Sing Like You Can't Be Heard

Chapters

Awakening
You Are The Best At Space
The More Pressing of Matters
Stargazing

Awakening

Your head snaps off the table in a jolt. Your eyes, wide and now very much awake, dart from side to side, taking in your surroundings. A deep, all-encompassing vibration thrums through your very being, permeating you from ears to hooves.

You look down at your recently-vacated nap spot. A puddle of liquid had congealed there, and judging by the general sticky sensation and smell around your muzzle, it had firmly attached itself to your face as well. Next to the mysterious substance is a plate bearing a half-eaten stack of pancakes, partially coated in maple syrup. Your eyes slide over the plate, taking in the rest of the table. Next to the plate was an empty, upended mug that once held black coffee—the mystery of the sticky fluid suddenly solved. Frowning, you raise your hoof to your face to poke experimentally at the clinging stuff. Some of the stickiness clings to your outstretched limb, eager to move on to new frontiers. The bitter scent of coffee beans finds its way into your nose.

The table wobbles slightly, as if some of the weight had been dispersed unevenly, and had just shifted. You look up to locate the source of the disturbance. As your eyes rise, they move over a slim, white-furred body—moving upward, resting on a pair of giant, violet, insect-like eyes staring you in the face. You yelp in surprise and fright, recoiling slightly.

Your voice cuts off as soon as it had sounded, leaving you with only bewilderment that was entirely unrelated to the giant bug in front of you. Your throat constricts, tightening as it chokes out the intonation that didn’t seem to make a sound.

The sound had left your mouth. You are sure of it—you had felt the vibration, and sensed the voice slipping off your tongue. The only problem is that the sound never reached your ears.

Your eyes focus once again on the orbs of purple, staring unblinkingly. Upon closer inspection, the “eyes” are actually a pair of familiar sunglasses, framed by a wild bush of electric blue mane. And under them, a thin-lipped mouth grins mirthfully. You breathe a deep sigh, then several more, recovering from your initial scare. You look around, taking in your location—a small, modest coffee shop that you frequent regularly, given that it’s en route to work—and therefore convenient—but also because it happened to serve the finest breakfast burritos that you had ever tasted in Ponyville.

The shades belonged to Vinyl Scratch, another consistent customer and Equestria-class club DJ.

“Miss Scratch!” Again, your words are released into the world, and again, their sound didn’t register in your mind.

The eccentric mare leans on the table with both hooves propping her smirking chin aloft. Her gleaming white coat seems to glow in the bright lighting. Her mouth is moving, forming words and throwing them at you . . . but you are lost on the meaning.

“I’m sorry, Miss Scratch, but I can’t hear you.”

Vinyl’s jaw freezes mid-word, then closes completely. Her face shifts, as though she’s squinting behind her trademark shades. One more word is spit out, and from the simple movement of her lips, you decide that the word was “What?” A single syllable conveying her apparent confusion.

“I can’t hear,” you repeat, marveling at the strangeness of the sensation; words were clearly being produced in a manner that Vinyl could understand, but you had been struck deaf. And then the magnitude of that reality sinks in—you are completely deaf. You move one of your wings close to your ear, deliberately ruffling the feathers to check if any of the sound could reach your ears. You look up, your throat tight and seemingly unable to speak. Vinyl Scratch is looking steadily at you, concern showing around her slightly downturned mouth—reading her eyes is out of the question, given their violet casings.

Vinyl begins to speak again, fruitlessly. You can only stare blankly at her. You cut in, interrupting her in the middle of a set of words. “Miss Scratch . . . you don’t know me, but why are you . . . here?” Your soundless sentence falters as you try to compose it as not to sound impolite—words had never been your strong suit. Your face reddens, realizing how foalish you had sounded.

The question had come out before you had actually considered its meaning. Why is she here? You’re nobody—one of the many waiters that staffed the Maison de Lune restaurant. Nothing special, by any means—usually overshadowed by your coworker, Symphonic Keys. You keep your head down and do your job. Nothing that would warrant any attention from DJ-Pon3, or anypony for that matter.

Vinyl Scratch looks puzzled for a moment, confused on how to communicate with a deaf stallion without intonation. Her head turns, surveying the establishment. She hails a passing waitress. She makes a simple request, pointing at the pen sticking out of the mare’s saddlebag and flashing a winning smile that only Vinyl Scratch could pull off. The waitress smiles uncertainly back, then allows the DJ to withdraw the writing utensil.

Vinyl extracts a napkin from the tray with her turquoise magic. She splays it out in front of her and begins to write. You sit silently across from her, confused and uncomfortable—you feel a strange sense of unworthiness, as though you are not important enough to even be in the presence of Vinyl Scratch.

The napkin is swiveled around and pushed in front of you so you can read it. You lower your face to try and make out the DJ’s untidy, spiky scrawl:

“Are you hearing impaired? Sorry . . . I didn’t know.”

You look up at Vinyl, whose smile has tightened significantly, uncomfortably. “It’s okay. You can call me deaf. Hearing impaired sounds so . . . I don’t know . . .” You pause, uncertain where you were going with the statement. Your voice is still nonexistent to your ears, and it is disorienting to try to talk. “Debilitating?” you finish gingerly, wondering if you had used the right word.

Across the table, Vinyl gazes solidly at you for a moment, before her mouth opens. Her figure tremors daintily, and you are left to deduct that she is laughing. She tugs the napkin out from under your hoof and begins to write again. In a matter of moments, a new message is in front of you, the previous one hastily scratched out:

“What’s your name? You remind me of somepony I know.”

You answer Vinyl’s question, not meeting her eyes. Revealing your name seems much more intimate than openly admitting that your hearing is gone—you are honored that Vinyl even cares enough to ask.

Another note.

“Nice name. Do you know Symphonic Keys?”

Your mouth tightens. Symphonic is really nothing more than an acquaintance; you work alongside him, nothing more. He’s been fun to be around, but altogether much too mysterious for your liking—he had disappeared off the face of the planet for a few months a couple weeks previous, and now returned with a whole new outlook on life and a wife, to boot. “Yeah. I know him.”

Vinyl pauses before writing down the next note. “You remind me of him.”

