Event Horizon

Knock, knock! The faded wood impacting with my purple hoof felt brittle, like it was threatening to break.

I could feel the weight of the knife in my cloak pocket, transmuted from a stone I passed on the way to Canterlot. Even from its fabric home at my side, I could feel how cold it was and it matched how cold I was about to be. I knew what I was going to do was wrong, murder was something of an atrocity among ponies and the worst tragedy to those who lost. I put my hoof on the damp step and noticed how nearly perfect it was. Nearly no cracks or imperfections to its surface other than the dull brown layer the rain gave it. There was a stack of mail, soggy with last night’s rain. It reminded me of Twilight Sparkle, the pony I was playing. Perfect, but with a layer of condescension just above it with a pile of useless words beside it.

I knew Moondancer wasn’t fond of Twilight, and if she felt anything like I felt about her, she’d find her pretentious and too perfect. Though, if my impression of Moondancer was anywhere close to true, she wouldn’t be very personable. I smiled, just like Canterlot.

The city was on high alert for any suspicious ponies and any unsavory rats that may have wandered into the city to sever its eyes and ears. As I was passing everypony here, I felt as though they could see through my disguise. That I was the rat that ran from the city some time ago. Most ponies were indoors, taken the day off likely with an issue of Canterlot Daily detailing a missing pony report of Paper Trail on their tables or in their hooves. For Moondancer, this wasn’t out of place, and I doubt the news even reached her, making it easier to remain undetected.

I was going to make amends with her. It was the least I could do. Moondancer wasn’t a bad pony, a little off and rude from time to time, but even through my nearly opaque lens of apathy, I could see that she didn’t deserve to die. So, I figured, I would put her at ease before sending her.

The door swung open, catching itself on a leash of a chain lock. A set of violet eyes peered from the crack, locking onto me. They were narrow and almost aflame. Did she know I wasn’t Twilight or was it that she thought I was?

I cleared my throat, “Good afternoo—” The door slammed. Just as expected.

“Moondancer, I came to apologize. For…” Ugh, how would that egghead put it? “For everything.” Nailed it.

I heard her voice come through the door, applying a muffled wooden filter over its matter-of-fact tone, “No thanks. I don’t want your apology. You can leave now.”

I let a sigh slip through my teeth. This was going to be a delicate operation, the type I was the least qualified to undertake. I sat on her step, looking around to her dilapidated home. It was clear that nopony came around to her home, and that she had let herself and her house get to this point. Nopony would want to come towards it or its litter filled yard “I mean it, I—”

“And I meant it. Scram.” Her reply was prompt and colorless.

“Would you hear me out? I know I wasn’t there for you in the past… But I want to be here for you now.”

I heard the lock unlatch and the door opened, revealing a very unkempt and impatient looking Moondancer. The smell of body odor wafted from the door, one that carried the implication that Moondancer hadn’t bathed in days and by the looks of her sweater’s loose strings, she hadn’t changed clothes in that same time. Her glasses were cloudy and caked with dust and grime, her fur was matted with dried sweat. It took genuine effort to stifle a gag. “Why would you want to be here for me? You had every chance to before you left for Ponyville.”

“Because,” because I wanted to give you a bath, “I regret what I did. I want to make things right.” I rested a hoof on her shoulder despite my brain adamantly refusing. Oh Celestia, why was it greasy!?

She tossed my hoof off her, which I debated whether or not that was a bad thing. “Oh, you regret what you did? I regret even giving you a chance. It should’ve been clear that you were pushing me away.”

“I didn’t mean to —”

She squeezed her eyes shut, leaning into her scream, “But you still did! You were the only pony I cared about! The only one who thought like I thought, studied like I did! Everything I did was try to get close to you!”

I tried to lay a hoof on her, to reassure her. But she threw it off of her and pushed me to the damp path. “I put myself out there for you, I gave life outside books a chance because of you and you weren’t there!” I collected myself, keeping my distance from her.“Do you know how many nights I spent thinking you hated me? That I wasn’t important? That ponies wouldn’t talk to me because I internalized my worthlessness?”

