Kindness of a Fugitive

by A. Tuesday


Prologue: Recursion

Rock.

Hot, burned, scorched rock, almost as if Celestia had decided to take the sun and throw it on this particular spot.

I couldn’t feel it, though.

I couldn’t feel anything.

Even my shallow breathing, the air being released from my throat at the most minimal amount, my lungs refusing to take more than what was absolutely necessary, was something I didn’t feel. I could hear it, though – the sound of my breathing was louder than the avalanche that had just occurred.

The avalanche whose aftermath I had just tried to fix.

A lump formed in my esophagus; I tried swallowing it down with all the muscles I could, but it just wouldn’t leave. I would’ve gladly taken a jarful of the ash which was still drifting downwards like light snowfall instead of this horrible, awful feeling. I would – if it would’ve actually done something to me.

Instead, I just stood there on a circular patch of barren ground on the side of a mountain, my hooves rooted in the ground to keep me from falling off the face of it. I stared straight ahead, my tired, puffy eyes finding refuge, and then horror, at the mass I saw.

Pisces. There she was, my friend for years. We went to school together, to my father’s bakery together, to the movies, I think I had even gone vacationing with her. There wasn’t a better pony in all of Equestria. She was my best friend, and I was glad to call her that. Hell, I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for her.

Pisces. Dead.

On the ground as a massive, blackened and blistering corpse, lying limp to her side as if she were sleeping the pain away. The pain, I knew, which must’ve ravaged her body, burning her coat off, for a whole of about ten seconds. Singed her eyebrows, bubbled her skin – and, eventually, had killed her. The pain of burning alive is a terrible one, matched by no other.

Except the pain of causing it.

When that sunk in, I felt myself move for the first time in what seemed like hours – I fell to the ground. Plopped myself on what would be any normal pony’s hell, that hot, barren ground beneath me; to me, it was like sitting on cold dirt. Despite the immense heat radiating from my barren circle, and the three others like it down the mountain, it felt cold. Frostbite cold.

Like adding an ice bath to a lay in the snow, the stares of the gathered Ponyvillians froze me in my tracks. The faces of pure fear are ones not soon forgotten – those wide eyes, slack jaws, that disbelieving look their facial features create altogether, hiding the gleam in their eyes that said they were scared beyond belief.

They didn’t even move. There was complete silence on the mountain, no movement. Wind rustled through the snow banks, and, to this day, I have heard nothing louder than that gust of mountain wind.

When it passed, there was another sound – the sound of galloping hooves through the snow. The congregation at the bottom of the mountain moved in small places, yet their eyes remained unwavering from the three burnt carcasses of fillies that were strewn about like disheveled tombstones.

Then, she came out. A frazzled, shocked and confused green mare, a saddlebag around her, full of groceries recently purchased. She didn’t want to be here, I could tell – she had to have been told that her daughter was in an accident. What kind of accident – well, she would have to see, wouldn’t she?

My heart sank at the sight of her. I blinked, and my eyelids became moist with the water building up. No, I couldn’t bear to look at her.

“Pisces?” she called out into the mountain, hoping, praying that the voice of her beautiful daughter would reply. No such thing occurred.

The congregation watched, closely, as the mother took another tentative step into the snow, wobbling as if balance was something she forgot to bring. Her eyes scanned the snow with the power of searchlights, seeming to find every little snowflake and contemplate it; her gaze seemed to ask each one if they had seen her beloved kin.

“Pisces?” she called again, “Pisces, answer me!”

The mare took another cautious step into the snow, silence perforating my ears. Her scanning finally landed on them.

The three of them. All in their little, barren circles of scorched earth. Her step back was enough to make her almost fall over.

“Oh my…” she exclaimed, trailing off before the Princess’s name escaped her throat. “W-what h-happened?”

Her mouth agape, she peered over the blistered, blackened corpses, and I could see a tint of familiarity behind those eyes. I doubted she could place it properly – there was no way she could figure out those were her daughter’s friends. She would, however, be able to tell her own daughter apart from the rest.

“Pisces!” she yelled, “Pisces, answer your – “

She stopped.

I had my eyes shut, head hung down, not willing to watch what was about to occur, and yet I was compelled to. I had to face the music. I looked up at her.

The mother had found her daughter.

How does one picture shock as a manifestation? As wide-eyed, recoiling in fear? As unwavering, glaring with the cutting capability of a sharp knife? As screaming, vocal cords ripping themselves out to avoid the horror that’s already too late to defend against?

None of the above.

Shock, manifested, is the face of a mother who’s just lost her child.

I expected a sprint to Pisces, but instead, she moved one shaky hoof in front of the other, less-than-perfect hoofprints in the snow on account of her nervous wobbling. Her mouth was only open somewhat, and nothing came out of that. Tears, I could see, welled up in her eyes as she approached the body, pupils fixated on her wonderful, amazing daughter who could finally rest after a long day. Rest eternally.

