Blade

The crimson trail led out the office’s door, through the lobby, down the steps, through the snow, and toward the forest. Kanker wasn’t that heavy. Pinkamena would definitely be able to drag him all the way to where she planned to put him.

He had started to go a bit pale. His mouth was hanging open and the black was still oozing from his eye socket. It was flowing when she ripped the pickaxe out of his skull, but now it was only oozing again like she hadn’t taken it out at all.

She knew that she would never go back to the fields, but where she would go after that wasn’t what she was trying to focus on. What was really important at the moment was how she would make sure that nobody would find out that she was the culprit; the one who made the world just a little bit better. In the few years that she knew Kanker, she never heard from or of anybody related to him. Beyond that, she found it pretty hard to imagine somebody caring about him in the first place. She had the feeling that somebody would only file a missing pony report if somebody cared. But the trail of blood she left would definitely scare someone, and that is what would certainly start the search if there truly was nobody who cared about the bastard.

She could cover the tracks, but going back at all was a risk. She would do that when it got too dark to see. But for now, she just dragged the bloody corpse through the final stretch of the fields.

When she had made it into the trees, the snow on the ground had gotten significantly lighter. Her footing was easier now and it sped her up quite a bit.

This part of the Everfree forest was practically an entirely different biome. Tropical plants were replaced with pine, evergreens, and cedar trees, with the understory consumed by green shrubs powdered with fresh snowflakes. It had come to be because of the wind carrying seeds and pollen over from the Whitetail Wood, not too far from where it landed. Because of this, this neck of the woods was often uncreatively called ‘Everwhite Forest’, or sometimes ‘The Barrens’ by local children.

Pinkamena dragged her boss’ body another quarter-mile into the brush and took a break. She sat down on a fallen trunk and looked up at the sky, which she found to be mostly hidden from the trees. She looked back at her boss and though about how not even an hour before had she started a new life.

She was not even an hour into her new life. So, since she figured that then would be best, she looked back on everything that had happened to her. She sat there and remembered everything.

Her father’s harsh words came back to mind. His ‘lessons’ had also swum to the surface. Both the words and

harm done, looking to hurt from all the way back in the distant past. Those had stuck the most out of anything.

Why couldn’t you be a good daughter like Lilly? You never ceased to disappoint me, Pinkamena. His voice was so calm. You might have fared better if you hadn’t got that brain sick.

She looked back at her boss and saw him as he was.

He was nothing more than her father in disguise. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. The snake in the grass that is so warm at

first it melts one’s just skepticism and molds it into a trust that will so easily be betrayed. The wrecking ball that can only be avoided by latching onto and not letting go no matter how hard it swings.

Pinkamena was angry again. She exploded with the rage that had only just cooled. She jumped off the stump and charged at the body.

She kicked it in the mouth with a loud grunt. It jarred and flew onto its side with a crack. The jaw had snapped shut so quickly that Kanker’s tongue was severed. The kick had also dislocated the jaw and chipped several teeth. Fresh blood seeped through his teeth and onto the forest floor.

Pinkamena kicked it again, this time harder.

The body shook again and skidded a couple of inches away. This time it had broken a rib and once again punctured his lung.

Ariel was a lot like you. All work and no play. Her father’s words echoed.

She kicked again.

She was annoying too, did I ever mention?

She realized that her kicks did nothing but bring more and more back. Her power diminished quickly and the rage sunk

lower, converting it into wretched despair. Her whole body shook with an unprovoked fear and she fell to her knees once more.

She found that she couldn’t hold back tears, and soon enough, she was crying for the millionth time that day.

Her sobs were loud, but not a single creature heard or cared. It seemed that things had always been this way, even in her new life; the one she had started not even an hour ago.

Nothing was worth it anymore. The rush and joy that had run through her was no longer worth it. It had been in the past, and it likely would never happen again. She had made a visit to the better times, when Ariel and her had played at the brook. Those feelings had gone as quickly as they had come and the visit was now over.

She couldn’t stop. The sniffs and cries were not controlled. She let them drain out of her with nothing but the terrible past in mind. Pinkamena cried on the cold ground until it had gotten dark.

But as she was crying into the night, something else surfaced.

Around some pit stop her train of thought had taken, she remembered the feeling she had gotten when she first entered Ponyville.

It was a peculiar sensation that was mysterious and uncertain, but all the same warm and welcoming. It was her new life. The feeling that she was free of everything she had left behind. Nothing mattered anymore. The world was her oyster. Everything was as open as it was before she had been stupid enough to accept the job that dragged her back down for four years.

With this sensation in her memories, she wondered what it was like for others more fortunate than her. She wondered if this sensation was unique to her, or if it was something that everyone felt at one time or another.

Pinkamena stopped crying. Though there was still sorrow lurking in her mind, she embraced this mysterious and uncertain feeling and it warmed her.

She stood up and picked up the pieces of her broken confidence. She sewed them back together using her will as a needle and this feeling as thread.

The sadness subdued and she knew it would return. But in that moment she discovered that the good moments are the ones to be ceased and the bad are to be learned from.

Her time was wasted mourning over the past. Never before did she see it that the past was called the past for a reason.

Pinkamena leaned over and grabbed Kanker’s arm. She had business to attend to.

She dragged him further into the wood and eventually to the edge of a ravine. Not using too much muscle, she lifted him over her head. She got one last good look at his disgusting mug in the moonlight before tossing him over the edge like

a rock.

His body resisted the wind and tumbled through the air as it fell to the bottom of the chasm. It kind of looked like he was cartwheeling. The night’s dull light made him harder to see the further he fell. Eventually, he simply faded away into the fog and snowfall.

Many seconds later, maybe even half of an entire minute, Pinkamena heard a soft, but unquestionably definite splatter.

At this, she smiled, and forever left the cliff behind along with Kanker.

Not too much further into the night, maybe two hours or so, Pinkamena had traveled well into the woods and away from town. She wasn’t far enough in to have left the Everwhite, but it certainly was far in.

With her newfound confidence, she had started thinking about where she would go next. Ponyville wasn’t a likely choice, but it was still possible. When she could go back, she had no idea.

While these thoughts bounced around in her head, her eyes caught a dim light.

Pinkamena turned her head and squinted to see whatever it was that was illuminating the night sky.

No more than a couple hundred feet away was an orange light bulb hiding behind the dirty glass of a lamp post next to a darkwood cottage.

Knowing without any thoughts at all that shelter was much better than having numb hooves in the snow any longer, she started sprinting toward the establishment.

Getting closer, she noticed that the cottage had a small one lane road leading up to it. Looking down, she saw that it lead directly into the faintly brightened sleeping town not so far away. Also near the lamp post was a mail box positively stuffed with unread letters and notices. On the side it read the initials ‘C.D.D.’.

When she arrived at the door, she looked into the small windows on the sides to see that the house was abandoned and empty.

Pinkamena tried the door, only to find out that it was locked. This little dead end was easily rebounded by checking under the doormat and finding a small silver key that fit right into the lock. She turned it and pushed inward, sliding the wooden door open with a loud creak.

She peered into the empty structure and saw that it was indeed abandoned, not counting the spiders and possible rats.

Pinkamena smiled again, looking into the cottage and seeing that it had equal potential to hers.

She walked in and shut the door behind her.

Not even five minutes passed and she already adored her new home.