Adventures through Equestria

by gmoneywalker

Rating: teen
Tags: Romance, Comedy, Adventure, Dark
Length: 33286

Adventure, action, romance, what more could you ask for?

Equestria is a land filled with magic, danger, and adventure a plenty. So when two ponies set out into the wide unknown in search of a fresh start there's no telling what may happen along the way. Join Black Brush and Sunset Spring as they begin a journey that shall engrave them forever in the annals of ancient Equestrian history.

Yet as time goes on a darker much more dangerous plot shall rear it's ugly head…and it threatens the entirety of the magical land we've all come to know and love…

~So this is my first MLP fic. If you would like to let me know of some things that didn't work out or could do with some fixes be sure to let me know so I can get on it.~

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-01-08 00:05:58 UTC

Last Goodbyes.

Adventures through Equestria a Black Brush and Sunset Spring Tale

Chapter 1: Last Goodbyes

A steel colored unicorn sat alone atop a small grassy hill that overlooked the small town of Colterson, as he often did in the few waning hours of twilight before Celestia’s sun was overtaken by Luna’s night.  Taking in the serenity and beauty that played out before him, he mused on how the province was truly a sight to behold at this hour, however boring it may be during the day, there was no doubting that there was just something magical about seeing it in this light, the ponies that populated the town finally began to wind themselves down and start a well-earned rest after the tiring work of the day.  Stalls and shops started to close as weary owners commenced upon their long trek home for the night, young and rebellious colts quickly, yet stealthily, began to make their way out of equally young and rebellious fillies bedrooms (often through a conveniently placed window or backdoor) as parents came home from work, the children gave happy and joy filled goodbyes to their school friends as they went home from a day filled with play to fill their bellies with dinner and their parent’s heads with stories of the afternoon and it’s adventures.  All of this set to the backdrop of a magnificent orange red sky as the sun slowly descended beyond the hills of what lay beyond.  Yes indeed it was a beautiful and magnificent sight; almost enough to keep those rebellious thoughts of leaving the small town at bay…almost.

“Pretty as a painting,” He said absently to himself, chuckling softly at the slight play on words, considering his name and chosen profession.  He started to wish he had brought his brush and canvas along today, but quickly dismissed the thought.  He had dozens of portraits of this particular scene alone, and he far from needed another.  It wouldn’t be like he could finish it anyway…

“What’s pretty as a painting Black Brush?”  A voice as familiar to him as his own caught his attention as it drew near.

Black Brush cast his emerald eyes upon the familiar orange Pegasus beginning to approach his quiet little spot, he watched with a smile on his face as she came closer, her bright red mane blowing ever so slightly in the breeze, her coat glowing as the setting sun struck her just right, her golden eyes shining beautifully like diamonds,  her large magnificent wings extended and beating lightly, feathery puffs of wind disturbing his shaggy and unkempt black mane as she began her steady descent towards the ground, landing carefully onto the soft grass beneath her, the pegasus sighed softly as she set her sleek and athletic frame down gently beside him.

There she was pretty as a painting.

“Look for yourself Sunset.”  He spoke softly and with a kind smile.  Afraid that raising his voice any louder than that would destroy the serenity of the scene, he then turned his eyes back to the living art playing out before them.

Sunset followed his gaze, though less artistic than her companion in more ways than one she could still see why he of all ponies appreciated such a sight as this.

“It’s beautiful.”  She spoke softly, afraid that saying anything else would disturb her closest friend’s inner peace and cause that smile she hadn’t seen him wear in a long time to vanish.

For a while they sat there in silence, absorbing the scene, taking it all in.  Black Brush watched because he knew it would be one of the last times he would see this pure magnificence.   And Sunset…well she watched because Black Brush watched.  For the longest time she had noticed him acting strange around her.  Reclusive, almost like he was avoiding her, and on the very few times they had actually spoken over the last couple of weeks he hadn’t said much.  And Sunset couldn’t help but have that feeling in her gut that told her he was hiding something, and if there was something she had learned over the years it was to trust her gut.  It used to be they could tell each other anything, but after what had happened not too long ago…no she promised herself she wouldn’t think about that.

She looked at him now, eyes soft yet filled with worry as she studied his steel colored coat, his short cut mane and tail were black and his cutie mark a paintbrush poised to strike a canvas.  Both of which were fitting considering his name, it was almost like he was born to be an artist.

“Something bothering you Sunset?”  Black Brush’s voice dragged her back to reality as she realized she must have been staring at him for a while.

She wanted to scream at him when he said that.  She felt that pent up worry and rage nearly explode. ‘YES you’re bothering me!’ She wanted to shout, ‘what’s wrong with you!?  What happened to the Black Brush I know?  And who replaced him with this mopey sad…THING!  What happened to the Black Brush that used to help me play pranks on my big brother?  The Black Brush that used to have water balloon fights with me in the middle of town!? The Black Brush that used to hold me and tell me everything would be fine when I came to him crying?’ she gave a pitiful sniff, blinking away a tear. ‘What happened to the Black Brush that I…I love?’  But the words died in her throat, replaced by a fake smile and an empty laugh.

“What? Nothings bothering me you dolt!”  She playfully gave him a light shove, like she used to do when they were kids, and deep down she hoped for the same response, for him to mess up her mane like he always did.  But instead, unlike the Black Brush she knew he just kept staring blankly out at the sky, like she wasn’t even there.  “I uh…just wanted to see if you wanted some dinner.  Mrs. Peach gave me some of her crop for helping her clear out some of those storm clouds the other day, I figured I’d make peach cobbler tonight.  You wanna have some?”  She asked hopefully, if he agreed it would be the first time they’d spent any real time together in weeks.

“I don’t know.”  He stated plainly, his voice betraying no emotion.

She couldn’t help but frown a little at this.  “Aw please Blackie; it’s your favorite…”  She pleaded sadly; causing his emerald eyes to shift to her…he looked…was that sad?  That wasn’t one of her Blackie’s normal expressions… at least not when she was around.  She shifted closer to him, pressing up against him as they locked eyes.  “Will you do it for me?”

For a long painful minute Black Brush was deathly silent, his eyes closed and his face taut as if he was thinking.  What was this?  She couldn’t understand.  Normally Black Brush would jump at the chance to eat some of her cobbler, only a few weeks ago she’d have to come up with an excuse to keep him away from the stuff.

He let out a sigh, as if in defeat.  “Fine, let’s go eat.  I need to talk to you anyway.” The unicorn said while standing up, stretching out his legs and starting down the steep slope of the grassy hill.

Sunset however, still sat.  Stricken dumb by his words, ‘I need to talk to you anyway.’  What could that mean?  Did it have something to do with how he’d been acting?  Was he going to tell her he didn’t want to be her friend anymore?  Suddenly she panicked; she didn’t think she could handle something like that.

“Um are you coming Sunset?”  His voice yanked her back into reality.  Those worries could wait, after all she had peach cobbler to make.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

They walked through the near barren town in silence; the streets now empty as the moon finally took its rightful place in the sky, a few of Luna’s stars beginning to wink in and out of the never ending blackness.  The cool nighttime air blowing through the street with a slight haunting whistle, a small wave of sounds and commotions could be heard emanating from the bar at the center of town as the busy establishment continued to retrieve its last few sets of customers for the night.

 A terribly awkward silence began to form between them.   Neither had much to say, and Black Brush took these last few moments of quiet to plan how he was going to go about telling Sunset Spring of his imminent departure from the town.  He stole a quick glance over to her, her setting sun as a cutie mark warming his heart, he loved the sunset…and now he realized he would be missing two of them after he departed.  The one on the hill and the one in his heart, he had been putting off telling her for the longest time, going so far as to completely avoid her, he suddenly felt a pang of guilt.  That must have been tearing her up, they were such close friends…he was afraid of how she would react when he told her that he didn’t plan on coming back.  There were too many memories here; too much he needed to forget.  He wished she could come…wished that they could always be together.  But that would be asking too much, after all she had a life here.  Her entire family ran the weather around town, being the only Pegasus family in the area meant that if even a single one of them took off that they would be left terribly shorthanded.

But what did he have that kept him tied to this small town?  A handful of bad memories and a failing art shop.  No as soon as she was dealt with he’d have no reason to stay…no desire to.  Yet still despite his eagerness to leave, to put this small town into his rear view forever, he just couldn’t do that to her.  He knew telling her something like that would break her heart.  Though even he failed to understand why that kept him from saying what needed to be said.  After all what was one more bad memory?

It took them only a short ten to fifteen minutes to reach their destination.  An average sized two story house painted a bright and welcoming yellow with a large banner hanging across the front.   Printed across said banner in bright red lettering were the words.   Colterson Weather Management.  Odd for a family of pegasi to live in something other than a cloud home, he found himself musing, before deciding that in a town filled with earth ponies and unicorns the weather team needed to be easily accessible in order to receive weather plans for the day by the mayor.

Sunset pushed open the door with her front hoof, the hinges creaking loudly at the movement, having not been oiled in quite some time.  As they stepped inside Black Brush was greeted fondly by the familiar sights, sounds, and scents of the home he hadn’t spent much time in as of late.  The inside of the house was actually rather small; to his left was what appeared to be a living room of sorts, complete with a soft velvet couch and a matching chair, the two pieces of furniture resting idly next to a couple bookshelves, the shelves themselves populated mostly by fantasy novels and historical fiction. Though hidden within those two collections was a less than popular set of trashy romance stories.

 He couldn’t keep himself from cringing as he read the title of one such ‘classic’  ‘Spreading Your Wings.’ with an equally cheesy tagline that read.  ‘Some fires can only be put out with passion.’  He could only imagine how many times the term ‘wingboner’ was thrown about inside of the text and he really hoped Sunset wasn’t the one who had purchased the literary garbage.

Trying to avoid any more self-punishment he decided to focus on something other than the bookshelf.  Looking up Black Brush couldn’t restrain a faint curving of his lips as he noticed that on the far wall one of his more popular portraits had been hung with care.  The art itself was a picture of the sun and moon balanced side by side, with a crude representation of the earth lying beneath them both.  The sun’s golden rays spilling forth into the middle of the frame where it was met by the moon’s pale lunar glow, the two shafts of light then joined together like two strings of twine spun around one another as the sun and the moon’s combined light struck the surface of the planet and began to bathe it in life, splotches of green beginning to form wherever the ethereal glow happened to travel.  He was actually rather proud of that one, for it had been one of the few paintings in his shop that was actually ever sold for a decent amount of bits.

 Like most of his art it did have some kind of hidden meaning, the more clever few might be able to link it to the biggest event to happen in Equestria since the last war some odd four hundred years ago.  The return of Nightmare Moon was quite a popular topic there for a while, and he’d gotten the idea while skimming nonchalantly through an article in the local newspaper, when he’d learned that Celestia had decided to return Luna to her proper place as co ruler of Equestria.  Celestia had said that they were always meant to rule together as equals.  And an hour later the image was born, of course he knew the real reason it sold so well was because it was pretty.  Nopony really cared about the meaning behind art anymore.

“Make yourself at home, I already started on the cobbler let me just finish up and then we’ll eat.”  Sunset Spring spoke as she flew towards the kitchen, busying herself with finishing up the food.  She was excited to be eating dinner with her best friend again after what felt like ages.

Black Brush did as he was told, taking a seat at the dinner table while the sound of clattering dishes and running water could be heard resonating from the busied kitchen.  He figured it would be a while before dinner was ready, though the food smelled like it was finished Sunset had a tendency to fret over some of the smaller details when dinner was concerned, especially when he was the guest.

He looked around the small house somberly, it was spotless.  Sunset’s mother, Nightlight Winter, must have cleaned it recently.  For he would have bet a week’s worth of bits that there wasn’t a single speck of dust to be found inside of the building.  Pictures of her family were hung along the walls with tender organization; arranged in a neat little line one after the other in a sort of chronological order.

The first of which showing the family standing outside of the house they were in now, it must have been taken ages ago, considering the house in the picture was painted a charcoal black and looked like it had just survived a dragon attack.  It was clear quite a bit of work had been done to the building since then, as one would hardly be able to believe that the quiet little home that the pegasus family currently resided in had at one time even remotely resembled the household in the picture.  The family itself though still seemed pleased, despite the poor condition of their new home.  As they were all standing outside of the building with wide grins on their faces.  Nightlight Winter held an infant Sunset Spring in her hooves, while her father, a brown stallion with a red mane by the name of Broken Autumn was standing proudly next to their firstborn son, Shining Summer.  The picture was quite obviously showing its age, discolored and wrinkled as it was exposed to the elements over the years, not to mention Sunset’s father’s mane still had color, and was well…there.  And her younger brother couldn’t have been older than seven or eight at the time the photograph was taken.   It was hard to imagine the big powerful and downright intimidating Pegasus he is now once being that calm somewhat shy young colt he appeared to be then, it actually took Black Brush a few moments to recognize who exactly the young colt was before he’d managed to put two and two together, his confusion stemming mainly from the fact that his coat was completely void of color in this picture.  Nigh on completely white like that of his mother, who’s snowy white fur was so disturbingly bleached many had actually thought she suffered some kind of condition.  But when questioned she always responded the same way.

“This was how I was born.”

But as he grew older hints of his father’s genes began to make themselves apparent as his coat began to change into more of a light brown.  The next picture was a good several years later; he couldn’t help but smile somewhat fondly at this one, mainly because he was actually in it.  It seemed as if they had gathered once again outside of the small home in order to celebrate making their weather business official.  He could still remember the day, taking the picture most of all.  It was during the period of years when he and Sunset had become practically inseparable, though many would argue that was still true today; it was even worse back then.  They used to actually sneak into each other’s bedrooms late at night not to do anything naughty of course, but just to talk like only true friends could, though that excuse still didn’t seem to work so well on her father, who had forced Black Brush to go home on more than one occasion.   He had actually been around so much that when they were getting ready for the snapshot Sunset’s mom had actually dragged him into the frame, despite his protests she had insisted that it just wouldn’t be the same without him actually being in the picture.  He chuckled slightly as he spotted himself in the image, sitting next to Sunset of course, the two of them right smack dab in the middle as she had a foreleg wrapped around him affectionately, a huge ear to ear grin plastered on her face and his cheeks so red they resembled strawberries.  While her brother looked less than entertained, he appeared to be rolling his eyes so hard Black Brush wondered if they hadn’t actually popped out of his head at some point afterward.

“There we are dinner is served!”  Sunset’s cheery voice pulled him away from the past and back into the present.

He turned to see Sunset flutter into the room with two large plates balanced expertly on each of her hooves.  He offered a weak smile as she placed the bowl on the table in front of him, the pungent aroma wafting up from the orange blob in the middle stirring his appetite.

I really should just get this over with.  He spoke with himself.  Just tell her I’m leaving and break her heart so she can get over it faster.He looked up from his bowl gloomily to see her big golden eyes staring back at him expectantly.

“Is something wrong?  Does it taste bad or something?”  She asked with a hint of apprehension tainting her voice.  Why couldn’t he just eat the damn food and tell her it was great like he always did…what was wrong with him?

Black Brush shifted his gaze back to the plate.  Well…it DOES look good, and I haven’t eaten anything all day.  Not to mention Sunset does make the best cobbler this side of Equestria…maybe just a bite, Yeah just one bite and then you can tell her.

Bending down Black Brush took a large mouthful of the goopy peaches.  Before his taste buds practically exploded in sheer joy at the magnificent flavor of the dish, he lifted his head back up with a huge smile plastered on his face as he chewed noisily on the orange delicacy.

“OH BY LUNA!”  He sputtered out in-between raucous chomps, his previous thoughts suddenly fading towards the back of his mind as he lost himself in pure delicious bliss.  “THAT has got to be the best cobbler I’ve EVER tasted!”  He quickly bent down to scoop up another mouthful of the delightful slop.

Sunset’s troubled expression changed back into a pleased smile.  Now that’s more like it.  She thought happily as Black Brush munched on the cobbler.  Maybe that was all he needed to finally break out of his funk, a slice of his favorite food and a little personal time with his best friend.

Finally pleased with her Blackie’s change in demeanor she as well dug into the food.  The peaches tasting all the sweater now that everything finally seemed right in the world.

And for a while everything was okay.  They talked and laughed like they had always done over the years, enjoying each other’s company the way only true friends could.  And the thoughts of leaving had fallen to the back of Black Brush’s mind as he and Sunset spent the evening regaling each other with stories and jokes.  And for the first time in weeks Black Brush was happy, but like all good things….it was doomed to come to an end.

“And then, he… he.”  Sunset paused as she let a few more laughs slide past her lips, before taking in another fleeting breath of oxygen and continuing her story.  “Dad looks up and says, ‘Well I guess we won’t be buying chocolate pickles anytime soon.’”  Sunset finished her story with a poor imitation of her father’s deep voice, shaking her head back and forth in an exaggerated manner and squinting her eyes like she always did when doing a less than graceful impression of her serious parent.

Black Brush laughed along with her, it wasn’t the first time he’d heard the story about the Pegasus family’s trip to Cloudsdale.  But that didn’t mean it was any less hilarious, with a smile still present on his lips he levitated a napkin up to his face and began to wipe away some of the peach juices that had spilled out of his mouth and onto his chin.

Sunset wiped away a stray tear with her hoof, taking in another much needed breath after her laughing fit.  Before she started to think of another topic with which to occupy their evening, but despite much brain racking she just couldn’t find one, when she recalled the words Black Brush had spoken back on the hill.  For a moment she considered thinking of something else to talk about, but she WAS curious as to what he had wanted to tell her, maybe he just wanted to ask her to help him out with some chores or something, yeah that was probably it.  And even though it was a risk, she decided to ask him.  “Well Blackie, you said you needed to tell me something right?”

When Black Brush heard those words it was like a light had been turned on inside of his head, and he gave himself a hefty mental slap, Black Brush couldn’t believe he’d nearly forgotten why he’d agreed to come here in the first place.  He instantly felt his mood change.  Part of him was upset that Sunset had brought his thoughts back to where they should have been all night, exactly where he didn’t want them to be.  But for the most part he was angry with himself for having dragged this out any longer than necessary.  For a he toyed with the thought that maybe he should just put it off a little longer, after all…maybe one last happy night together wouldn’t be a big deal, would another day or two of leaving her in the dark really be that bad?  But he quickly pushed the thought away.  No if he didn’t do this now he’d probably end up disappearing without telling her a thing, and somehow he figured that would be twice as painful.

“Actually Sunset…there is something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”  He began, casting his gaze to the floor.  Black Brush didn’t think he could take seeing the hurt expression he knew was going to come.

‘No no no no no you idiot!  Why did you have to say that!?  Quick think of something, anything to say!’Sunset Spring quickly probed her mind for something to distract him with.

“H-hey did I ever tell you about the time uh, my uh…my brother and I went fishing!?”  She quickly sputtered out.  Quickly conjuring a story up out of the depths of her imagination and using it as desperate attempt to change the subject and bring the mood back to where it should have stayed.  “Hoo boy quite a funny story that one!  You see my brother and me…”

Black Brush tore his eyes away from the ground, his face sympathetic.  He knew what she was trying to do, and it tore him up to see how badly she just wanted the night to keep going.  But no, he didn’t have time for this, no matter how much it hurt either of them this had to be said, one way or another.

