Nothing Stays Buried Forever

Chapter One: Mud by Name, Mud by Nature

"...Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to Ponydom: The Elements of Harmony. Using the magic of The Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister and banished her permanently in the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for both sun and moon, and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since..."

Damn.

With a sigh, I closed the book and slid it to the side of my old wooden desk. This would mark the twenty-ninth time I'd read about the origins of Nightmare Moon, yet the story was still just as enthralling as the first. The only problem was that finishing the book only served to bring me back to the depressing normalcy of the present.

The present sucked.

I was no longer watching the royal sisters battle for the fate of Equestria, staring in awe as the two most powerful alicorns in history lit up the inky night sky. No, now I was back in the dusty, cramped, one room shack that passed for my home. Now I was watching dust particles float through rays of sunshine filtering through cracks in my ceiling. I leaned forward, propped my head up with my forehooves and closed my eyes. I just wanted to let my imagination take me through the tale one more time...

A soft knock at the front door shattered my daydream before it could even take shape.

"Seven?" a voice called from outside. "Seven, are you in there?"

Go away. I'm not here. Shoo.

The pony at my door needed to disappear. I knew what he was here for. It was the absolute last thing I wanted today. Or any day, really.

"Seven." Another, louder knock. "Seven, I know you're in there. You're always in there. Open up, please."

Sighing again, I heaved myself off the chair, plodding heavily across the room. I flipped up the lock, opened the door a crack and peered out. Standing outside was a brownish-red earth pony with a dirty grey mane and a cutie mark of thread being fed through the eye of a needle.

"Oh, hey there Pin Cushion." I put on my best fake enthusiasm, trying not to be upset at him for disturbing me. From the flat look on his face I could only assume that he did not want to be here either. He had probably been told to fetch me. Again. "What can I do for you?"

Pin Cushion's expression didn't change. "You know why I'm here, Seven. Lookouts reported that our ponies are almost back," He nodded to the side, droning in his usual monotone "You know they’ll want you to help move stuff that needs to go to the lower levels. Also," he added, arching a brow in my direction, "Mud Bucket wants to know why you didn't come in this morning. He had some things he wanted you to do. I'm willing to bet he'll want any supplies the team bring back recorded too. He sent me to get you, so let's go."

Damn it.

“Hang on.” I grabbed my saddlebags and slipped them on before stepping outside. With a depressing series of clicks, the door shut and locked behind me.

As I turned away from my home, the town of Mudtrough greeted me, just like it had greeted me yesterday, and the day before, and all the days before that, stretching back further than I cared to remember. Mud by name, mud by nature.

Yup, the present sucked.

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As the author, I would like to take a brief interlude to get some of the boring stuff out of the way. This is my story, and as you may have already guessed, my name is Seven. I am a resident of the oh so lovely town of Mudtrough. Actually, in hindsight, ‘town’ is probably too generous a word to describe the place. Settlement is closer to the truth.

Regardless of the label, Mudtrough sucked. Well, with a name like Mudtrough, would you be surprised? I hated this place almost as much as I hated the present, and that was saying something. It was established near the base of the Foal Mountains that just happened to be whap-bang in the middle of nowhere. I guess the closest major city would be Fillydelphia, but that was at least a week's trot away; probably more. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, however, Mudtrough’s location was no coincidence. It was backed by mountains on one side and overlooked neighboring foothills in almost every other direction. From a strategic point of view, it was almost perfect: isolated, on high ground and virtually inaccessible from one entire direction.

The settlement itself was centered around a giant mud pit. Yeah, go figure. Imagine I’m rolling my eyes right now. Local townsponies had learned how to make pit-mud and clay into just about anything, though it was mostly used for bricks and construction. The pit had actually been dug out by hoof and the "levels" Pin Cushion mentioned earlier were the three large terraces that rose up in it like giant rings. The whole effect made Mudtrough look like some giant, dirty, oddly shaped crater if viewed from the air.

