And there is another sunshine
“Answer me, Jim!”
Damn girl. Didn’t listen. “That’s my name. Stop takin’ it in vain.”
“I-idiot.” Celestia pressed her nose to his battered, bloodied, calloused hand. “Save your breath. It’s not far, now.”
“Can’t save me, little ‘Tia. I’m dyin’.” He pushed her away. “Go!”
“Don’t you dare say that!” She grabbed a hold of his tattered, buck-pocked jacket and dragged him another few paces.
He groaned as the harsh ash underneath ground into his wounds, too numerous for his old mind to count. Too many pains wound up into a tight ball pressed against his side.
Blasted bird-shot usin’ bastard. Got me good…
The pain subsided. That’s when he knew he wasn’t fibbin’ to his girl. Darkness welled up.
“We-ee-ell! What do we have here?” Jim, Answer Jim to the radio folk, twisted the knob on his binocs until the bleary image in the distance refocused into a sharp, crisp, image. Well, almost. The left lens was cracked three ways, but the right showed him something he’d never thought to see again.
Color. Brown, maybe, but color all the same.
He lowered the glasses and set off again, his boots churning up a dusty trail of choking, gray ash behind. His clothes were covered in it, and the goggles he wore to protect his eyes were etched from too many dust-storms that came up and caught him unawares.
The wind that day was dead. Just like almost everything else. But, enough tiny little islands of preservation remained. Patches where green still thrived.
Just not where Jim was. Oh, to hear them chatter and hoot and holler on the radio… and then they’d go silent. Dust storm, maybe. Or bandits.
There weren’t none of the latter where Jim called home. Well… Sour Marley was about as close to a bandit as he could imagine. Foul smelling, rotten bastard.
He snorted through the thin veil of some t-shirt or another. Didn’t matter what it was. It was gray.
He paused again to check his progress, scanning around and looking for anything moving. Flat… gray. Little gray on the horizon, too. Plenty of that. Plenty of dust storms.
“Well, if I die out here, not like there was gonna be much left for the world to claim.” He patted his belly, flat and drawn. Not like he used to be. Before the storms and the bombs. Or was it the bombs and then the storms…
“Feh. History.” He continued on.
“Jim!” Celestia tugged on his jacket again. The darkness faded. “Wake! Up!”
Something wet slopped on his face. Pain came back and stole away his breath.
“Jim! Answer me, G-god damnit!”
“Ah! Vain…” he said, voice a harsh croak as the water found his lips almost by accident, carrying in too much ash and silt. He spat, coughed, and forced out another word: “Don’t…”
“I will take your name, and the Lord’s name in vain if it will keep you with me!”
“Heh. God left a long time ago…” Black fringed his vision again. “Jus… me…”
It was a box. A… cardboard box. Brown. Bright brown.
He stared at it from yards away, then looked up at the empty gray sky, and down at the empty gray plain.
“Huh.” No tracks. No contrails. “So… where did you come from?”
The box moved, and something inside made a zip-zip noise on the corrugated material.
“Well, no. You definitely didn’t walk here all on your lonesome.” He eased the trusty old revolver out of its holster. Three precious bullets left. His thoughts strayed towards the fourth in his pocket.
“Three bullets left,” he said, frowning at the box. “If’n you ain’t some critter come to eat me for…”
Thought left him. Reason fled. The gun fell to the earth with a sullen thud.
Color streamed out of the box. Not brown, but precious morning blue, bright sea-green, and a pink that sucked his breath clean out.
He fell, his knees going weak as more color came out. White and a pearl gray.
“G-God damn…”
Two pink eyes—exotic, almond-shaped—blinked at him.
“G-God damn… a unicorn.”
Jim fainted.
New pain seared him awake.
“Holy mother!” His mouth was clean. Mostly. The darkness clung to the sides of his mind, cool and comforting. Inviting. He didn’t try to push it away. “C-Celestia, get out of here!” He tried to push against her, but something held his hand still.
Dim realization dawned. She had his hand in her mouth.
Celestia let go of his hand. He was too weak to hold it against her neck. “We’re home, you old fool…” Water dripped from her eyes, precious water… Crying. Over me?
Idiot. Of course, over you. He laughed, then groaned as his stomach caught fire.
“Stubborn, stupid…” Celestia stood up and turned away.
He fell back into darkness.
He woke to a tongue, warm, soft… clean smelling? Hay? Who had hay anymore?
“Get away,” he said. Or tried to say. His mouth was parched beyond anything he could believe, and his eyes felt like someone had poured the entire wastes in them and chased it with a glue factory.
He became aware, with a wheezing rush of breath leaving, of four hard spots of pain on his chest and belly that shifted, then left.
“Sorry.” Soft, feminine, almost child-like in its tone. “You fell.”
“S’okay,” he tried to say, then spat and dragged a canteen from his jacket and fumbled it open. Eyes first. Need eyes free. Priceless water, wasted on clearing his eyes. He grunted, rubbed away the image, or tried to. It persisted. He was still seeing what he had seen before.
A small horse. A—
The wings caught his eyes. Broad and beautiful, shimmering opalescent beauty in the dim afternoon graylight.
A small horse. A pony? With wings?
“Holy God…”
“Please don’t fall again!”
“W-what?”
“Um…” The little… horse… pony sat and looked away from him, its ears flat into that sparkling, flowing mane. “You stared… then you fell. I got scared.”
The voice… her voice. “N-no. I won’t. I promise. Ya startled me, that’s all.” Questions burned in his mind, becoming clearer the more he stared at this impossible creature with the voice of a child. He reached out to touch the flowing mane.
Color washed through his mind.
Green parks spread out around him, trees lifted their red and gold glory to the blue, blue sky and the bright sun poured down light and warmth onto his face.
He looked away, fear jangling in his mind at the intensity of the vision, and the impossibility of this… lovely creature.
“Look’s like ol’ Answer Jim finally got the crazies.”
He came to again, staring up at Celestia. She was looking away, humming some tune he didn’t recognize. His head felt warm, and the pain that he remembered felt far away.
Not good.
“‘Tia,” He croaked.
“Shh.” She whispered, not looking down.
“R-remember when we met?” His arm wouldn’t move. He wanted to reach for her face and stroke the down-soft hairs covering her cheek. His shoulder moved, finally… and his mind erupted in searing white.
Black followed.
This is gettin’ old.
He wrapped some rope around the corners of the box, more around the middle. Gray rope. He frowned at the box. Brown. Ash slid off it like, well, dust. Clung here and there, but always fell away.
He frowned at the featureless gray landscape, without a hint of any color except maybe his spittle flecked lips… and the box.
“God damn it!”
More water, poured on the ground, made a gooey mud that stuck to everything like the plague. Here and there, out there, were packed deserts of cracked gray mud, and filled with mired vehicles and bodies. He hesitated, his hand full of the goop, then frowned and slathered it over the sides and top of the box.
“If he ain’t seen you yet, I ain’t gonna let him know yer here.”
“Who?”
“Best you never find out.” He grunted, shaking his head. “Sour Marley. Mean ol’ bastard. Like me.”
“Mean?”
“Meaner’n me,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m mean. Marley’s meaner.”
“Oh.” He heard her shifting about, then a dagger of pearl shot out through the top. “Oops.”
“Hah! Well, just keep your head down. I can’t promise a ride like a limo, but we’ll get ya home safe.”
“Home?”
This isn’t her home… she knows it. He sighed. “My home. I dunno where you’re from.”
“Oh.”
“Ready?” He gathered up the lead rope and started hauling. This box better hold… God knows how it’s lasted this long out here.
The box grated against the dust, slid over it like it didn’t belong. That it didn’t belong was besides the point. It couldn’t have been out there for very long. Not and stayed colorful.
However long it’s been out here…
Light flickered in the darkness before he woke, this time.
I wonder what that means.
Celestia was still nearby, not looking at him. She sat, leaning against the worn steel strut that made the center of his home. What had once been rich red carpet was wrapped around it, long ago stained gray. She was turning gray, too, he saw.
Ash and soot streaked her coat, her wings… but it never touched her mane or her tail.
Probably somethin’ to that…
The thought drifted away as he did.
“Welcome to… uh.” He’d never rightly given the place a name. Bomb Shelter UT1-0094 was the name he’d found engraved on its commissioning plate, stuffed way back in the small store-room.
“Home?” she asked, finally poking her head out of the box.
“I guess. I mean… hell.” He shrugged and dropped the rope, then shrugged out of his jacket. “Just good ol’ UTI. We used to call her that. Stupid state mandated…” He shrugged again. “Just an old bomb shelter.”
