Some sicknesses are a mystery. Sometimes the symptoms are simply too vague to pin down a direct cause, or are exacerbated by confounding afflictions like malnutrition. A few present symptoms that are too bizarre to classify.
This time it was not the case, however. A single glance told the story as clearly as the poor filly's stammering explanation. She came in the early morning, even before my birds had woken up, when I was still engaged in watering the garden and peacefully meditating in the hushed stillness of predawn. She turned her back to me, the pleading in her magenta eyes matching the blood dripping down the plastic garbage bag.
Blunt force trauma to the head. DOA. Still, I gently removed the still-warm corpse from the child's back, cradling it in my forelegs as I held myself aloft with my wings. I half listened as the filly told me the tale I already knew. Train tracks. Still warm. Didn't think she was alive, but wanted to be sure...
I confirmed as gently as I could that this little kitty was gone. I asked her where she'd found it, then reassured her I'd do my best to find her owner and let her know.
As the filly walked back towards town, I turned the other way, weightlessly coasting through familiar woods in the direction of my secret place. The burbling stream heralded my arrival, and the gentle sway of the willows nearly obscured the taller spruces. I touched down in the wildflower meadow, taking care not to jostle my passenger.
The creek made a wide, deep pool here, and regular flooding (and a little help from me) kept the underbrush sparse. The willows shaded it, and the spruces protected it, along with the blackberry brambles that circled the area and kept even the most determined hiker at the edge. Flying was the only way in, and only then if you were perceptive enough to tell willows from the other foliage, and gentle enough to descend without getting tangled in branches or falling and hurting yourself.
In fact, the only reason I found this place is because a goose had done... just... that...
I shook my head to clear away the image of two geese, one floating lifelessly in a pool tinged pink, the other keening on the shore.
The kitty's blood had started to congeal. I gently cupped her head in my hoof and looked at her. Cracked skull, nasty injury that, bitten tongue, scraped side of the face...
As gently as I could, I unstuck her tongue from her upper fang and pushed it back into her mouth. I wiped away as much blood as I could with my foreleg, then rinsed myself off in the stream.
I took an oath, when I received my medical license. Most of my classmates took the more general Veterinarian's Oath, but because of my cutie mark and my ability to communicate with my patients, I decided to take the more involved Hippocratic Oath. The words I spoke were modern, and yet... it is an old oath. Some versions I have heard swear to Celestia, some older to Celestia and Luna. For a short time all four alicorns were invoked, but Twilight wrote such a scathing report on it they discontinued the practice.
The oldest versions swear to names not spoken by ponykind for untold generations. Names of powerful, capricious beings, creatures with the strength of Tirek and the mind of Discord, or the wisdom of Star Swirl and the malice of the Nightmare.
When I was young, I pretended I didn't believe in such things. Of course everyone knows they're real now, after all the legends that have awakened recently, but I have a secret - before I knew any of the other Elements, I knew they were real.
I was bullied as a child. I know when everyone pictures the cruelties of children, they hear mean names and see spitballs, or think of swirlies. My tormentors were not like that. They turned everything they knew about me against me. Said there was no way parents such as mine could have a child so feeble, that I was adopted, that my mom had cheated on my dad, that my mom slept with many other guys, that my parents didn't love me and no one else ever would. By the end of third grade they knew exactly how hard to hit me to make the bruise come out the yellow of my coat. By the end of fourth grade they didn't need to. They taunted me openly, and no one stopped them. Teachers didn't intervene because they thought it would toughen me up. My parents didn't intervene because they listened to my teachers.
I wanted to die. And here's the kicker - I tried. I walked to the edge of one of those ridiculous cloud bridges they have all over Cloudsdale, and I was going to jump. I knew I couldn't fly. I wasn't going to try to fly. I was going to fall, and break something vital, and die, and everyone whose life was made worse because of me would be better off. My parents could try again to get the strong flier they always wanted. The bullies wouldn't have to see me anymore. The teachers wouldn't have to have any more talks with my parents...
But something stopped me. SomeOne stopped me. He told me that it wasn't time for me to enter His realm. He told me that He had plans for me. He said that I would save a lot of lives before He let me join Him.
I told Him that He had too high hopes for me. That I was just a little nobody that no one cared about, that I couldn't save anybody, that I couldn't even save myself.