The lower terrace was right by the edge of the pit and used mostly for construction and crafting. From sunup to sundown you could find ponies molding and shaping everything from bricks and shingles to pottery. Firing furnaces and drying tables dotted the back edge in fairly even intervals and they were almost always in use.

A little ways above, the middle terrace was reserved mostly for storage. We kept the majority of our crop harvest there along with other supplies. Some of the more impoverished ponies, especially non-citizens, also lived there.

The upper terrace consisted of residential buildings and various shops. It was here my wonderful little abode could be found. This level also housed our town hall, which was really nothing more than an "unofficial official" building where the mayor worked and townsponies gathered to discuss matters of importance. When I wasn't dodging my responsibilities, the town hall was where I worked. In addition, fully half of the upper terrace was also devoted to our fields and orchards. Because of this, the top tier of the settlement was by far the largest, extending almost all the way back to the base of the mountains.

To top it all off, the whole town was surrounded by an eight foot high wall, made mostly of (go on, guess – I’ll bet you get it right) mud bricks. Did you guess correctly? Of course you did. I’ll bet you didn’t guess about the bits and pieces of scavenged metal and wood worked into the design, though. A walkway ran around the entirety of the inside of the wall, and lookouts were posted at regular intervals all the way around.

Mudtrough wasn't a terrible place to live. On the contrary, it was quite safe, reasonably well stocked and the ponies that lived here were good ponies. It was just so ... well, muddy. Everything and everypony was brown. The whole place was a physical elegy to dirt, mud, clay and wood. Not to mention the smell of wet earth that permeated everything. Good luck trying to smell good around these parts.

No, it wasn't a terrible place to be, but I still hated it something fierce.

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As one of Mudtrough's few pegasi, having me help move the things our teams brought back to the lower levels was not only faster, but easier if the objects were large or unwieldy. More than one pony had been hurt when they slipped on a dirt ramp or tripped over a rock while carrying something clunky down to storage. In truth, I didn't mind lending a hoof. It was the inevitable confrontation with the mayor I was dreading. You see, I can read and write, and that’s a skill set not everypony in town had. Colts and fillies got little to no education. Why would they need it? Instead, they were trained by family and friends in specific trades. Most everything I learned had been self taught.

Because of this, Mayor Mud Bucket (yes, that's really his name, and yes, he does have a cutie mark to match) had appointed me as "Town Scribe". That’s a lot less impressive than it sounds, trust me. Whenever the mayor wanted to have a record of something, like a dispute between two townsponies, or a field report from our scouts, it was my job to write it down for him. I also recorded everything the scavengers brought back and gave it to our quartermaster so she could keep inventory.

Being the scribe was great because it kept me away from some of the more laborious jobs, like being a brick-shaper or a waste disposal pony. However, being the scribe was also more boring than watching mud bricks dry, so I tended to, uh, miss work some days. A lot of days, actually. The fact that Pin Cushion had been sent to retrieve me yet again meant I was probably way behind in my work and Mayor Mud Bucket was not happy about it.

My suspicions were confirmed when Pin Cushion and I reached the front gate. The mayor was waiting there, looking especially cross. As soon as Pin Cushion saw Mud Bucket's expression, he excused himself to talk with the hoof-ful of other ponies congregating by the gate. In the blink of an eye the mayor was in my face.

"Damn it all, Seven!" His nostrils flared. "Where have you been? I understand that you don't like your job, but you can't just disappear when everyone else is working hard! We survive here because we all work together! You know that ..."

I let my mind drift as Mud Bucket continued his tirade. He only had four or five speeches he liked to give when he was reprimanding somepony. I'd heard them all before. This one sounded like it was going to be a variant of "We all work together or we die together". These rants tended to go on for a solid minute or two, but both Mud Bucket's tongue lashing and my thoughts were interrupted one of the lookouts on the wall.

"They're back! Open the gate!"

Mayor Mud Bucket trotted over to the growing group of ponies standing around the gate, but not before shooting me one last dirty look. He waved a hoof at the small crowd. "Get back, get back! Come on, now. They can't get inside if you block the entrance."