Never in my life have I heard anything so heart-wrenchingly sad as the one word uttered from her mother’s mouth, as she stood over her child, wanting to refuse the truth but knowing she had to accept it.

“…Pisces?”

Silence. Nothing but the wind on the mountain tops.

The sound of collapse in the snow softly accompanied the gust. Whimpering. Not bawling, not sobbing, not even really crying – whimpering.

I was as frozen as the ground around me. Even if I had wanted to move, it would’ve been physically impossible.

“Firestarter!”

The congregation simultaneously turned their heads as hoofsteps crunching in the snow was audible. They shifted and moved until a small filly, the red-violet coat covered in snowflakes and heaving in sync with her hyperventilation. She was running, sprinting through the snow-covered mountain to the amazement of the other ponies.

She called my name again. “Firestarter!”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t want to. I hated that name more than anything now. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to shrivel up and die. I wanted to be the one who was burned alive.

But, I wasn’t.

She ran and ran and ran, almost reaching for me, when the lack of noise became so deafening that she had to stop. Her eyes first met the snow, then the barren circle where I was sitting. The gaze soon found the other three. And the bodies of the three fillies. My three friends. Her three friends.

“W-what… happened?” she tried to say, too disbelieving to get any emotion from this.

Snow began to fall down from the heavens, adding a chill in the frost air that wasn’t needed. Three bodies were already colder than they’d ever get.

I opened my muzzle to speak, but no words came out. Not even the hint of a noise made it out of my throat. Whatever energy I had to make noise suddenly transferred to my tear ducts. My vision shimmered.

“They…” my friend began, only slightly better at finding words than I was, “they… are they…?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the lump in my throat down, hopefully to somewhere it could cut off my circulation and kill me. My head slowly nodded. When I opened my eyes, tears were flowing freely down my scarlet face.

She took a step back, her mouth opening slightly but not permitting verbal communication. Instead, she looked around at what she was already aware of – her three friends, dead.

“I… I was going to… to get help…” Her voice cracked, her face contorting in a terrible sadness. “Why… why are they…”

The question stopped before it was finished. She looked into my eyes painfully, already knowing the answer before I even spoke. I could see, out from the corner of my eye, a group of uniformed ponies coming up the mountain, first aid saddlebags abound.

Somehow, by some un-Celestial manner, I found my voice. It was cracking, soft, barely above a whisper, tainted with the knowledge of what I had done. The voice of a killer.

“I… I was trying to save them.”

My friend took another step back, shaking her head, crying almost uncontrollably. The uniformed ones ran up, faces completely flat as they approached the scorched bodies of three fillies out for a day of sledding gone horribly wrong. One of them pulled a large black cloth out. A bodybag.

“No…” my friend tried to tell herself, “No, it can’t be! They can’t be dead, Firestarter! No!”

I hung my head and just took it. I begged, pleaded with the forces of nature to strike me dead where I stood. I didn’t deserve to be here. I didn’t deserve to be alive. Not after… not after this.

“Firestarter, why?” she demanded, face tear-stricken and furious. “Why couldn’t you wait for me? I was… I was going for help! Why, why?”

“I’m sorry,” I tried to say, but nopony heard me. My voice was no louder than the breath of a sleeping foal. I could barely hear myself. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, this isn’t happening!” my friend cried, breaking into a fit of sobs. The uniformed ones zipped up bags in the background, the noise of the zipper closing up my friends for the final time becoming embedded in my brain, allowing me to physically hear the sound of finality whenever I wanted.

“Firestarter!” she sobbed. I shook my head, eyes becoming shut once more. No, please stop calling me. Please.

“Firestarter!” I don’t want this. Just kill me now, let me die here on the mountain.

“Firestarter!” For the love of Celestia, stop saying that horrible, wretched name! It’s the name of a demon!

“Firestarter!”

I began to look up at her, only to have the world melt away. The congregation disappeared into nothingness, the rocks falling out from beneath my hooves, the sound of the last zipper echoing as if we were in a cavern. The background of outer Ponyville became replaced with broken, faded and stained walls, claustrophobic in nature, the barren ground becoming a hard mattress, the sound of the zipper morphing into that of outside crickets, cicadas and nocturnal birds.

My friend, staring at me with saddened eyes, faded away, the color of her coat swirling into nothingness as her earth pony figure turned into that of a pegasus. A yellow pegasus, with a long, pink mane and worry in her eyes, laying on a bed across from me.

“Firestarter,” Fluttershy said a final time.

* * *

My heart jumped for joy as relief washed over my body. Her. It was good to see her. “Huh? What’s the matter?”

“My spine was hurting again,” she replied calmly, “and it woke me up. I saw that the candle was going haywire again – is everything alright?”

I looked over at the candle we had placed on the shoddy nightstand between us. The flame was still dancing crazily, only dying down as I noticed it. It happened again.