“I don’t, Moondancer. But I’m—”

“No! I don’t think you feel any guilt!” She wasn’t too far off. “I think you’re coming to give me some hollow apology so you can sleep better. You have no idea how it felt. I thought I was a useless pony! That if I read every book in Canterlot, I might finally be useful to somepony. But...“ She looked to her surroundings, down at herself, and to her home. “I’m not even useful to myself…” She started to sob on her step, I approached and embraced her.

Moondancer didn’t resist, instead, she drew in tighter. I rubbed her back, holding in my recoil at the greasy lint that was collecting on my hoof and foreleg. “I’m here for you now. I won’t ever leave you again.” She was recovering from Twilight’s betrayal remarkably fast, but I guess when the most important pony in your life comes to apologize, especially when no other pony would give you the time of day, you’d be quick to forgive her too.

I spun pulled from her grip to look her in her eyes, “I’m sorry, Moondancer.”

She pushed me weakly, ending our embrace, “Cmon,” She sniffed, “I think I have a book inside that belonged to you.”

This was gonna hurt.

She led me inside her home, and I thought she smelled bad. There was trash littered across the floor, crumpled up pieces of paper, apple cores that had gnats and flies warring over its horribly browned territory, identical dirty sweaters scattered. I thought I could manage to see some floor beyond this trash, but then I realized it was shed hair from the mare. I turned, closing the door and letting all my repulsion hang on my face as I latched it.

“Was it Haycartes or Neighcrates that you lent me?”

Uh oh, philosophy. That was my weakest subject. I never focused in that class. But… Why then can I remember everything the professor was saying in perfect clarity? Was it the amulet? It must be, I only ever cared about folding paper into likenesses of myself. Without a hint of hesitation, I proclaimed, “I believe it was Marcus Mareuelius’ Meditations.” I hoped that Twilight had lent that book to her, otherwise I might have blown my own cover.

“Oh. Right! It should be…” I wiped my forehead in relief. She threw books off of their shelves, scanning for the one that Twilight had lent to her. “Here!” We transferred magical grips, and I set it on a table that stretched nearly from the door to the other wall. There was more trash on the table than the floor, somehow. I dared not look inside the cups that adorned it. How could anypony live like this? Ha, says the alley pony.

She paused, looking to the ground, “I’m sorry it’s so dirty here.”

Shit. “Not at all. Believe me, I think my house here in Canterlot was worse than this.” I had no idea if that was true or not.

“Ha! That must be why you never had anypony over.” And neither did she.

I laughed nervously, “Must be.”

There was an awkward pause. Neither of us said anything but we both felt that we should say something.

“A-Are you hungry?” She broke first. “I have some oats, I think.”

“No!” I couldn’t stand to think that I’d be eating with insects doing the same next to me. “I mean… No thanks, Moondancer. That’s ok.”

“No, I understand. It’s a mess.” She sighed, “It’s just… With nopony coming to visit, I just gave up, I guess.” No kidding.

I rested a hoof on her, “It’s ok.” What would she do right now…? “We can clean it together!” I beamed.

She rested her head on my hoof, “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course! I’ve become quite the clean freak after moving to Ponyville.”

She pulled away from me and nodded, turning and began fetching a broom that I doubted she had. In the time she took to get it, I had all the trash in my magical grip floating above the table like a tiny planet. “Would you be ok with me burning this?”

She dropped the broom, looking on in amazement. “I’ll take that,” I reared, the planet incinerated instantly, turning to a ball of smoke, which I turned to a light citrus-scented cloud before letting it descend gently on the home. “As a yes.”

As I landed back on four hooves, I felt the knife still in my pocket. Its weight reminded me of what I came here to do. Moondancer threw herself around me again, her odor clashing with the light orange scent. “I forgive you, Twilight.”

I placed my hooves around her, casting a silent barrier around us. She pulled back, but not completely out of the embrace. She had a warm smile and a warmer stare. “I’m sorry I pushed you.”

I lent myself a bittersweet smile, “I forgive you. But you didn’t have to let it get to this point, did you?”

“No… I have other friends but I just… You were so important to me, I wanted your attention and your admiration.” She laid her head in my chest, leaving her neck exposed. No. A knife wouldn’t kill her instantly, I would have to do it silently and painlessly.

