Emberwolf

by Lucky Dreams

Twin Whispers

Scootaloo’s instincts screamed at her not to touch anything that the Emberwolf offered. Yet, despite the terror of a few moments previously – despite the queasiness which lingered in her belly – she couldn’t help but stare into those blazing eyes: for she wanted to believe. Perhaps it was because her life depended on it, but she wanted to believe that she was wrong about this humongous beast, that it didn’t wish to sizzle her to a pony-fried crisp, but that it was being honest with her. She wanted to live in a world where everypony deserved a friend, even when that ‘pony’ was a monstrous wolf made from coal and fear and fire.

Bringing the hot cocoa to her lips, Scootaloo braced herself for scalding, scorching, roasting, torching. Yet the drink turned out to be precisely the right temperature to remind her of snuggling in the living room on a December evening. Warmth flowed under her skin – heat of a sort different to anything else she had experienced that night. It was home-warmth. What’s more, the hot cocoa tasted of a thousand flavours of honey and magic.

A volcanic smile split across Scootaloo’s face. “What d’you do to it?” she whispered. But she didn’t wait for a response before taking another gulp, and then a third and a fourth. She needed more of it, more and more; and the more she drank, the more marvellous she felt, until she hopped from the closet and into the fires of the bedroom. Somehow, she knew that the flames wouldn’t harm her. Indeed, she giggled as they nipped playfully at her hooves, caressed her coat and tickled her wings. And the fire smelt of too many delectable things to count: ruby strawberries, lava liquorice and bowls of flame berries. Scootaloo shut her eyes and shivered in delight.

When she opened her eyes again, the secret enchantments in the hot cocoa had worked their magic on her.

The fire looked different.

Before, it had been blinding brilliant, but now she saw brilliance of another sort. She found, suddenly, that she could stare straight at the flames without harm, and that they appeared more vivid, more alive, more real. They dazzled her with all the splendour of a red-soaked rainbow, with colours she had never dreamed of, ranging from darkest scarlet right to the fringes of brightest pink and sun-blood yellow. There were endless shades of orange mixed in with tongues of indigo. There were purple flames and there were red flames. Scootaloo was wonder-dazed. It was the same difference as looking at an old and faded photograph, and then seeing the same scene in real life with her own, living eyes.

She saw her aunts.

It was no wonder she couldn’t find them before. They flickered on the bedside desk: they had been transformed into candle flames.

Scootaloo’s heart beat in wondrous terror and terrified wonder. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure how she knew it was them. Certainly, the candles didn’t look much different compared to before. But whatever the enchanted cocoa had the done to her vision, she saw, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the candle flames contained the spark of her aunts’ souls, the glow of their spirits.

“Darling one,” whispered the candle on the right. Scootaloo recognised it as Aunt Holiday.

“Be strong,” whispered the other, the flame that was Aunt Lofty. “Don’t listen to anything else she tells you. Don’t give into her lies.”

Before Scootaloo could ask what Lofty meant by this, before she even had a chance to feel shocked at what had happened to her aunts, the Emberwolf growled at the candles and said, “Enough with you two. I am many things, but I am no liar.” She turned back to Scootaloo. “They don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know what I’ve been through. They have no right to judge.”

Scootaloo looked up at the Emberwolf and gasped: with her wondrous new vision, she discovered that it was the most magnificent creature in existence. Its fur glowed golden. Its tail was formed from a combination of dancing flames and thin strands of glinting red crystal. Firelit patterns smouldered over its body, lines, spirals and zig-zags which dimmed and brightened with the beat of its sun-blessed heart. The firey bedroom seemed dull compared to limitless beauty of the Emberwolf.

Its eyes were wonderfully, mesmerizingly warm. Scootaloo could have stared at them forever.

“Your aunts are safe,” the Emberwolf said, and Scootaloo knew in her bones that it was the truth. She knew that the heat wouldn’t melt them, and that their flames would endure for all time. “Forgive me for what I did to them, but it was a necessary evil. The hearts of grown-ups are fixed and stubborn – there are precious few of them who dare to see past my appearance. They would never have let me talk to you. But I assure you – I promise you, with deep and abiding seriousness – that once we are done, I will turn them back to their normal appearance.”

“Don’t trust her!” hissed the candles. But more and more, Scootaloo lost herself to the spell of the Emberwolf’s eyes, those fire-kissed eyes that were so huge and mesmerizing. She bit her lip, unsure of what to do and who to trust. What if her aunts were wrong? What if there was the slightest chance that the Emberwolf was exactly what it claimed to be: simply a beast who was seeking friendship? If that was the case, what kind of filly would she be not to even give it a chance?

If the Emberwolf wanted to kill her, it would already have done so. It would already have devoured her…

The Emberwolf raised its head and howled, and within its howl were the songs of a dozen phoenixes. Scootaloo quivered in bliss at the wonder of that dozen-phoenix-howl.

So did the fire.

In fact, the flames – which were busy eating the walls and swallowing the floor – all halted in their tracks so that they could listen to the Emberwolf’s howling. They stopped flickering. They were as still as photographs. When the howling stopped, the flames remained frozen in place, and the house fell silent.

Scootaloo was dumbfounded.

“How did you do that?” she whispered.

The beast met her with a sly grin. “When you are an Emberwolf, you can command fire to do anything you please. I can teach you, Scootaloo. I can teach you to control fire.”