General Amnesty

by Cynewulf

Rating: teen
Tags: Sex, Applejack, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash, Romance
Length: 11090

A new age has overtaken Equestria. Whether it will be a good one or not is irrelevant to Rainbow Dash. Her mission goes on regardless.

The great evils of the world have clashed with the champions of all that was good and in true dialectical fashion, exhausted each other. The world Rainbow Dash and her wife Applejack live in now is the World After, one full of uncertainties and difficult questions.

Rainbow Dash doesn't care about any of that. She has a mission, and she intends to finish it, come hell or high water...

Or her spouse.

Art by Britishstarr

Published 2017-09-02 21:10:06 UTC
Last updated 2017-09-02 21:10:06 UTC

A Mare More Sinned Against Than Sinning

The weakest phrases in any tongue are these: “You don’t have to do this” and “I promise.” They work, of course, because language is a strange thing of guile and horseshit and even the weakest phrases have power when applied, like a lever long enough can move the world. The latter is weak because it is so easily broken, and anyway if one’s oaths were in question than the game is probably already up. The former because it is always true, but not in any way that matters.

Rainbow Dash, grim and silent, sat on the train to Canterlot, and thought hard on those two phrases.

The thing about somepony telling you that you don’t have to do something is that, well, of course you do. On some level, it was true that she had the capability in a purely physical way—no one was controlling her movements. No one, pony or spirit or griffon or whatever, had ensorcelled her into buying the train ticket, or waiting at the station. None of the ponies of beleaguered Ponyville had held her loved ones on the edge of death and given her some dire choice of do or watch them die.

No, the choice she had made, or was making, was not technically automatic. If anything it required her to go quite a bit out of her way. It had been dangerous, but most of the things she had done in the last year were dangerous. It had been treacherous, but again, treachery of a certain variety was something she was used to by now.

Just… not the personal sort.

She shifted in her seat, and then slid off to stretch her wings for a moment. Movement had always been a source of solace for Rainbow Dash. She was the consummate mare of action. Exertion brought a hazy, distant world into sharp and arresting focus.

So, instead of sitting back down and drowning herself in questions she had little interest in answering, Rainbow Dash slid into the aisle and began to walk to the back of the car.

She felt the rattling of the cars beneath her as she crossed over from one to the other. She felt it shaking her legs like the tremors in the night that came sometimes, fanning out like fire along the old scars like cracks in the earth. It was a wonderfully uncomfortable sensation. Perversely, she loved the mild discomfort. Not too much pain, but enough to feel so deliciously alive. It was the Runner’s High, the bliss of a workout, the way the blood in your ears roared with delight of battle. It was a visceral reminder of one’s strength.

Mostly, she liked it because it made it easier to be angry. She needed to be angry. Sulking did not become her.

Her car had been mostly empty. This one was rather full. Two dozen souls looked up at her very briefly, but she did not shirk from their gaze. The eyes fell away. She’d learned this over the last year of vagrant struggle: ponies paid less attention to you than you expected, even when you looked a bit off.

The aisle was crowded with excess baggage that she maneuvered over with indifferent ease. Ponies headed home again, free to do so at last. She should have felt one way or another about it. If she had been a character in one of Fluttershy’s ratty, shredded romance novels, she would probably break into some sort of stirring, passionate speech on the rights and dignities of all ponies--the terrible things they did to one another. She might have wept at the sight, or cursed these collaborators whose zeal could not match her own.

But this was not one of Fluttershy’s novels. It was reality, and Rainbow Dash was no handsome, noble stallion of the ponies. She was bitter, and tired, and most importantly she was not a fan of speeches.

So instead she slipped into the bathroom at the back of the train car for a moment, and happened to catch sight of herself in the mirror for a moment, and remembered.

*

“Can’t sleep?”

Rainbow Dash did not turn, for there was no need. She could see the shadowed form of Applejack leaning against the bathroom door. She was, as always, beautiful in a way that spoke the lie to every hoary headed stallion who thought that grace and aesthetic desire could not live in harmony with the iron physique of the farm mare. She was older, though not as much as she appeared. The last year or so had not at all been kind to her. They had not been kind to anypony, to be fair. Her hair was down, the way that always drew Rainbow Dash’s eyes even when she wished it wouldn’t, and so she found herself watching in reverence.

Rainbow Dash shrugged.

“Come to bed,” Applejack said, still in the doorway.

Rainbow Dash didn’t answer. Her eyes blazed a path from her wife’s long mane to the earring on her left ear, a golden stud from which hung one of her feathers preserved with magic. A cliched gesture, perhaps, but one she still appreciated.

They stood like that a moment without anything further said. They felt each other’s gaze and fell back into it for a moment, as they often had since the fighting had stopped. There were moments, here and there, at least one a day, when things were silent and they would find themselves in the same room or tangled up in one another and the world grew strangely dim and all that mattered, the only thing that lived and breathed besides themselves was the other, meeting their gaze.

It was a little frightening.

Applejack slowly straightened herself and came closer to nuzzle against Rainbow’s cheek. “Come to bed,” she said again, her voice soft. There was no firm spine to it, no command. It was an invitation. With a stiff nod, Rainbow scooted back from the mirror and followed Applejack back into the darkness of their room. She clicked the light off as she passed and they plunged into darkness.

They lay there, still and quiet atop the sheets, pressed close—close enough that each could, perhaps, fool themselves into thinking they could see the other in the vague shapes only visible from the suggestion of the moon over the water. Sight failed, and so, like all things do, they either relied on the other senses or they made things up. Smell and sound and touch took the place of eyes. From the warmth of her wife’s breath, Rainbow Dash could see in the great darkness of night, or could pretend that she could. By those signs in that moment, she thought she could step beside herself and draw Applejack as she was: her mane in beautiful dissarray, strands and tangles and long waves; her body a rise and fall of toughened, rounded hills; her face an ancient statue of some heathen god of grain and marching; her legs like cannonades, her pose like a lover’s.

She did not say any of this. Why should she? Applejack knew it already, though perhaps not in the same words. No, definitely not in the same words. Rainbow Dash could not have articulated the feeling she had even if she had wished to, because it was not a thing one could articulate. The quiet broke when you tried to make it be something it wasn’t.

They both were awake. There was a stalemate. Rainbow could not sleep. Applejack would not sleep.

“I know you’re thinkin’ ‘bout it,” Applejack said at last.

Rainbow nodded.

“I ain’t tellin’ you not to, sug.”

“Aren’t you? Haven’t you been?”

Applejack shifted slightly and laid her head on Rainbow. “That’s fair. I meant, not right now. It’s late. Nothin’ good ever came of thinkin’ after bedtime’s come.”

