Ch.03-Whether or not he's there
The sun became lower. While the wind became more feeble, and daily stresses were finally postponed, Spitfire couldn't think of anything better to do than to bask under the setting sun—and let tensions ease. She was in Canterlot now.
It was by no means a new place to her, but it was a luxurious place that she could never get enough of, and she always found the sunsets to be more beautiful in Canterlot, than anywhere else. Perhaps it was because it was the same place Celestia raised, and lowered the sun, or perhaps it was the glorious horizon that the sun set behind. But whatever it was, she viewed it as the one thing that could renew faith.
The sun sank lower until there was no sky between the sun, and the horizon. The climate was still warm and the wind was nothing more than a gentle breeze—just enough to keep the sent of fresh air from becoming aged.
Spitfire sat up with her back leaning against a wide tree, and sat in the grass. She let her wings droop out, and down beside her. The rest of the population was gradually disappearing. She was becoming more alone.
At first the privacy reminded her of the privacy she wanted when she was with Soarin', but after nearly being exposed by Fleetfoot, she concluded that waiting another day like they had planned will be a wiser choice. This moment didn't have to include Soarin'. It was a personal moment that she really needed to be alone to take in the full unwinding effects anyway.
Soon after: she didn't think of Soarin', she didn't think of the race, and she didn't think about the Wonderbolts. Her mind had been completely cleansed of everything except the setting sun.
The sun continued to shimmy downward while creeping behind the horizon. While only half of the sun was still visible to Spitfire, she noticed the colors beginning to intensify. What was once a yellow light, became a golden orange. The adjacent clouds reflected the hue, and radiated their own shade of gold. Even the green blades of the grass Spitfire sat in was outlined with the beautiful light reflecting from the grass's own moisture.
As the sun was almost completely submerged behind the horizon, the color started reddening. The once orange light slowly turned into a vibrant red. Spitfire noticed her surroundings getting darker. The ground began losing color as the sky remained full of it. Soon after, the distant homes were nothing more than black silhouettes outlined by the red sky.
Spitfire noticed a drop in temperature through her hind hooves as the day was about to make its end, but she was more than comfortable enough to watch the day conclude.
The radiating colors exploded outward in such a way that could strike any beholder with awe. Spitfire's eyes nearly watered in result while she felt a calming warmth glow from the center of her chest. The enlightenment she felt then was almost more pleasurable than flying itself, which for Spitfire, would be a powerful statement.
And then, the sun was gone. Spitfire's eyes stayed locked on the sky as if she expected the sun to come back. The sky held its red color even after the sun had left, but all of Equestria was gradually getting darker. Spitfire didn't feel like leaving even though the sun had. She contemplated whether she wanted to wait for the moon to rise. Her lack of tiredness told her to stay, but the new night grew colder with every minute.
Spitfire didn't want to leave. She was comfortable: the tree she leaned on felt like it was made of pillows. And she was relaxed: she had no desire to flex a single muscle in her body. But as the clouds turned black, and the sky almost seemed to be a brighter red than before, her mind was soon changed.
Spitfire was startled by an ice-cold touch on her shoulder that traveled along her spine. She instantly snapped her head to the source. Spitfire leaped back in response to seeing another pony's cheek leaning into her shoulder. After Spitfire quickly removed herself, the other pegasus fell flat on its side limply.
It didn't move. Its eyes were closed, and it had a colorless complexion. It was dead. Spitfire knew what she was seeing, but was having a hard time believing what she was looking at.
As if on cue, the dark clouds dumped a thick rain without holding back. The rain was cold, but it was far less disruptive than the spontaneous presence of a dead body.
She remained motionless. Her eyes never looked away from the corpse. Something about it puzzled her. Something beyond its most unusual appearance.
The dead pegasus pony was laying on its left side. Its jaw hung open. The body was mostly hairless with partial rotting of the skin. The dead pony was an unusual shade of green with small remaining patches of a black mane.
Spitfire curiously scanned her eyes across the body, and every clue told her that she knew the pony, but nothing told her who it was. The color of his coat and mane matched no pony she could recall and the skin where his cutie mark was had already rotted. Still, it had the resemblance of a friend.
