//-------------------------------------------------------// What Makes You A Pony? -by Rain_Flick3r- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// Prince Blueblood Note #1: To My Dearest Aunt: I //-------------------------------------------------------// Prince Blueblood Note #1: To My Dearest Aunt: I To My Dearest Aunt: Princess Celestia! I write to you this day, for I have forgotten to write for hearts-warming eve. I must ask for your forgiveness, for I was out traversing the beaches near the forgotten jungle. You see, I had the most spontaneous burst of adventure and inspiration. It was quite queer for one such as I to have any notion of the wilderness. Yet, I set out for my strange adventure still. In any way, I shall try to recount my traversal of the land barren and forgotten. It was quite a warm day that day. I remember trotting down from my favorite cafe in Canterlot, The Prench Connect! They have the most marvelous cakes and pastries there, Aunt. I do wish we could have high tea sometime there. I do miss our yearly social calls. I do indeed miss you with all of my heart. Please forgive my rambles. In any case, there was this strange stallion, Aunt. He was quite the pony. He was dressed in the finest velvet that a bit could pay for. I remember he was standing slightly out of place from the high-priced fashion of Canterlot. He was slightly slimmer than what would be considered healthy for a stallion. His snout looked as if it was chiseled out of marble and his mouth was quite narrow when he broke the seal holding his lip together, as he started to bear his teeth from a gentle smile. His eyes were the brightest emerald jewels that one’s eyes could gaze upon, it felt as if I were held in place as he trotted over to me. His fur was a tinted teal colour, it shone blue, yet, the sun made sure to glare the green tinge his coat held secret. I do remember what he was wearing quite vividly. His form was matched by a suited jacket that, when gazed upon at closer inspection, was like a second tighter coat of fur. It held the most elegant shine to the velvet that coated him. Underneath his jacket looked like a dress shirt that was made from the snow atop the crystal mountains. It was neatly tucked into his velvet dress trousers, which looked as if nothing could cress their immaculate ironing. I must admit a fault I had right there, Aunt. He had me flare green. I was, and still am, quite jealous of that stallion's fashion. Yet, I could not voice it to his soft and well-kempt ears, Aunt. In any case, he finally approached me. My sweet moon, the stallion had a most gorgeous smell about him. Its aroma was quite sweet to the tongue, and my nostrils flared from the petal scent of roses foreign to my being. Intoxicating could never describe the feelings it gave me. Sorry, Aunt. I must stop getting sidetracked. Once he met me, he did indeed meet the formal requirements for speaking with nobles. He introduced himself as a butler to a most prestigious family. He did not give his name but the name of the family he served. He introduced them as “The Vega family”. I did not know of such a family residing anywhere near our Equestria. I did ask for what brought him here to Canterlot. All he said was “I am looking for a lost family member by the name of Starburst”. He told me that this Starburst had gone missing a long time ago, and he was entrusted by the head of the Vega family to go and retrieve him. I did see that he was quite distraught by the command his master gave him, so I offered my hoof in aid. He beamed at my charity and shook my hoof quite firmly from his gratitude. I was going to incline a gesture of confirmation, but before I could do so. He shoved a letter into my hooves and trotted away. It was a queer way of an introduction but I must admit it did bring my curiosity to light… I looked down at the note and began to read it. I will admit that its contents were quite concerning, yet, I felt as if this Starburst was feeling not themselves. I have enclosed the note with this very scroll, I hope it finds you well, Aunt. I will leave it here, it is getting quite late and I must be up at the break of dawn. I wish you a well-resting slumber. ~ Blueblood! //-------------------------------------------------------// Starburst Note #2: I Miss You Mother //-------------------------------------------------------// Starburst Note #2: I Miss You Mother Dear Mother. I do hope you are well and fair in this weather. I place my hope upon the stars in the night sky that you may get better soon. I know that my actions taken recently, have placed you in a downward spiral of low spirits. I can never atone them with my apology, I find that it will never be able to crater you to higher spirits. Yet, I must admit the guilt I feel for taking my absence without a note to your hooves. Let this very note or letter reach your hooves in kind, as recompense for my replacement going on with a deathly silence that now roams the halls of the castle. I find I am no longer fit to be held within those same walls. I must confide to you, here in this very scroll, my woes of how I have felt living with you and Father… It has been oh, so long mother. Oh, so long, to have your sky blue eyes look at me when you were out and about during the morning hours. You would fetch me from the garden and head off to the markets in town, with me on your back all the while smiling and gleeful at the fact of having each other's company. What changed? Was it the illness? Was it me? Was it father? What caused your eyes to dull and turn to a muddied stone