Consciousness is definitely overrated as far I’m concerned. I drifted in and out of it like a foal’s yo-yo. A mind reeling sensation of falling into emptiness engulfed me, followed by a hideously gut wrenching lurch back to an all too terrifyingly real present.

The sad broken doll that had once been a precious life lay motionless, several feet across the floor from me. Her once vibrant yellow eyes that had seen sights no pony should ever have had to witness, now closed. Wisps of pale green mane almost mercifully covered most her innocent face from the cold worlds stare. My mind screamed that I should remember her but try as I might, my memories were simply….gone. Gone….My magic ! I could sense that something was missing and now the reality of it hit me, the bastards had done something to block my magic ! In shock, I started to panic, the sudden adrenalin fuelling my struggles and I felt the metal poker shift, tilting with my body as I dug my hooves into the floor.

Free of its wooden sheath, the pokers tip dragged against the floorboards, the vibration adding to the symphony of agonies railing throughout my body. All other thoughts dismissed, the horrors forgotten, I was overwhelmingly possessed by a need, an all encompassing drive, to reach the cracked mirror lying forlorn on the floor just of reach. I had to see what those animals had done to my horn.

I hadn’t realised it yet, but my mind, my sanity, was beginning to slip away from me. My panting grew as I spat foaming bloodied gobbets from the corner of my mouth, my focus locked fully on my intended target. It was so close, not much farther now, a little more effort, one last pull and…………. I looked down.

What looked back at me was not the unicorn from my dream memory. It was a… a ‘thing’, a ravaged image of a creature that was barely recognisable as a pony, cruelly reflecting back at me with its lone remaining eye. The other was a mangled mess of scarlet and black slurry, dripping its warm life essence onto the remains of that damnable mirror.

I let out a pining wail, my horn, oh Luna, why ? This was everything to a unicorn, it was what defined us as who, what, we are. How could they do this to me ?

The broken stump sat there lifeless. A useless nubbin of splintered…..me. I was a unicorn with no magic, like a Pegasus without wings. I was useless, lost and alone, no memories. I was….nothing. They had taken everything I was and destroyed it utterly, I couldn’t even feel anything towards the green mare, but my horn ! I cursed the bastards who had done this, I cursed Equestria, the world, every pony and every thing. Tears ran down my face and I cried out my pain to the empty room.

I barely noticed the hoof touching mine.

The slight pressure brought me back from the brink of complete despair, from my self obsession, to focus upon the object of the feeling on my hoof. Looking down, I followed the slender green leg up to a baleful yellow gaze. ‘Fair…Fa……don’t cry love. Oh….goddess…what have they done to you ? My handsome Fa…..my….’

The green mare was racked with coughing, blood spraying from her muzzle and spattering the broken mirror. I looked into her eyes, trying desperately to remember. Damn my self centered soul to Hades, my cursed horn didn’t matter, not now. I gritted my teeth and squeezed my eye shut. How could I have been so…

“………Love ?..... I’m sorry…I’m so, so sorry…”. Her voice carried a soft musical note that echoed within me, her plaintive words calling out as if to my very soul.

I returned her touch, gently stroking her hoof. “No. What happened here, it wasn’t your fault. Don’t say you’re sorry, please. I… I should have protected you. I failed, I should have been more, been better, pushed myself and now. Now………I’m sorry.” I hung my head. I couldn’t imagine how I looked to her right now, how I had failed her when she needed me. She was, she was, she……

A barrage of memories flooded into my mind. Mixing, churning, image upon image, colours both vibrant and grey, sound, music, voices, shouting, laughter. All as one, I was deluged by the orchestral tidal wave of imagery crashing into me. Disjointed and fractured, whole and complete, they all swirled, threatening to drown me in the past and present. Above it however, a face hovered. A beautiful green mare with lantern yellow eyes, a pale green mane and a cutie mark of the sun rising over a grassy….”MEADOW “! I cried out, all thoughts of myself cast aside.

“Meadow, Luna forgive me….Meadow”. I shook as emotion overtook me. My wife, my dear, dear wife, lay broken and fading away before me.

“Love…”, she hacked a racking cough, wincing in pain as it gradually subsided. She drew a laboured breath and I could tell she was trying all she could to stay conscious.

