This Soft Woe
Her name is Lilly.
The ruins had been a good bet.
Through the muted glow that was the only inclination of daylight, and beneath the ever-present film of colorless sky, the day aged in the permanent shadow of the petrified world. The were dusk had come, and it was time for Larynx to set out for home, his scavenge complete.
Night was fast approaching, only signaled by the waning of the muted light that saturated the dirty clouds that never moved or traveled. Larynx knew that once it was dark, there would be no light to guide his way back. The stars and moon, and probably the sun as well, had died with their bearers, never to grace the skies with their heavenly presence again.
With his finds in his saddlebags, Larynx hauled himself from the last pile of rubble, some remnant of a hardware store, and set out back down the road. He had gotten lucky this time: a few nails, a musty blanket he had found in some rafters, a rusty blade he might be able to salvage, two tins of food, their labels long gone (though that was of little matter), and a half a gallon of lantern oil he had siphoned from a half-buried tank.
The real surprise was the chocolate bar he had discovered between the rotting cushions of a couch in a burned-out building. The wrapping was scorched, and the chocolate had melted and congealed at one end of the wrapper, but it felt like he had won a million bits as he set out back the way he had come.
The roads beneath his hooves were cracked and crumbling, the haunting skeletons of dead trees hovering over him. Their barren branches were suspended like bleached ribs and bones, which were not an uncommon sight on his excursions. They were like a foal's toys, tucked into corners here and there and strewn across the ground in their haphazard manners. The bones broke and crumbled at the slightest touch, mixing with the ash of the old life that covered everything since the Last Fires finally burned themselves out.
Larynx meandered passed the rotting wagons and wrecked carts that decayed on the soot-coated pavement, his hooves echoing through the grey, desiccated foothills. The town was nothing more than a meager little collection of cracked foundations and half-standing walls upon the charcoal-spotted hill. It lay tucked between the mountains of the devoid valley, tombstones of black and grey that scraped the film of the sky.
Air that reeked of death and ash filled Larynx’s nostrils through the rag covering his muzzle. The perpetually stained poncho covering his back was mostly for the dust, the hood pulled tight around his face. It would never shed rain again.
Larynx treaded over a pile of bricks in the road that spilled across the weathered pavement, his hooves sending little puffs of mortar dust with each careful step. A wall of the adjacent building had collapsed, leaving behind the debris that crunched under his hooves.
Maybe it was just his imagination or the reality of being so alone, but for a brief moment, Larynx caught the feeling he was being followed. He hadn't seen anything to suggest so, not yet. But as he walked, he turned his head on a swivel, his eyes scanning the grey as they reached across the dark mountains surrounding the town that had once been tucked in a vale. Nothing.
He stopped when a stray tinkle chimed underhoof. It called out like a friend as if to say hello, there is still something here in this empty world. His stranger? The sound echoed among the dark, silent guardians of the valley, carried on the stagnant wind that had ceased to blow years ago.
Stopping, Larynx spotted the little round object and crouched to pick it up. Wiping away the layer of grime that coated its surface revealed the still shiny gold beneath it.
Larynx held the coin up, letting it shimmer in the waning light that filtered through. It had been a long time since he had seen something besides grey; the golden-laced reflection made him feel warm inside, fending off the biting cold that clung to everything and gnawed at his bones. And though it held no use for him or anypony else, he decided to keep it, carefully slipping the bit into his saddlebag. He would put it on his mantle, a treasure to behold through the long nights and short days.
He was nearly out of the rubble and heading out of the town by the time the dim specter of light was dipping behind the obsidian-coated range. To celebrate his good fortune, and to stave off the fleeting feeling of happiness, Larynx allowed himself to pause and take a sip of his battered canteen, a trusty companion always at his side. Pulling down the dusty rag tied over his muzzle, he tilted the flask back. He winced, the metallic taste of the water slipping down his parched throat like vile medicine. The mouthful was terrible, laced with the aroma of rusted pipe and the everpresent chalky ash, but it was all he had to quench his thirst.
Larynx had just returned the cap to the canteen when he saw the bundle huddled beside the road. It was curled in the dirt, halfway rolled into a ditch.
