Dissonance

“Son? Hello?”

I started awake at the noise, and shook my head, hoping to throw off the drowsy haze over my mind. I opened my eyes to see a golden-clad, black-coated pegasus, staring intently at me.

“Do you have a home?”

My heart sunk into the abyss of yesterday, and I saw once again the same fiery blaze, burned into my eyes. I looked behind me to see the very edge of the cantilever city, and my wings turned with me. The guard called after, “No, wait!” Still, I pushed off and dove over the city’s edge.

Yet, instead of verdant fields and spots of color from bright blooms, I witnessed only charred timber houses, and withered brown fields. My breath stopped, and my wings locked. Wind began to stream past my feathers, as I began an involuntary dive, leaving trails of white when I shot through the clouds, and sending cold shivers down my back. Behind me, I could hear wings beat faster. The sound of the air buffeting through and past my ears grew more frantic, trying to warn me of the solid fate below. As the same wind lashed past my eyes, it viciously swept away the slightest traces of tears. The colors below me began to blur, and I closed my eyes.

When I closed my eyes that day, I knew not what I had expected to avoid. The ground was still below me, and my wings still locked. With my eyes closed, I could still feel the wind begin to spin me around and flip me over, flinging me about in apathy. With my eyes closed, I could still hear the guard’s desperate shouts somehow, over the sound of wind brushing through my coat and mane. With my eyes closed, I could still smell the scorched earth and charred wood below. Perhaps I expected the ground to come swiftly, and I would have been on the other side, whatever that was.

The wing beats drew closer, and soon they were below me. I felt a cool metal and a soft coat under me, and I felt my body push into it as it tried to pull me out of my grim dive. The wind started to hit me from the side, rather than from below, and I began to open my eyes. Split across the middle were two fields: one of golden-brown, and the other of blue and blotches of white. The body beneath me shuddered and jarred me off, and I careened through the field of gold, striking the ground which wreaked bitter havoc against my hide. Each time I tumbled against the ground, vivid color was thrown about my view – mostly red. After a good number of skips over the ground, I finally touched down for good, crushing a line of golden grain where I landed. All of my thoughts dissipated in favor of informing me that the hard landing had, in fact, hurt.

I lay there for what I was informed later were only a few minutes. I would always recount them as some of the most confused and pained hours of my life. Near the end of these hours, I heard a groan, and a rustle, with a couple of metallic scrapes.

A voice finally groaned, “Aaghh . . . hey, you okay?”

The words seemed to bring me back to reality; I felt my body again, and realized I could try to get up. I wormed my hooves under myself, and pushed up, gasping at the effort.

“Whoa, whoa. Cool it. No need to rush. Nice and easy.”

The guard came into view, his armor having lost its gleam – and some of its shape – in the dirt. From a few points on his hide glistened deep crimson. He shifted himself under me, and took me sideways onto his back.

I found the breath to make a snide remark at my savior, “You sure aren’t taking it ‘nice and easy.’”

A set of short breaths escaped him; I took them as laughter. He replied, “And you sure aren’t one for first impressions.”

It finally occurred to me that I had been obscenely rude to the guard. Pathetically late to the point where it meant nothing, I sighed, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve never been much for pity either.”

A silence pervaded the air, and I stared at the ground slowly pass by as the guard bore me through the field.

He broke the silence first, “So.”

“So,” I answered.

The guard let out a mix of a sigh and a grunt as he shifted me just a bit up his back.

“What is your name?”

I feebly answered, “Mellownote.”

He snorted, “I’m not sure how jumping wing-locked over the edge of Canterlot is mellow.”

I found no means of response. It was hardly a joke I could laugh at.

Sensing my discomfort, he continued, “My name is Fine Line. I’m a poet – off-duty that is.”

My boggled mind worked out a simple question to at least keep the silence at bay, “Why become a guard?”

This time, his laugh was audible and genuine, “To help those who just can’t seem to help themselves.” With that, he gave a short buck, sending me an inch into the air, and knocking the air out of me.

Ignoring my short gasps, he continued, “Besides, I can’t get inspiration from sitting around in my home, looking outside.”

The black-coated stallion looked off into the blackened area next to Canterlot’s mountains. He spoke gravely, “It’s terrible, what happened.”

I could not bring myself to look at it, and simply choked out, “Were there any left?”

