"Legacy"

by Novel Idea

"Legacy" Day 4

Day 4
Ripe for the Picking.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

The primordial drum shook my otherwise destroyed consciousness. I could feel it echoing through my skull and baring its fangs down my spine.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

It bounced around inside my mind, the light of early morning forcing its way through my eyelids. Light, light had broken through the darkness.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

Constant and warming. I felt the sound vibrate through my entire body, meeting and colliding with a resounding bass in my chest. They rocked against each other in asymmetrical harmony.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

Swirling light and sound rocked my senses, pulling me to the world of the living once again. Dark black eyes filling with their once lost sentience.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

I placed a hoof strongly beneath me…I had been laying down…But where? On what? Where did this bass come from to intrude so deeply into my soul.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

Eyes rolled over to the right, I could see something on my peripheral. Escaping my sight just barely the image teased me. Forcing it, with all my might, I turned my head and looked down upon what I had collapsed.

There was Luna, in all her royal glory. I moved my eyes over her brilliant midnight form, her aquamarine mane…its once midnight black magic lost to the draining powers of the room we were encased.

I forced myself up and off her, what was now revealed as the beating of her heart leaving my aura as I pushed away. I could feel the loss in that moment, a loss of a kind of purity I would never be able to explain. No words I have can be used to explain the perfect mechanism of that sound, that sound which echoed across all planes of mind body and soul. I stood still looking down at her sleeping form for a long, intermediate time. That heart beat had pushed its way through my core as if the hand of god had, with just the gentlest touch, parted all the walls around my heart.

Speak, you want to speak. You want to let her know how that moment feels. I struggled with my body as it fought my mind. The memories of those flames stilling my tongues, muscles held their grudge firm. They recalled those flames, the injuries…the pain of the life they had lived and though my mind and heart begged for me to forgive my body, in all its power forced me still. I looked at her with what I can only believe is the most open expression I have ever worn, however as she stirred to awaken I felt my body return even that to its original state.

Luna looked up to me, I turned away unable to bear it at the moment, my heart and mind aghast with myself…I…I had no idea what to do. This was new, different. I felt different. I was different. I. Was. Different. The idea of it almost set me flat, how was I different? What happened…?

Her voice broke my thoughts, the royal force had left her. She seemed very much like any other pony at that moment, her voice filly-like. It was as if I had walked into a different world, a different time. So different did everything look and sound. “Art…no..” she corrected herself after a moments pause. “Are…you ok…?” she asked me, I wanted to tell her how I felt, how light I felt at that moment.

Body, how it betrays me thus. It refused me word, I could not speak or nod, nor cry in anguish. It was as is the clarity that my mind was now busy working out had caused a befuddlement of my limbs. I turned from her, lost within this new type of fog. A fog I could see through so clearly that it scared me to look.

Without a word I walked slowly towards the door, opening it with one hoof I began to leave the unadorned room. There was no sense of danger, she would not try to escape. Instead all that my senses could feel were her brilliant sea coloured eyes boring into my skull. Her voice, so sweet, called out to me.

“Do you…do you really hate me…?” I could feel the shivering uncertainty in her words. Sense the balance tipping ever so delicately. It was as if I could feel the horror and the pain etched into her voice, the words I had thrown at her the day before leaving deeper scars on her heart and soul then I had ever thought possible. I wanted to speak to her, I didn’t know what I wanted to say, my body and mind at odds.

Nothing…no word would leave my lips. I turned my eyes to her and tried as hard as I could to relay my emotions to her through them but her face showed that I did nothing of the sort. Defeated by my body which would not let me forgive and a heart that would not open up all the way. I turned and left her in cold, unforgiving silence closing her prison behind me.

Only much later would it come to me that the chilly indifferent silence I was forced to offer would hurt my Princess the most.

XXXXXXXXXX

I had been walking…for how long I wasn’t really sure. As stated above I had entered into a paradoxal haze of clarity about myself and my past. Desires had always repressed and disregarded as unnecessary and dangerous seemed to crop back up in that crystalline mud. It was not until I heard that, obnoxiously, loud voice echoing out to me that I came to my senses and realize where I was.

“D’rouge? Are you okay…” blinking hard I found myself staring into the brilliant orange eyes of Ripe Pickins, the store owner. I looked around in the early morning sun, I had made my way all the way into town and was now standing inside of the just opened shop ran by my Earth Pony counterpart.

“I..ah-yeah, I’m fine.” I stumbled over my words like a preschooler, as if it was all new to me, I began to stumble back turning to leave. “Sorry for intruding, I don’t quite know how I got here.”

Now, let it be said… that had this been any other shop, and any other pony in all of this wide world I would have left there in peace, to the solitude of my own mind and the problems I was facing internally. I would like to be able to say that this is how my day would continue.