She wasn’t wrong, Rainbow thought. Thinking too long into the night was intoxicating, but often fruitless.

“I just can’t stop hearing him in my head.”

She snorted. “I pity ya, then, cause I hate that damn voice of his.”

Rainbow smiled, but did not laugh. “Over and over. He acts like it’s over.”

Applejack shrugged against her. “Part of it is. The nobles surrendered.”

“Like they ever mattered.”

She heard Applejack sigh. “Don’t make me defend them sons of bitches. They did, whether we wanted them to or not. They’ve got all the money and the ponies and they know where all the forms go.”

“And how to surrender like the Princess won’t ever come back. Cowards. Traitors.”

“I won’t say you’re wrong.”

“Good.”

“But I won’t say you’re right either,” Applejack continued, and she propped herself up. Rainbow couldn’t see her face, and it was strange to see only the outline of her above. “We don’t need them to live, you and I. Maybe the rest don’t either. Maybe we could live without even the fancy kind of shackles, like we used to. If you believe the stories about the great herds and all that, livin’ in mutual give and take, the all for all and the one for one and all that, what the book of Gaia talks ‘bout. But not yet. You can’t expect the whole world to change all at once out of the blue, Dash. Ya jus’ can’t. It won’t do it. It builds to a change.”

“It’s just… it’s injury to insult. It’s wrong, AJ. He forgave us, like we were his to forgive! Like he has any right to do that! Like he shouldn’t be begging forgiveness from every pony from Lunangrad to Applewood! Like he’s some sort of great peacemaker! Like he isn’t a bastard! And I hate it. I hate it more than I can stand. I just… I just keep thinking about him sitting in that palace, using her office, walking in her garden. I just…” Her voice stalled out, but she pressed on, her chest burning. “I can’t stop thinking about how one day fillies and colts are gonna learn a-about f-fuckin’ Malachite the Peacebringer or whatever they’re gonna call him and how good and smart he was and it makes me wanna kick down a house.”

“You can’t do nothin’ about it, Dash.”

“Can’t I?”

There was a long pause.

“You don’t mean that,” Applejack said slowly.

“Why not?”

Applejack had gone rigid and still. “You don’t,” she said again, a bit more forcefully. “Ain’t a thing you can do. Got no cadres, got no plans, got nothin’ to work with. No contacts, no ponies on the inside, and you won’t get none of that ‘cause we’re all too tired to keep going and there’s nowhere to hang on and wait.”

“I can get those things.”

“Nah.”

Rainbow rose until their faces were an inch apart. “I can,” she said. “I know I can, AJ. I know I can. Give me a week, maybe two, and I can do it. I can get enough together to teach them to patronize us. I can teach those old rich bastards to abandon us cause they’re scared and tired and they’re afraid she won’t come back. I can do it. I can show them.”

Applejack shuddered. “Gaia and Celestia, you could, couldn’t you?”

“I could,” Rainbow almost snarled. “I could.”

“But you won’t.”

“And why’s that?”

Applejack’s face was unreadable. Rainbow was glad. She didn’t want to read it.

“Because you’ll destroy everything, and you know it,” said Applejack at last. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I…”

“Even if you make it, even if you do it, you know it’ll come crashin’ down. Everything. They’ll never stop hunting, and we’ll never be able to stop fighting ‘em. We’ll never be in one place more than a week. More ‘n just you and me, hon. Everybody. All of our friends will be in the same boat. The ponies all around us won’t give us no hearth or shelter, ‘cause we’ll be the ones who gave them whoever comes after old Uncle Malachite. It’ll be our fault, every bad thing that happens after. It won’t be fair but they’ll say it, and they’ll be right ‘cause, hell, it’s the best answer and it fits.”

“They’d be with us,” Rainbow said, but she shrank back. She was already imagining it. Being on the run again, forever. They’d been in this little house by the sea for what felt an eternity and already she loved it.

Applejack couldn’t do what Rainbow did. She couldn’t just shrug and fly away and keep flying. She wasn’t built for it, and her heart wasn’t in it. Picking up and moving for Dash wasn’t so hard, as long as she wasn’t alone. But Applejack had wilted with no home to call her own. No fields and no trees, no routine and no work to be proud of and she…

“Thinking about it now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I know.”

“You won’t.”

“I won’t.”

Applejack nuzzled her and kissed her. “Dash, I just want us to start over. I just want to go back to bein’ alive. The Princess will come back, but until she does I just want to have a chance at living. I don’t like it. You don’t like it. But we don’t have to like it. We just have to live.”

Rainbow Dash lay limp on the bed. “What do we do then?”

“Jus’ live a little, while we can,” Applejack murmured, and kissed her again. This time Rainbow kissed back, and pulled her wife down into a tight embrace. “Be with me. Stay awhile, and I swear to you when the time comes, we’ll be there. We’ll be alive to be there and see her come back to us. I jus’ don’ wanna lose you, you know that. I know you know that. I ain’t mad, I’m jus—”

Rainbow nibbled on Applejack’s neck and she whined in pleasure.

“I know,” Dash said into her coat. “I know. I don’t wanna leave you.”

“I… ah, please?”

Rainbow kept biting along her wife’s shoulder and felt Applejack melt.

“I jus’ wanna go home,” Applejack breathed, and then she gave up talking and pleading and proximity took over.

“You will. Promise,” Rainbow said, but she wasn’t sure either of them were following anymore.

Author's Note

I have a head cold, 180 bucks of stuff from the game store (It's all warhammer) a pack of American Spirits, sunglasses on at night, its raining, and we have tank of gas with 100 miles until Chicago.

Thanks Scarlet for being Scarlet. Thanks Jordanis for being Jordanis. Thanks Raze for being weird

Time Shall Unfold What Plighted Cunning Hides

The General Amnesty had been announced a month before, in the middle of a grand speech given by one former Viceroy of the Crystal Empire, Malachite the Younger.

Malachite was a unicorn, strangely enough, though of a different sort. The ponies of the old empire had grown strange with isolation, taking on the nature of their protective Crystal Heart as their magic intertwined with its glow. He was old, though not quite to the point of being decrepit. Frailty was not far off, but he had a few miles of hard running left in him. His ancestors had been earth ponies, then crystal ponies, and he bore their legacies whether he had a horn or not.

Rainbow and Applejack had been sitting at the mouth of an old cave near Ghastly Gorge, hiding out in the Old Colony that the batponies had long ago built, hiding except to come up to hear the broadcasts on their beaten up radio. Radio Free Canterlot was a daring, suicidal venture, and it was invaluable.

So it was that leaning against one another, back to back, they heard Malachite the Younger’s speech above the terraced city of Canterlot, delivered from the very same balcony that Celestia herself had favored when addressing the crowds.