Fine Line shook his head, and my heart sunk. “The same thing happened all over Equestria last night. A dragon or two went and destroyed as many crops as they could, and then left. Celestia is organizing the army, but with so many crops destroyed, we’ll be crippled.”

I could hardly believe my ears. Equestria had not heard of dragons for centuries. Why would they suddenly attack en masse? “Do we know anything about why they did?” I asked.

He shook his head again and said, “I’m not any sort of high rank, but as far as I’ve seen, the ones that are don’t know anything either. It was just out of nowhere.”

There was a short pause, where he coughed, due to the smoky haze that had settled over the valley. After expelling a few black gusts, only to breathe in more, he continued, “This is my last day here in Canterlot. They’re sending me off at dawn tomorrow, but they didn’t tell me where. I figure they don’t even know yet. By the way, you never did answer my first question.”

My face contorted to a look of confusion, then pain as he shifted me about on his back again. “What?” I asked.

“Do you have a home?”

I forced myself to look up at the burned village just half a mile away now. Tears came to my eyes, made bitterer by the smoke, and my voice broke, “That’s what I came down to find out.”

The black stallion fumbled for words for a moment, then hung his head, in almost an ashamed way, “I’m . . . sorry. I . . . I just figured you had jumped over for innocent curiosity. Did you . . . ?” His voice drifted off, and, he turned to look me in the eyes.

In those eyes, I saw something. It was more than just concern, more than just condolences, more than sympathy or pity. In his eyes was a true and honest empathy. They spoke the rest of his question to me, and broke my silence.

“Yes, I had a family. They were all down there.”

The eyes blinked almost viciously, as if to hold back a tear. “They thought there were no survivors. How did you get out?” he asked.

My eyes returned to the village, and I could not seem to pull them away. “I had been up in Canterlot all day, delivering bread. I was just getting ready to return that night when it came,” I replied.

He turned his eyes away from me, finally, and said, “It starts so fast, but lasts so long, doesn’t it?”

I nodded, almost numbly, as tears began to stream down my face. I noticed Fine Line began turning to go far around the village, rather than taking me near it. “Do you want to talk? About them, I mean?” he asked.

The question swirled around my mind, and managed to hit down every last barrier between the grief inside, and what showed on the outside. The tears ran freely now, and I was racked with uncontrollable sobs. If I had been able to see Fine Line through the watery blurs over my eyes, I would have seen his own tears run down his face as he remained silent. I choked to inhale, and gave a series of shallow gasps to exhale. I went on like this for a good hour or two, letting my feelings pour out over this poor empathetic stranger, until we reached the base of the mountain.

We rested there for a while in silence. Fine Line let me off his back, and sat down with me in the grass to rest before we went up. Our scrapes had the beginnings of scabs, and we were careful not to re-open them. Many spots on our body had turned to an odd color of red or blue at the points we had hit the ground with. Fine Line looked no better for wear than I did. Our eyes were red, and the short hair of our faces was streaked many times over.

There was nothing to distract my mind that day. There were only miles of open field, a mountain, and a smoldering village for my eyes, and the smell of smoke for my nose, and dead silence for my ears.

After a short while, Fine Line stood up again and asked, “How do you feel?”

It took a short while for the words to register, but I answered, “I can carry myself. Thank you.”

With that, I pushed myself up, and began to walk up the mountain. He followed me, always staying just a bit behind. “My sister’s name was Melody,” I began.

Fine Line didn’t hesitate. “It’s a beautiful name. Did she sing?” he asked.

“Yes. We both did, but I had stopped years ago,” I replied.

Behind me, I could see Fine Line looking at my mark. “Was it not your talent? Are you better with instruments?”

My head shook bitterly, “No, I was a singer, but I couldn’t sing.”

His face scrunched up in confusion, “What? Why not?”

Hefting myself up a bit of a ledge on the trail up the mountain, I answered, “I just couldn’t. There were no words. It really hurt Melody not to have a partner.”

Fine Line climbed up the same ledge, showing far more ease in the act, and grunted, “Umph . . . I’m sorry. Do you have . . . ugh . . . any idea why?”

Grimly, I answered, “I guess I stopped after my father died.”

My companion hung his head low and stared at the ground. He began to shuffle a small rock along with us, unable to respond. Both of us had drank a fresh cup of cold reality that day, and while I would hardly call it a likeable experience, it forges bonds that years of friendship could never create.

