Pastor Demetrius staggered into his quarters in the parsonage. He was exhausted from working most of the evening with the local farmers digging a pair of graves for the Olson twins. Both of them had been soldiers, serving during the Germans’ Blitzkrieg and brought back to their homes in coffins. World War II had hit all of Europe very hard, but no country knew such pain as Demetrius’ beloved France, and this fact became more evident with each passing day. The Pastor’s formerly cushy lifestyle turned upside down and nowadays he found himself going from door to door, helping wherever he could. That is, whenever he wasn’t too busy tending to the sick and wounded that constantly came to his own doorstep. All the doctors had left town to join the Allied forces as medics, leaving him as the only healer in town.
He laughed at the thought. A healer with no medicine is hardly a healer, after all. He stripped out of his work clothes, a simple gray shirt with brown trousers, and lay on his feather mattress in his skivvies and glasses, staring at the ceiling. He was too exhausted to sleep and he knew it, but that didn’t stop him from trying to catch some winks before tomorrow reared its ugly head.
His eyes quested about the room for something to occupy his attention from his own restlessness, finally catching sight of pen and paper on the aged desk by the only window in the room. The desk was often a focal point of focus and meditation for him, where he could concentrate on writing his next sermon in peace, using the rolling foothills and thin pine forest outside his window to rest his eyes periodically.
Demetrius swung his thick, strong legs over the side of the bed and limped over to the desk, pulling out the chair, then sitting in it slowly, uttering a groan of pleasure as his bottom collided with the wooden seat.
He turned to clean the grimy windows with a washcloth. The pastor didn’t often do this; in fact, recently he’d tried to dirty the window as much as he could. As beautiful and full of natural grace as the hills and trees were, a scar marred the perfect scenery through the glass. A graveyard. Typically the graveyard didn’t bother him overly much, to him the dead were dead and no amount of ghost stories would change that. But ever since this war started, he couldn’t bring himself to look at those fenced-in tombstones. The yard used to be sparsely populated by stone and marble, almost giving it a rustic and quaint feeling, but ever since Germany invaded the graveyard had been growing rapidly. Exponentially. It saddened him and made him doubt the benevolence of his patron deity.
If God is so loving and caring, how could he let the people of France wither like this? He thought. What have we done to deserve this? Surely the whole country cannot be wicked enough to warrant such a widespread punishment! Of course, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, as written in Romans, but God hasn’t punished us for that, I’m certain.
The pastor shook his head rapidly as if to rid himself of a bothersome insect. Who am I to doubt the Lord of Hosts? It’s his world, after all.
He picked up the fountain pen lying on the desk and put pen to paper, writing a letter to his son, Ephraim. Ephraim was currently off with the Allies, fighting in Operation Sea Lion alongside the British, and Demetrius worried about him constantly. With father being a widower and son being a young bachelor serving in this deadly war, the pastor’s concern was well justified.
Demetrius paused, looking out the window thoughtfully. He raised an eyebrow as the space between two of the rows of weatherworn graves began to glow purple. Looking back, he was never able to figure why he was so calm and unafraid. Perhaps he was too tired; perhaps he was too jaded by the horrors of the war.
With a small snap the violet light popped into a ring shape. Through the center of the ring, Demetrius could see two strange looking equines peering outwards. It was as if a mystical television had coalesced outside his window, allowing him to view another world. One of the equines had a horn that was glowing magenta. He was clearly straining, though about or against what the pastor could not fathom. The mare beside him nuzzled him softly, and then leapt towards the ring. On closer examination, the wondering pastor saw that she was a chestnut pony, with a mane varying shades of gray. She also had wings, like the Pegasi from Greek myths.
Demetrius found this most unnerving, and rubbed his eyes wearily with a calloused hand to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. He opened them again, and standing half in the graveyard and half out was the mare, still there. The male unicorn walked shakily up to the ring, horn still glowing with power. The Pegasus beckoned to the other horse eagerly with a hoof, and placed a hind leg into the world, still leaving one hoof inside the ring. She looked about in amazement at the starry night sky, oblivious to the human watching her intently through the pane of glass.
The male pony placed one hoof through, then another. His eyes closed in concentration; he didn’t notice her rump inches from his face. The pastor watched curiously as the unicorn’s nose inched closer and closer through the gloomy night. His shnoz brushed against the pegasi’s flank and she let out a yelp. His eyes flew open, betraying his horror as the ring whipped shut, enveloping the graveyard in darkness once more. The mare cried out in pain, collapsing in the darkness.
