Speckled dreams: Part 1, Far From Home.
~
My name is Speckle, Speckle the filly. I know, I have a silly name, everypony loves to makes the connection between my name and the speckles on my face and body, some say its cute. My coat is a peachy color like the yummy fruits I get to eat sometimes, and my mane is a pretty fuchsia color, just like the pretty flowers that bloomed in spring time, its long and curly just like my mother‘s. I am a Pegasus, but I’ve never been to the clouds, which has always made me wonder why my cutie mark turned out to be a pair of wings when I can’t even fly. But anyway, this is how my story begins…
~
I splash and play joyfully with my brothers, we laugh and giggle as we play carelessly in the irrigation steam that runs near our farm. Its obvious in a painful way, this is just a dream, I’ve had this same one many times before, but I still will not admit it is.
Mouse, my slightly older brother that you’d think is my twin given his runt of a size. And Bully, my other older brother that is the exact opposite of Mouse in size and stature, but he was just as kind and gentle despite his name. They're both earth ponies like our father.
We splash and play long enough for our mother to notice, she yells at us from our farmhouse to stop in a displeased tone. Quickly we dart out the shallow stream and into our empty field nearby, mother grumbles something else to us that we just ignore. My false reality screams to me that none of this is real, but I just ignore that too.
Our playful darts and dashes through the dirt of our freshly harvested field gets us just as dirty as we were before, but we don’t care, we simply have fun. But when I look around brothers are gone, leaving me in the dust as they race towards the house, I dig my hooves into the dirt and sprint after them as fast as I can. Quickly I pass Mouse without much of a struggle, he usually falls behind, Bully is harder to catch up to though.
No matter how hard I try I can’t catch up to him, and we’re nearing our house. Just as I’m about to give up, I try my wings, I flap, and flap and flap, I already know I won't fly, but I start to catch up. I flap and run as hard as I can and he starts to disappear behind me, my wings giving me the lead right before we reach the dilapidated fence around our house, it functions as a finish line.
Skidding my hooves through the dirt to stop, I am filled with excitement to see the look on my bother's face when he sees I won the unofficial race. But suddenly, just as I’m about to bask in the glory of my victory, everything is quickly taken away from me by an abrupt awakening.
~
My eyes, shoot open, buts its to dark to see. My ears are perked and alert, but there is nothing to hear. I try desperately to hold onto my precious happy dream, its mostly faded and gone by the time I even start. I give up, realizing it's no use, it was just a dream, a memory that feels like its from a life time ago.
I lift up my head that was tucked against my folded front legs, trying half-heartedly to shake off what ever was left of my sleepy haze. I examine my surroundings, flicking my long curly unkempt mane out my face, its seen better care. Its dark, dark enough to barely see, and the ground beneath me is cold and hard. My mind is still foggy, and I start to wonder if I really have woken up.
A bright flash garbs my attention, I look around and see nothing more then I did before though. A few seconds pass by, and the accompanying thunderous roar follows. It startles me and quickly forces away my foggy mind, and makes me jump up form the unexpected thunder, but a branch brings me back down, reminding me of where I was.
Exhausted from walking all day, I stopped for a rest off the path, and accidentally called this bush home for the night. However, this is not the first time it has happened. I could hear the thunder continue off in the distance, the roars getting further away as they continued, the distance helps me settle back down form the unexpected startle.
As I silently scold myself from being scared so easily, I crawl out from under my bush, dragging my creamy peach colored belly across the cold dirty ground. The sky is pitch black, it wasn't close to morning yet, and the only thing I can see around me were a few thunder flashes that lit up the sky and forest off in the distance. And those defiantly are not a welcome sight.
For a few moments, I consider leaving my bush. There is no way I can outrun a storm, but maybe I can find somewhere else to rest nearby, someplace that might be better then leaves and branches. Another loud roar overhead squashes my thoughts and sends me retreating back into my bush, just as rain drops began to fall. The rain comes quickly, and before long, I am trapped under my bush in the middle of a storm. I defiantly am not getting much more sleep tonight, or going anywhere else for now.
