Chapter One—Foul Play

Today's struggles may seem hard, but they will help develop the strength needed to face tomorrow.

I regained and lost consciousness at least a few times before I woke up properly. When I did, my coming to was more than a little unpleasant; shouts and arguing filled the air, and profanities were flung about as if they were not so horrid. I shuddered with each forbidden one; it was such language, only a tiny spark, that had initially begun ponykind's long road to destruction and devastation. Of course, it wasn't a curse word which had been the ultimate trigger for the Yaks to release their new nuclear bomb on ponykind—and, by extension, Equestria retaliated with magic bombs not due to a swear, but because they were about to be slaughtered.

But everything had almost certainly begun with unpleasantries, years before the war when the businessponies of Equestria started encroaching onto the Yak lands. Farmers and pegasi melted the snow to provide more fertile land for crops or livestock, whilst mining companies claimed unexplored caverns for their own and exploited the resources there without restraint. Factories quickly sprung up around the mountains, the land there being the best place to hide such monstrosities from the ponies who already frowned upon the ones in their neighbourhoods.

It was by that logic that foul language was strictly forbidden in the village. Everypony knew what the words were, of course—they were told to one another in hushed whispers so as not to let anyone else hear—but they were never spoken in pleasant company. And it was fear that kept ponies in line in that way; rumours circulated around the village quickly, and given that none of the ponies who swore ever returned from their exile up topside...

Needless to say, it was jarring to hear the words used with so little regard as to the consequences. I knew better, of course—just saying something bad wouldn't make you explode—but the terror of tales that I'd heard (and believed) as a foal still had an impact on me now.

Though my vision was hazy, I rose into a sitting position slowly and rubbed a hoof across my forehead tenderly. I then glanced about myself quickly and took note of the fact that I was sat in the back of some sort of cart. All around me were the still bodies—Faust, don't let them be dead!—of my fellow villagers, many of whose fur was now stained red. It was no struggle to work out what the dye was.

I gagged and scrambled to lower my hoof from my head to my lips; the ponies who were pulling us along probably didn't need to know that I wasn't still out of it. Instead I swallowed deeply, lowered my trembling and bloodied hoof and then began to shuffle forwards to the driver's seat. When I got there, I sat taller ever so slowly and peeked my eyes over the top of the wooden sides. I was careful to keep my ears pinned so as to make as little of myself visible as possible.

It was then that I truly realised just how doomed I really was. Ponies of all shapes and sizes loitered around together, looking more like a pack of wolves than a family unit or friends. They chatted together in little groups, admittedly, but none of it was the friendliness I was used to seeing in the village. Indeed, the nicest phrase I picked up on was something like, "It was your fucking fault that cunt got away!" But though it made me cringe and cower a little, it was nothing in comparison to how they acted.

They were almost like young foals, fighting to outdo each other—if foals had massive blades and guns strapped to their bloodied sides. Every few seconds somepony brandished their knife, swiping through the air towards their companions—and any chance of me excusing it as being friendly teasing went out of the window when I saw one gruff stallion laugh as his partner's shoulder was sliced open. The blood dripped on the floor slowly; he seemed to take great pride in the fact that he had caused it. The injured then retaliated, naturally—but the fight did not end until both were lying on the floor and covered in blood.

And the carriage simply walked past them as if they were not there. Nopony cared; I was doubtful that anyone had so much as noticed.

Anypony except me, of course.

It was no wonder that only the strongest village ponies ever got to come up here, I realised with bitterness. The place seemed to be, so far at least, a complete hellhole. The landscape was nothing short of something from an old, pre-war horror novel, blown to pieces and then crudely stitched back together in a hideous manner with weeds and blood and, if my eyes served me well, little rotting chunks of flesh. It was enough to make my stomach reel—but, though I felt nauseous, I could not be sick. Perhaps it was a good thing; I was still content to remain hidden.

I sunk back down to my stomach and then began to crawl across to the main bulk of ponies. I eyed them warily and sniffed meaningfully a few times as I neared. But there was nothing. No unpleasant breaths of air, no slight rustling, no rising chests.