It was a mare. A cart was overturned just behind the pony where she had fallen, its paltry contents spilling into the clogged ditch: a few empty food tins, a now busted lantern, and a few water jugs he could see were empty.
She had crawled the last few feet, dragging herself through the ash until she could go no more. She did not move.
If it were an ambush, it would have already happened he reasoned. Larynx scanned his surroundings one last time before he bent down to examine the mare. It was a rarity to see anypony these days; he had counted only one pony he had happened upon in the last three seasons. It had been an old stallion, beard tangled and soiled, pushing a cart through the ash. Larynx had only received a wary glance from the old pony out the corner of his eye as he passed. The sound of his rattling cart, with its threadbare blankets and unidentifiable detritus, would linger for hours, carried upon the choking air.
But this pony Larynx would travel no more, finally arriving morning her journey. He gently rolled the body of mare over, though it took little effort. She was nothing more than skin and bones. Her coat was as filthy as he was and the fur had fallen out in patches, revealing the taut skin beneath. He didn't like to think of what he was doing as scavaging – simply collecting what she had left behind. She wouldn't need her supplies, however meager, any longer.
His hooves were patted her down for anything of use when the corpse whispered to him. Corpses aren't supposed to whisper, or articulate at all for that matter.
“M-m-mari-gold?”
Larynx froze. There was still some life in the mare.
“Ma-ri-gold?” the mare tried again, her cracked and scabbed lips quivering to form each syllable. Larynx looked around, searching the empty streets. There was nopony to be found. Who was she calling for, a friend, relative?”
“I-is it you?” the mare asked again, her milky eyes darting in their sunken sockets. She was reaching toward him, but she didn’t even have the strength to hold up her hoof. The mare didn’t have long, she was already too far gone. Even if he tried to give her food or some of the water from his canteen, it would probably kill her before it could help her. Death was hovering over the mare, ready to shield her with its great wings from the horrors of the wastes she would have to tread no more.
“Marigold,” she croaked again, her body heaving with a sob, but she didn’t even have enough left in her to produce tears.
Larynx knew there was nothing he could do to save the mare; her fate was written. But maybe there was something he could give to comfort her in her final struggle.
With a hoof, he removed the hood of his poncho, letting it slide down his neck. If she could see him at all, the mare would only have caught a short glimpse of his unassuming complexion. But hadn't that always been the point: to blend in. To be the inconspicuous, even in the time before Fire. To call his looks plain would have been an understatement. Larynx had chosen his daily attire carefully – a unicorn stallion, a long blue mane with only a slightly lighter coat to cover his average frame. Even in an ashy wasteland, it wouldn't turn heads. The roving bandits that passed through every few seasons rarely paid him notice, merely another ghost forever wandering the Fire-scarred dustscape.
But Larynx needed a change of attire for what came next.
Larynx focused his magic, letting it curl from the tip of his horn and flow down him. Closing his bright blue eyes, the magic took over his form, molding him anew.
He had no idea who Marigold was to this pony or what she looked like. The only form he could imagine was a mare with a long mane like silk and a coat the color of vanilla, somepony from a picture he had found while scavenging. The pony he was picturing was probably long gone, but it was the best he could do. He continued to focus on that image, that same picture displayed on his mantle of trinkets.
The changes came slowly at first, his square jaw receding into a pretty smile. The crest of dirty mane along the back of his neck sprouted into a thousand golden strands of long shiny hair. A soft yellow coat spread over him, his old form evaporating with a whisper. He blinked, two bright hazelnut irises materializing from within.
His shift complete, Larynx reached into his saddlebag and pulled out the blanket he had scavenged. It was dirty and full of holes, but it would have to do.
The mare had curled into a tight ball, her face pulled into her forelegs, her lungs sucking up mouthfuls of dust with every raspy breath.
As if handling a newborn, Larynx pulled the mare tight against him, swaddling her in the blanket.
“Marigold?” she wheezed again, searching with her empty eyes, but unable to pick him out. He grasped her weak hoof, letting the mare touch his soft cheeks.
