Ch.1 p.1 - Balefire falls

Chapter one: Balefire falls

I would have never imagined I would witness and outlive the balefire bombs. Yet, I did. And I won’t say the experience was not worth it.

Every story begins with a tipping point. Mine starts with a swift, violent, harsh, and tragic play. I was a mare that had lived a boring life for forty five long years. Little did I knew that this day would be the last of my repeating, tasteless existence in an Equestria ravaged by war. I wouldn’t have imagined I would be changed forever.

“Drop that knife, Amethyst!” I cried out, tears rushing up my eyes. “Please…”

Shivers ran down my spine. I couldn’t stop my voice from shaking. But worst of all, I was speaking with that awful and sheepish tone actors used in drama movies. A rattle sound, a real nuisance for those who might hear me. I was pathetic, but the scene I was playing in was a concentrate of pitiful acting. The play was nothing but miserable.

“I won’t go back to the frontlines!” Amethyst shrieked at me so loudly her voice nearly broke down.

She curled up in the corner of her bed, settled next to a wall of her usually neat and tidy room. Feathers had been eviscerated from their pillows, scattered across the room like spilled intestines. Standing among them, the desk had been smashed into pieces. Adjacent to it, the walls were soiled with cryptic words, written with pen or charcoal. There were symbols and phrasings I couldn’t decipher. Hurt and stressful, I looked down at the hardwood flooring. It was scratched in many spots by maddened hooves. Now everything was a complete mess.

I swallowed my saliva and slowly stepped in Amethyst’s private room. Its blinds were closed tigh, leaving the place nearly pitch-black. The only light was pouring from the cracked-open door, throwing my daughter’s face into stark relief, my shadow cast over her legs.

My eyes met hers, and I gulped again, breaking the silence. A trickle of sweat dripped down the back of my neck as chills rolled down my back. Her eyes were two pink pits in a nearly bald face. In a berserk rage she had cut off whole huge pieces of her light blue mane. The top of her head was now sickly drawn, marred by slice marks. A small bit of her right ear had been torn away, and blood was oozing down on her cheek.

Scared, my gaze went down to take in the rest of her. Even hidden by my shadow, I could see the self-inflicted bruise on her breast and bottom chest. Scars left superficial gaps in her indigo fur. A glitter caught my attention and a sight that I wanted to back away from welcomed me. She was holding a knife over her wrist.

The look in her eyes was a punch in the guts. Tears were running across her face, staining her coat with small dark dots. I was having trouble not to curl up too, my mind craving to forget this scene. Her hooves constricted on the pommel of the blade, ready to stab herself. She wavered the knife’s tip between me and herself, threatening me not to come closer. I shuddered and shook my head, wondering how Equestria had become just so fucked up.

“Please Amethyst,” I pleaded. “Drop that knife.”

I called out to her over and over again. I used all the sweet words, all the fear and emotion I could put into my voice for her. I tried to console her, to entreat her to live through this. But whatever I tried, it never seemed enough.

A choked sob broke in her throat when our eyes met. Her head jerked on the side and  she launched herself flat on her bed, jostling the lamp off the night table in the process. The porcelain fixture crashed, exploding into glimmering shards that caught the light as they came to rest by my hooves.

Yet, I had focused on a glint and a metallic noise that had pierced the sound of the lamp's destruction, a sound coming straight from Amethyst’s leg. I narrowed my eyes; what I saw cracked shivers upon my lips.

“When did you…?” I could speak no more.

I fought back the bile as I saw what she was so quick to hide. She concealed the artificial hindleg’s hoof under her pillows, the metal limb gleaming dully, framed perfectly in the light slithering from the doorway. A muffled whine issued from the tiny joints that drove it. Inspecting it numbly, I recognized the Ministry of Wartime Technology's insignia -an apple outline surrounding three gears, cut in half by a sword and lifted by phoenix wings- etched into the thigh. I had seen it before on basic replacement limbs given to the soldiers - for amputees, and those wounded in combat. My eyes crawled back to her face.

The hum of the servos stopped once she had hid her metal leg. The look she gave me was a blend of shame, anger and… a cry for help.

