Amidst Deception

Chapters

Short Preamble
5 years on...
Yesterday's Problems
Unfamiliar Faces
The Fallout
An unlikely friendship
The song of something
Hidden in plain sight
Places forgotten
Long way from home

Short Preamble

A lonely long shadow stretched an open plain. The shadow belonged to a stallion, a stallion of the Apple name. He trod wearily out in the expanse of the desert where his hooves crisped from the cruel day’s sun.

Somewhere, out in the haze faded distance flew a brigade of Pegasi. They stood out thanks to the glistening armour which weighed heavy on their backs.

Down below the pure filtration of the aquifers cascaded a mighty waterfall. A meek oasis lay in its wake. The golden sands spanned so far that nopony could see from one side to the other.

But this is jumping ahead a bit. Our story begins in a town you might well have heard of. Our tale begins in the lively livery of yet to be lived dreams of Appaloosa.

Shutters shut and doors pulled to as the kiss of the cold night air lulled weakly their sleepy heads. One looked from above, a reservation upon a pinnacle, and took note of a couple not answering the Moon Princess’s call. But, again, this is for later on.

Our story begins in a petit café, two pairs of eyes lock across a mishmash woven table. What seemed like so long ago waited to trip them at the very next hurdle.

Let us begin, the scene is set, the dreams in full bloom. Two ponies gazed sweetly onto one and other under the lonely…

Wondering…

Moon…

5 years on...

Long have the days passed since the Caterlotians turned tail and fled at the mere mention of the deadly nightshades. And though the Appaloosians, few they might be compared to the crammed silken streets of the capital, were far from the harrowing events that nearly toppled the cherished procession, they still felt the soul destroying aftermath.

It had been close to five years from when the hole-drilled queen’s plans were scuppered by something as novel as love. A stallion and his marefriend revelled in this memory, the two of them laughed at the mere mention of the dark-souled changelings. They toasted with glasses of freshly pressed juice in the cool evening breeze, one of them hailed from a family more vast than a certain Ghastly Gorge.

One of the pair broke the choke-hold of silence and sang to his other “do you ever wonder?” The mare across swirled the juice with the motion of her hoof. “Care to wonder about what?”

The stallion pushed his chair back and went to his love’s side; he looked up adoringly in the demeaning likeliness of a loyal puppy. She adored him also, they were after all together in the paling light, and not a soul was wandering the sanded paths. “What were you saying Brae?” She pressed, she followed the rouse her dashing stallion presented and proceeded to pat him on the pole.

He purred at the closeness he shared with her and looked up, his eyes an enchanting emerald display of utter focus. He rested the puppy-dog eyes on the lap of his love and made a gentle nickering on her thigh. She flinched at the motoring quality of his lips as they travelled on up her leg.

“Do you ever wonder what life would be like without love” Brae finally finished his previously fragmented sentence. His love looked back down reposed yet almost embarrassed at the same instance. She almost needed to pause and check her mental calendar as she presumed he was making an April Foal’s joke. Brae, his head still inserted near the mare’s crotch, lifted his gaze. His love paused a little age longer until she finally lost her fight with a teary laughter and exploded.

“A world without love?” She mercilessly mocked the one she called Brae. “I suppose the next thing you’ll be saying is, what if there is a world without chairs” She continued to berate at her other’s expense. Brae raised an unimpressed eyebrow to the display.

“I’m being serious Puddin’ Pop, just imagine what life would be like.” The mare didn’t look flattered by the desert based pet name she had been endowed with. She stared daggers at her beau a moment before she rested her gaze on the crisscrossing pattern in the table. She made a noise so quiet a pin drop could be heard.

“I don’t want to imagine that Braeburn. Life without you, it just aint worth living.” Braeburn hadn’t expected such a low-profile reception to his meaningless prose. He bided his time before trying to resolve the tempered air.

“I didn’t mean to upset you Constance. You know what I’m like sometimes.” She obviously remembered the vision of tomfoolery she had snagged and regaled Brae with a smattering of laughter. She laid her hooves outstretched across the table and closed her eyes. In the cool evening breeze her mane whipped over her face, each golden blonde lock cascaded along her features. Braeburn dreamily watched the starry night; his eyes followed the show of celestial delight instead of being fixed on his lover’s outreached hooves. He snapped out of his transcendent habit and slammed his hooves down on top of Constance’s.

SLAM!

She drew her appendages in, shocked at the rather abrupt return of her favour. She stole a brief gaze into the heavens before her gaze flicked back to Brae. “You’re always getting distracted Brae, it makes me worry” She aired her concerns.

Braeburn plucked his timber-hued cowboy hat and planted it in between his hooves. He knew where his love was coming from when she said his attention would often stray. Braeburn collected himself and stretched a hoof into the centre of the table.

“You’re the only mare for me Constance Pear, nothing at all to be getting het up about.”

Constance felt the rekindled fire of their love but also a liquescent fire in her marehood. She grinned haphazardly before escaping the awkward silence and retreating to the little-mare’s-room. Braeburn sank in to his chair and caught sight of the majestic theatre of epic proportions which was to never end. He wished his relationship could resemble the simple infinity that the heavens portrayed but alas he knew things weren’t built to last. As he spied miniscule galaxies and the minutest parsecs of space he couldn’t help but feel small and helpless. He took a quick check over at the conveniences metres from where he sat and pondered what it was exactly mare’s did in the porcelain dungeons that made them spend an eternity inside of them.

Brae repositioned himself and reposed his outreached hoof as the door creaked open. Constance bashfully reclaimed her seat and glided a hoof towards the one already perched on the crisscross of metal down below.

“Did you get lost in there?” Brae jested while flexing his aching outstretched hoof. The mare across the way found this joke to be a shade on the insulting side and slammed her hoof down on to Braeburn’s.

SLAM!

Brae’s cheek burned cherry red as he pawed his hurting hoof. Constance seemed lighter than the air she breathed that night, though her opinion of herself was as damning as ever.

“I was meant to be on a diet! I was supposed to be losing weight! Braeburn!” the doubtful mare whined, clapping her hooves as thought to achieve some sort of immediate solution from her colt-friend’s mouth.

“You’re beautiful to me Connie! I don’t care what your magazines and such parade! You are perfect to me in every way!”

Brae had uttered the words that Constance did not want to hear. These words confirmed what the self-loathing mare already thought. Constance coiled one hoof over the other where in which she made a pillow unto which her doubtful head sank.

“I’m fat!” Braeburn was squeamish to this manner of conversation; he pried himself free from the binds of the chair, sneaking behind his lamenting marefriend. She was to be truthful a little on the large side. Brae tugged back the chair from beneath his love and caught her as she fell. She turned back to him, a mixture of anger and sadness bled from her captivating amber eyes. Brae raised her up so high others might have thought she were a shining star.

“You’re weightless to me” he swooned. He let the pearlescent beauty return to her hooves and then himself settled back at his seat.

She gave him a certain look, one that derived a sort of hunger in his mind. Brae wasn’t in to drugs; he didn’t drink all that much either, but one thing he couldn’t deny was he was hooked. But whether it was love or lust was up in the air. He dove over the crisscrossing tapestry and returned a puppy-dog stare up to his mistress. Constance, still erect, tightly fixed her hoof around Braeburn’s and rushed off down the sanded lane.

Overlooking Appaloosa>

Elsewhere a herd of buffalo grazed off of an oasis of green in the expansive yellow plain. Some returned to the warm burning fire which stemmed from the centre of the tribal homestead. The smallest of the buffalo remained perched on the cliff’s edge, she watched the sleepy town below, and she imagined how things might have been. The little buffalo with the strong heart then beamed her gaze to where her brothers grazed and left the cliff-side precipice alone for the night.

The fire invited the denizens in the tundra-like desert evening like moths to a flame. The chieftain praised a something he saw in the fire, a spirit he confided in, a voice that only he could hear. He chanted rough incantations into the dancing light show of violet and orange until the night grew too cold for even he. The little buffalo approached the beacon and basked in its glow.

“Two city ponies are still awake.” She informed. The chieftain snapped from his trance-like state and cocked an uncaring eyebrow to the runt’s remark.

“Why do you watch them Little-Strong-Heart? Do you long to be there instead of here?” A few pairs of eyes rested on the pair speaking at the fireside. Little-Strong-Heart kicked sand into the flames, a plume of golden haze jettisoned from the inferno. She in some way knew his words had merit, she envied the townsfolk and their different ways, she often dreamed of what it would be like to live by a new roster of rules whilst she played audience to the dazzling light show in the sky.

“Do you think they see the same sky?” The inquisitive calf extended a chiselled hoof towards the heavens. The chieftain stumbled both over his words and over his own self.

“They don’t appreciate it… they are too busy… life in the town is far too hectic for one young calf like you.”

Strong-Heart cursed her birth rite, she was outland borne, but she was also a soul split between two separate paths. She bowed her head and chewed at a remote patch of green. She ground the shrubs between her teeth, the lump of tasteless sludge then slipped down her throat. Strong-Heart bewildered her onlookers as she fell to her haunches in submission.

“I bet it’s romantic, the night sky I mean…” she proposed before a peppering of salts rushed into the fire and thusly formed another great plume of multi-tonal splendour.

Thundering hooves was from a long lineage of chieftains; his father before him saw the first eclipse across the lands, and many generations before that, his ancestor first stampeded on the sacred grounds that the buffalo called their home. He pulled a scowl at his daughter’s wondering eye.

“The sky would be romantic down there, but none who live there see it.” Strong-Heart bounded back up to meet the ungracious face of her father.

“Are you saying all the settlers are blind?” Thundering relaxed his forehead and rubbed it tenderly with his hoof.

“I am saying they do not see the true beauty of nature for they only seek to destroy.” A few loose necks gifted Thundering hooves with a boost to his ego as they gestured to commend his infallible knowledge. The tiny calf stole a demur look over to where she perched and watched the town.

“They aren’t all the same you know; those ponies down there could teach us so much.”

Thundering’s displeasure at his daughter’s betraying train of thought eked out a side of him he sought to keep under wraps “When they want more land they will kill us, every last one, they will have weapons we cannot imagine and they will have blood-lust only matched by the manticore and ursa beasts.”

Little-Strong-Heart had broken away from the congregation, using her father’s damning speech as a decoy. She scurried for the peak of land where she observed the world below and pointed a hoof to a couple, alone, out in the cold evening air, they had been sharing a feeling only scoffed at in the clan.

“They’re in love” Strong-Heart whispered back towards her fuming father.

Thundering paced up the edge of one world and the gateway to the next and scoffed further at the display. He didn’t say anything at first, the hopeful calf at his stead pointed out the couple once again “look down there father, does that look evil to you?”

By the time the aged bull had craned his neck the couple down below had rushed away hoof in hoof. He let out a breathy chortle before erupting in a storm of bellowing laughter.

“I see this love you speak of Little-Strong-heart, only it leaves much to be desired!”

Strong-Heart glowered at her father; she then resumed her role as voyeur and glanced at where the couple had been. She was nearly thrown from the cliff by the playful tap of Thundering’s hoof against her rump “They are not romancers, these wonderers you watch, they are simply sex pests”

Constance’s Boudoir>

Constance freed her bed of the littered screwed-up diary pages and sodden tissue paper and presented herself upon it. Brae followed suit and assumed his role on top. Constance gazed up with demur saturated in her eyes; she launched her hooves over his neck and brought his head into her bust. Constance giggled as a hoof crept up in between her legs.

“Oh Brae, we have to be quiet.” Braeburn shifted his yellow streamlined physique along the pearlescent body beneath him. He caught sight of his love’s pursed lips and reacquainted them with his own. He removed the hoof from where it was concealed in her crotch and brought it up to Constance’s face. They shared a salacious moment in sweet embrace.

Constance guided her steed with her eyes, she wanted for him to go down on her that night. The only issue which threatened her plan was the stud atop her was a dolt. He didn’t read her blatant message, he continued massaging her tongue with his and caressing her voluptuous form. They made eyes across the small space between their noses and suddenly something clicked in the fatuous stallion’s head.

“Oh, we’re to be quiet, I shan’t be speaking then” he leered, lowering his skinny yet muscular form down to where his head was in line with her fruity cutie mark. He wrapped his lips around the curious shape and mimicked the same action he had taken to please her mouth.

His tongue felt alien and wrong inside the mare’s virgin marehood, she let a tear roll out from her eye and emitted bizarre lustful moans at the stroke of each subsequent lick. She clung to his tanned two-toned mane and forced him closer to the depths of her marehood. His tongue now lashed at her Pandora’s Box, searching around the inner walls and strange inward and outward protruding structures till he found nirvana.

The mare couldn’t contain her pleasure, she moaned Longley in the rich sensation of tongue against clitoris. The mare stole a sly look down at the stifle of the steed; she smiled as it winked at her, a proud member, standing to attention. He spread her legs to both cardinal points of the bed and upped his efforts on her sensitive area. She convulsed a few times before screaming.

“Oh dear Celestia…”

The stallion left his mouth obediently over her slit; he puffed out his cheeks as if he had just taken a long drink. Brae pulled himself away as a dull tapping resonated behind him. Before him stood a mare and a stallion, both wore a pear reminiscent cutie mark and both shared the same disgusted look. The generous stallion whipped around, he failed to swallow the shot of pear liquor that sat in his mouth. The pater of grey coat reassuringly clutched his wife’s hooves before storming a war path for the wayward stallion.

“Braeburn I presume?” The Pater scolded, his teeth bared. Constance shivered continually on the bed sheets as brae looked the parents in the eye with both his eyes as well as his still engorged member. He tried to speak and spewed out the drabs of sordid solution he had resting on his tongue. The Matriarch screamed and fled the room.

The pater remained; he threw his daughter a disapproving glare and set his sights on the felon in his eyes “Get out of my house!”

Once upon a lonely porch>

In a secluded branch of Appleoosian wasteland lived an old rocking chair. And upon this rocking chair sat the oldest dweller of the desperate lands, his jaw a jowl, his eyes tired, he swayed back and forth in the dying daylight. He chewed on a wad of tobacco to dull his rheumatoid pains. He gazed up into the inky blackness and let out a deep sigh.

“Things just aint the same anymore, I can hardly remember my golden years.” The old coot battled with gravity on his brief struggle from the swinging chair, once aloft he forgot what it was he got up for and promptly sat back down. He had been there since the first settlers had found and named the dustbowl of a town; he had reaped the benefits of the first Apple Family harvest in the dells and was the first to endure the great pie famine. He pushed back with his weak legs to get things swinging again and whistled a little number unrecognisable to anypony who heard it, and anypony who did ask was promptly shot down. He was an experienced hoof from the times of mining and mare inequality, and as such his behaviour around mares had much to be desired. He scratched an itch on his rakish spine and spied the faint outline of a certain sun-kissed stallion escaping from one of the houses.

The old boot was one Jeremiah Thicket, the once sheriff of the one-horse town. He leaned from his chair and snapped a hoof towards Braeburn “Now you ought to be leaving Miss Pear alone.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, the aged stallion rose from his chair and tucked his cane under his arm. He walked with a hirple towards the youthful stallion “I’m thinkin’ you got caught in the act.”

“Don’t you worry about me, Master Apple; I’m just old and creaky.” Braeburn gleaned some comfort from his run in with the close-to-the-grave stallion. Jeremiah spat a glob of tobacco into a pail across the way, the projectile carcinogen let out a blighting pang as it hit the pail.

PING!

Thicket scanned braeburn’s younger, fitter body “you get yourself home now. If ponies see your fifth leg flapping around they are gonna drive you out of town.” Brae, embarrassed, tucked his head between his forelegs and admired his yet-to-sleep member.

“Oh I see your point.” he choked back laughter, not wanting to look more foolish than he already did. Jeremiah rolled his eyes.

“I can certainly see your point.” The gesture was spurring enough for Braeburn to slink away and hurry for his home.

Overlooking Appaloosa>

Elsewhere, on a sleepy plateau a clan of buffalo dreamed the night away. One small calf however didn’t share in the clan’s slumber. She lay prone at the peak of land, an observatory for the rich diversified utopia that lay below. Little-Strong-Heart knew not the depravity which had taken place in Appaloosa; she was blissfully ignorant of the evils which were commonplace under every gold-dusted rooftop. She abandoned the viewing platform and returned to the silent clan homeland.

Amid the selection of multi-tonal wigwams was the home the chieftain shared with his daughter. Strong-Heart peeled back the cow hide sheeting that covered the entrance and quietly hoof tipped into the vacuole of the den. Thundering, her reluctant father, snored violently atop his bed of straw. The littlest buffalo cautiously stepped over the lump of lowly growling matter on route to her own straw construct of a bed. Once safely clear of any risk of waking her father, the calf folded her legs underneath her and nestled into the fibrous roost.

Again, upon a lonely porch>

The beady eye of the lawmaker had not left him. He rocked in his chair on his hoof-made porch and hummed out a tune so unmistakeably made-up. Upon his knee lazed a sorry-looking banjo, it had missing strings, it had a stink of decay about it, it had once housed a small family of wood pigeons, but it was Jeremiah’s most treasured possession.

He plucked a string which promptly snapped, he tried to stretch the wiry thread back to its housing amongst the other frets along the stem. The fragile old thing was once a highly strung part in a small string quartet that used to play at the annual Appleoosian Harvest Festival. Unfortunately for Sheriff Thicket, the banjo presented a meticulous mend to his rheumatoid caramel hooves.

He allowed the poor-looking banjo to rest on the porch floor; he patted his knees before winching his way out of the rocking chair, and sent himself inside. He travelled all the distance from one teetering seat to another. He perched his bony behind upon the precarious edge of the chair and screwed a hoof on a small wooden box. The small box burst into life and effortlessly replayed country and western songs from times of old.

Jeremiah tapped his hoof along to the rhythm which sprung from the radio, he bobbed his head a little too, and in some places where he knew a word or two he’d try his hoof at singing. Cats menacingly prowled the streets that night but even their out-of-tune yowls and screeches were no match for the sheer tone-deaf manner with which Jeremiah squealed. The coot heard the protest of the outward-bound alley cats and ceased the radio transmission before he stopped his butchering of classical power ballads and line dancing ditties alike.

The lonely old soul searched his soul as he gazed at a framed photograph on to which cascaded a stream of saline tears, ruined beneath the tears was the last image of Jeremiah’s dear departed wife. Newly retired, the silver-backed stallion spent all of his days dwelling on his losses and his failings of which there were plenty to choose from. He regretted the day he let her from his sight, how she commuted to Canterlot at the same time as the changeling fiasco. He gazed closer into the very fabric of the image “the love of the prince and Cadence thwarted the shadow queen, but the love we had, we still have, could have banished her to the depths of Tartarus itself.”

He placed the photo back to where it had leaned for the last 5 years. He didn’t make use of the bed he had once shared, he feared it like her ghost still lingered betwixt the sheets, so he leaned his head back in the unruly hard wooden seat and blew out the candle which flickered on the side.

The Apple Household>

Braeburn Apple layered the streets with broken hearts; he was what some would refer to as a Lothario. He knew what to say to get mares into bed, he understood the minds of the creatures he lusted after so, he felt no remorse for the hearts that lay split, and he didn’t even write to them to tell them why. At the end of the torturous lane of scattered vital organs sat the proud Apple homestead. Into this stead sneaked the wily, self-assured, flatterer of the many. In through the house the stallion crept, each step practised to miss every squeaking board. Soon Braeburn happened upon the door to his bedroom proper and he twisted the knob. The rapscallion patted his hooves clean of another successful bedroom venture and pulled the sheets over his head whilst he slipped into bed.

Brae reminisced about the sheer volume with which his latest conquest came. He recalled his near inability to keep the salvo of saline sourness in his cheeks and he joyfully remembered the look on her overprotective father’s face. A priceless look, one that couldn’t fail to widen the smile of the steed as he let his heavy eyelids, gravid with the trials of the day, fall so that he could finally end his waiting for the bounty of dreams and the new dawn.

The Pear Household<

On the other hoof fretted a heart broken mare. Constance demanded of herself why a catch such as Brae had picked her above others and why he had then usurped her. She felt betrayed, mortified, unbalanced, peckish, nauseous, angry, and horny all at the same time. She then looked down into her fresh satin sheets to discover a contrasting stain of bloody scarlet right in the centre of it.

She rolled onto her side, vulnerable, and gripped tightly on to her pillow. She eventually left her wallow and set eyes on the washroom across the landing. This was a normal thing, something her mother had explained when it first occurred. She unsheathed a large cotton bung and inserted it thusly into herself. It was truly unpleasant feeling but it was an evil necessary, and a task she was by now well versed in. It still felt wrong to her, to haemorrhage blood at such a rate and not die, but her sweetheart of a mother assured her it was all parts and parcel of growing up and becoming a mare.

Yesterday's Problems

The sunlight kissed every inch of Appaloosa, all across the homes and hides ponies woke to a blinding new morning. One pony however was too spent to move a muscle, especially not his left foreleg. He tossed a stinking rag off of his snout and went back to snoring. One part of him had woken up before his mind could catch up, as a mother’s hoof cracked at the door Braeburn anxiously tried to pat the lump in his quilt down.

He gave up trying to subdue the beast and instead hooked his leg over it. His mother opened the door, she had a tray of tea upon her hooves, and she set the ornate pieces of china down and sat on the end of Brae’s bed. Brae twisted and jostled his legs from beneath her generous rump and as he freed his legs from the weight his fifth leg made a daring dash for freedom.

“Surely tea can’t be that exiting” the flabbergasted matriarch of amber coat commented. Braeburn tried desperately to resume his hooked leg pose but failed immeasurably. Next through the door was a skinny sand-stone stallion. He haltered at the door as if he had a rider and they had tugged hard on his bit. The pater tried to avoid the awkward stare of the eye without a face as Brae’s member penetrated his quilt. Braeburn slammed his hooves down on his mattress.

“Can y’all just get out of my room?!” He cried in protest as his nirvana was spoilt by the prying patron and the curious matron.

The couple looked at each other and laughed wholeheartedly.

“It’s his room now is it? Well, well, well, some ponies these days” the pater jested. The other looked on in astonishment at her son before she turned and left the room.

The parent whom still dwelled in the dank sweltering tomb of a room marched up to his progeny and smacked him hard across the glans. “Don’t ever let your mother see that thing again! I will not stand for this attitude you have developed recently, now put that thing away and keep it there!”

Brae was successfully silenced by the bruising of his gluttonous extra-leg. His father waited by him, expecting a response, all he got was a covering of vomit around his fetlocks. Braeburn tossed over in his bed as to not look at his ball-busting father. He made a few fake snoring sounds until he felt the judgemental stare no longer.

Overlooking Appaloosa>

Up early in the sanded prairie a young buffalo calf stretched her athletic limbs before she peeled back the animal pelt ‘door’ and met the new day head-on. She trotted along to the viewing platform atop the cliff’s edge and watched things unfold below. In the wake of the morning, fillies and colts were readied for schooling and sent with lunch packed to the only school in town. Drunken miscreants fell over themselves and pleaded forgiveness from their blind-to-it wives.

Something most Appleoosians would not appreciate was the twinkling, shining, reflective grains of sand as they shone the rays back like the glass they will one day be. As the light piqued the intrigue of small scavenger birds and larger predatory birds, the day fell into swing.

The response that trailed from the calf’s lips would change the relationship she shared with her father forever. She stole another glance down to the hustle and bustle and decreed. “who do I pray to? If ponies pray to their alicornous goddesses… then who answers my prayers?”

Thundering searched his mind for an answer befitting the question but nothing arises. He turned his protégé around and held her head fast.

“Out there are the spirits of our forefathers and forbearers, they watch and guide us from the guiding wing of the great eagle.” Strong-Heart was unperturbed by the rapturous thinking of her father, she broke free of his grip and stared into the scavenger skies.

“Where is this eagle? All I see are buzzards and vultures.” The honoured pater was thrown aback by his charge’s blasphemous sentiment; he closed his eyes in solace and returned to the clan circle.

