The Last Princess

The group continued on, heading west towards Ponyville, just as they had originally planned. Pomegranate, having not been awake for Dawn and Max's exchange, was still suspicious of Apples, though not as much as Dawn had been. And then, one night, while it was Dawn's turn to be on watch, Apples woke up. He just sat there, staring at the stars for a long time, and eventually, Dawn couldn't help but fall asleep herself. When they all awoke the next morning, they found Apples still awake, but wandering around the camp now, sniffing at different objects that caught his attention. But most notable of all, was the fact that none of them had been eaten, not even so much as licked, and a quick scan of Max's bags revealed that all of the apples that had been there the night before were still there. Now even Pomegranate had to admit that Apples was about as trustworthy as a Fallen was going to get. And so, they continued on.

After only two more days of travel, they came to a river, and, in the distance, they thought they could just see some of the houses and orchards of Ponyville.

"Well, now what?" Pomegranate asked, looking down at the swift-running waters.

"I suppose we could attempt to make a raft out of materials on this side of the river, or we could attempt to swim. Of course, if we wanted it to be a little too easy, we could always cross the bridge that the train tracks run over." Max said, as he gestured to the left. About a hundred yards in that direction was the aforementioned bridge, and Max smiled slightly at his little joke, while Pomegranate grimaced and Dawn breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't want to have to carry somepony out of the river because she was the only one with wings. Only around two hours of light trotting later, and they came upon the small town that had done so many big things in the past. Not anymore, though. Now, it was just an abandoned wasteland, like everyplace else. But not for much longer, if Max, Dawn, Pomegranate, and maybe even Apples had anything to say about it.

"Alright, it looks like all of the buildings are mostly intact. That's good. Now, I suggest we head for Sweet Apple Acres." Max's friends looked at him questioningly, and he elaborated. "It's a large apple orchard on the outskirts of town, and where the Element of Honesty lived before all of this. Anyways, I hear they have some sort of special apples down there, called Zap Apples, and they should be ripe around this time of year, or at least sometime soon."

"Zap Apples?" Dawn asked.

"Yeah, they're apparently magic apples that are only ripe for one day a year or something. I only hope we made it in time."

As they strode through the town in the direction of the Acres, Dawn couldn't help but glance toward the dark, gloomy trees that stood out around the town's edge.

"Um, Max? Are you sure it's safe to be out this close to the Everfree Forest? I mean, I've heard of some really nasty creatures that live in there."

"Well, Ponyville survived this long, didn't it? I would guess that either the creatures aren't strong enough to break into the houses, or they assume the town's completely abandoned. So yeah, I think we should be safe enough."

This, however, was one of the surprisingly rare times when Max was wrong. Dead wrong, in this case.

None of the ponies noticed the multitude of eyes that watched them as they trotted through the ruined town. Except for one, of course. The one whose eyes couldn't be trusted. He didn't trust them himself, sometimes. After all, he had seen ponies tear each other apart, and try to tear him apart, too. But ponies didn't do that. Ponies were nice. So he must have been seeing things, just like all of those yellow eyes. Just seeing things. There weren't eyes in the forest. Yellow eyes. Also, eyes didn't glow. Did they? Maybe they did. Maybe there were eyes in the forest. Did the eyes want to hurt his friends? To hurt the ponies? They weren't allowed to hurt them, but what if they weren't real? He decided what to do. Keep an eye on the eyes. he told himself, suppressing a giggle at the funny-sounding phrase. Keep an eye on the eyes.

* * *

"APPLES!" Apples screamed as he bounded between the trees in the orchard. Most of the normal trees had, of course, not a single ripe apple on them, but the apples Apples was screaming about were, in fact, Zap Apples. Max had gotten them there at almost the perfect time. Unfortunately, the Zap Apples were actually fully ripe now, which meant that the ponies only had until sundown to pick as many of the magical fruit as possible, so that's what they were doing. Apples was helping, in his own way. The Fallen unicorn would leap into the air, pluck an apple from the tree with his teeth, and then crunch it down in record time. The other three agreed that this was fine, as long as he didn't eat every apple in the orchard, so they left him to it. Besides, he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

"Okay, is that the last of them?" Max asked as he pushed another apple into his saddlebag, though it was full to bursting already, and looked around the orchard.

"Not even close, but they're starting to disappear!" Pomegranate exclaimed, pointing to a few bright flashes in the trees.