“I’m here,” he said, his words soft and feminine to match the body. “It’s me.”
The mare slid her hoof over his features, feeling his long lashes and petite muzzle. He wasn’t sure if she was lucid enough to tell he wasn’t the one she was looking for, or that he probably didn’t sound like Marigold. If she had realized, she didn't care.
Either way, her hooves wrapped around his waist tight, squeezing him with the last strength she had. “Don’t leave me,” she begged, heaving with each word that took a little life from her. “Please don’t leave me. Don’t let me go.”
“Shhh,” he shushed her, patting down her matted hair. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise,” he told the mare, pulling the blanket tight and cradling the mare as she clutched him. “I won’t let you go. I’ll stay right here. Right till the end.”
The mare wouldn’t speak again after that. She was content with holding onto him as her final breaths wracked her lungs, each taste of polluted air hovering on the edges of her lips. But he continued to stay with her, letting her hold him tight and bury her head into his chest.
“I’m here, I’m here,” he would repeat time to time, letting her hear his sweet voice.
But Larynx wouldn’t have to wait long; he never did. The mare went with a final breath, the air dying in her throat as her hooves relaxed and released him from her embrace. Her eyes slid down, never to rise again. And with the conclusion Larynx let disguise disperse till he was simple stallion he always wore underneath.
Returning his hood over his head, he stood, gently setting the body of the mare down and pulling the blanket tight around her still body. He wouldn’t need it.
It was already very late, and the last glow of daylight wasn’t far from disappearing. Larynx knew even it, the daylight, would eventually fade from this dead existence, but for the time being, he had to get home; there would be no moon nor stars to light his path. With one final glance to the mare beneath the blanket, he gave her a small whispered, “Goodbye,” and he left.
It almost looked as if she was sleeping, he thought.
It wasn’t until he made it home, following the dusty path a short distance up the road, that his feeling of being followed was confirmed.
Larynx, tired and cold, heard the click of the revolver as he pulled open the door to his house, tucked deep within the skeletons of trees.
“Don’t. Move,” the voice behind him commanded, pressing the barrel into Larynx’s neck. “Or I’ll blow clean through your throat,” the pony said with a raspy cough.
Larynx didn’t bother to flinch. “Ok, ok,” he complied calmly, standing before his partially cracked front door. “There is a knife strapped to my flank,” he said, not daring to move for it himself. “Beneath the cloak.”
A hoof reached cautiously forward, lifting the edge of his overcoat and quickly pulling the knife away. Larynx tried to catch a peek at the intruder out the corner of his eye, but the pony noticed.
“Hey!” the stranger barked, pressing the barrel of the gun deeper into the flesh of his neck. “What did I say! Don’t look at me. Eyes forward!” he commanded. “Have anything else on you?”
“That’s it. Just the knife.” Larynx nodded toward the door, the barrel in his neck following him. “There is a shotgun inside the door. It’s not loaded. Take whatever you want and just be on your way,” he told the pony behind him. “There isn’t much food. But that’s all I have, I swear.”
The barrel of the gun didn’t waver.
What was this pony after, Larynx wondered. If the stranger were any real threat, he would have already killed him by now. It wasn’t so often Larynx found himself in such a position. Not many creatures could sneak up on him so effortlessly.
“Are you going to hurt him, Dad?” came a timid little voice behind him. A foal?
“Be quiet, Lilly,” the stranger said sternly.
“But he didn’t do anything wrong,” the soft voice returned, a filly.
Larynx caught a quick glimpse of a bundled mess of dirty blond mane tucked inside a threadbare coat, hiding behind a pair of legs. The next thing he saw was the butt of the pistol.
Crack!
Larynx’s head split open by the butt of the gun, blood washing over his sight and his senses vanishing quickly before him. His ears rang and his throat clenched, and it was all he could do to remain conscious and standing.
“I said, don’t move! Don’t you dare look at her!” the stranger boomed, raising the barrel of the gun between Larynx’s eyes.
“Please,” Larynx begged, cringing back and shielding his bloodied face. “I’m sorry. Just take whatever you want, I won’t stop you.”
