Chapter 27

"Beneficence"

I fell not once, not twice, but three times. Yet my yoke was easy. My burden light.

There was light in the darkness. A flame flickering softly against the backdrop of a liquid black night. Several more flames bloomed into view, quietly wandering off to the sides of the first. They floated about, casting soft shadows that were also made of light. Much more gold than grey in the snow around them. Such a thing did not seem possible. There was no balance. Yet when the world was filled with so much evil, even the shadow of light became bright underneath that which was good.

The little flame grew brighter. Closer. It came upon me. My sensitive eyes blurred a moment before they adjusted. A slow blink was all I could manage. I did not have the strength to turn my head away, let alone try to stand up. Having collapsed for the third time, I must have looked quite the disgrace laid out in the snow as I was. Paws out and crumpled beneath me. Head unable to slide across the snow. But the light was gentle. It eased into proper form. No longer just a flame, but a creature who carried light on its back and legs like the Mighty Hena did shadow.

A Fire Horse.

It stopped when it came close enough to cast its light upon me. It was a mare, flames as smooth and quiet as a star. They burned unbroken from the horn at the top of her head, down her back, to where they calmly collected into a tail. The snow melted around her, revealing black hooves. So hard and polished they were. How many miles had she run to get such a shine? She must have been the fastest in the herd. The mare looked down at me. Her eyes moved like her flames. Never standing still. They danced as they looked me over. My own must seem dim to her. Dark and deep. Mere charcoal to her flaming Spirit.

When I looked at her, the creature and the Spirit were nearly indistinguishable from one another. Such union brought tears to my eyes. I was glad to see it before the end. As a Mighty Hena, I loved the night. But as Moonborn and Day Breaker, I could not help but love the light just as much. The mare must have thought me a pitiful thing. A dark stain upon the snow. Normally, we Mighty Hena kept our distances from Fire Ponies and Horses after they acquired their flames. Our species were not bound by the hunt. Still, she probably found it strange to find me all alone. Out in the middle of a seemingly endless plane of snow. Still alive, albeit barely, fighting so stubbornly against the winter sleep.

She was not afraid of me or the shadow of death I carried. In fact, her light seemed to cast it away as easily as the snow melting at her hooves. The heat from her burning body ebbed away the bitter chill in my bones. The threat of frost bite crawled back from my skin, returning to harmless crystals in my fur. I continued to watch her, curios of when her interest would fade or courage fail. She watched me in turn. I glanced away as another Fire Horse came up beside her just as gloriously. It was a male. Probably the stallion of the herd given the way the others hung back. The male snorted. His breath steamed out in a cloud of opinion. He flicked his flaming tail.

The mare touched her nose to him and he immediately stilled. With both of them at full attention, the rest of the herd gathered around. I became something of a spectacle. They behaved as I expected. Skittish in their curiosity. Wary of the poison. Spooked by the strangeness my presence implied. There were one or two other horses with much smaller horns, but the rest were mostly the smaller ponies. The temperature began to rise around me. Slowly, it seeped into my bones. The ice in my mane melted. I do not know why, but the herd stayed there, working at the ground to melt the snow and graze on what remained of the grass.

The only way they could survive such temperatures without any fur was because of the heat of their flames. And now, for a reason I could not fathom, they shared them with me. They warmed my freezing body simply by proximity until I found the strength to move again. Eventually, I sat up. The mare kept a careful watch on me while the rest continued to slowly orbit around us as if I were some great force pulling them in. After a while, I managed to stand with only a little stiffness. The herd did not notice. Only the stallion stopped to look as the mare stepped closer to stand in front of me once more. I remained still. My color much deeper and darker when pressed between her light and the night. Once more silky and sleek.

The worst of the poisoning was over. Dispelled by the energy of the Fire Ponies' burning souls. Such was the power of a High Spirit. It affected all that came within its circle. I was honored to have been allowed within the intimacy of their herd. I did not know all the customs of Fire Horses, but I did know that speed and agility were valued most. I would not slow them down anymore. I tipped my head in respect and started away in the direction where the ponies were spread the farthest and the darkness behind them the greatest. My steps were uneven. Limp stiff and apparent.