“Oh.”
She said that a lot. He grunted and waved an inviting hand in through the heavy steel door. “Ladies first.”
She slunk past him, brushing against his leg as she went, and paused, looking up at him. “It smells.” She took a deep breath, wrinkling her nose.
“Ain’t got showers, darlin’. Just scrub down when I can.” He shrugged.
She sighed, turning her attention back to the bomb shelter, and stepped past the frame of the great, steel door, her head moving this way and that as she took in the sparse furnishings he’d scraped together over ten years.
He tried, for a moment, to see it like she must have. Gray and black. Spots of color here and there—fading. Padding for a bed, pulled from a car and covered with drapes from a house sat against one wall. A neat stack of playing cards sat next to it. Solitaire—he grinned at the irony—the only game he played.
“It’s… neat.” She sounded surprised.
“Huh. Well, it ain’t all that hard to keep clean.” Well, she ain’t the only one caught up on a word. “So… make yourself at home, I guess.”
He kicked off his boots outside, left his over-trousers out there, too. No need to track in more ash than he needed to. Place already smelled like it, and the last time he’d had a clear nose had been sometime when all them mushroom clouds sprouted up. Maybe eleven years ago.
“So…” She stopped in the center of the room, her head not quite reaching the top of the rug wrapped around the central pillar. It normally stood at his waist… he’d stuck it there so he’d stop stubbing his toes. And then his elbows found it constantly. But it had been his last rug. Maybe the last one in the whole world.
“Names, I guess,” Jim said. “Ain’t much use alone, an’ I guess my socializin’s gotten a little rusty, what with just ol’ Sour Marley for company.”
She regarded him, her eyes unblinking, then nodded. “Celestia.”
“Shoot…” Weird name. He shrugged. Talking horse. Weird times. “Answer Jim. ‘Least, that’s what the folks on the radio say when they’re askin’ for me. Figure it’s as good as any.”
“Answer Jim.” Her lips wrapped around the name like a caress. “A pleasure, Answer.”
“Just Jim.”
She slumped against the rug, her hooves sliding out from underneath her. “Oh…” A moment later, she shook herself, and lay down. “I… don’t know where my home is.” She didn’t cry. Didn’t whimper. Not like he’d expected. She just lay her head down and looked up at him. Expectant.
“Well… huh.”
“…been my home. Our home. Why?”
Celestia paced around the rug. The memory tugged at him as he watched her. Hooves smacking against the flat concrete, she made a circle, then another. She stopped to rub her neck against the steel. He knew that itch.
His hand itched to scratch it. All of him itched.
“Damnit, girl!” His voice rasped like sandpaper over rock. “Over here.”
She was at his side instantly, her nose—her warm, delicate nose—pressed against his wrinkled neck. “Shh! Don’t speak. You’re… you need rest! I’ve got the—”
“Shh, girl. It’s okay.” The darkness started swarming again, and he fought it. Not now! “I-I…”
It was a battle he lost. At least the pain was fading…
Jim pushed the plate at her. “Ya gotta eat. I don’t care if it’s meat. All the beans and green shit—stuff got eaten or spoiled ages ago. ‘Sides. Got salt in it.”
“It makes my tummy hurt…” She was just a filly, staring up at him with an uncertain shimmer in her eyes. It was hard to remember, sometimes. She could act so mature, he looked at her like an equal. At other times, a curtain seemed to draw shut over her eyes, hiding behind the fear. She was doing that now.
“Sorry, girly.” Be tough. He sneered, drawing his hands up to his chest and flopping them about.“Oh! It’s meat! I can’t eat it!” He stopped, then glared. “You wanna grow up and be strong, huh?”
Her eyes sparked, the curtain withdrawing, and something like defiance set in her ears. She snapped at the plate, and swallowed the entire gravy-soaked brisket before he could blink. Then she belched.
“Hah! Miss priss has a wild side.” He speared one of the briskets from the can and snapped off a chunk, then jabbed the remainder at her flank. “Maybe it’s just gettin’ used to it.”
“Meanie!”
“I did warn ya. I’m a mean ol’ bastard.”
Her lower lip fluttered. “Y-you’re not! Y-you w-want me to—” She leapt off the bench and fled to the storage room. He heard a curtain snap, then rattle shut. Her bedroom. She was hiding from him. Probably to be sick again.
He sighed, pushing steel into his resolve, and forced himself to sit and eat. He waited, listening for the retching.
None came. Huh.
He tip-toed to the doorway and listened. He heard crying. It had been a long time since he had heard a girl cry. A long time.
Damnit… women… girls… ponies… All the same. Never understand em.
He wandered away to slump against the rug. Her cries faded.
She never retched.
“Good girl.” He rubbed at his own eyes. “Make an old man proud.”
“…the streetcars flash and rumble, bright red and gold paint streaming in the night.” Paper rasped. “They say, on a quiet night, when it rains, the streetcars shimmer like a rainbow.”
“Stupid travelogue…” he mumbled.
“You dug it up, just for me.” Her voice was quiet, but he couldn’t see her.
Tired… he reached up to his face, feeling something damp there.
“No.” Her teeth caught his hand, her warm breath soothing away the ache in his bones. Just a little. Other aches flared and faded, but the one in his side was the worst again. “Fever.”
“How long?”
A strained tone entered her voice. “Day… maybe two.” Something cool touched his lips. Water trickled down, cool and refreshing. He swallowed, his throat on fire for the first couple sips before the cool, wet nectar reached his stomach.
He pushed her muzzle away, stopped. His fingers trembled on her cheek, warm and soft like a dream of clouds.
Dark clouds swept over him.
“Don’t you open this door unless you hear me say ‘Celestia.’ If I ask for ‘Tia,’ you pretend like no-one is home. Got it?”
She stared, shrinking away from his jabbing finger. Her eyes were locked on his, a pink dawn open wide. A sparkle shimmered in them, then trickled down her muzzle.
God damnit… make me feel like a heel.
“Got it?” he repeated, voice grating.
She nodded, then stood up. “But what if—”
“No buts.”
“Yes, sir.”
He kept his finger in her face for another moment, then stood up. “Good.” He coughed, “I’m gonna be back. I promise. Lord knows you couldn’t handle the can opener…”
She made a face, then looked away. “Stupid head.”
He laughed. “Well, darlin’. Much as I love your company, I don’t think I could take it much longer without gettin’ you somethin’ to read. God damn, pesterin’…”
Her eyes lit up, and she stood up, dashing forward to press against his leg, all warm and soft like a dream. “I can’t wait!”
“Yeah, yeah… now pipe down.”
He cracked open the peephole and peered out into the gray light. Nothing.
“Okay. Remember. First the latch, then the wheel.” When she nodded, he spun the wheel and undid the latch. Bolts popped, groaned, and clicked as the mechanism spun back and reset.
He’d had her practice over and over, surprisingly dexterous with just her forehooves and mouth, until she was able to do it almost as fast as he.
He stepped out into the monochrome world and dragged the door shut behind him, waiting.
Click-click-whrwhrwhr-thunk!
The door hissed as the mechanical hydraulics engaged and drew itself into the gap.
“Good girl.” Map in his mind, compass overhead, he set out west for what used to be the Salt Lake Public Library.
Water trickled down his throat again. He coughed, spluttered, and a white fog descended over his thoughts.
“Hurts…” Everywhere. Fire in his joints, his head, his gut. Burning down his legs.
“Fever’s not breaking,” said a woman’s voice. “Sleep.”
Something cool rested on his head, ushering away the white with a pall of black.
He heard the crunch and squeal of boots on ashen linoleum before he smelled the bastard. He patted his holster, undid the snap silently and eased it out. Just him, his gun, three precious, priceless bullets.
And Sour Marley.
“Aw, come on, Answer. I know yer there!” He sounded like a pig. Fat. Greasy. Wallowing in his own filth.
“Don’t you come no closer, Sour.”
“That any way to treat a neighbor?” Sour’s footsteps kept coming.
“I’m warnin’ you.” He cocked the hammer, checked the chamber, and clicked off the safety. The final click sounded ominous in the hallway.
“Heh. I’m armed, too.” Jim heard a hollow thoonk and a sharp crack. “Nice ol’ shotgun.” The footsteps stopped, then moved away. He heard a creak and squeal of wood on steel. “Saw you got your door locked up tight. Someone else kick ya out?”
Celestia! She hadn’t let him in, or he wouldn’t be here. Must’ve followed his tracks. “Heh. By a right mean ol’ bugger, too. Why you think I’m out here, riskin’ my skinny ass?”
