//------------------------------// // Campfire // Story: Scarlet // by Skijarama //------------------------------// Scarlet’s mouth watered as the smell of freshly cooked vegetable soup wafted up and into her nostrils. Primrose was resting right next to her, eyeing the bubbling pot over the fireplace with a certain smug intensity that made Scarlet groan internally. Well over half of the fruits and vegetables they were now using to cook their meal had been found by the foal herself, with a stunning degree of efficiency. “This filly is something else,” Scarlet thought to herself, briefly turning her attention to Primrose. Surviving Silent and his team of Nightblades for years while protecting a heavily-warded magic lamp, showing little to no hesitation to leap to Scarlet’s aid when the odds were against her, and now an impressive skill at gathering food and resources. It made sense, she supposed. With the life Primrose had lived up until that point, the only way she would have been able to stay alive would be to develop those traits. But to have to do so from such a young age… Scarlet looked down at the dirt, her face twisting into a sour grimace. “No filly should have to live a life like she has,” she thought, bitterness flooding her mind. “On the run, scared, and alone… it’s not fair.” She was jarred from her thoughts when, somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted, briefly drawing her attention. Looking up, she saw how the sky had been swallowed by the serene darkness of the night some time ago. Half of the sky was blotted out by a loose scattering of clouds, while the other half was pristine and completely clear, allowing the sparkling stars to shine down on them like a thousand tiny candles. After a moment, Primrose looked back at the pot and shifted anxiously. “C’mon… isn’t it done yet? I’m starving,” she whined pathetically, causing Scarlet to roll her eyes. “I’m not sure. Let’s see,” she shot back before using a simple wooden ladle to bring some of the contents up to her lips. After blowing on it, she took a sip and pondered the taste. After a moment, she nodded and hummed in satisfaction. “Yes, it’s ready.” “Yes!” Primrose sat up a little, watching with her full, undivided attention as Scarlet filled up two wooden bowls with soup before levitating them over. As soon as hers was before her, much like how she had done back in Scarlet’s home, she immediately dug in, greedily scarfing the food down. “Is my soup truly that great?” Scarlet asked with a raised eyebrow while taking a sip of her own. Primrose smiled up at her. “I’m just glad to have some good food for a change!” She replied before looking down at her reflection in the broth. Her smile wavered. “I… never learned how to cook. All the time I spent on the road, I had to eat what I gathered raw. Sometimes…” her hooves curled around her bowl. “...It made me sick.” “I see…” Scarlet responded in a low voice, looking down into her bowl. She was quiet for several seconds before affixing Primrose with another questioning look. “You know, you were pretty skilled in gathering ingredients earlier. I daresay your knowledge of how to find food surpasses my own.” Primrose glanced up at Scarlet in surprise. “Really? You think so?” Scarlet nodded. “I do. You were very impressive earlier.” Primrose’s face twitched into a small smile. “Thank you, Scarlet. I…” she looked down again, her smile immediately fading away. “My… my big brother taught me how to find food.” Scarlet’s ears stood upright at that. She took a slow sip of her soup and hummed in thought. “A brother… Come to think of it, Primrose, I know very little about your family.” “...I really miss them,” Primrose whispered, her ears drooping. Scarlet was quiet for several seconds. Then, with a quiet sigh, she lifted her cloak until it fell over Primrose like a comforting blanket. “If you don’t wish to speak of them, I understand… but may I ask you to tell me about them?” she inquired carefully, studying every part of the foal’s response. Primrose was quiet for a while, completely unresponsive to Scarlet’s question. Just when the unicorn was convinced she would get no answer, the filly took another gulp of her soup and leaned into Scarlet’s side. “...I had three brothers, all of them older than me,” she began, her voice distant. “Thistle was the oldest. Then there was Dandelion and Arum. Arum was… just a couple years older than I was. My mother was Sclera, and my father was Sparrow.” Scarlet hummed, noticing a trend. “Aside from your parents, you were all named after plants, mostly flowers…” Primrose nodded. “Mom loved flowers. She knew what each and every single one of them meant, what they represented,” she