“…Sunset…”  He quietly tried to interrupt her sputtering facade.

“And then uh…yeah my brother is all like ‘well I don’t want a pink fish!’”  She kept on, trying to ignore him.

“Sunset don’t make this harder on both of us…”

“Hey do you want some more cobbler?  I’m sure you do, it’s really good huh?”  She quickly flew over and grabbed his plate up in her hooves awkwardly, starting to propel herself back towards the kitchen.

Black Brush sighed; he’d had enough of this game.

“Sunset I’m leaving Colterson.”

*CRASH!*

The sound of the plate striking the floorboards with a violent smash rang throughout the small two story building, though neither of them seemed to hear it…no…the only thing they heard was the terrible suffocating silence that followed his words.

After what felt like hours Sunset gently floated back to the ground and sat on her haunches, unable to do much else as Black Brush’s words seemed to finally seep in.

“You…your what?”  Was all she was capable of choking out; she couldn’t believe what she had just heard.  She felt the tears stinging at her eyes already, he couldn’t…he just couldn’t…he was her closest friend; they’d lived in the town together for as long as she could remember!  He couldn’t just leave her here like this!  She hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell him…

Black Brush heaved a heavy sigh, seeing his closest friend in such a state tugged on his heart strings and he didn’t think he could handle that face for much longer.

“I…I said I’m leaving Sunset, I’m selling my shop and getting out of this town.  And I won’t be coming back.”  There it was it was finally done.  His final tie to the small town was cut and it could never be repaired.  He was finally free to leave and continue on with his life… to bury his memories and press on forward, he should be glad it was finally done.  So why did he feel so awful?

The question, of course, required no answer.  Looking up from the chestnut colored wooden floor he forced himself to gaze upon the damage he’d wrought.  And…oh Luna…did he feel it, Sunset sat with her head hung low, sniffling and wheezing as tears started to run down her face in thick rivulets of sadness.  Striking the ground with a consistent *drip* *drip*.  He wanted nothing more to rush over and embrace her, to scoop her up and tell her he was sorry, to tell her he would never leave and it was all some kind of cruel joke that he needed to be punished for.  But he felt the words die in his throat…no nothing he could do, nothing he could say could fix this.

Cautiously he stepped out of the chair and approached her, fighting the urge to cry himself as her pained sobs shook him down to his very soul.  He gently sat down next to her, gingerly reaching out with his left hoof to comfort her.  When she didn’t pull away he dragged her into a heavy embrace, cooing softly to her like a parent would their child in a foolhardy attempt to console her.  She buried her head into his chest as fresh tears spilled out upon his steel colored coat.  Again Black Brush had to choke back the tears threatening to boil over.  How could he have done this to her?

“Pl…please just tell me wh…what I did wrong Blackie.”  Sunset pleaded in between her choking pain filled sobs, it had to be her fault.  Who else could have driven him to do this?

Black Brush gave a couple gentle brushes through her bright red mane.  “Sunset you didn’t do anything wrong.”  He tried to keep his own voice level, though his eyes threatened to let his own sadness spill forth.

He felt rather than saw her shake her head back and forth in a hectic yet negative manner, grabbing onto him with her hooves so tight it nearly stole his breath away, afraid that letting go would mean he’d fade away right before her eyes.  But he didn’t mind, no he deserved the pain.

“No…Then whose fault is it huh!?”  Sunset spat harshly, and even though the sound of her voice was muffled through Black Brush’s fur and her own choking sobs he could still feel the venom and self-hatred behind the words.  “If I wasn’t such a foal none of this would have happened and you’d have no reason to leave!”

“Sunset please don’t say that!”  He bit his lip to help hold back the tears, her harsh words and guilt bringing back memories that cut through him like a red hot blade.  He pulled her closer, trying to lose himself in her soft fur and cherry scented mane, trying to find a sanctuary within her from the sadness and pain.  “Please don’t say that!  Please don’t say that!”  He pleaded with her; there was no fighting the tears now.  They began to spill freely from his eyes and into her mane.

“I’m so sorry Blackie…I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”  Sunset repeated the words; as if the more she said it the more likely he was to stay.  “Please don’t go!”  She let loose another set of choking sobs.

“Sunse-’’ Black Brush started the sentence, but never got the chance to finish it.  A flash of brown was all he managed to catch a glimpse of before a shock of pain shot through the back of his skull as he was propelled into the wall with a sickening thud.

Before he could get a good look at his assailant through his now blurry and disoriented vision he felt something strong lift him up and thump him against the wall again, his breath suddenly forced out of his lungs with a single long, drawn out wheeze as his body was pressed against the wall in an excruciating manner.   Forcing open an eye he finally caught the first blurry glimpse of his attacker, it was large, really large.  And in his dazed state the first thing that came to mind was that a dragon had found its way into the house, but after a few shakes of the head and pained blinks the blurry figure’s identity finally began to register.

He wished it was the dragon…

Before Black Brush stood a less than amused Shining Summer, his muscles bulging and nostrils flaring as he pressed his hooves into Black Brush’s stomach, pinning him to the wall.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SISTER!?”  The deep voice of the burly Pegasus rang about inside of Black Brush’s jostled brain, though he found no oxygen in his lungs to answer with.  His reply instead nothing more than a few pitiful wheezing sounds.

“Shiny quit it!”  Sunset pleaded with her overprotective brother, the tears still streaming down her face.  “You’re hurting him!”

“Oh am I?”  Shining Summer’s blue eyes dug into Black Brush like drills, filled to the brim with hatred.  “Well he’s about to get hurt a lot more if he doesn’t tell me what he did to you!”

“He didn’t do anything I swear, just put him down please!”  Sunset continued to beg fruitlessly against her enraged brother on Black Brush’s behalf.

“MANURE!  I always knew this unicorn was a no good piece of trash!”  Shining Summer emphasized his point by digging his hooves into Black Brush’s stomach, causing another pained wheeze to slide past his lips.  “Now I’m not a big fan of violence ‘Blackie’.”  Shining Summer spat out the pet name as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.  “But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t going to enjoy this.”  The words dripped with anger as Black Brush saw him raise a hoof in the air, poising it to strike.

Black Brush clamped his eyes shut, tensing up his body as he prepared for the impact.

This is going to hurt.

“SHINING SUMMER!”  A familiar feminine voice caught the flustered Pegasus’ attention, stopping the hoof strike midair.  “You put Black Brush down this instant mister, or you’ll be in big trouble!”

Braving a glance Black Brush cracked open one of his bloodshot eyes, he suddenly felt relief wash over him as he saw a displeased Nightlight Winter standing in front of them both. Her head held high and a look on her face that could only be pulled off by an angry mother, her very poise demanding immediate attention and obedience.   Her black mane tied neatly in a bun behind her head as her sparkling golden eyes dug into Shining Summer like knives.

“B…but he,” Shining Summer tried to speak, but found his voice faltering under his mother’s penetrating stare.

“I said right this instant young man!”  Her command left no room for interpretation as she stamped her hoof against the ground intimidatingly.

Black Brush suddenly felt the crushing pressure on his abdomen removed as Shining Summer stepped away, ears laid back and head hung low like a dog being scolded by its master.  Black Brush collapsed onto the ground with a thud, sucking in a breath so deep it nearly hurt, but that didn’t matter.  He was just glad he could breathe again.

“Summer to your room right now!”  Nightlight shouted above the sound of her daughter’s sobbing and Black Brush’s haggard breathing.

“But mom!”  Summer began to whine.  “I’m not a little kid anymore!”

“I’ll start treating you like a full grown stallion when you start acting like one!”  His mother’s voice was harsh, and cut through Summer’s pride like a knife.  “Now to your room this instant young man!” She jutted a commanding hoof towards the stairway leading to the upper level of the home.

Summer began his long walk of shame towards the stair case, keeping his head hung low and his tail between his legs as he attempted to avoid his mother’s harsh gaze.  The sound of clopping hooves above them and a shutting door signifying his submission to his mother’s whims.

Nightlight sighed deeply.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with that boy.”  She mumbled quietly to herself before turning a much softer gaze towards Black Brush, who still sat against the wall taking in one deep gasp after another in a difficult attempt to refill his depleted lungs.

She approached and began to help the battered unicorn to his wobbly legs.

“Are you okay Black Brush?”  She asked sincerely, gently nudging at his bruised ribs to check for any serious damage.  Luckily she didn’t seem to find anything that severe.

“Yeah I’m fine…”  His voice came out hoarse and wheezy, it was clear he was having trouble breathing.  “Is sunset okay?” He asked quietly.

“She’ll be okay I think.”  A gruff voice trickled with age resonated from where Sunset sat.

Looking over in unison they both spotted Broken Autumn sitting next to his daughter, a hoof wrapped around her affectionately as he stroked her mane.  Black Brush couldn’t recall the aged stallion ever entering the house, then again he’d just spent the last five minutes or so pinned against the wall so it might have slipped past his attention.

Sunset seemed to have calmed down a bit thanks to her father’s kind words and comforting presence.  Her once racking sobs and cries now reduced to simple sniffs and whimpers as she buried her face into her father’s thick brown coat.  Again he felt that same sensation of guilt settle into his gut, how could he be so cruel?  He wanted to say something, anything to make her feel better.  But he just couldn’t find the words.

“Listen Black Brush, I don’t know what happened between you two but I know you wouldn’t do something like this on purpose.  So for now why don’t you go home and rest a little.”  He heard Nightlight Winter offer gently.

He looked at her worried face then back at Sunset.  “…But…”

“Ah ah no buts mister, you got banged up pretty bad.”  She gave him a gentle prod to the ribs to emphasize her point, which elicited a pained hiss and grimace from Black Brush as the bruised body part screamed at the undesired attention.  “Now go home and one of us will be over to talk to you in a bit.”  She started to make her way over to where her husband and daughter sat hunched together in a tight comforting ball.  Before sitting down next to them both and wrapping one of her wings affectionately around Sunset.  She clearly wasn’t going to pay attention to any of his protests.

Sighing dejectedly he started for the door, his hooves clopping loudly against the polished wood as he made his way out of the now caved in front door, Shining Summer must have broken it down rather than open it when he charged into the building.  Before he made his exit he stole one last glance over towards where Sunset sat in her parent’s embrace.  Their eyes locked for just a moment as they held each other trapped within emerald and gold as an unknown mixture of emotions passed between them both, her eyes begging him to stay and his eyes begging her to let him go.

I’m sorry… he mouthed the words before turning and trotting out into the deserted streets of Colterson, fighting the urge to look back as he wiped the tears from his eyes and set off at a dead sprint for his home, his sanctuary.

Sunset began to cry again.

....................................................................................................................................

Black Brush slammed the door behind him, eager to shut out the rest of the world and hide from his problems.  Sighing heavily he cast a somber look around the small art shop he called home.  It was just now he realized how barren it really was, there was no furniture, he’d given it away a few weeks ago in preparation for his departure, aside from a single couch he’d been sleeping on and an ice box he’d kept around for food.  None of his paintings were displayed proudly on the walls anymore; he’d sold a few for whatever bits he could get and taken down the rest that nopony wanted.

That’s when it hit him…this was it; this was the last night he’d spend in this home.  It was over, it was done, and there wasn’t any reason to stay now.   He looked around again, it was empty, he was empty.  He had no paintings to offer him comfort, no furniture to curl up on, no books to read, and now…no Sunset to talk with.  He’d been expecting to feel a little upset at cutting off their relationship.  After all they’d been close since they were young.   But this feeling…it wasn’t just a little upset.  It was like someone had just torn out a part of his heart, no a part of his soul, his very being was missing something.  Then he realized it…he was alone.  He’d taken the one pony in all of Equestria that still cared about him and severed their ties completely, and why?  Because he was a selfish bastard that’s why, he didn’t want to live in this town anymore so he figured that was a just enough cause to hurt his best friend.

“You don’t deserve someone like her as a friend anyway.”  He berated himself quietly, and it was true, he didn’t deserve somepony as kind, gentle, and magnificent as Sunset to be his friend.  He’d proven that tonight.

His head hung low as he began a slow and pained trot over to the ice box, the heavy clops of his hooves against the marble floor of his home seemed all the louder now, as if echoing the emptiness he now felt inside.  He used his magic to lift open the lid of the container, he didn’t feel up to using his hooves, didn’t really feel up to anything except curling up on his couch and receding into the sanctuary that was his own mind.  But the stinging pain in his sides demanded some kind of attention.  Levitating the ice pack from where it rested inside of the small blue box he pressed it against his aching ribs.  The chilly pack sending shivers throughout his body as it connected with his bruised flesh, but at the same time quelling the agonizing throbbing that had been bothering him since he’d ran out of Sunset’s home.

Keeping the pack pressed to his side with magic he trotted over to the couch, pulling himself up on shaky hooves and curling up into a tight ball, wrapping his short tail around himself like a makeshift blanket.  And after a few more woeful sighs, allowed himself to drift off into sleep’s comforting embrace.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Hi honey.”  Nightlight spoke softly as she gently pushed open the door to her daughter’s bedroom, the light from the moon now high in the sky filtering in through the window, illuminating a portion of the otherwise dark room.

Nightlight’s only reply was a slight grunting sound from Sunset that acknowledged her mother’s presence.  She lay sprawled out on her bed, head buried into her pillow as she stared at a picture of her and Black Brush on the night stand next to the bed.  The picture brought her a smile for a few fleeting moments, she and Black Brush had taken it during one of their many outings together a few years back.  It was a funny picture, Black Brush was sticking out his tongue and rolling his eyes into an awkward position while she floated above him and started to munch on his head with a playful look in her eyes.  But the happiness didn’t last long before reality came crashing down upon her.  She and Black Brush would never have another moment like that again.

She wiped her eyes as she felt a displacement of weight on the bed, her mother lying down next to her.

“You want to tell me what happened between you two honey?”  Nightlight asked quietly, her eyes reassuring and filled with sympathy.

Really she didn’t, she didn’t want to talk about what had happened earlier ever again, didn’t want to acknowledge that it even occurred.  Black Brush who was he?  Never heard of him, yep everything in her life was kittens and rainbows.  What was that?  The love of her life just flat out told her he was never going to see her again?  No you must be talking about some other Sunset Spring.  But that was no real way to handle the problem was it?  Nope, no matter how hard she wanted to pretend like it had never happened there was no denying it.

“Well…”  Sunset started to speak, but found her voice falter somewhat as she was forced to recall the painful memory that still sat fresh in her mind.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”  Her mother offered in understanding.  “If you want to talk about it later that’s fine.”

For a moment Sunset thought about it.  But quickly dismissed that course of action, maybe talking about it with somepony would make her feel better.  Though she doubted that anything short of her Blackie telling her he was going to stay would fill the void she now felt in her heart.

“No it’s alright; I actually do kinda want to talk about it.”

“Okay honey, I’m listening.”

So Sunset began the emotionally trying task of recounting the night’s previous events, from when she went to fetch Blackie from the hill, to when her brother burst in the house shouting wild accusations and started to pound poor Blackie against the wall.

“I see…”  Her mother said softly, wrapping her wing comfortingly around her daughter.  Who was hastily trying to wipe a few more tears out of her eyes after recounting the whole ordeal.

“Oh mom, I don’t know what I’m going to do.  It’s my fault he’s leaving, if I wasn’t such an idiot…”  Sunset began, once again blaming herself for Black Brush’s decision.  “Just looking at me probably makes him sick.”

“Hey now don’t say that.  You know Black Brush better than anypony, and you know he’d never be upset with you.”  Nightlight used the back of her hoof to wipe away a few more stray tears from Sunset’s cheeks.  “I know you keep blaming yourself for what happened a few weeks ago but it really isn’t your fault.  None of us could have seen it coming, least of all you three.  And, what Black Brush had to do…I wouldn’t wish it on anypony.  And I can’t even begin to fathom what he’s been through since that whole ordeal.”  She leaned closer, meeting her daughter’s gaze.  “But I do know one thing.  He cares about you too much to hurt you like this on purpose.  Now I’m not sure of his reasons, and I’m sure none of us can ever really understand why he wants to leave like this.  But trust me when I say it has nothing to do with you.”

Sunset sniffed a little, before a light grin began to play at the edges of her mouth.  Her mother always did know just what to say to cheer her up, even if it was just a little.  She looked down, drawing circles with her hoof on the soft velvet blanket beneath them, a cute little grin on her face as her cheeks started to develop a slightly redder hue, and her eyes drifting off to look at nothing in particular.  A nervous tick she’d developed over the years when she was thinking about something in particular, or somepony to be more precise.  Nightlight did always think it was the cutest thing, and it wasn’t very hard to guess who exactly was on her mind when she had one of these little moments, but she never said anything about it.  Figuring it was better to let her daughter’s not so subtle affections stay subtle.

“You really do love him don’t you?”

Sunset’s blank face suddenly snapped into attention, as she quickly turned her head away from her mother’s prying eyes in order to hide the blush that decided to play at her cheeks.  Was it really that obvious?  Or did her mother have some special kind of mind power that let her read a pony’s thoughts?  Really Sunset didn’t know which one she was more worried about.

“Well I…”  Sunset began but ended up trailing off.  There really was no reason to deny it was there?  After all it wasn’t like her mother was going to prance around telling all the other ponies in town…or she hoped her mother wouldn’t do something like that anyway.  After all, continuous protests hadn’t stopped her from busting out the baby pictures whenever she had a guest in the house…regardless of their current affiliation with the family.  Maybe this was something she should just keep to herself.

Looking over she met her mother’s knowing gaze and realized that no matter what she said Nightlight would always know the truth.  Finally with a heavy sigh she decided to speak.

“…Yeah…I really like my     Blackie.     “Sunset suddenly slapped her mouth shut with a hoof, realizing that her voice had taken an airy tone and she’d resorted to calling her best friend by his pet name.  Oh Celestia, there was definitely no hiding her feelings now, especially now that she’d said it like…wow she couldn’t even come up with an analogy that could even do that justice.  And to top it all off…her wings were now standing at full attention.

Her mother at least had the audacity to attempt to suppress the giggle rising in her throat, though it wasn’t met with much success.

Sunset lay her head down and covered it with her hoofs, feeling like she could fall right through the floor.  She wanted to tell the truth about her feelings but she hadn’t planned on making them…that clear.

Her mother finished her laughing fit and looked down at her daughter with an amused yet slightly apologetic grin, the embarrassment evident on the orange Pegasus’ face, or what little of it wasn’t hidden behind her hooves anyway.

“Oh honey, have you considered telling him how you feel?”  She offered gently, though a hint of that amused tone still tickled at her voice.

Sunset reared her head up, staring at her mother with an expression that looked like she had suggested they eat a puppy for breakfast.

“It might get him to stay you know.”  Nightlight continued to coax.

