You are Silky Stream, and you can't sleep.
You are... you feel confused. There is a lot going on in your head, but the really bad part is that... this thing that you are feeling, it's not really something recent, you are not feeling it just now. To tell the truth, you have been feeling like this so often that sometimes, like tonight, you can't even sleep. You simply lay awake, looking at the ceiling.
It's a strange feeling, one that you really don't like. It's like your head is spinning and you can't focus on what you are thinking about, or like there is a weight inside your chest that won't go away… It feels like you are a little bit worried, and a little bit scared, and a little bit sad, all at the same time.
But the worst part, confusing as it might sound, is that it's not a crushing feeling, it's not even a strong one. You don't feel like crying, or hugging somepony. But the problem is that you feel that ache all the time, like a sprain on the wing that simply won't go away no matter how many days or weeks go by. Sometimes you even wish that you this emotion would grow stronger, just so it would go away faster, but it doesn't.
It's simply... there. All the time.
There must be a word that describes exactly what you are feeling, you are sure, but you don't know what word that might be. You don't know how to describe this feeling, only that it hurts.
You have been trying your best to not let it show, after all you don't want to worry anypony else. Well, you may have been trying your best, but you know that every now and then you can't really help it.
Miss Cheerilee has noticed, or at least you think she has. She did call you during recess this week, and asked you if everything was alright in a very meaningful way… and you messed up while trying to answer. You didn't want to lie to miss Cheerilee, but you didn't want to tell her anything either.
So, you are sure she noticed. She wouldn't have told you that you can tell her anything, no matter what, if she hadn't noticed that something was… that something is wrong.
Your friends have probably noticed as well, maybe Apple Bloom did, or Sweetie Belle. They have been giving you a few strange looks these last few days, but you can't really be sure.
Everything feels strange nowadays. Your mommy looks like she is more tired, and you can tell that she has been trying her best to pretend that she is ok. But she is not, you know that she is not. Daddy, as well, hasn't smiled in a good time now, and even though the two of you promised long ago to always tell the other everything you… you just haven't been brave enough to ask him why he is looking so down like that.
Hay, speaking of your mom and dad, you don't even remember when was the last time you saw them kissing each other, or saying the sweet things they used to say to each other all the time!
And it's not just them. Soft Sweeps seems to be more worried, or at least it feels like she has been watching you a lot more closely. Ponpon as well has…
You grimace in the dark of your room. Everypony, everything has changed. And it really isn't hard to say when this started.
Everything started feeling weird, everypony suddenly started looking worried or sad… the day Selene arrived, a few weeks back.
And you know it's very, very wrong to even think about it. It goes against everything that you have been taught, about being a good pony, about being loving and kind to others, and about helping those who are in need, but...
But a part of you really wants to feel angry at Selene. Even though you know it's not her fault, even though your mommy said that the two of you are sisters now, a small part of you really wants to be mad at her, and blame her for everything that's happening.
You can tell, although you don't know how, that it would make everything easier. Having somepony to blame would make everything more simple.
After all, not only this whole thing started happening after she arrived, but also… what the hay is wrong with her? What is her problem, even? You are not sure why, but from the moment you saw her you knew that… that something was going on. There is something about Selene, something very strange and wrong about her, but you simply don't know what it is.
Still, no matter how you look at it, she is really weird.
She barely speaks with anypony, she hasn't made any friends, she won't even talk to you as much as you try getting closer to her. She doesn't want to be your sister, you are almost sure of it, and maybe she doesn't even want to be here at all.
So, since she is being mean to everypony and making everypony around you worried, why not be mean to her? Why not pay her back for-
You hit your head against the pillow, groaning at yourself. You know that you just thought about something very bad and ugly, you know that everything you just told yourself is wrong. Being mean to others is not what good fillies do, it's not what good ponies do.
It's not what you want to do.
But then, what can you do? This is another question that has been chewing your heart for a while now.
Mommy and daddy are certainly… not well, but you don't have the first idea of what you could do to help them. In fact, even thinking about why they are not well to begin with makes you scared, as you become honestly frightened whenever your thoughts turn to the direction that, perhaps, what might be happening is that they don't love each other anymore.
And what can you do about Selene? You realize that she is also going through something, but you have no idea what. Your mom said she doesn't have any memories, but you can tell that there's more than that. You have this strange feeling… you think it's called an intuition? You have these thoughts that… that she looks like somepony had hurt her, or that there is something scaring her, even if Selene herself doesn't know what it is.
