Chapters It was another sparkling day in Equestria. The sun had crawled over the horizon and now shone down, touching everything it saw. The sunlight offered glistened in the water of Horseshoe pond, a strange area named after the shape of the body of water that lay there. The patch of land that lay in the middle of horseshoe pond was inhabited by a great oak tree, whose many branches hung out over the water providing shade for the sea-bound creatures. Surrounding the forest clearing were a circle of fully bloomed roses, their luscious blood red colour providing a beautiful contrast to the green of the stems and grass.
A single pathway went through the clearing, and down the pathway came two young girls, silently walking under the blazing heat. One was about ten and was carrying a backpack. She wore a t-shirt filled with flowers on it that contrasted well with the black background, and sea blue jeans that looked short and tight. She had a pale, spotty face with ivy green eyes that loomed in the sockets. On her feet she had white trainers with orange socks, and her hair was blond, wrapped in a pony tail.
The other who followed was smaller, about seven, and wore a T-shirt that was Fire-red with purple stripes going at a thirty degree angle along with over-sized navy blue jeans. She had pink sandals as if she were on a beach, and her fat feet painfully pushed against the straps, protesting against it's confines. Her face was closer to a square then an oval, and her light blue eyes were inaccessible as they lay idly pointed at the ground. Her hair was also blond, but was instead split into two pony tails on either side of her head.
The leader turned her head to notice the great oak, stopping for a moment to admire the beauty. She then turned to the girl who was following her and grasped both sides of her head softly.
The youngest sat down while the oldest opened her bag and looked inside. She shook her head in confusion as to why she had the strange assortment of items, then reached inside and retrieved a packet of cards, a pen and a notebook. She opened the packet and turned to the younger girl. Her distant eyes flickered with expectation. The eldest passed to the youngest the pen and notebook. The youngest's eyes came into focus as she opened the notebook, revealing pages of tables, numbers and statistics that the seven-year old had put together over the time she couldn't remember. The eldest began to draw cards, taking long gaps in between the draw until the youngest said "Ready" when she would then draw another. All the meanwhile the youngest scribbled down more numbers into the notebook, never lifting her eyes to look at the deck of cards until the eldest had drawn the thirteenth card and she had finished writing. The youngest then finally looked up at the deck and said "Shuffle". She then stared at the deck, making sure it was shuffled well by the eldest, for if it wasn't then that would ruin her stats. "Stop" She said. The shuffler halted. "Ready"
And thus they repeated this process a few times, until the eldest spoke: "Enough". The youngest, knowing she couldn't compete with such authority, made her last few notes and put the pen down. She flicked through the pages admiring what she had made. The eldest lay down and took a deep breath. It was a hot day and the long walk would've made her sweat if she hadn't have been shaded by the trees in the forest. She got up and walked over to the shade of the tree. She sat down against the bark and watched the youngest who was still looking at the notebook. She pitied the poor girl, but she didn't know exactly why. She sighed again and closed her eyes to visit fleeting memories...Running away She remembered the adrenaline...Holding her hand She remembered the fear...Don't look back. You've been shot. Your arm... She remembered collapsing. She opened her eyes. The youngest was standing above her, notebook, pen and cards in hand, waiting for instructions. For a moment they stared into one another's eyes. The eldest looked away. "Sit here," She said, patting the ground beside her. The youngest looked at the place she was patting, registering the instructions, before sitting beside the eldest.
A few more careless minutes passed. The youngest became more fidgety as time passed, and it was as she began to hum that the eldest took a final deep sigh and rose from the fleeting moment of rest. the youngest copied her, her eyes now stuck to the back of her head. Silently, the pair headed back on to the path they had temporarily strayed from. A Raven cawed and flew and dove close over the two hikers. They continued unfazed as he coldly glided and rose, flying away from the sun for reasons they would never care to guess.
The two had walked out of the forest and on to the dirt track. Daisy was far more alert now, her step quickening slightly. Rose followed without complaints, as ever. They trekked along for awhile until they saw them. They were horses, but not the horses that Daisy inexplicably had in her mind. Their eyes were much bigger than that of normal horses, their fur and manes strikingly coloured. The genders of the creatures was obvious. The two had emerged from the top of the path, and were staring down in shock at the humans. One was purple furred with a darker, radiant purple in her mane. The other had orange fur and blonde mane and tail. She was wearing a hat, and was the first of the four to speak:
"What in the name of Equestria are you?" She asked, fear evident underneath her strong western accent. Rose gripped Daisy's hand and stood beside her, viewing the two creatures with a nervous interest.
