Rivers of Babylonby A Hoof-ful of DustChaptersHow can we sing King Alpha's song in a strange land?And there we wept when we remembered ZionThe words of our mouths and the meditations of our heartsHow can we sing King Alpha's song in a strange land?The six ponies stared at the old gnarled tree, its form twisted and crooked but still radiating an unhealthy vitality despite looking centuries dead and petrified. A faint colorless glow waxed and waned from the shadowy hole in a gap in its mighty roots. "And this is the only other way home?" Twilight asked. "Without waiting for the portal to become open again," Sea Breeze said in his high lilting voice, "the path beneath the tree is the only option." "Alright, what are we waiting for?" Rainbow said. "Let's go!" Applejack yanked on her tail before she could shoot off into the underdark. "Hold up a second. Don't this look a bit dangerous?" "What's the worst that could happen?" Pinkie said, her voice full of equal amounts confidence and excitement. "Have ya been on any of our adventures recently, Pinkie?" Applejack asked with a raised eyebrow. "We always manage to make it through though, don't we?" Rarity said. "Especially when it's the six of us." "Yeah," Pinkie exclaimed, "there's nothing the Elements of Harmony can't handle together, even if we don't have the Elements of Harmony any more!" "Twilight?" Applejack asked, hoping for some support for her side. "If it's the only way," Twilight started. After a quick nod of confirmation from Sea Breeze, she continued: "Then it's the way we have to take." "Fluttershy...?" Fluttershy set her jaw. "We need to get home," she said resolutely. "If that's how y'all feel..." Applejack turned her attention to Sea Breeze. "So we just... go in there, and it'll take us home?" "It will take you where you need to go," Sea Breeze said, "though the path may not always be direct." "Good enough," Rainbow Dash said, edging towards the dim hole. "C'mon, AJ, quit holding us up." One by one, the ponies disappeared under the withered tree. Sea Breeze watched them with an unchanging expression as they stepped into the dark. -/- The light of morning through the window was trying its best to wake Rarity, and Rarity was trying her best to resist. She didn't want to get up just yet, and hadn't wanted to for what felt like forever; she had no pressing orders to complete, was under no pressure to open up shop early today, didn't even have to go out to the market owing to a full pantry. She could just sleep in all morning, nice and warm, if she-- "Mornin', dear." Rarity sprang out of bed at the unfamiliar voice, all four hooves hitting the floor in less than a second. She had not been alone in her bed. A stallion she had never seen in her life before had lain next to her: broad shoulders, square jaw, handsome in a rugged sort of way that might be appreciated in her bedroom under circumstances other than suddenly materializing out of nowhere. "Wh-wh-who are you?" she spluttered, creeping towards the door, eyes darting about for something large and solid enough that she might be able to lift with her magic and bash a strange stallion over the head with. "And what are you doing here?" The stallion frowned in good-natured confusion. "You have a bad dream or something?" He smiled, and again, in a different situation it would have been winning and pleasant. "I'm Rock Cutter. Husband of yours. 'Member?" "Hus... hus..." She couldn't finish the word. She felt faint. "Going on eight years in spring. We have a daughter together, any of this ring a bell?" Something was ringing in Rarity's head, but it didn't sound like bells. Did he say eight years? But that didn't make sense, she was only... how old was she? And, had Rock said daughter? Rarity didn't have the time to process that revelation before she heard a set of hooves thundering up the stairs. The door behind her burst open, and into the room leaped a filly too young to have her cutie mark yet. She looked a little like Rarity; you could tell they were mother and daughter. You could tell... "Aren't you guys up yet?" the filly exclaimed. "We're supposed to go sledding this morning." "Not on an empty stomach, kiddo," Rock said. The filly frowned, indicating she could do anything on an empty stomach if she chose. "Your father's right, Garnet," Rarity said, the words tumbling unbidden out of her mouth. She walked with her daughter down the stairs leading to the kitchen. "What do you want for breakfast?" she asked. As Garnet made a complex list of all the things she wanted to eat, Rarity was running through a checklist of what needed to be done before leaving the house to go out into the snow, feeling about to see if there was room to get any sewing done. -/- The scroll that sat in front of Twilight swam and blurred before her. Suddenly, she realized she had no idea what the words said, or even what the scroll was about. "Your Highness?" She had no idea what this meeting in her throne room was about, either. She put a hoof to her temple and rubbed, closing her eyes. "Forgive me," she said, "it's been a long day. You were saying?" "We were waiting to hear your decision, Your Highness," her aide said. The rest of the court, all the high members of council and none of the frivolous nobles, watched with grave faces. "Shouldn't the other princesses be here? Princess Celestia, Princess Luna...?" Confusion passed over her aide's face. "Your Highness... you are the only princess Equestria has ever had." Twilight closed her eyes again. "I misspoke," she said, "it has been a long day." She looked down again at the declaration in front of her, and aimed her magic at the bottom of the scroll, making the mark of the Princess of Equestria. "It is with a heavy heart," Twilight intoned to the court, "that I announce Equestria must go to war with the Griffon Kingdoms." -/- Applejack passively gazed out of the windows of the carriage, taking in the streets of Manehatten awash with rain. Manehatten? Wasn't I going home? Wasn't I traveling with... somepony... "You're going to like living with your Aunt and Uncle Orange," a voice said beside her. "It's all going to be okay." I did that already... when I was a filly. But Applejack had always been a filly. She had never been old enough to go to Manehatten on her own. Never been grown-up enough to order a meal at a restaurant outside of the children's menu. She didn't even have her cutie mark yet. "Can't I live with Granny Smith? And my brother..." But even as she said their names, the memory of them was fading away, drained out like rainwater down the gutters. "What was that?" asked her companion. "Nothin'," Applejack said, and went back to staring out the window. It hadn't rained at her parents' funeral, and now the weather looked like it was making up for reflecting the way she felt. She felt lost, and alone. She was alone, the only Apple left. -/- Rainbow Dash landed on the Ponyville bridge with a thud. Getting back was a cinch! She didn't know what Applejack had been worried about. It was like she had blinked and all of a sudden she was back home. Breezie magic was awesome. In fact, Rainbow was going to go bug AJ about how awesome and effective it was, right now. Lingering on the times Applejack was wrong about something was great fun. Mainly because she wasn't wrong about much all that often. Rainbow shot off back into the sky, headed for Sweet Apple Acres. She found Applejack hauling a heavy piece of farming something-or-other across the field. It didn't look like it was doing anything, so maybe she was putting it away for the day. That was good, 'cause it meant she couldn't tell Rainbow to buzz off on account of her having work to do. Rainbow touched down beside Applejack and paced beside her. "So, about that Breezie magic tree..." she started. Applejack said nothing, continuing the drag the device. "Yeah, it was pretty great. I mean, it got us all home super-fast, like that. And I'm a pony who knows fast." Applejack continued to say nothing. She kept looking straight ahead, ignoring Rainbow Dash. "Okay, okay, I get it, you don't want to talk about it. So, okay, in the interest of moving on, we can say I was right about this one and you were wrong. 'Kay? 