Chapters The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Canterlot - Intro and Shining Armor
The rain was falling hard from the grey clouds hanging and drifting across the sky. On occasion lightning would arc from one cloud to another, or would on rare occasion strike the ground. The wind blew from time to time, cold and biting to any who did not wear sufficient clothing or perhaps had very thin fur.
A few four-legged figures with milky-white eyes or sometimes none at all took slow and stumbling steps forward across the mostly-open and grassy ground while others dragged themselves through the tall grass and shrub across the ground, sometimes leaving bits of themselves behind in the process. No birds flitted about in this place any longer. No animals came to dwell where the civilized had once tread as was common occurrence in times passed, and there were especially no travelers that dared attempt a short cut through the wilderness. There was a time when it was mostly safe to do such a thing, but in the modern world, only those without wings whom were desperate or suicidal attempted such short cuts.
Sadly it was not just the wild that had become the dwelling place of what the still-living called Shamblers. Many a small town and city were much the same way with few exceptions, and with each of those exceptions, life was hard and normally unpleasant. But to quote the still living captain of the royal guard:
"A life of comfort leads to letting your guard down. If you want you and what's left of your family and friends to survive, you'll never let your guard down or do anything you'd call another stupid for."
Shining Armor frowned as he looked almost down diagonally from a balcony of the Canterlot royal palace. Along the slopes of the mountain on which both the palace and the city had been built he could see the outline of hundreds of figures trying to walk or climb up to reach one of the last bastions of Pony life in Equestria only to slide or tumble back down again. Thank goodness.
As far as he knew, there were only three other towns and cities that still had the living dwelling inside them. All others were either filled with the dead and rotting, the Shamblers, or had been burned to the ground or deserted. One of these surviving cities was Cloudsdale.
Cloudsdale had suffered far fewer casualties than any other large dwelling place of Ponies for two simple reasons: undead Pegasai had no idea how to fly, and their cloud walking magic failed when they succumbed to the infection from bites or blood-splatter to the eyes, mouth, or open wounds. If any Pegasus returned home with a bite they would fall through the cloudcrete when they died, thus preventing spread of the Shamblers in their city.
Another other was Appaloosa, which was situated in a hot desert. Any Shamblers that wandered into the desert quickly turned in a regular sun baked corpse within three days to a week. This was not to say that Appaloosa was completely safe, but like most folk that lived away from the heart of Equestrian lands before the first few Shambler outbreaks, the moment the Appaloosans first heard of major trouble brewing elsewhere the whole town came together like a family. When more and more Ponies kept turning up day after day on the train telling the same story the townsfolk took action.
With the help of a few local tribes of Buffalo they began cutting and transporting stone blocks from an old quarry to the southeast of their town to build a wall two Buffalo tall. By the time the first of the Shamblers successfully made their way along the train tracks in pursuit of yet another train full of refugees (some of which who turned out to have already been infected and were placed in the town jail until they turned) the whole of Appoloosa proper was well fortified, and the townsfolk exhausted (but safe from Shamblers) from their efforts.
The farms and orchards were simply too large to include, but as stated before, most Shamblers never made the journey from the green lands of Equestria's core to dry and hot Appoloosa, so for the most part life went on as it had pretty much the same as before.
If only the same could have been said for Ponyville. Shining Armor thought, not for the first time, thinking of his sister, whom he'd not heard from in over a year. He could see Ponyville with the naked eye from where he stood, but all it took was a glance through a pair of binoculars to see that the living were no longer present in that little town.
Shining Armor wiped a single tear that traced down the side of his face and turned his head off in the direction of the Crystal Empire, where he knew Cadence was trying to keep everypony calm and productive.
The extremely cold weather between the Equestrian border and the Crystal Empire had a similar effect on the Shamblers as the desert did, except that rather than drying out and destroying the Shamblers it froze them near to solid instead. Any who journeyed from Canterlot to out there nowadays could look out from the train's windows and see several broken rows of stiff and stuck Shamblers to either (and sometimes upon) the train's tracks as they rolled atop the rails. A triangular plow had been added to the front of the train after the train's first return trip from the Crystal Empire (since the first widespread outbreak) to remove risk of derailing from running frozen Shamblers over.
They're going to need to be dealt with at some point, but right now things are still shaky here.
Celestia and Luna had tried to keep the citizens of Canterlot calm, but had ultimately failed. The ensuing panic over the next week when a group of Shamblers were discovered inside the city led to nearly half of the population of Canterlot either being infected or killed by accident. In the end the princesses had to use their magic to teleport the remains of the royal and town guard and some two hundred-plus citizens behind one of the two walls erected during one of the times of strife in the past. They then commanded the Unicorn guards to bolt shut the gates and fuse them to the frame to prevent them from being opened again.
There was hesitation on part of the guards, for many of them still had family or neighbors or friends on the other side, but Luna, with tears of regret mirroring those of her elder sister trotted forward and did it for them.
As the days went by fleeing Pegasai stopped coming over the walls. Screams for help or of agonized pain as someone was eaten alive became fewer and farther between, and now, with a little more than fourteen months having gone by since then the only sound to be heard from the Lower District was the wind whistling down the stone alleyways, the rain dripping from overflowing gutters during a downpour, and if you listened carefully there could be heard the sound of slow and heavy clops that marked the hoof falls of an upright Shambler.
If anything good could have been said to come of that tragic and horrifying time (not that it was any less horrifying a time to live in today) it was the discovery that only Ponies were affected by the Shambler infection. Several Minotaur and Gryphons tourists had been bitten (or had a chunk torn out of them) before reaching and getting over the wall through one method or another, and to date none of them had Turned. In time, Celestia hoped to negotiate with the other races to gain military aid and eventually start taking back their homes.
But in the meantime we'll have to fend for ourselves.
Shining Armor turned away from the balcony's end and trotted through the palace. He nodded at any servants or fellow guards that he passed, but said nothing to anypony until he reached the sealed gates at the end of the Upper District. All along the wall several activities were taking place, most of them work.
Volunteer Pegasai were hauling sacks of soil taken from the valley surrounding the mountain to be used to plant gardens that would hopefully yield them enough food to last until the much hoped-for help from the other races came. Due to the undead being too stupid to know how to climb, fly, or use ladders the rooftops of both the upper and lower city would be used for planting gardens upon.
The Earth Ponies stood at the sealed gates occasionally thrusting between the bars with spears or other pointed pole weapons to kill any Shamblers that came within range and the Unicorns stood nearby to hurl the destroyed undead from the city and down the slopes of the mountain. The Unicorns also helped levitate wooden planks stripped from around the palace and the upper city (much to the chagrin of the surviving Noble families) up on top of the wall where several Gryphons and more Pegasai were busy building makeshift bridges from the top of the wall to the buildings closest to them. It was hoped by many that if a reliable rooftop bridge system could be made, they might not need foreign help to take back Canterlot City at the least, and could safely impale the Shamblers with long spears from the safety of a flat roofed single or double-story building. Currently they were two blocks out from the wall.
It's a decent plan I suppose. Shining Armor frowned. I can't help but feel a bit nervous about it, though. Most of those boards weren't made to be walked on. All it's going to take is for someone of the wrong weight to step on one and-
"Jeeze, Day Captain!" an exasperated sudden and close voice addressed him, nearly making him jump out of his fur. "I know our species is pretty much boned, but would it kill you to smile once in awhile? Your looking serious all the time is just depressing!" Shining's grim expression became a scowl. "Even that's an improvement!" A few trots away from him stood one of Luna's personal Bat-Pony guards (minus the armor that was standard for their uniform).
"Smile?" Shining asked, his scowl deepening but his volume lowering to a heated whisper as he approached the bat-pony mare so the others would be less likely to overhear. "How can I smile after all that's happened? After losing almost my entire family?! After watching my home city tear itself apart from fear and an undead plague?!" He turned away from her, looking once more at the sealed gates just in time to see a guard impale a Shambler through an eye socket. "You ask me why I don't smile." Shining laughed without humor. "What reason do any of us have to smile?"
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Everfree Forest - Zecora and Apple Bloom
Everfree Forest - Zecora and Apple Bloom
Zecora's eyes carefully scanned the wilderness beneath the tree she'd hidden herself in for the evening, her ears strained to take heed of any sound, be it a twig snapping, a pile of leafs ruffled by the wind, or the rasping breath or growl of one of the dead ones that the ponies of Equestria often called Shamblers. It was close to night time now, and in her experience these once-pony monsters hunted using primarily their sense of smell and their hearing depending on how decayed or damaged they were. There had been a few she'd encountered that had seemed to have lost all of their senses including sight, as she'd witnessed them crashing into trees and rocks or even walking off small cliffs that their brethren paused at before turning aside.
At the snap of a dry branch her head on reflex twisted behind her and her muscles tensed, ready to spring into action and flee even though she was safely above any ground-walking creature. Zecora waited, then smiled and relaxed as young Apple Bloom walked under the tree that they'd marked a few days ago as a Rest Zone. She set down the small bag she had been carrying on her back and then with a little effort began to climb the pegs to grab the reel hook that she herself had installed. After climbing up several pegs that had been hammered into the tree's trunk and onto the two-pony platform that she and Zecora had built she reeled it up and placed it on a branch above her head.
Wiping the sweat from her brow, she smiled at Zecora.
"Heya, Zecora! See anything intrestin'?" She asked in a soft voice. The Forest's wildlife might not tolerate the presence of the undead this deep in the woods, but that didn't mean they were any more friendly with the living. Both Apple Bloom and Zecora had learned shortly after making the forest their home that making more noise than necessary was only asking for trouble.
"Nopony or Shambler have I have seen, but two of the Timber Wolves, very mean. They sniffed at this tree, then passed on by, they scampered on off at another's cry."
"Another pony? Or something else?" Apple Bloom asked as she pulled a large edible mushroom from the bag and bit into it. They did not taste very good, but Zecora assured her that they were not poisonous, and were in fact very nourishing.
Shifting from her previous position of being on her stomach, Zecora turned on her side.
"It sounded as a bull's bellow. Very angry he sounded, this fellow." Apple Bloom gave Zecora another mushroom and a few berries from the bag and tried to look out of the branches through the leaves. A pointless effort, this high in the tree. If she wanted to see anything she would need to stick her face down through the hole in the floor that Zecora had been looking through earlier. "You were gone near half the day. Where is it to, you ran away?"
Apple Bloom swallowed her mouthful of shroom and looked away from Zecora again. Zecora said nothing and waited.
"Ah went back to the family farm to see if mah family had gone back to it." Zecora raised an eyebrow, but still said nothing. Both of them knew how dangerous it was out in the open (which was just about how dangerous it was another half mile deeper into the forest at night). They both also knew that danger or no Apple Bloom had not forgotten that her older sister had led the monsters away so she could escape. If there was a chance that she and her brother and grandmother were still alive even after all this time, she wanted to check the place they'd most likely be if they were still in the area. "Ah saw a few Shamblers, and that someone had been taking some of our apples from the trees closest to town, but no sign anypony livin' save for a kilt Shambler."
This had not been the first time that Apple Bloom (or Zecora) had journeyed to the Apple Farm. Over the course of the first few months after everypony still living and sane abandoned Ponyville they'd taken tools, food, the few medical supplies that hadn't already been looted by other ponies, a crossbow that Granny Smith said her father used to use to chase off bandits when she was young, and some blankets and a cart to carry it all back to Zecora's home. There were quite a few more Shamblers wandering around back then and Zecora had nearly been bitten several times trying to protect her young friend as well as herself, but they made it there and back with their health intact.
"I am sure that they are alright." Zecora said, sitting up and placing a hoof on her friend's shoulder. "Your family would not go down without a fight."
"Ah know that." Apple Bloom said. Her voice took on a tone of concern as she continued "but almost everypony who did fight was either eaten, or got bit and turned into one of 'em!" Her eyes widened and she began to tremble a little. "What- what if that's what happened to 'em?" Apple Bloom sniffed and her eyes began to moisten. "What if all mah friends and ma- mah whole f-family -" She started to cry and Zecora reached out her forelegs and pulled Apple Bloom into a tight hug as tears began to pour down her face, soaking them both.
The sun had been lowered and the moon raised. Stars twinkled above in the sky with a blissful ignorance of what those down on the little world below them were going through. Or perhaps they did know and most of them simply did not care.
One of the twinkling lights shot across the sky, leaving a trail of light behind in its wake for any who were awake and looking at the sky to see.
"Ah wish...Ah wish..." Apple Bloom squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated all her will on that one desire. "Ah wish that mah big brother, mah sister, and mah friends made it out of town to somewhere safe!" The first star streak shone brighter than it had before, and then suddenly vanished. Not ten seconds later a second streak shot across the sky and Apple Bloom's face lit up with a smile and hope filled her heart. Surely this was a sign? "And that one day we'll all be together again!"
<><><>
Big Macintosh awoke in his group's shelter with a snort, startling Rarity, who'd taken this night's watch. Beside her slept her little sister Sweetie Bell, and her latest (and possibly last living) friend, Button Mash.
"Bad dreams, dahling? I know I've been having them almost nonstop." Rarity asked, sympathy on her face and tangles and dirt in her mane. All four of the ponies were a bit dirty, actually. There had not been much of an opportunity to stop and take a proper bath lately, and even Rarity had to admit that their continued good health was more important than keeping her main styled and clean.
"Nope. Just a strange feelin'." Rarity tensed and quickly jerked her head around fearfully. The last time he'd had a strange feeling, they'd gotten mobbed by the Shamblers near the train station and Button Mash lost his mother. But Big Mac gave her a reassuring smile. "Not that kinda feelin' Miss Rarity." She sighed with relief. "Just a feelin' that somepny out there is thinkin' about us, and wishing us luck."
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Canterlot - Luna and Celestia
Within the royal palace the two sisters sat alone within their study going through the lists of what supplies they had left. As to be expected, medicines were in the shortest of the supplies they had remaining, but food was not far behind, as Celestia was reading.
Other than the shuffling of papers as the two read through them and the tickling of the grandfather clock in the corner there was no sound. But finally Luna broke the silence, returning to an argument that they had shared many times, born of regret and self-resentment.
"We could have saved more, Tia!" Luna again repeated angrily to her sister, shoving the various documents on her desk to the floor and making a mess. "We more than had the power to bring the majority of the population to safety! Why did you only take these few?!"
"You've read the reports that came in from nearly everywhere, Luna. Many of the worst outbreaks happened because somepony was bitten and hid it from his or her fellows out of fear. When they turned, they infected their families or friends first, and when someone would eventually come to check on them several Shamblers would eat or infect that pony, and then they'd attack an unsuspecting survivor colony with nowhere to run from the inside. We could not take the same risk here."
"I've also read that full infection took as short as three hours from the first infection to up to three days to occur, sister. Our combined guards could have searched everypony we brought in by then!"
"And if a bare hoof full of infected hid away from everypony else where they could not be found out on the hopes that they might be immune?" Celestia asked quietly. "How many might we have lost then? Might we ourselves have gotten infected as we suspect happened to-" she broke off as the image of Twilight walking around with chunks of flesh missing from her body and milky white eyes filled her mind. It horrified her and nearly brought tears to her eyes. In Celestia's heart she suspected that Twilight was probably dead, but every night before bed she prayed to her mother that it was not so. "We raise and lower the sun and moon, Luna. Our deaths would mean the demise of the rest of the world.
"Infection risk wasn't the only reason, though. Have you noticed lately, Luna, that the cooks aren't giving out the portions they used to? To us or anypony else?" Luna's eyes widened in realization.
"We're running low on food supplies, aren't we?" Celestia nodded.
"You don't really think about it when the nation practically gives you food as if you were a Goddess, but our food supply is not infinite, and it came from the surrounding farm lands. Farm lands that are now abandoned. That is why I've been encouraging those brave and ingenuitive ponies that wanted to create the rooftop walkways and gardens."
"Should we not be negotiating for food first and foremost from the other nations, then?" Celestia shook her head.
"No. Unfortunately, even with the potential end of the world on our hoofs should this infection spread beyond our own species, the other nation leaders are still obsessed with politics, and the Gryphons have never stopped wanting to expand their borders. While I don't think their entire empire thinks the same way, nor do I believe that the Minotaurs would be so heartless, if some of their more ambitious leaders found out that we were already running low on food they would find a way to stall the sending of help until our little ponies all starved. A country cannot exist without its citizens."
