//------------------------------//
// The Jeering Raven 
// Story: A Beautiful Swallow 
// by Skijarama 
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    Things were rather cheerful in my house the next day. I didn’t have any plans on what to do, so I just slouched about for a long while, reading a book. I knew where it was that Swallow lived, and wanted to let her know that I had fulfilled my promise, and that it went well. The big problem with that is I didn’t know her parents, and she had told me they were kind of over-protective. Apparently, her father was worried that every colt that came knocking at their door was only into one thing, and I won’t really go any further on what that may be. Based on that, I’m sure you can guess. Whatever the case, I didn’t feel like having to go through those steps, and simply decided to wait until Monday.

I began to develop an odd nervous energy that day, though. I couldn’t help but pace all over the house, or shift in place. I just couldn’t hold still. My parents began to complain about the movement ‘Making them nervous’ or something. I never really got why, but oh well. Eventually, I stepped outside and went for a walk. I wasn’t really one for walking; I didn’t see much of a point at the time other than exercise, which I could always play-wrestle with my brother for. Either way, my mind wandered, as did my hooves…


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“Good afternoon!” a yellow colored mare with a blue and pink mane greeted. I nodded with a smile and continued my brisk movement. I wasn’t in a hurry by any means, but my normal walking speed was always kind of fast. The town was pretty chipper today, I realized. I saw many foals running around, playing. I saw adults talking to each other and going about their business. I soon found myself walking through the market stalls. Not all of them were open, obviously, but the ones that were open were fairly relaxed instead of their usual business like self. I wasn’t paying attention, sadly, and bumped into a foal that was running in front of me as I walked.

We both let out an “oof” at the force of the impact, and we both collapsed onto the ground. I glanced up to see who I bumped into. It was Brimstone, actually. She was rubbing her temple, no doubt trying to dispel her likely newfound headache. “Sorry about that,” I groaned as I stood up. She looked up at me with a forgiving smile, and the smile widened as I held out a hoof to help her to her own.

“No worries. Sorry I couldn’t make it to the session yesterday,” Brimstone said as she got up.

“You are forgiven,” I replied, earning a snicker from my overly dramatic way of saying it.

“You can be very amusing, did you know that?” she asked.

“Yes, I know. I aim to be amusing,” I began my walk again, and Brimstone fell into step next to me. I looked over at her. “So, what’s on your agenda for today?” I asked curiously.

“Well, I just got some apples for my mom. I should actually head home. We’re planning on going to a performance in town hall later,” she answered, looking towards the street her house rested on. I knew Brimstone lived fairly close to the markets, so I nodded.

“Alright, go ahead.” She nodded and trotted off, waving as she went. I began down a random street and started to roll some things over in my mind. My little scene with my family came back to the forefront of my mind, and I felt that familiar warmth drift into my chest. As I walked, my mind wandered from memory to memory. And yet, these memories began to drift rapidly into sad memories. Painful memories. Memories I wish I could have forgotten. The day my grandfather passed away came up the hardest. I’d stopped crying about that a long time ago, but it was still unpleasant to think about. My mind flicked to the last time I saw him. All of his fur having grayed out, going dull and monochrome. His eyes closed as he slept, his chest rising and falling raggedly. It pained me to see all those years ago. I remember my mother trying to convince me that he wasn’t going to make it. She wasn’t going to lie to me, but she told me as carefully as she could.

There was no “He’s gone away for a long time” or anything like that. I wasn’t a stupid colt (though I had my moments). I knew he was dying, but I denied it with every fiber of my being. I swore he would survive, and deluded myself with visions of playing games with him again. I envisioned him walking into the front door of my house for a visit, and giving me his warm hug. I believed that he would live.

Oh how I was wrong.


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I remembered being allowed to sleep in rather late one day. I didn’t really give my grandfather a whole lot of thought the night before. When I finally awoke the following afternoon, the house was quiet. Coldly quiet. I could feel it in my bones that something wasn’t right. Dad found me in the hall between my bedroom and the family room, and guided me to the latter. I remember that he only said one word. “Come”. It was softly spoken. My mother was not in the house since she had been at my grandparents house.

I saw Noctis sitting on the couch. The furniture had been rearranged slightly. The couch was directly opposed by one of the chairs. I slowly sat down in the chair as my Dad sat down next to Noctis. He looked down between his hooves and sighed. His mouth opened and closed a few times, before he finally spoke. “Son, I… I know this won’t be easy for you…” At those words, I could feel that familiar feeling. Where you know what’s about to be said, and you’re already feeling the emotional reaction behind your senses.

“What happened?” I asked. Dad shuddered slightly and looked to Noctis for support. Noctis urged him on silently.

