It was the darkness of the night. There was a fire very near, very warm.
"Fire! The pit! Hell!"his mind screamed, biblical references, Gahena, mixed with that awful pit of burning garbage and rags under the eclipse.
His eyes shot open, waking up with a start.
It was nice fire...not like that other fire, full of smoke and sparks, under the eclipse where All Wishes, Sergeant Captains and Doctor Puzzle found him.
Of course, that nightmare was redeemed, he learned the intercessor was real.
Thanks to a pagan magic practicing unicorn,All Wishes.
What was the creator up to?
He sighed, feeling the weight of his body. The wonder of this being at all real. That seans that you dwell just behind your eyeballs! Under the skin and frame of the body,his body: all velvet dark in firelight. He turned over his hooves letting firelight pass through all the spaces and cracks. His joints ,moving, better than fine, covering them; something crusty and warm.
Barely at the edge of his perception, "A pony...not anything like the man who came from heaven. What right you, beast, into his family?"
The stallion groaned inaudibly and rolled his eyes."Not you again." He remembered what he had said to the thing before and doing justly, having mercy and loving...."If I be in punishment..."He added Micah 7:9." I have sinned against him,I will bear the Lord’s wrath,until he pleads my case and upholds my cause.He will bring me out into the light;I will see his righteousness."
The thing hissed."Feel wrath!"
The stallion felt the awful pain in his sides. He did not cry out, but he did shed tears.
"It was given me a thorn in my side, strength made perfect in weakness!" he quoted from Paul.
"I will overcome for the crown!"he snorted.
Over by the fire, the mare from the days run patiently waiting, watching the blaze, as the light danced over her face and body. Swirling flames,reflected in her eyes like Ages Laticinio marbles, more gold than blue.
She made a welcome distraction and her very being brought relief , diminishing the poking of the rider as he let her fill up his mind's eye.
"Damn Yankee!"said the rider in the image of Quantrill taking a big puff from his cigar and blowing it in the stallion's face.
"The smoke isn't real," said the stallion indignant." Neither is your face! That is the name of a Baseball Musical where the wife saves the main characters mortal soul just by being there!
She does her job, just like mine!
Just like the steamboat engineer in Call of Cthulhu!
Ram you too, I would if I could if I thought it would do any good!
Away with you!"
The rider retreated to chaw on his candy cigar and plot strategy. He had a lot of scheming to do after being exiled of a Draconequus back, by a rainbow, from the future. So much power and now again on the back of this mortal squib! He bathed in delusions of twisting the future, knowing what he knew, to where he wanted.
The squib was right though.
She would mock and laugh at him.
Would find him funny!
"My wife....and you're here." he thought as he yawned quietly."You're certainly not a dream."He let out another soft sigh."Oh! but this might as well be."warm and comfortable, he looked around at the world in the fire's light. "All dark, rich and royal colors, this mare all aglow in the dancing of the fire's light, golds and reds in the shadows.."He looked skyward."Those milky stars and that figurehead on the moon near the horizon."
Looked to the moon, the silhouette, the goddess in his dream, stars like her mane.
Again he sighed," I never got her name."
He looked back to the mare. Her head like the horse nebula, turn in that beautiful golden mean, mathematically close enough to perfection,fibonacci one,two,three, five eight...the things he was remembering!
"If I don't think too deeply about what she is, what I am, hee, she is kind of cute..." front leg resting behind his head looking her over in a drowsy state of observation and thoughtful contemplation. "I have my own goddess."
Mind drifting to legend.
Greek legend.
Hercules!
Fighting the sphinx.
Intersecting other thought.
"Haaa...she actually looks almost like a lion in this light, resting...'if you were any braver Lucy you would be a lioness." Thinking on C.S. Lewis's Aslan.
'in the jungle the mighty jungle.'
Descriptions of the lions of Africa in Hemingway's Old man and the Sea, it made him happy, happy fisherman!
That reminded him of fish"..oo tasty sardines in mustard,'I'm going to eat you little fishy!' Reminding of Doctor Pax Claw merrily singing and eating sardine paste on hard tack..
" Claw, Pax."he softly laughed.
His eyes grew wide"Beak and claw.
Sharp."
Reminding him of sharks, like sea hennas, piranhas.
'little fishy eating me!'
'welcome to the jungle!'
Scratch in Lion King.. Switching back to a good lion Aslan, who ate the White Witch wasn't she was a lot like Celestia? Remembered the old man fighting back, the sharks eating the great fish, thrashing about in the water.
"All this eating, am I hungry?"
The Sphinx, a monster like a shark.
Trying to eat Hercules.
No he wasn't hungry.
The Sphinx half one thing half another, the head of a woman...!
His mind revulsed latching about the fact his mare was a horse!
"Centaurs!Think about Centaurs!
Brave noble Centaurs!
Monster verses monster, fight the Sphinx!"
"They won!" he imagined."Look at them gallop in celebration! Huh, girl centaur...ehhh! Put a top on, girl!"
Looking away, focusing way too much on the mares lower half, thinking of Hercules again and the mares of....