“Mom are you nuts!?”  Sunset’s voice came out harsh and surprised, like the mere idea of admitting how she felt was insane.  “I can’t tell him…”  She looked away again, staring up at the moon in the sky.  “…It’s so soon after what happened and…after everything earlier tonight.”  Sunset let out a heavy sigh.  “I just don’t think it would be a good idea mom.”   She finished remorsefully, moving her eyes away from the sparkling night sky to set her head back down onto the soft pillow beneath her, letting her head sink into the soft material as thoughts of Black Brush and his imminent departure ran through her mind.  “I just don’t know what I’m going to do when he’s gone…I’ve never felt like this about anypony before.  And if he were to go out there and get hurt…”  She added quietly, her voice trembling somewhat as if she was too afraid to finish the thought.

Nightlight Winter sighed softly as she embraced her daughter affectionately…she had hoped this day wouldn’t come.  Like she imagined all mothers did, but she’d be lying if she were to say she hadn’t been expecting it.  An old saying popped into her head as she thought of what she was about to do.

If you love something…you must set it free.

        “Sunset honey, did I ever tell you how your father and I got together?”  Nightlight asked softly to her daughter as she embraced the melancholy mare affectionately.

        Sunset sniffed lightly before replying.  “Wasn’t it during your stay in Canterlot or something?”  She cracked open a bloodshot eye to stare at her mother.

Nightlight smiled gently as the memory began to wash over her.  “Well honey that’s not exactly true.”

Sunset sat up to give her mother a surprised stare.  “It isn’t?”  She asked incredulously.  She had heard the story of her parent’s passionate meeting multiple times from both the mare and the stallion.  So it struck her as odd that they’d have been bending the truth the whole time.

“Well not exactly anyway.”  Her mother continued the soft smile as her eyes drifted off to look at nothing in particular, a look of contentment and happiness washing over her features as she let herself be dragged back to the fond memory.  “You see your father and I really did live in Canterlot for some time, that part is true.  And we did decide to leave after a little while to look for a simpler place to raise a family.  But what you don’t know is the reasons for our hasty departure.  You see your father at the time was nothing more than a low paid weather colt, while I on the other hoof came from a wealthy family of nobles.  As far as my parents were concerned he was worth nothing more than a passing glance, one of the ponies we were meant to step on in order to reach the top of the societal food chain.”  Sunset noticed a taste of disgust touch on her mother’s voice as she said those words.  “But I never saw him like that.  No I saw him like he was an actual living being, something with feelings and a heart, something I wasn’t meant to use once and then toss aside like a damaged tool…no I saw him for what he truly was…I saw him as a stallion.”

Sunset listened intently; she knew her parents had originally hailed from Canterlot.  That much hadn’t been a mystery.  But it had never been brought to her attention that Nightlight was of noble descent.  For now she let the thoughts of Black Brush fall to the back of her mind as she shifted her attention to her mother’s story, after all it was far less depressing.

“We first met back when my family had returned from a business trip in Eastern Clopton, as it turns out the weather team had scheduled a storm while we were gone and, due to some mishap with the schedule it had combined with another smaller storm and turned out twice as powerful as originally intended.  Many homes located in the town itself had been damaged heavily, though not beyond repair.  But the same couldn’t be said for the cloud homes located in the skyline of the glorious city, for most if not all had been nigh on demolished;  the fragile clouds ripped apart by the sudden onslaught of hail, rain, and wind.  Unfortunately for my family, we lived in a cloud home.  As you can imagine my parents weren’t exactly happy to come home from a long business trip to find out that our expensive cloud manor had been practically torn in half like a flimsy piece of parchment, while the houses located within the city could have been quickly and simply repaired by the combined efforts of unicorns and earth ponies alike.  Homes like ours were much, much more complicated.”

“First of all maybe I should do a little explaining, considering you’ve never actually lived in a cloud home yourself, you see clouds are unlike the durable wood and stone most buildings in Equestria are made from, as you can practically slap those two things together all you want and make something that can withstand the elements.  Clouds on the other hand require a bit more of a delicate touch.  Each piece of the airy material needs special care and placement in order to be constructed into a proper, not to mention safe, living space.  The creation of which only a Pegasus could hope to do properly, this is where your father comes in, though we’ll get to that in a moment.”

Sunset continued to listen intently as her mother moved on with the story.  She really had no idea what this had to do with anything that had happened earlier tonight, maybe it was just her mother’s desperate attempt to bring Sunset out of her depression.  Or maybe Nightlight was trying to teach her some kind of life lesson.  Who knew?  Her mom’s actions were more often than not difficult to predict.  No matter what the whole point to this long winded spiel was she was grateful for the distraction.

“Now when we arrived back in Canterlot my family was very upset to find that all the good pegasi construction contractors had already been hired by everypony else.  Even some of the lesser skilled teams had been hired out, I remember seeing one pegasus with eyes that didn’t line up carrying a stack of cloud beams in one hoof and a bag of muffins in another, I don’t imagine that the job ended well.  Our late return had meant we were left with practically zero chance of finding somepony skilled, or willing, enough to do the work a luxurious home such as ours required.  Left with nowhere to go thanks to my parent’s refusal to stay in one of the many inns dotted throughout the city we were forced to beseech Princess Celestia herself for aid.  I personally didn’t expect the Princess’ surprisingly swift response; she had sent her best architect to oversee the reconstruction of our manor.  Along with a group of volunteers who had been willing to take time out of their lives to help us, a bunch of stuck up nobleponies.”

“I imagine my parent’s first idea was to complain, but for once in their lives they’d managed to keep their mouths shut.   It must have been because they really didn’t have much say in the matter if they wanted someplace to live.”  Sunset couldn’t help but notice how Nightlight had failed to say anything remotely positive about her parents.  The topic of grandparents had always been rather hush hush around the home, any attempt to bring up either Nightlight’s or Breaking Autumn’s heritage was usually quickly and simply avoided.  Though she was aware that her father had been raised by an elderly uncle rather than either a mom or a dad, their lives having been claimed by a chariot crash when he was still a young colt.  Since the topic was always swiftly swept under the rug when it came up she had never really put much thought into it.  But hearing all this now was starting to make it clear, Nightlight obviously had issues with her noble bloodline.

“A group of about seven or eight pegasi had arrived within the hour, but I wasn’t paying much attention to them.  Now I never believed in the whole love at first sight thing, not really sure I do still…but let me tell you.”  Nightlight looked down at her daughter, smiling fondly at the memory as she looked upon her captivated gaze.  “When I saw your father, it was like something inside me broke.  A myriad of swirling emotions and unspoken desires were spinning around in my head.”  Sunset watched as her mother’s eyes drifted off to look at nothing as she lost herself within the memory.  “I can still picture him like it was yesterday.  He was so handsome, his chestnut colored coat had been well groomed, his red mane blowing slightly in the breeze as he flew carelessly through the air on a pair of the most magnificent wings I’d ever seen, and as we locked eyes…oh Celestia I didn’t think my heart would ever stop beating.”

“Naturally, my parents being the fretful sort they were, made it their business to stick their nose in the lives of each of the ponies who’d come to fix our manor.  More or less everypony seemed to live pretty average lives; a good portion of them had at least a smaller background in cloud construction, your father included.  And we already knew who the architect was, considering he had his hooves dug into practically every construction project around the city.  But when they learned that your dad was a weather pony they had immediately demanded that he be kicked off of the job, I’d wanted to say something in protest, but I’d learned over the years that it was never a good idea to oppose my parents.  Thankfully though the architect was a kind old pony, and had explained that Breaking Autumn was one of the reserve weather ponies that had actually been brave enough to venture out into the storm in order to minimalize damages.  This seemed to satisfy my parents to some degree, who begrudgingly allowed him to do his work.”

“I watched from the sidelines as the volunteer group began the trying task that had been laid out before them; my parents had said I should stay to watch in order to learn how to oversee projects and gain leadership skills, due to the fact that I would one day be inheriting the family business.  Really they were just making sure I didn’t run off to spend time with my friends, but they shouldn’t have been worried.  For I couldn’t have left if I wanted to, I was too busy watching your father.  I made sure to keep my distance, trying to build up my courage in order to speak to him, strange I know, for a noble to have trouble speaking with a commoner.  But when I saw him fly by it’s like he took my breath with him.  I think at one point he may have noticed my stare, because I can recall him stopping in the middle of stacking a cloud to turn and look at me.  When our eyes locked I could practically feel the heat rising in my cheeks, then he offered me the slightest little smile and a brief wave, before turning back to his work with a grin.  I could barely believe it; he had actually acknowledged my existence, I’d almost managed to stammer out a greeting.  Though by the time the words finally managed to register within my mind I’d realized he’d already moved too far away for me to possibly catch his attention.”

“I think my parents eventually managed to catch on to my little crush, because I can remember feeling my dad’s disapproving glare digging into the back of my skull.  They of course didn’t take long to come up with something pointless to steal away my attention, if I remember right it was something about asking one of the construction ponies on break about how rainbows were made, considering our family owned a chunk of the rainbow factory over in Cloudsdale.  So with a sigh I soared over to where the Pegasus was resting, when I managed to mumble out a greeting he smiled and offered me a seat on the cloud next to him.  Apparently he had noticed who my attentions were focused on as well, and I started to wonder if it was really that obvious, he asked if I wanted to know a little more about your father, considering I looked like I didn’t plan on asking him directly any time soon.  All I could do was nod enthusiastically.”

“That was the first time I’d ever heard your father’s name.  And I couldn’t stop saying it under my breath as the Pegasus continued to tell me more about him.  Apparently this Pegasus had worked with Breaking Autumn back when the two did cloud construction a few years back, they’d gone out for drinks a couple of times and considered each other friends.  He told me that Breaking Autumn lived in the lower part of town, which was something I figured, reserve weather ponies aren’t exactly paid well.  But I wasn’t really concerned, though if my parents were to be believed I would have thought that the lower part of Canterlot was the slummiest most dangerous place in all of Equestria.  Filled with thieves, cutthroats, mercenaries, and the like, but a rebellious trip there myself one late weekend night had proved it to be quite the opposite.”

“He’d been going on about something else for at least a good ten or fifteen minutes but I once again had allowed my imagination drift off in order to fawn over Breaking Autumn a little more.  When suddenly a loud shout yanked me back into reality and all too late had I realized that the growing shadow surrounding me wasn’t exactly a cloud covering up a few of the sun’s rays, but rather the silhouette of a dangerous cloud beam cascading out of the sky and rushing towards my current position on the soft cloud I had been floating on.  By the time I had realized what was happening it was already too late; it would only be moments before I was crushed fatally underneath the beam’s overpowering weight.  Not that I could have done much anyway, I can still remember the feeling of my wings locking up from fear the moment my foggy and love sick mind finally managed to piece together the life threatening situation I was in.”

“I screwed my eyes shut as tight as possible, and braced myself for what I knew was to come.  That’s when I felt it; two strong hooves wrapped themselves around my waist and launched me into the air.  I could feel the empty space beneath me and my wings still refused to obey my desperate commands, I remember screaming, or at least I think I screamed, I couldn’t really hear due to the sound of wind rushing past my ears, but suddenly I stopped.  And then I felt those hooves wrap around me protectively once again.  Slowly I managed to open one of my eyes, and my mind suddenly blanked when I saw who my savior was.  Breaking Autumn held me, pressing my body against his in a safe and comforting embrace, his eyes looking down upon me worriedly as a bead of sweat hung off of his forehead.  He asked me if I was alright, his panicked blue eyes darting across my entire body for signs of injury.  If my head wasn’t spinning I’m sure I would have blushed.  His words finally managed to register inside of my jostled mind and I forced a small shake of my head.  I could feel him exhale in relief as he gave me another one of those amazing smiles.”

Nightlight chuckled softly.  “I can remember what I told him after that.  I asked him how his day was going.  Can you believe how stupid that must have sounded?  No wonder I didn’t have any suitors if that was how I acted around a colt.”  Sunset felt herself smile.  “But at least your dad was nice about it.  He even made a joke; I can’t remember exactly, it was something about a salt shaker if I remember right.  It wasn’t funny I remember that much, but I laughed anyway.  You know how bad your dad’s jokes are but the fact that he was actually talking to me kept me from doing anything other than responding positively.  He told me his name and I told him mine.  I’d heard people say my name dozens of times over the years, but none of them had made my heart flutter like he did.”

“He flew us back down to the ground, and when we finally touched back down on the safety of the earth he gently released me, I was enjoying the feeling of his touch and I was loath to let go.  But the sounds of my parent’s irate voices coming closer and the knowledge of what I knew was about to come forced me to focus my thoughts elsewhere.  When my parents finally got to us they began to fret over me, checking me over and asking if everything was alright.  I knew they didn’t really care, the first thing they made sure was intact was the fancy jewel necklace they’d bought me during our trip to Clopton in order to make me look more ‘presentable’, as my mom had put it.  But after that they immediately began throwing around wild accusations, claiming ridiculous things like how Breaking Autumn had knocked the cloud beam over on purpose then saved the day hoping for some kind of reward, when in reality he’d been at a completely different part of the house, reconstructing the kitchen if I remember correctly.  They’d even threatened to have him thrown into Celestia’s dungeon under the accusations of attempted murder.  This was one of the few times I’d ever actually spoken out against my parents, after a while and after a lot of coaxing from me they eventually settled down.  But no matter how much I pleaded they just simply refused to let him back on the job.”

“With a sigh of defeat he finally agreed to take his leave.  I begged him to stay, nearly fell to the ground and cried like a foal would over spilled milk but I had simply never felt this way about any colt before.  But it wasn’t as if my pleas had fallen on deaf ears, before he left he pulled me close planted a kiss on my cheek, which elicited a sharp addition of crimson to my face, and told me to look out my window at midnight.  And when the time came I did as he had instructed, he was sitting outside my window, a single rose in his mouth as he fluttered over with a grin on his face.  I quickly snuck outside to meet him, and we spent hours telling each other of our lives, gazing up at the stars, and simply enjoying the others company.”

“But our meetings didn’t stop after our single late night rendezvous, they continued on for many years after that, and we really made no attempts to hide our feelings in front of anypony.  Not even my parents vile words and pathetic attempts at punishments could dissuade me from doing what I knew in my heart was right.  We didn’t care that others thought it improper, or wrong that a noble would have such a relationship with a peasant.  I loved him and he loved me and everypony else’s opinions failed to register.  It was driving my parents mad, it had to of been, to see the daughter they had built up and raised to be proper flying about the town all willy nilly with some low life.  They just couldn’t see how happy I was, they thought it was a faze or some kind of final rebellion as the weight of my heritage began to press down upon me.  They thought it was something that could be fixed with stern voices and swift punishments.  But let me tell you something.”

Nightlight looked down upon her daughter’s captivated gaze.  Smiling lightly and pulling her closer.

“You can’t fix love.  So when my parents said that they had planned a marriage for me and some other noblecolt I’d never met, your father and I made the ultimate decision.  Together we left our old lives behind to face the unknown, to live the way we always wanted.  And that’s how we ended up here.  I often wonder what would have happened if I had refused his offer to leave.  If I did as my parents commanded.  Surely I would have been rich, could have had anything I ever wanted.  Money, power, status, fame, it would have all been handed to me on a silver platter…but I wouldn’t have experienced so many wonderful things.  I wouldn’t have experienced pain, wouldn’t have experienced strife, and I would never have experienced love.  So I followed my heart, and I don’t regret it.”

Nightlight hugged her daughter tight, wrapping her hooves around her lovingly.

“And now you have to make that same decision.”

Nightlight felt her daughter bristle slightly and attempt to pull away at the unexpected words.  But she held firm, savoring the intimate touch with her daughter.

“M…mom are you saying I should leave with Black Brush?”  Nightlight finally eased the grip on her daughter, allowing them to look into each other’s eyes.  Sunset could see the tears threatening to boil over as her mother smiled affectionately.

“Honey I’m not saying you should leave, stay, or fly to the moon.  I’m saying you should follow your heart.”

Sunset’s mouth hung open, wanting to say something, but in the end managed only a single small nod.  Nightlight pulled her closer, letting a few of those teetering tears fall free.  Before letting Sunset go and wiping them away hastily.  Without another word Nightlight jumped off the bed, and then walked over to the closet.

“Well don’t just sit there you silly little filly.  We need to get your saddlebags packed.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…I’m giving you a choice Black Brush….

…You’ll thank me one day for this…

Black Brush awoke from his troubled sleep with a start, a consistent and obnoxious thumping drawing him from his nightmare.  Casting a weary and bloodshot gaze about the nigh on empty room he pinpointed the sound as coming from his door.  Gradually he shifted off the battered cushions of his couch.  Tossing the now melted icepack to the ground with a loud splatting sound, he found that the sting within his sides had diminished somewhat thanks to the cool ice but he was far from in a good enough mood to put it back in his ice box.

*thump* *thump*

“If it’s a sales pony I’m going to-“He stopped short as he swung open the door.  “Sun…Sunset?”  He felt his heart leap up into his throat and immediately get smashed back down as the Pegasus wrapped her hooves around him in a crushing embrace.  Stunned by the sudden show of affection he failed to do anything except hesitantly return the loving hug.  After a few moments his voice seemed to return.  “Sunset, what are you doing here?”  He tried to gently pull her away, but this only encouraged her to hold him tighter, keeping him in place.

“Oh Blackie!”  Her voice cracked with emotion as she practically shouted his name, burying her head into his shaggy mane, savoring the touch.  “I’m not going to lose you ever again.”

Black Brush pulled away once more, this time she relented, allowing him to take a step back.  His eyes settled onto the pair of brown burlap saddlebags hanging at her sides.

“Sunset, what’s with the saddlebags?”  His emerald eyes shined with curiosity.

She frowned slightly, an expression of disappointment crossing her face.  She had expected him to be glad to see her.  “I’m…I’m coming with you.”  She offered a hopeful smile.  “Aren’t you happy?”

Suddenly the realization hit him.  And he felt foolish for not having already put the pieces together.  “Sunset you can’t.  You have a life here, a job, a family; you can’t go traipsing across Equestria with me.  Your parents wouldn’t approve we both know that.”

Sunset’s upset expression morphed into a coy smile as she giggled lightly.  “Blackie you are really thick sometimes you know.  Who do you think told me to come here?”

Black Brush blinked once, then twice, a look of bewilderment present on his face.  “Wait…your parents want you to come with me?”

She kept on with the smile, before nodding enthusiastically then giving him a playful punch in the shoulder.  “You didn’t think you’d be able to get rid of me that easily did you?”

Black Brush returned the smile after another brief moment of silence.  Then raised his hooves into the air and messed up her mane.  Little did he know that no other show of affection could have meant anything more.  He dropped back down to the tile floor, admiring his handiwork with a coy smirk playing at the edges of his mouth.  Sunset’s once neatly combed cherry red mane was now tussled and thrown about like she had just woken up with a serious case of bed head.

She giggled again, though she wasn’t showing it, she was practically beaming on the inside.  Now that was more like the Black Brush she knew! “You know…we have some of that cobbler left.  And my parents would love to have one last dinner with us both.  Interested?”

“Of course,”

“Well come on then, let’s get over there before it’s all eaten up.”  She swung around, heading for the door.

“Wait!”  Black Brush quickly grabbed her shoulder with a hoof, stopping her where she stood.  “If…if you want to come with me…I have to show you something.”

Sunset was about to make some kind of remark, though when she laid her eyes upon the grave expression on his face she knew it was something important.  “Yeah, lead the way.”

