The Devil's Advocate

Chapters

Daily He Labors
Two Worlds Collide
Questions Asked
I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream
For Ice Cream
The Cathedral
Through Daemeon's Eyes
Warrun
Confessions
Interrogation
Out of Darkness
Shattered Lives
Light
Homecoming
Making War
Finding Faith
Lives That Mock Each Other
Painful Realizations
Questions Answered

Daily He Labors

Daemeon’s footsteps satisfied him. It was not that he walked but what he walked upon. Every step produced a satisfying crunch that said much about where he was and what time of the year it was. The season assaulted his senses as he tread down the disheveled sidewalk. He could feel the chill, the breeze biting to the bone through his thin jacket. He could smell it in the air as his cold nose dripped from the lack of humidity, and could see it clearly in the oranges, yellows, and reds that shifted and shuffled all around in the trees. Mostly though, he knew the season for its sounds. They were almost pleasant, almost. There was no other time of the year when every one of his steps could be accompanied by the reverberations of leaves being crunched in symphony. Daemeon believed the sound of crunching leaves spoke the most about the nature of the seasons. The sound was that of death.

Leaves always start a year in brilliant green. They give the world a seeming vibrancy that lasts through Spring and Summer, giving depth and importance to the trees they adorned. When their death becomes imminent, they flash so many different colors as their chlorophyll breaks down. Men, being so ocular in nature, linked leaves to the season when reality sets in. They please so many to change color, but they are not truly cheery. They are rather a harbinger of what is to come.

Daemeon might have found humor in the fact that men would take cheer in what is a foretelling of the bleakness to come if it were not nature’s active way of deluding men. Daemeon did not fret over their ignorance though. Nature’s lie could not be kept up. Eventually all of the leaves would turn brown and fall. After falling, they would leave behind the shells of the trees with branches extending to nothingness. After falling, they would land in chaos wherever they happened to be. Such was the case of the leaves under Daemeon’s feet. If he had found any pleasure in leaves, it would have been the sound of them being crunched. The sound echoed their death, the death of the season, and the bitter winter ahead. In life they had been great deceivers, but in death they showed, as it were, their true colors.

It was in that fading autumn season that Daemeon walked. His destination was not very clear to anybody, even to himself. Maybe he would go to the library. He thought also that he might go out to eat. He might also go out and find some money. He was running low again. He sighed as that thought struck him. He was always low on money. Even when he had a lot of money, it was never enough to do what he felt needed to be done. He was steadfast though, and did not despair. He had learned a long time ago to work with whatever he happened to have.

As he went on his way, he happened to walk past a graveyard. It was not really a random happening as he often walked past that graveyard to get to the city at large, but something was different today that made him take notice of the large field with hundreds of headstones, many of varying shapes and sizes. He noticed that there was a lone figure bent over one of the stones further into the graveyard.

It was the case for Daemeon that he was frequently given to pursuing even mild curiosities that came his way. This was the way he learned things after all, and learning anything he could about anything was very useful in his endeavors. He stopped his walking and contemplation of the leaves and considered the figure as best he could. It was a few hundred feet off, but Daemeon gathered that it must be some child by its size. A lone child in a graveyard on a chilly autumn day was curiosity enough to move him to action.

He left the sidewalk and very casually stepped over the squat fence that surrounded the graveyard. It was morning and the grass soaked his loafers in dew as he walked, but he did not consider it as he approached the figure. It became first apparent that the figure was a small girl. With the dewy grass silencing his footsteps, Daemeon approached close enough to see her shoulders bobbing and to hear the soft sobs that accompanied the jerking motions. He stood in silence not ten feet away from her and considered what to do. He could not just leave her. She was far too easy, too vulnerable. He knew he could not pass up such an opportune chance to spread his education.

Daemeon opened his mouth and broke the little girl from her reverie asking, “Little girl, what is your name?”

The small girl turned her head suddenly to look at him. She was shrouded in a thick winter jacket with the hood pulled up. In her arms she clung tightly to a small stuffed owl with fuzzy orange talons and black, beady eyes. Turning around revealed a soft and pale face with a little nose and cheeks that still sported ample baby pudge. Creeping around the corners of her hood, Daemeon could see shoulder length brown hair that was stained with streaks of natural blonde. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was red and swollen with the cold and the mucous that had escaped from crying. She regarded him with a surprised expression and quickly stuttered, “Who-who are you?”

Daemeon smiled a very kind looking smile and knelt down in the wet grass and said, “Don’t worry. I’m a friend. What’s your name little girl?”

The girl sniffled and brought a mittened hand up to wipe her nose and responded shakily, “Ma-Maria. My name’s Maria.”

Daemeon’s gentle smile grew wider as he said, “Hello Maria. My name is Allen. May I ask why you’re crying out here in the cold?”

Maria’s face contorted in sadness, but she was able to answer, “Because Mommy died.” She tried to straighten her face and posture and went on, “Daddy told me that it would be good if I visited Mommy. He said that she’s up in heaven and that, and that when,” she coughed and new moisture beaded in her eyes, “when I come here and visit that she’s here too and that, and that she lo-loves me and will al-always be be here for me.” On saying her final words, she lost control and fell to her own knees crying. As she cried, she pulled the small stuffed owl to her face and used it to soak up her tears.

Daemeon sat back on his haunches and considered how to make the best of the situation. She was very vulnerable and there were many different things he could do to hurt her. It was not so often that he was offered a chance such as this, and he was determined to get the best of it. At length he told her, “Your daddy is right. She is up in heaven.”

Maria looked up when he spoke. She was used to her tears being met with dramatically soft words of consolation. Daemeon had stated that her mother was in heaven very matter of factly. She sniffled a couple times and asked, “How do you know?”

Daemeon told her, “I am a priest, Fr. Allen, and I know your mother is in heaven because God told me so.”

Maria hiccuped and asked morosely, “Really?”

Daemeon’s voice was exuberant as he explained, “Yes really. In fact, God loves her so much that he is considering letting her come back to life, so she can be with you again.”

Maria’s eyes went huge as she exclaimed with her reddened countenance, “Really?”

He nodded and said, “Yes, but before God will do that, he wants something from you.”

Maria jumped up from her knees and exclaimed, “Yes, anything. God can have anything he wants. I just want Mommy back.”

Daemeon promptly explained, “If you give me all of the money you have and your stuffed owl, I will go to my church and offer them to God, and I promise you he will give back your mommy because you were so generous to him.”

Maria suddenly looked very hesitant and asked, “Why would God want my money and Owlowiscious?”

Daemeon explained in a very kind voice, “The money will be used to help the poor. God doesn’t really need it, but he likes it when people give what they have to help out other people who are having difficult times.”

Maria nodded slowly but seemed unconvinced of something. She held her stuffed owl in front of her and asked again, “Okay, but why does God want Owlowiscious? Mommy gave him to me. Daddy told me I should always keep him because he will make me feel better when I think about Mommy.”

She was answered by a more serious look and tone, “Exactly. You love Owlowiscious, and to get something you love you have to give up something you love. That’s how the universe works. You have to trust me and give me your money and your owl if you want to see your mother again.”

The little girl nodded and closed the distance between her and the stranger that said he could right the present wrongs. She reached into her pocket and pulled out seventeen dollars and gave them to Daemeon. With one last hug, she also passed on the small stuffed owl. He took it reverently from her and flashed the kind smile he knew to give and said, “Good. Now go on home Maria. Come back tomorrow at this time, and you will find your mother waiting for you. You must be sure to not tell anyone else that your mother is coming back though. If God is going to trust you then you are going to have to trust him too. Do you understand?”

Maria nodded her head sternly and said, “Okay. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Good. Now run on home. I’m sure your father is waiting for you.”

She nodded again and suddenly jumped at him and locked him in a tight hug. She whispered into his ear, “Thank you, Fr. Allen.” Daemeon did not return the hug. He just sat there bearing it until she disengaged and, giving him a timid smile, started skipping off happily away from the grave like the weight of the world had just been lifted from her shoulders.

When Daemeon judged that she was a sufficient distance away, he wiped the stupid smile off his face. He looked at the seventeen dollars in his hand. That was a pretty big haul for a seven or eight year old. He pulled out his wallet and slipped the cash in, deciding that he would be going to have a large breakfast after this. He looked down at the gravestone and read the epithet.

Here lies
Maria Annabelle Slawinski
1984-2012
Mother, Lover, and Friend to All.

Daemeon’s face was set like the stone the words were etched upon as he read. She had been very young. That was the nature of things though. If God were real, that little girl wouldn’t have been robbed of a mother. If there was any real order in the universe, any grand design, that would not have happened, and he wouldn’t have been there right then. Such was the nature of the world though that Daemeon was there to teach the girl the one true reality of the world, the reality of the cruel chaos of it all.

Daemeon brought the stuffed owl up in front of him and grabbed one of the wings. With a great tug he tore the wing off and then the next one. He grabbed the head of the wingless beast and ripped at it until it came clean off. He then pulled a long rip right down the torso so that the snow white fluff spewed out and fell all over the ground. Daemeon helped the mess further by ripping the stuffing out with his hand and shredding the rest of Owlowiscious until the resulting mess could not have been discerned into what it had been. He spread this mess across the grave and trampled it to make sure it would not easily be blown away. He wanted her to see it the next morning.

When Daemeon felt the deed was properly done, he turned away from the grave and made his way back to the sidewalk. He felt mildly contented. She would never again be so ignorant of the world after that. He stepped over the squat fence and resumed his walking. The walking was again accompanied by the season’s symphony. The sound was almost pleasant as he walked, the crackle of the dead leaves. Almost.

*****

He walked alongside the graveyard until he came to a corner where the green of the graveyard as well as the suburban homes gave away very suddenly to a bustling city street. Such was the nature of much of East Coast America that pleasant, quiet residence was rarely more than a few hundred yards from busy roads crawling with angry motorists. The city of New York was no different.

Daemeon scanned up and down the busy road. The heavy morning rush was about over, but there was plenty of traffic to cause some congestion. Daemeon’s eyebrows raised as he spotted his target. Sticking out his hand high into the air, he flagged down a bright yellow taxi. The taxi was quick to respond. Of course it was. What taxi wouldn’t immediately stop at the sight of a tall, handsome man in a dapper suit from Armani?

The taxi rolled to a stop at the curb and Daemeon did not hesitate to climb in. When he shut the door, he was instantly aware of his surroundings in the vehicle. The windows were of a darker tint than usual, even for New York taxis. The vehicle smelled vaguely of smoke and skunk as though it had permeated someones clothes and was seeping throughout the car. Daemeon also intensely studied his driver before he could even ask directions. The man was dark skinned and exotic to look at. His long hair was curly and black, hanging in ringlets around his shoulders. His eyes, nose, and lips all seemed uncharacteristically large and expressed. That was all Daemeon needed to know before laying out a plan of attack.

Before the driver could ask where to, Daemeon broke into a very brisk and heavily accented speech, “Ey mon, ey mon! I haf da business meeting wit da business employah and is very imporan, yez mon is very importan! I oughta get ta mister Lombadee’s for da meeting!”

The perplexed driver threw up a hand and said, “Whoa mon, whoa! We can hurray mon, but I need to know where mister Lombadee’s be.”

Daemeon put on a very frazzled face and threw his hands around gesturing as he cried, “Ey mon! Ow can ya not know where mister Lombadee’s pizzah be? We be meeting over da pizzah mon!”

The driver’s eyes lit up in recognition, and he nodded enthusiastically saying, “Ah mon, yez, I know where mister Lombadee’s be. Hold ya hat mon, we could be gettin a bit bumpy!”

Daemeon laid back and watched as the taxi driver sped his car with unusual avidity. He had a big, goofy smile on his face as he asked hopefully, “Ey mon, where ja be from?”

Daemeon gave a big, toothy smile in the direction of the rearview mirror and said, “My homeland is Jamaica, mon. I hail from Portmore on mah sunny coast. Wat bou you mon?”

The driver looked ecstatic as he said quickly and in his husky voice, “Oh my gawd mon, I’m from Jamaica too! Mah home be Spanish Town mon. How did you come to be in with these yankees mon? Wat are ja up to mon?”

Daemeon’s plan had worked perfectly. In no fewer than two minutes, they were practically brothers. The joy in the driver’s face was clear, that moment probably being the absolute highlight of his day. It never ceased to amaze Daemeon how people trust so quickly. He put on a horrified face and cried, “Oh no mon! You come from Spanish Town? Do ya have family dere mon?”

At hearing the evident concern, the driver lurched around and said, “Ja mon. Is somethin wrong?”

Daemeon expelled a drop of salt water from his left eye and said in a creaking voice, “Did ja hear about the accident there dis mornin mon?”

The driver was shouting, “No mon! Wat happen?”

Daemeon covered his mouth with his hand and whispered, “Dere was a plane crash in Spanish Town. Dey hit da city transformer an caused da huge explosion. De entire city be up in flames mon.”

The Jamaican man’s large lips parted in a wide mouthed horror as his eyes went wide with them. He slammed his foot down on the gas and dramatically picked up speed. He passed cars dangerously as he wove expertly down the roads which were flooded with traffic. Daemeon could almost applaud the man for his skill. Daemeon knew how to drive well himself but didn’t think he could have ever mastered the road the way a New York cab driver could.

They spent the rest of the trip in silence. Daemeon sat back in ease as the car swung him in jerking motions that might have propelled him from his seat were it not for his seat belt. The added speed brought them to their destination much faster than initially hoped. Daemeon opened the door and stepped onto the crowded street. As soon as he shut the door behind him, the yellow cab took off at an alarming speed. Daemeon paused a minute to watch it sail down the busy road far above the speed limit only to be promptly broadsided by a large red Dodge at the next intersection. Another car crashed into the Dodge, and chaos ensued down the street.

Daemeon took in the horrid scene thinking, “It’s going to be tough getting a ride with the traffic there.” He mentally considered where he was in the city and shrugged his shoulders. “A walk won’t be so bad. Besides,” he thought as he brought up a hand to smooth back his handsome brown hair from the wind, “I got out of the cab fare.” That was after all what his goal had been the entire time. He considered absently where Spanish Town was as he walked into Lombardi’s Pizza. He made a mental note to look it up next time he was in the library.

The door swung shut behind him, and he was greeted with the epitome of cliche pizzeria decor. The gaudy red and white checker patterned table mats were as ugly as the were aesthetically original. It was nowhere near any regular meal time, but the place was, as always, packed pretty full. Daemeon was quickly greeted by a large, white haired man with an equally large voice saying in a robust New York accent, “Take a seat wherever you like, son. We’ll be right with you.”

Daemeon’s eyes shifted about, searching for a seat. There were a grand total of twelve open seats and two open tables in the restaurant. Daemeon quickly shimmied over to the smaller of the two near the storefront window. He climbed into one of the two tall seats and picked up a menu that had already been placed there. The menu was only a ploy though, as most of what people saw him do was. He knew exactly what he wanted and had no idle curiosity about the menu. He brought it close to his face and peeked over the top so he could get a better assessment of the patrons.

What was he looking for? Nobody really knew the answer to that. He would have had a hard time putting it into words. What his eyes looked for in the patrons of that pizzeria was the same thing that he always searched for. Daemeon always looked for the means, the means to his end. People were ultimately the means. Some were of more use than others, but they could all serve their purpose in the end. It was all just a matter of how easily he could use them.

Daemeon watched as a rather cute girl with freckles and red hair tied back into a ponytail skip up to him like she didn’t have a care in the world. “She has some skill too,” Daemeon thought to himself. “She uses people to her ends as well.”

The girl stopped in front of Daemeon and asked, “What can I getcha for, darlin?”

Daemeon smiled, he never forgot to, and said, “A slice of the pepperoni pie and a coke, dearie.”

The petite redhead made a quick scratch on her pad and asked, “Anything else for ya today, darlin?”

Daemeon shook his head gently saying, “That’ll be all.”

She smiled big in response and said, “Alright, I’ll have that right out to you, hun.”

Daemeon smiled until the upbeat girl was gone. When he felt that no one was watching him, he leaned back in his chair and listened to the sounds of the restaurant. To most, the cacophony would have been an unregistrable din of noise from which no coherence could be conjured. This was not the case for Daemeon though as his ears could pick out no less than six distinct conversations around him that were clear enough for him to follow despite their being centralized at tables away from his. To him, it was all a matter or paying attention and being observant.

What was he listening for? Again, no one could really say. He couldn’t really say. He was looking for the means, the means to the end. To put it more specifically would be to corrupt the accuracy of the statement. Let it be said instead that he would know what he was looking for when he heard it.

After several minutes of moving his concentration from one conversation to another, he finally stumbled upon what he was looking for. Daemeon opened his eyes to follow the conversation to two large, muscular men at a square table to his left. One was taller than the other and had sleek, black hair that was combed back. The other had a squatter, heavier build with short cut brown hair. They wore work clothes that were dusty, probably from construction.

What cued Daemeon into knowing this conversation was the one he was looking for was a sudden hush that created a new mood followed by the squatter man asking in a lowered voice, “So, how’re things going with Isabella?”

Daemeon gauged in his periphery how the taller, black haired gentleman sighed and ran his hand through the sleek black sheen saying in an equally lowered voice, “Same as before. I can’t figure a yes or no yet.”

The squat man leaned back in his chair and threw his hands in the air with a dramatic sigh of exasperation. He asked quietly, “How long have you been married man? Three years? Do you really think she’s cheating on you?”

The man ran his fingers through his sleek black hair and clenched his fist into a ball before his face. His breathing grew heavy, and Daemeon could just make out his face puffing up with a heated red hue. The man seemed to be unsuccessfully trying to calm himself down as he said in a voice not so quiet as before, “I don’t know man, but if she is I swear to God I’ll kill her.” He punched a fist in the air, gritting his teeth, “No bimbo crosses Jack Vinetti! Not even my ‘Dear Isabella.’” His voice as he said her name dripped with the bitter venom of betrayal.

Jack’s counterpart spoke up, “Hey Jack, buddie, you gotta calm yourself down before you go making a scene.” Jack brought his arms down on the table and resorted instead to grumbling something unintelligible under his breath. The squat man continued, “You still think it’s some guy at Etsy? A workplace fling?”

Jack stared down at the checker patterned table and said, “I’m sure of it.” He sighed loudly and exasperated, “She won’t admit to anything though, and I got no proof that she’s even up to any funny business. That is, other than the being out late with her ‘book club.’”

Just then, Jack received a tap on his shoulder from the same perky girl who had taken Daemeon’s order. The pair sat back in their chairs as she gently laid a steaming pie between them. The squat man, slapping his hands together and rubbing them vigorously, said, “Hey Jack my man, forget about that broad. For now, let’s feast!”

Daemeon relaxed back in his chair and ceased to pay such close attention to his surroundings. He had found what he was looking for. That being done, he exhaled in boredom and strummed his fingers on the table in no particular beat. The pizza was good and cheap, but the place was always so busy that the wait could be painful. His head turned suddenly as a fire truck rolled by the window, alarms blaring.

Daemeon glanced down at his watch thinking, “That took them awhile. They must have been busy with another accident.” His eyes gazed up as the truck disappeared down the road and considered the sky. The clouds were thick and no real sunshine was showing. The bleak overcast crowned the bustling city in a depressing gloom that would only be ended when the residents were graced with the pestering inconvenience of a rain that served almost no purpose in watering the streets and roads other than making the people who went out without umbrellas even more miserable. Daemeon bit his lip, hoping it would not rain. He didn’t want to have to launder his suit again that week.

His silent contemplation of the sky was interrupted much the same way Jack’s contemplation of his wife had ended. Daemeon turned to see the perky redhead holding out his slice of pepperoni, sloppy and cheesy as any good New Yorker likes it. Daemeon crafted his smile and said, “Thank you.”

The girl set the plate down and considered him for a moment before saying, “You come here a lot, and you’re always so well dressed.” Daemeon almost rolled his eyes from the pain of her not just going away. He didn’t let his facade drop though as she asked, “May I ask what you do, sir?”

Daemeon made his smile brighten ecstatically as he responded, “Oh! My husband and I own a charity called the Warmth of Children Foundation. We work to house the unwanted children that end up in the streets of New York and New Jersey. We also save unborn babies by offering immediate solutions outside of the city’s abortion clinics.”

The girl brought a hand up over her mouth and asked, “Oh my God, really?” She stood speechless for a few seconds, tears welling up in her eyes, until she walked away without saying another word. As soon as her back was turned Daemeon dropped the smile and picked up a knife and fork. He cut into his pizza, eating it slowly. He was not so much savoring the flavor as others might be expected to do. He was drawing out the time as the two men at the table to his left ate their meal and chatted. He didn’t want to finish too long before they did.

Daemeon ate and passively observed his surroundings. The guests came in and left rapidly as the venue was one of business and the customers were not prone to long sit down meals. When he noticed that Jack and his friend were near finishing their pizza, he gestured to the red headed girl to give him his bill. The girl was quick to respond with a brilliant smile. She launched to the counter and grabbed a sheet of paper Daemeon assumed was the bill. When the young woman came to his table however, she placed the paper upside down in front of Daemeon saying, “Have a great day, sir.”

Daemeon watched her turn and leave, noting the faint red hue that touched her cheeks. He picked up the sheet of paper and turned it over. It was nothing but a post it note on which was written, “The bill’s on me gentle sir! =) Please come back.” Daemeon caught her eye from across the restaurant and gave her a smile. He folded up the note, making sure she saw him, and placed it in his pocket before standing from his chair. He adjusted his suit and, as quietly and inconspicuously as he had come in, left.

He was again greeted by the busy streets and throng of foot traffic that always seemed to congest the city that was without sleep. He walked down the street a little and rounded the side of Lombardi’s. He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a carton of cigarettes. He gave a grunt of disgust as he lit one up and began smoking in small, indistinguishable puffs. He hated cigarettes, but they were an excellent excuse to be standing still in places where it might otherwise make him conspicuous.

Several minutes passed by as he smoked first one cigarette and then another. His eyes jerked skyward as he felt a stray drop of rain spatter against his nose. The sky had grown even darker and a storm seemed imminent. Daemeon felt himself being tempted into just giving up the endeavor until he saw the door to Lombardi’s swing open and the two men step out. He lurched behind the side of the building and observed them veer off in different directions. Daemeon noted that lady luck was on his side as Jack started walking in his direction. He was having a rather advantageous day.

As Jack stepped near him, Daemeon leaned back against the side of the building and called his name, “Jack Vinetti?”

He turned his head, his sleek black hair waving in the wind, and scowled saying, “Who’s asking?”

Daemeon made a show of dropping his cigarette on the ground and crushing it before saying, “I have some information you would be very interested in knowing.”

Jack waved his hand and started walking away disgusted until Daemeon enticingly stated, “I know the truth about your wife.”

Jack craned his neck around and shouted, “What!?”

Daemeon raked his fingers through his handsome brown hair and explained, “I work in the same branch of Etsy as your wife, Isabella. I can tell you something that you might be very eager to know.”

Jack pounced on Daemeon and grabbed his suit jacket in two large, muscular fists demanding, “What do you know about my wife?”

Daemeon waved a finger in front of his face smiling and said, “Ah, ah, ah! None of that now. We’re in a crowded street, and it would be a tragic shame if you were put in prison for beating up a gentle pedestrian in a nice suit.”

Jack grit his teeth, not letting go, and asked again, “What do you know?”

Daemeon decided to let slip a little saying, “I know the name of the guy your wife's been boinking.”

Jack’s face was red with fury as he demanded, “Who!?”

Daemeon shook his head and said, “Mr. Vinetti, that’s not how gentlemen do business. If you want to know what man has made you a cuckold then you will have to ante up a generous donation to my charity.”

Jack stared Daemeon down mercilessly but received only a vacant and self satisfied look in return. He gritted his teeth again and finally asked, “How much?”

Daemeon smiled a toothy smile showing his rows of perfectly straight white teeth and said, “I think a paltry sum of $500 will do well in my pocket charity.”

Jack swore and flung Daemeon against the wall. He reached into his pocket and grabbed out his wallet. Daemeon was impressed to see quite the assortment of greenbacks crowding the folds of the wallet. Clearly the man was a bit more than just some construction worker or common, blue collar man. Jack held out five one hundred dollar bills. Daemeon placed his fingers over the money and gave it a tug, but they did not move from Jack’s grip. Daemeon gave him an addled look of curiosity and Jack demanded, “Name first.”

Daemeon smiled large and said, “His name is Tony Vincent. He’s a tall drink a water with longer, black hair. He works on the same floor as your dear Isabella. I work on the same floor that they do and caught them going at it in a closet during lunch break a few weeks back. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you ever since.”

Jack shut his eyes and mouthed the name to himself, “Tony Vincent.” He gave Daemeon one last look of hate and let go of the money. He turned and fell into a brisk walk down the busy street. Daemeon’s eyes followed him as he brushed his hands down his fitted suit, working to remove the wrinkles Jack’s fists had worked into it.

Daemeon’s hand went into his chest pocket, and he removed his own wallet. He stared down absently at the seventeen dollars that already resided there, the physical testament to his productivity for that day. He slipped the five hundred dollars in next to them thinking to himself, “That ought to carry me through the day.” He now owned a total of $517. It was a small sum compared to what most New Yorkers kept in their bank accounts. Then again, Daemeon didn’t frequent any banks.

His attention was drawn from the money in his hands when he felt another drop of rain strike his ear. His eyes rose to the sky, and he guessed he had no more than a few minutes left before it started to downpour. He turned to the street to flag down a taxi but discovered the traffic to be at a complete stand still due to the accident. Thinking quickly, Daemeon turned and shuffled into an alley that stood between the buildings. The alleyway was thin and fairly dark in the shadowed cast of the cloudy day. It was in no way foreboding though as Daemeon could see it open into the street parallel to the one he had left. He strolled through, not really giving the path any thought.

As he neared the center of the alleyway, his eye was suddenly caught by a flash of light to his left. He turned to see an even narrower and darker alley filled with garbage cans that separated two buildings facing the opposite streets. Daemeon took a step back to regard the light. It was blue and seemed to have no apparent source as it emanated from a point in the air suspended a couple of feet from the ground. It was small, almost like a christmas bulb, and enticingly out of the ordinary. Daemeon turned his head to view both ends of the alleyway he was in. Nobody was around and the rain hadn’t come yet. His unwavering curiosity stole his determination to get out of the rain, and he found himself walking towards the unexplained light

When he came close, he kneeled down and gazed intently at the bead of blue light. He saw no wires or string, nothing to indicate why it was there. Daemeon only felt his curiosity grow as he nudged closer and closer. When he finally came to within arm’s reach, he lifted his finger and slowly brought it to the bright blue bead. He touched it. The resulting explosion of light caused him fear he rarely experienced.

Two Worlds Collide

Colgate shivered. The mare fumbled around in semi consciousness, grabbing at her mass of bedding and trying to pull it more tightly to her body. She fought back for sleep, but the cold proved to be too much of an annoyance for her to get comfortable. She groaned under her blanket at her own forgetfulness. She hadn’t put any wood in her bedroom fireplace before shuffling off to bed, and the weather was significantly colder that morning. Colgate wriggled violently and muttered bitter nothings at no one in particular.

When the cold became too much for her to bear, she pulled the blanket from over her head and was greeted with a ray of morning sunshine. Colgate licked her tongue around the inside of her mouth, noting the bad morning taste, and marveled at how long she must have slept. She felt the persistent pain in her hoof and looked to see that the gauze was almost completely red with her own dried blood. Needless to say, it was not the most pleasant way to wake up.

When she bored of gazing up at her wooden ceiling, Colgate grunted and sat up in her bed to grudgingly greet the bitter cold day. Her pessimism was immediately overcome with sheer awe and a fluttering terror that washed through her as she leaned forward only to be met with the one and only Princess Celestia.

Colgate’s mouth gaped in surprise while Princess Celestia merely gazed down at her thoughtfully from the end of her bed. She was gently seated on her hindquarters while her stunning and magical mane fluttered in the nonexistent breeze of the room. The pair stared at each other for a few moment, Colgate’s heart beating a mile a minute, until Princess Celestia finally broke the frightful silence asking, “How is your hoof?”

Colgate’s eyes shifted from the princess to behold her bloody hoof once more. Colgate’s cheeks flushed in a mild embarrassment, and she quickly hid the hoof under her blanket saying, “It’s fine. I just had a little accident yesterday.”

Princess Celestia raised an arching eyebrow as she stated matter of factly, “I heard.” She stood up and rounded to the edge of the bed and sat again, this time much closer to Colgate. She gestured to the hidden hoof and Colgate meekly presented it to the sun goddess. The princess took a gentle hold of the hood in her own hooves and inspected it passively. She turned it over, causing Colgate to wince and pull it back. The princess gave her a skeptical and disdaining look stating, “That doesn’t look like the result of any little accident.”

Colgate gazed down and moaned silently. Before she could make any explanation, the princess continued, “I noticed the sign on your door.”

Finally working up the nerve to say something, Colgate asked, “Why did you come here?”

Princess Celestia gave her a mild look of surprise and asked in response, “You really think actions such as the ones you performed yesterday would just go unnoticed?”

“Well, no,” Colgate said thoughtfully as well as with a touch of worry, “but I didn’t imagine you would come talk to me about it.” The blue mare bit her lip and asked again, “Why would you come here yourself? I’m just a regular pony. Why would you want to meet me?”

Princess Celestia’s royal airs dispersed for a brief instant, and she exhaled a sigh that sounded like one of regret. She closed her eyes and explained, “I’m here because the problem you are having is a peculiar one and not easily resolved.”

Colgate drew her blankets around her and shivered again both from the cold and her own fear as she asked, “How did you know about my problem?”

The princess stonily explained, “Your good friend Carrot Top told my student Twilight, and she sent me a message.” The princess paused for a moment and managed a small smile before continuing on, “I’m glad she did. It’s a terrible thing to exist in the state of discord that you are currently faced with.” She sighed again, letting even more of her emotion slip. Colgate could not help but cock her head and wonder at how uncharacteristic that seemed for such a poised princess. Princess Celestia’s face suddenly turned very serious as she said, “Tell me in your own words what’s wrong.”

Colgate looked down, trying to avoid eye contact. She mentally compared her bandaged and unbandaged hooves and thought back to her outburst the previous day. She could not think of the event and her thoughts then without bitterness seeping into her heart and resentment building in her stomach. She at first planned to say that nothing was wrong so the princess would not be angry with her, but she knew that things had already gone to far for a simple lie like that. She felt moved with the emotions flowing through her and, after several seconds of tormenting silence, she answered, “I hate my job. Everypony hates me because of my job. They might not say it, but they all think it, and they all feel it.” She cringed and wrapped her fore hooves around a pillow, squeezing it hard to her chest. She continued, “It wouldn’t be so bad if I could do something else, have a different job, but I can’t.” Her eyes fell and scorned her cutie mark. “I have to do what my super special talent is because that’s what you’re supposed to do. It doesn’t matter that I don’t like it. I have to be the dentist because that’s what Ponyville needs me to be, and I’m the only one who can do it.”

Princess Celestia silently interjected, “You don’t seem to be doing it anymore.”

Colgate winced at the harshness of her tone. She wasn’t looking at her, but the princess certainly did not sound happy. Colgate had no clue what happened when the princess got angry, but Twilight always seemed to spread rumors of the unimaginable cruelties she had in store for ponies who misbehaved. She didn’t quite buy those stories, but it stood as a testament to her courage that she continued to speak, “No. I’m not. I won’t.” Her head swung up and gave the princess a stare that showed all the conviction she held in her heart as she said, “I won’t do what I hate anymore. I want a different cutie mark, a different job. I want to do something that makes me happy, and I won’t stop trying until I get what I want.”

Princess Celestia stared directly into Colgate’s eyes for several seconds, weighing her determination. Colgate was scared, but she would not let her resolve buckle. When the princess realized this to be the case, she did perhaps the most unexpected thing ever. The princess slammed her eyes shut and proceeded to beat her head against the mattress of Colgate’s bed repeatedly while groaning in what sounded like a great fit of annoyance. Colgate could do nothing but gaze in a mixture of confusion, horror, and mirth at what she found to be both terrifying and slightly comical.

Colgate’s silent mirth ended when Princess Celestia’s head banging came to an abrupt halt. Colgate’s eyes were wide with anticipation as the princess lifted her face towards her and asked, “I don’t suppose there is any way I could convince you that you are wrong?”

Colgate raised her eyebrow questioningly and asked, “Convince me I’m wrong?”

The princess turned her head away and stood. She took several steps away from the bed before turning back to face Colgate. She looked sad as she explained, “You have no idea how lucky we are. You call your cutie mark a curse, but I tell you now, it is the best thing that has ever happened to ponykind.” The sun goddess stepped forward saying, “You take for granted the peace and harmony we live in. It isn’t perfect, but it could be much, much worse. An egalitarian society doesn’t just happen. It takes unique circumstances that allow for what we have become.”

She stopped her walking and stood towering over the diminutive form of Colgate who felt very scared but held her chin up nonetheless. Colgate had made up her mind to be brave, to see this through to the end, to taste sweet life again and be happy. The princess brought her face down close to Colgate’s and said, “Your cutie mark is only a means of making your life simpler to make you happier. However, you neither believe nor understand that, and my explaining it to you won’t make you any happier.” She pulled her head back and said dramatically, “I can change nothing about your cutie mark myself, but I can offer you a choice to do something about your life right now. I can give you the option to change things yourself.”

Colgate lurched up in her bed and jumped up onto her three good hooves demanding, “How?”

Princess Celestia’s horn suddenly began to glow a dim yellow as some manner of magic emanated from it. As the horn’s glow began to grow ever so gradually, she explained, “The only way you can change is by going on a journey of self discovery. I can send you on such a journey, but I have no clue where it will lead you, nor do I know how long you must go on the journey. It may lead you to a very scary place, a place you would never have imagined. The only thing I can promise is that, before the end of the journey, you will be changed. I cannot say whether it will be for the good or the bad. That all depends on how you travel.”

As she finished speaking, the magic of her horn brought into existence a blue bead of light that positioned itself directly in front of Colgate above her bed. The blue mare with her white and blue mane and hourglass cutie mark looked at the bead of light questioningly and back to Celestia. The princess answered her unspoken question, “If you wish to partake of the journey then all you must do is touch the light. Are you ready to go?”

Colgate swallowed a lump of fear in her throat and answered with all the courage she could muster, “Yes.”

Princess Celestia nodded and said, “Good. Then touch the light and start your journey.”

Colgate looked back at the small bead of light and brought up her gauze wrapped hoof. She gently touched it, mindful that she had no idea what would happen next. The resulting explosion of light changed her life forever.

Before her hovered a circular vortex of blue light that seemed to slide into itself endlessly, cascading into a single point. Colgate looked into the vortex and felt herself drawn towards it. It was mesmerizingly beautiful, and it took all of Colgate’s willpower not to jump right into it. She pulled her eyes from the portal to give Princess Celestia one last glance saying, “Thank you.”

The princess looked sad and despondent as she watched the blue mare suddenly plunge into the gateway, wondering to herself exactly where it would lead her. When Colgate was gone, the sun goddess cooled the magic from her horn and fell to her knees. The spell was a very taxing one, and she was left breathing hard and perspiring in its wake. She looked at the bed with the mass of pillows and blankets. They looked so comforting and innocent. Most of Equestria looked that way. The princess was glad of that, but even the beautiful society they had set up was not perfect. There were always dissenters to rock the boat.

The princess closed her eyes and felt a tear slip down her muzzle to drip from her chin. It pained her deeply to know what she had done. Never mind that it had been necessary. The princess hated dooming any of her subjects to such painful truths. She opened her eyes again and looked at the empty bed saying, “You won’t be thanking me anytime soon.”

*****

Daemeon gaped up from the ground to where the bead of light had been and was greeted instead by a swirling vortex. The circular portal emanated from a single point and spiraled outward, giving the appearance of growing larger while staying the exact same size. Daemeon gazed in a silent horror. It had been a long, long time since he had felt fear like that. True fear could only come from the unknown in Daemeon’s mind, and it had been a long time since he had come across something he did not know. The only thing that kept him where he was was his overwhelming curiosity to know what he had just opened up. Everything new to him was well worth studying and understanding.

His conception of what was new was blown out of the water as there emerged very suddenly from the portal a small blue and white figure. Daemeon lurched back and winced in pain. He brought his hand before eyes and discovered a large gash across his palm gushing blood. He caught his injured right hand in his left, squeezing hard, and looked back ahead. The shimmering blue portal had dispersed and in its place sat the strangest creature Daemeon had ever seen.

Colgate sat where she was equally confused and thoroughly horrified. The flat and naked, ape face of the monkey before her would have been scary and unusual enough, but the fact that the monkey was huge and wearing clothing from head to paw drove her to freak out altogether. She launched to her hooves and wheeled around to run away.

Daemeon watched her go while he cradled his hand which throbbed in pain. The blue creature seemed like a diminutive equine of sorts though there were several physical differences. The most immediately notable discrepancy was its size. It seemed to be no bigger to him than a small dog or large house cat. There was also the matter or its color. Daemeon couldn't remember ever having seen a blue horse before. He thought, “Perhaps it has something to do with that horn on its head.”

Daemeon’s thinking and Colgate’s running were both abruptly stopped as they experienced the same crippling pain simultaneously. Colgate fell to the ground and curled into a ball, whimpering, as she felt her chest burn like fire. Daemeon forgot the pain in his hand and instead clutched agonizingly at his heart, falling to the ground. They, both of them, laid still for several moments, heaving great breaths of pain.

When the pain did not seem to cease, Daemeon forced his eyes open and looked at the small blue horse also curled up on the ground. He thought, “She has to have something to do with this,” and shoved forward with his legs against the ground, intending to catch her and interrogate her. As he scooted forward, he suddenly found the burning in his chest to be less apparent. With much less effort, he shoved forward again. Every push brought him less pain, and he gradually found that he could crawl to his knees.

As Daemeon ascended, so too did Colgate. The diminutive blue mare rolled to her stomach as the pain disappeared and pushed shakily up on her three good hooves. She turned her head to consider the huge ugly monkey crawling menacingly to her. She was about to bolt again when the creature lifted a hand and cried, “Wait!”

Daemeon noticed that the small blue horse’s expression changed from one of fear to animated surprise. Daemeon’s mouth fell open as he considered her face. “Recognition?” he thought to himself, “Can it understand me?”

Daemeon received his answer in perhaps the most unexpected way imaginable as the blue mare cried in surprise, “You can talk?”

Daemeon’s response was given in equal emphasis, “You can talk?”

They gazed intently at each other, both much less scared and far more curious about the other. Gradually, Colgate slowly trotted towards Daemeon, looking to get a better look at the ugly, confusing creature. She stopped just a few feet from him, gazing up in awe at his size which seemed formidable even as he knelt before her. It was Daemeon who broke the silence by asking in his gentlest facade, “What is your name?”

Colgate managed a weak smile in response to his. With her injured hoof pulled up to her chest, she answered tentatively, “My name’s Colgate. What’s yours?”

Daemeon’s mind instantly shuffled through a library of possible names to use. It had been a long time since he had answered that question with any degree of truth. He could not, however, come up with any name he should use as he had never come across a situation like this and no thoughts of any devious scheme had lurched into his mind yet. Unable to come up with a reasonable name to lie with, he unexpectedly told her, “My name is Daemeon.”

Colgate flicked her tail behind her absently as a mosquito landed on her rump. She sat back on her haunches and asked, “Where am I?”

Not willing to give up such information so readily, Daemeon said, “I will tell you where you are if you tell me where you came from.”

Colgate looked around her and took in the dark, dank alleyway. The tall brick walls were imposing and frightful and the shadowy overcast of the day seemed dreadful to her. It was not at all like the bright Equestria she had just left. The princess had been right in saying that she might end up somewhere scary. Colgate turned away from her ugly surroundings to look at Daemeon again as she answered, “I’m from Ponyville.”

Daemeon raised an eyebrow and asked, “Ponyville, where’s that?”

Colgate felt nervous as she heard his answer. If he didn’t know about Ponyville then she might be quite a ways from there. She answered, “It’s my home village. It’s just outside of Canterlot.”

For once Daemeon didn’t have to fake his confusion as he asked, “What’s Canterlot?”

Colgate gaped, feeling even more apprehension building as she exclaimed, “What’s Canterlot? Why, it’s the capital city of Equestria! How could you not know that?”

Daemeon scrunched up his face. She seemed to be listing places from some country he had never heard of. That she was a little, talking, blue horse was weird enough, but his being ignorant of one of the world’s nations was truly unnerving. He demanded, “Where is this Equestria you speak of?”

Colgate balked. Either Daemeon was really stupid, or she was very, very far from home. “You don’t know Equestria!? It’s south of the Crystal Empire, east of the Gryphon Federation, along the coast of the Green Sea.”

Daemeon listened in awe as places were ticked off as though they were made up creations from some fairy tale he had read. The small mare seemed on the verge of tears as he kept shaking his head to her descriptions. When she finished, Daemeon said very coolly and calmly, “None of those places you just said exist here.”

Colgate stuttered and sank to the ground. Tears started to seep from her eyes and she felt desperation well up in her chest. She turned frantic and demanded shrilly, “Where am I!?”

Though he was surprised by the outburst, Daemeon kept his poise and said, “You are in the city of New York in the state of New York in the nation of the United States of America. Does any of that ring a bell?”

Colgate shook her head and hesitantly asked, “Should it?”

Daemeon nodded his head answering, “It would if you were from this planet. This is the most powerful nation on the planet, or at least it has the most guns.” Daemeon stood up and brushed his coat and knees saying, “If you have not heard of it than you must obviously be from some other planet where this Equestria and Canterlot exist. They do not exist anywhere on Earth. Trust me,” he said lifting a finger to tap his temple, “I would know.”

Colgate’s gaze fell to the pavement as she absorbed the revelations. The princess said she would be going on a journey, but she would never have suspected it would take her to another world. She dug her good forehoof at the unyielding tar, marvelling slightly at the unbroken texture of the pitch. This new world even felt different. Her eyes slid up to the towering monkey’s shoes. They were black and covered each paw entirely. Her eyes shot up suddenly when she felt something grab the tip of her horn. They were greeted with the big monkey’s grubby claws and his curious expression as he asked, “Are you a unicorn?”

Daemeon had read enough about unicorns to recognize one when he saw it, but he’d never have believed they were real without seeing one. He received a great scowl from the little blue horse as it dug its hooves in the ground and yanked out of his grasp saying, “Yes, and I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t go grabbing my horn like that.” She stood up on her hind hooves with much more ease than he would have expected, not unlike a prairie cat, and gave him a quick look over saying, “What kind of hairless monkey are you anyway?”

Now Daemeon knew for certain that she was not from Earth. There was no way she could be and not know about people. He gestured to himself in his entirety and said, “I am not a monkey. I’m a human.” He ran his fingers through his short brown hair remarking matter of factly, “And quite a handsome one at that.”

Colgate stuck out her tongue and said, “You look ugly to me.” She dropped back to all fours and asked, “Why are you so big? Are there more of you ‘humans’ around here, wherever here is?”

Daemeon gave a gentle smile. He didn’t find any humor in her ignorance, but he felt some dramatic effect was necessary. He swept out his arms around him, gesturing beyond the walls of the alleyway, and said, “Why yes, in fact there are over eight million people in this city alone.” In the back of his mind, he added to himself, “Over eight million fools.”

Colgate looked at the human skeptically. That was such a ridiculously large number that he had to be lying. There were not that many ponies in all of Equestria, much less in any one city. The thought of eight million big monkeys living together in one city was too much. “You’re lying. There aren’t that many ponies in the entire world where I come from.”

Any other man would have busted out laughing at the irony. It took telling the truth for him to be accused of lying. Daemeon kept his small smile, not feeling any mirth, and said, “You will probably learn soon enough yourself.” He leaned down and took in her white and blue mane asking, “So, you’re a pony unicorn? Why is your coat blue and your mane blue and white?”

Colgate scowled, not at all enjoying the scrutiny and retorted, “Why is your face hairless? Why shouldn’t my coat be blue?” Colgate was fuming. She didn’t find herself to be very pretty and anything that lended to this view of herself could do nothing but antagonize her.

Daemeon was quickly discovering that, although she was a small blue pony, she had the temperament of most women he’d met. Daemeon felt like he was standing on firmer ground in this situation. He’d been caught by surprise, but he had always felt truth to be stranger than fiction. He was sure that, wherever this Equestria place was, it was probably a lot like Manhattan. His curiosity was insatiate and he could not help asking, “Can I touch it?”

“Touch what?” she asked, backing off a step.

Daemeon held up his hands open palmed before him and said, “Your coat and mane. I want to touch them and see how they feel.” He used the kindest tone he could fake. This creature, Colgate, was something he could learn a whole new world from. He was not going to let her get away. He had to get her to trust him.

The prospect of Daemeon touching her was not the most pleasant thing she had ever thought of, but he seemed to be kind enough. She reluctantly acquiesced, “Okay. But you have to be more gentle than you were touching my horn.” As a snapping afterthought, she added, “And don’t touch my horn.”

“I won’t,” Daemeon promised, kneeling down again.

He lifted his hand to pet her, but Colgate shrank back suddenly crying, “Ew! Don’t get blood on me!”

Daemeon had forgotten the cut on his hand. He looked down to see that the bleeding had stopped, but it was still a wickedly ugly cut to see. The blood had run down his arm and stained the cuffs of his suit. He sighed when he saw that. There was no getting around his having to launder the suit now. Colgate interjected with a worried look, “You should bandage that up.” He pulled it away from her and she asked, “How did you hurt yourself?”

Daemeon glanced at the ground where he figured he had gotten hurt but could see nothing that would have caused him to cut himself. “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I got it when you came through that portal thingy.” He pointed at her own injured hoof which she had pulled up to her chest and asked, “How did you get hurt?”

Colgate slumped her face to the ground sighing and said, “It’s a long story. I’d rather not say.” While her gaze was off him, Daemeon gently laid his uncut hand on the top of her head behind her horn. Colgate grunted slightly at the touch but did not recoil. She was actually quite surprised to find that the ugly monkey’s touch was really very soft, tender even. Daemeon was equally surprised to find that the mane of the small pony was extremely soft. His hand shook a little as he slid it down the back of her head and down her neck until it brushed the length of her gossamer, blue coated back. Colgate felt a shiver of silent delight follow in the wake of Daemeon’s hand, and she was almost morose when he lifted it from her just short of her tail. Her disappointment was assuaged as Daemeon brought his hand again to her head and renewed the gentle descent.

Daemeon petted her one more time, following the full length of her body, noting how she arched her back against his hand. He wanted to keep petting her. She felt so soft that it inflamed his senses. It was a rush rather like seeing an unimaginably large and grand sight. He pulled his hand away though, never having been one too prone to indulging his senses after sating his initial curiosity, and said, “I want to know more about this place you come from.”

Colgate shook herself a little and asked, “How come?”

Daemeon smiled and explained, “Talking ponies, gryphons, a crystal empire, everything you have mentioned sounds fascinating. I make it my business to learn what I don’t know, and this land you say you come from is just rich with the unknown. I must explore it as much as I can.”

“Sure,” she said, “I can tell you about it.” She stopped and again eyed the dark alleyway and the forbiddingly darkened sky and went on, “But could we perhaps go somewhere a bit more comfortable? It looks like the pegasi have a storm planned.”

“Pegasi?” he asked, soliciting a blank stare. “Never mind. I can take you somewhere where we’ll be safe from the storm, but you will have to do exactly as say.”

Colgate looked skeptical again as she asked, “What’s that, and why?”

Daemeon put his hands in the air, gesturing all around him, and said, “I am sorry to say that you have been sent here under without any knowledge of this place. Otherwise you would understand the extreme level of danger you are in.”

Colgate gulped and whispered, “I’m in danger?”

Daemeon nodded his head as a father does when explaining something to his child. He went on, “You see, there is no such thing as a talking pony on Earth, this planet you’ve landed on. You were extremely lucky to have come across a man as nice as I am. Anybody else would have grabbed you up to give to the government so you could be caged for experimentation.”

Colgate was confused and horrified. “Caged? Experimentation? What’s the government?”

Daemeon explained, “Oh it’s this horrible organization of people that controls everyone. They steal money that people worked hard to earn under the pretense of using it to protect them. They make rules that everyone has to follow just so their accepted form of continuous thievery can be instituted with no one being able to resist.”

“Really?” asked Colgate, shocked at the thought of such an entity, “That sounds awful. What would they want with me?”

Daemeon had to think quickly on his response. He had to tell her something that would create fear in her enough to stay away from any other person but realistic enough that she might believe and understand. He decided to go with, “The people of the government are afraid of anything that they can’t understand. Governments go to war all the time over misunderstandings. Some people might be so scared of you that they will try to kill you.” As he spoke, his voice grew louder to emphasize his point, “It would be a terrible shame if you were to visit my pleasant little world only to be captured and killed.”

Colgate gulped in fear and started to shy away from Daemeon taking first one step back, then another asking, “If that’s true then how do I know you’re not one of those humans looking to give me to that government?”

Daemeon laughed lightheartedly for her sake and pointed out, “If I were afraid of you, do you think I would have pet you like that?”

Colgate thought back to the feeling of his touch. It had been so gentle and kind. He couldn't possibly be one of the cruel monkeys he was talking about. She was scared though and completely alone in this foreign land. She could not turn down friends just because she was skeptical. She still had to press him with one last question, “How do I know I can trust you?”

Daemeon responded by pointing out a painfully obvious truth, “You have no one else to trust. If I am not trustworthy, then you can run away from me and get yourself killed or captured. I would count lady luck on your side for bringing you to me instead of someone else.”

Colgate stood weighing her options for a moment before deciding to give in and trust this total stranger. He was ugly, but she needed a friend. “Okay, Daemeon. What do I need to do?”

“Good!” Daemeon pulled off his suit jacket and laid it down on the ground, soiling it even worse. He didn’t care at that point. It had to be laundered anyways. He opened up the chest flaps and patted the inside saying, “We can’t allow you to be seen or else someone will try to take you. I need to wrap you up completely in this so no one can see you. Your blue coat sticks out like a sore thumb.”

“A sore what now?” asked Colgate, tilting her head at the foreign terminology.

Daemeon slapped his hand against his face and said, “Note to self, avoid expressive language.” He gestured again at the coat, “Just get it. I’ll wrap you up nice and cozy, and I’ll bring you to where we can talk safely.”

Colgate nodded and climbed into the suit jacket. Her heart raced as Daemeon proceeded to bundle her up tightly, even going so far as to tie the sleeves of the jacket together to fully cover her head so only the very tip of her snout might be seen and only then if one were to look at the tight bundle from the right angle. When she was completely bundled up, Daemeon curled her in one arm against his chest and said, “You can’t so much as say a word or move a muscle unless I say so. We are going to come into contact with a lot of people, and many of them may be interested in what I’m holding. You cannot give anyone any hint that you are sentient or even alive. Otherwise, they will try to take you and cage you or even get scared and kill you. Do you understand?”

Colgate swallowed her fear and hugged her tail harder against her chest and whimpered, “Yes.”

Daemeon stood back up and walked down to the split off from the alleyway he had entered. He was about to turn right when he noticed the backed up traffic. “Oh right,” he thought, “the crash.” He turned to the left instead, determined to find a taxi. After all, even if he had to be incognito, there was no way he would walk all the way across Manhattan by himself.

Colgate was not jostled around as much as she had suspected she would be. She actually found it quite cozy being wrapped up and held close like that. It reminded her very much of her cozy bed back in Ponyville. She pouted slightly as she thought of her bed. There was surely no bed in this new world that could compare to hers. Every pillow and blanket had been hoof picked with care for maximum comfort. It would probably be awhile before she got a good night’s sleep. “Still,” she thought absently, “I feel like a little filly again with him holding me like this.”

Daemeon worried about how he would keep curious eyes off of his prize. He waved down a taxi and climbed in. As soon as he shut the door it seemed like all the build up in the sky had suddenly given way. Such a torrential downpour ensued that he was certain of his good luck. Had he been out a moment longer, he and his cargo would have been soaked.

Daemeon sat back in his seat and was greeted with a familiar question, “Where to mon?”

Daemeon wrinkled his nose wondering whether good material should be used twice in the same day. The bundle in his arms caused him to refrain himself. “Looks like lady luck is with this guy as well.”

Questions Asked

Daemeon threw open the door to his apartment and fairly slammed it shut behind him saying, “You can get out now.”

He set the soaked bundle on the hardwood floor and unwrapped it. Colgate burst from the suit jacket and set to shaking herself wildly, wetting everything within a five foot radius. Her teeth chattered as she asked quietly and pitifully, “Can I talk now?”

Daemeon clutched the filthy Armani jacket, soiled beyond the purpose of a good cleaning, and said bitterly, “Yes. You can talk now.”

Colgate stooped low to the ground and cried, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just got scared is all.” She looked at the coat which dripped with far more than just water. Her cheeks were burning red with embarrassment as she moped. The drive had been far from pleasant for the two of them as Colgate had gotten a crash course in vehicle inertia.

Daemeon eyed her evilly and demanded, “I can understand you maybe getting a little sick and throwing up a little, but did you have to piss yourself too?” Daemeon muttered a few more words under his breath that Colgate did not understand though she could gather their implications. Colgate hid her face under her hooves and wished the big ugly monkey would just go away. He continued, “This suit jacket was $300! I’m not made of money. You have no idea how many guys I usually gotta rustle to get that kind of dough.”

As Daemeon pressed at her, Colgate started to get angry. She hated being embarrassed. It wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t contain herself after all. She stopped cowering and stood determinedly shouting, “Why don’t you be quiet? I kept quiet just like you told me! I was a good pony, so you don’t have to be such a meanie you know.” Colgate’s interjection was met with a blank stare and she continued, “Now if you would be so kind, I would like to wash myself. I didn’t exactly enjoy my position either.”

Daemeon stood up and forcibly calmed himself. He made himself remember that she would probably tell him more if she was in a good mood. It would be a shame if he had to torture the truth out of her. He looked back down at the little mare and wondered at how she could be so loud for such a little squirt. He shook his head and said, “Follow me.”

Daemeon strolled past Colgate and she followed close behind. She had to trot briskly just to match the big monkey’s massive gait. She meanwhile took in the view of the apartment. She was pleasantly surprised to note several very familiar features including a carpeted living room with a pair of couches facing an empty wall and a kitchen with cupboards and a stove and other such necessities. The only thing that unnerved her a little bit was that everything was absolutely massive in size. She would have to jump just to get on the couches, and there was no clear way she could reach any of the countertops.

Colgate followed Daemeon down a short hallway to a massive door. That is to say, it was massive to her. Daemeon opened the door and Colgate was greeted with another tantalizingly familiar sight. She stood up on her hind hooves and cried, “Oh thank Celestia! You do have a little fillies room.” Colgate burst into the bathroom eagerly but was stopped short when she realized the oversized nature of everything. She turned a pouting face towards Daemeon and begged, “Can you draw me a bath please?”

Daemeon marveled at how large her pouting eyes got. It did not seem physically possible that they should be that big. That seemed a small matter in respect to the fact that the eyes belonged to a tiny, blue talking unicorn that knew how to give lip. He faked a smile and said, “Of course I can.” He was not at all happy, especially since her going first meant he had to wait, but he sucked it up and asked cheerfully, “Would you like the bath hot and with bubbles?”

Colgate nodded furiously and squeed. Daemeon sat down next to the tub and turned the water faucet, hoping that the water ran through a communal system. When it came out hot, he tried to think back to how lucky he had been that day. He had made good on a lot of chaos, even more so than usual.

Colgate clambered next to the tub and put her forehooves on the side. She winced when her bad hoof hit the side, and she pulled it back. The bandage desperately needed to be changed. She gave it a quick whiff and almost gagged. She turned to Daemeon and asked, “Do you happen to have any gauze?”

Daemeon was quick to answer, “No, but I’m going out to get some right after this.” He looked down at his own hand with the ugly looking cut. He would have to get some salve on it to keep from getting an infection. He looked drearily at the window and noted the rampant storm. It was not just rain but lightning and thunder also that congested what would have been a bright and sunny noontime. Since he had no car of his own, he did not favor the idea of taking a cab just to travel one city block to the pharmacy.

Daemeon looked back at Colgate and his mind stopped functioning. If someone had asked him his own name he would not have been able to answer. He was completely at a loss as he watched the gauze surrounding Colgate’s hoof unwrap itself while glowing a soft blue color. Colgate paid him no mind but seemed intent on the unwrapping gauze while showing no inkling of surprise as it unravelled. When the last of it came off, the gauze crumpled into a pile and fell to the floor. It was not until then that she noticed the furiously intent gaze Daemeon was giving her and asked, “What?”

Daemeon lifted a finger and pointed at the pile and asked, “What was that?”

Colgate blinked confusedly, “What was what?”

“That floaty glowing thingy,” he said, gesturing again at the pile of bandages. He gave her a serious look and demanded, “Did you do that?”

Colgate rolled her eyes and said, “Well, duh! Of course I did. It had to come off. I wasn’t just going to rip it off you know.” When Daemeon’s amazed gaze continued she asked, “What’s wrong?”

Daemeon ran his good hand through his short brown hair and asked breathlessly, “How did you do that?”

Colgate frowned and said, “With magic of course. How else would I do it?”

Daemeon considered himself to be fairly rational. Every situation had an explanation. Even if it wasn’t clear at first, everything could be explained. What he had just witnessed could not be explained however, and for Daemeon, that was the last straw. He stood up from the tub and turned towards the door. Colgate watched as he lifted a paw to leave but instead fell face first to the ground in what seemed to her to be a rather impressive distance for anypony to fall.

She ran over to his head and asked, “Are you okay?” After receiving no answer, she nudged his head saying, “Daemeon. What’s wrong? I’m sorry. Whatever I did I promise not to do it again. Just wake up, okay.”

Daemeon still did not move. She noticed his chest was still moving so she figured he couldn’t be dead. She was scared though. Daemeon was the only creature she had spoken to, and as of right then, she was completely reliant on him for her own safety. She nudged him several more times trying to wake him up before she gave up.

She turned back to the tub which was filling up quite nicely. There was a gentle steam rising from it to beckon her presence. She gave Daemeon one last absent nudge before trotting over to the tub and jumping in. She found it to be just the right temperature and quickly used magic to turn the knobs and stop the water. She gathered a huge breath and sank completely beneath the water, reveling in the heat. A stream of bubbles shot from her nose to rise to the surface as she moaned in pleasure.

After a while, when she had rubbed herself clean of all the filth from the rather traumatic day, she climbed out of the chilling tub and shook herself off. She looked about briefly for a towel but found the bathroom to be exceptionally bare. In fact, there was nothing in there that could be moved except herself and Daemeon. She felt her stomach grumble, and she became instantly aware of the fact that she had not eaten since the day before.

She walked up to Daemeon and gave his head a rough nudge. This time Daemeon responded by opening his eyes. She figured that he must have forgotten all about her because he jumped back shouting, “What the!” He backed against the wall and winced, bringing his hand up to his face and rubbing his forehead vigorously. He groaned aloud and muttered painfully, “Don’t do that again.”

Colgate lowered her head to the floor in a pout and apologized, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that you were asleep for a while, and I’m getting pretty hungry.” Her eyes grew large as she initiated her best pleading face begging, “Please? I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday, and even then, I only had a little hay.”

Daemeon completely disregarded the googly eyes and continued rubbing his head muttering to himself, “A little hay? So she eats hay? I guess that would make sense, her being a pony and all.” His eyes went wide as the memory of what he had seen suddenly came back to him. He gave Colgate a fiercely intense look and asked, “Did you unwrap the gauze around your hoof earlier.”

“Yes,” she said, lifting the injured hoof to his face, “and I would appreciate it if you could get some more gauze and maybe some antibiotics. You do have that stuff here right? If you want, I can wrap up your paw too. It looks pretty badly cut up.”

Daemeon looked at his hand. He closely considered the cut running vertically up and down his palm while absently stating, “It’s called a hand, not a paw.” He cringed slightly to note some discoloration. It was probably infected or at least would be if he didn’t do anything about it. His gaze fell from his injured hand to the hoof Colgate had lifted towards his face. He noted with a bit of curiosity that her cut ran vertically down the fleshy frog of her hoof, right above and behind the tougher sole. He could clearly see the dark red gash underneath the downy blue fur that ran over the hoof. It was no wonder she wanted gauze.

His mind still dwelled on what he had seen earlier though and he pressed, “How did you get the bandage off?”

Colgate shrugged her shoulders and explained simply, “You know. With magic of course. I guess I could have used my mouth, but that would have tasted yucky. Besides, I’m really good with that sort of magic.” She lifted her head proudly as she stated with a decent iota of pride, “That’s why I make such a good dentist in Ponyville.” Her pride faltered, and her head fell back to the ground as she corrected herself, “Made.”

Daemeon nodded his head, pretending he understood. He knew what magic was said to be, but as he had never witnessed nor believed such a thing as magic to be possible, that being the realm of ignorant churchgoers, he had no conception of what she might be talking about. He asked, “Can you do some more magic right now?”

Colgate smiled gleefully and stood up on her hind legs saying, “Of course! I’m sorry to say that I can’t do all that many tricks. Twilight Sparkle was the best magician in Ponyville. What I can do, I can do really well though.”

Daemeon gave a kind smile prompting, “Well, what can you do then?”

Colgate grinned cheerfully. It wasn’t often that anypony cared about what magic she could do. They mostly just avoided her magic at all costs because it usually resulted in some pain or discomfort. She ticked off the three best tricks she knew, “I have a special spell that only I know. I can fluoridate tooth enamel. I can also bend light to wherever I want as long as I have some initial source.” She started hopping a little in excitement as she concluded, “But the thing I’m the very best at in the whole world is levitation.”

Daemeon reclined and took in the information, not at all sure how to handle it. To him it sounded like he was reading a graphic novel and some lame superhero was listing off useless superpowers. Aquaman to the rescue and all that business. She didn’t seem to be lying though. She looked so eager and pleased that he had asked that he wondered whether or not this was a talent unique to her or whether there were more like her who could use magic. He was a man of science though and was not completely sold on the prospect so he asked, “Can you levitate something so I can see?”

“Sure,” she said giddily, “what do you want me to levitate?”

Daemeon’s eyes went to the discarded wrappings on the floor. She followed his gaze, getting his idea, and her blue horn lit up with a gentle blaze, shimmering and resplendent. Daemeon watched, entranced, as similar emanations wrapped the gauze, and it rose effervescently. Aside from the light, Daemeon saw nothing which could make the cloth move as it did. Colgate looked intently on it, obviously putting some amount of focus on her work, even if it was only a little. Daemeon asked, “Can you do heavier things?”

Colgate nodded her head and said enthusiastically, “Mmhmm! Oh, yeah, I can do really heavy stuff.” She flicked her hair back dramatically and boasted, “I can levitate almost anything that isn’t too big.”

Daemeon arched an eyebrow as he leaned his head against the wall and asked, “What do you mean ‘too big?’”

Colgate fumbled with her white and blue tail, which was still quite wet from her bath, and blushed saying, “Well, I can’t levitate really heavy stuff like wagons or ursa minors like Twilight can.”

“Who’s Twilight?”

“Oh!” Colgate lowered her eyes from Daemeon’s. “She’s nopony. She’s just somepony from where I live, and she’s kinda good with magic is all.”

“Better than you?”

Colgate scowled at the floor, trying to keep Daemeon from seeing her face, and said with a bit more ire than she’d intended, “Can you get me a towel? I’m getting cold all wet like this.”

Daemeon stopped himself from pressing the point, reminding himself that, if he wanted to learn as much as he could from her, it would be better to keep her in a generally congenial mood. He sighed and grunted to his feet, swooning slightly as he felt the murderous headache strike back at him. He had always wondered a little at how bad it would hurt to simply fall forward and slam one’s head against the ground. There were very few things that he did not actively pursue to understand and physical pain was one of them.

He walked, Colgate trotting by his feet in tow, to the single bedroom the apartment was furnished with. Colgate poked her head in as he opened the door and was again stunned by the sparseness of the set up. She might have just passed it off as some oddity to this new world and creature but the idea of allocating so much space for a bed that didn’t even seem to have any proper covers on it and nothing else just didn’t sit right for her. She watched as Daemeon moved to the high bed and opened a decent sized tote suitcase. After a moment of shuffling through things she could not see from her spot on the ground, the big monkey pulled out a large, plush towel.

Daemeon kneeled to the carpeted floor and unfolded his personal towel and draped it over her back. Without giving it much thought, as she seemed nothing more than a wet dog to him right then, he immediately fell to rubbing her vigorously with his towel. He worked his cloth covered hands quickly over her sides, through her mane, under her belly, down her legs, and finished with a roughing up of her tail.

Colgate, in the meantime, stood as sturdily as she could, entirely confused about what was happening. She had expected him to give her the towel, not assault her with it. At first, she thought she would scream at him to stop, that she was plenty able to dry herself off, but something stopped her. It took a moment, but she gradually grew used to the strong hands moving over her. Even as his ugly ape paws ran over her flank and brushed dangerously close to her more private areas, she did not cringe or shy away. She had always been a little tactile with her friends, favoring some fun roughhousing herself, but nopony had ever touched her so completely and with such strength. It felt a little scary. She could tell that, should he decide to, he could pick her up and throw her across the room, and she would be fairly powerless to do anything about it. She shivered slightly at the thought.

Daemeon felt the small, blue pony shiver under his hands and asked, “Are you cold?”

“N-no,” Colgate stuttered.

Daemeon lifted the towel from her head and pressed, “Are you sure? I don’t want you to get a cold and not be able to talk to me.” Daemeon noted the odd bit of honesty that had crept into his speech. It was, of course, skewed honesty as he meant for her to take it as a voiced concern for her well being while what he really wanted was exactly what he had said, for her to not stop talking. Sometimes, the best lies are told using the truth. It’s all a matter of perception, of getting the person you’re lying to to believe what you’re saying, even if it seems unlikely.

“Yes!” she responded much too sharply. She bit her lip trying to decide whether to be mad at him for so blatantly violating her personal space or just letting it slide politely. A third and rather unexpected option slipped into her head though that took her by surprise. “Maybe I shouldn’t say anything at all,” she thought to herself. “After all, it was kind of nice.” The thought caused her to blush immensely, and she asked in a quivering voice, “Do you happen to have a manebrush? You messed up my mane with your towel.”

Daemeon gave a gentle smile, much to his trademark, and said, “I assume you mean a hairbrush. I’m sorry. I’ll get one quick.” He stood and reached into his tote. Of course he had a hairbrush. Good looks and good acting often went hand in hand. Daemeon was always ready to play any part, but he found that his neutral look of the pinstripe suit with his backswept brown hair, meticulously brushed, to be the most versatile. He could be anything from a rich person to a beggar posing as a rich person. Any story seemed possible when you were clean and well kempt.

Daemeon sat cross legged on the floor and beckoned her over saying, “Sit down, and I’ll brush your mane for you.”

Colgate opened her mouth to explain that she could brush her mane just fine all by herself but found something catching her tongue. He obviously meant well, but he seemed to be taking a few too many liberties. She shook her head and stated indignantly, “I can brush my own mane thank you very much. I’m a pony, not a pet.”

Daemeon feigned a hurt look and requited, “I never assumed that.” He had to pick his words carefully. It would be best if she trusted him completely. He held his arms wide in open embrace and said, “I think you’re lying to me when you say you aren’t cold. I think you’re just worried about what I might do, and I can tell you that there is no need to worry.” Daemeon smiled gently, warmly, and went on, “I’m really quite a nice guy. I’ve never hurt anybody, and I won’t start with you.”

Colgate felt her shackling pride deflate as she shivered again. The cause was twofold as she was rather cold from the autumn day, and the thought of being in ugly Daemeon’s grubby paws again seemed just a bit less revolting than it had earlier. Inwardly, she lost the battle, but she still presented a steely countenance as she said, “Okay, but you better be careful and not snag my mane or leave any twisted ends.”

With a flick of her mane, she trotted over and seated herself in front of Daemeon. Instead of his brush meeting her hair, she felt him reach two massive hands around her hips and pick her up to place her softly in his lap. She might have struggled if she wasn’t suddenly caught up in the suspenseful thrill she had felt when he had been drying her off. She sat stock still as he began brushing. She actually found it to be far more pleasant than she would have thought.

Daemeon did not let any sort of awkward silence fall between them as he cheerfully said, “Hey Colgate, brushie brushie brushie! Am I right?”

Being unable to turn her head to express her confusion, Colgate begged, “What?”

Daemeon chuckled a convincing chuckle and said, “You know. I’m brushing your mane like teeth.” He gently lifted a lump of unbrushed hair and noted, “Your mane looks like toothpaste. Do you have a toothpaste called Colgate in this Equestria of yours?”

Colgate scrunched up her face and asked, “Why would there be a toothpaste named after me?”

“I was more figuring you would be named after the toothpaste. You see, Colgate is a very popular brand of toothpaste in America.”

Colgate winced ever so slightly as he caught a snag in her mane. Daemeon did not tug at it though but rather lifted the brush out and started again, lower and worked his way up. As he did, Colgate asked, “That’s weird. We have a popular brand of toothpaste called Equinate. It’s what I suggest to my clients at least.”

“What? Don’t they use it?”

Daemeon had to stop brushing as the blue coated mare started slapping her good hoof against the carpet while laughing hysterically. Colgate had to take several moments to calm down before saying breathlessly, “I’m sorry. It’s just that I just now realized that nopony probably ever has used it because I suggested it. I’ve mentioned it to everypony every time they come to my office, and I don’t know that a single one of them has.”

“So you work in an office and have clients and such?”

“Mmhmm,” she responded enthusiastically, “I am the designated dentist of Ponyville.” She sighed morosely and continued, “Or at least I used to be.”

Daemeon could almost smell the sadness and discontent in her voice as she exhaled. Daemeon knew how to feed off this sadness, this negativity. He could pick it out from a dozen conversations going on at once, just as he had done in the pizzeria. It was how he knew he could snag her emotionally. Playing on that discontent, he asked in his most genuine concern, “What do you mean ‘used to be’?”

Colgate sighed and said, “That has to do with the whole reason I’m here. It’s a long story though.”

Daemeon petted her back firmly, again noting how she arched her back against his hand. She clearly enjoyed being touched. He went back to brushing her mane and said gently, “I’m not in a hurry to be anywhere. Besides, I like long stories. They usually have the most to tell. How does it start?”

“Well,” she said, gazing intently at the wall in front of her, relishing the feel of the brush as it slid through her hair, “I guess it started with a dream.”

“A dream?”

“A nightmare.”

“What was it about?”

Colgate closed her eyes and her mind immediately formed the images. The fire, the other ponies, the hell black teeth, the horror of a moonless night lit up brighter than the sun. It was all there, and all seemed so disturbingly real. Slowly, and with more effort than she would have suspected, it being the second time around that she had told her story, she related the dream to Daemeon.

Daemeon sat and listened to it carefully. While her story was about something she had completely imagined, it could provide a wealth of insight into this magical world of hers. The descriptions she gave of her small township gave rise to several peculiarities. She talked about her dentist’s office which had fairly sophisticated technology and techniques, but the roads, she said, were not paved, and the houses were all built out of wood. She even noted that the burning library was actually a hollowed out tree. Her world, her Equestria, was really shaping out to be the stuff of fairy tales.

When she finished regaling her dream in even greater depth than she had with Carrot Top, due to his having to question geographical aspects of what she was saying, Daemeon asked, “What did you do when you woke up?”

Colgate hummed thoughtfully as she listened to Daemeon’s heartbeat. During her story, Daemeon had gradually pulled her closer and closer to his chest until he had her cradled in his arms. Colgate found it undeniably comfortable. His arms were very warm, and he was careful not to squeeze her diminutive frame too much. He had even done a good job with her mane. She would have fallen asleep without answering his question if her stomach had not growled again.

Colgate looked up at Daemeon expectantly and asked, “Do you have something to eat? I’m really, really hungry now.”

Daemeon smiled and said, “Unfortunately no. I’ll have to go out to the store to get us something to eat.”

Colgate’s ears twitched and she gave him a critical look asking, “You really don’t have anything here I can eat?”

Daemeon chuckled and said, “Nope, I just ran out.” He set Colgate on the floor and said, “I can go out to get food, but I need you to stay here. Remember, if anyone sees you, they may try to steal you away and give you to the government. You don’t want to be caged or dissected do you?”

Colgate frowned severely, not being the least bit amused with his cavalier attitude, and responded morosely, “No.”

“Good,” he said, standing up and reaching into his tote to grab out his umbrella. He was usually more careful about checking the news and making sure he had it with him. New York weather was a terrible place to get wet in the chill autumn. He sighed as he glanced out the window and noted the rain falling just as heavily as it had before. This time though, he was without a suit jacket. Daemeon cringed at the thought. He only cringed inwardly though as it was best not to show his contempt to his guest.

Daemeon looked down at the small blue mare and asked, “What would you like to eat? Hay, oats, carrots and things?”

Colgate literally jumped at the question. It was just what she was hoping to hear. “No, no, no, no. I want something sweet, something bad for me.” Her chin fell to the floor and her rump wiggled high in the air in what was her most thoughtful pose. After a moment’s thought, she jumped onto her hind legs and clopped her forehooves together excitedly asking, “Can you get some ice cream? I love ice cream, and I haven’t had any for a while.”

“Ponies love ice cream?”

Colgate scoffed, “Of course ponies love ice cream! I haven’t had it in a long time because I’ve had to set a good example for my clients with my perfect teeth.” She flashed her pearly whites proudly and continued, “I’m not really a dentist anymore though, so I can eat whatever I want.”

Daemeon nodded, deciding to debate their peculiar eating habits later, and asked, “Do you have a favorite flavor?”

“Chocolate!”

“Chocolate?”

“A lot of chocolate.” She shook her mane gleefully at the thought and added fiercely, “No nuts!”

Daemeon rolled his eyes, hoping she wouldn’t notice. He preferred nuts. Rocky Road was the ice cream he usually got. He was dissatisfied with splurging on sweet tooth purchases such as these, but as he walked to the door, he could not help but feel slightly remiss to the fact that it had been so long since he’d had ice cream too that he could not quite remember how it tasted. Actually, it had been years. A decade? It made him wonder where the time went. It also briefly made him wonder how old he was.

Daemeon stopped at the entrance of the apartment, Colgate following in his wake, and told the small blue mare, “Stay here, and be quiet. If anyone else should for any reason come in here, then I want you to hide under the bed until I get back. Also, try not to make too much noise.”

Colgate smiled and settled to the carpeted floor, nuzzling her head into her forehooves and said, “I won’t. I promise.”

Daemeon nodded and shut the door. The hallway was empty as he started towards the stairs. There was his good luck edging back to him. He thought to himself, “I suppose I’ll have to get more than just ice cream. This new place should do for a while if I can keep her quiet. Maybe I should just rent this one.” He shook his head at the thought. “They’ll shove a contract in my face. That’s no good. Too much identification. This situation will just have to . . .”

Daemeon’s thoughts came to an abrupt stop as he crumpled to the floor. His hands clutched at his chest as waves of burning fire seemed to scorch his insides. The pain was so sudden and so terrible that he did not even have time to cry out. He wheezed painfully as his body tightened into the fetal position. He could feel sweat beading on his brow as he squeezed his eyes shut to calm the attack.

Despite the unfathomable pain, Daemeon tried to keep a cool head. His thoughts were not exactly concise or directed, but one impression stood out in his mind over everything else that he felt; he had felt this pain before. It took him a few moments to realize where, with his mind so clouded, but he was finally able to remember back to that morning when he’d first met Colgate. He remembered her running away from him when they first met. He remembered how not only he but the both of them collapsed to the ground in raking pain. He hadn’t questioned it at the time with all the other curiosities of the situation rolling around him, but now, he sorely regretted it.

On a hunch, Daemeon did as he had earlier and shoved out his legs, lessening the gap between him and his apartment door. He immediately noted a drastic difference as some of the fire in his chest and abdomen subsided. He curled his legs up and pushed out again and was relieved to find the pain almost disappear.

Daemeon struggled to his feet and wobbled back to his apartment door. He threw it open to find Colgate laying on the floor, gasping for air on her side. Daemeon dropped to his knees and lifted the small blue mare’s head asking, “Are you okay?”

Colgate looked at him blankly and answered breathlessly, “Yes. No. I don’t know. What happened? My chest started burning again.” Her eyes narrowed in on Daemeon’s as she went on concerned, “I didn’t touch anything. Honest! Did you do this?”

This sudden fear unsettled her, and Daemeon couldn’t explain it. Rather than try, he lifted her into his arms and hugged her to his chest. Daemeon petted her brushed mane and assured her, “No, I didn’t do this. I was hoping you would know. My chest started burning just now too.”

“It did?”

“Yes.” He set her on the floor and looked her dead in the eyes and asked, “You said ‘again’. Did you feel this same thing earlier when we first met in the alleyway?”

Colgate, teary eyed, muffled, “Mmhmm! It was just the same feeling I got when I tried to run away from you. I thought you had hurt me with something, but then you seemed so nice that I didn’t give it any more thought.” She cringed to the floor in memory of the pain and asked again, “Are you sure you didn’t do anything?”

“Honest truth.”

Colgate sighed morosely and said, “I think I might know what’s wrong.”

Daemeon grabbed her shoulders and demanded with just a hint of desperation in his voice, “What is it?”
“I think the princess bound us together.”

Daemeon squeezed tighter, causing Colgate to whelp and cry. He lifted her from the floor and gave her a slight shake as he shouted, “What do you mean?”

Colgate brought her shaking hooves to her face to cover her eyes and wipe her tears. She muttered bitterly, quietly so he could barely hear her, “I think our souls are tethered. We can’t leave each other, or we’ll both die.”

Colgate tremored in Daemeon’s hands from fear that was not solely her own.

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream

Colgate felt consciousness long before she opened her eyes to greet it. She didn’t know it by thought but rather by pain. She groaned slightly and felt her eyes tear up in response. It was painful even to breathe. Her chest hurt, and her head ached. Every piece of her from horn to hoof felt like one large bruise. She felt herself soaked in perspiration, and as great a discomfort as that was, it was nothing compared to the general feeling of brokenness that enveloped her entire form.

It was a long time before she could think clearly about what happened. There was no forgetting how Daemeon had wrapped her in his vice hands. She could not believe how strong they were. The thoughts of Daemeon finally prompted her to open her eyes. She was greeted with the light thrown off from the ceiling fixtures and the whiteness of the walls and couches. There was no immediate sight of Daemeon from where she could see.

Colgate sighed, wincing in pain, and thanked Celestia that she was alive. After seeing Daemeon’s cruelty, she thought for sure she was going to die. Especially after he’d thrown her against the wall. She couldn’t believe she was still alive after that. Until she moved though, she couldn’t be certain she hadn’t escaped without any broken bones. The pain of her cut hoof was nothing to her now. What was still apparent however, was her famished state. She might have just ignored the hunger, but it had been equally as long since she’d had anything to drink. Now, her mouth was parched as well. She quickly came to the conclusion that she would have to eat and drink something soon or her present condition could only worsen.

With great effort, she managed to turn her head about and get a better view of her surroundings. Her heart started to race as her eyes fell on a large, crumpled up figure across the room. Daemeon was curled into a ball and almost completely motionless save for the soft movement that suggested breathing from his chest.

Colgate wanted nothing more than to get as far away from the wicked ape as fast as she could, but she knew it was an impossibility. She didn’t know what sort of magic could bind souls, but she was sure that there was nothing she could do to overturn Princess Celestia’s powers. Even as Daemeon might be deadly or trying to kill her, she still could not leave him, nor could he leave her. Colgate shivered at the thought of having to stay with Daemeon, which caused a rattling of pain throughout her body. She ever so slightly curled into a ball herself and inwardly cringed. The pain was almost excruciating.

The pain did not change her need for water though, and Colgate was eventually forced to lift her head. She grunted through the pain, feeling perspiration stream from her body, and rolled from her side to place her hooves against the ground. She stopped with her chest pressed against the carpet and panted. Her eyes went to Daemeon as she briefly considered what she should do with him. He looked to be sleeping, but she had no clue why he would be sleeping in the living room when there was a bed in the other room. If he was asleep, then she could maybe tie him up and keep him from hurting her.

Colgate furrowed her brow and did a quick sweep of the room to see anything she might use to bind him. The living room and the joined kitchen were very sparsely decorated, and there was nothing just lying about. It almost seemed like that there was nopony living there. She quickly gave up as there seemed to be nothing in sight that could do the job. She was more worried about getting something to drink anyways.

With tremendous effort, and a fair share of whimpering, she struggled to her hooves and gradually walked to the ‘big’ fillies room. She entered and made her way over to the tub. With a blaze of blue light, she turned one of the knob and slipped her snout underneath the stream issuing forth. She yelped and yanked her head back as she got singed. She promptly unturned the first knob and turned the second. With a bit more care, she slipped her snout under the stream and drank as much as her little mouth could manage while leaning over the high walls of the tub.

In the other room, Daemeon was aroused from his slumber on hearing Colgate’s yelp. He groaned silently. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in that much pain. Scratch that. There was that time many years ago when he’d first been introduced to the bottle. It ended with a simple, sweet talk robbery gone wrong. Daemeon remembered that day well as being a failure he could have prevented. Alcohol had a way of slowing his mind to the point where he couldn’t think on his feet. If he was to continue living the way he was then he’d decided that he couldn’t afford to drink. The world had rarely known a stricter shrew of intemperance since. A quarter century later, and he hadn’t touched a drop. The memory didn’t help his present situation though. This failure was unprecedented as he dealt with powers far beyond his comprehension.

As the thought passed through, he remembered very suddenly that he had thrown Colgate in a fit of rage. He winced, hoping she wasn’t dead. It would be a shame if he’d killed his future protege. He opened his eyes and was faced with a white wall. He couldn’t remember having laid down. “I must have passed out,” he thought to himself. “Screw that little pony and her horn magic crap.”

Daemeon groaned again as he rolled over onto his back. His entire frame from nose to toes felt like one giant bruise. He couldn’t believe how much power she had. If she was alive, he would have to deal with her a bit more carefully. He didn’t want her dead, but it was clear that he couldn’t hurt her without retaliation. That was going to make his job difficult. “Don’t worry yourself Daemeon. You still got the upper hand. She can’t leave you, and she’s reliant on you for food and water.”

As soon as he thought about water, he realized he heard the sound of running water from down the hall. Daemeon turned his head to find light showing in the hallway from where the bathroom door was open. “Well, I may as well get up and tell her what’s what.”

With a great amount of effort, Daemeon came to his feet. It hurt severely, but the plotting man was not unaccustomed to pain. He did feel the need to cross his arms over his chest as he walked, though. It seemed like his ribcage hurt most of all. He got to the entrance of the bathroom and peered in to see Colgate lapping greedily at a stream of water pouring from the bathtub faucet. Daemeon noticed that she trembled as she drank. She must have been very thirsty.

Without waiting for her to notice him, he startled her by saying, “Your power is much greater than I’d thought.”

Colgate whirled around. The sudden movement hurt her so badly that she crumpled to the floor pitifully. Her ears fell back, and she shuffled backwards away from Daemeon and screamed, “Stay away from me!”

Daemeon uncrossed his arms and held up a steadying hand saying, “Calm down, Colgate. I don’t want a fight with you. I know now that harming you could only cause you to harm me more.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion, “Huh?”

“Well,” explained Daemeon, “clearly this magic of yours is more powerful than I thought. If you are to be my protege, I need you to be alive. I might have harmed you to get you to cooperate, but that no longer seems like a valid option. So, despite any contempt I might have for you, it seems as though I shall have to be nice to you to get what I need from you.”

Colgate’s ears came forward a bit as she asked, “You got hurt too?”

Daemeon cleared his throat, wincing at the sudden sharp pain it caused, and admitted, “Of course. Weren’t you using that magic of yours to crush me back as I crushed you?”

Colgate shook her head softly and explained, “No. I can’t focus my magic when I’m being hurt like that. I wasn’t doing anything to you.”

Daemeon chewed his lip and ran his fingers through his short, handsome hair. “Huh,” he said thoughtfully. “Why was I hurt then?”

“Um,” she answered, “maybe it has something to do with the tether.”

Daemeon raised an eyebrow, “The tether?”

Colgate nodded and explained, “You and I are linked with magic. We can’t leave each other, or it seems like we’ll die. Maybe that same magic that’s keeping us together is also making sure we don’t kill each other.”

Daemeon considered the small, blue unicorn and asked, “So, not only can I not hurt you, but you can’t hurt me?”

Colgate shrugged her shoulders and said, “I guess so.”

“You’re lucky then. I suppose I’ll have to be nice to you from now on.”

Colgate’s ears perked up completely, and she lifted her head with hopeful eyes and said, “Please be nice to me. It really hurts. I’m hungry, and you haven’t fed me anything like you promised.”

Daemeon sighed, defeated. It had been a while since he’d felt defeated, decades even. A memory sprang to mind, but he could only guess as to when it had taken place. While certain memories stood out in childhood, they did not stand out for any linear reason. Birthday parties should be important, but who remembers all their birthday parties? True memories, the ones that stick with you, are not founded on logic. The greatest and most tragic memories stand out equally with memories so mundane that the mind can hardly fathom why it remembers them. Daemeon’s memory partook of the former form. Defeat was an emotion he remembered well from his childhood. It was one he did not enjoy reexperiencing.

Daemeon spoke, “I did promise you, didn’t I?”

Colgate nodded again and stood up on shaky legs. She grunted through her teeth and said, “You promised me ice cream.”

Daemeon consented saying, “I did.”

Colgate shuffled slowly over to Daemeon as she continued, “But you can’t leave without me.”

Daemeon’s eyes followed her. She was pretty brave in approaching him considering how he’d thrown her against a wall earlier. Daemeon bent down to the floor and nodded to her as she came.

“So,” she drew out emphatically, mimicking the language he’d used earlier on her, “I guess you’ll have to take me with you.”

Daemeon did not like the idea. He would have given anything to be able to argue the point with her, but he didn’t see any other recourse. He had to leave the apartment at some point. He’d just come to the place recently, and he still hadn’t bought any food. He usually ate out anyways, but that looked to be a habit he’d have to break. So, instead of arguing, Daemeon conceded the point saying, “I guess I will. Do I have to explain to you again how important it is that you not reveal yourself to other people. Not only would the want to do all that terrible stuff I said before, but now you know we’ll both die if we’re separated.”

Colgate shook her head and said, “No. I’ll be good.”

Daemeon placed a calculated hand on Colgate’s head behind her horn and gave a soft scratch saying, “I’m sorry I hurt you earlier.”

Colgate gave him a cold look and pulled out of his reach saying, “No, you’re not.”

Daemeon was taken aback, something that was happening far too often for his taste in recent days and asked, “No, I’m not?”

Colgate didn’t answer him except to glare and demand, “Are we going to get ice cream or what?”

Daemeon gave her a curious look and stood up. His movements came heavily. He was certain he’d be sore for a while. He turned around and walked to the bedroom, Colgate in tow. He reached into his large tote on the bed and pulled out a backpack. A quick flick of the wrist unzipped it and revealed it empty inside, just as he’d left it. He knelt to the floor, stood it up, and reached for Colgate.

Colgate saw his hands coming towards her, and she backed up frantically, flashing a mean and untrusting look, and said, “Don’t touch me!”

Daemeon sighed and gestured to the bag saying, “You’ll have to get in if we’re going out.”

Colgate thrust her head forward aggressively, a comical sight in light of her stature, and declared indignantly, “I’ll step in the bag myself, thank you very much.” She cantered over and lightly hopped into the backpack. She tried to be graceful but found herself tripping into it, issuing a drawn out moan, “Ouch.” Daemeon almost felt he should chuckle. He instead reached over and zipped the bag most of the way shut, leaving a small opening for her to breathe through.

Colgate promptly lifted an eye to that spot and peeked out at Daemeon asking, “Can you see me through this easily, or do I have to keep away from it?”

Daemeon looked and found her almost completely obscured in the darkness of the backpack. “It looks good. I can barely see you even when I’m looking for you. Just be sure to try to keep away from the opening if you notice someone looking in your way too closely. I think though, even if someone were to see you, they would probably figure you for a stuffed animal if you didn’t move. Like I said, there aren’t any small, talking, blue unicorns in New York, at least, none that I know of.”

Colgate chuckled, making light of the painful and dreary situation, and said, “That’s a shame.”

Daemeon stood up and grasped the shoulder straps and gently swung the pack over his back. He grabbed up his wallet and an umbrella. He glanced out the window and was relieved to see that it looked like the storm had died down for the most part. Certainly it was much better than on the trip home. Daemeon spoke to Colgate over his shoulder, “You’re going to want to avoid making any messes in there. If you do I can’t just take you out in public. Also, it’s not machine washable.”

Colgate cringed in her little confine and asked, “Are we going in a ride in another one of those things again?”

“No,” he said, “we’re just going to walk. It’s not a long walk either, just down the street.”

Colgate sighed, “Whew, good.”

“Are you ready?”

The small blue mare shivered and laid her head against Daemeon’s back saying, “As ready as I think I’ll ever be.”

With that, Daemeon strolled out the door and descended into the street. He was greeted with a few stray raindrops persisting and quickly met them with his umbrella. The night was cool and the walk was pleasant in a sort of grim, Poesque sort of way. The thin trees planted at regular intervals sprang out of squares of grass amidst the concrete boulevard. Other men and women were shuffling up and down the street to get wherever they were going, not a single one of them suspecting anything of the people they walked past without greeting. Everyone went about their own business just as Daemeon and Colgate did theirs.

Daemeon turned a corner and the brightly glowing blue and green store popped into view. His pace quickened as he shuffled to the Walgreen's. He very much appreciated the convenience of having one close by. “I’ll have to stick around in this place as long as I can.”

Colgate felt Daemeon’s pace quicken from inside the backpack, and she peered out of the small zipper hole. She was surprised at how brightly the building glowed and how the windows stretched from the ground to the roof. It made her wonder how these humans could build buildings with glass walls.

As they closed in on the building, Colgate was surprised to see the doors open by themselves as Daemeon walked towards them. The doors were nothing compared to what she saw next though. There were many more of the big monkeys, the humans. Not even on the initial ride to Daemeon’s home had she seen another person, but now she was overwhelmed with their many different shapes and sizes.

She was mesmerized as Daemeon took off down a massive aisle bordered by two huge racks stacked high with all different kinds of foods. There were loaves of bread of all different colors and shapes and cans of soup, most of which had names she didn’t understand. She understood vegetable stew, the thought of it making her mouth water, but words like beef, chili, and tuna stuck out in her mind. She made a mental note to ask Daemeon about them later.

As Daemeon walked, he picked foodstuffs off the shelves. His knowledge of cooking was something less spectacular than his knowledge of other things though. Sandwiches he could do. He might even do a boxed meal if there were no complicated steps beyond stirring something in a pot. Canned soup was his saving grace as he slid over a dozen off a shelf into his cart. Chunky was good crap. He steered clear of the fresh meats aisle; he wasn’t going to be cooking anything that good.

Colgate watched his collecting with wonder. Ponies in Ponyville didn’t just grab things willy nilly like Daemeon was. She was starting to get suspicious that he was stealing until she noticed that the other people did it too. While Daemeon stood torn between whether to get vegetable beef or sirloin burger, Colgate got a good look at what she could only imagine was a female human. She was a little shorter than Daemeon, still a giant to Colgate but shorter nonetheless, and had long blonde hair in contrast to Daemeon’s shorter brown hair.

It was not only the way she looked that stuck out. Her movements were soft and graceful as she would pick up two different items and compare them. Her countenance was analytical as she compared a couple cans of soup, but her face was not like Daemeon’s. His seemed always to be cool and calculated save for when she had gotten him angry. Colgate fairly shivered at the thought. She would be sure to never make Daemeon mad again. The very presence Daemeon exuded scared her. After tempting her with thoughts of chaos, she was almost certain that he was a cruel and evil creature.

Now she had been left wondering whether all of the big monkeys were wicked like Daemeon. He had worked hard to impress upon her the idea that they were, but as she looked at this blonde haired woman, Colgate was starting to seriously doubt Daemeon’s claim. “How much has he lied to me about?” she wondered to herself. She would liked to have studied the other human closer, but Daemeon turned away and continued walking down the aisle.

Colgate was saddened to leave the specimen but was soon caught up in the curiosity of the next aisle over. Where all the other aisles had just had shelves with different foods stacked up, this one had door after door leading right into what she assumed to be ice boxes by how blue and cold they looked on the inside. Colgate pressed her eyes against the zipper opening and tried to read all the boxes and bags they passed by. She had no idea what pizza or hot pockets were. She was pleased to note the assortment of frozen vegetables was diverse. She saw plenty of peas and carrots and corn. What really got her attention came as they turned into yet another aisle labeled Frozen Desserts. Colgate squeed in delight as she poked her face further out from the bag to get a better look.

Daemeon did not notice the sound as he was engrossed in the decision of which ice cream to choose. He felt his mouth water a little bit as his eyes rested on a tub of Blue Bunny Rocky Road. Daemeon shut his eyes and tried to think back to what Colgate wanted. He knew she didn’t want the rocky road for some reason but couldn’t remember why.

His musing was interrupted by a soft feminine voice whispering excitedly, “Get chocolate!”

Daemeon looked over his shoulder to be greeted by the eager pony’s sparkling white teeth. He scowled in turn and whispered aggressively, “I told you to stay in the bag!”

Colgate responded by sticking out her tongue and saying, “I will. I just wanted to make sure you got chocolate. Remember, no nuts.” She turned towards the Rocky Road Daemeon had been eying and scrunched up her face saying, “Not that one. That one has nuts.”

Daemeon poked his head at her and rather childishly declared, “But I like nuts.”

Colgate rolled her eyes, “Then get two! Just make sure you get chocolate for me.”

“Oh!” Daemeon epiphanied aloud, “I hadn’t thought of that.” His look of self wonder degenerated back into a scowl as he opened his mouth to tell her to get back into the backpack.

His words were interrupted by the ecstatic squeal of a little girl down the aisle, “Oh my God! Mommy, Mommy, that man has a kitty in his backpack!”

Both Daemeon and Colgate turned to see what looked to be a five year old girl wearing a pink skirt and flip flops. She bolted towards the pair as fast as her little feet could carry her, and her face was brought level with Colgate’s before Daemeon even had a chance to react. Upon getting a closer look at Colgate, the girl exclaimed, “It’s not a kitty. It’s a unicorn!”

Colgate hadn’t removed herself to the confines of the backpack. She found it far more enjoyable to glut herself in the attention and adoration of the little human. It seemed to her to be far less threatening than any of the others she had seen. Her enjoyment ended though as Daemeon reached a hand over to shove her back into the pack and zip it shut.

Just as he zipped it shut, the blonde woman from the previous isle rounded the bend to see her daughter jumping up and down asking to play with the unicorn. Her face was serious as she walked up to Daemeon, her heels clacking against the floor, “Not just what’s going on over here Samantha? What was all that screaming about a unicorn?”

The little girl, Samantha, stopped her jumping and pointed at Daemeon saying, “That man has a little blue unicorn in his backpack, Mommy. It had a horn and blue and white hair and everything.” She ran up to her mother and begged, “Can I play with the unicorn, Mommy? Please!? I’ll be good, I promise. I won’t pick it up by the ears or anything.”

Colgate cringed at the thought of being picked up by her ears.

Daemeon quickly interjected before the mother could talk, “I have no idea what she’s talking about, miss. There are no such things as unicorns, and I most certainly do not have one.”

The woman’s stern visage softened, and she began to chuckle until Samantha’s face, which was beet red with anger, bellowed, “He’s lying, Mommy! He has a blue unicorn, and it smiled at me, and it’s in his backpack!”

The mother’s light hearted chuckle fell into a frown as her daughter spoke. She turned to Daemeon and asked him seriously, “What did she see?”

Daemeon faked a laugh and said, “Oh please. She didn’t see anything. She’s just making it up.”

Her look grew suspicious as she said, “She obviously saw something that got her worked up. Now tell me what she saw.” Her face suddenly bore a serious scowl as she demanded, “Did you show anything inappropriate to my daughter?”

“No,” he shouted, “I just. . .” He stuttered. A quick glance showed that they had attracted onlookers, and it was a very public place to be getting accused of something inappropriate. The man of cool calculations bit his lip as his eyes shot from the angry little girl to the pissed off mother. He knew he had to handle this carefully. There was no way he could tell the truth, but he certainly couldn’t keep up with the lie he was telling. A good substitute came in a flash, and he wanted to kick himself for not having thought of it before. “She didn’t see a real unicorn, she saw a stuffed one I’m carrying. I was just putting it in my backpack when she came by.”

The mother put her hands on her hips and raised a skeptical eyebrow and asked, “If that’s true then why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

Daemeon opened his mouth but shut it again when he found nothing reasonable to say. He was usually the greatest actor ever, and, now he was tongue tied. “What a time to be without a plan.” He instead said the first story that was just awkward enough to be true, “I didn’t want to say anything because it’s mine.”

The girl’s mother burst out laughing. Several onlookers joined in, and Daemeon could feel the tension in the aisle disappear with her laugh. Samantha started laughing at her mother laughing, and even Daemeon faked a laugh. The mother ceased her laughing and asked breathlessly, “So you’re telling me that you’re embarrassed because you are a grown ass man who likes little stuffed unicorns.”

Daemeon set his eyes with steel and said with as much intensity as he could, “Yes. That is exactly the reason.”

Both adults turned their eyes when Samantha asked in a little voice, “Does this mean I can see the unicorn, Mommy?”

Daemeon cringed at the question, and the mother answered her, “Well, I don’t see any reason why not. If this man’s little unicorn is just a stuffed animal then there should be no harm in your seeing it. Isn’t that right Mr. . .”

Daemeon wanted to use any name save his own, but he knew Colgate could hear him and had no wish to form some other convoluted story about why he’d changed it. While it was bad to attract attention and then leave a name to be remembered by, he deemed it less of a threat than the little pony’s crazy magic. He decided finally to answer, “Daemeon.”

“Yes, Daemeon,” she said, taking a step closer to him, “can you open your bag so I can see the little stuffed unicorn?” She leaned in a little and asked dangerously, “Or do we have a problem with that?”

Colgate listened to the conversation without moving a muscle. While she was certain that they weren’t as dangerous as Daemeon said, she also knew that she couldn’t be separated from him. Her heart skipped a beat as the conversation came to a pause, and Daemeon said, “Sure you can see my stuffed animal.”

Colgate did not miss the emphasis Daemeon put on the words. As Daemeon shifted the backpack around, Colgate fell back on her rump and stuck her four legs out in front of her. She gave a tight lipped smile and remained stock still as Daemeon opened the bag. Her large, unmoving, blue eyes were met with two more pairs of crystal blue. She saw the mother gasp and the little girl squeal. The mother exclaimed, “It looks so real!”

Daemeon could feel the sweat beading on his forehead as the pair looked. He could only stand and hope that Colgate wasn’t giving herself away. The little girl, Samantha, began jumping up and down excitedly and begged, “Can I hold it please?!”

Before the mother or Daemeon could answer, the little girl shot her hands towards the backpack. Daemeon instantly pulled it away and zipped the bag closed saying, “I’m sorry, no. It was very expensive, and I don’t want to risk anything going wrong with it.”

The little girl turned large, pleading eyes to her mother and begged, “Can’t I play with it Mommy? I’ll be good.”

The mother smiled and knelt down to the little blonde beauty and explained, “No honey. You can only play with his stuffed animals if he says you can. I can’t make him, sweetie.” She stood, leaving the little girl to pout, and said, “Kids are the best aren’t they? Do you have any kids of your own?”

Daemeon could not help but breathe a sigh of relief as he answered, “No. I’m single. I’ve never had the joy.”

The mother smiled radiantly, flashing brilliantly white teeth, and exclaimed, “Oh, that’s a shame. A handsome man like yourself should have kids.” Her smile reddened suddenly as she clasped the hand of her daughter. She looked at the floor and asked quietly, “My name’s Alexis. Would you perhaps like to go out on a date by any chance?”

Daemeon balked in confusion and asked, “Aren’t you married?”

Her eyes shot up and she stuttered, “Oh, uh no. I mean . . .”

As she stuttered, the little girl, Samantha, rose her voice to answer, “Daddy’s up in heaven.” The two adults turned to see her face besmirched with a timid frown as she went on, “He died almost a year ago.”

Daemeon flashed a mutually understood frown and said, “I’m so sorry.”

Alexis raised her hand and furrowed her brow saying, “Please don’t be. It’s in the past and we.have to move on.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a little pad of post it notes and a pen. She quickly scrawled down a number and handed the sheet of paper to Daemeon. “I understand if you’re not interested, but if you want to, here’s my number.”

Daemeon extended his hand and softly took the yellow square of paper. He’d no intention of redeeming the offer, but he still was in no mood to cause more of a scene than he already had. He put on a gentle smile, as was his trade, and watched as the mother and her child left the frozen food aisle while waving goodbye. As Daemeon gave a return wave, he heard the little girl cry, “If you do come over, I want to play with your unicorn!”

Daemeon faked a chuckle in response, and after he decided they were out of earshot, shot a vicious tone towards Colgate, “Did we completely forget what I told you earlier? What were you thinking? We were damn near caught! You’re lucky I know how to deceive little girls so well.”

Inside her stuffy little prison, Colgate just crossed her forelegs and harrumphed in derision. To her, they clearly weren’t as dangerous as Daemeon said they were. That still didn’t change the fact that they couldn’t afford to be separated. She huffed with stuffy indignation and grunted, “Let’s just get the ice cream and go.” She winced a little as she knocked her bad hoof against Daemeon’s back and added roughly, “And don’t forget about the gauze.”

Daemeon shook his head and muttered, “That unicorn and her gauze, I swear.” He opened the freezer aisle door and pulled out a bucket of ice cream. His hand stopped before he could drop it into the cart. His eyes regarded the flavor, Chocolate, and his tongue swept out to glaze his lips. It had been a long time since he’d had ice cream. “Why has it been so long?” he asked himself.

Colgate felt Daemeon shiver a bit as the thought crossed his mind. She perked her ears up and asked, “Is something wrong, Daemeon?”

Daemeon didn’t immediately answer as he bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. He knew the answer to his own question, but he didn’t dare even to think it to himself. He instead shook his head and answered, “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

Colgate furrowed her brow and laid her head against Daemeon’s back. There was a noticeable change in his voice. It did not reflect the aggravation or anger she was becoming accustomed to. A tremor of wonder shot through her, “Is it distress?” She scrunched her face in disbelief and instead inquired as to the ice cream, “Did you get both flavors?”

Daemeon’s eyes shot open and went from the Chocolate in his hand to the Rocky Road still in the freezer. He felt his breath quicken and his brow furrow as indecision attacked him. A bead of perspiration formed on his temple and, had anyone been standing in the aisle to witness, they would have seen his face redden. It was such a simple question, yet he felt himself suddenly at an impasse he was otherwise very successful at avoiding. For two minutes he stood completely absorbed in himself. There was no good reason to not get the ice cream. That was not the problem. What bothered him was that there was actually a good reason to get it.

“Daemeon?”

Without giving another thought, Daemeon shot his hand into the freezer and pulled out the bucket of Rocky Road. He placed the two buckets side by side in the cart and dropped his hands on the push bar. His weight fell forward as he let out an exasperated sigh saying, “Yes. I got both.”