"...ah,ha ha...No!"
Enough of that! Making him ill.
Making him ill his stomach cramped and he felt the awful pain on each of his sides, again.
His mind tumbled in a shadowy vortex downhill after that,followed by a mob of those same monsters from legend, rumor, hysteria and pop culture, including four gentlemen, shipping club for Vina and Pike, from Talos grumbling loudly about the franchise, out of towners from dark city, it, and an invisible monster, crackling with electricity, from a forbidden world. Together, charging, with giant grasshoppers, in a wild hunt with their leader, a cruel rider in the gilded mask of farce of humanity, cackling in his ear, feeling sharp spurs jammed into his sides all the way down, stinking and sweating!
"Naw man!"The mare heard him loudly grumble, "Don't feed the bad wolf!"
She was beside him. "You're awake."
"Gee, how you can move girl." he started.
"Quick and quiet." she said, her eyes gold in the fire's light. "What do you mean don't feed the bad wolf?" She tilted her head looking thoughtful. "Better not tell him about timber wolves, just yet!"
Just the eyes in the dark. Through the shadow of what looked like a woman.
Looking that way, he felt he would answer her any question, as if a lasso of truth was tied over his shoulders...like Samsons hair in the looms...aack!
"No more strong men!
Like Centaurs....."
"Take a deep breath Smudgie.
Answer her question. Submit to the Lord, resist the enemy he will flee.How?"He gently prompted.
"With scripture..."
"Whatsoever things are real, uh true....noble, pure, of good report from your teachers whatever you have learned , think on these things."he said.
"That sounds right," said the mare, "but, has it to to do with wolves? Did you have a wolf for a teacher?"
Visions of Ladyhawk danced in his head, fun and childish romances...The wolves of Narnia, Mowgli's, wolves, the law of the jungle, Island of the Blue Dolphin, no those were dogs Goblin Warves, no, no none of that!
Romulus and Remus, classic stories told to children at story hour, before the world went morally mad....an endless library bigger than the library of hymns, all in his head.
In his mind he leaned up against the door,coronaic light at the doors edges, putting his whole weight against it with a deep feeling of regret and felt it close with a click, leaving only the door's dark outline, getting down, walking away the door behind him.
He simply had to, getting sidetracked, there would be time to look things over later.
"Forgive me. Please help me open it again later if I have to...this all needs a song, but I have no idea how to put all this into words. I guess I'll learn!"He smiled."I'm not done yet. I'm not perfected! I'm alive! A work in progress!"
"Well no, things that feed the good wolf...representing light and hope."
"...and the bad wolf?"
"Despair and darkness..."
She looked away again, contemplating in the firelight.
She spoke.
"I hope you don't mind dusty knees, "she said he looked at her quizzically.
"warn mud mixed with straw, made a kind of clay, a type of warm compress keep your knees from cramping...you ran hard today."
"Oh....."
Uncomfortable silence settled between the two.
"Married. Do I lead, let her lead? How does this all work? Lord how does this work?"he thought."She lead me on a merry chase and of course over the hill and down the dale then down again, The sun was on the right or was it on the left...and.."
Stop. Ask a question.
"What's your name?" the stallion asked.
"At last!" said the Mare with glee and delight."Marigold."
"Marigold?I would think you an Abigail myself." he teased with a smirk.
"No." she said with a pout. "I would call you Imago Dei." she said with a dark smile. "What do you call yourself?"
"Smudgie Pie."
"Me a name, I call my,self.."his mind recited out of habit.
"Smudgie Pie?"Marigold winced saying the name."So much for naming the Saturday Special Bouquet after him. Can get him to change his mind?"she thought."Are you sure you wouldn't like Imago Dei? That sounds so much better!"
"Nope. Smuggie Pie that's me." his eye twitched. "Do I look imago dei? Nope! A pony me."he looked at his hooves that started to shake." I don't see any sign of son of Adam me,nope and..and Adam named things you know..."he began to laugh."I'm just a freaking horsey!"he turned on his back and began to laugh hysterically, madly galloping in the air.
All his movement stirring the ground beneath, legs flaying in the air, threatening to bound him into the fire.
"Oh and he was doing so well!"said the mare in the moon.
A masculine voice replied."It's only natural, it will happen to all of them, sooner or later. Better in a warm embrace than none."
Marigold grabbed his head and looked him in the eyes.
"Smudgie Pie! Stop it!" she said sternly. All his attention was drawn to her eyes his legs stilled folding in on themselves. All the authority of a mother in her voice.
"Wouldn't He who called you imago dei be ashamed the way you're acting?"she scolded. "At you, yourself, your being?"that caught his attention as if replying to what he had said out of habit echoing among the grey cells.
"I think, no, I know He sees."he looked away as he listened his front legs folded in front of him like a mantis humbug.
"You have a mind, you think. He gave you that mind so you can think.
Think your way out: those dark bogs in the mazes of the mind, those place where the bad wolf lives and preys and feeds." she said.