"That's Applejack, by the way." The orange horse once again looked at the odd creatures, Rose stared at her, her intrigue being mistaken for a thirst for blood. But, the orange horse trusted her friend, and her friend trusted these strangers. She trotted down to the purple horse and they both went down to the humans in an attempt to be friendly. The girls stood firmly, each squeezing the other's hand. The horses were about as tall as Daisy once they stood on equal ground. The two horses exchanged looks, then the purple one asked:
"Yeah, sure. Down the path?" Daisy began to turn, and released her hand from Rose's grip who returned to her place behind her leader. The two horses glanced at one another again, before trotting up beside Daisy.
"There it is" said the orange horse, "Sweet Apple Acres. Me and three other ponies live there. There's ol Granny Smith, Big Macintosh, and my little sister Applebloom. Look out for her, she small but she's a right troublemaker at times."
Just then, A small horse galloped out of the front doors, and shouted for Applejack. She was yellow, with a small red mane and tail. On her mane she wore a cute pink bow. Her voice was accented like the orange horse's but was far less mature.
"Please to meet you, Applebloom" Daisy stood still, her face an unreadable slate. The foal turned to rose, her forehoof still stuck out. Rose wasn't much taller than her, and when Applebloom turned to her Rose was looking into the sky, seeing what numbers she could remember from her notebook. "Hey, wanna be friends?" Rose just simply gazed into the sky, oblivious to her surroundings. Daisy cut in;
The barn's purpose wasn't really that clear, as it all seemed to do was hold haystacks at the back. The ground was covered in hay, and the large entrance and windows at the side only cast their light so far into the empty space, most of which was refreshingly shaded from the bare heat of the sun. A single birds nest lay upon the wooden support beams, it eggs unhatched, their parents no-where to be seen.
Daisy walked through the open front door, followed by Rose, followed by Twilight. Daisy walked to the back of the room, threw her backpack down and sat beside it. Rose sat down beside her and began to fiddle with the hay beneath her. Daisy's eyes stared beyond Twilight's head, her mind deep in thoughts of the past.
"Because we don't. Do you remember who you are? Because we don't. We aren't called Daisy and Rose, Twilight." A pause. Twilight stayed silent, allowing Daisy to continue her train of thought. "I just remembered those names when we first woke up. But that means nothing. Humans have at least two names, sometimes three." Rose obsessively tampered with the hay now, grabbing multiple pieces of hay and dropping in front of her face.
"Do you have any idea?!..." She was sobbing now, tears gently streaming down her face. "Any idea of what it's like to wake up and have nothing, Not even memories?" angst grew in her eyes, and distaste rose in her voice "Just a... a mentally challenged girl for company and a bag full of meaningless junk." Rose spat suddenly, and the two others turned to her. She had dropped hay on her mouth instead of in front of it, and had spat out some that had gotten in by accident. Daisy turned back to her distant spot, while Twilight stayed looking at the girl. She started to bob her head, then suddenly looked up, as if she had gotten an idea. She quickly turned to Daisy, and tugged her shirt asking;
She turned away from the purple horse, and opened the backpack that lay beside her. She pulled out a pack of cards a pen and a notebook, and shuffled a small space away from Rose. Then, after giving Rose the notebook and pen, then began the routine they had done at horseshoe pond, with Daisy drawing a card, Rose recording it, saying "Ready", Daisy drawing another card, Rose recording it, and so on and so forth. Around about the tenth card, Twilight went to kneel down beside Rose. Daisy shot her a questioning look, but Twilight simply smiled back. After Rose said "Shuffle" for the first time, Twilight did something neither of the two were expecting. Her horn began to glow, which was strange enough, but then, out of no-where, a quiver in an ink pot and a piece of yellow-brownish parchment appeared out of no-where. Daisy stopped shuffling to look at this display, but Rose couldn't care less about the magical horse sitting beside her; that didn't concern her. On the other hand, Daisy had stopped shuffling the cards. "Shuffle" She repeated. Daisy questioning look went from Twilight's smile to Rose's cold, expectant eyes. She continued to shuffle the cards, and looked down at the hay as she did, trying to accept what just happened.
The unlikely trio sat there for a while, as if nothing in the world could touch them. The moment was their's to share and enjoy, and no-one else's. It was the best memory Daisy had at the time. And it was over all too quickly.
