fancy.

Someone was coming out from a building. Silver recognized the mare as one of the handlers of the special guests. He hid behind a dumpster. Sure enough, Misty and the others climbed into a large cart. Amongst them was a stallion known as Time Turner. Silver didn’t know that Time Turner had anything to do with toys so it came as a surprise. As the cart drifted off, Silver noticed something gleaming on the ground. Going there, he saw a black sphere held in a silver band. Time Turner must have dropped it, Silver thought.

Silver gazed into the depths of the sphere. There was little about it that was remarkable as if it was made of shadow. Then seconds later, a wave of blue fog swirled inside it like drops of ink in water. Startled, Silver dropped it on the ground. Somehow, it didn’t crack or break. It was perfectly odd. Picking it up again, a chill flowed through Silver’s entire body. He started crying. It couldn’t be controlled. When tears fell upon the stone, he dropped it again.

On the ride back, the stone was kept in Silver’s backpack, yet he could feel cold seeping through the fabric. He sat alone as if worried that other ponies could feel the intense magic he felt in that alleyway. His eyes hurt. Everything did. But his heart felt the most pain. It is as though he had lost a friend, never to regain them again.

Happiness

Silver Letter wasn’t getting any younger. At 25, he followed the same routine, going from work back home to tend to toy trains. He didn’t have any family. No wife. No foals. He also had nobody pressuring him into getting married. Very little in his life seemed to fulfill his desires except his hobbies, in which he had many. He didn’t need anything else to feel satisfied other than collecting things.

Since he had gotten his job at the factory, Silver had been trying to make friends, for what it was worth. Ponies never lasted long at the factory. They would work a few months then disappear to do something else. When a pony invited him to go drinking or play games, Silver usually declined. He detested drinking bitter hard ciders and other such things. A good time for him involved reading a book beside a fire.

So it was rather unusual when he accepted an offer to join one of the older employee’s birthday party at the local pub. It all sounded like a waste of time as usual, but the guys he saw often had been being pests about it. Silver feared that the sadness in the stone had been wearing off at work, despite all the work he had put into maintaining the façade of happiness.

The noise at the pub was ridiculous. As Silver fought to find a place to sit, a hoof tapped his shoulder.

“Over here,” a pony said, gesturing to the booths. It was his coworker. Sitting at the end was the old pony whose mane had started greying before Silver started working. A little cake sat next to ciders and opened gifts of Jazz cassettes and cologne.

Silver smiled. The guy had often given him advice when seeing Silver walking around feeling glum. Silver often wished that he had the near infinite capacity for patience and kindness in which the old stallion possessed. After listening to a story about his first day on the job, Silver asked to buy a drink for all the ponies, which was met with much applause. For a moment, Silver too was the highlight of the evening.

Wobbling on the sidewalk, Silver unlocked his door in a haze. He made some coffee then sipped it slowly from a large mug. Snow was drifting downwards that evening. It was going to be cold. He would need to put some wood in the stove to keep his room warm. In the light of a lamp, the cold black stone looked like an eye plucked from a dragon. It always seemed to be watching him like it knew what he was thinking. But that was silly. It was just an object.

Silver placed his hooves on the smooth glassy surface. A light emerged from deep inside. Unlike the blue he saw before, it was a pale yellow like a sunflower. He felt another energy. Not daggers of glass but a pulsing warmth in his muscles. Silver’s heart relaxed as though his entire body was slipping into a warm bath.

When he set the stone down, Silver didn’t want to sleep as he did before. He opened his desk drawer and procured a pen and some paper. He wrote without a second’s hesitation. The words flowed onto the page, each prettier than the last. Setting the pen down, Silver looked at the stone, which had faded into darkness. Silver then went to bed.

Getting up for work, Silver saw the letter on his desk. He couldn’t fully recall having had written it. It couldn’t have just been the drinks he had. Had the stone affected him somehow? The thought of it worried him. Maybe it would be best to sell it or even throw it away. However, he saw something strange. The letter was addressed to Misty. Next to her name was her address, something which he couldn’t have possibly known.

