Through the Flames

The wooden area had been on the top of the hill since you could remember; it was just a small patch of trees, but to your kid self it looked more like an endless forest filled with magic and excitement, where you could play with your friends, pretend you were fearless explorers, and…

And it’s all gone now.

Last night, some drunken idiots apparently thought that throwing some home-made Molotov cocktails into the tree would have been fun. Before the firemen could do anything, the only thing left of the forest of my childhood were some blackened tree stumps and an expanse of cinder, with swirling puddles of dark, dirty water here and there.

You sigh, staring at the small number of tree trunks still standing high enough against the sky to look like jagged, broken teeth of a giant. Sure, your childhood days are long gone, but now another piece of your memories has been destroyed by some fucking drunkards. Not fair, man, not fair at all.
But there’s really nothing you can do about it, so why not just going up there and paying proper respect to the former landscape of your fantasies?

And so, five minutes later, you’re on the top of the hill, looking sadly at the dead trees. Everything looks a lot smaller now that you’re an adult, but you still can recognize the tree from where you fell and broke a leg, the place where you and your friends buried that time capsule, that old fox burrow that…

You freeze in place. You’re pretty sure you’ve just seen something in one of the puddles. A roundish shape covered in singed fur, and…

The head of the dead fluffy pony looks back at you with empty eyes full of despair and terror. It must have drowned when the firemen started showering the burning woods with high-pressured water, or maybe it died for the shock because its fluff was on fire… You heard fluffies are ridiculously death-prone, but seeing the charred remains of one of them still makes you feel uncomfortable, and a little sad.

You look around, and indeed start noticing other dead fluffy ponies scattered here and there: a mangled carcass of a unicorn splattered against a tree stump, a litter of foals lying drowned in maybe an inch of water, a pregnant, bloated dam with a blackened, burnt skull for a head… and some quiet, monotone, desperate crying coming from the fox burrow.

You immediately crouch down, trying to look inside. Two terrified pair of big, watery eyes stare back. “No huwt cowt!”, you hear a squeaky voice pleading.

You sigh. Yeah, fluffies are dumb and pitiful, but their world has literally being obliterated in front of their own eyes; they must be shocked. “I don’t want to hurt you”, you tell them. “Would you… would you let me help you?”. You can at least take them to the local shelter; fluffies’ weak memory is notorious, and with proper care and attention they’ll certainly forget about the tragedy in no time.

Finally, the two fluffies come out of the burrow, shivering and sobbing at every step. The smaller one must be really young, probably just weaned: it’s an emerald green unicorn with a short, spiky white mane. Its friend is much bigger, an earthie with aqua fluff and deep blue mane and tail. They don’t seem hurt or burnt… just sad and miserable.

The earth fluffy, after a few moment of uncertainty, waddles towards you. You notice that it’s carrying something in its mouth, something that it then gently places at your feet. “Pwease, nice hooman, hewp bahbe!”, it wails, its azure eyes full of tears. “No am mumma, am boy fwuffy, no can gif miwkies! Bahbe nee’ nummies, huggies an’ wuv an’ wawm no enuff!”. Hearing the word “mumma” sends the tiny unicorn in a crying fit, and it stuffs its face in its friend’s fluff while repeating “cowt wan’ mumma…” over and over again.

You pick up the newborn foal from the cinder, very carefully. She’s a filly, a black and orange pegasus. And she’s cold and unresponsive.

You look down at the stallion, and suddenly find yourself at a loss of words. “I… I’m sorry”, you manage to mutter. “I can’t help her. She’s dead”.

The earth fluffy just stares back. “Wha’ dead?”.

Oh. Yeah. You forgot that the majority of them doesn’t seem to comprehend the concept of death. “She’s… taking the long sleep. She’s never going to wake up”.

The stallion falls flat on the dirty ground, his head buried between his front hooves. “N-nuuuuu… Sowwy bahbe, fwuffy no wan’ bahbe to take wong sweepie… fwuffy bad fwuffy…”. The colt alongside him starts crying even more, desperately calling for a mother that will not come for him.

You hold out your hand and clumsily pet the earth fluffy on the head. “No, no, you… You did your best. You’re a good fluffy”.

He sniffs, but then looks at you with pleading eyes. “G-gud fwuffy? Weawwy?”.

You nod. “Really”. You then pick the colt up – he’s less dirty and shit-caked than you thought, actually – and rub his belly with gentle fingers. Less than a minute later, he looks like he’s having the time of his life, and even begins cooing at you. The moment you stop tickling him, though, he sulks back again. “Wan’ fin’ mummah…”, he whimpers. “Nice hooman pwease hewp cowt?”.

