Embers

It was a beautiful night as an elderly stallion sat alone in his house, well, alone save for the seven different colored foals chatting idly around him. They were there to hear a tale as they did every sunday night before returning to their parents with renewed energy for the week ahead. Yet they always returned, and sat enthralled for hours at a time, listening to their grandfather’s stories. “Quiet down my precious foals” the stallion says in a voice that had remained strong and solid long past it’s time. “Today I will tell you the tale you have never heard of before. This tale, has never been spoken in its entirety and though you have doubtless all heard parts, none of you know the truth.” The stallion pauses and looks over his rapt audience, his grandchildren each and every one of them. “This is a story of love and loss, pain and joy, happiness and change. This is the story of my life, and it begins no less than 65 years ago in this very town.”

My first memory is a vague one, little more than feelings, though feelings have a quality of their own. I remember being held by my mother, a beautiful mare she was, even back then before this world which was always so new to her. I don’t know much of the world we came from, I was too young to know much when we left, and I confess I never took a great interest when I had the chance. I know we weren’t ponies when we left though. We used to be a kind of ape, we walked on two legs instead of four and had fur only on our heads, or so my parents told me. The only memory I have of that place, is laying in my mothers arms, little more than a year old as she rocked me to sleep. her voice was lovely back then, before the stresses of this new world changed it. Now, I must confess my memories of the next period are fuzzy to say the least. I remember fear and excitement, a growing atmosphere of panic and finally nothing.

A few years later and our family had started to become used to this new place, Mind when I say family I mean my parents. I knew very little of our old world and knew only my life in the new. My parents had settled back into their respective jobs, though the understandably lower tech base made even the simplest of jobs harder. My father became a scientist, working with many smart stallions and mares, trying to push the using his knowledge from the old world. My mother started work as a blacksmith, working and shaping metal in order to craft the items she used to love making. Weapons. Weapons were always her passion, she would toil away in the forge she had made in the back of our small house, and would craft swords and other low tech weapons to sell at the market in stalliongrad.

It was in this chaotic house that I spent my childhood. My father, though always out at work all day, made a point of it to make sure that when he left for the day his work stayed away until he came back for it. My mother was the tougher one, always working in her forge it was quite often that she would refuse to come in for dinner choosing instead to work on a project only my father knew of. Despite her tough work ethic, or perhaps because of it, when she spent time with me it was always the most fun I ever had. We would do everything from running in the frozen fields behind our house, to laying in front of the fire simply enjoying the warmth it brought to us. I treasured those times more then anything.

I remember my first day of school, I was nervous, but I think my mother was even more so. Even with her always working in the forge, I had always stayed within shouting distance of her my entire life. I remember she walked me to school that day, not removing her arm from around my shoulders until the very last moment  when we had to seperate ways.  When the time came she hugged me and pushed me forward a little, her voice was crystal clear as she said those words to me, “Have fun darling, I’ll be here to pick you up in a little while.” I smiled at her -not realising just how upsetting it was for her to be letting go of me- and gave her a kiss on the nose, “I will mommy I promise. I love you” I said before turning to trot into the schoolhouse. I didn’t look back, but if I had I’m certain I would have seen a tear fall from my mother’s eye. nonetheless I continued with my day. I actually made quite a few friends that first day, quickly becoming one of the more popular foals in school, simply because of who I was.

Later that day when school ended, there was my mother, waiting to pick me up, with a smile stuck on her face as she waited for me to come out, which I did, bouncing happily up to her and hugging her tightly as she laughed gently, “I see somepony missed me today.” I nodded enthusiastically and told her all about my day. the friends I had made, the games we had played, and everything the teacher had taught us. If I had looked closely I could have seen the strain in her smile, but I was just a foal, I knew nothing about how adults behaved and thus I remained oblivious.

That night, when my father went out to call my mother in for dinner things took a turn for the worse. He rushed back in and picked up the phone -one of the inventions being slowly integrated into the world- taking it with him as he ran back outside. I didn’t understand at the time, but the stress of having to build an entirely new life in a world and body that was not your own had finally gotten to her, that was the first time my mother tried to kill herself.

We spent the next several weeks in and out of the hospital going to see my mother, who had been placed under intensive care with a suicide watch. I remember the pained look in her eyes every time I walked through the door, it would appear for a moment and be gone by the time I reached her bed. And there I would sit, I would stay there until my father came to get me, spending every moment telling her about the wonderful things I was learning, and it seemed to work, every time I left she was just a little happier than before I had come. a few weeks later the doctors said she had improved enough to let her go home, I couldn’t remember ever being that happy.

Once she came back home things went back to normal. My mom didn’t spend nearly as much time in the forge as before instead spending the time relaxing or playing with me. So life went on. Nothing out of the ordinary happened for several years, I’d go to school, come home, play with my mother or some of my friends and live the childhood any foal ought to have.

But as with everything, life has a way of messing things up... I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was out in the yard at recess playing with a group of my closest friends. We’d all stuck together since our early days at stalliongrad primary school. and though we had since been moved to different classes, we still found time to hang out together every recess. That day was different however. You see, I’d recently discovered I liked racing, and I was good at it. So naturally, when an older colt came up to my friends to challenge me to one I didn’t even hesitate, “Where to?” I asked bravely. The colt smiled a menacing smile and pointed at a distant landmark, A tree that stood alone almost a full mile away. “There and back” he said gruffly “First pony to arrive after touching that tree wins.”

I took a deep breath and began to nod when I suddenly felt a hoof on my shoulder. I looked over and smiled as I spotted my friend Arabelle. She frowned back at me shaking her head slowly, “Don’t do it... He’s older, and far too confident... You can’t beat him and he might hurt you.” She implored me using her looks to full advantage and very nearly convincing me to decline, in response I reached over and gave the younger earth pony a tight hug, “Don’t worry about me Belle, I can take him, besides I have to find a way to impress the mares somehow don’t I?” She flushed suddenly and lowered her head, causing her flowing blonde mane to cover her crimson face. “A-alright...” Was all I heard from behind the golden curtain, before I turned and nodded at the colt. “You’ve got yourself a race.”