I whimpered and scrambled backwards, now breathing heavily myself as if to compensate for them. I placed my hoof on my chest, relieved to find that my heart was still thumping away. I was alive, and—no, no. I was far from well. In my frantic retreat, my injured hoof had begun to burn once more, and the pain, so much stronger than what I was used to, made my vision blur. It was a relief, in some ways; I couldn't see my friends' unseeing faces now.

And then the reality of the situation hit me.

Dead. They were all dead, never to see the dim light of day again. The villagers, who had worked so hard for so many years to create a tolerable place for the next generation to grow up, were silent. My mother and father—where were they?—couldn't help me anymore. They were gone, and I was left! Alone! There would be no more scrambled egg on bread, piping hot in the morning; no more long discussions of my mother's dirty magic, and the odd side joke of throwing water over her horn the next time she used it. And—oh Celestia!—I wouldn't even be able to apologise...

My mother was dead, somewhere in that heap of bodies, and the last thing I'd ever said to her—her dying memory of me—was that "I didn't want to be late". No goodbyes. No "I love you"s. Not even so much as a smile. Her last, dying memory of me was nothing more than me dismissing her attempts to help.

I didn't need help. I didn't like help. But that didn't mean I wanted to be left all alone in whatever hellish place this could turn out to be.

I blubbered slightly and collapsed to my underbelly, whimpering at the searing pain which arose in my hoof as I moved. I glanced down at it quickly, tentatively, before my breath caught in my throat at the putrid state of the reddened, swollen wound which now leaked pus. I yanked my eyes away quickly, only more horrified for my inspection. I then sniffled as I whispered to the pile of bodies, "Mama, Papa..."

There was never a reply. Over and over again I breathed the words in a shaking voice, but there did not come a reply. No coo with a gentle hoof stroking my mane; no laugh at my foalishness. Only silence, or what could be considered as such out here. My little bubble was quiet, at least. The mob surrounding me, shouting at each other and grunting as they did Faust-knows-what? They were not so.

But then my little bubble popped when my uninjured hoof brushed over the wound, and the world suddenly became loud. Too loud. Everything was bright and overwhelming; it only made me yelp and cower more. But, for all of its horridness, the deafening bickering at least dulled out my complaints.

And then, from somewhere deep within the mass of bodies, a pair of large, bright pink eyes suddenly appeared, soaked with glistening tears. When I squinted and leaned closer, gasping for each little breath in between my own choked sobs, the pile then began to move a little.

With a dull grunt, a weary little colt pushed his way forwards. He scrunched up his muzzle as he struggled and wiped his eyes on his shoulders so that his chocolate-brown fur turned a shade close to black. It was a coat that I knew all too well, and not for good reasons. But while he may have come close to killing me when he teleported me accidentally into the wolf pen, right now he was just as scared as I was.

I smiled at him weakly through my tears and opened my hoof to call him over to me, but quickly recoiled when the rush of air against the wound sent electric jolts up my spine. My teeth squeaked as they ground together and my back hunched up; when the little colt recoiled slightly, I hastened to force myself to look less pained. He was cautious for a moment before he squirmed his way out from his macabre hiding spot; he then clambered most ungracefully over to me, falling over each unmoving body which got in his way.

And when he got to my side, his tears morphed into an all out wail. He screamed as he leapt upon my body, his hooves welded to my skin as he clung onto me as if I was the only thing he had left in this world.

Honestly, I probably was—especially when his cries silenced even the insanity of the maniacs around us, and in that one moment time seemed to still. To freeze. And then came a quiet and raspy, "What was that?"

I slammed my hoof into the little colt's muzzle quickly so as to cut off his cry, and I threw myself down. The pain which ravaged my body as I did so was torturous, but I didn't cry out; I couldn't allow myself to. In his blubbering state, the little colt also seemed to understand the potential danger of the situation he'd now gotten us in. He kept just as still as me, or as still as he could manage at least. Our breaths were held as we waited.

A touch of wind across my back was almost enough to make my nerve cave in, but I forced myself to stay still and gripped the colt's hoof under the dead bodies of our fellow villagers. He returned the squeeze almost immediately, but otherwise did not move either.