Colgate felt a touch of concern seep into her voice as she again asked, “Are you sure you’re okay? I’m sorry I almost got us caught. I’ll be more careful from now on. I just didn’t think it would be so bad if the girl saw me. She seemed nice to me.”

Daemeon hitched the backpack higher on his shoulders and started pushing the cart again. He answered her, “It’s not about that. You’re alright.”

The small blue mare pressed, “Well, what’s it about then?”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” he huffed as he rounded the corner of the frozen foods and slid into the pharmaceutical section.

As Colgate’s annoyance couldn’t be seen visually, she emphasized it in her tone as she asked, “Does it concern you?”

Daemeon bent down to browse the boxes of gauze on a lower shelf. A cursory sweep caused him to wonder, “Why on Earth would they need five different brands? They all do the same thing.” His gaze slipped to his hand. The cut was still fresh and ugly. He lifted a finger and gently brushed the length of the wound, wincing as he brought it down a little too hard. His eyes went back to the gauze as he thought to himself, “I may as well get the best brand. I have to keep Colgate happy too.”

On cue, he felt a thudding on his back as his unicorn counterpart pressed, “Don’t just ignore me you big meanie! Is something wrong?”

Daemeon shrugged his shoulders roughly and grunted, “I told you. It’s nothing you need to worry about. Now just drop it.”

At any other time, Colgate would have just dropped the subject. Now, though, she was quickly beginning to realize that, with the tether linking their souls, Daemeon had no real control over her. He couldn’t hurt her. He couldn’t leave her. “In fact,” she thought deviously to herself, “he has to do everything he can to protect me.” A smile lit her lips as the thought crossed her mind. It was the first substantial fact that she had come across in this new world and was perhaps the only assurance she had that she was safe. So, with authority in her tone, she demanded again, “Does it concern you?”

The question’s strength surprised Daemeon as he grabbed the gauze off the shelf and stood up. He was silent for a moment while he continued down the aisle. The cart was almost full, and he had no idea how much he had spent. Frugality was not his strongest trait. When he ran out of money, he would just go out and get more. It was as simple as that. The circumstances had changed however, and now he could not just go off all willy nilly as he liked. “Tact is in order. Now everything I do needs a plan.” He scrunched his face at the thought and answered Colgate roughly, “Yes. It concerns me. It does not concern you however, and I would prefer it if you would kindly stop pestering me about it.”

“Well,” responded Colgate, having foreseen the answer, “it seems to me that if it concerns you then it probably concerns me too you know. What hurts you hurts me too, doesn’t it?”

Daemeon felt his patience coming up short. “Stop talking.”

The blue mare responded by jabbing his back with her horn and prodding, “Don’t just give me the brush off. It’s not like you can just ignore me forever. You’ll have to tell me something.”

His next words dripped with venomous anger, “Drop it.”

“I’m not dropping it you foal! Now tell me what’s wrong or I’ll. . .”

Daemeon suddenly screamed, “I said shut up!”

Silence fell over the entire store as everyone within eyesight turned towards him, and others peered around corners. Daemeon’s face quivered and glowed red with anger and the unwanted gaze of so many people noticing him. Without another word, Daemeon made his purchases and strolled out of the store, carrying his bags as he went.

For Ice Cream

Colgate didn’t say another word as they left the store. Her confined space swayed back and forth with each step, and she couldn’t help but shiver a bit against the chill autumn air permeating the thin walls of the backpack. She wasn’t dreadfully cold. Her thick coat could keep her fairly warm even in the snow of winter. It was the chill of the air coupled with the unsettling reaction of Daemeon towards her questions that caused her to quiver. She knew she had been annoying him, but she hadn’t expected Daemeon to go off as he had. The entire trip back to the apartment left her wondering, “What happened that got him so upset?” She hadn’t meant to turn him to anger, but she wanted answers and felt it was about time she got some.

With the zipper of the backpack pulled all the way down, she couldn’t see that they entered a building, but she knew it as the cutting chill disappeared to be replaced by toasty warmth. She smiled a small smile. It might have been somewhat cheerier had the blue mare not been starving. Her mind went to the chocolate ice cream, and she instantly felt her mouth salivating. She licked her chilled lips and prodded Daemeon’s back with her horn to finally break the ice, “Are we back yet?”

The handsome man, with his backswept brown hair somewhat muddled, flinched at the question. In the torrent of thoughts that had attacked his mind during their walk back, he had almost forgotten about the little blue unicorn sitting in his backpack. Her soft and feminine voice both tickled and agitated his ears. It was painfully sweet, yet he despised it. Not a full day had they been together, and she was already proving to be an intolerable pain. He would have given anything to make her go away, but that did not seem to be an option. So, with a despairing sigh, he answered her, “Yes. We’re home.”

They ascended the stairs and entered the single bedroom apartment. Daemeon strolled to the kitchen counter and placed the numerous and hefty bags on the island. He gave a groaning stretch as his muscles felt relieved to be free of the burden. He was not especially strong and the walk home would have been far more painful had his mind not been so absorbed. He softly unshouldered the backpack and laid it on the linoleum. He unzipped the pack and was immediately greeted with those infamously large, blue eyes.

Her eyes greeted his, and she felt herself frozen in place. The look that exuded from his own dark brown orbs was unlike any she had seen before. There was no smile plastered on his face that she had found to be his favorite lie. It also was turned down in the vicious sneer he had given her when she had called him an evil, ugly ape. It also wasn’t the cold and calculating stare he would give her when he had no emotion to show either. It was oddly different.

Daemeon’s stare did not last more than a few second, but it felt like an eternity to him as her expressive blue eyes seemed to penetrate him. It was unsettling, but he could not bring himself to turn away. The moment might not have ended were it not for Colgate interrupting him, “Can we eat now?”

Daemeon blinked his eyes a few times but did not answer her. He instead stood and reached into one of the plastic bags and withdrew the two tubs of ice cream. From a different bag, he grabbed a pair of spoons and the gauze and ointment. With his arms full, he slid back down into a sitting position and started tearing into the box of gauze. When he removed the beige wrappings, he was surprised to see them light up in a soft blue.

Colgate’s magic yanked the gauze out of his hands, and she began unraveling it. Still sitting inside the pack, she said, “Show me your hand.” The big ape was slow to respond as he put forth his open palm for her to see. Her eyes went to the small tube of antibiotics, and without losing her grip on the gauze, she lifted it and unscrewed the cap. She brought the cap to a hover above his paw and squeezed the white paste directly onto the ugly cut.

Daemeon winced as the glue looking medicine made contact. The pain felt like nothing to him though as he sat mesmerised by the show. Colgate's brow was pinched tightly in concentration as she worked, but she still made her work seem effortless, like it was entirely natural. Daemeon figured that it must seem natural for her, just as indoor plumbing was for him, but he still could not suppress his awe. Whatever it was that caused her powers, it was certainly beyond anything he could fathom.

Colgate did not regard his awe but stayed focused on her task. In a substantial testament to her own abilities, she focused her magic on the paste itself and defused it across the entire course of the ugly gash. Her magic was so precise and soft that she noted Daemeon did not even wince. She smiled in spite of herself and brought the gauze over his hand. She licked her lips and said, “This will hurt a little bit.”

Daemeon nodded his head and stated, “I’m ready.”

As quickly as she could, for she had found expedience to be the best remedy for overcoming inflicted pain, she very rapidly began wrapping the gauze around his palm. The result was what she had expected as Daemeon flinched his hand back. She was experienced in such things however and immediately adjusted for his movement. In ten seconds flat, she had his hand tucked, and he was left to cradling it against his chest. Colgate chuckled when she noticed the grimace forming across and said, “You’re not as tough as you think you are.”

Colgate had expected him to scowl at her banter but was surprised to instead receive a fleeting look of resignation. He looked down and inspected her work. The bandage was tightly woven and tied off. It was like he had gotten it taken care of at a hospital except he didn’t have some ugly bill to deal with. “You’re really good at this aren’t you?”

The blue unicorn felt a pinch of heat in her cheeks and looked away from him. She lifted her hoof and levitated the antibiotics over the cut. Before she could apply any, her hoof was grasped by Daemeon’s own massive paw. Her ears fell back against her head, and she tried to tug her away but found herself to be firmly in his grasp. She opened her mouth to demand he let her go but was interrupted as he said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She bit her lip and whimpered, “Then what do you want?”

“I just,” he whispered, bringing his second hand up to her hoof, “I just want to see it.” He bent his head forward until his eyes were only a few inches from her hurt hoof. He touched a finger to the wall of her hoof and slid it in a full circle around her frog before asking, “You said that our tether links our souls right?”

Colgate nodded her head with discomfort and answered, “Yes. I think so at least.”

“Hmmm,” Daemeon hummed. “And we can’t hurt each other without hurting ourselves right?”

The little unicorn’s ears perked up in curiosity as she again answered, “Yes.”

Daemeon’s face scrunched up as he asked, “Then why didn’t you get hurt just now? You hurt me while you were wrapping my hand, but I didn’t see you flinch. Did you get hurt at all.”

Colgate’s gaze fell to the hoof in his paw. The ugly red cut through her gossamer blue. It hurt mildly, just as it had ever since she’d gotten it, but nothing had agitated it since she’d climbed into the backpack. She responded thoughtfully, “No. You’re right. I didn’t get hurt at all.” She brought her good hoof to her chin and tapped it while musing aloud, “I wonder why that is.”

Daemeon took a firmer grip on her hoof and lifted a finger over the ugly cut. He said, “I’m sorry but this might hurt a bit.” Colgate’s mouth fell open in fear, but she didn’t have time to tug away before Daemeon quickly snapped his finger against the cut. Colgate immediately yelped and her eyes began to tear up as she pulled her hoof away from Daemeon’s grasp. There was no struggle in her actions as Daemeon was equally overcome with the same sudden pain she felt. When he saw her weaseling away from him, he put up his hand and said, “Don’t worry. I just wanted to see if it would hurt me too.”

Colgate curled her hurt hoof against her chest and frowned. “So, did it?”

Daemeon nodded sternly and sat back against the kitchen island. He wondered aloud, “Why is it that I only get hurt when I hurt you, and you don’t get hurt when you hurt me?”

Colgate quickly answered, “I don’t think that’s the case.”

“Why not?” Daemeon asked, turning his head to regard the mare as she sat on her rump in the open backpack.

“Well,” she said, “it’s hard to explain to ponies that don’t use magic. I suppose it would be even harder to explain to a monkey that doesn’t know what magic is.”

Daemeon’s head thudded back against the counter, and he stated in a belabored tone, “I am not a monkey.”

The unicorn rolled her eyes and said, “Fine. Whatever. What is it again? Human?”

She received a frown in answer as Daemeon said, “Yes. Now, could you get on explaining your point please? I may not understand magic, but I’m a quick study.”

Colgate sighed and went on, “Fine. For the magic to only work one way would be an unbalanced state. You see, magical energy doesn’t come out of nothing. Most ponies who aren’t unicorns have a hard time understanding that. We make it seem that way because you can’t visibly see anything acting on the object we project our magic to, but that simply is not the case. Most of the energy needed to make a spell function comes from within ourselves, and the more powerful the spell, the most stressful it is on our bodies to cast.”

“Aha!” Daemeon cried. “So there is some actual sense behind it. I knew there had to be.” He brought a hand up and smoothed it across his chin, noting the five o’clock shadow that had crept onto his face. “So, what does that have to do with our dilemma?”

“I’m getting to that. For any spell to work, it has to have a point of provocation, focused energy, and a target subject. These rules hold up for all different spells both instantaneous and charms. For example, if I were to levitate this box,” she said as she levitated the empty box that had contained the gauze, “I would be the point of provocation, the box would be the target subject, and the power of my will and my horn is the source of the focused energy. Do you understand so far.”

Daemeon’s eyes went to the floating box, and he answered, “So far I do. I can’t say that it makes brilliant sense, but nothing is confusing me so far.”

“Good. It’s easier to see with instantaneous spells like this. The spell only lasts as long as I keep propelling my magic on it. When I stop pushing the energy, the spell ceases to continue.”

“Like putting wood on a fire!” Daemeon interjected. “A fire only burns as long as you keep feeding it.”

Colgate nodded enthusiastically, “Exactly. But the magic that’s binding us is a little different. It falls under the category of a charm.”

Daemeon shrugged and asked, “What’s the difference?”

“Well,” Colgate mumbled thoughtfully, “hmm. This is tough. Umm. Think about the analogy with the fire again. An instantaneous spell only works as long as I, myself, keep putting wood on the fire. Imagine though if I devised a negative feedback system whereby the fire fed itself every time it was about to run out. The fire would keep burning whether I was there or not.”

As he listened to her explanation, Daemeon’s face puckered up and he reasoned, “This magic business is starting to sound more and more like physics and simple mechanics. But I’m still confused as to how this relates to our situation. So we are under the effect of a charm I assume since I don’t see some other unicorn that is forcing it on us.”

Colgate nodded, “Mmhmm. Princess Celestia must have devised the charm and incorporated the negative feedback system herself. You see, we are both party to the three components of the spell. When you do something that hurts me, you hurt yourself. The pain that you are causing me creates the same pain in yourself. That would make me the point of provocation and you the target subject.”

Daemeon squeezed his eyes shut as he fought to grasp the explanation. “So you’re saying that you are the one hurting me, not myself? That doesn’t make any sense. You weren’t trying to do anything to me. It was my action that hurt me. So shouldn’t I be the point of provocation?”

Colgate shook her head and quickly explained, “No, no, no. That’s a common misconception. It seems that way when a pony witnesses an instantaneous spell, but it simply is not the case. You see, the point of provocation is not the what controls the spell; it’s what causes it. I caused the spell by getting hurt. You controlled the spell by some other means. And, by that control, you became the target subject and hurt yourself. Since the same spell is affecting both of us, then the same conditions must apply to both of us.”

“So, you’re saying that if you were to hurt me then I would be the point of provocation and you would be the target subject that receives the pain?”

“Precisely.”

Daemeon slapped his hand against his forehead and grumbled, “Then why aren’t you getting hurt when you hurt me?”

Colgate raised her injured hoof to calm him and said, “Don’t get fussy. The part of the equation you don’t understand yet is the focused energy. You are assuming that the pain you cause me is the driving force behind the pain that is being inflicted on you, and that is not the case. The pain you cause me is, again, only the point of provocation. The focused energy, that which drives the spell, is something entirely different. When I cast a spell like levitation, the focused energy is my will and my horn through which I channel it. The energy propelled by my will comes from within my own body and tires me as I cast it. For this charm to work, it has to function under similar rules. Since I am not willing anything to happen when you hurt me, something you are willing must be the driving force behind the energy.”

“If that’s the case then what am I doing that’s different than you? What am I willing that you are not?”

“Well,” Colgate answered simply, “I never meant to hurt you. All the times you hurt me though, you meant to do it.”

Daemeon’s mouth fell open in awe at the thought. “That just might make sense then. You would hurt yourself if you tried to hurt me maliciously.” He lurched forward suddenly and presented his breast to Colgate. “Try it then! I want to see it work.”

Colgate’s eyes shot wide open as she lost her balance and tumbled backward, tipping over the backpack as she did. “Sweet Celestia! What’s wrong with you? Don’t scare me like that! You’re going to kill me pulling stuff like that.”

Daemeon ignored her pleas as he bent over the little blue mare and demanded, “Hurt me. Do something on purpose! I want to see if it actually works.”

Colgate cringed under Daemeon’s hugely imposing figure and said, “No! I don’t want to hurt myself too.”

In fury, Daemeon brought his face close to Colgate’s and slammed his fist on the ground next to Colgate saying, “Damn it, Colgate! So help me, I don’t care if I hurt myself in the process I will hit you again if you don’t do as I say!”

Colgate snapped. She was a strong willed pony, and she could handle a lot of trouble. Daemeon however, was just too much for her to handle. She broke down crying. It was not just a light tearing of the eyes. It was a torrential fit of sobbing that echoed through the small kitchen like a small child certain of its demise. She begged through her sobs, “Please don’t hurt me! I don’t want to be hurt anymore! I’ll do anything, just please don’t hurt me again!”

Daemeon’s face, which had just been seething with rage, underwent a complete change. The angry scowl melted and every tensed muscle in his body slackened. He felt his body move without provocation. The arm that had slammed the ground with his fist suddenly gave way, and he found himself on his side. His arms stretched out and wrapped around the sobbing blue mare. He pulled her to his chest and cradled her as close as he could. With his feet, he kicked away the backpack and curled into a ball around Colgate’s extremely diminutive form.

A heavy silence fell on the pair, interrupted only by the heavy breaths and wails of the little pony who, for a brief moment, had thought herself to be dead. Daemeon said nothing but hugged her to his chest and brushed the length of her back with firm and consistent pettings. He could not fathom his own actions, so he chose not to think about them at all. He instead gave himself completely over to the will of his body. Her tears seeped through his shirt and wetted his chest, but he did not give them a thought. Nothing seemed to exist to him then except the moment. And even the moment was suspect.

At length, Colgate’s sobbing slowed, and her shoulders ceased their bobbing. She could see nothing as her eyes were squeezed shut against Daemeon’s chest, but she was very aware of where she was. Daemeon’s body was wrapped completely around her own, and she again felt like a little filly, like she was back in her bed upstairs and curled in with her many blankets and pillows once more. Before, she would have pulled away from him, struggled in some fashion or other. Her thoughts of escape were hushed however by the most pleasant lullaby she’d ever heard. The lullaby was a symphony of soft thuds and the rush of flowing life. The lullaby was rhythmic and calmed all of her fears. The lullaby was the beat of Daemeon’s strong heart echoing in her ears.

As she finally began to feel her own heart settle and her eyes were beginning to crust over with dried tears, she heard a very soft voice whisper to her in the harsh huskiness of hushed masculinity, “I’m not going to hurt you, Colgate.”

Colgate’s eyes slid open at the sound of Daemeon’s voice. She sniffled furiously and grunted through her breathlessness, “You’re lying.”

Daemeon responded not with words but with a heavy hand stroke that smoothed the length of her back from her mane between her ears to the base of her tail. The descent was not a distant one, and Daemeon was again left wondering at her tiny and fragile state. “It would be so easy,” he thought to himself. “I wouldn’t even have to try all that hard. She’s right in my arms. All I’d have to do is squeeze a little, muffle her face against my chest so she couldn’t breathe, and viola! She’d be dead.”

His hand trembled at the touch of her soft fur and the warmth of her living, breathing body. “And yet, I can do nothing to her. My life is as much in her hands as her’s is in mine.” A contradiction popped in his mind as the notion crossed him, and he mumbled aloud, “They’re hooves, not hands.”

“What?” Colgate asked in her demure little voice muffled against Daemeon’s dress shirt.

Daemeon smoothed his hands over her chest and gently pushed her away from him. Colgate’s hooves, flank, and horn dragged across the carpet as he pushed her. Her eyes were closed, and he’d have thought she was asleep if she hadn’t just spoken. Every muscle of her small body was lax in his hands as though she were completely spent. “Maybe she is,” he thought to himself. He brought a hand up and absently thumbed some of the dried tears beneath her eye while saying, “You don’t look so good.”

Colgate’s sagging lids fluttered open to reveal a large pair of exceptionally blue and bloodshot eyes. Her chest rose in a huge, heavy heave and she whispered with apparent exhaustion, “I feel worse than I look I bet.”

Daemeon’s face puckered into a tight frown as he asked, “You want me to bandage up your hoof for you? You look a little out of it.”

The small mare’s huge eyes slid closed again, and she muttered with a hint of resigned enmity, “Need me nice and healthy so you can do what you want to me don’t you?” When she didn’t hear Daemeon acknowledge her with a response, she acquiesced, “I guess I could use the help.”

On hearing her answer, Daemeon pulled the unicorn to his chest again and sat up. His back fell against the counter again, and he grabbed up the discarded bottle of antibiotics. He shifted Colgate to the crook of his left arm until her head rested snugly against his shoulder. With his right, he squeezed the tube and coated his thumb in the white paste. He dropped the bottle and tilted Colgate’s cut hoof to his face. Just as he was about to apply the ointment, a thought struck him, and he looked into her eyes and whispered, “This’ll hurt a little, but I’ll try to be gentle. Okay?”

Colgate, too exhausted to argue if she had even wanted to, merely nodded in assent. She bit her lip as Daemeon took her tiny hoof in his huge, hairless hand and touched his thumb to the sore cut. The biting pain that shot up her hoof came as no surprise to her. What did strike her however, was the fact that Daemeon’s expression did not change in the least. There was no flutter, no flinch. His eyes didn’t even twitch as his thumb nimbly work over the fleshy frog of her hoof. Her lips pursed in hopefulness as she asked, “Are you getting hurt?”

His concentration not wavering in the least from his task, Daemeon shook his head softly and whispered in answer, “No.”

“Really?’ she wondered to herself. “Then he wasn’t lying. He really wasn’t trying to hurt me.” She felt his hand slip from her flank and come up to wrap the gauze around her hoof. He made no rough or sudden movements, and pain was kept at a minimum. In almost no time at all, her hoof was wrapped like a present, and his arms slipped back around her to cradle her little pony self to his chest. Again her ears were greeted by the lullaby of her big ape’s beating heart. The sound was comforting and caused her, even in her discomfort, to smile weakly and whisper, “Thank you.”

Daemeon did not answer her gratitude. He instead reached down and grabbed up the chocolate ice cream from the floor. With one hand, he pried off the cover, slopping some of the unfrozen dessert on his expensive shirt. He paid the mess no mind as he picked up a spoon from the ground and dug it into the chocolate treat. He brought the spoonful up to Colgate’s button nose and said, “You can eat now.”

Colgate’s lips trembled in awe at the treat, but she didn’t immediately devour it. Her face instead rose to greet Daemeon’s, and their eyes locked in an unblinking stare. With moist eyes, Colgate said, “I haven’t experienced anything this sweet since I was a foal.” Then, giving no further hesitation, Colgate opened her mouth and engulfed the dripping chocolate. Her moan was startlingly loud.

“Neither have I.”

Daemeon set his face sternly and lifted another spoonful to the small blue mare who seemed to have no more qualms about being treated like a baby. “She’s probably just too tired to care,” he decided. His eyes widened as he fed her. “Or too hungry.” His spoonfuls kept getting progressively larger and their delivery faster as Colgate ate the ice cream while hardly chewing or breathing. He thought absently about relieving her of the ice cream or warning her of the consequences but decided not to impede her happiness.

The result came soon enough as Colgate’s inhalation of the treat suddenly ceased. Her moans of delight were replaced with groans of despair as she gripped her hooves to her head. She cried out, “Ow, ow, ow!”

Daemeon held the pitiful mare out at arm’s length and said in a mildly condescending tone, “You ate it too fast.”

Colgate’s eyes flashed in a venomous glare at the comment, and she promptly responded through her gritted teeth, “Nah! You think?” When she found her angry sarcasm greeted by nothing more than a placid expression, a thought struck her mind and she voiced aloud, “How come you never laugh?”

Daemeon raised an eyebrow at the question and countered, “What do you mean?”

The blue mare frowned and stuck out her tongue. When his expression again remained the same at her taunting, she bellowed, “You never laugh at anything! You have to be the most boring monkey ever! I’ve done several stupid things to make fun of and you don’t even react. I know you humans must have a sense of humor because those two girls at the market seemed to find some fun in the situation. Are a lot of humans like you?”

Daemeon sighed with a hint of angst and replied, “Unfortunately, no. I don’t know anybody else who’s purged that ridiculous notion of laughter from their psyche. I’ve only managed it because I understand the nature of the world. Since everything is caused by chaos, chance, and circumstance, no one event would ever be intrinsically ‘funnier’ than another. So, to laugh at your antics would make about as much sense as laughing at the ocean because it’s blue.”

Colgate rolled her eyes and muttered, “Not this again. I’m not listening to you, you big meanie. You’re an agent of Discord, and we ponies know not to trust the likes of you.”

Daemeon crossed his legs and set Colgate down in his lap. He again started petting her. Her gossamer coat was incredibly soft and warm under his hands and every repetitive motion sent a shiver through him at the sheer sensation. He assumed she must feel a similar sensation at being petted. Her back arched against his hand as it had earlier, and her eyes slid closed again as she reveled in the interaction. Gradually, Daemeon came to ask her, “You like that phrase don’t you; agent of discord?” His eyes closed, and he rested his head back against the counter and muttered to no one in particular, “That’s not a bad assessment. In fact, that’s exactly what I am. That’s what I’ve devoted my life to. That’s what I’ve studied so hard for. Every day is just another opportunity to teach people that chaos really is the order of the universe. All the crying and moaning and pontificating isn’t going to change that. My only recourse then is to teach people what I know and bring them out of their ignorance. Only when they know that the world is chaos can they come out of their delusions.”

The monologue was suddenly disturbed as Daemeon felt something cold and wet touching his lips. His eyes shot open to be greeted by a spoon, glowing a gentle blue, that held a scoop of Rocky Road to his mouth. His lips immediately puckered shut as his eyes shot to a frowning Colgate. From her seat in his lap, she jabbed a hoof into his stomach and said irritably, “I don’t think the world revolves around you. You say you’re all gloom and doom because the world is just like that, but you’ve got it all wrong. Just because you think something doesn’t make it true, especially if the entire world is against you.” Daemeon’s lips moved to respond, but the blue mare spoke over anything he could voice, “Now shut up and eat your ice cream since you made such a big deal over it!”

Daemeon opened his mouth to argue with her but was stopped as the sweet treat unexpectedly slipped in. As his lips closed around the spoon, his first reaction was to glare at the impudent little pony. Colgate’s own scowl turned up in a smug smile at his reaction, but this was not to last long.

The ex dentist sat in awe as, on tasting the sugary treat, her ugly ape’s expression changed so dramatically that its shift in composition cast a pall on his earlier outburst of anger, the one that had resulted in some of the most traumatic pain Colgate had ever experienced. This shift however, was the polar opposite of the one before. There was no sudden provocation to go from calmness to anger as before. A shift like that was easy. Nor was it a move from boredom to joy as could be perpetrated by any number of happy instances. That might have been especially peculiar for Daemeon, but the shift Colgate was seeing was even more bizarre than that.

Colgate watched as the tight agitation flew from Daemeon’s face. Every frown line and squinting wrinkle disappeared all at once to be replaced with what she could only label as beautiful. The only muscles that flexed in his suddenly languid face were those of his lips pursed together as his tongue danced the ice cream in his mouth. His eyes were shut as he let out the most unusual sound she’d ever heard from the beast. It was a soft, squeaking sound that was oddly reminiscent of a baby foal’s whinny when it’s hungry. What really got her though was the bead of moisture that fell from the corner of his eye. Concerned, Colgate asked, “Are you okay.”

Daemeon mouth suddenly went to quick work as he began chewing the ice cream. The sound of peanuts cracking echoed in stark contrast to the silence of the room. The serenity in his face did not give, but the pitched whinny ushering through his nose grew in strength as he swallowed and sat with an empty mouth. Then his lips started quivering and Colgate could no longer retain her question, “Are you crying?”

Daemeon’s serene face lost some of its serenity as he sniffed loudly and exhaled a fluttering and labored breath. His cheeks were glazed blood red and glistened with the moisture from his eyes as he took several more deep breaths. Through all of this, he kept his eyes tightly shut and made no move to respond to her questions. So, having no other idea what to do, Colgate stood on her hind legs and brought her face up to Daemeon’s. She swished her mane over her ear with her bandaged hoof and leaned forward to press the silky tresses against Daemeon’s cheek. With her forehooves balanced on each of his shoulders, she mopped up the tears as best she could and whispered into his ear, “Whatever it is, you can tell me about it you know.”

Daemeon’s eyes fell open as he felt Colgate’s soft mane against his cheek. He made no movements as her blue horn wiggled to and fro before his eyes. What she was doing would have confounded his mind if he weren’t so upset already. He thought to rebuke her offer and tell her to go away. He even thought to get up and walk away. He knew it was no good though. She couldn’t go away. He couldn’t leave her. “Hell,” he thought to himself, “I can’t even really make her shut up.” Colgate lifted her huge eyes to Daemeon, and he couldn’t help but look into them and think, “Even if I could, I’m not so sure I’d want to.” He reached a hand up and brushed the hair out of her face and whispered, “You must be little miss Magdeleine.”

Colgate frowned with seriousness and answered in confusion, ”My last name’s Minuette, not Magdeleine.”

Daemeon’s hand slid from her mane to follow the length of her back. As she shivered under the touch, he stated simply, “I suppose not. You’re probably not a whore, and I’m certainly no prophet.”

The little mare’s face wrinkled in confusion and she asked, “What’s a whore?”

Daemeon’s eyes lifted from Colgate to stare into nothingness. Another tear slid down his cheek, and he answered matter of factly, “Someone who gives people what they want instead of what they need.”

Her face was a cross between confusion and concern at the answer. It seemed so ambiguous that he could be referring to anything. A thought struck her though as she considered her own job,"I give people what they need instead of what they want.” Her eyes went to the chocolate treat sitting on the floor, and she asked Daemeon, “Like ice cream?”

Daemeon choked and wrapped his arms around the little unicorn. Colgate gave him no fuss as he squeezed her firmly against his chest. She couldn’t lie to herself. She enjoyed being held. Even though Daemeon cried, she smiled at feeling so warm and safe, even if she was literally at the belly of the beast. Her ear twitched as Daemeon’s warm breath marked his answer, “Yes. Just like ice cream.”

Their warm moment was interrupted by a loud banging on the door. Daemeon launched to his feet, still clinging Colgate tightly to his chest and looked towards the white door in horror. Colgate did not see the fear in his face, but the sudden, rapid palpitations of his heart queued her into his terror. She cried, “What was that?”

“Oh no!” he pleaded inwardly. “Not them! Not here! Not today! Please be anybody else!”

Daemeon felt his hopes and pleas dashed to shreds as a loud and authoritative voice boomed through the door, “This is the Manhattan Police Department. We know you’re in there. Come out with your hands up, or we will have to take you by force.”

Colgate shifted around in Daemeon’s arms and asked, “What do they want?”

Daemeon shook his head violently and looked at the little, blue unicorn in his arms with deadly seriousness and said, “If they take me away, they will kill me, and you will die too.”

Colgate brought her hooves to her mouth and whimpered, “What did you do?”

He answered her, “What i’ve done is unimportant. What is important is whether or not I can trust you. Can I trust you Colgate?”

She nodded nervously, “Yes.”

“With my life?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” he whispered as the door banged in the background. “Let’s hope luck is with us.” Without waiting for Colgate to answer, Daemeon bolted from the kitchen into the single bedroom. With one quick movement, he threw open the lone window in the room and punched the screen out. Pulling Colgate tighter to his chest, he said, “Let’s see how good your magic is.”

Then he launched into the fleetingly black and dismally cold night.

The Cathedral

Colgate could not remember ever having lived, felt, or thought so much in a single moment before. She was quick-witted of course. A good dentist had to be. Expedience was often the name of the game. You had to do the job as professionally as you could and cause the least amount of pain and discomfort. In working to uphold this edict, Colgate had learned a thing or two about acting and reacting as quickly as possible. However, nothing she’d ever done could compete with her surprise at being launched out a window.

The first image to race through her mind were the many stairs she’d seen Daemeon climb when they’d first come to the apartment. She remembered marveling at how many there had been. It was probably the tallest building she’d ever been in. That being said, it takes longer to run up a hill than to roll down it. And a vertical ascent takes much longer than a vertical drop. For the second time in the last hour, Colgate feared her death was imminent.

Even as the ground raced towards them though, Colgate did not cry. She knew she wasn’t safe, that death was right before her eyes, yet she did not worry. It would have been hard for the little blue unicorn to trust herself. Certainly, she would never have jumped through the window on her own. Were she alone, she’d have been screaming in terror. There was one thing that stopped her though.

Daemeon trusted her. He went so far as to entrust her with his life. He might have had no choice but to trust her, but that didn’t matter to Colgate right then. All that mattered right then was that she felt safe with him because he felt safe with her. Nopony had ever entrusted their life to her. It felt so nice and comforting to be so needed. It also came as a terrific responsibility she’d never had before, one that she vowed right then in the free fall through the inky black night that she would not fail to uphold.

With the conviction of all these new and powerful thoughts, she flared her horn to life. The man and the mare were instantly enveloped by a bright blue glow that shone brilliantly through the dark and cold night. Colgate smiled as she felt the rush of wind past her ears cease, and their deathly descent became like a feather falling to the ground. She heard Daemeon sigh in relief and loosen his vice-like grip around her. Colgate inhaled sharply, just then realizing that she hadn’t been able to breathe.

Daemeon watched in awe as the ground slowly closed in. His head was positioned towards it, and he would have certainly snapped his neck if they hadn’t slowed down. It was a four story fall, and he’d been in a hurry. Still though, he could hardly fathom why he’d been so rash. He could have at least slipped out feet first. At least then, if Colgate wasn’t able to save them, he wouldn’t have died. He would have scolded himself if it weren’t for the fact that it worked. All he did instead was sigh and marvel to himself, “Lady luck is here again.”

As they came to the ground, Daemeon extended a hand and rolled onto his back. When he felt himself settle flat, the blue glow dimmed. A quick scan revealed to Daemeon that they had come out in the back alleyway of the apartment building. They had just narrowly missed landing in a pile of garbage bags leaning against the wall. The tight space was dark save for the rows of windows intermittently emanating light. Daemeon glanced up at the window they had fallen from and was relieved to not see a head poking out to look for them yet. He would have to act quickly.

Daemeon lurched to his feet and stood. Colgate, finally coming out of the breathless state of awe the fall had put on her, shivered in the sudden chill of the night and asked, “What are we going to do now?”

“Run.”

“Run where?”

Daemeon’s hold of her tightened suddenly as he responded, “I don’t know yet, but we have to run fast, or they’ll catch us.”

Colgate’s eyes followed Daemeon’s to the window they’d jumped out of. She shivered again at the distance. What was only four stories to Daemeon seemed like forty to her. “Then why aren’t you running?” she asked softly.

Daemeon shook his head in frustration and held the small blue mare out at arms length. He gave her a quick look up and down and explained, “You can’t be seen. Someone will try to take you.”

With that, he dropped her to the ground and fell to the pile of garbage. Colgate watched curiously as her ape pushed through the bags as though he were searching for something. Her ears twitched in fearful anticipation as she looked back up at the window. While watching, she said, “You really weren’t lying about that, were you? People really will take me if they get the chance.”

Daemeon grunted through the bags until he found what he was looking for. A single garbage bag was filled to the brim with paper instead of the usual nastiness. He pulled it out of the stack while saying, “Yes. And frankly, even if they weren’t, I still wouldn’t risk losing you to anybody.”

Colgate eyed him curiously and asked, “Because you’d die if we were separated?”

Daemeon didn’t answer for a moment as he quickly emptied the contents of the garbage bag into the alleyway. The papers spewed about and were picked up by a small gust that tumbled through. Daemeon knelt to the ground and held the bag open for Colgate, gesturing in. Before she would jump in though, she looked right into his eyes and pressed, “Right?”

Daemeon’s eyes fell away as he answered roughly, “Yes. That’s why. Now get in so we can go. I’m surprised they haven’t looked out the window yet.”

Colgate was unconvinced by the answer but understood they didn’t have time to argue. She climbed into the bag and felt it close around her. Her eyes widened in fear as she suddenly found herself breathless inside the bag. She was quickly relieved though as Daemeon ripped a hole in front of her face. She stuck her snout out, and her face met Daemeon’s. With a deadly serious face, he said, “Do not say a word. You understand me? We can’t afford a repeat of what happened in the store.”

Colgate snorted and muttered, “I got you.”

“Good,” Daemeon answered roughly while swinging the mare over his shoulder. He took off running out of the alleyway and disappeared around the corner just as an officer stuck his head out the window and swore. He wasn’t as lucky as Daemeon.

*****

Colgate grunted with almost every step Daemeon took. His hurrying through the alleyways and dashing across streets caused Colgate’s plastic prison to slap repeatedly against his back. She hated it but knew she’d have to put up with it. She knew they had to get away from the men chasing Daemeon, but it felt like they must be far behind them by now. They had been running through the dark maze of the night for better than ten minutes, coming into the light only when they would cross the brightly lit avenues. The mare was curious as to how they kept the road so bright in the dark. She was more curious however, as to where they were going.

When the monotony of the chase was fully lost on her, she asked, “Where are we going?”

On hearing the question, Daemeon decided to cease his running momentarily and ducked into another alleyway. He set the plastic bag containing Colgate on the icy black top and sat down panting beside her. He leaned back against the side of the building and wiped away a sheen of sweat that moistened his brow despite the chill breeze that blew through the city. He’d just run better than a mile through the city streets and was not the least bit used to the strenuous exercise. He was better acquainted with walking away from a sticky situation than running. He usually knew how to handle people if they ever confronted him and was almost never reduced to either fight or flight.

His heavy breathing was interrupted by a hoof placed on his arm. Daemeon looked down to see the unicorn’s face and injured hoof poking from the bag, a concerned look in her eyes. She shivered from the cold and asked again, “Can you tell me where we’re going?”

Still panting, Daemeon thought to himself, “I’d say this creature was to be the end of me if she hadn’t just saved my life.” He lifted a hand and ruffled her mane saying, “Someplace warm.”

“Good,” she said with a shaky voice. “I don’t know why, but I can’t tolerate the cold like I used to. There isn’t even snow on the ground, and I’m freezing.”

Daemeon reached over and picked her out of the plastic bag. He engulfed her tiny frame in his relatively massive arms and said, “I’m cold too.”

Colgate snuggled against his chest, thankful for the warmth. She didn’t quite feel like being left out of the loop though, so she pressed, “Where is this ‘warm place’?”

The handsome man’s hand slid down the length of the mare’s curving back. He relished the feel of her soft coat against his hand. It seemed like every hair on her body scraped every nerve on his to stimulate his senses. Her four hooves and belly were pressed against his chest, reminding him of just how small she was. He’d have to treat her gently to keep from breaking her. He winced a little as his mind went back to earlier that day when he’d thrown her against the wall. She was probably still in pain and just didn’t say anything about it.

At feeling Daemeon’s body suddenly tremble, Colgate asked, “What’s wrong? Aren’t we going to the warm place?”

Daemeon again ran his hand down the length of her back and pressed her face against his chest. He curled his legs up to his chest and bent them around Colgate’s form to completely encapsulate her in a cocoon of warmth. Daemeon felt his heartbeat begin to settle down from his excursion. He whispered indecipherably, “We’re already there.”

“What?” Colgate asked in a muffled voice.

Daemeon cleared his throat and answered, “Nothing. Just give me a few moments to rest. Then we’ll be on our way and arrive at the cathedral in no time.”

Colgate thought absently, “What’s a cathedral?” She decided not to ask however as she was beginning to feel like that was all she was good for. Daemeon had a plan. She was sure of it. Whatever a cathedral was, it was going to be warm and safe and that was all she cared about. So, she contented herself to listen to Daemeon’s rapid heartbeats thumping noisily into her ear, echoing the rush of blood through her big ape’s body. “Then again,” she mused to herself, “it’s pretty warm right here too.”

*****

The rest of their journey went without incident. A few heads were turned as Daemeon walked down the street with a bag slung over his shoulder, but nothing serious came of it. In a fairly dirty dress shirt and scraggly with a shadow that was well past five o'clock, he cut an unusual figure in a city brimming with unusual figures. In a sense, he was completely ordinary. Daemeon had always thrived on being ordinary, in the background. The less conspicuous he was, the less likely he was to get caught doing what he did best. After all, what good was his education if he couldn’t spread it because he was in prison or dead?

Colgate was more leery of the turned heads than Daemeon. She didn’t quite understand the concept of being just another stranger on the street. Every glance and pair of eyes seemed like they were searching for her and were going to steal her away should they see her. After the incident in the apartment, Colgate didn’t want to run the risk of getting separated from her Daemeon again. So, she kept her face sunk into the bag and hardly gave a glance to the many buildings they passed. She didn’t much want to look at them in any case. She’d get dizzy before her eyes could even follow to the tops of the tremendous buildings.

Her hidden solace ended when Daemeon stopped walking, slung her off his shoulder, and said, “We’re here.”

Colgate poked her nose through the hole in the bag. She was greeted with a terrific sight. The structure stood out in a sharp contrast against the surrounding buildings. Where the rest of the city stood tall and simple with little more to its shape than absurdly large, square towers that reached to touch the sky, the building before her was art by comparison. A tremendous pair of double doors stood at the top of some great, sweeping steps. They were positioned below a beautifully designed rose window that glinted in the city lights. To her left and her right, the blue mare was awed by two spires that ascended like towering spear points, giving the building both beauty and menace. The wonder was clear in her voice as she asked, “Is this the cathedral?”

Daemeon grimaced at the sight of the building and responded, “Yes.”

“It’s so beautiful and scary,” she said, her eyes twinkling at the sight. “What’s it used for? Is it a castle? Or is it somebody’s home? Is it this pretty on the inside too?”

He hugged the mare to his chest and explained, “It’s a house of lies.”

Colgate snorted and turned her head up, getting a good view of the inside of Daemeon’s nose, to say, “You’re always so dramatic. I bet whatever it is, it isn’t as bad as you say.”

“I suppose I never asked you about that.” Daemeon took a few steps and sat down on the cathedral’s steps. With the bag still wrapped around her, Daemeon positioned her in his lap facing him and asked, “Do you ponies believe in God?”

The small blue mare puckered her face and asked, “What’s god?”

Daemeon’s head fell back as he muttered, “Oh boy. Well, if that isn’t a question for the ages.” He slid his slender fingers through his sleek brown hair, noting how messy the day had made it. He sighed and looked down at his filthy shirt, his wet pants, the gauze wrapped around his cut hand, and his own breath, visible in the cold night air. He preferred to look his best but was used to his current state as well. “I must look damnably ugly right now.” He looked back into Colgate’s eyes poking through the hole in the garbage bag and explained, “A lot of the people in this world worship this entity they call God. They believe it created the world. They build buildings like these literally everywhere in the world.”

“Wow,” Colgate mouthed in awe, looking back up at the pointed spires. “This god thing must do everything for your people if they all worship him. Have you seen it before? Is it another person? Is it a he or a she?”

Daemeon held up a hand and said, “Whoa, whoa. Hold your horses, pardon the pun. One question at a time please. God, at least in the popular belief, does not have a gender. Most people refer to it as He, but that’s mostly because we don’t really have a gender neutral personal pronoun. People also say that it is a person and isn’t. They also say that it looks like us but doesn’t. People also say it is everywhere and is everything.”

The little mare’s face scrunched in disbelief, and she said, “Well, that sounds weird. People must have seen it though. Have you seen it? What do you think it looks like?”

Daemeon shrugged his shoulders and said, “That’s the thing though. Nobody’s ever seen it. Most people don’t even pretend to have seen it. And the people who say they have are called either liars, crazies, or prophets, each more dangerous than the last. There is no actual proof to lend credence towards its existence aside from fanciful ideas that are most often as easily disproved as they are conceived.”

Colgate blinked her eyes at the absurdity of everything Daemeon was saying. She lifted a hoof inside her bag and scratched behind her ear as she said, “Wait. You’re saying none of you have seen this god thing, and not one of you has any actual proof that it exists. And not only do a lot of you believe in it, but you also worship it?”

Daemeon nodded solemnly and stated, “Not just a lot of people. Most people in the world believe in God. They might not all believe exactly the same things about God, but they more or less all agree that there is this single entity that created everything in the universe and controls pretty much everything everywhere; the sun and the stars, the creatures of the Earth, the tides, the weather, all life and death, and every situation that arises everywhere. They are also very much under the impression that this imagined being, in all his power, is extremely concerned with every little thing every little person does at every moment of every day. It’s only been a quite recent phenomenon in our history that there have come to be large numbers of people who have given up on the notion of God altogether.”

Not much caring for her open exposure to the cold, Colgate shivered and shimmied up to Daemeon’s chest. She thumped the side of her head against his breast and asked, “Don’t you take care of all that stuff yourselves? I suppose you might not if you don’t have magic. In Equestria, we ponies learned a long time ago that the world is propelled by magical energy. In time, unicorns such as myself grew more and more adept at harnessing it. Eventually, we took over the functions of the world. We raise the sun, moon, and stars. The night and the day are at the beck and call of our two princesses. The weather is controlled mostly by the pegasi, and the animals are the domain of the Earth ponies. Only in the most untamed corners of our world do we not have control. And we’ll eventually take control of those places too. It’s really just a matter of time.”

Daemeon wrapped an arm around the cold mare and said, “You really do come from a world of fairy tales don’t you?”

Colgate’s ears twitched at the feel of his warm breath as she stated, “You’ve said that before.”

“Have I?” Daemeon muttered, mostly to himself. “I suppose I have. It probably won’t be the last time I say it either. If I weren’t already talking to a little, blue unicorn, I’d call you a liar. I guess I’m hardly in the position to pass off judgments on your world though. I’ve never been there.”

Daemeon’s little, blue unicorn snorted and pressed harder against him as she said, “You creatures must be really smart. The buildings you build are huge and scary and those carriages can go really fast without anypony pulling. This god thing you believe in seems awfully silly to me though. I think your kind just has a much harder time understanding magic than we ponies, so you give it the name of god and try to reason its meanings out of nothing. If you humans think god is magic, then what do you think magic is?”

“Huh,” Daemeon mused aloud. “I guess we think it’s the same thing you think it is. Magic, for a believer, would be someone who is using the power of God to do things that are otherwise impossible, like all those things you say you ponies do.”

Despite the warmth of Daemeon’s body pressed against her’s, Colgate shivered and said, “I’ll admit, this thing called god that you humans believe in sounds pretty stupid to me. That being said, I have about as much right to pass judgment on your world as you do on mine. Do you think we could stop talking about it and go inside already? I’m freezing out here.”

Not at all a fan of the cold himself, Daemeon nodded and said, “Yes, but we can’t just walk right in. The cathedral is closed to visitors at night. The priest on duty, however, will usually let me in. I’m going to have to talk to him before we can enter. It shouldn’t be a problem as long as you stay quiet.”

“I’ll stay quiet,” she answered softly, “but why would we be staying at a place like this? I mean, you don’t believe in this god thing, and you say this is where humans come to worship it. Wouldn’t you rather stay anyplace else?”

Daemeon stood from the freezing stone steps and said with a dour voice, “Personal feelings aside, this is our best bet. Nobody else will be here except the priest, and we won’t have to pay. The old fool thinks that I’m some special soul he has to save and bring to God. All I have to do is entertain the goon for a few minutes, and he’ll leave us alone.”

Colgate whispered from Daemeon’s arms, “You’ve done this before?”

The mare felt Daemeon’s body stiffen at the question. He gave a somewhat exasperated sigh and answered, “More times than I’d care to admit. Being a free man on the streets, never residing, always squatting, has its benefits, but plans are always apt to fall through. When I have no place left to go, I come here. This cathedral has long been a convenience for me. I’ll use it for as long as I can. If I lose it, I’ll just go find someplace else.”

The pair stood in silence for a moment as Daemeon looked up at the massive double doors. The moon was hidden behind the clouds, but the church was lit up to show its splendor. Colgate had described it as beautiful and scary. Daemeon had never seen it as either of those things. All he saw in it was shame and ignorance. If there was anything beautiful or scary about it, it was how it could so easily dupe so many people into believing in something with no real proof.

The brief silence was interrupted when Colgate asked timidly, “How long have you been homeless?”

Daemeon flinched at the question. Instead of answering, he flung the mare over his shoulder and said, “Don’t say a word and don’t stick your nose out. If you are seen for any reason, pretend to be a stuffed animal again. That shouldn’t happen, but be careful anyways. I have to go talk to the priest.”

Without waiting for an answer, Daemeon ascended the steps and stopped before the massive door. He lifted his hand and brought it down heavily six times, each knock louder than the last. It was how he always knocked on the door, and it was how he knew it would even be answered. He and Colgate waited in the cold for a few more minutes before the door lurched open to reveal a small man wearing a black robe that fell to his feet. The only things that stood out to adorn the plain garment was a sash tied around the small man’s waist and a white collar that ran around his sagging neck. His impressive age was quite apparent in his stooped back and the many liver spots speckling his bald and wrinkled head.

While looking the part of a shadow on the cusp of death, it would come as a surprise to hear him loudly declare, “Well, if it isn’t the prodigal son returned?” The old man shifted a pair of massively thick glasses up his nose and stated, “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it. I’m getting to be a bit of an older dog, so you’ll have to speak up this time. How are you doing, uhh, Victor is it? Or did you retire Victor? Are you back to Kurt? Or Justin? You never could keep a fake name straight. I suppose you mustn't spend a lot of time with a single stranger. Your memory isn’t nearly as good as you say it is.”

Daemeon flinched and bit his lip. He had in fact forgotten that the priest didn’t know his name. It had always been a minor point for him. He rarely ever told anybody his real name, even if he knew he’d never see that person again. Before, he would have shrugged off the joke and kept going. Now though, he had been keeping up the facade for Colgate. He sighed at the realization that he wasn’t going to be able to keep it up anymore, “Well, it was just a matter of time really.” He reached up his bandaged hand and swept his thin fingers through his messy hair, “What am I going to tell her now? She probably won’t let it go this time.”

With surprising agility, the old priest’s hand shot up and grabbed a hold of Daemeon’s wrist. Too stunned to argue, Daemeon watched as the old man brought the hand to his wrinkled face and said, “Cut up there, sunny boy? You’re in trouble again, aren’t you?” Daemeon pulled his hand away and the elderly cleric fell to laughing an ugly cackle that echoed in the night to disappear into the sounds of traffic. When the old man finally regained his composure, he stated, “It’s always trouble with you! What did you do this time?”

Daemeon’s eyes fell to the ground as he answered with some irritation, “Don’t worry about it old man. You know the drill. Just let me inside already. It’s freezing out here.”

The priest scowled and demanded, “Why should I let your sorry ass in here? Every time you knock on this door I bend the rules and let you in. Every time I give in. Why should I even bother anymore. You’ve clearly never learned anything from me.”

The old man moved to close the door, but Daemeon stopped him and said, “Fr. Allen, wait!”

While Daemeon wasn’t a strong man, the priest was hardly in a position to argue. Unable to close the door, he asked, “Give me one good reason why I should let you into God’s house!”

Daemeon responded by prodding a finger in Fr. Allen’s chest and saying, “Because that sermon was never about the Prodigal Son. It was always about the forgiving father, the father that took his son back despite all the terrible things he did. You’re going to let me in because, deep down, you really believe that I’m just some lost sheep and all you have to do is call my name softly enough, and I’ll just come back and get in with the rest of the poor fools who follow you, protected by you only because they are useful and can be eaten. You think that this is just a phase and that I’ll fall in line, even if I say I never will.”

Fr. Allen’s face softened a little. The little man stood proudly for several seconds before he gave a defeated sigh and said, “You sure know your Testaments. It might have been a better world if you hadn’t learned to read. Fine. You can come in. I’m sorry to say that it’s kinda chilly in here tonight too. Higher ups decided it didn’t make quite so much sense to keep an empty building heated up so well.”

The priest backed up and gestured the man and his mare in. Daemeon walked in, careful not to let Fr. Allen get a good look at the bag, and asked, “Do you think we can get some blankets or something? I’d like to just warm up in a pew.”

A bushy eyebrow rose over the thick frame of Fr. Allen’s glasses as he asked, “We?”

Making a quick save, Daemeon answered, “Yeah. Aren’t you cold too?”

“I’m always cold!” the old man bellowed with a laugh. “A blanket wouldn’t change that. Besides, if the chill bites me tonight, and I kick the bucket, it won’t matter much anyways.” He walked a bit to the nearest pew and took a grunting seat. Every bone and joint seemed to creak as he went down. When he felt himself situated, he went on, “I’m old, boy. I might not act it, but the Spirit’s closing in on me. Soon, my soul will leave this world, and this old body will be nothing but a pile of bones.”

Daemeon took a few steps forward and looked down on the frail man. He looked even worse in the night lighting of the cathedral. His eyelids were almost sagged shut and his neck no longer seemed strong enough to hold his head up appropriately, much like a child’s. In curiosity, Daemeon asked, “Why on Earth are you still working here? Why haven’t they retired you?”

The priest smiled and explained, “They tried to. I told them that I’d stop eating if they took me away from here.” He broke into another fit of laughing. This time however, it ended with him doubling over and coughing out some mucous. Daemeon watched, undisturbed, until the old man again righted himself. He didn’t take his eyes from the ground as he continued, “This is my home, boy. And there is no way in Heaven or Earth that they’re going to take me from my home. They tried to reason with me but gave up. They weren’t too worried in any case. All I am is a guard dog. I’ve been walking this dark cathedral for twenty-six years now. What was another two or three to them?”

Daemeon walked to the front of the man and knelt down. A serious frown besmirched his face as he asked, “Doesn’t it bother you that you’re going to die?”

Fr. Allen’s smile did not waver as he answered, “Not really. I did good. I lived the way God wanted me to. I met and worked with so many wonderful people in my life, and they’ve all taught me something. And I, in turn, have taught them.” With some effort, he raised a hand and placed it on Daemeon’s shoulder, right where the plastic bag was slung over, and said, “You see, child of God, death is a happy thing to conclude such a beautiful life with.”

Daemeon scowled in anger and demanded, “But what if you’re wrong? What if God doesn’t exist? How can you believe in what you haven’t seen? Wouldn’t you regret your entire life then? Wouldn’t it have all been a waste?”

The smile dimmed on Fr. Allen’s face. A twinkle of moisture peeked at the corner of an eye as he said, “Even if all that were true, there would only be one thing that I truly regret.”

With a face set like stone, Daemeon asked, “And just what would that be?”

Fr. Allen’s eyes closed as he whispered, “That I was never able to make you understand what life is really about.”

Rolling his eyes, Daemeon begged sarcastically, “And just what might that be?”

The priest lurched forward suddenly and struggled to his feet. Daemeon stood with him and waited until the old man had found his balance. Balancing himself against the pew, the priest answered, “If you haven’t figured it out yet, my telling you won’t make a lick of difference.” With that, he pushed forward and started walking away.

Daemeon puffed out his chest in indignation and bellowed, “Try me!”

The priest stopped his walking and turned towards Daemeon. He sighed heavily and stated, “I’m too old to argue with you anymore. However, I reckon this’ll probably be the last time you see me, so I’ll tell you this. Life is a journey. Whether the journey is good or bad depends entirely on how you travel. If you don’t think your life is good, then you’re doing something wrong.” The cleric bowed his head and continued, “I had a good journey. I only pray that, before the end, you can say the same thing.”

Daemeon took a step towards the retreating man to stop him but was halted by an upraised hand as Fr. Allen stated absently, “I’m going to bed. Would you be a dear and hold the night vigil for me? You can grab some robes from the sacristy to curl up in. It’s unlocked. There’s also some wafers under the sink if you’re hungry. I’d ask that you would stay away from the wine if you could. They’ll notice if that’s missing. I don’t think I have to tell you to be gone by the time the sun rises.” Daemeon stood still as the priest disappeared out a door, leaving the massive cathedral empty save for the man and his mare.

At the thought of his solitude, Daemeon whisked the bag from his shoulder and set it on the ground. He opened it up to reveal the massive hall to Colgate’s wide eyes. Her mouth fell wide open as she slowly did a full turn, trying to take in every inch of the massive cathedral. Daemeon left the mare to her moment of awe until she said, “It’s even prettier on the inside.”

Daemeon gave the familiar structure a once over himself. It was all exactly as he remembered it. The banners were different colors from the last time he’d been there. The seasons were always changing. He shivered at the thought of seasons. “Fr. Allen was right. It’s freezing in here.” He turned back to Colgate and said, “Come on. I’ll grab us some food.”

Colgate hopped out of her prison, glad to be free, and followed Daemeon into the sacristy at the far end of the Cathedral. Every step was filled with wonder as she marveled at the architecture. “I can’t believe they don’t have magic. Everything they build is so big.”

After having to prod the awestruck mare on several times, and dodging questions about the table in the center of the massive room, Daemeon brought the pair to the sacristy. He opened the door and walked in, not the least bit worried. He’d filched from the sacristy several times over the years with Fr. Allen. This wasn’t the first time he’d come in cold and hungry. The room was decently large for a sacristy and contained many of the trappings of the church. Dozens of jars of incense lined the shelves. Cabinets lined every wall containing the tools for worship.

Daemeon crossed the room and opened a large cabinet containing dozens of white cassocks. He snatched out a couple of the plus sizes and slipped them on over his clothes. Colgate sat back on her haunches and asked, “How come you humans wear so many clothes? Almost all of the ones I’ve seen have been covered from head to paws.”

Daemeon popped his head out of the large alb, already feeling quite a bit warmer, and explained, “Humans gave up their furry bodies for their intelligence. As we grew smarter, we learned how to make clothes and cover ourselves. We were then able to move from our warmer climates and flourish in the cold.” He walked across the sacristy to a large double basin sink and opened the doors beneath it. Several boxes of communion wafers, packaged by the thousand, sat together. Daemeon grabbed out one of the boxes and continued, “We have less need of clothing now with our conditioned homes and for those who live in warmer climates, but we still wear them. It’s considered indecent not to wear clothes in public.”

Colgate stood up on her hind legs, looking very much like a prairie cat, and asked, “Why would it be indecent to go outside without clothes? I mean, we ponies wear clothes, but that’s just to look nice. We don’t wear clothes most of the time.”

Daemeon bent down and picked up the mare. He tucked her into the nook of his arm and walked out of the sacristy, closing the door in his wake. He mulled over the question in his head as he brought them to a padded pew near the altar. He took a seat, setting the little, blue mare down beside him, and answered, “A lot of people believe it’s because the first man ever created ate the fruit from the tree of forbidden knowledge. They say God punished the man for trying to be like it, that mankind was not meant to be like God. So, as the story goes, we were kicked out of paradise and made to live in toil and shame, never again able to enjoy life as simply because we were no longer innocent.”

The mare curled her legs beneath her and rested her head against Daemeon’s lap. She silently yawned and interjected, “But you don’t believe in God. So, what do you think?”

Daemeon dropped an arm around his little mare and said, “I think, mostly, we like to be warm.”

Colgate smiled and curled in closer until the length of her body was pressed against her big ape’s leg. She sighed in contentment, glad to finally be resting in something other than a garbage bag. She couldn’t really remember a time she’d ever been so exhausted in her entire life. Sleep would have come over her right then if it weren’t for a nagging question that stood out in her mind. She had not met many humans, but it seemed like they were all very different from Daemeon. Each one seemed to know how to crack a smile or had a cheery demeanor. Fr. Allen seemed to laugh even with death on the horizon. So, with a tone that was both gentle and serious, Colgate asked, “Daemeon?”

“Yeah?”

The mare rolled onto her back and looked into his eyes. Daemeon couldn’t help but marvel at how crystal blue they were. She pressed a hoof against his belly and asked, “Can you tell me why you’re like this? Why do you see the world the way you do?”

Daemeon lifted his hand and ran it up and down her chest. He looked away and answered in a quivering voice, “It’s a long story.”

She gave him a smile and said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

The moisture in his eyes was becoming evident as he said, “I suppose you’re not.”

Colgate responded by wrapping her hooves around the hand at her belly and saying, “I’m listening.”

“Okay,” he whispered, “here goes.”

Through Daemeon's Eyes

Daemeon withdrew his hand from the mare’s chest and rested it on his leg. He bent forward and sighed, staring up the altar all lit up in glory. It glowed a brilliant white with a cloth draped over the length of it. Four large candles stood at each of its corners, extinguished in the absence of a mass. In the center of an otherwise glorious structure, they stood empty and somewhat insignificant. The simplicity of the altar reflected the simplicity of the rituals it was used for. Really, what more is necessary for breaking bread than a table to gather around?

As Daemeon mused over the simplicity of the center, he reached into the darkest corners of his mind, the places where he locked away the secrets he couldn’t forget. It was something he rarely did save to create conviction in himself when he felt weak. Never before had he opened those doors to relay their information to another living being. He was curious though. “I wonder what will happen if I tell her.” He frowned at the thought, “What can happen? She already hates me. And it’s not like she can leave me or anything. Still,” he thought with stern conviction, “she’ll have to learn eventually if she’s to pass on my education.”

He said in a sad voice, “It all started with my mother and her job.”

Colgate glanced down at the hourglass on her rump and asked, “What was her job?”

Daemeon stroked his shadow, not looking at the mare, and answered, “She gave people what they wanted instead of what they needed.”

“Oh!” Colgate smiled. “So, she was a whore?”

The handsome man grimaced at the statement, and his eyes fell to the floor. His pout was apparent to the mare as he answered, “Yes. She was a whore.”

Concerned, Colgate interjected, “Didn’t people like her? I know other ponies hate me because I have to give them what they need instead of what they want.”

Daemeon ran his fingers through his unkempt brown hair and said, “You’d be surprised.”

“So,” Colgate asked, crawling into Daemeon’s lap and laying with her hooves up, “what happened with her?”

“Well,” he explained, “as she did her work, she came into the company of many different men whom she gave her love to.”

Surprised, Colgate lifted her hooves to her mouth and whispered, “Oh, my.” The mare blushed right through her blue coat and asked, “Did she . . ?”

Daemeon nodded his head sadly and continued, “One day, she discovered that her carousing had gotten her pregnant.”

She poked his belly and asked softly, “With you?”

“Yes,” Daemeon answered simply. “She was older at the time, so there was some debate about keeping me. She had probably thought she was already barren when she had me. Her parents were out of her life, and she’d no clue who the father was. What’s more, what man would want to be father to a whore’s child?”

Colgate grimaced at the remark. She believed she was beginning to understand what Daemeon’s mother actually was. Thinking about it made her feel sick, so she asked, “So, you didn’t have a father?”

“Nope,” the man answered, shaking his head slowly. “It was a difficult pregnancy. She had to manage mostly on her own. As luck would have it though, her being a single mother with terrible job prospects pretty well took the anxiety of big medical bills off her shoulders. The state more or less covered them. And, since she had a kid, she qualified for welfare.”

Curious, the mare asked, “What’s welfare?”

Dameon rubbed a hand across his brow, annoyed that he had to explain what must be such foreign concepts to the unicorn and her fairy land. He gave his simplest explanation, “It’s a system where people who can’t work are given money by the state to live.”

Colgate nodded and said, “I think I understand, but why don’t the families of the people who can’t work take care of them? That’s how we do it in Equestria.”

“Mankind doesn’t have it quite as good I guess. There are so many of us that pretty much any situation that can occur does occur.”

“Like yours?”

“Yes.” Daemeon brought his arms around Colgate’s diminutive form in his lap and pulled her a little closer. He nodded his head and bit his lip before continuing, “At any rate, I was born to a mother who had crippling arthritis and no hopes left for a career. I’m not at all sure what she did with her life before that. I sometimes think she might have been married before, or that she had a good career before she lost it all and became a whore.” His eyes gradually carried back up to the simple altar and its candles. “But, most likely, she was probably a whore all her life.”

Colgate rolled on her side, facing away from Daemeon, and asked, “Was she nice?”

Daemeon lifted his hand and stroked the length of Colgate’s side. He paused the motion for a second over her ribs. The diminutive mare’s heart thudded softly with the rush of life. It was a small heart, and Daemeon could only feel it if he pressed his fingertips in the right spot. Still, it stood out as yet another reminder of the unicorn’s existence. At the feel of her heart, he couldn’t help but think, “This is nice.”

The silence lingered for a bit longer before Daemeon answered, “No. Not especially.”

Colgate turned her face to him in confusion and asked, “How wasn’t she?”

“Well,” Daemeon started, “she treated me as both a curse and a blessing. Since she had me, the welfare was easy to get. Free money poured in, and she was able to give up her life as a whore. Or, at least, she toned it down a bit. I wasn’t really aware of what she was until I was a bit older. She was even able to squeeze a little extra because she proved to the government that her arthritis was too bad for her to get a real job.” His head fell back on the pew, so he could gaze up at the massive vaulted ceiling above. With just a hint of ire, he finished, “She never had to work another hard day in her life.”

The little, blue mare frowned and pressed, “If that’s what was good, then what was bad? Why were you a curse?”

Daemeon grunted and crossed his legs onto the pew saying, “She traded one gig with another. She liked the prospect of free money, but she wasn’t all that thrilled about having to take care of me. Growing up, she used to call me Purgy because I was her penance for a bad life.” He cringed. “Isn’t that rich? She liked to think she was religious too. Liked to say the rosary from time to time. Though, I wonder if she actually knew the prayers. The woman was so dense it was altogether likely that she didn’t.”

Colgate twisted onto her back, sticking her four petite hooves in the air, and said in horror, “You sound like you hated your mother!”

Keeping his eyes to the ceiling, Daemeon shook his head and answered, “That’s where you’re wrong. I told you before that I don’t have hate in my heart. I might have disliked my mother a bit. At times, she even made me angry. But I never hated her.”

The mare frowned and responded, “You never did explain that to me.” With a heavy dose of sarcasm, she asked, “How, may I ask, did you learn to not hate things? You’re such a bitter ape, I was beginning to think you just hated everything.”

Daemeon gave up on the ceiling to flash an angry look at the little, blue unicorn, causing her to cringe slightly. He answered her, “I’m not as easy to judge as you might think.”

Colgate scowled back with equal intensity and countered, “Neither am I!”

Daemeon just shook his head and continued, “The reason I don’t hate anything is quite simple really. I don’t hate anything because I don’t love anything.”

Her scowl softened just a touch as she asked, “What do you mean?”

“As I said, it’s simple,” Daemeon responded in all seriousness. “If you think about it, any true hate you ever feel is a response to something you love being put in jeopardy. It’s not always so easy to recognize, but if you look at it logically, you can follow the steps. Just like you could figure out how the couch was white.” He cleared his throat and gestured to nothing in particular as he went on, “Think of any reason you could hate somebody. You could hate a person because he or she hurt you physically. Such hate is a clear reflection of self love, the most basic love anybody can feel. That person tried to harm what you love, and you retaliate with hate. Simple.”

The mare brought her hoof to her mouth thoughtfully and mused aloud, “I never looked at it like that. So, you didn’t hate your mother, but you also didn’t love her?”

“I,” Daemeon stuttered, looking away, “I didn’t say that either.”

An uncomfortable silence fell on the pair. The discomfort of the moment was only magnified in the deathly quiet of the massive cathedral. Daemeon avoided eye contact, but Colgate did not look away. She watched as moisture was again beading in Daemeon’s grey eyes, flashing a subtle twinkle in the light reflected off the altar. Colgate recognized the sadness in his eyes from the apartment. It seemed to her that the shadow of whatever had disturbed him there clung to him even in the cathedral.

The small, blue mare rolled to her hooves and stood on her hind legs. With as much care as she could muster, Colgate reached a tiny hoof to Daemeon’s eye and rubbed a tear away just as it was to descend down his cheek. The motion pulled him from his contemplation, and their eyes met. Taking a deep breath, Colgate stated, “You loved her.”

The man responded with silence.

The mare pressed, “You loved her with all your heart.”

Daemeon’s lip quivered visibly as he said, “How could I not? She may have been a whore and a lazy bum, but she was my mother.” He paused a second to sniffle before adding, “She took care of me and was my whole world for the first nine years of my life.”

Colgate’s ears fell back in horror as she timidly asked, “Nine years?”

Silence again.

Barely having the courage to speak, the mare asked, “What happened to her?”

Daemeon broke his silence by saying, “Chaos happened.” Before Colgate could respond, he continued in a shaky but uninterrupted voice, “You like to laugh don’t you? Of course you do. The world is full of funny little tidbits, humorous little ironies. And really, the more chaotic they are, the more comical they can be. So, I guess you could say it’s a funny story really. Or is it a tragic story? Aren’t those lines always so blurred. One man’s pain is often another man’s entertainment.”

Colgate noticed that his voice sped up as he spoke. Though his eyes did not leave hers, she felt like he was again in the midst of one of his rants. The more he spoke, the wilder he looked and the more fear Colgate felt in his presence.

“But as for what happened to my mother, that’s the juiciest bit of chaos ever. Tell me Colgate. When you were a child, did you ever do anything your parents had to admonish you for?”

The blue mare nodded her head answering, “Well, yeah. But. . .”

“But of course they did!” he launched in suddenly. “That’s what they’re supposed to do isn’t it? They are supposed to protect you from danger so your ignorance doesn’t kill you. That was not quite the case for me, you see. My mother needed me too much for me to enjoy the pleasure of ignorance. With her debilitating arthritis, inability to work a computer, and incorrigible laziness brought on by a life of whoring and feeding off of government handouts, she wasted no time in putting me to work.”

Colgate frowned, growing uneasy as his voice gradually rose in anger. She asked, “What do you mean ‘work?’”

Daemeon’s eyes flashed wildly as he explained, “It wasn’t such a bad thing. I should praise her for doing it in a way. Being as lazy as she was, she did everything in her power to make sure life happened with the least amount of work done. So, she sat in her favorite chair and waited for her checks to come in the mail. By the time I was four, she had taught me how to forge her signature. Soon after, she had taught me how to fill out the forms altogether, so she wouldn’t have to. By the time I walked to my first class of first grade, I could read, write, and understand complex instructions.”

He snorted loudly before continuing, “A teacher said once that I should go to a special school for how smart I was. Like that ever had a chance of happening. I’m convinced I was never that brilliant. I just knew the price of failure. By the time second grade rolled around, she had me walking the streets of New York City to do her chores. She would give me money and food stamps from her security checks, and I would come back with essentials. We had a brilliantly simple life.” His head slumped forward, and his eyes gazed down at his lap as his voice shifted from an aggressive volume to a whisper, “That is, until I turned nine.”

Colgate fell into Daemeon’s chest as his gaze fell from her’s. She rested the tip of her horn between his moist eyes and pleaded, “It’s okay. What happened then?”

A tear dripped from the tip of Daemeon’s nose to and hit the blue mare’s fuzzy cheek. As his tear rolled down her cheek, Colgate felt his arms engulf her. Her body was completely blanketed in the white robes he wore. She would have reveled in the comforting warmth if her ape wasn’t so distraught. His distress caused her distress, and she again lifted a hoof to rub away the tears.

That leg was caught up in Daemeon’s bandaged hand. His fingers wrapped around the tiny hoof, accentuating Colgate’s small frame. The handsome man shut his eyes, unable to look at the mare any longer, and explained with a trembling voice, “I’d say it was an accident, but really, everything is an accident. In the chaos of the universe, anything is bound to happen whether we intend it to or not. The circumstances that lead up to it really don’t matter that much. You know that. You said so yourself. The couch is white just because it is.”

Colgate took a deep breath, trembling, and asked, “Daemeon, did you. . .”

“I killed my mother.”

*****

The small, blue mare gaped at Daemeon and stuttered, “You, you killed your mother?”

The hand grasping her tiny hoof tightened its grip as he slowly nodded his head. Daemeon’s entire body trembled as he seemed to be struggling to keep any sense of composure. His eyes were squeezed shut as he fought through wheezing, ragged breaths to whisper, “Yes.”

Colgate shuddered, having no clue what to do. In all honesty, she wanted to run away. She knew she couldn’t though. Even if she escaped from Daemeon’s crushing grasp, their souls were tethered with powerful magic. She couldn’t leave him, and he couldn’t leave her. So, not knowing what else to do, the unicorn asked, “How?”

Daemeon’s eyes flashed open suddenly in terrifying anger. His grasp around Colgate tightened as he screamed, “What does it matter how? She’s dead. She’s dead because of me. I killed her, and now, I live every day with the memory of what I did. The how doesn’t matter. She’s dead just because she is. Knowing what caused it isn’t going to change a thing!”

Colgate shook in fear as Daemeon’s voice reverberated throughout the empty cathedral. In the silence, it seemed louder than any chorus and bore the ever present anger and anguish of a soul tormented with grief. Colgate again found herself fearing for her life in Daemeon’s arms. She began to struggle out of his grasp. It didn’t work though as she felt Daemeon cling to her even tighter and scream, “What’s this? You’re trying to get away? You think I’m a monster too?”

The tiny mare’s struggle grew into a flail as she fought for her life. She kicked as hard as her hooves would allow in her awkward position. When her movement only caused Daemeon to tighten his grip on her, forcing the very air out of her lungs and making her fear she would be crushed to death, she did the only thing she could think to do. With all the strength she could muster, she opened her jaw and thrust her perfect white teeth against Daemeon’s breast. The two cassocks offered him little protection as the mare’s miniature teeth pierced the cloth and met with his flesh.

Daemeon’s screams of anger and Colgate’s cries of terror simultaneously became a chorus of agony as the cruel man’s grip loosened, and he shoved the mare away. The mare’s head fell against the pew, causing a decent bump to swell, but her hooves were clutched to her chest as small streams of blood trickled down her gossamer blue coat. Her hind legs kicked wildly as she wailed in misery. She looked down to see a deep oval cut into her breast just outside her rapidly beating heart. Her teary eyes were torn from it only at the memory of her attacker.

Colgate looked to find Daemeon doubled over, wheezing painfully. His hand clutched his chest where she’d bit him. The scream he’d ushered when she’d bitten him was spent, and he was reduced to moaning painfully. The mare might have sympathized with him if it weren’t for the fact that she felt the exact same degree of pain. She knew her beliefs were true then. Just as she’d hurt him, so she hurt herself. In her moment of peril, she realized that, if it was a choice between the ugly ape and herself, she would choose herself.

So, even as the wicked pain of the wound outside her heart made her body quiver, Colgate could almost smile. She wasn’t going to go down without a fight. She wasn’t going to let that beast hurt her. She wasn’t just going to lie there and take it. With blood on her hooves and venom on her tongue, she spat at Daemeon, “I hate you!”

Silence ruled in the moment that followed. Daemeon ceased his pained moaning and very gradually righted himself. The ceremonial hood of the cassock had fallen over his head, leaving his face draped in its shadow. Colgate could tell little of his features in the light reflected off the altar aside from his tear stained nose and shadowed chin. The chin trembled and the nose dripped as he calmly whispered in answer, “And I envy you.”

“What!?” Colgate bellowed, grunting as the pain in her chest sharpened.

The bright white robes reddened underneath Daemeon’s hands. He drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly before saying, “I envy that you can hate me. I can’t hate you. I can’t even hate me.”

Colgate slid to her side and curled up in a ball. Biting her lip through the pain, she pressed her hoof down on her chest as hard as her little frame would allow to stop the bleeding. She shut her eyes, wishing again to be gone, and asked irritably, “What do you mean?”

Giving little indication anymore that the pain was mutual, he answered, “Hate is a terrible thing. It drives men to kill each other. It makes them greedy and violent. It breeds all wars and terror.” He paused for a wincing breath. “Hate is the tapestry on which all of mankind’s ugliness is painted. All wrong inflicted on any man is the result of some hateful act one person has inflicted on another. It might be a direct cause, like a murder done out of spite. Or it could be just a distant dream, like the oppression of one race over another from a thousand years ago. In the end though, no matter how distant or present the hate is, it all leads to the same conclusion; chaos.

“I know this for a fact. And yet,” he said, turning his face full on to the cringing little mare, “I envy that you can hate me. It’s like I said before. Hate isn’t an action. It’s a reaction. All hate is just the result of people protecting what they love. You hate me because you love yourself, and I tried to hurt you. That’s the most basic kind of love. In that sense, even the simplest forms of life can love and hate.” He lowered his face, again casting it in shadow, and remarked, “I am one of the few exceptions.”

Colgate furrowed her brow and stated, “You can’t hate me because you don’t love yourself.”

Daemeon nodded his head and turned away from her. His eyes fell again on the simple altar around which the hundreds of pews faced. The white cloth adorning it shined in the night lighting of the cathedral, drawing focus away from the otherwise dim halls. He lifted a bloodied hand from his chest to rub away some of the tears already crusting in his eyes. He answered, “It’s not just myself that I don’t love. I don’t love anything anymore.”

“Anymore?” Colgate asked with a raised eyebrow.

Daemeon sighed. “I told you before. I loved my mother. Even as you said, I loved her with all my heart. Despite the whore she was, I loved her until her death.” He choked as a tear dripped off his nose. “I loved her until I killed her.”

Colgate opened her mouth to ask him how but stopped when she remembered that it was that very question that had almost gotten her killed. She instead remained silent and tried to focus her attention away from the pain in her chest. She tried to think of something to say but was interrupted by Daemeon as he said, “I know what you’re wondering. You’re thinking to yourself, ‘How did the monster kill his mother? By what sick means did he dispose of the wretched woman?’ Well, it’s a short story really. In the midst of a fairly dreary and boring summer afternoon, I devised a game with knives.” Daemeon gestured with his hand as he explained simply, “I liked playing with knives because they were dangerous. I also liked playing with them because my mother didn’t like it. She hardly had the energy or motivation to do anything about it however, so I was usually left to my own devices.”

Colgate frowned in horror at where his story might be going.

“If I’d have had a father or a more caring mother, I might have taken better care to realize that knives are dangerous if you’re not careful. It’s tough for a child to internalize danger though. A stove isn’t hot until you’ve touched it. The man offering candy isn’t dangerous until you’ve been stolen away.” Daemeon paused to sniffle audibly before continuing, “And a knife isn’t sharp until you’ve cut yourself or someone you love. I learned that knives were sharp the hard way when, in one of the infrequent absences of my mother, I decided to make a throne of knives. I did this by bringing all of our sharpest knives to my mother’s favorite chair and sticking the handles in so the blades faced out.”

The mare cringed.

“To the eyes of a rambunctious nine year old, it was a grand throne, spiky and ominous. I thought it was such fun that I just left it as it was. I figured I would enjoy the sight as long as I could before my mother ruined it.” Daemeon echoed a pained sigh and slumped over. His elbows rested on his knees as his hands clutched his heart. He continued, “As luck would have it, she didn’t ruin it. She got home and sat down in her chair without looking. She must have died pretty quickly because none of the neighbors heard her scream or anything. I was outside at the time, playing with tar that had come up from a crack in the road.”

Daemeon turned his face back towards Colgate. His features were lit up just enough to reveal the sadness in his eyes. “You should be laughing Colgate,” he whispered bitterly. “Isn’t it a sweet irony? I made my throne of knives and wished that it wouldn’t be wrecked, and that’s exactly what happened. Come on Colgate. Laugh!” He tilted his head back and bellowed out a painful, mechanical laugh.

When the echoes of his loud excursion died down, he asked, “Why don’t you laugh at my pain? Don’t ponies laugh at each others pain like you said? Aren’t my shenanigans humorous?”

Colgate couldn’t help but pout as she answered, “It’s not funny when somepony gets hurt like that or dies. You don’t laugh at something like that.”

“No?” Daemeon queried with a raised eyebrow. “Then I guess it’s only good to laugh when someone gets hurt a little bit. Maybe if she’d only been cut up badly and not died. Then would it have been funny?”

The little mare gawked and begged, “How can you ask something like that? Of course it wouldn’t be funny!”

“So you say, Ms. Minuette,” he beckoned slowly, “but why?”

“Because,” Colgate shouted, her anger rising, “it’s not nice to laugh when somepony’s in pain! Especially if it’s somepony you love.”

“Ahh, but Colgate,” Daemeon said with an ugly, false smile, “isn’t it easier to laugh at somebody’s pain when you hate him? Don’t you enjoy seeing ponies you hate getting their due? You hate me. Don’t you get just a little satisfaction from my pain? Didn’t it make you feel just a little better to bite me and make me bleed?”

“Did it?” she wondered. The dentist’s tongue slid over her perfectly white teeth, sensing the taste of copper. Her face flushed red as she couldn’t help but admit to herself that she’d liked the feeling. The satisfaction that came to her as she first saw Daemeon curled over in pain had been tremendous. She’d almost smiled. A shiver went up her diminutive, equine spine at the thought.

Daemeon shot up an accusatory finger and stated, “You hurt me, and it felt good. It felt good to protect yourself, to protect what you love. Because you love yourself, it felt good to see the person you hate get hurt.”

“But. . .”

“But nothing!” Daemeon shouted. “The hate kept you safe. Hate is what keeps the individual safe from other people who hate. Everyone finds something or someone to love and then learns to hate everything that threatens whatever they’ve chosen. They use love to build a protective little cocoon and impose order on whatever they can. In trying to create order with love though, they breed hate for everything foreign and, in so doing,” he paused and muttered with unrivaled contempt, “chaos.”

Colgate frowned severely and said, “But I thought you liked chaos!”

Dismally, and with tragic countenance, he answered her, “I don’t think a soul on Earth could be as misguided as you. My enmity for chaos knows no bounds.”

“What?!” the mare cried in exclamation. “You’re lying! How can that possibly be? You’re so mean and calculating. You’re a liar, a big ugly ape, and all you’ve done is hurt me. You even said that you’re an agent of Discord! You said that the world is ruled by chaos, and you’re a part of it.”

Taking a deep breath, Daemeon answered her in a tone that echoed both sadness and resignation, “I am a part of it. You’re a part of it. All of us are a part of it. We can’t help it.” He reclined his head against the pew and continued softly, “But you’re wrong about my lying. If there was one thing I could hate, it would be chaos. It was chaos that killed my mother. I might have been instrumental in the events leading up to her death. If you look directly, you can even say that I killed her. If you look a little further back, you could blame her for not curtailing my vice of playing with knives better. If you look further back still, you could blame her for getting pregnant with me irresponsibly in the first place. Before that you could blame her own birth or society for being so structured that being a whore is a valid profession. You could blame my father for not wearing a condom. You could blame television for promulgating violence and leading me to fantasize about the power I felt holding those knives in my hands.” He turned his head back to Colgate, curled in a ball only four feet from him, and asked, “But you know now Colgate. What really killed her?”

With a soft hint of sadness tingeing her voice, she replied, “I don’t know.”

Daemeon shook his head and pressed, “Yes, you do. Tell me, little unicorn, why is the couch white?”

The little blue mare grimaced violently at the question. As much as she’d hated answering the question the first time, now she feared it even more. Before, she had sworn disagreement against the thought. “How can chaos be the answer?” she thought to herself. “Everything I’ve ever known has taught me that chaos is not the answer.” She squeezed her eyes shut and shivered, “He has to be wrong. I’ve read the stories. We used to live with chaos, and life was horrible. The princesses brought order back to Equestria and brought us to peace. He just can’t be right.”

“I’m waiting Colgate,” he said expectantly. “You’ve already answered this question once. You shouldn’t be having any more trouble now.”

At Daemeon’s beckoning, Colgate opened her eyes. She moved her hooves from her wicked bite. The gauze on her injured hoof was now stained with the blood of two wounds. With surprising determination, she stood up on three wobbly legs, grunting through obvious and almost agonizing pain. Between being beaten, unfed, bitten, manipulated, and almost crushed to death, all done to her in a single wearisome day, she struck a small and abused figure. Her small, trembling frame was reminiscent of a small animal that was lost, alone, and near death. Yet, despite all that, her voice echoed with power as she proclaimed, “You are wrong!”

Daemeon fell back, once again shocked to silence.

The mare continued, “I know what you want me to say. You want me to say the couch is white ‘just because it is’. You want me to say that your mother died just because she did. You want me to say that all existence is just chance and circumstance. I bet you want me to say that just so you can erase the guilt. You want somepony else to share your messed up views of life just so you can feel better about yourself. Well, I’m not going to give you the satisfaction. There’s something bigger at work here, something bigger than the randomness.”

With sarcasm drenching his voice, Daemeon demanded, “And just what might that be?”

Colgate turned away from him and looked at her cutie mark. The half filled hourglass echoed the pains of her profession and reminded her of exactly who she was and why she was there. That little picture had dictated so much of her life, and she was tired of it. She was ready to change it. She felt that it couldn’t simply have been a mistake. If Princess Celestia was involved, there had to be some higher purpose. It was just a matter of time before she learned what that was. She sighed with some resignation though to the fact that she still didn’t know what that purpose was. She wasn’t certain what it was, but she was certain that she knew that it was. So, with conviction, she answered, “I don’t know.”

Daemeon snorted and waved his hand dismissively, “Of course you don’t. You don’t know because you can’t know, just like that stupid, old priest.”

Colgate stuck up her nose and retorted, “At least he seemed a lot nicer than you.”

“Seemed is the key word Colgate.” He slid himself over to close much of the gap between himself and the mare. Colgate flinched back. “You can’t really run away. You’ll have to take me at my word when I say I’m not going to hurt you. Even if my word isn't very good to you.”

Daemeon raised his hand to the mare, but she pulled away and cried, “Don’t touch me!”

Daemeon sighed and reached his good hand to his opposite shoulder. Taking a fist of fabric firmly in his grip, he tugged at the seams where the sleeve met the torso. Colgate winced at seeing Daemeon grimace in such pain that sweat appeared on his brow. He gave several powerful tugs until the sleeve was rent from the rest of the garment. He motioned the tube of fabric at Colgate and said, “Roll over.”

“Why?” Colgate asked with a frown.

With a gentle seriousness, he explained, “It doesn’t do either of us much good if you’re in pain. You might as well roll over so I can bandage you up.”

Colgate grimaced at the thought but couldn’t find a flaw in his logic. She didn’t even think she could do it for herself. The pain from the bite would have made it difficult to focus her magic for a task as complicated as that. So, after a moment’s hesitation, she conceded the point and rolled onto her back, covering herself with her tail to keep some semblance of dignity.

Daemeon bent low over her to inspect the bite. He frowned when he noted the two dark semicircles. Her beautiful, gossamer blue coat was plagued by the ugly red blood. It dripped down her chest and crusted on her soft fur. Daemeon lifted the cloth and brought it down as gently as he could manage. As the sleeve touched down, Colgate flinched back and cried, “Ow!”

Daemeon tensed up as well, agitation flooding his face, and said, “I’m sorry. It hurts, but I have to do it. I’ll try to be as careful as I can. Okay?”

Colgate’s expression of distress softened at Daemeon’s consolation. She exposed her breast and Daemeon’s cloth clad fingers came down again. The mare kept her eyes fixed on her big ape’s ugly, hairless face as he touched her cut and immediately applied pressure. Colgate groaned loudly in pain and curled in a ball around Daemeon’s hand.

Daemeon responded by reaching down and cradling her in his arms. He hugged her close with his hand pressed firmly against her chest and cooed, “It’s okay. It’s okay. I have to do this. The bleeding has to stop first before I wrap you up. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you.”

The tiny mare shivered through the pain as Daemeon continued to wordlessly hold her. After several minutes passed, when the pain seemed to be more tolerable, Daemeon fell to wrapping the cloth around her wound. He tugged the sleeve around her minute rib cage and tied it behind her back. Colgate could do nothing but struggle through the pain. At several points she almost fell to whimpering and pleading him to stop. Even then, she bit her lip and stood as strongly as she could on her three wobbly legs.

When all was said and done, Daemeon picked the mare up and cradled her against his chest again. He noted the evident exhaustion she exuded. Her entire frame was limp, and she looked to be on the verge of passing out. Daemeon couldn’t help but admit his own exhaustion as he cradled the mare’s head against his chest, ignoring the pain he felt in his own bite, and slid into a laying position on the padded pew. He took comfort in the four little hooves pressed against his chest as he ran his fingers through the soft though muddled tresses of Colgate’s beautiful white and blue mane. Somehow, the pain seemed a great deal more tolerable with the little blue pony in his grasp.

Just when he was certain she was asleep, the mare surprised him by muffling into his chest, “I’m sorry about your mother.”

Daemeon responded by hugging her just a little tighter and whispering, “Thank you.”

“Daemeon?”

“Yeah?”

“I saw your face when you were bandaging me. You looked like you were really sorry about hurting me. Where you faking that, or did you really feel bad?”

“I,” Daemeon stuttered, “I uh, I did feel bad.”

“Why? I thought you said people enjoyed seeing others they don’t like getting hurt.”

Daemeon took a deep breath and stroked the length of Colgate’s back. A strange expression peaked at the corners of his mouth, tilting them upwards in an unseen and uncharacteristic fashion. With a fairly shaky voice, he answered her, “I don’t like seeing you get hurt. Despite how much you might hate me, I’m scared to admit I actually like you Colgate. As much as it terrifies me, in one day you managed to get me to care about you.”

“Daemeon.”

The handsome man with the backswept, brown hair answered her, “Yeah?”

“As much as you’ve hurt me, I don’t hate you.”

Daemeon tensed in anticipation, “No?”

The mare nuzzled her face against his chest, glad for the warmth he gave her. Despite everything he’d done to her, she didn’t think she’d ever felt safer than in his arms. She returned, “I think I like you too.”

Daemeon shivered as he felt goosebumps run the course of his entire body. He didn’t say a word but hugged her ever closer. Within moments, the silence of the massive cathedral overtook them, and they drifted softly into sleep.

Warrun

Warrun’s eyes glinted with determination from the headlights of the oncoming traffic. His sight flicked back and forth from the dark road lit up by the streetlights placed at regular intervals to the road signs that came at every intersection. Every sign that glinted green in his vision brought him another street closer to his destination.

What was his destination? It was nowhere special. An apartment building and a room number echoed in his mind. Well, the building was in his mind. The number had practically gone in one ear and out the other. Warrun silently stewed in annoyance as he drove along. It wasn’t that out of the ordinary that he’d be called in outside of his typical hours to work. Being first officer of the Manhattan Police Department was not a career that afforded the luxury of set in stone hours.

Still, it was a greater hassle than it had been before. A year ago, he would have come in without batting an eye or asking a question. Now, every move he made had to be carefully planned, or he would risk leaving his daughter alone. The very thought caused Warrun to groan. His baby girl was too young to be alone like she was. He hoped that whatever Lt. Thompson had called him in for was important. Then again, he also hoped it wasn’t.

Warrun turned his car at the appropriate street and shivered. The chill of the dark autumn night coupled with images of potential homicide victims was not his ideal way to spend an evening he was supposed to have off. He wasn’t even sure why he was being called in. All Thompson had to say was that it was important, and that he ought to get there as soon as possible. “Knowing Thompson, he isn’t jerking my chain. I hope it’s good news. God knows I’ve had enough to deal with today.”

Warrun found the building and parked his cruiser. He stepped out of the vehicle and grimaced as he recalled the day’s earlier adventures. He’d been called on the scene when an accident in an intersection had caused the biggest pile up of car’s he’d ever seen. Thirteen damaged vehicles, twenty two people injured, and seven dead. And, as bad as that was, he had to add a murder in the first degree. A lover’s quarrel had gone wrong over on Beck Street. Three gunshots to the chest and one to the head. The poor wife had been executed. The only consolation Warrun felt was in the fact that they’d caught the suspect before he could disappear. That added to the multitude of other things he had to deal with on a daily basis was enough to exhaust him.

Warrun opened the propped door into the building and came to a stop. His eyes bounced between the hallway directly ahead of him and the stairs leading upwards. He muttered to himself, “God damn it. What was that number?” His hand fell to his personal flip phone on the outside of his belt. He pulled it out and was about to call the lieutenant when his memory kicked in. He snapped his fingers saying, “Room 404! That’s it.” He started up the stairs and couldn’t help but say, “I wonder if I’ll find it.” His laughter echoed through the hallways.

By the time he reached the door on the fourth floor, his laughter had stopped, and he was again overtaken with a sense of somberness. The 404 plated over the door gave him less humor than he’d hoped. It stood as a bitter reminder that he was here for business, and it was not likely to be the business he’d enjoy. Nevertheless, his duty was there, and he would never quit doing his duty.

He reached down and opened the door. It swung open to reveal a small, single bedroom apartment. Warrun couldn’t help but immediately notice how barren the kitchen and living areas were. He also noted the stale stench of urine permeating the air. Two white couches with the cushions pulled out and an island with grocery bags was all he could see aside from two figures, one familiar and another less so. The familiar figure was that of Lt. Thompson bent over the one of the couches, grinding his hands along the insides of the cracks. The other that was of a newly commissioned cadet whose name Warrun hadn’t yet learned.

At hearing the door open, Lt. Thompson popped his head up. He gave the first officer a stern look and stated, “You’re late, Officer Slavinski.”

Warrun lifted his wrist to his face and checked the time on his analog wrist watch. The day was creeping towards his preferred bedtime, and he wished again that he was back home with his daughter. His answer came in equal seriousness, “By my watch, I’m a good ten hours early, so you can quit your bitching.”

Lt. Thompson snorted and rebuked, “I never did know a pollock that could keep time.”

“Yeah?” Warrun retorted. “And I’ve never seen a jew that couldn’t smell one from a mile off!”

Lt. Thompson opened his mouth to continue the banter but couldn’t contain his laughter as he saw the expression of horror creeping on the cadet’s face. Warrun joined his laughter as he strolled over to the couch and took a seat on its back. His gaze rolled over the room again until it stopped over a bucket of ice cream melting on the floor that he hadn’t seen before. His tone again became serious as he asked, “But really, why did you call me in? It’s not like you to be so Goddamned cryptic. Are we looking at a homicide? Is the body in the next room or something?”

The lieutenant shook his head and stood from the couch. He reached a hand up and scratched his short cropped, brown hair while explaining, “No, Warrun. There was no homicides, arson attempts, or anything else really colorful this time. We were actually called in here on a tip from the neighbor complaining about a domestic disturbance.”

Warrun frowned, “A domestic disturbance is usually a pretty clear cut case. Unless someone died, that shouldn’t be any reason to call me in. Even then, you should be able to take care of this yourself. Hell, you could have had someone beneath you deal with this.”

Lt. Thompson threw up his hands defensively and explained, “I know. I’m getting to that.” He gestured towards the twenty something cadet standing in the kitchen and said, “I was giving a training run for our newest deputy. He just came out of the academy.”

Unamused, Warrun stated, “You’re not a trainer.”

“He’s my nephew,” he answered with a disarming smile.

The youth stepped forward and saluted with eagerness while saying, “Cadet Thompson, sir. I’m honored to make your acquaintance, Officer Slavinski. You’re a hero at the academy.”

Warrun responded with a chuckle and said, “Is that what they’ve been calling me? I do believe you are trying to flatter an old man. If you call me a hero, then I might have to live up to the name.”

“Sir?”

“Flattery will get you nowhere here, cadet.” Warrun reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a carton of cigarettes and a lighter. He smacked the unopened pack of Marlboros in his palm while explaining, “If you want to get to be a lieutenant like your uncle here, you’re going to have to prove yourself with hard work and success. If you’re smart enough to manage yourself and the people around you and can bring in the bad guys, then you might just have a chance here.”

The cadet smiled and answered sternly, “I hope so, sir.”

Warrun nodded and pulled a cigarette out of the pack. He lit it up and took a long draw, exhaling slowly as the nicotine rushed through his system and calmed him while waking him up. He took another puff before turning to Lt. Thompson and asking, “Alright, so you took your nephew on a little tour and decided to show him his first domestic squabble. What did you find that was so special you had to drag me in here?”

“Well,” Lt. Thompson started, “we knocked on the door but got no answer. Hardly so much as a peep was made inside, but we were pretty sure they were in here. What’s more, the neighbors had said that there had been what sounded like an incredibly violent attack. A woman was heard screaming for her life.”

“So,” Warrun interjected, “you decided to force entry without a warrant. Am I right?”

The lieutenant’s face flashed a bright red as he said defensively, “I made a call. I stand by it.”

Warrun nodded and responded, “I understand.” He turned to the cadet and explained, “You can’t be afraid to make the call sometimes. One day, you’ll learn when to follow your gut. It could save lives one day. It could also ruin yours. The key is being able to stick by that decision, whatever it may be.” He turned back to his friend and bade, “Continue.”

Lt. Thompson cleared his throat and went on, “Well, as I was saying, we entered only to find nobody here. Whoever was here left out a window in the bedroom.”

“Out a window?” Warrun wondered aloud. “But this is the fourth floor. Did he use a rope or something?”

“No,” he answered, shaking his head. “That’s the disturbing thing. We think whoever it was just jumped out and ran away.”

“Hmm,” Warrun mumbled, inhaling another puff from his cigarette. “By rights, any man falling that far should hurt himself pretty badly, maybe even kill him. And you’re saying he just got up and ran away? He must have done something really bad to act so boldly.”

“We think we know what he did, sir,” the young cadet suddenly broke in.

Warrun and Lt. Thompson turned to see the cadet turn red and his countenance meeken. He folded his latex glove covered hands in front of him and cleared his throat to apologize. The lieutenant stopped him saying, “That’s fine, Charlie. You may explain what we think happened to Officer Slavinski. It was your idea after all.”

Young Charlie smiled and turned his eyes to Warrun to explain, “We were thinking that it was a robbery gone wrong, not a domestic disturbance.” He gestured about the barren kitchen and living area as he said, “The first thing we noticed was that this place didn’t look lived in.”

Warrun assented saying, “I noticed that too. There’s hardly anything here.”

The cadet nodded and said, “Well, we checked the registry with the manager of this building, and he said that no one was renting this room. He’d had the door locked.”

The first officer turned to Lt. Thompson and noted, “A squatter? No wonder you don’t think it was some domestic disturbance. How did he get in then? How long has he been here?”

Lt. Thompson shrugged his shoulders saying, “There’s no sign of forced entry. Best we can figure is that he either filched a key or picked the lock. Whatever the case, he was subtle. If he took a key, he replaced it before anybody noticed, and if he picked the lock, he didn’t leave any indications.”

“Whatever the case may be,” the cadet interjected, “he wasn’t here long. He brought a suitcase tote but didn’t unpack anything. And these groceries,” he said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder, “were purchased today. As far as we can tell, we disturbed him in the middle of gorging on some ice cream.”

“Ice cream, eh?” Warrun said, taking another draw on his cigarette. He stood from the couch back and walked over to the kitchen. He bent down to his haunches and inspected the assortment of foods. Soups, boxed meals, canned goods, and two buckets of opened ice cream. He noted that they were just beginning to melt, one being half empty and another with only a spoonful carved out of it. He took one last draw on his cigarette before discarding it on the island and asking, “So you interrupted him, and he jumped out the window. That’s a nice story, but I want to know how he fell four stories without leaving a peep or a corpse.”

“That’s what I’m getting to,” young Charlie piped in. “We think he used something to break his fall. Or, more specifically, someone.”

Warrun arched a bemused eyebrow and beckoned, “Elaborate.”

“Well,” he said with a small degree of enthusiasm, “the neighbors had said there had been a violent sounding scuffle earlier. That’s the reason we were called here in the first place. We think that scuffle resulted in a murder and whoever was here was afraid of getting caught with the body. It seems possible that the suspect heard us and threw the body out the window and jumped on it to cushion his own fall.”

The first officer’s face puckered at the explanation and he stood up to ask, “That’s an awfully macabre conclusion to draw. A corpse cushioned his fall? Do you have any evidence to support this aside from your imagination?”

The cadet nodded and pointed down the short hallway to the single bedroom. “Come have a look out the window.”

The lieutenant and Warrun followed Charlie into the bedroom containing nothing save for a tote case and a barren bed. The window, still open from the defenestration, ushered a chill breeze that permeated the small room with the cold autumn air. Warrun followed the cadet to the open window and directed his eyes to the ground over thirty feet away. A pile of trash bags lined the wall of the apartment building to his left. Warrun briefly considered the perp having jumped into the pile to break his fall but disregarded it. It was too much of a jump. The garbage bags were not the only thing he noticed however.

Spread throughout the vast majority of the alleyway was hundreds of sheets of paper. Some spun in circles as the breeze caught them and scattered them. Warrun looked away from the paper to ask the cadet, “What am I looking at?”

Charlie smiled and explained, “I believe you are looking at the result of a frantic search for a body bag. It fits right into the story. After the suspect broke his fall on the body, he ravaged for a body bag as quickly as he could. He emptied one out and shoved the body in before making a quick escape, most likely to his vehicle. He was gone before we even opened the apartment door.”

Warrun scratched the shadow on his chin and mused. It wasn’t the most solid story he’d ever heard, but it at least seemed plausible. He wasn’t one for entertaining guesses though. Besides, there were a couple things that didn’t seem to fit together quite right. He turned away from the window and walked back into the kitchen. The two Thompsons tailed him as he bent down to reinspect the buckets of ice cream. A part of him wanted to scoop up the rocky road and devour some himself. “The wife wouldn’t like that,” he thought to himself. “Then again, she’s not here to keep my heart healthy.”

Lt. Thompson squatted down next to him and peered into his eyes. Warrun did not regard him but continued to stare somewhat listlessly at the ice cream. The lieutenant broke the silence, saying, “What are you thinking?”

Without losing focus on the rocky road, Warrun stated, “There’s two different flavors here.”

Warrun’s friend gazed at the jars and asked, “So? Does that mean something?”

“Well,” Warrun wondered aloud, “why would somebody get two different flavors of ice cream? Wouldn’t it seem like one flavor would be enough?”

Silence ruled for a moment before the young cadet hovering from behind remarked, “Maybe the other person living here liked a different flavor from the suspect.”

Warrun turned to give the youth a small smile and said, “Very good. We’ve got a quick one here.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew another cigarette to light up. As he did so, he continued, “Now, do you see the slightest problem with that reasoning?”

Again, silence fell as Warrun lit his cigarette and took a deep draw. He received only confusion from the cadet and annoyance from the lieutenant as he waited for an answer. Seeing none forthcoming, Warrun prodded with another question, “How long did it take the two of you to respond to this call for a domestic disturbance? I assume you didn’t come straight here.”

Lt. Thompson shook his head answering, “No. We didn’t arrive until about an hour and a half after the call was made. We don’t usually rush to these scenes.”

Warrun nodded knowingly and explained, “So, if a murder did occur, then why did the suspect leave to purchase groceries? What’s more, why did he shop like he was feeding someone other than just himself? Why would he get two buckets of ice cream and open them at the same time if he was the only one to eat? You must have called me in quickly or this ice cream would be more melted than this. The pieces here just don’t add up to a murder.”

“You’re right,” the cadet muttered in astonishment. “How come I didn’t think of that?”

Lt. Thompson chuckled and noted, “That’s why he’s the first officer.” He turned back to Warrun and muttered, “So much for our first guess.”

The first officer nodded and turned to his friend to ask, “Now that I’ve thrown a wrench into your little schematic for what happened, do you mind telling me why I’m here? If you called me in because you thought this was a homicide and it couldn’t wait to be discussed until morning, I’m going to be severely disappointed.”

“Hey, Warrun,” he responded lightheartedly, “don’t you have just a little more faith in me than that?”

Again unamused, the first officer answered after taking another draw on his cigarette, “I did. I hope I still do.”

Lt. Thompson sighed, his demeanor suddenly becoming far more serious. His hand came up to scratch his short cropped, brown hair as he explained, “There is a good reason why I called you in. I believe I know who the suspect is.”

“Oh,” Warrun begged, more interested than before. “Is it somebody I know?”

The lieutenant stood up and solemnly stated, “I’m afraid it might be. Come look at this.”

Warrun got up and followed him back to the entry. Beside the door, on the ground, he saw something he hadn’t seen when he first entered the apartment. At first it seemed like nothing but a bundled-up pile of black cloth. On closer inspection, Warrun realized it was actually the top to a pinstripe suit. The discovery froze him in his tracks as he turned to his friend and asked, “Is this?”

From behind, the lieutenant answered him, “Yes. It’s a pinstripe, Armani suit jacket.”

