The Last Princess

Dawn landed, at last, on a small hill that rose up out of the otherwise somewhat plain landscape. She had been flying for most of the night, circling around, looking for some sign of either of her friends, with no luck as of yet. Eventually, her wings had gotten tired, but, still desiring a view from above, she chose this hill as her place of rest. She kept finding herself sliding on the wet grass, despite the rain having stopped some time ago, and so she would have to stand up and trot back up to the highest point of the hill. Once, she reached the top of the hill, and the sun was shining on her back, and the dew was cooling her belly, and all-around, she just felt so comfortable and tired that she fell asleep. When she woke up, she found that she was almost at the bottom of the hill again, so, grumbling to herself, she trotted all the way back up.

It was on this particular occasion that, once she reached the top again, and looked out over the sunbathed plains, that she thought she saw figures moving on the grass. She spotted them again and again, and they began getting closer. Soon, she could make out that they were, in fact, ponies, but before she got excited, she noticed that there were three of them. So, she crouched down, trying to avoid being spotted while the ponies drew closer. Finally, they walked into the sunlight, and, even though the distance between them was still rather large, Dawn could easily tell that two of the ponies were Max and Pomegranate, and she practically leapt into the air for joy. There was only one problem. Who was the third? It had a grayish-blue coat and bright orange mane. Dawn didn't think she knew anypony like that. Oh, pony-feathers, did it matter? So Dawn rushed down the hill to greet her friends.

Before she could reach them, however, she noticed that the strange pony was running towards her, too, and she heard a voice echo, "NO! WAIT!" neither Dawn nor the strange pony listened, though, and soon she had been bowled over by the mystery pony. It was obviously a stallion, and he sniffed at her face before licking her, and then promptly hopping off. When he spoke, it was in a high-pitched, maniacal sounding tone, and he said, "Funny taste, but not bad. Eat?" It was a question, directed at Dawn's friends, but the pony was gesturing at her. Before Dawn herself could object, she heard Max sigh. "No, how many times do I have to tell you that you can't eat ponies? Besides, she's the one we've been looking for!"

The strange pony hung his head, before snapping it right back up again. "Apples?" Was all he asked. Max sighed again. "Yes, you can have an apple."

"Apples!" the stallion cried, before turning and beginning to root through Max's saddlebags. It was at this time that Dawn noticed he had a horn. He was a unicorn.

"Is he a..?" She started, but Pomegranate finished for her.

"Fallen? Yep. Ask him." Was all she said before gesturing at Max. Dawn turned her astonished gaze to him, and he sighed for the third time since they had met up.

"Well, he's not just any old Fallen. He's the Fallen I gave the apple to in Manehattan." As if to punctuate the statement, the Fallen pulled his head out of Max's bag, holding an apple by the stem in his teeth. He then tossed it up into the air, screamed "APPLES!" and caught it in his mouth, chewing and swallowing it faster than Dawn would have believed possible.

"But, but... Didn't we see the other Fallen going after him?" the blue mare asked, watching the crazy pony start ogling the saddlebag, as if hoping for another apple.

"Yes, but apparently he fought them off. At least, I think that's what he said." The new stallion nodded energetically. "Kick, bite, RARRGH!" He confirmed.

"Yeah... anyway, why don't we go find someplace to sit? We swiped a lot of food from those bandits." Max said, showing Dawn the pack he was carrying, which did indeed seem to be near bursting with food.

"Oh, and here's yours." Pomegranate said, tossing another heavy set of saddlebags onto Dawn's back. Dawn gasped at the weight, but managed to stay standing, and even make a snide comment. "So, the mare carries two bags, and you only carry one? Shame on you, Max." Max smiled.

"What can I say? She's stronger than me."

"You'd better believe it." Pomegranate confirmed.

"Apples!" the Fallen shouted.

*     * *

"So," Dawn spoke through a mouthful of carrot, (Those Bandits sure knew how to preserve food!) "How'd you guys get out of that mess?"

