Chapter Twelve: The Pendant's Magic
As the months passed, Fizzy, Galaxy, Shady, Gusty, Sweet Stuff, and I gradually discerned what the Moochick and Chichi were too kind to tell us, that we faced the very real possibility that we would not be able to return to Paradise Estate, Megan, and the others. During one of our discussions of the matter, Galaxy pointed out the oddity of the situation: we could not return to home as we knew it, yet in a sense, we already were home, and had been since the mirrors of Tambelon brought us here.
In Bowtie, Twilight, Firefly and the ponies who call this Dream Valley home, I glimpsed reflections of my sorrow, beginning with their return to Dream Castle. The sight of the ruins stunned them. Thereafter, the ponies debated starting over nearer the Mushromp or even living in the caves west of Dream Castle. There was talk of rebuilding the castle, but the ponies always spoke of the undertaking as a project for the distant future.
To keep busy, I helped organize the Moochick's library. Among the spellbooks and journals, I discovered many storybooks. I spent several afternoons reading them in the hope of cheering up. However, even the most heroic figures of legend seemed as caricatures of lofty nobility, the result of selective remembering. They never complained or felt uncertain. In anger, I shut the books and sought to lose myself in a long flight. However, flying invited its own reflections. I began to fear that my memories of Dream Valley were as biased as the storybooks I had just run away from. Furthermore, suppose Tambelon's invasion attempt had ravaged my home as Tirec and his minions had desecrated this realm? Just what would we six wanderers return home to?
One day as I moped about the Mushromp, too dejected even to fly, Chichi came dashing out of the main house. With one hand, she held a bunch of her skirt to keep from tripping. Her other thin arm crushed an immense book against her ribs.
"Paradise!" she called, swaying somewhat from her lack of balance.
I eyed her with sullen curiosity.
"Oh good, you do have it," Chichi said breathlessly. "I thought if you could get Moochie's library spic-n-span, we'd find one!"
"Find what?"
"A book that goes with your pendant! Now you can finally write your account!"
Curiosity's tiny flame ignited, and the gray clouds of my gloom drew back just perceptibly.
"Here." Chichi placed the book under a tall mushroom and beckoned to me. "It's a beautiful day to be outdoors and compose a long-awaited story."
She was right. Opal-hued clouds filled the sky like the scales of an immense fish swimming through the endless blue. The breeze whispered of autumn, promises of golden afternoons and long shadows. I settled down atop the grass and flipped open to the book's first page. "How does it work?" I asked Chichi.
"Just remember all that happened when you found the pendant, and it will compose for you from that point onward according to your memories. Since you like stories, you will probably find the account told in a remarkable voice." Chichi smiled sheepishly. "Whenever I keep logs this way, the tone is always very dry. But I suppose that is to be expected. Academia is rarely electrifying, and I've been part of magical universities for decades now. If you are comfortable with it, one day, I would be very interested in reading what you have written."
"Perhaps," I ventured. I had never been shy telling stories, but writing one was entirely different, especially since I was the main character. How many of my thoughts would be laid bare? How many moments of stupidity or cowardice? And most of all…how many regrets that no one else would understand? "Do you suppose the pendant could go farther back than when I found it?" I said, for I wondered if I might recapture some memories of the Dream Valley that was home to me.
"I'm not sure," Chichi said. "Though I can think of several colleagues who would. Drat that mist!"
"Mmm," I agreed. Chichi left soon after, and I set my mind to the surprisingly arduous task of remembering. At first, I tried to think of a summer night in my Ponyland, of dancing, laughing, music, and food. The memories seemed vivid enough to me, but the pendant did nothing. I frowned and spent several minutes seeking shapes in the clouds. After discovering a dragon, a serpent, and a running pony, I sighted one that resembled a gate. My heart beat a little faster as I recalled the gates of Tambelon that had shut on us. Blue light flashed at my neck. I nearly went cross-eyed in my attempts to see it before remembering that it was the pendant. Then it occurred to me to look at the book. Words were written there, not the blocky wedges of Tambelon, but the calligraphy that filled my favorite story books from home.
Thus encouraged, I tried three times more to write of my Ponyland. Each time the pendant did nothing. "All right," I said aloud, rather disgusted. "If we must begin in Tambelon…" I returned to the threads of thought I had begun weaving when I saw that cloud. The difference was as pronounced as running uphill versus downhill. I remembered things I had forgotten, saw more clearly events I thought I had understood the first time. The light shone on just below my half-lidded eyes until I found myself again under the mushroom. I opened my eyes all the way and flipped through the book in disbelief. Pages upon pages of neat calligraphy stared back at me. "That is magic," I whispered.
I marveled for a while longer, then found myself reading what the pendant had written. Afternoon and, occasionally, other ponies drifted by. At the end of the story, my story, I lifted my head. Evening was drawing her darker curtains over the land, and thicker clouds had rolled in. The sun's golden rays streamed out from them, shining a bright crown at the top of Midnight Castle.
The old sorrow ached as I looked at it, as I remembered Spike and Scorpan and many other ponies who had not returned. But at the same time, I marveled at how the black towers had changed for me. In mere days, they had gone from being Tirek's stronghold to the site of a great battle and the final resting place of two companions, each dear in his own way. Who could predict how the coming days would continue to change this abandoned bastion? Midnight Castle might stand for hundreds of years, a scar upon the land, but in time, those living beneath it would surely cease to see the monstrous edifice it had been.
I glanced down at the pendant. Its light had died. I lugged the book – no heavier for the writing within it, though I fancied it might be – into the Moochick's library and opened it atop one of the tables. There with ink and quill I painstakingly wrote these last words you read. (The cumbersome nature of the proceeding accounts for ponies' lack of literary accomplishment, however much they may enjoy reading.)
Though I long for home, to escape the sadness and difficulties I underwent in this place, I suppose that no traveler can really go home. Unless one stays at home all the time, it changes without you and then doesn't feel like home.
Therefore, I cannot wait to live. Even far from home, even if my heart aches from past hurts, I shall not wait. I shall strive to embrace each day and face each night with courage and faith in the dawn to come.
The end.
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Bonus I: Author Musings
Has anyone heard of the novel Gravity's Rainbow? This is a blurb re it copied from
"The novel's title, Gravity's Rainbow, refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky."
I think Tirec would like this idea very much…brr.
BONUS II: something omake-style
[real conversation I had with my friend]
Wtdrgn: The MLP pilot episode was much darker than the rest of the series. There was this scary centaur Tirec who wanted to bring about the Night that Never Ends using his evil rainbow -
My irritatingly analytical friend: Why?
Wtdrgn: Why what?
My irritatingly analytical friend: What's the point of a Night that Never Ends?
Wtdrgn: Uh, er, well…
[later in my mind]
Tirec: Ha ha ha! First I'm going to usher in the Night that Never Ends. Then I will convert Midnight Castle to a nuclear power plant and supply electricity to Ponyland. Everyone will have the lights on all the time because of the never-ending darkness! Oh the nefarious wealth I will amass! Mwa ha ha ha!
Guard: Don't forget, sir, you can even indulge in pun-derful corporate slogans such as 'Behold the power of darkness!'
Tirec: Yesss!