Rampant

Chapters

Once Upon A Time
It's A Family Thing
Let Me Catch My Breath
Rain Is Always An Omen
A Name Like One Other
The Fight Feels Right
Forever A Broken Home
The Hopes
The Claims

Once Upon A Time

Canterlot

Ch. 1: Once Upon A Time

Twilight breathed in a mighty gasp, the shock of her own breath forcing her eyes open at the same time. She couldn’t move. There was no light. It didn’t feel like she could even close her eyes again, nor actually breathe. All she could feel was something cold against her back.

Just as suddenly as she awoke, light poured over her, blinding her, but there was no pain with it. A silhouette leaned over her, its legs moving toward its face, its whole head shaking. Twilight could tell it was yelling something, but all she heard was a shrill ringing deep in her head.

Her senses were recovering quickly. Hooves reached down around her and lifted her up, the light finally reaching over the silhouette rather than around it. It was Pinkie Pie, smiling and yelling, pulling in Twilight’s limp form for a big hug. Even as Pinkie shook her back and forth, not letting go, Twilight could start to hear through the ringing again. The first new sound to reach her, just barely, was sobbing.

And after another squeeze, Pinkie dropped Twilight. She landed with a painful thud over the edge of a huge box, the pressure hitting right in the gut—but there was no pain. Twilight grunted, or tried to, and managed to tilt just her face away from laying smack dab against the side of the box.

She saw Pinkie again, who had rushed to another box—some kind of casket raised on a marble pedestal. Pinkie was shoving its lid off as well, hopping up and down when she looked inside it. She pulled Rainbow Dash out of that one, Rainbow also barely moving. Twilight’s eyes widened even as she remained powerless over the rest of her face, and she felt obliged to panic, but even that was still difficult to feel.

Straining her muscles to obey her, she lifted her hooves to the edge of her own casket and shoved herself out, inch by inch, just far enough for her to realize she still couldn’t move her hind legs. She somersaulted out head first, landing flat on her back again. Still grimacing, braced for the pain that never came, this time Twilight’s gaze was pointed on the outside of her box. Something was written on it. She urged a hoof over her chest and onto the ground, twisting herself around just enough to get to her knees again, and saw the senseless reasoning for her current being. Written on Twilight Sparkle’s tomb was her epitaph:

Twilight Sparkle / Who lived a legend in life and left a legacy in death. / A unicorn pony of renowned caliber in all her communities, / Held more highly esteemed only in our hearts. / She died young, and lived still more than most. / Rest in peace, our loving friend.

Twilight blinked twice after finishing. She stared it much longer than it took for her to read, eyes wider still the longer she looked at it. All that roused her were more sounds reaching her, her senses coming back further. Even as she kept staring, like the words might change if she paid better attention, she picked herself up. Her body moved so slowly it was as if she was thawing.

As she stood up fully, she finally looked around at where she really was, past whatever Pinkie was doing—and recognized it immediately, despite there being little left to recognize. Her memorial, that of hers and her friends, was surrounded by white stone towers in each direction, but past each one of them, smoke. The tips of an inferno were visible in every direction, no matter where she took her gaze. Canterlot was burning.

Twilight turned around as she heard the clearest sound yet. Even beyond the flames, maybe within them, there was screaming. Not a kind Twilight could picture, not a kind she had ever heard. Not the kind that made her scared—but the kind that made her fear.

Pinkie’s voice echoed from behind her, and Twilight turned again as her friend cried, “Zecora, hurry!”

Still agape, Twilight saw someone else in a one of the streets leading out of the park. Looking older than when last she’d seen her, the same lumpy burlap cover shrouding her back, it really was Zecora. She was pacing back and forth and pouring a liquid on the cobblestones, a purple ooze spreading fast from its initial puddle. Though her mouth was filled by the vial of liquid, she waved a frantic hoof at the mares.

“Pinkie Pie?” Rainbow Dash groaned, stumbling to her hooves from beside her own tomb.

“Not yet!” Pinkie said, at the same time pulling Applejack’s leg over her shoulder. “I know you’ve got a million and five things to ask, but not yet! Now get your hinies moving!”

With another tug, Pinkie dragged Applejack out of the last tomb. Twilight looked from them back to Zecora, and took a trembling, difficult step toward the latter. She couldn’t quite think straight yet, even though her feelings had all come back. Someone else was far beyond Zecora, but Twilight couldn’t quite tell—

She shoved back around as Pinkie pressed her head into Twilight’s shoulder, forcibly turning her even while still helping Applejack.

“Wrong way, silly!” Pinkie grunted, letting go as they all faced away from Zecora.

They all went down the opposite passage from that in which Zecora was occupied, and Twilight looked back as they fled. She couldn’t make sense of the scene, but as she looked, she saw something even further out of place. Four unicorns, three of them with a look angrier than Twilight had ever seen. The fourth lay in the middle of the road with half her stomach missing. That one wasn’t moving. The others dipped into it face first, and when they pulled back, the dangling pieces of their meal splattered blood all over them.

Twilight should have been compelled to vomit, but she wasn’t.

One of the unicorns looked up and saw Twilight. Twilight couldn’t pull her gaze away as she kept stumbling along with Pinkie, Applejack’s hoof still propped over Pinkie’s shoulder. The nameless unicorn moved away from her victim. She came closer, the unicorns around her noticing and moving with her. Hoof met cobblestone quicker with each step.

Zecora was still in between the two groups, emptying the remnants of her vial before tossing away the container. A whole section of the path was covered by the liquid now, but the unicorns didn’t pause. Zecora turned and ran to catch up with the others, a limp in her gallop; only Twilight was left to see what happened to their pursuers.

The first of the unicorns ignored the mixture completely, still staring forward, panting from more than her running. Twilight could see her clearly now, despite the distance. The nameless unicorn’s expression wasn’t mindless, but furious. She roared in a way Twilight had never heard, a sound of rage, something not even campfire storytellers could imitate.

The unicorn took a galloping step into the mixture, and her expression dissolved the same way her hoof disappeared. The fury in her face turned into frightened anguish, and her roar shifted into a scream.

The unicorn fell instantly into the ooze, nearly leaping into it, her body unable to keep running. The mixture ate right into her hooves, then her legs, melting both flesh and blood as she landed with a splash and sizzle.

The other unicorns stopped just before reaching the mixture, their attention not so undivided. Their faces, as they watched the death of their compatriot, showed the same anger as before. They looked up from that scene to Twilight again, glaring with the same rage as she had just heard in their cries. The shared gaze broke as Twilight and her friends rounded a corner, and she turned her gaze to Zecora. The zebra panted through gritted teeth and a furrowed brow.

Pinkie, ahead of the pack, had let go of Applejack so she could keep her own pace. As she dashed ahead to inspect their path, she said, “Just keep running! Don’t stop for anypony, no matter who it is!”

Twilight looked back to her and finally said, “Pinkie Pie—what happened here?”

Pinkie didn’t respond. She stopped running as she reached a grate in the road, leaning down and pulling it out of place before waving everyone inside. Applejack entered first, now moving as fast the rest of them. Twilight started to go next, but Rainbow drew her attention upward as she asked, hoof pointed to the sky, “And what happened to them?”

Several pegasi were flying over the towers, just coming into sight from beyond the smoke. Twilight still didn’t cringe, but the one in front looked nearly as bad as the wounded pony she had seen on the street. The red splotches on his wings were not his natural color. One of the ponies chasing him had clutched in her mouth what looked to be a net.

The numbing that had inhibited Twilight had faded almost completely. She saw the pegasi perfectly, saw the same anger on most of their faces as the scene before, and thought the same as before.

Where did all this come from?

“Get in!” Pinkie said, waving her hoof in circles.

Twilight obliged. She climbed down the ladder as quickly as she now could, only torchlight at the bottom when she touched down into the sewer. Rainbow and Pinkie followed, as Zecora went down last. The zebra eyed the upper surroundings carefully, flames starting to encroach, and pulled the grate back.

In the sudden quiet, Twilight spoke up first. “Pinkie Pie, what happened to us? What happened to them?”

Pinkie glanced back at her with a smile. “What do you mean?”

Twilight couldn’t match her friend’s attitude. She put a wet hoof to her own chest, and said, “We’re dead, and they’re dying.”

“Well, duh!” Pinkie said. “You were buried here almost twenty years ago, Twilight. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were killed right after you, and I was nicked just after Rainbow!”

A moment passed. Twilight gasped, “What?”

“I remember,” Rainbow said, splashing a hoof down. “I remember that—we were murdered!”

“I remember, too,” Applejack sputtered, her voice still returning. “They got you first, Twi. The rest of us—rest of us got warned somepony was probably comin’ after the Elements of Harmony.”

Rainbow looked back to Pinkie. “Did the killer ever get caught?”

“The mysterious no-gooder got away with it, and we became one of Equestria’s biggest mysteries ever,” Pinkie said, shaking a forlorn hoof. “Now let’s get moving again!”

“Wait, hold on!” Twilight said. “That’s not even close to enough information! Who would have murdered us? Why aren’t we still dead? Why is Canterlot under attack? What—what happened to everypony up there?”

Zecora was still at the group’s flank. She spoke next, her voice as deep as when she was young, though the tips of her words now raspier. “There is much to explain, Twilight Sparkle, but there is no time to do so now.”

Applejack glanced back and said, “But how are we alive?”

“It is a taboo ritual from my people,” Zecora said. “One I do not take lightly.”

Twilight quickly shook her head. “Necromancy isn’t a taboo ritual, Zecora, it’s evil magic!”

“It is voodoo,” Zecora said, narrowing her gaze. “If you stop using such a tone with me, I will explain more.”

“And if you be more quiet!” Pinkie failed to whisper. “Zecora, which way?”

“The left.”

Through what little light the torches on the wall gave, Pinkie guided the rest of the party down the sewers. Echoes that were not theirs constantly met them in the corridors. Zecora, still keeping position at the rear, explained in a more hushed voice, “After you were laid to rest, a terrible condition infected Equestria, the effects of which you have seen today.”

“Some infection,” Rainbow muttered.

“It is not a real infection. No pony or other creature knows what it is. But nearly two decades ago, ponies in this land started doing things no one has ever seen before. It is difficult to explain in a way that you will accept by word alone, even with sights seen already—but they became violent in a despicable way.”

Twilight matched Zecora’s tone and asked, “What exactly is this infection?”

“Everypony refers to it as bloodlust,” Zecora said. “Over the past eighteen years, it has spread across all Equestria. Nopony has learned what it is, nor where it came from. I have seen with my own eyes the terror on a pony’s face as she is torn apart by former friends. I have seen ponies look on to such attacks with no care to stop them.”

Twilight frowned deeper. “Who has it reached?”

“Everypony,” Zecora said. “Everypony on the ground, in the skies, and in the soil.”

“What, we’re infected, too?” Applejack asked, voice growing sharper. “We ain’t acting like any of those monsters back up there. How could you even figure that?”

Zecora looked back at Twilight, lowering her voice again. “The Twilight I knew decades ago would not watch without recoil as a pony is devoured alive. Nopony seems immune.”

Twilight matched her gaze, but it wasn’t disappointment she saw. Silence fell between them, and Twilight looked away first.

“I think that’s a good catching-up start,” Pinkie Pie said, “but we should be out of here in another minute. We’ve got to stay nice and quiet.”

The loudest scream yet came down the tunnels, one much closer to them than before. All the ponies stopped mid-track and turned back to its source, but they could see nothing. A splash into the sewer water echoed next, but that was followed only by dripping. Everyone stayed still, but the dripping remained static and quiet. Pinkie Pie lifted a single hoof out of the water and ushered the group forward again.

They hurried to what was finally an exit out of the sewers, a large black gate holding sway over it at the end. Pinkie hopped her forehooves onto it and shoved, but the door held firm against her.

She glanced back at the other ponies. “All right, now for a little teamwork. Help me out, girls!”

Rainbow stepped forward to help, but Applejack held out a hoof to stop her. Applejack said, “Hold on. I think we need to know what in the hay it is we’re getting into. How did Canterlot of all places get this way?”

Pinkie looked back to her to reply, a pleading whine in her voice. “Answers, I know! But don’t you think now is a really, super terrible time for them?”

“I’m willing to wait on a lot more questions, Pinkie, but I agree with Applejack right now,” Twilight said.

Pinkie rolled her whole head with her eyes as she groaned. Zecora answered for her, saying, “After the bloodlust took every town and valley, Canterlot was barred to prevent its final spread. It remained sealed without fail for a decade, and we don’t know what went on in this city for that time.”

Twilight frowned. Zecora sighed and hurried her speech. “This is the day its gate failed. A group of unicorns was besieging the gate for this last month, breaking through today. They have a large following of other ponies, among whom Pinkie Pie and I quietly joined some days ago. As Pinkie Pie was buried outside Ponyville, I had little trouble reviving her before this. We have been keeping check on the city’s gate a whole year, waiting for a chance to get inside.”

“And why did you get us back?” Twilight asked. “If we’re already infected, what are we supposed to do?”

Zecora’s voice took a darker tone. “Hope is all we have left with which to fight, Twilight Sparkle. You were murdered right before the bloodlust happened, perhaps not by coincidence. That you may be able to stop it is our greatest hope.”

Another enraged scream shrieked down the tunnels.

“Now we get out of here!” Pinkie said, splashing her hooves in the water as she shoved her whole body against the door.

Twilight’s brow furrowed. “Why aren’t the princesses doing something about all this?”

“They didn’t do anything for ten years, Twilight Sparkle. I do not know why,” Zecora said.

“Now, now, now!” Pinkie pleaded, giving a headbutt to the gate with each word. Applejack lowered her hoof from Rainbow’s path, stepping forward with her.

All three positioned their hooves against it, and on a count of three, slammed it open. Rainbow started to hurry out first, but it was then Pinkie who held a hoof in front of her. The pegasus dug her hooves in as she looked down.

“Holy shit!”

Their tunnel ended at the very base of Canterlot, the exit hanging out over the mountain the city was built on. Twilight and Applejack squeezed next to Rainbow, peering down as their expressions unified.

“How are we supposed to get out this way?” Applejack asked, tapping her head for a moment before glancing upward at her lack of a hat.

Pinkie Pie stepped just behind the three other ponies. She raised her hooves, grabbed hold of their rumps, and said, “Sorry, maybe I should have mentioned this sooner!”

She shoved. Their hooves left solid ground. Twilight screamed louder than any of the ponies they had heard earlier. The others fell beside her, the earth coming closer to them again at an alarming speed.

“Oh, shit! Oh, shit!” Rainbow said, struggling to flap at all. Her wings were still just twitching.

Falling above, Pinkie yelled, “Twilight, this is all you!”

Twilight swallowed hard, failing to let the incidentals stop distracting her. Calm, calm, calm, calm, but holy word that Rainbow said!

She had trained for things like this. She could do this. She needed to stop panicking and focus.

Focus!

Her horn glowed distinctly, one of the brightest times it ever had. Then the whole group glowed.

They were still falling. Twilight increased the glow, clutched her eyes shut, strained her muscles, but their velocity remained.

“Stop making it such a big deal—slow us down already!” Applejack said, flailing beside her.

“You’ve got this!” Rainbow cried. “You’ve got this, come on!”

Twilight opened her eyes again and glared at them. “I do have this, so be quiet for a second!”

Something fell into place within her as her gaze was still turned away from the ground. The glow turned a dimmer purple, and as the flat ground became a visible reality, they slowed at last.

But the ground wasn’t flat. They landed with a thud at each of their rears, tumbling all the way down the hill until they careened into a pile of rocks at the bottom. Twilight was first to reach them, face planting firmly into a huge stone as she came to a halt.

She pushed herself off the rock, improbably larger than every other one in the field beneath Canterlot, and patted her head a couple of times as she realized it still didn’t hurt. She was flattened against the rock again anyway, serving as a cushion as Rainbow tumbled right into her.

Hind hooves hanging over the rest of her body, Rainbow demanded to everyone, “What in the hell is an exit like that doing at the edge of Canterlot?”

The others had crashed against rocks totally covered in moss. As Applejack sorted out how to untangle each leg from the others, she looked over to Rainbow and spat, “Shame on you for cussing!”

“After what we just went through, I think I get a pass on my god-damn language,” Rainbow said, twisting onto her side and clambering back up to her hooves.

Zecora groaned as she followed suit, propping herself up before Pinkie Pie helped her all the way. As she stood, still grimacing as she shifted her weight, Zecora said, “You must forgive my age—but I did all I could to restore your own.”

Most of the ponies took a look at themselves. With just a little discoloration in some of their fur, they looked remarkable for the living dead; not quite the same as their prime, but young again. Rainbow whistled, “Damn. I do still look awesome.”

Twilight stood up last of all, brushing the dust off once more, giving herself only a cursory glance. She looked back to the others and said, “All right, I understand—maybe we just don’t have a lot of answers yet. But while we’ve got a moment, at least tell me what everypony knows about our deaths.”

Applejack frowned as she threw back her hair, though it fell back immediately over her shoulder. She said, “If the killer was never caught, we don’t know anything. Yours was the first murder in Equestria in a long time. Like I said, the Royal Guard found all the rest of us after you were killed and told us somepony might be tryin’ to kill us all. I don’t remember what happened to me, but I guess they were right.”

“One year after Pinkie Pie’s death is when the bloodlust started,” Zecora said. “It is unknown exactly where. It struck multiple villages about the same time, near the center of Equestria.”

“You could say we’re a dead end,” Rainbow chuckled.

Applejack glanced around at everyone else while still patting her hair, ignoring Rainbow. “Then what do we do now?”

Twilight looked to Zecora, who was now leaning on Pinkie, and asked, “What’s the rest of your plan?”

“You are,” Zecora said. “You and your friends are my entire plan, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight stood a little straighter even as the weight settled over her. Everyone looked at her now, waiting. Twilight cleared her throat. “Then the next step is getting all our friends back together. Were Fluttershy and Rarity buried somewhere else, or are they still up in more of those tombs?”

“Fluttershy’s still alive, silly!” Pinkie cried. “She’s really old now, though. She’s got wrinkles! She was still living in Ponyville the last time I saw her.”

“Even better!” Twilight said. “And Rarity?”

There was a short silence. Rainbow rubbed her neck and said, “Rarity wasn’t murdered either, but she still bit it before I did. And you know how she was—she, uh, went for getting cremated.”

The confidence Twilight had mustered disappeared again, and another moment of silence followed.

“If we find her ashes,” Zecora spoke up, “I will do what I can. The ritual will be more complicated.”

“We’ll find them,” Twilight said, then turning to Rainbow. “Where were they put up?”

Rainbow shrugged. Twilight sighed, “Then we’ll go to Ponyville first. There’s something else there that we need if we’re going to put an end to all this craziness, since we can’t get back into Canterlot anymore.”

Applejack tilted her head. “And that would be?”

Twilight glanced back at her and grinned again. “Books! My library was the best in all Equestria outside of Canterlot, hooves down. It’s the best lead we’ve got on how the bloodlust started and how we can stop it.”

“Glad that’s still your job,” Rainbow said.

“I suppose that leaves one more question,” Applejack said. As the wind picked up and blew through the grass, twisting around everyone’s manes over their shoulders, Applejack turned back to Zecora. “What happened to all your rhymes?”

Zecora rolled her eyes. “They left.”

Pinkie Pie pumped one hoof high into the air, almost jostling Zecora off of her again. She yelled, “Let the adventure begin!”

It's A Family Thing

A huge chandelier, the kind big enough to squash a pony flat if the chain snapped, lit the party room nearly by itself. Underneath it was the dance floor, half of it filled with ponies mingling and the other half grooving, and spotting the walls were tables filled with high-percentage alcohols. It wasn’t a Canterlot party, clearly, as the dress of all the partiers indicated: several were in suits, some in frilly skirts, but most in only their best cleaned-up duds. The suits, actually, were just collars and neckties, and the duds were just duds.

All kinds of ponies were enjoying themselves there, but two unicorns were taking prominence by the side of the dance floor. One, the nicest suited of all, was an able-bodied white stallion, his shiny silver mane and moustache crowned beneath a horn that looked like he actually polished it every morning. His cutie mark was less impressive, just a hollow black square, but all eyes lay on his full, barely wrinkled smile.

While a glass of brandy levitated in a silver glow beside him, the stallion patted a hoof on the shoulder of another handsome colt beside him. He said, “All right, all right, just one more toast. You’ve still got time before you have to go. Does anypony mind one more toast for this fine pony?”

All those around him raised their glasses and cheered, though one or two of them were raising entire bottles. The pony upon whom so much attention was being lavished, a stallion in his own right, though a little smaller than the white one, wore a much subtler smile. While the white stallion was large and handsome, this pony was dainty and elegant.

His coat was an underspoken yellow, slightly dullish, but with a shampoo-driven sheen to rival that of his host’s. His mane was cut extremely short, just enough at the top to remain swept back in crisp curls held in place by further product, trimmed constantly shorter as it trailed down to his back. Its color was blue, not bright or dull, but the exact same shade as a perfect summer sky. It was a color seen only on him this day.

All he wore was a long blue vest, one shade darker than his hair, with gold buttons big enough to almost look gaudy, and yet they remained in the realm of that which was fashionable. It flexed tight as the colt reached back to the stallion, patting him twice in return before they both lowered their hooves.

“Though I’m sad to leave our sweet town for even this short stint away, it’s all of you I’ll miss the most,” the colt said, still smiling as he met eyes with all the ponies gathered around him. He spoke quieter than his toast-bearer, but articulated each word. He next looked back to the stallion. “Of course your company will be equally missed, Mayor Virtue. I know all my disciples here are in capable hooves while you remain.”

Posh Virtue smacked a hoof against the colt’s back again, chuckling enough for his glass to rattle even through magic. “One more night! Nopony’s going to ambush you if you leave one day later. Your cavalier would take care of it even if they did. Stay one more night, just so we can get you properly inebriated before all your busywork in Fillydelphia!”

The colt only sighed, shaking his head in obvious woe. “Alas, my work is too important to put off. I have to leave by hour’s end, at the latest. Just imagine, my bride waiting all night in the carriage for me when I decide to drink the night away instead. I’ll be better than that to her.”

“Never mind her,” Virtue said. “Better yet, invite her up!”

The circle around them cheered again, half of them swigging right after. The colt narrowed his gaze at Virtue, but kept smiling. “I might, but one need only look out a window to be reminded of why I really must make haste.”

The mayor took a long sip from his drink. He sighed upon releasing the glass from his lips, staring into space for a moment. “Ah. Indeed.”

The colt patted Virtue on the shoulder again. He said, “Don’t worry, nothing will happen. I’ll send my entourage back to Ponyville immediately after I reach Fillydelphia. I doubt those corpse eaters are faster than my little knight, yes?”

“Right you are, Purple Heart,” Virtue said, levitating his glass higher in agreement before taking another sip.

Purple Heart lowered his hoof again from Virtue’s shoulder, nodding farewell to the partiers around him. While they kept raising incoherent cheers to him, he finally turned from Virtue to slip out from the encirclement. Before he could completely escape, one of the more intoxicated and high-pitched partiers cried, “Maybe you’ll get your cutie mark for this, too! You deserve it, headmaster!”

All the ponies still in control of their senses hushed, though as few still were, not much of the scene changed. Purple Heart paused on his way to the exit, glancing back to the mare who had cheered for him. Settled-in wrinkles made their way to his brow as he narrowed his gaze. He said in a lower tone, “Flattered. Thank you.”

Virtue still grinned, though he withheld another chuckle. The mayor looked from Purple Heart to his own glass, shaking the last few drops in it.

“Well,” Virtue said, “I think all these sad notes merit a refill. Anypony else?”

Rampant

Ponyville, Part One

Ch. 2: It’s A Family Thing

Canterlot still burned in the distance. From atop Ponyville’s hefty wall, the north plains lay bare of any obstacles to block the view. Only stumps and bushes next to them dotted the land, every tree long chopped down, nothing pretty left. Raindawn, atop the wall, kept watch through a slumped gaze.

Though he wore the station helmet for guard duty, he still had on his necktie from school. It was a very light blue silk, the color of diamonds, a rich shade on a rich material. A proud material, a prouder color. Though Raindawn was resting his neck on one of the wall’s parapets, he kept back enough for his necktie to swing free from the dirt on the barricade.

Raindawn’s eyes had long glazed over. They were baby blue, just a shade different from his uniform. Though his mane was brushed back underneath his helmet, a few stray strands were tucked behind his ear, and they fell over his face constantly. Even as he blew them off every few minutes, they just swished over again. That was his entire activity on guard duty—while the sight of smoke coming from Equestria’s greatest city was pretty exciting at first, after a few hours even that was boring.

He perked up a moment later; ponies were coming down the almost-road, a slight dirt trail still left over the years. Raindawn raised his head but squinted his eyes, spying four ponies and—

Oh, my.

—a zebra. Raindawn straightened up a little, automatically adjusting his necktie. He had never seen a zebra before. How exciting. Several minutes passed where all Raindawn felt comfortable doing was standing at attention, leering down in his most impressive manner at the newcomers.

Soon, they were in proximity close enough for him to call down, “Hail! Did you ladies come from Canterlot? Do you know what happened there?”

A pony with bouncy hair who was beside the zebra answered, her face nearly distorted through sniffles and tears. “We don’t know! Oh, it was so horrible—all the guards went crazy, and then all the doors slammed open, and suddenly everypony was running—they were all running, and we—they—”

The tears, gods, tears streamed down her face. Raindawn frowned, not from any part of the garbled tale, but from the emotional display below him. Another pony comforted her crying cohort with a squeeze around the shoulders.

“There were more with us, but they—they tripped. And then the—oh, heavens, the—the corpse eaters, thuh—”

Her cries grew louder. Raindawn stepped around from the parapet, leaning down to the ponies. “Uh—”

Nothing worthwhile crossed his tongue at first. He glanced between all the ponies, four in all, plus the zebra, counting only one unicorn amongst them; the unicorn had no bloodstains, and her gaze seemed to be rather more anxious than hungry or evil. They weren’t so threatening.

“Never mind,” he said. “I won’t make you recount that, okay? Never mind.”

The wettened pony made another pronounced sniff, her nose and lips quivering together.

“My sister owns a pub in town,” Raindawn said. “Take a left on the third avenue you cross, and it’s right there. I guess drinks will do you good.”

He leaned back up, turning to the gate’s crank behind him—but noticed the zebra again before that, the only one who wasn’t really paying attention to him. All the pony refugees, between comforting the one in distress, were eying him without trying to stare. The zebra seemed to be eying all of them in the same manner.

Which was natural, of course, for zebras. That was probably a thing zebras were known for. Raindawn broke his momentary gaze on her and trotted over to the crank, hoisting his forelegs onto the handles before shoving it into motion.