Without another word he turned around and started for the staircase that led to the upper floors of the building.  Sunset let out a somewhat disappointed sigh; she had just managed to pull him out of his seemingly endless depression.  And now it looked like he had just dived right back in to it.  But at least she knew his old self was there, somewhere, she’d managed to catch the briefest glimpse of the Black Brush she knew…and she was going to get him back, one way or another.

When they finally reached the top of the stairs, Black Brush stopped at a single oak door that resided at the end of the hallway, Sunset knew what it led to, for she had been inside many times before.  It was the room where Black Brush did his paintings, that much wasn’t a mystery.  But what was surprising was the expression he wore as he stared at the door.  He almost looked…frightened, like he was scared of what may lay in wait on the other side.  Slowly he lifted a hoof towards the door, about to push it open when suddenly…he paused…his outstretched hoof floating in the air like it was suspended in time, it appeared to be as if he was grinding his teeth, attempting to build up enough confidence to reveal what was inside.

Hesitantly Sunset approached him from the side, lightly draping a comforting hoof over his shoulder.  “Blackie…if you don’t want to do this, I understand.”  She spoke softly, though she was curious as to what he was so adamant about showing her.  She could live without seeing it if it caused him so much discomfort.

He looked back at her, as if contemplating that, before shaking the thought away.  “No, you’ve got to know why I really want to leave.”

And with that he pushed open the door.  They slowly stepped inside; upon entering the pair were immediately assaulted by the ever present scent of fresh paint and new canvas.  The room itself, for lack of a better term, was a total wreck.  Canvas was thrown all over the place, some pinned to the wall, and a large amount was strewn about carelessly across the floor, as if thrown there in a fit of rage.  Paint bottles and brushes were organized in practically the same way.  Tossed about all over the place without what seemed like a single thought of organization.  Now this surprised Sunset, the room was never really ordered per say, Black Brush, being the pony he was, was always much more concerned about getting the next piece of art done and pretty before worrying himself over the workspace with which he made it.  But never had it fallen to such a disgraceful state.  She watched him with concern as he sat down sadly, his ears drooping and his head hanging low as he stared at the room with pained eyes.

“Blackie…what is all this?”  Sunset asked with apprehension, her eyes scanning over the mess.

“Sunset, I want you to look at a couple of the paintings in here.”  He told her flatly, no emotion to his voice.  She felt her spine chill when he said that, he just sounded so…dead inside.

“Okay…”  She answered him quietly, craning her neck in order to get a better look at a couple of the portraits that weren’t completely tattered or unrecognizable.  “Which ones?”

Black Brush was silent for a moment, before he answered her with that same hollow and empty voice as before.  “…Any of them…”

Something about the way he said that…it sent chills through her spine.  Cautiously she picked out a couple of paintings in the room, brushing aside some of the strewn about canvas to provide a clear space to examine them.  She lined them up side by side on the floor then began to look over them with a scrutinizing gaze, checking for any abnormality.

After a few moments of silence she heard Black Brush speak.  “So…notice anything?”

She looked up at him, seeing he was in the same position as before, still staring out at nothing in particular.  His gaze unwavering, never changing, she was fairly confident he hadn’t even blinked throughout the whole time they’d been in the room.

“Well I don’t see anything all that weir-“She began before stopping short.  “Wait a minute…”  She quickly looked each of the paintings over once again in turn.  “None of them are finished.”  She fixed him with a confused stare.  “Black Brush you-“

“Never leave a painting unfinished.”  He completed the sentence, and then fixed those sad unfamiliar eyes upon her.  “…I know.”  He turned away, unable to look at her any longer.  “You know I’m not like most artists, I don’t just look at something and paint it.  I reach into my mind and allow my magic to put what I feel on the canvas…to bring life to my imagination.  But no matter what I do…no matter what I try to think about…I just can’t get it out of my damn HEAD!”  He shouted the word, before slamming his hoof into the floor with a thud, as if striking it would fix whatever problem he seemed to have.

Sunset looked at him, eyes filled with pity and remorse as she took a few hesitant steps forward.  “Blackie…”

“Every time I close my eyes…I see.”  He grimaced as if in pain as he clenched his eyes shut.   “I’m a monster.”

Suddenly it was all so obvious, Sunset finally understood why her closest friend needed to leave this town, the town they’d both grown to know and love.  What had happened only a few short weeks ago…what he had been forced to do…it was eating him up inside.  “Black Brush look at me.”

        He obeyed; turning his head towards her and cracking his eyes open slightly, the tears glistening in his emerald eyes, threatening to fall.  She quickly pulled him into a loving and tender embrace, much to his surprise.

        “You are not a monster.  What you had to go through…what you had to do…nopony deserves that.”  They pulled each other a little closer, both of them relishing the intimate contact.  “And I can’t even begin to understand what you’ve been through since it happened but…”  Sunset discretely chewed on her lower lip, considering her next words carefully.  “I want you to know that I will always be there for you.”

Black Brush sighed contentedly into Sunset’s cherry red mane as he held her close, allowing her soothing words to sink in.  He felt all the guilt and depression that had been eating away at his mind and body for weeks now slowly begin to recede into the darkest regions of his mind, he didn’t quite understand it at first, why he felt so happy.  But after a time it became clear, he was no longer alone…so long as he had Sunset, he would never be alone.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

        A gust of chilly morning air filtered in through the window adjacent to where Sunset rested calmly underneath the silk sheets of her bed.  She cracked open an eyelid, batting away the filtering sunlight as if it was an annoying insect.  When it failed to dissipate however she rolled over, keeping her eyes shut as she moved to wrap her hooves around the body she had been curling up to the night before.  However when she found nothing to return her embrace but thin air her expression morphed into that of a frown.  Quickly she shot up, wiping away the sleep from her left eye with a hoof as she looked around the room frantically.  Black Brush was no longer there.

‘Okay Sunset don’t freak out.  He wouldn’t slip off without telling you, after all it’s not like he would have trouble finding you, you two slept in the same bed last night for Celestia’s sake.  He’s probably just…in the bathroom!  Yeah that’s it!

        She looked down, Black Brush’s saddlebags were gone…that wasn’t a good sign.  Sunset felt the worry begin to gnaw on her as she shot out of the bed and tore across the room with a speed born of worry and concern as she swiftly pulled open her bedroom door.  She scanned up and down the hall of the second story in her home.  She felt her false hopes immediately get squashed down as she noticed the bathroom’s door was swung ajar, unoccupied.

Oh I swear when I track that no good stallion down I’m going to shove that paint brush so far up his- wait, what was that?”Sunset stopped her inner tirade just long enough to focus her hearing towards a few voices resonating from the kitchen.

        “I’m just saying, he better have kept his hooves to himself last night.”  An older voice sounded over the consistent noise of running water from the kitchen, Sunset immediately placed it as her father’s.

        She heard a slight screeching noise as the sound of running water came to a halt and a familiar voice gave an exasperated sigh.

        “Would you just quit complaining?  You’ve known Black Brush since he was a little colt; he’d never take advantage of Sunset like that.”  Sunset placed the voice as her mother’s.  Feeling heat rise to her face as…unclean thoughts about her and Black Brush quickly flashed through her head, before swiftly being pushed away, she really tried her best to not fantasize about him doing…that.  But she couldn’t help but wonder what else he could do with that horn of his…

        Sunset started down the stairs, the smells of freshly cooked breakfast became more prominent as she descended causing her stomach to stir as her appetite began to act up.  Once she reached the bottom her eyes were drawn to the entrance of the home.  A new door had been quickly erected, no doubt by her father at some point during the night, or perhaps earlier in the morning, as she couldn’t recall it being there when she and Black Brush had returned from his home the night before.  It was a pale white, in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint, as the pale color didn’t seem to match well with the dark brown of the frame.  She imagined her father would probably be taking care of that after he finished up his weather duties around town this evening.

        “Regardless of the time span in which he and I have been acquainted it doesn’t change the fact that he is indeed a colt, and I know for a fact that when certain situations arise colts have a tendency to stop thinking up here.”  Sunset noticed her father sitting at the kitchen table, a steaming cup of coffee in one hoof as he tapped the side of his head with the other.  “And start thinking down here.”  He suddenly pointed towards his lap with the same hoof.

        “No dear, not all colts do that, just you after a long day of weather work.”  Sunset’s mother walked out from the kitchen, finally coming into view.  She had her cooking apron on and her mane tied into a tight bun behind her head.  She had a playful tint to her eyes as she stared down her husband, who gave a dismissive snort at the jabbing comment.  Sunset noticed those golden eyes settle on her, and then her mother gave a warming smile.  “Hi honey.”

        Her father swiveled around in his chair, taking a sip from his coffee mug as he looked her over with a scrutinizing gaze.  “Well you LOOK like you got a full night’s sleep.”

        Sunset gave her father an irritated scowl, the very idea that her father thought that her Blackie was nothing more than a horny unicorn rubbed her the wrong way, even if she knew he didn’t really mean anything by it.  When Breaking Autumn noticed the scowl he intelligently changed his tone.

        “I mean hello dear, did you sleep well last night?”  He offered her a wide and desperate grin in an attempt to get rid of that terrible face.

        Sunset’s expression morphed from a threatening scowl into a sly grin.  “Oh yeah, I slept like a baby.  I had no idea a skilled tongue could make me so tired.”

        Breaking Autumn winced slightly at the thought, before quickly turning back to his coffee.  Refusing to let his daughter’s teasing get to him, though the sound of his wife’s giggling only served to chastise him further.

        “Oh dear,” Nightlight took in a breath as her laughing fit came to an end.  “Well I suppose we know what side of the family you’re going to take after.”

        “Celestia help us all.”  Breaking Autumn grumbled just loud enough for them both to hear.

        “Oh shut up you.”  Nightlight quickly flung her now discarded apron at the side of the old stallion’s head, which he managed to duck underneath with a single swift movement, throwing a self-satisfied smile at his wife in return, which she quickly ignored with a hard roll of the eyes.

        “So mom, where has Black Brush gotten off to?”  Sunset asked with a twinge of apprehension to her voice, though it didn’t seem like either of her parents managed to pick up on it.

        Her father shrugged his shoulders and her mother gave a dismissive shake of her head.

        “He didn’t say where he was going or what he was up to.  You can ask him when he gets back though; he and Shiny said they’d be back in time for breakfast.”   Her mother answered before heading back to the kitchen.  The sound of clanging plates and pans signaling that said breakfast was ready to be served.

        “He AND Shiny went out…like together?”  Sunset asked, incredulous.

        “Yep,” this time it was her father that answered, bringing the coffee cup up to his lips once more, before eyeing it down and giving a heavy hearted sigh as he realized it was empty.  “Poor boy said he felt awful about what had happened last night and insisted that he tag along.  At least he’s got the gall to try and make up for his mistake; if you ask me he cares a lot more about Black Brush than he lets on.”

        Nightlight flew back into the room, a set of plates and silverware occupying each of her hooves.  “Or he used the opportunity as a chance to get out of the house while being grounded.”  The miffed Pegasus huffed while busily setting the table.  “If he isn’t back soon I’m going to double his punishment.”

        As if on cue the sound of the door swinging open served as the signal for the return of the aforementioned pair of ponies.  Sunset immediately felt her worry for Black Brush’s whereabouts evaporate as she saw him enter the home with her older brother Shining Summer in toe.  Looking him over she noticed the brown leather saddlebags hung at his sides, now slightly more full than they were the night before, he wore something else across his back as well, it was a long curved object, about half the size of Black Brush himself who wasn’t exactly small, and it was wrapped in leather that appeared to be several inches thick.  Whatever it was Black Brush had obviously taken many precautions to make sure it wouldn’t be damaged.

        “So, where have you been mister?”  Sunset asked the unicorn with mock annoyance.

        He gave her a smile that warmed her heart, it was good to see a little happiness return to his face after it had been gloomy for so long.  “Oh I just went out to do some last minute stocking up on supplies, and to pull this baby out of storage before my shop gets sold.”  The faint grey glow surrounded the leather bound object on his back as he levitated it out in front of him with his magic.  Before she could even ask he unsheathed what was inside with a quick flourish.  Floating in the air before her was a long shining sabre; she stared at it wide eyed.  Though she didn’t have an eye for weapons per say she was still wowed at the sight of the brilliant shining blade.  The cold curved steel managing to catch the light in the room just right in a way that caused it to glimmer in a spectacular fashion, the handle of the blade long and accompanied by a golden hoof guard that shone just as brilliantly as the rest of the sword.  It was most certainly a spectacular weapon, and did it not look razor sharp she would have been tempted to run her hoof along the edge to get a feel for it.

        “I almost forgot I had this old thing, considering I haven’t had a good fencing partner in years it’s mostly been left to gather dust in the back of my workshop.”  Black Brush spoke while spinning the blade around and looking it over with a proud gaze.

        “We took it down to Flint’s, the blacksmith at the edge of town, to see if we could get it sharpened.”  Shining Summer spoke up, craning his large neck in order to get a better look at the weapon.  “I’d say the old coot did a pretty good job.”

        “I thought Flint said he didn’t work on weapons anymore.”  Sunset said, finally managing to tear her eyes away from the rotating sabre.

        “Eh, put enough bits into anypony’s hoofs and they’ll do whatever you tell ‘em to.”  Shining Summer responded with a shrug.

        “I’d have paid him twice as much for what he did if I had the money.  He really put some effort into this!  I haven’t seen this old thing shine so bright since I was little.”  Black Brush breathed with enthusiasm, watching his sabre grow old and rusty had been like watching an old friend get old and pass away, and there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind that the poor thing would have had to been put out with the garbage in a few more weeks.  But now it looked and felt as good as the first day he’d received it.  It was an object close to his heart for many reasons so seeing it returned to its former glory made him practically want to shout with joy.

        “My my Black Brush, I had no idea you were a fencer.”  Breaking Autumn trotted over in order to get a peek at the weapon.  “May I?”  He extended a hoof out to see if Black Brush would be willing to let him examine it a little closer.

        “Of course,” He handed the older stallion the blade, who began to toy with it, testing the weight of the steel with his hoofs.  “My father started teaching me as a young colt, he figured since it was his special talent it might be mine as well.  Obviously it wasn’t.”  He nodded towards his paintbrush and canvas as a cutie mark.  “But I’m still quite good at it.  And he gave me that sabre as a gift before he took off for Ponyville.”

        “I see.”  Breaking Autumn allowed Black Brush to take the blade back, which he quickly returned to its sheath.

        “Now now everypony, I know Black Brush’s sword is incredibly interesting and whatnot but this breakfast isn’t exactly going to eat itself.”  Nightlight spoke with a slightly agitated voice, having set up the table minutes ago she refused to let the food she slaved over go to waste.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

        “Now do you have everything you need?”  Nightlight Winter asked her daughter for what Sunset swore was the hundredth time today.

        Sunset groaned.  “Yes mom, I checked, double checked, AND triple checked.  I have everything I need.”

        “Well maybe you should have quadruple checked because I found this underneath your bed.”  Nightlight held up Sunset’s favorite book.  ‘Of Wings and Horn’ ‘A Story of Two Friends’ was emblazoned upon the book’s brown cover in fancy gold lettering.  Written by Ink Well, a Pegasus author, it was a real shame he hadn’t written anything afterwards, it was a good book and he certainly had some talent.  Rumor was however that he had taken up a job with the National Equirer, who knew how that would turn out considering the magazine companies somewhat unscrupulous reputation.

        Sunset’s ears laid back against her head in a show of embarrassment, it looked like her mother had definitely won this argument.  “I uh, guess I did forget something heh.”  She chuckled nervously, looking away bashfully.

        “That’s right, you did.  Now let me just put that here.”  Nightlight walked around and placed the book snuggly into the saddlebag hanging at Sunset’s side.  “Now come over here and give me a hug.”

        Black Brush watched from farther away with a smile on his face as the mares wrapped each other in a tight embrace.  The rest of Sunset’s family resided nearby, each waiting for their own hug from the soon to be gone family member.  He really had no family to say goodbye to, after all his parents were many hundreds of miles away in Ponyville, maybe he’d make a stop there one of these days.  From the letters it seemed as if Ponyville was a quaint little town, and he hadn’t really spent any time with his parents in years.  Yeah, that sounded like a pretty good idea, after all he wasn’t even really sure where to start looking if he wanted to find-

        “Hey!”  Nightlight’s voice brought him out of his thoughts.  Looking over he noticed her and the rest of Sunset’s family approaching him.  “Don’t you think for a moment that you’re getting out of here without a hug mister.”

        Suddenly Nightlight brought him into a vice grip like hug, wrapping her soft, snow white hooves around his neck.  He heard a few brief sniffles come from the mare as he slowly returned the crushing embrace.  “Now you take care of my daughter you hear!”  Her voice cracked heavily with emotion.   “And take care of yourself to…If I hear that you both got swallowed up by a Mantacore or something I’ll head straight for the afterlife and kick your ghost butt you hear me!?”

        “I’ll hold you to it Nightlight.  I promise I won’t let anything happen to your daughter.”  He reassured her.  Prompting her to let him go, she stepped back a few feet as she hastily wiped the tears out of her eyes with the back of a hoof.

        Breaking Autumn stepped forward, putting a hoof on Black Brush’s shoulder before shrugging and giving him a bear hug.  The fresh scent of coffee and cigar smoke filled Black Brush’s nostrils as his face was forced into the old stallion’s chest.  “You just remember you’ve got a family here Black Brush, and that no matter what happens to you both out there you’ll always be welcomed here.”

        Black Brush took Autumn’s words to heart, smiling despite himself at the words.  They actually meant quite a bit more than he imagined the Stallion thought it did.  “I appreciate it sir.”  Black Brush said once he was freed from the hug.

        Next up was Shining Summer, who looked like he was choking back tears.  Black Brush gave the burly stallion a soft and heartfelt smile, he always knew that the stallion loved him like a brother, even if sometimes he had a weird way of showing it, his sides ached slightly at the thought.  “Come on now big guy; don’t go crying over little old me.”

        Shining Summer scoffed a little and attempted to hide his sadness by looking in the other direction.  “Crying?  Pft, nice try dude, I just have uh…something in my eye yeah that’s it.”  Shining Summer looked back down at Black Brush, the little unicorn was holding out his hooves for a hug with an ear to ear grin on his face.  “Oh buck it!”  Shining Summer scooped him up with little to no effort, crushing Black Brush to his chest in a crushing embrace, letting the dam of tears break and flow free, the thick, salty, drops splashing onto Black Brush’s head and soaking into his mane.  “Don’t either of you go out there and die on me now.  I don’t want to lose the two ponies I care about most.”

        Black Brush patted against the burly stallion’s arms, struggling to get out a few words.  “Yeah big guy…I kind of need to breathe.”

        Shining Summer let him go, mumbling out a quick sorry as he stepped back with a sad look on his face.

“All right you two, goodbyes are over you can take off now.”  Breaking Autumn stepped forward as Sunset came to stand at Black Brush’s side.  “Now you to take care, goodbye Sunset be safe out there.”  He cast an appreciative glance to Black Brush.  “Though I’m sure you couldn’t be in better hooves.”

