And She Thought it Was Over
My life was never easy. Ain't never been that way and it never will be. I've tried being happy. I've tried being sad. None seem to fit me, and death isn't the right size either. I have many memories, both happy, sad, and sometimes a mix of both. But my first memory is of fire.
I remember the flames, burning like a thousand suns, screaming death. They licked at the air and grew larger with every taste. Fire flew out the window. Fire flew out the doorway. Smoke lurked into the air, gray and dull and slow. It puffed out of the shabby gray building looking like tiny clouds. They rolled over each other and flew into the air, slow and muggy. It wasn't happy. It wasn't lifeless. It was sad.
I stared at it with wide, sad light purple eyes. There were scars on my face and bags under my eyes. I was comforted by a nice fire pony with a rag-like blanket. It was dirty and soggy and stained, but it was better than what I usually had.
The building on fire was dull and gray. It had only one room in it. I couldn't remember who it was in there. The nice fire pony said I had taken in a lot of smoke.
It wasn't until days later in the hospital that I remembered. The light blue stallion with the black and dark gray mane. I remember him telling me to flee. He said: "After the death of your mother, why should I bother?" He said that I didn't deserve him. He said that I was too much of a trophy to be bothered with. At least for the likes of him. I remember him picking something up off of the floor. He set it on the stool with the broken leg. It was the only chair we had. The stallion took something out of the small saddle pack in the corner of the room. It was a clear glass bottle. I could hardly read at the time, but I know that it said: "Warning: Alcohol. Do not use around fire." The stallion opened the bottle and poured the liquid content in a circle around him on the floor. He threw the bottle into a wall. It shattered. It exploded. It smashed onto the ground. The liquid ran down the wall real slow. It was brown and strong. So strong that I could smell it from where I was standing. The stallion reached to the stool and took the thing off the stool. It was a little package with sandpaper on the side. He took a little stick out of it with his teeth. And then he slid it across the sandpaper. I gasped with fear as I saw the first little orange-and-yellow flame on the black tip of the stick. Tears ran down the blue stallion's face. I watched with confused, dazed eyes as he stood in the center of the circle. And the match dropped.
Then my memory just turns into blurs of orange, yellow, and blue. I always see crying green eyes. They are filled with regret. With sorrow.
With death.
And then I was released from the hospital. They told me the stallion was not found. That he was gone. I half-understood what they meant. But they just gave me that blanket and a little broken dolly and I was pushed to the street like a rat. I just trudged into a dark, dirty alleyway of the busy city. I was four. Four years old. The mere thought of being independent scared me. But I had to be strong. For some reason, I felt something towards that stallion. I didn't realize until three years later that he was my father. So I fell asleep in that little alleyway. I didn't wake until much later.
I spent the next six years traveling to Ponyville. I didn't know that I would stay there, but I'd hear how the ponies there were the nicest and the friendliest. Once I got there, a nice mare by the name of Lyra took me in. She fed me dinner and gave me a nice little room. She even painted a rainbow on the door! She spent a lot of time with her sister Bon Bon and this one stallion by the name of "Whooves". She eventually earned lots of bits and was able to enroll me in school. There, I met two other ponies like me: blank flanks. That was my problem. I didn't have a cutie mark. I used to think that maybe I would get my cutie mark with my scooter tricks that I did. I would speed through town everyday with the little gift Lyra got me one Hearth's Warming Eve. I would jump ramps, crash through windows (which earned me a hospital visit once or twice), and sometimes I would even be able to land on clouds! I wasn't a very strong flyer.
After a few years of living in Ponyville, and trying to find my cutie mark with the two friends, I found myself with a new sister. Well, that's how it started out. Rainbow Dash adopted me from Lyra (who had become my sort of guardian) and she got me a nice little room right next to hers in her home in the skies. She even had her friend Twilight, the princess with the most powerful magic, eventually make a stable bridge from the top of the hill to Rainbow's home ninety feet in the air. This was mostly because Rainbow would have to fly me to her house rather than me fly up there myself. My wings still weren't strong. After a while Rainbow Dash turned into something other than my sister. She turned into my mother. Through all of her coltfriends and cancelled weddings, I was the closest thing to family she had. I figured out that her parents weren't around either.
