//------------------------------// // Thoughtful Dreams and Painful Day—Mares // Story: My Little Poem // by MrAlbum321 //------------------------------// As I lay here, dying with every breath, I wonder what the outside world is like. Here, in my bubble, I am frozen from time, suspended from all sensation. Separate from the birth and the living, the death and the dying. Apart from the cycle. I wondered what it would be like to move from this state of nothingness back to that somethingness that used to define every aspect of my existence. I know I am being morose. It is a habit of mine when I collapse in a heap of bones, flesh and spiritual soul. While a part of me urged to return to the circumstances that led to that failure, the dominant part of me suggested time to think. After all, I am only equine. There is only so much I am destined to withstand before I, too, succumb to the cycle and move to the next stage of my evolution. Then again, the fact that some part of me is thinking about all this means that some part of my body must still function. And as I continue to think and ponder, a question occurs: how long have I been like this? In a world of dreams and thought—projections created by one's imagination, one could move through any portion of time they want in as slow or fast a period as they are capable of setting. I was aware that, when and IF I awoke, I could very well be several hours or several years into my future, with no shred of concept of what I went through in that interim. Part of me was scared; the rest of me simply slept, and let time do what it was destined to do. Whatever that was. I had to ask myself: when was the last time I truly rested like this, simply let everything fall apart and damn the consequences to Tartarus? It always seemed like life had forever destined me to a life of sorrow and hardship. But why? Why the constant battering and hammering? Why the white-hot emotional turmoil of the forge? Why the pain? Why was there ever a need for highly tempered hearts? Why was I being pushed into a certain pattern of development? I couldn't fight it; life will turn me into what it wants me to be regardless of my choices; but how could that be, since I have the free will to decide how my life will turn out? Ah, there's the rub, as that old saying went! We can choose the paths our life takes, but does that actually lead to different consequences? As free as our wills are, there are other patterns in our life that are consistent. In the heat of the moment, free will may reign, but over time the patterns emerge. "Doth thou see it now?" SOMETHING was in my nothing! And GOLLY GEE I was excited! I thought of a plain room with a couple couches. The SOMETHING sat on one couch, while I lay on the other. "Yes, I see what you want me to see, but what is the specific pattern that you wanted to point out?" I asked. "Thy perception is what matters, not Ours," the SOMETHING said. I tried to wrap my head around the SOMETHING, to give it shape and form beyond the nebulous concept that it was. At first it proved elusive; the barest hint of a mare's body, rather large, combined with a strange characteristic; it was an alicorn, horn and wings to prove it. Yet I could not imagine a color or so much as a black-and-white outline of a cutie mark. It remained a blank object in three-dimensional space, and yet it acted with the agency of another spiritual soul. I could tell, because it refused to obey my mental commands. "Is it the fact that I have been through a lot of stressful situations, and that is why I am where I am?" "Yes, thou hast led a truly stressful life." I furrowed my brow; something told me there was more to this than the mare was telling me. "Well... I have tried to keep moving despite the stress." "Indeed, good stallion, indeed." I just about bit my mental lip as I furiously worked through as much of my life that I could remember. Was it the rape from that strange unicorn that did me in? Was it the shock of not only my parents' death, but Barbara's? Was it the stress of not only raising Barbara, but falling in love with her? Was it the tension that came about when Asura plopped on my doorstep? WHAT WAS THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE PONY'S BACK? All of these things, and MORE, SO MUCH MORE, swirled in my head so fast that I closed my dream avatar's eyes to prevent them from bugging out with the frustration. The pressure was intense, so intense that I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. Except I wasn't the Legendary Ippos, the Strongest Earth Pony. I wasn't Douris, fated to forever maintain the framework of the stars on his feathered wings. Oh dear Celestia, I so wanted to just shrug and say "To HELL with all this crap, I'm gonna do what I want!" but I could not stop thinking about the things I wanted to not think about. It hit me. Right then. I was the one who broke my back. Why do I push myself so hard? Why do I try so hard? Why do I try and keep my engine revving twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week? BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID OF WHAT WOULD HAPPEN. I wanted to replace uncertainty with control. And instead of my life getting better, it got worse. If I was calm, I might not have collapsed. "Ah... that is what We found interesting," the SOMETHING said. A light, shining straight in my eyes, pierced my foggy and overworked brain. Next thing I knew, I was in the hospital. It was late at night when I woke up. The hum and rhythmic beeping of the many different machines overloaded my ears. It didn't help matters that I was alone in the room, no other soul to welcome me to the land of the conscious. The bland, white walls and ceramic tiles on the floor made the place look brighter than I thought it