"And of course the local Diamond Dog packs have problems of their own due to their burrows and dens being dug or built mostly at ground level..."
Luna felt bad for them. Even though only the Equestrians were the only ones to be infected by this disease (and possibly the Saddle Arabians and Zebras. They'd heard no reports so far about that, but it was well known that the zebras and the ponies and horses shared a common ancestry) that had not stopped the Shamblers from attacking and devouring them when and where they could. Nearly every den of Diamond Dogs that their nation had on record being within their nation's boundary lines had either evacuated, or been devoured (as reported from Pegasai scouts). Every other one had all their entrances and exits collapsed and sealed. "We should expect no help from them."
"If anything, they're likely to try tunneling from their homes to us looking for help. It is far more likely that they'll go back to their homelands, though." Most of the Diamond Dog dens within Equestria had only been made for the easier mining of gems and precious metals. Their own lands were much rockier and prone to stone or shale cave-ins.
Luna sighed and began picking up the mess she'd created.
"What can we do, Tia?"
"The only thing we've ever done, Luna. Never give up, and keep searching for a solution, and safer alternatives to those solutions."
Celestia didn't say 'We'll get through this'. She had no idea if they would. But she'd rather face King Sombra and Discord at their worst in battle than give up on her subjects. Time and again they'd shown that they could survive the most seemingly impossible of situations, and Mother-willing, they'd survive this too.
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Everfree Forest - Zecora and Apple Bloom 2
Everfree Ravine - Zecora and Apple Bloom
Two weeks after previous Z&A chapter
Apple Bloom gritted her her teeth and both physically and mentally cringed as she looked at her impaled right foreleg. Blood trickled down from both the entry and exit would from around the sharp stick she'd fallen onto after loosing her footing (hoofing?) whilst assisting Zecora in making a new rope bridge in the late afternoon to replace the old one that had once spanned the gap. It hurt. A lot, and it was all she could do to keep from screaming from pain a second time when she tried to stand.
"Apple Bloom, stay where you are!" Zecora called to her from the other side. "I will reach you quicker if you do not go far!"
"No-" she gasped for breath as sweat began to soak her fur. "problem!" She replied barely above a whisper. Sitting down on her haunches and raising her injured leg, Apple Bloom looked around to make sure she was still alone on her side of the ravine. For the moment, she was. But that scream will have told everything within at least half a mile that somepony is nearby! She swallowed nervously, and began examining the stick she'd fallen on.
It looked a bit rotted and the end sticking out closest to her was rough but fairly even, showing that when it had broken off its tree the branch had already been rotten. Some of the bark might have rubbed off in the wound when it slid through me. Cleaning this one is going to be very unpleasant! But necessary if she didn't want a normal infection to set in.
A rustle in one of the thorn bushes along the edge of the forest before the gorge made Apple Bloom whip her head to one side and her eyes widened in fear, though not as much as she might have had a year ago. She was not the weak little filly she once was, though young she still remained. Life in the Everfree Forest was difficult, and what you could not outsmart you had to beat down or outrun.
Rising unsteadily to three legs, Apple Bloom narrowed her eyes and tried to force her brain to ignore the pain pulsing through her body with limited success. If she needed to run, she could at least manage a brisk limping walk on her three good legs, but if she needed to fight, regardless of the pain she was in she would need all four legs.
Apple Bloom took a steadying breath, and then waited.
On her side of the ravine Zecora quickly finished tying off her vine-ropes to the new posts she'd dug and planted and grabbed one of the four dangling ropes and began to pull herself along the one rope that Apple Bloom had already tied off securely to one of the two posts on her side. Holding the rope in the crook of her front legs and back, she hung upside down and moved along it as quickly as she dared. Briefly sparing a look downward into the dark channel that water once flowed through in times long gone she took a deep breath and looked pointedly at the wall in which she was approaching.
The stone that made up the edge of the cliff was gritty and slightly crumbly from old stone being exposed to the weather for many a year. Her first attempt to climb up was met with a chunk of rock breaking off from the side followed by her body rocking forward and backward for a few seconds while a brief thrill of fear ran down her spine. Taking a calming breath Zecora pulled herself a little closer and focused the magic of her people into her front legs before trying once more to pull herself up. Happily leaving the empty space below her behind Zecora hauled her hind end up onto solid ground and quickly moved to her young friend's side.
"Something's out there in the thorn bush, Zecora!" Apple Bloom whispered. Zecora looked at the shaking shrub a moment and then turned her head to her herb pouch.
"Sit. Here is Tanna Root powder and something stronger. Soon you will feel pain no longer!" Zecora replied in a low volume voice. Zecora handed the powder to Apple Bloom and watched as Apple Bloom sat as instructed took a pinch of it to each side of her bleeding injury. When Apple Bloom looked up at her to ask with her expression if she'd done it right Zecora smiled and then turned away to look through her only saddle bag. From it she pulled out a simple vial of home made disinfectant. Unfortunately, before she could use it what had been struggling through the thorn bush finally tore its way free and fell down to the ground out into the open. When Zecora and Apple Bloom looked up from the injured appendage to see what or who it was Zecora briefly bared her teeth.
Though the figure was in bad shape there was no mistaking what it was: a Shambler. Whoever it had once been though, neither of them recognized it now. The creature had no eyes, a few filthy strands of hair for a mane, almost no fur left to its filthy hide, one ear, and was missing one of its front legs. Growling as it rose unsteadily to its hoofs once more, the creature started forward again in the general direction of the two ponies.
Apple Bloom looked around her immediate area quickly, searching for something small and loose she could throw to misdirect the Shambler. There was not much, and what there was the two of them needed to make the bridge. If they bounced too far and went into the ravine they'd be gone for good. Still...
Our lives are worth more than a few tools, and if we get bit it's not like they'll do us much good anyway! Reaching with her good foreleg Apple Bloom grabbed the hammer she'd intended to use to pound the rope pegs into the ground and threw it at a dead tree that dangled over the edge secured by a few roots. It struck the trunk with a quiet but audible thud and the Shambler paused for a second and then turned a little to the right and started walking again.
Remaining silent the two ponies watched as the Shambler stopped upon bumping into the tree and then turned away to the left and walked forward until it fell off the cliff and into the ravine, to which they both shared a chuckle.
"Dumb Shamblers!" Apple Bloom commented. Zecora nodded, but commented that it was not much smarter to not be paying attention to one's immediate area and falling upon a sharp stick.
"More careful you must be, if the end of this plague you are to live to see! This will not heal easy, I fear, and we lack enough bandages here." Zecora looked to her left at the vine-rope that swung gently in the evening's breeze. It was a bit disappointing that they'd not be getting the vines secured today, but bleeding injuries (or any kind of injury for that matter) were not something they could afford to leave untreated. Kneeling down, Zecora motioned for Apple Bloom to climb aboard.
Zecora shut her house's door and secured it with two wooden bars and also checked the shutters on her windows. Until very recently it had been at least a few months since she'd last returned to and slept within her house along the Everfree path from Ponyville due to the number of Shamblers that often frequented it. Unfortunately the fever that set in two days after Apple Bloom's injury could not be properly treated at any of the small Rest Zones they'd made due to them not having the herbs and the equipment required to make medicines in any of their Rest Zones. There were a few simple things kept in them like bandages and some anti-itch powder for insect bites that were all too commonly discovered upon awakening from a night's rest, but anything stronger than that the two had continued to store in her house whenever it was safe to do so.
Reaching down to the laces on her home-made noise-muffling fur slippers (more like pouches with a drawstring, really) Zecora made sure they were not loose enough to slip off and then silently proceeded into her home's main room to secure her latest flora bounty to the ceiling and also to boil oldest ones into a tea for her patient.
While she did so Apple Bloom lay in Zecora's bed sweating and sleepy. Her leg had been washed, bandaged, and thankfully no longer hurt, but apparently the rest of her body had not gotten the memo because now she had a temperature of one hundred and four degrees. Beside the bed on a small dresser sat a half empty wooden cup of lukewarm water and a plate with a few mint leaves and a few dandelions in case she started feeling hungry again. Since a mere mouthful of it earlier that morning she had not.
I know I should probably eat something. It'll take longer for me to get better if I don't. Her eyes traced over the offerings of the plate and then slid away back to the ceiling and closed. I feel more like taking a nap, though. She opened her eyes again and glanced at the doorway that led into the main room where she could only barely hear Zecora moving about. There was no concern that it would be anypony or anything else because otherwise the door would have likely been bashed in and the scent of decay would have already reached her. And we haven't seen another living critter besides animals and each other in a long time.
Zecora entered the bedroom carrying another wooden cup on a small (also wooden) plate in her mouth and stopped by the bed. She motioned for Apple Bloom to sit up, and with a bit of effort, she did so. Apple Bloom took the cup, frowned a little at the smell, then blew the steam off the top and slowly drank the contents. When she finished she returned the cup to the plate and reached over to the plate next to her to grab a few mint leaves. The tea had tasted about as pleasant as it smelled (and it smelled like burnt garlic) and made her all too happy that she'd not eaten all of her mint leaves earlier in the day. Returning the cup to the other room, Zecora made a cup of ginger tea and dripped a bit of wild honey in it for herself.
Zecora's left ear twitched slightly to the left and she froze in place, barely breathing she listened. Outside her house something large was padding across the path just a few paces beyond the door. The steps were too heavy to be a Shambler, but given where they were such a thing was hardly good news. Moving as quietly as she could, Zecora approached the nearest window and pulled gently on the left tilt rod just enough to see outside. After a few seconds she frowned and lowered the tilt rod again. Their latest visitor was a large black bear.
A problem may certainly be, if our guest should happen to be smelling me.
Although newer Shamblers could hunt by smell, they were a far cry from being worthy of being called trackers and only smelled you if you were close by. Animals on the other hand had a very good sense of smell and normally only followed something that smelled fresh. Knowing this and also knowing how often the path was frequented by Shamblers both Apple Bloom and Zecora had become a little lax in covering their scent around it in recent months. It would seem our choice was not good. We should have known better, in this wood. She frowned. Still, there was a chance that it would leave on its own. Even the predators of this dangerous forest had become unwilling to linger in one place for long when they traveled alone as this bear was.
The bear's heavy steps grew louder as it came closer to the house and as it took the last two steps to reach the door Zecora felt the vibration from its paws landing on the packed dirt run up her hoofs. The bear was too big to actually enter her home, but if it decided to break her door down whatever protection from Shamblers her home offered would be gone. All it would take would be for it to smell her and Apple Bloon's combined recent scent leaking in between the boards-
The door shook as a heavy impact struck the door and Zecora jumped back instinctively. There was an annoyed grunt, and then another blow. The hinges pulled slightly away from the frame they were screwed into but still held, aided by the planks behind it.
Wasting no more time, Zecora spun and raced away from the door and grabbed her saddlebags and began stuffing them with an assortment of supplies. Most of it she could come back for later if they were needed. Her bags full with less in them than she would have liked, Zecora raced into Apple Bloom's room and hurriedly shut the bedroom door. This door was much less sturdy than the front door, but this one would only be being used to keep out of sight from anything outside. In time their assailant would leave, and then they'd be free to as well.
"What's out there, Zecora?" Apple Bloom asked, her eyes widening in fear as the sound of the front door finally being destroyed reached them.
"It is a hunting bear too big to get in. But with time on our side, we shall win. When it leaves we shall as well; this home of mine no longer within is safe to dwell!"
"Ah'm sorry, Zecora!" Apple Bloom apologized, turning away from her. "If Ah hadn't hurt my leg Ah wouldn't 'ave gotten sick, and if Ah'd been healthy we wouldn't 'ave needed to come here and-" Zecora gently placed a hoof over Apple Bloom's mouth.
"Returning to your rest for now would be best. Soon enough we shall have to put your wellness to the test!"
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Appaloosa Region - Desert Patrol
The combination of Earth ponies, Pegasai, and a Buffalo paused in their patrol for a water break and a breather. Most of them were volunteers from the refugees that had poured into the rustic desert town a little over a year ago that had for the most part come to terms with the way the world was now. If they were being honest with themselves none of them really wanted to be out wandering around the hot near-wasteland that was their home now, but neither did they want to risk what was left of their family or friends being picked off by undead while tending the orchards and other crops.
"I don't know how you Buffalo can stand this heat with all that thick fur! Phew!" One of the urban stallions from Barnston declared, fanning his ash-colored face and sweat-soaked white mane and breathing heavily. The Buffalo made a rumbling sound of laughter in her throat.
"It all depends on where and how you are raised, Quick Cut. Your sister mentioned an enchanted device called an 'air conditioner' that cools the air in a room?" Quick Cut nodded.
"I'd give my left eye for one of those out here now!" He muttered, still waving the hat like a fan.
"We Buffalo live most of our lives without many of the things that you city ponies take for granted. While it may not always be comfortable it has made us a hardier folk for it. Do not worry; In time you too will become used to it."
"I hope not. I'm hoping the royalty will come up with some kind of solution before it comes to that."
"That's a nice dream, Quick, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Not after all this time." Said the lone Unicorn of their group. The Unicorn stood up. "Okay, folks, you've had your water and breather break. Let's get moving again before the sun gets any higher."
For another hour their group of eight continued along their route until they came to an abandoned settlement that had once been inhabited by the workers that originally worked the old quarry back in its day. The town was a real dump now, and a good many of the boards were either dry rotted or else pried off from the original structure to be used for kindling. Nearly half the town's remains had fallen over or inward, and the well in the middle of town was drier than Appaloosa's personal brand of Apple Wine.
"What are we doing here, Pierce?" Quick Cut, annoyed, asked the Unicorn. "We've already picked through this place a dozen times! There's nothing left here of value unless you value broken shot glasses and fresh cactus juice!" They stopped in the middle of the town's ruins and their team leader turned around to look at him, an odd small smile on his face.
"Actually there is something of value here, Quick Cut. Come with me, and I'll show you. The rest of you wait here. I'll be back shortly." Quick Cut frowned, but followed Pierce Around the side of what used to be a pub. They crossed the only other street and approached what was left of the jail, which was in much better condition than the other buildings due to being built from brick instead of wood. The town's bank was, ironically enough, built right up against it.
Pausing at the entrance, Quick Cut rolled his eyes.
"Have you been in the sun too long? That bank must have been looted over a hundred years ago! There can't possibly be anything left in it."
"One being's waste is another's valuables. Come on, I'll show you." Sighing, Quick Cut followed Pokey Pierce until he stopped in front of the old vault and began fiddling with the door's combination lock.
That's strange. Why was it shut to begin with? Quick Cut wondered. Other than the occasional bandit or perhaps treasure hunter locking up their things for safe keeping the door would otherwise be left open. I mean, He gave a critical look at the lock that Pierce expertly spun with his magic while one ear was pressed against the metal. If there's nothing precious in it, then-
The door's lock clacked and Pokey Pierce tugged it open with his body rather than his magic. Quick Cut leaned forward and was hit in the face with a small water balloon. The balloon burst, splashing his face with a liquid that smelled like sweet-scented cleaning liquid. As he wiped at his eyes and choked a bit on it he began to feel woozy, and just as he began to blink again he fell to the floor fast asleep.
Pokey waited a minute for all the liquid to evaporate and be blown away by the near-constant breeze that blew through this part of the desert and then stepped out from behind the door where three Gryphons were stepping out of the vault, one of them holding a bottle of Chloroform and wearing a brown Manticor-leather jacket.
"Took your sweet time!" The tallest of the three and jacket-wearer said gruffly as his companions set to tying ropes around Quick Cut's legs and around his muzzle. "We were starting to think that maybe you fell into some quicksand!" Pokey snorted.
"In which case I would have just levitated myself out again. Do you have it, Grode?" The Gryphon nodded.
"Of course I do. I may be a slaver, but I'm not a liar. Here." Grode reached into his jacket and pulled out a parcel. Pokey took it and opened it, digging through the contents. A few minutes later he nodded, satisfied.
"A pleasure doing business with you, Grode, as always. Do try not to break my teeth this time. Let's go for a bruise on the barrel and a black eye, shall we?" Grode shrugged.
"It's your pain. Where are the others?"
