Cracking the Elements of Harmony

Applejack was bracing herself against the sides of the crate, wondering how much longer the trip would take. Every judder of turbulence knocked her around, scraping her knees and head against the wood, but it was a small price to pay for what she was doing. She didn’t know the names of the Guards that had showed her to her temporary prison and who had so kindly helped her in before shutting the lid on and nailing it down. The possibility of somepony noticing a loose crate lid on any part of the journey was minimal, but it was necessary to perfectly keep up appearances due to the severe consequences they could face.

She didn’t know exactly what it was that motivated them to obey Shining Armor when he had given them an order of such suspicious nature. Putting a mare in a crate and shipping her down to Ponyville, along with other supplies meant for the Guards on the field, wasn’t something they would choose to ignore. She didn’t even know if they had recognized her in the first place. All she knew was that as soon as the crate was opened, she would have to get away from the chariot as fast as possible and feign ignorance and exhaustion if she would run across anypony. And then she would have to return to the same chariot, parked near the very cottage where her friend had died and another one was maimed, before dawn and in perfect stealth. At least the Guards would take care of opening the crate when nopony was around.

What am ah doin’? she suddenly thought as her mind skipped to another topic. What if Zecora… She braced herself against the crate as if she were trying to push it apart. The thought that Zecora might be the one responsible for everything that had happened suddenly overshadowed any plans she was making for getting from and to the chariot. Fluttershy. Rarity. In the darkness of the crate and the silence it created, she saw their bodies in front of her. She saw Fluttershy lying in a pool of her own blood and Pinkie’s teeth littering it moments later. She saw Rarity in the hospital bed, warm to the touch, but cold to everything else. And she suddenly saw herself in Zecora’s hut, being put into a giant cauldron with boiling stew in it, cooked alive. Such a sight would have seen comical to her even a few days ago, but now it was a very real possibility.

“AAaaah!” She quickly silenced herself with a hoof as the scream brought her back to reality.

There were two light knocks on the crate. “Are you okay in there?” she heard a muffled voice asked.

“Yeah. Ah’m fine! Sorry!”

“Try to keep it down, we’re nearly there,” came the response.

A punch to the side, accompanied by the sound of wood flexing, let her know they landed. Heavy hoofsteps echoed through the crate and she soon felt the crate tilt, first at the side where her head was, than at the lower part, as the two Guards picked it up and lifted it off the chariot. She drew shallow breaths and was forcing herself not to blink, as more hoofsteps sounded all around her. The Guards and, whoever the other ponies were, talked in short sentences, but were far enough away from her that she couldn’t make out what they were saying. And once again she remembered; one this part of the journey, the Guards would take care to let her out when nopony was watching. But on the return path, she would have to find a way to reach them in time, or they would return to Canterlot without her.

She was tightening the muscles in her hind legs, in case the crate suddenly opened and she would have to run, but just as quickly as they appeared, the hoofsteps disappeared, along with any other sounds. After a few seconds of silence, she heard the unmistakable sound of a hoof pressing against the edge of the crate, and that was soon followed by the sound of a crowbar piercing the narrow gap between the sides and the top of the crate. The crunching sound of nails being pulled from their base, and the first ray of light from a torch outside, were the last steps to the real beginning of her journey.

“Quickly, go!” the Guard said quietly, with the proper intonation to make his point. She crawled over the side of the crate, looked around to find the closest path to the Everfree forest and, ignoring any numb pain from the trip, made a run for it. The light brown gown she was wearing to conceal her cutie mark was flapping in the wind, nearly defeating its own purpose. The same colored headscarf hid her mane much more effectively. Not that it mattered. The carriage had landed exactly where she would have to return to it, and the distance from Fluttershy’s cottage to the Everfree was a short gallop away. Even as she saw the first dark, sharp branches hanging from trees and strange flowers and bushes getting in her way, she refused to think about where she was going or who she was meeting. She had to be certain that Zecora wasn’t an enemy and that the enemy wouldn’t be in the forest because she subconsciously knew that her strong bucking legs wouldn’t offer much defense to an enemy that had so maliciously taken the lives of two of her friends.