At work, Silver was thinking about Misty for a while. The letter he wrote was very kind, asking all about her work, interests and so many other kind things. That very letter was already in the mail, on its way north to the Empire. Normally he would sigh and tell himself that she would tear up the letter. She wouldn’t read it at all. But there was this strange hope that she would want to read it.

A coworker interrupted him by waving his hoof in front of the magnifying glass that Silver was using to paint one of the trains that his company was going to sell. None were as good as Misty’s but they still looked pretty in the end thanks to him.

“Excuse me,” Silver said with much annoyance.

“Hey, I don’t want to bother but I was looking for a pony to hire for kind of a side job as a tutor. I think you would be the pony for the job,” the stallion offered. “One of the guys told me that you were college educated.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Silver replied with a sigh. “You need a tutor for something?”

“Oh, no. It’s my son. He’s fourteen.”

“I’ll think about it. No guarantees.”

The guy grinned. “Please do. It would be a great help.”

Silver slipped on the icy sidewalk. Manehattan was getting hit hard by a worsening storm. Snow was swiping his face and coat. His skeleton shivered. The sun was almost set when he knocked on the door of a brick city house. A colt answered it. He was wearing a red robe with a mug held in his hoof.

“Who are you?” he said.

“I’m Silver Letter. You were probably expecting me?”

“Oh, yes. I’m Nate. My dad told me about you,” he said reluctantly. “I don’t think I need help but whatever. Come in.”

Natty Nate or “Nate” as he likes to be called, was not doing great at his “hooves on” science projects. As a foal, Silver loved to tinker with mechanical things. It was his favorite science. Nate had his science project spread out over the living room rug. Silver saw very little semblance of order in what this cute colt had managed to accomplish.

“This needs a lot of work,” Silver observed, while putting a hoof over his eyes.

Nate looked up from his school papers, his freckled face smiling. “Hey, that’s what my dad said.”

After a week, Silver letter returned from his third tutor session with Nate. He was exhausted from walking in the snow to get home. It was already dark and Silver fumbled with his keys to open the door. He took the mail inside and set it aside while he cooked dinner.

As night went on, Silver poured himself some tea. He had a deadline soon to come up with a new toy design. Something kinetic perhaps, he thought. Motion. Energy. Action. As much as he wished to think about it, his mind was muddled. Bored even. He got up and paced around until he saw the mail he forgot to open. He picked them up, tossing aside bill after bill, until he reached an unknown letter at the bottom. It was a baby blue envelope with a pretty wax seal. The sender was named “Misty” from the Crystal Empire. Silver’s heart pounded.

Silver couldn’t believe it. Could it be true? Had she truly responded? He carefully opened up the letter. It began thusly: Dear Silver Letter: What an adorable letter you had sent to me.

It only got better from there. Silver felt humility and friendliness coming from those elegant words. It gave hope that there would be more to come. More kindness and more words. Even the end of the letter had ended with: Your friend, Misty.

Silver was so overjoyed. Never in his life had he received such a letter. At least not since he had a family and ponies who cared about him. Silver picked up the black stone. It turned that lovely shade of yellow as if to congratulate him too. The familiar energy flowed through him. He worked for hours, churning out a hundred award winning ideas. He thought of Misty just like she had thought of him. He was a great toy creator.

The guys at work noticed a sudden spring in Silver’s step. Rumors spread that he had gotten a girlfriend. Ponies just assumed that Silver liked girls just as much as any other guy. In reality, he preferred colts. Other ponies didn’t know it. It was one of his many secrets. It didn’t help that guys easily pried into Silver’s affairs. One of them was looking at new drawings that Silver had drawn up earlier that morning.

“Hey. That’s mine,” Silver protested upon seeing the coworker.

The pony, a fellow craftspony, put down the paper with some embarrassment. “Oh, I’m sorry. I was just interested in these drawings. That’s all. Did you draw them?”

