He told her every time she’d asked, he warned her every time she went to play, and he protected her night and day, just to tell her he loved her before she slept the night away. From the day she was born till the day his time will end, he vowed to keep her out of harm's way, and to help her grow and prosper throughout his own lifetime.
With each passing day, he knew he’d have to say goodbye to her, and hello to the life ahead, but with that thought came the need to show her there is more than just her friends to care for. He wanted to teach her that she needed to take care of herself before he passed, and he swore he would make sure of it, even after he’d died.
(;﹏;)
“Rosario,” Keiran whispered, trotting into his younger sister’s room to wake her from her slumber. A groan was heard from under the covers, causing Keiran’s ears to twitch and a grin to form on his lips. “Lil sis, you have to get up. We have some chores to do.” He told her, trotting quietly over to her bed, placing a hoof on the lump in the sheets.
Rosario grumbled, pulling the blankets over her some more to hide her protruding horn. “I told you to call me Rin, brother,” she mumbled in a groggy voice, pushing her brother’s large hoof off of her rib cage.
He smirked, shaking her softly. “Okay, Rinny. Get up, we have to clean today.” Upon saying this, he earned growl from under the deep teal covers. “C’mon, it’s already noon, love.”
“Five more years,” Rin muttered, curling up into a small ball and elevating the pillow over her large ears before letting it drop over her head.
Keiran rolled his deep blue eyes before smiling and shaking his head. Moments after, he ripped the covers from the foal’s body, nudging her with his muzzle. “Get up, sleepy head!” He spoke loud enough to have a small hoof smack his muzzle away. “Don’t be so bitter,” he frowned, sitting down on the floor next to his sister’s bed.
“Bitter and tired are two different words with different meanings, Kei. I’m not moving,” she grumbled, glaring red-and-teal daggers at him from under her pillow. “Not even if you force me.”
Keiran smirked, lifting the small foal from her bed with ease by using his stocky whiptail before placing her down on the dull brown wooden floor. He nudged her forward as she glared at him, plopping her flank down on the floor. “I’m. Not. Moving.” She stated firmly, crossing her forelegs over one another.
“You are so difficult,” Keiran commented before looking over the young foal. Her charcoal mane was messy and unkempt, and her morning breath was glorious. “Whew! Nice breath, sister!” He exclaimed, taken aback by the stench from his sister’s mouth. He covered his muzzle with his hooves, staring at Rin with a mixed expression containing confusion and amazement. “Did you brush your teeth before bed last night?”
“Hell if I know,” she shrugged it off, still sitting on her flank in a stationary position. “Why do you care?”
“I care because I take care of you. Why don’t you care about those fangs of yours?” He replied with his left eyebrow cocked in her direction as he put his hooves back down on the floor.
She one-shoulder shrugged in reply. For a small foal, she sure has a lot of sass, thought Keiran before shaking his head. “What are you shaking your head for?” Rin asked in a rather demanding tone. Keiran mocked the shrug she did a few moments ago, receiving a slight snarl from Rin. “You’re so childish,” she scoffed, finally stretching out her muscles.
Keiran laughed softly, tilting his head to the side to watch her as she stretched herself out from the sleepiness still coursing throughout her waking body. He smiled as she finished, tearing his eyes away from her to look at the sunlight beaming in from the half-closed curtains. “Do you ever open those?” He asked her curiously.
“No need,” she replied simply. “I’m rarely ever in here anymore, and when I am, it’s after you’ve carried me to bed.” She walked towards the door, her pace relatively quick to match her small frame. She stood in the opening of the door, a small smile forming on her lips. “Are you coming, doofus, or are you gonna stare at me like I’m some granny?”
He stood, his frame about three or four times the height of Rin’s. His lean, yet muscular body moved perfectly with him, and each step he took was about four of Rin’s. As he walked out of her bedroom, he swooped her up onto his back using his tail, and smiled back at her. “There’s no way you’d make it down those steps,” he told her, remembering the first time she tried and she tumbled her way down instead. She made a sour face, looking away from him as he chuckled a bit under his breath.
“You don’t need to remind me every time that I can’t go down the steps,” she muttered, a small pout upon her lips.
“I remind you so you don’t get hurt,” Keiran told her in a soft tone, making his way down the stairs slowly to make sure she didn’t slide off of his back. He could feel her heartbeat quicken just a bit as he stepped on each step with ease. “Don’t worry,” he cooed, rolling his shoulders to get her attention, “I got you.”