“Huh.” You can’t think of what to say to that. Simple onomatopoeia would have to suffice, as awkward is it might sound. You tear your eyes away from Vinyl’s face and point them out the window, focusing on something other than the beautiful mare sitting across from you. The afternoon sun was angled so that light filtered through the scratched glass, throwing perforated puddles of golden illumination on the tiled floor.

You heart skips a beat. Afternoon. Your shift started at eleven. You missed it. You’re late. Horrendously late.

“Miss Scratch . . . what time is it?”

Vinyl shrugs. Her magic lowers the pen to the napkin to jot out a quick note: “I dunno. 2 or 3 maybe?”

You stand, inadvertently knocking your chair over backward. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. Late for work.” You turn, intending to pin down the waitress and pay for the food that you didn’t remember eating. You spot her across the room, and make to go after her, but a pressure on your shoulder halts you in your tracks. Whirling, you find Vinyl smiling at you bemusedly. She holds up her hoof, as if to say, “Hold on a second.” You comply, but not completely willingly. You plant your hooves firmly on the ground and look at the DJ expectantly. She bends over, placing the heavily-graffitied napkin on the table. She flips it over, revealing a pristine white, untarnished writing surface. The pen goes to work, scrawling out rapid letters that link into words, into sentences. The pen, moving on its own, is mesmerizing; unicorn magic has always been a source of envy for you.

Vinyl withdraws, the pen dropping to the floor, and holds the note up to your face:

“Symphonic mentioned you. He said you work the same shift as he does—you don’t have work today, matey.”

Your eyes dart from the note to Vinyl’s knowing smirk, to her massive, heliotrope sunglasses. “What?”

Vinyl’s chest heaves; she sighs, apparently exhaling an exasperated laugh. The pen is lifted off the ground and dusted off. Another set of words is jotted down: “Today is Monday, right?”

“I’m not sure. Is it?”

Vinyl is getting quicker with the pen. “Yes. I’m at least eighty percent sure.”

“Oh, well . . .” You cough. “Thanks.” Your hooves unglue from the floor to shuffle awkwardly.

“If you’re so eager to get rid of me, you don’t have to stick around on my account.” Vinyl gives you the next note with an even wider grin. As an afterthought, she writes down a postscript: “I’m sure you have better things to do than to hang out with little ol’ me.”

You redden again and you force your eyes up from your hooves. “N-no! Miss Scratch, I’m not trying to . . . I mean . . . what I’m trying to say—” Your unheard stammering is cut off; Vinyl places her hoof daintily on your lips to shut you up.

“No offense taken, mate,” she writes. “I’ve overstayed my welcome. Heck, like you said . . . I don’t even know you. If it’s okay with you, I’ll be the one to take my leave.” The last words are crammed with minute penmanship in the bottom corner—Vinyl had finally exhausted her canvas of space. A sure sign that your conversation with this living legend was clearly over.

“Right,” you reply. “Well, er . . . well. It’s been . . . nice.” You inwardly cringe at the terrible structure of the sentence that you had spat out. Vinyl tremors again—more laughter. Friendly laughter, though. The same hoof that had shushed you snaps to her brow, saluting you mockingly. Unsure of what to do, you return the gesture hesitantly, which causes her to burst out in giggles again. Despite her clear knowledge of your . . . condition . . . she mouths out four words, four words whose meaning is lost on you.

You blink, and it seems like Vinyl has simply disappeared. You turn to see the tip of her violently blue tail disappear out the door, leaving you alone, looking foolish, and standing in the middle of the room with no indication that you had any more intelligence than an inbred Diamond Dog.

You arrive home and bolt the door of your apartment behind you. A heavy, cold, metal ball drops in the pit of your stomach, and you slide to the ground; your wings make no noise as they scrape along the wood of the door. The world starts to spin and you feel suddenly nauseous.

What in the name of Celestia happened?

Your hearing is gone. Completely and suddenly gone. The volume knob on the world had just been turned down to zero by some vast, unknowable entity, leaving you spinning in confusion. Your gut rolls over, uneasy.

What happened last night?

Your memory of your past life was crystalline; your foalhood is spread out in front of you in a clearly defined timeline—leading almost from birth, to where you are today. Ponies you had met, events you had attended. Lessons you had learned.

But what happened last night?

That single facet of your life seemed to be blocked, preventing you from accessing that particular memory. Had you gotten intoxicated, and somehow permanently deafened yourself? Was it a mugging? Was it a concussion, that also knocked your auditory organs loose?

Each scenario is as unlikely as the last . . . none seem plausible, but they keep coming, as if toying with you. Egging you on . . . keep trying, you may get there eventually. You shake your head, accentuating the beginnings of a headache.

The door vibrates in a quick, staccato pattern. Somepony is knocking.

You feel like screaming. The sound wouldn’t reach your ears, but an outlet of all the pent-up frustration that you had accumulated would definitely be agreeable. Unconsciously, you bang the back of your head into the wood of the door, giving you a sharp pain to worry about as well. “Coming,” you call wearily to whoever was waiting just outside the threshold.

You lean forward to free your wings. The massive blue canopies flap twice, hauling you to your hooves. Your mouth wraps around the doorknob and twists—the door pops open. Revealed, silhouetted in the afternoon light, was your long time best friend, Bon Bon. Her face sports a cheery, customary, smile, which immediately fades upon seeing your forlorn expression. Her mouth begins to move, most likely inquiring if you’re okay.

“Bon Bon,” you cut in. “I can’t hear you. I’m completely deaf.” Your words are level, not giving evidence of the tremor that permeates your entire being.

The candy-making mare stops, her mouth frozen ajar. One more word: “What?” you can lip-read easily enough.

“Come inside. I’ll get you something to write with.”

You Are The Best At Space

“So . . . you had no idea what happened?”

Even in writing, Bon Bon’s inflection and syntax were as pristine and organized as they would be in a verbal conversation—somehow, you could almost hear her voice sounding out the words, instead of reading them on a yellow notepad.

The pen that your friend had used to jot down the question dangled from her lips, swinging like a pendulum as her tongue played with the intruder in her mouth. Her cerulean eyes searched your face, psychoanalyzing your every move—a skill that you had long since learned that she was very good at. You had just finished explaining your sudden newfound condition, and how your morning had gone. Upon finishing, you marvel at the utter strangeness of the sensation—you had just spit out more than a thousand words, and heard none of them.

