The flimsy hoof-made wooden door shook slightly as it settled into place, leaning sadly on the broken branches that made up its hinges. A pony’s hooves on the dirt floor made a soft skittering sound as they settled, kicking away errant pebbles and collecting the bearings of the pony they were attached to.

Rumble’s back ached from the weight of the things he’d carried in, stuffed into saddlebags slung over his shoulders. He leaned forward and let the bags fall the short distance to the floor as he turned and adjusted the door to ensure it was as closed as possible.

The cave was silent, save for the sound of breathing.

“Shoot, it’s dark in here. Lemme...”

The sound of hooves transferred to the nearby wooden table as Rumble propped himself up, holding a match between his teeth. After a few false starts, a scratch across the wood brought the head of the match to life, and subsequently the wick of the waiting candle, half-melted and drooping miserably on its dirty, white plate.

The light was dim, but it was enough.

There wasn’t much to see. Aside from Rumble and his bags, the cave held only a few other things: a bookcase with a few tattered volumes, including a magazine or two shoved carelessly onto the bottom shelf. Atop the bookcase a small potted plant withered, it’s lone leaf leaning wearily into the malnourished dirt that surrounded it. On the far wall, a mirror. Nothing else, besides dirt, and rocks.

And a small, orange form, huddled in the corner, almost hidden underneath the black hooded sweater surrounding it from the waist up.

“Hey,” Rumble said. His voice died on the damp cave walls almost before it had left his lips.

The silence hung in the air as Rumble rifled through the bags he had brought, biting his tongue between his teeth as he scoured. After a minute he pulled his hooves out with a softened triumph on his face, and turned around, holding out the thing he had been looking for.

“I brought you some food,” he said. “I know you’re probably not hungry, but...” Rumble’s sentence trailed off. His eyes went to the orange form in the corner, then down to the morsel he was offering: a sad collection of grass and dying flowers.

Again, silence seeped from the walls.

Rumble held the flowers for a few moments more before lowering his hooves.

“Are you sure? I mean... it’s been a few days. You should probably... you should probably eat something.” Rumble raised the attempted offering once more. The orange and black form stared at him, unspeaking.

“Well... okay. I’ll just... I’ll leave them here, so you can have some later if you want, okay?” He waited a few seconds for a response. Nothing. Rumble turned to the table on which the candle still sputtered and scraped the unappetizing looking weeds from his hoof, onto a pile of other abandoned meals. Crackers, carrots, and at the bottom, a bowl of soup which had begun to collect mold on the top.

Rumble cringed as he kept his eyes away, and breathed in a sharp sigh. He closed his eyes, but opened them after a few seconds.

“You should lemme... lemme take a look at your leg. See how it’s doing.”

Still silent, the orange, hooded pony watched Rumble as he stepped closer. It made no move to assist him as he placed his hooves, resting them underneath the figure’s left foreleg, which was wrapped, underneath the sweater, in a thick layer of gauze.

“Can you... here, if you just...”

Rumble fidgeted with the sleeve as he attempted to move it upwards. He stuck his tongue out between his teeth again as he held the apparently injured appendage aloft with one hoof, and did his best to reveal the wound’s wrapping with the other. After a brief struggle, the leg fell from his tenuous grip, and landed against the rest of the sweatshirt with a soft ‘pap’. Rumble cringed violently, and sucked in a quick breath of air — but the form made no sound to suggest the drop had hurt, and Rumble exhaled with a wave of relief that swept across his eyes. Gritting his teeth again, he lifted the limb once more, and this time managed to reveal its bandages without further fumbling.

“Does it feel any better?” he asked.

No response.

Rumble’s eyes stayed on the bandage for a long time. Outside the wrapped around padding, he couldn’t tell the difference between this leg and one that worked just fine. He couldn’t see the tiny fractures of bone that prevented it from staying stable — couldn’t see the torn muscles or damaged viscera that leaked blood like the last drops of a juice from something ripe and sweet as it was squeezed dry. All he could see was the outside, and was left to imagine the rest.

Rumble swallowed thickly, feeling the lump inside his throat slide down as it vanished.

“Lemme... I should probably take a look, at least. Clean it up a little bit.”

As uneasy as the words came, so did Rumble unwind the bandage, once more with his teeth over tongue, concentrating with his eyes narrowed as he unspun the layer of gauze. The limb lulled limply against the orange pony’s side as Rumble worked around it, until at last the final layer came, and the leg bared itself to the almost-darkness of the cave and Rumble’s narrowed eyes.

He couldn’t tell if it looked any better.

“— …”

Rumble opened his mouth to speak, but could find nothing to say. He looked up into the eyes staring back at him, but found nothing to draw his words forth.

“It... it looks like it might be getting better.” Stuttering, always. The cold air made his tongue numb.

Silence.

“Well, let me wash it a little bit and... you’ll tell me if it starts to feel better, right? If you can move it?”