The poison was gone, but it would take a great deal of time to recover. The mare watched me grow closer to the dark. I stopped at its edge. The pain where I had been bitten and thrown and beaten intensified the deeper I plunged into the cold and the farther I drew away from the herd's warmth. I had forgotten what it was like to feel, so long had the cold and poison numbed me. I was still not strong enough to face it. My head lowered with the burden, so I did not see the light come closer until I felt its heat again. The herd drifted towards me, grazing and pushing snow with their hooves.

None of the ponies were bothered by me now, so I bathed in their warmth a while longer until I was ready to try again, a little stronger than before. I made it farther than last time before I had to stop again, but the herd caught up quickly. After the third attempt, the herd actively stayed with me, surrounding me with their light and their warmth. They became my brightened shadow wherever and whenever I moved. That realization exhausted me almost as much as the poison, so I stopped to rest and sleep for whatever remained of the night. It was oddly comforting to be surrounded by all these ponies. They reminded me of the pack I missed.

Maybe. Just maybe, they were willing to let me in a little more.

When the herd fell asleep, I Walked, stepping in to the world of dreams where the snow turned to grass and the darkness, light. Where winter raged outside, it was spring inside, untainted by thoughts of war. A breeze rustled the wildflowers that spotted these dreamy grasslands with color. It played with the tips of my mane and tail. I found the dream maker gazing out into the land where the rest of the herd stoked the fires of their newborn foals further on. It was the mare. No other could create such a beautiful dream. I almost regretted to disturb it, but I wanted to understand the herd's purpose.

I alerted the mare of my presence with the smallest hint of Spirit. No stronger than a tap of one of her favorite wildflowers against her hooves. She flicked her ears and turned around with a snort, tossing her flaming tail. She saw me standing there with a warm expression on my face as if I could actually feel the sunlight the dream emanated. It were times like these when I missed its rays the most. I stole nothing of the horse's peace. Tainted none of her happiness. Instead, I fostered the gratitude of the life she spared by finding me and staying with me. In the world of dreams, there were no challenges of language or communication.

I already knew everything I needed to about the mare from this one visit. Like me, she was full of Spirit, and although she could not dream walk, she was aware of me and what I was doing. The mare walked closer, head bobbing, and nudged me with her nose before nibbling the ends of my mane with her lips. She was much older than me and much bigger, yet I did not feel inferior to her in size or experience. I could not tell if it was because she made it so or if we had achieved the same place in Spirit regardless of our power or lifespan. The mare then backed away a few steps to look at me.

"Ask me," she said, "and I will give you the answer."

At once I realized I made the right decision to come here.

"Why save me?" I asked, remembering the cold and the fog and the numbness.

"You saved yourself," the mare answered. "All we did was warm you up a bit."

I debated the truth to this. It was also not an answer.

"Why warm me?" I tried again. "Why come to my aid?"

"Because it was you who came to ours first."

I did not understand. The mare turned her head away and the dream world around us shifted, darkening and growing colder and filling with snow. It was a blizzard. The very same one that had the strength to disband my pack. I recognized its shrill howling voice as it beat against us. The mare showed me her memory of it and brought me to the herd where they had stopped to weather the storm. They stood huddled together. Flames whipping violently. Manes and tails nearly striped of their fire.

"A breeze strengthens our fire," the mare explained as we watched the herd shivering and quaking together. "But flames become weak and small against such fierce wind."

The younger ponies, those most susceptible in winter, were huddled in the center. The larger ones tried to shield them with their bodies, but the wind ripped and tore through them, funneling and chilling their furless skin. Without proper air to burn, their fires grew dim, struggling not to be blown out. Weakened flames meant colder bodies which made it that much harder to burn. It was a vicious spiral that would inevitably lead to their deaths, and in that death, that much less protection. Caught out in the open like this, it would be the end of their whole herd.

"We were losing them," the mare quietly reflected as she watched the somber scene unfold.

I watched the ponies as they helplessly fought their fate. The darkness pressed in against them. The night prepared to swallow them whole. The mare used every ounce of her life and energy to keep those nearest to her warm. Still, they shivered.

"The storm was too great," she lamented.

I came to stand beside her outside of the scene. The wind and snow batted my sides and face, but I remained unmoved, feeling ever much the shadow of death here as I did in the real world.

"I prepared myself," she went on and I needed no detail.

