I am not a stalker.

I did not mean to find Onni again. Or the blue girl, for that matter. I had simply been skulking in caves for far too long, and happened to emerge into society at the same time and location that their paths converged. Sure, I did maybe see Onni, and maybe I thought hey, if there was ever a day to give up my hard-earned solitude it was when I knew I would run into someone I was familiar with (even if it was another earth-damned female), but that didn't make me creepy. I didn't taste the air for their scent, or hide in bushes and photograph them from afar. I didn't lurk on the borders of the Desert and wait for that slightly familiar, painted form to cast her shadow over them; nor did I coast through cloudy skies and pray that a flash of blue would spark by.

I was not a stalker.

But I was lonely, even then. Isolation and bitterness had served me poorly thus far, though at that point of my youth I would be loath to admit it; I had descended from my solitude ostensibly to learn more about the world I'd found myself trapped in, but really I just wanted to talk to somebody. My wings caught the air with practiced ease as I sailed above the world below - far below. The altitude I generally maintained was one that would hurt the lungs of many pegasi, but for one raised on mountains I found the thinner air felt like home. It also meant I saw very little of the individuals who littered Helovia; and though normally I would have kept it that way, today I gave in, descending to brush feathers with the roof of the world.

Green and lovely, even in the fall, the Heavenly Fields are not so unfamiliar to me- but on that day they stank of blood, an entirely unusual and unpleasant scent, emanating from the crazed blue mare I had encountered only once before. I saw her moments after the iron fumes set into my nostrils, a fallen figure in the thinning grass, distant but close enough for my heart to flutter in misplaced concern as recognition flooded through my brain. It was followed shortly by an uncomfortable shot of adrenaline, and in the milliseconds after I found myself hurtling toward the ground below, and Ampere's fallen form. Why? I asked myself irritably, and- Because. Shut up! my brain replied.

The ground flew past, and I crashed into it gracelessly, landing a length from where the sparky mare lay. Earth exploded beneath my hooves, the ground torn asunder by the force of my bulk; I spun around awkwardly, hurriedly, thinking of nothing but making sure she was okay, and blinked.

Onni stood beside the fallen mare, somehow unnoticed until this moment. Oh.

It seemed I was doomed to always act the fool in front of this girl.

Stupidly I blinked at the painted mare, wondering how on earth I had found myself in this position, again. Trying to make sure someone I didn't care about in the slightest was safe, and winding up standing dumb in Onni's eyes, looking like some compassionate moron when I clearly was not. I just... wasn't heartless. Could she really fault me for that? My ears flicked back, and I shuffled uncomfortably, muscles tense and wings ready to propel me away. To my chagrin, I have to admit that Ampere's prone form lay temporarily forgotten. I glared at the girl through tired, two-tone eyes, and dare her to comment, to smile that beaming grin, to glow at me like the cheerful, incorrigible child she was.

Then the smell of blood hit me again, and I looked down at the body which lay between our silence. "Oh," I stated blankly, realizing in a quiet panic that I had no idea what to do.


[ Posting with permission from Blu :3 ]

out of the ashes, we rise again