would. There was nothing else to do, and I didn't feel like trying to signal a nurse or doctor, so I just fell back to sleep. I was sure that the professionals would know if I was alright. When I would wake up the next day, people would actually be awake to seriously discuss whatever was coming next for my apparent treatment. Sleep was dreamless. As tempting as it was to over-analyze that other dream, I resisted and simply let my mind do whatever it wanted. It decided to do nothing. When I woke again, one of the nurses approached my bed with a bedpan. "Good morning," I mumbled. "What day is it?" The nurse did not say anything. She slid the bedpan underneath my rump, then leaned forward over the bed. She put both her hooves on my right shoulder, and I felt a sharp pain unlike anything I had felt in a long time. It was a peculiar ache, one felt from both the strain of sitting in one place for a long time and the weariness of repetitive movement. Then the room turned red. The beeping of machines morphed and warbled into something oddly familiar yet still disturbing, almost like the chirps and whistles of a songbird. The light went from sterile white to angled, shadowy orange as the room expanded into an arched space, the source of light melting away from the ceiling to reform by an entrance that bucked and swayed. All the walls had the visual texture of canvas, and everything shook and jostled as if I was in some kind of old-time wagon, bouncing over terrain to some unknown destination. Before I noticed the nurse again, something told me that something I had experienced, or may be experiencing now, was simply a nightmare, some abstract representation of the torment I had gone through. Part of me wondered if this moment in time is the point where I mind will snap, so that now my life will be full of delusions that I would be unable to distinguish from the reality of everyday life, as if the Changeling hallucinations were not bad enough. I pitied Barbara. She has to put up with a lot of crap from me already; she shouldn't have to shepherd an insane and love-sick husband on top of that. If I could move, I would cry. Right when I had those thoughts of Barbara, I noticed the nurse again. Her eyes were bloodshot, a wet cloth over her front hooves... or was that a single, solitary hoof? There was a sad desperation in her bloodshot blue eyes, one born from the pain of losing another loved one. My right shoulder stung from the hot water in the cloth, but she continued to massage it over the wound. Her uniform was also gone, along with her original mane, coat and eye coloration. I suddenly realized that the washing motion of her hoof was far more gentle than the matter-of-fact strokes that would go with the nursing profession. She was whispering something softly in my ear, her quiet rasp recognizable from somewhere in my foggy brain. I suddenly realized that there was a gap where her left shoulder and leg should be. Combined with the dark orange appearance of the coat, I knew who was standing over me. Weasel! Dammit, gotta wake up now, gotta get up now, COME ON DAMMIT WHY CAN'T I GET UP?! WHERE THE HECK AM I, HOW'D I GET HERE, WHAT'S THE FRIGGING DEAL, WHY IS SHE HERE AND WHY— I could feel my blood boil, and I tried to shove Weasel off of me with all my remaining strength. It must not have been much, because she barely rocked in place. Her eyes went wide when she felt my movement. "A-are you, are you finally conscious?!" Weasel's face was inches from mine, as if her hot breath could bring my faculties back quicker than otherwise. "Please, just, say something, anything!" At least I could turn my head, which I did. I took some deep breaths, and somehow a yawn escaped my lips. "W-what the... where are—" "Barbara! Asura!" Weasel shot up and ran to a shadowy part of the canvas-covered wagon that I wasn't looking at. My heart went in my throat when I heard those two names. "Wake up, wake up, Pantrostic's coming around!" "Great! Amazing! Now we just need to OUTRUN THESE NIGHTMARE DAMNED KILLERS, and we'll be PEACHY!" I heard Barbara's voice come from the front of the wagon. I chuckled to myself; for all I know, this whole situation was one big fat delirious fantasy that I had finally become conscious of. Next thing I knew, my sides were splitting with laughter that hurled out of my throat. I continued to puke guffaws well past the point of hyperventilation. I saw Weasel's face contort from exhausted glee to scared concern right before she threw herself on top of me. The wind was knocked out of my lungs, leaving me gasping for air. "W-we-weas— g-getoff—" "You're weak. Stop laughing so hard. You'll exhaust yourself again and pass out." I couldn't believe that Weasel was stupid enough to believe that knocking the wind out of a pony would stop them from hyperventilating. No, I KNEW that Weasel wasn't that stupid. Hokay, something's wrong here in the State of Weasel, better calm down so that she calms down. Then again, why is she shivering? I could feel every part of her body trembling as she lay across my stomach. Her breath was also shallow and uneven. I twisted around a little and saw that her eyes twitched in a random pattern. I could not for the life of me figure out why she was this exhausted; surely caring for an invalid wasn't that demanding... was it? Something flashed across what looked like the wagon entrance. My heart raced from a sudden jolt of fear, panic and general hysteria that briefly crossed my mind, and vanished just as quickly. Then, I swear that my fur stood on end and I just about trembled as hard as Weasel. The entire wagon roared. The canvas sky ripped open as a bright bolt of neon light split the fabric down the middle. The bolt of light maintained its position, as if it was some kind of spell, and