The Place of Which We Never Speak
Chapter 1
Twilight gets me a job at the castle, after that her horn is pressed to my skull and saying, "The first step to eternal life is you have to die." For a long time though, Twilight and I were best friends. Ponies are always asking, did I know about Twilight Sparkle?
The point of her horn pressed against my temple, Twilight says, "We really wont die." I swallow what little saliva I have in my mouth and think about the horn digging into my flesh. How quick and silently it could all be over. Most unicorns could only learn a few select spells to help them with their work and those that were a tad more gifted couldn't learn anything truly dangerous. Nothing violent or life threatening. This was a genetic safety for magic users, an evolutionary way to keep society moving smoothly. Twilight Sparkle lacked this safety. One severe emotional swing and she could blow off your hoof.
"This isn't really death," Twilight says, "We'll be legends. We'll never grow old." I shift slightly, redistributing my weight, and she digs her point deeper. I take a breath and whisper her name, hoping it might snap her out of this. It doesn’t. Soon, the building we're standing on won't be here. Soon all that will be left is a pile of burning debris. And all of this was her fault. Her fire water would bring us tumbling. I couldn’t remember exactly how she’d said she’d made it. You take a concentration of some chemical and mix it with 7 drops of…or maybe it was 4…Oh I couldn't remember what the recipe was the Twilight had rambled off. All I knew was that she had made some kind of potion that was quickly setting the building ablaze.
So Twilight and I are on top of one of the tallest buildings in Canterlot with her horn pressed to my head, and we hear glass breaking. The wind is blowing, sending chills through my body. Like I needed another reason to shake. I close my eyes. I should have seen this coming. We all do the jobs we are trained to do. Farming, cooking, sewing. Whatever your talent is, you do it begrudgingly and then you die, content with how your life played out. Twilight Sparkle would never be content. She was trained to crave things that she shouldn’t. I open my eyes and look down, locking eyes with a crowd of ponies looking up. The breaking glass is a window right below us. A window blows out the side of the building, then comes a steamer trunk big and grey like a boulder. It drops from the side of the building that had suddenly become a cliff face, and it drops slowly, getting smaller, and finally disappears into the hoards of gawkers. Sweat drips from my pores as I look at the clock tower. We're down to our last minutes.
Another window blows out of the building, and glass sprays out, sparkling like the dew covered wings of a pegasus in flight. Then a wooden desk starts creeping out of the hole in the wall, being propelled by another explosion that had went off somewhere close by. I watched it slide out of the crater in the wall, turning end over end, and plummet to the cobblestone paths below. Another quick glance to the clock and I'm sweating even more. Another minute had ticked by.
A few more moments and this beuilding would stand no more. Twilight told me once, while she was working on the formula for her fire water, that if you covered the base of a building with enough of it, it would topple. She said she'd be testing it soon. From what I could tell, the tests were successful. This building would go over, slow as a tree falling in the forrest. Timber. I remember her saying, "With this, you can topple anything," and I grimace. Soon this would all be smoke in the sky. The clock catches my eye again.
Thick clouds of black are now billowing out of the missing parts of the walls. Twilight had this whole scenario timed to the second. Only she knew exctly whe the building would go, when this whole thing would simply be an awful part of history. Twilight grins, and the explosions strt once more, this group louder than the last. I picture the building falling, the wood scorching and feeding the inferno, the crowds staring at the wreckage.
"This is our world now, our world," Twilight screams, "And everypony else is dead." If I had known how this would all turn out, I'd be more than happy to be dead right now. The clocks still ticking.
Up on top of this building with Twilight's horn to my brain. While desks and trunks and other such things meteor down on the onlookers around the building. While smoke funnels up from the broken windows and turns the sunny skies to night. She's counting down, her smile getting slightly bigger. I watch all of this and slowly realize what it's really about. I realize that it's all about Pinkie.
We had sort of this triangle thing going here. I wanted Twilight. Twilight wanted Pinkie. Pinkie wanted me. I didnt want Pinkie, and Twilight doesn't want me around, not anymore. This was never about love or caring or any of that bullshit. Love had nothing to do with this at all. This was all driven by another craving, like so many others, that Twilight could no longer control. Without Pinkie, Twilight would be nothing.
She was still counting and smiling and I I think maybe she's right. Maybe we will become a legend, but maybe not. Did it matter? I feel her put more pressure on my head, so much that she breaks the skin. I feel the blood drip down my face and I say, "You want to be a legend, Twilight, I'll make you a legend. I've been here from the beginning." I remember everything so vividly, watching it all play out once more in my thoughts. And then I start counting.