“I’m sorry I didn’t. But you know I can’t stay in Canterlot forever.” Knock her unconscious and then kill her? No. A magical burst to her head? That might work. “You have to move on from me, I’m sure there are other talented and studious ponies like yourself. Some closer than you might think.”

“I know you can’t… I’ll try asking ponies if they want to come over.”

“But you have to clean up the place first.”

We shared a laugh. She smiled warmly as I built the charge by her head. I smiled as I drew her in for one final embrace. I smiled as I heard her say, “I love you.”

And I smiled as I released the charge.

In my time at Paid Tab’s, I came to know that he wasn’t afraid of much. But one mare frightened him to his very core: Zesty Gourmand, the mare I was impersonating now. She was the culinary elite of the city, and her opinion was worth royal gold. It could mean your restaurant makes it, or it doesn’t. He’s shown me her picture in magazines before, always with caution, like she was inches away from him. He probably shooed me and Sabrina away to curb her ire. How ironic that I should be that mare. How infuriating it was.

I strode down the sidewalk of Canterlot like I owned the city, my head held high above it as though it were beneath something as trivial as my gaze. I wanted to hang it. What I had just done was infernal, unspeakable, but yet. I still didn’t feel any remorse.

“Hey!” A low voice barked from behind me. “You, imposter!” I froze. That’s impossible, nopony can see through my disguises. If Moondancer, who was second to Twilight, couldn’t see through it. Who was this to call me out? “I saw some purple mare enter that building, and you come out. So either there were two ponies and Moondancer in there,” I spun to face him, with a frenzied, wrathful glare. He was a stallion, shorter than myself, with a coal coat and matching grey mane. He looked young, like he’d just gotten his cutie mark last week. “Or… Or you’re…”

I put on my coldest sophisticated voice, I had never heard Zesty Gourmand speak, but I knew her character, and it was a frozen one. “Or I’m what? An imposter as you say?” I closed the distance between us and glared down into his sheepish eyes. He shrank into the sidewalk. “Listen here boy what I do is none of your concern. You’d do best to,” I charged my horn, shooting a thin bolt of amnesia into his forehead. “Forget all about it.”

He looked blank, devoid of any thought. “Go on home now.” He obeyed, turning and walking away. I let all the air in my lungs out when he left my sight. That was too close. If there was anypony else on the street, I would’ve been done for.

I quickened my trot to two doors down. I needed to get out of Canterlot as soon as I could. If ending some hermit was drawing this much suspicion, then I might as well forget Fleur Dis Lee. I slowed myself upon arriving at Sterling’s front door. His house was picturesque, everything in immaculate detail and orderly. I took a moment to collect myself among the houseplants sitting on the windowsill and the alabaster picket fence between a lovely stone path to his robust and perfectly smooth door. Was this house really a neighbor to Moondancer’s disheveled home?

With a long breath, I knocked on the door. It didn’t open immediately, and I took the time to note the second-story. Were there many ponies living here? I hoped for Glint’s sake there wasn’t. The door opened and a handsome stallion opened the door. Sterling Glint, from Paper Trail’s description, seemed old and frail, but this salt and pepper maned stallion was in complete contrast. “Oh my! Zesty Gourmand! I… I, uh, what can I do for you?” His voice was low and smooth, like molasses pouring into a cup from a high height.

I blinked, realigning myself, “I heard from a good friend of mine, that you were an excellent home cook. I came, in his memory, to confirm this.” I emphasized next to every word in a posh accent, raising my voice with certain words and lowering it for others.

Sterling nearly jumped out of his fur. No, he actually jumped, landing on a hindleg and wincing. “Sorry… It’s just that. It hasn’t been the same since Griffonstone. But come in, come in. I’ll make you a meal you won’t soon forget.” He rushed inside, as rushed as he could be with a limp. I followed, instantly leaving a barrier of silence behind me. If the outside of his house was any hint, the inside was an evidence locker. Everything looked like it had a proper place and was put there mathematically, and was preserved there like a museum display. I looked to a mantle overlooking a fireplace in the living room. A couch sat directly across from it, with a chair on either side of it, and two near the empty fireplace. There was a picture frame of a younger, somehow more stunning Sterling Glint with his hooves around two younger ponies, a colt of the same color and a filly of a white mane, white coat, and milky eyes.