Little-Strong-Heart resumed her scanning of the quant city scene which unravelled below. She pivoted her head over to one side before her vision was blocked by a rakish old gentlecolt. He had rested upon his knee a sorry-looking banjo that had seen better days. He was casually slumped at the observer’s paradise, his mottled legs hung long over the deep chasm. He brought the instrument up for use and strummed a chord up along the frets. He sounded awful, like a cat giving fellatio to a helium balloon pump, the screeching unbearable.

POING

Another string snapped on the banjo and it was placed respectfully down on the edge of the steep escarpment. Jeremiah turned to the calf. “Beautiful morning don’t you think?”

This was one of the few opportunities Little-Strong-Heart attained to speak to the settlers; she tilted her head and hung it low as she approached the stranger. As she drew closer her confidence blossomed until she very purposefully cleared her throat. “Were you talking to me?”

Jeremiah looked up to the weary calf with an expression of harmlessness and innocence; he twisted around and shot a hoof forward. “The name’s Jeremiah Thicket, I used to run things around here.”

The hoof remained extended, never to be shaken. The caramel stallion refused his offer of a hoof-shake and smiled. “Maybe our people’s customs differ, however you say hello?”

Strong-Heart contemplated conversing with the not so much a stranger and flicked the feather bound around her pole “we say how… Only kidding, I think we wave or something like that.”

Jeremiah absorbed the information easily and regurgitated it in the form of rapidly waving hoof. “Howdy!” He beamed.

Strong-Heart poked at the worn instrument to only be gifted by a further ping and the last string snapping upon it.

The old stallion retrieved his prized possession and cradled it up against his chest. “What call was there for that?”

The brash notion of carelessness was not well received; the little calf spoke impertinently “why are you carrying around the old heap anyway?”

As soon as the sentiment reached the silver-back’s ears he died a mite inside. He cherished his memory closer than before, he averted his gaze from the little bloody-minded calf, and Strong-heart did the same, a divide formed.

Some time passed on the ridge on the plateau which swallowed the sleepless town below. From behind the old sheriff came a stifling grunt, he turned to the disturbance and before him was a well-built buffalo. Chief Thundering Hooves gave out a stare which could frighten the very spikes right off of the cacti. “What business do you have here? These are our homelands.”

With a reluctant sigh, Jeremiah raised to meet the steaming nostrils of the chieftain. He held on with all his might to the instrument he treasured, the buffalo chief cocked an awful glare and swiped the banjo from Jeremiah’s arms.

Thicket spun around and leaned all the way down, but before his hoof could reach the splintered mass, a massive weight bore down on him. Some early risers of the clan came to show support to the commander and chief, they soon arrived in swathes; they positioned themselves along the outskirts of the encampment.

“What’s the hol’ up?” Jeremiah challenged, his hoof finally clutched the banjo, but his once found common ground with the buffalo was now assisting in his crushing demise. Thundering took the pressure off of the crone’s back and made a grab for the banjo. Jeremiah held on as well he could but the sheer physical prowess of the chief prevailed, granting him the spoils.

Jeremiah wheezed through his efforts but eventually returned to his hooves. Thundering reared up to present his victory to his clan; they adulated him, even his daughter, quick of mind, joined in the insanity. The sight of the bedraggled caramel stallion tickled a hard-to-find nerve on the chieftain, he broke out into laughter. “Did you see how he feared me brothers? He positively urinated all over himself at my very presence!”

Thundering Hooves needed to keep up certain bravado to ascertain the loyalty of his brothers, it was not just a term of respect after all, and indeed every last buffalo there was a progeny of Thundering’s loins. Little-Strong-Heart was first to cease the inane hyena like behaviour, she begged that the others followed suit but none would be as neutral nor as humble as her.

A couple of fraternal buffalo brothers skipped merrily on by to where they tended to their longing stomachs, they would spend most of their lives trying to satisfy a hunger that could never be quenched. A fuming young calf broke out from the ranks and raised a question to the chieftain. “How can you be so ignorant?”

Thundering gave the question no space in his mind, not that there was much mind to spare in the first place, he blew warm air from his nostrils and turned away. Strong-Heart reasserted herself and confronted the belligerent dictator, once her clean-souled father, and looked him painfully in the eyes. “You say you fear the change when it is you who has changed. Why do you still hate your hoofed cousins so much?”

To say Thundering Hooves was proud was the understatement of the century. He looked within himself to perhaps find some semblance of his past life, but underneath his cold exterior lay the same cold soul. He cursed in his mind and threw a harrowing glare at his youngest. “If you love them so much, then go be with them.”

The Pear Household>

A jovial mare stood proud in the shower. She spread her legs and wiped a loofa through them. The events of last night were still a hazy blur to her; she blushed as she drew a line in the misted shower screen, a hoof rested on her mouth as she grinned at the sensational feelings from the night before. She was not so dumb, not a bimbo Brae would usually go for, and she was actually a student of art at the royal Canterlot Academy.

She swung back the screen and took a tepid step out; she caught a hazed reflection of her being in the washroom wall and almost broke down into tears. Constance, besides being a beautiful mind, was a manic depressive. If it weren’t for the most eligible bachelor in Appaloosa’s advances she would have slit her fetlocks, straight up river, long before. Constance’s mother Patience cooed at the door “Constance? My little pear blossom, are you in there still?”

A silence clung in the air. Constance’s heart jumped as a spider scuttled across the shined tiled bathroom floor and disappeared into her strewn out attire. Another voice percolated through the hollows of the door “time to come out now Constance. There are others in this house you know.”

Bartlett Pear was not a stallion to mess with, he was honest to goodness now, but in his hay-day he was revered for his shortness of temper. The stallion, sometime later, still ushered clout with his every word “Constance Pear! You get your hide out here this instant!”

Patience was a meek specimen to behold; she was frail at even a tender age, which was probably why Bartlett was so protective over her. The door lulled open and Constance, posed in a sort of an anguished crawl, crept past her guardians. The atmosphere was so thick it would've crushed the family if chance came to be.

Bartlett stepped across the landing and planted himself on his daughter’s drenched tail. “And where do you think you are going? You were told to never let that depraved little cretin near you.”

“After he broke your heart I thought you would have been done with him.” Patience swatted her husband’s hoof from atop Constance’s flank-proximate locks. “Don’t you dare manhandle her Bartlett; she hasn't put a hoof wrong.”

Bartlett returned his hoof in shock; he curled it over and rubbed it sensitively. “She’ll never learn if you pussy-foot around her Patience! She needs rules, otherwise she’s gonna run amuck like this every other day and we’re the one…”

The father’s rant was cut short by a meek hoof slapped across his mouth; the owner of the hoof stood her ground. “Everypony has to make their mistakes; we weren't so different you and I.”

Bartlett pawed his burning cheek and turned his attention to his portly daughter, he thought back to a time when he was up to no good and a certain somepony pulled him out of the gutter. He swallowed a hard lump of pride which had formed in his throat. “Fine, I can’t control who you like, I guess you do have to make your own mistakes… er umm I meant decisions.”

Constance brightened up to the new insight into her parents’ chemistry; she threw a gentle smile to her folks and went about her morning business.

Once out of the door the mare let out a deep uncontrollable sigh before she danced off through the thick lashings of grass which grew in troves about her home. In great contrast to the dustbowl which engulfed the vast majority of Appaloosa proper, the Pear house hold stood proud in a rare green oasis. It didn’t take more than a few minutes before Constance had reached the home of her love. She clapped a hoof against the door and waited patiently, the body she craved was still wrapped up in his sweaty sheets, and she called up to his window. “Don’t keep me waiting Brae!”

She peered up to Braeburn’s bedroom and saw his face peeking from below the sill; another face however joined him on the bed, another mare. Constance didn’t know what to think, she cracked her hoof up against the door again with a greater sense of urgency. A stallion finally answered the door, he was nearly the same colour as her love, he shared the same befitting hat, he shared the eyes of Braeburn as well, but he was somepony else.

“Yes, can I help you?” The stallion greeted. Gillyflower Apple was as meek, if not more so, as Constance’s frightfully underfed mother. He wore a Tannersee Bolo tie, to mark his birth place, as well as a rather aged ten-gallon hat. Constance gifted the tired father a friendly glance before withdrawing back into herself “is umm… is Braeburn in?”

The stallion looked to be physically checking around himself, he spied up the stairs and craned his neck around the front room doorway before he shook his head. “No such luck.”

Constance was prepared to leave it at that, she then recalled the face watching from the window, she confronted Gillyflower and prodded him upside the chest. He fidgeted with his tie as he regained his composure. Constance pried further. “Are you sure? I saw him from out here, why are you covering for him? Why… I saw another mare up there! Is he playing me for a fool?” She cried as she uttered the last damning syllables before she scanned her eyes over her body and walked away.

“Another mare…” Gilly exasperatedly spoke as he rushed up the stairs to the bedroom.

Braeburn groaned at the pleasant release of bodily fluids “oh my, Gem Emerald, you’ve done this before.”

The door blasted open and the limp mare companion ensconced herself under the covers. Brae recognised the ghostly figure at the door through his glazed-over eyes; he lazily attempted to retract himself from the copulative situation he had found himself in. Gilly stormed to the bed and threw the sheets off, to his horror and disgust his son’s friend was sucking greedily on the end of a dark lengthened object.

The mare squinted in reception of the salty Hors d’oeurves she gleaned from her early morning snack. She opened her eyes and planted them on the stranger in the room. She swallowed hard, a gushing of fluid spiralled down into her stomach, before she panted and rolled off of Braeburn. She threw a hoof and sent it to embrace her warm squeeze but she grabbed nothing but thin air.

Gillyflower dragged his son from the defiled linens and throttled him against a chest of drawers. “I told you to keep that thing out of my sight! That’s the last straw! You can no longer stay here son! Now get out go my house!”

The cum-soaked mare who was incumbent, exhausted on the bed, licked her deprived lips before kicking back her legs and disbanding the mattress.

“And you, I think you’re as much to blame as my boorish boy.” Gilly directed at Gem, he launched a purity hoof ring which thusly smacked against her moist rump. “Have some fucking self-respect!”

Brae was slumped against the dresser still, his pride was in tatters, Gilly was soon joined by his wife.

Bailey Apple was a sight to behold, she was always dressed to impress and still retained a good figure after birthing a foal, even one born with such an inherently bulbous head. She stood united with her husband and sent the message home that Braeburn had broken his promise.

Bailey approached her semi-aroused charge and looked him listlessly in the eyes. “You broke another heart, Brae Burnington Apple; you were given so many chances.”

Braeburn froze at the mention of his full name; he coldly stared back into the faintly faded faces and scoffed at the sentiment. Gilly stroked his hoof through the angelic dark-blonde locks of Bailey’s mane. “I won’t tell you again son, pack some things, have some breakfast, but don’t let me see you unjustly smug face here again.”

Braeburn thawed through his rage, he snorted hot air and smiled gladly at his parents. “Y’all wouldn’t throw me out. Mum might have, but you definitely haven’t the balls! You’re a sorry old stallion!”

The Appleoosian Apples were all earth ponies, no extravagant lineage at all, and as such they had simple morals and a simple mantra that a pony daren’t stray from. One moral above all drove the decision for Braeburn’s expulsion, ‘thou shalt respect thy mother and thy father’.

The promiscuous stallion had desecrated so many other unwritten laws, he had abused the trust his parents once gave him, and he had burned his bridge home. Just as Braeburn brushed past the threshold to the outside world, a force tugged at his tail. He turned to investigate, his mother was there. She held out a small trash bag of odd clothes. “Good luck sweetie” she chirped.

Braeburn didn’t gift her any of his energy as he ungratefully snatched the bindle and wondered aimlessly into the foreboding world.

The Pear Household>

A little less than ten minutes before, a distraught mare returned to her home on the lone patch of grass. She gained solace in the arms of her mother, Patience, and gleaned not a word from her father, Bartlett. The stallion tried his hardest to not make light of the situation, he knew the ways of Braeburn well.

“We tried to tell you.” Patience said, her warm embrace loosened. Constance took another stern look at her form and deduced the cause for her rejection.

“I’m not like all the other mares!” Patience stroked a radical streak of golden mane back behind her daughter’s ear and nuzzled her softly on the pole.

“That’s because you’re unique.” Constance pinched a chunk of her slightly bulbous self and let it wobble a moment.

“I’m fat! That’s why I’m different, I’m a hippo!” She loathed herself so strongly that she grasped a measure of her cholesterol filled folds and pinched them harshly in her hooves.

In the midst of the conversation Bartlett had left the room unnoticed, he returned with a shotgun slung over his withers. Patience nearly fainted at the sight; she steadied herself on her sturdy daughter’s whimpering form. Bartlett sat down next to his mares and rested the double-barrelled hell paying weapon on his lap. “Was he cheating on you Constance?” She didn’t reply for she could barely assemble a sentence. “Constance? Constance my dear, if he hurt you, tell me with whom.”

Again not a word protruded from Constance’s quivering muzzle. Bartlett leaped aloft and slung the shotgun back over his shoulder, he gave one last serious look to his daughter and wife. “Whomever he cheated with will have to wait, I’m gonna send the fear of Sombra into that little bastard!”

Braeburn dragged his hooves along the sanded path until he walked headfirst into a familiar, gun-toting, face. Braeburn tilted his head to absorb what had only just been revealed to him from the glaring sun and his own fatigued eyes. Bartlett held the muzzle of the cannon right up against the butcher of Appaloosa’s skull and cocked back the safety. He squeezed lightly the trigger, in preparation for the blood splatter he closed his eyes, and then there came an organic thud as a body hit the ground.

Braeburn crouched, gripping on to the luminescent locks of Gem’s mane. She had rushed in to save him; her lustful mind-set drove her to take a bullet for her one night of magic. Perhaps she had tried to disarm the other stallion, she was still now. Bartlett dropped the gun out of shock, not from the act itself, but because of the aftermath. The stiff body underwent a warped transformation, the skin once so bright peeled to reveal a heart as black as coal.

More fibres of skin peeled away and surrendered to the side to reveal more of the black under pelt of the mare. As the tissues of her back folded away a pair of butterfly wings flicked out, they shook rigidly before they fell still also. The petrified statue of Gem flinched frigidly but was most assuredly dead.

Little did Braeburn or indeed any of the ponies know, the creature with the crooked horn, cloven hooves, diaphanous wings, and dulled eyes was none other than the nightmare they had all been fighting to remove from their slumbers. For before them, crumpled and disfigured, was the irrefutable form of the changeling creature that had been something of a plague five long years ago.

Briefly, in the Attacanter>

After a long trek down the side of the mountain, Jeremiah gasped for air. He had heard the gunshot in the one-horse town and walked as fast as he could manage to seek out the source. He arrived at the crime-scene late, ponies gathered all around the curio. Some onlookers sported lengthy manes and styled tails complete with quaffs, some were ordained with saddle bags and alike for the morning errand run, some simply lacked any distinctive features and blended into the masses. They all gawped in awe at the feat impossible.

Some darted their eyes around to the other faces which looked as clueless as they, some visages around wore a feigned look of intrigue when in truth they were all afraid of the unknown. Jeremiah found a path through the mire and saw the cold-dead eyes of the mare he has once seen singing in the choir.

She still had threads of flesh glued to her face, the only thing that marked her apart, but everywhere else was rotted stagnant flesh. From betwixt the black pelt was a skeleton of disfigured bones, and in between each joint were torn tendons and torn seams. There was only a sprouting of mane left on the dead mare’s head. Jeremiah looked on in horror at the vision of nightmares.

He waved for ponies to give him space, they complied and made a route for him to use. He tugged at the lifeless hoof attached loosely to the thing below. “She is only a serf.”

Ponies all around shared a collective gasp; the creature had been hiding in plain view and had been feeding off of the fair Appleoosians, was possibly only the beginning of something worse. Braeburn was not privy to the nature of the shadowed beasts, but even he was alarmed by the chance of there being worse to come. It took some time to sink in, but when it did, Brae was mortified.

He vomited profusely onto the shimmering sand. His only thought at this time was that he had become intimate with an ugly-twisted creature. He wretched at the notion of the angled, spiteful wizened lips of the changeling around the tip of his…

A face in the crowd shouted over the gargled lunch. “Hey old timer, how do you know about these things?”

Jeremiah patted Braeburn on the shoulder before he squared up to the naysayer. “I was alive and kicking when Chrysalis first attacked our pleasant lands, I have a certain understanding of the creatures. They feed on, nay, they crave emotion. They can assume the image of any other living being and they eat off of the love the being receives.”

A murmuring of quickened voices dully roared in the crowd as they discussed theories and inklings they might have had. A couple go to ask further questions but they shied away. Finally Braeburn wiped clean his muzzle and cajoled Jeremiah’s gaze over to the withered corpse. “You said she was a… what did you call it again?”

Sheriff Thicket soured at the ignorance of the stallion; he bit his tongue this time “I said she was a serf, the lower class of the changeling forces.”

Braeburn posed defensively next to Gem, he registered her cold-dead-eyes again and reiterated. “I meant, what is worse than the changeling?”

Unfamiliar Faces

The staid gaze of every pony in town waited on the next words to come out of Jeremiah’s muzzle. They looked to him as a fountain of knowledge, an old wise stallion, and a comfort blanket in the dire night. He stroked the broken string segments on his banjo. “I don’t know what I saw exactly, it was something that looked like your average garden variety changeling, but it was bigger, it was wiser and it could pass through into my dreams.”

A collective eyebrow rose about the congregation, they expected an enlightening prose to explain the casts of the illusive creatures, but were instead palmed off with some claptrap fantasy about a dream. Before long the behest of the crowd was advertised, broadcasted, telegraphed towards Jeremiah.

One cruel tongue concocted a damning appraisal. “These are all just the ramblings of a teetering old fool!”

The reverse echoed also in the crowd, some ponies, perhaps of malleable will, played a dangerous hand. “Dreams all have relevance, they try to tell us, warn us about things to come.”

These comments were quickly pooh-poohed by the majority, they guffawed at the insolent speak of the tree-hugging Appleoosians. Some less kind minds delivered more sabotaging critique on the intelligence of the dream-believing cretins. “Dreams have no meaning, they happen when our brains are resting and recuperating. There is no merit in the hokum these hippies peddle!”

More so and more so the insults grew harsher. Soon the tension was so palpable in the rabble that it could have snapped at the tiniest of influence. Braeburn, surprisingly, was the first voice to speak sense. He poked at the sheriff’s collar and said concisely. “We must inform the Alicorns, this could be serious.”

At this point Gillyflower and Bailey adjourned from their home-alone-escapades and joined the fearsome numbers. The father of Braeburn examined the site before he fixed his eyes on Bartlett, who stood silently. He registered the dropped shotgun and pulled an awful scowl. “Did you try to shoot my boy, Pear?”

Bartlett could do nothing but stare at his blood-stained hooves and drown in the regret he harboured. Constance was not an athlete, and she arrived at the unfolding calamity almost ten minutes after the first onlookers had turned up, her lemon gold locks dripped sweat copiously.

Gillyflower wouldn’t be patient; he threw his hat down to the side and turned his rump to the other parent. He bore his entire fragile frame on his front hooves and bucked the living daylights out of Bartlett’s jaw.

Bartlett was numbed from the atrocities that he had abetted, the kick didn’t faze him at all, but he still fell to the ground. Blood spewed from the newly formed slits in his chin and right cheek; he came to and tended to his wounds.

Gilly went to collect the gun still half-buried in the sandy bed; he grappled a hoof towards the dusted handle before being warded off by a blunt smack on the nose. Jeremiah withdrew his walking stick, now irreparable, and dropped the destroyed jigsaw into the sand next to the gun. He spit a glob of tobacco towards a pail and listened out for the resulting ping.

Patience pear followed her husband out into the clearing, she had known his intentions, but when the crowds amassed she was a deer in the headlights. She finally commanded the courage to enter the hassled scene and went to her husband’s side. She looked at his apologetic eyes and stroked a small handkerchief over his cuts.

She sniffed and ushered an assertiveness she didn’t know she had. “Your son broke my daughter’s heart, twice. Both times he was cheating on her, both times he didn’t fess up, why… he had this one tied so many times around his hoof tip that she threw down her life down for him. He is a manipulator; even a single-minded thing like the changeling couldn’t resist his false charm.”

Jeremiah noticed the rising heat and put himself between the warring factions. “Now let this lie Pears, you too Apples, we don’t want things getting any uglier do we?”

Patience snatched the gun from the ground and directed it at the sandstone muzzle of Gillyflower. She clicked back the safety and held the object steadily in her hooves. “That boy was always out of control! I saw his name written in scrawl all across the town; mares’ have this fixation with him…”

Braeburn smirked at this comment, his ego doubling in size. He swivelled his hat on his pole and remarked. “I do have a way with the mare-folk.”

His smarmy self-assuredness was not well received by the masses, it irked Patience enough for her to picot and aim the shotgun sights at him. Brae gulped down a lump which had formed in his throat. “Oh, ya’ll think I was being serious.” He choked on the very lump he had swallowed.

Patience switched her aim back and forth; she didn't deal with the situation at hand all too professionally. On one hand she knew that Braeburn had betrayed her gullible daughter, but on the other hand he had been the rarest of souls for he had for a brief few days made her feel like a princess.

Although she was in two minds about whether or not it was justifiable to execute the stallion that had barely entered adulthood, she kept still her tongue lest it elevate the matter already dire in nature.

“Don’t break my heart again." Constance sassed, perhaps the last word she would share with her ex.

Veering from paradise>

The big-strong-soul of Little-Strong-Heart sank as she stood witness to the debauchery below. She struggled to negotiate her mind around the senseless way in which the settlers conducted themselves, she refused to see it as the norm, and not all could be tarred with the same brush. Her heart, strong, jumped from her chest as a familiar hoof clasped around her shoulder.

She turned with a look of rage; she thought it was her father hedging his bets for round two. Before her stood the cupid’s arrow to her metaphysical heart, he was an intelligent, calico tinged, bull, his hairstyle was contained and sober but he was wild at heart. His name sung like a breeze and rolled of off the calf-nearly-cow’s tongue as she sang it. “Singing wind, what brings you here?”

Singing perked up to the address and bowed to the adoration. “My dear sister, how goes your day?”

The young cow would find it a task pressing to find a mate who was not her brother. She smiled warmly to him and drew his gaze down to the gathering below. He followed her instruction and glared out over the precipice, he was not as fond of the town dwelling ponies as she. He took a moment to absorb the events and patted the cow’s rump. “Looks like trouble to me; I can feel the uncertainty in the air.”

Strong-Heart was wholly against the spiritual mumbo-jumbo her family members adhered to, she did however love this brother above the others, and she let the slur slide for now.

A heavy stream of heated breath lapped against the nape of Strong-Heart’s neck, she jerked her neck around so that she faced the blaring nostrils of her father. He had a disappointed look smeared across his face; he still had no patience for his daughter’s voyeuristic tendencies. He turfed Singing-Wind to the side. “You cannot choose your own mate daughter! I have chosen for you, you will mate with the strongest and the bravest. You shall give offspring to…”

Strong-Heart cut her father’s explanation short, she knew too well the bull her father desired her to court. “I will not go near that brute! Raging-Wonderer will never have me!” The bull in question was a fierce fighter, his hair was short, his patience brief, he had the same temperament as a manticore and twice as ugly.

Thundering-Hooves took in the calm morning air and exhaled exaggeratedly. “You will do as I say or you are not welcome here.”

Little-Strong-Heart had a good head on her shoulders, she didn’t share the belief system of her brethren, she did not share the desire to procreate through incest, and she could not bear to see Singing-Wind and her father’s favourite exchanging blows. She made a quick mental note, remembering everything she would miss about the sacred lands and her homestead in the reservation.

She picked up her hoof and held it out in front of Singing-Wind. He looked quizzically back. The both of them stood in silence, as if speaking through telepathic means, until they joined hooves. With that they parted, the strongest of hearts broke that day. She wondered, hopeless and alone, down the incline to the town below.