"Well," Max began, and Dawn thought she saw another monologue coming, but she didn't mind so much this time. "I was completely surrounded by the time you took off, and Rainbow Dash followed you. The bandits were moving in, and I had hoped to find a weapon, but there was none, so I assumed myself dead. Then, suddenly, out of the darkness, this pony comes along, jumps one of the bandits and starts... well... eating him. The others took a moment to realize what had happened, but as soon as they did, they went straight for him, but... I mean, savagery must have made him a good fighter, or he took classes before all this, or something, because he knocked them all out, and he didn't even break a sweat! And... he just left me. Didn't attack me or anything. Then, he went over to one of the ponies he knocked out, and took a bite out of his leg, so I told him to stop, and, of all things, he listened to me. For a moment. Then he took a bite from another one, and I yelled at him to stop, so he did, and he didn't even try to do it again. I asked if he could speak, he said he could, sort of, and we started conversing. I found out he had followed us from Manehattan, because he liked me, since I gave him an apple. And then..."

"That's where I come in." said Pomegranate. "See, back when I was one of those Bandits, well, I was always with the same few ponies, what I called 'our troupe'. Now, in our troupe, there were really only two kinds of ponies. The weak ones who loved violence, and the strong ones who hated it. I was one of the strong ones who hated it, so the weaklings hated me. Now, when Rainbow said they could do what they wanted with me, obviously it was the weaker ones who took me, so I broke free." at this point, the magenta earth pony snorted. "Foals. Couldn't tie a decent knot if their lives depended on it. Anyway, so I went looking for Max, and eventually found them there. That Fallen over there asked Max if he could eat me, kind of like with you, and Max said no, you can't eat ponies. Then, we raided a couple of campsites, and, well, I guess you know the rest."

Dawn thought about all she had just been told, and then gave a snort of her own. "So, you were one of the tough people in the group, but you scream and run away from a single Fallen, and get all squeamish when they start killing each other." she started to openly snicker, and Pomegranate frowned at her.

"I told you, I hate violence. Plus," the magenta mare shuddered a little, and pointed to the Fallen. "Admit it, those things are scary."

"One of those things happens to have saved my life, and I think he should come with us." Max said, and both mares gaped at him.

"You can't be serious!"

"He tried to eat me!"

"Before I fed him an apple." Max objected. "He doesn't want to hurt us anymore, he just wants apples. And trust me, I've got plenty of them."

"But... but... He's crazy! What if he murders us in our sleep?"

"I already thought of that. We can stay up and keep an eye on him."

"But you said he took out a whole group of Bandits on his own!"

"Unprepared bandits. We'll be ready."

Dawn glared at Max. This wasn't like him. He was logical, and sensible, and wouldn't do anything that might jeopardize his friend's safety. So why did he want to take this murderous pony in and care for it?

"Please, Dawn." Max pleaded. "I trust him. So please trust me."

Dawn let out a puff of air through her nostrils in annoyance. "Fine. I trust you, Max. But if that thing makes one wrong move, he's history."

Max smiled gently, and then corrected, "Apples."

"What?"

"His name is Apples." He turned to look at the Fallen. "That is, if it's okay with you." Apples thought for a moment, and then a wide smile split his features. Combined with his disheveled mane and mad eyes, it made him look like something straight out of Tartarus. "Apples! Apples eats apples! But Apples doesn't eat ponies, no, you don't eat ponies." Max laughed, and even Pomegranate giggled slightly, but Dawn continued frowning.

This was such a bad idea.

* * *

Later that night, Max was sitting up and watching Apples. The Fallen had, well, fallen asleep, and it was his turn to keep watch. He wondered what it was like to have no memory of who you once were. To be that insane, it was unfathomable. He also wondered about Rainbow Dash. Dawn had regaled them with her part of the story before they settled down, and it was bothering him to no end. Could Princess Twilight Sparkle really be responsible for all this? And if she was, what then? Would he want revenge? Was she even still around to take revenge on? And...

If he had been in Dash's place, with every aspect of her life shattered, would he have done any different?

Ponies can change, and disaster is one of the greatest catalysts of that change.