"Out in the middle of the town. They're probably getting a little antsy by now, though. One of them is a she-Buffalo, so watch yourself."
"Thanks for the warning but my boys can handle it. Here's the rest." Grode again reached into his jacket and pulled out a smaller package, followed by a bag of canned food and bottled water.
"Until next time, then. Where will you be heading this time so we know where to expect your next...shipment."
"I thought I might head off to one of the seaside towns. I heard from some of the refugees that one of them has a small orphanage in it."
Three hours later Pokey Pierce stumbled and collapsed in front of the farm-side entrance Appaloosan town. A pony on the walls pointed him out and he was brought inside where it was discovered that his patrol group had been attacked not by Shamblers, but bandits near the old quarry town.
"When I tried to fight them they tossed me into one of the buildings and it fell on me. When I finally dug myself out I didn't see anyone. I don't know what happened to my group but I do know that they were Gryphons! What is the point of these walls keeping out the dead if the living are against us?!" This question set many of the other folk a'talking about leaving and heading someplace else, but in the meantime Pokey had a wife to go home to and was allowed to do so.
After explaining to her what had happened he brought out the parcel that Grode had given him and unwrapped it. It was a bottle of wine that was over two hundred years old. He fetched glasses from a cupboard and half filled them. "to my lost squad mates. I hoped they survived."
"Blessings on them." She said sadly before sampling it. "My, this is delicious!" She exclaimed with a slight smile. "A bit of a steep price to pay for it though, considering how much slaves normally sell for."
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Canterlot Upper District - Shining Armor 2
(Sixteen days after last SA chapter)
"No! Unacceptable! I absolutely refuse to let you do this!" The fat, stuffy, and well-dressed noble shouted as several members of the royal guard paraded through his living room with his disassembled bed frame, emptied armoire, and the banister of his steps. The portly stallion placed his tubby body in the entrance to his home and glared at the guards in front of him. "You all put those back where you found them at once!! And unscratched! They cost me more than you get paid in a month to buy!"
"What's going on here?" Asked a young and tired voice from outside the noble's home. The noble turned and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Captain, your stallions are stealing from my home! Nearly half of my furniture has already been carted off, and they are even going so far as to take my bed frame!"
"I see. I suppose you didn't read the royal notice, then." Shining Armor replied, blinking and looking disinterested.
"Royal notice? What royal notice?" The noble asked, blinking in confusion. Shining Armor took a breath and with the air of one that had repeated the same quote multiple times in one hour (and was not pleased to do so) recited the most recent decree.
"'All non-essential sturdy wood is to be used in the construction of the rooftop walkways.'" Shining Armor pointed at his guards holding the furniture and banister in the noble's house. "What they've taken is what's made of wood and is superfluous in your house. They won't take your mattress or rugs, or silver and glassware. They won't take your bits, and they won't take your clothes. In short-" Shining cleared his throat as the noble opened the mouth on his increasingly outraged face to protest again. "In short , they are taking exactly what they've been ordered to take, and nothing else. If you have a complaint-" The noble opened his mouth a second time, this time raising a hoof. "I suggest you keep it to yourself, because judging by your flab you've probably never done a hard day's work in your life!" Shining Armor's face hardened into a fierce glare. "And my patience with you arrogant, self-important and pompous plotholes is wearing thin!" The noble swallowed and took a step back. "Now, if you'll kindly stay out of their way, they'll finish their job, and leave you in peace. Good day."
Without waiting to see what the flustered noble did, Shining Armor turned away and continued walking down the street, sighing as he went. He'd already needed to repeat that line close to twenty times today to the populace, and he was more than tired of it. Why couldn't we have saved the populace of the Lower District instead? He mentally chided himself a moment later for it. He'd been both raised as a colt and instructed as a guard to value all life and not just the lives of those that he preferred the company of. Much as it annoyed him to admit it, the nobles fell into that category as well. They may have seemed to be little more than mouths to feed that did nothing but spout complaints in return, but they were still citizens.
Shining Armor placed a shod hoof to his forehead just below his horn and sighed. "Sometimes I think I'd rather be a Pegasus out scavenging the countryside than here dealing with the public!" The flap pf leathery wings approaching followed by the clop of four hoofs touching down behind him gave him no relief. He had a good idea who it was.
"Good day, Captain!" A cheerful female voice greeted, accompanied by what he knew would be an exaggerated salute. "You're looking grumpy as ever, sir!"
Shining Armor sighed again and lowered his hoof to the ground, turning to address the smiling Bat-pony mare. A small part of him appreciated her efforts to cheer him and the other guards up, but at the moment the rest of him really wasn't in the mood. When did I become so irritable? he wondered. He then recalled the current day's events stacked on top of all the rest of the things he'd had to put up with over the last year. Now he understood.
"Hello, Gale Rider. Report."
"Yes sir! Thirty two Shamblers destroyed so far today with the inward migration of undead from the outside numbering twenty nine! Outward progress on the rooftop walkways from the Upper District has reached the third block out, with twenty one buildings total now accessible to non-fliers! Window screen is being used to prevent the drainage of the dirt being used to coat the rooftops through the rain gutters during scheduled raining, and the teams of volunteer Pegasi are returning from the surrounding farmlands with more fresh food a well as seeds to be planted in the gardens, and a few medical supplies from the farm houses. Also, Princess Luna has decided that the idea from Wind Whistle to use clouds as a mobile platform to impale Shamblers will be put into action."
Shining Armor found himself smiling. Finally, some good news!
Gale Rider gaped wide-eyed at the young Captain. He was smiling ! The playful poke she'd given him a few weeks ago had only been partly a joke. Smiles in general were a rare thing, but the captain had barely given more than a ghost of one in a long time. Sadly, it was short-lived, but still, it had been there. This proved the there was still more of him left inside than duty.
"So what's the bad news?" Shining Armor asked. There was always bad news to accompany the good. That was just how reports seemed to work these days. Gale Rider sighed and frowned.
"The nobles are threatening to riot if we continue to take their belongings to use to build the walkways. Fancy Pants and his wife are trying to calm them down, but it's not working." Shining rolled his eyes and made a face of disgust.
"They're going to waste food throwing it at us because they're unhappy? Seriously?"
"Even they aren't that stupid, thankfully. No, they're threatening to start throwing our people over the walls and down the mountain." Shining scowled.
"They do realize that the Ponies they're threatening are armed, trained, and looking for a valid excuse to beat some sense into them, right?" Shining had not been the only one putting up with their foolishness.
"Not just our guards, unfortunately. The Lower District Ponies and the tourists are tired of putting up with them, too. Sir, if it was only our people who were being harassed I wouldn't have mentioned it because we know better, but the others have been treated like dirt far longer than we have by the Fatties, and have been warning us that their patience is wearing thin. If push comes to shove, it may go south very quickly."
"Wonderful." Shining said sarcastically. "The first war Equestria might have in centuries, and it's going to be fought during an apocalyptic situation, and by the civilians and civil protectors, no less! Any idea how we can stop it short of going to the royals?" Getting the royal sisters to stop it would certainly be effective, but it felt too much like a child running to its mother because of a fight between two older siblings.
"Other than returning the furniture that we've been ordered to take?"
"Wonderful." Shining said again, feeling a headache coming on. Not for the first time today.
By the time Shining Armor and Gale Rider arrived on scene multiple ponies and others were being carted off to their infirmary and both the dissemblers that had taken part in the very one-sided brawl that had broken out and a large number of rioters were being arrested while others were fleeing. Looking from one side of the scene to the other, Shining Armor felt his headache getting worse.
"Do I even want to know what happened here?" he asked a group of guards escorting a female Gryphon missing several patches of feathers that passed nearby.
"The Fatties got exactly what they've been asking for!" the black-eyed female Gryphon responded, looking smug and flexing her cuffed talons.
One of the earth pony guards frowned at the Gryphon and explained where the fight had started as well as who ended it.
"No one was killed, but there are several on both sides that will need medical attention."
Well, there goes today's scavenged medical supplies. Shining Armor shook his head, frowning.
"Have the royal sisters been told about this yet?"
"We sent a messenger fifteen minutes ago. If they don't know yet, they soon will."
"Good. Hopefully it will be Luna who shows up and not Celestia." The guard tilted his head in confusion.
"Sir?"
"I never thought I'd say this, but Celestia is too forgiving. This plague could very well mean the end of our species, and we're fighting each other instead of the undead. This cannot be let go with only a rap on the fetlock."
It was luna that arrived, and the punishment she meted out was indeed more than a mere scolding. She offered them an ultimatum: either those involved pulled triple the work load of what passed for the daily activity of the Canterlot citizen in these times for the next month, or they would be teleported outside the safety of the stone walls with only a single weapon each to defend themselves and would not be allowed back in for the same amount of time. It was a punishment that Celestia only allowed because both of them doubted any of those being punished would be daring (or stupid) enough to take the second option.
They, and the whole of their colony were shocked to find out, however, that there were some willing to risk life and limb outside! Twenty six chose to be placed outside the walls. Of those twenty six, only four of them were ponies, and all four of them were Unicorns. When they were asked why-
"-in the name of all creation, why do you feel that that is the better alternative?!" they replied that while it was indeed going to be dangerous that nearly all of the Lower District had yet to be looted by them and there was probably an abundance of canned, bottled, and packaged goods that could be scavenged.
"And really, who better to go out into that Shambler-infested place than those that can't be turned into one of them?" the same she-Gryphon that had spoken to Shining Armor earlier added with a shrug. "Besides, it gets us away from the Fatties."
Though the princesses did not like it, their choice had been made, and after giving them their promised weapons, sent them outside the following morning. There were many well-wishers amongst those that had gathered to watch them go, but there were many more who though them insane, or just plain fools.
"They're marching to their deaths." One frowning nurse declared. He shrugged. "But, it is their lives. The princesses tried to give them a way out."
"Well, they're not wrong." A Minotaur called down from atop one of the rooftop walkways as he carried materials to the building across the street. "Most of the time when our scavengers go out prospecting they leave the city entirely. The Lower District is probably a proverbial goldmine of supplies for anyone bold and skilled enough to reclaim it." He paused a moment to watch one of the Unicorns swish her weapon and decapitate a Shambler that had gotten too close to her. The head rolled across the ground and came to a stop at the sidewalk as the rest of the body crumpled to the cobblestones. "But you're probably right, too. It doesn't take a pair of wings or binoculars to see all the bodies roaming around down there."
Shining Armor stood behind one of the metal gates, watching their progress until they had moved around the bend and out of sight, a slight twinge of envy prodding at him. This was his city. This mountain was where his grandparents were buried. This place was a sanctuary from the Tartarus Equestria had become. And now, he finally realized, this place was also his jail cell.
Turning about, he marched back up to the castle to begin planning in earnest the taking back of his home from the undead.
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The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Sweet Apple Acres Cider Cellar - Berry Punch
Berry downed what seemed like an endless river of cider and wished not for the first time that it was something a tad stronger. Oh screw it, she wished outright that the cider was hard so that she could drink away her latest and final failure as a parent: she'd gone outside while drunk and angry, and got infected. That had been three hours ago, and the reported and well-known feelings of numbness had spread up from the bite on her right hind leg to well-passed her middle. The feeling of being hollow on the inside had already started and was growing stronger with each passing minute. No matter how much cider she drank in it just wasn't enough.
"Stupid. I am so dang stupid! " Berry pressed and wiped her muzzle with her hoof. For more than half a year she'd stayed sober, then this morning she downed every last drop of liquor she had left in the house in less than half an hour. She saw what had been done to her home, and it in combination with the alcohol made her furious. She reached into her kitchen drawers and dug around until she found the biggest knife she had, then told her little Ruby to stay inside and locked the door behind her.
Staggering around like...well, like an angry drunk, Berry yelled out a challenge at the top of her lungs and waited impatiently for the Shamblers to attack her. Three knife stabs to three right eye sockets later two of them came at her from in front and behind. She knifed the one in front of her and ended it, but when she bucked at the other she made the mistake of kicking it in the mouth. She broke its lower jaw, but its teeth on the upper jaw dragged across her leg and scrapped a fair bit of flesh away with it. After limping back into her house and cleaning the scrape up the numbness started spreading up from her leg, and drunk though she was she parenting instincts kicked in and she left Ruby Pinch in their house to protect her daughter from what would soon enough no longer be her mother.
"Not that I was much of a mother to her in the first place..." She lifted the mug to drink again, but discovered that it was empty and tossed it across the room, giving it an annoyed look as it flew and bounced off the wooden walls. She looked down at her purple body. "All the things I could have done with or for my daughter, and most of the time I was too deep in a bottle or my flask to even walk straight! She's better off without me."
A beating sound on the cellar's doors. Thump! Thump! Thump! It looks like I've been followed. At least that's one more that Ruby won't need to dodge for awhile. Ugh, we should have left back when the trains were still coming to here like Ruby said we should, but no! I wanted to stay and let the guards or the army handle it! If we left now, Berry waved a hoof and stuck out her tongue, making a silly face and mocking herself. ponies might loot our house before we came back again! The beating sound continued, more of them this time, or perhaps the same one but faster. Now it's far too late. It's obvious now that help isn't going to be coming.
"Mom! Are you in there?"
Berry flinched as if she'd been punched in the gut. No! Go back to the house, Ruby! It's not safe here! Not that it was really safe anywhere, but anypony that took a look around on the surface could see that it was definitely not here.
"Mom, what's wrong? I know you're in there! Please, let me in!"
No, Ruby. I don't want you to see me turn. I don't want to hurt you after I do turn! Tears began to leak from her squeezed-shut eyes.
"Mom, there's some of those things out here! They're coming! Please let me in!" Ruby's voice began to sound nervous rather than just confused and hurt.
"Ruby...you know what's wrong. I'm....I'm turning into one of them!" Berry called up to her daughter. I was stupid, Ruby. I got drunk again at the worst possible time for it and I ran out and I fought those things. "Go home, Ruby! Go home and be safe! Survive!"
"That's just it, mom! You're not infected!"
What? Berry blinked and looked at the bandage she had on her leg. Then why do I feel so numb? "When you got back after fighting those things you passed out on the floor! I gave you some of that painkiller stuff that dad used to give to patients after doing surgery on them and then cleaned you up. When you woke up again you said something about feeling numb and wanting to keep me safe and then ran out the door! You're not infected, mom! You're feeling the...morphic? Morthin? The morph-stuff taking effect!"
Morphine...wait, I feel numb on most of my body. How much did she give me?!
"Mom, they're really close now!!" Ruby informed her, sounding really scared. "Please open the door!" Berry tried to stand and found that she couldn't anymore, so instead she threw herself forward on the dirt floor and dragged herself across it with her forehoofs, barely feeling the edges of the wooden steps scraping her middle as she hauled herself up them and reached a hoof up to push the trapdoor up. Two inches open, three. She could just barely see outside as one of the Shamblers reached her little filly and grabbed her. Ruby Pinch screamed followed by her mother screaming in horror and then Berry Bunch snapped awake and banged her head backward against the cider keg she had been leaning against. She blinked blearily in confusion the darkness of the cider cellar and looked around.
Just a dream? But it felt so-
A thumping sound against the cider cellar trapdoor roused Berry Punch further and recalling the events that she'd dreamed and not wanting to risk ignoring what might have been a vision of the future coming true threw herself forward onto her stomach immediately and crawled forward. Her body, as it was in her dream, was numb, but the numbness was inching up her neck now, and her limbs felt weak and rubbery. Hold on, baby...mama's almost there!
Her vision, impeded by the already dark room seemed to go completely black for a moment and she faltered, but pressed on. One hoof after the other she progressed across the room until she reached the steps, then slowly dragged herself up the steps. Almost...there! She lifted a hoof to the wood of the trapdoor, smiling a little, and then her body betrayed her and she her legs gave out completely, dropping her to her stomach and making her slide down the steps to the dirt floor.
The thumping continued for a moment, then a voice that was certainly not her little Ruby muttered something about the pull-cord on the door being missing. What's the dream, I wonder? Berry thought as she lost all feeling in her body below the halfway point of her neck. Perhaps this whole nightmare is exactly that and this is just another drunken dream that I'll wake up from. That'd be nice... Her eyes closed as the trapdoor opened and sunlight streamed down through the hole.