Black Brush smiled at the comment.  “Thanks everypony, I appreciate the kind words, and I promise no matter where we go or what we do, I’ll stick right by her side the entire time.”

“Bye mom, dad, Shiny, I’ll wright to you soon!”  Sunset shouted back towards the group of waving ponies, exchanging one last round of goodbyes before she and Black Brush set off down the road leading out of town.  “So, where to first Blackie?”  She asked while giving him a curious look.

“Well,” He began, pursing his lips and looking up at the bright blue sky, deep in thought.  “There’s a village a few weeks down the road, I figure it’d be a good enough place to visit first.  I heard it’s got this awesome theatre that puts on plays every week or so and word is they’re putting on a live action version of Doctor Whooves so I figured…”

Sunset smiled softly as she let Black Brush’s continuous ramblings fall to the back of her mind, she swore, bring up Doctor Whooves and he’d go on for hours.  But that wasn’t really why she stopped listening, it was about now, as they got farther and farther away from the little hamlet she had spent her whole life in, that everything she’d be leaving behind finally caught up with her.  She stopped for just a moment, casting an apprehensive gaze back towards the village…back towards home, that she began to think about how everything she’d ever known, everything she had ever loved, was back there…and she was leaving it all.

“Sunset…”  Black Brush’s calm voice brought her out of her own gloomy thoughts and back into the present.

She looked back at him with a blush, suddenly realizing she’d been staring in the opposite direction for much longer than she had originally intended.  “Oh sorry, Doctor Whooves right?”  She shot out the words attempting to keep the conversation running to hide her thoughts.

“No…I stopped talking about that five minutes ago.  We’ve been sitting here in silence since then.”  She felt her face slip further into a darker shade of crimson as he said that, she quickly looked away, unable to stare into his emerald eyes without shame.  After another moment or two of silence he sighed in a somewhat depressed manner.  “Listen Sunset…if you want to go back, I understand.”

She shot her gaze back up, searching his face for signs of hurt.  But instead, all she saw was pure acceptance, like he’d been expecting her to be unable to go through with this for quite some time.  For some reason she couldn’t quite comprehend…that hurt a lot worse.

“No Black Brush I want to do this!  I really do!  It’s just…”  Her voice trailed off as she studied his deep emerald eyes…was he closer than before?  “Everything I’ve ever known is in that town…leaving it all behind…”

He grabbed her hoof in his own, causing her heart to leap up into her throat and her stomach to start doing belly flops.  “I’m here for you.”  He told her quietly.  “And I made a promise that I’d stick by your side no matter where you go.  Now whether that’s down that road, or back the way we came, I will go with you.”  They continued to stare into each other’s eyes, both of the estranged ponies losing themselves in a sea of Emerald and Gold.

“But…you want to leave.”  She stated, incapable of understanding why he had seemed so adamant about wanting to leave the town regardless of how she might feel about it, but now insisting he’d stay if she so desired.

He nodded at this.  “I really do want to leave…nothing would make me happier, but…”  He looked away slightly, and fidgeted slightly as he thought of what he wanted to say next.  “Last night…when you came to my house and we went to my painting room…I realized so long as I had you I’d never be alone.  So leaving without you would mean I’d be forced to deal with that loneliness…and Sunset, I don’t think I can.  So if you go back…I go back, that’s the way it’s going to be whether I like it or not.”

For a moment she contemplated the choices, if he was being honest with her about this, and she saw no reason for him not to be, she could go home, be with her family, and have Blackie all to herself as well…but…what would that mean for him.  The decision was hers to make whether she liked it or not, which also meant she was in control of his happiness as well, leaving the town was something he really wanted…maybe even NEEDED in order to get on with his life.  She couldn’t blame him for that, what had happened to him in that town was awful, and if that was the only way he could forget about it than that’s all there was to say about it.  But he also needed her…and if they were to go back that would leave him split…forced to deal with the pain and the memories about the town that were held harbored within his own mind.  She loved him…more than he could possibly imagine…but could he ever truly love her back if she forced him to go through something like that day to day?

Another bout of uncomfortable silence passed between them as Black Brush waited for her choice.  When she looked up at him with those big sad eyes he knew the choice she had made…and begrudgingly he accepted it.

“I’m sorry Black Brush…”  Those words only served to solidify the choice he knew she had made.  “…for having kept us waiting for so long, come on Blackie, we’ve got to make up for lost time!”  She said cheerfully as she pulled him to his hooves with a tug on the one she still held firmly within her grasp.

“Whoa what!?”  He asked, struggling to keep up as she continued to tug on his hoof and pull him further down the road.

“Come on dummy!  We’re burning up daylight here!”  She continued to chastise him playfully, giggling with glee as she tugged him along.

And so began the adventure of a lifetime.  It was going to be a long hard road, filled with many obstacles and danger a plenty.  They both knew that, but neither were bothered, because they knew deep down…that together they could overcome any obstacle.

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Disclaimer- My Little Pony is copyright Lauren Faust, Hasbro, and whoever else happens to own it.  I’m just a simple fan of the show who felt like writing a fan fiction.  So don’t get your knickers in a bunch if you read this.  I mean seriously you probably don’t want to sue me anyway, I have like two pennies and an old sock for a retirement fund.

Griffon Problems PT1.

        “Hehehe…”  The deep mocking laughter Black Brush knew all too well seemed to bore itself deep down into his very core, sending chills through his entire body as it echoed about him menacingly, the very tone just reeking of danger and Impossible to pinpoint in the infinite blackness that surrounded him.

“Where are you!?”  He shouted as loud as he could, his voice sounding surprisingly braver than he thought it would.

“Oh Blackie…your ignorance is almost funny in a way, I might have it in me to laugh if it wasn’t so pathetic.”  That same voice continued to echo throughout the ethereal hall, continuing to send sparks of sheer terror throughout his very soul.  “What you don’t get is that I’m everywhere Blackie, in the shadows…in the light…behind every corner…always there…always watching.”  He now felt that presence, following him, watching him, surrounding him…NO!  This was a game!  A dirty trick!  He had to stay focused had to ignore it.  “Oh yes…I can smell the stench of death on you my little pony.”  He heard that deep laugh again, sounding off around him like the heavy bass sound of a drum. “You know what I always remember about the lives I take?”  I always remember the look in their eyes…that single solitary moment of complete and crushing fear as they realize the moment of their demise is at hand…”  Those words dug into his heart like a blade, a pair of purple eyes flashing into his mind before he quickly forced them away.

“I swear I’m going to kill you.”  Black Brush growled heavily, his threat seething with anger.

“Oh are you now?”  The voice asked, almost scoffing at the idea.  “Well tell me then killer…how much blood are you willing to spill?”  Black Brush was deathly silent, refusing to give the voice the satisfaction of an answer.  “Not talkative today are you?  That’s fine, just let me tell you one thing…if you ever want to get the revenge you so desire…there’ll be a river of it.”

The voice halted, letting the words sink in like it knew they would.

“Trust me Black Brush, when the time comes, you’ll thank me for what I’ve done.”

Black Brush shot open his eyes with a start, a blinding beam of sunlight breaking through the thick cloud cover above and stinging his eyes, he reached up with a hoof attempting to shield his suffering retinas from the blinding beam, wondering to himself why on earth Celestia had to make the thing so darn bright.  He blinked multiple times as his eyes adjusted to the sudden change in décor, the golden rays of the sun, shining blue sky, and cheerful chirping of birds almost startlingly different from the suffocating blackness of his nightmare.  Taking one long look around to study the peacefulness of the nature surrounding him he sighed heavily as he placed his head back onto the cushion that supported it.

‘Just a dream,’ He thought softly to himself.  ‘None of that will ever happen again…you made sure of that.’ Though he wasn’t entirely sure he was convinced of that.

        “It’s about time you woke up sleepyhead.”  Sunset’s playful voice rang out over the steady crackling of the camp fire they had set up together the night previous.  Her friendly tone shaking him out of his dark thoughts and returning him to the cheery mood he’d managed to maintain since their departure.  “Breakfast has been ready for a while now.”

        He grumbled slightly as he crawled out of the red sleeping bag he’d spent the night in, rubbing away the sleep in his eyes with a hoof as he did so.  The smell of freshly cooked eggs and toast became more profound as his senses steadily began to begin functioning once again as the morning drowsiness began to fall away.  He took a brief moment to stretch, his limbs thanking him for the relief and his back popping with a loud succession of cracks.

        “You could have woken me up earlier you know.”    He replied drowsily before releasing yet another earth shattering yawn, he never really was much of a morning pony.

        She smiled at him as he sat down next to her, her cherry red mane blowing slightly in the breeze.  “Nah, you seemed like you needed it.  You’ve been up late at night trying to paint for the past week now.”  She reached over and took the pan out of the fire pit, placing it on the ground next to where they sat before separating out the eggs and toast into equal portions on the pair of plates she had prepared nearby.  She handed Black Brush a plate, which he gladly accepted, his empty stomach grumbling in a demand for sustenance.

        “Ah…you saw that huh?”  He spoke bashfully, before shoveling a mouthful of the toast into his maw, munching upon the food thankfully while attempting to hide his blush.

        “I didn’t so much see it as much as I heard you mumbling and grumbling into the wee hours of the night.”  She responded, taking a couple bites of her own food.

        “I see…I’m sorry if I kept you up.”

        “Oh don’t worry about it so much, if you lived with my family for a week you’d probably be able to sleep through a dragon attack.”  She replied playfully, before her tone became more serious.  “I’m guessing it’s not going well.”

        He gave a heavy hearted sigh as he placed the now half eaten toast back on his plate.  “It’s no use Sunset, now that we’ve left Colterson my heads a little clearer but…I still just can’t find any inspiration.”  He decided not to mention the nightmare; he didn’t want to worry her.

        Sunset gave him a kind smile and a gentle prod with her head.  “Hey, cheer up.  Maybe you’ll get some ideas when we get to Foalton.”  She offered, hoping to cheer him up somewhat.  He had grown progressively happier as the days went by and the pair continued to travel, slowly becoming more and more like the Black Brush she knew rather than the pitifully sad thing she’d been growing used to.  But she still took it upon herself to force him out of his occasional relapse into depression.  “How far away are we anyway?”

        “Hmm, I’m not really sure to be honest.”  He cocked his head to the side as he kicked his mind into overdrive, attempting to recall the distance they still had yet to traverse.  “Let me go check the map.”  He got back to his hoofs, once again stretching out the stiff joints as he walked to the opposite end of the camp, searching through the numerous saddlebags scattered about for the one that held all of his navigation equipment.

        “No, not you, you don’t have anything important…you’re for food…your filled with paint…you have brushes in you…”  He continued to mumble to himself as he meticulously went through the task of dragging over and rummaging through each bag to scan through its contents.

        “You know you probably wouldn’t have such a hard time finding the stuff you actually need if you didn’t bring so much useless crud.”  He heard Sunset chastise from near the fire, apparently having overheard his ramblings.  “Aren’t you only supposed to bring essentials for something like this?”

        He shot her an annoyed glare, which she only responded to with a sly grin and a quick flash of her golden eyes.  “This stuff IS essential.”  He shot back, continuing to dig through the numerous amounts of painting supplies and whatever else he managed to stuff into his bags before they left Colterson.

        “I highly doubt that magenta is an ‘essential’ color Blackie.”  She said through a mouthful of egg, finishing off her breakfast with one large bite.

        ‘I LIKE magenta!’  He thought bitterly to himself, before levitating over one of Sunset’s bags and proceeding to undo the top, now on a personal quest to get back at her for making fun of one of his favorite colors.  ‘Let’s see we’ve got a couple books, a pair of horseshoes, a scarf…AHA!  Perfect!’   He smiled wickedly as he retrieved his prize.  “So Sunset would you consider Mr. Whiskers here an ‘essential’?”

        “Mr. Whiskers, what are you?  H- HEY!” She shot up with an annoyed yet embarrassed look on her face as Black Brush levitated her stuffed kitty cat back and forth mockingly a few feet away from her.  The patched stuffed animal practically doing a mocking dance right before her eyes, quickly she reached out, snatching her object of shame out of the air and causing Black Brush’s magic to dissipate.  She hugged the toy tightly to her chest, fighting off the mad blush now stinging her cheeks while giving Black Brush a death glare.

        He chuckled slightly at her show of embarrassment, before finally drawing the map he’d been looking for out of the bag.  “So I guess Mr. Whiskers is an essential.”  He continued to tease while looking over the map.  Ignoring the huff from Sunset and the rather rude name she called him afterward.  “Well we just passed Broken Hoof Gorge, and we’ve been on the road for about two weeks now so, if I’m reading this correctly we should only be about an hour or so away from town!”  He said happily, they were closer than he had anticipated, and though he enjoyed spending some alone time with Sunset he found two weeks on the road had given him a longing for a touch of civilization.

        “Well that’s fant-’’Sunset’s voice cut short and a faint thumping sound was heard from where she sat at the opposite end of the camp.

        Black Brush’s ears twitched slightly at the sudden lack of sound.  “Uh, Sunset you okay?”  He began to swivel around to check on her when suddenly he was knocked to the ground with a painful thud and a crushing force was applied to his back!

He quickly spit the dirt out of his mouth from the unwelcome impact with his face and the ground as he began to use his hoofs to scramble and kick in an attempt to free himself from his attacker.   When he felt two powerful, was that a talon?  Seize his flailing hoofs and pin him forcefully to the earth with a crushing grip while his assailant used their legs to squeeze the air out of his lungs and stop his foolhardy attempts to escape.  He forced open his left eye, since the entirety of the right part of his face was in the process of being smashed into the ground; he managed to lay his gaze upon the sight of a big and powerful griffon standing only a few feet away from where he lay.  He’d seen griffons in a few books he’d read before, and apparently they had earned quite the reputation as an entire race of strong and agile creatures.  But what they were doing here and why exactly they were attacking his camp was completely unbeknownst to him.

He didn’t really stop to think about that however, when he saw Sunset sprawled out upon the ground, motionless as the griffon standing behind her rubbed his giant clawed fist in a soothing manner he felt an anger he didn’t know he had explode from within.  His horn began to glow a pale grey as he seized the frying pan lying next to the fire pit with his magic, swiftly levitating it over and bringing it down upon the head of the griffon holding him down with a violent smash!  A loud metallic clang sung throughout the campsite as he felt the grip around his hoofs loosen somewhat as the shock and the pain no doubt rocketed through his attacker’s skull, but he still wasn’t free, so he did it again!  AND AGAIN!  When he finally felt the grip come completely loose and the pressure on his back increase as the griffon hugging his back slipped into unconsciousness.

He managed to shift the weight of the unconscious griffon more to the right so it fell off of him and to the ground with a gentle thud.  A dazed squawk slipping past the creature’s beak as he shakily got to his hoofs and sucked in a few much needed breaths.  His heart pumping wildly as he felt the adrenaline course throughout his body with a steady beat.  He stared the griffon down in front of him, it stood a good twelve to thirteen hands taller than himself, large enough to give even Shining Summer a second thought or two about engagement, with a long curved beak that looked like it could easily swallow his entire head if it wanted…it’s thick masculine body certainly looked intimidating, the heavy set of feathers surrounding his head were all well groomed and the light brown lion fur that covered the rest of its body was certainly impressive, he would almost be willing to call it majestic were he not positively seething with rage at the moment.  The griffon returned Black Brush’s death glare with a flash of its own dark hazel eyes, flicking its long thin tail back and forth playfully while sizing him up with a curious, almost amused, look.  And though Black Brush was trying his best to look intimidating, standing over the unconscious body before him proudly and shaking the now bent iron of the pan back and forth with his magic in a daunting manner, the griffon seemed far from impressed.

“Seriously dude?”  The griffon asked with a masculine male voice, his tone and choice of words certainly didn’t do much to accentuate the majestic look Black Brush had thought he had earlier.  “You’re gonna try and take me out with that thing?”  The griffon pointed at Black Brush’s pan with a smirk.

Braving a glance at it out of the corner of his eye he couldn’t help but feel…slightly embarrassed at the sight of it.  The middle of the pan was now curved inward; several slight hills and valleys now shaped the poor abused metal after he had used it to beat the living tar out of the griffon that was holding him down.  Doing his best to uphold the brave face he wore now he let the pan fall to the ground with a clang.

The griffon chuckled.  “Yeah that’s pretty much what I thought.”

Black Brush smirked right back, if the pan wasn’t intimidating…maybe this would change that punks tune.  The griffon seemed slightly taken aback at this show of confidence, his smirk morphing into a slight frown.  Black Brush let his magic pull another object out of the mass of bags, the griffon watched like a hawk as a long curved object wrapped in leather floated out in front of the unicorn, that strange…unsettling grin stretching across his face as he began to remove the leather, revealing a menacing curved blade as the the faint grey glow surrounding it spun the weapon around dangerously.

The griffon didn’t really know how to react to this…this unicorn…something was different about him, he’d seen plenty of them recently…they were all weak little creatures constantly going on about friendship and dumb stuff like that.  But this one, though he might look like the rest there was something else there as well, hidden just beneath the surface, he’d be impressed if he wasn’t scared witless at the moment.  But despite the unsettling feeling now sinking into his gut he still managed to stand his ground.

Black Brush kept on with the smile, his trick not having the full intended effect on the griffon…but maybe he just needed a little more of a push.  “What…not scared?”  He drug the blade lightly over the ground, a menacing scraping sound emanating from the contact…slow…threatening.  “You want to know something?”  A spark of red shot out of his horn, running into the grey mist circling his blade and tainting it with a darker crimson hue, “When you split the vein called the jugular…”  He brought his blade up and pressed it gently to his throat.  “…You become unable to scream.”

He slowly began to drag the blade across his throat, taking great care to not press even slightly too hard, he wanted to make the griffon think he was cutting his own throat, not actually give him a live demonstration.  He bore into the griffon’s eyes with his own; holding him prisoner with his gaze as he steadily channeled his flow of magic towards where his blade met the soft fur of his throat.  Doing his best to ensure that the griffon never caught on as he began manipulating the water in the air to condense and take form, delving deep into his memories to recall an old trick his mother had taught him to make his costume for Nightmare Night all the more real.  He began to slowly feed his magic into the water now taking shape underneath his chin, changing its color to a dark crimson.

“Wouldn’t that be a shame…to get your throat cut all the way out here?”  He kept egging on the griffon with his best attempt at a creepy serial killer kind of voice.  Before finally letting the now crimson red water begin to run freely down his throat and across the flat of his sabre…He resisted congratulating himself as he saw lines of horror begin to etch themselves into the griffon’s stone like face, he couldn’t believe this was actually working.  “To be left to bleed a whole hour away from help…”  He felt the cool red water running down his chest as it slid off the blade. Black Brush resisted the temptation to check and see how real his allusion seemed, though he did take a mental note to dry off his blade as soon as possible, he would have hated to see it get all rusty again.

“Unable to shout…unable to beg…unable to even whimper.”  Black Brush widened his creepy smile a little more, really fitting into the role of a sociopath as best he could.  Drawing inspiration from the many horror books he’d read as a little colt, he was really getting good at this persona …maybe he should go as himself for the next Nightmare Night.  He didn’t take long to dwell on that thought however, instead focusing on pouring all of his creepiness into this one single moment.   When he saw the griffon take a small step back as he released another gush of his ‘blood’ Black Brush made the assumption that he and Sunset might just get out of this one…

Of course, that was just an assumption.