Warrun stood stiffly and clenched his fists. The Thompson’s could see his neck clench and could almost hear his teeth grind. With uncompromising ire, the first officer grunted, “He was here.”

“It appears as such,” the lieutenant confirmed with a defeated sigh.

The young cadet’s head turned from his uncle to Warrun and back again in confusion. He asked, “Who was here?”

“‘Who’ indeed,” Warrun seethed, turning suddenly to face the cadet. “‘Who’ is the big question. ‘Who’ is what we’ve been asking ourselves for years. ‘Who’ has been what I’ve sought after for a generous portion of my life.” He took several large strides up to the young Thompson, scaring him back with his bold determination. “Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that ‘who’ is the wrong question to be asking.”

More than just a little intimidated, the cadet asked in a rather meek voice, “What do you mean?”

Warrun flashed an angry smile that was present for as long as it took to create. He let out a hollow, almost erratic laugh before answering nonsensically, “I do mean what.”

The young man darted his eyes from the seemingly manic man before him to his uncle to say, “I don’t understand.”

The lieutenant opened his mouth to answer, but Warrun cut him off saying, “I’ll help you to understand.” He turned away from the cadet and stomped back to the coat. He reached down to grab the lapel, ignoring the moist and sticky residue that coated it, and presented it to Charlie. The youth grimaced at the sight as Warrun indicated the length of the jacket with his free hand while explaining, “This here is the calling card of perhaps the most monstrous man I’ve ever had the pleasure of not meeting.”

“It belongs to someone you know?”

The lieutenant answered before Warrun could continue, “It does not belong to anyone we know personally. Rather, we believe it belongs to a man the first officer here has been chasing for, uh. How long have you been chasing him, officer Slavinski?”

“Twenty years,” Warrun whispered, lowering the jacket to his side before dropping it to the floor. He noted the stickiness on his hand and brought it to his face. He sniffed at the faint orange discoloration staining his fingers and flinched back at the odor.

His questioning gaze fell on his friend who answered, “The suit jacket is covered in what we believe to be both vomit and urine. I was going to warn you, but you picked it up too quickly.”

Warrun grimaced and walked over to the kitchen sink. He fell to rinsing his hands in silence. The silence was broken by the young cadet who beckoned, “What did this guy do? If you’ve been chasing him for twenty years, then he must have done something really bad. Right?”

The first officer finished washing his hands and wiped them off on his pants. He reached into his chest pocket and took out another cigarette, his third one that evening. Before lighting it, he answered in a solemn voice, “He’s done more evil than I have ever seen any other man do. On paper however, he does not have a single offence we could link to him.” He lit the cigarette and took a puff before snorting and finishing, “Hell. There isn’t a parking ticket or a petty theft to his name. As far as the law is concerned, he’s not done a single punishable thing that we can link him to. He’s probably got a cleaner record than you do. In fact, I guarantee it. We’d have to have an identity confirmation before we could put anything on a record aside from unknown suspect.”

“Wait,” cried the cadet, throwing up his hands in confusion. “So, you’re telling me that this guy you’ve never seen is the most evil person you’ve ever met, but he hasn’t done anything illegal? That doesn’t make any sense! What has he done?”

“It’s difficult to explain,” Lt. Thompson interjected. “He has never participated directly in any crime, but he has been instrumental in over three hundred incidents these past two decades. Many of them involve murder in the first degree, manslaughter, or tragic accidents that result in injuries for multiple people. And those are just the ones we’ve confirmed he had some part in. There could be countless more we don’t know about.”

“Yes,” the cadet asked, “but what does he do exactly? How does he cause all these things to happen?”

“He’s the catalyst,” Warrun answered, continuing to smoke his cigarette. He tapped the ashes on the expensive suit splayed across the floor. He gave the soiled jacket a look of disgust before continuing, “This guy is somehow always at the right place at the right time to cause problems. It doesn’t matter whether it’s big things or small. He tricks people by lying to them. And, by lying to them, he provokes them to do things that have disastrous consequences.”

“Can you give me an example?” Charlie prodded.

“I could give you a dozen!” Warrun shivered and took another puff. “We have eyewitness accounts of him pretending to be the most unbelievable things. He once walked into an office building of a larger corporation based out of Texas on a day when the manager was absent and hadn’t phoned in sick yet because he was oversleeping. He immediately produced falsified forms under an imagined alias and ‘took control’ of the office. He then used this power to rearrange the staff. In one morning, he fired thirty seven employees who then unionized and had contacted a law office. Lawsuits were flying around before lunchtime.”

The cadet gawked, “That’s ridiculous! He couldn’t have gotten away with all of that. Surely the real manager came by the day after and cleared the mess up. Right? I mean, nothing he did could have held any water.”

Warrun nodded and explained, “You’re right. Nothing did hold any water. Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for the consequences. The next morning came, and the real manager showed up to one hell of a mess. The office was in an uproar and nobody knew exactly what was happening. There was panic in all of the employees over who was getting fired next. Talk of the branch closing entirely was rampant as the imposter offered no real explanation as to why the employees were being let go. There was picketing at the front door from those who were fired plus several dozen sympathizers. It got fed to the press and a news story was put up that morning as the real manager was driving in.

“And it only got worse from there! You know the recession we’re in. The news traveled almost immediately to every other branch of the company. This caused a huge scare that made investors extremely uneasy. The stock value for the company started to fall drastically as everyone was coming to the conclusion that the company was failing. Thousands of shares were sold at a fraction of their value and the liquid assets of the company dropped. In less than twenty four hours, a good public image was sullied and bad press ran rampant. The fallout cost the company millions, and ironically, they were forced to downsize. Over 600 employees were eventually let go in the months that followed.”

Charlie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It didn’t seem possible that one man could cause so many problems so quickly. He silently absorbed the implications of what the first officer said before asking, “And he wasn’t caught? What were his motivations? What did he benefit? I could guess he made a fortune off of knowing all this would happen.”

Warrun ran a wet hand over his balding head and answered in loud frustration, “That’s the most messed up part of this whole story! An eight month investigation into the company’s assets turned up nothing. Any hints of shady dealings were uncovered quickly and only turned up a few small timers. There was no bigger conspiracy. There was no one making significant money out of this. Even the competitors were at a loss because of accusations thrown their way! If anybody stood to profit from the company crumbling as it did, it certainly wasn’t our suspect. He has been seen dozens of times since, living the exact same conning lifestyle he had before.” His hand almost instinctively went into his pocket for another cigarette, but he stopped himself thinking, “I’ve had enough for today.”

Cadet Thompson watched as his senior officer walked over to a couch and pulled a cushion off the floor to sit on. His head fell back in evident exhaustion, as though this was not the first time he’d had to explain this story. The cadet walked over and grabbed a cushion for himself. His uncle followed suit and they found themselves all staring into an empty white corner of the room where a resident would most likely place a television. The following silence was broken when Charlie asked, “So, why did he do it? Was he fired from the company or something?”

The lieutenant answered with a shake of his head, “There’s never been any recorded affiliation between the company and this man. If it were an isolated incident, we would just write it off as too deep for us to figure out. With this man however, we know that’s probably not the case. We believe he caused that whole fiasco for the sole purpose of watching the chaos unfold. That’s what he does with everything. We have positively identified him hundreds of times in crime cases and the only thing that he is ever attributed to doing is saying the right things at the right times in the right places to ruin as many people’s lives as possible. The best we can gather is that he enjoys watching other people suffer.”

Again they came to silence as all three of them felt shivers crawl up their spines. It was again interrupted by the cadet who asked aloud, “What can cause a man to be so evil?” When no one answered his question, Charlie pressed, “In a weird sort of way, I kind of want to meet him. I bet he has the most erratic and fascinating personality in existence if he does things as complicated as that for fun. Someone could write a book on the psychology of such a man.”

Warrun grimaced and stood quickly saying, “A bullet to the head is all a man like that deserves. I will find him one day. I will find him and make him answer for everything he’s done. I will find him, and I will kill him.”

Warrun turned and walked to the door. He opened it wide and said over his shoulder, “You did well in calling me in, lieutenant. Have your men look into this as much as you can. I’d stay, but I left my little girl at home alone. I’ll check what you have for me at the office in the morning.” With that, he exited, shutting the door behind him.

The cadet turned from the door to the lieutenant and asked, “Uncle Phillip, does this man have a name? I never heard you call him anything.”

Lt. Thompson chuckled, lightening the atmosphere a bit, and answered, “The media have come up with several creative names over the years though most of them don’t realize they all belong to the same guy. We usually call him the Man in the Armani Suit.”

Charlie snickered in turn and pointed at the soiled jacket on the floor and said, “He doesn’t seem to have it anymore. What else do you call him?”

Somberity returned to the lieutenant’s face as he answered somewhat painfully, “We also call him The Devil.”

“Well, that’s a grim title.”

“It seemed appropriate.”

*****

With Manhattan behind him, Warrun pulled his cruiser up the drive and into his two story home’s garage and parked. As he turned off the engine, Warrun settled his head on the steering wheel and sighed. He’d been hoping to at least have a pleasant evening after such a hectic day, but even that wasn’t afforded to him. He glanced at his watch and saw the time nearing 9:00 PM. His contemplation was going to have to wait until his daughter was in bed. He’d told her to be asleep by 9:00, but Lord knows that wasn’t going to happen.

He left his car and entered his house to a greeting he both expected and hoped for. As the door shut behind him, he heard a squeal of pitched delight echo from the adjacent living room. Warrun was caught untying his shoes when a little girl with brunette hair streaked with gold came rushing around the corner. The girl launched at her father who caught her into a huge hug.

Warrun’s smile reached for his ears and suddenly his world was beautiful again. Murder and tears stopped at the door when he was confronted with his little girl’s toothy grin. He stood up with her in his arms, bringing her crystal blue eyes to his, and demanded, “What are you still doing out of bed, sweetie belle? I told you to be asleep by now. You should at least be in bed.”

The girl giggled and answered boldly, “I’m nine years old now, daddy. I should be able to stay up later.”

Warrun rolled his eyes and started towards his favorite chair in his living room. As he walked, he said dramatically, “Ugh! She thinks she’s already a teenager for Christ’s sake. Why should you get to stay up later when I don’t even stay up later?”

The little girl frowned as her father took a seat in his large recliner and positioned her on his lap. “Well, Suzie’s mom lets her stay up until 11:00. That’s two whole hours! I could watch like ten cartoons in two hours.”

Warrun groaned and answered her, “I don’t care what Suzie’s mom lets her do. You’re not Suzie, and I’m not Suzie’s mom. I can’t just let you go running around the house when I’m asleep. You’ll eat all the chocolate sauce.”

She promptly responded by sticking out her tongue and saying, “No, I wouldn’t.”

“Yes, you would! I caught you doing it three nights ago. I swear, who has to put up with kids like you. How can you stand to swill the chocolate straight from the bottle?”

Warrun’s little girl flashed her toothy grin and answered, “It tastes good.”

“It’s not even real chocolate!” he interjected. “It’s just corn syrup mixed with cocoa powder.”

“It still tastes good,” she answered in indignation.

“Well, keep that up, and you’ll turn into a proper lush.”

Curious, she asked, “What’s a lush?”

Warrun chuckled and answered, “Don’t you worry about that, sweetie belle. You should be going to bed. We should both be going to bed.”

“Can’t I have some ice cream first?” she pleaded with big, moist eyes and a pout on her face.

With a sly grin, Warrun answered her, “Only if you answer this question.”

“What?” she asked hopefully.

Warrun put on a very serious expression and asked, “Is there or is there not chocolate sauce hidden all the way in the back of the cupboard, underneath the sink, next to the Q-tips?”

With stern conviction, she replied, “No.”

Her father broke into a maniacal laugh and shouted while standing and throwing her playfully in the air, “Haha! I got you. How would you know there wasn’t any chocolate there unless you were already digging around for it?”

Shocked, she could do nothing but shake her head frantically with her mouth hanging wide open. Warrun responded by laughing again and hugging her close while saying, “Yes, you were. That’s okay though. You can have ice cream tomorrow if you behave yourself at school. Now, we have to get you to bed. You need a fresh start for monday.”

Warrun’s sweetie belle argued against the idea of a fresh start for monday, but he ignored her pleas as he ascended the stairs to her room. Her arguing diminished noticeably as he entered her dark room. A small night light plugged into a corner socket gave just enough soft blue light to outline the several dressers stacked with toys and games. He followed the light to her bed and laid his baby girl in. At the feel of the soft covers, she stopped talking altogether and snuggled in, pulling a teddy bear to her chest. Warrun noticed peculiarity in the action and asked, “You’re not sleeping with Owlowiscious tonight?”

The girl stiffened at the question and said, “No. I lost him while I was visiting mommy.”

Warrun sat on her bed and beckoned, “How did you do that?” When no answer came he waved his hand dismissively and said, “You don’t worry about it. We’ll go there tomorrow together and find him again. I would like to visit mommy too anyways. Okay?”

Warrun’s daughter smiled meekly in the darkness and answered, “Okay.”

Her father smiled and stood up to leave. As he got to the door, she whispered, “Good night, daddy.”

Warrun smiled at her in the darkness. He could just make out the twinkle of her eyes in the light emanating from the hallway. The sight made him smile with a hint of fatherly pride. “She’s so beautiful,” he marveled to himself. “I don’t deserve anyone as special as her.”

“Goodnight, Maria.”

Confessions

Colgate was the first to wake.

It could have been a pleasant awakening. She was warm and blanketed in Daemeon’s huge arms. She felt protected and safe. The pain in her chest seemed only a dull ache after not having done anything all night. The beauty of the massive and awe inspiring cathedral would have taken her gaze and contented her soul for a solid hour if Daemeon continued sleeping. No sun had risen yet, and everything was visible only in the lights above. Even in the relative darkness, she felt rejuvenated and pleasantly rested. Despite every positive note that dark morning seemed to be starting on, it only took one unfavorable condition to undo all of its happiness.

Colgate wasted no time in throwing herself into a wild flail while pounding her petite hooves on Daemeon’s chest and shouting, “Wake up, Daemeon. Wake up!”

The mare’s wild flailing instigated Daemeon’s own convulsion as he rocketed into a sitting position and demanded through his grogginess, “What? What’s going on?”

The little, blue unicorn’s answer came from a miserably constricted face and body as she explained in a panic, “I have to go.”

Daemeon shook his head to rid the sleepiness from himself and asked, “What?”

With even more force than she’d offered before, she shouted again, “I have to go!”

Still in ignorance, the disheveled man demanded, “Go where?”

Her answer came in the form of a growl that was one part adorable in light of the little pony giving it and two parts terrifying in the almost blood curdling anger it represented as she slammed her face against Daemeon’s chest and screamed so loudly that even the two white cassocks could do little to muffle her voice, “Where’s the little filly’s room?!”

Colgate’s plea and the urgency that accompanied it were not lost on Daemeon as he shot to his feet and thought aloud, “Oh! Right, the bathroom. Uh, it’s over here.”

“Never mind where it is. Just get me there!”

Daemeon sprinted as fast as his tired legs could carry him. Unfortunately for Colgate, the facilities were all the way on the other side of the huge vaulted cathedral, near the entrance. She could do little other than groan pitifully until they arrived. As luck would have it, Daemeon understood her urgency. He had to go as well.

For the first time in his life, he was torn over which bathroom he should enter. He decided to go for the women’s bathroom in light of the fact that there was no one around to care, and Colgate might need something other than just a toilet. He made his decision quickly for both their sakes, and they soon found themselves inside a stall.

Daemeon extended her to arms length to set her down but stopped midway. She shot him a vicious glare and cried, “Put me down! I can’t hold out any longer!”

Her Daemeon gave a skeptical frown and explained, “The bowl’s too big. You might fall in.”

Colgate grimaced and squeezed her eyes shut while responding, “I don’t care! Just set me on the side and get out. You don’t need to be here for this.”

He carefully set the mare on the wide mawed lid of the public bathroom toilet and turned to leave. Before he could even shut the door behind him however, he heard what he’d feared would come true. A splash was followed by a good deal of flailing and what he could only imagine to be the most colorful pony language she knew. He, of course, rushed right back in to help the poor mare. Without saying a word, Daemeon reached into the toilet bowl and grabbed out the soaking wet unicorn. Balancing her two hind hooves on the seat, he turned his face away from her as she did her business.

In comparison to the screams that had been echoing earlier, Colgate’s soft and ashamed sobs were quiet indeed. To Daemeon’s ears however, they rang painfully loud and made his stomach contract in an odd sort of mutual despair. He didn’t like hearing her cry.

After a few moments, the sobbing stopped, and Daemeon heard his mare whisper, “I’m done now.”

Daemeon nodded and stood up, pulling Colgate against his chest. He reached over and flushed the toilet, taking no note of what she’d left behind. They left the bathroom and stepped back into the cathedral at large. Daemeon stood still for a moment, unsure of what he should do next. He didn’t have to think long as a suggestion came in the form of a silent plea from the little pony in his arms, “Is there anywhere I can wash off?”

Daemeon smiled and answered lightheartedly, “Yes, there is in fact.” He took off into a soft jog down the cathedral back towards the front until he came to a deep fountain built into the side of the building. He glanced around in the waters until he found the first step descending into the pool and carefully set Colgate in with the warning, “It’s cold.”

Colgate shivered in the cold water but felt silently relieved to be in something clean. She closed her eyes and plunged her head into the chilly water. She gave her entire body a good shake below its surface before coming back up to gasp for air. Her eyes were still shut and her wet mane hung over her face when she felt a pair of strong hands come to rest on her back. Rather than tense up at the touch, the little blue mare smiled, her demeanor suddenly improved, and asked with a giggle, “Do you think you could, uh. . .”

Her voice tapered into silence. Daemeon lifted a hand off her back and brushed her soaking mane out of her eyes. Those crystal blue orbs, impossibly huge and captivating, twinkled in the light with a soft smile that was tainted with a red hue cutting through the gossamer fur on her face. Her smile was genuine but pensive, so Daemeon prodded, “Could I what?”

Colgate almost did not answer as the more sheepish side of her began kicking in. She turned away from him to look into the rippling water. Her blush darkened and she was about to berate herself for even thinking about asking him to do something so forward. “But then,” she mused to herself, “he’s been doing it a lot anyways. I’m sure he won’t think it’s weird if I asked him now.”

Her contemplation was interrupted when another face bent down to be reflected off the water. Her ear twitched as Daemeon whispered, “What are you thinking about?”

Colgate’s cheerful demeanor subsided a bit as she answered somewhat seriously, “A lot of things actually.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” she answered bluntly, “for starters, this world of yours sucks.”

Daemeon responded with a peal of laughter that took Colgate, the silence, and himself by surprise. It echoed over and over again with cheer that stood as a sharp contrast to the anguished screams that had reverberated off those same cathedral walls not moments before. It’s mirth was real and pure, unadulterated by any deception or forethought. Like a penitent raising his or her voice to God in absolution, Daemeon laughed openly and willingly. His shoulders were lightened, his heart skipped, and for a brief moment, everything was joyful.

When Daemeon’s laughter had echoed to its end, the pair again found themselves in silence. Always, they seemed to return to that same silence. Their eyes met in that moment between moments and their lack of words said much more than a casual observer could have understood. The dentist flashed her teeth, mimicking the man before her, and stated both softly and simply, “You have a wonderful laugh.” She paused and looked down shyly before finishing, “And a beautiful smile.”

Daemeon chuckled and countered, “I thought I was a bad, ugly ape.”

Colgate frowned and looked away, causing a stir in Daemeon. He reached a hand to rest on her shoulder. He whispered in regret, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything.” He felt her shoulders bob slightly under his hand, causing him even greater agitation. He pressed, “Are you okay?”

The mare turned her teary, crystal blue eyes back to Daemeon. She took a fluttering breath, her skin shivering slightly in the cold cathedral air, and struggled to smile. She lifted her bandaged hoof from the water, droplets splashing in its wake, and set it gently against Daemeon’s distraught cheek. The mare answered, “You’re not a bad, ugly ape, Daemeon.”

Daemeon did not shift a muscle as he bore witness to what Colgate did next. The mare raised her good hoof to one shoulder and brought her bandaged one down to the other. She extended the length of her petite, equine body from the cold waters and brought her lips to Daemeon’s cheek in the single most tender kiss she had ever given anypony. It was brief, lasting no longer than a couple seconds, but that moment between moments was sweeter than anything either the man or the pony had felt in many years. Her lips parted from his cheek only so she could say, “You’re my friend.”

Daemeon crouched motionless in front of the fountain. He looked into Colgate’s eyes but could not think of the words he wanted to say. He could not even bring himself to wonder at what he should say. Her actions were beyond his understanding, and there was nothing he had said or done in the past that had produced in him the same tumult of emotions as what he felt right then. They were so foreign to him that he just couldn’t find a response.

Colgate surprised him even further by responding for him. She brought her forehooves back into the water and said, “I understand if you don’t know how to react. At least, I think I understand. From what you’ve told me, it doesn’t seem like you’ve had a friend before.” Her gaze dropped to the rippling waters beneath her. They scattered her reflection, so she couldn’t see how much of a mess she looked. She was sure she didn’t want to see in any case. With a sigh, she continued, “I haven’t had many friends either. I’ve had a few, but I’ve never been very nice to them. I’m not even that nice to my best friend, Carrot Top. No. I was hardly anything but bitter and rude to her.”

Colgate sniffled and brought a hoof up absently to rub her snout. “I never appreciated any of my friends. I always pushed them away because I thought they didn’t care about me. Since I’ve come here, I know what it really feels like to not have anypony care about you.” She raised her face to find Daemeon’s in a state of contemplation. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she remarked, “But now, I also know what it feels like to have somepony that really does care.

“I guess all I wanted to say is that this world of yours sucks. It’s huge and scary and dark and cold and has been almost nothing but downright miserable. Even with all that though, it doesn’t seem so bad when I’m here with you. You’re my friend. And I’d like to be your friend too, if you’ll have me.”

Daemeon nodded wordlessly.

“Good!” Colgate responded cheerfully. “Now that we have that figured out, do you mind doing me a favor? I wasn’t going to ask before, but now, I don’t think I mind telling the truth.” She suddenly stuck up a scolding hoof and said, “But, before I ask you, you have to realize that I am not your pet. I am a very smart pony. I didn’t get to be an accomplished dentist by lounging around. I had to work hard for ten years as an apprentice to my teacher, Minty Fresh. I’m an adult, and I will appreciate your treating me as such. Do you understand?”

Daemeon nodded again, a smile finally showing back on his face, and answered, “Yes.”

“Good!” she echoed again. She turned away to present the length of her back to Daemeon and asked, “Now, could you pet me please? I have to confess; it feels really good. And I haven’t really had a pleasant morning so far.”

Her man with the beautiful smile chuckled and said, “Sure. I think I can do that. Do you want me to take that off?” he asked, indicating the cassock sleeve still wrapped around her tiny rib cage.

Colgate glanced at the white cloth and nodded. “Yeah. The bite doesn’t hurt so bad now. Besides, it’s getting kind of itchy.”

Daemeon reached down and tried as carefully as he could to undo the knot he’d tied last night. His mare winced in pain as he removed it, and he found himself wincing with her. He felt her pain, but it was not because of the magical connection that tethered their souls together. It was sympathetic pain that he felt, a pain far more excruciating than what the ugly bite on his breast could have afforded. It made him tense up with the realization that the one thing he feared most in the world was happening right before him, and though he was in control of the situation, he could not bring himself to right the problem. He instead found it better to bare the sympathy then act against it.

He discarded the bloodied cloth and very softly slid his hand beneath her soft, wet chest. Colgate moaned in pain but didn’t draw away from his touch as he lightly felt the depth and significance of the two dark cuts. “How bad does it hurt when I touch it there?” he asked in concern.

His mare bit her lip and responded, “It’s still pretty bad, but I can manage. I don’t think I got myself as deeply as I got you. I should be the one asking how you feel. You didn’t bandage yourself up or anything.”

Daemeon smiled at her concern and moved his hand from her chest to the top of her head. In one smooth motion, he slid his hand over her wet and messy coiffure and followed the length of the gossamer fur on her back until he came to the base of her blue and white tail. Her confession had come as no surprise to him of course as he felt her back arch against his hand. He’d always known she’d enjoyed it. Initially, he had planned to use that against her. Now, though, he had no wish to use her. He instead found himself afraid of how easily she could use him. Colgate was not the only one that took pleasure from that contact. Indeed, he had a hard time believing she even took the most from it.

As his hand came back to start again from between her ears, he answered her, “I didn’t need a bandage. You let me hold you against my chest all night. That was better than a bandage.”

Colgate smiled at the response and reveled in the strength of Daemeon’s huge hand stroking the length of her back. It was such a simple thing to do, but she delighted in it more than any hobby she’d ever engaged in. She enjoy it so much in fact that she might have fallen asleep if it weren’t for the cold water swirling around her hooves. The thought of the water brought a question to her inquisitive mind. She asked, “Daemeon, why is there a pool here? I thought this was a place for worshipping. Do humans come here to swim too?”

Daemeon squinted his eyes in thought and answered slowly, “In a sense.”

Colgate turned an eye to her man and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well,” he answered hesitantly, “it’s really very complicated to explain. At least, the reason people use it is complicated. It has a lot to do with this person people believe lived thousands of years ago. The simplest way I can put it is people bathe in this pool once in their lifetime. The people that swim here believe that they go in as one person and come back out as a better person. It’s a lot of hocus pocus really. It’s nothing but a pool of water.”

The mare turned back to regard the water far more seriously. She hadn’t imagined it was anything important. How important could water be? She bent down and took a drink. It was cool and refreshing against her dry throat. It also made her aware that she was pretty hungry. The ice cream hadn’t been enough to satisfy her through the night it seemed. She turned back to Daemeon and remarked, “You humans sure do believe in some weird things.”

Daemeon frowned and sighed somewhat morosely. ”She’s right,” he mused to himself. “People always want to believe in something more meaningful than themselves, even if what they believe in can’t be true.” He responded to her, “Yes. People can believe stupid things. I find ignorance to be the most terrible and dangerous problem in existence. That’s why I have devoted my life to seeking truth.”

Colgate frowned and turned herself full towards him. She sat down on her rump, causing her tail to disappear into the water, and said very seriously, “I don’t think you’re on the right track if you’re looking for truth.”

Daemeon withdrew his hand from Colgate’s back and crossed his arms over his bloodstained chest, wincing slightly as he grazed the bite. He returned the mare’s frown with one of his own and responded, “I’m a lot closer to the truth than any of the fools that come here.”

Colgate’s frown was washed with concern as she pleaded, “Are you so sure? You think the world is ruled by chaos, but I know in my heart that simply cannot be the case. In Equestria, ponykind has defeated the forces of chaos and subdued Discord. We live in harmony because of it. I know you might make a compelling argument, but there’s simply no way that you’re right.”

“But Colgate, if I’m not right then why are you here? You said you must have come here so you can learn something, and you believe I can teach you. You said there had to have been something special about me that brought you here. Well, the only thing that’s really special about me is that I know the truth of the world. We are victims of chaos, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Anything we do to try only aggravates the process and creates more chaos than before.”

“But Daemeon,” she begged, “what does knowing what you do help anything? Assume you’re right, and everything is just chaos. What do you do with that information? Do you just sit on it and be bitter? I never even saw you smile until just a moment ago. Maybe that would sound less impressive considering we’ve only known each other less than a day, but every moment of that was spent together.”

The mare stopped for a second to take a deep breath. The frown Daemeon wore was sad and seemed to cut her emotionally. She didn’t like seeing him sad. “I am your friend,” she continued, “and as a friend, I want to help you. I may not have much to offer besides whatever I think to say, but maybe that’s all you need. Please tell me, what did you do before you met me. What do you do with your life?”

Daemeon’s frown grew more severe and he suddenly turned his back on the mare. He rested against the side of the fountain and bit his lip in worry. He had prepared for this moment. He knew sooner or later the little, blue pony would pry into his life. He’d even spent some time working on a feasible backstory. With her not even being from this world, almost any story might have worked. Things were different then though. So much had happened to turn his life upside down.

A small pair of hooves came to rest against his back and a soft, beautifully feminine voice whispered into his ear, “Whatever it is, you can tell me. It’s not like I can leave you.”

“Damnit Daemeon!” the man screamed to himself as his jaw clenched in self loathing. “Why did you do it? How could you let the stupid girl in? You know what women do. You’ve read it in all the books. They crowd you and steal away your space and good intentions. They make you disregard your life’s work and reduce you to a beast. Things that don’t matter suddenly become important and you leave the pleasure of your work for a lie that only fuels the monster. They’ll turn you into the monster you’ve been fighting your whole life!”

“Daemeon,” Colgate whispered as she reached over to press her cheek against her man’s, “why are you afraid to tell me? I’m pretty sure you’re not looking for a lie. So, why are you quiet?”

Daemeon reached a hand to the mare’s face and touched the soft fur of her cheek. All the thinking in the world wouldn’t solve his dilemma. He was caught in the ugly trap of his own emotions, a trap he had eluded for over thirty years. He was not ashamed of who he was. He lived for his work and stood by its importance, but there was a specific reason why he didn’t have friends. It was not a manifestation of some inability to form intimate relationships with other people. In fact, he craved friendship over almost anything else. And, now that he had it, he did not want to lose it.

“I know you can’t leave me, Colgate,” he began, “but if you knew what I did with my life, you would not want to be my friend. Therefore, it would be better if you didn’t know.”

“You can’t afford to keep me in the dark, Daemeon,” the mare countered sternly. “I’ve already had to save your life once because you’ve apparently done some bad things. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but keeping me in the dark will only harm us. I want to be your friend because I believe, underneath all that lying you seem to be so fond of, there’s a kind and caring person. And besides, even if you really are as bad as you say you are, I’d still be your friend if for no other reason than to protect myself. The situation is a little beyond our personal feelings.”

Daemeon pulled away to face the mare once again. Again, as almost every time before, those crystal blue eyes captivated him. They alone were enough to express powerful emotions from anger to disappointment to love. At that moment, Daemeon saw seriousness and he took comfort in their conviction. “She’s right,” he mused to himself. “Nothing good can come from not telling her. If I don’t tell her, then she can’t learn. What would be the good of that? You just don’t want to lose her feelings because you’ve given in.”

The man with the wonderful laugh sighed submissively and said, “Okay. I’ll tell you. But you must let me explain everything before you make a judgement. I have to first tell you what I do, but then I must have the opportunity to explain why I do it. Can you promise to listen to both?”

Colgate smiled softly and promised, “You have my word. But first, do you think you could let me out of here and give me something to dry off with? It’s freezing in here.”

Daemeon nodded and reached in to grab out the wet, little pony. She suddenly evaded his grasp and jumped onto the ledge herself saying, “On second thought, just give me something to dry off. You don’t need to be handling me all the time.”

Her man smiled and stood up thoughtfully for a moment. An idea came to him and he reached down to pull off one of the cassocks. The garment was fairly ruined with a sleeve missing and a large bloodstain on the front. “I certainly can’t come back here ever again,” he thought to himself. “These things are like $500 dollars a piece. It’s too bad the church is hardly worth the effort. Robbing and vandalizing a church only brings in sentiments and money. The pope would be lucky if it were done more often. I do much worse just by ignoring them and letting their false teachings and lies die out slowly as people of the world slowly learn better than to put their faith in a figment of their collective imagination.”

Daemeon bent down to towel the mare off, but the cloth was seized in a blue light and forced from his hands. He was struck in silent awe as the garment swam into a ring and floated gently down to encapsulate the mare before constricting around her. The movement was oddly tantalizing as it seemed every fiber moved independently of the other, yet they all followed the same purpose.

When Colgate finished toweling herself off, she looked up at Daemeon’s mesmerized face with a smile and explained, “The last time I let you do it, you assaulted me with it.” She absently brought a hoof up to her mane and grimaced at how much of a rat’s nest it felt. “You wouldn’t happen to have brought that manebrush with you by any chance?”

Daemeon chuckled, an act that seemed to come more fluidly every time it occurred, and reached down. Mindful of the bite on her chest, he wrapped a hand under her hindquarters to pick her up and lifted her to his chest. She snuggled in, seemingly unperturbed by the dried blood that was a good deal more evident on the inner alb than it had been on the outer. He carefully began raking his fingers through messy white and blue mane while asking, “Are you hungry?”

With a flick of her tail, she responded, “Yes, actually. Do you have anything to eat?”

“Just a bunch of dried flat bread wafers,” he answered, grabbing up the discarded robe and sleeve before walking back towards the pew they’d slept on near the altar. “They don’t taste very good unless you have them with the wine. I guess we could raid the cellar if you want some, but I don’t touch it myself.”

“Umm,” she mumbled, “what’s wine?”

Daemeon had to stop his walking and hold the mare at arm’s length to address her in surprise. “You don’t know what wine is? That’s absurd! You must use alcohol in your profession as a dentist for sterilization. Don’t you?”

Colgate nodded, shivering a touch in the open cold, and explained, “Of course I do. I don’t live in the Paleopony period. To what alcohol are you referring; ethyl, methyl, or isopropyl?”

“Oh,” Daemeon mumbled in surprise, “I didn’t realize. . .”

The mare rolled her eyes while flicking her tail to snap at his nose and said, “Stop assuming I’m stupid. Just because I don’t know the weird words you humans use for things doesn’t mean I don’t know what they are. So, what’s wine?”

“Well,” he answered while pulling her back to his chest and resuming his slow paced walk, “it’s made from taking the juice of a fruit and subjecting it to yeast bacteria to create ethyl alcohol.”

Colgate snorted and muttered, “You ruin perfectly good juice doing that. Why would you want alcohol in it? That would make it taste awful.”

“That’s a less popular opinion among humans unfortunately. Every child’s first sip is sputtering and accompanied by a look of distaste to match. But men and women alike keep drinking it until they grow used to the taste and learn to enjoy it.” Daemeon sighed and moved his raking hand from her mane to her tail before continuing, “It might not be such a problem. Enjoying a simple pleasure is not too much of a burden to bear, but people tend to enjoy the beverage in excess.”

“Doesn’t that poison them?” Colgate queried. “I mean, I know ethyl alcohol isn’t toxic per se, but it should cause problems in too great an amount.”

“You don’t even know what it does?” Daemeon asked skeptically. “Your world grows more charming every time you say something about it. Yes, it is poisonous. If you drink enough, you can kill yourself. If you have it in the proper amount however, you can lose track of your thoughts and inhibitions, so you can do things you normally wouldn’t without worry. People use its mind numbing effects as a sort of pleasure. I’m surprised you ponies wouldn’t know about this. Mankind was brewing alcohol before we could even begin to understand what it was.”

“I see,” Colgate began. “That would explain why I don’t know what it does. Creating concoctions that inhibit the abilities of the mind is illegal in Equestria unless they are carefully administered for pharmaceutical use. It’s illegal to create ethyl alcohol without permission and even then only in small amounts.”

Daemeon’s walking ceased as Colgate finished, and he whispered, “Interesting. It sounds like utopia comes at a price.” He took a seat in the pew they’d left and set the mare down beside him. She watched her man intently as he grabbed up a box of wafers from the floor and tore into them. He pulled out a long package of a hundred and pulled it open, spilling its contents on the padded pew. Being hungry himself, he snatched up a handful and popped them in his mouth saying, “Have some.”

Colgate frowned at Daemeon’s uncouth use of his mouth in both speech and eating. Her horn flared with a shining blue glow that brought a wafer gingerly to her mouth. Her already lowered standards of how it would taste based on its looks were driven even further down as she chewed. “He wasn’t kidding. These kind of suck.” Instead of voicing her discontent, she said pointedly, “You were going to tell me about yourself.”

Daemeon swallowed the food slowly and dropped the remaining wafers in his hand back into the pile. He took a deep, shaky breath, feeling genuinely afraid and apprehensive. He knew that his chances of being friends with Colgate would likely end, but that was technically a good thing. Her friendship was what was causing him all his grief in the first place. “And yet,” he thought to himself, “I know it’ll be even worse afterwards. It’s the pit I’ve dug myself into. Just as the physical pain of losing a limb is secondary to the reality of living without it, so losing her will be worse than having had her in the first place.” He concluded his thought by whispering under his breath, “It’s all for the best though.”

“What was that?” Colgate asked, her ears perked intently.

Daemeon ignored her question. He instead launched suddenly into his explanation before he lost his nerve to do so, “I don’t have an official job.” One sentence in and he was already forced to take a steadying breath before continuing, “Most people find what they are good at in life and make a job out it. Unfortunately, you also have to be able to make a living, so you can’t always do what you like. People compromise their beliefs and desires for money because we have to feed ourselves before worrying about anything else. Like most other men, I eventually learned what I was best at in the whole world. It took time, experience, and contemplation for me to understand, but I discovered that my quick mind, my mental faculty to connect things in my head, and my innate ability to act quickly on what I have learned brought me to the realization that my perfect profession in life would be that of a teacher.”

The mare could feel her head bobbing along with the confusing tempo of his speech. It seemed to her that Daemeon was trying to talk around his confession, putting off some dreaded moment. Instead of soliciting a reason, she merely prodded, “So, you’re a teacher but not officially?”

“Exactly,” he answered with a nod. “You see, I discovered what I am good at, but unlike most men, I was not willing to compromise my beliefs. I am a brilliant teacher, and many have gained knowledge through my education. The problem is though that I will not waste my life teaching anything other than what I believe people need to learn. Unfortunately for me, there is no education center in the world that would hire me to teach the lessons that I teach. In fact, it would be quite impossible to teach what I do in the context of a school, not just practically but in theory as well.”

“And just what does your Mr. High and Mighty teach that no other human does?”

Daemeon rested his hand pensively against his chin, ignoring her teasing jibe. He explained slowly and simply, repeating the infamous question of mediocrity and bewilderment, “I start by getting a man to ask himself the simple question, ‘Why is the couch white?’”

A voice in the mare’s head immediately screamed, “Not this again!” Colgate knew better than to give the reaction any force however and was quite proud of the fact that almost no frustration slipped into her stern visage. She could not help but ask though, “You don’t literally go up to people and ask them why the couch is white, do you?”

Daemeon chuckled at the innocence of her misunderstanding. Had anyone else asked the question, he wouldn’t have found any humor in it. It would have represented the monster of ignorance Daemeon worked every day to defeat. With the little mare however, he was beginning to think that the world she came from didn’t need the lessons he was teaching. It seemed that maybe, just maybe, they had learned to cope with their problems. This lesson might be lost on her then, as calculus to a child. “Then again,” he mused to himself, “I’ve underestimated her intelligence before.”

“No,” Daemeon continued, “they aren’t subjected to the watered down, skin and bones explanation I gave you. I lead them not to that question, but to any number of questions like it. Every single question is formed from different words expressing different meanings, but they are all ultimately seeking the same answer to a more encompassing question. I don’t ask them the question myself as I did for you. I instead initiate events that cause men and women to ask the question themselves. Why the couch is white is just one such question, a piece of the bigger question.”

“If that’s the case,” Colgate pleaded, “then just what is the bigger question?”

Daemeon shifted his gaze from the mare to the altar. He noticed that the contrast of the light seemed less significant than the night before. He glanced towards an eastern wall and noticed the slightest tinge of blue permeating the previously indistinguishable stained glass windows. The dawn was almost upon them, and Daemeon knew they had to bail before the morning retinue arrived. They still had time however, so he answered the expectant mare, “The question itself can sound stupid at first until you realize that there is an answer. Why does anything happen?”

Colgate sighed and hung her head. She hardly had to go as far as adding two and two to know where he was going. She answered the indirect question with some annoyance, “You came to the conclusion that everything is just the result of the chaos in the world around us.”

Daemeon wagged a scolding finger at the mare saying, “I didn’t put the words in your mouth. You came to the conclusion by yourself when we objectively analyzed not just one but several different situations. I know you have problems with that line of thought, but can you put those aside until I finish explaining myself? We are talking about my life at the moment anyways.”

“Fine,” she agreed, “but what does all of that matter? What would knowing the world is nothing but chaos help anything? It seems to me that it could only make the world worse and make ponies afraid.”

“It does actually,” Daemeon pointed out, “but we’ll get to that point in a bit. You must first understand the implications of chaos.” He stopped to take a deep breath and run his fingers through his unkempt, brown hair before saying, “Men, and I would presume ponies, are prone to hatred. Yes? We discussed this before. We hate things as a reaction to loving something.”

The mare nodded, “I remember.” Colgate felt herself shiver at the memory of the previous night, at the horrid conversation that had resulted in what would probably end up being pretty ugly scars. She looked away from him and lifted her injured hoof to the bite on her chest, wincing at her own touch. “I’m not certain I agree with you, but what you said makes a lot of sense. What of it?”

“Well,” Daemeon continued, “then you realize that we feel the desire to take action against the things we hate that harm what we love. That’s the very reason you bit me. That’s why it felt good to bite me. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Now, Colgate,” he said anxiously, turning fully to the mare, “this next question is very important, and I can only hope its significance is not lost on you. How would you react if you were harmed through some force you could not begin to control? If you suddenly found yourself caught in a storm you didn’t know about and got injured from some flying debris, who would you hate?”

“Nopony of course,” Colgate scoffed. “It wasn’t a pony who caused my problem. Like you said, it would have been beyond my control.”

“So where would the hate go then?” Daemeon pleaded.

“It wouldn’t go anywhere,” Colgate countered. “There wouldn’t be any hate because there’s nothing to direct any hate towards.”

“You were hurt in both cases though. Your existence, which you love so much, was put into jeopardy both times, but only one of them caused you to hate. What’s the difference between the storm and myself?”

Colgate explained simply because the answer seemed obvious, “You meant to hurt me. The storm doesn’t have a mind to hurt me with.”

“So,” Daemeon stated loudly and emphatically, drawing out the word to add to its significance as he had a time or two before, “the soul of our hate rests squarely with intent then? It is not action alone that should fuel hate. A storm hardly intends to harm you, and a lion would be going against its nature if it refused to eat you. You never hate the action itself. You hate what precipitates it. You hate the moral monologue that caused it. It was the intent that caused the action, and it’s the intent you hate.”

The mare was impressed with the power and conviction Daemeon spoke with. It seemed like every ounce of his being was given over into the importance of his words. It caused her a mixture of awe and fear. It was not the fear that she’d felt for her life the last time they engaged in such heated conversation. It was the unsettling fear that anypony could believe something so vehemently. What was even more terrifying was that his ramblings made more sense than she would have ever believed. That fear echoed in her voice as she stated with no degree of uncertainty, “That’s how magic works.”

It was Daemeon’s turn to express confusion as he asked, “What?”

“I’m sorry,” Colgate returned quickly. “It’s just that your division of intent, cause, and effect is the same way magic works. You remember what I told you right?”

Daemeon frowned and thought back as carefully as he could, “You said that magic functions from a point of provocation, through a focused energy, on a target subject.”

Colgate smiled and remarked, “You have an amazing memory.”

Daemeon could not bring himself to share in her smile. “It has served me well. I use it to help in teaching people. But, let’s come back to what you said. What does your magic have to do with anything?”

“Well,” she explained thoughtfully, “your explanation of how hate works is oddly similar to how magic works. Remember how I said that a spell can’t take effect unless every component is present? If I want to levitate something, I have to act with intent on it. A spell simply isn’t a spell unless I focus my will. An action without intent is just an action. In the same way you say intent is necessary to cause hate, intent is needed for magic.”

Daemeon nodded slowly as he followed her parallel. “It’s intriguing. I can’t say that I understand your magic very well yet. I’ve never experienced anything like it before in my life. But, I am inclined to believe that our worlds are very much alike even with their differences. Thus it would only make sense that they would work the same way.”

“Okay.” The mare lowered her chin to the pew while waggling her rear in what was her most pensive pose. “I get you so far, but where are you going with this? What’s the significance of my hating you but not the storm?”

“To answer that, let me propose another scenario,” he began. “Would you still hate me if you knew that I was forced to hurt you by someone else lest I die?”

“Do you mean that you would die if you didn’t hurt me?”

“Yes.”

Still in her doubled over position, Colgate answered, “Of course I wouldn’t hate you. At least I wouldn’t only hate you. I might still dislike you for trying to hurt me, but it wasn’t your intent alone that lead to me getting hurt. It was mostly the intent of the other human. I guess it would be better if I were to hate him instead of you.”

Daemeon nodded intently and prodded, “As we have once before, may I lead us another step back in this situation to get a bigger picture?”

The mare lowered her rear and crossed her forehooves under her chin, noting with discontent the sogginess of the gauze around her injured hoof. She stood back up and lifted her hoof to undo the wrappings but instead presented it to Daemeon saying, “Yes, you can continue, but could you unwrap me while you’re talking? This is useless now.”

Her man smiled at the petite hoof she presented and said, “Certainly.” He lifted his hands, both bandaged and bare, and undid the wrappings as they dripped over the pile of wafers. As he worked, he continued, “Let’s look at the motivations of this man who is forcing me to hurt you. Would your hate for him be the same if I said that it was not his will alone that I should hurt you? Would it be the same if he was being forced by a group of fifteen other individuals to make me hurt you?”

Colgate gazed intently as Daemeon undid the last piece and the gauze fell way. She didn’t immediately retract her hoof, instead letting her man lift it to his nose to check her progress. He very gently slid the tip of his thumb over the cut and she was elated to notice that it hurt significantly less. Her smile was somewhat dampened however as she said, “I guess it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to hate that man then. I think it would be necessary for me to direct my hate towards those fifteen that forced his hand since it was their intent that lead to me being hurt.”

Daemeon withdrew his hands from her hoof and folded his legs beneath him. With a shadow of a smile, he indicated his lap to the mare. Colgate acquiesced and shuffled over to recline in his lap. Daemeon spoke, “I noticed a hint of hesitance in your submission. If it’s appropriate to hate the intent that ultimately lead to your harm then there should be nothing wrong with your answer.”

Daemeon began petting his mare again and she felt herself melt into the touch. The physical comfort clashed with her mental discomfort and made her feel unsettled. “You’re right,” she answered. “It’s just that it’s harder to hate fifteen humans I’ve never met than the one that actually harmed me. I guess I could still hate them though. It is because of them that I got hurt after all.”

“As you say though, it’s harder to really hate them. You don’t know them personally, and they probably don’t know who you are. Perhaps then, we need to focus the hate on something bigger than them?”

“Hmm,” the mare mused aloud, “that might work better. I should think that they have a reason to hurt me that goes beyond their personal desires. Otherwise, one of them would have just hurt me directly. Maybe it would be better to hate the reasoning that caused them to hurt me.”

“You mean their intent?”

“Yes.”

Daemeon stopped petting the mare and began undoing his own bandage. He figured that his cut must be doing well if her’s was. Colgate turned her eyes up curiously and rolled onto her back, shoving her four bare hooves in the air as she had the night before. Though it was the same action, Daemeon saw it in a far different light. Where before it had meant nothing, now, it was suddenly a very pleasurable sight. It caused him to smile so wide that his face struggled to accommodate the unusual action. He finished unwrapping his hand quickly and brought it down to Colgate’s belly. She eyed the hand curiously, completely unaware of what he intended. She wished her curiosity were traded with caution as Daemeon’s fingers began to dance over her belly in an assault that caused her to scream.

Hysterical laughter overtook the halls as both the man and his mare made no effort to contain themselves. Daemeon laughed so hard at Colgate’s rapidly kicking hooves and her feeble attempts to stop the tickle assault that he almost came to the point of hyperventilation. The little, blue unicorn was lucky that Daemeon could not keep himself coordinated enough to continue the task. It took a full five minutes for her to catch her breath enough to say, “That wasn’t fair. I’m too ticklish for this.”

Still panting himself, Daemeon responded, “I couldn’t contain myself. The thought of you laughing was simply too much for me.” Daemeon slid his hands under the back of the breathless mare and pulled her into a firm hug. Her four hooves pressed into his chest, and her hot breath ran down the nape of his neck as her chin rested on his shoulder. His left hand slid over her ribs to stop just under her bite. He took immense comfort at the feel of her rapidly palpitating heart. It was small, but it thundered with life and the blissful reality of that moment.

Daemeon was not alone in his joy. Colgate melted into the embrace bearing a giddy smile that would surely have been accompanied by further giggling if she’d had the least bit of strength left. She contented herself with the smile and a familiar lullaby. That is, if Daemeon’s huge heart beating loudly could be likened to a lullaby. It certainly seemed like one to her as her eyes drifted shut, and she dreamily listened to its rhythmic thumping.

They sat in relative silence for several minutes, with Daemeon only opening his eyes to occasionally peek at the windows and the glow that was becoming more apparent. They would have to leave soon, but Daemeon wasn’t ready for that moment to end. A part of him wanted to live in it forever, basking in that fleeting but beautiful delight he took in his friend.

His friend.

“She’s my friend.”

It took every ounce of Daemeon’s willpower to keep from showing the emotion he felt right then. He kept his breath steady, his body still, and his lips from trembling. He could not however retain the moisture that flooded his eyes. It was almost as though he’d sprung a literal leak and salt water poured freely from his eyes. A river delta formed on his face as streams from both corners of each eye trickled down his cheeks to connect in the dimples born from the still present smile. Those two streams then followed the contours of his jaw until they met at the base of his shadowed chin where they formed a small waterfall that echoed the conflicting sadness and joy Daemeon felt in that moment between moments. That waterfall trickled unnoticed onto the gossamer blue coat of his friend, his mare, his little Colgate.

Perhaps it was exhaustion from the excursion. Perhaps it was because her coat was already a little damp from the pool. Or perhaps she merely chose to let the moment pass with the understanding that Daemeon might just trust her enough to tell her when he was ready. In any case, the minutes rolled by uninterrupted until the mare finally asked unexpectedly, “Is it better to hate the reasoning than the fifteen, Daemeon?”

Her man with the beautiful smile tensed slightly at the question, not ready to let the innocence of the moment be disturbed by concluding his explanation. In fact, he feared for more than just the moment. “You can’t tell her.” Daemeon could feel his teeth grit together in anger directed inward. “You let her in! Daemeon, you fool. You stupid, insignificant fool. You have the opportunity to teach her, to make her really see, to bring her beyond the blindness and ignorance of faith. If you were really her friend, you would tell her, save her. But no. You let her in. You let yourself care about her, and now you’re doing exactly what you told her you refused to do. You’re compromising your beliefs just so you can be with her, just so you can touch her and enjoy her.”

“Daemeon?”

“Look at what you’ve done! You’re taking what you want from her instead of giving her what she needs. You’re using her. You’re using her like so many people before her. Only now, you’re making her your plaything instead of using her to undo the lies. You’re using her to spread the lies and becoming the very monster you’ve been fighting all this time.”

“Please don’t ignore me, Daemeon. Please talk to me.”

“What is she now but your whore? Is that all you want? You want a whore like mommy? You want to give up everything you worked so hard for, everything your life represents, just so you can be a stupid, ignorant child again, just so you can pretend not to know knives are sharp?”

“Daemeon!”

“You can’t go back. You can’t unlearn the truth. You can’t keep the truth from her. She’ll find out. She’ll find out, and you’ll lose the only friend you’ve ever had.”

“Look at me!”

“If you could just tell her then you wouldn’t have to live a lie. She wouldn’t have to live a lie. You’d be losing her, but you’d also be saving her.”

“Daemeon!”

“But you can’t. You’re nothing but scum, just like the rest of them.”

“Daemeon!”

The shrill scream pulled Daemeon from his inner turmoil. He was not aware he’d closed his eyes until they opened to reveal a panicked mare with desperation and tears brimming in her eyes. Her injured hoof was prodding at his face, and her entire body seemed to be shaking with worry. She voiced her grief with unexpected anger and authority, saying, “Whatever you’re thinking about, stop it!” She reached behind her ear to pull her messy mane over her face and pressed her hair against Daemeon’s cheek. “It’s not worth crying over.”

Daemeon snorted loudly and cleared his throat. He reached a hand up to wipe his eyes and said in a surprisingly calm and steady voice, “I’m sorry, Colgate. I just don’t want to answer your question right now.”

The mare pulled her face away from Daemeon’s and settled a hoof over his lips to purse them shut. She smiled hesitantly and said, “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it now if you don’t want to. We’ll wait until you’re ready. Okay?”

Her man responded with his own shaky smile and answered, “Okay.”

Colgate nodded and glanced at the eastern walls. The rows of brilliantly colored stained glass windows were clearly lit up with a notable blue. The sun was just about to rise. The mare turned back to Daemeon and asked, “Didn’t that other human say we have to leave by now? It’s getting pretty bright out.”

Daemeon sniffled again and wiped his face with the sleeve of his remaining cassock saying, “Yeah, we’ve got to go. We have to find something else for me to wear though and something for me to carry you in.”

“And,” Colgate echoed cheerfully, “then we can find something good to eat. Those wafers weren’t very good.”

The man with the unkempt hair nodded in agreement and stood, stretching his arms and legs. Sleeping on a pew wasn’t exactly the most pleasant experience, but he was used to worse. He reached down to grab up the little pony from the pew, but she dodged his grasp and jumped onto the stone floor saying, “I’d like to walk for a moment at least. It’s nice being held, but I need to stretch out too.”

Daemeon smiled knowingly and began gathering up the uneaten wafers. He slid them back into their wrapper before replacing them in the box. His hands gathered up the cloth draped over his knees and pulled the long, white garment over his shoulders. He took a deep breath, glad to be rid of it, and glanced down in disappointment at his chest. First the jacket and now the shirt were ruined. The blood stain on the front was larger than he’d imagined. He knew it was mostly his fault for not applying pressure on the bite right away, but he was still impressed that the little, blue pony had gotten him so badly.

Colgate was less impressed and more disturbed by the sight. She watched intently as Daemeon undid the buttons on his shirt one by one. She found herself somewhat curious as to the anatomy of the hairless ape but knew better than to ask any questions of exploration. “He said they have shame and don’t like being naked except around their mates.” She thus averted her eyes and turned towards the rows of stained glass windows, studying them intently for the first time.

If the cathedral could have seemed any more remarkable to the mare it was then as she followed the heights of those towering, glowing windows. Millions of pieces of colored glass flashed impressive figures of humans that Colgate could only assume were quite famous. They were beautiful but a few specific features about a couple of the ones shown caught her eyes and made her ask, “Daemeon, who are those two humans shown in those two windows that are side by side?”

Daemeon clutched the discarded cassocks and bloodied, Armani dress shirt to his chest and followed the direction of the mare’s pointed hoof. He answered her simply, “All the windows of this cathedral depict angels and saints. The window on the left there shows the angel Gabriel descending from Heaven with important news. The one on the right is of saint Francis with a wolf.”

Colgate absently trotted a few steps closer to the windows and asked, “Why does Gabriel have wings? Are there humans with wings on this planet? I haven’t seen any so far, but I haven’t really been looking.”

“No,” Daemeon answered, coming up to stand behind the mare, towering over her as the windows did. “The people who come here and worship God believe in these mythological creatures called angels. They’re no more real than God. They’re supposedly the harbingers of God, coming down to Earth to impose its will on mankind. They are said to share in its divine providence and reside with it in its celestial temple.”

Colgate nodded her head slowly and begged, “What about this Francis? He doesn’t have wings. Is he a regular person like you?”

“If he ever actually existed, I should believe so.” Daemeon snorted derisively before continuing, “That’s not how he’s remembered though. He, like all the other saints pictured here, was believed to have been endowed with special powers that allowed for him to perform miracles. These miracles are believed to be extensions of God’s power manifested in chosen people who put their faith in it. I would sooner believe that all the miracles men such as him played were tricks, illusions, or stories that superseded anything they ever did. Their powers are about as real as God or angels are.”

The mare continued to stare intently at the beautiful stained glass windows for a few moments more before she turned to Daemeon with a broad smile and said, “I believe in them.”

Daemeon pursed his brow skeptically and asked somewhat dramatically, “How can you believe in angels and saints? You don’t even know anything about this world. I think you can trust me when I say that not I nor anyone else in this world has seen angels or miracles.”

Colgate’s smile did not diminish at her man’s words. Rather, it increased as she felt certain in her belief. She answered, “You may not have seen them, but I’ll bet anything that they’re real.” She reached a hoof to her face and tapped the firm, swirling contours of her horn saying, “Like I said before, I think you humans believe in this god thing because you don’t have a very clear understanding of magic. You work hard and study all your lives to harness it but can’t. In Equestria, only unicorns can harness magic through understanding and the power of our horns. Only pegasi can fly and roam our celestial skies. Those without wings or magic toil the ground as ponies of the Earth. Together, we create a society that is full of happiness and near perfection.”

Somewhat mystified by her descriptions, Daemeon asked, “So, you’re saying that you believe saints and angels are real because your world has them? And you’ve seen them?”

“Mmhmm,” she hummed. “You must understand though, we weren’t always like that. Equestria wasn’t founded until the pegasi, unicorns, and Earth ponies found each other and learned to value each other. Divided, we were hardly more than beasts. Together, we created what you called utopia.”

Daemeon turned back to the two windows. They were the same as before, a false man and a creature of myth. For just a moment though, a mere moment between moments, her ideas didn’t seem so far fetched. “Maybe there is something more that we don’t understand. Perhaps there are such things as miracles.”

As said before though, it was only a moment between moments. Daemeon shook the silly thoughts from his head, for surely they were nothing but silly, and lightly tapped his foot on Colgate’s rear saying, “We have to go. The ministers for the morning worship will be here any time I’m sure.”

Colgate was not so eager to leave quite yet. Her eyes were absorbed by the creature standing beside saint Francis. She lifted her hoof and demanded, “Why is there a wolf next to Francis?”

Daemeon might have been annoyed at her question if he didn’t find any dialogue with the mare to be pleasurable. Rather than chide her, he decided to answer, “Saint Francis is credited with being a steward to the animals of the Earth. The wolf was said to be a monster that terrorized a small village in a nation called Italy. Saint Francis calmed the creature by speaking to it with kindness and it listened even though it does not have the capacity to reason. This is one such example of a miracle.”

“Oh?” Colgate marveled before chuckling to herself and saying, “He’s just like Fluttershy. I wonder if he was as timid at heart.”

“Who’s that,” he asked blandly.

His mare snickered to herself and responded, “It’s just somepony I know.” She turned away from the windows and said with finality, “I’m ready to go.”

“Good!” Daemeon cheered with false enthusiasm. “I’m sick of this place anyways. Let’s go back to the sacristy. I gotta throw these things away and find a shirt or something.”

The pair turned and cantered onward. Daemeon was stunned by how precious the sound of Colgate’s hooves striking the stone floor sounded. He smiled as she trotted at his feet. She had to keep a quick pace just to keep up with his walking, and he was glad to note that she didn’t seem to be having anymore difficulty with her hoof. They had passed over that bridge at least.

They entered the sacristy, and Daemeon immediately shoved the two ruined cassocks and shirt into a garbage bin in the corner. The box of wafers he shoved back under the sink cabinet. The mare sat intently as Daemeon fell to rummaging through the many different cabinets in search of a shirt. With his shirt off, Colgate could finally see that he was more or less hairless save for intermittent sprigs that couldn’t possibly serve to keep him warm. Humans were nothing if odd specimens to her. If Daemeon was as handsome as he claimed he was, they were certainly an unattractive race.

Daemeon’s shuffling stopped and he extolled, “Lady luck is with me again!”

Colgate’s ears flicked forward and she asked curiously, “Who’s she?”

“It’s just an expression I like.” He withdrew his head from a closet and pulled with him a clean, black dress shirt to replace his white one and explained, “It means that the chaos of the world happened to work out in my favor. Look, I found a shirt. It’s probably an extra for the bishop. I hear he sweats up a storm during his services.”

He laughed and put the shirt on. As he buttoned up, the mare trotted to the base of his feet and peeked up at him with huge, pleading eyes to ask, “Are we going out to eat after this?”

Daemeon laughed again and answered, “Of course we are! We can go out for anything you want. At least, I think we can. Do you ponies eat anything other than grass and ice cream?”

“Well,” the mare mused aloud, “I could go for some pancakes and syrup. I haven’t had those in years. Do you have those here?”

Her man finished buttoning up his shirt and reached down to scoop up the mare. She came up willingly and flashed a hopeful smile. Daemeon stared intently at that smile and exclaimed, “Of course we have pancakes! I know a great place for some. They serve them with any fruit you could want and stuff like chocolate and peanut butter. And of course, all the syrup you could want.”

The ex-dentist flashed her perfect white teeth and rubbed her hooves together with a grin that clearly showed her devious desire to stare her career inhibitions in the eyes and tell them to hit the road. Cavities be damned, she was going to enjoy something sweet. She leaned forward and nuzzled into Daemeon’s chest with the thought, “Then again, this is sweet too.”

Daemeon dug back into the closet and pulled out decent sized cloth bag that bore the name of the cathedral. “So much luck,” Daemeon mused to himself. “I couldn’t have asked for something that was a more perfect size.” He strolled out of the sacristy with the mare and bag in hand wishing he didn’t have to stuff her in it.

Just when he thought they had put those huge halls, beautiful windows, and simple altar behind them, nature called, and Daemeon was forced to make a pitstop at the men’s restroom. He set the mare and bag on the counter and slipped into a stall alone.

Colgate looked at her reflection in the mirror. It had not even been a day since she’d last stepped out of her bathtub at home and groomed herself to perfection, but now, it almost looked like she had been through a rodeo. Her mane and tail were hopeless wrecks, and the ugly bite on her chest stood out as a painful contrast to the beautiful gossamer blue of her coat. She’d never thought much of her own looks, but she’d at least been careful to always look decent. Musing over her looks caused her to sigh sadly and think to herself, “It’s not like anypony would care anyways. I don’t have a stallion to look pretty for.”

Hearing her sigh, Daemeon asked from the stall, “Are you okay?”

Colgate was silent for a moment before turning away from the mirror and lying, “Yeah.” She tapped her hoof absently against the ceramic of one of the small hand basins and said, “I didn’t, uh. I didn’t really thank you for, you know, what you did for me this morning.”

Daemeon answered lightheartedly and dismissively, “Don’t worry about it. Nothing happened.”

His mare winced at his tone and stated emphatically, “It did happen though. It was . . . embarrassing to say the least. I just want you to know that I appreciate your being kind to me. This isn’t a fun situation to be in. In fact, it’s really a gross and unpleasant situation, and I forced it on you without you ever having asked for it.”

Her words were concluded by a toilet flushing and Daemeon exiting the stall. He hunched over a sink and fell to washing his hands while stating almost as emphatically as she, “You didn’t force anything on me. I told you. You’re here just because you are. We’re all just pawns of chance and circumstance. Your will had very little to do with your being here.”

He finished washing his hands and grabbed up his mare in a soft hug, one of comfort that soothed them both. Neither of them could really remember enjoying anything more than each other’s company. It was the company of friendship, honest friendship in its first bud of life. Daemeon whispered soothingly into her ear, “Besides, as big a burden as you may be for such a small pony, it’s been more than worth the pain to have your company.”

As much as he wanted to dawdle, he knew they had to leave or they would get caught. He reached down and opened the cloth bag and placed his beautiful mare in. She curled into a ball and allowed him to close the bag around her and hang over his shoulder. He stopped to look in the mirror himself. Colgate wasn't the only one who looked haggard. His hairy chin undid the deceptive youth he tried to claim for himself. His usually perfect hair was muddled and dirty. He might even swear that he saw worry lines appearing on his face from all the unusual emotions he was expressing. He did look a bit better with the hand wrappings and bloody shirt gone. In fact, he was almost presentable. Almost.

Daemeon left the bathroom and exited the cathedral then, his sweet, little Colgate in tow.

Interrogation

“Fourteen.”

Warrun’s fingers tapped softly against the steering wheel of his cruiser as he waited at the red light. Outside his vehicle, the world was loud and chaotic. The sounds of traffic and the footfalls of thousands of men and women making their way to work provided a virtually endless white noise that every New Yorker tuned out, as a man who lives on a beach front tunes out the soft rippling of the ocean. In a city that does not sleep, noise is not only an inevitability but a reality. Most men submitted to that reality. They let the din become a backdrop to their lives and gave it no notice. They let the noise encompass them and tolerated it as something they could do nothing about. Warrun was not such a man.

The light turned green, and Warrun pulled forward until he ran into another red light. “Fifteen.”

Again, his fingers fell to tapping. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. The rhythm followed in time to the soft melody of a song Warrun always played on repeat as he drove to work in the morning. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata rolled through the small confines of his cruiser and undid the chaotic noise of the city streets. The music permeated him, soothed him, prepared him. Every morning it prepared him for the day ahead.

While most men had their favorite talk shows or news stations, Warrun only had that soft beat to strum his fingers to. He knew it well as the music was the closest he ever came to a ritual. It was his ritual. He didn’t want the news. He didn’t want to hear light banter or witty jokes. He didn’t want to hear anyone. All he wanted was a moment of music, a moment of order, before stepping into his precinct every morning and facing the day to day workings of a man imposing the law, a man keeping his little corner of the world safe from the people who did not know well enough to fear his wrath.

“Sixteen.”

One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.

His eyes drifted away from the red lights that aggravated every driver except him and gazed down the street to a large, squat, and thoroughly unimpressive building. Its grey brick exterior was neither ugly nor menacing. But neither was it comforting nor inviting. Were it not for the collection of cruisers and cabbies parked out front, there would have been little to separate New York’s 13th Precinct from the tenements that surrounded it. It was just another building in a landscape of thousands, meant for a business and a purpose. It just happened that this building was meant for service and protection rather than housing or education.

Green light. Another few hundred yards. Red Light. “Seventeen.”

One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.

“Calling car four.”

Warrun sighed. “I’m not even at work yet.” He reached to the dashboard and picked up the small corded talkie. “This is car four. What do we got, Sherry?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, officer. Lieutenant Thompson wants you to meet him right away in box room two.”

“Box room two?” Warrun mused aloud. “I don’t remember any orders for a lie detector test. Do you know what’s up, Sherry?”

“I think it has something to do with the perp you brought in yesterday, the one who murdered his wife.”

“Vinetti?” Warrun muttered in surprise. “We can’t be interrogating him yet. His council would never allow for it.”

“I don’t know the details, sir. I’m just relaying the message.”

Warrun continued to silently strum his fingers to the beat of the song made absent by the phone call. It seemed a vain effort to recapture his morning routine. He was already pulling up into the parking garage, and the chaos of the world was again going to assault him. Some men might submit to the inevitability of such chaos, but Warrun preferred to submit himself to the inevitability of order, even if he had to be the one to impose it. “Do you mind clocking me in, Sherry?”

“No problem.”

He parked and opened his car door. Immediately, the sounds of cars and horns resounding the call of the morning commute hit his ears. What was it after all but another day in Manhattan? He fell to walking, counting his steps as he went. “One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.”

*****

Lieutenant Thompson leaned heavily against the steel fire door, his head bent against a small square window set at eye level. The drowsiness of an early morning afflicted him, and he might have dozed off in that position were it not for the gravity of the situation. A second cup of coffee was certain to come.

A set of double doors opened to his left, and he lolled his head absently. On seeing Warrun striding towards him, he jerked to attention. “Officer Slavinski, what took you so long? You’re only fifteen minutes early for your shift.”

Warrun smirked and answered, “I hit a few more reds than usual.”

“O, let me guess.” The lieutenant tugged at his neatly kept moustache before saying, “Sixteen?”

“Seventeen, actually. Though, I’m more surprised to see you here. What are you doing here so early after a night shift? Sherry said something about Vinetti.”

The lieutenant threw a thumb over his shoulder responding, “Yeah. I got him staying put for the moment. I wasn’t going to come in, but we turned up something very interesting last night that almost made me stay here.”

“Really?” Warrun begged skeptically. “I can’t imagine you found more incriminating evidence. Seven eyewitnesses saw him fleeing the scene, entire building heard the shots fired, fingerprints on the gun. First response picked him up while he was still wearing the blood spattered clothing for Christ’s sake. What more could you get on this guy?”

“How about snow mule?”

Silence and raised eyebrows followed as Warrun took a moment to absorb the information. “Well,” he muttered, “that certainly is something. I don’t know the name, so I assume he’s low on the chain. Independent?”

“Hardly,” Lt. Thompson answered. “He’s low, but we don’t let many of the cartel off our radar. We think he may be a second tier distributor.”

“Now you’ve got me curious. I thought I knew everyone second tier and up on file. A new guy?”

“Not exactly,” he responded with a shake of his head. “We’ve got no physical evidence on him, but he came through on the Chicago net. He fell off their radar about a year ago. Rumor had it that he moved to get clean. Or died.”

Warrun waved the lieutenant away from the door and peeked through the small glass square. The lanky man with his sleek black hair seemed a little on the thin side but did not bear the gaunt structure, darting eyes, or subtle tweaks of a user. The grey shirt and pants provided for him accented his sullen and angry frown. He slouched heavily in the folding chair positioned behind the large table at the center of the room. It clearly hadn’t been a fun last twelve hours for him.

“Well, we can tell them to scratch dead off their list,” Warrun muttered. “They might actually be right about his going clean. He doesn’t look strung out in the least.” He turned his head to regard his friend, “I know he has a history, but do we have anything to implicate him at all?”

“Nothing,” Thompson stated, tagging a little side note after a second, “except a hunch.”

The First Officer almost couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he pointed out, “I’ve known you for a long time lieutenant, and if there’s one thing you’re not very good at, it’s hunches.”

The lieutenant threw up his hands in defence and said, “That may be the case, but even you’ll find this weird. Do you see an attorney in there with him?”

“Of course not. He wouldn’t be in there if he had one. Why doesn’t he have one yet?”

“He knows his rights,” Thompson stated emphatically. “We offered him an attorney, but he snubbed us.”

“Well, that’s not so unusual. He wants his own lawyer, right? Does he have one flying in from somewhere?”

“You know as well as I do that we would be contacted immediately if he had his own council coming in. He hasn’t gotten any yet.”

Probing further, Warrun asked, “Is he trying to figure out the money situation?”

“It seems so,” the lieutenant answered with a nod. “But what could the money situation possibly be? He has sizable funds in his accounts, and with his wife dead, it’s all in his name. It’s not enough for a great lawyer, but he could certainly get something better than what we would offer.”

“Yes,” Warrun answered slowly, crossing his arms, “but he would need a Godsend to save him from this. An attorney skilled enough to get anything on a case like this would cost a fortune. He must be trying to call in favors from high places.”

Lt. Thompson nodded enthusiastically and reiterated, “Like the cartel. They’d cough up a fortune to save one of their own, even if he is only second tier.”

“But,” the officer interjected, “if that’s the case, then what’s the holdup?”

The lieutenant frowned and shrugged his shoulders saying, “That’s where I got nothing. It just seems that, with his previous ties, the cartel would be the place for him to go. They’d only help him though if he was still dealing.” He tilted his head towards the door and explained, “Until he figures something out, we have him to do all the questioning we want. He knows better than to incriminate himself, but I was hoping you could take a stab at it. He hasn’t said a word to me, but you have a way of getting into a guy’s soul.”

Rather than laugh at the observation, Warrun responded grimly, “That I do.”

“Great!” Thompson responded enthusiastically. “Here’s the case file. I’ll leave you to rattle him. I’m in desperate need of a cup of coffee. I’ll stop back in ten.”

Warrun took the folder with a raised eyebrow and answered unamused, “Sure thing, boss.”

The lieutenant lowered his eyes at the tone, knowing when he’d taken a few too many liberties. Fifteen years of friendship, and Warrun could still make him feel like a cadet. His nephew looked up to him a lot, but he was certain it didn’t match how much he himself looked up to the first officer. He turned and walked away through the double doors. His coffee was calling.

Warrun sighed and looked at the heavy case file. Over a dozen photos and detailed accounts from witnesses as well as his previous connections in Chicago weighed it down. He sighed and glanced about, making sure no one else was present. When he saw his coast was clear, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his carton of cigarettes. Smoking in the building was prohibited, but he needed to calm his mind before any interrogation. He needed to be in control of himself if he was going to exert control over anyone else.

When he finished the last puff of his cigarette, he slid the filter back into the half empty box. “Best not to leave any evidence.” He slipped the box back into his shirt pocket, and with a deep breath, opened the door.

Warrun noticed that the opened door did nothing to change the posture or mood of Mr. Vinetti as he continued to lounge passively in his chair. Warrun immediately took up an equally unimpressed stance as he gently laid the case file on the desk between them and took a seat in the outwards facing chair, resting his chest against its back. The two looked at each other in silence for several moments, each taking his measure of the other. Neither showed the slightest hint of emotion beyond a mild irritation that they had to be present together in that room.

Already bored with the silence and having quite a bit of work to get done for the day, the first officer started first, “Good morning to you. My name is. . .”

“First Officer Slavinski,” the perp answered for him. “I recognize you from the pictures in the paper. Your reputation far exceeds you.”

A smile of deceit rose on Warrun’s face. He was not happy at the mention of his quiet fame. He wasn’t angry either. He actually didn’t feel anything. No emotions he showed on his face were real. Everything he presented was only a fabrication meant to lull those he needed the truth from into a false sense of security. Thus was the smile cleverly concocted, and a hint of red embarrassment colored his cheeks. He averted his eyes for the briefest of moments, and the man behind the table almost smiled to think he had caught the great Slavinski off guard.

Warrun cleared his throat and stood up to turn his chair around. He repositioned himself and forged a more serious expression as he said, “Then I won’t need to trouble myself with an introduction. However, we’re hardly here because of me.”

“Aren’t we?” the suspect interjected sarcastically. “Your little stooge can’t get me to talk, so he goes to his boss asking for help. Isn’t that it?”

The first officer made a show of frowning before saying, “It’s more likely that we’re here because of you.” Warrun reached down and opened the case file, spreading the pictures out before him. “I think we’re here right now because you killed your wife.”

Jack Vinetti stared blankly at the large photos before him and crossed his arms. On the outside, he looked very calm and unmoved. One could even say that he was bored. That was not what Warrun saw. Vinetti’s eyes darted once to the left and came back glistening ever so slightly. The fingers of his right hand tapped against his left elbow, and his next breath came just a little bit slower than the last.

“He’s trying really hard,” Warrun noted to himself as he carefully watched the man. “He’s cold, but there’s passion there.” He slid forward an especially gruesome eight by eleven of a woman’s body lying face down on a rug. Her auburn hair spewed to the left and right, clearly revealing a small entry wound above the base of the skull. A lacy, blue dress clung to her body from her shoulders to her knees with sticky, black blood coming from three wounds in her back. The ugly scene could have made any man cringe. Warrun was less desensitized to such things than he’d hoped he would be as the years passed. Rather than become easier to bear or softer on his eyes, images such as these only seemed to fester more hideously in his mind. Every murder was always more ugly than the last. In at least this regard the two men were alike as they stared each other down across the table. Both were trying very hard to remain unbothered by the evidence. Only one was successful.

Warrun reached down and tapped lightly on the photo asking, “I haven’t actually been fully prepped on this case. Do you mind telling me what this woman’s name is?”

Vinetti said nothing as he returned a scowl of indignation.

“Come on Mr, uh, what was it again?”

Again, the man did not respond.

The first officer sighed and explained, “I could just use the name on the file, but I’d rather know for certain what you like people to call you. Do you have a nickname?”

“Vinetti.”

“Thank you,” Warrun replied with a polite smile. “Vinetti it is then. That’s your last name right? Do you always go by that?”

“Usually.”

“Good!” The first officer leaned forward and gestured to the photo saying, “Now, I know you don’t have to answer all of my questions. Hell. You don’t have to answer any of them. It’ll just make my job a hell of alot easier if you could explain some things before I sit down to read the reports myself.”

Vinetti said nothing. He only continued to frown at the officer, not letting his eyes droop to the photos on the table.

As Warrun saw no response forthcoming, he continued, “I’ll take that as a firm maybe. We don’t have to leap mountains yet. I’d like us to start with this girl’s name. Telling me that much can’t incriminate you. You must have heard it hundred times since last night.”

The man turned away from Warrun, unable to keep up the stare he’d been giving. With what was clearly supposed to be a steady voice, though Warrun could discern a hint of resignation in it, Vinetti responded, “Her name was Isabella.”

“Sorrow?” Warrun reached down and picked up another photo. The headshot showed a clear white face mangled with a large exit wound that had blasted through her upper lip, rending her teeth and palate. Despite the grisly carnage, there was surprisingly little blood to be seen. So soon after death had the picture been taken that her brown eyes had not yet dulled, and the pallor of her beautiful skin had lost none of its hue. So close were life and death together in the image that they seemed to mock the lack of a barrier between them. Both were a reality, and in that moment between moments, nothing seemed to separate them save for an action and an intent behind it.

“Well,” Warrun muttered after a silent moment of study, “Isabella was quite the beauty. It says here she was your wife. Is that correct?”

The suspect did not remove his eyes from the grey, concrete wall of the basement. He gave no indication that he’d even heard a question.

“I’m just trying to get the facts straight, buddy. The file could be wrong you know.”

More silence.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Don’t worry though. I’m not doing anything official yet.” Warrun set the photo down and pulled up a report of what happened. “I have to say. There is a lot of evidence against you, Mr. Vinetti. You’ve neither confirmed nor denied the murder. That’s good. Well, good for you at least. With her blood on your shirt and both your names on an apartment lease, things aren’t looking good for you.”

More silence.

Warrun leaned forward in his seat and spoke very seriously, “Do you know why you’ve heard about me, Mr. Vinetti?” At the lack of a response, the officer continued, “It’s because I play fair. I’m not brutal or sadistic. I’m neither obsessive nor compulsive. I am only a man that wishes the law to be upheld. And frankly, it’s not because I have an egotistical morality like some folks.” Warrun snaked a hand into his pocket and grabbed out his cigarettes. “It’s because people need to follow the rules if we wish to have an ordered society. Smoke?”

For the first time in their conversation, Vinetti perked up a little, and his eyes went hungrily to the offering. He hardly had to consider before answering, “Why not.”

The first officer hated bumming cigarettes out. “They’re damn near a dollar a piece now. At least I got some movement out of him.” “As I was saying before, I play fair. I let everybody get their due, no matter the cost. Consider very briefly your situation. Would you like my personal, professional opinion?”

Vinetti took a long draw on his cigarette and exhaled slowly with his eyes shut. His face lightened so much it almost looked like he lost five years. As though he didn’t care at all about the situation, he shrugged and answered again, “Why not.”

Warrun folded his hands in front of him and stated very matter of factly, “We don’t just think you did it. We know you did it. We know she was your wife, and we know you executed her. It was not self defence. We have so much evidence against you that nothing could save you. I personally lead the crew that took you in, and I know for a fact that none of your rights were violated. There is nothing to throw this case out or invalidate it. A life sentence in prison is usually what you get for homicide. Execution? That’ll get you time without parole.”

Warrun could just make out the slightest grimace touch the corner of the man’s mouth. He didn’t open his eyes but he did prod, “You were giving me advice?”

The first officer chuckled for a moment. Vinetti responded with open eyes and a glare, quite unamused with Warrun’s reaction. Warrun, of course, was not actually amused. Nothing about murder or cruel irony was funny to him. Still, it got the suspect going. “I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s funny that I should be giving you advice. You really do need to get yourself an attorney. Why don’t you have one yet anyways? Is he flying in?”

Vinetti looked away, again contenting himself with the view of the wall, and stated, “I don’t have one yet.”

“Well, then here’s my first piece of advice,” Warrun stated, waiting until he again had the perp’s attention, “get one. Get one fast and get a damn good one. Unfortunately, it’s going to be difficult for you, isn’t it? You aren’t poor, but you certainly can’t get a man good enough to get you out of this mess. And I would love to meet the guy who would take this case without prepayment. Maybe you’ll score big and find somebody who sympathizes with your blatant innocence so much that they represent you pro bono. Are you waiting for that?”

Vinetti couldn’t maintain the eye contact the first officer kept striving for. His eyes fell to the floor and his jaw clenched in anger and frustration that was becoming more and more evident.

Warrun let the silence draw out for a moment more before saying very simply, “Or do you already have a potential benefactor?”

If nothing else had gotten the man’s attention, Warrun’s intonation did. The suspect sat upright and fidgeted slightly under the first officer’s piercing gaze. His reaction left Warrun with no personal doubts. “He’s in it. He knows too. He’ll be willing to beg for a deal before I’m done with him. We’ve got him cracking so fresh, we might get the one up on the cartel. He’s only second tier, but he should know places, dates, future transactions. If I nail him down now, we could suck this guy dry. I just pray to God nobody know’s he’s gone yet.”

Warrun stood from his seat and hovered ominously above the murderer. With a chilling and deathly cool he stated, “Getting a good lawyer might be better advice if you had any real chance here. The unfortunate truth is that you don’t though. Not even your buddies in the snow can save you now. Here’s my actual advice, and believe it or not, it’s better than anything any expensive lawyer will tell you. You are sitting on valuable information that could save your life. You don’t need to deny it. We both know. Unfortunately for you, that information becomes infinitely less valuable the longer you sit on it.”

The first officer slid the photo of Isabella in front of Vinetti again and said, “Nothing is going to fix what you’ve done. You are a murderer, and I’d feel more pity for having to put down a dog than I would executing you. I am a reasonable man though, so I’ll make you this offer. It’s informal of course, but it could save you quite a few years in prison. Two signed confessions. Confessing to the murder of your wife might net you the chance for parole alone. You have so much more to offer than that though. A second confession to your trade and information regarding the cartel, that would open up a lot of doors for you.”

Vinetti fiddled absently with the cigarette butt in his hand, lost in deep thought. Warrun began gathering up the photos and reports back into the file. He walked to the door and opened it. Almost as an afterthought, he turned and addressed Vinetti with one final point, “I’m going to be more generous than I would usually to you. I’ll make you a personal deal. I am an honorable man, if such a thing exists anymore. I’ll give you one day to consider this offer. If before this time tomorrow, you come clean, I will personally invest every free effort I have to affording you the best possible deal. A good word from me could take another five years off your sentence. Just something to consider while I’m working today. As I said before, the sooner the better.”

Warrun exited the small room, closing the door behind him. He leaned heavily against the pane of glass and took a deep breath. He’d made a lot of promises, and he was really hoping he could follow through on all of them. A murder case was rarely a rush job. If Vinetti decided to fight it, there were months of appeals ahead, and he could lie about everything right up until the last second. He was also putting on quite a false bravado saying that his sentence was certain. He’d seen men guilty of far worse getting off with a technicality. Moneyed men could really get away with most anything.

Warrun’s moment of silence was suddenly disturbed as the double doors to his left opened. He turned to see the lieutenant with a cup of coffee and a bagel, a look of surprise on his face. “Back out so soon?” Lt. Thompson murmured in surprise. “I was expecting this to take a while. Did you get anything out of him?”

The first officer stood straight and shoved his hands in his pockets saying, “Quite a bit actually. He seemed a bit more willing to talk to me.”

“What did you find out?” the lieutenant begged excitedly.

“That maybe not all your hunches are stupid. You were right. He is a part of the cartel. And yes, he is trying to figure out an agreement through them.”

A look of awe flashed across the lieutenant’s face as he asked, “He confessed to all that?”

Warrun couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “No. That would be a little too simple. He’s smart. He won’t incriminate himself directly. He hinted at the truth though, and that’s enough for me.”

“What did you do?”

The first officer lifted a hand to scratch his head and answered somewhat hesitantly, “I, uh, I offered him a deal.”

Lt. Thompson’s eyes went wide as he interjected, “You cut him a deal? You don’t have the authority for that! All deals have to run through the Captain. You know that.”

“I know! I know!” Warrun crossed his arms defensively and explained, “He hasn’t accepted anything, and I told him nothing was official. I told him any information he has becomes less valuable the longer he holds onto it. I just wanted him to know that, if he cut a deal quick, things would go easier for him.”

“That may be the case,” the lieutenant stated objectively, “but if he confesses without a formal deal authorized, he could get off for being forced to incriminate himself. I just pray for your sake that the Captain goes along with this. You know how he hates being put on the spot.”

The first officer sighed in submission. “I remember. I hate gambling, but I want this to be over before it even starts. I just wish we could kill him and be done with it. A man who kills his own wife doesn’t deserve to live.”

“Oh!” the lieutenant popped in unexpectedly. “I was going to ask. Did you find out anything in the way of a motive? The how of this case is pretty clear, but we have no clue as to the why.”

“Normally, I would just say that there’s always some motive. Money’s a big one, but I’d be surprised if that had anything to do with this. Gunshot in an apartment building? Execution? This was clearly some crime of passion. Maybe it was premeditated but not by much. The best I can fathom is that she did something that played against his pride.”

“Pride?” Lt. Thompson asked skeptically, taking a sip of his coffee. “What makes you think this had anything to do with pride?”

“Think about it,” Warrun answered, gesturing for the lieutenant’s bagel. His subordinate gave it up and the first officer examined it as he explained, “This is a man who ditched an entire cartel, cleaned himself up, and took his budding family halfway across the nation to escape it all. A man looking just for the money or a quick fix wouldn’t have held it all together so well. No. Vinetti did what he thought was right because he believed he deserved better. He knew he and his wife deserved better.” He took a bite of the bagel and finished, “A man like that isn’t a monster that angers quickly. Whatever she did must have offended his pride so greatly that it undid the purpose of his years of hard work.”

“That sounds reasonable,” the lieutenant returned, “but if he’s as prideful as you say, then why get back into the business? Years of working to get away from it and that’s exactly where he drags his family? It sounds like he wanted the quick cash to me.”

Warrun sighed in a seemingly bitter resignation. He turned his head absently and looked in on the man who’d murdered his wife, his dear Isabella. With an odd hint of genuine sadness peeking in his voice, he explained, “Can you blame him? I’ve seen his type hundreds of times. Maybe thousands of times by now. Why do you think he got into dealing in the first place? He never went to College. He probably never even got his GED. Maybe he wanted quick money then, but now he has little choice if he wants to live any better than a homeless man. An ugly drug affiliation? A terrible education? What does a man like him have to offer the world? Even if he did find employment, debt would come. Debt always comes to the middle class.What hope is there for a family that only falls further and further into debt?”

“It’s sad, yes,” the lieutenant interjected, “but I still have a hard time believing it’s pride that caused this. If he didn’t have enough pride to live a poor life, what makes you think it motivated him to kill his wife?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Warrun declared sadly. “He refused to be poor because he took pride in his wife. He fixed his life, yes, but he fixed it mostly for her. I think she did something to make all that hard work worthless.”

“It sounds like you think she cheated on him,” Lt. Thompson mused.

Warrun nodded and took another bite of the bagel before handing it back to its owner. The lieutenant took a bite himself as he listened. “That would certainly do it. She clearly wasn’t caught in the act though. There was only one body. At least then we could have pinned it on the anger of the moment. No. It was premeditated. I have a hard time believing that a woman he’d given up so much for wouldn’t be faithful to him though.”

“Not everybody’s a saint or an angel, Warrun.”

“You got that right,” Warrun muttered. “Speaking of which, any more news on the Devil?”

“Lucifer hasn’t shown his face unfortunately.” The lieutenant ate the last of his bagel and finished his coffee before continuing, “Did you really have any hope? He was long gone by the time we got in there. He’s out there in the city, just like he always is. With no connections, the man can just up and disappear like a fart in the wind. He may as well be in China”

“Well he isn’t,” the first officer retorted bitterly. “He’s in New York. He’s probably right out there in Manhattan, so arrogant he doesn’t even run. He’s like an insidious plague I wouldn’t even wish on my enemies.”

Lt. Thompson extended a hand and rested it on his oldest friend’s shoulder. “Don’t let it ruin your day. We’ve got evidence to sort through. We know he was there, and we may have a lead on that jacket.”

“Oh, yeah. Do we have any preliminaries on a DNA test?”

“Not yet. Just matching two samples can take days. It should be faster since we already have his DNA on file. If it’s his though, then we won’t really have gotten anything aside from a question as to why he soiled his own jacket. It’s a long shot, but if we can trace the evidence back to anybody who’s seen him, it’ll have been well worth the effort.”

“Anything’s worth that man’s death,” Warrun whispered. “I have to get to work, lieutenant. I’ve got to file and organize reports on the crash yesterday. I also get the splendid joy of meeting Mr. Jobo DeCosta, and hearing his end of the story.”

“The cab driver’s awake?” Lt. Thompson said in clear wonder. “I still don’t even understand how he survived. His car was broadsided twice! Seven other people died! Some men have all the luck I guess.”

“I wouldn’t call it luck. He’s alive, but he’s going to wake up in hell when they pull him out of sedation. Accident or no, he has a lot to answer for. There hasn’t been anything this bad since that bus crash in 08. I’d really like to know why he pulled into that intersection though. Cab drivers are supposed to be a bit more aware of their surroundings than that.”

“Was he drugged?”

“Nah,” Warrun answered, shaking his head. “Detox turned up nothing. He doesn’t even have a poor health history. No stroke. No heart attack. Either he fell asleep at the wheel, very unlikely, or something riled him up. There was one little odd bit that didn’t add up in the crash.”

“Really?” the lieutenant asked curiously. “What’s wrong?”

“The ticker timer on his vehicle was still going after the crash. I’m thinking that he had a client who caused him to crash and fled from the scene.”

Lt. Thompson crossed his arms and raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Now who’s reaching in the dark for truths? He could just as easily have forgotten to turn it off.”

“Neither of us have gotten to where we are by writing off continuity as coincidence.” Warrun turned from his friend and headed for the doors. “You’ll have to catch me up on anything we pick up on the Devil over lunch. What do you say to Lombardi’s pizza around noon? I’m craving something cheesy today.”

“Sure thing, but in the meantime, what should I do with Vinetti? He’s been asking for another private phone call. I’m assuming he wants to get in touch with his cartel, but I can’t deny him the right.”

“We won’t be denying his rights if we make him wait a while,” Warrun intonated in a somewhat scheming fashion. “I want him to have plenty of time to stew over what I’ve said. Fear is going to be our friend if we’re going to get him to talk. He needs to think for a while that his time is running out and that he has no hope for redemption unless he submits. We’ll give him his call after lunch. For now, put him back in his cell.”

“Will do, boss.” Warrun left through the double doors, leaving Lt. Thompson alone with his empty cup. His eyes gazed back through the glass pane on the door. “You look a little sad.” He sighed and opened the door. “Too bad feeling sad isn’t going to save you.”

Out of Darkness

Daemeon smiled as he walked.

It was an odd thing to him. He never smiled. At least, he never wore a serious smile. Many was the time that he’d mimicked the motion. Like paint or plaster, a facade to cover the reality. A convincing farce, but a farce nonetheless. It was not that he feared to smile. Nor was it a conscious choice that he didn’t. He was merely a victim. Of what was he a victim? Of the whirlpool of consequence? Or the hydra of choice? Or, perhaps, he was the victim of knowing, not knowing, or knowing what one cannot know?

Of himself?

Of the world?

“It’s beautiful today,” Daemeon mumbled to himself as one foot fell before the other. His smile grew as he gazed about at the trees sparsely placed to create a faint canopy that did very little to blot out the brilliant morning sun as it crested over the tall buildings to his right. The dismal storm that had sullied the previous day had long since given way, and now the air was moist with dew rather than precipitation. A soft breeze shifted the leaves above and those that no longer adorned the trees. They twirled and scattered at his feet, forming small tornadoes of reds, yellows, and oranges. The soughing of the leaves was accompanied by another familiar sound, one which seemed far cheerier to the bright eyed Daemeon than it had only a day before.

A soft, feminine voice cut through the gentle rustle asking, “What’s that sound?”

“They’re leaves, Colgate,” Daemeon answered with a happy tone that surprised the both of them. He shook his head and continued, “We’re walking through a park.”

“A park?” Colgate wondered. “I thought we were going to get pancakes.”

Daemeon chuckled lightly. “You must be hungry as a horse. Pardon the pun.”

“I will not,” the mare stated derisively, slapping a small hoof playfully on her man’s back. “I told you, I’m not a horse.”

Daemeon’s chuckle degenerated into a laugh as he explained, “I know. I know. I want to take you to a special place that’s said to serve some of the best pancakes. It’s a bit of a ways on foot, but instead of crowded streets, I decided we could take a little detour through the park. It won’t add more than ten or fifteen minutes to the walk.”

“Fifteen minutes?” Colgate mused. “This must be a pretty big city if you have to walk fifteen minutes just to get food.”

“Indeed it is. I’m not sure how I can really put the size of this city into perspective for you.” Daemeon ran his fingers through his messy brown hair and asked, “Just how many ponies live in that village you’re from?”

“Ponyville?”

“Yeah. Ponyville. That’s not a brilliantly clever name.” Daemeon added to himself. “If they’re all ponies then wouldn’t every place they lived be a ponyville?”

“Umm,” Colgate hummed to herself. Name after name rolled through her mind. Lists, appointments, good teeth, bad teeth. “Including the outlying farms and discluding our non-pony residents, I believe the count would stand at 672, give or take a pregnant mare.”

A little impressed, he asked, “You seem pretty solid on that number. Do you know all of the ponies in your village personally?”

A smile broadened on Colgate’s face as she explained, “I’m the dentist! Everypony has to come to me if they want to keep their teeth healthy.” The smile dimmed after a moment, and she added with heavy resignation, “At least, they used to.”

Daemeon heard the underlying sadness in her voice as she answered him. Even if she had tried to be more subtle, her man was beginning to notice a pattern in her. It caused him to wonder very seriously, “If she hated her job as much as she says, then why is she always so eager and happy when she mentions it? What’s more, why is she sad when she says she has put it behind her?”

Daemeon might have pursued his question, but he did not want to cause her sadness right then. A gorgeous sunny morning was about him, banishing much of the cold of the dark night. It was uncharacteristic of him, a theme that was becoming more obvious every moment he spent with the insufferable little, blue mare, but he took real joy in that morning. It seemed his very perception of his surroundings had altered. The leaves crunching beneath his feet were suddenly a cheerful sound. The reds, yellows, and oranges colored the dewy fields in the fire of life, not the foreshadowing of death. Even the tree branches that now terminated to nothingness, skeletons in their own right, seemed to Daemeon then to be soft, supple, and beautiful.

Ruin that? Ruin that gentle, sunny morning with prying questions that could only make his little Colgate sad? Her Daemeon couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less. Instead, he pursued an emotion he almost always yielded to. In curiosity, he inquired, “When I told you there are eight million people in this city alone, you said there aren’t that many ponies in Equestria. Just how many ponies are there? Do you take frequent censuses?”

The mare tapped her hoof against her chin in thought. “I don’t think so. At least, there hasn’t been a census in my lifetime. I think the last census was taken almost 300 years ago.”

“Really?” Daemeon wondered in surprise. “That’s a long time to go without taking a count. We have a census every decade here. Do you happen to know how many ponies there were in your last census?”

“I’m a little rough with my history. It’s not my job to know you understand. I do have a friend who’s talent is in history though. He’s told me some things I’ve wanted to know when I ask. I believe the total count was around 45,000 ponies. Those only account for the ones living in Equestria, but at that time, ponies weren’t very spread out around the world. That was before our borders as a nation were set you see. We’ve spread out and grown quite a bit since then, so that number is probably pretty outdated.”

“Fascinating,” Daemeon exclaimed. “I’m sick of talking about me. I want to hear more about your world. So, yours was a budding nation only three hundred years ago?”

Colgate smiled to herself at his excitement. She’d never had the joy of explaining their rich history to anypony else. Everypony knew from elementary, and most other races didn’t care about pony history. Eagerly, she elaborated, “No, no, no. We weren’t a full nation then, but Equestria itself was founded almost two thousand years ago, a thousand years after the end of our Tribal Era.”

“Tribal Era?”

“Yes,” Colgate explained as she shifted to a more comfortable position in her bag. “I told you before that there are three types of ponies; Unicorns, Pegasi, and ponies of the Earth. Before the founding of Equestria, the three races were divided into tribes. We were scattered across the continent and our hierarchy was little more than that of the herd. We feared and would not relate to each other. Our diets consisted of only grass and water, and our numbers were kept thin by the beasts of the land. It’s said, though there’s really very few texts or solid history dating back to this period, that each of the races was almost driven to extinction more than once.”

“Remarkable,” the man with the ever brightening smile said in awe. “So you know exactly how your race came to civilization? And it only took two thousand years? Human history goes back so many hundreds of thousands of years that we can only speculate as to how we came to be. Entire religions have been formed just to answer that question.”

“We have a general understanding, yes, but the point where we draw the line between awareness and beast is about three thousand years ago.”

Growing ever more curious, Daemeon found himself demanding, “What happened then?”

“Three important events occurred very near to each other then,” Colgate said taking a deep breath. “It all started with the Earth ponies. One of their roaming tribes discovered that better and far more abundant food could be secured if they spread seeds themselves and cultivated them.”

“The birth of agriculture,” the man interjected. “It’s believed that our first societies formed for similar reasons. Please go on.”

“Well,” the mare explained with a gentle smile touching her unseen lips, “the many Earth pony tribes saw the success of agriculture, how the tribe that learned grew numerous in number as they stayed in one place and secured themselves, and they soon followed suit. In time, most of the Earth ponies had given up on roaming altogether. The village became the norm.”

“What about the Unicorns and Pegasi? Did they turn to farming as well?”

“No,” Colgate answered, shaking her head inside her softly swaying confine. “The Unicorns and Pegasi saw the success of the Earth ponies and were envious. They first tried to master agriculture for themselves, but both races ran into grave difficulties. Unicorns, who had gained a fundamental understanding of magic, had become too lax in their physical builds. They could not pull plows and could hardly bear the harsh heat of the sun. To try to work with their magic would have been even more taxing. You remember what I said right? A unicorn’s magic is powered from within and tires us.”

“I remember.” Daemeon’s eyes followed down the weaving path. It was quite a distance to their destination, but he still slowed his pace a bit. He did not want the conversation to end. “What of the Pegasi? Were they not strong enough either?”

“They are a good deal stronger than the Unicorns. They may have had a decent shot at it if it weren’t for the flightiness of their being.”

“Flightiness?” he inquired.

“Yes,” she answered. “Their hollow bones and desire to reside in the clouds made them ill fit for the plow. They may have had strength, but lacked the persistent will and pervading patience to make farming possible. They gave up on it almost as quickly as the Unicorns.”

“Interesting. They had the intellect but lacked the physical capacity. This must have created quite an imbalance between the races.”

“It did,” the mare answered in affirmation. “It was then that we neared the Dark Era. The success of the Earth ponies and the failure of the Pegasi and Unicorns lead to a thousand year period of hegemony in which the Pegasi and Unicorns lived off the toiling of the Earth ponies and held them in a constant state of hardship.”

Confused, Daemeon interjected, “Hardship? For the Earth Ponies? I thought you said they were the ones who succeeded. How could the other races have had power over them?”

“Well,” Colgate began, “it started with minor conflicts. Then there was a brief but violent period of tribal warfare. The Earth ponies would plant and harvest and the Unicorns and Pegasi would try to rob them of their fruits. The Earth ponies were strong though. And they had grown so numerous that they knew the price of failure would be starvation. They could no longer content themselves with grass. Any attempts to rid them of their food was met with such fierce resistance that the Pegasi and Unicorns decided it was not worth the losses. The Pegasi soon discovered something that could turn the tables in their favor.”

“What was that,” Daemeon begged.

“The Pegasi had long since earned some power over the clouds. The magic of their race allowed for them to treat clouds as though they were tangible objects. They could touch them, move them, even sleep in them. For a long time, they only used this ability to build themselves villages in the sky where they could sleep without fear of being eaten by walking beasts. As their envy of the Earth ponies grew however, they learned that their agriculture was directly dependent on the weather. Plants needed rain to grow, and they discovered that they could manipulate the weather, so the crops of the Earth ponies would fail. As the Earth ponies united themselves through agriculture, so the Pegasi united themselves through the weather. The Earth ponies were very soon forced to give a share of their food to the Pegasi lest they lose their fields and livelihood.”

“You know,” Daemeon pointed out, “you certainly are fluent in your history for not having specialized in it. Are all the ponies as smart as you.”

Colgate was glad for once to be in a sack as her blue furred cheeks blushed red. She smiled in spite of herself and answered, “We all learn the history of ponykind in elementary studies, but I will admit that I have a better memory than most. I had to if I was going to be a good dentist.” Her smile widened significantly at the thought of her job to reveal her two rows of shining teeth, then dimmed as she again had to remind herself why she was even in this wretched city in the first place.

“So an entire race had to pay off another just to keep them from bothering them?” Daemeon scratched at the scruff growing ever longer on his chin. It had been a while since he’d gone without shaving. Even when he had nowhere to go, he always managed somehow. For some reason however, he was having a difficult time caring. “That’s pretty intense. We have had many such occurrences in our history as well, though, never with such strong and legitimate racial lines. No group of humans is intrinsically stronger, weaker, smarter, or less intelligent than any other group. Our differences stem from individuality, from the different circumstances that form each of us. It is the sum of human individuality that separates us into groups where as it seems you ponies were divided more purely by objective capabilities.” He silently mused for a moment before probing, “What happened with the Unicorns?”

“Well,” she started again, “the Unicorns grew even angrier and more envious as not only the Earth ponies prospered but the Pegasi as well. They noticed that both races had grown stronger in their individual unity. Years went by and the Unicorns grew less and less in number. It is written that the bitterness the other races held for them pushed them into ever more dangerous territories of the world. They fell victim to beasts and wildlife as they were crowded out. It is known for certain from archaeological findings that they grew to be so few that they feared their own extinction. Not a single skeleton of a unicorn has been recovered from this period despite extensive searches.”

“That’s unbelievable!” Daemeon marveled. “That must have been a dark time for them indeed. I can only imagine what it must have been like for a collective conscience to see their days of existence so numbered. And the Pegasi and Earth ponies allowed for it?”

“Allowed for it?” the unicorn muttered heavily. “They did what was in their power to ensure it. It’s said that the Unicorns had perpetrated atrocious deeds in their earliest wars to take possession of Earth pony crops. The Earth ponies wanted them dead, and the Pegasi, distrusting the horror of their magic, allowed for them to be driven out. It is rumored that they even helped.”

“But they survived,” her man noted. “I mean, you’re here to tell me this story, so you couldn’t have all died off. You said the Unicorns also gained control of the Earth ponies. How?”

“The sun.”

“The sun?”

“Yes,” the mare stated simply. “The last of the Unicorns decided to make one final stand before they disappeared from history. They convened the few small tribes remaining together to form one last collective. They decided that if the Earth ponies could prosper with their strength and the Pegasi with their wings, then the Unicorns must turn to what limited understanding they had of their magic. Up to that point, they had been limited almost purely to mundane alteration and illusion. They knew not how to evoke or divine and the transmutation we know today that could have saved their lives was not yet learned. It is unclear as to how they came to the solution that they did as something akin to it had never even been conceived before. The very notion spoke to their desperation, and certainly seemed laughable at the time. Hindsight being what it is though, their ridiculous notion saved the Unicorn race.”

Mystified, Daemeon pleaded, “What did they do?”

With her own flavorful suspense, Colgate answered, “It is said that they gathered at the peak of the Smoky Mountain, a peak so high that it pierced the clouds and was a fearful place for even the Pegasi. From that precipice, they looked down on the lands of the Pegasi and Earth ponies and were beyond even hate. They then looked upon the coming dawn and did something never done before. With their collective, they focused their magic on the sun and pushed it back. What was a slow rising dawn suddenly became a fast flying dusk. The sun set in the east and night ruled for what should have been three days.”

