Update · 7:53pm Dec 22nd, 2018
I didn't feel like writing a proper blog post. Although I've been reminded it's been far too long since I wrote one. So here is my post, based on recent events of my life...
It’s a cold morning, just a few days before Hearth’s Warming Eve. You’re not entirely sure why you’re here. The old pony you’ve come to visit is still alive and kicking, but the once unstoppable torrent of words from him has slowed to a mere trickle over the past few months.
“Come in, come in,” says a warm voice from the inside of the small hut on the seaside. You dart in quickly, eager to be out of the cold wind that has been lifting spray from the shoreline onto your coat. The hut is warm and cozy, but oddly barren for the dwelling place of a pony of the speaker’s years.
“Hello sir,” you say to the unicorn. He’s a pony well into his middle years, the grey on his muzzle telling you he might even be entering early old age. “Sorry to bother you. It’s just that nopony has really heard much from you lately, and your stories…”
“Have slowed in their pace,” the unicorn says, floating a mug of hot cocoa towards you. “I’ve been occupied. Had a visitor you might say. Tell me, young one, do you know who Hecate is?”
“Hecate?” you ask, thinking for a moment before you recall where you’ve heard the name. “Isn’t that a name for Death?”
“Close,” the old pony says, smiling his approval. “She’s one face of the Triple Goddess of the Moon. She’s the Guardian of the Crossroad, and among her duties is the guidance of ponies to their final rest.”
“Wait, you said you had a visitor?” you ask, suddenly afraid. “You don’t mean, Hecate has been here?”
“I’m afraid so. I wrote a story featuring her early in the year, and I can only assume she took offense somehow,” said the unicorn, pausing to sip from a coffee mug. “She’s lightly laid her hoof on me. Tell me, what do you see when you look around in here?”
Looking around the room, you study the floors and walls closely. On one wall are several mementos. Holding pride of place are a beautiful bridle marked “Chained Moon,” a series of strange metal cylinders inscribed “Mark One”, “Mark Two”, and “Mark Three”, along with a miner’s lamp, and a mailbag. As you continue to study the room you also see what’s missing.
Several pieces of furniture are gone or changed. The pony’s single bed at one time was a double. There are several places where there were pictures, now gone. There is also the browning cellulose of an edition of the newspaper, folded open to the obituaries section. You gasp and shoot a look over to your host.
“Yes, she was my friend,” the old pony says, terrible sorrow in his voice. “The summer mare I longed to touch in my youth, only to see her wed to my brother. I wished them well of course, but she always fought against her inner darkness.”
“When?” you ask, the picture becoming clearer.
“Toward the end of summer,” he says, wiping a tear from his eye before pressing on. “She walked into the sea, not a league from where we sit. I can only hope her soul found peace at last. Her passing to the Summerlands was the second of the three times Hecate touched me this year.”
“Three times?” you gasp in surprise, amazed that the pony in front of you is still alive.
“Aye, three,” the unicorn confirms, once again in full control of himself. “The first time was a few weeks before that, when the mare I married brought about the end of our union. It’s why I live here now. I have what I need, not what I want.” The reason behind the missing photos and the changed furniture becomes clear to you now.
“And… and the third?” you ask, before blurting out. “Are you dying, Sir?”
“No, not for some time at least,” the pony says, getting up to add wood to the fire. “But another I care for deeply is.”
“Who?” you ask, and in spite of yourself you notice that despite the overall plain furnishings, the unicorn’s writing desk is new, with a supply of good quality parchment and some excellent quills.
“My eldest brother,” the unicorn says, looking into blackness of his cup. “He who was the rock of my youth. He who held us together after the passing of our dam, and later, our sire. Who spent five years in grim battle to keep a usurper from their legacy.”
“How long?” you ask, realizing you’re falling into a bad habit of not talking except to answer questions.
“Ten years, fifteen at the outside, ” the unicorn says, pride in his voice as it rises in volume from conversation into something like a declaration of war. “He will make it that long or more. We are Kozak, of the Kozaki, later called Cossacks. Ours is the ancient blood, forged when the survivors of Roam welded themselves to the free ranging ponies of the Steppes. His doom is sure, but he will fight for every second. I know it. He is my brother.”
“Sir,” you say, into the silence that follows. “Are you alright?”
“Just a little insane,” the pony says, with a chuckle. “Worry not for me, young one. There is a small Coyote who looks in on me every day or so. I’ll be fine.”
“Your stories, Penalt,” you say, daring to use his name. “Will they continue?”
“My stories?” Penalt says, leaning back in his chair. “Oh yes. I will keep writing until Hecate chooses to take me firmly in hoof. Maybe not even then. Brightly will continue, as will the saga of James the Mailpony. Twilight still has things to Learn, and there are more stories yet to tell.”
“Any message I should take back to the others?” you ask, warmed by both the cocoa and this strange, mad, friendly pony.
“Yes,” the unicorn says, handing you a scroll. “My son, mine own Telemachus, sent me these words, and I do believe he meant me to take them to heart. And so, I shall.”
You open the scroll to read the words there, and as you do, the older pony recites the words written there.
I’m sorry you’re having hard times, but that was a great blog post! Putting yourself in the second person as a pony was a weird choice but you really make it work. I can just see that old pony in his hut overlooking overlooking the Inside Passage, bowed but unbroken, still ready to look Heckate and his muse in the eye.
Should you need it, I will lend a metaphorical ear as I have lent an eye to your words, and look forward to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.