Enjoying each other, they listened.

*

Rainbow Dash got off the train a bit after one o’clock and found herself weirdly sore, irritable, and hungry. The first she could shrug off, the second was useful, and the third was easily solved.

So it was that she found herself sitting in a streetside cafe watching the crowds go by, as she wrote her message.

Writing had always been a little difficult for her physically. Though magic had never appealed to her generally, she could see that it had certain advantages over writing with a pencil in your mouth.

Her message read:

Dear cousin,

The trip was uneventful. Was too hungry and stopped to eat before I came up to see you. I was really hoping to see Uncle at the train station, but I understand that he has other things to attend to, what with the Amnesty and all. Please send my love to the others, and I’ll see you soon.

Orange

She folded the paper up and then retrieved a little vial of green liquid from her saddlebags. One drop on the page and it went up in magical green fire and was on its way, directed by her intention.

“Uncle” was Malachite. The presence of guards at the train station had been concerning. None of them had noticed her, though, and she was sure of that. They were too flat-expressioned, too tired. More than that, if anypony had seen Rainbow Dash, the mare who once put a whole platoon of Crystal legionaries flat on their asses just by flying through them, then they wouldn’t have just let her by. Amnesty or not, animosity lived on.

Her sandwich was good, and the air was nice. She could afford to rest here awhile and just… wait. Wait for an answer, she guessed. Wait for nothing. She liked action. She lived for it! But even Rainbow Dash sometimes just wanted to rest.

*

Malachite had a reedy voice, thin and unpleasant. This is what he said, and his voice like cutting reeds reached their ears:

“Politics is not an exact science, as the professors and scholars sometimes propose. Neither it is quite as much about compromise in the conventional sense as is often imagined in the public mind. It is usually a win-lose situation or one in which all lose quite equally.

“We have all lost. The Empire has lost the Emperor, its mind and its eyes, its architect and protector. The Principality of Equestria has lost its princess, its peace of mind and its graceful and beloved light. The war took thousands from us. It tore Equestria to shreds and ruined her vistas. The industry that war demands polluted her skies and rivers, devoured her trees, and hardened her ponies.

“But the war is over. It must be over, for we can no longer bear the cost of it. Two great lands have clashed, and been both lessened by their struggle. The Empire is out of manpower and food. Equestria is out of energy and money. I am being perhaps more straightforward than I should be with you now, because if we are to come together and live in a world beyond the War, we must be honest. We can no longer survive apart. We must survive together or starve alone.

“So, in the interests of peace… in the interests of survival, in the interests of seeing a World beyond all of our tears, I am proclaiming a general amnesty. Without condition, without reservation, the United Empire will not pursue any of Celestia’s former partisans.If they will cease hostilities, Equestrian rebels and Imperial deserters alike will be left alone. Any further attacks after today will be treated as a rejection of amnesty. But as of this broadcast, the United Empire’s forces in both realms have ceased all offensive operations and drawn back to their home bases to rest and recover, and inevitably to begin demobilization.

“The new world is here. Let us make something of it worth living in. Thank you.

*

The flash of bottled dragonfire that delivered the reply from her “cousin” catapulted Rainbow out of her memories, but it did not disperse the the pitted feeling in her stomach.

The missive read:

Cousin,

I am glad that you’ve made it to Canterlot safely.

The streets have been empty without you here, but I’m sure we’ll be back to normal soon. Please, hurry on up to the house and I’ll have some tea on waiting for you. Oh, and could you bring me some groceries? You know what I like. Surprise me!

Haystack

Rainbow chuckled softly. Haystack never used a codename and never really cared much for subtlety. Most of his message wasn’t coded at all. Only the first bit had any other meaning. It was a signal that security in the streets was tight, and that there was someone or someones waiting on her at his house on Thursday Street. Probably one of the old Radio Canterlot cadres, she guessed. A friend, most assuredly. The bit about food and tea had been quite literal. She’d have to remember to go by the Zebraican market on the way, if it was still up and running.

She left the cafe where she’d wasted so much time and began the long trek to Haystack’s house.

*

Canterlot wasn’t her city. It wasn’t Applejack’s, either. Hell, it wasn’t Haystacks or half of the Canterlot cadres’. But that didn’t matter. In a much deeper and much truer sense, it was their city. They hadn’t been born there or grown up there, but they’d claimed it by fighting for it… one way, and then another.

Haystack was an old friend, all the way back from when Celestia was still around. Sombra’s army swarming out of the north seemed a far less daunting prospect in those days. Ponies signed up for what they expected to be a short adventure around Stalliongrad and then back home in a couple of weeks. Exciting, dangerous, but not disastrous.

She noted to herself sometimes, when she had dreams about it, that Celestia had never joined in on their cheerful marching songs.

Haystack had been logistics. He pulled carts, though he wasn’t exactly the strongest pony. He ran the numbers. Rainbow Dash could hit a pony-sized target going full speed from a starting point miles off every time, but Haystack could make sure that every warrior in an army had enough to eat for exactly how long it would take to get from one town to another. He knew the answers to every question: where to stop, where not to stop, where the food was and wasn’t, where the air was too cold or too warm, where the terrain would lead to loss of ponies or material.

He was also a recluse. Eccentric, nervous (very, very nervous), but ultimately kindhearted. He had been Radio Free Canterlot’s heart and voice for so long, despite his nerves and disposition. It had been Haystack who read the reports, and introduced the music, and read the code that he’d been given to read, and gave the news. It was also Haystack whom she’d written a week or so ago while she and Applejack had been staying in the small house on the beach.

His house was a shabby sort in an old neighborhood. Not a bad one, but not the best either. Two stories, and a basement beneath. That’s what the floorplans somewhere in Canterlot’s labyrinthine city hall told, anyhow. In reality there was an entrance down into the city’s often forgotten, haphazard network of crypts and wine cellars and old mining tunnels carved with magic by unicorns a millenia dead. Those caverns and passages had become a second home to Haystack and his circle of conspirators.

She entered after knocking to give him ample warning and dug for the key under a deceptive pile of masonry for the key. Dash found Haystack sitting in the expansive and spartan living room, lying flat on his back and staring at the ceiling.

He was a lazy sort, Haystack. A genius capable of impossible feats of coordination, he nevertheless preferred to be left to his own slothful devices. She suspected that he’d not been out to get his own groceries in months, relying on cadres and conspirators passing through to deliver his meals.

“Got your stuff,” Rainbow said after she deposited the bags of groceries in the kitchen and returned to find him still lying there.

“Thanks,” he grumbled. “Wondered if you’d gotten lost.”

“It hasn’t been that long since I was in Canterlot,” Rainbow said. She’d snagged a pack of candied oats on the way and nibbled on them as Haystack roused himself and stood, stretching.

