• Published 3rd Aug 2012
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The Hoofprints in the Snow - Lucky Dreams



A dead foal's desperate quest to be reunited with his mother.

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5: The Hoofprints in the Snow

— Chapter Four —
The Hoofprints in the Snow


“My little earth pony. Be brave, now. Be brave, and don’t let anything get you down...”

Everything had come to this: standing in the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time and being struck by the cart; choosing to run away to the park instead of facing my fear and going home; waiting there under the tree; being found by the wolf monster, and escaping from him through a combination of determination and dumb luck; my talk with Death; missing my train; catching the last one right at the last second...

And now I was leaving ghostly hoofprints in the snow in Ponyville, with less an hour left to find my mother.

All the memories of the past few days swirled around in my head, all of them vivid, all of them jostling for attention. It made me feel dizzy. If one single thing had gone wrong... if I’d slept a little longer on the train, or if the second one had been delayed by an hour... it wasn’t worth thinking about. I ran down the main street, hugely aware of each and every second that passed.

Where was the forest?!

Maybe if it had been daytime it would’ve been obvious, but at night, and in snow like this, it was as far from obvious as you could get.

... Wait...

I stopped, forced myself to close my eyes and take a deep breath. In a way, Ponyville was my home. I was born here. I’d seen it in my dreams, not to mention my nightmares. Pictures flashed through my head as I thought furiously: a great red barn; a babbling brook; a row of cottages next to a forest—

I opened my eyes. Just like that, the fear had left me. I knew exactly where I was going.

Retracing my hoofprints, I went back past the tree-house, and to the building which might’ve been the town hall. The wind blew snowflakes into my face. It made the snow dance under the streetlamps, and the flakes were lit up a hundred different colours by those wonderful, wonderful Hearth’s Warming lights.

Walking over a bridge, I followed a row of picture-perfect houses, turned a corner, crossed a little square, and then... result! I was rewarded with trees straight outta my dreams, and a dark, lonely path. Gradually, the streetlamps thinned out. There weren’t many houses out here, and after a short while there were none at all, not even one; just a snow-covered road, too few lamps, and the deepest silence I’d ever experienced. Not the quietest, mind; the deepest, and trust me on this, there’s a whole lot of different between those two. Sometimes, you could sit in your bedroom with the window shut and the curtains are drawn, and you can’t hear a thing... but it could be that you’re bored, or your mind’s racing ‘cos you’re playing a game or something, so even though it’s dead quiet, you don’t even notice, ‘cos your thoughts are all loud and stuff.

This, on the other hoof, wasn’t like that. The wind was howling and the snow was patting on the ground. But I noticed how quiet it was. It dug its way under my coat. It wrapped around me like a blanket, and I was aware of everything: every breath I was taking (but didn’t need to); every beat of my heart (even though I didn’t have one); every twist and sickening turn of my non-existent stomach. In half an hour, a being almost as old as life itself would appear to take me away, but I had no idea where to, and I didn’t know if Mom would ever follow me there...

In half an hour, I would never have a chance to see Mom ever again.

I stopped under a lonely streetlamp. There was the forest stood right in front of me, a great barrier of tress like the entrance to another world. I glanced to the left: darkness. The right looked more promising. Though it was hard to tell in the gloom, and when everything was buried in snow, there seemed to be something that might’ve, might’ve, been a path. By the trees was a mound of snow that I guessed was a failed snowpony, and there was a cottage there too, not even twenty hooves away! One of the downstairs windows was lit. Cheery, yellow light spilled out onto the snow, and I froze, my invisible heart skipping a beat.

It was Mom. It had to be. A cottage by the Everfree Forest, one which I couldn’t miss; it fitted Death’s description perfectly.

It was Mom, and she must have been in the kitchen, making her usual midnight snack.

It was Mom.

What can you say at a moment like that? Knowing that, in a minute, you’d be in a cottage you hadn’t seen since you were two years old, and seeing your mom for the very last time? And though nopony so far had been able to see or hear me, I knew with all my heart that this time, it would be different. Mom would spot me straightaway. She’d wipe away my tears, hold me close, and she wouldn’t let go ‘til Death drew us apart. She’d tell me that she’d see me again... I’d look into her eyes, a silent goodbye...

