Chapters Mylo woke to the sunrise. It was not the muted rays of light that startled him awake, but the terrible thunk of the Alicorn. Blinking, Mylo glanced through his window at the horn-shaped tower in the center of Heaven that channeled enough artificial magic to raise the Sun each morning. He sighed through his snout, wondering if the fabled Princesses of old made so much noise when they brought upon the day.
Sliding out of bed and shaking off the layers of blankets he'd wrapped around himself, Mylo quickly slipped into his baggy white jumpsuit. Twenty years of practice ensured a quick routine, but even so, he didn't have much time to spare. Glancing at the simple clock hung beside the window, he figured he had about two minutes before he had to rush to work. A delighted smile grew around his chattering teeth as he pushed his lightweight bedframe away from the wall, shoving one covered hoof into the hole it revealed. He considered himself lucky to live at the very end of the hallway where the concrete wall of his tiny bedroom that doubled as the edge of the whole building was unusually thick, and happened to bear a rather large hole left over from hasty construction. It was in this dark blemish that Mylo hid his most precious belonging.
With only ninety seconds on his mental clock, the stallion pulled his prized possession from the blessed cavity and set it on the ground, careful to keep his body between the window and the item. Gazing upon it with reverent admiration, Mylo lowered his head to take the tiny mallet in his teeth. Its rod was thinner than a pencil, and the ball at the end was near the size of a bit. He held the end of the stick in his mouth, using his tongue to swing the mallet as if it was hinged at the center of his lips. With this arrangement, he leaned over his treasure and played a little melody with a repeating rhythm.
Ding, ding, ding-ding-ding, ding, ding, ding-ding-ding, ding, ding, ding-ding-ding, ding, ding, ding-ding-ding...
He finished his song and closed his eyes, relishing in the beautiful tones that danced along the concrete walls and licked his starving eardrums. Despite the shiver of his body, Mylo's heart was warmed by the item's pleasant chimes.
The timer in his brain went off and he carefully replaced his treasure into its cove. Knocking his bed back into place with a swing of his hind hoof, Mylo pulled his jumpsuit's mask over his face and adjusted the clear holes in front of his eyes. Properly protected, he scrambled out his door and galloped down the hall toward the stairs. His hurry was merited: he didn't dare be late for work, certainly, but more importantly it was Friday... and the shaded words always appeared on a Friday.
MYLO
XYLOTO
Down three flights of stairs, through another spotless hallway lined with numbered doors, and into the long road leading to Heaven ran Mylo. All of Heaven's citizens lived in such apartments; hundreds of the buildings stood in perfect formation more than a mile from the outskirts of the central city. Like a ring of dirt and ice orbiting a great celestial sphere, the housing for the working class was worth exactly what was paid: nothing. The ponies were allowed to live there so long as they had a job in Heaven, and there were so many jobs to do. Mylo absolutely hated his, though he would never admit it.
It was technically possible for him to find a new job. A number of factories operated within the city, manufacturing batteries or the devices that used them, and the citizens of Heaven were free to apply to whichever factory best suited their circumstances. At one point Mylo had believed that to be very fair; more recently, he had to fight to keep from rolling his eyes at the giant billboards of posing ponies in white jumpsuits inviting their readers to "change their lives" by applying for a different factory.
And yet, as much as he hated his job and the deceptive billboards looming overhead, they both contributed to the second highest source of his life's scarce joy. The district in Heaven where Mylo worked was one of the notorious hotspots in which the shaded words appeared every Friday. He hurried through the wide streets, paved with smooth, white plastic, casting his eyes from one billboard to another, hoping with all his might that the Angels hadn't covered the words yet.
As if on cue, a group of pegasi clothed in tight jumpsuits of the most astonishing white barreled around a skyscraper at the next corner. Mylo watched them pass high overhead, envying their uniforms which featured a separate extension for their tails. He could barely imagine the comfort. Even from so far below them, Mylo watched their heads swivel back and forth, scanning the streets. He took some hope in knowing they were searching, too. The shaded words had not yet been found.
A sudden boom from the tower shook the plastic under Mylo's hooves, his baggy jumpsuit rippling in the shockwave. Throwing his head upward toward the Alicorn, Mylo saw smoke billow from a ruptured section at its center. Dozens of Angels buzzed around and through the dark column. The silvery aura surrounding the tower began to dim, and the Sun sank on the horizon. Panic built in Mylo's throat, but he tried to swallow it down. This sort of thing happened far too often for his taste, but it did happen, and it would be repaired.
He gasped at a glorious realization: the ponies who made the shaded words only operated at night, under the cover of dark. Perhaps if the Sun was down for long, they would put more words on the billboards! Suddenly filled with glee, Mylo tried to hide the spring in his step as he continued on his way to the factory, glancing upward often in hopes of spotting shaded words before the light was gone.
The Sun dropped halfway below the flat horizon before Mylo saw that day's words. A group of ponies, huddled together against the cold, all fully clothed in their protective jumpsuits, stood below the marked billboard, whispering among themselves in tones of restrained excitement. Narrowing his eyes in the dimness, Mylo smiled behind his mask as he read the dynamic words screaming down from high above. They swirled and slashed over the entire face of the billboard, shining with bright shades unnamed by ponykind. A warmth spread through Mylo's chest and mind as he drank in the beauty of the words, both in their meaning and their appearance:
"I STRUGGLE WITH THE FEELING THAT MY LIFE ISN'T MINE."
Mylo nodded. "So do I," he breathed to himself, a layer of tears building under his mask. "Every single day, so do I."
The Angels appeared out of nowhere, swarming the billboard like hornets. Mylo quickly dropped his gaze and resumed his march to the factory. The shaded words would soon be gone from the billboard, but not from Mylo's hammering heart. He took deep breaths, repeating the beautiful line within the sanctity of his skull. It carried so much meaning, but most of all it assured him that he was not alone. There were other ponies--brave ponies--who knew it was all wrong, who knew there had to be so much more than Heaven's cyclical path.
If only he could find them. If only there was some way he could meet with them and learn about the shades. They must have names, just as white and grey and black had names. The Angels tried to pretend the other shades didn't have names. They told ponies that all other shades were unnatural, evil, and dangerous, and that anypony found in possession of such shades was to be considered a threat to Heaven.
But Mylo knew better. The shades were real... they had to be! He himself was covered in them, under his jumpsuit. His coat, his mane, his eyes... all of them were shaded like the words. For so many years, Mylo had believed there was something wrong with him. He dared not speak of his own shades to anyone for fear of being considered a threat. Threats to Heaven, after all, were immediately cast out.
Even so, all through his life Mylo could swear he saw the other shades in the eyes of his fellow ponies. It was hard to be sure, due to the blurring nature of the holes in their masks, but some of their eyes were almost unmistakably shaded. Never had he brought it up or asked aloud, refusing to be responsible for the casting out of an innocent pony, but he often wondered if all ponies were not shaded like himself. If only the radiation from the Alicorn was not so dangerous, or if ponies were allowed to visit each other in the safely distanced apartments. Alas, the jumpsuits were necessary for survival while in Heaven itself, and entering another pony's room was "conspiratorial" and strictly forbidden.
But the shaded words gave him hope, as well as to hundreds of his coworkers. They never spoke of it, of course, but he could tell; he could hear it in their voices, and he saw the bounce with which they worked only on Fridays. The shaded words confirmed his theories, for how could something so beautiful be as unnatural and evil as the Angels professed?
It was very dark now. As he approached the factory doors, joining a group of nine or ten other workers, he thought back to the first time he saw the shaded words. He had passed through the park near the cemetery on his way to the factory one morning when he noticed a crowd gathered at the edge of the park's large pond. The bridge that arched over the water had been marked with stylized words that immediately excited every corner of Mylo's imagination. He stared with the silent crowd at those words for several minutes--nearly enough to make them late--shocked and fascinated at their unprecedented existence. He would never forget the phrase they made:
"DO YOU EVER GET THE FEELING THAT YOU'RE MISSING THE MARK?"
For weeks afterward, Mylo had dissected the question as if his life depended on it. He had, indeed, very often felt a tug in his chest, a lure to brighter pastures, a sourceless reminder that life was more than making magic batteries. Beyond "missing the mark," however, Mylo felt he had no arrows to shoot in the first place. They had all been taken by the Angels, by the oppressive nature of Heaven, and even by the Major herself--no, especially by the Major.
More than a year had passed since then. Nothing had changed; not dynamically, anyway. But the words kept appearing, and the messages and shades continued to spur Mylo's hope and his enthusiasm. Perhaps someday the ponies who wrote the shaded words would find him and tell him their secrets. Perhaps they would reveal to him a world outside of Heaven, someplace where every shade was treated as beautifully as white.
Until then, Mylo thought with a hidden smile, there was always his treasure in the wall.
***
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***
"Keep at it, Lost Boys! It's not every day we get an opportunity like this. Tonight the streets are ours!"
A cheer of agreement went up from the gathered ponies as they each added to the mural blossoming along the brick. "DON'T LET THEM TAKE CONTROL!" it blared, the most direct and spurring of any of their messages.