*CRACK!*

That was the last sound Black Brush heard before a sudden and shocking surge of pain rocketed through the back of his skull, his world going topsy turvey as a his sabre fell to the dirt with a muted clank, he opened and shut his eyes a few times to try and clear away the blackness playing at the corners of his vision, but in the end it was nothing but futile as he tumbled to the ground…allowing oblivion to swallow him up in its peaceful world of shadows.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Dax breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the crazy unicorn tumble to the ground in a tangled mess of hooves and red.  The griffon was seriously about to bolt all the way back to town, there was no way he was going to end up bleeding out in the middle of the road.  Of course he wouldn’t tell the other griffons he was scared of a pony that would do some serious damage to his reputation.

“Yo, thanks Gilda.”  He told the griffon standing over the blacked out unicorn with a surprising show of humility.  “But I could have taken him.”

“Whatever dude.”  The smaller female griffon grumbled quietly with a scratchy tomboyish voice before dropping the now snapped branch she held in her talon to the ground.

“What, you don’t think I could!?”  Dax growled back, staring daggers at Gilda as he leaned forward menacingly.  Considering Gilda’s history with ponies he already had little to no respect held for the female griffon, and he was way more than tough enough to take her down a peg or two if she started getting mouthy.

“No Dax, I’m sure you could have…just chillax man.”  She replied with a tremor of hesitation to her voice.  Dax knew she was scared, and he seemed satisfied with the show of submission, there was a reason he was in charge after all.

There was a pained groan from behind Gilda as the griffon that the unicorn had clocked with the pan earlier began to move and stir.

“Oooh…Flappy no feel so good…”  The slightly dopey voice groaned while a smaller, much sillier looking griffin slowly rose from the ground.

Flappy drew himself up to his talons, flapping his short and patchy wings a couple times as he systematically began to check if anything else was injured, or just the throbbing pain in his skull.  He was at least two thirds smaller than the other two griffons, even when he stood at his tallest, random splotches of gold staining his darker brown fur, and he missed several patches of feathers around his head and neck, almost as if he wasn’t full grown yet, despite being almost half a year older than Gilda and only a year or so behind his older brother Dax.  He scanned around the campsite with his right eye, the other covered by a black patch to cover up the disfigurement beneath.  Compared to the other two?  He looked like some kind of joke.  When his yellow eye settled on the red covered unicorn before him Flappy felt his stomach lurch.

“Did…Flappy do that?”  The griffon asked while pointing a curly talon at the mess of grey fur and red.

Dax laughed at his brother’s incompetence, Gilda kept silent and moved around to study the body a little more closely.

“No you cracked egg. “  Flappy flinched slightly at this comment, though he felt slightly relieved that he wasn’t the one who had sent the unicorn to the great beyond.  “Friggin nut job offed himself.”

“I hate to break it to you dude.”  Gilda said while prodding Black Brush with a talon.  “But this pony hasn’t croaked.”

“Flappy doesn’t think ponies croak Gilda…”  Flappy commented with a confused look.

Gilda let out a loud sigh of frustration.  “No you feather brain!  I mean he isn’t dead.”

“Oh, well why didn’t Gilda just say that?  Flappy doesn’t get why others mix words.”

“Shut up Flappy and go check those bags.”  Dax commanded, before walking over to get a better look at the unicorn.  “Looks pretty dead to me.”

Gilda shook her head.  “Naw see right here?”  Gilda reached down and scooped up the unicorn’s head with a single talon, the body part looking dwarfed in the large palm of the griffon.  “There’s no actual cut here.”  She craned up the neck for Dax to see, he leaned down and inspected it with a squinted gaze before confirming that Gilda was indeed correct.  She let his head fall back to the earth with a thud, not that she was intentionally trying to hurt the unicorn.  He was already clonked out pretty good so there was no real need to keep up with the pounding, but the last thing she wanted to seem like in front of Dax was weak…or worse than that…soft on ponies.

“Flappy thinks you were tricked Dax.”  The griffon spoke up, now sitting on his rump with a pleased look on his face, happy that he’d been the one to figure out what the pony had done.  “Those unicones are pretty tricky.”  Flappy said, unable to pronounce the word ‘unicorn’ correctly despite being corrected dozens of times.

Dax shot his younger brother another hard as stone stare.  “Well Flappy is gonna be thinking about how much he wished Dax didn’t rip out his other eye if he doesn’t start CHECKING THOSE BAGS!”  Dax’s raised voice caused the smaller griffon to wince as painful memories were recalled and he immediately shot over to the pile of saddlebags with a speed that could have impressed a certain rainbow maned pegasus.

Gilda frowned slightly at the mention of ripping out Flappy’s eye, she wasn’t exactly afraid to make a few snide remarks at the expense of another’s pride either but, man that was harsh even by her low standards.  She noticed Dax shoot the unicorn a cold unfeeling stare.

“He’s knocked out cold huh?”  The burly griffon curved the sides of his beak up in disgust.  “…Maybe we should make sure he stays that way.”

Gilda’s face took on a noticeable amount of shock; Dax didn’t usually talk about doing stuff like that.  She quickly scanned his face for signs of that last sentence being a joke, but when she only saw stone cold sincerity she began to feel her chest tighten in worry.  She’d wanted to get back at Dash for what she’d done…wanted to get back at all ponies to be honest because as far as she was concerned they were all pretty much the same.  But that…she looked back down at the unicorn, then over towards the pegasus lying prone at the other side of the camp…suddenly a thought crept into her mind that she hadn’t had in the longest time.  What would Dash want her to do?

“Flappy found lots of the shiny Dax!”  Flappy’s proud voice brought her out of her thoughts, and seemed to take Dax’s mind off of…whatever it was he was thinking about.

“Good, pick up the rest of the bags and start hauling ‘em back to camp!”  Dax looked at her, squinting his eyes and giving her a look that practically told her not to breathe even a single word of his previous intentions to anyone.  “You go help him.”  He ordered with a jab of his sharp talon over in Flappy’s general direction.  Who was preoccupied trying to figure out where exactly the big bag with the funny strap was supposed to go.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she walked over to the group of saddlebags, worry gripping her as he leaned down and grabbed the crimson stained blade in his left talon.  Toying with the sabre as he looked down at the unicorn with a menacing glare...as if contemplating how easy it would be to take the pony’s life…

“Think I’ll take this for myself.”  Gilda breathed a sigh of relief as Dax said those words.  “Alright you two, let’s grab the loot and get out of here.”

All three took to the air, as they flew Gilda gave into the temptation of looking back, the two unconscious ponies gently fading away into the distance the farther they got.  She wanted to get revenge on these ponies for the humiliation she’d felt back in Ponyville.  They’d been running this scam for weeks.  Taking every bit these ponies had and beating them to a pulp should have made her feel better…should have made her feel like she was getting the revenge she craved.  So why…every time they did this…did she feel so dirty?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Black Brush awoke to the feeling of smooth silk sheets wrapped snugly around his body; he attempted to recall recent events while subconsciously beginning to rub the back of his throbbing skull in a soothing manner.  Boy did he have a serious headache…slowly; bit by bit he began to piece things back together.  He and Sunset had been travelling, trying to get to Foalton, none of that was hard to recall.  Things started to get hazy around the time the griffon showed up, he remembered trying to scare off the griffon using his impression of the Smiling Slasher, one of the main villains to his favorite books.  And it had almost worked but then…a loud cracking noise and blackness.

“I must have gotten banged upside the head pretty good…”  Black Brush mumbled to himself as he began to force himself up, before shooting a steadying hoof to the side of his head as pain rocketed throughout it and his vision began to swim.  “…Okay really good.”

He cracked open a bloodshot eye as his blurry vision started to send images of his surroundings to his jostled brain.  He was propped up in a soft white bed, the smooth silk sheets strangely soothing and comforting, he didn’t know whether he thought that because he’d been sleeping on the ground for the past two weeks or if they had been imbued with some kind of magic spell.  Either way, he felt like he could just curl up for hours and let himself drift away in the peaceful world of sleep.  But he forced the desire away, focusing instead on studying the other details of his confines.

It was a large sterile white room, fresh scents of herbal remedies and medicinal mixes wafted about the air, giving the room a very clean smell to accompany its overall clean look.  Lined along each of the walls were several other beds not far unlike his own.  A few occupied with the sleeping forms of ponies wrapped in bandages or looking terribly ill.  Not among them however was a single earth pony.  Who moved about the room in a frantic and busied manner, the pony’s figure dainty, lithe, and quite obviously female.  Her red fur and tail looked terribly matted and poorly groomed said tail matching her fur color except for a single pink stripe careening down the middle.  She wore a single white cap atop her golden blonde mane, the hat adorned with a large red cross that stretched around the broad front of the headpiece.  Her ice blue eyes darted across the room, simultaneously checking the many charts attached to the side of each bed and over the slumbering forms of the ponies beneath the covers.

“Excuse me, nurse.”  Black Brush spoke up.  Causing the earth pony to shriek and practically leap into the air with fright.  Triggering another ache to perforate throughout his skull as the high pitch yelp only served to further aggravate his throbbing headache.  “…ow.”  He mumbled as he began to run a soothing hoof up and down the side of his aching cranium.

The nurse pony placed a hoof on her chest and took a few deep breaths as she began to quell the rapid beating of her heart.  She turned around, looking over her patient with a startled gaze.  “Oh my…I do apologize!”  She spoke with a sweet and caring voice.  “I get so used to the quiet around here that pretty much any form of noise is cause to startle.”  She approached him, her hooves clopping noisily against the hard tile floor.  “I’m Nurse Swirl, but everypony around here calls me Strawberry.”

“A pleasure to meet you Strawberry,” Black Brush nodded his head in greeting.  “I’m Black Brush; I take it I’m in a hospital right now?”  He continued to scan the room with a curious gaze.

Strawberry nodded her head in affirmative.  “You’re currently in the care of the Foalton medical staff, which consists of me and well…me.”

So he had made it to Foalton after all, he suddenly felt worry begin to gnaw away at him as he realized Sunset wasn’t in any of the other beds around the room.  “I see, well it’s great to see I made it here in one piece at least.”  He felt the pain throb in the bottom of his skull once again.  “…For the most part.”  He added underneath his breath.  “But I was travelling with a companion, her names Sunset.  Have you seen here?  Was she with me?”

“Sunset…”  Strawberry placed a hoof up to her chin in thought.  “I take it you mean the orange pegasus that’s been flying laps around the waiting room since I brought you here?”  Black Brush sighed in relief at the mention of his friend.

“That would be her.”

“Ah yes, she was coming to right around the time I stumbled upon your raided campsite out on the road while getting some herbs for my medicines.  Poor thing is worried sick about you.”  Strawberry gave him a ‘how cute’ kind of look.  “You two must really have quite the relationship.”

Black Brush felt his cheeks redden slightly at the insinuation.  “Well we’re not…”

Strawberry raised up a hoof to silence him.  “I’m kidding Mr. Brush.  Would you like me to bring her in?”

“If it wouldn’t be any trouble.”

“Not at all, you seem well enough for visitors.”  Strawberry quickly trotted over to the brown wooden door in the corner of the room, quickly smoothing down her poorly combed mane before peeking her head outside.  “Sunset dear, your friend Black Brush is awake.”

“What!?”  He heard an ecstatic voice proclaim before the door burst open and Strawberry was flung to the tile floor with a thud.

        Black Brush managed to spot a blur of orange as Sunset tore into the room, her wings beating furiously as she floated in the air, scanning over every bed in turn until she found the one she was looking for.  Black Brush felt himself smile as her golden eyes settled upon him and a look of pure relief washed over her face as she allowed herself to float gracefully to the ground.

        “I was worried sick about you!”  Sunset shouted with a tone that would be considered angry by anypony other than Black Brush.  But he was well aware of the sentiment hidden within those words.  Her sudden outburst had drawn the attention of the pegasus sleeping in a bed next to Black Brush’s, the blue mare opening her tired eyes to cast him an annoyed glare, before she huffed and rolled over with an angry grumble or two.

        “Please try and keep your voice down!”  Strawberry ordered while rubbing her sore flank.  “These ponies need their rest!”

        Sunset allowed an apologetic look to taint her expression of anger as she laid her ears back and mumbled a sorry to the flustered nurse, both for the outburst and the knockdown.

        “Do you have any idea how worried I was to wake up in the back of a chariot with all of our stuff missing and you covered in blood?!”  Sunset’s voice was now more of a seething whisper, but the intent was still quite clear.

        “I take it you were pretty freaked out?”

        Sunset scrunched up her face in anger and she opened her mouth for some kind of aggravated reply, before she let out a sigh and her expression softened.  “Just don’t ever worry me like that again Blackie.”  She looked up, his emerald eyes apologetic, yet somewhat amused.  “…This is just like Nightmare Night all over again.”

        Black Brush chuckled slightly at the memory; back when they were young Black Brush had used his fake blood trick to scare Sunset witless.  He had covered himself in the stuff then pretended to be dead in her front yard right before her family went out for candy, as soon as she saw him she immediately bolted for the nurse.  Needless to say the night itself didn’t end well; the nurse had forced him to stay in the hospital for the night and no matter how many times he had explained that it was just a trick, a trick in poor taste yes but just a trick, the medical staff still refused to release him until his parents had arrived.  His dad had made him polish the fencing equipment for three weeks.  In his defense it seemed like a great idea at the time.

        “Sorry Sunset.  I thought maybe I could scare away the griffon that had knocked you out.”  Black Brush explained.  “But I kind of got whacked over the head before he took to his heels.”  He heaved a heavy hearted sigh.  “And you said something about all of our stuff missing?”  Sunset nodded.  “Great, so that bird bastard gives us both a case of head trauma AND takes off with all our bits…fantastic.”

        “I’m sorry, did you say a griffon did this to you both?”  Strawberry spoke up.

        “Yeah, must have been a group of them because I took another one out with a pan.  And the big one was standing right in front of me when I got hit so I’d guess there was around three.”

        Strawberry sighed, looking aggravated.  “I should have guessed…those blasted griffons have been giving our town no end of trouble for weeks now.”

        Both Black Brush and Sunset gave Strawberry a puzzled look.  “We’re not the first this has happened to?”  Sunset asked.

        Strawberry shook her head.  “No, these griffons have been attacking the ponies travelling along the roads around our peaceful little town for weeks now.  Over half the ponies here are victims of their ruthless attacks.”

        Black Brush and Sunset looked at each other, the weight of the situation finally catching up with them; at least two out of every three beds were occupied.  And from the looks of the injuries sustained by the other ponies they were lucky with their encounter.  Pegasi had their wings broken; earth ponies looked like they had been stomped on by an Ursa Major, and unicorns resembled mummies with the amount of bandages they had wrapped around them.  This situation was obviously getting way to out of hand, and something needed to be done.

        Both of them turned their gazes upon Strawberry, their expressions tight, confident, and brave.

        “How can we help?”

Griffon Problems PT2.

A/N- I decided I’d split the most recent chapter, just for the sake of getting some kind of update out.  I would also really appreciate some critique!  If any of you are willing to provide.

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“Well isn’t this a pleasant turn of events?”  A strong and deep voice sounded off in the corner of the hospital room.

Black Brush, Nurse Strawberry, and Sunset each turned their heads to investigate the source of the sound.  They were met with the wise stare of an older earth pony stallion, the color grey intermingled with the dark brown of his mane, his patchy black fur maintained and quite obviously taken care of, a white suit hung loosely around his wiry frame as he nonchalantly brushed a little dirt from the road off of the collar.  A bushy mustache and goatee combo helped to accentuate that leaderly look and aura that seemed to permeate off of him.  And his cutie mark was black star with several smaller golden stars surrounding it.

“Oh Mr. Mayor, I didn’t hear you come in.”  Strawberry greeted him with a friendly tone of voice.

“Yeah Mrs. Swirl, I heard you got back from getting your plants and wanted to check and make sure you didn’t get hurt or anything, So I just kinda let myself in.”  He turned his coal colored eyes onto both Black Brush and Sunset Spring, looking them over in turn.  “I see you picked up a couple new patients while you were gone.”

“Why yes, this is Black Brush.”  She waved her hoof in the unicorn’s direction; he greeted the mayor with a nod.  “And this is Sunset Spring.”  Sunset gave the older earth pony a wave with her hoof.

The mayor began to approach them, holding his head high and proud, each and every step was heavy and clopped loudly against the hard tile floor of the hospital room.  He walked like a pony who demanded respect, and no doubt he was deserving of it, having lived with the burden of leadership for well over forty years.  He looked old, tired, yet at the same time still seemed to hold a feeling of youth and vigor one was hard pressed to keep in their later years.

He smiled, holding up a hoof for Black Brush to shake; when the unicorn did he passed it to Sunset, who did the same.   “It’s good to meet you both; I’m the mayor of Foalton.  Dawnstar’s the name; feel free to call me by it.”

“Nice to meet you Dawnstar,” Black Brush replied with yet another respectful nod.  He hadn’t been on the road for more than two weeks and he’d already fought for his life, gotten knocked out by a griffon, had everything of value stolen, and now he was shaking hooves with the mayor of a town he’d been in for no more than an hour or so.  All things considered everything seemed to be off to a fantastic start.

“Likewise friends,” Dawnstar replied, a shining row of teeth appearing behind his bushy mustache as he gave them a welcoming grin.  “I’d like to welcome you to our humble little town here but…”  The old stallion stopped for a moment as he chewed on the inner part of his cheek, searching for the right words.  “I’m sure you’re both aware that we’ve been having a little ‘problem’ with a rise in griffon population as of late.”

“Yeah, Strawberry filled us in.”  Sunset said.  “It sounds like they’ve been causing you all no end of trouble.”

The old stallion sighed heavily.  “Yeah, well your right.  These blasted birds have practically taken over the whole town.  They patrol the roads regularly, thrashing everyone they meet to a bloody pulp then stealing all their valuables to boot.”  He looked up at them both, heavy lines of age etched into his features as he gave the pair an apologetic gaze.  “It’s gotten so bad that the ponies that end up here who aren’t hospitalized are too scared to leave the town, we’re dealing with overcrowding, ponies sleeping in the streets, an increase in crime, and just to make matters worse those damn griffons are getting cocky enough that they’ve began coming into the town and wrecking things up.”  The mayor leaned back, letting a few lines of worry and fatigue finally crack the brave mask he’d been wearing around his public as of late.  “And everypony is looking at me to fix their problems.”

“Haven’t you considered calling upon the Princesses for aid?”  Black Brush asked.  In a dangerous land such as Equestria situations such as these weren’t wholly uncommon.  Events like bandit attacks and robberies weren’t necessarily an everyday occurrence, but they happened often enough that a special sect of the Princesses’ royal regime had been designated for dealing with such things.   “Certainly they’d be willing to provide assistance if they knew.”

Dawnstar shook his head in a melancholy manor, it was clear the stress of the whole situation was weighing down heavily upon the old stallion’s spirit.  “We tried dispatching some of our best fliers to get help but…I think if you take a look around you’ll see how well that turned out.”

