comfort from a great sorrow

The molly and the stallion stood there, watching as the world burned. Screams of anguish rose, the stench of burnt flesh made the molly shy away. She hid her head behind the piebald's black and white shoulder. She couldn't bare to look, but her sensitive long ears heard the screams of terror and mortality. Her nostrils inhaled the char. She winced and buried her face deeper into the stallion's chest.

"Make it stop, Shatter. Make it right again," the molly pleaded wildly, unable to take the crushing pain of death all around her. She keened wildly, her long face thrown towards the sky, her soul rent with agony. The piebald just stood there, watching the chaos below with uncaring blue eyes. Once this would have scarred him, once he would have cried as the molly did. But no more. He was numb to this pain. But what rent his soul was the molly's desperate bellow.

And his blue eyes closed. He turned his muzzle towards the mule, she brought her nose down and they touched, eyes closed. A wish passed between the two of them in that moment. A secret wish that turned everything in this ruined world right again.

"Just this one, give me just this one. Let everyone live."