//------------------------------// // Cold and Afraid // Story: The Abduction of Luna // by 97xxfastbike //------------------------------// Millstone trotted in circles to dry his fur and warm his body after his icy bath in the mountain stream. He knew he needed to get back into the cave. After all, that was the only place he would be able to get warm since he couldn't build a fire and risk being found by some Palace patrol. However, the mere thought of going back inside that cave was enough for him to consider death by exposure as an acceptable alternative. He wasn't afraid of the cold, night air; that was just uncomfortable. But that cave! That horrible, dark, echo-y cave seemed to him to be just big enough to be his coffin! The very thought of entering that unholy sepulcher with all those other bodies inside made his stout heart melt within him like wax in a furnace. Nevertheless, he found himself at the cave's narrow entrance shivering from head to hoof, but whether it was mainly from the cold or his phobia he figured was best left undecided. It might just be the distraction he desperately needed in order to force himself through the tight switchbacks and into the stale air of their suffocating cave. He started walking. The sheer stone walls brushed against his flanks. He kept moving. That was most important. He must keep moving. If he stopped, even for an instant, he knew his barely contained panic would rise precipitously and force him into ignominious retreat. He pressed on with his sides sucked in to keep his contact with the unyielding rock to a minimum. The vertical rock faces to his left and right seemed to narrow and expand like they were the living sides of a great dragon, He knew it was a trick of his mind, but he could not help but quicken his pace. Finally, he was through the gauntlet and in the belly of the mountain, standing in the very vault he had carved, and peace was very far from him. He could hear the breathing of the other ponies as they slept. The rock walls began to close in on him to cut off his escape. He was not in any cave, but inside the stomach of a giant. That was why he had made it inside so quickly. He hadn't been walking. No, he had been swallowed whole and was now to be digested! In a final bid to stave off his terror, he clamped his eyes shut and just tried to breathe. “Who’s there!” That voice was a cork ring in a tempest, and he seized it. “It—it—it’s mm—mm—‘ Millstone stammered through chest muscles clinching down on his lungs panic-tight. “M, thou doth sound frigid!” The whisper interrupted. “Come here at once!” Millstone chanced opening his eyes to pick his way around those still asleep to reach Luna. He made sure he never looked up or around, but kept his eyes fixed on the ground immediately in front of him. Finally, the indigo form of his captive was in his view. He realized then that her horn had been glowing since he had made it back inside, and its bluish light had made his trek possible without stumbling. He tried to ask her a question through his quivering and cramping muscles. “Remove the restraint on my wings. I cannot fly away. Additionally, I am chained to the floor, what need have thee of this?” Luna interrupted his stammering. Millstone shivered at her response. He knew he shouldn't remove any restraint. Indeed, they had all been specifically warned by Silver to never remove or loosen any of her restraints. Luna pounced on his hesitation. “M, I perceive that thou art still shuddering in the stages of hypothermia, and thus, thou art in need of an external source of warmth. If thou would just release my wings, I would wrap my wing around thee to warm thee. Nothing more.” Luna didn't have to try to be persuasive, as too many circumstances argued in her favor. “Oh-kh-kay.” Millstone acquiesced and he undid the straps around her barrel. As soon as the last strap was undone her wings—spring-like—popped out from her sides. “Ohhh, yes!” Luna sighed in near ecstasy as she stretched-out her wings to their limits. “That feels sooo gooood! I have been wanting to do that since I first awoke in this cave.” After her short stretch, Luna swept her left wing in come-hither circles. “M, lie down here, you sound as though you are desperate for warmth.” Millstone wordlessly complied, still trembling with cold and fear about the cave and now anxiety about the freedom he had just given to Luna. However, once he had lain next to her and she had covered him with her wing, he found it easy to relax against her and let the warmth of her body soak into him and still his shivering. After all, her wing seemed to be warmer that the quilt on his childhood bed, and her body was as pleasant to recline against as Silver’s. “Thou art chilled to the bone!” Luna’s vehement whisper shocked him back into discomforting reality. Luna had no reason to be so amiable to him. Yet the tone of her whispers and her charitable manner made war against the truth he knew; Luna was his captive, and not to be trusted. “Pray tell, whatever possessed thee to flee out into the night?” Luna asked. So why has Luna sounded and acted so concerned about his well-being? Millstone pondered her actions as well as her question. He decided to follow his therapist’s advice. Talking through his fears reduced their power over him. “I had a bad dream, a horrible nightmare.” He answered. “What about?” Luna asked. She sounded like his therapist: Engaged and concerned. “About the time my older brother nearly drowned me.” Luna drew a shocked breath. “Did thee often quarrel bitterly with thy brother?” “No.” Millstone answered simply. He then went on to explain how he and his brother had been friendly to one another, until his brother had a teacher that would ridicule and demean him and some of the other students over even tiny offenses. His brother would come home from a bad day at school and find empowerment by tormenting his younger sibling, who had a fear of being trapped in small, dark places. A fear which gradually became worse and worse over that year. “Were thy parents blind to this abuse?” “My parents were busy working in the fields, or working in town, or with my baby sister in the