He raised the gate high enough for the travelers to pass under, the heavy sounds of the clanking mechanism covering up the residual sniffing he heard from below. Though he heard the ponies already trotting through, he walked back over to the edge of the wall, leaning far down just before they passed under him. “I helped decorate the place myself! The pub, I mean. If you tell my sister you’re refugees, she might even give you a discount.”

The crying pony nodded silently as she trudged on, but the pony still beside her looked back up at Raindawn and smiled. Raindawn opted for a nod back, for in his experience smiling was unprofessional.

“She probably won’t, though,” he added as they all passed underneath..

Raindawn trotted to the other side of the wall to watch them venture into town, seeing them whispering to each other now. These days, whispering wasn’t very suspicious; he was used to that.

He turned back to his post once more, his gaze wandering about the plains all empty again, plopping his chin on the parapet. He wondered what zebras drank.

Rainbow Dash was the first to mutter anything on the group’s way in. “Woah, what happened here?”

Ponyville was both bigger and smaller than the ponies remembered. The streets were narrow, even tight, and the houses nearly stacked atop each other; nearly all of them had two stories, some rising to three. Wooden walls were interspersed with brick ones, but the thatched roofs remained the same. Though windows were also still abundant, curtains were drawn behind all of them. As the group stood at the the main street, however, it was clear these quarters went on a much longer way than before.

Twilight and her friends walked forward quickly and quietly despite the new environment. They rounded the first corner they found before talking in earnest, Pinkie Pie’s sniffles ending as soon as they were out of sight from the gate.

“As much as I want to hear about what we’ve missed here,” Twilight said, turning back to the others, “we’ve got to deal with first things first. Pinkie, Zecora, do either of you know where Fluttershy lives now?”

Pinkie shrugged wide, cocking her head. “Gosh, Twilight, it’s been years since I’ve been here. Zecora and I have been looking for clues and playing sneaky-sneak this entire time, just to get ready for getting the band back together! I mean us when I say ‘the band.’ We’re the band, almost together again!”

Pulling away from Pinkie, Applejack brushed off the many tears spilled onto her own chest from consoling her friend. She looked around at the others and said, “You girls get Fluttershy without me. First thing for me is finding my family and my farm. I’ll meet up with y’all after that.”

“That’s a little vague for a working plan,” Twilight said. Applejack shrugged in turn, and Twilight frowned, continuing, “We need a location we all know to meet at; what if we stay in a group until we find—”

“The bar,” Rainbow said. “Of course it’s gonna be the bar.”

“There you go,” Applejack said, lifting a hoof toward Rainbow. “Y’all find Fluttershy, I go find my family. At least Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh; I know it’s hoping for a bit much that Granny Smith is still kickin’, but I’ve got to find out.”

Twilight checked the streets, peering around for anyone else who might be watching them. Zecora was already keeping a close eye on them. There were no sounds in the distance and no signs of life from any of the houses on the two streets they’d seen so far.

“All right,” Twilight said. “It’s not fair for us to tell you not to go. But after you find them, head straight to the tavern so we can start discussing strategy. Fluttershy will be a huge help.”

Applejack nodded, a bit of her mane sliding over her cheek as she did.

“And keep a low profile, okay? This isn’t the same old Ponyville. We don’t need a spotlight on us again until we have a plan.”

“Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am.”

Before Twilight could retort, Rainbow lifted a hoof to her shoulder and said, “She gets it. We all get it. Come on, let’s get moving.”

Zecora was already peering around one of the houses on the corner of the street, Pinkie Pie peeking around her. The zebra turned back to the rest of them, saying, “Rainbow Dash is correct. Better for us to move while the streets are clear.”

Twilight sighed. Applejack grinned before turning, offering only a few more words. “You still worry too much, Twi. I’ll see y’all at the pub later.”

They parted as Twilight reluctantly joined the others while Applejack continued down the side road. Applejack tossed her mane back away from her face, scoffing as her hair fell back over anyway. She wasn’t only missing her hat, but her ponytail holder; she must have been laid to rest with her hair loose, but why no one would have left her hat with her, she had no idea. Burials sucked.

The houses were getting taller at the end of the street. Thin lines of fabric were tied between the third-story windows, several linens clipped onto each one. Glancing further at them, Applejack noticed some neckties on the lines as well, each one the same color as that which the pony on the wall was wearing.

Her attention shifted as voices echoed closer from the end of the street, and as Applejack turned the corner, she found they were indeed the sounds of market. A further short corridor opened onto a much wider street, stalls distributed unevenly along its length. Some didn’t even have vendors behind them, though minor wares were set all around them anyway. The only ones occupied by ponies had food on display.

Applejack narrowed her gaze, sizing up the nearest ponies. Most of them had already noticed her. Only a few customers were browsing the market, inspecting wares and haggling prices with the vendors. Only one of the vendors hadn’t noticed Applejack at all, a badly-combed colt bouncing a head of cabbage on his nose.

She trotted up in front of his station, rows of carrots and cabbages for sale. The colt kept up his game, the cabbage bouncing perfectly straight up with each toss. Applejack cleared her throat and said, “Business any good today?”

The colt bounced a couple times more before pausing, still balancing the food on his nose as he glanced back to his guest. He smiled. “You buying? It’s all fresh.”

“I just need some directions,” Applejack said.

The colt bounced his cabbage some more. “Still costs you something.”

“Don’t got any bits,” Applejack sighed, shifting her weight onto one side. “Come on, now. Just tell me which way’s the shortest to get to Sweet Apple Acres.”

The colt held up, his studious gaze freezing on Applejack’s. His smile cracked into a grin as he chuckled, “Woah, what?”

He missed the cabbage in the next bounce, and it slid right past his nose and onto the dirt. With a thumpa, it rolled all the way around the stall just by Applejack’s hoof. The colt peered over and said, “I’ll wash it. It’s still good, don’t worry.”

“Sweet Apple Acres,” Applejack repeated. “I’ll be on my way if you just tell me how to get there. I don’t know any of these roads.”

The colt stepped around and leaned his snout to the soiled cabbage, nabbing it by the edge of a leaf. He dropped it back behind the stall and faced Applejack again, saying, “If it’s worth getting there, it’s worth paying for.”

“And I said I ain’t got any bits,” Applejack said. “Come on, do me a favor.”

The colt shook his head and chuckled, “Lady, I got a filly at home. She needs a roof to stay over her head. She needs schoolbooks. She needs a balanced diet. And I need money, okay?”

“Then we both got family we’re lookin’ out for,” Applejack said, her voice louder than a minute ago. “I’m goin’ to that farm even if I got to go in circles to find it, and you can either do a nice thing for somepony else or you can live the rest of your life coming to terms—”

She quieted to a whisper.

“—with bein’ a prick!”

The colt rolled his eyes even as his amusement stayed apparent. “Maybe if your plight has a story behind it. What’s your name?”

Applejack paused. “Uh—”

She wasn’t stupid enough at this moment to give her real name, and yet her mouth bobbed up and down as she stuttered, her eyes widening coldly as the seconds passed. She said, “Well, it’s, uh—”

The colt raised his eyebrows and leaned forward, waiting.

“My name is Boone,” Applejack said. “Boonehat. Ha, right on the tip of my tongue. Don’t you just hate that feeling?”

“Uh-huh,” the colt said. “You’re not one of the Apples, then?”

“Distant relative,” Applejack said in a hurry. “Been meaning to come back around Ponyville for a while now to see my kin, but the roads have changed since last I’ve been. Not sure which way is which around here.”

“You’re out of luck,” the colt said.

Applejack’s relief fell away from her expression. “What do you mean?”

“That farm’s been through all kinds of hell. Multiple kinds. Lots of hell. Nopony survived there.”

The dry coldness from her naming struggle moments ago struck her again much harder. Even though she was still looking at the colt’s face, she didn’t really see it anymore. He cocked his head at her and frowned. Her voice was already breathless.

“Which way?”

The colt sighed, “West gate, all right? Go southways on Main Street just over there, then right on Schoolhouse Plaza. The farm is pretty near outside the gates. If you tell the guards you’re a mourner, they might let you out there.”

Applejack was already running. The colt called after her, no effort in his voice to actually reach her, “They probably won’t, though.”

The other streets were even more devoid of townsfolk. Twilight and the others walked as quietly as they could, but their hoofsteps echoed anyway. They looked more conspicuous now than if they were dodging to the side of a crowd.

Twilight led the troupe. She kept glancing around, paying close attention to the houses. Though nothing much could be seen through them, almost none of the curtains were drawn in the windows. Some of them were even open, the drapes inside bristling whenever the wind moved through.

Twilight turned back to Zecora, at the back of the group, and whispered, “Why did—”

“Not yet,” Zecora said, nodding to the left. “We get inside first.”

The tavern came into sight just around the next corner. Advertisements for happy hour and weekly specials were pasted in the windows, and its name was painted over the door in an elaborate serif font: Light of Heaven. Off-kilter sunbeams were drawn over the name.

Twilight led everyone inside, and even inside there was almost no one. Only three staff loitered around the front, all of them cleaning something or another. But instead of a tavern, the place looked closer to a restaurant—tables dominated the space, flowerpots suspended over each one, and actual paintings hung labeled on the walls.

As they still stood at the entrance, Rainbow nodded at the staff and muttered, “Doesn’t look like they’ve been effected.”

“They have,” Zecora said.

The group selected a table closer to the back of the tavern, little cushions serving as chairs. They all leaned in close to each other as they sat down. Twilight hushed herself as she looked to Zecora and said, “All right, now it’s time for an explanation. What happened to Ponyville?”

Zecora shifted her weight a little, resettling on her cushion. She drew a breath and said, “This town has been the center of conflict between petty interests ever since the beginning of the bloodlust. The power that rules this town now is called the School of Rarity.”

Rainbow laid her forelegs on the table, her voice louder than the others’. “Hey, I actually remember Rarity helping start an art school back in the day—is this that? I don’t remember her naming it after herself.”

“I am not familiar with its original name, nor have I learned how its transformation occurred,” Zecora continued, “but under its current leader it has become a political force. The walls of this town were built by the school, and the militia that controls it are one of the school’s units. Nearly all citizens of Ponyville follow the school’s guidance.”

“It sounds like the parts you don’t know are the most important,” Twilight said. “An art school becoming a political institution—how? Why would the townsponies follow it?”

Zecora frowned. “It is the leader they follow. All I know of him for certain is that he knew Rarity, too, while she was alive. He’s used her image as a rallying point to bring everypony unto him, and amongst those in the school, she is more legendary than the Elements of Harmony as a whole.”

Twilight rubbed her chin. “Well, it sounds like this school might be the main reason Ponyville changed so much. Do you think they’ll be able to help us? Maybe they’ve done their own research by now.”

Pinkie Pie frowned as she shook her head. “Sorry, Twilight, but the school is kind of icky. I don’t think we can trust them.”

“What’d they do?” Twilight asked.

“Their goal is not friendship,” Zecora said. “Just self-preservation.”

“Well, I’d like to think one of our goals is self-preservation,” Rainbow retorted.

Pinkie Pie’s head lilted down. Zecora pulled away from the table and glanced back a moment toward the windows of the tavern, saying, “The school goes to greater lengths, and they seek ever more control out of it. You may get to see. Besides that, we know too little of what their leader still wants.”

Twilight leaned back, sighing. She looked between Zecora and Pinkie Pie, neither of them saying any more. Pinkie lifted both hooves and offered a huge shrug.

“Evening!”

Another unicorn was standing right behind the last seat at the table, the tavern’s name printed on the front of her apron. Several menus were hovering in the air next to her.

Everyone made a simultaneous glance. Rainbow replied, “Uh, hi.”

The waitress’s hair was done up in a bun that looked like too much effort had been put into it for work in a pub, but she smiled as she levitated the menus down next to everyone. “Welcome to the Light. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your scheming—just wanted to make sure you got a look at some of our specials. You all look new around here, though. Trying to start the night off easy, or you going straight for the hard stuff?”

Twilight twisted around on her cushion and smiled back politely. She said, “Actually, we were hoping to get some information.”

Rainbow turned and grinned wider. “Also hard stuff.”

“We’ve had a few close scrapes recently, you see,” Twilight said. “We just came from Canterlot, and we’re looking for an old friend of ours we hope can put us up for the next little while.”

“Oh, gods!” the waitress gasped, clasping a hoof over her mouth. “You escaped from that hell hole? What happened there?”

“Loose lips need drinks,” Rainbow said, raising a beckoning hoof.

“It was all a little much to talk about so soon,” Twilight said, slapping Rainbow’s hoof away. They glared at each other a moment as Twilight continued, “We’re all just dealing with it in our different ways right now.”

The waitress shook her head. “Wow. What can I do to help you all?”

Twilight shoved her hoof over Rainbow’s mouth before the latter could respond and said, “Do you know where Fluttershy lives? The streets all look a lot different since we last—”

“Oh,” the waitress said, “I can’t really say anything about her. You’d have to ask Gold.”

“You know Fluttershy, though?”

The waitress swayed her head back and forth a moment, her tone wavering the same way at first. “Yeah, but Gold would get mad if I talked about her. If you need directions to the dormitories or something, like, pretty much anywhere else, I can do that.”

Twilight freed Rainbow at a guttural protest and glanced to Zecora, but the zebra kept her gaze pointed at the menu. Twilight looked back to the waitress and said, “No, I don’t really think we need to go to the school, but who’s Gold? Can you tell us where she is?”

The waitress stepped back and pointed around at the bar counter. “Sure, she’s the owner. Miss Kennedy! Could you come over?”

Behind the edge of the bar, next to one of the liquor cabinets, a golden-maned earth pony was standing easily on a stool as she polished a landscape painting by hoof. Without turning, she called back, “Tell them to shove it up their asses. No discounts.”

“No, not that,” the waitress said, trotting away from the table toward her boss. “They had some questions for you. They’re from Canterlot.”

Kennedy Gold stopped her wiping and looked back to the table, a loose strand of hair from her half-assed ponytail dangling beside her face. Her eyes were a shade of pink as bright as her mane. Pinkie Pie waved at her, and Twilight straightened herself. Rainbow and Zecora just sat there, the former leaning her cheek onto her hoof.

Dropping her rag beside the painting, Kennedy turned and walked up to her customers with a temporary smile. “What can I do for you ladies, then?”

Twilight raised a hoof over her mouth and cleared her throat. “We’re old friends of Fluttershy, and we were hoping she could put us up for a few days now that, uh… well, while we figure out what we’re all doing next. It’s been a long time since we saw her, so we need directions to where she lives now.”

Kennedy stopped over an empty cushion by their table, but didn’t sit down. “What kind of old friends?”

Rainbow glanced at Twilight with a crooked brow. Twilight eyed her back, but replied to Kennedy, ”Good ones?”

“How’d you meet her?” Kennedy asked.

Pinkie tossed both her forehooves on the table and whistled. “Now that’s a doozy of a story!”

“Sometimes we helped her take care of her animals back in the day, and she used to take care of all our pets,” Rainbow said.

“Basically,” Twilight added.

Kennedy eyed them all closer. “Fluttershy hasn’t been in the animal business for a long-ass time now, believe me, and you don’t even look that old. What makes you think she’d put you up after all this time?”

Twilight lowered her tone a bit and said, “Honestly, I think that’s between her and—”

Rainbow sat up and cut in, shaking her head. “We were just young, innocent fillies back then. Being old friends goes past age, y’know? She was a part of all our fillyhoods. She’d definitely remember us.”

Kennedy glanced right at Zecora, who stared back only at the menu. “I see.”

“And if you give us directions to her place, we’ll all get out of your mane,” Rainbow said, patting both Pinkie and Twilight on the shoulders.

“I don’t think I will,” Kennedy said.

“Why not?” Twilight cried, slapping her own hooves on the table. Pinkie slammed her own hooves on as well, though her sudden frown didn’t share the same gravitas.

“I don’t know who the hell you are. You’re familiar, but that’s not a good thing by me,” Kennedy said, still eyeing Zecora in particular. “Maybe you’re not so bad. Who knows. So, how about this: I can introduce you to somepony else who can take you to meet Fluttershy personally.”

Rainbow wrinkled her eyes as she stared into space. “What?”

“It’s a guy I trust to keep you out of trouble around her. Your choice.”

“Fine,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. “Where’s he?”

“Not here. He’ll be back sometime today,” Kennedy said.

“Sometime today?” Rainbow sputtered, joining the others as she smacked her hooves on the table.

Kennedy’s eyes curled into a glower as she frowned. “Better than sometime this week. You want to walk your asses out, that’s fine by me. Otherwise, you better order some goddamn drinks while you wait. Rush hour’s about to hit, and your table’s prime real estate for paying customers.”

After staying still nearly the whole time, Zecora looked up immediately. “Rush hour for whom?”

“Half the school,” Kennedy scoffed. “Early evening classes are getting out now, and we’re a big name in town. We’re about to get slammed.”

Twilight glanced at Zecora again, and this time the zebra looked back. Rainbow glanced between them both, looking clueless. Pinkie, however, slid one hoof closer to Kennedy, something scraping underneath—she lifted her hoof, and several bits lay exposed on the table.

She smiled big and bright again. “We’ll take five hard sugar malts, pleeease. One for each of us, and one for you!”

Kennedy’s expression shifted back to neutral as she scooped up the bits between her teeth. Before heading back to the bar, she muttered, “Thanks, but I don’t drink on the job.”

Everyone’s shoulders relaxed a bit over the next minute, even as a few young, necktied ponies entered the tavern with a laugh, absorbed in their own company. Twilight stooped a bit closer to the table, looking from the newcomers back to her friends, and whispered, “Maybe we should find my library first after all.”

“We’ll wait,” Zecora said, her gaze shifting between each of the students as more arrived loudly. “Listen to them in the meanwhile. You and Rainbow Dash can begin learning how better to blend in.”

“Hey, I was doing an awesome job,” Rainbow said, quieting herself as she pulled off of the table. She glanced back to Twilight. “And did you forget that’s we’re still waiting for somepony? So, yeah, we’ve got to chill for a while anyway. We can just pretend that we’re not undead if anypony asks.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, but her gut still felt uneasy. More and more students were trotting inside, colts and mares alike, all of them wearing the same necktie as the guard at the gate. Students were soon unapologetically jostling Twilight in the back as they moved between other tables, laughing like fillies telling fart jokes. She rubbed at her spine, keeping a nervous watch over the door for signs of Applejack.

But the tavern was filling up as fast as Kennedy said. Even an older colt, a graying beard bouncing off his chin, entered alongside more students. He wore the same tie as everyone else, but his had a silver pin stuck in the center.

“Booze and students of age,” Rainbow muttered over the rest of the noise. “Reminds me of just before I left Cloudsdale. Good times. I bet all they’re looking for now is a little of the old—”

Rainbow clapped her hooves together, but frowned a moment later. She waved one hoof around the other, and the confusion on her face grew as she kept motioning her hooves around each other, saying, “This gesture is harder to do than I remember.”

Twilight grinned a little despite her anxiety. Nobody was bothering them, despite the zebra at their table. A mare at the next table over, hair brushed delicately over her shoulder, was chatting idly with her peers about music theory of all things. Pinkie was still enjoying herself, giggling at Rainbow’s attempt at dirty talk, and Zecora was now avoiding eye contact with anyone around their table.

A murmur reached Twilight’s ear, though; by the look on Zecora’s face, it reached them both at the same time. Even over the increasing cries in the tavern, the word they heard came just clearly enough for them to both look back over to the entrance. “Zebra.”

The older colt stared agape right back at them, his wrinkled eyes wide and dark. He raised a hoof toward Zecora, stuttering a moment, then cried aloud, “Zebra!”

All the students nearby looked between him and his target, but most of them offered only a raised brow. Zecora stood up in an instant, her gaze as sharply focused now as when Twilight had first seen her again in Canterlot.

The colt took one step forward, in the same moment his whole face contorting in rage. “Grab the bitch!”

Rainbow and Twilight clambered up next, no plan in their heads yet but to do anything at all—and crashed back to the ground a second later, tackled like feathers by the students closest to them. Twilight gasped for breath despite herself as the music theory mare, now leaning into her chest, pressed a knee over Twilight’s throat and screamed, “Move another muscle and I’ll break all your fucking legs!”

Two more students grabbed Zecora at the same time, tangling their legs around hers and shoving her down. The colt marched over in front of her and said, “Take them all to the headmaster immediately. Consider yourselves excused from your next classes.”

“Headmaster’s already left on his mission,” one of the captors grunted.

“The mayor, then,” the colt snapped. “And keep a damn good hold on that zebra while you’re at it.”

Zecora stayed completely silent even as her head was mushed against the ground, but her gaze darted behind the colt. Kennedy and one of her staff cantered up toward the table, a tray of mugs hovering beside. Kennedy shoved a hoof into the colt’s shoulder and said, “What the hell is all this?”

“In the words of the headmaster,” the colt said, ignoring the provocation, “a revolution.”

Kennedy glanced down amongst her customers on the floor, even Pinkie having been grabbed. She looked back to the colt, shook her head, and turned back with her waitress to the bar. “Do what you need. Just stop making a mess in here.”

Rainbow glared back at Kennedy through a seething gaze. She squared her hooves against the floor and started pushing, lifting even the three students holding her down, muttering coldly, “You think we’ll just let you—”

“Do not do anything rash!” Zecora cried, her tone sterner yet.

Rainbow turned her gaze back at Zecora, but paused. She shook her head aside and grimaced as her captors stood her up, wrestling a better hold around her limbs.

The colt gestured his head toward the door, and Zecora was pulled back up by her forelegs before the others were as well. Hoisted up and dragged along behind, Twilight looked between all her friends again. Rainbow was still growling, but she didn’t struggle. Pinkie was staring sadly back at Kennedy before they were out of sight from each other, their drinks leaving as well.

Zecora looked back to Twilight just as Twilight looked to her. The zebra narrowed her gaze and said, “Keep waiting.”

Let Me Catch My Breath

There had been another visitor into town a few minutes ago at the south gate, though this one caused no stir. He was a colt, a simple one by his look, pulling a large cart. He slouched a little as he pulled his load, his neck sweating heaviest, but he kept his chin high and jaw shut. His windswept silver mane was dull and dirty, but his fur coat was a brighter yellow, not bright, but a shade quite pleasant on the eyes. Actually, his eyes were quite shaded—a hat with a brim nearly twice as wide as the colt’s head was tilted over one ear. A ray of sun bobbed around his cheek with each step, shining onto him only through a hole scorched through the brim of his hat.

His gaze was cast on the road ahead, never glancing down any corridors he crossed. None of the townsfolk he passed by greeted him. The next ponies he saw were a swath, or perhaps a gaggle of students laughing like jackasses amongst themselves as they, too, ignored him. The colt watched them only a moment before scoffing under his breath.

If not for a hoof pressing into his shoulder as he passed them, he wouldn’t have given another thought to the students. But it wasn’t a student poking him—an aproned mare with a bun too elaborate for her job was smiling at him, a placard displaying the Light of Heaven’s happy hour leaning against her legs.

“Lookin’ sharp, Mister Line,” she said.

Line straightened up, but sighed. “I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I’m hot. I ain’t got time for whatever Gold wants, okay? Tell her to do it or get it herself.”

The waitress frowned. “Now, come on, that’s not fair to her. You know she wouldn’t send me all the way across town if it wasn’t for a good reason.”

“Spill it,” Line said.

The waitress smiled again immediately, her hair bun bobbing slightly as she stepped forward. “Okay, so, some mares were in just a little while ago, and they wanted to meet Fluttershy. They said they had just gotten out of Canterlot and that they knew her. Sounds pretty interesting so far, right? But there’s a twist.”

“Dear gods, Derby, speed it up a little.”

“I’m getting there. So, they came in with a zebra. Kind of weird, but what are you going to do, right? Except the minute some professor comes in, he takes one look at the zebra and goes bonkers, like, zealous. I thought it would turn into a bloodbath right there. He got the whole party carted off to the mayor, and didn’t say why.”

Line didn’t respond, but he tilted his head just a bit as he raised one eyebrow.

“Gold just figured you might want to know,” the waitress said. She shrugged, pressing one shoulder close to her cheek as she kept grinning. “They’re probably all still at his office, just in case you wanted to check them out. And if you dooo, come back and tell me what happened, okay?”

Line raised a hoof to his hat, tipping it over his other ear. He glanced back toward the main road with a frown, muttering, “Well, well. Think I just might do that.”

Rampa—

“‘Cept for that latter part,” Line said before getting a move on. “It ain’t never hap’nin’, Derby. Get over it.”

—Rampant

Ponyville, Part Two

Ch. 3: Let Me Catch My Breath

There was some faint music in the room, more of a ditty than a real song. The beat was grating, the few lyrics sung at all were meaningless, and the rhythm—well, there wasn’t one. Twilight was lined up in between Rainbow and Pinkie, all of them sitting against the wall in a waiting room outside the mayor’s office.

The walls were painted a nice, calming beige, and there was a speaker in each corner of the ceiling that piped through their muzak. A desk was set up opposite Twilight and the others, just by the office door, an elderly mare in beaded glasses going aggressively at a typewriter behind it. She looked up at the clock above Twilight constantly, pausing her typing each time, but ignored the ponies beneath it.

The three prisoners were chained up together, all of their leg irons interconnected. Twilight kept glancing at the guards on either side of their group, though it was Rainbow she kept the closest eye on. Rainbow stared straight ahead, gaze thin as a needle, jaw set. The song playing over the speaker ended just a moment later, however, and Rainbow’s muscles visibly relaxed as the only sound left in the room became the tak tak tak from the receptionist.

The exact same song started next. As Rainbow started shaking, her gaze slowly widening, Twilight turned from her toward one of the guards flanking them and quickly asked, “Are you going to put us in jail?”

The guard stared forward as well, but his eyes were only half open. “Maybe.”

Twilight glanced between Rainbow and the guard again. Grimacing, she asked, “What are the charges against us?”

“Don’t know.”

Twilight looked at the other guard, but that one was glaring at the receptionist’s typewriter, a mean look in his eyes. Turning back to the first guard, Twilight asked, “Do you know why we’re even in trouble?”

“Don’t care.”

Twilight frowned deeper. She glanced toward the door to the mayor’s office, but she couldn’t hear anything from inside. As she slumped further, the sound of teeth gnashing began from next to her. She didn’t look over this time.

The speakers weren’t playing anything inside the office. Mayor Virtue was seated behind a much larger desk, bins full of paperwork on either side of him. A little gold placard displayed his name in between the bins. Though plush armchairs just smaller than his were set in each corner by the entrance, his guest was forced to stand.

His rump cushioned by a throw pillow, the mayor crossed his forelegs over his stomach as he leaned back into the leather backing of his personal chair. He shook his head just a bit, smirking, as he looked his guest over. He chuckled.

Zecora, the chains around her legs secured to bolts on the floor, stared him down equally. There was no anger in her expression.

