Chapter 3
The youth felt himself fall through the smoke, felt himself fall for what felt like an extraordinarily long time. His eyes closed, and he waited for the feel of the earth thudding into him.
Yet, as he fell, something shifted around him.
He felt himself lying upon the ground. Oddly, there was no pain. No, there was no pain, and he felt himself wrapped in a sort of hazy unawareness.
The smoke was gone.
Was… was he lying next to a pumpkin?
The youth blinked. He heard no sounds of musket fire. There was no high staccato sound of the rebel yell, no calls of dying men, no…
The pain began.
It welled up deep, flashing out to him. It rippled up to him from deep inside his guts. Soon it was cascading through the youth, each tiny movement driving it through him in merciless waves.
The youth rolled around, his legs kicking at the earth, digging deep trenches into the garden as horrible sounds began to rise from him.
High shrieks of pain began to erupt from him, uncontrollable and feral, each call louder than the last. He wrapped himself into a ball, soon exploding out of the position in wild tosses of his arms that brushed through the cornstalks, great vast, wild sweeps of his legs that sent a gourd rolling out into the yard.
As Fluttershy heard the sounds she began to creep out from beneath the safety of the table. Her legs trembled, her body shook, but… but, there was something in her garden. Something that maybe, it seemed, needed help.
Something in pain.
New red hot flashes of agony dove through the youth, and once more he threw himself around, fighting, raging against the pain. He wrapped himself tight into a ball again, his cartridge box, cap pouch, and canteen all bouncing against him as he clawed at the dirt. His calls of pain devolved into simpering and wailing, accented only once by a shriek as he fell over onto his back.
As the youth’s head rested against the little fence he tried to force himself to think, to take control over his shattered body. He felt the wetness all across his stomach, abdomen, and legs. His arms shook as he tried to lift them.
Even as the pain throbbed and rolled through him he pulled at the buckle, and as he did the accoutrement belt fell loose. He threw the canteen and haversack over his shoulder, each little movement bringing him fresh agonies.
There, once all of these had been laid aside, he looked down across the front of his sack coat. It was wet, the moisture standing out in stark relief among the dirt that now covered his uniform.
He had to know. He needed to know how bad it was. He reached down to the hem of his coat, and at once began pulling at it, tearing at it…
Fluttershy had been creeping forward, trying to go towards her garden with tender little steps. Her mouth came open, and as it did she tried honestly and earnestly to wake words. She tried to call to whatever was there. She tried to offer her aid, but the words would not come.
As she looked on there was a fresh yelp of pain, and in an instant shining points of light seemed to leap from the garden patch. “Yeep!” she squeaked, her body wrapping tight to herself as they sped closer, closer…
She opened her eyes to find herself looking down at a button. As Angel peeked out from behind her Fluttershy’s mind tried to comprehend it. Here, in front of her, sat a button. A bright brass button shimmered in the sunlight, and upon it an eagle looked proudly from behind a thin sheen of blood.
Her mouth opened once more. No monster can wear buttons, right? Once more she lifted herself, tried again to call out as she picked her way forward. Her voice though was sucked from her as a new call sounded from her garden patch … one that formed syllables, one that made words…
The youth’s buttons had flown off of the sack coat as he had torn at his uniform, the eagle buttons flying into the air.
Now, he tried to focus. The youth attempted to lift his shirt so that he could look down across his own body. The shirt had been white, issued to him freshly bleached, so much so that the chemicals had prickled across his skin for those first few days.
Now it was utterly red. Now it was soaked with his blood from below his ribs all the way to where they entered his trousers. The smell of his own blood gagged him even as fought to get the suspenders off, even as pain continued to course through him.
He opened the front of his trousers, saw that even his drawers were soaked red, and with a shrill sound of effort lifted the shirt.
He looked down across his stomach… and there witnessed the ruin of his own body.
“Ooohhh Gaawwwdddd!” the youth called aloud, “Goooddd, please, no, please!” He began to cry. He looked once more upon the great wet hole that sat to the right of his navel. Tears streamed down his face, both from the pain and the fear. He began to think… he began to think of many things.
