Mirror: Book I - Mind

Every little filly and colt frolicked and pranced in the field next to the schoolhouse, laughing and teasing all the while as the sun shone generously that early afternoon, a nip and shiver of a breeze passing through the valley. Everypony danced and played, skipped and trotted, hopped and nodded. Everypony…except for the little girl sitting all alone, staring upon the scene as though it were a whole other planet to her. It may as well have been.

Unknowingly, she burdened two pairs of eyes upon her form from afar, one foreign and the other familiar. Miss Cheerilee eyed her students carefully for a moment more before giving more proper attention to the boy sitting next to her. The school teacher of the house delivered a saddened sigh as she turned to the human with an almost apologetic gesture.

“I’m not sure what the Apples have told you yet, but I’m almost certain their story is the same as mine.” Her eyes glazed over her student. “Demeaning it may be to say, Apple Bloom is a hollow husk of her former self now. She’s just…not there.”

David said nothing, only his quiet acknowledgment gave answer to the teacher’s qualms.

“She doesn’t listen in class, she hardly talks, hardly eats…” The mare shook her head, struggling to continue. “As I’d put it, that bloom in her eyes has all but wilted away.”

It was David’s turn to elicit a sigh of his own, almost as though he were frustrated with himself at the outcome of such events. Quickly remembering his company, he turned with the attempt to utter some words of condolence, assistance, or even encouragement. But what could he say now? What could he do? The situation had been resolved only for it to be turned on its head, as though an hourglass had been turned back seconds before the last of its grains could reach the bottom. In his thought and doubt, something caught his eye laying in the middle of the yard.

“What’s that?” He pointed curiously.

Cheerilee glanced over and struggled to hold back yet another roll of her eyes. “It’s her bow. Y’know, the one she puts in her mane?” The teacher explained. “She keeps taking it off and just leaves it laying around. Celestia knows she can’t help it, but I think it’d be better if I were to hold onto it from now on.”

David was the first to approach the little accessory laying in the grass, scooping it up in his palms as he looked back to the mare. “Have you tried giving it back to her?” He asked.

“I don’t see how much that would help, considering she struggles to remember her own name.” She held out a hoof. “I’ll keep it in my desk from now on.”

“Of course, if you’d be willing to let me try something first?” David attempted.

Alas, the mare shook her head. “Please, I don’t want to start beating around the bush. I think that the best thing we can do for her now is to leave her be.”

But David was persistent. “To be honest, I don’t think I’ll be able to rest until I try talking to her.” He looked on with intent. “Please, Miss Cheerilee. Just this once?”

The restlessness in her eyes grew all the more as she stared at the boy holding the little hair bow in his hands. She passed a glance over to Apple Bloom sitting alone, and let a long, shaky breath of dread-filled air escape her lungs before nodding back to the boy, stiff and reluctant.

“Alright.” She settled. “But make it short, recess will be over soon.”

It’s not much of a recess for her anyways. David grumbled within his mind, slipping the bow into one hand and hiding it behind his back as he fell into a casual saunter.

His eyes carried across the grass and over to the playground equipment where the children pranced and played. The familiar hues of white and orange briefly filled his eyes before he trained his sights back to the girl sitting alone. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had already spent hours with an unresponsive filly both in class and outdoors, and the two huddled together to watch closely in wonder of the what the boy might attempt. Before he knew it, he was upon the little pony, a smile forced over his lips. Apple Bloom turned her head, nonchalant as ever, scanning the strange, pink-skinned creature before her with bored, expressionless eyes.

“How come you’re sitting all alone?” He asked, innocent as ever.

The pony stared, and shrugged.

“Would you like me to sit with you?” He tried.

Silence, and then a nod. David smiled brighter as he calmly took his seat next to her, gazing across the yard and to the green hills in the distance along with her. She hadn’t even so much as flinched when the boy approached her, and it made him wonder just what exactly could be going on inside that head of hers. Her “thousand-yard-stare” made him have his doubts.

“The other kids don’t want to sit with me because they’re trying to be nice.” Apple Bloom finally spoke, meticulous and slow. Her voice felt scratchy and rigid, so much so that the boy would never have recognized it.

“They’re all your friends, Apple Bloom.” The boy tried. “You know they mean well.”

“I don’t think I know anything anymore…” She sulked and hung her head, that hollow gaze of hers beginning to glisten.

Easy does it. The boy reminded himself. It was like trying to pick weeds out of a garden, the frail attempt at maintaining its original beauty a destructive attempt at best. Thus, he sought for a distraction of some sort.

“I know it may be tough for you, but if you can think of the one thing that’ll make you the happiest pony alive, what would it be?” He asked her.

Apple Bloom calmly lifted her gaze from the grass and stared at her former friends sitting idly across the yard. She blinked and looked back up to the boy. “Being with my friends again.” She said.

“Well, there they are.” He gestured forward. “Why don’t you go play with them?”

“Because I’m not their friend.” She explained quietly. “I mean, I’m not Apple Bloom anymore. She must have been a wonderful pony to talk to. She had a lot of friends, a lot of family. She was kind, smart and brave. At least…that’s what everypony’s been telling me about her.” She sulked again, eyeing the earth. “Everypony wants me to be like Apple Bloom again, but I don’t know how.”

“Do you recognize this?” And he swiped the hair bow from behind his back, presenting it to the little filly.

The apple filly eyed the piece slowly and delicately, but not a hint of curiosity glazed over her sights. She looked to the boy and served another shrug.

“This is the little red bow you always tied into your mane.” He recalled. “Anypony could spot you from a mile away. Not only that, but it always added a certain charm to your character.”

Apple Bloom weakly lifted the accessory in her hooves, glossing it over with another bored once-over.

