Mirror: Book I - Mind

Midnight.

All of it was quiet, all of it was motionless, and the veil of Equestria’s night shadowed over the Village in the Valley like a warm blanket putting the tired tantrum of a child to rest. It was all sightless, it was soundless, it was nothing.

The boy laid with his eyes to the ceiling, and neither did his eyes feel open nor closed, he simply saw nothing. He heard nothing, he felt nothing. He took a deep, long breath, his chest heaved and his long legs dangled off the end of the severely under-sized bed, and as his breast took to rest, the sightless and soundless mind became flooded with all the things he had seen, everything he heard and everything he dreaded. Fear is what it was, and slowly he began to understand, as he lay there within his room pondering with ill-thought over the events of the day, fear is what had driven him.

Fear was there from the very beginning, when he rose from the darkness of the ruins and raised his spear against the wolves, that was fear. The days spent wandering Ponyville, looking for answers to his dilemma, the growing dread that he may very well be stuck here for longer than he would have ever liked is what rested upon his shoulders each and every waking hour. The ponies did not fear him, they hated him. They were all so much more powerful than him in so many ways, and the boy could not let these thoughts of his go. They hated him, and he hated that they hated him, so much so that he feared it. As he understood, one cannot hate fear without fearing it, and thus it was hate that fueled fear. Hate and fear, hate and fear, hate and fear…

The boy opened his eyes, and he saw something. It was a path, a trail, a way out. He took a glance out his window, gaining one last glimpse of the midnight black and blue expanse in the sky, and made for his rucksack resting against the dresser. Quietly, he threw together what little belongings he had, zipping up the sac and throwing it over his shoulder. He stood, stared at himself in the mirror on the door, and slowly his eyes wandered down to the lone item resting upon the dresser.

The heart locket, gray and dull as ever, shined hopelessly in the glimpse of the moonlight passing by.

I need to get out of here. He snuck past the door and cautiously clicked it shut, leaving the locket behind.

Lying within the shadow faintly illuminated by the dim light of her small lantern was the magically talented unicorn, Starlight Glimmer. Into the dead-quiet hours of the night she allowed her endeavor for research and a search for answers to drive her until she indeed found an answer, hidden in some-book, some-line, somewhere within the variety lining the walls of the great library. Once again, the very tome that laid before her was the same as she read nearly a month ago, beneath the shade of her favored tree, and the verses from before spelt before her eyes like a riddle unsolved.

“The Star Regulus…” She mumbled to herself. “Regulus…just what could it mean?”

The unicorn’s next set of actions were, more or less, rendered out of pure instinct, as the sound of somepony making their way down the hall impelled her to snuff out the light of her lantern and veil herself beneath the dark. Starlight watched on with a trembling yet focused gaze in anticipation of seeing who might be making their way through the corridors of the castle at this hour. Soon enough her answer was granted as not somepony, but rather someone thought they might be clever enough to sneak their way around in the dark of night. In truth, those in the light know not what dwell in the dark, but those in the dark may see all who wander the light.

David peered briefly past the cracked double doors of the library chamber before continuing on with a cautioned, one toe after the other gait, slinking his way down the hallway til he met the stairs and took the descent with slow, graceful steps. His bare feet aided for a flesh-padded cushion in muffling the sound of his paces greatly, but alas a mare self-trained in the arcane had a sharp sense of magic equipped for herself.

The unicorn waited for his presence to reach the end of the stairs, and Starlight opened her eyes, disabling her invisibility spell as though appearing in the middle of the hallway out of thin air. With another swift yet silent whip of her horn she cast a tiny enchantment to her hooves, and quieted the sound of her hoofsteps upon the hard, crystal floors to a near noiseless muffle. By then the boy had already reach the golden double doors of the castle. As though cradling a child he practiced the upmost care Starlight had ever witnessed in quietly prying the portal open, eliciting only a tiny whine, but just enough for him to slink his skinny figure from one end and to the other. Before doing so he took a cautionary look to the outdoors, proceeded to slip past the crack, and left the door as it was. Obviously the fear of waking anypony up had greatly dawned upon him, which clearly meant he wanted nopony to take notice of his departure, if the sneaking around hadn’t already told Starlight anything, of course. With a spell of hesitation the unicorn stared at the door for a brief moment, and then gained the obligation to follow.