In the silence, I could hear the breeze whistle through my ears. I began to pay more attention to the scenery again. On the side of the mountain that we were on, I could no longer see the village. There was only a bright and beautiful view of the valley. There were miles of green grass, ringed by a variety of mountains and hills. Wildflowers still bloomed. Small animals still scurried, shaking the grass ever-so-slightly more than the wind.

How could life look so beautiful on this day? Did it not know anything beyond the present? Did it not realize the souls it had taken and scarred only the day before? Was life even in control of itself?

Fine Line broke my reverie, “So, what happens now?”

“What do you mean?”

He continued, “What about the future? What are you going to do when we get up there?”

I looked forlornly up to the city on the mountain. I had no family or friends there. I couldn’t join the army. I was not any sort of fighter. Nobody needed a singer during a war, much less a singer that couldn’t sing. “Maybe I’ll bake. My parents were bakers,” I finally replied.

The guard shook his head, “Not with the wheat fields burned down, you won’t.”

I sighed; he was right. Defeated, I returned, “I suppose I’ll just take life as it comes. Maybe move to some other city and work at a factory.”

He nodded this time, “That may not be a bad idea. Canterlot doesn’t really have any factories, and you sure aren’t in any condition to go out and fight those dragons with me. In fact, we’ll probably be saying our farewells once we get up there.”

The truth, I think, has always been something of an antagonist to me. It waits for a moment of weakness, and brings me out into the light, naked and squirming, and blinds me with its supposedly-enlightening radiance. Just above, the sun’s own radiance was just passing the climax of its journey through a hazy sky. It had been a very long morning, and I felt that those ahead of me would be just as long. It was just one more brutal truth that had to be accepted.

It occurred to me that I had never taken the mountain path before. My parents would rarely take it when they had a large shipment to deliver, but they never took me along. Perhaps under other circumstances, I might have enjoyed nature for what it was: something beautiful.

I may have even tried to sing.

Fine Line spoke, “I wish we had more time to learn about each other. We could be great friends.”

This truth, out of all of them, was rather comforting, but bitter to the taste. The operative word was “could.” Soon enough, I would be alone again. I suddenly wished for this climb to last so much longer, despite my aching body. Yet, as soon as the thought formed itself, upper Canterlot’s shadow fell down on the trail. We were not far from the colorful city. I peered over the edge to see just how high we had climbed, and it made me dizzy to be so high up, yet planted firmly on ground.

My friend continued, “It gets better, you know.”

I stopped and turned around, “How? Nothing changes.”

He answered, continuing in front of me, “You will get stronger.”

I moved to follow him now, “That’s hardly any consolation.”

He returned, “As I said, I’ve never been keen on pity. You were ready to die today. I saw it when you closed your eyes while you were falling. I’ve felt the same before, and I helped you. Now look at yourself. You’re walking on your own again, thinking about the future, not just how much it hurts now. I’ve helped you do in one day what took me many months to do.”

And just like that, truth struck at me again, knocking me back on my hind legs. I asked, “What was all of that, then? You cried just like me.”

He craned his neck to face me while he walked, “Sometimes, we have to remember the past, and it hurts us when something reminds us of it. I remembered my past so I could walk you through this day, and prepare you to walk by yourself tomorrow.”

“Was it all some sort of façade, then, just to cheer me up?” I stammered.

He laughed a bit, “Don’t worry yourself with that kind of thinking. Everything I did for you today was straight from my heart. Now, though, with our paths readying to part, I’m here to teach you how to stand alone.”

As if on cue, we turned one last stony corner to see the path leading straight into the city. Fine Line continued, “Just do me one favor, Mellownote: do not remember me for our parting today. When you dived off that ledge today, you took me down a path I never thought I would walk down again.”

The mountain path became a road. Fine Line was beginning to seem miles away now, and yet I could see him; he was only a few feet away.

He went on, “I wish I could see your future. Somewhere in your way is a happy ending, Mellownote. I hope I get to hear about it. Maybe I’ll write a poem.”

Colorful, whimsical buildings began to pass by us. It was so unfair.

“Always remember me, Mellownote.”

I was shivering. The sky turned a bright hue of reddish orange as the sun’s journey was almost complete. Fine Line’s eyes still sparkled with that same empathy, and I knew mine were glazed with fear. “Please . . . don’t go," I whispered, "I’m not ready.”

“Be brave, Mellownote. You know I can’t stay.”

I watched as the black stallion, coated in slightly dented armor, walked down the street. The sky turned from bright red to a deep and star-speckled blue. I was alone.