"Welp, looks like miss Punch had the same idea we did," said a former member of Ponyville's weather team. "but for different reasons, judging from the color she's turning." He stated while watching her fur's previous grape juice purple fur turning a bit lighter with the exception of the bandaged area on her one leg that was soaked through with an all-too-familiar black ichor. "She hasn't turned just yet, though. What do you wanna do?"
There was complete audio silence to answer the Pegasus, save for the blowing of the wind through the apple trees' leaves. After a minute he nodded. "Yeah, I suppose that would be for the best. There's no sense in wasting a perfectly good 'guard dog' to look after the cider when we're not here to drink it. I'll go find a good chain and something to use as a collar." As he left the cellar to look around in the barn, his eyes briefly flickered green.
Meanwhile in town, a lone young filly ran out of the back alley behind her house and down the street. She looked around carefully, then sighed and there was a flash of green light. The Real Ruby Pinch had died on the third day of Ponyville's outbreak on her way to school back before Pony kind knew what it was really up against. Seeing a perfect opportunity to gain a steady source of food the Changeling that other ponies in town knew as the eccentric clock maker Time Turner switched forms and carried on with Ruby Pinch's day as if nothing happened.
But with her primary source of food now dead and soon to be a Shambler there was no point in keeping up the ruse any longer. Now it was time to move on.
But it intended to sample something that would likely soon be a rare luxury: the Apple family's home-made apple cider!
"Snag me a bottle too, will you?"
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Ponyville's Outskirts - Discord
Ponyville Outskirts - Discord
This was not what he'd wanted. Quite the opposite, really. Two years ago it might have been exactly what he'd wanted. Equestria and a fair portion of the rest of the world was in a state of chaos, his greatest enemies were all but gone, any who might have stood a chance against him was dead, and the Elements of Harmony were undone- returned to the tree from whence they'd come. But this time it was all a dreadful, horrifying accident, and had it been within his power, he'd have undone it. This wasn't what she would have wanted. But not even Discord, spirit of Chaos and formerly disharmony had the ability to alter time on a scale large enough to alter what he had caused.
"'The path to Hell, is paved with good intentions'." Discord muttered the quote as he stood atop Fluttershy's old house and looked down at the abandoned site below and around him. "Fah! I paved that path with selfish intention. I wanted her back. Well guess what, Discord old chap!" He said in a mocking cheerful voice aloud and to himself. "The road is paved, painted, and well-traveled to boot!" His fake mirth fell away to reveal a face of sorrow as several undead ponies and one donkey paused in their wandering near the path from the house to the town and looked around for the source of the voice. After thirteen seconds they resumed their plodding.
A year and a few weeks ago Fluttershy had attempted to aid an injured and maddened Hydra with two heads that had tread through Poison Joke. For the first time that any could recall Fluttershy's natural powers of persuasion and soft voice could not calm the creature. It was only after it had gone on to rampage through the town and it was put down that a chemical analysis discovered what had affected it. Poor Fluttershy, sadly, had been fatally injured by the thrashing it gave her, and nearly the entire town had turned up for her funeral.
Discord had not known about this taking place because his presence had been requested by Celestia in regards to a sudden growth spurt in the populations of the Parasprites. Given that he'd been the one to create them in the first place (for the purpose of disposing of organic garbage when he was still in charge in the ancient times) she felt that he'd be the best one to deal with the situation. To that, he'd gave her a 'really?' face and then made a large flyswatter appear and presented it to her.
"Just splat them with it until you're happy with the amount of them that are left. It's not that hard to do, Celestia dear." Celestia had given him a look of disgust, and then said that though she'd laughed when Luna suggested it she'd hoped for a more practical and less icky suggestion. To that, he made a large bug zapper with a fresh apple visible inside the zap-lights and then hung it in place of a chandelier. He then placed a tarp underneath it to catch the ash that would be sure to result.
"Happy now?"
Celestia had not in fact, been happy, but allowed his methods to be used so long as he agreed to be the one to place more bug zappers throughout the farming regions outside of Manehatten. He'd agreed, and a few days later returned to his home expecting to see Fluttershy tending to several of the hoard of stray and wild animals that hung around or visited her house every day, but was surprised to see not a single animal nor sign of the house's owner. Puzzled, he knocked on the door and waited for a few minutes to no response. Snapping his fingers he unlocked the door and let himself in to discover that all the furniture have been covered over with plastic and all the indoor homes for the small rodents that lived with her deserted as well.
Beginning to feel a touch of concern he popped into Twilight's Library to inquire as to Fluttershy's whereabouts and where the animals (or noisy pests as he called them) had gone off too. Needless to say he was not happy with the answer and concluded immediately that Twilight Sparkle was trying to play a mean joke on him. One by one he visited Fluttershy's other friends and received the same answer. Finally, quite put out and slightly afraid that they might be telling the truth Discord wentback to Celestia and asked one final time where Fluttershy was. When he received the same answer that he had five other times, it finally sunk in and he was reminded why he had rarely if ever bothered to make friends with mortals in the past.
He was angry with nothing (that was to blame) to take his anger out on. He was sad without a friend (besides Pinkie Pie who was trying to keep a brave face up for the sake of her other friends. He decided to not bother her) to share his sorrow with, and his only home was a placed intermixed now with good memories that were chased by the very raw fact that the pony who'd been a part of those good memories would never return to it again...or could she? Surely even death itself was no match in the face of his chaos magic? Had not sorcerers of the past raised the dead to do their bidding? Their magic was limited to the strength and skill of mortals, but his own was admittedly the greatest outside of Tartarus! Surely he could raise up both her body and attach her soul to it!
Disocrd, atop Fluttershy's house, sighed at his naivete and arrogance. Even with all the time I have lived I still make foolish mistakes. Sometimes I think that emotion really is a curse! If I had been calmer, perhaps I would have realized the folly of such a thing before attempting it.
Though he had indeed managed to grant her corpse a sort-of new life Fluttershy's soul had apparently been at peace and was unwilling to answer his summons to return to mortality. Because he'd performed his raising ritual on the hope that she'd return of her own will he'd not made that one of the necessities in the spell-matrix. He'd wanted her to retain her free will, and so with her not being in control the resulting abomination became a new breed of monster rather than an undead servant like those sorcerers from memory that he'd been thinking of before.
Horrified at what he'd wrought he raised a hand with poised fingers but was unable to bring himself to snap them. He knew this wasn't his friend. This was a mindless free-willed golem, but it looked too much like her for him to bring himself to harm it. Discord lowered his hand and sighed.
Leading Golemshy into her house using a bit of concentrated magic Discord shut the door behind it and drew shut the blinds. Once it was all the way in the house he shut the door and locked it to keep not-Fluttershy inside.
A week of trying to convince himself to go through with destroying it later found him inside of Twilight's library reading up on cases of successful cases of reanimating loved ones. Maybe I can find a spell to allow me to talk to her directly and convince her to come back... He thought as he turned a page. Suddenly he heard a scream outside. This in and of itself was nothing out of the ordinary in Ponyville, but it was the way it sounded and that it grew louder by the second that drew his attention from the book. Setting it down on the small table next to him for the moment Discord walked over to a window and stuck his head out to see what was going on. Two houses down the local mail Pegasus, Derpy, was chomping down on the hindquarters of the town bodybuilder that most local ponies jokingly called Roid Rage. This on its own was nothing really worthy of note, as Derpy had bitten others before when they made her angry enough, but the fact that she herself had several bloody bites on her body as well as a particularly lethal-looking one on her throat and was being assisted by Golemshy, who was tearing away at the poor stallion's barrel made Discord's eyes widen and his calm demeanor shatter.
Several other ponies nearby ran to put a stop to the mindless violence, not knowing of the real danger while others panicked and ran around with no clear destination in mind. Two stallions wrestled Derpy away and pinned her to the ground while another stallion and mare pulled Golemshy away for a moment, then froze for a few seconds when they recognized her.
"It can't be!" The mare whispered.
"What in the bu- Yeeaarghuurrl!" the stallion said before being tackled and having his face torn into. At this the three remaining would-be heroes fled the scene while RR limped weakly away on three legs while holding his barrel from a once-more pursuing Derpy and the third stallion was gradually murdered.
From there things had gotten steadily worse until the town was in the state it was today. There were still a few surviving townsfolk that had stuck around and were doing their best to survive, as well as nearly a quarter of the population that fled to other places. Discord had seen the state of some of those 'other places' however, and concluded that among the 'survivors' from Ponyville had been others that had been bit.
At first he'd been confused as to why the living were turning into more Zombies, but after a bit of research in Twilight's library he discovered that it was an effect of the particular ritual he'd chosen to use. In his rush to bring Fluttershy back he'd chosen a ritual that was meant to create an undead army bound to the original caster. A little saliva into a bleeding injury or bit of blood tainted with the same magic used in the ritual and over time the spell would corrupt the natural magic within the infected, and gradually convert them to the same state as the original. The only known ways to permanently stop them was the ever-popular cliche of destroying the brain, or to kill the original caster. Because (as far as he or anyone else knew) Discord was immortal the second option was impossible, and the few times he'd tried to destroy the Zombponies with his magic he only succeeded in making them a little stronger as the spell that animated them fed on his magic.
"Now there's little I can do to stop them." Discord bowed his head in shame as thunder boomed in the clouds above him
So far as he knew, no one knew that this Zombpony-pocolyose was his fault, and considering how many had died he wasn't about to inform Celestia or Luna (or Twilight, if she was still alive) anytime soon, guilt or no. He could not die, but that did not mean that he could not feel pain, and eternally inflicted pain wasn't a fun thing to experience. So he remained in the place where it all begun, wallowing in his own punishment of self-loathing.
It was true, he'd done things of unpleasantness to Ponykind and the world in general in the past, but he'd never killed any of them. Now he'd probably indirectly killed more ponies and others than the last four wars to take place on this planet.
.
Author's Note
This chapter was actually the second one that I wrote, but I intended to use it only when I ran out of ideas. Truth be told I'm not completely out of ideas, but simply cannot find the motivation to write them anymore. Or to write fiction at all, for that matter. Should I finish some of those I've got mid-way done I'll post them as well, but for all intents and purposes, this fic is complete.
Originally it was only meant to be a collection of one-shots that all took place within the same universe involving diferent characters, but I wanted to see Apple Bloom and Zecora make it somehow. Problem is, I have no real idea how to end something like this. At any rate thanks for reading it.
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Gryphon borders - Refugee Camp
"Please! She's the only family I have left!" A desperate Earth Pony father cried, clutching his daughter in his legs close to him while an armed and armored Gryphon glared at him. His daughter in the meantime was silent but for her rapid breaths.
"She's also infected, Pony! Look at her!" The Gryphon pointed a talon. "We don't want to kill her, but the longer you waste our time, the greater the chance that we'll have to! Now put her down and step back!"
"No! I'll not let you-" The Gryphon whistled through his beak and two more guards that were speaking to a merchant ran over.
"Separate those two! We need to amputate her back leg before it's too late." They nodded and stepped forward to wrestle the two apart. When the father refused to back down one of them knocked him on the head with the pommel of his short sword.
Pulling his half-moon axe from his back the first Gryphon separated the filly's injured leg from the other as best he could, then swung his axe through flesh, bone, and blood with a sickening squelch. The other two wasted no time and set to staunching the blood with their own bandages.
The first turned away and grabbed his stomach, feeling a little queasy. Soldier or not, this wasn't something one could get used to. Wind Gods willing, he wouldn't be forced to. In the meantime their latest 'patient' would need to be moved to the nearest medical isolation pen in case the emergency ‘surgery’ had indeed been delayed for too long and she still turned. The father would be returned to his tent until he came to. In the meantime it was almost time for those currently on border patrol to retire for the day and be replaced by someone else.
Each day half their nation’s standing army patrolled their nation’s borders, each day they slew at least a dozen of the undead ponies, though there were usually more. There were especially more when a new batch of refugees fleeing from Equestria would be found crossing the borderline between their two countries. Sometimes their pursuers were few, and sometimes there could be over two dozen, though fewer and fewer refugees were being found as of late.
When refugees first started arriving they came in droves, and there were many of them that tried to hide bite injuries on friends or family members in the hopes that maybe, just maybe their darling filly or colt or husband or wife might be some sort of chosen lucky pony to be immune to this plague. They never were, and it almost always ended with a new outbreak inside the makeshift refugee camps several miles within. After the fifth time in one week that it occurred every refugee was forced to strip naked before being allowed into Gryphona, even if their clothes and bandaged injuries had to be torn from them by force. Though only Pony-kind seemed to be turned into Shamblers when they died after being bitten, this did not prevent them from attacking the other races (and animals).
Supposedly this ‘plague’ will only last about ten to fifteen years tops, but it’s already gone on long enough! If the only invaders we had to deal with were the undead there’d be no issue, but all these immigrants are putting a strain on our nation’s food and general supplies. He looked at the father being carried back to his assigned living area and frowned. If it goes on for more than three or four more years the Ponies might find themselves being eaten by something other than their undead brethren!
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Canterlot Lower District - The Punished
Canterlot Lower District - The Punished
Fayla, one of the few remaining 'Punished' (as the twenty six had jokingly called themselves) scrambled down a garbage-littered alleyway, gasping for breath and looking anxiously behind her. Fear was plain on her face, blood old and fresh stained her fur and feathers, and the sword she'd been given on the dawn of their first day outside the walls was broken and lost somewhere a few blocks back. Breathing a sigh of relief, she stopped to rest against the brick wall.
__ __ __ __ __
"These things are what we've been afraid of all this time?" a Minotaur named Bard scoffed. "We've butchered more than twice our group of these guys in less than two days!"
"You can talk." the youngest of the four Unicorns said, rolling his eyes. "you won't turn into one of them if you get so much as half a bite from them!"
"If you're worried about that, then why did you and your pals come along?" Fayla asked, wiping her dirtied weapon on the side of a couch before sheathing it and opening a pack of crackers pilfered from a busted snack machine. "You'd have been nice and safe behind that wall."
"To get away from my mother." Bard snorted and laughed while the Unicorn scowled. Fayla raised an eyebrow and also smirked. "It's not funny!" he declared loudly. "You don't know my mother! Ever since I moved out she's been harassing me about grandchildren, and this whole plague thing has only made her more insistent!" Adopting a poor imitation of his mother's voice he quoted "'Son, with our species on the brink of extinction it is your duty as a young, strong stallion to aid in repopulating this fine country!'"
"Dear sweet Luna! Did she actually say that?" Fayla asked.
"To my never-ending embarrassment, yes." he replied while pressing a hoof to his face. "In front of seven mares and Princess Celestia, no less." Bard fought to keep another laugh down by clamping a hand around his mouth, but the shape of his eyes told it all.
"My grandmother treated my father like that, too." Bard finally managed, still smiling. "When my mother had me and my three younger sisters, she was thrilled."
"Family. What can ya do?" Fayla shrugged in response. She'd never had that issue with her folks.
"Nothing except be patient and love them." Bard said, patting him on his shoulder a little harder than he meant to.
__ __ __ __ __
Fayla turned her gaze to the sky and watched a wild cloud drift by. As it did so she smiled at the recent memory, and then quickly it turned to sadness and disgust. They'd saved her life and how had she repaid them? She'd left them stranded on the second floor of a two story diner. It wasn't like that. Stop blaming yourself! A voice within told her.
"Dead is still dead. There's no way they could have survived those maniacs!" she shot back, recalling a mix of ponies with wooden or metal pegs to replace their missing limbs and a talonfull of Minotaur (some of which were also missing limbs and in one case half her face). Their weapons ranged from weighted nets and clubs to wood-axes and cross bows. None of them had carried swords or any other piercing weapon save for their ranged ones. Their faces were empty of expression and they all wore armor fashioned from wood or padded cloth and the occasional few sporting pieces of the Canterlot guards’ armor.
__ __ __ __ __
Fayla looked down an alleyway to her right. She raised her left leg and motioned for the others of her team to enter it. She then turned around and watched their backs while they passed her, then joined them in bringing up the rear of their troop. They passed several locked doors, and stepped over one bloody and splintered door that had been broken down from the inside. Bard held up a fist and cautiously leaned forward and looked inside. Ten seconds passed, and then he motioned for one of their two Unicorns, a former guard named Bright Steel, to follow him. Bright Steel nodded and raised his weapon a little.