The stranger gazed at him angrily, fire and anticipation in his eyes.
Larynx warily looked about the gloom settling over them. Sunset wasn’t long off, and evenings grew dark quick these days. “Look, it’s almost dark, and we shouldn’t be out,” Larynx said, wiping the blood from his eyes and standing on shaky hooves. “There are roving bandits in these parts this time of the season. Take whatever you want of mine, just get the kid inside where it's safer,” he pleaded.
The stranger chewed over the words, mulling on them. He was a small stallion, his eyes only reaching the bottom of his jaw. A week's worth of stubble was painted across his weathered face, bright eyes burrowing deep inside him
“Get in the house, Lilly,” the stranger finally said, keeping his gun drawn.
Slowly the stranger and the filly stepped around Larynx. The stranger, never taking his aim off Larynx, nudged in the door and gave the room a quick sweep.
The cabin was little more than a dark, dusty room, the windows and shutters boarded up. But to Larynx, it was home, his mantle of trinkets waiting obediently inside.
The stranger’s wary eye probed the darkness, finding nopony else inside.
“Let’s go,” the stranger said, pushing the filly forward. “You too,” he growled at Larynx, waving with his pistol for him to go inside. “Try anything funny though—” he cocked the hammer. “I will make sure my filly is safe.”
After a quiet and certainly awkward meal of cold canned oats, Larynx sitting across from the two of them, nursing the bump on his head while he munched, the stranger tucked the filly in for bed. Larynx let them use his cot in the corner of the room, a small wicker divider giving it a little privacy.
The stranger came back to the table and sat across from Larynx. The weathered stallion had barely touched his food, and he broke into a fit of coughs before he sat down. The gun clattered on top of the table; the stranger let it sit, but kept the barrel pointed at Larynx.
Finally, after the fit of coughs subsided, the stranger spoke. “I know what you are,” he rasped weakly, speaking low so as not to wake the filly.
Larynx didn’t flinch at the accusation. There was little use in hiding what he was now. “And what do you plan on doing about that fact?” he asked.
“What do you think the ponies years ago would have done?” the stranger returned.
“Well,” Larynx grimaced dryly, “we are some of the last alive to witness the outcome.” Larynx shuddered to remember the fighting, the bloodshed.
The fires.
“The war is over,” Larynx resolved. “And I have no quarrel with you. Neither of our species wanted this reality, living in the dust and darkness beneath the clouds, slowly suffocating.”
“And yet here we are,” the stranger grinned, blood coughed up staining his teeth. He paused only a moment to quickly lick the offending crimson away. “The last inheritors of Equestria, and, I can assume, the rest of the world,” he spoke, his words carrying a weight. “And after all that I have seen – the horrors I have witnessed these final years – I am left with one question after today,” he told Larynx. “Do you want to know what that question is?” he ventured, grimacing through some pain that quickly arose. Not a spiritual pain; this was physical.
Larynx didn’t flinch.
“Why?”
“Why?” Larynx was confused? “Why what?”
“We caught our first sight of you in town today,” the stranger revealed. "Watched you since the start of the day picking through the ruins. I know the signs how to spot one of your kind from before the Fire. You try to look so inconspicuous with your forms, it becomes plainly visible," he chuckled. "But the mare," he gave a low whistle. "Now that was a surprise."
His stranger.
“We saw what you did for that dying mare," the stranger continued. "I’ve never seen a changeling comfort somepony like that before, hold someone’s hoof as they slip away. So I’m left wondering: why?”
“You wonder why I changed for her?”
“Yeah,” the stranger shrugged. “You had no reason to help her; there was no coming back from that close to the brink of death." The stranger quickly interrupted another couch, catching it quick. "So, who was the pony you changed into, the blonde-haired mare?”
“I don’t know,” Larynx shrugged, but answered truthfully. He had nothing to hide but himself. “Just somepony pictured in a locket."
He pointed to the same locket sitting on his mantle. "I found it a few seasons back, buried in the ashes of a desk in a town on the other end of the valley. I keep them as my bright things; things that return a little color to the world.
