//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: With the Help of a Wolf 
// by bronzewolf78 
//------------------------------//

Chapter seven


“Oh, shit!”
I flew down to where he had crashed. When the dust cleared, Hot Head was lying in a crater, on his stomach. One of his wings was at an impossible angle, and his forelegs were shattered where he had tried to protect his face. I couldn’t see his face. Blood started to pool around his legs. The flame of his mane was flickering, but it was there, however barely, so I could only assume he was still alive.
I could only stand at the lip of the crater, jaw agape. My mind was numb. I couldn’t think. I tried to take a step forward and tumbled down the crater. I sat up and found myself right next to his head. I poked his shoulder, ignoring the blood on my hoof.
“Hot Head?” I nudged him again. “Hot Head…?” I could taste something salty. Then I noticed my muzzle was wet. Tears…?
His head rolled to the side, and his red iris looked up at me. A small smile turned up the corner of his mouth. 
“You know, Rainbow,” Hot Head’s voice was raspy. “This isn’t really,” he coughed out some more blood, “what I meant by teaching me how to fly.” He started to laugh, which just turned into more coughing.
“Hot Head...I’m so sorry,” I choked past the lump in my throat.
“Heh. This is more my fault than yours,” Hot Head coughed again. “I think that was the first time you actually used the name you gave me.” He gave me another weak smile. 
“It couldn’t be the first time,” I countered, trying to keep him talking longer.
“Maybe-” More coughing cut him off. “Ugh, this hurts.”
“You’ll be ok, we’ll get you to the hospital, we’ll get you patched up,” I didn’t know if I was making empty promises. 
His eye closed. “Thanks for caring...Rainbow…”
I could hear pounding hooves coming from behind me. I ignored them. “You’ll be fine, Hot Head… Hot Head?” When he didn’t respond, I nudged his shoulder again. His flame looked weaker than it did before. “Come on, buddy, stay with me...”
I felt a hoof on my shoulder. I looked up to see Applejack’s orange coat. I couldn’t make out her expression through the tears in my eyes. I uselessly tried to contain the sobs.
I heard her accent, but I couldn’t register what she said. I was vaguely aware of the others coming up around us. Fluttershy took several steps away and turned her head; Rarity went to comfort her. Twilight’s horn was glowing. Pinkie was crying. Pinkie never cries seriously.
It...it was all my fault. I had a weight in my chest. I called him out. I took it to the sky. I killed a pony.
It wasn’t just any pony, either: he was the one I had feelings for. And I never got a chance to tell him how I felt. It should have been me. 

-----

I don’t know how long I had been sitting there, leaning against Applejack. Twilight eventually broke into my thoughts.
“Hey, girls! Come look at this!”
I looked up at her. Her details were blocked by a watery veil. I wiped my eyes with a foreleg. When I looked back at her, Twilight looked shocked and surprised. I followed her gaze to where Hot Head still lay. I couldn’t see anything different about him.
“What is it, Twi?” Applejack asked.
“He’s moving!”
I peered closely at him, trying to see if I could spot anything. The first thing I noticed was that his mane, which had barely been flickering, started to grow in strength. My eyes widened as I felt a surge of hope rising in my chest. All of a sudden, blinding light hurt my eyes and I had to look away. I squinted through and saw Hot Head’s mane and tail going crazy, more than I had ever seen them, almost 3 or 4 times his body size. I scrambled backwards to try to escape the heat. I couldn’t see past the light of the flames to see his body anymore. 
After what felt like minutes of searing heat, the area started to cool off as the burning firestorm receded. I lowered my foreleg and looked at the spectacle in front of me.
Hot Head, mane and tail restored, was floating in the middle of the crater. The entire crater, as well as a small distance beyond the lip, was coated with scorched earth. His eyes were still closed. Both of his wings were spread in normal angles, and his forelegs were whole. He was gently lowered to the ground where he collapsed.
I laid there for a moment, mouth agape, stunned. Once it had all sunk in, I scrambled to my hooves and ran down the crater, kicking up soot. I tackled Hot Head in a hug. 
“Ohmygosh, Hot Head! You’re ok!” I squeezed him, but he didn’t respond. “...Hot Head?”
I felt a hoof on my shoulder. I looked up, expecting to see Applejack, but instead I saw a purple coat.
“I wouldn’t worry about him right now, Dash,” Twilight said, “That was a massive amount of magical energy, and he’s not a unicorn. He’ll be exhausted, but he’ll be fine.”
“Really?”
“Yes. But what I’m worried about is where all of that came from,” she gestured to the scorched crater around us. 
“We can always ask him when he wakes up,” I sighed.

-----

I opened my eyes to see a wooden ceiling. Oh, ok, Twilight’s library… I thought. I was exhausted, so I just rolled over and fell asleep again.

