I was walking through a city.
Not one of those bright metropolises of glass and steel, but a small town of muted tones. Cars passed by with a constant hum, people moved along the sidewalks without stopping, each absorbed in their routine. The sky, heavy and gray, seemed to have settled into an afternoon without sun, without hope.
And yet, I didn't walk with that weight.
There was something... almost cheerful in my steps. A contrast. Not out of defiance, but by nature. I felt like a splash of color walking across a canvas that had already given up on light.
No one looked at me. No one stopped. When I tried to see their faces, I found only blurry smudges, unrecognizable. As if my eyes refused to focus. As if the world itself was telling me those details no longer belonged to me.
I wasn't surprised.
I stopped for a moment, just long enough to look at myself… as if I were trying to compare who I was to who I'd become.
"Not even in my dreams do I consider myself human anymore," I murmured.
And it was true. There was no nostalgia in my voice, only a statement.
Maybe, at some point, I missed the comfort of skilled hands, of a tall, familiar body. But magic had filled that void—then overflowed it.
The city gave me nothing in return.
No warmth, no sorrow.
Only distance.
Names, faces, smells... I had forgotten them long ago. The less I thought about them, the more they faded. Until one day, I simply stopped trying.
In fact, at some point in my life as a pony, I made a choice.
I burned what little remained of that other existence.
Drawings… my first journal.
I kept walking.
With each step, the city faded behind me. Concrete gave way to soil, then to grass, then to an open field. The air grew clearer. The sky, bluer. The colors... more vivid.
And there, in the distance, a mountain rose.
My home.
It didn't take long to reach the castle. I recognized it immediately: every hallway, every stained-glass window, every tower… all recreated with almost painful precision. This kind of magic wasn't my specialty, but it was worth learning.
Not to build… but to remember.
I walked its halls calmly. Every corner of this dreamlike place welcomed me with familiarity.
I could, if I wanted, travel with a single thought to any other place, to any corner of the world I had visited or imagined...
But I didn't.
I kept walking.
Until I reached the royal hall.
Everything was serene. Too quiet.
I closed my eyes.
I breathed.
And when I opened them again, the castle awoke.
Celestia was on her throne, attending to a group of nobles arguing amongst themselves about things that surely only mattered to them.
On the sides, the guards tried to maintain their composure… though I could hear them whispering under their breath. They were betting on whether the next noble would arrive crying over a ruined cake or if, somehow, they'd try to raid the royal treasury under a claim of "urgent national interest."
The maids moved back and forth, busy keeping every surface of the hall gleaming.
They didn't use magic.
Rags. Brooms. Buckets.
It was part of the routine. Part of that magical life that didn't run solely on spells.
No one paid attention to me.
And that was fine.
I wasn't part of that memory.
Just a spectator.
A passerby in my own lucid dream, observing a routine I had witnessed countless times, one I knew in detail and that—somehow—comforted me.
I could recognize a few faces.
A pegasus in a well-fitted uniform. A unicorn with three watches hanging from his neck. An earth pony who always whistled the same tune while mopping...
But I didn't know their names.
I remembered them only because I saw them every day during my stay at the castle.
They were part of the background.
Of the everyday landscape.
Of home.
And I...
I simply watched them.