The mayor’s horn glowed bright silver and he pulled open one of his drawers, retrieving a crystal glass and a vintage bottle from inside. With a brighter glow, the cork popped off and he poured his glass full. Finally, as he brought the glass close to his hoof, the mayor said, “You know, I’ve made whole lists of the questions I’d ask when we finally caught you. Considering that, let this be the first: do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused for us over the past two years?”

Zecora’s tone remained casual. “I may.”

The mayor took a long sip from his glass, smiling all the wider as his lips parted from it. “As long as you know well enough how satisfying the feeling is to have you in captivity. It’s sublime.”

He put down the glass and sighed, leaning his hoof next against his cheek. “However, I find it hard to congratulate myself when you were captured so simply. Tell me, zebra, what are you doing back in Ponyville?”

“I thought your headmaster was still here,” Zecora said. “I wished to negotiate with him. You are a mere substitute.”

The tip of the mayor’s face twitched, but he maintained a smile. “Better a substitute than a prisoner. Either way, I’m unconvinced you really have anything with which you can negotiate. You’ll cooperate with us or you’ll get a branding iron up your brittle old ass. You see? Absolutely no negotiation necessary.”

Zecora finally cracked a grin. “I know too many things that you do not know to ask. The lists you mentioned, mayor: read them to me. I can tell you what you forgot.”

“Ha. You’re not going to be an easy one, I’ll give you that,” the mayor said. He leaned forward again, propping himself on his desk as he rested his chin on his forehooves. “All right. I’ll start next down, at number two. What did you do with Pinkie Pie’s body?”

“She’s sitting outside.”

The mayor glanced from Zecora to the door behind her. “And how am I to believe that’s really her?”

“Test her,” Zecora said, her grin fading as soon as it came. “Prod her. Stick her. Bleed her. None will work.”

The mayor shook his head, chuckling again. “Oh, I imagine we will. Even so, tell me honestly what you’re doing back here with her.”

“I have seen what happened in Canterlot, mayor. I can no longer bet against the school. I need you to be able to stand against true threats.”

“What, the corpse eaters? We’ve repelled them before. I wouldn’t overestimate them.”

Zecora narrowed her gaze. “Your mighty Celestia could hold them back only one month.”

The mayor sighed, lowering his gaze to the desk as a smirk spread across across half his face. “Suppose I can’t help it if they frighten you. Still, what is it you think you can do to help us?”

“For all the questions you have, mayor,” Zecora said, “I know that you truly need the answer to only one.”

The mayor frowned. “And how the hell do you know?”

“I’ve always known the prize your headmaster seeks. My only condition is that you release the ponies arrested with me, including Pinkie Pie,” Zecora said.

The mayor cocked his head far over to one side, sighing again all the heavier as he looked back to Zecora. As he levitated his glass again, he said, “Now, what did I just say about making a deal with me, zebra?”

Zecora’s stare turned cold, her eyelids narrowing as her eyes widened. “Do not test me, pony.”

Though they didn’t move at all, the chains encasing her legs seemed to flex tighter as she spoke, a quiet aching sound echoing from them that could be mistaken for the wind. Zecora continued, “And do not test my spirit. We will make a fair trade: you will release the ponies, and I will teach how to raise your dead from her ashes.”

Mayor Virtue’s glass remained suspended by itself for a moment as he paused, watching Zecora closely. His frown dissipated a second later as he smirked again, rolling his eyes and leaning back into his chair. “Oh, all right, I’ll be a good sport. As long as you don’t put up a struggle, I’ll allow your friends their freedom.”

Though Zecora was already soothed, her face nearly blank again, the stress in her chains didn’t seem to fade. They looked aged, though to little notice from behind the desk.

“However,” the mayor snapped, “they can’t leave town yet. I need to know what you’re actually doing here before anypony leaves.”

“That is acceptable,” Zecora said.

The mayor sipped from his glass, savoring the taste a few seconds before swallowing, and lowered his glass back to the desk. He glanced to his drawers again, pulling one open and levitating out from it a paper and quill. He looked back to Zecora.

“Granted, I’m not the one you need to explain anything to,” Virtue said. “Write it down for me, and I’ll make sure it gets into the right hooves. I’ll have to keep you locked up until your ritual has been proven—and besides that, I’m not just going to pardon grave robbing.”

Zecora offered a slight smirk, the sort one indulged in. “Whatever is necessary.”

Their chains were unlocked, and Twilight, Rainbow, and Pinkie were escorted downstairs and shoved back outside. Twilight stumbled out last, nearly tripping as the door slammed behind her. The street they were now on was as indiscriminate of markings as any other they’d seen. It was busier, but with ponies noticeably older than the ones near the tavern; these townsfolk all wore neckties, too, but more of them had pins in several different colors.

Rainbow was the first to react, turning around and pounding a hoof high on the door. She yelled, “Hey, you forgot somepony! Someone, whatever—open up, assholes!”

A click and a thud came from behind the door handle, noisier than they had to be, followed by hoofsteps echoing away. Rainbow tried knocking a little more zealously.

Twilight brushed the dust off for the second time that day, but this time, turned to the others and had neither of them to ask for directions. She watched Rainbow a moment, understanding a little faster than her friend that no one else was coming out, and felt discomfort growing even further somewhere in her gut. She then felt a jostle, however, and turned to Pinkie, who was nudging her side. Pinkie didn’t look back at her, but whispered, “Twilight.”

Twilight leaned in closer, though Pinkie’s stiff expression read that she was trying badly to avoid attention.

“On our seven o’clock in the morning.”

Pinkie rolled her head and nodded backwards, suddenly whistling a tune of nonchalance. Or more of an off-tune. Twilight stared back at Pinkie for a moment, just watching, before shaking her head and turning around.

Line was standing in the road behind everyone, the only other pony there who wasn’t in a hurry to get somewhere. Though there was no wagon hitched to him anymore, saddlebags were slung over his back, and he was chewing on several stalks of grain that stuck out the corner of his mouth.

“Can we help you?” Twilight asked, her tone blunter than usual.

Line eyed them all a moment more before responding. “Y’all them mares that were lookin’ for Fluttershy?”

Rainbow pulled back from the door and turned around with the rest of the group, rolling her whole head with her eyes as she groaned, “Gods, what now?”

“I just figure it’s pro’lly the other way around of who needs whose help,” Line said. “Ain’t seen y’all around before. Who are you?”

Twilight shoved her hooves further apart and lowered her neck, a growling tone beneath her every word. “And who are you? We’ve just been through having to explain ourselves under a near interrogation, after that getting arrested as well, and we certainly don’t appreciate somepony coming along and repeating the same line of questioning we just went through when we are busy trying to figure out how to reconnect with not one, not two, but three of our friends, so excuse us if our primary concern right now is not identifying ourselves to everypony that asks!”

Line’s gaze remained easy. He chewed his grain a few seconds more while making sure Twilight was finished, and said, “I’m her son. Name’s Silver Lining. And you know what I don’t appreciate? Strange ponies askin’ all about a kindly old mother who don’t have many folks looking out for her anymore. Now if you don’t mind, who the hell are you and why do you want to meet her?”

Twilight and Rainbow stared at him for a long moment without answering. Pinkie turned around as well, casual again, and said, “Nice to meet you, Fluttershy’s son! I’m Pinkie Pie, and these are—”

Both of the others leaped upon Pinkie, Rainbow grappling her neck and Twilight shoving a hoof over her mouth. The three of them huddled around Pinkie’s headlock, a noticeable girth in their eyes.

“Holy shit, is he for real?” Rainbow said.

Twilight stared back at her and whispered, “Is there any chance he’s lying to us? I just—I never even considered what—should we tell him who we are?”

“We have to tell him!” Rainbow said. “If he’s the pony that Gold girl mentioned, he’s the only link to Fluttershy we’ve got! We’ve still got to find Applejack, plus break out Zecora. As far as what we do first, Zecora’s got to have some plan already—so we need to find Fluttershy and Applejack.”

Rainbow glanced to Pinkie and asked, “Zecora’s got a plan, right?”

Pinkie nodded, as little as she could. Twilight’s gaze darted back and forth in space while thinking. She muttered, “Once we try to free Zecora, we’ll have to get out of town immediately afterward. That means we’ll need to stop by my library before then, preferably with Applejack and Fluttershy, but it will be harder finding relevant books on the bloodlust without Zecora’s help.”

Rainbow glanced between both the others. “Well, either way we need Fluttershy. We’ve still got to tell him.”

“Okay,” Twilight said, nodding. She and Rainbow released Pinkie at the same time. “Let’s try this again.”

All three of them turned around, smiling very sincerely as Twilight began introductions again. “Sorry about that, we were just—uh...”

Line looked like he wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying anymore. He was looking nearly straight through them, slack jawed, his grain fallen unnoticed by the road. His mouth bobbed slowly as he sputtered, “How in the hell…?”

Everyone toned it down a notch with the enthusiasm all over their faces. Twilight’s smile turned sheepish, and she said, “Well, as I was saying: I’m Twilight Sparkle, and these are Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie.”

“Like we already said,” Rainbow continued, “we’re really old friends of your, uh… your mother.”

Line shook his head, or perhaps his head shook—he hardly looked in control of himself. “How?”

“I doubt it’s a good idea to talk any more about that around here,” Twilight said.

Line stood up a bit, quickly pushing back his hat while glancing around. “Well, no—no, it’s not. You’re right. Just follow me.”

They walked. As they weaved through the crowds, Line said, “I just got over here after an errand, hoping to run into y’all before you were moved to the jail—anypony the school takes a dislikin’ to, I got an interest in. But you folk… I mean, I’ve heard stories, but y’all have got a doozy to tell.”

“Then, you’re not affiliated with the school?” Twilight asked.

“No way am I. Ma doesn’t like ‘em, and neither do I. And when she didn’t support them, they didn’t support her. It’s just me that still lives with her now.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Rainbow said, her grin still growing. “I mean, we never even knew she got a—you know—she never even had a coltfriend when we were still around! Who’d she marry? No, wait, did she adopt you? I bet she adopted you.”

Even as Line glanced back to retort, Pinkie dug her hooves in and gasped long, clear, and loud enough that nearly everyone else on the street turned and stared at the spectacle. Oblivious to them, Pinkie cried, “That voice!”

She leaned in close to Line’s face, stroking her own chin as she pursed her lips. “You sound veeery familiar. Is your dad Big Macintosh?”

Rainbow squealed out loud even as the strangers that had been watching started on their ways again. Line lowered his voice much quieter than the girls’ and said, “For godsakes—no, she didn’t and no, he isn’t! Dad ain’t around anymore, and Ma’s sensitive about that. Don’t go askin’ her about him when we get there, all right?”

Giggling as she trotted up beside Line, Rainbow nudged a knee into his side. “That’s why we’re asking you—now spill!”

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight said. “Show some respect.”

Rainbow glanced from Twilight to Line. Line was looking back to the road, and in between steps quickly pulled his hat back over his forehead. Rainbow rolled her eyes and fell behind toward Twilight and Pinkie again, groaning a little. “Yeah, yeah, fine. Sorry.”

“I grew up on a lot of stories about all of you,” Line said, “but y’all are sure makin’ this a whole lot less exciting all of the sudden.”

Someone else tapped him on the shoulder, but this time it was Pinkie. Pouting a little even as she skipped next to him, she said, “Aww, we didn’t mean to make you remember something bad.”

Line glanced aside at her and softened his expression. “Just be more mindful when we get home is all.”

“Would it help if we told you all of our most horrible, painful memories?” Pinkie said, smiling again already. “Both of my parents are long gone!”

Line grimaced at her. “No, thank you. Sorry to hear that.”

“And quit bouncing!” Twilight said, looking from their group to the increasingly curious passersby. “Maybe we can still salvage some privacy.”

Pinkie skipped to a halt, scuffing a cloud of dirt up in front of her. She lifted her chin, motioned a hoof across her mouth, and walked serenely—and quietly—with the rest of the group.

The district ended on the next street, and the offices and businesses came to an abrupt halt as more rows of nearly identical houses sprawled past them. All the other ponies wandering the streets, too, seemed to disappear just as easily. The residential streets were shorter, and split off more quickly—Line guided the other three down several side roads before they reached his home, by then having passed no one else in several minutes.

His house looked the same as the ones next to it, though the wooden siding was just a hue lighter. There was just a porch leading up to the door, no yards at all on the whole street. Line’s empty cart was hitched just beside the porch, the wheels locked together with a chain; he stepped past it as he pushed open the front door, beckoning his guests inside.

“Ma!” he called, rubbing his hooves on an already smudged welcome mat. “You told me you were gonna lock the door after I left!”

Twilight, Rainbow and Pinkie looked around all in different directions as they wiped their hooves slower. Stairs to the second floor were right in front of them, the entrance sharing space with the stair landing; a living room was to their left, little in the way of furniture arranged inside, but a multitude of pictures on every wall.

“Oh. Sorry, dear,” a voice called through a doorway beyond the living room. Chopping sounds echoed with it.

Line shook his head and trotted over, saying, “Don’t mind that right now—we got some guests. I met some old, old friends of yours in town.”

A clank echoed next, like metal getting laid on wood, and then a clopping. Fluttershy ambled carefully out from the kitchen, some wrinkles wrapped around her knees and eyes. She looked from Line toward Twilight, Rainbow, and Pinkie, staring a moment before she could react.

“Oh, my,” Fluttershy gasped, eyes welling up.

“Flutter-shyyy!” Pinkie cried, leaping around her shoulders in a single bound. “I’m s-so happy to see you again!”

Fluttershy hugged her back as tightly as her age still let her. Twilight and Rainbow cantered into the embrace next, and Fluttershy squeezed them all together, everyone putting a hoof over each other. Fluttershy’s hair nestled with Twilight’s as she shut her eyes tighter, blustering, “Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Twilight—it’s been so long!”

“Way too long,” Twilight said, smiling again.

Rainbow patted the backs of the friends on either side of her and said, “It’s awesome to see you again, too, Fluttershy.”

After a few heavy seconds, Fluttershy pulled away and wiped her face. Voice still wavering, she asked, “But what are you all doing here?”

“And how?” Line demanded, standing away from the others.

Twilight stepped back to better address everyone, grinning wider. “We can’t say how, exactly, but Zecora resurrected us. We’re back to stop the bloodlust, Fluttershy. We need your help.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Fluttershy said. “What is it you need me for?”

Twilight glanced between Rainbow and Pinkie before answering. “Well, you’re one of our friends. Doing things together is what got us through all our crises before.”

“Not to mention you’re still one of the Elements of Harmony,” Rainbow chided.

Fluttershy stared again, brow lowering as she thought a moment. Her eyes brightened again as she said, “Oh, yes. I had forgotten about the elements. They were very important.”

Line trotted around everyone else and tossed himself onto the sofa. He said, “Don’t you remember, ma? You were a big deal back in the day. Went on lots of fun adventures.”

“I do remember,” Fluttershy said, glancing back to her son. “But that was all a very long time ago… I don’t know what use I could possibly be anymore.”

“We don’t need you to do anything,” Pinkie said. “We just need you to be you—super lots of you!”

Line pushed his legs over the front of the sofa and let them dangle. “Besides all that, let’s get back to the original point: how in the hell did y’all even get ‘resurrected’?”

“Silver, please mind your language!” Fluttershy said, raising a hoof and tutting him. “There is never any excuse to say something like that, especially when we have friends over.”

Rainbow’s lips puckered sourly as she glanced between Twilight and Pinkie. Twilight rolled her eyes, but suppressed a giggle as she said, “Well, I was as surprised as you when I climbed out of my own tomb. Zecora didn’t explain it very well either, and right now, she can’t tell us any more—the mayor is still holding her, as far as we know.”

Fluttershy turned back to the others and said, “Oh, no. Did she get arrested?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “We all did, but they let us go after a while. We’ve still got to rescue her after we find Applejack. Oh, sh—Applejack!”

Fluttershy cupped a hoof over her mouth as she gasped, but her smile shown from underneath. “Applejack is here, too? Oh, I haven’t seen her again yet!”

“We split up as soon as we got back into town,” Twilight said. “She went to look for the rest of the Apple family while we found you. We were all supposed to meet back up at a tavern downtown, so that’s our next step.”

“Oh, no,” Fluttershy gasped, her smile gone. She clutched her wings tighter to her back as tears escaped her again. “Oh, poor Applejack. I’m so sorry for her. None of her family made it through the attacks alive.”

Rainbow raised her voice higher than she probably meant to. “The what?”

“You didn’t know about what happened?” Fluttershy said. “I didn’t know that you didn’t know—oh, I should have braced you first—I’m so sorry!”

“Calm down, Ma, it’s all right,” Line said. He turned to the others, continuing, “There’s a nasty band of unicorn ponies that’ve raided Ponyville plenty of times before, and they always used the old Apple farm as their base camp. That farm didn’t make it through all the raids, and the Apple folks… don’t think they lasted even that long.”

Twilight rubbed her chin. “Condolences are well and good, but that makes me especially worried for Applejack now. Who knows how she’ll react to finding out, if she hasn’t already.”

“Then we better go get her before she gets us all into even more trouble,” Rainbow groaned.

“Not any of you,” Line said. “It’s gettin’ late, and this town’s got a nighttime curfew. I’ll sneak back to the bar and see if she’s still waitin’ there—better just one pony goes, and I know the shortest way, so don’t y’all go protesting about it being me.”

“But you just got back, too,” Fluttershy murmured. “Are you sure we can’t all go find Applejack?”

Line pushed himself off from the couch. He smiled and said, “I’ll be back in just a bit, Ma. You go ahead and have dinner with your old buddies here, and Applejack and I will be back by the time you’re up in the morning.”

Fluttershy pouted, shaking her head a little. “Oh, but—but then you’ll both miss dinner with us!”

“Well, it’s a little more important we get Applejack off the streets than it is to have dinner with her,” Line said as he trotted back to the door. “Don’t worry, we’ll all have dinner together tomorrow night. Okay?”

Fluttershy stared after him, but nodded a moment later. Line pushed the door open and turned back to everyone, saying, “Y’all make sure to lock the door behind me. I’ll prob’ly be back before curfew, but don’t you be worried if I’m not.”

“You gonna know what she looks like before she says her name?” Rainbow said, smirking a little.

Line sighed, “She the one with freckles?”

Pinkie poked herself high on her right cheek. “Right here!”

“I remember her,” Line said, turning again. “Now y’all go enjoy dinner. Don’t wait up for me.”

“Be careful out there,” Twilight said automatically. Even after he closed the door, with a second more’s thought about it, she added, “I think.”

It was sprinkling. Just little drops for the time being, nothing that would bother anypony who wasn’t out for long. For how dark it was getting outside, the clouds were still visible, and those that were drifting closer looked no heavier than those already overhead. The rain was an annoyance only to those still working outside, say, on guard duty.

It was just another little fuck-you to Raindawn, who, working the gate, was used to getting them. He was looking up at the horizon instead of down, ignoring the increasingly dark fields beyond Ponyville. He simply watched as the streaks of light peeking through distant clouds grew further distant. That was all right. In another hour he’d be off the clock, going home.

Raindawn glanced down at his chest, frowning. “Oh, horsefeathers.”

His necktie was already getting wet. He pressed it straighter and slumped over a little more, but couldn’t shield it further. School uniforms had to be kept pristine, especially on campus, as they were all property of the school; Raindawn would have to put some time into ironing it before morning classes. He drooped over the parapet.

Someone was approaching. Not from out of town, though—one of the senior guards, a mustachioed pegasus just a bit taller than Raindawn, was whistling something sharp and upbeat as he cantered atop the wall’s perimeter.

“Rained-on Raindawn,” he called. Raindawn didn’t respond.

The senior trotted up beside him, glancing out the same direction as where Raindawn stared. He continued, “Bet you love nights like this, huh? Probably wish it rained all day.”

“This is the opposite of what I like,” Raindawn said, his tone strict.

Raising a hoof to his moustache, the senior patted it against his face in a poor attempt at twirling it. “What-ever. Yeltsin at the east gate was acting the crybaby about it. Whined about his tie, how late he’d have to stay up, how early he had to be up, like a crybaby. That Yeltsin—what a crybaby. Any-way. Seen any more refugees, or anything else to report tonight?”

“Nothing.”

“Very good! Continue finding nothing. Keeps my job easy.”

The senior turned and kept on trotting, whistling a different tune next. Raindawn considered rolling his eyes, rather than just doing it, and decided against it; he was taught that it was a virtue to always consider his actions first. He looked to the sky again, sighing to himself, before glancing back to the stupidly empty fields—

“Something!”

The senior looked back toward Raindawn, one fuzzy eyebrow raised high. “Oh, you bastard. What now?”

“I see something,” Raindawn said, hopping his forehooves onto the parapet as he craned his neck and strained his eyes. “Or somepony? Somepony. Look.”

Rainclouds were moving directly over where Raindawn had spotted her. She would be nearly invisible if not for standing at the top of the tallest hill beyond the Ponyville fields, and even then, only her silhouette was really there.

The senior stepped up beside Raindawn, raising a hoof over his eyes. “Another refugee? How sad.”

“I don’t think so,” Raindawn said. “Look closer.”

The senior leaned nervously closer to the precipice, narrowing his eyes. “I’m not convinced I can.”

“Then look better.”

“Just tell me what you see!”

Raindawn pulled his neck back, but he didn’t relax. He said, “She’s got a weird smile.”

The senior’s mustache twitched even before he frowned, and he glanced to Raindawn. “Is she a unicorn?”

“I see a horn, yes. And blood.”

A moment of quiet followed. Then a strained harrumph as the senior plied at this mustache again, grunting, “You just got excused from your morning classes, Rainy. You’re staying late.”

Raindawn raised his whole brow a moment, turning to the senior and asking, “Will you remember to give a note to my professor this—”

“Dear gods, Rainy, fine, yes,” the senior sputtered. “Just keep watching her instead of being a sobbing infant. I’ve got to meet with the captain.”

He went off at a lope back the way he came. Raindawn hopped down from the parapet and stepped around to its side, sitting down. He stared at the mare as best he still could.

She already looked muddy. The last strips of light in the sky were passing her over in brief moments, each flash revealing another feature. She was smiling despite the mud all over her legs, some of it having splashed into the loose ends of her mane. The smile was just from her lips, the blood pooled and dried beneath them, her eyes locked forward back at him.

The last thing he really saw at that distance, whether or not by some malicious timing on her part, was a gesture. She licked her lips.

Rain Is Always An Omen

A clang echoed through the cells as a prison guard shut the door on Zecora. Three chains were clutched around each of her legs now, and a much larger manacle locked to the ceiling encased her neck. The chains were thicker even than the iron on the cell bars.

Zecora offered no protest, but tugged her neck—the manacle didn’t budge. She said, “Am I to sleep like this?”

“If you can,” one of the guards chuckled, his horn glowing as he locked the door tight. “You should just be glad that you’re not sharing a cell with the cannibal.”

“A corpse eater? I did not realize circumstances were already so dire in this town,” Zecora said.

Both the guards, a brown colt and a pink mare, smirked at each other. The colt swung his keyring between them and looked back to Zecora, saying, “No, just an earth pony. But we caught the crazy shit just earlier today trying to take a bite out of anypony who got close to her. Ponyville hasn’t seen real bloodlust like that in a long time.”

“She’s gonna get worse than even you for it,” the mare said. “Once the bloodlust goes that far, there’s no going back.”

Zecora glanced to her side, though the walls were concrete. “And yet there is no fuss from her now.”

The colt shrugged. “Finally tired herself out. You know what? You may be a huge evil all by yourself, but you get points for going quietly. It took a long time getting her locked up.”

“She’s not tired,” the mare said, looking back to the colt. “It’s something else, like she’s straight-up lost her higher functions. You saw that look in her eyes? Can’t mistake what that was.”

The mare grinned, some delight in the corners of her smile as she looked to Zecora again. “She’s already dead inside.”

Rampant

Ponyville, Part Three

Ch. 4: Rain Is Always An Omen

Silver Lining stepped into the Light after waiting around the corner for several seconds, groaning to himself. He wiped his hooves once, only once, on the mat at the door as he looked around. Not many others were there—evening classes had started, although several shitfaced students were still loitering at the bar. Line gazed around them, but didn’t see Applejack. He grimaced as he glanced behind the bar, facing up his anger and anxiety both, and trudged over.

Kennedy Gold was polishing glasses, as none of her immediate customers had any money left to get her filling drinks. She glanced at Line and smirked, setting down her current glass as he stopped in front of her.

“This is important,” Line said. “I don’t want to chat, I don’t want to argue, an’ I’m not here to piss anypony off tonight. You seen a freckled stranger come in anytime today? Prob’ly lookin’ real out of place.”

Kennedy tapped a hoof to her chin and rolled her gaze to the ceiling, ho-humming. She kept going for several seconds.

“Can you just tell me?” Line sighed.

Kennedy looked back to him, her smirk disappearing as her lips clutched a little tighter. She said, “I don’t think I will.”

“And why the hell not?” Line said, taking a step closer to the bar.

“Because I don’t owe you any goddamn help, Silver,” Kennedy said, rearing over Line as she raised her hooves onto the counter. “I already did you a favor. Take it and leave with it.”

Line met Kennedy’s gaze squarely, lowering his voice again. He said, “This is way too important for us to get into this shit right now. Please, Gold, for the love of the gods, just tell me if you’ve seen a freckled earth pony today.”

Kennedy smirked again in an instant. “Oh, do you still use that kind of language in front of Mom?”

“Go to hell,” Line growled.

“No, thank you,” Kennedy said. “Already been.”

A hoof was slapped over Line’s shoulder before he could respond, a bunned bob of hair nuzzling against his neck as the waitress stepped up to them, her apron now gone. She grinned something small and said, “Hey, want me to get either of you a drink before I—”

“Not now!” Line hollered, nearly tipping her over as he jerked away.

“Don’t you yell at her!” Kennedy cried, arching her shoulders and she leaned closer. “Don’t you ever yell at her or any of my employees. You’re done here. Get out.”

Everyone else in the bar was staring, at least the ones conscious enough to notice. The waitress, taking several steps back as she steadied herself, still waved a simpering hoof at both the others and said, “No, it’s okay, please just—”

“Derby, I’m sorry, but I ain’t got time,” Line said, looking between both mares. “Gold, for the sake of all of us—”

“I don’t care,” Kennedy growled. “Get the hell out right now.”

Line looked back at her for seconds more, fighting himself for something to say, but Kennedy glared even harder than he. Derby kept glancing between them both, though more at her boss.

Nothing came to him. Line snorted out his nose as he nodded and turned back to the door immediately. A wide wrinkle set across his forehead as he scowled, and without turning, he said, “You’re the most selfish fuckin’ pony I know.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Kennedy called back.

Her brother didn’t respond, slamming the door on his way out instead. Kennedy shook her head, hopping off the counter as her waitress, Derby, wandered quietly to the back room to get her saddlebags. Kennedy frowned and kept polishing her glass.