While the pair searched the inside of the building for anything useful the remainder of their thirteen calmly watched both the entrance to their alleyway, and the exit. Although it was clear and quiet for the moment that could change very quickly. Especially if Bard and Bright Steel ran into any trouble indoors and started yelling like a pair of morons.
Just like team one not five minutes after we first separated. Fayla thought with an eye roll. Fortunately either Bard and Bright Steel had either not found anything unfriendly inside, or else had dispatched it quickly and quietly because only a few minutes later they came back.
“There was nothing of interest in there besides half a bottle of South Shore Fire Whiskey.” Bard held the scavenged bottle of hot cinnamon alcohol up in one hand by its neck and grinned. A few others in their group also grinned, but most of them made an unpleasant face. That particular type of alcohol burned the second it hit your tongue, burned on the way down your throat, and burned on the way out as well. Frankly, Fayla did not see the appeal. Bard took some cloth out of a bloodstained saddlebag that Bright Steel had scavenged from a house they’d raided earlier and wrapped the bottle with it before sticking both back inside the saddlebag he’d taken the cloth from. He’d neglected to acquire any shot glasses, but with none of them being sick it didn’t much matter as far as he was concerned.
Proceeding further down the alley and checking the other doors as they went and finding two more unlocked (one was a jewelry store and the other was another small home that probably belonged to the jewelry store’s owner at one time. Neither had anything of particular use in them) their group exited the alley and once more found themselves on a street. There were several undead stumbling about, but they were quickly dispatched before they even had time to react. Wiping the rotted bits of flesh that had stuck to their weapons on the side of a cloth-covered abandoned souvenir booth they created a box formation and headed to their right away from one of the three main roads that ran from the entrance of Canterlot to the royal castle. Half an hour later they stopped in the remains of a small market square and searched the booths for anything of use, but there wasn’t much. Only one rusted can of pears, some silverware and a half-drank bottle of water were discovered.
Hmm. Fayla frowned at the booth that they’d found the can of peaches in. It looked like it had been not so much ransacked as razed. The support poles for the cloth shade had been broken, the cloth was torn in multiple places, and the booth itself had been partially smashed. Having been one of those that had made it over the Upper District wall in the early days of the infection she’d seen rioters and looters acting as if they’d completely lost their minds. A booth or several getting smashed, along with the surrounding buildings’ windows wasn’t an uncommon sight, nor were the scattered corpses in varied states of decay or skeletons. But something about this particular area just didn’t seem right. Normally in a riot everything would have been smashed to some degree. This place though, wasn’t like that. Most of the booths that were damaged looked as if they’d been clumsily pulled apart rather than purposely destroyed. Still, a good number of the buildings not made completely of stone that we passed had their windows boarded up. I was a bit distracted with escaping this place back then to think about my surroundings very much. She shrugged, putting it from her mind.
“Canned pears, huh?” Bard grumbled, snorting. “What I wouldn’t give for a fresh bale of barley…or fresh anything, for that matter!”
“Unless we stumble across somepony’s backyard garden I doubt we’ll find any here in Canterlot. There’s probably some dried and preserved stuff in the grain warehouse near the train station in this district, though.” Bright Steel commented.
“How do you know that?” the other unicorn in their group asked. “I thought guards only patrolled the castle and streets of the Upper District.”
“Normally yes,” Steel confirmed. “But on the occasion when we’ve done something our commanding officers weren’t too happy with we’d be tasked with some of the more boring positions for a month or so as a lesson. A little over a year ago I got reported by a fellow guard named Star Shine for-” he stopped, blushed a little and coughed. “Well, let’s just say that it wasn’t entirely my fault and leave it at that.” His blush faded and his face became serious again. “There’s a ladder by the backside of the warehouse that leads up to the second floor. It’s locked, but it’s a simple padlock. It shouldn’t take much for us to break in.”
“Assuming someone else hasn’t already done it and we make it that far; heads up folks, we’ve got visitors.” Another Gryphon stated before moving to duck behind one of the booths. The others moved to do the same as a trio of Shamblers made their way into the square. The Shamblers paused near the middle of the square and lazily looked around, their jaws slack and their eyes pale and glazed but otherwise mostly intact. One of them grunted and the trio continued walking again, slowly passing by Bard, who hefted his weapon and stood up behind them as they walked by. With three quick swings, he smashed their skulls like overripe watermelons and stood back as they fell to the cobblestones. Taking a minute to listen for any more ‘visitors’ they rose from their hiding places and discussed where to head next.
Their discussion was interrupted when they heard a distant scream, followed by two more ten seconds apart. All three had come from the same direction, and it did not take a genius for them to guess where it was coming from.
“The other group sounds like they’re in trouble.” Steel stated.
“Yeah, we heard. But we’re probably too far away to get to them in time. ” Bard said, his expression grim with a bit of pity mixed in. Looking away from the direction the screaming came from he glanced at the others. “You want to try anyway?” A fourth scream that turned into a gurgle rang out, and their whole group winced.
Fayla looked at Bard, and then looked off into the direction the screams came from, and then back to Bard.
“No.” The others’ heads whipped to her. Some were shocked, others disgusted, and the remaining few were relieved that they’d not been the ones to say it. “Let me ask you a few questions: how many Shamblers would it have taken to overwhelm them? Shamblers aren’t fast or smart, and most are weaker than we are. How many of them would have been needed to-” another short-lived scream pierced the air and Fayla paused. “to overwhelm their group so badly that nearly half of them are as good as dead now? I’ll tell you: too many for us to handle. On top of that their screaming is sure to have only drawn more to them, and that’s not including those we’d have to fight our way through just to get to them. We’d only be throwing away our own lives trying.”
Bright Steel shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t like the idea of going against what he’d been trained to do for the last several years of his life, but he also agreed with Fayla. They’d do no one any good (least of all themselves) by getting themselves killed trying to be heroes. Bard on the other hand, frowned.
“So what, we just leave them to die?! How would you feel if our positions were reversed?”
“But they aren’t and we may very well join them in that situation with no one to come to our rescue if we go!”
“Fine! You do what you want. I’m going!” Bard turned away from her and started jogging towards one of the roads leading out of the square. Bright Steel hesitated, looked at Fayla, then Bard, then nodded to himself and started after Bard, along with more than half of their group. Fayla scowled and shook her head, but followed as well, muttering that this was a mistake. But mistake or not, they’d survived this long together, and even with her arguing against going to the others’ rescue it didn’t sit right to just let them go and move on.
__ __ __ __ __
They should have listened to me. Heh, she smirked. Or perhaps I should have listened to me .
A rattling sound from an empty tin can tumbling across the cobblestone from back the way she’d come made her tense her muscles and inhale sharply, her eyes darting back down the alley. Dropping flat to the ground she rolled behind some old heaped garbage bags next to a metal door while clamping a dirty claw around her beak to keep from grunting from the pain of rolling over her recent injuries. Fayla breathed softly and listened for any further sounds. One minute passed, then two. When the fifth minute came Fayla relaxed a bit and was about to stand when she hear a cough followed by a subdued scolding from a second source.
If my father knew I was cowering from my enemies like this he’d be rolling in his grave! Still, he is in his grave, and I’m not too eager to find my own just yet. She reached down to one of the garbage bags and slit it open, hoping to find anything she could use as a weapon. Other than a bent butter knife, there wasn’t much and she dared not search more thoroughly for fear of making an audible noise.
“Come on, let’s go. If she were here, we’d have seen her when we came in.” complained a male’s voice from several meters away. “She probably flew away like the other two surviving Gryphons did.”
“Yeah…yeah, you’re probably right. Let’s head back.”
Fayla remained perfectly still for another two minutes, then risked peeking around the trash bags she hid behind. The alley was clear. Breathing a sigh of relief and ignoring the twinges of pain form her injuries she rose and continued heading back toward the Upper District region. They needed to be warned.
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Tartarus was a prison used to hold some of the world's most dangerous monsters and criminals. Some of them had been there for only a few years, while others had been there for centuries or even more. Some criminals were kept in simple cells while others were placed in cages suspended over a seemingly bottomless abyss. Any attempts at escape that were discovered were stopped and those that attempted it punished. For the longest time the place was mostly maintained with powerful magics and an near-immortal three-headed guard dog named Cerberus. While there were mortal guards as well they were few and their purpose was more for warning the world that a prisoner had attempted (or more rarely succeeded) in escaping or delivering food and drink to the criminals than actually keeping them locked up. Realistically speaking the vast majority of those contained within were far too big a threat for mere mortal guards to deal with. But with the advent of the undead plague that had swept across Equestria and was now edging into other lands as well the prison of Tartarus was largely forgotten by the world. With fresh personnel rotation having ceased as well as no new food and drink supplies being delivered, even with strict rationing things were looking a bit grim. It wouldn't be long before their supplies were entirely expended.
There were twenty-six guards there currently. Most of them were ponies but not all. Originally there had been more of them, but when supplies stopped being delivered with no explanation given several had volunteered to set out for the nearest town to send a message to Canterlot to see what the problem was. They didn't come back. Correction , one came back, but she had been missing a leg and one of her wings looked like it had been chewed off by something. Perhaps several somethings if the different sets of bite marks were any indication. She also was very obviously dead despite still walking and taking rasping breaths. Her hide had been sagging and the eyes were as white as coconut milk. She was also being circled by a crowd of buzzing flies. After seeing that a few more guards left, all of them Pegasai. They first flew up to grab a few passing clouds, then also made their way to the town. A few days later they came back looking healthy but harrowed. If not for the undead Pegasus that had arrived earlier in the week the majority would have thought them crazy. Although they didn't know what caused it, the entire town had been turned into walking or crawling corpses. After resupplying themselves they then flew all the way to Cloudsdale and back to inform them that although Cloudsdale was mostly fine this was unfortunately spreading quickly. While the idea of checking in at Canterlot was broached, the Pegasai that had gone out to Cloudsdale warned against it, saying they had already considered that and had seen at a distance with binoculars hundreds of infected wandering the streets. Nearly half the number of Tartarus guards deserted their posts with that news, heading for home to see if their families were okay. As with their first scout group most of them didn't come back. The few that later did muttered quietly with haunted expressions that this was the only home they had to go back to and practically begged to resume their duties and be allowed back inside. This all happened a year ago. Two of those that had come back would later hang themselves.
Since then even with foraging from the surrounding area to stretch their rations their available food was running out. None of them had any talent with gardening or even keeping a houseplant alive which left them with few options. They'd long-since stopped giving food and water to the prisoners, seeing as it was only done as a courtesy of civilization in the first place and while in Tartarus proper they didn't need to eat, drink, or even sleep. It had occurred to the guards to starting living in there themselves and simply wait for things outside to blow over and someone living to come knocking on their doors, but with time and the rules of reality being a little strange sometimes in the holding areas some were afraid that they'd come out one day to find that they were the last living things on the planet. The idea of that scared them even more than the undead did. Even so, they'd need to make a choice sooner rather than later.
<><><>
Bottle Cap yawned and stretched his long sturdy legs before shuffling back into a typical 'at rest' position. The purple-eyed dark-rust-brown Earth Pony was bored. Beyond bored, actually. The prison had a small library's worth of books and crossword puzzles to keep the guards entertained while on break or on a day off but reading wasn't really his thing. They also had a small gym with plenty of equipment to stay fit when not patrolling the prison's halls or resting, but he was already one of the most fit Earth Ponies present. There were an assortment of tools for adding additional halls, rooms, cages, and cells to expand the prison's holding capacity, but with no additional criminals or monsters of any kind coming their way (other than the occasional shambling corpse, and that was not being brought inside!) for the foreseeable future and plenty of cells and cages already sitting empty and waiting it'd be nothing more than glorified busywork at best. "I miss parties and cider" he muttered, staring at the doors that were both the entrance and exit to the prison. Next to him and on the other side of the door a graying older Pegasus stallion named Butter Milk decided to add his own thoughts.
"I miss fresh pies and coffee, and a soft cloudy bed, and that pretty green-eyed blue mare across the street always up for a bit of fun once the sun went down." He faintly smiled as his mind took a stroll down memory lane. "I miss lively music and the smell of the air just after a rainstorm. I miss the happy faces of foals running down the street and playing with their friends or siblings. I miss-" he paused as the sound of hoof steps from several ponies on the chiseled stone floor echoed towards them. Both he and Bottle Cap turned their heads to see today's group of scavenger-ponies. As their superior officer was with them, they turned and saluted. He saluted in turn and stopped before them. Their commander, one 'Zip Tie' was middle-aged. His coat was a sandy color and his mane was cactus-green. His eyes were a slightly lighter shade of green and he looked tired, though perhaps 'worn' would be a better description.
"At ease. Any changes outside?" he inquired. Zip Tie was a former Wonderbolt that decided that the life of a guardspony was safer than that of a stunt flier after a bad crash during a performance broke almost every bone in his body. Had he wanted he could have kept performing after healing up, but while he was in the hospital recovering his parents begged him to quit for their peace of mind and he did. He didn't regret it...much.
"No sir." Butter Milk replied. "The sun and moon are still rising and setting, the rare corpse is still wandering by, and still no sign of any non-infected personnel here to relieve or resupply us. The weather is nice, though. It's a good day for flying."
"Small blessings are better than no blessings," stated one of Zip Tie's team. "Shall we go, sir?" Zip Tie nodded.
"Open the door, gents." Bottle Cap and Butter Milk nodded and approached the door, undoing the locks and turning the wheel-crank to open them enough for the squad of Pegasai to exit. After they were gone Butter Milk began turning the wheel again in the opposite direction to close it, but halted when someone yelled "Wait!" up the passage from around the corner. Butter Milk and Bottle Cap glanced at each other and Butter Milk shrugged and waited. The area near the door was clear of danger and had been for days so there was no risk from the undead getting in. Several seconds later a unicorn with a black coat and green mane and tail came around the corner followed by several others of assorted colors. They halted next to them.
"Has the food team left yet?" he asked.
"Sorry, you just missed them." Bottle Cap said. "What did you need?"
"We were hoping one of them would be willing to take some letters to family in Cloudsdale." A smaller mare in the back of the group stated, looking a little dispirited. "I've got an aunt there, and Cherry Pick has a brother and a grandparent there, too."
"Or at least I did have family there. I'd like to know if I still do." Cherry Pick held onto a letter of his own in a magical aura, looking worried and a little guilty. "I should have tried to send them a letter months ago, but between searching for food and seeing what happened to the town my parents were in...I don't think I could have handled it if it turned out they were gone, too." Others in the group nodded too and fidgeted with letters of their own in hoof or aura.
Butter Milk looked at Bottle Cap, then out the doors, and back at the group of dejected group of his fellow guards. Morale had been suffering around here pretty much since the very beginning of all this, and the longer things went on the worse it got. A little good news if there was any to be had could work wonders. I'm sure it would do the citizens some good to know that some guards are still keeping the dangerous monsters of Equestria in their cells, too. Butter Milk thought as he stepped over to Bottle Cap and handed him his spear. Bottle Cap gave him a questioning look and Butter Milk smiled and flicked his wings. Realization dawned but Bottle Cap gave him a questioning look, and glanced outside and gave half a salute. What will the commander think? He asked without speaking.
"Let me worry about that." Butter Milk said aloud, turning his attention to the small group in front of them. As if he were talking to them, he continued "I'll take your letters to them. Who am I looking for?" Eagerness bloomed from the gathering and one by one they handed him an envelope or scroll and gave a description of those they wanted their mail delivered to. Eventually he took to writing it all down, and finally stuffed it into a saddlebag before flying off into the sky.
<><><>
Meanwhile deep in the prison itself a trio of stallions seemingly meandered into the main prison area where some of the more recent menaces to society were kept. A Bugbear, a Manticore, a Chimera, and an assortment of other creatures and full-on monsters stared out at them as they strode by. Some of them looked resigned to their situation, while others menacingly glared out at them and prayed they'd be stupid enough to get within arm's reach. All of them were ignored as the stallions crossed the room to a set of stairs that led up to a pair of cages beside a ledge that dropped off into the abyss below. In one cage was an old and withered-looking Centaur that sat looking dejected in the center of his cage. In the other was a little pink Pegasus filly trying to squeeze between the bars of her cage to no avail. Both of them had several crimes to their name including murder, though those murders hadn't been directly intentional and more a result of not caring about collateral damage during their crime sprees. But intentional or not, dead is still dead.
