It was night time, and the grocery was open late. That wasn’t the norm around Ripley: the grocery closed early to ensure there weren’t any drunks wandering the streets of the small town. But tonight was different. Known as 'the Crossroads', the establishment had just gotten restocked of inventory, something that newcomers didn’t know about. Many locals were willing to pay top dollar to get their hands on the new arrivals.

Mr. Burr was one of those high rollers, as he strolled in on his horse.

“Whoa there,” he said, his hands gently tugging on its reins. The horse responded in kind, huddling close beside the establishment.

He quickly hopped off his horse and hooked it to a nearby wooden stable-rack. His brown stallion neighed hard in response, which prompted Mr. Burr to talk the horse down. “There, there,” he cooed, petting the horse. “It’s okay, I’ll be only gone for a minute. I'll get you some more hay tomorrow and—”

“Whatta night, Mr. Burr!”

Mr. Burr nearly yelped as his gaze snapped to the man in the corner. It surprised Mr. Burr that he hadn’t seen the man, but as he realized who it was, Mr. Owens was known for being sneaky as well as being hyperactive.

The man had a face of a young boy, his cheeks puffy and his face lacking of any facial hair. His brown beady eyes beamed at anyone who’d be passing by, and his attire of a clean white shirt, a black bow tie, a brown vest, and a cream sack coat matched his brown pantaloons and shoes. Safe to say, he was dressed to impress.

“G-Glad you could join us, Mr. Owens,” Mr. Burr said with a shaky tip of his hat. “Mr. Stockton told me about your... excitement.”

The shrill screech that came from Mr. Owens nearly made Mr. Burr wince. “You bet! Wilhelm was hollering ‘bout the new shipment, that I jus’ couldn’t keep that ol’ yipper yapper of mine shut!” He stifled a chuckle. “Ripley needed to know about this shipment! It’s the best one this year!”

Mr. Burr raised a brow at that. “How many?”

Mr. Owens came forth, and nudged Mr. Burr. This usually was a way of telling somebody to lend them an ear. So Mr. Burr did just that. He craned his neck low, while cupping his ear. Mr. Owens whispered…

“Fifty-five!”

...and Mr. Burr’s eyes widened. “Are you sure, Mr. Owens?”

Mr. Owens gripped his vest in the center, while wearing the smuggest of smirks. “You betcha! They brought these lot by the wagons—something that Ripley hadn’t seen since the beginning of the war!”

It was like a dream. Mr. Burr knew they were short on hands, so hearing about this… made him crack a smile. “That’s great! I hope that I get something out these lot.”

“All you have is hope when I’m bidding you, Mr. Burr.”

Mr. Burr knew who that was, a certain someone who twirled with his own facial hair as much as he tossed out cash. “You might not want to start counting your chickens before they hatch, Mr. Stockton. There ain’t going to be no prime negroes for your plantation.”

The two men approached each other with pleasant smiles. Then, they shook hands. “Good to see you.”

“Same to you,” replied Mr. Stockton. “Couldn’t help but notice you and Mr. Owens talking up the market. Guessing you got the news?”

“If you mean, the rumor of how many there are, then yes, rather… excitedly, as a matter of fact,” Mr. Burr said, while casting a sidelong glance at Mr. Owens, who approached the taller men with a short, embarrassed grin.

“Well, that’s our Owens. Just a bit excited when word gets out about inventory.” Mr. Stockton twirled the end of his stache. “Let’s not keep the others waiting, shall we?”

The other two men nodded, and entered the Crossroads, or so Mr. Burr tried. He couldn’t help but pause, while the other two men entered without hesitation. He thought he saw a light flickering across the street at the trading post. He thought that someone had forgotten to blow out their candlelight, but that was thoroughly dashed when the light brightened before his very eyes.

And when he blinked, the light was no longer there.

He shook his head and walked into the grocery, willing to disregard the phenomenon.

Inside, merriment was abundant. Men were happily drinking to the tunes of the ol’ South, while the barkeep was keeping tabs on the ones at the counter. Mr. Burr doubted that the upstairs folk didn’t like this noise—if any of them were still up there. On this type of night, no one was asleep. They were either drowning in liquor with friends, or making their way to a light brown door towards the back of the building. Behind that door was an area segregated from the freedom of alcohol, and a place that Mr. Burr’s company were eager to cash-in on.

“‘Bout time for the showing?” Mr. Stockton asked.

Mr. Owens shrugged. “Probably soon. Let’s get back there before—”

“Hello sirs. Want some of the finest beer in all of Mississippi?”

Mr. Burr was about to respond with a negative, but Mr. Owens beat him to the punch. “Naw, we getting ready to see them back in the back.”

At first, Mr. Burr thought he saw the barkeep frown, but that changed when the keep gave the three a bright smile. “Well, when you’re done, don’t hesitate to come back out to get some of the finest drinks in the state!”

“That’d be good. We’ll keep that in mind,” Mr. Burr replied. He gave Mr. Stockton a slight smile. “Go on ahead, I need to ask the barkeep something.”