“Oh!” I heard approach me from behind, “Those are my kids. They’re all grown up now, and left me for bigger and better things off in Manehatten. My son’s an architect now and my daughter… Well, my daughter’s doing ok.” He scratched his mane, wincing again. “Sorry, you probably don’t wanna hear me ramble about them.”

I narrowed my eyes, as I thought Zesty would. We both wouldn’t like to hear about this dead pony’s family. That makes it harder on me and redundant for Miss Gourmand. “No,” I coldly replied, “I don’t. Show me to your kitchen.”

He gulped and gestured to a tiny hallway to a checkboard tiled kitchen. The warm aroma of garlic and mushrooms sauteeing washed over me. He quickly attended the pan, tossing it and adding hooffulls of vegetables and flipping them. The scent was nearly orgasmic. I’d never had a gourmet meal before. Sure, I’ve eaten at Tab’s and pastry shops, but those weren’t exactly what high society would eat. Especially not the pinnacle, like Zesty Gourmand.

He finished and laid a plateful of greens drizzled with oils and spices, accompanied by an entourage of herbs. Sterling stared hungrily at me, desperate for a good opinion. I looked up at him, what a shame it was. I picked up a fork magically and took a bite. Even I, skilled a performer as I was, couldn’t hide my reaction. This was the single greatest thing I’ve ever eaten! Everything in the meal sang a symphony of rich taste, with earthy lows and spicy highs, all with a smooth finish provided by the premium olive oil. I teared up as I chewed, shoveling it into my mouth.

Sterling beamed, his own eyes watering. It really was such a shame. I rose, and grabbed his horn and snapped it promptly. He shrieked and folded to the tile. I stamped on his bad foreleg and his scream grew guttural. I picked him magically, cramming his face on the pan he’d just used to feed me, stuffing it back on the stove and lighting a fire beneath it. Smoke and the smell of burnt hair rose from him.

“Please! Stop! Please, please! I’ll do better! Zesty I won’t tell a soul just let me go.”

“You really aren’t that skilled of a sorcerer. You couldn’t even see through,” I tossed my disguise off, “Trixie’s guise. It’s no surprise,” His screams rose to a pitch I didn’t think possible and a sinister sizzling started up in the skillet. “She is great and powerful.”

“Why…?” He started to break down, his body dropped, threatening to fall but I forced him back up, mashing his face much further into the iron. “Why would you do this?” He spoke between screeching sobs, “Who are you?”

Maybe I was being a bit harsh, but I couldn’t really tell where the limit was or whether or not I’d crossed it. Was this bad? Yes, absolutely. I’m murdering this… Well, once good looking stallion. I still couldn’t find a drop of empathy for him, my mind wasn’t finding a place for him, the same way it wouldn’t find a spot for chopping up an apple. Regardless, I was too far to stop now.

“She just told you, idiot.” I jammed his head back into the pan, hearing a thick plink. Oh, I’d gotten to the skull. Well, he’s too far gone now. “Oh, it doesn’t matter.” I flung him out of the skillet and into the counter. His head cracked against it, fried blood and oil caked his face, his teeth were smoldered and visible from the side. He looked like an anatomy book diagram gone terribly wrong.

“Please… I have a filly. She’s blind and she’s in—” I bashed him across the boney side of his face, knocking out and fracturing several teeth. I looked on with bitter disdain. He didn’t even fight me back, some sorcerer. I hammered him with his own pan like a smith would hammer an ingot, until he stopped moving. Red smoke floated out from his horn and into my amulet, and I tossed the indented pan onto the adjacent counter. I felt my blood turn fiery in my veins and I breathed in a deep breath through my teeth. It felt good, warm. A pleasant feeling like your hoof waking up after falling asleep.

“Papa?”

Impossible. He adopted.

I turned and a blonde, bubblegum maned filly looked at me with glassy eyes. She looked like… “Sabrina!”