The stranger looked past his head and saw his collection: the locket, a brass doorknob – polished –, a set of keys on a ring, a colored postcard, only slightly singed around the edges (Hello From Canterlot!). Only the coin remained, waiting patiently in his saddlebag by the door.
"The mare was calling for somepony,” Larynx told the stranger. "It sounded like a mare's name, so I used the best thing I had. The pony in the locket."
“But that still doesn’t answer my question,” the stranger said sternly, resting his hoof on his pistol. “Now I’m only going to ask this once more,” he said, leaning forward in his chair, bloodshot eyes locked on Larynx. “I need you to be very clear. I need to be sure,” he hissed. “Why did you change forms for the dying mare?”
Larynx shook his head tiredly, unfazed by the gun, the constant threat of death having hung over his head since the Wildfire burned out and the clouds concealed the sky. How foolish their two kinds had been. “I did it because it was all I coulddo,” he sighed. “Like you said, she was already too far gone and slipping fast. I figured, letting her hold onto somepony she though familiar would help her in those final moments. That’s all,” he shrugged. “Because I didn’t want her to die alone, scared. Who would?”
The stranger stared at him, as if testing his words any hint of a lie, before being interrupted by another fit of coughs. This one was especially bad, the stranger bracing himself on the edge of the table as his chest heaved and bucked.
When the fit was finally over, and his wheezing stopped, the stranger pulled his hoof away from his mouth, the fur on his foreleg splattered with blood.
“It’s the dust, isn’t it?” Larynx asked him. “Something in the dust.”
The stranger tapped the center of his chest, slowly regaining his facilities. “It’s here,” he told him. “In here; I can feel it. It’s been getting worse over the last few months: gnawing at me.”
“Any idea how far along it is?” Larynx asked, his eyes looking over the stranger solemnly.
“Far enough,” he said, suppressing another bout of coughs. He raised a hoof toward the corner of the room, to the partition. “That little filly, my daughter, she is the only reason I’ve even made it this far. Lilly is all I have.”
“Does she know?”
“No,” he shook his head. “No, I don’t think she does. I’ve tried to keep it hidden as long as I could.” He wiped the blood from his lips. “But I don’t think it will be long now. Which is why I followed you here.”
Larynx spread his hooves across the table. “I meant it, what I said earlier. You and your daughter are welcome to stay and rest here as long as you need. It’s drafty, but it doesn’t get too cold most days.”
The stranger raised a hoof and shook his head. “I don’t think you understood what I meant,” he said. “I brought Lilly here, because of you.”
“Me? I don’t follow.”
The stranger launched into another fit of coughs. It was several minutes before he reined them under control. “I—” he gasped. “I will not leave my child alone in this wretched world without a father. She needs a dad.”
“A dad? You don’t expect that to be me now, do you?” Larynx had it hard enough as it was with the bandits, the constant scavenging, and the fact that most few ponies left would kill him if they knew what he was.
“I can’t just leave her in the wastes,” the stranger said, clutching his chest as he gasped for breath. “And it’s harder to finder a pony trustworthy enough or willing to raise somepony else’s foal. But if what you say is true for why you did what you did for the dying mare, then you’re my only choice left. You are the thing I have been searching for since I accepted what would happen to me. I needed a changeling," he revealed.
“But she doesn’t need me,” Larynx interjected. “She needs her father.”
“That was why I chose you,” the stranger said. “I knew she needed me, and still does. That is why I want you to take my place, to change yourself to look like me," he gasped, his lungs bucking in his chest. "I want you to replace me.”
Larynx shook his head. He could hardly process the words he was hearing. “What you’re asking of me, it’s not possible. I might can look like whoever I choose, but I don’t know the first thing about being you, or your daughter for that matter. Even if I did it, she would piece together something was off within days, if not hours.”
“You might not be the real me, or know the real me,” the stranger told him. “But I could teach you: my habits, quirks, ticks, memories. Every moment that she and I have shared, I can give to you.”
“Surely there is a better way,” Larynx griped. “Somepony else who is a more befitting father figure.”