Rumble waited for fifteen seconds before he sighed softly, almost inaudibly, save for the catching dead echo of the cave’s acoustics, and turned back to his bags. He rifled through them until he found a small cloth and a bottle of water, the stopper of which he pulled out with his mouth, turning it sideways and letting a trickle of the clear liquid fall into the cloth. Before he sealed it up, he held the bottle towards the orange figure.

“Thirsty?”

Again, a count of seconds and he put it away, pushing the stopper firmly in place. He turned back around with the cloth in hoof.

“Let me know if this hurts, okay?”

Rumble’s hooves worked in silence as he massaged what he imagined must be the wounded area. To his relief, no starts came, nor shaking to indicate he was pressing too hard. There was no soak of blood, though when he pulled the cloth back it came away tinted a dark red and brown mix, tarnished by some unknowable taint. He clucked his tongue against his teeth as he looked at the cloth, then back down at the injured leg.

“Is... your fur was normally this colour, right?”

No response. Just the sound of breathing.

Rumble shook his head and gave a few more once-overs with the cloth, finally throwing it on top of the saddlebags piled by the door. With some difficulty, he managed to pick up the leg and a new roll of bandages on his second try, and wound them around with the same struggle, eventually getting a loose-fitting semblance of a proper binding. He didn’t say anything, bandages between his teeth as he pulled the sleeve down. He tossed the bandages back with the cloth, and sat, staring, his hind-legs even with the orange ones next to him, almost touching.

The cave was always cold.

Breathing.

“Well...” Rumble’s eyes flicked as he spoke, darting to the side of the cave, the door, and then back to himself, sinking with a sort of resignation. “I should probably... head out again. But I’ll come back tomorrow. Is that okay?”

Silence. The sound of breathing.

“It... it’s gonna be fine, Scoots, I promise. Just a few more days and you’ll feel better... and, and your leg will be better, and you’ll... you’ll be able to talk, and you’ll tell me you’re okay, and you’ll say you’re ready to eat, and then you’ll get up with me and go home, and we’ll... and we’ll...”

Rumble’s sentence trailed off, caught in the sudden faltering of his lips as they shook. As tears trickled from the corners of his eyes, leaking down his cheeks as though a river had been unbound on either side.

“Please,” he said, his voice trembling. “Say something. Tell me you’re okay, that it’s... that you’re gonna be o-okay...”

Silence.

Rumble raised his hooves and grabbed Scootaloo’s head on either side, her cheeks and ears covered by the pulled up hood of the black sweater. In a swift motion, he turned her head towards him, set it staring straight forward. His eyes flashed with a sudden spark of something besides sadness, though the tears still leaked.

“Say something!”

Silence. Heavy breathing.

“It’s not my fault! I didn’t... I just... you finally wanted to talk to me, and I... I’d never fallen before, Scoots! I’ve been over the river every day and I never fell! Why didn’t you tell me your stupid wings didn’t work yet!”

Silence. Breathing.

“Why did you have to fall?! I told you we’d get in trouble if my brother found out...”

Rumble let go of Scootaloo’s head, which stayed planted firmly in place, staring at him. He looked straight back, staring too, tears still pouring from his eyes, his chest rising and falling with the strength of his breathing.

Just orange and black looked back at him.

“This is all your fault!”

Rumble pushed forward, a shove, and it met Scootaloo’s chest firmly with a dull thud. The orange filly’s body jostled slightly with the force of the impact. But she kept silent. Only the sound of breathing; the dim sputter of the candle as it struggled to stay alight in the damp air, and the sound of soft, settling dirt around Rumble’s hooves as his shove turned him.

He stared at the ground for a few moments more, breathing heavily.

“I... you’d... you have to get better, Scoots. You have to.”

With his hoof on one side of her face, Rumble turned Scootaloo back towards him.

Her cold, dead eyes stared at him, unblinking.

He stared back. Said nothing. The last tremble of a tear dripped from his cheek onto the dirt beneath. The seconds ticked by endlessly, until at last, he let go, and Scootaloo’s head lolled against her shoulder again. Low, against her chest, hanging like a broken doll.

“I’m sorry,” he said. A few breaths passed. “I’ll be... I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?”

Silence.

“I didn’t mean all that.”

Breathing.

A tickle of dust caught in Rumble’s throat, and he cleared it loudly, the rough noise bristling in the cold air before it faltered on the rock walls. Rumble stood up and turned to his bags.

“Try to eat something, okay?” he said, looking back towards Scootaloo.

Silence. Scootaloo’s body laid at rest against the wall of the cave, covered in a black hoodie, unmoving.

Rumble stared at her for a minute longer before he turned, pushed the door open and left.

Outside, the rain fell, soaking the forest ground, the grass and the dirt, coating the floor in a slick layer of leaves that stretched from under every tree to cover the whole of all the eye could see, from the forest boundaries to the river than ran through its center; the river running swiftly, cold, and dark.

Next Chapter: The Snow Is Falling Estimated time remaining: 13 Minutes