She would have stood there with her mouth open all night had it not been for something else that caught her attention. Bright Red droplets were falling off the leaves from the tree that towered over her, and the body. There was no doubt that the red droplets were blood. Spitfire first looked up at the tree to see where the droplets were coming from, but nothing in the tree shed any light on the situation. Then, she looked down at the ground to see where the droplets merged into puddles; still no answers.
While looking at the ground, through the corner of her eyes she noticed spatters of blood were also clinging to her hooves. Her eyes scanned along her front legs, chest, and side, and realized her entire body was covered with the same spatters.
Spitfire stepped out from under the tree and looked at the brightly-glowing, red sky, only to confirm that the blood was indeed falling from the clouds themselves. Upon realization she quickly pulled her head back under the driest part of the tree. It was hardly dry, but it provided some shelter.
The red rain came down harder. The ground was starting to flood. Even under the tree had more soaked grass than dry.
Her panic lead to heavy, rapid breathing. The atmosphere didn't allow her to take as pure breaths as normal. As the blood continued to flood up to her ankles, each breath she took contained a vaporous taste that matched the metallic smell elicited from the blood. It hardly took long for the same taste in the back of her throat to trigger feelings of nausea. She felt light-headed, and sick. The stress she felt made her peripheral vision gradually fade out, and her dizziness made the little vision she had blurry under a slight haze—with lacking definition.
The blood flooded higher at an unyielding rate. It was only just under her chest. Though it felt much like water, the idea of her body being soaked with somepony else's blood unhinged her. Spitfire could no longer tolerate the discomfort, and knew that she needed to somehow get away from the chaos—which could only be done by getting out from under the tree. Spitfire opened her wings ready to make a quick dash into proper shelter. Her distorted vision made it difficult to see ahead of her, but she was convinced that anyplace was better than where she was now.
She started flapping her wings with her hooves planted building up for a rapid acceleration. Suddenly, as Spitfire was about to takeoff, a thundering crack roared from behind her. The unwelcome sound in Spitfire's ears made her jump back. In combination with her flapping wings, the jump caused her to overshoot her takeoff, sending her straight-up instead of forward.
Almost as quickly as the sound came, Spitfire's upward takeoff unfortunately resulted in her head bouncing off a thick branch above her. The forceful collision sent her back down with an unforgiving landing. She fell flat on her back with her body completely submerged in the high-flowing pool of blood, and although she never lost consciousness, her head throbbed, her ears rang, her blurred vision got worse, and each extremity felt too numb to move.
After failing to take in a breath, tasting blood instead of air, she reoriented herself to notice that she was drowning. Still unable to see clearly, she tried rolling herself off her back, but each effort to do so failed. Her body went limp on her, and it lacked sensation.
Spitfire put in every conscious effort into standing up, but she couldn't get enough movement in her legs, or in her wings to get off her back. The fading of a soft groan from Spitfire indicated that she had given up. She had too little air to exert herself anymore, and her body natural started to conserve energy.
Every muscle in Spitfire's body let loose. She gave up trying to support the weight of her own head, and let it roll to the side. Then, something she saw caught her eye.
To her it looked like a dark-colored blur remaining motionless in a red, hazy background. Her eyes squinted to try and get the blur into focus. After concentrating to stare, she felt a tingling pulse move through her body as she discovered that she was nose-to-nose with the dead pegasus corpse—and was looking into its green eyes.
The fear made her body jolt, and everything around her went dark. Spitfire was still on her back, but now she was panting heavily. She could feel perfused amounts of sweat coming from her back, and chest. Her eyes were open but it was too dark to see anything beyond her own nose. She was breathing air again, but each breath felt stuffy. Realizing that she gained feeling in her legs, she rolled off her back so that she could get onto her hooves, and without warning felt herself falling.
Almost immediately after, her chest bashed flat against a hard flat surface making a loud crash. The fall couldn't have been much more than half her body height, but between the big gasp of air she took while falling, and the flat, sudden landing on her belly, it was enough to knock the wind out of her lungs. Spitfire groaned. She rested on the ground for a moment while she regained her breath.
Disoriented, Spitfire picked her self up with her legs into a stand. It wasn't until then that she noticed a thin sheet was draped over her head the entire time. She pulled it off and threw it carelessly on the floor.
The darkness made it take longer for her to realize her location, and being in a room she wasn't use to didn't help. Spitfire finally realized where she was, and was able to make sense of her surroundings. The room was dark with an absence of color, but the moon lit just enough for Spitfire to distinguish the different shapes of objects in the room. Beside her was a bed.