'Kay." This didn't get a rise out of AJ either. It was like Rainbow didn't exist to her. "So then I was thinking of going over to the north field and just full on making out with Big Mac. Real face-sucking, tongue-wrestling..." No reaction. "And Granny Smith after that. Dentures in. That's how I roll." Nothing. Rainbow hopped in front of Applejack's path and glared at her. "Okay, seriously, what's your problem? Ignoring me is a pretty weak prank, even from you!" Applejack continued to walk on like she was fine with running right in to Rainbow Dash. And then she did run into Rainbow Dash -- except Rainbow couldn't feel her. Applejack passed through her like she was made of air, and Rainbow was so completely stunned that she left the big piece of farming something pass through her without blinking. Am... am I dead? she thought as she stood in the field. When did I die? Why can't I remember it? Maybe I'm not dead and I'm just having an out-of-body experience or something, and my real body is all mashed up in a hospital because of some awesome stunt I didn't quite pull off. Okay. Think, Rainbow. Think. What's the best way to find out what happened? After a moment of thought, she came up with a place to start looking for clues: her house. It was like, the starting point, or something. That's what characters in books did when they were trying to solve mysteries, went back to the start. She flew up into the air. Flying was surprisingly easy when you were... however it was that she was right now. That's weird... shouldn't my house be around here? Rainbow looped in a wide circle. She was in the right area. There might be a little drift from day to day -- her house was made of clouds, it did move around a little on its own -- but she couldn't see it anywhere. Had she been dead so long that somepony on the weather team had come by demolish her house? That sucked, it had been a rad house. Some other pegasus should have been stoked to live in it. And she totally wouldn't have haunted it. Often. Okay, so if her house wasn't around, where else could she go to figure this out? What about... Twilight! Twilight was great at figuring stuff out. She'd probably figure this out even if Rainbow couldn't talk to her directly. She rocketed off in the direction of the library. Twilight was, as per usual, busy with her muzzle buried in a book. Rainbow landed beside her and launched into the hastily-prepared explanation she had thought of on the short trip over. "Okay, so I know you probably can't hear me, but I figure if I just talk at you then something should happen. So, I'm invisible, or dead, or something, and nopony can tell I'm around, but since you're smart then you should be able to come up with... some... thing..." Rainbow trailed off when she noticed the picture on Twilight's mantle. It was the picture Spike had taken of the six of them shortly after Twilight had first moved to Ponyville... except it was no longer the six of them. Five ponies remained the same. But there was no Rainbow Dash. In her place, there was a white pegasus Rainbow had never seen before. "What...?" The white pegasus was in other pictures in the library, too; replacing Rainbow in the picture from her last birthday, replacing Rainbow when both she and Twilight had been Daring Do for Nightmare Night, replacing Rainbow wherever she looked. Okay, this was a clue. But Rainbow didn't like finding it very much. She flew through the nearest wall, zipping all over Ponyville to try to find some trace of herself. The tree she had carved her cutie mark into, the most comfortable tree outside of Sweet Apple Acres, was whole. That collection of stuff with her likeness all over it that Scootaloo had amassed somehow was gone. Her name was missing from the roster on the weather team. Rainbow could handle the idea of her being dead. That mean that ponies could talk about how much they missed you, and how awesome you were when you were alive and doing awesome things. But this was something completely different. This was like she had never existed at all. -/- The smell of death was everywhere. Fluttershy squeezed her eyes shut and willed it away, but when she opened them it was even worse. Everywhere she looked, she saw rows and rows of beds holding ponies writhing in agony, bleeding ponies, broken ponies. Every corner of the tent was filled with moans and screams and the sounds of dying. But the worst part was the smell, the undercurrent of sterile medical equipment and the overpowering sweet tang of blood and injury and rot, joined by touches of dirt and grime and sweat and panic. She was going to be sick. A pony in a medic's uniform grabbed her hard at the shoulder. "You're not wigging out on me, are ya?" he barked. "I... what is this?" "First time in a triage tent? We all had to go through it. If you're gonna hurl, do it away from anypony who still has a chance of living, and if you're gonna collapse, do it in a corner where you're out of the way." "All these ponies..." She couldn't finish her thought. Such carnage... such pain... nothing in nature could possibly cause something like this. "War's hell, sister." "War?" Fluttershy's eyes went wide. "How long have we been at war? Who are we at war with?" The medic looked at her like she was a foal asking a particularly dense question. "We've always been at war with East Haysia," he said plainly. "Now, come on! If you're not gonna faint, you're gonna fix patients!" "I can't... I'm not..." "You're wearing a medic's uniform right now, sister," he growled, "so I don't care if you were a vet or a farmer or a burger-flipper when you were a civilian, but right now you are helping me save lives." The smell finally got to Fluttershy. She sank to her knees and retched, and it was like something else left her being along with the vomit. Timidity, confusion, something of that nature, but also the need to pin down just what it was. It didn't matter. What did matter was that seconds were passing, soldiers were dying, and she was wasting both of them by not keeping herself together. She rose to her hooves and pulled her surgeon's mask over her muzzle. "I'm okay," she told the other medic. "I'm good." "You need some air, sister?" "No," she said with a fixed stare, "just some thread and a saw." -/- The desert stretched out forever. An endless plateau of cracked red earth and eddies of dust, broken by lifeless mesas. The sun remained fixed at its zenith in the sky, robbing even the tall cactus of the ability to give shade. Lizards and scorpions darted out from the cracks, the lords of this dead land. There were no trees for birds, no water for fish, no grass for ponies. No ponies, save one. Pinkie Pie hopped through the desert, confident she'd find the end of it one day. Everything had to end, after all, and when this desert did she'd get to where the rest of the ponies were. The warm sun was kinda nice, and she hadn't felt hungry or tired or anything even though she had been traveling in the same direction for about a week. It was hard to tell, since the sun never moved. Something was wavering on the horizon, but that could just be another mirage. She'd seen plenty of those. One had looked like a giant swimming pool. Another had been rows and rows of donuts, placed on an enormous baking tray. Neither of those things had actually been there, so she had taken to ignoring the mirages. They mostly disappeared when she got close enough, anyway. Only this one wasn't disappearing, and she was getting pretty close to it. And it looked like another pony. That would make all this traveling much better, if she had somepony else to talk to. Talking to herself wore thin by the fourth day. Or fifth. Even she only had so many things to say to herself, but if she could say them to somepony else, that would be much better even if that pony didn't want to listen. That mirage wasn't disappearing. It wasn't a mirage, and it was another pony. "Hi!" she called, waving a hoof. "How are you?! What's your name? Mine's..." But she trailed off, because she knew this pony, and she was pretty sure this pony knew her. She had the same pink coat, same blue eyes, same cutie mark of three balloons. She had the same color mane, but it hung straight down at either side of her face. Pinkie stopped in her tracks. She wanted this to be a mirage too. She hadn't meant it about having another pony to travel with. She could keep going alone. She would rather do that, than be with... "Pinkie Pie," Pinkamina finished for her. "But of course," she said with the flash of a sharp wicked smile, "that's not your real name, is it?" And there we wept when we remembered Zion"What were you thinking?" Applejack tried to ignore her aunt. Unfortunately, there was this particular pitch she was able to hit that made her impossible to tune out. "It ain't such a big deal," she said. "Isn't," her aunt corrected, "isn't, and it is a big deal! Trespassing, destruction of property, drinking underage... do you have any idea what it feels like to get a call from the police in the middle of the night?" "No," Applejack said, rolling her eyes, "but I'm sure you're going to tell me." "And that's another thing, young lady," her aunt snapped. "I have had it with your attitude! I have tried reasoning with you, punishing you, I've tried to be your friend, I've even tried bargaining with you, and you won't let me in! What do I have to do?" "Maybe you could get