The guards were still in the building. Lilac and I had been here for at least two hours, sitting beneath the shade of the tree. I knew that there was no way we were gonna be able to live there again, but I couldn't leave just yet. I needed to get something.

The hallway leading from the staircase had a small hole in it, but you couldn't tell unless you were the one who'd made it. Magic may be difficult for me, but I knew enough to get by in an orphanage filled with selfish little kids who wouldn't leave your stuff alone. The only spell I knew: a camouflage spell. I was too scared to try it on myself or another pony, but when it came to hiding my possessions, I was pretty good. It was little clunky, and it gave me headaches, but it was worth it.

Anyway, when Auto had first let me live in the apartment, I didn't trust him enough to just leave my bits lying around, so I made a hole in the upstairs hallway. It was small, about two inches wide and three inches high. I stuck my money in there and cast the camouflage spell on it to disguise it with the rest of the wall. I was pretty proud of myself for thinking of it and I hadn't regretted it.

Until now. All of my money from the past few weeks, adding up to almost 90 bits, was still in the hole, and I needed them. I wasn't gonna get them with guards swarming the area, so I had no choice but to wait them out.

I sighed and plopped down next to Lilac and leaned my head up against the trunk. Lilac silently curled up in my lap and tucked her nose under her tail, trying her best to wrap her tiny wings around herself for warmth. I frowned and shifted myself to where she rested on a soft patch of moss. I laid down beside her, shielding her from the worst of the icy wind that was cutting through our fur. Guilt clawed at me like Canterlot's fussiest feline. I'd seen Jade wrap her wings around Lilac hundreds of times, and it always seemed to keep the pink filly warm. Hay, I knew first hoof that wings were well insulated. A couple of the staff at the orphanage had been pegasi and they would wrap us in their wings during story time. It was cozy and warm, and I wished I had the anatomy to give it to Lilac.

The best I could do was wrap my fore hooves around her midsection and hold her to my stomach, my lower body curled around her, and my back to the wind.

Lilac rested her hooves on mine and let out a tiny sigh. "I miss my mommy."

I let out a slow breath before replying. "I miss your mommy, too."

"You think she misses us?"

I doubted she was even awake, but Lilac had been worried enough for one day. "I'm sure she does."
It was getting really dark. I could only see a sliver of the moon beneath the trees, and the fact that leaves were shielding the small amount of light didn't help. I couldn't light up my horn because the guards, who were still patrolling the building, would see it. I didn't like the thought of Lilac and I in the forest at night.

I really needed that friggin’ money.

Could I sneak in? I chewed on my lip as I thought about this. The money was upstairs in the hole, and the hole was about two feet away from the stairs. The stairs were about eight feet from the main entrance into the lobby.

Shut up, I had a lot of free time.

Could I really sneak in? I was pretty agile, so I didn't really have to worry about stomping around everywhere and alerting the guards. Then again, with my clumsiness…

There was also that tree that stood tall beside the building. It had long, thick branches that stretched directly over to the window in the hallway. That would save me from having to sneak through two floors.

Wait, what about Lilac? What could she do? I couldn't just leave her in the forest, or anywhere alone, for that matter. It was night time, so Auto must've stopped by at some point. I was actually surprised he hadn't found and maimed me, to be honest. He might've been lurking around in the shadows, waiting for his chance to pounce.

Or maybe the thugs who beat up Jade were the ones lurking.

I raised my head and looked around frantically. Sweet Celestia, whether it was by Auto or by thugs, I was gonna get killed. Canterlot wasn't safe anymore. I was gonna have to leave.

Where I would go, I didn't know, but I could worry about later. Right now I had a bag of bits waiting for me.

I rolled away from Lilac and looked toward the apartment again. Lilac groaned and I quickly shushed her. I could see the faint glow of unicorn magic coming from the door way and the muscled shadows of guards moving about in the windows. I looked back at Lilac.

"You ready for a mission, Li?"

