“Oh, Fiddlesticks,” she says, her voice so hoarse that it’s hardly even a whisper. “I’m out of time.”
My throat convulses. I rub my hoof over hers, over and over again. I’ve done that so often these past few months sometimes it surprises me the keratin is unmarked. But her hooves are still beautiful, still whole and shining. I buff them and file the edges myself, once a week. Saturday afternoons. We always loved our girlie saturdays.
The rest of her, though…she sighs, the breath rattling a little, and I raise my eyes to her face. I can see the changes there. I can see the changes everywhere. Her golden eyes are sunken, hollow. Her mane lies limp and flat against her head. The outline of her skull is much too clear beneath her face. Like the reaper himself is here, inside her, just waiting to come out and take her.
The worst of it is her wings. Lightning’s wings have always been her pride and joy. When I shut my eyes and picture her, her wings are still whole. Gleaming with health, freshly preened and every feather aligned. Not ragged and broken, half the feathers fallen out. The grey-green flesh beneath clearly visible.
Like something out of a zombie movie, huh? she said, a few mornings ago, when I helped her to the bathroom and started to tear up at the sight of them without the shield of the bedsheets. Still trying to make me laugh even now. And I…I couldn’t even manage a smile for her.
I try now, though. Bravely paste one onto my face and will my tear ducts to close back up. There’ll be plenty of time for that. After. When I can’t hurt her anymore.
“Come on, Dustie,” I croak, my treacherous voice wobbling and betraying me even if my face does not. “There’s still plenty of time.”
Weakly, she shakes her head. “Not…not anymore, I don’t think. It’s coming. I can feel it.”
I can feel it too. I’ve felt it for weeks. For months, ever since the doc first sat us down and told us. Your tests came back, Ms. Lightning Dust, and…well, we have some difficult news for you. You may want to take a seat.
And every day since then we’ve only slipped deeper into this waking nightmare. I’ve stayed hale and hearty, nothing wrong but a few grey hairs in my blue mane, a little case of the shakes sometimes when I play too long, but nothing like Lightning Dust. Nothing like the invisible vampire that has latched onto my wife and slowly leeched the life from her. She’s wasting away right in front of my eyes and I can’t do a single thing to save her.
“Please, Dustie,” I whisper, clutching her hoof to my chest as though that will keep her here. “Keep fighting it. For me, for Dust Devil. Stay with us. Just a little longer.”
She smiles, one corner of her mouth tugging her sagging skin upward just enough to recreate a simulacrum of the crooked grin that first stole my heart. “Not sure I’ve got much more fight left in me, Fids.”
I set my jaw, hold her foreleg tighter. “That’s a lie and you know it, Lightning Dust. I’ve never met a pony with more fight than you in my entire life.”
She blinks blearily up at me. “I wish that was true, hon.”
“I love you,” I tell her, because I have nothing left to say. Nothing left to give than this deepest, most primal truth.
“I love you too,” she says, and she is wilting against her pillows. “I’m just so…dang tired.”
“Sleep, then,” I soothe her. Helping her lie down, tucking the blankets safe and secure up to her chin. “Just sleep, Dustie. I’ll be here the whole time.”
“I know you will.” Her eyes slip shut, and I know that one of these days it will be the last time I see that motion happen. The very last time.
“I love you,” I repeat, the words so soft I can barely hear them myself. Nothing that will disrupt her rest, the precious respite she so desperately needs. “I love you so much.”
But we’re out of time, and there’s nothing I can do.