I dunno how long I stood under the lantern, but it must’ve been a good while, ‘cos all of a sudden, I noticed a pool of ghostly tears by my hooves.

No! I wouldn’t cry. Mom wouldn’t wanna see that.

I made myself trot through the snow towards the cottage, up the path, past the trees and the mound of snow. I bit my lip as I did so.

And that’s when I noticed the hoofprints.

It was a marvel that I did, but they were there alright, and so very, very faint. Whoever had made ‘em had done so a while ago, and they were slowly but surely being erased from existence by the blizzard and the wind. Boring old hoofprints, not interesting in any way whatsoever... apart from one way, that is, and it was this: the hoofprints led up to the mound of snow. There weren’t any leading back...

Once more, I halted, all my attention fixed on the mound. It might’ve been something to do with being a ghost, but I couldn’t believe I hadn’t felt it before: the faintest trace of life, almost like there was another heartbeat in my body. Remember what I said before about the wolf monster? About how I could tell that I wasn’t alone even though I had no reason to think otherwise? Well this was the same thing. Who was buried under the mound, I couldn’t say, but I wasn’t on my own anymore.

I’ve got this theory that, as a ghost, you can sense a pony’s soul, all their emotions and stuff, and their memories and their dreams. Yeah, sounds goofy I know, but, well hear me out, and think of it like this. When you’ve got a body, then you’re constantly focused on that all the time, even when you don’t realise it. Your heart is always beating and your stomach is always churning. When you’re a ghost, though, you’ve got none of that, so there are distractions. Oh sure, I still breathed and stuff like that, but it was purely outta habit, plus it didn’t change the fact that, as certain as I knew that I wouldn’t be around to see the sun rise in the morning, I could sense that there was a pony buried under the mound of snow, and they needed my help.

I must’ve had less than half an hour. If I didn’t see Mom now, I’d miss my chance.

Be brave, my little earth pony.

Be brave.

Clenching my teeth and shut my eyes, a giant scream built up inside of me as I realised that there was no way in heaven or in Equestria I could leave this poor pony, this stupid, awful pony who’d gotten themselves into so much trouble. Why?! Why was this happening to me? How could this happen to me? In sight of Mom’s cottage and everything, and with so little time left, and I was gonna waste it on a pony I didn’t even know! All the curse words in the world weren’t enough to express the boiling anger surging through me. What was she doing there? Had I wandered into the end of some terrible misadventure? Whatever the case, this wasn’t fair. If I’d arrived this morning, this wouldn’t be happening. In what way was this fair?!

Yet like I said, I couldn’t leave ‘em, ‘cos Mom didn’t raise me that way. Ponies are supposed to help one another she used to say. If you knew there was a problem, you had to be brave and face up to it, so, that was that. I couldn’t leave this pony. I couldn’t leave ‘em in the snow to die.

My scream was drowned with the most powerful guilt I’d ever felt, shame so heavy it was as though the weight of the artic was crushing my chest. I almost fell to my knees. I hated myself. How could I feel angry at this pony, whoever they were, when I could feel they were so close to death? What if they had a family? What if they had a sister, or a mother who loved them, or a brother who took care of ‘em? What if they died and they were unlucky enough to run into a spirit beast like the one I’d escaped in the park? ‘Cos if that happened, it’d be because of me; if I ignored ‘em, then I’d spend the rest of forever knowing that I was even worse than the monster by the lake.

I wouldn’t be my mother’s son.

Mom would have to wait, for right now, there was a pony that needed my help. Gathering all my courage, I approached the mound, sensing the pony’s life ebbing away from them like the tide retreating from the shoreline. A big, rotting branch stuck up from the mound. Had the pony been wandering up the path to visit my mom only to have this branch fall on ‘em? With the wind, and seeing how heavy the snow was, it seemed likely.

A red mane poked out of the snow, visible in the light of the nearby lantern. When I looked on the other side of the mound, I found that the pony’s face was exposed, and I gasped: it was a filly. If she wasn’t the same age as me, then she couldn’t have been more than a year older, or a year younger—one of the two. Her eyes were closed. Her coat was pale yellow. She was wearing a big, pink bow which poked outta the snow along with her mane.

In a few minutes, she’d be dead.