off my back once in a while!" Applejack shouted. "I'm gonna move out in a few months, and then you don't have to tell me how I'm disappointin' you ever again!" "As long as you live under my roof," her aunt said evenly, "you're going to abide by my rules." "I ain't. You're not my mother, Valencia." "And thank goodness for that." Applejack stopped and stared at her aunt, genuine hurt in her eyes. Her aunt stared back, looking a little stunned at what she had just said. The cab ride back to the apartment was silent between then. -/- Fluttershy looked at her reflection in the mirror, seeing herself properly for the first time since leaving the infirmary. What she saw was strange, but the experience of being a patient rather than a surgeon had been stranger. She had kept suppressing the urge to correct her doctor, finish his sentences, prescribe her own medication. The green kids they sent out here these days. She had been out here long enough, and out here was far enough, that the higher links in the chain of command didn't enforce the rules about mane protocol too strictly, and her mane had almost grown back to its former civilian length before the accident. Now she was close to completely shaved again, under the guidelines of an equally-rigid doctrine of medicine, that said a pony's mane must be cut away before any surgery involving the face. The risk of infection was enormous otherwise, and with a mane as long as Fluttershy's had been, it would simply be in the way during the operation. Tilting her head to better examine the scars, she found they weren't as bad as she imagined. The right side of her face was covered in scar tissue, with one long and jagged gash still stitched together seeming the worst of them. The wound was clean, though, and would heal in time. Her eye had been less fortunate; you could see the socket was stuffed with gauze, and it would have to be changed soon. The flesh visible around the edges was inflamed and angry. If she didn't get enough antibiotics to stave off an infection, she'd kill that green doc with her own hooves. She replaced the eyepatch over her dead eye, thinking back to the attack. The hollow cough of an explosion that seemed insignificant compared to the ringing that had filled her ears. The splintering pain through her head. The filly that waved her transport down. The grenade concealed in her saddlebag. They employ their civilians, their children... they attack medical units... this is why we can't beat them. Because there's no depth they can't sink to. They have no sense of morality. No honor. No souls. "They're beasts," Fluttershy said to her reflection. "Beasts, every one, and nothing more." -/- The roar of the crowd was getting closer. Twilight glanced out the window, seeing the mob had already passed through the castle's outer walls. It wouldn't be too long before they were in the keep, which meant it wouldn't be too long before they set the whole place on fire. She scooped up another stack of tomes and zapped them with a spell to compress them down to one-twenty-eighth their regular size, and stuffed them inside her already-bulging saddlebag. She hadn't meant for any of it to come to this. She had vowed she could turn Equestria around, make her glorious once again, that like a phoenix from the ashes the nation would rise greater and brighter in the face of defeat against the griffons, but her people had been too tired and too hungry to listen. Reason had given way to mob rule, and the loudest voice among that mob had called for her head, and now they were outside her sanctum howling for blood. Her guards couldn't hold them at bay for long, and Twilight could easily imagine that most of them might just lay down their arms and let the rabble pass. That was the last of the books and scrolls and irreplaceable trinkets she could salvage, even though there was so much still left. One last spell, but it was not focused on any treasure: this she turned on herself. Her wings faded from view, her form diminished, her cutie mark shifted, her coat changed. Standing in the main library was no longer Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, but Starshine, humble unicorn whose special talent was astronomy. Starshine prayed that Twilight hadn't used this disguise too many times, and that nopony would recognize her like this. She teleported out to the rear gardens, and managed to loop around the castle grounds and join up at the back of the mob without running afoul of any guards (even though she knew she had passed at least two guard posts). Starshine joined in with the chants of the crowd, and as the first fireball lit up the main spire of Princess Twilight's castle, a single tear rolled down her cheek. -/- "So--" Bounce, bounce. "--In school today--" Bounce, bounce. Rarity was only halfway paying attention to Garnet's story as she hopped up and down on her bed. It was hard enough to power her sewing machine and actually sew at the same time, let alone with a hyperactive filly in the same room jabbering in one ear. "And then the teacher said--" Bounce, bounce. She had counted on having a half-hour to herself, to sew, to drink a cup of tea in peace, to buy a magazine and leaf through it, something. But somehow that time had vanished, eaten up and gone wherever vanished time goes. "Then when we all went outside--" Bounce, bounce. She didn't even know what she was going to sew. Maybe she had just wanted to hear her machine running. It felt like it had been quiet forever. "So--" Bounce, bounce. "--What do you think?" Sewing without a pattern, that was the mark of a rank amateur. Which she supposed she had become, since she couldn't even remember the last time she had made a dress. "What do you think?" Bounce, bounce. "Mom? What do you--" "Could you please do that somewhere else?" Rarity snapped. "I'm trying to concentrate!" The bouncing halted. Garnet hopped off the bed, a morose look on her face. "Sorry, Mommy," she murmured, and left the room. Rarity looked down at her sewing machine and completely improvised garment. A strand of mane fell out of her bun, and that was all it took to start her sobbing. She bent over the table and cried into her hooves. A momentary thought crossed her mind that she would ruin her makeup, and then she remembered she wasn't wearing any, and for some reason that made her wail even harder. -/- "Okay, Stingy," Pinkie said as she gathered herself in a position to sit on her rump and stare at the scorpion, "you are going to be my new best friend. And we're going to have tons of adventures, and laughs, and play games, and--" "It can't understand you," Pinkamina interrupted. "It's just a dumb animal." "Shut up!" Pinkie hissed. "Shut. Up. I'm not listening to you. You're not real." "You're not real!" Pinkamina flared. "I'm the real you! You're the fake one! You're the disguise to show the rest of the world, because you can't stand to be me." "No I'm not!" Tears were forming in Pinkie's eyes. "You don't know, you don't--" And then both ponies flinched, as Stingy had pinched Pinkie and scurried under a rock. "...I hate you," Pinkie whispered. Pinkamina laid a hoof on Pinkie's shoulder and leaned down close to her ear. Her voice had no trace of comfort in it when she spoke. "I know you do." -/- Mixture portioned out into the trays, the muffins were ready to be baked. Pinkie Pie hummed a little ditty to the empty kitchen as she slid them into the warm oven. After she closed the oven door, her ears perked up. She froze. A strange glazed look took over her eyes. Then she sneezed. "Huh," she said to herself. "Must have been nothing." "No!" Rainbow Dash screamed, inches from Pinkie's face. "No! No, no, no, no!" Each word was punctuated by a swinging hoof that passed effortlessly through Pinkie's smiling face. "I was so close that time! You know I'm here, Pinkie! You know I'm here! You know-oh-oh..." She hung her head, her voice failing her. And then the most amazing thing happened. Pinkie's eyes grew a little wider, and for a second it seemed like she was looking right at Dash. Like she could see her. That all her efforts had finally paid off. And then the moment was broken, as Pinkie exclaimed, "Hi, Pumpkin!" Pumpkin Cake walked through where Rainbow was standing. "Morning, Pinkie," she said, and headed for the door. "Hey, hey, wait a minute! Where do you think you're going without a morning hug?" Pumpkin rolled her eyes, them smiled and relented. Pinkie bounded over the counter and threw her arms around the unicorn. Pumpkin was so tall now that Pinkie needed to make a little effort to reach. It's okay, Rainbow thought as she rocked back and forth on the bakery floor. They have to notice me soon. Very soon. Maybe next year. Maybe that will be the year. -/- In darkness six ponies wandered, lost. The words of our