RoMS' Extravaganza

by RoMS

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Anthology
Length: 390841

A compendium of various blabberings, abandoned projects, and short stories.

A compendium of various blabberings, abandoned projects, old drafts, and short stories (and some less so) that never made it or wouldn't make it to publication as individual stories.

Each bit is published unedited. Rating is disabled because it's pointless for this mish-mash.
~
Cover art by ElDee

Published 2020-02-18 13:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-05-20 22:39:45 UTC

Apr. 2013 - Beyond All Thresholds - 1. Grey Areas

Author's Note

Short Description:
Rainbow Dash survived Pinkamena’s muder attempt but was left in comatose. Meanwhile, the world is dangerously escalating to war.

Long Description:
With Twilight crowned princess, everything was said to be just fine. However, after Pinkamena Diane Pie revealed herself being a cold-blooded killer, the situation drifts away from everypony’s hooves. From now on, an escalation of events will bring the world to its knees and the ponies we know so well will go through Tartarus to answer this very simple question:

“Where will you be ready to go to save those you cherish and which sacrifice will you be eager to pay for it?”

This story is an alternative ending/sequel to the known, loved or hated Sergeant Sprinkles’s story, “Cupcakes”.

This is my first story any criticism is welcomed! It is not because it is a sequel to Cupcake that it is necessarily bad. Read it and enjoy the unfolding plot.

I would like to thank Neo Draco for the skilful editing this pony has performed on my story.

Apr. 2013 - Beyond All Thresholds - 1. Grey Areas

ACT I Ξ What stands beneath

Grey areas

.

..

…

A lure?

Somepony was calling her.

A joyful, vividly colorful and modulated voice was echoing in her ears.

She had faded more than a few times, unable to keep her thoughts coherent. Pain was dwelling on and within her skin, flesh and blood. She was struck down, lying on an uncomfortable wooden chopping block.

Eerie flashbacks were bouncing in Rainbow Dash’s unconscious mind, melting in harmful memories, twisted laughter and floating smirks. She caught a voice whispering in the shadows. She remembered a bloody scarf swung around a pink neck, some acts of terrific sickening cannibalism and of course this long-lasting nasty feeling of knifes and sharpened edges running on her skin.

“Waaake up Rainbow Dash… Wake up… Wake UP!!”

Pinkie laughed a deep, twisted and disrespectful chortle. Opening her eyes, Rainbow instantly glanced at her belly, driving her insane by the pain coming back and forth in her tortured bowels. The long, atrocious wound was sewn up. Regaining slowly her senses, the wingless pegasus shivered, terrified, disoriented and obviously agonizing in her own coagulating blood. She raised her stare of somepony facing her.
Pinkie Pie’s smile was nastily disturbing, like white fangs shining in the dark, thanks to moonlight… And right now, the moonlight was just the beams surging from small candles randomly scattered around in the room. Rainbow panicked, breathing hardly, searching for pure air, or at least some oxygen which was not corrupted by her own blood stench and her own reeking faeces.

“You shouldn’t rest, my dear pony, you’re missing the party! A party you won’t forget. Look around to our guests! Exhausting Flesh, Dying Life, Hale and Hearty Living Dead Corpses!”

Pinkie was gamboling around the table where Rainbow was shamefully displayed, tied up so tightly that her joints were bleeding. Rainbow gazed at her merciless foe. She was showing off a bag of limbs on which was badly painted a pair of eyes. She then slid her hooves inside a griffon’s head. Rainbow’s fur rose on her skin, she knew so well whose skull it was belonging to. She remembered glancing at it earlier but she had quickly forgotten. Her mind had been rapidly bathed by nothing but pain and pleas. Pinkie then showed up heads nailed on the walls of the basement.

“That… makes absolutely no sense!” Rainbow finally gagged.

“Of course it doesn't!”

Anesthetic was still running through Rainbow’s veins, pushing her relentlessly toward insanity. And it was only an outward ride. With her half-closed eyes, she sought to find a light in the chiaroscuro of the room. She was trying to find something to rely on, something that kept her mind free from the madness… a madness which had already begun running beneath her cranium.

Hallucinations from the pain and fear were driving her insane. Full of tears, Rainbow desperately searched for help. She was only able find a wooden roof where the Pinkie’s shadow was casted by the light of dying candelabras. Everything was hidden behind a dark veil, blurred, and Pinkie was the cause of all of this mess. The hopping pink pony gamboled back to the round table. Rainbow’s breath quickened. It was an uneasy and hesitant hiss.

Pinkie imitated quite well the voice of her dear Applejack, “Had enough Sugahcube?! Mah, this is still the b’ginning! So stahp that death rattlin'!”

Tears flooded Rainbow Dash’s cheeks. Pinkie had something in her hooves and Rainbow had no clue about the true nature of the object. Once again she struggled, trying to break the ties holding her. With an evil strength Pinkie grabbed her “friend’s” mane, biting it harshly.

She forced Rainbow’s eyes to open, and with a nightmarish tool dropped something into them.
Rainbow screamed as she never had before. The pain was agonizing. Something strange, something liquid, was being poured into her eyes. They were on fire and everything went black.
Rainbow Dash’s eyeswet with tears. This pain... The bloody drops were mixed with fresh scabs. Her voice faded in sorrowful hiccups.

“P… Pl… Please Pinkie, for Equestria’s sake, stop! P… p… please! Have a bit of…”

“Mercy? Why? That’s an awesome party, isn’t it? We can’t pause it! Who would want to stop such a cheerful celebration!? You promised it to me! And NOPONY breaks a Pinkie Pie promise,” Pinkie maintained with small shouts.

Rainbow Dash was whining while her tormentor was swiftly hopping about in a frenzy before she stopped. Pinkie Pie’s head was slowly swinging from left to right. She was now doing something on a large desk close to the stairs. Eerie sounds rose which echoed in Rainbow’s ears, only to amplify her dizziness and terror.

SHLACK! Shlack… Shlack… Crack… Shlash!!

Rainbow was absolutely blind. And the fear of the unknown bathed her mind, more vivid than ever as the metallic clatters sprawling from Pinkamena’s location were foreshadowing so many grim things. The mad pony was talking to herself, muttering freaked rhetorical questions and casting away dark threats to invisible foes.

On her own, riveted to the uncomfortable table, Rainbow was left to her hearing. Abandoned on the improvised scaffold she let the shivers roam over her skin. Pinkie erupted in joy, but Rainbow could not care less anymore.

“It would be a shame if OUR Rainbow dies too soon. We have a record to break, a cupcake to make, and the ingredient is not READY!

Pinkie paused. Rainbow nearly imagined the smirk growing on the maddened features of her so-called friend.

“Neither am I!” the party pony finally erupted.

The pink pony turned back to her blind and terrorized captive. How was she not dead yet? The pain was so unbearable, her will to end this mess so strong. Standing over her guest, Pinkie squeezed those scab-covered cheeks.

“Aren’t you so cute?”

“Why Pinkie?! Why do you keep doing this?! Kill me! Enough! ENOUGH!!!!! PLEEEAAAASE!!!”

Pinkie kept being mute. Dash sobbed again. Pinkie was bored now.

“I’m Pinkamena Diane Pie, Element of Laughter! Smile, smile, smile… Or I will carve it on your pretty face! I’m PINKIE, Pinkie, pinkie…” Covered in blood and carved up flesh, Pinkie found a sadistic pleasure in spelling her own name.

In Rainbow’s ears, each of her hoofsteps echoed like a countdown, a jangling mixed with a sharp metal clatter. Pinkie was carrying a knife, no doubt about it. And it was for sure new one that Rainbow had never felt running on her skin and penetrating her flesh. Mind fogged by the pain, the cyan pegasus wagered that the edge was calling her.

“…Cause the end is where we begin,” Pinkie whispered.

Clack… Clack… Clack… Clack…

The same kind of slamming, again. Rainbow Dash opened her blinded eyes. They were burning as if sand had been splashed onto them. And all around, there was nothing but darkness. She, the fearless Pegasus, started fearing this blackened fog enshrouding her. “When we are isolated from everything we have ever known, snatched from our home and unable to grasp what stands and occurs around us, who would not?” She tried to rationalize.

The sweat was dripping from her forehead while her tormentor was contemplating her plaything, a mere living toy. And of course, Pinkie imagined herself as the toymaker pulling the strings.
And then came the sharpness of the blade, slicing and cutting through the flesh, the muscles, carving the bones. The pain was so intense Rainbow Dash let her despair take hold of her spirit.

“KILL ME, KILL ME! NOW! NOW! Now… please! Set me free!”

The blood flowed of her legs, flanks and belly. The warm liquid rolled down her opened flesh. She tasted something in her mouth, was it blood or her own tongue that she was crushing, trying to ease the pain by inflicting herself a different one. Rainbow Dash fainted again.

“No, no… You can’t, it’s too soon! You’re not ready yet! I have to restitch you. You’re still incomplete. Shouldn't you be loyal? Don't leave my party then!” Pinkie said imperiously.

Pinkie re-sewed the wounds, again. Then she gave Rainbow another adrenaline shot. The unconscious pony quivered. And this time it was neither pain nor misery which overflowed her lost mind when she awoke. There was nothing but rage.

“I’ll KILL ya! You hear!? I’ll KILL YOU! I. WILL. KILL. YOU! I’ll shred you into pieces, I’ll break every one of your bones until you’re nothing but mash. There will be no ashes! I will erase everything, even your own existence!”

“Ooooh what a berserker. That’s the spirit, I like it! Help me now,” she ordered coldly.

She went to her “dining table”. Gilda’s skull was flung off the desk and broke on the ground. There was work to be done. When Pinkie came back, Rainbow Dash knew the time to pass out had arrived. She closed her eyes, greeting the death with open hooves, like she had always done with old friends.
Rainbow came upon the whistling of a knife lifted in the air.

“Do it… please.”

Pinkie struck four times and Rainbow Dash fell to the dirty and sticky floor. She was fluttering, defenseless, disoriented, without knowing what was happening.
Pinkie did not stab her but the leather restraints. Rainbow found no available reason. She could not get up; the nails in her hooves were unbearably painful.

“I know you want it,” her interlocutor answered back.

Pinkie’s hooves clasped Rainbow’s. She gave her playtoy the blood-soaked knife.
Holding it with difficulty, a tensed grimace printed on her face, Rainbow was disconcerted.

“Cause the end is where we begin!” Pinkie repeated mystically.

Rainbow was trembling. Her mind was twisted. ‘Why? What was happening? Why, Why? Why now after this entire dreadful and painful journey? What was the purpose of all of this? Had there ever been one?’ She was disbelieving.

“Dash… Dash… Dash… My dear, do you know what this lucky charm is called?” Pinkie whispered, insisting with a poke on the knife Rainbow was now in possession.

“No I don’t…” Rainbow cried, stuttering. Her tears dropped on the floor melting with her own fluids.

“Home… Home Sweet Home.”

A long, horrible and earth-shattering silence set up.

“Do it, Sugarcube. My dea’ friend!”

“DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT”

These words echoed in Rainbow Dash’s head.

“YOU’RE NOT MY FRIEND!”She replied with a scream.

Minutes passed, maybe hours and Rainbow struck, over and over again, stabbing, sinking deep this tool called “Home” in Pinkamena’s body. Nopony would have recognized the corpse. It was dismembered, mashed up, pulp-like. Her remains were a mess on the floor. And sitting in this puddle, the killer was laughing maniacally.

It was so terrible, so wrenching, that the guards who had just broken into the basement were stunned by such play: two eyes reflecting the light of dying torches were staring madly at an unknown cadaver. The place reeked, smelling like a graveyard. Some of the spectators blacked out, the others just threw up.

The wingless pony was palpitating. Standing still, transfixed, she was staring to the stairs, where the guards were located. Rainbow’s eyes were casting dark-red shadows, the coagulated blood spread over her face working as a catalyst.

“Miss… Rainbow Dash, are you okay? Miss…”

“Cause her end is where I begin… I, I, I! Only I!”

The ghoulish pony started moving forward to the white and grey stallions. Going further step by step, covered in blood and absolutely nightmarish, Rainbow was frightening.

“Miss, what happened? You can’t pass! Oh … Wait!”

“I WANT TO GO HOME!” Rainbow Dash screamed and charged drawn out knife-first toward the exit.

ϐ Ϙ ϖ ϧ Ξ ϧ ϖ Ϙ ϐ

“It’s a dark and stormy night, isn’t it?” Princess Luna said to herself.

“I couldn’t agree more Princess Luna,” the Royal Guard sergeant responded, coming from a crossing avenue.

He took time finding the right words, visibly shocked.

“Thank you, your highness for coming here. I thought it was necessary for you to see it, this is unprecedented… Would you be so kind as to keep your calm.”

Trotting through Ponyville, Princess Luna was already suspecting something when an old and, she feared, forgotten fear came up in her heart.

“Thou should not worry about it. Usually we would like this breed of night, but tonight, there is something wrong… d… dreadful.”

She was still having difficulty ridding herself of the antique etiquette of the Canterlot court.
Princess Luna casted a glance at the threshold of Sugarcube Corner’s door. She had a fateful look as she focused on the royal Guards breaking in. Screams were coming from the bowels of the earth, deep in the shop basement.
Luna was quivering on her slender limbs. Even her, the Almighty Night Alicorn, the Mare in the Moon was staggering from tail to hooves from just staring at a broken gate.

To add another straw on the griffon’s back, there was no Moon to reassure her. The black clouds were obstructing everything and the thunderstorm was rumbling far away.

“Sister what happened?”

Celestia had just teleported beside her in a flash. The opalescent princess fixed Sugarcube Corner. Disgust was the sole feeling Celestia felt, obvious through her wrinkled and horrified features.

“We haven't seen this atmosphere in a while, Luna.”

Princess Luna was muted. She was hardly able to breath, afraid even if she would never confess it. The youngest alicorn always had a stronger connection with the darkness and its mobs. And even so, she wanted to flee away from this accursed place.

Another scream resounded. It was clearly Rainbow Dash’s voice but its tone was desperate, full of fear and anger. A Royal Guard showed up in SugarCube Corner entrance.

“Call Emergency care, now!”

Some witnesses ran toward the horsepital as fast as the wind.

“Contact the morgue… And bring back as many bags as they have…” another voice called with despair.

Luna and Celestia stared at each other’s paled faces, frightened, holding their breath. Getting aware of the regal sisters’ presence, the shouting soldier came up with an awful truth.

He stuttered, “Your Majesties, we’ve discovered something atrocious down there… Ten, maybe twenty corpses… They are more or less rotten.”

He took a long-lasting, unsettling and heart-breaking pause.

“We also found Miss Rainbow Dash,” He finally managed to say. “She’s just killed Miss Pinkamena Diane Pie and mutilated her body. There’s too much grim gore to handle down here.”

Celestia nearly fainted, “Not her… them…”

Tear rushed to her eyes, her hooves started trembling.
Princess Luna glared at the ground as she tried to cast away this terrific revelation.

“Miss Rainbow Dash has also been mutilated in such horrific ways.” He held his breath. “She attacked us in a fit of madness when we went down there. We seized her for her safety… and ours. She killed two guards.”

No response dared creep out of the two stunned princesses. The silence was unbearable.

“Should I contact the identifiable victims’ families and Miss Dash’s relati…”

“What is this all about?” a voice rose behind the sorrowful trio.

Luna, Celestia and the guard turned around. With tears running on her cheeks Fluttershy was standing behind them.

“What happened to Rainbow? And Pinkie?” she blabbered, becoming inaudible.

“Oh dear…” Celestia gulped, she had nothing to add.

Avoiding Fluttershy’s hopeless gaze, the princess started biting her lips. This was a kind of situation she had hoped to never encounter. She held back a painful gag.

Within ten minutes the remaining Elements of Harmony had gathered. Rarity collapsed once she went aware of the recent events.
Each one refused of course to accept the truth… that Pinkie was dead, that Rainbow might be the murderer and that the basement of the Sugarcube Corner was the set of the most monstrous rampage in eons. Everypony's expression was nothing but utter disbelief.

But everything really drifted away when Twilight arrived at last.

“Can you explain me what everypony is do…”

She was not given the time to finish her sentence. Glancing at Sugarcube Corner she looked deep inside something unspeakable, upon something she had never met before. It was a dark vision which came up as an already new experience for her.
Before her true eyes were two large claws of mere shadows, creeping out of the contours of the door and dragging themselves out of the basement. It was absolutely irrational and impossible. The talons were waving, attracting her, calling her, seducing her, sucking her in the abysses, down there in the darkness… down in the sickness. And she knew that the end of the path was nothing but madness. But Twilight kept moving forward.
She perceived a disembodied voice, “Come little foal. Let the shadows cradle your soul...”

Suddenly, Twilight was surrounded by greyish and thick smog and found herself trapped inside. Baffled and terrified, she kept advancing deep inside. Step by step she let herself circled by relaxing shadows. The silence was so absolute, so peaceful… It was fine staying there forever… forever.

“Twilight?”

“Twilight!?”

“TWILIGHT!!!!”

Twilight inhaled deeply, sucked out of this terrifying vision of despair. She fell flat on her right flank. During her trance she had narrowed the space between her and Sugarcube Corner ‘s broken entrance. And in front of her hooves were knocked-down two guards.
Tearful and quivering, she turned back to Celestia.

“What did I… Why?” she wept.

For everypony, the eerie play Twilight had performed in front of them had come as a horrifying surprise. All of her present friends were clueless about the way how to react to this strange outbreak. Luna instantly teleported Twilight back to her smoke. She hugged her gently, hiding Sugarcube Corner from Twilight’s with the back of her hoof.

“Don’t look at it, thou just had a hallucination, it happens somehow.”

Twilight managed to stare back to the thresholds of the shop gate. The “claws” were indeed gone.

Applejack was shocked. But as honesty was undoubtedly her Element she did not hold herself from asking a simple question.

“What the meaning of this all? She almost kill’d two guards in order to go down!”

“Thou can’t see it but We, alicorns, can gaze through the veils of this world,” Luna answered hesitantly. “Thou don’t want to know about… the things We can stare at... Thou might not be able to stand it.”

Bewildered, everypony examined the door with narrowed eyes. It was a simple wooden door, broken in half since the guards staved in. Twilight started sobbing. Her friends were totally abashed.

There were ponies gathering around the place while the emergency services were extracting a victim. They all without any doubt recognize Rainbow Dash, unconscious, lying on a stretcher.

Applejack tried to get closer, but the police’s safety belt and the doctors repelled her harshly.

“She is both a victim and a suspect,” an officer stated with a grim voice. “You can’t talk to her. Draw back to your home… a summer storm is coming. Go back home before it starts raining.”

As nopony dared make a move or step aside, he vented with a bit of irritation, “Everypony, move along, there is nothing to see.”

But there was. The morgue employees had just arrived and all the witnesses saw a big cart where was piled up empty body bags.
However the most disgusting spectacle given to watch was that, following the stretcher on which Rainbow was lying down, a surgeon was carrying in a bag containing a pair of light blue wings.

ϐ Ϙ ϖ ϧ Ξ ϧ ϖ Ϙ ϐ

Celestia, Luna, Twilight and the remaining Element of Harmony were standing in the horsepital waiting room. For ten hours the surgeons and doctors had been working on Rainbow, trying to save her… or at least to salvage what could have been. During those ten hours, no further developments were brought to them.

Everypony was afraid and the silence was exasperating their worry. Twilight was drawing circles with her hoof. Rarity was still crying, trying to quiet her sobs. Fluttershy who had collapsed earlier was struggling in her sleep against an unknown foe. Luna was watching upon her dreams.

Suddenly, Applejack bucked a bench. Each pony turned. Nopony dared speak. All of them had failed something or somepony today. Hqving an easy conscience was now a long-gone reality.
Applejack clearly was not doing any effort in holding back grumbles of rage.

“Calm down,” Twilight asked for with a voice betraying her pained thoughts.

“How can I!? Dashy is right behind that door and nopony can tell us… how she is doing,” she burst into tears. “Mah Sugahcube…”

Twelve hours had now passed and everypony was still standing in the room, exhausted. Noon had passed and nopony had leaved the room to even take a drink. The postman brought with him the Equestria Daily. Its claims were stupefying.

Murder in Equestria.

This night the Royal Guards found in the basement of Sugarcube Corner, a well-known patisserie of Ponyville, the greatest butchery ponykind have seen in history. Following the scarce Royal Guard’s statements, thirteen corpses have been pulled up from the bloody cellar, and among the victims, the name of Pinkie Pie, one of the Elements bearers has been mentioned.
Rainbow Dash, the sole survivor, has been taken to Ponyville Intensive Care.

Someponies outline she could be the kill…

“LIES! That’s all LIES!” Applejack yelled, her wrath exploding.

It took ten minutes to cool her temper down.

Twilight convinced her, “Don’t listen to gossips! Nopony knows what happened down there… We must wait for… Rainbow’s waking up.”

“Will she…” Applejack darkened the gloomy atmosphere a bit more. “Ah… Ah can’t stand to lose… fail two friends the same day. Ah…”

The door of medical bloc opened. A surgeon whose name was Dextral Hoof introduced himself to the group. Everypony stood up and held their breath, waiting for the news, good or not.

“She is safe… for now,” everypony felt better. “At least, physically. She… lost her wings. Both. We couldn’t do nothing, the nerves were already dead…”

The audience was ravaged. Tears fell to the ground.

“Does she…” Luna asked.

“No, she will never be able to fly again. She is wingless. Somepony snatched them with a rusty tool…” – he paused, trying to choose words less shocking for his audience – “Miss Dash must have suffered a lot. She has been stabbed nearly thirty times and her… tormentor has taken proceedings as she did not die from her wounds despite her blood loss. This is a master’s work.”

“She’d been… tortured,” Celestia stuttered, disbelieving.

“In the cruelest way. She’ll recover on a physical level but it is beyond my abilities to state that she will awaken without any psychological traumas. We’ve induced a coma due to the pain she is enduring now.”

No pony made a move, breathes still hold.

“All of you should go back home, we’ll wake her in three days. And don’t worry. We’ll keep an eye on her state.”

They were all disappointed but finally resigned to leave. And standing in the forecourt of the horsepital, a strange pony was there, waiting for the three princesses.

ϐ Ϙ ϖ ϧ Ξ ϧ ϖ Ϙ ϐ

“As captain of the Special Services of the Royal Court of Canterlot, may I request a meeting with Yours Majesties?”

The Captain gazed at the other ponies.

“Do not cast them away Sharpened Edge, they are the remaining Element Bearers. They can know the truth,” Princess Luna stated swiftly.

The captain sighed, ill at ease.

“As you wish Madame, but how will they take it?”

He drew a worried glance at everypony. His stared paused a long time on Fluttershy who dunked her head between her shoulders.

Everypony accompanied the captain toward the city hall. It was nearly five in the afternoon and the rain had stopped. But the clouds Rainbow Dash should have moved off in the morning were still standing high in the sky, hiding the sun.

h the assembly room of the Hall, two inspectors were impatiently waiting for the captain and his followers. They were wearing identical large brown tweed coats. Sunglasses were set upon a large oval wooden table.

After everypony had sat down, they started unfolding their version of events. This grim night had finally… maybe… an explanation. The first inspector, a large white stallion, moved forward.

“The basement of Sugarcube Corner was filled in thrash, flesh and blood when we arrived. What we found was your friend, Miss Rainbow Dash, standing over the corpse of what appeared to be Miss Pinkamena Diane Pie. The first one had a butcher knife in her hooves and instantly attacked us when we called her by her name. Miss Rainbow was visibly severely injured and had nails hammered in her hooves. She fainted from the blood loss right after a short encounter… but she had already managed to kill two guards who came to rescue what could have been saved.”

“One was my brother,” The captain said neutrally.

The second inspector brought on the desk a set of crime scene photos, pulling them from his briefcase. Pony’s remains, parts and pieces of flesh was noticeable. There were also knives, scalpels, blood stains and a table carved by hundreds of knife strikes and slashes. A photo showing a burning brazier with nails and pliers inside slid toward Princess Luna. Madness exuded from the photos, just an utter madness.

“Please take it away. I can’t…,” Fluttershy wept, hiding her eyes behind her hooves, her voice unable to go over a mere decibel.

“Neither can I,” Rarity added with a smirk of disgust.

“What is your speculations inspector?” Celestia asked, gulping back a gag.

“We can’t assume that we already have the exact answer about this night events. But with the evidences we’ve found down there it seems that somepony, and Miss Pie is our principal suspect, trapped the pegasus named Rainbow Dash in order to torture her and make her endure the most horrifying experiences. We also found a coat which was made of Cutie Marks…”

Unsettled by the multiple shocked stares fixing him, the inspector chewed his words quite a long time before continuing the creepy presentation.

“By the way… Miss Rainbow Dash’s cutie marks have been unfortunately cut off from her both flanks.”

Fluttershy hurriedly left the room, her face distorted by an expression of disgust. The surgeon had not got the courage to tell them.

“We also found cupcakes…”

“Cupcakes?” – Twilight arched her brows – “How can this be relevant?”

“Let me finish Your Majesty… cupcakes made of Pony’s flesh.”

A queasy Luna covered her mouth with her hoof in an attempt to fight back the irresistible craving to throw up.

“I don’t want details, be quick please!” Celestia implored, grieved.

“The basement is currently a twisted place. Nopony dares to go down there. The smell is untenable, and the place itself...”

The inspector developed his presentation, mentioned cannibalism, and outlined his suspicion about dark rituals.
There was only one unfolded question, the reason behind this insane deed.

“From now on and until Miss Dash’s wake-up, we can’t know. We have to wait. But one thing is clear now. Miss Dash killed your friend Pinkie Pie. The true question is really to know whether or not Miss Pie is Rainbow Dash’s tormentor. Or is she another victim?”

When the inspectors left with the evidence, Celestia gently asked everypony to go back home, to get some rest.

ϐ Ϙ ϖ ϧ Ξ ϧ ϖ Ϙ ϐ

Sleep was rejecting Twilight’s pleas. Whatever she did, however how many times she twisted and turned under her bed linen, she always pictured these two black claws creeping out of the Cake’s basement. She shuddered. Twilight knew how persistent a hallucination could be in somepony’s mind, but... this aftereffect had been lasting for so long she started questioning the nature of her vision. It was so vivid.
Each time she closed her eyes they were waiting for her, ready to strike. And the eerie shadows of a tree the moonlight was casting on the curtains of her window were not helping.

Ten other hours had flowed by since she had left the city hall, and she was not able to get past what she had witnessed. It was enough for her. Waiting for the sandman was over. She had to face the issue tickling her spirit again.

Spike was quietly sleeping on his couch; in order to avoid her assistant’s discontent, Twilight tip-toed stealthily toward the exit of the Golden Oak’s Library.

It was a cold night. The moon was high and some pegasi had the sky cleared during the evening. A soft breeze made Twilight shiver. By night, Ponyville had the aspect of a creepy ghost town. No light was coming from the windows. The noise which gave life to any city unsettled the small alicorn by its overwhelming absence. Alone, she would have sold her wings just to get a friend close to her…
Such comparison pained Twilight, she would have preferred coming with another expression.

Sugarcube Corner was waiting for her, dwelling in the same street since its erection. Plunged into darkness and coldness, the usually colorful place had lost all of its haughtiness.

A large yellow strip tagged the place as a restricted area. “DO NOT CROSS, CRIME SCENE,” It read.
Twilight crossed the warning anyway. She found the entrance sealed by another strip.

There was no claw waiting for her, just a deep and dark room where Pinkie used to sell her cupcakes. Shakes ran under her fur. Cupcakes made of ponies’ flesh. She could not tell… Was she really relieved to face nothing but emptiness?
She quivered.

A strangled cough popped out of nowhere, coming from behind her back. Twilight flinched. Ready to defend herself she turned over in a jump, her horn glowing magenta. A well-known silhouette was sitting on a carriage. A mighty foe she had fought once.

“What are you doing here Discord? Is that another of your twisted schemes? Wrecking chaos does not suit you anymore? You have to make ponies kill one another?”

Gritting her teeth, only anger was readable on her face.

“Where is fun in all of this?” the spooky voice of the creature asked.

Twilight caught sight of tears rolling on the Draconequus’ face. In his hands laid the fragments of Pinkie’s necklace. Colorless, the jewel was as grey as marble and no magic was issuing from it.

“Where is fun in death? Nowhere.”

He paused and his two luminescent yellow eyes glared at the young purple alicorn.

“Tell me Twilight Sparkle, why would I have done such a thing? I’m Discord, a spirit of chaos, not Destruction. There is no fun at all here. It was not meant to be like this,” – he dropped the necklace and buried his head in his hands – “Why Pinkie, she was so funny.”

Confused, Twilight’s mouth dangled wide open. Discord was a treacherous being. But now, looking so depressed and sincere, Twilight pitied him.

“Discord, you should worry about Rainbow Dash, she is the sole survivor.”

“She lives, others didn’t make out as well.”

“You… cynical!” Twilight burst out. “Why are you worried about a murderer! She killed… tried to kill Rainbow!”

“Why are you so confident about it? Did you witness it? No!” He enraged. “I liked Pinkie, I just… I just can’t believe she’s gone…”
He sobbed, “At least let me the benefice of the doubt… the bliss of ignorance.”

Struck hard by Discord’s claim, Twilight tried to rationalize. She always knew that he was fond of Pinkie. They shared the same hobbies after all, pranking and having fun. But… believing that the spirit of Disharmony could have had somehow, a kind crush on the Element of Laughter… she was aback.
However, it was obvious on second thoughts.

Discord spoke to himself, “Why was I not able to see this coming? I should have… I’ve always failed in everything.”

Twilight felt unpleasant and queasy. Discord used to picture himself as a nonsense folk, a being who laughed at rationality and what made sense. This was brand new, terrifying, or at least deeply moving.
Discord’s voice called her back from her confused thoughts.

“Why are you here Twi? This isn’t a place for a princess.”

His tone was frightening, heavy and stern. Discord was generally a funny creature, and even Twilight had to admit it. But right now, enshrounded by the dark, her former antagonist was just a crooked character, veiled by the night and sorrow.

“I… I saw something last night, just there,” – She pointed her hoof toward the entrance of the shop – “They were two claws, it was black, it was…”

“Calling you?”

“How do you know?”

Discord had already gotten up, his face revealing a strong resignation. The moon silhouetted his body as he fixed Twilight in her eyes.

“Never speak of it. To nopony! Do you understand? Seek for it, search for answers because you will try… even if I deter you to do so! Do it, but do not drag anypony with you.”

“But…”

Twilight burned internally to protest, to counter this warning. But Discord put a finger on her lips.

“Quiet! Here is a lesson your dear teacher never taught you. There is always something darker in this world, waiting for the right moment to strike, waiting for an opportunity. There will be no glowing red eyes or contemptuous sneer. The blackness will ambush you from the darkest corners of the earth without any indication. And it always shows up in the most horrific ways.”

Twilight kept her mouth closed, chewing over Discord’s wise words. He continued with a voice more oppressive than ever.

“Listen. Do not make a leap of faith into the unknown with your friends. They’ll be alone… alone in the dark. Do whatever you want, go deep but don’t drag them into it. They will end up wrecked at the end of this ordeal… because, compared to us the ‘powerful ones’, they’ll have no way to combat the power of the dark.”

Aback, Twilight tried to clear up the catch in Discord’s warning. The Draconequus was elusive and did nothing but troubling her more.

“I must go. I have something to figure out,” Discord stated, looking away.

“Discord you can’t abandon us, when we reformed you… you promised to help us.”

“I can’t, at least, not for the moment.”

“Don’t…”

“Sometimes you’ll have to fight alone, young alicorn. One day you’ll be left stranded, trapped or unable to reach your friends, because scary powers always splits apart the strongest links.”

Discord words started echoing magically.

“This isn’t a game. It has never been one,” he warned.

“Wait…”

And he vanished in a white flash.

“Don’t underestimate the dark,” His voice kept going, erupting from the void. “It has always waited for the right moment to strike back. Be ready because it shows no mercy… And remember, this world is frail…”

Now alone in front of Sugarcube Corner, Twilight was devastated with a broken necklace at her hooves, unanswered questions in her mind and a taste of bitterness in her mouth. Discord would never change. He had to bring confusion anywhere, anytime.

“I thought everything would be just fine,” the young pony whispered in the night.

Apr. 2013 - Beyond All Thresholds - 2. Doubts Never Die

2. Doubts never die

By the time Applejack had returned to Sweet Apple Acres, the sun was nearly down behind the western mountains. The events of the afternoon had disturbed her so deeply her mind was shattered and her heart utterly broken. She had now to tell Big Macintosh and Granny Smith, they needed to know. However she strongly believed incapable to tell them the harsh truth.

Applebloom was also an issue she had to raise. She and her friends idolized Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. Scootaloo was even close to worship the latter. And now, Applejack wanted to initiate action, to be responsible and announce the earth-shattering news to her family and her sister.

‘Sometimes a lie is easier to take’. Dredged up from years past, Discord's terrible words resurfaced in Applejack’s mind. Being a liar always brought problems, and the consequences had always been far-reaching. She was particularly aware of this truth. Yet in this particular case, lying was an easy way out.

“Don’t lie, never lie”, she convinced herself, or rather tried to.

A thought popped in her mind. She was not forced to tell a lie nor did she have to tell the truth. Silence was right now absolutely golden. Sorrow soaked her heart. She was pitiful, searching for an escape.
She climbed over the old fence surrounding Sweet Apple Acres. The sun finally disappeared in the edge of her vision. The sky darkened and the first star of Ursa Minor twinkled high in the sky.

Light was bathing the windows of the Apple Family’s farmstead. A sweet smell floated in the air. Granny Smith had made apple pie again, for Applejack’s greatest pleasure. But this enjoyable smell was not enough to chase away her mental goings-on.
On the doorstep, Applejack stopped. She was hesitant and doubtful. With a hoof on the door lock, she tried to calm herself, to mask her inner emotional turmoil.

She sighed, took a deep breath and opened the door. Stomping the doormat in the hallway, she hung her hat on the coat rack and stared at the neighbouring door, half opened.

In the kitchen, Big Mac was already washing the dishes. The Apple Family had dined before the sunset and Apple Bloom was finishing her dessert, a small frozen apple cake. The young filly granted her big sister a broad grin, crumbs stuck on her muzzle.
On the opposite side of the large table, Granny Smith was napping in her rocking chair, swinging back and forth.

“Hi everypony! Hi Winona! How y'all doing?” Applejack greeted, forcing an expression of good mood on her features.

Granny Smith half-opened her eyelids. She caught a drop of sweat rolling on Applejack’s forehead.
Applejack was clearly late. And as elders always disliked anything out of the ordinary, she gazed at the mare who stopped in motion. Granny Smith’s eyes narrowed, her stare pierced her grand-daughter from side to side. Applejack gulped with difficulty.
Granny Smith frowned, relying on her ancient sixth sense. Her gaze met Applejack's and the orange pony instinctively flinched.

“Apple Bloom?” Granny Smith asked gently.

“Yes Granny?”

“Take your pie with you and go to your room, I need to talk to your big sister.”

“But…”

Applejack’s faked smile deliquesced as she understood what Granny Smith wanted… a face to face discussion. She avoided her granny’s stultifying stare, obviously embarrassed.

“Listen to yer gran’ma Apple Bloom. Go up and no arguin’!” Applejack added without much conviction.

She had jumped on the occasion to speak up and turn to somepony who was not oppressing by with a mere gaze. However, Applejack’s words had been too harsh. Apple Bloom scowled at her sister and ran away, tearful.
Applejack took a seat in front of Granny Smith. She held her breath.

“What happened AJ?” Granny firmly asked with her twang voice.

Granny Smith’s forehead wrinkled even more as she sharp-eyed her grand-daughter. Applejack sighed and did nothing but confess the terrible events of the past day. Big Macintosh started stomping the floor, nervously. His left hoof was unsettled.

“She’ll never fly again?” He queried hesitantly.

Applejack nodded. She was livid and thinking about the investigators’ photos still disturbed her. Her cutie marks had been ripped from her stifle. Even worse, she had also taken a look at Rainbow’s surgery report before leaving the hospital. Her eyes… Applejack had absolutely no idea whether Rainbow would ever recover from such ordeal.
The cyan pegasus was broken from now on. Everything that made her the mare she knew so well had been taken away, torn apart. No more awesomeness, no crazy dashing around, no more sonic rainbooms. She was nopony now. Her own identity had been snatched from her.

“You’ll have to be gentle with Rainbow when she wakes up. Watch upon her carefully.” Granny said, keeping her voice neutral. “Don’t be surprised if she tries… well you understand. You remembered what uncle Cidre Doux did when he lost his hindhoof.”

Applejack stuttered, thinking about this old family story.

“Gr… Granny, do yah have to be so crude?”

“But that’s the truth and you know it,” she hammered. “Look… I know you care about her, I just wanted to warn you about that.”

Applejack sighed. She could not argue with the facts. It was time to be honest and face reality.

“Ah...Ah need to think. Ah’m goin’ out!”

On the doorstep, she lit a lantern and put her hat on. She glanced back at the kitchen where Granny Smith went back to napping, then cantered off into the night, bound for the orchards. Ten minutes later, the Apple family could hear somepony noisily bucking apple trees.

Ϩ ϡ Ω ϥ ϕ ϥ Ω ϡ Ϩ

From her room windows, Apple Bloom watched her sister slowly fading in the darkness until the tiny light from her lantern disappeared. The moon had not yet risen.

“Why is she so mean to me?” Apple Bloom complained with eyes wet with tears. “What I’ve done wrong?”

Granny Smith had been so serious when her big sister walked in. Apple Bloom was resented being put aside like this, she was not a foal anymore. Would she always be the Applejack and her grandma’s “silly lil’ filly”?

Thinking, something was clearly afoot and she had to find out what. And this, she thought, was a quest she could not go on alone. She had to gather her fellow friends.

When the Cutie Mark Crusaders inherited Applejack’s old clubhouse, the Crusaders had decided to create a way to assemble. This mode was a signal similar to those “super stallions” had in the comics Twilight kept in Ponyville’s library. Applebloom remembered the joyful face of Scootaloo when she saw the calling signal of Batmane.

She kindled the wick of a candle and brought it to her window. There was a little box which interior was made up of mirrors. Putting the candle inside, Apple Bloom oriented it toward a reflector fixed on a distant tree. A complex system of reflections that the Crusaders had set up should do the rest of the job. Everything put aside, Apple Bloom had to admit that she never really tested it before. She repeated the procedure once more.

Apple Bloom waited for five minutes. Then a large smile cleared her face, she had received an answer. It was infinitesimal, but she could still see a flashing light glaring on the distant apple tree, redirected to her thanks to the mirror. A Crusader had responded.

On second thought, Apple Bloom pouted swiftly. The system had worked, it was an inescapable fact, but she had absolutely no clue about the identity of the filly who had answered. There was always the possibility that an ill-intentioned mare could have responded. That the creature was trying to trick her and keep her away from getting her cutie mark. Applebloom enjoyed imagining herself living a great adventure.

She put an end to her wishful thinkings, grabbed her saddlebags and put on her tabard sporting the Cutie Mark Crusaders heraldry. She faked her shape under her bed sheets with few pillows and then sneaked out of Sweet Apple Acres.

The night was dark and unsettling but Ponyville was not far away. At least she did not have to walk along the Everfree Forest like Fluttershy had to every day… Her cottage was located so close to this creepy place.
She crossed a plaque announcing Ponyville. The only thing she had to do now was to reach the meeting place.

Ϩ ϡ Ω ϥ ϕ ϥ Ω ϡ Ϩ

Anger was running through Rarity’s veins. She was throwing a fit of rage as she never did before, rumbling over her shop. She charged into her models. Carousel Boutique had ended into a monstrous mess since a couple of hours. The unicorn was terrifying. She uttered, cried and was muttering.
Opal, her cat, hid beneath a chest of drawers, trembling and hissing.

She repeated martial arts holds and armlocks on her dummies. One even broke down. In the past she had surprised her friends beating Changelings and even trying to kick a manticore with techniques of her own devising. She, a delicate unicorn, did not fit the role of a powerful warrior. And she was fine with it, refusing to be tagged as an ‘unrefined’ lady. However, as said her mother, it was not a reason to be a complete ignorant in the sweet art of defending oneself.

She was a whirlwind roaring through the boutique. Unfortunately the din she had created was drawing attention. Somepony knocked on the door. Rarity snapped out of her destructive mood and stared angrily at her hallway.

“One moment, please,” She managed to say softly.

She brushed her mane as fast as she could. Her horn started glowing while her magic pushed away the obstacles in the path.

A guard was standing at the doorstep. The reflections of the stallion’s lantern were casting odd shadows on his tired face. With the light coming from below, its shades were utterly creepy. Rarity suddenly remembered some slumber parties where a filly had tried to intone a creepy song .

“Miss Rarity? Is everything okay in there?”

“Oh… Yes, yes, of course. I’m just doing… some spring cleaning.”

Obviously persuasion was not her cutie mark talent. The guard raised a brow, worried and unconvinced. Rarity hid her malaise behind a fake smile. Or at least she tried to.

“We understand what you’re going through,” The soldier reassured gently. “but please, don’t disturb the neighbourhood.”

“I won't…”

She slammed the door.

“Peasant.” Rarity grumbled.

She sat in the middle of the shop, looking at the chaos she had wreaked upon it. She had this horrible felling dwelling in her bowels, this unsettling impression of guiltiness. And she sought for the reason. What had she done to feel this miserable?

“Rarity? Why are you so angry? Have I done something ‘uncouth’… again?”

Sweetie Belle appeared upstairs. She lay low behind the wooden guardrail of the second floor hallway. Rarity sighed heavily and went up. Putting her hoof on the cringing filly’s shoulder she dried her yet-to-be tears and smiled.

“No, no! You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s just… just me.”

Rarity’s hesitation made her sister uncomfortable. Rarity tried to be reassuring, toddling between useless excuses and hackneyed reassuring talks.

“Look, my dear, a particularly terrible event has put Ponyville in grieving. Something that hit my friends and I really hard happened and it keeps bothering me. But it’s absolutely nothing you need to worry about. Now go back to your bed. You need some rest.”

Indeed Sweetie Belle needed to sleep. She had school the next morning.

“Does it have anything to do with… dad and mommy?” Sweetie Belle said, tearful.

“No. Of course not. Now please go back to bed.”

Sweetie Belle was disappointed. Rarity was quiet as the grave about the incident and she would keep it that way.

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Back in her room Sweetie Belle’s anxiousness grew. Rarity had gotten back to her temper tantrum, rocketing heavy loads of dummies in her shop. Sweetie Belle covered up her ears. She hated when her sister was angry. It always made her wet her bed with tears.
Moreover something was afoot, Rarity had admitted it. Sweetie Belle convinced herself she had to get to the bottom of this story.
She paused as something drew her attention. From the corner of her eye she caught a tiny light.

“The signal! It worked! Cutie Mark Crusaders rally!”

Indeed, a luminescent spot was reflected on her wall, right inside the red circle she drew with one of her sister’s markers. It blinked twice for a short period of time and then stopped definitely. Sweetie Belle had to respond. Although to do so, she had to sneak into the kitchen to take the cooking lighter. Inopportunely, the room was downstairs, and she would have to hack through her sister’s mess.
It took her a long time. Sweetie Belle nearly stepped on a broken dummy, but with a lot of sweat and will did fine in the end.

She responded to the call and discreetly left the house.

Ϩ ϡ Ω ϥ ϕ ϥ Ω ϡ Ϩ

“Zecora, what do you think about this? It’s like an everlasting nightmare. I want to wake up.”

Fluttershy was miserably sitting in Zecora’s living room, deep inside the frightful Everfree Forest. As ever before, eerie masks were hung on the wall, doing nothing but saping Fluttershy’s morale.

“Fellow pony, you should not express such demand, Sometimes brash requests don’t go as planned,” Zecora replied, as serene as usual.

“But… I may be harsh, excuse me… but it feels like I’m day-dreaming. I can’t simply believe Pinkie had killed ponies. I simply can’t!” Fluttershy stammered, her cheeks soaked by her small tears.

Gravely, Zecora began alchemizing over her brass cooking pot. Her spatula was scraping and grating inside, making Fluttershy grind her teeth.

“Mop up those tears and cast away your fears. Sometimes nopony can be the right mare in the right place. And then we all shall have dark catastrophes to face.”

A timberwolf howled outside. The wild call echoed in Zecora’s hut. Fluttershy gasped, hiding her head under a pillow. Zecora was worried. It had been two days the creatures had kept shouting to the moon, but it was not the mating season or a period of migration. She was unsettled by these signs, which for sure were of ill-omen.

“Zecora, please. I need advices. What should I do when Rainbow wakes up? I… I’m so afraid she’ll be jealous.”

Zecora raised an eyebrow.

“I can’t figure why she would… I…”

Fluttershy cut off Zecora.

“With Twilight becoming an alicorn and gaining her wings and… that I still have mine… She is grounded now, only able to watch us from there. I’m sure she will be angry at me!” Fluttershy sobbed. “I don’t care about mine because I live on the earth. But Rainbow’s wings were everything for her. They were her life, and her life was up over the clouds, in the sky. I simply can’t look down at her. Life is so unfair.”

“… I can only advise you to let your fears go for what is in the future, we cannot know.”

It was nearly midnight and Fluttershy was afraid to return to her cottage. Getting aware of Fluttershy’s concerns, the shaman offered her hospitality for the night. Fluttershy was pleased, though she first refused the offer. She was kind and reserved and always tried not to bother her friends, hosts or everypony she encountered.
Zecora insisted, and after hearing a new creepy howling, Fluttershy finally consented to stay.

Even if exhaust was laying her low, Fluttershy had not slept since the “sorrowful event”. Each time she closed her eyes, she saw Rainbow Dash, angrier than she had ever been before, pursuing her.

Zecora held out a cup of the brew she had mixed earlier. Thankful, Fluttershy accepted it but took nearly two minutes to start drinking its contents. It seemed to be tea. Bitterness flooded her mouth.

“Eww! What is it?”

“It’s a rare species from where I grew up. It’s a recipe I’ve thought up. It will help you think, making go away what’s kink.”

Fluttershy’s thoughts, which were still bothering her, slowly faded away. The strange potion made her feel better.

“I’m sleepy Zecora.” Fluttershy pointed out.

“My mixture is like a sleeping pill, it will give you a night without what makes you ill.”

Indeed, Fluttershy sunk into a deep and peaceful sleep on the couch of the living room. Zecora covered her with a warm blanket and blew out the candles.

Before she went upstairs, she stared through the windows and shivered.

“Sometimes we have reasons to dread, and thoroughbred monsters we must face head to head.”

Zecora’s hutt darkened as the last candle was blown out.

Ϩ ϡ Ω ϥ ϕ ϥ Ω ϡ Ϩ

Earlier, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had gathered under the city hall. Few weeks ago, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had found an open air vent which led to the archives of Ponyville. There, surrounded by old books and forgotten lists and reports, they had decided to put their mark on the “Z” shelf. For the crusaders, it had looked to be the most unused and remote location of the basement. Besides, Scootaloo had said it was an act of bravery to come down there.

Sweetie Belle sneezed, the dust was tickling her muzzle.

“I tried to find Scootaloo, but she wasn’t here,” Apple Bloom stated.

“Did you see all those guards around the town? Something crazy must be happening.”

“I know, Applejack was so angry this evenin’, she shouted at me. But I did nothin’ wrong! I swear. That’s so unfair.”

“Rarity was on a rampage too. She turned the boutique upside down.”

“Somethin’ is really messed up. We Cutie Mark Crusaders have to find out,” Apple Bloom harangued.

“Wait! We must meet up Scootaloo first!”

“Ah yes. She could be anywhere. Maybe she was caught!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

“BOO!”
The two fillies screeched and jumped. Sweetie Belle bumped the “Y” shelf, making it crumble down. Somepony coughed. Standing among the fallen books, covered in dirt, was Scootaloo. Her prank did not end as she had expected. An open book was set upon her head. She snorted, launching dust at her friends.

“Stop it Scootaloo.” Apple Bloom said with a sneeze.

“How did you find us?” Sweetie Belle added, still in shock.

Scootaloo moved out of the pile of books.

“I’ve just seen you hanging outside of the air vent. I’ve been up all night. With all those guards on a war hoofing, I can try out my infiltration skills,” The young pegasus showed off.

“Infiltratin’?” Apple Bloom could hardly believe his ears. “I didn’t know spyin’ was within your league?”

Her ton was clearly ironic. Scootaloo had just showed how she can handle being discreet… and dusty.

“Don’t you see how fun this is? There is a huge mystery in Ponyville and we can figure it out,” Scootaloo emphasized. “Armed guards and a black and scary night. This is the occasion to find our cutie marks.”

The three ponies enjoyed the idea.

“Let’s go!” Sweetie Belle cried out after she had wiped her tears.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders pulled themselves out of the archives. The courtyard was so cold and the Crusaders shivered. A soft breeze started blowing through their manes.
From the corner of the street came the slamming of horseshoes. Lantern lights swept about.

“Guards! Run away.” Apple Bloom spoke in a low voice.

The small group hurried up to the next house and hid behind big flowerpots. The guards were from the night watch, the Princess Luna’s personal earth guards. Their coats were dark grey and the plates of their armour were black and purple. They each carried spears except the head pony, who carried a banner displaying Luna's seal, a twisted and terrifying dragon.

Keeping in step, they crossed the place where Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were hiding. The three unfortunate fillies held their breath and waited as the guards disappeared around the corner.

“What did I tell you, infiltration! I’ve mastered it,” Scootaloo extolled.

“You still don’t have a cutie mark though!” Sweetie Belle remarked.

Scootaloo stuck out her tongue. Her friends responded with giggles.
Roaming the streets of Ponyville, the Crusaders were quite lost in the dark, trying to avoid being caught by the creepy guards of the Night Princess. It was really fun though. They passed some typical cottages of the city and crossed the yard in front of Golden Oaks Library.

After thirty minutes of roving and hide and seek, they heard a voice.

Crawling with caution, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle reached a large square in front of Sugarcube Corner. There were two silhouettes facing each other. One was clearly a pony, the other one was quite disturbing.

“Is that…” Sweetie Belle tried to say when Scootaloo cut her off.

“Shhh…”

Indeed it was the shape of Discord, the notorious spirit of chaos.
The three fillies also recognized the voice of Twilight Sparkle when she raised her voice.

“Discord, you should worry about Rainbow Dash…”

Twilight was far from the Crusaders’ safe haven which made her words difficult to understand.

“Did she say ‘Rainbow Dash’?” Scootaloo nearly exclaimed.

“Shhh, I can’t understand what they’re saying.” Sweetie Belle remarked.

“But what about Rainbow?”

Apple Bloom gave Scootaloo a menacing look. The pegasus quieted. Discord leaned toward his interlocutor. The three spectators were now clueless about what was being plotted in front of Sugarcube Corner.
After a few minutes, Discord disappeared. Twilight looked really depressed. Sweetie Belle caught her crying.

“Wow, something really bad must have happened,” she said in a low voice.

In the middle of the esplanade, Twilight sighed.

“Tomorrow I’ll see her at the hospital.” She said to herself.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle stared at their pegasus friend. Scootaloo enjoyed a near sisterhood with Rainbow. And now, she was livid.

“The… the hospital.”

Ϩ ϡ Ω ϥ ϕ ϥ Ω ϡ Ϩ

When she returned to Golden Oaks Library, Twilight found Spike as she left him, snoring loudly on his couch. She envied his peace. When she lay down, she, on the other hand, couldn't find sleep.

Tired of her own goings-on, she went downstairs. She was still thinking about Discord’s claims. With her magic, she picked books randomly.

“Mares and Colts of Ancient Times… no! Forgotten Plants from the Arctic Circle! Wait what… how could indexed flora could be listed as forgotten? That’s silly!?”

One by one, she threw books in a pile in the middle of the library.

“Necrodraconoponomicon!?” She exclaimed. “Another fake book... Be… Beyond the realms… I did not even know I had this one, who the buck wrote this… by Star… Star Swirl.”

The name was not written on the book’s cover but it was clearly the mage’s mark that was engraved on it.
Star Swirl the bearded, she could not believe it. How did this book end up here? Moreover, how could she not know about it? Thrilled about discovering absolute magic and knowledge she opened the book.

She only shook her head in disbelief, “How dumb I can be!”

She threw the book away, which fell opened on the floor. Each page was torn or written in a language she had never seen before. She remember to study it later.

Twilight was angry, exhausted and frustrated. Over all, she felt powerless. And she hated that feeling, she who was so organized. She pulled out a book from her shelves, “Nursery magic”. She searched for a spell.

“Sleep spell… Here we go.”

Fed up about the journey she had been through, she went upstairs. She lay on her bed and cast the spell on herself. She fell in a deep but troubled sleep…

She was running as fast as she can, fleeing from something. Was it a monstrous foe? A dark and purple smoke? Or something worse than whatever her imagination could breed? She was clueless and above all, she refused to know its nature.
There was nothing in the world that could compel her to turn and face the threat.

She ran as she never did before. The speed was blowing air through her mane, rustling her fur. She opened her wings and leaped in the air.

For a mere second she thought she would be safe, that the hideous thing could not follow her.
An invisible force broke her hopes instantly. The power tackled her down, shaking her limbs and wings, shattering her inner being. Stunned, she could only witness what was surrounding her…. Mist…. A light grey vapour.
Fear swamped her mind. She was suddenly deprived of all her magic. She shrunk to the size of the filly she was in kindergarten. Powerless, she could only cry. She felt so miserable. And the laugh of invisible bullies did nothing to help.

A well-known silhouette emerged from the haze. It was a deformed, crooked and crippled image of the pony she knew so well.

“Rainbow?”

The so-called pony’s eyeballs had been removed, her mouth was drooling a blackened blood and riveted to a bone necklace dangled both of her wings.

“I’ve no bounds now, but that means no boundaries either!”

Rainbow drew a knife out of her lacerated flank. Slowly she came closer to the young filly. The twisted grin spreading on her ravaged face was the most alienating thing Twilight had ever witnessed.

“Here comes the reward!” Rainbow laughed out loud.

The pegasus’ shadow was in the sobbing pony’s light. It had a weird shape, too big, too torturous, like a draconequus’. Two glowing red eyes gazed at the terrified victim.

“Had enough Twilight?” The monster asked.

Twilight sat up and took the deepest breath she ever took. She was running with sweat and she had wet herself. That hadn't happened since she was a foal. The nightmare had been so… real. But as strange as it could be, she could not remember it well. They were just… Rainbow Dash.

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Once Twilight had gone out of sight, the Crusaders dragged themselves out of the shadows and stood in front of Sugarcube Corner. The warning yellow strips amused Scootaloo, the two others were surprised. They had only seen such bands in investigation movies and series.

“Twilight said Rainbow is at the hospital, we must hurry!”

Scootaloo insisted, shaking up Apple Bloom. The pegasus had started panicking and was on the verge of crying.

“Ah’lright, ah’lright, but stop please! You’re gettin’ spooky!” Apple Bloom conceded, slipping away from Scootaloo’s clutch.

Dodging a couple of patrols, the three novice spies headed to the northern part of Ponyville. The hospital was standing at the exit of the town. It was also surrounded by a large park where the convalescents could “enjoy” their recovery.

Even by night, some parts of the hospital were still lit up. Through the windows, the three fillies could see doctors and nurses in urge. Emergency happened at every moment of the day.However, the east wing of the building was plunged in darkness. It was reserved for the sleeping patients.
Strangely, there were guards here too.

“Not again,” said Apple Bloom. “They are everywhere, like if there are some dark mares hangin’ around the town.”

“There might be one,” Scootaloo spooked with a ghostly tone. “Rainbow Dash can’t hurt herself, she must have fight an enemy! She is super-ultra-extreme-awesomazing.”

“I dunno, but if we want to see her, we have to be quiet,” Apple Bloom stated.

“This isn’t a game… If we get caught, Rarity will be even more furious!” Sweetie Belle pouted.

Everypony except Scootaloo seemed to be on the back hoof in this situation.

The Crusaders hid behind a bush. Scootaloo drew a hardly matching scheme of the hospital. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had difficulty to see it. The stars’ light was not enough to lit up the garden.

“See there,” Scootaloo pointed out. “I think there is a back door, we could sneak in and make our way through the hospital… to find Rainbow. Are you with me?”

“I… I guess,” Her two friends answered.

Skirting around the principal entrance where two guards were standing, the Crusaders arrived to the mentioned door. It was the one for the medical service. Scootaloo took the lead. She was worried about her “adoptive big sister”. And each step which made her closer to the hospital did nothing but increase her anxiousness.

“You took me under your wing, I have to help you,” Scootaloo whispered.

“What did you say?” Sweetie Belle asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

The door grated on its rusty hinges, causing the crusaders’ fur to bristle out of fear of being caught red-handed.

“Shhhhh…”

“I ain’t the door!” Scootaloo responded with an ounce of irony.

The east wing of the hospital was really quiet and dark. Rainbow Dash loved telling horror stories about this kind of place when they used to go camping. They were white tiles everywhere and the smell of antiseptics was poignant. The small group faced dozens of doors and each one had a name on a stamp.

“Green Hoof… Shiny Nose… Light Den… Where is Rainbow?” Sweetie Belle gave up.

“We must split up!” Scootaloo firmly said.

“Sp… Split?”

Sweetie Belle was not amused.

After five minutes negotiating, Scootaloo went upstairs while Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had to stay together on the first floor. Each group had to find out where Rainbow’s room was. Scootaloo wandered about the hall of the second floor. They were four large rooms which could host ten ponies. The first three were full.

She was going to check the last one when clamouring came from downstairs. She heard the blabbering voice of Sweetie Belle. Crawling towards the stairwell, Scootaloo heard her friends verbally duelling.

“Let us go or I’m gonna buck you up!” Apple Bloom menaced.

The guard was on the brink of bursting out laughing. He had grabbed Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom by the scruffs of their necks.

“You can’t go in by night, trespassers shall be prosecuted. This isn’t the hour or the place for young mares. I’ll bring you back to your relatives. Did another filly come with you two?” the guard outlined.

Scootaloo held her breath. Apple Bloom’s hesitation had been explicit for a mere second.

“No! We went alone.”

The guard was not convinced but he did not try to question the youngsters for further information. The large stallion went outside with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.

Alone, Scootaloo stayed stoic for a couple of minutes. She was waiting for something to happen. But the guard did not show up again. Slowly she got up, turned around and headed to the last room. There was a unique name… Rainbow Dash.

Scootaloo panted, her wings buzzed. And the door was not locked.
In the dark, Scootaloo recognized Rainbow’s sleeping form. Close to her bed was a beeping heart monitor. Intravenous fluids were hanging on a metal stand.

“Rainbow?”

No response. Scootaloo slid towards her “foster sister”. She climbed on the bed. In spite of the dark, she clearly saw the bandages around Rainbow’s head, covering up her eyes. There were burn scars.
Shakes ran through Scootaloo’s limbs as her eyes filled with tears.

“Ohhh, what did they do to you big sis’?”

She cuddled up to Rainbow Dash. In a way, she was happy. Happy to be there, next to the one she adored, the one she wanted to stay with, the one she had always liked to be. Scootaloo hugged Rainbow, she wanted to fall asleep next to her and stay like this forever.

She groped around.
The wings! Where were Rainbow’s wings. Scootaloo checked two, three, four times. She started sputtering. Quivers invaded her body. Her fur ruffled. Where were they, for pony’s sake?
Scootaloo’s eyes lay, horrified, on the large and stained gauze and bandages wrapping Rainbow’s body. She started panting heavily, sweating her anxiousness.

She checked over and over again. This madness lasted for a long time.

“No! No! No…”

In the end, she had to admit the terrifying reality and face the facts. Her face turned ghoulish. She dissolved into tears and felt like vomiting.

“How will you teach me how to fly? What will you…”

“Please stop…”

Scootaloo jumped and fell from the bed. Getting up she put her front hooves on the bed linens. Rainbow's voice was weak and sickly.

“R… Rainbow, are you okay?”

Rainbow turned her head in Scootaloo’s direction in fits and starts. Even if they were damaged and covered up, the young filly felt like two wide opened bloodshot eyes were staring at her. Two glowing eyes seeking for a victim.
Rainbow’s voice was harsh. She lifted her hooves and scrabbled toward Scootaloo. Rainbow was drooling, unveiling few broken teeth. Her tongue dangled horribly. She crawled like an insect.

“I… want home… to go Home.”

Then the pegasus let out a long and discordant lament before passing out. Scootaloo had already run away. The fear had shaken her, refused her from loitering next to her hero. The complaint echoed for a long time in her twisted ears.

Apr. 2013 - Beyond All Thresholds - 3. When Do The Dreamers Awake?

3. When do the dreamers awake?

The hallways of Canterlot were known to be part of the most majestic place in Equestria. Draperies of gold, silver and gemstones shone above the heads of countless guards tirelessly repeating their duty, day by day.
Two ponies were conducted to the chamber of the Throne. The terrified looks on their faces were blatant.
They were none other than Mr and Mrs Cake, the owners of the now notorious Sugarcube Corner.
Guards opened the last gate and left the couple standing alone in the huge anteroom. The palace was bright as the sunlight flooded through hundreds of stained glass windows depicting glorious heroes and deeds of the past. The Element Bearers and Equestria’s Princesses were among them.

Two Alicorns turned their heads toward their guests. The first one, the taller, was a white muse whose floating mane was made of pink, green and various nuances of blue and white. Wearing a golden necklace and a magnificent crown, she had a bright sun as a cutie mark. Her purple eyes were compassionate.

“Princess Celestia?” the couple gasped.

On the other hoof, Luna’s stare was harsh. For a moment, her very presence seemed to cast a pall over the regal chamber and any doubts that she was the warrior formerly known as Nightmare Moon were dispelled on the spot.

“And… P-P-Princess Lun-”

“Enough of this etiquette. Come, we have serious matters to discuss.” She curtly cut off.

Mr and Mrs Cake glanced at each other, “As you wish milady.”

Celestia leaned toward Luna, “Don’t dominate them. They are as shocked by these circumstances as we are.”

“It’s an important matter, my beloved sister. I can’t abide the idea that they have seen nothing, that’s utter nonsense.”

“Sometimes we have to listen and understand, not everypony possesses as much power as you or I.”

“You may be right,” Luna sighed.

The couple had moved close to the regal sisters. Celestia remained silent, staring through the large bay window. Luna looked at the two earth ponies, “Approach and gaze at the outside. Tell me what thou art seeing.”

They could see a courtyard. Dozens of fillies were playing. Their giggles were reassuring that not everything there in Canterlot was duty, royal matters, and intrigue.

“This is Harmony,” Luna cut off when Mrs Cake tried to speak. “Something that we must protect… preserve every day. A duty I failed to fulfil a long time ago.”

Luna stared into her audience’s eyes, “We do not wish to blame you, but to understand why and how.”

Mr Cake and his bride felt nauseous under the almighty look of the dark blue alicorn. His hesitant voice rose up, “We’re so… very sorry but we have seen nothing before it was too late… We had… complete confidence in Pinkie Pie. She attended every task related to the management of the stock. You know Pinkie is… was really good with numbers when she wanted to be.”

“You never went down? You never took a look at the basement?”

“No… Yes,” Mrs Cake said, Luna arched an eyebrow. “I mean two months ago I went down to help Pinkie and everything was normal. It stank like every basement you know. How could I have imagined for a second that such… horrible things were happening there?”

She began to sob. Mr Cake embraced her, trying to be comforting. Celestia glanced critically over at Luna.
The latter gave her big sister her spot. Celestia beamed and spoke with a melodic voice, immediately ceasing the tears, “You must know that today, the inhabitants of Ponyville are in shock. You’ve lost your reputation and you must understand that going back to Sugarcube Corner is not the… wisest decision you could make. I…”

“So that's it!?” Mrs Cake erupted. “You want us to abandon everything we’ve built through the twelve last years, to leave those who count to us. How will my babies comprehend?”

Mrs Cake sobbed. She had lost her temper. She, who had always been authoritative and confident, had hit a new low. Her husband tried to comfort his “sunshine”. She pushed his hoof. Celestia and Luna did not feel at ease, witnessing this pitiful attempt to avoid the facts.

“Mr and Mrs Cake, we might have a solution,” Celestia concluded. “We can loan to you a safe and calm place in Manehatten for the time being. Applejack and her family really want to help you, at least until the scandal weakens. There, you could consider your future more clearly.”
“You want us to flee?” Mrs Cake tripped over her words.

“I just want you to consider that…”

“This can’t be possible,” she shot back. “I can’t believe you want us to flee. Get it into your head that…”

“Mind your tongue,” Luna exhorted before Celestia gave her an off-putting stare.

“…I’m not leaving Ponyville, my children and my patisserie.” Then she turned and left the throne room, tearful, attempting to keep some semblance of pride.
Celestia bit her tongue in an effort to keep from giggling. It had been aeons since somepony had stood up to her in such manner. It was… refreshing.
Luna, however, was exasperated. This pony was so narrow-minded, she thought, just like herself.

Mr Cake tried to call her wife back. A disregarding silent welcomed his complaint. He sighed and fixed with his tired eyes both of his monarchs.

“She is really upset… you know. But I would like to know, if we come back later, will this offer still be available?”

Celestia and Luna nodded as the stallion turned back and urged toward the gate. Mrs Cake could be a shrew when she wanted to.

“And sorry for the annoyance.” Mr Cake yelled as he raced out, chasing his wife.

The yellow and orange stallion disappeared. Luna and Celestia could hear the echoes of Mrs Cake’s grunts of anger.
The two sisters glanced at each other. They could not repress their laughter but it remained short-lived, this was a serious matter.

Following this strange and thrilling meeting, Luna excused herself and flew to Ponyville. It was her duty to assist in Rainbow’s awakening.

Ω ϗ ϡ Ϙ ϐ Ϙ ϡ ϗ Ω

The Mane Six were impatiently waiting in the neighbouring room. Fluttershy had just arrived. Her trip to Zecora’s house had lasted longer than she expected, and meeting a hydra when she returned did not make the trip any easier. Her mane was ruffled, and scratches covered her hooves.
Applejack’s hoof was frenetically stomping the tiled ground, unnerving everypony. Her stare was alternating between the clock, hung high on the wall, and the door. This wobbling movement was really noticeable and annoying.

Twilight put her hoof on her friend’s shoulder, “Calm down Applejack, she is fine right now. We just need… to wait for the nurse.”

“I know,” Applejack replied. “But those three guards outside of her room… I don’t have a good feelin' about them.”

“You have to remember that Rainbow is charged with three accusations of murder.”

“She is NOT a murderer.”

“I know, but the evidence…” Twilight saw Rarity staring at her from the corner of her eye. She was shaking her head pointedly. The purple alicorn took the hint.

“Look Applejack,” Twilight continued. “I’m sure she is fine. We’ll talk to her in few minutes… Princess Luna will come too. She has… questions to Rainbow.”

“Questions…” Applejack cursed. “Ain’t nothin' good about interrogations.”

She was right, Twilight knew that. Three guards were here to make sure Rainbow wouldn't escape… to make sure she would answer whether she wanted to or not.

Solving the argument, the door opened as Princess Luna and the nurse, Healing Rhyme, entered. Luna’s face was pinched by a long and sleepless night, or day in her case.

Each pony raised their muzzle, waiting for information.

“We’ve already begun the reanimation process. She will awaken in ten or twenty minutes,” the nurse stated. “But before we go into her room, I have some things to tell you. About her state…”

Every pony held her breath.

“Miss Rainbow Dash’s physical state is… abominable. She's lost her wings but I have no doubt you already know that. Every inch of her skin and flesh has been cut off or bruised. Recovery will take time and she may suffer her whole life. Even walking will be an ordeal.
She will need you… maybe forever…”

Nausea swamped their minds. The nurse kept going on the explanations, giving details about the wounds, the foreshadowing physical and psychological traumas. That she could suffer from amnesia, temporary comatose, muteness and suicide attempts. She faced Luna, mentioning that any interrogation could wreck her spirit more than it already was.

“When you enter, don’t be surprised if she is restrained firmly. We were forced to. She could react violently. She killed three ponies in that bas…”

“We already know that.” Applejack grumbled.

The nurse avoided the mare’s incriminating stare.

“Also, she has lost her eyesight. They have been burnt with acid. She will recover but she will be blind for a few weeks. Take care about her, make sure she isn’t overstimulated.”

A second time, Healing Rhyme glanced meaningfully at the princess. At the same time, Fluttershy hid her eyes behind her hooves, trying not to think about how painful this reunion would be.

“Finally, I also want you to know that Rainbow Dash woke up last night. One of her intravenous lines slipped out. She had been half-awake for a minute before we took care of her. I think she won’t even remember it.”

“Did she say anything, Nurse Rhyme?” Rarity demanded, hesitantly.

“She screamed.”

The nurse’s last sentence casted a chill over the group. She motioned everypony to follow her. They finally arrived at Rainbow’s room. From the window, they could see two doctors administering painkillers to the bruised body.

The nurse and her two colleagues went out once Luna, Twilight and her friends had gathered around Rainbow’s bed. The former pegasus was breathing loudly. But, it sounded more like a hissing in everypony’s ears. Her eyelids were slowly moving. Each pony could see it under the bandages circling her head. Her body gave small spasms as she was regaining her senses.
They could barely see her skin. She looked like a mummy, wrapped in countless bandages.

She woke up. Unable to see, she started hyperventilating, startling everypony. Hearing the audience’s sudden moves, she raised her hooves toward her closest watcher, carefully feeling the contours of the face.

She recognized Fluttershy when she touched her mane. This familiar and comforting pony made the intense expression on her face fade away. It was not Pinkie Pie… It was definitely not her. She was finally out of the basement. Everywhere else seemed like heaven compared to the underground hell where she had been brought from.

Rainbow tried to speak. At the first attempt, not even a sound came out of her mouth… just a pitiful squeal. Then she found her words and began speaking with a low, loose, and trembling voice, “Is everypony here? I can’t see you… I can’t see anything.”

Twilight, Luna, Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy assented. Each pony gave her a hug. To the surprise of all, Rainbow harshly rejected everypony’s mark of affection with a sweep of her hoof.

“Don’t… Don’t touch me, none of you… nopony… ever.”

Fluttershy, whose feelings had been hurt, stepped back, accidentally knocking over a box of medical utensils. It all fell down the ground, causing an echoing metallic jingling and startling Rainbow Dash.
She screamed so violently, her friends had to cover their ears.
She shook under her bed sheets as she tried to find a way out. The pitch of her voice was so high… and lasted for so long.

“Calm yourself! STOP! Nopony’s gonna hurt yah, Shugarcube. NOPONY AT ALL. It’s over, yer safe now.” Applejack’s voice drowned out the chaos. “Nopony, yah heard me?”

Rainbow Dash started crying, cringing under the bedcovers. The rolling tears on her burnt cheeks intensified her pain causing her to scream again. It took a couple of minutes to bring her back from her panicked state.
Rainbow calmed herself and took a deep breath, “Twilight, Applejack and… Luna or Celestia I don’t know, you stay. Everypony else, get out.”

Rarity and Fluttershy looked at each other. They felt hurt from being sent away in such a harsh manner. They went out after Rarity tried in vain to contest the demand.

“Twilight, when you will get back to your library, I want you to send a letter, with Spike’s help, to Cloudsdale. I can get a pension from the Pegasus Resources Program for Injured Workers. Tell them to send it to my parents.”

She asked Twilight to leave. Only Luna and Applejack remained.

“Luna?” Rainbow’s interrogator stiffened. “I want to know why… why Pinkie did this to me… Why me… why?”

“I can’t respond to you, not until you’ve answered my questions to my satisfaction.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It appears that you've killed Pinkie Pie as well as two stallions from the Royal Watch.”

Rainbow’s hooves started shivering. She remembered, the knife, home, Pinkie, the guards… the insanity, the basement. She shook her head between her hooves, squeezing hard enough to force small drops of blood from her wounds which soaked into her cyan coat.

“It can’t be…”

“But it is,” Luna cut her off. “Once you've been declared ‘stable’, I’ll come back.”

“Get away… Get out… I’m just a freak to your eyes, some experimental crap… another line in somepony’s agenda…”

“I…”

“Out!!”

Rainbow sobbed. Applejack was alone, silent and stoic, facing her broken friend.

“Applejack?”

The farm pony jumped. The pitch of Rainbow's voice was piercing and caused Applejack to wince.

“Ye… yes Sugarcube?”

“Never call me like that again…”

“Okay…” Applejack swallowed.

“I want you to tell me what you see. You’re the only one who would ever tell me the truth, the only one I can trust with this, the only one with enough integrity to give it to me straight. Describe what you see, draw me.”

Applejack listed each of the macabre and dreadful wounds, injuries, bruises, scars and marks that covered her friend’s body. In spite of the disgust it created in Applejack’s heart, she did not miss any details and made to Rainbow the greatest and most grotesque description that could have ever been done about her.
Rainbow’s face was indescribable, a mix of contentment, sadness, insanity and despair.

“Thanks Applejack. Now leave me alone, ain’t useful to talk to a dead mare.”

Applejack was on her way out when Rainbow called her back.

“Please, the bandages are so tight; can you undo the gauze around my head? I can't stand the sound of the blood pounding in my ears.”

Applejack nodded. She started removing the bandages. Her eyes widened as she noticed that the yellow strands of Rainbow's mane had turned black. She repressed her surprise at the sight, smothering the involuntary gasp it brought. She had already hurt Rainbow too much.
Applejack withdrew in the hallway. Everypony was waiting for her with Nurse Healing Rhyme.

“What did she say?” Luna asked.

“Nothing, she wanted the bandages around her head to be loosened,” Applejack turned to Healing Rhyme. “Have you notice the…”

Applejack mentioned Rainbow’s mane with her hoof pointed at her own. Twilight asked for clarification and what she got shocked her to her core.

“Black isn’t a natural colour for ponies.”

“Extraordinary situations bring incomprehensible consequences…” Luna observed.

“I hope yer wrong.”

“I would like to be, Applejack.”

Everypony heard Rainbow’s voice from behind the door. They gathered around Rainbow’s bed. The black lock of mane covering her head disgusted Rarity. She frowned but did not make a sound.

“What do you need, dear Rainbow.” Rarity initiated.

“There was somepony here last night.”

“Oh you remember it, I came to change your bandages,” The nurse replied.

“No, it was a filly… Scootaloo.”

Everypony gasped. The nurse pointed out that a guard had caught two fillies, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.

Applejack and Rarity berated their sisters. “They were here!” They yelled.

Apparently the guard who had delivered the two fillies to their respective home had not mentioned where he had caught them.
Rainbow’s painkillers began to take effect and no pony succeeded in making her lucid again. They decided to let her rest, alone in her room.

“Where is Scootaloo at this hour?” Luna asked.

“At school for sure, with Apple Bloom and my sister,” Rarity responded.

Ω ϗ ϡ Ϙ ϐ Ϙ ϡ ϗ Ω

Sitting on her school bench, Scootaloo was shivering. Her two friends gave her worried looks as she was biting at her hooves. Cheerilee had also noticed and remarked Scootaloo’s strange behaviour.
It was nearly time for recess. The bell rang out and every pupil surged out of the classroom, except for Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom and their teacher.

“What’s bothering you, my little filly?” Cheerilee asked with a gentle smile.

Scootaloo turned to the crusaders before glancing back to her teacher, who understood.

“Apple Bloom? Sweetie Belle? Could you go out to eat your lunch, I must have a discussion with your friend.”

“But…”

They griped when Cheerilee made them go to the schoolyard. “What happened?” She started as she sat next to her pupil.

“Have you heard about Rainbow Dash, Miss Cheerilee?”

Cheerilee stuttered, “Hu… eh… Yes, I guess so.”

“I saw her last night at the hospital. I talked to her but she did not answer.”

Tearful, Scootaloo stood up and ran away, disappearing in the hallway. Taken by surprise, Cheerilee arched an eyebrow and sighed.

Once the little pegasus came out of the classroom and went to the playground, she was assaulted by both of her friends. They had decided to make her squeal.

“I… I can’t tell you…”

It was the only response they got. Disappointed, they let her stand up and wipe the dust from her flanks.

“Yes, the blank flank can’t say that Rainbow had lost her wings!”

Scootaloo turned around and faced the cynical face of Diamond Tiara along with her closest friend Silver Spoon. These two bullies were always in the wrong place at the wrong time, she thought.

Hatred flooded Scootaloo’s mind. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom stared at her friends with fear in their eyes. They could almost see the steam of anger hissing out of her ears.

“And you want to know how I know that? I heard my father talking about it last night. She has lost her wings and… her eyes,” Tiara giggled.

It was the straw which broke the manticore’s back. Scootaloo leaped toward Diamond Tiara before anypony could react. She bucked her up and slammed her against a wall with a powerful impact. Half-unconscious, Tiara could see her archenemy standing over her. Scootaloo raised her hooves and stomped the one who dared making fun of her foster sister, knocking her out. Her little wings buzzed with rage.

Cheerilee and another teacher had witnessed the fight and ran over Scootaloo, moving her aside from the motionless body of Tiara. Silver Spoon cowered in a corner, scared of Scootaloo’s sudden and violent fit of rage.
Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom did not move an inch, they could not, far too afraid of Cheerilee. They had never seen her so angry. The teacher disappeared into the school hall, dragging a struggling Scootaloo. The other professor carried Tiara to the infirmary.

Ω ϗ ϡ Ϙ ϐ Ϙ ϡ ϗ Ω

“Are you crazy Scootaloo?” The headmaster shouted. “You could have broken her leg, or worse.”

“She deserved it,” She mumbled.

“I beg your pardon?” The principal fulminated.

Scootaloo burst into tears, “She stomped on Rainbow’s honor. She spat on her as if she was… nothing. That bully deserved to be beaten, it's the only way she’ll learn her lesson!”

Cheerilee stated, “You can’t solve everything with violence Scootaloo. Violence calls itself.”

“I just responded.”

“And she ended up being hit and had to be sent to the infirmary, not you.”

Scootaloo stared at her hooves.

“I can’t even contact your parents,” The headmaster rose up.

“They won’t even raise a hoof for me,” Scootaloo snapped back, disrespectfully.

“Scootaloo… as you live in the boarding school I can’t expel you from here. But you won’t attend the classes until you’ve calmed yourself. Now leave us and go directly to your room.”

Cheerilee leaned toward her superior as Scootaloo went out, “What do her parents do that keeps them away from home so much? I don’t know much about them.”