“You remember the first letter I wrote you, mother?” she blubbered. “When I finally got into the army.”

Our eyes met again. I swallowed the lump in my throat as I was unable to stand my daughter’s eyes, bloodshot and rushed by tears. Those eyes... I would never again wish to see in a million years; the dead look in a lost, broken mare's gaze. I couldn’t hold them... I found my hooves infinitely more interesting. My girl, reduced to bawling her eyes out and threatening to end her life. What a pitiful mother I was. Shoveling back my urge to throw up, I leaned against the side of her broken desk and slid my back down it until my rear hit the floor. A long moment stretched to eternity where neither of us spoke a word or twitched an ear. We waited for the other to break the silence. She sniffed, opening her mouth to take a deep breath. But I cut her off, raising my voice first in an attempt to comfort her.

“Yes, I remember,” I blurted through my trembling lips. “You were so proud and naïve I couldn't help but share in your success. I wanted to work so hard at the office. To be sure my efforts would only go for you. I didn’t know where you’d been deployed. All I had left was working hard, hoping it would help. I was so… so afraid… that one day a pony from your platoon would knock on my door with that letter telling you’d been...” Mortified by the thought, tears rushed my eyes.

I wept into my hooves so she wouldn't see her mother cry. I had indeed seen so many of my now distant friends receive one of those terrible black leathered letters during the past sixteen years. All were disgustingly similar, an overly sincere letter closed by a red seal, marked with a black strip and an Equestrian flag. And I… I had hoped I would never live to see one of those.

“I was so afraid you'd come back home in a box, or not at all. And…” I sniffled, my body wracked by a loud sob. “And when you came back for the first time, six months later. I…”

I stopped and looked at my little girl. She had turned her back at me, showing that she had even cut off her tail. Hair lied in clumps around her. She was folding her ears, hooves blocking my words. My lips fidgeted and tears blurred my vision again.

I swallowed the apple in my throat and bulled through my sorrow. I needed to talk, and she needed escape that loneliness darkening her mind. Like me, she wanted somepony to care about her. And I was her mother.

“You weren’t the same anymore,” I resumed, haltingly. “I mean… you were the same physically of course. You just had dark rings under your eyes, scars and the new bulk… But your smile… It seemed so fake when I saw you… I saw a broken doll, not the Amethyst I cradled when she was only a foal.”

I burst into tears and hiccupped. It took me a long time to get my sobs and voice back under control. I had to. Was I stacking up my grief, spitting it out at her face? I couldn’t tell.

“Zebras changed you. War changed you. And this world changed you too. You’ve never talked to me, never explained to me, and never showed me what happened. You kept everything for yourself and I could only watch as you… just slowly disappeared. I did nothing to stop your nightmare. I’m the monster!”

I finally managed to look at my filly again, who remained as silent as a tomb. She had even closed her eyes tightly. Only her lips were moving, reciting a silent mantra. Unfortunately, she still held the knife tight in her hooves, and her body was breaking with small tremors of emotion.

Please, don’t do it! I need you!

“I’ve seen so many wrong things… participated in so many crimes,” Amethyst spoke so suddenly it startled me.

Her voice had changed in the past few minutes. Calm and innocent, it quickly gave way to a raspy pained voice belonging to a mare five times her age. The voice of a mare who had watched upon a reality better left unseen.

“Kids, males, and females I trod, sliced, cut, killed, tortured, gunned, burned, desecrated, violated, raped and laughed over,” She pressed her hooves so tightly to the sides of her skull her scalp split, spilling warm red blood that mixed with her tears and staining the sheets. “I wasn’t supposed to be taught that. I was supposed to be the good mare, a hero, Like Big Mac. Even after his death. I have been acclaimed, awarded, and honored by the ponies around me. But their smiles… I’ve never seen so much hypocrisy.”

Her confession reached a new level, echoing in the room like a banshee’s scream as her voice rose in pitch and volume. She kept howling at me, from her sit and prostrate position. The window vibrated, and her words rammed loudly in the air as if they were a brick she were trying to floor me with.