“No,” you reply aloud, without hearing yourself. “I woke up with my face in my breakfast, and I couldn’t hear anything. I don’t know how long I was there, or how I even got there in the first place.”

Bon Bon’s gaze leaves your face for a moment as she lowers her pen to the paper. Her mouthwriting is ornate and looping—quite the contrast to Vinyl’s carefree scribbling. You wait patiently for her to finish, fidgeting unconsciously. The pen tip pauses. Bon Bon reaches out her hoof to swivel the notepad around for you to read:

“And Vinyl Scratch was just . . . there?”

“Yeah. Scared the living Celestia out of me.”

Bon Bon laughs silently. Her layered pink and blue mane bounces as her body quakes in mirth. She clamps her teeth around the writing utensil and begins to write again:

“You were never great with mares, weren’t you?”

“Hey! I was emotionally compromised! I couldn’t . . . can’t . . . hear, in case you haven’t noticed!” Despite yourself, you smile grudgingly. It’s moments like this that make you glad that Bon Bon is your friend. Sensitive like a mother, but also patronizing like a best friend.

“Sure, sure. I suppose that you attacked the waitress as well when she tried to take your check.”

“I didn’t attack her . . . just . . . scared her a bit,” you joke feebly.

Bon Bon leans back, breathing deeply. The pen is clasped in the corner of her mouth, hanging by the clip. She blinks heavily, then begins to write again.

“I have to admit, this isn’t the best way of communicating . . .”

“Yeah. I know,” you admit. “I’ll figure something out. But for short term . . .” You look down to see Bon Bon already writing.

“Like what?” she writes.

“I dunno.” You scratch the back of your head with the sharp edge of your hoof. “Telepathy, maybe?” This causes Bon Bon to smile. The pen drops to the paper once again. Silence falls once more—deeper than before, if that was possible.

“Hate to break it to you, but you’re a pegasus. As far as I can tell, your race hasn’t mastered that particular skill yet.”

“I know. Shame on me, right? For not being born a unicorn.”

Bon Bon’s mouth starts to move, and the air around you vibrates, almost imperceptibly. Sound waves break over you, but their meaning is completely lost in the void of emptiness surrounding you. You stare at the mare helplessly, but also exasperatedly. You hold up a hoof to stop her and mouth out the words, “I can’t hear you” with big, exaggerated lip movements, mocking her.

Bon Bon stops, stares, then bursts out laughing. Chuckling silently, she picks up her writing utensil once again. She tears off the heavily-inked top sheet to reveal an unmarked canvas below. Two words are scrawled down, the style slightly shaky because of the writer’s giggling lips.

“Sorry. Forgot.”

“It’s alright.”

A poignant pause.

“What are you going to do for work now?”

With a sharp jolt, your heart drops to the deepest pit in your stomach, causing your whole body to lurch unpleasantly. You hadn’t thought of that. You can’t very well carry on being a waiter—that job tends to require some use of your ears. Your throat constricts. “I don’t know,” you intone helplessly. The wooden surface of your coffee table suddenly seems irresistible for your eyes. They dart back and forth, mindlessly tracing every minute groove and imperfection, just to give them something else to do—to avoid Bon Bon’s face. You wouldn’t be able to bear the sympathetic simper.

You feel a gentle prodding on your shoulder. Reluctantly, you look up to meet Bon Bon’s gaze. Surprisingly, her expression is not of sympathy, or even empathy. She beams toothily, with wide, hopeful eyes. She points down at the notepad, where she had written down a new message:

“You could always work with me.”

Bon Bon works as a candy maker in a small, out of the way shop on the outskirts of Ponyville. The front door lets off a consistent cloud of cinnamon- and cocoa-scented air with a radius of at least a hundred yards, hopelessly intoxicating all passersby. Before, even if you didn’t have a reason to see her, you would always make a point to visit, at least once a day, just for the smell. Despite the inconvenient location, business is good—Bon Bon’s chocolates are worth the walk.

“Really?” you ask, hopeful, but also wary. “Wouldn’t that hurt your business?”

Bon Bon is apparently growing tired of crafting elaborate sentences for you; her next response is a two-word question: “How so?”

“Well, I mean . . .” you cough uncomfortably. “I’d need to be paid, Bon Bon.”

“Yeah. I thought of that. So?”

“Can you spare the money?”

“Of course.”

“Are you sure?”

Bon Bon pauses before replying. “Yes.”

“What would I do?”

“This and that. Make chocolate, and such.”

On an impulse, you stand. You lean forward and wrap a hoof around Bon Bon’s neck in a hug. She looks frightened at your sudden movement, but relaxes once she realizes that she isn’t being attacked. Daintily, awkwardly, she pats you on the back.

After a moment, you withdraw. “Sorry,” you say sheepishly.

In the commotion, the notepad had been knocked to the floor. Bon Bon stares at it disdainfully for a second, and decides against leaning over to pick it up. Instead, she looks you in the eye and smiles condolingly, as if to say, “It’s okay.”

“Thanks.”

In response, Bon Bon shrugs noncommittally. Don’t worry about it. She reaches down to clamp the notepad in between her teeth. She sets it down gently on the coffee table and picks up the pen. “I should get going. Got to prepare the shop for a new employee.”

Excited, you stand. “Let’s go, then.”

Bon Bon places a hoof on your shoulder and forces you back down. She points at your chest, then at the ground. She stares piercingly, waiting for you to comprehend the makeshift sign language.

“What?” you inquire.

“You stay here. Take a day off,” Bon Bon writes.

“What? No! I’m ready to work!”

“Take. A. Day. Off.”

You look up from the notepad to meet Bon Bon’s face. She stares intensely at you, leaving no margin for any counterargument. You swallow. “What are you going to do?” you ask.

“Make some preparations. You keep yourself occupied for a while, OK?”

“Fine.”

“Good. See you later.”

The notepad falls to the table, Bon Bon’s pen resting neatly next to it. The mare’s messages reached down past halfway—you would quickly run out of paper if this was your only method of communication.

The candy maker exits, shutting the door behind her. You imagine the snap of the latch closing, since imagination is the only way that you can experience sound now.