“You really weren’t kidding about the sun. That’s incredible!” The overwhelmed man slapped a hand against his forehead, hardly able to find the words to express his wonder. “I thought you were kidding when you said the Unicorns controlled day and night, but they actually do, don’t they. Forgive me for calling your world a fairy tale. What fairy tale could come from such a dark history? Literally! What happened next?”

The mare couldn’t help but laugh at his excitement. Not even the widest eyed little colt would get as enthused with what she considered such a normal history. She could only imagine the flavor a real historian could tell it with. “The three days of darkness caused chaos unrivaled until Discord came among us. It is said the land had not known truer darkness as the Unicorns did not stop with the sun. They shifted the moon away as well and dimmed the stars. This came before any of the races had learned how to use fire. Only the Unicorns could harness light with their magic. That darkness, scary as it was, was only the first horror to come our way.”

“What else happened?”

Colgate smiled. “Ponies everywhere learned three important things in those three days of darkness. The first was that animals need a regular sleep cycle to maintain sanity. Those of higher intelligence were able to cope, but the animals of the day wandered and stumbled aimlessly or slept themselves to death. The beasts of the night feasted in droves on the aimless creatures and multiplied beyond reason. Blood bats and timber wolves, monsters of magic, bred prodigiously in just three days and feasted not only on the beasts but the ponies as well. Only the Unicorns were spared that suffering on their Smoky Mountain.

“But it did not end with the beasts. Another thing we learned was that plants needed sunlight to survive. It took only a single day to notice that the vegetation was failing and one day more to see much of it wither and die. It is said that, by the third day, Equestria was on the verge of death. Every crop of the Earth ponies failed and the only food left was what the three races had stored for themselves. A rough season of starvation was ahead for the numerous Earth ponies and Pegasi.

“Even then, it did not end with the crops. The third thing ponykind learned in those dark days was that the sun was the real master of the weather. The bitter cold might have been expected, but it was the winds that were the true terror. As one side of the Earth grew ever hotter and our side ever colder, the planetary winds were shifted bringing an endless howling from the east. With it came more precipitation than was ever experienced before. The first day was said to have had torrential rain that came down endlessly. Without stuttering, that rain became balls of hail that grew larger and larger as the second day continued. By the third day, the hail had become snow so cold that it did not falls as flakes. It fell instead as solid crystals that were said to sting like hot shards of fire.”

Colgate ceased speaking as she realized that Daemeon had stopped walking. She softly prodded his back and asked, “Are we there?”

“No,” her man answered after a brief moment. “I just. I think I’m starting to understand you ponies a bit better now. I think I can understand you a bit better. I also think I see why you ponies don’t believe in God.”

“Why is that?” Colgate asked curiously.

“Well, you see,” he began slowly, “your story sounds very similar to an Old Testament story we humans have in a text called the bible. In scope and grandeur, they are very similar. There are however some very fundamental differences. While we also have histories of such grand and ominous stories of despair, ours have always been said to be perpetrated by a higher power than humans themselves, be it God or gods. You ponies however don’t seem to need God. You yourselves are the perpetrators of your own history. You are your own gods. You took control of your world much as we have, only you don’t blind yourselves from the truth as we do.” Daemeon shook his head suddenly and continued walking. “I’m sorry I interrupted you. Please continue.”

“Sure, uh,” she paused. “Where was I again?”

“What came after that hot fire snow?” Daemeon said in excitement that bordered on a demand.

“Oh! Yes, well,” the mare continued, “at the end of the third day, the Unicorns released their magic, and the sun rose once more. It is said that the world was so discouraged and destroyed that neither the beasts nor the ponies could bring themselves to rejoice the dawn. It was during this dawn that the Unicorns sent an ambassador to the Earth ponies stating that the Unicorns must be taken up as royalty lest they stop the sun once more. While the Unicorns had nothing left to lose, the Earth ponies had everything to lose. They submitted to the will of the Unicorns.

“The thousand years that followed are called the Dark Age both in memory to those three dark days and in understanding of the extremely tenuous peace the tribes had earned. Through the labor of the Earth ponies, the castle kingdom of Unicornia was established where my race lived in luxury and nobility over the Earth ponies, forever hanging the threat of darkness over their heads. Since the Pegasi no longer had to worry about obtaining food because of the peasantry on the ground, they built themselves a grand floating city called Pegasopolis in the clouds. While the Unicorns obtained their welfare off a threat alone, the Pegasi sometimes had to fight for their dominance over the weather. They quickly became a society of honor bound warriors. It is said that the only trade the Pegasi engaged in during those centuries was that of a warrior, ready to impose their will at any moment.”

The mare’s long speech came to a standstill as she took a moment to collect her thoughts. Taking advantage of her pregnant pause, Daemeon interjected, “May I ask you something I don’t quite understand?”

Colgate giggled, “Aren’t you suddenly a gentlecolt. You can ask me anything. I already told you that.”

Daemeon chuckled in turn, his smile widening, threatening his face with wrinkles he’d never thought he’d suffer from. He asked, “Why is it that ponies couldn’t live on grass anymore? I mean, I should guess that the food you grew would taste better, but why would anybody starve when you can eat the grass around you?”

“It’s funny you should ask,” Colgate answered. “We’re actually not entirely sure how we came to change, but the why has become apparent as modern medicine has advanced.”

“How do you mean?” Daemeon pressed.

“Well,” the mare explained, “we ponies were curious about this change for a long time. It seems to have come as a fairly sudden change over a hundred years after the discovery of agriculture. One generation of a tribe would start living on crops instead of grass, and not two generations later, the tribe would lose the ability to sustain themselves on grass. We discovered the cause only in the last three hundred years after we began comparing pony anatomy to pig anatomy.”

“Pig anatomy?” Daemeon asked, noting through a gap in the trees that the pair was nearing the street that would lead to their breakfast. “What would you learn by studying pigs?”

“A lot actually,” Colgate responded while she shifted uncomfortably in her sack. “Can you set this bag down for a bit? It’s annoying and stuffy in here.”

Daemeon frowned, immediately wishing he could just hold her openly in his arms rather than in a sack. He looked about for a place less in view of probing eyes. He was already a bit off the trail so as to avoid any interaction with the strangers walking the many weaving paths. Lady luck afforded him a cluster of trees and bushes that would serve well enough to hide him from the usual park goers. As casual and inconspicuous as a man could be, he sat himself down, extending his legs outwards and placed his Colgate before him.

Radiance.

Daemeon had only one word to describe little Ms. Minuette as the bag fell open, and she stood on all fours to stretch. The dazzling sun shot through a hole in the leafy canopy above and outlined the mare’s gossamer coat and rich blue and white mane and tail. She took to stretching her four little legs individually, twisting them forwards and backwards, making little moans of relief when they made audible cracking sounds. She shook herself, swishing her mane and tail tumultuously until they were an even worse mess than before. While her actions were mundane in fact, they caught Daemeon’s heart in his throat as he watched her literally radiate the sunlight, glowing a beautiful blue.

Radiance.

Colgate stopped her stretching after a moment and turned her gaze back towards Daemeon. To say that she blushed would have been an understatement. It would be more appropriate to say that her entire face burned red as she met Daemeon’s eyes only to see them widened and his mouth gaping at her. Her gaze immediately fell to the ground as she stuttered in severe embarrassment, “Why, why are you looking at me like that?”

Daemeon closed his eyes and shook his head suddenly, trying very hard to think coherently. It took a moment before he could gather his thoughts enough to answer softly, “I’m sorry. I just. It’s just that, I mean, I’ve never seen you in the sunlight before.”

His mare dug her hoof at the grass, not having the courage to look Daemeon in the eyes again and asked meekly, “What about it?”

Slowly, simply, with reverence, he stated, “You’re beautiful.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Colgate flinched and turned away from him. Her reaction shook Daemeon. He pressed forward and asked gently, “Are you okay?” When she did not respond, he fearfully placed a hand on her shoulder.

The mare with her gossamer blue coat flinched from her man’s large hand and snapped, “Don’t touch me!”

Daemeon could feel his chest seize in sudden and violent panic as he begged, “What did I do! I’m sorry Colgate! I swear, I didn’t mean to hurt you!” His fear only intensified as he saw the little pony begin to quiver. Wanting nothing more than to grab her up in his arms, yet not wanting to make the situation worse, he sat panting in indecision. When he felt he couldn’t bear her cold shoulder any longer, he pleaded, “Please look at me, Colgate. You’re hurting me.”

For a third time, Colgate flinched. The pain in Daemeon’s voice was clear, and she felt it with equal sting. It was not the equal sting of that linking charm but the mutual pain of friendship, and it was far more crippling than physical pain. Taking a deep breath, the mare, beautiful in Daemeon’s eyes, turned her face back towards his, revealing a pair of crystal blue orbs welling with tears. She found herself feeling ashamed when she realized that Daemeon’s own grey eyes were tearing up as well. She didn’t have the heart to argue with him as he reached a hand to her cheek and rubbed a bead of sadness off her soft fur. She closed her eyes at the touch, waiting for the question she knew was to come.

“Colgate,” Daemeon whispered apprehensively. “What have I done that has upset you? Please tell me, so I don’t do it again.” Her man sniffled piteously before concluding, “I never want to hurt you like this.”

The mare sniffled as well. He had said something that hurt her dearly, made her remember an awful truth about herself that she often refused to think about. She didn’t want to talk about it, but the fact that she’d hurt Daemeon just because of how she reacted made her feel much worse. She gave into his anguished interrogation and the gentle strength of his hand against her face. The little, blue unicorn pushed past his reaching grasp and laid her head against his stomach. Comfort came to her as Daemeon wrapped his arms around his mare and pulled her into a hug. Her ear came to his chest to be gifted with the beat of her favorite lullaby.

They sat in silence, only the soft breeze flowing through the trees and the rumble of the city providing an ambiance to the moment. When the pair had calmed their feelings, Colgate wiggled her way out of Daemeon’s relatively huge arms. Her man was sorry to have her go but knew better than to invade her space. Colgate sat five feet apart from his cross legged form and stared through the canopy to the bright blue sky. Not a cloud was there to hinder its glory. Lost in the airy void above, Colgate spoke, “I’m really sorry I reacted like that, Daemeon. It’s just that it’s been a very long time since anypony told me I look beautiful.”

Daemeon cocked his head in confusion and disbelief. Colgate may have been the only magical talking pony he’d ever met, but he had a really hard time believing she didn’t get called beautiful often. What’s more, even if she wasn’t, he couldn’t imagine why his calling her beautiful had upset her. Something she said stood out to him and made him even more curious. “How long has it been?”

“How long has it been?” the mare echoed to herself in silence. The breeze picked up her flowing mane, blowing it behind her. She breathed deeply, preparing herself for a painful explanation, one she had not told in a long time. Without turning her gaze back to Daemeon, she began, “It’s been twenty three years since I was last told I was beautiful.”

Her answer stunned Daemeon for more reasons than one. As a firm testament to just how very little he knew about his newest and only friend, he asked, “Just how old are you?”

Sadly, she confessed, “I’m thirty seven.”

“Really?” Daemeon marveled. “You’re a lot older than I thought. I guess I wouldn’t be the one to guess the age of a pony, but you seemed so young and sweet I just figured you were in your early twenties.”

An unhappy smirk alighted Colgate’s face as she said, “You do nothing but flatter me. I may look young, but I am far from beautiful in the eyes of other ponies. In fact, as a mare I’m rather repulsive to stallions.”

“Repulsive?” her man cried, aghast. “What on Earth would be the least bit repulsive about you? You’re soft and gentle and beautiful. You’re even smart! That alone would be significant if it weren’t for the fact that you’re modest too. Is there something about the way you look that I’m missing?”

Colgate disregarded the beautiful day for a moment and turned her attention back towards Daemeon. She wasn’t crying anymore, but there lingered a pained submissiveness in her expression as though there was no hope in her. She answered him, “No. I’m the right shape and size. At least, I used to be the right size. There aren’t any glaring problems with the way I look. Even if there were, that wouldn’t be a problem the way you seem to think it would be. I should guess it’s because you’re not a pony that you don’t notice, but to anypony else, it’s painfully obvious.”

“What’s painfully obvious?” Daemeon demanded. “I don’t get it. What makes you not beautiful?”

“The way I smell.”

If Daemeon was confused before, he was completely lost then. “The way you smell?” he questioned obliviously. He paused for a moment, hoping she would elaborate without his asking. The mare seemed certain however, that her explanation was a sound answer. Cautiously, he was forced to prod, “Do you, uh, do you smell like something? I mean, if you smell bad I can’t tell. Do you have bad body odor or something?”

Colgate’s somber expression suddenly morphed into awkward horror and defensive anger as she burst out, “I do not stink!” Frustrated, she slammed her hoof on the ground and cried, “I’m barren! Okay? I’m barren! That’s why I’m not beautiful. I smell about as attractive as a ninety year old grandmare.”

“Oh,” Daemeon mumbled stupidly in his enlightenment. He wrung his hands together, unsure of how to react to her statement. He wanted to offer some words of sorrow or understanding, but her problem was quite beyond him. He instead resorted to doing what he always did. He asked the first question that struck him, “Did you just become barren recently? I mean, thirty seven is getting a little up there isn’t it?”

“No,” Colgate answered, shaking her head sadly. “Most mares are fertile until about fifty years.” She hung her head lower and lower until her entire body slipped to the ground like a mop. With her chin on the grass, she continued apathetically, “And no, it wasn’t recently. It wouldn’t have been a problem if it were. I could have had my own foals and stallion by now. No.” Her eyes began to glisten again and her apathetic voice slipped into bitterness. “I got to grow through my first years into adulthood. I got to feel what it’s like to be lush and lively, with my whole life ahead of me. Then, right when I was ready to look for a relationship, my cycles stopped.”

They sat in silence for a moment, both of them looking at the grass as her Daemeon absorbed her words. Softly, Daemeon lurched forwards from his cross legged position and splayed himself across the ground on his stomach. When this failed to grab her attention, he wriggled his face up to hers until they were only a couple inches apart. Colgate’s impossibly large eyes lifted towards her man’s own grey orbs. The smallest hint of a smile fluttered across the mare’s lips as she found herself absently lost in the kindness and strength his soft gaze offered. Daemeon smiled in turn and brought a hand forward to rest on her two petite forehooves. The gestured widened Colgate’s small smile, and she brought her head down to nuzzle her man’s relatively huge hands, reveling in the warm breath coming from his nostrils.

After Daemeon believed he’d afforded the silence its due, he relinquished to his continued curiosity, “I have no experience that can give me the strength to offer appropriate words of solace. I am without children and a wife myself, but that is through my own choice, not any impotence. It does strike me that this should be grounds for your not being married at all.” Colgate’s ears perked in interest, and she turned to regard her man more fully. “With mankind,” he explained, “we do not let fertility inhibit our desires to form relationships. We will marry even if one or both of us are impotent. Are you saying you can’t marry just because you know you can’t have children?”

Colgate puckered her face in thought, unsure of how to explain what was complicated even to her. Again she found herself in a quandary where there is very little good reason dividing what can happen and what does happen. Carefully, she said, “I’m not sure I understand your concept of marriage. In Equestria, the major point of marriage is having foals. It states that you have decided with whom you would like to dedicate your body and household. It takes a lot of work to raise a family after all, so we need to come together from our individual lives and work with each other to make it happen. It’s a sort of necessary, mutual infringement where we give up much of who we were to give to our foals. If there’s no foals to be had however, then that work is unnecessary. I suppose there’s nothing stopping me from getting married other than it being a lot of work with few benefits.”

Daemeon’s face scrunched at the simplicity of her argument. “There’s no way it’s that easy for them. They’re ignoring something.” “What about intercourse?” Daemeon countered.

The mare’s cheeks reddened a bit to hear Daemeon put the question so bluntly. It confused her that he would broach the topic at all. She asked, “What about it?”

“Do you ponies have any sort of sanctions against intercourse outside of marriage? It seems like you must since you have marriage for the context of propagation.”

“Oh!” the mare explained, standing suddenly in revelation. “Oh! Oh. Now I think I know where you’re coming from.”

Daemeon propped up his elbows to rest his chin in the palms of his hands and begged, “What do you mean, ‘where I’m coming from?’”

Colgate sat back on her haunches and grabbed her flowing blue and white tail up with her hooves to straighten up. “You’re wondering why we don’t get married as an excuse to engage each other physically.”

“Yes,” Daemeon answered, glad she wasn’t completely oblivious of the unusualness of her statements. “Do you not have to because your society has no problems with engaging each other outside of marriage?”

“Well,” Colgate began, running her hooves through her lustrous tail absently, trying to straighten out some of the knots that were forming, “that is a very long and complex story rooted deeply in our history. It dates all the way back to the Simple Era and the events that took place before that era, which you know almost nothing about aside from what I’ve already told you.”

Her man reached over and ran his finger through her tail with her. She smiled radiantly, a beauty in the sunlight, and allowed him to touch her. Were Daemeon God fearing, he might have considered it a blessed allowance. The man with the beautiful smile stated simply and softly, “We have all the time in the world. As I said, I want to learn everything about you. That includes all the chaos that has lead up to you. If you don’t mind, and I assume you don’t since you seem so happy to tell the story, I would like you to continue your history.”

Colgate chuckled and said, “You sure like to talk, don’t you. I’ve never heard anypony use so many words to ask so little.”

The man with the wonderful laugh responded in kind, “I like to talk, yes. I have so few chances to do so meaningfully. What I enjoy even more is listening and learning.” His smile dampened the tiniest bit as he explained with inward pain, “The more I learn, the better I can teach.”

So subtle was Daemeon’s inflection in the realization of what he said that it did nothing to dampen the mirth of Colgate as she launched once more into her story, “As I was saying before, the way marriage and relationships are organized is based out of the events of the Simple Era.”

Intently, Daemeon asked, “When was this Simple Era? Was it before your Tribal Era?”

“No,” the mare returned with a shake of her head. “The Simple Era started at the end of the Dark Era about two thousand years ago, when the hegemony of the Earth ponies was forced to a halt, and the three races united to form Equestria.”

“Ah!” Daemeon cried in excitement. “This was my original question. So your Equestria was formed at the end of your Dark Era, not your Tribal Era?”

“Exactly.” Colgate stopped to take a deep breath before explaining, “The founding of Equestria is immutably linked with the events that forged the Dark Era a thousand years before. As I said, the Unicorns and Pegasi had risen to hold control over the Earth ponies. Two races lived off of the third through threats and violence. The Unicorns never had to fight because they knew how to push back the sun and kill the world with darkness. They established themselves as a comfortable Oligarchy over themselves and the Earth ponies.”

“An Oligarchy?” Daemeon questioned with intrigue. “So you ponies started to form governments? That makes a lot of sense considering the fact that you left your tribal roots behind.”

Colgate smiled, glad she didn’t have to explain the word to him. “They must have similar governments then. I wonder how they live.” Not wanting to break from the story with her own questions, she continued, “Yes. It made sense for them to form into that government specifically. The fact that they did not work and living in the castles they’d forced the Earth ponies to build gave them a feeling of superiority. Because the Unicorns took so much, they were rich while the Earth ponies were poor. The Unicorns that collected the most wealth unto themselves became the highest nobility. The wealthiest pony became the king or queen over all of Unicornia.”

“Interesting,” Daemeon interjected. “Did the Unicorns give back anything in return? I can imagine their magic would have come to some use. Did they perhaps use it to help administrate their kingdom?”

The mare shook her head and explained, “Like I said, they lived on a threat of power. The Unicorns formed themselves into an Oligarchy, but they did not administer to the Earth ponies. As there weren’t any other races at the time to contend for control of the land, the Unicorns liked to write that they controlled everything. They probably thought Unicornia was bigger than Equestria is today. That was not the case however. The reality was that their borders went no further than the portcullis. They didn’t care in the least for the ponies of the Earth and did nothing to help them.”

“So what did the Earth ponies do? Did they form into a nation themselves?”

“They couldn’t,” Colgate responded. “The Earth ponies had to work so hard and spread themselves so wide to cultivate the land that they did not have the time or means to form into a kingdom.”

“So,” Daemeon mumbled in thought, “they remained as they were when they first learned agriculture?”

“Not exactly,” the mare went on. “When they first formed into villages, they still thought along the lines of tribes, independent of other tribes of Earth ponies. They lived only for the village and produced only for themselves. This created very little need for any government beyond a herd. That changed however, when the other races began making demands of the Earth ponies' crops. The Earth ponies had to learn to collaborate first to protect themselves, then more so to meet the food demands after the three days of darkness. This was difficult because of the distanced nature of the Earth ponies and the work they were forced to do. They had to create a form of government for themselves that answered their woes.”

“What did they come up with?” the man begged, lolling his head to lay sideways on the grass while he listened.

The unicorn likewise shifted more comfortably to her side and continued, “They invented Democracy. It was not nearly as ordered a structure as the Oligarchy of the Unicorns, differing little from our tribal roots, but it served the purpose well enough. They would elect representatives within villages that would represent the needs and capabilities of that village. The representatives of all the villages would then meet to coordinate village efforts and organize distribution of their crops to the other races.”

Daemeon frowned and interjected, “Representative Democracy sounds more ordered to me than a simple Oligarchy. This nation, America, was founded on almost the exact same principles out of very similar circumstances. Handling a Democracy takes a great deal of compromise and is often extremely complicated. Was theirs not the same?”

The mare returned her man’s frown, answering, “I imagine it wasn’t. You said there’s eight million humans in this city alone? We ponies have never attempted a Democracy on such a ridiculous scale. Even three hundred years ago when there were 45,000 of us, I couldn’t imagine trying to satisfy Equestria with a Democracy. With that many of us, I could imagine it getting complicated as you say. With the Earth ponies however, their needs were few and there was nothing to argue. They were not a nation as your America seems to be. They lived independent of the government for the most part. All they did as a race was work and live.”

“I guess primitive Democracy would work better than what we have,” Daemeon mused. “What about the Pegasi? You said they built a grand floating city. Did they create a government too?”

Colgate shifted onto her back, extending her four petite hooves in the air, and peered through the sparse canopy. The blue sky was almost cloudless and fairly glowed in the sunlight, much as she did. She could almost see the beauty and magnificence of Cloudsdale with its ever shining rainbows and towering columns. “I wonder what Pegasopolis looked like.” Her gaze fell from the sky to the black hooves pointing out of her blue coat and answered, “They did in fact.”

“Was it like the other two?”

“No,” she explained. “They did not have the security of the wealth the Unicorns had or the daily labors of the Earth ponies. They had to subject their will over the Earth ponies in a different way. Initially the threat of the weather was enough to put the Earth ponies in line, but the Earth ponies gradually learned that the Pegasi would be hard pressed to affect all of the crops in the land. They eventually took to refusing the Pegasi their demands.”

Daemeon followed the mare’s gaze to the sky, trying to imagine how the weather could actually be affected by little flying ponies when mankind could hardly predict what the weather would do. “What did the Pegasi do then?”

“Well, as I said before, they formed a warrior society, a Timocracy. Every Pegasi was trained from birth to be able to fight the Earth ponies and force them to give up their food.”

“But,” Daemeon stated, “you said the Earth ponies were stronger than the Pegasi and could fight them off. I thought they came to dominance because of the weather.”

“They did initially,” the mare answered, turning back towards her man. “But the Earth ponies by then had come to be too spread out. They were all forced to work too hard. They did not have the energy for a war. Plus, the Pegasi had come together and were able to attack in force, swooping down on any rebellious village. This being their whole purpose in life, the Pegasi formed a government in which the strongest, fastest, and bravest should rule over the rest. It was a society that held strictly to honor where no Pegasi should harm another. They all formed up for the greater good of their race, much as the other races did.”

Daemeon turned from the sky and looked at Colgate’s diminutive face, upside down from his perspective. He reached a hand over and caressed her ear with his thumb. Colgate closed her eyes and moaned at the touch, relishing it as much as her man did. She would have been satisfied to stop talking and just soak in the sun if Daemeon didn’t prod, “But that all changed when Equestria was founded?”

Colgate sighed, keeping her eyes closed and continuing to enjoy Daemeon’s affection. She answered almost dreamily, “Yes. Things might never have changed if it weren’t for the upset.”

“The upset?” Daemeon wondered aloud.

“Mmhmm. The three days of darkness, when the Unicorns united to push back the dawn. This event ushered in the Dark Era. It was an age of imbalance between the races where each worked only for its own ends, paying no heed to the other races, creatures, or the world around them. With both regret and thanks however, the Unicorns also changed something on those fateful nights that they had not expected and took many, many years for them to understand.”

Curious, Daemeon pleaded, “What was that?”

The mare opened her eyes, crystal blue, and explained, “It is written that it was almost imperceptible at first. The winds blew differently. Instead of single days being colder or warmer than others, groupings of days would be colder and warmer. None of the races knew what to make of it. At first they passed it off as odd coincidence, but it gradually grew more noticeable as time passed. Days grew longer, then shorter, then longer again. It was something which had never happened on Earth before and the ponies were left in confusion.

“Then the impossible happened, something which had not happened since those three nights or any time before or after. Snow disappeared where it had always fallen and fell where it had never fallen before. The winds shifted beyond what had been almost perfect predictability. The temperature stopped being consistent as it had always been from place to place. Rather, it moved places. The heat and cold, day and night, began seeming like creatures running about erratically. At the time we did not, could not understand. It had never happened before.

“We knew what snow was. To those at the time, it was the cold water that you found if you went north or south far enough. We did not hate it before. It was cold and not fit for crops, but we just avoided it. It had never come to us before. Thus, when we came to experience it for the first time we had grave difficulty coping, as did the animals.”

Daemeon furrowed his brow as he listened to her, trying to understand why she was using such vague terms to describe what happened. She spoke as though she were talking about an apocalypse, but the more he listened, the more he began to grow certain that she was speaking of something far less impressive. Yet, if she was, it would suddenly become a far more impressive thing. Taking a hesitant guess, the man asked, “Are you talking about seasons?”

Colgate nodded and continued, “The first seasons our world had ever experienced came in the years after the upset, the three days of darkness. The first summers, winters, springs, and autumns made their debut on a world that could do little to cope with them.”

Flabbergasted, Daemeon sat up and queried, “Wait. That doesn’t make sense. Wait. What? What? You mean to tell me that you hadn’t experienced a winter before then? I don’t understand. How can that be?”

With confusion of her own, the mare pressed off the ground and countered, “Do you mean your world has always had seasons?”

“Yes!” her man exclaimed in bewilderment, running his fingers through his hair. “And yours hasn’t? That’s absurd. How could it have seasons one year, but none the year before?”

“Huh,” Colgate mumbled to herself. “I guess you humans had some bad fate. There was never a time when your world was in perfect tilt?”

“Perfect tilt?” The question suddenly sparked memories in Daemeon. He rested his thumb against his chin pensively, trying hard to remember where he’d heard those words before. Stories as credible as fairy tales fluttered through his thoughts, and he slowly began to form an answer, “Actually, we have stories of a time when the world was in a perfect tilt. They’re completely fictitious of course and really very impossible, but we have them. They date back to when we were first becoming a civilized race and were learning to write. They tell of a time when the first man and woman lived on Earth. They were said to live in a paradise garden where the weather was always pleasant. People have understood that to mean that there were no seasons then.”

“Good,” Colgate exclaimed. “Then you will understand what I’m talking about. I bet the story of my history will be similar to yours.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Daemeon leaned back and said, “Please continue. You say your world was in perfect tilt, and then it wasn’t. Why?”

“In hindsight we know now that the world fell off balance because of the intervention of the Unicorns. They upset our cosmos by pushing back the sun. At least, they understood it as having pushed back the sun. In reality, we never really moved the sun. The Unicorn race merely succeeded in stopping the Earth’s rotations for three days by holding it still through a magical force held stationary by the sun which is a much larger cosmic mass.”

Daemeon’s mouth dropped open in wonder. While much of what she said sounded like ludicrous magic, it also made a lot of sense. “Then again,” he noted to himself, “A lot of things that sound reasonable are impossible.”

Colgate continued, “While the sun rose as it had every day before, it rose in a slightly different direction. The movement was imperceptible to us at first, but it grew more and more apparent as the seasons became more severe. For a thousand years, or so we can guess as years were not an existent thing until the coming of the seasons, the tilt grew more severe. Each summer was hotter than the last and each winter more bitter. The winds blew rampantly, unpredictable to the core. The harsh extremes of the upset echoed as a sort of foreshadowing of the chaos we brought on the world.”

“I can’t imagine,” Daemeon muttered. “I literally can’t. There’s no experience I or probably any human ever can compare to this.” He leaned forward again and pressed, “You said it was only like that for a thousand years though. Does that mean you fixed it?”

His mare bit her lip, trying to find the right words. “Yes, and no,” she began. “We were able to fix the chaotic seasons, but we did not have the power to return the world to what it once was.”

Daemeon smiled at the thought of another coming narrative. He crossed his legs and beckoned, “Please continue.”

Colgate smiled at his smile, happy in his happiness, eager in his eagerness, and explained, “Every year grew worse than the one before. These seasons were not like the seasons I, and I would guess we, have ever experienced. They were erratic. Winter could come next to summer with hardly a transition between. The winds did not properly disperse the clouds causing dry spells and flooding, sometimes back to back.

“While the weather was bad, the drifting days were even more unsettling in light of the upset. Some days were unreasonably long while others barely existed. While the ponies did not mind the light, the darkness was a time for sleep, and we could do little good venturing through it. To say that our crops suffered because of the inconsistent weather and sunlight would be an understatement.

“While we were only having difficulties, the animals were almost beyond salvation. They, unlike we, could not begin to understand why the world was changing. Because we had thrown it off balance, they suffered death in winters from the cold, death in the summers from the droughts, death in the darkness from predators, and even death to the predators after their prey had virtually dried up into extinction. For many hundreds of years, our world seemed to be spiraling into a cataclysm we could not initially understand or control. Many feared that we were doomed.”

“Which you weren’t,” Daemeon interjected abruptly. “I mean obviously not since you’re here to tell me this story. Did the world even itself out or something?”

Colgate shook her head softly and answered, “No. The world is not a being that rights itself. We screwed up the world when we decided that we couldn’t live as beasts in a herd. Fulfilling our desires on the intellectual level cost us the luxury of not caring about the world around us. For those thousand years, our greed could not match our wisdom, and everything, including ourselves, suffered. No. We were the ones to upset the balance, and we were the ones to bring balance back.”

“But how?” the man begged impatiently.

The mare couldn’t contain her laugh at his inflamed desire to know. “You’re funny, Daemeon. You don’t even try, and you’re funny. I’d like to hear you tell a joke sometime.” When her statement was met with a frown, she shrugged and continued, “There came a year when the winter season was so bad and extended for so many months that the whole of the three races had run out of food. Tensions ran high as each race blamed the inaction of the others for their suffering. The Earth ponies were blamed for not tending their fields properly and hoarding food. The Pegasi were blamed for manipulating the weather as the had done in the past to cause suffering on the others. Finally, the Unicorns were blamed for shifting the sun as they had so many years ago.”

“But none of that was true,” Daemeon stated as he followed along. “None of the races were trying to do things to harm the others. It was because of what happened at the upset.”

“Exactly! Now you’re catching on.” Colgate stopped to catch her breath before she lead on, “While they were incorrect in their distrust and assumption that the other races meant ill, they were not completely incorrect in their omissions that ponies were to blame. When that dreaded winter came and each race saw the others suffering, a High Summit was called, the first gathering of each race on the grounds of mutual harmony to ever take place. They came together to figure out how they might work together to survive the crisis. They thought that with all three races gathered, a solution could be found.”

“So,” Daemeon prompted, “don’t keep me in the dark. What did they decide? How did they fix the world?”

“They didn’t.”

Her man slapped his palm against his forehead in frustration and moaned, “You must have been born off a cliffhanger. Did they accomplish anything?”

“Not in any sort of unity,” Colgate continued. “The three races could not let go of the past and their mutual hatred. They discussed nothing of how to fix the mess. They only argued over whose fault it was. No decisions were reached at that first High Summit, except perhaps an agreement never to trust each other again.

“When the three races abandoned each other and convened alone, they all reached the same conclusion as to where the future would lead them. Each race left the lands they had settled for so long. The castles of Unicornia were lost and forgotten and the cloud city of Pegasopolis dispersed into nothingness. Fields the Earth ponies had worked so many years to plow and till were left to the wild, consumed. A great exodus ensued as each race sought a better land to settle, one where the winter did not go, and they could restart with a new order that did not depend on the will of the other races.”

“Did they succeed?”

“Somewhat.” Colgate stood and began stretching her legs. Daemeon caught her attention by tapping his lap. Having far too few reasons to argue and far too many to agree, she assented and crawled into his grasp. She rolled onto her back, pulling her tail over herself in modesty, and continued, “Where there was a long winter in one place, there was a long summer in another. They had to travel a great distance, each tribe going their own way, but they all collided on the same place.

“But it was all for naught. No sooner had the three races arrived in good lands then the tumultuous Earth shifted and the winter they had left behind greeted them again. While before they had had the heart to blame and hate each other, now they only knew despair. None of the three races believed they could survive another journey. They were thus lead back to square one. A second High Summit was called, up in a mountain cave to escape the winter they’d brought upon themselves. In their certainty of coming extinction, they finally let go of the past and became equal parts in a plan to save the world.”

“How did they do it?”

Colgate smiled and sighed, exhausting herself in her story. She was determined to see it through to the end however, if only for Daemeon’s sake. He liked to learn, and she had the willingness to accommodate him. She began, “They looked back on history and traced the fault to the three days of darkness. When they had agreed what event caused it, they created a three prong plan to set the world right. They understood that every single one of them would have to work hard if it was to succeed, but they had nothing left to lose aside from their lives.

“The first prong was to enlist the full strength of the Unicorns, as they had done a thousand years before, and focus their will onto the sun. They had tried this before in vain attempts to restore the world to the way it was. Now however, they directed their will to a much more plausible goal. With their collective efforts, they focused their will to affect the tilt of the Earth more favorably. In so doing, they created consistent seasons that were far more manageable. The days and nights came at regular annual intervals, and the weather ceased to be so erratic, so long as the Unicorns projected their will.

“The second prong of the plan required the Pegasi to give up their warrior lifestyles. Where before they had only ever affected the weather to cause harm, they were now called upon to bring life. Every pony with wings took flight and worked endlessly from morning to night, pushing the clouds against the winds and bringing favorable precipitation to the croplands of the Earth ponies on whom they and the Unicorns relied for food. They found working together far more difficult than merely taking by force, but they knew the old order could not survive.

“The third prong of the plan called upon the Earth ponies to take up a new labor, one they had never engaged in before. It was a labor born of practicality and a broadening understanding that ponykind was responsible for the world. Already much of the wildlife had died off. The birds, the fish, and most especially our four hoofed distant cousins. From cows and goats to pigs and sheep, the Earth ponies took into their keeping as many of these failing races as they could. They closed them up into pens and fed them, kept them warm, kept them from extinction. It was a difficulty at a time with a great many difficulties already at our hooves, but for the first time we truly understood how much we relied on each other. Our faith was that we may one day rely on those animals as well.”

“Well, that’s certainly ambitious,” Daemeon mused aloud as he scratched Colgate’s belly, being careful to avoid her bite. “I can understand the bits with the Pegasi bending the weather and the Unicorns controlling the sun, but it seems like a pretty big stretch to say that the Earth ponies would take care of the animals out of what appears to be the goodness of their hearts. From what you’ve told me, it seems uncharacteristic of what was done in the past. It would certainly be uncharacteristic of humanity. We try in small part to take care of the animals, but we do far more damage than help. What prompted the change of heart?”

Colgate hugged his hand to her chest and nuzzled his fingers again, taking pleasure in his strength. She answered him, “That is actually quite a point of scholarly debate. Much of what happened in those times was uncertain since there were few ponies who thought it important to write down what was happening when there seemed there would be none of their kind to read of it in the future. Most of what we know of the end of the Dark Era was written near the beginning of the era that came after the second High Summit.”

“What era was that?” her man begged as he lifted his mare out of his lap to cradle in his arms. “She’s the size of a large baby,” Daemeon thought to himself. “But she’s so far from a baby it’s almost unnerving. Too smart. Too observant. Too proud of herself and who she is. It’s a shame she’s rooted in the past and the lie of order.” The reflection caused him pain he was very careful not to show on his face and thus disturb his beautiful, radiant mare. “Her ignorance of me is what’s allowing this to happen. Could I ever hope to teach her my ways, why I do what I do, without making her hate me? Could I even begin to show her the fallaciousness of love without ending this animal exchange of emotions that has been pure rapture to me after such a long career of breeding despair?”

As he considered his unspoken questions, Colgate delighted his spoken ones, “The thousand year period after the second High Summit is called the Simple Era, so named for the incredible simplicity of pony life and the lack of the former governments and hegemony. It was a stark contrast to the thousand years previous as the seasons were within reason and not one war came among the ponies, whether within or without. No other races had yet risen to contest us, and while we called our new land Equestria, it was a nation only in name, hardly in fact. To be a nation would dictate a government, and we had no such thing in those centuries.”

Daemeon immediately came to the assumption that she was wrong in her explanation. A nation cannot function without a government. Even a man unto himself is a sort of government. Where there are minds to question, there is desire for order. Then in imposing order, man breeds chaos. He was genuinely curious about where she could be going with this new Simple Era, but his voice almost gave way to his disinterested distraction in his internal conflict as he asked, “How could there be no government?” Even as he asked, he continued to wonder, “She’s so lovely. She may be smart, but she cannot know to what extent she has captured me. A day and night of exchanges is hardly enough time to convey to her how she has upset all of the personal growth I have strived for. One day, I am the man of cold calculation that is necessary to teach as I do. The next, I am weeping because she reminded me of how good it feels to indulge the senses, to give into the mundane pleasures of life and forget my higher and nobler goals.”

“It’s a little difficult to explain,” the mare explained. “After the High Summit, our society was organized such that every single mare and stallion of each of the three races, from the Pegasi just learning to fly to the eldest Unicorns who had just enough strength and will in their bodies to project their magic, was required to fulfill one of the four labors of our new age. To maintain the new order, there could be no dissenting between the races. And indeed, there was none. Every unicorn was necessary to control the tilt of the Earth and the rotations of the moon. Every pegasus was necessary to control the weather and soften the severity of the seasons. And most especially, every Earth pony was necessary to meet the agricultural demands of not only the three races, but the animals they had taken into their keeping as well.”

“What could prompt the three races to behave so pointedly, in such understanding and unity?” Daemeon could thank his years of endless subterfuge for his uncanny ability to hold a conversation while his mind attended elsewhere. “I have given into her. I am weaker than I’d hoped. I’ve decided to take pleasure in her instead of enlightening her. But how long can I keep that up? Another day, a week, a year? Forever? Hardly. She must go back to her world, a world to which I have no intent to see. What’s more, she must return soon. How could I pretend to protect her from this wretched world that would steal her away from me in a heartbeat?”

“That’s the point of debate I mentioned before,” she went on, unawares to her man’s internal conflict. “So much so that stories have risen to explain our sudden changes in heart. The most popular story, the one we tell our foals before they are ready to learn some of the darker sides of the history, holds that the severe winters of the Dark Era bred magical monsters called windigoes. They are said to have fed off of hate and used that hate to propel their magic into making the winters more miserable. As the popular myth goes, the leaders of the three races discovered the existence of the windigoes at the second High Summit. They realized the monsters fed off of our hate and used this as a pretext to stop hating each other.”

Her last sentence caught Daemeon off guard and pulled him from his thoughts. In a sort of wonder, he asked, “They stopped hating each other?”

Daemeon’s question caught Colgate equally off guard. She had figured he would ask about the windigoes if he were going to ask about anything. “Well, yeah. They just put the past behind them.”

“Where did the hate go then?”

The mare pinched her brow in uncertainty. There was some intensity behind her man’s question, but she didn’t understand why. It seemed a really arbitrary and somewhat speculative point to her, something better left to scholars who worked their talent in studying pony history. After a moment of reflection however, she invented a solution of her own that seemed to satisfy the story, “It didn’t go anywhere. At least, in the context of the myth it didn’t go anywhere. You see, the windigoes fed off of hate. It didn’t have to be directed to a certain group or towards them. There needed only to be hate for them to feed on. If they were real, which most ponies believe they were, then the fact that they no longer exist would lend to the idea that there was no hate for them to feed on for a time.”

On hearing her explanation, Daemeon sighed in bereavement. This drew a frown from the mare in his arms which he instantly tried to dispel with a reassuring smile. “It’s alright,” he soothed. “I was just curious about something. I’m sorry to have to tell you that the windigoes never existed.”

Bewildered, the mare beckoned, “What makes you say that?”

“Well,” Daemeon began, “I can’t say I know anything about magic. I would not even lend any credence to its existence if I hadn’t seen the impossible with my own eyes and lived to tell stories because of it. In at least this regard, I have no basis with which to question the existence of windigoes. I hardly know of the magical or historical evidence or of how monsters can come to be in your world. The fact that I’m talking to a unicorn, before now only a creature of fancy, says enough in my eyes. There is one thing about your story I have a great understanding of though. And that’s hate.”

In confusion, Colgate pressed, “What about hate?”

With a more solemn tongue, Daemeon continued, “It is as I have said before. Where there is love, there is hate. Where there is action, reaction. There is only one true solution to solving the problem of hate, a problem that has existed since mankind, and I would assume ponykind, first went beyond the declarative, the imperative, the exclamatory, and developed the interrogative. That first ape so long ago that looked up from the back of the mate he was grooming to wonder why he groomed doomed all who followed. Where before he had only acted, now he sought a reason for why he acted.

“From there the dominoes fell. When does hate start? It starts when we ask why something happens. When a bad thing happens, we look back and hate the thing that caused it. When a good thing happens, we look back and hate what could have refuted it. We become enamored with the good and detest the bad. We seek always to bring the good, to love something because it is good, but you cannot love something without hating what threatens it. It does not matter whether the hate is passive because the threat is not there or active because a monster is about to eat you and your family. The hate is there in any case.

“So we come back to you ponies, my little Colgate. There is no chance the windigoes died from lack of hate. There is always hate wherever there is love. The only way you could have starved them is if you collectively chose not to love, and I know your race is not so enlightened. If they were, then you would not be here, demanding that I give you the answers to a happy life. I have the answer, but you refuse it as so many before you have done.”

All the while Daemeon gave his solemn statement, Colgate remained unperturbed. She saw his gloom and doom and had heard enough of his bitter reprimands of love to know that he must be wrong. “How could I be happy if I gave up love?” she interrogated herself. “I understand his reasoning, but I still don’t understand his obsession with crusading against hate.”

With a stern voice, the little, blue mare responded, “I refuse your answer because I feel it must be wrong. Love is a beautiful, wonderful thing, full of smiles and laughter. It keeps us alive and gives our lives meaning. I understand your argument about the origin of hate. I never thought of it as you do before, but I can see how hate might only result out of love. What I don’t understand is why you think hate is such a bad thing. If I will come to hate some things because I love others, is it such a bad thing? You say hate causes all hardship, but can’t it also be a good thing? Wasn’t it hating you that kept me alive when you tried to kill me? Is there no such thing as a good, healthy hate?”

Where before his expression had been grave and serious, now it became one of sadness and depression. Colgate just barely saw the tears welling in his eyes before Daemeon engulfed her whole form in a firm embrace. It stunned her, but she did not argue or resist. Her Daemeon was sad, and there was submission in her heart to do whatever it took to make that sadness go away. They sat in silence for a moment, his heart thumping in her ears and her hooves pressed against his broad chest.

Daemeon spoke first, explaining in a soft, moist voice, racked with unrequited despair, “There you have captured the true problem with a single question.” He sniffled and took a deep breath before explaining, “How can we honestly oppose hate when it seems righteous to hate the correct things? Wouldn’t it be good to hate what is bad? I have already showed you how we can’t hate an action because it causes harm. You can hardly hate the weather. You can hardly hate the lion for wanting to eat you. But then you ask if we cannot hate the intent! Surely the intent behind an action is good to hate.”

Colgate begged in a voice muffled against the fabric covering Daemeon’s chest, “Isn’t it?”

Daemeon released his mare from the embrace and set her on the green grass before him. His words came forth in reflection of an inner agony, one which seemed to have weighed him down for a long time, “Then we must find the intent, Colgate. We have tried to do that before. Remember? Do you remember the fifteen? Do you remember asking whether it was better to hate them for forcing me to hurt you rather than merely hating me?”

“Yes.”

“Then what if I took it one last step and said that they were not doing as they had done of their own volition? What if I told you that they were formed from the intentions of an entire society, of every man and woman that came before them? What if I said that every terrible thing anybody has ever done has been motivated by the deeds of everybody before them? And what motivated all of those bad deeds, Colgate? Huh? What’s the only thing that has ever caused people or ponies to harm each other when all they want is to be happy?”

In fear of the implications of Daemeon’s words, the mare could only stutter, “I, I, I don’t know.”

“Hate!” Daemeon shook as he spoke in unfathomable severity. “Hate, Colgate, is the only true intent. Hate, the spawn of love, is the only thing which one seeking to place blame could do so reasonably. You want to place blame? You want to hold people accountable for what’s in the past? You want to direct your hate? Well, there’s the rub, Colgate. The only thing you truly want to hate is hate itself. Unfortunately, you can’t use hate as a motivation to banish hate any more than you could put out a fire with gasoline. You might even try to hate love, but that is a contradiction unto itself. You would have as much luck turning left by going right, moving by staying still, or thinking by not thinking.

“We are then left with one immutable fact, Colgate. It is the answer you have been searching for. It is the explanation as to why you’re unhappy. You are unhappy for the same reason the couch is white. Our world is chaos. We try to bring order to the chaos for the sake of love, and in so doing, create the hate that harms us all. The only way we could truly be happy is to unfetter ourselves from hate. And the only way we could abandon hate is by ceasing to love each other and even ourselves.”

The silence that followed was interrupted only by the din of the never sleeping city that surrounded them. Daemeon took the time to wipe his eyes. The explanation had pained him dearly to tell. “It was for her own good. She was going to hear it sooner or later. Now that she knows, maybe she will understand and become enlightened as I have become.” The man grimaced at the thought, “But she will not be happy with what I have told her unless I can bring her to full understanding. Even then, it will be a difficult path. I know I am right, that this is necessary, but the weakness of my frail human state is bitter to think that I should turn her from love. She’s not wrong in saying that love is a beautiful, wonderful thing, full of smiles and laughter. I knew love myself after all, a great many years ago. Even in its wonder, I could not banish sadness.

“And now, just when I thought I had banished it permanently, this beautiful mare sweeps into my life and ruins my chances of removing the hate in my heart. What can my weak will do against the likes of her? Chaos, cruel chaos, undid me the moment I saw her bathing in that font of falsehood and her naivete caused me to laugh an honest laugh. What could that moment mean but the downfall of everything I worked so hard for? All my hopes for the future are shattered unless I turn away from her and abandon these actions. For indeed, these are actions, not reactions. A conscious choice my heart has made that my mind has little power against. A choice from which will spawn the perpetuation of this unhappy cycle of hate.

“I love her.”

Daemeon wanted to die the moment the thought entered his mind, wanted to burn it and himself for his failure, but he could not fight his affection. “Heart and soul I have given to her though she is unaware. If I could but take it away, I would do so in a heartbeat. Alas, I cannot! So unworthy of the knowledge I have accrued, I cannot even implement its doctrines on myself. Such a weak man as I am, how could I begin to preach what I myself cannot begin to practice. Never have I been so certain of the fool I am for thinking I could change the world. My good intentions are nothing. I can change nothing!”

The torn man opened his eyes at a touch. He looked down to see his little mare again climbing into his lap. She rested her chin on his knee, presenting her back to him. Her man obliged in glee that contrasted with his pain. She had done so little to capture his heart, yet she was his master. Daemeon had to bite his knuckle to keep from screaming as a realization came to his mind, perhaps the most devastating one of all. “I love her. And because I truly love her, I am now devoted to giving her what is best for her happiness despite my personal feelings.” Daemeon squeezed his eyes shut and tried hard to keep the hand he used to pet her from trembling. “Because I love her, I must continue her education. Because I love her, I must make sure she turns away from love. I must make sure she can never return the action. Though it kills me to bear the thought, I must redouble my efforts. With luck, sweet lady luck, maybe Colgate will turn out to be stronger than I and embrace what I have been unable to embrace.”

Daemeon was again pulled from his contemplations by a soft and ever more familiar voice, “You said I was smart, Daemeon.”

“Yes?” he returned meekly.

In a statement of fact, she continued, “You said I was discerning, Daemeon.”

“Yes.”

In conclusion, “You trusted me with your life.”

“I did.”

Colgate’s horn suddenly flared to life before Daemeon’s eyes. The spiraling cone emanated a deep blue aura that encapsulated both himself and the mare.

*****

Daemeon remembered the first time he’d seen his mare’s magic like it was yesterday. Indeed, it was. He remembered feeling fear then, fear of the unreasonable and unknown, of the impossible. He’d fainted like a high class puritan lady at the sight of a corpse. His mind functioned around certainties, and to him, there was certainly no such thing as magic. It was merely a crude understanding of God, which was in turn a crude understanding of that which didn’t exist. An answer to fill in the gaps of logic. The convenience of mankind’s failed intellect.

His life had changed a bit since then. It is difficult after all to refute what you have seen with your own eyes. Either magic was a new reality, or Daemeon was insane beyond repair. The only thing Daemeon felt certain of now was that there were possibilities beyond what he’d imagined. Insanity? Maybe. That mattered little to Daemeon. The reasons were in the past where they belonged. He was a man who lived in the here and now. And right then, lived more than he’d ever done in his life to that point, up to that moment between moments.

They rose from the ground. It was not a pull as when you are lifted up. Rather, gravity seemed inconsequential. It gave way and Daemeon rose lighter than the air itself. His unicorn rose as well, floating just beyond his reach with her back to him. They breached a hole in the thin canopy, and went beyond.

The assent was slow at first, giving Daemeon time to take the experience in. The thousands of towering buildings that formed a rectangle around the green park surrounded them on each side. The sun flashed its glory over the city of millions, giving a shine and cheerfulness that fought against the coming winter. You might have called Daemeon’s view beautiful, a unique perspective that very few were offered. His eyes did not dawdle on the buildings however. The sun shined on only one thing that truly reflected beauty in Daemeon’s eyes.

Radiance.

Her flowing mane fell chaotically behind her, shifting softly in the the breeze passing over them. To Daemeon, Colgate was a far more marvelous being than whatever magic she employed that made them float above the trees and then the buildings. Higher and higher they went, the air subtly moving from the relative warmth on the ground to an ever deepening chill. Though his body shivered in the cold, he paid the weather little heed. His attention was elsewhere.

Time passed, though Daemeon could not say how much. He would not have even noticed that they’d stopped rising if Colgate didn’t suddenly turn in midair to face him. The dentist’s face was broadened with a wide smile that flashed her pearly white teeth, cared for meticulously over many years. She saw in Daemeon’s gaze the same intent focus he’d given her on the ground. Even in the chill air, she managed to blush and look away in embarrassment. She used the motion as an excuse to direct her eyes downward and survey the ground. Daemeon followed suit.

He was immediately impressed with how high they had come. Manhattan’s park shown as an almost indiscernible patch of green that Daemeon easily blotted from view with his thumb. The world seemed divided in half. To the east stretched the seeming infinite blue of the pacific. More surprisingly, to the west stretched New York City, as infinite in sight as the ocean itself. Daemeon had never been in a plane. He rarely left Manhattan. Pictures did little prepare him for the awe inspiring effect, the reality of eight million people. For perhaps the first time ever, the magnitude of the task before him was made clear. If he taught the whole of New York City, he would have only scratched the surface of mankind’s failings. It dampened his spirit to think that he had converted so few in so many years. He was a drop of water added to a roaring fire where petrol was fed endlessly.

While Daemeon felt discouragement at the sight, Colgate felt disbelief. “Eight million humans?” she pondered, almost fearful. “How do so many of them live so close together? What makes their permanency possible? Their technology must be far greater than I thought if they can sustain themselves and their planet like this.” She and Daemeon looked down for many minutes, each of them absorbed in the sight. With the shivering cold of the altitude and the stress such magical use caused her, Colgate directed herself towards her original purpose and whispered, “Daemeon.”

Her man turned his widened eyes to her and asked, “Yes?”

With a kind, assuring smile, she said, “Look into the sun with me.”

“What?” Daemeon cried in surprise. “No! That’ll blind us. I’m not doing that.”

Slyly, she countered, “Don’t you trust me?”

The question melted his skepticism, like wax wings up so high, and he turned his eyes upon the sun. He found himself mystified as it did not glare into his eyes as any time before. It was bright but not overwhelming. It seemed so clear to him, almost like a picture. He could swear he saw the black spots covering the sun’s surface, something impossible for a human eye. Without redirecting his gaze, he gasped, “How are you doing this?”

His mare chuckled and explained, “I told you last night. I only know three spells; levitation, fluoridation, and how to bend light so long as I have an initial source. As the sunlight comes to us, I bend away all of the harmful and overwhelming rays, leaving a view that is pleasant to see.”

“It’s amazing,” Daemeon whispered almost breathless.

He suddenly felt his head magically turned away from the sun. His eyes met with Colgate’s crystal blue orbs, impossibly huge and shimmering, and she stated in no uncertain terms, “I love this, Daemeon. I love my power and myself. I love that I can see the sun so beautifully, in a way so few others possibly can. Nothing, not you or anypony else, can change that love. All your talk of ending hate seems noble and good, but I believe you are ignoring a single, critical point. Love is more powerful than hate. Hate can be given and taken away. I hated you. And now I don’t. Love, on the other hoof, can be so powerful as to be irrefutable.”

Colgate magically directed their gazes to the sun once more and continued, “It seems to me that hate, by necessity, is always conditional. No matter how much you hate something, it can be undone. This even makes sense with your interpretation of hate. Hate, to you, always has a precondition; love. Love, as an action, needs no precondition. It can be unconditional, like my love for myself.”

“If that’s the case,” Daemeon interjected, “then why are you here?”

Colgate’s mirthful smile in the sunlight suddenly dispersed. A sad frown crossed her, and Daemeon suddenly found the pair quickly moving back to Earth. While their dissent was speedy, it did not feel like falling. Rather, it seemed that space was down, and the Earth was up. Daemeon found he couldn’t let his mind dawdle on the thought lest he suffer vertigo.

A thought struck him suddenly, and he pointed to the top of an apartment building saying, “Put us down over there. Nobody will be able to see us then.”

Colgate followed his finger and landed them atop a square rooftop. Daemeon immediately relished the feel of something solid beneath his feet. His joy was immediately dampened when his mare landed on her four hooves only to slump like a corpse onto the ground. Daemeon gasped in fear and rushed down to her crying, “Are you okay?”

His fear jumped sevenfold when he laid a hand on her side and found her as cold as ice, her ribs barely moving to gather breath and her eyes closed limply. In a panic, Daemeon ripped his shirt open, buttons flying in every direction, and hugged the freezing mare to his bare chest. Tearfully, he begged, “Please speak to me, Colgate! Please be okay! What happened? I don’t understand. You were just talking to me. For my love, Colgate, talk to me!”

There is no instrument to measure the relief that rushed through him when his precious, little mare’s eyes revealed themselves, and a small smile glowed on her cold lips. She took a deep breath and nuzzled her short snout against Daemeon’s pale breast. She had never felt his skin beyond his strong hands. To her, it was soft, smooth, tender, and so comfortingly warm that she thought, “I never want him to let me go. I wish he could hold me like this forever.”

Her musing was interrupted as something wet dripped against her flank. She turned her crystal blue orbs to Daemeon’s own dark grey eyes to find them overflowing with emotion. The fear was to be expected. Her death meant his death. The sadness also was not unknown to her. She had seen his sadness before. There was something more in that look, in his grasp, in his panicked words, something she had suspected and, up to that moment, feared. Now however, in his arms so close to him, his heart pounding a beautiful lullaby into her ears, she did not fear him. She did not fear herself. She gave to him with pure feminine delight that same sentiment he had relinquished to her.

“Daemeon,” she cooed, “I love you too.”

Words alone would have been enough to feed him joy, to know that she was neither dying nor dead. Such was his passion and attachment to her that just hearing her speak would have relieved him and made him happier than he’d ever been before. The joy he felt at hearing her speak however, could not compare with the joy he felt at the words she spoke. Just earlier, he had promised himself that he would do all in his power to make her stop loving. Now, he was glad to see his hopes fail. Such is love that it undoes everything that reason dictates.

Words failed Daemeon. Sometimes they are not enough. He could only hug her, wish her warmth, and return his love in equal measure. She continued speaking, “I’m sorry I scared you so much. I’m not dying or anything. I’m just exhausted. I’ve never pushed my magic to such limits before. Enacting two spells at the same time is taxing enough, but to do so over myself and somepony so much bigger than me for an extended period of time took almost everything out of me.”

In anger, Daemeon demanded, “Why would you do such a thing? If you lost control, you could have died!”

Colgate smiled and nuzzled him again. “It was a risk I was willing to take. I wanted you to see the futility of what you’re trying to make me believe. I wanted you to see the love I feel and realize for yourself that it’s not a bad thing. Nothing about my love of seeing the sun with my powers has caused me to hate. It has only ever made me happy.”

He did not wish to argue with her, but his conscious demanded it. He loved her. How could he not do everything he could to make her see the error of her ways? “But your magic is a part of you. You love it as you love yourself. If someone tried to take it away from you the same way I tried to take away your life, you would hate that person as much as you hated me. You can’t help but hate, and as I have shown you, there will always be hate where there is love. It’s possible that loving something isn’t wrong. It makes you feel wonderful and happy, euphoric even, but if hate is the price of love, then how can it be worth it? The world is chaos! And because it’s chaos, hate is always wrong because there is nothing you can justly hate aside from hate itself. If hate is always wrong because it is never right, then love must be wrong because it creates hate.”

Colgate’s smile faded, and she sighed sadly. Shivering from the cold and the lack of the energy she’d used to keep them floating instead of keeping herself warm, she grunted, “There’s the problem. You believe love must be bad because it causes hate, and I believe love must be good because it is better than hate. It would be convenient if each of us could agree to disagree and go our separate ways. That’s what I’d always do when I would disagree with my friend, Carrot Top.” The mare cringed in memory. “Sometimes I would even storm away from her because I thought her ideas were stupid. I would think to myself, ‘She’s just an Earth pony. All she knows about is carrots and dirt.’” Colgate’s frown became more severe as she noted, “You said so yourself. I’m a very smart pony. I’m starting to think that that’s been my downfall.”

Bewildered, Daemeon prompted, “What do you mean?”

Colgate shivered harder and Daemeon took off his shirt and wrapped it around her. Checking to make sure they were alone, he stood and took off his pants to wrap her in. Cold and personal shame mattered little to him when the mare he loved was in distress. He hugged her as close as he could and rested his bare back against the ledge overlooking the city. Thankful, Colgate continued, “I had gotten used to propelling my life on certainties. I was certain for a long time that I should be a dentist. As time passed, I became certain that other ponies hated me for who I was. Then I became certain that my job as a dentist made me unhappy. Then, with equal certainty, I told Princess Celestia that I had the wrong job, that my cutie mark was wrong.

“When I asked her to change my cutie mark, she did not say yes or no. She only asked if there was any way she could change my mind, make me realize that the mark itself was only for my benefit.” Colgate closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against Daemeon’s breast as she tried to remember. “I told her she could not change my mind. She then said something that I didn’t pay any attention to at the time, something I already knew for myself but did not truly understand. She said that we ponies are very fortunate, that an Egalitarian society doesn’t just happen. It takes unique circumstances, a unique history, to make such a thing as the peace and prosperity we have in Equestria possible. Even though she was the princess, I wrote her words off because I was so certain I was right. I even thought my certainty proved true when she sent me here. I was certain that she’d sent me so I could earn a new cutie mark, a chance to combat what cruel fate and our cruel order had dealt me.

“Are you no longer so certain?” Daemeon begged with intrigue.

The mare shook her head and answered, “No. She never said that coming here would change my cutie mark. She didn’t even know where I would go. All she said that she knew was that I would be changed before the end. At first I was certain that meant I would change my cutie mark, but now, I believe that is not the case.”

Daemeon nodded knowingly and stated in no uncertain terms, “You love your job.”

The statement caused the dentist to smile, flashing the pearly whites of her trade. “You noticed too?”

In affirmation, he answered, “You never mentioned it without a smile. Then that smile always disappeared when you would say that you had given it up. Circumstance dealt you a passion that you are very best at. You enjoy your job because you know it adds to your world, helps the ponies in a significant way.”

The mares smile mellowed, and she countered, “You say circumstance. I do not believe it was circumstance. My fear from the beginning is that my job was magically forced on me, that order dictated I should be this way, and I had no choice of my own. I am still under the belief that I am this way because it was determined before me, without my consent.”

Daemeon furrowed his brow in confusion and asked, “Why would you think your society forced you to be a dentist? You said you discovered it for yourself.”

The mare sighed and answered, “That’s because you don’t know our full history. You have only heard half the story. There was a time when we did not have cutie marks.”

With growing interest, Daemeon pushed, “When was that?”

Colgate smiled at his eagerness, his desire to know. The hours were passing, and he would not cease begging. With exhaustion evident in her voice, she answered, “We never had cutie marks until one thousand years ago, at the beginning of this era, the Reform Era.”

The tiredness of his loved mare did not escape him and he said, “I think we’ve talked enough for now, Colgate. You don’t seem up for it.”

“No!” Colgate shouted unexpectedly. She cleared her throat at the outburst and said, “I feel like we’re close now, too close. I feel like I, we, are on the precipice of understanding the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

The dentist sighed, shaking away her weariness, and explained, “Despite everything you say, Daemeon, about fate or the lack thereof, I believe I was sent to you for a reason. I believe you have the key to discovering why I, why we, are unhappy.”

A little crosser than he’d intended, Daemeon demanded, “What makes you think I’m unhappy?”

Colgate smiled at his outburst. The smile was not out of condescension but love for even her man’s more volatile side. She explained honestly, “You’re not unhappy now. You have me. I make you happy. Before I made you happy though, you only frowned, only glared, only lied, only cried. It seems to me that the moment you started loving me was the moment you were happy enough to laugh instead of saying it was a stupid thing that fed only on other people’s pains.”

Daemeon could only marvel at her perceptive, introspective nature. She was beginning to know him as well as he knew himself. His ego deflated, he admitted, “You are right. I never was happy. Happiness scared me growing up. It meant that I had become lax in my teaching. I felt I should not be happy until the world knew better, until it knew that there is no God and that chaos rules the universe. For many years, I have denied myself even simple happiness, like the kind you get from eating ice cream.” Daemeon sighed painfully as he thought back on just how unhappy his life had been since he’d killed his mother. “Happiness is the first step to loving something or someone. And of course, love leads to hate. I felt the only true happiness anyone could pursue was knowledge of good and evil.”

The questioning turned to Colgate as she asked, “What do you mean?”

The teacher sighed and closed his eyes. He gathered his words, a formidable army of all he knew, and began, “Mankind’s ultimate downfall is also mankind’s only hope of salvation. When that ignorant ape so long ago first questioned something, he sought knowledge. From then on, we have always sought to answer what is good and what is bad. It started with simple things. How better to live. How better to build. How better to feed oneself. We labeled whatever aided us in bringing pleasure as good and whatever hindered our pleasure as bad.

“As we have grown as a species, our perception of exactly what is good and what is bad has changed with our knowledge. It has matured. We grow closer to answers all the time, discarding fallacious lies of the past as they become dated, like the concept of God. Knowledge is always moving forward like that. We’re always becoming smarter because we can look back and see what was done and learn from it. There might be hiccups in the road, but we always push forward. It’s what separates us from animals. They have only their instincts while we have the ability to learn.

“Unfortunately, our knowledge has always been imperfect, and we have mistakenly linked love to goodness and hate to badness without discerning any real solution choosing the good. The problem with doing that is we are inclined to use our knowledge of good and evil to choose the good and disregard the evil. That doesn’t work with love and hate though because you can’t love without hating. Since the two can’t be separated, we must either quantify them both as being good or being evil. Since hate is the source of all conflict and tragedy between peoples, it cannot be good. We are thus lead to conclude that both love and hate are evil.”

“If that’s the case though,” his mare interjected, “then how can you be happy? Without love, where is joy? What could possibly be the pleasure in believing love is evil?”

“There you make an honest mistake, Colgate,” Daemeon explained. “You have unjustly quantified love with happiness. Love is an action. Happiness is a reaction. You can’t force happiness. It is the result of a circumstance, just as unhappiness is. Love may cause happiness, but it also causes unhappiness. Even hate can cause happiness! Revenge causes happiness, just as when you bit me. Revenge also causes unhappiness, just as when the bite harmed yourself. But don’t you think revenge prodded by hate is a bad thing?”

In reservation, Colgate assented, “Yes.”

“And just why is that?”

The mare chewed her lip wearily and answered, “Because revenge leads to counter revenge. Hate spreads hate. Violence spreads violence. It spreads unhappiness.”

“Did you ponies always understand that?”

“No,” Colgate mused aloud. “We didn’t really understand how bad revenge was until the end of the Dark Era. Before then, we always thought it was necessary for what was done in the past.”

Daemeon smiled in triumph and stated, “There you have it! In your own history, you can see the answer. Karma undone, you learned better than to seek revenge for pleasure. You learned to seek better things. Because you understood the difference between good and evil, you saved yourselves. This is true happiness, for surely you were happy to be alive. Knowledge made you happy, not love.”

“”If that’s true,” Colgate pleaded, “then why were you unhappy until love came along?”

The cutting question caused Daemeon to sigh in sadness. The answer pained him and made his existence insignificant in his failures. He pleaded, “How can I afford happiness in knowledge when I am the only one who could bask in its reality? The ultimate goal is in sight, the ultimate happiness, the salvation of humanity. I am also plagued with knowing that doing for all is better than doing for one. How can I be happy unless I spread the message and bring the whole world to enlightenment?”

“You are happy now.”

Her words stopped Daemeon’s rant cold. He could not refute her words. He looked at her knowing smile and wondered, “How can happiness from love feel so good?”

The mare continued, “But you will not always be happy.”

Curious to see where she was going, Daemeon only nodded.

Colgate sighed and stated, “I love my job. I always have. But, as you said, it seems we can love something and be unhappy. We can love and still hate. I have. You have. I have always believed it was good to love good things and hate bad things. I have followed this line of reasoning all my life and yet, my unhappiness has outweighed my happiness.” The mare lifted a hoof out of the confines of Daemeon’s shirt and pants and stroked his chin softly saying, “You believe it is only good to disregard love and hate and yet, your unhappiness has outweighed your happiness.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Colgate began, “that maybe, just maybe, we’re both wrong about something.” Her voice sounded with authority as she continued, “I wouldn’t be here if I was right, and I believe you wouldn’t be here if you were right. I think we have both been wrong, and whether it be luck or fate, we have a chance to find the true solution, the answer to truly being happy.”

Genuinely intrigued, as there was a case to be made about furthering knowledge through a mutual exchange, Daemeon begged, “And just how would we do that?”

Colgate shivered and pulled her stroking hoof back against her chest. Daemeon responded by pulling his bare legs up to his chest, making a cocoon for her as he had done the night before. His little Colgate smiled and answered him, “I think it’s just as Princess Celestia said. I think the answer might be in our history. Equestria is so beautiful and peaceful. We ponies are free to pursue our desires and wise enough to know the good desires from the bad. I think we might come to a new understanding if we look at it together.”

Daemeon considered her words for a moment. “She might just have a point. I haven’t heard much of her world, especially at the time she lives in. If her world is so pleasant while this one is so wretched, then maybe hers has learned things we have not. That is why I wanted to know of her world in the first place. That is why I’m always curious. Knowing the past gives us the power to affect the present and create a better future.”

Consenting, Daemeon said, “I see no reason why we can’t continue. I do not believe I am wrong, but I do know that many great and intelligent men have been wrong before me. Speak then. I believe you were telling me about the birth of cutie marks.”

“Yes,” his mare responded, happy to be continuing the story. “Though, I’m afraid going directly to cutie marks would be a little premature. That came a thousand years ago you see. We left off two thousand years ago.” The mare’s eyes drifted beyond Daemeon into the blue expanse above. She was glad she had the mind and wit that allowed her to recall old history like she had learned it a day before. She would have made an excellent historian. “Hmm,” she mused. “Actually, maybe it’s not getting ahead of myself.”

Daemeon tried hard to keep from shivering in the mild chill. It was not a bad day but being in nothing but undergarments on top of a fairly tall building, exposed to the breeze, made for a less than pleasant experience. It was nothing to him however. If only Colgate was safe. He asked intently, “Why not?”

“Well,” she began, “everything in the thousand years before the cutie marks sort of built up to them. They were, in a sense, the solution to the troubles unique to the Simple Era, the first thousand years after the formation of Equestria.”

“Why was it called the Simple Era?”

Colgate chuckled and answered, “It’s not a very creative name. The era was called simple because it was simple. It was the first time in history that there was no conflict between the races. The Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth ponies formed a symbiosis in the aftermath of the Dark Era that allowed for no internal conflicts. This was also a time before the discovery or rise of other intelligent races. We were alone, supreme over the world as we knew it, and at peace. Every pony had a job, one which he or she was educated to do from birth. There was no questioning what was expected of you. There was no fear of the unknown. From birth to death, everything was simple.

“We catered to the animals, the weather, and the celestial bodies. For the better part of a thousand years, after century after century of warfare and hegemony, we had earned harmony. After coming so close to our extinction, we taught our future generations to think nothing of wild passions or overzealous desires. To keep the world in balance for the betterment of our species, we formed a commune of total equality where you did your job, ate your apples, and lived until death. The race you were born into determined who you were and there was to be no argument otherwise. It was at this time that we instituted the concept of monogamy on a social scale.”

“You mean marriage?”

“Yes,” she continued. “Before this time, it was always seen as better to populate as much as you could as fast as you could without regard to the consequences. Such was our older herd mentality that the moment a mare was in heat, every stallion with potency took her in an effort to impregnate her.”

“Yikes.”

Colgate chuckled while shivering again with cold and also with revulsion. “You can say that again. Thankfully, we did away with that and created the necessity of marriage between a mare and a stallion. This did wonders to curb population growth while at the same time creating the family unit. This was key to our new commune’s success.”

Intrigued, Daemeon pressed, “Why would that be? I would think trying to recreate mating habits would anger a society. It certainly doesn’t work well here. We have a marriage institution, but it is not mandated. People are allowed to have relations with whomever they want whenever they want. The only real laws that are enforced strictly prohibit underaged intercourse.”

“Well,” she went on, “the new society we set up ran counter to personal ambitions. It was greed and ambition that had been our downfall in the Dark Era. After the second High Summit, it was realized that there must be a new motivation for society beyond personal want. The formation of family units and monogamy tied foals not just towards their mothers but their fathers as well. With most of the population having to worry daily about not just themselves but their offspring as well, their was a much greater push towards concession to the commune.”

“You keep calling it a commune,” Daemeon interjected. “I’m not certain I know what you mean though.”

“Oh! Well, it was called a commune because we lived as total equals. There were no classes. There were no wealthy or poor. There was no government aside from the home, and every home lived the same. There was no currency. Everypony was expected to work and everypony got the same rewards. Dissenters or the lazy were criticized and prompted by their peers into motion. Nopony was subject to any laws because everypony was educated on what they would do and how they should act right from birth. Nopony held dominion over another.”

“Unbelievable!” Daemeon cried. “Scratch all the lunacy and magic off the board. We have a true winner for most impossible feat done. A perfect Communism!” The man slapped a hand against his forehead and pulled at a lock of his hair. “It’s illogical. No society can come together in such conformity around such archaic ideas. The closest we’ve ever come is by convincing everybody that God would go bump in the night if they didn’t behave. And even that was not enough. Surely this system could not have lasted more than a few decades. Would not a tyrant have risen to assume control?”

With a shake of her head, Colgate answered, “Not for a few decades or even a few centuries did it last. For almost a thousand years, this order ruled, this Communism as you call it. No tyrant rose to end the society. It buckled after a thousand years because of a catastrophe born of widespread unhappiness and a unique individual who catalyzed the discontent of the ponies.”

Daemeon stroked his lengthening beard, no longer a mere shadow, and mused, “No dictator but there was discontent. What was this discontent? Did it stem from some flaw in the Communism? Communism has never worked well in this world because of its many pitfalls. For instance, did laziness supercede desires to keep the new order going?”

“Surprisingly, no,” Colgate answered, sighing in continual exhaustion. She’d only been awake a few hours but the endless conversation and use of magic had drained her. She was too tired to even remember she was hungry. Still, she felt she must press on. She had to see this story through. She continued, “I can understand why you would think it would be that. I believe the commune only worked because of the unique circumstances and overwhelming responsibility we had shouldered. Laziness meant failure for our system and suffering for all. Everypony knew that. Everypony lived it. Everypony thus worked as hard as they could for their progeny depended on them.

“Your first guess of a dictator coming to power is closer to what actually happened. The only flaw in the system was its simplicity. As generation after generation lived and died doing the exact same work day in and day out, year after year, a discontentment rose in the populace. In hindsight, we understand the problem. We know that life is not merely for living. They lived, but they did not live well.”

“Live well?”

Colgate nodded and explained, “By turning as a society into that symbiosis, we tried to refuse a fundamental fact about what it meant to be intelligent. We gave up our individuality. Our minds were so focused on living that we would not allow for anything else. To put it simply, there were Earth ponies that did not want to farm or herd, there were Pegasi who did not want to control the weather, and there were Unicorns that cared nothing for the celestial bodies.

“The dissenters were few at first. Extinction has a way of making a society malleable towards change. As centuries passed however, the unrest became more and more unmanageable. There were ponies who wanted nothing more than to learn of history, ones who wanted to rediscover music, ones that wanted to revive lost arts, ones who wanted to invent and imagine, and ones who wanted nothing more than to dance. Everypony had desires beyond their simplistic lives, but none were allowed to pursue their dreams.”

“I still don’t understand. Why weren’t any of them allowed leeway? Would it cause so much harm to let a few do as they pleased?”

“I imagine you’re smart enough to see the flaw with that plan,” the mare pointed out. “Do you really think it would have stopped with the few? The moment the society made any allowance for individuality, it would crumble. What was one pony consumed with art would become a hoard made of thousands declaring that they wanted better than the simple commune. What then? The animals would have gone uncared for. The weather would have flooded wildly, destroying the agriculture. And the Earth would have lost the careful tilt the Unicorns had to work so meticulously to keep. One allowance would mean a return to the disorder of the Dark Era. The only thing more terrifying than not living well is not living at all.”

Her man nodded his agreement. Men had to eat bread before debating philosophies after all. In concern for his little unicorn friend, Daemeon asked, “Are you warming up at all?”

Touched by his worrisome question, she answered him, “Mmhmm. You’re very warm.” She giggled like a school filly and nuzzled his breast again. This drew a warm laugh from her man, one she was glad to hear. His pleasures were her pleasures and vice versa.

Daemeon's laugh ended awkwardly as he said, “I’m glad. I mean, I’m really glad. I really love holding you like this. You’re so soft and cuddly. Even with you being ice cold, this is warming my heart.”

His mare blushed again. This time however, she made no effort to hide her face. Her feelings were for Daemeon, and his sweet sentiment did not conflict her heart. Rather, she continued to be dumbstruck by the idea that they’d fallen for each other in the span of a day. She’d never experience such high highs and such low lows as she had in the last twenty four hours. It was like being on a nonstop roller coaster that just kept getting faster and faster. Right then, with her man’s statement, she felt as though they’d reached a glorious peak and the whole world was before them. With an audacity that certainly would have been frowned upon in her perfect society, Colgate lurched out of the confines of Daemeon’s clothes and planted a firm kiss against her ugly ape’s huge lips.

His mare’s forwardness caused Daemeon’s mind to go completely and utterly blank for a moment. She had kissed him once before, but it had only been on his cheek. Even then, it had only been for a couple of seconds. This time however, she did not let up, and Daemeon regained his mind enough to melt into the kiss himself. His hand rose to clasp the back of her head, his fingers running through her messy coiffure of white and blue. He found it both exhilarating and almost horrifying that he should be kissing a twenty something pound pony unicorn. Stranger still was the fact that he enjoyed it as much as he did.

Long was that moment between moments before the pair broke apart in very hesitant smiles. They looked into each other’s eyes, grey contrasting blue, and were still, save for their mutual panting at the sudden and passionate exchange. Gradually, their tenuous smiles began to fade as the reality of what had just transpired struck them. While it was one thing to admit their love for each other, this was another terror altogether. What was passion to two different species when such a thing was not even possible?

Colgate cast her eyes downward, unable to bear what she had just done. Daemeon responded by pulling her face into neck and nuzzling the top of her head with his beard scruff. Minutes rolled by with neither being certain of what to say. Daemeon was the first to speak, admitting something he’d never said aloud to anyone, “I’ve never kissed a woman.”

His mare twitched her ears at the unexpected confession. If only to ward off the unbearable silence, she confided, “I guess that puts us on the same level then. I’ve never kissed a stallion before.”

Surprised, her man held her back and prompted, “Really? You’ve never. . . you know?”

“No,” she said shaking her head. “And you?”

“No.”

Still in uncertainty, she beckoned with hesitance, “Do you mind me asking why not?”

Daemeon bit his lip, looked away, and answered, “I’ve never trusted anybody enough for something like that to happen. You?”

Again she shook her head, sadness evident in her expression, and explained, “No stallion wants to lay with a barren mare.”

Both in curiosity and in an effort to keep the conversation going, her man asked, “Is that because of marriage in your society? Are ponies only allowed to engage each other in a marriage that can produce offspring?”

The sadness in his mare’s expression slackened a little as something in Daemeon’s question struck her as odd. “Ponies can engage each other whenever we want. Why would we wait until after marriage?”

Glad to see the conversation rolling away from awkwardness, Daemeon explained, “That’s considered to be the noble thing to do in this world. A man and a woman get married. Then they have intercourse to produce children. Is it not the same with your marriages?”

“No,” Colgate answered in obvious confusion. “That sounds like an awful way to do it. What if they don’t conceive? What if the man is impotent?”

Her answer took Daemeon aback. He explained, “Then they are in poor luck, I guess. It’s not a huge deal though. I mean, couples marry without planning to have children all the time.”

Aghast, Colgate cried, “What would be the point of getting married then?”

Daemeon shrugged and answered nonchalantly, “So they can be together.”

“Are they not allowed to be together before marriage?”

“Well, yeah,” Daemeon continued. “I mean, people can engage each other whenever they want before and after marriage. We only have age restrictions.”

Growing even more bewildered, his mare pressed, “Then what’s the point of marriage? Wouldn’t that just be a complicated, forced monogamy on a pair of humans? What would hold a marriage together without foals?”

“Love?” the man answered, unsure of the word even as it left his mouth. “Marriage also comes with a lot of benefits from the state. As complicated as it sounds, a marriage actually makes it easier for a couple to live.”

“Our state gives benefits to marriages as well,” Colgate countered, “but those are for the benefit of the foals. It’s expensive and difficult to raise a foal. Why would you give those same benefits to two ponies without a child? Doesn’t that kind of undo the system’s purpose and create an unnecessary drain on the tax base?”

“Well, yes. It does. But that’s a risk every marriage takes. I don’t understand why this all sounds so weird to you. How do you ponies do it?”

“Two ponies don’t get married until they claim ownership of a foal,” she elaborated. “Usually a mare realizes she is pregnant and will approach the stallion who laid with her with a marriage declaration. They then spend the duration of the pregnancy reorganizing their lives around taking care of the foal. So long as the mare is pregnant and has the foal, they are officially recognized as being married.”

Immediately recognizing many different holes in her explanation, Daemeon demanded, “What if the stallion doesn’t claim ownership of the foal? The purpose of marriage in our society is to ensure that any children born within a marriage must be cared for by both members. What forces a stallion to take care of a foal?”

The mare’s eyes widen in horror as she answered indignantly, “Does maybe the fact that it’s the stallion’s foal make any difference? This is absurd. Is your species so crass that they feel no responsibility for even their own offspring?”

Daemeon dialed back a bit as he realized the absurdity of his own question, so much prompted by modern conceptions of responsibility. With a touch of sadness, he explained, “You really do live in a fairy tale world. I regret to say that humanity lacks some of the moral high ground you ponies seem to have built a castle on. We are not all that bad, but certainly you are not so perfect either. There has to be at least some instances of immaturity in your society where a stallion or mare fears the fiscal and life consuming responsibilities of raising a child. If nothing else, accidents must happen that call for strenuating circumstances. What is done in those cases?”

Softening her own tone, Colgate answered, “We aren’t perfect either. Things like that do happen. Fortunately, our society has pitfalls within community living that allow for such problems. A foal can always be adopted by another pair of ponies. Adoption does not occur on any large scale, but when the need arises, such foals often go to couples that cannot produce but have wanted foals of their own.”

“But,” Daemeon stuttered, “but I thought you said stallions do not wish to form relationships with barren mares. Does it happen and you’re just unlucky or what?”

Instead of getting upset at the remark, the mare tilted her head curiously and asked, “Wouldn’t that be obvious? Maybe your species doesn’t have the same quirks ours does.”

“What do you mean?”

“The infertile couples I’m referring to are pairing of mares with mares and stallions with stallions. Does none of your species find any attraction in their same gender?”

“Oh!” Daemeon cried, genuinely surprised at her calm demeanor towards such a topic when she’d seemed on the verge of bursting only moments before in regards to his world’s conception of marriage. “We have such people of course. It’s not a huge population, but they are prevalent. I just didn’t expect your ordered society would allow for marriages between two members of the same gender. A lot of people in this world campaign against the very idea, calling it an abomination.”

Colgate scoffed and demanded, “Why would they think that?”

“A lot of reasons,” Daemeon answered, shrugging his shoulders. “The reasoning essentially boils down to a sentence some guy wrote down in some history of some nation thousands of years ago. Because there was a social prejudice in the nation he lived in against such couples, he said that same gender relations were an abomination against God because they could not produce offspring. Unfortunately, that nations history became famous and literally hundreds of millions of people, if not billions, have read that sentence and used it as a holy edict to war against the obscene desires of such men and women.”

From her seat in his lap, Colgate’s only response was to raise an eyebrow and ask, “Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“How’s their war going?”

Daemeon couldn’t help but laugh and admit, “Not too well. As we get smarter, it becomes more and more apparent that people are more or less predisposed to it from an extremely young age. Also, the understanding that same gender relations are common among animals has sort of defeated the argument that it’s unnatural. Though, by that same token, you could argue that rape and cannibalism are natural, so you get a lot of nitpicking over details.”

“I take it you don’t support the side that oppresses same gender couples?”

“Actually,” Daemeon explained, “I’ve never had much of an opinion on the matter. In a distant sense, I kind of figured a utopian society would have somehow done away with it. That said, I am somewhat enamored with older ideas of order. People in ages past have expressed stronger communal moralities than you’ll usually find nowadays. That’s why it surprised me that your society would allow for it. I assume you do not care for mares yourself?”

The mare shook her head and countered, “You?”

Daemeon chuckled and answered, “I can’t really say. I’ve never sought out a relationship with anyone be it man or woman. I made a conscious choice decades ago to give myself up for humanity and pursue my teachings.”

“Speaking of which,” Colgate asked, “just what do you do to teach. You wouldn’t tell me this morning.”

“No!” Daemeon averted his eyes instantly and stuttered for an answer, “I told you. I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Looking a little hurt, the mare begged in a soft, feminine voice that played sweetly on Daemeon’s sensitive ears, “Don’t you trust me?”

“Don’t do that!” Daemeon cried anxiously.

“Do what?” the mare countered innocently.

In exaggerated pain, he laboriously shouted, “This is another reason I have avoided women. You are tricksters, every last one of you! So sweet and kind and gentle you are. So tender to embrace. You weaken every faculty of reason with naught but pleading eyes. A woman could make a politician weep for his crimes, and I have fallen in love with a master among masters!”

His little Colgate was almost in tears from laughing at his rant. She slid off his lap and clutched her belly as she rolled around, thoroughly unable to contain herself. Through her tears and ragged breaths, she managed to say, “You are more dramatic than Rarity! Does the big boy have a couch he weeps sonnets on too?”

Her joy being his, he was caught up in her laughter as well. Taking advantage of the situation, he pounced on her diminutive form and sent probing fingers against the belly she clutched at. In seconds, her laughter turned into pitched squeals as Daemeon tickled her relentlessly. She kicked her four petite hooves furiously and cried in something akin to pain between labored breaths, “No fair! No fair! I can’t use my magic when you’re tickling me. I can’t! Stop! I’m tired! I’m sleepy! Please!”

Before he could make his mare too uncomfortable or angry, Daemeon ceased his dreaded torture. The exchange had been so physical that both of them were left panting, giggling, and perspiring in the cool breeze. Daemeon collapsed beside Colgate and hugged her breathless form against his bare breast, relishing the feel of her gossamer fur against his smooth skin. They panted together, and again her man’s heartbeat was in her ear. Her smile was so severe that it almost hurt. Again she nuzzled his chest, glad the awkwardness was so quickly put behind them.

Daemeon did not let too much time pass before he stated with a gravity she had not expected, “You have me in your hooves, Colgate.”

Worried at the sudden change in demeanor, she looked into her man’s eyes and asked, “What do you mean?”

Daemeon sighed, afraid of the truth of what he was about to say, and explained, “You have me. I love you with an undivided heart. It could not be divided as it loves nothing other than you. I want nothing more than to see you smiling and happy. Because of this, I will do anything I can to make you happy. This includes doing most anything that you ask of me. I will hate anyone or anything that tries to harm you. I will keep you safe, even if it means my own death.” He stopped to take another deep, shaky breath before concluding, “So if you force me to tell you the whole truth, the truth about what it is that I do, then you need only ask, and I will tell you. The only thing that I can hope is that you do not force me. I promise I will tell you myself when I believe the time is right.”

Touched by the sincerity and immutability of his words, she assented, “We already decided we were sick of talking about you earlier. You wanted to hear about my history, not yours.”

Daemeon smiled with relief that his time as Colgate’s friend was not at an end and said, “We did agree to that. Back to it then. You were speaking of the discontentment of the ponies at living in the commune.”

“Yes,” she said with a smile. “Here’s where we come to the most interesting part of pony history.”

“It gets more interesting?” Daemeon asked skeptically.

Cheerful, she answered, “Indeed it does. The commune reigned unquestioned for almost a thousand years. It worked almost perfectly for the sole reason that opposing it would lead to the certainty of despair from the Dark Era. The ponies were unsettled and grew more unsettled with every generation, but the commune might not have ended if it weren’t for the dreams of one unicorn stallion, Starswirl the Bearded.”

“Interesting. You’ve never mentioned a name before. Why is that? Have there not been any important names?”

“Oh, no,” Colgate explained. “There are plenty of names. There are even a few I could have mentioned, but none of them were truly key to understanding our history as Starswirl is. Also, I may have a passing interest in history, but I’m no historian. I’m really only giving you very broad strokes. Learning everything would take years of study.”

Satisfied with the answer, her man prodded, “Okay. What did this Starswirl guy do that was so important?”

“Well,” his mare began, “to understand what he did, you must realize that he was a unique individual. He was born with such a predisposition towards magic that his natural power outstriped any who came before and all who have come after. He did not just know magic well, he invented magic. In fact, we attribute the core of each of the digressions of magic aside from alteration and illusion to him. Not even the best of his many arcane creations have risen above him. He was the only mortal said to have been more powerful than our matriarchs.”

“Whoa, whoa whoa!” Daemeon cried. “Back way up there, Colgate. Did you say mortal?”

“Yes. Why?”

Having to steady himself even as he was laying on the ground, he begged the obvious question, “Mortal, as in, there are immortals in your world?”

“Oh!” the mare exclaimed in realization. “I suppose you wouldn’t have immortals here if you don’t have magic. It’s a good thing I didn’t mention them before. They actually didn’t exist until Starswirl the Bearded created them. But that’s getting too far ahead at the moment. I’ll get to them. I promise. For now, I need to start with Starswirl’s first infamous exploits. Okay?”

The man with the wonderful laugh let one loose and acquiesced, “If you say so, dearie.”

She continued with a smile, “Starswirl was considered to be a terrifying radical to most. His magic was so powerful that he was able to evade the stigma of working in the commune by pioneering the first use of the blink spell. Through will alone, he learned how to teleport himself out of trouble. Indeed, he seemed a menace threatening the harmonious order of the commune by refusing to direct the sun like every other unicorn. The society almost felt prompted to kill him altogether.

“To some however, he was a hope for change in a world where such hopes were long lost. Starswirl refused to focus on the sun because he felt every ounce of his power should be focused into discovering a magical solution. He was successful in this endeavor because there were many who protected him and fed him. For a long time, he worked on a spell he felt would set the sun as it had been before. He thought that he alone could affect the world’s tilt and put it into the harmony we had before the upset. He believed that by freeing the stress put on the Unicorns and Pegasi by having to care for the sun and weather, pony society would finally earn the elbow room it so desperately needed to expand beyond simplicity. With the world in perfect tilt, we could even relinquish the care we gave to the animals. Every facet of pony life would be improved.”

“Did he succeed?”

“No,” Daemeon’s mare answered with a sigh of resignation. “He believed he had found a solution, but stated sadly that the combined might of all the ponies magics and wills from all of history could not approach the magnitude of what he proposed. When he found his answer, he gave up trying to fix the Earth’s tilt and sought a different means of fixing the woes of our society.”

“He had unusual conviction in this regard. There is a famous quote regarding the solution that has passed down in history. He said, ‘Only the stars will aid in our escape.’ He believed that we could not fix the Earth’s tilt by balancing our will against the sun alone. He said we needed to focus our will on many different stars circling us in the cosmos. His understanding was that we could use them as added support to anchor the tilt magically. By coming from many different directions at the same time, it could be possible.”

“That’s intriguing,” Daemeon interjected, “but stars are almost infinitely further away from us than the sun. It only takes seven minutes for sunlight to hit us from our sun. The closest solar system is almost four light years away!”

Colgate nodded and explained, “That’s why Starswirl gave up on that plan. Since there was no way to fix the sun again, he turned to an alternate plan. He set his mind to the creation of a magical being that would solve our problems in a different way. His plan resulted in the creation of the world’s first immortal, Discord.”

“Hold up a second. You’re going to have to slow down and tell me why and how he did that.”

“I know. I’m getting to that.” With another affectionate nuzzle, she continued, “Starswirl invented the magical art of transmutation, the magic of transforming one essence into another through a projection of the will. Simple transmutation ascends even our modern understandings of chemistry in its potency to bend matter at the atomic level. A clever handling of such magic can turn lead into gold, worms into caterpillars, and fire into snow.

“Starswirl believed he saw in this branch of magic a solution. He found that such magic was not limited to his will alone, but to any who projected their with his. It didn’t even matter if they were a unicorn! Starswirl could act as the point of provocation for a spell and direct the focused energy of everypony else into the target subject. Because such magic did not require his will alone, he believed that, with the proper direction, he could theoretically create a being more powerful than himself. If his presumption was correct, said being could be vastly superior to him in every way save through creativity. Transmutation cannot add intellect that was not there already.

“Starswirl made this proposition to all those among the ponies who felt change was necessary. He said that he could create a being that could provide for every desire that pony individuality strived for if everypony gathered to him and projected their combined wills into one great spell. This creature, he said, would be a genie of sorts. Everypony who projected the force of their willful desires into the beast at its creation would give it the power to conjure said desires into existence. This beast would achieve everything the ponies wanted, and they would no longer have to worry about working to keep the commune alive.”

“You keep saying creature,” Daemeon interjected. “Did Starswirl not know what it would look like?”

“He actually had no idea what the creature would look like. He would use a starting host of course, but with so many wills working with his own, even he couldn’t predict what the final result would be. When all those who wanted to see their desires fulfilled gathered around him for the summoning, he manifested the spell into a fly. The result was a horror that went beyond what individual minds can imagine. Indeed, we created an incarnation of desire; Discord, the spirit of disharmony.”

“So that’s a literal thing, this Discord?” Daemeon said in wonder. “I thought you were speaking symbolically when you said ponykind defeated Discord or when you called me an agent of Discord. What was the creature like when it was summoned?”

Colgate shivered at the thought of the creature, the abomination. Daemeon reflexively tightened his arms around her until she settled down. Her answer surprised him, “I don’t have to give a second hand description. I lived through his second coming. I have seen him for myself and had the horror of living through his endless whims. He is what we call a draconequus.”

“A draconequus? You’ve seen him yourself?”

“Yes,” she continued. “He has the base figure of a pony, for it was ponies who conceived of him. But every limb and projection was warped and mutated in his creation to reflect the many discordant desires of those projecting their will into Starswirl’s spell. He has a goat’s hoof, a lion’s paw, a gryphon’s talon, and a dragon’s claw. He flies with the wings of a bat and a dove while his serpent tail flows behind him. To look upon him is to see pure chaos.”

“What happened after he was created? Did he do as Starswirl said he would?”

“No,” the mare answered, cringing. “At least, not in the way Starswirl had hoped. Discord was every bit as powerful as he could have imagined, perhaps even more so. On a whim, he could conjure almost anything into being. Not just transmute, conjure. And his limitations went only as far as the individual imaginations of the thousands of ponies who propelled their wills into his creation. He walked upon our world for one year. In one year’s time, he taught us to fear extinction again.”

“What did he do,” Daemeon begged.

His mare yawned wearily, growing more exhausted by the minute. “He endeavored to do exactly what he was created to do. He made Equestria, the entire world, his playground where he fulfilled desires so excessively as to cause far more harm than any good. Discord was not an evil creature. He was only what we made him. He was greed. He was envy. He was sloth and pride with a dash of gluttony. He was wrath. He was lust.

“He was a reflection of everything we wanted, everything our commune sought to destroy. Our arrogance, for indeed it was not solely Starswirl’s doing, was in ever thinking we could control such a beast when we could not even control our individual desires. Almost by definition, Discord was uncontrollable. As to what he did in that year he ruled, I can only tell you to imagine something.”

Confused, Daemeon parroted, “Imagine something?”

“Imagine anything. Imagine wanting cake and seeing your house turned into cake. Imagine wanting art and seeing the hillsides slathered in paint. Imagine wanting to run fast and never being able to stop again. Imagine wanting somepony to suffer, and they suffer endlessly. Imagine wanting to eat and dying from not stopping. Imagine anything and everything anypony could want in excess. All of these things were seen in that year of Discord.”

“I actually can’t imagine all those things,” Daemeon said in wonder. “It’s one thing to talk about things like that. But to actually imagine? I don’t believe I have the faculty.”

Colgate yawned loudly and murmured with closed eyes, “Nopony does.”

Daemeon noted her tiredness and said sternly, “You need to rest, Colgate. Why don’t we take a nap? We can eat breakfast later.”

The mare tried to shake herself awake and countered, “I can’t. You need to hear the rest of the story.”

Her man smiled and nuzzled her with his coarse beard saying, “That’s enough out of you. I’ll be here when you awake. My life depends on staying with you. Even if my life should depend on abandoning you, I would not. I love you, Colgate.”

With a weak and exhausted smile, she submitted and said, “At least put your clothes back on. I don’t want you catching a cold.”

She was right of course. Daemeon was trying hard to ignore the chill breeze, but he knew he would do much better with his shirt and pants. More worried about his mare than himself, he asked, “What about you?”

As from a dream, she answered, “Just hold me.” In magically fueled weakness, she slipped into a heavy slumber.

Taking care to disturb her as little as possible, Daemon gathered his clothing and redressed himself. He noted with a touch of annoyance that his shirt’s buttons were gone from his outburst of fear. It was nothing to him though if it meant he had kept Colgate the least bit warmer. He snuggled her as he always did and wrapped the oversized shirt around the both of them. Into a ball he formed and slept with his little Colgate in his arms.

Shattered Lives

“One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.”

Warrun’s feet landed one after another as his familiar, calming tune ran through his mind. He had to work a bit more than he would have liked to breathe normally. A building tension frayed his nerves as he approached the Captain’s office. The coming conversation would not be their usual exchange of professional words between a chief and his subordinate. It would be far more akin to a plea of forgiveness on Warrun’s part for being a little too forthcoming with his limited power as the First Officer. He had no right to be offering deals, and his credibility rested solely on his superior’s opinion. If Warrun didn’t sell the urgency of the deal well enough, punishment could very well come his way.

“One, two, three. One, two.”

The nervous man’s shoes squeaked to a halt unsatisfactory to his tempo as he came to the door separating him and his potential doom. He steadied himself with a deep breath, fighting the overwhelming urge to pull out a smoke in the middle of the crowded hallway. Warrun wasn’t a man given to anxiety, but the recent year had put him on edge. With his wife gone, he couldn’t afford to take as many risks as he did in his youth. He could almost remember the days when he would rush down perps with the bravery of a man invincible from a lack of other responsibilities. Now, the chances for gallantry and self sacrifice, the very acts on which Warrun had built his life and career, were the embodiment of an ever growing fear that haunted his heart day and night.

The casual observer might infer that his old age tamed him, that he had come to understand his own mortality. The thrill of a grand and noble life is so often undone by reality that many, if not most, would come to the same conclusion. Far fewer would have inferred the truth, and only Warrun truly understood himself. He had given up his fear of death many years ago. His life, in his estimation, was the purest dedication to the greatest good a man could achieve. Whether he lived or died, his life had belonged to the world. He’d given it freely in service and heavy handed care. For justice. For righteousness.

For order.

Now, however, such ideals took a backseat to something he had not expected. Something he would not have described as being given. Rather, it was stolen from him by a vile temptress who worked towards his undoing. His heavy hand had softened. His firm resolve had diminished. His ideals had long ago weakened. Gradually at first, though ever stronger as the years passed by, his purpose and directive were altered. The ideals he had dedicated his whole life to became secondary, a fleeting memory, to a whole new purpose. Where before he had fought for order for the sake of order because it was the good and righteous thing to do, now he fought for a whole new reason. A reason that took away from his ability to be an unbiased, distanced, and unshakable judge of society. A reason that caused him endless uneasiness every time he placed his hand on his gun. A reason that made him weep with fear for the uncertainty of what the day had in store.

For love.

What possible chance did the convictions of morality or idealism stand in the face of those two crystal blue eyes? How could he be brave for an entire world when he was the entire world for his little girl? How much of a man could he possibly me when all it took was a glance of those eyes and the thought that they should ever bare tears for him to cow him into submission of the fact that his life was not his own to give? What passerby could see him and know that he lived purely for another’s sake? Who could know that his life used to not matter to him at all until the day he first laid eyes on his rambunctious but pure Maria? Who in his dark and horrible world, so full of anger and violence, could understand that he did not love himself? Who could fathom that he’d only truly begun to love when his laboring wife had birthed him a purpose beyond idealism or self satisfaction?

Such was his fear, the constant burden of his life, as he raised his fist and struck the office door three times, “One, two, three.”

A stern voice from within echoed, “Enter.”

Warrun entered the large office with bookshelves bordering his left and right. Across the room, a figure hunched over a stack of papers in close contemplation. The broad desk on which the man worked was loaded with hundreds of files packed in manilla folders. He seemed almost bigger than life even as he was seated, a man among men. This seemed contradictory in light of the fact that he was not a large man. Rather, it was the sense of authority the man exuded that called attention to him when he entered the room and gave finality to anything he said.

The first officer stood ill at ease until the man raised his head and asked in a tone that reflected his position, “What can I do for you today, Warrun?”

Well aware that the use of his first name was not provocative of any familiar exchange, Warrun launched into his explanation, “I assume you’ve been briefed on Mr. Jack Vinetti?”

The Captain placed his pen on the desk and leaned into his high backed chair answering, “Yes. The man accused of killing his wife. What about him?”

“Well,” Warrun continued, “I need you to authorize a deal for him.”

The Captain’s stern expression suddenly became disgruntled as he silently demanded, “And just why would I be organizing a deal for Mr. Vinetti?”

The nervous man could almost grimace at the severity of his superior’s tone. “I need you to organize one because I offered him one.”

“You did what?!” the Captain shouted, standing from his chair with red fury. “Explain yourself this instant, Warrun. Nobody offers deals without my say so.”

Careful not to back down an inch, Warrun responded coolly, “Lt. Thompson discovered last night that Mr. Vinetti was a cocaine dealer back in Chicago over a year ago. I am under the firm belief that he is now on the local net. The information he has will become much less valuable if we waste any time debating his credibility. I made him an offer to prompt him to confess within the day.”

“Within the day?!” the Captain screamed on something bordering hysteria. “Why would you go off all half cocked, Warrun? You don’t make deals. I do! Do you realize that he can get off if I don’t approve this deal, and he confesses?”

With a curt nod, Warrun answered, “I was well aware of the risks. I felt they were reasonable at the time as I was speaking to him. I understand that I took too much of a liberty presuming to know what you would authorize. This is an oversight that will not happen again.”

“You’re damn right it won’t happen again!” The Captain took a deep breath and calmed himself. After he’d regained his composure, he stated with deathly chill, “If you weren’t my best man, I’d fire you this instant. I will not tolerate this level of insubordination from anybody. We have a chain of command here that you would do well to respect.”

With a dignified voice that strived to overpower his rapidly beating heart, Warrun stated, “I will respect your command. I hope you realize I did this because I believed it was necessary.”

The Captain sat back down in his seat and signaled his first officer to sit down. As Warrun obliged, his superior answered, “I know you did, Warrun. You’ve been with this department a long time, a good deal longer than myself at least. I’ve learned to have some faith in your instincts. As firm as your roots may be though, I’m still in charge. I’ll allow you to cut a deal as long as it’s on my desk for approval by tonight. If anything like this happens again, I won’t be so kind.”

Relieved beyond words, Warrun merely nodded. After a moment, he asked, “Is there a reason you had me sit down, sir?”

The Captain returned with his own nod and said, “I heard you got called into a scene last night. Nobody seemed to know much of anything beyond that aside from there seemed to be a domestic disturbance. May I ask what happened?”

Warrun couldn’t help but avert his eyes as the conversation suddenly turned from the freezer to the frying pan. The Captain was not going to like his report, no matter how necessary it was. With hushed words, he explained, “I got called in by Lt. Thompson after he investigated the scene. He wanted my personal opinion on some evidence he found.”

“Evidence of what?” the Captain queried.

Feeling like a mouse, Warrun answered, “We believe the Devil was there.”

Warrun’s superior responded to the news by burying his face in his palm and stating with resignation, “You’re never going to let this phantom go, are you?”

“With respect, sir,” Warrun muttered with some indignation, “he’s not a phantom.”

With clear frustration, his Captain countered, “You’re right. He’s your God damned imagination running after you.”

“Sir!”

“How many years have you been doing this to yourself, Warrun?” With a slam of his fist against his desk, he declared, “You’ve got to stop chasing this conspiracy creature you’ve imagined.”

Flush with anger, the first officer responded, “I did not imagine him. He’s real, and he’s out there right this instant ruining the lives of the men and women he meets every day.”

“He’s not real.”