“I don’t really know, but it has something to do with the Realm and the Crowns. If I want to send her parents a message I need to send it through the Department of Domestic and Foreign Security.”

Cheerilee's eyes widened.

“Some fillies don’t have the luck to know their parents very well. Circumstances tear families apart,” the principal added.

Ω ϗ ϡ Ϙ ϐ Ϙ ϡ ϗ Ω

Princess Celestia ran amok in her private apartment. Her rage made the wall of the Canterlot Palace tremble. The royal guards were shivering in their armoured pants. It had been a long time since last Celestia’s fit of anger, and no pony wanted to block her way at the moment.
She turned the castle upside down searching for an object that was nowhere to be found. The captain of the guard showed up, yammering, raising his hooves, trying to calm the rampaging monarch.

“Your highness, may I ask why thou hast succumbed to such agitation?”

“The Elements! They have disappeared.”

The captain’s face lost all of its colour, “That can’t be. The Elements were safe in the royal chest, the most unbreakable of the realm.”

“I know that, I’ve made it myself… But it’s not the Elements only which are missing, it’s the chest itself.”

“It… vanished?”

“Yes,” she said gravely.

The captain ran to the great hallway of the Canterlot court and shouted out orders to every guard he could find.
His voice echoed for hours in the Castle.

In her room, the princess of the Sun let her anger explode. The windows shattered with the force of her magical presence.

“Discord, if this is your deed, I won’t turn you in stone this time. I’ll find a more… appropriate punishment, you hear me!”

She tried to calm herself. It was either the ambience or the circumstances, but she had never felt this angry before. It was not ordinary. Convincing herself Discord could be innocent in this whole story, she yet surprised herself thinking up various cruel punishments for having deceived her and every pony in Equestria.

A tipping point was coming. She felt it. Things were going to change dramatically and she and everypony had to be ready. Unfortunately, without the Elements of Harmony, they were defenseless.
She collapsed onto her couch, rubbing her forehead with her hoof. She had a headache.

Somepony coughed. Opening her eyes, Celestia saw Unbendable Scroll, her chamberlain; an old stallion whose blue fur and orange mane had turned grey over the time. Fifty years of work in the Castle had marked the pony’s characteristics.
He had two sealed letter magically floating close to him. He bowed before Celestia.

“Excuse my intrusion Your Majesty, but unfortunately I've brought with me two more lines of bad news to add on thine agenda.”

“What are they, my old friend?” Celestia asked, trying to wipe the anger from her face.

“One letter came from the Griffon’s realm across the sea, brought by a diplomatic raven,” Celestia’s jaw nearly dropped, this hadn't happened in eons. “And the second one comes from the Bad Lands’ Marches. It concerns the Hive.”

Celestia grasped with her magic the two letters and broke open them.

Ω ϗ ϡ Ϙ ϐ Ϙ ϡ ϗ Ω

The school’s bell rang out. One by one each filly and colt went out. Applejack and her five friends were waiting for the three fillies they knew so well. Luna had to depart after she received an urgent message from her sister.
To their displeasure, they did not see Scootaloo coming along with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.
The two Crusaders told the story of the day. That Scootaloo ran into Diamond Tiara, that she was summoned in the headmaster’s office and that she was 'expelled' for three days.

“So where do her parents live?” Rarity asked.

“You don’t know?” Twilight was surprised. “Her parents are vassals to the crown. They are members of the upper reaches of power.”

“Like… the nobility?” Rarity went wild with ecstatic glee; her eyes glowed with jealousy and respect.

“Much more like… the army.” Twilight corrected. “We don’t know much about them, it’s quite classified.”

“We?” Applejack pointed out.

“Few months ago Rainbow asked me about Scootaloo’s parents. We made some investigations but we drew a blank.”

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom insisted on going to see their friend, restricted to her room in the dormitory. The Mane Six had nothing to do but to surrender to their “cuteness”. The two fillies could be unbearable when they wanted to.

After fifteen minutes of wandering around the boarding school, they found it.

Knocking at the door, they entered. Scootaloo’s room was cozy and warm. Its window opened onto the City Hall square. On its walls were posters of Rainbow Dash, old photos and, something that attracted Twilight’s attention, a photo of a mare and a stallion, carrying a foal that looked much like Scootaloo in their hooves.

Scootaloo’s father, if it was him, wore the ceremonial armour of the Sky Gusts, the military nobles of Cloudsdale. His stripes clearly meant he was a general. Drawing a clear distinction with this bombastic suit, the mare looked like Daring-Do’s doppleganger, a long and dark mane with the ensemble of an adventurer. Unfortunately, the colours had dried out, leaving a sepia photo.
They had one thing in common, a weird insignia stamped on their shoulder. It was a talon circling a scroll and a dagger. Twilight was perplexed. She was almost sure to know something about this mark. But she could not remember. During her studies with the princess, she had secretly leafed through old and classified scrolls in Canterlot library; occasionally, she happened across and read documents she shouldn't have.

Scootaloo was lying on her bed, looking dejected. Seeing her friends and their relatives brightened her mood a little. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle started jumping on her friend’s bed, trying to restore some happiness in her heart.

“Scootaloo, we know about you and Rainbow last night.” Fluttershy initiated.

Fluttershy’s first step surprised her friends. Maybe it was better that she was the one to speak. She was so kind. Scootaloo’s jaw nearly dropped, discretion was definitely not her talent.

“Is… Is she okay?” Scootaloo stuttered.

“Yes, she woke up, but she needs rest, lots of calm and rest…” Applejack specified. “I…”

“Yes she will be fine,” Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom cut off. “She may have no wings now, but he eyes will heal and she will still be our Rainbow Dash!”

Scootaloo smiled, she would like to be as sure as her closest friends.

Sweetie Belle turned to Twilight, “You could cast that spell you used on Big Sis’ at Cloudsdale that drove her into a crazy pegasus.”

Rarity blushed. She looked like a tomato.

“Sweetie Belle,” she hissed. “You said you would never talk about that again!”

“Sorry, it slipped out.” Sweetie Belle laughed.

“Miss Scootaloo?”

Everypony stared at the door. A stallion, a pegasus in a black uniform, was standing in the entrance. He had an envelope under his hooves. He gazed at each pony with his military eyes then slowly headed to the quivering filly, sat on her bed. The silent was heavy and pregnant. He sighed in awe. He had to force the words out of her lips.

“My deepest condolences. Your father fell on the battlefield this morning. Our hearts grieve with yours. Equestria will remember his sacrifice.”

A chill passed on each face. Scootaloo cringed on herself; her eyes were watery. A sob crackled between her cheeks. She curled on her linens. A long complaint rose slowly, eerily, painfully.

“How… how dare you?” Rarity erupted, pushing the stallion aside. “Haven't you ever heard of tact?”

The stallion sighed a second time. He put off his kepi.

“I’m sorry, but my superiors want me to return to the front line as fast as possible.”

He gulped. He was clearly anxious, ill-at-ease. And his feelings were easy to share with the mares circling him.

“You said… the front lines? As in, combat lines,” Fluttershy noticed.

The pegasus was surprised, “You all still don’t know. Equestria is at war since this morning.”

War… this word shook each pony. War was not a term used often in a pony's lexicon.

“The changelings have been on the move for ten hours and… I’m not allowed to tell you why for the moment, but the Griffon’s Kingdom, across the sea, has declared war on our nation. But they haven’t attacked yet. They are sending a delegation,” He swallowed. “We have been brought to bay. Terrible times are on the horizon.”

He knelt and looked in Scootaloo’s eyes, “Your father was an important stallion. He died a hero in the Bad Lands against Chrysalis’s army and…”

“What about my mother?” Scootaloo troubled.

“The foreign bureau still doesn’t know. She is missing in action… You know, my little filly, she has been in the griffin imperium for months. We don’t know where she is right now. She could have fled to the north or leaded to the South of the old continent.”

“My mother isn’t a coward,” Scootaloo convinced herself.

“I know… my deepest condolences for your father, my little filly. Chin up, be proud, he was a great stallion. The fiercest warrior I’ve ever known.”

He glanced at Twilight and her friends and left every pony. Applejack chased him out.
Scootaloo’s complain burst out. Trembling she tried to repel Rarity’s hug. But she had no strength left. She collapsed on her bed, wet with tears. Crooked, she was a pity. Fluttershy had burst into tears too. She was emotional and empathic. The sorrow was powerful and they all felt tears ran on their cheeks.

Applejack had pushed out the stallion. Tearful she stood in the threshold of the door.

“You! They didn’t teach you kindness in the army?”

“Sorry if this is a bit too fast for you… but I must be back on the front as fast as possible. And I don’t want her to recognize me,” The soldier confessed, a drop sprout under his eyes.

“Wait… why?”

“She is my brother’s daughter.”

“You’re her…”

The stallion nodded painfully.

“Yes, I don’t want her to remember who I am… I may feed the rodents tonight. Two deaths in the family in a row would put her down, especially since her mother is untraceable and that her model, Rainbow Dash has been… shot down.”

Applejack avoided an eye contact with the soldier.

“Eh… What’s your name?”

“Burning Spirit…” He said half-heartedly.

The pegasus left the boarding room. A strange felling plagued his eyes. It was the eyes of a stallion knowing he would die soon, hollowed, grieved, and lifeless. He might have been a burning spirit, he was no longer one.

In the room, a long silence had set up when Applejack came back.
Scootaloo was sobbing silently now, her muzzled hidden her a pillow. A dark cloud had passed on Applebloom’s and Sweetie Belle’s faces. Everypony was nauseous… The silence was unsettling.

“War… I can’t believe it,” Twilight rebelled. “How could Princess Celestia have let this happen?”

“The times, they are changing…” Rarity added mystically.

Apr. 2013 - Beyond All Thresholds - 4. An Old Acquaintance of Mine

An old acquaintance of mine

The guards shivered in their horseshoes. Shouts echoed against the marble walls. Unbendable Scroll, the chamberlain, waited in the threshold of the room, silent as always.

“War… Doth thou believe it? War!” Princess Luna yelled. “We should wreak chaos upon them, as Sombra would.”

Arks of black electricity enshrouded her forehead.

“Calm yourself, my sister. You know this is the Griffon’s tradition to declare war when their honour has been trampled. They never attack unless their grievances have fallen into deaf ears.”

Luna threw a sheaf of papers to Celestia’s hooves, they scattered in the throne room.

“Stop hiding from the truth, Ponies. Are. Dying! Our ponytarian forces in Saddle Arabia had to move to the North to protect our immigrants. Their sole role should have been to help the country with irrigation and well-digging.”

Luna exhaled in anger then grunted, “Griffin citizens have gone mad, purging the… what they call the ‘pony scum’. And, as if that wasn't enough, We still don’t really know what is truly behind this. Why did they declare war upon us?”

Celestia nodded, “There’s been foul-ups in our intelligence services, war isn’t something they are… trained to. But we are certain that a high-ranking griffon, one of the Emperor's relatives was assassinated.”

Luna tried to keep hold of her remaining composure.

“And our forces are just protecting the refugees. They haven't attacked any Griffin battalions,” Celestia added. “We won’t give the Prince-Electors a reason to move to action.”

“This is what terrifies Us, We’re not ready if the griffons decide to invade, we are no match. And with the Elements missing… our proper reputation will be smeared if this comes to be revealed.”

Apart of their magical usefulness, the Elements had the same role as regalia for ponies. The loss of such powerful symbols was tragic and Celestia already had some of her closest and most efficient agents tracking the path of the thief.

“Not that the Elements would be useful now that we have one bearer dead and another out of commission,” Luna murmured through gritted teeth, a tear in her eye.

“I sincerely hope they won’t move to attack…”

Celestia paused. On second thought, she convinced herself that the Empire would not strike.

“You know how the Griffin Empire’s politic works. It’s a huge imbroglio of conflicted interests. The Imperator is not even a guide in his kingdom. He is more of a putative prince. And it saddens me to admit it. They will fuel their own strives and the war will be forgotten.”

A long silence settled down in the room, lasting for few minutes.
Their exhaustion was evident in the Regal Sisters’ eyes, both looked out through the stained glass windows of the regal room.

“Time to set the moon and raise the sun, I guess,” Luna sighed. “Another day, another step toward the End.”

“Don’t worry Lulu, the Griffin Emissary will be arriving in two days,” Celestia smiled gently.

Luna’s eyes narrowed. A usual trip between Equestria and the ‘Imperium across the sea’ took one week by boat. Either this meant that the Griffons had scheduled the declaration of war or…

“Remember that in five days, the Gathering will occur.”

Luna was surprised. A small smile cleared her face for an ephemeral moment. She even lost her etiquette for few seconds.

“Oh… It’s been so long since I attended one.”

“You were still banished when the last one occurred four years ago,” Celestia pointed out. “I just hope this one won’t be of ill-omen… again.”

“We can only entrust you of such sayings, my sister.”

And then, the two Alicorns walked through an arch, appearing on a balcony. Miles away, the first lights of Ponyville were switched on as bakers, milkponies and postponies started their long day of work.

In the horizon the sun and the moon transferred their place.

ϐ Ϙ Ͼ ϕ Ξ ϕ Ͽ Ϙ ϐ

Erlier…

Even before the sunset and the rise of the moon in the horizon, Scootaloo had already slithered out of her boarding school. Clouds had formed over Ponyville and an eerie wind had begun to blow through the narrow streets of the town. Weaving in and out between the patrols which were more numerous than ever before, she headed to the hospital.
The townsponies wore expressions of grief from news that Scootaloo did not understand. She did not care in fact. She wanted to see her “big sis”. Rarity and her friends had said she was doing well, recovering swiftly, she was wishing for it. However, she was also truly scarred by the traumatizing experiences of the previous night; when she faced this screaming remains of the one she adored.

She passed by SugarCube Corner and surprised to find herself staring for few minutes at the creepy place, fearful of what lay beyond the black threshold. The many yellow police strips surrounding the place had been ripped off by the wind and the shutters of the cottage were slamming on their hinges. If she had ignored the former function of the building, Scootaloo would have mistaken it with a haunted house.

The perfect pace of horseshoes on the next street alerted her to the imminent presence of a guard patrol. Scootaloo leaped to the closest shortcut and disappeared into the shadows.

The night was rapidly approaching and if Scootaloo was afraid of anything, it was surely to be left stranded, alone in the dark. She jumped over a fence marking the border of the town. She regretted having forgotten her scooter; the trip would have been faster.
‘No, it was a good thing’, she thought, she usually made a racket on her beloved vehicle.

The hospital stood there in the pitch black. Only the lights of the entrance indicated the presence of the rectangular building. Scootaloo was standing at the same position as last time. She first thought about infiltrating it by hijacking the back door again, but the guards should now know about it… since her two friends had been caught there.

Same place, different plan. She had only one solution, climbing the façade.

Twice she made a circuit around the hospital. She fought back a feeling of helplessness at the sight of the smooth, plain, walls, void of anything she might use to climb up.
Sitting on the grass she challenged her mind, searching for a solution. She remembered seeing a shed neighbouring the promenade in the surroundings. The Hospital had a huge park filled with flowers of every colour, it was necessary to get the services of a full-time gardener, therefore, she reasoned, the shed would hold some interesting and useful tools.

Her suppositions proved to be accurate. Opening the shack, she went over to a huge stepladder. It took Scootaloo fifteen minutes to understand how to work it, and ten minutes more to finally find a way to move it from the shed to the hospital soundlessly. She smiled.
The moon rose into the night sky.

In her bed, alone and yet surrounded by the stench of antiseptic, Rainbow was struggling with her wounds. Moving a mere inch would bring her agony. She sighed. She wished to stretch her wings, to fly high in the sky until she could touch the twinkling stars. These kinds of thoughts were, in the end, just another repugnant reminder of her current condition.
Groping her chest, she frowned and started sobbing. This feeling of agony running beneath her skin was coming back and forth. It was unbearable, driving her into bouts of madness. She wanted to keep her grasp on reality, but she had nothing to rely on. Helplessness and pity were the only things popping in her mind when she was picturing herself.

She wanted to ask for a painkiller. Unfortunately, nopony was around, and shouting out would be a waste of breath as a painful and useless call for assistance. It would not worth the effort and the torment.

She started at a noise.
Something had just knocked on the windows. Rainbow heard a slight grating, like those of rusty hinges. A cold breezed licked her face. She started shaking.

“Who?” She coughed, spitting lumps of clotted blood on her white bed sheets. “Who is it?”

She heard something falling on the ground. A groaning echoed in the room. Blind and helpless, Rainbow shivered. Had her tormentor returned? She wished for the strength to scream but she was only able to squeak miserably.
Then her twitching ears caught the high-pitched voice of a young filly.

“It’s me Dash, Scoot’!”

The voice of Scootaloo made something click in Rainbow’s mind. She started crying, but instead of tears of distress and suffering, tears of joy and respite slid down her scarred cheeks. Jumping onto the bed, Scootaloo’s fear vanished when Rainbow embraced her.

“How did you get here?”

“I climbed… the wall… with a kind of… ladder… I’m suffocating… Rainbow!”

Rainbow Dash released her foster sister from her deadly embrace, first due to Scootaloo’s complaint, second due to the pain flooding her hooves and arms. Doubts started invading her mind.

She had cast away her friends so harshly, only a few hours ago. And now she was greeting Scootaloo as if she was her sole friend. ‘What a poor loyalty bearer I am’, she thought. A shadow covered her face. The despair she felt was evident in her expression, even beneath the bandages. She was pitiful.

“I've lost everything and what I could have kept, I threw it away. Scootaloo, tell me what I should do,” Rainbow sobbed.

Small and still very young, Scootaloo could hardly understand Rainbow’s doubts. But seeing her idol in such state was painful. Misery was contagious.

“But you’ve got me. You said you would take me under your wing when we went camping with everypony. I’m not gonna let you down,” She assured as she nestled up to Rainbow Dash.

A thankful whisper crawled out of Rainbow’s thirsty mouth. From her position, Scootaloo saw the black strand of mane dangling under Rainbow’s gauzes.

“You changed your manestyle?” She asked childishly.

“Hue… Yeah, kind of,” Rainbow giggled. The nurse, Healing Rhyme had told her one of her locks had turned black. “Tell me Scoot’, what happened today. There’s been much agitation around her. I have no clue.”

“Dad is dead and mom’s lost somewhere outside… Rarity and the others have said we’re at war.

She paused.

“I don’t want to lose you Rainbow Dash,” She said simply, sadness was audible through her voice.

“I know, I know…” Rainbow tried to give back courage to her little filly.

Rainbow’s mind faded as she thought of Cloudsdale. Once again, she felt useless. During the epoch her homeland would have needed her most, she was bound to a bed, assumed guilty of murder after escaping a serial-killing freak.

“I want to search for for mommy,” Scootaloo mumbled.

These words sparked something in Rainbow’s mind.

“There's nothing left for me here or anywhere in Equestria. I’m free to go,” Rainbow stated, clearly knowing what this was implying. “But I still can’t move… I hate waiting.”

She thought herself as a coward. ‘Blind and wrecked… what help could I offer?’ she kept repeating in her mind, trying to convince herself of her powerlessness.
She was actually afraid to make a choice… the choice. She needed something, somepony to force her making it. Scootaloo was the trigger she expected.

“Come with me!” Scootaloo genuinely jumped for joy. “We’ll travel and explore dark places like Daring Do!”

“Like Daring Do…”

Rainbow giggled but a harsh pain burned her ribs, killing her laughter in the womb. A small tear rolled from her eye and, in each other's embrace, both mare and filly went on the unstained lands of peaceful dreams.

ϐ Ϙ Ͼ ϕ Ξ ϕ Ͽ Ϙ ϐ

Twilight woke up with a sensation of fur coating her mouth. She had drunk last night after coming back home. The previous day’s revelations had shocked her and she had carelessly emptied her wine cave, paying no attention to Spike. He must have suffered from seeing his friend hitting a new low.

Somepony once said that a hangover was just like having a peacock inside of one’s head. Absolutely wrong, at least from Twilight’s point of view. The truth was far more horrible. Her head was aching, unable to remember the last bribes of the night. Her thinking was wreaked by an awful ear pop and she felt uneasy on her four hooves. Toddling, she went to the bathroom and had a long, long… very long shower. Curled in the bathtub, surrounded by thick volumes of steam, she felt slipping away.

She vomited loudly.

She solemnly promised herself to never drink again. Sitting on the drain, she paid no heed to the rising water. The bath, as hot as Tartarus, numbed her mind. She closed her eyes, smiling.

A firm grasp brought her back from under the water's surface. She gasped greedily. She felt somepony haul her out of the tub. Her hindlegs fell hard on a wet floor. She heard the same person turn off the running water which was flooding the room.

“Snap out of it, Twilight!”

The small shout hurt her ears and made them ring. She curled up, begging for a rest. She was on the verge of bursting into tears.

Opening her eyes, she saw Spike, picking up towels into an attempt to dry the ground. The floor was flooded. His face was pale, angry at least, and he was tired. She must have put him through Tartarus last night.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight mumbled.

“You’re the least of my worries,” he said, sighing. “I received a letter from the Princess early this morning. She wants you and everypony to go to Canterlot the day after tomorrow. There is no matter of urgency apparently.”

He shrugged, war made everything relative. Twilight groaned, still lying on the tiled floor.

After having been dried by Spike, she was conducted to the kitchen where the kind dragon served her a strong cup of coffee. She never drank coffee or ever possessed some, how…

“I went to the market while you were still out,” Spike answered the forthcoming question.

“Thanks…” She muttered, gulping the bitter brown liquid, her face contorting in disgust.

It was awful. Celestia, who usually was drinking a lot in the morning, always said ponies did not drink it for the taste, but Twilight was not prepared for such flavour.

“I told you it was strong,” Spike said, drinking his own.

“You drink coffee? Since when?”

“Since we arrived to Ponyville, you know it’s hard to follow you a whole day and restart the same journey over and over again. Being an assistant is not a sinecure…”

“Eh…”

“At least, I learn new words every day.”

“True…”

She finished her cup and asked for another. Spike held out the percolator to the purple pony who could barely open her eyes. Her migraine was reluctant to go away.

It was nearly ten in the morning and a familiar shadow passed by the veiled windows of the living room. A series of knocks followed. Twilight tried to get up but Spike forbade her to move.

“Don’t bother; you’re in no shape to walk.”

He disappeared in the hallway. Spike’s voice rose up, greeting the welcomed guest.
Hoofsteps narrowed and not one but two mares entered in the room. They were none other than Applejack and Rarity. They both looked tired.

“Let me guess…” Twilight grumbled.

“Applebloom an’ Sweetie Belle ain’t given us rest last night,” Applejack answered, sick of the exhaustion.

“Spike! Pour these two rag-slouches a cup, and a new one for my sorry ass.”

It was apparent that the alcohol was still affecting her. Rarity gave a look at the surroundings, an amazing pile of empty green glass bottles were resting in a corner.

“Don’t ask,” Twilight hissed.

Rarity gave her an arched eyebrow.

“Where is Fluttershy?” Twilight squeezed, knocking back her cup.

“She is still in her cottage,” Rarity answered first. “I think she had enough misfortunes for the moment. She wants to keep calm.”

“The calm won’t last,” Twilight said, twisting her mouth. “Celestia want to see us in a couple of days.”

A long silence welcomed this statement. For everypony, something was fishy. But none of them would confess this feeling.

“First time you’d got drunk, Sugarcube?” Applejack guessed with a smile on her lips, trying to ease the situation.

“No… but first time I blacked-out…” Twilight said, holding her head between her hooves, hiding her eyes from the sunbeams going through her curtains.

“How is Rainbow doing?” Spike asked eager to change the subject, unwilling to keep trotting out last night events in the library.

“She…”

Another knock on the door rose up. Twilight complained and before even Spike had moved a finger she was up. She stumbled on her first step but went to the door without knocking over and breaking anything.

ϐ Ϙ Ͼ ϕ Ξ ϕ Ͽ Ϙ ϐ

“Ow, ouch, ah!” The little filly cried.

She was dragged along the way by a powerful guard. His shiny armour, as with the houses all around, reflected the light of the rising sun. He was whistling an old well-known song of New Owleans. The young filly, a small Pegasus with an orange coat and a burgundy-coloured mane was fighting against the stallion’s grasp. She gave him a buck in the flank, making him stop his song.

“What is this obsession you fillies have with Rainbow Dash?” He grumbled.

“Don’t you dare insult my sister!”

“Rainbow Dash has no sister, it’s written on her report, you little liar,” He sniggered.

Scootaloo’s face lost some of her composure.

“She’s more of… a… foster sister,” she mumbled, turning silent. “An’ my name’s Scootaloo.”

The guard celebrated, in his mind, his victory against this noisy and agitating urchin.

“Where do you live?” He asked. “Where do your parents live?”

These two questions made Scootaloo lock herself even more in her muteness. The guard was now eaten up with remorse, knowing he had broached a delicate issue and callously hit a nerve.

“Take me to the sch… to the Golden Oaks Library,” she asked, disappointed. “Please.”

And so be it. They passed by Colgate’s office and bumped into Derpy and, in the end, they faced the library. Without correctness, the guard had Scootaloo sit up and stamped the door with his metallic horseshoe.

His jaw dropped when the door opened. Scootaloo, turning about, mimicked her temporary guardian, shocked.

Twilight Sparkle, former Princess of Dusk was standing in the wide open entrance. Her mane appeared dishevelled and washed-out and the light pink strand looked stranger than usual. It shone with a dark-green reflection which plagued the yellowish-black circles around her eyes.
One of her ears was straightened up while the other was dangling, hidden by her mane.
A light blue mug was magically hovering over her head. On it was engraved the quote “Best Princess”. A drop of coffee stained the ground.

Her enormous bloodshot eyes radiated exhaustion as they narrowed and pierced the uncomfortable stallion. Sweat fell off his chin.

“What’s the fuss?” She said, simply.

A strong smell of coffee and alcohol mixed and sprawled in the air. Both of her interlocutors frowned in disgust. Twilight blinked. When she opened her eyes again, one of her eyelids got stuck in the middle of its path. She went all Derpina. And as once said Rainbow Dash, “Never go full Derpina”.

The guard turned to Scootaloo.

“You sure this is her, the one you want to be guarded by?”

“Y… yeah, today is Saturday. I have nothing to do at the School.”

Applejack, Rarity and Spike appeared. The latter returned Twilight to her chair in the neighbouring room. After talking with the guard, he let Scootaloo enter and got back to his routine work.

“What have you done this time?” Rarity growled.

“I just slept next to Rainbow last night. I wanted to see her. I didn’t want to fall asleep but I did…”

She took a pause, her hoof on her lip.

“… and the guard woke me up this morning.”

The guard’s story did not matter, she had seen Rainbow. Scootaloo was assaulted by dozens of questions. Rainbow had been withdrawn when her friends went seeing her. Applejack asked about her wounds, Rarity about her appearance and Twilight ‘strangely’ was grumbling on her chair, griping over her nausea and headaches.

Scootaloo answered gently, replying that Rainbow seemed in better shape than the time she ended up screaming but that she was really depressed. She even mentioned that she was sorry for being mean with everypony. For a moment she hesitated, wrapping her chin. Then, thinking that truth would be better than hiding the fact she said.

“She wants to leave too… And I would like to go with her.”

The revelation struck every pony in the room. A heavy silence settled. They all looked at the hooves. Seconds passed, worsening the atmosphere little by little.

“Did she really mean it?” Applejack queried. “Do you?”

“I think so… Dad is… dead,” She shivered, the remaining happiness faded away from her face, her eyes tearful. “And I would like to see my mother… Or at least know where she is right now.”

Nopony questioned her logic. It was depressing but true. Twilight spoke. Her voice was a distorted grave imitation of Bon-Bon’s, “She does what she thinks the best… I won’t hold her back. I felt like we abandoned her that night.”

“Don’t you dare say that!” Applejack cried. “Rainbow Dash would not abandon us.”

“Don’t tell lies, she will leave. I don’t see her staying her, having everypony remind her of… her condition. You’re wrong thinking the opposite.”

“It’s t’ue!”

“It’s not!”

The conflict kicked-off, curses flew in the air. Rarity smiled, the scene was similar to any sitcom she liked to read or watch when she travelled to Manehattan.
The strife died as Spike separated the two upset ponies.

“Can’t you stop jumping to conclusions? You won’t decide for her.” He settled down the heated discussion.

Spike was holding his forehead in his claws. Applejack breathed out loud and calmed herself. She changed the discussion topic.

“So… how about Celestia’s appointment?” the orange pony asked.

“We’ll see tomorrow… I booked train tickets for tomorrow evening for every one of us.”

Spike’s cheeks inflated like a frog’s and he belched an emerald-green flame. A scroll bounced on the ground, a regal red symbol sealing it.
Spike opened it and started reading out loud.

“Dear Twilight,

I know this is far-fetched and thrown in your hooves but I must raise your awareness about an issue of the utmost importance. Besides my request for you to come at Canterlot I am sorry to announce you that the Elements of Harmony have disappeared from their chest…”

“Wait, wait… what?” Twilight shouted. “No, the Elements, I have had them since we reformed Discord…”

Twilight stumbled over her hooves, galloping to her personal library, picking up the Elements book and opening it with an assertive stare.
Empty… absolutely empty.

“Alicorns know better, it seems. Oh, faux pas!” Spike teased her up.

Twilight sent him a wicked stare, she was a princess now but sometimes she was trying to convince herself that she did not had signed up for this.

“Girls! I made up my mind,” Twilight said, ironically hesitant. “We leave for Canterlot now!”

Spike, Rarity and Applejack eyeballed their friend, taken aback. Twilight, using her magic, turned her maniacally-tidied home into shambles and, standing in front of her door, she shouted for everypony to come with her. Her voice was still high-pitched and hoarse.

“And what about Fluttershy?” Rarity asked, uncomfortable.

With her magic, Twilight grabbed each of her friends and dragged them to Fluttershy’s house. She took hold of the animal caretaker without any further ado and pushed everypony to the train station.

ϐ Ϙ Ͼ ϕ Ξ ϕ Ͽ Ϙ ϐ

On her bedside table was already piled up two books to read, but Rainbow had asked for the Daring-Do books.

Nurse Red Heart brought her one, the last of the series, making Rainbow Dash smiled a bit. The nurse was an angel, always trying to distract Rainbow from her current condition. Praiseworthy, but ironically it was making Rainbow feel worse. Being cradled was the last thing she ever wanted.

However Rainbow was still blind, for at least a couple of weeks more. Having books she was unable to read was a heart-rending sight.

“You’re getting better, Miss Dash, you’ll be able to stand up with some help in a week if not few days,” She stated. “Healing Rhyme’s magic is absolutely wonderful, painkilling, coagulation, recovery and scarring over. She won’t admit it but we’re all glad to have her here.”

“Could… Could you read me a story?” Rainbow stuttered.

Without working eyes, the crippled pegasus did not see the nurse looking down, avoiding a direct stare to the bed. It was her turn to stutter. Her hoof started shaking silently, worried.

“I… I am sorry, but other patients need me. I will try… to find somepony to keep you company. I can’t promise anything.”

Somepony called for Red Heart from outside the room. She went out a moment and came back.

“You’ve got mail Rainbow.”

Looking at the grieved face of the Pegasus, well hidden behind the bandages she went mute, opened the letter and started reading. It was a letter from Spike.

‘Dear Rainbow

We are currently on our way to Canterlot to attend an appointment with the Princess. The girls will not lie to you but everything has been very awkward around us since your incident and they haven't had much time to be with you with all of the escalation in Equestria.

The Elements have been stolen but apparently that is not the main point of the meeting.

Everything aside, we all hope you'll recover and be back on your hooves as soon as possible. We know how you feel and we’ll be always at and on your side.

Your friend

Spike’

“Thanks Red Heart, just… put the letter on my table and leave me alone.”

She did so and Rainbow found herself, again, alone in her cold and antiseptic-smelling room, crying. She felt like a drag, a burden her… friends tried to take care of, but finally having to leave her behind.
This feeling was overwhelming, ‘was it egotistical of her to want to have her friends next to her? And not just a bunch of few compassionate nurses and letters?’

Resentful, she was. Spiteful, she was. Revolted, she was. Stricken, she was. She felt so full of self-loathing.

ϐ Ϙ Ͼ ϕ Ξ ϕ Ͽ Ϙ ϐ

The trip to the Castle had been awkward. Everypony had been silent all the way, staring out of the windows. Twilight was trying to avoid being sick. Rarity had been mumbling she had not been given the time to take her most beautiful and fashionable clothes. Applejack was finally napping on one of the first class seats and finally Fluttershy and Spike was staring at everypony, waiting for something to happen.

The situation brightened once they stepped onto the Canterlot train station platform. Spike had sent a letter to the Princess, making her aware of the unscheduled arrival of her faithful student and friends.
Celestia, protected by two guards were waiting for them, greeting everypony with a gentle and radiant smile.

They all felt better from seeing a familiar face which was not affected by despair. Twilight, still sick from the trip, walked to her teacher and as usual embraced her.

“You smell funny, Twilight,” She giggled.

“Reality backfires sometimes,” Her student replied.

Celestia nodded, comprehending.

“Follow me. I’m sure you have plenty of questions.”

Accompanied by guards, the security had been enhanced since the latest developments had fallen into pony’s ears. They made their way to a meeting room adjacent to the North wing of the Castle. A huge table stood in the middle of it circled by at least twenty chairs.
Each pony took a seat and listened carefully.

“My little ponies, I didn’t expect you so soon but I think it might be for the better.”

She mentioned the theft of the Elements but it paled in comparison with the second bit of news she had.

“The Gathering will be held in four days,” She stated with a voice which could have been accompanied with a dramatic three tones music.

Twilight’s jaw dropped, everypony else arched a brow.

“We’re doomed,” Twilight gasped.

What? Why doomed?” Applejack hurled. “Explain y’all!”

“You truly don’t know what it is?” Twilight responded, disappointed by her friends’ ignorance.

Everypony shook their heads. She sighed.

“Aaaah… Okay, look. Equestria stands on this world as a neutral territory that no nations can harm because… ponies have magic and Alicorns are among the first born…”

She started wandering off in a mountain-like pile of historical, political and economic considerations. Everypony lost her train of thought.
Applejack cut her off and turned over, facing Princess Celestia.

“An’ in Equestrian?”

“In four days, every representative of each nation will come to settle down the conflicts which popped during last four years. And We, Luna and I, act as mediators. And it has been like this for eons.”

“So why Twilight is so stressed,” Rarity asked, pointing her friend with her hoof.

Celestia gave an amused smile to her student.

“Well, apart from your inclined nature to paranoia…”

Twilight frowned, crossed her hooves and turned her gaze to the next chair. Celestia restrained giggling. The princess looked back at Rarity.

“… However she is right. The tradition requires that the opening ceremony has to be held by presenting to every ambassador the Elements…” She let out a long breath. “…This is why this is quite an issue. Elements are meant to be harnessed to fight mighty foes, and are our regalia. I fear that the Gathering will turn into a mess once every diplomat finds out that we're missing both the Elements and two bearers.”

The day was passed searching for clues as to find where the Elements were, or at least who could have stolen them all. And, in the end, nothing was found. Twilight had in fact not so many hopes… The special services had already gotten ahead of them without finding anything relevant.
The Elements seemed to have vanished.

The evening was calm and everypony went to bed early, the next day would be a decisive and challenging one.

And indeed, it would be. On the morning, a messenger announced the Griffin delegation would arrive at noon. The matinée was stressful for everypony as the first discussion, and negotiations about the war-to-be between Ponies and Griffons would be discussed.

At noon, a flying chariot appeared in the horizon. ‘Only one?’ Celestia thought, standing with the remaining “Element bearers” and Princess Luna in the vast courtyard of the Palace. The ground was tiled of gold and silver, drawing a gigantic cardinal compass. Each was wearing their most magnificent clothes, ready to face the diplomatic mess which should be following the first contact.

Twilight and Rarity tilted their head toward Luna and Celestia.

“Aren't the griffons known for their exuberance, and compulsion to delusions of grandeur?” Rarity asked first.

“… and the size of their delegations?” Twilight followed.

Celestia nodded, perplexed.

The chariot landed softly on the drawn compass and its four stallions neighed, finally able to stretch their limbs and wings. Every spectator gasped and held their breath, waiting.

On the vehicle were two griffons, wearing purple and blood red togas sewed with gold and platinum. The first to step on the ground was young, very…

“CELESTIA!!”

The second one blasted out of the chariot and headed limping to the queen.
The guards spread their spears. Only to see their weapons repelled by a dextral talon.
Celestia gasped.

The regal griffon hugged her. It was one of those familiar and friendly embraces, off-putting the audience.
Jaws dropped, incomprehension could be read in each pony’s eyes.

Apr. 2013 - Beyond All Thresholds - 5. A Friend Behind The Enemy?

A friend behind the enemy?

“You should see the look on your face, Celly!” He cackled.

Turning around, his smile grew as four ponies, a baby dragon and a group of guards were staring at him, mouths wide opened, pupils reduced to dots. With his talon, he closed the nearest pony’s limp jaw. The mare had a fur as white as Celestia's. Her mane was deep purple, undoubtedly smooth as it was alternating between curled and straightened strands of hair. She had a certain style for the griffon’s tastes.

“What? You really thought I would attack a goddess, my dear Rarity.”

She cocked her head and her ears perked when he spoke her name. Snapping out of her lethargy, Rarity’s stare ran over the griffon’s red and purple toga. Gold, silver, and platinum embroidered the magnificent cloth. She became starry-eyed, having never seen garments of this standing and regal was the only word she could use to define this masterpiece.

“I need this silk.” She mumbled.

The griffon smiled and inspected each of the ponies before him.

“Shall I close those dangling mouths of yours?” He asked amused, tickling Twilight’s chin with the tip of his claw.

Twilight batted the griffin’s talon aside and rubbed her fur where he had scratched it. The creature was tall. Taller than a pony of course, but also taller than the average griffon. She had read a lot of books about them. They were known to be a little larger than ponies, but this one was one and a half the size of his bretheren. The feathers on his forehead were even able to tickle Celestia's muzzle when he finally faced her and her sister.
The audience’s rational mind returned. Terrified, they awaited a clash

“Princess Luna. I’m so honored to meet the Goddess of the Night,” The griffon saluted, extending his talon after an impressively respectful bow.

Luna shook it. She felt she heard a degree of arrogance and contempt in his voice but kept these feelings to herself.

“The pleasure is all mine,” she replied with a forced smile.

“Of the small creatures wandering on this earth, you’re certainly the most mysterious and intriguing,” The griffon continued.

“Small?”

“And you…” the griffon looked to Celestia without heeding Luna’s last word. “You haven’t changed at all.”

“Excuse me,” Celestia finally had the composure to say. “But, who are you? How dare you act like this in front of my subjects.”

The griffon's jaw fell. It was not surprise which could be read on his face, but sadness… a true, moving, deep sorrow. He swallowed a gag.

“You don’t remember me?” He simply uttered with a sigh.

“Should I?”

He breathed out loudly, pouting.

“If I were to say War of the Apples, would that ring any bells?”

Celestia’s eyes became so huge that everypony thought they would swell to the size of bowling balls and explode.

“Andraste? But! But? How…”

“Gotcha,” He winked. “Ninety-five years we haven’t seen each other.”

Were Pinkie Pie present, she would have gone to extreme lengths for a spit-take, displaying the degree of surprise they all felt.

“How… OLD are you,” Twilight stuttered.

“Well…” The griffon drawled, rubbing his feathered beard. “Apart from your two princesses and plants of course, those cheaters, I could say I’m the oldest living being on this world.”

“This doesn’t answer my…”

“Two hundred and four years old miss Sparkle, or should I say, Your Highness.”

Everypony stared at him in disbelief. He was… extremely good-looking for a twenty decades old rag. Their eyes fixed upon him, the old griffon towered on his hindlegs and started showing off his muscles, and of course his claws, sharp as razors. His toga dissimulated his chest, back and wings particularly well, but under the folds there was no doubt of the powerful appendages within.
Once the ponies started studying him, they noticed, little by little, the marks of aging. The feathers on his head, usually white within Griffin’s kind, were silvered, the nut color of his arms were faded to a nearly white and his claws were seemingly beige instead of their natural yellow and brown. However, keeping in mind Granny Smith as an “aging” standard, Rarity, Fluttershy, Twilight and of course Applejack and Spike had a hard time believing in it.

Posing with his talons on his hips and still standing on his two lion’s legs, he laughed in front of his ‘old friend’ Celestia. It was an odd stance, like the ones Lyra was always trying to imitate, chasing her pipe dreams of being human. Like this, he stood taller than the princess. The guards gulped, their ability to face such monster, if they had to, conflicted with their instinct of survival.

“You thought I was dead?” The griffon named Andraste asked.

“I presumed you were,” She defended herself with a pinch of hesitation. “… even if I never got an invitation for your funeral. I confess I completely forgot about you.”

This confession embarrassed the princess. She felt like she had failed an old friend. She tried very hard to remember the names and faces of every being she met but she had lived a long time and there were so many.

“Oh come now Celly, dry those yet-to-be tears! Don’t show your weakness to…” He cleared his throat, widened his eyes, and took on a spooky voice. “… the enemy…”

The princess giggled. “At least you never changed.”

The griffon snorted approvingly, looking around him, worries in his eyes. He finally get back on his four limbs. He then took a glance to the chariot where he had gone off few minutes ago.

“Come on lad, get off that ‘charette’ and come here to present yourself.”

“I told you never call me… lad, tutor. Mind your rank.”

The voice had a strong accent and from the chariot stepped out a smaller griffon. Twilight, her friends, the guards, Celestia and her sister stared down at a griffin colt… Or griffon cub… they didn't know the usual griffin-related term. He was wearing the same outfit that his elder but at this shoulder was a brooch sporting a red and purple rose. He also had a strange black bracelet on his wrist, decorated with three big emeralds and one ruby. And pinned upon his left shoulder was a talisman depicting a globe hold between two talons. A sentence, in a too tiny font to read, was engraved upon it.

His claws clicked against the stone as he came forward. Greeted with a long silence, he rolled his eyes and bow as did the first griffon. The child put his claw on the pin and bent until his feathers touched the ground. Raising his head, he glared daggers at his guardian.

“Would you please be so kind as to introduce me to them?”

A heavy talon ruffled the top of the griffin cub’s head and a frank laughter followed. “You too will never change.”

The young griffon extracted himself from the unnerving endearment of his elder.
The older one glanced at Celestia who was standing behind everypony. She inclined her head at her surrounding subjects, trying to disclose the fact that she was the only one here to know who the griffon child really was.

“Oh, notoriety and celebrity don’t cross oceans I guess,” He cackled, stopping Celestia’s goings-on. “My name is…”

The youngster gave his forebearer an elbow to the ribs, his eyes firing bolts of discontentment. The tutor laughed, again.

“Before you stands above the mere beings of every lands his…” The griffon tried to choose his words wisely. “his highness Armand Horace d’Outrevent, son of Eric the sixth, First Heir of Griffonia, First Heir of the Western Marches of Prance, First Heir of the Eastern Marches of Ucrane, Second Heir of…”

“Okay, okay Gott in Himmel stop,” Armand finally protested.

The old griffon chuckled and shrugged his shoulders.

“And as said Celly, I’m Andraste. Telling you my whole title would take a complete day and would make my protégée’s look like a surname.”

Andraste gave back the poke to his dependent. He snapped, vexed.

Everypony was now obsessed with the youngest guest of Canterlot, and he was surely enjoying the situation. Being in the center of attention was something the Imperium Court taught him was an inborn right. And now, having multiple pair of eyes from another race staring at him was of the utmost pleasure.

“Andraste,” Celestia raised her voice, breaking the group circling the regal successor. “What is he doing here?”

Her voice was saddened, hesitant and obviously stern. Being mentioned, the heir ducked his head in his toga and retreated two steps from the mighty white alicorn. On his own, the eldest griffon was smirking like a chess-player.

“I only am the liege of my King. And this is a game which is far more complex that it will ever seem to be in your eyes Celly.”

Imperceptibly, he had taken out a small pipe. And when he did, Luna saw, well hidden under the folds of his toga a long metallic tool which shape was strangely similar to a sword. There were also few scrolls and other objects she had not been able to identify. Andraste for his part had witnessed the wandering look of the Princess and gave her a wink.
The silence was starting to overwhelm the attendance, but somepony had other priorities in his mind.

“Andraste? Isn’t that a griffin female name?”

It was Twilight’s voice. She surfaced from the crowd in front of Andraste and with arched brows she was scanning the so-called griffon from tip to tail.

“And you don’t seem very feminine.”

The griffon burst into laughter, unable to stand up, holding his sides. Tears rolled off his cheeks.
Twilight on her own did not feel as easy as the griffon, after calming himself approached her, blocking the sunlight with his intimidating stature.

“You knowledge is amazing,” He said, making Twilight blush. “And indeed it is. My mother thought I would die soon after my birth. And weakness is not something appreciated in Griffon’s society. It is… girly.”

His last word came with a grin, revealing a sharped beak which slammed next to his interlocutor’s ear.

“Unfortunately, I survived and as a consequence, I had to get along with my name. Call it a mother's love mark of affection.”

He grinned again with contentment.

“Well I’m hungry. Celly, would you please show us the way to the banquet room and display this meal your cooks have been so eager to prepare.”

Wide opened eyes pierced him.

“Oh, just joking,” He added, still smiling. “You’ll soon learn that I’m rather unusual.”

He started heading to the castle with everypony in his tow. Rubbing his chin, he started studying his surroundings. Andraste was indeed a strange griffon.

“Let’s check if my failing memory is still good enough.”

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After having gamboled in every hallway of the castle, trying to keep up with the pace of the old griffon, they all stopped as Andraste stormed through a door. It was the Canterlot’s royal kitchen.
Screams rose.

Glancing inside with only their head breaking through the edge of the gate, everypony saw Andraste standing in the middle of the clean room. The prep-cooks were curled up in a corner, hugging each other in a fearful embrace. For sure the old griffon was scary. And this was even more so since technically, Equestria was at war with the Griffon Empire. But Andraste seemed to be that kind of being, able to make your forget he was your enemy.

“We had a restroom you know?” Celestia got ahead.

A frown wrinkled the griffon’s features.

“No thanks… sincerely I have to suffer this ordeal every day of every year since two centuries when I’m not on a battlefield. If I can enjoy a good time outside with a picnic and a blue sky to stare at without seeing arrows slashing across it, I’m not going to reject such opportunity.”

“Did he say battlefield?” Fluttershy trembled behind everypony.

He pointed his talon to a kitchen employee and ordered a compelling amount of commodities. One of the prep-cooks had the wise idea to take notes. The others stared at Celestia and Luna whose heads was still the only body part they could see in the opening of the door. Both alicorns nodded, indicating to accede to the griffon’s request.

Glancing over the surroundings, Andraste noticed a huge wooden door in the back. An even bigger smile sprung on his face. Narrowing the space between him and the entrance, he gave a smirk. He shattered the lock with his talon.

“Eh! What are you doing?”

His turn having come, the chef had stormed in the kitchen blowing through Celestia and Luna’s mane, anger in his eyes. The griffon raised a claw, asking for silence. The cook’s face went red, gritting his teeth. Once broken into, the door revealed stairs descending in a small whine cave. Everypony followed Andraste.
He started knocking on the tiles of the walls, causing everybody to raise their brows.

“Solid, solid, solid” *Clang* “Empty.”

The griffon sniggered. Sliding the tip of his claw in the joint of the tile, he ripped it off from the wall, snatching away dust and dirt. Plunging his talon in the hole, he took out an old bottle.

“I knew I would see you again, baby.”

Going back to the kitchen, the griffon grasped three glasses and a decanter pot. He showed up the bottle to Celestia, wondering if she was embarrassed because Andraste was becoming comfortable without any manners or because he had left behind him some unnoticed treasures nearly a century ago.

“It would be a shame if it stayed unopened.”

The cook hovered between the princesses and his eyes lay on the bottle. He read the title and nearly fainted, having a seizure. It was a one hundred and three year old Ponish wine, a vintage which was priceless as the product was unaffordable and too rare.
Andraste looked down to him. The cook was a white earth pony with a rolling-pin cutie mark. The griffon went back to the cupboard and took a fourth cup.

“You’ll have yours, as an indemnification.”

The cook fainted a second time. The griffon jumped over him and led everypony out to the garden.

Once they had arrived, they sat between the tall hedges of the few mazes the royal gardens had. Twilight remarked that Andraste had furtively split everypony in two groups. He had dragged away Luna and Celestia deeper in the maze and had left Armand to the care of her, her three friends and Spike, to the heir’s immense discontentment of course. Internally, the regal youngster was swearing.

“Isn’t he cute?” Rarity started.

“He looks like a big eagle.” Fluttershy muttered, hidden behind Applejack.

“Ah think he looks fancy.”

“Are you really the successor of Eric the sixth?” Twilight added to the hullabaloo.

The griffon bit his tongue, evidently pushed into a corner.

“Ruhe!”

His shout was loud, but ended with a squeak as he was still too young to have a grave voice that made every king proud. He started talking in a language nopony could understand. However, he was obviously swearing. It was a guttural language, harsh and rough in anypony’s ears. Seeing that he was not understood he sat and curled his talons around his knees.

“Freaks,” he finally muttered.

Fluttershy who, of course, was the shyest pony in Ponyville and probably in Equestria burst into tears, struck hard by the nastiness of the griffon’s statement, a malice that was not hidden by his strong and gruff accent. Everypony glared at him and he had clearly no will to apologize. The pressure on him grew little by little until he finally got up and walked into the nearest maze, muted.

“He’s like Gilda. Damn apples I thought that A’draste ain’t an exception,” Applejack growled, mispronouncing the emissary’s name.

“We should go find him,” Twilight guessed. “He is an heir. It would be bad if something happens to him, really bad.”

Rarity and Applejack gulped the newborn stress crawling inside of their throat. Fluttershy was still trying to dry her tears.

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Andraste conducted both Princesses in a remote place of the biggest maze of Canterlot. There was an old table circled by a couple of benches. On the right end of the clearing, a pedestal was surging off the ground but with no statue to host. The griffon stood up, silent for few seconds.

“You finally freed him.”

“I don’t know if it is for the better,” Celestia growled.

They sat. The griffon sliced the top of the bottle after becoming aware he had forgotten to bring an opener. He gently poured the dark red liquid in the decanting jar and started agitating it, twisting and turning the alcoholic nectar which smell was incredibly… chafing.

“Walls have ears,” he finally sighed surprising both Princesses. He raised a brow. “It’s an expression from Griffonia. I think in Equestrian it is… loose lips sink ships.”

“Why all this fuss Andraste?” Celestia asked, stern as always since he had stepped on Equestrian soil. “And why did you bring… him here.”

The griffon poured the wine in the four glasses and snapped with his claws. A waiter came out of nowhere, took the fourth and then withdrew to the castle.

“Things are getting pretty dangerous currently in Warclaw. You know that Griffonia, apart from being ruled by griffons is a cosmopolitan society. You can find ponies, zebras, minotaurs and so on. Two weeks ago a pony, a pegasus, sneaked in the Imperial castle and tried to kill Armand and his mother. The assassin killed the latter and nearly got my Lord’s son.”

Luna and Celestia were horrified.

“The pony slit his throat when we blocked him with a net,” Andraste’s talon went searching something in the folds of his garment. “He had this on him.”

The griffon dropped a heavy object on the desk. It was a necklace of gold and silver whose medallion was a small symbol polymerizing a sun and a moon into a single shape. Stupor etched Luna’s and Celestia’s faces.

“This is… so old,” Luna finally concealed. “Before even my banishment…”

The medallion glowed with a blue aura, the same as her horn. She wanted to examine it from a closer point of view. A harsh bang echoed. Andraste had encased it with his left talon.

“Sorry Princess Luna, but this evidence is too important to let you… touch it.”

Celestia nodded to her sister, forced to assent. The griffon returned the jewelry into his toga and drew out a small scroll, broke the red wax seal with a snap. He unfolded it and gave it to Celestia and Luna to view. It was a drawing replicating the medallion from every angle.

“Keep it for your own services.”

Luna inspected the whole parchment, she pointed out that something had been written on the other side of the symbol. She could not read it. She asked her sister for an advice, making Celestia frown once her stare lay on the notes. The griffon smiled internally, he could recognize genuine confusion when he saw it.

“Nopony, nogriffin and clearly nobody knows about this scripture. It could be a code but we haven’t been able to break it.”

Luna bit her lips, thinking deeply.

“By the way, we’ve got serious issues within the Empire. And a majority of the Prince-electors are searching for a scapegoat. Unfortunately the assassination of the Empress was far too tempting to use as a political means for them. Your kind was in the wrong place at the wrong moment.”

“You said you are having… problems?” Celestia tilted.

“The number of murders in the biggest cities has never been so low, but the rate has exploded in the majority of towns throughout the land. Cases of mass insanity has risen up for few months and… the police and the army had to face uprising and maddened rioters.”

Celestia and Luna had glanced at each other when the word insanity had been brought in the conversation. And the griffon had clearly seen it. But he swept it off and shared the exquisite drink with his two interlocutors as a waiter came to serve them some commodities.

After a first look, the wine, red as brick, appeared rough and smelly, printing a burgundy mark on the wall of the cups. The alicorns, used to drinking sweet alcohol frowned when their nostrils took the leathery aroma of the old liquor. On the second try, a pinch of spiciness tickled their muzzle.
Bringing the cups to their lips, Celestia, Luna and Andraste drank a small swallow and took time to savor it.

Their first impression was right. The wine was raspy and acrid. But bit by bit, the unpleasant taste of oxidization gave way to hundreds of delightful fragrances. The flavor of nut, aroma of rose, hints of clove and pinches of aniseed was among the savors that enshrouded their taste buds and olfactory bulbs.
Its musk was glued to their palate and muzzle as the sweetness, the acidity and the tannin were perfectly melted and balanced in the core of the red liquid. First lively with mellowness, the strong wine unveiled itself as powerful and long-lasting once it was swallowed.

Andraste stirred the wine held between his cheeks a last time and spat it on the grass. Luna and Celestia looked at themselves, unable to say if they were expected to mimic him or not.

“I’ve had better… but it’s still a good one,” The griffon chortled.

He stared at the two Princesses, their mouth swelled by the wine rekindling their taste in oenology. They stared back.

“Wine is meant to be drunk you know,” he laughed.

They all took a second mouthful of the divine drink.

“Why did you come here with him?” Celestia finally asked.

“The child is safe while he is here with me or with the Elements of Harmony. By the way, I only saw four of them today. Where are the last two? I need… I need to talk to Rainbow Dash.”

Luna’s and Celestia’s eyes widened, surprised and horrified. Andraste understood that something was afoot. Something had clearly gone wrong in Equestria too.

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“Armand?” high-pitched voices called in the maze. “Armand!?”

“Where did he go?” Spike gritted.

“He walked in here for sure. His toga would not let him fly,” Twilight said to herself.

“You’re not helping Twilight,” Applejack grumbled. “You’d use ya fancy magic to find him.”

“Actually, it’s not stupid Applejack.”

Applejack’s features straightened.

“Does that mean I’m stupid most of the time?” She chimed.

Twilight blabbered a mediocre apology.

“One could say that you’re much of a short-tempered kind of pony.”

They rounded the next corner. The path ended up in a vast clearing in the maze. A massive pond sporting a mythical sea pony whose hooves acted as water jets, was built in the middle. The water was clear and with the sunbeams reflected on it as a mirror, the pond was spreading the multiple shades of a rainbow on the surroundings.
Sitting on the side of the fountain, the young griffin was looking at his own reflection, his lion’s paws soaking in the water. He had put off his toga.
His left ribcage was scarred by a long, relatively fresh, and disgusting slash which began above his groin to end at the mid-joint of his left wing. Rubbing it, he was winced. Apparently it still pained him.

Looking behind him, his eyes stopped on the four ponies and a baby dragon. His eyes opened wide in surprise and he rushed to his toga, quickly hiding his wound.

“You saw nothing,” he growled, lifting up one of his coat-tails.

He finally readjusted his black wristband and the golden regalia dangling around his neck. The heir was obviously mad at them.

“Would ya at least apologize to Fluttershy?” Applejack queried harshly, stomping the ground with her hoof, impatient.

The griffon shook his head.

“Will your kind be ever sorry for the unspeakable crime and shame you committed and spread upon my kin? This is the real question,” He spat back.

He then went mute and passed through the group of pony, bumping into Rarity and Twilight. He paused in front of Spike.

“I would never think a dragon would lower himself to serve ponies or even dare walk among us.”

Armand’s voice was a savant and strange mix between arrogance, respect for the dragon and disrespect for the ponies surrounding him.

“Hey! Twilight and everypony is my family, I would go through Tartarus for them,” Spike replied spitefully.

The griffon rolled his eyes.

“Peasants…”

A hoof smacked his forehead. Looking up, he saw… Rarity standing in front of him. She was frowning angrily. Armand’s eyes narrowed. Applejack, Twilight, Fluttershy and Spike held their breath.

“How. Dare. You?” He hissed through his gritted beak.

“You’ll change this behavior! Even Prince Blueblood hadn't gotten this far.”

“How. Dare. You?” He repeated.

His anger was so obvious on his features that Rarity took a step back. He lifted his talon, only to see his wrist stopped in the severe grasp of Andraste, and there, before the horrified eyes of Luna and Celestia, the old griffon assessed the situation, scornful.
He ended the long-lasting silence which followed his miraculous intervention.

“You will apologize now, to all our hosts.” He spelled clearly, glaring daggers at his protégée.

Andraste’s voice was light years away from the joyful tone he had sported since his arrival. It was a soldier’s one, harsh, inflexible and assailing. The atmosphere cooled down instantly. Everyone gulped a gag and Armand started mumbling.

“I cannot hear you,” the old griffon vented.

“I’m deeply sorry for my previous behavior and hope you won’t keep resent against me and my past deeds.”

“Good.”

He released Armand’s forearm. Twilight caught out of the corner of her eye that he had ripped off the black bracelet from the heir’s limb. Andraste glanced at the two princesses and looked down at the ponies, his face was darkened by his anger.

“I want you to apologize too.”

Surprised stares greeted his demand.

“But… why?” Rarity asked, offended. “He hurt Fluttershy and disrespected us!”

Casting away his protégée Andraste brought his face closer to Rarity’s.

“He is a child,” He tilted his head, glaring at Spike, Twilight and Applejack, avoiding Fluttershy who was crying. “And I think he has seen and experienced things that you’ll never wish to. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want you to apologize to him or me, but to your Princesses, Celestia and Luna.”

Both Princesses jumped slightly when they heard their name.

“If it hadn’t been for me, your behavior would have settled the war between our two nations because you… couldn’t stand a stubborn child.”

A freezing silence blew between the remaining Elements Bearers and the diplomat. Finally Twilight and her friends walked half-heartedly toward Luna and Celestia and asked for their forgiveness. Celestia sought for a nod from Andraste. He shrugged.

“Never drift away again,” Luna commanded.

After the ambiance had calmed down, the old griffon pulled Twilight aside. His two piercing eyes were unpleasant and gave the young alicorn the impression he could read her mind.

“His mother has been killed,” he stressed on this last word. “…by a pony, few days ago. Keep this clear somewhere in your mind… Your Highness.”

He went looking after the griffon cub. Twilight felt dizzy and let out a long breath. The griffon was really intimidating. Celestia came closer to her faithful student.

“Are you okay Twilight?”

“It was nothing, he just shook me a little. He can be oppressive when he wants.”

“There is no doubt that he is the Marshall of Warclaw’s Armies. He had nations bent at his talons in the past.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed, he casted a glance at Andraste. He was comforting the young prince. ‘Him, a Marshall?’ She tried to picture him going to war, armored and armed to the teeth, slashing through his enemies. A question popped in her mind, ‘how many marks the griffon had on his tally?’

“By the way,” Celestia added, mindful. “Sir Andraste is going to Ponyville today and will come back tomorrow afternoon to be present the day after it for the Gathering. He has… business with… Rainbow.”

Twilight goggled. She wanted to protest but Celestia put her hoof on her lips.

“I want you to go with him while everypony else remains to look after the Prince,” She paused. “I don’t want you to spy on him, just to make sure he stays out of trouble.”

Twilight wondered how she could best such imposing being. She doubted even her magic would be any help. Glancing back to the griffon’s commander, she saw him tie back the dark bracelet on Armand’s wrist and ruffled his feathers, a paternal smile clearing his face.
He left his charge to the good care of the others and trotted to Twilight.

“Well, whenever you're ready to leave,” Andraste asked.

“But we haven’t booked a train or a chariot.”

“You’ve got wings, haven’t you Princess?”

She hesitantly nodded.

“Well here we go!” Andraste shouted.

Folding his toga, the griffon stretched his wings. Stares scanned him as he displayed multiples scars and old wounds he had masterfully hidden until now. Few seemed to be due to burns, other were clearly the traces of different kinds of edges and finally an eerie burned round mark plagued his shoulder. The weapon used had pierced him from side to side. Twilight thought a fine spear should have been used against him.

“I… I still don’t know how to fly.”

“Better now than ever!” He sniggered with an amused smirk on his lips.

He grabbed Twilight and held her under his arm. Spreading his wings, he took off in a heavy blow. Celestia giggled when she heard Twilight calling for help as she disappeared with the griffon behind the clouds.

“Dost thou think she will be okay?” Luna risked herself.

“Of course Luna, Sir Andraste is one of the wisest griffons. He won’t harm anybody and he owes me some favors. The only thing that titillates me is how he has pulled everything off. He didn’t even say why he wanted to see Rainbow.”

“He is rather… dangerous.”

Celestia nodded silently and then withdrew to Armand. And with everypony in tow, she led him to his suite.
High above the cloud, Twilight’s cry for help faded and, between the walls of the Canterlot mazes, only the chirping of the birds could now be heard.

Sep. 2013 - The Storyteller - Prologue

Author's Note

Short Description:
The best place by the fire is always kept for the storyteller.

Long Description:
When the dreary evening comes and the silent night is dark; when the pale moon swells at his peak and Midnight’s bells toll in the countryside, Ponies remember that the best spot by the biased fire is the chair of the storyteller.

ϗ Ω ϗ

This is a collection of one-shots that have a background story-line you can follow or not.

Sep. 2013 - The Storyteller - Prologue

Prologue. The Initial Perjury

The fire crackles in the hearth, spreading an orange light on the scarce furniture the room displays. The biased flames cast eerie shadows on the walls, for your greatest disappointment. You feel your feet shivering slightly.
Next to the chimney, a comfy chair turns its back on you. A flimsy respiration wobbles in the air, whistling gently.

A carpet sprawls on the ground, covering the tiles with a red fabric showing no pattern. This rug is old, probably antic and is sickly covered with dust. Everything in this place is soiled with a layer of specks. You sneeze.
The time has passed by and no care has been brought into the chamber you are now contemplating.

A bark echoes, instantly followed by a snap. You focus and after a short moment of stress, your heart drops in your chest. The whistling has stopped abruptly and angry growls have taken its spot. You have disturbed somepony’s sleep apparently.

“Oh, keep quiet Winona,” a feminine but authoritative voice calls.

The dog lies low, her brows arching sadly. The silence grows… again.
A sight of awe erupts, joining the spluttering of the fire into the quest to slay the unsettling sullenness. Two hooves start petting Winona’s furry chin. The dog drools slightly. Her tail wobbles back and forth with happiness.

“I’m waiting for an important guest, Winona, and I need some rest before this journey starts, you see. Don’t bother my sleep anymore,” the crooked voice engages. “…or I send you back to Applejack.”

Winona begins whining, folding her ears on her eyes.

“Good dog, I know you want to hear my stories,” the pony satisfies the animal which sticks his tongue out, waiting for another compliment.

You step inside the room… noisily. Your shoes squeal on the parquet floor. Cursing yourself, you grit your teeth, disappointed by your clumsiness. You are definitely not meant to master infiltration, or simply, just being quiet.
The pony chair rotates, creaking on the floor in an awkward squeak. The mare tilts her head. Backlit, you cannot determine her features, but her two eyes seem glowing in the chiaroscuro room. You held back a gag of malaise. These two eyes scrutinise you… like a beacon of light aimed in your precise direction, unveiling your true desires. You feel pierced from side to side by an overwhelming stare.

“You’re finally here,” the voice greets strangely –she turns her face toward Winona –. “You’re an impressive house-dog in the end, Mommy would be so proud.”

The dog barks in response and starts hopping around the leather seat, yapping with contentment.
The pony’s eyes slide back on you. They stare right at your face, keeping a record of your hair and eyes colours. Then they slowly, maniacally, pass over your clothes, your arms, your hands, your… fingers. She smirks.

“I dreamed up of something more… impressive,” She gives you a cutting laugh. “Celestia watches me I won’t fantasize anymore on foreigners.”

With a quick movement of her hoof she invites you to sit down by the fire, but still detached from her position. You sit cross-legged quietly. A long silent takes possession of the ambience, stagnant between the mare and you. She has turned her chair to face the fire directly.
You notice her eyes are not glowing. The glimmer had come from the slim tinted glasses put on her muzzle.

You wince. The fire has just flapped, blowing a dry and burning breath on your legs and laps. You feel your skin and hairs sear a little.

“Well,” The mare cuts into the disturbing atmosphere. “You came to hear my stories, didn’t you?”

You nod timidly. She smiles.
Her teeth are pure white, reflecting the lights of the fire. At her left hoof is dangling a glass of scotch. The ice cubes twinkle inside as she lifts it to her mouth, drinking a quarter of a mouthful.

“You want my stories? I hope you have something in exchange.”

You remember and you rack your pockets loudly. The mare’s ears twitch from the noise. She frowns at you, unsure if you doing it deliberately. But it is finally your turn to smile. Pulling it out, you show her a huge golden coin shining proudly between your thumb and your forefinger, thanks to the gleam of the fire.
She snatches it with greed from your tips, puts it in her mouth and bites the item worth a hundred bits. Your smile grows from ear to ear; you know the metal is still fresh out of the mine. Now you can do business with the teller.

Suddenly, she throws it into the fire, and without an ounce of common sense you would have follow it with your hands…
With despair, you watch the coin slowly melting between the embers, a hole drilled in your heart. You turn your eyes to the mare, full of tears. You are broke now, it was your last coin. How can you pay the storyteller now?

“Nopony and… nobody will ever buy me,” she states angrily. “I don’t trade with a simple-minded who thinks everything has a price.”

Her gaze glares daggers at you and her spooky voice shakes your inner being.
A drop of sweat rolls on your forehead and slides in your left eye. You wince and rub your eyelid.

“Once I’m finished,” she hisses like a snake, her eyes back on the fading flames. “You’ll tell me your story, what you really hide inside your heart, in the folds of your soul.”

She sighs sternly and gives you a last glance, nearly distrustful. Cringed on your feet, you hold your knees tight in your arms and you bite your thumbs.

“But now, it is time for my collection of lines. Focus young creature, I won’t tell them twice. They may be grim; they may be tragic or comic, sad or initiating, disgusting or captivating… but they remain stories.”

She takes a deep breath.

“And as each single creature wandering on this world, they deserve to be listened to… because they are their legacy, my heritage, and your lesson.”

She brandishes her glass of whisky over her muzzle and keeps stirring it for a long, heart-shaking moment.

All of a sudden, she throws the liquor in the fire with a creepy violence. You hold your respiration, fearful, waiting for the splash on the burning logs and the waiving vapours. Will you have some on your legs? Will it burn?

Before even reaching the hearth, the liquid turns into sparkles, floating in the air and blurring your vision. Winona moans with displeasure, hiding her eyes behind her both legs. Scintillations of gold, silver and brass fly in front of your eyes, sink into your garment and meddle in your mind. Sleepiness narrows its claws on your soul and you feel your eyelids fell swiftly.
Your ears catch a last declaration of the mare.

“Dive well, nestling.”

Your body is enshrouded by a thick darkness. You finally close your eyes. The silent is absolute, cradling you toward unknown countries.

Sep. 2013 - The Storyteller - First Perjury, A Feast of Liars

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Sep. 2013 - The Storyteller - Second Perjury, Our Music Will Be Graphic

The pegasi had gathered clouds over Ponyville. The day was dark and no shafts of sunlight succeeded in piercing the lid suspended over everypony’s head. It would shower down in the afternoon.

Oh Celestia, she knew she hated the rain! Drumming over the slates of her roof, the staccato of the downpour was of no assistance when she wanted to focus. It did nothing but distracting her from performing anything productive. It was the same for the optional extras this dull weather displayed… bolts of lightning, hailstones and other joyful phenomenons.

At least, the mare thought, the heat wave of the past days had vanished. She was now walking outside under the refreshing shadows of the trees bordering the Everfree Forest. For the first time since three days, he was not sweating a river. She thanked Celestia for this blessing. These two weeks-long holidays in Ponyville were of the utmost relief.

The agitation of Canterlot had her beaten down. Here she could procrastinate, careless about tomorrow, deaf to the noise of the city and ponies. She tip toed under the low branches of the Everfree. The discordant creasing the rustling leaves played was a sweet natural melody. She was happy; the grim marbled walls of Canterlot had deprived her from any connection with nature.
The wind blew through her mane, ruffling her fur. A frisson spread under her skin. She smiled.

She was approaching the Pond of the Two Rocks. It was a location she had seen earlier on the map the library pony had gently given to her. What was her name already? Was it Twilight? She shrugged; it was not her business anymore. The pool was isolated from the town. There, she was expecting that nopony would disturb her meditation.
The mellow chirruping of a spring reached her ears. They twitched swiftly.

In a hollow carved between two imposing boulders of granite was jetting a small stream of crystalline water. The pond was not big, but still vast enough to welcome a group of pony. And to the mare’s greater satisfaction, the place was empty of sentient life that could have ruined her session.

She untied her saddlebags. It slid down her stiffs and fell loudly on the shingles that surrounded the tarn. She could see the bottom of the pool, proof that the water was so clean it was a shame to soil such peaceful haven of rest.

She slithered in and shivered as the coldness nibbled her hooves. It was so cold it felt like thousands of needles was picking her flanks. She loved this numbing feeling. She closed her eyes, leaving her body slid under the water.
Only her face was surfacing. The waves she had created splashed softly on her cheeks and ears, making the air popped on her eardrums.

She gave a long and deep breath. She kept the air in her lungs for few seconds and exhaled noisily, casting bubbles on the top of the pool. It reminded her blowing through a straw in a soda, she smirked.
She was alone, peaceful. Hence she could act childishly; nopony was going to reprimand her for her uncouth manners. And it was better that way she convinced herself. She had holidays and she was going to prey on them without any restrain.

She let her spirit fly away. A dreamless catnap cradled her features and hooves. She fell asleep…

Something hurtled down in the pound with a heavy splash. Waves submerged the mare’s face. She snapped out of her sleep and gasped for air. She stood clumsily on her hooves as she hauled herself out of the pond. She coughed the water she had inhaled out of her throat. She cleared it, struggling with her lungs.
Wiping droplets of water off her eyes, she stared at the pool. Her vision was blurred. The pond had turned murky. She could not hold her disgust. She had been sleeping in that?! Her mouth distorted in horror.
Her mind was then numbed by another compelling question. What had fallen in the pond?

The waves licked her forehooves with a disturbing gurgling. Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks, trying to scan the water. She craned her head over it until her face nearly touched the surface. Seeing deeper than an inch was an impossible task to fulfil. Nothing, there was clearly nothing.

A wet grating erupted at her left side. She turned, looked at it… blinked… looked at it a second time to be sure. She shrieked.

A strange creature was floating just under the top of the water; no bubble was running out of its mouth. It was inanimate, drowned. The mare’s eyes widened. She shoveled her fear deep inside and gulped. She put her hooves on the creature’s garments and pulled it out. She dragged it on the beach. The creature was motionless. Two times her size, it was completely shaved and different objects could be found in its pockets.

He was without a doubt a sentient creature. And he was apparently dead, or at least unconscious.

Like her, he had a dark skin. Hers was grey, his was dark brown.
He had a small muzzle, placed over a large mouth where she saw aligned white teeth. His eyes were closed. She refused to risk herself lifting his lids up. The mare’s curiosity was a real craving. She put her hooves on his chest and squeezed it multiple times. Water dripped out of his throat. It made the mare freak out. Was he really dead? He couldn’t, not now, not now with her!

She approached her mouth from his, ready to blow air into his lungs. She was going to do it. Their lips nearly touched.
A small breath tickled her muzzle.

“It’s alive!” she erupted in joy.

Indeed, the creature was alive. The mare smirked for that she had not to kiss him.

His thorax swelled and shrunk continuously. Yet, the animal breathed with difficulty, hissing. She reached his dangling head and moved it in a position that would ease his respiration. Withdrawing her hooves back she felt something thick and slimy stuck on it. She looked with a knot in her stomach. It was blood.

Fear sparked in her heart. She stepped back and fell on her flank.
She stayed prostrate for minutes. She kept staring at a small dash of blood sprawling on the pebbles, awestruck. It was coming from the back of his head.
She gulped. Taking her courage in her hooves, she lifted the creature’s head uneasily. Her feature liquefied. A part of the neck vertebras were seemingly broken. Small holes were visible at the top of his neck, dripping blood. This left a limp impression in the mare’s hooves. She tried to carry him up. The head just fell back hideously in a crack of bones. She winced in pain for the primate.

Unhooking the pink bowtie circling her neck, she clipped it on the poor creature, trying miserably to hold back his dangling skull. She felt nauseous; she could not move him as it would deal him the last blow.

After a moment passed thinking, she made a decision. She dashed in Ponyville’s direction, still wet from her break in the pond. Breaking her speed record, she rushed to the horsepital. She flung the door inward, grabbed the closest careponies and with a stretcher led them to the pool.

Blood had tainted all the ground under the creature’s back. He had not moved an inch, pitifully lying like a disarticulated doll. The ponies accompanying the mare shivered when they lay their eyes on him. They called him a monster.
Their duty was the priority. They put aside their worries and moved the creature on the stretcher. Coming back took longer and the stretcher turned red on the way, blood leaked over its sides.

The creature was quickly transferred in the intensive care department. The mare found herself alone in the waiting room. She sighed. She will need a new Bow Tie. Her hind legs failed her. She collapsed on a chair of the waiting room. She stayed there, despondent for an uncertain period of time. She let her head dangle over the small headrest.

She caught the blood coagulating on her hooves. She hauled herself out of her stupor, closed her eyes and tried to erase this vision from her retina. Her hooves started shaking.

She tried to wipe the blood on a towel disposed on the nearest table. She could hardly calm herself. The blood had stained her fur in some areas where she could not get rid of at the moment.

“Tavia!? What happened?” a voice slashed through the unsettling silence.

Ready to burst in tears, still holding the blood-soaked towel, Octavia turned back and saw Vinyl Scratch. Her roommate had dropped her flashy sunglasses. Her worried eyes were staring at her through her blood red contact lens. Octavia swallowed, she will never get used to these geeky accessories.

Her shivers faded away and she sought reassurance in Vinyl’s hooves. She explained her plight. Correction, she sobbed her plight. She told her everything. Napping, she had left her spirit derive. She missed the creature’s fall. Somehow, Octavia felt responsible for him. She kept thinking she could have save him.

“If I had my eyes opened,” Octavia sobbed. “I would have seen him… helped him before he dived. I would have seen his assailant!”

“Assailant?” Vinyl blabbered.

“He was bleeding from his neck. And there were these… marks,” Octavia hiccupped. “I think he had been attacked.”

Vinyl welcomed this terrifying news with a comprehensive silence. The Everfree Forest was a dangerous place after all. The relevant question was why Octavia went there.
They both looked at the door leading to the surgical unit, they had just heard hoofsteps. The gates opened and a nurse entered in the room. The small plaque she had pinned on her white coat announced she was called Healing Rhyme.

“Your pet is safe Miss…”

“It’s not my pet,” Octavia stammered in horror, willing to stop any misunderstanding. “I was at the Pond of the Two Rocks when it… he fell in. He was bleeding.”

The nurse bit her tongue.

“Yeah… Exactly, we may have a problem about that…” the nurse hesitated, swallowing her saliva.

“What?” Vinyl cut in the conversation.

“Well…” Healing Rhyme said with doubts. She stared outside the window, only to see depressing clouds. “It’s better I show it to you.”

Vinyl and Octavia stared at each other, worried. They followed the nurse to the reanimating unit.
The creature was resting alone on a bed whose linens had just been changed. Far too tall for the dimension of the bed, the nurses had folded the creature’s legs under the sheets. Of course it was not recommended for injured ponies, but the horsepital had no furniture adapted to him. Of course… he could be anything but a pony.

Octavia dried her tears.

Now lit by the ceiling light bulbs, the creature’s features were apparent. He was approximately five feet and seven inches high. He was nearly shaved from tip to tip, except for a thin greyish mane sprouting on the top of its head. He had a dark skin, dark brown to be accurate. It was wrinkled by the time. He was undoubtedly old. His eyes were still closed.

Wrapped in medical outfits, his original garments were folded by his side on a neighbouring table. It was a suit. The coat was as grey as dirt, as was the trousers. A white shirt came as an extra, accompanied by a black tie. There was also a brass necklace where dangled a medallion. Opening it, Vinyl and her friend glanced at a small picture, the photo of a woman for sure. She was smiling.
Octavia and Vinyl put back the medallion on the table, closing it with a quasi-religious respect.

Finally, they peered at the last object found in his clothes. It had a strange rectangular shape, and was hollowed by a series of symmetric holes. Its tips showed minuscule brass rivets and its top and bottom were seemingly made of silver. On it was engraved a simple word.

“Do you think it’s his name?” Octavia arched a brow.

Vinyl shrugged, she titled her head over her friend’s shoulder. She read.

“Hohner…” Vinyl whispered.

Clueless, Vinyl sighed with strength. She blew air on the object. A small twinkling broke the omerta between her and her friend. Octavia dropped it with a gasp of surprise. The two mares looked in each other’s eyes. Vinyl lowered her hooves and took the… thing clumsily, struggling to keep it tight between them.
She raised the object to her lips, inhaled slowly and held the air for a moment. She glanced at her friend, seeking for an approval. Octavia looked at her, perplexed but thrilled. Vinyl blew through the holes of the rectangular tool.
A strange vibrating sound rose. Octavia gratify the object with a genuine smile. It was a music instrument! Vinyl smirked with amusement seeing that after hours of stress, Octavia had finally managed to smile.

