//------------------------------// // Grown Through the Mud of Adversity // Story: The Last Flower // by TheMareWhoSaysNi //------------------------------// A light blast caressed the crown of trees, so furnished they met and formed a crisscross of leaves and branches. This whisper lasted for a few more seconds, before nature turned back to its quietness air. A couple of ring neck pheasants landed on one of the branches, nibbling at worms on the way. From her spot, lying low against the greenery all over the ground, Rainbow Dash grabbed an arrow in her back, as slow as a setting sun. As soon as it was positioned inside her bow, her cautious transformed into precision and swiftness, and within the next second, the couple of pheasants fell from their perch at the sound of dead leaves. With the quails she’d trapped a bit earlier, it would probably be enough for a few stews, soups and dishes cooked in sauce. Anyhow, whatever she brought back from her hunting expeditions, her mother always knew how to cook it. Lately, she had to go deeper and deeper into the Everfree Forrest in order to find games with a consequent size. The birds and the rodents she found close to her home were a little too bony for her liking, and were less and less easy to catch, as if they understood she wasn’t here for a simple walk. If she were conscious of it all, Fluttershy would probably be furious to see her this way, hunting and killing the few species that had survived the various human disasters. These innocent victims of her gender’s madness deserved a bit of a rest now. Rainbow Dash got up and hurried to pick up her last catch of the day, her every senses on the lookout. In the most remote spots often were the biggest and most dangerous animals, such as stags and buffalos. If one of them caught her off-guard and decided to charge at her, she would have nowhere to hide and escape. Another rustle from the foliage surrounding her surprised her, as she had just grabbed the pheasants, piled up at the feet of a tree, in a maelstrom of greenery and feathers. Her heart beating faster, she stood motionless for a few seconds, an arrow in her hand and her ear pricking, expecting to see an enormous enraged wild beast emerging, or maybe someone lost, at any moment. Her relief was huge when she noticed it was nothing but a ferret, hurrying to bring back a harvest of nuts and acorns to his closest burrow, among the mess that was the ground. A few moments after that, she was throwing the pheasants in a hessian bag in which were her other preys, as well as the result of today’s picking: berries and edible plants, as well as a few silkworms and other insects, which always constituted a good snack, and the leaves necessary for Pinkie Pie to cook her remedies. The way back to her shack, in the company of singing birds and of the stream she had to follow not to get lost, happened to get longer and longer. Walking alone with no one to talk to hadn’t always been easy, but slowly, Rainbow Dash had got used to this forced loneliness. No matter how much she wondered about it, and she had done it at least a thousand times, she couldn’t help thinking she had taken the right decision by choosing to settle here at the end of the Uncivilized War. Though sometimes she felt homesick, hidden in the middle of this island of wild quietness, she could protect the ones she loved, all that was left from her former life, from the torments of human greed. The day she had woken up in Canterlot’s military hospital, surrounded by agonizing half-corpses, in the stench of blood and rotting limbs, her body marked forever, she had understood how absurd had been her life until then. Fighting couldn’t lead to peace, not like this. All that came out in the end was more pain and lives lost forever. And it wasn’t only because of the death or disappearance of almost all these she cared about. It also was because of the state in which she had found the few surviving ones. Her own mother had lost her right eye, Pinkie Pie had been scalped, and had to stay hidden for months and months, waiting for a hair and skin graft. As for Fluttershy… Fluttershy was nothing but the shadow of who she used to be. When she finally reached her destination, the sun was down at the West. At first, the wooden shack in which she lived with her recreated family was nothing but an old abandoned dump, with rotten planks and a floor covered with droppings. With time and hard work, by the sweat of their bows, they had fortified the walls, built a decent solid roof, then little by little they had improved it until it became that small cabin with a floor and a few rooms. Alright, it was far from the comfort, which then seemed to be scanty, of the Canterlot’s military base, but everything from there and the memories linked to it were bygones, and Rainbow Dash had sworn to herself she would never look back. Nowadays, she wasn’t living with much, they had no running water and no electricity, but she was living far from insanity, far from conflicts of power and far from hate. And it was enough. “It’s me,” she announced by crossing the wooden door, as if it could have been anyone else. “Hello, Dashie… Was the hunt good? You forgot your water flask again, today.” The small tin bottle still was on the long wooden table in the middle of the first floor’s single room. Pinkie Pie was sitting here, leaning over a notebook with yellowing pages. Each time she found a new remedy, or another medicinal effects in a plant, the young Healer made a full account of it in some kind of grimoire in her possession since she was a child. She drew the flowers, leaves and various berries with a precision of a metronome, in the least of details. Traditionally, this kind of grimoires were handed from generations to generations. The young woman could have ceased to gather material for it from the day she’d arrived in the Everfree Forrest, where there was less chances than anywhere else for her to meet a man, yet she hadn’t. Always, she said that, whatever