mouths and the meditations of our heartsStarshine sat quietly in the crowd, listening to the three ponies in the debate both advance their own economic plan and subtly ridicule those of their opponents. She thought the most conservative of the three put up the best argument, but she would wait until the debate centered around foreign policy to decide if he would earn her vote. Though the tyrant Twilight Sparkle had never been brought to trial for her crimes, there was no way she could regain supreme political authority over Equestria. The period following her disappearance had been volatile and turbulent, but the democratic system that had emerged was flourishing, stronger than anything Starshine could have imagined coming from Twilight's reign. After thousands of years, Equestria was finally governed by those who were most affected by her government: her ponies. Thoughts of Twilight Sparkle that had been crossed Starshine's mind rarely, but they did surface around election time. She thought Twilight would be proud of her little ponies, even if they were her little ponies no longer. -/- One pink pony offered her hoof to the other, pulling her up onto the highest flat of the mesa. The pair stood facing each other for a moment, catching their respective breaths, then together turned to look out over the expanse of the desert. Far from the ground, patterns in the dry dirt were visible, swirling and flowing around the jutting rock formations, beautiful in their own barren way. "What did I... tell you?" Pink said, her chest still heaving. "Alright." Mina wipe the sweat from her brow. "This might not have been... such a dumb idea after all." They both sat on the edge of the giant stone edifice and dangled their hooves over the edge. This was how most of their adventures ended (and there were a surprising amount of adventures two ponies could go on in an endless desert): without words, the two of them sharing the moment in silence. Pink had long since stopped wishing for another pony to tell about her experiences; just having them, and knowing she would remember them, was enough. "This is nice, isn't it?" she said. "Shut up, Pink," Mina said, and playfully shoved into her shoulder. "You'll spoil the moment." "...Hey, Mina?" "Yeah?" "What's the sun doing?" "It looks like it's setting." "Has it ever done that before?" "No. I don't think so." "Huh. Strange." "Strange." -/- All of Equestria, it seemed, had turned out for the funeral of Princess Twilight Sparkle. All of Equestria, and Rainbow Dash. She had outlived Princess Luna and Princess Celestia, but even being can alicorn whose special talent was magic didn't grant immortality. Rainbow wandered through the crowd, studying the grieving faces. It seemed strange, none of these ponies having been alive -- or even their parents, or parents' parents, and so on -- when Twilight was just the new librarian in Ponyville. They would be sad for her passing, but they would forget her over time -- first the little details, then the big ones, and then eventually Twilight Sparkle would just be a footnote in history. Rainbow didn't think it was possible, but ponies had started to forget that it had been Celestia and Luna and not Twilight who had controlled the sun and moon; it was a point of trivia instead of a fact of life. It was the same way for all ponies that came and went, though on a much smaller scale. They would be a part of the world, and then die, and then be memories for their descendant, and then mysterious figures in paintings that nopony living had spoken to, and then... gone. Rainbow had, after many years, given up on anypony in Ponyville sensing her, and had traveled Equestria, following families for a generation or two. It passed the time. And they all went the same way: there, not there, forgotten. It's the present that's important. The having experiences, the living. The living you do, not what anypony thinks of it. "Hey," Rainbow said to herself, using her voice for the first time in centuries, "what's that light...?" -/- "Alright, that's enough." Both the prisoners and the officer towering over them turned to look at Fluttershy. "I'm taking them off your hooves to be patched up," she continued. "All of them." "They're enemy combatants," the officer said, aiming for a tone of overpowering menace and authority, "with valuable information." Fluttershy, having seen more ponies die than anypony who had ever held a weapon in the endless war, was more of a veteran than this sadist, and wasn't intimidated in the slightest. "And did you beat it out of them yet?" The officer remained silent, but his eyes said his interrogation hadn't made any headway. "Then they're coming to the infirmary," Fluttershy said with one narrowed eye, "or they not going to live long enough to ever tell you anything." And that was the end of that discussion. In the infirmary, one of the prisoners said something at Fluttershy in her strange atonal language. "She says compassion makes you weak," the other prisoner told her. "We wouldn't waste supplies on ponies who allowed themselves to be captured, let alone on the enemy." In a way, they were right. Compassion was a weakness. It left you open to pain, and when there was so much of it every day it was a natural response to try and shut it out, to kill off any sense of kindness so you could go on. Fluttershy had seen other docs come and go that had let themselves go dead inside; the thousand-yard stare on a soldier was unnerving, but on a medic it was dangerous. Once they got it, they couldn't do their job with any kind of drive or accuracy. They started to slip. And then they got sense home. It was the greatest irony: to work you have to go numb, but once you went numb, you couldn't work. And so Fluttershy held on to kindness, in spite of all she'd seen. She wouldn't shut herself off, numb herself up, because that meant being sent home and that meant not saving lives of those who would otherwise die. She was willing to take the pain, if it meant she could keep doing that. She said nothing, and applied bandages to the prisoners' wounds. -/- "Well," Applejack told the two headstones, "I'm gettin' ready to plant a seed in the ground, and start a family of my own." She blinked. Twice. Three times. She wasn't crying. "Your little girl's gotten married." She took a deep breath. "...I hope you'd be proud o' me," she finished. "I'm sure they would be," came a voice from behind her. Applejack turned to see her aunt striding up the path in the empty cemetery. "You looked beautiful, you know," she continued. "Probably the only time you'll willingly wear a dress in your life." Applejack smiled and chuckled. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is." "You're as stubborn as your mother. And just as big-hearted as your father. You're going to make a good life for yourself out here." Applejack sized her aunt in a fierce hug, her tears flowing freely. "I'm sorry for--" she started to say, but Valencia cut her off. "It's okay," she said, patting Applejack's back. "I forgive you." "Even if I was the most willful, stubborn filly to ever grace Manehatten?" Her aunt held her close. "Family forgives," she said. -/- "Say, you look sorta nice, all prettied up like that," Rock Cutter said with a lopsided grin. "You should do it more often, reminds me of when we were first dating." "You don't scrub up so bad yourself," Rarity said, returning his sly grin. It did feel nice to get out of the house with her mane nice and her good dress. Maybe they could do it more often. And my, did that stallion look good in a suit. From the crowd of former students leaving the stage, Garnet found her parents and rushed up to them, excited grin beaming on her face, mortarboard perched on her head. "Congratulations, sweetie," Rock said. Rarity hugged her daughter, the fresh graduate of Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. "You're the best thing I ever did," she whispered into her ear. -/- Six ponies emerged from the dark cave. Fluttershy rubbed her eye as she stepped into the sunlight. "Where are we?" Applejack asked. "Canterlot," Twilight said, pointing to the spire of Canterlot Castle visible in the distance. "Or, close enough to it, anyway." "Ha!" Rainbow exclaimed. "See? Magic tree for the win! Why does nopony ever listen to me?" She landed on the ground. "C'mon, zap us home, Twilight." "I thought we could walk it," Twilight said. "It's not far, and I wouldn't mind a little deviation from the schedule if it's for something like this. Who's game?" "Ooh! Me! Me me me me!" Pinkie zipped around the group fast enough to look like she was in two places at once. "Sure, we can hoof it," Applejack said. "Feels like I haven't spent any time at all with you girls in ages. Don't quite feel myself when I don't." "Me either," said Rarity as she started to walk. "These are the moments little that are the most important, after all."