“But you’ve seen the pictures! You’ve seen the footage!” He climbed from his seat. “You’ve seen what he’s done!”

With a calm voice, his superior answered, “What I have seen is inconclusive. All of it. I’ve seen men that look similar, but aren’t necessarily the same. I’ve read names that are never the same. I’ve seen events take place that are too big to be one man. Indeed, they would be incredible feats for groups of men working together. I’ve heard eyewitness accounts worth about as much as a four year old’s opinion.”

Veins bulging in anger, Warrun cried, “But sir. You can’t just think all those things are coincidences. None of it makes any sense if it’s not the same man.”

“None of it would make any sense if it was!” the Captain countered. “Every time you point the finger at him for some crime, we turn up nothing and nobody. Leads go nowhere and the case grows cold. Then you spend valuable department time and money chasing down your phantom only to turn up nothing. Not even crime lords run on twenty year hot streaks without producing a name.”

“But we’re close this time!” Warrun countered. “We found his jacket at the scene. It could lead us back to him, and we could catch him once and for all.”

“There is no once and for all with you, Warrun. You think you’re close every time you think you’ve found something he’s done. Every nook and cranny is a hiding spot for him, just waiting for your imagination to turn over and find nothing but more clues. He’s not real!”

“Why would I make him up?” Warrun demanded.

“Because he’s the solution to your ignorance,” the Captain continued to explain calmly. “It’s like when people didn’t understand how weather worked, and they invented gods to explain why it rained and snowed. Every time we come to a crime you know you can’t solve, you mentally twist the crime into some amalgamation perpetrated by some man who is evil and doesn’t have a name. For God’s sake, you call him the Devil. How much more imaginary do you need him to be before you realize you’re chasing a shadow of your own psyche?”

The first officer stiffened at the question and turned away, preventing himself from retorting in violence. His mouth clamped shut and his fingers tightened into fists. His steaming was interrupted by a firm voice behind him stating, “I will not allow you to pursue your dream any longer. I’m calling off any investigation you may have authorized. Do you understand?”

Biting his tongue, he answered, “Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

“May I leave, sir?”

“Not yet.” The Captain stood from his seat and rounded his desk. He placed a strong hand on his inferior’s tensed shoulder and said with the comforting strength of a father to a son, “You are the best of men, Warrun. This place wouldn’t be what it is today without you. You had such passion not so many years ago. We could use some more of that. We just can’t afford to have it when chasing ghosts. Even if we caught this man, we have nothing on him that’s conclusive enough to put him away. I don’t want to lose you because of the hate you have for him.”

Warrun closed his eyes and absorbed the words for a moment. His anger deflated slightly as the truth of what his Captain said stood unquestionable. Even if they did catch this man, this Devil, they would be hard pressed to put him away on the grounds of circumstantial evidence, no matter how much of it there was. In that regard at least, Warrun had no real argument to put forward. His frustration maintained firm ground in the fact that he knew he wasn’t imagining a creature. He was being eluded by a monster, he and every single officer of the law around him. Convicted as he may be, probably nothing was going to change unless the Devil did something truly illegal, and they caught him in the act. With his feet pointing towards the end of his life rather than the beginning, that possibility seemed to grow dimmer with each passing year.

Warrun sighed with a heavy heart and nodded despairingly. Without another word, he stepped away from his Captain and exited the office, shutting the door softly in his wake.

*****

One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.

Warrun strummed his fingers in time with the beat of his signature sonata. Again, as it did that same morning and every morning previous, the music rolled softly and sweetly through the confines of the vehicle, banishing the din of the traffic outside. It was unusual that the familiar tune should play when the sun was nearing its zenith, but the day had been upsetting for the man who lived the law. There were few things he took as certainty in his world. In fact, his soul for the last several years had rested firmly on three different resolves; the love of his daughter, the importance of his work, and the undeniable evil of the Devil.

Now however, two of his three greatest resolves were challenged in a single statement. The last several hours had been spent with his nose in his paperwork so as to not burden himself with the uneasy implications of what his superior had told him. Unfortunately, as the city streets rolled by and the music permeated him, Warrun found he could not find reprieve of the mental tremors running through him. He tried his best not to think or wonder. His own thoughts terrified him. Try as he might, they came with fury.

“Could the Captain be right?”

Warrun shook his head suddenly, trying to banish the thoughts even as they came. The deed came to no avail as they continued to beckon, “Is this man really doing all of the things I believe he did? Is he really the monster I have made him out to be?” He grimaced as one frightful thought stung him like a needle, “Is he even real?”

A sharp right brought him into the lowest level of a parking garage outside the Lenox Hill Hospital. His mind continued to tug at him as he drove up multiple stories, “He has to be real. He can’t not be real. I’ve seen his face too many times in too many situations for him not to be the one.” He pulled his car into a spot on the third level, “But what if the Captain’s right about the futility of chasing him? Even if I caught him, there’s a good chance he’d just walk. Just like there’s a chance Vinetti could walk if he fights this hard enough. With a really good lawyer, anything’s possible.”

The first officer left the parking garage behind and entered the sterile smelling, gauze white interior of the building. His entrance drew eyes from nurses, patients, and visitors as he approached the receptionist’s desk. The attentive gazes were something Warrun had ceased to notice many years ago. A woman in her late thirties with her hair tied back in a bun smiled expectantly and asked, “Hello. May I help you?”

Warrun returned with a similarly cordial smile and said, “I’m looking for a patient that was admitted to the emergency ward yesterday. He came in from an auto accident. A Mr. Jobo DeCosta.”

The lady turned her eyes to one of the thick monitors on her desk and said, “Mr. DeCosta is in Ward B, room 205. If you take the elevator down the hall there to the second floor, his room will be on your right.”

“Thank you.” Warrun leaned closer and lowered his voice a bit asking, “Would you happen to know which doctor is on duty for that ward?”

The question caused a twinkle of recognition to rise in the receptionist’s eyes as her smile dimmed, and she studied the officer more attentively. She answered, “Of course. Dr. Slavinski is working the trauma ward at B. Do you need to speak with her?”

Warrun nodded and explained, “Yes, actually. I understand that Mr. DeCosta is in stable sedation. I’m here to question him as to the cause of the accident he was in.”

The nurse nodded and picked up her phone saying, “I will have Dr. Slavinski meet you in Mr. DeCosta’s room.”

The first officer nodded his thanks and proceeded down the hall. His mind could not help but chant, “One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.” In a fairly unprofessional manner, he let his gaze drift to the floor and set his stride so as to not step on the cracks. Because, of course, to step on the cracks would be to slip between them into some infernal abyss below where the foolish men and women who refused to watch their feet landed. Such machinations were often the sign of an unentertained mind. In Warrun’s case, they were a personal attempt to cease worrying. It was best not to seem worried. After all, it wasn’t every day he got to meet his little sister.

His mind drifted him up the elevator and into Ward B before he even had a chance to prepare himself. He stopped in the doorway of room 205, coming face to face with, or more appropriately chin to forehead, with a petite, blonde woman in a long white coat. The pair collided with an initial show of embarrassment before recognition brought them together in a tender embrace. Warrun’s worry flooded from him to be replaced with an immense smile. His immediate joy got the better of him, and he lifted the woman off the ground and began shaking her left and right like a rag doll. What probably should have been countered by severe chagrin was given the benefit of snorting laughter as the woman cried, “Stop it, Warrun! I’m working!”

Warrun’s own laughter echoed a little louder as the woman in his arms slapped both her hands against his face and pushed away. Demeanor broadened with a toothy grin, Warrun begged excitedly, “How have you been, Alexis? It’s been too God damned long.”

Straightening out her jacket, Alexis answered, “I’m not sure. Months now I think, not since the funeral. You didn’t tell me you were coming to visit. How did you know my shift?”

The officer’s smile receded the slightest bit as he explained, “I didn’t. I’m actually here for work.”

His sister’s smile dwindled into a sad frown as she muttered, “I was afraid of that. Are you in a big hurry to talk to Mr. DeCosta?”

“No, actually,” Warrun answered as he beckoned Alexis to enter the room and closed the door behind him, “if you have a few moments, I would really love to catch up. We shouldn’t be apart all the time when things have been so rough this past year.”

Alexis nodded sadly and took a seat in one of the visitor’s chairs. Warrun sat with her as she agreed, “I know. I’m really sorry about that. It’s just that working and raising a kid alone, well, you know how it is. How is Maria holding up?”

Warrun sighed and said with a touch of remorse, “She still cries. I was really hoping it wouldn’t affect her as hard as it has. She wouldn’t even sleep alone for the first few weeks. She has dreams about the robbery all the time. It’s gotten a little better though. I took her therapist’s advice and got her a little guardian angel.”

“Guardian angel?” his sister beckoned.

He countered with a sad smile and explain, “Her mother got it for her right before she died. It’s a little stuffed owl. The therapist said a stuffed animal would help a lot with coping. I told Maria that it would keep her safe at night and help her remember Mommy.”

“Is it working?”

Warrun’s smile brightened as he answered, “I’m really hoping so. I think she’s made some progress with it. She slept without it last night.”

“That’s good.” The doctor took her brother’s hands in her own and asked solemnly, “How are you holding up?”

The officer of the law closed his eyes and hung his head. With a heavy heart, he answered, “Not as well as I’d hoped. It’s not easy without her. I never realized just how much I relied on her until she was gone. I don’t just mean for the practical, physical things like helping around the house or taking care of me and Maria.” Moisture peeped through his closed lids, hidden from his sister’s view, as he went on, “I miss just looking at her. I swear to God, all she had to do was smirk at me in the morning, and I would just know that the day was going to work out. I would just know that, no matter what happened, I would be okay. And no matter how many horrors I faced, I would come home at the end of the day, and she would be there waiting for me with a smile.”

In sympathy fueled by familial love and mutual understanding, she wrapped her arms around Warrun’s neck and hugged his head to her bosom. His tears seeped into her gauze white gown as her own tears fell into his own well kempt, blonde hair. Their discourse was broken in sadness and pain. A multitude of machines hummed and beeped in the background, the ambiance of loss. A far rarer thing it is now, not to die in a hospital bed. People rarely seem to have the joy of a sudden death. Like the wife of Warrun and the husband of Alexis, men and women usually get to suffer tragedy just long enough to link sad endings to hospital beds.

Though not all hospital beds bear sad endings. Some bear sad beginnings. A child born into massive debt and poverty. A diabetic waking up to find a missing foot. A woman with cancer coming out of a surgery to discover the operation had been unsuccessful. Sometimes the new beginnings are so sad that a sad ending would have been preferable. Warrun’s mind buzzed with such thoughts as his tears subsided, a weakness secondary to his purpose. He was here to see to the revelation of one such beginning. As tender as that moment was, it was only a moment between moments. The moment before was filled with fear and despair. The moment after would be filled with remorse and reality. The moment needed to end, as all moments do.

Warrun lifted his head out of his sister’s arms and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. As Alexis did likewise, he asked, “What exactly is the condition of Mr. DeCosta?”

Alexis gave a weak smile, sad to see the moment end, and walked over to the foot of the bed in the center of the room. She absently read the conditions and stated with a coldness that reflected her work ethic, “Aside from superficial lesions and a significant concussion, the crash displaced two lumbar vertebrae and severed his spinal cord. He is well enough to come out of sedation, but there is little to no chance of him ever walking again.”

The officer cringed slightly at the thought and begged, “Are all of the other victims doing okay?”

The doctor shook her head and said with a note of melancholy, “No. Two more died last night, and I don’t have much hope for a third. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen the ER flooded with so many people so quickly. Not since 2001 I think.”

Her brother sighed and came to stand next to her. He looked down at the mess of a man in the bed. Mr. DeCosta’s left arm was dangling in a sling and held straight in a cast. Dove white gauze covered most of his face and head while the top bar of a large brace stretched across his torso showed over the collar of the dull green gown he wore. A number of tubes ran into his barren right arm, pumping him with nutrition and pain killers. There was very little to see of his face aside from a single closed eye and a large, exotic pair of lips.

Warrun turned from the bed ridden shadow and stated matter of factly, “He had hair last time I saw him.”

His sister nodded and explained, “His concussion called for an invasive pressure relief operation. If nothing else, we believe that went well. He shouldn’t be suffering from any brain damage, but there’s always a possibility. If you’re here to interview him about what happened, you might be disappointed. Accidents like this tend to skew events right beforehand, if not completely undo the memories altogether.”

Warrun bit his lip and sighed again. “I was afraid of that. If he’s the only witness to what happened before the crash that we can find, then there’ll be no getting to the bottom of this. Even if he tells the truth of what happened, the smallest possibility of brain damage will make his testimony invalid. He won’t be able to do much to help or incriminate himself.”

His sister tightened her brow and asked, “Should you do the questioning at all then? I can bring him out, but if it’s a waste of time then I’d prefer to leave him to rest. It’ll be a couple nights before we can even start talking to him about rehabilitation. Emergency case though he may be, his insurance doesn’t cover much in the way of long hospital stays or complicated surgeries.”

“Yes.” The first officer rounded the bed and bent his face close to the Jamaican man’s dark hued cheek and said, “I’m already here, and we need his testimony in any case.” Close up as he was, Warrun noticed a frown twitching on the man’s face. Curious, he wondered, “Is he in pain?”

Alexis frowned and explained, “Yes, actually. The poor man is allergic to oxycodone and most of its delineations. The best we could give him was some methylated morphine. If I wake him up, he will be in pain. That will be the case for a long while though. He’ll probably have to live the rest of his life with it. Not to mention he will most likely become addicted to the substitute painkillers we’re giving him. I suppose that would be another strike against his testimony.”

Silence ruled for a few seconds as the pair looked at the bandaged man. With a little hesitancy, Alexis whispered, “Do you think he’ll go to prison?”

“It’s hard to say.” Warrun’s eyes drifted from the sleeping form to a green screen showing the man’s vital signs. “One death in a mutual accident can usually go clear if no substances were involved. No drugs came into play here, but there’s, what, ten people dead? Unless he has a damn good reason for what happened and can prove it outside of his sole testimony, he could very well be convicted of mass manslaughter. Be that as it may, I imagine the worst he’d get is a couple decades in a minimum security hospital prison. Would probably be a cushy life for him after the tragedy he’s caused.” As an afterthought, he asked, “Has he had any visitors?”

The doctor reattached the clipboard to the foot of the bed and answered, “No, but I’ve received a phonecall from his mother. Apparently, she’s flying all the way up from Jamaica tonight to come take care of him. Are you going to question her too?”

The first officer shook his head and said, “Probably not unless she somehow becomes relevant. If she does then I’ll have someone else take care of her. For now, can you bring him out? I don’t mean to rush away like this, but I promised to meet my colleague for lunch in an hour, and I have no clue how long this will end up taking.”

With a firm nod, Alexis answered, “Less than an hour I would assume. We’ll see how much strength he has. I’ll be back in a few.” She turned from the bed and left the room, again closing the door behind her.

Next to the vegetable, Warrun was left in seclusion with his thoughts. “I wonder if he’s dreaming.” He lifted a finger and softly brushed the dark hued man’s one exposed cheek. “I hope it’s something nice if he is. Maybe he had a girl or fling or something. It would be nice to live in a dream for awhile. Some crazy or convoluted adventure that couldn’t really happen. A dream where everybody who ever made you happy are together in the same place at the same time even though they’ve never really met.

“How much fun it would be. To talk to those you have lost once more. To embrace that high school sweetheart that never worked out. To talk to that random stranger you saw once in the street and create a character for him from scratch. You could even just dream a wild and imaginary world, one where you could fly just by thinking or speak with animals and have them answer. What I wouldn’t give to slip into a permanent little sleep and give my existence over to that pleasant fairy tale.”

Warrun withdrew his finger from the man’s face and sighed again. He slid his hands into his pockets and hung his head wearily. His silent words echoed with such defeated resignation that Atlas himself would have slumped his shoulders even further in sympathy, “Too bad we can’t dream forever or live in fairy tales. Whether they’re good dreams or bad, we always wake up. We always have to open our eyes and greet our ugly world and make our living contributions to it. And, much like the dreams, we have to deal with the results of our contributions whether they were good or bad.”

The electronic beat of the man’s heart monitor echoed, “One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.” In the silence, Warrun concluded, “It would have been better if you’d died.”

The first officer’s eyes opened as he heard the door open and shut behind him. He stepped away from the bed and watched as his sister’s firm, calculating hands pricked a syringe syringe into her patient’s arm and emptied its contents in a steady stream. When the last of the serum was dispensed, the doctor turned to Warrun and said, “He should be awake shortly. I have to get back to my rounds. There are just too many cases needing my attention at the moment. We really need to find a time when we can catch up more. Maybe we can arrange a playdate for the girls?”

Warrun smiled at the thought and answered with muted enthusiasm, “Of course. It’s been too long since I’ve seen little Samantha. How does this saturday afternoon sound? I have that time free with no call-ins.”

His smile was infectious. Alexis nodded eagerly and jumped into another hug. Warrun returned the favor as his sister whispered in his ear, “Never think twice about calling me. It’s no good to do this alone. We need each other, Warrun. If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate, and I won’t either.”

The officer of the law did not respond with words as he feared cracking into more tears when he was just about to interrogate the man on the bed. Relishing the moment before it was gone, he let go and watched as she left the room. He took a deep, steadying breath to calm himself and turned back to find his subject’s one eye gazing up at him intently.

Taking immediate control of his emotions, Warrun set his face to an expression of neutral seriousness and began, “Good morning, Mr. DeCosta. My name is Officer Slavinski. I’ve had you awoken to ask you some questions. How are you feeling?”

Instead of answering, the man’s eye wandered around the white and green room. His thick lips were caught in a tight grimace as fear and pain began striking his senses. His arm tensed up, and he looked about ready to start flailing until Warrun slid his hand into the man’s grasp. Mr. DeCosta’s eye looked down at the gesture and his fear receded a little. He flared his nostrils and struggled to ask, “Where am I?”

With the pained man’s hand in his own, Warrun answered calmly, “You’re in an emergency ward of the Lexon Hill Hospital. You were in a very serious motor accident and have suffered a severe concussion.”

The dark brown eye squeezed shut, and he stated laboriously, “It hurts, mon.”

“Yes.” Warrun reached behind him and pulled up a chair to sit on. “You are allergic to most of the postoperative medications they offer. I know it hurts, but it’s the best that they can do. I know this is difficult for you, but it is important that you try your best to cooperate with me. I need to hear exactly what happened from your perspective before the crash. Do you think you can help me?”

The pain seemed to vanish from Mr. DeCosta’s face in an instant to be replaced by a look of horror. Warrun cringed to think that this could be news to him. If he didn’t remember the crash, then the entire investigation would most likely be a dud. The hysterical questioning that came next was not what the first officer was expecting, “Ay mon! Spanish Town! How be da flames, mon? Oh my gawd, mon! Me Mudder! Where is me Mudder, mon?”

Trying his best to calm the agitated man as the heart monitor began beeping in a frenzy, Warrun answered, “Your mother is fine. She’s fine. She’s on her way in a plane right now to see you. She should be in this evening. She’s fine. She’s alright.”

The answer struck home as a massive splash of relief. The Jamaican man rested his head against the pillow and muttered, “Oh thank gawd. Thank gawd me Mudder be okay. Ah was so worry, mon.”

Mr. DeCosta’s worry reeked of all the motive he was looking for. After he had given the man a moment to rest, Warrun pressed, “Is that why you crashed yesterday? Did it have something to do with your mother, Mr. DeCosta?”

“Ah jus be Jobo, mon. Mr. DeCosta was me Fodder.” He took a pained breath and explained through his discomfort, “But ja, mon. Ah heard me city of Spanish Town was up in flames. Me yank buddy from him sunny coast be telling me of da plane crash.”

The first officer bit his lip as he tried with difficulty to follow the thick accent. “Hold up a minute, Jobo. Are you saying you thought your mother died on a plane? Is that why you crashed?”

Jobo made a brief effort to shake his head before the realization of the pain stopped him. With gritted teeth, he explained, “No, mon. Me Mudder were not on de plane. She were in da city. Me Spanish Town be up in flames, mon. Did ya not hear?”

Warrun frowned and answered, “I’m sorry. I haven’t heard of any plane crash. Where is this Spanish Town? Is it your home in Jamaica?”

“Ja, mon.” Moisture rimmed his eye as he continued to mutter, “My gawd, mon. Me city burning without me ta help? Is so sad, mon. Ah’m jus glad me Mudder got out safe. Did she send any news ta me?”

Warrun furrowed his brow as he answered, “She didn’t say anything about the city being on fire. I was told she was on her way here because you got in the crash. When did you hear about your city?”

“Right before da crash me guess. Ah don remember da crash too good, but Ah remember me yank friend wat tol me. He was a good blood brit mon from Portmore on da sunny coast.”

Pulling a pad and pen from his chest pocket, Warrun prompted, “Can you tell me where you met this man? What his name was? Is he a good friend of yours?”

Jobo managed a tight smile as he answered, “Blood brit yank he be, but Ah don know is name. Ah pick him up past da Bronx uptown. He was an eagah mon to get to da Lombadee’s. On da way we make da talks an he tol me bout da tragedy.”

“About the fire?” Warrun interjected.

“Ja.”

The investigator penned the details down and pressed, “What was this lombadee place you were taking him to?”

Just managing to pucker his face in indignation, he answered, “Da Lombadee’s Pizza, mon. Is populah place, mon.”

“Really? Lombardi’s?” Warrun smiled to think some convenience had come his way. “I see. So, you brought him to Lombardi’s and dropped him off. Then what happened?”

The man gave a despairing frown and answered, “Ah’m not so sure, mon. Me mind was nere good. Ah took off ta get home an call me Mudder. Ah tink Ah miss da light an dat’s when Ah got hit.”

The first officer nodded and scratched the details down on his pad. Jobo watched him intently for a moment before again letting his eye wander to his form. With some struggle, he lifted his head and looked down at his body. He stared at his feet for a moment before resting his head back with a sigh. A tear seeped out of the corner of his eye as the Jamaican asked the question Warrun had been dreading, “Ah’m paralyze, aren’t Ah?”

Warrun swallowed, noting how dry his mouth had gone. He stopped writing and stated without letting his voice break, “Yes.”

“Will Ah walk again?”

“No.”

The silence that followed was again only interrupted by the beeps and hums of the many machines. Warrun waited expectantly for the man to react to the news. He had already braced himself for offering a comforting hand in case he should break down. He would not have blamed him. What life did he have left? Battered? Broken? In a foreign nation without any useful education or a skill beyond driving a car? Even that little skill, what little worth he had, was gone. “What does a man like him have left to do but cry or die?” Jobo’s answer was not the tears Warrun had expected.
“Me Fadder who art in heaven, hallowed be die name.”

“Is he?”

“Die kingdom come, die will be done, on Earth as tis in heaven.”

“He prays?”

“Give me dis day me daily bread an forgive me my trespasses as Ah forgive dem dat trespassed against me.”

“How can he?”

“An lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil. Amen.”

As Jobo finished, Warrun sat in awe. He almost could not believe what he’d heard. Though he knew it to be a forward gesture, he could not prevent himself for asking, “Why would you pray to God when He let this happen to you?”

The man opened his eye and flashed a smile that spoke of a serenity Warrun had not felt in himself for many years. It was calm and joyful beyond reason, like a beautiful spring day in the middle of a cold, harsh winter. Whether the look was of knowledge of ignorance, Warrun could not say. What he could say beyond a doubt was that he envied that misplaced smile as Jobo declared very simply, “Yer eyes be closed mon if ye have ta ask me why. You ask why Ah can pray when he has taken away? I ask you, mon. How can Ah not pray jus tinking dat Ah evah had so much given?”

Flustered, the officer begged, “What do you mean?”

Jobo hummed a deep and throaty chuckle. He flashed a toothy smile, revealing for the first time to Warrun that several were missing, and stated, “Yer like a child, mon. Ya see dat yer fodder took yer toy away an den hate him for it. A child sees only wat he want ta see. When da child grows up an becomes da man, he does not hate his fodder fer taking a toy. He does not because he sees dat his fodder gave da toy in da first place. Wat’s more, mon, he sees his fodder gave him his whole life before an after da toy.

“All tings are done through da Fodder, mon. He took me legs, ja. He took dem cause Ah was a child misbehaving. Even if He had no reason though, mon, Ah would see dem off glad. He gave me me life, me Mudder, da whole universe. Any bitchin be child bitchin. As dey say, da Lord giveth an da Lord taketh away. Jus like a child understand some tings but can’t understand all tings, so we may only begin to understand why God does as He does. Da only ting Ah can bring meself ta do is tank him fer caring to give me legs in da first place an a mouth to eithah bitch or praise him wit.”

The first officer sat back in his chair neither having an argument nor wanting to argue. He’d only wished to know why a man would praise God after losing so much. Warrun did not hate God, but his praises had ceased many years ago. They’d ceased when he’d killed his first man, and the Lord would not answer his plea as to why there should be death in the world. It seemed to him to be a far easier thing to hate God than to love Him. If God gives all good things, then he also gives all bad things too. What good is praising God when He has given you a terrible life? Are we then to praise him for ending it? It’s easy to say that the good outweighs the bad, but Warrun had seen too much of the bad to believe it to be the truth.

Dismissing his thoughts, the protector of the law leaned back forward and said, “Thank you very much for your time, Jobo DeCosta. There is only one more thing I need from you today.”

The man’s serene smile disappeared as a wince of pain shot through him. “Dat’s good, mon. I tink I be needin da rest for me Mudder.” The smile returned, “It’ll be good to see her again.”

Flipping to a new page of his notepad, Warrun asked, “I know you don’t have a name for the man who gave you the news, but could you describe him to me? I’m actually headed to Lombardi’s after this and would like to see if any of the staff recognize him. We may need to question him at some point.”

“Very good, mon. I can do. A good, handsome yank he be, dressed all fancy. He was a touch on da pale side. His skin was a little whiter dan yers is. Den he had brown hair pushed back all neat. His nose went straight an his lips was thin an pink. It was his eyes dat surprised me da most though. He had dese dark grey eyes like da living devil.”

The officer’s pen stopped moving. Warrun looked up from his notepad and stood from his seat. With sudden anxiety, he demanded, “Do you remember what was he wearing, Jobo? Did you see what he was wearing?”

Wide eyed, the man responded, “It’s okay, mon. It’s okay. Ah gave him a good look when he said he was from me homeland. He had a suit. I don know if it be black or dark brown.”

Almost shouting, Warrun pressed, “Did it have stripes?”

“What?”

“Did it have stripes?!”

Jobo closed his eye and tried his hardest to recall the scene. The first officer hung on the moment of tense anticipation, hearing the beeps and hums in the background, until the man before him opened his eye and said with no uncertainty, “Yes. Vertical pinstripes on his coat and pants. Why? Do ya know of dis man?”

Warrun’s legs lost their strength, and he collapsed back into the chair behind him. Jobo continued to look at him expectantly, but the officer gave him no answer. He instead reached into his belt and pulled out his flip phone. After holding down the number 2, he brought it up to his ear and awaited her familiar voice.

“What can I do for you, Officer Slavinski?”

With a sigh, he asked, “Could you do a quick search on all air traffic incidents over North America this past week, Sherry?”

“Can you be more specific, sir?”

“Plane crashes. Have there been any plane crashed reported in the last week, specifically in Jamaica.”

“Please hold on a minute while I check.”

From the bed, Jobo asked in confusion, “What do ya mean have dere been any crashes? I told ya dere was one.”

Again Warrun did not answer the man. He instead switched his phone to loud speaker and waited. A clear, feminine voice finally rang out, “There were no plane crashes in Jamaica. I’m not showing any crashes in this hemisphere from over the last month.”

“Are you certain, Sherry?”

“Yes, sir. Is there anything else you would like me to do?”

“That’ll be all.” Without giving a polite goodbye, Warrun shut the phone and stared at the man whose wife was ruined in the blink of an eye.

The obvious question came as the man asked, “What happen?”

“I wonder how many times I’ve heard that question asked.” He slid his face into his hand. “And the only solution I’ve been able to provide is worthless.” There being no point for keeping the man in the dark, Warrun answered, “You have been duped.”

Frowning, Jobo pleaded, “What do ya mean?”

Without lifting his face, the officer answered, “We know that man, the one you picked up in your car. We do not know his name, but he has a history that goes back over twenty years. I am sorry to tell you that he lied to you.”

“What did he lie to me about?”

“Everything!” Warrun shouted, throwing his arms into the air. “Everything! He lied to you about every single thing he said to you. There was no plane crash. There was no fire. He’s not even from Jamaica! He was born here in Manhattan as far as we can figure.”

Bewildered, Jobo begged, “Why would he do dat?”

“Because he can!” the peacekeeper cried, bursting from his seat. “That’s his only reason. That’s the only reason that makes sense. He is a man who has made it his life’s work to ruin as many lives as he can without ever getting caught or leaving a trail. I’ve chased him for years, trying to understand his motivations, and the only conclusion I can come up with is that he takes some sick pleasure in seeing other people suffer.”

Jobo’s gaze drifted away from Warrun to the tiled ceiling. The first officer could only imagine the fury that must be building inside the man. For what else could it be but pure, irreparable fury? For the third time in their brief intercourse, the Jamaican man surprised him by saying, “Well, dat’s a relief.”

Mortified was the only word to describe Warrun at that moment. He demanded, “What do you mean a relief? What he did caused you to lose your legs!”

“Given ta be lost me friend,” the man countered with a pained frown. “I meant about da plane crash. I’m happy he lied ta me. Better dat Ah be hurt than dey be dead.”

Not at all amused with Jobo’s lighthearted assessment of the situation, Warrun explained with less tact and more anger than he’d meant to, “But people did die! He lied to you, and you crashed and killed ten people!”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Warrun would have done anything to take them back. Past being the in the past however, he could not take back. He could only modify what was said, and he had no words that could be anything but hollow in light of the terrible revelation. In his effort to boil the man’s blood to provoking anger mutually enjoyed, he succeeded only in cruelty. Having nothing to say, Warrun sat back down in his chair and waited.

Distantly, as though from a sleeping dream, Jobo whispered, “A lot a people hate me. Don dey?”

In a similar undertone, the officer answered, “I would guess so.”

“But dey are not right ta hate me,” he stated a bit more clearly. “It were an accident. I did not mean ta hurt anybody.”

A little coldly, Warrun pointed out, “That won’t matter to the families of the people you killed unless you can prove your story by helping me find the man who caused this.” He bent forward and explained seriously, “I can back your story one hundred percent. If you testify that this man caused your distress and made you crash, we can place the blame on him, and you could get off without a prison sentence.”

A glimmer of hope lit the man’s half hidden face as he asked, “Ya know how ta catch da mon?”

Warrun frowned and explained, “No, actually. At least I can’t promise I’ll bring him in right away. I’ve been chasing him for the past twenty years. If we can’t find him, then the case will grow cold. If we do find him however, then all the people will know to hate him instead of you. You would be vindicated.”

The immobile man closed his eye and puzzled over the words. An easy opportunity was to be had, a card for freedom. Warrun took some satisfaction in the fact that he could prevent the many years of prison that could be in this man’s future. It confused him that Jobo was even thinking about the offer.

Finally, Jobo opened his eye to look blankly at the ceiling. In a voice that bore no reservations or worries, the ruined man answered, “I won testify.”

“What?”

Again with simplicity, “I won testify against da man wat lied ta me.”

“Why not?” Warrun demanded in anger.

“Because,” Jobo retorted indignantly, “he did not kill those people.”

Warren cried, “But he caused you distress! He made you do it. If he hadn’t lied to you the way he did, none of this would have happened.”

Raising his voice above the muted speech his pain was allowing for the first time, the man of Jamaica shouted, “Well, don dat seem like a convenient truth mon? Ah got anudder fer ya ta chew on. Those people would be livin now weren’t it fer my bein born in da first place.”

“What do you mean?”

Jobo scoffed and explained, “Dere ya go again, tinkin like a child. Tinkin dat, jus cause somebody acts, ya gotta react. Ya can say all ya want dat dat udder mon kill dem peoples, but you’d be wrong. Just cause anudder mon influence me actions don mean it’s his fault and not mine. If ya look at it dat way den everybody in da past is responsible fer every problem in da present an everybody in da present is free of sin because everything bad is because of somebody else. Dat line a tinkin would vindicate everybody fer everything they do bad, includin dis man dat lie to me.

“What dat man did was bad, ja. He lied ta me, but he did not drive da car. Ah did. Maybe Ah could lie an save meself. But den Ah would be doomin meself an him. Ah could blame him fer lyin an get away wit it, but God would know da truth. God would know Ah refused ta take responsibility fer what Ah done. What a sinnah Ah would be. Ta lie about someting is one ting. Ta doom a man fer da crime of ten dead? Dat would beg da wrath of God. Ah did da deed. Dat’s what really matters.”

Jobo’s words stunned Warrun back into silence. He looked at his watch and noted that lunch time was upon him. He could not bring himself to leave however, not without asking one more question, “Don’t you feel the deeds before you matter at all? Isn’t the man who lied to you the least bit guilty of this crime too?”

The ruined man smiled and answered him, “Maybe mon. Tankfully, Ah don have ta be da one ta decide dat. Only God sees all time an understand all tings. Only He can be da perfect judge. All we can do, mon, is as He said. We can only forgive da peoples dat tresspassed against us. Maybe den, He will forgive our own tresspasses.” He flinched in pain, but his smile did not diminish. He stated, “If ya don have more questions mon, Ah’d like ta sleep. Ah don want me Mudder to see me weak. She’ll cry enough as is.”

“Okay.” Warrun stood and walked towards the door. He paused while opening it and said, “Thank you for your time Mr. DeCo, uh, Jobo. I guess I’ll send somebody along if I have anymore questions.”

Still with his smile, mocking his situation, the man replied cheerfully, “Any time, mon. Any time.”

Warrun exited then, shutting the door softly in his wake.

*****

And opened another.

“Warrun!”

The first officer turned to his left and locked onto the speaker. With wanting enthusiasm, he answered, “Lieutenant.” Warrun stepped through the door and ambled over to the two seated table shining in the light of the large window beside it. Two cold bottles rested on napkins, condensation dripping heavily on their sides. The red and white checker patterned cloth glared with the gaudiness of the cliche pizzeria.

The lieutenant’s face was lit with a coy smile that diminished as his superior closed the gap between them. No words needed to be exchanged for a sense of gloom to penetrate the otherwise uplifting atmosphere of the restaurant in its lunch rush. As Warrun took the seat opposite of him, his friend begged with worry, “What happened?”

Warrun rested his chin in the palm of his hand and gazed listlessly at the hundreds of people walking endlessly just beyond the glass. His answer didn’t come immediately. It did not even come in the form of an answer. It came as a question of contemplative fear, in the mood of a man pondering a universe that is beyond the scope of even his wildest imaginations. “Why do we do it, Phillip?”

The lieutenant widened his eyes in surprise both at the question and the unusual informality that he had long learned not to expect from the man even as he called him a friend. Sensing his pain, Lt. Thompson decided to forgo a comic retort and asked, “Do what, sir?”

Looking beyond the people to the yellow taxi cabs driving by, he answered, “Why do we keep fighting for the law?”

Philip chewed his bottom lip in thought, not at all ready to be grilled on life motivations. He absently ripped a corner off the napkin under his drink and began tearing it into pieces. As his fingers worked, he explained with a little uncertainty, “A lot of reasons, sir.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” the lieutenant began, “I suppose we do it to protect people like our family and friends.”

Still lost in the traffic, Warrun countered, “You could buy a gun, and do that for yourself.” He lifted his gaze and stated pointedly, “In fact, working this job actually hinders those efforts. It makes it harder to protect our friends and family. They are in danger for our sake.”

The officer’s friend turned his eyes back to his napkin mutilation and suggested, “Then I guess the more appropriate answer would be to protect everybody including those who are not our friends and family.”

Warrun drew a finger around the lip of his beverage and pointed out, “We don’t protect the people we kill; do we Phillip? We aren’t protecting everybody.”

His friend crossed his arms and sat in acquiescence. Lt. Thompson’s shoulders rested on his chair’s back as his own gaze wandered beyond the window to contemplate the people he claimed they protected. They were ostensibly the same people they were forced to kill as his counterpart so grimly noted. Not much caring for the cryptic conversation, Phillip asked, “What’s wrong, Warrun?”

A ceaseless chatter enveloped the room, the business of a busy venue. While the lieutenant found no difficulty pushing the sound out, Warrun struggled to ignore the din. It enveloped him in discord he did not enjoy. Working against the noise, Warrun answered, “I met with Mr. DeCosta.”

“Oh,” his friend muttered in understanding. “How did that go? Was he up for talking?”

“We talked,” the first officer explained with a nod.

“Did you learn why he crashed?”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Warrun folded his hands together and pushed, “Why do we do what we do?”

Phillip’s curiosity was curbed by a frown as he asked, “Are you looking for a specific answer, sir? I can read you the one on our badges if you like, but I’m guessing that’s not what you’re really asking for.”

The comment caused his superior to lift a finger and scratch at the triangular pin on his chest, the most convenient symbol of his authority. He said, “Perhaps I should reform my question. Why do you specifically do this, Phillip? Why do you work long hours, committing yourself tirelessly to follow evidence and fill out paperwork just for the chance of putting yourself in real danger?”

The lieutenant sat silent again for a moment before scrunching his face in bewilderment and asking, “How many years have we known each other? And you’ve never asked me that question, have you?” When his question was met with nothing more than a passive stare, he stated, “It’s not for any particularly noble reasons.”

With an unusual seriousness, Warrun pressed, “Regale me.”

Phillip frowned and answered, “I enjoy making people pay for the shit they do. I enjoy watching them suffer in court, in prison, in death.” A smile peaked the corners of his mouth as he explained, “It makes me feel good to see their worlds come crashing down around them. In all honesty, I would enjoy being a loose cannon if I could, dealing out justice like a cowboy or some other nonsense. Makes me sometimes feel like it’s a shame that we can’t. If we could just be let loose for one day, doing whatever we wanted, I bet we could clean these streets up real pretty, make them smell a bit less like Detroit.”

“Wouldn’t that be the day?” Warrun muttered indecipherably.

“If you don’t mind my saying, sir,” Phillip pressed, taking a draw from his beer, “I never took you for a man who had to ask a man’s motivations to figure them out. Hell, I’d reckon you never asked me because you’d figured it out long ago for yourself.”

Warrun raised his own bottle to his lips, drinking deeply. Not being able to take any special joy from the beverage in his apparent distress, he stated dryly, “I guess I did know. You’re not the first man I’ve met who’s enjoyed this work a bit more than usual.”

“Do you have a problem with that, sir?” the lieutenant queried with a raised eyebrow.

Taking in the familiar, bitter aftertaste, the officer answered bluntly, “If I had a problem with your motivations, I’d keep them to myself. As long as you do your work and do it well, what does it matter?”

Surprised, Phillip returned, “I should think you of all people would care. You always question what drives people to do what they do. Hell, you do it more than any man I’ve ever met. Doesn’t everybody need a reason in your eyes?”

Warrun strummed the fingers of his right hand on the checkered table to the rhythmic time in his mind. His left rested casually over the buckled holster on his belt. He explained simply, “As much as I ask, I don’t usually care about them. When someone commits a crime, I don’t really give two shits as to why they did it. Reasons are subjective and flawed. Testimony is always bent to make a criminal seem like a victim. The why is intangible, really. The only thing I really care about is the what of the matter.”

“The what?” his friend begged.

“The crime,” Warrun explained. With the subtlest hints of satisfaction and pride touching the corners of his mouth, he said, “A lot of people like to bitch about America, but I think it’s great that we have a society of firm laws. Granted, the wealthy can get around them pretty well, but the everyday scum dog is completely at their will. Every man has to learn the laws and obey them. Ignorance is no excuse, as indeed it shouldn’t be. When we take a man in and prosecute him, we don’t judge him for what he thought. We judge him for what he did. It’s deeds that make a man guilty or innocent, not the thoughts that lead up to them.”

Phillip bit his lip before launching into a sharp retort at his superior’s skewed understanding of justice. Unable to keep silent however, he stated carefully, “To be frank, sir, it seems a little cold to say thoughts don’t have any bearing on judging what people have done. Clearly that is not the case. We treat manslaughter and murder very differently. You know that.”

“I do.”

“Are you saying,” the lieutenant pressed, “that you would give the same punishment for murder and manslaughter?”

The first officer gave a sardonic guffaw and countered, “Are you saying we shouldn’t? Does murder end a life more than manslaughter? Is it somehow less tragic for the people who have to experience the loss? Does anything that happened in the past have any relevant bearing on the situation at hand?”

“Of course it does!” Phillip burst out with a touch of ire. The expression of anger he wore gradually dissolved as a moment passed in silence. With a sort of meekness that gave portents to worry, he asked at length, “Doesn’t it?”

Warrun’s cynicism melted into a look of sad defeat as he responded, “I always thought it did.”

Leaning forward in his chair, worry evident in his frown, Phillip begged, “What’s wrong with you, Warrun? I haven’t seen you like this since the night Maria died.” The lieutenant stooped his head low to the table and locked onto his friend’s downcast eyes, saying sternly, “If something’s bothering you, you should act like a man and talk about it. Don’t act like a child and keep what’s making you angry quiet. That only aggravates the feelings.”

A fleeting smile stiffened the first officer’s lips as he stated, “Only twice in ten years have I been called a child, and both had to come on the same day.” The smile became a half hearted laugh that again subsided into grim sadness before Warrun explained, “As I said, I met with Mr. DeCosta.”

Lt. Thompson sat back in his seat and folded his arms repeating, “How did it go?”

Again Warrun’s eyes drifted to the red and white checker patterns as he said, “He didn’t make out of the accident very clean.”

“He’s alive,” the lieutenant stated with enthusiasm. “That’s a Goddamned miracle if you ask me.” He added as an unhappy afterthought, “Unless he’s a permanent vegetable.”

Shaking his head softly at the unasked question, the man of the law explained, “No. He’s alive and aware. He may as well be a vegetable though. That would have been much better in fact. He’ll never walk again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had to be fed through a tube for the rest of his life.”

“That’s a rough story,” Phillip interjected, “but nothing you haven’t seen before. What did he say that’s got you so riled up? Or did he say anything at all?”

“We talked,” Warrun answered simply. “I asked him a few questions and figured out what caused him to crash.”

“Oh yeah?” The lieutenant smiled broadly and cheered, “That’s brilliant! Isn’t it? Or do you think he was lying or something?”

“Or something,” the first officer mimicked under his breath. He took another long draw of his beer, draining it to less half its original volume. A dignified burp seeped through his puckered lips before he answered, “Mr. DeCosta said a man told him his hometown in Jamaica was up in flames yesterday as he was driving. The news threw him so out of sorts that he raced into the intersection down there without looking at the lights.”

“Wow.” Phillip peered out the window to catch a glimpse of the intersection they’d cleared only the day before. No trace of the crash was left. The build up had been contained to the center of the busy road. There wasn’t a ding on a fire hydrant or a mark on a parking meter. Nothing stood in commemoration of the tragedy except reports, pictures, and the fleeting memory of the people who’d seen the mess. It was nothing but a hiccup in the endless breathing of a city that doesn’t sleep.

Taking a sip far more restrained than Warrun’s, the lieutenant stated, “That guy really didn’t have a good day. I suppose he must have had family down there. Do you know if any got hurt.”

Warrun grunted and inhaled the last of his drink. With a turn of his head, he stated curtly, “Hey Babs, I need another.”

The freckle faced waitress, with her red hair tied back into a ponytail, turned at the question and answered with an eager smile that seemed dismissive of her customer’s moody demeanor, “Sure thing, Mr. Slavinski.”

“A second?” Phillip asked with hesitance. “Aren’t you still on duty, Mr. Slavinski?”

Warrun sneered at the comment and retorted, “Keep it to yourself, rookie. I’m not in the mood.”

“Clearly,” he returned with a frown. “I’m hardly your keeper. I would like to know more though. What happened with Mr. DeCosta?”

The first officer’s sneer did not fade at the reasonable petition. With misdirected contempt, he answered mockingly, “His name is Jobo. Mr. DeCosta was his father.”

Retaining his patience, the lieutenant prodded, “Did his father die in the fire?”

“No!” Warrun spat venomously. “Nobody died in the fire because there was no fire. The man who rode in that cab with Jobo lied to him.”

“What?” Phillip sputtered in confusion. “Why? Why would a guy lie about that? Who would do such a thing?”

The lieutenant’s question was interrupted as the waitress stopped between them. Still smiling, she popped the cap off the bottle in her hand and placed it before Warrun saying, “Here you go, officer. I’m sorry your pizza’s taking so long. Rush time and all that. I should have it out to you shortly though.”

Before the perky young woman could disappear among the other patrons, Warrun stopped her saying, “Could you hold on a moment, Babs?”

“Was there something else you needed, Mr. Slavinski?”

Warrun reached a hand into a small container on his belt and pulled out a small photograph. He handed the sheet over to the girl asking, “Have you seen this man recently?”

It took no more than a few seconds of brow pinching before she flashed her teeth and cried, “Oh, yes! I have seen him. He comes in every once in awhile and orders a slice of pepperoni.” She rubbed a greasy thumb over the photo and mused aloud, “Isn’t he dreamy? It’s a shame he has a husband. I’d snatch him up in a heartbeat if I could.”

Unmoved by the endearment, the first officer pressed, “Did he come in here around 11:00 AM yesterday?”

Surprised, she answered, “Why, yes. He did. I think he came in right before that awful crash down the road.” With a timid smile, she asked, “Can I keep this?”

In confusion, Lt. Thompson sat forward and asked, “What’s going on, Warrun? Who’s in the picture?”

Babs turned a questioning look to Warrun who nodded his head to the lieutenant. A little morose to be parted with the photo, she handed it over grudgingly and said, “I can’t dawdle anymore, officers. I really need to get back to work.”

Phillip gave no mind to the young woman as she slipped away. His lips quivered a bit, and his face turned pale. An unspoken moment passed as Warrun tipped his second beer to his lips, his friend’s mouth going dry from the all too familiar image in his hands. The lieutenant laid the photo gently on the checkered table and placed his shaking palms face down to steady them. Closing his eyes and swallowing audibly, he asked in a tone of despairing resignation, “Why am I ever surprised anymore?”

The first officer set his half emptied bottle down and slid his cool, wet hand against his forehead. He took no pleasure in the awe of his colleague, nor did he answer the figurative question. Instead he sang a mournful refrain, “Why do we do it, Philip?”

Lt. Thompson flinched at the question and asked tersely, “What is your problem, Warrun?” He snagged the photo off the table and demanded, “Is it because of him? Is he the reason you’re acting so strange?”

Warrun took to peeling the label off the back of his beer as he answered sullenly, “I think I’m losing it, Philip. After twenty years, I think I’m finally going crazy.”

The lieutenant’s pallor shifted from bad to worse as he buried his face in his hands and moaned, “Please, for the love of God, please tell me you’re not doing this.”

Surprised, the first officer asked, “Doing what?”

“You can’t be letting this guy get to you. Not now. Not when we’re so close.”

Warrun’s gaze shifted morosely out the window as he asked, “What makes you think we’re any closer this time?” Having removed the label completely, he crumpled the wet paper in his hand and stated, “We’re always close. No matter how close we get though, no matter how certain we are that we’ve got him, he slips away, and we’re left with nothing but his horrible aftermath.”

“But,” the lieutenant cried, “but this time will be different. He’s left too much evidence. We have his jacket.”

The first officer’s ears perked at the words, and he asked, “I forgot about the jacket. Did the preliminaries for the DNA test turn up anything good? Could we at least confirm it was his?”

Lt. Thompson’s face suddenly scrunched up in frustration. He opened his to begin speaking and closed it again, unsure of what to say. Finally he managed, “It’s the strangest thing. We got results back from the splat lab right away. They didn’t have to go any further.”

Confused, Warrun pressed, “Why’s that?”

“The samples we took from the jacket were not human, not even close. The cells contained 64 chromosomes a piece instead of 46.”

The first officer crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair asking, “What was it then?”

Shrugging his shoulders, the lieutenant explained, “They’re not certain. There are a number of species with that many chromosomes. There is one genus in particular that humans interact a lot with that seems to be the lab’s best guess, that is, until we authorize more testing.”

Warrun rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t keep me in suspense. What was it?”

Smiling at the shift from sadness to the more characteristic annoyance in his superior’s visage, he explained, “Horses, sir. Or perhaps some breed of pony. That seems the most likely case.”

Scratching at his chin, Warrun mused in silence. He took a long sip of his second beverage before saying in absent thought, “Now how would horse urine and vomit end up on the Devil’s jacket between his trip to Lombardi’s and your forced entry later that same night?” The words he said confounded him, and he asked with interest, “Are you sure the vomit was from a horse?”

His subordinate bit his lip and explained, “That’s where it gets even more confusing. We are certain that the vomit was from the horse. It’s slewing with its DNA after all. The contents however, are confusing to say the least.”

Frowning, Warrun pressed, “Did it eat something peculiar?”

“Not really,” Lt. Thompson answered. “At least, we don’t think so. We were able to identify broken down cellulose as well as gluten. Neither of those things are peculiar as grain and hay are regular parts of their diets. What does stand out however is the actual gastrointestinal juices they were contained in.”

Curious, the first officer begged, “What was wrong with them?”

“The juices had the acidity of a carnivore, not an herbivore,” he began. “Well, maybe omnivore is more accurate.”

“Is this a strange occurrence?”

“I could not have said much about it, but they explained the oddity to me at the lab when I went to pick up the results. Horses do not have the digestive capacity to eat meat in any form. They don’t lack the protein making genes we lack, so their stomach and cecum only maintain the acidity necessary to digest plant life. We have more potent stomach acid because we have adapted meat into our diets.”

“And horses haven’t?” Warrun mused in awe.

“No,” the lieutenant explained. “That’s what makes this so odd. Either that stomach sample comes from some creature we have never heard of before, or whatever horse it came from has developed a taste for eating flesh.”

Warrun almost chuckled at the thought. “That’s absurd. Imagine if the newspapers got a hold of this?” Sweeping his hand before him grandly, he exclaimed, “Rabid, man eating horse is loose in Manhattan! Citizens should beware of vomit and urine attacks!”

The pair shared a rowdy laugh that drew looks from the people around them. Their fun was only disturbed by the sweet, redheaded waitress dropping off their pizza. The pair thanked Babs and turned their eyes to the feast before them. Lt. Thompson immediately dug his hand into the greasy mess and ate, moaning in the simple delight.

His superior did not reach in with him. Warrun instead hesitated, his smile sliding into a frown. When his colleague shot him a pair of expectant eyes, he explained, “So what you’re saying is, we’ve got a crap pile of evidence that adds up to nothing. We’ve literally got nothing. We can’t even confirm it’s his jacket. All we can say is that we’ve found something that doesn’t make any sense.”

The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and asked, “Since when has that stopped you before?”

“It hasn’t before,” Warrun whispered, hanging his head sadly. “But it will now.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is,” he started, “Chief pulled the plug this morning. The investigation is a no go. We couldn’t chase him down even if we did have something.”

“Oh,” the lieutenant muttered in disappointment. “Well, we’ll just have to get him next time. We can’t win them all, I guess.”

Silently, Warrun muttered under his breath, “There won’t be a next time.”

Stopping mid chew, his colleague asked, “What was that.”

“I said; there won’t be a next time.” Warrun took another gulp of his bear and set it down saying, “I’m done chasing him, Phillip. I’m throwing in the towel to the next poor sod who thinks he doesn’t have enough problems in his life.”

Aghast, Phillip cried, “You can’t just give up on the Devil! We have to keep chasing him. We have to catch him.”

“No, we don’t.”

“No, we don’t?!” The lieutenant slid their pizza to the side and leaned in close to beg, “What is the matter with you? Why here, why now of all times and places do you choose to give up? We can’t just let this guy go. He’ll go on lying, cheating, stealing, killing. What happened to protecting Manhattan from scum like him?”

In resignation, Warrun answered, “I just can’t do it anymore.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I have no certainty anymore.” Lt. Thompson sat back in his chair and waited for more. His superior sighed and said, “Nobody believes in me, Phillip. Nobody thinks the Devil is real. Everyone thinks I’m just an outdated kook out of his prime fighting for some pipe dream that’s not even real.”

Phillip countered sternly, “You and I both know that neither of those things are true. Since when did what other people think of you help or hinder your convictions? You’re a better man than that!”

“Not anymore.”

“Then what’s changed?” the lieutenant demanded, standing from his chair. The sudden, loud motion grabbed the eyes and attention of much of the restaurant as he went on, “Why would you stop doing what you’ve told me many times you’ve vowed your life to doing? Are you really just going to let that lunatic run free just because you’re suddenly having difficulty stomaching the insufferable ignorance of the people you work with? So what, they don’t believe you. That’s not what matters to you.”

Showing no rise in emotion or tone, Warrun countered, “Just what do you think matters to me?”

Noticing the unwanted attention he was receiving, Phillip dignified himself and sat back down. Having lost much of his appetite for the meal before them, he gazed absently out the window for a moment before looking his friend in the eyes and saying, “The big picture.”

“What?” Warrun asked in confusion.

Nodding, Lt. Thompson explained, “The big picture is what matters to you, Warrun.” He again turned his gaze out the window and continued slowly, thoughtfully, “You’re the best of men. You are who good, decent people look up to. Not in the way children look up to super heroes. You’re the kind of person people are thankful exists because, for as great as you are, nobody wants to be you.”

Warrun scoffed, “Why? Because I trudge through shit?”

“Everybody trudges through shit, Warrun. You’re not special because of that.” Taking a sip of his beer, Phillip finished, “What sets men like you apart is you know how to do it and come out clean. It’s easy to see what’s bad in the world. Everybody’s a critic after all. Some men decide to do something about it. Gradually though, they lose their values because of time, disillusionment, or money. You, on the other hand, see the big picture.”

Though he suspected the answer, Warrun asked anyways, “And just what is the big picture?”

“Morality, Warrun.” Lt. Thompson smiled a soft, sincere, and somewhat boyish smile. Gently, he reached a hand across the small, checker patterned table and took hold of the hand of his friend. When Warrun made no move to end the endearing touch, Phillip continued in a tender voice, “You’re not motivated by money. You’re not a narcissist. You don’t make anything about you because you know it’s not about you. It’s about everyone. It’s about all of society. You know deep down that the world only functions when somebody stands up and makes it a better place.

“You’re selfless, Warrun.” The younger of the pair took a steadying breath and concluded, “That’s what makes you special. That’s why I’ve always. . . admired you. That’s why I’ve never hesitated to trust you or follow you where we both know it’s dangerous.”

Warrun looked intently at the masculine hand wrapped in his, not once lifting his eyes as his friend spoke. The intimate touch did not confound him as he thought it might. It also did not scare him. It was comforting in a way he had not expected. And the kind words touched his heart, causing him to soften his otherwise stern visage. He might have smiled had he the stability of mind to do so with any confidence. Instead he accepted the comforting touch stoically, saying nothing.

The moment passed in relative silence. There was no real silence in that metropolis after all. There was always a chaotic din. No moment could really be quiet. As moments come between moments though, they can be softer than the ones before and the ones after. So it was when the moment ended with the veteran police officer saying into the table, “I appreciate your words, Phillip. I really do.” Warrun let go of the firm hand and crossed his arms before continuing, “But I am not that man you say I am. Maybe I was once. I will admit, it’s the man I tried to be. I’m afraid I don’t have the courage anymore. Or maybe I’ve just learned that we can’t live up to ideals. There’s too much reality to deal with. There’s just too much at risk sometimes.”

“What’s at risk for you? Your life?”

Shaking his head, the first officer answered, “No. My daughter’s.” Lifting his eyes from the table, he stated, “Most men think it’s noblest to protect your family first. Then there are men who find it even nobler to view the whole world as your family and protect it all judiciously. We are supposed to love our fellow men, are we not? While I was never a great lover, I loved the thought that we could all care for each other whether we were related or not. Believe it or not, that was my greatest motivation for becoming the man I am today.”

His smile widening, Phillip interjected, “I believe it.”

Warrun gave a small smile himself. It quickly disappeared as he looked out the window, his gaze trailing to the intersection down the road. Almost absently, he said, “I don’t know a soul who would call it selfish, but I believe it to be. I love my daughter too much for me to bear the thought that she should ever live without me. It’s bad enough that she lost her mother to a violent and angry man. She doesn’t need to lose me because I’m off chasing the Devil. I wish I could say it was a selfless act of love that has forced me to the decision I’ve made, but I would be lying. Rather, it’s a selfish love. It is how one might say, possessive. It’s because I love her that I am going to give up my nobler goals.”

With a worried look, his counterpart asked, “What do you mean give up your nobler goals?”

A smile alighted Warrun’s distant gaze as he explained, “I’ve decided to retire from the force.”

“What?!” Phillip cried. “You can’t do that. We need you, Warrun. Our precinct is the pride of Manhattan because of you. You’re a legend, You’re the reason many students decide to join the academy.”

“I know who I was, Phillip,” the first officer said calmly. “It’s just not the kind of person I can afford to be anymore. I’ve made my decision and, frankly, it’s been a long time coming.”

The lieutenant absorbed the information with some sadness and resignation as he understood very well that he had no right to judge or pry into the mind of his colleague and secret hero. He asked in defeat, “When do you plan to resign?”

“When I get back to the station,” he said, picking up his beer to finish in one last draw.

“Chief isn’t going to like this.”

“He’s not paid to like things. The precinct will manage just fine without me.” Giving a kind smile, he concluded, “You’ll manage just fine too, lieutenant. You’re a good man yourself.”

While a casual observer might have thought the words a bit hollow, they meant the world to Phillip Thompson. He returned his friend’s smile and went back to eating the pizza. Between bites, he asked, “What finally made you decide? Was it something Mr. DeCosta said?”

Having taken up his own slice, Warrun paused and answered, “While he wasn’t the main reason I’ve decided to quit, he did say something that finally convinced me.”

“What did he say?”

Continuing his meal, the soon to be ex-first officer explained, “I told him who it was that lied to him and caused him to crash. I offered him an out. With me backing his pleas, he could have gotten off with very little punishment.”

Intrigued, Phillip asked, “Didn’t he take you up on the offer?”

Warrun shook his head and explained, “He refused because he believes he is the only responsible party. The Devil wasn’t the one driving; he was. In his mind, the Devil isn’t the least bit responsible for their deaths.”

“Of course he is. Isn’t he? You said he lied to Mr. DeCosta about the fire, right?”

Nodding, Warrun answered, “That doesn’t matter to him though. All he sees is that he was reckless and other people suffered and died because of it. Since the Devil didn’t physically do anything to make him behave the way he behaved, he feels he is the only one truly responsible.”

The pair mulled over the words for several moments as they ate. Unsure of what he thought, the younger of the pair asked, “Do you think he’s right?”

“I don’t know,” Warrun answered bluntly. “And there’s the rub. It was a stupid technicality to me at first, but now, it’s tearing me apart. Yes, the Devil caused Jobo the unrest that eventually caused him to crash his car. But any number of things could have done that. Anything could have made him lose his sanity. Whatever the case was or might have been however, the result was still the same. What happened before doesn’t matter because it still lead to the deaths of ten people. Knowing the past doesn’t change what happened.”

“But it can affect the present!” Phillip cried in conviction. “Because we know it was the Devil who caused him to crash, we can go out and capture this monster. That’s our job, isn’t it?”

“Are you saying then that Jobo isn’t the least bit responsible?”

“Well, I,” the lieutenant faltered in his speech wishing he could give a frank yes or no answer. He could not however give one without feeling uncertainty creep into his tone as indeed he was not certain. The best he could manage was to say with resignation, “I don’t bloody know, Warrun. I’d like to say no, but that wouldn’t entirely be true. Mr. DeCosta did have control over his actions. No one forced him to crash. And, just as you say, the people are no less dead because it was an accident.” He brought his fingers up to scratch his rough chin in thought saying, “I guess they’re both at fault. Maybe they should both be punished.”

“But you don’t sound certain,” Warrun interjected. “Do you not think you’re a good enough judge to decide?”

“If I thought I was a perfect judge of character, I’d be wearing black robes instead of a uniform.”

“Black robes?” The first officer smirked and asked, “You’d want to be a judge?”

In all seriousness, Phillip explained, “I wouldn’t be a judge. I’d be a priest.”

Warrun’s smirk diminished. “I guess. They’re the same thing aren’t they?”

“Hey! That’s just what you need.”

“What?”

“You should go speak to a priest.” Phillip pressed. When his suggestion was met with a shake of the head he pushed, “No, seriously! All these questions you’re asking, all these doubts, a priest might be able to give you some serious answers. At least, he should be able to give you better advice than I can.”

Warrun continued to shake his head, saying, “Nah, man. I can’t do that. It’s been too long.”

“Too long?” Phillip stopped for a moment and thought back over the years. While he knew his friend was not especially religious, it had never occurred to him that he didn’t even know his Warrun’s religious beliefs. “Do you have a religion?”

Biting his lip, Warrun answered, “Yes. I was baptized Catholic when I was a babe. I never quite cared for that. You know how Catholics are. They indoctrinate you before you can even begin to understand what it means to be part of a religion. Then they brainwash you to believe dozens of ridiculous dogmas that seem so horribly arbitrary as to be borderline absurd.”

“You don’t believe Catholic dogmas?”

“Well,” Warrun explained, “there was a time when I believed all of them without question. That’s not something they teach you to do when you’re young; question. Then when you get to be a young man, they say that you should question your faith so that you may learn better to trust in God.”

His curiosity growing, the lieutenant pressed, “Judging by your tone, I’m guessing that didn’t really happen for you.”

Shaking his head, the first officer explained, “I got to the questioning part. Didn’t get to the answers. All I found was more questions, endless questions, indecisive questions that don’t have answers, questions that can’t have answers.”

“Are you sure you just didn’t look hard enough for the answers.”

Snorting, Warrun countered, “Who has the time? There’s too much of real life to deal with to be answering nonsense.”

“I think priests are given the time.” Their conversation fell quiet. Their silence revealed that the venue around them had toned down a bit, the lunch rush quickly coming to a close. Taking a deep breath, Phillip stated, “You should seriously consider giving a priest a talk. I don’t know how long it’s been since the last time you’ve given the church a chance, but you’re going through a lot of problems right now. I really don’t see how it could hurt, and it just might make all the difference.”

Warrun sat looking blankly at the checker patterned table. It had indeed been a long time, about as long as he had been chasing the Devil. He did not want to go back to the church. He had never given to it, and it had never given to him. There was no relationship that existed between his heart and that order he’d given up on so long ago. “That is,” Warrun thought to himself, “no relationship except one.”

Taking a deep breath of his own that concluded in a great sigh, he said, “Okay. I’ll consider it. I guess, as you say, it can’t hurt.”

“Today?”

“What?” the first officer looked up in surprise.

Almost as a plea, his friend asked, “Please go today. Don’t give up on the force until you talk to someone. Yes, we’d manage without you, but you help to make this place great. We don’t just manage; we thrive. And we both know that’s very much because of you.”

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll think about it.”

Their attention was suddenly grabbed by the young Babs stopping by their table to ask, “Is there anything else I can get you, sirs?”

Phillip gave a courteous smile, saying, “The bill will be fine.”

Giving her own infectious smile, her bright white teeth accenting her girlish freckles, she pulled a slip of paper from her pocket and said, “I figured as much. Here you are. Your total is $17.38.”

His smile becoming less courteous and more sincere, Phillip answered, “You’re a darling, Babs. Never stop with that smile.”

Blushing, the young waitress skipped off. Lt. Thompson regarded the bill and reached in his wallet to pull out $15. Warrun did likewise, throwing the same amount and said, “I’m not hungry for anymore. You?”

“No. Not really.” Phillip stood from his seat and queried, “What are you going to do now? Have any leads you’re following?”

“I told you. The Devil case has been dropped.” Hanging his head a moment, he answered, “I suppose now is as good a time as ever to shake Mr. Vinetti down. We need him to talk today.”

Nodding his head, the lieutenant asked, “Do you think he’ll talk?”

“I honestly don’t know. It’s as I said. He is a man of loyalty. I truly believe he did what he did for the betterment of his budding family, the moving to Manhattan I mean. Whatever prompted him to kill his wife must have been profoundly devastating. I think my best chance is to uncover why he killed her. Maybe then, his own shame will cause him to confess.”

“That’s a narrow time slot. All we really have is his testimony to determine his reasons.”

“I’m afraid that’ll have to be enough.”

As Warrun stood from his seat, his friend said, “I have to get back on my patrol. I hope I see you tomorrow.”

A moment of silence followed in which they stood looking at each other. It seemed to Warrun that Phillip had more to say. Instead of saying anything however, the lieutenant stuck out his hand. Officer Slavinski shook it and said with kindness, “If I don’t come back in tomorrow, know that I have total faith that you will be the one to replace me.”

With a sad smile, Phillip stated, “No one could replace you.” Suddenly, and rather boldly, the younger of the pair closed the gap and embraced the man he was proud to call his best friend.

Warrun did not hesitate to reciprocate the hug and said casually, “Don’t make too much of this, lieutenant. It’s not like you’re never going to see me again.”

Phillip withdrew and sniffled, saying, “Of course not. A beer at the pub tonight?”

“It sounds like a plan.”

With that, the superior turned and exited the pizzeria, the door closing softly behind him. Phillip watched as his best friend left him, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He frowned and crossed his arms, muttering to himself, “I wish I could tell him.” A tear seeped out of the corner of his eye. He squeezed them shut and sniffled again. Doing all he could to fix his countenance, he said with all the conviction he could muster, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ll tell him.”

Rubbing his eyes, he left the venue to do his duty.

*****

There was no music in his cruiser as he made his way back to the station. There was no steadying beat to sooth his mind. The agitation he’d felt earlier in the day seemed finally to be soothed. Though he had an important task ahead of him, he did not feel worry. In all his questions, he had found no answers save one. Speaking with Phillip as he had, he’d opened his thoughts more fully to the possibility of just leaving his responsibility behind. Every passing moment seemed to reduce his hesitation as the thought of retiring became more familiar in his mind. A year earlier, even a day earlier, he might not have been able to accept it. Now however, he knew there was nothing more important to him then staying around for his daughter. With that certainty close to his heart when two other certainties had been so shaken, there wasn’t much left to think about.

“Except for that priest.” Warrun drove, down the crowded roads, very gradually making his way to his precinct. A very slight smile lit up his lips, a sign of his growing confidence. “I’ll see him. I guess I owe at least that much to Phillip. He’s been there for me for a very long time.”

His turn signal clicked as he hung a left down a one way street. Buildings continued to pass him by as he thought, “I don’t think it’ll change anything though. Besides, I knew him so long ago. He wasn’t a young man then. If he’s alive, he must be ancient. Certainly, he’d at least be retired.” Warrun nodded in self confirmation. “I’ll go, but he’d be the only one I’d talk to. If he’s not there then I’ll just leave. It’s not like a stranger is going to convince me to change my mind. Though I guess he’d be a stranger to me after so many years.”

As the minutes ticked by, he made a right followed by another left. The drive was not far in the least. Really, it was barely enough for a man to catch a breath. Absently, the first officer considered turning off his path and just driving home. He would not of course. At least until the day was done, his duty was to his work. Still, it surprised him that the thought seemed so sweetly tempting. He wouldn’t just go home though. He’d stop and pick up his darling daughter, his little Maria.

Heavy traffic slowed his car almost to a stop, causing him to smile. He did not want the joyful thoughts to end. “I could take her out to the park. No. We’d go and visit Alexis. Sam and Maria could play together, and we could forget about the messes we’ve been dealing with this last year. I could finally get around to reading that book Alexis has been so thrilled about writing.” Warrun scowled playfully at himself in his rear view mirror. “What a brother I’ve been. I don’t even know the title of the blasted thing. She’s right. We can’t keep avoiding each other.”

His car lurched forward again as traffic gave way, and he found himself in sight of his precinct. “I’ll go over there tonight! Maybe after I see that bloody priest? Wait. I promised Phillip I’d go out with him. I can’t miss our date.”

Warrun’s line of thought abruptly ceased as he pulled his car into the station’s garage. He nosed his way into his spot and stopped the car. He did not immediately step from his vehicle. He sat in relative silence with the car off. The confines of the car muted much of the city’s ambiance, and the darkness of his corner of the garage gave some clarity to his thought, “Is it a date?”

The first officer recalled the warm, heartfelt touch his friend had given him. The memory gave him the smallest hint of giddiness, the feeling of looking forward to something rare. Warrun rubbed his hands together happily and whispered, “I guess it is.” His smile widened. “I guess the visit with Alexis will just have to wait until the weekend. Once I’m retired, we’ll be able to spend all sorts of time together.” Closing his eyes dreamily, he concluded, “Mostly though, I’ll be the best dad I can be to my little girl.”

Without another thought, Warrun stepped from the car and made his way into the building. Upon entering, he was immediately scoped out by the receptionist.

“Officer Slavinski! How’re ya’ll doin?” cried the middle aged, blonde haired, and rather rotund woman.

Still wearing his smile, Warrun answered, “The three of me are doing just fine, Sherry.”

“That’s good.” Her eyes shifted in thought as she asked, “What was that business ‘bout seein if there were any plane crashes about?”

Warrun waved his hand dismissively and said, “It was just part of an investigation. Listen, Sherry, I need you to get the boys to bring Mr. Vinetti back to the box room.”

“Sure thing, Officer Slavinski. I’ll tell them right away. It’s a good thing too. They were saying he’s gettin real antsy.”

“Antsy?” His smile disappeared into a once more professional facade as he whispered to himself, “Maybe he’s ready to talk. That’d at least make this a good last day.”

The first officer turned and walked to his office. On his desk lay the case file he’d forced himself not to blanch at just that morning. It had not moved or been disturbed, reminding him that all he had was the pictures of the crime scene and whatever amount of intimidation he could inflict on Mr. Vinetti. “I wonder what motivated him?” he wondered to himself. “Maybe he was insane. She probably did something that hurt him. In a sense, maybe she caused him to do it. Just like Jobo said though, whatever the reasoning was, she’s still dead.” He gathered up the files and stiffened his back saying aloud, “And just like Jobo, Jack will get the punishment for killing. At least I can put this monster away.”

With stern conviction, Warrun marched out of his office and made his way down to the lowest level of the precinct. Two officers standing outside the door signaled him that his man was ready to be spoken to. With the calmness of a professional, he walked to the door and entered.

Jack Vinetti bolted out of his chair as the first officer entered and demanded, “Where’s my phone call!”

Though not suspecting the outburst, Warrun nonetheless maintained his calm and asked, “Have you not gotten one?”

“No!” the very frazzled looking man cried. “You said I could have one this morning.”

“Are you ready to call council?”

“What does it matter who I’m calling?” the man screamed. “I just want my phone call.”

“Okay. I’ll give you your phone call if you just let me ask you a few more questions. Can you do that for me, Mr. Vinetti. Just a few more questions. If you don’t want to answer any of them then you can just remain silent. Then I’ll get you your phone call.”

Jack was seething but found a state of mind that allowed him to curtly nod his head and sit back down. Warrun took the seat across from him and again laid out the photos from the crime scene as he’d done that morning. Jack averted his eyes, not so much as glancing at the pictures.

Warrun was honestly surprised to see a bit of moisture coming out of the corner of his eyes. As bold a front as he’d put on this morning, his suspect’s confidence was clearly failing him. It was at that moment that the first officer knew for certain that he could break the man and make him tell the truth.

Warrun slid the photo of the woman’s pale face forward, a stream of blood trickling from the red circle in her forehead. Softly, with a touch of sorrow that had not been present in his voice that morning, the first officer said, “I can see that you loved her very much. That much seems clear to me. It’s too violent a death for just any woman. May I ask why you and your wife moved from Chicago?”

Silence.

“I see. May I ask, was she a good woman?”

Jack winced at the question and closed his eyes. His guilt was becoming more obvious to Warrun by the second. He prodded, “She must have been a good woman. I mean, you gave up a lot for her, didn’t you. Not many men I know of would uproot their lives for the sake of one woman and succeed in staying with her. It’s certainly a romantic gesture but so few people are both romantic and convicted. Those two ideas are so often conflicting each other, aren’t they? It’s rather like trying to be spontaneous without budging an inch on what you will or will not do.”

“Can I get my phone call now?”

Ignoring his request, Warrun continued, “You seem to have found a balance though. Is that your secret? Was the murder spontaneous, and now you are showing your conviction in how well you can try to deny the obvious?”

“Stop it.”

“Was it romantic? Was loving then killing your wife solely your choice and duty? Or perhaps someone forced you to do what you did. Perhaps she forced your hand.”

“Stop it!”

“Or maybe you’re a perverse little monster that enjoyed it.”

“Shut up!” The red faced man gritted his bared teeth as tears dripped down his face. He shouted between heaving breaths, “I am not a monster! I want my phone call. You can’t do this to me.”

Warrun puckered his face and put his cruel accusations away. They sat in silence for a moment before the officer said, “Okay, Mr. Vinetti. If you will stand and follow me, I will bring you to a phone and you can call whoever you’d like.”

Refusing to say thank you, Jack stood and followed Warrun out of the room. He was immediately flanked by the two officers outside the door as they walked down the hall to a set of almost antique payphones. Grudgingly accepting a quarter from the first officer’s outstretched hand, he waited until the men in uniform gave him some space and began dialing.

Warrun stood back and watched the man intently. He did not have the keenest ears, and Jack’s muttering was indistinguishable to him. “Now is the moment of truth.” He mused. “Now we’ll know whether or not his boss is going to cover for him.” The first officer would normally have cringed at the thought. He would have hated for the guilty man to even have a fighting chance. Now however, he was almost apathetic. It would be another man’s problem in just a day’s time after all. His mind wandered, “I promised Maria ice cream last night, didn’t I? I’ll have to make sure to pick some up tonight.”

His musing stopped as he heard Jack’s mumbling suddenly lose its repose. The one sided conversation sounded, “You checked all the floors, right? . . . You have to be wrong. . . . You’re sure you were at Etsy? . . .”

With growing interest, Warrun focused in on the conversation. This focus soon became unnecessary as his suspect’s voice quickly rose to a crescendo.

“No. No! You have to be wrong. . . . They really said? . . . No! Oh God no!” Jack Vinetti dropped the phone. Its metal cord caught its decent and slammed it against the wall while the stricken man faltered backwards in horror. He seemed on the verge of hyperventilating as his mouth caught mid breath over and over again. Warrun stepped forward to catch the man who looked ready to swoon. Instead of falling however, the man screamed in pain, “No!”

The ferocity and terror in Jack Vinetti’s voice caused both Warrun, and the guards to take a step back. The first officer was the first to respond, “What’s wrong?”

“Oh my God! What have I done?” His flooding eyes turned towards Warrun’s. They did not bear any hate in them. There was only profound sorrow and misery to be seen in the man.

The man of the law stepped forward again, more cautiously, and asked once more, “What’s wrong?”

Almost as if from another world, Jack whispered, “I killed her. I killed my dear Isabella. I killed her, and she did nothing to me.”

Taking another step forward, Warrun pressed, “Why did you kill her?”

Seeming completely defeated, the man explained, “That man. He told me. He told me she cheated on me. I thought my good, saint wife cheated on me. But he lied.”

Another step forward.

“He lied to me. I was so angry, so full of hate.”

The gap almost closed, Warrun begged, “Who lied to you?”

Jack answered in agony, “I don’t know who he was. He was just a man in a pinstripe suit.”

Warrun stopped cold. His feet became lead, his throat became stone, and his inside bottomed out. He tried desperately to swallow what Jack had said as the man collapsed to his knees in a torrential fit of tears, but his heart almost could not take it. Not knowing what else to do, he sank to his knees as well and placed his hands on the guilty man’s shoulders. He tried as hard as he could to say something, anything. He searched his entire mind for any possible words of comfort, but he found every receptacle empty. There was nothing he could say to the man because he did not even have the words of comfort he needed for himself. He instead kneeled on the floor, stunned in almost equivalent trauma.

It might have been the case that words of solace would have prevented what happened next. Even a single reassurance might have changed the mind of the destroyed man who had lost the most important thing to him. One would have hoped that his wife would have been most important in his life. That was not the case though. It was his pride that ruled his actions most. Now, even his pride was destroyed. It is easy to wonder whether changing something in the past would have prevented an action. Any alteration, whether major or minor, could potentially change the entire cosmos. The past being in the past however, mankind will never know the truth of that statement.

Too quickly for the shaken Warrun to react, Jack Vinetti unclipped the first officer’s weapon holster. Realizing too late what was happening, the destroyed man brought the loaded weapon to his chin and pulled the trigger, ending that moment so no more could follow.

*****

It was several minutes before Warrun again became aware of the world around him. He had not gone unconscious insofar as he had remained awake. Rather, he lost touch with reality in the aftermath of that concussive blast. The dreaded ringing broke the voices of the woman in white before him. Her existence seemed only a trivial point to him at the moment. Nothing seemed important right then as the woman shined a light in both his eyes and ears. Her lips were moving, but he could not register her voice. Instead, he looked past her at the torrent of action in the previously empty hallway.

Several officers stood in a circle off to the side. Among them was the Chief who looked furious. Warrun could tell by the dramatic flailing and lip movements that he was screaming though he couldn’t hear the screams himself. His gaze slid left to what was now a crime scene. A forensic analyst knelt over the limp and pale body of Jack Vinetti, taking pictures and cataloging everything she could.

Warrun looked long and hard at the body on the floor, ignoring the woman vying for his attention. He did not think. He did not move. He only looked and felt a heat gather in him. The shock was quickly wearing off, and moment by moment, he could begin to hear the commotion around him. No heed was given however. All he felt was the heat.

On a subconscious level, the first officer could almost see the heat. It was like a fire burning first in his stomach, then in the whole of his chest. Reds and yellows and oranges. Burning, singeing, it consumed his body and mind. His face turned red and his teeth grit together to make noise. His hot breath felt like steam against the hand of the paramedic. Warrun heard then that she called to his superior but his mind was consumed by something more powerful than a single emotion, something more blinding, something more cataclysmic.

Hate.

The apathy was gone. His ability not to care was gone. His dismissive view of the day was gone. The two certainties he had lost conviction in that morning came back to him, and he felt his purpose renewed. There would be no stopping him now. Nothing could keep him from finding that horrible monster that had caused so much suffering to humanity. Nothing could stop him from catching the Devil once and for all.

Nobody could stop him from killing the man in the pinstripe suit. No person save one.

The sound that truly pulled him back to the world was that of his phone ringing. The harsh clamor pierced the air and caused everyone to go silent. All eyes turned on Warrun as he reached into his belt and grabbed out his phone. Flipping it open, he put it to his ears and said roughly, “Hello?”

“Is this Mr. Slavinski?”

“Yes.”

“Are you the father of Maria Slavinski, student of Hunter College Elementary School?”

“Yes.”

“Have you or anyone you know taken Maria from class without informing the school?”

Warrun bolted upright, the fire instantly replaced by icy fear. “No. Why? What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I am very sorry. Mr. Slavinski, sometime this morning, your daughter disappeared between classes. A teacher’s gross oversight allowed her absence to go unnoticed until we were collecting lunch tickets. We cannot find your daughter on school grounds.”

Warrun forced himself to stop and take a deep breath. He’d been through enough missing persons cases to know panicking was the worst thing he could do. The chilling fear still caused him to stutter as he begged, “D-do you h-have any idea-dea where she is?”

“No we do not, sir. We will inform the police immediately of the situation.”

With a tremor in his voice, Warrun answered, “You just did.” Without waiting for a response, he ended the call and turned to his chief to say, “My daughter’s gone missing, sir. I have to go find her.”

The grim statement could do little to shake the men and women in the room after the accident that had just occurred. Knowing full well he would not be able to stop him, the Chief of precinct 13 said, “Okay, Warrun. Where do you need us?”

Already walking towards the double doors at the end of the hall, he said over his shoulder, “I need a sweep done over the area surrounding Hunter’s College Elementary School.”

“What about you?”

Stopping with his hand on the door’s handle, he said, “There’s one place I think she might be. I just pray I find her.” Without waiting for a response, Warrun opened the door and ran for his car.

*****

Again, there was no music. There was no finger tapping. There was only a profound sense of urgency as the first officer weaved through traffic with his siren blaring. Running red lights, cutting corners dangerously, Warrun’s frantic pace went beyond the reason of urgency. Vehicles clamored to get out of his way as he plowed his way through the city of eight million. Though his drive took him all the way to the north end of Manhattan, quite a distance from his child’s elementary school, he made the distance very quickly as the ocean of people parted at his command.

Within the cruiser, the siren roared. Within Warrun’s mind however, there was silence. It was not silent because he had nothing to think about, nor was it silent out of fear. It was only silent because the man had spent many years learning to clear his mind when tragedy occurred around him. For this Warrun was grateful. Otherwise his fear might have paralyzed him. Indeed, if he were a lesser man that cold gut wrenching fear would have harnessed that nightmare of every parent and brought him to fitful tears and agonized cries.

Every ounce of his being yearned to find his lovely daughter, and he prayed that she was in that cold and desolate corner of Manhattan that breathes the sadness of absence where she had so often before wandered. “No,” Warrun rethought in consternation. “I hope we find her anywhere else but there. I don’t want her to be there.” Yet the place he hoped most she would not be found was the first place he knew to check.

Warrun’s vehicle rounded the last bend his given course offered and the sprawling cityscape gave way ever so suddenly into the greener landscape that bordered the northern end of Manhattan. It was not wild or untouched as some corners of America still are. It instead gave way from any living institution to an institution of death. A less disturbed mind than Warrun’s might have stopped to note a touch of beauty to the landscape. Behind the low iron fence were many beautiful and ornate stones. Many were white as marble, statues cutting figures as stern and thoughtful as David did while he stood in thought over whether or not to throw his stone and secure his fame and immortality. Most however were glossy, grey, and dead; little more than pedestals trying vainly to link men and women of the distant, intangible past to this topsy turvy present.

Warrun parked his cruiser and bolted out of it. His hastened pace drew no attention as that particular boulevard and institution was empty of all human life save one figured sitting against one of those glossy, grey stones. Hastening his footsteps, Warrun quickly closed the gap between him and his daughter.

Maria did little to acknowledge her father as he fell to his knees in front of her and overwhelmed her tiny frame in a two arms that slammed together as the tides of the red sea once did. The cries of consternation, remorse, and fear that droned in her ears did not register much, nor was she made happy at what was otherwise a touching reunion to behold. It wasn’t until her father had let her go and asked the right question that she bothered to register his existence.

Looking down into her arms, her eyes greeted the shredded remains of Owlowiscious. Warrun did not see the mess of cotton fluff and tattered wrappings for what it was and begged softly, “Maria, what are you holding? Why won’t you talk to me?”

“I will,” she answered simply, as though that were all the explanation that was necessary.

“Thank God!” Warrun cried in relief. “Come on, sweetie belle. Tell daddy what happened. What are you doing here?”

Dodging his second and more urgent question, Maria held up the ball of fluff, dropping much of the contents on the ground to be caught up in the chill autumn breeze, and said matter of factly, “Owlowiscious died.”

A look of chill horror showed on the first officer’s face. His mouth opened to say something, but no words came to him as he looked at the mess. It seemed to him even more macabre than the one he’d just left back at the precinct.

Indifferently, the little girl with those crystal blue eyes balled up the mess and through it saying, “He’s dead just like mommy.”

Warrun’s eyes followed the discarded ball. “What happened to him?” Turning back to his daughter, he pressed, “Did you do that?”

With a sad frown besmirching her otherwise cheerful face, Maria asked, “Is God real, daddy?”

With an ever deepening frown, Warrun crossed his legs beneath him and asked, “What makes you ask a serious question like that?”

Her frown turned a little angry as she stated in accusation, “You didn’t answer me! Is God real or not?”

The demand stunned Warrun into silence. He was not the least bit prepared for answering a question he’d been debating all his life. The best he could manage was to meekly say, “I, I don’t know, Maria.”

His little girl’s anger contorted back into a look of despair as she hung her head and stated, “He isn’t, Daddy.”

Reaching his hand beneath her chin, Warrun lifted Maria’s eyes to his own as he asked, “Who isn’t what?”

“I believed, Daddy.” Frustrated moisture glistened in those crystal blue orbs as she cried, “I really believed! I did just what Fr. Allen told me. I gave him everything, and I didn’t tell you or the teachers or anyone, and I did everything good.”

Warrun fretted as he saw his daughter begin to shake and ball her fists, her usually congenial persona being torn asunder by equal and opposite pulls of anger and sadness. Her father interjected into her rant demanding fearfully, “Who is Fr. Allen? What did he tell you to do?”

“I saw him yesterday.” She turned her eyes to the ground and pulled up a clump of grass out of the grave. “He came to me here while I was talking to Mommy.”

Terrified, Warrun’s voice grew even more demanding, “Did he touch you?”

His daughter turned up a confused face and answered, “No. He talked to me.”

The officer of the law pressed his interrogation only a tiny bit relieved, “What did he say to you? It’s very important, Maria. Tell me everything.”

Reading the agitation in his voice, Maria said, “Um. He told me that he could talk to God. He said that he could make Mommy come back to life if I gave money and Owlowiscious to God.”

“Money and Owlowiscious?” Warrun mimicked to himself. “You gave this man, Fr. Allen, money and Owlowiscious?” As his daughter gave a soft nod, he pressed, “What did he do with them?”

Maria’s eyes went to the ball of cotton being scattered in the wind. Warrun followed her eyes, his mind finally registering exactly what the carcass was. “Oh my God,” he cried in horror. He reached down and lifted his daughter into his lap so as to grip her once again in a bear like hug. “I’m so sorry, Maria. I don’t even. I don’t even know what.” His words failed him, and he choked, “I’m sorry.”

Though she herself was on the verge of sobbing, Maria maintained herself enough to comfort her father, “It’s okay, Daddy. I don’t need him anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

In a way could only be described as courageous for an eight year old girl, she explained with a small, sad smile, “You always told me that Mommy’s right here, and that she can hear me when I come talk to her. I know she’s not though. I know you just said that to make me happy.” The smile dissipated. Only a frown lingered. “She can’t hear me because she’s not with God. God’s not real. Mommy’s just dead.”

“Don’t say that, Maria!” Warrun furrowed his brow and declared, hardly believing his own words, “Mommy’s with us right now, listening to us. We just can’t see her right now, but we will one day. Someday we’ll all meet up in heaven, and we’ll all live together forever.”

“But Fr. Allen said that if I really believed, God would bring Mommy back to us now.”

Biting his lip, Warrun explained, “Well, this Fr. Allen was lying to you, sweetie belle. People don’t come back to life.”

“Why would he lie?!” the little girl screamed. Tears ran down her face freely as she cried, “Why would he lie and kill Owlowiscious? Why would he do that? Why was he so mean?”

Warrun hugged her rosy cheeks to his shoulder, stifling the tears, and answered morosely, “I don’t know, sweetie belle. I’ll make sure you never see him again. Okay?”

His little girl nodded her head and muffled into the patch on his jacket, “Okay.”

Holding her face out once more and locking her eyes with his, Warrun said in with intensity, “I need you to do something very important for me, Maria. I need you to describe exactly what Fr. Allen looked like. Can you do that for me?”

Maria nodded meekly.

“Good.” Warrun pulled out a pad and pen from his chest pocket and engaged in the detective side of his vocation, “Now tell me, what was he wearing?”

“Um,” she started, her face puckered in thought. “He was wearing a black coat and pants.”

“Good,” the first officer said scrawling. “Was it dark black?”

“No.”

“What else was it?”

Frowning, she explained, “It was, like, stripey.”

Warrun’s pen stopped scrolling. Throat dry and raspy, he pressed softly, “What did his face look like?”

Again thoughtful, Maria answered, “He had brown hair and, like, really white skin. And, um, his teeth were really clean, and he smelled good.”

The first officer bit his cheek until he tasted copper. Slowly he reached into his pocket as he had just an hour earlier and withdrew a small square photo. Holding the image up to his daughter’s face which sported ample baby pudge and asked, “Is this the person you saw?”

The recognition that instantly flashed in her eyes was all Warrun needed to learn his answer. Even as she cried, “Yeah! That’s him, Daddy. That’s him.” Warrun’s eyes fell from hers to the ground between them. His silence that followed caused almost as much distress to his daughter as he felt within himself.

“Daddy. Daddy! Please talk to me. I’m sorry Daddy! I won’t do it again. I’m sorry!”

Light

A loud knocking disturbed Colgate’s tender sleep. She jerked her face from the padded comfort of her dentist chair and glanced about. “Oh my!” she cried to herself. “I can’t believe I fell asleep.” Again there came a knocking sound. The mare turned her eyes towards the bleach white door of the office that lead to the outside world. “Celestia knows how many patients I’ve slept through.”

The dentist slid down from the high stool on which she had been napping and made her way towards the door. Her muttering continued with a brutal self reprimand, “How could you be so lazy, Colgate? You can’t be falling asleep on the job. What would they all think of you? Ponies are counting on you to do your part.”

The sound of her hooves clattering against the wooden floor echoed noisily as she continued, “You’ve got to love the job after all. I wonder who it will be today. Didn’t Button have an appointment for getting a cavity filled? I bet that’s him with his mother now.”

There came another round of banging on the door, prompting Colgate to shout in exasperation, “I’m coming! Hold your horses already.” She chuckled at her own joke. “My but it’s warm in here. Wasn’t it just freezing yesterday? I guess I put a few too many on the fire this morning. My room will be right toasty tonight.” The thought made her smile. “Now if only I had a stallion to snuggle too. That’d make it perfect.”

Yet more banging landed on the door, urging the mare into a quickened trot as she again shouted, “I’m coming! Calm down. It’s not like your teeth are going to fall out before I get there.” She rolled her eyes to herself and muttered, “The nerve of some ponies, it’s unreal. Some could stand to learn a little patience. Speaking of patients, who did I work on this morning?” Colgate scrunched her face in thought and wondered aloud, “Wasn’t it Mayor Mare? She’s the last one I remember, but that felt like yesterday. Did she come in again today? What is today? I don’t even remember. My word, am I all out of sorts. Must be low blood sugar or something. I bet an apple will get me feeling right as rain again. I’ll grab a bite to eat after whoever this is.”

When again there came a loud knocking, Colgate’s demeanor soured, and she roared, “I’ll get there when I get there.” Her own words caused her to stop what was quickly becoming a frantic gallop and demand, “Why is this taking so long?!” Her eyes narrowed in on the door across the office. Unbelievable frustration ran through her as she noticed that she was no closer to the door for all the running. “Ah, horseapples!” she cried angrily. Scoffing, she turned around and climbed back onto the stool and mumbled to herself, “I don’t get why they don’t just come in. It’s not like I lock this place up. Who’s going to come in here and take my stuff anyways?”

Again there came that persistent knocking at the door. Colgate hardly registered it however as she sat in her stool. It was not that she didn’t care about her waiting customer. Her mind was just pulled elsewhere.

“Why am I unhappy?”

The question slipped from the blue mare’s lips before she could even grasp them. They were said without thinking, seeming almost an instinctual response to stimuli. Colgate stepped off of her stool and into the chair on which she had performed her trade from simple check ups to dental surgery for many years. There she tilted her head back and looked up at the bright lights shining down. For all the work she did, this perspective was not one she was especially familiar with. For the longest time, she had always been the doctor. Now, she was also the patient.

She sighed, her eyes drifting lazily in the comfortable heat of the room. Almost absently, she asked herself, “What’s the point of it all? They come. I work. They leave. Is that my lot in life? Am I just some character in the background? Is this all some grand story, and I just happened to make up a small and insignificant part of it?” The discerning mare rolled to her side and mused, “What is life worth if I’m not happy?”

Her own question caused her to chuckle sadly. With a great sigh, she wondered, “Why do I even ask? I’m just a pawn after all, a pawn in their silly game. There are king and queens and even Princesses. Then there’s me. I’m just a dentist.” Her wearying eyes flashed angrily as she demanded, “Is that all the purpose I have? Is that all the purpose anypony has? And they have the gall to try to make me think I’m somehow important, that any of us are important!

“Who am I? If I were snuffed out right here, right now, what would it matter? I’d just get replaced. That’s all I really am. I’m just a tool to be replaced. Screw my happiness. As long as I work and swallow what they give me, we can have that perfect little society. Well, it’s not perfect. If it were, I’d be happy, and I wouldn’t be here screaming at myself.”

Colgate’s crescendoing rant tapered off as she felt herself being drained of energy, the heat of the room seeming to sap the emotion out of her. She closed her eyes and sighed again, almost contentedly. The anger felt steamed out of her, leaving only relaxation in its wake. As moments passed, she found herself smiling. White teeth glittered in the bright lights shining down on her. Every moment that came somehow seemed brighter than the moment before making that same smile grow wider and more sincere.

Again there came a knocking at the door.

Laughing, Colgate cried out, “Come back tomorrow. Today’s too beautiful for work.”

*****

Daemeon sniffled. He smiled. More accurately, he was still smiling. The sun, having reached and passed its relative zenith, was now sliding across the sky towards a chilly afternoon. Three long and cold hours had passed by on that hard rooftop as Daemeon lay looking up at the baby blue sky. In truth, they were uncomfortable hours, dreary and uneventful. Most people would feel they had gone mad if they were made to wait outside in nothing but a dress shirt and pants on that cool day, not moving a muscle to stand or stretch. For that man with a beautiful smile however, those three hours were not to be traded for anything. For all the discomfort he endured, the lovely little mare lying snuggled in the crook of his arm against his chest paid her due sevenfold. In short, the time was not suffered but relished.

As that cold man relished those hours, that large and continuous moment, he reflected wordlessly over what his mare had told him. Since meeting her, he had not been afforded such a long time to consider what he was beholden to. She, Colgate Minuette, was so utterly unbelievable. Of all things, she was a unicorn, a miniature blue unicorn he’d fallen in love with faster than a story can be told. Even with a day, a night, and those three blissful hours spent trying to understand that reality, Daemeon continuously felt the urge to pinch himself awake. The fact that he made no such effort came less from any desire not to disturb his little Colgate and more from his fear that such a pleasant and lovely dream should end.

Even with those thoughts to contend with however, Daemeon’s mind still plowed through a host of other questions. Chief among these questions came one he had not expected he would be asking himself. It came as a passing thought at first, a minor consideration, but like a tick, it dug itself deep and planted itself irritably beneath the surface of his mind.

Who is Colgate?

To which his mind automatically responded, ‘She’s the little unicorn in your hands.’

Yes, but who is that?

To which his mind lacked a real answer.

Curiosity took hold of Daemeon as the implications of this question flowed through his mind. He remembered asking himself very briefly that same question the night before when he’d first taken her to his apartment. Casually, he’d deduced a conclusion right on the spot as not only he but most men and women are prone to do. Knowing nothing about who she was or where she’d come from, he’d decided that she was just like every other woman he’d ever met. She was volatile, short tempered, and above all, a woman. What more was there to know?

Daemeon could almost kick himself for making such a quick decision based on nothing. He was used to being right when making snap judgements about people. In this regard, he is not completely alone. After all, what person does not make a few immediate judgements of another person when afforded more than a temporary glance. Making an effort to understand the individuality of all people is a terrific difficulty and borderline impractical. Instead, men and women of all types and races categorize each other because it is the easy thing to do. All it takes is a superficial feature like skin color for judgements to be made.

From there the dominoes fall. The sum of a human categorization becomes a stereotype, and before long, people feel they have sufficient information to judge each other at a glance. As terrible as this may sound, it has been necessary for survival. What man is going to look at a charging bear and think twice about running. Never mind the fact that the bear is trained not to attack humans and only wanted a treat from a visitor. No person is going to take that chance when the stakes are down. The choice to run, while premature in the purest sense, is what has kept mankind, and all other races with natural predators, alive for hundreds of thousands of years.

Daemeon had considered the implications of these truths long and hard as a youth. The greatest observation he had come to was that categorizing people was not only a reasonable thing to do; it was the safest thing to do. Preconceptions, after all, are preconceived. That is, people from the past learned a general truth that was necessary for understanding and survival. These preconceptions, these stereotypes, will ring with the truth of generality until the day that they are proven to not be true. Even then, they will persist in memory, another continuous reminder of validation towards this system of understanding or the lack thereof.

It is in this regard that Daemeon caught himself in a rut of ignorance. He’d assigned a preconception of who Colgate was to her when her person and her history had never been preconceived. Lying there in the sun on that rooftop, Daemeon felt baffled to realize that Colgate was a true enigma. She was a creature from a whole other history, a whole other world. From the moment he’d first engaged her in conversation, he’d found her unpredictable. Now, he was coming to understand that she seemed so unpredictable because he had no notions on which to predict her being. He knew almost nothing of her history, where she was from, or what facets of society had formed her. He did not even know what she believed in.

As all these realizations gradually slammed home in his contemplative mind, Daemeon smiled and marveled at the beautiful creature in his grasp. By the moment, she became ever more exotic and mysterious. He was increasingly thankful that Colgate had deigned to tell the history of her nation. In time, he might come to understand her, truly understand who she is and where she came from. His hope was that he might learn something truly valuable from her before she had to go back.

Daemeon’s delightful musings ceased as he felt a change in his mare. The regular wheezing sounds she’d been making in her sleep were replaced by a loud and long yawn. He cast down his delighted eyes as his mare’s mouth opened to reveal two rows of stunningly white teeth. If her man weren’t so smitten, he might have noted the distasteful smell of morning breath she exuded. As often happens when two people are enamored however, such little things are overlooked and only what is perfect or beautiful is seen.

Colgate opened her crystal blue but bleary eyes to be met by Daemeon’s own intense grey orbs. Her smile was filled with almost infinite cheer when she leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss against Daemeon’s lips. Though it was brief, it was full of affection and reciprocated real joy between the pair. She then fell to nuzzling her small, soft, gossamer furred face against his neck, giving Daemeon delight to no end. No words needed to be spoken for that animal exchange of emotion to occur.

The silent moment did not so much end as it glided gently into the next, uninterrupted by anything which could dampen the mood. Daemeon whispered into her mane, “How did your nap feel?”

“Wonderful!” Colgate bellowed unexpectedly loud. “I haven’t had a nap that good in ages. You have no idea.”

“You’re not cold at all?” her man pressed, concern unmasked in his voice.

“Not at all,” she giggled into his neck. “You’re better than the three blankets I keep on my bed.”

“You sleep with three blankets?”

“And nine pillows,” she stated proudly. “I know what you’re thinking and you’re right. That bed is impossible to make. My solution is that I don’t make it. I have to keep everything else so neat and clean. My bed is my personal mess. Nopony else sees it, so nopony else can judge me for it.” She giggled again, “Do you have anything like that?”

“Do you mean a mess of my own?” Daemeon queried.

“Mmhmm.”

“Well,” he mumbled, “I keep most things very neat and orderly myself. So much so that I’ve often wondered if I have any sort of compulsive disorder.” Daemeon chuckled at the thought and continued, “I’m pretty sure I don’t, but I’d need to see a specialist to be certain. At any rate, there is one thing that I don’t keep very orderly.”

“And just what’s that?” Colgate pressed.

“It’s really kind of silly, but I tend to have a terrible memory.”

“Really?” Colgate marveled in surprise. “I thought you were really smart. I mean, you seem like an insightful, er, human. Though I guess I don’t know too many humans.”

“I am. It’s just that there’s some information I catalogue as important in my head and other information I don’t. Very often it seems to be the case that what I find important to remember is not what other people find important.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” Daemeon began, “I can never remember a name from just meeting a person once.”

Colgate giggled and chided, “Is that all? That’s not so bad.”

“Or a second time.”

“Well, that’s still. . .”

“Or a third time.”

Colgate giggled again and cajoled, “Well maybe you have a tough time remembering stuff like that because your big head is so full of other stuff?”

Daemeon forced his own chuckle and said, “Yeah. Maybe that’s why. But I also forget other stuff about people. I mean I can fly through a detailed narrative on the different pottery styles of ancient anglo-saxons, but I’d be lucky to remember a face or an upcoming date. Not being able to remember stuff like that is often very insulting to other people. It certainly kept me from making many friends as a child.” His confession stirring curiosity within him, he asked, “What were you like as a child?”

The beautiful, blue mare twisted her face so her words would not be muffled in her man’s neck. After a moment of silent reflection, she answered carefully, “As a filly, I guess the best way I could describe myself was cold.”

“Cold?”

“Yes,” she answered, a little morose. “I was never very friendly to my friends or family.”

“Really?!” Daemeon exclaimed. Grunting, he sat up while still holding Colgate close. “You don’t strike me as the unpersonable type.”

“Unpersonable?”

“You know,” Daemeon explained. “I mean, you’ve seemed very friendly to me. Are you different now?”

The mare pushed herself from his chest so as to give her man a raised brow and state, “Are you so quick to forget I bit you and called you a big, ugly, and cruel ape?”

The comment caused Daemeon to laugh and reach a hand to feel the wicked bite she’d given him the day before. The pain of it lingered but it seemed dull and unimportant to him. What worried him more was the thought that Colgate bore the same mark, the presence of that linking charm. He acquiesced, “I suppose you did do that. To be fair, I wasn’t very nice to you.” The thought caused his laugh to turn into a grimace, one that caused pain more real than the bite on his chest. “Actually,” he concluded, “I am all those things you said.”

Dramatically, Colgate raised one of her petite hooves in the air. Daemeon followed the rise as it came to his eyes. He coughed in unexpected surprise as she smacked the small hoof between his eyes in a smarting blow and said, “Were, you dummy.”

Shaking his head in confusion, Daemeon scoffed, “What? What was that for?”

Giving her man a rather stern facade, Colgate explained, “Were. That’s the person you were. We’ll have none of this pity party where you’re saying that’s the kind of person you are now because you clearly aren’t.” Smacking a quick and unforeseen kiss on Daemeon’s lips, she concluded, “You’re my big handsome human with the feet and the hands and that beautiful smile and the wonderful laugh and you’re not going to be mean anymore because you love me and I love you. Are we clear on that?”

Flashing what could only be called the toothy grin of a little boy, he answered, “Yes, ma’am!”

Returning the grin in kind, she returned, “Very good.” She pressed away from her handsome human and stepped out of his grasp. Stretching her legs, she stated in no uncertain terms, “Now we are going to go get some food. I’m hungry, and you promised me pancakes. We aren’t putting it off any longer. Do you understand that?”

Daemeon raised an eyebrow and noted, “You can be a little cold when you want to be. Maybe even a bit demanding?”

With a mischievous grin and impossibly huge eyes, Colgate begged coyly, “Would you rather I used my wicked feminine wiles on you, lover boy?”

Her man couldn’t help but bellow out in laughter. She did not hesitate to follow suit. As the laughter ended, Daemeon held out his arms and said, “It’d probably be better if we took the elevator down instead of your little floating trip. I’d rather we didn’t end up on the front page of a Manhattan newspaper because some bloke with a camera caught us flying.”

Frowning, Colgate asked, “You don’t have another bag you’re going to put me in do you? I don’t really like that.”

“No,” Daemeon answered with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry I had to carry you around like that. I don’t like it either. If it were up to me, I’d have you walking at my side, but we just can’t do that here. There’d be a mob on us in no time. You’d probably be surprised at how crazy people would go over finding a little, blue unicorn.”