He laughed, and said that I was in luck, because He was in the habit of saving people.
Then He said that He cared.
About me.
I told him I didn't know what I was doing. I begged him to make it better. I told Him I'd do anything for Him, anything at all, if He promised to take care of me.
So He did. And so I did.
As he was leaving, I asked Him His name.
There was a long pause while He thought about it.
Finally, He answered, "I am who I am."
Then He was gone.
The next day I met Rainbow Dash, who kept the bullies from hurting me openly.
Two weeks later I got my cutie mark.
Three weeks later, one of the bullies came to me with this poor, ragged little puppy. I don't know where he got it, since the puppy was pretty lost and couldn't tell me, but the three of us somehow managed to nurse it back to health without his parents finding out. We found it a good home with a family on the ground.
I asked I Am if this is what He meant when He said I would save lives.
He said yes.
So as I sat there, in my little grotto, I laid a hoof on the body of this poor kitty whose time was cut short, and I prayed.
"I am," I began, "Please, take care of this little kitty, wherever you are. Gently scratch her in that spot on her neck that all cats like, and make sure she's happy wherever she is now. I couldn't do anything to help this one, but you can. Please, take care of her the way I would if I could."
Then I gently shut the kitty's eyes, and walked to the trunk of the biggest willow in the grove. I pulled out a shovel, picked a nice spot, and buried her.
I went back to the willow, stowed the shovel, and took out a little white cross. I placed it reverently on the latest addition to my little garden.
I sat before her grave for some time. How strange that there is such a tenuous line between life and death. Then, as it always did, the flashes came - in my mind's eye, this kitty morphed into an older, battle-scarred tabby, ether mask in place while I and Angel, my nurse, frantically attempted to finish a surgery that he would never survive, refusing to give up even as he flatlined; a young, mother bunny, a birth complication I was too late to catch, labor coming too early, knowing it was too late for the mother and, in my haste, desecrating the body to try to save kits too premature to live; an old dog, faithful till the end, comforting Applejack until her last breath, Applejack's hat hiding her face but not the tears dripping on the limp body in her lap; a squirrel with a mysterious illness, eyes glazing over after weeks of failed treatments; a young bird, a simple, easy broken leg, a bad reaction to an anesthetic assumed to be safe, a stopped heart before I could react; uncountable creatures caught in the unstoppable path of a train; a Breezy, miles off course and half dead from exposure, despairing of ever seeing home again and passing in the night; the stillborn younger sister I never got to meet; the day I learned what a carnivore truly was, the desiccated corpse of a deer surrounded by wolves.
I sat there crying for some time, mourning all of those I could not save, allowing them to blend into a nameless pain that encompassed all and nothing. Eventually I cried myself out, and a gentle peace came over me.
Slowly, cautiously, I began to remember again - a bag fished out of the river, impossible to survive, and yet, a slight movement; a beaver mother with a difficult labor, but a successful litter; a turtle with a chipped shell, not good as new, but grown back enough to be protected once more; removing the cast of no less than a dozen animal's legs; sicknesses treated, surgeries completed, healing accomplished.
I allowed the memory of all my successes to exist in harmony with all of my failures, and accepted them as the lot of a doctor. Opening my tear-stained eyes, I looked around my clearing, at peace with the results of my work, even this.
Finally, I flew up and away from my secret place, hundreds of little white crosses peeking out like mushrooms from the damp ground.
I believe in the Old Ones. I am a follower of the Oldest One.
I know I would offend others, if I were to say Whom I serve, so I keep it a secret. I keep my secret place hidden, away from prying, judging eyes. But I have given myself to Him, and He has claimed me as his own, so I will follow wherever He may lead. '
I will do His bidding in all things, and my life has been blessed.
Author's Note
Today I stopped because there was a dead cat in the middle of the road. When I picked it up to bring it to the side, at least, I realized it was still warm, and I was shaking so much I couldn't tell if it was breathing or not. My university has a veterinary hospital, and not knowing where else to go, I took it there. It was pronounced Dead On Arrival.
This, ah, this came pouring out. This is the secret side of Fluttershy, the one that she keeps hidden.
Please don't flame war. I'm, I'm still kinda shaken up, and it didn't feel right to have a story about this without Him in it, I'm not that good an author yet, to keep my personal feelings out of it. Sorry if this offends anyone.