A terrible screeching noise, followed by the steady clunk of the Alicorn, alerted the group of approaching sunlight even before the alleyway began to brighten. Many of them froze, eyes wide, scanning the skies for incoming Angels.
The leader of the bunch scoffed. Bearing a terrific smile, he threw a foreleg around his nearest companion. "What's wrong? Feel a little bit nervous?"
The mare nodded. "Yes, I feel nervous... a-and before you say it, Charlie, I cannot relax."
A bubbling laugh escaped her leader. "Ha! I'm sure you've heard that advice enough from me by now."
A smile came to the pony's mouth, but a younger mare behind her stuttered forth, "H-How come they're out to get us?"
"'Cause they don't know the facts," the stallion said with a wink. "They don't understand the art we are making. They simply cannot comprehend it, and so they'll always try to find us and to destroy us." He gave the first mare a comforting squeeze before leaping atop a discarded box in the alley to speak to his entire band. "They've taken everything we used to use to make things beautiful. Everything they could think of, they snatched from under our muzzles years ago. They thought that without a canvas, we could not create." His smirk became an elated beam and he lifted the cold cylinder in his hoof. "So on a concrete canvas we'll be making our mark, armed with a spray can soul! Now no more dilly dally, everypony get home before the Sun betrays us into the hooves of the Angels! Hahaaaaa!"
The gang reared up on their hind legs and shouted their delight before taking off like a river of righteousness down the alleyway and disappearing into the shadows of a fading night. Their leader stayed behind, basking in the glory of their newest and finest creation. His breath came out in thick, warm gusts of lingering steam. A lopsided smirk curled over his face as he glanced at the Alicorn in the distance. It had resumed its artificial glow as it kept the Sun in motion. He took careful note of the way it spiraled together, so much like the horn of a unicorn. He sighed, gritting his teeth against a painful memory. The Alicorn looked so familiar, so comforting... and yet it housed the most oppressive, devilish pony Equestria had ever seen.
"You used your heart as a weapon," the blue earth pony said under his breath, boldly shaking his can while staring daggers at the tower, "and it hurts like heaven."
With a snort and whip of his uncovered tail, he, too, vanished into the morning, waiting--always waiting--for the Sun to really rise.
Apple Bloom glanced up from clicking together another battery unit. She pretended to stare off into the distance, but in reality her eyes were locked squarely on Mylo. She let her mind wander for the briefest of moments before reaching down and picking up a few more pieces of a magic battery. Click, snap. She set the newly assembled piece down and returned to staring at the pony clicking together parts of his own just down the row on the opposite side of the conveyor belt.
She once counted how many sections she clicked together in a day. It was somewhere around four thousand. Considering she got to stare at Mylo for approximately three seconds between attaching each component, that calculated out twelve thousand seconds, which was well over three hours. And when she considered how many days she had been working at that blasted factory, it suddenly became quite clear why she was so desperately in love with him.
And it was all thanks to her big brother and his fancy mathematics. She chuckled at herself, wondering how Big Macintosh was faring at the furnaces, melting down raw metals to make the very components she clicked together day after day after day.
If only unicorns were still around to make natural magic. Or just to be around. A warm tear sprung to Apple Bloom's eye, but she blinked it away before it affected her and snapped another two pieces together.
Snap. Snap. Click. Click. Stare.
Maybe it was his eyes. He had the most strikingly ice-blue eyes, and not even the combined efforts of his and her masks could fully conceal them. She often wondered what color his coat was, or his mane. Did they complement his eyes? Or make them pop from the darkness of his fur? She shivered, but it went unnoticed among the constant quiver of the freezing ponies all around her.
Maybe it was his voice. They had not spoken many times, but after so many years working so closely in the same factory, it was bound to happen occasionally. He spoke with the dialect of the Canterlot elite, but that only made sense to Apple Bloom's own mind. Nopony here would remember Canterlot , no more than they remembered Equestria as it was before the Major.
Maybe it was the way he walked, or the way his hooves swept over the conveyor belt so fluidly, or the way his head tilted to the side as he snapped one piece into another. She could just imagine his little tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as his squinted those sky-blue eyes... no, not sky-blue. That was hardly an appropriate term anymore, considering the constant greyness of the sky.
Then again, "blue" itself was no longer an appropriate term, or even a recognizable one. She stole sad glances at the ponies seated nearest to her; how sad it was that they could not remember something so basic and beautiful as color. Apple Bloom used to imagine that, one day, Rainbow Dash would burst through the factory doors and backflip fifty times around the inside of the enormous building. The sheer spectrum she carried behind her would surely be enough to remind everypony of who they used to be and where they used to live.
That dream might have been more likely if anypony knew where Rainbow Dash was.
"Likely right next t'mah sister," Apple Bloom muttered, assembling another part, "and the rest o' the Elements, and the Princesses, and the instruments, and the paint brushes, and the pictures and the movies and the music and the--"
"You okay?"
She flinched and realized everypony around her was staring--including Mylo.
"I'm fine," she said, waving her hoof. "Pardon me, I'm real sorry."
They all went back to work... except for him. She dared to make eye contact, finding his eyes to be full of curiosity and, for a split second, interest ... and then he looked away.
Apple Bloom cleared her throat and focused on her work. It only took eight more pieces for her to resume her routine. Click. Snap. Stare.
Another several hours passed, and finally the factory bell tolled throughout the building. Every conveyor belt froze in its place, and everypony turned to follow their respective lines out the front door. Apple Bloom kept her head down, shuffling along at the pace of molasses and consequently remembering her old home on the Acres. Her mind was so enveloped in the glowing memory that she jumped as a hoof made contact with her shoulder.
A supervisor, covered in a slightly tighter jumpsuit, pulled the mare out of her line and slammed a mop into the crook of her foreleg. "You've been selected to clean tonight."
Apple Bloom wilted. "But I just mopped the whole place not three nights ago!"
"System's random," the supervisor said with a shrug. "It's not unheard of to fall upon close shifts."
Grunting, Apple Bloom stood aside and watched the supervisor roam, hoofing white mops and black brooms and grey rags to a dozen other ponies. When the majority of workers had exited the enormous building, the supervisor nodded to the chosen few scattered among the factory's various equipment, and they all got to work.
Most of the building was occupied by a single room wherein the workers assembled newly made battery parts. It was in another factory that the batteries were charged, but Apple Bloom would rather not be involved with that. She found the process rather horrifying, and though her job was dull, it kept her mind off darker things of the present... as well as brighter things of the past.
She told herself she could remember the days before the Major's regime. In truth, there were only bits and pieces lingering in her mind. She remembered the trees, with their bright green leaves and shiny red apples. She remembered the big, blue sky and the snow white clouds. Though the details were fuzzy, she remembered her family and how much they had loved each other. In the few moments they had together, Big Macintosh would always confirm that memory.
That was about it. But at least she could remember something , and at least it involved color.
The mop with which she was expected to clean the entire floor was rather hard to hold. Her mask prevented her from using her mouth in a very helpful way, and her tail was scrunched up against her leg inside the dreadful jumpsuit. Having been assigned to mop more often than she thought fair, Apple Bloom had eventually developed a system that involved standing on her hind legs swiveling the instrument back and forth between her forehooves.
Instrument... there's another thing she remembered. Music. There was no music in Heaven, nor anything with which to make it. She didn't imagine it was missed, as few other ponies--if any--could even remember the sound, but few other ponies--if any--had known Pinkie Pie. Apple Bloom often brightened herself up by rehearsing a jovial song in her mind. She dared not sing it aloud, having seen a pony cast out of Heaven for whistling.
Her mind was often occupied with one tune or another, as it was while she mopped aisle after aisle between the dormant conveyor belts littered with unconnected parts, balancing on her hind legs like some circus creature. Her task led her behind a tall machine that hid her from the supervisor. Quietly, she took the opportunity to take a break, leaning onto her mop and letting the sweat dry under her jumpsuit. Taking long, deep breaths, Apple Bloom suddenly felt her eyelids drooping. She shook herself into alertness, glancing about for signs of any watching pony. As luck would have it, the machine hid her from all angles. Leaning the mop against the metal back of the machine and dropping her head close to the ground, Apple Bloom decided to catch a few winks before she had to finish the entire factory.
She fell asleep faster than she had expected, and dreamed of paradise.
***
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**X**
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The streets are paved with gold. They must be, for all the color and joy that explodes in every corner of this city. A great building stands at its center, but it is not so mechanical as the Alicorn. It has a roof and is draped with canvas, carved with decorative symbols and upholstered with wooden beams. The homes and businesses bloom from this center like a life-colored rose.
How magnificent are the trees, the bushes, growing so naturally, glowing so green! How marvelous are the flowers along the road and in the gardens beside the homes! Oh, and the homes, so quaint, so charming. They breed the most delightsome ponies of every sort. Earth ponies chat with their hovering pegasi friends. None of them are wearing jumpsuits, or any clothes at all. Everypony shows off the brilliance of their coats, the style of their manes, the sparkle in their eyes!
Look how they walk and talk with one another, so freely, so honest! There are no secrets here, there are only friendships. Questions are not accusatory, but conversations: Where are you planning to eat this afternoon? Who should we invite to the party? What do you sell, good sir, and for what price?
