Daytime, nighttime, it’s all the same in the Dreamtime.

Ignoring the vague shift in the ambient light, the only other change is the fewer dreaming minds filling the empyreal spaces I’m walking through since more people are awake. Actual timetables have always been fairly useless in this place.

For one, time is relative, and a distant one at that. Space is even moreso.

With a tug at the skin of the world, I propel myself through the Fog. Even awake, I can feel the whispering minds of Canterlot. They’re not as vulnerable now as they are when they’re sleeping, but I can still sense them the way a wolf can smell an unwounded hart. True, it may not be the easiest pickings but hey…

Meat is meat.

When I step out of the Fog it’s onto the sidewalk that stretches down a well-traveled street in the ‘burbs of Canterlot. Here, the quaint and the urban meet with a kind of seamless grace that isn’t found often, and at the heart of that grace is a little cafe, bakery, and confectionery called Sugarcube Corner.

Crowds of people pass through me like so much mist on this cold morning as they slip in and out of the cafe for a warm beverage. Coffee, hot chocolate, chai tea, and everything in between is poured down the parched gullet of the Ponyville Commons, and while the food and drink is definitely a drawing factor, in my day there was a more pointed pull to the place.

One employee, specifically.

“Order up!”

The relentlessly cheerful voice of Pinkamena ‘Pinkie’ Pie escapes the doorway as it opens, and I slip between the crowds and into the Corner.

Usually, physical voices are dull, distant things to my ears, but not hers. Pinkie’s voice is as clear as a clarion bell despite the dimensional distance. Not only that, while everyone else in the cafe are just spectral shapes outlined by Fog and the whispers of their unsleeping minds, Pinkie is sharp and defined.

She’s wearing flowing, layered skirts in festive greens and whites and golds, and for all the world looks like someone turned a Christmas tree into a dress. There’s garland around her collar, and mistletoe hanging from her ears like earrings, and she’s the only one here that I can see absolutely clearly.

I wonder if it’s because of our connection, or if it's just something inherent to Pinkie. I always thought there was something more… ephemeral… about her than the rest of my former friends. Something more fae.

Pinkie is simultaneously working the register and the bar with the expertise that comes from years of practice honing true talent. One moment, she’s ringing someone up, the next she’s prepping an espresso, then topping off the head of foam on a latte with unique art of balloons, Christmas trees, sleigh bells, and other puerile, happy things.

And there isn’t a single customer who doesn’t leave without a smile on their face.

Time is strange here in the Dreamtime. It flows like a river of silk; the moment you grasp it you can slow it down, but lose your grip and it races away from you.

I watch her for a time. For hours, maybe. I watch her sling drinks and talk. She moves from conversation to conversation like a pixie, never faltering in her good cheer until finally, at sometime around the noon hour, I think, she pauses and flags down one of the owners during a lull in the rush.

“I’m going on break Missus Cake!” Pinkie says brightly.

“Take a long one, dear,” Cup Cake says with a soft smile. “You’ve been at it for hours, and… well, I know how hard this season is for you.”

Pinkie’s cheerful expression fades. It’s strange to watch, like seeing a normally extroverted person step back into the shadows of a room during a party, but her smile stays in place albeit smaller than before.

“It’s okay,” Pinkie says. “I just… I just want to have a cup of coffee, that’s all.”

“There are sandwiches in the back for lunch, okay?” Cup Cake replies. “Have one, please? For me?”

Rather than answer, Pinkie leans in and wraps Cup Cake in a warm hug. Then she steps back, turns, and moves sedately back into the rear kitchen of the cafe.

I follow behind, unseen and undetected, past the front counter, around Cup Cake who shivers as I pass, and back into the kitchen with Pinkie. The lights in the kitchen are dim, but Pinkie doesn’t bother to turn on the brighter ones. Instead, she moves to a small shelf near the coffee maker that has a single occupant: an old chipped coffee mug.

The mug isn't ornate or, in fact, adorned with anything at all; it’s a faded white ceramic mug that had probably seen a half-dozen owners before Pinkie.

Its last owner had picked it up at a garage sale from a freebie bin and taken it because she hadn’t had anything else to drink out of, and had felt unreasonably fortunate at the find. She’d expected it to last maybe a month or two before the chip on the rim turned into a crack, but it didn’t. It just kept holding together.