Suddenly the small group of ponies felt their attention get drawn to the bed next to them as pained moaning began to emanate from the blue mare that had shot Black Brush the death glare earlier.

“Nurse…nurse…”  She forced out weakly, her breathing quickly becoming frantic and uneven as panic began to wrap itself around the brutalized mare with its terrifying grasp.  “Nurse!  NURSE!”

Strawberry wasted no time in her response, however, rather than head directly towards the wounded mare crying out for attention she scrambled over to a desk sitting idly in the corner of the room.  Reaching inside she gathered together numerous amounts of medical supplies and, as quickly as her fatigued body would allow, sprinted towards the fidgeting blue pegasus.

“Nurse…it hurts nurse…make it stop.”  The poor thing continued to drone out meekly as Strawberry set herself to work.

“Shhh, you just stay quiet now.”  Strawberry soothed in a sweet motherly voice, stroking the mare’s curly mane a few times in order to calm her down.  “I got some more medicine today so you just relax and we’ll get you all fixed up okay?”  The honeyed tone of voice and gentle show of affection seemed to slow the pegasus’ frantic breathing, a good sign that she was relaxing, if only a little.  “Now this is going to taste bad but I promise you if you drink this the pain will go away.”

Black Brush watched with interest as Strawberry uncorked the top of a glass bottle and steadily began to pour the pinkish liquid inside down the mare’s throat, she seemed to recoil slightly at first, but quickly ceased her resistance as the soothing affects began to take hold.

A health potion huh Strawberry?Black Brush thought quietly to himself, allowing his curiosity to trump over his worry for the blue pegasus for a moment.  Now where on Equestria did you learn how to make one of those?

Not many ponies knew the right kind of herbs necessary to make such a powerful remedy.  And in all honesty he wasn’t even quite sure how to do it; really he could only recognize the foreign concoction because his mother had fancied herself an alchemist.  And he’d been unfortunate enough to have gotten a bad case of the flue one year; his mother had gone to great lengths to contact an old zebra colleague of hers that had provided her with a recipe.  But one thing was for certain, the look, smell, and taste made one heck of an impression, and it wasn’t exactly a good one.  Really, potions such as this were always more of a zebra kind of thing, since ponykinds striped cousins lacked magical means to heal their people they found ways of using what was around them instead.   And since there was very few zebra’s in Equestria hardly anypony knew how to make such a thing.

Needless to say, where exactly Strawberry had managed to procure such an obscure medicine left him rather intrigued, he figured that he could ask her about it after she was done calming her disoriented patient.

Strawberry gently pulled the glass bottle away from the blue mare’s open mouth, cautiously setting it onto the ground beside her.  “There, you feeling better Cloudchaser?”  Strawberry asked hopefully.

Cloudchaser gave the smallest little shake of her head to show that she was in fact feeling quite a bit better, the searing hot agony coursing through her body had dulled to an annoying yet not unbearable throbbing pain in her lower back.  Whatever was in that drink had done wonders for the pain.

“That’s good, now you want to tell me where you were hurting?”  Strawberry continued with the calming mother like voice.

“I…I rolled over onto my wing and it…I think it broke.”  The mare forced out, her voice cracking with emotion as tears began to sting at her eyes.  Wings were sturdy parts of a pegasus’ body, built to withstand even the most strenuous of physical activities.  Ergo they didn’t break often, but when they did, they were almost impossible to fix.  Cloudchaser feared the worst.

 Strawberry nodded.  “Can you sit up for me so I can get a look at it?”

Cloudchaser swallowed hard.  She barely had enough energy left in her body to even call for help, but her wing was more important to her than anything else at the moment.  “…I might need a little help.”

“Okay, just do your best to sit up and we’ll take care of the rest.”  Cherry instructed before turning her gaze towards the other three ponies.  “Could one of you-’’

But she didn’t even have to finish the sentence before Sunset fluttered over and began to prop up the brutalized pegasus.  Even though she didn’t really know the other mare, something inside Sunset demanded she do everything she could to ease Cloudchaser’s discomfort.  Sunset by her very nature was considered a very helpful pony; ever since she was young she’d offered a helpful hoof to pretty much any and all who requested her assistance.  It was one of the reasons Black Brush liked her so much, a quality like that was a rare find in a pony these days.  But there was no denying that there was some sort of bond between the two that was already formed due to the fact that they were both pegasi, seeing another one of her own kind in such distress called to a more primal part of her, the desire to help one of your own, whether out of pity, kinship, or just the fact that you could end up in their exact same position yourself one day, it was understandable.  After all, you can’t fight your instincts.

Slowly and with a great care Strawberry began to undue the thick cotton bandages that were wrapped around Cloudchaser’s wings.  Sunset, who had been watching every move the nurse pony made with her keen golden eyes, was forced to repress a gasp of horror as she beheld the damage beneath.  A pegasus’ wing was definitely NOT supposed to bend that way.

“We-well…what’s it look like?”  Cloudchaser asked with apprehension, as if sensing Sunset’s anxiety.  “Is…is it broken?  Will I be able to fly again?”  Cloudchaser asked, not really confident she wanted an honest answer.

Sunset tore her eyes away from the mangled wing and looked at Strawberry, expecting the nurse to offer some sort of comforting gesture or apologetic words to soften the blow.  But when all she saw was the nurse continuing to stare at the broken wing with an air of curiosity she decided to do it herself.

“I’m sorry Cloudchaser, but your wing is…”  Sunset felt her voice get caught in her throat as the dark blue mare looked at her with melancholy eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks in thick rivers as she waited for the news she knew would come.

“Now just hold on a minute Cloudchaser, everything is going to be fine.”  Strawberry spoke up, yet she refused to take her gaze off of the wing.  “…just give it a moment.”

“What do you mean everything’s going to be fine!?”  Cloudchaser shouted out angrily, her voice cracking heavily with emotion, she didn’t need to be told what was wrong with her wing, she knew already.  And she sure as hell didn’t need false hope.  “My wing is broken!  I’m never going to fly again!  I’ll lose my job!  I won’t be able to pay for my house!  I’ll have to sleep on the streets and…and…”  Suddenly Cloudchaser’s tirade slowed to a stop.  The pegasus’ eyes widened slightly as a slight tingling sensation began to form in the lower part of her back, and a wondrously warm feeling began to spread throughout her entire body, the warmth curling around her like a cozy blanket.  “Oh.”  Cloudchaser mouthed the word in a breathy wisp of air as she lost herself in the new wonderful feelings now coursing throughout her entire body.

Every pony in the room gawked awkwardly at the nearly unbelievable event taking place before their eyes.  All save for Black Brush, who watched with a knowing grin, he’d seen the effects of healing potions before.  And he’d had practically the same reaction.  A faint golden glow began to envelop the broken wing, the bright colors dancing across the appendage daintily as pure relief began to wash over the pegasus’ blissful face.  And suddenly with a final flash of light the glow was gone, leaving behind a troupe of flustered ponies and a healed wing.

Cloudchaser shook away the fog floating around in her head, the magnificent feelings slowly dissipating into the ether as her wits began to return to her.  “What happened?”  She asked after a few moments of basking in the afterglow, though when she flexed her wing and felt it move she didn’t care about an answer anymore.  “My wing’s fixed…”  She craned her head back, looking at the feathery appendage with wonder.  “MY-MY WINGS FIXED!”

The pegasus suddenly took to the air, forcing both Strawberry and Sunset to take a few steps back as the mare’s sudden take to flight nearly knocked them over.

“MY WINGS FIXED MY WINGS FIXED!”  She continued to chant methodically as her wings beat furiously in the air.  The sheer joy and wonder now coursing throughout her body filling her with a sense of euphoria!  Right now nothing else mattered, all her worries melted away and all she wanted to do was fly!  Fly as far and as fast as she could!

“Cloudchaser calm down!”  Strawberry ordered sternly.  “Just because you feel better doesn’t mean everypony else does, now stop hollering so they can get their rest!”

“Sorry nurse, right now all I can do is fly!”  Cloudchaser retorted as she did another loop in the air.  “I’ll be out of your hair right after I do one last thing!”

Strawberry frowned and opened her mouth to say something along the lines of ‘you’ll be getting out of here right now.’   But she felt her mind go blank as the exultant pegasus suddenly swooped down and planted her lips firmly, yet passionately, against the stunned nurse’s open maw.

Cloudchaser held the mare for a moment; she’d wanted to do that for the longest time but never had the courage.  But right now she felt invulnerable, like she was capable of anything.  Quickly she pulled away, shooting the stunned pony a quick suggestive wink before bolting out the door, the sound of her whooping voice gently fading into the distance as she took to the sky.

Strawberry blinked once, then twice, and a third time.  Her body running on autopilot as her brain decided to take a break for a few moments.  She gently drew up a hoof to touch her lips, recalling the feeling of Cloudchaser’s kiss.  It took a pretty loud throat clearing from Dawnstar for her to piece enough of her sense back together in order to feel embarrassed.  She quickly shook her head, attempting to clear the blush now stinging her cheeks, it was now she realized how happy she was to have dark fur.

“So Strawberry, mind clueing me in on how exactly you came across a health potion?”  Black Brush asked after waiting a moment to let the mare collect her thoughts, doing her an unintentional favor as he drew the attention away from her not so subtle little make out session, which was something she was quite grateful for.

“Why um yes, a zebra by the name of Zecora passed through town a few months ago.  She was quite kind and managed to teach me a few recipes for some very useful potions.”  Strawberry managed to explain, holding her head up and trying to look unfazed from her recent, ‘encounter’, with Cloudchaser…though not with much success.  “And recently we had a forest fire, thanks to those griffons, so there’s plenty of red root growing nearby.”

“Red Root, that’s the ingredient.”  Black Brush mumbled, gently clonking himself on the head as he remembered the missing component.  Health potions needed a couple dashes of red root in order to get the body to produce enough heat to heal itself.  “Very potent stuff, I used to mash it up and make some paints with it.  It makes a brilliant shade of red.”

“Oh really?  I didn’t know you could use Red Root for something like that.”

“Yeah, I had to add a little bit of Ice Bloom in order to keep it from burning a hole through the canvas but it still worked out.”

Sunset shook her head.  “Okay hang on a second you two.  Just what on Equestria are you talking about?”

Black Brush turned his head towards the orange pegasus.  “Sorry Sunset, I’ll do a little explaining.”  His face contorted into a wry little grin.  “Try and keep up.”  Black Brush’s mocking tone caused Sunset to huff, he was about to go off on another tangent again.

‘Well, it’s good to see your getting back to your old self Blackie.’Sunset thought with an inner smile at her friend’s change in demeanor.  Returning to the playful, somewhat light hearted stallion she’d come to know and love.  She felt like smiling, but kept up the appearance of being annoyed at his remark, you know, just to toy with his emotions.

“You see Red Root is an extremely potent magical plant that is native to Equestria.  When fertile enough soil is exposed to high temperatures, typically due to things like forest fires, they can sprout up out of the dirt.  Now while most plants survive on water and healthy doses of sunlight, if you want to keep Red Root around you have to keep them sustained at the perfect temperature.  Since the plant by itself is hot enough to burn a hole through my hoof just by holding it you’d definitely want to make sure it’s cool enough to, well…not do that.  But at the same time you can’t let it get to cold otherwise it’ll shrivel up and die.  So you don’t typically see them in flower shops since their so hard to take care of.”  Black Brush explained, like he’d just read all of his information straight out of a textbook.  Sunset really had no idea how he could store so much information in that head of his, but she typically wasn’t one to complain when he’d give her answers to test questions back in school.

“Strawberry here must have lucked out with that forest fire.  Seeing as Red Root is a very important ingredient for health potions.  I take it you have them secured?”  Black Brush asked the mare with a raised eyebrow.  “It would be a shame if they got to cold and wasted away…or worse, if they got too hot.”

Strawberry nodded her head.  “Oh yes, I’d never let that happen.”

“Why, what happens if they get warmed up?”  Dawnstar asked with a stroke of his facial fur, he was quite honestly intrigued.

“Well they kind of…”  Strawberry pawed at the ground nervously as her voice trailed off, she certainly didn’t want to worry the mayor about the possibilities.

“Explode.”  Black Brush finished for her, earning both himself and the nurse a shocked look from both the mayor and Sunset in turn.

“Strawberry your keeping explosives in a hospital!?”  Dawnstar asked with a shaken voice.

“It’s perfectly safe I assure you!”  Strawberry rushed to explain herself.  “I have all of them kept perfectly safe within enchanted capsules!”

“Are you sure they work?  We don’t have any magically gifted unicorns around here.”  The grizzled old stallion reasoned, his eyes darting around the hospital room uneasily, like he expected something to spontaneously combust any moment now.

“Why yes we do!”  Strawberry egged on, attempting to calm the startled stallion.  “That showmare who’s staying at the inn, she sold them to me! She says she knows everything about magic, and nothing’s exploded as of yet so I think we’re okay.”

Suddenly one of the patients from across the room raised his head from the pillow.  “Did you say something about the hospital blowing up?”

Strawberry shot him a look that could kill.  “Go back to bed…right now.”

The colt wisely did as he was told.

“I hope your right about this Strawberry.”  The mayor continued on, pinching his eyes with a hoof in aggravation.  “It’s pretty warm out today so make sure those plants don’t sit in the sun or anything stupid like that.”

“Of course Mr. Mayor, I’ve been very careful so far.”  Strawberry smiled.  “And with all that I picked I could make dozens of health potions, I could have everyone in here back on their hooves within a week!”

“Yes well, let’s not be too hasty with speeding up their treatment, at least in here they have a pillow underneath their heads.”  The mayor turned his gaze back towards Sunset and Black Brush.  “But back to the matter at hoof, are you two really willing to help us?”

The pair exchanged a quick glance, as if checking to see if the other had any doubts.  When they found none, Black Brush gave him an answer.

“Yes, now I can’t guarantee we’ll be a big help.  But the situation here has spiraled out of control; somepony has to put a stop to it.”  He grinned at Dawnstar.  “Might as well be us.”

Dawnstar smiled thankfully.  “I can’t thank you enough for what you both are doing here, why don’t you two head into the city?  Talk with whoever you have to, do whatever you have to, but if you can find a way to get rid of these griffons we will forever be in your debt.”

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Gilda slowly chewed on the chocolate candy bar that she and a couple of other griffons in Dax’s crew had found tucked away in one of the numerous stolen saddlebags that were lying around in the camp.

“Man its freaking hot today.”  She mumbled, simultaneously drawing up a talon to wipe away some of the sweat sinking into her feathers.

She finished off the candy bar with one last bite, eating the rest up before the chocolate melted in the sweltering heat.  The others had stolen some cupcakes from the bakery in town not too long ago, but she’d stayed away from them.  Just looking at one of the sweets immediately made her think about that pink pony who had turned her best friend into a total lame dweeb.  And thinking about either Dash or the pink one made her want to go find something and smash in its face.

That was part of the reason she’d joined up with Dax, he didn’t like ponies and she didn’t like ponies so it seemed like they had something mutual going on.  But over time it had become pretty clear that Dax didn’t just hate ponies, he hated everyone, griffons included.  It showed in the way he treated all the others under his ‘command’.  All in all their little gang had sprouted up into about ten to fifteen other griffons, all of which down on their luck and looking to make a quick buck or two off the suffering of others.

At the time of her joining Gilda had thought she was ready for something like this.  She’d been in some scraps before, wasn’t a fan of laws or rules, and didn’t really give a damn about the wellbeing of others.  So joining up with his gang seemed like a great way to work out some frustration and get the revenge she’d been stewing over since her flight from Ponyville.

But as time went on…doubts began to creep into her mind.  She knew things were going too far when the town had sent out a bunch of pegasus to get some help, and she, Dax, and the other griffons had all gone out and beat the living crap out of them.

Gilda herself had only given the ones she’d run into a good whack or two, making sure they were out cold.  Heck, she’d even been nice enough to drag them all back to the hospital afterwards; just to make sure they didn’t get concussions or whatever.  But if Gilda knew what she was going to see when she got back to camp…she would have stayed as far away as she could.

Upon her return she was treated to the sight of three other pegasi lying, bruised and broken, in the middle of the camp.  Dax had brought them back in order to have a little fun with them, all the other griffons had gathered around and they…they beat them, for what felt like hours Gilda was forced to watch as one after another the other members of the gang took turns pounding on them.

And that wasn’t the worst part, after they were done, after all of them had been beaten so badly they could barely walk let alone fly, Dax had dragged them out to the road and left them there to die.  It was a horrid scene, and she’d thought about flying out of here as soon as she got the chance.  But before she could act on these thoughts Dax had immediately squashed them down.  He’d come up to her once he’d gotten back from dumping the ponies out on the road, he…told her how he’d noticed she didn’t partake in their little game, that’s all it was to him, some sick game he got to play with the wellbeing of others.  He’d said if she even considered taking off, he’d find her and make her regret it.

Gilda didn’t consider herself a coward, far from it in fact, but she couldn’t help but feel the icy claws of fear dig their way into her heart when he’d said those words.  So she stayed, and for the last two weeks they’d kept up with their thieving and beating.

She cast a wary glance over towards where Dax sat from her little secluded corner of the camp.  She watched with keen eyes as the burly griffon continued to toy with the gleaming blade he’d lifted off their most recent robbery.  Now she was even more frightened of the guy, Dax was already a textbook description of the word nutjob.  Word was he was the reason Flappy, his younger sibling, was missing an eye.  Even though she didn’t really believe that, considering most of the other griffons in camp were about as smart as a bag of rocks, and everything that came out of their mouths should be ingested with a healthy dose of salt, but she certainly wouldn’t put it past the guy.

And now he had a deadly weapon at his disposal.  She could only wonder how long before he’d put it to use.

“Um, hey Gilda.”  A familiar hesitant voice brought her out of her thoughts.

She cast an uninterested glance over towards the source.  Not to her surprise she saw Flappy, the scrawny griffon standing off to her side, pointing his one eyed gaze towards the ground, as if scared to make eye contact with her.

“What do you want Flappy?”  She asked, even though she really didn’t care.  Flappy had made it a routine to bother her about once a day over something trivial.  Maybe it was because she was the only one that didn’t abuse him on a regular basis, or maybe the scraggly guy noticed that she didn’t want to be here about as much as he did.  Whatever it was, she wasn’t entirely unwelcoming to the meeting.  Even if Flappy was a few twigs short of a birds nest.

“Um…well.”  Flappy seemed to be choking on his words, darting his one good eye around the campsite like he was searching for an escape.

“Come on dude, spit it out already.”

“Flappy, has to go into town with some of the others and was wondering if Gilda would come to?”  The smaller griffon rushed the words out of his mouth, before clamping his beak shut and waiting for his answer, when all he received was a raised eyebrow Flappy decided to elaborate somewhat.  “Flappy doesn’t want to go alone with them because all the others have been very mean lately and well…Gilda’s nice…but she’s also tough so Flappy was wondering if she would make sure they don’t hurt Flappy while he’s away.”  He met her gaze now, his scarred face registering some degree of hopefulness.