You look at the stallion, who’s still eyeing sadly at the dead foal. “Can you tell me what happened here? Why were you in that hole?”. Probably they don’t even remember the fire anymore, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

The stallion, however, surprises you: he sits on his haunches, frowns for a bit, then begins retelling in stunted fluffese what happened last night. “Hewd sweep in fwuffpiwe, bu’ den smawty wake ev’wyfwuffy upsies an’ teew hooman neaw. Heaw hooman waff an’ make woud noisies, ev’wyfwuffy so scawed an’ make wossa scawedy poopies. Den fiwe come, an’ smawty teww fiwe go ‘way ow gif big ouchies, bu’ fiwe gif bad bad huggies to smawty and gif smawty buwnies. Den smawty cwy fo’ hewd to gif huggies an’ feew bettah, bu’ jus’ gif bad buwnies to ev’wyfwuffy”. He snivels a couple of times. “Fwuffy see bahbe on gwound, mumma haf fiwe on fwuff an’ wun ‘way, weave bahbe behin’. So fwuffy take bahbe to howe in gwound, an’ find cowt in dere. So fwuffy, cowt an’ bahbe wait in howe, bu’ bahbe no stop cwy fo’ mumma an’ miwkies, an…”. He looks exhausted. You’re actually kinda impressed, because it’s the first time you’ve heard a fluffy giving a speech that long. “Cowt wan’ come out bu’ den bad wawa come, an’ wawa bad fo’ fwuffies. An’ den nice hooman find fwuffies, bu’ bahbe take wong sweepies an’ no wake upsies no mo’…”.

You sigh. Sure, you lost the place where you played when you were a kid; but these fluffies lost their herd, their family and friends, and their home all at the same time. And you thought your were the unlucky one! “I’m… I’m so sorry. For both of you”. You look around: the two little creatures are so focused on you that they still haven’t noticed the corpses of their herdmates scattered around, and you absolutely don’t want that to happen. “I think we should say farewell to this place at once”, you tell the two. “But first… there’s something I must do”. You pick the fluffies up along with the dead filly, and bring them in front of a tree stump. Luckily, no dead ponies in the immediate vicinities. “I have to find a very important thing”, you explain to them.

“Am foodies?”, the colt asks, a hopeful glint in his eyes.

You shake your head. “No. But I’ll give you something to eat after I finish here, okay?”.

“Otay dahdeh…”, the colt replies. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s just called you “daddy”, but you do. And this warms your heart a little.

“Fwuffy can hewp nice mistah?”, the stallion asks, a small, quiet smile on his muzzle.

“Yes. I want you to hug your friend and be as quite as possible, okay?”, you reply.

He nods. “Fwuffy unnastan’. Fwuffy an’ cowt be weawwy quiet”.

You start digging through the cinder and the dirt, still heavy and moist because of the water, hoping that what you’re searching for will still be there. After a couple of minutes of burrowing, however, you feel hard, cold plastic under your fingers. With nervous, frantic hands, you extract an old Tupperwear container from the ground. It’s exactly how you remembered it, with its bright red lid; you open it, and for a second you’re certain you can smell the scent of the dried flowers you and your friends once put inside it… even if the flowers are nothing more than a brownish dust now.

“Wha’ dat?”, the stallion asks curiously, pointing at the discoloured photographs with a forehoof.

“It’s… a message from another time”, you tell him, looking at the faces of your childhood friends. You were inseparable, back then; and now all of them have new lives and families, and some of them left town to go somewhere else… and, despite the overwhelming wave of nostalgia, you know this is only natural. Because when you grow up, you leave your childhood behind… No, not behind.

Inside you.

Forever.

You gently close the container and put it back inside the hole. “I don’t need it”, you tell the two fluffies. You then place the dead foal on the bright plastic lid. “Wha’ do wiff bahbe?”, the colt asks. He seems to have forgotten his most likely dead mother, at least for the time being.

“This is what we humans do when other humans take the long sleep”, you answer him. You’re not sure if he can understand, but he just nods, so you look back at the tiny corpse and go on. “I’m sorry… Your life was short, sad, and scary, but there’s something you should know, and it’s this: you’ve been loved a lot. And I hope that, well… wherever fluffies go when they die, you may find happiness”.

You began burying the time capsule and the filly, and after a while the stallion and the colt clumsily join you, pushing dirt and cinder inside the hole with their marshmallowy hooves.

When you’ve finished celebrating the impromptu funeral, you pet their silky heads. “I think it’s time I give you a name. Or have you already have one?”.

“Gif… name?”, the stallion asks back. He seems confused. “Why?”.

You shrug. “If you’re gonna be my fluffies I need a way to call you, right?”.

“N-new dahdeh?”, the stallion mutters, before his eyes fill themselves with tears again. “Fwuffy wan’ haf dahdeh fo’ so wong…”.

The colt, on the other hand, just hugs your shin tightly, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear into thin air if he ever lets you go. You scratch him behind his ears. “You will be Robin”, you tell him, and then gestures at the stallions. “And you will be Bruce”.

Many huggies are given and received; and after that, you walk back to the house you share with your wife, your new pets toddling behind you, babbling and squeeing in glee and excitement.

The patch of burnt trees will always be a forest, in the golden realm of your childhood memories. But now that you’ve walked through the flames, you and the two fluffies must live your lives at the fullest.