There is so much color. It overflows from every object, giving hues to the laughter, the *music , the love that pulses through the air and embraces all who choose to feel it. Nopony cries without feeling comfort, nopony walks the streets alone. Nopony fears or peeks around corners or searches for glimmers of hope, for hope is all around them. Hope does not need to exist inside them, because it lives and breathes in everything they see.*
A butterfly floats past me, a green one with beautifully modest markings. I watch it flap a few times in front of my snout before continuing on its lazy way, caring not, worrying not, enjoying its existence of the purest simplicity. It lands in the center of the road and moves its wings slowly up and down. Perhaps it is wondering where it shall go next, as if it had the mind to wonder about anything at all.
Then a cart drives by, pulled by a dutiful pony, and crushes the butterfly under its wheel. I sigh and watch as Ponyville disappears around me, breaking into tiny pieces and disappearing into oblivion.
I wanted to live here forever. I expected this world, but it flew away from my reach... so I run here in my sleep, to dream of Paradise.
***
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The mop fell from its angle and clattered on the ground, startling Apple Bloom awake. She picked it up and quickly resumed her mopping before drawing any unwanted attention. Though her dreaming went unnoticed by the supervisor, underneath her mask her silent teardrops flowed like waterfalls.
Mylo heard something. He stopped dead in his tracks and somepony ran into him from behind. "Oh, sorry!" he said, stepping out of the dazed pony's way. "Goodness, really! I... do you hear that?"
The stranger blinked. Mylo couldn't tell if his eyes had color. "Hear what?" Make that her eyes. He could never tell the difference between a mare and a stallion until they spoke.
"That... high voice." He looked up and around. "Or... high voices. What is that?"
The mare stayed still with him for a moment. Other ponies hurried past, away from the factory. "Sorry, sir, I don't hear anything," she said. Her voice was nasally and a bit annoying.
"All right, that's fine... that's... so strange..." He trotted off, tossing his eyes up and around in search of whatever made that noise. It almost sounded like a child, but there was a pattern to it. It sounded familiar in a way, but not enough to bring back any memories. It wasn't saying any words, just an open vowel sound, but the way it jumped between those soft high sounds... over and over...
"Like my..."
Mylo broke into a full gallop. Spotting an overhead group of Angels he slowed, but only for a moment. When the squadron had passed he picked up the pace again, darting from street to narrowing street and listening all along. The voice was distant, hypnotizing, fascinating. He hurried past several ponies, but none of them seemed to hear or care.
He smiled nonetheless. It was getting louder. He turned onto another street between two very tall buildings and plunged into the darkness. He had never spent much time exploring Heaven and was certainly getting lost, but the excitement of the moment overwhelmed him. Never had he heard anything that reminded him so much of the noises he made with his mallet every morning. Did it have a name? Would this voice have the answers? Did it know about the ponies who could write the shaded words?
Mylo nearly ran into a wall at the end of the alley. It branched off at a sharp right and Mylo continued to follow the path without a second thought. It took a moment for him to realize how alarmingly narrow these passages were. Openings in the walls briefly appeared to the right and left of his swift gallop. Intersections? How many tiny streets wove around back there? Who used these? Where were they?
He looked up. The ever grey sky loomed above the building tops. And as he stared and ran--
WHAM!
Something slammed into his right side. Both he and the other twisted and fell, sprawling in the corner of one of these dark intersections.
"Sorry!" Mylo said for the second time, rubbing the side of his head while he instinctively helped the other pony to their hooves. He closed his eyes against the sudden throbbing. "Oh, dear, that hurt... are you all right?"
"I've gotta tell you what a state I'm in, I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones that I started looking for a warning sign," the warm voice of a stallion said quickly.
Mylo popped one eye open. "What was that?"
"Canterlot," the stallion said. He was behind Mylo. "Do you remember what your parents sounded like, kid?"
"Huh?" Mylo balanced himself against the wall and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Did they sound more like me or more like you?"
"My... parents?" He groaned and started to turn around. "Are you sure you're all right? I was going pretty fasssss--"
He cut off, staring at the pony behind him as his hidden jaw unhinged.
"Can anybody stop this thing?" the stranger asked through a glowing grin. "We've been living life inside a bubble."
"You're... oh no, did your jumpsuit rip?" Mylo spun around in circles, scanning the ground for the stallion's missing cover. "I'm so sorry! Quick, we need to find what's left of it!"
"Ha ha ha!" The stallion's hearty laugh was enough to freeze Mylo. It was the most genuine sound he had ever heard. He faced this happy stranger with wide-eyed fascination.
"Who are you?" Mylo asked.
"Charlie Brown," the blue stallion answered, bowing low.
"Charlie Brown?" Mylo blinked. "Really? That's your name?"
"Well, no," the other admitted, "but that's the name I use. It has meaning."
"What does it mean?"
The stallion rose to his full height and raised his eyebrows. "Good question." He took a step closer. "My song is love, love to the loveless shown, and it goes up: you don't have to be alone."
Mylo's chest filled with a warmth he didn't know existed.
"Your heavy heart is made of stone, and it's so hard to see clearly: you don't have to be on your own."
"I-It'sss like the words," Mylo stuttered, trotting in place. "It sounds like the shaded words."
The blue pony grinned. "Ah, you've seen them?"
"Yes! Yes, I look for them everywhere!" He, too, took a quick step closer. "Do you write the words? Is it you?"
The stallion's eyes were so clear. With no mask or lenses to conceal them, Mylo could tell they were as bright and clear as the shades of his own body. Though not the same, he had seen that shade among the words, and it was similar to one of the pieces on his treasure.
Those eyes were quiet and shifted up and down, as if taking in everything about Mylo's suited form. "Why do you think that?"
Mylo pointed under a baggy sleeve. "You have the shades! Your body, your eyes, they're not white!"
Charlie Brown laughed again and Mylo nearly burst. "Do you have something against white coats or white manes? I've never seen white eyes myself, though I'm not sure I want to. Seems unsettling."
Before Mylo could speak, the suitless stallion continued. "We all have colors, kid. Every one of us is colorful, whether or not the colors are seen."
"Colors?" Mylo repeated. He choked on a breathy laugh. "Is that what they're called? The shades?"
Charlie Brown was silent and still for a long moment. He sighed loudly and swung himself to Mylo's left, draping a foreleg over his shoulder. Mylo twitched back, fearing the radiation, but soon found that the embrace of the stallion was anything but painful. In fact, it filled him with a sense of warmth and belonging that was entirely foreign.
"There are all sorts of words you don't know, kid," he whispered. "Names. Everything has a name. Major Minus is trying to subtract those names from history, from the world, from your mind. I'm trying to keep them there." He ran a hoof through his own mane. "Yeah, these are colors, kid. Blue, green, red, yellow, orange, magenta, fuchsia, beige... there are hundreds of 'em. But that's just the start! You don't know about art or dancing or stages or lighting or cameras or records or even music!"
Mylo felt as though he'd just sprinted home. "Music ?"
"Yeah, music. It's like colors for your ears." He winked and raised his free hoof to the sky. "The world is filled with music, kid. It hums and buzzes through every molecule of the universe, no matter how hard Major Minus tries to freeze us all to silence. Even silence has a sound. But we're not there yet, we're not even close. Everything makes music. She thinks she can take the instruments away and make us forget about chords and rhythm and notes . But we are worthy of notes, my friend."
"Friend..." Mylo smiled. The word had a taste.
"Oh, yeah, friendship!" The stallion barked another laugh and shook Mylo a little. "Friendship is magic! And not the kind of magic you're thinking of, I mean real magic. Beautiful stuff, powerful stuff." He lifted and dropped his right hoof, giving Mylo a heavy pat between the shoulders. "Yeah, kid, this world sucks right now. But boy, oh boy, was it beautiful. And it'll be beautiful again, as soon as everypony starts listening to the music."
He took a deep breath through his nose and closed his eyes. The silence was long enough for Mylo to hear the high voice again. It still sounded so distant, and yet it took on a whole new depth as Charlie Brown added his own voice to it. An open vowel, soft and long, as his voice moved up and down in that same hypnotizing pattern.
Mylo dared to try. He closed his own eyes and listening closer. A buzzing came to his throat, far more than when he was simply speaking. He followed the sound in the air--the music , he thought--and lifted his own voice to join the strange one that called to him from the sky.
Charlie Brown stopped. He leaned away from Mylo but didn't move his foreleg. Mylo continued his noises unhindered, relishing in the new sensations pumping through his chest and throat.
The naked stallion stepped back. The look of surprise on his face mirrored Mylo's from minutes ago, though it was infinitely more visible. "You can hear it," he said.
Mylo stopped, too, but didn't open his eyes. "Yes. Yes, I can hear it."
"Haahaaaaaaaa!" Charlie Brown erupted, scooping Mylo up in his arms. Mylo gasped and squirmed as the blue earth pony spun him around in the narrow alleyway. "You hear it! You can hear the music!"
"Uhhh... yeah!" Mylo managed to laugh when Charlie set him on his hooves. "I didn't know it was music, but yes, today I heard it. I can still hear it."