flew right past my right forehoof, shaving a tiny sliver of metal off my horseshoe and blasting through the wagon wood with ease. The now-split wagon separated itself, and I was somehow launched through the other half of the wagon's remaining canvas roof and tumbled outside onto some dirt. The entire world swirled around my vision, and every instinct I had said that there was danger all around me, but I couldn't focus worth two bits. Time slowed down for me, as if something momentous was about to happen. That inner voice I argue with on a constant basis spoke up: Are you really this weak? Is this really the end for you? Will this be all you accomplish for all your hardships and troubles? I could feel the ground beneath me as I closed my eyes. I held my breath, my body wanting to shiver, but somehow unable to. I broke the silence: "No." I remembered a brief moment of blackness. I opened my eyes, and found myself sprawled on my back, staring up at the clear blue sky. Barbara hovered over me instead, and for a moment I wondered if I had merely imagined Weasel's presence, if she was some manifestation of my surely fractured psyche. Weasel did factor into some of my research for a series of books I did, but I could not think of a good reason for her to be here at this present point in time. Guess I really have gone insane, eh? "He's coming around!" Barbara looked over her shoulder. "Weasel, Asura, he's waking up!" So much for the insanity plea. Their three faces hovered over mine, showing varying levels of concern. Weasel's eyes were still bloodshot, but the sadness and desperation were... hidden? There was no indication of any kind of loss that I had noticed before, but there was a glint in her eyes that told me where the emotion had disappeared to. Barbara was on the verge of tears; I just about cried myself, seeing her eyes well up with concern that always triggered guilt in me. Asura, however... His eyes shone with emotion, but his face was static. No quiver of the lip, no water at the eyes, no worried crease on his forehead. I couldn't help but stare at him as I tried to think of events that could have made him so... withdrawn? Was that the word? No, it was worse than that: something clearly bothered him, but I know him. He would have brought it up if something had bothered him. He's not one to keep to himself, after all. I realized that my fixed stare had drawn the others' eyes to Asura's. The air was still as Asura stared back at us, his eyes burning though his face remained chiseled in stone. The tension became thick again, and I somehow imagined some kind of tug­-of­-war between Asura and the rest of us; ropes where the lines of sight connected and made contact, pulled taut by the sudden intensity. I do not know who won or who gave up or who lost, but I could feel a clear sigh of relief from everyone when the moment passed, the imagined ropes vanishing as fast as they had formed. I myself took a deep breath and tried to roll over, so that blood could flow in a somewhat normal fashion. I was not prepared for the screams of pain from every nerve ending that made contact with the ground. This was worse than the pins and needles that would come when waking a leg from numb sleep. It felt like every cell of my body was getting pinched and twisted. I blacked out again, and once again my mind was silent. Perhaps it was too exhausted from whatever the heck it was that I did to overcome... whatever it was I just experienced. How else could I have fallen asleep again? Fear created adrenaline, the arch-­enemy of restful sleep. And I had managed to at least relax somewhat before my brain went into hibernation. That meant that the—was it danger, or some kind of pursuit? I had forgotten—had vanished, which allowed me to sleep again. I woke up again, this time in some kind of cave, and like in the hospital, no one was awake to notice me. I tried to sit up, and was surprised at how easy the action felt. I took a deep breath, and smiled at how much I could fill my lungs. I passed a hoof over my right shoulder to confirm that a bandage had been put there. I managed to stand, and made my way to the cave entrance, taking care to pick my way around the sleeping forms of Barbara, Asura and Weasel. It was night when I exited the cave. The silence made my heart beat loud against my chest, although I was calm. There was a small pile of moldy bones, none of them bigger than the delicate structures of a songbird's skeleton, a few feet away from the entrance. I was surprised at this, for an obvious reason: why would the skeleton of a small animal be so close to the entrance to an inhabited cave? Wouldn't Barbara or Weasel clear out such debris before bedding down? I knew that the presence of those bones may attract undesirable creatures or spirits, so I looked around for a good spot to bury them. It took a bit of pawing the ground to find a patch of reasonable dirt, but I managed to find a small hole underneath a nearby tree that could be covered by loam and moss. I must have worked for a couple hours, because the cloudy sky began to brighten a little by the time the bones were interred. It always felt good to get my hooves dirty with honest labor. I went back to the cave entrance, where I laid down and watched the early morning dawn. The grey clouds dominated the sky, which dulled the varied green and brown hues of the forest beyond the cave. The lack of blue turned the entire scene into a murky mosaic as the black from the shadows and the outlines of thin branches blurred in the grey-filtered light. It was quite calming, and yet I did not feel the need for sleep. Perhaps I had been asleep for weeks, such that I would be fully rested when I would wake up. I heard movement in the cave behind me. I glanced back to see