Vinyl was also delighted to see something new. Maybe it would be of any interest for her, the true and only one DJ-PON3.
Octavia snatched the object from Vinyl’s hooves. It was her turn to play, and she succeeded in forcing notes out of it. With the first victory she decided to not give in. She fanned a second time through the opening of the instrument, getting a minor chord. A third time, the instrument gave a vibrant and alien scale. A fourth time, she finally obtained an octave. Curious, she tried to produce a far more constructed music through the instrument, improvisation and thrill of discovery as sole guides.

She pouted, unable to find the same sonorities her violin and cello could produce. The instrument was perfect for a traveller. For it was simple enough and she had not expected too much from it. But the fun she experimented with the object was still there.

Looking back at the creature, Octavia asked herself where he came from. She knew she would not get an answer, but it was worth the shot, wasn’t it?

“We have few hopes for him…” A spooky voice snaked behind Octavia’s back.

She jumped in Vinyl’s hooves, startled.

Grinning amusingly, Octavia stepped on the ground after Vinyl had given her a narrowed stare. DJ-PON3 was not entertained. Octavia’s smile died quickly when she lay her eyes on the pony who had scared her. He was a stallion, the surgeon who had dealt with the creature earlier. He was visibly tired.

“His brainstem has been damaged by something I can’t identify…”

Octavia glanced at the bed where the inanimate shape was still breathing slowly, unaware of the goings-on around him. Nurses were setting up brain and heart monitors; they had to keep records of the creature; for a medical purpose of course. Octavia suspected it was also driven by some scientific interest.

“I also sent a letter to Canterlot,” the surgeon added staidly, –She knew it –. “This primate is all brand new for me… Maybe they know something. I also found the traces of unknown psychotropic in his blood.”

Having to watch the lost stares of the two mares in front of him, he sighed deeply. If he had no manners, he would have sunk his hoof in his face and slid it off.

“Believe me. He’ll never wake up from these wounds. He… it is an empty shell right now.”

As the surgeon’s shift was coming to an end, he withdrew in an adjoining room. Octavia and Vinyl looked to the emptiness of space in front of them. Minutes passed before Vinyl raised her voice.

“I gotta go, I have much to do and your small adventure did not ease everything for me.”

“You’re not abandoning me, are you?” Octavia pleaded.

“I have to, Moon Dancer hosts a party tonight. She hired me for the music,” Vinyl replied. Embarrassed, she preferred to change of subject. “Don’t overcommit yourself, you don’t even know him. Go back home. Wait for Canterlot’s help tomorrow.”

Octavia grunted. Feeling betrayed, she moved away from Vinyl with a look of disapproval. She came back at the creature’s bedside and stopped. She drew her hooves toward the silver plated instrument. She was fascinated by the small object.
Vinyl shrugged and left Octavia alone in the room, face to face with the dead-like entity.

Swiftly, Octavia lifted the instrument to her mouth. She tried to play. It was hard to hoofle.

The instrument was clearly not meant to be played by ponies. Studying the creature, Octavia had seen his fingers, similar to dragons’, griffons’ and minotaurs’. These species were more adapted to… handle the object. But she refused to be beat down by something this simple.
For hours she tried to produce a perfect melody, and the night had fallen on Equestria when she finally got something decent out of it.

This day, the horsepital was impressively empty and this was why no nurse came to make her lower the volume of the noisy gadget. Alone, even if the creature was ‘sleeping’ next to her. She went back to her musical meditation.

She had finally performed something kindly interesting. Hours of training had exhausted her and she wanted to sleep. She had not even the conviction to come back home. Slacking around, she went in a neighbouring room. It was empty of life. Octavia took a chair and made it slide on the floor as she came back to the creature’s room. Sitting in, she put the instrument by her side and kept looking at the bed and its occupant with a stalking interest.
In the darkness, the sandmare spread her magic over Octavia and sleep came. She sunk into her dreams without noticing that a small jolt had sparked on the brain monitor.

There was no sun, no moon, no cloud, no shadow, no sky… no ground… nothing.

Everything in that place was absolutely bright. Blank as a white sheet. The silence was deadening. Octavia sighed. No air left her lungs. She gasped with anxiousness, choking instinctively for oxygen. Her new born fear gained in momentum as she also understood she was mute. She struggled, suspended in this blankness, trembling and shaking until minutes passed and that she finally noticed she was not given to breath. Her animal survival reflex was useless here. She did not need to breath. It was… bizarre.

She calmed down, Octavia knew now she was within a dream. She raised her hooves before her eyes. She panicked.

Her harmonious features and contours had been gummed out like a character on an artist’s sketchbook. She was only formed of imperfect traits and sticks likely traced with a bold pencil. She wished she had a mirror, but she imagined herself perfectly well. She should look like a stickmare, or something similar.

Octavia tried to walk. For her greatest amazement… and horror, she was not walking, not at all. Each stepped forward she felt like erased from this blank universe, only to be redrawn further… like on a preliminary sketch of a cartoon. She shivered.

Unable to breath, Unable to talk, she could not express her fear or her emotions. She was mute and naked… Yes, she felt truly naked, here in this white soundless nothingness.

Stunned, she put a hoof in front of the other and slowly began to move forward with no point A from where to go… And no point B for where to trot.
Octavia lost track of time, she was just going forward, step by step with an erratic pace in this impossible universe. Strangely, she found herself unable to tell if this dream was three-dimensional or not. She had been flung somewhere else, where the common rules she was used to were absolutely different. Her mind boggled all along the trail.

A minuscule point popped far in the distance. But in the emptiness surrounding her, it was like an elephant in a room. If Octavia had eyes, they would have swelled to a cartoonish size. She dashed, rushing toward the form. She ran for what seemed to be hours.

She found him…

The creature was here; or at least a badly drawn sketch of him. A round white face deprived of all feature was standing over a long, slender and creepy body only formed of long black sticks. His hands were talon-like, crooked and twisted in an unnatural position. Even in his craned stance, he was still higher than Octavia. And he was wobbling on his skeletal legs.
A monster from under the bed… It was the closest comparison Octavia could do. She trembled and saw that specks of her drawn contours faded in the blankness with her shakes. She tried regaining her composure. If she could, she would have swallowed her saliva. But she was a sketch too…

The creature turned his head in the newcomer’s direction. Something was facing him. Was it a pony? He could not tell. The animal’s face was gummed away, showing only outlines. He witnessed the crackling and withering contours of this mute animal. He raised his hand, trying to appease this communicative conundrum. He looked at his tips. He was hideous with these drawn claws… His shoulders dropped slightly. He tried to speak, nothing… He was powerless.

Octavia wanted to talk, but this simple right had been forbidden to her. She was eager to communicate… but she was trapped. And the creature was right in front of her, at less than a hoof range.
She tried to reach him. Her outlines met the creature’s sketches. They met but did not touch. Octavia passed through him like she would have with vapours. She tried again. Nothing happened.

They were so close, but paradoxically so far away from each other.

Octavia wanted to scream her sorrow, but she was not able to. She could not even cry. Trapped in… Locked in… She curled in front of the creature.

The creature stepped back. His hand was hesitant, trembling. However, an idea sparked in his mind.

Octavia heard a scratch. Being deaf for hours was mind-shattering. For she who was a musician, imagining her life deaf and cut from any kind of music was something she could not stand. She would rather die than being deaf.
This is why this small scratch, like a pencil slithering on a sheet was her deliverance. From her cringed position she raised her head.

With the tip of his finger the creature was drawing something out of the emptiness facing him. Creating lines, curves, lengths, heights and depths he snatched from the blank page an object. It was a parabolic cone which strangely curved pipe was armed with a dozen of keys and minuscule levers. One of its ends was ended by a bended mouthpiece; the other one was a large opening.

Octavia’s brows rose. Was it…

A mouth loomed on the creature’s face. A widened unsettling smile drew on its newly found face, showing impressive aligned teeth. He raised the mouthpiece to his lips.

A smooth and grave tone shattered the silence like a kick in a mirror. Octavia listened to the melody blooming from the instrument. She was bewildered. The music blossomed in the air and imprinted tones from outer Equestria in her eardrums. Octavia was speechless; the music was so slow, so sad. Eerie breed of an organ, an oboe and a clarinet, the tones of the instrument enshrouded her. She wanted to believe that the notes would take shape and carry her away.

And then, something eerie happened.

The music pierced the veil surrounding the strange couple. From the bell of the instrument lower section, minuscule sketch lines flew away like incarnated notes. Stirring in the air, the lines shaped under Octavia’s hooves. Drawings formed, colourless.

A vast meadow of grass sprawled. A peach sprouted behind the musician. Octavia was on her flank, witnessing a music giving birth to some new environment. She forgot about everything and listened.

A wrong chord clacked in the air. Octavia blinked, all the drawings vanished in the tow of the discordance.

She turned back to the creature. The instrument had disappeared from his hands. Akimbo, he was crooker than before. Octavia swore he was crying. Drying invisible tears, he lifted his head and fixed the mare… if only he had eyes.
With his fingers, he drew something out of the air again. He took his creation in his hands and walked to the mare. He delivered her his work.
It was… a violin.

With quivers, Octavia took the bow, held out by the slender creature. Stabilizing the violin under her chin, she put her left hoof on its neck. With the bow, she gave a vibrato.

Colours exploded around her.

Octavia woke up in a violent jerk and bounced out of her chair.
Looking behind she saw Healing Rhyme. Her blurred vision set upon Luna, standing next to the nurse. Octavia’s eyes widened as she gargled with her limp maw, trying to kick some straightness in herself.
Luna’s stare was grieved; she had not slept much this night.

“Hello Octavia!” The princess spoke with her Canterlot voice.

The cellist smiled gently. She had played hundreds of times for Canterlot’s urbane meetings. There, she had come up to know the princess personally.

“How are you Princess?”

“Not very well, We were watching upon the world tonight and something disturbed Us… but We couldn’t find the origin of such perturbation.”

With discomfort, Octavia gave the princess a fake smile. Once the Princess had turned away her interrogating stare, Octavia winced. She tried to remember the strange dream she just had. It was… sketchy and a numbing feeling was stuck in her stomach. She wanted to put her dreams into words, but she was incapable to do so. Sorting out the pain paralyzing her mind was an impossible task.

Healing Rhyme blabbered. The nurse was in front of the brain monitor. She attracted the alicorn’s and the cellist’s attention.

“He is alive!”

Luna raised a brow and got closer to the bed, Octavia in her tow. The creature was inanimate, ghoulish even with his dark skin. Without any monitor, nopony would have been able to discern if he was dead or not. To back her words, Healing Rhyme tapped the screen of the monitor she was looking at. Small signs were jolting on its screen.
Thereafter, she palpated the creature’s cheeks. He was still spineless.

“Why isn’t he moving?” Healing Rhyme said with a shrug. “At least, he is listening.”

Luna grabbed the mare and dragged her and Octavia out. A cloud had passed on her face. A knot was tightened in her stomach. The creature’s state had brought back some harsh memories from a distant past in the alicorn’s mind. Eyelids half closed she sighed with difficulty.

“Because he is locked-In…” She whispered.

Healing Rhyme’s eyes swelled. She glanced back in the room. The “lock-in Syndrom” was a specific case caretaking ponies studied in school. It was too rare to witness it. It was a kind of medical urban legend. The patients were literally locked inside their own body without any possibility to communicate with the ‘outside’, for the rest of their life…
To be trapped until death did his soul and his body part. Thinking about it, Octavia thought it was even worse than death… What if the creature’s nose was tickling?

“Poor little creature, we don’t even know what… who he is, and he is unable to speak,” Healing Rhyme complained. “What an ordeal.”

Luna nodded slowly. Compared to Healing Rhyme, she had seen similar cases during her long span of life. But they always had family to take care of them. This primate was alone… desperately alone. He would pass away rapidly anyway. The ‘locked-in’ patients were always short-lived. Cut off the outside, forced to listen and forbidden to answer their spirit would wither fast. Then they would let themselves die. Carrying on was too difficult to… handle.

Octavia shivered. Dhe could not imagine how terrific it should be to be trapped like this. To be in a dark cage without windows and with only one-sided loopholes. She was not claustrophobic, but she could not imagine it without felling a heavy pull falling down her stomach.
She swallowed; she remembered the dream of the last night. Was it something she had made up or something else? She wondered. Luna, the Princess of the dreamlands, had said nothing. It was intriguing.
The musician tried to convince herself it was just a dream, nothing more, noting less.

Five minutes later, Octavia and Luna were forced to leave as the creature’s state had to be checked. His hygiene was also an important matter.

Octavia went back to her home and passed the whole day studying the primate’s instrument she had stolen. Even more gratifying, Vinyl weren’t there to criticize her about how her manners were only a façade. The DJ pony must have blacked-out during last-night party.

Octavia came back in the horsepital in the middle of the night. She had kept with her the instrument. She also brought her violin, well hidden within its case. In his room, the creature had not moved an inch. He was remarkable of stillness. Like in last night dream, she secured the violin with its chinrest and paced a small suit with the bow. The tone was low-pitched, deafened. The music was filled with sadness.
The vibration in the air reached the sleeping creature. Octavia gave up after fifty minutes of playing… She had no reaction from him.
She was tired. And, as her violin drifted off her hooves, she slumped into the chair she had left the morning before. She sunk again in her dreams, eager to meet again the creature.

His stick shaped silhouette was still here, waiting. At this occasion, he was sat in front of something she knew very well. It was a grand piano, with straight and blackened features. The creature had taken his time drawing it out of nothing. And to his avail, Octavia confessed he did a very good job.
The creature’s head turned and saw the cellist’s outlines traced in the blankness. He smiled. He had also disposed a Cello, leaning against the piano side.

There was no meadow, no tree, nothing… Only he, she and both of their instruments. With her hoof, Octavia mimicked the creature and drew a comfy chair in the air. She settled in and adjusted the cello.

She looked at the sketched primate. His face still distorted like a joker, he nodded.

Octavia slid her bow on the chords. The grave and stern lament of the cello resonated in its belly. The rhythm grew and fastened until Octavia was creating rousing sonority.
The creature head’s wobbled in parallel to the notes. His fingers spanned on the piano keyboard. And he started playing.

It was… majestic. It was not only the music. Octavia was used to incredible pieces of work.

Here, music was giving birth to life itself. His music shaped the world, hers coloured it. Grass, trees, sky, clouds, animals, mountains, caves, ruins… Octavia felt like a goddess. She had no doubt he was felling the same.
She started seeing change on her too. Her poorly drawn features transformed. She felt fur growing on her new dark skin. Her mane sprouted off her head, her pink and white tie made its way to her neck, her cello shone under the sun to which she had given its yellow light. Nibbling her lips, she wiped with her elbow a tear rolling down her eyes.
It was beautiful.

Leaded by the lively pace of the creature, she saw appearing a stage around her. A micro popped as the shape of five red coated females of the creature’s species started singing in front of Octavia. Their lips were only moving, locked in muteness as the lyrics seemed to be held back.

Around the stage appeared rows of seats overwhelmed by a mass of beings of the same kind of the pianist. They applauded silently. Nothing but the carnal mix of their music from two different worlds was given to hear.

She looked at her partner, still behind his instrument. He was stomping the ground with his feet in a fit of joy. His smiling was golden and his features had come back. He was old, wrinkled and was hiding his eyes behind heavy sunglasses. But he was smiling. And this smile was worth a life of maniac researches for happiness. Even broken as he seemed, even blind and even lost in another world, he was smiling…

Octavia burst into tears that dropped on her cello, drumming like downpour. In the background Octavia heard the sound of the instrument the creature played the night before. Overall, Octavia experienced a new kind of music. Her spirit was flooded with questions and ideas. She was crying… She, Octavia, had found a muse.

The beat slowed down abruptly, dissipating the warm it had invigorated in her heart. Forced to follow, Octavia peered at the change around her. The plants withered horribly, yellowing under a dryness that could not affect her. The time seemed to accelerate, seasons passed and the tree in the creature’s back crackled and died quickly.

Night had risen and the moon was going down in the horizon. The piano produced low-pitches notes, located in the bass; grave, classical and flat.
The funky music the creature had created seconds ago was now dead. Octavia felt bluesy. She put aside her bow and using the biggest chord of her cello, she played pizzicato. She pulled the string with her hoof. Sadness was paving the melodic lament. He braked. The music lost in strength until a last note came in a last pitiful whisper. The air stopped vibrating and the atmosphere turned atone.

Silence was sometimes a key part of the music.

The creature’s hesitant hands trembled over the board. He brushed over it, undecided.
He put his thumb and forefinger over the acute notes. He made the piano twinkle in a shrill and drifted his left hand over the low notes. He gave birth to a small melody, amplifying gradually.

Octavia’s eyes widened, she stopped playing again. Over the horizon was growing a light. And the more the rhythm was gaining in momentum, the brighter the light.

A staccato of sounds pierced the silence under the tips of the creature’s hands. It was baroque, powerful. He drummed over the piano and the light erupted over the sharped mountains far away.

Octavia winced, drowned in the light. The brightness was burning her fur. The music grew into an orchestral eruption of sounds.
Grabbing her bow she joined the creature. The rhythm speeded up as they raised the sun over the clouds. The mare and the pianist spread life and joy over the once sleepy fields. Flowers and buds blossomed in hundreds of colours, yellow, white, pink, red, purple, blue… Birds flew in the airs, chirruping with her music.

Aback, Octavia’s warm tears glimmered with the beams of light. She knew she was near the climax of the piece. The staccato had changed into a flow of notes, hard, light, mellow, piercing… eerie.

The spectacle given to her eyes overwhelmed her senses.

“Did you see that?” She cried in joy, hearing for the first time her voice in this plan.

“I don’t see it… I live it!” The creature replied with a genuine laughter.

Octavia missed her next note as she turned back, her eyes glaring with hopes and joy. The creature had a grave voice, powerful and paternal. He raised his hands over his head and thrust his fingers in a final major chord.
A last wave of sounds exploded in the air like a shockwave, filling everything with a last pinch of colour and light.

The vibration amplified and the dream shattered in hundreds of shards, like a broken mirror. Everything sunk into darkness.

Octavia took a deep breath, gasping for air. Her ribcage was crushed under a heavy anxiousness. She coughed and groped around as she slowly regained her senses. The black veil covering her vision faded and she found herself lying poorly on the tiled ground. She was alone in the room, again. Through the curtain she could see small shafts of light. They passed within the holes and opening of the fabric, dispersing various luminous spots on the wall.

Panting, Octavia stood up on her hooves with violent shakes. Queasiness dragged down her happiness. She slowly set up her stare over the creature. His hand was moving. It was slow, minuscule. But… it was still something.

Octavia hauled herself on the bed, rubbing the creature’s cheek with excitement and fear. He should be locked-in like Luna had explained earlier. But right now, the creature was moving his hand, drumming on the bed cover.

Octavia screamed for somepony to come and give her a hoof. Howling like a timberwolf, she squeezed the creature’s thorax by accident. Crying out in stupor, fearing she had hurt him, she tried to sidestep and mixed up her hooves in the linens. She fell over the primate’s knees and ripped off the bed sheets. She hit the floor in a hard bang.
Stunned, she raised her spine and put her hooves by the creature’s side.
The sunbeams showing through the curtains illuminated Octavia’s tears rolling from her left eye. Her lips shivered from the pain, the bemused emotion and the hopes she was feeding for the creature’s miraculous recovery.
Octavia heard hurried hoofsteps coming behind the door. The gate broke in and in the threshold stood Healing Rhyme. Octavia glanced back and saw the nurse’s horribly widened eyes. She was looking behind Octavia’s spine.

Slowly, Octavia turned over with an expressed unease. She was scared.

Fingers gently touched her muzzle and drifted over her skin. Rough and withered, the palm of his hand pressed softly on her face. He was palpating her, seeking for something. The truth struck Octavia. Looking at the creature’s eyes, she only stared at two brown irises veiled by a whitish surface. He was definitely blind.

Even if he could move his arm, the rest of his body was motionless. He had his eyes open, but his face was glued to its current position, away from Octavia’s direction. Somehow, his hand was the extension of its vision, and it continued to probe Octavia’s features. Climbing up to her forehead, passing through Octavia’s smooth mane, the hand drew with its tips a complete tour of her face. It was tickling, and strange.
The creature slid to her chin, feeling the fur on his fingerprints. Octavia swore he was smiling. A twitch plagued a part of the creature’s mouth. He started crying.

“It was a pleasure to hit the road with yah…” The creature hissed slowly through his paralysed maw. “Thanks… I’ve got to hit the road alone now. I won’t come back no more Margie.”

The words died in his gritted teeth and a last breath forced its way out of his lungs.

Octavia slowly derived her stare over his thorax. There was no move anymore. With her hoof, Octavia tried to find a beat in his neck vein. She stared at his washed-out eyes. They were not trembling anymore. They were stuck in their current position, fixing something far over the ceiling encaging the room.

Octavia cringed on her hooves. She broke down in tears. And her cry echoed in the hallway out of the room.

Healing Rhyme moved forward. Standing by Octavia’s side, she grabbed a notebook.

“Time of death, Six-Forty-Seven,” She said, neutral.

”Ah Ah Ah, you should see the look on your face,” the mare by the fire says as the scene freezes again in an eerie picture. “Did you really believe you would be the first one coming here.”

She glances at you from the shadows casted by the red fire in the chimney. Her glasses spark in the darkness for a mere instant.

“Don’t think yourself as a special… guest of this world, would you?” she smirks sarcastically, her voice similar to needles thrust directly at your heart. “You gonna have to find something more compelling to narrate, if you thought the story of how you came here would be your payment.”

You shrink on your trembling feet. Her laughter shakes your inner being so deeply you start feeling nauseous. You lie on the red rug, breathing loudly, exhausted. These dives into memories and stories are so vivid you feel like you are the one living them. It is slowly but inexorably sucking out your energy.

“Well, well, well…” she continues. “Have you learnt something from this story.”

She has a bag next to her. You swear it was not here seconds ago. She leaps inside with her hooves and rummages through it. She gives a cry of victory and looks at you, smiling. You dislike her smile, you hate it so much it makes you want to throw up.
You feel something falling on your laps. You look down, terrified.

Between your knees dwells the harmonica with the same inscription Vinyl read in the vision. There is also a pastel box.

“Creation is not commanded, it births from the nothingness, the muteness… from the blank page.”

Winona barks next to you. You jump. You had forgotten about her. You wipe a drop of sweat off your head.

“Eh, eh, eh… the blank page… Have you ever done something with your own blank page?” she cackled mysteriously.

She stares at you, pierces you with her glowing eyes. You feel sick as you become aware of the same glass in her hooves, with the same liquor.

Another throw in the fire, another spark and another flow of darkness engulfs you. Before you fall unconscious, you can only ask yourself what the purpose of all of this is.

Everything is black once again.

Sep. 2013 - Fallout:Equestria The Mysterious Strangers

Author's Note

Short Description:
When two ponies are committed to deliver an item that could help reshaping the wasteland for the better, what could go wrong?

Long Description:
Cog and Pathog are two strange ponies, they are despite themselves members of an obscure organisation. They were given one duty to fulfill, otherwise the consequences would be disastrous, for them and of course, the Equestrian Wasteland. They are good friends and the way along the journey is flat and boring. What could possibly go wrong?

Thanks to Icudeadnow for proofreading

The story has been written as a one-shot. However if people like it, I may write more of it.

Sep. 2013 - Fallout:Equestria The Mysterious Strangers

The magical land of Equestria was no more and its remains sprawled on hundreds of miles, giving to see only shades of grey, brown and pale yellow. There in the Wasteland, two ponies, two unicorns, walked along a wrecked road, alone with the creeping whistle of the wind. Under their hooves, the dirty and rubbish asphalt was cracked open on several locations, giving to see tufts of dust and sprouts of dried weed, long dead now.

The younger of the two ponies was a mare. She had magnificent turquoise eyes, contrasting with her navy blue fur. Her mane, shining in the dull light of the day, was mauve. Like her, the stallion she was following was scruffy. He had a dark grey coat scarred above his shoulders and hooves. His eyes were as grey as his fur and only clumps of a charcoal mane grew on the back of his head. Both were armed. The mare was wearing an old and rusty magnum in a holster above her stifle, next to her saddlebag. Her senior partner was carrying a heavy bolt-action rifle on his left side, balanced by a metal case on his right flank. The silence was omnipresent and the young mare was itching to break the ice.

“No but seriously Pathog, can you repeat it again…” she said. “Do we have to walk all the way to that place? What’s its name already?”

“For the billionth time Cog. It’s named Sweet Apple Acres,” Pathog retorted with his stern voice.

The poor stallion was losing his temper. His friend’s questioning seemed to stretch forever.

“It’s like one thousand and four hundred miles away from here!” Cog rebuked. “Do we have to do it… on bare hooves?”

“You know that’s our job. That’s what we have been assigned to do. Smile,” Pathog mocked. “We’ve already done half of the quarter of the one-tenth of the journey.”

Cog gave out a long and depressed sigh. She kicked a rock down the road to dampen her anger. The shingle pounced few times before crashing in the old and rusty embankment of the road. The bang that followed filled in the air.

“I didn’t sign for this,” Cog pouted.

“Hey! You know you didn’t have much choice,” Pathog berated. “You’d have been executed otherwise. Be happy that I interfered to save your bum from the organisation’s tribunal for the… things you did.”

Pathog gazed at his female counterpart with amused eyes. Somehow he saw Cog’s deeds as a kind of feat. On her own, the mare was devastated, she felt like she had stepped on a trap that would never release her.

“You didn’t have so much choices though,” Pathog kept telling. “You’re in the structure now. And there is nothing you can do about it. You can’t leave, and even if you tryn we will take care that you’re out…”

Pathog cleared his throat and showed off his most unsettling smile.

“Forever,” he boomed, mimicking the Ministry of Morale’s voice, and laughed. “Be happy that you got me as a tutor. Others wouldn’t have been that concerned about you. After all we’re the same.”

Cog grumbled and stared at the ground for a long time. Silence ensured, putting the conversation on edge. She let Pathog pass him and gave a look at the sky, deep in thought. On his side, Pathog was constantly checking that the heavy suitcase on his right side was hung tight, not risking to fall down. To do so, he always made sure it was perfectly balanced with his weapon. Both items were linked together with a complex system of straps. Yet, the leather was biting his skin.

They walked for hours. The canopy of a chain of mountains that had appeared earlier was now much closer. Like everything in the Wasteland, the mountains were nothing but crooked and grim dark shadows rising like unsteady pillories. As the day was going to an end, the two travelers had faced nothing but miles of dead lands. They were exhausted and wanted to take a break. But they knew they had to keep walking. They had to find a shelter for the night, to hide from the dangers that weaved in the dead of the night. After all the distance they had traveled, Cog and Pathog had started ascending the first saddle between the peaks. Clambering the destroyed road, they both breathed loudly, swearing they would stop at the pass to rest. And when they reached it, the sun behind the clouds was going to set, giving to them an orange and purple tint. The two unicorns struggled to catch their breath.

The distant crackle of a gunshot echoed. Pathog raised his head and scanned the Wasteland all around him. Yet, nothing seemed out of chart. From his position he could see all the plain he and Cog had crossed during the day. It was the same for the narrow path they would take the next one. He was slightly scared. He was sure the gunshot did not come from behind.

Cog snickered, capturing her partner’s attention.

“It’s cloudy today. What do you think the forecast will be tomorrow?” she bantered.

The stare Cog got back from her friend and mentor was a blend between disapproval and exasperation.

“Are you f’cking kidding me, right?” Pathog croaked. “Sometimes, I get real tired of your shit Cog. Can’t you just focus for a second? We may have incoming problems.”

He closed his eyes, trying to erase that stupid question Cog had just asked. He calmed himself.

“We may be surrounded by raiders but you keep asking dumbass and irrelevant questions.”

The mare answered with an ironic laugh.

“Oh dear. You belong to the organisation...”

“We,” he cut off.

“Yeah. We belong to one of the weirdest faction in the Wasteland,” she choked on her words with a nearly mechanical tone. “We act in secrecy to pull the strings of fate and change the future of Equestria for the better.”

She looked hard at Pathog, hoping he had took the hint. That there is more stupid things in the Wasteland than her jokes.

“No, but do you believe in that bullshit?” she ironized. “To recreate a better Equestria? Look around you.”

She swept the landscape with her hoof, showing the wreckages that populated the region.

“A flat, boring and dusty Wasteland from North to South, from West to East, where you are more likely to get killed by a raider than find paper to wipe your ass.”

The two unicorns head-butted, trying to overwhelm the other with crude strength. Their horns crossed.

“Oh shut up Cog! Can’t you at least get your mind into the mission?”

She did not listen and jolted on the side. Pathog lost his balance and bit the dust. He grumbled. Cog blocked him under her hooves, ensuring victory for herself.

“No seriously,” she sniggered. “Do you believe in all that brainwashing we go through? I’ll tell you, the organization is a sect. You hear me, a sect that just thinks a few can modify the future.”

Pathog’s eyes glowed. Slipping out of her partner’s hooflock, he bucked Cog in the throat. She fell on the ground, trying to catch her breath. She started crying. She tried to speak but Pathog caught her cheeks between his hooves. His eyes were extremely stern, glaring daggers at her.

“Down to business, please. If I went with you, it’s not out of the goodness of my heart. Do you understand?”

He ran his hoof through his mane, revealing a tiny plaque of metal riveted to his skull. He did the same with Cog. She had the same device implanted on her.

“Because of you, we got those explosive gifts from the council. Thank you for this, but I’d have been fine without,” he broke in. “So now, would you be so kind as to focus on the mission? That you don’t make our heads boom ‘cause of your stubbornness.”

Sobbing, still unable to breathe normally, Cog nodded.

“Who… who shall receive the package?” she asked hesitantly.

“The oracle said it was meant for a mare named ‘Little Pip’, resident of Stable Two. She should escape from there a month from now.”

“Ah, that oracle,” Cog was going to laugh, but the dead-shooting stare of her partner shut her up. “Well, what’s inside the box?”

As the night was enshrouding the Wasteland, Pathog decided to take a break at the col. It was free of taint and radiation.

“I don’t know, we are forbidden to open it before delivery.”

Cog sighed. Nopony messed with the organisation, especially its members. Tired, Pathog took the battle saddle off and unlocked the metal box fixed to it. He and Cog stared at it a long time. Then they laid it on the nearest rock. From her saddlebag, Cog took out a few travel rations and shared them with her peer. They were terribly hungry and thirsty.

A second gunshot boomed distantly and reverberated in the foothills.

“Do you think we’ll have to fight tomorrow?” Cog asked shyly.

“I guess so. It’s the fate of everypony in the Wasteland.”

“I hope this box is worth it. If I have to risk my life for an unknown mare, I expect her to at least save the world.”

Pathog sniggered.

“I thought like you during my first mission. Then you get more realistic, the one we help will save somepony, a village or a city. But the world…”

Pathog laughed.

They ate their rations, and utterly tired they let sleep take hold of them.

A loud crack pulled the two unicorns out of their slumber. The whistle of a bullet passing by followed instantly. Pathog and Cog’s eyes burst open.

“We’re under attack?!” Cog cried out.

A series of explosions boomed a hundred meters below the saddle. A firefight was ongoing and two groups were fighting each other to the death.

“We keep a low profile,” Pathog ordered. “Luckily, they’ll be all dead in an hour and we’ll just have to scavenge the rest.”

A torrent of shrapnel rained yards from them. A missile had gone wrong beneath and kept flying in the duo’s direction.

“It’s gonna be bad if they come to us,” Cog exclaimed.

“I know.”

The whistling of a second rocket moved closer and burst over Pathog and Cog’s heads, dazing and deafening them. The ground shook and, with blurred eyes, they both saw the rock where their box was standing trembled. Sliding on its side, the rock hurdled down with the case. It needed only a second to see Cog and Pathog leaping behind to retrieve the organisation’s item, their weapons in their mouths. However, they were not fast enough.

The fight opposed a group of travelers inside a makeshift camp. Three stallions, two mares and two young fillies, to a much more numerous gang of raiders. They were all Earth Ponies. Bullets flew in the air and already a mare and a stallion had bitten the dust, dying in their own blood. The only lights came from the shots and a small hearth at the center of the fight. It was loud.

Cog and Pathog stopped and held their breath as the massive chunk of rock bounced a last time and crashed onto the remaining mare among the travelers. She never saw the death coming. The box followed and landed next to one of the fillies. From their higher position and hidden by the darkness of the night, they saw the bandits slowly taking upon the group of travelers until only a last filly was left alive. The foal was splattered with the blood of her sister. She did not even cry. Her eyes were transfixing the box that had fallen at her side. She was fascinated by the box as much as she tried to escape the grim reality of her surroundings.

In the aftermath of the fall, the lock of the box had cracked open and the content was given to see. It was a memory orb, a single black memory orb. The two unicorn couriers breathed with ease in their hideout. Nopony beneath them was a unicorn, they could not use it.

Around the filly, the raiders started scavenging the encampment. To Pathog’s horror, the filly took the orb in her hooves, he and Cog feared she would break it. Ransacking the box with noise, the filly revealed her position. It needed only second before one of the raiders stood behind her.

“Look what we’ve got here? Some raw meat,” he purred.

The raider aimed at her with a small hoofgun, taking his time, savouring this easy kill. The filly turned her head and a gunshot boomed in the air. This swift movement saved the filly’s life. The high-caliber bullet flew past her and penetrated the orb. It burst out in a discharge of white electricity and bluish smoke, right onto the raider and filly’s face. She screamed.

“We’re so dead,” Pathog confirmed from his position.

“We’ve got to do something,” Cog asserted.

Even before her friend answered, Cog had taken aim at the raiders.

“Wait,” Pathog alerted. “We’re only two, we need the element of surprise. We could… just this time.”

“You said it was forbidden to us.”

“Well, I guess we can bypass some laws now. We’re already dead,” he deadpanned.

Cog’s face brightened with a large smile. She hid behind a rock and a burst of green flames enveloped her. As if her fur had been completely consumed by a magic fire, she revealed a skin made of dark blue chitin. Her eyes glowed turquoise. Her mauve mane was still waving on her head. Her hooves and horn were adorned with holes. And in her back had shaped two translucent wings. Pathog followed her example and metamorphosed. Together, they took off and flew over the camp furtively.

“Ah fuck!” the raider that had tried to shoot the filly screamed. “It’s fucking burning!”

His stooges laughed raucously until they saw their friend stumble and fall on the side, trembling. Sweat ran on his face. His features were damaged with the shards of glass coming from the memory orb. The raider was mumbling incoherently. The filly showed the same symptoms; her convulsions were even worse.

A series of bangs cracked in the air and a rain of fire bombarded the raiders. Their heads, limbs, sides and throats gave up under the barrage of bullets. Blood spilled on the Equestrian Wasteland’s soil, melting with the dust and slithering in the cracks.

Two empty boxes of cartridges fell from the darkness above. And the two black pony-shaped creatures descended to the slaughter. They gave the final blow to two raiders that were unfortunately still alive. Then, for a long moment, they stared at the little filly. She was jolting in her own blood. The exploded memory orb had damaged her skin, face and hooves. Cog kneeled next to her, a motherly smile cast on her face.

Pathog rummaged through the metal box. Empty, it had only contained the memory orb. His shoulders fell slightly as every remainders of hope vanished in his soul. The organisation would learn that they had lost the item, and it would be a matter of time before a bounty hunter came enough closer to them to detonate the devices they had been provided.

“We should give her misericorde,” Pathog proposed when he returned to the filly.

“Are you crazy? She may have seen what was inside the orb!” Cog countered.

“She is an Earth Pony!”

“Maybe, if there is the slightest hope, I… We have to grasp it.”

Pathog sighed and returned to the scavenging of the raiders strewn over the area.

“Do what you want Cog, we’re already dead. We’ll bring her to the next village, that she get some care. And then we disappear far, far away from Equestria!”

“I don’t know, maybe she has seen it,” Cog repeated, trying more to convince herself than her partner. “We may have not failed the mission yet.”

“Just…” Pathog massaged his forehead. “Just find a good pair of attires to hide ourself. I’ll follow.”

Most of the raiders’ stuff was rotten and impossible to repair. Yet, Pathog found an important amount of ammo and sparkle cola caps, with at least two weeks worth of rations. When he came back to Cog, she had changed into a dark red coated earth pony wearing a long brown trench coat. Her orange mane was hidden under a large hat. She had wrapped the filly in a nearly unstained linen and held in her hooves. Pathog eyed his partner for a moment.

“Fashion isn’t your hobby, is it?” he grinned.

In a burst of green flames, Pathog changed into an Earth Pony, displaying an orange fur and purple mane, wearing the same clothes than Cog.

“I hope we don’t make a mistake,” he spat.

Still exhausted as the night went short. They walked in the dark of the night with glowing eyes. Changelings could see through the dark of course. And at some point, the sleeping filly opened an eye. And what she saw was two ponies wearing the same war dressing, two ponies whose names and faces were undisclosed. They were her two mysterious strangers.

Oct. 2013 - The Accordion

Author's Note

Short Description:
A pony in a train awaits a rain of fire, an accordion under his hoof.

Long Description:
Underground, a train goes down a lonely track. Many ponies dwell inside waiting for the ascension back to the light. A black and red, burning, hellish and merciless light.

And among these dummies, one pony is thinking, alone and lost.

Thanks to Rhinotaz for editing my story

Oct. 2013 - The Accordion

A distant and muffled crack waked me up in a start. My head reeled horribly. My vision was flooded with stars and my body was carried away by the incessant wobbling of the wagon. Again I had slept in a bad position. Around me, the atmosphere was thick, clammy and stressful. I heard the helmets of my teammates clattering together. Bayonets dangled on our saddlebags, twinkling in the dull light the red lamp flashed intermittently at the end of the truck. I could record time with this blink. And it was passing by slowly.

The wagon itself was deadly silent, apart from the metallic clatter. Everypony were mouth shut, waiting for the end of the travel, or maybe only waiting for the end. Another loud boom echoed far away above us. The lintels of the roof of the train shook and screeched. I listened... Ponies were swallowing their saliva around me. I did so as well. I felt fear; I could nearly taste it in my shrivelled mouth. I had not been given water before the departure, two days ago. And my rations had been running dry.

The wagon reeked death. I knew that some of us had not made it out, or would not. The stench was poignant, a mix between the infuriating smell of sweat dripping on the faces of stressed ponies, and the ineffable odour of death. It was making the air thicker than it already was. I gave a look at the dozens of anonymous friends around me. All watched blankly at the emptiness standing between their eyes and the casqued heads right before them. All the stares were deprived of will, as if their true souls had been sucked out by an ungodly creature, Despair.

I held my rifle tighter, its cold bore bit the bare fur on my belly. I had not been given protection there. I could only brag that I had a plaque on my torso. At least, I would... I might survive a charge. Unfortunately, we were the front line, the meat shields. We had only few hopes to survive the first minutes.

I could confess, I was frightened, terribly scared. I knew our destination so well. The name of the city did not matter as for the names of my comrades. Names were irrelevant where we were heading. Deep within our souls we knew we were waiting inside a mad train rushing toward Hell.

I was lucky. I had taken position near of a window. A fresh but unsettling breeze was whistling on me through the cracks of the glass. The exterior was as black as our transport. It was a simple wall, armed with rows of copper wires. Sometimes, we passed by a backup lamp, casting its dull yellow light. The cracks, booms and thumbs coming from over us was imperceptibly intensifying. We counted the seconds passing by. We prayed silently the goddesses that had abandoned us, as a lot of ponies said.

The underground where the train was evolving was connected to the surface through endless networks of evacuation pipes. The echoes always came to us distorted, disfigured and somehow, scarier than they should be. Was it because nopony was talking? That a deadly silence was numbing our minds.

I heard a remote whistle, coming from a pipe above us. An explosion burst out on the surface and I was deafened. The wagon, even protected under the earth, trembled on his tracks. For a second, I even thought we would derail. Ponies gasped and held back screams as the wagon tip-toed on the rails. Fortunately it continued its race toward the surface. But… somehow… I could not repress the thought that it was also making us unfortunate. The ride had to go on.

Through the windows I could see chunks of clay and rocks falling from the ceiling of the tunnel. The earthquakes did not slow our pace. The explosion that boomed above us, and the ones that followed were more powerful than ever. Ponies tensed around me. I hear sobs and I lowered my gaze. My eyes were watery too. I should not cry, but in the darkness and the filthiness I was at the moment, I could not feel the tears running down my cheeks.

I gave a look at my saddlebag. It was heavier than the packages of my mates. But I had my reasons. Ransacking it, I took out an old and dusty object. In spite of the noise I was making, nopony stared at me. We were all sinking in our own abstract thought. It was an instrument. It was my accordion, a bayan type. I always remember the face of my friends and ponies passing by as I drew out my instrument. It was strangely shaped and somehow seemed so much tricky to play. Playing it, I created smiles on random faces and spread queries in ponies’ minds. The melody that came out of it was so alien, strange and irresistible it blended within the spirits and awoke the greatest passions.

My accordion was my voice and here, squeezed between my comrades, I could not voice, I could not vent. I could not scream that feeling running beneath my skin. A series of noisy booms crackled far away. For the first time I heard the characteristic clinking of a flying bullet when it crashed on a wall of concrete. I wanted to forget that sound so much, as much as the whistling in the air as they drifted by.

The wheels grated on the racks and the brakes squealed. Underground, the train slowed down and stopped. Some ponies agitated on their aching hooves. Standing straight was difficult, and this sudden stop was enough to make the pain reach their brain. I heard complaints and cries. A long wait ensued and the stress increased as time flowed away.

Then the ride started again. But everything was different. A loud rattling began and I felt the train slopping. It felt strange. The only sensation and sound that came close to it was the ascension of a truck toward the top of a roller-coaster. And we were all sitting there, waiting for the next step of the ride... The downfall.

*clack* *clack* *clack* *clack* *clack* *clack* *clack*

The ascent lasted long, too damn long and when the first beams of light slithered through the windows I winced. My eyes hurt so much. I heard dismay around me and I thought the outside was silent. Damn me for being so naïve. I had just been deafened again by the pandemonium playing around the wagon.

The dusk light shone in the west. But the true light came from the uncountable explosions roaring around.

Fog of war, bullets, blood and fire swamped the landscape. The low clouds were blackened by the smoke rising from the abandoned buildings, the scorched streets and burning bodies around. Shades of red and orange reverberated on this cover, acting like a heavy lid over our head. The atmosphere was reddish and yellowed, as if a layer of the fire’s colours had been applied to the city. In the distance I saw a statute. It shocked me... Six fillies dancing around a dried fountains that had been set on fire by an unceasing bombardment. I felt sick and held back a gag.

My hearing came back in a rush and I understood my plight. The air was overwhelmed with cracks of guns, whistling and explosions. I felt crushed under the pressure of the hell playing around outside. My ears popped constantly. I vomited. And now only one idea flooded my mind. Survival.

A pony cried out an order I never understood and the ramps burst open on the sides of the wagon. I ran, ready to take cover. I carried my weapon high, not sure if I was ready to fight. I had never been a good markspony, neither a good fighter. I ran, I stumbled, I stood up again and a sour pain blasted my neck. I fell and bite the dust.

The sky was hellish, red, pink, yellow and orange. A waterfall which water had been replaced with liquid fire... watching over me, not like a lid, but like a horridly warm blanket that would swallow me whole. I reached my saddlebag with my hoof, and hiccupped. Where is the medic? I screamed... tried to. My vision was blurred. Somepony fell on me and blood splattered my eyes. Squeezed, crushed.
Left alone...

Another body fell over me. I was being buried by fate. I cried. Why is everything so black? Why I am so sleepy?

I want to scream.

“Daddy, why are they so many skeletons around here?” a squeaky voice intoned.

“One hundred years ago a great battle happened here. And a bomb settled it forever. Many ponies died here and down here. It’s now nothing but an abandoned place. Death’s shrine,” a raspy and voice answered.

“What are you searching for?” the filly asked, bouncing around.

“Scraps, as always and... oh, oh, oh! Look what we’ve got here?”

The stallion had pushed two wrinkled and withered cadavers over. Below dwelled a small and wrecked pony’s body. Its hooves were contracted on an accordion. Silently the stallion put his left forehoof on the corpse’s neck and with his mouth grasped the mangled leather strap of the instrument. He snatched it off, breaking off the neck of the pony, and ripped off one of its forelegs. It stayed tensed on the object.

“He must have loved it…” the young filly supposed.

“He has no use for it now, and it might be valuable. Don’t you want to eat tonight?” the stallion berated.

“Well... duh, but...”

“Then, shush. The dead are silent, and in the realm of death silence and oblivion are king and queen.”

They away from the cadaver. And after casting a last look toward its crooked limbs, the filly smiled and nestled up to her father.

They would be able to eat tonight.

Oct. 2013 - Last Speech Before The Terminus v1

As I write these words, I fear for the lives of my citizens. I asked Princess Celestia for help but my voice has fallen into a deaf ear. I begged Princess Luna for a hoof to carry my febrile will. But my plea has been rejected by her blindness. The regal sisters gather their armies as they know something is brewing between themselves. Princess Luna is consumed with jealousy and Celestia is so focused on her land that everything else vanished into Oblivion. With these turmoils going on in the south, who would care about a poor unicorn king battling for the mere survival of his people? Who cares about the frozen North? Equestria, a pearl among the abysses, is still safe.

But Celestia and Luna have forgotten that Windigos breed in conflicts… that these unholy creatures come from the North, greedy and starving. My ponies and I are the first on the frontline. Hence, we will be the first to fall to their assault. This time, The Windigos are not coming alone. They have brought minions that will ravage our domain. All of them feed on Luna’s growing dark powers as they feed on my citizens’ despair and pain. But I will not let them do freely.

As King, the cutie mark I was given embodies a mighty battle cry. I can blend into the spirit of my friends and comrades. And all together, through this ‘esprit de corps’ we can act as one body, one soul and one mind to overthrow our enemies, and win. I always refused to go further in such fusing of spirits, fearing I would go crazy or conceited. But feeling everypony and me battling as one is a feeling I want to keep dear to my heart.

Thus, it is together that we will go to the fight, whatever the cost, whatever the outcome… And right now I fear facing the ponies I love more than the empty shells that are the Windigos’ eyes.

I am hesitant to talk about it; about what I’ve found in the cavern deep below the Crystal Castle. I sometimes surprise myself to keep staring at my discovery. It is a small dull grey crystal. It would be nothing important if it is was not wobbling with magic energy. I hear it, it is whispering to me. I have to make a choice. I may use it for the sake of my kind but I know that I will get what I want but I will also loose what I have... What I have left.

My chamberlain is coming to don my iron armour, damn I hate its frost bite on my fur. He is coming and I am doing a quick choice, a ‘stupid choice’ I keep repeating to myself. I swallow the tiny gem when I hear a hoof on the door knob. I feel something strange bursting in my chest. My head reels, dizzy.

Once the chamberlain is gone, I look at my hooves. They are turning black… slowly. My once white fur is burning away. Did I make the right decision?

Well, no time to fret. My ponies await me as the Windigos rumbled behind our doors. They creep around my kingdom, ready to leap on their first prey, a pony among my fellow citizens. I will not leave them alone. I am their king and for I shall be the wall between them and these demons. We will fight as one again. And we will win. Otherwise I will… I don’t want to talk about it.

When the gate of the castle burst open on my way, as I walked outside I feel the bite of thousands of eyes staring at me, waiting. Among the ponies, I see the griffons I rallied to my cry, I see the mighty dragon that offered his help for an incentive, and I see the mares, the fillies, the colts, and the stallions together, waiting for our last stand. And I feel this strange power growing within my ribs. I feel sick and some ponies trembled seeing my fur tainting.

I find a promontory and gazed back at the crowd with my sorry eyes. The madness has lasted for too long. It is time to end it. I take a deep breath and put in order the words and sentences bouncing in my head. My voice is deep, reaching the deepest corners of my kingdom. I need to be assertive… inquisitive.

“We stand on the precipice of the end. Ready to hurtle down the steep and smash our bones and skulls. We walk legs-deep in the blood of our comrades, washing down our once shining furs and manes. We breathe, uneasy, while the long panting whispers of our gone families rise from the mass graves below us. The reeking smell of our gangrened hooves blurs our eyes and pains our souls. The air fills our lungs with the perfume of war, sour and numbing as a tasteless and intoxicating wine.

And I face, stuck in the dusty ground, the enemy growling in the distance. Afraid, foreshadowing a machine that will swallow us all. And I stare straight at the dead of the night and see through the dark veils the eyes of the rats that claim they can burn us to ashes. And I despise the oblivion that beckons over our shoulders like a gargantuan maw, thrilled to rip us to pieces. And I scream to fate that abandoned us when we needed it the most.

I have seen our foals’ throats sliced open. I have watched the flows of tears dripping down our streets. I have cried for the ineffable screams of the mares, children, and elders wiped off the scrolls of history. I have dug the trenches where I will bury my kind, my friends, and my subjects. I have cursed the sky for bringing us the eternal night. I have rejected the gods who forsook us, poor beings living in the land where the soil never thaws. I have trodden in the oneiric lands of limbo and caught a brief glimpse of Tartarus. And I have lost faith.

I have tasted your pain and terror. I have felt your hatred and anger. I have understood your rage and despair. I have foreseen your starvation and your fall. I have raged against destiny, now destroyed. I have cursed the sky and the earth. I have howled to the murderous sky, raining fire at dawn. I have seen myself looking through the tainted glasses of my realm. Only to see my disfigured reflection.

I have seen myself murdering my own essence, erasing my own spirit, sweeping off my own mind for the sake of my kingdom’s well-being. I have damned my soul. I have thrown away what made me a pony. And as I feel my sanity drift away, I can say that I have envisioned no byway. Houses burnt to their underpinnings. Ponies eviscerated alive. Fellow soldiers eaten away by the creatures lying before our eyes. A once scarred but lively ground scorched to coal dust by the flames of our enemies’ eyes. Our skulls piled up into spires to reach the black clouds over us.

As a king who makes a beast of himself, I get rid of my angst and sorrow, only to flood my senses with anger and rage. I bestow my allegiance upon you as sovereign, as for my enemies I will have no more pity.

But as we stand, ready to move through the threshold of Tartarus we, the innocents, will fight and kill and cry and scream and murder and bite and destroy those who dared defy us. Do you hear? We will stand still. And steady on our hooves we will rise once again!

Ride to the war, my vassals! Ride to death, my subjects! Ride to glory! And this day, running toward the Crystal Empire’s ending will be marked in history with a monolith of blood and death.

Souls will be crushed to the point they cannot be mended.

The rusty edges will slice the flesh and shed soiled blood.

Sharp arrows will fly and whistle through the air.

Blades and spears will blow to bits.

Bones will be shattered.

And this battle will be written into ungodly scrolls to make sure that everypony will know… that we fight here, today.”

To win this battle, the Windigos themselves must fear me. My magic bursts out around me and my mind blends with my subjects. All roar mightily as they release the anger they have repressed for too long.

It is heady. I like this impression of control and absolute power. Like one core we will ride to battle. United and whole we will fight and stand for my rightful kingdom. My minions will fight with me… for me.

It’s…

It’s strange. Why do I feel so sleepy, so alone… enshrouded by darkness?

Maybe, I was wrong.

2013 project - Shattered - 1. Up, Above; and Out!

Chapter 1, Up, Above, and Out!

“When the Pit lights with fire, burnt flesh fills the air, along with the Pegasi, laughing, laughing…

Laughing…”

Ever wanted to be trapped in a mine after a firedamp flashover? Well, me too. And do you know the irony in this annoying situation? Name’s Coal Dust… A fitting name for an earth pony enrolled at birth to be a miner. A fitting name when your instinct is telling you to dig your way away from a coal dust fire… Ordering you not to give ponies the opportunity to laugh! To tell my father that ‘his son sparked himself’!

[…]

My guts wrenched painfully as I woke up. My muzzle, half-buried between two big chunks of rock, hissed. My heart beat wildly, making my head and temples throb. My chest swelled in fit and starts, tearing at my flesh as the coal in the air burnt my lungs. My ears were ringing from numbness. My belly ached like a bad indigestion. Everything itched so damn much I wished I could skin myself! I was completely wrecked.

But worst of all, everything was dark. Shocked, I shivered and tried to roll over my back. I was stuck in a tunnel so tight it caught me in a vice. Sharp rocks chafed my skin as I moved. I coughed and spat saliva, smearing my face and coat. Tears started to drip over my cheeks. Stiffness bathed me.

I screamed agony and received no answer. I was alone. No miner was authorized to be left alone underground: safety measure.

Stinging bruises covered my body. Each movement was a torture. I breathed and jerked, hacked and whirled. I was a rat in a cage without exit, deep down an unknown number of meters below the surface. As I kicked to free myself, dust crawled over my face, slipping in my eyes…

I wanted out!

Struggling my way toward I don’t know yet, memories slowly came back, the blur gradually giving space to flashes. A massive panic. An explosion. The heat. The pain. And finally, darkness. Wails had rung, fire, and uncountable clatters… horseshoes grating on the walls, trying vainly to dig a passage far away from death.

Ripping the fur off my skin, I finally slipped through the vice catching me in. I fell forward and yelped. I hit down a steep and narrow tunnel. Breaking stalactites along the descent, my belly crashed against a sturdier point which sunk in my skin. My stomach churned with spasms, and rolling butt over head through the passageway, I vomited.I hit ground, biting in my tongue as my jaw collided. I coughed blood that tasted like iron. I saw light dancing in front of me.

Febrile, I tensed to stand up. Fighting back the pain from the open wounds and bruises was horrible. Hunger also made itself known: y belly growled loudly. I was definitely starving.

Ponds of water flooded the whole dank place, trickling from the ceiling. I rose and freezing cold water dripped over my eyes, running between the blood, bile, and murk. Everything reeked from stagnation but I lapped; thirst was too much to bear with. The taste was so disgusting I emptied myself once again. It tasted like stirred charcoal and sulphur. My throat burnt. My head reeled.

My hooves failed me. I closed my eyes, hung my head low, and I fell. My muzzle slowly sunk into the water, reaching a knee-deep level. The tightness around my chest became more pregnant. I still had my miner suit held tight around my body.
I prodded the shredded pockets, many missing their content. I discovered one small piece of metal, my last possession here. Flat, slightly curved, strapped on a thong of leather, I fixed clumsily it over my left forehoof. The contraption’s tip was a rusty mechanism I scratched repeatedly with my hoof. Once, twice… A series of sparks jerked off the tip and a small flame came to life. My mine lighter gave me light.

Darkness retreated, leaving me in a tight chiaroscuro bubble. The narrow corridor from which I had fallen from remained hidden, though. Being trapped. I couldn’t get over that feeling, like a talon clenching over my heart, messing with my senses.

As I stepped away, my hindquarters hit a wall with a muffled thump. I squealed and froze, fearful.

I turned and faced a massive wall of stacked rubble resulting from an old underground landslide. Such events often happened in mines. One badly rigged explosion and the retaining structure could collapse, often on the miners unlucky enough to be working at the same moment.

It would have just been another standard landslide blocking a potential exit route. If not for a flattened and shattered structure of wood, bricks, and broken slates sandwiched between the fallen rocks. An old, ragged cottage.

That was… unexpected to say the least… interesting even if I had not been trapped here in the dark, flying away from a coal fire, simply struggling to live.

I didn’t want to die.

But my heart was void, a cunning void and pain. A teasing tickle in my chest, never really gone, never really revealed.

I didn’t want to die.

I refused to, because above my head, back in Murmanesk, my birth city, I was anonymous… And in Murmanesk, every day was funeral day for the anonymous.
A kneecap sinking into the water, I pressed my forehead onto the brickwork, which tore apart a little more. I heard my tears drip. The images of fire and explosions haunted me.

I had thought about death much before. But as always, I had pushed away that painful truth, like hiding the dirt under the rug. Each time I would step in the elevator that would lead me to the depths of the earth, I had seen death. Each time I would manipulate arcs, a solidified or liquid blue substance meant for fulfilling everything in a pony’s life, from public lighting to high-end mining explosive, I had seen death. In Mumanesk, I could see death everywhere. Every time the blow to the gut was the same: corroding everything. Motivation. Will. Strength.

I wanted out… But, believing that above was where I wanted to go, I couldn’t. There, nopony seemed to care, nothing seemed to matter. We were hopeless, potential victims of the caprices of another. I had never wanted to die. Not now. Not here. Especially not here…

I curled into a small ball of fur, crying in the hollow of my shoulder, licking my wounds and bruises.

An hour passed, maybe more, spent watching wishfully the flickering light of my hoof-lighter. Soon the light died into in tiny puffs of smoke. Darkness claimed its territory and once again, I was swallowed by the cold, damp blackness. I clenched my sore hooves below my chest. I closed my aching eyes, saving me from the shadows. Another hour, who knows in that darkness, flew by.

I had procrastinated enough. I couldn’t stay there, alone, anymore. Ponies needed me up there. Family, friends… the few I really had, co-workers, my job… If I was going to keep it… I sighed and opened my eyes.

Accustomed to the dark, I focused onto something I’d missed in my hurry: a faint light glowing a pebble throw away from me. Curiosity settled in.

Stiff and sore, I crawled my way toward the beacon. Walking through the water sent shivers down my spine. Trembling, breathing mist, I reached an embankment of grinded rubble. Stepping out of the water, I dropped my hoof on something soft, and squishy.

I felt fur at the tip of my leg, brushing against my own.

Perplex, I wandered my hoof along the shape, rubbed over a set of ups and downs. I hit a flappy, wet shred with my left hoof. What I had thought to be a rock in the dim light was a body. I shuddered, a heavy, cold sweat rolling down my back. My hoof clattered against a set of small uneven dice-shaped solid bits. Any sensation of touch seeped out of my limbs.

Teeth…

The minuscule stream of light threw a few contours of the carcass into stark relief. My rump hit the sand. I was nauseous, my hooves splattered with a blood that wasn’t mine. A thick black blanket covered the body hiding its original colour. I first thought it was coal. The reality was far grimmer.

I had seen death before. This one was among the most banal and normal I had ever seen. Shrivelled, burnt, and petrified, its eyes had closed behind slit eyelids. Its cracked teeth showed beneath hitched up lips. My skin crawled at the sight. I had once witnessed an old buck kill a rabid dog. The creature had squealed, yelped, and battled over the spear slicing in its throat. The old stallion had not even waited for death to do its work to set the animal on fire. With the sizzling of the alcohol-induced flames, the foal I was had just avidly watched the scene.

The corpse I was looking at showed the same state as the dog once the fire had consumed everything. Withered and ugly, shining with its lack of any distinguishable item, its desiccated hooves covered with blood had folded beneath him, likely trying to hide from the fire. Only one difference remained, a long slash next to its neck. Something that couldn’t be natural. It reeked pain. Long and atrocious pain.

A small dot of light pierced through the body’s hooves, hidden beneath a cover of cracked blood. Pulling it out with a grizzly crack, I found myself holding a simple bit of rock a pony had probably broken off a wall. A kind of curved stalactite. Grating off the cover, it revealed itself to be a translucent crystal glowing with a bright blue light.

Contemplating this stream of light pouring out, I found myself filled with a new feeling: An irrepressible warmth that finally sparked a meek smile on my wry face. The pure light blanketed the walls with a blue glow, twinkling in the droplets half-frozen on the rocks. Funnily, an isolated object shone among the rubbles of the derelict house.

Curious, I stuck the crystal between my teeth and walked up to the ruin. I was still wondering how a house could have ended there. To my disappointment, nothing was there to save anymore.

Leaning over the fallen rocks, I discovered a small piece of brass slipping through two large masses of dirt. Digging it out, I unearthed a strange rectangular-shaped box. Split into one larger part made of brass, it also displayed a relatively large window of glass. The tinker had wanted it to be resistant apparently. The whole was encaged behind a series of brass bars. Gliding the tip of my hoof between the tubes, I wiped two clean marks off the glass surface. A strange black disc mounted on one iron cylinder lay beneath. The whole apparatus looked fragile to say the least. And what did a miner like me do? I simply shook it. Something clicked inside, a broken screw or something.

Biting my lower lip, I put the contraption on a rock and sought a way to open it. As I drooled over the glowing crystal stuck in my mouth, the item slipped away. I threw my hoof to catch it. Clumsy as I was, I punched the crystal away. It ricocheted on my discovery, bounced on a rock, and finally dived in the water below. A thousand reflections sparked on the surface of the pond, beautiful. Yet, what caught me was the brass rectangle. Something happened. Something that should have never happened.

The contraption sparked with blue light, clicked on the inside and…

“Hello, Coal Dust. I…”

The crystalline, soothing, and creepily slow female voice died in a shriek.

“Hello, Coal Dust. I…”

Died again.

“Hello, Coal Dust. I…”

Eyes shot open, I watched the black disk turn within the thick, smeared glass. The voice repeated its message, over and over again, each time with an ears-splitting sound… The joints of the brass item kept glowing the same blue pulsing out of the crystal lying at the bottom of the pond.

My name. The voice had said… My name.

“Hello, Coal Dust. I…”

“Shaddup!” I yelled.

I took the contraption between my hooves and bashed it on a rock until the glow vanished and the voice stopped.

“…Coal… Dust… am sorry.”

How did this… thing know my name?! How could this be possible?

I tried to calm myself. I gagged.

Breathing heavily, I glared at the bits splattered over the rock, and others sinking rapidly in the water. Unable to move, the hissing in my lungs died a little. I pondered what to do. This… had said my name.

I…

The earth roared. The walls shook under a tremor that detached stalactites from their bases. Chunks of rock fell over my head. Heat washed over me. I smelt fire reaching far. I saw fire… reaching far. Crawling from a hole in the ceiling, the fire spread like a devil’s tongue displaying many forks. it weaved around the stalactites like water around the relief, tainting the whole cavern in shades of blood.

Running away!

I shoved the bits of the item in my tackle and bit in the crystal, pulling it out of the water. I started running. In seconds, I reached the farthest folds of the cavern. There were no exits for me. No fateful tunnel. Nothing. Everywhere, a wall of rock was waiting for me, blocking the way, sentencing me to death.
Breathing burnt. Opening my eyes burnt. Everything burnt!!! Like hot embers in my throat and acid in my eye.

“Let me out!”

My lungs gasped for breathable air. The walls shook. The tongues of fire emptied the room of oxygen. The quake cracked open the walls. The fire-flooded ceiling started falling apart, the fire itself looming dangerously in my direction. The water flood started bubbling. The cadaver across the place burst again in flames. Trying to cover myself in water and mud, I dived in the overheated pond, hit my muzzle on the bottom. Panicked. I don’t know. I was just trying to live, maybe. A flame sparked over me and licked my left side, melting my fur over my flank.

I saw one wall crumble. And with it, an escape appeared, a thin corridor.
Trickling with water, I thrust myself through the open gate. The fire in my back… the Fire everywhere!

As I leaped through a wall of fire, a violent wave of clean air licked my face. Deliverance.

The stream of black dust wandering before my eyes said otherwise. The stench, acrid, warned me from the danger.

Oh, my father, I would tell him that I ran like Tartarus.

I hadn’t even crossed fifty meters of the tight tunnel that fire engulfed completely the cavern I had just left. I wasn’t ready for another deadly flash point.

Oh, Tartarus indeed, I ran.

Scrambling up the dark passageway, the light of the crystal stuck in my mouth lighting the path, I forced myself further and farther. I heard the mighty breath of a conflagration at my back. My rump felt like it had caught fire.

Head first, I smashed myself into a boulder barring my way. The flames whirled dangerously behind, nearing quicker than I was as they consumed oxygen at a speed I couldn’t match. The boulder cracked and rolled over, myself in its stead.
Before me a path I had taken many time. Carts full of coal and crystal rested unattended on a dusty rail set in the middle. On my left, at a hundred meters, a metal lift. On my right, a long cavity going deep down in the darkness.
Everywhere… smoke, slowly vacuumed by the hole made for the lift… and everywhere, of course, ponies moving around buckets of water, wounded, and dead comrades.

“FIRE DAMP!” I barked. Heads dashed in my direction and panic settled.

Screams everywhere, again, as the path in my back suddenly tainted with the grim colours of lava. I threw myself away from the opening, and ran to the lift.

Survive, survive!

I looked back and saw a pony younger than me try to throw water in the tunnel. With a filled bucket harnessed between his teeth, his fur was the first thing to catch fire, instantly followed by its mane. In the red soaked darkness, I never knew what colours his bore… The fur was already long gone, flowing drop by drop over his skin as the colt scream. His scream changed to a muffled gurgle, then stopped. His skin turned black and cracked before he touched the flames-flooded ground.

I looked away toward the life-saving lift. Ponies had already taken place in its compartment, pulling crazily the lever, trying to urge the lift to go faster.

I wished to scream at them to wait for me. The air was too hot, forcing my mouth shut.

The elevator cracked up and started ascending. Wait, please. I ran and jumped. I had to reach the cockpit of the lift.

I missed and fell on the ground, miserable.

The fire leaped on me, avid and cruel.

Unable to scream, I let myself sink in despair. The flames, a lid of lead that would shush me forever.

[…]

Though the fire lit the place with a cacophony of screams, suffering, and death, I remained untouched.

Quivering, I opened my eyes and, febrile, I saw her.

A mare with a dirty white coat stood over me, prancing over with a hoof stretched toward the fire. Her mane flowed with the colours of fire, crawling over her large brown and seared hood. A glow inhabited her eyes, an eerie light that was for sure not natural…

Flames crawled slowly above our heads, an invisible dome between us and that yearning and deadly furnace.

"Please be quick,” she murmured.

Believing in such situation was hard. The fire was there, at a hoof-reach from gobbling both of us, and yet we had just been saved by some unknown mechanism. I kept my eyes riveted on the girl, kinda young as far as I could tell. She wore dark rings around her eyes. Her hooves were splashed with murk and blood… her blood.

“Don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die,” I whimpered.

She smiled at me.

I slowly gave way to the blackness of unconsciousness, I saw the space in front of me twist. Dots of light danced around my head. Dizziness everywhere. Pain.
“Bear with me!” the mare told me with her enchanting voice.
She coughed, the soot in the air burning our lungs. Despite the pain, she hauled me between her hooves. Soft.

The air cracked. From behind the mare appeared another hooded figure, blackness hiding its features. The mare, oh she was beautiful, her lock of fire dangling in front of white glowing eyes… The mare looked back, a wicked smile on her face.

“Finally you’re there,” the mare sighed in relief. “What should I do?”

The hooded figure hung his head next to the mare’s ears and whispered a few sentences. And the hooded figure vanished. The mare’s smile was gone too. She looked at me with sorry eyes.“It might hurt a bit, but it will be quick.”

I hear another loud crack. The fire roared.

In the couple of seconds that followed, burning pain blitzed through my bruised and burnt body. I yelled. Pain. Burn. Fire. I cried, holding me head between my hooves.

I caught a glimpse of light and the whole world went fuzzy and weird. My mane crawled. I felt like I was dragged on the ground, through a black tunnel with no light at the end. The sensation of movement stopped. I was stuck in a corridor again. Where was I?

Somepony hurriedly grabbed my limbs, lifted me up, and pulled me somewhere. We reached a noisy area, orders were shouted at ponies.

“Close the way!” the marish voice ordered. “FLASHOVER INCOMING!”

Screams and grunts filled my ears. I heard rocks being pushed in an entrance. Water being splashed. The sounds of an explosion. The earth shook. A gust of reeking wind and coal.

I opened my eyes and saw my reflection in those of the magnificent mare. The glow in her eyes was gone, replaced with tears. The colours of her mane remained. Fire. A light in the darkness.

“You’re safe now,” she comforted me, embracing with her hooves the contours of my burnt shoulders. “You’re safe.”
I never thanked her.

I just sobbed and cried in her shoulders. Pains and sorrow filled me with sleepiness. Sobs and tears took hold of me as I knew that the horror… the Pit… would begin tomorrow again. As always.

2013 project - Shattered - 2. Discharged

Chapter 2, Discharged

“When a miner’s got nothing to do… he’s got some laws to screw”

“Get your ass out of the way!” a voice roared. “You ain’t authorised to do this!”

“He. Needs. Help!”

“And here, you, fallen, has got no power! So move out of the way, bitch!”

[…]

I lay on my back, sore and stiff, a blinding light hung above my head. I was alone. The room I woke up in was entirely covered in white tiles. Its cleanliness put to shame my own hide, the light itself throwing every stain into stark relief.

The light, overwhelming and powerful, was pouring out from a single lamp screwed to the ceiling: an arc crystal, as always. Those tiny contraptions were everywhere and so useful. Sometimes I did understood why we, the miners, were sent to death to retrieve those along with the coal. They were jewels of engineering and refinery. I was so sad I had to put my life on the line to enjoy this warming light on a daily basis.

Shaking my head out of the reverie, I stared at my surrounding, desperate to find something to focus on. The wall on my left had a massive mirror mounted over a series of clean basins. The right wall only displayed a thick, white door.

The fact that I didn’t know where I was washed over me with cold fear. Bending my back in a violent jerk, I sat up… or rather tried to. My whole body shuddered with spasms, pain bursting through my bones.

A few minutes passed, trying to tame the pain and calm myself. I was breathing by little puffs of air, aiming at lessening the ripping sensation cramping my lungs. My dried lips cracked with pain as I breathe, the cold air stinging my two or three teeth. Steadying, forcing myself not to cry but couldn’t stop from shedding one or two tears.

I tilted my head forward to take it my physical state. My chest, swelling up and down, was covered with green and brown oozing burns. Some of my skin showed taints of rosé. My left flank was scarred, splattered with large patches of blistered flesh. My left hip was a complete mess. Where my cutie mark should have been… nothing remained but a patch of brown, a pure mess. Stretching my hoof, I tried to reach where my cutie mark should be. My cutie mark there was gone. Gone.

I tried to look at my other side, willing to take in the sight of it but leather restraints barred my movement. I was tied to a bed. A hospital bed.

I forced on the bind. The binds. It just succeeded in giving me more pain. Hooves and hindquarters trussed up, I writhed about in the free space the ties gave me. My scars scrapped on the leather. The pain sparked fear. Fear triggered panic.

Eyes shot-open, squealing, I attempted escape in spite of the pain, making me shaking. The pain being too strong, I only gave in. My hooves pounded on the side of the bed. Hissing and unable to stop the tremors crippling my limbs, I cried.

“Wow, calmos, child,” a mare advised me as she entered the room, closing the door behind her with a push of her rear end. “Don’t reopen the wounds.

She had a rather loose nurse attire, a mask, and that cold disk of metal with two earplugs which I couldn’t remember the name. Going to the doc’ was too expensive for me anyway. She had tied her dark brown mane into a bun, giving to see her deep brown eyes like two stains on her coat of cream white. Her cutie marks were hidden beneath the white cloth.

“Let me go,” I begged, pulling on my ties only to trigger a new wave of pain.

“And risking a paddlin’, hun? No, thanks,” she scolded with a smile. “I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

She took a piece of white tissue out of her suit and started wiping off my tears, then the pus dripping off the wounds.

“Uh?” I looked at her, perplexed.

She stopped, her smile dying a little, swapping place with a hint of surprise. She raised an eyebrow and walked up so her head was above mine, her hooves clattering rhythmically on the tiled floor. Her lips pinched together and she buckled up a small laugh.

“You don’t remember, hun?” Her voice, as sweet as honey, fell silent as she bit on a pen pointing out of a pocket.

Methodically, she picked up a notebook hanging on the end of the bed, and read its contents. Mumbling, going through my records, she focused for an horribly long minute.

She put the notebook back on its rack and returned her attention to me.

“Oh, sho’y, yesh,” she chewed over the pen, stuck in her mouth before spitting it back in her pocket. “When you were brought here, you were in shock. You broke another nurse’s jaw.”

She sighed and pointed to my ties with a jab of her muzzle.

“We bound you to that bed for safety. It’s not the first time we’ve gotten some irate patients.”

She prodded my skin with a savant hoof, sliding its tip over my scars and burns, giving me nothing but tickles.

“You’re lucky the flashover didn’t damage any vital parts or organs,” she huffed in relief. “You’ll survive. With minor scars, mostly.”

“Mostly?” I blabbered, fear gripping my heart to the thought I would live with more than scars.

“You’re a miner, right?”

I nodded, gulped, and kept silence while she observed me from her dominant position. Couldn’t she untie me? Her eyes followed the lines of scars marking my hide and crawled up to my cheek.

“I can only speak for myself. I don’t know the field in which you work in the Pit,” she stated, overbearingly neutral, “but the mines aren’t a good place for cicatrisation.”

I looked down, and grunted, “Well, I’m sorry about your co-worker, but can I be untied? Like... now.”

I gritted my teeth as she giggled at me. It wasn’t funny.

“Uncomfortable, hon?”

I huffed. the playful nurse was wearing a golden chain around her left forehoof. Gold… Haven’t seen that in a while. Lifting my head up, I tried to take in more of her features. I stopped on her wings, sprouting out of her suit through two sewn holes.

For the first time since I had awoken, I let the silence settle. A knife rubbing in an open wound. I tensed, felt a drop of sweat roll over my forehead and slide behind my right ear. It fell and hit the floor in a heavy drip. Her eyes and mine met. Every ounce of her playful mindset was gone, she just huffed and shook her head. Colours left my face. We gauged each other. To be honest, I was the first to break contact.

“Where am I?” I asked.

Her eyes, cold and dark pierced through me like a spear. Her wings fluttered softly.

“In the hospital of Murmanesk’s prison,” she answered, neutral.

I scoffed at her.

“There is no hospital in that jail. I know that. I’ve already been there!” I deadpanned, trying to grasp the best out of my situation.

And… I knew I should have shut up. She grinned, showing a row of white teeth that made my own, yellowish and uneven, look like shit. She turned around, whipped her tail on my burnt flank and walked by the door. The massive chunk of reinforced wood creaked on its hinges as it closed.

“Unbind me! Where I am!? Please!” I shouted, to no avail.

Now, that was getting ridiculous. Really…

I knew of no Pegasus that would help an earth pony like me. They were too mechanical for that. Too evil for that!

Did they understand the word compassion? Impossible. It was not in their twisted nature to do so. I knew it! I had seen them do the most monstrous things. I knew they were monsters.

And what do we do with monsters?

Nothing, but hide.

“It’s not a jail. It’s not a jail,” I repeated to myself. “Where…?”

A shy laugh.

“Somewhere safe. At least.”

My mane stood on end.

The deep, calm, and inquisitive male voice petrified me. A cold sweat trickled down my brow as, for the first time since I had opened my eyes, I heard that simple, low breath break through the ambient silence. Right behind my head.

“Well, I guess you dislike that situation as much as I do,” the stallion confessed. “But you know the rules. ‘The culprits…”

“… must be punished,” I finished. That’s what the posters were saying, nailed everywhere in Murmanesk. “Steal a pick axe. Steal a friend’s life.”

The sayings were right. They always were. I had known co-workers who’d died because of somepony else’s lies or mistakes. the punition, if not brought by the Pegasi, was always carried by the earth ponies you’d made into enemies.

“Good, good, you learnt your lesson.” His hoof brushed over my mane and crawled down to my shoulder. Painful. “You can be proud.”

I whimpered, pulling on my bonds to see who my interlocutor was. Those bonds were too tight, biting in my skin.

“Who’re you?” I squeaked.

“One thing at a time, would you?” he countered. “What’s your name?”

I froze. He was right behind me… but I still couldn’t see. A hoof whacked the side of my head. The pain snaked in my teeth. Cold. I hiccuped. I was not fast enough.

“What’s your name?”

“Coal Dust.”

His hoof hovered over my face, and dropped. My muzzle scrunched under the strength of a hammer-like punch. I screamed.

His fur was a clear blue. A rare colour to see to be honest. Blue…

Star danced before my eyes. Focusing was hard. Ears ringing, the stallion’s whispering, inquisitive voice crackled once again behind me.

“Who are you?”

A stiffening coldness spiked through my body. My belly wrenched and my mane crawled with all that stallion could do to me. Could and would get away with it. Bathing in fear, my body contracted painfully. My heart, beating wildly, forced a chilling gag up my throat. The dreadful voice was playing with me. I was trapped within his hooves. A void opened in my chest. I was simply nothing.

“Coal Dust. Excavation team. Eastern wing of the pit. Matriculate, 009PSQ-EP90-07-64,” I said in one raspy breath and begged, “please, don’t kill me.”

“You see. When earth ponies want, earth ponies can… when they’re not doing a mule from themselves. Stop crying, It’s unbecoming of an adult like you.” He paused, probably grinning. I heard him clack his tongue in his mouth a few centimetres next to my ears. “You’re still young though.”

I was crying indeed. The pain from his hooves pressing my shoulders, unbearable. I knew I needed medical attention. I knew he should stop. But when Pegasi do, earth ponies look down and remain silence. Rules. The rules! Don’t break them, or it’s a promised new shift in the pit. Don’t break them again, or you get discharged. Then you’re taken far in the East, to fight the war. And, if by any misfortune you couldn’t fight, just hope they won’t throw you over the cliff. The cliff… I had seen it once. Frightening.

“Oh come on, young one,” he fatherly said, tapping his hoof on my shoulder in a gentle way that still made me grunt. “I’m not a monster. I just want to understand.”

The bed creaked dangerously as the stallion threw it sideway.

“To understand how stupid…”

I finally faced him, my eyes shot-open in terror. A rather slender, nonetheless impressively muscular, beige coated stallion grinned back at me. His groomed black mane stretched behind his ears, giving to see a large barren forehead. His eyes, two grey diamonds, looked down at me with no animosity whatsoever. He was wearing a thin black jacket sewn with gold and silver, contrasting greatly with his two wings falling on his sides.

“...and dangerous you are!”

he walked forth so that his muzzle nearly touched mine. The clatter one of his hoof produced as he made his move caught me off-guard. A sound of metal.

“Look in my eyes,” he ordered.

Where his right hindquarter should be shone with a unnatural reflection, but when a Pegasus order, the earth pony obeys. So did I. I looked into his eyes, no matter how uncomfortable it made me. To see myself in those two irises where I could read nor hatred, interest, anger, or anything.

“You were in the Pit, three shifts ago, weren’t you?”

Was it already three shifts? For how long had I been trapped down there? How long had I been unconscious?

Answer!

Answer fast. I didn’t want to be beaten.

“Y- Yes!” I nodded.

“Good,” he smiled. “You were the arc specialist of your shift, am I right?”

I nodded even harder, swallowing the saliva remaining in my dried mouth.