Ripe, for all his salt however, is not just anypony. “Now ya’ll just hold on there Silk.” he ordered and I froze. I FROZE. It may have been because this was the first time Ripe had ever called me by my first name or because he had used that fatherly tone which he used with his children, a tone an orphan like myself had grown old never experiencing. “I know you may not like talking to ponies but I can’t in good consciousness let you just leave her like that, now can I.” I strived as hard as I could to inform him that he very well could, and that it would be far more satisfactory for myself if he did but the shop owner had already walked around the counter and taken off his apron. His strong, fatherly voice rang out. “Dill, take over cash I’ma go talk with out friend Mr. D’Rouge for a bit.” I felt his hoof on my back ushering me out the door when his oldest son yelled back with a responsive ‘Yes, Pa!’

XXXXXXXXXX

Ripe dragged me outside against all of my protests, and I did protest. As hard as my addled mind would allow. “Now ya’ll talk to old Ripey here and we’ll solve what’s making that cloud over your head.” he said, with such seriousness I did indeed look up to check above my head for a dark cloud. Confused at his metaphor.

“Really, there’s nothing wrong.” I stammered being dragged along the side of the building.

“Now we both know that’s nothing but full on bull crap.” Ripe said annoyingly, taking me aback at his forwardness.

“Ripe, seriously there’s noth----” he raised a hoof to my mouth jamming my words.

We had come to the back of his shop and were now viewing an illustrious garden with beautiful flowers growing to pony height, fruits and vegetables populating row upon row . In the center of this beautiful garden was an equally beautiful and earthly unicorn. She had long hair ranging from moss green to a dirt brown, her coat had a beautiful muddy sheen, eyes half opened just hiding emerald orbs. I heard a sigh from Ripe as he viewed his wife in a moment of peace. Clearing his throat he moved up past me.

“Daisy, dear.” he swooned, practically fawned to her. So hard in fact that it summoned a flush to my cheeks, let alone hers and his. “Think you could go inside and help Dill open up, Master D’Rouge and I need some private time.” he hinted none to deeply and she smiled sweetly. Kissed his cheek and walked past me.

I wish someone would smile at me like that… ran through my mind before I could suppress the treacherous feelings and emotions. Still I could not deny how I felt, I could however turn my head away so as not be seen starring at another stallion’s wife. Not that it stopped Ripe.

“Silk, I have got to be the luckiest slob in the world….” he drooled watching his wife walk away, eyeing me with a wink and pulling me to a nearby bench.

“So she’s pregnant again, eh?” I asked sitting down, the surprised gasp from Ripe obviously meant he had not expected me to notice.

“How’d you…” he left the question hanging waving a hoof at me.

“Oh, pregnant mare’s walk a certain way, there’s a sway to it.” I said shrugging, I had seen enough pregnant mare’s, a glimpse was enough of a hint for me to tell. “Not that I was staring.” I added quickly feeling uncomfortable.

“Well, you do have an eye…don’t you.” There was a tone in Ripe’s voice that was hinting that he knew more then he let on. “So I assume it’s Mare trouble?” he asked making me choke on the nothing I had in my mouth.

“No it isn’t, and if it was why would I want to talk about it with you?” I said trying to recover myself in my own eyes.

“Oh you do…” he chuckled and got this smile. Damn that smile pisses me off.

“And how can you be so sure of yourself?” I demanded rather coarsely, the velvety silk in my voice leaving as I let slip
that pretence.

“Listen to me Silk, out of all the stores in this town, and all the vendors you keep coming to mine. The one store where you know you’ll get agitated the most because I won’t let you leave without exchanging some pleasantries or taking an attempt to get to know you better. Even though that annoys you, you still come back again and again to my shop. Consciously or not you want to have that communication no matter how small and insignificant it is.” Ripe said staring me down. His appearance did a radical shift, he appear much more like a man of power then a shop keep. My eyes traced over his strong muscles, far too honed to be from managing their garden or lifting crates. It made my heart race to feel so uninformed…had I really become so complacent.

“Oh, and you’re one to go all Hoofian on me, eh?” I accused, meeting his stare with my black eyes.

“Oh I am… you may not know this but before I moved here I was a homicide detective in Mareami.” the Stallion mused leaning back stretching over the edge of the bench.

My eyes sharpened immediately as all my defences raised, thief or not the petty crimes would pale in comparison to stealing a goddess and imprisoning her. I looked deep into this stallion like a predator before the prey, eyes sharper then the dagger which adorned my flank.

“But that was ages ago…” he mused carrying on as if there had been no change in the atmosphere. “When I met Daisy I decided to settle into something a little less dangerous and became a private detective…”

“Then how’d you end up here…?” I asked curious, millions of simulations looping in my head as I predicted every outcome and method of attack or escape.

“Well Daisy got pregnant. Not to say I didn’t have a hoof in that.” he teased giving me a nudge on the shoulder his nonchalant manner chipping away at my barriers. “So we decided to leave the city and moved here. Opened a shop. Been happy ever since as well.” he concluded looking deep into me.

“I know that you think you don’t want to talk to me but I know some small part of you does.” he finished.

I sighed and looked up to the sun, the brilliant orb looked back, mocking me for my transgressions against its divine trajectory. I allowed my body to relax against the bench looking straight up. “I suppose…that I just don’t know what I want… I had always just wanted to find a way to be remembered when I’m gone.” I whispered looking up eyes unfocused.