“I didn’t sign up for this. I graduated with a doctorate in Applied Gemstone Science. I wanted to serve Equestria. And the army… just served my instincts. It taught me how to rip myself off my morals. The army only used me. They tore my morals away from me, taught me to be terrifying, not to be merciful and kind.”

She wept with a snarl as she wiped of her face the blood.

“I’m a murderer,” She confessed with a hiss. “And the Princesses will make me pay for this.”

“Please Amethyst, don’t do it,” I begged and wheedled of her, “I need you. You’re my daughter. I don’t want to be alone.”

Her eyes drifted in my direction, offended, like two pits of unfathomable darkness sweeping over me. Yet, I spot a light gleaming faintly underneath these two dark globes. A dull light of deliverance meaning the ordeal was over, that the burden was going to fly away. She raised her hooves, gently sinking the knife into her own throat, gushing blood as she let out one final sigh.

I screamed.

₪ ₪   Ѻ  ₪ ₪

I didn’t remember how long I held Amethyst in my hooves, hugging her so tight I could have broken her bones. The blood coming from her neck had been dripping on my chest, running down to my belly. But the river had dried and the white bed sheets had turned scarlet, sticky, and cold. The light pouring from the door flickered and through the crack of the shutters I saw no shafts slithering in. Morning was still far away.

My tears had gone dry. My eyes and cheeks ached. My mind dizzied. I stayed stoic, refusing to let my daughter go away from me. I hoped that keeping this petrified position would bring her back. Sadly… I knew deep within she was gone, she was now just a shattered doll. She had been one since she came back from her first draft. A mindless and depressed young mare, close to anypony’s help.

I wanted to cradle her, love her, talk to her, and hear her voice. I was stupid, waiting for an answer that I did know would never come.

“It’s just a doll, now. She is dead, let her go… Let it go.”

I repeated again and again those words.

Another hour passed by before I collected all my sorrow and compressed it into the farthest corner of my being. But I couldn’t stop my sobbing, for I couldn’t be consoled. In the depths of my despair, I remembered a melody I'd long forgotten. Between sobs, I sang quietly.

“Little, little filly

Why are you weeping

While I'm watching

Over you?”

I kept rambling the beginning of the lullaby I had written for Amethyst the day she was born, a long time ago. I stumbled upon each syllable, unable to articulate the words before they died in my throat. I cringed and sought a comforting warmth in the hollow of her shoulder. Her flesh was quickly becoming stiff and icy cold. I had even left the knife in her neck, disgusted of the idea to touch it.

“Little, little filly

Why are you crying

While I'm staying

With you?”

After a while, reason finally made sorrow take a backseat; I had to get up.

Awestruck, I lay Amethyst’s body on her bed. My mane and fur were sticky with the gummy blood washed over my hooves and belly. The fluid had gelled my usually beige fur into red clumps. I crawled to my terminal and called the Ministry of Morale, they were supposed to take care of the dead, weren’t they? I killed the connection after a terse conversation with a switchboard operator with a despondent sigh. Who would take care of me, now?

At the time, I lived in one of the buildings at the edge of Canterlot. As a worker, the inner parts of the city weren’t affordable to me in spite of my well-paid job at the Ministry of Wartime Technology. And because I lived fairly far from the city center, the help came late. That was also my fault.

I jerked my head and mumbled something that could be taken as a weak ‘coming’ after the doorbell had rang bleakly. I opened the door to let the ponies come in.

Ponies with that Morale look to them trooped past me into the small apartment wearing cleaning-service uniforms. Among their number, disguised against casual observance by the group he moved with, was a Ministry psychologist. I just sat there numbly as they moved.

The psychologist tapped my shoulder, showing a large and soft smile. Creepy… After asking me to get up, he guided me into my own living room, sitting me down to keep me out from underneath the investigative ponies' hooves.

Balloon was his name, a unicorn with a pale blue and thick hide, an impeccable brown mane, and bright blue eyes hidden behind a pair of thin glasses. He presented himself nicely enough, calm in demeanor and cleanly dressed in a brown trench coat with a Pinkie Pie badge pinned on his chest. He pretended to care. I knew he was simply an agent from the crisis department of the Ministry of Morale. So, why was I so relieved to have him by my side?