Barbara sit up and look at me with a sleepy expression. "Good morning!" I said. "Sleep well?" She smiled wide and joyful as she stood up, stretched and yawned. She trotted over to me and sat down beside me. She plunked her head gently on my right shoulder and looked out at the dawn with me. I looked back out as the grey day deepened in its soft grayness. We said nothing for quite a while, both of us soaking in that calm spectacle of boredom usually found on a rainy night or a sweltering, clear day, brought about by the understanding that weather kept folks cooped up and they have nothing better to do than stop and stare at the state of the environment. I can't remember the last time we had this kind of a relaxed moment; there was always something to do, some problem to solve, some crisis to try to avert. I was pretty sure that I was in heaven right at that moment. "Weasel had come by right as you collapsed back at the house," Barbara said. "She said she knew a safe place to take you where no one else would try to kill you. She said she worked with the Canterlot Patrol." She sighed. "That black-coated stranger had stalked me for Celestia knows how long before he went down to the basement to smoke me out. I didn't want someone else like that close to me again, so I went along with her. She smuggled us way out here." "And where is 'here'?" I asked. "Somewhere in the Everfree Forest. That's all I know. Considering Weasel didn't try to kill you at first sight, I figured it would be okay." She turned to look at me. "Did I do the right thing?" she asked. "How do you feel about your decision?" She looked down, as she thought about my question. "I... I think I did the right thing, but that could have been the fear and smoke and panic influencing me. I guess I got lucky." "Well... we are alive, and Weasel is a very good ally to have," I said. "How do you know her?" "I came to her, actually. I was researching material for those books on evil ponies and was coming up empty. I got a break when someone sent me a letter with her then-current contact information." I sighed, uncomfortable with divulging what came next, but I knew I had no choice at this point. "That was when our inheritance dried up." I could feel Barbara's eyes on me, and felt too guilty to match her gaze. "I spent it all to get the information for those books. Which proceeded to sell at a snail's pace at first, then die off altogether." There was no sound, no movement as Barbara registered the information I gave to her. "I... I knew that you had spent the inheritance," she said, "but I had no idea it was for those books." She reached out to my face, and turned it to look at her. I was surprised that she did not show any anger; her expression was more like some form of pity. "Please," she said, "talk to me when it comes to things that affect our family in that way." She kissed me, which almost startled me out of her grasp. She gently snuggled back up to me, which put a little pressure on my right shoulder. It twinged a little, but it wasn't too serious. I happened to glance back out to the forest. My breath just about choked in my chest at the sight that glance contained. Barbara noticed my distress and looked at me with a worried face. "Barbara, you do remember that I hallucinate Changelings if my left shoulder gets squeezed?" I asked. Barbara stood up, checking her position. "Did I pinch your shoulder?" "Just... look out there and tell me if you see that assassin from the house." I pointed with my hoof. He stood in a clearing, his whip held in his mouth and the business end wrapped around a hoof. His coat was a dull charcoal black in the grey light, and his lack of a cutie mark bothered me to no end. I could see the metal blades on the leading edges of his horseshoes shining the dull sheen of steel. What stood out the most, however, was the assassin's eyes. They were a frighteningly familiar piercing brown. They were Venusia's eyes. The eyes of Asura's mother. The eyes of that... that insane creature... the one who raped me. "Pantrostic, all I see is forest." I took a deep breath, and blinked. The assassin disappeared, just like the changelings did. I shivered a little at the unsettling memory of seeing that pony again. "Well... that's a new wrinkle," I muttered. "Press left shoulder for Changelings, pinch right shoulder for the assassin." I looked away as Barbara snuggled back up to me. I didn't want to look in her face; I was sure that I would see that guilt-triggering concoction of pity, sorrow, love and caring, and that I would probably overreact if I looked at it. "You always suffer for us," she said, her soft tone barely disguising her emotions. "Damn right I do," I responded. "You should be the one getting breaks, not us." "Damn right I deserve one." "You're always ready to respond, even if you're a mess." "Damn right I am." "Why won't you let us shoulder some of your burden?" "Because that's not who I am." I turned to see the pained expression on Barbara's face. I brought her lips close and planted a long, wet kiss there. Our first full kiss, I realized. We grasped each other and kissed like star—crossed lovers on the verge of being torn apart by the cliche demands of destiny. We parted lips for a second, and time stopped as we stared into each other's eyes. I realized why those who kiss are so focused on the eyes of the one being kissed; the eyes dominate your vision, and every little fleck of color in the iris becomes as visible as the Morning Star. So much detail is found in the partner's eyes that it becomes easy to believe that they really are windows to the soul. I saw that she was excited, but apprehensive; ready to plunge into an abyss, but scared of the rocks below, to use a strained metaphor. I hugged her close, just about on the