“Oh?” Sour sounded amused. “Do tell.”
“Yeah. Some punks outta Vegas, I figger. Big ass machine gun, more small arms than I cared to count. Lucky I was out scavengin’. Saw em.” Talking too much. Jim coughed. “If I’m bein’ neighborly, I’d be a poor neighbor if’n I didn’t warn ya.”
Sour was quiet. It was a poor lie. He knew Sour knew it was a lie.
“I reckon so.” His footsteps continued away. “You always was luckier.”
The steps faded into the distance down the hallway.
Jim waited a long time.
Sour cursed, voice close. “Bastard.”
“Same trick, dumbass.”
Jim patted his sack of books. Most of em were probably ruined, but he’d tried to look for shelves way back in the corners, tried to find ones with still clear print somewhere in among the pages.
“Maybe ya oughta read while yer here. Might learn somethin’.” He laughed. Sour could read about as well as he could. Stupid git.
Hot like the fires of hell. All over. Burning, twisting and stabbing.
“Jim!”
Something settled atop him, cool and heavy. Something else, wet, slapped at his face.
He opened his eyes, the glare of the lights casting a halo through the rainbow haze floating over him.
An angel…
Heaven…
Jim stopped for the hundredth time to stare off into the distance, back the way he’d come. Sour was still back there. A hunch of gray against the horizon.
“I can still see you, you jackass!” Jim roared. The ash ate his voice. Quieter: “Stupid ass.”
The lump disappeared. Jim’s tracks remained. Not that he was hidin’ from Sour. “Goddamn, you’re stupid.” Jim humped the heavy bag up higher and continued east, back home. He took a swig of his water. “Not any dumber’n I am…”
Shoulda killed the bastard.
“Yeah… but he mighta got me, too. Scattergun in those halls…” He shook his head.
Can’t leave her alone.
“Nope… poor thing.”
He continued on. He considered using one of the bullets to scare Sour away, then shook his head. “Then I’d only have three bullets left.”
Including the one in his pocket.
He stopped. “No, you idjit. Two left after that… and one for you.”
He continued on. One step after the other. He felt it, rubbing against his leg. The fourth bullet. The last one. Last chance.
Celestia’s face appeared in front of him, eyes sparkling, ears flat. Alone.
He stopped.
“Aw, God damn it.” He fished out the bullet and shook out his gun. He paused. “You do this… there’s no goin’ back.”
He looked down at the bag of books, something that Celestia had asked if he had. He hadn’t any. No use. Couldn’t read. Much. Enough, he figured, to survive. He’d been careful to pick books he couldn’t make hide nor hair of.
“Why are you doing this?” The answer was the same. He shook out the cylinder and slid the last bullet in. “Idiot.”
He turned to see the lump on the horizon had gotten up again. It swayed a little, stopped.
Jim lifted the revolver, aimed it at the lump. Sour couldn’t see him, wouldn’t know what hit him. He sighed, shaking his head, shifted his aim, and pulled the trigger.
The sharp crack rattled out across the flat plain. No echo came back. Eaten by the ash.
“Three bullets left,” he said as the lump collapsed again.
“Stay down, you idiot!” he yelled into the distance, then turned and continued on.
An angel watched over him. She was all white, with a rainbow halo that drifted on a lazy wind. Wings drifted back and forth, drifting cool bliss over the agony that was his body.
“Jim… don’t you leave me alone…”
“Already in heaven,” he whispered. “Sorry…”
“What do you mean you can’t read?” Celestia glared up at him, her wings spread wide, nostrils flaring.
Huh.
“Reading is… is…” Her eyes softened, unfocused. She shrank back, wings drooping and ears slicking back to her skull. “It’s…” She stared at the small stack of books, something gleaming in her eyes. Not tears. Sorrow, all the same, but she wasn’t crying.
“What?” Jim finished setting the last of the lengthy books on the table, then dusted off his hands. “What’s wrong, ‘Tia?”
“I… can’t remember.” She looked up at him. Tears did show in her eyes, then, reminding him of another scared teenager, hurried onto a bus while he stayed behind. That’s what she was: a scared, teenage filly. “Why? I know it’s important, but I can’t remember why!”
“Hey, now.” He knelt and held out his arms. “I’m here.”
She hesitated, eyes roving over his face, then stepped up to press a cheek against his. “I worried… that man… I smelled him through the door. He knocked, banged… yelled for you. Then he left. Or I thought… I almost checked.” She looked at the covered peephole, at the steel plate on a hinge. “I still smelled him, though.”
“Huh.” I wasn’t wrong. “Leaky seals. Not always a bad thing. Yeah. Thought he might try somethin’ like that. Dumb bastard.” She was gossamer soft in his arms. Her mane was the most wondrous thing… warm as he remembered the sun, and clean as mountain air, and softer than the finest cotton. He pressed his face into it, and shook.
Something so simple. He shook again, and felt heat trickle down his cheeks. He took a deeper breath, and saw a flash of the desert sky as it had been: blue, clear, brilliantly warm against his dusky skin.
It was a memory from another world, long lost.
“Not lost.” A voice thrummed in his ear and his mind, and the filly in his arms grew hot. “Forgotten, almost, but not lost.”
“W-what the hell!”
The mysterious voice faded from his mind as he jerked back and stared at the pony in front of him.
Ageless eyes bored into him for an instant only, then flashed.
Celestia shook her head, eyes rolling up, and collapsed.
Jim stared at his girl, little ‘Tia, as her shape filled out, grew larger and larger… until she was almost the size of a horse. It was still his ‘Tia, still his girl. He touched her neck, brushed a hand through her mane of sunlight and morning mists.
“I knew you ain’t just a pony… but, whatever you are, you’re still my girl. Still gotta keep ya safe.”
“…hear me. You taught… let me teach you.”
Something cool brushed against his ear.
“Thank you. I liked teaching you to read.”
What? He tried cracking his eyes open. Darkness.
“Lay still. I know—”
“The god-dess Dawn now we-wi-wended her way to vast Oh-lym-pus that she might h-her-ald day—” Jim stared at the incredibly dense text and then up at Celestia.
“Very good.” She nodded, standing head and neck above him, not a hard feat with him sitting at their rickety table. She paced back and forth, back and forth, then around the pillar once, and twice and came to stand near him again, looked at the book, then started another circuit.
“You, uh, distracted?” Jim waved the book at her.
Her ears flattened and she gave him a thin smile. “A little.” She shook her head and continued her pacing. “That… sounds so very familiar.”
“Well… sure. I mean…” He nodded at her, then gestured with the book. “You’re not so unlike some o’ these things. Smarter’n any centaur, that’s for sure. Probably that Aggy Memmy fellow, too.”
“Agamemmnon,” she said, then fixed him with a glare.
“Yeah. Him. So… what’s eatin’ you?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head and wandered over to look at a bag of stale pretzels he’d found up in Salt Lake.
He could tell she wanted one of the precious treats. Wheat and sorghum, she’d said. It had been the start of his reading lessons. Learning ingredients. He already knew most of them, but sorghum had been a new one.
“Have you ever remembered something? Only not? Like looking into a pool of water and seeing someone you’re not, or seeing a mirage glinting off the dust?” She shook her head and stuck her muzzle into the bag amid the crinkle-crackle of plastic. She came up with two of the twists, and dropped one in his lap.
“Sure. All the time.” When she was sleeping, and he tried to. His fingers in her mane, remembering sunlight not obscured by a haze of gray, and a wind that swept across his skin without abrading it with caustic ash. He bit off a chunk of stale, salty bread, and chewed.
She looked at him.
He’d gotten awful good at reading horse faces in the last year and a half. She was annoyed. Ex-ass-per-ate-ed, maybe. That sounded like it. Exasperated. He grinned.
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Sure.” He nodded. “I do. I remember what the world used to be like… but every day, it gets a little dimmer.” He looked at her. “Got. Not no more.”
“Anymore.” She shook her head again, staring down at the pretzel on the table. “Not… like that either.” She sighed. “I am not sure how to explain it. It’s worse in the morning and at night, when the sun rises and sets. It feels like…” She shrugged and nibbled on the edge of the treat.
“Well, don’t you worry, none.” He smiled and looked at the holster hanging on the wall. “I told you about guns. What they do. How they kill.”
“Yes…” She glanced at the gun, too, frowning.
“I have three bullets. Three.” He snorted. “In the time afore the war, I’d shoot off that many in seconds at the range.” He snapped his fingers, snap-snap-snap. “Just like that.”
