See Her

by Comma Typer

After

Groggy, Feather tastes the floor. Joints and muscles sing in harmonious aching. They yield to the charred outline of what-once-was-Goldcap. Laid out in triangle form, deer young and old and his-age, alive if not exactly well, joining him in the waking. Back in the Grove, back in the real world.

A white blotch leads to an open door. His coat brushes against the freeze, the blizzard's darkening breeze, blanketed by northern lights, angelic curtains pointing outwards.

Dug deep in the snow, hoofprints remain.

---

The end is days later, the deer's gifted provisions running dry. He hurried on without explanation, didn't listen, took the biscuits and went. Tears crystallize in the night. Diamonds are tears, diamonds are a mare's best friend, too expensive for poor Mom. Snow crunches against immune hooves, unfeeling in the constant chill to solve the puzzle of the figure's sobs.

She sits by the lake, framed by trees' leafless claws. Her reflection is crystal clear, sharp as broken glass, broken as her heart (Starlight once had crocodile tears). Out of his league. Our Town's mares never had a cry on his withers. Easy for them to love when they're ordinary ponies, fellow ex-brainwashed neighbors. She is the brainwasher, the seductress, the temptress. Another hit of magic will spell fatal death.

He hangs in there, in the frigid silence. Scoot a little closer, inch a little nearer.

---

"You... you were there... you were all there..."—(her mother knew no better)—"I didn't... didn't dare look forward. Because you'd be there, too"—(a sonic rainboom, and everypony's made it the talk of the town)—"what does that mean for me? I didn't look all so powerful..." (who is she but just another unicorn, another spell-caster, a no-princess, no-world-saving—)

Not the alicorn, not a princess. She, deprived for all that is rightfully hers, so she believes, so she says. Another Starlight, another town in the making where no one knows your name, only hers.

Another inch conquers the snow and the space between bodies.

---

The pristine white sheets smother their vision, unable to stand against each dogged step they take. Dead branches break the sky into a million static lightning cracks, the horror show, the opening act, to an inviting orange aura: a burning barrel within a treehouse, its anemic flame sheltering its inhabitants.

Goldcap's inhabitants. The other two wannabe mages that fought tooth and nail for his attention, for the whole of him, doze away where makeshift mattresses and pillows make way for his break-in and entry (Dad, with his good looks, once schmoozed with so many until that last love at first sight.)

Hidden away, he sits, roasting himself by the barrel-fire, a breathing and sleeping Goldcap by his side.

---

"I... I don't know," he whispers. The anxiety clamps the tongue shut. Maybe she can't hear him. "I'll… maybe I'll come back."

---

A little house can be had here. Our Town was a dozen-pony project or so. Can haul her back to the village.

Where has his mom gone? The letter is now a far-off prospect, la letter to tell Mom that he'll be out for a long while thanks to a mare. Some great news this will be. Her heart will be a-flutter at the news. It's what she wanted, if by some villain mare.

A crooked, want-to-end-the-world mad mare.

Will... will you stay, you stupid fool? Goldcap may say when she wakes up this time, told of her better health (if not her bitter spirits). No, she's smarter than that, more cunning and clever. Yet, a second shot, a second chance. To settle down, look at the future. Interrogations, a list of questions rain in. Who you can be, what is your plan… a date to remember...

Or to just stay.

She's crazy-eyes over you, over you.

Together, we can rule the world.

The world will be ash, dust, echoes. All with her attached to him.

For Mom, for him, it is too much.