//------------------------------// // 3: Conversation with Death // Story: The Hoofprints in the Snow // by Lucky Dreams //------------------------------// — Chapter Three — Conversation with Death It had been three days since I’d last seen Mom. Three. Whole. Days. I don’t care what anypony says: you could live ‘til you were eighty, but those eighty years wouldn’t feel half as long as those three days did to me. Man, even if you lived until a hundred and eighty I’d tell ya the same thing. For some reason I kept thinking of that one photo of the sunset. I thought of the pink clouds and of the grass on the sand-dunes, waving in the late summer’s breeze; of the smell of the ocean, the crashing of the sea. To be sure, you can’t catch those last two things on camera, but that didn’t stop me from remembering them. If you could hear a photograph, looking at that one, you would’ve heard waves. Anyway, I totted out of the park, shaken, and I walked through the streets of Fairflanks, leaving glowing hoofprints in the snow behind me; nopony seemed to notice, so I guess that meant I was the only one who could see them. The Hearth’s Warming lights had been put up. They were wrapped around trees, street-lamps, and stung between all the buildings in town. There were tons of families out. They were eating roasted chestnuts and singing carols, or riding on the Ferris wheel, or skating on the big ice rink which was set up every year. ... In my bedroom back home, there was a photo, one which I’d taken myself. It was of all my friends lined up in a row on the ice rink. They were all beaming ‘cos of how happy we were to be there... Looking at the ice rink made me feel ill, so I ran the rest of the way home, the buildings of Fairflanks peering down at me, judging me for having abandoned Mom. The windows were like a thousand eyes. How dare you run away, I imagined the houses saying to me. “No!” I shouted back. “It’s not my fault, I—” Nopony made you run away, so it is entirely your own fault. You should’ve been there for your mother. She was devastated, yet you were nowhere to be seen. It was too much; I had to stop for a moment to wipe ghostly glowing tears from my eyes. Big ol’ townhouses rose above me, and I swear that the snow was thicker than it was before, and all the flakes were caught in the light of the streetlamps, looking like stars drifting down towards the ground... Once I’d wiped my tears I picked up the pace again, and in no time at all, there was my house in that weird part of Fairflanks that wasn’t quite city but wasn’t quite countryside and wilderness wither. It was two stories tall. It had a porch and a garden, through which a path led up to the front door. There was my bedroom window next to the tallest branches of the tree. There was the hedge. There was the fence and the swing and the garden bench. I was home at last. The memory of the last time I was here played in my head so vividly that I felt I was living it again. “Now Camera, promise me you’ll be back from Star Light’s house no later than ten.” “Yes, Mom.” “I mean it this time, Camera. You know I worry about you someti—” “Mom, I heard ya the first time! I’ll be safe. I promise.” Mom had given me a weak smile which I’d returned. She’d shut the door... As I stood on the doorstep, my breathing became heavy (not that I needed to breathe, but, you know, force of habit). A chill which had nothing to do with the cold crept through my ghostly body, from my head down to my flank and right to the tips of my hooves, and I imagined my heart pounding against my chest like a drum, and I shut my eyes. “Just do it,” I whispered. “Walk through the door. Get it over with.” Taking the deepest breath I could muster, I opened my eyes, and before I could change my mind, I walked through the door and into the hallway to look for my mom; what I found instead was Death waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. “Camera Shutter, at last,” said Death with a voice that would’ve been more suited to an Ice Giant rather than a pony. His appearance was so unexpected that it took me a few seconds to register what I was looking at, but I got there in the end. It was Death. In my house. And in the same way your heart pumps blood without having to be told, or the way you breathe without having to be taught, I just knew who this pony was, and that it was Death. Call it instinct. Now, I said his voice sounded like it belonged to a giant, but that isn’t to say he was lacking for size himself—I’m amazed he managed to fit inside the house. For some reason, wherever he walked, it as though he was in a pool of moonlight, and he was taller than the statue of Princess Celestia in Manehatten Square. Where he should’ve had a cutie mark, he had a load of deep, sickening scars, like his mark had been scratched off by a lion or something. He was very thin. His ancient, grey skin had lost all of its hair, and it hung loosely from his bones. He had a jagged horn as big as a sword jutting out of his forehead, and his eyes were sewn shut, although I hoped whoever had done that to him didn’t have a cutie mark for stitching ‘cos it obviously wasn’t their talent. The sight of those stitches made me feel a rush of horror like I’d never known. I wanted to run. I wanted to run away from this beast as fast as my legs would let me; but it was as though my hooves were frozen to the floor. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even scream. He looked at me with those sewn up eyes of his, peering into my soul. Then he unfolded his wings, and halfway along each wing, on the rim, was a great big eye. At least I think they were eyes. Neither of them had pupils, and they were so amazingly white that they seemed to shine in the gloom. They blinked, making this awful squelching sound which went right through me. I thought about the wolf, about the horror in its eyes as it searched the skies for something I couldn’t see, and then I stared transfixed at the wings. Suddenly, things made a lot more sense to me. He spoke again.“You are wondering why it took me so long to find you?” I don’t know what I’d been expecting but it hadn’t been this. Now that I was starting to get over his appearance (or rather, I was trying to tell myself that I was), it occurred to me that he was being really... well, polite, was the word. As loud as he was, you could tell he was making an effort to keep his voice down as much as he could. He had hung his big, black cloak on one of the coat pegs, and had taken off his boots and put them against the wall. Sweet Celestia, those boots! They were huge and tough, boots made to trudge to the plains of Hell and back. Anyway, the point is, all this caught me so off-guard that some of the terror in my chest died away. He was Death. He was supposed to be a monster, a fiend, a demon! He was supposed to come galloping after me, lightning flashing around him as he left a trail of fire in his wake; he wasn’t meant to take off his boots and hang up his coat. I noticed an unfamiliar saddlebag next to the boots. There was a knitting magazine poking out of it... Gulping, I tore my gaze away from the bag, and turned his question over in my mind. Hesitantly, I nodded. “Then my apologies,” said Death, nodding back. “Ponies die every single day, but I can only talk to them one at a time. Consider yourself lucky. Sometimes it can take me months or even years to get around to talking to a pony.” I titled my head, confused. “You w-want to talk? But I thought you did something with a scythe.” “Fairy tale nonsense. I simply show ponies the doorway. It is up to them to walk through it.” Glancing around, half expecting to see a new doorway made out of gold perhaps, or mist, or maybe even silver. But there was nothing. Death continued. What he said next was the next big shock of the night, every bit as unexpected as his appearance here... “You came here to see your mother, however you left it too late, and she is no longer here. It is time to let her go. It is time to move on.” There was a long pause. Outside, the wind was picking up. It battered the doorway, and I heard the windows in the living room shaking. Just ‘cos I heard the words, it didn’t mean I accepted them. The shock of talking to Death finally wore thin. In its place came dread like I had never known before, a storm of fear brewing inside my belly. My legs quaked. I almost collapsed, and the words swam around in my mind, and the more I thought about them, the louder they seemed ‘til eventually it was as though they were being bellowed, making fun of me. You’re too late. You’re too late. Too late. I stamped a hoof. “It’s not true,” I said fiercely. “It’s only been three days. Mom wouldn’t leave!” “It is the truth, and you knew it from the moment you saw the lights were switched off.” “Liar,” I shouted, my eyes blurry from tears. Mom wouldn’t leave at a time like this. This was our fortress! It was our secret base, our castle, our mansion. It was where we played together, where we ate and where we slept. Every room was stuffed with memories... and I know that’s not the sort of thing most nine year olds care about, but my memories were all I had left. I rushed into the living room, remembering the time that me and Mom built a pillow fort in there. In the kitchen, I could almost smell her cooking. I remembered her singing to herself as she did the washing up, and the way she’d get me to dry the plates and sing along with her. Rushing upstairs, the first thing I did was go to my room. There, the Daring Do posters plastered over the walls, along with the ones of the Wonderbolts; and all the photos I’d ever taken were up there too, all over the place. The model airships were still hanging from the ceiling. The globe hadn’t been touched. The covers on my bed were exactly the way I’d left them from the last time I was here... Dying is easy. It’s what happens afterwards that’s the hard part. Slowly, oh so slowly, I walked back down the stairs. I’d never felt anything like what I did then: tons of different emotions, any single one of them so strong that just on their own, they would’ve been overwhelming; so to get ‘em them at the same time was almost more than I could handle. First, there was anger, sheer, burning anger. How dare this creature come into my house to tell me I was wasting my time! What gave him that right? Nothing as far as I could see, and right about then I couldn’t have cared less that one of the oldest, most powerful beings in the world was standing in my corridor. Oh man, I had half a mind to kick him out into the snow. Though at the same time, fear lingered at the bottom of my belly, a cold, hateful little feeling. Then there was the terror that I’d never ever see Mom again, and the shame of knowing that, if I had come a day or two earlier, this wouldn’t have happened. Something wet was falling down my face—more ghostly glowing tears, like tiny stars trickling down my cheeks. I wiped them away. I didn’t wanna cry in front of Death. “When she dies, will I see her again?” I asked, my