She packed up her cards, even though she had only drawn five cards of thirteen in the shuffle. Rose started to complain, But Daisy gently grasped the sides of her face, silencing her.
Granny Smith was an old, wrinkly pony, Her fur was light green and creased everywhere imaginable, and most days she would spend forgetting how to bake delicious treats that only she had the ability to conjure, babbling on to herself about the most remote things until she remembered.
In contrast, Big Macintosh was the complete opposite of Granny Smith. With his strong hooves apple red fur and he was a very quiet type and generally kept his opinions to himself unless he knew they were relevant. The untrained eye would see him as simple, but there was actually far more gears in this pony's head then anyone could expect at a glance.
The 2 were in the living room of their house, sharing a small break from work besides a toasty fire place. It was small for a living room, with barely enough space to swing a cat. Drawers sat on the sides mounted by family photos and stairs at the back went up to the ponies original rooms. A sweet smell of apple pie drafted in from the doorway to the kitchen, of which Applejack seemed to sourly ignore as she stormed into the room. Granny noticed her impatience, and asked her of her well being.
"They were like tombstones, I tell ya! Stone-like and ghostly. Sends me the shivers whenever I glance at er."
There was, for a small while, a contented silence in the barn. Leaning back on the haystacks, Rose was happy that she had been left alone here with her notebook. Earlier in the day, she had been left alone in the forest clearing under the intense heat of the sun. Rose hadn't liked that, it was too hot for her too enjoy her vast amount of recordings. In here in the barn. it was cool and yet still bright enough to see. Rose liked that. The fact the she couldn't remember anything in her past was also a plus, as it meant that she could rediscover all that stat the she had wrote down in her past . Indeed, it was looking to be a fine little afternoon for Rose. That was until the yellow horse appeared in the doorway.
Applebloom looked onto the carefree alien as she used her questionably shaped hooves to flick through her book. She wanted attention, but quickly realized none would come if she stood around doing squat. She called out to the creature;
"Daisy was probably jus being a tight ol meanie, a bit like my sister not lettin me see you. They're all like that." Rose was astounded. The girl seemed so calm, so casual, when she was breaking one of the most important rules of all. It was almost as if she were right, as if Daisy had been over-blowing the rules. She was too busy thinking about this to see Applebloom clench her teeth on the zip and undo the bag, and by the time she realized what she was hearing, Rose had turned back to the yellow horse after gazing to nothing and instinctively opened her mouth to object, but then closed it on second thought.
"Now... Let's see what we ave here..." She had put one of her fore-hooves into the bag but looked to the east of it while doing so. She pulled out an object shaped like a mirrored L, it was green, translucent with a little trigger under the turning point and an orange nozzle at the end of the longer part. Applebloom chucked it to Rose, who failed to catch it. She picked it up off of the hay.
She searched hungrily through the bag, eager for more adventure with the alien. This time, she pulled out a silver coil. It looked light but was very long; even though Applebloom was holding it as high as she could, it still reached the ground. She dropped it and it all fell down into one small compressed coil before bouncing over onto it's side. Rose watched the yellow horse with great interest, as she dug through the things Daisy, whom she had trusted, had pointlessly kept from her, trying to figure out why, or what she had done to deserve it.
This time Rose caught the object, and, upon command, expertly aimed it between Applebloom's eyes and fired. As she did so, the eggs in the nest simultaneously hatched, and the birds started to make a horrendous but quiet cry.
She looked at the dead filly as blood slithered out of the bullet wound, and realized just what she had done. She dropped the gun. Applebloom's face showed shock, the expression unshifting and cold. Rose's face replicated this. Now she was in big trouble. She killed someone. That orange horse's sister. She was dead. It was her fault. No more card time. Maybe no more Daisy. Then, a memory flashed in Roses mind.So if anything bad happens, you're to come back here, to this weird pond. Got it?
Daisy was always right. Daisy made the rules. She had to go back to the pond. If she did that, she might be forgiven. or at least, get a less severe punishment. Rose's eyes flashed back into reality, as she saw the pack of cards lying beside the dead horse. She hazily walked over to them and picked them up. She took one final look at the body. She was wrong. Daisy was right. She always had been.