"Back away from the bars, brat." One of the stallions spat as another of the three drew out a key to the cage.
"Golly, Mr guard! Am I being released?" Cozy Glow asked in a cutesy but sarcastic tone.
"Back. Away. From. The. Bars!" the same stallion repeated with a bit more bite to his tone. Cozy Glow offered a sickly-sweet smile and did as she was told. The third guard took out a set of hoof and wing cuffs sized specifically to fit her, and when the cage was opened they were put on her and she dragged out. Back across the room, back into a hall, and out into one of the older areas no longer used by Equestrians: the torture chambers. Here they wouldn't be disturbed. Equestrians didn't like this part of their past by and large, but they kept it anyway so they wouldn't forget it, and hopefully wouldn't repeat it. But because this was made during an ugly part of their history, this also meant that nopony went out of their way to see it unless they were a historian doing research...except for occasions like this.
"Uhh...you're not going to torture a little filly, are you?" Cozy nervously asked. She doubted that they would even with what she as convicted of, but why else would they bring her here and without a supervisor present? They didn't respond and instead removed her hoof cuffs only to attach proper manacles to her legs that were hanging from the ceiling. Now suspended uncomfortably in midair one of them turned a crank to lower her closer to the floor.
The stallion that had done all the talking so far lowered his eye level to hers.
"Cozy Glow the Pegasus. You tried to steal all of Equestria's magic. You came close to destroying civilization and quite possibly all life as we know it since there was no one able to control the sun and moon, and even though you ultimately failed your efforts made equipment both medical and otherwise stop working which led to multiple deaths to citizens of multiple ages across the nation." While he spoke there was a metallic clatter behind her but with a metal collar attached to a metal bar coming down from the ceiling also clamped tightly around her neck she couldn't turn her head enough to see what it was. "Do you feel any remorse at all, I wonder?" He rhetorically asked as he looked at her nervous face. Rhetorical, because he'd read her file and knew that her only regret was that she failed. Well, he and his friends would change that. By the time we're done with her, she's going to regret ever having had her ambitions in the first place! he coldly thought as he discarded his armor and his compatriots securely shut and locked the door.
Author's Note
I stopped watching the show about halfway through season...5, I think? Might have been 4, I don't remember. I did that mostly because people dropped so many spoilers while the show was running all over the internet that any of the important things to the plot I could find out just by reading or listening to that and save myself at least 15 minutes per episode. If there is something regarding Tartarus that doesn't align with what's canon to the G4 show, that's why. It had been mentioned a few times earlier in the show but there weren't many details other than 'it exists' until it was actively in it. I also did not watch ANY of the movies.
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Ponyville - Apple Bloom and Zecora 3
Four days after fleeing her home
Zecora waited impatiently while a group of Shamblers stumbled out of the main road and into a side street before poking her head out from the fake bush she'd made and glanced to either side before shuffling down the road towards a local drugstore. The store front was in bad shape. Its windows were broken and the door looked like it had been kicked by somepony at least as large as Big Macintosh. Old dried blood streaked part of the door's frame and a large patch of dried blood and half of a chewed skeleton lay around the cash counter near the door. Shuddering, Zecora carefully tip-hoofed around the scattered bits of broken glass and fallen neglected merchandise and trash. Cautiously she checked each row to make sure the building was empty other than her. Thankfully, it was. Still minding her steps Zecora began looking for pain killers as well as anything that claimed it could bring a fever down. A fever may have been a body's way of protecting itself against illness but there was such a thing as it getting too high.
At the moment Apple Bloom was waiting for her back at one of their tree top outposts with a forehead hot enough to cook an egg on. The previous evening she'd started panting for breath and complained about feeling dizzy. Had Apple Bloom been able to simply lie down and rest in her home Zecora had no doubt that she'd be well on her way to recovery. Unfortunately after the incident with the bear earlier that week that just wasn't an option. Of all the herbs that she'd quickly stuffed into her satchel before leaving she simply didn't have enough to deal with her young friend's infection, and the ones that had been left in her hut she later found they'd not dried properly and had spots of mold on them. Worst of all, those plants were could only be harvested naturally at a certain time of the year and wouldn't likely be found again until late next spring. At least not in the Everfree Forest.
Cracked Hoof balm, Spotted Tongue, Pink Eye and Stomach Flu. While sometimes useful, none of these will do. Zecora frowned and checked the next aisle to find toilet paper and liquid hoof soap (some of which she snagged), and while she did find a few different brands of painkillers the section of shelving that was supposed to have fever reducers was completely empty. While disappointing it was not surprising. One of the early symptoms of the Shambler infection was a burning-hot fever. Before the symptoms of this plague of undeath were common knowledge those that were infected that were stronger than others typically just thought they had a normal fever and headed to the nearest drugstore to pick up some medicine instead of going to a clinic or hospital. Not that going to either of those places would have saved them in the end.
Although Zecora thoroughly searched the other aisles, the small storage room in the back and even got onto the floor to see if any bottles had perhaps rolled under the standing shelves there wasn't anything of use. This was very bad. There were only two drugstores in Ponyville, and while this one didn't have everything she'd needed, the other store had been completely ransacked. Short of going to another town which would simply take too long Zecora only had one other option: Ponyville General Hospital. Zecora had really hoped that going there would not be necessary.
Back when the outbreak was in its initial stages in Ponyville many of the townsfolk that had gotten infected through one method or another inevitably made their way to the town hospital. PGH almost always had at least several patients at any given time and those days were no exception. When infected patients started turning in the hospital they'd attacked the orderlies and anyone else that was nearby, including the unfortunate helpless patients in their beds. The hospital that had once been a place of healing rapidly transformed into a hive of death and rot. Although she herself had not been in Ponyville during the initial stages her friend Twilight Sparkle (whom she had not seen a very long time) had told her what was going on and had asked if Zecora had ever seen or heard of anything like it before. Twilight Sparkle seemed desperate in her manner when she visited. Scared in such a way that she'd never seen her before. Zecora had sat down with her in her home and made them a sweet and soothing pot of tea while Zecora thought about her people's history and legends. While there were many old legends that had turned out to be true after she left her homeland and explored the world, nothing came to mind about ravenous dead-yet-not-dead that attacked the living and turned them into more not-dead beings. The closest thing she could think of was an old romantic legend about a mighty warrior-Zebra stallion that journeyed through the land of the dead and endured many trials to defeat a fictional being called "The Grim Roper" and bring his stolen beloved wife back to the world of the living.
"But a tale of the Necro Walk, is not of that which you talk. I'm afraid to me this is something new, and I know not what to do." Twilight Sparkle had sighed with disappointment but thanked her anyway before leaving. That parting, sad to say, was the last time she had seen Twilight Sparkle. Whether she had finally evacuated or had succumbed to a Shambler's bite herself Zecora did not know, and she wasn't about to go poking around in Twilight's library home to find out. At least, not today.
Zecora stuffed a few assorted vitamin bottles into her satchel and then readied her shrubbery disguise again. It was time to move on.
Forty minutes of stopping and sneaking later Zecora arrived outside of the Ponyville General Hospital. As she suspected and could plainly see from the windows there were a large number of Shamblers both inside the building itself and around the front entrance of the hospital. Just getting in would be difficult and there was no way she could think of to do it undetected. Getting out again without being mobbed and eaten alive would probably be impossible. As much as she cared for Apple Bloom, getting herself killed would do neither of them any good. So I can't go in through the front door. she thought as her gaze drifted higher. Good thing this place has a second floor!
Ponyville had many two-story homes and buildings, and several were even taller than that (albeit at times disproportionately arranged to the rest of the home). The hospital was no exception and stood at three stories tall. Unfortunately no other buildings were close to it and none of the trees that were tall enough to reach the second story window were sturdy enough to hold her weight. Had this been a hospital in a city or larger town it might have had a fire escape set of stairs or a ladder but since Ponyville was generally classified as a middle-of-nowhere town they were still able to get away with their larger buildings not having them. This would have been a problem, except it seemed that she wasn't the only pony to recently come here looking for medical supplies. As Zecora circled around to the back of the building she noticed that an extendable ladder had been left up against the building and the window above it was open. After examining the ground she noted that not only had the ladder been used enough to have sunk into the ground a little, but the grass around it was worn as if somepony or several someponies came and went frequently.
As she began to set her front hoofs on it to start climbing a white pony leg and head poked out of the window and looked down, blinking in surprise.
"Zecora???" Came a disbelieving mare's voice. The mare's coat was white, her eyes blue (and tired) and her mane was a light shade of pink.
"What is it, Redheart?" came another mare's voice. "Is something out there?" The first mare's head turned to look back into the room.
"It's Zecora the Zebra! The one that lives in the Everfree forest!"
"What?!" the sound of trotting led to another head sticking out of the window and looking down at her, this one possessing a faded blue coat and a green mane. "So it is! Oh, um" the second mare donned a professional expression, cleared her throat and then spoke again. "We of Ponyville General Hospital regret to inform you that we are closed due to lack of staffing, medical supplies, and-" the white mare elbowed her in the side, frowning at her. "Oof! What was that for?!" Rolling her eyes, the white mare waved a leg, gesturing her hoof towards the room they stood in.
"Ignore her and come on up, Zecora. I wish I could offer you a drink but we need what we have. Pull the ladder up after you when you get up here." she turned her attention back to the other mare. "Go tell the others that we'll be putting off the water run for a bit as we're having a little company for awhile. She probably won't be staying long so if anypony wants to say hello they'd better get a move on. It's not often we see a familiar face that doesn't want to chew on ours."
After a short meet-and-greet with a dozen ponies that Zecora wasn't familiar with as well as explaining how she'd survived and why she was there Zecora gave a description of Apple Bloom's symptoms. When she finished the white pony called Redheart looked grim.
"From what you've told me, it sounds like she's got what's commonly called blood poisoning, though without examining her in pony I can't be entirely certain. If it is blood poisoning then fever medication isn't going to help her much, I'm afraid. How much water did you leave with her?"
"I left her with what I could but more would have been good." Redheart put a hoof to her shin and slowly swayed her head back and forth.
"Under ideal circumstances I'd recommend drawing some blood and seeing what specifically she's sick with under a microscope then prescribing an antibiotic while advising she at least double her regular water intake." Lowering her hoof back to the floor she walked down a hall, Zecora following. "Unfortunately she'd need to be here for that and like Tenderheart was saying earlier we haven't received any medications or medical supplies in general for a long time. We've been making do with what was stored up here but we've been running low for months and as I'm sure you've already seen from outside," they stopped and Redheart pointed down a barricaded stairwell where at the bottom several Shamblers were stuck behind the piled junk blocking the stairs. "the first floor is crawling with Shamblers. Anything that we might have been able to use on the first floor we just can't get to, including the analyses lab. Without testing her blood first it's a shot in the dark whether anything I might use would have an effect or not."
<><><>
Apple Bloom slowly came awake in the hammock that Zecora had left her in. Her throat felt as dry as a desert and her head felt hot and heavy. Trying to sit up led to a feeling of dizziness washing over her, and now off balance she toppled out onto the platform perched atop some of the thicker branches of the tree with a thud.
"Zig...Zac'ra....Zecord....Zec-or-a?" Apple Bloom sleepy-speeched as her eyes lazily looked around the platform until they landed on an as-of-yet filled canteen that she assumed Zecora had left for her. Apple Bloom crawled over to it and carefully unscrewed the lid before tilting it up and drinking from it half a mouthful at a time. Before she knew it the canteen was empty. Thankfully after as she drank her head cleared a little. Setting the canteen down Apple Bloom looked around to find that Zecora wasn't here. Where is she? Apple Bloom wondered as she glanced towards the low setting sun. She recalled that Zecora had said before she left that she was going to head into town to look for medicine because something had been wrong with the stuff in her home. If she recalled correctly that had been fairly early in the morning but she couldn't be sure as she had been sleeping most of the day save for brief moments when needing to get a drink or a Call of Nature woke her up. Her own water pouch (taken from her camping supplies back home and looking a bit worn) had been drained at least half a day ago. Now she was out.
Apple Bloom tried to stand up and found her legs to be wobbly at best. There was no way she'd be able to safely climb down the tree to get more water and even if she could it would be dark soon. The Everfree Forest was a risky enough place during the day. After the sun went down the real predators came out. I guess I'll just have to wait here. There's not much else that I can do. she thought with a soft sigh and a wipe of the sweat from the soaked fur of her forehead and carefully climbed back into her hammock.
The cry of a nearby night bird startled Apple Bloom awake again. She snorted and looked around to find that as with before she was in no danger, and to her worry that the sun had gone down completely yet Zecora still hadn't come back. Where is she?! Did something happen? Please not again! I don't think I- Apple Bloom's eyes itched but shed no tears. She took a few deep breaths and crushed the negative thoughts trying to invade her mind. No! She's fine! Zecora is wise, cunning, and strong! She'll be back. She probably just took longer looking for supplies than she meant to and is holing up somewhere to wait for the sun to come up. Yeah, that's gotta be it! Several seconds went by and the brave face she was trying to put on wilted with the continued night ambience and the recollection that these same thoughts had come when she and Applejack had split up so long ago. She'd not seen Applejack since then, either. Please be okay, Zecora! I can't do this on my own! I can't be alone again! Apple Bloom sniffled as possible explanation scenarios marched through her mind one after another, some good and most awful. As the sniffles finally turned into full on soft crying a pale light shone near her and she looked up to see the light take the form of Princess Luna.
Apple Bloom gasped. She hadn't seen Luna since two Nightmare Night parties ago. So did this mean that she was still asleep?
"Hello, little filly. Be not afraid, I am-"
"Princess Luna!!" Apple Bloom interrupted with an excited yell, startling Luna. "We met during a Nightmare Night party a few years ago! You're okay! Is Celestia okay, too?! What about Twilight and-" Luna raised a hoof with a pained smile, though the pained side of it was quickly suppressed.
"Yes, mine sister and I are well. But this visit isn't about me, young one. Tonight it's about suffering little ponies like you. Despair is a horrible thing, and all in Equestria have suffered much loss. If you need someone to speak with for awhile tonight, I am here." Princess Luna changed out the dark forested setting for a more pleasant rolling grassy hill in mid-afternoon.
"Um, actually if it's not too much trouble..." Apple Bloom hesitated. She hoped what she assumed about Luna's dream-powers was correct. "Princess, you can see everypony's dreams when they sleep, right?" Luna nodded. "Then, could you maybe tell me if some other ponies are okay? I got separated from my family and friends when the Shamblers took over Ponyville and I haven't seen them since." Luna's eyes widened a little in surprise.
Luna had diligently continued to perform her duties in calming bad dreams to the best of her ability to the point where it was nearly as taxing on her as it was the ponies she tried to help. Some ponies had very vivid nightmarish recreations of events they'd witnessed. Vivid enough that sometimes even Luna walked away in the end with a little trauma. She had witnessed ponies quite literally being eaten alive or ripped apart by the horrid apparitions of their minds. Sometimes she'd arrive to see a mother or father screaming for their child as the foal vanished beneath a tide of ravenous vaguely pony-shaped horrors which Luna assumed represented the Shamblers. Other times it was a similar setting but the parent or family member in question had been forced to put down their infected friends and family themselves. It was never easy to watch, and even after witnessing it she could only imagine how awful it was for her subjects to relive it in their dreams. During all of that and with the mountain of bad dreams that popped up every single night and even during the day it had not occurred to her to use her skills with the dream world in such a way.
"Um, Princess Luna?" Apple Bloom spoke up from Luna's hoofs. Apple Bloom had been watching Luna while these memories and thoughts ran through her mind, and she looked a bit haunted. When Luna didn't respond Apple Bloom rose up on her hind legs and gave Luna a hug. Now brought out of her mind once more, Luna looked down and smiled. "I'm sorry if I'm being selfish, Princess. I can only imagine how much more busy you've gotten with everything that's happened. If you can't or if you're feeling tired, I understand." Luna smiled down at her and patted her back.