Derby regretted stepping out the moment her hoof sunk into the mud covering the road. One of the bartenders had let her out, locking the back door behind her, and so she shored up her bags and saddled onward, keeping in mind a little saying she really liked: in the rain, no one can tell when you’re crying. Not that she was, but just in case.

It took Derby a few minutes longer than usual to arrive somewhere tonight, however. She lived in the dorms in the center of town, but she’d headed further north instead of going home, halting just before the north gate out of town. Even as she squinted back the rain, she called up, “Rainy?”

Someone else, a musclebound stallion, ambled over and leered back down at her. “It’s past your curfew, young lady. Get back home.”

“Oh, I’m a student,” Derby said. “My curfew’s later. Is Raindawn’s shift—”

“Martial curfew,” the stallion said. “Go home, now!”

Derby paused. She tilted her head even as she stammered, “No, but—what?”

The stallion rolled his eyes and turned around, barking, “Raindawn! Come get her out of here.”

His tie dangling in front of him, Raindawn peeped over the wall next. Derby stood upright again, waving a little to him as he hopped and spread his wings, flapping down into the mud with just a patter.

Derby stepped closer to him, but nodded up to the wall and asked, “What’s going on? Did something happen up there?”

“Yeah. I don’t think you can walk me home tonight,” Raindawn said, though he looked only marginally more serious than with his usual blank expression.

Derby frowned. “Rainy, you need to stop volunteering extra time! You need just as much sleep as all the rest of us, you know? And besides that, tonight is a terrible night for you to stay late.”

“I know that, but I didn’t volunteer. Why is tonight terrible for it?”

“I need somepony to talk to, and that can’t really be your sister,” Derby sighed, turning her gaze a hint away. “What if you just took a break real quick? Just a few minutes to keep a sad little mare company in this stupid weather.”

“I don’t think they’d let me,” Raindawn said.

Derby glared at him, but the expression was harmless. “Well, what is it that’s such a big deal with all you guards?”

“Corpse eaters.”

Derby paused. “How many?”

“Two, now.”

Derby clapped a hoof over her mouth.

“Yeah,” Raindawn said. He laid a hoof on Derby’s shoulder, meeting her gaze squarely. “Seems like they need everypony tonight. Just let my sister know so she’s ready to get home before the bell, will you?”

“Of course,” Derby muttered.

“And if you can swing by my mom’s place tomorrow, just to make sure she’s keeping all right during all of this,” Raindawn added.

“Of course I will,” Derby repeated.

“Also my brother, by extension.”

“Obviously!” Derby snapped, stamping her hoof back into the mud with a splotch. “I mean, if he’s even there. He was just looking for somepony back at the tavern, all tough and serious. Who knows where in Ponyville he’ll be gallivanting tomorrow.”

“So that’s what happened,” Raindawn said. “Well, he’s always been good at doing things he shouldn’t be doing. Also good at saying those things. I bet he’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, maybe he will,” Derby said, snorting a little as she rolled her eyes. “But, Rainy, forget about him a minute—what if all the corpse eaters are coming from Canterlot now? The headmaster’s already gone. Who’s going to fight them?”

Raindawn shrugged, though not without a small frown of his own. “Might be a whole invasion. Or maybe not. Either way, we’ll do what we can.”

Derby patted a hoof on his shoulder next.

“Rainy,” she said, “don’t let them keep you too late. Okay?”

“I’m sure they won’t,” Raindawn said. He smiled, patting his tie again. “And don’t let this weather get you down—it’s not that bad yet, I guess.”

Though the rain remained steady, the mud on the roads was getting worse. Ponyville was hardly Manehattan—the mayor had been promising cobblestone for the whole town for over a year, but enough money for such a wide project never seemed to gather at once. Line pulled his hat closer over his face and muttered further obscenities to himself as he splotched back onto the road he came from, now heading north.

Applejack was looking for family, which meant she’d be heading for Sweet Something Something. That’s how Line remembered its name. She’d either gotten lost, or she’d found exactly her destination. Neither option was better than the other. He’d try the shorter one first, which meant heading for the farm, maybe running into her on her way back. How he’d introduce himself this time, he didn’t—

Line paused as he looked at the ground. Though his previous tracks in the mud were already getting filled in by the rain, a fresher set was impressed, step for step, next to his. Line pulled his neck around slowly, following the trail, and saw them clearly going around the very next corner after the turn Line had taken toward the Light.

He sighed through his frown, then yelled, “What, they send a freshpony after me? This s’posed to be a message? Y’all are amateurs!”

It was only another second until a head poked out from around the bend, a raven-coated mare grinning easily. “Not amateur, just tired of skulking around on such a miserable night.”

As the mare trotted around the corner, matching her hoofprints with the ones already set, Line rolled his eyes. “I suppose y’all set a pair of eyes on all of us, then?”

“You know that,” the mare said, grunting as she stepped high, “—but they don’t. You don’t want to tell them, either. Sounds like they have some—oof—really interesting stuff to do, and nopony wants them to get nervous and start watching their backs while they’re doing it.”

“That’s the most half-assed threat I’ve ever heard,” Line said.

“That’s not what I’m here for!” the mare sputtered, reaching him after several long seconds. “I already know who you’re looking for, and wanted to let you know she’s already in jail. For the love of every god, just head straight there so we can both get out of the rain.”

Line pushed his hat back up, lifting his chin the same. “What the hell you lock her up for?”

“I’m not even supposed to be talking to you,” the mare said. “It’s not even supposed to be obvious that somepony was following you. If you’re not surprised when you get there, what does that make me look like?”

“I’ve had enough of these goddamn surprises today!” Line cried, shoving his face toward hers.

The mare smirked without flinching. “Well, tough shit. Let’s get going.”

Line snorted and spun himself back around, splashing through the mud at a canter. The raven mare hurried behind, following in his wider hoofprints, but splotched herself dirtier with every step. She scowled. “Oh—oh, goddammit.”

The jail was along the same road Line was already headed down. It was right next to the school, in the center of town, sort of—the whole school campus actually was the center of town, including the jail. Line was just passing the dormitories on the edge of the campus, but most students were already back inside them.

Line hesitated at the next bend in the road. Staring at the street for a moment, he turned in an alley between the dorms instead. Water from the gutters dripped harder on him, right on the back of his neck, but he bore with it. Evening classes were in session, and he’d have to pass by the classroom windows if he took the main street.

The raven pony was long out of sight by the time he had gotten back on a main road and reached the jail, though he noticed such with only a glance back. He shored up his hat and banged on the door. After half a minute and one more heavy knock, the lock clicked and the door opened to another mare, her hoof extended loosely on the door.

“Who’d you put in here earlier?” Line said.

The mare’s fur was a dirty pink. She raised her hoof to her face, black eyes drooping, and rubbed her temple. “Is that your way of asking me something nicely?”

Line lowered his head and sighed. “Can I come in, at least?”

Still rubbing, the mare stepped aside. Line trotted inside and removed his hat first, giving it a good shake before plopping it farther back over his mane. The only other pony there was another colt who was set up behind one of two large desks in the office, dull gray eyes resting easy, his muddled brown rump slumping in a well-worn chair and his hind legs on the desk.

“What do you want this late, Lining?” the colt grunted, stretching his forelegs behind his neck.

Line glanced toward a door in the back of the room. “Y’all locked somepony up today, right? Where is she?”

The mare jailor peered deeper outside before shutting the door. Turning back to Line, she said, “From who to where just like that. What happened to a ‘Hey, fellas, how y’all folks doin’ this fahhhn evenin’?”

Both the jailors grinned even as Line rolled his eyes, stepping up to the desk. He sighed, “Hello. Hi. Y’all been up to anything fun lately? Arrest anypony particularly int’restin’ today?”

“Define what you mean by interesting,” the colt jailor said.

“Lookin’ for an old friend,” Line said. “Heard she got into town today, and might have got into a scuffle at the gate. You’d know she was an out-of-towner.”

The colt jailor rolled out from his desk and hopped down, clopping around Line’s side. The mare jailor trotted around his other side until both of the pair were nearly hitched beside the cowboy.

“That does sound interesting,” the colt jailor said. “Yeah, I think we’ve got just who you’re looking for. We’ll let you see her. Follow us.”

They didn’t move. Line glanced between them both, though neither of them even blinked as they looked back at him. Line said, “Should I—”

“You go first,” the mare jailor said.

After a moment of hesitation, Line obliged. He nudged the door open ahead of the pair, both of them keeping a step behind him, and immediately in the room beyond was a slatted wooden chair. It was in the middle of a long row of cells, just a small corridor leading in front of all the cells.

“Down the left,” the colt jailor said, nudging Line onward.

Line kept at an amble, though he peered a little ahead of himself. He passed two empty cells first, then a sleeping drunkard in the next, then he stopped. The jailors stopped behind him, the mare peering around beside Line into the cell. She grinned. “Oh, is this your friend?”

Zecora looked back at all of them, glancing from one to the next. As her gaze lingered on Line, he looked from her to the chain hanging above her and said, “Not quite who I’m lookin’ for, no.”

He moved to the next cell out of sight from the zebra, and he stopped at it as well. This time, the jailors moved to either side of the cell, the mare leaning against the bars on her side. She stared only at Line, grinning wider. “What do you think?”

An earth pony was slumped in the back of the cell, only one chain around her neck. Though that was all that secured her place in the cell, a muzzle was locked all the way around her head, her jaw locked up the tightest of anything. A deep splash of dried blood bathed her whole chin underneath, and a long drizzle streaked down to her ankle. She was awake, but her eyes were only half open. Line tried to meet them, but his gaze kept moving down with the blood.

“It’s crazier than it looks,” the colt jailor said. “She kicked a fucking hole through the east gate after the guard wouldn’t let her through. He says she took one look at the field outside and turned—just like that, went full bloodlust.”

“Couple reinforcements came after the commotion,” the mare jailor said, “and you can guess what happened to them. They’re getting a few weeks off. Honestly? Wish I’d have been there to see it. What a show.”

Line’s hat had slipped over his face just a bit, but he didn’t think to correct it. He leaned a little closer to the bars, whispering, “A.J.?”

The jailors leaned over and glanced to each other behind Line, each raising half their brow, but Applejack didn’t respond at all. Her eyes were still downcast, and if she weren’t still staring at the floor, he’d have thought she was unconscious.

“A.J., you’re missing supper right now,” Line said. “Everypony’s at Fluttershy’s place, waiting for you. What do you think you’re doin’ in here?”

The mare jailor slapped a hoof on Line’s shoulder before leaning back onto the bars, saying, “She’s not getting out of here no matter how what kind of pep talk you give, you dumbass.”

Line looked back to the mare jailor. “What are you gonna do with her?”

“She’s dangerous,” the colt jailor answered for her. “Her execution’s a little before one o’clock tomorrow.”

“Your fault for getting attached to her. Shouldn’t have given her a name,” the mare jailor chuckled. “A.J., though. What does that stand for?”

Line stared at either a moment more, but looked straight back to Applejack without responding. He set one hoof on the bars and said, lowering his tone, “Listen to me. Just listen to this. Fluttershy can’t see you like this, okay? It’s been a long goddamn time and she’s always missed you. She’s gone through too much already to see you this broken. You need to pick yourself up proper now.”

Even as hard as Line stared at her, Applejack only blinked. With a growing roughness in his voice, Line continued, “You owe your friends better than this, A.J. Fluttershy’s not just gonna forget about you if I stop mentioning your name for a couple of days—she’s relying on you now. I would sooner die than let my mother see you like this, you understand?”

Applejack looked up at him, though the look in her eyes remained distant. The other mare, beside Line, pulled just a little closer to him as she inspected him rather than her prisoner. Breaking his gaze, Line whipped it to the jailor again and cried, “What?”

The mare’s eyes were narrowed carefully. Eyeing the other jailor for a moment before looking back to Line, she said, “You’re not very good at this sort of thing.”

Line said, “What are you talkin’ about now?”

“Hiding things, planning escapes,” the colt jailor answered. “How’d you say you know her again?”

Despite a faint blush in his cheeks, Line scowled and said, “Oh, for godsake—this is fuckin’ Applejack, you dipshits! This is the Element of Honesty, back from the goddamn grave, raised by the zebra you already got locked up in here! There you go. You been introduced.”

The colt and the mare said nothing, but their faces both changed the same as they each offered crooked brows. Zecora remained silent from the next cell. The colt jailor rubbed his chin and said, “Well, we both thought she looked kind of familiar.”

“Really? None of your guards recognized her?” Line sputtered, swinging a hoof wide. “No one in your whole school saw her from a picture and just went, ‘Hey, I think I seen this mare before’? Gods, what the hell did y’all even get educated for?”

The mare jailor shrugged. “History bored us. We both liked politics more.”

Line rolled his eyes and turned back to the bars, opening his jaw to growl something more, but stopped as he saw Applejack with a different look in her eyes. She wasn’t staring back at him anymore, but at something just above him. Though she stayed still, she was crying. Line glanced up, but saw nothing—except the brim of his hat. He lowered his gaze again.

“I’ve felt the shit you’re going through, y’know,” he said. “I lost somepony too important to possibly lose, but I stayed strong for the family I didn’t lose.”

Though not even Applejack’s jaw quivered, her eyes narrowed through her tears. Line put a hoof to his hat, pushing it over his ears again, and continued, “This used to be yours. You can’t have it back ‘til you pull yourself the hell together, get the hell out of here, and sit down for one lousy dinner with my mother.”

The colt jailor nudged Line next. “Her execution will be held in the plaza. If you’re willing to kill yourself staging a rescue, you’ve got about half an hour after she gets pulled out of here until she’s all gone.”

“You won’t be able to get her before then,” the mare jailor added. Her grin lessened. “This is a valuable job to us. We’re not willing to let you fuck it up for us just because she’s famous, capiche?”

Line sighed, but it wasn’t he who spoke next. From the next cell over, Zecora called, “Do not attempt a rescue for her, Silver Lining.”

The mare jailor glanced back and said, “Oh, so now she speaks again. You still have your way with the ladies, Line.”

Line glanced between Applejack to the bars of the other cell. Without any protest from Applejack, Line wandered around the mare jailor to Zecora’s cell. He tipped his hat.

“Not sure we really made introductions yet,” he said, “but I guess you already got my name. You’re Zecora, right?”

Zecora stood just as straight as earlier, her chin held high. With a slight jangling from her chains, she said, “Leave both your friend and I to our current fates. Your intentions are already far too clear.”

Line raised an eyebrow. “And what are they gonna do with you?”

Zecora looked past the edge of her cell where the mare jailor smirked. “I do not wish to chat here, Silver Lining. My trust does not extend as far as—”

A clanging interrupted her—the clanging of a bell, the time between each sounding precise, echoing deep and clear despite the wet night they clanged through. Zecora looked toward the direction of the door. The jailors both stood erect toward the same direction, all grins gone, and Line glanced the same way, but looked quickly back to Zecora as she looked back to him.

“If you trust these two,” she said, meeting his eyes, “trust me as well. Go help your other friends.”

Line said nothing in return, but shook his head slowly at her. He moved back around the mare jailor to Applejack’s cell, pushing close to the bars again. Even as the clanging continued, he muttered to her, “Whatever happens, you just be ready to say hello to my mother again with a big smile.”

Applejack’s tears had stopped, and she seemed to be looking through him again. Line pulled himself back even as the mare jailor stepped closer, ushering him away from the bars. “That’s just about as much cheese as we can take tonight, Lining. Thanks anyway for the gossip.”

Line pushed her hoof away and said, “Just don’t tell the headmaster or whoever. Scheme all you want, but keep it to yourself at least ‘til I got a plan.”

“We’re jailors, not snitches,” the colt jailor said. “Her execution will be in the plaza by the school. Do what you want.”

The clanging continued. Line said, “What, y’all are gonna hold an execution during an attack?”

The jailors glanced at each other with the same smirk. The mare answered, “We’re not worried about corpse eaters, Lining. We just follow orders. That said, it’s time for you to go.”

Taking another look into the cell, Line frowned as he saw Applejack already having lowered her gaze. The jailors nudged him away, but he paused at Zecora’s cell again. To a smirk from at least two in his audience, he bade, “I don’t trust ‘em.”

With a click of the lock behind them as Line led them back into the office, the jailor colt tossed the keys back onto his desk before plopping himself behind it again. Line was escorted to the front door by the mare. A gust whipped inside as she opened it, but only Line flinched.

“Stay safe, Lining,” the colt at the desk said, relaxing his hind hooves over his paperwork.

Line nodded back to him, then to the mare, and with a tip of his hat said, “Rock. Frills. I’ll be seein’ y’all tomorrow.”

Frills, the mare beside him, swept her hoof out and over her chest in a silly bow. She pulled herself back up even quicker, still smirking. “Better not.”

Line pulled his hat tighter and waded back into the dark toward his home. He stopped immediately, turning to the miserable raven pony huddled right beside the door to the jail.

Frills leaned her head outside, glancing down the same. The raven pony didn’t meet either of their gazes, only staring forward through a deep frown. Frills looked back up from her to Line, and before slamming the door shut, bade, “Have a safe night, ladykiller.”

The clanging continued. Rainbow Dash lay awake on the floor in Fluttershy’s living room in a little head-to-head-to-head formation beside Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie, eyes wide open. Her forelegs were tucked over her blankie, one of a spare few Fluttershy had kept from years ago, her hind hooves—well, her knees poking out from the other end. She rolled her head over toward one of the others.

“Sure seems like Fluttershy goes to bed early,” Rainbow whispered.

Twilight wiggled her hooves over the floorboards. “Mm-hmm.”

The clanging went on. Rainbow rolled her gaze back to the ceiling.

“That was a nice meal, though,” Twilight said next.

Pinkie brushed her hooves outward, crossing them behind her head. “She’s a really great cook!”

It wasn’t like it was just the bell going at that point or anything. There were also some crickets just outside the window, which at that distance were actually quite loud. They had a peaceful rhythm going, though; something suitable for the wet night. It complemented the bell. And still it clanged.

“You think that means anything important? The clanging? I wonder if that’s important,” Rainbow whispered.

“Probably the signal for curfew,” Twilight said.

“Oh, yeah,” Rainbow said. “Hope the kid gets back soon.”

As easy as it was to say the bell clanged on, it had been going for several minutes now. Someone was having a bit too much fun clanging for that late at night.

Rainbow shifted her hooves over her blankie, flattening out the wrinkles again. She glanced back over. “Do you think we still sleep?”

“I really don’t think we do,” Twilight said.

Pinkie rolled her head over toward toward the others. “I haven’t slept in a whole year now!”

All three of them sat up, twisting around in a circle. Twilight sat the straightest, though she ducked back a moment to pull her own spare blankie over her shoulders. She tightened her gaze on the other two, keeping her voice low as she said, “Okay then, I think we should talk about our plan for tomorrow. We still have a lot to do, and probably not much time to do it, so let’s start discussing it now. We can fill in Applejack when she gets back.”

Rainbow plopped onto her flank, leaning back on her forelegs. “What are we supposed to talk about? Every part of our plan is improv.”

“Which is exactly why we should discuss it now,” Twilight said. “To speed up the process.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “We’re just gonna rummage around your library until we find a book that can help us out, Twi. How are we supposed to speed that up by brainstorming now?”

“And we’ve still got to break out Zecora,” Pinkie said, voice still a pitch higher than the others’. “After we find where she’s being held prisoner, learn the rotation of her guards’ schedule, design an escape route, make a big decoy Zecora doll, replace Zecora with that doll, then spirit Zecora away without the guards catching on for long enough that we can come back and get Fluttershy but only after having another yummy dinner in her cute little new house. Honestly, did you girls feel this carpeting? She’s got carpeting! It feels so good!”

Twilight’s head sank a bit as Pinkie fell back and made a carpet angel. Twilight sighed, “Well, what do you two suggest we do, then?”

“All I’m saying is that we can chill out for now,” Rainbow said with a grin. “We’ve got the whole night ahead of us. We can talk about whatever we want. I mean, it’s been a long time since we were together again, right? I bet we all have some stories to tell.”

Twilight slipped a bit of a smile in return, perking her chin up. “I guess you’re right. I didn’t mean to keep everything so tense, girls, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t even apologize,” Rainbow said. “That’s the whole point.”

Pinkie stopped in a few more seconds, sitting back up. She glanced between the other two, taking in the moment while everyone remained quiet. She sniffed. Rainbow leaned over, patting a hoof on her friend’s shoulder.

Everyone was smiling again, not just grinning. Rainbow said, “Do you two want to hear about the time I made out with Applejack’s brother?”

Pinkie raised her hoof. “Yes!”

Twilight widened her eyes. “What?”

The front door swung open just then and Silver Lining stepped through onto the welcome mat, wiping his hooves several times and removing very little mud from them. He glanced down at the mares and said, “Whatever the hell you were just discussin’, forget about it. We’ve got to talk.”

To Be Continued

A Name Like One Other

Another colt, saddled full with bags and pots and blankets, smiled big and bright as he arrived near Ponyville. The dawn was just breaking, and though clouds remained poised on the edge of the horizon, the rain had ceased for the moment. He breathed in deep the fresh morning air, even through a shuttered gaze and a strain in his back.

The name of this colt was utterly useless. This colt had no horn, but he stayed cheerful despite what little use he was. Rather than march down into town, he paused where he stood at the top of the farthest visible hill from it, tilting his gaze to his right, out of the sun, toward a mare he had stopped just beside.

“Oh, hey, need me to carry that for you? I can, if you want,” he said through a muffled grunt, lifting his shoulders a bit. “Not a big deal for me. I’ve still got a pretty light load.”

The mare beside him had only a pair of small saddlebags slung over her back, closer to her rear than what was the normal fashion. A huge pair of amber-lensed sunglasses were perched beneath her horn, covering nearly half her face. Only the frown seared under them was visible of her expression.

“I mean, in case you want me to,” the colt said. “I know this stuff looks heavy, but it’s really not for me.”

“I carry my own things,” the mare said.

Her gaze remained fixed. The mare had been there all night, but even she wasn’t the first there on the hill—over a dozen more ponies surrounded both her and the colt. She lay on all four knees, chin raised high, but she stared at Ponyville without distraction.

Hiking up his load again, the colt said, “I know, I know, but just in case you—”

He stopped as the mare gazed toward him. Her fur was pure white, though splashed and specked with mud, and her mane flowed away from the rest of her body despite the weight of the rain in it, streaks of fluorescent blue winding through all the wispy gray. She didn’t lower her sunglasses. Although her tone was on the edge of a growl, she enunciated every word as she said, “You have picked an absolutely horrible day to attempt making small talk with me. Shut the fuck up.”

The colt turned his eyes the fuck away. “Okay, Miss Sparkle. I’m sorry.”

Regalia Sparkle looked back to Ponyville, gaze shifting only between all the distant little ponies perched on its wall, watching her right back. She said, “How many are here now?”

Peering around their camp for her, the colt took only a peek back at her as he said, “Well, with me here, now it’s sixteen. Thirteen soldiers, including you, Miss Sparkle.”

Regalia scowled, but her voice was calm again. “Set up breakfast anyway. We mustn’t let everypony get too hungry.”

Rampant

Ponyville, Part Four

Ch. 5: A Name Like One Other

Rainbow shifted her weight onto her other side as she loitered by the front door, her face long since hanging limp. Pinkie reserved a similar expression, even her constant thrill waning as she lay on all fours, hooves pressed into her cheeks. Twilight just sighed between them. Line was the only one helping his mother pack.

Fluttershy slid one more picture into her saddlebags, still wiping away her tears. She flipped through several frames already inside, though with how little room was left between them, she couldn’t really see the pictures. She mumbled nonetheless as she checked them. Line watched from behind, looking at everything else in her bags.

“All right, Ma, any more and the weight’s gonna tire you out. You sure all those are the pictures you really want to bring?” Line said.

Fluttershy paused for several seconds, then lowered herself back to the bag as she rummaged again. “Yes, I—I think I packed the most important pictures.”

Line stepped up to her and put his hoof on her shoulder. “Let’s go ahead and close up them bags, then. We still got a lot else to do today.”

He smiled as Fluttershy looked up to him. She didn’t return the gesture, but she put a hoof on his cheek as she looked just below his eyes. “Oh, Silver, look at you. How much sleep did you get last night? You can stay here while the girls and I go to the library first, if you need to, just to get some more sleep.”

Line pulled her hoof away, saying, “Gods, Ma, I should be tellin’ you that. You’re old enough that it’s my job to care for you now, y’know? You ain’t so young for these kinds of adventures anymore.”

Fluttershy wiped at her eyes again, but her little frown broke as she grinned back at her son. She reached over and gave him the biggest hug an old mare could give, eyes clenched shut. Line pulled his momma in the same, one leg back around her, but turned his face away from the other three as a blush came over him. None of them offered a fuck anyway.

As Fluttershy eventually let go of him, Line stepped back and said, “Any-way, it really is time to get a move on. We got a schedule to keep.”

Rainbow made a small hoof pump which Twilight smacked away. Pinkie just rolled over onto her back, letting her legs dangle mostly above her.

“Oh, wait, oh—I forgot one of the most important pictures!” Fluttershy said, turning back to the stairs. “I have to get it first, just wait—”

Line bowed and shook his head as Fluttershy hobbled back up to her room, Twilight shoving a hoof over Rainbow’s mouth before the pegasus could say what she was really feeling. Fluttershy came back down one step at a time just a minute later, however, with one last frame tucked in between her lips. Line stepped back over to her bags, pulling the flap back for her, but rather than packing it, she walked up to the other mares and set the frame down in front of them.

“This is my husband,” Fluttershy said with only a faint smile. “I was never able to introduce him to you girls. I always wanted to.”

The trio leaned down to it, except for Pinkie, who peered at it upside down. The photograph was of a colt with a filly over his back, smiling straight into the camera, a cheeky grin immortalized under gray eyes. Fluttershy put a hoof on top of the frame and murmured, “I keep this one on my nightstand, and it’s the most important picture to me, because I don’t have my husband anymore. I told Silver that I love all of his pictures just as much, but I still have Silver, and I don’t have my husband anymore….”

Rainbow’s expression softened back into a smile. “Aw, look at that. You got yourself a good-looking colt, Fluttershy!”

“You must have been so cute together!” Pinkie cooed.

Twilight pointed above the colt and asked, “But who’s that little filly playing on top of him?”

Behind Fluttershy, Line shook his head hard and fast at the mares. Twilight raised one eyebrow at him, but Fluttershy didn’t notice. Fluttershy just lowered her head, saying, “That’s Silver’s eldest sister. She was never very happy in our house, but… I tried very hard to make it happy for her. Silver says it wasn’t my fault, but I wish I could have done something to make her stay. I haven’t seen her in such a long time.”

“Oh,” Rainbow said, glancing from Line to Fluttershy. “That, uh, really sucks. But hey, we’ve still got a mission to focus on, right? Let’s get out of here.”