Many years passed. I earned my cutie mark in running. So I often tried out and competed in the Equestrian Games (thought I only won once). My friends found stallions and got married, had some kids. Even Rainbow Dash found a stallion at last, one of the Wonderbolts I think, and they had one daughter. A few months afterwards, I met a nice stallion too. Though I think something was wrong with me. I couldn't have foals. Twilight examined me and she regretfully told me that I had damage done to my organs. She asked me if I had ever inhaled heavy smoke or been around fire.
I ran away crying.
Soon after my colt friend and I got married, I decided to go to the one place that might let me take a daughter or a son: the Ponyville Orphanage. I went there to see if there were any up for adoption. The lady was nice and showed me all of these nice older fillies and colts, but I told her: "Sorry mam, but do you have any foals under the age of four?"
The woman smiled at me. She got sparks in her eyes and the white circles in her pupils turned to stars! She led me to a room in the back. It was colored a dark teal green and had smiling flowers and butterflies painted as designs. There were two beds, side by side. One had a pink butterfly bedspread while the other had a blue turtle bed spread. There were many smiling stuffed animals all over the room and there were shelves over the beds, whose heads were against the back wall, with pictures of rainbows and smiling suns. The lady called "Foals!" and one filly and one colt tumbled out of the closet. The filly had a long purple mane curled at the end, a coat of ebony black, and eyes of a deep blue. The colt had a short black mane, a light blue coat, and eyes so blue that they looked like the ocean. The two foals stood there and blinked at me, smiling happily.
"These are the youngest foals we have here," the lady replied happily. "They don't even have names! They just showed up at our doorstep a few weeks ago!"
And of course I took them! I even bought all of their stuffed animals and their beds. I had enough bits from all of the money I "inherited" from Rainbow Dash. Since they didn't have names, I decided to name them myself. I named the little filly Amethyst Skies and the little colt Night Shores. Amethyst and Night for short.
I took them home. I fed them every meal. I cared for them like they were my own.
They changed me. And I changed them.
Like the waves. Beautiful and strong... but they soon crash and die, and recede, withering, back into the blue beyond. They do not fight. They just end. They just crawl back into the ocean like death. Not screaming and crawling, just crawling back. Because it knows that it can't stop the process. It knows that Death has a job to complete and that job will be completed.
No, I'm not talking about the ocean.
Everything and every pony was dressed in black. Black veils, black dresses, black capes, and black vests. The Pegasus ponies flew clouds into the sky. They were fluffy and gray. They were puffy and feathery. Just like the smoke. Just like the smoke.
Birds did not chirp. Foals did not cry. All was silent. The grass was still. It was dull and lifeless, gray and dead. The trees loomed ominously like bats in a cave. They waited for the sunshine again. And they would soon forget the sadness. The overwhelming sadness. Small picture frames with a smiling stallion, bouquets of wildflowers, and pine-scented, lit candles cluttered three tables around a small, dark, gray coffin. The top was opened. The gold lining was faded. The hole in the ground was deep and dark like the Everfree. The air itself was clouded with sadness, still, stuffy, overwhelming sadness. The preacher's eyes were dark and sorrowful. My eyes were puffy and red from tears. Rainbow Dash stood by my side in the front of the grave.
"He was a good stallion," the preacher began in his soulful voice. I silently sobbed. "He was an even greater husband, and an excellent father. We are here to remember him. To relive his life. He died as he lived, a hero. Every pony in this town knew his name, and they all knew how big his heart was. We are gathered here today not to mourn his death, but to celebrate his life. Now, I few words from his wife."
Rainbow Dash gently pushed me up. I stood on shaky legs and stumbled to the podium. The preacher took my hoof and held it briefly in his hoof before giving me a silent stare. A silent stare of sympathy and sorrow. And then he moved to the side.
I took the microphone and rehearsed my speech silently in my head. It was dark. It was memorable. It was sad.