Singing stared at his hoof in reverence of his exiled sister and lover. He sat alone on the ridge, he took over the role of observer, and soon he felt the weight of his eyelids and settled down to sleep. His slumber was interrupted by the snort of the strongest bull. Raging scraped the toe of his hoof against a flat rock which made a screeching commotion, much to Singing’s behest.

The meeker of the two climbed back to his feet and stared the brute in the blood-shot eyes. Singing blew hot air out of his nose. “Why do you trouble me Raging-Boner?”

Raging didn’t respond warmly to this attack, he flicked his front hooves back in threat of charging. “It’s Wonderer! You pansy! Still hurting because Little-Prick-Tease left you blue balled with nowhere to go?” He basely teased.

Singing soured as the words hit home. He hadn’t a rebuttal in mind, because after all, Raging was right. He had been having certain impure feelings about his younger sister, a few arousing dreams as well as the time he had seen her bathing. He knew his brother’s words to be true, that Little-Strong-Heart lead him on, never putting out. He was biding his time, taking things slow, but she just seemed far too involved with her obsession with the Appaloosa settlers to give him the pleasure he pined for and the affection he craved from her.

Little-Strong-Heart ventured down the steep escarpment, she followed the still apparent hoof-prints that Jeremiah had left. She walked a while before finding herself drowning in the crowd of onlookers; their attentions remained focused on the pit black olive monstrosity before them.

One thing made Strong-Heart stand out above the crowd however, she was a timber like hue and the ponies that enveloped her were a rich tapestry of pastel greens, purples, oranges, pinks, reds and so on and so forth. Soon a Mexican wave of rubber necking took place as ponies swivelled around to examine the alien intruder.

It was like another planet, this world so far beneath, it screamed opportunity. Little-Strong-Heart admired the visceral majesty of the town she has watched dreamily for many moons. She almost didn’t notice the unfriendly expressions which tried to ward her away. The heat of the day was partially lifted as a pail of spit flooded over Strong-Heart. She stumbled aback at the shock of the drenching and pawed a chiselled hoof through her hair. She tugged, pried, and tore the gummy tobacco globs off of her.

The custard-coated stallion backed away and set the pail back near the saloon doors. He squashed his face and spat out another load of putrid gum. He was not alone in the animal display of hatred, the settlers and wild buffalo did not get along so well. They may have agreed on a temporary ceasefire when under the eye of the famous six, but as soon as the PonyVille express rolled out, they resumed their unending turf war. The thrower of the pail swept a filly back into the safety of the crowd. “Get out of here outlander.”

The littlest buffalo cow, with the biggest and strongest of hearts shrank in the poisoned reception she had received. It was not what she hoped it would have been. Her hopeful demeanour was replaced with a quivering lip. She could not return to her people, and now her dreamed utopia was unveiled, she did not want to stick around any longer.

Back at the head of the congregation stood the Pears and the Apples and Jeremiah Thicket right in the thick of it. Being the voice of reason was a task often leant to the most level headed, and not Braeburn and his curious, one-eyed partner. But once more the adolescent stallion saw something that the others did not. He bore his athletic build on his rear hooves and peered over to the chocolate coloured stranger. “Hey, I know you, Little-small-something.”

“My name is Little… No, my name is Desert Rose.” Jeremiah heard the familiar tone and made a path back through the attending masses. He wasted no time in scolding the ignorant, racist comments spewing around the group. He had to ignore them for now, he reached the familiar face he had seen high upon the cliff’s edge and bowed in respect.

“Desert Rose, I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.” He winked. Rose blinked continually as she recognised the wizened stallion, the one she had seen brutalised at the front door of the buffalo family dwelling. She was overjoyed to see him. Rose carried a warm impression as she ripped a grin through her face in seeing the one she thought to be dead. “Mr Thicket!”

Jeremiah took a moment to take in the unfolding drama; he gazed on over her to the lonely precipice and smiled in understanding.

“I kinda thought you’d bit the dust.” She said as she combed back her hair.

The dramatic feature however was about to have an encore, the gun-toting mare, patience, shook the gun around in fury “Y’all forgetting something?”

Jeremiah could have slapped himself about the face for being so short-sighted. He made his way back through the staring faces, Rose close in tow. He presumed his own fate a foregone conclusion, no way would this situation be resolved without the death of another, and that other would most likely be him. Although he knew the stakes, Jeremiah resumed his role as law-keeper and threw himself in front of the gun just as it fired.

Whether it was a kneejerk reaction or a calculated decision, they would never know. She flipped the muzzle around to her skull and pressed her hoof on the trigger. Gilly was the first to notice what was wrong, he was close enough. As a last ditched attempt to save her he pushed the gun’s barrel away. If things happened the way he desired the buckshot would have missed the meek features and structure of Patience, only he was seconds out, the buckshot penetrated the side of her head and sent her down into the dirt. Bartlett Pear’s eyes opened widely, his breath baited, as his love toppled over.

He skipped over a couple of the stages of grief and immediately started for Gillyflower Apple’s throat. Gilly didn’t pre-empt the strike which thusly connected to his sand-stone muzzle.

Little-Strong… Desert Rose rushed to the elder’s side, she cradled his head like he had done with the banjo, and he was cold, silent. He wouldn’t have lived much longer, she said in her head; it comforted her in the bereavement. Rose’s gaze levitated upwards until it rested on the brawling stallions.

The fight was uncoordinated and clumsy, the yellower stallion fought like a mare. The other, of grey coat, was like a berserker, his hooves thrashed wildly upon the body of the yellow one.

Braeburn kept his distance from his father, he had been thrown out after all, and he crept over to a teary eyed Constance and made himself known. “Connie? I uhh, I know this must be tough for you.”

His ill-thought out attempt at condolence was ended by a raw hoof across his muzzle. If looks could kill, the story of Brae would fit in a few chapters, from start to untimely death, she stared the Lothario down “You don’t touch me! I am not your pudding pop! Now get yourself from my sight else I reload that thing.”

Braeburn gulped as he caught sight of the shotgun, still clasped in the shivering hooves of Patience Pear. Desert Rose evaluated the scene, her eyes bled sorrow as she counted the dead, and she addressed the masses. “Three have died today! A kind old stallion, a mare I never knew and… and…”

Rose now saw the changeling shell smeared across the sanded ground. She tilted her head to further inspect the image, it didn’t improve. She felt fully immersed in the gaze of the Appleoosians; they didn’t seem to understand what was happening either.

She curiously poked a hoof into the shrivelled dark leg of the body; it shed away, just as the skin had done before, only, now the bone was dust as well. She examined her hoof, small shavings of the dead clung to her. Rose cemented the image in her mind before she spoke. “My father told me about these things. He said it was a curse brought on by your greed. I have seen them also in my dreams”

The quietened crowd burst back in to life at the mention of dreams. The believers and the critics rattled out their opinions, no facts were used, for the changelings were still a mystery shrouded in shadows. One confident voice shouted above the rest. “Oh please, change the fucking record.”

Rose recoiled, she peered up to the precipice and the time she had spent watching and then looked and listened at the cruelty and wished she would have just mated with her brute of a brother. At least she wouldn’t have to destroy the blissful ignorance she had deceived herself with; at least she would be cared for.

The day was growing mature, legions of the crowd dispersed back to their humdrum existences; Bartlett and Gillyflower ended their fight in a draw and returned to their respective homes. They hadn't set the most sterling of example.

The Fallout

It wasn’t until Bartlett closed his front door and sat upon the couch that he noticed the emptiness beside him. He picked up a copy of the news rag and flicked through the pages. There were nonsense stories about the secret lives the Alicorns lived, there were spurious accounts of ponies that had seen some big natural disaster, and there was an announcement of a rather queer celebration.

“Five years on…” Bartlett read, he fumbled the corner of the page in his hoof and looked longingly to the empty seat cushion.

“Five years, next week, marks the celebration of the ending of the changeling plague. Five years after deception, five years after the nearly spoiled royal wedding, and Five years on…”

He skipped over the waffle and wiped a hoof on his bruised snout. He was in quite good shape after the fight, the other stallion however, he was lucky he wasn’t pushing up roses. “Come to Canterlot, to share in the celebration with the five years happily married couple… There will be entertainment and music, to mark the occasion there will be a symphony conducted by… you are all invited to what hopes to be a wonderful evening.”

Bartlett ripped the paper in two just as the door swung open. Constance gingerly hoof-tipped past her father, she hid her grief well, and climbed up the betraying stairs. One step creaked and this piqued an interest in Bartlett, he called from the foyer. “How are you holding up kiddo?”

His pandering attempts were dropped by the wayside; Constance continued up to her room and slammed the door behind her forthwith. The plump Pear found a corner in her boudoir and lined it with pillows and anything soft she could get her hooves on.

She huddled herself away into the corner and sobbed into her knees. Soon the crack of a hoof sounded at the door, from behind it came the muffled begging of her father. The pace of the knocking quickened, the stallion making the noise was just as destroyed by the occurrence as Constance was. His tone softened. “Constance? Why don’t we talk anymore? It is more for my benefit than yours, I’m lost Constance. I’m lost without her.”

The barriers of quilting and blankets subsided and Constance hurried to the door. She could sense his pain, how the strong-minded stallion unravelled. The door knob screwed clockwise to reunite the remainders of the Pear family, Bartlett’s face didn’t stretch with a smile, for his heart was cut in half. Constance greeted him with warm embrace and took in the smell of his cologne as she feared she might lose him as well.

The warming father returned the hug only gently, he tried to fight back his tears but it was a battle lost as soon as it had started. Bartlett put aside his macho guise and wept into the comforting shoulder of his daughter. They remained in each other’s embrace for as long as they cared to, the death of the mother had forced the two closer when before they were drifting apart.

The town square>

Braeburn stayed by the mutilated corpse in the town clearing. He was dumbstruck by the speed at which his bit-on-the-side had become the whole town’s sideshow. He was deflated by the loss of his sweet Constance; she would never understand his need for mare attention. Gillyflower approached from the dark gauze, in the sad tidings time had slipped by like greased lighting. Gilly planted a crutch firmly in the sandy soil and used the other to garner the attention of his son. “Brae buddy, you should come back home, let the undertakers take the body away.”

The Pear House>

Constance pushed away from her father and backed herself into the comfortable corner. She screwed up her face and smashed her hoof down against her bedpost. “You made this happen. Mum said you used to be feared, unpredictable. What’s changed dad? Has anything really changed?”

Bartlett checked about himself and remembered the gun, how he had set out to instil harm onto Gilly’s boy. Constance’s face warped further as her father stalled and didn’t honour her question with a response.

She marched up to her father and went to shut the door. “You brought the gun dad! You made this happen!” He sidestepped through the gap of the entrance just as the door was ajar. He looked uneasy; his eyes danced around and could not focus on a thing. “I know I did wrong Constance. I know.”

Constance repelled from her father once again, she slinked away into the darker recesses of her room. Just as her back met wall, Bartlett encroached, doing away with her semblance of personal space. He flung his hooves out and meant to hug her, she wormed between his guilt-ridden hooves. Bartlett corkscrewed around to make another attempt; his daughter was the negative pole to his positive, forever repelled away from him. Bartlett left a few items which had meaning to the late mother and left Constance to deal.

On the way to the Apple House<

Braeburn turned and was met with the frightful sight of his crippled father. Gilly took Brae under his crutch and led him back to the proud homestead.

As soon as the two stallions had left, a team of smartly dressed, identical looking, stallions and mares cleared the bodies away. He fiddled with a set of keys before unlocking the door and ushering Brae to continue. Bailey had long since had a midnight night cap and sent herself to bed, Gilly poured a half-a-hoof of scotch and passed it to his son. “Today’s been difficult, I understand.”

Braeburn refused the drink and gazed into his father’s stained-glass eyes and then scanned the scene through the lounge window “we should have taken in that young buffalo cow, she needed somewhere to stay.”

Gilly submitted to the wishes, despite his own predilections, and patted down the couch. “I hope you don’t mind sleeping down here son.” Outside precipitated a rainstorm; Brae gulped hard a lump in his throat and closed in on the lounge window. He was so close his breath laid smog on the glass pane; he saw the miniature buffalo and braved the storm.

Under the battering of raindrops, Braeburn had time to think about his womanising ways, he cantered through the torrential downpour towards where he had spotted the buffalo youth. In the wake of the rain the dry sandy surface became a thick soup, it was harder to progress through. The recently gallant stallion reached Desert Rose and yelled over the ruckus of cascading rain. “You don’t need to spend all night out here Desert Orchid.”

She averted her woeful gaze; a flash of lightning cascaded over the land and revealed the rows of headstones. In the mercy of the rain it was impossible to distinguish between the tears from her eyes and tears from the sorrowful skies. It was as if the skies wept for the losses, as if the cloud bound, benevolent force was showing its sympathetic side.

Braeburn removed his hat and shielded Desert Rose from heaven’s lament. He pulled her close to his front legs. “I was wondering if you wanted to get out of this rain, he’ll still be here in the morning.” Though the sentiment was delivered insensitively, it still did well to persuade Rose to follow Braeburn back into the warmth.

On return to the homestead, Braeburn directed Rose towards the roaring hearth of the fire, while he warmed and dried his own hooves. Gilly returned and scratched a hoof edge across his forelock. “You really sure we should be letting her sleep in your pigsty of a room?”

Gilly placed a bowl of leafy lettuce upon the coffee table before he joined his wife upstairs. Braeburn didn’t want the calf so juvenile to be scarred for life by his cum encrusted sheets, so he set about changing them, so to the linen cupboard he trotted. He firstly peeled the sheets of off his bed and held them as far from his nose as he could manage. They were putrid. He meant to roll them and they snapped, so riddled were they with his seed. He dispensed the two halves into the laundry basket, only just. He unfurled the new sheets as well as the duvet and arranged them on the spread.

With the task compete he ventured back down to the lounge where Rose was half asleep. She was drawling cutely into the woollen rug she had chosen to rest on. Brae propped her up over his back and carried her up to his bedroom. He set her down and tucked the blankets around her. “G’night Little-Strong-Heart, I’ll be seeing you in the morning.”

Overlooking Appaloosa>

A similar scene echoed high up on the mountainous ridge, buffalo brothers filtered in the assorted wigwams, the chieftain remained at the cliff’s edge. He stared dreamily into the stars; his mind was a swarm with all that could have been. He imagined how strong and intelligent the offspring of Raging-Wonderer and Little-Strong-Heart would be, he imagined the banishment of Singing-wind, and he contemplated delving into the Sodom below and retrieving his only daughter from its clutches.

His dreamy sky-world-journey was cut thin by the grunt of the strongest heir. Raging-Wonderer urged for the father to take a rest, he went so far as to promise “I will bring back your daughter, free-will or not.”

Thundering Hooves gleamed at the proposal, reared up and circled his fore-hooves to show his praise of the plan “then let it be done my son, drag her back from the burning coals of hell.”

Raging gestured his head heavenwards. “Not at this time father, it is far too dark and cold.”

Thundering was amused by the objection of his brawny son; he wrapped a hoof around his neck and ruffled his hair with his spare front hoof. “Then come tomorrow morning, you will have your mate.”

The Pear Household>

Bartlett Pear sat alone in his bed, there was a loathing silence. Heartbroken, he wept onto the adjacent pillow. He held tightly the pillow, compressing the duck down within, and shut his eyes forcefully and hoped he would wake up from the nightmare.

His daughter still clung to the corner she concealed herself in, she gazed out onto the planes of the town, and she was astounded by the beauty that she found. Upon the ridge high upon the cliff’s edge loomed a buffalo backlit by the moon’s luminescent glow. She did not break her connection with the moon, she felt it was like her, all alone and round. She tugged her duvet off from her bed and coiled herself inside, and then she succumbed to the natural order and closed her weary eyes. She slept, she sobbed and she felt she had been robbed, as she drenched her wooded floor with her tears.

The Apple Household>

On the other side of Appaloosa a sleepy Braeburn, pleased with his new found caring disposition, hoof tipped down the stairs. He weighed out his options, first he checked the smaller, plusher chair, and it was far too soft. He then examined the leather couch, it was far more practical, and it wasn’t too comfortable either. He plucked up an iron poll and poked out the fire. In the complete darkness Braeburn quickly became victim of his exhaustion and dropped his head down.

Something rustled out in the garden, against the inky black sky, nopony would have seen it. It acted like a puppet on a string, it’s every movement was concise and thoroughly thought out, as if something high up above was guiding it. Braeburn stirred at the tiny sounds which emitted from near the window. He yawned impulsively and lightly trotted over to the portal. Through the pane he saw no evil, no intruder, no creature, just darkness.

He took another deep yawn as he turned back to the moderately comfortable couch. He threw himself upon its mercy and stretched out before puckering his lips and going back to sleep.

Unbeknownst to Braeburn, the upstairs window flew open and something entered the house. If the dozing stallion were awake he would have heard the subsequent scuttles of hooves parading around the room above him. The window slammed shut and the night became calm again. Something disturbed the traitorous stairs; it made a creak with every step it took. Soon a pair of eyes shone around the apex of the door, they approached ever closer to Braeburn.

Again Brae was awakened by a noise, this time it was the roaring of the fire, the one he had extinguished. He drearily rose from his bedding and climbed down from the couch. In his dazed vision Braeburn could hardly make out the shape of the cow that looked up adoringly at him.

As focus returned to the stallion’s eyes he recognised the small orchid of the plains. “Desert Rose?” He murmured the name before falling backwards against the foot of the couch. Rose entered the light of the fire and stared up with big-wide puppy-dog eyes. She demurely yawned and smacked her lips before she settled upon the mat at the fire’s side.

Brae confusedly made his way to where she was coiled and patted her friendlily upon the shoulder “Umm did you not like my bed Rose?” She seemed more introverted than she had been when first the two met. Rose drifted further within herself until Brae placed himself beside her.

“Kinda like camping isn’t it?” She giggled, it wasn’t what Braeburn had expected to come from her lips, he relished the bonding nevertheless.

“So… What’s it like living out on the open dunes out in the desert? Is it a life you’ll miss?” Brae inquired.

Braeburn gazed up at the starry sky and turned with a look of fascination upon his face. “Is the sky you see the same as mine?”

Rose aroused to the question, the same one she had hoped to ask if chance came to be. She fumbled the feather tied about her pole and fought back a blushing which burned her cheeks so. She joined her fellow dreamer at the window and assumed her role as part of the audience of the night time theatre. “I was wondering the same thing.”

Brae was startled to hear her finally speak. He also felt humbled by the like-minded friend he had made. Brae thrust the lower window section skyward and poked his head out. The two of them admired the majesty and tranquillity of the calm scene outside. Rose put her chiselled hoof behind Brae’s neck and directed him to a point of interest “up there is where I came from, where my family, where my father, where my brothers sleep this night.”

She then lowered his controlled gaze to the very edge of the camp. “And that is where I watched…”

Braeburn promptly closed the window to, he settled back at the fire’s mouth just as the last few embers crumbled and the light died out. He felt a warm mass snuggle into him; he draped a hoof over the cuddly mass and drifted off.

Alabaster Station>

The last train pulled into the station and a few late arrivals piled off from it. Amongst the rabble was a splendidly kept mare, she had a coat of grey and a mane of black. Behind her she pulled not one but two wheeled cases, one was oddly shaped. She sweetly waved to the platform staff as she entered the great remote city of Appaloosa.

She was packed for a long stay, for she had a high-profile concert looming over the horizon and didn’t want the stresses of city life to derail her. She had visited this place once before, at the time of her big break, when she first broke into the Royal Canterlot Symphony Orchestra. She also remembered that when she had first visited she met a dashing stallion, she played alongside him and his string quartet, and it was a cherished memory of hers.

She headed down to the sleepy residence at the end of a sanded path, she was at a loss to neither see nor hear the rocking of Jeremiah on the porch. A voice pinched her attention from the discovery. “Ah, Miss Octavia Woodwind, a pleasure, Thank you for the letter about the lateness, it was awful considerate of you.”

Octavia threw a demur smile back and tweaked her pink bowtie. “So, you are providing the accommodation for my stay? May I ask your name?” The stallion doffed his hat and bowed flamboyantly as if trying to play up his class. “Name’s Wallace Thicket, I see you knew my dad.”

Octavia didn’t need long to suss out the meaning of his wording, the use of the past tense confirmed her worst fears. She glared at the untouched newspaper and the few stray milk bottles which carpeted the porch and sank down onto her rump. “When did he die? He must have just gone” Octavia wept as she allowed a single tear to roll off of her face.

The stallion before her was reminiscent of Jeremiah. He was taller with a stronger build; he also had a certain air of intrigue about him. Octavia swished the mane from her eyes. “I didn’t even know the old sheriff had an heir.”

Wallace smiled in understanding and pointed out the obvious. “It’s late, a mare as pretty as you shouldn’t be out here at night.” Octavia shook of the obvious questioning of her brawn then followed Wallace to where she would be staying during her visit. She pushed through the rotating doors on the establishment and ventured over to the desk. The clerk didn’t even offer a meagre glance at the mare; the clerk looked through an admissions book and thrust a set of keys to Octavia.

She took the keys and sarcastically thanked the clerk before heading down the hallway and twisting the key inside the door. She turned as she heard a laugh behind her, nopony was there, and it sounded like Wallace, where had he gone? She helped herself to the alcoholic contents of the cool box and relaxed on the end of the bed. She took a remorseful gulp of Brandy before wrapping her head in her sleep mask and closing her shadow painted eyes.

An unlikely friendship

Octavia awakened panting and sweating coldly, she had felt something caressing her rear end. She felt something forcing its way inside of her. She ripped off her sleep mask and scoured every corner, every wall of the room, nothing was there. She turned to her aching behind, again nothing was there. In the corner of her eye she saw the door ajar and could hear a faded cantering dying out at the end of the hallway.

She fell back on her rump and cursed, the area was raw, and she climbed out of bed. On reaching the felt-like floor Octavia noticed how short her sleep had been cut. She let her vision fix on the wall-mounted clock.

“One in the morning, it’s too early for this mare.” She whined. The door still flapped and the pain was still a mystery, but Octavia needed her rest. She had come to the sleepy town to get away from stress, creating trouble where none existed was an errand most foolish.

She gently pushed the door to and returned to the silken covers. As quick as her head hit the pillow she fell back to sleep.

The Apple Household>

Braeburn woke to the blistering sunlight, he felt a warm presence next to him, he laughed at himself for his stupidity when he remembered the affectionate display of Desert Rose and she purred. He released his habitual embrace and undocked his member from underneath the peaceful cow.

He could do little to deter little Braeburn. He hid himself behind the backdrop of the couch and quietly knocked one out. He didn’t want to be caught by his mother or father in this compromising position. Braeburn fervently stroked his shaft whilst he perversely gazed into Rose’s open crotch.

He pumped and pumped until he was about to explode and henceforth came over the leather couch. He groaned loudly at the release, the cow that slept next to the hearth awoke. Rose rubbed her eyes with the latter part of her foreleg and curiously strode over to the wincing stallion. She poked her ahead over the top of the parapet and made eye contact with the one eye which stared back so intensely.

She recoiled as more pearlescent gloop sprayed from the end and plastered the back of the couch. He came in several increments with the volume and spread increasing with every subsequent shot. Once spent the stallion forced the drooping, dripping mass down against the putrefied canvas.

Rose was not disgusted; she had seventeen brothers as well as a sexually ambiguous father, so she was no stranger to the morning strum. She blushed iridescently as she remembered the sight. She rounded the furniture piece and admired the length even when it was flaccid. She planted her eyes on the sticky, slippery, petulant husk of dripping canvas that nearly peeled from the weight of the fluid. “Wow, hold on mustang, you could take someone’s eye out with that thing.”

Brae crossed his legs to hide the receding fellow; he pulled an expression of shame before venturing to the kitchen and fetching a roll of tissue. He had no problem locating the toiletries and returned barely a minute after he had left. He nearly choked on the bile which rose in his throat as he set his attentions on the lapping action of Rose.

She licked greedily the bittersweet flavour of Brae’s loins and turned to him. She gave an innocent look, pearly white droplets hanged from her muzzle; she pushed her tongue between her lips and scooped the droplets away. Braeburn almost vomited again, this time he managed to swallow the hard forming lump. He warded Rose away.