“So tell me.” His eyes pierced my soul. “Why did three hundred and forty seven miners died in the wing you supervised?”

“Three hundred and…”

That was bad.

Terribly bad.

“I’ve killed nobody,” I interjected.

“But ponies died,” he spat back. “So tell me, why?”

“I- I was down there. Was an flashover. Everything’s fuzzy. Can’t say! Body everywhere.”

He smacked my jaw with the back of his hoof.

“I want answers! Not gibberish.”

“I- I…” I sobbed. “I don’t really remember, okay.”

That ‘okay’ was going to cost me a lot. Prancing over, he dropped his two forehooves on my chest. I bent under the weight and pain. I even puked. a few drops stained his suit. Trembling, I meekly looked away, biting in my lower lip to give up the least amount of squeak that could make him happy.

“Stop… Stop, ple-e-ease.”

He growled. “So tell me, what happened!?”

“I don’t know!! I woke up in that cave. Was a body. He’s been killed for sure and burnt after that.” I gurgled. “Didn’t kill him though.”

He remained silent. And so did I.

I slowly looked up in his direction. His eyes fixed the nether before him, in deep thought. I swallowed hard.

“So you’re telling, somepony killed another underground.”

I couldn’t say for sure. The cadaver had that slash around the neck. Could have been a bad landing on a rock. But because it was burnt in a place filled with water… Anyway, the stallion was a Pegasus. No earth pony was to contest a pegasus. I nodded as hard as I could.

“Yes,” I hissed. “Yes.”

“Do you know what ponies do to the liars?” He wishfully asked.

I drifted my eyes away and gulped. My throat hurt from being sore and dry. I wished I could drink. I had that horrid taste of soot still present on my tongue.

“You don’t know?” He gritted, feigning surprise.

“First they cut out the tongue,” I began, pressing my own against my teeth to check it was really there, “then they cut open the hoof with a hook. And they hang the pony with it to a pole. So that everypony can see. The liars.”

“Yes, that’s it.” He smiled. “Now you know what happens if you lie.”

I prefered not to think about it.

Sniffing, fluttering my eyelid to wash off the blurriness from my tears, I look at his hindquarter. One of his leg was made of metal, shining with a small blue arc encased in a glass cylinder. Cogwheels, valves, and pistons activated together as he walked up to me. the movements of the mechanisms was fascinating, making no real noise as it moved up and down. He crossed his hooves on the side of my bed, looking at me with a playful smile. the closer he was, the more uncomfortable I got. A ball of fur formed in my throat. I wanted to puke.

“You know what’s worse?”

I shook my head.

“Right now. I am your only friend. Remember what ponies say. The culprits must be punished…”

“...Steal a pick axe. Steal a friend’s life,” I ended again.

He patted me. “Good, good.” And smiled the most horribly. “So now, tell me. What happens when somepony stole the life of another…?”

I never answered. My lips quivered. Tears rolled, heavy on my cheeks.

“What will happen when your friends will learn that you failed your job. That you may have killed their family?”

He took my hoof in his own.

“I didn’t…” I tried.

His grasp tightened.

“Maybe you didn’t. But what will they think of you? You lived. Their relatives didn’t.”

He was right. So damn right.

“And what’ll happen when you can’t defend yourself?”

“Uh?”

He giggled, “Well, they’re going to be pissed at you. And what about you giving away that you did kill your co-workers… by having nothing to defend yourself with?”

“Defend m’self with what?”

“Evidence.”

I looked at him, eyes-wide. My heart skipped a beat.

"Ah won’t go down,” I interjected.

He laughed, “Not your choice, piece o’cake. You’ve got no choice in this affair.” His stare fell on me like a boulder. “So tomorrow you’ll present yourself to the pit. And you’re gonna be part of the cleaning team. You won’t like it. None of the ponies will like cleaning that mess you did.”

I didn’t… I knew I didn’t. But what could have I said? He was the Pegasus. I was, definitely, nothing.

Nodding was the last thing I had.

“I will… I will.” I acquiesced.

“Good.” He sighed. “Would be a shame that your father lose you?”

“My father…”

He scolded at me. “Your father, while still being an earth pony, has some good strings to pull. He knows you’re alive. Haven’t been told where you are yet.”

I was reassured somehow.

“How good is it to have a father that can pull you out of the shit like that?” the Pegasus dropped. “Many must envy you… to have such position in the Pit.”

I said nothing. There was nothing to say anyway. Ponies were indeed jealous of my father. He was… powerful regardless of his earth pony condition. He was the one who ruled within the Pit, as much as the Pegasi ruled above.

“I’m going to let you go now,” the pegasus said, unstrapping me from the bed. “I’m sure you won’t be stupid to go against your father?”

“Against my father?” What had he told to save me from an expeditive punishment?

“Yes, he’s the one who asked you to prove you aren’t responsible for this mess.” He shook his head apprehensively. “You don’t know how much damage you may do to your father’s reputation with your mistakes. Your father put up some measures to delay the announcement of the adventures of his ‘prodigal son’.” He chuckled as I dropped, my legs cheesy, from the bed. He tended me his hoof, waiting for me to shake it. “Name’s Pureblood, and I’m sure we will make a great partnership together.”

[…]

I opened my eyes on a wet, stinky antechamber of death. The wall reeked, marred with brown and dark trickles of murky water dried from the heat coming from the hissing bodies lying around me. The ceiling had bent across the decades and, in its middle, among moss and putrefied stains of black, a single lamp switching off from time to time was balancing slowly from the loud hoofsteps from one stallion a floor above.

To my right, patchwork mattresses had been lain on which rested ponies, wounded, crying, murmuring, pleading… An earth pony stallion whose face had severe burns loudly breathed a retching air onto my nose. One of his forehoof was twisted and, my eyes following his features down to his hindquarters, I saw his linen had only torn bulge. Amputation.

A needle of fear piercing my heart, I instantly checked my legs and let out a sigh of relief. I was even given the privilege of a blanket with my two remaining legs. I was intact, yet not deprived of wounds and burns. Lifting the blanket, I saw unclean scars seeping with pus on my belly. My head hurt and reeled. My hooves were sore and bloody. However, I was alive. Pain, a simple tick on the checklist.

“Eh, lad, ye’re alive?”

I leaned my head on the left. I was sharing the poor excuse of a bed I had with an old stallion. Pressing his hoof on the gauze strapped to his left eye, he was looking at me, smiling, showing two range of yellowish and uneven teeth. Lying on his back, I was given to see his cutie mark… or to be honest were it should have been. A large gash, burnt and seared to black and a gruesome green and red, covered his flank.

“Yes, it hurts,” he told me through gritted teeth. “But at least I’m not the one on the other bed.”

I nodded silently.

“You too you’ve seen the mare?”

I glared at him perplexedly.

“You know, the white one who carried you here.”

I spoke, or at least tried to. My tongue licked where some molars had broken. Growling, trying to fit in my tongue in this new and eerie empty space, I took a few seconds to muster my words. Once I had left Pureblood, a masked doctor had knocked me out, not even to stitch me up. So technically speaking the mare hadn’t brought me here. Yet, she’d saved me.

“No, I don’t know. She just… happened.”

The stallion shrugged.

“She brought many of us, here. Too beautiful for the Pit.”

“Maybe.”

The stallion sighed. “You ain’t really talkative, are you?”

I was thinking about the mare, wearing her blackened non-flammable cape, shouting around.

I looked at my torso. There, between the coal and muck, remained the mark of two hooves pressing on and on. At least, she had left me with a souvenir, painful ribs.

“Yeah, beautiful…” I breathed.

“Eh, you!” an ice-cold voice spat above me.

Snapping out of my reverie, I found myself towered by a pony wearing a blood soaked pinafore, a red-dripping saw hanging at his belt. He only needed a white ivory mask to be a monster that had escaped of one of my weirdest child dream.

“You can see?”

“Yes…” I hesitated.

“You can walk?”

“I think… so,” I continued.

“You can leave?”

“eh, yes…”

“So stop wasting my time!” He kicked me in the side, cracking the thin layer of mud that had dried over my fur now falling below me on the stinky mattress.

“And take your… scabs with you!” he shouted as I made my way to the door, not listening to his stream of swear words.

I needed rest, but most of all I needed was directions to go back to my family’s cottage. To be honest, I had never been to the doctor, the dudes from the healthcare asked for a price I couldn’t manage to afford in one year of hard labour. Thus, I went on the tangent, hoping the old pony who’d just kicked me out wouldn’t chase me for a meagre payment.

“Hum… guy,” a rattling voice called from behind. A nurse, an old one this time, and an earth pony. “You’ve got to pass the aptitude test after each visit.”

Oh fuck me, that test. To be sure that I was still mentally okay for the mine…

Piece of cake.

[...]

“I… didn’t pass?”

I sat down the room stool, looking at the nurse rubbing her bleeding cheek. She shot me that kind of stare, wondering whether I was stupid… or really stupid.

“So, nurse… Am I ill?”

She pondered a second her answer, giving me a dark-ringed glare as her eyes rose from a paper report. Folded on the top, I could see my name written in black on the yellowish parchment. Pushing a lock of white mane aside her butter yellow face, she cleared her throat and sighed.

“Trauma,” she dropped like a hammer on an anvil.

That was one big word. She caught my dumbstruck look and let out a deep breath.

“To put it in lay-pony’s terms, your body has developed a fear of narrow spaces.”

“Uh?”

She showed me the fold she tried to blind me with. I had her blood on my hooves.

“I’m sorry.”

“I will have you discharged from any mine work.”

“You can’t!” I yelled.

She gave a step back, my bloodshot widened eyes fixing her. Then, biting my lower lip I slowly brought my stare down to the cracked marble blanketing the floor.

“I…” I stuttered, the same shakes that had numbed my senses in the cavern crippling my hooves. “I’m a miner.”

A long silence settled between the two of us. Fillies and foals were playing outside, kicking a probably deflated ball down the street. The nurse slowly raised her hoof to her face, letting out a long sigh, wrinkles folding on her features.

“Why did you have to tell me that?” she grumbled.

I gulped as she walked around the makeshift bed I was sitting in toward a small furniture. Opening it, she took out one single sheet of paper with a round shape blood red stamp on its bottom.

“Wha… what’s that?” I muttered.

She gave me the stare, filled with annoyance as it was clearly not the first time.

“Spare me the whining, please,” she berated. “You’re, just, getting discharged. I’ll send your case to the politburo. You’ll get recruited in the army. You’ll see the world and get some pay apparently.”

Father once told me what he thought about it, chilling.

“Nurse,” I said, my voice febrile. “How many don’t return from the battlefield? In the mine it gets sometimes up to twenty percent.” I slowly rose my head, my count was at three hundred forty seven... A tearing lump in my throat made its presence known as I struggle swallowing the saliva I was chewing on. “Please…”

“You don’t…”

“Please,” I begged, still sat onto the makeshift, stained mattress.

The nurse looked at me, her eyes watering as she bit on her lips, desperate not to tell the truth. Her front hooves trembled as she constricted over her scribbled bloc note. She avoided my curious stares. Her voice slowly rose, crystalline and stuttering.

“None returns,” she spat meekly, her eyes shut as she feared any of my overreaction. “Not that they all die… Just… Murmanesk is not where ponies wanna stay to die.”

She looked at her hoof. “You’re an groundbound like me… You know th’city is our prison.” She was right.

I was just stunned, prostrated. There had always been rumour of those gone beyond the rift… but getting the truth from a rather competent mare was something else than wrestling the words out of one of the chronic drunktards of the nearby tavern. My muscles tensed. I curled up on the bed, locking my knees with my forehooves in a foetal position. The nurse departed.

“Lady,” I called her back, my voice broken and raspy. “How long before you send my case to the administration.”

She stopped in the threshold of the room, the parquet creaking below her hooves. He saw her tail wriggle swiftly. Without a glance back, she sighed.

“Three days,” she muttered with a gruel high-pitched voice. “Three days before the hospital sends your discharge to the politburo.”

She lifted a hoof, ready to go on her fare but stopped. “By the way, there is a letter in the drawer behind you. Letter’s for you.”

Her hoof clattered outside the room.

“Wait”, I yelled. “Please… Can you read me the letter. I… I can’t read.”

She fell back in, ripped off the letter from the sole furniture populating the room, opened it and cleared her throat, clearly annoyed. She read out loud.

“Hi little Coal,

Hope you’ll recover well. I hope to see you again tomorrow. Well, when you get this letter read to you, I guess it will just be one shift in the Pit from our meeting. As I asked the nurse who’s read…” the nurse stopped, grunted, nearly quitted, but kept going on, “...reading this to discharge you so that you can focus ‘properly’ on what I’ve ask you to do.

Hell I know you won’t like that. Neither do I. But it’s something we all have to go through. Proving oneself. So prove to me and your dad, who’s already pissed that you weren’t home as I paid them a visit. You’ve got a beautiful mother and sister to be honest. So, I told him what I suspected you did. And he was pissed. Like Tartarus.

So I expect you to come in handy tomorrow to find out what happened. I found you friends to investigate so far.

By the way, you should really check who your friends are right now. I’m always surprised by how solidarity flow through earth ponies’ veins. I got the nurse reading this ten days of ration for…”

“RAAAh!” she screamed and tore up the paper.

She left in the following second, a tear in her eye, leaving me no time to say something. grasping the two pieces of shredded paper at the feet of my bed, I tried to decipher the paper.

“f… f-or her doh… daughter…

S-See y-ou t-t-tomorr-ow.”

He had signed the letter with his name, Pureblood, and left it with a post-scriptum.

‘PS: Interesting stuff you got in your suit. Did you really tried to smuggle Raw arcs out of the Pit? An arc I haven’t seen yet? And the record… Really interesting. I wished you’ve heard it with me for the last time.'’

I just cringed below my smelly, wet blanket and wept. It sounded like a death penalty. three days and I would be dead… or a wannabe-dead. Either dead on a rope under Pureblood’s order… either in the army, taken far away from here.

“Three days,” I hiccupped.

I had Three days left and I should have hurried. Instead, I just buried myself deep beneath the bed cover and tore up, leaving all my tears trickle over my cheeks in a low, unbearable silence.

2013 project - Fallout:Equestria Little Star - Prologue

Prologue.

“War, war never changes. It’s a pretty admitted truth. The consequence never changes at all: Death. In a war, what really matters is what remains after the last shell has been dropped and the last bullet has been fired. The end occurs when the losing side comes to the point of deciding that ‘All is lost therefore nothing shall survive our doom’. It’s what is coming. It’s the fate reserved for everypony… Everypony, but you. As I’m giving you that one last stable to protect. That last stable kept in a place nopony will ever reach again. Be safe, live, and prosper. Good luck.”

Scootaloo, Stable-Tec Corporation Vice-President.

₮ ₰ ₣ ₪ ₹ ₸ ₢ ₸ ₹ ₪ ₣ ₰ ₮

“Hey… Hey?” A few pokes clanged on top of my head. “Hey! Star, focus!”

I shook my head and blinked a few times. The view from my position was incredible, fascinating and somewhat scary.

“Stop looking down, you idiot!” the stallion’s voice reprimanded with a long huff of impatience. “We don’t have all day.”

“Oh, fuck off, Tinker!” I spat at the stallion and mumbled, “I was just sightseeing.”

The crimson pony rolled his weary green eyes hidden behind his thick shiny helmet. As I shook my head, Tinker rubbed his cramped shoulder beneath his suit. I saw his eyelids flutter as a speck of dust washed over his wrinkles and hit his left eye. He grunted, twitched about, and tried to wipe it away. I smiled at him as trying that with a helmet on was a lost cause.

“Got what you deserved, ol’ rag?” I smirked.

“Gimme a second, Star.”

Unable to scrub the intruding fleck away, he clutched his hooves tightly to the wall we were both attached to with a series of cables. He grunted, shook himself then surrendered to the task. A tiny drop trickled from his left eye.

“I’m too old for these antics,” he muttered to whoever wanted to hear.

In that case, I was the only one around to listen to him, though it didn’t meant I wanted to. Now, as our environment and helmets barred us from speaking to each other directly, we used transponders. The darn mule never learnt how to turn his volume down. Each of his growls sparked shivers into my ears.

“Can’t we just get this over with?” I suggested. “We’ve got a schedule to keep to.”

“And you’re the one telling me that?” he coughed. “Times change.”

After his fit of anger against his dusty nemesis, a lock of grey mane had fallen before his face. It hid the few brown freckles peppering his right cheek and wiggled in front of him as he kept rambling on. His ear twitched repeatedly, trying to bring the offending strand of hair back to its place. Then, he jumped away from the wall and let himself whirl in the nether.

I gasped in fear and tried to reach him. I was already too late. His body mass slammed back on the wall as his cordage pulled him back to safety, a meter or two away from where he started, and right next to me. I felt the force of the impact vibrate in my bones. While I was glaring daggers at him, he simply hoofed me his blowtorch with a large grin on his face.

“If Madam wants to start,” he grinned. “I don’t see your tools around. Have you lost yours again?”

“Shut up, Grandpa,” I protested. “I haven’t lost anything… again. I just forgot my own stuff.”

I snatched the blowtorch off his hoof and locked it on the magnetic clip that adorned each of my horseshoes. With a few kicks on the trigger, a thin but vividly blinding blue flame spurted out. Narrowing my eyes, I gently aimed at the broken pipe we’d been assigned to fix. Those damn pipes were used to cool down the Stable’s reactor and its critical internal parts. Those fuckers had to break at least once a week. I looked at Tinker’s backpack, a tiny sheet of metal tipped out of the cracked leather. At this rate, we would soon be lacking metal for replacement.

“That’s not the first time, Star,” Tinker pointed out after a long pause. “Are you sure everything’s alright?”

I sighed. I hung my head low and let the torch’s flame die out. I let out a deep, long breath and closed my eyes.

“I’m bored, ‘pa,” I confessed. “Like supremely bored.”

I opened my eyes again and looked straight into his. He just gave me a dry chuckle and smiled tiredly. I was the first to broke the awkward silence.

“Have you never… I dunno… wished for something else? To do something else?” I asked. “It’s the Stable over everything else. Stable there. Stable here… It’s only about the Stable. Nopony ever asked me what I wanted to do.”

Tinker smiled at me again with that wise, rueful, painful look.

“I could say that it’s how it has ever been, is, and will be. But I know the answer would never satisfy you. Nor will it satisfy anypony to be honest.” He chuckled sadly. “Let’s say it’s how it must be. Since my grand-grandfather entered the stable when he was young and when he later became the chief engineer, our family has served the stable as dutifully as it was able to.”

“We ain’t Overponies, though.” I joked. “We don’t enjoy their great life.”

“I don’t think you’d envy her current position, it’s quite the stressful job.”

“Maybe,” I whispered.

“Well,” he put his hoof over my shoulder and brought me closer. “We serve and protect. Thanks to our work, ponies live along peacefully, and as such it has been for many years. Don’t you think it’s a beautiful goal? Living to help others?”

“I hate the Stable,” I countered, flatly.

“Who doesn’t, filly?” he said. “We all hate it but that’s all that we have. Equestria has been dead for many years. There’s nothing left on that barren rock now.”

“But, what if the Overpony is wrong?”

Tinker laughed, “We could lift mountains with ifs, my dear.” He patted over my shoulders and snarled. “Stop tormenting yourself, you’ve got a pipe to fix.”

I looked back at the torch with a long sigh.

Jan. 2014 - Fallout:Equestria Wish Machines - Intro

Author's Note

Short Description:
Eighteen years after the Last Day, a mare unveils a past she thought forgotten. By doing so, she will set on fire the anthill the birthing Wasteland is.

Long Description:
Throughout her four-decade long life, Vault Skin has been a rather common Earth Pony mare working as a master of none for anypony paying her enough caps to live another day. However, a well-paid job will awaken a dark scheme from before the Apocalypse which consequences stretch up to our current blood-soaked epoch, eighteen years after the balefire engulfed the world.

Co-written with Unrest
Advised by Sophos
Edited by Phoenix Archangel & Icudeadnow
Thanks to Kkat, Somber, Mimezinga, No_One, Unrest, Novus Draconis, and Vincent Brugeas for being constant sources of inspiration

Jan. 2014 - Fallout:Equestria Wish Machines - Intro

Introduction

Imagine a long and lonesome road cramped with deception and obsession; a life of adventure we can all relate to. All the ordeals we struggle through to get to its end forge us, mold us to a unique behavior, and teach us who we really are. Yet, the question whether this trail is ours or not is what breaks us all in the end.

“You okay, boss?” a mare’s voice echoed, probably calling from the bottom of a wishing well.

If an era of constant wars showed me something, it’s that only one thing always remains the same; Pain. Atrocious and unwavering pain… and the blade in my chest, piercing through my back and pinning me to the ground, agreed with me. Yeah, she was nodding, that fucking bitch. Take your time fucking me… you weren’t even patient enough to go through the right angle….

My eyes jerked open, blurry with blood, mud, and motes of dust. A dark grey ceiling seven feet above my head from which dangled roughly torn wires cracked with electricity. Sparks burst from tapered tips, lighting the vision of apocalypse around me. It had all gone briskly... broken furniture, disemboweled bodies, broken machines, loose wires, and blood… lots of fresh and ugly blood, steaming in the cold air.

I focused, my mind fighting back in all the thoughts pouring out of my bleeding wounds. My skin and flesh was flapping around the blade, small jets of dark red spitting out at regular intervals.

“I-…” I gasped. Blood flowed out of my mouth, bubbling with my raspy and hurting breath. “I-…”

“Oh, shit…” the mare appearing in my range of vision hiccupped, hauling herself over my body.

Her old and teary eyes shook, oh come on… they never blended well with her tanned fur and red-wine mane. Oh… low shivers writhed in the tips of my hindquarters, gaining momentum as they crawled in my backbone up to my neck. My fur raised on my wrinkled skin as something dripped on my face. It couldn’t rain inside, could it? Were those tears?

“Are… are you crying?” I hissed at the frightened mare.

“You’ll survive,” The promise flew out of her quivering lips, unconvincing. “You’ll-!”

I put a hoof on her shoulder and gave her the broadest smile I could muster… damn it was hard to smile with the pain…

“It’s too late,” I confessed with a broken gurgling voice, my eyes blinking haphazardly. “Where’s Lil’Filly?”

“Why do you care?” the mare cried at me. “She killed you.”

“How’s she?!”

“She killed you…” She blurted, her confidence slowly fading away under my repeated assault.

“’Cause she’s mah daughter!!” I screamed with authority.

I felt the mare tensing, whining, fighting back… But in the end she would give in. She had to….

“How’s she?” I breathed smoothly. “You don’t want me to call Gate, do you?”

The mare petrified on her legs, her eyes bloodshot in the terror the name represented. She looked at me with those now pinprick-sized pupils, pleading and bending at the same time. I smiled, showing teeth that I’d guess were broken. Damn, it hurt.

“How is she going?” I asked again, getting on my nerves.

“She’s passed out…” the mare blubbered, growing sobs hacking her speech.

Inhaling slowly, I tried to lower my heartbeats. With time, my eyes adjusted and met my friend’s. Her expression, a stirring mix of fear, stupor, disgust, and obedience, struck me in my retching guts. Friends weren’t supposed to act like that…

“I want to hug her…” I paused, thoughtful. “Ah… and don’t try to take the blade out. It’s good where it is now…”

It was difficult to speak, or to breathe. I contemplate the mare as she complied and disappeared beneath this eerie fog of war thrust over me… was that it, dying? Being slowly swallowed in darkness… gulped by an endless sleep. Close to the mare… I pictured shadows… many angry, teary, or shocked eyes. I heard whimpers… damn bunch of sissies… what had I taught y’all?

Like a ghost, a stallion slithered out from beyond my vision. In response to his step forward, ponies gasped in terror around me, muttering as they backed away. His flaming blue eyeballs stared down at me, contrasting with his pale grey blue skin and his dark grey locks. He had once worn a pair of sunglasses, but the tainted glass had shattered away a long time ago, leaving only a broken frame behind. Over his shoulders stood a long, torn, and bleached coat, falling over his hooves smeared with mud. Snickering at me, he walked further, tilting his head until our two noses nearly touch.

“You’re always waiting,” I complained.

“I’ve just always been there,” he claimed smoothly.

“I’d have preferred to see that damn old buck, personally.”

“Well, let’s say that I’m far better being here than Gate.”

I sighed a giggle, the sword rubbing my chest shooting down my mood with explosion of pain. “Yeah… guess you’re right.” I paused. “Well, seems it’s the end of the trip. I failed.”

“Are you so sure?”

I raised my eyes to the ceiling, my tears falling down my cheeks.

“Don’t ramble that fate thingy discourse of yours… it’s sooo boring.”

He laughed, “What I mean is that your objective is fulfilled. As intended.”

I shook my head dismissively, “You’ll never change,” and coughed over my bloody lumps.

“Because you never did.”

“Stop trying to speak,” the mare came back to me talking in my ringing ears, avoiding to glance at the stallion… my head was all fuzzy. “Here’s your daughter.”

My chest jolted. Spits of blood splattered the crying mare’s tired face. Some found their way to her eyes and. Shrieking, she dropped the young mare right onto me. A massive series of cough wrestled out of my shredded lungs. My legs hacked aimlessly, shushing me again in a stupefied stance of utter pain.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry…” The mare fell back, fearing a retaliation that was never to come.

Calming myself with only scared ponies trying to hide around in the shadows of the corners, I slowly glanced at the young mare resting onto me. Petting her mane, I studied her features, thrown in stark relief by the fires and sparks decorating the room. She was so beautiful; an indigo fur and a light blue mane, covered in scars, burns, and wounds… Her eyes closed tight… a star among the swine. Her lips, stuck into a half grin of disgust and joy, remained unwavering. I spectated that unconscious face, magnified with a pure and unaltered disgust of myself and a beaming joy of the earlier fight. I taught her very well. She was magnificent.

I smirked. It had been a hell of a battle; and I had lost. But now that it was over, why should I care?

“Because you’ve still got something to do,” the stallion weaved his words in my mind, his two pairs of hooves stomping the cold metal used to build the floor.

I growled, trying to stretch my hooves. The blade stopped my attempts, excruciating claws of pain wracking my body from the inside… I staggered and let my head fall on my side. My hoof, or was it my prosthetics, slowly crawled to my torn out saddlebag. Piercing in, I grappled out a pack of med-X, a healing potion, and a tin of mint-als. Well, not that risking an overdose was of any importance now.

The sudden lucidity and feeling of restoration invaded my body, battling back the dolor the alien sword rubbed in my wound. In a softened hiss, I called back the tanned mare, now closely followed by four other ponies… just mere shadows to my eyes.

A PipBuck was still attached to Lil’Filly’s leg, eh… Nice. It’d be easier. Tapping clumsily on its broken screen, I switched on the recorder. My jaded eyes moved between the mare, the shadows, and the stallion, slowly gathering around me. I chuckled. Those dumbstruck faces… priceless. I lied in my own blood, my skin ripped apart and my bones crushed by my own thoughts, remorse, and wounds. I might suffocate, but I would talk. You needed to experience what I’d done, and why I did so. I just hoped you would approve my choice, or maybe lack of choices. Just… don’t be too hard on me. History had always been its own judge and executioner.

“You’ll listen to me carefully, for I will tell the tales of my life… only once. It'll be your lesson and binding. You will maybe… probably hate me after that. But I will be long dead before you shut my mouth up. But if you understand why I did it, and why I had to, I hope you’ll continue the duty I’ve put in each one of you. Because we’re needed. Because we’re are the smugglers of a bridge Equestria has to go through... And this is why that once I’m done, you won’t kill Filly… and you will leave this room and me behind to never return. You will leave me with her.

And if you don’t catch my point yet… You will. And if you still refuse to see the truth, then you’ll accept it… whether you like it or not. Because it’s the only thing you truly have left as your own. You’ve lost everything… but my words.

If I am to narrate you my tale, to show you what I had to do… was forced to do… I hope you’ll find a way to make yours the reasons behind all the mess that happened recently. There won’t be any ‘Once upon a time in the magical land of Equestria’ with me. I’m sorry. We’re just ponies who gave in the abyss.

My name is Vault Skin, and I’ll show you how I fucked up the Wasteland.”

ⱴ ⱷ ꜠ Ω ꜡ ⱷ ⱴ

Footnotes; Vault Skin, Class: Wanderer

Specials:

Strength, 6

Perception, 4

Endurance, 10

Charisma, 5

Intelligence, 5

Agility, 6

Luck, 4

[Welcome to Fallout:Equestria – Wish Machines]

[Enjoy your stay]

Jan. 2014 - Fallout:Equestria Wish Machines - 1. Hit The Road, Wrack!

Chapter One: Hit the road, wrack!

“Every road beckons. No matter where they lead, each has a distinct story to tell.”

Growling with a grisly pout cast on my face, my left prosthetic arm grabbed the last of my rooks and slid it aside the chessboard between my defeated ranks of pawns, knights, and bishops. They were already too many to count as I gave a sigh.

“Damn it!” I rasped, struggling not to hack my hoof through the remaining standing pieces to end the mock game and the humiliation.

“Check,” a stallion’s voice chuckled, picking my ears through a receiver stretched off behind the chessboard, crackling with static.

Built into one of the remaining wall sockets, the military radio sent whirring noises in fits and starts; the only interruption in a series of long unnerving silences.

“Your move,” he mentioned with a teasing and slurring voice.

“Oh, come on!” I shouted to the idle piece of scrap metal. “How can you be so strong at chess? You’re not even looking at the board!”

“Not my fault if I have a good memory,” he giggled. “And maybe… I say maybe… I have my own chessboard to keep track of the challenge… well… if you could call that a challenge.”

His laughter set my cheeks ablaze. I bit my lower lip and swept the sweat of my forehead, my hoof joints popping out as I glared daggers at the receiver. With a victorious grin, I moved forward one of my pawns, the tips of my metallic claw biting in the dirty plastic of the piece.

“Bishop, e, two,” he claimed so quickly I hadn’t had the time to lay the pawn down the wooden plaque.

I studied the chessboard with dumbfounded narrow eyes, eyeing my pieces sternly, eagerly searching for the motives behind his choice. My eyes followed the path of a knight toward my line of scattered pawns and found my king was trapped, again.

“Check,” he snickered.

My ears burning, I roared and threw the pawn across the room, turning my back to the board. I heard the piece bounce on a wall and roll under a nearby furniture, grating over the parquet. I slapped my face.

“Really?!” I grumbled. “How can you do that? I haven’t told you what I was going to play.”

I rose my eyes, the seeping smirk reeking off the receiver throbbing in my mind. Staring at the ceiling was not that bad after all… At least better than looking dumbstruck at my defeat. The greyish lintels had bent under the weight of the years, struck with slithering fissures, their dark brown varnish trickling into layers with slivers of dust.

“Not my fault you’re that bad at chess,” he huffed. “Even more if you’re that predictable.”

Chewing on the inside of my lips, bulging my cheeks with air, I sighed and focused back on the game.

“I’m sorry, Monsieur Moebius, if it’s the only game I have.”

Couldn’t he just stop laughing at me? It was… just humiliating.

Moebius, also known as ‘the little fucking trickster’, was an abrasive annoyance for many, but I knew he could be a kind pony. I had met him a long time ago, back during one mission I had signed for hadn’t turned quite well. His help had taken me out of a faux-pas. The guy was a pure genius as a scavenger and stealthy throat-slicer, a fucking bastard if you ask me. But, if I had one advice for anypony, it would have been not to trust him on a daily basis.

The bad sportmare I was wondered why I was still talking with him. Well, I hadn’t seen anypony else in Hollow Shades to play with in a long while… The question: “How had the stallion gotten my number?” was still vivid in my head. I wasn’t mad at him for breaking into my private life... finding the right number and a line that still worked was amazing.

“You want to play another round?” he asked, probably grinning at me from the other side of the receiver. “It’s a guessing game.”

“I don’t like that kind of stupid,” I grunted. “Spit it out.”

“You’ve got some visitors.”

The connection broke, leaving the room silent, empty. Prostrated, I sit unwaveringly for a few minutes, my breath and heartbeats the only sounds reaching my ears. I looked at my desk in the back of my office, next to its emptied cells, an orange light was glowing from behind my monitors.

“Oh, fuck me,” I gurgled, forcing my shaky, achy hooves to stand up.

I hopped to my desk. Its many screens were flaring a painful muddy green at my eyes as I sat in my wheeled comfy chair, one larger and not meant for ponies in the first place. But, as I couldn’t pull my strange battle saddle off, thanks to the fact that I had lost the key a while ago, I was deemed to sit in an uncomfortable position that made me jerk and twist more than often. Snaking in the chair, I listened to the terminal’s speakers, bipping stridently in unison, a reddish diode glowing over my keyboard. Nothing good was coming out of this.

I glared back at the radio, troubled that Moebius had hinted something was ahoof before I did. Anxious, my heart clenched at the idea the radio dissimulated a camera, spying on each of my movements from the shadows. Heck, call it a Ministry of Morale complex, but eighteen years after the end of the world I was still afraid of the sprite-bots eyeballing me from the next street corner, at least when I was not in control. Those little balls of metal creeped me when they were wandering about, whether silent or blasting a thousand times rewinded pre-war music.

I stared at my monitors, their degraded quality making me want to bulge my screwed eyes out. Many pixels had died throughout the years, their happy green light melted into a murky and painful glow. I focused. Pressing repeatedly over my keyboard, I narrowed my eyes to picture shapes out of the pixelated images, seeking for an intruder inside the city. Maybe Moebius had just messed with my paranoia…?

The night wrapped Hollow Shades into a thick dark blanket, the wind’s roars flinging the remaining shutters on their creaking and jolting hinges; a torture through my terminal’s obsolete speakers. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to listen to the low and discordant cacophony.

A series of pushed keys later while fighting my head throbbing, the screens switched to the western entrance of the town. There, the black tapestry was still whipping over and over again on its pole, the violent breeze blasting the contours of the lonely fabric. Sole passer-by, the dust swept past across the two walk-paths of the alleys, weaving between the cracks of the road. As usual, shadows were carved into the walls and asphalt, beaming off a reeking, darker than black sludge that spiked jerks and sweat down my spine. Hoofmarks stamped the ground, tracing a trail toward the inner parts of the city. A moment of victory later where I believed I had found a burglar, I grumbled my dissatisfaction out. Those were just mine.

Getting bored faster than ever, I zapped between different scenes like I did decades ago with my old TV, searching for a camera displaying a useful angle. That many were long dead wasn’t helping at all. Yet, one caught my attention. It monitored a large boulevard of the eastern part of the city I had always been reluctant to wander in, an industrial area cast into a lid of creeping shadows, teasing my heart in discomfort. The ruins were as terrifying as a ghost city could be in an era of world’s ending. The area had always bore the traces of the apocalypse more than the western side of the city. I winced, the wind moaning on top of the chimneys and through the scrapped metallic façades made my speakers grunt despicably. Phantoms’ pleads in my ears. I zapped and… I blinked at my monitors with blurry eyes. A zoomed in, carbonized, toothless, cracking, and dangling open mouth welcomed me.

“Aaaah!” I jerked out of my chair, my bum and head hitting the floor with a huff of dust.

My breath uneasy, I looked at the ceiling for a moment that stretched to eternity. I hauled my hoof to my ribcage, feeling my heart trying to rip it open and fly away out of fear. Damn it, I hated when a cadaver was hanging in front of my CCTV…

“You sure somepony lives here,” a feminine voice beckoned, muffled by something covering her mouth. “Who would stay in such… hole?”

Struggling to get my breath under control, I crawled to my seat and rolled my hoof onto the keyboard, seeking for a better view. Between abandoned rusty delivery carts, two ponies in heavy barding were hitting the street toward the Hollow Shades’s center, drawing large circles around the mummified corpses strewn across the roads. Slow and uneven, their pace suffered from sore hooves that came from a probably long walk. I forced my eyes to catch their worn out features despite my screens and the darkness outside, leaving me nearly stranded. It wasn’t my night.

“Well, a pony does inhabit the place,” a stallion noted with a deep voice, rolling his tongue with a characteristic pop before he looked asides, checking the crossroad before him. “I guess we have to trust the paladin, she was not really happy to tell us where her old friend was living. But it was necessary. What we’ve been charged to do is of the utmost importance. We can’t fail.”

My ears perked up at the mention of the Steel Rangers’ rank, they had talked to the Paladin I owed, and she gave them my location. The mention of a quest or whatever was also… disturbing. I licked my lips and craved for a better point of view.

Activating a sleeping sprite-bot with my terminal’s override code, I forced it to float over a nearby factory’s crumbled roof, opening over a chain production line that hadn’t moved for a long time. Maneuvering clumsily, it stationed stealthily over the duo. Willing to take a broader look, I turned its zoom to its maximum. Though the green shaded computer screens blew any sense of color, I could still see their cloths and equipment. Heavy, ragged, and dusty.

The mare’s long and disheveled mane fell on her face as she was struggling with a bulky gas mask, its strap falling loose on her temples. Holding the protection with her left front hoof, she was hopping with difficulty on her three other legs, striving to catch upon her companion.

“Stupid. Earth. Pony. Gear!” she grunted.

Two steps ahead, the stallion granted her with a scowl and a wink. “Well, if you hadn’t been a dick to the merchant, he would have provided you some better stuff. Like, you know… something useful for a unicorn.”

She smirked back, shielding herself with a laughable pride.

“He tried to rob us!”

“That’s called business.”

“Yeah, I still…” her right forehoof tripped in a bump of the asphalt. Muzzle first, her face hit the dirt in a loud thump. Butt toward the sky and hoof sprawled over the road, she swore inaudibly, her mouth forced shut by her own weight forcing on her jaw. Breathing puffs of dirt over her mask, its glass protection shattered, she eyed her companion in silence. He hoofed her a small IV bag filled with RadAway, a straw piercing its top, offering her a single raised eyebrow from behind his own glass helmet.

“Want some?” he said, grimacing over the rancid and horrid taste of the orange liquid in its plastic pack.

I chuckled, my voice echoing in the sprite-bot’s speaker.

And a long, long… very long silence followed.

I blinked at my monitor, the duo slowly looking up at the hovering sprite bot one or two pony-length over their head. I scrunched my nose at my screen as the three of us spent an unsettling pause scanning each other, well… my robotic emissary. Only my teeth biting on my lips kept me from laughing. Yet, I couldn’t stop my recurring snorts. The stallion screwed his eyes at the bot with curiosity. The mare however glared daggers at it, keeping her proctologist examination stance up, her eyes cursing it for her bad luck.

“Wasn’t me,” I blurted through my microphone, pressing on the bot’s retreat command.

“Catch it!” the mare blared at her stooge, pointing at the metallic parasprite with a hoof. Her mask fell in response and she roared her rage out.

Losing no time, the stallion flashed forward in the robot’s tow through the Hollow Shades’ streets. Making it fly by the pipes and pass under the bridges, I sometimes found the time to cast a glance back. Sweating over his leathered gear, the stallion wasn’t inclined to give space to me. The hopping mare, on her own, had nearly disappeared far behind. Not so comfortably seated in my chair, I found the mouse and cat game enjoyable. It could go on for hours. But like everything, it had to have an end…

A bell rang out across Hollow Shades, sending shudders through the concrete, walls, and cracked windows. The glass twinkled and shattered, the doors flung shut, and one or two standing cadavers slopped down the dirt in a retching flopping noise. City roaring under Midnight’s beckon. A call from outer space echoing to the underworld. The stallion and I gradually slowed down until we stopped, looking away toward the darkest alleys of the town. A chill crawled over the city, blanketing everything with a cold feeling of emptiness. Void.

The bell clattered once again. Vibration through my bones.

Eyes wide, I jumped out of my chair. My knee tangled in my keyboard cable. My installation crumbled on the ground as I fell head first, my chin hitting the parquet rather violently. Fear shooting quivers down my spine, I grappled a large blanket, wiping the sweat off my forehead at the same time, took my guns, and ran outside. I hoped I wasn’t already too late.

“Ah, ha! Gotcha!” the stallion mocked in the interphone far behind me as I left, his hooves tinkling onto the sprite-bot.

The bell gave another tremor. I rushed through the threshold of my office door. Its clock hung on its wall over the three balloons heraldic, dead for eighteen years. I couldn’t slack. My hooves stomped the ground, cracking the thin layer of vitrified mud beneath the dirt and scraps scattered around. The distant bell boomed in my ears. I was already late.

The bell tolled a ninth time as I reached a crossroad, the one the duo had passed by earlier. Deserted.

“Fuck,” I spat.

A sound of rumble in my back forced my head to jerk.

“There’s a pony right here!” a crystalline voice pealled.

The mare faced me, her features and colors broken by the darkness, the stallion standing behind her, a hoof hung around my sprite-bot. I cringed back as a sliver of starlight briefly illuminated the city block through a hole in the cloudy sky. Running with sweat, spitting loads of steam with my raucous breath, two bloodshot eyes maring my face, I glared death at them. They stepped backward as my two mechanical arms stretched out of my sides and grabbed them by the collars.

The tenth bell modulated the sharp cold of the night.

I kicked the robot out the stallion’s grasp and pulled both of them toward the nearest building while they vainly bit down on the metal limbs to free themselves. The mare shrieked, the cold embrace of my prosthetics needling on her skin. I bucked the entrance door open with my earth pony’s strength. It fell into pieces as two decades of caring disdain had rotten it away. The eleventh bell clacked as I found a narrow storage room, pushed the two rash intruders inside and closed the trail behind. I locked the door as the twelfth bell ring zoomed and I stared back at the two bemused ponies, my guns dangling on my sides, my two additional limbs whizzing on their cogwheels, and a siren’s howl rising from the depths of hell around the city. A world’s ending appetizer.

The mare opened her mouth and I stuck my hoof in.

“Hush!” I ordered through a whisper. “Fools!”

“What’s…?”

“Shush!”

I flung my blanket over the three of us, curled up, forcing my two stooges down with my cold steel claws.

“No move, no sound, and we might survive,” I whispered, tears breaking off my eyes before I began my pleading, the siren muffling my voice. “Please maketh them go away, Celestia. That in thy beaming embrace the death flies over us but does not stop.”

“Who?” The mare fidgeted on her hooves.

“That thy eyes keep the shadows at bay… Those of the unrests. Maketh them go away, that they absent hooves leave no crack in the house, that their breath does no sound, and that their missing eyeballs do not stare at us, for it means to die. Please, Celestia, giveth us hope, keepeth the shadows away, for dead must not blend with the livings.”

I closed my eyes, listening to the deafening siren blasting through the house bricks and foundations, attentive to the creeping cracks of the walls, caring about the crawling winds weaving through the unwatched fissures. The locked door slammed and jerked on its hinges and lock, an eerie storm roaring behind. The three of us snuggled in each other’s shoulders. The room was unbearably cold.

“The shadows,” I whispered. “Don’t look at them. They will eat your hearts.”

I felt the mare shiver in my hug. Whimpers, hiccups, and tears.

“Soon they will away,” I concede.

“Mom…” the stallion muttered.

Humming over the roofs of the town, the wind twisted and turned outside, wobbling the door like a maddened pony eager to break in. I kept us below the blanket, the warming air slowly impregnating the makeshift hideout with our own stench of fear and stress, a spicy reek added to the whole. Minutes flew past, and the siren finally began to die in the distance. I rose my head from under the blanket and stared into the two pairs of twinkles before me, the duo’s eyes. One of them had peed all over the place and I felt my skin soaking bit by bit.

I licked my lips, pushed the cover aside, groped the wall with my hoof and switched the light on. The lamp exploded in light, showering us with glass. Gasping, the mare sought for a refuge below the stallion’s powerful shoulder, undoubtedly an earth pony. A chuckle grew stronger deep within me as I let the silence between the three of us sink in like a rusty knife in a wound. I took a long and deep inhalation, stared at them and giggled with a wide grin that presented a range of yellow teeth.

“Well, hope you enjoyed the thrill ride and the big drops on Stallion Mountain. The attraction opens once a day at midnight when the bell rings across Hollow Shades,” I said with a low snicker. “The first ride is always free. The direction refuses to pay for your cleaning.”

“What?” they shrieked in unison.

I dodged the febrile mare’s hooves, trying to strangle me in the dark. Clumsy, ashamed by the pee splattering her hindquarters, she dropped by my side, her back hooves intertwining in my wet blanket. I raised a brow at her exposed bum, her horn suddenly glowing orange. I walked away from her disincarnated grasp and my rump hit the stallion’s forelegs. A sudden flash of light lit on his face. An electric torch between his hooves. The room suddenly thrown into stark relief, the two peers laid an eye on me as much as I eyed them back with a low playful smile, happy they had gone so far in the joke.

Yet, something caught me off-guard. Air inflated my warming cheeks until they swelled to the point they were about to blow up like balloons. To be short, I failed controlling my burst and I rolled down my left side, a harsh and teasing laugh breaking through me.

“What?” the stallion growled. “It’s my coat that disturb you?”

I waved my brows, ducking my lips in a funny grin. “Now that you say it.” I fell back on the ground, cackling as I held my sides, the stallion trying to set me on fire with his glare. “Did Pinkie Pie drop you in Cloudsdale’s paint factory?”

I laughed, wiping a tear off my cheek.

The stallion’s bright pink hide shone in his torch’s chiaroscuro light, his violet mane streaked with indigo tied into a ponytail falling behind his left shoulder. It was too awesome, amazing, not to laugh at, I only knew one kind of pony with such set of colors, at least until now: mares. A big muscled oiled earth pony male piñata. The sight was eerie, unreal in a world where green and pastel colors had been blasted away to leave behind just their darker and moodier tones. If not for moving to kick me around, swearing at me, he would have made a magnificent Fillydelphia Fun Farm’s statutes from before the Last Day.

“Stop it,” he hissed, to no avail. “Celestia dammit, stop that.”

My laughter slowly spread to the mare who’d been looking back and forth between the two of us, a hoof in front of her mouth as she tried not to mock her friend. The dirty orange fur on her shoulders was covered by long disheveled brownish locks, falling all over her head and hiding half of her eyes with only her glowing horn sprouting out of the mess.

“Stop what?” I rolled over my back.

“Just stop it,” he mumbled, his face turning red as he hunched over, hanging his head low out of shyness. “It’s already difficult to bear on itself. So don’t make it harder to take.”

A few low hues and cries later, I sat over my flanks, massaging my achy cheeks and ribs. Little compared to her companion, the mare shook her head, her eyes craving to set me on fire after she had calmed herself. I could see her barding humid with pee. Laughing time was over.

“Sorry for… that,” I apologized.

She threw a hoof at me with enough delay to shield myself with one of my prosthetics. A moment of stupor later spent staring down at my mechanical barding, she hissed, “Do this once more and I swear I’m gonna break your mouth.”

“Oh come on,” I countered. “It was fun.”

“No!” both the mare and the stallion spat at me.

Smiling, my eyes wandered on their equipment, eager to get a closer look on what I’d already witness through my CCTV. Both wore a thick leathered armor peppered with scraps of CBRN-proof yellow suits and metal plaques that clicked and clanged over their shoulders with each step. The stallion carried a massive black shotgun on his left side, tied to a brown light battle saddle, its trigger extension folded behind his neck. The mare on her own seemed to take a great care of a bolt action wooden precision rifle strapped to her back, displaying a metal support that had stripped off its scope. A mask dangled around the stallion’s neck while the mare’s counterpart was nowhere to be found, probably lost in the chase. I pointed my hoof at her missing item.

“I’ll replace it for you,” I proposed.

She patted her face with widened eyes and gazed sternly at the pink stallion, whose hoof stretched in his saddlebag to pull out another small medical bag of RadAway. Quickly, he hoofed it to her, gave me another, and sucked on a third little glowing orange bag, disgust tearing up their faces. I stared down at the bag with disdain. I sighed and pushed it back to him.

“Don’t need it,” I stated.

He screwed up his eyes to a knife blade’s width and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve already taken some?”

“Eh… sort of,” I chuckled. “Don’t waste one for me,...eh...” I suddenly realized I didn’t know their names.

I drew my hoof out to them and gave the weird couple the best smile I could muster.

“Name’s Vault Skin,” I presented. “Sheriff of Hollow Shades.”

They eyed each other with that look of surprise and suspicion. My lips shut close as they glared back at me. The hoofshake that followed went overwhelmingly formal.

“I’m Lozenge.” the stallion insisted with a not-at-all mistrustful pout. “But call me Loz.”

My playful grin wasn’t going to fade soon. Loz’s sight was giving me cuteness diabete all by itself. He was young, maybe not old enough to remember the days from before. Yet, his skin was already marred with scars of past skirmishes, usual between groups of survivors fighting over the scraps of the big cities’ peripheral towns. His Cutie Mark was a pulley with a red rope sliding in. I tilted my head to the mare who wiped a narrow stream of glowing orange running off her lips.

“I’m Blast,” she grunted, grimacing as she caught me looking at her flank, marked with a large black rectangle shattered in the middle.

“You hate geometry?” I teased like hot embers on a bare skin.

“Yeah, maybe.” She giggled and shrugged, falling back to a more serious look. She wasn’t going to forgive me soon for my joke. “I’m not gonna stay here without a gas protection. I don’t wanna die.”

“Follow me,” I said, waving a hoof toward me. “I’ve got a house.”

We walked out of the lonesome building we had taken refuge in, the wind chill stinging my skin. The town was now eerily calm, the breeze the only rustle in the air. Loz followed me close, lighting the road with the sliver of his torch, seeking to unveil with the light every piece of shadow that appeared darker than black in his eyes. Was he afraid of the dark…? I didn’t know. But I could see him looking with disgust and fear at the grim shadows cast around the walls. I even saw him wince at the look of one little foal, its dark silhouette cast in some falling pebbledash, his smile strangely white in that all black face. Welcome to Hollow Shades.

While he was agitating around, I couldn’t stop but looking at his hilarious fur and mane. Poor boy, he should have had a hard life with other colts. He was an earth pony granted with a bulky frame that even seemed alien in my eyes, bigger by two heads than Blast or me. His shotgun was clattering on the buckles tying his barding to his sides. What beamed from him was an impression of cleanliness. His mane and hide were properly tied and brushed, and even if the fragrance of sweat and labor reeked off him, I could see his care for his own person. I even put myself to shame. Loz wrestled a large and rusty rad-counter out of a pocket, waving it around. It cracked back and fro, up and down. Not a good sign I guessed, his eyes flickering and his lips closing tight. He gulped, his head slowly leaning next to me.

“You’ve been living here for a long time?” he asked with a low grave voice, his eyes riveted on my Cutie Mark exposed to the light of his lamp. That was a question I was eager to sweep away.

“Since ever,” I answered.

“How are you not…”

“We’re here,” I cut him off hastily, pointing the entrance of the sheriff office.

We contoured the massive fountain that borrowed Princess Luna’s traits, built to open on the central square of Hollow Shades, and walked toward my office. The building stood fiercely, a muffled green light glowing through its cracked windows. Caring about Loz and Blast, I watched dumbfounded the nastiness of my hideout. It needed to be scrubbed, to have its furniture dusted, its hinges oiled, its walls repainted, its shutters replaced, maybe its canalizations redone, and finally some ponies to populate the city around. Similarly, it reeked off the fact that I was a messy, oblivious, and often disorganized mare. My yet-to-come guests would dislike having me as a tenant. I caught my two guests staring at the camera hung onto my office walls.

“Just my camera system,” I explained to them, afraid to walk into a deadly trap.

I put a hoof on the wood stairs leading to the swinging doors of my office, ready to pass by the old buck and his burnt rocking chair when somepony coughed behind me.

“Vault,” Blast initiated with a whimper, her eyes avoiding mine. I looked upon her hide, smeared with her own fluids. I pinched my lips in comprehension.

“I’ll get you something to… wipe it off,” I said. “I’m sorry if I went too f…”

“No, no… It’s not about… that,” Blast cut me off then asked dubiously: “It’s just… Where did the bell ring come from?”

I raised my eyebrows, thought about it and frowned.

“Oh that? No fucking clue. There’s no church in Hollow Shades.” A hoof through the door, hiding my smirk behind a flat face, I welcomed her. “Après vous, Madame.”

Blast’s terrorized face made me smile on the inside. She huffed past me, her chin overly pointed up.

“The RadAway’s in the kitchen,” I shouted at her as her flanks disappeared in the dark. My ears flicked at the creaks Loz’s hooves wrestled from the porch stairs. I winked at him. “Make yourself at home. You two must be tired from the walk. Long time I haven’t got visitors… Heck, it’s even my first time.”

I pinkie-smiled and pushed him inside. Slowly, I raised my head and I fixed the other side of the Luna’s fountain in the middle of the square fronting the office. There was nothing but somber shadows distorted by the night and my accumulated fatigue… For a second I thought… nevermind.

Sighing, I jerked my head away from whatever fading vision my spirit could come up with in such damned city.Swallowing my saliva, I walked in my office, the swinging door creaking as they closed behind my rump. My eyes wandered in the large hall, searching for the presence of my visitants under the dim light of the dying lamps above our heads.

Blast had already found a gas mask in my storage. Both she and Loz had readjusted their suits to be exposed to as less radiation as possible. I was certain radiation here wasn’t that deadly… I should investigate that. Her bag leaning against my desk, I saw the myriads of orange medical packs within. How many had they bought to reach me? I didn’t even know where they came from. I looked behind her, my eyes riveting onto the stallion’s face, his jaw chewing on the space between his clenched teeth. I was sat comfortably in from of my screen. lowly, his head rose and two picky, glaring, and hurt eyes struck me with questionable motives.

“You’ve enjoyed spying on us?” he grunted.

“My duty as sheriff,” I replied, looking down to dodge his stare.

“You’re a kinda loyal mare if you’ve been doing that job for eighteen years,” Blast chuckled, letting her voice drop to a scary growl. “Not that keeping an uninhabited city is of any interest.” She let a long silence set in like a knife in a wound. “Unless you’ve got something to hide...”

I tensed, a little frown on my face. My mouth opened, dangling silent for a second or two as I ransacked my memories. Why I was dedicating myself to Hollow Shades was eerie for anypony else. I wasn’t on a quest or anything that would influence the world. I just… loved my city. I loved the anonymous prisoner blasted asunder in his cell, the old buck sitting still in his rocking chair… the playing children…. and of course, the... shadows. So why was I staying here, or more likely always coming back here? It was a good question. I bubbled with my lips, staring into thin air before Blast waved a hoof before my eyes.

“Hey? You okay?”

I blinked. “It’s just my home,” I confessed. It was the truth, Hollow Shades was what I could call home. A small radioactive island lost in the middle of an ocean of radiations, away from the daily survival, sometimes violent, that plagued the ‘outside’.

“How long have you been living here?” Loz asked,looking at me with pecky eyes, betraying distrust.

“Oh, the pinkie plushie isn’t confident?” I teased, making him growl. I smiled, remembering my time past at the local school playing along with classmates I had long forgotten the names. Soccer, hoof wrestling, or some hide and seek. “I’ve always been here. Good memories.”

We eyed each other for a short but unsettlingly silent pause. I coughed exaggeratedly, clearing my throat to make myself heard. It was time to reverse the conversation.

“Why did you come here? If my guesses are right, a long trip such as yours isn’t for chocolate treats.”

Loz sighed, throwing his violet ponytail over his right shoulder, twitching his hoof around his chin, ill-at-ease with my recurrent teasing. He gave Blast companion a stern look. She breathed out, and shrugged disappointedly.

“You’ve heard about Tenpony Tower?” she began, unsure about me being a trustable pony. I looked up to the ceiling, giving them an obvious answer.

“Who didn’t?” I said, tapping my hoof on the dusty parquet.

“So you know the Steel Rangers tried to break in lately but failed.”

“With casualties,” I added, Loz acknowledged the truth with a silent nod. Was he sad? “So what?”

“The Steel Rangers’re gathering a small squad to break into the tower’s defenses, again. They want to check on the tech’ kept inside the tower’s protection shields.” She broke her speech and looked at Loz, waiting for a sign of approval. “The first encounter wasn’t very well handled from both sides.”

“Tell her.”

Rubbing an absent beard, pensive, Blast looked at me with sad little eyes.

“The Steel Rangers’ main force might break everything inside if a skirmish with the surviving inhabitant happens. Needless to say that those survivors would be stomped to death.” She shook her head, probably thinking about the countless dead it meant. I was more eager to balance her last statement. Rangers had been killed apparently. “I’m gathering a team to go in and see for ourselves what’s going on inside.”

“You’re from the Steel Rangers?” I brought forth.

Both looked at each other, and after a short moment spent staring at each other, they both went through their saddlebags and hoofed out a strange round piece of leather; its contours were shredded. Puffing a haze on the inside of her mask, Blast showed me an insignia I couldn’t forget. Etched on a leather canvas, a pair of phoenix wings enclosed an apple-shaped box circling three uneven cogwheels, the whole cut into two symmetrical halves by an sword. Steel Rangers. Eyes widened, I gulped my saliva. I was picturing power armors, embracing their sunken and starved curves.

I swept the ‘we’re Steel Rangers so follow us’ argument away with a swift lateral movement of my hoof.

“Why me?”

Loz fidgeted on his hooves, probably thinking about how to phrase his demand.

“You’ve worked for the Ministry of Morale,” he stated to my stupor.

“How do you know?” I hiccupped, my tongue forcing flickers through my voice, turning in an awful lisp. “Who’re you working for?”

“We’re initiates,” Blast cut Loz and me off. “And we’re the last hope before the paladins decide to bust in Tenpony Tower’s doors. We have ten days to find a team, go in, and negotiate a peaceful way out.”

I growled, closing my eyes and holding my temples between my hooves. I sat down the dust and parquet beneath. Volutes of smoke flew off from under my rump.

“Why can’t the Steel Rangers give me some rest?” I groaned. “I’ve just finished a mission with them and they already want me back.”

“You do a good job apparently for a… mere wastelander,” she smirked at me.

Our eyes met, my left eyelid twitching under the fatigue.

“Why me?” I repeated.

“You’re a former Ministry of Morale’s agent,” she said so neutral it shot spikes of shivers down my limbs. She pinched her lips, and gave a grave look. “You know… unconventional technologies.”

I shook my head in disapproval. I was too old for that kind of things, and I had left that past behind me. I had even forgotten a lot of my training. Thinking about Tenpony Tower, the truth unveiled.

“You want me to hack through the Tenpony Tower’s computer defenses,” I wailed, my hooves giving two steps back out of Blast’s reach, now dangerously far too close to me. “Why?”

Loz put his right hoof in front of his partner.

“Tenpony Tower is a Ministry of Arcane Science Hub. There must be a shitlot of tech inside, which means a lot of defenses we can’t go through without an expert’s help. And the previous engineer had been killed by the Tenpony Tower’s occupants.” I smirked at that. “However, many remains have… probably suffered of the balefire bomb that exploded near the city center,” Loz finally hummed. “And surviving agents from the MoM are rare today.”

“Why can’t you contract an engineer from the M.A.S. or from the M.W.T., you’re Steel Rangers after all. You must have got plenty of them after eighteen years making a bad reputation!” I fought back.

“Well, Paladin Seed was right about you,” Loz sighed. “Half-hearted as a mule!”

“Wait, she gave you my location!” I will have to spank that overconfident mare the next time I’d meet her.

Loz gave me an eyebrow. “But she asked you to consider this as a favour from you to her. You owe her, is that it?”

This was bad played from her. I was indebted with a mare from the Steel Rangers, a paladin. And today, she had to ask me to fulfill a promise I had made years ago. I hated that feeling, being trapped in a deal that was more about stealing that paying back some debt was unnerving. It was also involving killing ponies, starving, probably badly trained, and maddened by isolation. I was maybe a mercenary, but not a murderer.

“Because… well...” Blast started laughing. “Steel Rangers are soldiers, not Doctors in Computer Science. We lack of proper engineers and ponies around Manehattan that can handle tech properly. The competent personal is located elsewhere at the moment…”

I’d have asked where this ‘elsewhere’ was but knew I would get no answer.

Blast’s glare shot untold threats at her friend who ashamedly smiled and shrugged in response.

“Hey,” Loz cackled. “Don’t look at me like that, not my fault if you made me trip over the keyboard last time. You sent the wrong order.”

Blast face changed from a stern stoic look to a wrinkled vexed face. “Don’t talk about that,” she hissed.

I laughed at those co-workers putting sticks in the other’s wheels. I rubbed my left hoof with the other, pondering the implications of the mission I was given. It was extremely dangerous. That a few Rangers had already lost their lives in the process was more than a needed evidence for me to refuse… But Seed… damn! First I was forced in this trade. And I wasn’t talking about being required to show off what I had quickly forgotten eighteen ago. With the balefire had indeed come unemployment.

“I’m not suited for the job, not anymore,” I confessed. “I –“

“You are,” she insisted. “We need somepony like you. And well, you’ve signed for this before looking at the bottom of the contract.” She smiled.

Grunting, I facehoofed, holding my head my hoof pressing on the metal strap stuck in my skin; my elbows resting on my akimbo knees.

“We can’t stay here,” Loz peered in the conversation. “I don’t know about your… condition, but Hollow Shades is radioactive… on a deadly level. Blast and I can’t stay here. We’ll wait for you beyond the Eastern border of the Hollow Forest, tomorrow. If you miss the appointment, we’ll find a more suited pony.” This hurt like a knife on a fresh scar.

Still hanging my head, I stared at the inside of my hooves. In the low light I could still see the smears of blood from the poor stallion from Junction, blackened, dirtied, and washed away by two weeks of travel. How could those two young ponies stand my company? I was pathetic. Biting my tongue, shoveling back tears I didn’t understand the origin, I looked up. Both were waiting impatiently a positive answer… or negative. I couldn’t tell whether they really wanted me or they were just following orders.

“Tell me,” I sliced in the building silence. “Even if I have to respect a promise, what’s my reward? I don’t work for crumbs.”

The businessmare she was smiled as if she was signing a fruitful contract. Trying to fit in, I shared her grin. With difficulty, though.

“A full-time position within the Steel Rangers,” she brought forth.

For anypony that wandered the wasteland, such offer was a chance of a lifetime, for it meant being sure not to starve and live a longer and healthier life among the rumbles. However, I wasn’t feeling like leaving Hollow Shades… definitely.

“You’re lonely, Vault,” Blast whispered, triggering quivers along my backbone. “I can see it on your face. Why not come on an adventure. It’s better than waiting to rot in a dark rat hole such as Hollow Shades. I may be rude, but being the sheriff of a city with nopony to defend is rather cynical. You could save life going with us. There are ponies outside that need help of ponies like you.”

“I know,” I murmured. “I’m just…”

“Old?” Loz finally teased, grinning as he finally balance the score between him and me.

I was forty five years old, fuck him! In Wasteland’s standard it was a rather long life indeed. But.

“I. Am. Not. Old!”

Some ponies had died unborn., though. I got to leave several lives through peace, war, and apocalypse. I clenched my eyes, hunching over my shoulders as I cracked the joints of my hooves together, hurting myself to make the hurting questions go away.

Blast sighed and smacked her hoof on my desk, wrestling a jolt out of my legs. The screens flickered and wobbled softly. “You’re wasting our time, and health.”

“I’m sorry,” I blubbered. “It’s just…”

“We’ll wait outside the eastern Hollow Forest’s border tomorrow,” Loz comforted me, hauling himself out of my chair to walk up to me, giving me a hoof on my shoulder and a warm smile. “Agent, it’s your choice.”

My mane crawled and my fur itched along the way to the border of Hollow Shades as I followed them to make sure they went out without a problem. My belly churned at the thought of leaving once again my native city and ached by the silence that had followed Loz’s last words. I didn’t know what I wanted.

“Tomorrow,” Blast repeated, her voice seeping care. “We need you. We’ll be waiting for you, don’t worry.”

Yet I did.

Once back to my office, I sat in my rocking chair under the cracking porch, wobbling back and forth under the freezing windchill. Drums started over my head as rain flowed down the city from the sky. The dirt melted and washed away in torrents through the cracks in the asphalt under my eyes. Light streaked the sky, its rumble following close. What should I do?

In abrupt bursts, bolts of lightning showered the city. The lights cast shadows over the black buildings, moving and living eerily. As the headrest of my chair ascended, I peeked a look at the walls closing on the square. Darkness was seeping out of the carvings, shadows and undead getting back to life. The black silhouettes crawled numbly around, my eyelids unbeatably heavy. Was my mind failing me? Ranks of anonymous featureless shadows crawled forward around Hollow Shades, entering, leaving, waiting in my range of vision, seeking for some incomprehensible things that I couldn’t even fathom. I heard the laughter of children playing soccer, the humming of an old buck puffing through his pipe, a mare welcoming clients, another eyeing passers-by, and screams… lots and lots of tortured shallow howls.

Cold trickles of sweat rolled from the top of my neck to my left flank, stinging me along its way with unbearable shakes. Wind blowing through my mane, the night loomed its darkness over me, the rain its maiden. I fought back tears, biting my lips in resignation. Blinking to wash away the achy dark waters, I screamed the vision for the vision to disappear. But it wasn’t my choice to do. He… it, or she wouldn’t go… Through the raindrops, one specific child’s shadow lurked out of the night from beyond the occupied Luna’s fountain as a drowned foal out of black and murky abysses. Her two dull green glowing eyes punctured my coat, pain ripping off my soul. My fur raised on its root. Lightning bolted through the watery sky, cracking off the dark dissimulating veil masking the… thing’s smile. A monstrously wide grin. Saw-shaped green-glowing white teeth. Smiling, waiting, teasing. The blackness bubbled around its traits, popping and sprawling so its shape was never really defined… or simply redefining throughout its wavy movements, like a primordial darkness from where life was going to birth and die for the first time. Sometimes edgy. Sometimes only a simple overzealous and devouring smile in the nether.

“Go away,” my lips articulated, my throat deprived of air and sound. “No pony will be yours tonight. Go away, ghost lost in darkness. Remain far away from them.”

I blinked. It disappeared. My stomach churned and growled. Fear crawling in my mind, clamping my thoughts with alien desires. Freedom, escape, destruction, oblivion.

“Vault…” Just a murmur.

I gulped.

“Vault!” A mere scream.

I whimpered.

“Vault.” A simple order.

I looked aside at the old buck rocking chair, now completely black and reeking off darkness. Above the carved black shape moved a mass of shadows, slowly materializing. A head, two… no four hooves, snatching off the furniture’s forms. Lightning boomed. Its smile, through melted, holed, and rubbery, bubbled lips. A tail weaving like a snake around the wood of the chair. A darker than black, light-devouring, and dropping mane. And finally white eyes ripped off their pupils staring into me.

“Why are you leaving, Vault? Why’re you leaving if you always come back,” it tore through his throat.

“It’s my home,” I answered. “My place is here.”

“So, why do you even leave? You thrive to flee. Pathethic! You don’t deserve nothing of this.”

Yes, I was pathetic, a mare that didn’t even know what she wanted, hesitating between many possibilities and offers until those opportunities had long run dry. Incapable of choice. Incapable of thought. Incapable of living.

“Do you remember the day the bombs fell?”

The creature’s head hung on the side toward me, giving me tearing black puppy eyes. I nodded, thinking about the many screams, shouts, and cries… Incapable of forgetting. Pain flowed down the back of my hooves as the apparition touched me. But the pain came from where my teeth had bitten deep, imperceptibly at first. Blood dripped down, melting with the rain splashing over me, the wind rendering the porch useless. Eyes burst open, I looked at the shadowy square, hazing with the flashes, rumbles, and drumming.

“Yes, I do,” I muttered.

“it still burns, eh?” it teased. “The screams, the heat, the pain. But you lived against all odds!”

“I…” I whimpered. “Everypony keeps disturbing me, I want to rest.”

It smirked at me with such jealousy it reeked off her pitch-black swallowing hide.

“Who are you?” I was fed up repeating that question at each of our encounter. It wasn’t the first time I had that argument.

“Stupid question as always,” it retorted. “I’m what you’ve stolen from! From everypony that died here.”

I breathed in and found myself unable to exhale, my head turning red, burning. The thing stood over me from her fragile stature, scowling down at me.

“I…”

“What is good is forever forgotten, and it’s bad,” she howled. “What is bad is worshipped on an altar, and it’s bad too.” She giggled. “So, what can you be sure of?”

“Of what I do!” I spat back mechanically. “That I must survive.”

“So, why are you coming back here again and again? You’ve stolen lives.Now you’re offered freedom but you’re stealing it from yourself?”

“Because you can’t leave Hollow Shades,” I hissed. “Ponies hurt, but I can forgive them. You! You hurt more. You cannot leave.”

“Yet I will!” It neared its head toward mine. It kissed my closed lips and I felt my breath taken away. Her voice rose once again. But it wasn’t hers… It was… mine. “One way… or another.” She… it gave me a little challenging nod, its smile ripping off its cheeks from ear to ear and beyond. An open maw.

It dropped his… its head on the side and drifted away for what seemed to be an eternity, hopping on legs shaped into slicing cones. Hooves sent through an oversized pen sharpener, sinking slightly in the mud, cracking the layer beneath. A nearly inaudible feminine laugh fell in its stead as it merged away in the pitch-black rain. It took effort not to faint on the spot, knowing it would come back stabbing me.

I cried under the muffling wind, the deafening thunder, and the horrid howls that had gobbled up my town. I crawled my poor body to my desk, crumbled down in my chair, curled up, and the good hoof of Morpheus welcomed me in a nightmarish sleep as I wept myself until my tears would dry. But they never had.

Ø VƱ ϵ α Ħ E!α ϵ Ʊ Ø

Outside Hollow Forest, once travelers had crossed the border, a makeshift encampment stood still, soaked in the rain that had watered down the region the whole night long. The sun had peered over the hill and clouds in the eastern horizon, nibbling the wasteland with cold tendril of grey light through the grey lid over my head.

“She won’t come,” Loz rambled, focused on scrubbing off the mud splattered onto his shiny black shotgun, his battle saddle suspended next to him on a low branch of a carbonized tree. “We shouldn’t have come here. Used too much stuff for nothin’.”

His pink coat had turned violent with the rain, his ponytail was now a disheveled mass of hair falling on his shoulders. around him was scattered emptied RadAways.

“We said we’ll wait in the morning. And morning ends at noon,” she condescended. “We stay.”

“Smartass,” he grunted.

I had awaited long behind a tree nearing the end of the forest, trying to catch anything from the duo. Minutes spent doing so taught me they were kinda boring.

“I’m here,” I bellowed, slowly walking out of the Hollow Forest, a small saddlebag hanging over my loader barding and my two guns shining below. “Sorry for making you wait.”

Surprisingly, Blast hugged me tight, giving me a bright warm smile. “Thanks. I was sure you’d make the right decision. Staying alone there is not healthy, ponies are meant to band together.”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t so sure about the band-thing. I had heard grim things happened in the south, near the Bad Lands.

“So, are we going?” Loz asked, loading his gun with large twelve millimeters cartridges. Grinning at each crystalline and smooth click his shotgun gave in response. Damn scary pink buck.

I looked down at the box of cartridges between his hooves. My eyes grew wide. The gauge cartridges were transparent, leaving the slugs exposed… Well, first there were only one slug per cartridge, similar to a sabot if it was the name. One large heavy sharp slug with fins filling each gauge entirely made my mane crawl. How deadly were those bullets, if you could still call them that?

“Brenneke slugs,” Loz called out, smirking at my sudden fear of his arsenal. “Meant for deep penetration, extreme crippling, and wall breaking.” He aimed at me and pulled the trigger. I ‘eeped, until I understood the safety was still on. “...you don’t want to be on the trajectory.”

“Fuck you with a metal bar,” I shouted.

He clacked the pump back and forth in his mouth, loading in the last slug.

“An eye for an eye, a tease for a tease,” he cackled.

Blast whacked the back of his head with a hoof.

“Stop scaring people with your gun, dumbass. You already do with your color,” she mocked.

“Don’t start with that too,” he muttered. “You promised me”

She raised her eyes to the sky. “Of course.” Then looked at me. “You’re ready to go?”

“Yes. But we aren’t going straight to Manehattan.”

The two pairs of glaring eyes that rammed through me after that creeped me out. I had to pull out an explanation, quick. I sweated, stuttering. “Don’t worry, we’ll just need help. I know a buck. Name’s Moebius.”

“Where does he live?” Blast asked, not reassured. “We’re running out of time.”

“It’s on the way. There’s just a short detour to make. He lives in Fillydelphia.”

I had never seen pupils shrink so fast and veins burst red around irises.

“Filly… delphia?” they both trembled.

“Yes, why?”

“…” They both stared silently at each other. They looked back at me like I was some kind of autistic-aggravated idiot that hadn’t crawled out of an isolation chamber for two decades. People often gave me this look. Never understood why.

“You’re crazy!” they cried out. “It’s a death hole!”

“You’ll see, he’s a funny stallion!” I laughed.

“You’re twigged.”

And I laughed even more.

ⱴ ⱷ ꜠ Ω ꜡ ⱷ ⱴ

Footnotes; Vault Skin, Class: Wanderer, Level Up

New Perk: “’You saw that?’ ‘Saw what?’”

Maybe you are a parapsychic mare, or maybe you’re just plain crazy. However it seems that you nurture a deep connection with the past. Be careful it doesn’t trap you in a thought reality that isn’t real.

Maybe… just Maybe...

Jan. 2014 - Fallout:Equestria Wish Machines - Prologue

Prologue

How does it feel trying not to fall asleep while being in the most precarious situation? Well, from my expert point of view, it’s slightly annoying…

‘Snip’

I jerked my head aside, a dull spike of pain shivering down my left ear.

“Ouch! Careful with scissors! You jerk!” I spat at my manedresser, struggling onto the largest shop’s angled chair, a large fabric thrust over me and a hot humid towel on my eyes, for security he had said.

I was just afraid of scissors… and knives… and needles… and files… everything that able to slice and cut through a pony’s hide. Dammit, my life had been threatened to end at the tip of an edge so much I had developed repulsion to anything enough sharp to kill. Somehow, I was glad I was a mare… I wouldn’t be able to shave myself if I had been gifted… well... that testosterone factory between a male’s legs.

“Oh sorry, Vault,” a stallion chuckled. “But with that shock of hair you’ve got, I can’t really see where your ears fall. How long has it been since the last time?”

“Two years,” I grumbled, feeling clumps of dirty and disheveled hairs fall onto the canvas covering me.

“See,” he snickered. “If you were to come here more often, you wouldn’t have suffered from my little misdemeanor.”

Well… big words. I was used to them with that poor rump of a stallion he was. Damn, memorizing names had never been my talent. Another shameful weakness he had remind me the second I had stepped in his shop. It wasn’t my fault, I traveled. I had never been able to come back here since the last time. It wasn’t even more my fault if caps didn’t flow out of my wallet to get a proper haircut regularly. Trading was a daily struggle in the wasteland.

“You shouldn’t be so cheap,” he admonished me. “You would gain to be beautiful.”

“Ain’t my job to be a pretty mare,” I growled.

“Suit yourself,” he playfully acknowledged my complaint.

I huffed. I wasn’t penny-pinching with that lad, I swear!

“You really ain’t easy to deal with, you know,” he neighed, struggling with the smelly tangled locks he combed and cut, paying no care to my whining.

“Ouch…” I sighed. “If you were kinder… Ouch! …With me.”

“What don’t you get rid of that big tiara of yours?” Did I have to go through that question every time I needed to socialize with somepony? “Because, it’s not making my job any easier.”

He was a clever boy, he had kept in mind how I had reacted to the sight of scissors flying over my head the last time. In this position, the towel over my eyes, I wasn’t given to see the mirror in front of me. But it didn’t matter. I had looked at my face so many times and shoveled down that constant headache to get that my ‘tiara’ wasn’t gone. It would never be.

“For a hundredth time… it’s rigged to my head. Like screwed, riveted, stuck, glued…”

He heard him shrug. The jewel, if you could call it so, was a one-centimeter thick strap of black metal circling my forehead. It stretched behind my ears until its two ends met above my backbone where my mane stopped growing. Across the years, time had attacked it, leaving a dark, almost wrecked, tiara. Once completely plain, the diadem was marred with indents that had stripped the paint away.

This item followed me everywhere with its constant, nearly invisible migraine. It was my own stupid, ugly crown, which ponies were used to giving me names, fearful stares, or curious glances from. In the Wasteland, differences were despised on, marks of the alien. And to be honest, I often felt like a stranger to myself.

I had been teased so much throughout the years I never stuck with any group, settlement, or pony. I wasn’t an outcast though. I referred to myself more like a mercenary, an escort, and sometimes a factotum. I was bound to side with nopony. A sad life in perspective. But I was given to travel and do something different from just surviving, scavenging the rotten remains of a society dead eighteen years ago.

“So Vault, whatcha gonna do?” my manedresser told me. “Heard you finished your job with the Talons.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I sighed, waving away his coming questions. “Had to help a group of Steel Rangers through the Wasteland’s northern regions. Happened that an Equestrian Army’s wrecked warship had ran aground in South Québeak. I wasn’t expecting they would ask me to escort back their finding to Baltimare.”

“Baltimare, that’s quite a long run,” he snorted back in surprise. “Haven’t they finally cleared a path to Tenpony Tower? After eighteen years?”

I grumbled. I had heard stories of Tenpony Tower… The mega spell that had hit Manehattan during the Last Day had been so disruptive thick greyish clouds of radiation had plunged the whole coastal region into a deadly darkness. Worse, the fallouts had stayed so concentrated and intense it even messed with the spell matrixes and regenerative talismans of the Steel Rangers’ power armors. Manehattan had had been a pit of silence, cut from the remains of civilization wandering about Equestria since. Yet, every status-quo was to change one day.

The rumor had spread like wildfire. A courageous group of Steel Ranger initiates, commanded by a paladin, had pierced through the crumbled city’s metro and found its way to Tenpony Tower. What they had found were survivors. Real survivors! Not the feral ghouls that commonly roamed inside those no pony’s lands. How they had survived for eighteen years was still unknown to me… Rumors were rumors, but the fact remained that over the five Steel Rangers that had roved in Manehattan’s deadlands, only three had come back. Apparently the survivors had reacted with violence to the group of heavily armored scavengers.

Many ponies had been laughing under cover to this half-failure. During the maybe six or five last years, the surviving rangers had gathered into cohorts and started a gory crusade, wrestling out of the dust the technologies lost after the apocalypse. A noble quest if you ask me… But kind words weren’t an excuse to the massacres they had originated. ‘Technologies over ponies’ were their motto from now on.

