//------------------------------// // Chapter Eight // Story: A Corpse in Equestria // by LucidTech //------------------------------// Jack’s gaze wound its way slothfully back and forth between Berry and Colada, a small smile permanently resting on both of their faces as they took turns chatting with each other. Jack found himself with his own content grin as Colada told a story he had stopped trying to follow a while ago, names he couldn’t recognize and places he didn’t know had dissuaded him from investing too much into the tale but the moment persisted. Two sisters, thick as thieves, reunited. They were happy and Jack was happy for them, though something clung to the back of his mind, a wayward thought he couldn’t shake. “- and then Scootaloo did a flip on her scooter like Wha!” Narrated the filly, jumping and twisting slightly in the air, noticeably short of performing a flip herself, but it got the idea across, which was the important thing. In her extremely accurate recreation of the events her sister had missed out on, she seemed to have failed to notice the doctor who had entered the room behind her and stood silently for the past couple moments, apparently not too excited to interrupt the visit. The doctor, in turn, waited politely for the filly to finish her story, but as time stretched on and the end of the story appeared to continue being delayed, she instead opted to wait for a pause where the filly had to catch a breath before abruptly cutting in. Spotting her chance she quickly leapt into the monologue. “I’m afraid that we’ve reached the end of our visiting hours today.” She said, loudly enough to catch the filly’s attention before she continued into yet another run on sentence of her very important story. “Awwww….” Colada’s head drooped at the announcement, “I didn’t even get to the bestest part yet.” Jack looked to the doctor and saw a kind, if immovable, look on their face. “Unfortunately we’ve already let you stay for several moments longer than we ought to have done. Your sister needs her rest, dear, and Miss Derpy and Dinky are waiting to take you home.” Jack glanced to the door of the room and saw said duo lingering just outside the threshold. They’d swung back near the room a couple times over the course of the evening but they hadn’t actually stuck their heads in, apparently not wanting to interrupt this visit between sisters. However, despite the mounting evidence that this was, in fact, the end of the visit. Colada still turned a hopeful gaze to Berry, only for that hope to be shot down with a shake of the head. “I’m afraid the doctor’s right Colada, you can’t spend the night here. It’s no place for a filly.” Colada turned away, frowning, “No place for you either.” She mumbled under her breath as she began to leave the room. The doctor passed an understanding, half-hearted smile to Berry and began to escort the filly from the room. Colada managed to shake the doctor by pausing briefly at the doorway and then running back. She leapt onto the bed and wrapped her sister in a hug around the neck. “I miss you a lot.” She managed through renewed tears. “I miss you a lot too, Sis.” Berry offered honestly, giving a reassuring pat on the back with one hoof and cradling with the other until Colada decided to pull herself away. She spared one more glance to Berry and then, as if remembering something, a glance to the corner of the room where Jack was. “Bye.” She said finally, leaving the room shortly there after. Jack gave a wave, only remembering she couldn’t actually see him after she’d already left earshot. “See ya later.” Was Berry’s choice for farewell and shortly thereafter the door closed on the room. The doctor did a few minor check ups of their own to ensure Berry was in a stable condition and then left the room as well, turning the light off as they went. In the silent half-light of the waning moon, Jack could practically hear Berry’s gaze as she turned to look at him. He ignored it, hoping that it would eventually go away and leave him be in the night. Instead, she decided to break the silence. “What’s on your mind then?” “What?” “You’ve been thinking about something this whole time, what is it?” “I just. I didn’t know if it was polite or…” Berry gave an exaggerated sigh. “What is it, Jack.” Pushing away his fear Jack turned to look back at Berry, and saw in her eyes a new friendliness. Drawing courage from the even gaze, he found the words that had been stuck on his mind. “You don’t treat her like a younger sister. You treat her like a daughter.” He managed eventually. There was a pause, then she turned to look at the door of the room. Through it. Miles beyond it. “Do I?” She asked then, instantly robbing Jack of all the courage he’d managed to scrape together. “I mean.” Jack quickly said, already stepping back from his assertion. “I don’t have a super large pool of experience with siblings, or parenting, or… anything at all really. It just… seemed that way I guess? Like, I don’t know how you do things here but you didn’t like, joke with her or prank her or tease her. You two just sort of interacted like how I’ve seen parents interact with their children, and not at all like the siblings I know.” Jack paused, but when Berry still wasn’t forthcoming he continued to hedge his words. “But like I said, I mean, I don’t know how things are done here. I’m just applying things that I noticed from my world and that might not match up right. And then on top of that even if you did act like that it’s really not place to poke at that stuff. I don’t really