Bolt From The Blue 04

>Some nights were worse than others.
>Whatever power gave fillies to their mothers put you together wrong, you know that.
>The teeth, the diet, the eyes, the weight, it was all off.
>Your dad joked the world didn’t know what to do with the offspring of a unique beast like him.
>Your mom… well, she worried. She couldn’t hide it from you, no matter how hard she tired, and she couldn’t hide that she tried either.
>The recent appearance of your cutie mark was just the latest in a long series of your biological mistakes your family has to deal with.
>They don’t call it that.
>Being honest, you don’t think of it like that, either.
>You’re different, just like your dad, and that’s perfectly fine.
>But, even still, some nights were worse than others.
>Your mom’s half-draped over your dad, who’s lying on his back.
>He insists he doesn’t snore, but tucked against his side, under your mom’s forelimb and wing, you can hear the slightest rasp every time he breathes out.
>Is that snoring?
>Hard to say, when your senses are different than most ponies.
>In the ‘darkness’ of your current sleeping space, you can see everything perfectly clearly.
>Ponies have good night vision, that’s fine. Yours was a little better, but maybe not abnormally so.
>But when you wriggle your head out from your parents’ embrace, the scene outside snaps into clarity almost immediately. Even the thousands of stars in the clear night sky overhead resolve themselves quickly.
>That wasn’t something about ponies; you got that from your dad, even if his night vision was worse.
>Your mom could walk out of a building and stare into the night unseeing for a worrying amount of time, if the inside was bright and the night moonless.
>You couldn’t imagine what that must be like. Just thinking about it spooked you.
>Carefully extracting yourself, to not wake your parents, the cooler night air away from their bodies is refreshing.
>After stretching your limbs, you prowl around your campsite.
>Fire’s out, but that’s fine. Anon doesn’t need it as much as he lets on.
>You make your way to his other side, then drop down next to his arm not busy with Parhelia.
>Often, when you can’t sleep, the strange contraption on his wrist helps. When he’s got this arm around you, you generally have no trouble sleeping the whole night through.
>Most of the time.
>You watch the tiny thin twig of metal spin under the glass, passing over the broader, flatter pieces, both softly glowing in the night.
>Tick tick tick tick tick tick
>He says it’s silent, but that’s a lie. It’s just really quiet.
>He also says it’s not magic, but you think that might be a lie too.
>One time, when it started sounding bad, he had a unicorn do some magic on it and it sounded normal again.
>That meant it had to be magic, right?
>Tick tick tick tick tick tick
>You close your eyes and listen to the clicking of your dad’s special magic.
>Such regularity.
>Gentle.
>Soothing…
>…
>…but not enough.
>You still feel jittery.
>Closing your eyes just makes you feel anxious.
>Is something out there?
>Your family has recently become too small for such things, but there should be a mare on watch, right?
>Mare up, Astra.
>You look out into the dark, at your surroundings.
>According to dad’s “watch”, the nearest town was… that way. Out along the line between the grasslands and the forest, that stark divider where the trees went from nonexistent to huge and gnarled, off into the distance.
>You were still half a day out, and you couldn’t pick up the faintest trace of it, this late.
>The forest itself felt more ominous.
>Maybe you’ll just check it out.
>Just for a little bit.
>Gotta make sure your parents are safe.
>Mare up, Astra!
>At the divider, you find you have to pick over fallen branches and through dense bushes.
>Fallen logs and thick undergrowth makes going hard work.
>No wonder dad gathered firewood so quickly.
>But the woodland debris proved more a natural barrier than its own terrain, and once inside the forest, things smoothed out.
>The trees here were massive.
>Dad didn’t like hunting in places like this, where mom couldn’t see him.
>B-but you’re not here on a hunt. Just satisfying your paranoia.
>Probably something to be worried about, in here…
>You can hear the sound of a nearby brook.
>Landmarks are always helpful!
>You come upon it soon enough.
>Small, though not so small compared to you. Only about as deep as you are tall, and quick-moving. The whole thing is full of reeds, rustling with the swift current.
>You should remember to tell mom about it tomorrow; it’ll be good to refill your water supply here.
>You don’t have to follow it too long. Just enough to prove to yourself there’s nothing here to be worried of.
>Your attention keeps getting pulled behind you, to the sound of the rustling plants in the streams.
>All it was, all that’s here. Nothing more, nothing to concern you.
>Satisfied – barely – you turn back to head up the brook towards where you started.
>Left side. Loud sound draws an ear.
>Quick glance: Those reeds aren’t moving with the current.
>Blur of something ELSE.
>Shoulder low, wing out, sweep back, just like dad taught!
>Your longer-than-normal wing clips the flying blur moments away from hitting your head.
>The mysterious object is flung away, but still moving.
>Right ear drawn back this time, behind at quarter.
>Crouch forward, rear legs in, up, and-
>No time.
>Something long and wet and sinuous wraps around your hind legs, tying them together, then slinking up your torso.
>Ponies should panic.
>Ordinary ones.
>Instead you feel…
>Enraged.
>You and the mysterious object go down in a fit of flailing limbs and twisting bodies.
>You can feel fur-like grass tight against your hide.
>The thing’s body is like a snake but thicker.
>No, like a dozen snakes bound together, fibrous like the thick rivergrass.
>As your wings and forelegs fight to keep the thing from wrapping around any more of your body, you catch sight of two glowing eyes.
>Eyes mean a face.
>Face means a head.
>Head means a neck.
>You have an objective now, renewing your thrashing.
>Moss and dirt is tossed every which way by your struggle.
