"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" asked Ace. "We've been wandering this desert for hours! I just wanna get back to Ponyville already."
River Blues glared at him. "Of course I know what I'm doing! You head due South from Appaloosa to get back to Ponyville." Too quiet for Ace to hear, she added, "I think so, anyway."
Ace rolled his amber eyes. The sky began to darken, turning the sand on the ground to a dull blue-grey. Ace's coat and mane also being shades of brown, his entire body became a ghostly color. He and River kept walking.
As the sky began to darken more, River's colors began to change also. Her messy swamp green mane became a sort of purple-ish color, while her yellow-green coat turned a bit more of a ghoul green. She looked to Ace, and grinned.
"Sweet Celestia, babe, you look... dead!" she joked.
Ace looked down at his forelegs. "Oh, wow! I do!" He looked back at River. "You look bad too!"
River just shook her head. "If we don't find some shelter soon, I think I'm gonna actually die."
"Let's not get too extreme, Riv. We'll find something."
"I sure do hope so."
As Ace and River kept trotting through the desert, they began to notice some strange things. First of all, was the strange lack of wildlife. It was the desert, but there should have been the occasional bird, or lizard, or something. Second of all, was the complete lack of noise. The lack of wildlife shouldn't keep the wind from blowing, or their hooves moving the sand. Ace noticed the dead silence and turned to River.
"Hey, Riv, do you hear anything?" he asked, hoping for her to confirm his suspicions.
River kept walking, but her ears began to twitch. She scuffed the ground with a hoof, and when no sound was emitted, she turned her head to Ace. "No, I don't, apart from the sound of your voice."
Ace sighed in relief. "Thank Celestia I'm not crazy."
"Of course not."
They walked in silence for a little while, then River got bored. She wanted to do something. Anything. She got in front of Ace and turned around.
"Hey babe~" she said, flicking her wild mane out of her eyes. She dropped down into a crouch. "Let's make the best of our time alone, shall we?"
Ace barely had time to grin before River tackled him and pressed her lips to his own. They wrapped their hooves around each other, enjoying the other's embrace. River broke the kiss, and looked deep into Ace's amber eyes. Ace looked back, enjoying how River's murky brown eyes bore into his own. "Riv," Ace began.
"Shh," River shushed him, putting her hoof to his mouth. She traced his jawline, then began to run her hoof down his belly. She winked at Ace before her head began to follow her hoof. She was about halfway to Ace's crotch when they both heard a loud HONK in the distance. Ace sat up quickly, but in doing so, buried River in his chest fur. River sighed.
"Biggest. Turn off. Ever." she said, mildly irritated.
"My bad, babe."
"Not your fault."
River pushed herself off of Ace and turned toward what she heard. She saw a light rapidly approaching, and steam rising from the top of said light. "It's a train!" she exclaimed, jumping to her hooves. "Maybe we can get back to Ponyville!"
Ace, however, wasn't all that quick to jump for joy. "I don't see any tracks around here, how is there a train...?" he wondered.
"I don't care, it's a damned train! We can get home!" River began to shake Ace. She then turned around and proceeded to shout at the top of her lungs. "Hey! We're stranded out here with no food or water! Can you help us get back home!?"
A whistle from the train came in response, and it slowed down to approach them. As it got closer, Ace noticed more odd things about the train. Not only did it have no tracks, but it also had no coal! There was no coal to power the train, no tracks for it to run on, so what was it? Obviously, River cared not about these oddities, because she just jumped aboard the train and held out her hoof to Ace.
"Riv, I dunno about this-"
"Look, do you want to get home, or not?" River interrupted him.
Ace sighed and took her hoof. He reluctantly hoisted himself onto the train and looked around. The conductor, a pitch black, muscular earth pony, smiled at them. It was almost all you could see of him, because of the dark night.
"Where ya headed?" he inquired of the couple.
"Ponyville, if you please," River said happily.
The conductor nodded and turned toward the front of the train. "To Ponyville!" he yelled, and the train began to move. As the locomotive picked up speed, he turned around and pointed to the door between cars. "There's a sleeper car through that door. It's gonna take us a mighty long while to get to Ponyville from here. Y'all headed in the exact wrong direction if y'all wanted to go there."
Ace glanced at River with the classic "I told you so," look. River just shrugged, thanked the conductor, and dragged Ace to the sleeper car. When they saw that it was uninhabited, they went back to finishing what they started in the desert. After about an hour of that, they both slowed down, cuddled next to each other, and fell asleep.
When they both woke up, there was daylight streaming through the sleeper car window. Ace rubbed his eyes and smiled at River and kissed her on the forehead. "Morning, Sunshine," he whispered.
"Mornin', babe."
Ace looked out the window, expecting to see Ponyville at least in the distance. When he saw nothing but desert, he frowned.
"What's up, Ace?" River asked.
He turned his head to River. "Nothing, Riv. I just gotta go ask the conductor a question, okay?"
River responded by rolling over and pulling the sheets up to her neck. "Mmmmmkay..." came the muffled auditory response to this action.
Ace stood up and walked through the door to the conductor's car. As soon as he set foot in the car, the daylight outside faded quickly to black. The conductor turned around and smiled at him again. "Hey, look who woke up! Howdy, partner! Have a good night's rest?"
Ace nodded, his expression still serious. "I did, thank you. I do, though have a question for you."
The conductor's grin waivered, but instantly picked up again. "Well, shoot! There ain't no question the good ol' conductor can't handle!"
"Good," said Ace. "Then why aren't we at Ponyville yet? This train is traveling at breakneck speeds, and we're not even within sight of it?"
The conductor's smile finally dropped. "All questions 'cept that one, o' course." He pulled up a chair from the corner of the car, and handed it to Ace. "Yer gonna wanna sit down fer this one."
Ace took his advice and took a seat.
"Well," the conductor began. "The thing is, kid... you and yer partner in the sleeper car back there..." he faltered. He picked up another thought and began there instead. "I think y'all have noticed that this ain't no normal train, right?"
Ace just nodded, unsure of where this was going.
"In fact, this is a ghost train. You and yer partner in the sleeper were attacked by a pack of coyotes out in the desert back there."
The sentence hit Ace like a bullet. His eyes widened, his pupils dilated, and he froze. He sat in the chair like a statue. When he finally regained control of his emotions, he laughed, on the border of hysterics. "This... this is a joke, right? I mean, I can't be dead... right?"
The conductor just looked at him sympathetically. "I drive this train everywhere 'round the world, breakin' the news to ponies who croak with nopony 'round to tell 'em."
Ace scowled. "But I can touch you!" he exclaimed, reaching out with his hoof. Astoundingly, his hoof passed right through the conductor.
The conductor sighed, the sympathetic look still on his face. He began to dissolve into mist. As he dispersed, he whispered one last thing to Ace. "Check on yer mare if ya don't believe me..."
Ace snapped awake. He sat up quickly, hyperventilating. He looked around, and he was in his own house, in Ponyville. He looked to the left of him, and sighed in relief. There she was, River Blues, his favorite singer and mare. There was one thing. She wasn't breathing.
"Riv...?" he said tentatively.
She rolled over, and Ace gasped in horror. Her jaw hung open, her mouth oozing blood. Her skin was ripped open, revealing the pink muscle and bone underneath. Her mane was in bloody tatters, and her eyes were so sunken, the area around them looked like deep pits of murky green and bloody water.
Ace screamed.