Silver fiddled with his hoof. “Yes. It’s nothing much, really.”

“I think it’s rather impressive. Professional, even,” the pony said.

Silver thought about what his coworker had told him. The idea that the drawings could be of some use didn’t occur to him until now. Perhaps he was right. Those were the best design work he had ever done. Maybe they would catch the eye of somepony who built the finest of toys? Even Misty?

Silver walked to Nate’s house in the bright chilly afternoon. He was rather excited, his mind bursting with new ideas. The colt let him in as usual.

“Nate, you know how you have been working on your robot design for the science fair?” Silver inquired as he set his saddlebags on the floor.

Nate was drinking hot chocolate. “Yes. I’ve only been working on it for weeks.”

“Well, forget all that.” Silver took up his design paper and balled it up. “I got something far more inspired.”

“What are you doing? You can’t just do that,” Nate blurted in anger.

“Listen. I’m a professional toy designer. I can help you make a robot that will blow the competition away.”

Nate seemed to be convinced. “Well, if you know what you’re talking about…”

What Silver built was fantastic. Nate watched a metallic spider take its first electric steps across the carpet. A remote control took it to a wall where it easily started climbing upwards.

Watching the spider walk up the wall was much less about helping Nate than it was about Silver proving to himself what he could do. On the other hoof, Nate was Silver’s best test audience, and the colt couldn’t get enough of it.

Silver sent photographs and descriptions of the robot to Misty the next morning. Over the following weeks, the two ponies sent each other more letters. Misty was always quite curt in her responses, formal and quick like a rapier. Silver thought that perhaps a pony like her was already overwhelmed with letters from her fans so he excused the apparent lack of interest in the lengthy letters he sent to her. Yet, she sent a letter requesting that Silver act as a consultant. He would work on her team, coming up with new ideas and building test prototypes. What a wonderful idea, Silver mused.

He took the black stone in his hooves and saw the sunny glow resurface. The happiness he felt was true, like being reborn somehow. The light was renewal, perfection. It would be the brightest that the stone would ever become.

Envy

The sunlight of summer filtered through the window into Silver’s little apartment. Silver placed another train on the shelf. Then another. He had hundreds now, filling every last nook and wedged carefully into place. Nearly every type of Equestrian locomotive sat in pristine condition. The newest train from Misty’s Grand Designer’s line cost him 1000 bits. When the mail came the day after, Silver knew that he had spent the last of his rent money. He bit his hoof until it chipped. What was he going to do?

Things had been getting worse for a while and, bit by bit, Silver had been cutting away at his savings. A train here. A train there. Misty loved pictures of his collection and always asked to see more of what Silver could design for her company. Silver thought that collecting brought the two of them closer through not only the physical distance but anything mental too. Yet, Silver had doubts. The conversations always turned towards what Silver could do for her. Usually friendships were “give and take”, not just about taking. Silver couldn’t break that thread and end “Misty”. Things had gone too far, even though the black stone ceased to be sunny. A glint of green like that of poison ivy winked like a gem in its depths. The emotions hastened Silver’s heart. He wanted more. He wanted anything his hooves could grasp.

A vacation hurt more than Silver ever realized. Last week, one of his bosses walked in on him using company time to build a train which wasn’t part of their line. Luckily, they didn’t fire him on the spot, but merely suspended him. The bosses would contact him when they wanted him back. Who knew how long that could be? Each day away from his purpose was torturous.

The rent problem gnawed at his mind badly enough but with the rent cut as it was, a crisis was looming near. Silver sometimes spent his free time walking alone along the avenues, looking into the shops like he was a foal again. Only now, the urge to go in and buy had to be suppressed. She would love that toy, Silver thought. I wish I could show her how much I care.

