//------------------------------// // The Filly // Story: When Angels Call // by The Ranger //------------------------------// It was a warm spring day, the birds chirped in the trees, and the sky had been cleared completely of any cloud, thanks to the Pegasi. On the ground, foals ran around playing in the green grass, some of them having their families and friends with them on this perfect, cool day. The sound of young laughter mixed with the birds singing, and from her spot outside the train station, Flying Free felt the world couldn’t be any better than this. It was the textbook example of a world and life in perfect harmony and peace, and she loved it to no end. Not only did the summer breeze warm her body, but the atmosphere around her warmed her very soul. She was sitting on a small bench, placed close to the entrance into the train station, close to the wall. Behind it, nothing more than the platform which she presumed was empty at the moment, everypony waiting for the train was spending their time in the park in the front of the station. To her right, a couple of colts tried to climb one of the many trees that dotted the park, but to no success. Free smiled at their fruitless and innocent attempts. They were still young, and would soon realize that equine have no place in the trees. Her look tore away from the two colts as she heard Opal’s voice calling for her, and she turned her head just in time to see her little filly galloping towards her across the playground. She looked a lot like her mother with her dark cyan coat, but her mane she got from her father. Its blue strands swayed around her face as she hurried towards her mother. “Is there something wrong, sweetheart?” Flying Free asked her only foal, as said foal placed herself down on the bench next to her. “I’m bored...” Opal said with the same look she gave her mom when she didn’t want to do her homework. “Is the train here yet?” “Not yet, but I’m sure it won’t be long now.” Free put her hoof on the neck of her daughter, brushing her shimmering blue mane. “It’s never gonna show up…” The young foal let her head sink in boredom, complete with a loud sigh of annoyance. “Of course it is, we just need to wait a few more minutes. You should learn to be a bit more patient.” Opal didn’t answer her mother, clearly fed up with the waiting game. Free felt her motherly instinct kick in, and looked around her for anything Opal could spend her time with. Her eyes stopped at the unicorn colts by the tree once again. “Look, sweetheart…” She said, and motioned her daughter to look at where she nodded. “Those two look nice, don’t they? Maybe you could go play with them for a while?” “No.” Opal answered bluntly, squeezing her lips together in her typical ‘no-I-wont’ fashion. “Colts are stupid.” Free couldn’t help but laugh at the filly’s words. Even though she liked to think of her as special, she still acted just like any other foal would do, and a general disgust for colts and germs came with it. Opal looked at her laughing mother, clearly not understanding what was so funny. “I just realized something.” Free said as she finally stopped laughing, and looked at her daughter’s confused face. “Unicorns are not a creature of the air.” Just as she said this, one of the colts tried using his weak magic to teleport up into the branches above them. Instead, he materialized just halfway up, and landed on the other colt with a muffled thud. “Like sheep?” Opal asked. “Yes, like sheep. Remember that one sheep we read about in the newspaper? What was his name, Harold?” Free said with a smile. “Mom, I’ve already heard that one thousands of times.” The young filly stretched her legs and got up from her seat on the bench. “Can I go and wait inside the station for a while? It’s so boring out here…” “Sure, sweetheart.” Free answered Opal, lowering her head to nuzzle her cheek as she did. “Just be careful, okay? I’ll be with you in just a second.” Opal smiled at her mother and nodded before she ran off through the doors unto the platform. Free followed her with her eyes until she disappeared through the doors. She would join her soon, but she wanted to soak up some more of the summer breeze and sun first. The two colts had finally given up in their attempts to scale the tree, and had run off somewhere, she couldn’t see them anymore. For a few seconds she scanned the park and playground in front of her, looking for any sign of somepony she knew, perhaps Lightning would be outside in the sun today as well. She often saw him as her own son, and if he wasn’t so old she would have gladly adopted him. But there was no way to change his age, and so that thought would never become reality. A shame, even Opal like the young unicorn. She used to say his green mane looked like a misshapen mushroom dropped on his head. Lightning would laugh, and respond with saying that her blue mane looked like somepony had poured a bucket of jelly on her head. All three of them really had a good relationship, and Free loved them both as family. After a few more seconds, Free’s searching gaze came to a stop as she thought she saw Lightning Quill, standing by a tree close by. She was about to get up or wave to get his attention when she realized that it wasn’t him, despite the similar colors. It was a stallion, and a unicorn just like him, but his mane and tail wasn’t green; they were white, just like his coat, almost glowing in the sun. She squinted, and thought she could see some sort of black object resting