Demetrius just stared.
What just happened? He thought as he stood to get his trousers on and investigate.
After pulling trousers and boots on, forgoing a shirt, he wandered through the house till he found the side door leading outside. The pastor jogged the small length from the parsonage to the cemetery, vaulting over the fence. Despite his tiredness from working all day, this new development filled him with an unexplainable energy. The graveyard echoed with the sobbing of the mare, eerie and sad, yet strangely human sounding, not at all like the scream of any normal equine.
Demetrius crept up to the prone form of the Pegasus in the dark, letting his eyes adjust to the lack of light. His boot trod on something wet and sticky during his approach. He knelt and drew his fingers through the dirt, then brought the slime to his nose. It was blood, judging by the coppery smell. He rushed to the mare, now fully aware that something horribly bad had happened. She sat on her rump, staring up at him with tears in her eyes, cradling something in her lap.
“Hey there. You’re a pretty horse. What’s your name, eh?” The pastor crooned, edging close to her cautiously. She appeared to be okay except for a bloody stump that was her right hind leg. He still couldn’t make out the thing in her lap, but he was starting to have suspicions.
She frowned, shouting. “H-How dare you?! My husband is dead, and you have the nerve to treat me like a dumb goat?!”
All at once, her rage gave way to grief and she huddled close to the object in her lap, crying.
“Whoa there, calm down Miss--?”
She sighed heavily, still huddled close to the object in misery. “Daring Do. Don’t ask again.”
The pastor, for some reason unsurprised by her ability to speak, craned his neck towards the object.
It was just as he expected and feared, though nothing could’ve prepared him for the actual sight. The unicorn’s decapitated head and shoulders, lying in his wife’s lap in a pool of red, eyes open in milky white horror.
Pastor Demetrius gingerly knelt in the dying grass beside the crying mare, shedding a tear of pity. She shivered and clutched the corpse, attempting to extract warmth from her dead husband to ward off the cold. The pastor placed a hand on the body with a shudder, and on the mare’s shoulder.
“Miss Daring. We need to get you patched up, and quickly. If I don’t get that leg bandaged and in a tourniquet quickly, you’ll bleed out.”
The Pegasus just shook her head, mane flying back and forth. “Y-You’re just going to take me to a lab and do tests on me, you heartless freak!” She stood shakily, anger and fury in her eyes. She reared up to strike him, balancing on her back leg and dropping the half-corpse to the dirt. Suddenly she collapsed from blood loss, shaking uncontrollably in a massive puddle of crimson.
Demetrius scooped her up gingerly despite her weak protests, careful not to touch the stub of her back leg. He whispered words of encouragement and condolences to the animal, trying desperately to ignore the disgusting liquid dripping from her stomach and rump onto his well-muscled chest and arms. He leapt over the fence, landing on the other side without a shock. He took long, quick steps towards the door of the parsonage, moving quickly to get her into a bed.
Daring piped up feebly. “W-Where are you taking me?” She squirmed, trying to escape.
“The parsonage. You landed in the graveyard of a church, Miss Do. Please don’t resist, you’ll only hurt yourself.” Demetrius replied, kicking the old door open, releasing a cloud of dust from some of the furniture in the living room.
“You’re the pastor, huh? A man of faith?’ She asked hesitantly.
“Yes, I am the pastor of the First Presbyterian church here in The Angel’s Haven.” He replied absentmindedly, standing in the doorframe of the den to let his eyes adjust to the extreme darkness.
The mare sighed in relief, cuddling close to the pastor’s bare, bloody, and hairy chest with a newfound affection.
Slowly, the outlines of a couch, futon, and fireplace all facing a coffee table emerged in his vision. He crept down into the pit in the middle of the room, where the coffee table was, and laid the Pegasus on the soft, plushy futon. He gathered up some tinder and firewood from a bin on the mantle and tossed them into the hearth along with a match. Flame burst into existence, casting long shadows in the room and quickly filling it with dry, pleasant warmth. The pastor walked back to the door and closed it behind him softly, then flicked on a light switch.