The store still had those old train magazines for sale. Silver remembered reading about Misty for the first time. In one of those very stores, Silver flipped through the glossy pages of train after train. A young filly had her photograph on one of the covers. Turned out that she was the daughter of a wealthy pony who owned a toy company. The story was about Misty and her best friend. Rich pony and poor pony. Unicorn and Earth pony. The image of the girls hugging had stuck in his mind. Silver had never hugged a pony like that with such love, tighter than the strongest bond.

When he touched the glass stone again, pain flashed in Silver’s brain. He saw the two fillies as adults, meeting, hugging, living a life so strange to him. There was no doubt that what the stone showed him was real. The angst gripping his heart tightened. Somepony knocked on the door hard. It could only be the landlord.

The solution came to him after his stroll down the road. The magazines held the key all along. The collection he amassed was the best in all of Equestria. After sending letters to editors in city after city, a response came. A magazine wanted to showcase the staggering collection of Silver Letter for toy fans of all ages to enjoy. The payment would cover his rent if only barely. At least things would get to normal or so Silver rationalized.

Silver took his own meticulous photographs of the collection that took thousands of bits over the years. Even the junk trains from the magazines had their place. An amusing step in the process. Right on time, the magazine photographer arrived. What was scheduled to take half an hour dragged on all afternoon. When the guy left, Silver didn’t want to even think about another train. As silly as it sounded, even one other pony in the room felt like too many. After so many years of judgment, everything was changing. The air felt heavy. Silver decided to go out for a bit.

Trotting outside, Silver veered off the sidewalk into a city park. He sat near a statue and watched ponies go forth in their busy lives. Little hooves stepped towards him. The colt, Nate, plopped down on the cold stone.

“Long time, Silver,” he said with some sarcasm.

“Oh, Celestia. I had forgotten…”

Indeed, he had. Silver promised the colt that he would be there for the public science fair the school was hosting for the neighborhood. Instead, while it was going on, he was hearing the dull clicks of a camera.

The colt shrugged. “It’s alright. Don’t beat yourself up.” He pulled out a trophy and held it up for Silver to see.

“Is that so? The spider won after all?” Silver said, using his own magic to hold the trophy closer to his sight. Then, the words on the trophy became clear. MANEHATTAN PUBLIC SCHOOL SCIENCE FAIR: SECOND PLACE. “Oh, I wish I could have done something…”

“What could you have done? One look at the spider and one of the judges couldn’t climb the walls faster. At least we got a good laugh. I guess it soured her opinion of my robot.”

Silver smiled at hearing the colt’s stubborn determination then ruffled his soft mane playfully. The colt pushed Silver’s hoof away while readjusting his hoodie.

“In a way, you won something, even if wasn’t a trophy,” Silver said.

“What? Embarrassment? I got plenty of that.”

“No. A life lesson. Life just isn’t fair. Better learn that now before it is too late. You just can’t get everything in life, no matter how hard you try.”

A few weeks later, Silver wrapped the last of his collection in bubble wrap and paper. He placed them like glass into shipping boxes before using his magic to suspend them in the air while he went downstairs. Before long, the apartment was empty. In the end, Silver succumbed. That money he got from the magazine all went to train tickets to the convention coming up again. A year had already passed by. The choice was between rent and that ticket. Rent lost. Silver gazed at the little hole that he called home for so long. He would say goodbye to it all. He would even look behind at the city itself and wonder where his life would be headed next.

He pulled his wagon forward. Soon, the wheels stopped beside those old houses where the colt lived. Silver had never come during the morning before. Now that he had lost his job, it simply didn’t matter anymore. For what it was worth, he wanted to give some kind of parting words.

Silver knocked and held his breath, not really knowing what to say. A goodbye couldn’t exactly be rehearsed.

Nate answered the door, hastily letting Silver in before a word of protest could be uttered. “Look what I did! It’s amazing,” he said.

Silver got an eyeful of a crude looking but functional toy train, running on little tracks around the house. The electrical cars buzzed and clattered but after a few seconds, the wheels froze up.

“That happens,” Nate muttered while turning off the toy.

