I’m alone - utterly, epically, disastrously alone. I can’t remember if there’s anyone to remember, or anyone who might remember me. I can’t remember a time when I could smile because someone I cared about was walking towards me, because I can’t remember a time anyone cared about me.

That’s not true - I remember my childhood almost perfectly, at least as well as any memory can be remembered perfectly. I remember being young, and small, with a father who smiled so easily and a mother who never raised her voice. I remember my brother, though I can’t remember his name. Strong, and tall, and everything I wanted to be in this life. He went on adventures, running around as he pleased and bringing back stories so real I can’t remember what was my life and what was his. We were happy, the four of us, and nothing changed that. We were always happy, always smiling, and I was always small.

And now I am here, and I am no longer small, and I am no longer a child, and I am no longer ignorant to the passage of time.

No longer ignorant, and so I am very alone.

 Occasionally I hear distant footsteps, too far away to pretend that we’re walking together, or that I am a part of their chosen destination. I could pretend, maybe, but the pain of it never happening eats me, buries into my soul until I don’t know what’s left. Who’s left.

Who even am I?

I think that I used to have a name, as I doubt I’d have a family without one, but there’s been no one to call me anything but Thing and Monster and Dear Galatea Stay Away, and those don’t feel like something others are named. Who am I to know, to know anything, though?

Every so often, someone thinks about coming close, someone reaches near me, someone shrieks (in joy? in hope? in fear?) when they see my face draw near. “Please,” I ask the blue and pink mare who looks at me with wide eyes. “Please let me out - don’t you know what it means to be lonely?”

“I don’t,” she answers, but she must be lying, or she must still be a child. It wouldn’t be fair if no one else ever felt lonely, if no one else ever felt like me. It wouldn’t be fair, wouldn’t be fair, and life has already not been fair.

I thought it was supposed to be fair.

A blue jester pokes his purple companion, laughing as though my whole life is a joke I wasn’t invited to. “What about you, Crenia - do you get lonely?”

“I wish you’d let me feel lonely,” is her quick response, stupid response, what an idiotic response, to want to be alone. Never alone, never alone, she has never, truly been alone, or else she wouldn’t wish for it. If she knew, if they all abandoned her, she would let me out right now, set me free to devour all the lonely and the loneliness in the world, so that no one else would be lonely again.

She begins again, ignoring me completely, and my teeth gnash themselves in anticipation. “You’re the reason we had to fight the Skull, to chase it away to even think of sleeping. We were all tired, Ceres - couldn’t you have waited to do your fool moves until morning?” She is one to call others “fool”, but it makes sense that a fool is surrounded by fools. No one else would put up with one, and so I must, too, be a fool, for I want to be out there with them and never lonely again.

The last has been quiet this whole time, though his eyes linger on the candy mare more than I think she realizes. I smile, my heart finally finding a common spirit. Someone lonely, and not yet alone. I can help him, I can help us be alone together, until his aloneness annoys me and I make myself alone again. “You want something,” I tell him, for I only speak truth. “You’ll be alone until you get that something, but you’re not taking it yourself. Why not? Are you scared that they aren’t lonely without you?”

His nonexistent smile turned downwards, and I could see his teeth when he said, “Once I was lonely, but no longer. I have no need for of you, no need of anything you offer.”

I hiss, as there’s not much answer to that, but turn back to the candy kid. “You’ve never been lonely, and I want to learn happiness from you. Can’t you let me out, let me stay by your side? I can show you secrets, of crypts and roses and sewers and filth. Just come close, and let me out - I’ll show you where you need to go.” To devour something so plain and precious, so simple as always being loved… I would be fed for decades more.

“Crypts?” she says with a smile, ears perking up. “Elayne, did you hear - he might know about your crypt! Your family!” One step, another, and a half step back. So close, so near, so incredibly tantalizing.

Within reach.

And in my mouth, my teeth the only part that resembles these hateful creatures.

“Let her go!”

I don’t know who says it, and I don’t really care. It just proves that she’s not lonely.

With her, I won’t be lonely. She’ll join my family, and she’ll smile at my brother, strong and tall and oh so brave. We’ll be happy, the five of us, and I’ll never be alone. We’ll always be happy, always be smiling, and I will always be small.