After taking some breaths of pure air—that were no longer muffled by the sheet over her head—Spitfire realized that she was in her Canterlot hotel room.
She started to relax a little more, and carefully walked to the edge of the wall to hit the light switch. In just one clack from the switch the room became instantly lit. She could see all her bed covers thrown on floor, while the rest of the room appeared to be finely decorated, and brochure worthy.
The clock on top of the nightstand read 3:34, meaning: even if she slept through breakfast, the most sleep she could get was two or three more hours. Being out of bed so early was hard on her body. As her heart rate started slowing down to a normal resting rate, she could feel her muscles starting to grow tired. Her legs felt shaky—but Spitfire was more relieved to have feeling in her legs, than anything else. It was just a dream, she told herself.
She felt tired. She felt the need to go back to sleep, but her head still felt like it was in a fog, and she still needed some time to get her head straight after just waking up from a rather wild experience. Referring to it as a nightmare would have been an understatement. Even though it was all in the past, she felt slightly compelled by the matter, and dwelt on who the dead pony in her dream was. It looked so familiar, yet she just didn't know who. She knew the facial structure was one she seen before.
To cure her wandering mind Spitfire walked into bathroom, and turned on the sink running her hooves under the water first, then splashed some over her face. The cold water felt good over her sweaty skin. She took a cup next to the sink, filled it with water, and sipped it down slowly.
A delicate knock patted on her room's front door. Spitfire asked herself, Who could be knocking at this time? She approached her door and put a single eye in alignment with the peephole. It was Soarin' standing at her door in the hallway. Without any further thought, Spitfire ran her hoof once through her mane to make it look at least halfway presentable. It wasn't even close to being as presentable as she would have liked to be in Soarin's presence, but for three-thirty in the morning she would just have to hope that she wasn't going to be judged critically on her appearance.
Spitfire opened the door, and immediately Soarin' directed his attention to Spitfire. "Hey I was just checking to make sure you're alright. I heard a loud thump, and noticed your light was on."
Spitfire appreciated his concern. Just a familiar face was enough to clear her head, and lighten her mood. Although Soarin' could often be a little predictable, every once in a while he would do something that Spitfire thought was sweet. The simple act of compassion made Spitfire blush. "Yes I'm fine... I just rolled off my bed by accident."
"Really? Are you okay?" he asked. The incident Spitfire described was peculiar to Soarin'.
Spitfire felt embarrassed from admitting to an act as careless as rolling off the bed in her sleep, and instantly regretted not coming up with a less klutzy story. Spitfire replied, "Yes. I guess I'm just use to sleeping in a bigger bed." She broke Spitfire's puzzled expression with a fake laugh. "But I'm fine," she added, "It was more startling than anything else." She avoided mentioning her nightmare. She figured that it was nothing worth concerning Soarin' with. She thought to herself, it was just a dream. Nothing more.
Soarin' didn't appear to be the least bit skeptical. One trait Spitfire always admired in Soarin', was his lack of cynicism. Soarin' smiled before saying, "Oh. I was just checking. Didn't want you 'pulling a Fleetfoot' before the race." Both Spitfire and Soarin' snickered. Now that the moment of which it would have been insensitive had passed, the term 'pulling a Fleetfoot' was sure to become the new inside joke for the Wonderbolts.
Spitfire reassured, "Thank you, but I'm fine. Sorry if I woke you up."
"Don't worry about it. It's not like I was expecting to get a lot of sleep the night before the race anyway," Said Soarin'.
Spitfire rubbed her eyes. "Yeah. Now that you mention it, I don't think I ever slept well on the night before a race."
Soarin' confessed, "I know it's bad of me, but to tell you the truth, I wasn't really sleeping anyway. I was out taking a walk. I just have too much on my mind right now."
Spitfire opened the door to her room a little wider, and took a step back. With her eyes, she signaled Soarin to step through the doorway. As soon as Soarin' stepped through the doorway, leaving the door wide open, she gave him a kiss on his cheek. Soarin' returned a kiss on her forehead before stepping back into the hallway.
"Well promise me you'll get some sleep," said Spitfire.
"Alright. Goodnight," replied Soarin'.