“I’ll make something,” he said.

His voice was flat, which was odd. She hadn’t seen him in a long time, but the Haystack she remembered was expressive, even in the depths of his laziness.

Dash shrugged it off. Not everything was a big mystery. Instead of wondering, she stole his place on the couch and grabbed a nap.

She awoke to find to a familiar and stonefaced sight.

More specifically, she woke to Maud Pie poking her face with a hoof, bearing a flat expression.

Combat instincts took over. Rainbow Dash bolted out of bed with a cry, wings trying to flair open and hooves coming up to protect herself. But this was Maud Pie, and she was undeterred. When Haystack walked back in from the kitchen, wearing a ludicrous pink apron with frills, he found her pinned to the couch and complaining loudly.

Haystack rolled his eyes. “Let her go, Maud.”

“I was going to,” Maud intoned.

“Don’t scare ponies when you wake them up, geeze,” Rainbow said as soon as she was free and had confirmed she could feel all of her limbs.

“I did not mean to startle you,” Maud said. “But you would not wake up.”

Rainbow sighed. “Eh, it’s fine. You got food ready, Hay?”

“Yeah,” he said, and once again his tone bothered her. No jokes, nothing at all.

“You… uh. You okay?” she asked.

He blinked at her.

“Yeah,” he said and turned back to the kitchen. “Yeah. Come get it.”

*

Whatever was up with Haystack, it wasn’t a problem with his ability to plan. He’d laid it all out perfectly for her to the minute.

Malachite the Younger was touring the city in an open carriage in the morning along with a few aides and functionaries. There was going to be some sort of announcement, and the whole city was abuzz with the possibilities. The general amnesty itself had reduced half the country to chaos as ponies hurried back to their homes, assured of safety and freedom of travel. Canterlot had been backed up with refugees flooding back home since the day the broadcast had gone out, and in all that time the former Viceroy of the Crystal Empire had made sure that every single one of them knew that big news was just around the corner.

What was it? That was Rainbow Dash’s question. Maud hovering beside him, Haystack had shrugged. Did she want his speculation, or did she want an answer? He had a few guesses, but no one knew for sure.

Some said he was announcing some sort of power sharing agreement. Others said that he was serious about not being Head of State and was going to nominate someone at last. But who? There were a few options. Prince Blueblood was still alive, and the Crystal War had purged much of his youthful foolishness and refined him into a statespony of stature… even if it hadn’t erased his nastiness or his love of petty gestures. Some pointed to a young niece of the Princess that few had ever seen, one Cadenza. But she was a foreigner by all accounts, a poor soul from Henosia beyond the Empire, marooned by war and disaster. A council of nobles, perhaps.

Rainbow stopped caring about two minutes into his explanation. It wouldn’t matter anyway, would it?

It wasn’t a parade, but it still had a published route. The Viceroy would be visiting a few key points and there would be large crowds at each stop. The first few would be worksites where the walls of Canterlot were being rebuilt. Then came a stop at a few of the more famous of Canterlot’s many spots of interest. Eventually, he planned to return to the Palace and open the gardens to the public for his announcement.

The stops were out, of course. Crowds didn’t just risk immediate collateral—they also added too many variables.

Rainbow Dash wanted to teach Malachite a lesson. A bomb dropped into his carriage would do it. But too many ponies around made the chances of some pegasus interrupting her path higher than she’d like. She needed space to swoop in, then escape without having to fight through a panicking crowd.

So it would have to be somewhere between two points. There were a couple of spots that Haystack had picked and that Maud had scoped out and found acceptable, and he showed her.

She smiled. “That one.”

“Why?” he asked.

“It’s got a little cafe by the street. I ate there earlier, and remember what the layout is like,” she explained. “I figure it’s as good a place as any.”

Haystack shrugged. “Sure. Why not? It’s all madness anyway.”

Dash paused, and then cocked her head to the side. “What? You don’t want to do this?”

“Hell no,” he grumbled and looked away.

“You got me the bomb, the route… everything.”

“Because you’re my friend,” he said. “Because you were gonna do it anyway and if I don’t help you, you’ll just get yourself killed.”

“So you don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“It’s the worst idea.”

Dash frowned, and then took a deep breath. She didn’t want to yell at Haystack. She’d done that only once before, months ago, and the look of fear in his eyes had been… well, it had not been pleasant. Haystack was fragile in some ways.

And now, taken aback, she could see what was wrong. He was terrified. He was miserable, and uncomfortable, and pressured. He didn’t want to be here. More than that, Haystack didn’t want her to be here, or for any of this to be happening.

“I’m going to make it. This will be better.”

“No it won’t,” he said. “But I’ll be damned if you won’t make it. Cafe it is,” he said through gritted teeth, shaking his head. His voice was not flat at all. No, it had never been. It was tight, the way a pony trying to keep his emotions in check spoke. “Right. Maud will post up across the street. She’s mapped out a place and she’ll show you in the morning. You give her the signal, and she’ll bail you out. If you don’t give her that signal, she won’t do a thing. Easy.”

“What’s the signal?”

He laughed. It was more of a bark than anything else. Then he pulled a saddlebag from beneath the table where his map lay and he pulled out a gem that he pushed across to Rainbow.

“What else? A rainbow. Shatter that and it’ll blind anything in fifteen paces for, oh, ten seconds or so. You can bail, she can give you a few seconds more, and we’re all in the clear. But you had better not leave her out to dry, you hear me? You’d--”

“I will be fine, Haystack,” Maud said quietly.

“You’d better be,” he said, and his voice wavered.

“We all will be,” Rainbow said.

Striving to Make Better, We Oft Mar What's Well

“You don’t like me,” Malachite the Younger remarked as he poured brandy out of the fine crystal decanter.

The room was pleasant enough. It had been Princess Celestia’s sitting room, where she had welcomed many guests. The viceroy had made a point not to use any of her things, nor even to step into her chambers, so the room was new to him.

At present, it contained only three ponies. Himself, of course; Raven, Celestia’s seneschal; and a young mare by the name of Mi Amore Cadenza, or Cadance for short.

The question had not been directed at one or both of them in particular, but it was Raven who spoke first.

“No, I don’t.”

Malachite smiled and sat back down. “Brandy?”

“I don’t drink,” Raven said flatly.

“If you say so,” he replied, and took a sip. Good stuff, it was. He had to give these southern barbarians credit. They’d come a long way since the Empire had blinked out of existence.

“I do,” Cadance said. “Might I?”

He nodded, and watched her.

“Raven,” Malachite began, while the young dispossessed princess filled a glass, “I know you do not like me. Yet I personally made sure that you would stay on. Do you know why?”