I never remembered exactly Ballon’s words. He just hugged me as long as it needed it to be. I couldn’t move while the heart-shattering zipping sound of the body bag closed on Amethyst’s ghoulish face. He tapped on my shoulders and back, again and again, muttering the same ‘there, there, there’ for quite a long time as I watched the stretcher go away, disappearing in the entrance door. I cried loudly, burying my snout into his chest. I could taste the pity coming off the investigator ponies, and the fake compassion washing off the psychologist pony holding me. But I preferred to lie to myself, encaging me in a false but still warm lie, that somepony still cared about me.

Balloon and I seemed trapped in a bubble of time, a calm little island in a maelstrom of activity. To my perception, everything slowed down like a bullet-time moment from a propaganda movie. The psychologist gave me a pill, one of some sort that I hoped was a Mint-al, which would lift my mood and make me focus. Anything would be better than the sludgy way my thoughts was running at the moment.

I didn't think he really wanted me to think, or to feel happy. Just fuzzy enough to not think about what just happened, what those ponies were cleaning up, blood, a knife, and on… and on…. Balloon seemed to legitimately care, but that was his job, a big hypocritical job. I wondered how many mares like me he had to hug in a day, how many tears that coat and fleece had absorbed. But, somehow, I refused to think his embrace was faked. I wanted to be comforted and even a fainted moment of careful attention was fair enough for a mare like me.

“I need you to sign a statement," Balloon finally asked with a long and deep sigh, genuine at least.

He was more pained by his request than I was. Was he trying to extort something from me? I couldn’t think straight. The drug… The drug! Ah, damn that stallion! He did his job well, modulating my mood, playing with my sorrow and lack of reason at the moment, and thus my calmness. Amethyst was dead now, dead and cold as stone. A heavy and tickling tear roll down my left cheek. Balloon’s shoulders fell a little. I had not yet responded.

“Well, Vava,” he continued, “in time of war we need to keep the population happy, focused on the task… Ready to work their hooves out for the sake of all. Tragic events like Amethyst’s accident should not fall into somepony’s ears. It could depress them.”

I looked at him with red bulged eyes. My hooves shook violently as he hoofed me a paper. I glanced at it without paying much attention to the words. Paper and words. I hated paperwork… This, I just had to sign it. Yes, I just had to put my mark on it. Then my mouth would remain shut about Amethyst, forever. And everything would be over… fine. I would be able to go back to work, working my hooves out. Yes… working them to the bone. And just not thinking about the future. The training alarm and emergency sessions. The control wherever and whenever I would go. Knowing what I would have to do. To accept the routine… I rose my eyes and looked at him, battered and tired.

“What would the Ministry…” I initiated.

“She will be declared killed in action,” Balloon murmured with an unsettling easiness. “Private Amethyst died on the battlefield. A zebra assassin snuck behind her and killed her, in the most cowardly way a sub-pony being could. She had a quick death. And, she will be honored. She fell in the line of duty. You can be proud.”

Sickness slithering in my mind. I was going to lie to everypony. I was going to lie about Amethyst’s fate. I was going to give away my pride and my shame for Equestria’s sake. I looked at the paper for a long and stressful moment. I stared back at Balloon, tired.

“I’ve not a choice of signing this or not, do I?”

He took a long and slow breath, blinked and sighed again.

“No, you don’t,” he confessed.

Somehow, knowing I had no choice made the it easier. Chasing away my thoughts, acting like a puppet on the strings of a skilled actor, I took a pen left on the coffee table in my mouth and signed. I kept the declaration in my hooves, stunned, shunning reality.

I wanted to throw up. A sudden furry feeling like last night had been spent hard drinking settled into my gut. My head spun, making my balance off and wobbling me.

I looked at Balloon and hoofled him the paper. Putting it back into his trench coat, he smiled at me with a broad and friendly row of perfectly white teeth. It was still a gentle, nearly surreal, smile that could brighten up mangled and wrecked souls. I would have bet some bits he was related to Fluttershy, the embodiment of Kindness. Yet, behind that clean and perfectly aligned row of teeth, I knew something was utterly off, feigned, tainted by professional training. A long practiced knowledge of deceit he had learnt as a student-agent at the Ministry of Morale.