“Hello?” I whispered, but she didn’t stir. I was gonna have to try harder than that. “Hello?” I said more forcefully. “Hello? Hello?! Wake up! WAKE UP!”

But the filly’s eyelids didn’t so much as flutter. She just lay there, so much life gone that she was as good as dead. Where the branch was resting on top of her, the snow was red.

Oh man, oh man! The blizzard was getting thicker. If another one were to fall down on her, then—

I didn’t wanna think about it, and it was obvious now that, whether because I was a ghost or because she was almost dead, she couldn’t hear me. I reckon I could’ve gotten a rock band to play a full concert for her for all the good it would’ve done...

Almost as if it was calling to me, I turned around, and my gaze drifted toward Mom’s cottage. The downstairs window was still lit... and well, I’m not even ashamed to admit it, and I don’t care who knows it: right then, I could’ve cried for all Equestria. My heart told me that leaving the filly here all on her own was a horrible thing to do. My head warned me that I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t help her. But Mom could.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I told the filly. “I’ll be back, I promise, I promise on everything!”

With one last, desperate glance at her, I hurried up the path, across a teeny tiny bridge over a frozen brook. With a million different emotions in my chest—fear and panic, and love for Mom—I walked through the snow and up to the cottage; if I’d had more time, I would’ve marvelled at it. It had a big red door with a golden handle. It had these cheery little windows, and if I’d been able to step in the snow settled on the roof, I swear, it would’ve come up past my knees! It made the cottage look a giant cake, a lovely, sweet little hideaway from the rest of the world. Why had we ever moved to Fairflanks when my grandparents had left us a place like this?

After taking a deep breath, I walked through the door, and into the living room.

The light was on, but it was empty.

“Mom?” I said. “Mom! I’m back! I’m home! Mom, where are you?!”

Mom didn’t answer. I remembered my night terror, and falling into the pit. I remembered the cool air rushing past my ears as I tumbled into the darkness, the light of the entrance getting smaller, fainter, and water was dripping from the ceiling, trickling down the walls creating slimy trails. That’s what I felt now, knowing that Mom couldn’t hear me: it was like being back in the pit.

“MOM? It’s me! I’m back!”

As I fought to remain calm, the only response I got was the wind shaking the windows. “It’s alright,” I whispered. “She’s just asleep, that’s all, and she forgot to flick the light off before bed. She’s probably asleep.”

There was a clock on the mantelpiece, and my stomach leapt to my mouth: fifteen minutes left. Fifteen minutes before Death came to find me and take me away... but that wasn’t all. Next to the clock, there was a photo of six ponies I’d never seen, two earth ponies, two pegasi, and two unicorns. Friends of Mom’s? I might’ve been something my grandparents had left behind, except the photo looked brand new. It was the same with the ones on the walls and the bookcase. A chill came over me. I’d never seen any of these ponies, let alone the ones on the fireplace...

“Stop it, Camera. Stop worrying yourself. This is Mom’s cottage, and it’s fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”

I would’ve had an easier time believing myself if I hadn’t kept saying ‘fine’ all the time; but this, more than any other, was a time to shove my fear aside and be the brave little stallion Mom had always said I was. The filly was not gonna die, not if I had any say in the matter.

Holding myself tall, I trotted up the stairs to what I guessed was the bedroom, and walked through the door.

The first thing I noticed was how dark it was, even though the curtains weren’t drawn—with the Hearth’s Warming Blizzard ravaging the house, it was plenty dark already, so there wasn’t any need. The rafters were bare, there wasn’t any carpet on the floorboards, and the underside of the roof seemed to be made of sticks and branches; standing in that room was like being in a tree-house. Light from downstairs poured around the edges of the door, just enough so that you could make out the curious little items scattered around the room, on shelves, on the windowsills: books and statues, rocks, vases, plants. My mane stood on end as something stirred in a basket under one of the windows—just a pet bunny rabbit, fast asleep under a chequered blanket (wait, how long had Mom had a rabbit for?). With the storm raging, the room was terrifically creepy, and my heart leapt as I looked at Mom’s bed in between the two windows, the covers rising up and down as she breathed in her sleep.

There was just one problem, however. A little snag. A hiccup.

That wasn’t Mom.

The world stopped turning. I had never seen this pony in my life.

