Seashell (print rewrite)

SEASHELL

Excerpt XVII
From the journal of Sunburst, October 3, YS 1329:

I’m going back to the Seawall!

The posting opened up for applications a while ago and I put in a request for it, but I didn’t dare to hope that I would actually get it. I don’t know why I did, for that matter. Maybe whoever handles billeting for it was just so surprised they decided to call my bluff. I’ve never heard of anypony going back around for a second tour there. Once in a lifetime seems to have always been enough.

Just not enough for me, apparently.

I found out when Captain Dash pulled me into her office at noon today after the morning shift ended. The orders had just arrived at the palace by courier a little earlier. I think she was even more surprised than I was when they showed up.

She stood behind the desk in her office, while I stood in front of it across from her. “Let me get this straight.” She stared at me incredulously. “You actually requested to go back?”

I told her I did.

“Well, Sunburst, you’re an odd duck.” She shrugged and shook her head. “But if this is what you want… congratulations. You must have impressed somepony. I hear the Seawall isn’t a very easy posting to get.”

“Thank you, Captain.” I grinned like a fool. I was just so happy to get that news that I couldn’t help it.

“Gonna miss you here in the palace guard. You’ve done good work here.” She reached up with a forehoof and pushed some papers across her desk to me. “But I guess life moves on. Here’s your copy of the orders. Transfer’s effective in two weeks. Is that enough time for you to be ready? You need any help with anything before then?”

“No thanks, Captain. That should be more than enough,” I assured her. I meant it. Two weeks? Too long, really. I’d probably leave tomorrow if they’d let me. “I’ll just toss my stuff in storage somewhere for the six months ’til I get back. That’s what I did last time. Didn’t have any problems.”

“Sounds like you’ve already got it figured out.” She nodded.

I suppose I did.

I suppose I’ve had my exit from this guard posting figured out for a while, at least in the sense that I need to make one. I just didn’t really know how it would happen or where I’d go next, until now.

The feeling I have right now is a combination of sheer joy that it’s the Seawall I’m going to because there’s nowhere else in this world I’d rather be, and simple relief to have that piece of the exit puzzle solved because I know I can’t really be here much longer.

I know what Captain Dash said, that I’ve been doing good work here, but I’ve been struggling with exactly that thought. It’s been getting harder and harder for me. Am I really doing so well? I can’t see how.

I’ve come to feel that the truth is I’m no good as a guard. I mean, sure, I can see how it could look like it from outside. On the one hoof, I could just write it off and say that my responsibility is ensuring Princess Twilight’s physical safety and I’ve done that, so mission accomplished. Just call it good on that note and not think any more about it. On the other hoof, though, I can’t lie to myself. My princess and my commanding officer are suffering. What good am I if I’m going to stand here, day after day, and just watch it happen? What good am I if I can’t help either of them?

Everypony around would tell me it’s not my problem and not my responsibility, and I know as far as what I’m actually on the hook for, they’re right.

None of that rationalizing changes how I feel.

I keep having dreams about it – dreams of all kinds of places, it doesn’t matter whether it’s somewhere as far removed from everything as the Seawall or someplace as close and crowded as downtown Canterlot. A common thread runs through them: Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash are trapped and somepony just needs to bring them a key that would free them… and I can’t do it. I try and I try, but I can’t, because something I’m terrified of always stops me. They always tell me it’s not my fault, and it only makes me feel more pathetic.

How many times am I going to wake up in tears, cursing myself?

I should say something but I’m too scared. I should do something but I don’t know how, not without feeling like I’ll just screw things up even more. My confidence is just… not there. Not having it is wearing me away. I know it’s only a matter of time before it makes me ineffective in other ways and I become more a liability than a value to have around as a guard.

It’s time I admitted I’m a coward and I can’t be the pony they need here. Best to just stand aside and hope there’s somepony else who can come take my place and do better.

It stabs at me in sharp little jabs day by day to watch them, with the way I see all the little things now.

I have an old seashell I brought home from my previous tour at the Seawall. It’s big, half the size of my head. I found it half-buried in the sand on the beach, long since emptied, battered in the surf and bleached with age. I dug it out of the sand with my hooves. It was muddy and gritty at first, but when I rinsed it off in the salt water of the ocean it shone brilliantly, with opalescent mother-of-pearl in delicate rainbow hues of green and pink over sheening ivory white underneath. It was beautiful, so I kept it as a souvenir to remind me of the wall in case I never saw a place like that again.

I listen to my seashell more and more often lately. When I hold my shell up to my ear, there’s a sound, faint, so faint it’s just barely but unmistakably there, of the place where I found my shell—the ocean on the far side of the wall. The sound is soothing, and calming, and having it nearby at hoof eases some of the pangs of my longing to see it once again.

The sound of that shell takes me back to the lonely shore I realize I fell in love with while I was there. It’s the sound of what I really am and where I need to be right now. It’s a sound that lives in my heart now, forever.

The sound is part of why I can’t stand to be here any more around the princess and the captain. In the softly rushing noise of the ocean surf, I hear them, too. In the sound I hear the silence of the things they’re not saying to each other because they can’t. I hear their loneliness. I hear the mourning song of how life has to be for them because they think they can never have what they really want, not without being hurt again, not without losing everything.

It’s the sound of complete solitude.

It’s the sound of what I love but what they can’t escape.

It’s wonderful but it’s heartbreaking, the sound in my seashell.
 
 
Enough sounds for today.