Pinkie lifts my mug up off the shelf with something like reverence and sets it down next to the coffee maker just as it chimes with a full, fresh brew.

She picks up the carafe carefully by the handle, tips it to pour the coffee slowly into the mug, then replaces the carafe and moves the mug from the counter to the island in the middle of the kitchen before pulling her phone from one of the many, many pockets in her voluminous skirts.

For a moment, Pinkie fiddles with the back of the phone, before popping a little stand out from the case and setting it down so it’s facing her about a half-meter away at the other end of the island.

“One black coffee,” Pinkie says quietly. “Order up.”

She pushes the coffee mug forward until it’s resting in front of her phone, and I step around behind her to look at it, sharpening my focus to bring the shadowed device into clarity.

The screen is a picture of a girl with flame-and-gold hair with her arm slung over Pinkie’s shoulders, and they’re both making faces at the camera.

They’re both smiling.

“Two years,” Pinkie says. “I… I don’t know how it’s been two years.”

Her voice is subdued and reedy, nothing like her vivacious ‘service’ voice.

“Time waits for no one, Pinks,” I reply, even knowing she can’t hear me.

“I uhm… I know you probably still hate us,” Pinkie continues, “and I don’t blame you. But I miss you a whole lot… everything’s kind of come apart since you—”

Pinkie pauses, and her face takes on a far-off quality. It’s like watching the animating force just drain out of something. Like an animatronic mannequin suddenly bereft of power. Then her chest hitches and a tear rolls down her face, which she sweeps away with a finger before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

When she opens her eyes again, they’re clear blue and free of tears.

“—since you passed,” she says shakily before forcing a smile onto her face that slowly gets more genuine. “It’s funny… I think even if all this bad stuff still happened but had nothing to do with you? You’d be able to pull us back together. I like to think so anyway.”

“Not my circus, not my monkeys,” I say bitterly. “You five had your chances and so did I…”

“I wish—” Pinkie’s voice hitches again, and the tears come back as she bows her head. “I w-wish I could ask you what to do. Fluttershy and Rainbow won’t talk to AJ at all—”

I grit my teeth and fight off the urge to lash out at those words. The memories of their… coupling… is still way too fresh in my mind. That’s something I did not need to see and needed even less to be reminded of.

“—not since what happened after Rainbow got out of the hospital.”

Hospital?

The scars… but if she was in the hospital prior to this then Aria had to have heard about it. There’s no way she wasn’t keeping some kind of tabs on those five right? But if she had then why…

I snort derisively.

Aria knew. She had to have known. There’s no way that Rainbow Dash, of all people, went into the hospital through anywhere but the Emergency Department, and if that’s the case then Aria couldn’t possibly have missed it.

Meaning she’d been hiding it.

“I’ve tried to t-talk to Fluttershy about it but whenever I do she just gets so mad, and then she stops talking to me for a while,” Pinkie sobs. “A-And I haven’t seen Rarity in months. She w-won’t return my calls, and she doesn’t answer at her door. AJ just ignores us all now, and…”

Pinkie wraps her arms around herself, curling inward like there’s a knife in her gut as she bites back her sobs.

“I just miss you so much,” Pinkie whispers. “I miss my friends so much.”

Slowly, I reach out and settle my spectral hand on her shoulder.

“Me too,” I say quietly. “It… It could’ve gone different. It all could have gone different.”

Of all of the girls, I think it’s hardest for me to stay angry at Pinkie Pie. It’s that fae quality. The childlike part of her that feels so innocent. Pinkie is someone whose trust is easily gained, easily lost, and easily damaged. She’s far more delicate than anyone really appreciates because she puts on such a bright smile.

I can’t look at Rainbow without feeling hatred, and the same is true of the others to varying degrees, although I haven’t looked in on Rarity yet I can only assume it will be the same.

But Pinkie…

Sighing, I turn away from Pinkie and move to the opposite end of the island. It takes an effort of will, but I put just enough into the Real that I can move the small stool out.

The creak of wood against the tile floor makes Pinkie start, and she looks up and around in a panic. Probably she’s looking for the Cakes. She doesn’t want them to see her like this because they’ll worry. That’s very ‘Pinkie Pie’. Always more concerned with the happiness of others over her own.