Now, to find something to keep you entertained.

You need somewhere to clear your thoughts.

Preferably somewhere where any interruptions would be unlikely. Serenity and isolation is your wont, and you have just the place to accommodate both of those desires. Your canvas, on which you can craft whatever reality you put your mind to.

Unicorns and earth ponies think that they understand peace. Symphonic Keys always used to go into that calming meditative state that always freaked you out—his eyes glowed bright white and everything in the room was blown about in a flurry. He said that it was relaxing, but to you, it always appeared that he came out more stressed than he was when he entered his . . . state.

Pegasi don’t—can’t—rely on ritualized trances in order to relax. To think. To escape.

Their territory is the wide open canopy of Celestia’s beautiful sky. An everlasting landscape of open blue space, with no one to share it with besides the birds. Alone with only their thoughts, and the wind whistling through their manes. Nothing has ever been so therapeutic, and simultaneously, exhilarating. The ground walkers aren’t familiar with this kind of absolute freedom—pegasi are governed by higher laws than any monarchy can enforce.

You lazily drift upward, your wings beating in a steady rhythm, carrying you gradually closer and closer to that celestial body hanging in the sky. Normally, the wind would snap at your ears, making the only sound you hear the deafening cacophony of nature. The sheer force of the world beating down on you relentlessly. However, this part of the experience is now taken from you, completing the absolute serenity of the experience, but also leaving you with a melancholy feeling of emptiness.

You reach cruising altitude and level out, only flapping occasionally to maintain your height. It doesn’t take much effort to come to a complete halt in midair. Angling your wings to catch an oncoming breeze, you allow it to spin you in a circle. The world quite literally revolves around you—clouds whip across your vision, and the sun twirls overhead.

The world slows as your rotation peters out. The motion blur fades, and the land below regains its focus. Hills and buildings slide back into place.

Your lungs heave. The altitude isn’t high enough for the oxygen to be sufficiently depleted as to make breath difficult, but you still find it hard to take in air. Exhilaration shoots adrenaline through your veins, appearing to slow down time and putting your body in overdrive. Several times per second, your heart throbs, vibrating your very being and pulsing blood throughout your system.

The sky is spread out above you, a pale blue sheet that lasts on forever.

The sun beats down, warming you to the core and rejuvenating your senses. Your wings begin to flap again, in earnest. They carry you vertically, climbing determinedly higher and higher. Your breath comes in short spurts, matching your wings beat for beat. You gain speed. Wind whips against your face, flattening your ears and mane against your head in a skin-tight helmet. Your eyes begin to water at the speed; tears detach from your face and instantly disappear into the sky.

Your fur stands on end as the air starts to get colder. It isn’t uncomfortable by any means—pegasi are born with a natural resistance to coldness. It would have to be at least a hundred degrees below zero in order for one to start to feel a bit chilly, and it would have to go another two hundred below that to cause any serious damage.

Above you, the sky darkens, showing a hint of the blackness of space above the atmosphere. Clenching your teeth, you pour more speed into your ascent. Your wing muscles begin to burn from exertion—your upward propulsion is hindered by the lack of air to gain purchase on, requiring you to redouble your efforts in order to stay in the sky.

You draw in as much oxygen as possible and store it in a secluded sac in your lungs, a special evolutionary advantage granted only to pegasi. It allows them to conserve air for later, feeding off of their reserves for up to ten minutes at a time. You take another breath, but don’t exhale. Inside, you feel your lungs bulge.

Ice forms on your extremities. Your wing tips are suddenly weighed down by solidified moisture, and your joints cry out in agony.

Why am I doing this? you think to yourself. Did deafness give me a death wish?

Atmospheric pressure closes in around you, popping your ears and adding another item to your steadily-growing list of pains. Invisible force encloses you, constricting your chest and forcing your last breath out of your mouth.

You force yourself upward.

The pain doubles, and, just as quickly, triples. Prismatic points of light whirl across your vision. Your thought processes all but shut down—you’re not sure where you are, who you are, or even if you are. Or why you’re in this situation, but you do know that you need to keep going. Why? Who cares? Who could possibly need a reason at this point?

Consciousness begins to leave you, and whatever intelligence you still hold on to breaks into panic. Your wings snap to your sides, frozen to the bone, but your velocity still carries you up. Sheer agony cries out from across your whole body, and you open your mouth in a silent scream; you’re not sure if any sound even left your mouth, but it felt necessary to release some of that pent-up force.

And suddenly, you feel nothing at all.

No more pain, no more panic. A little cold and a little breathless, but otherwise okay. Your wings aren’t moving. And yet you’re still floating, bobbing gently along on . . . nothing. Your eyes creak open, gummed together by frozen tears.

No air. You panic for a moment, opening your mouth desperately to try and draw in that precious oxygen. Just as quickly, your instincts clamp it shut once more, and begin to feed your starving brain the air from your reserves. Once you’ve calmed yourself, you look around.

Impenetrable blackness surrounds you, dotted by countless tiny pinpricks of light. Stars. Space.

If you had been capable, you would have laughed gleefully. You had heard fairytales since you were a very young colt, about brave pegasus ponies who flew into space and back, returning with fantastic tales of planets and alien ponies.

You turn in a sluggish circle. No aliens, unfortunately.

A childish grin breaks across your face, despite the lack of extraterrestrials. You’re in space.

And it’s really cold.

You look down. Or, what you perceive to be down, at any rate. Below you is a planet. Wide, green and blue, lasting on forever. Home. Somehow, you needed to get down there. Otherwise, you’ll either suffocate, or freeze to death. Maybe even both. You take a second to contemplate that—would it even be possible to die of both causes simultaneously?

You angle yourself downwards, pointing your nose at the planet surface. At the same time, your wings crack open the thin layer of ice that had restricted them, and spread out to their full glory. Experimentally, you give them a weak flap. As a result, you pulse forward several yards, and continue to drift aimlessly in that direction.

The muscles around your wings are still aching, but flying in space is a hell of a lot easier than having to deal with gravity. You begin to fly in earnest, gaining speed quickly, going faster than you would have thought possible. As a streamlined blur, you plunge back down to the planet surface.