On most nights, if not every night, the lanterns all around town had always been lit to pave the darkened way with dim stretches of illumination. Yet this night, and for reasons that which Starlight could concur as to why, not a single spark nor flame twinkled amongst the hushed, shadowy buildings in the quieted hour of Ponyville. It was the duty of the guards to make their rounds and light the way for those who might be wandering the streets after dusk, yet the trials of the long, hot and difficult day had put their two paladins to a swift rest, and all the more provided for a stealthy escape that the boy had set himself upon.

Starlight reminded herself of her target and locked on to the movement of a figure off to the side of the buildings, more or less avoiding going straight through town and instead opting for the less populated stretches of the valley. Again and again, the same thoughts ran through the mare’s head as she attempted to jump from one conclusion to the next.

Where does he think he’s going? What does he think he has to hide?

Nothing, of course. Absolutely nothing, as there was nothing here for the boy, hence the likely reason for his departure in the first place. But of course, everyone held their own secrets, as Starlight had concluded in the past and would undoubtedly do so again. She knew, from the very beginning, that there was something more to this character than just the simple surface. Twilight might have known, Spike might have known, but did anypony really ever take it upon themselves to search and speculate? It was within Starlight’s instinct to question everything presented unto her, and she dreaded that chance might very well slip away this night.

But, why am I really out here? She paused mid-trot. It’s not as though this kid has actually done anything influential for us here in Ponyville. Why shouldn’t I stop him? Why shouldn’t I just…let him go?

Her sights leveled upwards, to the calm, cool starlit sky above. And among the many twinkled a brilliant star in particular, one that impelled her to keep her hooves moving, for reasons she could not conclude. Almost as if it were destined from the beginning.

Soon enough, the boy reached the top of a hill and took another glance back to Ponyville in the distance. He turned, took his descent to the other side, and the unicorn snuck her way up and peered past the grassy expanse at the tired figure of the human below. He took to rest before the shores of a small, round lake, the water as calm and elusive as ever, reflecting the stars above perfectly. Starlight waited, puffed her chest for a summon of courage, and carefully made her way down the hill in a slow, graceful reveal.

David froze and spared a side-eye to the approaching unicorn before turning his head and looking the mare dead in the eye, to which the two simply stared at one another before one said anything to the other. It remained so for a long while, the distant chirps of nocturnal bugs and animals fading into the background, and all fell to a deathly quiet before Starlight finally decided to utter her verses.

“I don’t suppose you intended to bring any friends along?” Starlight spoke.

The boy continued his glaring stare, his arse in the sand and his elbows over his knees. He shook his head. “I never made any.” He shook again. “Never kept any.”

“You have me…” The mare mumbled.

“Go home, Starlight.”

“Not until you tell me what this is all about.”

Silence. The boy physically turned his head, staring in a completely different direction, trying with all his might to shut out the sights and the sounds of these ponies. Starlight’s patience, of course, was practically on a non-existent level.

“Oh, c’mon, don’t be like this!” She huffed and rounded to meet his eyes. “Look, I get it, you had a pretty crumby day. News flash, bub, happens all the time. The sooner you get it over it, the better.”

He turned again, and the silence went on.

“Is this how you really want things to be? Is this how the Equerry of Ponyville is supposed to act?”

“I’m not your ‘Equerry’, I’m not your friend, all I want you to do right now is to shut up and go home.” David ground his teeth together, fisted his bag and pulled forth a familiar item. “Here! Take it! I didn’t even know why I decided to bring this thing along, but now I know!” He chucked the Royal Equerry’s badge into the sand, a pitiful puff of dust swirling from the impact. “This is what you wanted all along, right? Will this finally make you go away and leave me alone? What’s it gonna take, huh? Some magic spell? Well, here’s your spell, so get out of my sight!”

The mare was more than ready to retaliate, to deliver every bit of her frustrations, her struggles and her fury upon the boy like a mighty, relentless wind crashing down upon a small, unsuspecting sapling. The boy, of course, was only a sapling in her eyes. A mere kid. He was just a boy. Amazingly so, even to her as these thoughts ran their way through her brain, Starlight recomposed herself and took a long breath before lifting the badge with her levitation.

She gave the seal a lengthy lookover, looked to David, and pushed it back into his chest. The boy stood still for a longer moment more, staring at the plate in his hands as the unicorn allowed her words slowly and intently.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’ve come to realize that’s not what I want. Not anymore.” Starlight told him. “You might call me crazy, chasing after a plate of tin, some silly badge for nine months straight, only to toss it away in just the blink of an eye. The truth is, I’ve always been crazy. The problem wasn’t that I always knew I was crazy, it was accepting it.” Suddenly, her voice was soft and endearing. “I understand what’s going on, David. Just look at me for a moment. I know what’s going on inside that head, all of that chaos swirling around, all of that craziness, you’re not going to be able to interpret it all. I’ve been there, kid…I’ve been there…”

Her haunches fell to the sand, resting warmly upon the beach of the lake as, soon after, the boy almost instinctively followed suit and sat next to his companion with a newfound sense of comfort and ease, despite the trickling of emotions slowly welling up within him. The mare took little notice, and elicited a chuckle.