As if on command, her body eased into his muscular body, her frame fitting perfectly between his shoulder blades as her limbs still remained taut around his neck. ‘I’m not afraid,” she told him, but her grip around his neck to stay on his back said otherwise.
He shook slightly, pretending to miss a step, causing Rin to react almost immediately. Magic shot out from her horn, enveloping the two ponies in a protective barrier as her eyes slammed shut out of fear. He smiled, both out of admiration and happiness to know she would protect them both from harm’s way. “It’s okay,” he reassured her, but she didn’t let the barrier down. “We’re on the floor, Rin.”
She peered through one heterochromatic eye, before opening the other to dart around the room. “I knew that,” she declared, but her slightly shivering body was alarming to the stallion. “I was testing you too.”
“Yeah,” he laughed softly, sitting down to let the young filly slide off of his stocky back. “Okay, whatever helps you sleep.” He stood again once she was standing firmly on the carpeted first floor of their home. “What should we do first? Sweep and mop the kitchen, or vacuum the rooms?” She shrugged, trotting away from the stallion, ignoring his question. “Rin, we need to--”
She turned around, holding up the broom in her magic. “I was getting the broom, you dummy.” Rolling her eyes, she started sweeping the kitchen, looking back at her brother. “Why don’t you vacuum and I can sweep and mop? It’ll go by faster, right?”
Keiran nodded, trotting over to the closet by the front door and biting down on the vacuum’s handle. He stepped on the red pedal-like button to start it up. He pushed it across the floor with ease, cleaning up any stray crumbs of food or small particles from within the light brown carpet. “Hey, sis?” He called out from the study -- or the game room -- after he’d finished about ten or so minutes later.
“You called?” Rin came waltzing in with the duster in her magic, smiling at him, as if she knew what he needed.
“It’s like you can read minds,” he said in an overly dramatic voice. Rin rolled her eyes, placing the duster down on top of the small desk before staring at one of the many activities in the room. He followed her line of sight to the pool table, and smiled to himself. “We haven’t played in a while, and it’s still early in the day.”
“Are you suggesting?”
“Absolutely!” He knew just what to say and her face lit up in excitement like a thousand suns. He grabbed a pool stick for himself and one for his sister, and Rin set up the game. He chalked up his pool stick, and Rin multitasked by putting the balls into the triangle before placing the white ball down directly in front of the most-front ball. “You ready to lose, dork?” Keiran smirked, his game-face on and his poker face at its best.
Rin grinned, two fangs protruding from her gums. “Don’t be so cocky, brother. You know this is my game!”
The two had a staredown before they did a round of tic-tac-toe to decide who went first. Of course, Keiran let Rin win at the TTT game, and she ended up having solids. From there, the game quickly became heated and the two siblings slowly got a bit overly competitive.
(;﹏;)
“HA! Guess who got the lucky 8 ball in first!” Rin’s voice rang out, followed by a victorious dance. “Nanananana! You lost!”
Keiran rolled his eyes, placing his pool stick back into its designated hole. “Yeah, yeah, shut up. I missed a shot by barely a centimeter,” he stated in a defeated tone. “If I had made it, I would have won, you sore winner.”
“Better than a sore loser!” Rin poked Keiran’s side with the pool stick, blue chalk rubbing off onto his charcoal coat. “Oops.”
Keiran dusted off the dust with a dark gray hoof. “It’s okay, it’s just chalk, sis. I think we should go run errands now.” Kei looked up at the clock on the wall. Approximately two hours have passed since they began their game of pool, and it’s close to about 3:42 PM. He shook his head. Damnit, I lost track of time.
“So, the loser doesn’t want a rematch?” Rin teased, twirling the stick in her magic before leaning against the pool table. She was standing on a step-stool for the past two hours to play against her older, and taller, brother, but still felt the need to tease him about winning.
He let out a sigh. “Rin, we have to run errands,” he said in a serious tone. “We’ve put if off for the past two days, and we need groceries.”
This time, she rolled her eyes and hopped off of the step-stool before sliding the stick into one of the holes. “Fineeee,” she replied with a bored tone. “It better be worth going outside, though.”
