Rather warily chrysalis sits down, rests on her haunches. In a bitter resentful smile she looks at the dying guard. The guard is confused; at least that’s what he looks like, lying in blood mouthing nonsensical things. Confounded the guard stares at far off things, the fight, the struggle seemingly forgotten. His limbs rest on the chest where his wound is, drunk with the pain of it. Chrysalis notices that from where she is, it looks like he’s praying. She doesn’t notice the fireworks he sees.
She moves toward the unicorn, discards the fallen guard out of her mind. Yet she takes the time to stop. She takes the time to say something solemn and sober. The guard opens his ears.
“Screw you” she said.
She loses conviction into that heavy sentence. Like a dog off the leash her feelings chase those two words that fall out. The feelings dig their teeth into the guard, but the guard doesn’t care.
“Screw you” he said.
He repeats the words but not the meaning. He says it gently and apathetically, in the livid smell of blood the simple purpose of talking changes into something lost and alone.
It’s a shame because this will be the only conversation they would have. They would never know how similar they both were once upon a time. The fact that they are fiercely loyal, somehow broken, and tenacious. It’s both a hilarious and horrific parallel between the two.
She thinks of talking the blade out of the guard. But a sound comes from the crumpled pile of unicorn. She bolts toward the unicorn and leaves the royal guard to wallow with the blade poking out of him. With the footsteps leaving, life in its entity seems amiss, an unrelenting joke with no punch line. Two lives that tried to engulf and kill the other without even truly knowing what life reverberated in themselves and in their nemesis.
Two lives so similar.
They’d never know it.
Chrysalis has forgotten about the fight and she hovers next to the unicorn, the unicorn that gave her the strength to hold dreams and with that strength make a dream with her. Dreams of free children and freedom, of family and all its marvels and routines, of the ritual of making and protecting a mystery that can’t be measured. Weaved through it all the smell of cave mushrooms and the carved texture of his love. She stands there so still, he slumps there so hushed that it’s almost peaceful. Underneath all things their thoughts disperse and separate, then joins and osmoses into the ominous thoughts that lives in all lovers.
The wound on the unicorn so massive, so real. It gapes and swallows. Breathes out streams of life so balanced and pale. Except the streams are red.
“Are you okay?”
Tempted he wants to say yes. The lie wants to fly from him. For a second the dare of it thrills him. To pretend that everything would be fine. That he would lie so savagely to her. Never realize and never have an idea, until in a few minutes his eyes would close. All other things would close with it.
The voice of him.
The smell of him.
But the love that holds them together is so honest and sincere. It wouldn’t let him lie. The love tidied these lies and these thoughts away. The love leans in and holds them together and they are untouchable to the world outside, and the bleeding inside of him.
She stands, he slumps. Sadness and truth crawl from the horizon, far away but coming soon. Maybe death follows behind it all, checking its watch waiting for the right time for all things to pass.
“Are you okay?”
The sound of it and the frailty of it. A useless pattern of sound that can't stop anything. Wrapped in herself because he can't reach out, can't feel his embrace snap shut behind her. Holding herself, anguish and helplessness has endless depth and endurance.
“No. I’m not okay. I'm going to live for a long while though.”
Honesty is needed.
She reaches down and lifts him from the hole. He wants to cry out but he doesn't. Finally the hoof is free and he can slowly lie down on the grass.
“Get me some bandages, some blankets as well please.”
“Yes”.
“Chrysalis.”
“What.”
“Of all things. I'd love to do you right here.”
She laughs out at his attempt to bring control and life. He smiles and blushes despite it. But it’s only an attempt and the laugh chokes off suddenly. She can’t tell the difference of this choking laugh against the beginning of weeping. In the cauterized start of his death there is none.
They thought that they could live forever at one point. How wrong they were. How to live the dreams that vanish like dew in distant unknown sunsets. To make and to treasure the warm moments that remain outside the blood that carries the seed of all our ideas.
He counts her hoof steps and they are the same tempo as the drops of his blood hitting grass. Rumours of grass whisper, swaying naked, as the pain pass through him. Two different darkness’s descend with the pain. Undeterred waiting. The pain so unmoving and inexperienced that his mind travels far.
Now she’s an afterthought in the distance. So alive.
“I'll be back soon with what you need!” she shouts out. The noise stretches out, echoes against distant non-existent walls.
Now she’s gone.
As soon as she’s gone the guard stirs in the blood and tiredness of it. Just like the manner of his birth he lies there all buried in his blood and exhaustion.
“Am I going to die?”
“Yes. Why are you talking? Why are you here?”
The unicorn asks those questions. The guard ignores them.
“Are you sure, that I’m going to die?”
“Yeah you're worse than me. She really did a number on you.”
“What number?”
“It’s a phrase. Never mind.”
“You’re right I don’t mind.”
“Will you die?”
The guard’s question, so soon and so blunt.
“Yes but not now. I think you'll die first.”
In death it seems as though nothing is strange. That the pegasus that just stabbed the unicorn can talk so honestly, and die so curiously. All events are permitted it seems.
“Will I be buried or burned.”
“What. What?
“Will I?”