How can we sing King Alpha's song in a strange land?The six ponies stared at the old gnarled tree, its form twisted and crooked but still radiating an unhealthy vitality despite looking centuries dead and petrified. A faint colorless glow waxed and waned from the shadowy hole in a gap in its mighty roots. "And this is the only other way home?" Twilight asked. "Without waiting for the portal to become open again," Sea Breeze said in his high lilting voice, "the path beneath the tree is the only option." "Alright, what are we waiting for?" Rainbow said. "Let's go!" Applejack yanked on her tail before she could shoot off into the underdark. "Hold up a second. Don't this look a bit dangerous?" "What's the worst that could happen?" Pinkie said, her voice full of equal amounts confidence and excitement. "Have ya been on any of our adventures recently, Pinkie?" Applejack asked with a raised eyebrow. "We always manage to make it through though, don't we?" Rarity said. "Especially when it's the six of us." "Yeah," Pinkie exclaimed, "there's nothing the Elements of Harmony can't handle together, even if we don't have the Elements of Harmony any more!" "Twilight?" Applejack asked, hoping for some support for her side. "If it's the only way," Twilight started. After a quick nod of confirmation from Sea Breeze, she continued: "Then it's the way we have to take." "Fluttershy...?" Fluttershy set her jaw. "We need to get home," she said resolutely. "If that's how y'all feel..." Applejack turned her attention to Sea Breeze. "So we just... go in there, and it'll take us home?" "It will take you where you need to go," Sea Breeze said, "though the path may not always be direct." "Good enough," Rainbow Dash said, edging towards the dim hole. "C'mon, AJ, quit holding us up." One by one, the ponies disappeared under the withered tree. Sea Breeze watched them with an unchanging expression as they stepped into the dark. -/- The light of morning through the window was trying its best to wake Rarity, and Rarity was trying her best to resist. She didn't want to get up just yet, and hadn't wanted to for what felt like forever; she had no pressing orders to complete, was under no pressure to open up shop early today, didn't even have to go out to the market owing to a full pantry. She could just sleep in all morning, nice and warm, if she-- "Mornin', dear." Rarity sprang out of bed at the unfamiliar voice, all four hooves hitting the floor in less than a second. She had not been alone in her bed. A stallion she had never seen in her life before had lain next to her: broad shoulders, square jaw, handsome in a rugged sort of way that might be appreciated in her bedroom under circumstances other than suddenly materializing out of nowhere. "Wh-wh-who are you?" she spluttered, creeping towards the door, eyes darting about for something large and solid enough that she might be able to lift with her magic and bash a strange stallion over the head with. "And what are you doing here?" The stallion frowned in good-natured confusion. "You have a bad dream or something?" He smiled, and again, in a different situation it would have been winning and pleasant. "I'm Rock Cutter. Husband of yours. 'Member?" "Hus... hus..." She couldn't finish the word. She felt faint. "Going on eight years in spring. We have a daughter together, any of this ring a bell?" Something was ringing in Rarity's head, but it didn't sound like bells. Did he say eight years? But that didn't make sense, she was only... how old was she? And, had Rock said daughter? Rarity didn't have the time to process that revelation before she heard a set of hooves thundering up the stairs. The door behind her burst open, and into the room leaped a filly too young to have her cutie mark yet. She looked a little like Rarity; you could tell they were mother and daughter. You could tell... "Aren't you guys up yet?" the filly exclaimed. "We're supposed to go sledding this morning." "Not on an empty stomach, kiddo," Rock said. The filly frowned, indicating she could do anything on an empty stomach if she chose. "Your father's right, Garnet," Rarity said, the words tumbling unbidden out of her mouth. She walked with her daughter down the stairs leading to the kitchen. "What do you want for breakfast?" she asked. As Garnet made a complex list of all the things she wanted to eat, Rarity was running through a checklist of what needed to be done before leaving the house to go out into the snow, feeling about to see if there was room to get any sewing done. -/- The scroll that sat in front of Twilight swam and blurred before her. Suddenly, she realized she had no idea what the words said, or even what the scroll was about. "Your Highness?" She had no idea what this meeting in her throne room was about, either. She put a hoof to her temple and rubbed, closing her eyes. "Forgive me," she said, "it's been a long day. You were saying?" "We were waiting to hear your decision, Your Highness," her aide said. The rest of the court, all the high members of council and none of the frivolous nobles, watched with grave faces. "Shouldn't the other princesses be here? Princess Celestia, Princess Luna...?" Confusion passed over her aide's face. "Your Highness... you are the only princess Equestria has ever had." Twilight closed her eyes again. "I misspoke," she said, "it has been a long day." She looked down again at the declaration in front of her, and aimed her magic at the bottom of the scroll, making the mark of the Princess of Equestria. "It is with a heavy heart," Twilight intoned to the court, "that I announce Equestria must go to war with the Griffon Kingdoms." -/- Applejack passively gazed out of the windows of the carriage, taking in the streets of Manehatten awash with rain. Manehatten? Wasn't I going home? Wasn't I traveling with... somepony... "You're going to like living with your Aunt and Uncle Orange," a voice said beside her. "It's all going to be okay." I did that already... when I was a filly. But Applejack had always been a filly. She had never been old enough to go to Manehatten on her own. Never been grown-up enough to order a meal at a restaurant outside of the children's menu. She didn't even have her cutie mark yet. "Can't I live with Granny Smith? And my brother..." But even as she said their names, the memory of them was fading away, drained out like rainwater down the gutters. "What was that?" asked her companion. "Nothin'," Applejack said, and went back to staring out the window. It hadn't rained at her parents' funeral, and now the weather looked like it was making up for reflecting the way she felt. She felt lost, and alone. She was alone, the only Apple left. -/- Rainbow Dash landed on the Ponyville bridge with a thud. Getting back was a cinch! She didn't know what Applejack had been worried about. It was like she had blinked and all of a sudden she was back home. Breezie magic was awesome. In fact, Rainbow was going to go bug AJ about how awesome and effective it was, right now. Lingering on the times Applejack was wrong about something was great fun. Mainly because she wasn't wrong about much all that often. Rainbow shot off back into the sky, headed for Sweet Apple Acres. She found Applejack hauling a heavy piece of farming something-or-other across the field. It didn't look like it was doing anything, so maybe she was putting it away for the day. That was good, 'cause it meant she couldn't tell Rainbow to buzz off on account of her having work to do. Rainbow touched down beside Applejack and paced beside her. "So, about that Breezie magic tree..." she started. Applejack said nothing, continuing the drag the device. "Yeah, it was pretty great. I mean, it got us all home super-fast, like that. And I'm a pony who knows fast." Applejack continued to say nothing. She kept looking straight ahead, ignoring Rainbow Dash. "Okay, okay, I get it, you don't want to talk about it. So, okay, in the interest of moving on, we can say I was right about this one and you were wrong. 'Kay? 