After a brief trip to the bathroom, Demetrius returned with several rolls of bandages and a bottle of anesthetic. He leaned against the blue futon, questing underneath the bottom of it for the lever that would convert it into a bed. Feeling a hint of cool metal with his fingertips, he bent down, grasped the metal object and rotated it to the left. With the release gone, the back of the futon fell on him, walloping him on his balding head with a mighty BONK.
Despite her current situation, the shellshocked mare laughed. “You okay there, clergy-boy?”
He sat up on the hard wooden floor, rubbing his prematurely bald head in a comical fashion. “Yea, I’m fine, no thanks to you. Why so concerned for my welfare all of a sudden?”
Daring responded after some hesitation. “M-My Father was a cardinal for the Celestian Church, and I guess you remind me of him a bit. He was bipedal too, one of the Lyrans.”
Demetrius stood up and grabbed the bottle and bandages. “Lyrans? Never heard of that before. You’ll also have to tell me about this Celestian Church while I fix your leg. You’re messing up my daybed with that blood of yours…”
The next day, Demetrius woke up early and started making phone calls, feigning sickness to get away from the work he’d promised to help with.
On closer inspection the night before, he’d discovered that Daring’s amputation was even worse than he thought, already beginning to grow white and veined around the stub. She would require constant care over the next few days.
When he had suggested that he ask a couple of the neighbors to help him and relieve some of the pressure, she refused vehemently, stating that the less people knew of her existence, the better. She was an extra terrestrial, technically, and even if his friends didn’t want to know how she got there or why she was so strange, they were bound to get curious, or worse, start gossiping about ‘the pastor’s new pet’.
“Thanks for your understanding, Miss Patello.” Demetrius coughed dramatically, winking at the half-awake Daring through the doorway of his office. “Make sure that Alphonse knows how sorry I am… Yes. Goodbye, Miss Patello.”
“I thought that church leaders weren’t allowed to lie.” Daring teased after the pastor dropped the phone back onto its cradle.
She was clad in a furry brown blanket and her leg was wrapped in gauze. A bowl of vegetable broth sat on the coffee table, a wooden straw sticking out of the steaming broth.
Demetrius chuckled and sat on the edge of the daybed. “And what should I tell her, Miss Daring? That I’m harboring an alien in my house? Or worse, should I tell her that I have a talking horse with three legs sitting on my futon, drinking broth with a straw?”
She laughed, grinning. “I suppose lying would be the most convenient solution there.”
After a brief pause, she asked, “What’s your name anyways?”
He frowned, peering through the bay windows on the west side of the room. Today was beautiful, and birds sang with passion and verve.
His thoughts crossed the miles, landing next to his son, his only child. When Ephraim was born the pastor had vowed to be less self-centered and live for his kid.
When the draft came around, Demetrius had tried his best, and succeeded, in avoiding getting conscripted. Ephraim, however, had jumped straight at the chance to serve his country. That had always bothered the pastor, both out of worry for his son and anger at himself for being so cowardly.
“Something up?” Daring inquired, snapping the pastor out of his funk.
He turned back to find her staring at him with her head tilted towards the side, wondering at this strange human before her.
“Sorry, just thinking of my son. My name is Demetrius l’Ange.”
“Son?” She asked, clutching her stomach with a hoof. He wondered if she was hiding something from him, but decided not to mention it.
He just shook his head and went to get the pitcher of broth in an attempt to clear his head.
***
Over the next month, the days waxed and waned without any significant events.
Daring slowly got better; Demetrius began spreading rumors that he was dying of some foreign disease, church services came and went along with long nights the two of them spent together making small and not so small talk.
There were, of course, moments of excitement, such as Daring’s first steps after the accident and Demetrius reprimanding her after she raided his icebox and ate all the cheddar cheese.
But of course, none of this compared to what they both called the Al Incident.
Rrrrrrrring… Rrrrrrrring…
The pastor dashed through the parlor of the parsonage, knocking over a side table filled with magazines in an effort to reach the phone.
It was two weeks after he’d found Daring, and luckily they’d had no visitors, injured, or phone calls. Visitors were a constant fear for them, seeing as hiding Daring was no easy task, especially with her hooves making an unearthly racket whenever she walked on the tile floors that were so common in the parsonage.
Rrrrrrr- “Hello?” Demetrius asked, speaking into the receiver.