"I can always hear it," Charlie Brown breathed, wrapping a fetlock around the back of Mylo's neck and staring into his eyes through the filtering lenses of his mask. "What's your name, kid?"
"Mylo," he answered slowly.
"Mylo." Charlie Brown beamed. "I love it. Mylo, how'd you like to be a Lost Boy?"
He didn't reply for long enough that Charlie Brown tried again.
"How would you like to leave this life? To join a band of brothers and sisters who hate Heaven and seek Paradise? To learn all about the colors and why they were taken away, and then give your life to bring them all back?"
Mylo gulped. "Give my life? You mean..."
"I don't mean die for it, Mylo," Charlie said, beaming. "I mean live for it. Change everything! Take control! Brothers and sisters unite, it's the time of your lives!" He reared onto his hind hooves and shouted to the sky. "Break down, break down, gotta spread love around!"
Mylo found himself laughing. Whether it was a laugh of confusion, absurdity, insanity, or elation he couldn't tell.
"You can hear it," Charlie said again, pacing back and forth. "Hee heeee! You can hear it... you're gonna be great, Mylo!" He reached up and unzipped the mask around Mylo's head, pulling it back between his shoulder blades.
"Uuaaahh!" Mylo gasped and held his breath, reaching up to replace the full hood.
"No, Mylo, stop! Breathe!" Still smiling, Charlie Brown swatted at Mylo's frantic hooves. "It's not dangerous! That's all a lie. Just breathe it in, smell the sin!"
Mylo slammed his hooves down close together and blinked rapidly. His vision blurred until he finally gasped in a sour breath. "I'm going to die!"
"You won't die, Mylo," Charlie said, rolling his eyes. "I've been naked for years. There's no such thing as radiation."
Mylo gawked. "There's not?"
"No! It's all a lie, to keep everypony from seeing their colors. Don't you see? Major Minus thought of everything." He flashed a suave grin. "Well... everything but me, of course."
He watched as Mylo breathed experimentally, bringing a hoof to his face to check for any burnt patches or swelling boils. When nothing happened, he actually smiled at Charlie. "It's all a lie."
"Do you ever get the feeling that you're missing the mark?" Charlie asked.
"Yes! Oh, yes, every day! I struggle with the feeling that my life isn't mine!"
"Ha haaa! You do read our words!"
Mylo's eyes glistened in the unfiltered skylight for the very first time. "Ours ?"
"We are the Lost Boys," Charlie Brown said, "and we'll set you free." He motioned for Mylo to follow him and took off into the tiny dark alleys.
Mylo's heart matched his hoofsteps as he thundered after the mysterious stallion. He caught up quickly, following through twists and turns and impossibly angled corners. Charlie Brown slapped an image painted on one of the walls as they passed. "Bright red rose come bursting the concrete," he said over his shoulder. Mylo took notice of the strange image. It was a little like his mallet, but of two very different shades and more curvy and natural.
"A cartoon heart!" Charlie said a bit later, slapping his hoof against another image. This one was familiar, the symbol of a heart used for health classes. But the shade was so vibrant, so strong: it matched the top part of the first image, burned into Mylo's memory.
"What are they?" Mylo asked.
"A message! A whisper! Warning signs! Sparks!"
The answers echoed around Mylo's ears like something from his dreams.
Suddenly they reached a short, square hole in the wall. It only went back a foot. After so many turns and narrow streets, Mylo was certain they were absolutely lost. Charlie Brown never lost his brilliant grin, however, and took a key from a pouch hidden in his tail. He used it in a crack low on the wall.
A click from the key was met with a twinkling voice. "Passcode?"
"Light a fire, a fire, a spark; light a fire, a flame in my heart," he chanted. "We'll run wild, we'll be glowing in the dark."
The hole hissed, and suddenly the concrete slipped away. Through the new hole they went, Mylo and Charlie Brown, and down a tunnel longer and blacker than what some secret part of Mylo had been expecting. The doorway behind them shut itself and plunged the duo into total darkness.
"Keep crawling," Charlie Brown assured his companion. "We'll be glowing in the dark."
"What does that mean?" Mylo asked. "I mean, it's pretty and all, I like how it makes me feel. But I don't understand what it means."
"You used the word pretty. That's good." Charlie Brown's voice was crackling, excited. "They'll love you."
"Who?"
"All the boys, all the girls," Charlie answered. "All that matters in the world."
And then there were sparks. As the low-bent ponies shuffled their hooves forward, ethereal streaks of light appeared along the edges of their vision.
"Here we are, Mylo," said the blue stallion. "Where the Lost Boys meet."
The sparks surrounded them magically, and suddenly Mylo was falling. Then, just as suddenly, he wasn't. He was standing in the middle of an enormous, spacious room, lit by a hovering chandelier of candles and quiet torches on the walls. The room was brown and earthy and divided into four parts. In one there were dozens of shelves full of books and couches to sit and read. In another there was an array of musical instruments, ready for ponies to play. In a third there was a miniature museum of art, displaying beautiful paintings, statues, and open catalogues waiting to teach. The fourth was a kitchen, and there sat most of the ponies in the room, cooking or eating or both. They all stopped in unison and gaped at Charlie Brown and his unexpected visitor.
But Mylo didn't know the words book or couch or brown or play or museum or statue or catalogue yet. He didn't know any of those ponies names, or even the names of the colors of their coats and manes. He didn't know about the staircase behind the bookshelves or the beautiful view of the stars from the balcony. He didn't even know that he had been teleported to a cave in the mountains many miles from Heaven.
But he did know that somehow, for the first time in his life, he felt that he was on the mark.
***
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**X**
***
"And this one?"
"That's red."
"What about this one?"
Lyra giggled. It was as musical as when she had played the harp for him. "That's red, too, Mylo!"
"What? But they're different!"
Lyra grabbed the apple. "This is red. Like, classic, darkish red." In her other hoof she took the tomato. "This is a brighter red, or a lighter red. But it's the same color."
"Same color..." Mylo repeated. Lyra smirked. He did that a lot.
"What about this one?" he asked, tapping a bowl full of berries.
"Oh, come on, you know this one!" Lyra nodded at him. "It's the same as Noteworthy, and the same as--"
"Ahem ," said the blue stallion behind Mylo.
"Ugh, sorry," Lyra said, rolling her eyes. "I meant it's the same as Charlie , and the same as your eyes, and the same as--"
"My eyes?" Mylo blinked.
"Yes, would you please let me finish my--" Lyra stopped herself and blinked a few times as well. "Wait, you didn't know?"
Mylo shook his head.
Lyra leaned forward across the kitchen's counter. "You've never seen your reflection, have you?"
"Uhhh... my what?"
"No mirrors in Heaven, Lyra," Charlie Brown said, helping Mylo off of his stool. "Come with me, kid. I've got a few things to show ya."
"Thank you, Miss Heartstrings!" Mylo called back to her. "Your swong was beautiful!"
Lyra laughed. "It's just song , Mylo. But thank you."
He knocked himself on the forehead while he followed Charlie Brown. "Oh, right, song, song. I gotta remember that, such a beautiful word..."
"Take a gander, kid," Charlie said, gesturing to a big mirror on the wall. "You'll wanna take a good look."
Mylo hesitated. "Am I going to see myself?"
"Exactly."
Mylo took a deep breath. "I feel like I've done this before."
"I'm sure you have," Charlie said, "but we'll explain that later. Go ahead, take a look." He beckoned him forward.
Mylo took a few slow steps before aligning himself with the glass. Above his clean white jumpsuit, the face of a bright earth pony looked back at him. He recognized the shades of his coat and his mane, though he still couldn't remember their names. He had seen them hundreds of times on his legs and his tail in the solitude of his own apartment. But he had never seen it on his face, or the wideness of his jaw, or the way the locks of his mane fell back on top of each other between his ears. He grinned, glad to see that his teeth were as white as his eyes. Through all their flaws, at least the Angels had taught the citizens of Heaven to take care of their own health.
But those eyes. Mylo had never seen his eyes. They were a brand new color--or, no, that's not true. He focused. They were a different kind of the color of Charlie, different like the two foods Lyra had shown him.
"Blue eyes," Charlie said, nodding. "Bright ones, at that. You're a handsome stallion, kid."
"Blue!" He glanced at Charlie. "But you're blue."
"Right." He looked down at one of his hooves. "Let's call me, uh... cobalt blue. And your eyes are, like, ice blue."
"What do those mean?" Mylo looked back at himself, wiggling his ears.
"They're just names to help you know what shade of blue you're talking about. You know how you called colors 'shades'? Well, now you know they're actually called colors , and the different types of the same color are all shades of that color. Make sense?"
"Ice blue," Mylo repeated, nodding. "Yeah. Yeah, I like it."
Charlie Brown waved his hoof. "Take that stupid thing off. Take a good look at yourself."
Mylo hesitated a moment, but finally complied. With a practiced bite he unzipped the length of his jumpsuit and stepped out of it. Nopony had ever seen him naked before. It was at once embarrassing and exhilarating. His tail was short and limp, hanging between his legs. It was a much darker color than his coat or his eyes.
