Chapter 2 : The Best of Things

'It's just a little vacation, it's not the end of the world.' Zian couldn't look away from her cozy little shack. She had gotten accustomed to living in the woods, and the thought of leaving made her heart sink. 'It's only five days.'

She gently touched the leaves of the plants she dreaded to leave, and smiled at her memories of making a multitude of potions and ingredients, even cooking from time to time. She sighed. She almost found it stereotypical, a zebra having an affinity for plants and creatures of the forest, alchemy and the magic of nature, but she couldn't help herself. She knew that not every zebra was in love with nature, but in truth she had never even seen the zebra homeland.

She laughed as she looked about the room and saw the artifacts she had collected over the years, spears made of metals she'd never even dreamed of in the forest of Everfree, as well as decorations scavenged off people. She knew that most of them probably weren't even authentic, but she still treasured them all.

Looking through her things and packing her bags for her trip, Zian stumbled across her collapsible spear. She smiled, thinking of her sister she hadn't seen in so long. After Zian told her she was moving to the forest to study, her sister ran out and managed to somehow get the old metalworker to make one personalized for her. Of course she never needed to use it, but her sister insisted incase some kind of wolf broke into her shack in the middle of the night. Putting aside her better judgement, she packed it, hoping it wasn't illegal.

A few more miscellaneous things later, her saddlebag was packed and she was ready to go. It had nearly been a few weeks since she set up a short vacation to a nearby town to stay in the historical inn slash bed and breakfast. If she was going to take a break from her studies, she figured she might as well learn something other than botany. She locked the door to her shack and made her start down the long dirt path.

The house to the old 'museum' didn't take to long to find, it seemed to be the only authentic looking house in the whole little village with a big sign hanging over the door. After only one light knock on the door, a yellow unicorn filly with a straight cut red mane answered the door as if she'd been sitting there in suspense, waiting. "Wellcome, wellcome!" she said with a bright smile. "You must be Miss. Zian! Daddy and I have been expecting you!" She zipped around, taking Zian's saddlebag with her magic. "You're the... one, two... fourth pony staying here!"

"You mean third." Zian turned to see a light greyish yellow unicorn stallion coming out of the kitchen. "Pleasure to meet you, my name is Flambe, and this is my daughter, Cherry. You spoke to the travel assistant?"

"Oh, yes I did!"

Flambe shook her hoof. "Welcome to the Hoofing Hills Historical Hotel! Hope you make yourself comfortable, hey have a muffin!" Flambe smiled, levitating one over to her out of a basket.

"Oh, um, thank you." Zian set it down on the end table. "So, what makes this inn so historical?"

"Well, it used to be a farmhouse until the war almost broke out."

Zian's eyes widened. "Excuse me... war?"

"Yeah, after those Diamond dogs collapsed the Hollow Shades and slaughtered the city of bat ponies. This building was almost turned into a military base, but then the war tensions dropped and here we are with a monument to the ages!" Flambe trotted to the next room, and Zian followed with the muffin out of curiosity. She looked curiously at the shelves lined with weapons throughout the ages locked behind thick glass. "This is the Wall of Weapons! Believe it or not, Equestria has seen its fair share of battles in the past. From modifications to extensions, swords to spears, the evolution of the weaponry of Equestria is breathtaking, don't you agree?"

Zian trotted over to a strange item in a special case, a large tube- shaped box with a soft grip handle and a trigger like a spray bottle. "What's this?"

"Ohhh, so you're interested in the PPbv1, or Unicorn Blaster."

"What do all those letters stand for?"

"Pony Protection Blaster, version 1. This one was my father's, he was in the guard when the war tension started. It's pretty rare, too. It doesn't take ammunition, but is powered by unicorn magic. It was primitive at it's time, but it was pretty impressive. Not a lot of ponies got the chance to even know about their existence," Flambe smiled in nostalgia, "I have a later model, too, from when I was in the Equestrian Military. It was a requirement to learn how to use them at the time." He pointed to a longer white model of the blaster on a shelf next to the older one. "This is the final model of the blaster, mostly based off of the griffon alternative. These ones were meant to be levitated and pull operated, that's why the mouthpiece is retractable. You could think of it like a magic-focusing cannon with more advanced arcane reliability."

"Fancey." Zian commented, taking a bite of the muffin.