"Might as well get settled back in..." I sigh softly to myself, staring out into the dark storm. I roll over onto my side, careful not to roll right out of my shelter and into the rain, and let out another sigh of relief as I take my weight off my belly. Crushing one of my wings partly was uncomfortable, but my relieved belly made up for it, my wings aren't much use to me anyway. My legs feel rested, but not completely, and they ache slightly when I stretch them.
It’s not the ideal place for me to be, but it’s where I am. Using my free wing I cover my belly the little I can, and resting my head against my leg as a pillow, I try and get comfortable. My comfort was short lived though, it wasn't long until I felt the first chilling drop of water leak through my roof of leaves, and land on my belly. First it was one drop, then a second one follows, I shift around the little I can and it went away, but as the rain continues it only gets worse.
The thunder is less noticeable over the poring rain, but it still startles me especially when it’s close. I curl up around myself the best I can to try and stay warm, and dry, with my tail flicked between my legs and my head nuzzled up between my front one, close to my belly.
With every chilling drop that falls onto my coat, I feel more and more helpless, trapped, and there is nothing I can do about it. I look at my belly, it is to dark to see, but I imagine what’s inside of me… my foal. My foal that I am suppose to care for soon, when I cannot even keep my own flank dry at night.
Before, even with a roof over my head instead of a leaves and branches, and a warm bed to sleep in instead of the hard cold ground, I was selfishly scared of thunder and storms. Thinking about it, I was scared and afraid of a lot of things before, and I still am. Every thunder roar makes me jump a little, and every chilling water drop makes me shiver. I have been here a few times before since leaving home, I have been stuck under a soaking wet bush with no one and nothing to be there for me, but still, every sleepless stormy night was worse then the pervious one.
As I stare at my belly in the wet chilling darkness, my thoughts drift back to what actually got me here, with a foal in my belly. I try not to think about those things... but in times like this it's almost impossible not to.
~
Just a short while ago, I was a careless farm filly for the most part.
My family owned a farm in the town of WhiteMane, I always thought it was more of a city then a town though. Everypony from there seemed either important for some reason I couldn’t understand, if there was a reason at all, or had lots of bits that made them important somehow. My family was not one of those two, we lived outside the city on our farm. We were poor, along with most of the other farmers that lived outside the city.
With the little land we had to farm, crops were very hard to grow, and what we did manage to grow and take into the city to sell would get us just enough to get by. Sometimes we would not make any money at all, my mother used to say it's because no pony from the city wanted half decent produce grown by poor farmers, everypony had enough money to buy better things from other places. The city thrived almost entirely off trade with other towns and cities, with enough bits you could buy anything you wanted from anywhere in Equestria. I always thought about those things… when I did, it always made me feel like me and my family had no purpose at all, which may have been the truth.
On the other side of the city, into the hills, were the mines. I had never seen them before, but hearing my parents talk about it the work sounded much harder, but everypony sounded a little better off then we were. We could have left to go somewhere better, or maybe buy better land to farm, but we had no money to do so.
Even if it was not my responsibility, even with my young age, I still felt for my family, we were poor and hopeless with hardly anything to our name, and that always made me feel sad. However, all that started to change recently.
One day, my mother and me were coming back from the market, we hardly sold anything that day. When we got close to our farm there was a small commotion out-front, once we got close my mother quickly ushered me inside our worn down farmhouse with my brothers. I squeezed my way in between them to peek out a window, and saw a bunch of stallions, they looked like they were from the city, they were talking with my father and from what I recognized other farm ponies.
My mother and father never told me what it was all about right away, but I could tell they were both really excited about something. It was not until a few days later when they told my brothers and me that we were selling our farm, I was really surprised, and more so when they said one of those stallions that came from the city was the one buying it from us.
It took a little while for me to understand it completely. But the stallion I came to know as Mr. Eve, owned a lot of farms and land around the city, he was one of those important ponies. His farms were closer to the city and better off, he also owned some of the mines in the hills too. The idea was he would buy our farm from us, for nothing, and in return give us another one of his much better farms to live on. That is, along as we pay him some of the bits we would make, how much I never knew. I was disappointed at first, I thought if we ever managed to sell our farm we could leave to somewhere else. My mother and father said it would be better though, and somehow, it actually was.