happened, this precious document could be useful, one day or another. Even the horrors she had seen during the war, even the most horrible deaths and the vilest of pains, had never been able to change Pinkamena Diane Pie’s dynamic and positive character. Her whole family had either died or gone missing, yet she never lost hope, nor her faith in the human kind. It was what Rainbow Dash admired the most in the girl who happened to become her best friend. What used to irritate her back at the war had revealed itself to be a source of comfort more radiant than the sun’s light, and from it she regularly drew the strength to regrow. Without her by her side, she had no doubt she could never stand back up and decide to survive. “Where’s mom?” asked Rainbow Dash, putting her bag on the table, sitting down as well. “Oh, out to do the laundry. She’ll be here very soon.” “Good… Won’t you check out what I got?” “I have to finish this first. Did you know that forget-me-nots were really good sedatives?” Her question didn’t require any answer. Although the Military Caste was the only one which mastered almost all the knowledge of the other castes, Envoys and Healers were an exception. Rainbow Dash had learned how to use the little technologies left from the postmodern era and the solar storm, she could harness and feed her horse without any extra help, recognize what was edible and what was not, dismantle and reassemble a gun in record time, shooting at a target with an extraordinary precision, but when it came to the medicinal virtues of plants or the best way to amputate a human being, her knowledge was more than limited. While Pinkie Pie, focused on her work, was finishing the key of the drawing she had just sketched, Rainbow Dash took off her hunting gear, which she put on the table beside her bag. She had gathered a horse, sleeping bags, flasks, utensils and a few tools as well as her personal guns, her bows and arrows from the deserted and half-destroyed Academy, but all the rest here had been built with their own hands. Of their former life, her mother had brought only a family photo album and an old wood-burning stove she had saved from the ruins of their old house. With slight home improvements, she had been able to make it work again, and with it she cooked the dishes for her “daughters” – though Rainbow Dash was her only biological child. The stove, in a corner of the room, purred like a plane engine each time it was burning. On a wooden shelf fixed above it, saucepans and cooking pots were piled up, and on the nearby shelf, there were phials with liquids of various colors. There was only one window for the whole room, and a rocking chair next to it, which was supposed to allow the person the chair was made for to enjoy the view. But this person wasn’t here, and each time she saw this chair empty, Rainbow Dash could feel her chest tightening, as if her heart was pressed by fingers made of steel. As if she could understand which thoughts were going through her mind, Pinkie Pie, while closing her grimoire, told her Fluttershy was upstairs taking a nap. “I’m going to wake her up for dinner. And it’s time for her to have a shower, anyway.” She left her chair and climbed the stairs, creaking at each of her steps. With her mother and her friend, they had built the second floor all by themselves, and a great deal of the furniture. In the same way, the well they used to drink and wash was their own creation. Without any Angel to help them, they had to resolved living by their own means. Now, she could barely remember the way her life was going before this return to nature. If she closed her eyes and focused hard, the most striking images always were these of all the persons she had lost during the fights. They were her regrets, on the most nostalgic nights, when the light of the moon prevented her from falling asleep. The young woman lying on a narrow bed, in one of the three rooms upstairs, only had the appearance of life. Her skin was still soft, her hair was still silky but her eyes were off, abandoned by the beams of existence. When she was asleep like this, she seemed to be more human, more real than when her eyes were opened. Except for her rigid position, closer to how a cold corpse was lying. Softly, Rainbow Dash shook Fluttershy’s shoulders, whose pupils fluttered for a few seconds, before opening up completely. Out of her legs, this part of her body was the only one functioning correctly, and was how she communicated, blinking. Once meant no, twice meant yes. To feed her, Pinkie Pie had created some kind of perfusion in which she injected a homeopathic liquid, gathering all the vitamins and necessary nutriments to keep the young woman alive. The Canterlot’s Healers she’d seen before leaving the Ghetto forever had told her she would better finish her off than keeping her alive in such a state, but Rainbow Dash had refused. Fluttershy was all that remained from a passed period, back when she still believed the wheel of future could spin in the right direction. A period back when she still could dare that folly called dreaming. It probably was selfish, yet she had never pretended to be flawless, quite the opposite, in fact. Taking this innocent life away, this only gleam of softness and purity was beyond her. Every day, every night, always the same gestures, again and again. Making her sit up, then get up on her feet, taking her hand to force her to walk, taking the basin out of the closet, making her sit inside the basin, going downstairs to pick up two buckets of boiled water, coming back and finding Fluttershy still sitting in the same position in the basin, not moving an inch, taking her clothes off and starting the “work”. In a complete passivity, the young woman let her friend taking off her clothes, rubbing her body with soapy water and scrubbing it with a brush made with pig’s hairs (Rainbow Dash sometimes was able to capture one inside of the nets she had settled at strategical points in the forest). “This is