I Remember...

by Nightwhisper

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 1479

A simple story about a colt who lived in a place where winter never ended.

A Simplistic story about a colt (now grown up) who tells of his experience during a very harsh period of Equestrian history.

Published 2016-09-24 09:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-09-24 09:40:01 UTC

Remembrance

Remembrance

Words that describe where I lived, cold, harsh, unforgiving, tense but there's also joy, a sense of being content with what you had and such. It's been a long time since I've seen home; I still remember it.

By the time I was born the three tribes, unicorns, earthponys, and pegasi had already turned their backs of one another. The unicorns often blamed the pegasi and vise verse. Earthponys had split opinions on the matter some blamed the unicorns others blamed the pegasi and a select few, blamed both. Although now we know the cause our quarreling seemed a bit, how do I put it? Silly. Yes, that's the word, silly.

I, however, am getting off topic. This little story is not about a great deed being done or even about a hero, no. Just about a pony or if you wish to put it more accurately a colt, who grew up in a time of great strife and superstition.

I was born into a small family just my mom, dad and my later to be born little sister. We lived just on the outskirts of town, near old farmland. The house, admittedly, wasn't very big, but it kept the cold out.

Once you entered the house, you would see the living room first; sitting close to the hearth was a couch and a chair. The floor was rickety and would creak under the weight of just one step. Other than those things the room was pretty bland, the only other thing worthwhile to mention would be the picture on the wall of the sun rising. The kitchen held only the necessities, not much decoration; the room had mostly cupboards for food or dishes, the dishes were the majority of the taken space since food was becoming a rarity. The icebox sat in the corner of the room next to the backdoor, it like the cupboards remained empty most of the time. The dining table was in the middle of the kitchen since there were no more rooms that we could put it in.

There were two bedrooms, my room, and my parent's room. When, my sister was born she stayed in my parent's room until she was old enough to share a room with me. Our room was simple: two beds, a shared dresser, a gray rug on the floor and a toy box that contained the few toys that we did own. I don't remember my parent's room very well, most likely because I didn't spend much time in there. With my scattered knowledge, I know that they had a bed and a nightstand, but that's the only parts I know for sure are there. I will not bore you with my guess's on what might or might not be there.

Now with no end in sight for winter my parents took odd jobs to get the bits we needed for food. Most of the time my dad wouldn't return from whatever job he was doing until early in the morning or late at night. Some nights we worried that he would not come back our mother often sang us this lullabies when these fears arose. I wrote one of them down below.

Hush now little children the sun has gone down.

The night will not last long.

You father will return ere the break of day,
Doth not worry nor fret.

So, hush now little children,
And curl up tight lest the cold take you by
morning.

When the day breaks the blizzard will have passed,
And you shall see your father again.

But its morning mother!
The blizzard has passed,
Whence shall we see father again?

Hush now little children,
Doth not worry nor fret,
For your father will return ere sundown.

So, pass away the hours,
As you wish,
Stray not into the cold day!

If the cold were to take you,
My heart would be no more,
And my struggles trifold.

These lullabies are easily my fondest memory I have as a child and to forget them would be a sin in itself.

Our parents taught us when we became old enough. The reason for this has a simple answer; during this time most of the earthponies spent their time farming to try to keep up with a large population of hungry ponies, not only their family but the unicorns and pegasi too. Since nearly everypony was focusing on either farming, politics, or just blaming one another there wasn't much time made for schools to stay open.

Thankfully, my parents were born before, when the sun still shined every single morning, when you could hear the birds sing their tuneless song when winter ended normally, but I digress. The main point is that they were educated meaning they could teach us.

At first, it was an exciting thought, being taught by our parents. This excitement quickly wore off as time passed. Since our parents were our teachers, they knew what homework we had and when it needed to be turned in. I will admit that their schooling helped me later on in life but in my youth, I thought of it as a bore.

By the time I was fourteen, the current leaders of the three tribes had decided to leave and look for a new land. This decision had everypony in a relatively good mood, especially me and the other children. Most of us had never seen the sun before, all we knew was the cold, unforgiving snow.

One predictably cold morning our happiness was stolen from us.

While, the morning started normally at first, we soon noticed the absence of our father.

"Mom, where has father gone?" my little sister had said.

"You needn't know that just yet my dear, now sit down and enjoy what breakfast we have." my mother had responded brushing off my sister's question. While my sister was compliant, I was a bit of a, how would you put it? Ah, that's the word, trouble maker with a little bit of rude on the side.

"Why shouldn't we know?" I had asked my mother questionably. The look she gave me will forever be burned into my brain the emotions in her eyes were far too complex for any word that may exist now. Any remark after my question was gone.

"Your father has fallen ill," my mother had whispered. Silence, complete utter silence is the only things that I remember from that moment; it was as if time itself had stopped in its endless ticking. Why was a thing such as illness met with this much despair? A cold was nothing, however, this is not of what my mother speaks of when talking about somepony being ill; what she means is my father is ill enough to be considered unable to work. I do not wish to talk about this part for an extended period of time as my father was very dear to me.

The days after this news we're in short hard, with my father not working, the amount of bits we had dwindled. We didn't have much time to do extra stuff since our time was always taken up. Taking care of my father, homework, chores, helping make bits from time to time.

The snowfall had only gotten worse as the months passed and that's not the only thing that had gotten worse. The excitement of finding a new home without snow and ice had become stale. Soon old quarrels were renewed, ponies were back to arguing and bickering with each other. As hate festered and grew, the amount of snow grew with it.

The leaders of the three tribes had returned about seven months after they left. Sadly they had returned little too late my father had passed the night before. Everypony rejoiced at the news of a new more sunny place to live. The move to our new home was bittersweet. It took awhile to get there, when we eventually did get there we settled down in a nice forest area.

We couldn't bring our fathers body all the way here so we buried him near a tree at our old home. I'll never forget what happened at our old home; the memories will stick with me till the day I die. I will leave this story here, in my notebook for whoever may find it.

Writing the last sentence in my notebook I put it back in my saddlebags and continued marching through the snow to find the home that I had left long ago.

-End-

Here you stand,

At the place where you started.

Thinking about your known past.

While marching on into the uncertain future.

Author's Note

I came back to do a little bit of refining. :derpytongue2: Hope you like the new version of the song. Leave your thoughts in a comment below.