Restitution

by Jack Lindqvist

Rating: mature
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Sad, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rarity, Fluttershy, Suicide / Self Harm
Length: 2302

Some obstacles are just too hard to overcome, but that doesn't mean you should give up, and the fear of giving up is what this story is all about.

Don't expect anything. Just act, Twilight said. Just do it, Twilight said. Oh, Twilight, what do you know? I don't know, but if I don't know, and I'm me, then how can you possibly know? Maybe you can know, but I can't see how. No matter. We'll see how it all shakes out in the end.

I think I was disappointed. Read and you'll see why. This is the story of a single conversation, nothing more. I wrote it down, but maybe, I shouldn't have. Oh, but what does it matter? It will matter maybe, but I don't know. We'll see what happens.

Oh, you wonder who I am? You'll see.

Published 2021-02-04 13:10:00 UTC
Last updated 2021-02-04 13:10:00 UTC

So Ridiculous, It Just Might Be True

This is the end. My friend, it's the end. It's the end, my friend. It's the end, again. The end of the world is coming. No, don't be ridiculous. I'm not talking about the physical universe. I'm talking about my own world. My own mind, I guess. I think that makes sense. The whole world to me is what I'm seeing and feeling from day to day, and that's what matters to me. At least, what I'm seeing and feeling is technically, I think, what can matter to me. Everything that can matter to me is everything I could possibly be concerned about. Make sense? Oh, am I just rambling? I'm sorry. I didn't ask to be here.

Twilight just stared. She stared, and stared, and stared, at me. Why such staring? Why stare? No, look away. Look all the way the other way. Do something else. Whatever you do, don't stare. Please don't stare.

"No."

"Yes," Twilight said. "I think yes. I think we need to talk."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"Why and why not cancels one another out," I said.

"No," Twilight said. "No. They don't."

I sighed. "Hm."

"Hm?"

I shook my head. "Hm!"

"Ah," Twilight said. "I see how it is."

I nodded, knowing what she meant. "What now?"

"Here," she said, showing something to me. It was a book. It was an empty book. "Write something down."

"What?" I was confused.

"Anything."

I looked at the blank page. "Why?"

"Oh," she said. "It might help. You never know. Talking helps. Thinking helps, and thinking is like talking, and writing is like thinking."

I pushed the book away. "Maybe I'd rather talk."

"I'm listening," she said.

"To what?"

Twilight smiled at me, leaning forward. "You know what."

"Why?"

I love Twilight. Who doesn't love Twilight? She was such a balanced orderly person, when she wasn't panicking. I know about panicking. I've done that a lot lately, but not in a melodramatic sort of way. I'm panicking about real-life issues, and not because I'm depressed. I just have a lot of things that matter to me a whole lot. Doesn't that make sense? I think it does.

Yes, as you have probably already guessed, I'm writing in this book because Twilight told me to. Why? Oh, I don't know. What am I writing? I don't know, okay?

"Everyone has something they love," I said. "Doesn't that make sense?"

Twilight grimaced. "I don't know what you mean."

"Maybe I could explain it in a way that makes sense."

Twilight leaned back, clasping her hooves together. "Please do." She then, having clasped her hooves together, crossed them, and looked at me, like I was some sort of lab experiment. Ah, well, I thought. That's Twilight for you. There's only one Twilight.

"I love doing all the things I love, not because I choose it. It's something that happened to me, and it's something that happens to everyone."

Twilight cocked her head back and forth. "I see. I see."

"So do you agree?"

"Maybe," Twilight said. "I'm still not sure what you mean."

"Oh."

I wanted it all to work out, no doubt. Of course, and also, I didn't want to upset Twilight, or disappoint her, but what can you do? To care about something, I felt, was a must, and I really cared about this. I wanted to get it right, and I wanted Twilight to understand that. I had to get her to understand that, because it felt really, really important. I felt like I had to. It felt like it had to. Everything within me felt like I needed her to understand this, and yet, she didn't, and most of what she did was listening, not comment. I felt also that maybe, it would be useful for her to comment more and listen less, even though the listening, in a sense, was helpful, since it gave me an opportunity to, as she said, think. I think because I speak, and I speak my thoughts. She was right about that, but, and this is a big but, I was right about this. I was right about a lot of things too, and I wanted her to take me seriously.