“Let me get some bits. Be right back.” Keiran said before disappearing up the steps to the second floor. As he searched around, Rin quietly dusted off some of the things in the study, taking care not to knock anything over or trip herself. After a few moments, Keiran found a bag of bits stowed away in one of his pine wood drawers, and ran back down the carpeted steps. “Rin! Let’s get out before rush hour, please!”
Rin scurried out of the study and crashed into her brother. He was wearing a light blue hoodie, and a pair of white sunglasses. “Why are you wearing a hoodie?” She asked him, curiosity clear in her tone.
He shrugged and offered her a smile. “Does it look tacky?”
“No, but it’s hot,” she looked outside one of the windows by the door. Celestia’s sun was blazing outside, shade little or minimum in the summer heat. Few Unicorns levitated a bottle of water in front of them, while Pegasi rested within some clouds, which were sprinkled across the mostly-clear blue sky above. Earth ponies however had saddlebags across their backs, a few water bottles poking out from them. “You’ll have a heat stroke.” Rin told him before using her magic to slip it off of the stallion. “You can wear it again in a few months time.”
Keiran nodded, appreciating the fact Rin was looking after his health. She trotted over to the kitchen, returning to him with two water bottles and his saddlebag. “Thanks, I would have forgotten it, if it weren’t for you.” He ruffled her mane with his hoof as she draped the bag over his back and placed the waters inside of it.
Rin opened the door, and quickly trotted through it, the stallion following suit. He reached his hoof in, grabbed the keys off the small table by the door, and closed the door to lock it. The young mare was waiting for him by the gate in front of their house. Once they left the premises of their home, the two marched around the market, getting much needed groceries for the next few hours.
(;﹏;)
After about two more hours, the two ponies had completed their errands, and had many bags to carry home. “I regret everything,” Keiran murmured as he stared at the mountain of brown bags from the market in a make-shift cart.
“It’s worth it!” Rin told him, sneaking a cupcake and stuffing it into her mouth as the two walked along the sidewalk back home. “What’s for dinner?” Keiran mumbled something, but Rin didn’t hear him. “What?”
“I said fend for yourself!” He yelled around the groceries. Once they approached their house, Rin opened the gate and held it open for the earth pony stallion. He stopped abruptly after just getting passed the front gate, and called to Rin, “Can you unlock the door? The keys are in my saddlebag.”
Rin trotted over to him, lifted the keys out of his bag, and unlocked the door easily. She dropped the keys back down on the table near the door, and said, “All clear!” Keiran moved forward with the groceries, and the two started moving the groceries from the cart to the kitchen floor.
From the outside, their house looks snug and comfortable, having been built with gray stones and white cedar decorations. Tall, large windows let in plenty of light, and have been added to the house in a mostly symmetric way. The house is equipped with an average kitchen and two modern bathrooms, one being upstairs and the other being downstairs. It also has a generous living room, three bedrooms, one being a guest room, a decent dining area, a study, and a cozy storage room. The building is square shaped and is fully surrounded by a brick path.
The second floor is a tad bigger than the first, which creates an overhang on the left side of the house, allowing the master bedroom to have a balcony. The roof is high, triangular, but one side is longer than the other and is covered with overlapping roof tiles, and two small chimneys poke out the center of the roof. Many smaller windows let in plenty of light to the rooms below the roof. The house itself is surrounded by a modest garden, with mostly grass and a few small trees., with a small brick wall wrapped around it, and a single metal gate with a path to the front door.
As the two ponies began putting groceries away, Rin was watching her elder brother in awe. The way he moved everything quickly once she placed it down in front of him proved he was athletic at one point in time, and she was jealous he could move everything without magic or wings. He caught her staring, and she immediately tore her eyes away to stare at a photograph of them when she was younger. “What are you staring at?”
“I was just, I mean, I wanted to know--” Rin stuttered, not knowing what to say.
Keiran looked at her, his attention now grabbed by Rin. “Wanted to know why I’m not a Unicorn or Pegasus?”
Rin sighed, looking down at the ground as she pushed more groceries towards him to put away. “Yes, but only if you’d like to tell me,” she told him, making sure he knew she didn’t want to force him.
He waved his hoof dismissively before picking up some more food to put in the cabinets. “I wasn’t as lucky as you to have any aid in daily activities and tasks,” he started, pushing some stuff to the back of the fridge before picking up more in his jaw to put in the cupboards. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the strength of being an earth pony is wonderful but,”
“But you wish you could do more advanced tasks, like I can,” Rin finished for him, and he glanced back at her for a brief moment before returning to what he was doing.