"Name them all," Mylo said, taking a happy bound closer to the mirror. "Tell me what colors I am."
"Yellow, mostly," Charlie said. "Your coat's all yellow. To give it a more specific shade, I'd say, uh... cream yellow. Sometimes yellow can be hard on the eyes 'cause it's so bright, but yours is a pleasant shade. Good on ya."
Mylo said the word over and over. "Yellow, yellow, yellow... ice blue!" He laughed, and then lifted a hoof to the back of his mane. "And this?"
"Purple," Charlie said, "or violet, whichever you prefer."
"I like the first one."
"Yeah, me too. Purple. Really dark purple."
"I'd say rich purple," a newcomer added, stepping around Mylo to stand next to Charlie. She was sort of yellow too, Mylo thought, but even less bright than him. Her mane had two different colors. One was blue, dark blue like Charlie's mane, but the other was new and very bright.
"Where did you find him?" she asked Charlie.
"In the back alleys, not far from the door," he answered, never once looking away from Mylo.
The mare with the different colors in her curly mane scrunched her brow. "Uh oh. How did he get back there?"
"Let's ask him," Charlie said, lifting his chin a little more. "What were you doing in the back alleys, Mylo?"
"Following the high voice," he answered, turning his body to see himself from the side. He was skinny. "The music."
"He hears it," Charlie said, pointing upward. "Bon Bon, nopony else has ever heard it. Just me and... and Octavia." Mylo heard a brief strain in his otherwise melodic voice. "But he hears it, too, he even sang along! He doesn't even know what music is, and he sang! Ha haaa!"
"Sang?" Mylo asked. "That sounds like song."
"Yeah, it's all connected," Charlie said, gesturing for Mylo to follow him back to the corner of musical instruments. Lyra was there, back at her harp. She would play a few notes with her magic and then write with her mouth on a nearby sheet of paper. Mylo noticed close, straight lines running all across the page. Lyra's writing appeared as black dots, almost like she was filling in answers for a test.
"These are notes," Charlie explained, tapping Lyra's paper under Mylo's gaze. "I used to have a pretty set of those right here on my flank." He slapped a hoof against his side, close to his short tail. "We all used to have Cutie Marks, y'know. The Alicorn got rid of that. But, heh, one trot at a time." He moved to a strange box next to a shelf full of large squares. The box had a spike in the top center, and out of its side twisted a large, shiny cone.
"What is it?"
"Listen," was Charlie's only response. He pulled down one of the squares and tilted it enough for a large, black circle to slide out onto his ready hoof. Then Charlie set the square aside--it was red, and Mylo was proud to know it--and carefully placed the black circle around the spike in the middle of the box. He rearranged a few loose parts and set another spike, dangling down, onto the middle of the circle.
"Bum, bum, bum bah dah bah dah bum, bum, bum bah dah-ahh!
Bum, bum, bum bah dah bah dah bum, bum, bum bah dah-ahh !"
Mylo's breath left him.
"This is another song, Mylo," Charlie explained over the low voice. "These ponies are singing."
"Everypony's sayin' you should learn to express your voice,
But if talk doesn't seem like it's the answer, luckily you have a choice.
When you find you've got the music, got the music in you,
Find you've got the music, got the music in you !"
"I love this song!" Bon Bon cheered behind them, nuzzling Lyra. Mylo's chest felt full.
Lyra swatted her away, albeit with a smile. "Ugh! One new pony comes around, and a mare can't write in peace."
"Come on, let's dance!" Bon Bon urged her unicorn friend to her hooves. It was still so surreal for Mylo to see ponies unclothed, but then to see them touch each other and laugh together? And then to see a unicorn? He hadn't seen a unicorn in years. When Lyra had played that first song for him, the fluidness of her magic was almost as captivating as the music.
Almost.
"Hot outside and you see the sunshine, something's in the air today!
Sky is clear and you're feeling so fine, everything's gonna be a-okay!
If you listen carefully, on every corner there's a rhythm playing,
Then it happens suddenly, the music takes you over and you-- "
"Fiiiiiiiind the music!" Bon Bon sang, twirling her hesitant friend away from the harp. Lyra laughed and joined the refrain, singing... differently than Bon Bon, but it still sounded nice.
"Harmony," Charlie whispered from his side. "It's like another shade of the same color. The main part is the melody, and Lyra's singing the harmony."
"Harmony," Mylo repeated. He felt his body sway back and forth with the...
"Rhythm," Charlie offered.
"These are the most beautiful words in the world," Mylo hummed.
A different shade of a smile passed over Charlie's mouth. "I think you're right, kid."
They listened to the Ponytones and watched the mares dance and laugh and live.
Mylo returned daily to where the Lost Boys met. Neverland , they sometimes called it. At first he needed somepony's help to guide him through the back alleys, but within a week he had memorized most of the turns. As soon as he found the bright red rose--that pretty flower painted around a crack in the concrete. Oh, how it seemed alive, bursting past oblivion!--he could easily navigate to the cartoon heart and onward to the enchanted entrance. He kept his jumpsuit on for work, hiding his yellow coat and purple mane and ice blue eyes from Heaven. They couldn't know yet, Charlie Brown said. They weren't ready.
"But they will be, soon," Charlie would add. Mylo loved that glint in his golden eyes. Golden. What a special shade. Lots of their eyes were golden among the Lost Boys. Charlie, Lyra, an adorable pegasus called Derpy, just to name a few. Mylo loved knowing their names and hearing their voices and learning their colors, their talents, their stories.
"The Saints will rise against Heaven," Charlie would preach to them as they read and painted or admired the work of other artists. There were forty one of them now, including Charlie. "They will usher in the Reign of Love and live in Paradise."
"Who are the saints?" Mylo asked.
"The ponies," Charlie answered, smiling. He put his forelegs around two readers' necks. "Everyone! Everyone oppressed by the Major's regime. They are already good, and already ready. We just need to remind them."
"With the words?"
"Yes, Mylo." He walked with him through shelves of books. Mylo loved the smell. "Words and music and dancing and food. We can bring back the memories the Major has stolen."
Mylo frowned. "Why don't I remember?"
"Nopony remembers," Charlie said sadly, resting a hoof on Mylo's yellow shoulder. Yellow. "Only me, because I wasn't here when the Alicorn started."
"Are there other ponies like you?" Mylo asked as they wandered to the instruments. "Others that remember?"
"Maybe," Charlie said. "I don't know. That's what all this is for, see? The graffiti, the hideout, the art. I'm trying to gather the lost."
"You want to bring everypony here?"
Charlie shook his head. "Oh, no, no. Only the special Saints get to come here." He smiled at Mylo. "I'll train you all. I'll help you learn and remember, if you can. We'll spark hope with our words and light a fire of rebellion. A fire, a spark." They reached the center of the instrument corner and stood still. "Then lightning strikes, and the Saints go marching in."
Mylo would have asked questions, but for the first time he noticed something in the shadow of the piano. He stooped low and pulled it into the light with a hoof, gawking at its eight colored pieces of increasing length.
"Xylophone," Charlie said. "Simple thing."
"I have this!" Mylo said. His wide eyes locked with Charlie's. "I have this, Charlie! I have one at home!"
Charlie's smile vanished. "Huh? What do you mean?"
"Years ago," Mylo began, "I met a unicorn. I think she must have been like you, I think she remembered. She was my age and naked. Her coat was white. I don't remember the color of her mane. It was curly, like Bon Bon's." He gulped and squinted. "But her eyes... her eyes were green ." His face lit up in a sudden smile. "Wow! I've never... her eyes were green ..."
"Green eyes," Charlie nodded. "Go on."
"She just ran up to me, outside the apartments. We were alone. It was late, I don't remember why." He shut his eyes and a sound played in his throat before his next words. "She gave me one of these and told me to keep it hidden. She said more, I know she did, but I was too confused, I don't remember what she said. She was a unicorn." His eyes opened slowly and lost some of their shine. "She ran away before I could... I don't know what..."
"Young, white unicorn with green eyes, eh? And she remembered life before Heaven." Charlie smirked. "I think you met Sweetie Belle."
Mylo stood straighter. "You know her?"
"I've met her," Charlie said with a shrug. "I never knew her well, but she was famous where I'm from. Really good singer."
"Where is she now?" Mylo asked.
"No idea," Charlie said. "So you kept the xylophone?"
"Yes! There's a big hole in the wall and I hide it there, just in case the Angels come to the window." His nostrils flared and his pupils dilated. "But every morning I take it out and... I play a song. I didn't know that's what I was doing, but I just loved how it sounded and what it did to me inside."
Charlie was still for a moment. In a smooth movement, he pulled the yellow mallet from its slot in the side of the musical toy and held it to Mylo's mouth. "Play it."
Mylo blinked at the thing. "The song?"
"Yes, of course." He wiggled the mallet. "Play it."
Mylo took the wand in his teeth and lowered his head to the colorful arrangement of metal rectangles. A grin formed around the mallet as he played his little tune, so familiar to him alone.
Ding, ding, ding ding ding, ding, ding, ding ding ding, ding, ding, ding ding ding, ding, ding, ding ding ding...
When he looked up, Charlie's eyes were glistening. "That's beautiful, Mylo," he breathed. "Did you write that?"