“Who are you!?”

“I’m Trixie,” I collapsed in front of her, “I’m your big sister. You remember me!”

“No! You’re not Papa!” She ran screaming, crashing into the door directly behind her. I ran to her. She scrambled her hooves across the door in a frenzy, finding the knob and throwing the door open, she knocked herself back as it opened towards her. I grazed her mane as she ran out screaming.

I gave chase outside the door… Right into a crowd.

Dozens of ponies glared at me with all the hatred in Equestria. The filly ran into the heart of the gathering, which parted for her and closed again once she was inside. The sickening smell of cooked meat floated out from the door, paired horridly with the rubbery scent of burnt fur. Some ponies held in their disgust, others let it flow onto the street. One pony stepped forward with a familiar patchy beard.

“Trixie…? Is that yous?”

“I… Trixie… Needs... “ I wrapped myself in aura and teleported away, the haunted stare of Paid Tab my last glance of Canterlot.

I crashed onto a wood floor. That’s impossible, I always teleport to… My overturned mattress. My room was in the middle of being raided by Canterlot’s royal guard. Drawers were torn from their dresser, boards were upended, and the bed was pushed against a wall. The golden clad guards stared at me with wrathful content. They crowded around me. This was bad. This was really really bad! I redied to teleport to somewhere I haven’t been in months: Ponyville.

As a hoof impacted with my cheek, I snapped into the railway station in Ponyville, to a train about to take off. I sprinted to the conductor, readying a lever. “Where is this train going!?”

“Woah there, calm down.” His low, raspy voice took the edge off my panic with its calmness, but it didn’t fully remove it.

“I need to get out of town, now!”

“Ah understan’, you’re in a rush. But you gotta calm down ‘fore I can seat you.”

I gulped in as much air as I could fill my lungs with and let it all go. I felt some of the panic go, but some remained.

“Better?” He leaned on the window of the engine car.

“Kinda.” I panted softly.

“Good. Ah can’t leave fer Appleloosa with a panicked passenger. Then everypony’d up and panic.”

“How much for a ticket?” I plunged a hoof into my pockets, finding only 5 bits.

“You don’t look like you have all that much, ‘cept that piece around yer neck. How about 3 bits, and Ah’ll take you.”

I passed the bits to him and let out my final sigh of panic. I was going to a place where nopony knew my name. They’d come looking for me, but for now, it will do.

“Right, now board. Yer makin’ me past schedule.”

I hurried onto the train, the rows of plain beige seats looked like rows of teeth. I chose the one nearest the back of the train, opting for a window seat. As I glanced out, panic began to creep its way back into my mind.

A mare who knew what she was doing wouldn’t have had to rush a getaway with only pocket change. Yeah, such is the mare of wasted potential, I guess. This is the only option I have. What was I supposed to do? Fight the royal guards, the elite of the elite? Yeah right.

The train hissed in protest as it took off from the station sluggishly picking up speed. The small town scenery slid past me, giving way to an empty desert backdrop. Nopony really would find me out here, but they’d look. Oh, they’d look for Trixie... But they’d only find a red-headed earth pony, down on her luck and looking for work.

What I did would probably be taken extremely poorly. There was no hiding this one like I hid Paper Trail. All they know is that he’d gone missing and… Would presume I murdered him. Everypony would know the name Trixie, and they’d know to hate it direly.

But that paper hasn’t been written yet. The news hasn’t left Canterlot, and in that slim frame of time, I had made my escape. This would have to do. Who was I going to be? Trixie would be captured near instantly. So... A sand color coat with that red mane. Perfect! No one will look twice at me. A cutie mark… What should it be? Something nopony would care about. Ah! A horseshoe. Perfect. Now a name… Dry Gulch. It was Appleoosan slang for an ambush, I believe. How fitting.

While Dry Gulch toils away in some two-bit town like Appleloosa, Trixie will bide her time just beneath her surface, hiding in her shadow. Equestria’s most heinous nesting inside Appleloosa’s most simple, evading Canterlot’s best. I laughed. I couldn’t discern if it was genuinely funny or if it was gallows humor.