"Ain't it!" Cherry smiled. "But that's enough for the tour for now, Come on, Miss Zian, let me show you your room!"

Zian followed her up the stairs and saw a long hallway with a few doors. "Do you get a lot of guests here, Cherry?"

"Not usually, but we do get ponies from lotsa places in the summer! But business is slow now. We got some other ponies here now, with big, pretty wings! I nevea see too many of them before!" Cherry looked back at Zian with a questioning look. "Miss. Zian, why do you have all of those fancy stripes? And where's your cutiemark?"

"Well, technically I'm not a pony... I'm a Zebra. I was born with these stripes." Zian said proudly, then glanced over to her flank. "Honestly, though, I don't really know how zebra cutie marks would work. I mean, they do have markings, but..."

"So you've never seen another zeeba?" Cherry said with cheerful enthusiasm. "What about your parents? Aren't they Zeee-bas too? Maybe they could help explain it!"

Zian sighed a little. "Oh, no. I was raised by ponies."

"Why?"

"Well... because I was adopted." Zian frowned a little in thought, then smiled. "How about you show me which room I'm in, huh, little hostess?"

"Yay! I'm a cupcake!" Cherry skipped down the hall to a large wooden door. "Here it is!" She reached into her saddlebag and gave Zian a key with a large tag on it. "Heeere you go! Drop your stuff off in your room and come downstairs why don't ya? The ponies with the big wings should be back soon, they went to go somewhere!"

"I see. I'll be sure to be right down then, posthaste."

"Okay, whatever that means! See you soon Miss Zian the zee-ba!" Cherry sang as she skipped back down the hallway.

Cherry bolted to her dad waiting for her downstairs. "Daddy, did I do good? Huh, huh, did I?"

Flambe smiled. "Yeah, Cherry you did great."

Cherry nearly exploded with joy. "Yay! Do I get paid now? Do I?"

Flambe laughed a little. "Well... sure why not. Here you go, two whole bits for being a great helper." He floated over two clinky shiny bits to Cherry who took it with joy fluttering throughout her.

Then a thought crossed her mind. "Daddy, what does 'adopted' mean?"

Flambe's eyes widened at that. "What brings this up?"

"Miss Zian said that she was adopted and raised by ponies! What does that mean?"

He glanced at her a minute, then ruffled her mane with a smile. "Let's talk about this in the living room, okay?"

"Okay!" Cherry happily trotted down to the living room and jumped onto the couch, Flambe joining her shortly after.

"Well... um...", he cleared his throat, "... adopted means that probably when she was a foal about your age, maybe younger, she needed somewhere to go."

"Ohh..." Cherry tapped her hooves together uneasily on the couch. "Are her parents where mommy is?"

Flambe crunched back in surprise. "Huh? Well... I don't know. Don't ask her though, that would be rude."

"Okay." She glanced down to the floor. "I'm sorry. I made you sad."

"No, it's okay, I'm okay, see!" Flambe smiled.

"Yay!" She smiled, then a thought crossed her mind. "Hey, what did mommy look like?"

He frowned a little and looked around "Oh, I guess we don't really have to any pictures of her up around here... I have some I could give you in my closet..."

"Later! Tell me what she looked like!" Cherry said happily, hugging a pillow. "Now, please!"

"Your mom... well... she had your eyes," Flambe magically tousled Cherry's mane. "And she had the same cute little horn, too!"

"Hey, my horn's not little, I am!"

"Yeah, yeah," He laughed.

Cherry tilted her head. "What was her name?"

"What, I never told you?" Flambe glanced over to her with a smile. "Maybe I have been avoiding telling you about her to long. Your mom's name was Sour Cherry."

Her eyes widened and she smiled as wide as she could. "Did she like sour candy?! Was her cutiemark sour candy?!"

"Wow you really like sour candy, don't you?" he laughed. "She did like sour candy. Actually, more like she was in love with sour candy. You know, on our first hearts and hooves day, I was going to get your mom the basic stuff, you know chocolate and flowers? But you see, I was a little late to get her a present, so they were out of the chocolate hearts I was going to get her, so I got her a pack of sour gummy hearts and hurried to our date. Oh, I thought she hated it with her first bite, but then she just couldn't stop eating them! You could say that was my fault..."

Cherry watched him as he talked about Sour Cherry, listening in content to each word. "I wish I could have met her, she sounds awesome!" Cherry said.

