One Light Beating Back The Dark
“…Hammer those joints…”
Timbers creaked and groaned. A lone mare sat on top of the hill, deep into the cloudy night, a hammer and a half-empty box of nails laying by her side, while a slingshot, nothing more than a child’s toy, sat clutched in her hooves.
Grabbing a small stone from the ground absentmindedly, the mare continued to watch the barn in front of her in the firelight, softly singing to herself.
“…Hold ‘em up and nail ‘em down…”
The wind rocketed around the hill and drowned out the mare’s song every now and then. The wood of the barn snapped, while kindling roasted in the fire. In the howling wind, the mare’s ear twitched as what sounded like a real howl joined in.
The mare stood up suddenly, a blank look on her face, while she continued to sing under her breath. Stepping around the fire, she walked to the side of the barn and looked up, where something appeared to be breaking out of the roof, a stumpy-looking limb reaching for the sky.
Lowering her head, the mare dipped her large Stetson hat before looking back with the slingshot cocked as she took aim.
“…Bow to your partner, circle right…”
Letting loose the stone, she watched as it impacted hard against the blackened limb, which quickly retracted back into the barn, all the while the barn moaned and creaked like a living thing, and a shriek almost like the wind joined in the stormy night.
“…Get down if you’re scared of heights…”
Looking up, the lone mare sighed in between verses. The storm would start soon, and then the rain would batter down hard and put out the fire she had carefully stoked. But not yet. She’d have time to finish her song first.
Circling back to her previous spot next to the hammer and nails, the mare sat down once more, watching the fire as it danced and snapped, and listened as the barn creaked and groaned in the wind, while the firelight grew bigger and brighter.
If one listened closely enough, they would hear a sound rising above the crackling of the sounds of the fire and the howling of the wind. A very high-pitched sound, coming from inside the lone barn on the hill. Made by multiple sources, they all coalesced into one sound, very high pitched and nearly whipped away into the night as the wind tried to tear it away.
As the barn continued to shriek and shudder, the fire now whipped higher and higher, creating a deep roar that drowned out both the howling of the wind and the singing of the mare.
Sitting in front of the barn, the lonely mare watched as part of the ceiling collapsed inwards, to a great shower of sparks, while the flames licked at the sides of the firewood, all but consumed now.
A sudden breaking sound caught her attention, as another limb broke through the door on the front of the barn, and the high-pitched sound once more became audible over the roaring of the flames as they reached higher.
Putting down the slingshot and hardening her gaze for the first time that night, the mare grabbed her hammer and nails, as well as a spare piece of timber for the fire and headed towards the locked barn door. She had built that thing, she wasn’t about to let anypony else destroy it.
Picking her nails out, the mare set to work, roughly pushing the soot-covered limb back inside the barn before placing the timber beam up against the hole that had been made. In the second where the hole had been empty however, the mare’s green eyes spied something inside. Lightened by the firelight, she had seen a single, blue eye staring back at her.
The mare began hammering the board into place.
In the firelight, the mare’s coat took on a reddish-orange hue while she worked, and by the time she had sealed up the breach in the door, she was covered in a thin layer of soot and ash. Thankfully though, the screaming of the wind and the shrieking chorus from inside had died down, so she could at last finish her song.
Stepping back and admiring her hoofwork, the mare gave a satisfied nod and settled back down to watch the barn into the night. Her fire thrummed and crackled, and she seemed none too concerned to add more kindling as the wood that fueled it became more and more blackened, and the flames climbed higher, abandoning the lower reaches as they sparked and cracked on their own now.
“…The barn’s gonna be the best in town…”
In front of the lone mare, the barn sat on the hill, while the night sky surrounded it, trying to oppress it with the darkness. However, the fire that the mare had set up burned cheerfully, keeping the darkness at bay, and with it, the mare’s fears. Yes, the fire would last through the night.
Into the night, the barn burned.
A towering inferno, the crackling flames spread light to the nearest of the trees in the orchard, while the roaring of the flames drowned out any screams and shrieks from inside. Pounding and creaking came from the wood as it buckled under its own weight, more sections of the roof collapsing into the building itself with showers of sparks being sent high into the sky.
The barn burned like a beacon in the night, while the rest of the nearby town slept soundly. The barn on the hill was too far away for the light to wake anypony else, and the lone mare knew exactly who was awake this night.
Another crack of wood, and another hoof broke out from the weakened timbers, clawing desperately, the fur on it blackened and burned off, no longer an indicator of whoever it belonged to.
The lone mare stood up once more and grabbed another timber, ready to repeat the earlier process and patch up the barn that somepony was trying so rudely to damage, but was stopped short when the section of wall groaned and caved inward on top of whichever pony had been trying to break out.
Settling back down and keeping an eye on the hole in the wall, the lone mare watched as the light flickered against the blackness and the burning pile of rubble shifted as something desperately tried to get out from under it, but the weight was too much.
She had built her barn well. Nopony was going to destroy her barn, not this night or any other.
Nopony but her.
Lifting her voice into the night, she sang over the rumbling and howling of the inferno as an entire corner of the wooden building collapsed in on itself, flames travelling down the timbers and consuming them like so much kindling.
“…Raise this barn, raise this barn, one, two, three, four, together we can raise this barn…”
As the ashes continued to settle around her, and the flickering flames reflected in the mare’s brilliant green eyes, she stared up at it and gave a small smile.
“…On my own, I raised this barn, one, two, three, four, so I decided to raze this barn, on one, two, three, and four…”
A small choked laugh bubbled its way from her throat before finally escaping the mare’s mouth and letting itself loose into the night.
“…Being together counts the most, I locked the door and now you’re toast, now all that’s left is me…”
The mare’s gaze hardened as she stood up and secured her signature Stetson hat on her head. Trotting over to the house that sat not too far away, the dark windows silently watching in the night. Grabbing her saddlebags that she had prepared earlier, she put them on and began trudging down the road, away from her farm and away from town, as the first of the raindrops began to fall, soaking into the ash-choked dirt.
Not looking back anymore, the mare walked into the night, the light from the barn burning brightly behind her as it gave one last tremendous groan and collapsed to the ground, buring everything inside it with roasting beams, burning until it was little more than charcoal sticks on a blackened hill, while the lone mare continued to make her way into the unknown in the night.
Reflecting on the end of her song, the orange mare looked to the horizon as the sun began to rise signalling the start of a new dawn, and a new life for the travelling mare.
“…The last of the Apple Family.”