The city was at once both familiar and strange to Blackbird. It was a city, and it was so much like a city that it was indistinguishable from other cities she had seen and visited. This was home—but when had it become home? She couldn’t quite remember and trying to recall caused her to feel some kind of weird panic. Perhaps it was better not to remember… so much had happened… so much pain and loss. There had been a war—a war that it seemed that most of the known world had been involved in—and those memories were far too unpleasant to recall.

Yes, she was better off not remembering the war; she hadn’t been quite right since the war and maybe she was having one of her spells. Confused, Blackbird stared at the tower that she and Dim called home. Dim had spells too, they both did, and this was the cost of war. Sometimes, they got out of sorts and became more than a little confused—like now. Having witnessed the horrors of war up close and personal had left scars on her mind.

For some reason, she had stepped out, but she couldn’t remember why. Glancing around, she watched as the many ponies around her hustled and bustled to and fro. It had been a mistake to step out—a dreadful mistake—and she sought to correct that. She needed Dim and he needed her; together, they just sort of muddled through life somehow. After having experienced so much, they understood one another—they understood one another’s pain.

Still confused and out of sorts, Blackbird made her way along the narrow path leading to the front door. The handle that opened the door was brass and it was worn. Of course it was worn; how many times had talons pulled down upon it? More than she could remember—though she was having troubles remembering specifics. She was most certainly having one of her spells.

When her talons touched the cool brass, Blackbird couldn’t help but feel portentous apprehension…

Blackbird was hardly through the door when Dim began his approach. She was happy to see him, and from the looks of things, Dim was happy to see her as well. Something about the way he smiled—wait, there was something about the way he smiled. It wasn’t shiver-inducing, nor did it cause involuntary shuddering. Dim struggled to smile and when he did, the results were less than smilerific. Something didn’t seem right and as Blackbird shut the door behind her, her anxious apprehension grew.

“You’re back,” Dim said to Blackbird. “Did you get eggs from the market?”

Eggs? Market? Blackbird shook her head and tried to ward off her growing confusion. “No… I think I had one of my spells, Dim. I’m not sure what’s wrong.”

“That happens.” Dim’s smile never faltered and his mismatched eyes gleamed with fervent, manic glee. “That’s why I never leave home anymore. The pain of life just became too much. The pain of living… hey, maybe you’ll feel better tomorrow.”

“Maybe?” Blackbird found herself shrugging. Before she could say anything else, Dim was upon her, his muzzle pressed tight against hers, and she could feel his hot breath against her lips. Startled, she struggled to understand what was going on—this just felt too weird and abnormal. Something felt off, as nothing about this felt familiar.

Frightened into a reaction, Blackbird reflexively opened her mouth to say something, to tell Dim to stop, but his tongue invaded her mouth. This felt like an entirely new sensation, something not entirely unpleasant, but certainly unexpected. She had to be having one of her spells, because surely she and Dim had done this before. They had been together since… since the war ended. Parts of her warmed and she became aware of a sticky humidity in the snug cleft between her hind legs. Her teats—all four of them—went diamond hard.

With a sultry feline purr, Blackbird flopped over and pulled Dim down to the floor with her. He kissed her again, and again, and then yet again, with each smooch deadening her senses. The smell of cloves filled Blackbird’s nostrils and Dim’s excited wheezes made her ears prick. When Dim clambered up onto her belly, she felt his growing hardness flop against the base of her ribs. She was longer than he in body and while his tongue made little circles against the roof of her mouth, his hips made reflexive humps against her breastbone.

Terror overcame Blackbird, an unknowable, unfathomable terror, and everything about this felt wrong. Dim’s cock was growing ever-harder and she could feel his fuzzy scrotum sliding against her silken pelt. Fright and arousal battled one another and the sensation of Dim’s tongue slithering around inside of her mouth overwhelmed her senses.

Reaching up, Blackbird seized Dim by the cheeks and with a gentle effort, she lifted his muzzle away from her own. A little ribbon of slobber stretched between the two of them, that is until it reached its breaking point, and then it became just so much drool on their chins. As much as she wanted this to continue, she also wanted this to stop—she needed time to regain her senses, because all of this felt wrong. It felt like the first time, and it was terrifying.

“Dim, no—”

“If you can’t make me scrambled eggs, I thought maybe I’d fertilise yours.”

“No, Dim… something feels wrong.”

“Never tell me no, Blackbird.”

“Dim?”

A numbing paralysis overcame Blackbird’s body and she found that she could not move. Dim, still straddling her, was sliding down her stomach now, and there was an unwanted electric thrill when she felt his scrotum dragging over her too-taut teats. Demanding that her strength do something, Blackbird willed her body into action, but nothing happened.

“I always take what is mine, Blackbird. Make no mistake, you are mine.”

Dim was between her hind legs now, and she could feel him sliding his length against her quivering, clenching cleft. At any second now, he was going to thrust his way in—and then what? This hadn’t happened before, she was sure of it, and everything about this felt wrong somehow. Why was he doing this? Dim was only a monster to those who had done him wrong. Had she done him wrong somehow? She had failed to get to the market to get his eggs, but surely he wouldn’t do this because of that.