But just having that feeling doesn't help you with anything. She still won't talk to you, she still won't play with you, she still won't try to make friends at school. And even though you come back home with her every day, and try your best to stay with her as much as you can, you still don't feel like you are getting any closer to her.
You softly hit your head against your pillow again, just raising your head and letting it fall down. For sure, this is the most frustrated that you have ever been in your entire life. You keep staring at the dimly lit ceiling, not really being able to focus on anything…
When you hear something.
You just heard something, a muffled scream of sorts, a muted yelp that sounded too much like somepony being bit by a monster. Your eyes shoot wide in surprise as you look around your room, immediately curling up and covering yourself as you try to understand just what exactly that scary noise was.
Your heart hammers inside your chest for a few more moments. You are not afraid of the dark, normally, but you certainly are afraid of hearing things in the middle of the night!
Until you notice that you are hearing another sound, but you can't exactly tell… what it is…
Or can you?
You don't know why, but it sounds like somepony is… crying?
You slowly unfurl the covers that you have around you, ears perking up as you try to understand exactly what is going on. Your ears swish around until you can faintly tell from what direction the sound is coming from, and you can hear that the source of the noise is one of the walls of your room.
You purse your lips, but you are out of your bed a few moments later, your mind connecting the dots as you silently make your way to the door.
You heard a scream, of sorts, and now you think you are hearing somepony sobbing. You think you do, but you are not sure. However, those sounds definitely came from the room next to yours.
Which means they came from Selene's room.
You stare at your own door, your mind still spinning and hazy with all your worries and fears. But cutting through all that is the shaking conviction that you should at least check what that sound just now was.
Of course, this would mean entering Selene's room, which is something your mom has explicitly forbidden you from doing, unless Selene invited you in. Still, this has to be an exception to that rule... right?
You gulp down as you open your door and step out into the corridor.
You don't know if what you are about to do is the right thing.
Then again, you haven't been sure of anything this past month.
But at least doing this feels right. Or at least, it doesn't feel wrong.
So, although you are scared of it, this is the best you have right now.
- - -
- - -
- - -
You are Selene, and you are scared.
You are hugging yourself under the blankets, trembling, because you just had a terrible dream.
And you can remember it clearly, although you wish you didn't.
You were on the shore of a lake, of sorts, a very large lake of pitch black water, it was night and you were alone.
You were alone.
There was nopony else on the shore with you. There was nopony else on the side of the lake that you were. Period. Everypony else, everypony in the whole wide world, was on the opposite side of that lake. You think you could almost see them, at the far distance, pinpricks of light that could be bonfires on the far shore, or perhaps even streetlamps of a city.
You couldn't make it out, you were too far away. And that was the problem, that was what scared you so much.
You had no idea of how you ended up on that far shore, away from everypony else. You had no idea why you were there.
The only thing you knew was that, for some reason, you had the nagging impression that being there was your fault, and that the only way to get across that lake was by walking through it.
Not swimming through it, not going around it, not even flying over it, since you don't have wings. No, the only way you could ever get across that lake was by walking through it. By holding your breath and taking one step after the other, as your body submerged into the water, and walking through the floor of the lake until you reached the other side.
It didn't any make sense, of course. You knew you couldn't do it, you knew you would drown before you made it to the other side, you knew the water would be too cold and too heavy around you for you to take even a single step.
But you also knew that you had to. The other option was being on that side of the lake… alone. Forever.
You remember trying, you remember taking a meek step towards the dark lake. You remember seeing the moon reflected on its surface, even though there was no moon on the night sky when you looked up.
You remember that you realized the lake was wriggling, as if it was made not of water, but instead of countless writhing worms.
You remember waking up, screaming into your pillow.
And that's why you are here right now, awake, huddled under your blankets and trembling at your most recent memories.
Alone.
That is the worst part.
As much as the dream was scary, as much as remembering how the lake wriggled and shifted with those worms might be terrifying, for some reason the fact that you are still alone even after waking up is the worst part.
Maybe it's the worst part because you know that this detail is real, because even though you know that there was no shore, and no lake, and no worms, you being alone right now is something that has accompanied you back to the waking world.
And it is also something you can't do anything about.
That, too, is something that makes you feel very guilty. You somehow know that it's your fault, but there is nothing you can do about what is going on, be it your dream or... the things that have been happening ever since you arrived at this house...