He swiftly got up and trotted back to the door, silent, willing to leave me a deserved rest. He was… caretaking to say the least. I swallowed my saliva. In a stroke of cleverness, I called him back with a muffled groan. He was already in the threshold of my entrance door when his head swiveled on his neck and stared back at me with hawkish eyes.

“Yes, Vault?” he asked, clearly annoyed by my impromptu question.

“You never asked me how Amethyst …” I stopped. The words I was going to spit out seemed odd in my mouth. I was not used to think that straight, to speak that openly. That kind and fragile mare I was should have lowered her head. I should be weeping in silence instead. Was it the drugs that caused my speech to go lisp? Making me so light-minded about my now dead girl? Or was I such a horrible mother?

“…how she passed away?” I finished. “Nopony asked me what really happened. I could have murdered her you wouldn’t have checked and questioned me?”

I had seen too many noir movies to know any investigator would have asked this question first, squeezing an answer out of me even if it meant breaking my spirit apart. Family is always the first on line for finding suspects. I had been disappointed by how casual the agents and “cleaning” ponies had been with me. This case had seemed to be a banal operation, like a policepony controlling randomly identities right out the streets. Shameful, I looked at myself. My beige fur was still covered with coagulated and dried blood, gluing my coat into thin needling clumps. I needed desperately a hot shower. However, would I be so keen to get rid of the last physical remain I had left from her? Dark, red and crackled blood on my fur.

The stallion chuckled with a disturbing grin, making me break away from my self-blaming destructiveness.

“Pinkie Pie is watching you, forever,” He declared, perfectly out of tune.

He turned back and walked away in the doorway, leaving me and my flat in an absolutely deafening silence. I stared at the closed door without any rupture for an hour. Did I even blink? And above all else, did he really say those words? I couldn’t… Don’t think about Vault. Just don’t.

My mind was unable to get rid of his last declaration, making me chew over it like a dog over an old leather sole. I couldn’t believe they had spied on me. They couldn’t, right? I was just suffering from paranoia; I was just slowly pushed back into the dark land of madness. I couldn’t dare to think they had watched my little Amethyst just pull that knife in her throat. And the pony I had on the terminal… Did he knew?

They had watched me and did nothing! My blood was boiling inside my head out of anger. I was so furious the idea of killing Balloon flew across my mind. Wishful thinking… I wouldn’t dare raise my voice higher than other pony. Yet, rage kept ablaze within me. I wanted to break apart everything from the floor to the ceiling, swinging doors off their hinges, breaking my furniture into confetti. But, anger was useless if nopony was there to see me suffering and help me out. I punched my head hard, trying to cast away the mere idea somepony behind a terminal in some remote and forsaken place of Equestria had witnessed my girl’s struggles… and just spectate it. Did he enjoy a mouthful of popcorn? Had he drunk while I was crying, spilling my inner thoughts? Ministry of Morale’s officers couldn’t. Pony ethic forbid it. They wouldn’t. My girl’s death couldn’t be an inevitable tragedy put on a pedestal like a reality-show.

I wished I would smash the first object I could have had a hoof on it. But I was so tired and drugged. Balloon had given me a strong pill or whatever it was. I would have been glad he spared me such proof of kindness. I tilted my head, leaning on the side of the chair and threw up. It was time.

With drops of bile flowing on my lips and chin, I sat back on my chair and cracked my neck on the headrest.

I screamed at the void before me until my lungs shut down in pain.

Disgusted and exhausted, I fell into a dreamless and oblivious sleep. Guiltiness didn’t even clench my guts during one of my recurrent nightmares.

₪ ₪   Ѻ  ₪ ₪

The loud tick of an alarm clock woke me up.

As I stood up out of the comfy chair, a heavy load washed over me like a dark veil of sorrow. After giving a wondering glance at the surrounding furniture, still trying to muster my thoughts, I crawled out to reach one of my windows. A cold breeze swept over my face once my hooves had pushed it open. I sneezed. The sun was still far from rising, only the distant clouds had started sporting the dull pink glimmer of the morning.