To prepare for the death of a pup, or in her case, a pony, meant to prepare for the shame and guilt and grief and all things we must reconcile with as survivors. Warranted or not. But then, the storm ended. Rather, the winds shuddered to a stop as a great and mighty howl rocked through the night like an earthquake. My skin tingled. The fur on my back stood on end. I glanced around for the source only to remember that this was a dream. A reflection of the mare's memory. There was no other Mighty Hena here but me. The huddled herd glanced around just as startled, but nothing appeared. No pack. No shadow. Nothing came but a silence softened by a waning snowfall.

The ponies whinnied in relief as their flames began to burn a little thicker and brighter. The mare and stallion burst into towering torches and rubbed against the others, restoring their heat. The true image of the mare beside me bobbed her head. The vision of the herd faded away, leaving us in the darkness of that night with nothing but the grey glow of the snow beneath us. It felt strikingly similar to the domains I could create, so I looked around, only to find that we were still in the dream world. This domain of mine existed here because it existed in the mare's memory. The mare turned to face me and waited for me to realize the truth.

I lowered my head, unable to believe it.

"Your voice frightened off the storm," the mare explained, "and allowed us the chance we needed to recover."

But she was only pawing at the surface. There was so much more to be had about what I had done. My domain, the Spirit, what it meant to be part of the pack, and what it meant to be under my shadow. I closed my eyes, unable to fathom it.

"We followed the song and found you," she went on, but I had a hard time listening. "We stay because your shadow protects us, and in turn, we protect you in what way we can."

"I did not howl for you," I quickly rebuked.

"Did you not howl for life?" she asked. "Is there any difference?"

I bore my gaze into the ground.

"Then, why did you howl?" the mare pressed.

I struggled to find the words so I hid my voice behind my teeth.

"Does your song not have great purpose?"

I barred my teeth. Annoyed at my own frustration. My inability to understand and this horse that demanded so many words from me.

"Then why do you sing at all?"

Only one thing came to mind. It was the only way I could ever explain it in its entirety.

"I howl because I am Mother!" I shouted, suddenly out of breath.

My words blew away the memory, filling the dream with the vibrancy of the grasslands once again. Only this time, it was my memory, my dreams. A red and purple sunset bloomed at the horizon. It darkened in the distance, filling the sky with sparkling constellations that told just as many stories as I did. A line of Mighty Hena trotted off for the hunt in the distance, unheard between the crickets and rustling grass. Bell Sprouts chinked and jingled as they started nodding off to sleep. There were soaring Sky Tails and dashing Strikers, grazing Stantler and splashing Mud Kin, all manner of creature everywhere and nowhere all at once. The mare looked around with the pleasant comfort of a quiet epiphany.

"I see," she murmured, feeling out my dream, and thus, my heart. "And the Spirit of the pack is with you…How beautiful."

It was a thought, or rather, a feeling, I had many times in my life. Yet when she said it, I could not help but feel that I misunderstood it all this time.

I spent the rest of the night contemplating the look on the mare's face as the flames lapped against the smile in her eyes. In the morning, I awoke to the rest of the herd sleeping, leaning off of one leg or another. No different to how I left them. When I found the mare, she acted no different than before as if the dream really was a dream she could no longer remember. We traveled the day the same way we did the night. Only now, I became the shadow between them. Silent and ever present. We traveled together like this and little by little, I regained my strength. I peeled away every now and again to hunt snow creatures or scavenge others that had fallen prey to the winter sleep. All the while, the storm kept its distance. Occasionally throwing tantrums with heavy, but quiet snowfall. Winter without wind had no bite, so my teeth came to replace it.

And tonight, it was needed.

Our quiet travels abruptly ended as the herd startled awake, whinnying and rearing under the screams of their youngest ponies in danger. Four Phantoms materialized from the night. They terrorized the herd by raking their claws against their flanks, casting curses, and instilling general mayhem throughout the herd. If the ghosts could separate the ponies, they could weaken their flames with the cold, and the colder they got, the easier they would be to catch. Already chilled amongst so much snow, the ponies were at their weakest and unable to burn anything but themselves. This would kill them if they burned too much.

Those cursed Phantoms.