Everything started happening fast, we moved to our new farm, we had a much better house and a lot more fields to grow. When we were first getting started Mr. Eve got other farm ponies to help us, it was good seeing my father and brothers not have to work so hard like they did before, and even afterwards our new fields were much easier to work and sow.
I remember one day Mr. Eve came to our new farm, my parents acted all weird around him, which I was starting to recognize as the normal way ponies like us acted around ponies like him, ponies from the city. He was an earth pony, I could tell he was not as old as my father was but he was not a young stallion either, and he was very large in size. He had a dark red coat and a solid black mane. My mother told me to smile and be polite, but when he stepped over and she introduced him to me, I felt uneasy, intimidated by his size. It was not just that though, he stared at me for a few seconds as I smiled up at him like I was told to do, his pale blue eyes wandered over me, as if he was examining me for some reason. Then he smiled back at me, it was more like a smirk, but said nothing and moved along.
After that my parents always spoke highly of him, so did my brothers in a way, but to me he just seemed like any otherpony with a lot of money. I could not forget how I felt when I met him, that feeling always stuck with me, I was not to sure why. He just felt bad, when everypony else thought we was good, so maybe it was just me. He visited a few other times, usually to see how the farm was going or to speak with my father.
As our crops started to come in, mother and me took them into the city to sell like we used to, but now they would actually sell. We were able to sell them in a market different then the one we did before, it was more fancy and expensive, mostly ponies like Mr. Eve bought stuff from it. Mr. Eve himself was responsible for most of the other vendors there, if he was helping all the other farm ponies he had to be good, I thought. We were making a lot more bits then we had been before, even if we did have to give some to Mr. Eve we still had much more then we ever had. After a few short months of being on our new farm, everything seemed to be getting better and better.
One day we had a big harvest to sell at the market, but before the day was out we managed to sell everything we had. I could tell my mother was really happy, and she surprised me by giving me a couple of bits we had made, she said I could do anything I wanted with them. I was so excited, I had never gotten any type of allowance before, and having the life we did I never asked. After my mother said I was free to go, I rushed home, I could have stayed in the city and done something with my bits, but I rushed on home.
No one seemed to be around as I went through the house and upstairs to the room I shared it with Mouse, compared to when we all shared the same room in our old house, I did not mind sharing. I took my bits and hid them under my bed, it felt good to finally have something, even if it was just a few bits, I wanted to hold onto them for a little while.
With my bits hidden away, I decided to go look for my brothers, or go look for some of the other farm fillies to play with. Since we moved to our new farm, I was even starting to make new friends too. As I trotted downstairs and went for the door, an unexpected sight greeted me, Mr. Eve. He stood in the doorway, the door shut behind him. I was startled seeing him in our house, but I just figured he was looking for my mother or father. I tried to hide my feelings towards him, but they felt even stronger with him standing in the doorway, staring back at me silently.
“My parents are home right now.” I said to him, but he said nothing back, and instead took a few steps towards me. I felt like saying something else, but I couldn't even as he approached.
“You certainly are a cute Filly now, aren’t you?” He said as he looked down at me, he seemed to look me over in the way he did before.
I mustered up a smile and looked back up at him, his large size compared to mines made me feel tiny. “Th-.. Thank you, mister.” I said back to him, as I tried to keep my voice steady.
“I see your family is doing much better now, aren’t they?” He said as he looked away from me, and stepped over towards a window off to my side, it faced out toward our prospering fields of crops.
“And it is all because of me.” I saw him smirk a little, as I eyed the door.
“Don’t you…” He continued as he came back over to me slowly, not giving me much of a chance to reply even if I had something to say back to him. I couldn't take my eyes off him, his smirk looked almost devious, and the look in his eyes was the same, but there was something else too.
"Don’t you, think I deserve something in return?” He stopped right back in front of me. I felt confused at the question, and he could see it, but he waited for my reply.
“My.. My parents give yo--” He cut me off quickly, as if he knew what I was going say.
“I’m not talking about that, not at all about money.” He said back in a firm tone that was almost harsh, it made me take a step back.
“Then…” I said noticeably scared a little, I had never seen anypony act that way.
