When spring arrived, Tikbalang had had far too many months to ponder herself and her predicament. Despite having nothing but time, she could not remember any further details about her life. She was also starting to feel a bit lonely. The emptiness of her house was much more pronounced now that she had a regular guest like Plum Pudding coming around regularly.
She finally saw him coming up the road a few weeks into spring, and was surprised to see a foal trotting along beside his cart. He halted at his usual spot, walked forward to the edge of the porch, and bowed. The foal beside him tried to copy him, but couldn’t hold the bow and fell on his face. Tikbalang chuckled to herself, and went to open the door for him.
As the door opened of its own accord, the foal’s eyes went wide. “Wooooow!”
“That is Tikbalang, Glory. I told you about her,” Plum Pudding said.
“Ti’blong!” The foal tried to imitate his father, with limited success.
Tikbalang put a hoof to her mouth and chuckled. She stepped out the door and walked down the steps to greet the two ponies.
“Welcome back, Plum,” she said. “And welcome to your son. Glory Seed, yes?”
Plum pudding smiled at the feel of the breeze, but his son looked directly at her and nodded.
“Gory See!” The foal pointed at himself with a hoof.
Tikbalang leaned down to get a better look at him, and his eyes followed hers as she crouched down in front of him. She scrunched her muzzle in thought as she stared. He scrunched his back, eyes still staying with hers. She moved her head to the side, and he followed. She raised a hoof, and he raised a hoof.
Plum Pudding had been pulling tools out of the cart, but he stopped when he saw his son waving his head in strange ways.
“What are you doing there, Glory?” he asked.
“Mare!” the colt exclaimed.
Plum Pudding looked about, but his confusion indicated he had seen nothing. “Where?”
“Here!” The colt pointed at Tikbalang, and she straightened up in surprise.
“Oh. Yes, this is Tikbalang’s house,” Plum Pudding said. “I know she’s here too. I can feel her breath sometimes.” He picked up some lumber and his tools and walked toward the house. “Come on, Glory, it’s time to start working.”
The colt looked away from Tikbalang to his father, then back again. He waved a hoof at her and followed his father inside, leaving Tikbalang outside. She stood there for a moment, processing what the colt had said and the way he had behaved. Had he really seen her? Foals were considered to have much more sensitivity to strange things than adult ponies, but she couldn’t be sure. She was going to test it.
Tikbalang followed them inside and shut the door behind her. She walked behind the ponies as they traveled through the house to the room Plum Pudding was going to work on. Plum got to work, and his son pottered about, expressing intense interest in certain planks of wood and balls of dust. Tikbalang crept closer to him, her hooves never making a noise on the wooden floor, but he still turned to look up at her. He smiled and blew a bubble of snot out of his nose, the goo dripping down his muzzle. Tikbalang smiled back, and the colt wandered around the room some more, his attention on her having already waned.
She followed him as he wandered about, sometimes he’d pick up some piece of detritus and show it to her. She would smile and nod, and that seemed to satisfy him. Then he would put it down and move on the next amazing and interesting piece of something lying about. She was so engrossed in the foal’s ability to see her, she didn’t notice the foal had wandered to the stairs.
Undaunted, the foal began climbing the stairs with some difficulty. He wasn’t going to let a few difficult steps stop him from scaling this obstacle however, and kept gamely climbing upward.
Tikbalang thought about rushing off to fetch Plum Pudding, but that would leave the foal unattended. What if he fell? She realized the moment she had the thought that her hooves went through ponies when she tried to touch them. Her being here was as useful as nopony being here.
“Plum! Your son is in a dangerous place!” she called.
As usual when she spoke, her voice created a wind. This time it was inside the house, and her breath rattled the floorboards and pushed the little colt to the side. He stumbled, lost his hoofing, and tilted backward. Out of reflex, Tikbalang extended her hooves to catch him, realizing as she moved that the poor thing was going to go right through and hit his head on the steps.
She felt a weight on her hooves and opened her eyes. She wasn’t aware she had closed them, but there, in her hooves, sat a tiny pony, nestled halfway on each hoof, pulling himself to a sitting position.
Plum Pudding came rushing out of the room he was working in. He was in a panic, looking for his son, and found him soon after, sitting comfortably at the bottom of the stairs. Plum grabbed him before he could start climbing again.
“Oh, thank you Tikbalang. I didn’t realize he had gotten so far away from me. I appreciate you keeping an eye on him,” Plum Pudding said. “Please do let me know the moment it happens if it happens again.”
Tikbalang was once again dumbfounded. She had caught the colt with her own two hooves. The hooves that went through most other ponies. She swiped a hoof at Plum Pudding, but it passed through him as it usually did. It was just the foal that she could touch. She smiled to herself. Something good was happening to her.