A little skeptical, the mare queried, “If that’s the case, then why didn’t you go crazy?”

Daemeon opened his mouth to answer the question but stopped as he considered what he was about to say. The whole truth being a little unpleasant, he only explained, “I’m very practical when it comes to dealing with new things. I guess you could say that there isn’t much that surprises me.” Clearing his throat, he concluded, “Now come on. We’ll talk more when we get something to eat.”

Not really being opposed to the idea of snuggling up against her man again, Colgate jumped into his arms where she was quickly concealed by the folds of the overly large shirt, the property of the local bishop. Daemeon checked the door leading down from the roof and found himself thankful both for it being open and the luck they had that nobody inside chose that particular afternoon to have a look at the sky. As inconspicuous as he could be, he made himself follow the gait of your average Manhattanite. This was not the least bit difficult for him as he had long since discovered that the key to looking normal was just feeling normal. There were plenty of odd and suspicious characters that got passed up without a second glance in that city of eight million. All he had to do was become one such character and melt into the background, an unimportant part in the far grander and more important stories that were the lives of everyone else.

The pair made their way through the tall apartment building in silence undisturbed. Though they passed many people, nobody questioned the man clutching something tightly under his overly large shirt. On exiting the building, Daemeon turned a corner and quickly found his bearings. They were very close to their initial destination. An idea struck Daemeon that he felt he could kick himself for not having thought of earlier. He ducked into a secluded alley away from the prying eyes of the public and released Colgate from his grasp.

His mare looked up at her man curiously as he took to tucking the large shirt into his pants. On seeing the pouch he left before his belly, she reckoned she could imagine where he was going with it. When Daemeon again extended his arms out to her, she looked at him skeptically and asked, “Are you going to try to pass me off as fat? Or is a pregnant man not such an uncommon thing in this world?”

Rolling his eyes in amusement, Daemeon answered, “I’m going to have to talk to someone to get our food in a crowded restaurant. I’d rather look fat than like I’m hiding something.”

Colgate sighed and smiled and said, “I guess I can work with that.”

Daemeon picked her up and stuffed her as ceremoniously as he could into the flaps of his shirt with the brief words of warning, “Now you’d best refrain from moving after I’ve positioned you. It would look very awkward and suspicious if my belly started shifting in front of the nice person working the counter.”

“Just tell them to mind their own business. It’s not like they’re going to make you take off your top is it?”

“You’re quick,” Daemeon said as he walked out of the alleyway. “You could make a great teacher.” Before she could respond to the comment, he concluded, “Hush now. We’re on our way.”

Turning out of the alleyway, The pair made their brief and uneventful trip to Daemeon’s favorite breakfast house, Sarabeth’s. The smiling man opened the white door covered top to bottom in little windows and was greeted by the warm and simple atmosphere. He found it rather heartwarming to see that the place hadn’t changed too much since the last time he’d come over a decade ago. Pancakes, as sweet as they are, often proved to be a profound temptation to the man who had made it his life goal not to love anything. For whatever reason, that goal seemed flighty and insignificant as he took in the aromas of fresh baked cakes and meats.

His standing in the doorway quickly caught the attention of a petite brunette haired woman towering little higher than five feet tall. The waitress hastened towards her perceived customer and said, “Welcome to Sarabeth’s! May I find a seat for you?”

Daemeon flashed a genuine smile at the woman and said, “Actually, I’m in a tiny hurry to be somewhere. I was hoping to get my food to go.”

The girl nodded and said, “That’ll work just fine but you may want a seat while you wait for the food. Would you like me to take your order now?”

“Yes, yes!” Daemeon said in delight. “Do you still happen to have those pancakes that are dusted in confections?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” he murmured in glee.”Then I would like two orders of those pancakes with bananas, blueberries, strawberries, chocolate chips, syrup, and a side of sausages.”

Silently marveling at the size of the order, she asked, “Would you like anything to drink with that?”

“Can I get a cup of milk to go?”

“Of course.” She directed his gaze to an empty table and said, “Why don’t you have a seat right here while we get that for you.”

Daemeon sat at the table covered in plain white cloth and silently took in the simple decor. He found it oddly comforting. At least, it would have seemed to an external viewer that his uncharacteristic good cheer came for no particular reason. A person paying witness to the last twenty four hours of his life would quickly have written off his calm as being from his new found love, but even that was not the case. Instead, this particular calm and joy was perpetrated by a distant memory of a slightly better time on one of those rare occasions his mother decided they would eat out. Only once had he eaten at that particular venue before, but the impression it had made lasted to that chill autumn day.

As Daemeon sat, he closed his eyes and allowed the ambiance of the room to flood his mind. The pleasantness of that distant memory gradually melted away as the perceptive man heard an old friend of his. He heard about him in the many conversations centered at tables around him the means to his end. What was the means? What was the end?

At the table to his left, a mother and father were awkwardly trying to explain the meaning of a swear word to a young boy. Two tables down, two sisters were arguing over an apparently mutual infatuation. Behind him, an old woman was murmuring Revelation to herself as she pecked away at her discounted meal. And finally, to his right was a young couple bickering over whether or not they should have a child when they were already having difficulty supporting themselves financially. These were the means.

The end was chaos.

A day before, Daemeon would only have heard opportunities to educate. All of them were poor, misguided, and ignorant people. It is true that they lived, but to Daemeon, they lived the lies of love, hate, and God. They lived, but they did not live well. They were not a part of the utopia he believed they could all achieve if they just looked at the past and present and realized the possibilities of a better future.

“What utopia can there be,” Daemeon thought sadly, “when I am the only one who knows about it, and even I am not strong enough to follow through?”

The man’s silent lamentation was brought to a halt as he heard a familiar, feminine voice whisper, “How long do you think we’ll have to wait? I’m starving!”

His frown immediately being turned around, Daemeon answered, “In a bit. This is more of a come in and sit down joint. I don’t think they get too much food ordered to go. You’ll just have to be a little patient.”

“Ugh!” the mare grunted in embellished despair. “I don’t want to wait.”

“Well,” her man said thoughtfully, “maybe we could make the wait go a bit faster with some quiet chatting.” He chewed his lip absently and said, “Why don’t you tell me a bit more about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Daemeon answered playfully. “How about you tell me more about when you were younger.”

Flashing an unseen frown, Colgate answered, “I already told you. I wasn’t very friendly as a filly.”

“That doesn’t say very much,” Daemeon remarked. “What did you used to do for fun?”

“I guess I liked to read most. I also liked to paint, and I was pretty good on the violin. You know, the usual unicorn stuff. I was pretty boring as a filly.”

“The usual unicorn stuff?” her man interjected curiously. “That stuff doesn’t sound boring in the least. It sounds like you wanted to be an artist.”

“Yeah,” the little blue mare said distantly. “Maybe, I guess. There’s no way that was going to happen though.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she explained tersely, “that’s not what Ponyville needed. They needed a dentist, and that’s what they got.”

“I don’t get it. Did they force you to become a dentist? I thought you said you earned your mark in it when you discovered you could manipulate the tools of the trade.”

Colgate sighed heavily in the confines of Daemeon’s shirt and explained, “That’s just what I mean. I got my mark, and from that moment on, it was deemed that I must be a dentist. There would be no point in me trying to pursue any other career because this is the one I got. This is the talent I got. Intrinsically, I am only as valuable to other ponies as the work that I was predetermined for.”

“It doesn’t seem like predetermination to me,” Daemeon interjected again. “It sound like you ponies just have a more efficient means of determining who would be best for what. Why do you think it’s predetermined?”

“Like I said before, that has to do with how cutie marks came to be. They didn’t exist until the end of our Simple Era.”

“That’s right,” Daemeon noted. “You were telling me about the fall of Discord before you took your nap. Did the cutie marks come about shortly after that?”

“Yes,” she answered. “It’s a long story though. Do you think we could eat first?”

“Of course. Our food should be here any minute now.”

As though on cue, the same tiny brunette came back with the carry out box and large plastic cup sealed with milk. Smiling, the waitress handed the food over and said, “Your bill will be $14.48.” Being ravenous himself, Daemeon slipped the girl a $20 and disappeared with the box out the door before the confused waitress had a chance to ask if he wanted change.

Not being at all distant from the park, Daemeon made that his destination. He almost had to refrain from skipping down the boulevard in lieu of the tiny pony clutching at his tummy. He must have made a silly sight to look at to any of the people passing by. So many were grim faced. Most were headed back to work after a brief respite. Everyone else seemed the epitome of monotony while Daemeon felt lighter than air.

It did not take long for the pair to arrive at a more secluded section of the park. Amidst a bundle of bushes and low hanging trees set aside from the many paths and ball fields, Daemeon crossed his legs on the warm grass and released his mare from her cave. The hungry man reverently placed the container between them and opened it up.

Colgate squealed in delight, “Oh my goodness, that looks good.”

Her man smiled and unwrapped the plastic fork, knife, and spoon that came with the box. Before cutting into the cakes, he popped open a tiny cup containing a generous helping of syrup and drizzled it all over the sugar covered pancakes. Though his mouth was watering for the meal, he had the gentlemanly decorum to cut the first bite and offer it to Colgate.

The mare did not hesitate. Her mouth opened almost comically wide to ingest the ridiculous excuse to have fried cake slathered in concentrated sugar for breakfast. What was perhaps more ridiculous was how good it was and the subsequent moans that came from both her and her man as they ate. They both ate so quickly that Daemeon found himself struggling to cut bites fast enough. Their rapture came at a little hitch in the middle of the meal when Colgate surprised Daemeon by lifting a hoof and pointing at the container to ask, “What are those? I’ve never seen a brown fruit like that before.”

Daemeon looked down at what she pointed at curiously before almost choking on his food when he realized she was addressing the two thick sausages he had ordered. Hesitant to answer the question, he could only bring himself to state, “Those aren’t fruit.”

Colgate put her nose to the two links and sniffed deeply. Smiling at the aroma, she asked, “Can I have one? They smell pretty good. Strange, but good.”

Biting his lip in worry, her man explained, “It’d probably be better if you didn’t eat that. I don’t think ponies are supposed to eat it. At least, the ponies here don’t eat it.”

For a moment, Colgate was confounded until she lifted her hoof and prodded one of the sausages. She was struck by a sudden realization as she cried, “Oh! That’s flesh, isn’t it?”

“Flesh?” Daemeon mimicked. “Well, yes. I mean, we don’t call it that much, but I guess that’s what it is.”

Colgate stared at the sausages for a moment before asking hesitantly, “It’s not made out of ponies, is it?”

In horror, Daemeon cried, “Oh no! No, no, no, no, no. Most people don’t eat ponies. Certainly no one in America does. It’s a pretty big taboo in our culture.”

The mare cocked her head in wonder and asked, “Why? I thought the ponies in this world didn’t talk. Do they have some lesser form of intelligence that demands respect?”

“No. It’s just that equines are very respected in our culture. They are seen as valuable, hard working animals and are good for riding. Humans domesticated horses thousands of years ago, and our races have existed in a semi mutual symbiosis since.”

“Very interesting. Just what animal are these sausages made out of then?”

Still hesitant but not having a good enough reason to avoid the question in light of the fact that she seemed so calm about the meat, he answered, “It’s made from pigs.”

Still looking long and hard at the two intestine bound links of ground pork, Colgate asked simply, “So can I have one?”

“Really?” her man cried in surprise. “I thought ponies were vegetarian.”

Sitting back on her haunches, Colgate explained, “We all were thousands of years ago, but that changed during the Gryphon War. That being said, most ponies still don’t eat meat, and the ones who do make up our Guardian class.”

“What’s your Guardian class?” Daemeon beckoned.

“Our stallions and select mares who protect Equestria,” Colgate explained. “They are mandated to include pig flesh in their diets for the sake of strengthening themselves. That way, if a foreign nation tries to invade, our Guardians will be powerful enough to defend us.”

“That’s incredible!” Daemeon extolled. “So your race can eat meat? I have to say, I’m surprised. And here I was avoiding the issue. I thought you might not like it if I told you I ate meat.”

His mare laughed aloud and stepped over the meal. Confused, Daemeon only watched as Colgate reached a hoof up to his mouth and pulled his jaw open. Seeming amused, she explained to him what was painfully obvious to herself, “You’re so quick to forget that I’m a dentist. Of course I knew you ate meat. You have projecting incisors and canines. Unless you humans have the beaver habit of biting through trees, those teeth are clearly for ripping flesh from bone.” She flashed her own pearly teeth as clearly as she could display them and said, “I’m surprised you didn’t notice. We have very similar teeth. We ponies of Equestria can eat meat just like you.”

Daemeon’s bewilderment was complete when he looked intently at her teeth and saw they were very similar. It almost caused him to wonder how he had not noticed before. He quickly realized however that the reason he didn’t notice was that they looked so normal adorning the inside of a creature’s mouth that could speak. In a sense, Colgate looked human even though she had the form of a pony.

The mare left her man contemplating that reality as she stepped out of his lap and levitated one of the sausages to her mouth. Not letting herself pause or debate, she bit into the juicy morsel and chewed intently. Having never had meat before, the experience was certainly unique. Second hoof explanations did little to prepare her for the intense and savory flavor. It did not take her long to consume the entire sausage, sating her tiny form to the extreme.

Daemeon did not refrain from laughing as Colgate finished her food and fell backwards, her four hooves and belly protruding amply towards the sky. Her man quickly followed suit and laid down next to her, clutching her to his side. For several moments they laid gazing through the canopy at the afternoon sky. Daemeon gradually worked a hand over to his little Colgate and rested it on her engorged stomach. Humorously, he stated, “I held up my end of the bargain. Now you need to finish your story.”

“I know,” she said softly, resting her forehooves on his large hand. Taking a deep and relaxing sigh, she continued the story, “Discord’s reign of chaos came to an end in the year 1007 A.E.”

“A.E.?” Daemeon queried.

“After Equestria,” Colgate answered. “We base our dates on the foundation of Equestria as a nation. Any dates before the founding of Equestria are very relative since we didn’t have regular years before the founding of Equestria. We loosely refer to dates before this time as B.E. or before Equestria.”

“Really!” her man exclaimed. “We do the same thing here. Our timetable begins when the Romans determined most accurately how to tell the years. What year is it in Equestria anyways?”

“It’s the year 2013 in Equestria. What is it here?”

A little confounded, Daemeon answered slowly, “It’s 2013 here as well. That’s weird.”

The pair locked eyes in bewilderment at the revelation. “Do you think it’s just a coincidence?” Colgate asked.

“Maybe.” Daemeon turned his face back towards the sky and stated thoughtfully, “Then again, your Equestria and my world seem to have a lot in common in the first place. I mean aside from the magic and all this business with demons and immortals, you ponies and we humans have a lot in common.”

“I don’t know much about humans yet.” Nuzzling her man’s hand, she asked, “What do you think we have in common?”

“We speak the same language.”

Genuinely confused, Colgate again turned up her eyes and asked, “What do you mean?”

Answering with introspection, “You and I, we feel feelings the same way. Our perceptions of the world, though altered by our two unique histories, have nonetheless crossed over in many respects. In a sense, you think like a human, and I think like a pony.”

“Does that mean anything do you think?”

“Well, it means that neither of us are animals limited to the id, but we knew that already.” Extending an arm skyward, Daemeon reasoned, “It could also mean that our two societies are building to the same ultimate conclusion.”

Colgate rolled off her back, grunting with the added weight, and ambled up Daemeon’s chest. She made herself comfortable by planting her four hooves and petite body against his torso and resting her chin on his collar bone. Her question was accompanied by a satisfied sigh, “And just what is that ultimate conclusion, Mr. Philosopher Man?”

Daemeon brought his arm down and stroked the length of his beautiful mare’s gossamer back and answered, “I don’t really know. It seems that while we’re both headed in the same direction, neither of us have gotten there. What I’m hoping is that the conclusion is the one I have told you.”

“The one where we all stop loving each other?” Colgate beckoned with a touch of sarcasm.

Stiffening a bit at her tone, Daemeon answered, “The conclusion where we learn best to live together and take care of each other.”

Colgate frowned slightly in regret as she considered the slight severity in her words. “Just because I don’t agree with him,” she thought to herself, “doesn’t mean I have to belittle his beliefs.” Biting her lip, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Daemeon smiled at her consideration and said, “Do not worry that your thoughts are different from mine. If I am right, then your words will mean nothing in the long run. However if I should be wrong, then the clash of our understanding could produce a better understanding. Knowledge always moves forward when people disagree. The real fear we must have is if we all agreed on everything but society wasn’t perfect. Apathy is the only real doom to progress. If we didn’t care enough to argue, then we might all die. Certainly humanity would die if we continued to live exactly as we do for the rest of our days. A new problem will arise, and we must argue with each other in order to best know how we may conquer the problem.”

His mare chuckled and asked, “So what you’re saying is that you want me to argue with you?”

“If you truly believe that I am wrong,” Daemeon stated with conviction, “then I can only hope you will continue to do so.”

“I guess we do speak the same language then.” Shrugging her shoulders, the unicorn continued her story, “Discord’s reign of a single year ended the same way it began. His creator Starswirl the Bearded was the one who caused the problem, and he was ultimately the one to create the solution.”

“Did he kill Discord?”

“No,” Colgate explained. “As far as I know, an immortal can’t die. Discord and our Matriarchs have neither aged nor died since they came into being. Instead, Discord was subdued by another creation of Starswirl’s; two creations in fact.”

“What were they?” Daemeon pressed in curiosity.

His mare lifted a hoof and rested it against his lips saying, “Before you can understand who they were, you must first understand exactly why they were made, and what they were made to do.” Sitting back on her haunches, resting against her man’s stomach, she explained, “It’s considered a thankful miracle that Starswirl did not die during the Reign of Chaos. I can only guess that between Discord and the many hateful ponies whose lives he ruined, he was in constant danger. Despite the atrocities that were ultimately perpetrated by his hooves and horn, Starswirl never lost sight of his goal to create a new Equestrian order. Oddly enough, he came to another solution that was very similar to the first with only a few small but very important differences.

“He proposed again to the Equestrian community that they should come together once more to manifest our powers into a creation that could solve our woes. This time however, he wanted us to create two beings, not one. These creations would be bequeathed the power to overthrow Discord as well as control the local cosmos of the sun and moon. Starswirl essentially wished to solve both problems at once.”

“That sounds spectacularly dangerous.” Daemeon scratched behind Colgate’s ears, enjoying how they twitched under his touch. “Why would he want to make two more monsters when Equestria couldn’t even handle one?”

“Its true,” she began, “the idea sounded crazy. Most ponies thought it was insane. After a year of Discord however, much of Equestrian life and culture had been ruined. We lost control of the weather, the crops, the animals, and even the celestial bodies. Everything we had worked so hard and so long for seemed lost, and we found ourselves back in the later days of the Dark Era. Our tenuous world balance was gone and ponykind was willing to do just about anything to bring some peace back to the chaos.

“So we come then to Starswirl’s solution. He proposed that we could turn back the tide of Discord by creating two counterparts who together would be more powerful than Discord but could be controlled individually. The two counterparts he created rule over Equestria to this day in almost continuous harmony. They are the Princesses Celestia and Luna, our beloved Matriarchs.”

“What did they look like?” Daemeon begged in curiosity. “You said they were created the same way Discord was. Did they come to be the monsters he was.”

Colgate shook her head and explained, “They were and are ponies, though they do not match your normal description of what a regular Equestrian is. To understand, let me return to my story.

“The spell Starswirl used to create the pair was the same in almost all respects save two. Firstly, he manifested the spell into not one creature but two, two sisters to be exact. Though they are our leaders, their existence has been so timeless that we do not know exactly who they were before they were chosen. If Celestia or Luna remember, they do not tell us. The best I could assume is that they were two unicorns especially gifted with magical power, but that’s purely my speculation. At any rate, the power of the spell was split into two, unequal parts with greater power going to the older sister and lesser power to the younger.

“The second variation in the spell was the nature of the wills being channeled into the transmutation. In order to combat Discord, Starswirl needed to collect more ponies than he had done before and give them a profound desire for the opposite of Discord in their hearts. To do this, he studied long and hard into the nature of Discord and found five combatting elements to his chaos.

“The first element was that of Loyalty. Discord knew no loyalties to any of the many ponies who helped to create him. In a sense, he did only as they had willed him to do. They did not will for him to stay by their sides. He only did whatever the many desires given to him prompted him to do. He paid no heed to anypony, not even his primary creator, Starswirl the Bearded.

“The second element was that of Laughter.” On seeing the raised eyebrow Daemeon shot her, the mare clarified, “There was no laughter in the Reign of Chaos. Though we made him to fulfill our desires, we did not establish the boundaries of wisdom. As the year ran its course, the spirit of the three races were virtually destroyed. Starswirl taught us that we needed to be able to laugh in the face of great adversity. We needed to laugh because that is how we found hope to continue on. It was laughter that helped us to remember what it was that we were trying to save. As I’ve said before, it is not enough merely to live. When the ponies brought their wills together, they needed something more powerful than the animal desire for simply living. Laughter gave us the desire to live well.

“The third element was that of Generosity. This element was very important for our defeating Discord. His creation was powered almost purely by individual desires prompted by personal greed. While those many desires were for the benefit of all ponies who lived, they were not projected with those thoughts in mind. The ponies who created Discord were the ones who abandoned the community stability of the commune. They wanted the opposite of giving for others. For once, they wanted to take without having to give back.

“The fourth element was that of Honesty. Like the element of Loyalty, Honesty was a virtue that had no place in Discord’s creation. The ponies projected into him many hidden or obscene desires that they had kept to themselves all of their lives. As such, Discord always kept his intentions hidden and only revealed them when he would follow through on heinous acts of chaos or cruelty.

“The fifth element was that of Kindness. After all that I’ve described to you, need I really say more? The creations of Celestia and Luna needed these elements to thwart Discord, and they needed to believe in them more than Discord believed in his chaos. For that to happen, all the ponies in Equestria were needed to band together and understand that harmony could defeat Discord if we all believed.

“Thus it came to be that on the seventh day of the fifth month in the year 1007 A.E., all of the ponies that lived, every stallion and mare from all three races, convened and willed into existence the two Alicorn princesses Celestia and Luna for the purpose of stopping Discord and returning balance to pony society.”

Several minutes of silence followed the long speech. Colgate rested her chin against her man’s collarbone and watched him as he gazed into the blue sky. By then, she had learned to recognize when her man was lost in thought. Rather than immediately continue her story, she let him dwell in that thought. They were looking for the truth after all. If it was in her history and she couldn’t find it, then she knew the best thing to do would be to get another perspective. At least, that’s what she hoped. If she had believed in God, she might have prayed. Prayer being unknown to her, the best she could do was hope.

Her hope was not misplaced as Daemeon’s mind wound tightly around the otherwise ludicrous history of what any man but he would believe to be an imaginary world. “I feel like I’m listening to a children’s storybook,” the man in thought noted to himself. “How can I argue with it though? It’s not like I’ve been there or know anything that can refute her story. If ponies are so much like people, then does this piece of her history reflect any part of mankind’s history?” Daemeon broke from his thoughts suddenly and asked, “Why were the elements of harmony significant enough for you to know them so well? Were they an important part of your education?”

Colgate shook her head and answered, “No. I did not know about the elements of harmony when I was a filly. Nopony did. It was not until three years ago when Nightmare Moon returned that they were rediscovered, and we again learned of their purpose.”

Cocking his head in confusion, Daemeon asked, “What do you mean rediscovered? And what’s Nightmare Moon?”

His mare sighed heavily and stepped off of his chest. Daemeon sat up and watched inquisitively as Colgate trotted away from him. His curiosity turned into fear as the distance between them grew. He threw up an arm and demanded, “What are you doing?!”

“Don’t worry,” she chuckled over her shoulder. “I just wanted to see how far I can go.”

Daemeon brought his arm down and sufficed himself with a stern frown as his mare tentatively put one hoof in front of the other. Very gradually, the man and the mare both felt an intense tugging and burning sensation in their chests. Cringing, Colgate stopped her advance and backed up a step to ease the pain. Turning around, she gauged the distance between them to be no more than five meters. Managing a weak smile, she closed the distance back to Daemeon and said, “I just wanted to make sure.”

Snickering with a mischievous looking smile, Daemeon said, “Sounds like you’re stuck with me.”

Colgate stopped walking and regarded him hesitantly. He seemed very much like the man she’d first met right then. She yelped loudly and leapt back as her man suddenly lunged at her. Daemeon’s abrupt and fairly uncoordinated motion caused him to slip and land face first in the grass which was still moist from the previous day’s storm. The pitched squeal of laughter that came from the little blue unicorn’s mouth only motivated him to jump up and leap for her again.

His mare took off in a brisk canter to get away from his playful grasp, laughing all the harder whenever Daemeon would reach for her only to hit the ground empty handed. This delighted playing continued for several minutes until the Colgate found herself running short on breath and very much encumbered with pancakes and sausages. Letting her guard down for only a second, Daemeon leapt for her and pinned her to the ground.

They stopped in that position for a moment as the both of them panted for air. Colgate could not help but marvel at Daemeon’s size and strength as he was bent over her, his two arms standing like towers on each side of her. The intensity of his gaze and the heat of his ragged panting made him seem all the larger and more imposing. It was no wonder that she had feared him so much when first they’d met that day before. Now however, that intensity and size seemed strangely comforting and exhilarating at the same time. Never before in her life had she felt so small, so diminutive, so . . . feminine. Colgate could not help but marvel how very much Daemeon made her feel like a desirable mare. As ragged and heated as her man’s breathing might have been, she was certain it could not match hers.

Colgate’s ragged breathing came to a lip puckered halt as she watched her man lift one of those tremendous hands and brush some of her disheveled mane away from her eyes. Daemeon’s eyes did not leaves hers, nor hers his, as he brought his hand down to glide softly against her chest. Colgate could feel her face grow flush with blood from her rapidly beating heart as that hand very, very gradually slid across her chest and onto her stomach. She could feel herself going light headed as Daemeon’s hand did not stop there but continued slowly past her belly button.

She felt so afraid she wanted to scream. She felt so giddy she wanted to laugh. She felt so overwhelmed she wanted to cry. All she could do though was hold her breath for that eternity as her eyes did not stray one millimeter from his. The anticipation proved almost unbearable until a short cry and closed eyes from the mare confirmed the intentions of the movement. Daemeon’s fingers came to a stop directly above her maidenhead.

Though her eyes were squeezed shut and her entire form trembled, she clearly heard the soft and endearing voice of that human she claimed to love, “Are you okay, Colgate?”

Not having the place of mind to open her eyes or answer with words, she only returned with a curt nod of her tiny head. Her admission seemed only to motivate the huge man above her. She released another loud gasp as she felt that hand apply pressure. The heat that rolled through her abdomen covered her in a lather of perspiration. The pressure continued to build for a minute that felt more like an hour before she again heard her man speak. This time his words came out heavier and quite a bit more ragged, “Please open your eyes, Colgate.”

Hesitantly, genuinely having to work up the courage, she forced open her eyes and again looked into Daemeon’s piercing grey orbs. Instead of the firm, intense gaze he had been giving her before, she was greeted by moist, uncertain eyes that looked almost as full of fear as she felt. With trembling lips, she listened to her man state, “This could happen.”

Still drawing ragged breaths, the diminutive mare nodded her head and murmured, “Uhuh!”

Trying to steady himself, her man answered, “I mean, uh, we could make it work. That is, I mean, I don’t think we could do everything, but we could, uh, uh.” She saw him swallow and try desperately to find the right words. “I just think you’re so beautiful, and, and, I’m really attracted to you. I just don’t know if we should, if we should . . .”

Though she panted from the implications of his words and the pressure of his touch, she tried desperately to clear her head. It did not help that Daemeon’s face was slowly edging towards hers, his lips tightening in an expectant pucker. Colgate wanted nothing more than to meet his lips and give into that inviting yet fearful desire. They were so full of heat, so full of passion. How could she say no? She couldn’t.

Instead, she screamed, “Hug me!”

The scream startled Daemeon that he almost choked. Confused, he drew his hand from her and cried, “What?”

Panting feverishly, she said less aggressively, “Hug me, please. Just hug me.”

Daemeon quickly sat back and clutched the beautiful mare to his chest in a powerful hug. Colgate felt she might suffocate in his blood rushed arms, but her man was quick to realize he was being too rough and eased his grasp. With her chin resting on his shoulder, she could not see the face of her man, but she knew his agitation in his voice as he said, “I’m sorry, Colgate. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to push it so far. I just wanted to be with you, and you seemed so beautiful.”

Unable to bear the embarrassed agony in his voice, she countered honestly, “Don’t do that. Don’t be sorry. It wasn’t just you. I wanted it too.”

Still holding her in a deep hug, Daemeon asked, “Then why did you stop me?”

Colgate cringed at the question. It was true that she wanted him just as much as he wanted her. There was one thing that held her back aside from accepting his advances and it wasn’t their incompatible size. “I don’t want us to say goodbye like this.”

Daemeon released his grip enough to look his mare in the eyes as he asked, “What do you mean.”

Taking a steadying breath, Colgate explained morosely, “You know what’s going to happen, Daemeon. You know I’m going to have to go back to where I came from, and I’m certain I can’t take you with me. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to say goodbye.” A tear slipped from the corner of her eye as she concluded, “I don’t want that moment to be any harder than it will be now. I already love you as a friend, Daemeon. I don’t want to have to say goodbye to you as a lover.”

Her man cast down his eyes, trying desperately not to show sadness or cry at what she said. Not quite succeeding, Colgate put up her healing hoof and wiped away a bead of moisture saying, “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I don’t like it when you’re sad. It makes me sad too.” Forcing the best smile she could in spite of the situation, she argued, “You don’t like it when I’m sad so you’ll have to stop being sad so I can stop being sad. Okay?” Even as she felt her false smile failing and more tears coming she demanded, “So stop crying like a little foal. You got that, mister?”

Not having the right words to counter his mare’s demands, Daemeon only grasped her again to his chest and quivered in sadness. Gradually, he slumped over and the two of them laid on the ground, clutching each other in mutual pain and love. They both understood the validity of her argument, but it was all for naught. They may not have done the deed but the intense desire and emotions were already deeply rooted. Though neither of them truly understood it, their love of eros had already come to pass. It did not need the physical act to take place. Arrows often strike unwilling or unfortunate hearts after all. Why should they be any different? Between races, between cultures, between worlds, what boundary is strong enough to drive two desiring parties asunder? No boundary is truly impenetrable save one. That is of course the boundary in which a moment ends, and no new moments may follow.

Their excitement and heated desires gradually cooled, and the pair once more found themselves breathing evenly with clear heads. Their rapidly beating hearts slowed to the pace of a soft tide, rising and receding in regular intervals. The sun drifted overhead, falling deeper into the southwest than it had the day before. The day was starting to lose some of that brightness and cheer as it so gradually dimmed. Neither the mare nor her man cared much to look in any case. They were content with each other.

By and by, Colgate broke the silence asking, “Should I continue with the history?”

“Yeah,” came Daemeon’s simple and unenthused answer.

The mare found she had to clear her throat and wipe the moisture from her face before continuing, “When Starswirl bent the spell of transmutation into Celestia and Luna, they were morphed into being greater than any individual pony. Because of the elements of harmony that had been woven into their creation however, they turned into servants of ponykind and not the monster that Discord is.”

“What did they look like?” her man returned, regaining some of his lost interest.

“The better question to ask is what do they look like. They are immortal and live to this day after all. They are what we call Alicorns. Because they were created with mutual collaboration and the best interests of all three races in mind, they became the living embodiment of every good and noble aspect of the three races. As such, they are fully earth ponies, fully unicorns, and fully pegasi. With strength, flight, and magic bound within them, they are our ultimate creations towards a higher order.”

Daemeon chewed his lip in thought and asked, “What do you mean they were ‘fully’ earth, pegasi, and unicorn?”

“That can be confusing to understand,” Colgate noted emphatically. “It is important to understanding why they have made for the almost perfect rulers however. You see, Celestia and Luna have every beneficial characteristic of earth ponies. They have the strength, size, and weight of the most powerful farming stallions. Then they have every beneficial characteristic of pegasi such as hollowed bones, wings, and their magical grasp of the weather. Finally, every positive aspect of being a unicorn is within them. The obvious point of that is their horns and the magic it grants them. Just as important is their grasp of reality beyond the simple or mundane. They do not see single levels of a situation but all levels. This ability only grows more powerful as they grow older and are able to learn from history.”

“Interesting,” Daemeon mumbled as he absently stroked Colgate’s blue and white mane. “Three in one? I always thought that concept was bupkis, but I suppose it works for you ponies.” The man managed a grim smile before asking, “Have you met either of the princesses before?”

Colgate thought back to the meeting that had brought her to Manhattan and answered, “I already told you that Princess Celestia was the one who sent me here. To be honest though, that was the first and only time I’ve spoken to her personally. I first saw Princess Luna three years ago when she returned from her exile as the dreaded Mare in the Moon. That’s a bit of a story though, and I couldn’t tell it to you without explaining some other things though.”

Colgate could feel Daemeon nod his head above her as he said, “I understand. Is Princess Celestia nice?”

The mare thought back and answered, “You know, I’d always thought she would be so imposing and overwhelming to speak to face to face. She’s been the ruler of Earth’s most powerful nation for a thousand years after all. When I did speak with her though, she was not like that. She seemed very much to be a pony, just like the rest of us.”

Speaking from his understanding of American politicians, Daemeon noted, “Looks can be deceiving.”

“Perhaps,” the comfortable mare answered quietly. “I’m sure she’s had to deceive ponies before in her quest to keep our nation alive and prosperous for so many years. Still, she was not just kind like a pony who is trying to seduce another for personal gain. She seemed tired and worried, like a mother of too many foals. She seemed fairly disturbed when I told her I did not want the cutie mark I have.”

“Speaking of which,” Daemeon interjected, sliding his hand so that it rested on the hourglass symbol adorning her flank, “you said you ponies didn’t always have cutie marks. When do they come up?”

Colgate smiled at the warmth of his hand on her flank and said, “I was actually just about to mention them. They are the invention of Starswirl through the Princesses Celestia and Luna. You see, Starswirl not only desired for our new Matriarchs to overthrow Discord, he wanted them to spearhead the new system of government that Equestria had never accepted before. It was not a new creation as it was indigenous to the Crystal Empire long before Starswirl ever proposed it as a valid solution given the right circumstances.”

A little confused, Daemeon asked, “What’s the Crystal Empire? I feel like you’ve mentioned that before.”

The mare grunted in annoyance and explained, “Dear Celestia, I’ve gone and forgotten to mention the Crystal Empire! Thank goodness they didn’t play a pivotal part until now, so I guess it’s not too bad.” Sighing, she gave her man an absent nuzzle and continued, “The Crystal Empire was formed somewhere between 300 and 500 A.E. as a response to the restrictive system of the commune in the Simple Era.”

“Why don’t you know when definitively?”

“Because,” she returned, “it wasn’t so much founded definitively as the hub around which the empire now settles grew populated and sturdy enough to support itself indefinitely. The empire was founded by stallions and mares who hated the oppressive edicts of the commune so much that they abandoned Equestria for solitary living elsewhere. The ponies to leave at first were few in number. They often never got too far or were forced to come back to our nation for food and protection. The rest of the world had not yet been charted and there were still untamed lands just beyond the reach of civilization where ferocious beasts and other rising races were beginning to stake their claims. None of the ponies who left the protection of Equestria were able to survive long except for those who tempted the harshest terrain in the world where not even beasts would roam.”

In unrestrained curiosity, Daemeon begged, “Where was that?”

Smiling, his mare answered him, “There is a freezing tundra in the far northern stretch of Equestria where much of the vegetation of the world cannot reach and only the sturdiest of the four hooved animals can survive on the scant grasses and crops to be had. No animal race could have made new furnishings in that wasteland but the industrious intelligence of ponies made it possible. You see, on this tundra was a plain that has the most remarkable crystalline structures in the world. Most spectacularly was a crystal mountain that stood towering over the landscape.

“When train tracks were again commissioned to link the Crystal Empire to Equestria, I got to take a trip and see the beauty of the empire myself. Though one could argue that the crystal homes were formed solely for the purpose of protection against the arctic cold, I would argue they played a more important role in reaffirming the beliefs of the errant ponies that traveled there that the commune was not the way pony society should live. After all, what’s the point of living if we cannot express ourselves so artfully and live well because of it?”

“I guess you have a point,” Daemeon reasoned softly. “But what does this have to do with cutie marks?”

“I’ll get to that.” Colgate pressed her hooves against Daemeon’s chest so they could look each other in the eyes as she spoke. “To understand how they’re related though, I have to explain the government under which the Crystal Empire was first formed, and how it fell from power. The observations that Starswirl made when looking into the history of the nation helped him greatly in directing the creation of the new Equestrian order that would start the Reform Era, the era in which we Equestrians live now.”

“What was so peculiar about the government of the Crystal Empire?”

Giving a small smile in the face of her man’s eagerness, the beautiful, blue unicorn explained, “The Crystal Empire’s government was the first government collaborated between the three races other than the commune. Instead of seeking a government of pure wisdom wherein the world’s continued life rested on the shoulders of ponies, the residents of the Crystal Empire sought to satisfy their intellectual and artistic desires. As such, the greatest and smartest among them came together and proposed the government we call the Aristocracy.”

“An Aristocracy?” Daemeon marveled in surprise. “What an awful government to choose. Who would want to live under a hereditary family of disjointed rulers? Even an Oligarchy lead by a monarch is better than that.”

The mare regarded her man curiously and stated, “You and I seem to have differing understandings of what an Aristocracy is. To us ponies, it is a rule by the best qualified citizens, not a hereditary bloodline. The ponies who showed the greatest wisdom and intelligence for leadership were the ones who would rule over the rest. After all, some ponies are objectively more suitable for the role of leadership. Understanding this, the ponies of the Crystal Empire formed an Aristocracy whereby they gave special educations to the youths who held promise for leadership. Regardless of class or gender, the ponies with promise were all educated to be leaders and the best among them would grow to be the aristocrats of our society. And in any given generation, the greatest one of them all would hold the title of king or queen.”

Daemeon chewed his bottom lip for a moment and considered the proposed government. As he’d learned in his own history, such valiant attempts towards meritocracy were often undercut by political discord or a niche in the armor of perfection. While he’d like to refute the validity of Aristocracy altogether, he decided that he’d learned better than to judge the Equestrians too quickly. Instead, he asked, “Did their government work?”

With a shake of her head, she answered, “Not very well.”

“Called it.”

Colgate explained, “At least, it didn’t last very long in the fashion they conceived of it. The Aristocracy education was meticulously set up so that those who became aristocrats worried about nothing other than how best to lead. It was thus determined that the artistic expression which the Crystal Empire was founded on should be beyond the ponies who ruled it. They tried to divide ponies into leaders and producers. The producers lived doing whatever they desired to do. The leaders lived doing what they were trained to do. It was in this fashion that the Crystal Empire lived for almost two hundred years.”

“Well that doesn’t sound too bad,” Daemeon noted. “What went wrong?”

Colgate gently stroked her hoof against her man’s thickening beard as she happily explained, “The system they set wasn’t perfect. I guess you can’t blame them for trying. I’d say it had a good run for a first stab, but they couldn’t keep the merit of the leaders to standard as time went by. There eventually came to be an aristocrat king who did not have the wisdom or intelligence needed to keep the empire from inner strife. He ultimately came to believe that the system whereby new leaders were chosen was flawed. Whether it was or not, I couldn’t really say. In any case, he did away with the leaders education and set up a Timocracy as the pegasi had in the Dark Era. Just like before, rulership was determined by whomever was the strongest and most honorable. In this way at least, the empire retained some dignity.

“Unfortunately, there was a problem with the Timocracy that was set up. Unlike the pegasi of Pegasopolis, the Crystal Empire had no kingdoms with which to war. The premise of an honor bound society runs out of fuel quickly when its citizens become lazy from lack of immediate conflict. This government hardly lasted more than a few generations before one of the new leaders decided to take power away from the honorbound and set up a dynastic rule. Because the empire did not have battle hardened conviction to fight for the order, they let it slip away. The result was the same form of government that the unicorns of Unicornia had had; the Oligarchy.

“Though the principles of the Oligarchy lasted a good deal longer than the Timocracy due to the less fallible nature of determining who would rule next, it did not hold out in the long run. The Oligarchical rule does not impose any great demands for quality leadership. At least in the Aristocracy and the Timocracy, leaders had to prove themselves worthy and keep an image of civility or power. Because the Crystal Empire did not suffer conflict with other nations, the rulers during the Oligarchy gradually became more and more volatile. Every generation became more lustful for money and pleasures than the last until it finally came to a head. The wealth of their society continuously trickled upward until the ponies at the top were fabulously rich while the ponies at the bottom were starving from hunger. After almost a hundred and fifty years of dynastic rule, the commonwealth of the Empire rose up against their own greed driven rulers in revolution. The reasons for the revolution were simple enough. The poor wanted the goods of the empire redistributed to the poor and hungry, level out the playing field as it were. Staging the revolution was the easy part. It’s relatively easy to break a society. What was far more difficult was finding a working model of government that would protect against overbearing rulers. The solution they came to was that of the Democracy, the government of the ponies of the Earth during the Dark Era.

“Democracy seemed like a fool proof plan to protect against injustice at first. Leaders were to be elected by a majority of the total populace. Every pegasus, unicorn, and Earth pony was given equal voting rights so that no race could come to power without the acceptance of at least one other race. In this way, they felt certain that any leader who came to power would be from general consensus. Even when he or she came to power, they could still be removed by popular vote if the nation so chose. In this way, the elect were pressured to appease the populace by keeping whatever promises they made to receive their vote. All of society was perceived to benefit from this common cause arrangement.”

Having been very intent and silent for her story, Daemeon found it difficult to not pressure her with more detailed descriptions of their governments. Of all the things Daemeon took time out of his life to learn, history was what he believed to be both the most important and most interesting subject. What others might have called boring, he would have called riveting. This eagerness was reflected in his voice as he beckoned, “Did the Democracy work out the way they thought?”

Colgate chuckled sweetly at his expression. It was one that desired knowledge, and she had the means to sate it. She answered him, “It worked marvelously well at first. Famine and revolution have a way of getting ponies to care about who’s in charge. It seems like all good things come to an end though. All of the ponies who lived through the revolution and the previous government worked very hard to educate themselves on exactly who should be ruling. There was energy and excitement at first. For the first time in history, there was a place where the voice of every pony mattered. It was seen as such a grand and beautiful thing, truly the work of genius and enlightenment. Unfortunately, the very points of the system that the ponies of the Crystal Empire praised were the very points that ultimately lead to the downfall of the empire.

“The system only succeeded at first because of the energy garnered from the revolution. As years passed and one generation was replaced by another and another, the populace lost enthusiasm in the Democratic process. Ponies became less worried about who came to be in charge. Because of this, they did not make the effort they used to to elect good leaders. As good leaders were gradually replaced by leaders of poorer and poorer quality, ponies became frustrated because they felt the Democratic system to be failing them. While perhaps this should have driven ponies in the empire to become more invested in politics, it caused the opposite. More and more, ponies felt that their votes didn’t matter and many gave up on voting altogether. This of course only aggravated the process worse. Opportunistic stallions and mares took advantage of this situation and convinced the ponies that did vote to vote for them so they could achieve grandiose and impossible promises. When they came into office, they would use their power to concentrate wealth and amnesty onto themselves while ignoring their constituents. Because many ponies did not vote and the rest did not agree, the removal process proved flawed and such bureaucrats remained in power. Just like in the Oligarchy, money again trickled to the top and the populace became discontent. Having already tasted the ‘success’ of revolution to remove the old kings and queens, it did not take as much motivation to make it happen again. This revolution however, was not successful and the result of it proved to be more terrible than any government the Crystal Empire had experienced before.”

Colgate rolled onto her back and stretched her petite hooves skyward. A silent suspicion rolled through her as she stretched. A quick sideways glance proved that suspicion correct as she found Daemeon’s grey eyes following the length of her body a bit more intently than they had before. Instead of blushing at the gaze as she’d done that morning, she only smiled and welcomed it with both satisfaction and frustration. The satisfaction came from the feeling of being desired, something she had never felt so firmly in her life. The frustration came from knowing they could do nothing about it without hurting each other. “Even then,” she mused secretly to herself, “I still enjoy it more than I’d like to admit.”

She looked to the sky with smiling eyes and said, “When the government of Democracy was overthrown in the Crystal Empire, the ponies were left with two choices. They could either go back to the commune and rejoin Equestria, or they could come together and choose a new government. Unfortunately for the ponies of the Crystal Empire, they would not give back in to the commune, and there were no known forms of agreeable government to which a Democracy can devolve to. There was no government that adhered to a less strict form of morality.”

At these words, Daemeon found his curiosity piqued. He asked, “What do you mean by that?”

The mare gave her man a sidelong glance and stated, “Surely you must see the pattern. The Aristocracy was created to survive on only the strictest form of morality such that ponies were educated from foalhood to understand, respect, and become intellectual authority. When this education of morality lost respect, society devolved into the next best thing. When the Timocracy lost its honor, it devolved into a society that only survived because it still respected authority. When respect for authority was lost, the Crystal Empire devolved again into the Democracy, an even lower form of government where there are no morals or respect except that which is briefly given by temporary consensus. When even this lowest form of government is abandoned because consensus cannot occur, we come to the worst possible state for an intelligent society to fall.”

Knowing human history as he did, Daemeon felt he could fully suspect what that possible state was. Still, he had to be sure. “And just what was that?” he asked with a grim face.

“Anarchy,” Colgate answered with a stern visage. “Anarchy, the complete loss of proper government. That is what the Crystal Empire suffered when the ponies residing there could no longer agree on how they should be ruled. The empire was split into factions of ponies fighting violently against each other. Some groups wanted one of the old orders returned. Other groups claimed to have whole new governments to test. The ones who took the most control of the chaos of Anarchy, were the ones who knew how to incite anger and hate in the populace. It was during this state of Anarchy that Starswirl the Bearded became powerful enough to escape the bonds of Equestria and seek out a solution to the Equestrian desire for a new order.”

“Did Starswirl ever go to the Crystal Empire? I should think he’d have been accepted there, but you never mentioned the empire in reference to him before.”

Colgate shook her head and answered, “Though Starswirl sympathized with the plights of the ponies who made up the Crystal Empire in the distant north, he never approved of the idea of abandoning Equestria to its wretched duties for eternity. He very easily could have made a place for himself in the bitter cold of the Crystal Empire, but he remained adamant in his desire to save the Equestrians. In fact, he is said to have scorned the Crystal Empire even as he went to great lengths to study its history and understand precisely how it rose and how it fell. It was from studying this five hundred year history of a nation that Starswirl based his beliefs on how best to form a new order.” Colgate stopped to heave a great sigh before saying, “And this finally brings us back to the point of what cutie marks have to do with the Crystal Empire.”

Trying very hard to follow the logic of what she was explaining, Daemeon interjected, “I enjoy hearing about your history. Really, I enjoy listening to any history. I am confused however as to why you should put so much emphasis on how their governments worked. Are they really so important for understanding Equestria?”

Colgate nodded her head emphatically and stated, “Yes, very much so. I wanted you to understand that the governments of the Crystal Empire broke down because of critical flaws in their systems. All of those flaws were perpetrated not by a weakness in the system as an idea but a weakness in the ponies who tried to uphold those systems. Starswirl saw that, if given the choice to, ponies will tend towards laziness and will only continue strive for better living if they are left unsatisfied or in danger. A lack of motivation or pride will ultimately cripple any government if given enough time. Just as the Crystal Empire fell to ruin, Starswirl believed the commune would ultimately fall to ruin and the world would slide back into the Dark Era if things weren’t changed for the better.”

Daemeon propped himself up on his elbow and looked down on his mare to say, “A thousand years is a long time. I don’t know of any human government that has lasted so long. Certainly nothing as corruptible as a Communism could last that long here. Then again, we don’t have the benefit of an upset cosmos to induce us to act. Just what was the new government Starswirl wanted to set up?”

Looking up into the eyes of her man and giving him a sincere smile, she said, “He created the Moral Aristocracy. Well, it wasn’t just him, but he was the one to conceive of and follow through on the idea. In studying the fall of the Crystal Empire to Anarchy, he discovered that there are three things necessary to running a perfect government in Equestria.

“The first step was to undo the commune in some fashion so that a new government could take its place. Though that may sound like the end of the world as they knew it, Starswirl’s plan was to create two beings, i.e. the Matriarchs, who would be powerful enough to rule over the sun and the moon. As it stood in Equestria then, as many unicorns as could be gathered were necessary in creating the most consistent seasons. Starswirl’s hope was that the two Matriarchs would be endowed with enough power at their creation to completely relieve the unicorn race of this responsibility. By just allowing one of the three races to give up their duties, the entire system would open up to the possibility of artistic and intellectual development. The other two races work loads would also be significantly lightened with the added cooperation of the unicorns.

“The second step Starswirl saw as necessary was to instill a system whereby a ruler of true moral merit was always in control, no matter what trouble the state might be in. At first, Starswirl had hopes that this could be achieved by establishing a strict system of education just as the founders of the Crystal Empire had. As he studied their history though, he concluded that such a thing would not be permanent due to the susceptibility of ponies to eventually blame the current governing system for any societal shortcoming. No matter how good of a leadership education was established, it would eventually fall through and Equestria would fall to Anarchy. He believed that the best possible solution was to have the Matriarchs he planned to create not only control the cosmos but the state as well. If they were bequeathed with all of the inherent traits of perfect leaders, then they would be able to hold Equestria together indefinitely.

“Even with the perfect leader at its lead, Equestria would not have held together to this day if it weren’t for the third part of Starswirl’s plan. Almost all ponies laud it as the most important part of the plan and the most effective change to come over pony society since its conception at the end of our days of roaming as herds.” Colgate rolled off of her back and stood up. With her head hung low to the ground, she concluded, “I must say almost everypony because I view the third part of his plan as the doom of my unhappiness.”

Her man flashed a worried frown and beckoned, “What do you mean?”

The mare turned her head to reflect on the hourglass symbol adorning her flank and explained, “The third part of Starswirl’s plan was to remove all dissatisfaction from ponykind. He wanted to remove all fear of determination and reveal to each of us exactly what we were meant to do in Equestrian society. After all, you can have the greatest leaders possible but they will be all for naught if the populace they are trying to lead prove to be resentful of a leader they had not chosen. The Matriarchs Celestia and Luna could not simply rule. They had to rule with the acceptance of the populace. For this reason, Starswirl also wove into their creation the most complex and powerful charm known to ponykind.”

“By charm, you mean a spell right?” Daemeon asked, bringing a hand over to run the length of his beautiful mare’s back. He had to silently marvel at how the feel of her soft fur still caused him to have goosebumps. For all the tactility, he still felt the same rush touching her as he had when he’d first met her the day before.

Colgate arched her back against Daemeon’s warm hand, moaning slightly at the touch. Her answer was slow in coming, “Yes. It is a charm much like the charm between us. It will not end until some element of the spell has been dismissed whether it be the point of provocation, the focused energy, or the target subject.” A chill breeze rustled the leaves above the pair. The chill nipped at Colgate who found herself falling back towards that ever more familiar chest of her human. As Daemeon brought his arm down around her to encompass her in warmth, she smiled and continued, “To understand how the charm works, I’ll have to start by explaining its parts.

“The point of provocation, as you may remember, is the point from which magic is directed. If I enact a spell on you, then I am the point of provocation. Starswirl wanted the charm he was to enact to last forever. As such, he could not set himself as the point of provocation. He was not permanent and there was no guarantee that there would be a continuous line of ponies such as he who would be able to continue the charm. Thus it was for fairly obvious reasons that Starswirl give the Matriarchs the ability to enact this charm and set themselves as the points of provocation. So long as Celestia and Luna live, the charm will continue on unhindered.

“To understand the focused energy which actively drives the charm, I first have to explain the target subject. I guess it would be more accurate to say target subjects. You see, the target subjects of the spell are every single pony that is in the image of the Princesses Celestia and Luna. Remember when I said before that Celestia and Luna are both fully unicorns, pegasi, and Earth ponies? This is important for the spell to work because it links the three races together. If Celestia and Luna were only amalgamations of the three races then the charm would only affect other being just like them. Because they are three in one however, the charm works perfectly.

“So finally, we can come to the focused energy.” Colgate sat back on her haunches and faced Daemeon. Grim faced, she puffed out her chest and tapped her hoof against it saying, “We, every single pony in Equestria and beyond, provide the focused energy necessary to find our mark. It is our very desire to know who we are and what we should become that powers the spell and guides us to our careers. It is when we discover what we are very best at in the whole world that our desire to know ourselves sets off that charm vested in our Matriarchs. Then, when that charm goes off, the negative feedback loop throws a log in the fire, and we receive our cutie marks. This is how I came to be branded with a career that causes me unhappiness.”

“You love your job,” Daemeon reprimanded. “You said so yourself.”

Colgate was quick to retort, “Don’t you sass me. By your own words, you said people can still be angry while loving something. They can still be unhappy.”

Her man smirked at her answer and reached an arm over to pull her once more to his chest. Sliding to his back, he said, “That they can, Colgate. And brava, might I add. It’s not often that someone can turn my own words against me.”

Giving a smirk of her own, Colgate returned, “Maybe I’m causing you to lose your edge a bit.”

“Ain’t that the bleedin’ truth.” Daemeon shook his head to himself and said, “It’s marvelous how you ponies live. And I do mean that literally. I can only marvel at a society that has been constructed around the idea of perfection. That isn’t to say it’s a new idea here. Humanity has tried it time and time again. The Greeks tried it with Democracy in Athens. Caesar tried for perfection in Rome. Old Louis cried L’Etat, c’est moi’. The Puritans made their City upon a Hill. And I’d like to meet the man who hasn’t heard of the Manifesto. For all our noble attempts however, we have never even come close to utopia. Our failures are often so severe that the word utopia is never more than a hundred words from dystopia. It seems the closer we think we are to perfection, the further away it actually is.”

“Aren’t you being a little grim?” his mare said with a frown.

“No, unfortunately. I’m only being blunt. What would be grim is if I gave you the details of our failures. Frankly though, I don’t see why you’d need to know that.” Giving a lighthearted tussle of her mane, he concluded cheerfully, “I’d rather not make you sad.”

“Has it really been so bad?” his mare pressed.

Setting aside the cheer for a moment, Daemeon answered grimly, “Yes. Imagine taking all of the grim aspects of your history and multiplying them by a factor of ten. Maybe then you will begin to understand that this world has not just one nation whose history bears turmoil. We have hundreds of histories spanning thousands of nations over the course of humanity’s existence.”

A part of Colgate wanted to argue the possibility of such a complex existence, but she herself had seen that city of eight million in its glory. She had seen more people in one glance than she believed there to be ponies in all of Equestria. With so many creatures having to cooperate over hundreds of thousands of years, she could take Daemeon’s word when he tried to have her imagine the scope of the simple question she asked. Instead, she contented herself to note, “I guess it would be less practical for me to ask about the history of humanity when I am finished with telling my history.”

“I guess,” her man returned. He issued a grunt as he pushed himself off the ground to sit up. Loosening his grip so that his mare could rest comfortably in his crossed legs, he said, “That being said, we seem to have no fewer things in common because of it. In fact, I’m quite impressed by how much human history you’ve captured in your story.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I’m just impressed at how many governments and civil conflicts your nations have gone through that is so very similar to what humanity has gone through. Democracy, Oligarchy, Timocracy, Aristocracy, and even Communism you’ve had! Civil wars, racial wars, and even revolutionary wars. Yet even after all of those wars, your race, much as my own, has been moving forward. Your history might be on a much smaller scale, but it is no less relevant because of it.”

Colgate gave a broad smile and said happily, “I’m glad I’m able to tell it to you. I hope you can learn from it as much as I have been.”

Daemeon raised an eyebrow in curiosity and asked, “Just what have you been learning? You’re the one telling the story.”

His mare gave him a more mocking smile and said, “You call yourself a teacher? Don’t you know the best way to learn about something is to teach it yourself. Otherwise, knowledge can lay fallow as unplanted fields. Once you have to teach somepony something, you are challenged to garnering a greater understanding of it yourself. I’d hope that you of all your people would understand that the best way to learn anything is to teach it.”

Truly impressed, her man remarked, “I did know that. It’s just a rare thing for me to meet someone else who understands. You continue to surprise me, Colgate.”

“Well,” she chuckled, “maybe that’s because you don’t know much about me.”

“Indeed I don’t.” Bringing a hand down, Daemeon curled a lock of her mane around his finger and said, “I’d love nothing more than to get to know more.”

Planting a little kiss on her man’s hand, she answered, “Then I guess I’ll have to continue the story. You could hardly know more about me without knowing where I came from.”

“You’re more right than you know.”

Colgate tapped a hoof against her chin in a moment’s thought before asking, “Do you remember where I left off?”

“You’d just finished explaining how a cutie mark is made. Quite a marvelous story by the way. What you haven’t really explained is how those new queens, Celestia and Luna, were to get rid of Discord.”

Daemeon was caught off guard by his mare as she aggressively shook her head and explained, “Princesses! They are not queens. They did not lead an Oligarchy like we had in the Dark Era. They administer to ponykind, but they did not come to power through election, bloodline, or force. They rule over us because they are the best expression of each of the three pony races. They do not enforce edicts over their subjects. They lead, and we follow. There is no willingness or unwillingness. There are none who could rule better. To put it in an unfairly pessimistic sense, we get no say in the matter. They don’t either for that matter.”

Continuing to curl her mane, Daemeon noted, “That doesn’t sound like the safest system to me. I mean, what would you ponies do if your leaders became corrupt? What’s stopping them from becoming corrupt in the first place? Do you have some contingency plan for in case they do?”

His mare frowned in thought and answered him, “I would say that that was impossible due to the nature of their creation. The Princesses were created with all of the positive aspects of ponykind. They would never fall to corruption on their own. Unfortunately, I cannot say that it can’t happen, nor can I say it hasn’t. It was not long after we set up our reformed Equestrian order that just such a thing occurred and one of our own Matriarchs turned against us.”

“And just how did that happen?”

His mare rolled in his lap so her four hooves pointed skyward. In a rather subtle show of openness, she did not pull her tail over herself in modesty as she was want to do before. Instead, she just smiled and said, “I’d be getting ahead of myself if I told you. I still have to tell you about how the Princesses defeated Discord.

“The biggest problem with defeating Discord was that he cannot be killed. At least, I don’t think he can be killed. I’ll tell you differently if one of them ever dies. What they did instead was use a very powerful spell that has kind of become the hallmark for the Equestrian answer to capital punishment.”

Intrigued, Daemeon asked, “Your culture doesn’t have capital punishment? What do they have instead?”

“Well,” she explained, “when a pony or citizen of non-pony descent is seen as an uncontrollable threat in the eyes of the state, they are put into a magical imprisonment wherein the body does not deteriorate from the decay of time but the mind experiences the passage in slow agony. This is how Discord was dealt with a thousand years ago. The Princesses Celestia and Luna enacted a spell that put him into what should have been a permanent such prison.”

Very intrigued by the idea of a permanent incarceration that is nonlethal, Daemeon pressed, “Where is this prison in Equestria?”

“No, no,” she said with a shake of her head. “The prison isn’t any one place. The prison is the individual bodies of those judged by Celestia and Luna. They don’t have to constrain them in a physical prison. She constrains them in a bodily prison. That is, they turn them into stone.”

“Really?!” her man exclaimed. “Wow. I don’t even know how to react to that one. Criminal offenders are literally turned into stone in your society?”

Colgate nodded with a grim facade and explained, “They don’t do it often. It is considered the ultimate punishment. We used to have execution before the instating the Princesses but capital punishment was seen as counter productive to a more perfect society.”

“I guess their alternative form of punishment is convenient for their grasp of humanitarian values but I must know for sure.” Daemeon gripped his mare’s two forehooves, both clean and cut and asked, “Can you tell me exactly why you ponies decided against capital punishment? You see, it’s a pretty hot topic in this world. There are many who wish execution to be illegal in any scenario, but there are also many who feel that some people are too dangerous or violent to be trusted with life, especially if that person has killed others with intent and without remorse.”

“I can understand why,” she discerned. “If humans don’t have the benefit of magic then you must be fairly limited to either execution or physical imprisonment. That would be expensive and a little cruel either way. Even if we were without magic however, we would not allow for execution based on a fairly simple and fundamental system whereby we determine the proper action to take when a crime occurs.”

“That’s what I want to hear,” Daemeon said with a smile. “You know me. I don’t care so much for practicality. My mind wraps itself more around guiding principles. Life, after all, runs on principles as founded and irrefutable as those theories both mathematical and astronomical.”

“What do you know about math or astronomy?” his mare inquired curiously.

“Enough to know for certain that the pony control of the cosmos is fundamentally impossible in this universe.” He let go of her hooves and traced a finger around the ovular bite mark scarring her beautiful blue coat. Saddened by the slight wince she gave as he traced his finger, he said, “That being said, I am just smart enough to know that I know next to nothing for certain. So, I like to learn more rules that may or may not reform the old ones. Ptolemy had a fantastically complicated way of following the cosmos. Though they worked in part, his theories were wrong on the whole.” Forcing a small smile for his mare’s sake, he begged, “But please, don’t worry about him. I want to know; what is the reasoning you ponies have for allowing even your most violent criminals to live?”

Colgate opened her mouth to give what would first have been her definitive answer but closed it again as she considered the question her man with the beautiful smile had asked. She felt it pertinent to explain a couple things before answering directly, “You have to understand, Daemeon, that there are very few ponies under the description you just gave. Crime has not been a major problem since we instituted the cutie mark education system. Usually the ones who do become violent or bear criminal intent suffer from a mental illness.. These ponies are not incarcerated in the punishing sense. Often, they are placed into institutions that carefully administer to their particular needs. Those of less severe cases are taken care of by their families. That’s the benefit of having a society formed around the family unit you see. Most problems are taken care of within the home before they become a more civil matter.”

“Alright, alright!” Daemeon groaned in exasperation. “So you don’t have so many criminals that it’s a big problem, but it is a problem nonetheless. You keep telling me your society isn’t perfect anyways. Now, what’s your reasoning?”

Giggling at her man’s mood, Colgate answered, “It’s simple. You can’t change the past. You can only affect the present and place hope in the future. Do you agree?”

“You know I do. The past is passed. What of it?”

“So you understand that nothing we can do in the present will change what has already happened?”

Nodding curtly, he returned, “Of course.”

Leading her man in a train of thought very much as he had done when they’d first met and he’d explained to her the nature of chaos, Colgate asked, “And would you say that any intelligent society should strive always for future good instead of evil?”

“Of course.”

“So,” she expounded dramatically, “what is the possible good of ending a pony’s life when the act itself prevents all goodness that pony may have had to offer in his or her life? You cannot claim any positive reaction to events in the past if what we do now does nothing to change what has happened. While you might be able to claim that an execution will prevent future harms, you cannot guarantee that the pony executed would actually have continued doing harm. There is always a chance to change the perspective of somepony so they may see the world in a more positive light. Thus, there is always a chance for somepony to do good. A pony who is executed cannot change who he or she is. Therefore, there can be no good that comes from an execution. The very best you can hope for is preventing a potential evil while committing a certain evil. For certainly I don’t have to tell you that murder is no good for society.”

Daemeon frowned slightly and responded, “I’d never thought about it like that before. Taking the world situation by situation, men tend to have a difficult time wrapping their head around logical certainties. Often when men do decide to believe something with conviction, the conviction is arbitrary and unfounded, like the belief in God. Their judgements become premature and unfounded to the point of being ludicrous. Perhaps the most ludicrous faith a man or woman can have is any sort of certainty in the future.”

“Are you so sure about that?” his mare jeered. “You seem awfully certain about some aspects of the future. You seem certain that our two worlds are striving to the same goal.”

Her man shook his head and explained, “It is more as you have said before. We can only hope in the future. The future being necessarily that which has not happened, we have very little ability to affect it. I have hope in something better because we, both ponies and people, have only been earning better for ourselves. It may come with violence or tragedy, but it always seems to come in the end. The best that characters like us can do is play our small part in it and maybe even be the ones to help ensure it happens.”

“Well that is an optimistic deduction.” Colgate grabbed her man’s hand up in her hooves and stroked them softly. The feeling of his soft hand beneath her hard hooves brought a smile to her face. “I like those hands. They must be a lot of fun to use. Only using two legs must make all of them pretty slow though. He could barely catch me when I’m tiny. Why am I so tiny anyways? I guess it’s convenient, but it’s also annoying.” Lifting her eyes from his hands to his gazing greys and wondered, “Maybe now is the time to ask him his side of the story.”

Taking a deep breath, the mare asked, “And just what part do you play, Daemeon? What do you do to help your world along?”

Just as she feared, her man’s face reddened, and he cast his eyes away from hers. She gave him a moment to collect himself and say, “I told you. I really don’t want to talk about that.”

Making her words a touch more stern than kind, she said, “I know you did. You are going to have to tell me eventually though. If I’ve got you as wrapped around my hoof as you say, then you will understand why I don’t want you to keep your life a secret.”

Flustered, Daemeon returned, “I know. I just don’t want you to know yet. Please don’t make me tell you, Colgate.”

Softening her rich voice so as not to seem so accusative, Colgate explained, “I don’t like holding this over you, Daemeon. It’s really starting to scare me. I feel like I know you so well. I’ve fallen in love with you, but I don’t even know who you are. I don’t know why the authorities are after you. I don’t know what your job really is. I don’t even know your last name!” The mare stood and reached from his lap so that their faces were hardly an inch apart. She whispered sadly, “I hate not knowing who you really are.”

The mare observed what she knew to be her man falling back into thought as he bit his lip with a worrisome look in his eyes. While she hoped he would give her the honesty she asked, her heart was terrified by what could bring such fear to her man. If his life had been lived in the state which she had first found him, she could only imagine what he had done and what he was keeping from her. It came as no surprise to her when her man copped out and begged, “Please let me hear the rest of you story first.”

Colgate frowned and asked, “Why do you want to hear the story first?”

“Because,” he whispered despairingly, “I’m afraid you won’t talk to me anymore when I tell you the truth.”

His mare blanched a bit at his answer, her fears confirmed that his was a past of some terrible repute. She tried her best not to show it, but her heart was heavy with despair of her own. His answer made her afraid, and it was only with great effort that she could manage a false smile and say, “Okay. I’ll finish the story if you promise to tell me the truth when I’m done.”

On seeing her man nod his head softly, she pressed a small kiss on his bristly chin and rested her head on his shoulder. When she felt his arms slide up to envelope her, that smile returned slightly, and she felt a bit happier to continue, “You asked whether or not our Matriarchs could be corrupted. Despite all the positivity we put into their creation, they are not completely incorruptible. It took only three years in fact before our younger Princess, Luna, was warped and twisted by a powerful magic from a dangerous foe. Only three years after the start of our new order, our perfect Aristocracy, it was threatened with complete destruction and everything we had worked for would have been for nothing.”

“How could it almost be destroyed so quickly? What was this foe?”

She answered as she enjoyed the warmth of his body, “As you will recall, the creation of the reformed Equestrian order coincided with the Anarchical state of the Crystal Empire. Though the cutie mark system affected all ponies and the members of the Crystal Empire were made to benefit from them the same way we did, they were beyond the jurisdiction of our state. Remember what I told you about how leaders came to power in the later years of the Democracy? Rather than the best qualified stallion or mares coming to power, only the most ambitious made their presence known. While at least a Democracy demands some consent for ambitious ponies to lead, Anarchy makes no such demands. It was thus that, in the time after the fall of the Democratic state, the pony with the most ambition, the most power, and the most cruelty came to hold dominion over the Crystal Empire. From there, the Empire was no longer in Anarchy. Instead of ponies having only to fear each other, they had to fear the Tyrant Sombra. The Crystal Empire went from Anarchy to Tyranny, a government worse than no government at all.”

“Curious,” Daemeon muttered. “I never thought there was a system worse than no government.” Furrowing his brow as he regarded his own statement, he thought, “Then again, Germany could have gone without the Third Reich.”

Colgate explained, “When a government seeks only to oppress the ponies it is supposed to protect, it can be called worse than no government at all. Sombra was a unicorn of no small power who came to rulership by subjugation and violence. He gained the support of the masses by promising to restore order with a firm hoof. After the chaos of Anarchy, the crystal ponies believed that even a Tyrant would be better than no leader at all.”

“What does Sombra and the Crystal Empire have to do with the downfall of your Matriarch Luna?” Daemeon asked.

“Well,” she began, “our Matriarchs, being created for the purpose of servicing not only Equestria but all of ponykind, decided that we could not allow the Crystal Empire to suffer the despotic rule of Tyrant Sombra. I know it might sound fairly militant and forward, but the Princesses Celestia and Luna, having heard the history of the Crystal Empire from Starswirl the Bearded, realized that the rule of Sombra was not from the consensus of the ponies living there and made it their goal to overthrow Sombra in the most peaceable form possible so as to guide the Crystal Empire back into the Equestrian state. Their hope was to reunify ponykind under one government as we had over a thousand years before. This time however, we would be unified under the Aristocracy instead of the commune.”

Drawing conclusions of his own, Daemeon interrupted, “I suppose they must have been successful. After all, your society is utopian.”

Colgate chuckled and said, “You’d be wrong Mr. Not-So-Smarty Pants.” After Daemeon’s own laughter had ended at her remark, she explained, “It’s a bit of a difficult to explain, but the Matriarchs were not successful in bringing the Crystal Empire into their fold. The Crystal Empire remains a sovereign state to this day, separate from Equestria. Their failure came for two reasons.

“The first and most immediately obvious reason was their initial failure to overthrow the Tyrant Sombra until a year ago when Princess Cadence revived the spirit of the Crystal Ponies. . .”

“What?!” her man explicated, holding his mare out at arm’s length. “I thought Sombra lived over a thousand years ago. What do you mean he was overthrown a year ago?”

Groaning in hyperbolized exasperation, she kicked her hooves at her man’s face and scolded, “Stop interrupting me!” Even in her reprimands, she could not help but chuckle, “You are such a foal. Question after question after question. Next you’ll be asking me why dogs have paws instead of hooves and why the sky is blue.”

Daemeon coyly countered, “Do you know why?”

“Oh hush up you!” Colgate again kicked her hooves in the air until her man took her meaning and enveloped her once more in his arms. Smiling, she explained, “When I say he was finally overthrown a year ago, I really mean that his reign of Tyranny ended last year. And yes, he also lived a thousand years ago. And no, he is not an immortal. The Tyrant Sombra may have been very powerful, but he could not match the power of our Matriarchs. At least, he could not match the power of Celestia. I’m sorry to say that our Princess Luna was not made strong enough to overtake his subversion and cruelty. You see, after the reformed Equestrian order was founded, our Matriarchs decided that the Crystal Empire must come back into the fold. To do this, the Princesses convened and it was agreed that the younger of the two sisters, Luna, would go forth and bring an end to Sombra’s Tyrannical rule.

“Unfortunately for our Princess Luna, Sombra suspected the intervention of the two Equestrian Matriarchs and had already laid out a trap. The trap was a unique creation of Sombra who had learned to control the power of despair.”

Unable to contain himself, Daemeon asked, “What do you mean, the power of despair?”

“Well,” Colgate started, “I suppose I’d have to explain the Crystal Heart to you for you to understand that.”

“Okay,” he said. “Then what’s the Crystal Heart?”

“The Crystal Heart is a relic that dates back to the foundation of the Aristocracy in the early years of the Crystal Empire. Physically, it is a literal heart shaped stone cut out of crystal and enchanted with the ability to ward off the bitter winter of the north. As with every enchanting charm however, this charm needed to be fueled by a continuous source of willing energy. As it happens, the founders of the Crystal Empire believed that there would always be one benevolent energy that could not be stricken away. They believed that there was one sentiment that would always exist in pony history. And that sentiment was love.”

Genuinely confused, Daemeon stroked a hand down the length of his mare’s back and asked, “What do you mean, love?”

Colgate’s smile widened as she explained, “The founders of the Crystal Empire were very smart. They knew that if the charm was going to last through the ages, then it must rely on an energy that would never burn out. The founders knew that they could not use anger as the energy, like the anger that fuels our linking charm. They knew it would be ineffective because not everypony would be angry enough to provide the energy necessary to keep the heart going. They also saw however, that joy would not do. After all, there are always ups and downs in a society. There could always potentially be a time when there is no real happiness in the empire. For those same reasons, such emotional energies as fear, hope, trust, pride, respect, and even hatred would not do. All of these energies were seen as inconsistent and prone to fail at some point. The only energy they saw as being permanent was love. Their argument was this, that the populace would never allow their friends or family or even themselves to fall to death in the arctic cold without having the love inside of them motivate them to power the Crystal Heart.”

Her man listened silently as she spoke. Though he would have liked to interject, he knew it would be better for her to finish her story. Even as he held his tongue, Colgate thought to herself in the midst of her speaking, “I can’t believe I didn’t think about this before. This is important and it could finally do away with his disdain for love.”

She continued, “And it worked! All throughout the five hundred years of the empire, the power of the heart never burned out. The Crystal Empire praised the power of the Crystal Heart that every year they would gather around it purely for the sake of celebrating love. The magic of the empire was always strong enough to ward off the winter so long as the ponies gathered around the heart in the name of love. The system seemed flawless throughout the nations history except for one factor the founders did not anticipate.

“They never expected that any outside or inside force would truly wish to bring harm to the Crystal Empire. It was not heavily defended or regulated. It did not have to be. What pony was going to march into the cold desolate north for the sake of bringing down a kingdom that only had any value as long as it stood? For this reason, they did not take any great precautions to protect the Crystal Heart, the source of the empire’s power. It was readily accessible to the eyes of anypony at the empire’s center. This might have seemed foolish in hindsight when Sombra rose and stole the heart for his own purposes, but it was necessary for the love of the ponies to be freely given to power the spell. It would have been far less effective to hide it away for safe keeping.”

Knowing full well what Daemeon would ask next, Colgate thrust one of her hooves up to cover her man’s mouth. When she felt a rather unsanitary kiss planted on the bottom of her hoof, she giggled like a school filly and said, “Don’t make me laugh. This part’s important. Sombra stole the heart in order to instill his unquestioned Tyranny. He hid it away from the crystal ponies so that they could not use their love to fuel its power.”

Daemeon pretended to bite her hoof, causing her to pull it back and give him a skeptical look. Her man too the opportunity to ask, “If Sombra hid the heart, wouldn’t the winter have closed in on the empire? You make it seem like the heart is necessary for the empire’s survival.”

Nodding her head, Colgate answered, “You’re right. If Sombra had just taken the heart and hidden it away, then the power protecting the empire would have failed. He however, gave it just enough love himself to keep the empire running. In a very twisted sort of way, Sombra had a heart overflowing with love. The only problem was that that love was not shared. Sombra was a unicorn of the ponies who had abandoned the responsibilities of the commune. The Crystal Empire had been founded on the principle that ponies should seek pleasures beyond responsibility to each other, to enjoy life to the fullest. I guess Sombra was the epitome of what the empire stood for. His love for himself was powerful enough to fuel the heart to keep the empire alive. Because it was hidden, none of the crystal ponies could afford to kill him for fear of losing the heart and the empire forever.

“It was in this state that Princess Luna first found the Crystal Empire. The spirit of love and unity had been broken among the crystal ponies. Sombra had worked dark magics over their minds to cause them to forget about the Crystal Heart and the love they had given it. Eventually, he caused them to forget who they were and what purpose they had existing. He deprived them of joy, hope, love, and even hate. They had no purpose but to serve him and his excessive desires. Princess Luna found them miserable and defeated, like they had lost something important, but they couldn’t remember what. Luna recognized what they lost though. They had lost love both for themselves and for others.”

Rather suddenly, Colgate’s words faltered. She could not see the look of concern that took hold of her man’s face as she closed her eyes and cast her face downward. She could not believe the flood of emotion that came over her as tears sprang to her eyes and her chest heaved shakily for air lest she break down with too much emotion. Daemeon reacted by pulling her to his chest, but the mare resisted so powerfully that he let go of her. She stumbled out of his grasp and stood on four wobbly legs, breathing heavily while Daemeon pleaded to know what was wrong with her.

“Could it be!” Colgate’s mind screamed. “Could that be the reason? Is that why I’m unhappy? Sweet Celestia, I’d never thought of it like that. I know I’ve been missing something, but I never dreamed it could be that. But that simply can’t be true. It can’t be. There has to be, has to be something else I’m missing. It can’t be that. I’ve always had that. Haven’t I?”

In her terrific fit of tearful frustration, Colgate slammed her face into the cool grass and covered her head with her hooves. She groaned loudly in inward pain as she tried desperately to banish the thought from her mind, the thought that the only thing really wrong with her life could be something so small and insignificant, yet so very monumental. Every ounce of her being wanted to deny even the possibility. That denial might have been the smallest bit possible if she were left alone to stew in her own sadness but that was not to be.

The terror of her unwanted thoughts subsided almost as soon as they’d started when she felt a relatively huge hand come to a rest on her back. Her shaking and shuddering softened and her breathing returned to normal. She let her mind mellow and her thoughts dim as her small equine body was lifted from the grass with as much care as a new foal is risen with levitation. And, like that same metaphoric foal, she was cradled close against a strong and comforting chest so that her ears could be graced with that same lullaby to which she had so quickly grown accustomed. It was only upon the cessation of her inward trauma that Colgate found the words to speak, “I’m sorry.”

Looking up into her man’s dark grey eyes, she heard him beg, “What’s wrong, Colgate?”

To which she responded, “I don’t know.”

“You’re lying,” Daemeon whispered sadly. “Please don’t lie to me. Please tell me what’s wrong.”

“You’re right,” she returned. “It’s just. It’s just that.” She paused. She inhaled deeply and exhaled in equal measure. Mustering her courage, for indeed courage was needed to face this fear of hers, she answered, “I’m afraid I may have just realized the answer to why I’m here.”

Daemeon blinked his eye multiple times in confusion before noting, “Aren’t you here because you’re unhappy?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding her small head. “But the answer to why, why I’m unhappy; I think I may have just discovered the reason.”

“Well,” her man whispered expectantly, “don’t keep me in suspense. What’s the reason?”

To this question, Colgate pursed her lips tightly and said, “I don’t want to tell you the answer.”

Becoming even more confused, Daemeon brought a hand up and brushed his thumb against her fuzzy cheek and asked, “Why don’t you want to tell me?”

Closing her eyes and leaning into the strength of his hand, she answered him, “Because I don’t want this to end, Daemeon. I don’t want to leave you, and I’m afraid I will if I’m right. I’m afraid that, if I tell you, the charm will reach its conclusion, and I will be sent back to Equestria.”

Daemeon’s face paled at the thought and his arms seemed to instinctually clutch her closer. Lips trembling, he asked in horror, “Is that how it works? You just learn your lesson and poof! You disappear? Like that? Is that how it’s going to be?”

“I don’t know.”

Agonized, Daemeon demanded loudly, “What do you mean you don’t know?”

Colgate cringed and answered, “I just don’t know! I wasn’t the one who cast the spell. Princess Celestia did. I don’t know exactly what completes it or even how I’ll get home when it’s done.”

“Are you so certain you will be going home after this?”

His mare nodded her head and explained, “She would never have sent me here if she didn’t have every intention of me returning. After all, she said this was a journey, not an exile.”

They sat in silence for several moments, both of them trying to absorb the situation. The sun above slid ever closer to the western horizon, already touching the tops of the skyscrapers across the park. A hefty wind blew through the trees, causing a torrent of withering leaves to break off their branches and flutter down into that tiny glen between the bushes. Both man and mare watched absently as the fiery reds, yellows, and oranges drifted and caught themselves in a little whirlwind that spun them in circles as leaves are want to do. The breeze was chilling and caused Daemeon’s hairs to stand on end. Hugging his little Colgate even tighter for mutual warmth, he said softly, “I don’t want you to go.”

Colgate sniffled, her nose wet in the chill Autumn air, and responded painfully, “We knew it had to come to an end, Daemeon.”

“They say all good things do.” The torrent of leaves closed around them, and Daemeon deftly snatched an especially bright red leaf from the air. His thoughts dwelled on the five tipped maple leaf as he pinched it between his finger and thumb. Its soft, smooth structure was still moist with the lingering vestiges of life the tree had given it. Or perhaps, it was the leaf that gave to the tree. Daemeon supposed it was both really. After all, one cannot live without the other.

Not being privy to each other’s thoughts, Daemeon could not know that Colgate’s own mind dwelled on the leaf in his hand with the very same thoughts. “It’s dying,” she mused. “The season’s dying. It’ll be winter here soon, just like in Equestria. I wish it would stay warm. I can always put more wood on the fire, but I’ll still be cold. Now it’ll be even worse. Now I know what it really feels like to be so warm.

“Now I know what it feels like to be loved.”

The mare stuck out her two forehooves and grasped the leaf between them. Her man relinquished his grasp so that she could clutch the red maple leaf to her own red stained chest. Wincing the tiniest bit when her hooves struck her bite, she wondered in silence, “How can I tell him now? Even if I’m not right, how will I tell him later? I don’t want to leave him. He’s right though. I can’t stay here. Where would I fit in with this world? What would I be but an oddity or a monster? Even if he were to keep me to himself, what life would that be? I might be happy alone with him for a while, but he is not a pony. He is not my kind. Even if he were, we could someday grow weary of each other. Life isn’t a fairy tale. The story doesn’t end with happily ever after. It ends with death after a long and hard life where ponies had to sacrifice much to maintain order. And what has my life been before this but long, hard, and unhappy? And just when I get a taste of happiness, just a taste, I am to live with the fact that it must so quickly come to an end. To Tartarus with the story! If I don’t finish it, then maybe we won’t learn the lesson. Then maybe this moment doesn’t have to end. He doesn’t need to hear the rest of the story after all. This is good enough. Being here with me right now is probably the happiest he’s ever been. Who am I to take this away from both myself and him?”

Even as that last thought slipped through her mind, Daemeon spoke, “Before it ends, Colgate, do you think you can do one thing for me?”

Her smiling eyes lifted from the leaf as she answered gladly, “Of course. I’d do anything for you, Daemeon.”

Managing the best smile that he could, her man asked, “Can you finish the story? I think you’re right when you say we might learn something from it. I really do. Now it’s coming back to present day, and I think I might finally be able to understand you, Colgate. I mean really understand you and your people. Then I can understand why your world works so beautifully while ours seems to be on the precipice of disaster. There could be some way where I could build a model of your world in this one and help humanity live a better life.”

A little distraught by his words, the mare begged quickly, “Don’t you already have a model of your own? You’re the smart one, Daemeon. You’re the one that taught me about love and hate. You showed me that hate is never justified.”

“I thought you said you didn’t believe that was true?” he countered, his smile growing sad.

Sighing heavily, the little blue unicorn muttered, “I’d thought you would have realized by now that I have no clue what to believe in. I thought I did, but you had to go and turn everything upside down. I’ve never been so uncertain of everything in my life.”

“And you think you haven’t flipped my life upside down?!” Daemeon shook his head viciously, trying to keep the tears out of his eyes, and said, “The only thing I know for certain anymore is that I love you, Colgate. I’m more certain that I love you than I’m certain that you’re actually real! A part of me really believes that I have gone completely and utterly insane, and that you are my own imagination trying to torment me for the things I have done. I used to believe so many things. I used to think I was so brilliant and that the world was an open book to be studied. It’s easy to judge the world when you are the one reading the book. Now I know the heaven and hell of being a character.”

Colgate opened her mouth to speak, but her man spoke over her, “That’s why I want you to finish it. I need you to finish it. Maybe then I’ll know something again. Maybe then I’ll have a purpose.”

His mare shut her eyes in sad contemplation of his words, “So much for not telling him. He’s right. Celestia was right. We can change things. I realize that now. We can change who we are, and it is so much simpler than I’d ever thought. If I finish the story, I will leave him, but I will leave him a happier human than I found him. I guess that’s the best thing I can do. If I really love him, I will give him this. If I really love him, I must make him understand the truth.”

With this thought both disdainful and hopeful in her heart, she answered him, “Okay.” Taking a deep breath, she fiddled with her red leaf and continued, “When Princess Luna arrived at the Crystal Empire, she went to Sombra and demanded that he step down and relinquish the Crystal Heart. As she had come to save and not to conquer, she initially had no intention of harming Sombra. The Tyrant recognized this and laid out a trap for her. The trap was an enchanted door. Sombra, knowing well how to suck the love out of a pony from many years of rule, had designed the door to show any pony who looked within a world absent love. From what I understand, a world that is absent love is one where only fear lives. As such, our Princess Luna was subjected to a reality where the whole of Equestria scorned her existence and her purpose.”

“How long did Sombra have her trapped?”

“I don’t know for certain,” she said, petting her leaf. “It must not have been too long. Luna’s sister, Celestia, was quick to react. Leaving Equestria for a short while, she flew to the Crystal Empire where she found both Sombra and our younger Matriarch. She broke her sister from Sombra’s bondage, and together, they combined their powers to seal him away just as they had to imprison Discord. Capital punishment, after all, had been declared a crime against ponykind. This right to life extended to all intelligent ponies, even the likes of Sombra. The two of them thus turned Sombra to stone, locking him beneath the ice for what they had intended to be forever.”

“Now I understand,” Daemeon interjected. “I’m guessing Sombra escaped from his prison somehow. You said he wasn’t defeated until last year.”

The mare nodded her head somewhat sadly and explained, “Unfortunately, imprisonment was not enough to contain him. His greed was too great, and Twilight Sparkle was forced to end his life.”

“Twilight Sparkle?” Her man chewed his lower lip in thought and stated, “You’ve mentioned that name before. Who is she? Is she someone important? I suppose she must be if she was the one to kill Sombra.”

Ms. Minuette scowled ever so slightly and clenched her hooves together, ripping the small, fleshy leaf in her hand. She cast her eyes away from her man’s and shook her head.

Though Daemeon could not claim to understand every aspect of Colgate’s being as he might be expected to understand a fellow Manhattanite, he could easily read a charged emotion in her that he’d seen in the faces of many humans. This was possible in great part because his mare’s face seemed so very human to him. It made her emotions understandable and even relatable to him. That is how they could speak the same language. Daemeon interrogated softly, “Is that a hint of jealousy I see?”

Colgate scoffed and rolled her eyes at the question. As she opened her mouth to usher a retort however, she was stopped by a small self-realization. Scowling again, a bit harder this time, she muttered, “Maybe.”

Having never witnessed this particular side of his mare, Daemeon pressed the issue with intrigue, “Who is she? And why don’t you like her?”

Though neither of the questions related to the mare directly, she almost felt offended for having to answer them. “Even in a whole other world, we still have to talk about her.” Colgate sighed and explained, “She’s the Student.”

“A student of what?”

“Not a student,” Colgate clarified. “She’s the Student. She’s the current Student of Princess Celestia. I guess now that includes Princess Luna.”

“What does the Student do? Is that a special title?”

His mare nodded and explained, “It is a special title, one that only goes to a single stallion or mare at any point in time. It is usually a privilege reserved for unicorns as our magical nature is usually the critical point, but there have been exceptions in the past from what I’ve heard. It’s hard to say though. I don’t know the history of the Students very well. All I know is that there have been hundreds of them in the past thousand years. Some Students study under Celestia for a lifetime. Many last hardly more than a year or two. Twilight Sparkle is the current Student and just so happens to live in the same village I do.

“As to what exactly the Student does, I’m not really sure. To be frank though, I don’t think anyone aside from Celestia herself know the purpose of their existence. They do the bidding of the Princess and there seems to be some ultimate goal the Student’s are trying to achieve. Whatever that is however, none of them have achieved it. They grow old or abandon their studies and Celestia eventually takes in a new Student to replace the last.”

The concept of a student teacher relationship held to such a serious level greatly intrigued the man who saw himself, be it premature or not, as the ultimate educator. Though his mare was hesitant to explain who this Twilight Sparkle was for some reason of jealousy, Daemeon pushed the point. He quickly fell under the belief that this Student system was somehow very important for Equestria. “And just what exactly does the Student learn under the tutelage of the Princess Celestia?”

Colgate unclenched her hooves and let the little torn leaf float from her grasp caught on another twirling breeze. She watched as it went, going so far as to crane her head until it disappeared behind a bush. From there, she cast up her eyes at the trees that grew ever more scantily clad with color. She answered, “They learn how to see the world.”

Daemeon held his tongue for a few seconds, waiting for her to expand on the ridiculously vague answer. She did not expand however and her man was forced to ask, “What do you mean, how to see the world?”

The little, blue unicorn looked to her man curiously and said, “I thought you of all people would understand what I meant. I guess I don’t know any people other than you, but you make it seem like you are one of the few who try to understand how to see the world. You don’t just take everything that happens in your world for granted. You try to look beyond the immediacy of little, present situations and put them in a grander scheme. It’s just like how you told me the couch was white. It was hard for me to understand at first that its color could have any relevance to anything but you trotted me through the steps. You showed me how there could be dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of different reasons that could lead to that couch being white.”

“I did do that,” Daemeon confirmed, “but I was trying to show you that all the different reasons don’t matter because the couch is still white.”

“Then you are contradicting yourself.” The comment caught Daemeon off guard and caused him to shake his head in surprise. Colgate almost chuckled but refrained so that her point might be driven home, “You say that what happened in the past doesn’t matter, and yet you try to tell me that understanding each other and fully embracing logic and reason is the only way we can come together to make a perfect society? By that reasoning, you would have me try to learn everything I can about why something happened and do nothing because of it. What would be the purpose of knowing then?”

“To make sure mistakes don’t happen again,” Daemeon countered severely. “What happened in the past doesn’t matter because there’s nothing you can do to change the past. That’s why we tell our children not to cry over spilled milk. Knowing it was an accident doesn’t change the fact that there’s milk on the floor. Heck, even knowing it was done on purpose doesn’t change the situation at hand. Whatever the cause might have been, the effect is still the same. Yet knowing what it was that caused the milk to spill is crucial for teaching the one who spilled it how not to spill it again. Since we can’t make changes to the past, we can only address the situation at hand and ensure a better future.”

Colgate Minuette flashed a rather mischievous and coy smile. That smile widened to include her pearly white teeth. When Daemeon furrowed his brow in confusion, she stated simply, “Exactly.”

“What?”

His mare giggled and explained, “That’s exactly what I mean by how to see the world. You see more than just the instant. That is what Princess Celestia teaches her Students. She teaches them more than just the instant so that they can make truly educated decisions. She teaches them to look through time and understand the world as being a grander scheme to which we all play a part.”

Realizing just how easily his mare had lead him by the nose through their conversation, Daemeon smiled and said, “You’re a far faster thinker than I’d given you credit for. You really do understand. What’s more, it seems you understood before I even told you.”

The mare’s smile diminished as she said in turn, “Don’t give me too much credit. I didn’t really understand it all at first. I’d never really thought the way you do until I started trying to piece together my history. It seems the more I teach it to you, the better an understanding I earn from it myself. I guess this must be what Twilight Sparkle does.”

Slyly, Daemeon beckoned, “Why are you jealous of her?”

Frowning, she explained, “Because she’s a self important know-it-all who got to be exactly what she wanted to be in the world. Pretty much her whole life was just handed to her, and it’s the best possible life to have. She doesn’t have a job like the rest of us normal background ponies. Her calling in life is to be doted upon by the Princesses and live comfortably with an inordinate amount of power given to her.”

His mare’s cold negativity starkly contrasted the kindness she’d been showing throughout that beautiful autumn day. Daemeon could hardly help but return her frown in full measure and ask, “Are you only angry because she has more than you? Or is there anything perhaps a bit more reasonable that would validate how you feel?”

Colgate scoffed and demanded, “Since when do my emotions need validation? Am I not allowed to feel what I want to feel?”

Her man whispered softly so as to lighten the mood, “You want to feel angry?”

Looking away, she grunted, “Maybe. I’ve got a right to, don’t I? Nopony gets a say in how I feel other than myself. If I want to be angry, then I can be angry.”

Instead of arguing her point, Daemeon spoke again in his lowered tone, “Do you want to be happy?”

Confused by the question, his mare retorted, “Of course I do. That’s why I’m here.”

“Then by your own logic,” Daemeon explained, “the only reason you are unhappy is because you’re allowing yourself to be unhappy. Clearly this must be the case if nobody has any say in your emotions other than yourself.” Almost as a personal aside, the man turned his gaze away and added, “And here I thought maybe I had a say in your happiness.”

Those sarcastic words hit their mark quite a bit more aggressively than Daemeon had intended. Seeing error in what she had said, Colgate lurched out her man’s cradling grasp and through her two forehooves about his neck in the tightest hug she could manage. In a consoling tone, the beautiful mare said, “I’m sorry, Daemeon.

I was wrong. You’re right. You do have some say in my happiness. I’m actually a little scared to admit just how much say you have. It would be one thing merely to say you have my life in your hands. That alone grants you massive power to affect how I feel. That however is nothing compared to the fact that you got me to fall in love with you. Here in this place, you’re my whole world, Daemeon. And I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy as I am with you.”

“Neither have I, Colgate. Neither have I.”

The pair leaned into that tender embrace for a long while. The restatement of their earlier confessions to each other made them smile and desire a blissful moment of silence. Their words were good and beautiful. The passage of information is a marvellous thing when two willing parties are so ardently seeking the truth. It is unfortunate that not all information can be passed through word of mouth. The information of emotions are very much limited when words are all that are used to convey them. Infatuation, desire, and love need so much more than words. They need actions. They need tenderness. They need embraces. They need commitment, if only for a short while. Above all, they need mutual exchange. All the love in the world can be given, but it is made cold and unwanted if it is not freely received. If love could be adequately given through words alone, then a man or woman need only have ears to receive endless love. Since it requires so much more however, personal boundaries need to be broken down and mutual respect earned for the proper application of love. It can’t go only one way. It needs to be reciprocal. A body and deeds must be given with the words. Words are good, and the Word was good. More importantly however; the Word was.

After many minutes had passed and the wind had risen up to produce a more permeating chill, Colgate whispered, “Do you think we can go somewhere warmer, Daemeon? It’s beautiful out here, but I’m afraid it will get dark soon, and it’s getting too cold for me.”

Daemeon looked at the watch on his wrist and was stunned to find how many hours had passed in that glade. He shivered slightly at the cold himself and answered, “Of course.”

Her man stood and pulled open his shirt so could climb into its warmth and closure. When Colgate felt herself close and comfortable with the smooth chest of her man, she asked, “Where are we going to go?”

“I don’t know.”

The mare had already figured that he didn’t know where he was going, but she was surprised by his honesty. She’d expected a white, reassuring lie, but instead she was given the cold hard truth. That truth made her smile. His insecurity gave her security. They needed each other and she would be glad to give him any help she could. With optimism in mind, she asked, “Why don’t we go back to that big place we stayed in last night?”

“The cathedral? I don’t think Fr. Allen would let us in after we ruined that robe.”

Smiling, Colgate suggested, “Then show me to him. If he’s as close to death as he says, then maybe he won’t kick up a fuss. Besides,” she added slyly, “who’s going to believe that I’m real without seeing me myself?”

“Her logic’s infallible.” Daemeon smiled and said, “We’ll just have to see if we end up there.”

With that, the man turned his feet to the city and fell into a slow pace. Chill as it was, he felt warm enough to enjoy even that brief walk with his little Colgate. They would come to the cathedral all too soon for his taste.

Homecoming

“I wonder what it’s like,” Daemeon’s mind swirled pensively as he shuffled along, “not to have seasons.” Wind swept through and further disheveled his now unkempt brown hair. “It must have been nice. I suppose some places would be dreadfully hot, especially around the equator, and dreadfully cold near the poles.” His eyes lifted gently towards the darkening sky, taking in its varying shades of blue as well as the oncoming gray of clouds floating in over the city to cast a pall on the downcasting day. After such a beautiful morning, the gray was a touch disheartening to the man. The day seemed to echo the seasons. The seasons seemed to echo life. While they were ultimately three different things, Daemeon’s mind drew parallels almost as exaggerated as a poet’s. And just as a poet does, he held those parallels close and valued them like a religious man values scripture.

“It was warm this morning,” he thought to himself. “And it will be cold again tonight. The day has been so nice, but it will soon end. It will end as a year ends. It will end as a life ends. Gray. Dark. Cold. That is how things end.

“Maybe not all things end though?” The quiet quiry seemed to slip into his mind as an afterthought. That afterthought might have seemed a normal response to overly pessimistic thoughts in others, but to Daemeon, it was an odd thought indeed. Before he could debate the oddity of the thought however, it continued, “Winter is always followed by spring. Night is always followed by day. Even every generation of human life has been followed by another. And every new generation adds on to the previous to grow and learn and move forward. If days didn’t end, then how would they start anew? If there were no seasons, where would our appreciation for the weather be? If winters weren’t so cold and summers so hot, how would we know to enjoy the seasons that come between when the weather is made all the more pleasant because it is contrasted with the extremes?”

Just then, a chill breeze cut through the walk and caused the many people shuffling with Daemeon to shiver and pull their jackets tighter. He did so in double measure for both his lack of a jacket and the chill of his friend. When he felt her shivering as well, the man knew he couldn’t hold out any longer. The day was getting colder. It was getting grayer. It was getting darker. They would need to find shelter soon and Daemeon feared the only place within their price range where he could afford to show his face was that house of lies and deceit he’d so brazenly taken advantage of many times before. Before they got there however, the man and his mare would need some better protection.

Stepping off the street, the pair entered a rather large clothing retailer known to most as Gap. The suspicious looking man did everything within his power to seem less suspicious. Though he would have very much liked to stay in the warmth of the store, the sigh of relief ushered from his mare almost making him cave, he nonetheless held onto prudence and made his purchase quickly so as to draw as little attention to his cargo as possible.

From there, they had less than a city block to go. It went quickly as Daemeon picked up his pace ever more rapidly. Though the day was far from over, it was darkening both with the overcast and the ending season. As he rounded the last bend to find those two seemingly militant spires towering above him on either side of those heavy bronze doors sculpted with saints standing guard, he lifted his hand to give that fateful sevenfold knock. His hand drew up short however as his ears became attuned to a hallowed sound.

“What’s that I hear?” asked the unicorn who was ignorant to the rituals of men and women.

Daemeon retracted his hand from the door and let his chin drop pensively to his chest. “That, my dear, is music.” Giving that kind of laugh that only escapes as an exhalation of the nose, her man added, “At least, that’s what the conscripted in there like to pass for music.”

Colgate climbed upwards to poke her nose above the zipper of the sweater Daemeon had donned. She was much warmer than she’d previously been, so her words were only marked with curiosity rather than their previous urgency, “Why aren’t we going in?”

“Because,” Daemeon explained with a voice that sounded heavy with something, though Colgate could not say what, “not only would our entering draw the attention of the hundreds of people seated in there, I would never wish to give the fools the misjudgment that I sympathize or have faith in their rituals.”

A touch peeved by his answer, Colgate poked the rounded tip of her horn into the soft flesh beneath Daemeon’s chin and chided, “Can you be any more cryptic and rehearsed? It’s like you’re reciting lines from a dramatic tragedy when you talk like that.”

Her annoyance actually drew a chuckle from her man. Daemeon turned on his heels and stepped back to the three steps that ascended to the doors. His smile was real as he answered, “Don’t tempt me. Don’t you like dramatic stories?”

“Not really,” she returned, sneaking back into the warm hoodie so as not to draw attention of the passersby.

“And just why not?”

Colgate felt Daemeon’s arms creep around her from outside the cloth. Her smile matched his as she explained, “I don’t really like stories, especially dramatic ones. Fictional ones I mean. You see, I love history and such because it’s real. Ponies in the past actually did the marvelous or tragic things they are said to have done. Stories and plays and such, they aren’t real. They were never real. They’re just stories for the sake of entertainment. That kind of thing has just never interested me much I guess.”

The response piqued her man. “Not all history is real my dear. And frankly, not all stories are fictional. I’ve read novels that have revealed to me more accurate truths than certain history texts I’ve seen go out of date. Is the line you draw between what happened and what hasn’t so vivid and firm? Or does it perhaps blur and become gray?”

“What do you mean specifically?”

“I mean, don’t you think fictional stories can be true even when they’re made up?”

Daemeon’s question caused the mare’s brow to furrow furiously in thought. “What?!” she cried in surprise. “How can a made up story be true? That’s like saying it’s the opposite of what it is. How can what’s fake be real?”

“Come on now,” her man retorted. “Don’t tell me you can’t figure out the answer to that one by yourself.” Daemeon changed his voice, noting that his last statement had been said a little condescendingly. “Pardon me, would you like me to explain what I mean?”

“Yes,” she answered. “As long as we’re waiting, you may as well.”

So started the teacher. “What makes up a story, Colgate?”

“What makes up a story?” the mare mused to herself. “A lot of things make up a story I suppose. Do you mean a real one or a fictional one?”

“Both.”

Taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, she collected her thoughts and answered, “Well, there’s characters. I don’t know any story that doesn’t have characters. There’s also something that happens. For a novel, I suppose it’s the conflict. Something goes wrong with the protagonist, and he or she usually has to face overwhelming odds to escape their situation. The format doesn’t usually stray from that.”

“And what about histories? Do they not follow that same format?”

Daemeon could hear the sourness in her voice as she said, “Of course not. They deal with many ponies over many years. You know that. A novel is possessive of a single plot that starts neatly and ends conclusively. History isn’t at all like that. The plot of a history text is much messier. Even if you try to write something regarding a single event, that event is not perpetrated by a single pony. It is caused by that pony and the multitude of other ponies who came before. It’s just like you said about finding fault in somepony else’s harmful actions. You said that you can never really hate somepony rightfully because what they did was influenced by everyone who came before him. Well I say the same thing about pin pointing the start of something in history.

“Take the Tyrant Sombra for example. If I were to write a fictional book about some character like Sombra, that story would focus in on his conflict alone when in reality, the conflict was not his own. He was his own pony, yes, but he was also the product of a culture and a history. His tyranny was the product of the Crystal Empire’s fall from Aristocracy. The imperfection of pony governments and pony nature went into his creation and the devastation of what he helped to cause.”

Having listened patiently, her man spoke, “So you believe a history text is more real because it is written about something that actually happened.”

“Yes.”

“May I ask,” Daemeon pressed carefully, “do you think you could make a single small change to that text and have it retain its value of truth?”

Confused, the mare asked, “What do you mean? What would you change?”

“A name,” he answered simply. “Do you think you could change a name and still have the history be accurate. Say, if Sombra’s name were to be knowingly replaced by Devon, would that make the text any less true? After all, what’s in a name?”

“Not much unless you’re writing a symbolic story.” She mulled over the thought for a moment before saying, “I suppose the history wouldn’t be any less true if you changed one name. After all, the events still retain their truth, assuming they were true to begin with.”

“Do you think I could take the analogy a step further? What if we were to take a history text and change every name in the book. The names of every nation, province, and person would be different from what they were, but the events remained exactly as they were. Would this book be similarly useful or accurate?”

Colgate scoffed, “It would be abominable to think of changing every name in a history. I guess though that despite the glaring inaccuracies, the history would be worth just as much insofar as those events actually happened.”