He smirked more and stepped closer to me, enough that our bodies almost touched. “I want something more,” he lowered his head, so that we were almost face-to-face, and continued his frightening smirk. “Precious~”
~
My memories become too much to bare, even though they feel like a lifetime ago compared to where I am now, it still hurts to think my past.
The thunder and rain still comes steady and heavily, very little feels dry anymore, the steady steams of drops from above has soaked both me and the ground. I look out the opening of my bush, still nothing but darkness and the occasional lightening flash, I sigh softly.
It was never my choice to leave home, but if it was, I cannot say I would have chosen to stay. At home, there were no problems, not for my family, not since we started doing well. Then there was me, I was the problem that could have ruined everything, and I may have for all I know.
I glance back down at my belly, even when it started to grow, I still thought I could hide it, just like I tried to hide everything else, then came a time when I could not. In the beginning, I hated it, I hated whatever was growing inside of me, I wanted to wake up one morning and have it be gone, but that morning never came. Now I do not know what to think, what to feel, I cannot get rid of a problem when the problem is me, and even after I have my foal the problem would have just doubled.
“What am I even going to do with you?…” I think to myself as I begin to sob. I do not know the first thing about taking care of a foal, I’ve never had to even think about it before I ended up with one in my belly, and giving birth seemed even more impossible. I have thought about what I could do, just have my foal and leave it at the first doorstep of a town I pass by, hoping it's somepony nice that can take care of it. I could never bring myself to do something like that though, not now that my more "motherly feelings" are starting to develop. The thought of abandoning my foal breaks my heart, however so does the thought of it being right beside me under a soaking bush in the middle of a storm.
We cannot stay like this forever, me and my belly, I am hardly able to stay out here now when it is just me and my belly. Soon or later I am going to have to find somewhere to go, I just thought I would have found that place by now.
I have been around a couple other towns, but have just passed thru. I have never left WhiteMane until now, and do not know what any other place might be like, plus I have a hard trusting anypony to stick around and find out. You’d have to be blind not to notice my belly, soon or later someponys going to ask where my parents are, where I’m from, why I'm so far from home, and why I’m pregnant. I do not have answers to give for those questions, not ones that would make anything better.
A filly like me would probably end up stuck in an orphanage somewhere, with my foal taken away. Thinking over trying to raise my foal with no roof over our heads and abandoning them with some stranger tears me apart, I could never choose, but soon I might have to.
I sob, my tears falling like the drops that soak me. In a way, I hate my new motherly feelings, if that is even what they are. If I still felt the way I did in the beginning, I could handle giving my foal up, I could handle doing what may be the right thing to do.
At some point, the rain starts to die down, as well as my tears. I uncurl and look out the opening off the bush once more, just hoping it would be daylight soon. It is still pitch dark, and not even the lightening flashes anymore. I stare out into the darkness, hoping that out there, somewhere, is a place for me and my foal.
Just as I am about to look away and try to get some rest, I spot something. Quickly I shake off my head, wiping the rest of my tears away with a muddy wet hoof. Whatever it was, its gone when I look back, but after a few seconds it reappears, a bright but faint light shines through the trees.
I roll onto my belly quickly, but again it’s gone when I look back, craning my neck around though it reappears, but this time fainter. I stare at it, it disappears and reappears a few more times through the trees, every time getting a little fainter. I feel uncertain not knowing what it is, but it curiously draws me. It could be somepony else, somepony to help me, I glance down at my belly, not just me… I stop and think, it might be nothing, and if I leave my bush there is no way I can find my way back, but at this point, it's just as bad as any other one I would find.
I crawl out from under my bush onto the sopping wet ground, my legs strain and hurt, but I manage to stand. I squint around and spot the light again, then take a shaky step, then another until I speed up to a nice trot. It’s almost completely dark as I narrowly avoid trees as I slosh though the muddy ground, but still I go after whatever it is.
It only gets fainter as I chase after it, longer periods go by when I cannot spot it though the trees, just long enough to make me panic a little. Whatever it is, it has to be moving, only that would explain why it seems to vanish and get dimmer. I am already breathing a little heavy after just a minute, and my legs ached since I got up, but I run faster.
I run after the faint light, the rain begins to pour again and I stumble over a tree root and crash though low branches, but still I run. It is harder to make out anything in the dark going as fast as I am, but the light seems to get brighter, and that is the only thing that matters to me.