Strange noises randomly cut through the even sound of her hooves hitting the dirt and leaves underneath her. The sounds of branches snapping somewhere in the distance, and suddenly nearby, before another patch of relative silence returned. Then she started hearing sounds only animals could make; muffled growling, howling, and the echoes of heavy footsteps. She picked up the pace, the first drops of sweat forming below her ears partially from the effort that was needed to gallop and partly from the fear that was now rapidly enveloping her. Before panic could set in, though, she saw it – the light coming from Zecora’s hut. In an instant, she hunkered down and galloped even faster.

A blanket of leaves covered the ground around the tree in which Zecora lived, but Applejack didn’t slow down her approach. This wasn’t her territory, and if whoever was responsible for everything that had happened really was tracking her through the woods, there was nothing she could have done about it, regardless if that someone was Zecora, or someone else. With the hut in sight, she grabbed hold of her belief that Zecora was innocent and galloped straight through the noisy layer of leaves ahead. When she was close enough, she jumped straight on the carved-out steps to the hut, the fear of all the noises finally getting the better of her now that she knew safety was close by. The landing wasn’t difficult, but the wait, when she knocked half a dozen times and no-one answered, was.

Open the door. Open the door, she repeated for a few seconds, but every moment felt longer than the one before. The noises were keeping their distance, and there was nothing to indicate they were getting closer or circling the hut, but she had to snap her head back every few seconds to reaffirm her safety. Still, nothing happened. Ah can’t just go in. That’s trespassin’. She glanced back again and knocked a few more times, although this time, she was really banging on the door, as a pony with a twisted ankle to the village doctor at midnight. This is hopeless. Ah hope Zecora forgives me fer this.

She opened the door, surprised that it wasn’t locked. Inside, Zecora’s hut was as organized and as clean as she had always kept it. Even the candles were burning. Applejack cringed slightly. The hut was never her favorite place to be in. Strange ornaments hung from the ceiling, watched by what seemed to be warrior masks of some kind. The giant cauldron in the middle of the hut was covered with a lid and busy boiling a brownish-green stew, as was evident from what was escaping in bursts from within, throwing the lid up ever so slightly, and flowing down the sides of the cauldron before fizzling away at the base. A strange smell permeated the place; another reminder that zebras’ potion-making was best left to zebras. Even the jars and pitchers on the shelves were like nothing she had ever seen before the day when she had gone out with her friends to confront Zecora over a curse that didn’t exist. The memory brought a faint smile to her face, but only for a second. She quickly descended into the hut and cautiously went about searching for the zebra.

The hut wasn’t very large and had no real hiding places. After circling around it for a few times, looking with ever increasing closeness at the same row of shelves, at the same masks and at the same corners, there was only one conclusion she could make: Zecora wasn’t there. She sighed and dropped her head in defeat and embarrassment. Ah just broke into her hut fer no good reason. Ah have to apologize as soon as ah see ‘er. Shouldn’t be too long, what with the pot goin’. She made a slow step to the door, ready to go outside and wait for Zecora there – as long as the scary sounds wouldn’t get too bad, when she noticed something on the one place she hadn’t looked.

There were no hoofprints on the compacted soil. It was too hardened for that. But there were a few straight scratches going from the first step to the door and onward to the cauldron. They were broken and inconsistent, but their direction was without doubt. She looked at the cauldron and from that moment on, it was the only thing she could see, the hissing sounds of escaping steam and the popping of the boiling mass overflowing the only thing she could hear. She didn’t control the movement of her legs; they took her to it in even, determined steps and the only thing going through her mind was, What if… as images of the scenario she had imagined flashed by her mind.

The heat from the flames underneath the cauldron licked her fur in waves when she stood directly in front of it, gathering the courage to push the lid away. She looked at it as if it held the answer to every question she had ever asked, and opening it would strangle the view on life she had once had. She closed her eyes for a second. Not Zecora. It’s not. She suddenly felt guilty at how she had once condemned Zecora before even meeting her, ashamed by how she had acted. Disappointed in herself that she was even contemplating her guilt at his very moment. And secretly afraid that she was right to do so. She opened her eyes and slid off the lid.