“I think you got what it takes to make toys,” Silver said.

“I guess it’s all thanks to you? I mean, not to be sappy or whatever.”

Silver felt that envious rush in his heart again. Nothing about it was familiar. Every tempting thought tugged at all of his senses. Like the sadness that came before, there could be no resistance.

Pulling the colt closer, Silver kissed him slowly. It was a kiss that made no sense. Not between two ponies over ten years apart. But the envy. It consumed Silver. Friendship. Love. They were one in the same thing. Silver would show Nate love because Silver wished it. Later, Silver gazed up at the ceiling, looking at pictures of comic book characters and drawings of trains in the colt’s room. It reminded him of home so long ago. Even Nate himself could have been a version of Silver long forgotten. Silver left the colt and went to his wagon. Exhaustion clung to Silver’s body. A fear washed over him. Like some drug, Silver needed the stone. Taking it out, Silver held it and felt the penetrating glance of electricity, the color of deep green like an emerald. There was nothing in the world that would ever be enough. Silver would not rest until everything was his. Maybe he would even convince Misty to be his greatest friend, no matter how long that would take.

Embarrassment

A light chill floated in the ancient air of the far north. Even in summer, the distant mountains stayed frozen. Silver too felt cold. His heart would stop beating from time to time, skipping and broken like Nate’s toy train. Keeping the stone close kept Silver alive to walk another mile until the Empire began to rise in its gleaming glory, filling the sky with light.

Everything Silver had was ragged from the wagon to the ticket in his saddlebag. Pulling over at the edge of the city, Silver slept in the wagon, alone and cold. He cradled the black stone in his hooves. He kept a book about black magic nearby which he had read well and heavily notated. In his dreams, Silver saw Misty live her own life, full of friendship and love. Ponies around Misty cared about her. The world celebrated her existence. Her life had beauty.

Entering the city, Silver felt self-conscious. He hadn’t showered in days. His matted mane drooped in front of his face. Calluses grew on his hooves. Not so much a good impression to give to Misty but few options remained. He hadn’t heard from her in a long time. The same envy as before blocked Silver from thinking things over.

Misty lived on the third floor of a crystal apartment building. The stone knew the location of her room. The memories brought him to Misty’s front door. Knocking, Silver waited with mixed feelings of dread and anticipation. His saddlebags shook. The stone stuck out the side like an errant pet.

A pretty mare wearing designer perfume opened the door. She was laughing as though somepony had told a joke, turning casually over towards Silver Letter.

“Uh…who is this?” she said with some astonishment. Misty could smell him. That alone was clear.

“You don’t recognize me? From the letters? Maybe, um, this will jog your memory.” Silver pulled out a wadded piece of paper from the bag using his magic. It was a drawing of one of the trains.

Misty offered a strained smile. “I’m sorry. I have so many ponies helping me out these days. Every day is just nerve wracking.”

“I’m Silver Letter from Manehattan.”

Misty seemed to recall the name but looked put off. “What are you doing at my house?”

“I kind of wanted to hang out for a bit as your friend, you know. I mean, I have something for you that I hoped you would like.” Silver cringingly removed a gift wrapped in paper and handed it over. Misty reluctantly took it then, seeing Silver’s crooked grin, opened it. It was a brooch made of crystal. Misty’s favorite kind of accessory.

“Please come in,” Misty offered. Silver didn’t notice the slight fearful inflection in her voice.

Silver took in Misty’s lovely house, all the paintings on the wall and rows of photos with her standing beside many loved ones.

“Misty? What’s going on,” a mare inquired from another room.

“Nothing, sweetheart. I got a surprise guest.”

The steps of hooves echoed on the marble floor. “Don’t tell me that pool boy is back again,” she said with a giggle. Upon seeing Silver, the mare stopped in her tracks, her eyes sinking slowly in disappointment. “Uh, what is this?”

Silver could tell that the mare wished to spit her words out like poison but didn’t want to look even worse.