“But she doesn’t need a father figure,” the stranger explained. “What she needs is her dad. Now, I don’t have long, and you’re the only changeling I have seen since the Great Fires, so I have officially run out of options.”
The stranger leaned across the table, his hooves weak and outstretched. “Please, you’re all I have left.”
Larynx looked first to the corner, the soft snores of the sleeping filly filtering through the room divider, then to the father. How could he possibly hold the responsibility of protecting such a small creature while masquerading as somepony else, assuming their full identity?
It was only when he remembered the coin he had collected earlier, did Larynx he see what he must do. Like the trinkets upon his mantle. Keep the light and color alive in this dead, dead, plane of existence.
“Where do we begin?” Larynx wondered, turning back to the stranger.
The stranger almost melted with a sigh of relief. He reached out across the table and shook Larynx’s hoof, grasping it and giving it a warm shake. “Mountain Thistle,” he wept, a stray tear detaching from his cheek and slithering down his dirty chin. “My name is Mountain Thistle.”
“That’s a pretty good start,” Larynx nodded, the corner of his lip turning up ever so slightly.
They stayed through the night, sitting around the table by lantern light as Mountain Thistle surrendered every last detail to Larynx. The changeling listened, meditating on every word.
“–was after we left Fillydelphia that we saw the bird, a great fiery blaze of orange streaked with dirty ash. It was a pitiful thing clinging to a bare tree branch. Hardly even took notice of us; it just skulked overhead in the bare branches, sometimes crying out over the ashland. It would be hard for Lilly to forget that. Then there was the time we were moving along the coast and saw the ship, rusted hulk heeling lazily on its side as it drifted…”
Mountain Thistle recounted it all, every milestone of their journey, each vivid detail of their odyssey. Yet, this was no tale of the ages, no divine drama of heroics of or of grand travels. This was the mundane: the time Lilly found a pretty bottle in the ash, when Mountain Thistle scavenged a blanket to keep them warm in the dead nights around the fire outside the Baltimare ruins, a moment when the clouds thinned enough to let in a single blessed ray. That, he learned, was the first time the filly had seen the sun since born into the dead world.
If was some time after half-night that the conversation shifted to Lilly.
“She can be a stubborn girl at times,” Mountain Thistle recounted through a weak cough. “Gets it from me probably.”
“And her mother?” Larynx was noting every detail, each habit, each connection strengthening a bond to the form he would assume.
A shadow passed over Thistle’s rugged features despite the already dark surroundings. “It happened in when Lilly was born, a few weeks after the first Wildfire was launched. Something inside of her, a tear. I never could stop the bleeding.” Mountain Thistle gave a light scratch of his stubbled chin, eyes gazing into the void. “Passed with the little one mewling in her hooves. It always struck me how strange it was Lilly never cried.”
“I’m sorry,” Larynx said instinctively. “Perhaps it was because the filly knew she was in the arms of one who loved her. What was her name?” he asked.
“Orchid.” Thistle’s eyes brightened at the mere sound of the mares name on his lips as if it had been an eternity since he had heard it. “Her name was Orchid.”
“It’s a beautiful name.”
“Oh, she was,” Thistle sighed. “Like a bright ray of sunlight come to spread warmth onto this cold, dead rock.”
“And Lilly knows much about her, her mother?”
“She can’t recall what she looks like. Even now feel so close to being with her once again, I find it hard to remember how she looked," Mountain Thistle sighed with a sputter. "When you try to remember her every waking minute of every day, everything starts to become fragmented with time, until all that is left is a feeling,” Thistle claimed, wiping the dampness from his eyes. “That is what Lilly has of her mother – a feeling. The feeling that somepony is watching over her and keeping her safe. It’s when you are out of matches for a fire, and the only warmth you have is the memory of somepony, somepony long gone. It is the feeling of being loved.”
It was nearly dawn, or the mute grayness that passed for morning nowadays, by the time Thistle finished relaying every bit of information he had to Larynx.
“–and she likes fruit cocktail if you ever find cans with the labels still on. But not the peaches; she doesn’t like those. Lilly always leaves them in the bottom of the can."
