//------------------------------//
// Interim One 
// Story: ...Or Was It All Just A Dream? 
// by AnchorsAway 
//------------------------------//




"Tell me," the old mare asked, her grey eyes shifting in their sunken sockets. "Where is your home?"

Pen Stroke looked up from where he was writing in his notepad. His pen froze on the paper that was quickly filling up. "I'm sorry?" he wondered, mildly surprised at the story's interruption.

The old alicorn simply smiled and gave a weak chuckle. "Where is home for you?"

Pen Stroke quickly finished his last line in his transcript, flipping to a new page, his attention demanded from his notes. "Where I live?" he repeated. "I have an apartment here in town." He absently pointed a hoof out the window. "Just a few minutes down the road."

The mare cocked a floppy ear. "And you like it here?" She gazed out the rain fogged window at the huddle of civilization down the hill. The high-scale townhouses and tight-knit suburbs peeked out from between the piney trees, like timid wildlife hiding in the brush.

"It's alright," he shrugged, finishing off his last note. "It's rainy most of the year, and we can get some nasty winds rolling off the hills, but it's a nice place to live. Nice ponies."

Droopy eyes narrowed at him slyly. "But that wasn't what I asked," the old mare chided. "I wanted to know where home was. Not where you lived."

Pen Stroke sat back and scratched confusingly at his scruffy mane. The corners of his lips jerked almost imperceptibly, and he inhaled deeply, watching the rain cut absent patterns in the window. "Home," he said, twitching his nose, the stallion lost in memory. "Home is a small farm out in West Bend, just a few hours from here," he replied with a modest grin. "Rural country, a few fruit farms, a few cell towers. Just like anywhere else."

"You grew up there, didn't you?"

"Until the time I left for college," he nodded, standing up from his chair and stretching. He gave a stifled yawn and shuffled over to look out the window. "Do you need a break?" he wondered. "We can get you something else to eat." He nodded at the barely scratched tray of food beside her bed. Applesauce lingered in an untouched cup.

"I'm fine, dearie," she assured him, shifting weakly beneath her mound of blankets. "Tell me more of this place," she begged of him. "Your home."

"What do you want to know?"

The old mare feigned shocked impatience. "I don't know," she scoffed with a small crack of a smile. "Anything really. Describe it for me. Or are you going to keep shrugging me off."

Pen Stroke flinched at the verbal jousting. She may be older than anypony alive, or even their distant ancestors, but she had a sharp tongue. 

"It's a modest little place, a few dozen acres tucked where the highland meets the Red Rock River. The house was already there when my parents bought the place, moved in from Central City. It's pretty simple: a rough cut fence around the house, white pine siding, flowerbeds around the front, a big porch that my mom had added on."

"And a bright red entrance door, of course," the old mare quickly added in.

Pen Stroke spun softly on his hooves away from the window. His eyes studied the old mare, his jaw working, chewing over her words.

"Yes, a bright red door," he nodded. "How did you know that?" he wondered, his brows furrowing across his forehead.

"It's a common tradition, even in my time," she replied, resting her head on a propped up pillow. "It's a sign of—"

"Luck," he finished for her quickly, his words coming faster. "That's what my dad always told her. My mom thought it looked out of place and didn't match the rest of the house. But he insisted it was for good luck."

"A smart stallion, your father," she nodded, mane waving beneath her sagging neck. "But don't just describe to me, how the farm looked. I wanted you to tell me about it. What was it like? Were you happy growing up there?"

"Happy?" He blew air through his nostrils, striding aimlessly back to his chair. "I don't think I ever used such a word to describe the place."

"Bad memories?" the old mare ventured.

Pen shook his head. "Never," he breathed. "I never called it happy because it is too simple a word to describe it. It's a different feeling." He struggled to find the words. "It's so hard to articulate. It's safety, security, this sense that everything is alright with the world, absolutely carefree. It's just—"

"Home," she interjected. "The best word to describe that elusive feeling is home," she answered. "Tell me, do you miss it?"

He pressed his lips in a thin line, eyes sinking to the polished linoleum, the elated feeling fading and wilting. "Of course."

"What happened to it?" the old mare wondered. "Home?"

Pen shrugged. "Life, I guess. I moved to college in Southern Reach, got my degree, trained in a few districts. I always went back to visit during the holidays and when I had time between semesters. Mom and dad always had fresh sheets on my old bed every time I came around." He lowered himself back into his chair, the pad and ped resting in his lap, unnoticed. 

"And then life caught up," he continued. "The visits became further and further apart. My parents were getting older, as well. I found a permanent job here at the hospital as a psychologist. Had a few relationships, but nothing ever took," he relayed. 

"But then dad had a heart attack." He bit his lip. "He had been complaining of chest pains the night before, and I promised I would drive down to check on them that weekend. But it happened in his sleep."

"Mom told me afterward that he lived a full life, that they had made old age together. That he had been able to see me become the pony he wanted me to be." Pen Stroke returned his attention back to his notepad, dismissing the recollection before he could delve any deeper. "Mom went with him less than a year after we buryed him in the back apple orchard. Just like he went — in her sleep."

The old mare waited a minute for the silence to settle. "And what happened to the place?"

Pen levitated his pen, doodling random lines and circles on the corner of the paper. "I had mom buried out back, right next to dad. They had left the farm to me, of course — house and land and orchard. I sometimes travel the old place every few years, see mom and dad," he admitted. "But I never stay. That feeling that you describe," he told her. "That feeling of home. It feels like it left the place long ago."

"But it can come back." The old mare sat a little higher in her hospital bed. "If you give it enough time, it will always come back. Just as it did for my sister and me."

Pen Stroke's attention was relit as the old mare wandered back into her story. He leaned closer, pen ready to write down everything. "The bells," he steered her. "Tell me about the little bells."

"The bells," she smiled, a grin painting her weathered face. "That was who stumbled up and found us at dawn's light after that frightening first night. By the stars, my sister and I hated those little bells," she said with a huff. "He wore such an ugly hat..."