“I can guess.”

“Please do.”

“My first guess would be that you enjoy the distress of others, my Lord. The second is like it: because you enjoy rubbing your victories in other’s faces. Also, you need someone familiar with the levers that make Equestria keep running, and you need someone who isn’t trying to get any favors out of you while she’s about her work. You know my reputation and you know that the Princess and Equestria were my life. I have no other allegiances and no other ties. No family, no great house, no other ambitions.”

Malachite took another sip.

In truth, there was some truth in that. She misjudged him on the first two counts, but her lack of nobility had certainly been a part of it. He found he rather enjoyed the company of Raven, her intense loathing of him aside. She was refreshing. She was honest. Most importantly, she was someone he could see as an equal. How perverse! The viceroy of Sombra’s great empire speaking to an uppity commoner in such a way! It made their exchanges fun.

He hummed. Princess Cadance sat and then returned to what she had been doing: namely, staring at the carpet.

“I chose you because you knew what to do without having to be told,” he said at last. “And because you hate me. That hatred is honest and open. I have grown rather bored of hatred, to tell you the truth. More ponies hate me than have ever loved me, and they all do so in such an annoyingly veiled manner. No, I find your open disgust refreshing. But that isn’t the reason.”

“Might I be told what that reason was?” Raven asked. Her gray eyes bored holes into his own.

He met her gaze.

“Two, actually. Two reasons. First, and you will be quite unhappy to hear it, but we are similar. We have served a leader most of our lives, and been bound closely to their service. We have lost our way, and our masters have died and left us without instruction or guidance. When Celestia and the Emperor died, in a single hour we both found ourselves in very unfamiliar territory.”

“Fair.”

He grinned even broader. “The second reason you can say better than I could. Raven, what are you loyal to?”

“Celestia, my Princess. Who is coming back,” she added with venom.

He nodded. “And if I told you that I dearly hoped that you were right?”

“Then I would roll my eyes and call you a liar.”

“Please, feel free to do so, for I do wish it. Though for different reasons than you do, I must say. But you are loyal to Celestia. You’re loyal to the job.”

“I am. I have and I will be always.”

“And that is why I like you. I too, am loyal to the job. My Emperor was a very different pony once. When he was younger, he was rather likable. Oh, he was brash. We’re all brash in our youth. A bit reckless, yes, but he was rather popular among the downtrodden commonfolk. Do you know why? Because he pretended to care about them. I believed him then. I thought it quaint, but noble.”

“That’s hard to imagine,” Cadance said softly. She’d had more than Malachite had, a fact he noted with surprise.

“I know it must be. Raven, I have a plan. A grand plan with many parts and more uncertainty than I am comfortable with. Shall I explain it?”

She smiled. “Only if you don’t mind explaining your plans to the enemy, my Lord. For I remain that, whatever you say.”

“But curiosity so often trumps hate. I do love that about ponies. Cadance, dear, are you alright?”

“No.”

He sighed. “I suppose that was a foolish question.”

“My aunt is gone, Shining is in the dungeons, and I’m at the mercy of a conqueror,” she said, and took something a bit too large to be called a sip. “No, I am not alright, and not even Aunt Celestia’s brandy can make me feel better.”

“Captain Shining has been treated well.”

“He’s in a cell.”

Malachite raised a hoof. “A cell with a nice bed, a writing table, a private bathroom, and fine carpet. I made sure that it was up to par.”

She shrugged.

So, the viceroy continued on. “The both of you must know what comes next. I will need you. More than that, you will need me… and you will need each other.”

“Get on with it, My Lord,” Raven added.

“Only you can make that sound like a curse,” Malachite remarked and chuckled. “Celestia vanished. Her body was never found. There are many theories, and I am not sure that any of them are believable. But the possibility of her returning is very believable, and we must all be ready. I spoke the truth in my broadcast and you know it, Raven. We need each other. Our nations have exhausted themselves.”

She shrugged. “You’re grandstanding, My Lord.”

“So I am. It’s one of my only pleasures in life.” He made a sweeping gesture. “Before the Princess can return, we must make sure that she has a kingdom of some sort to return to. I cannot lead it. It is not in my nature, and I am rather hated. The Equestrians hate me as a symbol of their conquerors. The Empire hates me because I have kept the great Houses in line and removed Sombra’s harsh control over the commonfolk while keeping them quite firmly in check. Do you know how I managed to stay in power? Only Opal of the Ninth Legion, that proud and frankly vicious heroine of the People, kept them from deposing me the day after the Emperor was laid in state. Even now, she is sitting in her tent somewhere outside of Stalliongrad, waiting to see if I will warrant her immediate and undoubtedly bloody correction.

“You and I, Raven, are faced with the task of administration. Together we must marry two disparate systems together as best we can without losing the merits of either. We compromise where we can, and reform where we cannot. But we cannot have a faceless rule. My dearest Cadance, that is where you come in.”

“You want to make me a figurehead,” Cadance said. “You want a puppet who can go to balls and dances like the world hasn’t fallen apart and wave at the nice ponies tomorrow in the gardens.”

“Yes,” the viceroy said, and then his face softened. “Though you sell yourself short, my dear. There is more to what I ask of you than merely that. The balls and parties are one thing, but inspiring your people, new and old, is another. You are the only true neutral ground between us. Neither one or the other. Your mother in Henosia makes you a foreigner in two lands, and your character and demeanor gives you the potential to inspire love in both. My people have suffered under an iron hoof and Equestria has been left more or less motherless. Both lands need a leader whose kindness and strength of heart will keep them warm through winter. And of course… the Crystal Heart. I know it called you.”

“It did,” Cadance said stiffly.

Malachite nodded. “There it is then. Cadance will sit the throne with a seneschal on her right and a prime minister on her left.”

Raven cut in. “What’s to stop us from just booting you out, then?”

Malachite sighed. “Do try to look past your feelings about me, if only for a moment. In truth, nothing. You could give me the boot and send me back to whatever is left of my estate near Amethyst City. Or, I suppose, what’s left of it. I’ve always wanted to have a nice crystal berry vineyard, you know. But I trust you won’t. You need me. Not as much as I need the two of you, but you need me to keep the Empire’s resources pouring into Equestria, just as I need you to keep Equestria’s food convoys feeding my people.”

“Why the Summer Sun Celebration? Why tomorrow?” Raven asked.

“Because it’s a holiday. At least, if anyone else had asked me that, I would have given them that answer. But for you, most beloved Raven, I will tell you the truth. I wish to pay respects to Celestia’s statue in the garden, and then I hope to signal to the people that young Cadance has not forgotten her. Your speech..” He paused only long enough to levitate a parcel from the table into Cadance’s waiting hooves.

