The Sacred River

  The Sacred River

    I can still smell it. The smell of smoke, the stench of burning flesh. I can still hear it. Explosions all around me. The screams of my team, the screams of my enemies... the screams of children.

    Huddled behind a crumbling wall, my rifle cradled in my arms, I don’t know what I can do to survive. What do I do? I trained for this, but all of those hours of intense bone breaking training are gone to me. My squadmates are yelling at me, but their words are lost to me. All I can make out is the muffled sound of their voices. The ringing in my ears is too strong, it overpowers their voices.

    I feel like I’m about to break, or is it already too late? Have I already been broken?

    My eyes are glued to the sandy desert floor of this Middle Eastern ruin that someone once called a house. Suddenly a dusty pair of boots enter my vision. Who is he? Looking up my blurry vision clears.

    It’s my closest friend Williams, his face is covered in soot from what I can only hope is from burning buildings. Despite all the chaos going on around me, he just smiles down at me. For a fleeting moment in my heart, I feel safe. That everything was gonna be alright. He always had that effect on me.

    He reaches his hand down to me, offering to help me up. It’s like a ray of light in this bleak war-torn place. A light vastly different from the blistering light of the desert sun. A light that was only there to protect and heal.

    I move my hand, gingerly reaching for his. I hear a mechanical scream, an explosion. I know that sound. A mortar?  Looking up into his eyes I can see it, they are the eyes of a man who has come to accept his fate. But they still have that cheerful glint to them. I try to yell out to him, to warn him to take cover. No matter how loud I scream, my words are lost to him in the heat of battle. He simply smiles and shakes his head. “You have the reins now buddy.” he mouths to me, that smile never leaving his lips. He then closed those eyes, so full of life. He takes a deep breath.

    In a flash of light I watch as his body is ripped apart by a fiery explosion, then it comes for me. The flaming wall hits me, searing pain envelopes my entire body----- I scream, but is anyone listening?

    I awoke in a cold sweat. I can still smell the faint aroma of death, but it quickly fades into the chilly night time air.  It takes me a few seconds to fully realise where I am.  I’m in the forests of northern Arizona. For a moment I forgot that I fled out here, to get a little time to sort out my feeling. My small 2 bedroom log cabin nestled in between the forest covered Rocky Mountains sounded like just what the doctor ordered... Peace and quiet, that’s what I thought I needed. “Thank you Doc Charles...” I mutter to myself.

    “How had I gotten here again? I remember waking up this morning, but everything after that is a blur.” Looking down to the ground I’m sitting on, I see my shotgun laying beside me, just within reach of my left hand. Looking to my right I see an empty bottle of vodka laying on its side. “Hunting whilst drunk? Charles, this was not one of your smarter moments.” I had decided hunting and drinking at the same time was a good idea, then managed to pass out on the ground till night time.

Looking up I could see that I had ‘passed out’ at the foot of a great pine tree. Its trunk extending high up toward the sky, before it branched out in all directions at the top. Seeing a tree so large and old was humbling in a way.

    I couldn’t stare upward like that for too long, the consequences of today's earlier mistake was rearing its ugly head. Turning to my left I wretched out what had once been my lunch. Not long after, the headache started in.

I can’t keep doing this, I thought to myself.

Its been 2 years since I got home. 2 years since the last time I set foot on a battlefield. I have had 2 years to get over it. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop the pain. The memories.

    Every time I try to sleep, my dreams are bombarded with the memories of the battles I had fought. I can still sense the sounds and smells of war.  While I’m awake my mind is never calm. I jump at every little surprise, expecting to be attacked by a robed militant. The term ‘scared of your own shadow’ pretty much sums me up quite nicely.

    My condition isn’t just affecting me. No, if that was the case I might have not felt so bad about the entire situation. What rips me up the most, is that its been hurting my family. I’m always lethargic, I never want to spend time with my parents, my friends... My wife. I even picked up drinking. Before the war I only touched the stuff on special party occasions, or right after getting back from a particularly long and stupid TDY. Now I feel like I have to have it, just to get through the day.  It’s not uncommon for me to pop my first top before noon.

Today must have been a great example of early morning boozing.

    I knew I was hurting everyone, but I couldn’t stop. I was starting to wish that I had really died over there. Death was starting to sound pretty good to me. The chance to make it all stop. My friends and family would try to talk to me about it, try and get me out of my shell. I only pushed them away, self destructive behavior only becoming more frequent.