Mrs. Velvet is a nice lady, and you realize that you are very lucky that she found you. You shudder every time you think what might have happened if you had woken up in that place all by yourself, and you are thankful that she brought you in.
But still, she is…
She is not your mom.
You don't remember your mom. You don't remember your family, or even if you had one. You don't remember the house where you woke up, and you are not even sure of why you like the blankets that you brought back with you. But as much as you realize how kind and caring Mrs. Velvet is, you still know that she is not your mom, you still can't connect with her.
It doesn't help that you know that something is going on, you know that bringing you with her has caused her a lot of trouble, so you can't really bring yourself to talk to her, or to even do anything towards her simply because you don't want to cause even more problems. You feel too guilty about it to even try.
And Mr. Stormchaser… well, you haven't really spoken or seen much of him. And even when he is in the house you avoid him.
You can't help but feel bad whenever you look at him. You know that he and Mrs. Velvet used to love each other very much, until you arrived, but now…
You close your eyes shut, feeling that you are still trembling slightly. You don't want to go back to sleep, but you don't want to stay awake either. You don't want to go back to that scary dream, but you don't want to keep thinking about how everything is your fault.
You don't want to be alone, but you have no idea of what you can do t-
"Selene? Are you awake?"
Your thoughts freeze inside your head as you hear a voice, one that you immediately recognize, coming from the door.
You completely missed the sound of it being opened, but you can tell from the volume of her voice that she must be peeking her head inside.
"Selene…?" you hear her asking again.
You really want to hold your breath and go still. For a moment, you really want to pretend you are asleep so she would go away.
You don't dislike Silky Stream, but you don't want to talk to her either. Not after everything you have done, that is. You might not be close to Mrs. Velvet or Mr. Stormchaser, but she is. She is their daughter, after all.
And knowing that your arrival caused such a ruckus in her life makes you feel…
"Selene, I know I'm not supposed to come in if you don't let me," you hear Silky whisper, her voice honestly apologetic, "but I heard you… screaming? Is... is everything alright?"
Her voice is apologetic… and truly worried.
You sag under your covers. You don't know who you are, you are causing all sorts of trouble to her parents, and now you are causing problems to Silky herself. You are making her worry, and you really wish that...
"I'm sorry," you finally answer, letting go of the breath you were holding for a few moments.
"Sorry? For what?"
For making your mom and dad fight, for making everypony worried, for taking away the time you would usually spend with your friends after school.
"For waking you up," you answer, almost in a whisper. Not really sure of how much of it was a lie.
Well, it surely wasn't the whole truth.
You hear the muffled sound of her hoofsteps tentatively getting closer to you, a slight creaking noise telling you that she closed the door behind herself. Silky Stream, you know, is now inside your room.
You don't want to be alone anymore. But having her here is also frightening, because you are almost sure that this just means something you are going to regret is about to happen, and that it will be your fault.
"It's ok, I… I couldn't sleep. You didn't really wake me up," she answers, her voice also low and meek.
But that catches you a little bit by surprise.
"You couldn't sleep? Why?" you slowly uncover yourself as you turn to face her, what little moonlight that passes through the curtains letting you at least make out her silhouette.
"Well… stuff," she says vaguely, and you can see that she just sat on the floor.
You frown at that, as you are almost sure that you know exactly what she means by "stuff".
But just like how you are unsure about everything else, you don't have the slightest idea of what you can say to make her feel better…
Still, you tentatively get out of your bed, and sit in front of her. You almost think you can see the dim moonlight reflecting from her eyes, although you are not sure. But if you can, then you can tell that she is looking at the ground.
Something tells you that her expression is… not sad, but something very close to it.
"And what about you?" Silky asks her, "why can't you sleep?"
"I had a bad dream."
"Do you… want to talk about it?"
You really don't, but saying that out loud feels somehow wrong...
Still, you know that she understands it, from the silence that hangs between you two.
You and Silky Stream stay a long way like that, sitting on the ground in front of each other, not saying a word.
And you don't know what to do next. You are scared of not knowing what to do, you are scared that by not doing something you are somehow annoying her or making things worse. You really want her to leave, but only because you know that if she leaves then this won't turn out any worse than it has so far.
You want her to leave, at the same time that you really don't want her to leave.
"You know what? I'm sorry too," she snaps you out of your thoughts, even giving the ground a light stomp with her hoof.