She backed away as he charged; she looked confused and amorous all at the same time. Braeburn wiped a measure of tissue across the canvas and disposed of the resulting clump into the waste-basket. He examined the patch she had ‘cleaned’ and bowed his head. “Rose, you shouldn’t, I shouldn’t… I should have… I- I”

Braeburn tripped over his words before actually tripping over his still unwieldy fifth-leg. Rose went to kiss him but just as she fluttered her eyelashes hoof-steps descended down the stairs. Gillyflower and Bailey loitered a moment at the door before Gilly approached Rose in a sort of a hobble. “Was the bed not to your liking? I told him to change the sheets!”

Rose peered around and snapped her focus onto Braeburn once again; she paused briefly and looked deeply into the ground. “I’m not used to sleeping on my own; I have a very large family.”

Gilly looked satisfied with the excuse; he then sniffed the stale air. “What have you done boy?”

Braeburn sheepishly vaulted the couch and gritted his teeth as his penis slapped the inside of his thigh. He hanged his head in shame and then looked back up through apologetic eyes. “I’m sorry Pa, it’s a morning thing.”

Bailey collapsed in the foyer in hearing the sentence, her head cracked against the bottom step of the staircase. Gilly took in the vile stench of salty sea air and reiterated. “What is that smell son? Have you ejected all over that couch again?”

To do it once was undesirable but a repeat offense was truly deplorable, Braeburn nodded ashamedly. Rose cut in to the assailing atmosphere. “It’s no issue really, I am accustomed to it.” Brae continued to nod his head like an obedient pup until his neck would have surely fallen off.

Gilly raised a hoof in query, his expression changed from one of disgust to one profound. He chose his words carefully. “How do you mean you are used to this? Have you been exposed to this depravity before?”

Rose felt the weight of the world on her slight back; she didn’t understand what crime had been committed. She decided she needed to explain herself and then she saw the collapsed mare. “Your wife I assume… She’s not looking too perky.”

Gilly flicked his eyes to where hers’ directed and leapt into action. He reached his wife’s still form and leaned down to her chest. She was still breathing, her heartbeat was slower than normal and there were a few spots of blood underneath her head. He manhandled her head to properly view the damage, there was a shallow cut right in the back of her skull, he hadn’t even noticed. He tossed his head around and gestured for Braburn to assist. Brae got the message and rushed over to the casualty.

He did nothing but add worry to the situation, his father wiped a tear from his eye and instructed. “Get a clean towel and the first-aid kit, fetch a glass of water and a pillow, yeah a pillow.”

Braeburn set off for the items and left Desert Rose awkwardly in the thick of the catastrophe.

Overlooking Appaloosa>

Powdered paint dragged across Raging’s face. He assumed the guise of the wolf for this mission. His father stood proudly at his side, both of them scanned the waking city, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The moment was signalled by the shrill siren of the vultures, Raging bared his teeth before he galloped into the breach.

The wonderers of the morning were dispersed and gored by Raging’s horns. He did not know where to look and he was not a Holmes in his previous life. He ran+domly stared into windows and smashed in doors, he scoured the town, he didn’t leave a stone unturned. However, the home he sought, the cow he lusted, was hidden far beyond where his nose could detect.

He ran amuck amongst the gardens and houses until his stampede was stopped by an ominous sound. As the smoke rage cleared Raging noticed the stallion in front of him, he blinked out of disbelief and caught his breath. Wallace lowered the hoof-cannon and rehoused it in the holster “now lookie here buffalo, we don’t take kindly to troublemakers around here.”

Most had taken refuge inside their houses, not wanting to face the tyrant at their doorstep. Not many would have seen the stallion of dull green standing strong in the standoff. Raging panicked, sweat smeared his war face paint, and he was befuddled. “I won’t tell you again brute! Get clear of this place. Else things gonna get messy”

Raging backed away; his shadow shrank upon the sanded ground. “What business did you have here anyways bull?” Wallace asked whilst his hoof hovered over the holster.

The strongest son of a clan seventeen strong bowed his head in defeat.

He then recalled his confusion and piped up “I didn’t think you were around anymore, you left these parts for the big city, pansy!”

Wallace beamed at the accusation; he switched his guard and affixed his hoof with the cannon. “Watch what you say outlaw.”

Raging reached for a tomahawk fastened to his flank, he poised ready to let it fly but was promptly laid out for the buzzards by a deafening gun-shot.

Earlier, in Appaloosa<

Desert Rose sizzled under the limelight glare of Gilly. They shared a moment of content nothingness until Braeburn returned with the items requested. Brae went to work securing his mother’s head and neck with the pillow, he draped the towel over her and tucked it in behind her, and he positioned the glass on the corner counter of the foyer and set the first aid kit down at his father crutch.

Gilly nursed the venous neck of his beloved, she blinked feverishly in shock, and he opened the latched of the kit and delved a hoof inside. He found a bottle of pills and pulled it out, emblazoned on the label were the words ‘Equi-care’ and the subtitle ‘Asperein’.

Gilly stared dementedly into the array of bottles and sheets of tablets and cure-alls, he grimaced at his own headache and turned to his son “can you take Rose out of the house please? I need some time just to get things straight in my head.”

Brae nodded in submission before cantering over to the cow and taking her by the hoof “come on Rose! You wanna see the town?” Rose lit up like a Roman candle as she considered all the wonderful sights and smells that lay in store for her. She clasped his hoof back and pair of them disappeared out of the door.

Once free of the house they trotted merrily through the sanded streets. The little cow was pleased to feel the open air upon her skin; she hummed a tune as they continued on. Brae, was somewhat curious, he bent his neck around to the Rose and asked “where did you hear that tune? I heard something similar, old Mr Thicket used to coin it; it was pretty tone-deaf and arrhythmic to be perfectly honest.” His cussing of the fallen sheriff was cut short by a hoof which closed his lips “it’s damn good you’re cute because you come out with some inane chat sometimes.”

“Did you meet him?” Braeburn pursued whilst his forelock kissed a low cactus branch. Rose held back a laugh at her klutz of a friend. She cocked an unsure eyebrow. “Did I meet who?” The compliment sank in and Brae’s cheeks visibly blushed, a small patch of red on his sun-kissed form. Braeburn puzzled at the response and scratched his bristly chin henceforth. “Jeremiah, you know the stallion with the banjo, wait what happened to the banjo? He always had that thing, why would he lose it?”

Rose stalled for thought, but nothing shot up to her. “He must have lost it, he was getting on you know, I remember my grandfather, he was the same” she concluded. All throughout her speech Braeburn had been mulling over his recent memories, he stuck on one and rebuked. “He did know you, Jeremiah saw you in the crowd and he called you. You knew him, you trusted him. Why are you lying to me Rose?”

Rose sucked in her lips between her teeth “I lied because I didn’t want to look guilty.” Brae returned a gaze of sympathy. “I don’t blame you, I blame Patience Pear, ever since that broad reached for the bottle she’s been a mother ruined.”

“What about the changeling? Weren’t you going to inform the alicorns?” Rose requested respectfully, she neared the main street of the town. Braeburn hurried his pace and skipped ahead of Rose.

He stopped in his tracks and kicked his hoof in the sand “I’m going today, you can tag along if you want.” Rose caught up to the shoulder of the stallion as the two reached the biggest road in all of Appaloosa.

Brae saw something going awry, he could see the back of a pea-green stallion, and the stranger had a gun held in his hoof. Only the stallion was no stranger, or so Braeburn thought. He inspected every visual cue of the stallion before noting the blur of a buffalo curled up in a ball a little further down the street.

Braeburn turned back to face his partner in crime, he prodded a hoof into her chest to get her to stop; she resisted but did as requested just before she could see around the corner. “What’s the holdup Braeburn?” Rose demanded as she tried to budge past the tower of charisma and muscle in front of her. Braeburn kept her back with ease before muttering a few words to his self. “Was that him? No it couldn’t be. He has been gone for so long… But he looked so much like him…”

He fought back the efforts of Rose whilst observing the scene the likes of which was not so much different to an old western flick. He saw the two grabbing for their weapons so he closed his hooves over Rose’s ears as a concussive sound ripped through the valley.

BOOM

Little Rose was stunned by the commotion. Brae continued to cradle her shaking head. He caught a glimpse of a mare in the window above him, she was peering out to the fracas below, and to top it all off she was a radiant sight to the sorest of eyes.

Octavia’s Room<

Octavia roused from her peaceful slumber and habitually performed the motions to remove her sleep mask. In her morning fuzziness she took a few tries to realise the mask was already gone. She had woken to the second of a volley of gunshots, her head was aching mildly, she threw open the window.

She saw Wallace, he was returning towards the accommodation. Behind him flew a flock of blackbirds up into the sun-blessed sky. She rummaged inside her clothing suitcase and plucked up a mane-brush. She gazed at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and brushed her mane back into line. From her door came a knocking, Octavia smartened her pink bowtie around her neck and went to answer it.

The door was unlocked and opened before the musically talented mare could do so. Wallace entered the room and pointlessly continued to knock on the wall. “Good day Miss Woodwind, I was wondering if our esteemed guest would like to partake in breakfast this morning.”

Octavia bit her lip in thought before happening upon the revelation that she was indeed famished. She flipped her bangs out of her face and replied. “Why, thank you sir, that sounds delightful.”

The two went hoof in hoof down to the eatery at the end of the long hallway. Wallace bowed again as he showed the guest her seat and left her to her meal. Octavia curtsied in accordance and took her place at the table. Before her was an array of finger-sandwiches, high tea selections as well as a healthy pot of Green-tea. She admired the spread and then found her eyes wondering around the room, not a single pony in the room had a breakfast quite so exquisite.

She thought to question the special treatment; she stopped herself as she remembered she was there to relax. She shrugged off the elitist splendours and sank her teeth into a fresh cucumber sandwich.

Three sandwiches sat heavily in Octavia stomach, as she fought back a burp Wallace returned to the table. He had a variety of fruit salads. Everything ranging from: melon, grapefruit, pineapple, squash and kiwi to apple slices, pears, orange segments and grapes of all colours. The platter was set on the table and the carrier left the mare to yet more delectable food. He turned back before his tail was tugged by a pursuant grey hoof “I don’t mean to be a bother, but is this really necessary?”

Wallace whipped around at the remark and sat in the seat opposite to Octavia. He began. “We know you’re accustomed to the better things in life, this is simply a little slice of home for you.” Octavia shuffled unevenly on her chair, which was also of higher quality than the rest, and pushed the offerings away “I know you mean well, but it is the stresses of city life that I intend to avoid, maybe a simple bowl of haylage would better suit me, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Wallace shuffled uncomfortably and patted the side of his head “Ugh, I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t wanna make this awkward. I know you’re like a big star and everything, this, this pitiful display was a ploy to get you to notice me.”

Octavia opened up a little to the sentiment, she leaned forward attentively. “That’s sweet, but don’t make me feel special, I am not anything special.”

Wallace grinded the words through the gears of his mind until something clicked. He leaned down also to her level and cupped his head in his hooves. “You’re special to me.”

Octavia let out a cute giggle and looked away. She stroked the back of her hoof with the other and retorted unconfidently “I’m not special because ponies listen to the newer forms of music now! I am obsolete, my style defunct. I can only dread the audience’s reaction at the anniversary ball when I walk on stage with my stupid cello!”

The stallion across the table leaped at the chance to make the mare’s day, he placed a photo out on the table. Upon the piece were a group of ponies, three were mares and the fourth a stallion. The stallion featured in the picture rang a bell; He wasn’t Quasimodo but the prolific caramel-coated gentlecolt. It was Jeremiah! The header read: ‘4 strings of paradise’.

“So you see this is how I know you are special. It would mean a whole lot to me if you would see it to” Wallace cooed.

Octavia facehoofed at missing her own blatant muzzle in the photo, she clutched the sides of it and tapped it against the table surface a couple of times. “I do see. You think I knew your father.”

Wallace perked up to the affirmation but dulled back down at the doubtful choice of words. He gestured to the photo contents “look there is you and my dad together! That can’t be a coincidence, you had to know him.”

Octavia sighed deeply and stole a small macaroon off of the high-tea tower. “I was only standing in, the fourth member was sick that day. I was just… helping out. I probably knew less of him than you.”

Wallace struggled to contain his fury, he kept it under lock and key but something started to change, both in his character and in the way he carried himself.

He smashed a hoof onto the table and tore off a chunk. “How could you know less than me? I barely knew his name… His name! I was his only son and I couldn’t remember his name. What kind of pony am I? You have to know something more you just have to!”

Octavia saw the quickly spiralling situation needed defusing, she halted the fidgeting hooves of the dull green stallion and spoke softly. “I don’t know why you didn’t know him, I can’t understand your pain, but I am one of the best listeners in Equestria, it’s sort of part of the job.” She comforted as she lay her hooves onto his.

The song of something

Bartlett Pear woke with a start alone in his bed. He had not strayed from his side, as if his wife still existed on the other side of the bed. The stallion was a victim of the quandary, he knew his wife was gone, long buried, but he also knew that there was a presence beside him in the bed. He took a mental picture of the photo of Patience before cracking the glass with his tensed hooves.

There came a knocking upon his bedroom door, he looked at the time and then at the empty bed and answered swiftly.

Standing at the door was Constance; she had a tray of cereal and orange juice rested on her hooves. Her father nearly cracked a smile at the gesture. He took the tray and kissed his daughter gently on her pearlescent forelock.

There was not a word exchanged, just more loathsome silence and pile after pile of regret. But born from the tragedy was a strengthened bond between father and daughter. Bartlett retraced the steps he had taken to the door and settled back down on the throws of his bed.

He spooned a mouthful of generic cereal mulch and swallowed it down forcibly before breaking into tears again.

He kept his lament as quiet as he could lest his daughter mother him. A brand new day had blessed the two, for this they had to be glad, but only they remained of the family, the daughter and the dad.

In similarity, Constance silently wept into the pillowed corner she had made. Bitter tears were a commodity in the household as they lubricated the gears and ensured everything ran smoothly. The sobbing of the two kept them from blaming each other, the father who had taken the gun, and the young mare who had thought the rapscallion of a stallion Braeburn had changed.

Both knew at heart they were wrong, that they played a part in the travesty, but neither would admit it. Constance rolled off of her cushiony fortress thanks both to the incline and her rounded figure. She had heard a faint, sharp, abrupt noise coming from the centre of town.

Bartlett let himself into his daughter’s room. He helped Constance to her feet and threw open the window. “We used to have order in this town, this used to be a prime location where ponies from miles around would visit. This town becomes more deserted after each passing day; it’s about time some pony takes up the slack. Jeremiah was the law but he has left us now.”

Constance dwelled in her father’s shadow; she teased her luxurious mane locks and joined her father at the window sill.

Bartlett smartened himself up as if preparing to address the royal sisters or a squadron of Magisterial Wonderbolts.

He swallowed down an unpleasant feeling and continued “I think some pony has to take the reins. It is only right that that pony is me.” Constance cradled her father’s grey-tinged hoof in her own and held him tight. “It aint no sane decision to uphold the law here, something weird has been going on.”

Bartlett accepted the truth, for that is what it most certainly was. He was once a commander of respect and adoration but his mundane, pedestrian lifestyle had transformed him into a spineless cur of the stallion he once was.

But the stallion also understood the guilt that burned his every hour of sleep, he leaned his front half off of the window ledge and whispered. “These ponies need a new sheriff and I guess I’ll have to do.” His modest promise sang through the breeze.

Constance leaked at the eye at the promise; she didn’t want to lose her father to some hornswoggling bandits. She made herself an anchor and haltered her father from making for the door with the intent of making a difference, she forced him to choose between a just and fulfilling career as a law-enforcer and a sublimely quiet existence as a pencil-pushing editor’s assistant.

He was hard strung for a choice, he didn’t want to make his sweet Constance cry and be afraid but he also wanted to atone for his past mistakes.

Bartlett crouched down to his daughter and placed a caring hoof on her cheek. “The choices we make, Constance, they shape who we are or in your case, who we become. I don’t want you to live with the thoughts of ‘what if’ and ‘if only’, you make your choice and you stick to it. That’s the Pear way.”

He returned aloft and descended the stairs, the door slammed behind him as he left, alone at last.

All about the town, ponies vacated their hides and braved the outside. Many had heard the deafening blow of the hoof-cannon, and fear still instilled in their very beings, but needs must and their needs to return to work and keep the cogs rolling were a must.

The sanded paths flooded with the Appaloosa populous, each headed toward a different cardinal point, each had far too much to do and precious few hours in the day to achieve it.

The Mayor of Appaloosa was a tall lecherous creature, she had teeth different to the rest, her skin lacked fur and her eyes were an enchanting green. She coiled throughout the office, she had a musical shaker at her tail, and her colour was a menagerie of dull greens and blacks and greys.

The most curious feature of Mayor Delilah Caiman was that she was a snake. She was not a garden snake; she was not even a Python, no. She was a creature nearly of mythical size. Her very teeth were like anvil weights on her poisoned jaw, she assibilated as a pony dared enter her lair.

“What’s all this businesss?” The mighty serpent demanded of the intruder.

Bartlett cleared his throat and confidently approached Caiman. “I’m Bartlett Pear; I heard there was a job going for the town.”

The snake slithered and encircled Bartlett with feeding intent. “You’re in luck long-face; a position for town sheriff has just arrived.”

Bartlett found courage deep under his accumulated cowardice. He rested a hoof on the slippery surface of the smooth operating snake and let it drag across her. “I’m a fan of rules, I’m a parent after all, just give me a day and the jail cells will be full with the undesirables of this here town.”

The jailing snake of a Mayor released her hold on the stallion and rewound herself back behind her impractically small desk. She hanged her tongue out and vibrated it between her scaly lips. “That remains to be seen Misster Pear, you have my ear. What makes you sssso ssspecial?!”

Bartlett scoured his blank mind; however, his reminder was imprinted on his flank. For years the name ‘Pear’ was succinctly revered for its potency, many a life had this pony crushed, and his mark reflected this. Upon his flank was a blood-drenched pear slice in the shape of a heart.

Bartlett grinned and squared up to the Mayor. “I’ve been the other side of the law, done things you wouldn’t believe and I have never paid for them. I wish to put things right, look good in my only daughter’s eyes, perhaps even make her proud. I know the ways of the criminal underworld coz I used to run this town, now give me that badge and let me show you what I am capable of.”

Bartlett felt empty after spilling his aching soul; he stumbled and nearly fainted before his weight was supported by the snake Mayor’s head. She countered his drunkard like stupor and propped him up on the chair. “You raise a compelling argument misssssster Pear. But how can I trussst you?”

The stallion, tiny in comparison, spat a clod of tobacco into the corner of the room “Coz iffin’ I break your trust, I will salt myself, roll myself up in a floury tortilla roll and gladly let you suck out my insides. Is that fair Miss Caiman?”

The serpent’s tail whipped over Bartlett’s head and obtained something which had shimmered high up on an out-of-reach shelf. She tagged the chest of Bartlett with the sign of honour, a five pronged crest of varnished steel. And on this badge was an inscription.

‘Sheriff Jeremiah Thicket’

‘The Fair Town of Appaloosa’

Bartlett turned back to the smooth scaly form of Caiman and held the badge in front of him. “Can’t you put my name on it?”

The Mayor corkscrewed herself into a fiendish knot; she spat a sum of venom at the ground before thrusting her head forward “we can’t make the etchings that quickly! Your insatiable wife took the poor crone’s life only yesterday! Now accept the sheriff-hood and clean up this Goddamn town!”

The Pear Household<

The new sheriff’s daughter lazed in her bed; she had a hoof precariously poised over the gaping gap between her thighs. She plunged the hovering hoof downwards, caressing the still alien structure below. Constance breathed shallowly at first. She sped up her pleasuring hoof movement and nearly tossed herself out of the bed.

Shallow breathing became intense panting as the hoof was a blur in the crotch of the mare. She was closing into the climax and sweat billowed from her brow.

She was about to ruin her freshly made spread when a tune angelic distracted her. The tune was a gift in itself but the talent of the musician was simply mind-blowing. Each note carried a message, an emotion, they all had meaning.

Each stroke of the bow conjured mixed feelings from the mare astounded at the window’s edge. She stared anxiously down to brimming streets of ponies. There she saw a single standout mare, her eyes were closed in concentration and her fans were transfixed by it all.

However, though she had forgotten her lustful chore her body had not, she came all the same only at least it was on the floor. Towards the assembly marched a stallion, he wore a cutie mark which Constance had seen before, and the badge of the sheriff. He entered the sea of adulation and silenced the musical procession with a hoof upon the cello.

Octavia scowled at the troglodyte of a stallion who spoiled her fun. “Do you have quarrel with my playing Mr---Thicket?”

Bartlett stared angrily at the misleading tag and eyed up the beauty of the musical mare. “Nope, the music was lovely, this is however not permitted.”

The mare looked to her public and back to the sheriff. She fiddled with her bowtie nervously and repositioned the cello. “Since when were there laws pertaining to the free expression of art? Is busking illegal in your town? And why do you wear his badge?! How did you find that?”

Bartlett was utterly unfazed by the assault of questions; he adjusted one of his cuff-links. “This to me looks like a staged affair. Busking involves moving from time to time, so at this time I will be giving you a verbal waning.”

Octavia snorted anarchically at the protests of the sheriff. She set her cello aside and dropped down from the stage. She cut holes in the stallion eyes with her evil stare. “I understand the law, I’ll stop. What I want to know is why you have Jeremiah Thicket’s badge? Didn’t they have another one? Perhaps one inscribed with the phrase ‘imposter’.”

Bartlett laughed so much he erupted in a coughing fit, he began to walk away. “Oh, just before I forget, your name, if you don’t mind?”

Octavia shook off the sand that dusted her coat “Octavia Woodwind.”

The ball dropped, Bartlett pulled at his shirt collar, he apologised profusely “Miss Woodwind, my sincerest apologies. You are the one in the orchestra right? You’re the one playing at the anniversary ball?”

The collective sneer that shared on the faces of every member of Octavia’s ensemble lowered at the revelation, they still chatted amongst themselves and a few choice insults were shouted louder than the rest. He was accused of being ‘the man’ he was accused of hating music, he was accused of having a carnal relationship with King Sombra, but it was all water off of a duck’s back. He revelled at the ensuing attention.

Octavia reinserted herself on the stage. “Why, yes that’s me, not that it’s any of your concern. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to practice.” She proclaimed whilst bringing the cello back betwixt her thighs and resting the fingerboard against her neck.

Overlooking Appaloosa<

Far, far away, atop the proud buffalo plateau, limped a wounded bull. He had upon his face smeared war paint and a look of anguish. Chief Thundering Hooves was informed of the return and rushed outside to greet his victorious progeny.

Their reality was far from the dream the chieftain possessed, his worthiest bull had returned empty hoofed and brought shame upon the clan.

Delusional chants were heard behind the looming form of the chieftain who slowly walked towards Raging-Wanderer.

Thundering didn’t grace Raging’s with a solitary hello; he got straight down to scolding him. “What is this you bring me, empty air? I sent you onto the Sodom to bring back my daughter, your sister, not fall to the level of those who dwell there.”

Raging felt his pride plunge further into disrepair as he fried like an ant under a magnifying glass under his father’s glare. He looked towards his brothers; they were giving thanks to the great eagle and the peace it bestowed with every beat of its wings.

He then returned to fix his gaze to that of his father’s, he stomped a hoof in frustration “I could not find her, I am sorry father.”

“Shame, utter shame you have wrought this day. Why could you not find the littlest heart? She would have sought solace in the hooves of the crone we had seen her talking with. I would have found him, what is the matter boy? You have been nothing but a disappointment lately” Thundering raved, his hooves smashed down to emphasise certain utterances.

Thundering was an unusual chief; he used to be the Shaman and still held dear the beliefs of times long since passed. But soften did his scowl into a pleasant smile, he embraced his favourite not caring who would have seen, and the two of them relaxed for a while.

