//------------------------------// // Blood // Story: Water Pony // by BlazzingInferno //------------------------------// Kev’s legs burned as he ran. His hooves pumped up and down on the loose rocks that now littered the path. Every few steps, he’d stumble and have to catch himself. Watching where he was going wasn’t an option, not when that would mean taking his eyes off the plumes of dust rising over the ridge. Whatever was happening up there would be over long before he got there; whether that was a new pile of rocks next to the village or on top of it remained to be seen. “Jerek, you idiot! Why’d you ever let me talk you into accepting that job offer? Why’d you have to go and marry my sister right before we got transferred? Why’d you two have to start a family? If you were here right now, I’d punch your stupid face in! I’d—” His hooves slipped on a pile of rocks and sent him crashing to the ground. He’d reached the top of the hill, the lookout point where he and Morning Dew had exchanged the closest thing to a bonding moment their short marriage had ever known. Now as he stared at the mountain’s western slope, he saw the world that moment had taken place in was gone. Kev didn’t consciously process most of what he saw as he ran through the remains of the village. He didn’t hear the screams from those pinned under the rubble, or the moans from those who’d lost limbs, loved ones, or both. He didn’t smell the citrus of the smashed fruit stand in the market, or the blood of its smashed proprietors. He didn’t see the lingering clouds of rock dust that made breathing as difficult for the uninjured as walking was for the maimed. His mind was wholly occupied with his family’s daily schedule. “Still an hour left before I’m supposed to leave work… Dana’s starting dinner, Tam’s up from his nap, and Morning Dew’s playing with him. Still an hour left before I’m supposed to leave work. Dana’s starting dinner…” Those words spilled through his mind and past his lips as he dug through the pile of rock that had replaced his house. “Dana’s starting dinner!” He threw a boulder over his shoulder. “Tam’s up from his nap!” He reached for another, and then another. “Morning Dew’s playing with—” Reality hit as his hands closed around something soft. Morning Dew’s hoof still felt warm, but the pool of blood around her head made it clear that she’d soon be as cold as the stones that had buried her. Her form was mostly hidden by shadow, which Kev didn’t intend to change. He couldn’t even bear to speak her name, let alone inspect her injuries. Kev spotted Dana’s arm nearby, sticking out from under a boulder bigger than he was. Her fingers were closed around a hand much smaller than her own. He gently touched her curled fingers. She felt cold already, colder than Morning Dew. Her ring felt colder still. Tears poured out of him. He knelt in the midst of his deceased family, gripping Dana’s hand but not daring to touch Tam’s. “Don’t go… Don’t leave me here all alone. Y-you’re all I have!” Hooves scraped against the rocks nearby. Kev tensed up. He slipped Dana’s ring off her finger and into his shirt pocket. Even if their former home became her body’s tomb, her rings would have a proper burial. “Who’s there?” No response came. Kev stood, which was enough to raise his head above the hole he’d created in the rock pile. “Who’s there? Are you trapped? Do you need—” The scuffing of hooves came again, this time clearly from the other side of the monstrous rock that had taken Dana and Tam. Kev pushed himself out of the hole, and in the process discovered another one. Someone had already started excavating the rear of the house, and one of their spindly goat horns was giving away their hiding place. Sunlight glinted off a golden ring looped around their right horn, a ring that had been scuffed and dented by years of unpaid labor, the mate to the ring in Kev’s pocket. Tuft Head dove out of the rubble seconds after Kev lunged forward. The pair tumbled down the rock pile and into the street. Every drop of adrenaline that Kev had left coursed through him like an electric current. He couldn’t feel the hooves pounding his face and chest, or the hot blood on his knuckles. All he could sense was Tuft Head’s ragged breathing, and how much he wanted to never hear that sound again. Kev punched him across the face once more, and pushed himself back up to a kneeling position. A wooden beam lying at the edge of the wreckage caught his eye. He grabbed it, and raised it high overhead. Tuft Head lay on the ground beneath him, bloodied, dazed, and nearly unconscious. That still wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. “This is for Dana, goat.” A voice cut through his savage hatred like a knife, a sweet female voice that was both foreign and yet familiar. “Wait! Wait!” And then he saw her. Morning Dew stood there, barely three feet from Tuft Head, with a hoof raised in protest. Water dripped from her soaked mane. The remains of her water jugs had turned her hair into what only looked like a bloody mess. She spoke, and once again her words rang clear in his ears. “Please don’t kill him, Kev! Please just let him go!” Kev’s heart broke. Tears ran down his face as his grief overtook his anger. He turned away from the still-breathing goat and faced the only family he had left. Morning Dew’s eyes went wide. She let out a scream and curled up into a ball. “Please, no! No no no no!” 
“Huh?” The wooden beam slipped out of Kev’s hands and clattered to the ground between them. “What’s the matter—” White hot pain shot through Kev’s leg. He felt his balance shifting, as if the ground had given way beneath his right hoof. As he fell, he glanced back and saw One Eye, head down and horns buried in his calf. Rage boiled away the tears he had yet to shed. With a cry of earth-shaking fury, he pulled One Eye off the ground by the horns and heaved him through the air. The goat’s scream faded away as he fell past the village’s edge and out of sight. Then Kev hit the ground. One Eye was on his way to a crash landing, hopefully on something jagged. Tuft Head was where Kev had left him, still breathing and still wearing the stolen ring. Morning Dew hadn’t run away this time, or at least not as far. She sat across the street, sobbing quietly. “Kev!” The Magistrate stood over him with an axe in one hand and a shackle in the other. “You’re under arrest.”