    At that point I knew I had to leave. To remove myself from their lives indefinitely. So here I am, alone, hungover, and stupid in the middle of a forest.

    Rubbing the stubble on my chin that signaled the forthcoming of a beard, I couldn’t help but continue to contemplate how alluring death was sounding. So many soldiers seem to be taking that path nowadays. I never thought much about it. Always brushed it off as them just being weak.  Boy do I feel like an ass now. Movies and videogames only glorify war.

“How long can I keep doing this?”

    Shaking my head to rid myself of my thoughts, I grabbed my gun and stood up, keeping one hand on the rough tree to steady myself while the blood rushed back into my legs. That tickly tingly feeling always bothered me.

    The change in position made me a little light headed, my vision beginning to swim.

Giving my eyes a moment to clear, something off in the distance caught my eye.

I could see a faint glow beyond the treeline in the distance ahead of me. I appeared to be pulsating different hues of  pink and blue.It reminded me of a pink and blue aurora borealis, but those should be in the sky. Not just beyond the treeline. What could it be? I’m in the middle of the forest, miles from any form of civilisation. Nothing natural should be making these radiant colors. Aliens? Nah that’s stupid.

Giving a mental shrug, I brought my shotgun to bear, and started forward toward the light, always keeping my eyes peeled for ‘enemies’. Old habits die hard I guess.

    The dried leaves and pine needles crunched under my boots as I continued on toward the mystery lights. If I was still hunting I would try my best to make as little noise as possible, but at this point I only wanted to find the source of the lights.

    As I neared the treeline I could hear the sound of running water. “That’s strange...” I said to myself.

I know this forest pretty well, I have been visiting this cabin since it belonged to my grandfather. As a kid I spent many o’summer vacations exploring these woods.

There is no river around here. The closest one isn’t for 5 miles in the opposite direction.   A flash flood is out of the question, its been dry as a bone up here for days. There should not be any water.

So why was I hearing the sound of running water?

Creeping ever closer, the sound of running water began to change to the rumble of falling water. A waterfall? You don’t see those all too often in Arizona.

Finally I had reached the treeline. The pink and blue lights had become much more intense. Pearing around the final tree trunk that was obscuring my view, I froze in my tracks.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

A shallow stream glowing brilliant shades of pink and blue was flowing right before. me.  A warmth radiated from the stream, breaking the chill of the night mountain air.  It felt more like a comfortable spring evening instead of a chilly autumn night. Above the stream floated a grand array of fireflies, a countless number of them locked in a silent dance of lights. Following them as they floated upwards toward the sky, they looked like a second set of stars. One set was a carpet of faint white blue dots, the other group was a flickering set of amber.

Keeping my eyes set to the show, I followed a large group of them upstream, my eyes settling on the top of a small waterfall. There was no more than a 20 foot drop from the top of the waterfall to the bottom of the stream. Following the water down my eyes settled on something that made my heart leap in my chest.

Standing under the cascading water, was a white horse...Only something was off about it. Actually something was VERY off about it.

Extended into the waterfall, almost like it was embracing it was two large elegant white wings. Atop its head was what looked like a long slender horn, white in color, the same as its coat. It even wore a golden tiara and chest piece. Her(?) mane was the most beautiful sight I had seen in years. It looked to be a rainbow mixture of Aqua blues, green, pinks, and even purple. Her hair looks as if I was blowing in the wind...Only I couldn’t feel any wind to speak of... Her hair even looked to be wet, yet still it moved. On her flank she had some kind of tattoo of a simple looking sun. She was the strangest thing I had ever seen... Yet I couldn’t help but be infatuated with the sight. Just looking at her made me feel happy, almost like all my cares and worries just disappeared.

Apparently I had WAY too much to drink...

Moving closer to get a better look, I could see that she had a calm, almost contempt smile on her face as she let the water of the mystery stream cascade down her wings and on to her head and body.

I was so convinced that she was just some magnificent hallucination, that if I looked away for even a moment she would disappear. But unfortunately for me, I was so focused on her that I didn’t take the time to watch my steps. Needless to say I never saw that twig until it was too late.

*SNAP*The twig easily broke under my foots weight. “Damn it!” I whispered under my breath.