Mylo offered a humble smile. "Uh... I guess so. I've never thought of it like that before. It was... already there, I guess. You just have to hit the right shades."
A blue suddenly filled Mylo's vision. "Come with me," Charlie said, lifting Mylo's head and tucking his hoof behind his neck. Mylo cantered alongside him, back to the books. "I want to show you Paradise."
They passed all the shelves and reached a stairway spiraling up through the ceiling. Mylo had never noticed it before, as that corner was very dark. Charlie hurried up the steps first and Mylo tried to follow quickly. In a minute they had climbed it and both stood before a metal door.
"You can only come up here at night," Charlie said. "They might see us during the day."
"Is it night already?" Mylo asked.
Charlie flashed a grin. "Let's find out." He lifted his hooves to a wheel on the door, turned it hard, and swung it open.
Sure enough, the light of the Moon shone dim behind the ever present mists above Heaven. But for the first time, Mylo saw just how far away Heaven was from Neverland. He gasped as the stallions took their places on a ledge at the top of a mountain, far enough from Heaven that the Alicorn looked smaller than a stalk of celery. Green. Mylo really liked green.
But the Alicorn was not green. Even from the distance and in the dim light, its putrid greyness was visible. The apartments surrounded the quiet Heaven in a neat circle with plenty of space between the city's edge and the frigid chambers. Mylo wondered which was his, and if anypony noticed he wasn't there.
"It's so small," Mylo realized.
"Ha! That's a wonderful observation, friend," Charlie cheered. "Now look up and behold something not small at all."
Mylo's gaze tilted skyward. His lungs automatically filled with the night's cool air as a million tiny lights engulfed him, surrounded him, and winked at him in perfect silence.
"Stars," Charlie whispered. He dropped to his belly and folded in his legs. "A sky full of stars."
"What are they?"
"They're like the Sun," Charlie explained, "but really, really, really far away."
"I've never seen them before."
"That's because the Alicorn keeps that smog over you all the time." Charlie sighed and looked back at the distant city, void of nightlife. "The cloud doesn't reach this far at night. Spreads more during the day. Oh, if only you could see the sky in the day, Mylo. It's blue." He pointed to the stargazing pony's snout. "Like your eyes."
"It's blue?" Mylo repeated. He scanned the horizon. "The whole thing?"
"Ha! Yes, the whole dang thing."
"I wish I could remember..." Mylo followed his mentor's lead, curling up on his stomach without looking away from the stars. "I wish I could remember anything, let alone everything like you."
The silence was soon broken. "Honestly, Mylo, I don't remember everything." Charlie sighed under Mylo's startled stare. "Ever since I came here, I've started forgetting things. That's why I made this place, at first. I got help from the unicorns and made a portal to this cave. That's before they were taken, of course, so you'll know how long I've been here. Years? Many years."
"What do you mean you're forgetting things?"
Charlie groaned and rubbed his temples. "I don't know, I just... details go away. Lyrics and faces and memories just slip off. I'm sure it has something to do with the Alicorn. I try to stay out of the city during the day. I don't want to forget."
Mylo swallowed. Very hesitantly, he stuck out a hoof and patted Charlie on the back. "You won't," he said.
Charlie glanced back at the hoof, and then smiled at Mylo. "You think so?"
"I think teaching us will help you remember."
Charlie's grin widened and he scooted closer to Mylo. "Wise words."
Somepony called from the bottom of the stairway. "Charlie! Bon Bon's back."
Charlie's eyes glistened for a moment. He took a deep breath, slow enough to pique Mylo's curiosity. "I'll be right there," he called out, but didn't move. His eyes stayed on the distant city and a smile twitched at his lips. "We're close, Mylo," he said, draping a foreleg around the young stallion. "Soon we strike, and the Saints go marching in. Things are going to be so different."
"How soon?" Mylo asked as Charlie got to his hooves.
"Well, depending on what Bon Bon tells me..." He winked. "Tomorrow."
***
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***
It was so strange to see unicorns again. Years had passed since Mylo saw unicorns. It didn't take long to get used to the Lost Boys' nakedness or their colors, but to see so many with horns often made him stare. Sensitive to their feelings, he dared not ask aloud the questions often on his mind.
As it turned out, he didn't have to. While Charlie and Bon Bon talked quietly among the books, Mylo sat in the culinary corner and watched the nearby musicians play instruments with their twinkling magic. An enormous earth pony stood close and offered a dry smile.
"Nopony escaped the purge," he said in a low, drawling voice. "They didn't live here."
Mylo blinked and looked up. Red , his mind told him after a moment of consideration.
"Huh?"
"You keep lookin' at their horns." The red stallion shrugged. "I figured you were confused."
Mylo pulled an embarrassed grin. "Gosh, is it that obvious?"
"You wear yer heart on yer sleeve. Ain't nothin' wrong with that. I'm Macintosh."
"I'm Mylo." He smiled again and looked back at the unicorns. "What do you mean they didn't live here?"
"There's a lot more to this land than Heaven," Macintosh explained. "They're takin' over everything, but most of us caught on quick and stayed out of trouble. Stayed far away."
"Oh! So you weren't in Heaven when they took the unicorns?"
"Well, I was," Macintosh said. "But these ponies weren't."
Mylo squinted at him. "I've never seen you here before."
"I don't get the chance to visit often," Macintosh explained. "I was one o' the first to join Charlie, but my work at the furnaces keep me busy."
"The furnaces!" Mylo gasped. "That's dangerous!"
"Eeyup." Macintosh just smiled. "I've been doin' it fer years now. Ain't no thing."
"Huh. Well, you certainly seem tough enough."
Macintosh opened his mouth to say more, but suddenly Charlie's voice blasted through the cavern like a firework.
"Call in all the Lost Boys! Gather everyone!" He laughed and galloped into view, leaping onto the kitchen countertop in a single bound. He blue coat shone with his golden eyes and he raised a hoof to the gathering. "We rise to Paradise tonight !"
***
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***X***
***
Mylo had not expected so much fire.
There was no fire in his memory. He didn't recall ever seeing it, except perhaps in a classical painting Charlie had shown him sometime over the last few weeks. He hadn't asked about it, though, and no one had told him its name. Yet there it was at the front of his mind, pulled from some sleep he knew little about and had only recently begun to fear. That red, yellow, and sometimes blue stuff coming from the tubes on the Angels' hooves was fire . And it was hot.
"Fall back!" Charlie shouted over the noise of the flames. It was everywhere now, this fire, all around them. The buildings of Heaven didn't seem to take much damage from it. Perhaps it turned a little darker when the fire licked for a long time. The Lost Boys, though... they took damage. Mouth agape, Mylo swept his eyes over the scene. It had all happened so fast. There wasn't a single citizen in sight. Only bodies. In Mylo's vision alone there were eight bodies on the ground, black or still burning.
And then the loud cracks. Mylo didn't have a name for them. Something distant would crack , and a nearby pony would drop to the ground, shouting in pain... or dead.
"I didn't..." Mylo said, eyes darting. "I didn't..."
He saw Macintosh leap up and wrap his hooves around another Angel hovering close. The Angel's hooves began to spout fire, but Macintosh was safe behind it. His weight dragged both ponies to the ground where Macintosh stomped on the Angel's spine. It writhed while he flipped it over; another quick hit to its snout stopped its squirming. He unlatched a tube from the pegasus' hoof and aimed it skyward. The long tube was hooked into the Angel's white suit under its wing, but it stretched enough for Macintosh to send its flame at more Angels flying overhead. Mylo heard his bass screaming as two, three Angels caught fire, veering away from the battle.
The unicorns were faring well, it seemed. Their magic grounded Angel after approaching Angel. Lost Boys attacked with their hooves or more magic. "Come on, ponies!" some would shout. "Don't hide! Help us! Don't let them take control!"
"Fall back!" Charlie shouted again. His voice was closer. "Lost Boys, fall back! Retreat! Get out of here!"
Few heard. Fewer listened. Mylo watched some naked ponies run. Angels followed them into the alleyways. Where would they hide all that color?
"Mylo, come on!" Charlie's voice was suddenly whispered into Mylo's drooping ear. He gasped and spun around. Charlie's hoof wrapped around one of his forelegs and practically dragged him towards a tiny alleyway. In a blur, Charlie opened a hidden hole in the corner of one of the smaller buildings. They crawled through and ended up in a dark, humid room stacked with wet barrels. Charlie closed up the entrance, and collapsed, breathing hard. The sounds of the battle continued outside. Even dulled, the crackle of fire and warble of screams kept Mylo in shock.
"One minute I held the key," Charlie said, coughing briefly. "Next the walls were closed on me."
"What just..." Mylo couldn't speak.
"We weren't ready." Charlie slammed his hoof into the ground and grit his teeth. "We weren't ready! I didn't even know they had flamethrowers... and the Saints..." He growled.
Mylo leaned against a barrel. "I can't..."
"Mylo, please, just shut up!" Charlie yelled. "Either shut up or say something! Enough of these half thoughts, kid." He sighed and dragged a hoof over his eyes. "No more half thoughts. Gotta think things through."