A wet and cracked hoof began to prod on my flank, nudging my cutie mark forcefully as if trying to peel it off—I so nearly shuddered at the thought, but instead I managed to just hold my breath and lie still—and I felt my resolve begin to break. Sweat beaded ever so slightly on my forehead, but when mixed with the blood from my hoof and my family, morbid as the thought was, it was less obvious. The tears which slowly leaked from the corners of my eyes, from both the burning pain of my hoof as the bodies around me bumped into it slightly and from the realisation of everything that I had just lost, were not so.

The cart jolted as the pony behind us grew bored of nuzzling around through the littered corpses and instead opted to clamber up here with us. The little colt by my side whimpered slightly, and I struggled not to join him. It was only the creaking of the cart that saved us, then.

When the pony began to roughly rummage around, searching for life, I realised with horror that I was quite literally a metre away from death. The pony, whoever he was, may as well have been the Grim Reaper; he held my life, and the colt's, in his hooves. If he discovered us, that was.

I couldn't hold my breath forever, but the colt's abilities were even lesser. His breathing was frantic and, as the air brushed past my ear, far from quiet; it was only my body, pressed mostly against his, that hid that fact. But I was only a pony, as well; I stole a few quick, short breaths and held them, feeling my lungs burn just as my hoof did after only a few seconds. My situation was only worsened when the pony then came to stop behind us, maybe having seen some sense of life.

It was over, I thought frantically as his breath fell across my back now. It was putrid, thick with the smell of rotting flesh and decay; had my muzzle not been shoved in between two other corpses which somewhat dulled the stench with their own, I would not have been able to prevent gagging. But even worse was what came next.

Something warm and wet landed between my shoulders, and the stench only increased before it began to trail its way down my back. Down to my flank it continued, and then it slowed; for a moment, I thought I'd been spared the distasteful action. What a fool I was. No, the pony was only preparing himself; he brushed his chin over my fur before he slammed his teeth together, the dull sound suddenly so awful. He then began to nip forcefully at my fur, and when I refused to let myself react to that he clamped his teeth down on my flesh harder. I couldn't help but squeak quietly then; he drew up immediately and snorted, a wicked grin presumably upon his face. But the cart squeaked as he did so and I heard him falter and lower himself down again.

And then he chuckled darkly and drew closer to me again, lifting my dock with his muzzle. Oh, Celestia, no. I kept still, tried not to let my body clench up. It was a test, that was all; no pony was so horrid as to do that.

Something warm and long and hard pressed against me, and I drew in a quick but quiet breath, my body tensing slightly. But whether the pony noticed that, I did not know; all I was aware of was his warm length, slowly prodding at me and—

"Cunt!"

The length drew back sharply, and the pony behind me grunted. He stammered a few times as he retreated quickly, and I noted with pleasure the dull thud as he fell from the back of the cart onto the dusty, dead earth below. He then, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, leapt to his hooves and yelled, "Ah was jus' checkin' 'em proper!"

There was a silence before a low "oh" resonated throughout the collected crowd. "You was checkin' 'em proper, you says?" the voice replied, and the pony on the floor nodded frantically. But he could not utter the words which were about to come out of his muzzle, for something small tore through the flesh of his neck just as it had done my hoof. He fell to the floor, screaming in a wet kind of way. All around, the murmurs quieted—before the speaker laughed. I knew it was him, because nopony else could surely be stupid enough to do so. "Dirty fuckin' bastard," he then cried, clapping his hooves together. "Doesn't 'e know that these 'ere ponies are a special order?"

A laugh, tentative at first, rang out through the crowd. A moment later, it was genuine. Both the little colt and I cowered where we lay, horrified.

"Move out, Pack," the pony yelled just before the sound of a whipcrack rung out through the air. And, a moment later, the dilapitated carriage began its rickety journey once again, and the crowd did not even seem bothered in the slightest that a pony had just died—oh, Luna, was he still alive?—before their very eyes. I wanted to think that they knew that pony had been a horrid piece of work; I wanted to believe that they were only unfazed by the horrors that they must have seen in their life. But while my brain desperately pleaded that that be the truth, both my heart and the little colt's—poor thing, he was only young—knew better.

"K-Klip?" he murmured after a few moments, his entire body trembling beneath mine as if spasming. When I slowly rolled off of him, my hoof screaming as I did so, he then looked up at me, and his lower lip quivered. It was sad, really; he knew my name—you knew everypony in such a small community—but after the incident with the wolves I had always refused to acknowledge him, or to take note of his. "We're gonna die, aren't we?"