"My husband was the most caring stallion Ponyville has ever seen. He was gentle and kind, but he was fierce and determined as well," my voice wavered. But I did not cry. I could not cry. I had no tears left to shed. They were wasted over the two weeks since... that. "He smiled at every pony, and every foal stopped crying at his face, and he lit up every room he was in. To most ponies, he was a friend and someone who would hold your boulder for you. But he was more than that to me. He was a father to my children whom I adopted just after we were married. They loved him, he loved them back, and he played with them. He cared for them. For only such a short time. Too short of a time. Though he was all the things I listed before plus a father to every pony else, he was everything to me. All my life, I've been pushed aside. Ignored. Lessened. Bullied. Tormented. At one point I thought that only my Mother, Rainbow Dash, cared for me. I said that she wouldn't miss me when I was gone. So I went to the shakiest part of Ghastly Gorge. I positioned my wings, prepared to jump, when who should appear but him. His light blue eyes. His styled gray-and-white mane, his light brown coat. He said to me..."
"Stop!" the stallion yelled at me. His eyes were concerned. I'd never seen him before.
"Why should I?" I spoke, tears filling my eyes. "There's no point to ANY of this!"
"I know there isn't!" he said in that soft-as-silk voice. "But that doesn't mean you won't find a point."
"I've searched," I cried, stepping one hoof over the edge of the cliff. "Forever. Since I was little. I just can't find it!"
"That doesn't mean you WON'T find it," the stallion said gently. He reached out a hoof. "Please. Don't do this to yourself."
"You can't tell me how to feel," I sniffled, lifting my other foreleg. "You can't tell me what to do!"
"Please," he said, reaching further. "Don't do this."
I pushed his hoof away. He started yelling at me, his blue eyes wide, as I prepared to jump. He was screaming at me. Telling me how to feel. Breaking my heart. Breaking my spirit. I'd never seen him. I didn't know him. But somehow I HAD seen him before. Somehow I DID know him.
"Goodbye," I said, backing away further. "Maybe we would've been friends."
"Don't!" he screamed. "DON'T!"
"Its too late."
And I jumped. The rush of air waved my mane and tail. My stomach rose and my heart felt like it was thumping in my throat. My mind grew fuzzy and I closed my eyes, preparing for contact. I prepared for the knife through my body. The crushing impact of stone hitting bone. But instead I felt soft hooves under my body. Wing flaps piercing my ears. Hard breaths. Bright blue eyes before blackness.
The next image I saw was icy cold blue and striped gray-and-white as the beeping of the heart monitor lulled in the back of my brain.
"Hey," he whispered. "Did you find your purpose?"
His eyes were filled with love. I smiled, painfully, at him. I did find my purpose.
He was my purpose.
"... he died saving me," I whispered into the microphone. The audience was silent. Rainbow Dash was in shock. She didn't know of my suicide mission. Why would I tell her? "The carriage that hit him and killed him would've killed me if he hadn't pushed me aside. He didn't have to die. He didn't need to die. I wish it was me instead of him! It should've been me!"
I was ripped apart then. I crumbled. I broke. Before I was on the edge of breaking. The glass jar on the edge of the windowsill. But now I fell. Now I shattered. Now I broke into a million tiny pieces.
"He saved my life twice!" I spoke into the microphone. I was filled with such real sorrow, with such immense pain, that I could hardly speak. "And I couldn't manage to save his life once. Not even close enough."
Rainbow flew up to me. She wrapped her foreleg around my neck and pulled me into a tight hug. I could feel the tear stains on her cheek as I dryly sobbed into her shoulder. She would never admit she was crying. But it was the cold, hard truth. Like death. Cold. Hard. Unforgiving. Dark. Empty. Broken.
I took a wildflower in my mouth. I placed it in his coffin. I took one last look at the gravestone before I ripped away from Rainbow's iron grip. I ran into the forest. I ran to the middle. And I just ran. Until I felt like I should stop. But now I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I wanted to forget, to pretend, to not be broken and to not be sad. I just wanted everything to be normal.
Though I could never be normal, could I? An orphaned filly with a sister/mother, two adopted children, and a household with one less pony. How in any way was that normal? My real father was dead. Burnt to ashes like a flower in flames. My real mother had died long before I could even remember her. My fake mother cared for me. But she had her own little family to deal with. My children were nearly taken care of by their "Granny" now. They didn't need me. The only pony who truly ever needed me, and the only pony who I ever truly needed, was my husband. The words on the gravestone echoed in my head.
Here lies Cloudy Daze,
Beloved Father and Husband
Kindest pony next to the Element of Kindness herself
May Celestia let him RIP
Author's Note
:-(