With the stool pulled out, I sweep my jacket back and take a seat, then reach out and over Pinkie’s cell to hover my hand over the coffee mug I used to own, then flick my hand back to waft the fragrant steam towards me as I take a deep breath.

It smells good.

Pinkie turns to stare down at the mug, and at the steam that’s suddenly drifting towards the picture of her and I.

“S...Sunset?” she murmurs hollowly.

I don’t answer.

In the end, I’m still dead, and I always will be. But maybe Pinkie can find some kind of peace. I think out of all them, that bothers me the least.

Pinkie sniffles then swallows hard before smiling weakly.

“I’m uhm… m-maybe I’m just going crazy, but… but on the off-chance I’m not?”

Pinkie swallows hard and looks up and over the picture directly at me, and even though I know she can’t see me, her soft, baby-blue eyes freeze me in place.

“I miss you, Sunset,” she says, putting a hand on the handle of the mug. “We all do. And I’m so sorry. A-And I love you… and I wish you were still here. I wish you could try my coffee now. I know I used to burn it before, but you always drank it down anyway. I’ve gotten a lot better though, and I… I wish I could show you.”

“I know,” I answer, even though she can’t hear me.

I put my hand over hers; a hand of flesh-and-blood, and a hand of dreams and nightmares. One real, one not. One living… one dead.

Pinkie smiles as she tightens her grip on the coffee mug then takes another deep breath before drawing it back to herself while smiling.

“One black coffee,” she whispers under her breath. “Order up.”

She puts the mug to her lips and drinks deep, swallowing until the mug is empty. When she lowers it, it’s only to set it back in front of the picture of the two girls.

“I’ll bet it was good,” I say, trying to smile and distantly succeeding.

Some of the air goes out of Pinkie Pie as she stares down at the empty mug and the phone screen behind it, and I frown as she looks back up at the space where I am. Where I know she can’t see me, but despite that, her eyes fix on mine all the same.

What is it about her?

“Something’s wrong, Sunset,” Pinkie says in a brittle voice. “If… If you are there… something—no, everything—is wrong. Canterlot is wrong and I…” her face scrunches into that soft, childlike expression, “and I’m scared.”

The stool grinds softly against the tile as I stand, and Pinkie starts again from her seat. This time she doesn’t look around, she just stares at the space across from her.

She can’t see me, so she doesn’t see me move around the island. She doesn’t see me move behind her, and she doesn’t see me wrap my arms around her from behind. It’s easier this way, for me at least.

It’s easier if she can’t see me.

I put just enough into myself that she might be able to feel a whisper of pressure as I give in, just this once, in the dark, in the back room of a little cafe, with no one else around to judge me or see me, and I give one of the girls who killed me a hug.

Pinkie freezes as the pressure settles around her, and then she breaks and starts to cry as she hangs her head again. She reaches up and around herself trying to find me and failing, but I stay where I am for a while and fight back the urge to drag her into the nightmare; the urge to kill. I fight it for long enough to feel a little bit human again.

It’s just a few minutes.

Just long enough for her to stop crying.

“I’m sorry.”

I close my eyes and sigh.

“Yeah,” I say softly. “I know.”

If I had to choose one of them to forgive… if I had to let one and only one of them back in, it would probably be Pinkie Pie. But that’s a decision for the living.

“I loved you too, you know,” I say quietly. “I loved you all.”

Then I stand, breathe out, and turn away from Pinkie Pie to leave the kitchen and the Corner. Winter winds in Canterlot bite hard, and the shades of the people I follow out of the cafe shiver as they step back onto the street.

Pinkie Pie is safe for now, at least as far as I know. I can’t taste the Fog around Sugarcube Corner, but that may not mean much. At least I know she’s still here, so I can keep checking in. I have no doubt that eventually these fragments of harmony will be pulled in to whatever is going on in Canterlot,

For now, though, she’s safe.

The last one to check on is…

I reach out for the cookie-cutter suburbs of Whitetail, feeling for the mind of the girl who was once my friend, seize the skein of the Real, and pull.

My boots strike pavement in front of a familiar home. One I had occasion to visit in happier days.

For a moment, I can’t move forward. All I can do is stare at the doorway as memories assail me. Everything was good back then. Even if it was all a lie, it was still a pleasant one, and a part of me desperately wishes I could go back to those days when I really thought that they cared.