She didn’t hear the heavy gong sound the lid made when it crashed sideways onto the floor. She didn’t see it rolling slowly away from the cauldron before tumbling over to the ground. All she had time to comprehend were the bleached-white bones floating on the surface of the brownish-green stew, rising partially to the surface with the bubbles and submerging again a moment later. She had no time to ponder how the heavier skull of whomever was in there must have been stuck somewhere on the bottom or which pony she had known had unwillingly given away the bones that were now floating in front of her. Before the weight of what she had just discovered came crashing down on her, a single knee-jerk reaction flooded her system and it was a reaction she would seldom allow herself.

Her head moved in a single swift motion to the entrance door of the hut, followed in-sync with the rest of her body. Even before the turn was complete, her knees were already bent and prepared to give her the boost she needed for the gallop back to Ponyville. Without a single thought, she lunged at the opened door, driven not by fear of survival, but by the desire to warn Twilight, Celestia, or even just the Guards in town. Somepony had to know and she no longer cared about being discovered outside the castle walls; the knowledge that it was Zecora who had killed Fluttershy and maimed Rarity had to be shared with somepony and nothing would stop her now.

Galloping through the doorway, she glanced momentarily to the steps she had landed on when running to the hut, only now they were not the sign of safety, but an unnecessary obstacle. She aimed for the leaf-covered ground at the point where they ended, the same patch of ground she had so eagerly jumped over on the way to the hut, and leapt into the air. Her head held level with the ground, she was already plotting the way ahead as she fell to the ground, but then her hooves touched the leaves and she felt something flexing below them. Her eyes were already moving down as the first blip of a realization swept through her mind; the realization that she was sinking into the ground because what she was landing on wasn’t the hard dirt of the Everfree, but a few very thin wooden planks. Before she could so much as form a complete thought or let out a swear, the plank broke entirely, with a crack that played out in slow-motion through her mind.

When her eyes caught up with her fall, she could just make out leaves of all colors slowly flying upwards at her sides, and the ones below her disappearing into a dark square hole below her. She saw the edge of the hole coming toward her and knew that she was about to hit it with her muzzle, but when she made the movement to turn her head aside, she noticed just how long it was taking for her muscles to obey. The speed at which the edge was moving toward her was also unnaturally slow. Her mind, in a state of shock, was working much quicker than usual, stretching out the very perception of time. It gave Applejack all the time in the world to picture the stew inside the cottage and to question as to whether the bone stew really was a stew or a potion in the making.

Her eyelids closed automatically as the edge of the ground got too close and from then on, everything happened as fast as the previous moment was long. A strong punch just below and slightly to the side of her muzzle dazed her and the reddish-black darkness that she was seeing turned completely black as the sides of the hole blocked out what little light there was outside. Then she felt something beneath her. Something prickled her legs, as if sharp, unyielding sticks were coming into contact with her hooves and legs, but the moment they touched her, the sensation went away at that spot and new ones appeared and disappeared in other places. When the last of them stopped, she opened her eyes.

What’s this?

The stars of the sky above, along with the lit branches of the tree that was Zecora’s hut, were now the only source of light and they drew her gaze upward. Some leaves were gently falling down to her and clumps of dirt were rolling past the edges, dragging behind them tails of soil, as if they were comets. She could feel grains of dirt and small rocks in her mouth that had gotten into her mouth somewhere on the way down. She started formulating the first drafts of a plan of how to get out when she suddenly felt something coming from her mouth and flowing onto her neck. She looked directly in front of her, even though the only thing there was complete darkness, but she didn’t turn to see. She turned to focus.

Darn it!

