//------------------------------// // Heated Memories // Story: Emberwolf // by Lucky Dreams //------------------------------// Scootaloo cantered through frozen fire. The floors, walls and ceiling were angry with flames – yet, thanks to the magic of the Emberwolf’s howl, the flames were motionless. They remained, however, awash with million shades of heat and colour: with reds and yellows, and all the different shades of purple-violet-indigo which were known to ponies. Scootaloo wondered how she had never noticed the beauty of fire. Like in the bedroom, the flames vanished whenever she touched them. It meant that, as she marched through the landing, she left a thin trail through the fire behind her. But she didn’t look back. She pressed forwards, her heart aflame with determination, and she passed by the Daring Do novel she had dropped on the floor earlier that night. It was charred around the edges, yet otherwise surprisingly intact. Then she was downstairs, and, in the foyer, she stood before the living room door. Here, the floor was strewn with rubble from where the Emberwolf had burst through the living room wall. Yet, she couldn’t see a hole in the brickwork, for it was hidden behind curtains of those wondrous frozen flames. Scootaloo drew in a deep breath. She bit a hoof and whispered, “You’ve got this. You’ve got the sky in your heart, so there’s nothing you can’t do.” She opened the door and entered the room. The Emberwolf sat by the fireplace. Its head brushed against the ceiling. “I’ll be brief,” it said, laying its dazzling eyes upon Scootaloo. With a paw, it gestured for her to sit on the burnt sofa, but Scootaloo shook her head and remained by the door. “I have waited a long time indeed to find somewolf who would understand me. Forgive me, but these past few weeks, I have watched you from the fireplace. You intrigued me – you, with your coat the colour of fire. Yesterday, I observed as you and your friends stood right here in this very room. I ached when your friends argued with you. They abandoned you, and left you crying. In that moment, I experienced a most startling revelation: that all this time, I hadn’t been looking for somewolf at all, but somepony.” Scootaloo felt queasy in her stomach. She didn’t want to think about the previous day’s argument. She narrowed her eyes at the Emberwolf. “It’s not nice to spy on ponies.” The Emberwolf shrugged. “It is not nice to shout at them either.” Scootaloo looked uncomfortable. “Hey! I didn’t mean to shout at my friends. I just—” “I wasn’t referring to you, Scootaloo,” the Emberwolf said. “Frankly, you had every right to lose your temper with them. I saw everything. Everything. I saw how your friends mistreated you. I watched as they told you, without any trace of thoughtfulness, that you are not the same filly as you were before. They told you that you’ve been ignoring them for months, withdrawing from them, and locking yourself away in your room. Hah! As if they could ever understand what you’ve been through. As if a filly could endure all that you’ve seen and heard, and then be expected to remain the same.” The Emberwolf dropped its voice to a dangerous growl. “But I understand, Scootaloo. I understand you in ways Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle couldn’t begin to comprehend. I understand the hurt your parents have put you through. I’ve lived it. There was a time, a most wretched time indeed, when my own pack abandoned me when I needed them most. So, I get you. I am probably the only creature alive who does. “Tell me,” it finished in a sizzling whisper. “Get it off your chest. What do you hate most about your friends and family?” Tears ran down Scootaloo’s cheeks: the fat, untamed tears of which only the fiercest foals are capable of. Her nose was clogged; her mind was clogged; she didn’t know what to say or what to do, and she wasn’t certain of things anymore. Why was it that this fire-headed beast seemed to know her better than her so-called best friends? Neither Apple Bloom nor Sweetie Belle had wanted to hear of the midnight arguments between her parents, of how unfair the world was, and how red-hot roasting she, Scootaloo, always felt in her belly these days. The hairs in her mane prickled as she considered the Emberwolf’s question. She thought back to the fateful morning in August, the morning that had struck from nowhere, blasting apart her life with the force of a lightning bolt: the morning Mom had discovered the letter hidden in Dad’s study. Scootaloo didn’t know what the letter had said or what the big deal was. But from a stolen glance at it, she had seen that it had been hoof-written in purple ink, and that it had ended in a string of x’s. That day had marked the first argument. It hadn’t been the last. Scootaloo couldn’t meet the Emberwolf’s gaze. “I, um…” “We do not have to talk here, Scootaloo. If you find it easier, we can talk in my home.” Scootaloo’s ears perked up in curiosity. “Your home?” The Emberwolf turned its gigantic head towards the fireplace. “Wherever there is a fireplace, there is a doorway. When you are an Emberwolf, the doors are easy to open.” With that, it breathed over the fireplace, and there, the frozen flames began to move again. They arranged themselves into the shapes of two ponies Scootaloo recognised at once: miniature versions of her parents, who were made entirely from fire. Her miniature parents screamed at each other. “What was your plan, huh?” Scootaloo’s tiny mom shouted at her miniscule dad. “Were you going to run off with her and start a new life? No, actually, don’t answer that. I deserve better than this. Your daughter deserves better than this. For once in your life, think of Scootaloo, why don’t you?” Scootaloo gasped. She remembered that argument. She remembered cowering under her covers on a stormy night. But before she could ask how the Emberwolf was doing this – how it knew about her most private memories – her parents vanished in a flicker of flames. They were replaced with blazing versions of Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. “Scoots, we’re worried about you. We don’t see you no more,” the little Apple Bloom said. “You always lock yourself away in that there room of yours.” “Stop being mopey all the time,” said the mini Sweetie Belle, pressing her flaming hooves together. “Pretty please?” Scootaloo gawped at the fireplace. The flaming versions of her friends repeated the very words that their real-life counterparts had spoken a day beforehoof, right there in the living room. Her stomach twister-twirled. She wanted to run again, dash upstairs and slam the door and hide under the covers for a billion years. But her hooves felt as though they had mountains tied to them. She couldn’t move. Her wings drooped, and her tail hung limp. “Stop it,” Scootaloo whispered to the Emberwolf. “I don’t like this. Make ’em go away.” The Emberwolf nodded then breathed over the fireplace. With that, the fiery versions of Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle became normal flames once more. “My apologies,” the Emberwolf said, “but it was unavoidable. I needed to look inside your heart and see what was in there. I had to riffle through your memories, so that I can craft a special doorway just for you.” Scootaloo frowned at the Emberwolf. “You keep talking ’bout a door, but I don’t see one. I just see the fireplace.” She didn’t like how the Emberwolf looked at her. Its grin was too wide, and there were too many fangs. “Oh, wait and see, Scootaloo. Wait and see.”