They knew exactly what they were doing. It was a haunt. The ghosts' version of a hunt. They would start by killing either the oldest or the youngest. From there, they would haunt the herd till spring, slowly killing off as many as they could before the weather warmed. Once cursed, even the horses would not be able to escape no matter how fast or far they ran. The Phantom's shrieking laughter echoed around us, pulling many a nightmare into reality. The stallion ran off to lead the fleeing herd while the mare ran towards two foals trapped by a pair of Phantoms each. The Phantoms corralled the ponies towards their summoner, a far more wicked and powerful ghost. One wrapped in funeral bandages. It had two large greedy hands and one glowing red eye.

Ghosts were more commonly encountered in winter when desperation and despair and death were strongest in the wild, but the appearance of a Beckoner was a bad omen. A sign of dark forces trying to claw their way into the grasslands. It meant that the curses Exile and his Shaman were casting had grown to such an extent that they gave even emptiness form. The Beckoner materialized out of the darkness between two of its servant Phantoms, waving its arms in a macabre fashion. The light of the Fire Ponies had drawn it from the otherworld. With a soul as beautiful as the mare's, the Beckoner could not resist claiming it as its own. It only took a moment. A single glance for the mare and two ponies to become enchanted.

They did not expect such danger. Haunts were usually reserved for the weak and wicked and lost. The herd was not prepared for such an ambush. The Beckoner stopped and shuddered, grotesquely inflating its body so that it wobbled with engorgement. It meant to swallow all three at once. The size of its normal mouth like slit wouldn't do, so the ghost thrust its hands into its bandages and pulled them apart. A great yawning void of emptiness opened where the ghost's body was supposed to be. It sucked the ponies towards the vacuum in space. Timed with their exhale, the Beckoner inhaled to start the soul stealing process. The ponies' flames surged toward the hole, losing their light.

The Beckoner's red eye flared with a taste of their energy. Its body swelled again, hands grabbing and groping for more. If the ghost could just get a hand on their bodies too, he could reach unparalleled ecstasy. It was all Beckoner's dreamed of. Satisfying their emptiness, their insatiable appetites, if only for a moment. The ghost was so confident in his ambush. So sure of his success. So fixated on the light that he never once thought of the darkness. That the shadow behind the flame belonged to someone else. That there might be something more terrifying than him in the night.

I was up the moment I heard the screams. My paws dashed through the snow, dodging ponies as they stampeded past me. Snow flurries swirled out behind me. They traced my path as I cut through the night, paws wide, legs long and smooth. No more than a flicker to the eye. I sprinted past the mare and ponies before they ever realized I was there. The Beckoner only saw me coming because his large red eye was already fixed in front of him and my path of attack brought me down his line of sight. He was still prying his gaping hole of a mouth open when he realized I was coming.

He sucked in the air around him into his endless and daunting mouth. A mouth that was worth nothing without a good set of teeth. I bared mine, only too willing to show him which was mightier. I pulled upon my strongest fang, the one filled with darkness to truly terrify him of his own existence, but flames streamed through my teeth instead. It must have been a side effect of the energy and Spirit the ponies shared with me. My fangs burned the hottest and the brightest they had ever been. So much so, they shoved my shadows aside to replace them. I carried the fire of the herd's Spirit as if it were my own. And where horses and ponies could not bite and rip and thrash, I could.

And I would.

Burning like a shooting star, I crouched, pinpointing my leap as Jumper would have done and thrust myself from the ground with the precision of a dart. I soared, claws forward, jaws spreading, mouth burning, and leapt into the gapping slit that was the Beckoner's mouth. Something happened then. A strange emptiness enveloped me. It was a domain of a different sort. The kind created by ghosts between planes. It might have trapped me there had I been a mere Mighty Hena, a slip of shadow, but I was too fast, too powerful, and too full of form. My flames burned away the emptiness and lit up the dark, revealing a burning blue ball of spectral flame that was none other than the Beckoner's core.

Its heart.

I clamped my jaws around it. Black blood gushed out and down my neck. The strange void instantly collapsed. My own darkness replaced it, keeping my body and Spirit and mind contained within so that I was not lost in this strange place as it crumbled. Instead, I ripped through the Beckoner's back and landed in the snow behind it with its burning heart still beating in my jaws. The body tottered, bleeding a toxic black smoke as if the inside of its body was smoldering, about to catch fire. It wildly waved its hands about, bandages streaking out to grab whatever it could to pull into its body to replace its heart.