“I’ll bet as soon as you put that back on, you’ll be right as rain.”

“Rain falls down, not right.” Apple Bloom reminded.

David blinked. “Right…”

A moment of anticipation passed before the filly swept the piece above her head and fixed the stark red ribbon beneath the strands of her hair. She forced a smile past her tightened lips, which came off as more of a strange expression of pain, and in that moment the breeze blew by. The wind kicked and swept the bow from the little filly’s hair, landing back down onto the grass with a defeated puff. The filly frowned again, looking up to the human apologetically.

“I realize what it is you’re trying to do, and I appreciate your effort, sir.” Apple Bloom rose from the bench and sauntered over to her ribbon, picking it up with her mouth as she turned and laid it back into David’s palms. “But I just don’t think it’s meant to be.”

“Apple Bloom…” Was all the boy could think to say.

Without a single goodbye, the filly turned once again and lumbered off in the direction of the schoolhouse. Cheerilee had been watching from afar, whom gave the boy a sorry stare before trotting after the little pony to look after her. The slump in his shoulders grew heavy, his rump glued to the bench as the motivation to stand and chase after her had all but left him now. David took his eyes skyward and watched the clouds roam by, wondering now what he might do next, or if there were even any options to begin with. Of course there was a way. There always had to be a way.

“Don’t feel bad.” A little voice arrived. “Everypony else has tried just as hard.”

“Dinky?” The boy turned, happy and surprised.

“I know, it’s unfair, but maybe this is the way things were supposed to turn out.” The little unicorn gave her thoughts. “Weird as that might sound, I guess it’s just the way I feel.”

“Well, I haven’t forgotten what you told me at the lake.” David reminded.

“What’s that?”

“Things don’t appear out of thin air unless they have a special purpose.” He recited, looking back across the landscape. “Maybe this was supposed to happen for a reason? For whatever reason that old bastard let this happen…I dunno. He was never straight with me to begin with.” Blinking with realization, he gave the unicorn an innocent, nervous grin and patted her mane. “Ehehe, I probably wasn’t supposed to say that around you. Promise you won’t tell your teacher?”

Dinky looked up with a grin of her own. “Sis and I say bad words all the time.” She giggled. “When mom’s not around, of course.”

“When I was your age I was cussing like a sailor.” He laughed this time. “I suppose its better to get it all out now rather than later, huh?”

“Yeah.” The little pony giggled again. “I guess so.”

The breeze picked up once more, the harsh sting of the cold needling beneath their pelts as they shivered with the reminder of the changing of the season, and the ever so slow changing of the time. David and Dinky sat and watched as the world roamed by, day after day, hour after hour and minutes down to the seconds. It was only the seconds that had ever made up the little moments in everyone’s life. Each and every second was a moment lived, and a moment remembered. A moment of simply being…alive. Existent. Human

“I’m afraid.” Dinky spoke, quietly and suddenly.

David stopped, gazing over her form with the intent to listen.

“I’m afraid to find out what the future is like.” She continued. “I know that someday I’ll get my cutie mark, I always knew I would. But I’m afraid to find out what that day will entail. I’m even afraid to find out what kind of cutie mark I’ll get…”

The boy crossed her a knowing glance, and went to rub the scar over his chest. It still stung, it still hurt, but in a strange way the pain was giving him a notion of reassurance. Credibility. Realism.

“The only reason we fear something is because we don’t know what it is.” He spoke from experience. “That’s just our mind’s way of reacting to something it can’t fully understand.”

Dinky blinked and looked up to the boy hopefully, and from this he knew to continue.

“But that doesn’t mean it’s going to stop you.” He said. “You can take matters into your own hands. You can build, you can prepare. Although this world may be unpredictable, our will to go up against it is proof enough that we can change the future.”

Dinky blinked again, twice, chuckling with a hint of surprise. “Where was that during your presentation at the schoolhouse?”

He laughed and brushed his hair. “I only get those kind of speeches once a month. Don’t go spending it all in one place.”

Miss Cheerilee pranced back out into the school yard to call her children back to the building, each of her students assuming their lineup in single file as they put their energy to rest and trotted up the stairs leading to the school’s front door. Dinky watched them for a moment knowing she would have to join them soon, and so she turned back to the boy with a final regard.

“Do you think Apple Bloom will get better soon?” She asked him longingly. “I know I was pretty nasty to her in the past, both her and her friends, but I hate to see her like this.”

“Call it my mission.” He raised a thumb. “I just need you to do a favor for me. Make amends with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, and look out for Apple Bloom for me. You think you can do that?”

A surge of confidence swelled within the young pony as she nodded and smiled with reassurance. It gave the boy a tinge of hope, and he held out his fist for her hoof to meet with a bump. David sprung from the bench and gave a holler and a wave over his shoulder as he jogged for the village in the distance. Moments later, Dinky turned to find that the entirety of her class had all but disappeared back into the building, and only her teacher stand in their wake, staring down the young unicorn with a grim expression. Fearing that punishment was ahoof, the student shunned herself and stumbled up to the teacher with apologetic eyes, but something in the older mare’s tone felt oddly distraught. Dinky looked up, and the familiar sight of a gray, blonde pegasus stood by her side.

“Mom?” She stared with dismay.

“I’m very sorry, Dinky, but it appears that you’ll have to leave school early today.” Cheerilee explained.

Why be sorry? If anything this is good news. The little unicorn thought a moment. Oh no, am I being expelled?!

“Mom, what’s going on?” She questioned fearfully. “Did I not study hard enough? Did I fail another test? I’ll do better, I promise-!”

“It’s not that, little one.” Derpy approached carefully, eyeing her daughter with misaligned, sorrowful eyes. “It’s Amy…”