“Baltimare is a safe place,” I retorted. “But heck… we moved a warship cannon on more than seven hundred miles… a real pain in the ass.”

“A… cannon?” he pondered, hardly finding any truth my statement.

“Not any kind of gun,” I added. “A monster that shot rounds of sixteenth. Kinda something capable to saw off a skyscraper.”

“You just had to roll it down the hills,” he teased me with a sarcastic tone.

I glared daggers at him, the towel on my face blocking the way though.

“They just wanted to take the loading system out,” I grunted. “They didn’t expect it to be worth seventy tons. The operation lasted four months instead of one…” Feeling the sore muscles in my back and legs I let a long breath slither through my teeth. “At least I got a humongous pay.”

The stylist’s ears flapped happily at the thought that I was indeed going to pay for his services. He didn’t even hide his glee… Had I built such a reputation about being a bad customer? It wasn’t my fault if my wallet had nothing but dust and moths inside most of the time.

I groaned, completely exhausted by the journey. My job had been to scout around southern Québeak, making sure no random scavenger was going to disturb the operations. Some skirmishes with bandits and Talon’s remnants had happened, but that was all. Those four months had gone languidly, nearly boring me to death.

“Why did the Steel Rangers recruit you? They never rely on an external help.”

He was right. The rangers were notorious for their chauvinism, preferring to go naked into radiation rather than asking for help from wanderers like me.

“I have… had a debt toward a paladin,” I dropped.

“Oh…”

I wasn’t really answering the question, but at last it was better than just pissing the real reason out. Yeah, I was indebted toward one of the Steel Rangers’ paladins, but I hadn’t paid it back yet. The real reason was far less appealing.

A long silence settled between the two of us, only broken by the snips and snaps of his scissors over my messy locks. I could hear a few ponies walking outside of the shop, talking loudly as they passed by. Conversations were all about Tenpony Tower. Rumors indeed spread like wildfire. He took a long and muffled breath.

“So, how much do you weigh now?” he ‘subtly’ asked.

I snorted. And he said I was picky on money...

“A lot of caps and...”

The doorbell rang as somepony stepped into the shop, his horseshoes thundering on the creaking parquet. A coat flapped on the pony’s side as breeze engulfed the room, until he slammed the door shut.

“Sorry. I already have a customer, please come back in thirty min-”

The rattling of a weapon being unstrapped shushed my manedresser. His hooves started fidgeting and he deliberately fall back behind my chair...

“Don’t you dare move,” a stallion barked at him.

A clip being loaded in a chamber pinged on my far right, the newcomer’s hoofsteps echoing on the floor as he contoured my chair.

“Keep doing your job, wrinkled balls,” he spat.

Now cursed with irrepressible quivers, the scissors summed up their activity over my head. I bit my lips, he was going to needle me with the tips, again. Did I told you I feared pointy things?

I tried to hide my own tremor, to no avail. At least I benefited from that canvas to dissimulate my train of thought. Unfortunately, my hooves dwelled on the chair’s armrests and I couldn’t move properly. Enough said the wet towel on my eyes blinded me as well.

Chair legs screeched on the wooden floor as the aggressive stallion pulled a stool one or two pony’s lengths in front of me, somewhere a bit on the right.

‘Snip’

I gritted my teeth at the scissors, feeling their movements as they tickled the top of my mane. The security of his weapon tinged off and I slightly ducked my head between my shoulders. A drop of sweat trickled down my neck and I swallowed.

“What do you want?” I croaked.

The intruder pulled his chair closer and the cold bite of a barrel stung my cheek. Cogwheels whizzed and turned and… A power armor… he had a fucking power armor, even if it sounded scrapped and lighter.

‘Snip’

“Please stop,” I requested my manedresser, pleading his messy hooves and tools would stop touching the skin under my mane.

“Keep going,” he was ordered.

I was dead if I couldn’t find a way out of this situation. And those damn scissors! Stop.

“You stole something from the rangers, didn’t you?”

My ears perked up. My breath died. I would have vented my innocence but the tip of a gun pressed painfully into my skin. My heartbeat raced up and sweat moistened my face. His hoof petted mine on the armrest.

“Good,” he cracked. “You’re not going to fuck me up on this argument.”

“Why do you think I would?” I chatted, trying to gain time to think straight.

‘Snip’

If only that scissors could stop.

“In Baltimare, you’ve dealt with us. We paid you a lot of caps but still, you stole something in the archives.”

“You really think I would smuggle something out of the Ministry of Wartime Technology’s hub?” I sneered. “I’m not that dumb, you know. I wouldn’t fuck with an employer that pay me three times the common price for my services.”

He snickered. “Yet you still took something away from us. Vault the trespasser ain’t a pony that messes with the Steel Rangers. So now you’ve got two choices. First one, you give us back what you stole and the caps we paid you, and we won’t talk about it ever again. Or, I just have to kill you and justice will be served. For my brothers you’ve deceived.”

The hammer of his revolver clicked back, now armed and ready to fire a big caliber bullet right into my face and skull. The cold maw of the weapon ran across my skin, weaving to my right ear, then wandering to my eyes until it reached my forehead, stopping only under my leaded crown.

My face was burning, the tip of my hooves quaking imperceptibly under the cape collecting the fallen hairs.

‘Snip’

Oh, please… made that sound stop.

“I don’t have all my day, Vault Skin,” the ranger bleated. “I would dislike to kill you, you’re a good pony, helping. Just a shame you’re a little thief.”

Under the swab, my eyes shot open, aiming in the direction I thought he was. his gun waved around my head in an impossible way, resounding with the twinkle of telekinesis. So he was a unicorn.

“Comply, Vault,” he averted.

I would have paid to see his face as my grin grew onto my own, revealing teeth I knew were yellow, some missing, loose, or decayed by time and a lack of hygiene. Casually, I turned my head right. I had dealt with bandits before, this one was a poor bum trying to get some food in his stomach. He had tried to bluff me with something I never did.

“You’re not a Steel Ranger,” I emphasized and licked my lips. “First because Steel Rangers don’t give power armor to unicorns. Second, because the Steel Rangers don’t refer to me with my real name.”

His hoof hit my face and the towel jolted away, leaving a trail of water as it twisted in the air. It hurt but I was now able to see. I looked aside and met the eyes of a young brown male unicorn with a muddy yellow mane. His horn flared a buttery white glimmer which clenched onto his massive revolver. He indeed possessed a power armor. However, it was a downward wreck of shit, a wreckage of what I had been used to see back with the Steel Rangers, the real ones. The armor’s joints were pierced, its wires and tubes leaked, and whole plaques of metal had been torn away by bullets. He even seemed ill-at-ease in this cage of metal.

“Where did you find that crap gear?” I coughed out small splatters of blood. “On a cadaver?”

“Stop playing that game, cunt!” he cursed. “Just give me your caps, I know they paid you well.”

I gave him one of my exhausted looks. I was tired. If he had asked me my spare change I would have given him. Heck, I was rich! But not for long, though. Yet, he willed to take my life and my caps. The gun quit its position aiming at my head and descended toward my chest. He wouldn’t dare, killing him was out of question, he would have done so the moment he had entered the shop. My guess was that he wasn’t a killer, not a yet-to-be murderer. Just a poor err...

‘Snip’

He was still here… My really dedicated manedresser. Or he was just scared to hell to move any further. Yep... his drumming teeth were enough to know he had pissed himself. The odor was just another proof.

Grimacing with disgust at the stylist, the unicorn drifted his attention back to me and jabbed my neck with the cold embrace of his gun.

“Where’re the caps?” he insisted.

I tried to stand up but one powerful blow in the face shoveled me back in my sitting position.

“Stay where you are, with your hooves on the armrest.”

“If you want them, I’ll have to take you there,” I noted. “You really think I would keep all my stuff on me? I ain’t silly. It would be uncomfortable.”

“Don’t be so cocky, bitch!”

The swish of a knife being pulled out of its sheath petrified me in my sloping chair. I saw the glint of the blade passing over me, enveloped in a magical aura. Though he didn’t move, the unicorn swapped his gun with the short sword, aiming at the poor manedresser who curled up, dropping his scissors on the ground. My attention was all aimed on the short blade, rusty, smeared with coagulated blood, and broken at its tip.

“You, colt cuddler,” the robber intoned at my stylist. “Get me her stuff, or I blow up your sorry head.”

“You threaten bunnies with that tooth-pick?” I ironized.

The blade suddenly dropped at an inch of my neck. Screaming, I jerked and kicked in my defenseless position. My breath reached its maximum. My heart pumped haphazardly, it was going to jumped out of my chest. My eyes watered. I could see my reflection on the sharpened edge beyond the filth. A pale green mare with a black mane broken with tiny streaks of greenish white. Age had taken a toll on me since the last time I had encountered a mirror. For a second I even forget the mirror was an epée meant to cut open my carotids. I looked in my green eyes, dark rings of fatigue circling them. My jaw was shivering at the sight of the sword. Please, I hate them so much.

“You’re less chatty, eh?” he grinned at me before turning back to the stylist. “Hurry up, gimme the caps or I kill you.”

“D-...” I began.

The sword dropped and I froze. The feeling of the edge on my skin was pregnant. No blood was running out. That bastard had swiveled it to its unsharpened side in his movement. I saw myself crying as I met back my reflect in the rising blade’s body. I also caught fear and anger, teeth gritted to a point I thought they would shatter. Yet, I calmly hung my head, defeated. Or not… Nopony threatened me like that. No pony.

Fighting through my tears, my instinct crying at me that survival mattered, I stared aside at the unicorn, gathering all my spirit to muster a fine answer.

“Let him go,” I stumbled upon my words.

Well, it wasn’t like I had wasted a chance for an epic line… He chuckled back at me, finding reassurance in my hurried and stuttering speech.

“Otherwise what?” he spat at me. “I can see your two hooves. If you’re not growing a horn or a pair of wings in the seconds to come, I don’t know what an old runt like you can do.”

That burned. An earth pony in this situation was pretty useless. In fact, in my leisure time I had often wondered why earth ponies hadn’t run extinct in the Wasteland. Unicorn were far more useful in a daily survival, and today unicorns monopolized the few remaining job in the wasteland. I had to admit unicorns proved themselves far more efficient than us earth ponies. Even a unicorn bandit was scarier than his earth pony counterpart. To be honest, only the Steel Rangers were tipping the weights back to a balance.

The roof started drumming and ponies sought for shelters outside. Rain, and with its acid and radioactive droplets, forced ponies away, throwing the shop into a stark silence and chiaroscuro ambience. It only needed a lightning bolt and… Here was a flash… one, two, three, four… and the loud crack rammed on the walls, vibrating in unison. The wasteland, so chaotic but predictable at the same time.

I focused back on the stallion, my breath loud and heavy, my eyes wobbling back and forth on the blade and the pony waving it at me.

“Otherwise I’ll kill you,” I proclaimed, gulping down the lump in my throat. I could still feel the touch of the knife on my neck. “As sheriff of Hollow Shades.”

I tensed. Looking in his eyes was a difficult exercise, I was the one nearly strapped onto the chair, my hooves empty and seeable by everypony smart enough to look at them. And it I who was at the wrong end of a knife. My belly growled from the stress and my head had a hard time not to reel. Messing around in a tilted chair wasn’t among my qualifications.

Yet, I obtained a little respite. My statement sparked a bribe of fear in the stallion’s mind. I had expected he would laugh at me, and I would have shared in the laughter with him. But he simply glared at me with blank empty eyes. The silence overwhelmed the shop, the drumming of the rain and the dripping of water falling through a crack in the roof counting the time for us. Watches had stopped functioning a while ago.

The unicorn’s nose was sizzling as he inhaled slowly, probably broken in the past in a tug fight. Given to see him under a better light, suspense building up between the two of us, sweat hurtled down the wrinkles cast upon his young frowning face.

My heart clenched, giving place to a strange void feeling I could only fill with fear. My stomach retched as I struggled to maintain a decent poker face. His eyes riveted on mine, goggling me with a blend of unbelief and incomprehension.

“Hollow… Shades… ?” he hesitated.

“Yes,” I prompted with a hissing voice, aware his knife was lazily dropping over me in his lack of attention. “That’s my city.”

I breathed out in an effort to erase this impression of deafness in my ears. Blood rang in my eardrums, hassling my concentration.

“I’ve…”

‘BANG!’

The rumble was followed with the gargles of a body dropping on the floor, the stylist’s.

‘BANG!’

The unicorn’s eyes met mine.

“No, I…”

His magic flailed. His smoking gun and short sword fell on the ground. His stare slowly looked down at my hooves, still on their armrests, only a small hole was visible in the cap covering me, giving fumes. He lifted his hooves to his neck, groping clumsily where his Adam’s apple should have been. He only found a jetting open wound, smearing his brown fur with loads of dark red. His legs darkened with the blood’s color. His hindquarters staggered and failed him. Crumbling on his back, he didn’t even fight back the pain. His eyes vomited anger and bewilderment at me. Those eyes… gradually fading to a shade of black.

“The Steel Rangers didn’t only give me caps.”

I rose from my innate stance, my back giving cracking pops under the effort. I shake myself, letting my sore and asleep limbs drop on the ground. Chills ran beneath my skin as my fur rose on its root. The unicorn gunning me down with his crying eyes, I tapped the cape put on my body with my hoof. He followed me to the small hole where fumes still billowed through. His mouth was formulating one deaf question… why… or how…

“I’m a one trick pony,” I conceded. “You don’t teach a monkey how to make funny faces, though.”

I pulled off me the canvas. The expression of stupor on his face broke a sad smile on mine. For the whole duration of his crazed conversation, I had slowly moved beneath the cover. Only my two hooves unmoving on the armrests had lured him away from the true threat.

“You’ve never seen a powered work loader saddle?” I mused sadly. “Don’t worry. You’re not the first one… You won’t be the last.”

Turning my head back at my rump, a dusty battle saddle welcomed my sight. The two rivets where should have stood weapons gave their space to large hydraulic joints powering two humming mechanical prosthetics which wrists ended with four-finger claws. The right one seized up one large revolver stamped with the Ministry of Wartime Technology’s symbol, giving fumes from its bore. The other limb however was folded on my side, occupying the place of a would-be saddlebag. A laser beam handgun was clipped beneath, ready to be draw out as the limb would telescope. Completely built in metal, its edges were cushioned with a worn out leather that would irritate my skin. Maintained onto my back with locks easily distinguishable under the metal limbs, the saddle fitted closely with my starved curves. A keyhole was constructed in each side of the item, ready to welcome a terminal key to discharge the magical locking system that managed the fixation. Too bad I had lost the key years ago… I didn’t always take the largest chairs for no reason, and I wasn’t fat! The upper part of the saddle covering my back was occupied with a zooming spell matrix allowing me to control the machine. It was a beautiful piece of magic and technology, a property of the M.W.T. I hadn’t stolen, I swear!

The unicorn hiccupped before me, tapping onto my front hooves with his. Pleading eyes that refused to accept it was the end of the trail for him. Biting my bottom lip, I stepped closer and looked at the heavy tears rolling off his cheeks, melting with the blood for those which trickled from his neck. I sighed.

“I’m sorry,” I apologize. “I can’t do anything for you. It’s too late.”

A moan of pain erupted from behind the chair. I peered an eye beyond and saw the manedresser jerking and yapping about his shoulder. He might be a wimp, but he would survive. The other stallion however...

Watching over a dying pony was never easy. Especially if it was one you’ve just shot. I sat next to him and scanned his body. His blood expanding under his body was soon almost like a red lake. My fur soaked in the fluid, warm and smelly. Exhaling, I hunched over him and slipped my hooves beyond his shoulders. Straining on my muscles, I lifted him up to my chest, sporting the most motherly face I could draft. I sang a lullaby for the dying.

"Little filly, why are you weeping

While I'm watching over you?

Tell me, little filly, why are you crying

While I'm staying with you?

My thought are all for you,

Caring for every moment

For my girl I have and will pursue

Each simple enjoyment

There is a train, Little Filly

Heading to heaven’s gate

Crying freedom with mighty glee

Ready to take away the hate

Dry those tears, Lil’ Filly

The dark nights soon will end

Though the storm is chilly

The sun will surely ascend

Sadness is common load, Filly

I just hope you’ll find laughter

While everypony gonna knee

To the reaper mare’s cold brazier

Thank the time you will spend

to walk life with beaten cleats

Just be careful Filly where you wend

Be careful with the rails down the streets

Lil’ Filly, the train takes blindly

As long as you can, away from its tracks

Let the heart run ablaze in your thorax

The train awaits ildy, brashly... bluntly

Little filly, why are you sobbing

Remember I’ll always be right here

Little filly, stop your mourning

For you, I’ll never… disappear...”

Glassy and teary eyes dropped in their sockets, witnessing a nether I couldn’t fathom. With the same sorrowful smile, I leaned my head to his ear.

“I’m sorry,” I begged. “Hope the Ever-After will treat you well.”

I hauled him out of the puddle of blood, hearing it dripping off my kneecaps and belly. Scrapping the armor off his starving limbs, I laid him on the cape. Something as simple as a piece of fabric which had served to hide the slow movements of my prosthetic arm, an extension of myself that had, in the end, dealt him the final blow. Leaving him there, not like he was going to move anyway, I paced toward the stylist and put him right back on his three remaining working legs.

“You okay?” I eyed him with those ironic moves of my brows.

He was bleeding and grunting, but it was not something that would kill him. The glare he shot back at me said it all, he’d survive. I chuckled. He just stared back at me with scared, shaky eyes.

“I’m sorry I messed up your shop… and your shoulder,” I panted, feeling all the stress I had ducked back in my chest pour out of each of my pores.

Breathing loudly, I let my bum hit the floor in a crack. My coccyx and tail would hurt me for a few days. On his own, the stallion was wincing, sweating heavily as he bit on his tongue and lips to lower the pain. The tendons of his neck flapped under the rush of adrenaline, his eyelids shivered uncontrollably.

“And you,” he called, looking at me like I was a ghost. “You sure it’s okay. I’m just hurt. But you… Don’t you fear the blood.”

I laughed, a cackling which died in the instant as I raised slowly my head up to him, seeking for an excuse, and any kind of redemption in his look.

“Not the first time I killed,” I mourned. “It won’t be the last. And I’ve seen worse.”

I sighed at that painful truth. The wasteland was harsh on everypony. Few were given to live long and even if eighteen years only separated ourselves from the last day of civilization, it was far enough for challenging the spark of a pony we all were, remnants of the old world. I was more worried for the generations to come. Such acknowledgments as Celestia or Luna’s reign and visions would soon be forgotten, or would become forlorn myths. And like many ponies, I was wondering what was going to happen after this tipping point.

“And the song?” he found the courage to ask.

I would have preferred he didn’t.

“A song I wrote for my daughter… a long time ago,” I blubbered, feeling tears I couldn’t fight back crawling up to my eyes.

“Where is she now?” he brought forth.

“I don’t know… I don’t know anymore.”

Hiding my mood, I passed by his side and went to the stock room behind his stall where I knew he had stored my gear. I found a small torn brown coat, a cowmare’s hat, a heavy purse, and two pairs of leathered and metal reinforced horseshoes, worn out by endless walks. Putting the coat, the hat, and the shoes on, I hesitated to throw the purse upon my flank. My eyes met my bloodied side, hiding under a thick and glued layer a good half of my Cutie Mark. I caught the curious stylist’s look.

Even I often failed on how to properly describe it. A pitch black shield of a rectangular shape which bottom side was tapered into a point, slit open in its middle and closing on a strange dark green circle engulfed in imperceptible green flame. I concede it was a pretty badass Cutie Mark.

“Could I borrow a towel?” I chipped in, eager to waive away the topic. “Just to wipe off the blood.”

He hoofed me one. The next few minutes stretched to eternity trying to erase the red shade off my greenish hide, to no avail. I will need a bath. I chided myself, I lacked time for such a fancy leisure. It was time to hit the road again. I sadly looked at the stylist, waiting, observing me. I hung my head. I opened my purse and put a hoof full of caps in his. If we would have been in a cartoon, his eyes would have blasted with two equestrian notes, too bad we weren’t in one and that bits had fallen into disuse. You couldn’t hold value in something that wasn’t built to last.

“I’ll take care of the body,” I offered. “I don’t want that on your shoulders, nor on any of the ponies from that town. Just use my money for cleaning everything, and get a healing potion. The wound is superficial, but you know, infections come fast.”

“You sure you want to do it?” he demanded after a short nod. “I could get the undertaker.”

Walking to the corpse, I caught the ponies giving us fascinated looks through the windows of the shop. The rain had imperceptibly stopped and the gunshot had attracted passers-by like crows to a fresh carcass. Many were fillies and foals, dirty and malnourished, eyeing me with devouring eyes. Crows. I glared daggers in their direction and they fled.

I leaned toward the cadaver, eyes closed and the blood already clotting in his open throat. Somehow, a slight smile was drawn his lips. I closed his front hooves over his chest, folded his hind legs over him.

“Sorry I didn’t know you name,” I murmured.

Using the same absorbent towel, I washed off as much blood I could before closing the stylist’s cape over him. Working as an undertaker I supposed was a pretty grim vocation. But somepony needed to take the shift.

“How you’re going to move it?”

“Him,” I corrected. “I have a brahmane outside.”

“Wait, you’ve got one of those two-headed cows?”

I laughed.

“Don’t be silly. Those are legends. I have yet to see some of those mutated creeps that ponies say graze the wastes. I turned off toward here when I reached Fillydelphia’s borders. I just found that brahmane hanging around, and it was a tamed one.”

“Well, I’ve seen some big cockroaches in the region.”

“Radiation kills,” I stated. “And if it doesn’t, well… Celestia has mercy of your soul.”

I didn’t leave him the time to answer. I would be glad to avoid talking about ghouls. I pulled the packed body out, leaving a bloody trail in its stead. The cow was there, standing idly next to a bucket of murky water I had bargained at the saloon. The sky was bleeding out, aching and choking, the air drenched with thick reddish clouds that blocked the sun’s light, its slivers struggling to pierce through. The wind whizzed over my head, making the brass sun sculpture hung onto the top of the nearby church spin in an endless screech. The ground was moistened with rain, small rivers was weaving in the cracks, and soon my horseshoes would be covered in mud.

Throw in stark relief, the town was marred by a layer of red and sickened orange descending from the sky. Ugly and rotting houses creaked around me, and yet ponies survived here. It was a rather enjoyable sight, if not purely depressing. But as I’d just said, they outlived the many ordeals of a merciless daily life, barely. Skin over bones, sunken cheeks, and bulged out eyes struck my sight. Seeking for something more reassuring, I looked up beyond the decaying roofs that populated the small city. Beyond the distant I found my eyes stuck on the sharp steep of a massive mountain… Foal Mountain, going straight from Canterlot’s peak to the outskirts of Fillydelphia. The Western part of the chain was delimited by the bed of a dried river that had evaporated with the balefire. I also nurtured memories of the tips of Foal Mountain being covered by the white embrace of snow. Today it was just an ugly shade of brown, grey, and red sprouting like a bad pimple toward the blocused sky. My hometown was beyond that mountain, but it was dangerous to clamber it, ponies have disappeared on its slopes. The cold hacked them away, or something else might have. My way was to hike around the mountain to finish my journey. The city I was in marked the location where the ancient river forked toward the south. Junction was its name.

I hoisted the wrapped body over the brahmane’s back which snorted at the new and disturbing load.

“Do this for me,” I gently asked the creature, rubbing its chin. “It won’t be long.”

The cow carried a large saddlebag I had darned back to a rather good shape. I had emptied though, I hadn’t been trustful in leaving it unattended with food and supplies while being given a haircut… haircut… I growled. I hadn’t finished the session. Turning around, the stylist was waiting in the threshold of the door. With the dim sunlight, I was finally given a proper view on his traits. He was a grey turquoise unicorn with a brownish orange mane falling behind his ears. His thin legs looked even slender, a long lasting lack of nutriments was to blame. His flank sported white and grey open scissors. He smiled at me.

“My name is Snips by the way.” He blinked at me, setting my cheeks on fire.

His hoof on his shoulder, blocking the blood from flowing out too quickly, he trotted to the nearest medical centre, leaving small smears of blood behind. I hung my head low and took my only cattle to the nearby food shop. I had a long way to go back home.

Finally, I went my own way and stepped out of the city, lonesome and battered by those time of wrongness. The brahmane humming in the air, I cast a last glance at the old isolated town of Junction. Everything was a shade of yellow, orange, and red… An atmosphere of death and reclusion.

Days passed as I walked along the waterless bed of the Foal Mountain’s river, each one of them making the high slopes of Canterlot’s peak bigger and bigger in the horizon. The sky above the ancient capital was swamped with pinkish clouds, which forced ponies to avoid that place like the plague. Strange stories circulated about monsters and inventions of the devil hiding among the ruins. I wasn’t enough brave enough to check it by myself.

A week had flown by when I reached the end of foal mountain’s ridges. Canterlot was only twenty miles from there. Its look only was sufficient to wash me with a retching impression of emptiness. I had visited Canterlot in the past, before the bombs. I wasn’t ready to excavate the past from the ruins. The past… I had been told once that a beautiful architecture is what makes beautiful ruins. I didn’t remember who had said that, a wise pony for sure, and he was right. The world was deeply ugly to my eyes; the truth was the world had always been ugly to begin with. Even in the wasteland there was a kind of continuity.

Contouring Foal Mountain, I headed toward the East in Manehattan’s direction and soon I followed the tracks of an old rusty railway, which had connected the big metropolis with Canterlot. The railway was not a single straight trip toward the coastal city. The tracks forked after their detour near of Neighagra Falls toward the South, a large forest hung to the north face of Foal Mountain. There, deep beneath a once green ocean, ponies could find a medium-sized city wearing the sweet name of Hollow Shades. My hometown. The city I was responsible for as a sheriff.

From Junction it took me two weeks to reach the border of the Hollow Forest. The trip had been spent lonely with a wasteland and a cow for some companions. I was used to it though, at least since the bombs had dropped. Trees had been scrapped off their leaves. Birds died long ago and their chirping, long forgotten. Even the color green was something eerie today. And without my own pale green hide, I would have thrown that piece of basic knowledge into oblivion. It was amazing how ponies could forget such basics if they weren’t used to deal with them on a daily basis.

Cracks splitted the road in the Wasteland, giving space to a yellowish weed growing among the fissures in the asphalt. The white paint of the marking had been scratched away and the blackness of the coating had turned grey and brown with dirt and sand.

The road… The road stopped at the border of the forest, leaving a narrow beaten path next to the disused railway.

The Hollow Forest itself had once bore the leaves of the deepest green. But today, it was nothing but a gigantesque orchard of burnt black, crooked, and disgusting trunks which branches pointed at the absent sky, imploring mercy to the princesses. Maybe they were howling at the hidden sun, the excruciating pain the Last Day had spread across Equestria. I would never know. I just stepped on the path with my brahmane, alone with those blackened ribs of long gone life.

Like many things in the wasteland, the Hollow Forest was stuck in a bubble of time and utter silence during the day. Unsettling and mind-wrecking, the forest was cast in shadows that fought back the weak sunlight. Wandering deep in its meanderings was an ordeal, similar to moving through the dusk during the few minutes before all light had died in the horizon. By night, I was huddling myself close to the cow, both seeking for the little warmth we could snatch out of each other. I was afraid of lighting a fire in such a place. I did once. If the forest was creepy by day… The night was the nest of my deepest fears. The hot embers rising in the air blasted across the field of dead trees relentless and mangling shadows that twisted, turning into improbable shapes that gave my mind terrific hallucinations to chew on. Never again I would use my lighter here. You didn’t light a torch in the Hollow Forest. You just keep your rank, hiding, waiting immobile for the sun to rise again behind the cloud cover.

If the forest was dreadfully silent by day, the night was a nightmare of low, recurring sounds. Trunk cracked in heavy thumps, their dead black fossilised branches waving under an absent wind. I always closed my eyes during those moments, when your superstitious brain rambled on that the night was going to swallow you whole like a nameless god’s mouth, crunching your bones apart and sucking your blood out. I was curling up, putting my hooves onto my ears, waiting for sleep to take over me.

It was the last night before I finally made my way back home and it was as dark as ever. Stars had deserted my nocturnal life since eighteen years and the light pouring out of the moon was not strong enough to carry a glitter through the cloud cover. The trees moaned and their darker than black shadows tweaked and hacked in my eyes. I could feel the shivers running through the cow. It sought for a refuge under my shoulder. A root cracked within a stone’s throw, and I perked my head low, sniffing. My trembling hoof reached the cow’s saddle. I ransacked its bottom and stopped on the object of my thoughts. Pulling it out, I skidded on the pocket’s leather strap and the item bounced off me, bashing over the top of my head until it hit the ground in a bone crack.

Fearing a forest and shadows that I knew couldn’t hear or smell us, I stretched my hooves and caught the thing. Protective, I curled over the round object. It was a cold curvy ball with two large gaps encasing a smaller triangular shaped one. The whole stood over an articulated part which edge tickled my skin beneath my fur. A skull...

Rolling over, encasing between my hooves the thing, I coiled myself against the cow’s smelly belly and it did the same with its head. Whistling softly, I waited for the night to eat me away. Sleep only came one of two hours later.

The morning struck me like a punch in the gut. Sipping some poorly purified water, I chewed and swallowed some preservative-soaked cereals. Everything was bought from a store back in Junction, even the food for the cow though it could sustain itself with the grass along the way.

Taking one of the leather straps of the Brahmane’s saddle bag, I tied the skull to it and hit the road once again. Drizzle was raining from the sky as the sun reached noon. We passed by an antique plaque marking two miles before Hollow Shades. Grass and mangled thorns wrapped the rails, pointing out that no train had rolled down this track for two decades.

The more I moved forward, the more the land slowly lost its cover of dead trees, giving on a dust-saturated ground devoid of relief, eerily plane and sloping toward a city that could welcome thirty thousand souls. I smiled. I was back home.

As always, foals played next to the walls of the cottages, their soccer ball thrust in the air. As always an atmosphere of decay glowed out of the houses. Many had their roofs destroyed, knocked off walls and the doors and other wooden infrastructures bore the marks of flames and time.

“Hi, Munchkins,” I greeted the foals with their balloon, who didn’t looked at me, absorbed in their game.

I shrugged. I passed by the bakery and saluted the old mare standing idly behind her stall, always waiting for a client. Among the many habitations where ponies hung around the terraces or the inner yards, many shops still showed off their logos.

The first was Brewy’s Emporium with its rows of jars behind dusty windows. Behind the door stood the shadow of the tenant. The poor old buck managing the place was kinda paranoid, spying on everypony entering the city. At least, I was a known face. Silly Snake’s shop was built between two massive ten stories high council housings which ruined facades watched upon me with as many eyes as they had windows. The buildings’ white paint had washed away with a thick cover of grey and brown. Silly Snake was a joke shop like many, its pediment once a bright green had stripped off the roughcast.

“Howdy?” I asked the tenant, keeping my path down the road.

I waved at her but she never answered, occupied with customers. I could see their silhouettes being deflated balloons. I would need to ask the next traders to bring back some tubed helium. I walked by and reached one of the many squares of the city. A large pond gifted with a magnificent fountain sculpted in Luna’s traits was standing by its center, jetting a continuous dash of murky water. Moribund moss covered Luna’s brass features, leaking from its rivets a greenish goo that oozed over her perfect body. The repair pony hadn’t come for years. I sighed and passed by.

The square was covered by the unique shadow of a massive building, a monolith of black metal bearing the symbol of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, a set of gears surrounded by an apple-shaped box, with a sword bisecting through the middle. Standing solely with its one hundred feet tall size, it was an intimidating sight. No windows gave on the inside. It always left me the feeling of a scar in the middle of Hollow Shades. It had helped Equestria in the war effort, though.

Before the main entrance stood a statue of her minister, Apple Jack. The sculpture who’d been five ponies tall had slopped on its side, crumbled, and shattered into bits over the dusty marble stairs of the entrance. The guilty mechanism was still visible, an intertwining of rails and pistons that had pushed the construction aside, revealing a massive and dark deep missile silo. The hub had been a launch facility during the war, holding on a megaspell missile aimed at the far away lands of the Zebras. The silo was now empty. I had never been inside the facility. I was curious but not insane. I guessed the basement of the hub would remain an abstraction to me.

After a moment of sad contemplation, I fell back to the fountain, touring it to reach the other side of the square. I saw the candy store, with its usual queue of greedy ponies. The comic book shop was next. Foals used to stay inside, reading idly all the pages they could before their mothers exited the market store nearby, ready to go back home.

Everypony was acting silent, respecting their order as always. Waiting stoic, as always. Taking off the saddle of the brahmane, I slapped its butt and it ran away.

“Make sure you’re not eaten by a rad monster,” I cried out in laughter.

Wiping a tear off my face, I swiveled on my hooves and finally faced the end of my journey. I stepped on the creaking wood stairs of a famous place of mine. Built in concrete, stamped with a balloon triangle, one yellow and two blue, the sheriff office of Hollow Shades stood proud with its sole ground floor, constructed plain pied with my cottage behind. Two rocking chairs awaited under the office porch. One was already occupied.

“Thanks for taking care of my badge, dude,” I smiled, taking the six dusty golden star off the wobbling armrest.

I pinned the insignia on my brown trench coat, pushed the office door, and threw the cow saddle into the room. I sneezed. Dust was everywhere, covering every piece of furniture and items strewn over the place. With a swing of my hindquarters, I bucked a lever on and a humming noise engulfed the police office as the light slowly brightened over my head. One flared and exploded in a small rain of glass.

“At least water’s still running,” I cheered.

Before the war, the city was fueled with a coal power plant located outside of the Hollow Forest. The Balefire striking Equestria had put an end to that and Hollow Shades had to go back to its ancient way. Before this time of necessity, I had barely been taught that an underground river was running below the city. In fact it was that geographic wealth that had permitted the city’s erection. With the industrial revolution, the first electric power brought to the city had come from a turbine built in the cavities hundreds of feet below the surface. Apparently, it was still turning. One by one, electronics woke up behind a desk set up at the back of the office, next to a row of cells.

“So, bandit, you still there?” I sniggered, tapping my hoof against the bars. His silhouette waited in the back of the last cell, curled up above a pitiful bed. “I hope the others treated you well.”

No answer… I sat in the chair in front of my desk and tapped the tip of my hoof on the ‘enter’ key of the terminal’s board. I unsheathed my two hoof guns and put them aside on my bureau and took a comfortable position in the seat. I spread the content of my purse next to them and a few caps fell off the desk’s edges. I dropped my shoulders, feeling all the tension in my muscles stiffening my movements. Time was to be lazy.

Today was a good day.

The radio burst out cracks, eighteen years it had stayed silent, only barking static at me. I had kept it switched on, no matter what, ponies might call for help. Typing on the terminal, a series of small screens displayed on my left attracted my attention. Hitting the same key repeatedly, I checked Hollow Shades’s CCTV. Some had died during my absence and over the ten sprite-bots I once had, only four still worked, floating right out in the streets, searching for proof of sedition among the population.

I saw the same foals, mares, and stallions in the streets, deformed into black silhouettes by the old and expired cameras of the town. Bored, I looked at the cow saddle and took it on my laps. Stretching a hoof to its bottom, I wrestled out the skull. Diligently, I laid it on the keyboard, for it to face me.

“I already told you I was sorry,” I argued. “You were the first to attack me, and you were threatening that stallion… what was his name alr… Snips! You could have just asked me and I would have shared some bits with you, but noooo… you had to make all that mess.”

I sighed, the skull looking at me with those two deep pits of black.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” I scolded him, grabbing it between my legs. “oh fuck you, go with your brothers.”

I took the skull off the keyboard and leaned on my right. It would fit with the others, all assembled in a small pile. I was far too lazy to count, but that wasn’t a problem. I saluted them all.

Tilting my body back toward the saddle, I found inside a small rectangular plaque of plastic and metal. I play amusedly with the cassette between my hooves for a minute or two. Clumsy, I messed up one of my juggling and the tape bounced off my hooves and fell on my right. Growling, I spread to reach it. It had tucked the skull, left on the top of the pile. I looked at it with wide eyes.

“Oh, come on,” I pouted. “I know, you gonna bash me ‘cause I lied.”

Yes, sort of. Back in the warship’s remains, I had forced open the captain’s cabin and took out one of its records. Steel Rangers disregarded remnants of the past that differed from valuable technology. They never knew, they wouldn’t have to. It was my secret with the skull.

“Hey, it’s just a radio record,” I snorted. “The wasteland is just so silent… Hollow Shade’s so dead it’s deafening.”

And it was, really. I put the tape in the radio station. A rising crescendo followed by a unison of stallions and mares cracked out of the old speaker. The sweet rhythm in my ears, I left my sitting and wandered to the nearby kitchen. My prosthetics extended and snatched a sealed bottle of hooch and a dusty glass. On the brink of leaving the room, I caught the grizzling counter on the table, ticking toward the red. In a spiteful huff I pushed it off the edge; it broke when it reached the ground. I walked out, the bottle and the glass twinkling in each of my metal claws.

“Across the Equestrian’s borders

Are creatures which roam, roam, roam...”

Sitting in the empty rocking chair, I glanced at my close neighbour.

“Want some?” I asked, expecting no answer.

The rocking chair was just reeling with the wind. My stare bore on the distance. Far away, beyond the children’s silhouettes, the mares’ shapes, and the stallions’ shades, the border of the city stood lonely.

“Afar from places where the sun glows

Are wonders nopony saw, saw, saw...”

There, one large pole carried a long, shredded, and pitch black standard whipping in the wind, alone just like me.

“From the deepest caves to the highest peaks

Are ghosts of the past wai- aiting.”

Next to the pole was a large slab of metal printed with the name of the city, Hollow Shades. Beneath, the number thirty thousand five hundred seventy two was crossed, replaced by one single digit, as lonely as I.

1

I was finally back in Hollow Shades. A city of damned. A city of black contours cast onto the walls. A city of many winds moaning prayers from the past. A city bearing the eternal ashes of the dead. A city of still standing screaming corpses, blackened but vigilant. A city of countless smiles, eyes, and shapes carved into the vitrified dirt.

I turned my head to the other rocking chair and stared at the ashy shape of a stallion blasted into the carbonized wood. I smiled.

Hollow Shades, a city of children’s shadows burnt into the brickrock. I was finally back home…

“Home. Sweet. Home...”

ⱴ ⱷ ꜠ Ω ꜡ ⱷ ⱴ

Footnotes; Vault Skin, Class: Wanderer, Level Up

New Perk: “Good to be back home”

Could it be a feeling of déjà-vu or memories, this place keeps a special room in your ablaze heart.

You gain +5% in Speech and Survival in the places you’ve already visited.

Mar. 2014 - Megastructures

Prologue

The cold, biting my hide…
The chill, frizzling my mane…
The silence, deafening my ears…
The smell of oil, retching my guts…
And that breathe on my face…
Which wasn’t mine…

My eyes fluttered. Opening one eyelid at a time, gasping for air as my muzzle was buried deep in a gooey brown puddle, my limbs shook of all their might. I was cold, I was alone, and I was scared.

Slow and shaky, I lifted my face out of this lair of reek. On my febrile hindquarters, eyes shot wide at my hooves and torso trickling with oil and unholy fluids, I tried to wrestle myself from my stupor, to no avail…

Spasms running across my spine and shakes crippling my limbs, my stare wandered around me. I couldn’t see anything as every point of space was thrown into a dreadful pitch black. Numbness gripped my mind. And the breath, continually flowing onto my face spread a cold deadness beneath my fur. Gulping, struggling to keep my composure, my mind screamed at me orders I didn’t listen to. Where was I? How did I get there? Was I covered in filth? And this breath…

Two greenish glowing dot burst open before my eyes and I froze. Adjusting like two microscopes on a slice of translucent crystaln the two flickering points scrutinized me with a terrible sight, cold, hopeless, and heartless. They were huge, terrifying… So large I wish I couldn’t see my reflection in those glassy orbs. A white fur smeared with black, brown, and grey. A sick purple mane soaked in murk, falling into atrocious locks onto my face, neck, and shoulders. How uncouth… And the whole… my features outlined by an eerie green light bursting off those two… glaring eyes. I was pale, terrorised, completely out of phase.

Unbearably slowly, my eyes drifted away from those artificial mirrors and took a proper view of my surroundings. The glow spreading a dull light over the barren land before my hooves, I found myself stranded on a large metallic platform, a drip-drip from a pipe located far above me and hidden by the darkness hitting the floor two hoofsteps away from me.

I jerked my head back, sweat crawling down my neck in between my jaded mane and fur. I could see no wall, only darkness and a guardrail vanishing into it. Lethargy weaved in my bones, and with what seemed to be ants running through my veins, I staggered and curled up into a ball.

This moment of respite went short-lived, the whirring of uncountable rusty cogwheels breaking a silence I couldn’t have fathom back in Ponyville.

Home… the thought struck me. I wanted my warm bed, my dusty shelves, my frou-frou, voili-voilà, and bric à brac... My soft silk bed linens stuffed with feathers. My warm tea time at four in the afternoon. I wanted home so ardently, but I was just offered a cold, alone, and miserable night. Was it even night?

The warm breath came back and swiftly slapped my face. Undutiful, I looked up at the two green dots and gulped. It was looking at me, passively, in a silent tearing up my very soul. And then, light burst from above. The lamp, hung up on an insanely far ceiling focused on me, bathing me in a sliver of burning white. I was being watched, and I couldn’t even tell by who.

Rubbing my eyes with my quivering hooves, trying to wash off the filth only to spread it like peanut butter on my pristine coat, I finally brought my sight up to my watcher.

It wasn’t equine…

I cried out and my whimper went lost in the nether, as everything was dark and shallow two meters away from the stream of light. I couldn’t look at it, yet I couldn’t stare down. I was so scared, powerless.

I just said it wasn’t equine… The truth was that it was even a living being.

Two massive bulging balls of glass marred with two deep black pit circled by large zooming green irises glared at me with an irrepressible coldness. Instead of a muzzle, it displayed a bony white nose like an upside down ship bow sporting no mouth but two large tube which tips, ending below what must have been its cheeks, were two silently rotating fans. The breath came from there… It was the respiration of a machine.

Yes, it was a machine, the largest, most horrendously-looking, and far-fetching engine I had ever laid my eyes upon. Twenty times the size of a pony, its thin, insect-like shape weaved past me, its many arms showing off razors sharp claws clattering on the ground, leaving indents in the metal floor. From my position, it looked like an erring slender crow skeleton which wings had been ripped away to be replaced with myriads of arms of many shapes. Wires and pipes hung below its belly like ripped open guts. Sickening.

I spectated nearly religiously as it neared a wall I could finally see, thanks to the inbuilt light of the creature’s eyes. It raised its hooves… claws to the wall, drawing a perfect square with its shiny sharpened nail. Then, the scream began.

It wasn’t a common scream a mare would howl as horror was breaking into her daily life. It was screeching, raspy, and loud, like a broken knife etching over porcelain inside a gigantic echoing castle. Unbearable and painful. I covered my ears and cried back.

“Make it stop,” I begged.

And indeed, it stopped instantly. Tears flowing down my cheeks, my eyes wandered up to the creature’s hands. There, tiny stream of bright green and blue flames died and revealed beneath a grown brick of metal, square and hung onto the mark it had made in the wall. He had just built an object out of nothing. I would have been impressed if the dolor clutching my head sparked shivers in my backbone.

“Please, stop it. It hurts,” I supplicated.

The machine hung its head onto the side and looked at me. The stare duel didn’t last long as I broke the contact with its intense flaring bright eyes. It started beeping, tilting its head from left to right intermittently. Was it… communicating?

“I… I don’t understand,” I blurted, trying to wipe my tears, only to cover my fur with even more oil and dirt, I would have sold my soul for a bath. “I… can’t understand.”

I heard a pop as the machine slowly hung its shoulders and head and bent over me, covering my body with a large shadow. With widened eyes, I followed a thin cable hovering from the creature back in my direction, a crawling black and metallic tendril. I froze as it stopped a hoof away from my nose, my attention riveted on the five centimetres long needle pointing from the cable tip.

“What… the…”

The creature raised up its claw and tapped its right temple with a crystalline clicking tunk.

“Wait…” I muttered. “I’m not going to stab myself with this long, unrefined hospital tool of horror.”

The machine’s head reacted with a shifting backward movement, betraying a sense of surprise. Slowly it showed the side of its head, revealing a small built in plug-in, similar to those guitar rear thingies the mare everypony known as DJ-Pon3 in Ponyville used, a jack I think it was called. And right know the plug-in was as thin as a long and frightening needle. I hated needles.

I gulped. “I don’t have one... I’m not a rusty cranking machine such as you, you punk!”

Being compared to a machine. Boorish! But soon, I was going to regret my honesty.

I yelped, a claw encasing my neck and lifting me off the group, biting in my skin like a monstrous maw. Thrashing around, kicking the air in hope I could sustain myself to escape the hellish burning sensation sizing my throat. The machine held a whirling scream. I stopped, scared to death, the creature’s eyes now glowing red, staring at me in the white of my eyes.

Holding me like a mere puppet, another of its deadly gripping hand bit on the side of my head, cutting down a large chunk of my mane, which fell down to my upmost terror.

“What are you doing?” I yelled, only to gurgle for air as the machine tightened its grasp.

The hand closed onto the right side of my head and I screamed.

I screamed as I never did, for I hadn’t known true pain until now. Staggering pain, ripping-off pain, moulding pain, breaking pain… Tearing me apart like a sheet of paper under the shiny edge of an exotic sword. I screamed until my vocal chords cracked. I hissed until my mind blacked out. Supplicating, pissing myself, thrashing, jerking around, and just… begging for my life, I saw light washing over the world around me as my eyes slowly closed. I hadn’t had the time to see beyond the pain and darkness swallowed me like an old friend.

-- α ϵ Ω / Ω Ø α --

Blood burst painfully beneath the skin of my right temple and forehead. My ears whizzed in a mind-induced cacophony. I rolled on my back trying to scream out my pain.

“The size of the megastructures is of approximately one hundred forty thousand seven hundred twenty-three kilometres wide and growing, no one knows what lays beyond. The government will soon take you to a provided shelter. Don’t panic, don’t move, and don’t fight. Wait,” I heard a mechanical voice in my head. “You…”

I jumped away and a new wave of pain washed off my body, straining my muscles and throwing me off-guard. My jaw hit the ground in a loud thump. Tears crawled off my face and I hugged my knees tightly.

Before my eyes lied the cable and its needle, blood dripping off its point. My eyes perked up with stars. The stars took an ice blue colour and slowly reshaped into weird writings, superposing over my vision. I saw numbers and words I couldn’t understand, labelling every item laying around me. A name was displayed over the machine’s head.

It wasn’t surprising that I began panicking. I rubbed my eyes, likely trying to scrap away something that wasn’t physical. Pain sparked again from my right temple and through my body.

After a scream, I slowly raised my limb to my head.

My hoof hinted on a foreign piece of metal stuck into the right side of my forehead. Small, round, and painful. I touched it once.

“What have you done to me?” I said, bemused, at the creature.

Twice.

“What. Have. You. Done. To. Me?” I growled.

Thrice…

I looked up at the creature. The cable had already disappeared. ITtturned away from me and backed away toward the wall.

“What. Have. You. Done. To. ME?” I shouted.

The robot’s claws bit in the metal and like an arachnid it walked up the wall above my head. A wall that was endless, its ceiling disappearing through a mist only an insane distance could breed. Soon it was too small to be seen.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!” I screamed and fell into a low cry, tears flowing to my eyes.

Indeed, I cried… hitting the floor with my hooves. Whining in pain. I was pathetic, but whining had always been my speciality. So I whined... I whined until I cried myself to sleep. Yet, sleep never came.

As time passed, I wiped my tears away and stood on my hooves, desperately trying to forget about the lancing headache.

To my horror, my eyes lied upon the world around me, and something broke within my heart. Beyond the guardrail, everything was engulfed in a shallow white light, highlighting the leaks, rust marks, construction mistakes, and abandonment this world which wasn't mine was suffering from.
A gargantuan closed world the only sight shattered my conception of reality. Emptiness and ramparts… everywhere was emptiness enclosed by god-sized ramparts… pure metal, kilometres-tall walls disappearing over me and below, bridges stretching toward the infinite, gigantesque structures growing in an insanely wide area. Black and gooey, scarred with rust broken pipes, and wires as large as mountains. I was lost inside the entrails of an infinite monster of metal I couldn’t fathom the size. I could see black clouds immobile in this horizon enclosed in this antechamber of a cold artificial hell.

I was lost, without any landmark in a world of silence, trapped in a majestic and terrifying maze of metal. There was no grass, no animal, no chirping… nothing. Just me and a city of metal created for and by beings that could step on me like bacteria. I was lost in translation in a world I wasn’t meant to see.

Where was I...?

Maybe on Equestria...?

Maybe in the future...?

My name is Rarity, and this is my story through the Megastructures, a story of blood, oil, destruction, and search for a mythical way out.

Author's Note

Short Description:
When Rarity woke up, she wasn’t at home anymore, left stranded in an alien place she had no knowledge of... Maybe on Equestria… Maybe in the future…

Long Description:

.Log Annex
My name is… Rarity
I don’t remember how long I’ve been here…
Everything's so grim, so sick… so broken and asymmetric…
I can only feel it, this crippling angst when my eyes lay upon them…
The Megastructures…
Nopony will catch me... keep me from my one true goal...
Find a way-out of this cold hell...
A way back home.

ブラム! (Blame!) crossover My Little Pony

Mar. 2014 - Candle

Author's Note

Short Description:
A candle fading in your hoof, drip-dripping away with your precious time

Long Description:

"Who watches the watcher?"

Luna has a nightmare

One crippling story for one creepy pony

Mar. 2014 - Candle

Candle

By RealmOfMereShadows

“I rise from the deepest abyss. Bones crack from my own stiffness, legacy from Time, cunning and mischievously flowing down the stream down to the pit of death. The pain blinds the weak, and only I... survives the shadow that lurks within us all, as, unlike my faerie sister, I was gifted with the weakness of the mortal flesh so that, despite my immortal soul and spirit, I was bound to strive for darkness, and forbidden tales and knowledge of yore.”

The pain stabbed my flank like myriads of sharp needles, avid for my regal blood. Heart pounding forth in my chest, my head reeled and jerked from the dust laying between me and a floor I couldn’t see. Black and dreary like a weary midnight, the pitch-black night enshrouded my eyes, wrapping myself into a veil of darkness and creeping shadows.

Yet, I couldn’t give in to the night for it was far too soon.

My will gave me the strength to wrestle a tiny violet light from the maw of the night itself. A simple, fragile candle, lit and febrile on its small brass candlestick, melting and fainting, at my hooves waiting. And its light soon wouldn’t be. Indeed, time was dripping, and promptly the dark would spree.

Horn alit holding up the dying flame, I walked forth the black. Silence in my ears and a sour taste marring my tongue, my mane, usually flowing and fluttering over my shoulders, dropped straight over my face. No wind was there to push it away from my eyes…

Lifting a hoof, hoping some breeze would slither down my ears to give my back my sense, I moved aside a lock of midnight blue hair…. And for once I wished… No, I craved for that I didn’t.

Darkness is a wicked and rueful, yet merciful spouse… a rampart hiding us from what remains beyond its veil. Yet, would you still call it in such rewarding way if the lid itself was closing on you, dripping on your hide a darker than black goo reeking a carnivorous instinct that rose every one of your very hair on your skin? Darkness… a cage without bar that seizes your mind to lock your own self into a torture, either physical or mental, but a torture that will always leave you scarred for a lifetime… An immortal lifetime in my case. First, it gets to your hooves, shaky and unsteady. Second, it crawls up your limbs, like ants fighting up the blood within your veins, begging from all their might to swarm your sides. Third, it grasps your spine and lingers your back up to your neck. Fourth, it snatches the heat from your face, bleaching your features with a bubbling blurter of fear… And, only then, it clutches your heart into a deadening clench, an evil anchor keeping dragging you down forever the pit where fears lie… where demons dwell… and where you thought you had all of it locked up for never meeting them ever again. This is the abyss of your own true mind.

“Luna…” a scrawny and somehow antic voice called, drawling away in the darkness. “… where are you…”

Darkness wasn’t a wall. It was only a frail glass. A murky black window opening on the untold, the uncountable, and the untreatable. Eyelids closing up over my revolted eyes, I preferred focus myself over what I could still fathom; something different than far-fetched and crooking shadows swallowing the light, my small flame fluttering over its damp wick. A droplet of wax ran down its side and I watchfully spectated it fell it over the candlestick down to the black beneath my hoof.

“Time. Is… Ticking, Luna.” it laughed. “Count. Each. Drop.”

Darkness is a cage which, even cold like ice, shatters your soul, makes you want to tear up your barding, fur and skin to free yourself from this burning feeling in the hollow of your chest. This basic instinct to fly away from the pain and emptiness. This wish for a scorching light to bathe you. However, darkness is stronger, it has always been as light is only an epiphenomenon, such as life.

At this very moment, I was burning from beneath, wishing that I could scream as I couldn’t even squeal. I supplicated my hooves to run away, but it would mean blowing out the candle and be prey to what lurked beyond the veil. And I wished I could stop watching. Yet, when everything was black, how could sompony tell if he was sleeping or not? Closing his eyes or not?

I realised I was trapped with and by my own stupid little fears.

I told you… darkness was swindling. And playing it would always be, a game of smoke and mirror, a game of mind and deceit.

From the dark slowly descended a large unformed tongue of black. Lowering until it nearly touched my muzzle, it then steadied. Droplets of shadow hurtled down and bit my fur like acid. Even though my eyes weren’t enough to pierce the cloak of darkness, I saw it move from beneath, like a parasite worm weaving below the skin of the bed-ridden martyr. Paralyzed by my own terror, I let it swirl and slithered around me like a snake with jet-black scales.

Two turquoise glowing eyes and a wide shark-teeth smile fought its way up to the surface of this nether, and riveted on me. I dropped my stare and tried closing my eyes. I found to my stupor I couldn’t.

Skin itching, mane crawling, ears frizzling, I looked at it and fell into the jealous glare of my sister. Eyes missing, her mane was falling into clumps, while many of her teeth were losing up in her mouth, scarred with a rictus of masochistic pain.

“Your moon hurts me.”

I cried for help, but no sound reached my ears, my voice withering in my mouth as a tasteless sludge blubbered down my throat, choking me. It went into my lungs and stomach, and solidified into a crippling concrete. Hacking my hooves around, the candlestick fell out of my magic grasp and shattered on the ground into shards of brass. The candle spread its wax over an invisible floor and rolled in my direction.

I took it between my shaky hooves and tried to put it back on its broken support. Burning wax melted and glued over my fur. Tears rolled down my cheeks. And suddenly, the coldness stung my side.

Snuggling up my flanks, cuddling me with hooves colder than death, the wreckage the apparition was flowed over my hide like an overwhelming and tenebrous blanket… An overly attached girlfriend that had given in to insanity, craving to fulfil her own animal desire like a mare in heat, sucking me out of my warmth, hopes, and life. Her sharp teeth maw neared next to my nearest ear, nibbled it a little, leaving a few deep and bleeding marks…

From the depths of hell rose a numbing, almost violating whisper…

“I don’t want to die Luna, so you’ll have to.”

Closing my eyes to a knife blade-width, tears flowing more than ever, I looked down at the bottom of the broken candlestick as the candle’s flame snapped into a greyish smoke next to me. Yet, before the dark could gobble me up whole, silencing me forever, I saw a last time my own reflection, smiling…

And I wasn’t.

Apr. 2014 - Sweat, Flesh, Blood, And Bones - Prologue "Pull the Trigger"

New Version:

A thud echoed in the darkness, quickly followed by a splash of mud as a man fell on its knees, hissing out its last breath, a small jet of dark red spitting out of a large gap slashed though his neck. As the last shivers ran across the dead shape’s back, a large shadow stood from behind. A knife rested in his right hand, reflecting no light as a thick lid of black clouds hid every star from the blood-soaked edge.

Thunder roared over the biped’s head and a lightning bolt slashed through far in the horizon, throwing his tanned face and brow hair into stark relief. With the last stream of light, his eyes opened, revealing two deep green murderous eyes. Tonight, the hunt was on.

A droplet hit his forehead and, as a new bolt cracked far above the man’s head, downpour crashed over his bareback. The storm quickly enshrouded the land in a thick veil of rumbling water. Freezing and numbing, the liquid rampart strained and bit, tensing the silent hunter’s muscles. Seeking for warmth, he weaved around the vegetation, dead trunks, crooked bushes, and still surviving trees. The harsh sensations gripping his body were as many physical anchors making each of his step a struggle. Trying not to care, he focused on keeping his head down, silent as he was closing in toward a lit fire a few hundred feet in front of him.

A makeshift camp made up by three ragged tents was soaking rapidly under the dreary deluge. The fire was badly protected by torn canvas, giving fumes as the wind was blowing water on its embers. The loud voice of two men talking was muffling the trickles cracking over the hot rocks circling the hearth. Beyond, a third individual was beating out a child with a large leather thong. Each time the hand was going down, the kid’s crystalline voice erupted in a squeaking yelp.

Hidden behind a dead trunk, the hunter narrowed his eyes to a knife-blade width, trying to distinguish the features of the three bandits. The rain, coupled with loud cracks of thunder, dropped a load on the scout’s shoulder. Water trickling down between his muscles, scars, and mud marring his sides, he chose to crawl closer, taking the risk to reveal his position.

Pondering the pros and cons of attacking upfront, scanning the three men for a hint of a weapon other than sticks and blades, his eyes went down on a tiny box left safe under the linen of one of the tents. Splattered with indent scrapping away the black paint, the item was rusty, covered with dust, and hermetically closed with a strange long lock. The dance of the flames coming from the camp fire threw strangely weaving shadows on the nearest side of it.

Stopping by a puddle of sludge, the hunter slipped his knife in, blanketing the red and shiny edge under a thin cover of brown murk. He walked around a tree, entered the camp through the hiding spot a tent’s shadow offered him and stood, heeding at the raucous laughter of the three men, ready to strike when the time would come in handy.

“J’vais pisser pronto, garde un oeil sur l’gamin,” the one carrying the leather strap called, stepping over the child as he wandered away from the camp.

“T’inquiètes, il est pas prêt de bouger l’con,” the second laughed, quickly followed by the third stooge.

To join his words with acts, the man kicked the curled up kid, throwing his ragged boots in his thigh. Sobs burst in response.

Crawling out of his hiding spot, the hunter glided behind the nearest of his preys who was looking down at his friend beating the child by the book. Even though rain drummed over the fabric of the tents, one could hear the third moaning his satisfaction outside the camp, freeing himself from an overweighting burden. Time was running out.

The blow, fast and silent, sliced through the throat, slicing deep through the sinews, throat, and bone. A hand over the dying weight’s mouth, the body crumbled like a castle of cards under the breeze. Its knee hurtled over a rusty pan left unattended on the ground. The metallic thud echoed under the rain.

The second bandit jerked his head on the side, looking straight at the hunter. An indented rusty knife welcomed his stupor, right through his nose cartilage. Blood spurted out. The bandit’s eyes slipped to a red-striated white as they revolved behind his eyelids. Thrusting the blade out, drawing a large jet of red gore on its way, the hunter sought for the third remaining assaulter.

His eyes locked on the tip of a gun a few feet away. The weapon blared a white hot burst.

In a reflex, the hunter slid on the side, the bullet missing by a hair’s width, then jumped over the campfire, bringing himself forward to an arm reach of his target as the second bang echoed.

Pain flared in the hunter’s right shoulder, passing through the articulation, shattering bones, splitting apart the ligaments, and drying the synovial cavity out of its fluid. Carried away by the strength of kinetic, the hunter stumbled over his assailant and both roared in pain and rage.

Both fell back on the side of a tent, ripping its fabric off. A hard floor of dirt welcomed the gunman’s back and the weight of the hunter wrestled all air out of his lungs, kicking him out for a couple of seconds. Groping around in the chiaroscuro, seeking for his knife, the hunter pushed the bandit aside. His fingertips met the cold touch of metal.

Square shaped, the box was sitting there right before him, for he had not come for the urchin but for this piece of lead. Losing his wit, the hunter crawled in the direction of the key item.

A fist struck his back, cracking a few ribs under the sucker punch’s strength. A kick followed and an arm slid around the hunter’s neck, locking his jugular in a deadly stance, tightening.

Gasping for air, the hunter now become hunted struggled, hacking his hands and feet around… trying to reach with his bare hands the face nearing toward his right ear.

“You think you can fuck with me,” the bandit jutted, his raspy voice massacring the language with an outrageous accent. “You piece of shit.”

The foreigner’s arm shifted his muscle gears and slowly, the hunter’s face turned from red to violet.

“You understand,” the bandit beckoned, grunting each time he tried to clench his arms a bit further. “I think I know what’s inside the box!”

“Mah… dick…” the hunter gurgled.

The bandit lowered the hunter’s head in a fit of rage, bashing it over the metal box itself which soon was covered with blood.

“This is mine!” he laughed madly. “Haven’t opened it yet, but you and your fuckhead friends must keep great things inside! Ain’t walking down the roads with shit in a locker! Gonna sell it to the army in Geneva. Will buy food and…”

Eyes shifting away, the hunter heard a scream above his head and the armlock vanished. His head hit the ground turned into mud as the flogging rain had entered the tent through its torn side. Lightning bolts streaked away up above this world of grim, gore, and gashes.

Looking aside, the hunter saw the kid, holding his knife, striking as seconds passed, again, again, and again, down to the bandit’s neck, eyes, head, chest, arms, flesh, and clothes. Despite his little height, twelve years old at most, he was striking down the bandit, rage blaring off his eyes, teeth clenched, flashing with the thunderbolts, crying and smiling at the same time. Hard times called for harsh measures. Yet, it was always hard to see the littlest break apart under one’s eyes, even more when it showed off how powerless one were to stop such a shameful gall.

The kid raised the knife over his head, ready to hit once again the already dead disfigured mess of wounds that could not be called a human anymore. A hand thrust out of the darkness and held this final desperate attack toward the incarnated pain that had dared lift a hand on him.

Acting rabid, the kid shrieked and turned around, biting at the arm holding his hand until blood was drawn. A feminine voice yelped and forced the child away with a slap from the back of her other hand.

“Oh, the fucker!”

“Maria,” the hunter hissed, lying on his chest, his ribs stabbing his lungs and sparking shivers down his spine.

A sliver of moonlight poured from a slit in the night cloudy sky, reflecting over the girl’s face standing a footstep away from the fallen warrior. Tanned by filth, young, yet marred with the mark of exhaustion and trauma, her face peered down at her friend with two piercing brown eyes. Giving a second punch in the child’s ribcage, making him drop his stolen knife, she kneeled over the man and started pressing over his right shoulder. Her black hair soaked as blood spurted out, bubbling over her slender fingers betraying an overwhelming state of famine.

“Don’t die on me, please,” she blurted.

“Eh, careful!” shouted a third male voice.

Maria jerked aside as the urchin struck forth with the knife, his eyes burning with tears. This time a heavy hand fell down on his face. Suckering, powerful, and dry, the uppercut sent the young boy away, making him bit the dirt in a loud thump.

Two young men walked in the light, and looked around, catching on what had just happened. The blue eyes of the one who had cast the child away glowed under the dim light, his once blond hair now brown by a flagrant lack of hygiene. His lips, torn in a rictus of disgust, revealed yellowish teeth.

The shocking sight of their downed friend forced a gasp out of the last human. Small and slender, his black hair had agglomerated in long dreadlocks, covering his ghoulish face enclosing two frightened brown irises. He was carrying the sole weapon of the group, a large shotgun, rusty and scrapped by time and lack of proper care.

The three men wore large hirsute beards, their features, while still apparently young, were scarred with wrinkles of exhaustion, hanger, and never-ending stress… Survival. But from the four of the group, the girl called Maria was the most pitiful. Parchment skin over flailing bones.

“John, help me instead of standing there like a motherfucker!” Maria cried out at her blond dumbstruck friend. “Don’t let Adam die.”

Her daggers-glaring eyes darted at the last one. The scrawny little piece of man’s hand clutched over his weapon, gritting his teeth as he awaited the girl acid statement.

“And you, Kreps, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t let them steal the box!”

The blemish rastaman looked down at his feet, his shoulders dropping a little.

“Yes, M’am,” he muttered.

Kreps’s eyes went up toward where he had seen the box as he had entered the tent, trying to shut his ears from Maria’s pleadings as John and she were actively trying to stop Adam’s open haemorrhage. His eyes twitched. The box was nowhere to be found.

Eyes widening, he tilted his head at the outside of the tent and saw the kid humping away, the box under his left arm, the knife held clumsily in the other. Blood rushed to Kreps’s head and rage burst out his chest.

“Come back here!” he screamed at the young poor boy running away for his life, thinking taking the knife and the box with him was of something useful. “Don’t make me do this.”

Kreps raised his shotgun and aimed at the whining kid, desperately trying to cast himself in the safe shadows outside in the dreadful storm. “Don’t force me!”

Struck by pure terror, the child turned his back and tried to sprint, toddling among the roots hidden by the darkness. Kreps closed his eyes and pressed the trigger. The recoil shot his shoulder back, nearly wrestling the gun out of his hands. The shot rammed the air in an ungodly roar. The gun ejected an empty brenneke gauge as a tree was already shredded to pieces a few inches above the child’s head. He screamed a grating shrill as bits of wood peppered his surroundings.

“Are you crazy?” John urged Kreps from his crouched position.

“He has the box!” Kreps bellowed, starting the chase. “And it’s mine.”

“Stay there!”

“It’s my mistake! I’m gonna repair what I’ve done!”

And he disappeared in the night, rain, and lightning bolts.

“Dumbass!” John raged, drifting his attention to Adam’s convulsing body. “Is he going to make it?”

“I don’t know,” Maria replied between two sobs, her hands covered in gore. “I have stuff in the car.”

“Help me then.”

John ripped off a large shred of the rags he wore and applied a tourniquet on his friend’s shoulder, drying suddenly his bleeding out veins. Adam growled in his half-stupor half-comatose state. He screamed when Maria and John lifted him off the ground and began carrying him out in the rain.

The camp fire had died, plunging their surrounding in the dark. A shot rang far away.

“Such a brainfuck,” John muttered as he turned his head toward Maria, the low hanging head of a passed out Adam between the two of them. “Let’s get back to the car, fast!”

The trip to the car extended up to ten long minutes, accounted by the pouring rain over the heads and bodies, and the booms breaking the drumming filling the air with a deafening silence from time to time. Three times a shotgun had roared in the far away.

Resting over a smashed open road without any marking, the car was a large dark beige four-wheel drive, muddy and scrapped. One window was cracked open and the headlights were non-existent. Large indents marked its front and sides, along with sparse bullet holes.

Grunting, Maria opened the backdoor and John dropped the limp body in the stinky yet dry large trunk, pushing away the mess accumulated in that closed space, scarce dried food, used cartridges, a large bag stamped with a red cross, and a huge metal case.

Maria grabbed the Red Cross bag and rummaged through its content, pulling out gauzes, scissors, bandages…

“We don’t have antiseptic…” she dropped.

“Doesn’t matter, help me bandage that wound!” John spat.

A gunshot cracked not far from the car and the sizzling of a bullet passing by rang in the trio’s ears.

“Stay right here, you sick fuck,” Kreps voice beckoned loudly.

Maria and John looked outside and stared at the urchin, standing in the middle of the road, afraid, clenching his arms over the box, Adam’s knife nowhere to be found in his little hands. On the opposite side, pointing with his shotgun at the child and the ground intermittently, Kreps threatened to shoot once again if he could not make the box peacefully his.

“Drop it,” Kreps shrieked with a tone easily mistaken for a pleading. “I don’t want to do this, but it’s mine, mine alone.”

Shivering from all his might, the child looked behind his right shoulder at the car. Occupied bandaging his gunned friend, John was swearing at the limp shape sprawled inside the large truck. Next to him, Maria, a foot on the inside of the trunk and a hand on the roof rack of the car, aimed at Kreps a small gun she had retrieved from the metallic box.

“No kids, we said!” she rasped her voice. “Not. Anymore!”

“It’s my burden…”

“As much as ours…” Maria supplicated.

“No, it’s mine and mine alone!”

Kreps held up the gun at the child, pumped a cartridge within, and swallowed. “Last warning, drop it, I count up to three.”

“Kreps, don’t do it,” John warned, his eyes still riveted on Adam’s motionless body.

“Three!”

A bolt of lightning cracked open the sky over the five life-stranded humans, midnight toiling on the dead watch dangling around the steering wheel of the car. The winds closed up the night sky, throwing the world into dim oblivious shadows as moon and stars disappeared. Only five pairs of eyes remained.

“Two!”

A bolt of lightning struck open a nearby tree, dichotomizing its trunk into two burning shreds. The rain flogged the faces, blanketing everything under a thick layer of biting-cold water. The child’s sob erupted in the air, his little hands bleaching under the strength he applied over the leaded box. He looked up at Maria, seeking for help. Her grip over the handle of her gun trembled as the last warning rammed the hair like a needle the arm of a drug addict.

“One!”

The boy raised the box as the shotgun bellowed with a loud bang. Yet the flash which closed everybody’s eyes was not the deed of the gunshot but the explosion of a lightning bolt melting the slug mid-air as it struck the box and through it the child behind.

A Doppler Effect stretching to infinite in everybody’s ears, ringing like a carillon of cathedral bells, eyes opened over a horrendous sight.

The box dropped on the ground, glowing blue as a hole had punched through. The kid raised his hands to his torso where a blood-splattering hole was visible despite the nightmarish rain. Shaking madly, he slowly looked at Kreps who, overwhelmed by guiltiness, lowered his weapon, glaring beyond the child in an astonishing horror. He turned toward Maria who, awestruck, had her eyes fixed onto something that first escaped the child’s comprehension. John’s livid face betrayed something was wrong. And finally, the kid settled his teary eyes on what laid behind him.

The slug, bloodied and dripping fluids was stuck mid-air, glowing the same sickening blue as the box. The drip of blood floated in its trail. There was no pain, only terror as all took in the harsh reality that rain had stopped falling, stuck into place as if time had stopped flowing.

The child screamed at the hole in his chest, the rain resumed its path, the blood dripped through the air and wounds, melting down in the mud into a sickening dark brown, and a last crack of thunder wracked the sky. The white bolt descended onto the screaming little piece of human, tearing the sky with marvellous black and violet shades soon replaced with a blinding light.

ⱴĦ – V α ϵ R, E! Ω – Ħⱴ

“You sure it worked?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“In mah opinion, she broke the weather,” Applejack retorted.

“Maybe she just stopped the rain,” Rarity chuckled, then laughed as Rainbow Dash gave her a weird look.

“At least it’s fun, look!” Pinkie laughed, tip-toeing on the guardrail of Twilight Castle’s first-floor terrace, digging out a path through the stuck-in-motion rain and calling out at Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom to join her in her mining quest.

The atmosphere was dark. Thick grey cloud hiding the sky thrust ponyville and the country into a dim ambiance of end of the world. And though the wind had stopped, many ponies had locked themselves behind the safe walls of their houses.

“Eh… maybe you shouldn’t have used your magic,” Fluttershy raised her voice over a butterfly’s squeak, hiding her eyes behind a full lock of soft pink mane.

“Stop,” Twilight said, grumbling over, glaring daggers at Rainbow Dash. “It’s you who asked me to solve the storm problem lickity split!”

“Wow, stop right here,” the cyan pegasus countered. “You teleported us all here and even used the power of the box to deal with that.”

“You asked me to stop the tempest!”

“Yes, because Snowflake and Derpy were sick since they tasted that watermelon you brought from Canterlot…”

“And because you were too lazy to do it by yourself,” Twilight cut her friend off. “And I got this watermelon from the Griffin Ambassador, it was in the cornu copiae he offered to Celestia. Not my fault if there was a spider in the melon.”

Rainbow Dash raised her hoof, wings flapping around and catching dew as she flew past the petrified rain. Pouting, she rubbed her head, searching for a good answer, breathed in, and smiled.

“I…”

A violent slash of white streaked the sky, passing over the heads to strike the tallest nearby mountain, shattering its peak. The explosion was bright blue, deafening, and burning. Blastwaves washed over Ponyville, breaking left unattended windows, flipping over tables, abandoned carts, and barrels. The sky bubbled with blue, violet, green, and yellow lights as rainbows whirled from the mountain, chasing the menacing clouds away, and with it the rain and winds. Then, Ponyville, although partially damaged, stood proud in the bathing sunlight.

“Ah, ah!” Twilight erupted in joy, jumping on her hooves as she had been thrust on the ground by the strength of the blow. “Told you!” Who’s the best princess? Who’s she?”

Laughing, dancing victoriously around a knocked out Rainbow Dash whose eyes were dancing with stars, Twilight stuck out her tongue, her childish instinct taking over… until a high hanging flag with her cutie mark and its pole snapped and fell down her head. Headache conquering the young alicorn, her mutters sparked laughter among her friends.

“I came, I saw, and I don’t believe my eyes…” she grunted.

And her friends laughed even more, unaware that a few kilometers from here, among the rubbles falling from the shattered mountains were more than just rocks.

Old Version:

A heavy shape fell on the ground, quaking and gurgling in vain. Next to it, a thing was crawling in the mud, its face covered with a blood which was not its own. Its breath was husky and loud. Mist shrouded what might have been his mouth.

Thunder rumbled.

The pouring rain was beating up its naked back, freezing it to death. Its wrinkled left hand was holding tightly a long and rusted dagger.
Its target… its reward was not far now. A good old feeling swamped its mind. It remembered this instinct, tasted this impression and licked off its lips… It was the thrill of the hunt.
The strange being was ready to strike. His yellowish teeth shined in the dark.

Lightning was coming back and forth and the sludgy shape rose from the dirt. Brownish silt trickled down its neck. The… thing was bipedal, tall and utterly scary for unwise witnesses. Nearly hidden by a long black mass of hair, its two dark green eyes reflected the light of a fire camp fifty feet from there. With his other hand, it kept its weapon from casting any reflection. The time to act had come.

It hunkered down and plodded toward its goal. There between few crooked bushes, two patched tents were set up. The fire was kept away from the rain with an ingenious system of canvas. Even so, the humidity was constantly assaulting its flames, making their warmth disappear instantly.

The stalking foe hid behind a dead tree. Two creatures of its kind were standing in front of the nearest tent. They were talking harshly. Unfortunately, the rain, added to the rolling thunder kept the shirker from understanding anything.
It grumbled. Did it have to act? Did it have to wait? It had no idea, but for sure time was running out. It stretched its muscles. And then started the final countdown. It prepared to leap onto its preys.

Its green pupils narrowed as something caught its attention... this was unexpected.
A third creature had showed up. Its right hand was carelessly strangling a younger one, a child struggling in vain. This pitiful play amused its merciless spectators. Each one of them laughed raucously.

There was no time left. The hunter had to make a move… Now!

It drew out again its sharpened knife and winded like a rodent behind the tents.
The first of the three targets was in its death zone. How could this go wrong? They were expecting nothing in this god-forsaken place. The crooked black haired shadow had a goal, and because the opportunity had showed up, this hunt would end with few new marks on its tally.
None of these three campers, or whatever they were, was also expecting a branch to crack under somebody’s boot, behind their back.

“Fuck!” the stealth form snapped, it was one jump far from its first prey.

The three antagonists turned over and stared into a pair of eyes standing in the shadows. Unfortunately, they struck first… the questions could come later. Bullets flew through the air. They pierced the fabric of the tents, carved the surrounding trees and revealed with the brightness of the triggered gunpowder the face of the creature…
It was a flat face showing a little muzzle and whose small ears were surrounded by this black long hair of it. Its teeth were squalid, evidence of a long-standing self-negligence.
It was, unfortunately indeed, a man.

The hunter’s lungs let out a long hoarse cry when he launched himself toward his first opponent. This one fell on the ground, its throat sliced in half. The victim’s blood would soon mix with the rain and the mud.
The second cringed, holding the guts slipping out of its stabbed belly, mumbling in pain.

The unleashed predator turned back and faced his last opponent. Tall and amazingly strong, this blond haired survivor had already released the youngster and was now pointing his gun toward his companions’ murderer.

A flash lit up the place. The sound of a gunshot echoed between the dead trunks and then the noise of a hard fall on the ground was heard.

Crawling in the dirt, now covered with his own blood and displaying a deep and disgusting gap in his shoulder, the quivering hunter was suffering from miserable hiccups. Worst, he had lost his knife, which had bounced away, disappearing in the shadows.

The hunter, defeated, was now lying on the ground. His opponent, victoriously laughing stuck his boot on his spine and turned him over. He stopped giggling for a mere second when his stare met two green eyes glaring daggers at him. A powerful kick in the wound followed making the agonizing body gasp at the satisfaction of its persecutor.
He started rampaging the deadly-wounded corpse, stomping the one who dared attack him and his now-dead friends.

But even if screams came out of the fainting creature’s blooded mouth, no “pity”, “please” or “mercy” raised up. This resistance unnerved the torturer. His hand reached the black hair of his victim and grabbing them with strength as he lifted up his head. His victim’s face was smeared with silt. And coughing, his mouth was spitting out blood and liquefied dirt.

The trembling body tried to get up but ended to smash again on the muddy ground. Laughter welcomed this failed and disappointing act.

The hunter, still struggling to breath air instead of peat was given a moment of rest. His antagonist had stopped looking down to him and had gone to pick up a chopping knife. He took time choosing his tool, ruffling his blood hair and beard.
For the broken human, lying pitifuly between the tents, death beckoned. The dying man could almost feel a cold breath on his neck and shoulders.

Walking back to the bruised body, delighted in tormenting his victim, the blood bandit spoke in a grave, demented and frightening voice. No doubt he was a male.

“I know what you want. It’s not me or the teenager, but the box!”

The tears stopped rolling on the half-buried face. He frowned, crackling the mud, blood and mucus coagulated on it. Two bloodshed and murderous green eyes rose and stared into those of their tormentor which were blue as a sky they had not seen for eons.

“Man never changes and what he desires is power, power, power… only power,” the standing tormentor deadpanned.

Holding the chopping knife, he drew a large and heavy-looking case from one of the tent, its lock was welded. He made fun of his silent audience… this unarmed and inoffensive so-called hunter which was now struggling desperately to survive few more seconds.

“But it ain’t yours. And I don’t want to know that you and your group of pricks … those… virgin have it.”