They came for me and the ponies faster than a cobra's bite. Smoke now heavily fumed from the slits of its bandages. The edges of which began to curl and blacken and burn. I thickened the flames in my mouth to plasma. Which then condensed into electricity that I used to shock the Beckoner's heart with a bang. Ghosts were cursed things which meant the Beckoner would live even if its core was removed from its main body. It must be extinguished completely. The artificial flesh of the heart jerked in a spasm, suddenly negating the power in the bandages. They abruptly fluttered to a stop and drifted to the ground mere inches from the ponies. The ones coming for me dropped harmlessly to my sides. Those that brushed my body began to burn from the Spirit about me and disintegrated much faster than the others.

But I was not done.

The heart still existed, even after the jolt, so I exhaled deeply, channeling my breath through my mouth so that it cooled like the cold air around us. Frost crept up my teeth. It was easy to transition between energies. All I had to do was take in the power of winter and embrace the cold that had begged to seep into my bones since the very first snowfall of the season. Now, it had its chance. I let it into my fang, freezing the heart between my jaws. It stiffened with frost, chilling to icy proportions. My breath clouded from my mouth, puffing with every breath that deepened the chill. When I was sure the heart was frozen completely, I dispelled the ice and called upon the night.

Having long since waited their turn, and eager to fulfill my summons, the shadows pooled in my throat. With unprecedented ferocity, they sucked my jaws together like the snap of a collapsing supernova, just to show the flames their place. The heart shattered with a satisfying crunch. Broken pieces dribbled out of my mouth. I spat out the larger chunks, coughing out a few more flames to ensure nothing remained between my teeth and tongue and lips. The pieces also began to disintegrate. I could not risk burning the trails of black blood down my neck without burning myself, so I left them there to clean later and turned back to look at what remained of the Beckoner's body.

It sagged to the ground, deflating and burning all at the same time, still reaching for the ponies. Its greatest desire now its own destruction. As the last of its body burned underneath the pressure of my Spirit, the path to the herd cleared. The mare warmed away the chill of the haunting by rubbing against the smaller ponies. She pushed them into motion in the direction the others had gathered farther away. They would have to burn away the taint of the curse and there was no better way for them to do so than at a full gallop.

A pace I would never be able to match.

As the smaller ponies ran off to stir up their flames, the mare turned to look at me, body burning brightly in the night once again. The snow reflected her light, turning her shadow gold once more. I stayed where I was. I did not approach or close the distance. I could not take the extra heat. My Spirit was burning, not with fire, but with purpose. And although I could not see it, I could feel it. Mane fluttering even though there was no wind. The other four ghosts had fled during the fight. I must find them and ensure they followed their summoner to the otherworld where they belonged.

The mare smiled at me with her large round glassy eyes. My reflection filled them with silver light. Although I was of the dark, everything she saw was bright. I carried the herd's blessing, the special fire that burned within. In horse tradition, the mare reared up and whinnied. I would never forget the sight. Nor the strangeness of being in their herd or the glow of their light as they galloped away in search of new sanctuary. Wherever they were going, I would ensure they traveled safely in the night with my own blessing. I threw my head back in a howl for them. My voice filled the night without echo, so full was its resonance.

When it ended, all was quiet. None would dare disturb it by attacking or threatening or harassing the herd. The storm would continue to keep its distance. I then looked back into the dark, away from the fading glow of the ponies. Out there in the vast wild of the unknown, the darkness was sleek and never ending. Out there, darkness ruled the night. There were no more guiding lights. Yet even shadow could burn. Fueled with the Spirit and the blessing I had been given, my eyes glowed red. I stared out into the dark wild, Spirit silently pulsing as if I held the entire night in my heart. My domain.

A blue dot appeared in the far distance. Three more followed, pale and sickly, floating in the air like trapped lanterns. They were will-o-wisps. Spectral energy. The stuff of ghosts. I honed in on them, trotting into the shadows, paws as soft as snowfall. Nose forward. Eyes straight. The four Phantoms had escaped their botched ambush, but they would not escape the night. It did not belong to them.

I was on the hunt and no creature, alive or dead, would be able to escape my gaze.