In the Appaloosa square>

Octavia had only just finished her interlude of musical entertainment, she packed away her cello into its specially made case and waved goodbye to the last loyal fans. She wheeled the oddly shaped case away back to the bed and breakfast type arrangement she had gleaned.

She travelled through the revolving doors and shared the empty emotionless hello with the desk clerk before finally reaching her room.

She set the odd case down again and undid the latches that lashed it together around the sides, she lovingly lifted the instrument out and propped it against a stool. From inside the case she produced a file filled with sheets and sheets of music. She snatched the cello bow up and scratched her brow with the end before she selected a particular melody from the scrawled scales.

She opened the two page spread that made up the song and unclipped a photo which had been placed there for inspiration. The photo was the very same she had been shown by Wallace. She looked teary-eyed into the depths of the photo and reminisced about the faithful eve.

It was the night, the curtain call and not a pony was applauding in the hall. The band that played so frequent there had lost a member to the others’ despair. But there she was a mare new, she made herself known in the old spittoon of a saloon.

She played an instrument unfamiliar to most, but the melodic symphony the mixture created was something of which to boast. Roses were thrown and fantasies once dreamed came true. Octavia achieved her cutie mark in the wake of the adulating crowd, her path was clear and her heart did bloom.

It was five long years ago when kindled the fires of love between Jeremiah and Octavia. It was a love frowned heavily upon, he was far older than her, and she had barely passed the legal age. But is love not blind, can it not transcend time?

She shared the stage with the mature and talented stallion and it gave her wings to pursue her own career. She dreaded to imagine her life’s unfolding story in the parallel reality where she did not light her passion on the stage with the 4 strings of paradise.

After the show Octavia stayed on the stage to collect the fallen blooms. Jeremiah snuck up behind her and tickled her playfully just behind her forelegs. He blissfully plucked a few roses and clamped them between his teeth. He winked a soulful eye. “Why are you collecting theses tattered old things?”

Octavia stood in silence and truly thought of an explanation, she drew a blank and dropped a couple of the collected roses in her panicked state. Jeremiah picked the fallen bloom up and returned them to their rightful place.

The recently realised mare focused on a single bloom with the emptying salon in the background, she closed her eyes and said “I collect the flowers because this might be my only chance to.”

Jeremiah’s eyes floated over the delicate curves and undulations on the mare’s body, he brought a hoof forward and straightened her pink bowtie. “Don’t speak such nonsense, this is the first of many performances, I bet you’ll be in the Royal Canterlot Symphony before I get to Las Pegasus with this tired old act.”

They spent the rest of the evening on the stage. Octavia shared her insecurities and Jeremiah talked her through them. The night was going as smoothly as it were possible in the mortal coil, Octavia pecked the much older stallion on the cheek and hid her resultant giggle with a hoof, He blushed a little too, though not new to the sensual arts he had never received attention from one so young and fresh as her.

A moment passed as the two tried to change the subject but the moment swam solely in silent waters, their lips locked across the apron of the stage and two hearts merged as one.

Octavia put the photo, now laminated with her tears, to the side and read through the song sheet. It was a special song, something she had derived from the faithful night where she and Jeremiah kissed. The piece was entitled:

‘Love in full bloom’

It was named to commemorate the passionate night of kissing and the significance of the roses and the part they played in making things go as they did. It was also in homage to the wedding of Mi Amorae and Shining armour, a touching derivation of the song the now Princess Twilight sang. She picked her bow up properly and plonked her supple rump down on the stall. She gripped the cello between her legs and gently touched bow to string.

It was the song he had hummed all his waking hours; it was the tune that replayed in his head when the buckshot penetrated his heart. Jeremiah was her love and he was gone. When she had found the house empty, no stallion swayed on the chair, her heart withered and died in her chest. It was close to noon, there was still much time to perfect the piece.

Hidden in plain sight

Braeburn hurried the charge he was entrusted with and led her back to his home. Nailed to the door was a rushed, smudged note. It read:

‘To Braeburn and Rose, the fall was worse than first we thought. I have taken Bailey to the hospital one town over, we may be late home or in the worst case, we will be back by tomorrow morning. Please try not to worry; there is plenty of food about the house’

‘Dad X’

Braeburn pinched his brow together to a point and paced a couple of times up and down the front of his house. He calmed himself and gave a reassuring smile to Rose “looks like the two of us are Canterlot-bound… are you up for a little adventure Rose?”

Noon was a pressing time to acquire tickets, lines stretched far past the doors of the station and ponies irritably waited within it. The unlikely pair arrived at the busiest hour of the day, the Canterlot express was such an overbooked journey that venders had descended upon it.

Offers of hay fries and corn on the cob and all manner of food were peddled along the meandering line of commuters. Brae passed on a morsel “none for me thanks.” Rose was however famished, she threw up her hoof “two cobs please!”

Braeburn lowered his head to her eager ear “I hope you’ve got the coin for that.”

Rose pivoted her head up and looked up the nose of her chaperone “What coins? I thought maybe we would barter or trade.”

Braeburn clutched a purse of bits off of his side and placed it on the ground. He undid the tie with his teeth and scooped out a few golden disks “we haven’t purchased through those means since the great revolt.”

The sun-kissed stallion lent the spare change to the poor other, she gracefully accepted the coin and turned to the response of the vendors. “Two cobs please sir.”

The peddler, dressed smartly in shirt and tie, nuzzled his face into a sack he had about his waist. “One bit for the two, since you’re just so darn cute.”

Rose tasted the bitter gold as she closed her teeth around the coin; she smiled through clenched teeth and paid the stallion. He drew back his almond hoof and retrieved two corn snacks from inside the bag.

Pleased with the haul, Rose turned to Brae and hoofed him the larger of the specimens. He was oblivious of her flattery at first but turned at the smell as it reached his nose. “Oh for me? Why thank you Rose.” Braeburn, chuffed at the charity, leaned down and planted a kiss Rose’s snout.

Her rosy red cheeks blazed through her normally intrigued expression. Rose stripped a row of sweet corn from the cob and walked forward a step with Brae as the line thinned ever so slightly. As the line thinned a little mare, Rose belatedly thanked Braeburn. “My pleasure Brae, didn’t want you going hungry.”

The belittling waiting weighed down on Braeburn as he watched the line remain still for minutes on end. He was about to lose his rag and boycott the line when a soothing sound came from the distant town square. The mood was lifted by some much needed levity, tensions cooled within the line, the beauteous sound continued to chime.

Ponies were hard pressed to obtain tickets at such a time, they were not aggressive or bad natured however, the song kept them all on the right level.

As long as the cello borne melody enwrapped the commuters, they remained calm. The wait was far less grating without the raised voices and pointless animosity. Braeburn was so enthralled by the prevailing atmosphere of calm that he barely touched his snack.

Rose pulled a cheeky grin and walked backward in front of the stallion as the line thinned an integer more. “Are you going to eat that? You shouldn’t waste food.”

Braeburn snapped back from his delusional daydream with a fright, he shook his head free of the enchanting spell and focused on the full cob of corn. Past the foreground of corn was the impatient gaze of Rose. He gifted her with the cob and spun around recklessly to snatch the purse he had left on the ground. The vender, strangely out of character, had rescued the purse begging to be filched and had brought it to the owner.

Braeburn accepted the purse back in his hoof but noticed the vender making weird shapes with his eyes. “Oh and for your trouble.” He said as he placed a couple of gold coins on the forward hoof of the almond vender stallion.

It was the dead of noon, the direct middle of the day, and only a few commuters lay between the unlikely pair and the two tickets to paradise. As the sweet winds of melody died out so too did the air of calm, stallions were once more at each other’s throats and foals screamed and wailed. Rose and Brae were glad to be shot of the new the symphony of discordance. They reached the ticket teller and the purse was emptied out on the counter.

Safely behind the bullet-proof screen perched a rather unimpressed looking owl. He had feathers of chestnut and a belly of albumin white; he bent his beak down and probed the coinage. He cocked a both of his bushy eyebrows and squawked. “Two tickets to *squawk* Canterlot.” The owl dutifully pushed the tickets through the hatch and pecked the coins away into a drawer and waved a wing at the pair as they headed for the train.

Octavia’s room>

Otherwise situated, Octavia crammed through the day, she wanted more than anything to perfect her song. She would attempt each stanza of poorly presented script till she couldn’t go wrong. The inside of her hooves bore blisters from her determination, her eyes watered from deciphering the mottled script in front of her and her ears ached from listening to every damned note.

She was geared to call it a day when she caught sight of the happiest time of her life, the stories they had told on that stage would go with her to her grave. She ignored the blister’s screams of protest and picked up the photograph, she pressed her lips over the image of Jeremiah and laid a wet kiss upon it.

“Well hello what have we got here?” a male voice asked. Octavia didn’t turn, she was stuck in her playing position, and her hooves were useless for the blisters that clung to them. She turned her head as far as it would go “who is there?”

The voice grew louder; the intruder approached the stool and sat down upon the closed cello case “what’s with you making weepy eyes at my pa?” He drew closer, his rancid breath eked a bead of sweat from the mare “why are lying to me Octavia?”

“I don’t mean to be blunt but why are you in my room? I didn’t invite you, this is most disconcerting” Octavia declared. Wallace appeared in front of the mare and he tossed her cello aside “you what? You speak of me acting untoward when you lied to me first!”

Octavia shuddered at the volume and drew her rear legs into herself “what did I lie to you about?” Wallace scratched furiously at his wiry mane which sent flecks of dandruff down to the floor “you swore you didn’t know my pa! Who are you fooling? I saw you lay a big smacker of a kiss on that photo!”

“And what does that mean?” Octavia defied as she liberated her tufty ears of dandruff. Wallace reacted like a cat being stroked the wrong way, he arched his back and he leaned on the lap of the mare “you did know him! You loved him! Yet still you lie! Now do me the single grace and at least tell me why!”

Octavia was stranded in the icy cold stare of Wallace, she looked towards her scuffed cello “you cannot come into my room unannounced; I pay for privacy and do not approve of your voyeurism.”

Wallace backed away and walked radiated around Octavia, he made exaggerated movements with his hooves as he contemplated his next move. He breathed heavily as he circled, his every step was sluggish and lazy, and his expression grew madder. Wallace returned to the lap of the mare and spat as he demanded “what do you know about him?! The truth mare or else.”

Thought she feared the ever crazier advances of the creep she remained composed. As he released her once more she brushed her coat down and resettled herself on the stool “you have your gripe, I understand, but I have practice to do so make yourself gone from here!” Wallace drew his head near one last time and bared his teeth in warning. He straightened his apparel and made for the door.

Octavia breathed a sigh of relief as his canter died off down the longest hallway. She then remembered that very morning where she had woken with the pain in her rear, she thought to herself ‘who else had entry to my room, the caretaker or the clerk?’ She then fell upon the disturbing realisation that it was the Wallace who was interested in her and that it was Wallace who had been in her room that morning.

In the corner were the huddled remains of the cello, it looked sorrowful and unloved much like the banjo. Some strings had escaped the peg box and the bridge was dented and warped. The musical mare reclaimed her motivation and climbed out of the stool. She wondered towards the battered instrument and carefully placed her hooves underneath the belly of it.

As the cello rose like a spirit freed from its mortal toil more shreds of balsa wood shed from it, revealing its’ inner hollow and ruining its resonance forever. “I’m sorry dear” Octavia soaked her tears in one of the random sheets of music spewed across her floor.

She turned to face the open door, the matted script floated down to the mess below. A vile muzzle poked around the frame, he was gazing thirstily into the flesh of Octavia. Near to the mare’s hoof was the bow, the only undamaged part of her cello. She grasped the walnut handle and approached her tormentor with the spear constructed of her own hair. He greedily held his vulture-like stare, the bow point stabbed into his gullet, his focus didn’t waver.

Wallace thrashed his hoof and disarmed the grey coated mare of her weapon. He bore his teeth at the mare that retreated towards the window. His jaw dripped with sticky black tar and his gums appeared rotten and plague ridden. The whites of his eyes receded, they gave way to a phosphorescent blue hue, and inside those eyes was a hunger like no other.

The mare did not seen the transformation, she had escaped out the window and out onto the lower awning. The bedraggled beast reformed the missing parts of his face and reassumed the normal guise of Wallace Thicket.

Octavia knew so little about the creatures sworn to secrecy. She couldn’t fathom why the creature masquerading as Wallace was so overprotective of his father. Although, seeing as she was there to relax and recuperate, she let the odd series of events wash over her. Perhaps she would live to see the errors of her complacent mind.

Places forgotten

The unlikely two reached the platform with no time to spare. The Canterlot Express was a true industrial masterpiece; it had smooth streamlined protrusions of polished steel connecting each carriage, it had a scheme of multi-tonal panels riveted masterfully onto sides, it also had an ear-piercing whistle which it played as the doors began to close.

Braeburn galloped extendedly towards the closing opportunity. He gazed back and expected to see Rose lagging behind but she had long surpassed him and his expectations and was already on the train.

The locomotive picked up more and more speed as less and less of the platform impeded it. Braeburn pushed hard and gave all that he had into the last desperate moments of gallop.

The end of the platform rushed towards him and nearly clipped his hoof as he leaped in through the door.

A ticket official noticed the entry right away, he rehoused his spectacles on the bridge of his nose and confronted the two “tickets please.” Braeburn panted breathlessly and gave the chrome blue stallion a dirty look.

“We- We’ve got the—Tickets, we have the tickets, hold on.” Braeburn dug his fore hooves into half-jacket pockets and came up empty.

A snarl tugged across the official’s face, he pointed to the door and formed an evil smile. “No tickets, no train ride.” Brae was swallowed up by the carriage floor. He checked his pockets again and then a third time but nothing but lint and sweet wrappers lay within.

He swallowed painfully a lump that formed in his throat; he looked hopefully at rose whose only response was a nonchalant shrug. Brae swallowed again, this time something became lodged in his windpipe. “I lost ‘em.”

The official lost his sense of humour and picked up Braeburn by the scruff of his jacket “you both will be getting off at the next stop, oh and good news, it’s in the little village of Sanstone.”

He gave them a view of his rear end and ventured down the central passage of the train. “Enjoy the walk Mr Apple, maybe you’ll lose the native.”

Braeburn thought he was going mad; he patted his pockets down and dropped his face in defeat. They had broken into the 1st class carriage.

Throughout the rows of seats sat the entrepreneurs, the account fiddling bank executives and the over privileged heirs and heiresses who had never had to lift a hoof in their hoity toity lives. There was a strict dress-code on this part of the train and neither Rose nor Braeburn adhered to it. Across the walls were detailed balustrades and silken curtains lay behind them.

The two sat quietly at the door they had leaped through for the ten minutes or so it took the train to reach the closest stop.

If Appleoosa was a one horse town, Sanstone was a no horse town, nothing much happened there and even when it did nopony noticed.

It used to be an important town during the age of mining but those health and safety bereft days were eons ago now. The train chugged along and scenery rushed past the windows. Nothing was that interesting out in the desert; an I-spy game would have no place in a setting like the Attacanter desert.

The minutes dragged past but finally the train pulled into the ghost town and it’s subsided single-platform station. Not a single other rump left the seat as the doors slid open. The sheer brightness of the dunes and furrows of the desert was a true eyesore.

Brae and Rose hopped off into the burning land and quickly realised it was far too hot to walk on. Rose was first to chicken out, she leaped several metres to an even hotter flat rock before she rocketed skywards and landed in a cool, half formed barn.

Braeburn braved the heat for a little longer, he switched between which two hooves had contract with the lava floor and alternated them almost twice a second. Soon his hooves were raw and he followed the choked calls of Rose.

Safe under the shade, the two panted through dry throats and sore tongues. Brae leaned back against a fragment of a wall and took the weight off his welted hooves. Rose went to nurse him but was swatted away by the stallion. “What the hell Rose? You were looking after the tickets, where did they go?”

Rose peeled her plasticising lips apart and puckered the bloody pulpy result. “I must have dropped them in the race for the train.” Braeburn seethed as he reaffirmed his seat, he spied a flock of black birds circling above.

The sun-burdened stallion cricked his neck and wrenched it over to Rose. “It’s the peak of the day; we should stay in the shade till it cools.” Reluctantly, Braeburn succumbed to the sun’s brutal rays and dropped off though exhaustion.

Rose trotted through the high-noon inferno until she was sure that Brae couldn’t see. She produced a pair of tickets from her person and screwed them up and tore them into a few equal segments before sailing them off on the unpredictable currents of air.

The scene was truly hopeless, buildings lay roofless and the well ran dry. There were some remnants of the previous inhabitants. There were eyeless dolls and teddy bear corpses robbed of their stuffing. There were ruptured clay pots and frayed lengths of rope and above it all swarmed a maelstrom of black-hearted birds.

Braeburn lifted his eyelids and saw something staring back at him. He darted his eyes away from the illusion and rubbed them feverishly with the latter half of his hoof. He looked again, it was no illusion. It had a dark coat and a svelte frame, it stood gaunt and uncomfortably on the burning sand.

From the cover of the ruined house it stayed behind there could be seen a translucent wing, it was short and disfigured, much like the creature that owned it. Brae brought his gaze into the soulless opalescent specs that glowed in its wide slits of eyes.

It looked a curious thing, its’ one visible hoof drilled through with sparsely spaced holes and its visible ear torn off at the end. Braeburn examined the thing a little longer; he would have recognised it straight away if it weren’t for his spinning head and the haze of the glaring sun. He burst into a fit of coughing, his eyes forced shut through the strife, and he parted his sore lips and trusted his sore hooves as he pushed himself proud of the wooden stakes he was leaning on.

He was regaled with an empty space where the creature had been, it could have flown away or maybe scurried. His throat rasped with the threat of further coughing and he closed his eyes again to hide his pain. When once his eyelids lifted he saw the scene was still bereft of the creature. Had it been a figment of his dehydrated mind?

He panned his vision across the derelict home the creature had appeared behind; he looked for the missing cow that must have gone in search of water during his slumber. He found a pair of eyes staring back from a Dickensian window frame, they were closer and the brow had sunk down as if the creature was angry.

Braeburn affixed his eyes to that of the barely visible creature, the eyes the only pigment of colour which showed in the shadow of the partial roof above.

The sunburnt stallion blinked repeatedly to clear the obvious mirage from his mind, yet there it remained staring coldly from across the dusty void. Gradually the omnipresent eyes gave way to a set of normal ones, and the dark guise of the creature became a chocolate pallet of a buffalo.

Braeburn rubbed his eyes again but through the cleaning was assured that the being beyond the window was the returning Rose. He put one saw hoof in the front of the other and broke into a lazy swaying form of a trot. He reached the other side and stuck his nose in past the window sill.

He heard an insect-like beat of wings just behind his head and twisted his head around, his nose scraped across the splintered frame of the window as he turned. Back at the shade of the barn stared the pair of glowing eyes.

Braeburn had to double take the sight to be sure it was not fantasy, he turned back to the window and pried the horizontal beam off from it, there was not a soul within the ruined home.

The butterfly wings fluttered behind him once more. With great trepidation he faced the root of the sound and found another worn, tired looking home. He risked changing his focus again and the eyes were gone from the barn he had slumbered under. He noticed his reflection in the still existent glass pane of the window of the new-old home.

He wondered towards it, sweat fell in swathes from his clammy forelock. He reached the would-be mirror and admired the sweltering blisters which formed on the tip of his nose as well as on the girth of his back. Something else called his eyes in the reflection, the creature’s eyes were burned into the glass, he checked over his shoulder but seemingly he was alone.

He turned his attention back to the window and noticed the once pale visage of his was no much clearer and detailed as it looked back at him. He used the brief moment of peace to cleave a hoof to the clammy surface of his cheek and rubbed tentatively the area. The reflection did the same.

He blinked his eyes alternately and the reflection mimicked every subtle movement. He spread widely his mouth and let his shiny white teeth glow under the mid-afternoon glare. The reflection followed suit. He relaxed his face, the reflection did this too, and then he turned his tail to the mirror and promptly checked the actions of the refection over his shoulder.

The reflection was still staring out of the window, its face and body had not copied the motion of Braeburn. Confused and in way over his head, Braeburn confronted his shadow again, he knocked his hoof against the pane. The reflection did the same.

He combed a hoof through his mane, the reflection copied again. He burdened his forehooves with his muscular frame and bucked his back legs out and through the window. The reflection was gone.

Braeburn then caught wind of his signed hooves, he stumbled and tripped over the window lip his back hooves were hooked upon and fell headfirst into the brimstone sand. The sun had gone to bed for the night, or so it seemed, above the fallen stallion Rose loomed.

She had collected some water which she contained in an old rusty pail which she set down at Braeburn’s side. “Sanstone aint what it used to be” Rose concluded as she stole Braeburn’s hat.

Braeburn crawled over to the pail and sank his head inside of it. He lapped up the murky water before clambering back to his hooves. He threw Rose a cheerful smile which thusly dropped as he tilted his head skywards. Above the two flew the murder of black crows. Braeburn wore his heart in his throat as he confided in his ally “they look like there are waiting for something, like a meal or something, and I think we’re it.”

Grains of sand kicked up from the surface and drifted quietly on the harsh updrafts of air. More sand joined the first few grains and the wind howled and hell descended on the humble town of Sanstone.

Rose cajoled her stallion into the shelter of the barn as a pelt-tearing storm tore through the Sanstone. They entrusted their lives to the bowing walls of the half formed barn and huddled together in terror at the far side of the sanctuary.

The sanctum granted the impatient winds entry as some of the tenuously nailed boards became dislodged. Braeburn forgot his own pain and shielded Rose’s from the ensuing storm.

Dusterfield Lane>

Octavia rebounded off of the pinstriped awning not twice but thrice before landing in a heap in the sand. As by a stroke of luck or a spot of bad luck, the new town sheriff played witness to the whole affair.

Octavia tended to her bruised cheek and her grazed knees before standing back up and waddling away. She saw the end of a nose, which belonged to a dull-green stallion, poke over the window ledge. She hugged the wall and shimmied along it until she was beneath another awning.

Thinking she was safe, the mare ruffled her furry pelt as she brushed the dust off of it. She contained the bowtie between her hooves and pulled it straight once more. “Miss Woodwind?” A faint voice bellowed in the distance.

She was in two minds about the whole bizarre debacle and tried to put it behind her. On one hand she he had acted irrationally and volatilely but on the other he had the right to be annoyed.

It eluded the mare why she had fibbed to the heir of her departed friend, especially after he had treated her like a princess. This time, a little louder, the same voice bellowed “Miss Woodwind?”

Just as before, she paid no notice to the voice, and she waited to hear the window close above. As luck would have it, the windows indeed slammed shut. She experimented with the bow that pared with the cello and held it out from under the awning.

There was no reaction so she got back on task and headed further down the street with a heightened sense of fervour. The same voice called, even louder than it had previously, it sounded strained “Miss Woodwind?”

This time the voice coupled with a collection of footfalls into the sandy soil. Octavia turned at the encroaching sound and fell backwards over a hoof cleaning iron which stood like a tree stump next to the saloon. Dazed and slightly embarrassed, Octavia put a name to the face and exclaimed in a less than gracious manner. “Mister Pear?”

Bartlett had galloped with such ferocity that he collided with the mare that had her legs up in the air. They rolled several times and came to rest at a fork in the sanded street.

Bartlett had ended up on top; he was panting heavily, his breath congealed on Octavia’s face. Octavia was first to ruin the oddly romantic tone of the encounter, she pushed his head back “do you really hate my music this much sir?”

The stallion had been so long without a mate that his southern-born brain took precedence and he pushed Octavia’s forelegs back around to her sides. He held her there and stole a look at the window he had seen her fall from “why did you jump from there Miss?”

She felt his limp member stroke her wounded knee and shook in protest. He pressed down harder on her and drew his head ever closer. Octavia feebly lifted her hooves a sliver off of the ground before having them thrown painfully back down.

She gnarled her face into a snarl. “I don’t see why this is any of your business and as such I shall not dignify your question with an answer.”