Cadance opened it and scanned the lines. “It’s about Auntie.”

Malachite nodded. “As it should be. There is another I will give you later, when it is finished, which you will deliver in Imperial Center. That one will be mainly about how you intend to be the ponies’ friend and not their slavemaster. Uplifting stuff, isn’t it?”

“I’d like to read that when you’re done, my Lady,” Raven said, still not looking away from Malachite.

“Of course,” Cadance replied, her voice soft and distant. “What about Shining?”

“I’ve already had him released. He also has a letter, and should still be in your chambers in the other tower. Hopefully, he’s accepted what I’ve had to say and he hasn’t tried to kill any of my guards. That would be hard to cover up.”

Cadance sighed. “I have no choice, but I would do it anyhow.” She paused. “I still don’t like you.”

“You don’t have to like me. It is probably better that you do not, at least for now. Dislike me as much as you wish, if it keeps you alert and on your guard. I ask only that you do your best.”

With that, he held up a glass.

“A toast, if you would. To Equestria. To Celestia’s return. I, too, look forward to it. I would speak to the mare who freed me from my bondage face to face.”

I Have A Journey, Sir, Shortly to Go...

Rainbow Dash pretended to read the paper a bit after lunch. She wasn’t sure exactly what time it was, and—to be honest—she didn’t care. Haystack would’ve been livid that she wasn’t keeping tabs of the schedule. But Rainbow Dash wasn’t one for waiting as it was, and counting the hours only seemed to make them longer. Besides, Uncle Malachite would be along whether she kept up with the time or not.

The morning had been tense and relaxed in turn. One moment, she would be sure that the game was up and that everything had been spoiled. The next, she would be sipping coffee and enjoying an altogether pleasant morning.

It just didn’t feel real.

The coffee had gotten a bit old. Not that particular mug, which was new, but the constant coffee drinking. Her nerves were starting to bother her.

The Viceroy and his contingent weren’t scheduled to be at the stop before his rendezvous with death until two in the afternoon. Thirty minutes or so there, and then fifteen or so until the second to last stop to place a wreath on the sight of a monument to Equestria’s fallen. It made her sick.

That was a lie. Actually, she imagined him doing it and—damn it all—could imagine his face being all earnest and honest and disgustingly sincere. And, more than fury, she just felt an emptiness in her chest—an ache.

Maud waited, still as the stones she was so enamored with, on a low-lying roof. She was easy to miss. Ponies’ eyes often passed over the absolutely still things in the world, and few ponies could be as absolutely still for as long as Maud Pie could.

Not much longer to go, she figured. Not much longer.

Attempts to hype herself up for what was to come fell flat. This did not feel even remotely like the old dangerous days of rebellion. It certainly didn’t feel like the war. It mostly just felt a little sweaty, and anxious.

It was hard not to think about Applejack. What was she doing? Cursing Rainbow Dash and her foolishness, no doubt. But what besides? Where was she? Rainbow wished that she knew.

Daydreaming overtook her. She saw Applejack working on her farm before the war, and herself sleeping in one of the many trees, legs dangling from some sturdy branch. The cloudless sky, abyssal blue, and the gentle breeze; Applejack taking off her wide brimmed hat to wipe her brow and notice the sleeping pegasus in her tree; the kick that jolted Rainbow awake and sent her flying in a panic right into Applejack; the two of them rolling and brawling and yelling and laughing in the grass.

Another! Another, because the first had filled some hole in her and she craved memory. Applejack saving a bit of the family’s personal cider for her friend, the weatherpony, and the two of them staying up late on a harvest season’s end to drink and laugh until together they were alternating between drunken hoof-wrestling and what was unanimously agreed upon by the town as the worst sing-a-long in the history of Ponyville. A sloppy, hasty, sodden kiss amidst a laughing crowd of friends that left them both more flustered than they’d expect and more embarrassed than she cared to admit.

Rainbow Dash put down the paper and rubbed her eyes.

For the first time in a long time, she wanted only one thing. Not victory, nor revenge. She wanted to go home. She wanted it so badly, and she didn’t even know where home was. She just wanted it.

But it was too late. Applejack wouldn’t want her back, not with this. Even if she didn’t go through with it, then what? She’d made her choice. She’d made her bed, even. She’d taken the axe to her own tree and now she was stuck.

That was about when Applejack herself stepped off of the street and strolled casually to her table beneath the awning and sat across from her.

Rainbow Dash, never without some quip or boast, was speechless.

“Haystack is a fine fellow, don’t you think?”

“That bastard sold me out.” Rainbow blinked and felt her forelegs go slack. The newspaper hit the floor.

“Not at all,” Applejack drawled. “Nah, he gave you the right time an’ place, the contraption works, all of that. Everything is in order for you to do whatcha wanna.”

“Why are you here?”

“Why do you think?” Applejack asked. She looked over Rainbow’s shoulder and hailed the waiter.

Dash waited for her to order coffee—black, no sugar or fancy fixin’s thank you—and then leaned in to whisper furiously, “What the hell? Do you have any idea how bad this is going to be? Did you come to talk me down, or what?”

“Ain’t sure yet.”

“You’re not sure? Are you crazy? Did you lose your damn mind?” hissed Rainbow Dash. She wasn’t angry. For the first time in this long ordeal she was absolutely terrified. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Applejack was supposed to somewhere else. Preferably somewhere a very long way away, but certainly not here across the table from her, twenty feet from where Malachite the Younger was going to get blown to ragged bits.

Another memory, but not one she liked. No, it was less a single, solid memory, and more flashes of dozens of moments coalescing into a cloud of choking horror, like watching fragile wine glasses falling from some height in slow motion. Applejack leaving her factory behind and meeting up with the partisans in the Ponyville square, her face set but bright and unblemished by conflict. The roar of cannonfire and mage’s fury. Applejack leaping from a bridge, the faulty charges set off barely in time. She struggled in the river while Rainbow Dash flew overhead, looking for her hat, her hoof, something at all to grab ahold of in the churning muddy waters as the bridge exploded. Running from the invader’s garrison in Manehattan, taking a wrong turn and colliding with a brick wall. Applejack frantically searching for some door, Rainbow grabbing her and trying to fly straight up and her wings faltering as she tuned out the shouting below. So many near-escapes.

It was a great record of surviving, and she didn’t care a bit. Because it never felt like victory after the first time. Because sometimes it had been too close. Seconds had decided whether or not her wife or herself had lived or died. She laid awake in cots and in forest camps staring into the yawning dark thinking that it had been too close, and that all of what happened afterwards was a lie, like in the books where you saw things before death’s last play and thought you were alive.

“So, what’s your plan?” Applejack asked, lounging idly in her chair.

“Did you not ask?”