hospital.” Millstone closed his eyes and saw his sister’s tiny pinkish body wrapped in white blankets. He never remembered her in any other color. But, always in sterile, hospital white. “Sprout was sickly from birth, and took most of my parent’s time and bits in the year she was alive. They were distracted and thought that any of our strange behavior was due to the stress brought on by Sprout’s illness. I was too afraid to tell them because they were gone so much and I was left in the care of my brother. When they did find out, it was after the school year was over and Sprout had died. I told my grief counselor, who then told my parents, who then questioned my brother, who then told them about how he had suffered under the tenured teacher’s near regular belittling.” Millstone squeezed his eyes closed and felt hot tears pool in his eyelashes. As though she could see the manifestation of his pain, Luna stroked him with her wing. “What happened to the teacher?” Luna asked. “She was counseled on her behavior, but she started the next school year with a new class until those parents too, objected strongly to her continued position and demanded that she be reassigned to another school,” Millstone sighed, “I heard that same thing happened about every two years until she retired after forty years of teaching.” Luna’s next breath was long and quivering with rage. Her exhale had the slight whistle of air being forced through pursed lips. “Did thee and thy brother eventually reconcile?” Millstone nodded at first, but then remembered Luna’s blinders. “Yes, sort’a. He was never brutal to me after that, but I never trusted him again like I had. When he married and left to work his own farm, I felt relieved.” There was silence after that. Millstone could feel Luna shift and move uneasily against him. But just before he felt like he should excuse himself, she blurted out: “Thou dost seem so valiant and righteous. Whatever was it that caused you to join Silver in my abduction?” Millstone felt hot blood flood into his face. “I uh… I lost the farm after my parents died. I thought I had what it takes to be a farmer, but I guess I didn't.” He shifted his body away from Luna. “Was it some policy or act of the Palace that made you lose your farm?” Luna leaned toward him to make body contact again. Millstone again pulled away. “It was seized for non-payment of taxes. My parents had filed several extensions. First, due to our family emergencies, then for the drought, and finally for the blight. But when they suddenly died from what I think was milk sickness, I had trouble filing the tax extension paperwork and the patience of the Royal Tax Collection Ministry ran out. I was declared to be insolvent and given an eviction. I met Silver in a bar near the Palace shortly afterward when I was still raw and angry from the ruling.” “Why didn't your parents go to the Hospital once they took ill?” Millstone chuckled mirthlessly. “They didn't want to go into debt again. They had finally paid off Sprout’s medical and funeral expenses. The crops looked the best we’d ever seen, and it looked like that was the year we were finally going to get our farm back into the black. It just seemed impossible that we could have that much bad luck in a row. But the next morning…” Millstone let his voice trail off and cleared his throat. Luna started to stroke him with her wing, but he stood abruptly. “Time to wrap you up again, Princess," Millstone's barely whispered voice quaked under the weight of his heavy emotions, "Fold up your wings please.” “Now, M, you know-“ “Don’t make me force you,” Millstone cut off her attempt to protest, “Please, fold up your wings, now, Princess.” At first, Luna made no movement to comply. Her wings remained stubbornly at half-mast, but then she reluctantly folded them in. “Doth thou blame me for thy misfortunes?” She asked as he reattached the straps holding her wings folded against her barrel. “No,” Millstone answered her after a pause, “I know that you personally have done nothing directly to cause my problems.” He tugged the last strap tight, eliciting a grunt from Luna. Then he turned his head and whispered into her ear. “Forgive me, Princess, I know what I’m doing is wrong, but I am just so angry. I want somepony to pay!” He stood up and turned around to find his way back to his bed, but his fear returned to him in force. He stood trembling with his hooves rooted next to his captive, barely able to breathe his next breath. “Wilt thou allow me to touch you with my horn?” Luna asked. “I can help you, if you will let me.” Millstone nodded at first, but then he remembered again that Luna couldn't see him through her blinders. “Oh—oh—kh—khay.” He forced out at last and moved his head down and toward hers. Her horn had scarcely brushed his forehead, but the effect was powerful and immediate. He was instantly relieved of all the muscle convulsions in his chest, and his sight was filled with a bright vision of beauty the likes of which he had only dreamed! He looked around in astonishment to see all around him an endless field of golden wheat, their heads heavy with corn, under a bright-blue, sunny and cloudless sky. At his hooves laid Luna and his teammates on their beds in small trampled area that was the size and shape of the cave. This looked to him like heaven, and he was not afraid. He looked down at Princess Luna and saw her still blinded and fettered, even in this vision of paradise she had given him, and his heart ached at the sight. “Thank you, Princess, I—I don’t know what to say.” “I have given thee respite from thy fear for the time you gave me respite from my bonds." Luna quietly announced their parity, "Now go, lie down on thy bed, and sleep.” “Princess Luna, How long will I see this magical vision?” He asked, still entranced at seeing a clear blue sky and perfect fields of golden, ripe wheat when he knew he should be seeing the black, claustrophobic confines of a small, crowded cave. “It will be gone when you wake at sunrise,” Luna said, “and your fear will return then too.” Millstone nodded. “Thank you. Princess, for-” “Go” Luna cut him off and laid her head down. “Leave me.”