He laughed, expecting no answer from his interlocutor, still fighting to not drown in the mud.

“You know, there is a military camp at Geneva, they have food, water… clean water you know, not this junk you and your friends drink every day. And of course weapons… And this box… I haven’t opened it yet, but I think I know what’s inside. And it’s mine now!”

A bolt of lightning struck a closed tree. Sparks flew in the air.

“Unfortunately, you’re alone right now. And it’s alone in the dark, surrounded by the shit that suits you so well that you’ll die. You’ve got Boris’ condolence.”

The bandit pressed the muzzle of his pistol on the speechless young man’s forehead, holding him straight with the edge of the chopping knife on his neck.

Instead of a shot, a squeak echoed. The pressure of the gun fainted. Opening again his eyes, the human wreck saw a fork sinking deep in his executioner’s right leg. Between him and a tent the teen was on his knees, receiving reckless hits from the butt of the man’s gun.
The child face was bruised and dark brown clumps of hair were now stuck to the grip of the firearm.

“You little shitty bastard! What you got was not enough! You want to die now?!”

Hope sparked in the hunter’s mind, watching silently the molestation from his painful position.
It was an opportunity, his last chance to fight. Tightening all of his limbs and using his only arm left, the turned-prey hunter rose again. The molester would have not expected such will from a bag of bruises and bones. The struggle was harsh and inglorious.

The hunter rushed forward to his enemy’s throat. Like a heavily wounded lion struggling to survive, he bit deep in the skin, the flesh and the bones of its rival’s neck, tearing off tufts of his blond beard. The hunter broke a tooth and blood flooded his mouth and his face, blurring his vision. He kept struggling against his opponent’s desperate movements and screams.
Putting his right arm around the molester’s neck, he blocked himself and the still shaking corpse in this deadly pose. Blood was shed. With a snap he stole his contender’s life, a man’s throat stuck between his teeth.

Three minutes passed by until the survivor released his armlock. The sky was clearing as the storm was pushed away by the morning’s wind. “A blessing”, he thought.
His breath was hesitant. He became aware of his wounds, his damaged ribs and of his skin burnt by the acid rains.

Rolling on his back, he brought something out of his pocket, an old and corroded plastic switch. Copper wires were still connected to it. He was switching it on and off, creating a typical clicking sound.
It amused him. A faint scowl of satisfaction appeared on his bruised face.

Blood loss was achieving him. His temple was beating, preventing him from thinking clearly.
He thought that if the pain or the blood loss were not enough to deal the final blow, infections and diseases would get rid of him. He started praying. For three years, there has been nothing to rely on. Everyone had to survive on its own. Groups formed and collapsed as the true human’s nature revealed itself, this unending quest for power, weapons and positions.
Three years of disorder had the foundations of our society first undermined and then swept off Earth’s surface one by one. Chaos set up.

A voice called him. Was it Death, this old friend?

“Verdugo?! Verdugo? VERDUGO!”

Someone was shaking him, trying to keep him awake… alive. Torchlights were aimlessly pointing around in the clearing.

“Fu! We’re losing him,” the voice shouted, calling for someone out of eyesight.

The one talking was a young adult, skinny as someone who had starved for months. His brown hair and beard gave him the look of a without shelter, which was true for everyone at the moment. His blue eyes, hidden behind small glasses, were tearful. He had a scar on his chin.

“Bloody hell, do you see his shoulder!” A thinner male voice spoke.

The so-called Verdugo felt himself slipping away. His vision blurred as eternal rest started invading his limbs. He felt himself falling for a mere second and then… a punch in his terrifying wound woke him up. He screamed out of pain.
A blond haired young man was now squeezing him. At his right the first one was now looking at him with an empty stare. Dark grey ring was circling his eyes. Lots of sleepless nights had indeed left their marks. His beard was nearly tickling his friend’s face.

“Sorry man! Talk please! Say something motherf’cking throat grinder!”

“Shut up Kreps, you’re annoying…”

“Oh man! You scared the shit out of us so badly!” His blond friend stuttered.

“The box, I got it back.”

The last one pushed Kreps, now anger was flooding his eyes.

“You nearly killed yourself for that f’cking box! You stupid cunt!” He slapped Verdugo.

“You’re so dumb Ray, you know what’s inside. We can’t leave such b…”

A tear dropped on Ray’s cheek, disappearing through his badly cut brown beard. He put off his cracked glasses and swept them off. He was shaking and sobbing. He had got back his friend.

The thinner voice, Kreps’s one, started shouting few feet away from their position. From there, his look was the one of a small and skinny punk, his hair was so long and dirty they had pasted up in natural muddy dread-locks. The blond aspect of his hair was in fact now long forgotten.

“This kid is kicking up my balls… literally! He doesn’t want to give up the box.”

“Kreps, tell it’s radioactive. It will calm him down.” Ray replied cynically.

Indeed, once he heard the forbidden word the urchin instantly threw away the metal case. Kreps dumped a flow of insults as the mallet fell on his left foot. He was still having this weird way of pronouncing the “r” and “w”, typical for a German.

“Don’t hit the child, he could still be useful,” Ray ordered, wiping a tear from his eyelid.

“Don’t even touch him… I don’t know what they did to him, but don’t touch… him,” Verdugo whispered.

He pointed hesitantly at the throat-less body next to him, blood was still spurting from the wound. And to support the wounded’s claims, the child tried to bit Kreps’s hand when he approached. Verdugo should have been a really bad example.

On his side, Ray tried to wash and bandage his friend. Wiping off the blood and mud from Verdugo’s face, Ray revealed a washed-out but still tanned skin where these two well-known green eyes were crying tears of salt and blood.

“Eh! Don’t die! What will we do without yah?”

“Everything. Murderers are common these days.” Verdugo sarcastically responded.

A clicking sound rang out from Kreps’ wrist. Few tools were stitched to his sleeves and a small barometer was riveted to his watch. His eyes were nearly glowing from his anxiousness.

“The storm will come back, and with it, the acid rains. We must hurry!” He hissed, mist enshrouded his mouth.

After having the camp scavenged, the group crept out of the forest. A ravaged road was waiting for them. A derelict of a former Mercedes was parked on the roadside. The kid which had not talked yet was following them.

The front door opened. A young girl rooted herself out of the hulk. Her black hair was covering her face, her arms and legs were bandaged under a heavy black leather coat, too large for her thin shape.
She was carrying a gun.

“What happened down there?” She asked after her hazel eyes looked down on Verdugo, nearly unconscious. She gulped back a gag. She was undoubtedly worried.

“Verd’ four hundred four on us.” Kreps said, smiling.

Ray, the current leader of the group gazed at the German.

“No more nerd joke from now on”. He ordered. “Take the steering-wheel. Maria an’ I must secure Verdugo’s state before this crank’d and curs’d walkin’ dead pass’ out.”

Ray had this notorious habit to start speaking fast, making his spelling incomprehensible at some point, once he stressed.

“I’m not dead yet you know.” Verdugo pointed out with his weakening voice.

“You will be if we do nothin’ for ya!”

The group dragged up Verdugo on the quarter-deck. The muted kid jumped into the vehicle and watched Ray and the girl cutting through the nasty wound of their friend. The pain made Verdugo screamed. The young teen covered his ears and closed his eyes.
Verdugo fainted when Maria’s hesitant hand ripped off a rotting piece of flesh. She had never been good with scissors.

“Sissy!” She fulminated.

π ϖ Ϙ Ω Ϙ ϖ π

When Verdugo waked up, he found his wound badly patched and oozing pus. He felt nauseous, his skin was burning and his eyes were still blurred. Acid downpours were not something to make fun of.

“Eh! You’re not dead!” Maria shouted with irony.

“Thanks nurse Obvious!” He hissed slowly.

He felt like a stampede had shattered his body and mind, like after an alcoholic black-out, when hangover is so rooted in your head and guts you only want to throw up. But it had been two years since he had last tasted an ounce of vodka.
Maria was stressed out. She had no antiseptic left, meaning that her friend would die within days if they could not find some in the wreckages. With her fingers she was tangling her black, smelly and rough locks of hairs.

But this kind of worry was not up to the agenda for the moment. A monstrous bolt of lightning struck down a tree, smashing it in half and kindling flames over it. Verdugo’s stare wandered in the car. The silence kid was stoic. He said nothing, just staring outside with his light blue eyes, wide opened. What was attracted his attention was Kreps and Ray in the front, shouting and taunting each other.

Now his eyes had focused, Verdugo could see the massive hullaballoo outside. Rain, lightning, wind and chaos were surrounding the car. Where the fuck Kreps had gone? Everyone felt like they had been transported into a hurricane.

Gusts of wind were punching the truck from every side. Bad day, this was a real bad day. Darkness enshrouded the vehicle while Kreps was struggling to maintain it on its four wheels.

“Did the sun already set? How long did I sleep?” Verdugo asked in a low and weak voice.

“You won’t believe it,” Ray said when Kreps switched on the headlights. “It’s noon… NOON.”

Another tree fell down on the road. Streaks of lightning smashed it into pieces.

Kreps snapped. The wind had struck with such force it had lifted up the car. Without time to think, he just screamed out his powerlessness and braked aimlessly. He crashed the vehicle on the verge of the road.
The impact happened so fast that no one reacted in time.

Maria was the first to wake up, she looked around her. The rain was biting her skin. Kreps who never fastened his seatbelt had been catapulted through the windscreen. He was unconscious thirty feet away from the truck. She lifted her hand to her forehand, in her hand was melt black hairs and blood.

“Oh fuck me!”

“Whenever you want…” a voice rose from the car.

Ray was a lucky bastard, enough at least to have been greeted of a functional airbag. Unfortunately, his glasses had been crushed by the impact and shatters were spread on his face.

“I would prefer having sex with our good old undertaker Verdugo rather than with you, Mister handkerchief.”

“You so mean… Go see how Kreps is doing! A German dying in a German car crash would be patriotically… ironic.”

Maria gave him a finger. She headed to the motionless Kreps’s body. He had two cracked ribs and maybe a commotion. It could have been worse. But now she had two badly hurt people to care about. And in this world it meant death for everyone. Kreps’s pretty face was mumbling.

The storm kept messing around. Ray hardly inspected the car. Verdugo was still laying on its backseat. Like Kreps he was blabbering, but in his case fever was finding its way rather than pain. Bleeding, he did not seem to be wounded… More than he already was at least.

“Eh! Verdugo, Are you okay?” Ray risked himself.

“The child… this muted god-knows-who child stepped on my shoulder!”

Ray hissed, picturing how painful it should have been.

“Don’t worry you’re already a mess!” Ray teased him back.

“Go fuck yourself!” Verdugo added. “Where is he?”

Ray frowned, clueless.

“Who?”

“The child dumbass!”

“I dunno, I broke my glasses.”

Both of them sighed. This teen would give them unnecessary problems.
Maria called, pressing everyone to hurry. She was easy to get stressed. Ray opened the trunk of the car. He took out a tarp and walked toward the only girl of the group. He kindly covered her and Kreps, they were shivering in the cold acid rain.“Where the hell was that kid?” He thought.

Without his glasses he could not see anything. Relying on movements, which were hidden by the pouring rain, it was a nearly impossible task to fulfill.
But his ears caught a muffled sound, like two pieces of metal smiting together. Startled, Ray moved toward the source of the noise. Thunders rumbled once more and intensified as seconds passed.

It was fucking noon! And it seemed like a moonless midnight, with a personal tornado as a gentle godsend. But he did not care in the end. For three years, the earth had been messed up… Since the great uproar, everything had been upside-down. The “uproar”… what an uncanny, unfitting and petty name for incomprehensible events that leaded to the so-called apocalypse.

In fact, Ray remembered. It had been all due to a massive solar storm which had destroyed within a week each consumer or military electronics in the world… leaving everyone left stranded on a black-out Earth. Everybody tried to cope alone, while every mean of communication and transport had been pull out of service. This had leaded to chaos which rapidly had turned into a global civil war for survival and for the ownership of the last scrap of working gadgets. Some nuclear bombs had been dropped, but it had been uncommon.
Mankind succeeded in finding weapons and sowing conflicts and death in each corner of the Earth. The “Great Uproar” turned out to be the last “war” for everyone.

“Okay, back to the kid”, he thought, snapping out of it. The urchin was squatting on the box with a crowbar in his hands. Trying to… to open it.

“You!” Ray shouted, an angry grin replacing his emotion-empty face. “Don’t f’cking dare touch that shit!”

The tearful teen’s eyes stopped on Ray’s angry face. The kid’s weight was enough to blow up the lock. He fell on the grass and dropped the crowbar. They had not catch a glimpse on what was inside yet that green and blue sparks crackled and electricity tensed the ambient air.

“You’ve screwed us all!”

The blowing sound of thunder woke Kreps up, seeing the strange light he swore and grumbled from the pain. Verdugo escaped from the car. He could barely walk.

“Tsss... Don’t come close to it! Our good and kind leader can’t die from irradiation,” he sniggered, shouting to cover the dim noise of rain.

Ray answered back with an exasperated smile. He grabbed the kid and retreated to a safer area. The blue and green light was too intense; impossible to look at the box.

“At least we don’t have the trigger,” Verdugo reassured.

“Yeah that would be annoy…”

A gigantic bolt of lightning smashed the box and everyone felt an unbearable heat.
Everything went white.

π ϖ Ϙ Ω Ϙ ϖ π

Several heavy knocks echoed on the wooden door.

“Twilight… Twilight!”

Lightning was slashing through the sky. The rumbling thunder was shaking the houses’ and cottages’ walls of the small city. The wind struck the windows and ripped out the trees from their leaves.

“TWILIGHT!”

“What Rainbow!?” A voice answered from behind the door. “It has to be important. I was studying with Princess Luna on how to perform lucid dreaming.”

“TWI!!”

The purple alicorn grumbled and opened the door. Unlocking it would be a better description as an alien force pushed it in. A torrent of water crashed onto her face and flooded her hall.

“Okay, I got it… Come in.”

Rainbow Dash urged herself in Golden Oak Library. She closed the door with the help of Twilight’s magic. Rainbow was clearly anxious. She always had this face when she was tensed, visibly wanting to cringe in a corner, hoping to be forgotten.

“What… Rainbow?”

“I need your help! I can’t…”

“Okay, slow down… You’ve just asked me to…” Twilight arched her eyebrows.

“Yes, help me pleaaase!”

This was getting weird. First, like Applejack she was reluctant to ask anypony’s help. Second, she came to the egg-head seeking for help. Rainbow really had to be hopeless. Twilight Sparkle pinched herself.

“I must have messed up some teleporting spell and ended up to another dimension.”

“No, no! I need you!” Rainbow spelled as she understood Twilight’s disbelief, trying to laugh to ease the situation. “You’re the one mastering magic, and this tempest ain’t natural. I can’t put an end to it. It keeps reappearing! It turns me crazy!”

Twilight sighed.

“Here we go…”

Rainbow Dash huddled up.

“Okay Rainbow, I can consider that some storms are magic! But I am not a pegasus. This isn’t my job. I don’t even know how to calm down rain. Face it, sometimes you just have to wait. Cloudsdale may have forgotten to send you the information.”

“You don’t understand. Cloudsdale wanted me to clear the sky today. If I can’t fulfil my duty… I will… I will be forever rejected by the Wonderbolts. You’re an alicorn, you’re almighty! You must do something.”

Almighty? This was awkward. Twilight kicked herself, she should have recorded this. Her eye rose up to the ceiling. “Could she herself be this disappointing when she was not suppressing her own anxiousness? ”She thought. She came up with the idea it was a good topic for a letter to Princess Celestia. She snapped out of her thinking when Rainbow started waking her like a bartender would do with a shaker.

“Rainbow, stop shaking her like a Dragon’s tail! You’ll squeeze her brain out!” Spike remarked while walking down the stairs, yawning.

Spasms plagued Rainbow’s bottom lip. A tearful cyan pony nearly put her front knee to the ground, she begged her friend. Twilight put her hoof on her face.

“Okay, I’ll try!”

Rainbow jumped in the air, a smile on her face.

“Oh thanks you! Thanks, thanks!”

A dozen of knocks echoed on the entrance door.

“Again? For Pete’s sake! Who can it be this time?”

Four mares surged into the hall. The rest of the Mane Six showed up as wet as if they were getting out of a pool.

“Good Celestia! You surely have no manners.” Rarity said, buried under Applejack. “And you, would you please get your hoof away from my mane Fluttershy.”

“Oh my… sorry.”

Once everypony was back on her hooves, they gave Twilight a scared look. She was fulminating; she had been disturbed from her studies. Princess Luna which inhabited her dreams this night had been sent back to her bed in Canterlot in the most informal way.
Rarity gazed at Applejack whose hooves were muddy. She huffed and went outside to wash them off.
Each pony started talking at the same time.

“Needhelpattheboutiquethefieldsaredrowningtheriversbursttheirbanksandthreatentheanimalsandthemarshmallowsdon’tliketobewet!!!”

“Stoooop!” Twilight shouted as her mane turned into flames and her eyes went from her natural colour to blood red.

Everypony gave a step back. Their faces were marked by fear. It took few seconds to Twilight to calm down.

“Okay, I guess that you all have some deal with the storm?”

Rhetorical question of course.

“The wind broke through my windows! My Carousel Boutique is absolutely devastated!” Rarity burst into tears, an art she mastered eons ago.

“The dam ain’t protecting my fields… they are flooded!” Applejack emphasised.

“Mr. Bear asked me if you could…” Fluttershy tried… her voice unable to rise over the unreachable one decibel limit.

“The basement of Sugarcube corner where I store my dear cupcakes is under water!” Pinkie added. “They are excitedly, unthrilledly unhappy!”

Pinkie’s mane uncurled as if Rarity had straitened them. Staring back and forth at Rainbow Dash and her four other friends, Twilight sighed.

“Alright! I’ll do something.”

She stepped outside. Rain instantly slapped her in the muzzle.

“At least I’ll try…”

Coming back inside, she went upstairs. After having the windows opened, she forced the barrier of water and stood alone on the balcony. Everypony was looking at her.
Her eyes went as white as thousand suns and arcs of electricity surrounded her horn. She was muttering something but the sound of pouring rain made it incomprehensible.

Light enshrouded Twilight. She started levitating.

“Okay let it go!”

Lightning struck her horn. Flung through the air, she knocked down her friends as a bowling ball would have done with pins.

“Ow! I didn’t expect that!” Twilight complained, rubbing her forehead.

“What went wrong Sugarcube?” Applejack asked, helping Fluttershy to get back on her hooves.

“I need more power I think. ‘One does not command a storm so easily’.”

“What?” Rainbow Dash enquired about.

“Star Swirl the Bearded tried to master storm magic while he was still living, but he didn’t succeed.

He wasn’t a pegasus.”

Twilight gave a sarcastic stare to Rainbow who looked down. Using her magic again, she brought the Elements of Harmony out of nothing. It was a small trick Celestia had given her.

“More power! Put them on, you’ll help me.”

“Isn’t that a bit… dangerous,” Fluttershy hunched under Twilight’s bed.

“I don’t know. It’s the first time we’ll use them this way… And I wonder if we’re allowed to. I wouldn’t like to mess with mighty beings’ schemes.”

“Ain’t nobody got time for that! Let’s do it.” Rainbow proclaimed. She wanted to make the tempest stop once and for all.

Everypony put their respective Element on and stood on the balcony… Except for Rarity and Fluttershy… Was it the deluge or the frightening thunder? They had their reasons.

Once again, Twilight eyes glowed. Colourful strands of light slowly hooped the levitating group, wrapping each pony in a warm and peaceful embrace. Rarity gasped as the levitating spell brought her outside. Each strip of colour merged above Twilight’s head, forming an unbearably glowing white ball of pure energy.

A hiss came from the sphere, it vibrated and blew up. No shockwave came from it, only a white flash which blinded each of the Element bearers.

When everypony had recovered their eyesight, they could see an absolutely amazing spectacle.

“Is it me or everything is stuck in motion?” Rarity reckoned.

Indeed, every rain drop had stopped… dropping, stuck into the air like if time had been frozen. Twilight swept the motionless downpour with her hoof. She printed her movement in the water, leaving void in the passing. At least ten bolts of lightning were crossing up in the sky.

Everypony in the town went outside. From her balcony, Twilight could see Lyra, Bon-Bon, the mayor. Even animals got out of their nests, burrows or hideouts.
The Mane Six were dazed.

Twilight moved into her bathroom, her friends in her hoofsteps. She turned on the tap. Water ran out.

“I haven’t stopped time… it’s just the storm.”

Everypony heard laughs. Outside Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Spike, quickly joined by Pinkie, were digging in the unmoving rain, hollowing out tunnels like miners in a mountain.

Suddenly, a humming noise intensified, going from inaudible to unbearable. The air was vibrating, blurring like if static was placed on top of reality. Colours seemed to be washed-out. The earth started rumbling.

Suddenly a sole bolt of lightning showed up. It was gigantic. It could have been a god’s deed. For each witnesses it seemed like somepony had drawn out a monstrous sword and sliced it through the air. The white beam collided with the “Dragon’s pit”, the mountain where a red dragon had taken a nap three years ago, until Fluttershy kicked it away.

The impact was apocalyptic. The lightning exploded on the walls of the mountains, shattering the peak in thousands of parts. Bits and pieces flew through the air, crashing all over the valley. A huge rock had been flung into the middle of the city hall square. It sufficed to spread utter panic all over Ponyville.

From her position, the Mane Six minus Pinkie, who was using her pinkie sense to dodge the falling rocks, saw a coming shockwave. A hard slap and few messed up manes later; dust had invaded each street of the city…
Everypony stared at Twilight.

“Eh… Eh… I might have over-done it.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow at Twilight’s bad poker face.

“At… at least it’s not raining anymore.”

Twilight was right; through the dust she could see the sun at the zenith of its arc. The stormy clouds had been swept away by the blast wave.

In the distance, one could hear the sound of one hundred crashing rocks.

Author's Note

Short Description:

Long Description:

Apr. 2014 - Sweat, Flesh, Blood, And Bones - 1. Where The Rocks Pour

New Version:

When the blast shattered the Dragon’s den peak, hundreds of boulders, debris of all aspects and volutes of dirt scattered over Ponyville’s and Canterlot’s valleys; covering the region of thick and chafing greyish clouds. The atmosphere blackened.

The muddy fallouts concealed the sun for hours and the concerned ponies panicked as darkness was casted upon the Realm of the Two Sisters. Terrorized, some of them shouted that Nightmare Moon had returned.

In no time, Cloudsdale came to Canterlot’s rescue. But even with the common effort of everypony, it took a long time to chase the smoke away. The ambiance was prone to spread terror, deceit and thoughts of ill-omen into the minds of the surrounding inhabitants.

And this was why that, in this exceptional situation, nopony witnessed some tiny and strange shaped shadows fall across the blackish sky.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

Falling along, five featherless bodies were shaking their limbs in vain. Powerless, they screamed; the ground was approaching at an insane speed.

Having the time and a mind dedicated to reflection, they would have seen on their left horizon a strange chain of sharped mountains, bordered by a dense forest of dark green leaves, location where they were desperately heading. Long and impressively large rivers crossed this green sea.

They would have also seen hung onto a steep mountain a strange and magnificent castle of gold and silver.

However, staying alive was the unique idea agitating their minds at the moment.

Tearing down the air, they saw themselves closing to a lake dwelling in the middle of the strange forest. The number of feet separating them from the impact was lessening each second. The unfortunate and still conscious sky-divers held their breath.
They dipped into water. It felt like crashing into concrete, smashing… in the literal way.

Waves formed onto the lake as the five falling ‘birds’ sunk into at an astonishing speed. Seconds later, a wrecked four wheeled cage of metal crashed on the shores few meters away, bounced and finished its reckless race on the bordering beach.
Giving off fumes, the vehicle broke down and fell apart in thousands of pieces.

The waves faded away and the place recovered its former silent state.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

In the hours following the biggest, and certainly the coolest as said by a certain rainbow coloured Pegasus, explosion Equestria had ever seen, the two Princesses Luna and Celestia went to Ponyville to hear the account of the oldest sister’s most faithful student.
Dazed, they listened to the whole story.

“So you’re telling me,” initiated Princess Celestia, massaging her temple to make the report easier to chew on. “That you cast an explosive spell on the tallest mountain of Equestria in order to scatter away a magical storm.”

Twilight’s lips drew a strange shaped smile, swinging between a poorly executed poker face and an anxious rictus.

“Basically… no… I mean… yes, but everypo…”

Celestia and Luna covered their eyes with their hooves, disbelieving. Luna cut her off.

“Do thou understand how aberrant thy deed hath been?” She said with a mighty anger glaring in her eyes. “What if falling pieces of the peak had broken into the midst of random cottages? It could have killed ponies! This could have been pudh!”

Luna became more and more cryptic as her speech slept toward a very old equestrian dialect. She started grunting, spasms running within her neck’s fur.

“But, I tried that spell Celestia learned me month ago about cloud chasing.”

“It was meant to be a kind of fun spell we can use during parties to shape the clouds… not to make them go away. That’s a pegasus’s job…” Celestia pointed out with a stern voice after having pushed aside her sister. “And you used the Elements!”

“I ran out of power… And they were so intrusive and oppressing. Don’t punish me please…” Twilight squeaked, mentioning her friends.

She leaned toward her teacher, mumbling in fear and shame. Celestia and Luna let out a loud breath. The Princess of the Sun raised her head and start talking with a compassionate and friendly voice.

“You can’t solve everything with pure magic and power,” She turned and faced Twilight’s friends. “And you shall learn that forcing out advantages from your friend is not a worthy of and respectable behaviour.”

“We’re sorry.” Everypony yielded.

“Now go out and help everypony clear the chaos you’ve wreaked upon us.” Luna added after she calmed herself. “You will write a letter tonight to my sister… all of you. And Fluttershy…”

The yellow pegasus dunked her head in her shoulders when she heard her name.

“Lots of debris struck the surrounding forests. You should ask Zecora to help you searching for hurt or wounded animals.”

Fluttershy nodded, thanked the princess and went out with all of her friends.

“Huge explosion on second thought,” Luna remarked, a small smile printed on her lips.

“Maybe too huge… do you remember thousand years ago during our confrontation? We tore apart some fabric of time and space.”

“Yes, now you told it We remember. That was utterly amusing,” She giggled before Celestia sent her a clear message about the seriousness of the situation. Her stare glared daggers.

“And this is how we… I… had to fight this Shoggoth or whatever the name legends gave to it,” The princess of the Sun shivered.

“Tekeli-li!” Luna howled, startling Celestia who jumped on the nearest table as if she had seen a mouse.

“Stop… Stop It!” She yelled, her white and silky fur bristled all over her body. “We said to never talk of this again!”

Luna was still laughing when they came out of the Golden Oak Library. She stopped and arched an eyebrow. A huge boulder was standing in the middle of the street. Earth ponies were digging it out with pickaxes, making it easier to move.

“It’s nearly time to set the sun and raise the moon Lulu.”

“Don’t call me that way, it’s unnerving.”

“Everything is a fair game… Lulu,” Celestia stuck out her tongue, winking.

In the sky, the emissaries and forces of Cloudsdale were clearing the last remnants of the smoky clouds.

The moon had risen on Equestria and the stars were tingling above the tired lands. Ponies were going to sleep.

Luna was standing on her balcony. It was time for her duty. She stretched her legs and leaned on her couch. Her horn started glowing a bright cyan, throwing small sparkles all over her deep blue mane. Her brows slowly closed and she felt slipping away.

When she opened her eyes again, Luna was floating over her physical body. She had taken an invisible and ghostly shape. On this plan of existence, Luna’s view was shaded and blackened as was the environment. She looked at her hooves. Pure white light was exuding of her body whose contours seemed unclear.

In this sea of darkness where the remnant colours seemed to be distorted, she could see islands of pure blue light. Each was picturing a pony or any living being experiencing a peaceful dream. The light turned bloody when nightmares and fears were overcoming an unfortunate dreamer.
It had been this way for eons, and she did not expect this fact to change.

Levitating, she elevated herself over the lands. She reached the upper parts of the atmosphere. Millions of lights were glowing in the grim dark. The silent of space was overwhelming. She liked it. The common reality was a noisy, deceitful and disgraceful place to stride across. Here, in this deaf place she was whole, she was a true goddess.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

Earlier…

Heads surfaced, breathing in loudly, coughing and swearing. Five strange forms swam aimlessly and clumsily to the beach where the car was dwelling, torn apart. Crawling in the sand, all the survivors felt the wet sand gluing to their hands, skin and clothes. Some spat and vomited the water filling their lungs.
The five had survived thanks to an ungodly luck. If the lake had not been here, they would have ended as pulp-like puddles on the ground.

The sun was low in the sky and dusk’s light was reverberating on dark and smoggy clouds miles away from here. The sky was a melting pot of shades of blue, deep purple and pink.

“Maria?” the hesitant voice of Ray asked. “How long it has been since we saw a nearly-clear sky last and… the sun?”

“Years…” She replied with a smile as she gulped out an ounce of water.

“Three hundred and eighty nine days.” Kreps specified and deadpanned: “At least we don’t have to see a burning solar storm.”

“Thanks egg-head,” Ray giggled as he passed away from exhaust, water was running from his dark brown hair.

Spread out on the shore, everyone was taking great delight in sinking their hands into the fine sand.
Maria tilted her head on her left. Not everyone was enjoying the situation… Verdugo was reanimating the kid, using his type of “kind” heart massage that only he had the secret. The child could have spat out his intestines that would have been unsurprising. Unlucky was a suited word in the end. It was the first time Maria paid attention to the young boy. He was very small and had suffered from malnutrition. His black hairs were badly cut and his face was bruised. He had been molested for weeks as old and new marks were placed on the top of each other.

Salty water came instead of the bloody organs. Trembling, the kid opened his eyes and looked at his saviour with a wandering stare.

On his own, Verdugo was also shaking. It was due to the pain running in the wound plaguing his shoulder. It was flooding blood again and everyone could see that how many times the injured man tried, he could not move his right arm. His limb was pitifully dangling, dragging along the sand when he was on his knees.

Three times, he palpated it with his working left hand, each time he frowned. And before Maria, Ray or Kreps asked him about it, he shouted in disbelief.

“It isn’t working. I can’t feel it beyond the wound.”

However he could still barely move his fingers. He kicked away angrily a scrap of metal which crashed in the lake’s water, drowning fast.

“Verd’, night is coming. Come here that I heal you up a bit.” Ray proposed as he got up, worries dwelling in his eyes. He cared about his friend.

Objecting, Verdugo surrendered when Ray, the leader of this group of stooges casted a stern and caring glance at the stinking and ugly hollow in his shoulder.

“Maria will be sad when she’ll bury your rotting corpse tomorrow morning.”

Verdugo acted as he had heard nothing.
The wound was naughty, but Ray tried his best to fix it without throwing up. Now the bandage was holding Verdugo’s arm tight to his pectoral, keeping it from bleeding out.

“It’s the least I can do, but we need to urge, we have no antiseptic for you.”

“I’m going to hunt something to eat. I’m starving,” Verdugo stated as a response, emotionless. “Take a look to the map with Kreps, I think it was on the back seat when the storm struck us.”

Ray’s mouth was hanging low. He tried to contest his wounded friend’s will to go hunt some wild animals, but Verdugo was as stubborn as a mule. And before he disappeared behind the bushes which marked a clear distinction between the dark forest and the beach, Verdugo called the only woman of the group.

“Maria, find the f’cking box and keep the kid from touching it… ever again,” Verdugo paused, pointing her with his finger. “Then give it to Kreps, it’s his own after all.”

He leaped silently in the forest after Maria had given him a long and rusty knife. She sighed, offended.

“He’s stupid,” Maria looked at the sky, searching for a sign which could have agreed with her.

“Insanely mad,” Kreps supposed, occupied to draw in the sand and curled up to avoid any pain easen the pain coming from his thorax.

“Nah… He’s doing his job. That’s what I ask him to. We must rely on each one’s skills remember,” Ray cut them off while he was trying to extract the shard of glass from his face, remains of his loved glasses. He glared at the forest’s edge. “And he will never change.”

Yes, he never changed and would never. Was he already a bloody killer before? They were all clueless. Only Maria could have known, she was the first to have crossed Verdugo’s blood smeared path. And the only one to have looked in the metal cylinder he was always carrying with him, and survived the aftermaths. As every random human, no one liked to be spied on. And Verdugo was an extremely spiteful person. What was inside the cylinder was as secret as what was lying inside Kreps’s metal box. However Maria had always stayed quite silent about it. She was afraid and also appreciative of him.

Maria always pictured Verdugo as a big brother while Ray saw him as a friend or an employee… It was depending of the time. Kreps on his own considered him as a colleague and a rival.
On the other hand, Verdugo had always been distant with everyone. He was always hanging away from them… but also from everyone. This applied to every situation, during the occasional peaceful meeting on the roads, during the trading with random voyagers or even during the deadly fights for survival, when he was not sinking a sharped edge in someone’s flesh. The exception was maybe Maria.

Ray and Kreps snapped out of their thinking.

“If I caught you stalking on me, I’ll make you eat your own balls,” The woman stated, staring evilly at her friends. “And this isn’t a joke. You eyeball, you’ll never see them all.”

Hiding behind the car wreck, she put off her clothes and dived into the lake. In apnea she examined the bottom of the huge loch where they fell into. She surfaced, breathed in and peaked again.

Kreps and Ray, afraid of their little fury, scavenged the remains of the car, avoiding casting a glance to the shore. Maria had always been modest; even more she seemed to fear people looking at her naked. She was a woman after all, usual target in the wasteland.

There was nothing much left around the car, speaking of functional things. They found one torchlight, wet matches, a lighter, a net, few meters of rope, two maps – one of Europe and another of the world – wet as well, and of course a large, heavy and indented metal box.
They struggled extracting it out of the car’s trunk.

Ray searched in his pockets, only to find wet dirt and few coins… He threw them in the lake. The key to the lock was missing. They sighed. During fifty minutes they tried opening it by force with an improvised crowbar, a rock and even Kreps’s head.
Nothing got done with it in the end.

“Hey, take that!”

Maria, now drying her long dark hair, threw them the key she had pull out of her jacket, hanging on the car, two meters away from her two male mates. Their tired and murderous stares fixed her. She laughed.
She had wrapped herself in a fabric, hiding her sickly thin body nearly entirely. Her skin was tanned, but time and a lack of sunlight had washed out her original tint.

In the box was tidied up half a dozen of weapons, knives and guns. Add to this armoury an old rifle, a shotgun, a long sword, two ice-picks and at least sixty or seventy cartridges of all sorts. Any witness would have a good insight of the group’s fire power. Wandering and stalking in the cities and abandoned military areas had always been rewarding, but also awfully dangerous. More than one scar was the reminder of such truth.
It would have been an even more impressive equipment if not all the weapons had been rusty and eaten up by time and climate. Moreover, most of the cartridges did not match with the present weapons.

The last part of the scavenging was to extract the useful components of the car, its battery, wires, lamps, oil and everything on what they could rely on in the future.

The sun had set at the horizon when Maria lit a fire. The warm was welcomed as everyone was shivering in the night’s coldness.

“Where are we?” Maria asked, looking at the map lying in front of everyone. It was written in German.

“Before today’s… incident, we were thirty kilometres away from Vienna,” Kreps showed with his finger pointing a position to the South-East of the city’s name. “We derived a bit from the chosen path because of the smashed roads. Remember we’ve passed the Alps ten days ago thanks to the Spring and,” he turned toward Ray. “You wanted us to go to…”

“Berlin,” Ray responded.

Kreps’s eyes brightened up.

Again, Maria would have liked to know why but a rustle in their back cut off their discussion. With his poorly sharped and broken knife drawn out, Verdugo was carrying a big animal. Blood from the flank of the thing was running on his grey rags.
The animal seemed like a big rodent, a very large rat with a small tail.

“What the hell is that?” Maria asked along with Kreps. Utter disgust could be read on their face.

Troubled stares welcomed him and his catch.

“It’s a coypu,” Verdugo replied with a raised brow. “A kind of beaver if you want to know the details,” He insisted. “There is lots of life around here, bears and stuff.”

“Is it… eatable?” Ray pouted.

“Will see.”

Annoyed, Verdugo fixed Kreps who was holding the map.

“Are you sure we’re still in Austria? I thought it was around Vienna that a chemical bombing has been performed by Russia or whatever... years ago.”

“I guess, I don’t know what the storm did but we got catapulted…” Kreps noticed blasé.

“We ain’t dead, that’s the first miracle,” Verdugo looked askance at Maria. “And the box? What about it?”

Maria’s jaw dropped. She raised her hand in a desperate and useless attempt to explain herself. No sound came out of her mouth. An amused smile cleared her face.
Verdugo, on his own tried to join the palms of his hands in a praying gesture, only to see his right arm was still not working. It added a straw to his current overloaded burden.

“What I’m gonna do with you all...” He whispered.

Ray, felling a conflict forthcoming eased the tension, pretending it would be easier to search for the dangerous box in the morning.
They grilled the dead animal and eat it up in silence. They first threw up. The taste was revolting, a mix between mud, fat and bitterness. It was like biting through sludge.
They ended up with a remaining hunger, assiduously clinging to their guts, and with an awful bellyache.

Later after the unsavoury meal, Maria came to see Verdugo’s state. He was lying in the frame of the car, complaining on the last available seat. Whatever the position he took, the pain was driving him insane.
Seeing Maria getting into the wreck he turned over the opposite side. He was still angry at her.

“Oh come on, stop rolling your dumb eyes.”

“You know if it wasn’t you I might have ripped off your neck.”

“I know, but I’m your sister after all.”

“You’re just my foster sister, “He emphasised on ‘foster’. “Remember that I didn’t sign for this. And I don’t want them to know,” He pointed Kreps’s and Ray’s sleeping forms near the fire. “I took care of your pretty ass since I raided that bandit camp three years ago.”

“I was fourteen years old, I was a burden, but you still kept me. And Ray and Kreps ain’t blind… C’mon admit it, you like me!” She teased him up.

“I like you because you’re the only one here that I can have a good fight with. Ray is too preoccupied in getting in touch with his parents again to endanger the cohesion of the group and Kreps… well he’s the egghead. He has his own strange plans. And I don’t hit the one who can repair my knife.”

“Eh you’re so stupid that I want to believe you do it on purpose!” She giggled. “You would like to do a Baraka.”

“It’s been a long time indeed. But I think my right arm won’t let me perform such… unfeminine sport,” He replied ironically.

Maria gave him back his spooky smile. This contest they had invented was indeed pretty dangerous, deadly sometimes.

“I’ll beat you again as I did over the ten last games, filthy barbaric!”

“Will see that. Tomorrow we head to the North-West. We gonna see if Vienna is still standing there.”

They paused, a long silent settled between them. Verdugo finally faced Maria, plunging his stare in the nut-brown eyes of the girl.

“Did you ever go there?” Maria asked genuinely.

“Nah! But it is said it is… was a beautiful place. An’ you?”

“No… Before the uproar I never went out of Spain…” She remained silent for several seconds. “Oh wait, I got something for you!”

She dropped a heavy case on Verdugo’s knees. She had hidden it behind her jacket the whole time.

“Where… you shitty liar!”

“It landed in a bush not far from the beach. Kreps saw it when he went pissing earlier.”

“Take this thing away from me…” Verdugo protested in disgust. “… And us, that’s a dangerous shit.”

“Yeah, yeah… You sure that’s radioactive?”

“I already said it’s Kreps’s box, I’m only the keeper. And he is the engineer, he should have kept it.”

After being casted away, Maria left Verdugo to his unsteady sleep. Before coming back to her warm couch near of the fire, she dropped the case in the water. ‘It is said that liquid can reduce radioactivity, right?’, she thought.

Sleepiness took over the camp as the moon was at his height.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

Luna was wandering around in her night sky. Looping and free as she never felt before, she moved carelessly over Equestria and the lands beyond. Sometimes, when a bright sphere was turning red, she was slowly closing and with a kind touch of her hoof spread peace in its heart.

She liked this dawdling carefree spirit state. She could hear the stars twinkling above her head.
And each time she went here every night, it was always feeling like her first time. It was an unending and everlasting discovery.

She moved to the Bad Lands. She giggled when she sent a tiny spider in Chrysalis’s dream, only living creature the Hive Queen was scared of, ‘oh the irony’ everypony would say if they knew the truth. But Luna always kept this secret like a Pinkie Pie’s promise to herself.
She went to Warclaw, the griffon capital across the see. There she gave her most devoted salute to the Griffon Imperator which was dreaming of his youth.
She floated to the North where, as she found out that Shining Armour and Princess Cadance were having the same hot and sweaty dream, she linked their thoughts and dream for the night.
She also guided this old dragon in the Deep South which was desperately searching for the best position to fall into slumber.

She started coming back to her balcony, as the sun would rise within the hour. But she found herself attracted by a certain region of a certain forest. There, sleeping near of a lake, five spheres were shining along. These beings of light were absolutely different from what she had ever seen and experienced before.

In fact, each species has its own orb’s shape. Ponies’ was perfectly spherical when Griffons’ was a bit oval. And these five throbbing shapes looked like broken shards. Luna could not definitely call these… orbs.

Her curiosity being aroused, Princess Luna took a deep breath and put her hooves on the first shard, she bring it closer to her horn until they touched. A small bolt of lightning joined them both, and Luna sunk into the dream.

The place was a bright, magnificent and delightful meadow of yellow wheat. The wind was slowly brushing through the field, printing evanescent shapes on the tops of the crop. The breeze was carrying smells of fresh out of the oven bread and croissants as a dash of sugar and honey filled Luna’s mouth and lungs.
She longley breath in.

It was beyond describable. It was similar to standing into the greatest bakery a world would ever possess. She was into heaven or at least she thought that she had found what Alicorns’ Paradise could look like, feel like, taste like and of course smell like.

Resting in a recess of the field, surrounded by the warm cereals, Luna was savouring the moment when she heard laughter. Brought by the wind, the giggles flooded Luna’s mind as she sought for its source. On the top of the recess was toddling a strange, small creature.
Standing on two limbs, it was chasing a butterfly. Its hooves which in reality ended with hands similar to those of a dragon were devoid of claws. The cute creature was trying ineffectively to grasp the tiny blue and red insect.

The creature’s mane was composed of a long dark coiffure contrasting with the golden colour of the field. She had absolutely no fur. Her bare skin was pale. The wind was blowing, making her hairs fluttering.
Her cries and giggles echoed in Luna’s mind. The little, armless and lovely creature was running away.

“Child, wait!” Luna asked, raising a hoof toward what it looked like to be the dreamer.

Unfortunately no answer came from the running being as it started fading beyond the top of the hill. Luna launched herself in what appeared to be the dreamer’s tow. She ran for few minutes as if the hill was far higher than it seemed to be.

The child was on her knees, holding a teddy bear. But Luna could not have cared less about it; she was stricken by an unfair spectacle.
An ocean of burning buildings of every shape stood before her. The smoke was raising high in the sky. The smell of baking was suddenly chased away by the one of roasting and rotting flesh of livings. Her ears were flooded by thousands of screams.
Luna could not keep herself from crying.

“I always wanted a pony,” the child genuinely said, picking up Luna’s attention. “But mommy and daddy…” She hesitated. “…aren’t here anymore to gift me one.”

She grabbed Luna’s fur with her small and chubby hands and stared in her tearful eyes. Her look was earth-shattering. The child’s brown eyes were amazingly moving.

“Miss, do you know where are my daddy and mommy?”

The dream ended abruptly.

Even in this ghostly plan, Luna caught herself crying, her? Having tears rolling on her cheeks in this dimension where she was an absolute god? It was unthinkable. Even deeply-moved, her curiosity was still excited. And what she saw was quite amusing. One of the lasting spheres was flickering back and forth from blue to red.
It was titillating. She repeated the same procedure, came closer to the strangely shaped dream and dived into it.

It was pitch black. Luna was without a doubt walking on something but she could not see the ground or the ceiling. In fact she first thought she was blinded.
There was nothing but blackness… and her. The princess could see herself distinctly but once it was not her, she was blind. Her horseshoes echoed as if she was walking on a marbled surface.

She hit her head against an invisible wall. Lifting her up, she groped for what she crashed into. Luna felt the wall at the end of her hoof. She gave a little bang.
She jumped back as she saw a white wave spreading upon what she just knocked, embracing the structure then fading away. For a second, Luna saw a corner appear few feet away from her.
She got an idea.

Jumping high in the air, she fell heavily on the ground. This time, bigger white waves sprawled on a far longer distance. She saw two buildings standing in front of her.
She started running, thundering her silver horseshoes onto the ground, flooding this strange dream of her white shockwaves. A hollowed and silent city started shaping and blooming under her hooves as she headed to a monstrously large square. In its centre stood a gigantic fountain. Unfortunately, no water was filling its pond.

Silence came back as Luna stopped stomping the ground, but the edge of the buildings did not fade with this sudden stop. The white contours of the constructions remained. A deafened black and white city was circling the Princess. She was reluctant to say if she was feeling at ease or not.
There was absolutely no sound…

A… a jingling? A jingling reverberated throughout the city.

”When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon…”

Luna turned around. Far away from her, deep inside the shadows of a skimpy street, a floating and bouncing jawbone loaded of sharped teeth was closing in. The jingling intensified. Another bouncing jaw appeared, creeping out of the next street. Another came up, and a new one showed up, again and again until Luna found herself surrounded by these monstrous breeds of a mind she did not know or imagine to exist.

Stress filled up Luna’s mind, the fear crawled within her skin, climbing back up her limbs and her fur and gaining her chest. Luna felt like a sharpened and cold talon had tightened her beating heart and with its claws was trying to squeeze it out. Shivers ran through Luna’s mane.
She felt a void of love, of this good feeling of happiness inside of her mind. Everything had been replaced by utter panic. Her terror was so high it made her unable to move an inch. More than just feeling her heart tightened, this… was like having a hand crushing her inner being, and trying to rip off her soul out of her thorax. Never again she wanted to feel that way. It was unbearable.

“Make it stop! Please!!” She implored.

The jaws stopped, circling Luna and the fountain. Ready to strike and aiming at the throat, they were all drooling… waiting for her to move.
A strong hand grasped Luna’s neck. She was forced to turn back.

A muscled entity was staring at her, trying to understand something out of Luna’s range. He looked like and differed also from the first dreamer. He was not that tall. Well he was way taller than a random pony but Luna was clearly overcoming him in height, thanks to her horn. But the strength the creature was delivering outmatched everything Luna had faced before. Worse, she was unable to fight back when her opponent was only using one arm.

He was strangling her, his grasp was too powerful. Luna’s glance ran over his head, a skinny and plate head with a small black mane on its top, two dark green eyes and a mouth loaded of dental plaque. His skin was tanned and covered of scars. His chest was muscled, but the starvation made him look like a skeleton. What captivated the princess was that monstrous hollow at the level of his right shoulder. The wound was disgusting to watch, but no blood was flooding out.

“You’re hurt?” the princess hissed in pain.

Luna tried to ease the situation, losing any sense of manners. Sweat of stress rolled on her face.
Her interlocutor was not amused. He released his suffocating grasp and forced Luna to bend, pushing her onto her knees. His stare was frightening.
He started talking.

“My… my… my. What do we got here? I really am becoming insane,” The surprised creature laughed swiftly, ruffling the mane on his head.

Drawing out a long knife he jabbed her with its point. She shrieked.

“What a funny shape you’ve got here.”

Luna was bemused. He was a… lucid dreamer. That was unexpected… dangerously unexpected. Few ponies were actually able to perform such experience, and Luna always avoided those dreams. In fact, the orbs of each dreamer had to turn a slightly green when they was starting a “lucid dive”. The looping changes of colour of the creature’s shard had deceived her.

“My beloved subject, we shall let thou at thy dream as our duty forbids us to intervene within those who awaken in the sleepy Limbos.”

The creature laughed. It was a frank laugh, something he had not performed since… for a long period.

“I really am mad. First time my own dreams tell me that kind of crap.”

“We are the Princess of the Night, keeper of the dreaming realm. Thou violent creature hast an impolite behaviour. Shall We punish thy deeds tonight, bringing nightmares to thou?”

At her last words the creature frowned. Luna started regretting her sayings when the monster’s face distorted in a strange grin.

She tried to break the link between her and the conscious dreamer. Gob-smacked, she witnessed her powerlessness to escape from this ethereal place. The creature looked at the pond, anger could be read on his face. He sighed.

“Here are two options that are yours to choose. To wake up from a dream, you know that either you have to kill the dreamer,” he smiled again. “Or, you have to wait until the dreamer has finished his business down here.”

The creature waved at the steady jaws waiting to leap on Luna and him. They replied with a cacophony of laughter and clinking.

“So, here are the so-called choices. On the first hand you decide to kill me in the most horrendous way you could imagine…This is your…” He sniggered. “so-called punishment... Time to see if my own dreams are interesting.”

He drew out a bloodied and broken knife then placed it in Luna’s trembling hoof. Her stare was swapping between the suicidal monster and the bladed weapon.

“… or you wait until I wake up while you’ll be devoured by my over excited sprawling imagination, with me as a spectator.”

He snapped his finger, which made Luna focus.

“The choice is yours,” He said with dryness. His grin was skanky. “You have the choice, you rebellious dream of mine.”

Luna was aware that the dreamer thought she was a dream. Sometimes, the lucid dreamer was fighting to keep themselves awake within here. This kind of situation was rare but absolutely dangerous for watchers like Luna.

Now she was quivering, unable to understand the reasoning behind the monster’s saying, behind the choices she was given. She stared at her mind tormentor, she was going to ask for mercy, but the outcome came to be different as he became aware of the princess’s next sentence.

“Wrong answer!” He sadistically said.

Kicking the knife away from Luna’s hoof, the creature drew out of the blackness a sword and aimed toward Luna’s neck. The blow was fast and clear. The floating jaws leaped on the two shapes facing them.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

Luna escaped her sleeping state and howled with a deep and hissing breath. She started groping nervously around her neck, her shoulders and her chest. They were nothing, no blood, no flesh dawdling around, nothing.

Sweat streamed on her body as she regained her senses. She was still on her balcony, shaking. Celestia was standing in front of her, worries casted in her eyes. Her breath was heavy and loud.
Three guards were circling the princess in a security perimeter.

The moon had set and the sun had already swapped with its place high in the horizon, Celestia had taken initiatives.

“Lulu, you’ve worried us all. We couldn’t wake you up! What happened?”

Still feeling around her skin she started talking with a trembling and blabbering voice.

“Deep in the Everfree, they were five dreamers, I’ve explored two of their dreams,” She hissed, her eyes insanely wide opened. “The first one was disturbing, sad. But the last one…” She started crying. “The dreamer… he trapped me inside. It was scary. I never felt that way before…”

Luna leaped into Celestia’s hooves, searching for reassuring warmth while bursting into tears. She had forgotten about her etiquette. Only fear was bathing her mind. This already new situation shocked the three guards. Powerless in front of this pathetic play, Celestia asked for privacy. The witnesses drew back out of Luna’s room.

“Then it… that unknown creature… it… he talked to me and asked me two things I couldn’t do,” She squeezed her head between her hooves. “And he… he had that tremendous sword. He slashed me!”

The last word came as a screech, Luna was grinding her teeth. She stared into Celestia’s eyes, grieved and astray.

“I… I died down there… for the first time in my life.”

Luna cringed in her sister’s hooves. Celestia tried to give her a sisterly hug. But her sister never really stopped shaking. This play was earth-shattering, pitiful and unnerving.

The Princess of the Day called back her guards.

“Contact the Element Bearers! They have to find these five sparks in the night. Tell them to go in the Everfree Forest. Make sure they bring them back here,” She paused. “Nopony will ever harm my sister again nor will endanger my little ponies’ security. I want to know how they are. Bring them back here… peacefully.”

Celestia was visibly infuriated. The look of her crying sister was clearly an unbearable spectacle to watch. What did Twilight’s explosive experience have brought to this world? She looked toward the Everfree Forest far away in the horizon.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

Maria yawned, stretching her body. She looked around and saw she was the first to wake up. She had made a strange dream. But as usual she could not remember it clearly and soon this memory would fade away.
She laid on her back for basically twenty minutes straight, waiting for the sun to rise from behind the mountains standing high in the East. And then it showed up.

The sun was biting her skin. Two days of full sunshine was too hard to bear for somebody who had not seen it for more than a year. But on the other side, it was relieving. It reminded her of her old country, bathed by the warmth and the sunshine. A place once beautiful and where living was cheerful and carefree.
She decided to take a peak in the lake’s clear waters. Refreshing was the only word which popped in her mind.

She surfaced. Something was afoot in fact. She now remembered that at the east of their position, they should not be mountains. They had already passed the Alps she kept saying, it was weird. She had to ask Kreps, but tickling the sleeping geek was like playing with amorphous goo… basically useless. A roaring plane could carpet bomb his ass that it would not even make him move a hair or arch a brow.

Once she went out of the water, she instantly wrapped herself in the same fabric than the last evening. She dried herself as fast as possible.
She looked at her back and put on her clothes. She jumped onto the top of the wrecked car, making his inhabitant grumbling in his sleep and cast a glare around her. She expected the sun to warm her up.

It was a magnificent beach positioned in a vast clearing of the surrounding forest. From her location Maria could see fishes swimming around the shore. She cursed the world for not having a line.

Speaking of the forest, it seemed inscrutable. The thick foliage of thousands of trees was hiding the sun from the lower part of the place. Maria was not claustrophobic, but thinking about wandering into that place was not giving her the best feeling.

She gasped.
Something had grabbed her leg and had thrown her on the sand. She screamed like a scared bird as she fell onto the ground.

“And bang you’re dead!” Verdugo scorned.

“Fuck off man; you’ve beat the shit out of me!”

“Yeah, it’s fun.”

“Your death will be long and painful!”

“And would you be so kind to tell me how?” He deadpanned.

She thought with a finger on her lips. An idea came up.

“If I kick up your ass during the next Baraka you’ll tell me what you were doing before the Uproar.”

“My little dear,” He sighed. “You can know about Ray, Kreps, this child,” he pointed the so-called kid, still sleeping on his handmade couch of sand. “But you know that I don’t want to talk about something which does not matter anymore.”

“Chicken?” She imitated the animal.

Verdugo was slung to the quick. He did not like to have his honour flouted that way.

“Okay, this is on!”

When Ray opened his eyes, he witnessed two furious noisy acquaintances fighting over a matter way ahead of his preoccupations. He rubbed his eyes before taking one of the last remnants of the beaver. He liked so much a cold rotten and sickly tasting meat as breakfast. But the hunger was driving him insane. He chew air, masticating the thick and dried saliva between his cheeks.

He called out loud the two demons to stop their fight right away. They groused before bending to his demand and joined him around the cold feast.

“I had a weird dream,” Ray said. “I saw you Verd’. You were wearing a ballerina outfit.”

Maria spat the chewed beaver out of her mouth, laughing out loud.

“Ah… ah… ah. I hoped I gave you a boner. ” The concerned party replied with a fake laugh and irony.

Maria raised her voice.

“I dreamed about a girl, me… I don’t remember, but I saw a blue and black unicorn in my dream. I felt like crazy. Unicorn? That’s silly…” Maria guffawed when she remembered some random parts of her dream.

“You’re becoming too soft woman! Bad habits are coming back,” Verdugo teased her, his voice seemed hesitant. “One step further and we’ll have to build you a kitchen to remain in.”

“Nah… just a moment of distraction. And you Verd’, did you dream?”

He stood up, pretending to examine his badly bandaged and oozing wound.

“Yeah I dreamt but that’s none of your business.”

Ray and Maria fixed each other with a worried look. Ray gave her a shrug. She applied the palm of her hand onto her forehead.
Ray often asked himself if this man who had helped, saved and defended him and his group so many times was nothing but a grieved hollowed body that did appear in the following of the apocalypse to keep them alive, like a guardian angel…

Few minutes later, the muted kid and Kreps had woken up and were voraciously, but with a pinch of disgust, eating the last drops of the beaver. But in fact, nothing could undermine the hunger of the group at the moment.
Maria was trying to catch fish bare-handed, task nearly impossible though while Verdugo was walking into circles at the opposite side of the beach.

Ray was surprised and worried about the kid. He did not talk, never told his name and seemed to be reluctant to have anybody moving closer to him. He was like a scared animal… a frightened pet which was always keeping a safe distance with its “masters” but was forced to follow them in order to survive another day in this world.

He was young, very young; maybe ten… twelve years old.
One of his incisors was missing, a milk tooth probably and he had numerous scars running on his face. He had black hairs and his skin was scarily ghoulish. Strange, he had amazingly light blue eyes that pierced from side to side whoever stared into.

His clothes were torn apart. With a hint of compassion, Ray tried to find a way to give him decent clothing. But he found himself also wearing remainders of such items. How long had it been since he last saw himself in a mirror?

He looked toward the lake. The temptation to look at his reflection was teasing, but he did not want to see how ugly and wrecked he was. When he was gazing at Kreps or Verdugo, what he was seeing was two walking bag of bones whose faces were covered of unclean beard and scars, with shadows under their eyes.

Reaching his chin, Ray touched a rough mass of filthy hair and a small bald mark, his neck scar. He sighed.

Maria was his sunshine, always radiant even if she was skinny as hell and that she had developed no breast at all… thanks starvation. But she was always smiling and joking around in the group. Maybe she was the only thing keeping him and everyone sane from the madness of the post-uproar world.
He would have not been able to keep up without her around. Did he love her? He did not know. But what he was sure of was that he would defend her at all cost… because ‘light must not die’, he thought.

Verdugo came up with a clever invention. He had cut two long and resistant stick of wood. And with an intertwining of ropes, he made of the heavy metallic trunk where every weapon was resting something barely transportable. It required two strong pairs of shoulders to be manoeuvred. The case weighted nearly one hundred pounds.

“Okay, who start the tour?” Verdugo asked.

Everybody started whistling.

He, in spite of his injured right shoulder, and Kreps started carrying the heavy case as Maria was leading the tow, the “radioactive” box in her bag. Everyone was carrying a heavy pack on their back and even the soundless child was participating in the exhausting manoeuvre, wearing the wet blanket Maria used to dry herself.

Ray was desperately deciphering the map written in German, which was not a language he was mastering at all.

“Neu… Neusi… Neusiedler See. If this is the lake we’re going along, we’re at twenty… thrity miles from Vienna. If we go straight to its north we’ll find…Neu… Neusiedl am… Oh fuck! Why German names are so unpronounceable!”

Kreps laughed.

“No seriously that’s annoying!”

“You want to swap spaces,” Kreps asked, panting heavily.

Ray got muted and gave himself a minute of reflection. Ray got hold of himself.

“Okay, if we find that f’cking city we could find a road to Vienna. But if we don’t, we have to go to the North West. Should be easy no?”

He said this expecting a global nod from each of his companions. But everybody was focusing on not stepping on a devilish root which could make them fall. The forest was thick and Maria had to cut through with Verdugo’s knife. Weird and stressing sounds were popping intermittently. Branches cracked under everyone boots. And the lack of animals’ cries, howls and presence evidences was another straw on the camel back.

“Remind me to never come here again please,” Maria asked with a trembling voice. “And… Verdugo, don’t you say yesterday that you saw animals?”

“Yes… yesterday…”

A distant howl echoed in the forest, the first and macabre proof that something was still living in this remote place of Europe… But was it really Europe? The trees were slightly different. The sky was different. Everything looked similar, but also deeply changed. Everyone had witnessed that the colours were more vivid, flashy, or smooth, they could not find words to describe this impression. Kreps supposed this was the sunlight’s influence. They had stared to a greyish environment for so long their eyes had forgotten the true meaning of colour.

The sun was high in the sky and the group enjoyed each pause in the few clearings they passed by. It was relieving. One had to enjoy the little things a great mind said someday.

The trekking lasted for hours and the sun was low in the west now when they finally found something.

“Hey look! Here is the city!” Maria shouted as she cleared a way through a vast area where wild grass and wheat was growing chaotically.

On the other side of the field was standing a huge and abandoned construction of stone.

“In a few miles you’ll be able to admire an antic castle of whatever the fuck it could be era,” Kreps ironized, mimicking the voice of a low quality GPS.

It was indeed an old and remote place whose walls had been undermined by the time. No window was still standing intact and the area seemed to have been unvisited for eons.

“Okay,” Ray stopped everyone before they went out of the safe cover the forest was offering them. “Take some weapons out, we could encounter bandits and we have wounded peoples.”

He stared at Verdugo and Kreps who was both wounded and had grumbled all along the way. Ray and Maria had to swap with their position dozens of times during the walk. Kreps had a rib cracked and only Maria’s nimble fingers made him able to surpass the pain. Verdugo’s state was way more worrying. He had fallen several times on the way. The wound was infected and fever had started running through his veins. Within hours he won’t have any strength left to move and it will be the end of the trip for him. And this, Maria could not let it be. She would like to be more useful but she had to fight her friend’s fierceness and proudness.

Ray spoke to the mute boy who was hiding behind a tree.

“Look, I know you won’t talk, you won’t let us come close to you, I don’t even know if you understand us, but please… stay close and don’t make a silly move.”

They all stared at the castle and peered into the meadow waiting in front of them.

Old Version:

When the blast shattered the Dragon’s den peak, hundreds of boulders, debris of all aspects and volutes of dirt scattered over Ponyville’s and Canterlot’s valleys; covering the region of thick and chafing greyish clouds. The atmosphere blackened.

The muddy fallouts concealed the sun for hours and the concerned ponies panicked as darkness was casted upon the Realm of the Two Sisters. Terrorized, some of them shouted that Nightmare Moon had returned.

In no time, Cloudsdale came to Canterlot’s rescue. But even with the common effort of everypony, it took a long time to chase the smoke away. The ambiance was prone to spread terror, deceit and thoughts of ill-omen into the minds of the surrounding inhabitants.

And this was why that, in this exceptional situation, nopony witnessed some tiny and strange shaped shadows fall across the blackish sky.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

Falling along, five featherless bodies were shaking their limbs in vain. Powerless, they screamed; the ground was approaching at an insane speed.

Having the time and a mind dedicated to reflection, they would have seen on their left horizon a strange chain of sharped mountains, bordered by a dense forest of dark green leaves, location where they were desperately heading. Long and impressively large rivers crossed this green sea.

They would have also seen hung onto a steep mountain a strange and magnificent castle of gold and silver.

However, staying alive was the unique idea agitating their minds at the moment.

Tearing down the air, they saw themselves closing to a lake dwelling in the middle of the strange forest. The number of feet separating them from the impact was lessening each second. The unfortunate and still conscious sky-divers held their breath.
They dipped into water. It felt like crashing into concrete, smashing… in the literal way.

Waves formed onto the lake as the five falling ‘birds’ sunk into at an astonishing speed. Seconds later, a wrecked four wheeled cage of metal crashed on the shores few meters away, bounced and finished its reckless race on the bordering beach.
Giving off fumes, the vehicle broke down and fell apart in thousands of pieces.

The waves faded away and the place recovered its former silent state.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

In the hours following the biggest, and certainly the coolest as said by a certain rainbow coloured Pegasus, explosion Equestria had ever seen, the two Princesses Luna and Celestia went to Ponyville to hear the account of the oldest sister’s most faithful student.
Dazed, they listened to the whole story.

“So you’re telling me,” initiated Princess Celestia, massaging her temple to make the report easier to chew on. “That you cast an explosive spell on the tallest mountain of Equestria in order to scatter away a magical storm.”

Twilight’s lips drew a strange shaped smile, swinging between a poorly executed poker face and an anxious rictus.

“Basically… no… I mean… yes, but everypo…”

Celestia and Luna covered their eyes with their hooves, disbelieving. Luna cut her off.

“Do thou understand how aberrant thy deed hath been?” She said with a mighty anger glaring in her eyes. “What if falling pieces of the peak had broken into the midst of random cottages? It could have killed ponies! This could have been pudh!”

Luna became more and more cryptic as her speech slept toward a very old equestrian dialect. She started grunting, spasms running within her neck’s fur.

“But, I tried that spell Celestia learned me month ago about cloud chasing.”

“It was meant to be a kind of fun spell we can use during parties to shape the clouds… not to make them go away. That’s a pegasus’s job…” Celestia pointed out with a stern voice after having pushed aside her sister. “And you used the Elements!”

“I ran out of power… And they were so intrusive and oppressing. Don’t punish me please…” Twilight squeaked, mentioning her friends.

She leaned toward her teacher, mumbling in fear and shame. Celestia and Luna let out a loud breath. The Princess of the Sun raised her head and start talking with a compassionate and friendly voice.

“You can’t solve everything with pure magic and power,” She turned and faced Twilight’s friends. “And you shall learn that forcing out advantages from your friend is not a worthy of and respectable behaviour.”

“We’re sorry.” Everypony yielded.

“Now go out and help everypony clear the chaos you’ve wreaked upon us.” Luna added after she calmed herself. “You will write a letter tonight to my sister… all of you. And Fluttershy…”

The yellow pegasus dunked her head in her shoulders when she heard her name.

“Lots of debris struck the surrounding forests. You should ask Zecora to help you searching for hurt or wounded animals.”

Fluttershy nodded, thanked the princess and went out with all of her friends.

“Huge explosion on second thought,” Luna remarked, a small smile printed on her lips.

“Maybe too huge… do you remember thousand years ago during our confrontation? We tore apart some fabric of time and space.”

“Yes, now you told it We remember. That was utterly amusing,” She giggled before Celestia sent her a clear message about the seriousness of the situation. Her stare glared daggers.

“And this is how we… I… had to fight this Shoggoth or whatever the name legends gave to it,” The princess of the Sun shivered.

“Tekeli-li!” Luna howled, startling Celestia who jumped on the nearest table as if she had seen a mouse.

“Stop… Stop It!” She yelled, her white and silky fur bristled all over her body. “We said to never talk of this again!”

Luna was still laughing when they came out of the Golden Oak Library. She stopped and arched an eyebrow. A huge boulder was standing in the middle of the street. Earth ponies were digging it out with pickaxes, making it easier to move.

“It’s nearly time to set the sun and raise the moon Lulu.”

“Don’t call me that way, it’s unnerving.”

“Everything is a fair game… Lulu,” Celestia stuck out her tongue, winking.

In the sky, the emissaries and forces of Cloudsdale were clearing the last remnants of the smoky clouds.

The moon had risen on Equestria and the stars were tingling above the tired lands. Ponies were going to sleep.

Luna was standing on her balcony. It was time for her duty. She stretched her legs and leaned on her couch. Her horn started glowing a bright cyan, throwing small sparkles all over her deep blue mane. Her brows slowly closed and she felt slipping away.

When she opened her eyes again, Luna was floating over her physical body. She had taken an invisible and ghostly shape. On this plan of existence, Luna’s view was shaded and blackened as was the environment. She looked at her hooves. Pure white light was exuding of her body whose contours seemed unclear.

In this sea of darkness where the remnant colours seemed to be distorted, she could see islands of pure blue light. Each was picturing a pony or any living being experiencing a peaceful dream. The light turned bloody when nightmares and fears were overcoming an unfortunate dreamer.
It had been this way for eons, and she did not expect this fact to change.

Levitating, she elevated herself over the lands. She reached the upper parts of the atmosphere. Millions of lights were glowing in the grim dark. The silent of space was overwhelming. She liked it. The common reality was a noisy, deceitful and disgraceful place to stride across. Here, in this deaf place she was whole, she was a true goddess.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

Earlier…

Heads surfaced, breathing in loudly, coughing and swearing. Five strange forms swam aimlessly and clumsily to the beach where the car was dwelling, torn apart. Crawling in the sand, all the survivors felt the wet sand gluing to their hands, skin and clothes. Some spat and vomited the water filling their lungs.
The five had survived thanks to an ungodly luck. If the lake had not been here, they would have ended as pulp-like puddles on the ground.

The sun was low in the sky and dusk’s light was reverberating on dark and smoggy clouds miles away from here. The sky was a melting pot of shades of blue, deep purple and pink.

“Maria?” the hesitant voice of Ray asked. “How long it has been since we saw a nearly-clear sky last and… the sun?”

“Years…” She replied with a smile as she gulped out an ounce of water.

“Three hundred and eighty nine days.” Kreps specified and deadpanned: “At least we don’t have to see a burning solar storm.”

“Thanks egg-head,” Ray giggled as he passed away from exhaust, water was running from his dark brown hair.

Spread out on the shore, everyone was taking great delight in sinking their hands into the fine sand.
Maria tilted her head on her left. Not everyone was enjoying the situation… Verdugo was reanimating the kid, using his type of “kind” heart massage that only he had the secret. The child could have spat out his intestines that would have been unsurprising. Unlucky was a suited word in the end. It was the first time Maria paid attention to the young boy. He was very small and had suffered from malnutrition. His black hairs were badly cut and his face was bruised. He had been molested for weeks as old and new marks were placed on the top of each other.

Salty water came instead of the bloody organs. Trembling, the kid opened his eyes and looked at his saviour with a wandering stare.

On his own, Verdugo was also shaking. It was due to the pain running in the wound plaguing his shoulder. It was flooding blood again and everyone could see that how many times the injured man tried, he could not move his right arm. His limb was pitifully dangling, dragging along the sand when he was on his knees.

Three times, he palpated it with his working left hand, each time he frowned. And before Maria, Ray or Kreps asked him about it, he shouted in disbelief.

“It isn’t working. I can’t feel it beyond the wound.”

However he could still barely move his fingers. He kicked away angrily a scrap of metal which crashed in the lake’s water, drowning fast.

“Verd’, night is coming. Come here that I heal you up a bit.” Ray proposed as he got up, worries dwelling in his eyes. He cared about his friend.

Objecting, Verdugo surrendered when Ray, the leader of this group of stooges casted a stern and caring glance at the stinking and ugly hollow in his shoulder.

“Maria will be sad when she’ll bury your rotting corpse tomorrow morning.”

Verdugo acted as he had heard nothing.
The wound was naughty, but Ray tried his best to fix it without throwing up. Now the bandage was holding Verdugo’s arm tight to his pectoral, keeping it from bleeding out.

“It’s the least I can do, but we need to urge, we have no antiseptic for you.”

“I’m going to hunt something to eat. I’m starving,” Verdugo stated as a response, emotionless. “Take a look to the map with Kreps, I think it was on the back seat when the storm struck us.”

Ray’s mouth was hanging low. He tried to contest his wounded friend’s will to go hunt some wild animals, but Verdugo was as stubborn as a mule. And before he disappeared behind the bushes which marked a clear distinction between the dark forest and the beach, Verdugo called the only woman of the group.

“Maria, find the f’cking box and keep the kid from touching it… ever again,” Verdugo paused, pointing her with his finger. “Then give it to Kreps, it’s his own after all.”

He leaped silently in the forest after Maria had given him a long and rusty knife. She sighed, offended.

“He’s stupid,” Maria looked at the sky, searching for a sign which could have agreed with her.

“Insanely mad,” Kreps supposed, occupied to draw in the sand and curled up to avoid any pain easen the pain coming from his thorax.

“Nah… He’s doing his job. That’s what I ask him to. We must rely on each one’s skills remember,” Ray cut them off while he was trying to extract the shard of glass from his face, remains of his loved glasses. He glared at the forest’s edge. “And he will never change.”

Yes, he never changed and would never. Was he already a bloody killer before? They were all clueless. Only Maria could have known, she was the first to have crossed Verdugo’s blood smeared path. And the only one to have looked in the metal cylinder he was always carrying with him, and survived the aftermaths. As every random human, no one liked to be spied on. And Verdugo was an extremely spiteful person. What was inside the cylinder was as secret as what was lying inside Kreps’s metal box. However Maria had always stayed quite silent about it. She was afraid and also appreciative of him.

Maria always pictured Verdugo as a big brother while Ray saw him as a friend or an employee… It was depending of the time. Kreps on his own considered him as a colleague and a rival.
On the other hand, Verdugo had always been distant with everyone. He was always hanging away from them… but also from everyone. This applied to every situation, during the occasional peaceful meeting on the roads, during the trading with random voyagers or even during the deadly fights for survival, when he was not sinking a sharped edge in someone’s flesh. The exception was maybe Maria.

Ray and Kreps snapped out of their thinking.

“If I caught you stalking on me, I’ll make you eat your own balls,” The woman stated, staring evilly at her friends. “And this isn’t a joke. You eyeball, you’ll never see them all.”

Hiding behind the car wreck, she put off her clothes and dived into the lake. In apnea she examined the bottom of the huge loch where they fell into. She surfaced, breathed in and peaked again.

Kreps and Ray, afraid of their little fury, scavenged the remains of the car, avoiding casting a glance to the shore. Maria had always been modest; even more she seemed to fear people looking at her naked. She was a woman after all, usual target in the wasteland.

There was nothing much left around the car, speaking of functional things. They found one torchlight, wet matches, a lighter, a net, few meters of rope, two maps – one of Europe and another of the world – wet as well, and of course a large, heavy and indented metal box.
They struggled extracting it out of the car’s trunk.

Ray searched in his pockets, only to find wet dirt and few coins… He threw them in the lake. The key to the lock was missing. They sighed. During fifty minutes they tried opening it by force with an improvised crowbar, a rock and even Kreps’s head.
Nothing got done with it in the end.

“Hey, take that!”

Maria, now drying her long dark hair, threw them the key she had pull out of her jacket, hanging on the car, two meters away from her two male mates. Their tired and murderous stares fixed her. She laughed.
She had wrapped herself in a fabric, hiding her sickly thin body nearly entirely. Her skin was tanned, but time and a lack of sunlight had washed out her original tint.

In the box was tidied up half a dozen of weapons, knives and guns. Add to this armoury an old rifle, a shotgun, a long sword, two ice-picks and at least sixty or seventy cartridges of all sorts. Any witness would have a good insight of the group’s fire power. Wandering and stalking in the cities and abandoned military areas had always been rewarding, but also awfully dangerous. More than one scar was the reminder of such truth.
It would have been an even more impressive equipment if not all the weapons had been rusty and eaten up by time and climate. Moreover, most of the cartridges did not match with the present weapons.

The last part of the scavenging was to extract the useful components of the car, its battery, wires, lamps, oil and everything on what they could rely on in the future.

The sun had set at the horizon when Maria lit a fire. The warm was welcomed as everyone was shivering in the night’s coldness.

“Where are we?” Maria asked, looking at the map lying in front of everyone. It was written in German.

“Before today’s… incident, we were thirty kilometres away from Vienna,” Kreps showed with his finger pointing a position to the South-East of the city’s name. “We derived a bit from the chosen path because of the smashed roads. Remember we’ve passed the Alps ten days ago thanks to the Spring and,” he turned toward Ray. “You wanted us to go to…”

“Berlin,” Ray responded.

Kreps’s eyes brightened up.

Again, Maria would have liked to know why but a rustle in their back cut off their discussion. With his poorly sharped and broken knife drawn out, Verdugo was carrying a big animal. Blood from the flank of the thing was running on his grey rags.
The animal seemed like a big rodent, a very large rat with a small tail.

“What the hell is that?” Maria asked along with Kreps. Utter disgust could be read on their face.

Troubled stares welcomed him and his catch.

“It’s a coypu,” Verdugo replied with a raised brow. “A kind of beaver if you want to know the details,” He insisted. “There is lots of life around here, bears and stuff.”

“Is it… eatable?” Ray pouted.

“Will see.”

Annoyed, Verdugo fixed Kreps who was holding the map.

“Are you sure we’re still in Austria? I thought it was around Vienna that a chemical bombing has been performed by Russia or whatever... years ago.”

“I guess, I don’t know what the storm did but we got catapulted…” Kreps noticed blasé.

“We ain’t dead, that’s the first miracle,” Verdugo looked askance at Maria. “And the box? What about it?”

Maria’s jaw dropped. She raised her hand in a desperate and useless attempt to explain herself. No sound came out of her mouth. An amused smile cleared her face.
Verdugo, on his own tried to join the palms of his hands in a praying gesture, only to see his right arm was still not working. It added a straw to his current overloaded burden.

“What I’m gonna do with you all...” He whispered.

Ray, felling a conflict forthcoming eased the tension, pretending it would be easier to search for the dangerous box in the morning.
They grilled the dead animal and eat it up in silence. They first threw up. The taste was revolting, a mix between mud, fat and bitterness. It was like biting through sludge.
They ended up with a remaining hunger, assiduously clinging to their guts, and with an awful bellyache.

Later after the unsavoury meal, Maria came to see Verdugo’s state. He was lying in the frame of the car, complaining on the last available seat. Whatever the position he took, the pain was driving him insane.
Seeing Maria getting into the wreck he turned over the opposite side. He was still angry at her.

“Oh come on, stop rolling your dumb eyes.”

“You know if it wasn’t you I might have ripped off your neck.”

“I know, but I’m your sister after all.”

“You’re just my foster sister, “He emphasised on ‘foster’. “Remember that I didn’t sign for this. And I don’t want them to know,” He pointed Kreps’s and Ray’s sleeping forms near the fire. “I took care of your pretty ass since I raided that bandit camp three years ago.”

“I was fourteen years old, I was a burden, but you still kept me. And Ray and Kreps ain’t blind… C’mon admit it, you like me!” She teased him up.

“I like you because you’re the only one here that I can have a good fight with. Ray is too preoccupied in getting in touch with his parents again to endanger the cohesion of the group and Kreps… well he’s the egghead. He has his own strange plans. And I don’t hit the one who can repair my knife.”

“Eh you’re so stupid that I want to believe you do it on purpose!” She giggled. “You would like to do a Baraka.”

“It’s been a long time indeed. But I think my right arm won’t let me perform such… unfeminine sport,” He replied ironically.

Maria gave him back his spooky smile. This contest they had invented was indeed pretty dangerous, deadly sometimes.

“I’ll beat you again as I did over the ten last games, filthy barbaric!”

“Will see that. Tomorrow we head to the North-West. We gonna see if Vienna is still standing there.”

They paused, a long silent settled between them. Verdugo finally faced Maria, plunging his stare in the nut-brown eyes of the girl.

“Did you ever go there?” Maria asked genuinely.

“Nah! But it is said it is… was a beautiful place. An’ you?”

“No… Before the uproar I never went out of Spain…” She remained silent for several seconds. “Oh wait, I got something for you!”

She dropped a heavy case on Verdugo’s knees. She had hidden it behind her jacket the whole time.

“Where… you shitty liar!”

“It landed in a bush not far from the beach. Kreps saw it when he went pissing earlier.”