'Kay." This didn't get a rise out of AJ either. It was like Rainbow didn't exist to her. "So then I was thinking of going over to the north field and just full on making out with Big Mac. Real face-sucking, tongue-wrestling..." No reaction. "And Granny Smith after that. Dentures in. That's how I roll." Nothing. Rainbow hopped in front of Applejack's path and glared at her. "Okay, seriously, what's your problem? Ignoring me is a pretty weak prank, even from you!" Applejack continued to walk on like she was fine with running right in to Rainbow Dash. And then she did run into Rainbow Dash -- except Rainbow couldn't feel her. Applejack passed through her like she was made of air, and Rainbow was so completely stunned that she left the big piece of farming something pass through her without blinking. Am... am I dead? she thought as she stood in the field. When did I die? Why can't I remember it? Maybe I'm not dead and I'm just having an out-of-body experience or something, and my real body is all mashed up in a hospital because of some awesome stunt I didn't quite pull off. Okay. Think, Rainbow. Think. What's the best way to find out what happened? After a moment of thought, she came up with a place to start looking for clues: her house. It was like, the starting point, or something. That's what characters in books did when they were trying to solve mysteries, went back to the start. She flew up into the air. Flying was surprisingly easy when you were... however it was that she was right now. That's weird... shouldn't my house be around here? Rainbow looped in a wide circle. She was in the right area. There might be a little drift from day to day -- her house was made of clouds, it did move around a little on its own -- but she couldn't see it anywhere. Had she been dead so long that somepony on the weather team had come by demolish her house? That sucked, it had been a rad house. Some other pegasus should have been stoked to live in it. And she totally wouldn't have haunted it. Often. Okay, so if her house wasn't around, where else could she go to figure this out? What about... Twilight! Twilight was great at figuring stuff out. She'd probably figure this out even if Rainbow couldn't talk to her directly. She rocketed off in the direction of the library. Twilight was, as per usual, busy with her muzzle buried in a book. Rainbow landed beside her and launched into the hastily-prepared explanation she had thought of on the short trip over. "Okay, so I know you probably can't hear me, but I figure if I just talk at you then something should happen. So, I'm invisible, or dead, or something, and nopony can tell I'm around, but since you're smart then you should be able to come up with... some... thing..." Rainbow trailed off when she noticed the picture on Twilight's mantle. It was the picture Spike had taken of the six of them shortly after Twilight had first moved to Ponyville... except it was no longer the six of them. Five ponies remained the same. But there was no Rainbow Dash. In her place, there was a white pegasus Rainbow had never seen before. "What...?" The white pegasus was in other pictures in the library, too; replacing Rainbow in the picture from her last birthday, replacing Rainbow when both she and Twilight had been Daring Do for Nightmare Night, replacing Rainbow wherever she looked. Okay, this was a clue. But Rainbow didn't like finding it very much. She flew through the nearest wall, zipping all over Ponyville to try to find some trace of herself. The tree she had carved her cutie mark into, the most comfortable tree outside of Sweet Apple Acres, was whole. That collection of stuff with her likeness all over it that Scootaloo had amassed somehow was gone. Her name was missing from the roster on the weather team. Rainbow could handle the idea of her being dead. That mean that ponies could talk about how much they missed you, and how awesome you were when you were alive and doing awesome things. But this was something completely different. This was like she had never existed at all. -/- The smell of death was everywhere. Fluttershy squeezed her eyes shut and willed it away, but when she opened them it was even worse. Everywhere she looked, she saw rows and rows of beds holding ponies writhing in agony, bleeding ponies, broken ponies. Every corner of the tent was filled with moans and screams and the sounds of dying. But the worst part was the smell, the undercurrent of sterile medical equipment and the overpowering sweet tang of blood and injury and rot, joined by touches of dirt and grime and sweat and panic. She was going to be sick. A pony in a medic's uniform grabbed her hard at the shoulder. "You're not wigging out on me, are ya?" he barked. "I... what is this?" "First time in a triage tent? We all had to go through it. If you're gonna hurl, do it away from anypony who still has a chance of living, and if you're gonna collapse, do it in a corner where you're out of the way." "All these ponies..." She couldn't finish her thought. Such carnage... such pain... nothing in nature could possibly cause something like this. "War's hell, sister." "War?" Fluttershy's eyes went wide. "How long have we been at war? Who are we at war with?" The medic looked at her like she was a foal asking a particularly dense question. "We've always been at war with East Haysia," he said plainly. "Now, come on! If you're not gonna faint, you're gonna fix patients!" "I can't... I'm not..." "You're wearing a medic's uniform right now, sister," he growled, "so I don't care if you were a vet or a farmer or a burger-flipper when you were a civilian, but right now you are helping me save lives." The smell finally got to Fluttershy. She sank to her knees and retched, and it was like something else left her being along with the vomit. Timidity, confusion, something of that nature, but also the need to pin down just what it was. It didn't matter. What did matter was that seconds were passing, soldiers were dying, and she was wasting both of them by not keeping herself together. She rose to her hooves and pulled her surgeon's mask over her muzzle. "I'm okay," she told the other medic. "I'm good." "You need some air, sister?" "No," she said with a fixed stare, "just some thread and a saw." -/- The desert stretched out forever. An endless plateau of cracked red earth and eddies of dust, broken by lifeless mesas. The sun remained fixed at its zenith in the sky, robbing even the tall cactus of the ability to give shade. Lizards and scorpions darted out from the cracks, the lords of this dead land. There were no trees for birds, no water for fish, no grass for ponies. No ponies, save one. Pinkie Pie hopped through the desert, confident she'd find the end of it one day. Everything had to end, after all, and when this desert did she'd get to where the rest of the ponies were. The warm sun was kinda nice, and she hadn't felt hungry or tired or anything even though she had been traveling in the same direction for about a week. It was hard to tell, since the sun never moved. Something was wavering on the horizon, but that could just be another mirage. She'd seen plenty of those. One had looked like a giant swimming pool. Another had been rows and rows of donuts, placed on an enormous baking tray. Neither of those things had actually been there, so she had taken to ignoring the mirages. They mostly disappeared when she got close enough, anyway. Only this one wasn't disappearing, and she was getting pretty close to it. And it looked like another pony. That would make all this traveling much better, if she had somepony else to talk to. Talking to herself wore thin by the fourth day. Or fifth. Even she only had so many things to say to herself, but if she could say them to somepony else, that would be much better even if that pony didn't want to listen. That mirage wasn't disappearing. It wasn't a mirage, and it was another pony. "Hi!" she called, waving a hoof. "How are you?! What's your name? Mine's..." But she trailed off, because she knew this pony, and she was pretty sure this pony knew her. She had the same pink coat, same blue eyes, same cutie mark of three balloons. She had the same color mane, but it hung straight down at either side of her face. Pinkie stopped in her tracks. She wanted this to be a mirage too. She hadn't meant it about having another pony to travel with. She could keep going alone. She would rather do that, than be with... "Pinkie Pie," Pinkamina finished for her. "But of course," she said with the flash of a sharp wicked smile, "that's not your real name, is it?"