She nibbled at the pretzel, watching him with those pretty almondine eyes, pink as a morning cloud.
He looked back, swallowed, and continued: “I had four.”
She looked at the book on the table, then at their impromptu library made out of milk crates and shattered wood.
He’d gone out again and again, scrounging for food in the ruined city to the west. Sour Marley hadn’t bothered him anymore. Strange that Jim hadn’t so much as seen his tracks nowhere. Maybe he’d scared the bugger off.
The pretzels had come from the city, a gas station mostly collapsed under the weight of the ash on its roof, as had a number of other items. Including the most colorful thing he’d found—aside from her. A travelogue for the city of San Francisco.
He swallowed again. “That first batch o’ books… I ran into Sour Marley.” He winced when her ears snapped back, flat. “Ain’t like that. I coulda. Probably shoulda. He’s given other folks less chance. But… ain’t my place, I figure. God’ll decide.” He jabbed his pretzel at the roof. “Warning shot.”
He looked down at his hands. A janitor’s hands. Calloused and rough. Old. Wrinkled. Simple. Not the hands of a killer. He laid them out flat on the table. “I used to figure I had only three.”
She stared at him. He read curiosity in those eyes, confusion in her ears.
“I used to figure… that last one.” He put a finger under his jaw. He didn’t need to say it. She saw. He saw, too: sorrow. “When I got too lonely. I…” He sighed, reaching one of his hands out to her.
Her nose felt cold, soft under his rough fingers, and damp. She wasn’t a creature of the waste. Not like him and Marley. She was… something else. Delicate, pristine. From someplace else, he knew. Maybe from God.
Preacher always said God had a weird sense of humor.
He stroked her muzzle with his rough fingers, then drew it back.
“No.” She caught his fingers in her teeth.
“Yeah. That’s what I said, too. That first day I brought books back. What’d you do without ol’ Answer Jim, eh?” He trembled, but held back the fear. For her sake. Yeah. For her. “Hell. I ain’t spry no more. But…” He looked at the travelogue, with its wild colors. “I ever tell you what I did, back in the old days?”
She shook her head, pushed forward, and lay her head on his lap. “Tell me.”
“Nothin’ fancy. I weren’t no administrator, teacher… I was a janitor. I cleaned this here… well, used to be a school.” He cupped a hand under her chin, feeling velvet and silk. “Evacuated before the bombs fell, all gone to other places. Everyone forgot about this old place since the fifties.” His hand traced along her cheek, then up to her ear and against the base of her horn. “But not Jim. Hell, I cleaned up in here often enough… just some curiosity to the younger folks. Didn’t even know it was a shelter. Just the dry goods locker for the kitchen.” He waved at the store-room with his hand, then looked down at her.
Both eyes were closed, and she was smiling. Huh. He stroked his hands through sunlight and a morning breeze, then against her ears, and closed his eyes, too.
“I think it’s high time Ol’ Jim took up a broom again.”
“Answer. Jim, answer, please.” The crackle of the radio, long silent, came through the haze.
“‘Tia…” He lifted a hand. Tried to. Fire seared his shoulder and lanced through his head. Couldn’t feel his legs.
“Jim!” She was there suddenly, a warm breeze shrouding his face.
Sunlight gave him strength. He drew a deeper breath, fighting the fire in his gut. “Answer… for me.”
It was, perhaps, inevitable that someone would use a radio within range of his short antenna. Someone would remember that, somewhere in the great salt flats, there was some eccentric by the name of Answer Jim.
She had been curious about the stack of equipment in the corner of the shelter from the start. All dials and knobs, all the strange words and symbols. Lights flickered across panels and static hissed and belched from ancient speakers. But no-one spoke. The world was dead. Or mostly so. Just a few holdouts, last he’d heard. Hiding with a precious few supplies.
Once, rumors had abounded that, out East, there was still life, hidden deep in the Appalachians. Green and verdant, protected from the dust by the high mountain walls. Same thing about the Sierras. No-one came back. Ever. Still, rumors had once circulated.
Once… when there had still been people within walking distance. People aside from Sour Marley. They’d left, when things got bleak enough to overcome the fear of leaving safety. Pockets emptied. No-one came to fill them up again.
It had been a long time since any words but his own and hers were heard within the dim confines of their home.
And it was a home.
She made it a home.
He smiled as she slept with her head in his lap, and he read something by a lady named Dickinson. It was easier. He knew most of the words, and had found worlds away from the hell. Worlds where ‘green’ and ‘blue’ were more than just words.
He stroked a hand through her sunlight mane again, resting his freshly calloused palm against her neck.
“Jim…” crackled the radio.
He looked up from another world and glanced at it. The light on the receive panel flickered for a moment… then died. A burst of static. Nothing. He turned the page.
“Answer, Jim.” Clearer. Louder. A note of… panic. Unfamiliar, still.
Celestia’s eyes snapped open, but she stayed still.
“It’s alright, girl. Just someone lookin’ for a memory.” His eyes strayed to the radio again. The receive light flickered again.
“They’re looking for you.” She raised her head, stretched her long, graceful neck, and stepped away.
His hand fell through sunlight and mist to land on dark gray reality. He snorted, curled his fingers into a fist. Not to hide the shaking, but to hold onto the memory. Careful. You’ll turn into a poet, if’n you ain’t careful. He snorted again and glanced at the radio.
“I suppose you’re right. Folks’ll be wantin’ directions.” He held up four fingers. “Gray, gray, gray, and gray. That’s all the direction I’ve got anymore.”
“Liar.” She snorted and eyed the equipment, studying the machinery, powered by batteries and scrounged solar panels installed by some kind soul before they left, heading west.
What would they think if they heard her voice?
He saw her lips moving. She probably could figure it out if he let her. Why not let her? Ain’t nobody but Sour… The thought left, and he shook his head. “Fine.”
He rocked to his feet and stood, letting his joints crackle and pop as he walked a circle around the pillar where the once rough concrete had been worn smooth by their pacing. Finally, he sat down and pointed at the button labeled ‘Answer.’
“Simple. Push this, to talk.” He did so and leaned forward. “This is Jim. What’s up, folks? Where ya headed?”
“Hell,” the man said. The crackle of the radio hid most of the emotion, but Jim heard anger. “Goddamn bastard jumped us outside of Salt Lake. Killed most everyone… I winged him… got him good. Need help.”
The radio went silent after a brief hiss of feedback.
Jim didn’t wait for another message. He stood up, silent, and reached for his gun. Fury boiled in his heart, pounded at his ears. He saw a gray lump on the horizon, saw his barrel leveled at it. Shifted away.
“Bastard,” he heard a voice say. His voice. Growling, angry. At himself. “Shoulda shot his ass.”
“Jim.” Celestia stood by the door, blocking his way.
“My fault,” he grumbled. “My problem to take care of.” He shook his head, looked at his hand. Steady. Good. “Can’t let him stay out there. I gotta do this.”
She nodded. “I’m going with you.”
“No. You ain’t.” He punctuated the denial with a firm tug on the holster, settling it in place. In went the gun with the three bullets.
“I’ve been out there. With you.”
“Cleanin’ the school. Clearin’ the lawn. At night.” His face softened as she stood firm. She didn’t shrink away so much anymore. She was stronger, maybe more’n him. Her ears were set, and he knew those eyes. Determined. Stubborn. Heh. Like me. He also knew what a rotten bastard Sour was. What he’d do to her. He shuddered. “No.”
“Tell me why.”
He considered. Tell her everything. What he knew about Marley, about who and what he really was. Bully. Thief. And now, murderer. But, there was another reason. Closer to him, and the truth.
“You—” He figured she deserved to know. He shrugged. “He’d see you from a mile away. Know we was comin’ before I ever laid eyes on him. He’s stupid, but even he could figure out… that…” He coughed, paused. “I love you. It’d kill me to see you hurt.” There. Not so hard. Harder, was the look in her eyes. “I gotta do this,” he said, again.
“Idiot.” She stepped up to him and planted her nose against his chest. “I love you, too. You think it won’t hurt me any less?”
“I ain’t gonna die. Promise.” He snorted. “Not yet. I’m pretty sure what he’s up to.” He pushed her gently aside, and spun the wheel-lock. “Gotta lock up after me, again. And keep an ear on that radio.”
She nodded, backing away as the door swung open and he stepped out.
Celestia stared at the door, one hoof draped over the smooth steel rung of the wheel-lock. Why she’d let him go alone… because there was a chance.