“You’ll just die remember.”
“Oh. Then you will as well. Die that is.”
“Yes, you stabbed me badly.”
“But I missed your heart. You’ll live longer.”
“I guess.”
The guard’s voice is bubbly like the river they both lie against. Bubbles of blood, he thinks.
“I’m not sorry for stabbing you. Because it wasn’t personal, it was a means to an end.”
“Then I guess you’re going to hell.”
“I guess I am.”
The world the Pegasus lives in must be ugly, to make him so apathetic and so cold. In a way the unicorn is apathetic as well for he doesn’t have the strength to hate. The pegasus turns on to his side and drags himself closer to the unicorn. The guard does something unexpected.
“How are you crawling over here? Why are giving me this piece of paper?”
“It’s where my sister lives. She’s older than me.”
“What do you think I’m going to do with it?”
“You’ll do the right thing.”
“How do you know, pegasus?”
“Because you’re able to love Chrysalis."
“Maybe I don’t love her.”
“Don’t lie to me. I’m dying.”
“Fine.”
The piece of paper is so light. The piece of paper could’ve come out of the ether, and it seems this way. But in a way it is expected because everyone has someone or something they need to care for. A burden.
The guard can’t talk anymore. The silence is peaceful. Peaceful and beckoning. He tries to make a sound but strangely nothing comes out. Rather than pain he feels numbness. Then he feels nothing. Luckily he can’t hear the fireworks, the sound of his guilt.
Eyes close.
Death claims the sliver of a soul that leaves the guard, and because the guard won’t be missed, it’s as if nothing was taken and nothing was given.
************************
Chrysalis trudges back. She holds all the things he needs.
She doesn’t mean to but she imagines him trotting next to him. And if she can’t stop imagining him next to her it’s because of a feeling with depth and weight. Deeper and heavier then fear or longing. Because in the grand subtlety of things out of our control, she and him occupy the same space. Share the same soul. They think and worry of the same things in the same pattern. That they would know in the back of their minds how the other would finish a sentence.
Two halves of the same thing.
“Here”
Rather than kneeling down, she dismantles herself next to him. Slowly she’d bandage him, and he’d want no one else to do it. Blooms of blood on the bandages, slowly seeping. Her hooves that shake have a chance to take that pain and throw it into the river, to float and tumble away. But it’s only a chance.
They both know what will happen.
They refuse to say it.
He reaches out with a hoof to hold hers. A cool, warm thing colliding.
“Are you holding my hoof because it hurts?”
“No. Because it’s a miracle.”
She looks down to see his hoof holding hers tighter and the grip of it is love.
With another hoof he brings her closer. A hoof on the back of her head. Kissing each other tenderly and the taste of it is blood. The taste is so appalling, gruesome, that her hoof flies up and covers her lips. He kisses that hoof covering her then his hoof glides into the curve of her face. Her face screws up in something approaching sorrow, but he coaxes away all the lines of stress on her face with the peak of his hoof. In that touch she can remember when he did the same in the cabin. His touch lands somewhere outside her lips.
“Take this.”
“A piece of paper.”
“It has an address on it. To the guard's sister. Don’t give me that face. Just tell her he’s dead. He wanted it before he died.”
“What about you, what do you want?”
“You. I want you. Don’t cry. Please”
He said that while stroking the bones in her face.
“Their good tears. Trust me it’s okay.”
“Okay.”
My heart is so loud. Too loud. Can you hear it? Place a hoof on the centre of me and breathe in, hold your breath and feel it. If you let me I would give each of those heartbeats to you. Unfold yourself against me and save yourself. You’re the best part of me. Please don’t do the unthinkable. Because if you leave I would leave as well.
I’d die for you.
Don’t you know I love you?
With eyes closed shut, it couldn’t of been anything more then something that wanted to be said. She opens her eyes and sees that it wasn’t so. He must of heard it because he has tears, a tremble in him and a mouth closed so tight. Stuttering.
“I Know”, he said.
He touches the centre of her, touches what ticks in her chest. Then he brings his touch back to her face.
“I feel it”
His voice is so hoarse she would weep.
“Shh. Don’t.”
In a small space of time they drink in the silence.
“You’re going to be strong.”
“How. How do you know?”
“Because I need you to be. Please. Please.”
“I will. I will be strong.”
He slips down again. His head in her lap. His hooves have fallen down limp, no color. She absently strokes his mane, and her eyes are static pillars trained on him. The world could end right there and she wouldn’t see it. She counts each of his breathes polluted by pain.
“Tell me Chrysalis. What do you dream of?”
His tired feathery smile, so weightless and frail.
“I keep dreaming of us. Not just in my sleep but while I’m awake. We have children. And it feels so strange because I thought I was pregnant. We have a house and it has a wind chime out front. You confuse me so much, you know that? You know how complicated it all is? ”
But he died halfway through what she was saying.
“Will I see you again?”
There will be a prologue. It won't be as sad. I will also give a little snippet of information on what is happening in Equestria. Also the excerpt to my next story will be there. Lastly please "watch" me. Especially the guys I've been talking to in the comments. I'm looking at you gypsy. ciao.