Red fills your vision. The cold is gone—the space surrounding you is now uncomfortably warm. A hot blanket envelops you, hindering your progress, but at the same time, egging you on. You take it gladly, gaining—if possible—more speed.

And suddenly, you’re falling.

And you can breathe again.

Gravity latches on to you and pulls you down relentlessly. The air warms as you grow closer and closer to the ground—tiny civilizations start to appear. Ponyville had to be one of them, so now it’s just a matter of finding home again. You draw your wings close to your sides to maximize your speed of descent, ignoring the g-force tugging at your skin, threatening to tear it off.

The ground is closer now; you can make out individual buildings and landmarks.

The good news was that you were actually aimed for Ponyville. The bad news was that you seemed to have no intention of slowing down.

The buildings grow larger. Closer and closer, until you can discern the individual strands on the thatched roofs.

Without a second to spare, your wings snap out and lock; catching a vicious updraft that almost rips the appendages off. Instantly, you level out, careening over the Ponyville as a blueish streak. A mixture of tears and spittle flies off of you in all directions, creating a liquid funnel that follows in your wake, and likely dusts the ponies below.

Just as quickly as you had entered Ponyville, you exit, crossing the town border at roughly four billion miles-per-hour, judging by your internal speedometer.

In a weak attempt to put on the breaks, you force your aching wings to point outward, catching the air and slowing your progress marginally. The force of the passing air bends them backward most uncomfortably, but you sense that the effort wasn’t in vain.

Because of that action, you don’t break every bone in your body when you hit the tree.

You spit out a bushel of leaves. Every inch of you is on fire, but it’s a good kind of fire. The fire that one gets after an adrenaline rush, allowing you to ignore the laceration of a botched reentry into atmosphere. Plus the hundreds of tiny twigs that now found purchase in your various fleshy areas, each bringing with it a tiny, stabbing irritation. And to top it off, you’re soaked with your own saliva.

Despite your afflictions, you’re still grinning from ear to ear.

You were just in space. Top that, Rainbow Dash.

An hour later, after you had gone home and showered thoroughly, you found yourself at Bon Bon’s establishment, Royalty Chocolates. The familiar scent of chocolate and happiness incarnate permeated the air, instantly dulling your senses to a stupor; you wonder how Bon Bon could work here and still focus on her job. The mare in question was surprised, and a little annoyed, to see you. It had taken her but a moment to locate a pad and paper.

“So, what have you been up to?” she writes.

“Nothing much,” you reply, sliding into a booth. “Just gone to space and back. No biggie.”

Bon Bon sits down across from you, setting down the pad and lowering her head to resume writing. She grins as she swivels the paper around for you to see. “That’s nice. Funny you should mention that.”

“Yeah?”

“About an hour ago, Rainbow Dash just made her maiden voyage into space, just over the Everfree.”

“What?” You sit up straight, drooping eyes suddenly wide and alert.

“She made her reentry with a Sonic Rainboom. It was really spectacular . . . you should have seen it. Everypony was there.”

“What.”

“Weren’t you wondering where everypony was? I mean, it’s not every day that you see a pony fly out into space. Where have you actually been?”

You sigh, leaning back and closing your eyes. “Just went out for a walk. Nothing special.”

Top that, Rainbow Dash.

The More Pressing of Matters

Once your day of recuperation is done with, Bon Bon doesn’t hesitate to put your nose to the grindstone.

With minimal breaks, you’re lugging around heavy bags of flour, stirring a bowls of liquid chocolate with a spoon as long as your leg, navigating the horrendously-cluttered pantry to find obscure-sounding ingredients, and performing a bounty of other tasks that are far out of your comfort zone.

By noon, you’re thoroughly dusted with flour, cocoa powder, and cinnamon. Your limbs are aching from the exertion; your mind once again longs wistfully for unicorn magic, anything to lighten the load. You can’t recall any other point in your short life when you had pushed yourself this hard—the trip into space now seems like a cakewalk compared to this. Your “promotion” has thrown into sharp relief how out of shape you actually are.

Still, you can’t seem to wipe a goofy smile off of your face. Waiting tables was a fine job and all, but it rapidly grew monotonous. It was fairly decent pay, and didn’t require many prerequisites in order to obtain the position, but it just got dull. One of the only reasons you stayed on was because of Symphonic Keys, and the counterbalance he provided.

But with your new position, you don’t catch yourself clockwatching.

The work is enjoyable, if a bit strenuous. Your only coworker is witty and pleasant, if a bit demanding. The pay takes a backburner—you come to work for the fun of it.

You wipe your brow, dragging your foreleg across your damp fur, combatting the sweat that had started to creep down into your eyes.

In front of your face, a pale yellow note is stuck on the metal message board, trapped in place by a small magnet in the shape of a wrapped chocolate. The penmanship is loopy and ornate, and imprinted using a lavender tinted pen. Before actually taking an effort to decipher the letters thereupon, you lean forward and take a deep whiff of the odor coming off of the note, or more specifically, the writing. Your nostrils are filled with the powerful scent of the lavender ink, made to smell like the flower whose color it imitates. It can’t compare to the real thing—the scientist behind the engineering couldn’t quite match that particular odor—but it’s still relaxing.

You lean back, your eyes slightly crossed from the powerful smell. The world is fuzzy; everything is just the tiniest bit out of focus—you wonder if this is what it would be like to be taking hallucinogens. You shake your head, which only makes your eyesight shakier—you really need to stop inhaling that stuff. Your brain cells are practically crying out for your cessation.

The note reemerges on your field of vision, split into two separate planes that never seem to align properly. Frustrated now, you exert your full attention on that object, willing it to become legible.

The note complies. The two, slightly-transparent planes slide into focus, combining with each other to make the final product.

Back in a bit. Could you have a couple of cups of tea ready when I get back?

Lyra’s coming over. Thanks!

- B B

B B as in Bon Bon. You mentally shake yourself—you had gone through such an ordeal in order to read the simple message. Then you laugh, silently berating yourself for making as big of a deal as you had over the gimmicky little scented pen. You clasp the note between your teeth and gently tug it off the magnet board, then impale it on the small spike resting on the counter, the spike poking neatly through the “o” in “couple”. It takes its place on top of a growing pile of receipts.