I had slept fairly well, leaving me with a surprising impression of lightless, which unfortunately didn’t last long. I have always hated waking up. You forget your dreams and all the horrible week you’ve been through just rushes in your mind and puts a heavy load on your shoulders. A mental shackles. I got it right, it was a Monday feeling. All the troubles you had successfully put aside just knock at the door, ready to smack you in a face with a big ‘fuck you’ once you would have opened it.

I went into my room, searching for the clock and found it switched off, silent. The alarm wasn’t its deed and such deception made my morning mood worse than it already was.

The annoying ticking was coming from Amethyst’s room, echoing in the small hallway of my flat. Annoyed and still not recovering, I toddled heavily and walked in the hall. A long and dull grey hallway gave onto four doors, the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room and my girl’s room. No decorations at all, I couldn’t afford them. I spotted a pile of papers next to the door entrance, hanging under the thin slit reserved for the postmare. The mails dated from yesterday and the Ministry of Morale’s agents had paid no attention to them. A dozen of envelops were stacked up, pushed aside and creased where the door had compressed them.

Bills, bills and, you guess it, bills… I sighed and left them aside to later throw them away in the trashcan of my kitchen. Focusing on the alarm’s tics, annoying above anything else, I passed through the remaining letters in a jiffy. I would have gotten up if not for something to catch my attention in front of the closed door. Two envelops in kraft paper were lying on the parquet. Brown envelops on a brown parquet and plunged in a semi-darkness I had nearly missed them. Such pieces were unusual enough to kick the alarm’s song out of my mind. I had never received such kind of mail. It seemed rather important, to say the least.

I glanced perplexedly at the first one, I could read my address, my name, my work address, my gender, my age… and the whole without any error. Maybe it was the Ministry of Morale’s bill. I slapped myself for thinking about it. I was an aged mare, already cynic and spiteful. I lifted up the letter and turned it over, willing to peer an eye at the cover. The Stable-Tec logo appeared before me, printed in a bright white color. The shakes spiking through my hooves gained in momentum. With the tip of my hoof I opened it. Inside was a simple piece of paper and the same stable tech logo was printed at the top of it.

Mrs Vault Skin

We regret to inform you that you application through the lottery to the Stable-Tec program as a potential resident of the Stable 2, Stable located near Ponyville, has been rejected. Your competencies and past experiences have not been judged as sufficient as to make you an asset of our survival program, created and fully managed by Stable-Tec Co. Therefore you won’t be called in the future in case an emergency of level 1 occurs, requiring the stable and their occupants to be sealed up within for an undetermined  length of time.

However, your name has been put on the Stable 31’s waiting list and you shall promptly receive an answer next week. Following our selection algorithm and application program you have 0.2% chance to be selected as a priority applicant.

Yours sincerely,

Stable-Tec

Printed by Equestria Edition Co. Manehattan

I took a deep breath and let out a long and depressed sigh. Another load on my unbearably heavy cart I would have to pull with me for the rest of my life. Rejection, I needed it at that damn right moment. I looked blankly at the letter for a few seconds. What was I thinking when I chose to apply to that stupid ‘lottery’ program? I was a random mare with no real qualifications, not an old rusted buck, but not young enough to be useful for Stable-Tec. I felt truly useless. I creased the letter in a ball of paper and threw it in a corner of the hallway with rage. Again, I sighed and my eyes drifted on the second letter.

This enveloped bore a single name, ‘Amethyst’. Remembering myself asking for a placement into a Stable for her was impossible, I wondered how this was possible. In fact, everypony above the legal age were not authorized to ask somepony else to sign them into Stable-Tec’s survival program ‘lottery’. We all had one chance, and only one. And if you wanted to get in, you had to do it yourself. I opened the envelope with my febrile hooves and read the content half-heartedly.

Mrs Amethyst Skin, Equestrian Army, caporal, 1st Military Engineers

My name is Scootaloo. As the Vice-President of Stable-Tec Corporation, I am delighted to announce you that, despite your non-application to our Stable program you have been selected among the few ponies that are designated to be the first Overmare of one of our Stables, Stable 101 to be accurate, located twenty kilometers south of Manehattan.

