Author's Note

After this, I'll be putting author notes at the bottom. I just wanted to give a brief foreword on this story before you begin.

When They Come was written around the beginning of Season 2 of the show. Because of this, these events are meant to take place during that time frame. This story contains several tropes and themes which were not as common in pony fiction at the time, many of which became commonplace afterwards, and even overused.

This story will contain a lot of blood, will contain OCs (sort of), and will contain a human in Equestria, namely Anon. This story will also eventually feature romance, distressing themes involving young ponies, violence, and other things of an edgy nature. Please be aware of this before you continue.

Lastly, if you are a normal reader of my work, please note that this is not my usual brand of comedy. This is not vomit-filled, silly, spectacularly inappropriate fetish fodder. This is -gasp- more serious in nature. If you want something less...this...just go read Hole in One again. Don't lie, you know you want to.

Anyway, please enjoy this old story of mine, and thank you.

-Pencil

Chapter 1: The Run

The first thing that you’re aware of when you wake up is that your head hurts. Oh god, does it fucking hurt, worse than you’ve ever felt it before. You start to open your eyes but the world swims and the pain worsens, so you shut them again. You take a few slow steady breaths till you feel your head go still inside, then try again.

A vast, dark sky greets you as everything slowly focuses. It’s still night out, but there’s a slight glow to your right, hinting at the possibility of a dawn soon to come. The starlight is quickly fading and a few stray clouds sail slowly and silently above you. Really, it’s another peaceful-seeming night in Equestria. The grass beneath your head feels damp from this morning’s dew, and as you reach up to touch your head where it hurts, you find your hair is matted and wet. When you bring your hand down, you can feel that wetness still on your fingertips.

The next thing you are aware of is the blood.

You stare at your hand, bewildered at the sight of it. The stain is near brown, old. You’ve been bleeding for some time now, you realize. But what has happened to you? You wrack your brain, but you’re not honestly sure. No memory of the injury initially comes to you. You sit up slowly, testing your limits to see what hurts you and makes you dizzy. The motion makes you spin a little, but things stay steady enough for you to notice the lights of Ponyville in a nearby valley. Your injury must not be too bad, you tell yourself. Maybe it’s just a scratch or…

You freeze and just stare at what is lying at your feet.

The pony is young, just a year or two past getting her cutie mark, but not someone you recognize from town. Her mane is a muted orange, her body a light pink. She is lying just past your feet, motionless, and the cut on her head makes you think that you have no right to complain about your own injuries. Blood has pooled below her face, which rests slack-jawed and still on the grass. Flecks of dried brown dot her main and forehead, all encircling a several inch long gash that looks like it goes in deep. Possibly to the bone.

Wordlessly you scramble up to your knees and press your fingers below her jaw. Is this how you take a pony’s pulse? Damn it, you haven’t been here long enough to know this kind of shit yet. To your relief, you feel a murmur there, though it’s faint and irregular. You shake her shoulder but there’s no response.

“Miss?” you call. Then a little louder. “Miss are you alright?”

Stupid question, she’s obviously not. You’re beginning to panic a little and you take a deep breath, trying to calm your nerves.

Your shirt is already torn and ragged, but you hastily and clumsily tear off a piece and press it over the gaping angry wound above her left eye. Warmth moves across your hand as the blood seeps into the cloth. She’s still bleeding, so that means her heart is still pumping. Which is good, right? But what now? The hospital in Ponyville might be open, but you're not entirely sure where that is from here. You haven’t seen signs of an ER or anything like that in your short stay either, so it might not be equipped for an emergency like this right now. But she needs help, more than you can give. You wrack your brain for a solution, putting firm pressure down on the wound all the while.

You’re not willing to brave a trek through the Everfree forest while it’s still this dark out, though Zecora would probably help if you knew how to navigate that maze-like woods. Rarity is closest, but it’s unlikely that she’ll wake up this early. Her and her beauty sleep. Twilight, however, loves to get up early and can do magic. She’s your best bet.

You slip your arms around the pony’s body, one arm around her chest, the other behind her back legs, and hoist her upward. She’s surprisingly light for a pony, and you’ve never held one like this before. There’s a smell about her too, something almost…flowery. No time to think about it now though.

You start walking, making sure your head can take those first few steps before you try to develop a pace. But the adrenalin is surging in full force now and the pain is fading fast. It’s only a few steps more before you begin to run. The pony’s head bounces against your chest with each stride, and you pray you’re not making her injuries any worse. You hold your precious cargo closer, tighter, trying to steady her.

Your foot catches a branch as you move. You stumble, but you don’t fall.

The hills are flying past now as you near Ponyville. You barely hear your own footfalls over the heaving of your breath, the blood rushing in your ears. But you don’t care right now. Have to get to Twilight’s.