But for some reason, her voice seems determined at something. Her voice sounds the exact opposite of how you feel, in fact, as if she is sure of something, although you have no idea of what that is.
"You are… sorry?" really, you have no idea of what she means with that, "for what?"
Silky Stream, you know, has absolutely nothing that she is to blame for.
It is you who has.
"For not thinking about you," she answers, much to your confusion.
But she continues before you can say anything in return.
"I really don't know… a lot of things, I really don't know why a lot of things are happening right now," she says, her voice halting for a few moments, and that tells you exactly what she means by those 'lot of things'. However, her words still have that determined hint to them, "but as much as things might be strange right now, I didn't really stop to think how it must be like for you."
You purse your lips at that, a part of you is very afraid of what she might be getting to, of what she might say next.
But for some reason, another part of you is feeling… something you don't really know how to describe.
Some kind of… warmth?
"And I… I know it sounds stupid, and it might even sound insensitive from me. But when mom said we were going to be sisters, I was so excited that I… well, that I really didn't think about how you might be feeling about it. This whole time, I didn't even ask what you think about this whole thing, especially since you…"
She stops for a few moments, but you understand what she is talking about.
Especially since you don't remember anything at all, she was probably going to say.
"I know that…" she says, then stops for a few moments, "I really hope you don't think that I am saying something mean, but I really don't know you."
And then she takes a few steps towards you, putting a hoof on your shoulder.
"But I want to know you. I really do. And I really understand if you don't want us to be sisters, but I really, really would like us to be friends."
Her hoof pass from your shoulder to your foreleg, and a few moments later she is holding your hoofs on her own.
And despite the near total darkness, you know that she is looking straight into your eyes.
"There's a lot of things that feels like they are changing. I'm confused, and a little scared, and I know that whatever I'm feeling isn't even close to what you might be going through, but… if you're ok with it, I'd really like you to know that we can be here for each other if you want."
You feel the part inside of you, the one that was afraid of whatever she was going to say, crumble when you hear her say those words.
"Or at least, I'd really like you to know that, whatever happens, you can count on me," she says through a shy smile.
Neither of you knew that Silky Stream had just repeated, almost word for word, the promise that another pegasus made to a certain unicorn, many years before she was borne.
And after that, she simply begins to talk.
It was something of an unspoken understanding. You might not remember anything about yourself, you might not have anything to say, but that doesn't mean that you can't get to know her better.
She speaks about her parents, and about Soft Sweeps, and about her friends. And then about what she likes doing, be it after school or at home, and many, many other things.
You don't really remember when the two of you sat down on your bed, but you keep on talking anyways.
Eventually, and perhaps naturally, you even try telling her what little you know about yourself, or at least what comes to your mind. You tell her about your dream, and about how you are afraid of the moon, since you always feel like it is staring at you, and how you think that Mrs. Velvet is indeed a nice mare, and about your struggles with learning certain things in school despite miss Cheerilee's best efforts.
The two of you simply chat, exchanging secrets and whispers, with nothing but the total darkness of your room as witness.
And in the end, the two of you make a promise.
It is a simple promise, an innocent promise between two foals, but still one that, you know, the two of you make from the bottom of both your hearts.
You and Silky Stream promise that, no matter what happens, you are going to look after each other.
The two of you might not know each other yet, the two of you might not even be friends yet. You might still be slightly scared of her by sheer virtue of you having met her less than a month ago, and by sheer virtue of you not remembering anything at all about your own life. But still, you promise each other that whatever happens, from this moment on, you will face it together.
After all, isn't that exactly what sisters do? Isn't that what sisters are?
Aren't sisters just two ponies who, by chance, are borne into the same family? Who have been thrown into the world, together, by sheer luck?
You don't know. You don't even know if there is a right or wrong answer to that question. But you don't feel like you are exactly wrong when you think that, if sisters are really paired by chance, then it's up to you to turn that coincidence into a blessing.
The two of you are woken up on the next day by Mrs. Velvet and Soft Sweeps, who are wearing a warm smile on their faces that you don't quite know the meaning of. You and Silky must have dozed off at some point, but you don't really mind.
After all, you definitely don't feel like you are alone anymore.
Selene has... has she regained something that she had lost? Has she instead just been given something she never had before in her life?
Whatever it might be, she is calmer now, she is surer now. She is no longer alone. The world might be a large and frightening place, but there is now somepony else with her, on the edge of that lake.
Selene's WINTER Lore is now level 1.