When she felt his wide, flared tip press hard against her throbbing, knob of hardened flesh, Blackbird let out a wordless squeal of terror and somehow, her left foreleg was released from whatever magic had bound it. Her lungs filled with stinging, burning air and just as Dim was about to thrust himself into her, Blackbird found her voice while pointing one claw in Dim’s direction.

She scolded him—“BAD PONY! BAD!”

As if struck by some invisible, terrific force, Dim flew backwards, ragdolling, and struck the door with a thump. A bloody smear was left behind by the impact and it could be seen after he bounced from the wood and fell to the floor. Movement returned to her body and in a frantic panic, Blackbird scrambled away from the mess she had made of Dim, who lay moaning on the floor.

“You dumb fucking CUNT!” Dim’s legs flailed about as a puddle of blood spread ever-wider around him on the floor. “You stupid fucking WHORE!”

“You’re not Dim!” Blackbird screamed while still making a mad scramble to get away. “I don’t know who or what you are, but you can’t be Dim! Not the Dim I know! Impostor!”

“I am going to fucking kill YOU with my dick!” Dim rose, his legs wobbling, and his horn had a fearsome glow about it.

“YOU’RE NOT DIM!” She shrieked while squeezing her eyes shut. “DIM IS MANY THINGS, BUT HE’S NOT THIS! HE’S NOT! I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT! I DON’T WANT TO BELIEVE IT! NO!”

“Blackbird?”

On the verge of shitting herself, Blackbird’s eyes flew open at the sound of her father’s voice. Was she having a dream? Her whole body was soaked with sweat and every muscle felt as though it had electric current coursing through it. Jerking her head round, she tried to make sense of her surroundings so that she might dispel her disorientation.

She was home.

Had she left?

Blinking, she tried to make sense of her father, who was sitting in his threadbare chair. Sweat poured down into her ear canals, which made her want to rub them, but for some reason, she didn’t dare move. Nothing felt right. Just seeing her father filled her with relief, but also terror. He was somehow both familiar and strange.

“Having a bad spell, Blackie?” Stinkberry’s wise eyes seemed sad.

“Bad spell?” Blackbird fumbled to say the words, because for some reason, hearing her father’s voice broke her heart. Just seeing him filled her with grief, but also relief, and she wanted to start bawling.

“The Great War, Blackbird. It left you with bad spells. Terrors. This one must’ve been an awful rotten one.”

“Yeah,” she mumbled, “a bad one.” After a moment, she recovered enough to try and make sense of everything. “Where’s Dim?”

Stinkberry sighed, a forlorn and mournful sound. His eyes glanced to the left and Blackbird too, also turned to look in that direction. Upon the fireplace mantel was a collection of photographs in wooden frames—friends, friends and fellow soldiers in the Great War. She saw Dim’s face staring back at her from one picture, and then her eyes lept from frame to frame. In the largest frame, she saw Dim laid out in his coffin, with a bouquet of flowers tucked between his forelegs.

“No… no… no… Daddy… no… the Great War… how did he die?”

“It wasn’t the Great War that killed him, Blackie… don’t you remember?” Stinkberry’s face wizened with concern.

“No, Daddy… I don’t… I don’t remember…”

“Poor thing… this must be a bad spell.” Stinkberry let out a sigh and then slumped over in his chair. “The pain of living grew too much. Not long after you brought him home, Dim killed himself. He couldn’t bear to keep going. Sometimes, Blackie, the pain of life just becomes a bit too much, and some of us ain’t strong enough to bear it.”

“No…” Blackbird shook her head, because this couldn’t be true. “No… I gave him a reason to keep going. I gave him a reason to get better. I devoted my life to him… my whole existence, Daddy… like you did for mother. Mother… Mom… Mum-Mum…” Her words trailed off into a lingering exhale while she shook her head in denial.

“It wasn’t enough, Blackie. Sometimes, no matter what, it just isn’t enough. Sometimes, the pain of living just grows too great. Living means loss, Blackie. Dim knew only loss. It pained him greatly. So much death, Blackie.”

Blackbird closed her eyes. “Death.” She thought about the fluttering of black wings.

“The Great War caused so much death, Blackie. There’s not a day that goes by that I ain’t grateful that you came home. The whole of the world went to war… entire nations gathered and for a time, it seemed as though the world might end. But that’s over now, and you’re home. I’m just so glad that you’re home. Don’t ever leave home again, Blackie. There’s no good reason to ever leave home again. Everything you could ever want is here.”

A foul, reeking, mouth-wateringly awful stench, the fetor of stinkberries burned Blackbird’s eyes and the dreadful nostril-seeking miasma crept out of the kitchen. She could hear her mother in there and her ears pricked so that she might listen better. Yes, everything she could ever want was here, here at home. Her mother, her father… everything except for Dim, but he was gone. Opening her eyes, she turned to look at the framed photos on the mantel.

The pain of living.

