Another homage to friendship past. I’m on the right, while the three ponies on the left are some of the same ponies—that is, the same unique variants—featured in my previous piece. If memory serves, this encounter happened roughly two months before the event shown in the other picture, and likewise happened in Pony Town. It marked the beginning of my time with their group.

For context, my introduction to them came about after Maud overheard me speaking to someone unrelated and mistook me for her Twilight, with whom I (unsurprisingly) share certain mannerisms. Soon realizing an affinity for one another despite the misrecognition, we kept chatting until her Twilight arrived, followed shortly thereafter by Sunset. Over the course of a lengthy conversation, I established a comfortable familiarity with the three of them. Exhilarated and intrigued by the degree to which their experiences and interests paralleled mine, I eventually divulged a source of great personal distress. I’m not sure how I expected them to react, but I was thankful to find that they were patient, attentive listeners who indulged my emotional outpouring with sympathy and thoughtfulness. None demonstrated this goodwill better than my existential counterpart, who loaned me a book that turned out to be extraordinarily useful.

While I can’t imagine that this meeting left as vivid of an impression on any of them as it did on me, I do wonder if they remember it at all.