I woke up again to voices. I sat up and stretched. For how much time I’d spent on the couch I woke up on again, it might as well have been mine. A familiar voice greeted me that morning.
“I leave for a couple of hours, and this is what you get yourself into.” It was almost a growl.
I turned around, and Bronze was sitting behind the back of the couch, not looking very pleased. Oh, hey Bronze. Where’d you go? I couldn’t find you before the party.
“Deity stuff. I still had some stuff to deal with after my screw up with getting you here.” He waved it away. “I thought I had left you in capable hands, though apparently I was wrong.”
What are you talking about?
“Wait… you actually don’t remember?”
What’d I do? And how do you know about it if you weren’t here?
“You fucked up. Bigtime.”
Wha-
“What do you remember from that party?”
It was an awesome party, then afterwards, we…oh no. It all came back to me. All up until the point of impact. I’m...fine?
“I know just about as much of it as you do. You’ve been out for two days. I’ve been listening to the mares talk, and there’s something going on here.”
Huh?
“Man, you are clueless!” Bronze snarled.
Hey, is everything ok with your god stuff? You seem...stressed.
He looked surprised and paused for a moment. “No. Everything’s not ok. Don’t worry about it. Just… go downstairs and ask them about what happened.”
You sure I can’t help at all?
“Unless you can get me back on the good side of the sun-goddess of this world, then no, you can’t.”
Well, sorry bro.
I decided to leave it at that. I got off of the couch with all of the grace of a rockslide. The mares must have heard the thump I made, because the voices stopped and I heard hoofsteps coming. I went limp where I had landed and closed my eyes. I had gotten quite adept at pretending I was asleep on Earth. I needed to know more about what happened when I was out, and eavesdropping is a great way to do it.
“Wouldn't talking to them be easier?”
No. Shut up.
“Really, wouldn’t it be easier to find out what you want to know by just-”
No. I want to try this. I’ll talk to them after.
“You really are an idiot sometimes.”
I was going to respond, but I stopped at the sound of the door opening. 
“Oh, he’s still out…” Twilight sounded disappointed.
“Hey, at least he’s moving! That’s a good sign, right?” That was Rainbow.
“I guess.”
For a moment it was quiet. Then Rainbow spoke up. “Is he ever going to get better, Twilight?” 
There was a sigh. “I don’t know, Rainbow. Comas are very unpredictable.”
“Don’t you know a spell that will wake him up?”
“No, not from a coma. Besides, he’s got so much magic already about him that I don’t want to risk adding any more.”
“But Twi-”
“Look, Rainbow,” Twilight sounded like she was losing her patience. “Your loyalty is admirable, but you’ve been moping around my house for two days. Don’t you have a job to go do?”
“I’ve got vacation days. I want to be here when he wakes up.”
“You’ve made that apparent several times, but you have to live your life while he’s out.”
I feel like they’ve had this conversation before.
“But Twi-”
“We can talk more downstairs. Help me get him back onto the couch.”
“Couldn’t you just levitate him?”
Twilight sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t want to use magic with anything that has to relate to him because I don’t know how it will react.”
“...Fine.”
It sounded like Rainbow is taking my ‘absence’ pretty poorly. I needed to do something to help her out, but I still wanted to have some fun with this. I felt two pairs of hooves get ready to lift, one by my shoulders and another lower down my back.
“Ready?” Twilight asked.
“Yeah.” Rainbow’s reply came from right by my ear. Perfect.
“One, two, three!”
They both struggled to put me back onto the couch. Am I really that heavy?
“Yes.”
Why?
“Dunno. Maybe it was trying to shove an entire human into a pony body. Maybe it was Discord. I still don’t really understand much of magic.”
That makes two of us, buddy.
They eventually managed to deposit me back onto the couch, putting me on my back. As soon as the feeling of the hooves was gone, I rolled over, making sure to swing one forehoof wide to catch Rainbow across her shoulders. I ended up just slamming my hoof against something.
“Ow, my face!”
I think it might have been her face.
“You really are a terrible person.”
That’s not what I tried to do, I swear!
Twilight laughed. “Come on, Rainbow. Let’s go back downstairs.”
I heard two sets of hoofbeats start to fade away. One stopped for a moment, then rushed to catch up with the other. When I heard the door close, I opened my eyes. I sat back up and looked at Bronze.
Where were we?
“You were about to go downstairs and talk to them.”
I don’t think so. You had a problem that we were talking about, I believe.
Bronze let out a deep breath. “There are three major deities here. Two are ‘benevolent’ dictators. The third you have already met. Discord.” His lips slid back to show his snarl. I could feel the hate he poured into the name. “The older one, Celestia, is mad at me. When I brought you here, I told you I made a mistake. I thought it was minor, but apparently Celestia is still trying to clean up after me.”
What’d you do?
