Pirene's Well: Three Nights in Manehattan

by Ether Echoes


Dawn of the Fourth Day - Epilogue

The Old Warhorse

I don’t know where I am.

It doesn’t matter, really. One place is as good as another at this point. Any patch of land or water can serve as a shallow grave in a pinch. There’s good, muddy earth under my back and I can taste the sea on the breeze. Leaves rustle at the corners of my vision, and all the world is the starry night.

Before I can die, though, light touches the horizon, chasing away the stars, and in a ray that pierces the trees she arrives, fading in as if from a dream.

“All I want to know is why, Redbud,” she says, her voice low, hurt.

“For love of you, Celestia, and of this country.”

She lowers her head, for once seeming her age in a way she hadn’t since the Bridle first left her brow. To be a part of that pain is to die just a little inside. No mare can be as beautiful as she, as noble and pure.

“You know what has to happen.”

Without really being able to nod, I pull my head up slightly and let it fall in silent acknowledgement.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” she says, almost pleading. “You could have worked with us. The world isn’t as hopeless as you seem to feel. Think of everything you’ve seen in the past few days. Can’t you see?”

I watch as the sky continues to brighten. Birds wing boldly overhead, wheeling in swirls of bright color before moving on.

“Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. “Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.”

She steps forward, her eyes questioning.

“It’s from the Iliad,” I say. “I was thinking about the boy. Marcus.”

“What of him?” She settles beside me. “A brave and heroic young man, to be sure, but why do you think of him in such a way?”

“No man. Not anymore.” I sigh and close my eyes. “Him, and Wave Form, and your students, and so many others. The old clears away, so that the new might meet the sun and thrive. They will protect the world, where I could not. I’m too prejudiced, too hateful and cruel. Too covered in blood. You need them, Celestia.”

Her wing settles around me and she pulls me up against her barrel.

“Yes, I do…” She brushes at my side. “Maybe it’s not too late for you.”

“Eternal optimism, my Princess.”

Green light fills the clearing, and Daphne Ocean steps out, coming to my opposite side.

“Where will you take him?” Celestia asks.

“Away. He will learn, or he won’t.” Daphne smiles sadly. “Even I can’t see that. But he at least has a chance.”

Celestia nods and looks back to me. “Whether you like it or not, Redbud – Helios – you’re part of that world, too. Maybe as a mortal you had nowhere left to grow, but as an alicorn you can be young again. You can change. Come back to me, if you do.”

I don’t answer. I can’t answer. What could I say to convince her to let me die?

Nothing. She’s Celestia.

She never quits on her little ponies.

“All right.” Celestia nods, stepping aside. “Take him.”

Green light swallows me, tunneling through space. I glimpse the Tree, a radiant bole of light supporting a canopy of stars and rooted in the black ocean of the tabula rasa.

I don’t know where I’m going, but as I close my eyes and wait, I see Marcus again. For just a moment, I remember what it’s like to be young, to know in your heart that you can do anything.

He even thought he could save me. He pleaded with me to see his way, right to the end.

What happens to me doesn’t really matter. All that does matter is that the world I leave behind has someone who can do what I couldn’t, that it has a whole class of people who can do what I thought was impossible, all because I didn’t have it in me anymore to believe.

They can change the world.

THE END