He thought of steamboats, of the big church on Clinton Street, of the market. He thought of Mr. Vanderbilt’s railroad across the river. He thought of summers along the Hudson, of the Catskills erupting into oranges, reds, browns, and purples as autumn set in.
He thought of dancing with Sally Karmer at the harvest dance. He thought of his mother.
Mother.
“Mother! Mootthhherrr!” he called, knowing full well that she could not hear, that she was nowhere near Maryland. He knew she was nowhere close to wherever… to wherever this garden was. He knew that she was back home. Home. Home along the Hudson, back in Kingston where he had run through the streets, where he’d lazily sat on the stone wall watching the little shad boats. He mouthed the word again, and as his hand went to the locket.
“Mooottthhherrr!” he brayed aloud, casting the word out into the sunlight and into the branches of the tree above, across the garden and out above the green lawn.
Fluttershy’s heart fell open.
Something in her garden was crying in pain, something in her garden needed help…
Something in her garden was calling for its mommy.
Her fear faded. No monster wants its mommy, no monster cried in long sobs like that.
Her hooves fell more resolutely, and her fear was washed away as her compassion, her kindness, welled up in her. She sped up as she entered the garden itself, barely missing all of the vegetables and herbs that she had been tending so carefully. Now some were smashed, others torn from their stalks, and around her she could see where the creature had torn at the earth.
She pushed through the corn, and there looked down upon the miserable spectacle of the… thing, that sat despondently in her garden.
She looked past many things. She looked past its long limbs and short face. She looked past the blood, the dirt, and the gore. She saw only the blue of its clothing…
… the blue that matched that of her vision, of the shapes that moved in her dream…
… and the pain that coursed through it.
“Oh! H-hello? Do, do you need…” she asked meekly.
The eyes flashed open, and the face that had been contorted in pain wheeled to her.
The youth heard the voice, the beautiful voice, and the sense of someone being near him filled his perception. The voice, could… could it possibly be…
“Mother?” he called in a dry, raspy voice as he blinked the dirt from his eyes, “Moth…”
He looked past many things. He looked past the odd form of the… creature. He looked past the way that the hat hung limply on its head, past the way it seemed in so many ways to be a… horse, a little talking horse. He saw only the compassion that sat in the eyes, heard only the concern that hovered in its voice. Motherly, female… the creature suddenly became a beacon to him, a well of hope.
“No, no, oh no, I’m not… I’m not your...” Fluttershy began as her voice only grew stronger. Her resolve was soon tested.
The youth rolled over onto his stomach and called out in pain. He reached for the legs of the creature, grasping at them, begging for her help.
Fluttershy tensed, felt the power in the… hands, of the creature.
“Please don’t go!” called the youth, misunderstanding the way her body reacted, “Oh… miss, please! Oh, God, please, don’t leave me!”
Fluttershy felt the blood wipe against her coat, the stickiness of it cling to her all the way down to her skin. She looked down at the youth, watched as his little funny hat come loose and sat serenely in the rows between the squash and carrots. His eyes were filled… filled with pain and fear.
Her mind raced, her eyes darted around her garden, past the dented watering can and all sorts of boxes and… things, that she did not recognize. A bag of some sort, a belt with boxes and… a long thing, a long thing made of steel and wood, glinting in the sun.
It smelled like the smoke, and she did not like it.
“H-how, oh! Oh, how do I help you?” she asked as her head turned from the objects. She looked back into his eyes, her wings coming open in shades of panic. Her hoof went to his hand, stroked it as he pawed through the earth, beat at the dirt against the pain with his other fist.
“Water. Water, miss… please, please I’m so thirsty,” he choked through parched lips. His lips still betrayed the presence of some of the black powder, the black mark where he had been biting open the cartridges standing stark against his skin, skin that seemed to get paler even as she looked upon him.
Fluttershy knew instantly what one of the items was. Equestrian soldiers wore them. Even though this one was far larger, she knew it was a canteen. She reached across him, gathering up the strap, wheeling it around to where she knew Angel sat hidden in the cornstalks.