Your lungs are screaming at you to stop now. You’re too tried. You’ve lost too much blood. The dizziness is getting worse, you need to take a break. But you tell your body to ignore all that for now, force the internal warning lights out of your head.

Has it been seconds? Minutes? How long have you been running? It's impossible to tell.

The branches of her library loom up ahead of you, and you feel a rush of relief as well as a rolling wave of nausea come over you. Just a little further, you urge your feet. Just a few more steps now. You have to. There could be a life at stake.

As you reach the front step, your legs finally slow and you stop, swaying and unsteady in front of her home. Your hands are full of pony, so you kick hard at the door of the library to try to get Twilight’s attention. When no one answers you kick again, as hard as you can muster without falling over. You can’t tell if the pony in your arms is still breathing or not, but you just know that have to get her inside. Now.

“Twilight!” you yell, your lungs already burning with the run. “Twilight! Open up, please!”

It’s surprising even to you how pleading and desperate you sound.

From inside, you hear a brief scraping of movement, and your chest tightens with hope and anticipation. After what feels like an eternity, the door creaks open and a very sleepy looking Twilight regards you. She looks pissed off, but you don’t care right now.

“Anon, what-"

And then she sees the pony in your arms. She gasps and looks from her to you with horror and shock.

“Oh Celestia,” she breathes. “What happened? Who’s-”

Her words suddenly sound far away. What’s happening? You have to get the pony help, Twilight has to help her. But still…

“Twilight, she needs…”

The corners of your eyes are going dark, and your lips feel tingly. You can taste copper in your mouth and the full exertion of your run finally hits you. You hug the pony tightly to your body, afraid you’ll drop her. Everything is getting blurry now. You make out Twilight calling to you in what seems like a panic, and then everything abruptly shifts to the side and you no longer feel your feet under you.

Everything is black.

You’re unconscious before you hit the ground.

You wake up, you’re not sure how much later, to Spike putting a cold cloth over the back of your neck. The pain in your head has subsided, and you reach up to find some sort of bandage placed there. Everything seems at ease…except…your arms are empty now. The other pony! Where is she?

“Mhn,” you mutter, trying to sit up.

“Oh, you’re awake! That’s good,” Spike sighs. He looks like he’s been sick with worry.

You manage to right yourself, but Spike holds up his tiny purple claws, signaling you to stay put.

“Oh no way, Anon,” he says. “Twilight said to watch you till you woke up, then go get her. And that you weren’t supposed to move.”

You know better than to upset Twilight’s grand order of things. She’s a perfectionist when it comes to shit like this, and you know that doing something to mess with the balance usually makes her come a little unhinged. The two of you don’t always get along because of it, but you at least know her methods are effective.

“Fine, go get her will you?”

But Spike’s already running down stairs to find her.

You lower yourself back down and realize that you’re lying in Twilight’s bed. Everything smells clean here, sterile. Very unlike the loft at the Cakes’ where you’ve been staying for the last month or so. There, the rooms are all filled with the inviting scents of pastries and other sweets cooking. This is nice too though, you suppose. It’s very comfortable and very…utilitarian. You wonder if she’ll get upset if you peel off the covers though, they’re a bit warm for you.

You hear the clop of hooves as she comes up the stairs and decide against it. Twilight comes into view at the top of the stairway, and you nod to her as a simple greeting. She looks very concerned, and speaks softly to you.

“Hey, how are you feeling?”

“Like someone took a baseball bat to my head,” you admit. “But…better than I did earlier, Thanks.”

“Glad to help, this magic has to be good for something.”

She manages a wry smile.

“Twilight,” you say sitting up a little. “The filly, how’s she-"

The smile leaves her face as quickly as it arrived and she looks away from you.

“You know,” she says solemnly. “You weren’t in this bed at first. I had you propped in an armchair down stairs while I worked on her.”

Twilight glances to a corner of the bedroom, her stare miles and miles away. You follow her gaze and spot a small, dark blanket with stars on it. It’s folded down neatly, like someone was tucking in a baby, around an unearthly still shape. With horror, you realize it’s the body of the pony you’d tried so hard to save.

The sight of it burns into your mind like a brand. You know in an instant, even as you turn quickly away and swallow a noise of pain, that it’s one you’ll never forget.

“When?” you manage to ask.

“About half an hour ago,” Twilight whispers. “I tried everything I could, but even magic can’t...there’s only so much…and it was too late to try to get her to a hospital…so…”

She falls silent.

Your mouth is dry, and you feel like someone has punched you in the gut. All that effort. All that running and desperation. For nothing. You held her in your arms in her final moments, and you didn’t even know it. Could you have said goodbye to her? Is there something, anything else you could have done?