The Place of Which We Never Speak
Chapter 2
Rainbow Dash’s arms were closed around to hold me inside, and I was squeezed into the dark of her sweating chest, which was now covered in a new layer of flab. Going around Town Hall’s basement full of ponies, each night we met over and over again: this is Blossomforth, this is Cloudchaser, this is Rainbow Dash; Dash’s colorful mane was uneven and matted, so knotty in places that the colors swirled together. Her arms wrapped tighter around me, her hooves petting the back of my head
“It will be alright,” Dash says. “You cry now.” From my knees to my forehead, I feel every twitch in Rainbow’s body. I feel her stomach growl and her skin move unnaturally with its newly added layer of fat. I feel her sweaty chest rising and falling with every breath; every shallow unwanted breath.
“The doctor’s in Canterlot are great. You said they caught it early, so I’m sure they got it all,” She continued. “Wingrot is almost always survivable if you catch it early.” Dash’s shoulders draw themselves up with a long, deep inhale, then drop, drop, drop in jerking sobs. Draw themselves up; Drop, drop, drop. I’ve been coming here every week for almost a year now; Every week Dash wraps her arms around me, and I cry.
“You cry,” She says and inhales and sob, sob, sobs. “Go on now and cry.”
Her wet face settles down on top of my head, and I am lost inside. This is when I’d cry. Crying just feels right when you’re in the smothering dark, closed inside somepony else, when you see how anything you could possibly accomplish will end up as trash. Anything you’re ever proud of will be thrown away. And I’m lost inside. This is as close I’ve been to sleeping in almost a week. This is how I met Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash cries because 6 months ago, her wings were removed. Since, she’s nearly given up. Her once finely sculpted body now sags with weight that it isn’t used to. The extra pounds look out of place on her tiny frame, but then again so do the long scars running down her back. This is when I’d cry because right now, your life comes down to nothing, and not really even nothing, oblivion. Take away your dreams, and you no longer feel alive…or want to be.
It’s easy to cry when you realize that everypony you love will reject you or die. On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everypony will drop below zero. Dash loves me because she thinks my wings were removed too. Around us in the Town Hall basement with the donated grimy sofas are maybe 20 ponies, all of them clung together in pairs, most of them crying. Some pairs lean forward, their heads touching ear to ear. Some just touch each other’s skin, comforting one another, sobbing. I peek out from under Dash’s fat. My eyes immediately dart to the bright pink mare holding a crying stallion in her arms. Her face twists when she sees me staring. She doesn’t have scars either.
“All my life, I wanted to fly with the Wonderbolts,” Rainbow moans. “And now-I don’t know why I still try to go on living.” Her words are echoing but not really connecting. My eyes are still locked onto the magenta mare in the corner. She knows why I’m staring. It’s like she could read my thoughts. Faker. Faker. Faker. Super curly bright pink mane, her fur a lighter surgary shade, her eyes huge and blue and shimmering. My back was always covered, the nonexistent scars always hidden. I used a special potion that the zebra witch in the Everfree Forest had made for me, it makes my horn disappear. At whatever meeting I'm attending, I'm blending. Just another broken face in the room. She didn't hide anything.She flaunted her falsities for all to see, she wore them like wore medals. The longer I stared, the more familiar she seemed. She was in most of the support groups that I crashed. And she was always out of place.
When you start looking for these groups, they all have vague uplifting names. The blind pony support group was called Seeing It Through. The depression group is called Keep Smiling. And Sunday afternoons at Taking Flight in the basement of Ponyville Town Hall, this mare is here, and I can’t cry with her staring.
This should be my favorite part, being held and crying with Dashie without hope. We all work so hard all the time. This is the only place I can really give up and relax. This is my vacation.
I went to my first support group after I’d gone to my doctor about insomnia, again. Three weeks and I hadn’t slept. Three weeks without sleep, and everything becomes an out of body experience. My doctor said, “Insomnia is just a symptom of something larger. Find out what’s actually wrong. Listen to your body.” I just wanted to sleep. I wanted some pony to cast a sleep spell on me, give me a potion to knock me out for a couple of days. My doctor told me to chew on drowsy root and get more exercise. Eventually, I’d fall asleep. The bruised, old fruit way my face had collapsed, you’d have thought I was dead. My doctor told me if I wanted to see real pain I should swing by the park on Tuesday evenings. Listen in on the group for ponies who have lost their family members; unicorns who have lost their horns; Pegasus who have lost their wings. Watch them grieve and then my problems would seem less extreme. So I went.