Suddenly I burst out from behind a bush and my hooves land on what feels like more solid ground, I recognize it as the path. The lights straight ahead of me now, it's still through the trees, quickly I hook a bend along the path and then I see it clearly. A bright ball of light shining like a beacon up the path, but it's still a good ways away.
My mind flashes to the races I had with my brothers, and they give me the strength for one last push. Almost completely out of breath, my legs feel like they are going to collapse, my rain soaked wings unusable. I tell myself to keep going, my hooves splashing through puddles on the path and my belly feeling heavier with each step. The light starts to get closer and closer as I push myself to near exhaustion, trying desperately to make out what it is, but can‘t, its just a ball of light that seems to float off the ground.
I start to feel light headed as I close into a few yards or so. My hooves slide through the muddy wet path as I bring myself to a stop, and there it is, what I am desperately chasing after is almost right in front me.
Its blindingly bright and I squint just to look at it, but there is almost nothing to see. Dark patches start to cloud my vision and quickly I try to shake them off, but fail to, I pushed myself too hard. I take a couple more shaky steps and everything starts to blur, I manage to make out a figure, its a pony. A dark pony figure is the last thing I see just as my vision goes black completely.
~
When I wake, I am greeted by the warmth of the sun. My eyes flutter open, as the haze of my sleep wears off I realize I am no longer out in the forest. Instead, I'm in a somewhat soft bed, with a thin white blanket covering me. I think back to what happened last night, but my memories end right after I catch up to the ball of light. And the figure I saw..
Slowly I sit up in the bed and take a look around the room, its fairy empty and small, except for the bed there’s a small plain wooden table with a lamp off to my side, a plain looking dresser across from me, with a single window centered above it. Overall the room looks to be unused from what I can tell, the only window is dirty enough to only let in a little sunlight, and I spot some cobwebs and dust bunnies off in the corners.
Puzzled, and try harder to remember how I got here, but my memories still end with seeing that figure then everything going blank. While trying to think of anything more, but still remembering nothing, I think of my foal, and my "Motherly instincts" take over. Quickly I whip off the blanket covering me and toss it aside. From what I can tell, my belly looks fine, I sigh softly with relief and I rest my hooves on it, they still ache from the night before.
As I look over my belly and see that its fine, I notice how clean it is. Its not dirty in anyway, no dirt or mud, and my hooves are the same way. That only adds to my confusion over the situation. I hate the feeling of uncertainty, not knowing where I am or what got me here, but my foal and me are dry and safe, and that’s what I try to focus on.
As I rub my belly softly, I notice the small row of teats on my lower belly, they’ve just recently become noticeable, and only serve to remind me that my foal is getting closer and closer to being here. Like my growing motherly instincts, and all the other weird changes happening to my body.
In a weird way, I’m actually excited for my foal to get here, I am still scared and worried about everything else. And even though it hurts me to think about how I got this way, and who the father may be, I am still excited to be a mother. I mange a smile at my unborn foal, the sun seems to shine a little brighter on us though the foggy window across from the bed. Closing my eyes I relax, enjoying this one peaceful moment.
My mind drifts off to happy thoughts of what my future might hold, imagining my foal being right beside me in the warm sun. Sharing the same moments I did with my mother before, moments that now seemed just as distant as my thoughts of a happy future. Lost in thought, something grabs my attention, I open my eyes and hear hooves clopping across the floor, they're close by now.
Looking over at the door I begin to panic, and cannot do anything else besides grab the blanket and cover up my belly back up. The door swings open, and a stallion steps partly through, he peaks into the room and looks immediately over to the bed, to me, I am frozen clenching the blanket. He smiles and steps fully into the small room, his coat is a pale grey, and his mane in is almost completely white but with a touch of grey lighter then his coat. And his eyes are a shade of green I have never seen before, a dark green but mixed with blue.
As I stare at him I do not know what to think, my heart beats a little fast. He seems friendly, but I thought that about a lot of ponies who turned out not to be. He takes a step closer to the bed, it makes me clench the blanket tighter. Lowering his head in a polite way, he speaks in a soft delicate voice. “Welcome to the Silvergrass inn.”~
~~~