"Yeah. I wish you could have too." He sighed. "Okay, let's go see if we can get ready for tonight."

"How was I supposed to know they had rain scheduled for today?!"

Zian turned to the stairway and saw a soaking wet blue pegasus stallion in the front doorway, next to a older looking pegasus in a black raincover and an umbrella attached to his saddlebag, holding a fabric shopping bag in his mouth. She curiously walked more down the stairs when Cherry rushed up past her yelling, "I'll get the towel!"

The older Stallion set down his grocery bag and closed his umbrella. "Whirly, even if I haven't worked in the weather factory for more than half my life, I can still look at the sky and see the dark clouds rolling in."

Zian laughed a little and came all the way down the stairs. "Are you alright? You seem a little... under the weather!"

The younger stallion turned his head with a glare to shame bad puns, then stopped. "Oh, um... woah, you're a zebra!"

Zian tilted her head. "Um... yes?"

"Smooth talkin the mares as usual, Whirlybird." The old pegasus peeled off his rain slicker. "Pardon my son for gawking, missy. He's never seen a zebra before."

"Y-yes I have!" His son interrupted.

"Sure you have, kiddo. That's the spirit!" He extended out a hoof to Zian. "How's it goin'? Ponies call me Mech, and this is my son, Whirlwind."

Zian curiously bumped his hoof. "My name is Zian."

"Towels!" Cherry sang, magically flinging three large towels at Whirlwind. "Have you met Miss Zian, Mr. Pepper-sus?"

"Pepper-sus?" Whirlwind said, puzzled, as he dried off his wings.

"You mean Peg- a -sus, darlin'." Mech said.

"Oh, okay! I'll remember!" Cherry smiled brightly.

"Oh, you guys are back!" Flambe trotted over to the doors. "Are you two enjoying your visit..."

"Of course we are Flambe. It's been forever since I've been here." Mech said. "Whirly and I were just looking around for something to take back to Cloudsdayle."

"Well, Cherry and I were just getting the table set for the complementary dinner. Would anypony be needing anything?"

"We'll be fine, thanks. Hey, Whirly, why don't you stay here? I'll be a minute." Mech said, grabbing his things and fluttering up the stairs.

"Whatever." Whirlwind said, finishing drying himself off, though he was still a little damp.

Flambe and Cherry disappeared to the kitchen, and Zian, followed by Whirlwind, trotted into the side room, looking at the exhibits.

"So, -Whirlwind, right?- what brings you here?"

Whirlwind glanced at her. "Oh, well... my old man and I have go on vacation during the off season, especially since he retired."

"You said you work at the weather factory?" Zian said out of curiosity.

"Cloud division."

Zian smiled. "That sounds wonderful... too make something so pretty and essential."

"Geez, it's not that impressive, really." Whirlwind shrugged. "It's practically all automated nowadays. Pull this lever, push that button, rinse and repeat..." He looked up at the military pictures on the wall. "What about you? What do you do?"

"I'm a student, you could say. I live nearby but I haven't really had a break in a while." Zian said, shrugging it off. "Herbology, mystics, the usual stuff."

"Huh."

"What?"

"I was just wondering why a zebra would choose to study around here. I mean, we're not exactly exotic." Whirlwind sighed. "You know, you're not what I really expected a zebra to be like. I mean, your mane doesn't look like they do in the pictures, see?" He pointed to a old photograph of Several Equestrian guards and zebra soldiers.

"Oh, I see. so then, Just because those zebras look like that all zebras do?"

Whirlwind frowned "Oh, um, I'm sorry, that's not what I meant..."

"It's okay, I figured you didn't mean to offend."

"Oh, dammit, I always gotta mess these things up..."

"I forgive you." Zian said with a smile. "I'm going to see how what's for dinner."

After a quick and simple dinner, Zian trotted upstairs and locked her bedroom door. Fluffing the pillows and cracking open the window to let in the post rain night air, she settled in over the blanket and fell into a peaceful sleep.

Cherry woke happily before the sun even came out, ecstatic for no reason in particular. Using her magic, she flung open her drapes and looked at the last of the early morning stars. Her eyes radiated with delight as she stared at the moon, even more so since she knew the next night would be a full moon.

Looking down at the street from her window, the glistening shallow pools of water had her even more excited to trot by the shops as soon as her father would wake up and splash in the puddles.