“Angel! Oh, Angel, hurry! Fill this at the well!” she called to him. Angel though stood there, his eyes locked on the tossing, crying creature that rolled around even as it seemed to grip harder upon his mistress.
“Angel? Angel, oh, Angel I need you to fill this, please…”
Angel turned to face her. His eyes then settled back across the dirty, blood-soaked wool of the canteen. Disgust washed over the rabbit. At once he began to fold his arms, began to give her a look of…
She had no time for that. “Angel!” she shouted, painting her deepest resolve into her forcible stare, fixing him in with her determined gaze, “Fill it! Well! Now!”
The rabbit recoiled, wrapped the strap around himself, and with long leaps was off through the garden to the wellhead beyond.
Fluttershy’s attention went back to the creature that laid there, his… fingers, wrapped tight to her foreleg. To her surprise he, it definitely was a he, was looking up to her with something approaching awe.
She saw how throat bounced with each sob, betraying the presence of a laryngeal prominence, like the Cretan's. Around the face of the creature stubble caught dirt, and the whole effect convinced her that this was a male... thing. Not just a male, but a boy. A poor, wounded boy who looked to her with pleading eyes.
At once that faded, and new tears and sobs arose from him. He rolled back into a ball, and when that pose only brought new pain his cries flowed from him again.
“Oh, God! Oh mother, motheerrr!” called the youth, not lessening his grip upon the creature. “Oh, God!”
“Please, please try to lay still!” she said, nuzzling him, trying to get him to roll into his back, “Please, I-I have to see… to see what’s wrong…”
“The ball!” called the youth, falling over onto his back, his fingers dancing along her leg, “The ball is still there, ‘ah kin feel it! Oh God, it hurts! Oh, God!”
“The ball?” asked Fluttershy, trying to get him to lay still, not understanding his complaint, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I-I don’t… what do you…”
Fluttershy looked down, down into his wound. Her breath was stolen out of her as she witnessed the great sopping hole that stood out upon the creature, as she looked down into the ruins of his torso.
Fluttershy was no stranger to wounds, to injury. The pegasus had a rapport with death that none of her friends could ever really know of. She had tended broken wings, had set broken limbs that animals had crawled to her cottage to have tended by her caring touch. She alone sought for these many years to lessen the onslaught of disease and famine among her animal dependants, she had held little birds close to her during long nights as their lives had slipped away.
She had never seen anything like this. This was beyond her.
She whipped the hat off of her head, and as her wings stood out wide in alarm she tore it to pieces with her teeth, separating the flat edges from the dome.
She pressed the flat to the wound, doing the first thing that she knew to do, to try to apply pressure to the great, vast wound that continued to pour the creature’s blood.
The youth called out in pain, shrieked, and then looked upon the creature again. She, it certainly was a she, was trying so hard, concern was painted across her… horse-like, features.
She couldn’t be a horse. Didn’t look all that much like a horse… and most horses certainly don’t talk. The youth’s mind fought through waves of pain to determine what she was, where he could possibly be.
His eyes settled across her beautiful countenance, the soft colors that even his blood could not hide. She had been strong, forcible when she had called out, but her words to him were soft. Her wings spread wide, and…
… her wings.
“Are,” he choked, feeling as though he had breathed some of the Hudson’s cold waters, “are you… an angel?”
Fluttershy blinked, looked down across him, the oddness of his statement reaching out to her.
“Miss,” he called through dry, trembling lips, running his bloodied hand up and down her side, “a-are you an angel, miss?”
She blinked at him once more, her wide cyan eyes convincing him of his conviction that much more.
“My, my bunny is named…” she began, trying to understand what he was asking. How, how could the creature believe that she was an…
New pains rocked through the youth, lifting her in the air as his back arched and he cried aloud.
“Oh, mother! Mothheerrr!” he called again, and as his body writhed she was carried along on top of it, still trying to keep the blood from pouring from him.