verge of tears. "Barbara... I love you." She squeezed against me, her heart beating through both her chest and mine. The water loosed from our eyes and trickled down our necks, where it seared lines of cool on our overheating hides. There were no sobs, just tears. I wondered if sobs only happened if the tears were of pain or anger. "Pantrostic, I am tired of you taking point on family matters," she spoke in an emotional tone. "I am tired of being benched while you beat back the other team single-hoofedly." "Single-hoofed," I corrected out of reflex. "Whatever." She rolled us over so she was on top of me. She lifted her upper body just enough to look into my eyes. "I want to help," she said, still crying. "I have always wanted to help." "And you have. Over and over again. Every time I needed you, you were there to help." "It's not enough." She collapsed against my chest, her breath betraying how intense this was for her. "You are the one who always gets hurt. Y-you, you are th-the one who a-always s-suffers." She sat back up, her eyes glowing with some emotion I couldn't place. "It's not fair," she said. "Barbara...." "I am your wife, Pantrostic!" Her breath grew more ragged as she spoke. "I can do so much more than I already have! We need to be a unit, working as one!" She fell back on my chest again. "You can't go through life alone, and for the life of me I can't figure out why you act so lonely!" She squeezed me tight, her grip on my heart both literal and emotional. "I failed you!" she sobbed. "I want you to be happy, but either you wouldn't let me or I would be too much of a coward to step up for the sacrifice! 'You're just a foal, Barbara,' I'd tell myself! 'You can't make him happy, Barbara!' 'You'll never make time for him, Barbara!' 'You'll make him hate you, Barbara!'" She took a deep breath, sat up again, and looked me in the eye. Her determination pierced my bleeding heart and left me breathless before her gaze. "No more," she muttered. She positioned herself in a strange way, and it took me a couple of minutes before a suggestive motion from her alerted me to her intention. "Barbara, that's—" "—exactly what I need to do," she muttered. I wanted to pull away just a little bit, calm the both of us down so we could think about this... but some part of me knew this wouldn't happen. I thought back to my dream, shortly after my first collapse from the assassin attack. I sighed, and held her close. "Being a wife is more than being a mate," I said. "Working as a unit means making sacrifices for the well-being of the other. You're right; I have sacrificed a lot. But you have too, in more ways than one." I looked into her crying face, and used my cheek to brush away her tears. "You chose the most difficult path for your modeling career because it paid the best. Without that money, we would have lost our family home." I gripped her tighter as she sobbed on top of me. "You kept your distance after the... the rape, so that I could have time to work out all the crap running through my heart at the time, even though you needed someone to talk to after our Moms and Dads died. You were only nine going on ten years old, and yet..." I throat almost choked with emotion, and I knew I couldn't complete that sentence. I began to cry as I continued: "Y-you have always supported me and my own career as a student of Princess Celestia. I, I wouldn't have lasted nearly as long if you were not there to keep me on task, to force me to move forward, to challenge what I could do." I kissed her again, both of us crying. "I would not be half the pony I am today if you were not there to help me. And that help always came at a cost, one you always paid without hesitation." "We have each other," I said, "and as long as we can work together, we will not only survive, but thrive." I kissed her again, and then my mind realized that I could ask her a certain important question: "What day is it?" "The twelfth," she answered, smiling a little before she kissed me again. "Did you have something in mind for my coming-of-age birthday present?" My heart did a nearly-infinite number of joyous conniption fits as the reality of that answer entrenched itself in my awareness. Someone tapped me on my shoulder before I could answer Barbara. I looked up to see Weasel with a bag over her shoulder, standing right next to Barbara and I. Barbara noticed Weasel's presence, and I swear I could feel the heat from the blush on her cheeks. "I, uh, need to change your bandage," Weasel said. Barbara and I looked at each other, and sighed the biggest sigh of our marriage. Before Barbara could move out of the way to let Weasel do her thing, I kissed her again. "Tonight," I said to her. "I won't screw that up." I could tell Barbara was a little disappointed, but she smiled, got up and kissed my forehead. She then went back into the cave, my heart aching as she walked away. I took a deep breath, trying in vain to calm the storm of emotions that battered at my mind and vied for my attention. Weasel came up and started tugging at the bandage on my right shoulder, but I didn't look at her. I looked away, trying not to bring my feelings to her attention, hoping that she would focus on changing the bandage and not my face. "So, why did you save my life?" I asked as she worked on me. I glanced a little smirk on Weasel's face, something I didn't expect. "Because you saved mine." I thought back, trying to remember exactly how that could have happened. All that I did with her was get info on the criminal underworld's key figures, so I could write those books on them. I paid a fortune for that information, and got in trouble with Celestia over it at the time. Could it be something connected to that? I doubt it; I hardly think that hardened criminals could be