Mylo swallowed. "Sorry."
Charlie sort of laughed and shook his head, rising to his shaking legs. "No, don't be. I'm sorry I yelled."
In the silence that followed, the war outside seemed to grow louder. Perhaps it was this that inspired Charlie to sing , to drown out the terror outside with another within.
"Oh morning, come bursting the clouds, amen.
Lift off this blindfold, let me see again.
Bring back the water, let your ships roll in.
In my heart she left a hole."
Mylo listened carefully.
"The tightrope that I'm walking just sways and ties,
The devil as she's talking with those Angels' eyes,
And I just wanna be there when the lightning strikes
And the Saints go marching in.
Saying slooooooooow it down...
Through chaos as it swirls
It's us against the world."
He sat on his haunches and closed his eyes. Mylo sang along. Somehow he knew the words.
"If we could float away,
Fly up to the surface and just start again!
Lift off before trouble just erodes us in the rain,
Just erodes us in the rain..."
Mylo stepped closer.
"Sloooooooow it down,
Sloooooooow it down."
They looked into each other's eyes a long moment and then embraced. The noises of battle outside did not go away, but they didn't seem as scary. Mylo began to cry. Charlie sighed deeply into his mane and stroked the base of his neck.
"Through chaos as it swirls," he sang again, "it's us against the world."
Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall
Tartarus.
The word spun through Apple Bloom’s head. She couldn’t quite remember what it meant, but it seemed somehow to fit the cruel disaster spread before her.
Angels cleaned up the scene almost faster than she could take it in. Almost.
She saw splashes of color among the charred bodies of ponies burnt to crisps strewn about the plaza. The Angels swooped down and grabbed body after black body, carrying them into the sky and toward the Alicorn.
Apple Bloom’s eyes were fixed on one fallen form. Certainly he used to be red. The black flesh and shriveled mane should have disgusted her, but all she felt was shock. Disbelief. It took two angels to lift his body, pumping their suited wings with all their might. She watched him rise above the plaza and past the first buildings.
A loud horn sounded. She finally looked away.
“All citizens of Heaven, please report to your factories. All citizens of Heaven, please report to your factories.”
She squinted. No explanation? No attempt to cover up this scene that she and dozens of others were gawking on their ways to work?
“All citizens of Heaven, please report to your factories. ”
The voice seemed harsher now, as did the masked glares of Angels circling the plaza overhead. And she obeyed.
***
***M***
***X***
***
The factory had never been so dark. Surely Apple Bloom was not the only worker on her line to have seen the plaza’s carnage. Questions buzzed through quiet skulls, but nopony said a word.
Apple Bloom was distracted. Images of her burnt brother flashed across her mind as an added part to her routine.
Snap. Snap. Click. Click. Macintosh. Stare at Mylo.
He had seen it. Certainly. The way his hooves quivered—she had never seen him shiver before. There was something so real about it, so terrified. As she glanced down the line, she realized he was the only pony shivering.
“Don’t you shiver,” she thought. Or maybe she said it. Some ponies looked at her, but only for a moment. Then back to work. Click. Snap. Click.
She suddenly hated the batteries. She had always hated the batteries, but suddenly she accepted that. It wasn’t just boredom anymore. She hated it.
Why had Big Macintosh come into the city without his suit? Why had all of those ponies subjected themselves to the radiation? She had never seen the affects of the Alicorn before. It did more than just kill—it incinerated.
What had driven her dear brother to such a reckless act of rebellion?
The factory bell suddenly tolled. Apple Bloom gasped and threw her eyes around. Had the hours already passed? Where had her mind gone?
She cleared her throat, suddenly very dry, and merged into the line of ponies headed for the exit. Very close the door, she was suddenly yanked out of line by a supervisor.
“You’ve been selected for cleaning du—”
“Oh, come on! I cleaned last night!”
The supervisor was quiet. Apple Bloom could feel the eyes of surprised ponies staring at her from the line.
“The system is random,” the supervisor said. Apple Bloom couldn’t see his expression, but his voice sounded just as shocked.
She grunted. “Fine.” Snatching the mop from the stunned stallion’s hoof, Apple Bloom headed for the back of the factory. Perhaps she could find a place to hide and nap again. She felt so tired.
But something caught her eye. Another pony was selected from the line, a pony she knew despite the baggy white suit. She knew from his eyes, and the way he tilted his head, and the way he shivered.
“Mylo…” She beamed behind her mask. Never had an opportunity like this arose. In all her years at the factory, never once had she and Mylo gotten cleaning duty together. Perhaps they could finally talk. Maybe she could finally get to know him.
She started mopping where she was and watched as Mylo moved to another part of the factory. Carefully, watchfully, she followed his path with her eyes and made adjustments to her own. They wove around panels and cleaned along conveyer belts, lessening the space between them aisle after aisle, until suddenly—
“Oof! Oh, sorry…” Mylo said, lowering his head. “I didn’t mean to bump into you. I-I’m… kinda distracted.”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said, smoothing down the fabric of her suit along her neck. “Me, too.”
His blue eyes shot up to meet hers. “Oh, I know you.” He grinned. Somehow she could tell. “You’re the mare with the accent.”
She giggled. “Well, from where I’m listenin’, yer the one with the accent.”
“Huh.” He looked at the ceiling. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. You must have grown up with ponies who talked… exactly like…”
He trailed off. Something changed in his stance. He was stiffer.
“Uh… Mylo?”
He looked at her again. “You know my name?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Don’t ask me how; honestly I can’t remember how I learned it. Yer station’s just a few down from me across the belt.” She shrugged. “Anyway, it’s unique. Hard t’ferget a name like Mylo.”
“Oh. Well, thanks.” He chuckled. It was flighty, but real. “And, uh… what’s your name?”
“Apple Bloom,” she said. She finally said.
“Wow, that’s beautiful.” As soon as he said it, his body tensed again. “Oh, dear… you’re Macintosh’s sister, aren’t you?”
Apple Bloom’s stomach flipped. She took a step back and knocked over her mop. “H-how do you—”
“We’re friends,” Mylo said. “He’s such a good stallion.”
She gulped. “Was.”
Mylo tilted his head. “What?”
“He was a good stallion,” she said. A knot formed in her throat. “This mornin’ I saw him in the…”
Mylo lifted a hoof. “Did they burn him?”
Apple Bloom’s tears came from nowhere, yet it seemed the reservoir behind them was of infinite expanse. Her front legs buckled, and Mylo was there to catch her as she fell. Then she cried from her eyes—amber eyes—in such a way that Mylo’s shoulder would have soaked were it not for two white suits in the way.
“Oh, Apple Bloom,” Mylo choked. His voice was so close. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“It ain’t yer fault,” she squeezed out. “He went out without his suit.”
Mylo grabbed her by the shoulders and leaned back. “What? Is that what you think happened?”
She sniffled. “Huh?”
“Apple Bloom, no!” He lifted her chin. “Your brother is a hero. These suits don’t do anything but hide us. There is no radiation. He was fighting for freedom, and the Angels burned him.”
She gurgled. “Wh-what? How do you know that?”
He leaned closer. “Because that’s what makes sense. We both knew him. He wouldn’t have done anything to hurt himself, or to hurt you. He was trying to save us all. He along with all the ponies you saw out there. Oh, I’m so sorry you had to see it.”
Apple Bloom didn’t know what to say. “Did you see it, too?”
“Yes. Yes, I saw it.” Mylo sat on his haunches. “Every one of those ponies is a hero. They are going to change things. They didn’t die for nothing.”
A little laugh escaped Apple Bloom’s aching lungs. “You really believe that?”
“Of course I do.” Mylo took a deep breath. “Thing are going to change soon, Apple Bloom. Life won’t be colorless forever.”
She gasped. “You know what color is?”
He was quiet. “Do you?”
“Yes!” She stepped closer. “Oh, Mylo, I miss it! I miss color. The only color I see these days are myself in my room and yer eyes.”
“What colors are you?” he asked.
“Yellow,” she said, touching her chest. Then, with her hoof on her head, she said “And red.”
He smiled and touched his own chest. "I'm yellow, too! So you're like Macintosh but... backward.”
She laughed. “Well, kinda. We all had similar color schemes in the family.”
“Wow. I wonder if…” He sighed. “I hope to remember my family someday.”
“Hope.” She snorted. “I don’t have hope no more.”
“Oh, don’t say that. Please, never say that. There is always hope.”
She barely smiled. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“How do you stay so optimistic?”
Mylo glanced around. Seeing no one, he began to tap his hoof against the ground and whispered to her, “You want to know how I have hope?”
She nodded.
And he began to sing.
“I turn the music up, I got my records on,
I shut the world outside until the lights come on.
Maybe the streets alight, maybe the trees are gone,
But I feel my heart start beating to my favorite song.
And all the kids they dance, all the kids all night,
Until Monday morning feels another life!
I turn the music up, I’m on a roll this time,
And heaven is in sight.”
“I’d give anything to get Heaven outta my sight,” Apple Bloom said.
“No, no, not this Heaven,” Mylo said. He pointed up. “Paradise.”
Apple Bloom’s breath left her as Mylo’s voice sang on.
