The Last Princess

Dawn Haze awoke, strands of her pink-and-orange mane falling into her face. She shook herself slightly, trying to wake up fully, but, despite her efforts, remained half-asleep, and staggered toward her bathroom. Dawn searched for the knob in her shower, putting her hoof onto several blank stretches of wall before successfully finding said knob. Warm water poured over her head, waking her up sufficiently. Thank goodness the plumbing still worked, at least in her apartment. Her building had opted to have all of the pipes function mechanically, instead of using magic, like most ponies did. Unfortunately, her refrigerator was not so lucky.

A knock came from her front door, and Dawn groaned. Only one pony would bother knocking at her door with Equestria the way it was. Any other would just knock it down, or at least attempt to. Only one would knock. But she was in the shower now, she couldn't open the door! He had the worst timing. Oh well, there was nothing for it. He would just have to wait in the hall for a while. Dawn made sure to take extra time rinsing her dark blue coat, just to annoy him. She had a knack for that. She finished with her shower and then brushed her teeth, holding her toothbrush with a wing. Equestria might be practically gone, but that was no excuse for poor hygiene. Okay, she mostly just wanted teeth to chew with. Not like the Fallen. Ugh, such nasty teeth.

Finally, she walked out of the bathroom, mane still wet, and opened the door. Her friend, Max Suspense, glared at her as she smiled back devilishly. He then rolled his sapphire eyes before bringing them back down to meet her gray ones.

"You know how much I hate waiting out here." He said. Dawn simply nodded and said, turning her back, "It's your own fault. I was in the shower!", and she began leading him into her miniature kitchen. He carried his brown saddlebags inside, before turning and reaching inside of one, and taking out a box of dry oats.

"Breakfast!" Dawn exclaimed, not surprised in the least. Max just humphed around the box in his teeth before setting it down and saying, "Next time I'll just keep it for myself, and leave you to find your own food." Dawn just smiled. He always said that. And he always came back.

Max then brought out the milk from his other saddlebag, setting it on her counter along with the oats.

"Ah, yet another beginning to a perfect day. You might even give me three meals!" A strange look passed across Max's face for a moment, but then he responded sarcastically, "Well, it helps to have a working fridge." Dawn grimaced. She had working plumbing, and Max had cold storage for food. He was a writer, by trade, but was smart enough to engineer a non-magic powered device that actually absorbed the heat from his refrigerator. He had tried to explain how it worked once, but it had all gone over her head. She was a receptionist, for Celestia's sake, not an engineer! Well, she had been a receptionist, about a year and a half ago. Same with Max and his writing. Then the surge came. They had each been lacking in something they needed after that. For her, it was fresh food, him, water. Max had always relied on tap water and his filter to quench his thirst before, and without a cooling system, all Dawn's food had spoiled or been eaten fairly quickly. They had both been ready to venture out and take their chances in the chaos-ridden city, but they had bumped into each other, and discovered that they each had what the other needed. So they stayed for a year and a half. They had to go out and raid a supermarket once or twice, but they had managed.

Max set down a bowl of oats in front of Dawn, leaving them dry, just the way she liked it, and then poured milk on his own before beginning to eat. Neither of them had the patience for grace anymore, so they just dove right in, face-first.

After they had finished, Max picked up both bowls and put them in the sink. Dawn sat back on her stool and stretched.

"I'm glad we ran into each other that day, aren't you, Max?" she said, somewhat wistfully.

"Yeah. I'm glad." He answered.

"You think we could go on living here until we die of old age?" She joked lightly. Max turned to look at her, then said, "You and I both know that that isn't possible. Eventually, we'll run out of food, and we'll have to go find more."

"Awww, but there are so many stores in Manehattan! I'm sure we could find all the food we'd ever need in them."

"There were a lot of stores in Manehattan. Now there isn't a Manehattan for the stores to be in. All there is, is that chaotic wasteland that was once a city, and it's right outside our window!"

Dawn shrugged off Max's outburst. When Manehattan had fallen, he had taken it much harder than she, and she had grown accustomed to his anger when she referenced the fact that they still lived in the once proud city.

"Yeah, yeah. Hey, I had a dream last night!" Max still looked miffed, but he had grown as accustomed to Dawn as she to him. "I dreamed about a stallion, with a golden mane and tail, and an orange coat, and he swept me up in his hooves and brought his muzzle close to mine... then I woke up. Hmmm. Now that I think about it, he looked a lot like you, Max." And she got up onto the counter between them, bringing her muzzle extremely close to his, so their noses almost touched. Only a year ago, Max would have been extremely taken aback, maybe stumbled into the far wall and hit his head on one of the hanging cabinets. Now, however, he simply brought his forehoof up and patted her head, hard enough to lower her entire face, but softly enough that he didn't hurt her. Dawn sat back on her haunches, glaring at the back of his head as he turned to inspect the cabinets.

