The Brightest Light Casts the Longest Shadows

“...my fault.”

“No, Twilight, it’s not. These things happen, you just have to-”

“It is my fault!”

“Shut up.” A stallion close directly opposite me called out, louder than I had. “None of us care about what you did.”

“You shut up.” It was another stallion closer to the front of the wagon. “She needs to figure out exactly what she did. Let her have that ya’ cloud brain.”

The pegasus stood up. “Oh, now I’m a cloud brain, at least my horn hasn’t been stuffed up-”

“Hey.” It was the first time since I’d met the gryphon that I had seen her react with anger... or anything anything that wasn't an innocent giggle or a confused ‘huh?’. The two ponies stopped and turned to her. “Cut it out. We have bigger issues than insulting each other.”

Despite the almost complete darkness that only displayed vague shapes I could tell that the gryphoness was staring the two ponies down, daring one of them to make a move. After a moment she relaxed and leaned back against the cart’s side. “Twilight. It was an accident. It’s not your fault. It’s not anypony’s, these things just happen sometimes.”

I shook my head. “It shouldn’t have.”

Outside the cart somepony shouted something, what exactly I couldn’t make out, but a moment later the cart stopped.

After a short pause we rotated, then proceeded forward. Several ponies, myself included, were thrown into the air by the bumps.

We continued for a few minuets before the voice called out again and we stopped.

Under her breath the gryphoness whispered. “Four hours is ten miles, still twelve miles from staging. At that distance reconnaissance runs need four hours back, so we’re out of range for tonight. Sometime tomorrow then… so long as I live through the night.” She quietly chuckled.

I didn’t want to get in trouble for eavesdropping, so I pretended that I hadn’t heard. “So, what happens now?”

The gryphoness shrugged. “Dunno. Try to survive I suppose.”

Somehow I hadn’t noticed it when I was talking with her earlier, but the gryphoness’ entire demeanor had changed.

___ ______ ___

It was unbearably warm in the cart. That tends to happen when you put ten ponies in a tiny cage. Unfortunately while I wasn’t going to freeze to death the horrid smell and oven-like temperatures ensured that I wasn’t going to get any sleep either.

About an hour after the caravan stopped the door was forced open with a squeal and a pony poked his or her muzzle inside. A small basket about the size of my head was forced inside, then the door was shut again.

The ponies in the cart rushed it and nearly trampled each other trying to get their muzzles inside. I only managed to get a few scraps that were tossed aside. To be honest with myself I didn’t even want to know what we were being fed.

Only a minuet or so after the food was thrust in the door was opened again. A pony, a unicorn mare, set a lantern down on the edge and looked in. She wrinkled her nose at the smell, I couldn’t blame her. She looked around for a moment before pointing to the gryphoness and the pegasus stallion who had almost gotten into the fight with the unicorn earlier. “Both of you, out.”

The gryphoness sighed. “Wish me luck. Hopefully they’ll be cheep and decide to keep me until we hit market... otherwise my boss's gonna have some awkward questions for me to answer.”

“What’s going on?”

“Keep your head down. I should be back in a few hours at most… if I’m not assume the worst. Wait two days, then when they open the door charge them. Get out and teleport... or something... whatever it is you unicorns do.”

“You still haven’t answered-”

“I said out! Move it!”

The gryphoness shrugged. “Guess I'm not gonna. Sorry.” She walked to the door and stepped out into the night. The stallion had already exited.

The door slammed shut. I settled in to wait.

The pegasus mare the stallion was with began to wail.

___ ______ ___

My ears twitched. It had been almost five minuets since either the gryphoness or the stallion had screamed, cried out or moaned. The party seemed to have settled down as well.

I shifted into a slightly more comfortable position and pressed my head into my front legs.

The door was pulled open with its characteristic squeal, it’s hinges really needed to be oiled. The gryphoness’ form occupied the doorway for a moment before she was shoved in. She hit the cart’s floor, the stallion followed her and landed on top of her body.

With what seemed to be considerable effort the gryphoness stood up and dumped the pony off her back and onto the ground so he was laying of his back. “Rude. Buy a gall a drink and bed her at least once before you get to that.”

“Shut up.” The mare shoved the door shut and affixed the locking mechanism.

The gryphoness placed two talons on the stallions throat before motioning for his mare to come over. “How loyal is he?”

“Very.”

“Well… that’s good and bad. I need you to assure him that nothing that happened out there was his fault, ‘cause he’s gonna blame himself. He needs to know that that’s not true, you need to assure him that that’s not true and you need to make him believe it.”

“Okay. Wha- what do I do?”

The stallion looked up, then averted his eyes. “I’m so-”

The mare pulled him close. “Hush you.”

The mare continued to calm the stallion who was presumably her husband. I nudged the gryphoness aside. “You’re very calm about this?”

“As horrible as it is to say, I’ve been been through worse.”

“Okay, but why you two? Why not me, or somepony else?”

“Survivors guilt? Really?”

“I’m just wondering.”

“It’s economics.”

“Economics?”

“Sure. Why not? They need something to keep themselves entertained, some of us are worth less than it costs to feed us. They get entertainment without losing anything valuable. Win-win. Well… except for us I suppose, that’s more of a loss all across the board, but... you know... a win for them.”

“So what happens when we make it to their market?”

“Be sold. The two of us though, eek, I wouldn’t want to be us. In fact the only reason we’re still alive is ‘cause they need entertainment and don’t wanna hurt any of the rest of you. Lost profit I suppose. Anyhow, we should get some sleep.”

I nodded. “Alright. Good night.” I pressed my face into my legs and pretended to fall asleep.