Kirkyard Rest Halloween Event

I see it in my eyes, in the lines around my mouth. Sometimes I hear it when I laugh, or in the anger when I shout. It's inescapable. He’s always there beside me, no matter where I turn.

I tapped my hoof on the mirror, gently tracing out the eyes that we shared. Mine were green, his were blue, but everything else was the same. How I missed him, how I wanted to speak to him. So many times I could have reached out, so many times I chose not to, and now I stand here haunted by his memory, because now it’s too late.

The lines on the page blurred in front of me and I furiously wiped the tears from my eyes. No matter how many times I read it, no matter how many times I said it out loud, it didn't feel real. I wanted to run out into the street and scream at the world, shake it from its slumber and force it to stop turning because every single moment that passed was another moment without my brother. How dare the sun continue to rise when the light has left my heart, when a piece of me that I never realised was so important was suddenly torn away.

I was left hollow. My hooves smashed against the desk, beating it in fruitless fury, for nothing short of a miracle could turn back the clock. I knew all too well that miracles don't exist. The mirror in front of me trembled with the strength of my grief, the page slipping to the floor with a gentle rustle. Furiously, I stamped my hoof over it, smashing and tearing the hateful words as if destroying them would somehow undo what has been done.

Weeping, I sunk to the floor. Great ugly sobs that shook my entire body, pouring from my soul. I was never close enough, always so far away with my own life, and all the while he was struggling to find a path out of the darkness that had swallowed him. I knew he was lost, but knew that reaching out to find him would eat away at my own life, just as it had our mother. How many times had she written to me of him, the pages stained with tears and crumpled with anger. He’d spiralled into the world of dash, briefly resurfacing every now and again when a new foal had been born. Seeing his amazement and wonder at his own foals being born into the world had fuelled the hope in our own hearts, the unspoken plea that this would be enough to see him clean, this would be the light to guide him from the dead end he was speeding his way to.

Every single time that hope was lost, and eventually I had pulled away. I couldn't watch the brother I had adored destroy himself over wounds inflicted by those who came before us. Selfish, I'd thought, selfish of him to choose addiction over family. Only now, as I was curled up on the cold and rough ground, did I realise that I am the truly selfish one. Too selfish to make the hard choice to continue to be there for someone who only knows how to take.

The tears flowed hot and unchecked down my face, staining the glossy fur that was my pride. It would be rough and stiff in the morning, but at that moment I didn't care. All that mattered was the immense cavern that had taken residence in my chest, so wide and deep I could no longer feel my own heartbeat. Lifting my pipbuck, I scrolled through the files desperately searching for the last words we’d truly shared. I scrolled and scrolled, months passing by in a blink before I found them.

Happy birthday.

He’d wished me a happy birthday.

The sobs subsided as I grew quiet, staring at those words, searing them into my brain. His last words to me. I'd tried to contact him when I found he was sick, but he had never responded. These precious words were the last thing he ever truly said to me. I held the pipbuck close to my chest, aching to immortalise them inside my heart. I knew now I would never delete this message, this pipbuck had suddenly become more precious than gold to me. The last birthday wish from my brother to me, held within these ones and zeroes. No matter how far gone he’d been, how deep the addiction had pulled him, he had still made the effort to wish his little sister a happy birthday.

That was the kind of guy he was. The kind of brother. For all his faults, he wasn't a bad pony. I had always known that, and yet still I allowed the chasm to open between us in my desperation to not be pulled under by his violent lifestyle. The chasm would forever remain uncrossed with the echo of a long ago Happy Birthday shouted into the uncaring emptiness.

Holding the pipbuck to my chest, I hobbled over to my chair and threw myself down. The tears came and went as the hours ticked by, the sun slipping below my window to make way for the moon. I didn't know what the future would hold, and quite frankly it didn't matter. All that mattered was that I didn't let go of this moment, not even to sleep. If I let go, somehow it felt like I was letting him go, and that wasn't going to happen.

The night passed and I kept watch over his last words to me. A silent vigil for the conversations left unsaid and the love that through everything, had never faded.