defeated by a series of biographies. "You were not aware just how secretive the smuggling cartels and thieves' guilds were when you bought that info on them," Weasel said as she finished stripping away the old gauze. "When those books showed up in every public library from Canterlot to Neighbraska to Saddle Arabia, power struggles happened everywhere." She looked down at the ground, as if choosing her words carefully. "I... owed some of those ponies and organizations a... a large fortune in bits. None of those ponies or organizations survived the underground wars. Without the debtors, my debt... disappeared." She shook her head. "I bought and sold information for a living because of... past mistakes. My life was on the edge of falling apart when the war solved my problems. A war that you started." I took a deep breath, determined not to overreact to the information Weasel just told me. No wonder I got attacked by an assassin. Every criminal in the world now has a grudge etched in blood against me. "I... I am glad that you benefited from that," I said, doing what I could to pick the right words. "It must not have been easy to separate yourself from that lifestyle." "I managed." She patted a hoof on the new strips of gauze she had wrapped around my shoulder. I was surprised at how dexterous she was with her single forehoof. I did not think I had the courage to ask how she had lost her entire left foreleg. "We cannot stay here," I said as she worked. "Do you have a death wish?" "I have a task to do." "Safety first, saving the world second." "A saved world is a safe world." "As if you would survive the attempt." "Everyone else would. That's what matters." She said nothing as she finished wrapping and tightening the bandage onto my right shoulder. "Not too tight, I hallucinate when it's too tight." "Do you want it to fall off?" "Of course not, but," I sighed, unable to make an effective response. "I'll see what I can do," Weasel said. She finished tying the last strap, and stepped back. I craned my neck to check her work. The bandage was solid, allowing enough flex to give my shoulder room to move, yet firm enough that dirt and debris wouldn't get in the wound. "Thanks," I said. "Least I could do," she said. She walked around me and out of the cave entrance. "You buried the bones?" she called back. "Yeah," I said. "Didn't want a wraith terrorizing us." "A wraith?" "Yup." It was a few seconds before she spoke again. "I... I thought our beds were far enough away, that some minor spirit would keep other ponies away." "Wraiths feed off certain emotions. They magically force ponies to feel those emotions so that they become stronger. So wraiths start weak and become overpowering as they gain in strength. Besides, in the Everfree, if that is really where we are, there is no such thing as a 'minor' spirit." I heard a sigh. "The things you learn." "Yeah." I stood up and followed Weasel out the cave entrance. She was sitting in the middle of the clearing, her head angled up as she searched the cloudy sky. I sat down beside her and looked up as well. "I wasn't kidding when I said we couldn't stay here," I said. "We are safe here. We move, we expose ourselves to danger." "I'm on a secret mission from Princess Celestia." "Nice try." I stood up, and started to walk into the forest. Weasel followed me, grabbed me by the rump and tried to pull me back. I shook her off and kept walking. "Pantrostic, hold up, let's talk about this—" "Then stop assuming you know everything about me." I turned around, and faced her from the other end of the clearing. "Why else would a wet-behind-the-ears, pretentious, and unknown writer pay a fortune in bits to get information on the criminal underworld? Why else would I be going to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, with all my schooling fees waived? Why else would I be a basket case with everything I do?" She was about to speak, but then she stopped. She looked away, her intense expression betraying how hard her mind was working. "That fortune was every bit I had, and included my inheritance from my dead parents," I continued. "Nobody bought or so much as borrowed one of those biographies. I wrote those books as a public service to Equestria. So how else could I have stayed in an exclusive and expensive school? Princess Celestia paid for it." "I... see." I sighed. "I know how crazy it sounds, but it is true. She had assigned a mission to me the day I got attacked. So I need to get back and do what I need to do." "Do you need to go to Canterlot?" I remembered Twilight Sparkle's travel plans. "Just to Ponyville." She furrowed her brow in thought. "The little village at the edge of the Everfree?" "I guess so. That's where Twilight Sparkle was going to stop for supplies and crew. I'm supposed to meet her there, if she hasn't gone on to our objective already." She sighed. "If you absolutely have to, then I guess I could take you, and keep Barbara and Asura here—" "No. Not only will they want to come, but they'll be left alone in the middle of this forest." I sighed. "I understand the logic, but the drawbacks are too big." "I can make this place safe for them." "They would be safest with us." She bit her lower lip. I could see her frustration. "I never thought I'd be out-thought by you." "It's not me. It's the situation. Sometimes, things are hard to avoid." "Tell me about it." I smiled and walked back to Weasel. "We don't have to leave now. When's the soonest we'd be ready for travel?" "Tomorrow morning." "Sounds like a plan. Besides," I said as I walked past her, "I don't think living here for the rest of our lives is an option." I heard her chuckle as she turned around with me. She went into the cave, and I laid back down by the cave entrance. The midday pure grey was as