colour? What slowly chipped away at your radiant smile? I wanted to help alleviate your suffering and help shoulder the brunt of the monsoon that whipped you with its winds. I could see the marks it left on your soul, your body. I saw deep gashes tearing through your snout as if it were struck by chain and iron. I saw the craters that held your eyes. They were carved out by the whirlwinds of the rechid winds of that storm. I wished it hell, I wished that storm to be torn asunder, away from your radiance. Yet, it did not come to pass. What was I to do? I was only a tender age of four when I saw your life being washed out to sea, adrift on a wooden beam that held the bastion of health your body had. I wanted to give you my soul, my health, my warmth. Yet, I could not give it. It was not fully mine to give. So, I set out to find magics that could. I galloped down to your secret library, to find a tome that could help my desperate plea. Alas, there was no help. I scoured and scoured for a tome to help my plea. I searched from the dusty floor to the cobweb ceiling, but still nothing. That was until I heard a faint, yet firm voice call my name from underneath your enclosed ruby necklace. Mother, the voice cooed, coddled, and entrenched me. It helped my raging mind ease with its betwixt tone. It guided me and showed me how to lift it free from the tomb you gave it. It gave me strength to move ever so slightly, the glassed case that housed your necklace. When I had made enough room, I reached down to the silver box and opened it. What was housed in it was a normal-looking leather-bound tome. I looked around the front cover to find any markings on it. “Xentriama” was the title it held. I find it funny Mother. How you can think you were ever destitute enough to try to save a pony you love? Could that mindset ever lead to the end of one's self? I finally figured out why you sealed Xentriama away. She has taken my soul hostage, taken my body’s strength, and the clarity from my mind… I will always love you, no matter where you rest Mother. ~ Starburst. //-------------------------------------------------------// Prince Blueblood Note #2: To My Dearest Aunt: II //-------------------------------------------------------// Prince Blueblood Note #2: To My Dearest Aunt: II To My Dearest Aunt: Princess Celestia! I write to you under the most gloomy weather. Tis a dark day indeed, for, I have found more clues to what happened to this Starburst fellow… I can safely surmise that he did indeed suffer quite a violent event. I had found him clasped in iron as he lay still in the freezing mud. Oh, Auntie, my heart flutters with the most immense sorrow as I stand here in this dungeon of ice. I fear that this scroll must remain short because I can no longer write with a steadfast mind. My body quivers under the stress of this discovery I have made… I shall send with this scroll, with some of the pages from a journal laying next to him. I have still some time to comb through the entirety of it, but I think you may find the next several entries filled with a longing heart as you read onward. Auntie, If I have not shown you the compassion and empathy owed to you? Please forgive me for not showing it when you used to comfort me, in my time of need. I will always love you. Even if I am only an adopted nephew. You will always have my heart! ~ Blueblood! Author's Note I do apologise for the short entry, but I wanted to try and encapsulate a feeling of loss. I was also listening to this as I wrote. REPULSIVE - epilogue (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d4H3FlTgSU) //-------------------------------------------------------// Starburst Journal Entry #1 //-------------------------------------------------------// Starburst Journal Entry #1 It has been centuries since I received anything from your hooves, Father. Why is that? Why have you shunned me away from the rest of our family? Has your mother Lyra, placed notions of paranoid conjecture, into your head? The same notions that killed my mother? Your wife? The sole being to which you devoted your soul, and the same being you killed by poison, of an arsenic origin. For shame, I say to my family's name. A name to which I am a slave. A name filled with ire, paranoia, and murder. It be a name cursed by the gods, of which they deem us feral… For I have seen things, Father. Things that go bump in the night, disturbing your slumbering dreams. They be in the image of evil, evil so vile, that it melts the flesh and scars the psyche. Yet, they show me your soul being corrupted from the inside out. Is that why you have encased me in this pain? As you pierce through my flesh with cold and indifferent metal rods, that happen to encase the insides of this casket. Because you saw to it, to remove my heart from my ever-warm body. What do you need my still beating heart for, Father? What purpose does that have for you- I see, I see it now. Clear as day! You are quite the malevolent one, Father. I also take it, that the ice burning my flesh is of your making? A making to prevent a false prophecy from awakening, an awakening from the depths of hell, hell so molten, that it would ease its way through the earth, and make its home in our waking realm! BAH! Such a foalish fear you have. Yet, it be one your mother implanted into your paranoid mind. I know your secret, it be an old secret where time cowers in the light from it… I do dare, as I go against the prenotions of formality and etiquette, and say that our name is cursed. Our bloodline be damned by all that is good and holy. For, we are daemons of the old realm, and our blood controls our very souls. Oh, I am ever grateful for finding that tome when I was a foal. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of cosmic power. It be in the form of magics, forbidden and made forgotten by our ancestors, for, they did not fully comprehend the power the universe could give, give to every living creature. They were scared of it, just like you and the rest of our family, Father. I do indeed encourage your fear of me and Xentriama, Father. Spread that paranoid schizophrenia to the masses, for it fuels my power, even as you read this page. I await you in the pitch of night, Yours lovingly, -Starburst. //-------------------------------------------------------// Starburst Journal Entry #2 //-------------------------------------------------------// Starburst Journal Entry #2 “Have I been rendered nothing by the lack of connection my blood has to this family I once held oh so dear?” I have started to ruminate on this notion, It is a notion of loneliness, from the stench of exile I now see myself surrounded in. It feels as if there will be no exit out of this situation, for, I fear, I have passed. Passed from this realm of life and into the realm of death. The bony one enrobed in black has endarkened my vision, for, I see nothing but a fatal dark covering my snout. Why must this be my fate? It is a fate more lonely than the pits of tartarus. For even Hades and Rhadamanthus deem my soul unfit to roam their realms. What gives? Why do these powerful deities banish me to a place so far strung, that I have ended up in the deep recesses of Space? Could this space I occupy even now, could it be truly called Space? I don’t know…I truly do not know! Ever since that fateful day. In finding that accursed tome with her name written into the leather, I have been anything but loved. Be it Emotional pain, or physical pain, I can only gather a tidbit of knowledge from the workings herein. This realm I now reside in, is of chaos in origin. That mere fact drives me ever deeper into melancholia, for I can not fathom down from up, right from left. Even my sense of self drifts ever further from my soul, taking my memories along with it. It plagues me, it truly plagues me as this magic eats away at my heart’s tissue, devolving it to a foul and rancid pâté. As if this magic is attracting my final bastion of will, a will to keep my memory of her alive. Oh mother, I beg of you, please spare me this agony. An agony I wish no longer to endure, for I find that I have paid those debts to you! What else must I do? What must I do to satiate your forgiveness? Please, I will find a way to complete it, no matter the task… I will grind the rest of what is left of me away, just to have your simmering eyes caress me with their radiance, one last time. Please forgive me of the sins you deem me charged with. Your loving son, ~ Starburst. //-------------------------------------------------------// Starburst Note #1: A Note Forgotten //-------------------------------------------------------// Starburst Note #1: A Note Forgotten I find that I must end. Yet, I yearn for clarity to return to my mind, yearn for breath to re-enter my lungs. My heart's desires are quite minuscule at best. Yet, they are basic needs every being has. Why does my mind need this ever-clouding fog? Why does my chest weigh heavy? Why does the world crush my body? Am I not allowed to live? Why must I be hunted by the fangs of beasts unknown to me? These questions I ask have no meaning or answer. They just, linger, on every rancid breath I exhale, on every impaled thought I have… At times I have wished for the strength to withstand the brunt of this storm I hold. Other times I have wished for others to lend me their hooves, so I might be able to keep my head above the water seal. There are darker times when I have wished I be vaporized to ash so that I might be able to be free on the back of the open breeze. Why is the idea of destiny the most abhorrent thing to be ever thought of? Is destiny a tangible thing I can reach out and touch? Is it metaphorical in comparison? But if it is this then what do we compare it to? Can we even have the right to compare it to anything? I do not know. I find my exertion to never be adequate. I try ever so hard to bestill a favor in those I hold dear, yet, I find it will never be enough. My body bends and breaks, and yet it does not fall apart at the seams when cut. I have offered tribute to the gods, my family, and my friends, yet, they still do not take to my flesh, blood, sweat, and tears. Why is this? Is my flesh rotten to the bone? Is my blood putrid to look at? Does my body fester? Why does no one look at me? This world is bleak, yet it holds colour still. How can a paradise full of life and whim, feel so lifeless and cold? The very concept is queer to me. Yet I still walk among everyone as if there was to be no care in my heart. I function like the rest of you, even if my feelings tell me otherwise. I feel slightly askew from the normality of the space around me. Am I real? Is this space I occupy real too? Are all of these other ponies real? Or is all of this just a figment of my imagination? I could not tell you the difference, even if I tried. I wonder if I took the steps needed to free myself, would my soul glow with radiance or dim to a flickering flame? There is only one way to find out, isn’t there? I shall take the plunge into the unknown. I wish you all well, with your lives. ~ Starburst Author's Note This story may be filled with letters and notes that tell the story for you.