A sigh escaped me. “It’s – it’s nothing. Just that nightmare again.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You mean the one about the mountain?”

“The very same.”

A mournful look came over her eyes. “Oh, no. Not that again. You know, it’s amazing you’re able to keep your sanity if you keep having that one. It’s almost every night now, isn’t it?”

I nodded slowly, eyes fixed on a rather bluish stain among the thousands of others that made up this room’s carpet. Me. Sanity.

Right.

“How’s your spine?” I asked, giving her a once-over as a safe measure.

“It’s fine,” she answered, “Although, I do have those pain spasms every now and then. I wish they would just go – ooh!” Her face contorted in pain, as she reached a hoof for her back.

I shot up like a firework and went over to her, but she held out a pastel yellow hoof to stop me. “No, no, please, don’t – don’t worry yourself.”

“But, I can just – “

“Please, it’s fine. It’s gone now. Just – please, don’t worry about it.”

I hesitated, looking between her and my hard, rock-like board of a bed, and then decided to let her go. I lazily walked back to my bed, sitting on the old mattress and reaching for the sheets. “How often are the spasms coming?” I asked conversationally.

Fluttershy put a hoof to her chin. “It’s random, but not too much, I guess.”

“Well, once I get enough bits, I plan to take you to the doctor or the chiropractor in town or something.”

“Oh no.” Fluttershy looked to me with a pained expression. “You don’t have to do that, Firestarter. Really, it’s no trouble.”

“Fluttershy, your spine is nearly broken. Don’t you know how close you are to paralysis?”

“It’s fine…”

“No, it’s not fine. Not really.”

I exhaled, feeling a bit of anger coming into my voice and deep-breathing to get rid of it. “Look, why don’t you go back to sleep? We can discuss these things when its lighter out.”

“Okay,” she accepted, pulling the sheets and double comforter she had moved away from her back up to meet her chin. “Goodnight, Firestarter. Or, rather, good morning!”

A puzzled expression appeared on my face. “What?”

“The clock says it’s one o’clock in the morning. Technically, that means it’s been our 38th day since the airship accident. Hopefully, it’ll only be a few more before we save enough bits to get a letter to Princess Celestia. I’d like to get back into Equestria soon. Oh, but, if we have to wait…that’s fine, too.”

I almost cringed at the words coming out of her mouth, the lie I had planted in her mind echoing back to me as if it were the truth. It was, in a sense – it was her truth. “First things first, though, which is your spine. Unless the… Princess can help.”

My last experience with the Princess did not go… well, per se. It was the reason we were out here in a slummy apartment.

“Oh, I, um, wouldn’t doubt it. Well, um, I guess…good night, then, Firestarter.”

“Goodnight, Fluttershy.”

She pulled the covers up, and I blew out the candle next to me, the wisp of smoke rising into the air gracefully.

I didn’t go to sleep as easily as she did.

* * *

How could a pony go to sleep with the things she knew? The things she had done? The things that have been done to her?

Thirty-eight days. It’s been thirty-eight days since I was exiled out here, out into the desert of Celestia-knows-where, originally miles from the nearest town. It was nothing short of a miracle that one day on a scouting trip from the makeshift tent we originally camped in that we found Zebraltar.

Thirty-eight days since that unforgettable “incident” back home. Thirty-eight days since I almost killed the mare sleeping next to me and virtually paralyzed her. Thirty-eight days since she made the terrible, terrible decision of latching onto me in the process of being exiled, and becoming teleported out here. Thirty-eight days since the very same action resulted in a complete wiping of her memory.

Thirty-eight days since I had made the pact to return her home.

She just had to become friends with me. She just had to refuse to let me go and accept my fate. Alone, at least.

What was I doing? What had I gotten her into?

The idea that I could get her home and leave unscathed was ridiculous. Equestria wanted her back, without a doubt, but what they also wanted was me – they wanted me in a prison cell, or a dungeon, or in a torture chamber, or, most likely, in a noose.

I had to try, though. Wasn’t that enough?

I knew it wasn’t. We didn’t have the bits to get in, and even if we did, they’d be put towards Fluttershy’s spinal recovery from that “airship crash” or whatever I told her happened. Her memories are completely gone – good, because she doesn’t really know who I am and bad for the same reason. Not to mention her past life is basically erased, an evil I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. And, I’m an Equestrian fugitive outside the border, who’s probably being hailed as Fluttershy’s kidnapper by now, and responsible for the injuries of many.

No. The chances of getting back to Equestria easily are slim-to-none.

I rolled over in my bed, pulling the cover over my snow-white mane. I’m not getting back without due punishment. Once ponies put two and two together, it’s the hangmare’s payroll which is getting filled. After all, I am the murderer of three fillies.

It wasn’t just a recurring nightmare that I woke up from.

It was a memory.