Lightning sneezes
How did I get here? Even I barely remember. Time holds no meaning when you are where we are.
We speak with the breeze as it moves around, between, and through us. It’s not an issue, though, as we have ages longer to live, so we believe we can speak and feel the world around us. If I had to fathom a guess, it’s been a month since we became this way, but as I said, time has no meaning for us.
I remember being a pony and I was fishing. Being a pony in the marshes we did, indeed, eat fish along with other gifts the water would bring us. Every meal came with a change and it was nice to experience such flavors and spices that the land, traders, and water had to offer. Of course, not literally the water, that would have been silly. Water was always for drinking, after all.
There was a fish that was fighting for all it was worth and as I won and reeled it in I saw a lily that I’d never seen before. “I bet thy will taste great with supper tomorrow! I’ll just let thee dry out before then, though.”
I coughed when I lifted it from the surface of the water and it exhaled its pollen across my face. “Ah, thy be anxious to become one with us, do thee?” I chuckled as I placed it into the boat beside me and returned to my task as fisherpony.
Hours later, when I returned to my village with a bundle of fish to be proud of, I placed the lily on the dock while I took my haul into my home for cleaning and preparation for the next few night’s meals. My son entered our two room home on the pier with a cough. “Father, why hath thee brought such a pollenous flower back?”
“Mine child, we must eat, correct?”
“Yes, father? Of course we must, lest we perish as any number of creatures that hath crawled, walked, or swam upon the earth since the dawn of time immoral.”
“Son of mine, thou art a scholar by nature, indeed. Perhaps the castle of the sisters two shall call upon your talents for guidance. But scholarly talk aside, the lily seems to be flavorful as its pollen smells most unique. Tomorrow at supper we shalt eat it with our communal meal and be merry.”
He smiled to me - I will always remember his smile, even though I know not his face- and we parted ways, him taking the lily to show and tell others of the new gift the water had given us all. The next two days were as any other, until the blacksmith eyed me warily. “Good morrow, Anvil, what vexes thee?”
He pointed to my hind leg. “A second mark or a bad rash? Which is it?” he asked warming to a smile. “Either way, I’ll have neither. Keep it to thyself but share the tale, if you may.”
I looked to my leg and shrugged. “Perhaps a bite from a harrowing fish in my slumber last night.”
“Ha, you should take time as the jester, surely you’d make many others jovial as well.”
“Your mirth is more than all I need. Well, that and a new shoe for my front right, shall I trade in puns, juggling, or mirth?”
We shared a laugh as he tapped his apron pocket. “Ah, bits are all I trade for, lest thee have a mare,” he waggled his eyebrows as I rolled mine.
“If i had a mare many a desire would be fulfilled, save for the speaking,” I laughed after he did. “Verily, I must take my leave, I do feel slightly unwell and water with leaves will aid my health.”
“Fare thee well,” I’ve forgotten my name, “and a new shoe I shall have for you by day’s end. Tis a slow week for a blacksmith and farrier, indeed.”
With a parting cross of my leg to my chest, I made my way to the mystic of the village. A tree she lived in and large it was. I wouldn’t have chosen a tree as a home for myself, but certainly I wouldn’t complain as it was the largest home nearby.
The mystic’s daughter opened the door with her soft smile and my heart warmed, as it had each time I’d seen her. “Greetings, Meadowbrook. Prithee a moment for an ill stallion?”
She giggled quietly. “Why for you, I would make time, certainly. Mother, I shall return post haste.”
We had a simple walk around the tree and spoke of the day’s events and the meals of the week. “Meadowbrook, I hath a spot that I’m concerned about. I feel unwell and there are several spots the color orange upon my body.”
“Truly? Should I investigate?” she asked me. As the daughter of the town’s mystic she was the skilled healer, nothing untoward.
“Indeed, I’m concerned. I’ve covered most of them with saved fluff from pillows, but new ones appear every so often.”
She took me aside and I removed some fluff showing her the spots that had now covered my entire barrel and spread to my legs. While she watched a new spot appeared on my muzzle and I coughed for the first time, with bubbles. We were both interested but had no idea why so we added it to the list of symptoms.
She let me go home while she researched my symptoms with her mother.
The next day I left my home and is was while making merry with the townsfolk that I saw a pony leaving the house of the healers wearing a full body cloak, yet covered with orange spots as well. I recognized him and waited for him to leave the area before I went to his home in the forest.
I knocked on the door to his home and spoke. “Hello, prithee a moment to spare? I noticed thy health and it compares to mine, mayhaps thy have an idea where it’s from?”
The door opened and I saw two ponies, both mares with a stallion on the bed, all covered with orange spots and coughing bubbles. I coughed and when bubbles left me they ushered me in. We spent an hour trying to put together where we could have contracted the illness but nothing came to mind, until I noticed the same type of lily in a jar beside their stove.
“What is that doing here?”
“Oh, that? We enjoyed the flavor so much we found one ourselves. It still coughs on its own, but it should taste as delectable as the water gave our village.”
Everything fell into place and I asked for it, quickly. They offered it to me after I’d explained the happenings and took it to the healer, Meadowbrook.
Three days later every pony was afflicted and were turned away from the mystic and her daughter as soon as they were seen. It shook the town when the mystic herself fell ill, leaving the young healer to cure us all. Days passed until a week transpired and we began to turn into the bounty of earth itself.
It was an easy choice for us to simply leave, but some chose to stay, having faith in the healer that had locked herself and her mother the mystic in their home until the cure was found. I know she had succumbed to the illness and were possibly further along than any of us were.
The lake of solitude was our goal, the place we chose to live until the short end of our lives without passing the illness on to any other in the realm. Some had to be carried as their legs began to petrify, but we made it all the same. Over the next three days most of our bodies had petrified, disabling our movement yet over the next weeks we lived all the same.
Our vision failed us soon after we became rooted to the ground, truly becoming some of earth’s bounty and returning the favor to the land for all it’s given us.
However, it can be lonely here and at times we wish for more company just as the ones that called us here and helped us become one of them. So, in hopes of making new friends we drop ourselves into the water that feeds us. It’s joyous when we can hear new voices to speak with and tell our stories to.
From the missing mare in the moon to what was a battle to end all others, we learn of the world we live in and we all share ourselves with the waters and winds with the dream that one day, every pony will share the same voice; speaking with the wind, each other, and never be alone again.