The first group I went to, there were introductions: This is Dumb-Bell, this is Drizzle. Everypony smiles forcibly, like they’ll be killed if they don’t. I never give my real name at these meetings. The little skeleton of a mare named Lemony Gem sat sad and empty in the middle of the crowd. Her mane was fixed so that her broken horn couldn’t be seen. She said the worst part of losing her magic was that suddenly she was rejected by her special somepony. That he’d left her the second she was imperfect. All she wanted was to be loved. What are you supposed to say to that? What can you say?
Despite the overwhelming sadness I felt for these broken ponies, the guilt I felt for entering their sanctum crushed me. Needless to say, I didn’t cry at my first meeting. I didn’t cry at my second or third or fourth either. I didn’t cry for the grievers. I couldn’t. This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away. A copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you.
And then there was Rainbow Dash. The first time I went to the wingrot group, Rainbow dash latched onto me and started sobbing. She strutted right across the room when it was hug time. Her eyes glazed with tears. Shuffling her hooves weakly, she slid across the basement floor to heave herself on me. Dash attached herself to me. She wrapped her arms around me. She told me how close she’d been. How the day she had her audition she noticed the discolored patch of flesh. How she’d slowly just wanted to never wake up. Strangers with this kind of honesty make me go all rubbery, if you know what I mean. I watched her sink lower, tears welling up again. I heard her say, “Maybe I was always meant to be a loser,”
Dash showed me pictures of her with Soarin and Spitfire at the Gala. She told me about the Rainboom. “It was a stupid way to live, I guess,” She says, and she’s crying again. “Living in a dream.”
This was all I remember because then Dash was closing in around me with her arms, with her head folding down on mine. Then I was lost in oblivion, dark and silent and complete, and when I finally stepped away from her soft, fatty chest, her fur was a wet mask of how I looked crying. At almost every meeting since, Rainbow Dash had made me cry. I never went back to the doctor. I never chewed the drowsy root. This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom. If I didn’t say anything, people in the group assumed the worst. They cried harder. So did I. Look up into the stars and you’re gone.
Walking home after a group, I felt more alive than I’d ever felt. I didn’t have a missing horn or a rotten wing; I was the little warm center that the life of the world crowded around. And I slept. Fillies don’t sleep this well. Every evening I died, and every morning I am reborn. Resurrected. Until tonight, so much success, until tonight, because I can’t cry with this mare watching me. Because I can’t hit bottom, I can’t be saved. I am biting the inside of my mouth in frustration. I haven’t slept in four days. With her watching, I am a liar. She’s a fake. She’s the liar. At the introductions tonight, we introduced ourselves. I never give my real name.
“This is for wingrot, right?” She asks. When she gets her acknowledgement, she says her name is Pinkie Pie.
I watch her from beneath the sweating flesh. To Pinkie, I’m the fake. Since the second night I saw her, I can’t sleep. Still, I was the first fake, unless, maybe all these ponies are faking with their lesions and coughs and tumors, even Rainbow Dash. No, not Dash. I watch Pinkie roll her eyes as I continue to stare.
In this one moment, Pinkie’s lie reflects my lie, and all I can see are lies. In the middle of all their truth. Everypony clinging and risking to share their worst fear, that their death is coming head on, like the poison is working its way through their veins. The clock is ticking. Well, Pinkie is rolling her big, sparkling blue eyes and I’m buried in a carpet of fat, and all of a sudden I’m in insomnia distance again.
“Dash,” I say. “You’re crushing me.” I try to whisper, then I don’t. “Dash.” I try to keep my voice down, then I’m yelling. “Rainbow Dash, I have to go to the bathroom.” And there I hide for the rest of the meeting. If the pattern holds, I’ll see Pinkie Pie again tomorrow night. And I’ll sit next to her. And after the intros and the guided meditation, after we share our feelings and it comes time to hug, I’ll grab the little bitch. Her arms squeezed tight against her sides, my lips pressed to her ear, I’ll say, Pinkie Pie, you big faker, get out now. This is the one real thing in my life and you’re ruining it. You tourist. The next time we meet, I’ll say, Pinkie, I can’t sleep with you here. I need this. Get out.
The Place of Which We Never Speak
Chapter 3
You wake up in the Manehatten Train Station. Every start and stop, every time the train seemed like it was turning a little too quickly, I prayed for a crash. I prayed that I might close my eyes and find eternal sleep, hundreds of ponies packed together in the fuselage. This was how I met Twilight Sparkle. You wake up in Appleloosa. You wake up in Trottingham. You wake up in Fillydelphia.