“Y’know it’s funny.” She began. “I remember so long ago, when I was just a little girl, it was a night as starlight, starbright as this.” Her sights wandered skyward. “And on that night, I ran to the lake, crying over some dismay or another in the world. Life wasn’t fair, as I learned I wasn’t always going to get my way, and everything I did wouldn’t always turn out okay. That night, I met a mare, and to this day I still don’t know her name. But she told me, if I just keep following my way, if I looked ahead into my future and left my past behind, then maybe one day…one day…”

Starlight felt the patter of rain fall upon her hoof. She looked back up, remembering the clear sky above had not a single cloud this night. A glance to her companion’s eyes told her everything she needed to know. This was it, this was the breaking point. Not his dismay beneath the book fort in the castle, not his moment of desperation in the plaza surrounded by the horrors and howls of the pony folk, but it was much more quiet than he could have ever anticipated. David hung his head, pushed his palms into his sockets, and like a blubbering little child he wept. He gasped and sniveled and struggled to suck air in as he wept all the more, and the mare by his side only had one thought on her mind. She scooted closer, pushed her side up to his, and leaned her head upon his shaky, quivering shoulder. In that instant of contact the boy went frozen, the crying stopped for only a moment, and he did not shun the pony away. Instead, he began with simple, choked out words.

“Why am I here…?” He mumbled. “What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go?”

“We’ll figure it out.” Starlight told him. “Together.”

“I could never figure it out back on Earth, what makes me think I can achieve that here?”

“You never told me.” The mare uttered.

“Told you what?” The boy wiped his nose.

“Well, about yourself.” Starlight went on. “You told me practically everything you could remember about your own world, but I think you left out a vital factor. You.”

The boy delivered another shaking head and played at the sand with his dangling digits. “What’s there to tell you? Just because I’m the only one of my kind on this planet doesn’t make me special. I’m no hero with an epic story to tell, I’m no guardian, no leader. I’m just a…” He sniveled again. “I’m just a kid…yeah, that’s all I’ve ever been, huh? I still am, and I always will be.”

“We all start from somewhere.” Starlight tried.

“That doesn’t mean we all cross the finish line together.” The boy blubbered on. “I know what’s going on here, I know what I am and where I’ll end up. I’m not an idiot, but I am useless. I have no past to go off of, no feats of drama or hell to build my strength off of. I have no strength. I was coddled growing up, I never faced any true challenges, never got into any real fights, and for that it has gotten me absolutely nowhere! I realize now, after all these years, that I could’ve done something to change that. I could’ve said hello to my neighbor and helped him clean his yard, I could’ve volunteered for tryouts like the rest of my friends did, I could’ve mustered up the courage to finally say something to the same girl I had a crush on for four years straight! I could’ve studied more, I could’ve exercised more, I could’ve at least ate my dinner with my family to show that I still gave a crap about them! But no, instead I stayed in my room, I locked myself away from the world. You know what I did? You want to know what I wasted my time doing instead of building relationships, taking care of my body and planning out my future? I sat in my room with my stupid, fucking computer and watched My Little Pony all fucking day and all fucking night! Now, look! Look at where it’s gotten me!

“I dreamed of coming to this place for so long, so so long. Now that I’m here, now that I’m finally in Equestria walking among the ponies, the characters, the sights…everybody here hates me. Everything is out to get me. I can’t catch a single break and that’s exactly what I deserve. I’m no hero, I’m no savior nor some magical messiah. Hell, I’m not even a man. It’s like you said, Starlight, I’m just a kid. I’m just a lost little boy with not a single, intelligent thought running through my head. I act like I know things but I don’t. I put on a straight face even though I know I’ve got glares on my back. You might have expected something extraordinary, something your world has never seen before. Well, now that I’m here, are you impressed? You’re right, if I were in your position then I wouldn’t be either. I would be disappointed, disgusted, devoid of every last sliver of faith or hope I could have possibly retained as soon as I laid eyes upon that worthless, incompetent piece of shit staring back at me in the mirror. I’m fodder, Starlight. I might as well be fertilizer after the timber wolves are done with me. I don’t deserve any of this. I don’t deserve any friends here, I never deserved them back on Earth, what I do deserve is to die alone.

