“Like I always say, to be Scared is to be Prepared!”
—Phyllis Cloverleaf President of Canterlogic
The night hag, ancient enemy of alicorns tormented Bluebell’s sleep. She tossed fitfully, until a blue harmonic glow from Draco gently shoved the shadow aside, the ancient enemy losing control of the dream realm, forced to merely observe a now harmonic pony as she joined the peaceful dream realm and the hopes of oblivion lost more ground. The shadow seethed, deciding if it should stay or go.
The stars were laid out in the dream realm. They were strangely clear. The entire sky, even that which the horizon should have blocked was visible to her.
The unicorn Monoceros was too absorbed in sun worship to care about destiny and order. The normally hostile Lupus and its sister Siren were in conjunction. The Zony-yak signs were prominent in her dreams, swept by chaotic flows dragging the destinies of Pegasus and Terra Equuleus hither and yon, twisting the aims of reality and oblivion as forces of Chaos and Harmony warred over the future. Immortallis Alicornia had the lead by a large but slowly shrinking margin.
The avatars of the chain of creation had left little to chance opposing Wärmetod. The cosmic balance of Harmony had set signs in the heavens for its champion - conjunctions, and even a meteor. A dream walker spirit empowered by Draco had awoken a sleeping instrument of fate to crack the reigns and give the knight a push. Aquila Equus had picked a strong and brave companion for the knight to carry her. Canis Majoris trained the knight well, and one formidable challenge conquered already. The indifferent influence of Siren had tempered the knight’s kind through eons of grim service in the nethermost realms of creation. Realms they had only recently returned from, and its own avatars had newly returned to the field. But the journey of the knight was likely to be a short one.
Silver Blossom could see that the more distant powers, Hydra, Phoenix and beyond simply didn’t care. The distant objects had little to do with the affairs of complexity and simplicity, growth and death, life and extinction and were content to let gravity, rocks, orbits, and momentum swing the fates about. Their influences were distant but omnipresent. Chance was a free variable and trying to eliminate it only added more uncertainty. The stars warred overhead echoes of the ancient war between life and hope and the final destruction of all purpose.
Angry the shadow decided to find somewhere new to go. It abandoned her dreams for the waking world of Bridlewood. Bluebell had been shifting fate with her constant vigilance. The nightmare wanted some revenge.
—
Silver Blossom kissed her little Blossoms on their foreheads. The colts were in bed reading quietly, the room illuminated by a small metal candle lamp on the nightstand. The colts shared the identical blue coat colors of their sister, but their manes were white and red. “Goodnight sweeties, your father and I are going out for dinner and to celebrate. Tonight’s our anniversary. Don’t stay up too late, ok? Your poor sister is sleeping in the next room. She said to wake her, but let her sleep, she’s been staying up late to watch till you fall asleep every night for a week.”
Gin Blossom ruffled his colt’s heads. “Silly girl said she had a premonition you were going to burn the house down or something. She’s been worried sick. Don’t touch the stove. If you get hungry, wake her up, ok?”
Silver Blossom grabbed her coat and purse. “We’ll be back in couple of hours. Just stay in here and play quietly, ok?”
Gin Blossom looked at his wife as he shut and locked the door. “Think they’ll be ok on their own?”
“Of course, they’re 10, and Bluebell is with them.”
“I don’t know, she was right about Cotton having that big fight with Thin Ice. That colt is going to have a fat lip for a while still. Maybe we should wake her up?”
“She’ll be fine dear, let her sleep. The twins were getting tired anyway. A few pages and I’m sure they’ll both fall asleep.”
A shadow swept from Blue Blossom’s bedroom across the hallway and into the twin’s room behind them. From the darkest corner, eyes of a daker shadow peered into the room.
—
The colts continued to read quietly. The candle burned low. The shadows shifted in the room and the candle went out.
“Hey Fire, the candle went out.”
“Well, Cotton, just read with your horn.” answered Fire. “You’re the one with a cutie mark, weren’t you saying your magic is stronger, so that’s why you got yours first?”
“I’m tired, I don’t want to.” answered his brother, the white cotton puff on his rump notwithstanding.
“Well go get Bluebell. Have her get another one,” said Fire.
“I can handle it I know where they are,” said Cotton, hopping down and going out the door. He opened the hallway, walked past the quiet snoring from his sister’s open door and into the hallway where a big box of white candles sat, together with a box of matches. Pulling a candle out he walked back to their room and pulled the door to.
Cotton put the candle back in the candle holder carefully.
There were three matches in the box. He struck one. It flamed briefly, the shadows on the wall twitched and it went out. He struck another. It refused to strike again and again until the matchhead was bare.