“What if some of those events were skewed though?” Daemeon’s voice grew quite serious. “This isn’t such a big deal, is it? After all, one cannot possibly know everything that has happened. Numbers can be less than perfect. Specific publications can be misdated. Exactly who did what can be lost to the past. Is your history text worth nothing because it isn’t perfect?”

With careful emphasis, she answered, “It is worth less, but it is not worthless.”

“How is it worth less?”

The mare pinched her lips in thought before explaining, “Because you’ve altered what was real. Even something as insignificant as names can be significant in the long run. I will admit however that there should be less that is changed than if you were to alter specific events.”

“So you’re saying the history can still be used to educate?”

“Yes,” she concluded with conviction.

“Now,” Daemeon continued, “what if we were to alter the events enough so as to make them fictional, but maintain the core of the message earned by understanding those events? What if instead of reading a history book about a war, we read a fictional book about a war that poses as an extended allegory?”

Colgate frowned and answered, “I understand you mean that the events are very similar but not the same. You would sacrifice truth for dramatization. In essence, the novel you are proposing would be a farce. It might be a clever and very accurate one, but it is ultimately a lie ridden story, a fairy tale. No matter how impartial the writers might try to be, they will have bias in its writing. They will have an objective in writing what they do. One end is to entertain and make money. Another might be to garner sympathy. In any case, I don’t care for it. I think I’d much rather read the facts and interpret them for myself.”

“How odd,” her man whispered, stroking her back through the hoodie. “Almost every person I’ve met has been quite the opposite. They love the story and think little of history. They equate the two in value, sometimes making the story a thing more important than the reality.”

“I’m no more a person than I am a horse,” Colgate returned from her comfortable enclosure.

Daemeon laughed. “As though I could forget! Your opinion is good and well thought. Is it a commonly held opinion in Equestria?”

“Very often, yes,” came the surprising answer. “We have novels I suppose much as you do, but they are thin reading meant for entertainment, a way to abandon reality for fun. Many ponies enjoy them rather like chocolate. Certainly, they’re a treat, but they are not the history that we sustain ourselves on.”

“I am impressed.” Their conversation fell silent for a moment in the chill, darkening day. “She has a lot of good points,” Daemeon reflected. “But there is something I don’t quite agree with. She makes fiction sound so trivial, but I know it is far from trivial. It might not be more important than the actual history, but it is at least as important if only for one reason.”

Her man spoke, “There is one word in your description of fiction that I do not believe you used correctly. At least, it is not correct for fiction that is worth reading.”

Genuinely curious, as she had not disagreed with Daemeon without learning something yet, she asked, “And just what word is that?”

Smiling, Daemeon answered seriously, but not with too much intensity, “You said that fiction is written with a bias so as to produce sympathy. While I feel that is a common sentiment worked towards in cheap novels of entertainment, it is not the real goal of what we call Literature. If a book only produces sympathy, then it is a poorly written fiction. The real emotion fiction must cause is empathy.”

Colgate shuffled to her hooves in his lap and stuck her nose up to nuzzle his neck affectionately. He returned the nuzzle as she asked, “What’s the difference?”

“I love her so much.” Giving her a kiss on the cheek, he explained, “Sympathy is a very simple, very base, and very animal emotion. It certainly isn’t the first complex emotion humans developed, but it also wasn’t the last. Somewhere between fear of predators and love of enemies lies our ability to feel sorry for other creatures in distress. This is simple sympathy. We feel sorry for the difficulties of the plights of others. While this might seem like a good emotion, it is little better than pity. I find it very often to be a self righteous and confidence boosting emotion.”

“How can feeling sorry for somepony boost your confidence,” his mare interjected.

“Because,” Daemeon explained in an answer that had clearly been thought through before, “the purpose of sympathy is to make you feel better about yourself. Being sympathetic means that you see someone who is worse off than you are. Feeling sorry for someone else is just a self assurance that you are better than them. Or at least you either consciously or subconsciously feel you are better than them. You may be sad to see a person die, but you are at the same time gladdened that it was they and not you.”

The mare with the blue and white mane, tangled from a lack of brushing or care, ceased her nuzzling and looked up to him with a hint of disappointment and stated, “You make sympathy sound like a very selfish emotion.”

Daemeon did not let his smile fade and explained lightheartedly, “It can be selfish, yes. More often though, it is merely self righteous. But as I said before, it is a very animal emotion only a step above joy or anger. Above sympathy, we have a far more complex and disturbing emotion.”

“Empathy?” she asked with a raised brow.

“Yes,” he continued. “Empathy is what I believe to be the most complex human, and I would presume pony, emotion. It is the difference between feeling sorry for someone and feeling sorry with someone.”

“How do you mean? What’s the difference?”

Surprised, Daemeon asked, “Do you not know the difference?”

Colgate shook her head and answered, “I do. I just want to hear what you believe the difference is.”

“She’s as good at baiting me as I am at baiting her. She just might even be smarter than me. And to think, just yesterday I thought she was stupid.” Giving a squeezing hug, he went on, “Well the difference is this. Sympathy makes people feel better about themselves. Empathy disturbs a person, and makes him or her feel they must act. The best way I can describe it is to use a scenario that might not be very applicable in your Equestria. So please, bear with me.

“Sitting on a busy street is a homeless man without a job. Our government system has allowed for money to stratify in the hands of a few prominent individuals in our society while many at the bottom have found their wealth elusive. So, our man sits on a street where wealthy men frequently walk and holds out an empty cup, hoping one of the many passing by him will have sympathy for him and give him some money. Many do not even regard him, he being in the background of their lives, unimportant in the schemes they have concocted for the stories that are their lives. Others may regard him for a very brief moment, but their eyes will turn away the moment he looks up and regards them hopefully. They will feel some discomfort, but they will continue walking. They feel some sorrow for him, but they are content with just being happy to not be him. Of this small crowd who feels sorrow for him, there may be a select few romantics who feel the gumption to give of their excess. This act can be both selfish and selfless. They give because they are happy not to be him, because they only feel sorry for him.

“But it is not all selfishness and egotism,” Daemeon reassured as he saw his mare’s eyes frown at the story. “Far fewest in number are those wealthy individuals who pass that man and feel that most complex emotion. This man will be unique because he will understand this homeless man’s story better than any of the others who came before.”

“Why would he know it better?” Colgate begged, the story making her somewhat anxious to know more.

“Because,” Daemeon answered emphatically, “this man who is wealthy had once been poor. He will see in this homeless man the very man he once was. He will stop in his tracks and regard him and see what was once only a memory again as a reality.” Her man closed his eyes as he continued, seeming more to be speaking with himself than with her. “He will see this man and feel disturbed. He will feel sorrow. This sorrow however will not create in him the ability to feel better about himself. It will make his pleasures of wealth feel painful. Though he may or may not have earned the wealth that he has, he recognizes that he once sustained himself on far less and can do so again.

“His next actions allow a third party individual to draw the line between sympathy and empathy. It would have been very easy for the wealthy man to turn out his pockets and spare some of his excess wealth, a quality of his life made trivial by the knowledge that a life can be maintained with so much less. What would be twenty dollars to him? A hundred dollars? You may not understand our currency Colgate, but you must understand that giving money would be the easiest thing to do. The wealthy man however, knows that the money will only last so long. I’ll take advantage of an old proverb as you probably have not heard of it. Give a man a fish, and you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for life.

“The wealthy man knows the plight of the poor because he’d been poor once too. He has no desire to make himself feel better than this man because, deep down, he knows that he is no better than this man. So he keeps his hands away from his wallet and bends down before the homeless man, giving him eye contact noone else will. The homeless man gives a sad smile because he knows it will get him the sympathy he’s been living on. Instead of giving the homeless man something as cheap as money however, the wealthy man gives him something far more valuable. He gives him time which cannot be bought back. It is not a donation. It is a trust, a financial bond. He knows how valuable his time is to him because he has seen wealth and poverty enough to know that time’s the primary thing that must be used correctly to ensure happiness and stability.

“He gives the homeless man a brief moment. They exchange a few words and the homeless man eyes his cup hopefully. Rather than giving him money, the wealthy man pulls from his pocket a card with his number and puts it in the man’s cup saying, ‘If you want a job or to improve your life, call me tonight at 7:00.

“The homeless man’s sad smile contorts into a teary eyed and pained expression of hope. It is painful because it is difficult for him to hope. He has hoped many times before only to have those hopes dashed to nothing and see his life dragged down. The wealthy man has invested in him his number. If he is willing to invest that much, then perhaps he will be willing to invest more.

“The wealthy man offers out a firm hand. A cold, clammy, and weak handshake follows. The wealthy man sees the homeless man’s wildly darting eyes, the tracks on his bare arms, the teeth marks on his belt. He was not an idiot. He knew the investment he was offering was not a safe one. He knew that it would be very difficult to employ or find employment for such a man. While he knew it was not safe however, he also knew that it was necessary. He had been in that man’s place. He’d bitten his belt too. He’d once spent his days trying to lose himself in ecstasy between cold fits of reality. Perhaps most importantly of all, he knew that this man needed help just as he’d needed help so many years ago.

“That, Colgate,” he whispered as he opened his moist eyes, “is empathy. That is the most complex and most important emotion. It makes all others seem weak, base, and flawed reference points for making good judgements. It is fueled not by other emotions, but by understanding each other’s emotions. We can only empathize with each other if we understand each other. With empathy comes action, honest action to solve the wrongs of society. Empathy is the cornerstone on which any possible utopia must be built.”

The silence that followed was thick with thought. Colgate’s stomach churned at the story. The very thought of a pony being without a home was upsetting to her enough, but the thought that that same pony should also lack a job, a calling? It disturbed her greatly. Even as it disturbed her, she felt her attention drawn to the fact that she felt disturbed. “Why do I feel so awful?” She felt her own eyes moistening, much as Daemeon’s were. She had to steady her breaths as she struggled to figure out why his story had moved her as much as it did.

Daemeon saw the emotion and confusion in her twisting face and asked, “Are you okay, Colgate?”

“No.”

“Do you know why?”

The question caused her to furrow her brow tightly. It struck her as odd that he should ask if she knew why rather than merely asking why. Feeling very uncertain of her answer even as she said it, she said with some distress, “I don’t know. I think it’s because of your story.”

“Why would my story upset you?” Daemeon asked seriously.

His mare’s frown turned angry as she demanded, “Don’t do that, Daemeon! Don’t drag me by the nose. You’ve made me feel awful, and I don’t know why or how. Your story isn’t even real. I shouldn’t even care, but you’ve somehow tricked me into caring, and I don’t like it. You’re trying to make me feel bad for being sympathetic, aren’t you? You’re trying to make me feel bad about feeling sad for the character.”

Daemeon shook his head gravely. “No.” He reached a hand to the back of her head and pulled her tear streaked face into his chest and stated, “That’s not sympathy you’re feeling.”

The heated mare pushed away from his chest and demanded angrily, “Then just what is it?!”

“It’s empathy, Colgate. You’re not feeling sorrow for the homeless man. You’re feeling sorrow with the homeless man.”

“How can it be empathy? I’ve never even been to this world before. We don’t have homeless or jobless ponies in Equestria. It’s stupid. How could I be feeling feelings with a person who you just made up?”

Giving a sigh, Daemeon answered as one peer who was lucky enough to find the answer before another does, “Because the story is true. I may have made up the characters and events, but they are very close to what has happened before and what will happen again. I may have made up the story, but everything that went into its making came out of my experience as a human living in an imperfect, human world. I took the time to understand both the wealthy man and the homeless man. I listened to their stories for myself. This was very hard for me to do. I discovered both perspectives by living both of their lives, if only for brief spells. In seeing the world through the eyes of other people, I have grown able to empathize with them and understand what drives them, what motivates them, what makes them into the people they are.

“Because I did this, I have learned enough to create a story. It is based out of history, yes, but it is based on so much more. It is based on feelings, desires, and thoughts. It was a little dramatic, but the drama is meant to pull the reader in. A good history is written to be indifferent and factual. Literature is the means by which we feel history. It is how we feel humankind. You aren’t even from this world, yet the reality of my story struck you. You don’t feel bad for the characters, Colgate. You feel with them. You are moved. That somber despair you are feeling right now is the realization that you can have so much while others can have so little. And you know in your heart of hearts that this is not the way a world should be. You are a pony, and I am a human. But we are both intelligent and empathetic. To that end, our understanding of the plights of others draws us to action so we can right those wrongs.”

Colgate looked down and wiped the moisture from her face. Daemeon took advantage of the moment and did the same. His mare was the one to break the silence that followed as she said, “Thank you, Daemeon. I can see now why you love fiction as well as history. I had never thought of stories as being so important or real. I’m a little worried though.”

“About what?” Daemeon queried.

“Well,” she explained, “you were right about how I feel mostly. I guess I do want to do something to help homeless humans now. But what good is that feeling to me? I know it sounds selfish, but what can I possibly do to help with the problem? Even if I lived here in this world, I am only one pony. There are billions of you humans! If homelessness and joblessness are common enough that people become desensitized to it and only unique individuals step up to do something about it, how could I even scratch the surface?”

The question caused her man to frown sadly. A heavy sigh rolled through him, seeming to add invisible weights to his shoulders. He answered slowly, “It is overwhelming. I am very sorry and unhappy to say that I don’t really know the answer. I have spent almost my whole life trying to get people to understand the truth, to make them see that they cannot rely on love, hate, or God for a better world. I’ve worked like a zealot in a sermon to make other people see that we must seek understanding if we are to have better lives. And yet, the longer I strive to make this happen, with all my passion and desire brought to bear, the sum of my accomplishments means almost nothing in the grander scheme. I have not changed the world. I have not made it a better place. Now more than ever, I feel I may have only made it worse.”

“How could you possibly have made it worse?” Colgate scoffed. “From everything that I have seen and heard from you, you care more for others than almost anypony I know. What’s more, you care for them selflessly. Even Pinkie Pie, endlessly giving as she is, does as she does for her own happiness. You didn’t look like you’d ever been happy before when I first met you. What have you done, Daemeon?”

Again, there was that dreaded question. The man had lost count of how many time’s she’d asked him to divulge that final and most important secret he kept from her. His life had been vicious. It had been dark. He had spent the whole of it as a cruel, depressed, lying, greedy, backstabbing animal. Through it all, he’d seen himself as a martyr for a better world. He caused chaos, yes, but he did so so others would learn to accept its reality. He did so to disillusion them, so they might learn and grow and become something so much greater than what they previously were. The importance of his vocation seemed every moment diminished as he feared more and more that his actions had only ever achieved the pain and sadness of others both in the short term and the long term.

He’d thought that time might make the truth easier to tell. Instead however, it made it far more difficult. His self interrogative was quickly breaking down into self loathing. The dreaded fear that he’d lived his entire life with such unhappiness only to achieve nothing might have been enough to cause him to contemplate suicide. No thought could be further from his mind however when his mare was in his arms. She made him more gleeful than he’d ever been while at the same time tearing down the marble facade he’d kept up both for the world and for himself. Behind that facade laid a gray brick man, not nearly so beautiful or perfect as he’d made himself out to be. Colgate had swung thick, metal chains around the person he thought he was and all she needed was one last little pull to see him crumble and reveal who he really was. You know this to be true. This is the last thing Daemeon would wish done. He feared her rejection, her horror. He feared that she would no longer be his little Colgate.

These fears and realities permeated the man as the silence that followed the question was ended. An ambiance of musical chorus exuded from the church, muffled but distinguishable.

“Come, O God of all the Earth;

come to us O righteous One.

Come and bring your love to birth;

in the glory of your Son.”

Colgate ignored the music as it burst into a resounding chorus, instead focusing her gaze intently on her man’s sad and fear filled face. She knew what she was doing. She knew the anguish she was causing him. No pleasure came of it for her. She was terrified of his answer almost as much as he was. Still, she could not tolerate his absence of truth. She wanted to know every aspect of him, not just what was pleasant. If there was any possible way she could help him, she was determined to do it.

Finally, Daemeon whispered softly, barely being heard over the chorus, “I don’t want to tell you yet.”

Though she did not like his answer, she had discovered for him patience she’d never known she had. She did not give him a reassuring smile or pretend that she was perfectly okay with his answer. Instead, she leaned forward to rest the tip of her horn against Daemeon’s forehead and closed her eyes. In a sobering voice she stated, “I hope soon, you will trust me enough to let me see the rest of you.”

Having no answer to her statement, Daemeon hugged her close once more. She rested her chin on his shoulder and smiled contently. She let herself note the music coming from within. It seemed to ever so slightly be crescendoing, building itself to a conclusion. The melody was simple, and she found herself humming along to the tune. Curious, she asked, “Why are they asking God to come to Earth?”

Daemeon sighed, his hopes of her not inquiring about the music coming to an end. Not really in the mood to muster up bitterness, he explained with simplicity, “They want it to come and take them to Heaven.”

The word being lost on her inexperience, she asked, “What’s Heaven?”

Sighing again, Daemeon stood and walked away from the double doors. The recessional song was coming to a close, and he was not looking forward to a stampede of what was likely thousands of people. Strolling past the facade, Daemeon rounded to the gray brick and sat down in the grass, leaning against the wall. Giving a moment’s thought, he answered her question, “Heaven is where people who believe in God believe they will go when they die.”

“Really?” Colgate murmured in surprise. “Where is it?”

Daemeon felt himself cringe at the question. “It isn’t anywhere,” he struggled to answer. “Heaven isn’t a place. It’s an idea. What’s more, it’s an imaginary one.”

“Why would humans go to an imaginary idea when they die? Don’t you bury them? We ponies bury our dead. I had assumed you did the same.”

Pursing his lips, Daemeon explained, “We do bury our dead. That’s not what I’m talking about. They believe their spirits will go to Heaven.”

Becoming even more confused, Colgate pressed, “What are spirits? What is Heaven?”

Instead of trying to answer her questions blindly, her man chose to access her own beliefs. He asked, “What do you ponies believe happens to you when you die?”

Frowning at the question, Colgate answered, “Well, we have a funeral commemorating the pony who died. Ponies don’t die every day in Ponyville so we usually get the whole town to attend and pay their respects. Then they are buried in our orchard of life. The duties these ponies had are redistributed or taken over by their apprentices. The wealth they’ve collected is impartially divided between any remaining relatives based on need and the state.”

It was Daemeon’s turn to be confused. The mass had ended and people were quickly shuffling out of the cathedral. Dismissing their presence, he asked, “What’s an orchard of life?”

Pragmatically, Colgate explained, “It’s the place where ponies are buried. Every village, town, and city has one. When a pony dies, they are buried in an orchard and a cherry tree is planted over his or her body. It is then the duty of remaining relatives or the community at large to take care of the tree and see that it grows to maturity.”

Daemeon quickly became extremely interested. For all her talk about equestrian history, Colgate had never mentioned something akin to a religious ritual before. He begged, “Why do you ponies do that? How did this start?”

Colgate puckered her face thoughtfully before saying, “I really have no idea when it started. It’s just what we’ve been doing for as long as I remember. I suppose there must have been a time when we didn’t do that, but I don’t know when. As to why we plant cherry trees, we use them as markers for past generations. As long as memory serves, the deceased pony will be remembered, and their resting place will be marked. So long as somepony remembers to whom a tree belongs, that tree may never be cut down.”

“That’s very practical,” Daemeon muttered to himself. “I suppose that system uses the body without losing it. You are still used as fertilizer, but you are kept in a very natural environment. Then, I suppose there’s the agricultural gains. You must never have a shortage of cherries in Equestria.”

Colgate shook her head furiously and corrected him, “Oh, no. We don’t eat the cherries.”

“You don’t?” A touch of worry slipped through him as he asked, “Do you not eat them because you feel that would be similar to eating the pony it was planted on?”

Chuckling slightly, the mare eased his ignorance, “No. It’s a nice thought I suppose, but we know better than that. When a pony dies, they decompose and become organic materials completely different from the body they made up. No. We don’t eat the cherries because they are not for us. We leave them to the creatures in Equestria. It was decided long ago, all the way back at the end of the Dark Era, that we ponies have to be aware of our effects on the world around us. You remember, that was the payment for choosing to live well instead of just living. We take more from the world than any other creatures, so we make our best efforts to give more back. The gardens are one way we do that.”

Her explanation sounded surreal to him. It seemed to him that she’d just described every hippie’s dream. It was so picturesque that he struggled to believe such a careful and feasible system of environmental nurturing could be maintained throughout the entirety of a kingdom, let alone a race. The best explanation he could gather for such a system working in her world was that it had fewer people and fewer social mores to begin with. All that being said, it was not the answer he was looking for. “That’s a beautiful system, Colgate, but I was not asking about what you believe happens to the body when a pony dies. I wanted to know what you think happens to the consciousness.”

“The consciousness?”

“Yes!” Daemeon expounded. “You are here right at this moment. You are thinking, feeling, discussing things you’ve never discussed before. You are learning and developing into a pony you never were before and never will be again. Your life has momentum and has had momentum since the moment you could conceive of yourself. I want to know what you believe happens to this momentum when you die. What happens to the thoughts and feelings? What happens to the part of you that can see but can’t be seen?”

Colgate hung her head for a moment at the question. Though she knew her man was trying to be as explicit as possible in his questions, she struggled to understand their relevance. It really was true that some things that were important to him were not of any great importance to her. She answered somewhat simply, “I had pretty well assumed we just stopped being. I guess this momentum you speak of would stop. I would be. Then I wouldn’t be. What is the question? Why would my thoughts do anything but stop? Do you think they do something different?”

Daemeon’s heart skipped a beat. He could not, almost would not believe his ears. Her answer had finally and completely driven home the ultimate fact and given him absolute assurance that Equestria was every bit the utopia his mare had been leading him to believe. He had tried to pick through it. He’d been looking for flaws in her thought and character. Every time she’d mentioned modern Equestria, it had seemed so pleasant and perfect. There may be small flaws here or there, but they were not ones that Daemeon could pull open to reveal a society of deceitfulness. Rather, their very presence accented the fact that the whole was so well put together. It was not until this point that Daemeon found himself truly believing.

Colgate, his little Colgate, lived in a world where they did not believe in God. Because they did not believe in God, they did not fear what comes after death. To them, it was not an undiscovered country. It was the end of a road that did not lead to another. Because of this, because they did not feel their every action under scrutiny of some higher power whether benevolent or malevolent, they did not shower their lives with pretense. There was no holy righteousness. There was no enigmatic scripture. There were no wars about whose god was the real god. All they had were their thoughts, unadulterated by ridiculous dogmas. A pony’s mind was a mind of judicial supremacy. None of them held any naivete that suffering in life would produce happiness in death. They were made unable to ignore their community because their was no noble lie that everything would ultimately work out for everyone. They, perhaps even more so than himself, knew that the best possible life to live was the one of understanding and mutual respect, not because they were told so, but because they grew to know so. This realization fell on Daemeon as though the Eastern Wall itself had tumbled down upon him. In one moment, he understood just how different, how real, and how noble these ponies really were.
When only a brief moment had passed for Daemeon to fathom the answer, he answered with a very glad voice, “No. I believe nothing different. I’m so happy, Colgate.”

Colgate felt herself enveloped and squeezed. She loved his squeezes. They made her feel so safe and warm; she almost felt the world couldn’t touch her. As happy as his joy made her, it could not diffuse the confusion she felt. She asked, “Why does that make you so happy?”

Pleasure and warmth permeating his every thought and faculty, Daemeon answered simply, “It’s just that you are so unique, Colgate. Your words give me strength, your body gives me happiness, and your mind gives me security. I’m just so very happy to hear you speak the truth without any adulteration of falsehood.”

Still not certain what he meant but not wanting to displease him by asking again, she asked instead, “So what are spirits and Heaven?”

With a light heart and voice, he answered, “Nothing at all, Colgate. They’re nothing at all.”

They sat in relative silence for a while as Daemeon watched the last of the laity slip away in their cars or cabs, back to their mundane lives. He had to wait for the opportune moment. He knew that the grand Cathedral would soon be emptied of all but that lonely man who was fool enough to believe not only in God, but Daemeon as well. He wondered how Fr. Allen would react to him coming back after having so obviously ruined two robes just that morning.

As though she were privy to his inner machinations, his mare asked, “When are we going to go in? I’m warm enough, but I can see you’re just a little chilly.”

She was right of course. Daemeon had bought warmer clothes but he hadn’t exactly bundled up. Absently, he was still trying to save money for a new suit coat. After all, he’d not been without it for many years. Now he wished he had spent the extra money for something warmer. The cathedral was going to be cold after all. “Not yet. Fr. Allen doesn’t go on duty for another few minutes. He’s the only one who would let me in.”

“Do you think he’ll let you in?”

“I hope so. I really don’t know. I haven’t pushed him too far yet, but it was pretty close yesterday.”

“I noticed.” Colgate thought back to the night before. It had been tumultuous to say the least. Though she hadn’t seen him, she remembered much of the conversation Fr. Allen had had with Daemeon. They’d spoken about strange things Colgate couldn’t really understand. It bothered her slightly more now than it did then. She felt she knew more about humans now and wished she could speak with Fr. Allen. He seemed so different from Daemeon. He was old and weary, but he was kind. He was kind even to Daemeon. It didn’t seem to her that her man had ever been kind to him, yet he’d welcomed him in from the cold. It seemed hard for her to believe that humans were as callous as Daemeon said when Fr. Allen had shown such unnecessary kindness.

“Maybe he was just doing his job?” she thought absently to herself. “It’s so strange how humans think. Fr. Allen must be doing his super special talent, but Daemeon says the very thing he does is a lie. They can’t both be right.” Rather than entertain her thoughts further, she asked, “Do you want me to continue the story?”

The question caught Daemeon off guard. It pulled him from his thoughts and caused him to smile and say, “I’d like that very much. I’m sorry I sidetracked you with my little story.”

“Don’t be!” she exclaimed. “It was a very good story, and I learned a lot from it. I just hope I can do the same. Where did we leave off anyways?”

Quick to remember what he found to be so interesting, he answered her, “The last thing you mentioned was Twilight Sparkle. You said she was Celestia’s Student and that she was the one to kill Sombra and free the Crystal Empire.”

“Ah, yes.” Recognition rolled through her, and she stated, “Unfortunately, we can’t really pick up from there. I skipped a thousand years of history to explain that Sombra was killed just earlier this year. I haven’t even told you about Nightmare Moon or Princess Cadence or the Gryphon War.”

“Well, start where you must. I don’t mind waiting out here to hear the rest. Fr. Allen isn’t going anywhere.”

Colgate giggled and continued her history, “The two Princess system was set up to ensure the security of Equestria. And it did work insofar as Princesses Luna and Celestia were able to combine their powers to defeat Discord and the Tyrant Sombra. Unfortunately, this unity was not to last.

“The very spell that Sombra had used to take captivity of Luna did something far worse than hinder their efforts. The spell showed Luna a dark and terrible reality, one where ponies felt no love for her and instead only scorned her. While the elder Princess Celestia had taken control of the Earth’s rotation so as to ensure a balanced period of seasons and days, she relinquished control of the moon to her younger sister. This arrangement separated the sisters distinctly into the heralds of the day and of the night with Celestia as the former and Luna the latter.”

“Why would Luna take control of the moon?” Daemeon interrupted. “It doesn’t seem necessary to me.”

Ms. Minuette gave a playful scowl and explained, “When the unicorn race had thrown the Earth off its axis, the moon did not adjust to compensate for the dramatic change. As such, the regular tide intervals much of our aquatic and land creatures had come to rely on was greatly disturbed. Had Starswirl been able to fully correct the tilt, nothing would have needed to change with the moon. Since his solution was not perfect however, Luna was given control of the moon so that she could guide it through its phases and revolutions over the years and produce the consistent tides that keep the world’s ecosystem healthy. Is that good enough for you?”

He chuckled, “It scratches an itch.”

“Good.” She cleared her throat and went on, “The spell that afflicted Princess Luna caused her to believe that the ponies in Equestria did not love, care for, or respect her because she represented darkness to them whereas Celestia represented the day. Luna let this fear fester and brood inside her. While it might have at first been a small fear, she let it grow into a perverted jealousy that caused her to hate her sister and all of ponykind.”

“That sounds a little extreme to me. Why didn’t Celestia do something about her sister’s brooding? Surely she must have noticed.”

Excusing his interruption, Colgate answered, “She may have been suspicious, but she never realized the bitterness that grew in her sister. Most believe, though Celestia has never said so herself, that the older Princess was too enamored with her duties to realize what needed to be done. It was not until Luna was fully consumed with jealousy that Celestia realized the truth. On a very fateful day almost a thousand years ago, Princess Luna took the name of Nightmare Moon and swore to have her revenge on the race she believed had turned their backs on her.

“Princess Luna refused to lower the moon. Her intent was clear. She wished to send the ponies of Equestria into another Dark Era, one she intended to last until all of them were dead and gone. I am very thankful to say that Luna was and is the less powerful of the two sisters. When Princess Luna refused to let darkness end, a fight broke out between the two sisters that destroyed the very castle they ruled from. The fight ended with Princess Celestia turning her dear sister to stone and banishing her for a thousand years to the moon she had been entrusted with. From that moment on, Celestia took control of both the sun and moon and ruled Equestria alone until just a couple years ago when Twilight Sparkle helped Luna to escape the bonds of jealousy and hate.”

With a raised eyebrow, Daemeon interjected, “Again this Twilight Sparkle is mentioned?”

“Yes,” Colgate stated annoyed. “She always seems to be in the center of things unfortunately. I can never not hear about her. We don’t have to worry about her right now though. There are a few things that happened between Luna’s banishment and the present that I think are important to mention.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” she started, “the most important thing to mention was the war between Equestria and the Gryphon Federation.”

“Interesting,” Daemeon mused. “So you ponies have had wars with other nations? Who are these gryphons? What do they come from? You’ve mentioned the Gryphon Federation before, but you’ve never explained anything about it.”

Colgate smiled and said, “The gryphons were and still are a fairly militant race. They were one of the first intelligent races ponykind had to deal with outside of ourselves. When our borders expanded to envelop what we now call the Kingdom of Equestria, our borders met on the western front. Expansion of Equestria as well as the much younger Gryphon Federation came to a standstill, and there were many years of tense facing off. Thankfully, when we entered our Reform Era, our two races entered a peace treaty before our desires for larger kingdoms got the best of us.”

“So what went wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

Recognizing he had jumped the gun, Daemeon backed up and explained, “You said there was a war. Clearly the peace didn’t last. What happened?”

His mare nodded and answered, “It didn’t last. The treaty was made when our two races were too afraid and xenophobic towards each other to understand how very different we were.”

“Why were your races afraid of each other?” he asked with growing curiosity. His eyes scanned around them to make sure they were alone. He didn’t much care for the thought of having a pedestrian drop in while they spoke.

Colgate followed his eyes, turning to regard the city streets around them. On seeing a few people closing in on them along the sidewalk, she pulled her head back into her confines and answered him, “Because they didn’t know each other. You could say it’s a little ridiculous, but their fear just wouldn’t go away. I’m not really sure why. I guess it might be a self perpetuating process. We were afraid of each other because we didn’t understand each other, and we didn’t understand each other because we were afraid of each other.”

Her man chuckled morbidly. “That old ironic paradox. It’s too painfully true right now. So you’re inability to understand each other caused a war? I suppose the gryphons attacked you Equestrians out of fear. You did describe them as militant.”

Resting her ear against his heart, she corrected him, “Actually, it wasn’t fear that caused the war.” Colgate laughed suddenly, startling her man enough to make him jump a bit. When asked why, she explained, “I just know you are going to love why the war was fought. It’ll tickle you pink.”

Daemeon was lost, and his silence told her so.

“You see,” she continued, “the war was fought over different understandings of morality, of what is right and what is wrong. The war was long and aggressive, and it was fought entirely on principle.”

The man had to struggle to give an emphatic sigh. Though his words were intentionally warped to sound sad, he could feel little other than happiness so soon after his mare laughed. “Those are always the longest and most aggressive wars. No matter the principle, whether it be over eating bread and drinking wine, voting or bribery, color or language, these are always the hardest fought wars.” His voice turned genuinely sad as he continued, “They are not won, you see. They are only lost. They do not cause peace. They only perpetuate violence and revenge and indignity.”

“I don’t know about that,” his mare spoke with skepticism evident in her voice. “This war didn’t perpetuate violence. And it was not lost. Rather, it changed ponykind forever in a very positive way.”

It was Daemeon’s turn to be skeptical. “How can war be positive? Scratch that. You won. History always plays to the winner’s ego.”

“What do you mean?”

“You won the war, didn’t you? The winners always write history so they seem to have the correct morality, that theirs was the moral high ground. So pardon me if I’m being a little presumptuous, but it does not surprise me that your race benefited from a war.”

Colgate shook her head vigorously beneath the cloth of the hoodie. “You’ve got it all wrong! Well, most of it anyways. The war was long and violent, but we did not win. Neither of us won. In fact, you could go so far as to say that the gryphons won. The war was a tremendous loss for both sides in the numbers of ponies and gryphons who died, but it did lead to the current period of peace and prosperity Equestria and much of the world’s nations are currently enjoying.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Daemeon interjected, “but please, explain.”

“Gladly!” Colgate took a deep breath, laid down on her back with her four hooves pointed skyward, and began, “The Gryphon War occurred almost 240 years ago and lasted about seven years. It was fought almost entirely on a principle. Knowing as much as I do now about humans and your world, little though it may be, I can tell you that you may not believe the war was justified. It might even seem downright silly. But it caused for Equestrians and gryphons such a schism that we could not come to a mutual understanding diplomatically. It was not over land or wealth. It was a simple matter of husbandry and our disputing views that caused the war.”

“Husbandry?!” Daemeon cried aloud. “You mean like farming and taking care of animals? If it wasn’t over land, then what differing views of husbandry could cause you to go to war?”

Colgate smacked her lips together. Even before she spoke the word, she could feel her mouth salivating. “Flesh.”

“Flesh?”

“And blood I suppose.”

Finding her answer too cryptic even for his tastes, Daemeon asked, “What are you talking about?”

“It’s simple,” the blue mare clarified. “At least, it was simple at the time. The gryphons were carnivores. We were herbivores. This is the reason the war was fought.”

Taken aback by the concise statement, her man asked confusedly, “The gryphons attacked and tried to eat you ponies?”

Though he couldn’t see the horror in her expression, he certainly heard it in her voice. “That’s almost cannibalism! We’re both intelligent species. They would never have thought to eat us. At least, I hope they never did. No. They weren’t even the ones who attacked first. We attacked them!”

“Every time you say something, your story only gets more confusing. Why would herbivores be attacking carnivores? That doesn’t even make any sense.”

Giving an exasperated sigh, his mare returned, “Let me start at the beginning. Do you remember what I told you about the duties adopted by the Earth ponies when the nation of Equestria was first formed?”

Daemeon nodded to himself. “Of course. You said they took charge of farming and, and.” His words faltered. A little perturbed, he had to admit his ignorance, “Wasn’t there something else?”

Chuckling, Colgate answered, “That’s okay. It was a little confusing when I first explained it. They took charge of the four hoofed, distant relatives to ponykind. You will recall that the world was very much changed after the upset. The permanent good weather receded and the world was left to a new system of seasons. Because the world had never dealt with seasons before, creatures similar to ponies died off in droves. Many were threatened with extinction.”

“I remember that now,” he butted in, “but what does that have to do with the Gryphon War?”

“Most things in pony history have a tendency of coming to a head and causing troubles down the road.” Even as she said it, Colgate could not help but wonder at her own insight, “I wonder what big thing will come up next?” She shook the absent thought from her mind and continued, “A policy that was made almost 2000 years before caused the Gryphon War. And that policy was this; all creatures with four hooves must be given the respect of the pony community and kept from extinction. The reason I gave you earlier was that it was mostly done from charity of the heart, but that is not the whole of it. You see, creatures like buffalo, cows, pigs, sheep, and donkeys exist in Equestria because we kept them from extinction. And the reason was this; that their existence should forever remind us of the damage we had done to the world. They were kept as a living symbol of our wrongdoings.”

Daemeon shivered slightly, both from the chilling nature of the policy and the chilling nature surrounding them. The man was certain he looked like a homeless bum the way he huddled against the cathedral with the day growing darker by the minute. That did not matter to him now nor had it ever. The homeless were probably the furthest a person could be in the background. If foul language were tagged along the cathedral wall, there would be outrage. Tag a suffering man to the wall, and he is barely noticed. That is of course unless that person is hung with his arms spread and mouth gaping. Then he is a symbol, and people like symbols. Symbols are comfortingly distant and elusively quixotic. The man who is more than a carved bust is terrifyingly close and painfully real. So you turn your eyes and ignore him. You walk past. After all, his story is no concern of yours. His is not a story of fun or adventure. It’s a story of sadness sung with fear and cloaked in submission.

It thus caused curiosity in Daemeon when his mare spoke of living symbols. “Can a mistake be a symbol of itself?” He hadn’t really asked himself such a vague question before, but he was quick to answer himself, “I suppose the Titanic is a symbol of itself.” He shivered again and asked, “So you domesticated them? Curious. We’ve domesticated all those animals too, including ponies and horses, but we did it for a much more animal reason.” Finishing simply, he stated, “We eat them.”

“I know you do,” Colgate answered, frowning at the feeling of her man shivering, “and we ponies don’t. At least we didn’t. That’s the trouble you see. We were herbivores. We never would have eaten creatures we had displaced in the upset. We embarked on a mission that took us hundreds of years to complete. Some say it still isn’t completed, though that’s a pretty big point of contention in pony society. I feel it’s plenty complete.”

“What mission?”

“Our civilizing mission,” Colgate explained. “It was the second cornerstone of our plan. When we took in the other four hoofed races, we did so with the understanding that they would likely become dependent on us and their existence would be a permanent detriment to ponykind. We of course didn’t want this to become a permanent situation. I should guess you can see the trouble it can cause us to care for animals for no other reason than guilt.”

“How were you able to keep such a system in place,” her man inquired. “I mean, what could possess you ponies to so benevolent without any clear gains to be had?”

Wishing she wasn’t hidden under the hoodie yet not despising the feel of her man’s warm belly pressed against her side, she answered, “The strict, self perpetuating nature of the commune helped it along. Everypony struggled every day for almost a thousand years in a cycle that screamed back to the mistakes we’d made. We could never forget, but we did not want a permanent guardianship. We thus took to civilizing them.” Before her man could ask, she continued, “The idea of civilization was based on the simple fact that ponies had achieved intelligence. In that fact, we reasoned that creatures like us should eventually achieve the same intelligence we had. So we adopted our cousins and took to educating them in our ways.”

“To what point and purpose?” Daemeon begged.

“Isn’t it clear to you?” The obtrusive mare poked a hoof in that warm belly and chided, “We tried to teach them so they could earn intelligence and strike out on their own. Not only would we have seen them through the suffering of the upset and Dark Era, we would have improved their lives beyond simple animal life. We would have taught them to live well.”

“Did it work?”

“Thankfully, yes!” Having read what she knew from history texts, she could only imagine the curiosity of early pony society when unintelligent animals were treated as equals. “At least, it worked for the most part. The buffalo left for a more tribal life than that of ponykind. To this day, they roam the southern plains. Cows and sheep earned intelligence of their own, but it is a little removed from ours. Instead of striking out on their own as the buffalo had, they committed themselves to a semi symbiotic relationship with ponykind. They provide us with wool and dairy products, and we provide them with housing and protection. Even donkeys achieved intelligence very near to what we have. They live among ponykind and even form relationships with ponies.”

Her man listened with rapt attention, completely ignoring the chill. Her words hung inconclusively at the end, causing Daemeon to prompt her, “But?”

“But it did not work with all the races. Most especially, our civilization seemed to have no effect on pigs.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” his mare explained, “they don’t have the capacity. The other races had the capacity for intelligence and were thus able to earn it from our lessons. Pigs however, slid into the predicament we dreaded would happen. They became domesticated and grew completely dependent on ponykind for survival. Every pig in the wild died, leaving only the tame beasts in our keeping. They are under our hoof to this day. They have never developed nor do I believe they ever will develop the capacity to live on their own. They only have desire to live, not to live well. A city of pigs would be inconceivable.”

Daemeon pulled his arms out of the sleeves of his hoodie and into his mare’s confines. Gleefully, he wrapped his bare arms around his mare and pulled her up to his chest. Colgate took the opportunity to poke her head out the neck and kiss her man on his bristly chin before receding once more. Her man’s eyes followed her back into the hole and locked her own crystal blue orbs. In the limited light the day had left, none of it being yellow, Daemeon could only just catch two shining, moist glints in the darkness. Two rows of glittering teeth revealed themselves as he asked, “So what’s so important about the pigs?”

Retracting her smile, she answered, “The pigs served their purpose through the Simple Era and into the Celestia governed Reform Era. When civilization failed them, we kept them as the reminder they were initially meant to be. As the years went on however, ponykind grew beyond weary of taking care of animals that gave nothing back in return. Then, 300 years ago, a message came from the west. It was unexpected, and Princess Celestia had no idea at the time of what the implications of the letter were. How could she? The fear between gryphons and ponies had separated the two species so much that they did not have any frequent political or social discourse. So it was with ignorance to their intentions that Celestia agreed to accept the help of the gryphons when they offered to help lighten the load we struggled with.”

“Lighten the load?”

Colgate nodded. “Mmhmm. The gryphons offered to take care of the pigs. They offered to take the whole of the pig species into their federation and take care of them themselves. Their reasoning was that they were indebted to ponykind for holding the world in balance. They told Celestia that it was from the goodness of their hearts that they did as they did.”

“I hear an asterisk in your voice,” her man said with humour. “I’m guessing their intentions were not so pure.”

“No.” Colgate poked her head out of the hoodie once more, bringing her nose just an inch away from her man’s. Her words ceased as she peered into his dark grey eyes. Where hers sparkled like crystal, his seemed like pools of liquid black under the dark hood and sky. She loved those eyes even as they terrified her. Behind them was hidden a dark past. Before them was a happier present, one she was glad to play a part in. They seemed to look both at her and through her. The mare seriously doubted that she could keep a secret from them. Were she a creature that more frequently wore clothes, she would have felt them torn off under his intensity. As she was already naked in his arms, they stripped her of her body and peered at that which lies underneath.

“Not at all,” she continued, her voice lowered to a whisper. “They took the pigs because they were carnivores. They thought it was a miracle that we had domesticated such a fat and submissive species. The gryphons knew they could give them slop, and the pigs would turn it into flesh and blood.”

“Flesh and blood?” Daemeon murmured, not so much asking a question as parroting something out of the mild interest people often show when their mind is elsewhere. He shift his mare in his arms, cupping one relatively large hand beneath her rump while dragging another up the small of her back to rest between her shoulder blades. The movement caused his mare to close her eyes and moan slightly. The feeling of his strong hands running against the grain of her back gave the mare goosebumps Daemeon swore he could feel himself. The very thought that he could give her so much pleasure with nothing other than a simple touch electrified him and drove him even further away from the importance of the story.

Being very much aware of every sensation her man was giving her, Colgate found it a struggle to continue the story. Her mind was also being torn elsewhere. Still she spoke, her warm breath flowing into Daemeon’s neck as her head slid forward and came to rest against his chin, “Yeah. That’s what caused the war. When we found out they were eating the pigs we had sworn we’d take care of, Celestia and all the other ponies were furious.” She gasped slightly as she felt her man’s hand tighten its grip beneath her. She struggled, “We went to war. It was long and bad and ponies. . .” Her words faltered as she felt herself pulled tight into his chest so her face was pressed into his neck.

Colgate could not tell if it was her own body giving into excessive heat or her man’s chest that suddenly made their tight proximity almost unbearable hot even as the air around them chilled. That being said, her mind wasn’t exactly mulling the question over. It couldn’t think much at all. Factors both internal and external prohibited cognizance. This problem grew tenfold as she felt that squeezing hand lift and slide her tail to the side, causing her to squeal and bury her face in his shoulder. She felt the bloodrush inside as her heart spasmed with crisscrossing emotions that both conflicted her and made her want to scream while at the same time being motivated to silence.

She felt the air of a heavy word whispered into her ear, “Colgate?”

Her speech was so muffled in his grasp that he could barely distinguish one word, “Yes?”

Taking a huge breath that ended with his chest and voice quivering, he whispered, “I love you.”

In a voice that was equally shaky and no less honest, she whispered, “I love you too.”

Daemeon took her words as confirmation. His left hand shifted up her back and into the tangled mess of her gossamer mane blue and white mane. He tightened his grip at the back of her head so her mouth was pressed into into his skin, leaving only her nose access to the chill air. Already this was enough to leave her short of breath as she found herself panting. The panting meant nothing as Daemeon’s right hand slid firmly towards moisture and heat, the undeniable measures of her excitement.

His mare felt herself locked in place. If her man so desired to have his way with her, there was nothing she could do to escape him. In submitting so much of herself to him, she had been brought to the point of no return. It was terrifying, but it did not cause her despair. She felt, no, she knew for certain that she needed only say the word for those probing fingers to stop their advance on that part of herself she’d given to nopony in her twenty five years of infertility. They’d been stopped just earlier that day. The interlude had made her no less afraid. What it had done was cause her to realize that her man already loved her as a lover. Just in showing their feelings, they had become more than just friends. The inhibitions she had argued to him earlier meant nothing. Their goodbye was not going to be less painful because she chose abstinence. To the contrary, she feared it would be even more painful. The thought of leaving Pandora’s Box unopened now seemed a terrible thing to do. She decided then and there that she would rather give into her desires than leave her questions unanswered.

Making War

So they’d made discreet and intimate love. Outlandish as it may be, they bridged two worlds, two species, and even two realities of what is possible and what is impossible. Rather than theirs being a narrative of love conquering in the face of adversity, they were drawn together because they were each other’s adversaries. They argued and fought and challenged each other to be more than what they had been. An intimacy was born out of mutual respect and a genuine desire to share their individualities. Then, in sharing, they realized that they were not so very different. Two dresses can look very different yet still be cut from the same cloth. There was no outside conflict to their love. There was only what they thought of themselves and what they made of each other.

Neither were suspect to how quickly a real outside conflict would arise to confront them.

Daemeon opened his eyes and shook the sleepiness of afterglow out of him. Night had come. The darkening blue had quit the horizon entirely. No natural light lit the world around them. It was not dark though. That city of eight million was not prone to sleep. The man watched with an absence that bordered on indifference as cars continued to whizz by on the street ahead of them. There had never been, nor would there ever be a cessation of the commotion about them. It made him yearn for another empty apartment to squat in, someplace with a warm bed he could bring his new lover to.

His own musings caused his arms to reflexively squeeze his lover tenderly. Her four hooves were pressed firmly to his chest, and her warm breath rolled over his neck like a hot summer breeze clashing with the cold around them. Though he did not attempt to ask or check for himself, he was sure she slept. He did not want to do anything to awaken her. The mere thought that she should trust and take such comfort in him that she should sleep upright in his arms caused him to refrain even from shivering. Waking his sweet love from her slumber simply would not do.

“But neither will freezing to death,” the man thought in the darkness. “I guess it’s time to see if we will be warm tonight.”

Taking care not to disturb his mare, Daemeon slid up the wall to his feet and rounded back to the great cathedral’s entrance. Once at the door, the ragged man grimaced at the realization that he would have to wake his mare with loud knocking. Before doing so however, he very offhandedly placed a hand on the door handle and gave a tug. To his infinite surprise, as such a thing had never happened in his last twenty years of life, the door opened with ease despite Daemeon being certain that there was no church holiday that occasioned a night sermon. He might have stopped to consider the quandary right then and there, but the cold compelled him to enter, closing the portal behind him.

Daemeon took in the dark lighting of the towering structure’s interior with the familiarity of a sunday morning riser. It thus did not take him long to narrow his gaze on a single, liver spotted head sticking out amidst one of the pews closest to the door. With equal familiarity, Daemeon approached the figure and took a seat beside it. Neither of them regarded the others’ face. Both were content to look forward towards the altar with a single candle burning atop it.

Many moments passed in quiet before the younger heard the elder whisper, “I was hoping you would come tonight.”

Genuine surprise touched his voice though he did not show it on his face. “Never heard that one before. Why would you hope I’d show up?”

“I didn’t want to die alone.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“So, uh, no hard feelings about the robes?”

“Does it look like I give a crap?”

“No.”

Silence again.

Having little else to say, Daemeon mumbled, “I guess not.”

The younger man felt the eyes of the older shift and pour over him. “You look sad,” the old priest stated matter-of-factly.

“Why?”

Indeed, a heavy frown bent there. Daemeon could not hide it, nor did he make any effort to do so. In an unusually genuine display of affection, he replied, “I’m going to miss you.”

Seeming amused, Fr. Allen leaned back and grunted, “I suppose I was a pretty sweet deal for you. Maybe now you’ll finally get a damned job. Maybe something that’s nine to five with the occasional day of paid vacation would be good for you.” Giving a painful, phlegm filled cough, he concluded, “It’s not the most exciting life, but it can certainly be a comfortable one.”

The man scoffed slightly before commenting sadly, “You know there’s no way I could go to a life like that. I’m too old to become anything other than the man I am.”

“Is that remorse I hear?” Fr. Allen whispered in harsh indignation. Giving a heavy sigh, he spoke somewhat bitterly, “Why couldn’t you have shown a little remorse ten years ago, a year ago, even a month ago? We might have been able to do something about it then. It’s too late now, you fool. Why did I have to be dying for you to start giving a crap?”

Daemeon took the berating in stride. He was used to it. Fr. Allen had never been one for words of comfort. He always said what needed to be heard, not what others wanted to hear. It was for that reason that he’d never been one to do sermons. He was little more to the church than a watch dog despite all his years of service. At least, this was how Daemeon saw the situation.

His heart heavy, he answered, “It’s not because you’re dying. If you had died two days ago, I would not have cared at all. Never mind the fact that you were the closest thing to a friend I’ve had in many, many years. Things have kind of flipped my life upside down in the last couple days though.”

Daemeon’s sad face turned to a scowl as he heard the ancient man at his side break into absurd laughter that sounded like a hellish cackle from some demon dancing Walpurgis Night away. He was about to give a vocal rebuke when the priest surprised him by asking, “You fell in love with someone, didn’t you?”

He couldn’t remember ever having blushed before.

Fr. Allen shook his head, the smile still beaming from his near toothless mouth. “You’re hopeless. I’d almost given up completely on you. I really had. I’d thought there was no way you would let yourself get close enough to someone to find love. And yet, here you are blushing like a babe. Now I’m certain God let me live this long just to see this moment.”

Daemeon’s blush only got fiercer as he heard a very feminine giggle slip out of the confines of his hoody. Trying hard to muster a more composed face, he demanded, “What do you know about love, priest? Are you such a mockery to your title that you break your own vows?”

Having too much fun in Daemeon’s anger, the priest answered, “More than you ever could, I know love. I love God, and He loves me. I know absolute love, and that’s something you will never understand. As to my vows, I’ve seen enough couples married to know what romantic love looks like without having to go against a single promise I made in faith to my marriage. But enough of that. Tell me, does the unlucky man or woman have a name? Or are they as nameless as yourself?”

Daemeon’s mouth puckered as he tried to formulate an answer. Much to his surprise and horror, he was not the one to answer the old man’s question, “My name’s Colgate Minuette.”

The two men became suddenly very silent as they both turned their heads to regard the scathingly obvious hump beneath Daemeon’s clothing. Having already been minorly curious, Fr. Allen’s eyes were now wide open as he asked, “You have a person under there?”

Being too stunned to restrain her, Daemeon let Colgate slide out of his grasp and emerge from beneath the cloth. Brushing her tangled mane out of her face, she looked up at the decrepit old man with a gleaming smile and stated, “I prefer the term pony, if you please. I’m not at all a human as you can see.”

Fr. Allen was slow to respond to the impossibility of a talking unicorn. Several scenarios ran through his head as he tried to explain away the creature before him. If he were a more wishing and creative man, he might have concluded that the mare was a product of God’s love or other such business. Being much too dull for a fanciful fairytale such as that, he came to a different conclusion, one that suited his mind perfectly as not only being a reasonable answer but also the only possible answer for a talking unicorn. Giving yet another painful laugh, Fr. Allen derided himself, “I knew this all was too good to be true!”

Confusion lit both the mare’s and her man’s faces as they gazed at the unexpected reaction of the man. Colgate turned to look at Daemeon who only answered her questioning stare with a perplexed shrug. Colgate's confusion morphed into worry as the priest’s laughing turned into deathly coughing. Out of an impulse rooted deep into even brute beasts, she stepped forward and placed a comforting hoof on the man’s back, asking, “Are you going to be okay?”

Fr. Allen seemed to let a bit of his insanity slip away at the touch. He calmed his coughing fit and leaned back once more. When he was finally able to catch his breath, he mumbled, “And here I thought my prayers had been answered.”

“What prayers? What do you mean?” Daemeon demanded softly.

Giving a sidelong glance, Fr. Allen explained, “I knew it was all too convenient, that you should show up the night of my passing with words of reconciliation. I almost believed them too. But now I see God is only humoring me. You are not here, and neither is she. This is a dream, albeit an amusing one. I suppose I might also already be dead, but if that’s the case then heaven is far more of a bore than I would have imagined.”

“But, mister, I’m not a,” Colgate stopped as she felt Daemeon’s firm hand fall on her shoulder. She looked at him, and he gave her a shake of his head. Understanding came quickly to her. Though she was in fact real, there would be no good consequence to arguing otherwise. Instead, she resigned herself to being a mere phantasm in the older man’s eyes. She turned away from Daemeon and did something that solicited a touch more jealousy than Daemeon would liked to have admitted. The mare crawled into Fr. Allen’s lap and rested her head against his shallowly breathing bosom.

Colgate’s weight caused the man to look down and smile. Lifting a trembling hand, he rested it on her head and let it follow the length of her gossamer furred back. The mare did not shudder in delight at the touch as she did with Daemeon, but she took pleasure in it nonetheless if only because she knew it gave pleasure to the man before her. And this was clearly the case as she saw that near toothless grin light his face again as he remarked, “Well aren’t you just a friendly, wee little lass?”

Daemeon’s mare giggled and answered, “You seem plenty nice enough for a cuddle. I’ve already told you my name. What’s yours?”

Continuing the gentle petting, the priest offered in a most unprofessional manner, “It’s Allen. Allen Slavinski to be precise. But you can call me Father.”

Furrowing her brow in confusion, Colgate asked, “Why would I call you father? You’re not my father.”

Giving a soft chuckle, Fr. Allen explained, “Of course I’m not your father. Even if I were father to somebody, I doubt they’d be as sweet as you. No. I am not father to you alone, but to all who love our heavenly Father.”

“God?”

“Yes,” he answered slowly, thoughtfully. There seemed to be almost a note of hesitance in his voice as he spoke the word. His gaze took in Colgate’s impossibly huge, crystal blue eyes. After a moment’s silence, he concluded, “But let’s not talk about Him. I’ll be seeing Him soon enough. Tell me, little Miss Minuette, how it is that you are invading my dreams?”

Answering both honestly and simplistically, she returned, “Daemeon and I needed a warm place to sleep tonight. So, we came here. Is that alright with you?”

Grinning, he said, “I only wish I had a bed for you. I suppose the pews will have to do. Before you go to sleep though, please tell me a story.”

Perplexed, she asked, “A story?”

“Yes, do!” Bringing his hand down for one last petting, he wrapped his arms around her in a hug that was tender but weak and cold with age. “I don’t remember ever having a dream this fun before. Tell me a story. You must have a good one to tell, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking.”

Colgate’s confusion twisted into a mirthful grin as she answered, “I’m not sure I follow your logic there, but I’ll try my best.”

Silence ruled for a few moments as Colgate wondered to herself, “I don’t even know any stories! Humans are so weird and touchy feely. Then again, he does think I’m just a dream. What would I tell him. I don’t even read novels. They’re boring. Then again,” she mused with a soft smile, “Daemeon did say that not all fiction is without truth. That’s odd. I’m fiction to Allen, like a story. So everything I say would be a story to him. So, I guess I’ll just talk about what I do know? That would be easy enough.”

Gradually, Colgate smiled and took a deep breath. Almost as though she was reading the words from a book, she spoke, “I’m having difficulty starting the story I want to tell. I guess I would like to start by saying a long, long time ago in a place far, far away, there was a beautiful kingdom.”

“Oh, that sounds nice,” the man remarked.

“I know. It does sound nice.” Colgate’s smile somehow seemed a little sad to Daemeon as he watched her speak. “And yet, I can’t start off the story that way. You see, I am not real to you. So, the time that was long, long ago to me, is only now for you. And the kingdom that is far, far away is right here.”

His curiosity piqued beyond a simple desire for a story, Fr. Allen noted, “I don’t see any kingdom.”

“But that’s the trouble you see,” Colgate continued. “For you, the kingdom I am talking about is not a place. It’s only an idea. So, to say that it is far away is incorrect. But it is also wrong to say that it is right here. And yet, despite being neither here nor there, it is. Do you understand?”

Giving a slow nod of his head, Fr. Allen answered, “I will try.”

“Good.” Taking another heavy breath, she restarted, “In a place that is neither here nor there at a time that is neither now nor then, there was, is, and forever will be a beautiful kingdom called Equestria. This is where I am from, you see. In this place, I was born and raised by a kind mother and a strong father. I was born as a Unicorn among the ponies of Equestria. I could have been an Earth Pony. Everything is possible. I would have been a Pegasus. I always wanted to fly. But could and would aside, I was and am a Unicorn. I have no great pride for the race that I am. Whether it was through coincidence or fate that I was born the way I am, I have no idea. What I do know for certain however, is that I am what I am. And nothing about the past can change the present. It cannot change because the past has passed. That is to say, it is no longer present.

“But listen to me babble. Celestia help me when I’m old and senile. Let me continue. This kingdom of Equestria had seen in its time many different turmoils and tribulations. It had gone through just about every kind of war you could imagine. But everything that happened in its past was necessary for the ponies that live there to enjoy the near perfect society that they have now. We learned from our mistakes and were able to come together in unity, friendship, and mutual understanding.”

“That sounds awfully romantic,” the priest whispered as he let his eyes drift towards the altar. “On what was this kingdom built that it should be so friendly?”

“On what was it built?” the mare inquired.

“Yes,” he explained. “What made it so friendly? What caused the people there to have a perfect society?”

Colgate followed the man’s gaze to the altar as she tried to answer, “It is hard for me to say. You see, we ponies live as we do because we understand that it is the best way to live. And it is the best way for us to live because we all agree it is. It makes almost all of us happy and keeps all of us safe. If there was a better way to live, then we should likely argue for that way. But there isn’t, so we don’t. I know it is not the answer you are looking for, but we live in a perfect society because we do. After living the way that we do, any other way of living seems wrong.”

“I guess that would answer the question as to how the kingdom is everlasting,” Fr. Allen grunted thoughtfully, “but I guess the question I’m really asking is how it came to be. You said there were wars and violence, and now there is not. How is it that this came to be?”

Colgate flashed a very exasperated look towards Daemeon who couldn’t refrain from chuckling slightly. The mare answered, “Now that is a very, very long story. I’m sorry to say that I simply don’t have enough time to tell it all.”

Fr. Allen let out a long sigh before saying dejectedly, “Of course you don’t have time. That would be convenient for me. I don’t know the answer to what makes a perfect society, so obviously you don’t either. You only know as much as I do.”

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Colgate whispered softly, touching her hoof to one of his sunken cheeks tenderly. “I may not have time to explain exactly how it came to be, but I can tell you how it is. I can explain why it remains as it is even though the world around it is constantly changing.”

Giving her a soft squeeze as though she were a stuffed animal, Fr. Allen relented, “I’ll take whatever I can get.”

Smiling, the mare continued, “As I told you before, there are three different kinds of ponies. There are Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth Ponies. Individually, we are strong enough to survive on our own. Unicorns are exceptionally smart. Earth Ponies are exceptionally strong. And Pegasi are exceptionally resourceful. Individually our talents are enough to sustain ourselves, but they caused us to come into conflict with each other. The only way we were able to overcome this conflict was by agreeing to use our talents for each others’ benefits. Instead of racing against each other, we raced together and ran all the faster because of it.

“This is the foundation of our society. At first we tried to exploit the weaknesses we saw in each other. Now we have learned to exploit our strengths. In so doing, we created the kingdom of Equestria.

“Now, Equestria’s citizens are broken into three fundamental groups. They are the Leaders, the Guardians, and the Producers. I should explain the meaning of their titles if they were not already so self evident. The Leaders lead, the Guardians guard, and the Producers produce. It might seem ridiculously simplistic to you, but this division of labor is a key component to understanding why the Equestria of today is able to exist. They are not simply titles that are handed out passively or through simple desire. They are necessities. They are ways of thinking. They are philosophies in their own right. And it is by adopting and realizing one of these philosophies that ponies are able to live and play their respective parts to ensure the kingdom’s strength and integrity.”

Amused by her lofty speech, Fr. Allen asked, “And just what part do you play?”

“I am a Producer,” she answered seriously. “More specifically, I’m a dentist. The greatest contribution I can make to Equestria is to provide dental services to the residents of my home village. It is not an especially grand role, but my importance has always been made clear to me, much as it has been made clear to every other pony besides me. A great clock has many, many gears both large and small. And though I may be only a small cog in the system, I am necessary for the whole to run smoothly and efficiently. The kingdom would shudder at my absence, and I would quickly need to be replaced for it to continue.

“Though there are many, many Producers, we are all made to recognize the importance of the others. With this understanding, we are all able to respect each other. Nopony is insignificant and everypony realizes that. I guess this gives all of us a small sense of importance. How can it not?”

“Indeed,” Fr. Allen mused. “If only people had respect for each other in the same way.”

“They might,” Daemeon interjected to draw the attention of the conversing pair, “if all the cogs were seen as necessary. Some would argue that the purpose of other people might be more of a hinderance to the machine than an aid.”

“Must you be so pessimistic?” the priest chided.

“To the contrary, I’ve always thought of myself as an optimist.”

Frowning, Fr. Allen begged, “What part of you is optimistic?”

“The part that believes we could indeed have a perfect world if some of those cogs were removed.”

Scoffing at the grim answer, Fr. Allen berated, “Oh hush up you. Let the lady tell her story.” To Colgate, “Please continue.”

Snickering a bit at the exchange, she went on with her story. “If we had to sum up the importance of the cogs, the next set would belong to the Guardians. In a perfect world, they might not be necessary. However, while Equestria has achieved at enlightened state, the rest of our world has not. There are still other cultures and races who do not see the world the same way that we ponies do. They have not adopted mutual discourse the same way that we have. They have beliefs that run contrary to our own. Perhaps most disturbingly, they have insatiable desires for the security and comfort that we have earned for ourselves. As such, the Guardian class has been made necessary to protect us from those who would seek to steal or break apart our society for their own immediate benefits.

“There was not always a Guardian class as there is now though. They exist now only to protect us, to protect the society. Before however, there was a time when they existed for the sake of conquering and exerting control on foreign lands.”

“What caused that to change?” asked the priest.

“Well,” she continued, “over two hundred years ago, ponykind engaged in a war of aggression with another species. The purpose of the war was an enforcement of our own understandings of morality. It was not for the purpose of acquiring wealth or for protecting ourselves. It was entirely prompted by the belief that animals should not be eaten. We ponies had a high minded belief that unintelligent life was as important as intelligent life. We felt validated in this belief because ponykind had never had to consume other animals to maintain ourselves. We had always been herbivores. So, when we came into contact with an intelligent race that was almost purely carnivorous, we felt validated to attack that race and give an aggressive reprimand for their state of being. We had a long and violent war with them purely because they were living as they had always lived, and we deemed their way of life to be wrong.”

“That sounds like something that happens here all the time,” Fr. Allen remarked passively as he listened. With a touch of curiosity, he asked, “How did the war turn out?”

“We ponies lost,” Colgate answered somewhat distantly. Images sketched in history books flashed through her mind as she tried to recall the stories left behind from previous generations. “The carnivores were even stronger than we were. While we had merely adopted violence and warfare, they had been born and raised on it. It was a close match, but they fought us all the way to Equestria’s capital, Canterlot. There, they could have ended Equestria. They had our matriarchs surrounded and at their mercy. We were forced to offer an unconditional surrender. All they had to do was give us a little poke and our entire kingdom would have crumbled into oblivion, and all the lands we had worked so hard to claim and maintain for ourselves would have been lost to a foreign race.”

“Why didn’t it?” Daemeon demanded. His interest protruded from his intensely arched brow and narrowed eyes as he listened. He was clearly more interested than Fr. Allen, who seemed to listen to the story a touch more distantly. After all, his was a less curious mind more rigidly set on a single interpretation of the world and how it works. Colgate’s words were only a fairy tale to him whereas for Daemeon, they were scripture.

The little, blue unicorn answered him, “Because the carnivores had a greater respect for life than ponies did. It might sound a little odd, but warfare and their habit of eating other creatures had actually strengthened in their mind the value of other living beings. They did not respect life merely because it lived like we ponies did. They respected life for the purposes it could fulfill.

“The pony understanding of life’s value was very vague, you see. We held to the idea that all life was important because we believed we were the caretakers of all life. So when other creatures died under our supervision, we felt responsible. That was of course a very naive belief since we didn’t control all life and there was no feasible way we could begin to do so. We also chose to ignore the fact that life exists in a very circular fashion. Because we had overcome our animal predators through cooperation, we believed that predators on the whole did not have a right to be predators. It’s a rather dated and contradictory philosophy, but it went something like this. Every creature should live but never at the expense of another creature’s life.”

The statement solicited a throaty chuckle from the man holding her who pointed out the obvious, “But no creatures exist without causing grief to other creatures. Almost all animals are consumers of either other animals or at least plantlife. That’s like saying you want to make and eat a cake but you want to do so without using any of the ingredients.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, “like I said, it’s a dated and absurd philosophy. We weren’t able to recognize that because we were able to exist outside of that circle for so long. We were able to live without predators, so we came to the conclusion that predators were not necessary. It was not until they were reintroduced into our lives that we were able to see the benefits.

“So it happened like this. The leader of the carnivores met with our leader, Princess Celestia, to discuss the terms of the surrender. All of Equestria was terrified. Thousands of us had died in the war, and many of our lands had been ravaged. We were afraid that the carnivores would decide to take it all from us. Many were even afraid that they might decide to herd us like beasts and eat us themselves. We had every right at the time to believe that they would. Why would they be forgiving? It was we who attacked them. We were the aggressors on their perceived barbaric way of living. Why should they do anything but lash out in equal measure? I am very thankful, all of Equestria is very thankful to be able to say that that was not what happened.

“The carnivores did not so much meet with us to discuss terms of surrender so much as to discuss terms of existence. They met with Celestia and made her see the error of her ways, the error of ponykind. In equating intelligent life with unintelligent life, we were not raising creatures such as pigs to our status. We were lowering all life to brute, mundane existence. We had not made herbivores more righteous or special, we had merely made ourselves more cold hearted and unseeing. It was that cold heartedness and lack of sight that justified in our minds the use of murder as a proper reaction to a conflict of moralities.”

“So it was the Gryphons who were in the right?!” Daemeon expounded.

“Gryphons?” Fr. Allen asked confusedly.

Ignoring the priest as her words were no longer meant for him, Colgate went on excitedly, “Yes! Because the Gryphons were carnivores, they were inherently different from us ponies. Our model of living simply could not work for them. It was also because they were carnivores that they did the unexpected. Their leader made no claims on Equestria. She demanded no recompense. She stole none of our territory, food, livelihood, or technology. They made one demand and one demand only, that both parties should come to some agreement of what constituted proper living. This they saw as necessary because our viewpoints conflicted each other, and they knew there would be war again if a mutual morality was not agreed upon.”

“Why would the Gryphons let them off so easily?” Daemeon demanded. “And just who was this leader of the Gryphons?”

Not even bothering to look at Fr. Allen anymore, Colgate explained, “Her name was Gilda the Great, but that’s not important. The reason the Gryphons let them off so easily is precisely because they valued intelligent life more than unintelligent life. They understood that we ponies were different from them, and they understood our problems with the way they lived. Though they did not agree with our views of the world, they respected where they came from and that there was a rich history behind them. They respected that we had the intelligence to formulate a morality in the first place, albeit a touch skewed. In an odd twist that took some time for us ponies to understand, we realized that they saw us as the barbaric ones, much as we had seen them.

“They had no qualms with eating pigs. They were unintelligent and their value to the Gryphons came from the fact that they could be consumed like ponies consumed apples. And because of this intrinsic value they put on the pigs, they raised and kept them ungrudgingly. We ponies had kept them as well, but we had done so with a touch of despair in our hearts because we tried vainly to grasp at values that were not realistic. In both scenarios, the pigs lived. It was only in the case of the Gryphons that they lived with a purpose.”

“So in a sense,” Daemeon remarked, “the Gryphons were doing them a favor by eating them?”

“Exactly,” Colgate continued enthusiastically. She readjusted herself in the priest’s arms so her body was turned back towards her lover. “I suppose you would have to accept that living well is better than merely living, but since we are here talking about philosophy, you already know the answer to that. The Gryphon understanding was that the purpose of life was to promote the creatures who could live well to do so. With that understanding, they saw the greatest purpose of pigs was to feed Gryphons. It was only then that they obtained a greater purpose aside from merely living.”

“But,” her man interjected, “I thought ponies already knew that living well was better than merely living. Why wouldn’t they have seen things the way the Gryphons did?”

“Because we thought that all life should either live or live well. We never attached a secondary importance to life that did not live well but aided in lives that could. This is not to say that we never took advantage of other creatures for our own benefit. Of course we did that. We’d just never thought that a life could be made more valuable by ending so that another may persevere.”

Giving a great sigh, Colgate absently tried to snuggle closer to Fr. Allen as the chill air of the cathedral permeated her tiny form. She continued, “It would have been nice if Celestia and the rest of pony society could have understood the reasoning of the Gryphons without the war, but I personally do not believe we would ever have accepted their ways. We had built ourselves too high. We had to be brought low again and humbled before another species before we could accept the fact that we are not always right. And this did not happen until 700 years after the start of our Reform Era.

“Princess Celestia and Gilda the Great conversed until a mutual understanding was reached. Ponykind agreed that our perception of the value of life was flawed and the Gryphons agreed that the use of guile to obtain our pig populations for eating was underhanded and wrong. The Gryphons left our kingdom, even going so far as to offer us aid in restoring our kingdom to stability. Because of their kindness and respect, we have been strong allies ever since. That is not to say that Gryphons and ponies are chummy all the time. We are still very different creatures that come from very different histories. But we are able to understand each other, and for that, we live in peace to this day.”

As Colgate finished her thought, a silence came over the trio. Whenever silence came in the cathedral, it made the place seem all the bigger, like an empty void that could only be filled with words, that had to be filled with words. This thought was not restricted to her mind though. You know for yourself. Cathedrals are meant for words to be spoken. More specifically, they are built for the Word to be spoken.

Colgate struggled to find herself in the silence. She retraced her words until she found where they had deviated. With a chuckle and a grin, she turned her eyes back up to Fr. Allen’s own faded blue eyes and said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to go so far into detail. The reason I mentioned the war at all was to explain that we did not have a Guardian class at the time. What we had were aggressors. It was not until after the war that the Guardian class was formed separately from the Producers.”

Her words creeped to a stop as she found Fr. Allen’s eyes probing her intensely. It caused her some slight discomfort, but she did not let it show on her face. She let him stare and search her face, seeming to look beyond her superficial features for something hidden deep beneath them. That stare almost brought her to uncomfortable twitching before the priest finally asked, “And just what’s so different about the Guardians?”

Relieved to be speaking again, she answered him, “Well, we had always had a military trained to protect equestria from foreign and domestic threats. That’s necessary for any kingdom to survive. After the Gryphon War however, we replaced the military with a Guardian class. They are very similar insofar as they are both made up of strong, capable ponies who have the endurance and the will to go into battle. The difference comes in how they are trained and what system of command is in place.

“You see, our military was always trained to fight. That was their purpose. To fight when they were told to and to fight without question. That is how an effective military works. That was how Equestria’s military worked. When Celestia told them to charge into the Gryphon Federation, they did so without a second thought. They were taught only to execute orders and showed no remorse in doing so. This lead to a lot of suffering and death during the Gryphon War both for the Gryphons and for ponykind. When killing becomes a cold, calculating thing to do, it also becomes easy. We went into the war with a very warped view of the value of life, and because of that, we did terrible, terrible things to the Gryphons. Gilda the Great raised this point to Princess Celestia at their meeting. It was agreed that this kind of warfare could not be tolerated. As such, the military of Equestria was changed.

“Now, Guardians are chosen at a young age. They are few in number compared to the Producers. Once they are chosen, they are brought to special academies where they learn how to become strong, reliant defenders of Equestria. Alongside their physical and practical training however, there is also the strenuous training of their morals. In this is the biggest difference. A military teaches ponies to abandon their moralities for the sake of duty. The Guardians are taught to embrace their moralities for the sake of duty.”

“That sounds like a dangerous concept, Colgate,” Daemeon murmured. “How could people go to war effectively if they were troubled with the moral consequences of their actions?”

“They can’t,” she answered simply. “That’s the point. By taking away morality, war becomes a very easy process. It reduces individuals to something even less than animals. Animals do not intend to harm you. They do not have sadistic motives. They just do as their instincts tell them. Princess Celestia and Gilda the Great wanted to make war a difficult process. They wanted the taking of another intelligent being’s life to be very difficult for any pony or gryphon forced to do so. They wanted every member of their Guardian classes to wish never to kill. Before ever drawing a sword or arrow, they wanted a warrior to weigh in his or her mind whether what they did was the right thing to do. These academies taught that if a Guardian saw murder as the wrong thing to do, then they should not do it, even if they are told otherwise. They should only resort to violence if the individual believed it was necessary.”

A large part of Daemeon wanted to shout that such a system was simply impossible. Had he known less about Equestria, he would simply have done as such. Since he was a much wiser man than he had been the day before however, he did not speak his mind. He instead asked a question that would more quickly take him to his answer than a pronounced rebuke, “How is it then that ponies ever have the fortitude to kill when they have to? Wouldn’t this hesitation make any conflict you ponies got into almost impossible to win?”

“It does make some conflict almost impossible, yes.” She gestured outwards towards some unseen nation in the distance. “It would make an offensive war impossible to maintain. There is almost no way you can morally justify going into a foreign land and attacking the beings that live there. If we’d had that moral based military when we invaded the Gryphons, we would not have lasted nearly as long as we did. The war would have ended much faster as the individual Guardians decided for themselves that there was not enough moral justification to invade another nation. But far from being a flaw, this system is a benefit. It means that we can never be the conquering invaders.

“As to other forms of conflict however, the system can actually be a major benefit with regards to fighting. With a military, the ponies who fight in it often do so to protect their friends and family. While this is a noble goal, it is not an infallible one. It is a motivation rooted in instincts. The desire to protect our friends and family can be at its core a selfish desire.”

The statement piqued Daemeon’s interest immensely. If her explanation was going where he thought it might be going, then he was very eager to hear her beliefs affirm ones he’d had himself for a very long time. He asked, “How do you mean selfish?”

She smiled at his eagerness. “I mean it in much the same way you taught me that sympathy can be a selfish emotion. Ponies in a military often went to war because they were trying to protect their friends and families. What they often did not realize even as they did it was that they wanted to protect those close to them because they brought them comfort and joy. In this way, their desire to protect was not because it was the right thing to do, or because it would benefit the people they were trying to protect. What they are really trying to protect is their own version of the world, their own little corner of happiness. It is not the whole that they fight for. It is the part, the little piece that they claim as their own in their hearts. They fight not for others but for themselves. That is how it can be selfish. It is the mere fact that they are doing it for themselves and not for others. With that thought in mind, it becomes even easier to understand why atrocities can be perpetuated in war. When it is greed and selfishness that motivates our actions, ponies will do what they know is bad for others just so that they can secure what they have for themselves. Invasion, mass murder, even genocide can be justified internally if the reason you act is to protect yourself and your happiness.”

Purely so he could see the whole of her argument, Daemeon advocated for the obvious point she had not yet addressed, “How can going to war for yourself honestly be selfish if not only your family benefits from it? A person does not go into a fight with a banner picturing his family alone. He goes to defend a nation! While perhaps his intentions are for the protection of his own, how is what he does any less courageous or honorable than the man who goes in without selfish reasons? How is it any different when they are both killed in battle what their intentions were? Whatever caused them to join the fight, the fact remains that they are there. Nothing about the past is going to change the facts of the present. So why does it matter? We’re all the same when we’re six feet under.”

Colgate knew Daemeon was far too intelligent not to already know her answer. Still, she took such joy in the discussion that she humored his argument as though she really believed he did not know the answer. She clamored “They aren’t different! That’s just the thing. You’ve made the mistake of assuming the man who fights specifically for his nation rather than for his family is any less selfish. The fact of the matter is that the nation is an extension of the family. A nation is one big family. It may not always get along or see eye to eye, but they all come from a common ancestry and they all came together because they had similar reasoning and understandings of how best to live. Fighting for your nation is no less selfish than fighting for your family. Just because you’ve made your circle of justification bigger doesn’t mean your reasonings are any better. The two men in the ground are the same. And if I were to hazard a guess, Daemeon, I’d say you know exactly why they are the same. What single fact makes their situations no different.”

“The simple fact that the past is passed,” her man stated with a loud, firm voice. “They are both in the ground. That is why they are the same. That is why they were selfish. I never would have guessed your race would understand this so clearly, but you do. Despite whatever their intentions might have been, the fact remains that they are both dead. This is the signal of their greedy failure. In trying to protect their respective families, they went off to murder other men and women who had families. And there's the rub! No matter how pure and selfless anybody might have tried to make their intentions, the war still happened and there are still dead men and women and maybe even children to show for it.” Running his fingers through his unkempt brown hair, Daemeon demanded, “Now tell me, Colgate. What morality is taught to the Guardians? Why are all efforts for war frustrated on purpose?”

“Because,” she cried resoundingly, “the taking of another intelligent life has no positive ramifications. If you identify with your specific family or even your specific nation and go to war against another nation made up of other families, you are doing a disservice to you family, your nation, all other families, all other nations, and the entire world. There is no good that comes from death. There is only pain and suffering. War is a long term commitment to inflict mutual pain and suffering. There is nothing gained from either the winning or the losing side. While there may be short term benefits for the nation that showed superior force, these benefits will always falter into even greater difficulties as the following generations clamor for revenge and retribution. Every war will be more aggressive and violent and encompassing than the last unless the participants come to realize the single, undeniable fact that doing harm to others will always and only ever do harm to yourself.

“If you hear excitement and power in my voice, please understand that I am not a Guardian. My knowledge of this morality is rudimentary at best. Think if you will about the respect and admiration we ponies have for our Guardians. They are taught from a very young age that all life has purpose, and that all life is to be respected for its value. And then to add to that, all intelligent life deserves the respect and right not to just a life but a life well lived. It is this understanding that hinders wars of aggression while simultaneously strengthening our resolve to defend ourselves against foreign invasion. Our Guardians are taught not to fight for selfish reasons such as love of family or country. They are taught to fight for the defence of the very principles they are taught to uphold. They are able to swing their swords and draw their bows and arrows in defence because they know that intelligent life is the most precious thing there is and anybody who would seek to end such life for their own selfish desires are attacking not only the families and nations of the Guardians but also the sentiment that intelligent beings deserve life. This is why they are not hindered, Daemeon. It is the intent of our attackers that spurns our Guardians to action. When Equestria is attacked and ponies are killed, they are harbingers of justice who fight for justice’s sake, not for the sake of those they are defending. And when they die, they become exactly like the other two men who are six feet under. It was the failure for a peaceful resolution that caused their deaths. In death, we are all the same just as you say. Death is the worst possible thing that can happen, so it is the last thing that is sought. Death is failure. Communication, respect, openness, friendship, life; these are the successes the Guardian class strives for.”

Both Daemeon and Colgate felt a mutual shiver go up their spines at hearing such powerfully spoken and significant words. Daemeon had held these thoughts close to his heart for a very long time. They were not unique to him. There were others before him who had had such profound reasonings for why war was never a positive part of society. They were far and few between though, and he’d never dreamt that he’d find someone who would share his exact opinions. It was a strange elation that injected him with a much needed dose of vigor. The last twenty four hours had wreaked havoc on his steadfast beliefs. So much of what he held dear to his heart had been turned upside down or mocked to insignificance. It was a supreme joy and relief for him to hear his mare agree completely with him on something that held such importance to him. With a touch of satisfaction, Daemeon stated, “Never have more beautiful words been spoken.”

Their moment of warmth was cut short as Fr. Allen stated somewhat scathingly, “You can cut that crap, Daemeon, if that is the name you’re going by now.” Both pairs of eyes turned to regard the old man whose face was contorted with an odd amalgamation of frustration, confusion, and anger. “That’s the most hypocritical thing I think I’ve ever heard you say. I hardly know anything of your past, but I’ve heard enough to know that you don’t care about other people’s lives. In fact, I gather you much prefer to harm lives than to help them.”

The statement caused Colgate to flash a look of serious concern towards Daemeon who cringed and shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Her crystal blue eyes seemed to pierce his skin and take in every single fault, lie, and horror he’d caused in his lifetime. Such had been the last few hours that he’d almost forgotten the tenuous nature of his love for Colgate. While he knew that she had every intention of loving him no matter what he had done in his past, he also knew that she could never suspect just how much of a monster he was. Even the first day they had met when Daemeon had lunged at her with every intention of crushing the life out of her diminutive body, he could not have seemed as much of a violent, unfeeling creature as he actually had been. She had forgiven that side of him, but he was certain that she would not forgive the transgressions of his past, especially not if she believed the same things he believed. He’d given up his life long ago. That was a choice he made freely. Whether it was selfish or not, he could not say. He liked to believe that he’d given up happiness for the sake of mankind, but that was not the reality he was worried about revealing to Colgate. No. His fear was her judgment of the fact that not only had he given up his happiness, he’d also given up the very morality he believed in so vehemently. This was of course because he saw his impromptu chaos that caused so much suffering and death as necessary for educating humanity on the reality that there never was nor will be such thing as God and that if real happiness were ever to be achieved, everyone everywhere would have to accept this fact and hold it close to their hearts. Until that day came, Daemeon devoted himself to causing pain. His belief was that the more pain he caused, the more people would strive for the opposite. If ever there was an advocate for the devil, it was he, the Devil himself.

Daemeon would have liked nothing better than to hide from the truth once more, as he had done every time before. With Fr. Allen at their side however, he knew there was nowhere left for him to run. Now was the hour of his demise. Already, his eyes moistened as his mare’s lips moved to ask that dreaded question, “Daemeon, what have you done?”

Colgate trembled. She did not want to know the answer. It terrified her. Now more so than ever as she heard a small confirmation of her fears in the language of the old priest holding her. But she had also come to the realization that even worse than whatever the truth might be was the suspense of waiting to know and having every moment demonize the man she loved even more than the moment before. Daemeon had promised her that when he told her the truth, he would tell her the whole truth, unadulterated with any pretense of self defense. So when she saw his shoulders slump like the world had been placed upon them and his face grow dark and sad, she trembled.

“Yes, Daemeon. Tell us. What have you done. I’ve always been curious to know.” Fr. Allen chuckled slightly at the bereaved man’s expression, taking humor in his sadness. The chuckle, as insignificant as it was, was enough to cause the man to almost double over in pain. Struggling to catch his breath, he stated, “Heck, you might even consider repenting! Lord knows I’m probably the only priest in the world who would hear your confession and take it to the grave.”

Daemeon did not have the heart to give a snide remark to the priest. His gaze remained fixed with his friend, his best friend, his only friend. His lips relinquished themselves before his mind could even comprehend the surrender. He spoke, “Fr. Allen’s right, Colgate. I am every bit the hypocrite he says I am.”

The statement, so stoically declared, caught even Fr. Allen off guard. He gazed almost as intently as Colgate did as they listened.

“Though I profess to favor an enlightened way of thinking, one which I believe corresponds with a feasible utopian society, I do not follow my own belief in unity. I do the opposite in fact.” With dark seriousness, he stated, “I’ve hurt a lot of people, Colgate.”

The mare flinched at the statement and hesitantly asked, “What do you mean?”

Taking a deep breath to maintain his own fortitude, her man answered shakily, “I mean I have intentionally done things for the past twenty years to hurt people. Not just some people either. Almost every single person who has come into contact with me for most of my life have suffered great trials. They have lost money because of me. They have lost jobs because of me. They have lost their sense of security because of me. They have lost their relationships with those they loved because of me. They have come to despise each other because of me. And many, beyond my knowledge or ability to remember, have died because of things I have done to ruin their lives.”

Struggling to speak past the wordless horror the mare he loved so much showed on her beautiful face, he pressed on with the conviction that not one ounce of the truth should be hidden from her any longer. “When we first met, Colgate, I told you that you were lucky for coming into my possession. I told you that there were many people in this world who would want nothing more than to use you or do unspeakable things to you. The fact of the matter is that I lied to you. Of almost all the people you could possibly have run into, I might just be the cruelest and most wickedly evil person you could possibly have met. The very first thoughts I had about you was how I might exploit you. I wanted to use you to learn about your world. And the only reason I initially wanted to learn about your world was so that I could bring my unique form of chaos and cruelty on your world.

“There is nothing redeemable about me, Colgate. I am a wretch. If there ever was such a thing as an evil person, that is who I am. And this is made all the worse because I am aware of my condition! Most other people have a mental deficiency that would move them to cruelty. Human beings by nature try to justify what they do. Even the most oppressive tyrants in human history believed their actions were good or righteous in some way, even if those reasons were a mere delusion or excuse to behave as they did. I am worse than all these men because I know what I do is terrible. Every ounce of my being knows that it is wrong to harm other people, to lead their lives to ruin, to cause them death. And yet, I do so without flinching or feeling any guilt for what I am doing. Even now I feel no guilt. If you were planning on reconciling my soul, priest, you would not be able to do so. I am not sorry for what I did. At least, I never was sorry until I met you, Colgate.”

A very small voice squeaked, “Why?”

Tears fell freely from his eyes as the man explained, “It’s easy not to feel sorry for the decisions you have made if you do not love anyone or anything. If you don’t love anything, then you can’t hate anything. So despite living every day in absolute hypocrisy, I never felt any hatred for myself. I was not able to. I never would have either if my life as I knew it two days ago hadn’t ended, and my new life began.

“Against all odds, you wormed your way into my cold, bitter heart. You made me feel anger. You made me feel fear. You made me feel joy. And finally, you made me love. You made me love you without even trying. And in falling in love with you, I learned to hate the person I am. I am a monster Colgate, and there is nothing that can redeem me for what I have done.”

It might have been silence that would have followed if it were not for Daemeon suddenly losing control of his emotions. His confession made, he clutched his hands at his face. Covering his eyes out of overwhelming shake, he broke into agonized crying. The pain was intolerable. It would have been one thing to say goodbye to her. The loss of a lover is a terrible sadness for anybody to bear. This loss of love was even worse for Daemeon however. A lifetime of shame and self loathing which had been kept at bay by cold and calculating actions that served to perpetuate chaos in its purest forms was released all at once in the tortured man’s body. It ravaged his sensibilities, leaving him as helpless as a babe lost and alone in a hostile environment. That hostile environment was the scrutiny of a single creature whom he loved more than anything or anyone he’d ever known before. It was this scrutiny that cut him the deepest and, for the briefest of moments, made him the most miserable man alive.

Often, it is seen as a curse that moments end. There are moments you wish would last forever. Then there are moments like this that seem to last forever even though that is the very last thing you would want. Thankfully, no moment lasts forever. And for Daemeon, this moment was far briefer than he would ever have expected.

The despairing man was pulled out of his inner turmoil quite suddenly by an almost painful smack against his forehead. The unexpected pain overrode the despair for a brief moment and Daemeon jolted his hands upward and opened his eyes to regard the impossibly huge, crystal blue eyes of that gossamer furred unicorn dentist from a whole other world. Those eyes were moist with tears. Her brow was tightened in anger. Her lips were bent with seriousness. And her nose was flared with intensity. All these features came together as a confusing collage that was only made understandable when the mare shouted at her man a single word, “Were!”

Confused, Daemeon could only gasp, “Huh?!”

In a relentless attack that Fr. Allen found humor in, Colgate tackled her man and began repeatedly striking him with her hoof over and over again while crying the single word, “Were! Were! Were! Were! Were! Were! Were!”

Every strike of her hoof only brought Daemon to ever higher levels of confusion as his mind made failed to grasp the purpose of the onslaught. If he were not so distraught, he might have reacted in reciprocated rough play. As he was in no emotional state to offer argument though, he instead covered his head and received the beating like a massive bear being slapped on the nose by a carney’s newspaper.

The attack continued until his mare, panting with exhaustion, collapsed on his lap and laid her head against his chest. Only then did Daemeon remove his hands from his eye and look back down on her. She answered his obvious confusion by stating with the definitive mindset of a zealot, “I’ve already told you before Daemeon. You’re not a monster. That’s the person you were. Whatever person you were doesn’t matter now. It’s who you are now that matters. And right now, you’re my human with the wonderful laugh and the beautiful smile, and you’re never going to hurt anybody ever again because you love me, and I love you. Do you understand?”

Panting and hiccuping from his own exertive crying, Daemeon stuttered, “Y-yes? But, but how? How? How can you just ignore what I’ve done so easily?”

Colgate shook her head vigorously and explained, “I’m not ignoring it. I just believe as you believe. The past is passed. No matter what you were before, it doesn’t change the fact that right now you are a kind and loving person. The past is there to be learned from, Daemeon; not relived. If my being here with you has caused you to realize the wrongs you have done, then your actions are already forgiven. What good would my punishing you do? Revenge comes to nothing. You know that as well as I do. You were the one who helped me to realize that fact. If you love me, then you will follow the very morality that you taught me. You will forgive yourself as I have forgiven you and let this dark part of your past fade away. Live for the moment, Daemeon. And make it a better moment than the one before.”

Though he wanted nothing more than to give into the comfort of her words, he feared his past could not be let go as simply as she said. His fear was that the very beliefs that underscored the actions of his past might prompt him to the same actions in the present. With this fear in mind, he stated, “But I can’t wash the slate clean like that, Colgate. All those horrible things I did I did for a reason. And you know that reason. Though I have not told you directly, I know you are smart enough to realize the purpose behind my actions.”

His mare nodded her head slowly and whispered, “To create chaos.”

“Yes!” her man expounded. “I wanted this world to be a better place so badly that I chose to rush it towards its inevitable conclusion. I forced the spread of chaos so that people should grow bitter and resentful and stop their fatal belief in God. It is this belief that holds us back, Colgate. That is the ingredient that has soured our ascension to a higher understanding of right and wrong, justice and injustice. I do not know whether you could ever really understand what I am trying to say, but it is the truth. Of that you can be certain. I weighed the benefit of humanity as a whole versus the destruction of the lives of individuals, and my scales tipped towards the former. I chose to harm people to help them. This is why I don’t feel remorse. Even to this moment, I still believe that what I did was the best possible thing I could have done. And even with all the love I hold for you, I am still not convinced that my actions were wrong. Even as they violate everything I believe in, they were and still are necessary to me.”

With an astonishingly furious and bellowing voice, Fr. Allen cried out, “And just what gives you the right to play God?!”

Both Daemeon’s and Colgate’s gazes whipped towards the angry, old man. If the volume of the man’s voice was not enough to draw their attention, the sudden lunge he made towards the pair terrified them. Fr. Allen, who only moments before had seemed on the verge of death, now wrung Daemeon’s shirt in his hand with the adrenaline of a young man going to war for the first time. Neither the handsome man nor the beautiful mare knew what to do as those dark, fuming eyes stared into the depths of Daemeon’s black soul.

Screaming with ferocity, the priest demanded, “What gives you the right to judge all of mankind and determine that the best favor you can do for us is to harm us in any way possible? What gives you the right to say that a utopia may only be found through violence? How dare you sit there and say war is a terrible thing, yet make every effort to make war on everyone else? Did it never, not once in your life occur to you that you are the reason we don’t have a utopia? Has the faintest glimmer of righteousness ever fell on your self righteous soul so that you may stop the evil your doing and wonder whether or not it is your very attitude towards life that causes the world so much grief?

“You say that we are held back by God. You say we are held back by love. You say we are held back by ignorance. No matter how nobly you may try to paint yourself, you are the person that makes the world a bad place. You are the one who causes suspicion and hatred. You cause us distrust. You make us fear everything. How are we to ever trust each other if men like you do everything in their power to make us do otherwise? How. . .”

The priest’s words were cut short as his bony hand grasped his chest. His eyes squinted shut and his body went rigid. The man and the mare before him could see the contorted agony in his expression, and both feared that he would collapse. Somehow, the holy man simmered with just enough spite to cause him to force his way through the pain. Prying one eye open and gritting his teeth, he stated with fury, “There is only one judge, and He is not you. May you be brought forth before our Heavenly Father and judged, for only He may see and know all. Death will come for you, Daemeon. And when it comes, you will know sorrow. You will know suffering!”

Drawing one last breath, Fr. Allen spit in Daemeon’s face and fell limply back into the pew.

For the briefest, most infinitesimal moment, Daemeon felt fear. For the very first time in his life, the man who spited all who would swear such deceitful ideas at him felt the traumatic bewilderment of just what would become of his consciousness once it had lost its momentum. Even Colgate who knew almost nothing of Heaven or Hell feared for the judgement her man might come to. Unfortunately, neither of them were given the luxury of dwelling on their fears just then. Their eyes flew from the corpse to the great double doors as they heard them rapped with seven loud knocks in succession. Daemeon stared in bewilderment, not even having the presence of mind to wipe the drool dripping down his brow, nose, and chin.

Finding Faith

The house was very silent, so silent in fact that nobody visiting would have suspected a soul was there. A few lights were on, but no tv glared in the background. No games or activity were to be heard. Not even the traffic of Manhattan was dense enough that far north to add any decibels. The only inkling of life came in the soft breathing of a man and his daughter as they sat curled up together before a fireplace that cracked and popped with heat. They were not speaking. They had not yet spoken. She because there was nothing more to say, and he because there was nothing better to say.

Warrun still wore his uniform. His gun holstered and his shoes on, he sat holding his little Maria close to his chest. After finding her sitting so calmly and grimly in the graveyard a few hours before, he'd taken her in his arms and brought her home. After calling in to say in no uncertain terms that he was done for the day, the pain stricken man had brought his daughter to his bed and taken a nap with her in his arms. They’d both been exhausted from a chaotic, eventful day. There was nothing more Warrun wanted than to be alone with his daughter, to comfort her sorrow so that she might also comfort him.

From the bed to the large reclining chair they had gone, leaving no words in their wake. Now it was almost dark, and Warrun felt that he had to speak. With all the time he’d given himself, he’d hoped to have found the right words, but his search had come to nothing. The truth of the matter was that his daughter’s words had been so painful to him, they’d stunned him into a crisis he was having great difficulty overcoming. Despite his pain however, he knew better than to withhold the comfort he must give as a father.

Taking a very long and deep breath, the loudest noise the house had heard in hours, Warrun whispered, “Sweetie belle?”

Her ear pressed to his chest, Maria answered, “Yes?”

With concern, “How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know.”

The sadness, uncertainty, and fear that touched her voice stung Warrun. He squeezed her tighter and pressed, “Are you feeling better?”

“I don’t know.”

Again, her words stung. Still, Warrun did not stop his gentle interrogation, though it pained him far more than the one he’d given that morning. “What are you thinking about?”

A small silence ruled the following moment before she answered, “What happens to people when they die.”

Mustering all of the courage and conviction Warrun could find, he gave her an answer, “They are taken into the hands of their angels and brought up to God in Heaven. That’s where Mommy is. That’s where I’ll go someday. And someday, when you’re very old and grey and not a moment before, you will die and go to Heaven too. Then you and me and Mommy will live together forever. And we will be so happy there that anything sad or terrible that happened here on Earth will mean nothing to us because we will be with God and He will be with us. Do you understand, sweetie belle?”

Another small silence ensued. Instead of answering yes or no, Maria pressed on with an even more difficult question, one that Warrun had feared she might ask and had hoped that her young mind would lack the logic to conjure up. Such is the nature of traumatic experiences however that they wisen the minds of the young who have to endure them, tearing them away from the blissful ignorance of youth and into the painful reality of adulthood. Warrun’s eyes teared slightly when he heard her ask such a concise question to which he and no other man, woman, or child alive had a good answer, “How do you know that?”

His Catholicism was almost a distant memory to him. His impressionable young mind was gone, leaving him only with mantras from a past age. Having never worked out answers of his own, Warrun resorted to one such mantra in hopes that her mind might prove as impressionable as his had been, “I know because I have faith.”

It sometimes did not dawn on him how far removed from any religious upbringing his daughter was. While his Catholicism was at least a distant dream, her’s was nonexistent. She’d been to no divine services. She’d received only one Sacrament, and she was not yet old enough to understand what that Sacrament was called. The extent of her knowledge of the Word was limited to three prayers every good Catholic needed to know and even those she could barely speak without stumbling over the words. She was born in the cradle and was being raised in the cradle. All of these factors tied with her youth and her father’s own lack of religious initiative caused her to ask as seriously as a child can ask, “What’s faith?”

Bewildered by the question, Warrun struggled to answer, “Faith is being able to believe something even if you have no proof to show that it is real.”

Frowning at his answer, Maria asked, “So there’s no proof that God is real? Or Heaven?”

Fearing the logic of her question, Warrun answered, “No. I don’t have any proof. But it wouldn’t be faith if I had proof. If I had proof, then God wouldn’t be God. He’d just be something else. You will understand someday that He is simply too complex for us to understand Him. If we understood him, then He would not be God.”

Maria pushed away from her father, yet remained seated in his lap. She turned her crystal blue eyes towards his and stated with confusion, “I don’t understand.”

Warrun brushed some of her golden brown hair out of her face and cupped her cheek. He whispered, “I know. You want to know everything. And when you’re young, it can seem like there’s no reason why you can’t know everything. As you grow older though, you will come to understand that the more you learn, the less you know because all you’re really learning is how much you don’t know. Once you realize that, then you will understand that there is too much of the world for a single man or woman to grasp. But if we left it at that, then there would be chaos. There isn’t though. Everybody in the world that is alive right now is alive because there is order. That desire for order is given to us by God because he is all knowing and all powerful. He knows all of human history and every person who has been born, every person who has died, and every person who has yet to be. God knows you, Maria. He loves you completely. And because he loves you, you are alive and I am here to take care of you. And because he loves me, you are alive for me to take care of you.

“I have no proof that God or Heaven is real, sweetie belle. All I know is that they must be real. You will understand someday that the world simply does not make sense unless God exists. Without God, there is no real answer to where we came from or why we exist. More importantly, there is no reason for what purpose our lives have. Only God could understand the purpose of every life. Everybody is precious to Him. You’re precious to Him. I’m precious to Him. Auntie Alexis is precious to Him. Your cousin Samantha is precious to Him. And most importantly, you need to understand that Mommy is precious to him. That’s why I have faith Heaven exists. If Mommy is precious to Him, then He would make sure she could see us when we die and we could see her.”

Paying careful attention to the words her father spoke, Maria asked, “Is Fr. Allen precious to God?”

Warrun winced at the question and corrected her, “That man was not Fr. Allen. He is a very bad man, and I am so, so sorry that you met him. What he did to Owlowiscious was terrible, and I promise that I will get him fixed as soon as I can. I promise you that he will be punished for what he did.” Under his breath, Warrun sneered, “For everything he’s done.”

Frowning at his answer, his daughter clasped her two tiny hands around his and went on, “Does that mean he’s not precious to God? Does God hate him like you do, Daddy?”

It was with great difficulty that the First Officer wiped the angry look off his face and spit out more Dogma, “God loves everybody unconditionally, sweetie belle. He doesn’t hate anybody. Only people can hate each other. That man, even as mean as he was, was still made by God and exists because God loves him.”

With a touch of anger creeping into her voice, she demanded, “But why would God love him if he’s so mean? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Again, Warrun spoke only what he had been told, not what he’d accepted for himself, “Because God understands him. He knows everything that’s happened in that man’s life. Only he knows exactly why he behaved the way he did. As evil and mean as he is, God lets him live because He has a plan for him. It is by understanding him completely that He loves him completely.” Gritting his teeth to force the words from his mouth, Warrun acquiesced to a silent fear of his own, one that he wanted to be true but that he could find no real explanation for, “The only reason I hate him is because I don’t understand him like God understands him. I don’t know why he does what he does. All I know is that he tried to hurt you and I’m never going to let him hurt you again. Do you understand that?”

Instead of subduing her, the answer only seemed to make her angrier. Warrun could not believe that his own daughter’s eyes could flash with such passion as she demanded even more forcefully, “But why would God let him be mean?! If God loves everybody, then why would he let people hurt each other? If God is all powerful, why would he just let him be mean to me? It doesn’t make sense, Daddy. I hate Him!”

Pulling his daughter back into his grasp, Warrun conceded, “I know, sweetie belle, I know. I hate that man too.”

Pushing roughly away, tears began streaming down her face as she explained with small, feminine fury, “I’m not talking about the man, Daddy. I’m talking about God. I hate Him. If He’s real, Daddy, then it means He’s the one who took Mommy away. It means He’s the one who made that man so mean. Are you sure He’s real, Daddy?”

Shocked, Warrun tried to speak but stuttered, “I, uh, I, it’s more . . . complicated than that. It’s, God is . . .”

Perceptive as she was, Maria could see the stutter, could hear the uncertainty. With the conviction of a child who believes they understand everything, she declared, “You’re not sure! He’s not real, Daddy. God’s not real. Mommy’s not in Heaven. She’s just dead.” On saying the words, the anger in her face violently contorted into despairing agony. She cried, “And I’m never going to see her again.”

She broke down. The truth as she’d found it hit her harder than anything had ever hit her in her entire life. She lashed out and started striking her father’s chest with her clenched fists. She was furious at him for lying to her. She was furious at that man for lying to her. Most especially, she was furious at God for not existing. Even when her mother had first died, she had not been so torn. She’d taken comfort in promises made by her father that her mother was not really dead, rather she was living eternally in an eternal paradise. Now she felt she knew the truth. She felt that there was no afterlife, that the cruelty she’d witnessed would go reprimanded and the kindness unrewarded. Since she could not attack God or that wicked man, she chose her father instead.

Warrun took the attacks with his own tears stinging his eyes. The attacks were far more emotionally painful than physical. He wanted to stop her, but he could not immediately bring himself to do so. His daughter had torn down his facade and found uncertainty, something he’d never wished to show her. If he could not be her rock, then who could be? His value both as a father and as a man crumbled before his eight year old daughter. What security could he guarantee her when he had no security to guarantee himself? How could he appear immobile to her if his own faith in God wavered before her?

Unable to gaze at those shining, wet, hate filled eyes a moment longer, Warrun grabbed her and pulled her tightly to his chest, not allowing any room for escape. Once caught, her muscles slackened until she was little more than dead weight in his arms. And Warrun knew what dead weight felt like. She was not the first Maria who’d fallen so limply in his arms. Her emotions poured out in an unrelenting torrent. There was nothing left to stop them. There was no pretense left. there was only the cold, bitter truth. There was only chaos.

