The Filly and her Ghosts

‘EIRA!’

Sweetie ran like there was there was tomorrow, and jumped on top of the colt, knocking him over in the snow. She wasn’t even sorry; to feel the warmth of his body against hers, the feel of his fur, his mane, his tail, it was enough to make her cry- relief like this, the bliss of it, almost made being separated worthwhile. In that moment, the filly was lighter than air.

‘Don’t ever leave me again,’ she told him (a pang of rage deflated her relief: it was twice that he had left her that night). ‘Or else.’

Eira stood up. He looked at his bag- it had fallen off when Sweetie had jumped him- and looked at his hooves. The light from his horn dimmed a little. ‘Alright,’ he said in a voice flatter than paper.

Though the blizzard had died, the wind remained. Sweetie’s teeth chattered. From nowhere, she thought of walking to Twilight’s in the snow, how lovely the sight of it had been, how she’d imagined the mountains of Canterlot to be peaceful giants watching over a snow-covered Equestria. Now she was here, the idea was loathsome- if she never saw snow again then it would be a lifetime too soon.

‘... Are you alright?’ she asked.

The wind howled. Slowly, Sweetie Belle took notice of where she was: high, high above Canterlot, and the streetlamps gleamed like stars. And though Eira’s magic wasn’t tbright, it was enough to illuminate a little stone wall coated in a layer of snow.

Sweetie stared at it, a strange unease creeping over her: this wasn’t a good place. She couldn’t put the feeling into words, but standing here beside the wall made her feel… sad, somehow. Lonely and forgotten, for she sensed without being told that this was a place overlooked by generations of ponies. When summer came, the wall would be overgrown with vines and creepers. Here, in the heart of winter, it was a dead place, snowbound and desolate.

Sometimes all it takes is to look at something from a different perspective.

Suddenly, Sweetie realised that she wasn’t looking at one wall, but rather four: four low, stone walls arranged in a rectangle. With a jolt in her stomach, it occurred to her that they hadn’t been built so low on purpose: a house had once stood here. A hundred years was all it had taken for nature to reduce it to rubble.

Eira, as though he could see something Sweetie couldn’t, walked up to a gap in the wall. He raised a hoof. He waved it in mid-air, as though knocking an invisible door – a door that had rotted into nothing decades beforehoof…

‘It’s really been a hundred years, h-hasn’t it?’ he whispered.

Sweetie didn’t answer. She couldn’t. There was a lump in her throat and it wouldn’t let her speak.

So she walked up to him and stood beside him. Silence bound them. It said more than spoken words ever could: I’m sorry, Eira, Sweetie’s silence said. Oh Celestia, I’m so, so sorry.

Eira took a deep breath. Despite everything, he managed a weak grin. ‘It’s alright,’ he said. His voice trembled, but Sweetie knew that it wasn’t from the cold. ‘I wouldn’t know what to say either.’

This was too much for Sweetie Belle. For the second time in as many minutes she threw her hooves around him and held him tight, clutched him, pressed her face into his fur – she didn’t want to let go. What was it like? What was it like knowing that everyone was it to know that everyone you ever knew was dead, dead, dead? Even the buildings he had once known were gone; stone wasn’t as permanent as it appeared.

Everything fades.

Finally, Sweetie Belle loosened her hooves allowing Eira to cross the wall into what remained of Cherry Blossom’s home. His smile had vanished, replaced with a blankness so complete that it rivalled the white, fresh snow.