You allow yourself to go on autopilot, preparing the tea, allowing your mind to focus on more pressing matters.

Your thoughts are initially locked on your new career and the benefits it could bring, but periodically drift further and further away from what you were previously contemplating, causing you to pause and try to remember your train of thought for minutes at a time. At some points, you are so dangerously distracted by your active consciousness, that you nearly burn yourself on the hot teapot that you’re so haphazardly handling.

Eventually, you give up on trying to hold on to a specific thought and let your mind wander freely.

But now that you’ve permitted yourself to lose focus, it’s impossible for your mind to come up with the whimsical distractions that it was so good at producing before. Exasperatedly frustrated, you decide to place your finicky attention on the tea, given that your lapse in concentration had led to a painful red burn on your foreleg. Cursing the teapot for being so infernally warm, you grip the quickly-cooling handle with your jaw and move the container to a silver serving tray—the weight of the object in your mouth shifts with the very mobile liquid inside.

You place the teapot down on the serving tray, happy to be rid of it, and move to the cupboard to retrieve some cups. The small, porcelain objects are stacked neatly on the shelf. Gingerly, you grasp them one at a time, and transfer them to the tray.

Somepony taps you on the shoulder.

Luckily, you had just set down the cup that you had been carrying. Otherwise, it would have dropped from your gaping mouth and shattered, and it’s a guaranteed fact that Bon Bon would not be thrilled about the mess.

Even so, against your will, your mouth lets out an unbecoming yelp.

Behind you, quaking with mirth, is a turquoise unicorn with a minty green mane and lyre cutie mark. Lyra Heartstrings, a longtime friend of Bon Bon’s. She waves jovially, grinning a wide, toothy smile. At her side, Bon Bon smiles pleasantly, amused by her friend’s hijinks.

“Thanks, Lyra,” you say feebly. “As if my heart wasn’t already close enough to exploding as it is.”

Lyra, evidently uninformed about your new state of hearing, begins to mouth out a series of words, to which you can only stare helplessly. Bon Bon let’s her go for a full sentence, then taps her on the shoulder and whispers into her ear—a useless gesture, since you wouldn’t have been able to hear her even if she had screamed it. Lyra’s eyes widen and her mouth falls slack—the perfect comical model for utter bewilderment. The sight causes you to smile, but with little mirth.

You pick up the tea tray, leaning back to counterbalance the weight of the heavy liquid. After making absolutely sure that all the objects on the tray weren’t about to make a wild leap for freedom, you carry it out of the room. Lyra continues to stare after you, dumbfounded.

Bon Bon follows you out, and you remark to her, “Lyra isn’t taking this quite as well as you did.” The mare shrugs noncommittally, since she doesn’t have her pen and pad with her. You are getting better at interpreting gestures, but this one is more open-ended then most of Bon Bon’s others.

Lyra emerges from the back room slowly, her eyes now narrowed to suspicious slits. She advances on you, sticks her face uncomfortably close to yours. You can make out the individual strands of mint-colored hair in her mane and the slight sheen of perspiration on her upper lip. “Problem?” you inquire, moving your mouth as little as possible.

The unicorn backs away, still studying your face intently for some unknown anomaly.

“Guys. This conversation is feeling really one-sided.”

Bon Bon reaches into her saddlebag and roots around for her channel of communication: her notepad. With a sort of triumph, she clicks the end of her pen to expose the nub. Black ink is spread across the blank page in thin lines.

She writes, “Funny joke, mister.”

“I’ll take my shots when I can,” you reply, shrugging. You nod in Lyra’s general direction. “You want to give Lyra a go? She seems to have a few things to say.”

“Sure.” Bon Bon jabs a period after the word, and passes the paper to the minty unicorn. Lyra’s horn ignites to accept it, not looking at it immediately, since her eyes are still firmly locked on you. She takes the pen as well, the small object popping out of Bon Bon’s mouth and zooming across the room in a small black streak. Lyra presses the pad against the wall to give her a solid surface on which to write on and presses the pen against the paper. She deliberates for a moment, then starts to write. You observe her penmanship, noting that it seems very similar to Bon Bon’s, but only slightly less meticulous. Same wide, looping letters; same minute tilting to the right.

Lyra finishes writing, and holds the pad vertically for you to read. The message thereupon reads: “Have you seen a doctor yet?”

You shrug. “No. I haven’t figured that I needed to.” You gesture at the tea set that you had worked so hard to produce. “Would you like to sit down?”

Lyra complies, sliding into the booth and scooting right up next to the wall. Bon Bon follows her, eyeing Lyra’s strange manner of sitting and shaking her head. You sit opposite the two mares, and plant your elbows on the table, looking at Lyra expectantly. She frowns disapprovingly, and lowers pen to paper again. You wait patiently, apprehensive of what venom could be forthcoming. She swivels the pad around, the words becoming legible once right side up.

“I really think you should. It may not be permanent. You never know, and it doesn’t hurt to check.”

“It’s permanent,” you say resignedly, a hard edge on your voice. “I don’t know how I know. . .” You hold up a hoof to stop Lyra—she had already begun to write again. “It just feels like this isn’t going to go away. Gut instinct, you know?”

Both Lyra and Bon Bon shake their heads in unison.

“Well, that’s just what I think. I’ll go see a professional, though, if it it’d make you feel better.”

Lyra crosses out what she had written previously, and wrote a simple word instead. Even upside-down, you can see that the word is “thanks”. You nod, a quick head bob that shows that you understand.

Bon Bon tugs the notepad out of Lyra’s grasp. “What now?” she writes.

“I dunno. What do you want to talk about?”

“A better method of communication?” Bon Bon suggests.

“Okay. Shoot,” you prompt.

Lyra jumps into the conversation, her magic pulling the notepad away from Bon Bon. She starts to write furiously, excitement showing on her face. You sit back, once again apprehensive.

“Have you heard of sign language?” she writes.

“No.”

Lyra’s nose is almost touching the table, so intently is she writing. “Well, it’s something that deaf humans used to communicate. They make shapes and movements with their hands to represent words.”

Bon Bon, who is reading over Lyra’s shoulder as she writes, buries her head in her hooves at the mention of the word “humans”. You laugh weakly. “Lyra?” you say. “I don’t have hands.”