Hearing the the twig mixed with my cursing the creature’s head snapped to attention in my direction, ears up and alert for danger. Her violet eyes locked with my blue eyes, causing me to freeze in place. She then quickly turned toward me, flaring her wings out, as if to look as big and threatening as possible. To be honest, it was kinda working.

    Despite her seemingly threatening actions, she wore a poker face that could put any professional card players to shame. I could see that she didn’t have that blank look in her eyes like any dumb ordinary animal. Her eyes looked intelligent, as if she was as sentient as any human, if not more. She started to examine me from a distance, moving from my head downwards toward my feet. Was she sizing me up, to see if I was even a real threat?

    Her face went from unreadable to suspicious, she raised one of her eyebrows in a questioning look, as if to say “Really?”

Looking down I realised that I had my shotgun clenched in both hands, pointed straight at her. Heh, guess old habits really do die hard.

    Making very slow unthreatening movements, I released the trigger from my left hand, and kept the gun in my right hand, holding it by the barrel, trying to show I meant no harm.

“Woah there girl,” I cooed  slowly bending down I set the shotgun on the ground next to my right foot.  “Sshhhh it’s alright,” Standing up slowly I kept my hands raised to show I was unarmed. Once I was at full height I nudged the gun off to the side as smoothly as possible, putting as much distance from it to me.

“See? I’m not gonna hurt you, everything is gonna be okay.”

    Her looked shifted from looking suspicious to... Amused? Then she started to laugh(?), in a voice that I can only describe as radiant.

“I do believe that is my line.”

    I just stood there, mouth agape. I was shell shocked. Did this creature just TALK?

I tried to speak, albeit I was having a rather hard time formulating coherent sentences after this rainbow bombshell had been dropped.

“D-did you just speak?” I managed to force out.

She gave me another one of those ‘seriously dude?’ looks.

“Of course I spoke, why should this come as a surprise? Although I must say, I’m quite surprised that you can talk. You are one of the strangest creatures I have ever seen.”

I couldn’t help but feel a little offended at her remark. “I’m the strange one? You’re a friggin talking winged, horned horse!” I shouted out while pointing a finger toward her.

“Pony.” she stated matter of factly.

“....Pony?”

With a bemused look she continued “I am not a horse, I’m a pony, an Alicorn if you want to split hairs.”

“But Alicorns are mythological, they aren’t real; you aren’t real! What the heck are you?!” I really felt like I was losing my mind at this point. I could take the mystery river, and maybe I could even take seeing a mythological creature bathing IN said stream, but the whole talking part.... Check me in to the nearest loony bin because my sanity has clearly left the building.

“I can see that manners isn’t a common practice with your species.”

Taking a moment away from my current freak out I focused on her again.

“Huh?” was all I could manage.

With a deep sigh she continued, “It’s considered good manners to introduce oneself BEFORE demanding the name of another.”

She had a point there. Composing myself I stood up straight and cleared my throat.

“My apologies ma’am, I am Sergeant Charles A. Schneider of the United States Marine Corps, and who might you be?” I was trying to make myself sound as important and professional as possible.

She chuckled to herself (much to my chagrin) before answering “I am Princess Celestia of Equestria,  Immortal Mover of the Sun and Moon.”

It was once again my time to be stunned.

Well crap, so much for trying to make myself sound important...That’s one hell of a title.

“Wait, so you’re a Princess?”

“Aye, that I am.”

“Of a country called Equestria?”

“Correct.”

“AND you move the Sun AND the Moon?”

“Right again.” she said with a smile.

I was having a hard time wrapping my head around this concept. A walking talking Alicorn that was the Princess of a Nation that I have never heard of, AND she can move the sun and moon?

My next question was all I could think of, “Are you god?” In hindsight, that was a stupid-ass question to ask.

She broke into a fit of laughter that sounded more like music.. After a few moments of laughter she brought her hoof to her mouth to stifle the laughs into small giggles. Talking in between giggle fits she answered “No, no, nothing like that. I’m just a very powerful magic user.”

Great, now we are talking about magic? I said as I dragged my hands through my hair down to my face.

Holding my head in my hands I mumbled, “I’ve completely lost my mind haven’t I?”

“No, no nothing like that my little...” She stopped mid sentence, almost like she was looking for the right thing to say.