“Don’t blame yourself. You were always……always….the strong one. So brave….”, she reached up to touch my muzzle with her hoof. Weakness overtook her and I caught her with my own, gently lifting it to my face and nuzzling it. I breathed in her scent, it was like flowers in the rain. A breath of life, of colour and joy in a world that had brought her only cruelty and horror. I felt her brush away a tear from my cheek.

“I… love….Fairl…I”, she shuddered and breathed in rapidly. “Oh, i’m so….so cold…I….” Her eyes widened suddenly and her head lifted to look straight into mine with a look which I will never forget, “I cant die….i cant ! Oh my love I’m so scared, please ! I….”. As quickly as she had rallied, her strength drained from her body and she slumped down across my outstretched foreleg, her head leaning against mine.

“Shhhhhhhhhh…..its alright love, its alright” I whispered into her ear, “Its alright”. I carefully, slowly, rocked her head in my forelegs and sang a lullaby my mother had sung to me when I was a foal, “Hush now, quiet now, its time to lay your sleepy head….”

I felt the quickly cooling warmth of her muzzle against my ear as she breathed out with one long final breath, “Forever….and always, my brave…Fairlight….remember me……please ?”.

I felt the life leave her body. The earthly vessel in this world that was a green mare called Meadow, now a broken and empty shell. Who she was, was no more. She was gone, just like that. So simple to say, so simple that it didn’t seem real at all, like a bad dream or a terrible play you would forget in the light of morning. But this, this was real, all too, too real. The world would carry on without her, foals would still go to school each day. They would fall in love, have foals of their own and, eventually, pass into the next world. The cycle would continue.

Meadow should have lived to have had a chance to grow old, surrounded by her own children and grandfoals. I imagined her knitting by the log fire listening to the radio as the foals played in the garden on a bright summers day. It was an idealistic world, a world filled to the brim with laughter, love and caring. The world of sunshine and rainbows, which I had hoped to have given her. Should have given her. I had failed her.

Now, now it was all gone. Bathed in a sea of the deepest red, framed by the fires of our home, our dreams consumed by violence and hate.

As I held her, even in my grief, I became aware of a faint, oddly warm, glow emanating from her body. A golden glow which, ever so slowly, rose upwards from her broken body, hovering over it as if in silent contemplation of the scene below. I blinked in astonishment and in that instant, it disappeared, a trick of the light. I shivered, a rolling feeling of icy cold passing through me. An odd thought suddenly entered my mind; I’d never got round to buying carpets and this floor was freezing cold, so bitterly cold I could see my breath regardless of the flames now entering the room. I almost laughed. Almost.

The crackling of burning wood and a crash of glass made be look round towards the flames racing up the doorway as they marched hungrily on. Wooden houses, a banquet for any blaze. The fire brigade would be here soon I imagined. My breath caught and I coughed again and again, catching the blood on my foreleg. I didn’t want any making a mess on Meadow’s fur. She was so beautiful, I had always loved her soft green coat and mane.

Oddly, I found the pain had subsided, replaced by chilling cold. Bloodloss, I remembered. Not a good sign, probably shock too. Not good at all, “anyway, not long now”, I pondered.

I glanced down at the spreading dark pool of blood and silently thanked Luna that I would be gone before the flames reached me. I could just make out the flickering of fire light reflected in its surface, it was strangely…calming. I yawned.

Breathing in her scent, I kissed Meadow tenderly on the cheek and snuggled into her, placing a foreleg protectively across her chest. I could not defend her in life but at least I could be with her at the end. She had given me so much. She had given me back my name, given me back who I was.

“Fairlight”, I murmured to myself and smiled. Darkness pressed inexorably in on me. The dancing light of the fire was beginning to dim ever more rapidly and I could sense my life’s flame guttering like a spent candle. It was time now, I would die knowing myself, knowing the name of my dear, beloved mare. Meadow. I couldn’t ask for more.

“Wait for me”, I whispered to her , brushing an errant wisp of hair from her eye. “I’ll be with you…soon”. As carefully as if I were holding a snowflake, I closed her eyes with my hoof. I leaned my head across hers, closed my eyes and sighed out my final breath into the soft mane of the one I loved.