Twilight worked for Princess Celestia. She was her personal assistant and understudy. When she wasn’t gallivanting all over Equestria for our good leader, she was working part time in the castle’s library. Because of her position and good standing with Celestia, she was one of the few ponies allowed in the forbidden section of the royal book and scroll collection. This was a mistake that no one knew until it was far, far too late. She would spend night after night buried in the texts of those ancient pages, reading until her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with black. She would lay sprawled on the floor, books in towers around her, taking note of any interesting spell she could find.
She wasn’t actually supposed to spend her hours reading. Her actual job was to organize the reading material, make catalogues of the books and scrolls and most importantly, make sure that no pony other than herself was allowed in the restricted section. That was the only part of her job she actually did. Those books were hers and no one would lay a horn on them as long as she was there. Sometimes she even hid particularly special books from the normal section in the restricted area, just so other ponies couldn’t get their hooves on them. I knew this because Twilight knew this.
You wake up in Baltimare. I study the ponies around me as I push through the crowd of the station. I spot a mare sitting on a bench next to the ticket booth. Her eyes are wide and she’s gripping a saddlebag close to her chest. Terror is written all over her face. I could see the scene playing out in her eyes. The train going faster and faster, losing control. It tips to one side, slamming all the passengers to the wall, luggage tumbling down on them. The train is falling off of a bridge, plummeting to the canyon below. I shoot her a weak smile as I pass. I feel no sympathy, but maybe the smile will comfort her.
The charm of traveling is that everywhere I go, I get tiny life. I go to the hotel, tiny soaps, tiny shampoos, single-use toothbrushes. Dinner arrives in tiny, one pony sized portions. It makes me feel like I’m a giant in this massive world. Like maybe I could be important. Isnt that a joke?
Twilight Sparkle kept the forbidden spells she’d copied in a huge leather bound journal, her cutie mark engraved on the front. She spent hours upon hours memorizing the texts, practicing the spells until her horn ached. This was something she was never supposed to have done. She was allowed to read whatever she wanted, but only for research purposes. She, nor no other pony, were to actually learn these spells and curses. They were to remain hidden from ponykind for the rest of eternity. They were too strong for any one creature to control. Twilight held no regard for limits. She was above them. Having those powers at her disposal made her feel powerful, superior even, to every pony around her. She knew ways to kill a pony before they knew it was coming. Twilight sparkle was a god.
You wake up in Los Pegasus. I have an almost empty train tonight, so I felt free to sprawl out in the seat of my empty cabin. I look at my watch, and then start spinning the arms around and around and around, time no longer mattering. This was my life and it’s ending one minute at a time. You’re a goddess among ponies. You’re powerful. You’re strong. You’re bored. You learn things you shouldn’t, that have been hidden away, and you get stronger. More godlike. Everyone will fear you. If they don’t they should. Twilight rambled something like this once, while she was practicing a spell, and I shivered, realizing its truth.
You wake up in Dodge Junction. Every trip Celestia sends me on, for whatever reason it may be, I pray for it to be the last. That I’ll sleep and never wake. I realize that I shouldn’t pray to whatever deity is hiding in the clouds, watching our puny lives for its amusement. I should be praying to Twilight Sparkle.
You wake up in Canterlot. Again. How I met Twilight Sparkle was I went to a beach. It was the end of the summer and I was asleep. Twilight was sweaty and gritty with sand, her mane stringy and hanging in her face and she was reading. Her nose was buried in a book with a bright red cover with large glowing letters. I couldn’t read the title, all I could see was that her eyes never left it’s pages. She’d stop reading only to scribble a note or two or to appease the group of ponies who had come with her. She’s pretend to listen to their words, then quickly shoo them away, returning to the mystical words written on the paper before her.
You wake up at the beach. I’m starring and she knows I’m starring and for that instant it feels like we’re the only two ponies there. She looks up from her studies and smiles and shouts, “Do you have the time?” All the time in the world for you, Twilight. A lifetime ticking away one second at a time. I look down at my watch.
“It’s 4:06,” I shout back. She nodded then went back to the book. I starred at the studious pony until she had finally finished and closed the cover hard. I watched her stand and take a short splash in the water, the pull on her saddlebag and start to leave. I had to ask. I had to know what book had her so mesmerized. What words could keep a pony that enthralled. She smiled, happy to talk about her studies. The book was a study on something called The Elements of Harmony. She ranted about the book until the sun had set, abandoning the group she’d come with to talk with me. And I was infatuated with her the way she was with her books. Her spells made her feel meaningful, like she had a purpose. Twilight Sparkle gave me my purpose. Twilight was my god.