“Take this thing away from me…” Verdugo protested in disgust. “… And us, that’s a dangerous shit.”

“Yeah, yeah… You sure that’s radioactive?”

“I already said it’s Kreps’s box, I’m only the keeper. And he is the engineer, he should have kept it.”

After being casted away, Maria left Verdugo to his unsteady sleep. Before coming back to her warm couch near of the fire, she dropped the case in the water. ‘It is said that liquid can reduce radioactivity, right?’, she thought.

Sleepiness took over the camp as the moon was at his height.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

Luna was wandering around in her night sky. Looping and free as she never felt before, she moved carelessly over Equestria and the lands beyond. Sometimes, when a bright sphere was turning red, she was slowly closing and with a kind touch of her hoof spread peace in its heart.

She liked this dawdling carefree spirit state. She could hear the stars twinkling above her head.
And each time she went here every night, it was always feeling like her first time. It was an unending and everlasting discovery.

She moved to the Bad Lands. She giggled when she sent a tiny spider in Chrysalis’s dream, only living creature the Hive Queen was scared of, ‘oh the irony’ everypony would say if they knew the truth. But Luna always kept this secret like a Pinkie Pie’s promise to herself.
She went to Warclaw, the griffon capital across the see. There she gave her most devoted salute to the Griffon Imperator which was dreaming of his youth.
She floated to the North where, as she found out that Shining Armour and Princess Cadance were having the same hot and sweaty dream, she linked their thoughts and dream for the night.
She also guided this old dragon in the Deep South which was desperately searching for the best position to fall into slumber.

She started coming back to her balcony, as the sun would rise within the hour. But she found herself attracted by a certain region of a certain forest. There, sleeping near of a lake, five spheres were shining along. These beings of light were absolutely different from what she had ever seen and experienced before.

In fact, each species has its own orb’s shape. Ponies’ was perfectly spherical when Griffons’ was a bit oval. And these five throbbing shapes looked like broken shards. Luna could not definitely call these… orbs.

Her curiosity being aroused, Princess Luna took a deep breath and put her hooves on the first shard, she bring it closer to her horn until they touched. A small bolt of lightning joined them both, and Luna sunk into the dream.

The place was a bright, magnificent and delightful meadow of yellow wheat. The wind was slowly brushing through the field, printing evanescent shapes on the tops of the crop. The breeze was carrying smells of fresh out of the oven bread and croissants as a dash of sugar and honey filled Luna’s mouth and lungs.
She longley breath in.

It was beyond describable. It was similar to standing into the greatest bakery a world would ever possess. She was into heaven or at least she thought that she had found what Alicorns’ Paradise could look like, feel like, taste like and of course smell like.

Resting in a recess of the field, surrounded by the warm cereals, Luna was savouring the moment when she heard laughter. Brought by the wind, the giggles flooded Luna’s mind as she sought for its source. On the top of the recess was toddling a strange, small creature.
Standing on two limbs, it was chasing a butterfly. Its hooves which in reality ended with hands similar to those of a dragon were devoid of claws. The cute creature was trying ineffectively to grasp the tiny blue and red insect.

The creature’s mane was composed of a long dark coiffure contrasting with the golden colour of the field. She had absolutely no fur. Her bare skin was pale. The wind was blowing, making her hairs fluttering.
Her cries and giggles echoed in Luna’s mind. The little, armless and lovely creature was running away.

“Child, wait!” Luna asked, raising a hoof toward what it looked like to be the dreamer.

Unfortunately no answer came from the running being as it started fading beyond the top of the hill. Luna launched herself in what appeared to be the dreamer’s tow. She ran for few minutes as if the hill was far higher than it seemed to be.

The child was on her knees, holding a teddy bear. But Luna could not have cared less about it; she was stricken by an unfair spectacle.
An ocean of burning buildings of every shape stood before her. The smoke was raising high in the sky. The smell of baking was suddenly chased away by the one of roasting and rotting flesh of livings. Her ears were flooded by thousands of screams.
Luna could not keep herself from crying.

“I always wanted a pony,” the child genuinely said, picking up Luna’s attention. “But mommy and daddy…” She hesitated. “…aren’t here anymore to gift me one.”

She grabbed Luna’s fur with her small and chubby hands and stared in her tearful eyes. Her look was earth-shattering. The child’s brown eyes were amazingly moving.

“Miss, do you know where are my daddy and mommy?”

The dream ended abruptly.

Even in this ghostly plan, Luna caught herself crying, her? Having tears rolling on her cheeks in this dimension where she was an absolute god? It was unthinkable. Even deeply-moved, her curiosity was still excited. And what she saw was quite amusing. One of the lasting spheres was flickering back and forth from blue to red.
It was titillating. She repeated the same procedure, came closer to the strangely shaped dream and dived into it.

It was pitch black. Luna was without a doubt walking on something but she could not see the ground or the ceiling. In fact she first thought she was blinded.
There was nothing but blackness… and her. The princess could see herself distinctly but once it was not her, she was blind. Her horseshoes echoed as if she was walking on a marbled surface.

She hit her head against an invisible wall. Lifting her up, she groped for what she crashed into. Luna felt the wall at the end of her hoof. She gave a little bang.
She jumped back as she saw a white wave spreading upon what she just knocked, embracing the structure then fading away. For a second, Luna saw a corner appear few feet away from her.
She got an idea.

Jumping high in the air, she fell heavily on the ground. This time, bigger white waves sprawled on a far longer distance. She saw two buildings standing in front of her.
She started running, thundering her silver horseshoes onto the ground, flooding this strange dream of her white shockwaves. A hollowed and silent city started shaping and blooming under her hooves as she headed to a monstrously large square. In its centre stood a gigantic fountain. Unfortunately, no water was filling its pond.

Silence came back as Luna stopped stomping the ground, but the edge of the buildings did not fade with this sudden stop. The white contours of the constructions remained. A deafened black and white city was circling the Princess. She was reluctant to say if she was feeling at ease or not.
There was absolutely no sound…

A… a jingling? A jingling reverberated throughout the city.

”When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon…”

Luna turned around. Far away from her, deep inside the shadows of a skimpy street, a floating and bouncing jawbone loaded of sharped teeth was closing in. The jingling intensified. Another bouncing jaw appeared, creeping out of the next street. Another came up, and a new one showed up, again and again until Luna found herself surrounded by these monstrous breeds of a mind she did not know or imagine to exist.

Stress filled up Luna’s mind, the fear crawled within her skin, climbing back up her limbs and her fur and gaining her chest. Luna felt like a sharpened and cold talon had tightened her beating heart and with its claws was trying to squeeze it out. Shivers ran through Luna’s mane.
She felt a void of love, of this good feeling of happiness inside of her mind. Everything had been replaced by utter panic. Her terror was so high it made her unable to move an inch. More than just feeling her heart tightened, this… was like having a hand crushing her inner being, and trying to rip off her soul out of her thorax. Never again she wanted to feel that way. It was unbearable.

“Make it stop! Please!!” She implored.

The jaws stopped, circling Luna and the fountain. Ready to strike and aiming at the throat, they were all drooling… waiting for her to move.
A strong hand grasped Luna’s neck. She was forced to turn back.

A muscled entity was staring at her, trying to understand something out of Luna’s range. He looked like and differed also from the first dreamer. He was not that tall. Well he was way taller than a random pony but Luna was clearly overcoming him in height, thanks to her horn. But the strength the creature was delivering outmatched everything Luna had faced before. Worse, she was unable to fight back when her opponent was only using one arm.

He was strangling her, his grasp was too powerful. Luna’s glance ran over his head, a skinny and plate head with a small black mane on its top, two dark green eyes and a mouth loaded of dental plaque. His skin was tanned and covered of scars. His chest was muscled, but the starvation made him look like a skeleton. What captivated the princess was that monstrous hollow at the level of his right shoulder. The wound was disgusting to watch, but no blood was flooding out.

“You’re hurt?” the princess hissed in pain.

Luna tried to ease the situation, losing any sense of manners. Sweat of stress rolled on her face.
Her interlocutor was not amused. He released his suffocating grasp and forced Luna to bend, pushing her onto her knees. His stare was frightening.
He started talking.

“My… my… my. What do we got here? I really am becoming insane,” The surprised creature laughed swiftly, ruffling the mane on his head.

Drawing out a long knife he jabbed her with its point. She shrieked.

“What a funny shape you’ve got here.”

Luna was bemused. He was a… lucid dreamer. That was unexpected… dangerously unexpected. Few ponies were actually able to perform such experience, and Luna always avoided those dreams. In fact, the orbs of each dreamer had to turn a slightly green when they was starting a “lucid dive”. The looping changes of colour of the creature’s shard had deceived her.

“My beloved subject, we shall let thou at thy dream as our duty forbids us to intervene within those who awaken in the sleepy Limbos.”

The creature laughed. It was a frank laugh, something he had not performed since… for a long period.

“I really am mad. First time my own dreams tell me that kind of crap.”

“We are the Princess of the Night, keeper of the dreaming realm. Thou violent creature hast an impolite behaviour. Shall We punish thy deeds tonight, bringing nightmares to thou?”

At her last words the creature frowned. Luna started regretting her sayings when the monster’s face distorted in a strange grin.

She tried to break the link between her and the conscious dreamer. Gob-smacked, she witnessed her powerlessness to escape from this ethereal place. The creature looked at the pond, anger could be read on his face. He sighed.

“Here are two options that are yours to choose. To wake up from a dream, you know that either you have to kill the dreamer,” he smiled again. “Or, you have to wait until the dreamer has finished his business down here.”

The creature waved at the steady jaws waiting to leap on Luna and him. They replied with a cacophony of laughter and clinking.

“So, here are the so-called choices. On the first hand you decide to kill me in the most horrendous way you could imagine…This is your…” He sniggered. “so-called punishment... Time to see if my own dreams are interesting.”

He drew out a bloodied and broken knife then placed it in Luna’s trembling hoof. Her stare was swapping between the suicidal monster and the bladed weapon.

“… or you wait until I wake up while you’ll be devoured by my over excited sprawling imagination, with me as a spectator.”

He snapped his finger, which made Luna focus.

“The choice is yours,” He said with dryness. His grin was skanky. “You have the choice, you rebellious dream of mine.”

Luna was aware that the dreamer thought she was a dream. Sometimes, the lucid dreamer was fighting to keep themselves awake within here. This kind of situation was rare but absolutely dangerous for watchers like Luna.

Now she was quivering, unable to understand the reasoning behind the monster’s saying, behind the choices she was given. She stared at her mind tormentor, she was going to ask for mercy, but the outcome came to be different as he became aware of the princess’s next sentence.

“Wrong answer!” He sadistically said.

Kicking the knife away from Luna’s hoof, the creature drew out of the blackness a sword and aimed toward Luna’s neck. The blow was fast and clear. The floating jaws leaped on the two shapes facing them.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

Luna escaped her sleeping state and howled with a deep and hissing breath. She started groping nervously around her neck, her shoulders and her chest. They were nothing, no blood, no flesh dawdling around, nothing.

Sweat streamed on her body as she regained her senses. She was still on her balcony, shaking. Celestia was standing in front of her, worries casted in her eyes. Her breath was heavy and loud.
Three guards were circling the princess in a security perimeter.

The moon had set and the sun had already swapped with its place high in the horizon, Celestia had taken initiatives.

“Lulu, you’ve worried us all. We couldn’t wake you up! What happened?”

Still feeling around her skin she started talking with a trembling and blabbering voice.

“Deep in the Everfree, they were five dreamers, I’ve explored two of their dreams,” She hissed, her eyes insanely wide opened. “The first one was disturbing, sad. But the last one…” She started crying. “The dreamer… he trapped me inside. It was scary. I never felt that way before…”

Luna leaped into Celestia’s hooves, searching for reassuring warmth while bursting into tears. She had forgotten about her etiquette. Only fear was bathing her mind. This already new situation shocked the three guards. Powerless in front of this pathetic play, Celestia asked for privacy. The witnesses drew back out of Luna’s room.

“Then it… that unknown creature… it… he talked to me and asked me two things I couldn’t do,” She squeezed her head between her hooves. “And he… he had that tremendous sword. He slashed me!”

The last word came as a screech, Luna was grinding her teeth. She stared into Celestia’s eyes, grieved and astray.

“I… I died down there… for the first time in my life.”

Luna cringed in her sister’s hooves. Celestia tried to give her a sisterly hug. But her sister never really stopped shaking. This play was earth-shattering, pitiful and unnerving.

The Princess of the Day called back her guards.

“Contact the Element Bearers! They have to find these five sparks in the night. Tell them to go in the Everfree Forest. Make sure they bring them back here,” She paused. “Nopony will ever harm my sister again nor will endanger my little ponies’ security. I want to know how they are. Bring them back here… peacefully.”

Celestia was visibly infuriated. The look of her crying sister was clearly an unbearable spectacle to watch. What did Twilight’s explosive experience have brought to this world? She looked toward the Everfree Forest far away in the horizon.

₰ ϡ ϗ φ ϗ ϡ ₰

Maria yawned, stretching her body. She looked around and saw she was the first to wake up. She had made a strange dream. But as usual she could not remember it clearly and soon this memory would fade away.
She laid on her back for basically twenty minutes straight, waiting for the sun to rise from behind the mountains standing high in the East. And then it showed up.

The sun was biting her skin. Two days of full sunshine was too hard to bear for somebody who had not seen it for more than a year. But on the other side, it was relieving. It reminded her of her old country, bathed by the warmth and the sunshine. A place once beautiful and where living was cheerful and carefree.
She decided to take a peak in the lake’s clear waters. Refreshing was the only word which popped in her mind.

She surfaced. Something was afoot in fact. She now remembered that at the east of their position, they should not be mountains. They had already passed the Alps she kept saying, it was weird. She had to ask Kreps, but tickling the sleeping geek was like playing with amorphous goo… basically useless. A roaring plane could carpet bomb his ass that it would not even make him move a hair or arch a brow.

Once she went out of the water, she instantly wrapped herself in the same fabric than the last evening. She dried herself as fast as possible.
She looked at her back and put on her clothes. She jumped onto the top of the wrecked car, making his inhabitant grumbling in his sleep and cast a glare around her. She expected the sun to warm her up.

It was a magnificent beach positioned in a vast clearing of the surrounding forest. From her location Maria could see fishes swimming around the shore. She cursed the world for not having a line.

Speaking of the forest, it seemed inscrutable. The thick foliage of thousands of trees was hiding the sun from the lower part of the place. Maria was not claustrophobic, but thinking about wandering into that place was not giving her the best feeling.

She gasped.
Something had grabbed her leg and had thrown her on the sand. She screamed like a scared bird as she fell onto the ground.

“And bang you’re dead!” Verdugo scorned.

“Fuck off man; you’ve beat the shit out of me!”

“Yeah, it’s fun.”

“Your death will be long and painful!”

“And would you be so kind to tell me how?” He deadpanned.

She thought with a finger on her lips. An idea came up.

“If I kick up your ass during the next Baraka you’ll tell me what you were doing before the Uproar.”

“My little dear,” He sighed. “You can know about Ray, Kreps, this child,” he pointed the so-called kid, still sleeping on his handmade couch of sand. “But you know that I don’t want to talk about something which does not matter anymore.”

“Chicken?” She imitated the animal.

Verdugo was slung to the quick. He did not like to have his honour flouted that way.

“Okay, this is on!”

When Ray opened his eyes, he witnessed two furious noisy acquaintances fighting over a matter way ahead of his preoccupations. He rubbed his eyes before taking one of the last remnants of the beaver. He liked so much a cold rotten and sickly tasting meat as breakfast. But the hunger was driving him insane. He chew air, masticating the thick and dried saliva between his cheeks.

He called out loud the two demons to stop their fight right away. They groused before bending to his demand and joined him around the cold feast.

“I had a weird dream,” Ray said. “I saw you Verd’. You were wearing a ballerina outfit.”

Maria spat the chewed beaver out of her mouth, laughing out loud.

“Ah… ah… ah. I hoped I gave you a boner. ” The concerned party replied with a fake laugh and irony.

Maria raised her voice.

“I dreamed about a girl, me… I don’t remember, but I saw a blue and black unicorn in my dream. I felt like crazy. Unicorn? That’s silly…” Maria guffawed when she remembered some random parts of her dream.

“You’re becoming too soft woman! Bad habits are coming back,” Verdugo teased her, his voice seemed hesitant. “One step further and we’ll have to build you a kitchen to remain in.”

“Nah… just a moment of distraction. And you Verd’, did you dream?”

He stood up, pretending to examine his badly bandaged and oozing wound.

“Yeah I dreamt but that’s none of your business.”

Ray and Maria fixed each other with a worried look. Ray gave her a shrug. She applied the palm of her hand onto her forehead.
Ray often asked himself if this man who had helped, saved and defended him and his group so many times was nothing but a grieved hollowed body that did appear in the following of the apocalypse to keep them alive, like a guardian angel…

Few minutes later, the muted kid and Kreps had woken up and were voraciously, but with a pinch of disgust, eating the last drops of the beaver. But in fact, nothing could undermine the hunger of the group at the moment.
Maria was trying to catch fish bare-handed, task nearly impossible though while Verdugo was walking into circles at the opposite side of the beach.

Ray was surprised and worried about the kid. He did not talk, never told his name and seemed to be reluctant to have anybody moving closer to him. He was like a scared animal… a frightened pet which was always keeping a safe distance with its “masters” but was forced to follow them in order to survive another day in this world.

He was young, very young; maybe ten… twelve years old.
One of his incisors was missing, a milk tooth probably and he had numerous scars running on his face. He had black hairs and his skin was scarily ghoulish. Strange, he had amazingly light blue eyes that pierced from side to side whoever stared into.

His clothes were torn apart. With a hint of compassion, Ray tried to find a way to give him decent clothing. But he found himself also wearing remainders of such items. How long had it been since he last saw himself in a mirror?

He looked toward the lake. The temptation to look at his reflection was teasing, but he did not want to see how ugly and wrecked he was. When he was gazing at Kreps or Verdugo, what he was seeing was two walking bag of bones whose faces were covered of unclean beard and scars, with shadows under their eyes.

Reaching his chin, Ray touched a rough mass of filthy hair and a small bald mark, his neck scar. He sighed.

Maria was his sunshine, always radiant even if she was skinny as hell and that she had developed no breast at all… thanks starvation. But she was always smiling and joking around in the group. Maybe she was the only thing keeping him and everyone sane from the madness of the post-uproar world.
He would have not been able to keep up without her around. Did he love her? He did not know. But what he was sure of was that he would defend her at all cost… because ‘light must not die’, he thought.

Verdugo came up with a clever invention. He had cut two long and resistant stick of wood. And with an intertwining of ropes, he made of the heavy metallic trunk where every weapon was resting something barely transportable. It required two strong pairs of shoulders to be manoeuvred. The case weighted nearly one hundred pounds.

“Okay, who start the tour?” Verdugo asked.

Everybody started whistling.

He, in spite of his injured right shoulder, and Kreps started carrying the heavy case as Maria was leading the tow, the “radioactive” box in her bag. Everyone was carrying a heavy pack on their back and even the soundless child was participating in the exhausting manoeuvre, wearing the wet blanket Maria used to dry herself.

Ray was desperately deciphering the map written in German, which was not a language he was mastering at all.

“Neu… Neusi… Neusiedler See. If this is the lake we’re going along, we’re at twenty… thrity miles from Vienna. If we go straight to its north we’ll find…Neu… Neusiedl am… Oh fuck! Why German names are so unpronounceable!”

Kreps laughed.

“No seriously that’s annoying!”

“You want to swap spaces,” Kreps asked, panting heavily.

Ray got muted and gave himself a minute of reflection. Ray got hold of himself.

“Okay, if we find that f’cking city we could find a road to Vienna. But if we don’t, we have to go to the North West. Should be easy no?”

He said this expecting a global nod from each of his companions. But everybody was focusing on not stepping on a devilish root which could make them fall. The forest was thick and Maria had to cut through with Verdugo’s knife. Weird and stressing sounds were popping intermittently. Branches cracked under everyone boots. And the lack of animals’ cries, howls and presence evidences was another straw on the camel back.

“Remind me to never come here again please,” Maria asked with a trembling voice. “And… Verdugo, don’t you say yesterday that you saw animals?”

“Yes… yesterday…”

A distant howl echoed in the forest, the first and macabre proof that something was still living in this remote place of Europe… But was it really Europe? The trees were slightly different. The sky was different. Everything looked similar, but also deeply changed. Everyone had witnessed that the colours were more vivid, flashy, or smooth, they could not find words to describe this impression. Kreps supposed this was the sunlight’s influence. They had stared to a greyish environment for so long their eyes had forgotten the true meaning of colour.

The sun was high in the sky and the group enjoyed each pause in the few clearings they passed by. It was relieving. One had to enjoy the little things a great mind said someday.

The trekking lasted for hours and the sun was low in the west now when they finally found something.

“Hey look! Here is the city!” Maria shouted as she cleared a way through a vast area where wild grass and wheat was growing chaotically.

On the other side of the field was standing a huge and abandoned construction of stone.

“In a few miles you’ll be able to admire an antic castle of whatever the fuck it could be era,” Kreps ironized, mimicking the voice of a low quality GPS.

It was indeed an old and remote place whose walls had been undermined by the time. No window was still standing intact and the area seemed to have been unvisited for eons.

“Okay,” Ray stopped everyone before they went out of the safe cover the forest was offering them. “Take some weapons out, we could encounter bandits and we have wounded peoples.”

He stared at Verdugo and Kreps who was both wounded and had grumbled all along the way. Ray and Maria had to swap with their position dozens of times during the walk. Kreps had a rib cracked and only Maria’s nimble fingers made him able to surpass the pain. Verdugo’s state was way more worrying. He had fallen several times on the way. The wound was infected and fever had started running through his veins. Within hours he won’t have any strength left to move and it will be the end of the trip for him. And this, Maria could not let it be. She would like to be more useful but she had to fight her friend’s fierceness and proudness.

Ray spoke to the mute boy who was hiding behind a tree.

“Look, I know you won’t talk, you won’t let us come close to you, I don’t even know if you understand us, but please… stay close and don’t make a silly move.”

They all stared at the castle and peered into the meadow waiting in front of them.

Apr. 2014 - Sweat, Flesh, Blood, And Bones - 2. To Put a Name to a Face

New Version:

It all started with simple mumbling. Initiating a simple rhythm, the music spread swiftly in the air. The mumbling became a whistle and it evolved into a true song. The lyrics were low-pitched, and the end of each verse nearly hissed. The lines were modulated in speed and tone. To an attentive ear, the singer was awkwardly messing with the modern rhyming poetry and the ancient Latin hexameter, ending with a strange fable.

“Unable to clearly remember
His conscience fades away
Making way for a pregnant hunger

This heavy tension floods his hand
His distorted scars itches
And his body dwells on this land
Coughing scores of ashes

It’s Impossible to turn over
He feels this deep necessity
And all hear the truth, rough

As there’s no harsh enmity
Without eerie difficulty
Will it never be enough?

There standing and distracted
All like sheep gathered
Alike, chased and tracked
Their life slowly withered…

A short pause followed. Then the sweet whistle came back, printing a similar pace to the song. The singer’s voice was thin and maybe, too smooth.

…As there’s no war
Without an ugly hatred
Rises the angry monster
Merciless he has long wander’

The vocalist snapped his fingers to go hand in hand with the lyrics. The unsteady rhymes accelerated. And in the end, it only worked to make the song unbearable to hear.

On this bleak acre…”

“Your voice is pretty ugly you know! And your song is bad.”

Maria’s stare was clearly telling that he should feel bad too. Kreps cursed his friend for being so heartless and of course, tasteless. He knew his singing was unpleasant to other’s ears. But having this harsh reality being pointed out was not something he appreciated.

“You’re all so silent,” Kreps complained. “It’s about to become a real pain in the ass!”

“And it’s the geek who wants us to be cheerful? Where is the world going?” Maria laughed.

She glanced at her two other friends. Ray and Verdugo were carrying the metal case. Pain wrinkled their exhausted faces.

“No… really…” Kreps stuttered, wiping sweat off his forehead. “Look around, no bandits, no cadavers, no wreckages and chemicals, just a good old golden wheat field. It’s warming up!”

Silence welcomed him. The surroundings were way different than the greyish, sorrowful and lugubrious atmosphere they were used to.

“Isn’t it… Guys?”

“Yeah,” Verdugo shrugged only to trigger a wave of pain in his shoulder. His eyes winked, tears about to burst. “Speaking of warming up, it’s your shift.”

He and Ray dropped off the heavy box. The huge trunk banged noisily on the ground, crushing stems under its weight and blowing small wisps of dirt.
They cracked every painful joint of their aching limbs and started stretching their bruised muscles.

“Again?” Kreps infuriated. “Man, I'll end up a hunchback.”

“Like everyone else.” Verdugo replied with a smirk. “And my shoulder needs rest.”

Kreps wanted to protest, claiming asylum for his damaged ribs as Verdugo spat some viscous phlegm on the ground. Its colour was unusual, a pure dark red.
Kreps changed his mind when he looked down at the oozing bandages wrapping Verd’s naked torso. His friend was sweating horribly, trying to hide the pain the best he was able to.

“Okay, give me your spot…” Kreps sighed, rolling his eyes to the sky. ”At least you’re worth my pity.”

Verdugo grumbled, rubbing his wound.
Ray sat down between the tall ears of wheat. Only the top of his nut-haired head surfaced. A sound of creased paper rose. He had the map in his hands. Always struggling with unfolding it, Ray had the despicable habit to tear some holes in the paper, deteriorating the key item each day god was making.

“How far are we from the ruins?” Kreps grunted while he adjusted his grip on the case, searching for a ‘comfortable’ position.

“I thought…” Maria initiated doubtfully, looking at the opposite side of the field “… that we were two or three miles away from the castle. But I was wrong... We have one or two more to go.”

Kreps swore in his native language. Maria giggled. Ray was still fighting with the rebellious piece of paper. And Verdugo was quiet as a grave, as usual.

“Tag! you’re it Motherfucker!” Maria erupted, kicking away a small rock which ricocheted on the metallic case.

The bang tortured everyone’s ears. She laughed. But her smile died quickly when Ray, a cynical grin clearing his face, gave her a wink and pointed what she had just knocked. It was also her turn to carry the case.

“Maria?” Verdugo gritted.

Maria immediately stopped with her goings-on. The stern voice of her foster brother was enough to scare her.

“Yeah?” She said timidly.

“That thing… that castle… it’s pretty big. Are we that far from it? How tall should it be?”

Maria frowned, troubled, and stared back at the castle in the distance. Her eyes narrowed, and then swelled.

“It… Wow… I didn’t… maybe one, two hundred meters high,” she stuttered.

“Never heard of such a… thing in Austria. And you?” Verdugo asked Ray and Kreps, knitting his brow.

They denied en bloc, shrugging their shoulders. They all sighed hoping for a Deus Ex Machina which, they all knew, would never come. A heavy silence set up between everyone. Only the wind was blowing a gentle rustling through the wheat, breaking the eerie silence.

Letting out a loud breath, Ray lay down. He had decided to take a short nap. Worried by the recent events, he was struggling not to burst out those emotions.

Maria was scrutinizing every yard of the surrounding, ready to act in case a threat would show up. In this situation it was her role and she was playing it perfectly. Moving her head from right to left, then checking behind before coming back to what was standing in front of her. Quicker than anyone else, she had been named the “mangoose” by a random survivor in Italy. The surname had stuck to her since, inducing laughter in every person hearing it. Oh god she hated this alias!

On his own, Kreps looked at the young boy, studying him. The kid had remained silent ever since they met and was now well-hidden under the high grass. Kreps, with his logical spirit in action was troubled. He sought for the reason why the urchin was following his friends and him. Moreover, he queried mentally for the excuse to not get rid of him. The child was a worthless mouth to feed with a nearly nought return on investment. But Kreps was a man, and every man, even in the sickest place in the world would not be twisted enough to act in this sense. For the German, those who had done so in the past did not deserve the right to be called ‘human’ ever again.
Kreps sighed. Maybe Verdugo would have done it if his right arm was not at the moment a mess and a painful burden. Kreps knew it would have not been his first time. Verdugo also sported a surname. But this one, Kreps was keeping it to himself, it was ‘Our inner Misericorde’.

“Meh, even Verd’s knife would be useless to make you talk, wouldn’t it?” Kreps deadpanned.

The child buried his eyes behind clumps of grass. Kreps held his face with his hand and slid it off, depressed.

“Where have we put ourselves?” He sighed.

“Wherever your little box sent us,” Ray replied ironically with his eyes covered by his wrist, trying to protect himself from the sunbeams. “I’m convincing myself that in fact, we might be dead.”

As a response, a strong kick struck his ribs. He yapped. Opening his eyes, he stood up painfully. He held his side. Maria stuck out her tongue. Ray was absolutely not amused.

“From my point of view, it seems that you are indeed particularly awake but unfortunately unaware,” she sneered with a posh accent.

“You didn’t have to!” Ray groused.

“It. Is. Always. Tempting.”

Maria caught the soundless teenager grinning behind his hiding position. She returned his smile.

Everyone’s bellies growled. They were all tired, hungry and thirsty. ‘Another day in an apocalyptic world indeed’, they all thought. Surviving was a harsh and depressing experience when people pretended they could get their problems fixed all alone. Surviving was even more dangerous when you were in group. But at least there were advantages coming with such a condition to even the odds. You had people to talk to without expecting them to shoot you first in order to loot your body and carve up some steaks from your skeletal limbs. Sharing the same burden was the best way to describe friendship in the wasteland.

They all got up in silence and resumed walking toward the old remote structure, holding back their physiological needs once again with an effete hope for a better tomorrow.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

Fluttershy was hiking in the forest. Each branch cracking under her hooves made her more afraid than before. Jumping for every eerie sound, she feared being followed. She was in that part of the Everfree Forest where trees had wicked faces carved upon their trunks. She focused on the comforting advices of Pinkie.

“Guffaw at the grossly,” She muttered.

She took a long breath and let out a small, shy and cute laugh, not even a decibel high. She felt much better afterward. Or at least, she tried to convince herself she was. Whatever she did and however she looked as far as possible in the deep shadows of the forest, she never found a single wounded animal.
The falling rocks had cleared and scorched various parts of the surroundings. And if she had not known their unnatural cause, Fluttershy would have run away, thinking that an infuriated creature had carved the ground with its claws. And only Ursa Majors were technically capable of such devastation.

Fortunately, the shockwave which had swept across the valley and the forest had made every little creature run or fly away before the fall of the debris. She was reassured, but deep inside her she had to make sure nopony was left behind her care.
Following Luna’s demand, she had asked for help, getting Zecora in her tow until they separated to cover a larger portion of the Everfree. Now absolutely terrified and alone, she regretted this choice.

She was near the antique Black Castle, the palace Celestia abandoned thousand years ago after the War of the Everlasting Night when she defeated her corrupted sister. Fluttershy shivered as the name of Nightmare Moon surged in her mind. The image of the terrifying mare printed on her retina.

The castle was now destroyed and only the south wing remained nearly intact.

Something cracked behind her back. Fluttershy screamed, startled.

She had instantly ceased moving. Her eyes aimlessly staring around, she sought for the origin of the creeping noise. She panted heavily and looked under her. A small root was broken under her left hind leg.

She jeered swiftly and joked about her shyness. Everypony knew she was afraid of her own shadow.

Something flung her against a tree trunk. Fluttershy had been hit by an unknown threat, right in her flank. Stunned she saw three black forms emerging from the bushes. Three Changelings faced her, sniggering.

“Look what we found here. A fledging which fell from the nest,” The biggest one laughed, kicking Fluttershy down again.

His hooves, displaying sharpened holes and contours, cut Fluttershy’s fur. Tears of blood dripped on it.

“Wait, don’t waste the meat. I’m hungry,” his mate hissed, licking his lips.

A grin growing from ears to ears sprawled on his face.

“You… You don’t eat meat… Changelings don’t eat meat,” Fluttershy mumbled terrified.

The last Changeling pushed over his two friends. Dark green clumps were spreading over his back. He licked his left sharp incisive, his last one. And even smaller than his two ‘friends’ he was exuding authority, he was clearly the chief of the band.

“No we don’t eat meat, but you’re so despicable we could make an exception.”

Fluttershy burst into tears, curled on her stabbed flank.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” a twangy voice shouted.

Fluttershy turned over toward this Celestial providence.

“We saw her first!”

All her hopes broke down. Two Diamond dogs took up position out of the edge of the bushes, closing a circle around the pony whose face was soaked by her own tears.

“And instead of you, we really need meat to survive.”

A long and harsh argument startled every”pony” around Fluttershy. Hiding herself behind her hooves, she shrunk on herself from this unbearable pressure.
Gazing at every creature circling her she made a choice. Closing her eyes, Fluttershy took her courage in her hooves and spoke with a mighty voice, her excruciating stare as a means of pressure upon her opponents.

“You’re going to LEAVE ME ALONE!” She shrieked.

Every”pony” ’s eyes widened as they withdrew from the young pegasus. She sighed in relief while her opponents shivered around her. She stood up and gave a short and sarcastic laugh. Her eyes wide opened, her black pupils were swelled, similar to two black holes mesmerizing those who had the infortune to stare in.
Fluttershy always asked how the “stare” was like. Her animal had told her it felt being watched by a predator. She never understood why. Focusing, Fluttershy glared at her opponents, still backing from her location.

A hot breath ran on her shoulders.
The Diamond Dogs and the Changelings had never been looking into her eyes. They were staring over her head, utterly shaken and terrified.

When Fluttershy turned over, her eyes sunk into two yellow glowing orbs. A harsh grunt blew a sulphured haze onto her muzzle. Colour left her face. Even her eyes were washed-out of their natural colour, whitened by fear. The monster was way bigger than her, displaying large red scales and sword-sized sharp teeth.

Fluttershy, the Changelings and the Diamond dogs ran for their live, screaming, with the creature in their tow.

Two Changelings panicked, stretched their wings and tried to fly up in the sky. A gigantic claw knocked them down and they disappeared behind bushes in a horrific crackling of bones. The wisest of the Changelings, the one with tufts of mane tailgated Fluttershy. Nopony dared looking back; they were already giving ground to the creature.

In the course of an old path, the two Diamond dogs dived into one of their hole and escaped from the monster.

“If we separate he will hunt down only one of us, the other tries to get some help!” Fluttershy panted.

“You’re kidding right, I know well that Pegasi are faster than us and IT knows it well,” The changeling replied, breathless. “I’m no fool! I stay with you.”

The ground shattered right behind them. The monster had tackled the space where they were standing specks ago. Fearful they finally looked back, an orange light welcomed them. They started screaming. The sweat dried on their face.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

Walking along the edge of the forest, the group had decided to shorten the span of time between the pauses. Sitting on dead trunks bordering the fringe, Ray took advantage of the situation by reaping off wheat. He was thinking about making bread. Maria, Kreps and Verdugo were laughing their asses off. Stereotypes had a long life expectancy even in the so-called wastelands. And the one saying British people were poor bakers was one of them.

They heard a long hoarse roaring followed by the sound of a stampede and torn apart wood. They all crouched behind a mound. Not so far away from them, a flow of fire engulfed a large portion of the forest. Two high-pitched screams rose. Lying low, the five stooges watched with wondering looks casted on their face. Something emerged from the black smoke. They get struck… aback.

A red monstrous, cyclopean monster showing off huge wings was devastating the surroundings. It was chasing two preys well hidden by the high wheat. A second breath of fire lit up the place. Everyone winked to the heat. Even a thousand feet away from the flaming stream they were struggling looking at it without having their pupils dried out. The creature changed its path, still in the tow of whoever it was tracking.

“G… Gal… Gala… Gallimimus!” Ray whispered.

“Meat... Meat-eater? Meatosaurus?” Kreps replied, smiling genuinely.

They both get wacked on their foreheads.

“Stop the creepy references,” Maria pressed. “What is it?”

They all looked up again. The animal was indeed an incredibly big winged red lizard. Three times the height of a normal human, it was fifty feet long. Its belly was a bright blue, contrasting with its blood scales. Its teeth, razor-sharped, were digging a spooky hole in the field each time it tried to get its preys. But the most impressive was his wingspan. At a guess, it was nearly sixty yards wide. His whole mass was hiding the sunbeams and gloomy shadows were casted on the wheat field.

Everyone gulped, trying to disappear, digging the ground bare handed. They hope the fairytale creature would not notice them.

“A… A dragon,” Ray whispered with absolute incomprehension, his jaw dangling wide open.

“A wyvern!” Kreps corrected.

Everyone glared at him. Surprised by the look his friends had given to him, Kreps hissed with anger.

“Dragon, four legs and two wings. Wyvern, two legs and two wings. Therefore… it’s a wyvern.”

Kreps’s encyclopedic knowledge of an improbable amount of useless things was beyond any remarks from his friends.

They all scanned the monster. Indeed, it was running on its two massive clawed hind legs, slashing the surrounding with the pseudo-talons on the tips of its two wings of rough skin. It roared, exhaling a flow of bright orange fire which engulfed an acre of grains.
It was still chasing two shapes weaving in the field, too small to surface out of the ears of wheat. Screams were higher than ever before, hitting a new record in voice-induced noise pollution.

“So… What do we do?” Maria squeaked.

“We eat?” Verdugo stated, emotionless.

Everyone let out a loud cry of incomprehension. Their hearts were beating blood up to their temples. They had this strange fear dwelling in their bowels. This feeling something awful was going to happen.

“You’re crazy! Ain’t gonna touch that monster!” Ray stressed.

Drop of sweat ran on his face.

“Who cares about it, we wait until it kills the two…”

“Guys.” Kreps raised his voice.

“…things,” Verdugo continued after blocking Kreps’s mouth with his hand. “We just take the left-overs. Then…”

“MMmmMMMOuh!”

“What?”

The Dragon was approaching.

“Wyvern!” Kreps corrected again, really pissed off.

The wyvern had changed of direction and was now heading toward the humans’ hideout. Two paths were stamped in the grains in front of the wyvern’s jaw. It was moving directly on them.

“Oww shit…” Verdugo simply said, blasé.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

Fluttershy was running as fast as she can. She heard the jawbone slam behind her. She hoped the monster would not grab her tail.
On his own the Changeling was struggling to keep his pace, dying from exhaustion. He started swapping between running and flying low. Panting heavily, he was undoubtedly thirsty.

Fluttershy raised her head. In the corner of her eyes, she saw the border of the forest… It was a small spark of hope. They had made a quarter of the way to the other side of the field when the wyvern breathed his unbearable fire.
The changeling and Fluttershy turned left, going back to where they had come from. They had just deviated a little.

The border was there… really, really there. Fluttershy reached the last remnants of the wheat field and she suddenly stopped, her hooves drifting on the dirt.

Four scared stares fixed her in an expression of terror. The fifth was amused, repressing a kind of laughter. She snapped out of her surprise, jumped out and screamed so loudly the wyvern paused.

“AAAAAH!”

The five humans stared dramatically at the butter coloured pony. She had a light pink mane and was actually shrieking out loud the fear flooding through her veins… they just replied to her screaming with a louder one, in unison.

“AAAAAAAH!”

And finally the Changeling a bit late looked down at five smooth-faced creatures, all lying low, trying to hide from something. Something… The changeling had suddenly forgotten that really important something. The surprise had cleared his mind.
A drop of saliva slid on the Changeling’s head. A growl ensued and everypony, everybody and everyling stared up. Terror pervaded their faces, their minds washed out of every thought but running away.

The wyvern was not patient. Unexpected meetings were the least of its problems.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Hands up or hooves biting the dirt, they all started running recklessly through the thick forest.

“The castle!” A voice shouted over the thundering of every foot and hoof.

One stumbled, only to feel strong arms put him back on track, whatever he was a human or a pony. ‘Sometimes fear is the best of cement’. And it was not Verdugo’s quote, but Ray’s.
Through the trunks they saw a wall. They ran as fast as they could, approaching from the life-saving place. Maria squeaked in surprise when she felt a claw skirting her back.

They dived into a tall arch of stone. Broken in, the gate shaped the entrance of the castle.

Dirt was covering every inch of the place. A long spiral staircase was dwelling in the depths of the dark room, engulfed by spooky shadows. The wyvern tried to force its way inside with violent roars. But, being too huge, the walls of granite were holding it back for the moment. The place shook and stone chunks started falling from the ceiling.

In front of everyone's horrified eyes, the creature finally pierced the arch and rushed towards the seven insects split in front of him.
But somehow, it was already too late. These… ants rushed to the staircase and disappeared in the darkness.

Infuriated for having lost its dinner, the wyvern extracted itself from the wing of the antique castle. Everything crumbled down. It breathed its white-hot flaming rage onto the broken flagstone of the building and growled. Its claws shattered the ground and spread earth-quaking vibrations through it.

Furious, the wyvern continued for a couple of minutes, then abandoned. Howling in rage, it stretched its wings and in one blow leaped in the air. The creature disappeared in the sky, leaving behind it a massive disaster, a rising smog of ashes and dust, and of course seven preys buried under the castle.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

The night had come forth. Luna, Celestia, Prince Blueblood and other nobilities were gathered in the banquet room, attending to the usual weekly noble assemble, a formal denomination for a feast where everypony was, under cover of well-behaved manners eating greedily the best meals of Equestria.
Celestia of course was always happy to come. For her, the desserts and cakes were counterbalancing more than one hundred times the harsh obligation to be in the same place than those boring ponies standing around her.
On her own, Luna was not particularly thrilled about this situation. She had pleaded her sister to let her go to sleep. Last night had been really horrific and for once in eons, she wanted a true night of rest, where she was the dreamer and not a mere watcher. Celestia had gently refused, the weekly gathering was a tradition Luna could not afford to hack through.
Still shaking, the younger sister was hiding her stressful mindset quite well.

“So my dear Aunt, how the affairs in Canterlot and on extension in Equestria are going currently?” the Prince asked, breaking the unsettling silence.

“Oh my nephew, I’m so proud you’ve got an interest in something more compelling than verbally fencing with Sir Fancy Pants,” Celestia answered, levitating a muffin toward her plate, a slight smile on her cheeks.

The concerned unicorn raised his head. His stare unfortunately crossed the Prince’s hateful eyes. Glaring at each other, the other attendants of the feast swore they had seen foils clashing through the air. Both of them were always in a fancy and ancient-vocabulary emphasized verbal conflict.
Luna was surely right when she was picturing them as the most lackadaisical and boring duellists in the world.

“So…” Fancy Pants advanced.

Wiping the piece of fish he had on his lips with a handkerchief, he looked at Luna.

“I’ve heard that you had a nightmare last night? If it is not incorrect from me to ask you such irrelevant questions… I’ve still wondered what breed of nightmare an alicorn could have, and especially what dreams could affect… the princess of the Night.”

Luna gulped a gag. She was not prepared for this request. She stuttered.

“Well, you… thou see. My… Our nightmares are something… which shall remain out of range of mere ponies like you. Thou would not be able to stand one without losing your very sanity.”

Fancy Pant was not satisfied. He covered his mouth with a tissue and started pouting. Prince Blueblood tried to hide his amused smile. He could not restrain himself.

Fleur Dis Lee, standing at the right of her husband put down her silver fork and cleared her throat.

“Celestia, shouldn’t Miss Twilight Sparkle, your most faithful student and the Element Bearers be here, attending this magnificent meal with all of us?”

Luna’s and Celestia’s eyes crossed. Celestia sighed.

“Twilight and her friends are not able to attend this reunion because of the recent events in Ponyville. I have sent them in the Everfree Forest.”

Some ponies gasped. A long silence settled and no fly were in the air to buzz around.

“I wanted them to check something really important.”

Nopony protested, but they all knew that meant nothing but forthcoming problems. Behind their fake smiles, Luna and Celestia were worried about Fluttershy. They had sent her alone in there. The five other bearers had entered the forest a day later.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

Coughs echoed in the cave. The lack of light was oppressing. Surrounded by the dust and dirt, everyone and… everypony were groping the floor, searching for a landmark. A scratch broke the silence. A small flame radiated for ten seconds, illuminating faintly a hand and the man who was holding the match. Ray sneezed involuntary and blew out the flame. He started becoming agitated. A sliding sound followed by another crack disturbed the ambience once again and a new flame came to life.
Kreps, Maria and the boy joined him around the match. They were all ghoulish, panting with difficulty and covered in dust. Worse, Maria was hyperventilating. Ray crawled to her and grabbed her shoulders. He tightened his hands around them after he had handed the box of matches to Kreps, who lit another one.

“Breath in, Breath out… slowly.”

Ray mimicked the manoeuvre, swelling out his chest before letting all the air in go out. This game lasted for few minutes until Maria’s hoarse respiration came back to normal.

Kreps tried to get up only to bang his head against an upper limit. He probed the darkness with his hands and sensed a biased ceiling. It had crumbled down over them. Kreps feared they might have been trapped in this underground place. He shivered. He was not claustrophobic, or at least had thought he was not.
He swore, now he remembered that they had left the case with all the weapons in the field, outside. However, the “radioactive” box was still hanging in Maria’s backpack.

Standing up, a sudden pain whirled inside his ribs. He bowed, overwhelmed by this aching enveloping his chest.

While Ray was caretaking Maria, Kreps caught a small green light in a corner or the large cave, maybe thirteen yards from his position. Careful about not banging his head or his feet on an obstacle, he dragged himself to the location. He inhaled deeply, trying to get over the acute pain.

The spectacle struck him. There was Verdugo, lying on the ground and sweating a river. He moaned in pain. And next to him, two strange creatures were watching him, eyes widened, immobile and afraid of Kreps’s friend. The light, green, was coming back and forth, surging from the… the horn of the second creature. Its body was covered by a thick bug exoskeleton. It was a quadruped and had… two fly-like wings on his back, buzzing intermittently.
Kreps could not find a word to describe this creature whose shape was still something he knew, somehow. When his stare stopped on the second creature he found the name, Ponies.

The second pony had a butter-coloured fur and a full light pink mane. It was a pony, no doubt about it, but there was slight changes compared of what was dwelling in his memories. Its eyes were bigger, its skin and fur were smoother. And finally of course, the colour was something Kreps had never seen before. He arched a brow. The pony had a tattoo over her femur. It was a strange branding, showing three pink butterflies. The colours were pallid as the only light was a sick green glowing.

Deep in the shadows, the human was unnoticeable. The light sprouting from the black creature was too weak to reach him.

“What is… that?” A voice rose.

Kreps, hearing a buzzing voice sought around him to find the origin. There was nothing. When his stare came back on his friend and the two… ponies, he saw the yellow one poking Verdugo’s leg, who growled in return. The pony jumped back afraid, and then… it… she spoke.

“I have absolutely no idea,” the female voice said.

Kreps giggled; he had seen the pony’s muzzle and mouth move. Kreps always had a scientific mind, relying on logic. He was staring down to something he had always believed impossible. He rubbed his eyelids, questioning the reality of the situation.

He had made too much noise. Both ponies’ heads were watching in his direction.

“Who? Who’s there?” The black armoured pony asked.

Kreps hesitated, a first contact was dangerous, but Verdugo needed him. A small pond of blood was running off his shoulder. Kreps took a deep breath and surfaced from the shadows.

The changeling and Fluttershy gasped, stumped. In front of them was standing a tall and ugly shaved creature, covered in dust, blood and rubbish. He was wearing greyish rags like the creature lying on the floor. And both of them reeked atrociously.

“You’re standing on blood.” The creature noted.

Fluttershy and the Changelings were startled. The creature talked! Gasps echoed again when they finally looked down. They were toddling in a thick dark red puddle. The Changeling jumped outside, revolted.
Fluttershy on the other hoof panicked. Standing on her two hind legs she screamed and tried to wipe the blood… over her fur, making things worse than they already were. Panting loudly and erratically, she stumbled and fell on her flank few feet from the healthy creature.

Fluttershy eyes narrowed as the creature’s clawless talons clasped her neck and muzzle.

“Shut up! The wyvern can come back! Shut up ‘r I’ll kill you,” it urged.

Its pupils narrowed. He was scared too. Fluttershy started crying, her sobs held back down her throat. After a couple of seconds, the primate released its grasp on Fluttershy’s neck. Yet, he kept his hand tightened on her muzzle. It was thinking.

“You scream, we’re dead! Understand?” The creature stressed.

Fluttershy nodded. The bipedal creature looked around and its stare glared daggers at the Changeling. The assessment was also applying for him.

The creature freed the pony. It rushed to the one lying on the floor. Maybe it was its friend. The… primate… was sweating, stressed about the whole situation. It put off one of his rags and gave it to Fluttershy, to wipe herself.

“Name’s Kreps.”

“Fluttershy,” She replied, her voice so low even the cave was not able to echo it.

Kreps did not answer; too busy looking at Verdugo’s wound. The green light enshrouding the Changeling’s horn was of a crucial importance.
The changeling was frowning, nopony had asked his name.

Kreps focused on his task. Ripping off the remains covering his friend’s torso, Kreps displayed Verdugo’s wounds to Fluttershy and the bug-like pony’s to see. They held back a gag.
The wound was ignominious. The stink? Unbearable. Was it gangrene spread onto it or some eggs of corpse flies? It might be both. Fluttershy and the Changeling were disgusted.

Kreps was stunned. Not moving, not shaking, he was immobile, eyes widened, pupils narrowed. His breath was short and quick.
He did not even notice Ray, Maria and the young boy gathering around him, looking back and forth between Verdugo, Fluttershy and the Changeling. His friends’ vision was blurred. They had clearly lost their grasp on reality. They were unable to think clearly.
A long silence only paced by the moans of pain of Verdugo settled between everyone. The pony and the changeling withdrew in the shadows.

“I’ve still a bullet left in my gun,” Ray stated, resignation casted on his face.

He was going to cry. Maria gazed at him with hatred, anger and sadness.

“I won’t let you touch him! You’re gonna have to get over my dead body before you dare touch him,” She started crying, shouting in disbelief. “There must be something to do.”

“You said yourself we don’t have nothing left to treat it. He. Is. Dead.”

Ray and Kreps sighed. Verdugo was indeed dying. No matter what they would do, no matter how hard they would try… It was over. Kreps stared in Ray’s eyes, wet with tears. He nodded. Ray drew his gun out and put it in his friend’s hands.
Maria screamed and tried to fight back. Ray held her back and hugged her. She cried, tending her opened hand toward Verdugo. Her sobs were earth-shattering; her complaint, heart-breaking.

Fluttershy and the Changelings had stepped back. They began to understand what was going to happen. They shivered, afraid, not daring to make a move. They were going to witness a murder. Was it absolutely barbaric, or the kindest act they would ever watch, they wondered. Relieving somepony from his deadly envelop, from an unbearable pain, was it really a murder?

Fluttershy wanted to protest but the look on the creatures’ faces was horrific. They had the aspect of bags of bones. They gave her the impression to be walking deads. Fear faded in Fluttershy’s eyes. She only had pity for these five creatures. She imagined what kind of ordeal they had to survive. But it was in vain, her mind was not twisted enough to envision their suffering.

The changeling on the other hand understood. It was survival and starvation… only survival and starvation. He could read it in the creatures’ features. Somehow, he found them less ugly now, this impression replaced by the same pity he had for his own kin and kind.

With a shaking hand, Kreps stood over Verdugo. The lying body opened his eyes, whispering. He was in pain. Did he beg for something? Kreps will never know. He raised the gun, aimed at Verdugo’s forehead and move his finger on the trigger. He breathed in and unable to stare into those glaring eyes, Kreps turned his gaze and prepared himself for the detonation.

A clicking occurred, followed by a loud cracking sound.

Kreps looked at his gun. He had not shot yet.

A huge block of granite fell on the floor few meters away from everyone and everypony.

“Fluttershy?” A voice echoed like through a tunnel. “Fluttershy?”

“I’m here.” the yellow pony responded.

Ray and Maria gasped. They were face to face with a talking animal. The colour was unusual indeed, but they had seen strangest things before. But a talking pony… it was record breaking. They also caught the fact that the pony, apparently called Fluttershy had wings. They wiped their eyes, trying to figure out the catch in this story.

Still standing over his friend, Kreps saw in the dim darkness five pony-like shapes going down. All were of a different colour. Some had a horn, one had wings and the last one, whose fur was purple-tainted, had both of these strange items.

Everyone’s and everypony’s gazes met. A long, unpleasant silent bathed the cave. Ray caught the purple pony counting, her lips were moving.

“Five…” She whispered.

Twilight cleared her throat. She tried to choose her words wisely, trying to be convincing or at least seem friendly.

“Would you be so kind as to follow us to Canterlot’s Castle? There are ponies who want to see…”

Twilight looked down at the “talons” of the nearest creature. It was displaying a strange metallic object formed of a tube. And the hollowed cylinder was pointing at somepony of its kind, lying on the ground.
Then Twilight witnessed all the blood on the floor. Her eyes lay on Fluttershy, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. She saw her friend partially covered in the same fluid. Anger replaced the clumsy kindness in Twilight’s stare.

“What have you done to her?” She grinned.

On the inside, Twilight started panicking, what if they were monsters? Predators? Anger swamped her mind, she took an offensive stance, stomping the ground, lifting up dust with her loud breath. The creature aimed at her with the strange tool. The primate was clearly disoriented, his belly was growling. Twilight caught herself asking mentally in which situation she had stepped. Everypony looked at the three other primates detached from the first two.

Two of them were hugging each other, one was clearly sobbing. Tears twinkled in the shadows. The pitch in its voice meant it was a female. And the last one was… a child. He was isolated from the rest of its herd.

Twilight’s stare came back to the nearest monster, the one carrying the strange gadget. Bemused, the creature panicked when the five rescuing ponies stepped further. It pointed by turn everypony and then finally aimed at Fluttershy.

“Don’t come closer or she dies,” It panted loudly.

Drops of sweat ran on his forehead. Kreps was thinking as fast as he could. He had only one bullet left. If he shot, they would fight back and this would be the end. If he did nothing it was the end too. He bit his bottom lips to the blood.

Twilight saw its canines and incisors. They were predators of course, like hydras or manticores. She would not mind it in another situation. Even if she usually disliked the species which had to eat meat, she always kept in mind Fluttershy’s words, that it was part of nature. But in this situation, Twilight had two gore ideas bouncing in her mind, disturbing her from thinking clearly.
Either these creatures were cannibals and this would explain why one was lying on the ground; or they had fight to know who would eat her friend first. In both cases it was enough to act and depict these primates as sub-sentient. They were just a pack of predating animals.

A pink light beam flew through the air and ejected the gun from Kreps’s hand which slid in the darkness. Taken by surprise, Kreps looked back at the pony. He saw her horn glowing a deep purple light.
A second beam rushed to him. He tried to protect himself with his hand…

Opening his eyes a second after, Kreps checked his own body, searching for a hole somewhere, a vivid pain in his chest or a chunk of metal in his head. There was nothing. He stared, surprised, at his forearm. The purple light had stuck itself on his skin, still glowing.

Twilight was confused, her spell had not worked.

Kreps shook his arm in disbelief. He tried to get rid of the strange substance which acted like sticky goo. He grunted. Kreps continued until his joints started cracking. Lacking of the knowledge to deal with it, hundreds of questions sprung in his mind.

All of a sudden a hand had grabbed his rags. He turned back and found the youngster facing him. The kid jumped and touched Kreps’s arm, the one engulfed in the glowing substance.
The liquid spread of the kid’s hand and he started laughing. Everybody and everypony was silent.
Kreps decided to try to wipe the substance on Verdugo’s trousers, keeping an eye contact with the purple pony.
Kreps stifled. Getting rid of the compound covering his arm was impossible. All he was doing was spreading it like butter. German saw that Maria and Ray had it onto their clothes; the kid had tried to wipe his hands too.

“It doesn’t work,” Twilight noted, surprised.

“What?” Kreps replied sardonically. “That you haven’t killed me?”

“No… You…” – Twilight stepped back, the creature's tone was unsettling –.

Kreps, with rolled-up sleeves moved forward and faced the purple unicorn with stern eyes. She was half his size. He was going to hit her with a punch.
However, his belly growled and ached so hard he bent slightly and his feet failed him. He fell on the ground. His head was dangling and titling intermittently.

“I must be hallucinating…”

Nopony responded.

Suddenly the glowing purple substance started shaping, spreading on Kreps’s whole body. He panicked as a hissing sound popped out of nowhere. He began convulsing in fear. Looking at his friends and Verdugo, he saw the same phenomenon had happened to them. They were all trying to get rid of the substance.

A flash occurred and then… the primates were nowhere to be found.

“Twilight?” Rarity asked, bemused.

Twilight giggled. Not because of the situation was funny, even if Pinkie started laughing genuinely… but because she had witnessed something all brand new for her. Her magic had gone crazy.

“It was supposed to make him go to sleep…”

Meanwhile, the changeling had slid in the opening, flying away of the Mane Six and the five strange creatures.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

A crack exploded in the air, followed by four screams and a grunt. In a smog of dust and dirt they fell on a white tiled floor. Each one bounced painfully or slid somewhere in the new found room. Around them was standing imposing tables which were displayed hundreds meals. Many pairs of eyes stared at them, horrified.

Verdugo crashed himself in the front of the most massive table of the room. Face against the polished granite of the floor, he was leaning on his wounded shoulder. He complained, struggling to not pass away. Something poked him and he found himself turned over. He looked up at the ceiling. Two beings were looking at him. Both were winged unicorns apparently.
Verdugo’s eyes wandered on each face. His vision was desperately troubled. But he stopped on Luna. He scrutinized the blue-coloured creature.

“Hi fella’ how do you do since the last time?”

Luna’s eyes widened, growing to the size of bowling balls. By reflex she groped her neck.

She rushed like a lightning bolt under her buffet and started crying. She was utterly terrified. Celestia and every other pony in the room fixed their gaze on the intruders.

Few gulps of stress echoed.

Old Version:

It all started with simple mumbling. Initiating a simple rhythm, the music spread swiftly in the air. The mumbling became a whistle and it evolved into a true song. The lyrics were low-pitched, and the end of each verse nearly hissed. The lines were modulated in speed and tone. To an attentive ear, the singer was awkwardly messing with the modern rhyming poetry and the ancient Latin hexameter, ending with a strange fable.

“Unable to clearly remember
His conscience fades away
Making way for a pregnant hunger

This heavy tension floods his hand
His distorted scars itches
And his body dwells on this land
Coughing scores of ashes

It’s Impossible to turn over
He feels this deep necessity
And all hear the truth, rough

As there’s no harsh enmity
Without eerie difficulty
Will it never be enough?

There standing and distracted
All like sheep gathered
Alike, chased and tracked
Their life slowly withered…

A short pause followed. Then the sweet whistle came back, printing a similar pace to the song. The singer’s voice was thin and maybe, too smooth.

…As there’s no war
Without an ugly hatred
Rises the angry monster
Merciless he has long wander’

The vocalist snapped his fingers to go hand in hand with the lyrics. The unsteady rhymes accelerated. And in the end, it only worked to make the song unbearable to hear.

On this bleak acre…”

“Your voice is pretty ugly you know! And your song is bad.”

Maria’s stare was clearly telling that he should feel bad too. Kreps cursed his friend for being so heartless and of course, tasteless. He knew his singing was unpleasant to other’s ears. But having this harsh reality being pointed out was not something he appreciated.

“You’re all so silent,” Kreps complained. “It’s about to become a real pain in the ass!”

“And it’s the geek who wants us to be cheerful? Where is the world going?” Maria laughed.

She glanced at her two other friends. Ray and Verdugo were carrying the metal case. Pain wrinkled their exhausted faces.

“No… really…” Kreps stuttered, wiping sweat off his forehead. “Look around, no bandits, no cadavers, no wreckages and chemicals, just a good old golden wheat field. It’s warming up!”

Silence welcomed him. The surroundings were way different than the greyish, sorrowful and lugubrious atmosphere they were used to.

“Isn’t it… Guys?”

“Yeah,” Verdugo shrugged only to trigger a wave of pain in his shoulder. His eyes winked, tears about to burst. “Speaking of warming up, it’s your shift.”

He and Ray dropped off the heavy box. The huge trunk banged noisily on the ground, crushing stems under its weight and blowing small wisps of dirt.
They cracked every painful joint of their aching limbs and started stretching their bruised muscles.

“Again?” Kreps infuriated. “Man, I'll end up a hunchback.”

“Like everyone else.” Verdugo replied with a smirk. “And my shoulder needs rest.”

Kreps wanted to protest, claiming asylum for his damaged ribs as Verdugo spat some viscous phlegm on the ground. Its colour was unusual, a pure dark red.
Kreps changed his mind when he looked down at the oozing bandages wrapping Verd’s naked torso. His friend was sweating horribly, trying to hide the pain the best he was able to.

“Okay, give me your spot…” Kreps sighed, rolling his eyes to the sky. ”At least you’re worth my pity.”

Verdugo grumbled, rubbing his wound.
Ray sat down between the tall ears of wheat. Only the top of his nut-haired head surfaced. A sound of creased paper rose. He had the map in his hands. Always struggling with unfolding it, Ray had the despicable habit to tear some holes in the paper, deteriorating the key item each day god was making.

“How far are we from the ruins?” Kreps grunted while he adjusted his grip on the case, searching for a ‘comfortable’ position.

“I thought…” Maria initiated doubtfully, looking at the opposite side of the field “… that we were two or three miles away from the castle. But I was wrong... We have one or two more to go.”

Kreps swore in his native language. Maria giggled. Ray was still fighting with the rebellious piece of paper. And Verdugo was quiet as a grave, as usual.

“Tag! you’re it Motherfucker!” Maria erupted, kicking away a small rock which ricocheted on the metallic case.

The bang tortured everyone’s ears. She laughed. But her smile died quickly when Ray, a cynical grin clearing his face, gave her a wink and pointed what she had just knocked. It was also her turn to carry the case.

“Maria?” Verdugo gritted.

Maria immediately stopped with her goings-on. The stern voice of her foster brother was enough to scare her.

“Yeah?” She said timidly.

“That thing… that castle… it’s pretty big. Are we that far from it? How tall should it be?”

Maria frowned, troubled, and stared back at the castle in the distance. Her eyes narrowed, and then swelled.

“It… Wow… I didn’t… maybe one, two hundred meters high,” she stuttered.

“Never heard of such a… thing in Austria. And you?” Verdugo asked Ray and Kreps, knitting his brow.

They denied en bloc, shrugging their shoulders. They all sighed hoping for a Deus Ex Machina which, they all knew, would never come. A heavy silence set up between everyone. Only the wind was blowing a gentle rustling through the wheat, breaking the eerie silence.

Letting out a loud breath, Ray lay down. He had decided to take a short nap. Worried by the recent events, he was struggling not to burst out those emotions.

Maria was scrutinizing every yard of the surrounding, ready to act in case a threat would show up. In this situation it was her role and she was playing it perfectly. Moving her head from right to left, then checking behind before coming back to what was standing in front of her. Quicker than anyone else, she had been named the “mangoose” by a random survivor in Italy. The surname had stuck to her since, inducing laughter in every person hearing it. Oh god she hated this alias!

On his own, Kreps looked at the young boy, studying him. The kid had remained silent ever since they met and was now well-hidden under the high grass. Kreps, with his logical spirit in action was troubled. He sought for the reason why the urchin was following his friends and him. Moreover, he queried mentally for the excuse to not get rid of him. The child was a worthless mouth to feed with a nearly nought return on investment. But Kreps was a man, and every man, even in the sickest place in the world would not be twisted enough to act in this sense. For the German, those who had done so in the past did not deserve the right to be called ‘human’ ever again.
Kreps sighed. Maybe Verdugo would have done it if his right arm was not at the moment a mess and a painful burden. Kreps knew it would have not been his first time. Verdugo also sported a surname. But this one, Kreps was keeping it to himself, it was ‘Our inner Misericorde’.

“Meh, even Verd’s knife would be useless to make you talk, wouldn’t it?” Kreps deadpanned.

The child buried his eyes behind clumps of grass. Kreps held his face with his hand and slid it off, depressed.

“Where have we put ourselves?” He sighed.

“Wherever your little box sent us,” Ray replied ironically with his eyes covered by his wrist, trying to protect himself from the sunbeams. “I’m convincing myself that in fact, we might be dead.”

As a response, a strong kick struck his ribs. He yapped. Opening his eyes, he stood up painfully. He held his side. Maria stuck out her tongue. Ray was absolutely not amused.

“From my point of view, it seems that you are indeed particularly awake but unfortunately unaware,” she sneered with a posh accent.

“You didn’t have to!” Ray groused.

“It. Is. Always. Tempting.”

Maria caught the soundless teenager grinning behind his hiding position. She returned his smile.

Everyone’s bellies growled. They were all tired, hungry and thirsty. ‘Another day in an apocalyptic world indeed’, they all thought. Surviving was a harsh and depressing experience when people pretended they could get their problems fixed all alone. Surviving was even more dangerous when you were in group. But at least there were advantages coming with such a condition to even the odds. You had people to talk to without expecting them to shoot you first in order to loot your body and carve up some steaks from your skeletal limbs. Sharing the same burden was the best way to describe friendship in the wasteland.

They all got up in silence and resumed walking toward the old remote structure, holding back their physiological needs once again with an effete hope for a better tomorrow.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

Fluttershy was hiking in the forest. Each branch cracking under her hooves made her more afraid than before. Jumping for every eerie sound, she feared being followed. She was in that part of the Everfree Forest where trees had wicked faces carved upon their trunks. She focused on the comforting advices of Pinkie.

“Guffaw at the grossly,” She muttered.

She took a long breath and let out a small, shy and cute laugh, not even a decibel high. She felt much better afterward. Or at least, she tried to convince herself she was. Whatever she did and however she looked as far as possible in the deep shadows of the forest, she never found a single wounded animal.
The falling rocks had cleared and scorched various parts of the surroundings. And if she had not known their unnatural cause, Fluttershy would have run away, thinking that an infuriated creature had carved the ground with its claws. And only Ursa Majors were technically capable of such devastation.

Fortunately, the shockwave which had swept across the valley and the forest had made every little creature run or fly away before the fall of the debris. She was reassured, but deep inside her she had to make sure nopony was left behind her care.
Following Luna’s demand, she had asked for help, getting Zecora in her tow until they separated to cover a larger portion of the Everfree. Now absolutely terrified and alone, she regretted this choice.

She was near the antique Black Castle, the palace Celestia abandoned thousand years ago after the War of the Everlasting Night when she defeated her corrupted sister. Fluttershy shivered as the name of Nightmare Moon surged in her mind. The image of the terrifying mare printed on her retina.

The castle was now destroyed and only the south wing remained nearly intact.

Something cracked behind her back. Fluttershy screamed, startled.

She had instantly ceased moving. Her eyes aimlessly staring around, she sought for the origin of the creeping noise. She panted heavily and looked under her. A small root was broken under her left hind leg.

She jeered swiftly and joked about her shyness. Everypony knew she was afraid of her own shadow.

Something flung her against a tree trunk. Fluttershy had been hit by an unknown threat, right in her flank. Stunned she saw three black forms emerging from the bushes. Three Changelings faced her, sniggering.

“Look what we found here. A fledging which fell from the nest,” The biggest one laughed, kicking Fluttershy down again.

His hooves, displaying sharpened holes and contours, cut Fluttershy’s fur. Tears of blood dripped on it.

“Wait, don’t waste the meat. I’m hungry,” his mate hissed, licking his lips.

A grin growing from ears to ears sprawled on his face.

“You… You don’t eat meat… Changelings don’t eat meat,” Fluttershy mumbled terrified.

The last Changeling pushed over his two friends. Dark green clumps were spreading over his back. He licked his left sharp incisive, his last one. And even smaller than his two ‘friends’ he was exuding authority, he was clearly the chief of the band.

“No we don’t eat meat, but you’re so despicable we could make an exception.”

Fluttershy burst into tears, curled on her stabbed flank.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” a twangy voice shouted.

Fluttershy turned over toward this Celestial providence.

“We saw her first!”

All her hopes broke down. Two Diamond dogs took up position out of the edge of the bushes, closing a circle around the pony whose face was soaked by her own tears.

“And instead of you, we really need meat to survive.”

A long and harsh argument startled every”pony” around Fluttershy. Hiding herself behind her hooves, she shrunk on herself from this unbearable pressure.
Gazing at every creature circling her she made a choice. Closing her eyes, Fluttershy took her courage in her hooves and spoke with a mighty voice, her excruciating stare as a means of pressure upon her opponents.

“You’re going to LEAVE ME ALONE!” She shrieked.

Every”pony” ’s eyes widened as they withdrew from the young pegasus. She sighed in relief while her opponents shivered around her. She stood up and gave a short and sarcastic laugh. Her eyes wide opened, her black pupils were swelled, similar to two black holes mesmerizing those who had the infortune to stare in.
Fluttershy always asked how the “stare” was like. Her animal had told her it felt being watched by a predator. She never understood why. Focusing, Fluttershy glared at her opponents, still backing from her location.

A hot breath ran on her shoulders.
The Diamond Dogs and the Changelings had never been looking into her eyes. They were staring over her head, utterly shaken and terrified.

When Fluttershy turned over, her eyes sunk into two yellow glowing orbs. A harsh grunt blew a sulphured haze onto her muzzle. Colour left her face. Even her eyes were washed-out of their natural colour, whitened by fear. The monster was way bigger than her, displaying large red scales and sword-sized sharp teeth.

Fluttershy, the Changelings and the Diamond dogs ran for their live, screaming, with the creature in their tow.

Two Changelings panicked, stretched their wings and tried to fly up in the sky. A gigantic claw knocked them down and they disappeared behind bushes in a horrific crackling of bones. The wisest of the Changelings, the one with tufts of mane tailgated Fluttershy. Nopony dared looking back; they were already giving ground to the creature.

In the course of an old path, the two Diamond dogs dived into one of their hole and escaped from the monster.

“If we separate he will hunt down only one of us, the other tries to get some help!” Fluttershy panted.

“You’re kidding right, I know well that Pegasi are faster than us and IT knows it well,” The changeling replied, breathless. “I’m no fool! I stay with you.”

The ground shattered right behind them. The monster had tackled the space where they were standing specks ago. Fearful they finally looked back, an orange light welcomed them. They started screaming. The sweat dried on their face.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

Walking along the edge of the forest, the group had decided to shorten the span of time between the pauses. Sitting on dead trunks bordering the fringe, Ray took advantage of the situation by reaping off wheat. He was thinking about making bread. Maria, Kreps and Verdugo were laughing their asses off. Stereotypes had a long life expectancy even in the so-called wastelands. And the one saying British people were poor bakers was one of them.

They heard a long hoarse roaring followed by the sound of a stampede and torn apart wood. They all crouched behind a mound. Not so far away from them, a flow of fire engulfed a large portion of the forest. Two high-pitched screams rose. Lying low, the five stooges watched with wondering looks casted on their face. Something emerged from the black smoke. They get struck… aback.

A red monstrous, cyclopean monster showing off huge wings was devastating the surroundings. It was chasing two preys well hidden by the high wheat. A second breath of fire lit up the place. Everyone winked to the heat. Even a thousand feet away from the flaming stream they were struggling looking at it without having their pupils dried out. The creature changed its path, still in the tow of whoever it was tracking.

“G… Gal… Gala… Gallimimus!” Ray whispered.

“Meat... Meat-eater? Meatosaurus?” Kreps replied, smiling genuinely.

They both get wacked on their foreheads.

“Stop the creepy references,” Maria pressed. “What is it?”

They all looked up again. The animal was indeed an incredibly big winged red lizard. Three times the height of a normal human, it was fifty feet long. Its belly was a bright blue, contrasting with its blood scales. Its teeth, razor-sharped, were digging a spooky hole in the field each time it tried to get its preys. But the most impressive was his wingspan. At a guess, it was nearly sixty yards wide. His whole mass was hiding the sunbeams and gloomy shadows were casted on the wheat field.

Everyone gulped, trying to disappear, digging the ground bare handed. They hope the fairytale creature would not notice them.

“A… A dragon,” Ray whispered with absolute incomprehension, his jaw dangling wide open.

“A wyvern!” Kreps corrected.

Everyone glared at him. Surprised by the look his friends had given to him, Kreps hissed with anger.

“Dragon, four legs and two wings. Wyvern, two legs and two wings. Therefore… it’s a wyvern.”

Kreps’s encyclopedic knowledge of an improbable amount of useless things was beyond any remarks from his friends.

They all scanned the monster. Indeed, it was running on its two massive clawed hind legs, slashing the surrounding with the pseudo-talons on the tips of its two wings of rough skin. It roared, exhaling a flow of bright orange fire which engulfed an acre of grains.
It was still chasing two shapes weaving in the field, too small to surface out of the ears of wheat. Screams were higher than ever before, hitting a new record in voice-induced noise pollution.

“So… What do we do?” Maria squeaked.

“We eat?” Verdugo stated, emotionless.

Everyone let out a loud cry of incomprehension. Their hearts were beating blood up to their temples. They had this strange fear dwelling in their bowels. This feeling something awful was going to happen.

“You’re crazy! Ain’t gonna touch that monster!” Ray stressed.

Drop of sweat ran on his face.

“Who cares about it, we wait until it kills the two…”

“Guys.” Kreps raised his voice.

“…things,” Verdugo continued after blocking Kreps’s mouth with his hand. “We just take the left-overs. Then…”

“MMmmMMMOuh!”

“What?”

The Dragon was approaching.

“Wyvern!” Kreps corrected again, really pissed off.

The wyvern had changed of direction and was now heading toward the humans’ hideout. Two paths were stamped in the grains in front of the wyvern’s jaw. It was moving directly on them.

“Oww shit…” Verdugo simply said, blasé.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

Fluttershy was running as fast as she can. She heard the jawbone slam behind her. She hoped the monster would not grab her tail.
On his own the Changeling was struggling to keep his pace, dying from exhaustion. He started swapping between running and flying low. Panting heavily, he was undoubtedly thirsty.

Fluttershy raised her head. In the corner of her eyes, she saw the border of the forest… It was a small spark of hope. They had made a quarter of the way to the other side of the field when the wyvern breathed his unbearable fire.
The changeling and Fluttershy turned left, going back to where they had come from. They had just deviated a little.

The border was there… really, really there. Fluttershy reached the last remnants of the wheat field and she suddenly stopped, her hooves drifting on the dirt.

Four scared stares fixed her in an expression of terror. The fifth was amused, repressing a kind of laughter. She snapped out of her surprise, jumped out and screamed so loudly the wyvern paused.

“AAAAAH!”

The five humans stared dramatically at the butter coloured pony. She had a light pink mane and was actually shrieking out loud the fear flooding through her veins… they just replied to her screaming with a louder one, in unison.

“AAAAAAAH!”

And finally the Changeling a bit late looked down at five smooth-faced creatures, all lying low, trying to hide from something. Something… The changeling had suddenly forgotten that really important something. The surprise had cleared his mind.
A drop of saliva slid on the Changeling’s head. A growl ensued and everypony, everybody and everyling stared up. Terror pervaded their faces, their minds washed out of every thought but running away.

The wyvern was not patient. Unexpected meetings were the least of its problems.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Hands up or hooves biting the dirt, they all started running recklessly through the thick forest.

“The castle!” A voice shouted over the thundering of every foot and hoof.

One stumbled, only to feel strong arms put him back on track, whatever he was a human or a pony. ‘Sometimes fear is the best of cement’. And it was not Verdugo’s quote, but Ray’s.
Through the trunks they saw a wall. They ran as fast as they could, approaching from the life-saving place. Maria squeaked in surprise when she felt a claw skirting her back.

They dived into a tall arch of stone. Broken in, the gate shaped the entrance of the castle.

Dirt was covering every inch of the place. A long spiral staircase was dwelling in the depths of the dark room, engulfed by spooky shadows. The wyvern tried to force its way inside with violent roars. But, being too huge, the walls of granite were holding it back for the moment. The place shook and stone chunks started falling from the ceiling.

In front of everyone's horrified eyes, the creature finally pierced the arch and rushed towards the seven insects split in front of him.
But somehow, it was already too late. These… ants rushed to the staircase and disappeared in the darkness.

Infuriated for having lost its dinner, the wyvern extracted itself from the wing of the antique castle. Everything crumbled down. It breathed its white-hot flaming rage onto the broken flagstone of the building and growled. Its claws shattered the ground and spread earth-quaking vibrations through it.

Furious, the wyvern continued for a couple of minutes, then abandoned. Howling in rage, it stretched its wings and in one blow leaped in the air. The creature disappeared in the sky, leaving behind it a massive disaster, a rising smog of ashes and dust, and of course seven preys buried under the castle.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

The night had come forth. Luna, Celestia, Prince Blueblood and other nobilities were gathered in the banquet room, attending to the usual weekly noble assemble, a formal denomination for a feast where everypony was, under cover of well-behaved manners eating greedily the best meals of Equestria.
Celestia of course was always happy to come. For her, the desserts and cakes were counterbalancing more than one hundred times the harsh obligation to be in the same place than those boring ponies standing around her.
On her own, Luna was not particularly thrilled about this situation. She had pleaded her sister to let her go to sleep. Last night had been really horrific and for once in eons, she wanted a true night of rest, where she was the dreamer and not a mere watcher. Celestia had gently refused, the weekly gathering was a tradition Luna could not afford to hack through.
Still shaking, the younger sister was hiding her stressful mindset quite well.

“So my dear Aunt, how the affairs in Canterlot and on extension in Equestria are going currently?” the Prince asked, breaking the unsettling silence.

“Oh my nephew, I’m so proud you’ve got an interest in something more compelling than verbally fencing with Sir Fancy Pants,” Celestia answered, levitating a muffin toward her plate, a slight smile on her cheeks.

The concerned unicorn raised his head. His stare unfortunately crossed the Prince’s hateful eyes. Glaring at each other, the other attendants of the feast swore they had seen foils clashing through the air. Both of them were always in a fancy and ancient-vocabulary emphasized verbal conflict.
Luna was surely right when she was picturing them as the most lackadaisical and boring duellists in the world.

“So…” Fancy Pants advanced.

Wiping the piece of fish he had on his lips with a handkerchief, he looked at Luna.

“I’ve heard that you had a nightmare last night? If it is not incorrect from me to ask you such irrelevant questions… I’ve still wondered what breed of nightmare an alicorn could have, and especially what dreams could affect… the princess of the Night.”

Luna gulped a gag. She was not prepared for this request. She stuttered.