I must be insane. The desperation to get the money had driven me up a tree. And no, I didn’t mess up that phrase; I was literally up a tree. Lilac was balanced carefully on the end of the thick branch above mine. We were about ten feet off the ground, which was pretty much the height of Celestia with me standing on her head.

The window that lead to the hallway was right in front of us, a short rabbit-hop away from Lilac’s branch. I stood slowly and scrambled my way to Lilac, who was staring at the window with scared, blue eyes. The shivers passing through her body made the branch tremble, but something told me that the shivers weren’t from the chill of winter.

“You sure you wanna do this, Li? You can wait at the base of the tree, or…”

Lilac shook her head. “I wanna.”

I frowned and leaned close to her while glancing down at the guard that had wandered directly below us. I whispered, “Remember the plan?”

Lilac took a deep breath and nodded. “Mhm. I peek and tell you if ‘s’clear. Then you come in, do magic, I grab the money and we climb back out the window.”

I smiled, feeling pride swell in my chest. “Right.” I carefully stepped around her and got a firm foothold on the branch beneath me. I reached out my left hoof first and tentatively placed it on the edge of the window, my right following just as cautiously. I planted my back hooves firmly into the bark and looked down. My head spun as I looked at the ground, and the armored guard, under me. I raised my head back up and faced the building. I took a deep breath. “Okay, c’mon.”

I stiffened when I felt Lilac step onto my hindquarters and begin to slowly, oh so slowly, make her way across my body. I couldn’t imagine the thoughts that would be swimming through the mind of anypony who witnessed this. A teenage mare stretched across from a tree to a window with a filly using her as a bridge. Also, when I say “stretched”, I mean it. I’d misjudged the length big time, and the only parts of me that weren’t hanging off of something were my hooves and my tail.

I sucked in my stomach, trying to use my core to steady myself. Lilac looked tiny but she was friggin’ heavy! She was finally at my shoulder blades and I could feel her wobble a bit. “C’mon, sweetie. You can do it,” I encouraged her. I flinched when I realized how much I sounded like Jade.

Lilac crouched, gathered as much strength into her legs as she could, and jumped. Time seemed to slow down as the little filly made the small jump, and my heart nearly stopped. She landed squarely on the sill of the window. I could have laughed hysterically when I saw her land, but I held my tongue.

Lilac poked her head inside and looked around. I groaned; my legs were starting to burn. “Clear?”

Lilac said nothing for a moment before giving a tiny nod. “Yep.” I smiled and got ready for my own jump, but stopped dead.

The thing about being stretched to your limits is that you have no momentum if you were wanting to move in any direction. The tips of my front hooves were barely attached to the window sill, and my back hooves were in a similar kerfuffle. I had no base to crouch and build up momentum.

All in all: I was screwed.

“Sparky?”

I sighed and hung my head. I looked down at the guard, still casually walking around the tree. I looked back up at Lilac and sucked my gut in some more. I raised my head up to peer into the window. I lit up my horn and closed my eyes, trying to pinpoint the source of the spell. In my mind’s eye, I saw the wall of the hallway, and somewhere I saw… there! The hole! I opened my eyes and looked at the small pink glow that came from the very right of the window. “There! Get the money, hurry!” I hissed through gritted teeth. Lilac jumped into the hallway quickly.

My legs were on fire, and my spine felt as if a million fire ants were biting down at once. My eyes watered, and my head hurt. I silently encouraged Lilac and prayed that she’d find the money soon.

Fortunately, her head soon popped up again, a tiny jangling pouch in her teeth. I smiled and stopped the glow of my horn. “Hurry, climb back over to the tree!”

Lilac jumped onto my shoulder and scampered over my body once more. “Sparky!”

“Don’t worry, kid.” I chuckled. I was terrified. There was no way for me to get back to the tree. Unless…

I looked down again. The guard was nowhere in sight. I squinted into the darkness and eyed the branch directly below me, which was about three feet away. Ok, it was more the very tip of a branch, but a branch nonetheless. The impact would hurt, no doubt, but it’d help me get back to the ground in one piece, more or less. Aiming for the branch below me, I let go.