“‘Tia.” A knock.
She smiled, pressing her ear to the door, and waited.
“Good girl, Celestia.”
“Be safe, Jim!” The muffled crunch of his boots crunchedas he walked along the narrow corridor and out into the world. It didn’t take long for the ash to swallow up the sound of his passage. She held back a sigh and turned away, surveying their home, worry gnawing at her belly.
Everything had its place in Jim’s home, ever since the first time she’d laid eyes on it. Little knickknacks rested on shelves here and there: memorabilia from a world that she’d never gotten to experience. Except through his stories. Hours, she’d spent whiling away the long, quiet time when the wind rose and roared coarse ash across the plain like a blizzard of gray.
Inside their home, it never touched them. Aside from the small particles that snuck in through the ever leakier seals around the door.
She could remember those times, and see them in her minds eye. Almost, with his voice rumbling in her ear and his hand resting on her neck, she see another place where real snow fell, and a gentle wind rose to carry wet flakes to settle upon her nose. Someplace where there were other ponies… like her.
They skirled away from her in a flurry whenever she reached for them. It was only when he was talking to her, telling her a story about the way the world had been in his bluff, simple way that she could see them.
She loved him for it. For his kindness.
Another bag of pretzels lay on the table, sitting next to a variety of others, collected over the years. She flicked a hoof against the stack of flat bags, and walked a circuit around the steel post in the center. The rug was growing threadbare, and shiny steel peeked through where she’d chased itch after itch on her flank or neck while he was away and his fingers couldn’t ease them for her.
Through the small store-room, and its curtained partitions. Back out into the main bunker. Another circuit. She wandered, wanting time to go faster; wanting it to halt. It wasn’t like the other times, when he went to avoid trouble.
Celestia found herself back in the storeroom, staring at the arrangement of curtains and rods salvaged from homes and stores, It hadn’t always been so neatly separated. At the start, she slept curled against his side, drinking in his warmth and presence. Later, he’d set up their bedrooms. He’d insisted.
“It’s not right,” she growled, imitating his voice as she stroked the faded gray curtain. “A lady shouldn’t have to sleep next to a…” she faltered, lifted her head, and stared down the anguish. Something was going to happen. She knew it. Something bad.
But she had to be strong. He might need her. But… he was also right. He could hide much better than she. She would stand out. She bit at her mane, but caught only sunlight and gossamer. She spat it out and sighed. Ash wouldn’t tarnish it, knives wouldn’t cut it, and fire wouldn’t burn it.
She would have been a beacon, out there on the gray plain. A target.
“Foolish mare.” Sighing, she pushed aside his curtain and lay down on his bed, taking in the scent of him. Strong, honest. Just like him.
She closed her eyes.
“Hello!” she said into the receiver, her hoof mashed on the Answer button. “This is Jim’s radio. Hello!”
The radio was silent for a long moment. Seconds ticked by, marked by the intermittent flicker of the receive light, and she was about to try again when it crackled to life.
“Damn. A woman? Hah! So Jim ain’t alone no more. Good. Idiot’d get himself killed if he’d stayed out here much longer. Who is this?” The voice sounded cheerful, and seemed like it knew Jim.
“‘Tia. I’m…” She trailed off, her hoof still on the answer button. “I’m his daughter.” Jim was like a dad to her, she realized, staring back at his limp form. “Dad.” Her hoof slipped off the button. He lay nearly still, the only movement his shallow breathing. His smell, like foul putrefaction, filled her nose like a can of brisket left out for too long.
“Daughter!” The radio made a loud crack, and it took Celestia a moment to realize it was laughter. “Hot damn! Fool went and got married.”
“Please help us! He’s dying!” It hurt. More, for being the truth. She’d tried to deny it, but he’d faded day by day at first. Waking to take some water, nearly insensate, then collapsing into a fitful sleep. Washing him, changing his bandages, she’d watched day by day as the torn flesh of his abdomen fouled and grew black, oozing. Hundreds of tiny holes puckered and scabbed, then split and seeped pus.
She dashed the image from her head, trembling as she waited for the radio to answer. He was dying. Dying!
“Shit! Hold on. Same place?”
“Yes. He’s… always lived here.”
“Heh. Yeah. Even before the war, seemed like. I’ve got some peeps with me. Good folk. A doctor, too. Hour, tops.”
The radio went dead again, and did not come back to life.
She turned to him, and let her mind fall back into the past. There, at least, she had some hope.
“‘Tia.” Crackle.
Celestia jerked awake. Fading dreams of white stone and colorful windows drifted through her mind, disappearing like a mist in the morning.
“Celestia.” Crackle.
She was at the radio before the last crackle faded, hoof hovering over the answer, waiting until the receive light faded.
“Jim!” He’s alive! “Jim, are you okay?”
“Nah.”
Celestia’s heart stopped in her chest.
The green receive light flickered, then came on again. “Bastard laid an ambush… like I figgered. Still got me good.” The light stayed on as heavy breathing crackled through the set. “Got him better.”
“Where are you?” Her eyes flicked to the rough map he’d drawn, marking all the important places: best area for finding food, known—and long abandoned—bandit holdouts. Things she would need to know. Just in case, he’d said.
“Right where he said he was. Devious bastard.” The set croaked. “Thought he’d try somethin’ old, like let me come inta the camp first, then get me from a distance.”
“Save your breath! I’m coming for you!” Eighteen miles. She could cross that quickly… if she flew. Did she dare? Her wings flicked open, filling the space. Flying was easy, an instinct from another life that hadn’t left. She would dare. Her jaw set, she strode to the door and slid aside the hinged steel plate.
Daylight streamed in through the peephole. No matter. She clacked the latch open.
The radio came to life again, crackling for a moment.“Stay where ya are. No use…” The radio trailed off into a hiss and died.
The receive light was off when she dashed back around the corner.
“Jim!”
A brief hiss, her own signal bouncing off the ash in the sky. The light stayed dark.
“Jim!” She paused, digging up one of his oft-repeated curses, one he’d told her never to use. “G-goddamn it! Jim!”
The green light winked, stuttered, and came back on. “Told you… angels don’t use the Lord’s…” The light darkened, and flashed. “Name in vain.”
She was at the door, and spinning through the lock before the last hiss faded.
Celestia eyed the door again: unlocked, cracked open. It felt wrong.
Jim lay in the center of the room, exposed, vulnerable. Their cleanest pillows sat tucked under his head, and a mostly-fresh bandage—the last one—pressed against his side. It wasn’t near large enough, and she could see the decay spreading in spidery veins across his stomach and chest, branching off at his shoulder to crawl up his neck.
She her hoof twitched, wanting to go to him to be a warmth at his side. She couldn’t. He’d warned her about that, too.
“Can’t let yourself be seen, ‘Tia. They don’t know you like I do. They won’t understand you.” He snorted. “We’re a dumb bunch, most of us. Hatin’ what we don’t understand.”
“Not you, Jim,” she whispered. bending to press her nose to his cheek.
An hour. That’s what they’d said. She’d busied herself for that time, tidying and cleaning, sweeping aside the detritus of her grief to make the room as spotless as she could. He would have wanted it to be clean for visitors.
An hour passed. He still hadn’t woken.
Crunching noises, faint and growing stronger, came through the crack in the door. She waited, standing in the door to the storeroom, and listened.
A metallic thunk, repeated three times, rang through the lair. “Hello? Anyone home?”
Celestia ducked back into the store-room, hiding around the corner, and yelled back: “Please! C-come in!”
The door squealed, and she heard three distinct sets of boots scuffle against the rough welcome-mat. “Holy… damnit.” Rougher cursing echoed in the chamber. Three voices. Celestia shrank from the doorway.
The first voice spoke again, straining: “Doc, get… do… something! Girl? You—”
“Don’t come back here!” Her voice sounded shrill in the confined space. “Please! Don’t come back here!”
“Won’t.” The voice grunted. “I’m William. Used to work with Jim, here.” There was a pause, filled with tension either real, or imagined; she couldn’t tell. “Fool wouldn’t leave when we did. So… Tia… you sound a might older than could be for a daughter of his. Only been ten years since I saw him last.”
“A-adopted. He rescued me.” Because he had. Rescued her from someone else finding her. She heard a rattling, a bag unzipping. Silence. No-one spoke in the other room, but she could hear movement. Soft, wet sounding. A splash of liquid.
She waited. The doctor was doing what he could. She had to wait.
“Bill, this ain’t good,” a man’s voice shattered the silence, and wrecked Celestia’s hopes. “Perforated intestine. Missed his kidney by some miracle, but it’s done. Nothing I can do.”