Larynx rolled his head, massaging his aching neck. His mind was buzzing with all the information and personnel details he was supposed to remember. Five years: five years of a pony’s entire life condensed into one night around lantern light.
“It’s a lot,” Larynx groaned inwardly. “What happens when I slip up and misremember the old memories?”
“You’ll have to make new ones,” Thistle instructed him. “That is all you can do. Give her some semblance of a life, if there is still one to live in this world,” Thistle shivered through a warm sweat. His coat was pale, and his eyes were tired but determined to see this final act through. “Give her a life with her dad. It’s all she has left in this world, and I don’t want her to be without it.”
From the corner of the room came a soft grunt, the sound of the sleeping filly rolling over before resuming her tiny snores.
Thistle peaked at the warming gray seeping under the front door, alighting the little motes of ash that had found their way inside and settled between the sturdy floorboards.
“It will be dawn soon,” Thistle stated, as if he were a tired weatherpony. “She will be waking up. I think this is it,” he said quickly standing up from his chair. He donned his threadbare pack, his body weak on unsteady hooves. “I think I am ready to go.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay? Don’t you want to see her awake one last time?” Larynx wasn’t sure if he was ready. It was all happening so quickly now.
Mountain Thistle tiptoed to the edge of the cot, Lilly tucked beneath the thick blanket that was only a little moth-eaten around the edges. The stallion bent down on all fours, looking upon the little one’s sleeping and sliding the wild mane off her face.
“No,” he whispered, kissing his filly lightly upon her hot forehead. “This is how I want to remember her for whatever short time I have left. Quiet and blissfully sleeping.”
Now he was up and striding out the door, Larynx following closely in tow and gently easing the door shut behind them. Thistle would not catch one last glimpse behind him. He couldn’t bring himself to. All he could leave were the tears that trailed him in the ash.
The two continued in the early morning chill that bit at their coats, the ash caking to their hooves as they pushed past the dead skeletons of trees. The unsifted ash crunched beneath them, each hoofstep sending up a little cloud. The particles, remnants of the Last Fires, stuck to the rivulets streaming down Thistle’s face, painting his cheeks with the dust. He was moving slower now, his chest wheezing and his hoof clutching at his breast.
A few minutes and the stallion stopped, letting the air escape his heaving lungs as another coughing fit befell him. The ground beneath him was sprayed with a fine mist of red.
When it was over, and he had wiped the bloody spittle from his blue-tinged lips, he turned around.
“I think this is where I leave you, Larynx,” he wheezed, looking up at the changeling from where he was half-doubled over. “I might as well see it,” he rattled. “I hope you at least will make me look a little better than I do now.”
“Are you sure you want to see?” Larynx asked, cocking a wary glance
“Yes,” Thistle nodded and winced. “I have to be sure.”
"Don't say I didn't warn you," Larynx said, casting his poncho aside.
It started slow at first, a dancing of green flames that materialized around Larynx hooves. The fire grew slowly, wicking up his legs and over his coat. It rose, intensifying until Thistle shielded his eyes from the emerald fire that consumed the changeling. It devoured his disguise, peeling it away and burning up in a shower of tiny green sparks that danced in the ash.
When it was over, and the ethereal fire has subsided, Thistle was standing before himself. Not just himself, but the real him.
“I’ll be dammed,” the stallion said, his eyes grew slightly wider. He reached out a tentative hoof and touched the clone standing before him. “You really do look like me.”
And not just identical, but healthier, his coat fresh and bright. His eyes too shone, full of life. Larynx caught Thistle staring.
“Do you think it will be convincing?” Larynx wondered, getting used to his new form. His voice sounded convincing, but would it be enough to fool Lilly?
“I would sure think so,” Thistle marveled, circling Larynx and surveying himself. “You have everything right down to my cutie mark,” he noted, eyeing the purple mountain thistle on either of Larynx’s, now Mountain Thistle’s, flanks. “Sweet stars,” he whistled before a cough interrupted him. “I never thought I would be having a conversation with myself.”
With his inspection complete, Mountain Thistle turned his direction to the valley. He looked from one end to the other, his eyes drawn along the remains of what once was.