You wake up and you’re nowhere. You’re nowhere and it’s perfect. You wake up and that’s enough. Her name was Twilight Sparkle and she was an understudy to Princess Celestia, and she was a librarian at the castle, and she gave me her address. And this was how we met.
All the usual hornless unicorns are here tonight. This was the biggest of all the support groups that I went to. So many ponies that had lost their magic, lost their purpose. This is Comet Tail. This is Amethyst Star. This is May Ball. Hi. The introductions, everypony, this is Pinkie Pie and this is her first time with us. Hi Pinkie.
The group always starts by talking about the accomplishments the members had made over the week. How they had coped with their malfunctions, with the loss they’ve endured. They never say magic here. They never say talent. No one wants reminded of what they can never have again. Everypony gets a name tag, and ponies you’ve met over and over again come at you for a hug or a hoofshake. Like you’re their best friend. Like you’re their only friend.
Before the session starts, the group leader stands, tears in his eyes and announces that something very sad has happened. She says with a cracking voice that Lemony Gem had taken her own life the evening before. That she was so lonely and so broken that she had given up. She wanted to dream forever. Lucky bitch. Everypony had a tear in their eye. They were all emotional, ready to break down. I would be too if not for her. Pinkie. Faker, faker, faker. And she’s starring again with those creepy blue eyes. The word liar was flashing in neon around her head. I can’t break when she’s watching. She’s the fake. You’re the fake. Everyone around you is fake. Except Lemony Gem. She wasn’t fake.
I knew this meeting wasn’t taking me anywhere tonight. I knew I wasn’t breaking. Pinkie was sitting starring and eating a cupcake from the refreshment table. Her gaze is piercing into me, boring holes, and it burns like I’ve been set ablaze. Liar. Faker. You can’t escape.
Lemony Gem was the real deal. She wasn’t a fake. Her mind and body ached and she had nowhere to turn. She was lonely and in the end she found peace in herself. I wanted to cry for her, to mourn, but I can’t cry. And it’s all her fucking fault. It’s time to hug, to mourn the loss of fighter. My arms clamp around Pinkie Pie. The cupcake that had been in her hoof was now pinned at her waist. Pinkie hadn’t lost her wings. She hadn’t lost her magic. She hadn’t lost her purpose. She wasn’t lonely the way Lemony Gem was lonely. She wasn’t broken or empty. The cues come, share yourself with your partner.
So, Pinkie, how do you like them apples? Share yourself completely. So Pinkie, get out. Get out, get out, get out. Go ahead, cry if you need to. Pinkie stares up at me, her big blue eyes diving into mine. Her ears perk up from beneath her mountain of pink mane, her lips covered in frosting. Go ahead and cry.
“You’re as fake as me,” Pinkie says. Around us, couples start sobbing, weeping for the warrior who had fallen. Tears raining down as they propped their bodies against one another. “You tell on me, I tell on you.”
“Then we can split the week,” I tell her. You can have such-and-such, and blah-blah-blah and whatever else you want. But I get Wingrot and Horn Loss. I get Rainbow Dash. I get Lemony Gem.
“No,” she says, her eyes narrowing. She wants it all. She never dreamed she could feel this way. So complete. She actually felt alive. All her life had been a wave of perfection. She’d never felt alive because she’d never had something to compare it to. She’d never known how terrible a pony’s life could be. How fast a world could crumble. Now that she knows where we’re all headed, Pinkie feels every moment of her life. No, she wasn’t leaving.
“Not and go back to the way life felt before,” She says. “No spell, no party, no food. Nothing can make me feel like this. I’m an addict and I this is my drug.” Couples around us are drying their tears, sniffling and letting go. I had to think of something fast.
“Please, Pinkie Pie, you don’t understand,” I plead. “I need this.” Everyone is breaking up from their duos to say their goodbyes. I was saying my goodbyes to sleep. To dreams. Tonight, I had lost a war. Tonight, like Lemony, I would cry myself into an eternal sleep. I looked to Pinkie, who’s head way cocked to one side. She sighed and turned as she started to gather her things.
“Ugh. Fine, okay. You win,” She says. “You can have wingrot.” Rainbow Dash, that blob of misplaced flab, whimpering all over me. Oblivion. Thank you. I smile and I am at peace.
“Don’t mention it,” She says as she trots out of the room. This is how I met Pinkie Pie.