Fluttershy watched as his hand went to his neck, and as he heaved and strained something golden came out from beneath his shirt. He grasped it in his free hand, and as he did he seemed to calm.
“Miss Angel, please, I’m so thirsty,” he whimpered, drawing his hand across her once more, “I’m so thirsty.”
“Water… water will be here very soon, very soon, I promise,” Fluttershy said, looking down to him. As the torn dome of her hat bounced away she saw what he had in his hand. It was a locket, and as it came open she looked upon the picture of another one of the creatures, this one seemingly older, and (she guessed) a female. His mother… the creature was just a boy, one who wanted, longed for, his mother. He wanted his mother, wanted her to take away his pain, his fear.
Fluttershy looked down to see that his blood had coursed right through the torn brim of her sun hat, that she could not stop it… and if she could not do that then whatever this “ball” was within could not be removed.
She needed help. Fluttershy’s mind raced to the one pony who might know anything about what to do, the only one who could possible use magic and knowledge to help the youth.
She lifted herself off of him, and at once he guessed her meaning.
“Please! Miss Angel, please,” he begged even as he heaved and rolled, grasping at her leg, “Please don’t leave me!”
“I-I’m going to go get Twilight! Twilight will help, she’ll know what to do… oh, do hang on, the water is coming! I’ll be back, I’ll be right back with Twilight and she’ll use her magic and… and…”
The youth rubbed his hand across her leg once more, and then released it. “Please, please… tell my mother…” he said, gripping the locket so that it closed.
“Of course,” Fluttershy said, looking down at him. “Please, oh, please be strong. Of course, of course I’ll tell her, just wait right here…”
Her nose pressed gently to his forehead, and with a few leaps she was off, lifting into the air on powerful flaps of her wings, great long flaps that only the greatest of emergencies could summon from the pegasus. Fluttershy did not know why she had made the promises, did not know what he had even meant. As she darted across the sky all of that sat upon her, and as the sun streamed around her his blood dried upon her body.
“Twilight!” she called as she streaked over the countryside. As she went his desperate, pleading eyes filled her vision. “Twilight!”
The youth lay back, his head resting against the fence.
He wondered where he was, and why an angel had found him.
He looked up to see the cottage nearby, and thought of how very much like the cottage he had grown up in, the one where his mother now sat awaiting his return.
The youth smiled. He knew full well that he would not be returning. Knew that his war was over.
He was in Heaven.
That’s the only reason why an angel should have been so near him. That explains her form. That fit with what the pastor at the big old Methodist church on Clinton Street had said, didn’t it? He had said that angels aren’t humans, but divine beings of grace and beauty.
That explained it, nice and tidy. He must be in Heaven. The beautiful angel had helped him, and the pain was starting to go away. Yes, it was going away. It was merely a throb now, and the coldness in his hands, arms, and legs… well, that was because he was at the gates of a blessed realm. Surely… surely, that was it.
That was the reason.
The pastor at the Methodist church said that they would all give up their pain, that when they died pain would end. Yes, his pain was ending… it was.
The youth smiled, looked around him. Above him birds settled back into the tree, and he was so… happy, happy to see the birds, hear their songs begin again. He looked on in awe as an eagle and a hawk sat next to the little songbirds, the cardinals, jays, and robins.
They did not move to attack each other, to feed on the little birds. No… no, they simply looked down over him sadly.
Nearby there was movement, and the youth slid his rifle far away so that it would not disturb the little creatures that peeked at him through the garden, or peered at him tentatively from the fence.
“Hello,” he croaked out through, parched, dry lips. Soon the water would come, and there would be such blessed relief. “Hello,” he said to the animals again, trying to smile at them as his body went numb. Near him badgers stood next to mice, and foxes among rabbits, and… and a bear? A bear sat there, the creature too simply worrying over him, not chasing at the squirrels or snapping at the chipmunks.
What had the preacher called this? Oh, oh yes… the peaceable kingdom. “A-and the l-lion will lay beside the l-lamb, and the bear will eat hay and oats…” he stuttered, wiggling his finger at a ferret that came close to him.
