A Twinkle From The North

Boreal was making his way towards his home after picking up a snack from a local kiosk in Ponyville. He trotted blissfully and nearly made it to his door when he was abruptly stopped. “Boreal!” a mare jumped in front of him. “or should i say...TITANIUM THUNDER!” Boreal stopped in his tracks and jumped back from being startled. He focused his vision on the mare and recognized her instantly. “P-Princess Twilight!” He immediately bowed before her. “It’s an honor to meet you!” “Nonsense!” Twilight helped Boreal back up to his normal stance. “I should be saying that to you! I know who you are!” She stared at him, gleaming with excitement and curiosity.

“W-What? Y-You do?” Boreal began to stutter from confusion.

“I do. Although it didn’t take me long to figure out, I didn’t hear about you until recently when Mayor Mare was doing this year’s census. She brought it up in conversation and mentioned your name. I never heard of it, so I checked the medical records for all neighboring towns and cities.” “Well...then why are you here? You’re known as one of the smarties ponies ever, so you must know that nearly all of my family is dead, except my father, who is missing.” Twilight’s ears lowered from the mood of Boreal’s words, but perked back up when she remembered why she confronted him. She opened his front door, walked along side him, and sat down next to him on his sofa. She cleared her throat and began. “Yes, Boreal, I know all about your history, and I wanted to let you know that the organization that attacked your family is gone. Any traces of them have been destroyed too. Discord made sure of that. I’m here to tell you their reason. Your father, Static Charge, was going to bring their tests to the public, and expose them. Neither Celestia or Luna knew about their schemes. It turned out that one of their Unicorns was using magic to bring back the dead using memories, keeping themselves low-profile all-the-while doing it. If you recall my tale, Princess Celestia guided me threw my memories and trials into becoming a Princess, praising me for them. Well, a Unicorn tapped into that realm and tried tampering with it’s magic. Celestia was aware of the tampering, but couldn’t find the source. The Unicorn wanted to create life based on memories of a dead creature. Their experiments required living, but unconscious hosts to work with. Once you were under they’re thrall, they could prick and poke at your memories until they had what they needed.” This would explain why Boreal thought all these different things that were true. He never attended school. He never dated Fade Starburner. He never went back to Las Pegasus after coming to Ponyville.

“Although they tried very hard, you cannot recreate life, or alter memories. What’s done is done. Anytime they’d try to perform, their results came out twisted or didn’t work at all.” Boreal sat in silence, gazing at Twilight, but then spoke up. “So, no one knows where my dad is?” Twilight shook her head, “...but we found this.” Twilight lit her horn with magic, and manifested what looked like a clock. This brought serious confusion to Boreal. “A clock? How does this help me?” Twilight tapped on the face and said, “Turn it around.” The back read as follows. “My son, do unto the world as the world as done to you. Live. Be free. Monsters and Tragedies will strike at the most inopportune times, but know that you can overcome these challenges. Time exists, so I want you to exist as well. Time is forever moving forward, so I want to move forward as well. And most of all, the world is always changing, so don’t be afraid to change for the better.” Sincerely, With All My love, Static Charge, November 25th, 2005.

“It’s getting tiresome, actually.”  Boreal was laying on some sort of furniture, turning his head towards a stallion sitting across from him. The Stallion was writing down some sort of notes as Boreal spoke. “I’ve wondered why all this abnormal stuff happens to me for years. As in, ‘what did I do to have this happen to me?’ or something like, ‘What made me so special?’” The Stallion, clearly a doctor of some sort with his degrees hanging from the walls, took off his glasses and looked at Boreal. “Boreal, I think you’re right. Sometimes things happen to us, good or bad, and we really can’t explain why it happened to us specifically. But I’ll have you know that there are answers. It may take years to discover them, but they’re there.”

Boreal stared at the ceiling for what seemed like an eternity, his mind blasting new thoughts into him. He sat up, moving into an upright position, and looked at the Stallion. “I’ve been stuck in this Dream World for two years now. You wanna tell me how to get out? That’d be a great answer.” Boreal stood up and struck the Doctor’s face with a fast left swing. The Doctor fell to the floor. Tiny drops of blood came down from the Doctor’s nose. “Hehe...you think I could tell you? Guess what, boy, you’re wrong. I know just as much as you do.” The Doctor laughing maniacally in a hushed tone. “Liar!” Boreal kicked the Doctor in the stomach. “I know you’re one of those things keeping me here. You gave it away too obviously, you worthless scrap of scum.” Boreal kicked the Doctor a few more times before- “Wait wait wait, ok, ok. I’ll tell you *cough, hack* what I know.” Boreal helped the Doctor into the chair and sat across from him.”