voice unsteady, although I couldn’t figure out if it was from anger or nerves. The answer made me want to curl up on the floor. “I have never died, so I have never made that journey.” “But you’re Death! You’ve gotta know, you’ve just got to!” He didn’t say a word. He carried on studying me with those sewn up eyes of his. My fear vanished; my terror dimmed. All my feelings, so strong a moment ago, were being replaced with steely resolve, tougher than a mountain. Death kept talking about a doorway, however I was adamant that I couldn’t go through it. Not yet. Not ‘til I’d seen Mom one last time to say goodbye. I stood up as tall as I could. It was so important to say what I had to say before my nerves failed me. “I’m sorry, but... but you’ll have to come back for me another time. I have to find my Mom. Then you can do whatever you want.” I flinched under the look he gave me, so I added, “I’m, I’m really sorry.” My apology seemed to hang in the air, the most pathetic thing in the world. Had I honestly just said that? No, I couldn’t have done, ‘cos surely I had more sense than that... Apparently not. I jumped as Death started to... he started to laugh! But I don’t mean giggled, or that he gave a chuckle as though I was being silly. No, I mean that he well and truly laughed, almost keeling over as he struggled to control himself, and it was the iciest sound I’d ever heard. Despite the fact I was already dead, at the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder if there were worse things than dying, and would he be able to do them to me if he felt insulted? Finally, though, he stood up. He leaned in close to my ear. Though I couldn’t smell things no more, it didn’t take much to imagine the decay coming off him, the stench of his eyeballs rotting inside of the sockets. “You would still look for your mother even after you encounter with the spirit beast? It’s a dangerous world out there, for a ghost, and that wolf was merely the start. If you were eaten, you would be beyond my help.; knowing this, you would still search for your mother?” I didn’t even hesitate. “Yes,” I said. “And do you have any idea how many ponies speak to me like this, colt?” My heart sank. “L-lots?” “Almost none,” he replied, barely contained glee in his voice. “The waiting usually gives ponies time to say their goodbyes—if they want to, that is. Some ponies couldn’t care less about saying it. Others take one look at me and are too scared to ask for more time. Oh, I can sense that they want to, but my job is to lead them through the doorway whether they’re ready for it or not.” “And, a-and the ones who do ask?” “If you don’t ask, you don’t get. I value boldness, Camera. It’s a rare delight to meet a colt as bold as you.” I was shaking something terrible, and then I yelled in fright, ‘cos there was something huge invading my mind, some enormous being which couldn’t be stopped. Whatever it was, it was made out of eyes, eyes which didn’t blink. They stared and stared and stared, seeing everything there was to know about me: my memories, my darkest secrets, and how guilty I felt about staying away from home for no good reason... Then the thing, whatever it had been, was gone. I gave into my fear. I collapsed on the floor. Death laughed again. “You are a good colt,” he said, “and you recognize that letting fear dictate you was the biggest, most senseless mistake you’ve ever made. You deserve a second chance.” Like a beam of sunlight shining through the gap between curtains, a sliver of hope appeared in my mind, teasing me. My ears perked up. I hardly dared to believe what I was hearing. “I, I do?” I whispered. “Your mother lives at number one Blossom Street in Ponyville, right near the edge of the Everfree Forest, so as long as you stick close to the forest, it will be easy enough to find. You know this place, though you don’t remember it; it was your grandparents cottage, and the one refuge remaining to your mother, a place where she can be properly alone without anypony knocking on the door. The time now is exactly ten o’clock. You have precisely one day before I come for you, whether you’ve seen her or not.” My joy vanished as quickly as it came. “P-Ponyville?!” I spluttered. “Ponyville,” Death confirmed simply. This would do. “It takes a day just to get there! I need more time. Please. Pleeease.” Death shook his head. “One day is more than enough, so use it wisely. Godspeed, my little pony.” And then he was gone, though I couldn’t remember him walking out the door, but neither did he vanish into thin air. It was like... one moment he had always been there, the next, he had never been there. That’s the best I can describe it. I looked at the clock on the wall—already five past ten. Less than a day remained... How strange it was, knowing that this was the last time I’d step hoof in my house. My scooter was still propped up against the wall, next to where Death’s boots had been. Wandering around, I entered the kitchen for the final time, then the living room, and I stroked the chairs, tapped the window, nudged the sofa... I dunno what I was trying to achieve but... but knowing that I wouldn’t see any of this stuff again, or feel it and touch it... if I’d had trouble before accepting I was a spirit, then I think that little trot around the house was finally the thing that convinced me, once and for all, beyond any shadow of any sort of doubt or hope, that I was truly gone... It was too much to bear. Taking a deep breath, I ran out the door and into the snow.