And there we wept when we remembered Zion"What were you thinking?" Applejack tried to ignore her aunt. Unfortunately, there was this particular pitch she was able to hit that made her impossible to tune out. "It ain't such a big deal," she said. "Isn't," her aunt corrected, "isn't, and it is a big deal! Trespassing, destruction of property, drinking underage... do you have any idea what it feels like to get a call from the police in the middle of the night?" "No," Applejack said, rolling her eyes, "but I'm sure you're going to tell me." "And that's another thing, young lady," her aunt snapped. "I have had it with your attitude! I have tried reasoning with you, punishing you, I've tried to be your friend, I've even tried bargaining with you, and you won't let me in! What do I have to do?" "Maybe you could get off my back once in a while!" Applejack shouted. "I'm gonna move out in a few months, and then you don't have to tell me how I'm disappointin' you ever again!" "As long as you live under my roof," her aunt said evenly, "you're going to abide by my rules." "I ain't. You're not my mother, Valencia." "And thank goodness for that." Applejack stopped and stared at her aunt, genuine hurt in her eyes. Her aunt stared back, looking a little stunned at what she had just said. The cab ride back to the apartment was silent between then. -/- Fluttershy looked at her reflection in the mirror, seeing herself properly for the first time since leaving the infirmary. What she saw was strange, but the experience of being a patient rather than a surgeon had been stranger. She had kept suppressing the urge to correct her doctor, finish his sentences, prescribe her own medication. The green kids they sent out here these days. She had been out here long enough, and out here was far enough, that the higher links in the chain of command didn't enforce the rules about mane protocol too strictly, and her mane had almost grown back to its former civilian length before the accident. Now she was close to completely shaved again, under the guidelines of an equally-rigid doctrine of medicine, that said a pony's mane must be cut away before any surgery involving the face. The risk of infection was enormous otherwise, and with a mane as long as Fluttershy's had been, it would simply be in the way during the operation. Tilting her head to better examine the scars, she found they weren't as bad as she imagined. The right side of her face was covered in scar tissue, with one long and jagged gash still stitched together seeming the worst of them. The wound was clean, though, and would heal in time. Her eye had been less fortunate; you could see the socket was stuffed with gauze, and it would have to be changed soon. The flesh visible around the edges was inflamed and angry. If she didn't get enough antibiotics to stave off an infection, she'd kill that green doc with her own hooves. She replaced the eyepatch over her dead eye, thinking back to the attack. The hollow cough of an explosion that seemed insignificant compared to the ringing that had filled her ears. The splintering pain through her head. The filly that waved her transport down. The grenade concealed in her saddlebag. They employ their civilians, their children... they attack medical units... this is why we can't beat them. Because there's no depth they can't sink to. They have no sense of morality. No honor. No souls. "They're beasts," Fluttershy said to her reflection. "Beasts, every one, and nothing more." -/- The roar of the crowd was getting closer. Twilight glanced out the window, seeing the mob had already passed through the castle's outer walls. It wouldn't be too long before they were in the keep, which meant it wouldn't be too long before they set the whole place on fire. She scooped up another stack of tomes and zapped them with a spell to compress them down to one-twenty-eighth their regular size, and stuffed them inside her already-bulging saddlebag. She hadn't meant for any of it to come to this. She had vowed she could turn Equestria around, make her glorious once again, that like a phoenix from the ashes the nation would rise greater and brighter in the face of defeat against the griffons, but her people had been too tired and too hungry to listen. Reason had given way to mob rule, and the loudest voice among that mob had called for her head, and now they were outside her sanctum howling for blood. Her guards couldn't hold them at bay for long, and Twilight could easily imagine that most of them might just lay down their arms and let the rabble pass. That was the last of the books and scrolls and irreplaceable trinkets she could salvage, even though there was so much still left. One last spell, but it was not focused on any treasure: this she turned on herself. Her wings faded from view, her form diminished, her cutie mark shifted, her coat changed. Standing in the main library was no longer Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, but Starshine, humble unicorn whose special talent was astronomy. Starshine prayed that Twilight hadn't used this disguise too many times, and that nopony would recognize her like this. She teleported out to the rear gardens, and managed to loop around the castle grounds and join up at the back of the mob without running afoul of any guards (even though she knew she had passed at least two guard posts). Starshine joined in with the chants of the crowd, and as the first fireball lit up the main spire of Princess Twilight's castle, a single tear rolled down her cheek. -/- "So--" Bounce, bounce. "--In school today--" Bounce, bounce. Rarity was only halfway paying attention to Garnet's story as she hopped up and down on her bed. It was hard enough to power her sewing machine and actually sew at the same time, let alone with a hyperactive filly in the same room jabbering in one ear. "And then the teacher said--" Bounce, bounce. She had counted on having a half-hour to herself, to sew, to drink a cup of tea in peace, to buy a magazine and leaf through it, something. But somehow that time had vanished, eaten up and gone wherever vanished time goes. "Then when we all went outside--" Bounce, bounce. She didn't even know what she was going to sew. Maybe she had just wanted to hear her machine running. It felt like it had been quiet forever. "So--" Bounce, bounce. "--What do you think?" Sewing without a pattern, that was the mark of a rank amateur. Which she supposed she had become, since she couldn't even remember the last time she had made a dress. "What do you think?" Bounce, bounce. "Mom? What do you--" "Could you please do that somewhere else?" Rarity snapped. "I'm trying to concentrate!" The bouncing halted. Garnet hopped off the bed, a morose look on her face. "Sorry, Mommy," she murmured, and left the room. Rarity looked down at her sewing machine and completely improvised garment. A strand of mane fell out of her bun, and that was all it took to start her sobbing. She bent over the table and cried into her hooves. A momentary thought crossed her mind that she would ruin her makeup, and then she remembered she wasn't wearing any, and for some reason that made her wail even harder. -/- "Okay, Stingy," Pinkie said as she gathered herself in a position to sit on her rump and stare at the scorpion, "you are going to be my new best friend. And we're going to have tons of adventures, and laughs, and play games, and--" "It can't understand you," Pinkamina interrupted. "It's just a dumb animal." "Shut up!" Pinkie hissed. "Shut. Up. I'm not listening to you. You're not real." "You're not real!" Pinkamina flared. "I'm the real you! You're the fake one! You're the disguise to show the rest of the world, because you can't stand to be me." "No I'm not!" Tears were forming in Pinkie's eyes. "You don't know, you don't--" And then both ponies flinched, as Stingy had pinched Pinkie and scurried under a rock. "...I hate you," Pinkie whispered. Pinkamina laid a hoof on Pinkie's shoulder and leaned down close to her ear. Her voice had no trace of comfort in it when she spoke. "I know you do." -/- Mixture portioned out into the trays, the muffins were ready to be baked. Pinkie Pie hummed a little ditty to the empty kitchen as she slid them into the warm oven. After she closed the oven door, her ears perked up. She froze. A strange glazed look took over her eyes. Then she sneezed. "Huh," she said to herself. "Must have been nothing." "No!" Rainbow Dash screamed, inches from Pinkie's face. "No! No, no, no, no!" Each word was punctuated by a swinging hoof that passed effortlessly through Pinkie's smiling face. "I was so close that time! You know I'm here, Pinkie! You know I'm here! You know-oh-oh..." She hung her head, her voice failing her. And then the most amazing thing happened. Pinkie's eyes grew a little wider, and for a second it seemed like she was looking right at Dash. Like she could see her. That all her efforts had finally paid off. And then the moment was broken, as Pinkie exclaimed, "Hi, Pumpkin!" Pumpkin Cake walked through where Rainbow was standing. "Morning, Pinkie," she said, and headed for the door. "Hey, hey, wait a minute! Where do you think you're going without a morning hug?" Pumpkin rolled her eyes, them smiled and relented. Pinkie bounded over the counter and threw her arms around the unicorn. Pumpkin was so tall now that Pinkie needed to make a little effort to reach. It's okay, Rainbow thought as she rocked back and forth on the bakery floor. They have to notice me soon. Very soon. Maybe next year. Maybe that will be the year. -/- In darkness six ponies wandered, lost.