Octavia brought her knee up into the swaying stifle of the stallion and shuffled back on her rump as he recoiled in agony. She got back to a walking gait and broke into full gallop before she rounded a corner in the fork in the road.

Bartlett held gently his length and fought back the urge to vomit. He caught sight of the musical mare’s daring escape around the corner and set off after her virgin hoof prints in the sand. He rounded the same corner, his speed limited by the sore quality of his aching cock. His worst fears were coming to fruition, the mare he could only just see was heading for the Major’s office, and she was much faster than he.

He thanked the alicorns above as the mare came into view. She had paused at the door to the town hall, she looked unsure of what exactly she was going to say. Bartlett tapped a hoof in announcement as he set hooves on the town hall steps.

Octavia watched the pitiful example of physical fitness and pretended to file her hooves. The stallion caught his belated breath and bore down on the mare “you didn’t answer my question.”

Octavia cursed her knack of finding trouble when she was supposed to be resting, she took a step back before she advanced towards Bartlett and pinched his badge away from his shirt along with a clump of his skin “You didn’t answer mine either Mr Thicket!”

Bartlett finished what she had started and lightened his burden of responsibility. He ripped the five-pronged symbol of authority off of his person and allowed it to drift under the sandstorm carpet.

The storm had come out of nowhere, even as far from its origins as Appaloosa, the storm was as strong if not stronger. Both Bartlett and Octavia took refuge in the hall. Octavia didn’t waste a moment in the foyer or shooting the breeze with the receptionist; she marched directly to the door of the serpentine Mayor and knocked impatiently upon it.

She had arrived at the most unfortunate of times, the intestinal vision of evil was scoffing down a platter of little baby white mice. Octavia nevertheless hurried her knocking upon the thick oaken door.

A rattling coaxed from the end of the scaly beast as the doorway was freed of obstruction. Octavia entered and looked everywhere but the satisfied eyes of Mayor Delilah Caiman. The child like plaything rattled over nest to a chair, the relatively small grey hued mare saw this as ushering and quickly obeyed the order.

She settled cosily in the chair, it was plush, it felt like it were swallowing her up. The snake vibrated her forked tongue and lowered her head to rest on the impractically sized desk “Miss Octavia! What a pleasant surprise.”

Sarcasm rang through every hiss of the serpent Mayor. Octavia stood up from the chair’s out-of-place embrace and combated the snide comment of Caiman with a smile. She broke free of her shell and demanded “I want a stallion thrown out of this town! He has made a mockery of my profession and has made unwanted advances upon my marehood.”

It was impossible to tell whether the snake was smiling of frowning, it cocked its head to the side and gave a hint via the rattle it had at its tail end. Caiman then thrust her head forward. “Does the stallion have a name?

Octavia drowned in the ridiculousness of her own poor memory, she sat back in her seat and grimaced as the head drew nearer. She felt her impending demise would lie at the glinting points of the snake’s articulate fangs.

In knowing the end was but a whisker’s breadth away, the mare found a lion’s courage somewhere in her heart. She stood up from the plush chair cushions once again and remained as close as she could get to the Mayor’s teeth without bathing in the poisonous leakage.

She was so close she could smell the decomposing baby mice in the belly of the beast. Octavia aired her grievances “yes he does have a name. Wallace Thicket, I’ll have you know he ruined my cello and…”

The rant was cut short by the rattle which vibrated loudly next to Octavia’s pricked-up ears. The tail end then fetched a pair of rarely used reading spectacles which were then propped on the stout nose of Caiman. Delilah bent her head down so low she was looking up to the other, she sighed before she spoke. “Did you sssay Wallace? Wallace Thicket… isss he the pony who’s been giving you trouble?”

Octavia rolled her eyes at the repeated information and confirmed. “Yes, him, I want him gone from this place.”

Caiman shook her head in disbelief; she raised her spectacles above her brow with her tail and bit the arm of one before stating. “He has long been gone from this place Misssss. Your wish has already some true for the stallion you speak of isss dead.”

All that spewed from Octavia’s drooping muzzle was a chorus of defiance. “…But” she uttered finally as she collapsed onto the floor.

Caiman supported the mare with her stout snout before delivering her to the chair. She picked up the chair in her jaw and swayed it this way and that. Octavia came to but her eyelids were like lead weights.

Caiman formed herself into a neatly coiled pile and lowered her head to the musical mare. “Have you lossst your way Miss? How could have you seen, even talked to a pony who hasss been dead for over twenty years?”

The stuttering mare ceased her blathering and cooled her head. She dropped her vision to her sore knees and accepted the painful truth “perhaps I am mad. I have spoken to the one you say is dead. I have run from him just now.” Her voice cracked during that last few syllables and she hanged her head down further into the pit of despair that lay in the centre of her lap.

Caiman brought her tail up to the corner of her mouth and then made eye contact with the stallion that waited behind the frosted glass. She gestured her tail housed rattle forward and beckoned the onlooker. “Misster Bartlett. I can ssseee you, you know. Come in here thisss instant!”

Bartlett tried to shirk the call and ducked out of the snake’s view. He soon saw the flaw of his plan and yielded to the call. Once inside he was drawn to the desk surrounded by the boughs of Caiman’s body. He swooned to the siren song and slipped through a gap in the coiled up mare’s form.

The Mayoral Snake sprung from her coil and landed at the back of the room, her head hovered just above the impractically sized desk. She articulated her fangs to face outwards and dragged them through the wooden panel. “Why sheriff Pear, you have let me down. You swore to protect, nay, clean up my town. Your exact words were ‘the cells will brim with the undesirables of this here town’. So what excuse will you offer me, what morsel of intelligence do you have in that thick head of yours? Because my cells run dry, the jail is lacking of any custom, yet ponies are afraid of something.”

Caiman happened upon the missing crest. “And what of your badge? Do you presume to make a fool out of me? What will your portly sprog think of your distasteful cowardice? She won’t look you in the eyes Bartlett, you’ll lose her.”

Bartlett was at least content in that the situation could not sour anymore; his notion of stability was cut through by the grey hued mare. She threw him an impudent false grin. “Your so-called-law-keeper harassed me during my practice; he throttled my muse as if it were his own resplendent erection.”

The Mayor craned her head to meet the shying stallion at her side “is this true Bartlett? If you want so much to make amends then go outside and find that badge!”

Bartlett hated to lose face and so he accepted the challenge and threw back a wager as he made for the door “what if I don’t find the badge? What if I can’t?”

The beady eyes of the Madam Mayor looked hypnotically into those of Bartlett, she licked her lips of poisonous resin and gave an ultimatum “either you find the crest and bring it back here or you leave my town and you never come back.”

Bartlett cantered through the foyer with the threat fresh in his mind. He came to the windowed doubled doors of the town hall and saw the full extent of the storm which ravaged the valley. The snake had followed him out; she knew he might try to wriggle out of the deal “is there a problem Misssster Pear? It’s just sand after all.”

Bartlett swallowed forcibly a dry sandy lump that had formed in his throat and looked up between the venom gushing pair of fangs “how long do I have until there is nothing left of me?” The cruel tongue of the Mayor slithered in between the sheered edges of her fangs and she ushered a cruel laugh “that’s up to the storm Pear”

Overlooking Appaloosa>

The buffalo clan high upon the plateau were safe from the raging storm below. Chief Thundering Hooves stood strong with his protégé, the two of them on bated breath for when the sand would finally settle. Over the wind’s anguished howl Thundering schemed privately with Raging-wonderer. “When the air is once more calm and the ponies below drag their sorry selves from the wreckage we will descend from these sacred lands and we will find my daughter.”

The confident shroud across Raging’s face blew away with the storm. “Perhaps she doesn’t want to be here, why not respect her wish?”

Thundering gifted the defiance with a growl and sunk his hoof into the dry clay-capped heights “I want her back not for my love for her but for my lineage to go on. When we have her, my son, you shall lay with her and you shall have calves with her!”

“It is a fool’s errand father, can you not see?” The younger of the bulls digressed, his body language was entirely sober, and his mind was not his own. “Are we fools then son?”

Thundering began, he reared up on his hind legs and forced the charge to submit “We lived here long before the settlers arrived and we will live on long after they are dead and gone. We own these lands my son” He preached as he landed back on to all four hooves.

The chieftain looked peacefully upwards and closed his eyes in prayer “She will look after us, the great eagle; we are all feathers under her wing. But her and her children, we the children, will lay waste to the sodomy plagued streets below and purge the monsters that dwell there within!”

Raging strayed further from his character and continued to question the ethical minefield of the differences the two sects of people held dear. He huffed large volumes of warm air from his nostrils and broke his father’s heart. “What eagle father? Do you see a single bird not wretched and deformed gracing the skies above? Because I do not and your followers may blindly face down your foes and join your crusade but I will not.”

Thundering took great offence at the blasphemy, he would have wept if it weren’t for his pride, and his patience grew thin. Thundering readied to charge, his horns poised in line of his favourite’s throat, he gave his son one last chance. “The city has poisoned you, it has made you evil and it made you no son of mine. Leave this place if you continue to trample our beliefs or stampede with us to glory once the sands have settled.”

The hidden agenda of the previously one-track minded bull perplexed his aged father. But he would not be as humbled and malleable as once he was; he was once a clay mass for his father to shape but was now a free grain of sand. The bull broke through the cocoon and spread his wings, in more ways than one.

Raging-wonderer spread his legs apart and grunted through the painful changes within him. From his broad sides emerged two butterfly-like wings and from his forelock erupted a crooked horn.

The whites of his eyes died out to the replacement of two opalescent speckled blue slits. His short mane withered and aged and his ear tip melted away from his face. More ghastly protrusion shot from atop his pole whilst vacuous bores formed in his legs.

Two sinister looking fangs slipped through his blackening lip. As his lips blackened so too did the rest of his body. Several fissures formed in the previously pristine lengths of semi-transparent wing and finally his face reformed to complete the transformation.

“Where’s this all seeing eagle now father?” The changeling demanded.

Thundering was speechless and more appropriately terrified. He backed his sorry self towards the crumbling precipice of the mount and glanced down at the heaving torrent hankering for his soul. An earthen slice of cliff edge lost its battle with the eroding sands and fell into the bleak maelstrom.

Thundering’s hoof lost purchase on the clay cap and he nearly followed after it. The changeling held him menacingly by the ear and dragged him back onto the ground. Thundering saw his chanting children and galloped into the serenity of his family unit. He was to be deceived one last time. Amongst the ranks grew many pairs of translucent wings and what once was brown turned to pitch black.

The metamorphosis was as gradual as ever and the changeling protégé glided over to the scene. As bones snapped and features corrupted the creature sneered “you did have a family but what of it now? Every last one of your kin rots out in the Attercanter and you didn’t even know.”

The cracking of bones and shedding of skin did much to silence the remaining bull but still he cried. “What conjuration is this? None of you should have survived the spell of Shining’s fury, none of you should live!”

The younger, weaker bulls writhed as the changes took a toll on them, some had been fully reborn as the stuff of nightmares and they closed all roots of escape for the last of the buffalo clan.

The first Changeling daintily hovered overhead and came to rest face to face with Thundering. It foamed at the mouth as it relished in the torment of the relic “I was disappointed with how easily I replaced every one of your brothers. You see, me and my brothers need to eat as well, you should know the fairy tales by now…”

It buzzed its wings and pressed its disenchanting head against the cheek of the frozen bull. The changeling whispered to the chieftain “we feed off of you.”

Limbs snapped and regrew and eyes glowed with the typical shade of blue as the stragglers completed their transformation. The murder of crow-like creatures of the night closed in around the normal form of the one different to them, and blocked out the light.

Sanstone>

Still wrapped in the embrace of Braeburn, Rose nearly fell asleep. They held onto each other throughout the first attack of the storm. Their safety was quickly blowing away with the will of the wind.

A stomach-churning creak sounded across the barn from where the two cowered, Brae opened an eye and examined the severity of the situation. He could not keep his eye fixed on the opposite side of the barn for long, his eyes were awash with grit and sand so he turned his head back into Rose.

He blinked without rest to clear the debris and braved the sheering winds once more. The wooden boards that had creaked had bent to the point of breaking. A splinter of wood catapulted from the wall and a draught of incinerating wind licked the cheek of Braeburn.

As soon as the wind reached Braeburn’s face it took with it a slice of his yellow skin. Despite the disabling pain, Brae continued to act as a buffer for Rose.

This time he hadn’t looked away from the wind’s source. Just as the sand dried out his eyes, he saw a gleaming strip of light progressing rapidly towards him. He released his grip and threw himself out of the way of the incoming wood axe which became embedded in the beam between the unlikely pair. It didn’t rest for long as the wind forced it along with the lower half of the beam out into the streets of Sanstone.

Braeburn attempted to cross the gap that had formed between him and the cow he had grown to love, but was foiled by the blistering heat of the wind. Rose, aroused from the sounds and the burning all around her, pushed herself flat against the wall. One second she was there, the next she was gone. The entire opposite wall gave way and dissolved into nothingness.

Braeburn screamed for his love and dived into the merciless winds. He soon understood his folly as he rushed from side to side and the very pelt of his form was peeled in slithers off of him.

Even when confronted with his own mortality, Braeburn searched the opaque haze for Rose. The howl of the storm had calmed to a wail and soon a whistle till there was nothing at all. The yellow patchwork of a stallion screwed his face up at the pure agony of his severed skin.

In the dying storm, a piece of torn paper drifted carelessly until it collided with Braeburn’s shredded flank.

SLAP

He felt the alien presence of the thing and dabbed his hoof over his rump to investigate. He unfurled the corners and read the faded message. It was part of a ticket, a ticket for the Canterlot Express. Had Rose lied to him? Why would she have done such a thing? These niggling thought fought for favour in Braeburn’s spinning head.

He parted his lips which, along with most of his well-toned body, were sand blasted to within an inch of their life. They held fast together like waxy glue was connecting them. He jerked his jaw down and pried his lips apart.

The surfaces of his upper and lower lip pulsed with his heartbeat due to the strips of flesh which had torn from them. The day was cooling and a night in the desert was not something Braeburn wanted to experience. He set his eyes on the rail and followed the path of sleepers.

Outside in Appaloosa>

Appaloosa suffered still at the hands of the cruel tides of the storm, the dwellers cowered at the mercy of the harrowing gales as they retreated into their homes and hides to sit out the storm, and not one of them knew how long it would rage for.

Bartlett cautiously applied pressure to the double doors. They swung open explosively and let in the damning howls of the angry beast. He looked to be having second thoughts, Caiman jabbed her rattled tail into the small of his back and chucked him out to the street. The Mayor stuck her tail briefly in the sulphurous breeze and closed the two doors with a bone-shattering slam.

The first part of Bartlett to suffer was his smart attire; his shirt and tie were torn to ribbons and hanged off of him briefly before sailing down the street. The stallion kept his nose to the ground and began digging a few holes near to the town hall steps. He had his rump to the storm and it paid the price, his tail shrivelled and his arse cheeks became chapped.

He nuzzled his nose into the newly dug hole and found nothing. Time grew ever shorter as scars formed up along Bartlett’s back and deep blisters adorned his hind legs. He bit at the air through his pain until something shone at the end of the street. It was a sterling shape he had hoped to find and it had become entrapped at the foot of a barrel.

As he edged closed to the trinket he saw a faint apparition stroll by. Up ahead of him a stallion of dull green walked through the ravaging storm. It stopped at the crossroads and upended the barrel which had held the trinket down.

Bartlett ploughed his stomach through the sand. He groaned as further layers of his pelt were torn forcibly from him. Before too long he had reached the one prong that stuck out from the sand and lunged a hoof towards it.

The ghostly vision stamped its hoof down onto Bartlett’s forward reaching hoof. He rolled onto his side, the blood that welled on his back poured off into the sand. It coagulated on contact with the harsh wind. Bartlett pulled his trapped hoof free and gazed up to the pony above him. He couldn’t believe his eyes, it was Wallace Thicket.

The scorching winds had no effect on the long dead stallion that loomed over Bartlett. He leaned down and picked up the crested badge, he examined it closely before dropping it into the deep welts on Bartlett’s back.

“What are doing with my father’s badge boy?” He demanded. He stepped over the fallen writhing stallion and planted his spurs into the tattered remains of his back. Bartlett heaved himself upon the horizontal barrel and reached a hoof around to his back, he teased the five pronged star out from his shoulder blade and held the resultant thing in front of him.

He turned his attention to the town hall and began the arduous journey back there. He could walk no more, his hooves blistered and burned, he fell to his knees. As he met the volcanic sand the inclement weather calmed and eventually faded out completely.

Bartlett cringed as wisps of hay fell back to earth and window shutters flung open. He admired the spoils and held the badge level on his chest. He pierced his bloody mess of pelt with the point of the pin and assumed his role as sheriff once more.

He kicked open the double doors and walked with a limp but also a new sense of purpose. Bartlett held the badge out for Caiman to see, it tore his flesh slightly but he was numb to it. The serpentine Mayor winked appreciatively to his efforts and beckoned. “You best come back into my office. We have a matter most urgent to discuss.”

Long way from home

Bailey tripped meagrely as she disembarked the carriage. Gillyflower followed after her, his eyes full of woe. The coach driver doffed his hole-worn hat and waved as he carried away. The couple laid eyes on what the storm had left in its wake; they held each other softly and started for the Apple homestead.

Gilly noticed the gauge in the door where the nail had been removed and slid the key into the lock. There was no need, the door had been left unlocked and it creaked open weakly. Bailey was itching to faint again but this time her husband caught her and carried her inside.

He set Bailey down on the single armchair, his usual seat, and kissed her sweetly on the lips. She barely reacted; her eyes were still glazed over from the potions she had been injected with. Gilly plonked himself down on the couch and sunk into the canvas. He pulled a disgusted frown as a glistening drip of saline fluid dropped down from between the couch cushions and slithered down his neck.

He wiped the contaminant off and then pushed his weight forward. His back peeled like Velcro from the flytrap of repugnant leavings that still marked most of the couch backrest.

As the last gluey strand let go he fell straight onto his snout. He was about to ignite in a shouting match when he realised his son and his house guest were absent. He went to the cellar and fetched a barrel of rum and returned to the couch with it. He rested the barrel in the crook of the couch corner.

He then hooked his hooves underneath the piece of furniture and dragged it out of the house. In the instant that is was exposed to direct sunlight, the couch let out a bedazzling aura as the semen rich fibres reflected the sun’s rays. He dragged the couch far away from his home, far from the town and further still till he was satisfied that he wouldn’t be seen. He struck a match on his hind hoof and dropped it onto the sticky cum bucket of a love seat.

Much to his dismay, the match went out without lighting the material; the liquid pride spewed about the thing denied any such reaction.

“What are you doing out here pa?” came the voice of the incriminated stallion. Gilly recognised the patter and confronted his son. “What am I doing? Oh I don’t know, burning the family couch again because you can’t keep it limp!”

Braeburn stroked his upper teeth with his tongue and yawned at his wailing father “stow it pa. Just because I’m still young and virile doesn’t mean you get to hate me for it.”

Gillyflower placed his focus back on the couch and remembered the barrel of spirit he had brought with him. He cleaned the weighty receptacle clear of the seat and popped the cap off of it. Dark creamy rum poured from the displaced cork-hole and spread all over the doomed couch.

A second match was struck and was flicked into the accelerant. The blaze kicked up nicely, the tarnished material crisped and blew away as ash. Brae basked in the glow and rolled around, much to the irritation of his father. Gilly closed the matchbook and recapped the rum. “Where’s Rose son?”

Braeburn jumped at the question and tipped his hat forward to hide his shame. Gilly drew his conclusion and swatted the hat off of his son’s head. “What have you done Braeburn? You were entrusted with that cow, now where in Equestria is she?”

He needed no time to think up his lies; he spat in distaste and began “she went back to her people. She was just spying on us pa.” Gilly adjusted his bolo tie and stroked his sandstone cheek. “Are you lying to me boy? You have no chances left, one more hoof wrong and it’s the street for you.”

The fire still raged in the background, each and every ruined thread of it reduced to dust. Braeburn noticed there was not another pony for at least a mile and began to violently transform. At first the holes drilled through the legs, then the horn burst through his head and then his back bore two translucent wings.

Gillyflower shied back towards the towering inferno and turned to run. More creatures from his darkest dreams blocked his escape.

His heart thumped against his ribcage as the cold disfigured creatures closed in. They forced him back toward the fire and he stopped at the flame’s reach. He hiked a leg into his stomach and let out a little whimper. The masses closed in, so close they could reach him with their tongues. Gilly started to lose his balance.

Overlooking Appaloosa>

A changeling infant ripped the last remaining sinew from the handsomely sized carcass. The fibrous tendon stretched like rubber as the changeling chewed it eagerly. One of the larger beasts made a signal at the observer’s post.

“The storm is over! We go in for the kill!” A larger creature stopped the ensuing disorganised panic and loss of life and dragged the other from the precarious point.

“We cannot make our presence known” the one once known as Raging-wonderer declared. His underlings stood to attention, their loyalty unwavering. “Our power is in deception not all out assault, they’ll load us with so much lead we will be unable to fly!” The Raging changeling said, the cheers of his lessers a catalyst to the hard on he was ill-equipped to achieve.

It was only then that the self-appointed leader took a head count. He went over each row and column and doubled checked his findings but the data was irrefutable “why do your numbers fall brothers?”

There was a hushed silence, not a changeling wanted to be the bearer of bad news. The runt was kicked forward from where it was happily chewing on the fresh buffalo jerky. The miniscule changeling fluttered its wings nervously and shook putridly on the spot. “One of our brothers still chases one. He is smarter than the others, faster too. He was heading in the direction of Canterlot.”

The former prize bull ground his sharp teeth and looked towards the gilded towers which floated on the horizon “then we must do all that we can to stop him. When the alicorns hear of our return they will send their dogs and we will be dog food.”

Changelings were a hive like creatures, they flew in swarms and served one queen, they therefore didn’t have names. The smallest changeling saluted its better and poised its wings for flight “I will catch him… I will kill him… And when he is no more I will bring you his heart.”

The bull once renowned for his impatient pursuit of his own sister, bowed to honour the intrepid soul as he sailed so bravely off into the scavenger skies. He detracted from his forlorn gaze, for even though he loved his changeling brother in a measure rather unhealthy, he could not be seen to be choosing favourites.

He faced the changelings that remained in the reservation and bowed once again for their returned respect. “We have lost a few of our brothers to the one they call Bartlett. I didn’t mention it in front of the serf for it wouldn’t fare well against the vile murderer of our kind. We cannot continue to feed the queen if this menace remains alive. He killed our sister in the town, he is a brutal, violent, pest and he is one we must busy ourselves to stamp out.” He chanted.

The adoring, adulating crowd felicitated their self-appointed leader with an incoherent spate of cheers.

The Mayoralty>

Delilah closed the door behind the fatigued stallion and made a seat from books for him to use. Caiman died inside as she asked the question she already knew the answer to. “Did you see Wallace out there?” Bartlett sniffed miserably and stared intently at his touching hooves. “How can it be possible? He died when he was mugged in the big city, Manehatton. Brochures said it was a place where dreams come true…”

“But as it turned out it was a place dreams came to die”.

Wallace Thicket was an untalented, growth-stunted and widely hated stallion in Appaloosa. Though he was held in the light of enmity by a majority of the ponies he happened across, no pony for miles could harbour a grudge like him. But none could understand his hatred of his own father.

Wallace was so much different to his father. In every field Jeremiah excelled in, Wallace failed. Wallace had no love for music or any of the arts; instead he enjoyed numbers and facts.

It was another sweltering midday scene and Wallace stood with his dad on the porch. His father had a single grey hair that dared grow in his mane. The porch was not complete, some of the decking not yet varnished and half of the floor wasn’t even there. Two rocking chairs sat under the sheltered space, Jeremiah’s rump adorned one of them but the other was lacking of anything as warm and fulfilling.

