ParadiseView Onlineparadise, fleetingParadiseThere is cold before the warmth. There is stillness before the movement. Trixie is waiting for the change. Her coat is... She's cold. Her eyes are shut. Clenched. The wind blowing through leaves sounds like rain hitting her cabin. Her eyes are clenched and awkward but the rest of her is still and weightless, effortless. All her life, she's been waiting for the change, this dead weight, waiting and hoping. And then at once, in sudden, cold is warm and stillness is movement. She can feel it, weight. Pressure. Another's hoof strums along her flesh. No malice, no passion. An exhortation of life. One hoof, the soft strum against her flesh. The would and could and is, is real. Then the other hoof, not to strum but to hold. To couch around her in whole, and keep. Then the barrel, the chest, right next to her own. Just to lay and be warm. A heart pumping real blood, warm blood, next to her own. The soft thump through ripple muscle flesh skin and fur. Moving, being honest. And the maw, perched next to her face, allowing warm, warm breath. Deep and true, in and out, tickling her ear. Real breath, soft and simple, but stuffed so full with everything inside it. Everything. Her body fills and knows and churns. Her eyes clench tighter. She can't look. She doesn't want to. She just wants to know it's true.
ParadiseView Onlineparadise, fleetingParadiseInside her head, waves flow. She's young. She's almost 20 years younger, sitting at the table. Everyone is there. Maud, Marble, Limestone. Mom and Dad. They're all there. They're quiet, the waves in her head. Gentle. Almost slow. The last time Pinkie Pie was out at sea, the waves crashed and boomed. Tumbled against one another. The waves in her head just lapse with calm. Her mom's cooked rock soup again, and it's still hot. Not burning, but enough to warm you head to hoof. Everyone's enjoying it. The table seems so tall and wide, and the ceiling so far away. Her hooves don't even touch the floor, they just dangle from her chair. Her sisters, her parents, they're younger too. Maud and Limestone are almost as small as her. Marble is a little smaller. Her parents are fewer of the wrinkles on their faces. The past is so tiny and the future doesn't yet exist. Across the table, Limestone is telling a joke and Marble is laughing, even before it's over, she's laughing. It's a funny one. About the rock farm. Everyone's happy and everyone's smiling. She has her cutie mark now, Pinkie, and everyone is happy for her. It's the happiest they've all been for as long as Pinkie can remember. She wants to stay with them, with their smiles, stay with those smiles forever. She could, she knows she could. She could stay and she'd be happy.
ParadiseView Onlineparadise, fleetingParadiseIt's this pulsating, shifting thing. Hard to describe. A million little planes folding in on one, oddly flat. Not really colorful. Not sharp, or soft. It seems to move when she looks at it, but it never leaves the spot. There aren't any points to it, it's this one mass that moves in and out of itself. Hanging there, floating. This mass of pain, floating right in front of her. She surveys it for a while, walking in circles around it. No matter what, it always seems to face her. It's not too large (maybe twice the size of her face) but it's dense, she can tell. She knows some of this without having to ask or ascertain, like it was meant to be, the mass of pain in front of her. Everypony's pain, all the pain anypony ever felt, will ever feel. It's silent. It makes her feel sick. Every bad thing that will ever happen feeding into this mass. It seems to suck in the light around it, it casts no shadow but the air is darker nearby. She understands pain. That's why it chose her. She knows what pain can do. The pain wants to be hers. The pain is tired of making everypony hurt. The pain wants to let her hurt instead. Let her take in the dense, queasy mass, let her rot the flesh and swallow the bile, and then let everypony else be free. Let them be free of pain forever. It makes her sick and weak and scared and small but she's honored because she knows that deep down it's the only thing she ever wanted.
ParadiseView Onlineparadise, fleetingParadiseToday, Braeburn can see the hole in his head. He looks in the mirror and it's really there.
ParadiseView Onlineparadise, fleetingParadiseThe reflection in the mirror acts as it should. It does not blink out of place, or fall behind, or turn the wrong way. It perfectly copies her movements, as it should, but there is no glass there in the mirror. It's empty. Or it's open, rather, open and allowing. The pony behind it is just as tangible as her. The hoof reaches outward. Feels its own, its kin. The hoof touches hoof, not mirror. When she reaches into the mirror, she touches herself. Twilight is not afraid or upset. She's not even shocked. There is contentment, expectation. This is the way it always should have been, her hoof touching her hoof. She intwining her own flesh. The hoof itself is strong and hard. The flesh behind it is spongy and soft, she feels, applying and decreasing pressure - pushing into and out of the hoof. The other face looks towards hers. The smile is slight but definite. There is a twinkle of life in her eye, something so true and real that never catches in the eyes of the dead and the dying. It's her card, her proof. The hoof touching the hoof. The face yearning for a closer look, the maw dipping inwards. The eyes twinkling and resting. A press of lips, a slip of tongue. A single moment, she is tangible.