The two men nodded, scurrying towards the green door of life, while Mr. Burr hopped on an empty stool and looked at his fellow man.

“Whatcha needing, sir?”

Mr. Burr placed a ten dollar banknote on the table, and slid it forward. “As an apology for… Mr. Owens’ outburst.”

The barkeep smiled. “How did ya know I was bothered by that?”

Mr. Burr shrugged. “Intuition had been a strong suit of mine since I was young.”

“Well, thank you kindly.” The barkeep gave him a nod. “You’re a good man, Mr…?”

“Burr.” He said with a smile. “And thank you. I hope you have a nice night.”

“You too, Mr. Burr.” The barkeep snatched the banknote and scrubbed the front desk with a towel.

The two men departed, one working happily at a bar who waved promptly to the other, whose footsteps click-clacked against the floor like glass tapping against drunken memories.

After getting her off my back and onto that ledge, we made our way down, hooves and feet pitter-pattering against soulless dirt. I wondered if this was how it was going to be for the next few days, just walking and worrying every waking moment that something was going to get us. But that wasn’t going to happen, was it?

I shook my head and looked at Dash. She was limping a bit, something that I didn’t notice until she started walking down the ledge with me.

“Dash, you alright?”

She stopped and looked at me. “Y-Yeah…” Her grimace was showing her lie. “I’m doing fine.”

“Not buyin’ it.” I knelt down in front of her and took a look at her hoof. “Yep, that hoof lookin’ banged up. Ya might want to be careful now, could get all bruised up more and ya don't want that—”

“I know, I know,” Dash replied as she rolled her eyes.

I raised a brow at her for that one. What was with that tone? But before I could figure it out, she was walking ahead of me. So I bit my tongue, and kept moving.

Time passed, and not a word was said. Dash was too focused. The only time she checked to see if I was near was if she didn’t hear me close to her. She had craned her neck and saw me lagging behind, which she didn’t take too kindly, saying that she’s ‘seen tortoises move faster than me’. Not sure what she meant by that, but I decided to pick up the pace anyway.

Eventually, we met solid ground. There wasn’t the fear of falling. Nothing but the grey grains and a raging stream of water. I thought she’d recognize the water and ask if we should follow it, but instead, she walked past the thing, and continued her merry way in the opposite direction.

I rushed toward her. “Dash?”

She turned around. “Yeah…?”

“Why you goin’ that way?”

She raised a brow at me. “Dyson, we’re like… a hop, skip, and a jump from the other edge of the Gorge!” She looked at me with a wide smile. “If we find a way up, I could lead us to Ponyville so we can get some help!”

That cliffside was huge. Definitely bigger than the one we climbed down from. “But Dash, that’s really high up.”

“I know, but I’ve flown higher and—”

“Yet ya can’t fly,” I said, pointing to her wings.

Reminding her might’ve made her growl. Either that, or she was trying to fight the pain, if her lip bite and tightly closed eyes were any reason to believe.

“So?” Dash replied with her grit teeth. She opened her eyes and quickly pointed her not damaged hoof at me. “You just had me on your back through that climb down! You could easily carry me up.”

“I don’t think that’d be a thing. I could drop you and—”

Dash growled and stood on her hind legs. She then, lunged toward me, hooking her forehooves around my neck. With a bit of strength, she bumped her muzzle against my nose. “Listen, Dyson. Do we have much of a choice? It’s either we go up, or we go face those hydras out there.” She shoved her left forehoof toward the screaming monsters to make her point. They sounded angry. She pulled back and smirked. “I don’t think you and I are able to outrun them either.”

“They fast?”

“When they’re hungry, they are,” Dash whispered. That got my back all cold. “So, what do you think?”

I think of a lot of things: the fields, what Master was doing that day, making sure my little sister wasn’t running around too much, doing errands for my Master... and a whole lot of other stuff that I couldn't begin to list, since Rainbow Dash was glaring at me something fierce. I better focus on listing what's important now: my options.

Going up was definitely a great one, since we would avoid getting killed by hydras. But what if we fell? What if we died on impact?

On the other hand, we could stay down here. We'd have water, but the problem would be food. We haven't found anything to eat, and there were definitely ones out there that wanted to eat us. And starving to death or being eaten alive wasn't something I wanted either.

So I guess everything made sense now. Don't worry about the what-if's, just worry about getting out. I sighed. “Alright, guess you win. Looks like we be… climbin’ on up.”

“Alright!” Dash yipped as she landed on all fours. Even though she was hobbling, she moved like she wasn’t hurt that much at all. “Let’s get going, Dyson!”

As I watched her waddle her way towards our first obstacle, I felt an aching, nervous feeling, like one of those ones that tickle your stomach until it starts to wretch. Maybe it was the possibility—no, the reality that I was going to go climbing up yet another cliffside. I was nervous. Yeah, just nervous enough that I gulped down what little saliva I had left in my mouth and followed her with a bit of distance between us.

It wasn’t that I was afraid to die… No sirree.

Author's Note

Dʀɪɴᴋɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ sᴏᴜɴᴅs ᴏғ sᴜғғᴇʀɪɴɢ.