relaxed as the morning's dirty grey, and I almost fell asleep again before I heard someone else walk up from the cave. "Hey Dad." I turned around and saw Asura looking at me. "Hey Asura. How are you doing?" He looked away, and started to turn around. I stood up and put a hoof on his shoulder before he could walk back into the cave. "Tell me what's bothering you, because I'm your Dad. It's my job to help you." Asura shivered a little. "I'm fine." "Oh? You've been through a lot. You sure you're okay?" "It's not your problem." "I'm your Dad. Your problems are my problems." "Really?" "Absolutely." He looked at me. He was crying. "I almost killed a pony." I lay back down, my hoof still on Asura's shoulder. "Talk with me about it." He lay down with me, his body shivering as he cried. "He was trying to kill you." "Mm-hmm." "I would have killed him." "Uh-huh." "He was evil." "I guess so." He laid down, his head resting on his forelegs. "Then why do I feel so bad about that?!" "Because you're not him." He looked up at me. "He tried to kill because he wanted to," I continued. "You tried to kill because you were protecting me. That's something that makes the two of you different. There's also the fact that you are worried about what you almost did. He probably never gave it a second thought." I put my legs over his shoulders, pulling him a little closer to me. "That's what makes you a good pony, and him an evil pony." He sobbed into my chest. "It still felt bad. I could have killed him, and that would have made me bad." He looked in my eyes. "It was so easy, too. Just a twist of the neck." He shivered and put his cheek at my neck. "I... I could kill any pony. No one could stop me." I took a deep breath, and held him close to me. "Asura, there are a couple things I will tell you right now. One, do you feel how your body is right now? When it's like that, it's harder to think straight. So just breathe with me, and we'll calm your body down so we can think about that problem." I took a long and deep breath, held it for a second, then let it out slowly. I could feel Asura trying to do the same. I continued that pattern of breath, Asura struggling to match it. A few minutes later, he finally managed to have an even breath, which made me smile a little. After a few more minutes, Asura had stopped crying and was breathing better. I lifted Asura's head to mine and asked, "How do you feel now?" "A LOT better. Thanks, Dad." He smiled at me. "Is that really all it takes to calm down? Just breathing easy?" I smiled a little, and looked up, wondering where to start with that subject. I decided to start with a story I liked to tell. "Well, breathing helps. But there is more to it than that. And if you'd indulge your father, I'd like to tell you a story." I saw his eyes perk up, and I knew I had his attention. I smiled, and began: "Many centuries ago, there was a Lord in the country of Tramplevania. He ran his country well, but he always felt sad for a reason that he couldn't figure out. His sadness began to absorb his thoughts, and he turned away from his subjects and towards a way to cheer him up, so he wouldn't be sad anymore. "As he was desperately searching through his Royal Library, he came across a note from his father, the previous Lord. Among the other things on it, it mentioned a ring that could make a sad person happy, and a happy person sad. By this point, The Lord had tried everything else to cheer him up, from jesters and clowns to comedians and even some honest hard labor at one point." "He must have been really sad," Asura said. "Very sad, indeed. The Lord was at his wit's end, so he called his smartest advisor to his side and gave him the note. 'Find me this ring,' The Lord told the advisor, 'and I will reward you with whatever you desire.' The advisor not only agreed, but left that day to search for the special ring. "The advisor looked up and down Tramplevania, from the windiest, iciest peaks of the tallest mountains to the deepest bed of the deepest lakes, and everywhere in between. No matter what he tried, he could not find the special ring that The Lord needed. Oh, he saw all sorts of rings; enchanted rings that made people stay awake, some that made people sleep and never wake up, others that could shoot fire and lightning and others that protected ponies from fire and lightning. But none of them could make a sad person happy, or a happy person sad." "Not ONE ring could do that?" "Not that the advisor found, yes. The advisor began to feel sad himself, because he had failed his Lord. His Lord was counting on him to find this ring, and he hadn't found it. The advisor had looked everywhere, too. There was nowhere else to look. The advisor started to make his way back to the Lord's castle when a dirty old peddler came up to him." "What's a peddler?" "Kind of like a shop keeper or store owner, but without a shop or store. They sell their stuff in the streets or wherever they can find a good spot." "Oh." "Anyway, the peddler came up to the advisor and said, 'Hullo there, guvnor! I'd wager ya'd like a bauble or two from me wares! Cheer ya right up, they will!' The advisor considered just walking away, but something told him to take a look at the peddler's stuff. When he did, the advisor saw that the peddler had necklaces, earrings, all sorts of jewelry. The peddler had only one ring, though, and the moment the advisor saw it, he knew that it was the ring he was searching for. The advisor bought the ring right away and ran straight to The Lord with his discovery. "The advisor presented The Lord with the ring, who picked it up. The Lord looked at it for a while, and something magical happened. He began to cry." "Wait, why is he crying if the ring is supposed to make him happy?" "Happy ponies cry sometimes too." "Huh." "The Lord came down and hugged the Advisor. 