Fire said, “Hey Cotton, let me try.” Cotton hoofed the box with the remaining match over to his brother. Fire picked the match up in his aura and showing off to his slightly younger but cutie-marked sibling struck the match. The darkness of the room became more intense. Watchful. Anticipatory. The match flared and went out, smoking.
Fire Blossom stared at the smoke rising from the match held in his red aura. With the smoke rising the match held in his red aura almost looked like it was on fire already. The darkness of the room grew more intense.
Angry that the stupid match wasn’t lit he focused on the match, feeling the smoking tip with his magic. He felt he could set it on fire with magic if he just got angry enough. He felt more power push into his spell, as if the dark of the room was feeding the fire. Suddenly his right hip itched, and he lost his concentration as a small flame travelled down from his horn to the match which burst into flames, and on into the basket of papers, comics, and toys the colts used to corral the mess of their room. Nothing happened.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he touched the match to the candle. It lit immediately. Fire Blossom shook out the match put the expired wood stick and the empty box of matches onto the metal candle holder. The shadows of the room shifted.
Cotton said, “Hey Fire”.
“What?” said Fire Blossom.
“No, FIRE” said Cotton pointing at the basket.
Flames were crawling through the paper and up the sides of the basket.
—
Blue Blossom dreamed of her weird and hyper old classmate Izzy Moonbow. Izzy was playing in a playground with the strange ponies she had brought to the Crystal Tea Room, the earth ponies and pegassai, jumping, and frolicking. Blue Blossom was watching them play. Only they weren’t earth ponies or pegassai anymore, they were alicorns, and lizards, and griffons, and more fantastic things she didn’t know the names of. They changed before her eyes from one to another as strange stars and planets whirled overhead, and they jumped through doors and mirrors chasing one another and laughing.
The scene grew dim as a black haze began to fill Blossom’s dream. From the side of her bed dark shadows watched in growing joy.
She woke to coughing, the smell of smoke and the cries of her brothers.
Lurching, Blue Blossom stumbled from her bed into the hallway. The flickers of flames were coming from the door to the twin’s bedroom. Cotton was screaming shrilly.
Panicked she raced inside to see the flames that licked from a basket up the wall and were catching from the little space above it to a bookshelf and some other objects sitting on it. Thick black smoke was pouring from the basket as something acrid burned. Cotton was trying to beat out the flames with a pillow. His foreleg was on fire. Fire was laying on the floor, overcome with smoke, passed out next to the baske, his coat smoking.
She screamed. “Boys, come with me!” She knocked cotton away from the fire and hugged his forelegs to her body smothering the fire with her body. Grabbing her other brother by his foreleg she dragged him from the room. She tossed Cotton on her back and dragged Fire down the hall to the door on two legs. Cotton was screaming again. Fire was completely silent. Panicked she swiftly moved the three of them down the hall.
The door was locked. The coffee table held correspondence and bills in neat piles, but no key! Where was the key? She didn’t know. Smoke was filling the hallway now. There was a small square window with a sash next to the door, she tried it, but it was stuck. The smoke was growing thicker. She gave a single cough.
Blue Blossom grabbed the chair by the coffee table with her forelegs. She smashed the chair feet first into the window beside the door. Rattling the chair around the square in a quick circle several times she tossed it out the window, picked up Fire Blossom and set him down gently outside using both her limbs and her magic. She then did the same for Cotton. Finally, she herself leapt through the open window and into the dark street.
She raced across the lane and pounded on the door to the Wicker’s house. Mr. Wicker opened the door, and Blue Blossom hurriedly explained the situation. He in turn raced down the lane to the fire bell, and within a few minutes the Bridlewood fire department arrived. Crews with axes, sand and water were able to put out the flames and keep the house from being further damaged. A shadow from around the house withdrew as the dark lane filled with life.
Gin and Silver soon returned, galloping down the lane as they saw fire ponies and pump carts in front of their house. Their sons were being treated by two emergency ponies. Fire Blossom had come to. He was crying. His brother was singed, but apart from some singed hair and slight burns on his right fetlock seemed ok. Blue Blossom stopped shaking and calmed the colts while Gin and Silver talked to the Sheriff.
At some point that old black mare Mystic Orb came up. She started yelling at the Sheriff that he was upsetting ‘the little ones’, and eventually Sheriff Porter gave up on any ideas of bringing Gin and Silver in for questioning and just left. Probably to get away from Ms. Orb. The old mare walked over to Blue gave her a peck on the cheek and a hug and ambled off.
Blue Blossom looked up. The stars above had nothing to add to the relief the family felt. The planets had subtly shifted in their ellipses. The balance in the skies was slowly tilting towards oblivion once again. Why hadn’t she seen it before? A blood moon was coming. A lunar eclipse. Blue Blossom began to cry for no reason she could explain.
Fire Blossom’s parents were not as happy as they might have been that he had a lit candle for a cutie mark.