“I did, but Haystack was eager to push me out the door with some directions.”

Rainbow shifted one way and then the other. She looked around, and saw only an elderly stallion on the other side of the patio, also with a newspaper. He didn’t seem to be listening. Rainbow watched him a second more, looked for another waitress, and groaned softly.

“A present for Uncle,” Rainbow said in a rush. “Delivered by air mail.”

“Ah, I getcha,” Applejack drawled. She looked over Dash’s shoulder and smiled wide. “Thankya, ma’am,” she told the pretty unicorn who levitated a mug of coffee with her. The mare wished her a good afternoon, and wandered off.

“Maud’s nearby in case I get lost,” Dash continued, feeling eyes on her back. “It’s all set. Just waiting.”

“Guess I’ll wait too, then.”

“Celestia, AJ,” Rainbow hissed.

“What do you want?” replied Applejack mildly. She gazed down into her coffee—black, no fancy fixin’s—and who knows what she saw there. “I’m here, you’re here. Uncle will be along any moment now, and you and I and Cousin Pie will have us a nice little party. Ain't’ that what you wanted?”

“So, what, you think this is a good idea?”

“Hell nah.” Applejack took a sip. “Chicory. I like this place.”

“Then why are you here?”

Applejack didn’t answer at first. She let the question linger, like a foal struggling to pull itself up from a cliff. The question dangled in the wind, as if any moment it might fall and she would open her mouth and answer, but it just… kept not happening. Dash waited and waited, and still no explanation came. Applejack just drank her coffee, and then caught her eyes and lifted an eyebrow as if she was expecting Dash to catch up with her.

Until at last, she sighed.

“You really need me to say it?”

“Uh, yeah. ‘Cause I’m really, really confused right now. You’re here, and you aren’t trying to drag me off by force.”

“Tempted to, for sure,” Applejack admitted softly. “Rainbow, I’m here cause I love you.”

Dash blinked. Her eyes watered. “I love you too.”

“Glad to hear it. You still don’t get it?”

“I…”

Applejack sighed. She reached across the table. Automatically, like a student reciting her lesson by rote, Rainbow Dash reached and laid her foreleg along the table so that they touched.

“Dash, hon, I love you. This is suicidally stupid. Even if you don’t die, everything will be worse. This is the worst idea you’ve ever, ever had. That’s sayin’ somethin’, too, cause you ain’t really one for good ideas.”

Rainbow chuckled nervously, and AJ smirked. “ I love you, but it’s true. But I can’t stop you now. I was too late. I coulda stopped you a week ago, maybe.”

“You left right after I did, didn’t you?”

“Oh, as soon as I woke up. I’m assumin’ that’s why you got me drunk.”

Rainbow flushed and looked away. “I wanted to have some fun before you disowned me.” Appleack raised an eyebrow, and Dash shrugged. “Nah, I just didn’t wanna think about it.”

“Well, I woke up around noon and you weren’t anywhere. Figured you were just out for a quick lap out to the drop off until about one. Made myself some lunch, sat on the porch with a pipe, listened to the sea. When you didn’t come back by one o’ clock, I left you a note just in case, then headed into town for the station.”

“I got up around five.”

“You, up before the sun? Miracles. Signs and portents,” Applejack muttered. “Figures.”

“I... “ Rainbow wasn’t sure what she could even say. “So you’re just gonna help me?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not here to drag me off?”

“Would it work?”

Rainbow paused and then shook her head. “No, probably not.”

“There you go. There’s a point where things start to spiral out of control.”

“Is that where we are?” Rainbow asked as she leaned back in her chair, feeling… she wasn’t sure what she was feeling. Fear, mostly. Relief, maybe.

“Not quite. Not until you leave that chair.”

Rainbow squinted at her. “What’s that mean?”

Applejack just kind of sighed and rested her head on a hoof. “Rainbow, can I jus’ tell you that you’re not much brighter ‘n me, and that I both love and hate that about you? It’s simple. I’m here ‘cause I love you, and cause I ain’t gonna let you die without me. We’ve always been that way. But nothin’ is certain. Uncle’s gonna be rollin’ by pretty soon, but until then it’s all up in the air. You and I could have a nice afternoon and be on a train home. You could just get up and fly back to Haystack’s and take a long nap on his couch, draw yourself a mighty fine bath, whatever you will.

“Or, when he comes, you could deliver your present. It’s a bad, bad idea. It’s the worst idea you’ve ever had in that head of yours. It’ll cause us all so much grief, and I don’t know what will happen to you and me afterwards. I hope we’ll both make it, but I don’t think we will. Not after all this.”

They were quiet, then. The afternoon progressed with agonizing slowness. The old pony in the corner with the newspaper left after a while. The waitress returned and brought them both a glass of cold water and asked if they were new in the city. Applejack chatted with her, just to be neighborly. Then they were alone again.

Some of the fight, some of the vigor, had just gone out of Rainbow.

“I didn’t expect you to show up. And if you did show up, I expected you to be furious,” Rainbow said.

“Oh, I’m plum pissed at you, don’t get me wrong.”

Rainbow sighed. “Yeah you really seem mad right now. Super mad.”

“I’m tryin’ not to be conspicuous. Opsec is still a thing, y’know.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay, that’s fair.”

Applejack looked away from her, eyes scanning the street as ponies began to file in. Rainbow followed her gaze, and the two of them watched as the crowd slowly thickened. It was almost time.

Their conversation had been frustrating and circular, which she supposed was fitting for a last conversation. Rainbow didn’t believe in last words, not anymore. Last words and death speeches were a thing you believed in when you were younger because you wanted to give it all some dignity without even knowing why yet—because dignity and symmetry felt right, because the wrongness of endings grated and was wrong in a way that even later you would not be able to articulate.

But the world was, like a mountain top, coming to a point. The further along you got, the less room there was for things like coherent conversation and doubt and feelings. The world came to a point,and before that final destination there was a winnowing that sorted out the quick and the dead, and Rainbow Dash felt it pressing her and confining her into a binary choice.

Kill or do not kill. Not kill or be killed—no, that wasn’t what was going to happen. If she could believe that Malachite the Younger had meant this all as a ruse or trap, bombing his carriage would be a simple task. Dropping that deadly gift from the sky would be a matter of survival, were such a double cross on the horizon. But she knew that it wasn’t. She knew that it made sense. The Empire couldn’t afford to chase them forever, and it no longer wanted to do so.

So it was murder, plain and simple. Yet even as her stomach churned, it felt justified. What suffering there had been at the Viceroy’s personal order? How many ponies had been taken from their homes and had their choices stolen by Sombra’s horrible contraptions? How many villages were burnt-out husks? If anyone deserved to bathe in flames it was him.