Bronze shrugged. “Something about messing up the fabric of magic. It’s complicated. She has her sister trying to fix it.”
Why doesn’t she just do it if she’s so powerful?
“The thing is, these two sisters are also the rulers here. They call themselves ‘princesses.’ What bullshit. Anyway, according to what I’ve been told, something happened a thousand years ago. The younger sister, Luna, was banished to the moon for a thousand years. She’s been basically forgotten about. She came back a few years ago, and most ponies are terrified of her, so they stick to what they are familiar with: Celestia.”
So they represent day and night?
“Not just represent, they control the day and night. As a result from the banishment, Luna’s half of representation has been overshadowed by Celestia’s. Since ponies go to Celestia more, she has most of the work of running a nation. She’s really stressed, and she sent Luna out to try and fix whatever it is that I broke.”
Why are they so mad at you? Ponies seem to forgive pretty easily.
“Well, you see… Wolves and ponies haven’t really been...friendly. It’s not in our nature. It’s only been recently that we actually managed to come to a relatively peaceful whatever-it-is that we have now. I’m how the Alpha wanted to test the waters, so to speak.”
Hold on, let me see if I’m caught up. So you’re a lesser member of a pack of wolves, who are all gods. Your Alpha somehow managed to meet with the goddesses here and negotiate peace relations, and the first part of that was to send me here with you?
“I can see that you’re confused, and that’s why I didn’t really want to talk about this in the first place. But not quite. You see, when people die- humans, ponies, wolves, doesn’t matter- their souls are...how should I put this? Recycled, in a sense. Reborn. It happens all the time, but the pony world is relatively new to this. You’re the first to go here.”
So why am I not being watched by a pony god?
“It’s all part of the big mixing thing they’re trying to do. It’s not just the wolves and ponies that are doing this. A few years ago, leaders from all of the deity groups formed this giant council thing. I don’t get much of it. I’m not high on the ladder. Something about equal representation and universal peace. Alpha isn’t really happy about it. But to answer your question, they’re sending out lesser gods into the domains of other deities.”
Like diplomats of some sort?
He nodded. “Something like that. It took a long time for the-I’m not trying to be racist or anything-the ‘prey’ races to agree to all of this. Me fucking up the magic here didn’t land me on Celestia’s good side. That’s where I was earlier, getting yelled at by the ‘benevolent ruler.’ I really don’t want to know what the Alpha is going to do to me when he finds out.”
There’s one thing that’s been on my mind.
“Shoot.”
If you’re a god, don’t you know all about magic? Or enough to know how to fix what you did?
“No. Yes, us wolves have magic to use, but we don’t really need to use our magic much. Never really needed to.”
I could feel a headache coming on. This is a lot to take in.
Bronze chuckled. “Told you.”
And something tells me that if I go downstairs, I’m going to have a lot more thrown at me.
“Probably. Oh, and another thing is you. Celestia’s not too happy with what Discord did. Celestia controls the sun, and she’s worried that ponies are going to start to jump to conclusions about your hair.”
So she thinks that people will think that I’m her son, or I’ve got her blessing or something?
“Pretty much.”
Maybe I should just stay up here for a while. My stomach rumbled before I could get an answer. Damn it.
I pushed myself to my hooves. I’ll be back eventually.
Bronze stood up as well. “Am I going somewhere? I need to keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t kill yourself again.”
Funny.
I opened the door and took a few steps out into the hallway. The murmur of conversation that drifted up died quickly. I got to the open main area of the library, at the top of the stairs. Twilight and Rainbow were both watching me from the table they sat at. Twilight looked happy, but it was nothing compared to the excitement in Rainbow’s face. As soon as she saw me, she dashed up and tackled me to the floor in a tight hug. After a moment of not being able to breathe, she sat up and slammed a hoof into my stomach, knocking out the small amount of air that I had managed to get. Then she went back to hugging me again.
“That was for scaring me,” she said into my chest. “Don’t do that again.”
“How long was I out for?”
“Two days,” the muffled reply said. “It was the longest two days ever.”
Well that matches up.
From where I was on the floor, I couldn’t see the ground floor or Twilight, but I could hear someone coming up the steps. Twilight’s purple mane appeared over the top step, and I gave her what I hoped looked like a pleading face. She smiled and stood there, not doing anything. 
I gave her a ‘why do you do this’ look, and her smile grew. I could have just shoved Rainbow off, but I felt like that would have been inappropriate. I tried nudging her, and didn’t get much of a response. I tried another idea.
“Twilight’s watching, you know,” I whispered in her ear.