Through our first set of investigation procedures, we have found in your first layer psychological mapping, values such as ethic and commitment that go far beyond an average pony’s standards. We also found some traits that are key points for the Stable Program which aims to make every existing stable and yet-to-be stable a unique place.

I do know it might seem invasive for common folks but our program only focuses on protecting Ponykind. Henceforth, we would like to see you coming into our headquarters in Fillydelphia next week to interview you and sort out your commitment to our project or not. We already arrange a trip with your military commandant from your present location in Canterlot to our headquarter next week.

Yours faithfully,

Scootaloo, Vice-President of Stable-Tec Corporation

Printed by Equestria Edition Co. Manehattan

I heard a thump on the ground below me. My eyes peered at it with surprise and curiosity. A plastic card showing a small golden chip was lying inanimate at my hooves, shining in the hall’s yellow light. Lifting it up, I saw Amethyst’s photo. It fell again from my nervous hoof more than I dropped it, aback by the impression the photo gave me. Amethyst had her mane cut short, and she sported a smirk I had never seen her sport. It was her Equestrian Army’s entry photo. Where did Stable-Tec find it?

The letter had a post-scriptum note.

PS: This card is your pass to Stable-Tec’s headquarter, proof of our trust into your person while it is also meant to have far more characteristics, please keep it safe. Losing it means losing your capability to be selected as an Overmare.

I blankly stared at the card for more than I thought, lost in the depths of my empty mind. I had never taken a recent photo of Amethyst’s profile. I had photos of her when she was still young, just a filly in my hooves. But, as long as she grew up, we had become increasingly distant, only meeting during holidays when she was at her college. This card, and especially this picture were a reminder of my loss. I found a gift as well in this plastic card. I had always feared that I would forget what I’d lost, that memories could falter ponies.

The alarm clock’s complaint gained in momentum, breaking me away from my trance. I stood up, keeping the card in my mouth until I could store it somewhere safe. I walked slowly toward Amethyst’s room. Balloon had cleaned it, or somepony else did. There was no stain nor a slight evidence of past night’s events. Yet, the stench got into my muzzle, the windows had remained closed and the air had rotten inside the room. I winced in disgust, dizziness gripping my intestines. I wanted to go inside the room, to shut that alarm up. But I was blocked at the threshold of the door.

I whimpered, breathed in, sighed… waited. Clenching my eyes together, I took a long breath and lifted my hoof, stretched it in the entrance and forced my balance forward. I walking in. My skin itched as if hundreds of needles were puncturing it constantly, product of my own reticence to enter, torturing me. I inhaled again and stepped one hoof after the other, repeating the manoeuver again, brushing away the locks of my mane falling before my eyes. I rushed toward the clock and snoozed it. Ready to turn on my hooves, my eyes settled down on a folded piece of paper on the bed linen. I took it and leaped outside, panting. Was it a trauma or some similar shitty mental block, this room freaked me in spite of being outside. I was running with sweat, shivering.

I glanced back at the inside of the room, dark and silent. Only the ajar door was standing between the two of us, slowly swinging on its hinges. On the brink of puking my bile out, I spent a few minutes calming the shudders dancing beneath my skin. Once I was back to a more normal mood, my attention drifted to the paper in my hooves. Unfolding it, dropping twice thanks to my clumsiness, I read down a message message, Balloon’s words. I could see his name and signature at the bottom of the page.

The message was so well-written it was nothing a visual pleasure to me. It kicked in my memories some flashes from kindergarten, where teachers had explained how to shape letters in an old fancy way. A stallion’s exceptional calligraphy was only making him creepier. Unfortunately, I knew too well that a beautiful shape was often the hideout of a sorrowful meaning. I hesitated to read it, the topic being Amethyst, and only Amethyst. Balloon announced me she would be buried in two days and that, as her mother, I was of course expected to be there. I was quite pleased and shocked at the same time. This letter was oozing kindness and care, all faked. I had to come alone at the burial, and moreover, an agent would be there to take a photo of me weeping over the grave, war effort you know…

A few seconds were insufficient for me to realize what it meant. My heart pounded in my chest, its beat muffled the fearful and paining thoughts bouncing in my mind. I was definitely a bad mother. Did I really accept that? Yes, I had signed that damn paper. For the sake of Equestria, my girl had to be forgotten or at least who she is… was, had to be modified. It was a war-necessity.