know anything about you or your family so I don’t want to step over any boundaries or-” “You’re fine.” Berry said, stirring from her silent reverie to interrupt Jack before he fell even further into his self-doubt. “I was just thinking. About our mom. About how I’m probably more like a mother to Colada than a sister, like you said.” “You don’t have to go into this.” Jack hurried to cut in, feeling a building momentum behind Berry’s words. “No. I don’t. But it seems like we’re going to be interacting a lot more going forward, and you helped my sister when I wasn’t there to do it, so I should let you in on this stuff. And maybe in the future you can share something from your own life. Like maybe this ‘Sam’ person you keep talking about in your sleep.” Berry glanced to Jack, who blanched as much as a ghost was capable of blanching. “But I get that it’s something really close to you, so I’ll let you decide when you want to talk about that.” Jack nodded in appreciation, and silence once again descended. This time it was thoughtful, plodding. Berry looked concerned as she gazed at the far wall, her internal monologue clear on her face even in the descending darkness of night. “My mother.” Berry started, moving her gaze back to Jack and waiting a moment longer before continuing. “was a flawed mare. She did a lot of stupid stuff, but I don’t think any of it was malevolent. She was broken from a bad past she didn’t like to talk about. When she was pregnant with me… you know FASD?” Berry interrupted herself, looking back to Jack. Jack nodded. “Fetal-” he started before realizing Berry was saying something different from his own answer. “Foaling alcohol spectrum disorder.” Berry answered, pausing a moment as she collected herself again, allowing Jack a moment of his own to ponder on how similar the terms were.  “She drank a lot.” Berry continued. “At first it was because she didn’t know that she was pregnant, but then after she did it was because she didn’t have the willpower to stop herself. She tried though. I’ve been told I have a lesser case than one might expect, so I think she did try and stop herself even if she didn’t ultimately succeed.” Berry took a deep shuddering breath and Jack fought back his own urge to remind her she didn’t have to talk about this. Unsure of what else to say, however, Jack found himself merely mute as the mare pulled herself together. “Anyway. As a result of that I’ve been dealing with my own issues my whole life. My growth was a little stunted, I've got a bit of an alcohol problem myself, I'm not that great at math, and my mind tends to drift to… uncomfortable places when I’m alone.” Here Jack and Berry both looked at the hospital room around them. “But after I was born I had a decade and change to realize what was going on with me, and why. Mom was always supportive of me during that time, and some nights I’d hear her crying herself to sleep over me and what she’d 'done to me' as she put it.” Berry breathed again, and Jack also found himself feeling short of breath, despite his inability to inhale air in the first place. “She wasn’t… an evil mother. She just… had flaws. More than most ponies. She tried but she didn’t usually succeed. She tried more than anypony had a right to ask her to try.” “Then…” Berry looked back to the doorway again. “She got pregnant again.” She seemed more than happy to skip over the specifics in this regard, and moved on eagerly. “She asked me to help her this time. I was to make sure she didn’t drink any alcohol. No matter how much she asked, or begged. It was a lot to ask of a teen. She knew that. I knew that. She told me it a lot at the time. She didn’t trust herself. And I did have to step in a lot to stop her.” Berry paused again. “Sorry I’m…” Berry ran a hoof over her eyes to wipe away the tears that were starting to form there. “Thought I’d gotten over this.” “Take your time.” Jack encouraged. “I don’t… we don’t have to do this all now.” He attempted, feeling very much out of his depth. “No it’s… almost over.” Berry sniffed once and loudly. “She died in labor, giving birth to Colada. I was old enough to be an adult at this point and so I took her in and we ended up with mom’s house in the will. I wasn’t… very good at raising a child. I’m still not. I knew Cheerilee was looking to work with children so I asked her for help. She was… instrumental in raising Colada, almost as much as I was. I never could’ve done it without her.” Berry rubbed her eyes again and looked at last to Jack who, despite not having tear ducts, was crying all the same. Ghostly lines traced themselves down his face as he looked back at Berry. “Well that’s my story.” She said simply, attempting a half-hearted shrug that was completely ruined by her own tears. “Sorry it got all touchy-feely at the end there. I didn’t mean to start crying I just… I wanted to tell someone about it. Get it off my chest. Cheerilee knew the whole thing by the time I wanted to tell someone about it so I never got to tell her. I never got the closure of saying it out loud, didn’t want to make anybody down with my sad story.” Berry said before scoffing. “Guess you were my captive audience instead of my trusted ear.” Jack jumped up from his chair, barreling towards Berry. He reached out to hug her to give some comfort, and Berry reached out in return, but instead he phased clear through her and the bed she laid on. Berry felt a chill pass through her and then, after a pause, she heard a sob-soaked laugh echoing out from beneath her bed. After a pause of her own, she joined it.