Rainbow jumped off of me and hovered in the air, scratching the back of her head with a hoof. She cleared her throat. “And uh, it’s good to have you back and all, Hot Head.”
Real smooth, Rainbow. I smirked.
“So, Hot Head,” Twilight started. “Can I ask you a few things?”
“Sure,” I said, getting up. “I can’t say that I’ll have answers for you though.”
Twilight opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. Before she could say anything, a loud crash sounded downstairs.
“Dammit, Spike…” she cursed under her breath.
I followed her downstairs while Rainbow jumped the railing. Twilight’s main floor was divided into a living area and the library. A kitchen and dining area were on the far side, and the open space where the party had been was now filled with bookshelves. By the looks of it, a bookshelf had fallen on Spike, whose hand stuck out to the side. Books and scrolls were everywhere, a couple open or unravelled. Twilight sighed.
“Ouch,” I sympathized.
“Lucky for him it was the shelf on the end,” Rainbow remarked, “otherwise he would have a lot more to clean up.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Shouldn’t you be more concerned for his health?”
“This kind of stuff happens all the time,” Rainbow shrugged.
“And Spike’s a dragon, he can take it,” Twilight put in.
I noticed Twilight and Rainbow moving to both sides of the fallen bookcase and started to get a handhold. “Hey, hold on,” I said, making my way to the shelf. “Let me get this.”
Twilight looked at me as if I had two heads. “You can’t possibly be serious. This is-”
I ignored her and examined the bookshelf. It was a solid bookshelf, but it didn’t look too heavy. I moved to what would have been the top of the shelf, had it been standing upright. I got a hold and heaved upwards, tilting the top backwards. I held the top up while I moved closer, gently pushing books out of my way with my hind feet and moving my front hooves farther down the shelf. Eventually I got the thing set back upright again.
“There we go,” I said with a smile, looking up at the bookshelf. I turned back to see both mares staring at me with their jaws on the floor. “What?”
Twilight recovered first. “But-how did-but that-” She eventually ended her stuttering with one question: “How?”
“How what? It was easy. It wasn’t that heavy,” I was honestly confused now. Bronze was laughing by the door.
“It took four of us, including Big Mac and AJ to lift a shelf last time!” Rainbow almost shouted. “And you just did it by yourself!”
“Uhh,” I put a hoof behind my head. “Heh heh.”
Twilight shook her head. “And another one goes on the list of questions… Why don’t we start with that one?”
“What?”
“The questions I had for you. Why don’t we just start with…” she fumbled for words. “that?” She waved at the bookshelf behind me.
Spike groaned and sat up, books spilling off of him, holding his head. “Thanks for that,” he said, looking up at me. “I owe ya one.”
I nodded at him then looked back at Twilight. Bronze?
“Hmm?”
What am I allowed to tell her?
Bronze sighed. “I should really ask Celestia if you can tell Twilight all of this stuff. Or if she wants to tell Twilight herself. Uh, just explain what you can. Without my involvement, of course.”
You aren’t much of a help. I took a deep breath and sat down. Spike started to pick up and sort the fallen books. I tried to gather my thoughts. “I dunno. I’m strong?”
Twilight didn’t seem satisfied. Neither did Rainbow, for that matter. I started to feel like I was in an interrogation.
Twilight tried again. “Why don’t we just start from the beginning? What’s your story, Hot Head?”
I frowned. I hated questions like this. Bronze? I almost whined.
“Shit.” There was a pause as Bronze sighed. “I couldn’t really get in any more trouble, I guess. Just go ahead and tell them.”
Bronze sounded defeated. He looked the same way; his gaze was pointed to the floor and his ears drooped. Are you sure? I can probably get around it.
Rainbow spoke up before Bronze could respond. “Hey Twi, shouldn’t we tell the girls that he’s awake?”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “Oh my gosh, I completely forgot!” She pointed at Rainbow. “Yes, go get Applejack and Fluttershy, and I’ll get Pinkie and Rarity.” Rainbow flew out the window. The hoof swiveled towards me.“Hot Head, you stay here. Plan out your story while we’re gone.” Twilight’s horn flashed and she was gone.
I turned to Bronze. Do you have time to talk to Celestia before they get back?
Bronze shook his massive head. “Probably not.”
Go anyway. I’ll try and stall them as much as possible.
“You’re sure you’ll be ok while I’m gone? You aren’t going to kill yourself again?”
I gave him a look. You’re wasting time. Go.
He smirked. “Fine.”
A higher voice interrupted our conversation. “Are you ok? You’ve been staring at that wall for a while.”
I turned to see Spike looking at me around a stack of books he had in his arms. He went on, “You know that we have chairs, if you’re just thinking.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” I turned back to Bronze, but he was gone. I remembered Twilight saying something about Spike doing most of the cooking. An idea started to hatch.
“Hey, Spike?”
“What’s up?”
“You want to help me out with something?”
“What is it?”
“Do the girls like picnics?”