Yes, yes… this was Heaven, or at least the gates to it, the path beside the house… the little gate there…
Soon, soon the water would come and he’d leap back to his feet, be whole and fit again. Soon, soon his angel would come back and she’d take him down that path, through that gate.
The youth fought to raise himself, fought to look over the fence. There, there in the far distance he saw it.
The animals scurried away, or sat in the distance beyond the garden as he gave one last call of pain.
His eyes settled on the mountain beyond, beyond the little village. His eyes were clouded, but still he could see it so clearly, perched on the side of the mountain. Even at this distance he could see the tall, white towers, and the waterfalls that cascaded from it. Yes, it was there…
… it was Zion.
He slumped back down as the wonderful clouds filled his eyes. Soon the water would come and he would never be thirsty again. Soon his angel would come back, and she’d take him to Zion, the city of God, and he’d be happy and strong and safe forever. There they’d sing the hymns, and he’d be in the presence of God.
The youth lay back against the fence, and as he did he felt everything begin to leave him. He lifted his voice, put away his fear, and rejoiced. The hymn left his lips, his joy bubbling out of him. Even as his arms fell limp by his side, his palms open, he was so happy.
“Amazing… grace,” he sang weekly, his words coming slower and slower, “how s-sweet… the sound, t-that saved… a wretch, l-like me. I once was lost, but now am found…”
Yes, the angel had found him. He’d been found.
“… was b-blind, but now… I-I see…”
The youth opened his eyes, passed them across the serene landscape of the cottage, the garden, and the green fields beyond. How warm the sun was, how wonderful it felt… how sweet the song of the birds…
The youth closed his eyes.
Angel sped back to the garden, the canteen dripping, sopping with the waters of the well.
The rabbit fell back onto all fours, making his way forward to where the creature lay. He had seen his mistress take off, and he felt some small apprehension.
As he came to the creature he was disgusted once more by the thick red well of blood and gore that stood out upon it. As his nose wrinkled his eyes panned upwards, and as they did Angel felt his emotions change.
The creature had the most calm, happy look upon its face. Angel took a few steps forward and placed the canteen in the creature’s open hand.
Nothing, the creature did not move.
Angel shook him, pointed to the canteen.
Nothing.
Angel, being Angel, gave the creature a swift kick. With that the body fell from where it had sat upon the fence, Angel’s paws moving to cover his mouth.
As he looked upon the still, unmoving form of the youth Angel felt an emotion that was largely foreign to him, that he did not experience much. But, as the birds and animals gathered to him, it sat there, behind his eyes.
Guilt.
He felt such guilt that he’d ever been afraid of the creature. He felt guilt that he’d attempted to refuse it aid. He felt guilt that he’d not hurried faster to bring it the water it had begged for…
… that the youth had been alone, that no one had been with him when he died.
There was a rumbling shock, and a great purple ball appeared upon the grassy reaches of Fluttershy’s yard. As it condensed upon itself the forms of Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Spike, and Rainbow Dash all lifted from the remains of the spell.
“Over here!” Fluttershy called at once, diving into the garden, “H-he’s over here! He’s…”
Twilight looked to Spike and Dash, and as the three made their way into the garden they tried to determine what could have silenced her so quickly. “Oh man,” mouthed Spike, looking at the torn earth, the broken and squashed vegetables, “what kind of creature could do…”
“Spike,” came Twilight’s voice, rising sternly, “I want you to look away. Look towards the yard, or the forest, or wherever… just do not look over here…”
Spike, being a boy of about twelve years or so, instantly looked to where Twilight told him not to look. He immediately wished he hadn’t.
“I said look away!” Twilight said, spinning him with her magic and placing him on the ground. She didn’t have long to dwell upon it. She watched as Dash made her way up to Fluttershy, the other pegasus nuzzling the distraught figure.
“Oh no! Oh, oh no! No, no!” Fluttershy whimpered over and over, racing up and down the length of the body, looking back into the eyes, reaching back for Dash’s nuzzle.