But Applejack was right, and she’d always known that.

“What are you afraid of, really?” Applejack asked. They did not face each other, both pairs of eyes watching the street.

“Nothing’s going to be set right. Nothing is going to be punished.”

“Fair. Why’s it gotta be?”

“Because ponies died and were hurt and you can’t just let somepony do that.”

Applejack shuddered. “I know it. But that ain’t what this is about.”

“Then what’s it about?”

“You don’t want them to hurt you again.”

...My Master Calls Me; I Must Not Say No

Princess Cadance was uncomfortable.

The long trek through the city had been mostly boring. Malachite had done most of the talking, and Cadance had spent most of her time smiling, waving, and occasionally speaking one on one with ponies at stops. The reaction had been mixed. Not a pony in Canterlot was happy to see Sombra’s former right hoof, but many recognized her and with Celestia gone and Equestria’s alicorns in short supply… Every time they smiled at her, she fought back a reflexive cringe.

It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate their smiles and their words. The hope that called these things forth were her own hopes, that maybe things could go back to normal. Or, more than that, that Celestia might come back. Or that anything good could happen after this mess.

It was just that they were looking in the wrong place. Whatever Malachite might say or do, the truth was that she was woefully unprepared for even a stint as figurehead waiting for the real Princess to come home. She had nothing to give them but herself, and even that she valued at a straw. Every hoof was outstretched for aid and she would tear off pieces of herself to give them until there was nothing left and the scraps were gone, and even then there would be so many more without a thing. But she would do it. She would give and give and pour herself out like the drink offerings of ancient ponies to barbaric gods of the mountains, and she would be happy.

But already she was tired.

At least it was almost over. Just one or two more stops, and then back to the palace and then her speech. Then bed, probably. She wouldn’t mind a nice, long afternoon nap with her now free husband. Malachite had promised that Shining would be free from his admittedly luxurious imprisonment when the speech was given, and Cadance believed him.

Just a bit more. Just a few more fake smiles, and then finally this ordeal would be over.

They rounded a corner and she looked out at the small crowd lining the street. Young and old, as varied as the other streets. Around a small cafe with it’s shaded awning, she saw a young couple on a date and smiled reflexively.

Once, a long time ago, when Aunt Celestia still ruled and the world seemed brighter and younger, Cadance had discovered her talent for fostering feeling in others. She didn’t plant ideas, or override their own feelings. She did nothing but show them themselves and others. It was a scary thing, sure, but not in the way that ponies occasionally imagined. The terror was not in what one might be induced to think or do, but in what was already there.

As a foal, between clumsily dating Shining and looking after his little sister, now long lost, she had been so obsessed with the idea of romance. She had studied it, tasted it, tried to understand it. But in the end Cadance had given up. It wasn’t a thing of charts and combinations. It was something a great deal more mysterious and complicated than any of that.

For a brief moment, she considered letting control of her power slip. Her glory would shine and reach the pair at their table. The ponies around her would weep, overcome with emotion and love.

But then she turned back. Those two didn’t need her, she felt. Not right now. Oddly, she felt that she had stumbled upon a special moment. They needed each other more.

A General Amnesty

“What’ll it be?” Applejack asked as Rainbow Dash half-rose to watch the carriage go by.

There he was. Uncle. Malachite the Younger, unmistakable and in full form. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza beside him, looking right at Dash.

She was smiliing, Cadenza. Smiling obliviously.

“What’ll it be?” Applejack hissed. “I’m with you, do or die. But you need to choose if we’re gonna make it out of here alive.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“He’s not alone.”

Applejack moved closer so she could whisper furiously in Rainbow Dash’s ear. “Was he ever? He was always surrounded. Rainbow, look,” and she grabbed Dash’s face and pulled it towards her. Something had shifted. Dash did not fight back but stared confused into her wife’s eyes.

“It was never just you and him, just like it weren’t never just you an’ me. There are so many ponies in this world, and other things besides us, and it’s never, ever just a one on one. You get me? You throw that thing, and in a moment you’ll get two or three but tomorrow and tomorrow you’re lookin’ at a whole harvest of dead folks.I’ve been tryin’ to tell you, but you can’t let it go that they hurt you and I get it. I get it. I’m tryin’ to get it. You never had to do this. Ever.

“He’s wrong and he’s bad an’ I don’t like him any more than you do, but you know what’ll happen. You know she’ll die too, and then others, and then you and me. And if you pull away and you throw that thing I’ll still come with you. But Dash, hon, I’m gonna know that you chose bein’ a fuck up over coming back home to me. I’m never gonna forget it. I swear to you that I’ll never forget it. Please don’t do this. Please just sit down.”

Dash whined. “I can’t. It’s too late. If I don’t I’ll never stop thinking about it. I’ll never stop.”

“Yes you will.” Applejack shook. “I’ll fill that space with whatever or I can or I’ll die tryin’. Sit down. Please, please sit down.”

“He’s so close,” Rainbow said, her eyes wide and wild, her breathing hot and uneven. “He’s close enough I could just hover out and touch him. I’ll never get another chance.”

Applejack looked quickly over her shoulder. No one had noticed them. Cadance had looked away already. The carriage stopped briefly for Cadance and Malachite to wave to a few ponies. Some mare was asking Cadance to bless her foal.

This was it. This was the chance.

“I have to.” Rainbow started to pull away.

Applejack resisted for a heartbeat, and then she stopped. She let go.

Rainbow Dash, who had always wanted to be a Wonderbolt, who had always been the fastest of everyone she knew, felt as if her every step was a slog through a bog. Her hooves dragged. Time slowed and limped along to its promised end.

She cleared the tables. She cleared the awning. Applejack was behind her, ready to provide support.

She was out in the sun, the bright sun that struck her eyes…

And she faltered.

Cadance was smiling. She was smiling and waving. Rainbow could not imagine the explosion that was to come touching a hair on her head. She couldn’t see Malachite at all, now, as Cadance leaned forward to look at somepony in the crowd.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t finish the job.

She sank back down onto her haunches, just watching Cadance and her greatest foe go by with slackjawed dismay. She’d failed in the end. All of her sadness and anger, every scar and worried night, all of it meant nothing. She had nothing at all.

Until Applejack rested her chin on the top of Rainbow Dash’s head, and without even thinking about the pegasus reached out and clung to her legs.

“I hate it,” she said. “I want to go home. I don’t wanna see this stupid city ever again.”

“I know.”

“I just…”

“I know.” Applejack kissed the top of her head.

“You knew. That I wouldn’t, I mean.”

“Nah, I figured you’d start it off earlier.”

Rainbow tried to laugh but coughed instead, and then as Cadance pulled onto another street she choked back a furious little sob.