The crowd backed up collectively, though the ponies seemed reluctant to do so. Satisfied there was enough space, Mud Bucket gave a nod to the two large earth ponies by the gate. Each robust pony threw his weight against buttresses jutting from the woodwork. Slowly, the large gateway started to slide sideways on its track. After a few moments, the gate was opened enough to allow entry and the two ponies headed around to the other side of the buttresses, ready to close the gate as soon as the team was inside.

Two grubby earth ponies and one even grubbier unicorn hurried past them. Each earth pony towed a small wagon, but only one of the wagons contained anything. I couldn't see much over the crowd, but based on their worried murmurs, it didn't sound like there was much of anything to look at. As soon as the trio was inside, the gate ponies reversed their previous procedure and the wooden gate slid closed with a dull boom.

Before the earth ponies could even get themselves unhitched from their wagons, the crowd had swarmed them. Everypony seemed to be asking questions about the trip, what they had brought, where they had gone, or how the outside was. I saw several eyeing things on the wagon, but not one of them was foolish enough to touch or take anything until it had been inventoried and stored. Mayor Mud Bucket would have their hides if they tried anything and they knew it.

The scavenger unicorn trotted over to me. She had dirt ground into her coat so thoroughly you could hardly tell it was mint green underneath. Her streaky emerald mane looked like it had been caught in a tornado. Despite looking like something that had wandered the wrong way into Tartarus, she still managed a cheerful smile.

"Heya, Seven. You here to take inventory?"

"Oh, uh, yep!" I opened my saddlebag and fished out a long piece of parchment. "Ready when you are...um..." Crap. I was totally blanking on her name.

She looked familiar. I think we had talked before. I definitely knew I’d seen her in passing fairly frequently. Unfortunately, I didn't spend much time with other ponies in town. I could remember faces pretty well, but I was so very terrible when it came to names. I knew Pin Cushion because he always was sent to fetch me. I knew the quartermaster, Lockright, because I was always delivering things to her. I could not, however, remember who this pony was.

"Ah ..." Stalling to give my brain time to remember, I spread the parchment out on a nearby crate and tried to sneak a peek at her flank in the hope that her cutie mark would jog my memory. Given that her flank was covered in so much grime her cutie mark was invisible, that didn't help.

Her smile wilted . "Leaflet. It's me, Leaflet." She kicked the dirt with a hoof. "Don't you remember? We ate lunch at the same time last week." If I didn't know better, I'd have said she looked almost hurt. "We ... we talked a bunch. About stuff. Together. Over Lunch. Did you … forget?"

My face burned with embarrassment. She was right, of course. She had sat at a table across from me while I was eating lunch a few days ago. We had chatted a little, but the only thing on my mind that day had been how much I didn't want to take dictation from the mayor in the afternoon. I hardly remembered the conversation at all. Apparently it had meant much more to her.

Crap!

"I, uh, sorry." I quickly snatched the pencil from my saddlebag in my mouth to avoid any more conversation. Just to be sure our interaction was over, I turned to the pile of goods on the wagons.

I tried not to notice as Leaflet waited a moment before trundling away.

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Getting everything cataloged and stored didn't take too long. Leaflet and her team hadn’t had much luck out there. We finished in the late afternoon. I had managed to avoid the mayor almost entirely, which meant I now had the whole evening for myself.

As I closed the door to Quartermaster Lockright's office, I was already formulating my plan for tonight. I would get something to eat from one of the upper terrace shops, take it back to my place, soak in a bath and then disappear back into my books until I was ready for bed.

That plan lasted all of about two minutes.

I had just turned down the path leading to most of the food shops when I saw Mayor Mud Bucket leaning against a building, waiting. Crap. There went my evening.

"Ah, Seven." Mud Bucket gestured for me to come closer. "There you are. I was hoping we could finish our talk from this afternoon."

I flapped my wings once in frustration, kicking up a small cloud of dust behind me, but didn't say anything. If I just let him finish saying whatever he was going to say, maybe I could get on with my evening in peace.

"Now then," the mayor began once I was close enough, "I know you're busy with your, um...things you do at your house most days."