explained. “She named us after the flowers that represented what she wanted for us. The traits she wanted us to always nurture. Thistle was supposed to be the one to take care of us if mom and dad couldn’t, Dandelion was supposed to keep our spirits high and make sure we overcame any hardship. Arum was supposed to be the purest of us…” “And then there’s you, Primrose,” Scarlet furthered before falling silent. Primrose nodded. “Y-yes… mom wanted me to always love the world and everyone I met. She wanted me to never let hatred or resentment have a place in my heart…” she sniffled and shook her head. “They were all so wonderful… Thistle always knew how to cheer me up… Dandelion always had the most fun games to play. Arum was so sweet and nice… and mom and dad…” Scarlet winced and looked down, her ears drooping. “...I am so sorry for your loss, Primrose. It is a cruel fate you are forced to endure, one that I would not wish on any other creature,” she whispered. Primrose sniffled before reaching over and sluggishly hauling over her saddlebags. She reached inside and procured the lamp, cradling it gently in her hooves. It almost seemed to glow with the way it caught the flickering light of the campfire. “...I lost them. All of them… because of this…” she whispered, almost sounding angry. But she held it to her heart and closed her eyes. “...Do you mind telling me what happened? How Silent… took your family away, I mean,” Scarlet pressed, immediately wondering why she had asked. “Maybe his actions could shed some light on why he’s after you? I know him, after all. Maybe I can make a deduction?” Primrose fell silent again, starting to shiver. “W-we… we had set up a small camp in the wilderness near a river a mile or two outside of Stonethrow. We’d had a big dinner and a long day of travel ahead of us. W-we… It… I don’t…” she suddenly shuddered, stifling a sob. “It all happened so fast… one moment I was sleeping, the next, I heard Thistle, Dandelion, and Arum screaming in the other tent. When I looked to see what was happening, I… I saw…” Primrose sniffled, screwing her eyes shut. As if by muscle memory, Scarlet draped her foreleg over the filly and began to make soothing sounds. After a moment, the filly pulled herself together and continued. “I s-saw one of Silent’s goons… his shadow, on the side of the tent. He had a dagger, and… h-he… he just kept stabbing… And Thistle stopped screaming… Dad w-was trying to protect us, but there were so many of them… not Nightblades, just… just guard, I think.” “Guards…?” Scarlet whispered in surprise, her brow furrowing. That didn’t make any sense. Why would a band of regular guards join Silent Edge in an attack on a small campsite? If the Night Blades weren’t involved yet, that would imply that they didn’t know about the lamp yet, or at the very least, that it wasn’t a priority. Was there some other motive? Before Scarlet could question it further, Primrose continued. “M-mom took me away, and we hid by some rocks. She gave me the lamp, and she told me to run into town and hide, and that she’d come to find me. But… she… she made me promise to take care of the lamp and protect it with my life if she didn’t. Then she went back, and I ran, and… and I never saw her again…” Scarlet gave Primrose a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have asked…” she whispered before looking down into her bowl of soup, her appetite well and truly destroyed. “W-what about you?” Primrose suddenly asked. Scarlet blinked. She turned to face Primrose with a bewildered expression. “Wh-what?” The foal gestured at her. “Do y-you have a family? You mentioned a mom back when we were in the caves near Swanrun.” Scarlet froze, her blood going cold. She looked down at her soup again, getting lost in the reflection that stared back up at her. For a moment, she contemplated declining to say anything, but after everything Primrose had just told her, it was only fair that she return the favor. She took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I have a family. I was an only child growing up, so I can’t claim to know anything about what it’s like to have brothers or sisters. My mother came from Violsta. She was a jeweler over there and fled to New Equestria, seeking asylum, when things began to get worse with Talonreach. She saw the signs and acted before most others. After wandering around, she settled in Swanrun and… met my father.” “And who was he?” Primrose asked, listening intently. No doubt she was eager for a distraction from her own tortured thoughts. “My father was… in many ways a brilliant stallion,” Scarlet sighed with a shake of her head. “Although, he was also something of an idiot. He served in the