“Actually,” she began, “I’m most curious as to what you are. I haven’t seen a creature like you in all my years.”

Taking a metaphorical chill-pill, I answered, “Oh me? Well I’m a human,”

“Oh? And pray tell, my little human, (Seriously? She isn’t THAT much bigger than me...) where are we?”

“Oh um, well we are in Prescott National Forest, located in the state of Arizona, in the United States of America” I replied matter of factly.

    “Hmm,” was her only response, she held her hoof to her chin, looking as if she was in deep thought.

    “It seems that the Sacred River has become a bridge, connecting our two worlds together temporarily.”

    “The Sacred what now?” I asked confused.

“This,” she gestured with a hoof to the water she was standing in, “Is the Sacred River.”

“ I see.” I had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

She apparently could sense my confusion, after a long drawn out sigh she continued,

“The Sacred River is a magical stream that helps to heal the hearts of those that are broken. Once a year, if said broken individuals comes to the riverbed inside the Everfree Forest, the river will spring up once  the moon reaches its perfect position. However the Sacred River only shows itself if and ONLY if someone who truly needs its help is near.

With a hand on my chin I took in what she had told me. “But wait. If you have to make a journey to the riverbed in your forest, why is it in my forest now?”

“It could be that the Sacred River’s chosen location is not bound to one single world. The river forms in the Everfree, and branches out to neighboring world, reaching those in need. Although it might still have a specific spawning point in each world.” Celestia paused, eyes drifting around to the scenery of the Arizona forest.

“ Apparently the spawning point for the river in your world is here. However, it only appeared because you happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

    This whole story sounded a little far fetched to me, but hell, I was talking to an alicorn Princess, so I guess I could believe anything at this point.

“So somehow this,” I gestured with a hand toward the river “magical fairy river not only has healing properties, but it also connects worlds together?” Celestia nodded her head in confirmation.

“Horse shit.” I deadpanned.

“Pony shit.”

“Right, pony shi- Wait what?”

The princess responded with another one of her regal laughs. "Oh you are far too easy to trip up, you know that don't you?"

As if I'd let her get the best of me, "Oh hardy friggin har, forgive me if I find it a little weird for a prissy pony princess to know toilet humor," going into a mock-bow I continued " It shan't happen again malady."

She wasn’t amused.

A golden glow enveloped her horn as a smug grin grew on her face.Before I had a chance to react she used her magical fairy powers to direct a small tidal wave of water from the waterfall right into my face knocking me flat on my back.

As I laid there staring up at the night sky listening to her self inflicted chuckles, I figured I should be a little mad. But it was strange. I didn’t feel the least bit angry, not even annoyed... Or sad. I felt calm, content even. Actually, now that I took a second to collect myself, my hangover was gone! Was it the so called healing properties of the river that Celestia mentioned? Honestly the whole idea sounded like a buncha hullabaloo. But as I laid there looking up at the star filled Arizona sky, soaking in the calming sensation of the warm water, I didn’t care what was causing it, all I knew was that I didn’t want it to stop. For a moment all of my memories didn’t feel like they were crushing me. They were still there, weighing on my shoulders, but it felt more like a heavy jacket rather than a Grey Hound bus.

For once, I feel like I could talk about my problems, and not be lost to crushing grief. I wish my family was here. I wish Williams was here...

I’m not sure how long I sat there basting in the puddle of magic water, but after a while the sound of the princess clearing her throat brought me back from my emotional confusion.

I sat up supporting myself with my arms, turning my attention to the princess, still standing in the river. She was wearing a small smile on her face. A smile that said to me that she knew very well what I was going through. It makes sense... In theory. The river appeared for her, so she must be broken inside as well. But why would a magical, immortal, all powerful princess pony be broken.

Maybe... Maybe I can talk to her? I thought inwardly, a feeling of hope and excitement growing in my chest. Two emotions that had become so alien to me.

“How do you feel?” she asked me.

Without answering I unlaced my boots, rolled up my pants and took off my shirt. I approached the river, and after a moments hesitation, stepped in. Instantly the calming healing sensation returned tenfold. I closed my eyes, soaking in the feelings surrounding me.

“How do you feel?” she asked me in a whisper.

I slowly opened my eyes and turned to the regal alicorn. With a real smile I responded just as quietly,

“Better.”

                                                                                       End Part 1 of 3.