Blinking, Blackbird tried to remember living—she tried to recall coming home with Dim. It felt good to be home again. Home… home with her mother and father. If she had come home, she must have married. If she had married, she must have had a wedding night, a honeymoon. Straining, she tried to dredge up these memories, for surely they were happy memories, even if bittersweet. There had to be something.

But there was nothing.

Nothing at all.

Try as she might, she couldn’t remember anything, and she certainly couldn’t remember the Great War. She recalled a time when she knew it was coming—she could even recollect preparing for it. Eerie… Eerie and all of her wisdom, she had known the war was coming. Perhaps Eerie could sort this out, but that would mean leaving home to find Eerie.

It was a relief when Blackbird realised that she had to go. She had to leave. Eerie would help her to remember. Wise, wonderful Eerie could be trusted. She was fragile, frail, just like Dim. Yes, Blackbird knew that she had to leave home so that she might go to Istanbull and find Eerie. As awful as it would be to leave, she knew it had to be done.

“I gotta go,” Blackbird told her father.

A stern expression crept over Stinkberry’s face and after a few terse seconds, he shook his head from side to side. “No, I don’t think so. You can’t leave, Blackie. These spells of yours… who knows what might happen. It’s not safe.”

The sound of her father’s voice made the blood in Blackbird’s veins turn to ice water. A painful constriction tightened around her heart and she knew too well the consequences of disobeying her father. Stinkberry knew best; a meek, humble, well-behaved Blackbird was a Blackbird that was tolerated and accepted by the community. If she resisted, he might scold her—or worse.

Stinkberry’s scolds were pretty much the worst thing in the world, and perhaps the only thing that could stop a hippogriff dead in their tracks. It worked on her mother, and it worked on Blackbird too. Even the fear of the scold was enough to make her reconsider. If Stinkberry raised his hoof… or worse, if he raised his hoof and his voice, she was done for. Finished. Such a tiny little pony, so helpless looking, but he could flatten a hippogriff with a word.

Terror sank its claws into Blackbird’s heart and a cold, chilly sweat trickled down her ribs. The sofa creaked beneath her bulk—they just didn’t make furniture fit for hippogriffs—and she wondered if she had the courage to defy her father. Maybe if she closed her eyes for a while, she might snap out of this spell. Maybe she would remember on her own, if only she was patient and waited.

Grief and loss were difficult concepts—sometimes incomprehensible. Once more, Blackbird turned to look at Dim’s photos on the mantel, and she longed to see him. To hold him again, to smell him, to have the feel of him sleeping beside her. Yes, she could remember him sleeping beside her, and she recollected the warm feeling of trust that came with sleeping with somepony.

Then, just beside the picture of Dim resting in his coffin, she saw a tiny spider. Now spiders were a common sight in the farmhouse, and when Blackbird had been a little nipper, she had sometimes eaten the spiders she had found—it was a good way to gross out boys. This spider however, was mighty peculiar, because it was waving at her with one foreleg while pointing at one of Dim’s photos with another.

How odd… one of Dim’s photos was moving. Why, she could quite clearly see him shaking his head at her, and he was saying something—his lips were moving. Waving his legs about, the spider danced a little jig on the mantel and then scurried out of sight when Stinkberry turned his head to see what Blackbird had been staring at. Dim’s photo went still and so did Blackbird’s heart.

What had Dim been saying?

Had she gone mad?

Was this one of her turns?

Tearing her gaze away from Dim’s pictures, she glanced over at her father, only to see dry bones sitting in his threadbare chair. Bones. Grief. Loss. The pain of living. The pain of living. Stinkberry was dead and Starling… Starling was gone. She had succumbed to the pain of living and had tumbled back into the bottle. Starling had taken her guns and gone on a killing spree. Blackbird’s mother could not cope with the pain of life, nor the agony of loss.

“I’m sorry, Daddy… as much as I’d love to stay with you, the living need me more. I’m strong enough to face the pain of living… but I don’t think Dim is.” Blackbird had a stunning moment of total recall and a torrent of memories flooded into her grey matter, overwhelming all of her senses. “I’ve faced the pain of disappointment… I’ve seen Dim in a way that broke my heart… and that’s really what I am afraid of, I think. Having my heart broken. But Dim knows the pain of a broken heart as well. The pain of betrayal? Dim has been betrayed. That’s why I can’t give up on him, Daddy.”

A huge lump grew in Blackbird’s throat and it could not be swallowed.

“And now it seems, I am facing some other fear. Daddy, I love you, but I can’t stay. You’re dead. I hate to admit it, but your memory haunts me. I promise that I’ll be a good little Blackbird, at least, as good as I can be… but I have to go to war. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go and collect my shadow. We’re a pair, he and I. Yes… I must go embrace my shadow, and we must become as one.”

“Must you leave?” Stinkberry’s voice could be heard coming from the dry bones and his skull made a sad nod. “With you here, I have life again.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Blackbird tasted bile in the back of her throat. “This isn’t life…”

Author's Notes:

Next chapter: the pain of living.