"Not at all, little one. I would be happy to take a peek around the dreamscape to see if someone you know is dreaming. Who am I looking for?" Apple Bloom perked up and began describing several ponies to her. Some, she was familiar with as they had been Twilight Sparkle's friends while others she had heard of but had not met. Luna nodded at the end of each description and when done she promised to return soon.
Meanwhile in the waking world Apple Bloom lay unconscious with a swollen lump on her head atop the platform after tumbling out of the hammock earlier that day. The canteen that Zecora left for her was still sitting unopened nearby.
Author's Note
Rhyming is so much fun! I don't get why people don't like writing for Zecora.
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
The Dreamscape - Princess Luna
Princess Luna mentally sailed through the ethereal space between little bubbles that were each and every being's personal dream realm. Though there were tragically far fewer in Equestria than once there had been there were still too many for her to get to in a single night. Nearly a third of them had an ugly red outline to them that warned of their unpleasant nature, but many of them were also from familiar ponies that she'd visited many a night in the past. Time and experience had taught her that sometimes mortals needed to face those terrors on their own and at their own pace to get through them. Breaking or twisting a bad dream to not be scary only lasted for the length of that dream, and even if it was smooth sailing for them the rest of the night, there was always the next night that it returned. Besides, this time she was searching for specific minds. She sought the minds of a few friends, friends of friends, and a hoof full of strangers.
Not long after her search began the first of these came into view: a young Unicorn by the name of Sweetie Belle. As Luna came in close to examine the filly's dream before entering it she was relieved to see that it wasn't a bad dream, but instead one of those tedious ones where you walk and walk and walk and the path ahead never ends. If you came to and opened a door and stepped through there was another endless passage ahead of it, and if you turned around there was more of the same. No escape, but also no danger. Luna channeled her magic and descended into the dream world.
Sweetie Belle had been walking for a long time. She didn't know how long but other than being a bit dull she saw nothing wrong with that. The walls and floor were hospital white and the doors were light shades of gray. The temperature was comfortable and it wasn't humid. It was quiet other than her steps but if she ever stopped to think about it her mind kept telling her that was a good thing. Little noise was better than no noise or too much noise. It was dull but also relaxing in a way. If she ever came to a door it opened to another monochrome room that led to yet another monochrome empty room. But there was something different about this most recent door. It was a dark blue color speckled with little white dots of varying sizes, and the knob was shaped like the moon, complete with little craters. That reminds me of the sky at night. Pretty! she thought as she placed a hoof on it and pushed this door open too before entering. This room though was not like every other room she'd been through so far. This room has a soft carpet and a tall table with a round top and two simple stools next to it. On the table sat a pair of vanilla milkshakes almost covered in sprinkles. One of the stools had a big somepony sitting in it and looking her way expectantly.
"Well? Are you truly going to let it melt?" the large blue Alicorn asked before levitating a spoonful of her own treat to her own mouth. Sweetie Belle scampered to the empty stool and hauled herself up before grabbing a spoon herself. Wait, shouldn't milkshakes have straws? Sweetie wondered. In an instant her spoon vanished and was replaced with a large striped straw, though the spoon used by the other pony remained. For a time they sat in silence enjoying the ice cream, but halfway through their glasses the Alicorn that was Princess Luna pushed her milkshake aside. "I am pleased to see that your dreams tonight are not unpleasant young miss Belle, but I'm afraid that mine being here isn't simply because I wanted to share some ice cream with you. In the waking world, are you well?"
Sweetie Belle paused from drinking and removed her mouth from the straw. The waking world? What does she m- oh! This is a dream! So then this pony is Princess Luna! She's a tall blue Alicorn, duh! Sweetie Belle gave a quick bow then thought about the question. How was she? Tired, a little hungry, dirty, and hiding out in the loft of a drafty barn while her group waited for an entire horde's worth of Shamblers to pass by. But other than that, they were okay. She explained as much to the Princess. Luna nodded, then eyed her ice cream for a moment and took another spoonful. It wasn't real, but it still tasted good!
"Do you know where on this map," Princess Luna pulled a large paper map from nowhere and spread it on the table before them (their milkshakes had vanished). "you are?" Sweetie Belle climbed up onto the table and began looking over the map. After a short time she shook her head.
"Nope! I've just been following my sister and Big Macintosh. They know where we're going, though."
"The bearer of Generosity and Apple Bloom's brother are alive? This is wondrous news and she'll be happy to learn that! Have they said where they're heading?" Sweetie Belle gasped.
"Apple Bloom is okay?! Where is she?!" she squeaked with excitement.
"Your friend is currently living within The Everfree Forest with a Zebra potion maker. She's sick right now, but the Zebra mare is caring for her. I am sad to say that it is unknown where Applejack is."
"Apple Bloom is sick?!" Sweetie exclaimed with worry. "What's wrong with her?! She wasn't-" Sweetie paused and swallowed hard. "she wasn't bitten , was she?" Luna shook her head and the young foal sighed with relief.
"She asked me to come looking for her friends and family in the dreamscape. You traveling with miss Rarity and her brother makes this task much easier. Even so I still have much to do. Is there anything you'd like me to relay to her?" Sweetie considered that for a little while, then nodded.
"Just tell her that I miss her and I hope she gets better soon, please! One day we'll meet again but until then she needs to take care of herself."
"Do not forget also to take care of yourself in turn, young one. I shall go now, but I'll look for you again soon."
Princess Luna's body began to glow and then shine....but then it faded and returned to normal. "By the way, can you finish mine for me? I'm afraid I won't be able to." Luna requested with a wink, their two milkshakes once more appearing on the table. Sweetie Belle grinned and brandished Luna's spoon in her magical aura like a weapon. Then Luna left through the door that Sweetie had entered through and was gone from the dream when it clicked shut.
Luna exited Sweetie's dream with a smile. For the first time in what felt like a small eternity she held in her heart some good news. Hopefully the rest of her search this night would continue that trend.
Author's Note
I recall having written at least half a chapter involving Big Mac, Rarity, Button Mash and Sweetie Belle running into a wandering trader in the past, but for the life of me I can't find it. So either I deleted it, or it's on my older computer somewhere.
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Upper Canterlot - Luna and Celestia 2
Celestia sat on her bedroom's balcony overlooking what was left of city nation's capitol. There was a time not so long ago that she looked out on the city with a sense of satisfaction and pride knowing that of all the things the world had thrown at her little ponies, they still managed to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start rebuilding their lives. Even from an era long before hers when the three tribes lived separately that indomitable spirit led to them surviving an artificial ice age brought about by their bickering and Windigos in the still-frozen North, the reign of Discord in what was now Equestria, incursions of assorted monsters, and even a hostile invasion or two. Always before her citizens did everything they could to survive and aid their neighbors and even now with this latest horror that was no different save that they seemed more strained than they had in the past. Who could hold that against them, though? Whatever the cause of this plague of undeath only ponies and horses seemed to be susceptible to it.
While from where she sat she could see that limit for the blessing it was, to the local folk it was sometimes seen as some sort of divine punishment. Only equine-kind were affected, so surely they were being punished for something. As time wore on and both supplies and survivors became fewer this belief became increasingly shared. Celestia had already begun hearing rumors from the supply scouts that still went to Lower Canterlot had reported seeing odd shrines and what seemed to be an execution platform near the train station. It deeply unsettled her but she never let it show to the public. Cults and odd superstitions had a habit of springing up during the more difficult parts of history. Once conditions began improving they tended to gradually die off with few exceptions. One such exception was a teal Unicorn waiting outside of her door with several dozen pounds' worth of documentation and photographic "evidence" that she'd apparently been collecting for a fair portion of her life and had brought with her when they evacuated. According to Agent Sweetie Drops of S.M.I.L.E. whom had been renting a room in the Unicorn mare's home in Ponyville as a cover before the outbreak most of it was a bunch of baloney, but a few tidbits were worth looking over if only to find out where and when top secret information had leaked.
"As if we didn't have enough already to juggle, now we also have to deal with cults and conspiracy theorists!" Celestia griped. "I do love my little ponies, but sometimes I really wish we had set up some kind of council to handle things like this or for when we wanted to take a vacation. I honestly can't even remember the last time I took a vacation." Celestia huffed in annoyance. "I swear, once we've survived this and put it far behind us, I'm going to retire!" Her nearby aid raised an eyebrow in response. Raven Inkwell was a dutiful and very much so needed assistant even before the dead began to roam the streets. The collapse of civilization and diminishing of population didn't so much lighten the role of governing as much as change out some responsibilities for others.
"Those never really went away, your majesty. From those that believed that the moon was made of cheese which is why your sister didn't starve to death during her banishment and that the crater was the places she ate from, to that one insane group four years ago that we caught trying to break into your bathroom because they were convinced that ingesting royal urine would lead to immortality." Raven made a look of utter disgust and disappointment. "The only thing that has changed is how many of them still come to petition that this or that topic be confessed as a coverup and printed in a newspaper for all the world to see. I'm sure this latest one will be no different. Shall we go and meet her, then?" Celestia gave her sleeping sibling a glance and then turned away from the tarnished view of Canterlot city.
"I suppose so. Hopefully it'll be another funny conspiracy so that I have something to laugh about this week."
<><><>
Luna slowly opened her eyes and blinked, followed by a yawn. She looked around but found that her sister and miss Raven Inkwell had departed. Luna scratched an itchy leg and got up to her hoofs. She had just finished talking again to young Apple Bloom and had the pleasure of watching her weep with joy. The memory brought a smile to her own face. The little filly had feared that almost everypony she loved was dead, but after a few hours of traveling the Dreamscape Luna was able to confirm that while some of them were indeed deceased or at the very least were not asleep at the moment a large portion of both her friends and family were still alive. Those she had encountered also in turn were relieved or excited to learn that though she was sick that she was otherwise fine as well.
But more importantly, she had realized a greater value to her dream-walking abilities in this time. She learned that it could be used it to find ponies that were missing and an opportunity to rekindle hope to those that had lost it with the possibility of reuniting them.
Luna stretched and cracked her neck before heading for the bedroom's door. She wished to share these good tidings with her elder sister. Before she could leave, however, there came the sound of many flapping wings passing the balcony and Luna stepped outside to investigate. As she looked around she saw several unfamiliar Pegasai pulling several flying mail trucks marked with the symbol of Cloudsdale.
"Ho, strangers!" Luna yelled (but not with her voice amplification) "What brings you here from Cloudsdale?" Heads turned and they approached, giving her a bow.
"Good day, your majesty!" An older and graying stallion in a guard's uniform greeted with a sharp salute. "We're here to deliver some much-delayed mail to Canterlot, and to take any in turn that you might want sent back. I in particular would also like to request an audience either with you or Celestia if either of you have the time. My name is Butter Milk and I'm of the Tartarus guard." Luna's eyes widened and for a few seconds she began to panic at the possible reasons a member of the Tartarus guard would have come here. Seeing her reaction Butter Milk was quick to wave his legs in front of him and shake his head. "No no! It's not what you're probably thinking! None of the criminals or abominations have broken out! I'm just here to deliver some mail and a report on the state of things there. That's all!" At that Luna calmed.
"Ah, I see. Well, at the moment mine sister is busy and I've only just awoken. For now take your carts to the plaza down the street from the palace gates. I'll inform Celestia about this and we'll get back to you later." Butter Milk bowed again and spoke to the other Pegasi before they flew away. Luna watched them go and a second smile found its way to her face. Perhaps finally the pendulum of fate was beginning to swing back the other way again.
Author's Note
One can tell all the tragic stories they want, but if one has any realistic expectation of the characters wanting to carry on they need at least a little hope now and then.
On a unrelated subject I only just found out (7/12/2024 10:26 AM) that while I had been writing this back in the day, someone else had been writing another series of stories also based off of Rainbowbob's world. Neat.
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The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Lower Canterlot - Vinyl Scratch+Octavia, Thunderlane+Rumble+Flitter
Week One of the Outbreak in Canterlot
It seemed to be a day like any other. Birds were singing, decorative flowers were blooming, the sun was shining, and as far as most normal ponies were concerned all was right in the world save for some disturbing rumors that had drifted in with tourists from other towns. Although there was nothing in the newspapers about it, apparently some new illness out in the boonies had swept across an entire town and the place had been quarantined a few days ago. No one and no thing was allowed in or out without express permission from The Crown. The story went that somepony had gotten infected with a mutated strain of rabies while caring for some sick animals and had attacked her neighbors who then also got sick and went on to attack other ponies. While this was mildly concerning to the locals if true, this was the city of Canterlot! Surely no such affliction would make its way here. Even if it did then it would quickly be contained and treated! Equestria had suffered far worse things since its founding than illnesses and had come out little worse for wear. Besides, everypony that talked about it all said the same thing: that it was contained and no one was allowed in or out.
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Vinyl Scratch levitated her and Octavia Melody's suitcases from the hotel trolley into their room. Their train had left Ponyville over a week ago, but it had needed to reroute for some repair work and had only just arrived in Canterlot today.
"Thanks, dude. We'll take it from here." Vinyl tossed the attendant a few bits before walking into their room and shutting it behind her. Octavia was in the bathroom replacing the bandages on her right foreleg. They'd been planning this trip to Canterlot to visit old friends and family for the last few months and now here they finally were! First they'd get something to eat at a diner and then they'd head to Octavia's parent's place. The two were expected to show up in about an hour and a half so they'd have to delay putting their stuff in the drawers until later.
Although Octavia was typically considered a high-class mare both by how she carried herself and how she spoke her family were actually from Lower Canterlot or Commoner Canterlot as those of "noble" descent sometimes called it. The reverse was the case for Vinyl Scratch. Her parents had tried to get her to be a prim-and-proper lady (or stuck up if you asked Vinyl herself about it) but eventually gave up after Vinyl gained her cutie mark in a school music club playing with a DJ rig. Their relationship was strained for several years after that until she made it big in the music industry. Once that happened they just accepted that the two of them were, so to speak, squares that raised a triangle. Sure, Vinyl could fit into the same hole, but she wasn't really meant to. After that they were just glad that she would be able to support herself even if they didn't necessarily approve of how she did it.
"Tavi, you just about done in there? We need to head out soon." Vinyl pushed open the bathroom door to see Octavia put the roll of bandage gauze back on the sink and swallow some pain pills with water. Vinyl raised an eyebrow. "Tavi, if your leg still hurts that much we can always head to a local doctor's place first and get you some real meds, you know. I'm sure your folks won't mind. Heck, they'll probably yell at me for not taking you there first!" Octavia rolled her eyes and set her hoofs down on the floor again.
"I'm a grown mare, Vinyl. My leg is still a bit sore, but Nurse Redheart said that it would continue to be for at least another few days. It's not very often that a dazed and grouchy little filly decides to chomp onto your leg like you're made of chocolate. Considering that she bit hard enough to draw blood and take a small chunk out of me I'm just glad Redheart didn't insist that we cancel our trip and stay home." Vinyl Scratch gave her an ocular once-over and noted the bags under her eyes and the way she actively avoided putting any real weight on her injured leg as if it hurt a lot more than she claimed. She gave Octavia an unsure look which Octavia countered with a reassuring smile. "Really, I'm fine. It hurts but that's it. Once the painkillers kick in it won't be a problem." Still looking unsure, Vinyl nodded.
"If you say so, Tavi."
Vinyl was right: Octavia's parents did yell at her. They did it so loudly that the neighbors had come by and knocked on their door to see what all the commotion was about. That led to explaining the situation a second time and leading up to Octavia unwrapping her injury to show them. The sight of it brought up the subject of the rumors that had spread faster than any contagion, including a newer piece of information that said it was taking place in the town that Celestia's student had moved to. Both Octavia and Vinyl glanced at one another and recalled a number of hard to believe stories they'd heard before they'd left such as several ponies claiming to have seen a glimpse of Fluttershy roaming around town despite her having sadly been killed by a Hydra not too long ago. Then there was the hoof-full number of patients they'd seen waiting in the lobby of the Ponyville General Hospital with similar wounds to Octavia's own though with differing levels of severity.