Gilda mulled over the offer somewhat.  She thought about blowing him off, just because.  But then again she’d seen Flappy sneak off to help the injured pegasi once his brother had gotten back.  He was probably the only reason that any of them made it back to town at all.  Not even she would have been brave enough to do that.  And she admired the little guys guts, none of the other griffons here were even willing to talk back to Dax, let alone disobey a direct order.  Then again, Flappy might not be brave at all.  He could just be really stupid.

“I’m not ‘nice’ Flappy.”  Gilda forced out the word like it left a bad taste on her tongue.  And Flappy’s face took on a noticeable amount of disappointment as he prepared for the rejection he knew would come.  “But what the hell, I’ve got nothing better to do.”  Gilda stood up, stretching out her stiff muscles and flexing her talons.  “I’ll watch your back if you want.”

Flappy’s beak curved into a jubilant smile.  “Thanks Gilda!  Flappy always wanted a friend!  Flappy and Gilda are friends…right?”

Gilda looked over at the other griffon, eyeing him over.  She wasn’t too keen on friends; she’d only ever had one.  And that ‘friend’ had stabbed her in the back only a few short months ago.  But, Flappy was pretty harmless, and they were the only two here who weren’t sociopaths.  So if the little guy wanted to give their relationship a label.  Why not?

“Sure Flappy, we’re friends.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Black Brush opened the large wooden door leading out of the hospital.  He stepped outside, raising a hoof to shade his eyes from the sunlight; he briefly scanned the town surrounding him.

“Sure is hot today.”  Sunset came up to stand at his side.  “You couldn’t have picked a cooler time of the year to fall into a crippling depression and start some foalish journey?”

“Oh I’m sorry, next time I’ll postpone my own personal suffering so we can trudge down the road together knee deep in snow.”  Black Brush chided.  “Does that work better for you Sunny Bunny?”

Sunset raised a hoof and knocked him upside the head, the strike eliciting a pained groan and a pitiful “Ooow” from her traveling companion.

“That’s still sore you know.”  He told her while rubbing up and down on his throbbing skull in a soothing manner.

“Nopony calls me Sunny Bunny but my grandma.”  She frowned at him.  “You hear that?  NOPONY.”

Black Brush only responded to her annoyance with a toothy grin.  “Whatever you say…Sunny Bunny.”

Sunset sighed heavily.  “I’m so going to kill you.”

“Looking forward to it, this place certainly looks a lot better on the brochure.”  Black Brush decided to comment on the current status of Foalton.

And Sunset was inclined to agree with him.  The town itself was practically in shambles, buildings were vandalized, garbage was thrown about upon the white cobblestone of the roads and alleyways, and not to mention that the streets were overcrowded with ponies, all of which bustling and moving about with no real place to go.  Most of the shops and homes were boarded up and closed, signs that said things along the lines of, No free Lodging,  And No bits no purchase, were nailed on buildings of all kinds, no doubt put there by aggravated shopkeepers that were upset with the current influx of bitless vagrants.  Without all of this the town would have no doubt lived up to its reputation as a decently sized and stocked business crossroads, the last stop inland before one would either continue heading north, deeper into Equestrian territory, or east, towards the ocean.

That’s no doubt why the griffons have picked here to set up shop.Black Brush thought to himself.  There’s lots of valuable trade coming in from both the East and the South, all heading north towards Canterlot to offload their goods, pretty clever plan to be honest.

The pair were forced to shoulder their way past uncountable amounts of ponies.  The city was indeed overcrowded, stallions and mares alike were filling the alleyways and spilling out into the streets, some sleeping in the byways and gutters throughout the town.  Others were scrounging around for some form of shelter or sustenance.   A group of Earth ponies sat around a makeshift fire pit off to the side, cooking up some carrot and cabbage stew.  It looked like they were all ready to fight over the food if necessary, a few burly stallions in the group clutching onto makeshift weapons and eyeing everypony that came near suspiciously.

All of this was a pretty jarring change in setting from what they were used to, considering the two had only ever lived in a small town, populated by no more than thirty to forty individuals.  But the worst part…the scene that shocked Black Brush most of all?  The theatre that Black Brush had wanted to visit, one of the biggest and most popular stages in Equestria mind, had been practically cannibalized.

The polished wooden floorboards had been torn asunder, thrown together to create makeshift lodgings for those who wanted shelter, the lavish bright red curtains with golden stitches and embroidery had been sliced apart and made into blankets and beds for ponies in need, and worst of all…the wonderfully painted backgrounds, the backgrounds that created scenes so real you could believe you were there, had been smashed and used as tinder.  As an admirer of all things artistic, Black Brush was appalled at this crime against the performing arts.

“Oh no…”  Black Brush mumbled as Sunset saw him practically deflate before her very eyes.  His emerald gaze glued to the butchered stage.

“What, what’s wrong?”  She asked with worry.

“That poor beautiful theatre…”

 Sunset followed his gaze, before rolling her eyes and giving a huff.  “It’s just a stage Blackie; we have bigger things to worry about.”

Black Brush looked at her like she was insane.  “Wha- bigger things to worry about!?  Maybe you don’t understand but theatre is the pinnacle of pony achievement.  It takes every form of art out there and mixes it together in the most positively beautiful way imaginable.”

Sunset drug a hoof across her face before letting out another aggravated groan, “Oh here we go again…”

“You see it takes the intricate storytelling and character development of a novel and lays it out on display for everyone to see, and then it must rely on the performance and acting skills that only a true lover of the performing arts could put to good use.  And musical accompaniment, where would ponykind be without the creation of music!?  Lyrical poetry used to tell the tales and sorrows of all kinds, capable of bringing forth emotions the likes of which rarely seen!  And last but not least let us not forget the paintings!  The blood sweat and tears poured onto the canvas in order to set the scene for the story.  Everything from starry night skies to bloody battlefields have been created in order for us to truly be immersed in the scene playing out before our very eyes!”  Black Brush took a deep breath and pointed a damning hoof at the dilapidated stage.  “AND THIS IS A CRIME AGAINST ALL OF IT!”

Sunset waited a moment for Black Brush to catch his breath after his tirade, a deadpan expression lying on her face as she waited impatiently for her art loving friend to calm himself.

“Are you done now?”  She asked with a colorless voice.  “Or are you going to leap into a rant about how the varnish used on the floorboards is an intricately woven form of political satire.”  Suddenly Sunset blinked, scrunching up her face as her brain finally registered what just came out of her mouth.  “Whoa…big words...”

“Big words indeed,”  Sunset looked up to see Black Brush giving her that playful smirk that made her want to punch him and kiss him at the same time.  “I think I’m starting to rub off on you Sunset.”  He leaned in a little closer, causing her to blush as his face now measured only a few short inches away from her own.  Now was a bad moment for her love sickness to kick in, but she couldn’t help it.  “If I hang around you any longer I might catch you saying magenta is your favorite color.”

At those words Sunset immediately felt the fluttering in her chest die down and the heat recede from her face, that same playful aura settling around the pair once again.

“Not on your life Blackie.  Emerald will always be my favorite color.”

“Oh really?”  He raised an eyebrow, his emerald eyes flashing in the light.  “And why would that be?”

And there it was again, that damn feeling of unrequited passion and love, just sitting there like a rock in her chest.   She couldn’t believe that she had let this one slip.  No way was she about to say because it was the color of his eyes, that would make her feelings for him all too clear, as if they weren’t already laid out bare for anypony with an ounce of intelligence to see, but she liked to think she did a good job of hiding it.

“Be-because it’s a pretty color!”  She swiveled around and started walking towards the center of town.  “Well come on!  We don’t have all day!”

She heard Black Brush’s hooves clopping along the ground behind her as he followed her lead.  She could practically FEEL that smug little grin of his, digging into the back of her head with a feeling of self-satisfaction as he, once again, managed to successfully toy with his best friend’s emotions.  Oh Celestia did she want to turn around and punch him right now!  And oh Luna did she want to turn around kiss him right now…

“It seems like the bar is the only thing still open.”  Black Brush pointed out.

Indeed the only establishment that seemed to resemble any form of parlay was the local pub.  The lights inside shone warmly and welcomingly and the sounds of rambunctious voices and clanking bottles no doubt meant that the building was in use.

“Why is the bar the only place that’s still open?”  Sunset asked incredulously, she detested these kinds of places.  “I thought nopony in town had any money.”

“Well no doubt that a few here were able to scrape together a paltry enough sum for a pint or two.”  Black Brush explained.

“But shouldn’t they be spending those bits on things like food?”

“Yeah well it’s easy to forget you’re bitless and hungry when you’re incredibly drunk.”  Black Brush added dryly.  “I would know, I was an alcoholic once.”

Sunset scoffed.  “Oh come on, you went booze crazy for like two weeks tops.”

“Yeah I went booze crazy for two weeks and had to work off damages around town for five.”  The stallion was quick to point out.  “Anyway, let’s get inside.”  Black Brush started towards the entrance of the bar.  “Drunks are incredible conversationalists.”

“Wait!”  Sunset stopped him.  “It looks like we’re getting some unexpected visitors.”  Sunset gave a quick nod of her head over towards the direction of the rapidly approaching silhouettes of five or so very griffon like figures.

Black Brush followed his friend’s gaze, his expression forming into a scowl as the troupe of griffons landed across the street from where they currently resided.  When the group finally landed on the notched white cobblestone below them Black Brush did a brief scan over each for any details he might be able to put to use later.  In all there were a total of four, one female, three male, though none of them seemed to be the nearly giant griffon he had faced down at his campsite earlier today.

He and Sunset both continued to study the griffons within the camouflage of the bustling crowd of ponies around them.  The male in front, leading the pack, wasn’t incredibly large, he looked a bit unkempt, the lion fur on his body was sticking up and the eagle feathers on his head and wings were tussled.  Though whether that was from the wind resistance during flight, or a lack of personal hygiene neither really knew.  He also bore a long, jagged, scar across the broad side of his right hind leg, the injury having caused enough damage to keep the fur from growing back, which left him with a gnarled looking line of skin across the appendage and a slight limp.

The second male, standing off to the lead griffon’s right, was fairly unremarkable, that is to say he looked pretty average.  Or well, as average as the pair of ponies thought griffons looked anyway.  But the third was a different story.  Black Brush couldn’t help but think that he had seen this one before; he spent a moment or two to mull over the sense of familiarity tugging on him until he finally placed it.  This was the griffon he’d hit with the frying pan, he’d remember that black eye patch and splotchy set of feathers anywhere.  If only because it made him look completely ridiculous.  He seemed to be lagging behind the other two males in front, maybe his injury kept him from traveling at the same speed of the others, or perhaps he stayed behind due to personal reasons, though the way he ducked behind the female as he felt several curious eyes run across him made Black Brush suspect the latter.

“Can you hear what they’re saying?”  Sunset asked him.

He nodded his head negatively.  “No, let’s try getting a little closer.  Maybe we can find out where their camp is.”

The pair quickly approached the moving griffons, making sure to stay out of sight, though with the throng of moving bodies around them it was far from difficult.

“I told you I have no clue where the loot keeps going Scar.”  The griffon on the right of the leader, apparently called Scar spoke with exasperation.

Scar huh?  Fitting I suppose, if not painfully cliché.Black Brush thought caustically.

“And I told you I don’t care where it goes either.”  Scar answered back icily.  “But Dax does, and unless you want to piss him off I suggest you help me look Lightfoot.”

Lightfoot groaned in aggravation.  “Fine, whatever, but did we really have to bring along the retard?”  Lightfoot pointed nonchalantly over his shoulder, his hooked talon aimed at the eye patch wearing griffon for just a moment, the use of the word causing him to flinch and hang his head lower in shame.

“Dax told me to bring Flappy.  I don’t know why and I really don’t care, so long as he doesn’t do anything stupid and Gilda keeps her mouth shut we can just find the loot and get out of this stinking pony fill- HEY WATCH IT WALLEYE!”  Scar suddenly barked as a grey furred and blonde maned pegasus with bubbles as her cutie mark bumped into him.

The mare shrunk back, surprised at the sudden verbal assault.  As she stumbled a light pink gift box fell to the ground in front of her with a gentle thump.  Black Brush and Sunset Spring watched from their current position, they had snuck around the back of the group and tailed them as they walked, being sure to keep just within earshot, though not within sight, as to avoid suspicion.

Something interesting that caught Black Brush’s more sensitive eye was how Flappy, the eye patched griffon in the very back, seemed to raise his head and tighten up nervously at the sight of the grey mare who’s eyes didn’t quite match up.  This was odd he thought.  Certainly the griffon couldn’t see well, but he was fairly confident that he wouldn’t be scared of any kind of assault from the grey mare…unless he was worried for a different reason.  Black Brush made a mental note to pay attention to how the griffon reacted as the situation played out.

“I-I’m sorry!”  The mare shrieked, scanning around for her package with her good eye, the other rolling around sporadically like a towel in a washing machine.

When she spotted the slightly crumpled pink wrapping paper she shot out with her hooves to protect it, only for her movement to be cut short by a large talon stamping down on the stone in between her and the present.

“Now what do we have here?”  Scar asked menacingly as he scooped up the package.

The mare’s good eye shrunk to the size of a pinprick as panic filled her.  Whatever was in that package seemed very important to her.

Scar toyed with the box, chuckling as he watched the pony’s reaction.  “Who’s this for?”  He asked her, though he didn’t really care about an answer.

“My…my daughter Dinky…it’s her birthday tomorrow.”  The trepid mare replied, her yellow eye following the gift wherever it went as the griffon continued to study it.

“What kind of a stupid name is Dinky?”  Lightfoot asked with a sneer.

Scar ignored him.  “So this is the little pony’s birthday present?”  She nodded.  “Well, you don’t exactly seem fit to take care of a child.”  Scar chided, causing the mare to wince as the words grated against her confidence and pride as a mother.  Living with a disfigurement always meant her pride was dealt many a low blow, but mostly they were hushed whispers whenever her back was turned.  Most weren’t so forward about their hate.

“I’d better make sure you didn’t put something dangerous in here.”  And with a swift move of his talon he sliced open both the gift wrap and the box, revealing the prize within.

Black Brush once again took a brief notice of Flappy’s reaction.  It looked like the griffon was frowning and shifting uncomfortably, either he really needed to go to the bathroom, or something going on had really struck a nerve.

Scar took out a small shining necklace from the box, the piece of jewelry catching the light in a way that caused it to sparkle and shimmer in the bright golden rays of the sun.  The chain loops were made of precious silver, which led down towards a golden heart near the bottom of the necklace, the heart itself contained a small sapphire in the middle.  An extremely rare Baby Blue Sapphire if Black Brush remembered correctly.  That along with the exquisite make of the chain itself must have meant that the necklace was worth a small fortune.

“Now would you look at that?”  Scar said, holding the necklace in the light as it gleamed tantalizingly, bright flashes of blue bouncing around when the shining rays managed to strike the blue sapphire within the golden heart.  “You know this must have been pretty expensive.  A pony like you must have plenty of spare change on ‘em.”  Scar eyed the cowering pony, a devilish smile on his face.  “I tell you what, you hand over the rest of your bits, and we’ll let you keep this present for your little Dinky.  Sound fare?”

“B-but I don’t have any more bits.”  She choked out; the pegasus seemed on the verge of tears.  Then Black Brush noticed it, the grey mare’s gaze shifted over to Flappy, if only for a fraction of a second.  Her big tear filled eyes pleading, a look that Flappy returned with a remorseful frown.  Then her gaze immediately shifted back towards the imposing griffon standing over her now.  “Please, I’ll already be late to her party!  Don’t make me go back home without something for her!”  She begged with a repressed sob, a single rebellious tear breaking free from her lazy eye and trailing down her cheek.

“Well then I guess you’re just not a good parent.”

“Please!”  The mare shot out her hoof for the gift, only to be shoved back to the ground with a thump.

“Don’t get yourself hurt over this retard!”  Scar shouted her down.  Snarling intimidatingly as he watched the mare shrivel into a ball and begin to weep.

“Stop it!”  A sharp voice broke out over the sound of aggrieved sobbing and Lightfoot’s mocking laughter, silencing them both.  To Scar’s disbelief he turned around to see, not the pleading face of another sniveling pony, like he’d expected, but instead the outraged scowl of Flappy.  “Stop hurting Ditzy like that!”  The griffon barked, stamping his talon against the ground in fury.

Scar seemed surprised, if unimpressed at Flappy’s show of bravery.  He gave the other griffon a questioning look.

“You know her name?”  He asked dubiously.

Flappy opened his mouth like he was going to speak, then snapped it shut with a clack.  Deciding it was smarter to keep his mouth shut for once.

“So this is where you’ve been sneaking off to every night.”  Scar deduced, stepping closer to the smaller griffon, staring him down with an imposing glower.  “Your late night visits to little walleye over there doesn’t happen to have anything to do with our missing loot does it?”  Flappy didn’t respond, but managed to hold the larger griffon’s glare with his own.  “Well come on Flappy!  Speak up!”  Scar lashed out and secured the smaller griffon’s neck in his iron like grip!  Eliciting a pained squawk as the powerful appendage wrapped around his windpipe.

That’s when Black Brush saw it; the female griffon that had remained largely silent sprang into action!  Her fist sailed through the air with nearly blinding speed, slamming into Scar’s cheek with the force of a sledge hammer!  He fell to the ground, dazed and confused as he scanned around with blurry vision for the sign of his attacker, the sounds of hushed whispers from surprised onlookers filling his ears, disorienting him further.

“What the hell Gilda!?”  Lightfoot shouted in surprise, taking a few steps back to avoid a possible strike himself.

“He was getting out of line.”  Gilda answered plainly.

Scar rubbed his sore cheek with a talon, he quickly scrambled to his legs and attempting to look unfazed from the blow.  “I’m gonna make you pay for that you son of a-”  He cut off his own sentence as his wobbly head took over and threatened to send him careening back towards the earth.

“Yeah pal I’m sure you are.”  Gilda couldn’t help but smile smugly.  She’d been pulling her punches for months now, making sure not to hurt the ponies they robbed to severely.  But Scar’s attitude had allowed her a brief chance to cut loose, something she’d wanted to do since this whole stupid mess started.

Scar scrunched up his face, making a scowl in order to hide his burning cheek and damaged pride.  “I’ll make sure Dax hears about this.”

Gilda let out a chuckle.  “What, you gonna tell him you got knocked on your ass by a girl?”

Scar opened his mouth to retort, only to find nothing but his own personal shame on the tip of his tongue.  He clapped his beak shut and turned around.  Heading deeper into town, refusing to look back as Lightfoot ran after him.

“Th-thanks Gilda…”  Flappy finally managed to choke out, his voice scratchy and hoarse.

“Yeah don’t mention it.  Come on, let’s get out of here.”  Gilda suddenly swiveled around to leave.  She expanded her wings and gave them three hard flaps, the force propelling her into the air with a loud whooshing sound and a thick cloud of dust.

Flappy began to follow suit, but he stopped halfway between extending his wings and cast one last forlorn gaze towards the crying mare, lying on the cold, hard, stone of the street with no money and no place to stay.  All because of his brother…he’d fix this, he didn’t know how and he didn’t bother to think about it…but he knew he’d find a way to stop all this, one way or another.

He began to fly.