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// CH. 7 - We Long Only For The Past 
// Story: Beneath the Canon You Settle For 
// by The Amateur 
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A proper noir starts when the rain falls. 

As soon as the weather pegasi had closed up the sky, a torrent of droplets fell with military precision. It saturated the streets underneath my hooves, giving life back to the cumulus that held up Cloudsdale and cleaning away the indecipherable graffiti messages someone had painted on the city’s walls. The veins of blood red paint followed the water as it flooded back into the cloudwork.

My legs were walking to some pre-determined location, regardless of my conscious inputs. I was a phantom inside my own body, capable only of staring out and feeling the downpour numb my brain. Coarse streaks of wintry water crawled down my forehead, over my eyes, yet my body refused to react. 

From what little I could see outside my peripheral, I could distinguish what street I was on thanks to the neon signs in front of Blaze’s game corner and Cosmic’s Jewelry. Roscoe Street, Insomnes District. It was the life stream of Cloudsdale, where a single pegasus could turn ambition and a high-stakes gamble into a million dollars overnight. This was my domain back in my Wonderbolt years - that part of the city that never slept. 

The rain had changed all of that, though. The streets were empty, sidewalks were devoid of life, and the lights that were not snuffed out in the fog belonged to places I had visited in the past. I glanced through a diner window, expecting to see Honey Rays at the counter, but the whole interior was empty. The diner was just another streetlight, and I was the sole pedestrian who chose to walk in the rain.

I thought I would have to walk to the end of oblivion, but someone cut the journey short for me. A hoof grasped my shoulder and pulled back, whipping me around to a brick wall. My head rebounded from the impact, sending cracks across the front of my skull. The sound alone of head against brick and mortar was like a gunshot next to my ear.

I stumbled and, at some point, ended up on my side, covering my head with my forelegs. Luckily, the concrete provided a soft landing, leaving a field of grass under my writhing form. After the first three seconds of shock, my senses began sending information to my brain again. Meanwhile, needles threaded through the cracks in my skull.

“Mom!” Then the voice of my angel. “Mom! Are you alright? Please somebody, help her! Sorian, Sorian! She’s over here!” There were tiny hooves pressing against my mane, which was remarkably dry for being out in the rain for so long. In fact, my whole body was dry and warm, except for a single, coarse streak - something thick like hot chocolate - creeping down the left side of my face.

The effort swept up a storm of a headache, but I managed to speak a coherent sentence: “Lightning, Mommy’s okay. Let Sorian handle this.”

I heard his landing next to me. “Stop saying that in front of her, Fleetfoot. What kind of name is Sorian anyways?” Soarin gave my head a leg to rest on. Fighting for motor function over my eyes took longer than expected, but eventually I was able to make out his face–– in poor, fuzzy quality. “And you were winning too, until you lost control and veered into a wall. On that note, you okay?”

Absolutely not. Nevertheless, I put on a brave face for Lightning Bolt; after taking a mouthful of earth, grinning was about as easy as pulling a bullet out of my teeth. “I’ve survived worse.”

“That’s Mom! Tough as tu-te-titahnium!” My daughter, seven years of age, was already thinking in metaphors. Seven years of hard work, tears, and blood to create the strong filly she is today. If it were not for the concussion, I would have given something more genuine than a Celestian smile.

“Let’s give your mom space, kid. These ponies will help her.” Lightning Bolt, that bouncing marshmallow with a sky blue mane and tail, stepped out of my view. Overhead, the sun was a lamplight amid darkness, filling a space meant for an ocean with a vacuum. “She was going at least over a thousand kilometers per hour… sustained concussion…” 

Soarin’s voice suddenly dropped away as gravity shifted. Without a single hair rustled, my body was transported across a fickle landscape. The grass beneath me faded, and my back found a new cushion on hard, wet concrete. My best friend’s voice made a reappearance, yet it was distorted and less firm in tone, like someone under extreme stress: “What did you think would happen? You hit her with a BASEBALL BAT!”

Two hooves gripped my shoulders and lifted me off the ground. I had not gotten one moment of purchase in this new world when I was thrown against a brick wall. Again. “Stay still and stay quiet!” shouted a different voice. My eyes were once again out of focus, catching the outline of an ear and mane before they went cross again as a hoof struck my chin.

I felt it again. Rain. It robbed me of the warmth I had felt in that field with my daughter and Soarin. I reached out for my legs, but they were unresponsive, gone. The body I inhabited was becoming a coffin, growing colder with each breath. Another punch across the same cheek shot the needles into my brain. The impact set fire to any remaining connections to my senses. Senses gone. Discombobulation. 

Over my attacker’s shoulder, I could make out a floating screen of graffiti. Blood red paint. Someone had written a sentence out in a horrible rush, leaving me to decipher his or her manic handwriting with a severe–– 

The next hit came between the eyes, shooting my head back into brick again. Again. At that point, too scattered to register the pain were the nerves in my brain. The attacker still had my lifeless body up against the wall, waiting for… waiting. I had enough motor control left, however, to blink the rain droplets out of my eyes. The red graffiti made a reappearance on the patch of ground I was staring at; I only needed a moment… maybe a minute… to figure out what it was saying: “HONOR AMONG WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE.”

No. Blink again. This time it said, “MIRRORS ARE MORE FUN THAN-”

This time… blink again: “YOUR BLOOD AND HOPE ARE IN THEIR CLAWS.”

The tension on my shoulders cut slack, and I fell to the ground unceremoniously. Once my head stopped bobbing, I saw him. Yes, the attacker too–– he was face down in the graffiti, splashing the ink all over the concrete. What I meant was I saw him: the stallion with the leather coat, my knight in shining silhouette, shrouded in front of a neon store sign. He stepped over the other guy and held me with a firm urgency.

“I’ve got you… just don’t think about lights and the great beyond for a couple minutes while I call for an ambulance.” His voice was as euphonious as a grand piano, pulling me from the darkening borders of my vision with every syllable spoken. I looked up again; the rain had stopped. It was warm again.

“Don’t go.” Don’t go, not now. Give me this moment, Goddesses, and let it run for as long as you could hold back time. Give me what you took away from me.

“Only for a few seconds, I promise.” The stallion positioned me comfortably against the wall. He got up on four hooves and looked back to me with a smile. A load of whitewash, Whitewash. 

I had just a moment to see my husband again, then time resumed. He was gone to find the nearest pay phone, after which he would return, ride in the ambulance with me, wait for me to wake up in the hospital, and introduce himself half a day later.

The rain resumed and cleaned out the crime scene. I only had to blink to see the memory washed into the sewers. Whitewash… he was not coming back..