Tikbalang watched the colt as Plum worked, up until he left that day. Glory was tired from his day full of exploring new things, and lay sleeping on his father’s back as the cart disappeared into the woods. Tikbalang waved, mostly to Glory Seed since he was the only pony who could see her, but the colt did not open his eyes. She stepped back inside her home and shut the door, and busied herself with looking about at the changes made to her house while she waited for the next visit.
The next week, Plum Pudding came back without his son, much to Tikbalang’s dismay. He greeted her, came inside, and began his work without much to say. Tikbalang followed him and watched, but she missed seeing the little colt. He could see her, and that was new and exciting.
“Where is your son?” Tikbalang asked.
The wind brushed over Plum Pudding and he turned around. “Hm? What is it Tikbalang?”
“Your son, I wish to see him again,” she said.
He stared in confusion, only able to feel her breath and not hear her words. “I’m sorry Tikbalang, I don’t understand.”
“Your son! I want to see him!” Tikbalang said.
The wind rattled the windows, trapped inside the small building as it was, it shook Plum Pudding on his hooves.
“I don’t understand! What’s different? Uhh… Uhhh… My son isn’t here?” Plum Pudding said. “You want my son?”
“Yes.” Tikbalang said.
Plum Pudding looked confused and wary, not sure why his son would be so important, but he agreed. “I’ll bring my son next time. His aunts and grandmother weren’t available to watch him last week, which is why he accompanied me. But if you want him, you will have him. You’re not going to hurt him are you?”
Tikbalang gave him a disappointed look she wished he could see. “No.”
He nodded to himself and turned back to his work, satisfied with the breeze of an answer.
The next week saw Plum Pudding return with Glory Seed. The colt looked healthier than the last time, and was following his father, stopping to investigate bushes, then dashing to catch up again. Tikbalang watched him with amusement, and opened the door to greet them when the cart reached the front porch.
“Good day to you, Plum and Glory,” Tikbalang said.
Plum Pudding bowed and his son followed suit. The colt managed the bow a little better this time, but he still moved as though not fully accustomed to his body. Tikbalang stepped in front of the colt and leaned down to look at him. He stood back up, eyes focused on her, then up to her horn.
“Yu’corn!” The colt poked his own forehead, then blew a raspberry and made an explosion noise with his mouth.
“Mr. Lights won’t be coming out here until the house is finished, Glory. That could be some years yet,” Plum Pudding said.
Tikbalang assumed there was some unicorn in town the colt saw that her horn reminded him of. She didn’t know about the population of the town, but if her horn reminded him of one specific unicorn, there weren’t very many that he saw on a regular basis.
She had other plans though. She wanted to see if she could pick him up. She thought about waiting until Plum Pudding wasn’t nearby, but she couldn’t wait! This was far too exciting! She reached out with her forehooves, grasped the colt under his, and lifted him off the ground. He didn’t fight back, and he didn’t panic. He just let her lift him up. He came up off the ground, giggling the whole while, and she lifted him up, and up, and up, over her head. Her face was split in a wide smile. The colt trusting her not to drop him. If she could have cried, she would have.
After she had held him for a moment, she lowered him back down to the ground, placing him on his hooves. He bounced and ran in small circles, poking at her and laughing the whole while. She looked over at Plum and saw him standing there watching with a look of intense relief on his face. If she had to guess, he was probably worried she was planning something awful for his colt. To him, she was an unknowable and enigmatic spirit, capricious and subject to whimsical changes in mood. To his son, she was just another pony.
She stepped closer to Plum and tried to place a hoof on his withers to comfort him. It passed through and she sighed. Still only the foal, but that would hopefully change in the future.
“Your son is safe with me,” she said. “Fear not.”
He nodded at the feel of her voice, and went back to pulling together his tools and supplies.
She left him to his work and went back to following Glory about the yard. Plum Pudding accepted that she was watching over him, and had the capacity to keep him safe, and went inside, leaving her and Glory to themselves. True to her word, she kept him safe, lifting him away from brambles and other dangerous plants. Holding him up to look at butterflies and other interesting bugs. Smiling as he ate a few she didn’t catch soon enough, and helping him climb trees.
By the time the day was over, Glory was tired, and she held him as he slept until his father was done his work. She carried him back to the cart and laid him on his father’s back, where he curled up into Plum’s long mane.
“Thank you, Tikbalang. I am sorry I doubted your intentions,” Plum Pudding said.
“It is fine. I understand. Thank you for bringing him,” Tikbalang said.