Fluttershy’s head jolted back up, and she moved her hoof back over her mouth for a moment. Her eyes lit up with a frown. “Oh, my goodness, you’re right. Applejack is still waiting for our help. Silver, dear, help me put on my saddlebags!”

Though it took another minute to pack and re-check all the frames, Line hoisted Fluttershy’s bags over her carefully, not letting go until the weight had settled over her. After plopping his hat back on, he slung his own bag over himself with a hard thunk as Fluttershy trotted up to the other mares. Pinkie rolled back onto her hooves by Twilight’s side as Line turned toward everyone.

“All right, any questions gotta come now. No talking outside—we keep quiet ‘til we’re back indoors. Even if our tail don’t bust us for breaking daytime curfew, any other student out there that sees us will.”

Twilight raised her hoof and said, “What if those, uh—corpse eaters, right? What will happen if they attack soon?”

“Might be attackin’ now,” Line said. “Hardly matters. We ain’t part of the militia, so we won’t be fightin’ ‘em.”

Rainbow didn’t raise her hoof, but said anyway, “You think they might get through? They sound kind of bada—uh—bad… bad. They sound tough.”

Fluttershy looked only a little confused. Line said, “Don’t you worry about them. If anything good’s come outta that wall the school built, it’s keepin’ corpse eaters out. The school knows how to fend ‘em off right, even if they ain’t good for nothing else.”

Pinkie raised her hoof next, wiggling it in the air, but waited until Line nodded at her to speak. She said, “I don’t have any questions!”

Line rolled his eyes, then glanced back around the group as he pulled his hat down further. “All right, remember—we stay quiet out there.”

“Hardly a challenge,” Rainbow said, stretching out her forelegs and flexing her wings. “I don’t know if you remember or not, but we’re actually pretty good adventurers. Moving quietly ain’t no thang.”

Splotch. Splitch. Splotch.

The rain was still away, but its gift to the earth remained. Twilight walked just behind Line, but she could barely reduce the noise even walking in his wider hoofprints. The only one in the troupe not marching directly in mud was Rainbow, flying at their formation’s flank, but she wore the same deep frown as most everyone below.

The noise was compounded by Pinkie as she bounced ahead of everyone else, smiling and humming despite every splash. Rainbow swooped over and grabbed her, letting her dangle over the mud as they went on. Pinkie eyes remained bright even though they were closed, still humming.

Even through several crossroads back around the center of town, the group passed not even another echo. The houses they passed remained fully closed, their windows shut, their shades drawn. No one even peeked at their progress.

Line paused everyone as he held out a hoof before Twilight, stopping just before the next corner. He leaned out from it hat first, eyes darting around for several seconds before he lowered his hoof again. He stayed quiet, but said, “Looks like we made it all right.”

He trotted ahead again, all the others but Twilight following. Twilight cantered ahead of them instead, neck already craning upward as the last vestige of good old Ponyville met her sight: her library.

“Finally back home,” she sighed. “And it’s—uh…”

Her slight grin faded further as her gaze kept wandering around the exterior. She stopped in the middle of the road as she said, “Well, it’s almost like I remember it.”

The branches drooped a bit more than she remembered, granted, but the tree was still standing after twenty years. The leaves were a bit gone, too, but the wood hadn’t rotted or anything. The windows were all shattered, except for one that was merely smeared in dust. That was a fine-looking window otherwise. The sign out front was missing, the candle painted on the door had peeled, and the balconies had slightly collapsed—except not really slightly, but completely.

“Yikes,” Rainbow said, eyeing the glass in the dirt. “That kind of sucks. I’ll bet the town kept up Rarity’s boutique just fine, too, while they let the library get wrecked like this.”

“Still got to stay quiet,” Line said. “You’ll get to see, though—the school does all its big public events right out in front of Rarity’s old place. Executions, for instance.”

Wriggling out of Rainbow’s grasp, Pinkie grabbed her own knees in front of her chest nd she cannonballed back into the mud with a horrendous splash. Hinie flat on the earth, she raised a dripping hoof and opened her mouth wide—pausing as she turned to the glares of both Line and Twilight, fully splattered just a meter from her.

“That’s fine,” Twilight muttered, shaking off a single hoof. “I’m sure he didn’t mean too quiet or anything. It’s fine.”

Pinkie lowered her hoof and instead whispered to Line, even then straining her vocal chords, “I just wanted to say that you make this sound so exciting!”

Fluttershy was already at the doorstep, unmuddened. She shoved at the door twice, wincing with each push, before turning back to the rest of the group. “I think it’s locked. Oh, how will we get in now?”

Though still soaked, Line shook off what he could and stepped up first, ushering his mother aside as he put his forehooves upon the door. He grunted, shoving much harder than Fluttershy, and pulled back after another few seconds. With a glance back to the other mares and a nod at the door, he said, “All right then, girls, time for a little teamwork. Come on up.”

As Rainbow landed beside him, smirking, she said, “Well, that doesn’t make me worry about what’s on the other side at all.”

Line furrowed his brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing scary or dangerous at all,” Pinkie said, already by Line’s other side. She hopped against the door. “Now push!”

The three of them pressed into the door, the hinges creaking against their strain, just barely budging—and their legs wavered as their hind hooves scraped backward. Line shoved himself lower, putting his shoulders into it. Another creak met them, but the struggle ended in vain as their legs gave out at the same time, all three of them collapsing against the door in a heap.

Watching from behind, Twilight was still cleaning herself off. Wiping what she could out of her mane, she rolled her eyes in between narrowing them as she pointed toward a panel at the side of the door. “See that?”

Everyone looked at the panel.

“You press that,” Twilight said.

Rainbow reached up and pressed the panel. With a quieter creak, the door clicked open just a bit. Line pulled his hat down a little further, grunting as he and the others stepped back off the porch so Rainbow could pull it open all the way.

“Different mechanisms nowadays,” Line muttered.

Twilight rolled her eyes and just whispered, “Wipe your hooves on the porch!”

Line was already the last one in besides her, offering only a quick scrape of each hoof as more mud slipped off his back anyway. Twilight grumbled as she shook off her hind legs with each step forward, wiping for several seconds at the porch, but she paused before the library’s threshold.

She looked up again around the branches for a moment more. She took a deep breath and lifted her chin. Straightening her back, she trotted inside and said, “All right, we only have time to check the medical titles, so everypony grab—”

Twilight looked around, the same as everyone else. Nothing was there. The shelves were there, of course, even the table, even her rug, but those were nothing—her books were all gone. Every shelf was empty. Her whole face curled. “What the hell?”

Line turned back and put a hoof to his mouth, hissing, “Gods, shut the door first!”

Flowerpots were still there, her bed was still there, the curtains were still there—the ladder, the telescope, her pedestal—Twilight looked back at her shelves in between glancing everywhere else, finding no books. Even as Pinkie nudged right behind her, pressing the door closed again, Twilight repeated, “Who the hell took all my books?”

“Oh, no,” Fluttershy said, looking around much slower. “I have no idea who would do such a thing, but this is horrible!”

“Guess all the books got borrowed,” Line said, pulling his hat off for a quick shake. “It’s a public library, right?”

“Yes,” Twilight said, “my public library!”

Rainbow flapped by one of the upper shelves, wiping a hoof over the surface. Inspecting her hoof, she said, “Whoever took them, it was a long time ago. This dust is pretty thick.”

“Damn it!” Twilight said, stomping one leg. “The school must have taken them, the rotten thieves, pilfering a perfectly good collection for their own ill-gotten gain! Silver, where would they have taken them?”

“Gods, I don’t know where they put that kind of stuff,” Line said. “‘Sides, the school don’t need your stuff. They don’t even use books to teach much—”

“How would you know?” Twilight said, taking a step closer as she faced him down. “You said you never even went there! You have no idea how they teach their curriculums, so how the—how the damn hell would you know if they took my collection?”

“Twilight,” Fluttershy said, putting a hoof over her friend’s shoulder. “Please, calm down.”

Twilight looked back at her. Fluttershy’s jaw was set firm, even though the same kind of concern as before shone through the wrinkles around her eyes. She rubbed Twilight’s shoulder and said, “Getting angry is the easy thing to do, Twilight, but that won’t help us. You’re the smartest of us all, too, so I think you should use that mind for something better right now, okay?”

Twilight shook her head, but didn’t pull away. “But it’s just—this is—it just feels like a low blow, darn it… no matter how tough it got, this was our bastion. We came here for times exactly like this, and now we have nowhere to turn. We still don’t know anything useful about the bloodlust!”

“If it makes you feel better, I remember a couple of times your library was totally, completely useless,” Pinkie said, “and we had to ask Zecora for help instead. Not even your books had all the answers back then!”

“Thank you,” Twilight said with a slump, glowering back at Pinkie. “That would make me feel a lot better if only Zecora wasn’t in jail and she hadn’t already said she doesn’t know a thing about the bloodlust.”

Rainbow flapped back around and landed by the others, saying, “Okay, I have a plan. It might sound crazy at first, but just hear me out: what if we coltnap the mayor instead?”

Everyone else turned to her, but no one responded. Rainbow looked back at them all one at a time even as they continued to stare at her. As soon as she opened her mouth to speak again, Line said, “That’s even dumber than what we already got, and you’re dumb for thinkin’ it.”

“I don’t feel that would be very wise, or even really effective…” Fluttershy muttered.

Even Pinkie’s voice remained flat. “There’s no way at all we could ever take him. He is super big.”

Rainbow frowned in turn at all of them. Twilight sighed, bowing her head and collecting her breath, then looking back to the others as she said, “I guess it was a long shot that we’d find anything about the bloodlust here, anyway; I don’t recall reading anything about it that might be similar. Considering that, our next hope is figuring out where exactly it started. We’ll have to be able to learn more there. So, for now, let’s just keep our current plan.”

“And with that,” Line said, raising an open foreleg, “let’s get us a big group hug to kick out the doldrums!”

Fluttershy embraced him without question, smiling, but the other mares paused. Line raised his brow and his other foreleg, saying, “Hey, I’m serious. Gimme some fur here.”

Pinkie joined the circle next, wiggling in and nestling a hoof around Fluttershy, and Twilight and Rainbow joined in after a further moment of hesitation. The latter two held their face further away from the group hug even as Line leaned in, nodding to the left and whispering, “We can’t come up with a new plan now anyway. Got eyes and ears on us through the windows.”

“Really?” Pinkie said, turning the direction of his hint. Line grabbed her by the head and yanked her back into the huddle, almost toppling the others as he did. Peeking through from the other side of the window, another head ducked just as quickly, grabbing with it the raven-maned head of someone else.

“Mmm, this is a good hug,” Line said aloud, patting those around him. “Let’s just keep this going a minute more, I like this.”

Even as Twilight restrained a grimace toward Line, pulling farther away from him, she whispered, “Let’s just go save Applejack. I’m confident in the plan we’ve already got.”

“Fine, okay,” Rainbow muttered, going with the sway as Line kept jostling the hug. She looked to Twilight. “But stage fright’s no joke, okay? I’m just saying. It’s not a big deal to me, but I’m just saying you might not expect how the pressure keeps piling on itself until you feel crushed with—”

“Okay, thanks, that was a good hug,” Line announced, a stumble reverberating through the group as he released everyone. “So, anyway, our plan. I think we should just keep movin’, then. No objections from y’all others?”

“I think that it’s for the best,” Fluttershy said, still smiling as Pinkie didn’t let go of their individual hug.

Rainbow rolled her eyes as she stepped back, taking a couple of flaps before hopping into the air again. She crossed her forelegs, saying, “Well, we’ve at least got a Plan B now. Just saying.”

Pinkie pumped her other hoof high into the air as she giggled, “Then let’s get the last part of this part of the adventure going!”

Line laid a hoof on her shoulder, and she looked back to him even while keeping her hoof suspended. He looked upon her with a softer gaze and said, “Seriously, you got to shut up.”

All surfaces were scrubbed clean, shinier than the mayor’s own beard after every time a corpse came through the morgue, but the odor from today persisted through all the scrubbing. Posh Virtue winced his nostrils under the wettened cloth levitating over his lower face, his gaze sharp on the table in the center of the morgue.

“Now see if you can raise one hoof over your head. Good. Now the other—good,” the mortician said, standing in front of Virtue and looking at one of her corpses. “Now hop off this table. There you go. I want you to walk in a straight line from one end of the room to the other, okay?”

There were only four ponies in the room: Virtue, his guard, the mortician, and a body. Virtue watched only the body as it pushed itself off from the inspection table with nary a wobble.

“How many years—how long has it been now?” the corpse asked, its mouth now moving without struggle.

“You’ve been dead only a month, Jenkins, don’t be so melodramatic,” the mayor said, gaze darting between each muscle flexing in the corpse’s walk. “Just be grateful there was a suitable body available for you at all.”

“I’m grateful, sure, but it’s still sad that I’m walking around in my brother’s body,” the corpse said, turning a bit slowly at the end of the room. “I mean, that’s pretty sad, me and my brother dying within a month of each other. It’s like we both had the same tragic destiny—at least a mini one. And what’s the purpose? Was I brought back for a special mission?”

The mayor harrumphed. “Gods no.”

“Oh,” the corpse said. “Then, am I just going back to my regular shifts on the—”

“Jenkins, while of course I hope you had a nice rest, there’s no need for us to get chatty right now. This is business.”

The corpse pouted. The mortician leaned down and checked a clipboard hanging off the side of the table, glancing back to the corpse after each line. As she stood back up, she said, “Well, as officially as it counts, I guess I pronounce you alive again. Time is eleven hours and thirty-six minutes. Congratulations.”

Virtue wrinkled his nose again. “And with that, can you fix this putrid smell already?”

“Sure, with a shower,” the mortician said. “I’m not really as proficient as your zebra expert at this sort of thing yet.”

The mayor lowered his cloth, folding it like a pocket square as his frown soured further. “Fine, but it better not stick on me once I leave. Now come stand over here by me, Jenkins.”

The corpse rounded the end of the room again, returning faster to the middle even as he muttered, “I don’t think it’s that bad.”

Turning back a moment as the corpse stood before him, Virtue hovered the cloth over to his guard at the door, tossing it on his head. Upon looking back at the body, Virtue leaned away, then down, and stabbed his horn through the corpse’s throat.

The corpse rasped instantly, tumbling down as it pulled itself off from the mayor’s horn, scrabbling a hoof over his neck—but its panic slowed as it patted around the hole, no blood flowing onto its hoof nor coughed out of its mouth. Virtue leaned further down as he looked all over the corpse’s wound, saying, “It doesn’t appear that hurt, did it, Jenkins?”

The corpse looked back up at the mayor, eyes wide as they came, and shook its head just a little. Virtue tilted his head down again and plunged his horn through the corpse’s forehead, pulling it out himself this time a second later. The mayor straightened himself up, hovering his cloth back over as he wiped his horn. His frown dissipated. The corpse lay still again, eyes locked open.

The mortician leaned onto her knees as she checked the body again, one hoof beside the hole in its throat. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she said, “Time of new death, eleven hours and thirty-seven minutes.”

“I had a feeling that would do it,” Virtue said, grinning. “Second try—not bad, hmm? Now toss him back in a box.”

He turned to the door and trotted away, dropping the cloth back on his guard as he passed. Only once the mayor had passed did the guard shake it off, wincing as he followed the mayor out into the main hallway.

“Next on the agenda?” Virtue said, shaking his mane back a bit as he checked his reflection in the windows of other doors in the hall on his way out.

The guard stood up straighter even without the mayor looking at him. “The execution, sir, for that bloodlusted mare.”

Virtue’s horn glowed as he pushed open a set of double doors back into the morgue’s entry room. “The newcomers are going to it as well, correct?”

“Looks like it, sir,” the guard said. “Fluttershy and her son are leading the way for them around town, sir.”

“Damn shame they got involved,” Virtue said. “Can’t bring myself to be too harsh on her, but she was a bad influence on her boy. Breaking curfew, trying to save a mad criminal. Damn shame all around.”

The guard sped up a little to keep pace with the mayor. “They can be apprehended anytime you like, sir.”

“Oh, no, none of that,” Virtue said. “Whatever they’re planning is related to that goddamn zebra. I won’t give them the criminal or the zebra, but I will let them scurry about until we learn what the hell it is they’re really up to.”

A lab-coated student upstairs opened the front door for the mayor, but Virtue paused at the threshold before stepping out. Though a hooded and well-stocked carriage waited for him just outside, his grin ended as he looked to the sky and lifted a hoof out the door, retreating and shaking it off immediately.

His guard stepped out first and flapped open an umbrella, soaking his own flank as he waited for the mayor to exit. Despite the umbrella available to him, Virtue stayed another few seconds as he watched even heavier clouds taking their cue all along the horizon, the rain falling harder and louder than before as it pounded over the mud.

Virtue scowled. “I feel like this figures.”

The rain poured down in streams down the northern hill outside Ponyville. The meals were finished and the pots had already been put away. All the tents were still folded up over the backs of several pack bearers. Every pony there stood at attention behind Regalia, still laying at the front and center, watching.

Her sunglasses were perched the same as earlier, her mane still flowing through the weight of the rain. Without turning her gaze, she tilted her head to the left and asked, “How many are here now?”

The colt nearest her side, his pack shaking over his own shivering, said, “There’s, uh… there’s, uh, twenty-seven now. There’s twenty soldiers besides you, Miss Sparkle.”

Regalia unbent her forelegs from underneath herself, turning out her knees and pushing back up onto all fours, mud rolling slowly off her fur. She turned around to her soldiers, but it wasn’t just water and dirt splashed over them—dried blood still spattered their coats, every one of the unicorns’ mouths rimmed in red.

“There will be no new meals today from Ponyville. Should all go well, however, there will be rewards,” she called out, raising her chin high. “Now look alive, you curs.”

None responded, but all watched. Regalia turned back to Ponyville, gaze set forward. Her horn glowed not blue, but an intense orange, and in half a second the glow enveloped her whole body. With a flare and rush of wind, she disappeared in the light.

In the same rush, she burst onto the north gate around a dozen militia, all of them turning in the same long moment, gazes widening as they nearly fell over each other in a grab for their weapons. Regalia flitted her gaze past them to the largest pony there, a stallion standing twice as tall as nearly anyone else even at a slouch. Even the captain stared as wide as his fellows, though he made no scramble.

“What the hell are you doing here, Regalia?” he said, keeping his tone despite himself.

Regalia made no struggle as she let the militia surround her. She levitated her soaked sunglasses to a perch over her horn as she turned toward the captain, her orange eyes brightly recognizable even through the rain, and asked, “Where’s Twilight Sparkle?”

The Fight Feels Right

“What the hell is that even supposed to mean, Regalia?” the captain said, tucking his wings in over his back as he stepped around the rest of the militia on the wall. “Twilight Sparkle’s tomb is in Canterlot, not here.”

Regalia threw back her mane, releasing the few wisps of gray sticking to her damp fur. Her gaze was set upon the captain through narrow eyes.

“Funny story,” Regalia said. “I was just there; she wasn’t.”

The guards surrounding her kept a distance even at spear tip. She continued, “I know that your zebra’s here, I know that she brought the elements with her, and I know that your precious Purple Heart has already left. Captain, don’t hide my prize from me.”

“I told you she’s not even here. You’d really eat a twenty-year-old stiff for this cult bullshit?” the captain scoffed.

“This isn’t a conversation, you cretin,” Regalia said, stepping closer. “It’s an ultimatum: give me Twilight or I’ll burn this fucking little hamlet just like I did Canterlot.”

The captain stood straighter, the veins in his chest flexing involuntarily. He looked down at Regalia, his tone mustered as he said, “Nopony wants to kill you, Regalia, but every single pony here is willing to do the job if that’s what it takes. You need to retreat.”

Only the corners of Regalia’s lips lifted, her orange eyes turning brighter. She lowered her voice. “If you thought you could, captain, you would already have tried. You wait in fear instead.”

“Then tell me—”

The captain looked to the sky, the heaviest clouds still coming even as rain poured over his eyes.

“—how are you going to burn us in this?”

Without looking up the same, Regalia levitated her sunglasses back over her eyes, only the wet amber tint of her lenses meeting the captain’s gaze anymore. Just loud enough for him to hear, she whispered, “Thirty minutes. Hurry.”

Her horn glowed as a rush of wind burst around her again, and she vanished in another flare. The militia lowered their spears slowly, unevenly, as they all looked wide-eyed amongst each other.

One of the senior guards sidled up to the captain, patting his mustache quick and hard as he said, “Sir, that bit about the zebra—you think it was true? We’ve all heard some rumors through the grapevine recently, sir.”

“I don’t give a shit about the zebra,” the captain said. “Our job is keeping the bloodthirsty dipshits outside right where they are, nothing more. Now get me a flier you can spare from the defense—I have a mission for them.”

Rampant

Ponyville, Part Five

Ch. 6: The Fight Feels Right

At the forefront of Schoolhouse Plaza, built atop an old boutique at the forefront of the square, was the Rarity Memorial Building. A marble bell tower rose high over it, the spire hanging above all else in Ponyville. Applejack glanced up at it briefly from her constant inspection of the ground as she was walked to the gallows in the middle of the plaza.

The purple flowers sprinkled around the stage failed to bring a smile to her either, though her muzzle would hide it anyway. A small contingent from the militia were in position in front of the gallows, two lines standing at attention from each corner of the stage. Only three other guards led Applejack up the gallows, the steps creaking under each hoof. They stopped her right before the noose. She glanced at that, too, as they lifted it around her head.

The only other sound breaking through the rain was the approaching splashes of mud. Several larger colts galloped out from one of the wider streets into the plaza, the mayor’s carriage in tow. They rolled to a stop just by the stairs up the gallows, which Posh Virtue stepped out onto under a waiting umbrella. He walked up the steps, turning not to Applejack, but the two rows of students before him.

“Though I find it a true pity only such a small audience could bear witness today,” Virtue said, his mane swishing as he gestured a hoof wide, “our duty here remains not merely important, but vital. This criminal attacked your fellow students, nearly tried to kill them, all because she lost control of her higher self. She fell to bloodlust. Thus, her execution is a moral—”

“—Nope!”

The mayor paused, his hoof still high in the air. Silver Lining came around from the opposite street as Virtue, with Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie in tow. Though Line’s hat looked about ready to collapse under the rain’s battery, he strode right up the rows of militia with a cocky-ass grin. Line cried, “There’s nothin’ moral ‘bout it, Posh! Looks like we made it right on time.”

Virtue lowered his hoof and sighed. “Breaking curfew, interrupting an official ceremony, and acting like an ass, as always. What’s your excuse for this, Lining?”

“We came to stop you from makin’ a huge mistake,” Line said, matting the brim of his hat with a fresh coat of mud as he pushed it back. “That pony’s more important than you think.”

“Terrible excuse. I’m afraid you’re all under arrest.”

“—Nope!”

The mayor frowned as he looked toward the sky next, Rainbow Dash swooping down from around the bell tower with a smirk even shittier than Line’s, Twilight Sparkle clutched in the crooks of her legs. Rainbow dived toward the stage, too fast for any of the garrison to shield the mayor—and dropped Twilight on the other side of it, a meter away from Virtue. Before any of the students could scramble up to grab her, nor even the guards already on stage, Twilight turned to the crowd.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle!”

Virtue’s gaze remained the same upon her, but the students’ charge halted. Twilight looked around at each of them as she spoke.

“While I’m sure you all know Fluttershy and her son, the other ponies with me are Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie—and the pony you’re about to murder is Applejack! And despite that all sounding a little bit impossible, I admit—”

She turned her hoof to the mayor, looking him right in the eyes.

“—he knows it’s true. Zecora, the zebra you have in jail right now, brought us back from the grave to help Equestria one more time.”

All the militia turned their stare from Twilight to Virtue. The mayor shook his head with a tut, looking back only to Twilight as he said, “Complete poppycock. Boys, end this.”

Before Twilight could say anything more, the guard nearest to her lifted a hoof to her shoulder and pushed her off the gallows. Even as she splashed to the earth, sputtering and scrambling back around, another guard beside Applejack tightened the noose and gripped the lever by where she would be dropped. Fluttershy screamed, Line ran forward, Rainbow dived again—

—but no one got there in time. The boards beneath Applejack fell, and she dropped a breath after. Even as she let herself go, Applejack lifted her chin before the rope held taut—and she looked across to Fluttershy. As the rope reached its end, Applejack closed her eyes as her head tilted back involuntarily with a snap, her neck bouncing against the noose.

She opened her eyes again a second later, looking around as she dangled below the gallows. Twilight gaped back at her foremost, not even shaking the mud out of her mane. Applejack looked back down at herself, wiggling her hooves as she mumbled, “Oh.”

No one else moved. Some didn’t breathe. Even Fluttershy had paused her bawl, staring out from tear-soaked hooves cupped under her eyes. Pinkie just shrugged.

Though muffled through both her muzzle and the rain, Applejack said as well she could, “Sorry to worry y’all, I guess.”

“Oh,” Line repeated, his own hooves in the faces of the militia who had stopped his charge. “Uh, I knew that’d happen.”

Twilight turned to Virtue, who was only leering back down, a tic just visible in his eye. Pushing herself up, Twilight said, “Proof enough for you?”

The mayor narrowed his eyes.

“We came to bring peace back to Equestria,” Twilight continued, turning back to all the students on the ground with her. “That means stopping the bloodlust, and for that, we need help! I don’t think we can do it by just ourselves this time, but together we can all end this madness.”

“Heads up, Twilight!”

Rainbow was still circling above, but there was another pegasus in the sky diving toward the crowd. He slammed onto the gallows with all four hooves at once, right where Twilight had stood, rattling the whole platform. He straightened his tie before looking out to everyone, his face even straighter, and said, “Pardon me, sorry, I just need a moment with—”

“Rainy?”

Fluttershy was crying again, but she had some control back in her voice. Raindawn noticed her the same time even through his bleary gaze, waving generously at her as he called, “Hi, Mom! Hi, Silver! I’m here on school business, sorry, I just need to give a message to Mayor Virtue.”

Virtue sighed through his teeth as he rolled his eyes. “Gods, what now?”

“It’s so wonderful to see you again, Rainy!” Fluttershy cried, waving a slower hoof.

As he let the militia push him away again, Line stepped back to Fluttershy. He put a hoof around her, hugging her tight, and whispered, “Just let him get done what he needs, Ma. Better not to get him involved.”

Raindawn trotted up to the mayor’s ear and lifted a hoof to cover his whispers. Virtue tilted down for him, a polite silence settling over everyone else for the few seconds he listened. As Raindawn pulled away, Virtue turned back to Twilight. To Raindawn, he said, “Dismissed.”

Raindawn waved to his family again before he took off through the downpour, but Virtue ignored his exit. Instead, Virtue’s horn glowed, the silver aura of his magic surrounding Twilight the same as it lifted her out of the mud. As she rose, Virtue said, “Twilight, correct?”