“I-I’m too late! I-I couldn’t… couldn’t help him!” she cried, leaning across Dash’s withers. The sound of her tears began to fill the garden, and soon Twilight too was brushing up beside her, trying to nuzzle to her.
“Hey,” Dash began, “Hey, I-I’m sure you, well, did everything you could for it. There, wow, doesn’t look like there was much of anything that you could have done for it…”
“He’s not an ‘It’! He’s a boy! A boy who was hurt and crying!” Fluttershy said, lifting her head, panning it between the two other ponies.
She spun around high on a flap of her wings, looking back over the crumpled form that lay among her squash and rhubarb. Her head panned down the length of his body, tears welling in her eyes.
“H-he was a boy! He t-talked and cried and asked, begged me for help!” she cried.
“Yes, okay, yes…but, but a boy what?” asked Twilight, lifting the odd boxes and bags that lay nearby with her magic.
“I-I don’t know!” Fluttershy wailed, turning to lay herself against Twilight’s head. Twilight ignored the streaks of the creature’s blood that sat upon her friend, and let the pegasus just speak and cry. “He… h-he was in so much pain, and I t-tried to help but I couldn’t! He, he was just crying over and over for his mommy! He was crying for his mommy and… for, for God!”
“What’s God?” asked Rainbow Dash, looking from the still body to Twilight.
“I don’t know,” answered Twilight, wiping her face to Fluttershy’s, “but it must have been very important to the creature.”
“He’s not a creature!” called Fluttershy as new tears fell down her face. “He’s a boy!”
Nearby another boy stood with his hands behind his back, wishing that he too could spin around and embrace the pegasus. Yet, dutifully, he stood in place, facing out towards Fluttershy’s yard, avoiding having to see the horrible spectacle that lay in the garden.
Spike kicked at the grass, and as he did he stubbed his toe on something. After a few hops of pain he peered down into the grass. There his eyes caught across the something, and he kneeled down to look upon it.
It was long, more than twice his length, and made of steel and wood.
It smelled of sulfur, and he found the scent pleasurable to his draconic senses. He used his foot to timidly kick it over, and as he peered down at it cautiously he sensed that the sulphury, salty smell lifted from a certain part.
Spike looked over his shoulder, saw the mares still at once trying to calm Fluttershy and answer her concerns about the creature not being treated as an animal.
Seeing that they were not looking at him he lifted the thing slightly, and pulling back on the one part he found that it clicked into place, revealing a brass part that seemed to have been squashed flat.
He gingerly picked it off and flipped it back and forth over his clawed hands. It smelt of spent fire, and he wondered what it could be. He put his hand on his hip as he pondered it…
… and there he discovered he was surrounded by them, by unsquashed brass… things, each like the one that he held in his hand. He turned again, saw them spilling out of one of the pouches upon the belt that he assumed the creature had worn.
He quickly picked one up.
Spike looked it over, and then gazed at the long object that still sat hidden in the grass.
He leaned down, lifting it carefully. A smell of sulfur, and something more, lingered about the object, and Spike’s keen dragon senses smelt that it lifted from a hole under where the brass thing had sat.
He tilted the object back and forth, and to his amazement little black pellets came dripping from the hole.
What is it doing in there? he thought. Maybe… maybe this little thing helps it get out?
With that Spike placed the percussion cap on the cone of the musket. He flipped it up and down, and there saw the trigger beneath.
“Oh,” he said aloud, unheard by the ponies beyond, “that must let this part move…”
With that Spike lifted the Springfield. He placed two fingers upon the trigger, hefting the rifle up so that it lay against his side, the barrel still upon the grass…
“Its teeth are really kinda dirty,” said Rainbow Dash, placing her hoof to the chin of the creature, pushing it down slightly so she could see within the mouth. At once she was overcome by the odd sensation of having been butted by Fluttershy, the other pegasus shoving her away.
“Please!” Fluttershy called out, her eyes still streaming. “Oh, please, don’t touch him like that! H-he’s not… he’s not an animal!”