“Uh, Silver Letter, this is my friend who is going with me to our conference tomorrow.”

The three ponies sat in the dining room where tea had been set earlier. Silver loved talking with those ponies, getting to know so much about them. So exciting and pleasant at the same time. To imagine that these halls were where an artist dwelled. Misty’s friend got up a couple times. Silver didn’t care as he didn’t come to talk with her anyway. Then when she returned, she was accompanied by a police officer.

“This is him!”

Silver stood up quickly like a scared mouse. “What is going on?” he protested.

“Sir, calm down,” the officer said sternly.

“This guy has been stalking my friend. Arrest him and make him take a bath too!”

Silver couldn’t believe it. “No, please. Not like this. I just…”

Misty looked saddened and just stared at the floor. The officer approached Silver. He had a baton on his belt. Before he knew it, the officer cuffed his neck and led him to the door.

On the street, the police were confiscating Silver’s wagon. They think I’m a stalker, Silver thought painfully. Overwhelming anger clouded his judgment. Black magic rose from his horn, shattering the weak restraint and paralyzing all the police officers around him. Crystal ponies saw what was happening and ran away. Taking only the stone, Silver fled the scene, going anywhere he could in the Empire to be alone and safe. Alleyways took him to a canal where water drained out of the city. There, a few drifters walked on by, homeless by the looks of it. Seeing Silver huddled by the stone with a horn caked in sinister looking blackness, they left in fear.

They didn’t matter to Silver. No pony did. In the dark of night, the stone glowed with a ribbon of pale orange. Silver had never felt such embarrassment before like he was the most hated pony in the world. Of course, Misty rejected him. Anypony would. What a disgusting pony he had become. Something about him didn’t meet Misty’s standards. He didn’t qualify.

Only one solution remained. He could beg to become this but there would be no going back. Then again, Silver knew that this wish had already been decided long ago. The pain was inevitable. The black lightning coursed through his veins. Steam rose from his body. When he opened his eyes, the orb blossomed with the pale pink of vanity.

Darkness

After the rains, ponies walked eagerly to the convention for another year of exciting toy news. Everything on the surface seemed normal and routine. Friends met each other. Vendors set up shop. Special guests were arriving. Amongst the guests, Misty stepped from her crystal carriage, still shaken from the day prior. Her friend tried to comfort her, but she found sleeping to be difficult. There was still positive news. The princess of love herself would be stopping by to see her. Misty had never met the little princess, Flurry Heart, who was the daughter of the love princess. It sounded like a true honor.

Misty opened her saddlebag, a golden train which glittered in the sunlight. It would be the perfect gift for Flurry. As security escorted Misty inside, Silver watched her from afar.

Backstage before the first panel of the day, Misty put on some makeup. The saddlebag rested on a table. Misty’s friend came in and tapped Misty’s shoulder.

“You about ready? We got a couple minutes left,” the friend said.

“I am. I just want to be picture perfect,” Misty replied with a confident smile.

She got up, adjusting her dress. Going back to the saddlebag, she opened it up to find that the pouch once holding the train contained nothing. Flustered, she checked under the tables in case it somehow fell out. She ran out into the hall. A pony in a dark cloak turned the corner ahead. Fury instantly crossed Misty’s mind that somepony took the train that cost 50,000 bits to produce! She pursued the pony.

“Please stop! That’s for a baby princess!” Misty shouted, following the pony into an empty room.

Both ponies were panting from the chase. Misty used magic to lift the cloak, revealing a pretty mare with shimmering black and silver in her curly mane. Around her neck was a black stone that looked like swirling shadow in the midst of a storm.

“Who the hay are…”

Misty stopped. The cutie mark. This mare had the same feather and ink marking as a certain pony she had seen just yesterday.

“I know you don’t recognize me. Not really,” Silver said, her lips fixed in a sly smirk.

“But how? What’s going on?”