“Hey—!” she sputtered, flailing her hooves against empty air.

Virtue swiped the mud off from her with a couple gestures of his head as she floated before him. He pulled her close to his gaze, and his voice rose with every word as he said, “That sounds like quite the noble cause you’ve found, Miss Twilight. Genuinely inspiring. Except for one in your band already committing a vicious attack on my people, and your own treachery against my entire town!”

A murmur spread through the militia. Before Twilight could defend anything, Virtue continued, “The corpse eaters outside our gates are here for you, Twilight Sparkle! Already you’re their ally, leading them here to us!”

Line squeezed his mother again, even his eyes widening. Pinkie pursed her lips and said, “Ooh, uh-oh.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Twilight said, her dignity still beating out desperation. “We had to escape from them in Canterlot, but nopony followed us from there! That isn’t our fault!”

“Oh? Do you even know what it is that corpse eaters do, then?” Virtue said, his scowl folding into a smirk. “They don’t just eat corpses, they eat unicorns. They believe the flesh of you or I grants them our magical power when they feast upon it. And you, Miss Twilight, a true delicacy, legend enough to make them salivate—you say this isn’t your fault?”

The glow around her brightened, and Virtue lurched her forward, thrusting his horn through her skull in the same instant. Twilight rasped, her pupils dilating even as her eyes widened, as the mayor peeled her off again and tossed her back into the mud. The militia around scattered back in a circle as she splashed in the center of them.

“Give her to them,” Virtue said, the glow subsiding as he turned to his bodyguard for a cloth. “Let her body end this madness, if that’s what she wished. We needn’t let more blood spill today.”

“What the—hey!”

The mayor turned around once more, his smirk subsiding even faster. Twilight sat up, wiping the mud off herself as she felt around the hole beneath her horn. She scowled just as darkly as Virtue and shouted, “That was completely uncalled for!”

Virtue’s jaw remained slack before any proper response came to rest in his mind. He muttered, “What the fuck?”

Just a few streets down, the front door to the jail slammed open and a mortally damaged Jenkins trotted inside. He made no greeting, nor even looked to either jailor as Rock and Frills both hopped out of their chairs, blocking his path with a glower.

Frills tilted her head up as Jenkins approached, stopping him with a smack of her hoof onto his shoulder. Even as she eyed the holes in his neck and head, Frills growled, “Buddy, you better turn the fuck around and walk—”

Without even looking at her, Jenkins returned the gesture with his own hoof into her side—and hurled her back across her desk, papers flying in her wake as she crashed over the other side. Rock didn’t hesitate with a swing in response, but Jenkins caught the hoof and smashed Rock over to the opposite wall. Unimpeded, Jenkins continued toward the cells.

Zecora looked past the bars even before she heard his hoofsteps echoing. Jenkins stopped in front of her cell, a green aura already slithering around his neck as new skin closed up the hole in his throat. As breath reached his lungs again, he stared in at her and said, “I felt your call.”

“Good,” Zecora said. “Open the door.”

Instead of turning back to find the key, Jenkins hopped up, lifting both his forehooves around the bars, and tugged. Despite a good effort, the iron only creaked at his struggle. He slumped his shoulders, and his ears folded back. “Maybe the key after all?”

Zecora shook her head. “Do not tug; pull.”

Jenkins flexed again as he pulled, the iron flexing as well. The same green aura twisted all around him, this time emanating from Zecora’s body, sweat beading up on her forehead as she focused the aura upon him. Jenkins dug in his stance, cracks in the concrete slivering away from where his hooves were rooted, and with a worse creak, the iron bent—and a second later ripped away, every hinge snapping as Jenkins threw the door down the row of cells, bouncing with a clatter.

“Wow, uh, wow,” he said, marveling at himself as the aura dissipated again. “Seriously, did you see that? That was really impressive.”

“Indeed,” Zecora said, withholding a pant from her breath even as her posture fell. “Now come to me.”

Jenkins walked up before her, and with just enough slack in her chains, Zecora touched her head to his—the aura came back, and the hole in his brain filled up until even the skin was replaced over it. Jenkins felt it over, shaking his head as he chuckled, “Wow, that’s really impressive, too. Who are you, anyway?”

Zecora closed her eyes as her breaths grew heavier. After several seconds, she said, “We do not—we do not need to know each other yet. You are needed elsewhere.”

Jenkins shrugged. “That sounds fair to me.”

“Good,” Zecora said. “Now release me.”

Though not in the cells with them, but at the door leading in from the office, Frills pulled her ear away. Rock, who was still nursing a bruise on his head, kept his voice low and asked, “Time to go?”

Frills begrudged a smirk. “Time to go.”

Virtue’s bodyguard, still on the steps of the gallows behind the mayor, spoke up next. He thrusted a hoof outward to Twilight, and said with only a marginal wavering in his voice, “Dead or not, they’re still criminals—enemies of Ponyville! Don’t let them get away!”

Twilight didn’t look to him as she got up, but to Applejack. Pointing her horn at the noose, Twilight focused her magic with a purple glow and pulled the rope off, letting her friend fall harmlessly to the mud below.

At the rear of the pack, Line ushered back Fluttershy and Pinkie as the militia spread their formation around all three, but no one yet moved on them. Twilight was still surrounded at the front, and despite her distraction freeing Applejack from her muzzle, the students around her held back the same—only one moved, a mare who would usually be studying music theory right now. She stepped up behind Twilight.

“Not so tough,” the mare muttered through a grimace, crouching her knees for the strike.

Rainbow made landfall directly atop her, more mud cascading around the music theory mare’s face as it was smashed straight into the earth. The rest of the militia took a moment to process the descent, only another two students fast enough to leap at Rainbow. She moved again the same instant they did—Rainbow kicked one student in the gut right back to the rest, and she caught the other one just as he grabbed her, rolling him through the air onto his back.

In just a couple of seconds, the other students stunned into only watching, Rainbow straddled her prey around the torso and bashed her hoof into his cheek—his head nearly bounced back from the mud as the punch reverberated through his skull. Rainbow smashed her other hoof into his other cheek the same moment, each further move landing with a whunk clear enough for everyone around to hear.

She stopped only after seconds more of the assault, smirking up at her encircling audience as she climbed off of the unconscious colt. Still breathing easy, Rainbow said, “Come on, who’s next? I can keep going forever!”

Even the students around Line had paused to watch. Having completely freed Applejack, Twilight picked herself back up and ignored Rainbow’s show as she glared at the mayor. Virtue met her gaze with a matching frown.

“Seems this bunch will take a bit more effort,” he called out to the militia. “You’re excused.”

Another murmur spread through the students, several of them darting the same wide-eyed look amongst each other. Virtue lifted a hoof to the umbrella still hovering over him, pushing even that away as he bellowed, “That means leave us!”

Flinching at his voice, Virtue’s guard pulled back the umbrella and flapped it shut, turning back to the carriage and hopping inside just as the runners in front got a move on. The militia scattered, their three beaten members grabbed up and carried along as everyone picked a different direction to flee. Line held close to Fluttershy as Applejack weaved toward them and Pinkie through the rush.

Virtue stepped up to the edge of the gallows, rain now dripping off both ends of his mustache. His gaze turned from Twilight, to Line, then to Applejack as she arrived in Fluttershy’s embrace. Looking back to Twilight, he said, “What are you going to do now, then? Eh? What are you really here for?”

“We’re going to stop the bloodlust—even without your help, if that’s what it takes,” Twilight said, bracing her hind legs deeper in the mud.

“You and the zebra,” Virtue said. “What is the zebra’s plan? What was the actual purpose in her helping us at all?”

Twilight raised her neck. “Wait, what did she what?”

Virtue rolled his head back in a sigh. “You’re just her pawns, then? I suppose I should have realized that already for all your useless blustering. Seems we still have many questions to drag out of the zebra. But from you—”

The mayor smirked.

“—I’m afraid I have nothing more to ask.”

Twilight stumbled before she could respond—the mud around her hooves flowed away from her, toward and past the mayor, coming together with all the rest in the plaza. The wet earth glowed a hint of silver, the same as Virtue’s horn, as it swept over the gallows, Virtue rising on top of it as the heap grew upward.

Even Rainbow stepped back. An indistinct head rose out of the very top of the colossus before arms sprouted out of its sides, then hands from those. The golem kept rising as all the mud in the plaza joined it, leaving only stones and clay beneath, until the golem stood taller than everything but the bell tower behind it. Virtue leered down from its shoulder, his smirk widening as he surveyed below one more time.

“Fluttershy,” he called, “be a dear and scurry on to jail with your son; I’ll let you two live. Consider it a favor.”

Applejack held firm to Fluttershy, scowling back up at the mayor even as Fluttershy drew back, but it was Line who spoke up. Patting a hoof on his mother’s shoulder, he called back, “Sorry, Posh, but we already got other plans.”

Rainbow twisted her head over each side of her neck, a nice crick out from each way, as she stepped back up to Twilight and glared with her. “Like Plan C: kicking your ass.”

Line and Applejack on either side of Fluttershy, they turned her around toward one of the paths out of the plaza. Fluttershy looked back and stuttered, “But—but Twilight, Rainbow Dash—”

“Don't worry about it!” Pinkie said, following them at a skip. “I think those two can handle Mister Mayor Bigpants juuust fine.”

Line looked back as he and the others rounded the corner, saluting a hoof to Twilight and Rainbow despite their backs turned to him; a moment later, only three ponies remained in the plaza. Twilight narrowed her gaze back at Virtue, widening her stance as the very tip of her horn glowed bright. She scowled.

Rainbow grinned. With one flap and a bolt of color where she stood a moment ago, she rocketed toward Virtue—and crashed flat into a brick wall raised just before him just as quickly. Virtue peeked around the wall as Rainbow pushed herself back into the air, and he said, “I’m sorry, was that your attempt at a frontal assault? You should try again.”

A purple spark shot past his head next. The mayor didn’t move, but he sank the bricks back into his golem’s shoulder as he looked down to Twilight. “And that? What was that, a combat spell? Pathetic.”

Darting through the rain behind Virtue, Rainbow tucked her legs close and streaked forward again. The wall rose instantly behind the mayor before she could reach him, but she turned and careened to the right this time, splashing into the golem’s neck instead. She pulled her wings out from the mud first, but couldn’t regain her flight before the golem’s hand reached around and scooped her whole, flinging her to the earth with a crash and tumble.

The mayor’s wall lowered again as he lurched with his golem, tilting it forward at the chest, raising a fist over Twilight. The golem’s whole hand shifted to brick. Twilight’s gaze flitted to the fist only a moment before it came swinging atop her, but it smashed against a power bubble closing around her just as quickly.

“That shan’t save you,” Virtue snarled, leaning forward as the golem’s fist kept pressing. “One way or another, I will learn how you die.”

Twilight grimaced as her bubble compressed further in on her. Just before the spell failed, her horn flashed brighter and she disappeared, the golem’s fist crushing empty earth. She teleported a meter back, immediately shooting another spark at Virtue. He looked to her as the spark neared him, but his wall rose just too late.

The spark shot across Virtue’s face, not even scorching him. He glanced down, wiping his cheek and checking his hoof, before lowering his wall and looking back to Twilight. “Dear gods, what—is this your very best? This is how you fight me?”

“Hey!” Rainbow called from behind, pushing herself back to all fours. Despite the hard landing and one crooked wing, she flapped back into the air, still grinning. “Give me a free shot instead and we’ll see who can really fight.”

Virtue glanced back as his golem extended its hand again, swinging it around too fast for Rainbow to avoid. It grabbed her in one motion, pulling her back around as both its hands grew hard, crushing her between brick fingers. The mayor glared at her before his golem reached over Rainbow’s back, its other hand taking hold of her flapping wings—and squeezing.

“No, stop, don’t—!”

Though the pain wasn’t physical, Virtue sneered at Rainbow as she cried out. The golem released her twisted limbs and threw her away, smashing her through the nearest building in a heap of wooden splinters and raindrops. Twilight paused her offense, looking from the mayor over to the gaping hole Rainbow had just made.

Virtue looked over as well, only shaking his head before he twisted his golem again, raising its fists high; Twilight raised her bubble again just in time for a thrashing upon it. Virtue growled, “This was your grand scheme? Fighting me with a goddamn spark? You were going to throw some fireworks at me?”

Rainbow crawled back through the wreckage in just a few seconds with a scowl, feathers floating off her wings in bundles as she tucked the mangled remains over her back. Twilight could only watch her a moment before redoubling her bubble, the mayor’s assault growing heavier.

“Do you have any idea how much magic it took to conjure this monster? All of it, wasted on you!” Virtue cried. “You wouldn’t be able to fight a fucking squirrel!”

Twilight’s frown changed as her gaze kept darting back over to Rainbow, the tips of Twilight’s mouth drawing further into a snarl. She looked back to the mayor with a sharp new focus.

Virtue wailed on her harder, each smash pressing her bubble deeper into the clay. “Do you know even one spell that can kill?”

Bricks now encompassed the golem’s entire arm, and it reared its fist higher as Twilight lowered her head, her horn glowing even brighter. The golem smashed right through her bubble, knocking all its force into the earth with a tremor.

A flash blinded Virtue before he could celebrate, and he suddenly felt his heart the clearest of anything in his body. Twilight was standing right before him, her horn sunken deep into Virtue’s chest. He looked down at her for a moment, nothing else moving but his dripping blood, before she yanked out her horn. Virtue stumbled back, the glow of his own horn fading with each of his gasps.

Twilight looked him straight in the eyes as she answered him. “I’m a fast learner, jerk.”

Blood escaped everywhere as Virtue wheezed, pressing a hoof over his heart. His wound spilled all over his pure white fur, stains he’d never get out. He fell back into the mud as the bricks sank again, his golem already melting back over the gallows.

He looked from his wound up to Twilight, unblinking as he gurgled, “You—you little bastard, you goddamn—this was her plan from the—”

Virtue slipped down the side of his collapsing golem, leaving a dirty red streak as he rolled into the plaza, mud dribbling down around him. Still gripping his chest, he breathed in sharply before he screamed, “Goddamn it, no! No!”

Twilight teleported from the slope down to just a meter from the mayor, trotting up to his body. Eyes dark, she asked him, “What did you mean when you said that Zecora helped you?”

The bluster in Virtue’s voice faded the same as the rage on his face as his breaths grew quicker. He lowered his head back to the mud, still staring at Twilight as he spluttered, “Fuck off. You’re about to die anyway….”

A huge clang echoed over his voice. Twilight looked up and saw the bell in the memorial tower ringing fast overhead, rolling to either side as quickly as its rope could be pulled. She glanced back to the mayor, the heaving in his chest at an end, and scoffed.

Rainbow walked up from behind, dragging one of her hind legs. She grinned as she tapped Twilight on the shoulder.

“I feel like that could have gone better,” Rainbow said, twitching her wings in an attempt to resettle them. “But in the end, I guess it worked out okay.”

Zecora stepped out from the jail, even her stoic face shivering as the rain soaked her through. She straightened herself up, breathing in deep through her nose as she closed her eyes and lifted her head. A lighter splashing met her a moment later, and she looked back to the street as Line and his group approached, Line already frowning at her. She stared him back down as he rolled his eyes.

“Y’know what, not even gonna ask how you’re already out,” Line said. “You got good timing is all. C’mon, long past time for us to get outta here.”

Zecora summed up her breath again before speaking. She said, “Agreed, but where are Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash?”

“Coverin’ our getaway,” Applejack said. “They’re dealin’ with that mayor fella right now.”

Line nodded. “Which makes our plan pretty straightforward: gettin’ out, like I said. If it’s corpse eaters outside, the south gate’s our best—”

It was then the bell started, its clanging just as clear at a distance from the plaza. The rain was nothing to its noise. Everybody turned in the direction of the bell, its tower just visible over the jail’s rooftop.

“That’s a signal to skedaddle if I ever heard one,” Pinkie said, swinging her hoof through the air. “Which I maybe haven’t, but who knows? I sure don’t. Anyway—they’re on to us!”

Other doors down the street were already opening, students clamoring outside as they looked at the bell before they could believe it. Zecora looked from them back to Line and asked, “What does the bell signal?”

Line was the only one still staring at the bell, eyes wide. His jaw hung just open. “They’re giving up. That’s the call for a town-wide evacuation….”

“Then our plan has not changed,” Zecora said, stepping beside Pinkie. “We must go.”

“It has changed,” Line said, setting his jaw again. “The corpse eaters really did follow you here, and once we get out, they’ll still be on our tails! They must got an army out there!”

“Oh, goodness,” Fluttershy gasped. “What about the rest of Ponyville? What about everypony else?”

Applejack frowned. “We get Twi, get Rainbow, then get outta town—unless we really need somepony else too, they’re on their own.”

Fluttershy raised a hoof to her cheek at the thought, tufting her eyebrows as she looked around the street. Even as Line put a hoof on her shoulder, gently tugging, Fluttershy’s eyes widened again—not at any one pony there, but for one she remembered.

“Wait, no,” she said, shaking her head. “Rainy—Rainy! He’s part of the militia, he might have to fight!”

Line pulled his hoof back off her shoulder, cocking a half-grin. He pushed back his hat only a little, glancing around to everyone else before turning back to his mother. “Y’all go on with the rest of the plan, then. Don’t you worry, Ma, I’ll get him; our whole family’s gonna make it out of this just fine.”

Forever A Broken Home

Rampant

End of Ponyville

Ch. 7: Forever A Broken Home

The bell’s clangs were heard all the way to the wall. The militia had assembled in two straight lines atop Ponyville’s north gate, pegasi at the front, unicorns at the rear. The captain was in the center. He gritted his teeth and set his jaw, then hollered everyone into attention. The militia pulled their hooves closer, stood straighter, stared forward no matter their frowns.

The captain raised his wings in a flurry of raindrops and feathers, and in a clap louder than the rain, everyone flapped open their wings at once, stretched across the wall in a dark, damp rainbow. A spear rested under the hoof of each pony. Closing his eyes, the captain muttered the closest thing he had to a prayer:

“Fuck my life.”

The clangs reached past the wall as well. Regalia’s troops were already at attention as she stood again, this time a snarl twisting over her face as she glared back across the way to the militia on the wall. She raised her hoof, and the horns of all those behind her lit aglow. Though the colors were all different, it was somehow the same glow—the same energy they all produced, lighting the hill like a beacon.

Regalia lifted her sunglasses over her horn as a fire glowed behind her gaze, hissing just one conscious thought to herself:

“You’ve failed me, Ponyville.”

The clangs rang loudest in the plaza. The mayor’s corpse lay already forgotten, half buried by the ungodly mound of mud covering the gallows. Line looked to the mound only a moment, peering longer around it rather than at it. There was no sign of Twilight or Rainbow even as more ponies entered the streets, rushing through the plaza to other parts of town to find their friends or family.

Several students squeezed around Line in their blind rush, nearly knocking him over before he refocused; he ran forward again, as much as the weather made running possible. There was only one place that made sense where Raindawn might be; the only reason the bell would ring like that was if someone who knew what the threat outside was—someone from the wall—had orders to ring it.

Line slammed open the doors to the bell room inside the Rarity Memorial Building, then slammed his hooves over his ears as the bell tolled down the tower. He scowled. The pony tugging the bell’s rope was not Raindawn, but some terrified mare. She gaped at Line, sputtering for him to leave, but Line only raised his voice. His words were clear over the bell:

“Where the hell did Raindawn go?”

The clangs echoed clearest through the nearby roads. Kennedy Gold reached only for her saddlebags on her way out the front door of her house, collecting nothing else. Her street was already filled with citizens loading what they could onto the few carts they had available; much more than they could, in most cases. Kennedy barely offered a glance to them as she galloped south.

She knew that Fluttershy and Silver lived closest to the north gate, that Raindawn was still on wall duty last he’d left their house, and that her waitresses and bartenders all lived near randomly across town. Her employees, she had no time to help evacuate; Raindawn, she could only pray wouldn’t be made to fight; and Fluttershy…

Kennedy shook her head as she ran, choking back the thought. Even if Fluttershy tried to dawdle, Silver would get her out, no matter what. Kennedy let that thought hold the front and center of her mind as she shoved past those still trying to bring mementos out with them, though she whispered a different thought as she went:

“You better not still be packing, Mom….”

The clangs added only to confusion on Main Street. Twilight and Rainbow waded through even more ponies than in the plaza on their way out, the madness only compounded by the worsening weather. Though both of them were slogging, Twilight glanced back constantly to make sure she wasn’t getting too far ahead of Rainbow, who was dragging behind despite how hard she pressed her three functional limbs.

Besides them, nearly everyone else on the road was pulling along luggage, some of them tag-teaming whole trunks on their backs. None of them were yet heading to the gates, as best Twilight could tell—looking around again, she still wasn’t sure which way to even go.

A shiver ran down her rump as if something touched her. Twilight turned around with a vengeance, but saw just a faint green wisp vanish into the rain behind her. She sighed in relief a moment later, however, as she saw Zecora and Pinkie sloshing toward them from the same direction. Pinkie waved hard, stopping until when she got close enough to throw a cheerful hoof over Rainbow’s back.

“So it turns out the bell isn’t a good sign now either, and we’re probably about to die again if we don’t hurry—you girls ready to go?”

The clangs echoed just as loud toward the south gate. Even amongst the ponies already near, only a few were already heading out, their most precious belongings in tow. Applejack was now the only pony helping Fluttershy along, keeping at least a barrier between them and the frantic citizens running past.

She hushed Fluttershy, the old mare still crying as she looked back in the direction of the plaza. Applejack kept her gaze forward as they jostled through the street, pushing through those still dragging bags and suitcases.

She kept a steady pace, not letting the mud nor Fluttershy’s sobs slow her. Neither did she look back. Applejack put a hoof to her face as the rain gusted ahead, pushing away the loose strands of her mane. She narrowed her gaze, grumbling too quiet for Fluttershy to hear.

“Better bring back my hat, fella. Still owe you a supper for it.”

The clangs were heard just a few side roads from the north gate. Derby stood before Fluttershy’s house, knocking quickly on the door. She glanced to the rest of the street often, everyone else already fleeing. She could see some kind of light flashing in the sky to the north when she looked there, too.

She knocked again, grimacing as she tapped her hooves on the porch. Maybe Fluttershy wasn’t home? Gods, but if she was, it’d be really terrible to leave her. And she told Raindawn she’d check up on his mother, and she wasn’t going to break a promise to him.

Someone hit her shoulder as they fled, knocking her whole body into the door. Derby scowled back at them as she regained her balance, but thought better of wasting her time yelling back. They were just evacuating, after all. Like she should be doing. She knocked again, still frowning.

“Rainy, you owe me for this hard!”

The clangs continued across the north field, though the sound was gone from the ears of those flying. The militia blew over the field like their very own storm, every pegasus holding the formation perfectly despite the winds pressing around them. They flew over cover of lightning, every unicorn on the wall zapping bolts of electricity across the field toward the corpse eaters.

The whole troupe of corpse eaters were forced to keep up a magic wall against the assault. Regalia was the only unicorn on the hill who saved her energy. She watched the wall as reinforcements arrived atop it—but instead of joining against the corpse eaters, the newcomers’ spells were aimed at their student allies. The coverfire ended as everyone atop the wall flung their spells at each other, crying for help.

The corpse eaters lowered their magic wall and turned back toward those in the sky. They shot the same electric bolts, each attack arcing through the rain right into the students’ airborne charge, torching every pegasus with a flash and a scream. Lightning streamed from the hill as the militia fell, charred husks dropping across the field beside clattering spears.

Regalia looked above the wall next, her gaze set upon the sky itself, eyes glowing as bright as anything on the hill. The wind billowed her mane back, blue streaks whipping about within it, and her horn glowed next. A deep orange emanated from her body, concentrating in her horn, until it smoldered with magical power. Regalia finally smiled.

“Your chance is over, Twilight. Burn in hell.”

The bell was now the last thing on Line’s mind as he reached the north gate, Raindawn’s station. The only way up the wall for those without wings was a precarious set of wooden planks extruding from the stone, which Line took several seconds in struggling up. He grimaced on the last steps, still not even sure how to drag his little brother away from his post in the middle of a battle.

Line reached the top determined to do just that anyway. But as he looked around atop the wall, he saw only two other ponies still alive there with him. Neither of them were Raindawn, but he recognized both—and he didn’t have the chance to ask them what they were doing there before a bolt shot through his chest.

All his senses spun around, and for a moment he didn’t even feel it as he fell back off the wall. The mud didn’t cushion anything. The next moment, nothing quite felt right in his body. Something was twisted, and his stomach felt so hot that—oh. It had a hole burned through it.

Line felt his hat lifting from his head next, even though his body wasn’t telling him that sensation was as important. He looked back from himself up to the wall, his hat levitating within the pink glow of Frills’ magic. She stood at the edge of the wall, leering down at him with a smirk, as Rock ambled up beside her. Frills plopped the hat atop her partner’s head as she bid farewell to their last victim.

“Sorry, partner. Wrong place, wrong time.”

The clangs kept ringing slower, only the bell’s momentum keeping it swinging. Even the ringer was fleeing, though she was too late.

Kennedy wasn’t. She galloped out the south gate ahead of almost everyone, slowing only to look around for family. All of the evacuees were doing similar, waiting and watching for their friends.

“Gold!”

Fluttershy tottered up from her side, embracing Kennedy. Applejack trotted up near, keeping an eye.

“Oh, gods, Mom,” Kennedy said, nuzzling her head into Fluttershy’s neck. “I’m so sorry, I’m—I’m so glad you’re safe. I’m just so glad. Where’s Silver?”

“That Silver fella is getting that Rainy kid,” Applejack said. “And if they don’t show up soon—”

Thunder cut her off, but it wasn’t from lightning. Everyone looked back to town. An orange light rocketed into the sky from just beyond Ponyville, exploding again into the clouds over it. Every cloud turned red from the inside out, and a moment later, the rain turned to fire. Every drop was alight, like a curtain of flame draping around the town’s wall. An eruption fell over Ponyville.

Raindawn escaped without time to spare, his wings a little bit on fire as he burst over the wall, Derby in the crooks of his forelegs. He crashed head-first into the mud, both that and the rain quenching him, as he spilled Derby at a roll.

He spit the wet earth out from his mouth even before he shook off his tie. As Kennedy and Fluttershy rushed to him, he looked back to Derby and called, “Well… I think that makes us even.”

Kennedy pulled him back up into her grasp, holding him tight. Raindawn’s head hung over her shoulder as he hugged a little bit. Fluttershy stood over both of them, knees shaking as she looked into Raindawn’s eyes. He looked back at her, smiling, until he saw that it wasn’t just rain on her cheeks. Fluttershy fell to the ground, her eyes clenched shut, but her mouth open. Her scream joined only more from the other broken families that escaped.