“I know how you can get out. They told me that you’re here to get stronger. Lose your fear. Become one with yourself.” “Oh not this shit again.” Boreal began mimicking the Doctor’s voice. “Oh, why don’t I just hold hands with the world and tell them I can accomplish anything. Philosophical shit this and philosophical bullshit that. I’m sick of hearing it. I just want to get out of here. There’s a science to this place, and I intend on finding out what it is.” The Doctor sighed. “Honestly, I’m sick of this too. They stuck me with you for this long and I’m tired. I’ve got a family too.” The Doctor drew a key from his pocket and hoofed it over to Boreal. “Here. This key opens the vault in the back of my office. It has the serum that will wake you up. We left you in some back ally in Las Pegasus. But they’ll be coming back for you, Boreal. Be cautious.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why do you think you didn’t attack me? You physically can’t move.” The Doctor’s eyes grew wide and he started breathing erratic. “Wait, wait, wait, don’t leave me here. Come on, man. I gotta leave too! Stop, no, come back.” The Doctor’s legs had been paralyzed from the kicks Boreal delivered. Boreal moved through the back door, turned around, and poked his head through the door, looking at the Doctor. “Catch ya later, Doc!” Boreal slammed the door closed. “NO STOP COME BACK NOW I DEMAND IT” The Doctor began screaming violently and flailing his forelegs. “GET BACK HERE NOW YOU SHIT I’LL F*CKING KILL YOU. WITH COSMOS AS MY WITNESS, YOU WILL DIE.” 

Boreal made his way back home after a long, catch-up talk with Fade Starburner. She was his childhood friend. The one that he’d always be excited to see after school. They did everything together. Cry, laugh, be worried, be happy, and everything in between.

His favorite story of them is when they had been out late at night, watching for a meteor shower. Fade wanted a better view of the shower, so she and Boreal walked far off from where Fade told her parents they’d be. They ended up getting lost after the shower was over. They ended up being lost for two whole days. Once they both got home, they fell asleep in Fade’s bed. They needed rest.

“Fade seemed really excited to see me.” Boreal thought. “It felt as if she was...too excited.” He tried to think about why she seemed so energetic. He couldn’t remember if there had been anything he done or didn’t do.

But then...

A sense of grief fell on top of him. It crept in without warning. It filled his whole body. Tears formed in his eyes. He sat on the floor and wept for what seemed for like hours. He remembered what happened. Once he returned home with Fade after the meteor shower, they both fell asleep together. The next morning, the inevitable happened.

Fade Starburner didn’t wake up.

Boreal woke up next to her long-gone, still body. He nudged her carefully at first to try to wake her up. He whispered in her ear. “Fade...wake up. It’s morning.” After his first attempt had no response, he tried again. Still no response. He turned her over to face him and her eyes were rolled back into her skull. She was dead. Boreal froze in horror. He was speechless. He shook her violently, trying to wake her up. “FADE! FADE WAKE UP! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!” He screamed at her pale-tinted face. Fade’s parents came in due to the overwhelming screams. They noticed their filly wasn’t breathing. Fade’s father pulled Boreal away. He bucked and screamed. “NO DON’T TAKE ME AWAY FROM HER! THAT’S MY BEST FRIEND! NO STOP! PLEASE DON’T TAKE ME AWAY! PLEASE!” Tears were bursting constantly from his eyes.

Boreal set off for what may or may not be the truth. Whether he found what it is that he wanted to know or not didn’t matter to him. He did, more often than not, pause to think about what it was that he wanted. “Well...”he thought. “...something is better than nothing.” He scuffled over to the closest, local restaurant in Las Pegasus and found himself a seat. A mare approached him. “Can ah getcha anything ta drink?” she spoke in her southern drawl. “Sure. Some sweet tea would be nice.” Boreal smiled at the mare with ease. Socializing had been a problem in the past, but not anymore. Can’t really answer why. After the waitress brought Boreal his drink, he caught her attention. “Ma’am, do you know who I am?” “Well shore ah do. Y’u’re Boreal Symphony, right? Y’u’re my neighbor.” “Then you must have seen me leave for awhile, right?” “Whale...ah did see ya leave. You shore were gone fer a long time.” “Did I say anything specific when you saw me?” “Don’t think ya did, but y’ur landlord might know. She was the last one you spoke to before ya left.”

Boreal tried to pay for his drink, but the waitress refused to take his bits. Told him it was on the house. He thanked her for what information she gave and left.

Boreal wanted to know what the reason on returning home was. Sure, this was his home, and he felt safe here. “But...” he thought, “...I don’t even remember leaving, let alone being gone.” He panicked. “What was I doing?” he frantically asked himself. “Where was I?” He scrambled around his house, trying to find an answer that might have been documented. He didn’t care if it was just a simple answer that just prolonged the finding of the true answer. He wanted something that would calm his nerves. “Why, why, why, why!?!?!” His panicking grew heavier and heavier. He fell back onto his bed, as his breathing grew to a point of erratic heights. It seemed as if his calm sense and rationality was standing at the edge of a high tower, closing in on falling over. 

You see, Boreal Symphony is a stallion of truth and willpower. When something doesn’t make sense, we get confused, right? Well, the confusion has pushed Boreal so far that there can’t be an answer within his acknowledgement. “It’s gotta be back out there then. I gotta leave again...” he paused to gather realization.

Boreal walked around what was his old - just casually placed in Las Pegasus - house. A drawer stood out to him. A quick pull of the handle showed all the letters he had received from other ponies over the course of a few years ago. “There’s so much crap here...” He smiled at the remnants of his memoirs.  “Who knows what these guys and gals are up to?” He shuffled through the clutter and wondered if there was any possible chance of contacting anyone. He eventually grew tired of looking and headed upstairs, to his room. “Well...it doesn’t matter how much you enjoy being somewhere else.” He fell onto his bed and stared at the ceiling.