When I thought that there was hope.

I push past the memories and step out of the Fog, still immaterial, to stop in front of the door to the home of one Rarity Belle.

Her parents, to my knowledge, aren’t around much. Her father, for all his apparent bluster and joviality, was, and likely still is, a successful investment specialist. In other words, he makes more money than Faust just by taking a nap. Thanks to that, Hondo and his wife, Cookie, were always on vacation back then, and given the lack of activity in the home, I suspect that’s probably still the case.

I slip past the door and into the home, letting my eyes fall to soft focus as I direct my attention to my other, less physical senses.

A mind is nearby, a familiar one, and given the light of the opal thread and the way it points me, I don’t have to question who it belongs to.

Stepping through the small entrance hall, I pass the kitchen. It’s not as neat as I remember. There are messes here and there, dirty dishes, bits of trash. Nothing excessive, but the Rarity I remembered was fastidiously clean and tidy.

The den is much the same. There are two loads of unfolded laundry and from the look of things they’ve been there a while. The couch is taken up by a half-hearted attempt to get through one of the baskets but was clearly given up on quickly.

I follow the thread, although it doesn’t lead upstairs to Rarity’s room. It leads into the back room where I happen to know her little workshop lay. At least, it did two years ago.

Passing through the door like a specter, I stumble at what I see.

Even in the half-light of the Dreamtime, this room is claustrophobically dark, and it looks nothing like I remember. The table that once held Rarity’s sewing machine and various fashion paraphernalia related to the device now has a massive, three-screen computer setup occupying it. Strewn around the room are boxes that contain folds of fabric and half-finished outfits that haven’t been touched in quite some time.

Rarity herself is seated at the computer looking like someone I barely recognise. Gone are the delicate coifs of purple and the meticulously applied makeup and foundation. Instead, the young woman who sits at the computer, illuminated by the dull wash of the screen’s light, looks haggard and thready.

Her hair hangs lank around a face that's pallid from a lack of sunlight, and there are bags under Rarity’s eyes which the looks-obsessed girl that I remembered would never have permitted. Her slender fingers are dirty with stains from food, and her fingernails are chipped and chewed. She tap-tap-taps away at the keyboard, flicking through…

I lean over her shoulder to examine what she’s looking at.

Disappearances.

Missing Persons.

Public cold case files.

These aren't just from Canterlot, either, but from all over the nation. All over the world actually. There are files on her desktop whose names are in a half-dozen different languages.

“Where are you?”

I stumble back at the faint whisper from Rarity, and it takes me a moment to realise that she isn’t talking to me.

She sighs heavily and hangs her head before flicking her mouse to a file near the middle of her main screen labeled ‘Main’, opening it with a double-click, and then opening up a subfile labeled ‘Posters’.

Rarity sets the file to print, and a printer beneath her desk chugs to life and starts spooling up.

“Why can’t I ever learn before it’s too late?” Rarity mumbles as she leans back and rubs at her eyes.

She reaches under her and pulls out a small stack of papers, shuffling them a little to get them in order. I look down at the picture and my breath catches in my throat.

It’s a ‘missing persons’ poster made with the same eye for detail that Rarity does everything with, except the face on the poster is familiar.

Sweetie Belle

The whole time I’d been looking in on missing people, I’d ignored the girls who had been most directly involved in my death. That, I realise now, had been stupid. It had been a blind spot I’d let myself indulge in because I didn’t care about them. If they got taken by the Entity so much the better.

They deserved it. Right?

Except, back then I’d been missing crucial bits of information that were only now starting to piece themselves together in my mind.

Rarity cradles the posters with shaky hands. Her eyes are red, and she looks completely spent. I can’t even imagine when the last time she slept was which meant—

“I think,” I say as I reach out my finger blades toward Rarity, “that we need to talk.”

One blade slips through her tangled locks to slice into the dreamflesh of her body, digging deep into her brain and flooding it with my will. I let the Fog of my power soak into her soul, and the last thing Rarity hears before she slumps down to her desk and the posters fall from her hands to scatter across the floor is my laughter bubbling past my lips as I exert my influence over her.

“SlEeP”

My voice comes out distorted and mangled as the dream overtakes us. Rarity falls deep, deep into slumber, and where she falls, I follow.

Author's Note

The wounds of war can be healed, but never hidden.

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