Derby remained splayed in the mud several meters behind, her hair a wet mess. She ignored it, instead watching the family. Her eyes widened as she looked to each member, seeing only the three, and she turned back to town as her own tears started. “Oh, no…”

Even as the rain poured over everyone outside, the walls and everything within burned. Even the mud boiled. Applejack watched as well, her eyes fixed upon the gate. She gritted her teeth, steadying herself even as her gaze narrowed—until another light shone through the flames.

A power bubble parted the molten curtain, thousands of embers bouncing off it from every angle as Twilight, horn and eyes aglow, hovered through the gate with Rainbow, Pinkie Pie, and Zecora tucked beside her. She dropped the bubble just another meter out from the gate, dumping herself and her friends into the sweet outside as Applejack came running.

“What the hell kind of spell is that?” Rainbow grunted, pushing herself back up. “Seriously, how—like, who can even do that? Why? We really could have died again! We could have—”

Applejack’s face stopped her. They all looked from her over to Fluttershy, in a heap together with her two children. Rainbow gulped. “Oh.”

Only Pinkie went to Fluttershy, leaning down and offering a hoof around her. Twilight looked around at everyone else; most that had made it outside were now grieving. Of the thousands in Ponyville, of how many had joined the town since decades past, only a few dozen had escaped. Only a few dozen refugees at all.

The plan had been simple. Go to Ponyville, get Fluttershy, read up on the bloodlust. The plan had been a straight line. The plan had never failed so horribly before.

“This will get only harder,” Zecora said, looking toward Fluttershy. “We cannot make her continue with us.”

Twilight looked to Applejack and Rainbow first, only the fire’s flickers showing them each other, but Applejack shook her head. Though she didn't argue, Twilight's voice cracked as she looked back to Zecora and said, “Then what was this for?”

The Hopes

“How many other fillies are there in Appleloosa, Daddy?”

It was just a plain little earth pony who asked the question. Beige coat, white mane. She was barely knee high walking beside her dad, her hooves long since scuffed by the grime on the railroad tracks they walked on.

“Lots of them. I bet there are almost as many as in Ponyville,” her dad said. “You’ll get to make lots of new friends there.”

The filly whimpered. “You said you bet. You don’t know.”

“Well, no, I don’t know,” her dad said. “But I do know you’ll make lots of new friends.”

“I don’t want to make new friends,” the filly said. “I want my old ones.”

On the filly’s other side was her mother. She said, “We know, sweetie. We both want our old friends, too.”

“Think of it like an adventure,” the filly’s dad said, brushing his badly-combed mane off of his brow. “A new home, a new school, a chance to start all over.”

The filly slumped her shoulders and let her gaze wander. “Is that why everypony else is coming, too?”

About forty more ponies surrounded the filly and her parents, all of them following the tracks. There were barely any possessions among them—no carts, no rations, no supplies. Just different variations of the same look on each face, whether tilted toward the horizon or locked on the ground. No one else talked.

The filly’s mom smiled anyway. “That’s right, Annie. Everypony needs that chance right now.”

Annie pouted and looked further down the tracks. “What if the ponies in Appleloosa don’t like us? What if they just tell us to leave?”

“Well, Boonehat told us they wouldn’t,” Annie’s dad said, nudging his nose toward the head of the group. “She’s got family there, so she should know. See? She’s leading us all on an adventure.”

The mare leading them was the only pony who still stood tall. Her mane was loose, billowing in the wind, but she ignored it. She checked back on the others constantly, her gaze level despite the sun in her eyes. Annie looked away when the mare’s gaze met hers.

“Just think of all the space they’ll have you can play in,” Annie’s mom said. “And do you know what? You can help us grow our new cabbages there. I’ve always heard Appleloosa has a fine appreciation for good produce.”

Annie rolled her eyes, slouching further. “Whatever.”

Rampant

To Appleloosa, Part One

Ch. 8: The Hopes

What happened? Applejack was still sorting that out. The caravan she led was now miles and hours away from Ponyville, and how long they had to go, no one knew. Whose idea was this? Applejack’s. She knew that much.

She put a hoof over her brow as she peered out to the horizon. The railroad tracks her caravan followed were long abandoned by any trains. Weeds poked up around the tracks the whole way, and they consisted of all other life in the plains she could see.

Even the caravan hardly counted for life, by the looks of their spirits. Applejack was one of the few who still looked alive. Everyone following her clung to their own small groups, whether made up of friends, halved families, or ponies who had no one else. Their mourning period—well, this was it.

Applejack’s own group was just her, Fluttershy, and Kennedy Gold. Applejack kept a slow pace especially for Fluttershy. Fluttershy’s knees looked like were about ready to give out at any time, just as they had looked the whole way, and her face revealed dried streams of tears, all used up. Though still weak, Fluttershy’s voice steadied as she said, “Applejack, why didn’t you go with Twilight and the others?”

Applejack lowered her hoof and looked back to her. Kennedy was on Fluttershy’s other side, her bright pink eyes barely noticeable as she looked down to the tracks. Applejack smiled at both and said, “This is where I need to be right now, Fluttershy. Trust me on that one.”

Fluttershy gave back a little smile. “Did you—did you get to meet him before? He said he found you the first night, in the jail.”

“I did,” Applejack said. “Good kid. And a good son, I think. He really loved you.”

Fluttershy lifted her chin, turning to Applejack. Her voice cracked as she said, “What did he—”

She stopped. Applejack raised an eyebrow, but Fluttershy just shook her head and said, “No, never mind. But he used to travel this way, you know.”

Applejack settled back into a grin. “Traveler, huh? I could see that in him.”

“Oh, no,” Fluttershy said. “For me, he wasn’t. But he traded with Appleloosa. He took a little of what we could grow, and somehow, he always came back with much more.”

“He had a good head on his shoulders, then,” Applejack said. “It’s a good little town. He knew right where to go to get some help when y’all really needed it.”

Fluttershy’s smile dimmed. “Yes, I think you’re right.”

Applejack peered around Fluttershy, looking next to Kennedy. “What about you, Gold? You ever come out this way?”

“No,” Kennedy said, still watching the tracks. “It was just him.”

Fluttershy frowned, but didn’t elaborate for her; Kennedy said nothing more. Applejack glanced between both of them, and without probing, looked back to the rest of the caravan. She noticed Raindawn toward the rear, only one other mare beside him, but even he looked sullen.

“What about that Rainy kid?” Applejack asked, turning back to Kennedy and Fluttershy. “He’s a student, right? Haven’t really met him yet, but he seems nice.”

“Oh, dear,” Fluttershy said, looking back toward her son. “Gold, do you think we should go talk to him? He hasn’t joined us this whole trip. Goodness, I don’t want him to feel alone at a time like this….”

“Rainy is good, Mom; he’s got friends here,” Kennedy said. She cracked a grin, but not one that looked happy. “We should just leave him be.”

Applejack looked back to the tracks, dropping her attempt at the subject. But as she peered outward, she frowned and said, “Uh, about your other brother again—did he ever mention anything about those things ahead?”

Fluttershy lifted a hoof over her eyes, despite the sun shining from behind everyone. “Oh, my. No, he never mentioned those.”

Kennedy looked up and squinted. “Are those… where did those come from?”

A long row of silver spikes—round at the bottom, pointy at the top—were visible in the distance, paced a few meters apart between each one. The railroad tracks headed straight through. The spikes already looked larger than any pony from far away, but as the caravan walked closer, Applejack saw they were at least a good four or five times as tall as any stallion. The row extended as far as she could see either way she looked.

Applejack turned back to the caravan. “All right, everypony, looks like we got some shade! We’re takin’ a break up ahead!”

Upon reaching the spikes, each group in the caravan split to their own and lay down, no questions asked, under what reprieve the spikes offered from the sun. Applejack plopped down under her own, stretching her hind legs out in front of her as she laid her back against the metal.

Kennedy sat on all fours next to Applejack, curling in her legs, and Fluttershy rested beside her. As her mother nestled into her shoulder, Kennedy looked to Applejack and asked, “So, why didn’t you really go with the others?”

Applejack kicked back her hooves behind her head. “Figured y’all needed me more right now.”

“It’s not like we need a guide,” Kennedy said. “These tracks lead straight to Appleloosa. We don’t even need a map.”

“Twilight and the others will be all right without me,” Applejack said, “an’ I jus’ didn’t feel like saying goodbye to Fluttershy so soon. That’s the simple answer.”

“Is there a more complicated answer?”

“I reckon so,” Applejack said, looking to the sky. “But y’know, I always had it in the back of my head I’d get to meet Fluttershy’s kids when they were still fillies and colts. I think it’s as weird for me seein’ you already grown up as it is for you to—well, to see me at all.”

Fluttershy smiled, her mane bobbing over Kennedy’s side as she said, “Oh, that would have been so nice.”

“It would have been nice,” Kennedy said. “But on the other hoof, maybe it’s better you didn’t get to see our family at some points.”

Though her smile lessened again, Fluttershy patted one of her hooves onto Kennedy’s. Despite them, Applejack chuckled, “Well, now, don’t you think I wasn’t a hoof-ful when I was just a filly. I caused my own Granny Smith no end of troubles back then, I tell you what.”

Kennedy’s grin slipped out again, but it still didn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah, except you always came back.”

“You and he were fine, dear. You’re all still wonderful,” Fluttershy whispered.

Kennedy failed to repress a blush. She untucked one leg and knocked on the spike they all rested against, no echo in the monolith. “Any-way, it’s too damn weird Silver never mentioned these things. They’re worth a story, and he told you everything, Mom.”

Fluttershy lifted her head from Kennedy’s shoulder, frowning at her daughter a moment as she tapped a hoof to her own chin. “Well, goodness. It is strange he didn’t say anything about these, but he didn’t tell me quite everything, I think.”

Kennedy glanced over to Applejack. “He was a momma’s colt. He told her everything.”

Applejack grinned and pushed herself up further. “If you got a story to tell, I’m listenin’.”

“Thanks, but I didn’t mean it like that,” Kennedy said, rolling her eyes. “Let’s actually keep that subject changed.”

“You mind my askin’ where he got the accent, at least?” Applejack said. “Sounded real familiar, if you know what I mean.”

“It was fake,” Kennedy said, snorting.

“He practiced it so much,” Fluttershy said, wiping her cheek. “He thought it sounded worldly. He always wanted to see the world, to go beyond Equestria… now I wish he had.”

Kennedy looked away from her mother again. Applejack looked back to the sky, shading her eyes with her hoof as she said, “I suppose we all got things we don’t want to talk much about right now.”

Though her gaze remained down, Kennedy said, “The complicated answer?”

“That.”

Kennedy shrugged. “Fair enough. What about these spikes?”

“Maybe they came up recent,” Applejack said. “When’s the last time Silver came out this way?”

“Oh, he got back from his last trip just yesterday,” Fluttershy said. “Do you think he knew something worrying about them, and didn’t want to upset anypony?”

Applejack glanced at their spike again. “Ain’t much upsettin’ about ‘em.”

“Except for whoever had the strength to even put them here,” Kennedy said. “Maybe it’s something beyond them. It’s still a long walk.”

“That’s as good a guess as any,” Applejack said. “It’s the walk that’s got me most worried, though. I know I can make it, but I’m not sure anypony can go all the way.”

The rest of the caravan slumped worse around them, either laying down or massaging their stomachs. Though the shade of the spikes rested their sweating brows, their faces remained all the same, eyes empty as their stomachs and throats even more so.

“How long should we stay here?” Kennedy asked, looking to Applejack. “Are we at least halfway to Appleloosa now?”

Applejack sighed. “Not even. We’re still lookin’ at more than another day’s walk. Don’t know when the next good spot to take a sit-down is, so we can let everypony lie a bit longer, I think.”

Her gaze wandered back to the open plain. Only some mountains rose in the distance off to the left of the tracks, weeds and rocks everywhere else. There were no landmarks anywhere on the way there Applejack ever thought to keep in mind. But as she scanned the plains, another trail caught her eye: something just under the earth burrowing toward the caravan, leaving a long ridge of dirt in its wake as it closed in. Applejack shoved off from the spike and stood up.

“On second thought, get everypony up,” she said, stepping forward. “Somethin’s comin’.”

Kennedy and Fluttershy watched the same for a moment before they got up, then calling to the other ponies. Applejack walked out from the cover of shade straight toward the approaching trail, watching it swerve only for the larger rocks in its course, each time correcting itself toward the caravan. She planted her hooves firm in the dust on its path and narrowed her gaze.

The trail burst up and out just a meter from her, its digger hopping out from his hole clutching a cane in one paw and a fist in his other. He wore a dusty blue suit jacket over his charcoal fur and a diamond-studded collar around his neck, and his wrinkles sagged even further than his scowl. The old dog narrowed his eyes further than Applejack’s as he peered straight at her.

“Didn’t you goddamn powns see the fence?” he spat. His voice had a grisly rasp to it, like he chewed with his throat. He waved his cane toward the caravan and said, “Where the hell is it you think you’re going?”

Applejack pushed away his cane, staying her tone as she said, “We’re refugees, movin’ on to where else we can. What makes it your business?”

“This dirt makes it my goddamn business,” the dog said, smacking his cane back onto the ground. “You’re trespassing!”

“Excuse me?” Applejack said. “We’re in Equestria. You ain’t got no say in where we’re goin’, I can tell you for sure.”

“I’ve got a hell of a lot more say than your indecent ass,” the dog said. “This is diamond dog territory now. That means you and your nudie buddies can take a hike right back where you goddamn came from.”

“Hey!” Kennedy cried, coming up from behind Applejack. “Are you deaf? She just told you this isn’t your land. Go dig a hole back to the rock you came from, pal.”

The dog sneered back at her. “How about as soon as you cover yours, girl.”

Kennedy stepped up further and prodded the sharp end of her hoof into the dog’s jacket. They locked eyes as she said to him, “I’ve had my fair share of starting shit, jackass, and I can assure you that if you’re really looking to go at it, we will be happy to oblige in kicking your ass.”

Applejack lowered her gaze and tapped a hoof to Kennedy’s shoulder. Lowering her voice, she said, “You just make sure everypony’s gotten up.”

“They’re getting up,” Kennedy said, raising her voice. “If you’re not going to handle him, I will.”

“Don’t you hussies start flirting in front of me!” the dog snapped, stepping back even as he waved his cane again. “I know all about your pown sex rituals, and the GAP Pact doesn’t mention a goddamn thing about having to tolerate them!”

“The hay is the GAP Pact?” Applejack said to the dog.

“Maybe you should start paying attention to your own politics, girl,” the dog said. “We diamond dogs bought this land clear and legal, and you should be damn grateful we didn’t just take it. Understand? Now you motherfuckers take your naked asses and get the hell out of here!”

Kennedy gritted her teeth and scoffed, “You’re not even wearing pants either!”

“Excuse me,” Fluttershy called from behind, tottering up to Kennedy and Applejack with nary a scuff over the dirt. She stopped in front of the dog, her old bones barely leaving hoofprints, and asked, “What is your name?”

The dog smacked his cane down again and growled, “Go fuck yourself, granny.”

“Well, Mister Go Fuck Yourself, my name is Fluttershy, and I do not appreciate anyone speaking to my friends and my family in that way,” Fluttershy said. “I’ve met a lot of bullies in my life, and you’re not even the worst. You’re just the oldest. We’ve lost almost everything we had the same as you ever had, and none of us needs to make a fight out of that right now.”

Neither Applejack nor Kennedy interrupted as they watched. The dog laid both his paws on the handle of his cane, heaving out his chest as he said, “Oh, boo-hoo, granny. You think we don’t all have problems? I don’t give a shit about yours, I’ve got my own.”

Fluttershy held even her knees as firm as her voice. “Let me tell you why you need to care. What we’re asking for is a little empathy—the kind you need, when you sleep alone every night and take that loneliness and anger out on other people. If you’re going to keep saying such rude things, that’s your choice, but none of it makes you any tougher. I bet you know it doesn’t. It just makes you feel better in the smallest way it can. Now, what is your name?”

A moment of silence passed before the dog smirked. He said, “I don’t empathize with ponies, Miss Fluttershy. But I’ll make you a deal in the name of commerce: you tell me where it is your band came from.”

Applejack frowned and asked, “What’s the other half of the deal?”

Fluttershy kept her gaze on the dog. “Ponyville.”

“I’m good and familiar with that town,” the dog said. “Heard of the bunch of pricks inside it. How come you don’t know about the GAP Pact if you’re from so close by?”

“Nopony knows about it,” Kennedy said. “It isn’t a thing!”

The dog rubbed one paw over his chin, his smirk growing wider. “Well, well. In that case, here’s the deal: you can pass through after all. You just keep making your way to our outpost, the Dock, and when you get there, we’ll all have a nice talk with your ambassador pown about what the diamond dogs get out of this arrangement. And maybe we can teach you how to put on some goddamn clothes before you leave.”

“Shove it up your own ass, limp dick,” Kennedy snorted.

Fluttershy lowered her tone and said, “Please, Gold, don’t say that.”

“Well, we’ll take you up on that if we get some shelter for the night,” Applejack said, glancing from the dog to the plain behind him, “but we don’t know where any diamond dog settlements are around here. You gonna show us the way to this outpost of yours?”

“Do I look like a goddamn waiter?” the dog said, raising his cane again. “Follow the fucking tracks. You just tell the gatekeepers that Mister Doberman talked to you.”

Doberman tugged his jacket tighter. Glancing to Kennedy and Applejack while he turned to his tunnel, he added, “Mister Doberman, you got that?”

Without goodbyes, Doberman jumped back into the earth and burrowed back in the direction of his first trail. Kennedy flipped a hoof at him as he left. Applejack turned back to the caravan, everyone else in it mulling at a distance as they watched.

“Will they give us any water there?” one of the mares asked, a filly beside her.

“One way or another they will,” Kennedy said, turning back the same.

Applejack brushed away her mane as she fought back a deeper frown. Lifting her gaze up to everyone else, she said, ”Better to reach their place soon as we can, anyway. Shouldn’t be too far away if that old dog just spotted us.”

“Will we have to sleep there?” a young stallion asked with a whine.

“Well, you can sleep out here if you’d rather,” Applejack said, “but if they offer us beds, I’d suggest takin’ one. Y’all ready to keep movin’?”

No one else objected. Applejack turned back toward Doberman’s trail, right beside the railroad tracks, and led onward. The caravan trudged the same, separating back into their groups and dragging their hooves no faster than before. Applejack kept her eyes on the road as they went—though rather than silence again, she heard conversation spring up again from a younger voice behind her.

“Do they have airships at the Dock, Mommy? ‘Cause that’s what it sounds like they have. I bet it’s way cooler there than at Appleloosa.”

The Dock came into view slowly—at least, what Applejack assumed was the Dock. A crane was the first thing visible, the same kind for any old construction. But the next things in sight, rather than a construction yard or any building projects at all, were eight watchtowers in a wide octagon around the crane. The railroad tracks led straight toward the center.

That was all Applejack saw to the Dock, even as she led everyone up between the two closest towers where the tracks led. The sunset was still reflecting off the top of the crane, stretching several times taller even than the spike fence. Although that’s where the railroad led, the tracks ended at a deep circular canyon that was soon apparent between the crane and every tower.

Another diamond dog waited just before the canyon, leering at the approaching ponies. Though he was much taller than Doberman, most of his height was wasted in a deep, constant lurch. As Applejack trotted up to him ahead of the others, the dog folded his arms and said, “State your business, horsey.”

“Your Mister Doberman told us to come here,” Applejack said.

The guard dog glanced to the other ponies a moment, then rolled his eyes. ”Figures.”

He turned around and waved his arm toward the base of the crane, some kind of depot connecting it to the canyon island. At the guard dog’s signal, the grumbles of twisting gears echoed out from the depot as a brand new railroad extended toward the tower side of the canyon, rattling the whole way until its heavy steel beams inserted into the cliff, bolting tight with a big earthen thunk, and connected with the old tracks.

Applejack stepped closer to the bridge, eyeing the gaps in between each board on the tracks. She glanced back to the guard dog and asked, “You never thought about maybe adding some safety rails to this thing, at least?”

The dog turned his gaze away from behind her, his cheeks flushing bright. He said, “Use it or lose it, lady.”

Applejack looked back to the caravan; most everyone had caught up with her, Fluttershy and Kennedy right behind her again. With a hard swallow, Applejack stepped forward. Though she meant to keep her gaze up, not down, definitely up, straight forward, not down, her eyes disobeyed her wishes. She looked down and gasped, not from fear, but shock.

“Oh, my,” Fluttershy said just behind her, peering down the same. “It looks like they’ve been here some time already….”

The canyon, carved out in a perfect circle around the crane, stretched forever down. As far as sunlight still shone down, there were mining tracks across even more bridges, platforms with crates of precious metals, spotlights upon countless tunnels in every direction, support beams crisscrossing the whole canyon, and diamond dogs. Hundreds more dogs covered every platform down, pushing carts, lifting pulleys, barking commands.

Applejack looked away only to Fluttershy and Kennedy behind her, all of them paused in their first steps over the bridge. “Why the hay wouldn’t Silver tell anypony about this?”

“Keep your asses moving!” the guard dog blustered, still looking any other direction. “Please.”

Applejack rolled her eyes and focused on the tracks again. The boards were more than wide enough to cross safely, but she took them one step at a time. Without mishap, Applejack stepped back onto solid ground and sighed before the depot’s steel shutter door—then jumped as one of the smaller doors beside it slammed open.

Out strode a pony in a regal cape clasped around her neck by a sapphire gemstone. She held her head high, hardly even glancing at Applejack before beginning what already sounded like a speech, declaring, “Pleasure to make my acquaintance, I assure you. Yes, I am the official Equestrian ambassador to the diamond dog kingdom; you’ve surely heard of me already, but in case you haven’t—oh, goddammit, Applejack? You’re dead. Why are you alive?”

Holding a hoof over her still heart despite herself, Applejack settled into a familiar scowl. “What are you doin’ here, Trixie?”

The Claims

No one stayed outside long; it was dinnertime. The ponies in the caravan had crowded into the diamond dogs’ topmost mess hall, only five tunnels down from the plains, and lined up at the edge of the room by the serving station. Big brown mastiffs in aprons controlled the ladles. Even louder than the shrill syllables of conversation echoing through the hall was the chewing, grunting, slurping, and snorting from every table.

Applejack surveyed the room while she waited out of line by the mess hall’s entrance. For how low the ceiling hung, the room’s length was particularly unnatural. There were over a dozen tables to each row, and more than a dozen rows, each sitting sixteen dogs of varying, but mostly big, sizes. Metal panels covered the ceiling, bolted the same over the floor and walls, only a few of them stripped away to let wire-caged light bulbs dangle at intervals too far to light many faces.

Applejack took a deep breath. After their brief reunion a few minutes ago, Trixie had ushered everyone down to the mess hall, hushing Applejack the whole way. Where Trixie had gone, Applejack had no idea; she had just said to wait.

“Now then!”

Applejack jerked around at the voice talking right by her ear. There was Trixie, not even looking up while she rubbed at her clasp with a ruffle of her cape. Though her face betrayed the same wrinkles of age as Fluttershy’s, Trixie stood even prouder now than before. She said, “I’m sure we’ve both got a lot of questions to ask each other, but yours are pointless and mine are pressing. Here’s the most important: why are you here?”

Though a frown conveyed so little of what Applejack meant to express, she made one anyway and said, “Ponyville’s gone. Corpse eaters attacked, and we—”

“My condolences,” Trixie said, “but why are you here?”

“What, you mean not dead? That’s a good—”

“Not that!” Trixie snapped, dropping her tuft of cape. She looked Applejack right in the eye. “Don’t mention that here. Trust me, bad idea. I am asking why you traipsed across this godforsaken hellhole to turn your problems into my problems. Gods. Do you have any idea what concessions these doofuses will expect out of this? That was rhetorical. I know you don’t.”

A scream broke out through the mess hall, one of the mares at the front of the line cupping both hooves to her cheeks as she screeched, “They’re eating people!”

Only a few dogs nearby even looked over their shoulders at the commotion. Trixie rolled her eyes and lifted a hoof to her mouth, calling out to the line, “Oh, don’t be such a prude, it’s mostly cow.”

Applejack’s brow rose. “Cows are people.”

“Yes, well, they’re not eating us, and that’s a step in the right direction,” Trixie said to Applejack. To the servers, Trixie called, “Go and get them some hay, idiots! I know you have some back there!”

She straightened her cape and turned back to Applejack. “Continue why you’re here.”

“We’re headed to Appleloosa,” Applejack said. “These ponies need a new home. I’m not tryin’ to panic you, but like I was sayin’, corpse eaters burned up Ponyville. I don’t think they know anypony made it out, anyhow, so they shouldn’t be following us.”

“I don’t care about any corpse eaters,” Trixie said. “They’ve made it out here before, and it didn’t end well for them. Their scouts never even made it back to make a report. Don’t ask how—it wasn’t pretty. The king didn’t keep them alive for long.”

Applejack cocked her brow again. “Wait, they got a king here? How big is this operation they got goin’?”

“I was just getting to that,” Trixie said. “We’re having dinner with the king’s daughter in the next few minutes; of course the actual king isn’t here right now. Fluttershy is invited, too, and her children. You’re the closest ponies to celebrity or nobility I have available, and that’s important here.”

“Uh, I think I’m still missin’ just about every-thing you’re talkin’ about,” Applejack said. “Like, first of all: how are you an ambassador again?”

Trixie pulled closer to Applejack, stepping just into the weak light overhead. “Here’s a quick lesson in what I do here: the dogs think that I’m an ambassador. That’s what matters.”

Applejack pulled away, her voice growing sharper even as it lowered. “Trixie, you—not that I’m surprised you’re back to your lyin’ game, but we could get in a whole heap of trouble if you’re found out!”

“Oh, well, thank you for that warning,” Trixie hissed, stepping closer again. “Trixie’s been here eleven years, Applejack. I’m not doing this for me, and I damn well know the stakes. Now, where the hell is Silver Lining? He’s even more important than you.”

Applejack’s tone lightened, though her lips were still lopsided in a frown. “Silver? I guess you would know him. He, uh… didn’t make it out.”

Trixie smacked her hoof against the floor, grumbling, “Well, shit. My condolences again, and all that. All right then, okay, I can still make this work. We can still make this dinner work in our favor.”

“Our favor or your favor?” Applejack scoffed.

“I told you that I’m not doing this for me! My talents are important here, all right?” Trixie said. “Now listen: from here on out, you’re Applejack’s daughter. I can’t exactly claim you’re the original with a mane that looks that—well, not good, but… you don’t exactly look old enough to be introduced as one of the Elements of Harmony, anyway.”

Applejack fluffed her loose locks over her shoulder as she frowned, a blush coming over her. “Yeah, well, what I want to know is why I’m the only pony who’s even freaked out about it yet. It’s like, I’m sorry, did the bloodlust just make it normal for ponies to come back from the beyond?”

