//------------------------------// // 84: Home inside but lost for life. (SS) // Story: Xenophilia: Further tales. // by TheQuietMan //------------------------------// Home inside but lost for life. Chapter published 21st July 2015 ********************** The air is still, quiet, even the chirping of the birds and the sounds of wildlife seem muted today. The wind rustles the soft grass all around, carrying with it the smell of early autumn as it wends its way across the outer fields of Sweet Apple Acres to join us. Should I care to take a glance behind us I would be able to just make out the top of Fluttershy’s cottage as it recedes into the distance. The children of herd Macintosh play in its shadow, faint traces of their voices floating along behind us as we walk. On any other day, I would be there with them - running, chasing, just enjoying the freedom of being young. Today though... today we walk in silence. We all know where we are headed, we’ve been there before. My elder sister walks at my side, her head bowed in thought. Our younger sister is carried in our father’s arm. She is too young to really understand where we are going, or why. Just as I was the first time I came to this place. In time we reach the edge of the Everfree Forest, stopping at a small clearing that my father knows all too well. Many years ago now he was found at this very spot, by a butter yellow pegasus who had no idea who, or what, he was. As far as my father is concerned, this is the spot where his life here in Equestria first began. Before us, each sitting proud and well maintained, stand eighteen spherical stone markers. Before each one is planted a small but brightly coloured flower, the vibrant colours contrasting wildly against the sombre grey of the stone behind it. Each marker is hand-crafted from separate boulder, none standing more than one foot high. Carved into each and every marker is a single word. Eighteen markers, eighteen names. The names of those who came before us. Sweet Spirit and I stand to the side as father steps forward, crouches down, and runs a hand over one of the stones. I know the names inscribed on each by heart. Even without looking I know how the strange letters carved into the rock should be pronounced, just as I know the meaning each name held for the humans that created them so long ago. Abigail, Beatrice, Charlotte, Delilah, Elizabeth, Felicity, Gayna, Hanako, Ingenue, Jessica, Katarina, Lillian, Miranda, Nadiah, Ozlem, Penelope, Querida, Rebecca. Eighteen sisters that we’ll never know. Eighteen lives that never came to be. But without them before us, we would not have came to be. Without them there would be no Sweet Spirit, no Star Song, and no Seraphina Skywalker. The magic of harmony may not have ever graced them with a name, as it had for us, but instead father had given a name to every one of his lost children, determined that each should be honoured and remembered in their own right. Settling himself down on the short grass - crossing his legs beneath him so that Sky can rest comfortably in his lap, his strong yet gentle hands stroking her polychromatic mane - father begins to tell his youngest child all about her sisters. In all likelihood she is too small right now to remember what he is saying - the sounds, the meanings, the message behind his words being more than her young mind can handle yet. But I will remember them. I will remember them, always.