“I...” the words come out choked. “I found her like that when I woke up. We were out by the hills and she was just there. I tried to do what I thought was best for her.”

“You did everything you could, Anon.”

“Was there…anything…I could have?”

“No, she’d lost so much blood.” Twilight places a hoof on your leg and looks into your face. “You couldn’t have saved her Anon. But you tried. Please, don’t beat yourself up about it, you really did try.”

You swallow hard and breathing becomes a little less painful.

“But what did this?” you ask. “What happened?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

You shake your head. With all the commotion you haven’t even tried to collect your thoughts about the previous night’s events.

“I’m not sure,” you say slowly.

The moment you say that, though, images begin to float back to you, voices. It’s becoming clearer now. You’re starting to remember things.

“I went up there with a few of the young fillies,” you say slowly. “They were graduating school, at least part of it. Too young to be going to college or whatever it is you have here I think. Not sure. They were talking about where they were going to go next though.” You can’t help but smile remembering it. “They wanted me to come up to the hills with them because they knew I could get them hard cider from the Pies.”

“Oh Anon!”

Twilight obviously does not approve. Too much to worry about right now to lie and keep from offending her though.

“Yeah I know. Be mad about it later. They wanted to have fun, and I’d been in their shoes a few times before when I was, well, around their age I guess. So I helped them out. We were drinking, we were singing. I got pretty smashed myself, to be honest.”

Twilight seems suddenly uncomfortable, and her eyes widen at you before she quickly turns away.

“Anon, you didn’t...they’re so young, you didn’t…”

She hesitates as if trying to find the right word, and her cheeks flush with embarrassment. You realize suddenly what she’s implying, and you can’t help but grimace at her.

“Oh, Jesus Twilight, no! You know I wouldn’t, not with a pony! That would be...well it just wouldn’t work for me, ok?”

You neglect to tell her that it is something you’ve considered now that you’re stuck here in Equestria, but never with a filly that young. Definitely not the time now to even bring that up.

“Anyway,” she says, seeming vastly relieved. “You were drinking and then?”

“We were singing together, the four of us. I tripped and fell on my face, we were all laughing. Then we just lay there looking up at the stars. Then I remember...”

The memory hits you suddenly, when you’re not ready for it. The darkness, the panic, the confusion. It floods back through your senses like you’re feeling it all over again. Twilight must notice a change in your face, because she suddenly looks worried.

“Anon?”

“It was...” you say breathlessly. You turn to her, staring into her large questioning eyes. “Twilight, I think someone or something came out of the woods. They had some sort of weapon, something metal. They started chasing us. The two ponies got away but that one stumbled. We were all just so drunk, I tried to go back and help her but then...”

You shake your head hard and the images fade.

“It must have gotten me, because I blacked out after that.”

“Oh Celestia, that’s terrible!” Twilight cries. “We have to tell the mayor at once! I’m sure the Cakes are worried about you, so why don’t you get back to them. We’ll figure out a way to deal with this, so make sure you lie down when you get back and just rest. Let your head heal.”

She’s already grabbed a pack from a nearby shelf and is filling it with books. You see a few of the titles as then fly, glowing sparkling purple, off the shelves. Magical Creatures, Ponyville History, something about ancient madness.

“It was Marigold, by the way.”

You hear yourself saying the words, but it sounds like someone else saying them with how hollow your tone is. Twilight pauses in her packing and looks up at you.

“What?”

“The pony,” you nod towards the dead body in the corner. “Her name was Marigold. She was here visiting a friend, an out of towner. Someone should try to find out who her parents are and get in touch with them.”

Twilight nods slowly.

“Of course. Right.”

You’re both silent for a moment, like you’re both unsure where to go from there. It feels like you should say something else, but you have no idea what. At last, you sigh heavily and move to the edge of the bed.

“I’ll get back to the Cakes.”

“Ok. I'll come check on you in a bit,” she says. “The mayor might have questions for you.”

You stand slowly and walk down stairs. Spike gives you an uncomfortable wave as you reach the doorway, one which you don’t have the heart to return. His face looks so empty of the silly carefree nature that’s always there.

“Feel better, ok?” he says.

You wonder if he’s ever dealt with death before. He’s so young, maybe this is the first time he’s ever seen someone die. You hate that you were here to witness that. You nod your farewell to him and shut the door behind you.

As you walk back, your mind is swirling with questions you’re not sure you want an answer to. Who did this? Why? What happened to the other fillies? You remember too well running from your attacker, just as you told Twilight.

What you didn’t tell her, though, what has you so twisted up inside, is that you remember the attacker’s silhouette as you looked up at it from the grass when you fell. It walked on two legs, just like you. For a moment, you can’t be sure, you think you may have even seen a face. A human face.

And it was smiling.

——