Frowning in boredom when she realized the sun wouldn't be up for a few minutes, she killed some time making her bed then magically folded tissues into cranes and levitated them about the room.

Once the light slowly started filling the room, she trotted over to the window and watched the sun rise and illuminate the drifting clouds into bright pink hues. She giggled, thinking sillily about how cute it would be to have cotton candy floating around the sky.

The sun was particularly bright that morning, making the wet grass glint a dark teal as a light fog misted through the street. Suddenly, the sunlight seemed to burn a bright white and soak the world in light, causing Cherry to fall back and cover her eyes.

Cherry's eyes still stung as the light dissipated, and she laid on the floor nearly crying, then decided to get up and see if anypony knew why the sunlight got so bright all of a sudden.

Trotting into the hallway, she caught Zian on her way back to her bedroom from the bathroom. "Miss Zian!"

"Hm? Oh, good morning Cherry."

"Did you see the light?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Zian yawned. "Let's go downstairs. I don't want us waking everypony up."

Once downstairs, Cherry rambled about the near blinding sheen of light as Zian half listened, still shaking off the morning dizziness. "Are you sure you weren't just staring at the sun too hard?" She said, her eyes tired. "Or maybe you dreamt it and fell out of bed?"

"No! I've been up for hours, really!" Cherry said in her defence.

"Alright then." Zian smiled.

"You two are up early." They turned and saw Flambe waiting at the staircase. "Did you see that light this morning? It was strange to be sure... I'm sure it was just one of the princesses though." He smiled. "Do you girls want breakfast?"

While eating plates of neatly stacked pancakes, Flambe trotted over. "Cherry, actually I was thinking that we could go somewhere later this morning, if you wanted to. So I guess I'm glad your up, Zian! Could you watch the museum while I'm gone?"

"Normally I wouldn't condone business ponies to leave their establishments to strangers, but this time I will let it slide. Sure." Zian said, taking a bite of pancakes.

"Where are we gonna go?" Cherry said with a smile.

"Oh, you'll see. Why don't you go get ready when you're done eating? It's supposed to be a little chilly, why don't you wear that nice sweater?"

"Well... okay! I'm done now!" Cherry said happily, trotting upstairs.

Zian turned to Flambe, "So, where are you gonna go?"

"It's a bit personal, but I was going to take her to see her mom. We normally go once a year anyway, but I don't think she really understood what was going on," Flambe laughed a bit to himself. "And once she starts school and sees that all of her friends have moms... well, I'll jump that hurdle when I get to it."

"That's gotta be tough, but she's a good kid." Zian smiled. "As long as she has a good father like you, she'll be fine."

"Yeah. I'm just not looking forward to dealing with mare problems as an old horse, though!" Flambe laughed. "I thought once I'd never meet somepony, let alone have foals, and here I am a single parent with my own war museum..."

"Well, I hope you two have a nice time at least," Zian said optimistically, taking a satisfying final bite of her pancake.

Later that morning Cherry was as excited as ever, dressed in her fancy knit sweater she got for her birthday a few months back, her mane brushed back and she was all set for an adventure. She was a little sad that the puddles dried up, but she was ecstatic for surprises.

Flambe frowned at the flower shop. "Closed?"

"Oh, we were going to buy flowers! I like flowers!" Cherry said, trotting closer and admiring the window display. "Wow, they're so pretty! Did you know some plants grow better in colder weather?"

"Oh, wow! No I didn't!" Flambe smiled. "Well... where do you want to go?"

"I wanna get some shimmer paper!"

Flambe's eyes widened. "Really, the craft store?"

"Ori' showed me how to make stuff, I've been practicing!" Cherry smiled. "I saw these really pretty papers at the craft store last time, I wanna get some."

"Ori? Oh, the Saddle Arabian stallion from a while back! Oh, Okay. Maybe you could show me some at our next stop." Flambe smiled, tossling her hair.

After buying a couple packages of small square metallic paper, he stopped at a bench. "Why don't you sit down a minute and show me?"

"Okay daddy!" Cherry smiled, magically opening a package of paper and sitting down with a shiny red piece of paper. "Hmm... oh! I'll make a butterfly!"