'You did it! You did it! The ring, it works, it works!' The Lord shouted for the whole world to hear him. The Lord danced up and down the hall in his castle, happy for the first time in a long time. He glanced back at the ring as he stopped to catch his breath, and he began to frown. 'Ah, but it was so fleeting," he muttered as he became sad again. He looked at the ring a third time, and smiled again. 'Yet the same must be true for sadness, with this ring at my side,' he said. "The Lord turned to the advisor. 'For your loyalty and your cleverness, I shall grant you anything you want. Name it, and it shall be yours,' The Lord said. 'I desire to travel beyond the country, Sire,' the advisor answered. 'Then travel to your heart's content! There will always be a home here in Tramplevania for you, should you ever desire to return!' "The special ring did not have any enchantments or any gemstones or anything like that. It was simply a small loop of solid copper. What made it special was four words that were written on it: "This, too, shall pass." I looked back to Asura, where I saw the confusion in his eyes. "Emotion, like being happy, sad, upset, giggly, whatever you may feel will pass away in time. That's how emotions work. You can't stop yourself from feeling whatever you feel, but you can be patient and wait for the feelings to pass. By treating your feelings like that, you can think and stay focused on what you need to do." My heart soared as Asura's eyes lit up with understanding. "So THAT's why I kept getting beat by my teacher! I never focused, but he did!" He looked away, his face worried again. "But how do you handle the feeling that you've done something bad?" "How can you do something good if your mind is stuck on the bad thing that was done? Just let the feeling pass, because you will stop feeling bad if you relax and let it pass like it is designed to do." Asura stood up, pushing me aside as he did so. "I gotta try something," he said as he ran out of the cave. I got up and followed him, curious as to what he was going to do. When I had walked out to the clearing, Asura had assumed one of the most impractical fighting stances I had ever seen. He was balanced on one hind leg, his forelegs and other hind leg extended out to his sides and in front of him. He made a tiny jump, kicked with his supporting hind hoof and planted his other hind leg to keep his balance. He brought his forelegs into a guard position in front of him. He remained balanced like that. I heard something crash in the forest. I looked over the forest at the other edge of the clearing, and saw what made the noise; a branch had fallen down. Because of how it fell, I could see the break. Except it didn't look like a break. It looked like a cut. And no part of the cut indicated the tooth of a saw or the sliver of a knife blade. I looked back toward Asura. I noticed that his eyes were closed. Asura took a deep breath, and made another strike at the air. This time, I saw the shockwave extending from Asura's hooves out to the forest, and couldn't believe it when the shockwave neatly cut another branch off of a tree. Asura repeated these actions of deep breath/air strike/shockwave cut for a few minutes, before he sat down and crossed his hind legs under him, putting his forelegs on his knees. He became so still, I thought for a second that he had overexerted himself again, but he wasn't shivering with the effort of that feat I saw him do. He was simply breathing in a long, deep pattern that barely betrayed a hint of life. Not once did he open his eyes. I walked over to the branches Asura cut to confirm what I saw, barely able to believe it myself. Sure enough, all the cuts were smooth and straight, even one or two of them which had sliced knots in the wood. Asura had wielded the air around him to cut the branches. Without opening his eyes. "It's about being calm," I heard Asura speak. I looked back to him. "The more calm I am, the better I fight. But more than that, the better I understand how to fight." He took a deep breath and stood up, opening his eyes. "Dad, I promise you that I will never try to kill another pony again. I don't have to go that far, no matter what's going on." A light shone on Asura's haunch which made me hold my breath. Is now the time? Is this his talent? Is this the moment that will define him for the rest of his life? The light faded, and Asura looked at his haunch. He looked away and chuckled. "Well, what did I expect?" he muttered. I walked over to him, and saw a tattoo square on his haunch. I was so excited that the mark had appeared that I grabbed Asura in a giant bear hug and swung him around above my head. I laughed and laughed, probably sounding quite manic. I hadn't even gotten a good look at the cutie mark, I was that excited. I let him down gently, and was grateful to see his smile. I still held him close, and as I did so, I got a better look at his cutie mark. It was a pony with another awkward, bipedal fighting stance. Wavy lines swirled from fore-hoof to fore-hoof. The mark seemed to represent the coiled anticipation of the snake and the calm patience of a predator. It radiated control and focus. I thought that I couldn't be more proud of my son than when he won that tournament. I knew how wrong that assumption was as I held him in my legs, his cutie mark visible for the world to see. I found myself crying as I held him. "Hey, Dad, let's go see if Weasel needs help." I took a deep breath and held Asura out from me. Both of us were smiling, and I was crying. "Yeah... let's go see. And if we ever get near civilization again, I will buy an ice cream shop in your name, Asura." He laughed and rolled his eyes. "I don't think you need to do that, Dad."