“This is my true self. This is what I was meant to be since I was born. A beautiful mare. Now you can be my friend just like you always should have. Don’t you see? I am Silver. I am here now.”

Misty stepped back towards the door. “Why are you doing this?”

“Don’t be so lame,” Silver said in her sweet voice. “You and I know that you couldn’t speak to me because I used to be a colt, which was a mistake the universe made. I fixed it like I had done with so many toys. I was a defect. I am now whole.”

Misty ran for the door. The doors swung shut, sealed by black magic. The mare shrunk down. “I didn’t know anything. Those letters you got were all from my publicist! I don’t talk to any random pony! I’m sorry!”

“There is nothing to be sorry for. I’m here to make it all better. I promise. By hell or high water, we shall be the best of friends!” Silver stepped forward, a hoof crushing the fallen golden train.

Misty knew that her protests were in vain. It was all too late.

Darkness was the final emotion. When he transformed, Silver felt it all. Pride, arrogance, anger, hate, fear, shyness, and a hundred other feelings. All the colors mixed together into a mindless swirl. Black magic was the final stage. He took Misty first then all the ponies in the convention hall. The black magic seized them, pulling them into Silver’s loving embrace. The walls were destroyed. The body of black magic emerged; a massive monstrosity made of shadow. This transcended anything that Silver once knew of life. Where he was going, there were no limits. Nothing could tell him what he could or couldn't do. Anypony who challenged him would be destroyed. Or perhaps he was neither a 'he' or a 'she', but instead, an 'it'. For nothing restrained Silver. Not in its head nor in the confining prison of sex.

The guards alerted Princess Cadance and her husband. The two ponies left the palace to see that thing approach. They sent forth beams of magic to cut it down which failed. Nodding to each other, the two retreated back to the crystal heart. That very heart would belong to it. Silver would swallow it whole.

The monster of black magic groaned in pain and trembled, shaking the ground and the palace, waking the baby. Below, the crystal heart struggled to contain the monster. For a moment, the black magic seemed too powerful to be defeated. Baby Flurry Heart looked from her room to where her parents stood. Thinking they were hurt, Flurry flew to them.

The monster saw the baby find her parents. Silver Letter itself saw the rarest of emotions which even the black stone couldn’t grant. The spark of love in those round eyes. Unlike any love Silver had seen before. Not the fake love with Nate or the fallen love its parents once had. It was the love that a child had for her parents, something Silver couldn't ever comprehend or experience when it was a colt. Flurry's beloved cry at once weakened its magic and resolve. Such a weakness barely allowed the crystal heart to take advantage. A spear of light pierced through the black magic. Ponies fell from the sky. Misty opened her eyes in a daze, finding herself at the doorstep of the palace. Everypony was helped by royal soldiers.

Silver Letter felt his life slip away. His heart had beat its last. No breath, nor life, nor love, remained. Even his emotions fizzled away into nothingness. If nothing else, he was at peace with it. Such an end was meant to be for a pony like him. Nopony would ever miss him anyway.

In the immediate days after, ponies sifted through the remains of Silver’s horrible life. The black magic books he once owned. The toys he amassed. Word came to the pony known as Time Turner of his lost device. He rushed to the Empire where it lay on a tarp with the rest of the relevant evidence.

“I wondered where that thing had been all this time,” Time Turner said with astonishment.

“What is that thing? None of the magicians can really figure it out,” Princess Cadance said.

He looked up from the stone. “Oh, it’s what I call a ‘mood stone’. It shows us what we are feeling. It’s just a prototype though. I want to make a line of toys based on this.”

“So, it’s just a toy?”

“Yes. Was that stallion I heard about carrying this thing? I wonder what for?”

Cadance shook her head. “I suppose nopony will ever know.”

Author's Note

I hope you thought my story was interesting. This was an OC driven narrative with my OC as the main focus. The main theme here is friendship and the difficulty is brings to people who can't make friends so easily. Often, the result is failure and unfortunately, not every story can end happily, even in the kingdom of love.