Pretty Horses

by Starblazer225

Chapter 1: Life's a Funny Little Thing

I watched the dirt get kicked up behind me from the tires, digging and throwing clouds of the stuff up and behind truck as it tore down the empty roadway. The old dirt road jumped and bounced me across the cabin. I'd be damned near thrown out the window if I hadn't had a seatbelt on. I had the window rolled down as the smell of hot air and sand filled my nose as I drove down the dirt road. The radio spewed static and the window was stained from sand. The outside was hot, the sun blasting down heat on the truck. I would kill for something to drink but there's no drink and there's no ponies here.

I watched the cactus and mesquite trees fly past me as I flew down the road. I cocked one foreleg up and rested my chin on it, still focusing on the road. I tried to play a song in my mind, something that I knew and could sing along to. One song I began to remember, it was the last one I had heard before my radio lost signal.

"Hush-a-bye, don' you cry." I began to sing aloud.

"Go to sleep you little baby, when you wake you shall have cake, and all the pretty little horses." I forgot the rest and just whistled the melody as best as I could remember it. A strange little tune it was, little minor and major parts. A soothing little melody. With the song on my lips and the melody in the brain I began to dose off, it's what happens when you been driving in a car for almost a full day, non-stop.

The static of the radio sweered and whirred as it began to pick something up. I snapped out of my drowsiness and tuned the radio to get a better signal. Then, to my dismay I heard it...

The blare of trumpets...

"Ella es la más hermosa yegua en el mundo! Podía mirar en sus ojos toda la noche si ella me hubiera dejado!"

"Dammit," I sighed. I don't know why mariachi music is the only kind of music there is on the radio this far into the desert, and the only kind of music I hate. I might as well keep it on, I don't speak spanish but I'll live with it still playing.

Things back home aren't doing so well, we can't even really call it home. I hate to keep the idea in my mind when traveling these routes but there's nothing else to think about. Back on the home front, things weren't going so well. The farm was bought out around six years back after Granny died and we were forced to move out. We found a place in a small city out to the east but things were never the same. We decided to scrape up some money to buy an apartment there with all the fixings, beds, fridge, new stove. We've all changed in that time, for how much experience we had working on the farm, if we went back doing what we did everything would be new for us.

Unfortunately, one or two years after that Applebloom contracted a sickness that a very very small number has survived from. A disease that strikes the lungs and heart, a virus that attacks the circulatory system. Blood is incorrectly circulated through the body and by the time it gets to the brain it's feeding it oxygen exhausted blood. If her heart doesn't stop on her, her brain will. It's painful from both sides of the equation. You may never know when you're going to get the call. It's painful, her headaches have the same amount of pain as breaking a bone, too much movement could put her in worse condition. Through all of it though, she still has the courage to be able to smile through it all. It hurts me to think about it. The wound it's created has already cut deep into my heart, but what it's led to, it's like somepony is just pressing salt on it. Now she's back home fighting for her life every second. I'm usually out on the run doing odd jobs almost half way across Equestria looking for any kind of work that I could find.

Big Mac broke his hind leg two years ago and cracked a rib last week,he's damn near falling apart. He takes care of little Applebloom while I'm away since he can't do much else. Every bit, every speck of currency I come across I put towards medication and anything poor Applebloom wants and needs. Every little toy and such she wants she gets. I know I shouldn't be doing that but she's had the disease for about five or six years and the normal mare only lives with it for four. Any day now she's going to go, I try to stay close so I'll be there when it happens. After all, she is my little sister.

I've managed to hold a few bits for me but I either use it for gas or booze. I need that now a days to numb the mind, calm me down, ya know? The pain doesn't really go away, the best i can do is numb it. Sometimes though, life just likes to back hand the shit out of you. It can be a real bitch sometimes.

I want to give up sometimes, all I ever wanted was for her to live a good and long life, but now I'm just hoping she makes it through the night. I never thought that life would be this hard, I never thought it could get this hard. I'm not doing this for myself though, this is all for her, I need to keep telling myself that. Every step I take is another day I can keep her alive.

The last job left me helping some oil rig problems that I assisted with. Pay was fine and will be enough to fill Appleblooms prescription. The forty two bits I got from it jangled in the glove box, clinking against a little thirty-two special I had there I kept from the farm. I haven't the need for it yet but I feel as if with every day that passes I'm going to need it more and more.

An orange ball began to pass down over the peaks in the far west. The sun resting for a short summer slumber. With that the cool night started to peel over across everything, a blanket of cold rushed in and chilled the crisp night air. I rolled down the windows and let one hoof hang in the wind. The day was coming to a close and there wasn't a town for miles.

It probably wasn't the smartest thing a mare like myself could do but it wasn't the first time I did it either. I remember nights like this, out on the farm, where I could sleep out under the stars and not have a single care in the world. Now though? Not even safe in any meaning of the word. I pulled off the side of the road, clicking open the glove compartment I slid the little revolver in the back of my pants. I unlocked the truck and got out, arching my back to stretch it. My spine unwinding with loud cracks.

I jumped over the walls of the bed of the truck and tucked my hooves under my head. Instead of closing my eyes to sleep I stared at the moon and stars. I wonder sometimes, not if it's even possible, but I wonder something. That part of the moon we don't see, I like to think it's just a mirror to another world. Like this one, where everyone's the same, but everything works the way you wanted it to. A perfect world, if I may.

As I got carried away with my thoughts a single star shot across the sky, leaving a remarkable trail as if soared cutting the night sky. I remembered what Granny used to say, wish upon a star, you're dream will surely come true. I rolled over on my side and began to think of something to wish for.

"I wish everythin' worked out fer once." I whispered to myself before tucking my forelegs into my chest tightly and dosing off to sleep.

Comments

[seth57rules]

I finally read one!!!!!! its pretty good, but the lack of accent is starting to hurt my brain... i know its hard, but it would be a nice touch.

[Starblazer225]

2794782Dude! I'm so happy you liked it!The accent will come out in the dialogue rather than the main text. I tried doing it all with the accent but it was really hard to follow and to write as well sorry about that...

[Aatxe360]

I almost thought this was a sidestory to Hunting the 6, but it took me a few minutes to recall AB died another way. You...you don't like AB much, do you?

Just teasing.

[Starblazer225]

2817058

No, I guess I don't do I?
And I'm sorry for the mix up, this has nothing to do with Hunting the 6 (And I'm really happy you put the '6' in there and not 'six')
This, hopefully, is the last fic I'll be writing where one of the younger characters gets killed.

[Aatxe360]

2817301

(And I'm really happy you put the '6' in there and not 'six')

I almost did, but I do occasionally recheck my sources.