"Hey, Twilight."

"Yes."

"How about this? What made you care about the first thing you ever cared about?"

She looked crossways at me. "I'm sure I don't remember."

"But it wouldn't have been something that you thought a lot about. You just cared about it, right? Why?"

"I see," she said. "I think I see what you're trying to say. I cared because my instincts and emotions made me care, and it's the same for you in this situation?"

"Yes." I was so happy that she got it. "Yes, yes, and yes."

"It's killing you," Twilight said. "You are okay with that."

"Yes."

Twilight bent to the side and picked up the book. "Then I guess there's nothing more to say, but I still want you to try this."

"No, I still have things to say." Twilight put the book in front of me.

"Twilight," I said. I pushed the book to the side. "I care about you."

"You want me to understand," she said, picking the book up and hovering it in front of me, using her patented purple field of magic, surrounding the book, that little book. I didn't care for that book, but I would take her advice, just as an act of goodwill.

I grabbed the book, then and there. "Okay, I will try it, but I want you to listen."

"I was always listening," Twilight said. "I think there might be something I don't understand."

"I should say so," I said.

She shook her head. "You don't want to die. I know that."

"No," I said. "It's not about that."

Twilight nodded. "It's about fighting for what you care about."

"Yes."

"Hm."

"What?" I said.

Twilight looked at the book, and then back at me. "I know. I know."

"Know what?"

"I know that you care," she said.

What does it mean to care? It means that you're motivated to do something. What does it mean that you're motivated to do something? It means, ugh. Can't we just get to the point?

"What's wrong?" Twilight said. "I think you look upset."

I held up the book. "It's this."

"Mhm." Twilight looked morose, and concerned, and I took that seriously. Of course I did. Of course.

"I don't get it," I said. "What am I supposed to do with this book?"

Twilight shrugged. "Maybe nothing."

"Why though?"

"Try," she said.

"Why?"

"It might help you think more clearly." She closed her eyes, awaiting the backlash.

"I am thinking clearly. When was I not thinking clearly?" I was mad.

"You are," she said. "It's not like that at all."

"Show some reciprocity," I said. "I'll write in your book, but you need to answer my question."

Twilight looked away, not making eye-contact with me. "What is the question?"

"What is wrong with what I'm doing?"

Twilight glared. "What do you want me to say?"

I was standing in the graveyard, looking at a grave. "To me, you're alive."

Twilight came walking, and stood beside me. "Hello there, my friend."

"My teacher," I said.

Yes. That is true. She was my teacher, and had been for a while now.

"How then?" I said, looking at her.

"It's not really a choice," Twilight said. "It's something that happens, or not, and really, I'm uninterested in boring you with the details."

"I like details," I said.

"Here," Twilight said. "Take my umbrella." It was raining outside.

I received the umbrella. I was still wet. "Stop playing tricks on me, please," I said.

"You are," she said.

"How?" I said.

"I appreciate everything you've done for me," Twilight said, smiling. "You're not being kind enough to yourself."

I sank down in my chair, that was next to the grave. "What now?"

"It's something that happens, or not," she said.

I shook my head. "What is it that happens, or not?"

"Just because you know the answer doesn't mean you understand the question," Twilight said, chuckling. "Come on, now."

I just stared at her.

"You are still Starlight, aren't you? What happened to you?"

"I'm not the problem," I said, standing up.

Twilight grabbed me. "I never said you were. So please, don't accuse me of that."

"Am I crazy?" I said.

Twilight let go of me. "No."

"How?"

Twilight laughed. "Because," she said.

"Because?"

"You know exactly what you're doing."

I turned away from her and walked away, in that moment.

"What does it mean to care about something?"

Fluttershy looked at me, apparently afraid to answer.

"No," I said. "No, don't do that. Don't just look at me."