“I know that.”

“Also, humans aren’t real.”

“Yes, they are.”

“No, I’m pretty sure they aren’t, but let’s not get into this argument right now, aye?”

Lyra nods reluctantly, now quite ready to let the subject go.

“I don’t really like the idea of sign language. Sorry, Lyra, but I just don’t think it’d work. I mean. . .” You look down at your hooves. “I mean, how could I walk if I’m using these to talk at the same time?”

Lyra, for the first time since you’ve known her, seems to be at a loss for words. Not necessarily distraught, but puzzled. Interestingly enough, she doesn’t seem too concerned about the issue of communication—her face suggests that she’s thinking more about the big picture of it all.

Why the deafness?

You sorely wish that you had an answer for her.

Stargazing

“So, what did the doctor say?”

Bon Bon has the note ready, pinned in place by the same chocolate-shaped magnet upon your arrival. Having read it with a glance, you grip the piece of paper between your teeth and tear it down, then turn to impale it on the receipt spike. Under a few slips of paper bearing customers’ orders, Bon Bon’s previous message still rests, and her new one takes its place on top.

You sense, rather than hear, the traffic coming from the other room; Bon Bon’s establishment is clearly experiencing some heavy business, and the mare herself will be swamped with orders. No rest for the wicked, you think, smiling to yourself.

Your eyes find the clock on the wall above the back door. It’s only minutes before closing time. When Bon Bon will usher out all the bloated dessert-eaters and be free to talk to. In anticipation, you slide a chair out from under the table in the break room and sit, relishing the sensation of something solid supporting your weight after walking about a mile and a half to the doctor’s office. You had walked—as opposed to flying—because your wings are still stiff from your recent dabbling in space travel. A mistake, perhaps, given that your hooves now feel as sore as your wings. You place your head on your crossed forelegs, closing your eyes.

The energy around you shifts.

You can’t think of a viable way to explain the sensation, but it signals that a dozen or so customers are being herded out the door. It may be the vibrations caused by all the sudden movement, but to you, it’s much deeper than that. A sixth sense, maybe. Your heart thrums, pounding a little faster than before.

Mustering up enough power to complete the endeavor, you raise your head an inch or two, opening bleary eyes to survey your surroundings.

And you nearly jump out of your skin.

Bon Bon is now sitting across from you, smiling expectantly. Her ever-present pad of paper is in front of you, a single word taking up most of the top page:

“So?”

You frown, looking down at your faintly-trembling hoof. Possibly the most difficult thing about having been struck deaf is the fast that anyone can sneak up on you almost effortlessly. Your heart is adapting to the new situation, and no longer jumps quite as violently as it had before, but you have no desire to speed up the process. You cough into the raised hoof to excuse the gesture. When you finally respond, you don’t quite look Bon Bon in the eye.

“Nothing appeared to be wrong. He said that I should be hearing just fine. Physically . . .” You lower your head back down onto your forelegs. “everything is just fine.”

You tilt your head to the side so you can still see Bon Bon, but allow one eye to lazily drift shut. Across the table, the candy maker is scrawling out a message for you, her mouth twisting the pen with dexterity that you could never match. You wait for her thoughts to conclude, your still-open eye drifting in and out of focus as the seconds pass.

After what you perceive to be an eternity, Bon Bon turns the paper for you to see:

“Then what do you think happened? Before you woke up with your face in your breakfast.”

“Heck if I know. Maybe it’s not the ears. Maybe it’s a mental problem I’ve got. Sounds just not registering or something.”

“Is that possible?” The dot at the bottom of the question mark is placed so fiercely, that it punctures a neat hole in the page. Bon Bon looks interestingly venomous—her teeth are clenched behind pursed lips for some reason. You’re far too tired to question why.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Even without hearing them, you can tell that your words are slurred. Sleep would be nice. Yes, sleep would be most agreeable. Your single open eye locks on to the mare in front of you, retaining enough focus to make out her features. Bon Bon sits stoically, statuelike. Her jaw is visibly set. “You okay?” you inquire blearily.

Bon Bon starts, looking around confusedly as though just snapping out of a daze. Her eyes find your partially-hidden face, and she smiles at the comical stretching of your features that you had unintentionally brought about. Instead of responding on paper, she simply nods twice.

“Your face says yes, but . . .” You leave the sentence hanging.

Bon Bon shrugs. Her somewhat-forced smile is plastered to her face, but her eyes still hold a sad undertone.

“Mmm,” you mumble. You shift your head to push your eyes into your forelegs, relishing the pressure against your gelatinous orbs. You feel Bon Bon’s eyes on the back of your head, but do nothing to acknowledge that you still know she’s there. Once satisfied that she’s not going to interrupt any more, you allow your consciousness to start to slip from you. Thoughts become jumbled as your rational mind ceases to control your mental facilities, heralding the way to the nonsensical land of dreams. Colors have more vibrancy, movements seem to be blurred. You’re not sure if the action carries over to the physical world, but your mind tells your mouth to smile.

Before you drift off completely, you register the table shifting—Bon Bon getting up to leave. You let her go unimpeded; weariness prevents you from even trying to give her a farewell. Sleep. Yes, sleep would be most desirable.

An empty field.

Rolling undulations of grass pulsate in a light breeze, waving in a mesmerizing, many-headed host. Above your head, cottony white clouds dart across the sky as though driven by gale force winds, every now and then passing above the fully-risen moon. Milky light spills out from under the clouds, pooling in splotchy patches on the carpet of grass.

Individual strands of grass brush against your legs, faintly tickling your skin. Your hairs stand on end as a particularly cold breath of air moves across your back. A faint, nature-y scent finds its way into your nose. The sensations are very much real.

This is a dream, you tell yourself. You’re not sure how you know, but you somehow are certain that this isn’t reality.

Given this realization, an excited rush pulses through your veins. You had never been able to muster up a lucid dream—the prospect had always been intimidating for you to try. But now that you’ve inadvertently stumbled into one, you’re itching to explore the possibilities.