The pony, a mare, had a straight pink mane and a pale yellow coat. But whereas the filly’s coat was dull and earthy, this yellow made you think of lanterns guiding the way through dark places, or of warm afternoons in late spring. It was a color that filled you with joy and hope. From the way the blanket fell over her, I guessed she was a pegasus.

And like the filly outside, I could feel her soul, and it was nothing, nothing I’d ever experienced before—it was so lovely that I wished I could’ve stood there forever, basking in the warmness of it. This pegasus was unbelievably kind. Thoughts of helping others flooded into my head, and all the mare wanted, I knew, was for everypony to be safe and happy, for everypony to feel loved. I didn’t know her name. I’d never heard her voice, had never looked into her eyes. In spite of this, I already knew that this was the single nicest pony I’d ever met, and kindness radiated from her like heat from the sun. If she knew about the filly, she’d come to the rescue at once. All I had to do was wake her up.

But... how? She couldn’t see me. There wasn’t any chance that she’d hear me, and I had less than quarter of an hour remaining. “Think, Camera, thiiink!” I said, tapping my forehead with a hoof.

By now, the filly was weighing on my mind so much that it was almost as though it was me myself out there, being buried under the snow. This bedroom was the pit from my nightmare, and the pegasus was the light pouring through the entrance; I was staring at her right in her sleeping face, but I may as well have been on the moon for how big that gap felt to me.

I paced up and down. No ideas were coming to me. The clock was ticking.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

“Wake up!”

I shouted it right in her ear, but it was useless. The clock on her bedside desk ticked away. Eleven minutes left.

“Wake up! Wake up wake up wake up, oh please Celestia, wake. Up!”

The mare yawned, rolling over in her sleep, and now there were ten minutes left. What to do, what to do? One thing was for sure, and that was that I could kiss my chance to see Mom goodbye, and—

“Keep it together, Camera. Don’t think about it. You’ve gotta wake her up, then you can worry about Mom.”

The dog from the train station entered my mind... that was it! I could’ve kicked myself for not thinking about it sooner, but it was only ponies who couldn’t see me, right? It was only ponies who couldn’t hear me. Like a photo, everything came together in an instant: wake up the rabbit, get him to wake up the pegasus, and when we were set.

Excited, I scrambled over the bed to kneel down next to the basket. Above me, the window rattled—though not as much as I did—and yet the bunny remained fast asleep as though the night wasn’t stormy in the slightest, like it was clear and calm and silent. It was snoring. Its leg twitched. Hadn’t he heard me shouting, I wondered? Did I have the wrong end of the stick here, and I’d only been imaging it when I thought the dog had looked at me? The more I thought about it, the more possible it seemed... maybe the dog had simply been interested in the train, and I’d been looking for things which weren’t really there...

Not having the nerve to shout again, instead, I prodded the rabbit and said, “Psst. Bunny, wake up. I need your help.”

But my hoof went straight through him (it’s hard to tell with rabbits, but I fairly sure it was a boy). My words had no effect. A glance at the clock showed me that it was nine minutes to ten—or nine minutes and fifteen seconds to ten. Time was almost up. The bunny wasn’t waking up. Neither was the pony. The filly, meanwhile, had probably already frozen to death, and I kept on jerking my head to the door, expecting to see her ghost there, crying and frowning, and asking me why didn’t I save her. You only care about yourself, I imaged her saying. You only cared about seeing your mom, otherwise you would’ve tried harder to help me.

Resolve found me. “WAKE UP,” I shouted, screeched, screamed into the rabbit’s ear. “YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP! PLEASE!”

The rabbit woke up.

I’m telling you, it was like catching the train at the last second all over again: to see the bunny jump a foot in the air in fright almost made the torment worth it. Happiness swelled in my chest, the most fantastic, indescribable joy you could imagine, and I wanted to leap up and down myself. The rabbit had heard me! I had a voice.

Eight minutes and forty-three seconds. “Right, listen up,” I told him. “There’s not much time, and this is what we’ve gotta do. We’ve gotta... we’ve... we’ve um...”

I trailed off, any joy I’d felt vanishing as quickly as it had appeared, because the rabbit, after a brief look of terror (it isn’t every night you wake up to find a ghost in your room, so I can hardly blame him for that), stood up in the basket, rustled its fluffy little tail, scowled, and pointed at the door. Surely it wasn’t doing what I thought it was doing? But when it started tapping a foot, I was forced to believe it: it was asking me to leave!