“Hey there, old pal. I heard you were still sick and laid up.” The caller replied, speaking in a venomous voice. The pastor could almost hear him trying not to draw out his S’s.
He gestured Daring away as she began to approach, afraid the caller would hear her hooves.
“Ahh, Alphonse. Yes, I’ve been very sick. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to help out at the pizza parlor, but I’ll try and be back soon.” He replied nervously, feigning a weak cough.
“Really? I heard laughter coming from your house last night, around midnight. You sounded fine to me. And so did your little harlot.” Alphonse whispered, laughing nervously with glee. He was overjoyed at having something to pull over on the ‘old man’.
“M-My little harlot? What are you talking about, Al? I’m alone here!” Demetrius cried, distraught.
“Really? I could’ve ssssssworn I heard a woman’ssssssss voice lassst night.”
The pastor slammed the receiver back onto its cradle, eyes wide with fear. Daring limped into the room on her good legs, frowning.
“What’d I miss?” She asked.
“My doom.”
“Your doom? Don’t be silly. It’s just some pizza freak who likes stories.”
He knelt in front of her, bringing his eyes to match hers. His face was grave, and he was pale as a sheet. Something inside her told her that if he was afraid, she should be too. “He’ll tell others that I have a woman living with me, which will make people curious. Curious people will come to the house to check it out and see you.”
She stared straight into his pupils without wavering. She had to be strong for both of them. “And I’ll hide, they’ll see that there’s nothing here, and that’ll be the end of the visitors. If you act suspiciously, they’ll be suspicious.”
He nodded in understanding. “You sure you’re up for this? You’re still really weak from losing your leg.”
She just laughed. “I’m Daring Do, intrepid explorer and fearless bounty hunter! Of course I’m up for this!”
At this he raised an eyebrow, wondering at what this queer creature was hiding from him.
***
Demetrius sat on the couch, twiddling his thumbs while he waited for the doorbell to ring. Daring had been hid in the attic along with some necessities just in case Alphonse decided to prolong his visit in any way. The night before, the pastor had called Al back, asking him if he wanted to come for a visit, to which he happily agreed.
A bottle of wine and a plate of hors d’oeuvres sat on the scratched surface of the coffee table, gathering dust. The pastor’s throat was dry and scratchy from nervousness, but he had no desire to drink the booze laid before him. More out of habit than anything else he’d stoked the fire and picked any fur out of the carpets with a lint roller. At a quarter past noon the doorbell rang twice. Demetrius stood and walked to the door, wiping the sweat off his hand. It was the middle of fall, and cold sweats would be a dead giveaway.
Alphonse, a six-foot tall Italian man with olive skin was grinning from ear to ear, holding a large bouquet of flowers in one hand and a card in the other.
“Hello, Demetrius. May I come in?” He asked, smiling saccharine as he spoke.
“Of course, Alphonse. Go ahead and have a seat in the living room, I’ll take your jacket.” The pastor replied, shutting the door after Al’s entry.
Directly above them, Daring lay on the floor, ear pressed to the rough wooden floor.
“How is your wife?”
That must be the fellow, Daring thought, smushing her head against the floor even harder, causing her cheeks to bunch up most comically.
“My wife has been gone with the Lord for a year now. You know that.” Demetrius’ voice wafted up from the cracks in the attic floor.
“Oh, no no no! I mean your new wife.”
Geez, how pretentious can somepony get? Daring mused.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Al.”
“So you don’t plan to make an honest woman out of her?”
“W-What?! I’m all alone here, and I have been for a long time now!”
Daring heard the rustle of someone standing up quickly, followed by the sound of a bottle breaking.
Al’s voice when he next spoke was not nearly as friendly and inviting as it had been earlier. No, he was angry, and judging by the smashed bottle, he was feeling violent too. Daring sent up a quick prayer to Demetrius’ god as she continued to listen.
“Now listen here, Pastor. It’s a sin to lie, says so in the Ten Commandments. And I know you’re lying. Mark my words, I will find out what you’re hiding, I will expose it, and I will snuff it.
“You’re enough of a smarmy shit stain as it is, sabotaging my jobs with counter hitmen and client bribing then hiding under your occupation; all I need is one little scandal and poof! You’re gone, and no one will care.”
Daring lifted her head from the wooden floor, her face red and streaked from being smashed against the boards. Counter hitmen? Client bribing? Who is this man who’s taking care of me?