on the ground next to him, but it was too far away to make out any features. He seemed to look straight at her, and despite the great distance between them, she could feel his eyes burning into her skin like needles. Suddenly, Free almost jumped as she heard the sound of the train rolling unto the station. She looked back to the place where she’d seen the stallion, only to realize he was now gone. The mare felt her skin crawl as she got up from her seat and walked towards the doors. A few seconds later, she heard a scream coming from the inside, followed by several worried voices. Her heart stopped, and once again her motherly instincts made themselves known. She hurried through the doors, and the scene that met her eyes was one that would haunt her for the rest of her life. The train had stopped halfway through the station, and several ponies, most of them station workers, had gather around the locomotive, scurrying around the train tracks like crazed ants. She could hear somepony calling for help, calling for medical attention, and another saying something about holding her head high to stop the blood flow. Flying Free couldn’t move any longer. And even if she could, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. She was too terrified to even think, but already knew what had happened. Her brain did its best to deny it, tried to shut her down in order to spare her from the pain. But it was still all too real. She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. Inside her head, she was fighting a mental battle with herself to stay connected to reality, no matter how horrible it was. And then finally, she gave up as the crowd of ponies parted, and she could see a piece of a dark blue mane, partially coated in something wet. Once her brain connected the dots, it was already too late. The stallions that had gotten Opal loose from underneath the train were met by Flying Free’s lifeless body, passed out on the platform floor. -------------------------------------------------- Free awoke from her nightmare with a scream, instantly feeling her eyes well up. Before she had time to fully register what was happening, she felt a hoof around her, somepony pressing her close in an embrace, trying to silence her terrified scream. “Shhh…” The voice of Redheart reached her ears. “You’re okay. Bad dream?” Free wiped her eyes with a hoof and looked around her. She was still in the hospital, sitting next to Lightning’s bed. She probably fell asleep, and it made sense since she spent the entire night by his side, hoping for another movement. And Redheart was still with her, her comforting hoof placed around her. Free nodded in response to the nurse’s question. “Was it… Opal again?” Redheart asked, hesitating slightly before uttering the name of her friend’s daughter. Again, Free simply nodded. “It was so real…” Outside the windows on the opposite side of the room, the skies had darkened and a light rain tapped against the sheets of glass, growing stronger each passing second. The heavens had opened up, and with its own tears it tried to lull Free into letting her own fall. It was offering her a temporary solution, a temporary escape from the horrors of the world. “But it wasn’t. It was just a dream.” The Pegasus mare looked at the nurse next to her. A pair of kind, pale blue eyes met her, one of them partially covered by a strand of the nurse’s bright pink mane. It looked unkempt, like she’d been awake for a long time, and she could see faint bags under her eyes. Her usual nurse’s hat was gone, put aside only once she stepped out of duty and back into herself. A sure sign of how much she truly cared for both Free and Lightning. Out of all the ponies Free had known throughout her life, Redheart was the one she’d become closest to, and she wouldn’t trade this friend for anything in the world. Free wanted to say something, anything. Wanted to thank her closest friend for staying with her, for supporting her after what happened to Opal, but the fading images of her dream made her incapable of speech. Wanted to say to her that she was so much more than the broken wreck she saw, more than a miserable heap of tears. To let her know just how much her friendship meant to her. But Free couldn’t speak a word except a few strained breaths as she tried to hold in her tears. A mare crying like a small filly, next to a stallion that most ponies would call a vegetable. Both of them alive on the outside, but dead within. And like the small filly Flying Free felt like, she let her head fall flat over the bed next to Lightning Quill’s hoof, and without any regard for anything around her, let her tears stream free from her eyes. She’d cried a lot since she lost Opal, so much in fact, she wondered if she could ever cry again. And over and over, she proved herself wrong. But this time felt different somehow, it felt more real and important, if sadness now could feel that way. Never before had she cried this way. It was as if the shock and truth about life and death hit her, and her only reaction to it was to scream. She disappeared from her body, disappeared from the hospital room and instead became nothing but the screaming and tears itself. She couldn’t feel her body, couldn’t feel Redheart holding her. She never heard her friends whispering voice by her ear. “You’re going to get through this, FF. I promise you that.” The rain outside kicked into full storm, the loud rumbling of thunder almost rivaling the sound of the crying mare. Almost.