Funeral for a Foe · 2:24am Oct 10th, 2023
Short little something that happens between Marshmallow Dreams and Partial. It isn't any major story point. It is just something that happened–a little extra content while waiting for a new chapter. It's rough and unedited, but it is extra content.
The skies were dark as rain pounded down on the mountainside. They were miles from any road or residence. Once, there had been a coal mining town a short distance away, but the last residents had left that a few years before, and the forest had been swift to retake what had once been untouched wilderness. The roads that had brought them here were broken, and what was once solid concrete was now shattered gravel with grass trying to overrun and obscure. Through the trees the river could be heard rushing, waters churning and rising with the rainfall, but it could not he seen, just the trees, the rain, and the rocky mountainside.
In a small clearing there was the dilapidated husk of what had once been a small two-bedroom house. Its roof had long since collapsed, its yard was overgrown. Littered about were the rusted remains of oils drums, tin cans, various tools, and an old '78 Dodge Charger that was beyond salvage. A small clearing had been cut away in the yard, and a hole had been dug, long and rectangular, and six feet deep. An unadorned stone was placed at the head of this hole, marking what was going to be placed within, but with no indication of who.
Five humans and three ponies gathered around this hole in the ground. Four of the humans held umbrellas. They held these umbrellas not to keep the rain off themselves, but to keep the rain off the three ponies and remaining human. Just outside the hole was a casket, made of the finest mahogany, covered with a white banner with but a four-letter inscription, OMMR.
It was an eclectic group who had silently gathered in this forgotten place, deep in the West Virginia foothills. The ponies were a fat white pegasus mate, a gray night pony mare, and a dark alicorn princess. The humans consisted of a dark-skinned woman with a mohawk, carefully shading the night pony mare from the rain, a young blond woman who with exercising equal effort to keep the pegasus dry, a skinny young man with glasses who did his best to keep the princess under the umbrella's dome, and an older balding man who guarded a human who kept his face masked and his body completely covered.
"I did not know this man well. So I have few words to say," the night pony mare said. "I know he was dear to my brother, and that my brother would wish to be here. For the sake of our brother, who we love, who cannot attend this, we come to do the honors he cannot give in his exile. Psychic Calm says this is where and how his bodyguard wished to be buried, and we shall fulfill that desire. If anyone has words to say, they may speak them."
Silence stretched on for a few moments before the lanky man cleared his throat and spoke. "He was a troubled man with an even more troubling past. If what he said is true, then this is not the first body to be committed to the ground on this property. It is hard to reconcile the man who did those things with the man who laid down his life for ours. I'm not a religious man, but if there is some afterlife, I don't know if he could ever have balanced his scales. Maybe he will be judged for what he did late in life over what he did earlier, but all I can do is wish that he rest in peace."
Silene resuled, only broken by the sounds of falling rain that pelted the ground and the umbrellas and the wind that would pick up in bursts here and there, only to subside again moments later.
"Will you say nothing, Blanche?" the pegasus mare asked the woman who was trying to keep her dry.
The woman's face hardened. "This is more than he deserves. I hope the worms get sick on his corpse and the ground rots as a reminder of the filth we are giving it today."
"Blanche, have some respect for the dead," the lanky man protested.
"Never for him," the woman practically growled then spit towards the coffin.
The others gathered did not protest the woman's behavior, and continued to stand in silence for several moments more, just in case someone else had something to say. The only voice the came was more howling of the wind, the creaking of the house as if each wind gust would be the one to bring it doen, and the moaning of rusty metal.
"Psychic Calm wished that the coffin be placed in the earth with musical accompaniment," the night pony mare finally said. "Arturo has agreed to sing Country Roads. Luna, you may begin moving the casket to its final resting place and covering it. Arturo, please, let is hear the anthem of the land."
The alicorn's magic gripped the casket, lifting it into the air, and it slowly drifted along as the balding man began singing the song in a very deep baritone that carried loud and clear over the sound of the rain. The man did not skimp on his passion put into the song, despite no one seeming to have any positive passion for the deceased. The man poured his soul into the song with a voice that would have brought tears to any normal audience, but the only dampness on any face today was due to rain, no matter how beautiful the voice. He sang through the entire song and began a loop of it as the princess finished placing the deceased to their final resting place and covering them clod by clod with mud. When she finished, so did the man, and the silence returned, still only broken by the wind, rain, and the reminders that this place was a place everyone had forgotten. In this case, maybe it was best forgotten, just like its newest resident.