the day when I wash your hair, alright?” Two blinks. She understood. The others’ body had never been arousing for Rainbow Dash. Back at the Military Academy, she had no trouble stripping in front of her mates, and the nudity of them were more likely to leave her indifferent. The carnal envelops never launched shameful thoughts inside her mind, nor particular urges. It had always been this way and the situation perfectly fit her. Until then. Until that mine exploded a few inches away from her. Now she was envious of the others’ bodies. Their skin remained young, smooth, soft. Pale, yet able to tan under the sun. Now she regretted this body she had displayed in front of others without the least hint of embarrassment. If he were here now, what would he say? He had been the only one with who she had shared a different kind of body intimacy, deep and complete. The only one with who she used to feel something warm taking over her chest when he stroked her hand, each time he pressed his stomach against her back. Rainbow Dash shook her head, going back to the present. Fluttershy was shivering under her nose. By throwing a glance through the only window of the room, she realized it was night now. When she went down to the main room, along with her friend, her mother was back from her laundry, and was busy cooking a soup of quails and red berries. Delicious smells spread out all over the small house. One day, all Rainbow Dash had been able to bring back were a coypu and a few shoots of nettles, and yet, Windy Whistles had been able to enhance the taste of these indelicate treats. This gift came from her past in the Resistance Army, where she was admired for her common sense and resourcefulness. Many missions of this period consisted of keeping a secret post in the middle of the woods, back when Everfree was even bigger and shared with a nearby country – now even more isolated then Equestria could be. She and her husband Bow Hothoof were very respected amongst the recruits. Together, they had gained more stars than all the senior officers of the Army, no matter the Ghetto. Real heroes in the hearts of the Community Power inhabitants. Without the bursting of it at the end of the Uncivilized War, Rainbow Dash would have probably followed their footsteps. ***************** Pinkie Pie took off the last leaf of arnica of the poultice. Sitting in front of her on the bed they shared, Rainbow Dash was waiting, her fingers nervously playing with her old leather ball filled with small rocks, which was worn-out. “So?” she asked, her voice always slightly shaky, like each time she asked this question. “I’m sorry, Dashie… There’s no difference with last week. Nor with the week before, or the week before.” “Oh. Alright.” Without another word, she wore back the shirt she used as a pajama top. Why she persisted to ask Pinkie Pie for an arnica and chamomile poultice every week, Rainbow Dash didn’t know, just like the reason why she kept on hoping, although, deep inside herself, she knew the answer would still be the same. Who would worry about such a thing, in a place like that? Certainly not her mother, even less her two friends, and yet, she couldn’t help it. Each week, she was waiting for this night and each week, always, she asked for her poultice, picking up the precious leaves every time she went out to hunt and harvest. At first, Pinkie Pie used to smash them into a small bowl, extract the juice and mixed it with a secret ingredient in order to make an ointment out of it. She had warned her: there were very few chances for it to work. As planned, the result was none, again and again. Since Rainbow Dash kept on demanding her treatment, she had change the ointment for these poultices but the direct application of the flowers and leaves hadn’t changed anything at all neither. It was painful to see her this way. And because Pinkie Pie suffered from seeing her this way, too empathic to decide not to care anymore, she couldn’t resolve herself to tell her friend once and for all that her state would never change. Since she was back from the Uncivilized War, Rainbow Dash happened to be unable to fall asleep if no one was by her side. Her fighting traumas, along with those of her nights spent at the military hospital, left alone among the surviving and the dead, where agonizing screams tore the air each and every night, conquered one of her favorite leisure, sleeping. Even with another body lying next to her, she had a lot of trouble letting sleep working its magic on her. The least suspicious creak could make her jump awake, her heart thumping, and keep her still awake for additional endless hours. She had just fallen into the vapors of inertia when she thought she heard a branch creak on the house’s roof. Her eyes got opened immediately, as if all wound up. Her breathing abruptly sped up, she remained motionless for a few seconds, her head against her pillow while by her side, Pinkie Pie was sleeping while muttering incomprehensible onomatopoeias. Gradually, the way she would do when she had to take an arrow behind her back when she had spotted a prey, Rainbow Dash slipped her hand under the pillow, and her fingers got in connection with the cold metal of her automatic crossbow. Just because she had got away from her military life didn’t mean she’d been able to forget her former reflexes or that she’d given up on her weapons. The Everfree Forest wasn’t known for being a place particularly safe, and no one could tell what kind of persons this lonely shack in the woods would attract. Her instinct couldn’t be wrong. Earlier, yes, maybe she had been trapped by the fears buried deep inside her memories, but not tonight. Conversely to the way she had grabbed her weapon, she sat back up swiftly, her bow loaded and darted at the skull of the person standing in front of her, a pump-action shotgun darted at her own head. It was a girl. A girl with hair like a sizzling fire and eyes of a particular blue, deep like an azure that would never be real again.