I was still at the graveyard. I hadn't left. It was just an innocent visit to the graveyard, nothing more.

"Well," she said. "It means that you're willing to do things for that person, things you weren't willing to do for other ponies."

I nodded. I didn't know if that was right, but I nodded. "Nothing is wrong with me," I said. "I feel fine."

Rarity, in all her radiancy, was standing next to Fluttershy. "It's unnecessary," she said.

"No," I said. I thought about it, really thinking hard, thinking about it seriously, thinking, and thinking. I wanted to do great things with my life, and I wanted to keep something alive, something I cared about, something that lived within me, and I would. "No," I said, again. "It is necessary."

"In what sense?" Rarity said.

"You don't know what death is," I said back.

"What is death?"

I looked at her, frowning. "Obvious."

"What?"

I sighed. "Forgetting, of course."

"I'm not the problem," I said, walking back to the grave.

Twilight lay on the ground, on her stomach, and then stood up. "No one said you were."

"They think I'm crazy."

"Be real," Twilight said.

"What?" I shook my head. "What?"

Twilight shook her head. "Be real."

"About what?"

I sat down in my chair, and Twilight then walked in front of me. "They're willing to sacrifice everything for you."

"So what?"

"What am I?" Twilight said.

"You're too smart," I said, not wanting to talk to her anymore.

Twilight hugged me. I didn't hug back. I just sat there. "Go to them now. It's not a big deal."

"What's not a big deal?"

"Death," Twilight said.

I pushed her away. "Nothing has died yet."

Twilight smiled at me. "It's not a big deal."

I sighed. "You said I wasn't crazy."

"No," Twilight said. "But you want to be."

"I want to be?"

Twilight disappeared, and was gone.

"Okay," I said. "I get it."

I sat in the chair. Fluttershy came walking.

"Hello," I said, to Fluttershy.

She didn't say anything. She just looked at me.

"Hello," I said, again.

"Hello," she said.

"It's not a big deal," I said, and looked away from her.

"What's not a big deal?"

"Talking to you," I said, smiling.

What does it mean to care about something? I think caring is just what happens when you're emotionally invested, and a lot of what you think and feel, and everything around you, is connected to the thing you care about, and so, when that thing disappears, so does all the other things that you associated with that first thing. The other things, trees, and books, that you connected to that first thing, in your head, have to go too, in some final sense. Make sense?

"Do the book," Twilight said.

"No," I said. "There is no book."

"Right," Twilight said. "There is only what you want to be. So then, what are you preserving? Something real, or something imaginary?"

"You're too smart," I said. "You're too clever. You're too clever to get it."

"No," she said. "I'm not clever enough."

"How?"

Twilight held the book. "It's just a book."

"Now, I know it's not the real Twilight I'm talking to."

"You didn't before?"

I shook my head, and then, I wept.

"Oh, I get it now." I looked at the book. "I get it." Twilight stood next to me. "I get it." Twilight jumped up on the book. She touched my hoof. She started shrinking. Then, she sank down into the pages of the book. She was gone. "How poetic," I said. "I get it."

Twilight wanted to enter the book, so she could exit my thoughts. How clever of her, and she was right. The more I wrote, the more clear-headed I felt, about everything, and I started realizing something. I care about some things, other than Twilight, enough so as to honor her memory in ways that didn't compromise those other things, and she might have shown me the way, because this book could become something like a repository of memories. Twilight's reciprocity could be found within these pages, and everything I ever knew about her, and everything she ever said, could be recapitulated, somehow, and placed in this book. Twilight owed her life to me, and that's why I think it is fitting, perhaps, to call this book, "restitution," and I would make sure that I didn't let her down, and even though some others might not get it, it doesn't mean this isn't worth fighting for, and even though some others might find it strange, I didn't, and that's all that mattered to me. So, in conclusion, what does it mean to care about something? It's a measure of something that doesn't care about tomorrow. It's about today, and today, I cherish the things I cherish, until I have forgotten about them, which I vow never to do. Am I crazy? Judge for yourself.