“You, you don’t understand,” I said with a shake of my head. “I ain’t here to hurt you. It’s just that there’s this filly, and she’s all alone, and—”

The rabbit put it paws over its ears, shut its eyes, and stuck its tongue out at me. “This is serious,” I snapped. “If you don’t wake up your owner soon, the filly’s gonna—”

The rabbit hopped out of the basket, and would you believe this? He tried to shove me towards the door! It didn’t work, of course. He just fell through me, landing flat on his face; still, who did it think it was? “Why are you doing this?” I asked, trying and failing to keep the anger out of my voice. “I’m trying to help somepony, why won’t you listen to me?”

The rabbit jabbed a paw at the sleeping mare, then at me, and then it made a slicing motion across its neck. So... it was trying to protect her from me? For a moment, a tinge of sympathy touched my heart. Celestia knows that if I was a rabbit and I’d been woken up by a ghost, I’d be freaking out too. Then again, when I thought about it even more, what did the rabbit expect me to do, exactly? It wasn’t like I could harm her or anything... did the bunny think I was gonna frighten her to death? I was just a cute li’l colt! Even if the pony had been able to see me in the first place, it wasn’t as if I was scary. I wasn’t scary at all!

The rabbit tapped its foot some more, but I paid it no notice. It wasn’t gonna help me? Wasn’t gonna listen? Fine. I’d do this alone.

And I had six minutes.

Suddenly, an idea. Trotting up to the bedside desk, I studied the clock and rubbed my chin. It was a very plain clock. It was circular, made from metal, and had those funny little bells at the top. You know the ones I mean. I always thought they looked like tiny metal ears.

I had to push the clock off the desk, and pray to Celestia that the resulting clatter would be enough to wake up the pegasus. Forget for a moment that since becoming a ghost, the only two things I’d been able to touch without passing through were the wolf monster and the earth beneath my hooves; with six minutes left, I was out of ideas, and so there was no excuse not to at least give it a go.

In the corner of my eye, I spied the rabbit glaring at me. With a huff, I held my head up high and braced myself—for the time being, I was here to stay, and no silly lil’ rabbit was going to change that. I jogged on the spot, my snout right up against the clock so that it filled all my vision. Focus. I needed to focus. I could do this.

With extreme care, I shut my eyes as tight as possible—all the better to pretend that I had a real body—and nudged the clock.

It moved.

A gasp left my mouth. I jerked my head back in surprise. True, I hadn’t felt the clock against my face, but there was no denying it. Using all the effort and determination I had, I’d managed to move it a good inch or two closer to the edge of the desk...

Five minutes left to go! The plan had to work, and on the first attempt as well, ‘cos I wasn’t gonna get another shot at this. I shut my eyes again, my mind focused on the clock, on the metal curves, the black numbers, the bells, the hands, everything. “Work with me here, clock, c’mon,” I said, concentrating harder than at any point in my life. The clock moved again as I pushed it gently with my snout—I was scared to use more force than this just in case it stopped working. Closer... closer... almost there...

It teetered on the edge of the desk, and with one last nudge, it tumbled to the floor as if in slow motion. This was it! Clenching my teeth, I braced myself for the crash.

... It never came.

At the last possible second, the rabbit threw himself under the clock, and it landed on him with a soft flump. The rabbit coughed. All I could do was watch horrified at it rolled the clock off its chest, stood up, and smirked at me in the most awful, infuriating way imaginable.

I didn’t shout at the rabbit, ‘cos what would’ve been the point? I was past the point of tears, so I didn’t even cry. Instead, my face a perfect mask of horror, I looked to the clock, to the sleeping pony’s face, then to the door.

The filly was dead.

Four minutes left.

The filly was dead.

The floorboards seemed to burn my hooves and the walls and ceiling felt they were closing in; I swear to everything, in my head, the room was shrinking. And with me, the rabbit, and the pegasus, it was unbearably crowded, and hot, and stuffy and horrible, and quiet and loud and boiling and freezing, all at the same time. Gasping for breath, I stumbled through the door.

The filly was dead.