Flambe smiled as he watched her red magic aura concentrate on the little paper and fold it, making little mistakes here and there, but still. He clapped his hooves a little when she was done, showing off the amazing paper butterfly she made. "That's amazing! You're getting pretty good at magic, aren't you Cherry?"

"I sure am!" she smiled. "I'm gonna be a wizard!"

"Oh? Well maybe we should go visit Canterlot in the winter. I bet you'd love it."

Her large green eyes lit up with excitement. "Really?!"

"Really!" Flambe smiled. "Come on, let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"Well..." he thought to himself. Maybe today wasn't the best time to bring up the big 'let's go see your dead mother's grave' elephant. "Let's go to... the park?"

"Oh." Cherry frowned a bit.

"Huh? What's wrong with the park?"

"Well..." Cherry scrunched her muzzle a little. "It's no fun anymore! Mrs. Primrose messed it up!"

Flambe thought about it. "Well... I guess it doesn't have a playground anymore, does it."

"We can go anyway." Cherry said with her usual chipper attitude.

"My apologies, but this is a private party."

Flambe sighed. "Oh, um... sorry, Mrs. Primrose. I didn't know..."

"Doesn't look like a party..." Cherry grumbled.

"Sush, Cherry. That was rude." he whispered.

"Sorry."

"If you don't mind, I'll be off to try to deal with this mess..."

Suddenly somepony started screaming. Cherry looked past the open fence and froze. "Monsters! What are they doing!"

"Huh?" Flambe looked over to what she was looking at and his eyes widened. "What?"

Several ponies started to scatter as creatures from nightmares filed out of the forest. They were pony in shape, nealy skin and pones and hairless, caked in thick mud and grass, their eyes, if they had them, seemed to glow a bright white. One stomped down a mare near a dessert table, it's whooves caught in her dress, and...

Magically picking up Cherry, he ran back towards the house. "Daddy? What were those things?" Cherry said softly. "Those ponies are in trouble!"

Cherry watched as several other ponies came out of their houses towards the screaming to help, only to be caught by a pack of those creatures. "Cherry, stop looking!" Flambe screamed, turning into the museum. and dropping Cherry inside. "Don't leave."

"But..."

"Flambe, what's going on?" Mech said, coming downstairs.

"Don't go outside!" Flambe ran over to the gun case and magically unlocked it, grabbing the old model and levitating a box of fireworks he was saving for the end of the summer. "I hope this works."

"Are you insane?!" Zian said.

"Ponies are dying out there, I'm not going to sit back and do nothing!" Flambe gave a quick hug to Cherry. "Be a good girl, okay. Stay inside."

Cherry frowned."What? Where are you going, don't go!"

"I'm going to do my job." Flambe shrugged with a smile. "I'll be right back."

Cherry nearly ran to the door after Flambe trotted out, but then a yellow earth pony mare was flung through the doors. "Huh?" She said. "Who are you?"

The earth pony looked back at the door as it was slammed and heard several small explosions, followed by a few big ones. Then nothing at all.

"What's going on?" Whirlwind asked her, a thrill of panic in his voice.

"I... I don't know, ponies are dying then... coming back?! Those things came out of nowhere...," the earth pony said, "...like something right out of a nightmare!"

"What are we gonna do?" Zian whimpered.

"We should go to Canterlot." Cherry said, the emergence of the situation not quite sinking in. "Maybe someone there knows what's going on."

The room looked at her as the screaming outside subsided. Finally, Mech spoke up. "You know, she does make a good point. We should go to Canterlot."

"What? And go out there?!" The earth pony glared.

"Oh, and you have a better suggestion Ms..."

"Autumn."

"Autumn, right. Nice to meet you. We don't exactly have any other option here. Let's just head to Canterlot after it dies down outside. Probably a heck of a lot safer than sitting on our asses doing nothing." Mech offered.

Autumn gritted her teeth. She knew they both had a point. She just wished she knew what the in the name of Celestia was going on.

"Glowing eyes?" Zian said, looking outside from the window.

"Yeah!" Cherry said. "Do you see my Daddy Miss Zian? Is my daddy coming back? We need to go!"

Zian frowned, her stomach lurching. "Um..."

Autumn was already throwing up in the waste basket, the calmness disappearing as flashes of the gore popped into her head and the fowl smell seemed to catch up to her.

"Miss Zian?" Cherry was looking up at her expectantly, but Zian just didn't know what to say.