Plum Pudding nodded, turned away, and pulled his cart toward home, leaving Tikbalang once again to herself.
The summer passed in a blur for Tikbalang. Plum Pudding kept bringing his son to work on her house with him, and she took care of the colt while he worked. She enjoyed her time being able to touch somepony else, and have attention directed at her instead of in her general direction. Plum Pudding made slow but steady progress on the downstairs portion of the house, and by the time summer was over, the bottom floor was nearly complete.
Fall was the harvest, and Plum Pudding couldn’t come to visit as often, but when he did come, he still brought his son. The foal was growing up quite quickly, although his weight did not make much of a difference to Tikbalang. Glory Seed was getting more verbose as time passed, and by the time they were on the cusp of winter he was stringing together awkward sentences as quick as you please.
Late in fall, Plum Pudding had said this day would be the last visit of the year, and Tikbalang watched the two of them arrive filled with melancholy. It was a delight to see them, but she didn’t relish having to watch them go, leaving her alone for the winter. She was waiting outside for them as they pulled up, the front door already open, and Glory galloped up to meet her.
“Tikbalang! Up!” the colt jumped in her direction.
Tikbalang caught her and hugged him, then rubbed his mane. “How are you today, Glory?”
Glory giggled at the breeze of her voice, and Plum Pudding watched them play with a smile on his face.
“If all goes well today Tikbalang, I should have the bottom floor complete. Then I can work on the upstairs come spring,” Plum Pudding said. “The walls are still holding, but I’ll assess the damage after winter is over. I may need to refinish them, but I think I can salvage most of it.”
“That will be fine, Plum. Thank you,” Tikbalang said.
He smiled and went inside, leaving Glory and her to play. The colt never tired of the wilderness around her home, and he had made up many games for them to play around it. Royal Guards. Pegasi. Power Ponies. Griffon invasion. Ghosts and goblins. In that last one she was always told to be the ghost. That bothered her for some reason she felt she should really understand but didn’t.
He was also fascinated by the well out back, because it was covered in brambles and had a heavy lid on it. He couldn’t lift the lid off, but he kept crawling into the brambles and using it as a hiding place, much to her frustration.
Today, Glory wanted to play Power Ponies, and so they spent the day running about and pretending to fight bad guys. Glory wanted to be Fili-second today, and was rushing about hither and thither. He told Tikbalang she had to be the Masked Matterhorn, so she pointed her horn at things and he was satisfied with that. She couldn’t cast any magic, and she felt like that should bother her as well, but it didn’t. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t worried about winter, though. There was going to be nothing but time for introspection during the cold months.
Glory got tuckered out rather fast because of all the constant running to and fro he was doing, and as the afternoon went on, he got tired enough to ask her to pick him up. She obliged, and cradled him to her breast as he fell asleep. She carried him inside the house to where Plum Pudding was putting the finishing touches on the final portion of one of the walls.
“Your son has exhausted himself, Plum. He will not be troublesome on your way home,” Tikbalang said.
Plum Pudding turned around in alarm, his eyes, whipping about, until they settled on Glory. He didn’t reach for him, but he looked at his son, then up at Tikbalang’s eyes directly.
“Tikbalang?” Plum looked her up and down.
Tikbalang didn’t quite understand at first, but she reached out with a hoof and Plum followed it, but didn’t move. She touched her hoof to his cheek, and she actually felt it! She smiled and caressed his face, moving her hoof up and down, playing with his lips, and batting at his ears with foalish glee.
“Hello Plum,” Tikbalang said.
He didn’t react to her voice, and there was no breeze this time when she spoke. He watched her lips move, and nodded after she said it.
“Can you still not hear me?” she said.
He nodded again and she frowned. He still couldn’t hear her, but he could see her, judging from the way his eyes moved. She held his son out to him, then stood up and spun in a circle, showing herself off to him. He watched, and she got a sense of satisfaction from it, then she reached out to take Glory back. She pointed at the wall, and although he was still a little dumbfounded, he finished hammering the wood into place.
Once Plum was done with the wall, he turned back to Tikbalang and looked at her holding his son. He opened his mouth, failed to say anything, then opened it again.
“I was not expecting you to be a normal mare, Tikbalang. My whole life I was expecting you to be some mythical beast of legend; terrifying, otherworldly, and maybe a little cruel,” Plum said. “You are… much more beautiful than I envisioned.”
Tikbalang smiled at him. “Flattery will get you everywhere, but your son is tired, and you have finished your work, you should head home.” She pointed at his son, and the door. He got the idea, and packed his things up, then hitched himself to the cart.
“I will see you in spring, Tikbalang. I wish you the best,” Plum said.