And missed, promptly crashing into the ground, on my right shoulder. The impact was… I don’t know how to describe it. It reminded me of how my leg had felt when my foster dad had pushed me down the stairs, only a little worse. My leg had been broken then, but I heard that dislocations hurt worse. Then again, I’m no doctor.

I rolled over and bit down on my other hoof to stop myself from screaming. Tears blurred my vision. I heard Lilac scrambling down the trunk of the tree and bounding over to me.

“Sparkler! Are you okay?” She stood on her back legs and hooked her forelegs around the hoof I was biting on. She fluttered her wings and pulled, grunting. “C’mon, Sparky! Ya gotta get up! I can’t lose you, too!”

That got me up on my hooves. Sorta. My back hooves were a bit sore, my left foreleg was okay, but my right foreleg was twisted a little awkwardly; it looked as if the joint was out of the socket. Great.

Lilac glanced at my shoulder with a disgusted look on her face. “You okay?”

I gave her a pained grin. “Don’t worry, I will be.” If my shoulder was out of the socket, it meant it was dislocated, and considering the fact that no other part of my leg hurt, that was the only thing wrong with it. It was dislocated, which meant I could put it back, like the brave hero does in books. Maybe not exactly how the hero did it, but it could be done.

I’d had a dislocation before, from when I fell out of a tree back at the orphanage. When the staff took me to the hospital to get it put back in place, I’d made sure to watch the doctor carefully, despite how doped up I was on the pain meds. I’d watched every eye movement and I’d memorized his hoof placements, and when he shoved my limb back into its rightful place, I’d taken note of how much force he’d put in. I guess they thought I was pretty zonked out since I wasn’t talking, but in truth I was zonked out and concentrating. Granted, it’d probably be a much different story since I was older, but I was grabbing at whatever I could.

But before I could try to think of a way to put it back myself, I realized that the guards were still around. From what I could overhear, the plan went like this: two guards would stay and guard the “crime scene” while the others filed in reports and all that jazz.

I glanced at Lilac. “Got the money?”

“Mhm.” Lilac opened her wing, and the pouch fell to the ground.

“I would hug you if my shoulder wasn’t messed up,” I chuckled painfully. That little movement had caused my shoulder to bounce. With a grimace, I levitated the money up and took a deep breath. I looked back at the apartment building, the building that had been my home for the past few months. The same place where Jade had spilled out her deepest secret to me, the same place where Lilac had heard Auto cuss and said nothing but that one word for the rest of the day, the same place where Jade and I had a deep talk about life.

And I was leaving it behind.

I looked down at Lilac to see that she was looking at the building, too. She looked up at me and frowned. "Where're we gonna go now?"

“No idea,” I told her bluntly. “We can figure that out later, though. We gotta go, it’s not safe here.” I took my eyes off of the building and began a slow limp toward the deeper parts of the forest. We’d have to go quite a ways through before it’d be safe to go out into the open. On one side of the apartment was the forest, and then on the other side of it was an open meadow that lead steadily downhill and into town, which was about a mile away. To be safe, I wanted to go a long way away from the apartment before heading for the meadow. After walking pretty deep into the forest, I’d turn right, walk that way for a bit, and then turn right again. If I walked that way long enough, I’d be in the meadow. Travelling through the forest in the dead of night probably isn’t the safest thing an injured teenager and a small filly can do, but it was the most doable one I had at my disposal. If I followed my plan exactly, I’d end up in the meadow and make my way into the city. Or maybe I’d stumble onto some tracks and get hit by an oncoming train.

Lilac caught up with me pretty quickly. Her run slowly fell into a casual trot, and for a while, the only sound that could be heard was our hooves crunching on the leaves. The deeper we went into the forest, the thicker the trees, and less moonlight was able to get through the leaves.