military as a soldier. Most days, that consisted of keeping watch in Swanrun and patrolling the walls. He met my mother in the streets one day when she was trying to find her way around. She looked lost, according to him, and being that she came from Violsta - Lover’s Shade, no less - he found her to be… exotic in her beauty.” Scarlet let off a wistful sigh. “Their love story is nothing particularly grandiose or spectacular, I am afraid. They loved each other, they were happy, they got married… and one day, they had me.” “And… were you happy, growing up?” “I suppose you could say that, yes,” Scarlet replied with a nod. “I was never very social as a foal. I had other things on my mind, you see. I was enthralled with magic, and I attended the Swanrun university to learn all I could about magic, and Twilight Sparkle, the goddess of magic and friendship. Of the Five, I held her particularly close to my heart for a long, long time.” Primrose hummed and nodded along before wiping a hoof over her eyes to clear away the leftover tears. “Alright. But you said that your father was an idiot a minute ago. Did you two not get along?” Scarlet was not able to withhold the sudden bark of laughter that tore past her lips. “Oh, heavens no! I adored that stallion with every fiber of my being. He was strong, kind, clever as can be, and determined to protect his home and family to the very end. I looked up to him more than anypony else in the whole world. I wanted to be just like him. I…” she sighed and shook her head in disappointment at herself. “...I wanted to join the military if only so I could stand by his side. I wasn’t blind, I saw the tensions rising with Talonreach, and I knew a war was inevitable. I was determined to sign up as soon as I came of age... ” Primrose tilted her head. “And… did you?” Scarlet scoffed. “...I did, yes. But it’s a bit more complicated than that, I am afraid,” she stated before looking up at the sky. “You see, the war began, and my father was shipped off to the front lines. Every so often we received letters from him, detailing his time on the front, how he was doing, how we wanted to see us again, et cetera. Each time we got one, it just fueled my desire to sign up. But my mother… she always talked me down, convinced me to look at other options while I was still young.” Her expression turned somber, her ears lowering. “And then, one day… we received a letter saying that my father had died in battle. He was cut down by a griffon while helping evacuate a small village on the border.” Primrose’s ears immediately drooped, and she shied away from Scarlet as if she had suddenly started shouting. “O-oh…” she mumbled, not looking at the unicorn. Scarlet continued. “At the time, I was infuriated. I turned sixteen only a few weeks later and signed up, ignoring all of my mother’s protests. And then, well… I spent the next few years of my life fighting in a war that I quickly realized was little more than a glorified bloodbath where there were no heroes; only survivors... That's why I believe he was an idiot. He took pride in being a soldier, and it got him killed in the end... When I came home from the battlefield, my mother…” Scarlet smirked and let out a quiet, humorless laugh. “She was just as infuriated as I had been. I remember shying away under her shouting rant as if I were six when I was in my early twenties.” “She was that mad at you?” Scarlet glanced down at Primrose with a knowing glint. “Never underestimate the terror of an angry mother. I…” she hesitated and looked away. “I know it rather well.” Primrose tilted her head, a confused look on her face. “...Scarlet?” “I-in any case,” the unicorn was quick to press on, dismissing the foals’ questioning look. “My mother ranted at me for a while, slammed the door in my face, and then let me back in with hugs and sobs. I… spent a good few months with her while I looked for work and… dealt with a medical issue. Then I got my job at the academy as a librarian, started studying history, moved out of my mother’s home and into my own. And, well…” she sighed and shook her head. “We… hadn’t spoken for several months when you and I met.” “Did something happen between you?” Primrose pressed gently, leaning forward to try and look into Scarlet’s face. “No. Nothing happened,” Scarlet responded her voice low. “Now… finish your soup, or it's going to get cold.” Primrose blinked and leaned back, a surprised look on her face. Scarlet couldn’t find it in her to worry about that at just that moment, though. She instead began to focus on her soup, trying to wash the thoughts on her mind away with a flood of lukewarm dinner. As she ate, her eyes got lost in the dancing flames of the campfire.