“Precisely. If I just had some more help--”
Rin moved beneath him, moving some stuff around in the fridge to make some more room to fit the rest of the items they bought with her magic. “I can help you, you know. I’m not completely useless, brother.”
Keiran looked at her as he placed some more refrigerator items into the cold compartment. “You can call me Keiran, you know,” he told her before moving to the freezer items.
She shrugged slightly. “I know, but what’s the fun in that when I can call you bookworm?”
He shot a glare at her, and she smiled politely in return. “Oh, shut it, you. I feed you and I pay for the roof over your head,” he reminded her as he finished putting all the groceries away. He glanced at the time, and realised the sunset would be happening soon, and then he looked at his sister. “It’s almost time for our walk,” he told her.
She beamed, nodding her head as she walked to the door. “Can we go early?” She inquired, tilting her head to the side and swaying her whiptail from side-to-side.
He sighed in defeat before trotting over to her, placing his sunglasses on her head. “Let’s go, shorty,” he said, opening the door for her as she darted out into the front yard. He smiled, and they made their way down to the path that lead to a small forest.
(;﹏;)
As the sun set behind them, Rin climbed atop of Keiran’s back in the meantime as they trotted towards the pond in the small, yet decent forest. “Do you like these walks, Rin?” Keiran asked the young mare as he trotted along the dirt path.
Rin nodded, a small yawn escaping her muzzle. “I always do,” she told him in a sleepy voice.
Keiran sighed, shaking his head. “You’re never awake long enough to make it to the Firefly Pond, you know. I’m always stuck with you sleeping on my back while I watch the fireflies dance around us.”
With a sigh, Rin shook her head. “Do they really dance, Kei?”
He nodded slightly as the young filly lay her chin on his bobbing shoulder. “Yes, they do. It’s such a magnificent dance that I wish you could see. They twirl and spin, and sometimes, they even dip enough to graze the water with their superb and perfectly timed moves.”
Rin’s head bobbed slightly with the first signs of sleep, and then another yawn left her muzzle. “I want to see them,” she told Keiran, but he could already tell she’d be sound asleep before they even got close to the pond.
He rolled his shoulders slightly, then swayed his tail back-and-forth as she started to fall asleep. “For you, I’d do anything,” he began, and she started to doze off. “For you, I’d sacrifice my life. For you, I’ll be your protector. I will do my best to see you grow, and I will do try my hardest to make sure I teach you everything you may need to know. I’ll see to it that you can love yourself, and still love those around you.”
He paused, his tone soft and quiet, almost harmonising now. “For you, I will make sure you are beyond happy before I leave you with one final goodbye. For you, I will be there until I die.”
As he approached the pond, it was shallow this time around, and the fireflies were vacant from the area. He sighed to himself, laying down on the short, green grass, and watching through a patch in the large trees the sky above. Each star told its own tale, and he believed that one day, he will become Rin’s star, to see to it that she will become who she was meant to be. The water calmed him to an almost trance-like state, and he’d wished the fireflies were here to keep him and his sister company. He looked around, but sighed as the lily pads slowly moved about the small, shallow pond. A stray frog croaked in the darkness of the night, and he stood as the moon began to rise.
“I love you, Rinny,” he told her, carrying her back home in a slow haze. Once he'd reached the front door, he pushed it open slowly with his muzzle, the creaking of the floorboards under his hooves minimal. He climbed the steps sleepily, and trotted over to Rin's room. Slowly, he placed her snug in her bed, and returned to his bedroom.
Laying upon his bed now, he quietly tried to steady his breathing, as he knew of his own fate, and he wouldn’t want to risk losing his sister. He wanted her to have a life, and he wanted her to continue on without needing to depend on anyone. “I taught her well, right, mum and dad?” He subconsciously called to the stars above, hoping to get an answer, but to no avail.
He sighed softly, a few lone tears escaping his eyes. “I want her to know I’ll keep doing what I can to teach her well, until she knows I won’t be here forever. I want her to know what love is, and I want to see her grow, but I can’t...I just can’t when I have to protect her too.” Keiran sobbed softly into his pillow. Who knew knowing your fate was worse than actually going through it.
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