"Max?" he heard Dawn's voice from behind him, and he turned to look at her.

"What are you doing awake?" He asked.

"I... had a nightmare. Apples turned on us, he... you were gone, and... Max, why do you trust him? Why do you seem to have a soft spot for the Fallen, when everypony else thinks they're monsters?" Max was silent for a long time, and then let out a quiet chuckle.

"Funny, I was going to tell you back in Manehattan."

"What?"

"When you asked about my family. How you told me about yours but you knew nothing about mine."

Dawn pondered this for a moment, and then her mouth fell open. "You don't mean..?"

Max was silent again, and then looked up into the stars, as if basking in the memories. "I had a wife, once." Dawn was taken aback by this. She had always assumed Max was a bachelor, and that he just didn't feel the same way as she did, or perhaps expressed his feelings differently than other ponies, but now, maybe...

"She was beautiful, and I felt so lucky to have married a mare like her. She was a unicorn, too, and very skilled with magic, if I do say so. We were very happy, and rarely fought, and then... The surge came. She had gone out to the pet store. She kept insisting that we needed a dog, even though our apartment was much too small. Chaos erupted in the streets, I'm sure you remember, and all I could do was wonder if she was okay. Finally, I felt it was safe enough to go out, and try to find her. When I did... The pet store was trashed, the owners were dead, and all of the pets had been eaten. But she was there, she was alive. She knew, me, and hugged me, and hoped I was well. And then... the Fallen noticed that I was there, and there were so many of them at that time. They came to the door, trying to kick it down, and she told me to get back. And instead of staying with her, protecting her, like a good husband should, I ran, I ran into the back room and locked the door. I heard her screams, but I stayed back there. The Fallen forgot about me, and left... And then I came out." Tears were now streaming down Max's face as he finished his story.

Dawn could only sit there, mouth agape, with tears threatening to pour from her own eyes. That story was... simply mortifying, but it didn't make sense. She expressed her confusion verbally.

"But... how can you not hate them for that? By Celestia, you should hate them more than anypony for what they did!"

"Dawn, don't you get it?" Max said, "I can't hate them, because she was one of them." This revelation filled Dawn with all kinds of mixed emotions, and all she could manage was to splutter out, "W-w-what?"

"She was the one who ate the animals. She was the one who killed the owners. She went mad, and all because I wasn't there for her."

"No, I'm sure she would've..."

"NO Dawn, she wouldn't have! When I showed up, she recognized me, she knew who she was, and what she had done, and she cried, begging me for forgiveness!" Max was almost shouting now, and the other two had begun to stir, so he stopped talking until he could calm himself down. "If I had been there, and if I hadn't run, she might still be here today. It's all my fault, and I can't blame the Fallen, especially because she had fallen. She was one of them."

Dawn sat for a moment, staring into the ashes of their long-dead fire, and then turned to him, cupping his face with a hoof, and brought his face close to her own. She tilted her head, and began to close her eyes, but then a hoof came between them, pressing her back, and she pulled away, only to realize that the hoof was his.

"Dawn, I can't. Not only do I feel like it's disrespectful to my wife, but also... I don't feel that way about you. I love you, but not in the way that would allow you to be my wife. I told Pomegranate we were just friends, and I meant it. I don't want that, and... Honestly, I doubt I ever will."

Dawn felt like she should be heartbroken, like she should start crying, and saying that she had only ever loved him, or some absolute horseapples like that, but she wasn't, and she wouldn't. He had good reasons, and, after the story he had just told her, she understood just how much it mattered to him that he honored his wife's memory. He also had good reason to trust the Fallen. His experience showed that, somewhere underneath, they were still the same ponies. The ponies who had once been kind, and held the door for other ponies while they walked inside, and comforted them while they were sad.

"Alright. That seems reasonable." Dawn said, and gave Max a little smile before standing up and walking back to her makeshift bed. Max continued to sit and watch Apples sleep, until it was time for Pomegranate to keep watch.

Meanwhile, the Fallen on the ground, and the start of Max's greatest secret being told, dreamed that it rained apples.