“Where will you go?” Larynx asked.
Mountain Thistle closed his eyes, letting a few stray coughs slip between his cracked lips. “Somewhere quiet,” he said. “I won’t be long for what is left of this place. I want to find someplace quiet and sit and think about Orchid. I expect to see her soon, or so I hope,” he claimed. “I don’t really know what awaits on the other side. Maybe it is nothing, or maybe it is a faint instance of reliving a life lived before we all slip away. Either way, I hope to hear her voice one last time. I’m going to find that quiet place and listen for it,” he nodded.
He stepped around to face himself. “Just give her a life worth living,” he asked of Larynx. Mountain Thistle draped his pack over Larynx, taking the dirty poncho on the ground for himself. “I won’t be needing it,” Thistle said, embracing the changeling, locked tight around his neck.
In that instant, Larynx was assaulted by a memory. It had been no secret from before the Fires changelings could learn of a pony from a simple touch; any form needed more information than just looks. Usually, the memories came in snippets, little scenes to build a disguise from.
But this was not like any connection Larynx had ever received. It was like a breeching wave, flowing through him, dancing along his nerve ending and spiraling across his synapses.
It was a voice carried to him – a voice as sweet as honey and as bright as the obscured day. The source of this memory was clear, brought to him by the bond he formed with the disguise. The touch connected him, established a bridge to a memory the original recollector thought lost. And as Mountain Thistle departed, leaving him behind beneath the barren husks of trees, Larynx opened his mouth and let the memory out, clear as the day behind the clouds.
Mountain Thistle broke his embrace with the changeling, turning around one last time to trudge on his final path, his final mission complete, his daughter, he prayed, safe. It was only when he heard the voice behind him, did he pause. It froze him in his tracks, the voice he had not heard since the birth of his daughter, a final parting gift, he knew. Her final words.
“Promise me…promise me will you will name her Lilly.”
He dared not look back, to break the illusion that it might actually be her standing behind him. He nodded his head, tears cutting fresh channels through the ash on his face, and took that next heavy step forward on his final walk.
“I will,” he whispered, reciting the conversation he had had years earlier. “I promise, Orchid.” He wept, heaving for breath as he moved toward his final destination, wherever that place would shortly be.
“Our little Lilly. She’s safe, Orchid. She’s safe," he whispered to the wind. "I’m coming home.”
Lily’s eyes, still heavy with sweet dreamless sleep that slowly evaporated, was awakened to the sound of latch on the door opening.
Rubbing the sleep that had accumulated from her eyes in the waning darkness, she sat up in the cot, pulling the blanket tight around her. “Dad?” she mewled and yawned, calling to the silent figure that had entered the cabin. “Is that you?”
The figure stopped inside the door, still as a statue. “Yes, it’s me,” he said, quickly returning to the table and clearing the plates from the meager meal that was had the previous night.
“Dad, where is the pony?” Lilly wondered, lifting herself from the bed and dragging the blanket with her. “I thought I heard you two leave just a second ago. You had me worried.”
“We just stepped out for a second,” Mountain Thistle assured her, setting the dishes away. "He decided to continue onward. Went South. Said we could stay here if we like.”
She found her way to the table, blinking in the bright light of the lantern. “Why would he leave?” she wondered, staring up at her dad. Was it her or did something about him seem different? A slight twinkle of emerald behind his eye? Strange how much better he looked, healthier. Maybe her worrying earlier had been for nothing.
“I’m not sure why he wanted to leave, sweetie,” Thistle said. “But I’m sure he had a good reason.”
Lilly wasn’t sure what feeling made her reach out, but she latched onto his foreleg tight. “But you won’t leave me, right?” she murmured tiredly. She had always clutched it when she was afraid, and she felt the same familiar warmth that calmed her each time as she nuzzled him.
His other hoof reached down, hesitantly at first, but then stroked her mane, pulling her close.
“Of course not, Lilly. I’ll be here for you. I promise,” he said. She could feel the soothing sound of his voice in his chest as she hugged him close. For the first time, in a long time, he sounded sure. Like everything would be alright.
“Always.”