She turned her head down, not even thinking about the darkness all around her, and readied the muscles in her forelegs to swipe a hoof over her mouth, just to be sure that what was coming from her mouth really was blood. But she instantly abandoned that idea. Her hoof wouldn’t budge, and then she saw it, through a small triangle of light that went by her neck and just barely illuminated the hoof and what was next to it. And what she saw didn’t make any sense.

Round wooden sticks were going straight through her hoof and the small part of the leg that she could see. The sticks themselves were mostly short, and even the longest were placed in such a way as to not exceed hock height, but they were scattered in random directions. The ends of the sticks were also sharpened, but it was the thick, nearly paste-like substance slowly dripping off them that was really drawing her attention. It was red, but such a dark shade of red that it appeared black. She followed the ends of the sticks to where they met with her right leg and saw the paste expanding out of where the wound had to have been. It made her think of the rising dough of a pie, even if the texture was becoming more sponge-like with every moment. One part of the paste had a bulge in it, but before she could so much as squint to make out why it appeared to be moving, it burst, releasing a gentle stream of pure, red blood to her hoof.

She blinked her eyes nervously a few times as she lifted her head up once again. If I’d crouched a bit more… She didn’t want to finish the thought, though the image of her belly being perforated like a pin-cushion and her slowly bleeding to death in great pain had already flashed by her mind. As soon as she faced upward again, she immediately began estimating how high of a jump she would need to make to get out and where the best place would be to grab onto the sides of the shaft, should she fail to make it all the way up. She didn’t even spare a thought about the fact that she had fallen into a trap, as every second wasted meant more time for Zecora to return and finish the job.

If ah… If…

She yawned. And felt something drip down from the side of her mouth. She looked down at just the right time to catch a glimpse of a few red drops going past the beam of light from above. In the second that she kept her gaze, more followed. And then it hit her. She had hit the side of the shaft – she could no longer think of it as a hole – and she was bleeding from her mouth. She also had tiny spears going through her hooves. Any yet, she felt nothing.

Must be the shock. Ah have to get out b’fore it starts to hurt.

“HEEEEELP! SOMEPONY HEEELP!” she shouted into the skylight above, not really expecting an answer, but just as she readied for another shout, she froze.

Ya stupid filly! Nopony goes here and nopony knows yer here. Only Zecora could hear ya, if she’s nearby!

Her reflexes wanted to put a hoof to her mouth to stop the next shout, but it was then that she felt the first pang of pain, as her leg wanted to move past all the spears going through it. The muscles in her neck tightened and she had to stop herself from gritting her teeth. Nopony was going to save her, which left just one course of action open, at least while there wasn’t too much pain.

Ah ain’t gonna die like this.

Applejack shifted her mind away from the pain she knew was coming, as she was used to doing on the farm when a job needed to be done and there was nopony else to do it. This level of pain, as long as it didn’t increase too much, was tolerable. The time to make something out of it, though, was slipping away, as the pain would only intensify from now on. And there was only one thing Applejack could do. She looked up one more time to reassure herself that the jump was doable, even if her legs were barely usable. It would be a tough jump, especially if any of the bones in her hind legs were broken, but before she could attempt it, she had something else to do.

This is gonna... “AAAAAHHHHH!”

There was no stopping the scream. Or the one after that, as she pulled on her leg, to bend and break off the sticks that tied her down. The pain as the sticks bent within her legs and pulled and pushed on the muscles around them, tearing at them on one side and squishing them on the other, was more than she could handle. She released the pressure on the leg and stopped to catch her breath.

“Why… does it-” She yawned again, “have to…”

She pulled against her leg once again, this time shifting some of her weight to her haunches. The moment she felt spikes poking at them, she stopped again, but something was different this time. She was out of breath, but she didn’t scream. Not once. She also didn’t feel any pain in her hind legs, even though she had leaned back against them. She barely felt any pain in her forelegs, either, now that she thought about it.

“How can-” She slowly blinked as she flailed her head from side to side in a dazed manner. Then she let out another yawn, only this one was much longer than the ones before. She could barely feel her legs any more. Before her vision went completely black, she felt her hind legs give way and what followed a moment later was the unmistakable sensation of spikes going through her flanks.