"Hmph, you're no fun anymore." she said.

"And you've always been too much fun." Max retorted. Dawn opened her mouth to argue, but then quickly shut it again. It was hard to argue with the truth.

As Max did a thorough sweep of her kitchen, for what, Dawn didn't know, her thoughts wandered. She began to wonder about her family, in Canterlot. After the surge, and the news that the princesses of the sun and moon were dead, civilization had fallen apart. Somehow, the surge stopped most kinds of magic from working properly. That was why there were so few unicorns around anymore.

Some ponies had immediately taken to theft, and sometimes murder, in order to get what they needed to survive. She and Max took to calling them Bandits. The Bandits were most of the reason unicorns were almost gone. Without their magic, many unicorns felt useless and helpless, and Bandits would take advantage of that. After the Bandits, there were some ponies, like the two of them, who retained their sanity and morality, and got by on whatever was in their homes and whatever they could scrounge from outside. And then there was the last group.

"The Fallen" as Dawn called them, were ponies who had completely lost their minds, and who had no sense of morality anymore. The Fallen were still ponies, some even could talk a little, and lure some ponies into alleys. That was when their desperation really showed. They had resorted to cannibalism to survive. The very thought made Dawn shudder. Many ponies had theorized and even played with the idea of a zombie apocalypse, but Dawn knew those ponies weren't zombies. If they bit you, you wouldn't turn into one, although you might get a bad infection from all the bacteria in their mouths, some could even think a bit, and they definitely, definitely didn't hunt in packs. On the contrary, they ate each other more than anypony else, since they were often the only ones left around. No, they weren't zombies, just ordinary ponies who had fallen from what was right. Many of them were unicorns, since without their magic, some didn't even know how to take care of themselves, and they quickly fell into despair and insanity. Some pegasi fell, too, since they could no longer interact with clouds the way they once did. Thank Celestia they could still fly!

That thought got her thinking about Cloudsdale. Oh, Cloudsdale. The thought brought tears to Dawn's eyes, and not many things could do that. She hadn't heard anything about the rest of Equestria, but Cloudsdale, it was so tragic, and so nearby at this time of year, that she actually managed to catch wind of it. When the surge came, all the pegasi in Cloudsdale were caught off guard by suddenly not being able to walk on the clouds that made up the city. Most managed to catch themselves before they fell too far, but the little ones... Well, they couldn't fly yet, and... It was a long way to the ground.

There was an orphanage in Cloudsdale. Almost all the foals in it hadn't learned to fly yet. And they had no one to catch them.

Dawn's thoughts drifted back to where they began, tears now running down her face. Where was her family? Had they survived? What had happened in Canterlot? Her mother was a unicorn, had she fallen? Or had Bandits found her and taken advantage of the fact that she felt helpless? Dawn shook these thoughts away. No, her mother was a resourceful pony, she would be fine. But what about her father, and her little sister? What had happened to all of them?

Dawn was startled out of her thoughts by Max's quiet statement of, "I was afraid of that." He then turned to look at her.

"Dawn, you won't be getting three meals today."

"What? Why not?"

"I said eventually we'd have to leave to find more food. Today's the day. We're almost out of food."

"But like I said, there are plenty of supermarkets! We'll be fine!"

Max shook his head. "No. Around midnight last night, I heard a commotion outside. I peeked out my window, and there were ponies loading all the fresh produce they could find into a carriage. They stopped at every market that I could see, and they had enough food that they could have raided every market in the city. I don't know if they were bandits, or just survivors, but they took everything. We've got to take what food we still have and go."

"But, but, but..." Dawn spluttered, "We... we didn't have any warning! I thought we would have days, maybe weeks, of preparation before we actually had to go! This..."

"I know. I thought we would, too. But if we don't leave soon, we won't even have food for the trip."

Dawn was shell-shocked. They had to leave? After a year and a half, they just had to leave?

"You should pack up. I don't have anything else in my apartment that I need. I brought it all with me." Typical Max. Already ahead of her. Dawn staggered around her apartment in a daze. Hah. Dawn Haze in a daze. Funny. She thought several vague things like that as she slowly gathered everything she knew she'd need for the trip, and packed them in her saddlebags. Once she was finished, she slipped her saddlebags on and made sure that her wings were still comfortable at her sides. She looked back to Max and he nodded, then opened the door, allowing her to leave first. For a moment, Dawn didn't move, then, with a final look around and silent goodbye to her home for almost three years, she walked out, Max shutting the door behind her.