I turned the paper upside down, trying to find a location. Nothing but just a ‘I’ll come to your office today to sort out your paperwork’. I close my eyes, my hooves trembling once again. Was that some kind of joke?

Furious, I shredded the paper into bits. Of course I would be there. Of course, I would see a last time the pale and face of my dear girl, impassive and stripped away from her smile. And be sure I would curse the world for this. I will cry, not only for her, but for me too. I, who had been so widely alright abandoning the freezing body of his girl. And I swore that Balloon would pay for it when he would come over my job location.

For sure!

I swear.

Maybe…

Did I really say that?

I chuckled with a cynical grunt at my own misery. I was angry, pissed off, desperate, and hopeless. Blame my personality for this. During wartime, everypony, I included, felt carried away by a monstrous force. There were those who fought it back like Big Mac, those who left the flow like Amethyst, using a permanent solution for a seemingly endless problem. And finally were those who gave in to this force, just like me, nothing but powerless ponies.

Devoid of will as I was, I had only a few hopes left. Hope for a better future, hope for a change, hope for a hoof to help me out. Yet, I had always been alone, or felt as if. Now that Amethyst was gone, I was truly alone.

My skin and mind tortured me. Creeping out of the hallway toward to the bathroom, I slid into the bathtub and let the water showering down my neck and mane. I was an anonymous pony going to a church to be washed out of their sins, standing in the tub like a mare in a confessional. I had faulted and failed ponies. And this was tearing me apart continuously, like a thirst unable to be quenched. Under the water I couldn’t tell if I was crying, water outpouring on me. I had to stop thinking about it, mustering my spirit would only hurt myself more that I had already done.

Just let the force carry you, Vava… Let it carry you away. It’s as simple as saying ‘Hi’.

When I left the tub I took a look at the mirror and jumped back in a fearful jolt. After a minute spent blinking and calming myself, I got rid of that distorted layer wrecking my vision… Or at least I tried. I was facing myself, a creamy beige mare with a dark grey mane with vanishing light green locks and green eyes. Yet, I could not really tell if it was really me or some kind of alternate self that was watching over from a parallel dimension. I wouldn’t be surprised if it started moving by itself. The reflection had enormous rings under its yellowing eyes. Its lips were dried and ridden with cracks, and wrinkles that shouldn’t be there scarred its face. Only its teeth were still white, or kind of. Decalcification could be seen near their roots. My cutie mark was the only thing that had stayed the same, a black shield sliced in two symmetrical parts like the two sides of a sliding metal gate, slowly closing on a simple bright green ring.

I was only looking at myself. It was only me, looking down at a degraded version of myself. Feeling violated by one’s own picture… was it some kind of twisted achievement? For a second I thought I was grinning at myself. I thrust my hoof into the mirror, breaking it in its frame. Some shards fell inside the watery sink below, and now a dozen of replicates faced me. Lowering the pace of my breath, I tried to calm down. But I couldn’t and broke into tears.

Quick Vava… put some make-up on, smile and it would be soon over, absolutely alright… Smile and wave, salute and remain silent, and the feelings would fly away, for sure.

I went to the kitchen, seven in the morning was marked on the digital clock hung to the wall. I had to go to work. I gulped my coffee in a jiffy, took a pill of restoratives and threw the empty tub into the dustbin. I opened the shelves, took some food and a sparkle cola. I spent the next five minutes eating a not-so-dietetic breakfast. After the usual shot of shivers from the back of my spine to the top of my head, I slowly trotted to the hallway. I grabbed my saddlebag and tossed it over my back. I was going to step out when I froze. Mindlessly, I went back to the kitchen, taking my daily rations and refreshment. I needed to eat something during the day, I needed to be efficient as a very long shift was awaiting me.

Hi,

This is the beginning of your adventure, hope you’ll see the end of the tunnel.

As for now, you begin with a status of, Simpleton Mare, LvL. 0

Good Luck!