“I turn the music up, I got my records on.
From underneath the rubble sing a rebel song.
Don’t wanna see another generation drop;
I’d rather be a comma than a full stop.
Maybe I’m in the black, maybe I’m on my knees,
Maybe I’m in the gap between the two trapezes
But my heart is beating and my pulses start
Cathedrals in my heart.”
As he sang, he took Apple Bloom by the hoof and led her out of the factory. They left the mops where they were.
“We’ll get in trouble, Mylo!” Apple Bloom said, but she was laughing.
“As we saw this light,
I swear you emerge blinking into
To tell me it’s all right.
As we soar walls!
Every siren is a symphony
And every tear’s a waterfall,
It’s a waterfall!”
He led her through streets and dove into alleyways. He heard the music guiding him. Perhaps she heard it, too.
They passed colorful images painted on the walls. Apple Bloom was so excited to see color that she tried to stop them and go back, but Mylo pressed on. Suddenly they reached a crack low in the wall and stopped. Mylo reached into his suit and pulled out a key of some kind. When he clicked it into a place, a disembodied voice said, “Passcode?”
Mylo ranted off a string of strange poetry that didn’t make sense to Apple Bloom, but it worked. A door opened, and after crawling through a strange cavern she felt the unmistakable tingle of magic. They teleported, and Apple Bloom found herself in a spacious room full of books, instruments, paintings, and even a kitchen.
“Mylo!” she breathed.
He tore off his mask.
“MYLO!” a dozen or more voices shouted. Apple Bloom only got a brief look at his light yellow coat, dark purple mane, and ice blue eyes before he disappeared below a sea of hugs. Ponies without their suits came pouring out from behind the counter and among the bookshelves to tackle, touch, and hold Mylo as if they hadn’t seen him in years.
“I told you he was all right!” a blue stallion crowed from the center of the crowd. Somehow he seemed familiar to Apple Bloom.
“Charlie, this is Apple Bloom,” Mylo said as the crowd divided enough for him to see her. “She’s Macintosh’s sister.”
A gasp went through the crowd and several ponies moved to hug and console her. Some of their faces were so familiar it pained Apple Bloom not to tie a name to them. She was shocked to notice horns on many of their heads.
“What is this place?” Apple Bloom asked, accepting a hug from a mint green unicorn with golden eyes.
***
***M***
***X***
***
“We call it Neverland,” Lyra said, folding Apple Bloom’s suit into a square and placing it in a drawer behind the kitchen counter. “We’re the Lost Boys. Your brother helped found it.”
“Lost Boys? But there’re quite a few girls among ya, ain’t there?”
Lyra laughed. “It’s a reference to J. M. Brayie’s Peter Pan . Never mind that. Are you holding up all right?”
“I’m a bit confused,” Apple Bloom said, running a hoof over her thick red locks. “And it’s hard for me to believe my brother’s gone, and even moreso that he used to stay here without tellin’ me nothin’ about it.”
“That was probably to protect you,” Lyra said. “You saw what happened.”
“Only the aftermath.” She shuddered. “How did you survive?”
“I ran when Noteworthy said to run.” Lyra frowned. “I expected it all to go much differently. We all did.”
“Noteworthy.” Apple Bloom grinned. “Hey, I reckon I do remember him. Didn’t he sing with my big brother and Rarity in some fancy quartet?”
“Haha! No, that was his big brother. But I’m sure you saw Noteworthy around town.” Lyra stroked Apple Bloom’s mane as the younger mare stared at Mylo and several other ponies whispering seriously around a table by the books. “How much do you remember of Ponyville, Apple Bloom?”
“Less and less every day,” she admitted. “It scares me.”
“You have a strong mind to remember everything you do.”
“I haven’t been in Heaven quite as long as most,” she said. “When the Major started takin’ over, Big Mac and I escaped back to—”
“Fillies and gentlecolts, can I have your attention?” Noteworthy trotted to the center of the room where all the Lost Boys could see him. “I’d first like to welcome Apple Bloom, sister of the heroic Macintosh. May he and all our fallen brothers and sisters rest well, and may they not die in vain.”
Apple Bloom’s throat seemed to swell as several ponies voiced their agreement.
“We have suffered a great loss,” Noteworthy continued. “The citizens of Heaven were not ready. They did not rise with us. Major Minus sent her Angels and we were no match for their weaponry.” He cleared his throat and blinked away a frightened tear. “But we must not consider this an ultimate failure. We must learn from this and adjust our methods of rebellion. We must send a message to the Major that cannot be misunderstood.”
“So you might hurt me bad,” Mylo shouted, rearing up on his hind legs, “but still I will raise the flag!”
The Lost Boys cheered. Apple Bloom relished the chills along her spine. Something in Mylo’s sincerity made those simple words as magical as any unicorn spell.
Noteworthy continued his speech. Apple Bloom caught something about a face for the resistance, a direct competitor to the Major’s persona. But she was too fixed on Mylo—his every excited reaction to Noteworthy’s speech—to really take it what their leader was saying. Seeing him like this only deepened the unexplainable love she felt for the young stallion. She hoped that one day, somehow, Mylo might look at her the way he was looking at Noteworthy.
A louder cheer from the Lost Boys snapped her out of her trance and she joined them in a round of hoof-stomping before Noteworthy left his place centerstage. They all scurried to their own points of business then and Apple Bloom wondered if she had missed something important. She hurried across the room to where Noteworthy was talking with Mylo.
Noteworthy turned as she approached. “My dear,” he said, hugging her around the neck, “I’m so sorry for your loss. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you understand.”
“Thank you, Noteworthy,” she said.
The stallion twitched and scuffed the ground. “It’s, uh, Charlie. Charlie Brown.”
She tilted her head. “It is? But Lyra called ya—”
He growled. “Ugh, Lyra! Well, that used to be my name, but now I’m Charlie Brown. Right, Mylo?”
He grinned in Mylo’s direction and received a hearty “Right!”
Apple Bloom smiled, too. “Well, Mister Brown, how exactly am I gonna get home tonight?”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” Charlie said. “Mylo told me about how you two just ditched the factory. You’re probably wanted ponies by now. You’ll stay here with us tonight until we can find a way to… fix this.”
“Fix what?”
“Fix everything. Fix you.” Charlie smiled. “Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones, and we will try to fix you.”
Apple Bloom could only sigh happily at that. “You’ve got a peculiar way o’ speakin’, y’know that?”
“Call me an artist.” He pointed to a twisting staircase behind the bookshelves. “Anyway, if you go all the way down those stairs you’ll find a special room nopony’s using. You and Mylo can stay there tonight.”
Mylo’s neck straightened and Apple Bloom nearly lost her balance. “Mylo and me? Together?”
Charlie grinned. “Yeah. Will that be all right?”
Apple Bloom scanned Mylo’s face with wide eyes. “Uhhh… I mean, I’m okay with it, as long as… y’know, if Mylo’s not…”
“Oh, it’s fine with me.” Mylo let out a crackly giggle. “Yeah, we’ll just… get to know each other.”
Charlie nodded slowly. “Goooood.” He clicked his tongue and winked at Mylo, then hurried off to the kitchen. “I’m going to have a word with Lyra… again.”
Apple Bloom bit her lip. “Well… I’m kinda tired from all this, to be honest, so… I think I’ll head down and see what we’ve got to work with.”
“I’ll come with you,” Mylo said, moving to her side. “Charlie was right. It would be nice to… get to know you.” He gasped. “Oh, you have to tell me! How did you already know about color?”
Apple Bloom blushed as they made their way to the stairwell. “Oh, it’s just… I ain’t been in Heaven for long.”
What happened?
I thought the Saints would rise up with us. I thought we had been inspiring enough. I was wrong. Graffiti will never be enough.
How many Lost Boys escaped?
I have no idea. I guess we'll find out when we get there.
Now what do we do?
We have to start over. We can still use Neverland. That's why we fought so far away from the base. They won't find it.
What will we do there?
Gather more ponies. Teach more of them about art, about what the Major and the Alicorn are doing.
But... we already did that, didn't we? And it didn't work?
Mmmmhh... there's something missing. Something we don't have that they do. Something that makes the Saints believe they will defeat us before a battle even starts. What is it, Mylo? What do they have that we don't?
Uhh... everything.
Ha! Yeah, I guess that's true. But there's gotta be something, there's gotta be something we were missing...
Maybe a leader.
And what do you think I was doing, huh?
No, I mean a name! A face. See these posters of the Major? They're everywhere. Her M marks the whole city. Major Minus. Maybe we need a public face. A public contender to the Major.
...Mylo, that's genius. That's exactly what we need. We were just a group of naked ponies, no wonder they didn't join us. If we stand for something, if we are somepony's army, they'll rise up. Ha! Genius! Come on, Mylo, let's get back to Neverland. We need to plan this out.
But... I have to go to work! They'll --
Right, right, of course. Go on, go ahead. Meet me there tonight, I'll get started on a plan.
Charlie... I'm so sorry that --
Go, Mylo, you're right, it's nearly morning. Go home and get your suit. And keep an eye out in your factory for ponies who are different . We'll need to start recruiting all over again.