Jeremiah coaxed. “Stop your damned pacing boy!” Wallace gave him none of his time nor attention, he viewed his father out of the corner of his eye and continued to pace. Upon Jeremiah’s crossed legs was an immaculate banjo, it had ravishing details of brass and silver and it was polished to a high shine. He took the stringed instrument into his arms properly and smiled as he strummed the tensioned strings.

Wallace turned at what he perceived to be the worst noise that had ever been made and stomped his hoof down onto the unfinished, rickety porch. The board beneath him sunk below the normal level whilst the other end propelled upwards.

Jeremiah played a sour note as he felt his son’s hatred of his art and then saw the sullied craftsmanship of the porch. He placed the banjo neatly by the rocking feet of the chair and drew his magnificent form up to meet the wondering eyes of his progeny.

Jeremiah slapped his son across the muzzle who cursed at the searing pain “damn it son! When are you gonna do something right? Your mother works all the hours the sisters bless her to run this here home and you just aint pulling your weight. You won’t even learn an instrument or a trade; you’re not much longer a teenager boy! Sort your life out!”

Wallace seethed at the scolding and stared down his father, he held his defiant gaze till the eyes of his father bled with tears. Jeremiah returned to his rocking chair and avoided the spite of his child. Wallace took the other dynamic seat off from its foundations and threw it out into the dusty street. “She works long hours yes. But you don’t do jack shit around here! You sit around talking about your little skiffle band and how you’re reaching for the stars but every night I look up there and the stars stay exactly where they are!”

A stream of tears cascaded down the dreamer’s snout, he reassumed his confident guise and shoved his son back against the half-rumped job he had done. One of the supporting pillars lay in the path of Wallace and it was thusly snapped in half by the lout’s solid frame. The roof above slanted down and the a few slate tiles smashed on the porch steps.

Jeremiah picked his son back up by the lapels of his jacket and brought him in as if he intended to hug him. Only he held his son with less than familial intent, Jeremiah spat a clod of tobacco out onto the whims of the wind and barked “you have to have a dream son! Right now you seem like you’ve given up and it breaks this old fool’s heart. Now, I love you son as does your mother but you need something to aim for. You used to love numbers and counting and all that malarkey, what happened to that bright young foal who corrected teachers on a daily basis? Where did my son go?”

Wallace broke free from the strangle hold and tripped over the folly of his poor workmanship as his hoof clipped the off-kilter floorboard. He landed rump-first in the custard dusted street. He was now able to see the full extent of his morning’s labour as more slates came crashing down to the ground.

He wiped the sweat from his brow and climbed back aloft the porch. Wallace leaned down and pried the proud board out from amongst the rest and threw it down to the broken chair that rocked no more to be buried by nature’s eraser.

He calmed down a smidgen and appealed to his father’s normally docile nature “I guess I lost my way pa. I’m sorry; tell momma I’m sorry too.”

Jeremiah puzzled momentarily at the hasty inflection of the speech, he brushed the mane flat on his son’s pole and looked lovingly over into the distance. “Why don’t you tell her yourself?”

Josephine was a sleeper of the day, her nights were full of toil and strife down in the mines, her sooty appearance reflected her profession. She doffed her torch-lit helmet and scoffed at the subsidence of the roof “you’ll get it next time son, no doubt about it.”

She was dressed in a faded pastel dress of blue and green and her mane was tied up in a bob. She glowed under the midday sun, her coat complimented it perfectly. Her coat was a very bright green and her eyes were a beauteous indigo.

She walked past the nondescript piles of timber and leaped into her husband’s arms. He caught her and they remained entwined until Wallace ruined the moment. The son of the two placed himself as the centre of attention before unleashing a rabbit punch into his father’s cheek.

Jeremiah swerved from the impact and ended up back in his chair. Wallace went back just inside the door and fetched a few supplies. He returned to the air of discontent and juggled a hammer in his hoof “fine, I’ll fix the damn porch! Now you and Ma head inside, I can’t be dealing with your mithering and her pandering.”

Jeremiah straightened his back and got back to his feet, he took his love by the hoof and the two headed indoors. Before Jeremiah had a chance to close the door, Josephine whinnied. “Can you please try to work things out with him? He hasn’t been the same since…” The sound was cut out by the door’s shutting.

Wallace sucked in air through his teeth as he found himself snowed under the monumental task of fixing the mess he had caused. He fetched a step ladder from the side of the house and propped it under the secure section of roof to the side of the porch.

He continued his vile habit of cribbing and clasped a set of nails in between his pursed lips. He ascended the ladder rung by rung and poked his head over the top of the topsy-turvy roof. He slid the claw under each connecting nail and let the resulting metal spikes fall to the sand below.

Jeremiah craned his neck out of the upstairs window. “Can you try and save some of the nails please?”

Wallace wanted so much to promote his modus operandi of pure laziness but the nails held betwixt his cracked lips made it unfavourable. Instead, he tossed a diminutive scowl at his father before he pulled another nail out and let it plunge into the sand. Something, out of Wallace’s view, tugged Jeremiah away from the open air.

Wallace noticed the precursors of fornication and rolled his eyes at the very thought of the two getting it on together. He kicked a hind leg out into the open window and shut it swiftly before freeing the last of the connecting nails.

The sun beat hard on his neck and back, he looked in the general direction of his otherwise engaged father and thought about how best to go about removing the hefty roof fixture. It was obvious at first sight that the thing was far too heavy for one stallion to haul. The second possibility was to lever the mass away from the supports and let it fall, he decided against this too. With precious few options available, Wallace climbed back up the ladder and let himself in the upstairs window.

Once inside he heard the complaints of the springs and the congratulatory dialogue of his parents. Yesses and other such disturbing phrases passed between the two as if they were absorbed in a fast-paced game of ‘guess who’.

Down the hall the stallion crept, each hoof added to the ambient creaking of the parents in bed. Wallace gulped down a lump stuck in his throat and crept ever closer to the amalgam of shadows. At this distance he could hear the moans of ‘no’ and the demands of ‘harder!’ He crept even closer, his heart in his throat, something welled in his throat.

He poked his head around the door to his parent’s bedroom and noticed the shadowy shapes were cast by a tree outside the parents’ room. Wallace pulled a dumbfounded expression, he had heard his parents at it, but they were not in their bedroom.

The ball dropped, the bile in his throat rose, and he charged into his own bedroom. There within was his defrocked mother and his sweating father; he thrust his hips several more times into her before he noticed the crestfallen stallion at the doorway.

Josephine opened her eyes after her matinee performance and froze as they locked with her son’s. Jeremiah slid his hose from the arched form of his wife, soap spilled copiously from her friction-burned marehood.

Jeremiah’s length swung all over the place and spilled the soapy mixture all over the comic-strip themed bedspread.

Wallace didn’t know why, but the pendulum motion of the member was somehow mesmerising. It took a while for the stallion to form a sentence but when he did it was through not half-measure of concentration. “What are you two doing on my bed?!”

Wallace demanded as his eyes snapped back and forth from the swinging fire-hose and the gaping marehood of his mother.

Josephine tried to defend the lustful act but all that came from her mouth was a small measure of soapy fluid and a low whinny.

Jeremiah lowered his stance and wiped his semen upon the face of a few super-stallion details on the duvet before he drew the same duvet over the rear end of his submitted wife.

He made a path of kisses up the side of her underbelly and stepped down off of the bed. Wallace’s eyes darted in rhythm of the shrinking fellow housed in his father’s crotch. Wallace fought the odd fascination he had with the shape and looked down into the azure carpeted floor.

Jeremiah cleared his throat and arched his back which was paying for the ferocity with which he ploughed Josephine. He waited for his hart’s canter to calm to a walk and made his excuses. “Wallace, I don’t know how much you saw of that but… You understand right? There’s life in me and your mother still son, do you expect us not to express our feelings in this most intimate way?”

The excuse did not hit any of the right notes; Wallace avoided the feigned innocent pose of his father and set his eyes on the sweat clad face of his mother. He swallowed back the bile which made a few further attempts for freedom, he called to his mother “you guys knew I was out there, I shouldn’t have to walk in on this!”

Josephine woke from her pleasure induced coma and rolled her head on to its side “you were meant to be outside for a while so we seized the day, so to speak.”

No amount of Carpe Diem would release the new-found brand of hatred the stallion had found. The begrudging memory scored into his brain as he tapped agitatedly upon the wall “you have a bedroom. I would ask you leave mine free of… of… this.”

Jeremiah’s bruised ego ached more than his weeping cock; he left the room and made his way down the hallway. Wallace moved himself out of the way and then prowled up to his cum sodden sheets and his mare mother who still lay there with her rump hoisted in the air.

He looked down at her submissive form from nearly the same angle as had his father, he gripped the sheets and ripped them from underneath the cosily drawling mare, and she wafted her tail back over her shame.

Josephine stretched and gave her son a sorrowful appeal of puppy-dog eyes before climbing off the bed and going the same direction as the Pater had.

The stench of the accumulated cum filled the unfortunate nostrils of Wallace as he sent the linens off into the hallway. He pulled a look of absolute revolt as he tugged with such force to break away from what bound his fore and hind hooves to the floor.

He tumbled flank over pole into the same feigned innocence his father had tried to fool him with before. Wallace was not so dumb, he still had a task at hoof and the stallion would help him with it now he had been caught.

Wallace walked through the sticky restraints that meant to fasten him to the floor. He soon reached earshot of his spent father and ordered “I need help to remove the roof, you will help me.”

Jeremiah dropped his head and exhibited the shameful walk necessary for the occasion. He followed Wallace out the door and waited with pricked-up ears. Wallace planted his hooves on his hips and cribbed a little, he stopped himself mid-suck since his father hated the habit so much.

He turned to Jeremiah and asked “what happened to that pulley I was using this morning? I was sure I left it near the house.”

Jeremiah pondered the location a mite before discovering another mess up on his part. He grimaced and pointed a hoof towards the main body of the town “I leant it to the Pear’s just down the way there. You think you can get it for me?”

Wallace didn’t want to become his own eco but he also knew how stubborn his father could be, he flushed red and wanted to scream but instead he sent a ruffled brow to his father and set off down the lane. The Pears were awful new to the town and had only since changed the curtains to their new home.

Wallace tapped a hoof on the door and awaited the response. A little time passed before a mare answered the door, she was angular and rigid in appearance and her coat was a delightful shade of pearl-white.

She sucked air through her teeth and struck a hoof upon the forelock of the visitor. She drew the hoof back and smiled gently “you must be Thicket’s boy. I’ll get Wilbur for you.”

The mare left the door unattended for a few moments whilst she fetched her husband. Wallace tapped a hoof with no particular rhythm and tried to whistle a few bars of a song he liked.

The windows and vases of Appaloosa gave a sigh of relief as a broadly built stallion answered the door. He was slightly more tanned than his wife, his coat the palest brown. His muscles rippled as he held the curious contraption out for the other to take.

The block and tackle dangled from his hoof as he addressed the littler stallion “your father said I could give this back in the morning, why the sudden change of heart?” Wallace impatiently thrust his hoof towards the rope of the pulley but was thwarted by a mighty swipe of Wilbur’s.

Wallace nursed the reddened area and backed away slightly, he hated confrontation. He pulled his face awkwardly biased to one side and explained “we need it so I can fix the porch roof” as quietly as he could manage. Wilbur bent an ear down to the mouth of the other. “Can you speak up son? I’ve heard louder mice.”

Wallace scrunched up his nose and reached deep inside and announced as coherently as he would dare as not to patronise the great wall of muscle in front of him “we need it to fix the porch roof!”

The initial fierce look softened on Wilbur’s muzzle, he put a hoof tip to his own lips to hush the stallion. “Okay I don’t want to fight with you. The missus doesn’t quite like me getting into scraps and the little Bartlett doesn’t much appreciate it either.”

Just as the words whispered from his mouth, his mare wife trotted past the gaping door with a lazy yawning colt draped over her back.

Wallace brooded at the sight and calmly took the item from the robust stallion. He waved for Wilbur’s attention just before the door closed completely. “Who’s that?”

Wilbur reopened the door and gazed up the stairs to where the charge slept “that’s little Bartlett, he’s gonna make us all proud someday, when he stops fiddling with himself and getting into trouble.” Wallace bowed and quickly returned back home.

In the present, Bartlett grinned at the memory, it was probably the only time he had seen Wallace.

Twenty years behind him however, a totally different story was about to begin. Wallace arrived back at his demolished homestead and went as close to opening that door that the handle turned on the other side.

His father had since returned to the confines and he dreaded to think what the mustang was up to, the very idea of his father and mother encapsulated in each other like he had seen was something he would forever rue. He left the Pulley and rope at the door and stared dreamily out to the horizon.

He did have a dream but it was one he could not realise in the one-horse town he had grown up in. He cantered away into the town’s bustling street and passed the buskers and the entertainers that graced the middy proceedings.

The music the buskers played, just like the pony dwellers of the town, were varied and rich in the spice of multiculturalism. He passed a small contingent of Southern Carriboon drummers and politely dropped a sum of coinage into the intended hat reciprocal.

As noon faded and evening rolled on by, the stallion leaned up against the town hall with an idea hatching in his mind. He had seen hype and interest in the developed cities of Manehatton and Las Pegasus and knew that within these concrete jungles was where his dream would finally come true. He shoved through the doubled doors of the hall and walked with purpose towards the Mayor’s office.

Mayor Elijah Caiman was a creature much like his daughter, a slithering, sliding, snake. He was, if it was even possible, larger than his daughter would ever grow to be and barely had an inch to move in the office.

Being the questioning sort, Wallace thought to question the practicality of hiring such enormous carnivorous creatures to run a town of herbivores but didn’t dare ask the question. He opened the door to the crowded office and made his plans known to the Mayor Caiman “Mr Caiman Sir? I was kind of hoping I could steal a moment of your time.”

Elijah rattled his tail in annoyance and partly in threat; he lowered his fang filled head down to the highly impractical desk and responded. “Why of course Mr Thicket, what plagues your mind?”

Wallace steered clear of the thought that the basilisk before him might snap and suck out his very substance if the mood took him, he fought the negativity and prepared himself. He had thought about this for a long time and his speech reflected that “I’ve been in this town nary two decades and I still haven’t done anything with my life. I blended in at school. I didn’t wow anyone in College, I’ve had a few jobs in stores and warehouses but this is not who I am. My future awaits me far away from here, far past the Attercanater and the Mohayve deserts and as far flung as the two corners of this wonderful land. New yolk is my calling Mr Mayor. Manehatton, she whispers my name. I was foolish but I am a fool no more, if I am to become the stallion my dad wants me to be then I must leave this here town.”

Caiman yawned at the lengthy filibuster of a speech and smacked his dry scaly lips together. “That wasss quite the speech Missster Thicket. Perhaps join a theatre company, soliloquy such as this rivals anything I’ve heard at the new theatre.”

Wallace forced air out through his shut lips which flapped with the breath; he wondered to the bespoke window and said “my father once told me, in fact he did today, that I used to be obsessed with numbers and facts. The years have tried to change me and in some ways they have prevailed, but I am still that colt inside, I will follow my dream.”

Without the bat of an eyelid, Caiman gave up trying to speak sense “far be it for me to badmouth your dream son, just make sure you make it a reality.” Wallace, invigorated by the support, climbed back through the thick maze of slimy muscle to reach the door.

Just as the stallion turned the handle the Mayor asked one last thing of him “why did you come to me son? This sort of thing is usually discussed between father and child, do you not get along with you father?” Wallace pulled his hoof away from the cold steel handle and turned his previously cold shoulder back around “he doesn’t understand. He wants me to be like him, but I will never be his puppet.”

“Yes son, but what reason did you have for coming here?” The entrapped snake asked with a further tint of potency. Wallace returned his focus to the door and switched the handle down. He minutely rotated his head in the direction of the Mayor “I came to you so that you could say goodbye from me. Tell them ‘I’m finally doing something with my life’.”

Caiman made an expression that only a snake could, he left his mouth open wide and caressed the inner edged of his fangs with his forked tongue. He then undid a few knots in his form and sent his tail to block the door “what kind of son doesn’t say goodbye? I am not being your advocate son!”

Wallace stood up on his hind legs and pushed with all his might at the impeding tail. It didn’t budge. Wallace bucked mercilessly at the door till cracks formed throughout it, he glowered at the snake and then let his gaze soften “then I will write. But only once I have made something of myself and when I can find a unicorn to write for me.”

Caiman knew he would live to regret letting the stallion go but who was he to break the spirit of somepony that wished to be wild and free? He relinquished his hold on the fragmented door and winked at Wallace as he left “get down to the station and take the Canterlot express, once there take the Pacific express to New Yolk. It is a long way son; I wish you the best of luck.”

Wallace was nearly out of range to hear the parting speech and galloped headfirst through the double doors for the very last time. After that he headed north on rail till he reached his final destination.

A couple of days passed with no word, no letter from the capital. His parents were in a state when a knocking sounded on the front door.

Delilah had filled in most of the blanks that Bartlett was too young to understand at the time. She soured her gaze so much she looked as if she might fall asleep. The Mayor crushed her spectacles in her muscular tail and grovelled “if he is no ghost and his is dead then… then we have a problem you see. There are changelings in my town, and I want them gone!”

Bartlett blurted out. “Why don’t you explain this to the Alicorns through a letter?”

Delilah soured at the condescending tone. She shut a window that dared to be open and leaned her full weight against the wall. “I want to deal with this. I don’t want the name of my once prosperous town to be dragged through the mud.”

Enroot for Appaloosa>

Alongside the infinitely stretching rail stumbled a stallion who was ripped and torn from the rage of the storm. His lips were dry and his heart grew weak as his mind raced with doubts about the one he thought he loved. She had the tickets all along, or was it just coincidence the tickets had drifted through the storm?

A tear, the last of his water, splashed and instantly absorbed into the unending yellow expanse. He wept for the loss of his friend, the second part of the unlikely pair; he stopped and looked back at a sign.

‘Sanstone Mining town’

‘Welcome to a brighter tomorrow’

‘Population: 102’

He coughed at the rough quality of his throat and continued to hobble along the rail paved pathway to home. He began to stray from the path however, his eyes glazed over from the aridity of the inhospitable desert. The Attacanter was the largest desert in all of Equestria and its span was so vast, a pegasus such as Rainbow Dash could not cross it in one fell swoop.

He was alone now, there was no friendly rail beside him, and his only company were the littered cacti that thrived in the terrain. A doubtful sight bit him square on the snout as he saw cacti that had withered and died from the struggle.

He ascended a steep dune and as he crested it he could see a rare vision of hope. He could only just make out the mountaintop terrace and the smoke that stemmed from the centre. He stopped again and slid a few metres on the loose ground. He regained his footing and came to rest in a deep gulley.

Braeburn would have bawled great streams of tears if it wasn’t for his dehydration; he knew he would have to tell the chieftain how he had played a part in his daughter’s demise. He swatted a parasprite from his nose and his eyes followed it skywards.

There he saw the many starving buzzards and vultures that plagued the scavenger skies, they must have known something he did not, and he started back up the incline.

In fearing he would become nothing more than a few scraps of meat hanging from a pile of bones, Braeburn broke into a gallop but it didn’t last long. The sun sat huge in the sky, it hanged there as if it were waiting along with vultures and buzzard that conspired in the scavenger skies. He landed in a heap in the depths of the Attacanter and seethed at what was surely his last stand.

A small example of a vulture swooped down close to the sand and shot off over the horizon. He paid the thing no mind, as far as he was concerned it was nothing more than a mirage. His breathing became a chore as the day grew on, even though the sun was on its way to set.

He wondered aimlessly the plain, he knew not where he was headed and could no longer remember where he had started. He picked up his hooves higher as he tried a brief canter but the searing heat as well as his numerous injuries made it a feat he was unable to perform. Minutes ticked by, they felt like hours to Braeburn, he climbed up and over the subtle undulations before him before he could walk no more.

He remained there for a spell and presented himself as a plentiful feast for the hordes of snapping beaks that littered the sky. As he lay there the sun unceremoniously licked its fiery tongue on the bare patches of skin down his back.

He was not so numb that the bane of the daylight didn’t bother him; he rolled onto his back and indecently exposed himself to the hungry pairs of eyes above. As the sunlight gripped painfully his member he forced himself back up to his feet.

He baked in the heat but could not cool himself down. His every step drained him more and his every fall brought him closer to being vulture guano the following day. He lowered his profile down so he left a trail in the ground with his dry shrivelled cock and tried to get himself away from the feasting ground.

He dragged along for another hour but the creatures above didn’t lag behind. He had felt nothing but superheated sand grains for so long that the next thing his hoof gripped upon made him shudder. It was cold and smooth and curved to a point. He widened his drowsy eyes and ran his hoof up the ivory rib. More of the bones emerged from the heat haze until Braeburn found himself in a buffalo graveyard.

Parasprites engorged themselves off of the remaining bloody spoils. All that was left were a few sinuous strands of muscle and various organs the vultures had spat back out. Brae pulled himself a little further before collapsing to perhaps never wake again.

The Mayoralty>

Bartlett wore a dumbfounded expression as Caiman continued to whine about her beloved town “changelings in my town? I desssspise them so! I thought they were wiped out five years before but no! Bartlett, be true to your word, make my town clean again and cull those freakish demons!”

Bartlett tethered a pair of holsters round his waist in which two revolvers slept. He unclipped the badge housing and yanked it out of his chest. He then grabbed a spare shirt from a drawer in the office and pushed the pin back through the lapel. Delilah slithered out of the office and through the foyer and straight through the double doors. She didn’t push them open, she obliterated them.

Once outside and the others had caught up, Caiman drew up a plan. “The Emerald mare, she was the one who turned out to be a changeling right? We thought it was a freak occurrence, the last of a dying breed. We were wrong, she was fraternizing with Braeburn. Check the Apple place Bartlett”.

Bartlett spat out a little something that welled in his throat and accepted the challenge “Right away mam. Just as a side note, I saw Gillyflower dragging his couch out of town, he’s been out there awful long”. He left Octavia and the Mayor at the steps and made a beeline for the homestead on the other side of town.

He trotted past the musically bereft streets; he enjoyed the silence, and brought up another glob of gunk that had formed in his throat. It didn’t take too long to tick of the metres to the place and as another bonus the door was unlocked. Bartlett tentatively pushed the door open and scanned the innards. The first thing he noticed was a mare, near comatose, sleeping upon the solitary armchair. “Bailey?”

He rushed to her aid and lifted her head back in line with her slumped form. She vomited out on to the carpet but to the stallion’s relief she came to. Bartlett cradled her warmly and gazed back at the cleaner patch of carpet where the couch had stood “you doing some interior designing Bailey?”

It took some time for the mare to reacquaint herself with the reality after her drug induced psychosis. Once she did recognize the stallion she leaped from his arms and hid partially behind the door threshold “Mr Pear! What are you doing in my house?”

Bartlett made a quick visual inspection of his surroundings before clucking his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Are you feeling alright Bailey? I saw you two coming off of the medical carriage this morning… Can I ask what happened?”

Bailey kept her distance, her memories were a mad fog, and her head was pounding now the drugs were wearing off. She let her guard down and moved to the centre of the threshold before she wearily replied “I don’t quite remember, Gilly was angry, he was really angry.”

She held her head in her hooves as the reality of everything rushed back too quickly and she found herself overwhelmed. She wept silently into the cupped hooves and made a tiny bit of progress back towards the armchair.

Bartlett stood patiently as he ignored the masses of cuts and sores all over his body. Bailey reached the chair and settled back within it, she held her head fast betwixt her hooves. The fear and confusion subsided and was replaced with clarity “Bartlett? What did you want?”

As he thought about the quest at hoof he ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, he winced as his tongue dragged over the sand borne sores which coated evenly his gums. Bartlett cocked an eyebrow “have you seen anything weird happening in this house?”

“The whore from three doors down, she was caught with my son in bed. Gem, I believe she was called. Something indescribable happened to her after you shot her dead.” She fulminated in her rasping tone.

Galling memories course through Bartlett’s head, he had tried to forget the loss but he was forever to be reminded of that regretful day. His mind then wondered through the series of events that lead to the suicide of his beloved. He broke down into a mess reminiscent of the one bailey had been in.