A gentle and fatherly chuckle pulled me back to my reality. Ripe was smiling at me benignly. “Oh, I doubt people will forget you, you do stick out.”

I chuckled myself feeling foalish… why had I not done this earlier again? Those fire days and those painful deaths seemed so far away in this pristine moment.

“You know, I never in my entire life thought of what I wanted. I had been alone for so long and to be honest I was perfectly content with that…but now…” I said voice growing more and more incalculable as I carried n with my words. Waving a hoof out to Ripe’s house, no, his home. “I find myself wanting this a little in my old age…”

“What do you mean this?” Ripe asked looking out at the edge of my hoof.

“Can’t you see it man?!” I accused. “A home, a loved one, family…children. A legacy. Something to say you were here.“

The earth pony chuckled and ruffled his mane a little. “I suppose that this is something special isn’t it…” he said as if seeing something which to him had been rudimentary and common in an entirely new light.

“You have no idea…” I sighed and looked out to that home, Daisy was outside now in the front with one of the young ones hanging up a sign. I felt a twinge in my heart and a distortion crossed my eyes. There instead of Daisy was Luna…the Princess, hanging a sign…I couldn’t make out what was on it… She looked so beautiful there, radiant in the morning sun. A small colt ran up to her, his horn barely visible above his wild mane of the darkest black I had ever seen. He tugged at her wing playfully and pranced around her to a smile that melted my once onyx heart. Then there was myself, an older version…I assumed though I looked much the same, and she graced me with that smile…god that smile. It was no wonder that this mare could coax the moon to dance the skies every night with a smile like that. I felt as if I may melt on that spot, a future before me that I knew not how to handle.

And then it was all gone, the illusions and delusions I had made. I shook my head violently rubbing my temple looking over to Ripe who was watching me intently with this all knowing smirk on his face that made me want to buck a tree.

“Oh wipe that smirk off your face.” I groaned getting up to leave, Luna had not eaten the day before and must be as hungry as I was… thought deep inside I admitted I just wanted to be in that room again. “ I have somewhere to be.” I excused myself taking a step away.

“Oi, Silk.” Ripe’s rich voice called to me, twitching my ear I stopped and allowed him to continue though I did not turn back. “It may shock you to hear this but I have always considered you a friend. Funny as it may seem. I want you to be happy. So if you want to find a life for yourself like this, I’ll be here to help.” he gave me that sickly smile. I didn’t need to see it to know.

I just walked away, a foolish colt like smile on my face. Knowing that though in the end I would never have that home… that life. I was happy for the first time.

XXXXXXXXX

Finishing with the plate of fruit I moved away from the fridge. I had placed some peaches within to ferment in syrup to make a deliciously sweet snack which was soft as clouds. Carrying a bowl of said peaches and a large fruit salad down the stairs to the lower ruins was no mean feat but I did it without complaint.

The realization of what my silence had done to Luna hit me hard and I felt that future I envisioned slipping ever further from my hooves. I had yet to fully come to terms with my feelings... struggling through the last few walls I built on that fiery night. It made me more then a little contemptuous at myself for my hesitation. Pressing my horn to the door the magic parted the portal.

There she was, sitting there inside… God she looked so beautiful. Her face looked so sad it broke all the onyx that coated my heart and turned my tongue to a jelly like substance. I walked in, the door slamming behind me. Setting down her food I pushed it forward with my muzzle, sitting back and looking down. I could not meet those sad and injured eyes.

I had hurt her and the thought was turning my stomach like a butter churn. Nauseous I did the best I could to focus on the ground while she ate soundlessly but my mind saw nothing but that heartbroken Goddess.

How long we sat there like that I didn’t know…time had no meaning to us in that room. We were in a world entirely our own…composed of just us. It was a special room…to me at least. It was our place. The one place where the onyx of my heart was gone in all my long life.

Courage, find courage in that image. Courage in what you saw, feel it flowing through your body…I demanded of my mind forcing it to my will. So, I spoke.

“I…I don’t hate you…Luna.” I whispered… and there was silence, I could feel my cheeks flush beyond a colour of black that any cheek is meant to flush. I couldn’t meet her eyes for fear of the hate or anger in them, and the shame on my cheeks.

Was I surprised when a crying Princess threw her legs around my neck in a gripping my in a vice like hug. And, unable to move from that spot I held her tightly.

I embraced that hug, my first and what may very well be my last. Burrowing into Luna’s mane I nuzzled her as I rubbed down her back. When I did she eased into me, her sobs slowing gradually.

Now…don’t hold it against me but for the first time in my existence I was completely open and void of barriers. It was the first time my heart was free to do as it pleased with my body and the words that left my mouth next left it without my permission or guidance.

“Luna…I love you.”

Comments

[Novel Idea]

17471 The next chapter is up now

[Discorded Q]

And so... 9 months later Fabric Moon was born.

[Discorded Q]

19684 I was hilarious 101 weeks ago...