Celestia’s breath caught, and a sob, sudden and painful, tore through her. She tumbled to the ground, foreleg curled to her chest. He’s going to die. “He lied to me…”
“Shit, Mike. Have a little decency. Coulda whispered it to me, ya ass.”
“Ain’t a decent world no more,” Mike said. He snorted. “Nothing but death and gray.”
“Liar!” Celestia screamed. “There is decency left in the world! It’s… it’s…” She shook her head wildly, trying to voice the rest, the denial, that he was going to live. But, she had seen it, too.
“Dying.” The word forced its way out, tearing at her throat. It was the truth, clear, simple, and plain. Just like Jim. Her throat drew shut on everything she wanted to say. About the world. About Jim. About… love.
“Truth,” William said, voice taut. “Jim always was a decent guy. Simple. Honest, too. Hard workin’.” Footsteps sounded, coming closer to Celestia’s hiding place. “Sweetie… ‘Tia… you don’t have to face this alone.”
“Stay back! Don’t come any closer.”
“Will, honey.” It was a woman’s voice. “She’s terrified. Think about how much courage it must have taken to even try and trust us.”
Celestia barely heard the words as she stared at the floor. Jim’s face floated before her, and his hand brushed through her mane. Wind and sunshine, he’d said. That was her. His blue sky, his summer day. His reason.
She’d found his gun, empty, pointing at the body of the man who’d done such terrible things, and would have done more if Jim hadn’t stopped him. He’d traded his life for others.
“It’s not fair! W-why—” did he have to die? She let the pain soak into her, battered by waves of anguish and grief that rolled over her, leaving her ragged, gasping for breath.
“Listen to the poor dear. She’s held onto hope for so long… and then Mike—” there was a sharp slap and a man yelped. “—took it away. Let her be. We’re probably the first faces besides Jim she’s seen in… a long while.”
“Damnit, Shelly! That hurt!”
“Serves you right, insensitive prick.”
“Heh.” The footsteps drew away. “Fine,” William said softly. “You help her. Work that woman-to-woman magic.”
Footsteps approached, halted shy of the door. “I’m not going to come in,” Shelly said. “Just going to sit down and have a chat, okay?”
Celestia heard the two men talking in low voices, one urgent, the other calm. She couldn’t tell which was which. Not with her heart thundering in her ears.
Slowly, the pain ebbed to a lower tide, and she took shallower, more even breaths. The men stopped talking.
“O-okay.” She nodded, feeling foolish almost immediately.
“What’s your name?” Shelly asked. Her voice was close. Celestia could reach around the door and touch its source.
“C-Celestia.”
“What a pretty name!”
“Damn odd is what it is,” Mike said. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re thinkin’ it.”
“Don’t mind Mike… he’s an ass, but he’s good at what he does.” Shelly’s hand slid around the door, flat to the ground. It was a small hand, pale and grimy. “How’d Jim find you?”
“In a box. Alone.”
“What kind of sick—” Shelly’s voice halted with a click of teeth slamming together. Celestia heard a deep breath, then a sigh. “At least he found ya and not that ass Marley. We, uh, found the body. Jim did the world a service. Marley was bad news. But, Jim… he was a good man. He did what he needed to.”
“Is.” Celestia pondered the hand, then her hoof. Shelly would know the moment she touched it that Celestia wasn’t human. “He is a good man.”
“Right.” Shelly sighed, and her hand patted the ground and started to move away. “I’m glad he found someone. Before…”
Celestia touched the hand with her hoof. She stared. She hadn’t planned to. Had wanted to stay hidden until they left. She stared at the hand and hoof touching, the white-grey streaked hairs and pearly, shining hardness of her hoof… and the grimy hand resting against it.
She wanted someone to hold. To hold her.
“Jesus!” The hand whipped away.
“What?” William’s voice, followed by boots on the ground.
“Stay back… please.” Celestia stood and shook herself. “I’m… not what you think I am.”
“Damn hoof!” Shelly cried. “Didn’t think the bombs did that!”
“Please. Stay calm.” Grief was sucked under by calm a rising tide of calm, drawn from some well she hadn’t even known existed. Celestia raised her head.
“We’re calm,” Mike said, then grunted. “’Least, I am. Dunno about Shell. Bill’s lookin a little—”
“Damnit, Mike! She’s a—”
Silence crackled as Celestia stepped around the corner, hooves striking the concrete in a steady cadence as she left the store-room and found the main bunker far more crowded than she would have imagined.
It had never been meant for more than a few people, Jim had told her.
“That stupid, state mandated ‘every public building’ bullcrap.” He waved a hand at the space. “Wouldn’t fit more’n twenty for a short time. Five’d be killin’ each other before the month was out. Two…” His hand rested between her ears. “Well… just dandy.”
She looked over the three humans standing near Jim’s body, all of them staring, and then at the room. With just the two of them, it had felt cozy. Not exactly spacious, but not crowded either.
Wordlessly, she crossed the space as the humans crowded away from her as one, and settled herself down next to Jim. Her mane flowed across his body, her tail against his legs. She looked up at them, then laid her head next to his. His breath gurgled in her ear, wet, too shallow. Her heart sank.
“Bloody unicorn…” Shelly fainted.
“Jim reacted the same way,” she told the two remaining, staring, faces.
And, just like that, the grief came pouring back in.
Celestia watched them discussing something—her, probably—as they huddled around a bag in the corner. Jim still hadn’t woken, and his breathing had acquired a pronounced rattle while she waited.
He was dying. She was powerless to stop it and, judging by the increasingly wild gesticulations Mike was making, so were they. If that was, indeed, what they were discussing, and not the ‘freaky horse-sized unicorn-bird.’ She snorted. More than one glance was thrown her way, and even William, the kind voiced man, had changed when she showed herself.
But they hadn’t attack her like Jim had feared so many would. Nor did they abandon her—mostly because of Jim, she surmised. Their eyes kept going to Jim, laying prone.
William’s bored into her, accusing her, then darted away when she met his gaze. She didn’t know what he saw, but she saw shame and anger in his face. She didn’t blame him. Jim didn’t talk about the folks who’d been here before. He would just changed the subject.
Is this why? Was it difficult to talk about… his children? The thought surprised her. Of them all, only William looked anything like Jim. Why did I think of them as his children?
Finally, Mike stood up, hands held up. “Fine. Fine. Look, it’s not like we might not need that morphine or anything.”
“Shut it, Mike.” Shelly jabbed a ramrod finger into his belly. “Jim was my friend. Only one who paid attention… before Will. I want…” Her eyes flicked to Celestia, and she swallowed visibly. “We want to say goodbye.”
William stiffened, his arms drew tighter around Shelly’s shoulders.
“He’s right damn there!” Mike pointed. “I can’t even guarantee it’ll wake him. Hell, it might just kill him.”
“But it will ease the pain, yes?” Celestia lifted her head, eyes darting to, and then away from the pus-soaked bandage covering his stomach. She swallowed. “Even… even if it does kill him, he deserves that much.”
Mike glared at her. “Yes, it will dull the pain,” he grated. “Just like it will for any poor sap who’s not fucking dying!”
“Asshole!” Shelly belted his shoulder. “Look. Freaky unicorn… magic… pegasus shit or not, Jim loved it.”
“Her,” Celestia snapped. “I am not an it.”
“Not talking about you.” Shelly shook her head. “Jim… always tried to be more than the world. Y’know, more… simpler. Sweeter. He always told me that magic existed, if you believed in it hard enough. I didn’t believe him, but he always cheered me up, y’know.” She pressed a hand to her eyes, and snuffled. “Well… shit. Looks like he was right.” She waved a hand at Celestia. “We… could all use a little magic in our lives.” Her hand shifted, coming to rest on a makeshift bookshelf. “He didn’t have much use for books, though. You?”
Celestia’s eyes went to the stack of books by the bedside, and settled on the well-worn paperback full of poetry. She picked it up in her mouth and laid it beside Jim, and the pages crinkled as she nosed it open to the middle, stopping on a single poem. She didn’t look. She knew it by heart. Looking would have hurt more.
“And him… towards the end. I taught him how to read.” Celestia looked down at the sweaty, pallid face by her foreleg. “He loved Emily Dickinson.” Her throat spasmed, and she looked up at the ceiling. Another sky. “He loved ‘There is another sky’ the most.”
“He would. Prithee, my brother, into my garden, come!” William murmured, repeating the last lines of the poem. For a moment, Celestia saw the reason for his anger and his grief. It was more than just a line. He looked at her, and she knew.