Trixie sighed and laid a hoof over Applejack’s shoulder. “Listen to me—Trixie has seen some shit, okay? I’ve been around here way too long to be surprised by your little reappearance. It’s not that big a deal. Everything’s going to go fine tonight, don’t worry—just follow Trixie’s lead.”

Rampant

To Appleloosa, Part Two

Ch. 9: The Claims

Applejack was given the seat second-closest to the head of the table, and she now wore a cape. Trixie sat closer, already tucking a napkin into the clasp of her own cape, and her smile suggested far more comfort than anyone else at the table. Fluttershy, Kennedy Gold, and Raindawn sat farther down the table in more capes, and on the other side was only Doberman, in a cleaner blazer than earlier, staring them all down.

The dining hall, nine tunnels down from the plains, looked like a bigger version of the miners’ mess hall, save for how empty it was. The ceiling was taller, but the lights leering over the single table were still gated in chicken wire. There were no servers, no waiters, no butlers. Applejack checked behind herself often enough to know that for sure.

Two seats down the table, Kennedy leaned onto her hoof and said, “How long are we waiting for this princess? We still haven’t eaten. We need some damn food.”

“You need some goddamn patience!” Doberman spat. “Show some fucking gratitude you’re getting food at all from us, saving you from yourselves up there.”

Kennedy rolled her eyes. “We’ll be grateful when we actually eat.”

Doberman growled back at her. Trixie, straightening her cape further, raised her voice a note higher than anyone else as she said, “Hostilities aside, Doberman, how well acquainted are you with my guests?”

Doberman tightened his brow and said, “There isn’t a goddamn thing I care to know about them, Trixie. All I care about is business tonight.”

“Excellent,” Trixie said, smiling wide. She turned to the other ponies and said, “On my right is Fluttershy, the last Element of Harmony still alive, and her children, what’s-her-face and what’s-his-name. On my left is Applejack’s daughter. The elements saved Equestria multiple times, you see, so they actually had an important function back in the day, unlike you.”

“Try harder, Trixie, I’m yawning,” Doberman scoffed, crossing his arms.

Applejack pulled at the collar of her cape even as she said, “Yeah, uh, my name is—”

“No one cares,” Trixie said, waving her hoof before pointing it to Doberman. “Ladies, gentlecolt, this dumb mutt is Yuff Doberman. He’s a dick. Be courteous, but don’t be nice, please. It goes to his head.”

Fluttershy raised herself up from her chair, saying, “It’s nice to meet you, Yuff.”

Doberman chuckled gutturally. “Go shove it up your ass, granny.”

Kennedy pushed forward over the table, leaning with a hunch as she growled, “If you keep talking to my mother that way I’m going to make you eat—”

Fluttershy tapped a hoof to Kennedy’s shoulder, pausing her. Fluttershy said, “I appreciate that very much, Gold, but I’m all right.”

Kennedy glared at Doberman even as she pulled back, both her and Fluttershy sitting down again. Applejack glanced from them to Raindawn, whose gaze remained on the table; she thought better than trying to bring him into the conversation this time. As Trixie was checking her hoof hygiene, Applejack instead looked to Doberman and asked, “So, what’s the story with you dogs coming ‘round these parts, anyway? You never said that part.”

Doberman smirked. “We take what we want, pown.”

“It was business,” Trixie added, still examining her hooves. “They bought this strip of land for their mining, as you could have guessed. I arranged it myself.”

The double doors at the far end of the hall opened just then, and a boarhound with his paws clutched behind his back padded in. Trixie lowered her hoof, glancing first to Doberman as she said to Applejack, “I’m sure we’ll discuss it more tonight, don’t you worry.”

The dog just entering wore a dark, oversized cardigan, a blue collar studded with topaz gems, and a frown he barely deigned to show. He cleared his throat and announced, “Her Majesty will be here in a minute more. I am her steward, here to ensure tonight is enjoyable for all present, but mostly for her. Ambassador Lulamoon—”

Trixie already frowned at him.

“—have you taught our guests the proper procedure for dinner with Her Majesty yet?”

Trixie rolled her eyes, waving her hoof in circles as she said, “They showed up here an hour ago, Attaboy. Dinner etiquette wasn’t at the top of my priorities to address for such a brief meeting.”

The steward, Attaboy, sighed. Despite the same hunch in his shoulders as Doberman, the same as most dogs Applejack had seen underground, Attaboy spoke with a low, raspy eloquence. He said, “Mm-hmm. Then to the table’s newcomers, let me do your ambassador’s job for her. When Her Majesty enters the room, you shall stand, and continue to stand until Her Majesty sits. When the food is served, you shall wait until Her Majesty has begun eating until you begin eating. When you speak anything to Her Majesty, do not press her for an answer; Her Majesty will respond to you if she finds it worthwhile to do that. When Her Majesty speaks, you shall be silent until she has finished. If at any point during the evening you have a question, statement, or ponderance that you are not sure is appropriate for Her Majesty, shut the fuck up. For anything else that arises, all I require is that you use your best judgment.”

Applejack raised her hoof.

“Ask your question,” Attaboy said.

Applejack lowered her hoof. “Do you got a copy of that on paper or sumpin’?”

Attaboy offered the smallest grin. “I recite it from memory. It’s one of my simplest duties.”

“No, I mean for us,” Applejack said.

Attaboy’s expression faded. A knock echoed out from behind one of the doors, and Attaboy only glanced back before sighing to Applejack, “Best judgment.”

Trixie sat up straight and Doberman pulled his blazer tighter. Attaboy gripped the handle to the door, clearing his throat again before he said, “Introducing Her Majesty Prince Cleopatra Yorkshire, Duke of the Five Burrows and heir to the diamond throne. All rise.”

Doberman was the only one to push his seat back, standing first. Applejack attempted shoving hers away, but without her hooves on the floor to brace herself, resigned to standing up on all fours in the chair itself. Trixie had already stood up in her chair, and managed to look far more elegant doing so than Applejack.

Attaboy pulled open the doors fully, stepping aside as he did, and presented the smallest dog Applejack had yet seen. And Cleopatra was not just little, but a little girl. She held her stubby arms at her sides as she entered, a bearskin robe trailing long behind her. She didn’t look to anyone else in the room, but instead kept her gaze forward, displaying only a frown—or a well-disguised pout, Applejack wondered—beneath her trimmed brow.

Only a few steps in and Cleopatra jerked to a stop, her robe stretching at one of the doors. With a remarkably high-pitched voice, she said, “I’m stuck.”

Attaboy reached down and tugged her robe away from the offending door. Cleopatra bundled a fistful into her paw and yanked it fully clear, and Attaboy shut the doors again behind her. Proceeding to her seat at the head of the table, Cleopatra shoved her paws onto the chair’s cushion and pulled herself up, patting down a booster pillow before she twisted around and plopped onto it. Attaboy came up behind her seat and tucked her robe over the back.

While everyone else sat down, Applejack raised her hoof again. Attaboy looked to her and sighed, “You don’t have to do that every time.”

Lowering her hoof and sitting down, Applejack turned toward Cleopatra and said, a note higher than she meant to, “You’re a girl.”

Trixie slapped her own forehead. Attaboy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, remaining silent. Cleopatra looked back to Applejack and said, “Yeah. Thanks.”

Fluttershy spoke up next to Applejack, her voice closer to a mumble. “But—why are you a prince, if you’re a girl?”

“Not this shit again,” Doberman grumbled. “Go ahead, waste all our time tonight asking us to explain every goddamn thing you feel like hearing about. Not like we have business to get to.”

Attaboy cleared his throat again and said, “Princesses are a pony concept. We diamond dogs only ever have one prince, and so distinguishing the prince, or the king, by gender, is uselessly aesthetic.”

Cleopatra squirmed into her seat further, tugging at the lining of her bearskin as she said, “Means I’m a big deal around here, pony. What makes you so special, prodding around up top in the sun with all your other ponies?”

“Parading,” Attaboy said. Cleopatra held up her index finger to shush him.

Trixie leaned forward next, lifting her chin as she said, “Their caravan has come from Ponyville, Your Majesty. You see, the same rebels as we’ve discussed before have been making several raids close to the town in recent days, according to the pony beside me—”

She gestured to Applejack.

“—So, in her bountiful grace and wisdom, Princess Celestia elected to send some of our fair town’s more vulnerable citizens further out of harm’s way to Appleloosa, knowing you’d see to their safe travel, just in case the rebels make any attempts to overpower the princess’s fortifications in Ponyville.”

Trixie’s guests remained silent for a long moment. Applejack stared back at her, reeling her thoughts for any mention of such a story from earlier, gaping while she did. Fluttershy stared the same, her lips ajar and brow unsure. Kennedy was slumped over her hoof, but even she frowned wide-eyed over to Trixie.

“Grace and wisdom my ass,” Doberman said, folding his arms as he leaned back. “She should have sent some more goddamn soldiers to crush those sick fuckers, make a statement.”

Trixie shook her head and tutted him before clapping her hooves onto the table. She grinned. “You would make a terrible princess, Yuff. Now, allow me to introduce my guests, Your Majesty. May I present the last living Element of Harmony, Fluttershy, and her children, uh, Raingold and Dawnboy—and beside me is Applejack’s daughter, Applejack Jr. She, in particular, can attest to the situation in Ponyville, and about the rebels’—or again, in the local parlance, ‘corpse eaters’—ultimately unsuccessful attacks.”

Doberman and Cleopatra turned the same gaze to Applejack. Applejack glanced between them, her back already pressed fully against her chair. “Uh, it’s, uh—it’s Boonehat, I guess, actually—”

“No one cares,” Trixie said. “Applejack was the Element of Honesty, you see, and her daughter Boonehat has carried on the trait admirably! Boonehat, elaborate just a bit on what happened this latest time.”

Everybody at the table locked their gazes upon her. Applejack glanced back to everyone, her gaze darting around as her head turned slowly. She pulled her hooves closer in and sat stiffer in her chair, saying, “Well, uh, you know—those darn rebels, I mean, the corpse eaters—y’know, those corpse eatin’ rebels—they were messin’ around a lot, makin’ us feel all vulnerable, so, uh… here we are.”

Cleopatra stayed quiet seconds more without responding. She scratched her ear. More intently than before, she said, “You sound real familiar, pony. You got any other family, like, say, guy ponies?”

Applejack’s frown turned genuine, but she contained most of it. “No, Miss Prince, not anymore.”

Trixie sat back down and lowered her voice as she elaborated, “Actually, Your Majesty, Fluttershy is also Silver Lining’s mother. Unfortunately, Silver—”

Cleopatra’s smile burst forth all at once, reaching up to her ears even as a blush took over. “Oh, no he didn’t! Silver already sent his mother to meet me? He thinks he’s so slick! That sly dog! He thinks he’s all impressive, like he could really ever impress me, or woo me!”

Applejack leaned over to Trixie, whispering, “What is she talkin’ about?”

Trixie’s dinner smile held its place in her expression even as she muttered back, “It’s just something most dogs go through at her age: puppy love.”

“He thinks he’s so awesome, but he’ll never take a hold of my heart and soul like he thinks he has. Oh, gosh. I remember how we met like it was yesterday,” Cleopatra said, gaze drifting to the ceiling. “It was the first time he came through here—”

“Twenty-third,” Doberman grumbled.

“Whatever! That’s basically the first!” Cleopatra snapped. “He had this big wagon full of—I dunno, stuff—hitched to him, rolling behind him. The first thing he said to me, when we sat here eating dinner and stuff, was, ‘Sure is hot around here, huh?’ That silly, he thinks he’s so smooth.”

Fluttershy teared up without a smile. Kennedy shook her head. Applejack puckered her lips back.

“But as cool as it is for Silver to finally bring me his family,” Cleopatra said, glancing to the ponies, “where is he, anyway?”

Trixie pulled in another breath, pausing a moment before explaining. She spoke slower. “Unfortunately, Your Majesty—Silver is dead.”

Cleopatra stared right through Trixie. Trixie hung her head, and everyone remained silent for the prince. Cleopatra then bundled her tiny paws into fists, eyes narrowing, and slammed the table.

“God damn it!”

All the ponies recoiled, save for Trixie. Doberman sighed under his breath, shaking his head.

“He sends his mother to meet me and then he dies?” Cleopatra yelled, her voice echoing through the hall. “Where the hell did he die? Who killed him?”

“It was a cowardly attack, Your Majesty,” Trixie said immediately, raising her head. “It was—it was a rebel scout disguised amongst the town’s guards, you see, who was collecting information before he apparently decided to assassinate Silver Lining. We can only guess his motives, as he fled Ponyville immediately, probably to report back to the main rebel branch. Cowardly.”

“That’s powns for you, never keeping an eye on your backs,” Doberman growled.

Trixie jutted a hoof toward him, saying, “Show some respect for the dead, Yuff! Silver Lining was a very—a mostly pleasant pony, and we’ll all be mourning—”

“For the holy gods, forget about that a minute!” Cleopatra cried, standing up in her booster cushion. “Where is Silver’s body right now? Has he been burned yet? Is his body rotting? How long ago did he die?”

Fluttershy’s eyes welled up deeper as she turned away, covering herself. Kennedy laid a hoof over her mother’s shoulder, then scowled at the prince and said, “Could you not bring that up?”

Cleopatra shouted, “This is important, you dumb ponies! Where’s his body?”

Applejack ducked her gaze away from Fluttershy as the old mare’s sniffles grew louder, but she heard Attaboy mutter, “Your Majesty, consider what it is you’re suggesting.”

Cleopatra yelled back, “Oh, piss off! I don’t need some talk about conser—consa—”

“Consequences.”

“Conserquences, whatever, you’re stupid!” Cleopatra said. “I’m the prince! I’m a god! I can raise Silver back to life and the consakencers can go fuck themselves in the ass with a long rusty rail! The same rail, going up each ass and cutting through their stupid fucking tummies and out their mouths to each next ass until they all die in agony and I raise them back up, just so they can go through it again!”

No one responded. Applejack turned back, unsure how to even process the outburst. Fluttershy stopped crying, jaw hanging instead. Kennedy gaped the same, and even Raindawn looked up. Trixie only shook her head in a silent tut-tut as Cleopatra’s fists bundled tighter each second.

Doberman leaned closer to the table, enunciating low, “And what would the king think if you did that, Cleopatra?”

Cleopatra still huffed her breath, but she didn’t shout back. Another moment of silence passed. She dropped her fists and sat back down, pushing further into her seat and folding her arms, scowling with her whole body. She glared at each of the ponies, but her gaze lingered on Fluttershy. Fluttershy looked back to the table, mouth still ajar.

Cleopatra poked Attaboy’s side. He leaned down to her, and she raised a paw to her mouth and whispered something into his ear. He muttered back, “‘Apologies for my outburst.’”

“Apologies for my outburst,” Cleopatra said, though the huffing still remained behind her voice. She glanced to Fluttershy again. “Condiments for your loss. Sucks.”

Fluttershy nodded through her remaining tears. Applejack leaned over the table in front of her, looking to the prince as she said, “Wait, so—what about that raisin’ thing?”

Cleopatra said nothing, but Doberman looked straight to Applejack with the same contempt as when they had first met. He growled, “Forget about that—we don’t tolerate corpses. They bring sickness. We burn them all.”

Applejack pushed back into her seat. As no one else said anything, Cleopatra smacked Attaboy again and said, “Just get the food already!”

Attaboy raised his paws and clapped twice, calling out, “Dinner is served.”

At another side of the room, a smaller set of double doors shoved open. A bulldog dressed in a double-breasted white jacket ambled into the hall wheeling a long tray of dishes, each steaming from underneath a silver dome. He grunted at each stop around the table, dropping each tray in front of the guests with a rattle and slight splat. Reaching the prince’s place, the chef set her dish down slower and lifted the lid off for her.

Applejack pulled off the lid to her own meal, as did everyone else, and grimaced. Although hay was adorned by the side of the dish, a slab of fleshy steak was oozing in the center of her plate. She gulped back the bile in her stomach.

Doberman picked up his knife and fork and cut in, sawing off a large piece of his own steak. As he gulped that down, starting on another bite, he glared at Trixie and said, “Well then, seems it’s finally time for some goddamn business. Feeding and watering forty powns isn’t cheap, Trixie. We aren’t going to be unreasonable about this, but—”

“Obviously Princess Celestia already considered your costs,” Trixie interrupted, brushing over the hay with her hoof, “and she’s graciously willing to reduce your lease for the northern gem fields by whatever’s incurred by the caravan’s stay here.”

“We want a permanent reduction,” Doberman said. “The king isn’t satisfied with what our costs are running at up here, and your pown party isn’t making that any better.”

Applejack turned to Trixie and said, “Wait, what lease, now?”

Trixie looked away from her, saying, “Just a small fee the princess collects as per the GAP Pact, nothing for you to worry about.”

Doberman sneered at Applejack and said, “Business is politics, pown; they’re one and the same. Maybe you’d do better to keep up on what’s happening under your goddamn nose.”

“I’ve told you before, Yuff, politics isn’t a game that ponies actively try to burden themselves with,” Trixie scoffed.

Kennedy spoke up again, raising her voice nearly as high as Trixie’s as she said, “Yeah, politics isn’t really our thing back home, so what we’re hearing tonight is just a little surprising to us.”

As Trixie’s face contorted every moment she tried to phrase a reply, Fluttershy looked around the table and asked, “But whatever is the GAP Pact? I still don’t know what it is.”

Doberman crossed his arms and looked to Attaboy. Cleopatra, her cheek planted into her paw with a blank frown sprawling across her face, looked next. Attaboy looked to Trixie.

“You may explain this time, Trixie. They’re your guests.”

Trixie gulped back her frown and put her pearly whites on careful display. “Well, obviously you would have heard all about it if you were at all involved in Ponyville’s political circles, but I suppose it can’t be helped that you weren’t. You see, the diamond dogs were looking to expand their mining operations some years ago, and Equestria just so happened to have some gem-heavy hills near their border, just a little north of here. Princess Celestia saw the perfect opportunity to improve relations between our nations, and offered to sell them the land here to ease their overpopulation further south, and then let them mine the hills nearby at a cost. She sent me, and the rest is history.”

Only Fluttershy smiled a little at Trixie’s answer. “Oh, Trixie, I had no idea! Congratulations at becoming an ambassador. That must have been very exciting.”

A deep, bellowing laugh echoed from Doberman. He smirked across at all the ponies and said, “That’s one way of telling the story. A real cute way. Here’s how I remember it: we found the gems in your hills, we came up, and we took them. Trixie came begging us for a deal in the name of your little princess, anything to avoid war. Our king—against my advisory—decided to take the deal, so more of our soldiers could be kept on the southern front.”

Trixie narrowed her eyes at him. Doberman leaned forward, narrowing his back at hers. Lowering his voice, he said, “We could have wiped you out instead. We could take your whole—”

Cleopatra pointed her fork at Doberman and cried, “Don’t you question the king’s decimation! I’m gonna be the king someday, and you better not act that dopey when I am!”

Attaboy coughed and said, “Decisi—”

Cleopatra jutted her fork over to him, pointing it at his belly with a deep pout. Attaboy sighed and shut his mouth.

Trixie’s horn glowed and she lifted her fork, prodding at the meat on her plate with it. She chuckled. Lowering her voice to match, she said, “Oh, but Yuff, I think you didn’t get it quite right. Diamond dogs don’t take what they want, they take what they can. At least your king understands how important it is to maintain good relations with the Princess of the Sun.”

She lifted the whole steak, staring straight at Doberman as she leaned her jaws into it and tore away a bite, chewing slowly. Applejack watched beside her while edging away in her seat.

Trixie swallowed, raising her pep as she said, “Because of how wonderful her magic is to all these lands’ inhabitants, of course!”

Doberman growled, “You’re not the only ones with magic, Trixie. You remember that.”

“I didn’t mean to even suggest it,” Trixie said, smiling again. “Business, though: I have the authority to offer a small reduction in the lease, I suppose, just for the sake of our precious bond. I can’t offer that with an immediate discount for the caravan’s costs, of course. One or the other. Your choice. Feel free to mull it over.”

Doberman pulled back in his chair, crossing his arms. He looked to Cleopatra and said, “What do you have to say to that, Your Majesty?”

Cleopatra paused while a bit of steak still dangled out of her mouth, looking back to Doberman. She slurped it up, swallowed, and said, “Am I supposed to just choose one?”

Doberman sighed. Attaboy leaned down next to Cleopatra and said, “You should consider another option to present, Your Majesty. Continue the haggling until you find a deal you think favorable.”

“Oh, okay,” Cleopatra said.

She rose and hopped onto the table, fork still in paw. Raising her chin, she pointed the fork to Trixie this time and said plainly, “Give us the hills for free or we’ll kill you and all the other ponies here, for real.”

Trixie paused, mouth hanging open a bit. She turned cautiously toward Doberman, who smirked back at her and said, “Your rebuttal?”

As the other ponies remained still, Trixie looked back to Cleopatra and said, “Trixie’s going to have to say no to every part of that.”

Cleopatra narrowed her gaze, grip tightening on her fork. She puckered her lips, spending several seconds in deep apparent thought before she lowered her arm again and turned to Doberman. Her voice rose back to its usual pitch. “Wow, she’s good! Let’s just do that reducted thing.”

Doberman rolled back in his chair, groaning silently. Trixie smiled again, levitating over a napkin to wipe her mouth as she said, “Princess Celestia will be so glad to hear that, Your Majesty! And I’m personally really looking forward to the rest of your negotiating career.”

Cleopatra climbed back down into her chair, and Applejack and the other ponies relaxed a bit. While Applejack and Kennedy looked to the hay on their plates, Fluttershy rested her hooves on the table as she stared forward. With a cocked brow and an uneasy frown, she looked to Trixie and said, “But, wait, Trixie… how can you be a Canterlot ambassador? I thought nopony had talked with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna in years because they closed the gates of Canterlot, and then because of Canterlot’s siege from the corpse eaters. Maybe I missed something important, I don’t know… but how can either of them still talk with you if they’re locked away in Canterlot? And—and Ponyville—”

Fluttershy stopped. Silence from everyone. All eyes on her, Doberman’s the widest. Applejack felt like smacking a hoof over Fluttershy’s mouth, but her hooves felt too numb.

Cleopatra blinked twice. “Come again?”

Fluttershy stared blankly around at them, looking even less sure. When she glanced to her children next for an explanation, Trixie looked to the dogs and swished a hoof in circles by the side of her head with a silent whistle. A second later she switched to pointing right at Fluttershy and mouthing she’s old as shit.

Fluttershy turned back toward the head of the table. Trixie stopped and smiled something calm, saying much slower and clearer, “That’s right, Fluttershy, and we’re all hoping for the best with that nasty, nasty siege. I’m sure the princesses are going to be fine.”

Doberman settled back into his chair slowly. Fluttershy looked back to her plate, mouth ajar as her confusion settled deeper. Kennedy rubbed her mother on the shoulder and said to the rest of the table, “Maybe we should just change the subject.”

Raindawn stood up in his chair and banged his hooves onto the table, rattling the entire thing. All eyes turned to him next, and Applejack saw him only shaking as he bared his teeth through a grimace. He yelled, “Every damn time!”

Kennedy pulled her hoof away from Fluttershy, but before she could say anything Raindawn kept yelling, “Change the subject, change the subject! You’ll talk about anything but Silver!”

Applejack considered whether to say anything for a moment, and before considering enough, she blurted, “Hey, kid, you all right?”

“I am not all right!” Raindawn cried, then looking down to Kennedy. “You’ll gossip about anybody and anything but you won’t talk to me about our own family!”

Kennedy looked back to him with low eyes. “Rainy, I know what you’re going to say—”

“Then let me say it!” Raindawn spat. “You—you had all the time you wanted before you moved out, and, and—and because you didn’t get along with him, you took me with you before I could even decide what I wanted to do! I got to know him by accident when he came to visit me at school!”

Kennedy said nothing more, instead just watching Raindawn go off. Applejack watched the same. Doberman and Attaboy stayed out of it, but Cleopatra added, “I’m okay with this subject change.”

Fluttershy reached a hoof over toward Raindawn, even though Kennedy was seated between them. Fluttershy said, “Rainy, your sister did what she thought was best at the time, please don’t blame her….”

“She’s the only one to blame!” Rainy said, shaking. “If it weren’t for her we would have still been a proper family, and maybe I could have said goodbye to Silver before he died!”

Kennedy put a hoof to her forehead, closing her eyes even as she growled, “No, you couldn’t have. No one could have saved him.”

“You could have! But you ran instead! Did you even try to save Mom?”

Kennedy closed her eyes tight even though Fluttershy was the one tearing up again. Applejack looked between them all, but this time she thought of nothing even stupid to say.

Trixie lifted her voice and called out, “Maybe we already need some dessert?”

Raindawn kept his gaze on Kennedy. He shook his head, climbed down from his chair, and walked out. Kennedy didn’t even watch him leave, but Fluttershy lifted a hoof after him, sputtering without response. Applejack hopped down from her seat, too, her cape trailing behind her as she left the same way as Raindawn.

Even as Applejack followed him out, she heard Cleopatra saying to her remaining guests, “That kinda came outta nowhere, but I can see where Silver got his feisty side now. Yeah, you guys would’ve made great extended family.”

Applejack trotted back into the miners’ mess hall much slower than the first time, cape abandoned several tunnels ago. She wasn’t any more familiar with the tunnels, but of the two rooms she’d seen so far, she at least remembered how to get back to this one.

It was almost empty now. Only ponies still sat huddled together by a few tables close to the back, their plates all perfectly clean, not that hay left many crumbs. They were settled in, some of them even smiling by now as quiet conversation provided ambience over the buzzing of the lights overhead. No one had come to get them after the miners were finished eating, nor offered them beds.

Applejack saw Raindawn sitting by the end of the whole group, beside the mare he’d kept with the whole trip so far. His face was bowed again, the mare was rubbing him on the shoulder, and they were talking. Applejack turned for another table.

Pushing her hooves onto a bench, she climbed up and slid her legs inward, sitting on all fours. Though soreness was no longer part of her experience, Applejack could tell how stiff and ragged both the table and bench were. They weren’t meant for pony composure. Even so, she leaned heavy onto the table, drooping her head with a sigh like several others had already done.

She sat next to the lone filly of the caravan, who was already napping against her mother’s side. The mother was talking with the father, who were both bantering with a stallion across the table. Applejack didn’t stare, but her gaze flitted to everyone within sight. Some looked back to her without saying hello, discomfort written plainly across their expressions, but all the voices she heard were okay. They talked about what comforted them.

Applejack pulled her forelegs up underneath her head, resting on them like a pillow. She closed her eyes, not sleeping, just listening. The only gloom she heard was from the filly napping beside her, breath wheezing slowly from a low snore, who was muttering her last coherent thoughts.

“No airships… this place sucks….”