“I really messed up this time, haven’t I? I let myself get out of control, and I shouldn’t have done that. I hurt Silver Spanner, I smashed her one and only surviving flower, all while ruining her entire reputation. There’s probably not a single pony left in town who will want to even look at her after what I did. I screamed at Rose Luck, I shoved Spike out of the way, and I…I…I hurt Twilight. She gave me everything. She saved my life, she gave me a warm place to sleep at night, food to eat and a voice to come home to at the end of every long day. That book…she gave me that book, she gifted it to me, and what did I do? What have I done to repay everything she’s done for me? I treated her like dirt! That’s all I’m good for, that’s all I’m ever going to surmount to! So just…just…” He writhed, twisted and shook as violently as ever. Finally, he burst out. “Just kill me! Right here, right now! I don’t even want to go back home, I don’t deserve it anymore! I can’t bear to face my family anymore, my friends. I might as well be dead now, because I’m not coming home. I’m not…I’m not coming home.” Then, with his knees in the sand and his face to the ground, the boy began to chuckle. “I’m not waking up.” He chortled. “I’m never going to wake up.” He laughed. “I’m never going to get off of this thing. Oh God, this ride…it’s never going to end!” He laughed and laughed and laughed.

It came without warning, a blunt, swift sting slammed against his left cheek. David curled awkwardly to the side and fell to the sand with a disheveled thump, the dust flying all around his vision as the stars twinkled past his blurry, teary eyes. Starlight had hit him.

“Get. A. GRIP!” Starlight shouted into the night. She marched forward and flung the boy upwards with her kinesis, clutching him by the shoulders with two hooves and howling into his face. “I don’t care where you came from, I don’t care what you have or haven’t done, because I have had it with you! I’m done treating you like a child, I’m done calling you a kid, I’m done putting up with your bullshit! Only nine year old little girls cry about your petty little problems! You say you want to die, but you haven’t even lived! You say you want to give up, but you haven’t even tried! What’s it gonna take for you to quit crying like a…a little bitch! Huh? Do I have to hit you again?!” She raised a hoof.

David blinked, once, twice, thrice. “…yes.” He answered.

“W-What?”

“Do it again.” He dared. “Hit me.”

“I-I don’t know…” The mare hesitated. “I was kinda expecting you to start crying again.”

“No, that felt good. It felt…real.” David stopped. “Like it made me a part of this world, if only for that tiny moment that it happened.”

Starlight gazed upon the boy with a concentrated stare. “Are you sure I should hit you again?”

“Yeah, c’mon, go for it.” He scooted his face closer. “I’m ready for it this time.”

“No, I can’t.” The unicorn recoiled. “I probably shouldn’t have done that. In fact, you should hit me back.”

“What? No!” David shook his head.

“I hit you, it’s only fair that you hit me.” The mare justified.

“I can’t hit you, you’re a girl!”

“Yeah? And this girl just slapped your shit.” The pony stood ready. “So c’mon, are you gonna take your turn on me or not?”

“I don’t…I don’t think I should.” The boy shook his head again.

“Pussy.”

“Don’t use that word!” David growled, running his hands through his hair. “Ugh, now I have to do it.” He began to lean down lower.

As the boy stood lopsided trying to fix a fair angle of attack on the pony, all while trying to find the nicest place to strike her, whatever that looked like, Starlight clenched her eyes shut and braced herself, willfully shutting down any and all energy coursing through her horn as to not shield herself and evade the oncoming blow out of instinct. David hesitated, hastily performed the sign of the cross, and threw his fist forward.

“Agh!” Starlight lumbered backwards. “W-What the hell was that?!”

“I’m sorry, you wanted me to, okay?” David shook his hand, hissing air.

“You hit me on the fucking horn.” She grumbled grudgingly, rubbing her horn’s base with a free hoof. “That’s like if I hit you in the balls, dude.”

“It’s that important to you, huh?” The boy chuckled.

Starlight came to a halt, blinking with disbelief at the boy’s sudden, small gesture of enjoyment. Only mere moments ago he was having quite possibly the biggest emotional breakdown of his life, spewing tears, shouting curses. That small lip of a giggle, a tiny little chuckle, and Starlight soon realized that the boy was enjoying this. He was, after all, male. He was a boy, what part about “play-fighting” or even real fighitng wouldn’t deliver a glimpse of mirth to him? In quick response, Starlight stared down the boy’s crotch and chose her target so, charging at him with her horn.