“It’s… it’s about your Grandfather,” Dad continued. I swallowed painfully and went to speak, but he continued before I could. “This morning your mother sent word that… Your grandpa has passed away.” There was almost no delay in my reaction. It was the worst feeling I thought I would ever feel. It felt as though my heart was ripped out of my chest. At first, there was simply a cold numbness that passed through me. That lasted for less than a second. It took altogether only one second after my father told me that my grandfather had passed away until I was on my hooves, and galloping away towards my room.

“Nettle!” I heard Noctis call. I didn’t hear him call after me again or follow. I assume Dad had silenced him. I burst into my room, turned around, and slammed the door closed with all of the strength I could. I just stood there for a moment, hoof resting on the doorknob, trembling violently and breath coming in gasps of despair. I felt the tears streaming down my cheeks. I tried to dry them, and I also tried to keep my sobs choked down. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to acknowledge that one of my family was gone forever. I wanted to forbid the mere thought.

But it kept hitting me, over and over, and over again. It was like a jeering raven resting on the shoulder of Death himself, laughing at my pitiful pleas to get my grandfather back. Shrieking at me, “He’s dead! He’s Dead! He’s DEAD!” And there was nothing I could do. It was in that moment that all of my denial on the premise of mortality was shattered. My Grandfather was dead.

I gave up. I don’t know how I was able to do it, but I got myself to my bed. My face buried into my pillow, and for I don’t know how long, I did the only thing I possibly could.

I cried and screamed in defeat, misery, and sorrow.


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I suddenly snapped back to reality, my head and face colliding rather solidly with a tree, and causing me to topple backwards down the hill. I came to rest at the bottom, my head smacking against a rock. Groaning, I slowly sat up and began rubbing my head. Yikes, my memories had been getting pretty vivid recently. I glanced about to see where I was. Still in Ponyville, but just barely. I'd wandered quite a distance, I realized, given that the markets were only slightly off the center of town. I looked forwards, and planted my hoof rubbing my temple down. I was directly in front of the Everfree forest. How did I not notice I was wandering in the direction of what can only be safely described as a nightmare? Shaking my head, I began to head back towards the center of town.

The sky was clear for the most part. I looked off to the north; and saw dark clouds on the horizon. The snow was coming and quickly. Give it another day, I mused, and we'd have our first snowfall. I soon found myself passing by a pond. I looked down into it, and into my reflection. At first, I thought that it was just murky water or something because my reflection was blurred to Tartarus. But then I brushed back my messy mane with a hoof and looked at my eyes.

I could barely tell corneas from the irises. I looked up and saw that there was a tree next to me, its last leaf dangling by almost nothing, no more than the last sliver of the stem.. A gentle breeze came by, and wouldn't you know it, the leaf fell, drifting down through the air. It landed in the pond and sent a gentle ripple through the image. Even with how subtle the ripple was, it was hard to tell the details anymore after the disruption. I knew I had bad eyesight, but this was new. I focused for several moments, but the image remained blurred.

Okay, this was getting odd. Glancing up, I noticed that everything around me was a little blurry. Not very much so, but noticeable. I slowly held a hoof up in front of my eyes. It too, was blurry. My eyes had never really posed a problem; I mean, I could still read, write, and see things. Why were my eyes suddenly faltering like this? I had no idea, but I figured now would be a good time to run on home and tell my parents and brother I could barely see. And that I did. I turned on my hooves, and galloped as quickly as possible.

As I entered back into town, I noticed I was getting looks. I imagine my face wasn't what one expected to see on a pony my age. I am going to be honest, I was actually a little scared. For my eyes to suddenly just falter like that, I was worried. Now, I was young. Again, this was like, five years ago, so my mind was going a little ballistic. My biggest worry was that I might have gotten some sort of disease or condition that affected the eyes. Naturally, if it were a disease, I'd be displaying symptoms.

Either way, as I ran, I almost collided with a number of ponies. My depth perception was even worse than usual. Ponies were closer than they appeared. I soon reached my street and glanced around, trying to find my house. With my vision now effectively shot, I couldn't make out any identifying landmarks. I squinted, but that did nothing. I slowed down and took a deep breath. OK, calm down. Think rationally, Nettle. How many houses in and on what side? Eight houses down on the left.

I backed up to the streets entrance, and began to count the houses on the left as I went. When I reached eight I looked for the house address number. Spotting it, I recognized it as mine, breathed a sigh of relief, and went inside. “Mom, Dad!” I called out. I looked left and right, but the dim lighting of the house proved very inadequate for me to make out much.

“Nettle, what's wrong?” I heard Mom say off to my left. Glancing over, I saw the blurry blob moving towards me.

“I don't know! While walking I fell and hit my head against a rock, and now I can't see anything. You're a blurry blob to me at the moment,” I explained rapidly, slightly panicked.