Rainbow Dash was beginning to have enough of this. Her tongue had hung out as she’d stumbled around after Fluttershy’s rather timid assault, but now she recovered.
“Hey!” she answered, looking back at Fluttershy’s defiant face, “Look, I know you’re all upset and stuff but we don’t know anything about this thing, so…”
“He wasn’t a thing!” Fluttershy said again, her face still red.
“Girls, please,” answered Twilight, interjecting herself between them, “I know that we’re dealing with something unusual here, and I know that this must be very upsetting for you, Fluttershy, but right now what we must do is…”
There was a loud report, a “ka-kang” that sang out and echoed around the cottage, thought the garden, and across the fields.
The ponies turned their heads as something whistled through the grass, pinged off of a rock on the far side of the cottage, and tumbled through the air above their heads, knocking a few leaves from the tree.
The birds lifted into flight, and most of the animals scurried away or bolted in place.
For an instant all was silent.
“What,” asked Dash, settling back down to the earth, “what was that?”
Twilight studied the landscape around her, calling for her little dragon whelp.
“Spike?” she called, “Spike?”
She found him standing not far from where she had placed him. He stood there trembling… trembling with something held in his grasp.
As she watched he dropped it to the ground, threw it away from himself. At once his hands came up to his mouth, and he looked to them with terror in his eyes.
It was a weapon. As the smoke drifted around him he came to a certain realization… that it must be a weapon. Nothing good or happy or positive could make such a noise. Nothing joyful could send whatever had escaped it buzzing through the grass. It was a weapon… he had just used a weapon.
There was pain.
“I’m so sorry!” he called as his hands went to his ribs, and at once she was with him.
“I’m so sorry!” he called again as she ran her hoof over him, searching for any physical hurts. “I’m sorry!”
“Spike, Spike,” she said, calming him, “are you okay? Does anything hurt?”
“My side! My side hurts, Twi! I-it kicked me!”
Twilight rubbed him, made him sit in the space between her forelegs as she did so. As he took a few large breaths silence once more filled the field and the space beside the cottage. As soon as she knew him to be safe she lifted her little dragon whelp upon her back and turned back towards where the other two mares still stood in the garden.
She didn’t bother to make him look away this time, and as they approached the other two ponies Dash’s look sped between Twilight and Spike, and then deep within the garden.
“Oh, poor Fluttershy,” Twilight mouthed as Spike leaned into her mane. The three looked upon the beset pegasus as she tried earnestly to find some rational reason, some answer, to what had happened among her carrots and gourds…
The pegasus stood over the crumpled, deflated, torn body of the youth. She tenderly helped his head settle back into her hoof, let it rest gently upon the ground. She ran her hoof through his fair-colored hair, lifted his arm so that it lay across his chest.
She had been about to put the locket back within the shirt, but as she tried gingerly to lift upon it the hinge bounced open. The pegasus found herself staring at the picture within. The youth’s mother, her hair up in a bow and her eyes deep and gentle, stared at the pegasus.
“He, he wanted me to tell you,” she whispered…
Fluttershy thought hard, and fought against the tears.
“H-he wanted me to tell you t-that he l-loved you,” she whimpered, “I-I promised h-him that I would tell you, but… b-but I don’t know how to get to… to wherever you are…”
With that she began to cry once again.
“I d-don’t know how…”
She whined, sputtered.
“He was just a boy!” she said, her hooves dancing as she stood over him. “He was just a boy who was scared and hurt and afraid!”
She turned back to her friends, caught them all in a look that spoke of her plea for answers. “He was just a boy! H-he thought I was an angel… called me an angel!”
“Oh, Twilight! W-why did he have to die? Why did he come from… f-from wherever, just to die?” she turned back over him as the others approached, looking down into the unseeing eyes.
“He j-just wanted his m-mommy!” she called aloud as she nuzzled against the youth’s forehead, her tears falling over him, “H-he just wanted his mommy!”
Her eyes closed, and the unfairness of it sank through her as she bawled.
“He just wanted his mommy!”