I never knew…
William averted his gaze, expression slack. He nodded and patted Mike on the shoulder. For a moment, Celestia saw past the mask, replaced by weariness, resignation. “Go on. Give him a dose. Hell, we get into anything bad enough to need morphine, we’re probably toast anyway.”
Mike, still grumbling, slid a tube of ampules from his black bag and shook one free. “Fine. Democracy, right.” He knelt down next to Jim, peered at the needle, then jabbed it into Jim’s shoulder and squeezed the bulb. “Now… we wait.”
Nothing happened. Celestia waited, her eyes locked on Jim’s pallid face, on the sweat she tried to replenish with water when she could. He didn’t even flinch. He kept on breathing. His chest moving. The rattling gurgle didn’t get worse.
Finally, she looked up, across at Mike. He was sitting down, head back, staring up at the ceiling. None of them were looking at her, she realized. “What now?”
“Well, for one… clear that goop out of his eyes.” He held out a hand, expectant.
No-one else moved. Celestia dragged herself away from Jim’s too-hot body and wetted a mostly clean rag under the purifier’s spout and laid it in Mike’s hand.
He blinked up at her, staring for a moment, then nodded. “Thanks.” With more tenderness than she would have imagined from him, he cleaned away the crud seeping out of Jim’s eyes, then wiped clean the fresh bubble of snot and spittle from his lips and nose.
The damp cloth must have done it. Jim’s hands twitched and his eyes fluttered open. He sputtered a gasping, weak cough.
“Water!” Mike snapped his fingers.
Celestia dashed to the purifier and ripped away the cover.
“Canteen!” Shelly’s voice. Something metallic and hollow thunked on the ground.
“No good,” Mike said. “Damn thing’s swiss cheese.” The canteen clattered to the floor. “Guess we know what that miracle was.”
Celestia snatched her bowl off the hook and plunked it into the reservoir.She waited while the water swirled and stilled, then brought it back up. Slower, she walked back and held the bowl out.
Mike looked up, shrugged, and took it from her. “Weirder shit, I suppose.” With a large hand, gentle like Jim’s, he lifted the older man’s head and pressed the bowl to his lips. “Come on, buddy,” Mike whispered.
Celestia paced back and forth as Mike eased the bowl ever higher, watched Jim cough and sputter once or twice, then settle in and swallow.
Hope snaked its insidious tendrils around her neck. Anger followed, boiling. But not at Mike. No, in a couple minutes, he’d gotten Jim to drink down more than she’d managed in a day. Jealousy followed, curdling her stomach as she stared at his hands, wishing she could do things so easily. Grief followed, shattered the coil of hope around her throat, doused the anger and banished the jealousy.
Too late… they came too late. So much I couldn’t do for him!
“Hey now… don’t cry.”
“Not crying,” she whispered. Shelly’s eyes found hers, locked for a moment to share a sympathetic smile, and parted. Celestia stared down at her hooves, and shook her head.
After what seemed like an eternity, Mike laid Jim back down and set the bowl aside. A lot of water had spilled down his chest, bright trails through the grime, and spattered against the bedding.
Enough, it seemed, had gotten into his throat. Jim spluttered, wheezed, and lay limp again. His eyes, yellow and red and rimmed with grit still stared blindly in her direction. He couldn’t see her, she knew. How could he possibly see her?
But his lips moved, forming the same sound. Over and over.
“Sunshine…” she whispered. A moment later, she was at his side, her nose sliding under his hand. It fell, limp, to the ground against her foreleg.. “Please, Jim… I’m here! Please come back!”
His fingers twitched, his voice grated, but she heard him. “Sunshine… my little sunshine.” Fingers traced against her ankle, then fell away.
His breath rattled. He coughed, and sighed.
Silence thrummed in Celestia’s ears. She stared, tears making it hard to see his face. She dashed them away, blinked them away, willed them away. Willed his chest to rise.
William left, his face blank. Shelly followed after, stopped, and stared back at Celestia.
Celestia cast a look at the girl, because she was a girl. They were all children. The truth shone to her through the gray, illuminated by the same golden glow that now filled the room. Steady light covered everything with a blanket warm as the sun from another world, and bright as the sun never was, here.
The tears vanished.
Jim’s chest did not rise again.
Mike’s voice carried into the silence. “Y’know… I’ve seen a lot of strange things since the war. Ain’t never seen a unicorn. Figured that’d be the weirdest thing.” He shrugged and started packing up his black bag. “Ain’t never seen a unicorn with a glowin’ horn, neither. Huh. World’s gettin’ weirder.”
“You shouldn’t be out here.” Shelly’s voice preceded her hand on Celestia’s neck. “Jim was right. You’d make a fine target for any bandit. Magic or not, Jim wouldn’t…” She let the thought trail away.
“Jim…” Celestia sighed. “He never wanted me to be out here. Said that I wasn’t meant for this world.” She gave Shelly a glance, smiled, and rolled her shoulder. “A little lower, please.”
Shelly shifted her hand, found the place that made Celestia’s hide shiver as she drew away the itch. “Weird… talkin’ to a horse.”
“Weird, talkin’ to a human,” Celestia shot back. “Weird times.”
“Truth.” Shelly laughed. To Celestia’s surprise, it sounded genuine. “William’s still mad at you. For not takin’ care of his big brother.” She nodded at the grave. “Half brother. Dad’s side. Still loved Will like his own son. Especially after the bombs.” Silence fell for a moment, Shelly’s hand on her neck fell still. “You know he mostly blames himself. But he’s angry at you for knowing what his last years were like.”
“I know.” Celestia returned the nod. “He has a right to be angry.”
“Shut up. William’ll come around. You’ll see.” The hand stopped, and withdrew. “Are you really what you said?”
“My name really is Celestia.” She looked up at the sky. “I remember most of my old life, now. Of where I come from. A land full of color, light, and happiness. Jim would have liked it.”
“And… what’s that got to do with anything?” Shelly waved a hand at the gray expanse of flat all around. Only the schoolhouse and its solid walls still stood. The rest had been nearly scoured flat by more than a decade of blowing ash, or buried. Both. “That’s not here. You’re not there.”
“Because I wasn’t just another pony.” Celestia called up her power, long dormant, and sent a wreath of wind to clear dust away from the patch of dead grass where they’d buried Jim. “I was its ruler. I had power. I could change fates with a word, bring down the moon and raise the sun, and alter the course of seasons with a single spell.” She shook her head and walked in a slow circle around the fresh mound of dirt.
Shelly remained silent. She was the only one who talked to Celestia, now. William refused to look at her after Jim died. Even digging the grave, he’d been careful to look anywhere but her, even as she hauled away dirt. Mike resented her for holding up their trip west.
Shelly…
She risked a glance at the girl. William wasn’t yet forty, Shelly just over thirty. Old enough to have children of their own—but were afraid to. She sighed. She had no reason or place to judge their reasons or actions. They weren’t her children. Perhaps she would have done the same. Scared, afraid, looking for hope in the ashes. Perhaps even she would have left Jim behind, stubborn old fool that he was, and gone to search for a dream in the East.
Jim’s dreams were smaller. The school building, most of it still filled with ash that crept in daily, stood as a testament to that. Some hallways stood clear, and the blue and white linoleum gleamed in the sun, even if it didn’t truly shine anymore. Forest green chalkboards and brown wooden desks, red stools. The school was filled with faded colors.
But they were colors. A little oasis in the gray desert.
Shelly followed her gaze, then shook her head. “If you had all that power… why didn’t you save him?”
“Even with all my power, the domain of death has always been beyond my reach. As it should be.” Celestia looked down at the ground, at the dead grass. She couldn’t bring it back to life any more than she could revive her friend. “We live our lives, we find hope and dreams where we can, and we pass beyond them when it is our time.”
She nodded.
These children… Celestia shook her head. No children should ever have to face so much death, grief, or loss. They were adults. Mature, in their own way. But bereft of hope, even if they still dreamed.
“There is another sky,” Celestia said, “past the dust and the ash. Another land, fruitful, whole, and fair. Where the waves pound, and breakers crash, and the smell of salt is on the air.”
Shelly grunted. “That’s not the poem.”
“No. But it’s where you are going.”
“Fair enough.”
“It is a hope.”
“Slim.” Shelly pointed up at the gray pall of dust hanging in the air, giving the sun’s bright disk a fey halo. “There may be another sky, but right now, that’s all we see.”
“I know what you say is right. Now. But not forever.”