The words of our mouths and the meditations of our heartsStarshine sat quietly in the crowd, listening to the three ponies in the debate both advance their own economic plan and subtly ridicule those of their opponents. She thought the most conservative of the three put up the best argument, but she would wait until the debate centered around foreign policy to decide if he would earn her vote. Though the tyrant Twilight Sparkle had never been brought to trial for her crimes, there was no way she could regain supreme political authority over Equestria. The period following her disappearance had been volatile and turbulent, but the democratic system that had emerged was flourishing, stronger than anything Starshine could have imagined coming from Twilight's reign. After thousands of years, Equestria was finally governed by those who were most affected by her government: her ponies. Thoughts of Twilight Sparkle that had been crossed Starshine's mind rarely, but they did surface around election time. She thought Twilight would be proud of her little ponies, even if they were her little ponies no longer. -/- One pink pony offered her hoof to the other, pulling her up onto the highest flat of the mesa. The pair stood facing each other for a moment, catching their respective breaths, then together turned to look out over the expanse of the desert. Far from the ground, patterns in the dry dirt were visible, swirling and flowing around the jutting rock formations, beautiful in their own barren way. "What did I... tell you?" Pink said, her chest still heaving. "Alright." Mina wipe the sweat from her brow. "This might not have been... such a dumb idea after all." They both sat on the edge of the giant stone edifice and dangled their hooves over the edge. This was how most of their adventures ended (and there were a surprising amount of adventures two ponies could go on in an endless desert): without words, the two of them sharing the moment in silence. Pink had long since stopped wishing for another pony to tell about her experiences; just having them, and knowing she would remember them, was enough. "This is nice, isn't it?" she said. "Shut up, Pink," Mina said, and playfully shoved into her shoulder. "You'll spoil the moment." "...Hey, Mina?" "Yeah?" "What's the sun doing?" "It looks like it's setting." "Has it ever done that before?" "No. I don't think so." "Huh. Strange." "Strange." -/- All of Equestria, it seemed, had turned out for the funeral of Princess Twilight Sparkle. All of Equestria, and Rainbow Dash. She had outlived Princess Luna and Princess Celestia, but even being can alicorn whose special talent was magic didn't grant immortality. Rainbow wandered through the crowd, studying the grieving faces. It seemed strange, none of these ponies having been alive -- or even their parents, or parents' parents, and so on -- when Twilight was just the new librarian in Ponyville. They would be sad for her passing, but they would forget her over time -- first the little details, then the big ones, and then eventually Twilight Sparkle would just be a footnote in history. Rainbow didn't think it was possible, but ponies had started to forget that it had been Celestia and Luna and not Twilight who had controlled the sun and moon; it was a point of trivia instead of a fact of life. It was the same way for all ponies that came and went, though on a much smaller scale. They would be a part of the world, and then die, and then be memories for their descendant, and then mysterious figures in paintings that nopony living had spoken to, and then... gone. Rainbow had, after many years, given up on anypony in Ponyville sensing her, and had traveled Equestria, following families for a generation or two. It passed the time. And they all went the same way: there, not there, forgotten. It's the present that's important. The having experiences, the living. The living you do, not what anypony thinks of it. "Hey," Rainbow said to herself, using her voice for the first time in centuries, "what's that light...?" -/- "Alright, that's enough." Both the prisoners and the officer towering over them turned to look at Fluttershy. "I'm taking them off your hooves to be patched up," she continued. "All of them." "They're enemy combatants," the officer said, aiming for a tone of overpowering menace and authority, "with valuable information." Fluttershy, having seen more ponies die than anypony who had ever held a weapon in the endless war, was more of a veteran than this sadist, and wasn't intimidated in the slightest. "And did you beat it out of them yet?" The officer remained silent, but his eyes said his interrogation hadn't made any headway. "Then they're coming to the infirmary," Fluttershy said with one narrowed eye, "or they not going to live long enough to ever tell you anything." And that was the end of that discussion. In the infirmary, one of the prisoners said something at Fluttershy in her strange atonal language. "She says compassion makes you weak," the other prisoner told her. "We wouldn't waste supplies on ponies who allowed themselves to be captured, let alone on the enemy." In a way, they were right. Compassion was a weakness. It left you open to pain, and when there was so much of it every day it was a natural response to try and shut it out, to kill off any sense of kindness so you could go on. Fluttershy had seen other docs come and go that had let themselves go dead inside; the thousand-yard stare on a soldier was unnerving, but on a medic it was dangerous. Once they got it, they couldn't do their job with any kind of drive or accuracy. They started to slip. And then they got sense home. It was the greatest irony: to work you have to go numb, but once you went numb, you couldn't work. And so Fluttershy held on to kindness, in spite of all she'd seen. She wouldn't shut herself off, numb herself up, because that meant being sent home and that meant not saving lives of those who would otherwise die. She was willing to take the pain, if it meant she could keep doing that. She said nothing, and applied bandages to the prisoners' wounds. -/- "Well," Applejack told the two headstones, "I'm gettin' ready to plant a seed in the ground, and start a family of my own." She blinked. Twice. Three times. She wasn't crying. "Your little girl's gotten married." She took a deep breath. "...I hope you'd be proud o' me," she finished. "I'm sure they would be," came a voice from behind her. Applejack turned to see her aunt striding up the path in the empty cemetery. "You looked beautiful, you know," she continued. "Probably the only time you'll willingly wear a dress in your life." Applejack smiled and chuckled. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is." "You're as stubborn as your mother. And just as big-hearted as your father. You're going to make a good life for yourself out here." Applejack sized her aunt in a fierce hug, her tears flowing freely. "I'm sorry for--" she started to say, but Valencia cut her off. "It's okay," she said, patting Applejack's back. "I forgive you." "Even if I was the most willful, stubborn filly to ever grace Manehatten?" Her aunt held her close. "Family forgives," she said. -/- "Say, you look sorta nice, all prettied up like that," Rock Cutter said with a lopsided grin. "You should do it more often, reminds me of when we were first dating." "You don't scrub up so bad yourself," Rarity said, returning his sly grin. It did feel nice to get out of the house with her mane nice and her good dress. Maybe they could do it more often. And my, did that stallion look good in a suit. From the crowd of former students leaving the stage, Garnet found her parents and rushed up to them, excited grin beaming on her face, mortarboard perched on her head. "Congratulations, sweetie," Rock said. Rarity hugged her daughter, the fresh graduate of Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. "You're the best thing I ever did," she whispered into her ear. -/- Six ponies emerged from the dark cave. Fluttershy rubbed her eye as she stepped into the sunlight. "Where are we?" Applejack asked. "Canterlot," Twilight said, pointing to the spire of Canterlot Castle visible in the distance. "Or, close enough to it, anyway." "Ha!" Rainbow exclaimed. "See? Magic tree for the win! Why does nopony ever listen to me?" She landed on the ground. "C'mon, zap us home, Twilight." "I thought we could walk it," Twilight said. "It's not far, and I wouldn't mind a little deviation from the schedule if it's for something like this. Who's game?" "Ooh! Me! Me me me me!" Pinkie zipped around the group fast enough to look like she was in two places at once. "Sure, we can hoof it," Applejack said. "Feels like I haven't spent any time at all with you girls in ages. Don't quite feel myself when I don't." "Me either," said Rarity as she started to walk. "These are the moments little that are the most important, after all."