"Apples!" Apples shouted, leaping into the air in an attempt to grab one final Zap Apple. Comically, it disappeared right before he reached it, and he fell to the ground, landing on his rump with a solid whumph. The other three couldn't help but giggle, and Max offered him one of the Zap Apples he had picked, which the unicorn took gleefully.

"Come on. With all of these Zap Apples we should be set for a good while, and eventually, we can start regrowing regular apples on the trees in the main orchards."

"Apples eats apples?" Apples asked. Max chuckled.

"Yes, Apples, you'll get to eat some of the apples."

Apples started bouncing from side to side and talking apparently to nopony. "Apples eats apples, but apples can't eat Apples, 'cause if apples ate Apples, then Apples couldn't eat apples, also apples has no teeth!" The crazed unicorn laughed and continued reciting his strange little poem as they all walked in the direction of the farmhouse.

* * *

"Hey, Max, have you ever noticed this before?" Dawn asked. She was lying on an old rug in front of the fireplace, next to the sleeping Apples, but not too close.

"Noticed what?"

"Apples doesn't have a Cutie Mark!"

"Yes, I had noticed. Hadn't you?"

Dawn put a sly smirk on her face. "Well, unlike you, I don't make it a habit to stare at pony's flanks."

"Ooh!" Pomegranate cringed back and put two hooves in front of her face mockingly, then leaned forward to see how Max would react. Disappointingly, he didn't seem to notice, and simply sat for a moment, before speaking again.

"Come to think of it, none of the Fallen have their Cutie Marks. Except..." He thought for another moment. "When she died, she had it. I know she did. I remember seeing it. What could've..?" Another brief pause, and then Max slammed a hoof on the floor as he stood up, eyes brightening slightly. "That's it!"

His sudden declaration startled the two mares, but didn't even cause the slightest twitch in the resting Fallen.

"What's what?" asked Dawn, completely lost.

"The Fallen! They don't have Cutie Marks, because they've forgotten who they are, who they're meant to be, and what they're meant to do! But sometimes, when they meet the right pony, or go to the right place, they remember, and they get that back! My wife remembered, she was herself, and her Cutie Mark proves that!"

"Wait, wait, your wife? What are you talking about?" Pomegranate had been asleep for the conversation of a few nights ago, and so Max hurriedly explained his story to her, not getting nearly as emotional this time, though. Easier the second time, Dawn guessed.

Still, all this talk of Cutie Marks got her thinking about her own. A few thin clouds hovering over half of a full sun. Like a hazy dawn. She chuckled lightly. She had gotten her Cutie Mark one early morning, when she got up onto the roof of her childhood home, sat, and watched the sun rise. A few stray clouds had managed to drift in front, and it set off the most beautiful sparkling of colors, and somehow made the sun shine brighter. She knew, then and there, that she wanted to make things like that. She wanted to mold clouds, use the rays of the sun, and even the moon, to create what she called 'Skybound Art'. Then, she moved to Manehattan. She could not find anypony who wanted her Skybound Art in that city. She would have flown away, found another city or town who would appreciate the beauty of the clouds, but then she found a job, as a receptionist. And then she found an apartment. And then she found that she was comfortable with her life the way it was, and she didn't want to risk that changing. If she hadn't been so lazy, she might have been in Canterlot, with her family, when the surge came.

Maybe the surge wouldn't have happened at all.

Dawn shook the thought away quickly. That was ridiculous. The surge would have come no matter where she was. But now...

Now she couldn't interact with the clouds if she wanted to. And she wanted to. Desperately.

But Max, as hard as his situation had gotten after the surge, had been quite happy before. His Cutie Mark matched up exactly with what he did. He wrote, and his Cutie Mark was a piece of simple paper, with a black quill hovering over, and several unreadable lines already written on the paper. He had been doing what he was meant to do. And Pomegranate...

Well, Dawn didn't know what Pomegranate had been doing before the surge, but she had likely been another of those aptly named salesponies, since her Cutie Mark was just two halves of a pomegranate.

"Dawn?" Max asked, startling her out of her thoughts.

"Huh?" she said dumbly.

"I was just asking what you think Apples' Cutie Mark used to be."

Dawn blinked, and stared at the pony sleeping beside her. The pony with no memory of his former life, and no Cutie Mark to guess at what it meant.

"I... I really have no idea." she said, and Max shrugged, getting back into his argument over possible Cutie Marks with Pomegranate.

Meanwhile, the pony on the floor was not nearly as asleep as he seemed. He had his right eye open, just a crack, so that he could peer through the window on that side, and keep an eye on whatever creature it was that was staring back at him.

Whatever it was, it had yellow eyes.