It was pretty regular to have something weird occurring in Ponyville every few weeks. From random monsters coming out of the Everfree Forest to the yearly unique-to-Ponyville Zap Apple harvest to mysterious super heroes that appeared from nowhere and later vanished just as quickly never to be seen again. Those were the 'normal' weird things that happened there. In a way it was reassuring that they happened so regularly. Once in a blue moon though, something particularly nasty happened. Last time it had been Trixie taking over the town using a power-boosting magical artifact. Most of the other major things such as the return of Discord they'd not been around for due to their work schedules being so irregular compared to that of other ponies. Was this new sickness their little town's latest dose of misery? Still, rumors were only just that. There was a pretty easy way to find out if there was any truth to the story, and that was to head down to the train station tomorrow and ask for a ticket back to Ponyville. If they were denied, then they could start feeling worried.
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It was close to midnight and while the main streets of Canterlot were still fairly active with night clubs and a few stores that never closed save for on holidays the back-alleys and residential areas were fairly silent. While some ponies had started staying up later with the return of Princess Luna most of them had gone to bed three or four hours ago. The occasional group of police ponies patrolled the streets to see if anyone or anypony had wandered away from a club and passed out on a sidewalk bench or to prevent the occasional hoodlum from making mischief when they thought no one was looking. The city being silent was usually a soothing thing after all the excitement and noise of the previous day.
Above the city however, though it was still silent not all was well. On a cobbled together patch of clouds a trio of sleeping Pegasai that had fled from Ponyville before it was quarantined twitched with bad dreams and one of them also with a very high fever. One of them was a blue-gray mare named Flitter, the second a dark gray Stallion named Thunderlane, and lastly his little brother Rumble whom was a light gray Pegasus colt with a mane that was two tones of darker gray. Rumble had been mauled and partially crippled by a crazed-with-sickness pony while he was getting his teeth examined by the local dentist. It had barged into Colgate's office while she was comparing some photographs she'd taken of his teeth the last time he'd been in with today's. Before she even had time to react it was upon her. Rumble heard a crash from her office and yelled, asking if she was alright.
Thunderlane had been outside on his way back from getting some tea for him and his kid-brother when he heard Rumble scream from inside the building. Dropping the tea he galloped inside to see what looked like a corpse of all things gnawing on one of his little brother's wings and Rumble screaming in agony. Not wasting any time Thunderlane charged and kicked the thing with all his strength. Thunderlane was no Earth Pony but was still pretty fit, and the creature was sent flying into the wall where it slumped to the floor. Thunderlane ran to Rumble's side and picked him up. As he started reassuring Rumble that he'd take him somewhere to get patched up he heard a dragging sound coming from Colgate's office and looked to see with shock and horror the once-pretty mare with her throat ripped out and gore trailing down her neck and chest standing in the doorway and twitching. What once was Colgate locked dull eyes with Thunderlane and made a gurgling growl as it started clumsily shuffling towards them. One of her legs seemed to not be working right and scraped the floor as she stepped.
"What in the sun's light?!" he exclaimed. Rumble weakly tapped Thunderlane's back and whimpered.
"Bro, the one you kicked is getting back up!" Thunderlane's head jerked towards it to see that it was indeed doing so even with two broken ribs pointing out from its barrel. It made a snarling sound like some kind of wild animal as it craned its head to look their way. The eyes on this thing were as white as the moon. The teeth were worse to look at though, being drenched in the blood of both Colgate and now his little brother.
"This is a nightmare!" he panic-whispered, but grit his teeth and shoved a small table in Colgate's direction to knock her back from them and quickly raced back out of the dentist's office and into the street. He started heading for the PGH, but a shrieking scream to his left drew his attention to several more of those walking corpses surrounding and tearing away at the flesh of a mare he'd met in passing named Cloudchaser whom had just stepped out of the Flower Sister's home. More screaming was coming from inside the house, too. Whether it was in reaction to what was going on outside or if more of those things were in there, who could say? Thunderlane froze mid-step and watched like a deer frozen in headlights and breathless as Cloudchaser seemed to sink within them and melt into a red expanding puddle of blood and gore. Several moments later her screaming finally stopped with a strangled gurgle, though the sounds of feeding and flesh tearing and bones breaking didn't.
Thunderlane's hoofs felt warm and wet. Glancing down he realized what he'd done and having snapped out of his trance he turned away from the display to see Flitter standing next to him with one leg extended towards the mob with her mouth open and tears pouring from her eyes. Gone . Her sister was gone and she'd just watched it happen, unable to so much as twitch a wing to help because she was so shocked and afraid. Seeing her in the same boat he'd been in moments before Thunderlane reached out a hoof and gently placed it on her back. Flitter's head jerked to look at him and she saw his little brother on his back, minus part of a wing.
"We have to go. Get far away from here. Away from..." He fought the urge to look at them . "I'm leaving. Come on." In a grief-stricken daze, Flitter followed. After they'd left Thunderlane glanced back at his hometown to see several flashes of light on the ground and a few dozen ponies in royal guard armor spreading out and engaging the dead roaming their streets. None of those guards seemed to notice the fleeing trio.
They left the area and flew all day nonstop to arrive in Canterlot shortly before ten at night. Thunderlane had wanted to take his little brother to a hospital as soon as they arrived but by the time they stopped for a breather the pair of adults were so exhausted from the trip and from fear that they just grabbed a few clouds, smooshed them together and passed out a few seconds later. Rumble had already fallen asleep long before the sun had set, and his temperature had only gone up and up as they traveled. Now in the silence of the early morning hours, Rumble's dulled eyes snapped open and he took a slow shaky breath and exhaled it as a soft groan before standing up and taking a step forward off of his brother's back and tumbling down through the clouds they'd slept on.
Below them in a cobblestone back alley a yellow Earth Pony with a brown mane and tail named Donut Joe opened his shop's back door carrying out a bag of trash to the city block's dumpster. He'd already said good night to the last of his regulars and finally closed up shop. Tomorrow he'd take the time to deep-clean everything from the equipment to the store itself with his two recent hires before opening back up again on the day after. He did that at least once every season to make sure that no mold had any real opportunity to collect in the corners or under the machinery. Really he'd prefer to do it more often if he could what with the random health inspections that had started up after a pasta restaurant down the road was discovered to have mice literally cooking in the kitchen. It had caused a scandal at first, but after a cooking contest was sponsored by the owner and the mice won over the other contestants all that came of it was that cleanliness standards had been increased across town since mice could get under equipment that ponies couldn't and see where filth was collecting.
Donut Joe raised the lid to the dumpster and tossed the garbage bag in then headed back to the door and took out his keys to finish locking up before going home. As he was about to leave the alleyway he heard a sudden loud crash behind him and a soft thud coming from the dumpster. It startled him so much that he whinnied like a scared little filly. For several seconds it was quiet other than him trying to settle his breathing, but then the sound of something stirring and short ragged breaths came from whatever had bounced off the dumpster onto the ground.
It was dark in that alley. There was a light mount above him, but the glowstone in it had fizzled out a few years ago and he'd just never bothered to replace it.
"Hello?" No response other than the lump seemed to still be gasping and trying to stand up. Maybe it'd had the wind knocked out of 'em from that 'landing'. Is that a foal? What are they doing up this late at night? "Are you alright?" Donut Joe approached them and knelt down. It was a foal. Specifically, it was a colt. "You took quite a fall there, little buddy. What are you doing out here so la-?!" the colt had finished standing up and turned to face and snarl at him. One of his wings was partially missing and his eyes seemed strangely unfocused. One of his back legs was also very obviously broken and even twisted a bit from the fall yet instead of his face being contorted with pain and tears instead he only looked aggressive. Alarm bells began to ring in Donut Joe's head but just as he started to step back the little colt lunged and sank his sharp foal teeth into one of Donut Joe's legs. "Aaaah!" he screamed. The colt's mouth began to gnaw where he bit and on instinct Donut Joe whipped his leg around until the colt was flung away into the deeper dark of the alleyway, leaving an embedded tooth behind. Donut Joe whipped his keys back out and got inside his shop, locking it again behind him. What the heck was that all about?! That kid just attacked him! He glanced down at his bleeding leg where the tooth was still embedded and pulled it out before walking into the store's restroom to get it cleaned it up. It didn't look too bad but it might get that way if he let it get infected.
Back up in the sky Thunderlane bolted awake at the sound of Donut Joe screaming and for a few seconds he writhed around on his cloudy cot thinking he was still in his dream. After a few seconds he remembered where he was and heard the sound of the door slam beneath them. Now calm again he breathed a sigh of relief and took stock of his surroundings. Lumpy-but-still-soft-clouds? Check. Flitter? Check. What a sound sleeper she is! Rumble? Rumble?! Rumble was gone! Briefly Thunderlane debated waking Flitter but in the end chose to let her sleep. She had endured far worse than the two of them had. If she could have any peace at all she deserved it.
Thunderlane dove straight down through the clouds. He recalled the door slamming and after reaching the ground he looked around for one. When he found it knocked on it but instead of it opening a stallion's voice yelled back that they were closed for the night and would be closed tomorrow, too.
"Come back in a few days."
"I'm not looking for whatever you're selling, I'm looking for my little brother! He has a light gray coat and darker gray-" but whoever was in the building interrupted him.
"If you're referring to that crazy colt that attacked me a few minutes ago he should still be in the alleyway! I shook him off my leg after he decided I looked like a chew toy! I don't know what he's on but one of his legs were disfigured in his fall and he was missing part of a wing yet he moved like he didn't feel any of it! I tried being nice and it literally came back to bite me. Look for him on your own!" Thunderlane didn't like the sound of any of that. He remembered that Rumble had complained about feeling funny before he'd fallen asleep on his back....and what that pony said about him...was his brother....did he turn into one of those-? No, that can't be! He's probably just a bit delirious. Exhausted or not I should have taken him to a hospital as soon as we got here. He glanced up again to where Flitter was still asleep. This time he decided to go ahead and wake her and gave her a quick summary of what just happened.
"Go find some police or guards and tell them what's going on. Canterlot is too big a place for us to search everywhere on our own and Rumble is sick. We need to find him as soon as possible!"
"What about-" she involuntarily yawned. "what about you?"
"I'm going to start searching for him now. He can't have gotten far!"
The Grass Ain't Always Greener
Gryphon Border's Edge - Night Patrol
Gryphon Border's Edge – Night Shift Border Patrol
Phoenix the Gryphon pulled his whetstone down the left side of his spearhead for what felt like the thousandth time this week and then began sharpening the other side. If things kept up for his patrol like they had for the last three months he would be replacing his ninth spearhead within the next few days. He glanced at the stone itself and tossed it over his shoulder before reaching into a pouch in his backpack and pulling out a fresh one to continue his task.
^Ssshing^ ^Ssshing^ ^Ssshing^
“Ugh, will you give it a rest, Phoenix?! You’ve been sharpening your spears for the last hour and the sound is driving me nuts!” Phoenix paused a moment and looked across the small campfire his squad of five had built at their newest recruit. Shard's fur, unlike most Gryphons, was the color of wood ash, and his feathers were a rich red color. It was a trait that most of the males in his family shared, but that really was all there was to it. It marked him as different, not special.
“You would do well to do the same, young Shard. A dull weapon will do you no good against what we face in these times. Or in any time of battle, for that matter.”
Phoenix himself was the of the more common coloration of brown-gold fur and white feathers with the only difference being that his pinions were tipped with a fiery orange-gold, hence why his mother gave him that name. Whereas Shard was in his early twenties, Phoenix was in his late fifties. Most Gryphons lived to be in their early eighties, and he doubted that he would be an exception provided something besides time did not kill him first.
“For what we face in these times we’d be better off using hammers and axes, not spears and crossbows!”
“Oh?” Phoenix raised an eye ridge. “And I suppose you want to get close enough for one of the Shamblers to bite a chunk out of you? If you do, by all means trade in your own spear after the next rotation. I’m sure someone else will make good use of it.”
Shard opened his beak and was about to say something in return when their squad’s leader rose to his paws and talons and shouldered his pack.
“That’s enough, you two." Their commanding officer stated. "Time for us to move on to the next location; the others behind us will be coming up on our position soon enough, and those ahead of us likely have already moved on.”
“Aye ma’am.”
“Yes ma’am.” Both nodded and rose from their seats on the bare ground. Gathering their equipment, they fell into their regular positions and began walking. Had the time been during the daylight they would have flown rather than walking but on a cloudy night such as this one it was dim enough that even their sharp vision could see no farther than that of regular birds (excluding owls). Several watchtowers were being planned for construction in the near future, but even those wouldn't help much when time got to being passed sun-down, and there would still be the need for active guards on standby to be on claw in case a herd of the dead larger in number than five or six was spotted. With the Gryphon race's ability to hover in mid-air just out of reach yet still able to strike with pole weapons or arrows and bolts the Gryphons had a distinct advantage in extermination over say, the Diamond Dogs and Minotaur races, but once in awhile someone would hover a little too low and get grabbed. Being immune to the plague aside, no one felt like being chewed to pieces because they made a mistake and were pulled into a crowd of ravenous undead.
"So," Shard began, once more breaking the silence. "why aren't we building a wall of wood or stone along our borders like the Minotaur are? We could just wait for them to come up to the walls, and then have someone walking along the top impale their head, and keep on walking. It'd be like squashing bugs."
"Because we don't need to." Their leader replied, eyes never ceasing in scanning the uneven rocky terrain. "Most of our people live on or in canyon-like or mountainous terrain. With a few exceptions such as our own little town, a nest-full* of refugee camps, one or two coal mines and the fishing villages along the coast most of of our living regions are out of reach from ground-bound attacks. With the exception of the one small city the Diamond Dogs have, the wall building that Diamond Dogs are doing only involves blocking up the entrances to their dens."
"That's right," Pheonix agreed, continuing "and in the case of the Minotaur most of their territory is flat and open meaning that the undead ponies can walk in with nothing to hinder them other than the Minotaur warriors themselves. If one of the so-called hordes were to come along it could cause them a lot of harm." Shard was skeptical.
"But not us? I thought you said" Shard turned his head to address the lead Gryphon. "that our fishing villages were on the ground. Most of our local food comes from them, right?" She shook her head.
"For them to have gotten that far into our territory uncontested it would mean that the rest of our nation are in dire straights. At that point it would hardly matter if they got that far. Even if they did the villagers down there are no slouches. They're Gryphons, after all." There was a sharp intake of breath behind Shard and the leader and the two of them went silent, weapons once at rest or holstered were now held at the ready.
"Up ahead on the right, by the rock." A pointed spear directed their attention, though the words were more than enough. A figure slouched against the large not-quite-a-boulder, its breaths ragged and gurgling. Two more figures, both equine and roughly the same size were slowly plodding along passed it. In the dark it was impossible for facial features to be visible, but the smell on a gentle breeze told the story all too well.
"I'll take the one out front. Phoenix, get the one on the rock. Shard, the straggler." The trio spread out to approached their targets, but paused as a sudden but brief buzzing sound became apparent. They looked at one another, then at their targets, then all around and back to each other, and shrugged. Starting forward again, The one by the rock was put down first, followed by the lead. As Shard approached the last one however, the brief buzzing sound came again, much closer this time.
Sounds like the wings of a hummingbird...or maybe a hornet. Shard raised his weapon to skewer the Shambler's head, then froze when it turned its face towards him. It looked like an ordinary pony in the dark, but now that Shard was closer he saw that it wasn't. Its body was a reflective solid black chitin save for places where a few chunks along the neck were missing. One dull blue eye flickered with light where the other seemed to have been torn out along with part of its face, and large wings like a dragonfly's twitched on its back, creating that occasional buzzing. That's not a Pony! That's a Changeling! It opened its fanged mouth and let out a loud high-pitched hiss instead of a moan or growl, and the sound of buzzing that they'd heard earlier sounded all around them, quickly growing louder. Shadows of movement sprung up from the ground and quickly closed on them, cutting off any chance of escape.
For a time yells of surprise filled the night but these quickly changed to screams of pain gradually drowned out by the sound of buzzing wings.
Author's Note
*meaning four or five. Nest-full is a term that comes from how many eggs one expects during a single clutch, though usually not all of them hatch.
The Bug-ponies have magic in them too, ya'know! And yes, they did set an ambush. My idea for this situation is that their hive-mentality has them linked even in undeath and thus allows them a little more brain-power than the undead Equestrians. The more of them there are in one place, the smarter they are, though they still have less physical strength than the average undead pony.
