Their meal had been short, but precious. They had now eaten their two apples, and had shared their muffin mix. It had not tasted anything like muffins actually did, but the grey mare had wanted to share the moment with her daughter. Something that was so precious, and had been so taken for granted had been a blessed moment. The little filly had taken a taste of the mix. The mare could tell from a quick twitch of the nose of what her little one had thought of it initially. In spite of that, the filly smiled at her mother, and had continued to eat.

They had taken their time to eat, even though they didn’t actually need too. The mare had rekindled the fire with a few small, dry twigs that she had gathered a previous day, and then had laid down on her side, hugging her small filly to her belly with a strength that only a mother would understand. This was a hold that evoked love and warmth, and evoked so much passion in such a gentle hugging. Not even the darkest and most deadly of demons from Tartarus could pry the young filly away.

The light of the fire sparkled in the grey mare’s eyes as she looked at it, her body feeling tired but refusing to fall asleep. A gentle voice came from beneath her.

“Mommy, I can’t sleep.”

The mare did nothing but press her daughter against her more. She could feel the natural heat from her larger body radiate onto the child, and hoped that neither of them would sleep in the cold tonight. In spite of them having a well-lit fire, the cave would still be cold, especially when the cloud would create the chill in the air, and it would blow through the cave, chilling them to their very soul.

“I know,” the mare cooed, “Please try to though ok?”

The child moved her head slightly, unable to keep still, as was expected of children. “I’m trying.”

The filly was quiet afterwards, but then spoke again.

“Mommy, are you cold right now?”

The mare reached her hoof around the filly’s small body to her stomach. She was not shivering, even though she could have been trying not to shiver.

“No.” She spoke, “I’m fine.”

“You’re shivering though.” The child seemed to see through her rues though, and spoke the literal truth. In spite of this, the mare replied to her daughter.

“I’m fine. Just try to go to sleep.”

“Are you scared?”

The mare had to admit that the seemingly random question from her filly had caught her off guard.

Even your own child is unconfident in you. She pushed those old thoughts away.

“…I’m not.” She replied as normally and confidently as she usually did.

“Oh, ok.”

Silence again.

“Mommy?”

A parent could become easily frustrated with his or her child. The grey mare was sure that she could have easily told her daughter to fall asleep, and to stop talking. She was not new at parenting. Children would be children sometimes, and they liked to talk a lot; sometimes about seemingly random things. But, as the mare knew, it was better to listen to your child than to flat out ignore them.

“Yes my little muffin, what is it?”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

This was a simple question, but with a complicated answer.

“What do you mean?” The mare asked her daughter.

In the dim cave, she felt her daughter move her head slightly. She could feel her daughter’s yellow eyes looking at her. “You know. Can you tell me why the cloud is here?”

The grey mare sighed. It was not a frustrated sigh, but simply a tired sigh. “Muffin, I’ve told you many times.”

“I know. But can you please tell me again?”

In a way, the mare supposed, it was a sort of bedtime story. “…Yes, I suppose so.”

“Ok.”

The grey mare stared at the fire, the recollections filling her thoughts. “A few years ago, Mount Canterlot erupted…”

“What’s erupted mean again?” Dinky had interrupted her, but the mother knew that she meant no harm.

“It means…” The mare gave an unneeded pause. “It means that the mountain exploded.”

“The mountain blew up?” The young filly had seemed to realize her previous mistake, and had let her mother finish the statement before she had asked her own. Internally, the mare wanted to smile, but she didn’t.

“Yes. It did. We didn’t know that it would blow up. We had thought that it was dormant.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Dormant? It means that we didn’t think it would erupt.”

“Oh.”

“Yep.”

The spoken words between the two became silent. The fire nearby crackled, and shone out a light that would have seemed to instill hope into the two, but that hope had been lost in the mare long ago. She was sure that things had tried to get better, but they hadn’t. And they never would. But she had hardened. No, she thought, I have become stronger. She had become stronger, and she would not die, and her most precious treasure would not die.

The mare did not expect the conversation to end, but the idea of the eruption seemed foreign to the filly, and she had pondered it for a bit. Final she stated, “So it blew up, and that made the cloud appear.”

“Yes.” The grey mare answered, “That’s what made the cloud appear.”

That was the end. After that, the child became quiet, and did not speak again. Nuzzling against her mother’s natural warmth, the filly’s breaths soon became gentle, occasionally coughing in her sleep. This had been something that the mare had always become furious at. The damnable ash was a curse. It was a curse to their lungs, it was a curse to their eyes, and it was a curse to their life.

In the hour, the mare soon joined her daughter in the deep sleep. The cold of the cave only increased as the night grew on. The darkness soon overtook the two as the fire finished feeding off of its last cinders.

Author's Note

Sorry if this one seems a little short! I'll keep the updates coming, so be patient!

Again, this is my first fanfiction, so feedback and comments are always welcome!