There was only one rule, no magic.

“I had no idea you had that scar on your chest.” Starlight gazed lazily over the lake.

“Well, they do come with a price.” David replied, rubbing the spot on his chest.

A cool, whispering breeze hovered across the still lake and rushed past the occupants of the small beach like bristles in the wind, their tiny wounds stinging against the cold nips of pain, but the change in the air nonetheless suited their needs for a cool down after a few rounds of horse versus human. There was no definite winner, and when there are no winners there are no rules. Well, all except for the “no magic” rule, and that might as well have been the first rule. It was the only rule.

Soon enough, the momentary breeze took its leave and left the pony and the human in a long moment of much needed silence, gazing upon every speckled dot in the blue-black sky, the moon a bright, brilliant crescent. There was a certain star high above the rest, a familiar star, yet one the boy could not quite place anywhere in his memory, and upon the sight the boy’s mind reached back to what the Princess of the Night had told him. Every single star in the sky was a dream, and the brightest star of all was your dream, because that is the dream you could see most clearly.

“Look north, and you shall see the moon…” David muttered, and with that his gaze followed the mentioned direction.

His companion looked on curiously with him, at the crescent above as it shone in the direction of Ponyville, undoubtedly hanging high above the castle on the other end of the village. Almost immediately the doubts returned to him, and he physically turned to look in the opposite direction. Starlight understood him almost clearly, he did not want to return to town, he did not want to return to the castle, and so the question seeped out of her mind and rolled down her tongue.

“David…” She began. “Why did you come out here. Where were you planning on going?”

“Home…” The boy mumbled back. “I thought that maybe-” He paused, looked to the unicorn with an estranged gaze and soon shook the thoughts away. “No, never mind.”

“Don’t you back out of this now, not after we just beat the shit out of each other!” Starlight stood, rounding to the boy’s front and displaying a free hoof to his face. “Look at this, is this my blood or yours? You’re right, I can’t quite tell them apart either, but don’t you see? That’s the point! I don’t know how many times the average pony gets to have a brawl with an alien from another world by the lake-side in the dead of night, but it certainly can’t be more than zero. That makes us above average, that makes us special, don’t you agree?” She didn’t give the boy much time to respond as she leaned closer, eyes twinkling and pupils dancing. “You and I, we’re like brother and sister now.”

David slowly crab-walked backwards, if only to gain some breathing space, and looked upon the mare appalled yet intrigued. “I think I get you now.” His facial muscles revealed all the fear, yet his eyes said nothing but interest. “Now I know why you keep following me, no matter what.”

“What?”

“You’re a psychopath.” David answered.

Every bit of her mind and body froze, save for the intrusive, unrelenting thoughts of her past swarming their way back into the mare’s brain. The days spent in the village in the desert were like memories now shared, almost as if the boy knew exactly what he was talking about, and it frightened her so, if only a little. The unicorn knew now that retaliation would only reveal denial, and denial a long, bumpy road to admittance and confession. Instead, almost purely out of instinct, the pony looked to bargain.

“And…what kind of psychopath doesn’t throw their belongings together, goes walking out in the middle of the night, heading straight into the Everfree forest?”

David’s eyes shrunk at the mere mention of the wooded enigma a fair distance ahead. Bingo. Starlight concluded.

The boy elicited a snicker and dropped his hands to his sides. “Alright, you caught me.” He fessed. “I guess I was heading back to the forest, to the old castle that is, to find some answers on my own. My question to you is, what do you plan to get out of it?”

“The ruins,” Starlight stated. “You’re going to take me there.”

“On one condition.” David held up a finger. “You and I will never speak of this to anyone, to anypony, ever.” He nodded. “Deal?”

Starlight grinned, spat in her hoof, and held it out for him to shake. “Call it a bargain.”

“Your hoof’s already got our blood, sis.” David mused. “You don’t gotta spit on it…”

The unicorn huffed with irritation and brought the boy’s hand forward with a flicker of her magic. There in the night beside the lake they shook, hoof in hand, and the two gazed south at the expanse of sickly blue and green patiently awaiting their arrival. Both were covered in dirt, sand, sweat and blood as they looked to each other with curt nods, and slowly began their gait towards the forest afar.

“So, can we both agree that we’re psychopaths, here?” Questioned Starlight.

“Trust me, it’s not like I’ve got a choice.” David answered.