“Nettle, calm down. How long has your vision been blurry? When did you hit your head?”

“A few minutes ago.”

“You might just be dazed,” Noctis pointed out. I sneered in the direction the noise came from.

“No, he'd be dizzy and disoriented if that were the case,” Mom said, earning a rapid nod from me.

“Yeah. What makes it weird is that I wasn't immediately like this after the impact. It just kind of started while I was distracted by my reflection in a pond,” I explained. Mom nodded, I think.

“Alright. Find the couch and lay down. Let me know if it gets any better, okay? If It doesn't get better soon, we'll talk to somepony at the clinic.” She had Noctis guide me to the couch, where I lay down. I mumbled at myself for being such an unbalanced moron. How did I not see that darn tree? Oh well. Hopefully this would clear up soon.


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It was a dumbass move to hope for that. I was terrible with jinxing stuff. As it is, I found that my vision didn't get better. It didn't get worse, either, much to my relief, but I could still just barely get around. We made arrangements at the clinic for my eyes to be examined the following day. I barely slept that night, anxiety taking over. I found my naive mind worried I'd go blind. Either way, the following day Noctis had work due to his ever-shifting schedule, and so did dad. Thus, Mom took me to the clinic personally.

Mom led me into the clinic, and guided me to the receptionists desk. I didn't look at the receptionist as Mom spoke to her. Instead, I glanced around the room, straining my eyes to pick up anything they could. Just blurs and blobs without fine detail. I followed almost without thinking as Mom led me by the hoof to a seat. It was a sort of lounge couch, and Mom had me sit next to her, her foreleg draped over my back. I looked down at my hooves, trying to bring them into focus. It was no use since my hooves stayed blurry. Time seemed to slow almost to a halt as I sat there, mind abuzz with questions.

Eventually, I heard a door open, and a female voice call, “Stinging Nettle?”

“That's us” my mother answered, guiding me towards the new voice. “I'm his mother. I assume you're Dr. Mane Goodall?”

“Actually, I'm Nurse Redheart,” the mare, answered.

“Oh, my apologies.”

“Don't worry about it. How's he doing?” I heard Redheart ask as we started down a hallway away from the lobby. “Any changes?”

“No. He says his eyesight is roughly the same as it was when this started,” Mom said.

“Okay. Do you have any idea what's wrong? Any hints as to the cause? Symptoms, history of similar things, anything?” Redheart inquired.

“Well, my eyes have never been very good. They were still plenty functional, but this is new. I can't even see your faces,” I said after a moment of silence had passed. We made a left turn.

“When did this start?” Redheart pressed.

“Yesterday. I fell down a hill and smacked my head against a rock my mistake. It started a few minutes after that,” I explained.

“Alright. Just in here,” Redheart urged, guiding us into a room I couldn't make out. I was really starting to hate not being able to tell what the flying heck I was looking at. From there, it all just sort of blurs together. Questions, a few tests on blood pressure and pulse, and then Redheart left to go and tell the good doctor I was ready for a more in depth examination. I was scared, honestly. I was worried that I would be given bad news after the examination.

I began to try and take my mind off of the current situation. I closed my eyes and focused on happier things. All of them lead right back around to my current predicament. Eventually my mind wandered to an image of Swallow talking to me. I wasn't sure what she was saying, just talking. I couldn't tell what the background was. All was focused on her. I felt myself relax slightly as a realization hit me. Even if I couldn't see properly, she would help me. She would aid me in my hours of need.

She already was, technically. Just by being in my mind, she was making me feel better. I was so blind back then. Not in the eyes...

But in the heart.

The doctor eventually showed up, and we talked it over. She got an idea of what might have been wrong, and began to do some tests. She shined some outrageously bright lights into my eye, which left spots hanging around for several minutes. She did other stuff, but given that this was five years ago, I don't really remember all of it. The eye-light thing is the only part of the testing I actually remember clearly. There was some kind of scan in there somewhere, but oh well.


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Some time later and we were sent home with the promise of a conclusion arriving in the morning mail. Sadly, I had school the morning of the delivery. I had a pretty rough time getting through that day. Swallow was absent, much to my disappointment. She had come down with a cold over the weekend. The rest of my friends were still very supportive, and did what they could to help me along. When I got home that day, the house was empty.

Nopony was there. Noctis and Dad at their works, but what about Mom? I glanced over at the table and saw a white smudge on it. Drawing closer, I realized it was a letter. The text was written in marker, and was so large I could make it out.

“Will be home soon. Getting you glasses.

~Mom”

And so it was. My mother returned home a few minutes later, and gave me a pair of glasses. I wear them even as I type at this page. Those glasses took away the blurs, and I could see clearer than ever before. Naturally, the first thing I did was give my mom a hug, and say “Thank you.”