"History.” Frustration started to simmer. "I study our history. I seem to be the only pony around here who cares about what happened and how we got here, instead of just surviving from day to day or inventing new ways to make things out of mud."

"All right, all right. Calm down, son." Mud Bucket kept his voice low. I suspected he wasn't interested in getting into a full blown argument in the middle of the street. "Look, I know studying history is important to you, and I am happy to let you do it. Really, I am." He paused. I could tell he was choosing his next words carefully. "And, as much as you say there is more to life than just surviving, survival comes first. You understand, yes?"

I snorted loudly. My patience was growing thin. "Okay, mayor. I've been working all afternoon. I'm tired. I know I've been slacking lately and I'm sorry, but right now I just really want to go home." My tail flicked involuntarily as I tried to keep my cool. "Did you want something?"

My outburst didn't get any reaction. Mud Bucket’s tone remained calm. "Yes, Seven, there is. You know the rules we have here, right?"

I nodded. I did. I had to. Everypony who grew up or settled here had to memorize Mudtrough's rules. There were only a few and, while they were simple, you had to memorize them all if you wanted to become an official citizen. Citizens were rationed more food than non-citizens and could request things from the quartermaster. Also, citizens could work any job they were qualified for. Non-citizens could only work manual labor. Committing those laws to memory had been high on my list of priorities once I was old enough. I was an official citizen of Mudtrough, complete with all the perks and (ahem) ‘prestige’ that came with the title.

"So you know that everyone has to take a turn now and then going outside to bring in supplies. We all take turns so it's fair."

I nodded again. He was building up to something.

"Town records indicate that you haven't been outside in –"

I opened my mouth to protest, but Mud Bucket held up a hoof to silence me.

"I know, I know. You don't like it. Nopony likes going out there, Seven." He sighed heavily. "I've tried to cover for you. Kept telling ponies you were busy doing work for me and that you could take your turn soon." His nostrils flared.

Here it comes.

"But you keep skipping out on me and ponies notice you're not around." He stomped the ground angrily. "Now I’ve got ponies whispering behind my back that I'm "playing favorites" and that you aren't pulling your weight around here." The mayor fixed me with a cold stare, eyes narrowing. "I will not have my townsponies fighting among themselves or undermining my authority. The world out there is trying to eat us alive. We don't need to be doing the same to each other in here." He grabbed a rolled up parchment from his saddlebag and tossed it at my hooves. "You've no doubt noticed we've been hauling lighter loads for a while now." He shook his head. "Seems like every place around here has been stripped clean for some time, but while the weather is clear like it has been, we need to capitalize on it. I'm sending another team the day after tomorrow. You are going with them."

"But-"

The mayor's hoof again silenced any potential argument I may have had. "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you." He gestured to the parchment. "That's a map of our surrounding area. Any place we've already cleaned out or that's already been picked over is marked, so with a little luck, you'll be able to find someplace that still has something we can use. You don't have to bring back a lot, just bring back something. I'll expect your decision first thing tomorrow morning."

With that, the mayor turned and started to walk away. Yet he paused after a few steps. He looked back over his shoulder at me.

"I like you, Seven, I really do. You're smart, and you are helpful around here. I think you're a good kid, and I'm glad you think there's more to life than just surviving. I'm sorry, but you need to do this for me, or you're going to need someplace else to live." He rounded the corner and was gone before I could respond.

The … outside?

I picked up the map in my teeth and stuffed it into one of my saddlebags. Flapping my wings a couple of times, I took to the air and set myself on a direct course for home. Suddenly I was not very hungry. As much as I disliked Mudtrough, being outside was infinitely worse. Compared with the outside, this muddy brown crater could be considered paradise. In here, we were safe. Outside, death waited for you with empty eyes and gnashing teeth. Everypony learned that as a foal. In here, there was always the quiet bustle of ponies going about their business. Outside, the world was oppressively silent. It was common knowledge: inside good, outside bad.

In here, we had control. Outside, the world belonged to the dead.