You look down at your hooves. They seem realistic enough to be real life, but something is a little bit off. Something almost imperceptible, just incorrect enough to allow you to peg this down as a dream. You try to lift a leg. Unexpectedly, it doesn’t budge—the entire limb seems to be frozen in place, firmly planted on the ground with no intention of removing itself from that spot. Frowning now, you try to move each of your others, each to no avail. You’re trapped in place.

But this doesn’t make any sense, you reason fruitlessly with yourself. This is my dream, and I’m allowed to do whatever I want with it.

The laws of the universe are not on your side, and refuse to listen to your reasoning. Whatever is holding this dream together clearly doesn’t want you moving about.

The wind ruffles about your ears, whistling softly.

You look skyward again. Above, the clouds had parted, revealing a deep blue sky. But with no stars. The only source of illumination is the moon, the pearly white orb hanging above your head. The same giant canvas, but without the periodic points of light. You twist around, bending as far back as you can despite your immobile legs. Nothing. A whole lot of nothing stares back at you.

Light catches your eye, but not emanating from the sky. A miniscule blaze shines from across the plain, resting just on the horizon line. Silhouetted by the shine, a figure stands motionless. The pony is taller than most and has wings—two wide appendages extending out from both sides of its body. It’s too dark for you to make out any features, but something about this pony radiates authority, and you have to fight back the urge to fall to the ground in a bow.

Your tongue, which had been glued to the roof of your mouth until this point, unrolls. You open your mouth hesitantly, then call out.

“Who are you?”

Your voice rings out, echoing once, twice, endlessly until it fades to obscurity.

Not altogether unsurprisingly, the pony doesn’t respond to your inquiry. It continues to stare wordlessly at nothing, its mane undulating gently in the wind. It turns its head slightly, and you can see that the figure has a long unicorn’s horn to go along with its wings.

You take a deep breath, and then try again.

“Who are you?”

This time, the pony’s head slowly turns back to you. After staring for a moment, it raises its chin, looking straight up and supposedly indicating for you to do the same. You comply, turning your own gaze skyward.

Stars, seven of them now, had appeared in the sky, arranged in a pattern that is entirely familiar to you.

On your flank, your cutie mark shines bright white against the surrounding blue. Seven points of light that match exactly to the corresponding stars in the sky, connected by thin white lines to form the vague shape of an eagle.

Aquila. The eagle. The constellation that had materialized on your body when you had discovered your prowess for flight.

You look back down, allowing your eyes to find the mysterious pony. Seven afterimages are burned into your vision. The pony simply nods once, then turns to leave. As it descends below the horizon, you shout after it:

“Wait!”

It doesn’t stop, or even acknowledge your exclamation. It disappears slowly, fluidly, leaving you alone once more. Your throat constricts, halting all the words you wanted to scream after the pony. At the same time, though, your muscles loosen and you fall forward. Your legs are no longer glued to the ground. You taste grass on your tongue.

Out of the silence, a voice sounds. Soft and feminine, but also hard and commanding. A voice of uttermost authority.

“You’ve done well, but you haven’t finished, my friend.”

It booms from all around you, with no discernible source. Then silence. Hesitantly, you ask for clarification. “What?”

There is no immediate answer. The owner of the voice seems to be deliberating, as if wondering what to say. The echo from its previous statement still rings faintly in your ears and you shake your head to clear it.

Minutes pass slowly. You don’t dare to try saying anything. Your hooves aren’t stuck to the ground anymore, but they might as well have been—you haven’t moved a muscle since the last statement, for fear that it might interrupt this event.

Finally, the same voice rings out again.

“I admire your adaptability, but I wish to see if you can take this further. Take life by the reigns.”

“I don’t understand,” you reply, shouting, because it feels like the right thing to do.

“You will.” The response comes immediately this time.

“What?”

“Shut up.”

You do a double take, blinking rapidly in confusion. “Uh . . .”

“No. Shut up. Go now.”

The sudden change of syntax is so unexpected and comical that you feel like laughing. But before you can act on that whim, the world starts to fade, wiping away like paint under water. The vibrant colors that you had so enjoyed disappear, replaced by impenetrable tenebrosity. Desperately, you look skyward once more.

Inky blackness moves rampant across the sky. The last thing you see before the darkness takes over the world is Aquila, the seven-starred constellation.

Your face pops off the table, your eyes wide and all tiredness erased.

Touching your face, you can tell that your forelegs left two parallel imprints across your facial features. You take a moment to clear your vision—the fuzz that clouds your sight takes a while to clear. But when the world regains its clarity, the first thing you see is the back side of Bon Bon. The mare is facing away from you, bent over the sink and presumably doing dishes, judging by the tiny soap bubbles that cloud around her.

“How long was I out?” you inquire. Despite having just been woken from a very deep sleep, you think that your voice came out sounding level and clear.

Bon Bon turns. She’s wearing her powder blue and pink apron, emblazoned with a triplet of chocolates that match her cutie mark. She looks around, holding up a hoof to say,” Just a sec’.” She spots what she’s looking for—the notepad—and pulls her pen out of the apron’s front pocket. You stand and walk over to where she stands, leaning over her shoulder to see what she’s writing:

“About 10 min, actually.”

You lean back, smiling. “Really?”

Bon Bon nods.

“Deep sleep then. It felt like a lot longer.”

Hesitantly, she nods again; her head bobs like it’s on a spring.

You fall silent. The voice in your dream had wanted you to go further, and you refuse to accept that it was just a dream. There was clearly something more to it than that.

“Bon Bon?”

The mare cocks her head to the side slightly. It’s cute, the bemused expression on her face combined with the little tilt.

“Are you busy?”

Almost instantly, she shakes her head.

“Okay . . .” You rub your face, and then use the same hoof to tousle your mane. “I want you to talk to me. No . . .” you interject, when she reaches for the notepad, no doubt to protest that you wouldn’t be able to hear her. “Just . . . talk to me.”

Bon Bon, looking thoroughly confused now, reluctantly complies. Her mouth shapes out a single word—it’s easy enough to interpret. The word is “Why?”

“Because I need a better way of talking to you. This’ll probably take a few days, and I’ll need a lot of help, but I want to learn how to lip read. I’m sick of having you write out everything if you want to say something to me.”

Bon Bon slowly breaks into a grin. She spits the pen out of her mouth. Her mouth moves once more, and you are able to catch the meaning again:

“Okay.”