>Its own upper body rears back, one forelimb extended, claws of sharpened river-rock glinting in the night.
>That’s your opening.
>You bash it to one side with a wing, pushing its head and shoulders in front of you.
>With a surge of strength, you lunge your head forward, straight for its throat
>Your unnatural teeth find purchase.
>Your elongated canines sink in.
>With one motion, you pull back and twist.
>Something, somewhere, off in the back of your mind, expected blood.
>What you got was unnaturally sweet water, a great gush of it filling your mouth.
>Even as you disengage, coughing and spitting out water and plant fiber, your assailant unwinds itself from your body and writhes on the ground beside you.
>Once you can breath again, you quickly stand, then take to the air with two swift downstrokes of your wings. Position over it, legs in and-
>You drop on top of its head, even as you shove your hind hooves out from beneath you, burying its face six inches into the dirt.
>It falls still.
>You pivot on your forehooves, extracting your rear legs from the suddenly muddy depression.
>The rage leaves you all at once, and nothing fills the void it leaves behind.
>Your legs are shaky, and it’s hard to stand now.
>Your body wont let you lay down though.
>It wont let you do much of anything, actually.
>The blood rushing in your ears sounds as loud as the stream’s rapid current.
>Also, you think your heart might explode.
>Needing all the effort that your final blow should have required, you finally bring yourself to look at your kill.
>A Reed Marten, distant relative to Timber Wolves, found around forest rivers and brooks.
>Dad hasn’t taught you how to harvest anything useful from kills yet, and you don’t have any tools for it with you even if you knew.
>You’d just have to drag it back to camp, and hope it’s still, uh, good you guess, in the morning.
>Once you can will your legs to move.
>Suddenly, a tug!
>Not on your body, but on your mind, at your instincts.
>You almost cry out as your head locks towards the slim shadow of your kill’s body.
>Nothing at all there.
>Just a shadow.
>But you could swear-
>”Magnificent.”
>You clamp your mouth down on a shrill whinny, wings flaring out instinctively
>”Oh come now, after that marvelous show?”
>It’s just a voice.
>Just a voice.
>With no body, coming from seemingly every nearby point of darkness, deep and dark and seeming to echo everywhere.
>But at least it’s not attacking you.
>You think.
“Who are you?!”
>”A curious bystander.”
>…
>Legs, move!
>But they couldn’t.
“Why didn’t you help me?”
>”I would have, but you didn’t need little old me. How did you learn to fight like that?”
“M-my dad taught me.”
>A long silence.
>You manage to flex a knee.
>Swished the hoof through dirt.
>Not really a step, but it’s a start.
>”I see. You look like you no longer need him.”
“I wouldn’t-”
>”With a display like that, you could make your own way in the world.”
“Why would I-”
>”But it looks like you might need my help after all. Bring that hoof back close again.”
>You look down at the leg you found the ability to move.
>Closer?
>To what?
>Hesitantly, you push it closer to the still body’s shadow.
>As soon as it touches that darkness, your limbs firm up, and the jittery fear vanishes.
>You feel…
>Normal.
>In fact, you feel downright peaceful.
>You make a couple strides in place, just to exalt in your regained mobility.
“Thanks, uh… mister?”
>”No need to thank me. Was this your first?”
“First what?”
>”First kill, child.”
“No, but… this close yeah. I only shot stuff like rabbits and squirrels, way up, or helped my dad take on bigger things, but alone…”
>”It gets easier.”
“W-what?”
>”The first time is always the hardest. It gets easier. Soon even creatures larger than you wont bring you pause. Nothing will be able to stop you.”
>A vision of something you’ve never seen, from a story before your birth, flashes through your mind.
>Anon striking down an Ursa Minor.
>Parhelia regaled you of the day your parents met many times.
>That heroism and purpose drove you to follow in his footsteps.
>Yeah.
>Yeah!
>You puff out your chest. Nothing will be able to stop you!
“I’m learning everything I can. I will fear nothing!”
>A chuckle fills the space around you.
>You swear this forest wasn’t always this dark.
>”I like that spirit. Is that why you weren’t aloft? That fearlessness?”
“No, uh… flying’s…”
>”Flying is what?”
“It’s hard! I’m too noisy and slow, I’d be just as loud as walking and twice as visible…”
>”Ah, the pragmatic type, then. Admirable, aware of your own weaknesses. I expect you won’t remain weak for long; I’ll be watching you grow strong. But if before then the night proves too much, little one, you need but call me, and I will aid you.”
“Call you what?”
>”Scath.”
>That’s not like any name you’ve heard before.
>Then again, you don’t have a very pegasus name. You’re not one to judge others oddities, being a big bundle of them yourself.
>And they – he, for sure – did help you, in some strange way.
>…you still wanted to leave, though.
“Thank you, mister. I, uh, I should be going though. I shouldn’t be here.”
>Another chuckle. “Be anywhere you like. If not here, until we meet again.”
>From the Reed Marten’s shadow, a glint of light in the shallow puddle of water. Two tiny pricks of light, there only for a moment.
>With no better reference, you bow your head to it.
>Then, eyes still on that now-dark spot, you take hold of one of the Reed Marten’s legs in your mouth and start dragging it back to camp.
>Dad always said there’s mysterious magical creatures who mean no harm, out there.
>Like mom’s sundogs, though less easily befriended.
>Maybe you did just make a friend tonight, anyway.
>Or close to one. Friendship is hard, and often more elusive than you’d like.
>You’ll take what you can get, no matter how spooky.
>Mare up, Astra.
>Friends are hard to come by for someone like you.