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// Spreader of The Red Ash Chapter 3 
// Story: Splashes In Time 
// by Valley Fjord 
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The dampness of life that grew unchecked along the walls and floor resisted catching fire, moss and mold smolder with the molten remains. Many flying pieces had done their purpose by blasting chunks from the front of the house and punching holes throughout most of the inner walls of the cottage. And though the force of the explosion had made the walls groan and snap with brittleness, the missiles of molten stones riddle them near to collapse.
Heat from the glowing stones that did not make their way through the walls and instead came to rest on blackening floor broads began filling the room. One red shard that had lodged in the ceiling, burned itself loose after a time and fell onto a patch of mold and dirt with a sizzling splat. The stone's fall catapults some of the muck into the air to land on Fluttershy's back with a sudden warm sting.
A shocked scream fills the room as Fluttershy tries to scamper away from the hot muck, however, Memoir's tail was still curled around her, holding her to where she was. Memoir's tail flexes with a slight twitch near its end as Fluttershy tries to unravel herself enough to flare her wings and try to brush off the heat. 
Her struggle stops with the sudden snap of wood. The sound came from in front of her and brought her teal eyes to look at Memoir's back legs. His feet were clinched tight; claws digging deep into the floor. But when a sound of pained breathing reaches Fluttershy a chill crosses her heart and her eyes grew wide.
The soft copper scales along Memoir's back and tail shift as tendons beneath them loosen and roll and he raises back up. When he opens his eyes, they're affronted by the blunt of the heat. One of the golems stone eyes rolled into few; staring up at him. Seeing it, Memoir tilts his head, takes a deep burning and painful breath; feeling all the heat radiate around him, and lets out a gout of thick crimson ash. The eye shutters, trying to move, but when the red mass reaches the stone eye, it cracks and sizzles. 
Memoir flexes his tail. Feeling Fluttershy squirm from the movement he maneuvers the tip, tightly gripping Fluttershy around her chest and between her shoulders. He rears back; making his own pains grow, when the tight contact brings memories of quickly flying then falling on cold earth. Thoughts of being lost and things looking too old began to flood into him until the top of his head catches parts of the ceiling broads, pulling some free. 
The images waver at the blow to his head, the gap in them allows Memoir to hoists his tail and Fluttershy almost as high as his own head. His eyes roll back, sight catching on the dark substance that marks Fluttershy's back. It was the only thing to mar what she had looked like from before and he quickly flicked the fanning end of his tail, scrapping most of it off. Behind her, the corner of the room that she had been in was nothing more then an old wall that had been riddled by stones. 
A thought that it shouldn't stand up to him at all crossed his mind. Spinning, he angles himself towards it hoping that if his weight could brake an old door-
Fluttershy cringes in the grip of the thick tail as Memoir leaned himself towards the wall and brought his front legs onto it. The snap was sudden. Their fall, quick and jarring. And outside there where several small pillars of steam and smoke that could be seen littering a downward slopping hill back to the river. 
Memoir took the first steps into the cooler air with new images leeching into the back of his glowing eyes. Butterflies and a calming green field clouded his sight as dirt shifted from around a piece of hot stone, the red skin of his front right foot quickly burned. His body twists and strays over and away from the heat, sending all four legs into a disordered skid as the two barrel down to the rivers bank.
The cool water brakes, sending churned waves rolling and hissing steam raises as Memoir's bulk, neck, and head slide in. Half sunk and dropping fast, Memoir saw images of himself; he was lumbering around a dead tree in the distance and slowly came walking closer to his own perspective. His mouth hung open with rows of too big teeth as he moved, while down his back were rows of sharp copper spines rather then his flat scales. An edge of red ash and fire licked at the corners of his lips and when he reached the river back -
A frantic pulling and flailing pulls desperately at the end of his tail, causing another brake in the images. The cold water clung all around him and was nearly at the tip of his tail, he could feel Fluttershy's wet fur scratching against his skin.
All she could do as Memoir; a creature she didn't know anything about, dragged her lower into the river was to weakly paddle her hooves against the water and stretch her neck up. When flowing waters passed her eyes and came up to her lifted chin she stops. The rise back up happened quick, her body being pushed back up by Memoir's tail. 
Fluttershy's head comes back up at the same time as Memoir's. His wide flat head and eyes brake the surface bent at an angle towards her. A sudden jerk brings her around the rest of the way into view where she was given a close look at his glowing eye. “It followed me here,” he said with a flat tone before lowering his head almost completely back under water. A shudder ran down his body, shaking hard enough to churn the water again and make Fluttershy's teeth clack together.