*****

Warrun could not say how much time had passed in that recliner. They had cried together so hard and for so long that they both felt like withered corn husks burning in a late summer sun. There was no life or moisture left in them. They felt empty and had once again exhausted themselves. This time however, a nap would not cure them. For a while, Warrun felt nothing could sure them. Then he remembered something his best friend and confidante had told him, had begged him to do. With these questions rattling around in his head, these fears and uncertainties, the First Officer felt there was only one thing left for him to do. There was only one place left to turn. There was only one person left in the entire world he felt comfortable turning to.

So Warrun had stood from the recliner and carried his daughter to his squad car. Normally, he would have placed her in the back, but he did not want her away from his side. So Maria rode shotgun for the very first time in her life. For both of them, it was a symbol, and neither had to say a word to understand it. Maria’s childhood ended right then. The comfort and security of the back seat was gone. Now there was to be an open and uncertain road before her, one that she would travel to the end of her days.

It might have been better for him to call ahead, but his mind wasn’t exactly following protocol at that moment. All he knew is that he had to go, and she would have to be there. He would have to be there. He couldn’t afford for either of them to be absent from where they should be. He could not stomach that sort of deviation from the norm right then. All his mind could do was hope that everything would go just as he hoped it would, that the tragedy of this night could be solved with a single discussion.

The two of them wove through the streets of Manhattan. It was slow going. It was always slow going when he didn’t use the sirens. His presence signaled the vehicles around him to behave, to follow the letter of the law. So it was that Warrun brought order simply by being without having to exert any energy whatsoever. He did not feel that order right then though. There was no sonata rolling through the car to calm his nerves. They were way past the point of a rich melody or a deep harmony. He needed food that was more satisfying for his soul.

By the time the two of them drove into the parking garage of a large apartment building in downtown, the sky was nearing total darkness. The city was lit up of course. It was always lit up. It would always be lit up. After spending much of the day in grim depression and tears, Maria’s eyes lit up like the city when she realized where they were. It brought relief beyond measure to Warrun as he saw her lips turn up in a small, excited smile. She hopped out of the car and ran to her father’s side so that he may lead her up the large building to their destination. Warrun was all too happy to take her hand and walk her along, noting to himself how small and beautiful that hand was and how it should never again be balled up with hatred.

They came to an elevator that brought them skyward. Higher and higher they went until the box came to a stop and opened into a warm hallway. Holding hands, they followed down the hall laid with shallow, red carpet until the stopped before a sturdy wood door. Out of an odd and very old habit from his days in Catholicism, Warrun picked up his hand and rapped on the door with his knuckles seven times.

Some steps were heard. Then a gasp. Three different locks were undone in quick succession and the door flung wide to reveal a beautiful blonde haired woman clad in a velvet robe holding a glass of wine. Her smile was wide, teeth shining. She clamored with excitement, “Oh my God! Warrun! I didn’t know you’d be coming tonight. And you brought Maria.” She dropped to her knees, spilling a bit of her drink as she did. In her excitement, she could not even begin to care. She hugged her niece, kissing her several times until Maria was laughing. “You should have called ahead! I’d have started making a nice big dinner for us.”

Warrun moved his lips to speak, but another figure appeared behind the woman before him. The little girl gasped and came forward, pushing past her mother so she could hug her cousin. Maria spoke instead, saying happily, “Hey, Sammie! Daddy didn’t tell me we were coming here either. We just got in the car and came. I got to ride in the front seat.”

As Samantha gave her cousin a look of wonder and awe, Alexis gave her brother a look of confusion. She asked, “You didn’t tell her you were coming here either? Was it a surprise?”

Again, Warrun moved his lips to speak, but his sister stopped him, grabbing his hand and pulling him into her home. She lead him to a sofa in her living room and sat him down. Going to grab a glass of wine for him as well, she stated, “It’s not like you to drop in twice in one day, each time without mentioning.” She came back and handed him the glass. He took it with a half mechanical smile. He was very happy to see her, but the grim cloud hanging over him kept his smile from being entirely genuine. His sister being even more perceptive than his daughter, Alexis caught the subtle twitch of a frown and her expression suddenly became grim. Taking a seat next to him, she narrowed her eyes seriously and begged softly so the girls across the room would not hear them, “Is something wrong?”

Not ready or willing to let his smile falter again that day, Warrun nodded wordlessly, taking a sip of the dry wine.

His silence spoke volumes about the seriousness of whatever was happening. A fat, white cat jumped into her lap. Alexis pushed it away, grunting, “Shoo, Opal.” The unintentionally harsh action caught the attention of the two girls who’d been admiring the cat. Not wanting them to worry, she quickly dismissed them, “Sammie, why don’t you two take Opal to your room and play with your pony dolls. We’d like some alone time.”

Neither of them argued, both being very eager to play. Maria especially was privy to the atmosphere around her father and had seen enough of his tears for one day. They both immediately disappeared behind a closed door down the hall, leaving their parents to talk.

Alexis turned a hesitant look towards her brother after they’d gone. She searched his face, for the first time noting the redness of his eyes. They were puffy and tired. His hair was messy from his midday nap, something he otherwise never did. And the odd smile on his face that he seemed unable to stop giving bothered her more than she would say. Instead, she asked, “What’s going on, Warrun?”

The tired man sat back on the couch, the black leather covering creaking a bit under his weight. Before answering, he tooks a long draw from his glass, emptying it entirely. He reached a hand to his breast pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. He took one out, offering another to his sister who accepted silently. He lit them both and took another long draw off the stick. Almost half of it disappeared. Tapping the ash into a tray on the table, he gave a long exhale with eyes closed. It soothed him, comforted him. His heart which had been quivering slowed to a regular beat and he felt he had the strength to begin. At least, he hoped. “You remember why I came into the hospital earlier today?”

Nodding slowly, Alexis took a small sip of wine and answered, “Of course. You were getting a statement from Mr. DeCosta. How did it go?”

Taking a less pronounced draw of his cigarette, Warrun explained, “It was informative. I learned that the crash was a complete accident. Mr. DeCosta was terrified while he was driving because he believed his mother had died, that his whole home town in Jamaica was up in flames. He was rushing to call home and missed a red light.”

“That’s a terrible shame,” his sister noted with sadness, fully able to empathize with the man’s loss. “How did his mother die?”

“She didn’t. There was no fire in his hometown.”

“But then,” she asked in confusion, “why did he think she had died?”

With neither a smile nor a frown, Warrun explained with an indifference that comes from defeat, “A man who had ridden in his cab lied to him. The man had made up the story purely for the sake of causing Mr. DeCosta the stress that caused him to crash. There was never an ounce of truth in the statement.”

Unable to contain her look of astonished horror, Alexis demanded, “Who would do that to him? Did he have somebody who hated him?”

Warrun shook his head. “The man who did it had no connection to Mr. DeCosta whatsoever. They’d never met. The only thing they had in common is that they both happened to be in a taxi together. The reason Mr. DeCosta is in the hospital is because he was in proximity to someone whom he meant no ill will.”

Alexis’ lips began to tremble. Her eyes left her brother and fell on her glass. She took another sip, a much heavier one this time. Then her hands began to tremble as she tried to find the courage to ask the next question on her mind. Courage was needed as she already feared the answer. Still, she had to ask, “Who was it?”

In a chilling confirmation, her brother said simply, “The Devil.”

A shiver ran up her spine. She set down her glass and stood up, walking away from the couch to stand silently before a painting on the wall depicting the Tower of Babel. It was a small replica of a very well known piece. The structure was massive, taking up the whole of the painting. The people working on it were so small in comparison that they had no detail. They were only the tiniest slivers of black ink, as small as a brush could make them. She stood looking at the painting, her face very grim as she contemplated her brother’s words. She could not say she was surprised. Indeed, this was not the first time she’d heard of that evil man. There was silent terror though. There was fear that such a person could even exist, let alone keep existing. That man, the Devil, was the reason she’d gotten locks for her door. He was to her a symbol of all that she had to protect her daughter from in the world. Her mind was touched with even more anxiety at another sobering thought that ran through her.

Still looking at the painting, Alexis whispered, “That’s not the only reason you wanted to talk to me, is it.”

Warrun flinched at the comment, very much wishing he’d made more time over the years to visit her. Seeing his sister shouldn’t be motivated by such dire happenings. He acquiesced, “No. It isn’t.” He stood and walked to her. He gazed on the picture by her side for a moment. The girls giggled in the other room, but the noise was not enough to cheer him. He continued, “I interrogated a man this morning named Jack Vinetti. He was brought in for murdering his wife, Isabella Vinetti. I questioned him on exactly why he’d done it. He claimed innocence.”

“But he wasn’t?”

“No.” Closing his eyes, he folded his hands before him and explained, “He continued to claim innocence until he made a phonecall to a friend of his. I was listening at the time.” There was the temptation to allow shakiness into his words, but he ignored it. He spoke firmly, “Jack Vinetti killed his wife in cold blood because he believed she’d cheated on him with another man. During that phone call, he learned from his friend that she had done no such thing. I watched as he realized that he’d his wife over nothing.”

Alexis couldn’t remember ever having heard a more sobering story. Even learning about the Holocaust in high school had not been as grim or real to her as the words her brother spoke. She did not understand. “Why are you telling me this?”

Warrun stated simply, “Mr. Vinetti believed his wife had cheated on him because a man had told him so. He had been lied to, and he believed it. That is why he acted the way he did. The reason I’m telling you this is because you know of the man who lied to him. You know who it was that caused Mrs. Vinetti to be murdered.”

His sister turned her head sharply, her golden hair whipping around. Her blue eyes were wide with horror as she demanded, “It wasn’t him! Was it?”

Keeping his eyes closed, Warrun nodded. “After Mr. Vinetti learned the news, he told me. He confessed to the murder. When I realized who had caused him to do it, I was overcome with despair. I made a mistake I never would have made otherwise. I tried to console him. In doing so, I let my guard down. Mr. Vinetti grabbed the gun right out of my holster and shot himself in the head while my face was only inches from his.”

Alexis backed away from her brother then. She wanted to comfort him. She tried desperately to do so. Try as she might, she found herself faltering backwards first one step, then another. She steadied herself on a bookcase and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Warrun. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know. I can’t.”

He opened his eyes then. He turned and looked at his sister leaning heavily on the bookcase. He would have liked to comfort her, but he had no comfort left to give. He had only the truth. Looking into her eyes, he continued to say what he’d come to say, “Yesterday, I allowed Maria to go to her mother’s grave. I told her that Maria liked having her visit. I always thought it was good that she went to visit. I don’t want her to forget her mother. I dropped her off and waited in the car until she came back.”

Warrun turned away from his sister and looked at the painting again, not quite having the strength to look her in the eyes. “She seemed so happy when she got back to the car. You can imagine how happy that made me. She wouldn’t tell me why she was so happy, so I assumed it was because she’d confided in her mother’s spirit and God had taken it upon Himself to lighten her mood. It wasn’t until this afternoon when Maria’s school called me to say that she was missing that I learned why she’d actually been smiling.”

He heard her gasp, “She was missing?!”

Still not looking at her, he nodded. “She’d ditched school and walked halfway across Manhattan on her own, so she could get back to her mother’s grave. She arrived there fully believing that her mother would be alive, sitting there, waiting for her.”

“Why would she think that?”

Now turning away from both her and the picture, he clenched his jaw and stated, “A man met here in the graveyard while she was there yesterday. He walked up to her and told her that he was a priest. He told her that her mother would come back to life if she gave that man her stuffed animal, the very one her mother’d gotten for her. He made her believe, really made her believe that my dear Maria would come back to life and all it would cost her was a little faith and a toy.”

Warrun felt and soft hand come to rest on his shoulder. He did not answer it. He said, “When I found her, she was sitting over Owlowiscious. That man had taken it and torn it to shreds and ground it into her mother’s grave. With just one brief exchange with my daughter, that man has convinced her that God isn’t real. He’s convinced her that there is no such thing as Heaven. He’s convinced her that her mother is dead and gone and that we’ll never see her again.”

Whipping around suddenly, Warrun said with a husky voice laboring under the weight of heavy words, “And again, you know the man. He’s everywhere, Alexis. Every tragedy for the past twenty years has had some connection to him. He is literally evil. There is nothing redeeming about him. It was bad enough when I thought he was behind crimes committed to people I knew, but now it has gone too far. He has found my daughter and hurt her more emotionally than I believe any other man possibly could. He has destroyed her faith in God!” His voice tapered to a whisper as he hung his head and looked at the floor and concluded, “And he has destroyed mine.”

She had no words. She embraced him. She pulled him back to the couch and sat him down, clutching his head to her breast. In her mind she tried to piece together some sanity out of all she had just heard. Her eyes drifted to a religious icon hung on the wall across the room, one which no home professing to be Christian should be without. It represented a device used for extreme torture and humiliation. Though it was a very macabre icon, it represented so much more than torture. It represented humility and compassion, of giving everything one can possibly give with a willing heart for the sake of others. As she looked at the icon, Alexis could not help but consider her brother. He had given everything he possibly could in his life. She’d never met or even heard of a greater man than him, save one. She’d also never met or even heard of a man more tortured than he was right at that moment, save one.

After several minutes of silence and her running her fingers through his blonde hair, Warrun pulled his head away from her grasp. She let him go, letting him have any space he desired. She looked at him and found him staring at the same icon she’d been staring at.Giving him silence, she looked with him and they both contemplated.

It was a long moment before Warrun asked, “How strong is your faith in God?”

“He is.”

Warrun nodded his head, the answer sounding far less cryptic to him than it might to a non Christian. Her faith was such that she did not say that she believed in God. Instead, she knew God existed. Beliefs can be powerful and tenable, but they can be proven wrong. To Alexis, God was more of a certainty than her own existence. The universe would make sense in any form. Anything could be added. Anything could be subtracted. It would still be in some form or another. The only thing that had to be was God. He came before all else. In order for anything to exist, it first has to be conceived or conceived of. By definition, if anyone accepts the fact that the universe exists, then they must also except the fact that it was conceived, that it had a beginning, that it may one day have an end. In this was the conviction of her submission. This was the only truth that had to be true. Nothing in the entire universe was infallible. Everything could be misunderstood. People can lie. Animal actions can be misinterpreted. The cosmos can be improperly scaled. Even the very laws of nature that have never once been proven wrong since their discovery could potentially be wrong. That is not to say that they are wrong. It is to say that people are fallible and always will be fallible. Despite that fact however, people are able to rely on certainties. Despite being perpetually uncertain, there are certainties. In fact, everything in the universe exists on the principles of certainties. Everything is the way it is because that is the way it had to be. If the whole universe was reborn in the exact same manner, given the exact same spark, then the laws it was born with would eventually guide it right back to that moment in which Alexis contemplated God. In this way, the universe is not chaos. It is order! Every piece of matter and energy and everything in between was meticulously organized by a force that understood every single piece of it. The universe is infallible because an infallible mind is behind it. Chaos is not the nature of the universe. Chaos is ignorance. Order is called chaos when fallible minds attempt to explain what they do not, what they cannot ever fully understand. The only absolute truth the mind can ever grasp is the mere fact that the universe is ordered, that it exists. If it was not ordered, then there would be no laws and nothing would be. The universe is order and order is God. The only way a third person could be privy to just how much information those two words exchanged between them is to have had it explained to them. So you were, and so you understand.

Warrun nodded his head slowly at her answer. Her faith gave him strength. The certainty in her eyes and in her voice gave him courage. He’d come so close to faltering. His own daughter had almost convinced him. His own fear had almost gotten the best of him. The Devil himself had almost destroyed his faith. Warrun did not have the words to express just how grateful he was to know that angels and saints like his sister existed. After so many unspoken words, the almost destroyed man was able to give a very small smile. He whispered, “I’m sorry. Thank you, Alexis. I needed to hear you say that. I needed someone else to say that He was real. After today, I almost believed He wasn’t.”

Alexis gave a smile of her own and embraced her brother for the third time that evening. She whispered into his ear, “Don’t be sorry. We all stumble in the faith. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be human. We would be God himself, and there would be no point in being.” Acknowledging the hesitence she’d seen in his smile, she pressed, “There’s still something bothering you.”

Their embrace parted again, and Warrun looked at her with worry that was present but not nearly as severe as before. He asked her, “Why would God make a man like the Devil? God knows all because he loves all. His understanding of all things enables him to guide the world as He sees fit. So why does he see fit to bring suffering? Why does he see fit to allow men and women to harm each other as they do? What is the purpose of violence and death? Of hate? It is obvious that He made things so, but why would he make them so? I don’t understand.”

His sister nodded her understanding to the heavy, timeless question her brother was asking. All who believe in God ask it at some point or another. It is inevitable. The search for an answer always does one of two things. It either strengthens faith, or it destroys it. There is no middle ground to be had. Unfortunately for Warrun, even his sister, devout as she was, had not gone on the search. She did not know where to begin. So she answered him apologetically, “I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you, Warrun. I remind you that God gave mankind free choice, but you already know that. Every man and woman from Adam and Eve to you and me has had the choice to be kind or to be cruel, to be generous or to be greedy, to be honest or to lie, to be loyal or to retreat, to be happy or to be sad, to be more than they currently are or to be less than they possibly could be. Finding the answer is part of why we exist. It is a test born out of who we are because we are. It is a test from God.”

Warrun nodded slowly and gazed down at his hands folded in his lap. He had not really expected her to have an answer. She was a member of the faith, but she was not one of the few who had devoted their entire lives to answering the very question he was asking. He whispered, “I need an answer. I don’t think I can do my job without knowing the truth. I am full of hesitence, Alexis. That hesitence lead to the death of a man today. I cannot allow that to happen again.”

His sister already suspected what he was thinking, so she answered his question before he asked it, “Uncle Allen is still watching over the cathedral during nights. The evening mass is over. If you go now, you should find him there. You remember the knock, right? Of course you do. Even after twenty years, you still knock on my door the same way.”

Warrun’s lips parted slightly at the statement. “Has it really been twenty years?”

His sister nodded her head. She expounded, “Twenty years almost to the day since you left the novitiate. I remember riding with mom and dad to pick you up. That was a beautiful campus, especially during Autumn when the leaves would change color and their would be reds and yellows and oranges blowing everywhere. You were so quick into the Academy, I thought you’d turned into a whole new person overnight. I know now that you never changed. You just found your own way of being with God, whether you believed in him or not.”

A genuine smile slid across Warrun’s face, making it seem like the world was so much brighter than it had been only a moment before. He asked with wonder, already knowing the answer, “You never once lost faith in me, did you?”

Alexis took his hand in hers and brought it up to her face, kissing it tenderly. Not bothering to answer, she instead said, “You go on now. Talk to Uncle Allen and find your answers. Go and be the warrior God wants you to be.”

Warrun nodded, vowing in silence not to disappoint her. He stood from the couch and walked to the door. He opened it to leave, pausing only to turn his head and say, “Tell Maria that I love her, and I’ll be back soon.”

She watched as he closed the door behind him. It was not often that she was so happy. It’s not every day after all that a man comes back to the faith. “Then again,” she thought to herself, “he never really left.” Going up to the icon on the wall, she got down on her knees and clasped her hands, giving words to Him for the sake of her brother.

Lives That Mock Each Other

Life is lived for moments. Though you may not yet realize it, you know this to be true. For many, the moments that are lived for come at the end of a day when you get home from work and kick up your feet, a beverage in one hand and a remote in the other. Such lives are taken one day at a time and enjoyed one day at a time. For others, the moments that are lived for do not come so frequently. The artist knows this. The writer knows this. The politician knows this. Men and women who cling to professions like these do so because they wish to have their lives cultivate grander moments. They struggle through trial and error. They gamble what they have on hopes and dreams. And when their aspirations are met, when that canvas is painted, that book written, or that position obtained, the moments are so much sweeter because so much more was put into them. It is a drug called ambition, and it is highly addicting. For a select few, it is so addicting that they will forgo all other pleasures so that they may build themselves towards a single moment for the whole of their lives. Romantics such as these are seeking a climax. They are trying to make their lives like a story that would be worth reading and remembering. Though it may not explicitly be their goal to do so, it is nonetheless the result.

Daemeon’s life culminated into this moment that comes next. He relinquished almost every worldly pleasure in search of truth. No matter how certain he became that any of his truths were what he was looking for, his hungry mind still pressed on. It wanted a climax. It wanted a moment that would bring sense to every other moment. He sought the moment that would once and for all prove to him the value and righteousness of his own life. He did not realize for himself how painfully addicted he was to the search until this moment that follows when his life as he knew it ended.

Daemeon’s and Colgate’s eyes bounced back and forth between the large, carved double doors to the limp form of the priest beside them. The man’s first thought was not to panic, for of course the door was locked. Fr. Allen always locked it. It was not until a moment later when he saw the door begin to creak open very slowly that Daemeon realized that on that day of all days, the man who was even older than himself had left it open just for him to come along.

His mind immediately went to the mare he loved, and he whispered to her with extreme seriousness, “Hide under the pew, and don’t come out unless I tell you. We can’t let anyone find you.”

She did not want to hide away. She did not like the thought of leaving her man alone to whomever might come through that door. He seemed very scared, and that terrified her. This was not her world though, and she did not know what was about to happen. So she conceded and hid beneath the pew out of sight. She saw her man stand and stared at his black loafers which were pointed to the door.

Warrun stopped his advance halfway through the door, causing a chill Autumn breeze to roll in from behind him. Dressed from head to toe in his uniform, the First Officer stood blinking repeatedly at Daemeon. The first few blinks were out of confusion. The next few came from recognition. The blinking stopped all together, and his eyes widened like saucers when it dawned on him that the curiously dressed and ill groomed man before him was none other than the Devil. And of all places he had to find him, he found him in a cathedral.

Daemeon was a perceptive man. His skill at reading people’s emotions was unrivalled. His many years living on the streets helped him to follow the emotions of the exchange that occurred in silence. He saw the confusion. That was to be expected. His stomach was already tightening into a knot when he realized the man was an officer of the law. When that confusion became recognition, he felt real fear. Having spent his whole life trying to blend into the background, the thought that anyone should recognize him unnerved him. Then that confusion turned into hate. Daemeon had never seen such a transition in his life. There was nothing in between. It was as though a chunk of ice had been dropped into lava and evaporated without ever becoming a liquid. It threw him off guard, making him feel very uncertain. His quick thinking mind stumbled backwards, and so did he. He did not know the man before him. He didn’t think he’d ever seen him in his life. Nothing could have prepared him for what happened next.

Lifting a shaking hand, Warrun pointed an accusatory finger at Daemeon and said with a powerful voice full of righteous fury, “You!”

Feeling timid to the point of nakedness before such a man, Daemeon stuttered, “Ye-yes?”

Breathing heavily, his face red with bloodlust, Warrun both stated and demanded, “You die now!”

Daemeon’s mouth fell open to speak, but no words came. He would not have had the chance anyways. Warrun charged like a bull, as fast on his feet as a man in his prime. In a second, the twenty foot gap between them was closed and Daemeon saw the man full of hate land his first blow. In his mind, he realized just how much hate this man whom he’d never met had for him. He might have knocked him out if he’d gone for his head. Any number of the tools on his belt could have incapacitated him. Any number of attacks every officer would know could have quickly disabled him. Daemeon knew this, yet Warrun chose instead to ram his fist with all his fury right into his stomach. The impact was so brutal, Daemeon was lifted several inches off the ground, and he lost his vision. He knew it had only been a fist, but he almost couldn’t believe it wasn’t a sledgehammer.

Down on his knees, Daemeon opened his mouth to cry, but a sharp feminine voice beat him to it. In that instant, he realized that it was not just himself that had been punched but also his dear little Colgate as well. No matter how painful the punch had been, it was a worse agony to know that Colgate received it in equal measure because of him.

Warrun reached down to the man on his knees and grabbed the front of his hoodie in two tightly clenched fists. Looking into his eyes, he shouted, “You are the monster I’ve been looking for.” Lifting him high in the air as though he were a rag doll, he slammed him into the ground while demanding, “What are you doing in God’s House?”

The blast knocked the wind out of him. Like a fish out of water, Daemeon tried desperately to breathe, but his lungs would not open up to admit any air. It was at that moment that he thought to himself, “I’m going to die.” With the tiniest haze of vision coming back to him, Daemeon looked over at his mare curled beneath the pew shivering in agony. “We’re going to die.”

Shaking with adrenaline, Warrun bent down and straddled Daemeon’s chest. A very animal part of Warrun wanted to claw the man’s face off. As angry as he was, he was not without some sense of mind. “I won’t do that.” He reached forward with his hands and grasped them firmly around Daemeon’s neck. “I’m not the monster. He is. I’ll do it quick. It’s more than he deserves.”

He clenched his hands. They were large hands. Warrun was a robust man. Maybe he was not the largest or the strongest of those noble men and women to come out of the academy, but he was certainly the most honored and convicted. In person, Warrun almost couldn’t believe that the Devil was such a small, almost scrawny man. Nails dug into his forearms as Warrun tightened his vice like grip. He didn’t have to ignore them. They were so insubstantial and weak as to be unregistrable. Warrun was in ecstasy as he watched the man beneath him begin to die. “He’s so weak! He’s nothing! Thank you, God. Thank you. Die! Die, you sick fuck! You schemy, slimy, scummy piece of shit. Die! Fucking die!”

Daemeon submitted. For an instant, he was beyond panic. His mind flooded with bitter resignation and inward tears he did not have the strength or time to release. The man above him, whoever he was, had dark blue eyes full of pleasure and hate, layered upon each other until they became one and the same. He did not want those loathing eyes to be the last thing he saw in life. He tried to look right towards his little Colgate, but he could not. She was out of his gaze, away from him, suffering alone without him there to comfort her. The thought sickened him, but he had no time to dwell on it. He looked left instead and rested his gaze on a curious figure that was both familiar and foreign to him. It was familiar in that he knew of it. He knew just about everything there was to know about it. The world in which he lived would hardly be the same if the figure he saw weren’t recognized by so many. It was foreign though too. For everything he knew about the figure, he did not understand it. He did not see its value. To him, it was an icon that meant nothing. Still, it drew his eyes and sparked the tiniest thought and fear. He wondered in that moment what death would mean for him. He wondered what being nothing would feel like. The thought of not being was so far outside his realm of understanding that he could not help but wonder in that moment between moments.

Enraged though he may be, Warrun saw the man give up before it was truly over. The Devil was not dead yet, yet he was submitting as though he were. Those dark grey eyes, almost orbs of black, were focused intently on a figure to their left. That focus drew his focus, and Warrun stole a glance to follow where they gazed. The figure on which his eyes came to rest stunned him. It mortified him. It terrified him. It caused his heart to skip and flooded his body and mind with immeasurable shame, powerful shame. It was a boiling and burning shame that struck him with the force of a train.

Warrun faltered. He withdrew his hands violently and jumped away from the Devil’s prone body as a child jumps away from a spider. The First Officer stood trembling, his eyes bouncing between his hands, the body, and the figure on the wall. For the first time in a long time, he felt profound fear for that indefinable thing that people for thousands of years have been struggling to define: his immortal soul. He saw in his actions in that moment what he believed them to be, what he knew them to be. And what they were was a terrible, terrible thing. They were evil. They were murder.

Still he struggled. Warrun shot his hand into his holster and withdrew his handgun. He pointed it directly at the head of the shallowly breathing, unconscious man and moved to end him once and for all. Try as he might, he could not force those fingers to follow through. Not there. Not in God’s house with his Son looking down at him, reminding him that his deeds were not justified. Warrun was not God. He was only a man, an ignorant man who could not begin to understand the complexity of God’s creation. Because he knew this, he understood that there was no way for him to justify what he wanted to do. There was nothing in him that believed he was in the right for committing cold blooded murder, even if he completely believed the world would be made better because of it. At his sister’s home, he’d found his faith. Now, there was no letting it go.

The man holstered his weapon, bitterly cursing while tears drenched his eyes. He slammed the man’s chest and pressed lips with his, forcing breath into his lungs. He was not going to be a murderer, not even of the Devil.

*****

Daemeon knew consciousness by its pain. His body was wracked with it. It hurt to move. It hurt to breath. It hurt to be. Yet, he was. As far as he could tell, he was still alive. If that was not the doing of Lady Luck, he didn’t know what was. He felt himself propped upwards in a sitting position, his back against a cool, hard surface. It took him a moment to fathom the implications of his still being alive. The first thought he had was for his dear mare. This was his motivation to open his eyes. Needless to say, he was surprised by what he saw.

That police officer who’d tried to kill him was sitting on the floor across from him, his back also relaxed against a pew. In his arms, he cradled that tiny creature who was so very, very dear to Daemeon. Daemeon’s gut reaction was to leap forward and snatch his little Colgate away from the man, but he did not have the strength and feared for his mare’s safety. Instead, he suffered himself to observe silently as the man across from him gently petted and caressed the tiny pony. Daemeon watched intently, searching for signs of breathing. He couldn’t help but let loose a sigh of relief when he saw her ribs shifting just as gently as the man pet her.

Warrun lifted his eyes at the sound and raised a gun towards Daemeon. His face was firmly set. Instead of hate staining it however, there was only concern and curiosity. He asked quietly, “Are you alright?”

Daemeon nodded slightly, “Yes.”

In a stern voice, Warrun demanded, “Did you kill my uncle?”

Struggling to shake his head, Daemeon grunted, “No. He died of a heart attack.”

Warrun sighed and set down his gun. He cradled the mare in both his arms and stated, “That’s what I was afraid of. I still have nothing on you. I could bring you to prison, but I have nothing real to charge you with except maybe several trespassing fines. That wouldn’t be very satisfying though, would it? It would have been better if you’d murdered him, then I could charge you with homicide and put you away for a long time.”

Confused, Daemeon couldn’t help but ask, “Why do you believe me?”

“It’s not what you do,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders. “You are nothing if not consistently chaotic. You’ve never killed anyone directly before. I’d just as well assume you didn’t directly kill my uncle either.”

Silence ensued for several moments as the pair sat across from each other. It might have been better for Daemeon if he’d not been such a curious person all his life. His desire to know anything and everything had gotten him into a lot of trouble over the course of his life. Most especially, he had a hard time shutting up when perhaps he should have. He was immensely fortunate in that moment that the man before him was no longer out for blood as Daemeon asked, “Why didn’t you kill me?”

Without looking up, Warrun answered simply, “Jesus told me not to.”

Daemeon was forced into a gaping mouthed silence.

“Well, not me personally,” Warrun clarified, looking up to meet Daemeon’s eyes. “He told all of us a long time ago. You know, love you neighbor as you love yourself. God help me, I want to kill you. That’d be the only revenge I can get out of you that’d be worth it. But the way I see it, that’s really the one thing I can’t do. Jesus told us to love each other, so that’s what I’ve got to do.”

“Don’t you hate me?”

Warrun sighed heavily at the pointed question. He answered softly, “I did. I really did. I did for so long, I thought there was nothing that could cause me not to. It’s strange how God plans things. If I’d found you any night before this one, I’d have killed you without a moment’s thought. Even tonight, I almost did.”

“What stopped you?”

Turning his head to the icon on the wall, he explained, “Just as I was about to finish you off, I saw you looking at that Crucifix over there. Seeing it reminded me of who I was and what I was doing. So I stopped. What else could I do? I couldn’t just kill you when I knew that I shouldn’t.”

In a somehow accusatory voice, Daemeon declared, “People do what they shouldn’t all the time! They especially are almost always hypocritical when it comes to their religion. Why would you bother to cling to your faith when no one else does?”

Scrunching up his face in consternation, Warrun commented, “You must be a very ignorant person if you think nobody holds to their faith. You might be surprised to know that most people hold to their faith. Exactly what that faith is is a different story. It hardly seems any of your business though, or mine. People will almost always do what they believe to be right. Nobody thinks of themselves as the villain after all. I bet you’ve got your own little justifications for what you’ve done. Unfortunately, your actions have been hurting a lot of people over the years. A lot of people. And I just can’t let that continue anymore.”

Daemeon grimaced slightly in pain as he asked indignantly, “And just what are you going to do about it?”

Stroking Colgate softly, Warrun returned, “The easiest thing for me to do would be to kill you. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be the best thing to do. I can’t arrest you either, so I’m in the difficult situation of having to trust you when you have done nothing to earn it.”

“Trust me?!” Daemeon exclaimed. “Why would you trust me?”

“Don’t get your hopes too high. I may have forgiven your sins, but they are in no way absolved. You have amends to make, and I’m going to make sure you make them. If there’s any good to be had out of your miserable existence, I intend to squeeze every last drop out of it. The only trust I’m placing in you is that you don’t want to be miserable anymore. Do you think I’m assuming too much? Or are you as much of a wretch to yourself as you are to me?”

Daemeon’s lips moved to make a sharp retort, but rare prudence checked them. He had to admit to himself because Colgate had forced him to do so. His life was bitter. The only thing that made it sweet was her love. And the only thing keeping it alive was this stranger’s love. The thought confused him. It was illogical. It did not fit into his understanding of the universe. It caused him to demand, “Are you sure you don’t hate me anymore? Not even a little?”

The question perplexed Warrun. He was quick to answer though, and the answer surprised even himself, “No. I don’t. I can’t. I believe in God. I believe in the Word. Since I believe, I can’t really justify hating you or anybody for that matter.”

“Screw justification!” Daemeon cried. He lurched forward and struggled slowly across the floor towards Warrun. The First Officer watched him carefully as the insane man lifted his face to demand, “Hate doesn’t have to justified. It just is. You can’t love me. You must hate me. I’ve done terrible things, and you know it. Hate me! Hate me! If you love anything, then hate me. You must.”

Warrun felt a deeply rooted tinge of sorrow for the man. “He must have suffered greatly in his life.” He stated with strength and determination, “I don’t have to hate you. Love and hate, those things aren’t feelings. I can choose to love. And I can choose to hate. Believe it or not, you can choose to love everybody and hate nobody. It’s a difficult and endless struggle, but you can do it. It’s what Jesus did. It’s what he told us to do.”

Gasping, Daemeon cried, “But I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in Jesus!”

“You don’t have to.”

The simplistic statement caught Daemeon off guard. His lip quivering, he asked like a confused and distraught child, “You, you don’t?”

Warrun shook his head and gave a soft, knowing smile. He explained, “Believing in something doesn’t make it real. Disbelieving doesn’t make it imaginary. Things just are or aren’t. With something as big and complex as God is, your disbelieving isn’t going to make him go away and my believing isn’t going to make him appear. It’s all a matter of faith. It’s not something that forces us to do what is best. It’s something that helps us realize what is best.”

Daemeon sat back in a daze and asked, “You mean it doesn’t really matter what you believe? All that matters is what you do?”

“Of course it matters! It just doesn’t matter in the way you think it does.” Warrun frowned and puckered his lips pensively. “You are confusing faith with the thing people are aiming for. You think that believing in God or Jesus is the end of it all. And because that faith doesn’t change anything, it frustrates you. So I imagine you think believing in God is stupid. It isn’t though. It isn’t stupid, and it’s not the end. Faith is only a means.”

“A means to what?!” Daemeon demanded haughtily and angrily.

“Love.”

Daemeon scowled and scoffed at the answer. It made him bitter. That word was so frequently put up on a pedestal of what must be had or felt for a life to be worth living. Well, it wasn’t. Daemeon knew the truth, and he did not hesitate to counter, “Love is the spawn of hate though! How can that be the end of life? How can that be its purpose? When you love something, you learn to hate everything that threatens it. That is why you must hate me! Fuck your faith. Fuck it all! Hate me. You have to.”

Belligerent though the man before him may be, Warrun remained calm and stoic. He did not even cease his gentle caressing of the mare in his arms. He was completely at ease, yet he was not haughty. Rather, he’d found a profound understanding within himself when he’d let the man before him live instead of die. He’d found the conviction necessary for his answer. The memory of his wife in his heart, along with the love of his daughter and sister, Warrun explained the apparent contradiction to the angry human before him by asking a question, “Do you know the story of Adam and Eve?”

“Fuck that story.”

Not the least bit impressed with his apparent distaste, Warrun continued, “I’ll take that as a yes. Do you understand why they were kicked out of the Garden?”

Daemeon felt himself being lead. It was an odd feeling. It was usually he who did the leading. He wanted leave the police officer, but he could not. The gun, the warning, and his dear little mare held him in check. His eyes were glued on her as he answered with disgust, “Because they ate some fruit. They took it upon themselves to know themselves. For that, they were punished. The story is nothing though, and you know it. The Earth is a lot older than 4,000 years, and that story has nothing in it.”

“Things are whether you want them to be or not,” Warrun repeated. “Just because you choose not to see something does not mean there is nothing there. You are partly right though. They chose to know themselves as God does. They chose to seek knowledge instead of remaining as the animals do. They wanted to know what was good and what was evil. Perhaps you know the result?”

“Yes,” Daemeon answered snidely. “It’s a set up for a Testament of murder, lechery, and hate. What a great story to tell! The cunning pile of shit was written to cow people to ignorance. What does learning get you? It gets you nothing but despair. Better that we listen blindly to our authority figures who claim that their leadership is divine. It’s all nothing.”

“And yet,” Warrun stated, his voice practically a whisper in comparison to Daemeon’s exaggerated cries, “you used the word Testament instead of book. Funny that you should draw a line without explaining why. You’ve left out the last and most important third of the history.”

Daemeon averted his eyes and answered in frustration, “The rest of it is just as inconsequential.”

Now was the time for Warrun to speak up, “Inconsequential? Ha! It has saved your life. I would call that anything but inconsequential.”

“Your own idiocy saved me, not some fool and trickster born 2,000 years ago.”

“They both saved you,” Warrun countered vehemently. “They and the trillions of little events to come in between. But you are right about something. Exactly why you are alive is not so consequential. It is the fact that you are that is. All that history would have meant nothing if I’d killed you. It only matters because I didn’t. It matters to me. And it should matter to you.”

Daemeon stumbled on his words as he tried to answer, but Warrun’s logic fit his own logic. He could not argue against it because it was his very own. He sat back and again leaned against the cold, hard pew. Pulling his legs to his chest, he insisted softly, “I don’t believe in God.”

“Maybe,” Warrun interjected, “but you cannot ignore what the belief of others has done for you. Perhaps you think it’s foolish, but my faith in God has saved your life. It might even make your life better. It might just make you happier.” Warrun paused and silence ensued. He let the silence happen, let the man across from him ponder what he’d said. He broke the silence by asking, “Do you know what knowledge is?”

Daemeon’s mind rang out in answer, “It’s what I’ve spent my whole life searching for!” His lips did not speak the words though. They were not really an answer, surely it was not the answer the officer was looking for. Rather than argue what the answer was, he submitted by shaking his head.

Warrun followed Daemeon’s gaze to the tiny, blue unicorn in his arms. “She is such a beautiful thing,” he marveled to himself. Running his fingers through her mane, he explained simply, “Knowledge is love.”

The comment drew Daemeon’s surprised gaze and their eyes met once more.

Without looking up, Warrun continued, “The Old Testament is a bloody, ugly thing. That is because Adam and Eve did not really find knowledge in the Garden. What they really found was the ability to know. That is where good and evil, love and hate, are found. To know someone is to love them. No matter how cruel, how torn, or how unjustified a person is in what they do, you can only really hate them if you do not know or understand them. As soon as you do know them, you know why they are the way they are. You understand them. Therefore, it becomes impossible to hate them. Hate is ignorance. It’s only possible when you do not understand a person. That is why knowledge is love.”

Softly, Daemeon retorted with a tongue that did not spit venom, “But you do not know me. You do not know why I did all the things I said I did. How can you love me?”

“Don’t you know?” Warrun said gently, looking back up to the man. “It’s because I have faith in God. If God’s real, then that means you were created by a force that understands both you and me and the universe in its entirety. And in that vast idea is the fact that you and I are together right here in this moment. If I believe that God made both you and I, then how can I do anything but love you?”

The question was followed by a long silence. Some silences are deafening. You know these silences. They are filled with anticipation of something. They are awaiting something drastic or profound to happen. The waiting makes them hard to stomach, and gives them a length and depth that goes beyond our normal perception of time. Other silences are soft though. They are the silences after the battle has been fought and the field lays strewn with corpses and tears. They are the silences after the orgasm when two lovers are left relishing in each other. They are the silences after the climax signalling that a gentle end is nigh and an unknown beginning will come to be. Of these two types of silences, the lack of discourse between those two men represented the latter.

Warrun ended the silence with soft, deliberate movement. He got to his knees and closed the gap between him and the man before him. As carefully as he could, he relinquished the tiny, blue mare in his arms. Daemeon’s heart skipped as he took her into his grasp. A broad smile beamed across his face as he held her. He could not and would not help himself. She made him happier than anyone or anything in his life ever had before. He brought her face to his and imparted a tender kiss on her cheek.

A similar smile crossed Warrun’s lips as he witnessed the action. His smile persisted even as a small twinge of sadness rippled through him. That kiss reminded him so much of his dear wife, Maria, that he could almost feel her presence at his side. He sniffled, wiping a stray drop of moisture from his eye, and asked, “Will you stay here for the night? I want to take my uncle to the station and tell my family that he’s passed. I’d feel better if someone were here to watch the place.”

Daemeon was beyond the point of interrogating the man for the outrageous trust he placed in him. He only gave a gentle nod of assent and watched as the First Officer stood and walked to the slumped body in the pew. Warrun picked up the frail form with care, not struggling the least, and turned a firm gaze towards Daemeon. He stated in no uncertain terms, “I will be back tomorrow morning to pick you up. We have a lot of work to do.”

Again Daemeon nodded, watching in awe as that mysterious officer disappeared out the large double doors of the cathedral and into the dark night beyond. He would have continued to sit in mystified awe for a long time were it not for a soft, feminine voice whispering his name.

“Daemeon?”

The man’s heart skipped at the word and shot his eye downward. “Colgate!” he shrieked. “You’re okay. Thank goodness you’re okay.” He hugged her, nuzzled her, kissed her. “I was so worried.”

Wincing at her man’s sudden affection, Colgate grunted, “Not so rough. It still hurts.”

Daemeon flinched at the realization. The spell did not reciprocate the pain of his roughness since it was produced from affection. He loosened his grip and held her very tenderly. He begged to know, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. How long have you been awake? Did you just wake up?”

Colgate smiled grimly and shook her head. “I’ve been awake for a while, but I didn’t dare let that other human know, not after the way he hurt us. But then, I also heard your conversation.” The statement cowed Daemeon to silence and she saw him avert his eyes from hers. She stated, “His life mocks yours, doesn’t it?”

Without looking at her, Daemeon asked with feigned ignorance, “How so?”

“He does everything you say men and women should do,” the little blue mare responded, “without believing any of the same things you believe. In fact, he believes in the exact opposite of what you believe. The fact that he exists makes everything you’ve done until now moot. People don’t need to disbelieve in God to be able to live together peacefully as you say.”

After an almost tense moment of silence, Daemeon gave a resigned sigh and acquiesced, “Yes. It appears you’re right. That man, whoever he was, just invalidated my entire life by not killing me when he had the chance to. I don’t know him, but I know he knows all the things I’ve done in my life. That kind of hate doesn’t just come out of nothing. I must have hurt someone very close to him. I might have even killed somebody he knew without ever realizing it. Yet without having any understanding of why I did as I did, he forgave me. The fool forgave me. He should have killed me.”

“You said yourself,” Colgate chided, “that nothing good can come from death. Since the future is uncertain, the only thing you gain from killing someone is the guarantee that they can never do anything good with their lives. I think that man believes the same thing. Why would he have let you live otherwise?”

“Because he believes some divine entity is standing over him. He is afraid.”

Colgate gave a small, sad half laugh and commented, “You told me that, whatever the reasons might have been and whatever had lead up to its creation, the couch is still white. Is this really any different? What does it matter what his motivations are? The end is still the same. He forgave you. I forgave you. Is our forgiveness any less relevant or real because it took two days of intercourse for me to understand and forgive you while it only took that man a moment to decide to forgive you. If anything, his forgiving you seems the more efficient route. He didn’t have to understand you. He just had to understand that he couldn’t fully understand you, so it was never really his right to pass judgment and kill you.”

Daemeon did not return her words. He seemed a little lost, a little broken. Suddenly it seemed to him that his life had no meaning. He sat dead, empty, devoid of purpose. He couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t even think anything. His face became emotionless as he set into a profound indifference towards his life and life in general.

His mare witnessed these changes in him. The look of defeat, utter defeat, was too much for Colgate to bear. She knew exactly what that look meant. Not two days before, her face had twisted in defeat as she had come to believe that her very purpose in life meant nothing. She’d seen herself as a replaceable tool who was only valued for what she could do. For believing as she had, she found herself in sadness, in despair, defeated. After spending those two days with Daemeon however, she’d discovered exactly what it was that made life worth living. She knew what it was that made it special. Daemeon had helped her to see it. Now she knew it was her turn to return the favor. She steeled herself for one final round of discourse, for she knew what was to come next.

“He was right about something, Daemeon.”

Distantly, her man returned, “Oh? What was that?”

Colgate rolled out of his grasp. Though it was difficult and her insides quivered with no small amount of pain, she stood up on her hind legs and placed her forehooves on each of his shoulders so that their eyes met at the same height. She needed to look at him as an equal, so that he would believe the importance of what she had to explain. She saw his eyes were dim, but she’d caught their attention fully. So she spoke, “The reason you haven’t been happy, haven’t succeeded at what you’re doing, is because you are trying to snuff out love with knowledge when really, as he says, the two are one and the same. To know a pony is to love a pony. To choose not to know a pony, that is hate. They are not mutually inclusive as you say. One does not lead to the other. Rather, they exclude each other. Hate can only happen where there’s a lack of love, a lack of knowledge, a lack of empathy.”

The mare closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She admitted what she had been avoiding telling him for most of the day, “That’s why I was unhappy in Equestria. It wasn’t because I had the wrong job. It wasn’t because I didn’t have the freedom to change. I’ve always had the freedom to do something differently. I’ve just been fortunate to live in a world that does not make mistakes about what best I could do with my life. Even then, that’s not what made me bitter. No. I was bitter because I did not bother to empathize with other ponies. I did not bother to form personal connections, to grow or understand them on any intimate level. And because of that, I thrived on my own ignorance. You and I are not so very different, Daemeon. In fact, we are so similar that you were probably the closest any human could come to understanding a pony. Maybe that’s why Celestia sent me here. I don’t know. All I do know is that I wasn’t happy until I met you. I didn’t love anypony until I was forced to spend time with you, until I was forced to care about somepony other than myself. And that’s what it’s always been about, hasn’t it? It’s always been just about love. That’s what makes life worth living.”

She opened her eyes, a small tear seeping out and dripping down her blue furred cheek. Daemeon could feel her trembling and he couldn’t understand why. He wanted to hug her, but she was so focused on him, intent on saying what she wanted to say, that he dared not disturb her thought. She pressed her final question, “Do you understand me, Daemeon? Do you believe me?”

The defeat was gone from his eyes. He answered her, “Yes! Yes, Colgate. A thousand times, yes. You’ve made my life so sweet, there can be no other answer. I love you Colgate. I love you with all my heart.”

His little mare shivered in delight at the words. She loved hearing them more than anything. But just when her heart leapt for joy, it also shattered violently. From behind her, she heard the air pierce and rip, and the church filled with soft blue light. The beautiful Colgate did not have to turn her head to know from where the light emanated. Now was the time.

Daemeon’s eyes shifted in wonder, then went wide with horror. His whole body trembled and he felt his stomach bottom out. He’d hoped so hard that it would not happen that he’d almost convinced himself it wouldn’t. How could it? How could such sweet intimacy end? Their words, their thoughts, their feeling, their touches and caresses and love; how could that end when it was such a miraculous thing? He threw his arms around her and pulled her in close. He cried out despairingly, “No! No! You can’t go!”

Colgate did not respond except to weep into his bare neck.

His heart racing, Daemeon’s eyes darted around the cathedral. He didn’t know why he looked. Perhaps he was searching for a reason why she must stay. There was nothing to find though. His eyes were constantly drawn back to the portal spiralling inward, a hole to an Earth he could only dream of, a place so wonderful as to almost be perfect. The fact passed through his mind in that instant, triggering the defeating thought, “Her world is so much better than the one we have here.”

Daemeon tried to control his breathing. He had very little success. There was even less success with his heart. It raced like a stallion’s. It raced for his little Colgate. It raced with love. And out of that love was born the realization that he could not contain her. She did not belong in his world, and he knew that. She knew that. Neither of them wanted to say it, but they both knew it. And he knew that there was nothing he could do to change that fact.

After that painful moment of tears, Daemeon whispered, “I’m going to miss you.”

Colgate was hiccuping. Everything hurt. Snot was oozing out of her nose and smearing all over her lover’s skin. She didn’t care, and neither did he. It took all her courage and control to grunt in reply, “I love you, Daemeon.”

Her man drew her back so that they were again face to face. The mare wiped a hoof across her nose and lurched into a kiss. It wasn’t their sweetest kiss. It wasn’t their most passionate. It was their most desperate though, and it was their last. It lasted for a long moment, but Colgate knew such magic could not last forever. Though it almost killed her to do so, she parted her lips from his and whispered through a struggling smile, “I have to go now.”

“I know.”

“I’ll never forget you.”

“You’ll be in my heart forever.”

“I’ll never forget what you helped me to learn.”

“And I’ll always remember what you’ve taught me too.”

“Goodbye, Daemeon.”

“Goodbye, Colgate.”

Giving her man one last nuzzle, the mare turned and faced the portal. In fear that she might change her mind, she did not look back. She leapt through the cascading blue light and traveled back to her own world.

Daemeon watched her disappear through the gate. It quickly collapsed, falling into itself, into nothing. For a long moment, Daemeon stared. For a moment that lasted until the sunrise, he wept. No moment had ever lasted longer in his life or been quite as painful.

Painful Realizations

“Hold still, Mayor Mare! I can’t do my work with you squirming like that. You need to be more careful.”

The tan colored mare shivered as Colgate levitated the metal instruments out of her mouth. She groaned and said, “That hurt. You should be more careful yourself.”

Colgate, a smaller, blue colored mare with a white and blue mane, rolled her eyes and said through her mask, “Filling a cavity isn’t easy. If you keep weaseling every time it gets the least bit uncomfortable then we won’t be able to finish. I swear, you’re worse than some of the fillies I’ve had today.”

Mayor Mare harrumphed and laid back in her chair. At Colgate’s beckoning, she opened wide and was again staring at the levitating instruments doing their work on her. When she felt a metal syringe clink against her pained tooth, she squeezed her eyes and wished in her head that she was anywhere else in Equestria.

While Mayor Mare was deep in regret for so much enjoying caramel apples from Sweet Apple Acres, Colgate was deep in concentration as she carefully levitated the syringe and, with great precision that was peculiar to her trade, inserted it into the cavity. Mayor Mare tensed up suddenly but Colgate was skilled in handling the jerky motion. She relaxed her magic in that split second so the delicate instrument moved with the motion and did not break or cause further harm. When Mayor Mare had calmed down again, Colgate began slowly to inject the dental filling into the tooth.

After the cavity had been appropriately filled, Colgate removed the dental tools and said in exasperation, “You’re done Mayor Mare. You can’t eat anything for the next hour. I don’t want you to have to come back here because you loosened your filling.”

Mayor Mare responded with a sigh of relief, “Oh thank Celestia, we’re done!” She jumped out of the chair and shook her entire body like she was a dog coming in from the rain. She looked at Colgate and gave her a condescending smile saying, “Well I have to go. Mayoral duty calls and all that business. Bye, Colgate.”

With that, the mare with the gray mane left. Colgate sat on her haunches and watched her go. After a few moments, she sighed and asked herself, “Why do they always thank Celestia for leaving and never me for helping them?” She stood up and walked with defeated footsteps to the scheduling board on the wall. With a burst of magic, she lifted the sheets and read down the list only to find that Mayor Mare was her last client for the day.

She sighed with a hint of giddiness. Her work for the day was over, and it wasn’t even 2:00 PM yet. The gossamer blue mare brought up her forehooves before her and clopped them together as she magically disrobed from her white gown and mask. She hung the articles of clothing on two hooks stemming from one of the bleach white walls of the well lit room. She cantered off to a door leading into a stairwell. A quick climb brought her to her bedroom where she launched into bed.

This was often the high point of Colgate’s day. She loved nothing more than curling up in her comfy bed decked with better than a dozen pillows and lounging for a delightful nap. The air outside was chilly, and she liked to leave one of her windows open just an inch so the cool air would permeate the room. The chill air clashing with the delightful warmth of the pillows and blankets was simply divine to her. She let loose like a little school filly and started jumping up and down in her bed. She had to be shrewd with her clients all day and found it absolutely necessary to be a foal for at least a few minutes every day.

When she exerted herself from the giddy jumping to the point of panting, she settled down and gathered the mass of covers around her. She quickly set her alarm for 4:00 PM and pulled a pillow over her head to shut out the light and fell into a blissful little sleep.

*****

A bit later, there suddenly came a loud scream to disturb her sleep. Colgate launched into the air, bursting from her cocoon of warmth. She looked all about and found herself in darkness. She looked at her alarm clock to see that it was already late in the evening. "Why hadn’t it gone off?" she wondered to herself. Again she heard a scream followed by a general cacophony of sounds from outside her room. Colgate jumped from her bed, tossing multiple pillows in her wake, and threw open her wide window.

What she saw could only be described as nightmarish. The night sky was darker than usual. Had she the time, Colgate would have found it unusual to see no moon in the sky. As unusual as that was, it was nothing to her then as she saw the reds and yellows and oranges of the fire screaming through the night. It was not cold anymore. The chill of the season was completely subdued by the roaring fires that went on as far as her crystal blue eyes could see. Ponyville was being swept up in a great cataclysm of fire, scorching every house and store of her cheerful little village.

As terrible as it all looked and felt, It was the din that came as the true horror. The ponies of Ponyville were dashing from the flaming buildings everywhere. Their screams curdled the blood in Colgate's veins, and she fell away from the window, stumbling to the floor. Her thoughts went wild as she tried to think what she should do. In the heat of the moment, with the fires blazing around her, she drew a blank.

That moment of indecision ended abruptly as, from across the room, she saw her bed suddenly burst into flame. It was no small flame but a towering column of heat that swirled violently. It reached to the ceiling in its height and quickly began to leap off the bed, its reds and yellows and oranges licking and swallowing anything it touched. Colgate bolted from the floor to her door and plunged down the staircase into her office.

The office was as brightly lit up her bedroom as the same column of fire that had consumed her bed seemed to have gone right through the floor to consume the chair the fillies and colts sat on to get their teeth checked. Colgate searched wildly and found the path to the exit clear. She sprinted across the room, knocking over a tray of instruments and other articles as she went. She magically twisted the doorknob and plunged out into the fiery night. What she saw seemed even more horrible than the dreadful burning.

In front of Colgate, standing in a dense horseshoe, stood every resident of Ponyville. There was no longer the sound of screaming even as the fires continued to blaze in the background. They all stood motionless and stared as one at Colgate who stopped just outside her door to greet the crowd.

Colgate coughed from the smoke and asked loudly to the assembly, “What’s going on?”

All of the ponies stood silently and gave her vacant stares. Colgate’s eyes shot wildly from one pony to another, pleading any of them would answer her. Finally, a pony stepped from the crowd and walked up to her. The cream colored mare with the bright orange mane stopped in front of her. It was Colgate’s best friend, Carrot Top. The dentist uttered a sigh of relief and said, “Thank Celestia, Carrot Top. What’s happening? Why is everypony at my doorstep? Why is Ponyville on fire?”

Instead of answering her, Carrot Top continued to stare vacantly at Colgate, making her feel even more uncomfortable. The look was so grim it made her hackles stand on end. Just when Colgate felt she couldn’t take the gazing of the ponies any longer, Carrot Top suddenly slumped down, and her jaw dropped open. The sight caused Colgate to stagger back and wretch on the ground.

Carrot Top’s teeth were not the brilliant white that she had been accustomed to seeing in her best friend. They were instead an inky black color and were misshappen and broken haphazardly in her mouth. It was the single most revolting thing Colgate could remember ever having seen. When she finally looked up from her vomit she was met with not just Carrot Top’s gaping maw but the mouths of everypony in Ponyville. They were, all of them, filled with inky black teeth looking like so many broken and rotten stalagmites and stalactites. Every mouth seemed like the hellish gates of Tartarus opening wide to release doom on her world.

Unable to bear the sight a second longer, Colgate ran back into her house and slammed the door shut. When she turned from the door, she was greeted with a great wall of fire that had consumed everything in the room. She turned to go for the door again but found that also to be completely wrapped in fire. The heat was the most intense she had ever felt in her life, and she felt death to be close. Having no other recourse, she curled into a ball, hugged her flowing blue and white tail to her chest, and shut her eyes against the roaring holocaust. In darkness, she sought her solace.

*****

Colgate’s eyes shot open when she heard a loud and obnoxious ringing. She jumped up to burst from a pile of pillows and blankets. Her breathing came in ragged gasps, and she was covered from horn to hooves in a thick sheen of sweat. She gasped for air and whirled furiously about in a circle, trying to figure out what was happening. In whirling, she lost her balance and tumbled out of her bed landing on the chill floor of her room. From there she groaned, “Ouch.”

She got up and found the source of the obnoxious ringing to be her alarm clock. She wiped a hoof across her face to rid herself of some of the lather and slowly brought it down to stop the noise. It was 4:00 PM. She was supposed to meet her friend Carrot Top at 5:00 for dinner at The Hayfield. Though she didn’t feel especially hungry right then, Colgate would not leave her best friend hanging.

The sweaty, blue mare shuffled across her bedroom and into her bathroom. She pulled open the curtain to her tub and started the shower water. As she waited for the water to get to the temperature she wanted, her mind wandered back to the dream she had just experienced. She shivered from the thoughts and the cold air that was clashing with her sweat ridden coat. She could not remember ever having a dream so horrible in all her life. The reality of the dream stuck with her, making her feel ill.

When the water was the right temperature, she climbed in and pulled the curtains. She tried to dismiss the dream as she shampooed her mane and tail, but the sounds and the colors just kept coming back to her. The fire had been so terrible and hot, and the screams had been so agonizing. For some reason though, those screams and flames seemed like nothing to her compared to the horror of the rotten teeth.

She finished washing her mane and laid down in the tub, letting the warm water flow over her back. The ill feelings were not just fear from the dream. Colgate felt defeated. It was odd, but she had the sick feeling of having lost something very important. She could not explain what it was, but it made her feel dumpy, like a loser. She felt worthless and the passing moments of the shower and her usual routine did nothing to change it.

After a while, Colgate stepped out of the shower and walked over to her large mirror that adorned a wall. She dried herself with a large towel and got out her mane dryer. The warm breeze clashed against the cold air of the room, and gave her some pleasure. After she dried her mane, she picked up her manebrush and began grooming herself to perfection.

As she brushed herself, she absently considered her cutie mark in the mirror. Nopony would have guessed her trade just by looking at it. It was nothing but an hourglass half poured. That was not an uncommon cutie mark though. Ponies who had it usually had their special talent connected to time. Colgate smirked at the thought of the confusion most ponies had over her profession when they discovered she was a dentist. Colgate would always smile and say, “Well, isn’t everyone overdue for a check up?” She would receive very little argument about that.

When she felt her mane was brushed to the correct smoothness and consistency, she trotted out of the bathroom and made her way downstairs. The thoughts of the dream still followed her, but she felt a little better knowing she would be able to relax with her best friend. Maybe that would do her some good and calm her down.

She exited her house and workplace to greet the chill autumn day. She might have taken time to gaze at the festive colors that were spread across the landscape, but she was almost late for her meal with Carrot Top. She brought her pace into a gentle gallop. As she went on her way she saw many other ponies coming into lively action as there was a general regression from their workplaces. They were all tired from the workday but would wave nonetheless if they caught Colgate’s eyes. She in turn always grinned and waved back.

Presently, she reached a small restaurant ringed by a couple dozen circular tables. Around the tables were set soft heaps of hay for sitting. Colgate glanced the crowd of tables until she spotted her target. The cream colored mare with the bright orange mane was sitting at one of the soft piles of hay with her face planted firmly on a table. Colgate chuckled. The orange mare had probably had a busy day. Her slumped shoulders showed her drowsiness. Colgate decided to have a little fun.

She ducked down and crept in a circle around Carrot Top till she was out of the mare’s line of sight. A waiter came up to her to ask Colgate if something was wrong. She quickly brought her hoof up to silence the stallion and silently shuffled over to the orange topped mare until she was right behind her. The stallion chuckled silently as the blue mare came to within inches of her friend, her face low to the ground while her rump was poised in the air, tail wagging.

Just as Colgate was about to make her move and pounce on her friend, Carrot Top suddenly lifted her own rump into the air and pelted a noxious fume right into Colgate’s face. The hunter fell back, haunted with a most unholy stench. Carrot Top burst into a huge bout of laughter as she rolled on the ground. As Colgate shoved her face in the grass and tried to rub the stench away, she also heard the waiter cracking up and stamping his forehoof into the ground.

Colgate brought her head up to see Carrot Top rolling around, clutching at her belly. Colgate immediately felt the call for revenge and jumped on top of her friend. She grabbed ahold of her curly orange mane in her teeth and jabbed both of her forehooves into her friend’s sides.

Carrot Top bounced to her feet and shouted through her laughing, “Ow, ow. Let go of my mane. Don’t be a sour puss. I got you fair and square!”

Colgate let go of her mane and pushed her across the ground saying, “What do you mean fair and square? You farted in my face! You’re gross!”

Carrot Top laughed maniacally and responded, “Oh please, everypony farts. That’s not disgusting. What is gross is ponies who swallow other ponies’ farts.”

At that remark, Colgate went red with fury and was about to tackle Carrot Top again and not let up her tickling until her friend wet herself but was stopped when she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned to see the waiter standing beside her in his black suit jacket. He presented her with a folded menu and asked politely, “Would you like to take a seat and order ma’am?”

Colgate suddenly became very aware of her surroundings. A quick sweep revealed dozens of pairs of eyes pointed in their direction. Colgate blushed hard and took the menu with a terse thank you. She sat herself down on one of the cozy piles of hay and gave Carrot Top an evil look. Carrot Top rolled to her feet, still grinning from ear to ear, and plopped herself opposite her best friend.

After they had settled in and Carrot Top judged the embarrassment in Colgate had subsided she asked, “So how was your day, dear? You look a little beat.”

Colgate tore her eyes from the menu and admitted, “I am a little beat.”

Carrot Top waited a moment for her to say more, but Colgate did not seem to be in the speaking mood. She pressed, “Did some filly give you a hard time today?”

Colgate scowled a little at her friend’s condescending tone but said, “No. Mayor Mare put up a bit of a fuss today, but that’s about it. I even got off work early.”

“Then what’s wrong dear?” She leaned forward with worry and prodded, “Is it something I did?”

Colgate gave her a look and asked, “You mean like farting in my face just now?”

Carrot Top chuckled again, “You still on that, sweetheart? You need to lighten up.”

Colgate shook her head and sighed, “No. It’s not that. It’s actually about this dream I just had.”

Carrot Top’s ears visibly perked up and she swished her mane out of her face with a hoof while asking in a concerned voice, “Oh really? It must have been an unpleasant dream to have gotten you in this dumpy mood dear. Was it that bad?”

Colgate’s eyes left her friend’s to gaze off absently into the clear sky. The sun was not too far from the horizon. The days were growing shorter. As she gazed off, she tried to recall the images of the dream. There was the fire. There were her friends. Colgate shivered. Then, there was the teeth. She answered, “Yes, actually, it was horrible. It was the most horrific dream I've ever had.”

Carrot Top’s jaw fell open as she exclaimed, “Oh my Celestia. That sounds terrible. What was it about?”

Colgate continued gazing at the dimming sky. She said, almost as absently as she gazed, “There was a fire.” As she spoke, she could almost see the flames licking the buildings around her.

Colgate was quiet, and Carrot Top, feeling a bit unnerved, pressed, “Where was the fire?”

Colgate quit her absent search of the sky and looked directly at her friend. Her response was cryptic, “Everywhere.”

She brought her forehooves up and gestured all around her, “Ponyville was up in flames. The ponies were running and screaming, and the dark night was lit up like the sun had risen.”

Carrot Top was almost fearful as she muttered to herself, “That sounds awful.”

Just then, the waiter came up to the pair and cleared his throat. They both turned to regard him as he asked, “Have you two made up your minds on what you would like tonight?”

They both gave him a flat stare for a few seconds until Carrot Top remembered her manners and answered, “Oh yes. I would like the raspberry tart with extra confections, please.”

The waiter worked a quill with his magic to write down the order on his notepad and asked, “And for you miss?”

Colgate seemed pensive for a moment before answering, “Oatmeal. No sugar.”

The unicorn waiter made a quick scratch on his notepad and said, “Very well ladies. I will be back with your orders shortly.”

As the waiter disappeared into the restaurant, Carrot Top turned to Colgate and asked, “No sugar? You should try lightening up every once in awhile. You always get something so bland.”

Colgate shook her head and explained, “I’m not in the mood for sweets right now. Besides, it’s not good for my teeth.”

“You’re always so meticulous about your teeth, but you usually at least get sugar!” Carrot Top exclaimed. She now looked really worried, “Is it because of the dream?”

Colgate nodded, “Yes. The dream got even worse than the fire.”

Carrot Top, showing skepticism, asked, “What could be worse than Ponyville burning?”

“I had to rush out of my own house because it started burning. When I got outside my door, I found everypony in Ponyville waiting for me.”

The orange maned mare cocked her head and asked, “Was I there?”

“Yes," she said, “in fact, you were the only one to step from the crowd to talk to me.”

“What did I say?”

Colgate lowered her voice a little. It almost pained her to remember. “You didn’t say anything. You just opened your mouth and showed me your teeth like any of my clients do. Only, your teeth weren’t pretty and white. They were black and spiky and awful to look at. Then the ponies behind you opened their mouths and all of their teeth were horrible and spiky like yours.”

Carrot Top’s worry suddenly shifted to confusion. She shot her tongue out to run the rim of her teeth. They felt fine to her. She could see the duress in her friend’s eyes though and chose not to say that she thought it sounded silly. She instead asked, “What do you suppose it means?”

It was Colgate’s turn to look confused, “What?”

Carrot Top gestured a hoof out in front of her and explained, “Every dream has some meaning right? Otherwise we wouldn’t have them. What do you suppose this dream of yours could mean?”

Colgate turned very thoughtful for a moment. She had not thought about the dream actually meaning something. “Huh, I don’t know what it could mean.” She felt her countenance droop as a thought did strike her mind. “Well, maybe I do.”

Her friend leaned forward expectantly, “Yes, dear?”

Colgate averted her eyes. She had never confessed to what she was about to say in her entire life. It had always been in the back of her mind but had never really been a chief concern to her until today. She had never really thought about it seriously until that dream. She explained, “It might be because of my cutie mark.”

Carrot Top’s eyes shot to her friend’s flank as she asked, “What’s wrong with your cutie mark?”

Colgate sighed and almost regretted what she was about to say, almost. “I think my cutie mark is wrong.”

“What do you mean wrong?” she asked with her head cocked.

The blue mare turned her head to regard her own flank. The half filled hour glass rested as it had since the day she’d gotten it. Her flowing white and blue tail was curled up right beside it, accenting it beautifully. Colgate’s eyes did not leave it as she said, “I got my cutie mark when I realised I could manipulate the tools for dentistry perfectly and could use several at the same time.” She closed her eyes dreamily as she remembered the day.

She had been a little filly, almost a foal. She'd never even used magic yet. She had chipped her tooth on a rock while chasing Carrot Top down the street. The cream colored filly had stolen her favorite stuffed pony and taunted her with it. After the chase ended in a bloody and rather traumatic fall, Colgate had gotten her first trip to the dentist’s office.

She remembered the office well. The white walls and shiny tools seemed so cool to her, even when she was as scared from the pain as she was. She was left alone to wait for the dentist. When the dentist pony, her name had been Minty, entered the room, she found little Colgate levitating every one of the instruments before her eyes. Minty almost fainted when she saw it, but Colgate’s talent could not be ignored. Even as blood pooled from her mouth, she had been fascinated the very first time she saw those tools. The cutie mark that formed on her flank was all the more proof anypony needed.

The small smile that had formed on her face from the memory disappeared as she came back to the present. She continued, “I was so happy to get my cutie mark and finally find what my super special talent was.” She looked back up to face her best friend, a hint of sad desperation in her face, “But over the last few years, I think I’ve stopped liking my job.”

Carrot Top gasped slightly. She brought both hooves to cover her mouth and asked, “How can you not like your super special talent? You’re the only dentist in all of Ponyville. You’re so important. How can you not love being a dentist?”

Colgate scowled slightly as she explained, “I don’t just not enjoy it. I think I hate it sometimes. I’m good at it sure, but nopony likes me.” She slammed the tip of her forehoof into the ground and started to scratch at the dirt through the hay pile. Her expression grew angrier as she went on, “I work every day to clean other ponies’ teeth and they are never happy about it. They always mope and groan and are never happy to see me.” Her eyes drifted to the ground she was digging at as she went on, “Ponies avoid me like the Trots. It’s like nopony even cares.”

“Is it really that bad?”

Colgate felt tears springing to her eyes as she silently muttered, “They don’t even say thank you most of the time.”

Carrot Top stood up from her fluffy hay seat and circumvented the table to sit next to Colgate. She swung a comforting hoof around her friend’s shoulder and said, “You know, I know you feel really bad right now, but that’s no reason to be selfish.”

Colgate sniffed through her tears and gaped at her friend in amazement and confusion. She opened her mouth and shut it again several times before she finally stuttered, “What?”

Carrot Top removed the hoof from her shoulder and gave her a firm nudge saying, “You may not be besties with everypony, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care about you.” Her voice changed from comforting to stern as she went on, “You are an important member of Ponyville, and everypony respects you. Who else can thread a needle ten yards off, besides Rarity? If we didn’t have you then there would be crooked teeth in everyponys’ mouths, like in your dream.” She swung her forehooves up dramatically and said, “Ponyville could be reduced to chaos without you! How can you think that we don't care about you?” Carrot Top’s voice grew very shaky and hints of moisture formed in her eyes as they had in Colgate’s, “How can you think I don’t care about you?”

Colgate looked down at the ground, feeling a little guilty and sorry. She rubbed a hoof against her snout, sniffed again, and said, “I’m sorry Carrot Top. I know you care about me. I know I’m important and all that,” her gaze wandered back to her friends as she continued slowly, “but for some reason I can’t explain, I’m unhappy. I’m not just a little irritated with my job, I hate it sometimes.” Colgate sank her head into her friend’s curly orange mane and pleaded, “What am I supposed to do?”

Carrot Top curled her neck against her friend’s in a gentle pony’s hug and sat quietly for a moment. Just as she was about to say more words of hollow comfort to Colgate, the pair was disturbed by somepony clearing his throat. They broke off the hug to see the waiter levitating two trays. He bowed his head slightly and said, “Your meals are ready.”

Carrot Top gave her friend a quick and gentle nudge with her shoulder and rounded back to her seat. The waiter levitated the two trays to their appropriate spots. Carrot Top could not help but lick her lips at the raspberry tart doused in a heavy coating of powdered sugar. She brought her snout down and took a large bite. She shut her eyes and moaned in pleasure, savoring every moment of it.

Colgate looked at her friend, a mild feeling of disdain creeping in on her thoughts. She thought silently, “I wouldn’t even have a job if everypony didn’t eat so many sweets.” Her eyes dropped to her own bowl of oatmeal. The coarse grains could do little other than clean her teeth by comparison. “It would be better if everypony just ate clean food like this. But then,” her eyes again going to the red gushing, white powdered tart, “then everypony would miss the flavors.” She sighed audibly thinking, “What little filly doesn’t go for what’s bad for her instead of what’s good?”

Carrot Top opened her eyes again as she heard her friend sigh. She noticed that she wasn’t eating her oatmeal. She stopped her chewing and asked with her mouth full, “Aren’t you going to eat that?”

Colgate flinched slightly as a crumb of tart flew from her friend’s mouth and landed on her cheek. She wiped it quickly with the back of her hoof and said poutingly, “It tastes yucky.”

Carrot Top looked flabbergasted as she asked, “Really? Then why in the hay did you order it? You know what oatmeal tastes like. Why didn’t you order something with a little sugar in it?”

Colgate reached up and lifted the bowl to her face. A pleasant steam rose up from the cereal and warmed her face, but she greeted it with a scowl. “I ordered it because it’s what’s good for my teeth.” Her scowl grew more severe as she continued, “We should eat what’s good for us right?”

Carrot Top opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by Colgate smashing the bowl against the table. The ceramic shattered and the gruel spewed about, making a terrific mess. Carrot Top could do nothing but gape in horror, she and the rest of the ponies around them. Colgate looked at the mess, ignoring everypony staring at her, and said, “We’re supposed to eat this stuff even if it doesn’t taste good, even if it’s not sweet. We’re just expected to belly up and do what we’re meant to do and enjoy it.”

She felt pain emanating from her right fore hoof and brought it to her face. The ceramic from the bowl had shattered against her soft frog and cut her. As she looked at it, dark red blood dripped up the gossamer blue coat on her leg. It formed into streams and was painful just to look at. Rather than flinching at the sight of blood, she slowly set the hoof back down and whispered, “I’m sick of it. Carrot Top,” she said, finally drawing her eyes back up to her friend’s, “I quit. I won’t do it anymore.”

Carrot Top finally stammered, “Do what?”

Colgate stood up and turned around. She looked up at the sun. It had just reached the distant crest of clouds, soon to disappear. It seemed that day would be especially short. She answered, “I’m not going to eat oatmeal. I want something sweet.” She walked off, not saying another word.

Carrot Top stood to go after her friend but then remembered that they had not paid for their meal. She frowned and reached into a saddlebag on the ground next to her. She dropped bits enough for the meal plus some extra for the mess. As she turned to go after her friend, she felt a sudden uneasiness. She fell back on her hindquarters as she realized that she had no idea what to say or do to her friend. She had never seen a pony act so angry in all her life, especially her friend. Sure she had always tended a little towards the negative, but she could not believe how upset she was.

She sat for several moments thinking. Her thoughts eventually brought her to a wonderful idea, and she leaped to her hooves saying, “I bet Twilight Sparkle will know what to do.” With that, she trotted off in the direction of Ponyville’s library.

As Carrot Top set her course, Colgate was fast approaching hers. She was fuming and bitter, more so than she had ever been in her life. Every step she took shot pain through her body and seemed only to reinforce her thinking. She muttered aloud to herself as she walked, chanting in a rhythm that matched her limping gait, “It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. I’m not doing this anymore. It’s not fair. Why should I do what I hate? Why should I get stuck with this burden? It’s not fair. Why should all the other ponies hate me?”

She finally came to her two story abode. Every step she took leading up to it could be traced with hoofmarks of red. When she got to her door she did not wipe her hooves but just stormed right in, slamming the door behind her with an angry burst of magic that made it rattle and creak. She trotted up to a cabinet and levitated down a large circle of dove white gauze.

She sat down on the chair meant for her clients and expertly began to wrap herself in the thick bandage. The blood discolored it, but most of the bleeding had stopped with clotting. When she felt she had wrapped it tightly enough she stood up and tested her balance. After having sat down and lost some of the steam that had driven her home, she felt the pain to be much less tolerable and could not keep herself upright properly.

Colgate groaned and looked about weakly, wondering as to what she should do. She had initially planned to spend the evening with her friend but was not at all in the mood for that anymore. As she looked about, she was disgusted with all of the instruments of her trade; the drills, the mirrors, the lights, the scrapers, the toothbrushes and toothpastes she gave to the fillies and colts. It all stood as a bitter reminder of who she was. It was the doom of her unhappiness.

She magically pulled to her side a sheet of paper and quill off of a counter. She pressed the quill hard against the page and wrote, slowly so the ink would bleed and become thick, “Closed indefinitely.” She opened the door across the room and stuck the paper up with a hooftack. She slammed the door again, trying hard to bolster her own resolution, but quickly crippled into a deep sigh of regret. She had no clue what to do, where to go. She had never done anything else. The idea of not being a dentist anymore terrified her but, at the same time, she saw nothing else she could do. She wanted to be happy again, and there didn’t seem to be any way that was happening with her being a dentist everypony hated to see.

Seeing nothing else she could do, Colgate limped over to her stairs and ascended to her room. She was greeted by chill air that still permeated through her partially open window. She sighed and shivered slightly. With a touch of magic from her shining horn, she closed the window and crawled in the direction of her bed. She climbed in and pulled the covers over her head. There was no bouncing, no shenanigans, nothing which one could use to chart a pleasant demeanor. Colgate just laid there limply, moping and crying slightly at the pain. She felt sad, terrible, and defeated. Worst of all, she felt like she had lost something, something really important. It was the same feeling of loss that she had experienced that afternoon, the same dread, the same defeat. Only now, she believed she knew what she had lost.

Colgate shut her eyes and cried softly. The tears drained her and caused her to stop thinking quite so much. As her thoughts became less coherent, she grew very tired, exhausted from stress and the pain in her leg. Slowly and smoothly, she drifted off into slumber. This time, she slept dreamlessly.

Questions Answered

Daemeon set Colgate on the ground and covered his face in his hands. None of this made any sense. Colgate had to be wrong of course. There was no way they could be linked together. There wasn’t even such a thing as magic. Everything could be explained away with logical reasoning and analysis. The only possible solution for something not making sense was the person’s inability to grasp the truth. Daemeon was not a person given to inabilities.

Daemeon’s thoughts were interrupted by Colgate placing her hoof on his bent knee. He looked down at her. She was worried. Her expressive brow was wrinkled and her short, little snout was curled into a pouting frown. She spoke soothingly, “I’m sorry I got you mixed up in this. I don’t know how or why this happened, but it seems clear to me that the reason I am here is because of you.”

Daemeon’s expression grew volatile as he demanded, “Why would you be here because of me?”

Colgate shrank away, and her ears fell back. Daemeon was much larger than she was and far more imposing when he was angry. Her chin shied all the way to the floor with her rump following as she said, “I think it has to do with the reason I’m here.”

Daemeon set his hands against the carpet and brought his face down to her’s to shout, “And just why are you here? Whatever brought you from your fairy world to New York?”

“The-the princess!”

He squinted into her large, terrified eyes and pressed, “What princess?”

Colgate gulped in fear and explained, “The princess sent me here on a journey!”

Daemeon’s anger deflated ever so slightly into curiosity. “What a strange notion,” he thought to himself. “A journey?” he asked aloud. “What kind of journey? Is it some grand quest? Is that why you’re here? Are you on some fairy tale mission? I’ll spare you the trouble and tell you there’s no Holy Grail around here.”

His reference confused her, but she was too scared to press the point. She explained instead, “I’m here to find out who I am.”

Daemeon raised an arching eyebrow and backed away from Colgate, giving her a little room to not be so scared. “What do you mean you’re searching for who you are? Why would you be here to find that out?”

“I don’t know, but now, I think it has something to do with you.” She breathed deeply and lifted herself from the floor saying, “Let me explain it to you from the beginning. Do you remember how I was telling you about my dream?”

Daemeon sat back into a more comfortable posture and nodded his head, “Yes. You told me about the fires and your home town of Ponyville. You were about to say what you did after you woke up.”

Colgate closed her eyes and nodded in response, “Mmhmm. Well, after I woke from my nap, I went to eat dinner with my best friend, Carrot Top. We always meet up at this place called the Hayfield. It’s quite a nice joint. They’ve got comfortable hay seats they change all the time so they’re cushy to sit on. Personally, I prefer The Trough, but Carrot Top insists their food is too bland. She always wants to go to Sugar Cube Corner, but all they have is sweets, and I have to keep my teeth clean. So, we always settle for the Hayfield.”

Daemeon grunted, “To the point please.”

Colgate smiled with a touch of embarrassment and said, “Sorry. Well,” she stopped briefly as she remembered her escapades with Carrot Top’s foulness and went on with omission, “we met up and sat down for dinner and ordered our usuals. While we were waiting for our food, I told her all about my dream.”

“How did she take it?”

Colgate rolled her eyes in memory, “Well, she got all analytical on me and said that my dream was a reflection of something I was feeling.”

Daemeon rubbed his chin with his hand thinking. He had never had a great interest in dreaming. Dreams were a topic which was vested with very few facts and a great deal of pure speculation. Speculation, though, was the first step towards a decent hypothesis and thus the beginning of all science. He had no clue how he would interpret her dream, but he was curious nonetheless, “Do you think it was?”

Colgate looked down at the carpet and wondered absently whether or not it was difficult to put carpet down on the entire floor as these humans did. She confessed, “I didn’t when she first suggested it, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”

“What do you think it meant then?”

“Well, after I told her about the dream she said that it might be because of something wrong in my life. I thought about it for a little bit, and I told her that there was something wrong with my life.”

“What’s wrong with your life?”

“Umm,” she turned slightly and showed her right flank to him saying, “it has to do with my cutie mark.”

Daemeon pointed, “You mean that hourglass picture on your side? I was wondering what that was. You say it’s called a cutie mark?”

Colgate cocked her head and said, “That’s strange. I know I’ve never seen a cutie mark on a monkey before, but that’s also because monkeys don’t talk or form cities. Still though, is there no such thing as a cutie mark in this world?”

“Not that I’ve heard of.” He put a hand to his chest in confidence and reiterated, “Trust me, I would know. So what is it?”

“It’s a mark that everypony gets when he or she grows to a certain age and discover their super special talent.”

Daemeon gave the small blue mare a derisive look and asked, “Super special talent?”

Colgate snorted in laughter at Daemeon’s expression and explained, “That’s what we call it to explain it to foals. I guess it just sticks with you when you grow up. You’re super special talent is that which you are most gifted at doing.”

“Like a skill?”

Colgate nodded enthusiastically, “Yes, only, it's more than just a skill you are good at. It’s the skill that you are the very best at in the whole world.” She gestured back at her flank and explained, “My cutie mark is an hourglass to represent my skill as a dentist. I received it the day I realized that my super special talent was dentistry.”

Daemeon frowned, “I don’t follow. Hourglass equals dentist?”

Colgate sighed and explained, “You’re not the first one to be confused. Usually cutie marks are pictorial representations of what that pony is best at. Like an earth pony with a special talent in cultivating a certain crop well would most likely have a picture of that crop on their flank, or a pegasus that was especially good at clearing a certain type of cloud might have a picture of that cloud on their flank.”

“So how does the hourglass mean you are a dentist?” asked Daemeon still confused. “Did you choose that for some special reason?”

Colgate shook her head violently and said, “No, no, no! We don’t choose our cutie marks. They magically appear when we realize our super special talents. I earned mine when I visited a dentist’s office and learned I could easily manipulate all of the tools very precisely all at the same time. That would have been very difficult even for a pony who is especially good with magic, but I did it when I was young and had no experience.”

Daemeon scrunched his face in confusion and ran his fingers through his handsome brown hair which was much less organized in light of the recent rain and asked, “So you found out what you were the most proficient at in skills by going to the dentist one day and messing around with some tools and a picture of an hourglass magically appears on your flank? And, because you know this to be your special talent, then you know you can pursue that talent and make a job out of it?”

Colgate nodded and stated emphatically, “You don’t just know to pursue your talent. You are expected to. Why would you do any job other than what you are best at?”

Daemeon leaned back to stare at the ceiling and asked thoughtfully, “Well, what if there are already enough people to do that type of job that you are best at?”

Colgate sat back herself and pondered his question. It was odd, but she had never considered that. On reflection though, it seemed like something that should be a problem at some point. Unable to find a good answer, she stated simply, “That just never happens. It seems like there is always a place for everypony to work whatever their super special talent is. At least, I have never seen a pony without work.”

“Fascinating,” Daemeon expressed, leaning forward again, “but what if somebody gets a job they don’t like? Or do all the ponies ‘magically’ like whatever job they get?”

Colgate let out a terrific sigh as their conversation seemed to have come full circle, and she was again faced with the question of just why she was there. “Well,” she said, “that is actually the reason why I’m here.” Her chin fell to the floor, and her entire body slacked some as she said with a certain degree of pain, “The princess, Princess Celestia, sent me here because I said I hated my job. I told my friend Carrot Top about my dream at dinner, and when she pressed me on it, I told her that I might have had it because I hate my job and want a new one. I got angry and made a scene and stormed off. She told Twilight about it and Twilight told the princess and the princess came to me this morning. I told her about how much I hated my job and how all the other ponies hated me and told her that I wanted a new cutie mark so I could get a new job and not be unhappy anymore.”

Daemeon leaned in closer and asked, “All the other ponies hated you? Why?”

Colgate sat up on her haunches and crossed her forelegs in front of her huffing bitterly, “It’s because I have a terrible job. Ponies only come to me when their teeth are bad, and they always hate seeing me because a visit to my office usually means pain for them. It might not be so bad, but they even have to go so far as to pay for the pain, and that makes them all the more bitter.” Colgate’s gaze fell as tears wetted her eyes, “They don’t like me, and they’re never happy to see me. Even my best friend Carrot Top is probably only friends with me because she has impeccable teeth despite all the sweets she eats.”

Daemeon waved a frustrated hand in front of him and said, “That’s all well and good, but that still doesn’t explain why you are here. Why would this princess of yours send you here?”

“Well,” she said, “this is my journey. She said that, if I wanted my life to change, I would have to go on a journey of self discovery. She told me that she had no clue where it would lead me or what I would see. All she told me was that I might not like what I would find, and in the end, my life would change forever.”

He could see where this was going. “So she made some sort of portal and sent you through it, and that’s how you came to be in this world?”

“Yes,” she said sadly, “now you know.”

Daemeon stood from the ground, towering over her, and said, “That’s all a fantastic story, assuming it’s all true, but why on earth would you show up in this city and be ‘tethered’ to me? What do I have to do with any of this?”

Colgate looked up at him thoughtfully and slowly reasoned, “Like I said before, I don’t really know, but maybe you actually know.”

Now Daemeon was really confused. “Why would I know?”

“Well,” she reasoned, “is there anything special about you? Is there any particular reason why I might be sent to you to learn about my place in life?”

Daemeon gasped in epiphany. When she asked him like that, he thought he knew exactly why she would be sent to him and him alone. “Could it be?” he thought. “Could it be that this freakish little horse is to be my protege?” He walked away from her and started pacing with his hand brought tightly up to his chin. Colgate stood up and followed close at his heel like a pet dog, not wanting there to be even the least bit of distance between herself and Daemeon in light of recent events. She looked up at him expectantly as they walked and he thought, “I’m not as youthful as I used to be. While I’ve been fairly successful in spreading the truth, I am nowhere yet near to making my truth known to the entire world.”

He suddenly stopped his pacing and reached down to pick up Colgate. He held her slight, twenty something pound frame aloft in front of him in his strong arms and studied her with an intent eye. She blushed at the handling and asked meekly, “What are you doing?”

“Has luck afforded me a successor to my ideas?” he thought to himself as he looked into her eyes. “Can I truly teach her as I have taught no other? Will my knowledge of the reality of the world survive in her? Will she bring the truth to her own world? Will there finally be some understanding in the midst of all this falsehood?”

Colgate started squirming under his intense gaze, becoming fearful for her life. She begged again, “What are you doing? Let me go!”

Daemeon did not let her go, but he did finally say, “There is in fact something special about me. I actually do know the reason why you are here.”

The small blue mare stopped her squirming and asked hesitantly, “What do you think that is?”

Daemeon set his face seriously, not smiling. The smiling was over. The charade was over. For once, it was in his favor not to lie. If she was to know the truth then it would be better if he explained it systematically. He could cultivate belief through actions, yes. That’s what he always did. But for someone to truly understand, it took careful explanation.

Daemeon took a deep breath and said, “I am probably the only person in this world who truly understands the nature of things.”

Colgate was still scared, but some curiosity was piqued in her as she thought she might finally be getting some answers, “What do you mean ‘the nature of things’?”

Daemeon inhaled deeply. For what he was about to say, he had to organize his thoughts clearly. He walked over to one of the couches in the otherwise empty living room and sat down. He set Colgate down on the couch next to him and crossed his legs in thought. She backed away from him and settled herself against the armrest, not being nearly so eager to be next to Daemeon as his otherwise seemingly cheery demeanor was now plagued with a somewhat contemptuous frown. Colgate noted how the frown completely changed who he was. The result was a scary and foreboding creature.

They sat quietly for a few moments until Colgate shyly stated, “You said you knew why I was here.”

Daemeon nodded his head and said, “I do, but you are not going to like the answer. The answer probably won’t make sense to you, but it is the truth. It will be hard to understand at first, but I think you may come to realize it in time.”

Colgate narrowed her eyes in confusion and shook her head asking, “I don’t understand already. What’s the reason? Why am I here? If you know, why can’t you just tell me?”

With steel eyes, Daemeon responded, “I can tell you, and I will. The reason you are here is because you were lead here by random circumstance.”

Colgate stared at him expectantly waiting further elaboration. Daemeon just sat there with his legs crossed, not saying a word. When she saw no explanation forthcoming, Colgate pressed, “Is that it?”

Daemeon nodded, “Yes.”

Colgate balked and said, “So you’re telling me that I just randomly showed up here? You’re saying that I jumped through the princess’s portal just so it would take me to any random place anywhere and tie me to some random monkey just for the heck of it?”

Daemeon’s face showed no emotion as he said, “That is exactly what I’m saying.”

Colgate scoffed and stood up on the couch saying, “That’s stupid. Of course I’m here for a reason! It makes no sense that the princess would send me here for no reason. This is all part of some bigger plan. She said I have to go on a journey, and that journey brought me here.”

“And you believe that, whatever that reason is, has something to do with me?”

“Of course,” she stated emphatically, having raised her two forehooves in front of her. She gestured a hoof first to herself and then to Daemeon saying, “You must have some sort of answer for me. Otherwise we wouldn’t be linked together the way we are.”

Daemeon shrugged his shoulders and asked, “What question are you trying to get me to answer anyways? You seem to think you know how you got here. What else do you need from me?”

Colgate growled and shouted, “I need you to tell me how I can change and stop hating my life!”

Most people might have been impressed with the violent outbreak from the adorable, blue pony, but Daemeon wasn’t. He had already concluded that she was just like any other woman he’d met. She was emotional, predictably volatile, and an expert at seducing others to do what she wanted. The only thing that made her really special in Daemeon’s eyes was the fact that she was inexplicably linked to him through some force he could not yet understand. He’d already decided that it wasn’t magic, despite what the little, blue unicorn insisted. She simply didn’t understand her own power. Everything could be explained, and her powers were no different.

Daemeon could almost smile at her predicament, almost. Smiling was not a part of who he was though. Smiling for one’s own sake would preclude happiness, and he had purged that falsity from himself a long time ago when he’d become truly enlightened. He returned her volatile words with a cool question, “You hate your life?”

“Yes!” shouted the small blue mare in exasperation.

Daemeon leaned back and said simply, “What if I told you that I know how to eradicate all hate from your heart both now and forever?”

Colgate’s ears twitched in curiosity, “I’d say that that is exactly the reason why I’m here with you. What could you possibly do to get rid of all the hate in my heart?”

Daemeon gestured a hand over his chest and said, “You could relieve all the hate in your heart by understanding the nature of things, the nature of the world, as I do. For, I have no hate in my heart whatsoever. There is nothing in this world that can move me to hate because I truly understand how the world works and understanding is the key.”

Colgate breathed deeply and settled to her chest saying, “Okay. If you really know what’s what, then please tell me. I want to go home and leave this awful world.”

“I can teach you, but you must first realize something. Otherwise, you cannot learn, and you will ever be full of hate.”

Colgate rolled her large eyes and said, “Aren’t we being just a little dramatic? Okay, smarty pants. Just what do I have to realize?”

“You need to understand just what I said earlier. You did not come here by some grand design. You ended up here purely by chance. There is truly no reason why you are here. There never was, and there never will be.”

Colgate frowned and shook herself in extreme frustration but curtly conceded the point, “Alright. Fine. Let’s assume you’re right. What does that have to do with anything? If I ended up here by chance, then what does that mean?”

“Good,” he said, standing from his seat. He proceeded to walk about in a circle around the empty room as he spoke in a rant that did not seem to be directly aimed at Colgate, “Understanding that this incident was the product of chance is one stepping stone to your removing hate from your heart. It is only a step though.”

Colgate watched Daemeon as he paced. He was speaking but it didn’t seem like he was speaking directly to her. It was a little unnerving to the small blue mare as she began to question the monkey’s sanity. She thought, “Maybe this creature is mental?” She dismissed the thought though as she was certain that there must be something she could learn from him. She asked instead, “If that’s the first step, then what’s the next step?”

Daemeon brought his hand up to his chin in a pensive stance as he walked. He spoke aloud, but he wasn’t really talking to her. His discourse was to everything and nothing. Usually, his only audience was himself, and he was his own interlocular. It had been so long since he’d had a serious conversation with anyone other than himself that he did not even realize the peculiarity of what he did. He spoke to the wall, to the ceiling, to himself, to everything, “The next step can be a million different things. The next million steps can be one thing. They all lead to the same conclusion, the conclusion of step one. You can have as many steps as it takes for you to understand the reality of each step. Once you realize the reality, then we can move on.”

Colgate bit her lip and shouted in frustration, “What are you saying? You’re talking gibberish! Are you crazy or something?”

Daemeon stopped his pacing and set a dreadful stare towards Colgate, very much making her wish she hadn’t spoken. He asked, “Your coat is blue?”

Colgate’s chin fell to her forehooves as she stuttered, “Ye-yes.”

“Why is your coat blue?”

Her face screwed up in confusion as she said, “I don’t know. I guess probably because my mother’s coat was blue.”

His stare continued. “Was it the same blue?”

Colgate’s eyes rolled back thoughtfully, “Uh no. Her’s was a little darker I think.”

“What about your father’s? What color was his coat?”

“Grey.”

“So your coat could have been grey like your father’s?”

Colgate looked at him thoughtfully, trying to fathom what he was getting at, “Well, yeah. I suppose so.”

“Or it could have been a darker blue like your mother’s?”

“Yes.”

He took a step forward and pressed, “So why is it the shade of blue that it is?”

Colgate shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t know. It just is.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Just chance I guess.”

“Good!” Daemeon resumed his pacing saying, “You’ve completed step two with flying colors. Now we can move onto step three.”

Colgate stood back up and questioned, “That was step two? I don’t get it. What’s step three then?”

Daemeon’s voice returned to a rant as he wound on, “Step three is a good one. Maybe step three will help you realize. It’s a bit more complicated, but I think you might get to the correct conclusion. You are learning quickly after all. You want to know the truth and the truth we shall find. So then we move to step three. But what will step three be?” Daemeon’s head turned all about the room for a quick instant until his eyes rested on the couch that Colgate sat on. He beckoned, “Little horse, what is the color of the couch you’re sitting on?”

Colgate scowled and said, “I’m not a horse.” When she received no response from Daemeon, she sighed and looked down at the sofa and said, “It’s white.”

“Good!” he said emphatically, as though she had just answered a very difficult question. “Now, why is it white?”

“How should I know? I didn’t make it.”

Daemeon waved his hand dismissively at her without actually regarding her and said, “None of that now. If you want to learn anything, you’ll have to humor the question. Give it your best shot. What do you think could be the reason it’s white?”

Colgate sighed in exasperation and said, “Well, I guess it’s probably white because the carpenter wanted it white.”

“Good! That seems perfectly reasonable. Now, why would he want it to be white?”

Now Colgate was really getting annoyed. “That’s impossible for me to know! Why would you even ask that?”

Daemeon stopped his pacing briefly and shot her a glare saying, “Pretend you know! What could be the reason?”

Colgate growled and said, “Fine! It’s his favorite color. Now what?”

“Why is it his favorite color?”

“Ah hayseed, how should I know?”

“Guess.”

“What if he doesn’t have a reason? What if he just likes the color is all?”

“So,” Daemeon stated expressively, “he just likes it is all. How would you describe the carpenter’s choice of color then?”

“I guess I would describe it as being by chance if he has no reason beyond just liking it.”

Daemeon gave her a mock smile and said, “Fantastic! You passed the third step. Now let’s move onto the fourth.”

“Wait, what?”

Daemeon fell to his knees before the couch, scaring Colgate into a corner, and beckoned, “Now, assume he has a reason for liking white. What could be the reason?”

Colgate’s answer came faster than the ones before as she was getting used to the verbal game. She proposed, “Maybe he likes it because he had a stuffed animal he loved that was white.”

Daemeon could almost smell revelation just around the corner. He pressed on, “Good. Now, why was the stuffed animal white?”

Colgate thought for a moment to consider animal that were white. Applejack’s farm rolled through her mind and she offered, “Because the animal it represents is white. Like a sheep!”

“So,” Daemeon expounded heavily and deliberately, drawing out the word so as to create as much meaning as possible, “the couch is white because sheep are white?”

“Well,” she stopped and thought back carefully through the conversation, “yeah. I guess it is white because sheep are white.” She brought a hoof up to her chin and pondered aloud, “That’s odd.”

Daemeon gave her an innocent look and asked, “Is something wrong? I thought you said that the couch was white because the carpenter made it white. Do sheep have anything to do with the couch?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” she said mostly to herself. “They seem to have everything to do with the couch. And yet, sheep have nothing to do with couches. It’s like there’s no good reason why they would be connected at first, yet they are.”

“So how would you describe their connection? How are they connected?”

“Well I suppose they’re connected through a series of events. One reason leads to another and so on.”

“Could these events and thus, the connection, have been predicted? If you did not know every event one after another perfectly, could you still say with any accuracy why the couch is white?”

Colgate’s answers had long since lost their curtness as his questions started to baffle her not into confusion but wonder. She was starting to see a pattern and was becoming keenly interested in where it might go. She looked down at the white couch which had meant nothing to her only a few moments ago. Now it seemed to have a great and massive story to it which went almost beyond her imagination. The story had been completely of her own design, but it had followed logically. Even as it followed logically though, it seemed so random and chaotic. She answered Daemeon’s question slowly, choosing her words carefully, “I don’t think you could have predicted the connection. The carpenter could just as easily hated his stuffed sheep or was maybe forced to make the couch white. He maybe even did it just for money because white couches sell better. There’s an infinite number of reasons why the couch could be white. Even if you look back from reason to reason, you just work yourself into an endless search for an answer that will probably never be found accurately.”

Daemeon nodded his head slowly, gravely, and said, “So I ask you again; why is the couch white?”

Colgate set her head high and said with determination, “It’s white because it is. It just happened to be that way.”

“So it could have been any other color?”

Colgate nodded her head slowly as the weight of her realizations began to set in, “Yeah. It could have been any color really. Anything along the line could have changed what it is.”

"Now for the key question." “Does the fact that it could have been any other color matter?”

Colgate shook her head resolutely and said, “No.”

“Why not?”

The small blue mare stroked her good hoof softly over the fabric of the couch. It was quite comfortable, and she would have loved to own it. She once again found herself absently wishing she were back home in her warm, comfortable bed at home. The fact of the matter though, was that she wasn’t there. She was stuck in this new world until her journey was done. She sighed at the thought and answered Daemeon in a whisper, “Because it’s white.”

Daemeon leaned in closer and said, “What was that? I didn’t quite hear you.”

Colgate looked up from the couch and stated louder, “It doesn’t matter what color it could have been because it’s white. No amount of wondering what it could have been will change what it is. Whatever the reasons might have been aren’t important because knowing them doesn’t change the fact that, through some series of events we can’t really hope to follow, the couch is white.”

Daemeon stood up from his knees and sat down on the couch next to Colgate. He placed a hand on her back and asked, “Do you think you could view most things as you view the couch?”

The weight of the hand on her back was comforting. She wasn’t sure if he meant it to be that way or not, but she liked it nonetheless. She didn’t arch her back to it as she had before though. She felt a nervous knot in her stomach as questions began to arise in her mind on the implications of what Daemeon was asking her and the answers she was giving. They were such simple questions with equally devised answers, but they had gotten her thinking in a way she had never thought before. Could most things be seen this way? Could everything be just the result of untraceable chance and circumstance? It hadn’t seemed that way at first, but now, she was starting to wonder.

Colgate sighed and buried her face into her hooves saying, “I guess you could.”

Dameon shifted closer to Colgate and pulled the small blue mare against his hip and asked, “Does that mean that everything, even things you think you have control over, are really the effects of purely haphazardous chaos? Is the world ruled by chaos?”

Chaos. As soon as the word left his lips, Colgate tensed. Her eyes went wide and her stomach turned inside of her. She bolted out of Daemeon’s comforting grasp and onto the floor. She turned to him and gave a violent glare while shouting, “No! No chaos! You’re a bad ugly ape!”

Daemeon’s eye twitched as he tried to comprehend the outburst. She was volatile, yes, but he was sure he had her. His face was red as he opened his mouth to say something. No coherence came forth as he shuffled back from surprise to anger to indignation. He finally rested on the latter and sputtered with a seething tongue, “I’m not ugly!”

Colgate stuck out her tongue and said, “Yes, you are. You’re a bad ugly ape and an agent of Discord! What are you trying to trick me for? The world isn’t chaos. I was sent here for a reason. It’s not just by chance. You’re just mean and ugly, and I hate you.”

His rational, plotting mind left him. There was no plan now. He wasn’t trying to get her to see his way anymore. She had gotten him angry, a feat no person he’d met had achieved in a long time. She wasn’t going to enjoy his anger. She was going to pay.

Daemeon surged from the couch, arms out before him, and reached for the unicorn. Colgate’s ears fell back, and she jumped out of his way, narrowly escaping the giant hands. Her heart raced as she sprinted from him as fast as she could. She was quickly met with one wall and another. She could hear Daemeon over her shoulder, but she didn’t dare turn to look as she desperately searched for an escape. She caught sight of the entry door and stopped so she could work her magic and turn the knob. The door was just beginning to open when she felt a pair of massive hands clamp cruelly around her chest.

Daemeon lifted Colgate before him and turned the writhing mare over in his arms so he could see the fear in her eyes. Colgate looked at him with wide mouthed horror as she tried her best to flail away, but Daemeon’s strong hands did not allow her to flee an inch. With a certain sense of satisfaction, an emotion he was well prepared to indulge, he squeezed his hands together on Colgate’s diminutive rib cage.

Colgate screamed in panic. She saw the cruelty in Daemeon’s gleaming eyes and saw her own death impending. She tried to think of how she might use her magic to stop him, but no direction came to her as she felt herself swept up in debilitating fear and pain. She felt herself lost in such delirium that she didn’t notice the sudden change of expressions in Daemeon’s face as his violent sneer twisted into a grunting look of despairing pain.

Daemeon’s grip on Colgate lessened as he felt a force he could not see catch him in a vice. Even as he squeezed Colgate, he felt himself being squished and found it fairly impossible to breathe. He immediately came to the conclusion that it was Colgate using her magic that was harming him, and he retaliated by redoubling his efforts and squeezing harder. His eyes started to lose focus though as it seemed the harder he tried to stop her, the harder she fought back.

Just when he felt he could no longer hold her or even remain standing, Daemeon loosened his vice grip and pulled Colgate in a wide sweep over his shoulder. With blurred vision, he extended his arm and threw the little blue unicorn as hard as he could against one of the walls. The pain he felt that followed blackened his vision and caused him to crumple to the floor just as Colgate did.

Darkness consumed them both.