He gathered himself, smartened his tie, and got down to brass tacks “did you notice anything strange leading up to the- Occasion?”

“We found them in each other in the morning. Hold on, are we being accused of something here?” Bailey snapped. Her head was surely clear as she resumed her usual defensive demeanour. Bartlett face hoofed at the rebuttal and leaned up against the wall “You see I knew the Emeralds. Little Gemstone was a truly precious thing at one time. She would seek out adventure wherever it hid. She used to tell me about this hamlet of a town across a section of the Attacanter, Sanstone was the name.”

Bailey retuned the face to hoof gesture and glared at the sheriff “what in Equestria does the old mining town have to do with me? You can look around if you wish, you won’t find anything.”

Bartlett loved a good challenge; he bowed endearingly to the mare and began his search.

Attacanter Outskirts>

Braeburn had been out in the desert so long that his very skin ached. The chorus of squawks were the only noise he could hear besides his rasped breaths. He woke and stretched like it was like any other morning. It was however quite late in the afternoon.

Much like every morning since he was old enough to breed, the stallion’s member stood to attention and met the seemingly new day with him. Something sharp dug cruelly into his hind pastern, he tossed himself over to fend it off and was successful as he drunkenly swatted the buzzard off of him.

He fought his fatigue for his barrel and stifle were still facing the blaring sky. He tried to turn over but alas he lacked any such strength. He bent one of his hind legs towards and away from him to soothe the nasty deep cut he had suffered.

His attention dwindled and his eyes closed again. The beat of a vulture’s wings came so close to his ear that he was spurred back aloft. As soon as he put weight on his four hooves he collapsed to the floor. He travelled a distance further on his stomach before stopping once more at the pole of a buffalo skull. He was in dire need of a drink.

Somehow he had ended up on his back again and his lengthy partner was but two inches from his chin. The lamina of his hoof was the next part of his anatomy to be targeted by the legions above.

A vulture landed clumsily at his feet and dug its razor sharp teeth into Brae’s hoof. He leaned back on the latter parts of his fore hooves and delivered a kick to the beak of the vulture. It was at his point that the dolt realised he was not being hunted by buzzards and vultures; the thing that was writhing at his feet was a changeling.

The frightened beast then did what was natural to it and assumed the form of another. It would have been fine if it weren’t for the fact that the creature was wearing Rose like a cheap robe.

The Rose imposter clawed its way along Brae’s flat body, it climbed along the length of his member, and it used its new found immunity to get its teeth near to Brae’s eye. Before it could feast, the changeling reverted to its true form. It disjointed its jaw and drove its head towards its prey.

Braeburn thrust his hooves at opposing side of the creature’s maw and threw it off of him. The swarm above dive-bombed the ground in a threatening display as the stallion found his feet and went for the wounded changeling.

It tried to use its horn to gore the stallion but he somehow found the mental wherewithal to avoid the strike. Brae dodged the second attempt also, adrenaline surged him onwards, and he picked a sharp rock up from the sand.

The changeling exhaustedly threw its cloven claws at Braeburn. He brought the stone hard down onto the disfigured head. He drove the implement down again and again until the creature shrieked no more.

Even in death the insect wings twitched. Braeburn shook his hooves to free them of the dark lilac blood the ex-changeling exuded. He collapsed a third time and his head collided with the buffalo skull. A cloud of sandy dust plumed from the floor and shrouded the dark world from Braeburn momentarily.

He felt a warm sensation on one side of his head and he changed how he had it positioned. Still he felt the thick substance and now he tasted it.

He shot his head up and gazed into his rippled reflection in the bloody soup. For now at least, the nightmarish creatures stayed at bay. He saw a fire billowing in the distance and decided the best course of action was to head straight for it much like a moth.

The journey through the last stretch of desert was a blur to Braeburn as he reached the brazier and stopped to catch his breath. He saw a vision of himself, albeit with less injuries and charged towards the mimic. Who was this clown? He didn’t fool Brae for a second and the lothario wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the block.

He launched at the neck of the impersonator and sent him tumbling across the sanded plain. Brae stood over the obvious wolf-in-sheep’s–clothing and stamped its face to a pulp.

The ground glowed with the spilled lilac blood and so too did the air with the rich scent of burning carcass. Braeburn was spellbound by the dancing of the flames; he gazed deeply into it then promptly barfed and added a greenish hue to the purple puddle.

“D- Daad?” Braeburn asked of the brazier, it gave no response. His urge to cry was strong but not a drop of water was left in his entire desiccated body. He saw the Tannersee bolo tie lying on what was left of the flame housing. He then cringed at the seaside scent of the blaze, it was the couch, and it was his fault.

The foothills of Mt Cantus>

Singing-wind remained true to his namesake and galloped tirelessly through the dying hours of the day. A war raged in his mind, he escaped a bitter end but he had fled like a coward. He could not shake the terrorized faces of his brothers the night they had been lost.

It was a night like any other, quiet, sublime, and somewhat poetic. With the sky a daunting abyss of blackness, something wicked stalked them without their knowing. The eyes were closed on the approach so that they would not expose the legions of nightmarish creatures.

Singing and his brothers chanted long remembered odes to the great eagle and her works. They sang to her in rounds and in revelry, begging for her to bless them with the guarding shield of her wing for the long dark night ahead.

He stood alone after the others had gone to bed, in the centre of the reservation, the brazier at his side coughed a few plumes of smoke as it died, and the only other soul was the voyeur at the plateau edge.

Singing would often watch the calf as she looked dreamily down to the town below. He knew it to be wrong, he wanted the feeling no more, but his heart, mind, soul and his loins craved her. He never said anything, they would exchange the odd awkward moment across the fire at mealtime or during the morning graze, but he would never make his feelings clear.

But hold his stare he did, never moving, unwavering. His memory hailed from the time long before Little-Strong-Heart had been banished.

He would later find out that during his blissful daze, every sing brother had been culled and replaced. The attacks were calculated, no noise came from the tents. Thundering Hooves would have been a goner if it wasn’t for his prying eye.

“Are you going to eye up my daughter all night Singing-Wind?” Thundering pestered.

The erudite bull broke the gaze and turned to the chieftain. The feathers in the adornment on Thundering’s poll tickled his snout. “I’m sorry father. I merely meant to check up on her.”

Thundering gestured to one glamorous tent in the southern quarter of the encampment circle. “After the death of the clan mother, only Raging-Wonderer shall sire calves with the last of our cows.”

“She is not just a cow and she does not belong to you!” Singing rebuked his father’s possessive nature. He continued to gaze at the dreaming calf. “She is special, and that horny, overgrown, swine won’t ever appreciate her.”

Thundering reined back a laugh to a subdued chuckle. “Are you talking of this love thing again son? You will never learn. I don’t care if Raging does not know my daughter inside and out! He will make strong calves with her!”

Singing struck his father about the bridge of his nose. “Raging is no good for her, genetically superior or not, I will not let him defile her!”

“Then you will die when he seeks his prize” Raging said, blood lust boiled behind his eyes.

Singing gulped before he continued. He walked toward the observer at the precipice and turned back to his enraged father. “I do love our talks, father. I wish for once they would end on a different note. Leave me to my watch…”

“Pervert” Thundering growled as he turned back to his monstrous tent. Just as Thundering-Hooves left, Little-Strong-Heart brushed passed Singing’s tail.

The littlest calf gnawed at an irritation on her flank. She straightened the single feather she had connected to her poll. “I saw something wonderful” She gleamed.

Thundering postponed his slumber and retraced his steps back to the pair. He cajoled his son from his path with his goring horn. “Enough, my daughter, I do not like this thing that you do.”

Strong-Heart geared up to speak but was outspoken by her brother. “I want to hear her story, give her a chance.”

“Give the cow a chance, what fool do you think I am? She will do as she is told” Thundering ordered.

“Why must you fight? I see no call for it. I- I saw a new couple, a love ignited…” Little-Strong-Heart began, her tail whipped excitedly.

“That sounds great” Singing cheered as he ogled her athletic form.

“It’s a fucking travesty, that’s what it is. No more speak of this love.” Thundering said as he crushed the spirit of the calf.

Singing jumped in front of his sister as if his body could block the insults. He summoned a feat of arrogance not too different to the manner of Raging. “Father, I will have no more of this! You don’t like it when she talks about love because you have never had it. You old skeleton, doomed to forever rattle towards your grave, why don’t you save everyone’s time and throw yourself off of the cliff?”

Thundering stood, gobsmacked. He retreated to his straw made bed and lost the battle.

If the three had not bickered in the darkening night, they would have noticed the slaughter. Changelings surgically implanted into the reservation. They knocked off the inhabitants and took their places. Not one of the victims screamed, it was over so quickly.

In the present, Singing could see the gilded towering spires as clear as day. He neared the hallowed scree crusted foothills of Mount Cantus. He stole a look over his shoulder and noticed a fairly persevering crow flying behind him. He journeyed ever closer the sought out city. He also journeyed back into his mind…

Strong-Heart and Singing, for no reason other than curiosity, folded back the cow hide covering on Raging’s tent. Raging wasn’t there. They ventured towards a queer sound which hailed from beyond the other side of the plateau.

They passed the entrance to the chieftain’s wigwam, and Singing’s sister was snatched by an enormous hoof. Singing wanted to help her but the noise, queer, still rang in his ear. He skipped through the dank night and stumbled upon a rather disturbing sight. Raging was masturbating in the most peculiar way. Singing approached the wanking bull and gave him a surprising poke with his horns. “Raging-Boner” Singing teased.

Raging humped against the smooth rock a couple more times before his adrenaline subsided. He leaned the rock hard cock along the rock. “Oh god, how much did you see?” He whined.

Singing tried to look away from the throbbing vision; he smiled mischievously and rolled his eyes. “Only all of it.” He lied.

“Ah, please just go. I haint finished” Raging begged.

“A fitting nickname don’t you think?” Singing jeered. He tore off a leaf from a rare desert flower and impaled it on Raging’s horn. “Remember to clean up when you’re done.”

Singing’s reminiscing was interrupted by a slight pain in his hind leg. He turned to investigate and saw the enterprising crow taking chunks out of him. Singing quickened his place, he tried to outrun the scavenger, but he could not best the beast.

The cruel beak made a further incision in the muscle of Singing’s leg. The fleeing bull threw his weight on to his front hooves and bucked his legs out to scare the crow. The crow swooped under the kicking legs and stabbed its beak into the soft chest of the bull.

Singing lost his balance and went over onto his back. He searched the scape for the bird. He tended to his newly cut wounds in his hind legs and chest and seethed through the pain. The beak skimmed past the back of his neck and caused blood to spill out onto the stony foothills of mount Cantus.

Singing reeled and fetched a stone in his hoof. He threw it up into the air and caught it again, to assess the object’s weight. He had a bead on the bird as it circled in for another go. He launched the stone with unparalleled accuracy and hit the crow dead in the eyes.

The crow plummeted into a plume of dust. From the dust came a diminutive changeling underling. “So you found me?” Singing panted.

The creature gargled and wretched and threw itself towards its prey. Sand and small pebbles scampered to the sides as the changeling hurtled though the breaking evening air. The bull turned his rump to the assailant and bucked again.

In the time it took him to perform his defence, the changeling had changed, through snapped bones and torn flesh, into a parasprite and buzzed past. From the force he exerted, Singing fell flat on his stomach. The changeling reverted to true form and sunk its fangs into the bull’s vulnerable neck. It added to the old wound, blood spilled copiously down Singing’s neck.

With blood quickly leaving his body, Singing flailed a hoof to swat the insect away. “You killed my brothers you over glorified parasite! I’ll see you pay for their lives!”

Singing’s attempts grew weaker as the pool of blood in the stony foothills grew larger. He made one last feeble attempt at saving his own life before bowing his head in defeat. He remained still. The changeling was to enjoy its meal when it resorted to hiding again in its feather clad costume.

A royal pegasus guard descended on the death fraught scene. He was suited poll to pastern in golden armour finished with bold ivory details. He batted the loitering parasprite away and examined the fallen majestic beast. “Oh my, did you run all this way? What would possess a buffalo to travel across the Attacanter? It must have taken days. I shall have to talk with Celestia, this is highly unusual…”

The Apple House>

Bailey slipped around the doorframe and sneaked up behind Bartlett who was searching a cupboard. She tapped him on the shoulder “you find anything incriminating sheriff?”

She may have been married to Gilly but her enthusiasm did not fall to curb the moment she put the shackles of holy matrimony on. She tilted her head slyly and sneaked a peak at Bartlett’s undercarriage. The sheriff turned suddenly but Bailey was able to remove her snout just in time. He scratched his sore forelock and scrunched up his nose “I can’t find anything. I guess you’re off the hook.”

Bailey wafted her tail into Bartlett’s muzzle and pressed an innocent hoof to the corner of her mouth “oh well if I were naughty you’d have to punish me” she giggled.

The schoolmare like behaviour of the mare might well have been due to the mediated state she was in. She made another pass with her tail over Bartlett’s muzzle and left her rump facing his enthralled eyes.

“Maybe you should check under the bed” she swooned as she clenched her rump so that it was pert and well-shaped. He agreed to the odd wager and tucked his head underneath the bed.

Bailey rolled onto her back and inched towards his parted legs. Soon she was underneath his stifle and she was aptly stifled by what she saw. She slowly dragged her tongue over her lips as she gazed into the pair of heavy hanging balls and the flaccid shaft.

Bartlett feigned a look over his shoulder and rose up the frame of the bed only to inspect beneath the duvet and sheets. His manner of investigating involved two factors: the first was his nose and the second was his blind ignorance. He nuzzled his nose deep into the darkness beyond and sniffed something that both intrigued and aroused him.

The arousal was evident from where Bailey was looking. Bartlett’s soft shaft grew as it engorged with blood.

Bartlett noticed the thing wrapped around his nostrils was a phallic plastic thing. He took in more of the scent deep into his olfactory system and made a satisfied noise, the one he might have made after eating something deliciously creamy. He missed his wife, but more than anything his primitive mind missed the company of a mare.

From underneath the fully engorged penis, Bailey pursed her lips over one of the balls a rolled it around with her tongue in her mouth.

Bartlett shook as the feeling shot up his spine; he squinted in the beginnings of pleasure and took the plastic-play-thing between his teeth. He drew his head from under the duvet and dropped the dildo slathered in his phlegm in front of Bailey, much like a Labrador would a Frisbee to it its master.

She let the ball roll from her lower lip and gave it a further lick just to get it swinging again. Her eyebrows sprung up at the impressive girth and length that lay in store for her as well as the veins that stood on-end along his hind legs and barrel. She brought her hoof up to the pulsing beast and stroked it slowly at first. Her mouth opened widely and she used the other hoof to squeeze the swollen bollocks inside.

Bartlett groaned a little and closed his eyes to the lullaby of masturbation that played between his legs. He extended his tail up and outwards from the sheer excitement.

Bailey sucked greedily on the things in her mouth. She placed her other hoof against the purring shaft and put her all into it. She soon became bored of the taste of sweaty balls so she turned her attention to his convulsing arsehole. She let the fellas drop out from her locked lips and moved herself backwards. Bailey let go of the shaft and embraced Bartlett by his sweet rump. She closed one hoof into the palpitating rectum and forced one of the cheeks outwards.

Bartlett shifted his legs uneasily as he noticed the mare doing something he had never had the fortune of experiencing before. He aired his protest through a series of gasps and spurious nonsenses. “Um, I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

Bailey wriggled her stiff tongue as she rebuked the frigid worries of her lay. “I’m not a filly, you know. Didn’t you and Gilly ever talk about my, uh, my salacious ways?”

Bartlett dropped his guard and accepted the experience he was reluctant to enjoy. He gritted his teeth and braced himself as he felt her clammy breath creep up his yawning rectum. “He never did, but, good for him. Whenever you’re ready Bails, let me have it.”

When her tongue belatedly pierced his rump it was like she had taken his virginity a second time. He dropped his jaw and rolled his eyes skywards as the tongue delicately searched about his cavernous rear.

Bailey withdrew her tongue which dripped with saliva and ran it along the entirety of Bartlett’s well-matured penis.

Bartlett gasped through the joyous feeling and side stepped over the mare. He slid a fore hoof under her kneeling hind legs and forced her to lie on her back. His heart raced as he looked into the forbidden fruit he knew he must not defile. But defile he did, he buried his head in Bailey’s generous thighs and sucked hard at her marehood. She swung her head back at the entry of his tongue and consequential lapping that followed. Her breathing became erratic, her rump tensed and relaxed as she neared the end.

Bailey braced herself as the mighty stud drew his mouth away and aimed his stone hard column into her wanton marehood. She screamed as the two came together, and again they came together and again. The weight of Bartlett on top of her was crushing the very life from her but still she couldn’t hold back her shouts of elation. The stud thrust into her fervently, his balls slapped against her firm behind. She screamed loudly as she came before her finely-hung companion.

Bartlett hadn’t noticed the mare had reached her climax; he viciously shoved his length completely into her over and over until he was about ready to burst. His payload delivered in copious volumes into her being. It meekly dripped from over her pronounced vulva and splashed onto the small elliptical rainbow hued rug on the floor.

Bartlett’s head followed the motion of his retreating cock as it swayed from side to side. He had done something shameful and wrong, he had betrayed the memory of his wife, and he had depleted his previous arguments with his daughter and her beau of merit.

Bailey grabbed his head that dangled so and forced it back towards her moist cunt. She blew a sweaty lock of mane from her muzzle and demanded. “Ravish me, stud! Make me feel something again!”

Bartlett had no clue about the bedroom problems the couple were having. He came to his senses and pulled his head away from the duty he had so much enjoyed before. He buttoned up his shame sodden shirt and checked his guns were still with him.

Bailey produced something from behind her and licked along the cold, murderous barrel.

Bartlett made a grab for the missing revolver but was gifted only with a stern kick to the scrotum.

Bailey sponged the dregs of cum from around her mouth with her tongue. She smiled and smacked her lips in satisfaction before leaning forward and inserting to weapon back into the empty holster.

Bartlett tipped his forelock to his mistress and took his leave.

A pair of tiny colts met him at the door; they had seen the badge and thought he was the stallion for the job. One panted for a moment and then presented the problem “Sheriff, come quickly!” The young colt begged. Bartlett cringed at the coined phrase and lowered a listening ear “what’s the matter kid?”

The other took the reins of the conversation. “It’s- there’s a fire! Come now!”

Again the stallion smirked at the negative connotations the colts spoke with. He hiked up his gun belt and gestured a hoof of encouragement. “Go on ahead, I’ll follow.”

After expending all of his energy and much more besides, Bartlett could scarcely keep up with the rambunctious twins. He lost them after having passed the quill merchant before he lost any go he had left and skidded to a halt. Luckily the spritely duo hanged back as they realised the elder was lagging far behind.

The dominant of the twins turned to his brother and they shared a private joke. They pointed their heads back towards Bartlett and the runt fell back to meet him. Bartlett ached from the short distance he had galloped. He extended his hind legs to alleviate the lame aching that coursed through them.

The runt reached Bartlett and bounded mockingly as if to further concrete the obvious failing of the stallion. Bartlett smiled at the colt, he remembered when he too was that age, thought he was a bit less energetic.

“Come on Mister! The fire! Over there! Come quickly!” The colt exclaimed, bouncing jovially despite the gravity of the situation.

“Did you say fire young colt? Show me.” Bartlett encourage as he adjusted his gun-belt.

“Are you deaf or something? Get a move on!” He hastily squeaked as he set a kinder pace towards the fire.

Bartlett sprung back into a gallop after the shorter yet quicker gait of the youth. He looked uneasily along his flanks as the chase took him past the barrier of houses between the town and the unforgiving desert.

The pursuit continued long into the yellow blanket before the runt and the sheriff saw the domineering twin next to a dying fire. The twins reunited before the dominant one poked a hoof into the side of a road kill impression of sun-kissed flesh.

“He’s dead I think.” He concluded with a further poke of his hoof.

“Did you know him?” The runt asked, bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Bartlett knew the stallion, knew him well. As a priority he kicked a cloud of sand onto the faintly flickering flames. Bartlett bent a knee down and placed a hoof on Braeburn’s neck.

“I do know him. His name is Braeburn.” Bartlett said under his breath as he waited to feel even the subtlest of heartbeat.

“Our sister knew him!” The two excitedly yelled.

“Ha, ha, I don’t doubt it.” Bartlett said with a dulling inflection, his hoof slipped off of the neck in not feeling a pulse. He faced the twins and guided them with his eyes. “You two go back into town and fetch some water”.

“But he’s dead.” The weaker one callously stated.

“He is not dead! Now get me the water!” Bartlett thrust his hoof toward the town.

“He aint moving, I wouldn’t want to play him at sleeping lions.” The younger spoke again, the supposedly dominant brother kept quiet.

“Just go! That’s an order!” He could no longer restrain himself and reared up in threat.

The twins scurried back into town. Bartlett fell to his knees and took another pulse check. He slowly clenched his hoof and screwed up his face. “Were you out in that storm boy? Is that what happened?”

He felt foolish for flogging the dead horse. He looked back expectantly in hopes of seeing the two colts returning with the water. He sat a little closer to the still form of the heartbreaker and smiled. “I’m Constance’s father Brae, when I saw you two in bed together, I just… My little filly was growing up and I wasn’t ready.”

Again he shuddered at the lack of response. Bartlett chortled at a thought he had and relaxed further into the scorching sand. “You though, you broke her heart. You fucking bastard.”

Bartlett playfully thumped Braeburn in the haunch and stole a look behind him. The twins probably wouldn’t return after the way Bartlett talked to them. He gazed back down to the lothario and navigated around to talk to him face to face. Bartlett cocked an evil grin and whispered. “We’re even now. I won’t go into any details. Just leave it at, we’re even.”

Bartlett thought he had seen Brae’s eyelid twitch. He considered the pulse or more the lack of it and lost the thought from his mind.

Behind him, a pair of colts bounded in triumph. They held a gilded trophy filled to the brim with water. The sheriff gave a sly nod to the two who disappeared back into the town. He took the pail of water and brought it to the cracked lips of Braeburn.

Before giving him the drink, Bartlett sat beside the corpse and continued the one-sided conversation. “Who am I kidding?”

Bart began while he folded his hooves into his lap. “I was only fifteen when I met Patience and in the same year, Constance was born. I guess I have grown to hate the stallion I once was. I hate you. I do, because you remind me of me.”

Bartlett cribbed at the vapours from the pail and looked down at this sadistic cutie mark. He drew himself forward and dipped a hoof into the clear water. He wet Braeburn’s cracked lips with the hoof and sat back on his rump. Bartlett shifted his weight over to one side and rested a hoof over the cocked leg. He noticed something glinting in the limp hoof of the other and ventured to unveil it. It was a novel thing, a bolo tie.

“That old Apple fool used to sport one of these.” He chimed. He gently prised the trinket from Brae’s lifeless hoof and settled back at his side.

He examined the souvenir of travelled pastures and feverishly scratched at his virgin wounds. “You know, Gilly. Did you know him that well? I knew him pretty well. I had to seeing as he was my best friend. We were each other’s best steeds. It all seems so long ago now.”

Bartlett pushed the sand fine between his shaken hooves and began work on rushed design of a castle. He constructed a moat and etched in the little crenulations on the basic turret structure.

He ensconced the bolo tie that acted as the baneful aftermath of his departed best friend on to the summit of the rushed construction. “Funny thing is life. We work at it and build it but it’s nothing but sand in the ends. Life is so fragile and fleeting, Braeburn. Although, I’m sure you have a better idea of what the other side looks like than this old fool.”

Bartlett let the tenuous bonds break and the castle came crashing to the ground in a rush of poetic symbolism. He rescued the tie from the rubble if silt and clutched it so tightly that it left an impression in his lamina. “Please wake up buddy. I didn’t mean those cutting words I used. Just wake, wake up, and don’t die on me. I bet you’ve been listening this whole time huh Brae? Braeburn, quit messing around. Wake up Goddess dammit!”