Silence passed between them as they sat at the grave while all around, the gray waste began to reclaim what she and Jim had cleaned and fought to keep clean. A losing battle? It didn’t matter if it had been, she supposed. For a time, it had given Jim a purpose. Even if, after his passing, none would remember that she and he had fought it together.
“No,” Shelly said into the silence. Her hand wavered as it rose, then settled against Celestia’s shoulder. “Not forever. Maybe, someday, we can even forget that we thought that once.” If there was any conviction in her voice, it was so weak as to not be there.
“Will you remember?” Celestia nodded at the dust-streaked courtyard and the walls just visible past empty windows. Shelly said nothing, and Celestia continued. “This, I mean. That Jim and I tried to make something of the world we were given.”
“Of course.” The girl’s rough voice still held little emotion, and there was little hope laying underneath it.
That won’t do. “Thank you. That’s all that I can hope to ask. Look after William, please, and tell your children about Jim.”
“Children?” Shelly barked a laugh: short and bitter. “In this world? It’d be a cruelty.”
“Cruel?” Celestia stood and turned a short circle, taking in the bleak gray landscape, and stopped facing the school. “There is much wrong with the world, yes. But would it not be crueler to deny that there is hope at all?”
“Hope.” The word came out as a snort. “My only hope is that—”
“Is that life will go on. That if you hold onto life for long enough, something will change elsewhere? Is that your hope?”
“What else? There’s nothing I can do to change the world.” Shelly kicked at the dust-covered, dead grass. Dirt came up in a loose clod, exposing brownish-gray underneath. “It’s all like this. Everywhere. Dead and gray and empty.”
“What Jim and I did was pointless, then.”
“Yeah. I guess so.” The hard planes of Shelly’s face, gaunt and gray-streaked, softened as she took in the school again, then the spot of color she’d kicked up. “Look, I need to go. I… won’t forget. What you said.”
“That’s all I ask,” Celestia said gently. “Do not forget Jim, either. What he did, he did because he thought he could do something for the world, as small as his efforts were.” She touched her nose to Shelly’s cheek, and the track of a train of tears winding down from her eye through the dust. “Don’t forget him.”
Shelly’s nod came slowly, more a nuzzle as she pressed her face into Celestia’s cheek. “I won’t.” Her voice came stronger, more certain.
Celestia felt the girl’s mouth working against her cheek as more tried to come out. “Thank you,” she whispered into Shelly’s hair as she shifted to curl a foreleg around the other’s waist. “That’s all I ask.”
She watched as the small train of travois laden people trudged west through the ash, kicking up a cloud of dust around them. She sat where she could see them, where she thought they could see her if they looked back. Shelly had left her an hour ago, but nothing else moved in the wasteland. Even the fitful wind, sometimes so fierce as to scour the paint from steel, lay still.
She watched them go, hoping that she had done right. As her memories told her, there was little to do but wait and see. If she had given the right nudge, set the right thought to grow in a fertile mind, it would blossom with time.
But whether that seed was a bramble or a blackberry bush—or if there was a real difference between them—only time would tell. A blackberry’s prickles could tear as easily as a bramble’s thorns and the agony it left behind could be worse.
“But a blackberry bush offers fruit, and sustenance for the wary.”
“Heh. Don’t know what yer talkin’ about, but ya got that right.”
The presence had been there for a while, but until it spoke she had not known whose it was. Perhaps she should have been surprised. “Brambles and blackberries,” she said. “I only wish I could see which I have planted.”
“Fool girl.” Jim’s hand came to rest on her head, just behind her horn. “I ain’t known you to plant anything but the prettiest things.” He grunted. “Well, s’pose if ya’d planted anything. But you planted that idea in my head. Bringin’ color back. Figure you must plant things like that all the time.”
“If only you knew.” She hoped she had planted a blackberry.
The wind did sigh, then, sending a skirl of dust drifting down the hill, growing larger as it went. It swallowed her view of the train in the distance before long, and it did not reappear. She waited as the sun drifted lower.
“Y’know, brambles are tough. You can stamp em, burn em, try to root em up, but unless you get every last bit, they’ll come back just as thick. Thicker, if you’re careless.”
“You hope I planted a bramble?”
“Planted one? Nah. Just sayin’.” His hand drifted down to find the spot on the back of her neck she could never reach with hoof or tooth. “But a plant’s a plant. Where one grows, so do others.”
She almost felt his shrug. She didn’t need to see it to know he did. “Should we have tried to reach the ocean? Done more? Tried to find others? You might still be…” Other paths seemed to open up behind her, lost forever except in hindsight.
“Nah." He pushed her head towards the school. "I figure what I did was enough. Made me happy, y'know. Quiet. Peaceful. Just... folk livin' in troublin' times." His hand cupped her chin, and she felt his grizzled, bearded cheek against hers once more. Then it was gone, fading to a faint breeze that drifted through her forelock and down her neck. "Was my time. You know that. Took ya long enough to figure it out.” The breeze came up again, tousling her ears. “‘Sides. You got other places to be. Ain’t you a princess, Celestia?”
“Somewhere.” Celestia closed her eyes on the waking world and reached for the memories of another, far away. A place where there was already laughter and light, and so much color it beggared the imagination. “I won't forget, Jim.”
She faded like a morning’s misty breeze, a figure of light in the air, and then was gone.
Shelly leaned on the shovel, stamping it with one foot to set the spade—newly forged right there in New Angeles just last week—and let a hand fall to the roundness filling out her overalls. It was too early to feel the baby kicking yet, she knew that, but she waited anyway, fingers splayed over the coarse material.
Down the row, William turned over another shovel-full of rich brown soil and dug in for another. It was fun, watching him work. How the sun played over his muscles, turned hard and bulky again after months of back-breaking labor.
Her own arms were heavier with the slab muscle that came with working a field, or helping in the smithy, day in and day out. She smiled once more and turned back to preparing the new field for a crop. Crops. What we saw so briefly in the Appalachians before fire destroyed it all. Wonder surrounded the thought.
With the wonder came another thought. Celestia.
Years had passed since she had left the strange horse behind, the strange horse with magical powers and wings. Even now, she wasn’t certain that it wasn’t a hallucination. All of it. Almost, she thought she could go back to that small fallout shelter under the school and find him.
He’s dead.
“That so?” The voice came and went as the wind gusted, bringing a fresh scent of salt and sand up from the ocean.
She started, missing the stamp and falling forward. Strong hands caught hers. Not William’s. Warm hands, calloused from years holding a mop or broom. Hands from a memory.
Then they were gone, and William was there, holding her close and babbling something about taking it easy. It washed over her, unheard, as she looked up past his head to see a rainbow streaking the sky without a cloud in sight.
It fractured into a million pieces as tears flooded her eyes.
“So…” Answer Jim glowered down at his gravestone, a rough-carved hunk of granite with ‘Jim’ engraved on it. “Billy never did have much of an imagination. Still... fittin’, I guess. Simple. Didn’t expect ‘em to trek all the way out here just ta…”
He sat down next to it and stared up into the bright blue sky, and the wonder that glittered for all eyes to see: a rainbow, shimmering like gemstones in the sun. “This your work, girl?”
No answer came. Not that he expected one. The rainbow in the sky was answer enough, he supposed. And the grass spreading across the flat patch where he knew his body lay. Odd, that.
He ran his hands through the thick green, feeling the life flourishing there. For an instant, he saw the city again—as it was, or would be again—he couldn’t tell, and it didn’t matter. It was green. Trees and grass and flowers. Life filled the streets again, and people.
Then the vision, or the memory, was gone. He waited as the sun began to set, and the bright blue blue faded into a deep royal blue. He waited as richer shades, purple chased reds, spread across the horizon like a fire, and clouds—real clouds—scudded across the sky like golden chariots.
“Rubbed off on me, girl. All that beauty in your head... almost too much for an old dog like me. Thank you."
The sun dipped below the mountains, wrapping them in gold, then in purple, and finally the dark velvet of night took them from sight. Stars came out, spreading like fireflies in the sky. The brightest first, then more, and more, stretching like another rainbow, dimmer but no less beautiful.
He could almost see another face there, a darker twin to the one he knew so well. Eventually, that too faded, and the sky to the east began to lighten.
“I guess I did see it, little ‘Tia.” He laughed. “There is another sky, indeed. Scamp.” He chuckled and stuck his hands in his pockets. “You keep an eye on em, y’hear? I don’t wanna have to come back and haunt ya.”
With that, he turned and strode into his own sunrise.