A silent breath escapes from Fluttershy as the hold on her is unraveled. She feels herself nearly dropped into the water as Memoir's tail shifts and loosens, and while the thicker parts slide away several thin and flexible spines slowly stretch themselves out from either side of the fanned tip; right under Fluttershy's chest. Their touch brought a blush to her cheeks as they gripped around her small frame and reached up to the base of her wing joints. This new hold was much more gentle on her, unlike the bulk of his tail had been, and with a soft tug Memoir's body and herself were pointed upstream. 
Riding along, Fluttershy watched how awkwardly he swam, it was strange for her to see something twist and turn like he did, he would be undulating like a lizard or snakes when they swim, but then roll and jerk sideways, or he would start grabbing onto stones at the river bed with his front legs as the rest of his body hitched up. His tail was another oddity, with it stretching up from the the bottom of the stream and holding her up somewhat uncomfortably.
White bubbles rose around his mouth, making her also wonder about how long he was going to stay under.
For Memoir, spikes of images continued to run throw his red eyes. It was stupid, all it could do was think about was hurting, and its eyes only say grays and black as it watched Memoir speaking to the old bones. It had watched as he touched the bone and it broke. When he turned from the bone and started to move away the stone vision started to follow again, it burned with hateful emotions in its stupidity and made some effort to move. 
Pressure grew around Memoir, cutting into the vision, while Fluttershy watched as the waterfall came closer. She flinched back from the falling water as he passed into it without slowing. Memoir's face had pressed into a stone wall hard; snapping the darker memories apart. He rights himself at coming to, climbing up through the falls one stone hold at a time.
Spraying water caught Fluttershy in the face as it bounced off Memoir, as he moved up the waterfall with her. Doing her best to not drown in the spray, she looks down against it. 
Her breath catches tightly, painfully, as a red glowing stone drops to the river bellow. Searching over him, she sees that his eyes were dimmed by cold falls, but the molten fragments lodged into the base of his neck and under his right shoulder brightly shown threw the water. White steam bubbled from the heat as the cool waterfall battered down on them. 
A sharp point slid out from between fresh cracked scales on his shoulder. When it came free it tumbled over itself again and again, until it hit the bottom of the river. Fluttershy watched all the while as it rolled before looking back to Memoir's neck and the other glowing light. 
Relief was all he wanted now, there was flowing relief at having just one of the hot stone spikes come out. The physical pain and damage wasn't too concerning, the burning hole and cracked scales were already healing, but the memories - the memories of the golem exploding and of the ponies constantly growing terror, he didn't like feeling either of them, but at least the golems thoughts were fading with each fallen stone. 
Several small spurs fell out of his sides and neck by the time he reached the top of the falls. His face gnarls with effort as he crosses the white cascading top of the fall. Fluttershy was, for her part, still breathing; though she felt completely waterlogged. 
Memoir's tail leaned over, putting her down over the edge and onto the dry ground; the thin spines releasing her. Scratching frantically at the smooth wet stones that border the top of the river he pulls himself over. Soft weeds and dead grass litter the ground around them. 
Shock had already taken hold of Fluttershy, even from before leaving her own home she could feel her own body trying to come apart, but through the cold from the water and her terror she remembered that Memoir said he would help her, and then he protected her; when the spines under her chest curl away she darted over to his side without hesitation.
His body heaved for each breath as she caught sight of thin scales that were covering his neck in areas that didn't use to have them. She was quickly trying to order her thoughts, how to remove the remaining stone shards, to treat any burns he'd have, to help with -  his back legs buckled, drop to his back knees while his front claws skidded out in front of him. Shrinking back, Fluttershy's eyes became pinpricks as he hit the ground with a light thud; panic grew to an extreme understatement for her. 
She looks him over again for any larger stones. There were pulsing rings surrounding the edges between his skin and scales, they were in the same spots where she had seen the stones that had fallen out, but there were no other signs of what it was that happened to him. His head rolled numbly, tilting to the side, and one dim pupil stared back at her. “Not accustomed,” he said while taking a deep breath and stretching his mouth; red liquids clung to his lower jaw and dripped off his tongue. “Still feel so hot. Anger, enough to burn down everything, raise it all-”
With a tentative hoof, Fluttershy slowly pressed down on the outside of his jaw. A molten shard of stone was imbedded into the back of his mouth; the fissure it made was oozing the red liquid. With a pained expression on her face, Fluttershy released Memoir's jaw.