"The one who sees me."Smudgie quoted in his mind."Worship the Lord with all your mind, all your heart and all your soul.''When doing anything do with all your strength as if doing it for the Lord.''Do everything with thanksgiving and faith for anything done outside of faith is sin''submit to the Lord, submit to the Lord, resist,"Smudgie winced,"resist the devil, the rider, and the devil will flee."
"I call you Smudgie Pie,"she said. "I will take your last name!
Alone? You may call me your Abigal. I will call you Me Amigo or Smudgie Poo or whatever else, okay?"Smuggie felt a tremble through her hooves through his cheeks, feeling of uncomfortable heat, was it him? Her?
"Oh dear..."she said.
He looked back and was alarmed at what he saw. Her eyes were wide and her mouth had a rather large insane grin, a smile akin to a predator. As the eye and teeth shined in the dark the stallion had never felt more in danger than at that moment. He swallowed as he felt his pupils shrink, helpless and exposed.
....for all the stars to see!
"Me Amego."she said a darker horse like husky quality to her voice, her eyes locked on his face, one twitching. "I, fear, if I look up. I will see something, that I will lose control, and you certainly are not ready.
It would hurt you.
Not want to lose you, break my promise to take care/help you, Me Amego."She licked her lips the smile returned. "Help me...with you mind, with you word, to think...pleeeease, speak the words again."she said breathless and flustered desperate.
Help her.
"Whatsoever is real/true...forget that we're freakin ponies..."he thought,
Smudgie!
"um, noble, virtuous, of good report or learned from me, think on these things..."
"It is virtuous that a couple be together..."that husky winnowing tone returned as her eyes narrowed.
"...but not in the open, for all, the star, that shadow in the moon, to see! Not when one is not willing!!!"he said.
"What did I learned from you," she closed her eyes and remembered.'It is His will, you abstain from passion that you control yourself in a holy and honorable manner, not is passion....'"
"Honor your father and mother..."
"My mother and father told me at this time to think... to stop...to think. Keep me from much trouble!"
"Yes, that is wise...'though it costs you all you have, get wisdom.''She is more precious than rubies, more valuable than silver, has better returns than gold. Long life is at her right, riches and honor at her left, all her paths a pleasant all here ways are peace, she is a tree of life to all who embrace her....oops."
She began to move in a direction Smuggie knew would be uncomfortable for both.
"Though it cost you all you have get wisdom!!" he braced her away.“The eye that mocks a father, that scorns teaching from an aged mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures!"
"I dreamed!"she said." I saw! him of the valley. The birds! I ran!" she said almost shocked."How I ran!"
'Prudence is wise folly is noisy.'There is a way that seams right but in the end leads to death''narrow is the way that leads to life but wide the way that leads to destruction.'
"He found me, lifted me beyond the predator...."She began to relax.'the raving lion' wandering too and fro 'looking for souls to devour.''In the valley of the shadow of death!" I feared no evil, for He was with me."
"If you chose to do what is right you will be uplifted' that's an eighty percent chance you will do what is right!"
"Come again?" she look at him as if his head were on backward.
"If you've never done something, bam, another eighty percent chance." he was talking quickly now.
"Smudgie I don't think..."
"Refrain tonight, And that shall lend a kind of easiness, To the next abstinence, the next more easy."
She looked into his eyes.
"Um...Shakespeare, Hamlet. The things I'm remembering."
"Refrain?"
"That we refrain by mutual agreement, and in that to pray."
"Those are the words." She closed her eyes. Slowly pulled herself away and off his cheeks, moving to the fire and then looking away with a swallowing pant.
He rolled off his back and looked warily at the mare, still, a golden lion in firelight, now curled as if in repose.
"How do I pray?" she said in a most remorse way.
Smudgie stretched out his whole body length. The cold on his underbelly. He touched the mare's hooves with his own, curling round them. She quickly looked up into his eyes.
"Trunk to trunk,"he said with a smile rocking their legs back and forth." have you seen the elephants dance?" quoting old Rudyard in his mind with joy lessened as he felt again, sharp sting in his sides. She looked at him with a big blink then a smile.
"Eh. Mush...!I know what you want,male! Who's the predator now?"croaked the rider in a voice only he could here.
"Hey, you may call this taking advantage, but it's all I freaking know!"Smudgie fumed."I'm not perfect I still have much to learn! You don't have anything to offer better, just a perversion of what is real.
Dear V'ger!"
"This simple feeling..."he quoted Spock."Friendship is beyond your comprehension!
Don't know what will happen. If I, just because everypony else is dosen't mean, even though I've never done it before...if this is all then it is enough!"He felt the monster retreat from his mind.
"Huh, eighty percent chance I won't because I choose not too.
Eighty percent chance!
Hah I beat you!
Again I beat you rider!
Hit me with spurs all you like.
But enough about me 'God is against the proud' 'knowledge puffs up but faith builds up' 'God gives grace to the humble', to Marigold's needs then.
Together We have a father, a brother, an intercessor.
I?
Sister?
A Friend!"
"How do we pray?" he quoted as he rocked Marigold's hooves back and forth she smiled then nodded.
"Our father, who art in heaven...."she repeating after.