It was a heartbreaking statement, so full of understanding that a young colt such as him should not know. And so, though it hurt to do so, I pushed myself up so that I was now sat on my haunches. I could not bear to sit any other way; the pain in my hoof, now truly reinvigorated, was too strong.

“Of course we’re not gonna,” I whispered quietly, smiling as confidently as I could. His pink eyes were proof that I had not helped give him the relief that I had wanted him to have. “Uh, what’s your name?”

The colt looked downwards slowly. “You don’t like me, do you?”

I was quiet before I shook my head quickly—perhaps a little too quickly. Maybe it was obvious that I was exaggerating the truth, but he didn’t question it further. Truthfully, he probably didn’t see any reason to do so; he thought he would be dead within the hour anyway. “Your name?” I prompted once again, avoiding the question.

“My name?” He looked up at me, and a small blush rose on his cheeks. He then said, in something of squeaked whisper, “I’m, y’know, Thorn. Yeah. Thorn Weaver.” He tried to smile through his tears, though it was a pitiful attempt; I scowled at him quickly.

“Thorn Weaver, huh,” I murmured, my head cocked. For some reason, the name itself sounded as un-village-like as possible, but I quickly brushed that thought aside as the tears began to well up in my eyes. The pain from doing so without thinking only made me whimper more before I whispered, my teeth gritted slightly, “You sure about that?”

The little colt nodded frantically, his pink eyes focused most intently on the wood of the driver’s seat. Yeah, right. He seemed to pick up on my distrust pretty quickly, though, and slouched when he realised his pitiful attempt at a lie had failed.

He was talking to a master, after all.

“That’s not my name,” he whispered, and he hunched his back slightly. He could not meet my eyes as he then continued with, “Please… You won't laugh, right?”

I looked around pointedly and sniffled. “Hardly the place for it,” I grumbled, my body quivering once more. I dared not let my eyes focus on anything but the colt; that didn't change reality, though. But either way, he seemed slightly reassured, at least.

“I don't think my Mama…” An audible but not quite loud whimper escaped his lips before he began again and said, “I think I was meant to be a filly. My name’s… I’m Weaver.”

“Just Weaver?”

A sigh came from the poor thing’s lips. “Rose Weaver,” he then admitted, finally, and he slouched next to me. I could feel his body trembling as he lay there. Cold. Frightened. Alone.

But he wasn't alone. Nevertheless, I felt myself getting ever so slightly frustrated at the fact that already, after only a few minutes of knowing him—and after I saved his life—he could still lie to me. We were almost as good as dead anyway; what difference did it make?

I didn't trust liars.

The name was unfortunate, though. And it was with that acceptance that I begrudgingly held out my hoof and wrapped it around his small frame.

"Come here, kiddo," I whispered, my heart thumping at the thought of my word choice. My mother—no! No, I wouldn't think about that. Not now. I instead tried to force a smile and murmured, when the colt faltered and didn't get up immediately, "C'mon Thorny. We're not gonna die on my watch."

The little colt—I would call him Thorn, if only to keep him happy—nodded slowly and then shifted around so that he was cuddled up against my chest. His brown coat was slightly matted with blood, though I couldn't tell if it was his own or from hiding under the pile of bodies. Whatever the case, his eyes slipped shut, and he let out a breath, his muzzle buried into my fur. I smiled and left him for a brief moment, then shifted his body about with my uninjured hoof to make him look less alive. He momentarily fidgeted, but quickly calmed and kept still. After a pained glance about at the land which now seemed to be my home, I then whimpered and lay down with my hoof under my head and the injured one thrown out to the side, safe from being touched. And then I simply lay there, not even able to sleep even if I had wanted to.

Level One
New Perks: None

Author's Note

Many thanks to Dagger of Winter, AShadowOfCygnus, RuinQueenofOblivion and Word Worthy for prereading and editing this chapter!

Thanks also go to you, the reader, for taking an interest in this tale; if you would like to get involved in the story in some way, please leave a comment, a favourite, and especially a thumb up! I am also always looking for people to join the prereading and editing team; if you're interested, PM me. Any and all pre-release comments are valued!