The bowling trip had been a great success. All of Twilight's friends had grown to like Daisy, and treated her as if she were a pony herself. Even Applejack was seemingly loosening up a bit. It was night-time, the sun finally ending another trek along the sky and the moon begining one of it's own. Twilight, Daisy and Applejack were still discussing the humorous events of the trip and laughing when they first entered the barn. Then Applejack saw her sister was dead. She ran over to the cold corpse, and she shook the body in some weak attempt to bring life back to it. Then she let out an awful, painful groan before sobbing over her sister's dead body.
Twilight just stood there, shocked. She hadn't known Applebloom too well, but to see Applejack in this much pain was heart-wrenching: she couldn't hold back her tears. Daisy knew almost immediately what had happened. She walked aimlessly to the gun. She had told Rose that she wasn't allowed to open the bag; It must have that yellow horse who had convinced her to do so. She shouldn't have left the bag with Rose, she thought, this was all her own fault. She fumbled back to Twilight, who was silently staring at her poor friend, her body like a statue, her eyes distant and searching. She looked up to the entrance, which was now occupied by Granny smith and Big mac, who had come after hearing the moan. They both held the other for support.
She turned back to Twilight.
"SHE KILLED MY SISTER!!" Twilight hung in shock at the pure rage in her friend's voice. Applejack's face softened, she had scared her friend and felt as if she needed to explain why. "She never got her cutie mark, you know." She said, wearily. "She used to git up every mornin and moan or sigh cus she's still bare. I was waiting so long for the day she'd git up and laugh, smile or grin or somethin. That mornin's never gonna come now, is it?" Twilight shook her head, defeated. "No it ain't. and whose fault is that?" Daisy shuffled uneasily.
"An i'll come back fer you later." She added sourly. The orange horse then made her way to the barn entrance, slowly trotting with her dead sister on her back. When she got to the entrance she stopped and turned;
"It'll never be behind her." Daisy replied flattly. Twilight sighed, knowing this was true. Her voice broke while saying goodbye as she left the barn. Daisy began to leave herself, but was interrupted by Granny Smith. She startled at the sound of her; she'd forgotten they were there at all.
"Whatever's best for her." The old withered horse smiled sadly through her closed eyes and streaming tears, as she tiredly replied; "Then you have my blessings." Daisy lingered there for a moment, taking in the comment for what it really was. She then hurried out of the barn, and left the 2 horses to the tears. Up above, one bird lay dead and bloodied as the other 2 feasted on it for lack of anything else to eat. The 2 knew that tomorrow, one would kill the other for food. But that was then. For now, they simply gorged themselves on what had once been their sibling, oblivious to the conflict below them.
Daisy approached Rose who sat in the clearing beside Horseshoe pond. The moonlight glistened off the water, and the great oak tree towered over all, looking formidable and unopposed. The night's air was clean, and silence was only averted by Rose's gentle sobbing. She was on her knees, hunched over the playing cards that she had taken with her. When Daisy saw them she realized why rose was crying; many of the cards were bent and torn in places, a couple of which had been fully ripped in two.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Calm down okay?" She once again had clasped the sides of Daisy's face. She wasn't trying to make her voice sound as motherly as it was, it just came out that way. " Now don't you worry about the cards. i can fix them." She lied. "Come over here, away from them." The pair moved closer to the tree, Rose being led by Daisy all the way. "Sit down" Said Daisy. Rose did so, eyes still sodden. Daisy looked at the glistening water. A thought popped into her brain.
"Rose, look what i got for you." She unzipped her bag and pulled out the notebook. Rose's eyes lit up and she hungrily snatched the notebook off her, and she began scurrying through the pages to make things better. Daisy didn't mind the girl's rudeness. She got up, and walked to the water of the pond. She cupped her hands and submerged them, before bringing them back out again, She took a deep breath, and drank all the water that lay in her hands.
And the memories came flooding back.
The Space-country, the orphange, the men in black, being taken away, meeting Rose, her training, her briefing, The language lessons, her failed escape attempt, the memory loss serum...
Everything that she wanted came to her except comfort. For, what did it matter that they were being surveyed along with five other children? What did it matter that human's needed a new home? What did it matter that she had tried to escape? Nothing could save Rose. Not anymore.
Daisy heard voices in the distance. Her time was running out. She must have taken some time remembering everything. Rose sat quietly with her book, still sniffling every now and again. Daisy walked over to her bag, unzipped it, then hesitated before turning to Rose.
Daisy herself was frozen in place, in disbelief. The only part of her moved was her tears that trickled down her face.