Lilac shivered. “Can you turn on your horn?”

I frowned. “Not yet, we’re still too close to the apartment.” Lilac eyes shone worriedly through the darkness. “Just stay close.”

My shoulder was killing me. The more it bounced as I limped, the more I felt as if I was about to scream from the pain. I needed to put it back. I glanced behind me and squinted my eyes. I could barely make out the apartment’s sillouhette in the dark. “Stop,” I told Lilac. She stopped and turned to look at me.

“What?”

“I need to fix my shoulder.”

Lilac looked confused for a moment before nodding slowly. “Okay.”

Glad for her helpful comprehension, I lit up my horn to the permit the tiniest circle of light I possibly could. I looked around for something to help me put my shoulder back. I found my assistance in a huge boulder that was lying on its side.

I limped heavily to the boulder and positioned myself beside it. I hadn’t thought this through. When I’d watched the doctor all those years ago, I never thought to ask what I should do if I needed to fix my own shoulder. I bit my lip and sighed. The boulder wasn’t gonna work.

Could I stretch it back into place? I gave my shoulder and a glance and flinched. Only one way to find out. I reared up and planted my left hoof on the boulder. I took a deep breath and looked at Lilac, who was staring at me with a mixture of worry and puzzlement in her eyes.

I looked back at the boulder and slowly raised my right leg. I grit my teeth as the pain started, but kept going. My hoof was almost above my head, now, and I could feel the joint begin to slip back into the socket and my muscles stretching. "Gah! C'mon you stupid--" my insult was cut off by a low groan as the joint finally went back into place.

I dropped my leg and put my forehead to my left leg, taking long, shaky breaths. I'd fixed my shoulder, I think, but it was still killing me. After a long moment of silence, I opened my eyes and tentatively put my hoof to the ground. The second I put pressure on it, a hot shot of agony spread up my leg. I snatched it off the ground with a hiss.

"Sparky?"

"I'm okay, Lilac."

“Sure?”

I looked at her. “I’m fine.”

Lilac didn’t respond. She frowned and walked up to me slowly before throwing her forehooves over my midsection in a hug and squeezing tightly. “We’re both gonna be okay, right?”

I dropped from the boulder, being sure to keep my right one off the ground, and nuzzled her cheek. “Of course,” I murmured.

“Good. We have to be, if we’re gonna go see mommy.”

I frowned. Would we be able to see Jade? Was she even alive, still? She’d been pretty messed up when I’d seen her last, and something told me that if she was alive, it would be a miracle.

“C’mon, let’s keep going.” I nudged her forward and followed slowly. We still had a long walk ahead before we could turn right, and even longer before we'd reach the meadow. The length of the walk may have been a bit of an overkill, but I couldn't take any chances.

What would I even do once I got to the city, anyway? I needed a plan. "Li, we need a plan," I announced.

Lilac looked up. "For what?"

"For when we get into the city. We need to know what we're gonna do when we get there and how we’ll do it."

Lilac was quiet for a heartbeat before whispering, "I wanna see mommy."

I'd been trying to find a way to worm my way out of doing just that, but it looked as if it was inevitable. It's not that I minded Lilac seeing Jade, it wasn't that at all. I just didn't want to get to the front desk of the hospital just to hear that Jade had died.

I chewed my lip in thought as we continued our walk. Of course Lilac would wanna see Jade; she was her mother and she was hurt. Who was I to keep a filly from her mom?

"Okay, Lilac. We'll go see Jade."

Lilac's eyes lit up with joy and my heart hurt. I really hoped our trip to the hospital wouldn't lead us to a dead end.

No pun intended.

Author's Note

Hm, what do you think will happen to Sparky next? She just can't catch a break, hm?
As always, this chapter wouldn't be here right now iof not for my wonderful prereaders!

devas
Chopsuey
Luminary,
ChengarQordath
Swiftest Shadow!