“Well, you… thou see. My… Our nightmares are something… which shall remain out of range of mere ponies like you. Thou would not be able to stand one without losing your very sanity.”

Fancy Pant was not satisfied. He covered his mouth with a tissue and started pouting. Prince Blueblood tried to hide his amused smile. He could not restrain himself.

Fleur Dis Lee, standing at the right of her husband put down her silver fork and cleared her throat.

“Celestia, shouldn’t Miss Twilight Sparkle, your most faithful student and the Element Bearers be here, attending this magnificent meal with all of us?”

Luna’s and Celestia’s eyes crossed. Celestia sighed.

“Twilight and her friends are not able to attend this reunion because of the recent events in Ponyville. I have sent them in the Everfree Forest.”

Some ponies gasped. A long silence settled and no fly were in the air to buzz around.

“I wanted them to check something really important.”

Nopony protested, but they all knew that meant nothing but forthcoming problems. Behind their fake smiles, Luna and Celestia were worried about Fluttershy. They had sent her alone in there. The five other bearers had entered the forest a day later.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

Coughs echoed in the cave. The lack of light was oppressing. Surrounded by the dust and dirt, everyone and… everypony were groping the floor, searching for a landmark. A scratch broke the silence. A small flame radiated for ten seconds, illuminating faintly a hand and the man who was holding the match. Ray sneezed involuntary and blew out the flame. He started becoming agitated. A sliding sound followed by another crack disturbed the ambience once again and a new flame came to life.
Kreps, Maria and the boy joined him around the match. They were all ghoulish, panting with difficulty and covered in dust. Worse, Maria was hyperventilating. Ray crawled to her and grabbed her shoulders. He tightened his hands around them after he had handed the box of matches to Kreps, who lit another one.

“Breath in, Breath out… slowly.”

Ray mimicked the manoeuvre, swelling out his chest before letting all the air in go out. This game lasted for few minutes until Maria’s hoarse respiration came back to normal.

Kreps tried to get up only to bang his head against an upper limit. He probed the darkness with his hands and sensed a biased ceiling. It had crumbled down over them. Kreps feared they might have been trapped in this underground place. He shivered. He was not claustrophobic, or at least had thought he was not.
He swore, now he remembered that they had left the case with all the weapons in the field, outside. However, the “radioactive” box was still hanging in Maria’s backpack.

Standing up, a sudden pain whirled inside his ribs. He bowed, overwhelmed by this aching enveloping his chest.

While Ray was caretaking Maria, Kreps caught a small green light in a corner or the large cave, maybe thirteen yards from his position. Careful about not banging his head or his feet on an obstacle, he dragged himself to the location. He inhaled deeply, trying to get over the acute pain.

The spectacle struck him. There was Verdugo, lying on the ground and sweating a river. He moaned in pain. And next to him, two strange creatures were watching him, eyes widened, immobile and afraid of Kreps’s friend. The light, green, was coming back and forth, surging from the… the horn of the second creature. Its body was covered by a thick bug exoskeleton. It was a quadruped and had… two fly-like wings on his back, buzzing intermittently.
Kreps could not find a word to describe this creature whose shape was still something he knew, somehow. When his stare stopped on the second creature he found the name, Ponies.

The second pony had a butter-coloured fur and a full light pink mane. It was a pony, no doubt about it, but there was slight changes compared of what was dwelling in his memories. Its eyes were bigger, its skin and fur were smoother. And finally of course, the colour was something Kreps had never seen before. He arched a brow. The pony had a tattoo over her femur. It was a strange branding, showing three pink butterflies. The colours were pallid as the only light was a sick green glowing.

Deep in the shadows, the human was unnoticeable. The light sprouting from the black creature was too weak to reach him.

“What is… that?” A voice rose.

Kreps, hearing a buzzing voice sought around him to find the origin. There was nothing. When his stare came back on his friend and the two… ponies, he saw the yellow one poking Verdugo’s leg, who growled in return. The pony jumped back afraid, and then… it… she spoke.

“I have absolutely no idea,” the female voice said.

Kreps giggled; he had seen the pony’s muzzle and mouth move. Kreps always had a scientific mind, relying on logic. He was staring down to something he had always believed impossible. He rubbed his eyelids, questioning the reality of the situation.

He had made too much noise. Both ponies’ heads were watching in his direction.

“Who? Who’s there?” The black armoured pony asked.

Kreps hesitated, a first contact was dangerous, but Verdugo needed him. A small pond of blood was running off his shoulder. Kreps took a deep breath and surfaced from the shadows.

The changeling and Fluttershy gasped, stumped. In front of them was standing a tall and ugly shaved creature, covered in dust, blood and rubbish. He was wearing greyish rags like the creature lying on the floor. And both of them reeked atrociously.

“You’re standing on blood.” The creature noted.

Fluttershy and the Changelings were startled. The creature talked! Gasps echoed again when they finally looked down. They were toddling in a thick dark red puddle. The Changeling jumped outside, revolted.
Fluttershy on the other hoof panicked. Standing on her two hind legs she screamed and tried to wipe the blood… over her fur, making things worse than they already were. Panting loudly and erratically, she stumbled and fell on her flank few feet from the healthy creature.

Fluttershy eyes narrowed as the creature’s clawless talons clasped her neck and muzzle.

“Shut up! The wyvern can come back! Shut up ‘r I’ll kill you,” it urged.

Its pupils narrowed. He was scared too. Fluttershy started crying, her sobs held back down her throat. After a couple of seconds, the primate released its grasp on Fluttershy’s neck. Yet, he kept his hand tightened on her muzzle. It was thinking.

“You scream, we’re dead! Understand?” The creature stressed.

Fluttershy nodded. The bipedal creature looked around and its stare glared daggers at the Changeling. The assessment was also applying for him.

The creature freed the pony. It rushed to the one lying on the floor. Maybe it was its friend. The… primate… was sweating, stressed about the whole situation. It put off one of his rags and gave it to Fluttershy, to wipe herself.

“Name’s Kreps.”

“Fluttershy,” She replied, her voice so low even the cave was not able to echo it.

Kreps did not answer; too busy looking at Verdugo’s wound. The green light enshrouding the Changeling’s horn was of a crucial importance.
The changeling was frowning, nopony had asked his name.

Kreps focused on his task. Ripping off the remains covering his friend’s torso, Kreps displayed Verdugo’s wounds to Fluttershy and the bug-like pony’s to see. They held back a gag.
The wound was ignominious. The stink? Unbearable. Was it gangrene spread onto it or some eggs of corpse flies? It might be both. Fluttershy and the Changeling were disgusted.

Kreps was stunned. Not moving, not shaking, he was immobile, eyes widened, pupils narrowed. His breath was short and quick.
He did not even notice Ray, Maria and the young boy gathering around him, looking back and forth between Verdugo, Fluttershy and the Changeling. His friends’ vision was blurred. They had clearly lost their grasp on reality. They were unable to think clearly.
A long silence only paced by the moans of pain of Verdugo settled between everyone. The pony and the changeling withdrew in the shadows.

“I’ve still a bullet left in my gun,” Ray stated, resignation casted on his face.

He was going to cry. Maria gazed at him with hatred, anger and sadness.

“I won’t let you touch him! You’re gonna have to get over my dead body before you dare touch him,” She started crying, shouting in disbelief. “There must be something to do.”

“You said yourself we don’t have nothing left to treat it. He. Is. Dead.”

Ray and Kreps sighed. Verdugo was indeed dying. No matter what they would do, no matter how hard they would try… It was over. Kreps stared in Ray’s eyes, wet with tears. He nodded. Ray drew his gun out and put it in his friend’s hands.
Maria screamed and tried to fight back. Ray held her back and hugged her. She cried, tending her opened hand toward Verdugo. Her sobs were earth-shattering; her complaint, heart-breaking.

Fluttershy and the Changelings had stepped back. They began to understand what was going to happen. They shivered, afraid, not daring to make a move. They were going to witness a murder. Was it absolutely barbaric, or the kindest act they would ever watch, they wondered. Relieving somepony from his deadly envelop, from an unbearable pain, was it really a murder?

Fluttershy wanted to protest but the look on the creatures’ faces was horrific. They had the aspect of bags of bones. They gave her the impression to be walking deads. Fear faded in Fluttershy’s eyes. She only had pity for these five creatures. She imagined what kind of ordeal they had to survive. But it was in vain, her mind was not twisted enough to envision their suffering.

The changeling on the other hand understood. It was survival and starvation… only survival and starvation. He could read it in the creatures’ features. Somehow, he found them less ugly now, this impression replaced by the same pity he had for his own kin and kind.

With a shaking hand, Kreps stood over Verdugo. The lying body opened his eyes, whispering. He was in pain. Did he beg for something? Kreps will never know. He raised the gun, aimed at Verdugo’s forehead and move his finger on the trigger. He breathed in and unable to stare into those glaring eyes, Kreps turned his gaze and prepared himself for the detonation.

A clicking occurred, followed by a loud cracking sound.

Kreps looked at his gun. He had not shot yet.

A huge block of granite fell on the floor few meters away from everyone and everypony.

“Fluttershy?” A voice echoed like through a tunnel. “Fluttershy?”

“I’m here.” the yellow pony responded.

Ray and Maria gasped. They were face to face with a talking animal. The colour was unusual indeed, but they had seen strangest things before. But a talking pony… it was record breaking. They also caught the fact that the pony, apparently called Fluttershy had wings. They wiped their eyes, trying to figure out the catch in this story.

Still standing over his friend, Kreps saw in the dim darkness five pony-like shapes going down. All were of a different colour. Some had a horn, one had wings and the last one, whose fur was purple-tainted, had both of these strange items.

Everyone’s and everypony’s gazes met. A long, unpleasant silent bathed the cave. Ray caught the purple pony counting, her lips were moving.

“Five…” She whispered.

Twilight cleared her throat. She tried to choose her words wisely, trying to be convincing or at least seem friendly.

“Would you be so kind as to follow us to Canterlot’s Castle? There are ponies who want to see…”

Twilight looked down at the “talons” of the nearest creature. It was displaying a strange metallic object formed of a tube. And the hollowed cylinder was pointing at somepony of its kind, lying on the ground.
Then Twilight witnessed all the blood on the floor. Her eyes lay on Fluttershy, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. She saw her friend partially covered in the same fluid. Anger replaced the clumsy kindness in Twilight’s stare.

“What have you done to her?” She grinned.

On the inside, Twilight started panicking, what if they were monsters? Predators? Anger swamped her mind, she took an offensive stance, stomping the ground, lifting up dust with her loud breath. The creature aimed at her with the strange tool. The primate was clearly disoriented, his belly was growling. Twilight caught herself asking mentally in which situation she had stepped. Everypony looked at the three other primates detached from the first two.

Two of them were hugging each other, one was clearly sobbing. Tears twinkled in the shadows. The pitch in its voice meant it was a female. And the last one was… a child. He was isolated from the rest of its herd.

Twilight’s stare came back to the nearest monster, the one carrying the strange gadget. Bemused, the creature panicked when the five rescuing ponies stepped further. It pointed by turn everypony and then finally aimed at Fluttershy.

“Don’t come closer or she dies,” It panted loudly.

Drops of sweat ran on his forehead. Kreps was thinking as fast as he could. He had only one bullet left. If he shot, they would fight back and this would be the end. If he did nothing it was the end too. He bit his bottom lips to the blood.

Twilight saw its canines and incisors. They were predators of course, like hydras or manticores. She would not mind it in another situation. Even if she usually disliked the species which had to eat meat, she always kept in mind Fluttershy’s words, that it was part of nature. But in this situation, Twilight had two gore ideas bouncing in her mind, disturbing her from thinking clearly.
Either these creatures were cannibals and this would explain why one was lying on the ground; or they had fight to know who would eat her friend first. In both cases it was enough to act and depict these primates as sub-sentient. They were just a pack of predating animals.

A pink light beam flew through the air and ejected the gun from Kreps’s hand which slid in the darkness. Taken by surprise, Kreps looked back at the pony. He saw her horn glowing a deep purple light.
A second beam rushed to him. He tried to protect himself with his hand…

Opening his eyes a second after, Kreps checked his own body, searching for a hole somewhere, a vivid pain in his chest or a chunk of metal in his head. There was nothing. He stared, surprised, at his forearm. The purple light had stuck itself on his skin, still glowing.

Twilight was confused, her spell had not worked.

Kreps shook his arm in disbelief. He tried to get rid of the strange substance which acted like sticky goo. He grunted. Kreps continued until his joints started cracking. Lacking of the knowledge to deal with it, hundreds of questions sprung in his mind.

All of a sudden a hand had grabbed his rags. He turned back and found the youngster facing him. The kid jumped and touched Kreps’s arm, the one engulfed in the glowing substance.
The liquid spread of the kid’s hand and he started laughing. Everybody and everypony was silent.
Kreps decided to try to wipe the substance on Verdugo’s trousers, keeping an eye contact with the purple pony.
Kreps stifled. Getting rid of the compound covering his arm was impossible. All he was doing was spreading it like butter. German saw that Maria and Ray had it onto their clothes; the kid had tried to wipe his hands too.

“It doesn’t work,” Twilight noted, surprised.

“What?” Kreps replied sardonically. “That you haven’t killed me?”

“No… You…” – Twilight stepped back, the creature's tone was unsettling –.

Kreps, with rolled-up sleeves moved forward and faced the purple unicorn with stern eyes. She was half his size. He was going to hit her with a punch.
However, his belly growled and ached so hard he bent slightly and his feet failed him. He fell on the ground. His head was dangling and titling intermittently.

“I must be hallucinating…”

Nopony responded.

Suddenly the glowing purple substance started shaping, spreading on Kreps’s whole body. He panicked as a hissing sound popped out of nowhere. He began convulsing in fear. Looking at his friends and Verdugo, he saw the same phenomenon had happened to them. They were all trying to get rid of the substance.

A flash occurred and then… the primates were nowhere to be found.

“Twilight?” Rarity asked, bemused.

Twilight giggled. Not because of the situation was funny, even if Pinkie started laughing genuinely… but because she had witnessed something all brand new for her. Her magic had gone crazy.

“It was supposed to make him go to sleep…”

Meanwhile, the changeling had slid in the opening, flying away of the Mane Six and the five strange creatures.

ϐ ϖ Ϙ ϕ Ϙ ϖ ϐ

A crack exploded in the air, followed by four screams and a grunt. In a smog of dust and dirt they fell on a white tiled floor. Each one bounced painfully or slid somewhere in the new found room. Around them was standing imposing tables which were displayed hundreds meals. Many pairs of eyes stared at them, horrified.

Verdugo crashed himself in the front of the most massive table of the room. Face against the polished granite of the floor, he was leaning on his wounded shoulder. He complained, struggling to not pass away. Something poked him and he found himself turned over. He looked up at the ceiling. Two beings were looking at him. Both were winged unicorns apparently.
Verdugo’s eyes wandered on each face. His vision was desperately troubled. But he stopped on Luna. He scrutinized the blue-coloured creature.

“Hi fella’ how do you do since the last time?”

Luna’s eyes widened, growing to the size of bowling balls. By reflex she groped her neck.

She rushed like a lightning bolt under her buffet and started crying. She was utterly terrified. Celestia and every other pony in the room fixed their gaze on the intruders.

Few gulps of stress echoed.

Apr. 2014 - Sweat, Flesh, Blood, And Bones - 3. The Sign On Her Flank

New Version:

They reeked like rotting flesh. The stench, forcing its way through their muzzles, slipped down their throats like thick and sick mucus. The witnesses gasped and held back the gag reflexes, hiding their faces from the atrocious spectacle displayed before their eyes. The smell was indescribable, unbearable. But their appearance was even more revolting. Disgust and malaise bloomed in the audience’s minds.
Five broken bags of bones had shattered in the room, given to see in a twisted play. Their features were ghoulish, wrinkled, ravaged… devastated. Fear bathed their disoriented eyes. They were abashed.

At the moment, the terror breaking through their souls was so pregnant it spread to the witnesses like a disease. Everypony stepped back in aversion.

The five creatures, all of different ages, genders and statures were crouched on the tiled floor. Dust had not fallen out yet the new environment startled them. Panting, hissing and ready to burst out in panic, they scanned their surroundings aimlessly. Intermittently, spasms plagued their limbs and tips.
Their complaints sprouted macabre thoughts in everypony’s heads.

The stench grew more and more oppressive. Yet, their look was still the most shocking as all became aware of their traits. Skinny like skeleton, the five primates manifested shaved bodies whose faces were circled by hideous manes. Three of them had scrubby beards, on it were stuck together dirt, dust, remains, and dried fluids. Their bloodshot eyes fixed one by one on the neighbouring ponies.

Finally, one of the creatures, the closest to Celestia and her sister, spoke. The words went out inaudible for most of the ponies.
Luna horrified them as she rushed under a table, her cheeks wet with tears. Celestia’s eyes were blurred and clumsy. She was mumbling something and did not even react when the creature grasped her hoof. It gave out under the weight of its wounds and fell into unconsciousness. The assembly held their breath in utter terror.Its hand slid on Celestia’s silky and pearly white fur, leaving a blood mark on its tow. She suppressed her craving to break away with a cry of fear.

Her stare turned back to another couple of creatures of this brand new species. They were regrouped in a corner of the banquet chamber. The first primate was undoubtedly a girl. She was surprisingly young but, paradoxically, awfully withered. An unending hunger had hollowed her features, branded by time and scars. Her narrowed hazel eyes snaked on the surroundings, unable to understand what was going on. She gasped at the sight of the ponies. And it was not in awe, but in horror. Their stares were eerily settled on her, it was unsettling, if not mind-wrecking.

“Don’t look at me,” she hurled, – the room became heavily silent –.

The waving mane of Celestia did not make the situation any better. Strange phenomenons were as scary as the unknown and the room was full of them.

The girl whirled her rags on her shoulders and deepened inside. Circling tightly her knees, her arms shivered. She began wobbling on her feet like a lunatic, biting her thumbs to the blood.
She was skinnier than her relatives and her widening eyes were of the most unpleasant to watch. The sinews of her neck convulsed. She buried her face in her arms. Was she crying?

Celestia moved away her gaze and set it upon the youngest of the five beings. It was still a foal, having no better words to qualify it… him for the moment. His face was a disturbing mix between, surprise, incomprehension and fear. His eyes fixed the noble ponies intermittently, but they always came back to the impressive display of food around them.

Food… the ponies and Celestia swore the fear in the creatures’ eyes was not due to the true existence of talking, multi-coloured ponies, but a consequence of their starvation. Right now, the four awaken creatures were questioning the true reality of the situation, the true pregnancy of this Pavlov’s spectacle harassing their senses.

A bang echoed harshly and everypony instantly gazed toward its origin. One of the primates was taking his due on the tables, spilling around drinks and breaking plates without a pinch of care. Biting with greed in the meals surrounding him, he was drooling hideously. His eyes widened. It was clear he had only one unique idea numbing its mind… eating.
A noble tried to intervene.

“Mister, you’re not allow…”

The animal grabbed a knife and struck it in the table, sinking the edge in the wood without even casting a glance of interest at the pony. His deed sufficed to shut everypony’s mouths.

“Just fall back,” the primate hissed uneasily, ripping off a mouthful of a bread stick. “Just get away.”

Crumbs got stuck in his beard or fell on his torn clothes. His eyes were tearful, clearly enjoying a basic need he had been deprived for far too long. He kept eating.

A cry broke the omerta. This time, Celestia focused on the girl. Some ponies held their breath. She ran over the white majestic alicorn and pushed her aside with a frail strength. A second wave of fear sprawled in the nobles. Celestia had been… pushed by a stinky creature without any sense of manner.

The girl kneeled near her dying friend and sunk her face in his tattered outfits. Her sob were muffled but still impressively moving in everypony’s hearts and ears.

The last primate standing was looking down at his friends. His face was distorted horridly by the lack of emotion casted upon it. He exuded incomprehension. Yet, showing much more restrain than the others, he scanned everypony around him and finally stared at Celestia.
His eyes were filled with cluelessness. He repeatedly swallowed his saliva while his head gave little shakes intermittently. Just looking at him was… earth-shattering.

“Please, tell me. Are we still on Earth?” Ray asked with hesitation.

His hands were trembling as were his stare. Tired, starving and with no frame of reference his eyes were blinking awkwardly. His movements were jolted.

“Earth? No…” Celestia replied with a disclosed surprise. “You’re in Equestria. What’s… Earth?”

“Did the uproar happen here?” he continued, pleading the alicorn without answering to her question.

“Uproar?”

“Safe… Are we safe?” He finally succeeded in asking this question, the question.

His voice was moving, a genuine hope slithering in his tone.

Hearing this word they had banished from their lexicon, Maria and Kreps went surprisingly silent. They raised their head in Ray’s and the alicorn’s direction. Their eyes were glaring supplications, soaked in a hope they hardly believed in.
Celestia stood back, gritting her teeth in awe. Their look was confusing. These creatures, apparently harmless had seen things… horrible things. Deep inside her soul she knew it.

“Y… Yes,” she replied.

The silence petrified the room. Slowly, every creature kept his gaze unsettlingly fixed on the regal sister as if she was a merciful god. A mighty being that had finally arrived to greet them and lead them to heaven.
Never had Twilight or her most devoted ponies looked at her this way. Her heart shattered in thousands of pieces. A cold anger nested in her bowels. She was angry at the one that had them suffer and go through Tartarus.

Ray’s eyelids lost their tension slightly. His mouth slowly dangled. A brief ‘thanks’ erupted from his dried lips. His eyes were shockingly bloodshot. He could not believe it. A part of him refused to accept the truth, convinced that everything was a deep and well-conceived deceit, a kind of hurtful joke. But he was facing undeniable facts.
He turned back to his friends. For once in a lifespan of surviving, Ray caught himself smiling genuinely. And it was not a smirk, nor a fake grin. It was… joy?

“Is… this really… over?” Kreps and Maria queried, tears flooding their eyes.

“It is over,” Ray nodded, giving a small laugh.

A long complain crawled out of their mouths. Their anxiousness, held for far too long, exuded from their skin. And cries crept out of their throat.
Kreps dropped his knife and cringed on the marble, holding his face in his hands. He tried to restrain hiccups and sobs. But he finally burst out, laughing and crying at the same time.
Maria was the most moving. She lost every speck of composure. Still riveted to her bleeding friend, she wet his torn garments with hot tears. Her cry was a hoarse howl to the one who had finally listened to her… that true one who had given them the right to escape their fate, to escape the hell. She had prayed to god each night of each day since the beginning of the uproar, their ordeal. She trembled, sobbing noisily, her eyes lost into the emptiness of space over Verdugo.

Ray circled his arms over Maria’s shoulders and comforted her. He was crying too, silently though. His shivers joined his friend’s little shakes. He tried to calm her down, but seeing this, Maria pushed him away. She refused to be cradled or touched.

Ray understood and looked back at Celestia. Facing the goddess, he leaned, pleading, thankful, nearly shameful.

“Thanks! Thank you… thanks… thanks…”

And he burst out too, crying all the suffering he had kept buried in his mind for so long. He curled up.

This day, their minds broke free, finally relieved from the pain, the fear and the hopelessness. Their howls of pain echoed in the hallways of Canterlot, alerting guards and ponies who was not attending the feast. The gates opened and a flow of ponies entered and lay their eyes upon the phenomenon, curious.

Many hearts dropped heavily in their chest. The spectacle was pitiful and somehow, atrocious to witness. At the hooves of Celestia, the five creatures had frozen in dread and sorrow. They had wet themselves in tears and fluids.

Nopony really knew how to react. Dealing with such traumatized animals was not something they were used to. They wished Fluttershy was here.

“Verdugo, stay! Please, stay with me… please…” sobbed a desperate voice.

Everypony focused. The girl hiccupped… she tried reanimating her friend. Her hands were clumsily running on his chest, spilling blood on her arms, splattering haemoglobin on the immaculate marbled floor. Whatever she did, she kept spreading blood over her until only her face and eyes were the last washed parts of her body. Shaking, her clothes slid upon her scarred skin. Rolling on her back, the rag folded limply on the ground.

Everypony felt something break inside themselves. Queasy, they looked down at a mark they knew so well. They oscillated between Fleur Dis Lee and the female primate. On her back was a fleur-de-lis… But it was not a cutie mark. It was a mark though… but it had been branded, carved in and on her flesh with a white-hot ember. It was cauterized since a long time. Under the sickening symbol was tattooed a number, fourteen.
Fleur Dis Lee covered her mouth. On the verge of throwing up, she trotted outside, stumbled in the threshold of the gate and disappeared in the hallway. Fancy Pants did not even follow her, he was frozen in shock.

Catching her breath the girl looked behind and understood what had created the eerie silent. She gasped and covered her back again. She returned to her sobs and her dying friends.

“Help them.”

Celestia’s voice ripped off the cold frame of this mad play. Eyes derived on her. Her stare was glaring at the guards, pressing them to urge. Her voice was regal, echoing in everypony’s heads.

“Call the nurse and help them, whatever the cost.”

The assembly caught tears springing under Celestia’s saddened eyes. Nopony dared raising a hoof against her statement. The situation was too heart-breaking to think clearly and it was going to be hectic if they did not act quickly.

A click slammed in the silence. Maria lifted her hands to her neck. She touched a strange object. She hesitated and stopped. She groped around. It was an unrefined irritating leather lace… like a leash.

Slowly, she turned on her feet in fits and starts.
Both of her hands tried to rip off the lace. Her two atrociously widened eyes were set upon a unicorn guard. His horn was slightly glowing yellow sparkles. And next to him, the tip of the leash was restrained by a twinkling mist of the same colour. He looked around, everypony’s face was silently pointing out he had maybe made the biggest mistake of his life, thinking it was just a simple animal like a dog… that a leash would be a good initiative.
Her cheeks and neck were contracting randomly. Anger… basic instincts was burning under her skin, gritting her teeth, maddening her eyes. The guard gulped. She leaped.

“Set me free!” she wailed.

Jumping on the pony she aimed for the neck, circling her fingers over it. She howled in awe and rage. A sick crack of bones twisted everypony’s ears. A scream broke out in the room. Their faces went ghoulish.

ϖ Ϩ π ϰ ϡ Ξ ϡ ϰ π Ϩ ϖ

Ray and Kreps were holding each other, trying not to stumble in the hallway as they were surrounded by guards. Their vision was blurred. Tears and exhaust had dealt the final blow. Their bodies were calling for rest. They had given up, nodding at each demand that was asked to them. Their mental health was broken. Everything should now be better than living in the wasteland. Their minds were somehow relieved of an unbearable burden. Not thinking was a kind of freedom at the moment. The guard was leading them through majestic places. They could not care any less, absorbed in their wishful thinking.

They had been conducted to caretaking rooms in Canterlot’s Hospital. Each in their own room they sat, motionless and passive like dummies.

Few hours passed…

“How are they doing?” Celestia asked, sorrowful.

She was looking through a massive and thick plate of glass. On the other side was the creature who had thanked her earlier. Two ponies were by his side, checking him, washing him and trying not to show their disgust.

In front of the door of the room, a couple of nurses was looking at a medical report. It was badly-written on a blank sheet. It had been done in a hurry. A stain of blood had wet the bottom of the page.

“This one will survive. In spite of his current physical state… malnutrition, diseases, parasites, infections, rashes and wounds…”

“Wounds?” Celestia raised her brows.

“Of many types,” the nurse kept going, listing macabrely. “Cuts, burns, twists, bruises, badly sewed gaps, old broken bones which were not well mended together… And it kept going on.”

The nurse stalked the creature through the opening.

“He is more like a walking corpse than anything else,” she stated, neutral.

“Did he…”

“He spoke indeed. They are… humans. His name is Ray, just Ray. He has an obsession on a few words he repeats over and over again… We gave him food, but he won’t be able to feed himself properly for a while. He and his siblings have been starving nearly to death. Lack of vitamins, of proteins, of glucoses, and apparently… of sunlight.”

Celestia’s heart fainted slightly.

“They all have a melanin malfunction.”

The second nurse accompanied her to the next one-way mirror. It was the second male… human. This one was lying down on a stretcher, unconscious. Doctors were in the middle of an gastric lavage. Celestia frowned in front of the unexpected spectacle unfolding before her eyes.
She looked at the nurse, a genuine interrogation on her lips.

“He had eaten too much in the banquet room, snatching everything he found. He drank too. If we don’t do this right now he will die from indigestion. His stomach wasn’t… ready to go back on this kind of diet.”

Celestia had a good insight of his appearance. These humans were bipedal creatures. They had fingers like dragons but were deprived of any talons or claws. Their skin was bare and some spots were sprouting clumps of fur. Their mane and beard were rough unlike ponies. The human was also covered of filth and scars. His ribs, only covered by a thin layer of flesh, were giving him the look of a mummy.
Randomly, his legs were startled by a strong shake. But this reaction to the unfair treatment the doctors were administering him did not last long.

Celestia sighed. She wanted to move on to another topic; or another human in that case.

They walked past an empty room. A scream broke out from the next open door, followed by a harsh yelp. Celestia and the nurse casted a glance inside.
The room was shining. Each speck of it had been cleared of any particle of dirt, there was not an ounce of air that had not been sterilized and everything was white. So white the light coming from the ceiling forced their eyes to blink a few times before being able to stand the brightness of the chamber. It was the medical care bathroom.

After a second look, not everything was as bright as expected. Curled in a corner was the young girl from before… her fingers were awfully twisted. Trying to choke the guard she had not even remarked the armour around his neck and her fingers had long snapped before the armour would. She was also bleeding and a small path was streaming on the ground down to the sink in the middle of the room.
She was hissing like a cat. Unveiling her bad teeth, incisors and canines shocked the ponies and Celestia.
The yapping had not been the girl’s deed, she was not bleeding. A nurse already present in the room had folded her hoof under her chest. It was her blood the strange species girl had on her face and clothes.
Celestia narrowed her eyes. A bite mark was clearly visible on the nurse’s fur. She was crying. The wound was really deep. Another nurse tried to come closer to the little monster. She withdrew quicker than she had moved forward.

“We’ve tried to wash her,” The tearful nurse sobbed.

“Leave me alone,” the princess ordered.

More than a pair of eyes lay on Celestia.

“No we can’t…”

“Leave me alone with… her.”

The nurses left half-heartedly.
The princess of the Sun closed the door behind them and let out a breath. It was a loud sigh coming from the deepest corner of her heart. She was clueless on how to manage such situation. She looked at the girl. She expressed pity for her. She was awfully… ungirly. All features making her a mare, or whatever the name this race had for this usage, had been ripped off. Just staring at her was a difficult experience. Celestia caught the girl crying. She was afraid.
Celestia was indeed intimidating. Bigger, taller and in some sort of way fatter than this poor girlish skeleton, she was impressive.

Celestia held her breath. Their stares had crossed.

She finally decided to sit down, five hoofsteps from the human. Her slender legs folded under her white coat. Celestia thought she would look less frightening this way. Experiencing fear from an all of white coated goddess in an absolutely stainless room, this idea kindled a spark of laughter in her mind.

“My name is Celestia,” She said slowly after a long pause. “What’s yours young filly?”

Her voice and her eyes were steeped in compassion and gentleness. She expected a reaction from the ‘human’ and she got it. The girl slowly raised her head. She was somehow fascinated by the princess mane which strands of hair were fluttering and sparkling in the air.
Celestia saw it. With a snap of her teeth, she cut few straws of her mane and let them float to the scared human with her telekinesis.

The creature waited for the lock to fall on the ground, and the magical glow to disappear. She waited again. And then Celestia blushed in shame. The human had raised her hands, showing they were both broken and crooked. The girl held back tears.

“I’m Maria…”

“Hello Maria, we’re here to help you. Nothing more… Nothing less.”

“Last time somebody told me that shit… he tried to… to…” She wept.

The words died behind her lips. Celestia was shocked, deeply moved. She refused to let a painful silence settle between them and definitely lock away the filly’s voice. She had to keep talking.

“I’m… I’m sorry, but you’re hurt and in pain. We need you to beha… to let us heal you.”

Celestia tried to find an incentive to push Maria to be more committed to this tragic situation.

“You can come with me and eat,” Celestia said, Maria’s eyes sparkled – she drooled slightly –. “…only if you let me watch your wounds and wash you.”

“Wash?”

These four letters struck Celestia so hard she restrained a retching with difficulty. Had the young creature suffered this much? Where was her parents, the care she should have been given? What kind of civilisation had cradled these… humans? The girl had taken a peak in a pond few days ago, Celestia had seen it. But drying slowly in the air after a bath in stagnant water was not something one called washing. Furthermore, she had gone through a huge physical effort which had left here filthy.
Celestia’s horn glowed a bright white and she grabbed few bandages set upon the closest sink.

“Show me your hoov… hands.”

Maria held them up. She bit her lips when Celestia got her fingers straight. The princess was impressed by her resistance to pain. Maria wiped few tears with the back of her forearm. She looked at her tips, wrapped tightly in cleaned gauze. She smirked.

“I would have done better,” she laughed with a melange of sarcasm and relief. “Th… Tha… thank you.”

“You’re welco…”

“What are you?” Maria cut her off, her voice suddenly stern and harsh.

“We are ponies… I’m an alicorn. And you girl?”

“I’m not a... girl. I’m a woman,” Maria replied, vexed.

“Your friends said you were humans.”

“Yeah, there is man and woman. We’re humans and there are men and women,” Maria said in a flash.

For a first time, it was hard to catch. Celestia promised herself to come back on this lexicon later.

“How can you talk?”

“I beg your pardon?” Celestia arched a brow.

“Yeah, from where I come animals don’t talk,” Maria stuttered.

“Well, you’re not on your world anymore I guess.”

Maria sniggered and gave out a shy laugh. She dried a tear rolling on her cheek and wiped the pony’s blood she had on her lips and chin.

“How did you do the glow?”

“The glow?” Celestia giggled. It was her turn to laugh. “You mean my magic?” – Maria gave her a creepy stare – “You… you don’t have magical powers?”

“I don’t even know it could exist in reality. Is… Is this real life?”

Celestia slid toward Maria and gave her little poke on her shoulder.

“It could not be truer.”

Celestia tried to be friendly and intended to make Maria laugh. But her stare was casting shadows. She started hissing again as horrific memories were brought back.

“Don’t touch me ever again.”

Celestia stepped back slowly.

“But I have to wash you…”

“Don’t…”

The white alicorn put her hoof on her chin, rubbing it. An idea popped in her mind.

“I won’t have to!”

Celestia fell back to the opposite side of the room, her horn started glowing. As did Maria’s torn clothes. She gasped and tried to keep them put on. But Celestia’s magic was too strong for her limp skeletal bones. She sobbed and gave in.

“Okay, just… just close your eyes,” Maria surrendered.

“I may hurt you if…”

“Please,” Maria’s eyes were begging her new friend to accept this condition.

Maria had hidden her back since the beginning, dissimulating this horrid symbol carved upon her.

“You saw it?”

“Yes,” Celestia confessed, swallowing her saliva.

Having the correctness not to ask what it was she anticipated Maria’s next plea.

“I will ask everypony to keep it silent about it. I’ve seen you dissimulate it from your friends,” – Maria suddenly lost the tension in her shoulders – “But someday you’ll have to show them… and tell them and to us what it is. It is harmful to keep such burdens and carry them along the way of existence.”

Celestia could not get rid of Fleur-Dis-Lee’s troubled face when she had left the banquet room. She would be a spine in the foot.

“Yeah, someday,” Marias’s voice died in a disappointing silence, evasive.

Celestia closed her eyes. With her magic she slid the rags off Maria’s skin. She grabbed a towel, a flannel and soap. Groping the wall she found the tap. Switching it on, she smiled, hearing the lapping of water. A flow splashed heavily on her head. The warm stream ran over her mane and fur. Maria laughed.

This time Celestia found the good tap. Maria yelled.

“What’s wrong Maria?”

“It’s… nothing. I forgot what clean water… warm water feels like.”

Celestia nodded in silence, her eyes still closed. Using the soap she started rubbing Maria’s back. Even with her magic and through the thick fabric of the flannel she felt the bruises, the gaunt and scars on her skin. She shivered as she ran over Maria’s bones, right beneath the thin wrinkled flesh.

“How old are you?” Celestia said, putting an end to the silence.

“Seventeen,” she replied.

Maria’s belly growled.

“I’m hungry.”

“I am too, to be honest you appeared right in the middle of our diner,” Celestia giggled.

“Do I owe you something for the hospitality?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Celestia stood proud. “Here help is priceless and is better given than sold.”

“Everybody pays but nobody knows the price,” Maria replied, cryptic.

Celestia’s ears twitched. Slight vocabulary differences existed between their idioms. It was small but still interesting to notice.

“I want to see Verdugo,” Maria ordered.

“Who?”

“Verdugo, my friend.”

Celestia guessed she was talking about the deadly wounded man. She had not seen him yet but the nurses and doctors should be focusing on him at the moment.

“Don’t worry, he is in good hooves, but even I won’t be given the right to see him before he has been… fixed.”

Celestia turned off the tap and gave Maria the towel to wrap her in.

“Can I open my eyes now?”

Maria quickly wrapped herself and then replied.

“Yes.”

Celestia opened them. She blinked a several times to get rid of the pain the light was dealing to her retina. She might be the Princess of the Sun, but she still had a corporeal envelop. And therefore, she was bound to its weaknesses.
Maria’s filthiness had been washed away. The water flowing from her legs was black… Celestia’s eyes widened. It was really black! She chuckled.

Maria went through a complete change. Gotten rid of the muck, her skin was smoother and was somehow tanned. Her wet hair had dropped on her shoulders, sprawling over her skin. It was dark brown, as were her eyes. Celestia could not tell if she was beautiful. She was not aware of “human’s standards”. Yet she was able to say Maria had moved at least from the ugly part of the scale to the average one. Meanwhile Celestia had kept her eyes shut Maria had wrapped her arms and legs in tightened bandages and herself in a long white towel.

They stood up. Maria flagged and fell on the ground. She refused Celestia’s hoof.

“Give me something to help me walk. And something to put on.”

To put on? Celestia suddenly remembered every human was wearing clothes, even if it was stinking sweat and blood. A tradition? A social norm? The facts struck the princess, they had no fur. Celestia understood it was for protecting their bare skin from external aggressions.
Celestia ordered the nurse outside to give Maria a cane. They did and so, both the human and the alicorn went out in the hallway of Canterlot horsepital.

Having nothing to wear, Maria, still wrapped in the towel snatched a curtain of red silk from a window, without an ounce of care. She withdrew to the bathroom.
When she left it again, she had exchanged the towel for the fabric. It was much more comfortable and less humiliating. The nurses lifted their hooves to their foreheads. Celestia sighed gently. It was just a curtain after all. It was not as if she had skinned an animal to make a coat of it.

The nurse conducted Maria to the next hallway. Celestia had decided to take care of the other humans. A doctor, a unicorn, came up quickly.

“The wounded creature is now saved.”

“They call themselves humans,” Celestia nodded. “How is his state?”

“From now on, it is… stable.”

The doctor laughed to his own pun. Celestia smirked slightly.

“But seriously, the four creat… humans are safe now. Though the rehabilitation will take time. They went through Tartarus during their journey. I can’t even begin to imagine the horror they have suffered.”

“I can’t either.”

The doctor’s horn glowed a light pink and he drifted a report from his saddlebag to the air.

“The wounded human suffers from blood loss, gangrene and a huge bunch of different problems. He lost his right arm,” He brought up, embarrassed.

Celestia frowned in disgust.

“Lost? He can’t use it,” Celestia passed over quickly.

“No… we amputated it,” – Celestia’s features turned greenish –. “The gangrene would have killed him if we didn't. The wound in his shoulder was due to a projectile, which pierced it from side to side, shattered his scapula, cut the nerves toward his arm and obstructed some crucial veins. But I can’t identify what kind of weapon can deal such destruction.”

“With magic it will be easy to fix it,” Celestia sighed in relief.

The doctor gulped in discomfort.

“In fact, the human resists magic,” he said, trying to get rid of Celestia’s stunned look. “Not that he is immune to it. It’s just that magic becomes random when it is casted directly on him. We have been able to reconstruct the bone, but only time will help now. We can’t accelerate the process without jeopardizing his state.”

Celestia smiled. At least the human was not going to die. She had to inform Maria. She decided to change the topic.

“And the fifth human, the foal.”

“The… the fifth? They were only four of them in my service. I haven’t treated your last one. You didn’t bring him to me.”

Celestia got stuck in motion as she was going to leave. This was an issue, a very big problem. She bit her bottom lips in stress.

ϖ Ϩ π ϰ ϡ Ξ ϡ ϰ π Ϩ ϖ

Luna was sobbing on her balcony. She had finally raised the moon after a long day of intense emotions. The monster was in the castle. That true one who killed her in his dreams. And Celestia had given them a shelter...
Luna was doubtful. The other “humans” might not be bad people, but this one... She could not accept him roaming freely in the hallways of the castle, or even under her delightful night. He was a danger.

She extracted herself from her day-dreaming, beneath her tower she saw Twilight and her friends running toward the gate of Canterlot. Fluttershy was limping, a hoof folded on her flank.

She sighed and guessed the Mane Six wanted to talk to Celestia about the ‘new guests’.

She was tired. Two days she had not slept. She toddled to her couch. Dark rings circled her eyes and she was ready to collapse on her silky bed linen.

The kid was there.

Luna’s eyes widened, scared. The child, the human child was on her bed and… Luna saw her teddy-bear in the creature’s arms. He was petting it. The urchin saw her, stuck out his tongue and tightened the plush toy in his hands.

Luna tilted her head, she was absolutely not amused.

“Drop it! It’s mine!”

The child raised a brow and stand up, creasing the perfectly tided sheets. He was smiling eerily at the Princess.
He moved forward.

“Don’t come closer,” Luna stressed.

The child tends his chubby hands to the Alicorn, trying to reach her.
Luna hissed. The child was now standing between her and the door.

“Help?” Luna complained. “Please, need some help!”

Her call faded in the air, nopony was here to listen to her.
The child started toddling toward Luna. She panicked.

Old Version:

They reeked like rotting flesh. The stench, forcing its way through their muzzles, slipped down their throats like thick and sick mucus. The witnesses gasped and held back the gag reflexes, hiding their faces from the atrocious spectacle displayed before their eyes. The smell was indescribable, unbearable. But their appearance was even more revolting. Disgust and malaise bloomed in the audience’s minds.
Five broken bags of bones had shattered in the room, given to see in a twisted play. Their features were ghoulish, wrinkled, ravaged… devastated. Fear bathed their disoriented eyes. They were abashed.

At the moment, the terror breaking through their souls was so pregnant it spread to the witnesses like a disease. Everypony stepped back in aversion.

The five creatures, all of different ages, genders and statures were crouched on the tiled floor. Dust had not fallen out yet the new environment startled them. Panting, hissing and ready to burst out in panic, they scanned their surroundings aimlessly. Intermittently, spasms plagued their limbs and tips.
Their complaints sprouted macabre thoughts in everypony’s heads.

The stench grew more and more oppressive. Yet, their look was still the most shocking as all became aware of their traits. Skinny like skeleton, the five primates manifested shaved bodies whose faces were circled by hideous manes. Three of them had scrubby beards, on it were stuck together dirt, dust, remains, and dried fluids. Their bloodshot eyes fixed one by one on the neighbouring ponies.

Finally, one of the creatures, the closest to Celestia and her sister, spoke. The words went out inaudible for most of the ponies.
Luna horrified them as she rushed under a table, her cheeks wet with tears. Celestia’s eyes were blurred and clumsy. She was mumbling something and did not even react when the creature grasped her hoof. It gave out under the weight of its wounds and fell into unconsciousness. The assembly held their breath in utter terror.Its hand slid on Celestia’s silky and pearly white fur, leaving a blood mark on its tow. She suppressed her craving to break away with a cry of fear.

Her stare turned back to another couple of creatures of this brand new species. They were regrouped in a corner of the banquet chamber. The first primate was undoubtedly a girl. She was surprisingly young but, paradoxically, awfully withered. An unending hunger had hollowed her features, branded by time and scars. Her narrowed hazel eyes snaked on the surroundings, unable to understand what was going on. She gasped at the sight of the ponies. And it was not in awe, but in horror. Their stares were eerily settled on her, it was unsettling, if not mind-wrecking.

“Don’t look at me,” she hurled, – the room became heavily silent –.

The waving mane of Celestia did not make the situation any better. Strange phenomenons were as scary as the unknown and the room was full of them.

The girl whirled her rags on her shoulders and deepened inside. Circling tightly her knees, her arms shivered. She began wobbling on her feet like a lunatic, biting her thumbs to the blood.
She was skinnier than her relatives and her widening eyes were of the most unpleasant to watch. The sinews of her neck convulsed. She buried her face in her arms. Was she crying?

Celestia moved away her gaze and set it upon the youngest of the five beings. It was still a foal, having no better words to qualify it… him for the moment. His face was a disturbing mix between, surprise, incomprehension and fear. His eyes fixed the noble ponies intermittently, but they always came back to the impressive display of food around them.

Food… the ponies and Celestia swore the fear in the creatures’ eyes was not due to the true existence of talking, multi-coloured ponies, but a consequence of their starvation. Right now, the four awaken creatures were questioning the true reality of the situation, the true pregnancy of this Pavlov’s spectacle harassing their senses.

A bang echoed harshly and everypony instantly gazed toward its origin. One of the primates was taking his due on the tables, spilling around drinks and breaking plates without a pinch of care. Biting with greed in the meals surrounding him, he was drooling hideously. His eyes widened. It was clear he had only one unique idea numbing its mind… eating.
A noble tried to intervene.

“Mister, you’re not allow…”

The animal grabbed a knife and struck it in the table, sinking the edge in the wood without even casting a glance of interest at the pony. His deed sufficed to shut everypony’s mouths.

“Just fall back,” the primate hissed uneasily, ripping off a mouthful of a bread stick. “Just get away.”

Crumbs got stuck in his beard or fell on his torn clothes. His eyes were tearful, clearly enjoying a basic need he had been deprived for far too long. He kept eating.

A cry broke the omerta. This time, Celestia focused on the girl. Some ponies held their breath. She ran over the white majestic alicorn and pushed her aside with a frail strength. A second wave of fear sprawled in the nobles. Celestia had been… pushed by a stinky creature without any sense of manner.

The girl kneeled near her dying friend and sunk her face in his tattered outfits. Her sob were muffled but still impressively moving in everypony’s hearts and ears.

The last primate standing was looking down at his friends. His face was distorted horridly by the lack of emotion casted upon it. He exuded incomprehension. Yet, showing much more restrain than the others, he scanned everypony around him and finally stared at Celestia.
His eyes were filled with cluelessness. He repeatedly swallowed his saliva while his head gave little shakes intermittently. Just looking at him was… earth-shattering.

“Please, tell me. Are we still on Earth?” Ray asked with hesitation.

His hands were trembling as were his stare. Tired, starving and with no frame of reference his eyes were blinking awkwardly. His movements were jolted.

“Earth? No…” Celestia replied with a disclosed surprise. “You’re in Equestria. What’s… Earth?”

“Did the uproar happen here?” he continued, pleading the alicorn without answering to her question.

“Uproar?”

“Safe… Are we safe?” He finally succeeded in asking this question, the question.

His voice was moving, a genuine hope slithering in his tone.

Hearing this word they had banished from their lexicon, Maria and Kreps went surprisingly silent. They raised their head in Ray’s and the alicorn’s direction. Their eyes were glaring supplications, soaked in a hope they hardly believed in.
Celestia stood back, gritting her teeth in awe. Their look was confusing. These creatures, apparently harmless had seen things… horrible things. Deep inside her soul she knew it.

“Y… Yes,” she replied.

The silence petrified the room. Slowly, every creature kept his gaze unsettlingly fixed on the regal sister as if she was a merciful god. A mighty being that had finally arrived to greet them and lead them to heaven.
Never had Twilight or her most devoted ponies looked at her this way. Her heart shattered in thousands of pieces. A cold anger nested in her bowels. She was angry at the one that had them suffer and go through Tartarus.

Ray’s eyelids lost their tension slightly. His mouth slowly dangled. A brief ‘thanks’ erupted from his dried lips. His eyes were shockingly bloodshot. He could not believe it. A part of him refused to accept the truth, convinced that everything was a deep and well-conceived deceit, a kind of hurtful joke. But he was facing undeniable facts.
He turned back to his friends. For once in a lifespan of surviving, Ray caught himself smiling genuinely. And it was not a smirk, nor a fake grin. It was… joy?

“Is… this really… over?” Kreps and Maria queried, tears flooding their eyes.

“It is over,” Ray nodded, giving a small laugh.

A long complain crawled out of their mouths. Their anxiousness, held for far too long, exuded from their skin. And cries crept out of their throat.
Kreps dropped his knife and cringed on the marble, holding his face in his hands. He tried to restrain hiccups and sobs. But he finally burst out, laughing and crying at the same time.
Maria was the most moving. She lost every speck of composure. Still riveted to her bleeding friend, she wet his torn garments with hot tears. Her cry was a hoarse howl to the one who had finally listened to her… that true one who had given them the right to escape their fate, to escape the hell. She had prayed to god each night of each day since the beginning of the uproar, their ordeal. She trembled, sobbing noisily, her eyes lost into the emptiness of space over Verdugo.

Ray circled his arms over Maria’s shoulders and comforted her. He was crying too, silently though. His shivers joined his friend’s little shakes. He tried to calm her down, but seeing this, Maria pushed him away. She refused to be cradled or touched.

Ray understood and looked back at Celestia. Facing the goddess, he leaned, pleading, thankful, nearly shameful.

“Thanks! Thank you… thanks… thanks…”

And he burst out too, crying all the suffering he had kept buried in his mind for so long. He curled up.

This day, their minds broke free, finally relieved from the pain, the fear and the hopelessness. Their howls of pain echoed in the hallways of Canterlot, alerting guards and ponies who was not attending the feast. The gates opened and a flow of ponies entered and lay their eyes upon the phenomenon, curious.

Many hearts dropped heavily in their chest. The spectacle was pitiful and somehow, atrocious to witness. At the hooves of Celestia, the five creatures had frozen in dread and sorrow. They had wet themselves in tears and fluids.

Nopony really knew how to react. Dealing with such traumatized animals was not something they were used to. They wished Fluttershy was here.

“Verdugo, stay! Please, stay with me… please…” sobbed a desperate voice.

Everypony focused. The girl hiccupped… she tried reanimating her friend. Her hands were clumsily running on his chest, spilling blood on her arms, splattering haemoglobin on the immaculate marbled floor. Whatever she did, she kept spreading blood over her until only her face and eyes were the last washed parts of her body. Shaking, her clothes slid upon her scarred skin. Rolling on her back, the rag folded limply on the ground.

Everypony felt something break inside themselves. Queasy, they looked down at a mark they knew so well. They oscillated between Fleur Dis Lee and the female primate. On her back was a fleur-de-lis… But it was not a cutie mark. It was a mark though… but it had been branded, carved in and on her flesh with a white-hot ember. It was cauterized since a long time. Under the sickening symbol was tattooed a number, fourteen.
Fleur Dis Lee covered her mouth. On the verge of throwing up, she trotted outside, stumbled in the threshold of the gate and disappeared in the hallway. Fancy Pants did not even follow her, he was frozen in shock.

Catching her breath the girl looked behind and understood what had created the eerie silent. She gasped and covered her back again. She returned to her sobs and her dying friends.

“Help them.”

Celestia’s voice ripped off the cold frame of this mad play. Eyes derived on her. Her stare was glaring at the guards, pressing them to urge. Her voice was regal, echoing in everypony’s heads.

“Call the nurse and help them, whatever the cost.”

The assembly caught tears springing under Celestia’s saddened eyes. Nopony dared raising a hoof against her statement. The situation was too heart-breaking to think clearly and it was going to be hectic if they did not act quickly.

A click slammed in the silence. Maria lifted her hands to her neck. She touched a strange object. She hesitated and stopped. She groped around. It was an unrefined irritating leather lace… like a leash.

Slowly, she turned on her feet in fits and starts.
Both of her hands tried to rip off the lace. Her two atrociously widened eyes were set upon a unicorn guard. His horn was slightly glowing yellow sparkles. And next to him, the tip of the leash was restrained by a twinkling mist of the same colour. He looked around, everypony’s face was silently pointing out he had maybe made the biggest mistake of his life, thinking it was just a simple animal like a dog… that a leash would be a good initiative.
Her cheeks and neck were contracting randomly. Anger… basic instincts was burning under her skin, gritting her teeth, maddening her eyes. The guard gulped. She leaped.

“Set me free!” she wailed.

Jumping on the pony she aimed for the neck, circling her fingers over it. She howled in awe and rage. A sick crack of bones twisted everypony’s ears. A scream broke out in the room. Their faces went ghoulish.

ϖ Ϩ π ϰ ϡ Ξ ϡ ϰ π Ϩ ϖ

Ray and Kreps were holding each other, trying not to stumble in the hallway as they were surrounded by guards. Their vision was blurred. Tears and exhaust had dealt the final blow. Their bodies were calling for rest. They had given up, nodding at each demand that was asked to them. Their mental health was broken. Everything should now be better than living in the wasteland. Their minds were somehow relieved of an unbearable burden. Not thinking was a kind of freedom at the moment. The guard was leading them through majestic places. They could not care any less, absorbed in their wishful thinking.

They had been conducted to caretaking rooms in Canterlot’s Hospital. Each in their own room they sat, motionless and passive like dummies.

Few hours passed…

“How are they doing?” Celestia asked, sorrowful.

She was looking through a massive and thick plate of glass. On the other side was the creature who had thanked her earlier. Two ponies were by his side, checking him, washing him and trying not to show their disgust.

In front of the door of the room, a couple of nurses was looking at a medical report. It was badly-written on a blank sheet. It had been done in a hurry. A stain of blood had wet the bottom of the page.

“This one will survive. In spite of his current physical state… malnutrition, diseases, parasites, infections, rashes and wounds…”

“Wounds?” Celestia raised her brows.

“Of many types,” the nurse kept going, listing macabrely. “Cuts, burns, twists, bruises, badly sewed gaps, old broken bones which were not well mended together… And it kept going on.”

The nurse stalked the creature through the opening.

“He is more like a walking corpse than anything else,” she stated, neutral.

“Did he…”

“He spoke indeed. They are… humans. His name is Ray, just Ray. He has an obsession on a few words he repeats over and over again… We gave him food, but he won’t be able to feed himself properly for a while. He and his siblings have been starving nearly to death. Lack of vitamins, of proteins, of glucoses, and apparently… of sunlight.”

Celestia’s heart fainted slightly.

“They all have a melanin malfunction.”

The second nurse accompanied her to the next one-way mirror. It was the second male… human. This one was lying down on a stretcher, unconscious. Doctors were in the middle of an gastric lavage. Celestia frowned in front of the unexpected spectacle unfolding before her eyes.
She looked at the nurse, a genuine interrogation on her lips.

“He had eaten too much in the banquet room, snatching everything he found. He drank too. If we don’t do this right now he will die from indigestion. His stomach wasn’t… ready to go back on this kind of diet.”

Celestia had a good insight of his appearance. These humans were bipedal creatures. They had fingers like dragons but were deprived of any talons or claws. Their skin was bare and some spots were sprouting clumps of fur. Their mane and beard were rough unlike ponies. The human was also covered of filth and scars. His ribs, only covered by a thin layer of flesh, were giving him the look of a mummy.
Randomly, his legs were startled by a strong shake. But this reaction to the unfair treatment the doctors were administering him did not last long.

Celestia sighed. She wanted to move on to another topic; or another human in that case.

They walked past an empty room. A scream broke out from the next open door, followed by a harsh yelp. Celestia and the nurse casted a glance inside.
The room was shining. Each speck of it had been cleared of any particle of dirt, there was not an ounce of air that had not been sterilized and everything was white. So white the light coming from the ceiling forced their eyes to blink a few times before being able to stand the brightness of the chamber. It was the medical care bathroom.

After a second look, not everything was as bright as expected. Curled in a corner was the young girl from before… her fingers were awfully twisted. Trying to choke the guard she had not even remarked the armour around his neck and her fingers had long snapped before the armour would. She was also bleeding and a small path was streaming on the ground down to the sink in the middle of the room.
She was hissing like a cat. Unveiling her bad teeth, incisors and canines shocked the ponies and Celestia.
The yapping had not been the girl’s deed, she was not bleeding. A nurse already present in the room had folded her hoof under her chest. It was her blood the strange species girl had on her face and clothes.
Celestia narrowed her eyes. A bite mark was clearly visible on the nurse’s fur. She was crying. The wound was really deep. Another nurse tried to come closer to the little monster. She withdrew quicker than she had moved forward.

“We’ve tried to wash her,” The tearful nurse sobbed.

“Leave me alone,” the princess ordered.

More than a pair of eyes lay on Celestia.

“No we can’t…”

“Leave me alone with… her.”

The nurses left half-heartedly.
The princess of the Sun closed the door behind them and let out a breath. It was a loud sigh coming from the deepest corner of her heart. She was clueless on how to manage such situation. She looked at the girl. She expressed pity for her. She was awfully… ungirly. All features making her a mare, or whatever the name this race had for this usage, had been ripped off. Just staring at her was a difficult experience. Celestia caught the girl crying. She was afraid.
Celestia was indeed intimidating. Bigger, taller and in some sort of way fatter than this poor girlish skeleton, she was impressive.

Celestia held her breath. Their stares had crossed.

She finally decided to sit down, five hoofsteps from the human. Her slender legs folded under her white coat. Celestia thought she would look less frightening this way. Experiencing fear from an all of white coated goddess in an absolutely stainless room, this idea kindled a spark of laughter in her mind.

“My name is Celestia,” She said slowly after a long pause. “What’s yours young filly?”

Her voice and her eyes were steeped in compassion and gentleness. She expected a reaction from the ‘human’ and she got it. The girl slowly raised her head. She was somehow fascinated by the princess mane which strands of hair were fluttering and sparkling in the air.
Celestia saw it. With a snap of her teeth, she cut few straws of her mane and let them float to the scared human with her telekinesis.

The creature waited for the lock to fall on the ground, and the magical glow to disappear. She waited again. And then Celestia blushed in shame. The human had raised her hands, showing they were both broken and crooked. The girl held back tears.

“I’m Maria…”

“Hello Maria, we’re here to help you. Nothing more… Nothing less.”

“Last time somebody told me that shit… he tried to… to…” She wept.

The words died behind her lips. Celestia was shocked, deeply moved. She refused to let a painful silence settle between them and definitely lock away the filly’s voice. She had to keep talking.

“I’m… I’m sorry, but you’re hurt and in pain. We need you to beha… to let us heal you.”

Celestia tried to find an incentive to push Maria to be more committed to this tragic situation.

“You can come with me and eat,” Celestia said, Maria’s eyes sparkled – she drooled slightly –. “…only if you let me watch your wounds and wash you.”

“Wash?”

These four letters struck Celestia so hard she restrained a retching with difficulty. Had the young creature suffered this much? Where was her parents, the care she should have been given? What kind of civilisation had cradled these… humans? The girl had taken a peak in a pond few days ago, Celestia had seen it. But drying slowly in the air after a bath in stagnant water was not something one called washing. Furthermore, she had gone through a huge physical effort which had left here filthy.
Celestia’s horn glowed a bright white and she grabbed few bandages set upon the closest sink.

“Show me your hoov… hands.”

Maria held them up. She bit her lips when Celestia got her fingers straight. The princess was impressed by her resistance to pain. Maria wiped few tears with the back of her forearm. She looked at her tips, wrapped tightly in cleaned gauze. She smirked.

“I would have done better,” she laughed with a melange of sarcasm and relief. “Th… Tha… thank you.”

“You’re welco…”

“What are you?” Maria cut her off, her voice suddenly stern and harsh.

“We are ponies… I’m an alicorn. And you girl?”

“I’m not a... girl. I’m a woman,” Maria replied, vexed.

“Your friends said you were humans.”

“Yeah, there is man and woman. We’re humans and there are men and women,” Maria said in a flash.

For a first time, it was hard to catch. Celestia promised herself to come back on this lexicon later.

“How can you talk?”

“I beg your pardon?” Celestia arched a brow.

“Yeah, from where I come animals don’t talk,” Maria stuttered.

“Well, you’re not on your world anymore I guess.”

Maria sniggered and gave out a shy laugh. She dried a tear rolling on her cheek and wiped the pony’s blood she had on her lips and chin.

“How did you do the glow?”

“The glow?” Celestia giggled. It was her turn to laugh. “You mean my magic?” – Maria gave her a creepy stare – “You… you don’t have magical powers?”

“I don’t even know it could exist in reality. Is… Is this real life?”

Celestia slid toward Maria and gave her little poke on her shoulder.

“It could not be truer.”

Celestia tried to be friendly and intended to make Maria laugh. But her stare was casting shadows. She started hissing again as horrific memories were brought back.

“Don’t touch me ever again.”

Celestia stepped back slowly.

“But I have to wash you…”

“Don’t…”

The white alicorn put her hoof on her chin, rubbing it. An idea popped in her mind.

“I won’t have to!”

Celestia fell back to the opposite side of the room, her horn started glowing. As did Maria’s torn clothes. She gasped and tried to keep them put on. But Celestia’s magic was too strong for her limp skeletal bones. She sobbed and gave in.

“Okay, just… just close your eyes,” Maria surrendered.

“I may hurt you if…”

“Please,” Maria’s eyes were begging her new friend to accept this condition.

Maria had hidden her back since the beginning, dissimulating this horrid symbol carved upon her.

“You saw it?”

“Yes,” Celestia confessed, swallowing her saliva.

Having the correctness not to ask what it was she anticipated Maria’s next plea.

“I will ask everypony to keep it silent about it. I’ve seen you dissimulate it from your friends,” – Maria suddenly lost the tension in her shoulders – “But someday you’ll have to show them… and tell them and to us what it is. It is harmful to keep such burdens and carry them along the way of existence.”

Celestia could not get rid of Fleur-Dis-Lee’s troubled face when she had left the banquet room. She would be a spine in the foot.

“Yeah, someday,” Marias’s voice died in a disappointing silence, evasive.

Celestia closed her eyes. With her magic she slid the rags off Maria’s skin. She grabbed a towel, a flannel and soap. Groping the wall she found the tap. Switching it on, she smiled, hearing the lapping of water. A flow splashed heavily on her head. The warm stream ran over her mane and fur. Maria laughed.

This time Celestia found the good tap. Maria yelled.

“What’s wrong Maria?”

“It’s… nothing. I forgot what clean water… warm water feels like.”

Celestia nodded in silence, her eyes still closed. Using the soap she started rubbing Maria’s back. Even with her magic and through the thick fabric of the flannel she felt the bruises, the gaunt and scars on her skin. She shivered as she ran over Maria’s bones, right beneath the thin wrinkled flesh.

“How old are you?” Celestia said, putting an end to the silence.

“Seventeen,” she replied.

Maria’s belly growled.

“I’m hungry.”

“I am too, to be honest you appeared right in the middle of our diner,” Celestia giggled.

“Do I owe you something for the hospitality?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Celestia stood proud. “Here help is priceless and is better given than sold.”

“Everybody pays but nobody knows the price,” Maria replied, cryptic.

Celestia’s ears twitched. Slight vocabulary differences existed between their idioms. It was small but still interesting to notice.

“I want to see Verdugo,” Maria ordered.

“Who?”

“Verdugo, my friend.”

Celestia guessed she was talking about the deadly wounded man. She had not seen him yet but the nurses and doctors should be focusing on him at the moment.

“Don’t worry, he is in good hooves, but even I won’t be given the right to see him before he has been… fixed.”

Celestia turned off the tap and gave Maria the towel to wrap her in.

“Can I open my eyes now?”

Maria quickly wrapped herself and then replied.

“Yes.”

Celestia opened them. She blinked a several times to get rid of the pain the light was dealing to her retina. She might be the Princess of the Sun, but she still had a corporeal envelop. And therefore, she was bound to its weaknesses.
Maria’s filthiness had been washed away. The water flowing from her legs was black… Celestia’s eyes widened. It was really black! She chuckled.

Maria went through a complete change. Gotten rid of the muck, her skin was smoother and was somehow tanned. Her wet hair had dropped on her shoulders, sprawling over her skin. It was dark brown, as were her eyes. Celestia could not tell if she was beautiful. She was not aware of “human’s standards”. Yet she was able to say Maria had moved at least from the ugly part of the scale to the average one. Meanwhile Celestia had kept her eyes shut Maria had wrapped her arms and legs in tightened bandages and herself in a long white towel.

They stood up. Maria flagged and fell on the ground. She refused Celestia’s hoof.

“Give me something to help me walk. And something to put on.”

To put on? Celestia suddenly remembered every human was wearing clothes, even if it was stinking sweat and blood. A tradition? A social norm? The facts struck the princess, they had no fur. Celestia understood it was for protecting their bare skin from external aggressions.
Celestia ordered the nurse outside to give Maria a cane. They did and so, both the human and the alicorn went out in the hallway of Canterlot horsepital.

Having nothing to wear, Maria, still wrapped in the towel snatched a curtain of red silk from a window, without an ounce of care. She withdrew to the bathroom.
When she left it again, she had exchanged the towel for the fabric. It was much more comfortable and less humiliating. The nurses lifted their hooves to their foreheads. Celestia sighed gently. It was just a curtain after all. It was not as if she had skinned an animal to make a coat of it.

The nurse conducted Maria to the next hallway. Celestia had decided to take care of the other humans. A doctor, a unicorn, came up quickly.

“The wounded creature is now saved.”

“They call themselves humans,” Celestia nodded. “How is his state?”

“From now on, it is… stable.”

The doctor laughed to his own pun. Celestia smirked slightly.

“But seriously, the four creat… humans are safe now. Though the rehabilitation will take time. They went through Tartarus during their journey. I can’t even begin to imagine the horror they have suffered.”

“I can’t either.”

The doctor’s horn glowed a light pink and he drifted a report from his saddlebag to the air.

“The wounded human suffers from blood loss, gangrene and a huge bunch of different problems. He lost his right arm,” He brought up, embarrassed.

Celestia frowned in disgust.

“Lost? He can’t use it,” Celestia passed over quickly.

“No… we amputated it,” – Celestia’s features turned greenish –. “The gangrene would have killed him if we didn't. The wound in his shoulder was due to a projectile, which pierced it from side to side, shattered his scapula, cut the nerves toward his arm and obstructed some crucial veins. But I can’t identify what kind of weapon can deal such destruction.”

“With magic it will be easy to fix it,” Celestia sighed in relief.

The doctor gulped in discomfort.

“In fact, the human resists magic,” he said, trying to get rid of Celestia’s stunned look. “Not that he is immune to it. It’s just that magic becomes random when it is casted directly on him. We have been able to reconstruct the bone, but only time will help now. We can’t accelerate the process without jeopardizing his state.”

Celestia smiled. At least the human was not going to die. She had to inform Maria. She decided to change the topic.

“And the fifth human, the foal.”

“The… the fifth? They were only four of them in my service. I haven’t treated your last one. You didn’t bring him to me.”

Celestia got stuck in motion as she was going to leave. This was an issue, a very big problem. She bit her bottom lips in stress.

ϖ Ϩ π ϰ ϡ Ξ ϡ ϰ π Ϩ ϖ

Luna was sobbing on her balcony. She had finally raised the moon after a long day of intense emotions. The monster was in the castle. That true one who killed her in his dreams. And Celestia had given them a shelter...
Luna was doubtful. The other “humans” might not be bad people, but this one... She could not accept him roaming freely in the hallways of the castle, or even under her delightful night. He was a danger.

She extracted herself from her day-dreaming, beneath her tower she saw Twilight and her friends running toward the gate of Canterlot. Fluttershy was limping, a hoof folded on her flank.

She sighed and guessed the Mane Six wanted to talk to Celestia about the ‘new guests’.

She was tired. Two days she had not slept. She toddled to her couch. Dark rings circled her eyes and she was ready to collapse on her silky bed linen.

The kid was there.

Luna’s eyes widened, scared. The child, the human child was on her bed and… Luna saw her teddy-bear in the creature’s arms. He was petting it. The urchin saw her, stuck out his tongue and tightened the plush toy in his hands.

Luna tilted her head, she was absolutely not amused.

“Drop it! It’s mine!”

The child raised a brow and stand up, creasing the perfectly tided sheets. He was smiling eerily at the Princess.
He moved forward.

“Don’t come closer,” Luna stressed.

The child tends his chubby hands to the Alicorn, trying to reach her.
Luna hissed. The child was now standing between her and the door.

“Help?” Luna complained. “Please, need some help!”

Her call faded in the air, nopony was here to listen to her.
The child started toddling toward Luna. She panicked.

Apr. 2014 - Sweat, Flesh, Blood, And Bones - 5. Shenanigans

New Version:

Birds chirped carelessly In the middle of Canterlot’s maze as the sun rose from beneath the horizon. The sunbeams licked the façades of the castle, casting its warming touch on every surface it could reach. In a remote place of the park, a statue of a unicorn stood high in the middle of a pond. Water jetted out of its mouth and the lapping of the stream was recurring, reminding to the ponies passing by that time was moving slowly, unbearably slowly.

“I’m so fucking bored!” Maria complained loudly, chasing the birds away.

“Shut up,” everybody replied with the same amount of boredom.

Maria, Kreps, Verdugo and Ray were sitting on a bench facing the pond, as steady as the statue. They could see the canopy of the castle from their position, but they could not care less. They sighed once again searching around them anything that could be entertaining. Yet, with nothing but their unanswered question bouncing endlessly in their heads they could experience a slow but settling depression.

“Two weeks!” Maria burst out. “Two damn bloody weeks we’re stuck here, doing nothing but standing with freaking talking ponies hanging around with wide smiles on their faces! Joker faces!”

She took a deep breath.

“Paradise is so annoyinh!” she shouted.

“Shut up…” they repeated, on the brink of punching her in the face.

Maria pouted and kicked a small rock with her foot.

“Can we break something?” Maria asked.

“No,” Ray ordered, hiding his face behind the palms of his hands.

“Can I break something?” she continued.

“Definitely no!”

“Party-poopers!” she growled. “We can’t do anything, and we are always being spied on. Can’t we spice up this place a tiny little bit?”

The bushes behind them rustled. They all shot deadly stares back at the wall of leaves. A pink pony dashed onto the edge of the bench. And bounced on Maria’s knees who gasped under the pony’s weight.

“Somepony said ‘party’?” Pinkie Pie busted into laughter. “I love parties. Do you like parties? Because everypony love minmrglghmrlgl….”

Verdugo had caught Pinkie’s muzzle with only his left hand. This did not stop Pinkie from bouncing around like crazy, unaffected by Verdugo’s attempt to shut her up. In one of her joyful jolts, she carried away the wounded man. Verdugo fell on the ground, flat on his wound. A grunt later, Verdugo started wobbling, grumbling, and cursing. Pinkie Pie laughed.

“Oh, oh! I love riddles!” Pinkie intoned gleefully. “You’re a snake! No, that’s silly. A reed? No that’s crazy, but… I’d say a badger!”

She giggled again under the bewildered looks of the three remaining humans. Kreps was taken aback, Maria wanted to kick the pony in the face and Ray, well, he was still stuck in his facepalming stance. Pinkie Pie finally heard Verdugo’s grunts. She stopped jerking around and focused on the poor human. Verdugo kept a hand over his damaged shoulder, screwing his eyes in an attempt to hold back his tears.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Pinkie blabbered, her mane flattening instantly.

“That’s okay,” the man creeping on the floor retorted. “I’ve endured worse.”

“But not a talking horse!” Maria snickered with a rhyme.

Pinkie and everybody except Verdugo chuckled. Maria stood up and put a foot on Verdugo’s right side. From above he looked like a snail she thought, crawling away from a shoe trying to squeeze him. Verdugo had enough and tried to get up. Resting upon his arm, he trembled. Maria kicked him in the butt and Verdugo’s head dug into the grass in front of him. Maria laughed raucously. Pinkie Pie’s eyeballed her, horrified.

“Hey! That’s not cool!” A mare voice bashed Maria. “That’s even the opposite of being cool!”

Rainbow Dash leaped to Verdugo’s position from behind a cloud. She tried to put him back on his feet. Verdugo was heavy and she struggled helping him to stand on his unsteady feet. She grunted as much as Verdugo in the effort. Then the bulky human pushed her away.

“No. I’m fine. I don’t need help,” Verdugo said, pushing Rainbow aside. “Maria is just slightly annoying when she can’t play the game.”

Pinkie gasped at the last word.

“Which game?” The pink pony asked, bouncing in joy. “I love games.”

Verdugo stood up and looked down at Rainbow Dash.

“Oh,” he interjected, casting an eerie grin at his friends. “It is not a simple game. It is called the ‘Baraka’, an old world coming from an ancient and foreign language.”

“Ancient?” a new voice beckoned from behind the pool. Twilight came to sight, curiosity driving her to slither out of her hideout.

“No, really!” Kreps raged, breaking the silence he had kept for a long moment. “Is everypony here watching us secretly?”

Twilight came in full sight, blushing. She refused to meet the inquisitive stares the humans were shooting at her. Verdugo cleared his throat and continued, facing Pinkie again.

“Baraka means luck, because you need it in this game, a lot. Because for playing it, the two duellists will need music and weapons, a lot of weapons.”

Pinkie Pie’s smile died instantly. Rainbow and Twilight arched a brow, sensing a mean trick coming quickly.

“Celestia told us to not give you back the… stuff you had,” Twilight teased, putting a hoof on Pinkie’s mouth. “We’re not stupid, Verd’, is that it?”

“For you, it will be Verdugo,” He bashed before giving a swift glance at Maria. “Was worth the try I guess.”

He looked back at the pony trio.

“You know you only have a few objects we once had. We lost all our… stuff when your yellow friend brought a dra… wyvern on us all.”

Maria sighed and eyed the sky through spite. She cursed the lack of tact her friend had just shown. Verdugo shrugged back at her.

“Stop blaming Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash ordered inquisitively. “You should be concerned for her. We know she had been attacked by changelings.”

The last word disturbed Kreps who was going to ask a question about the nature of those… ‘changelings’, but Verdugo cut him off.

“Therefore there will be no game. And for your own knowledge, Miss Dash, Baraka is much more dangerous for those who play it…” Verdugo paused, creating a slight suspense. “…than for those who just watch. It’s like a rodeo, the first one to get hurt or out lose.”

Applejack popped out of a neighbouring corridor, holding her hat in her hooves. She had this smile on her face showing that she had finally heard something that interested her. She had rings under her eyes, showing that the human conversation had been deeply tiring.

“Did someone say rodeo?” Applejack beamed.

The four humans raged. Then their shoulders fell a little, abandoning.

“If anybody…” Maria started.

“Pony!” Rarity’s and Twilight’s voices corrected together as the mannered pony joined the group.

Maria stared blankly at her.

“If anypony could stop spying us! We ain’t monsters or lepers.”

At the moment, they all wanted to stand up and leave. Having a bunch of ponies on their tracks was something they refused to let happen again. The ambiance defiled so rapidly it was poignant. Ray took the next step and yelled.

“If anypony is spying on us right now, you can get out of your hideout and come here. It is not like we’re gonna eat you.”

“But horse mea…” Verdugo added, only to get wacked back on the ground by Maria.

A small bunny showed itself from the opposite of the square, pulling with him a butter yellow pony. Fluttershy cringed on her hooves once everypony and body had stuck their eyes on her. She shivered and covered her eyes like it was of any help.

“We said everypony,” Ray asserted.

Finally, four ponies showed up in pairs. Ray, Maria and the two other humans frowned, they did not know those faces.

Celestia smiled at the muted child toddling inside the chamber of the throne. Only a couple of guards were present, standing still beyond the threshold of the gate. With her magic the princess levitated Luna’s teddy-bear and handed it to the kid. He grasped it greedily and rewarded the princess with a smile comparable to Pinkie Pie’s, like an alien version of it.

“Luna will send me to the sun for this,” Celestia snorted with a small chuckle.

The child ran around the vast room and laughed, surprising Celestia. The child’s genuine happiness was contagious. The child’s steps echoed on the marbled floor and the sound flew into the hallway leading to the room.

Somepony cleared their throat and Celestia raised her eyes. A spokespony had just entered. Respectful, he bent to the princess. He had a several scrolls under his hoof, and in spite of his assertiveness, he seemed ill-at-ease. Celestia had a talent to pierce the masks of her subjects, one thousand years of experience was everything but irrelevant. Whatever the effort the spokespony would have put in staying as expressive as a rock, Celestia would have known. Sometimes, guards swore the princesses could read minds. Celestia arched a brow and the emissary took a deep breath.

“We might have a problem. A big one.”

The pony licked his lips, moistening them as the words he was going to say was making him sweat.

“Somepony invited nearly all nations in the world to a reception in Canterlot. Today…” he finally said.

Celestia slipped off her throne, eyes wide open. She laughed dryly and then snickered, still with a pinch of hesitation.

“You’re kidding me right? Just tell me you’re joking?” she asked, unassured.

“Somepony replicated official invitations with your signature…” The spokespony bit his lower lips. “The guests do think it is official.”

“That’s really bad,” Celestia whispered, biting her tongue.

She fretted, thinking at a fast-pace about the best way to get out of this plight. Another question sparked in her mind, the identity of the prankster. Pinkie? No, even if she was the queen of the tricksters, she knew that such a matter was not laughable. She would not have. Celestia could not come up with a perfect suspect. She was enraged, but shovelled her anger deep inside.

“How much delegations are coming?” Celestia asked with a knot in her heart. “And when?”

“Tonight, and there are at least a hundred expected emissaries,” the spokespony blurted out.

Even he had a hard time believing it.

“This will be a long night,” Celestia grumbled. “Take a note please. We’re going to need some help.”

“What’s your names?” Maria asked, drumming on ground with her foot. “Your mothers never told you that spying was bad, m’kay?”

The four ponies had lowered their head, ashamed and refusing to meet the woman’s eyes. The first pair of ponies was a contrasting couple. Two mares with completely different mane styles and colours.

“Name’s Bon Bon,” the mare with a beige coat and a magnificent curled navy blue and pink mane said. “But it’s Lyra who got me here!”

“Hey?!” her stooge shot back, ruffling her white and turquoise hair.

Maria sighed and turned around to face the second group of spies. She eyed them with an inquisitive gaze. The group was as colourful as the first one. It was also like looking at a clash between two opposite lifestyles. The first mare was as white-coated as Rarity but her mane was ruffled, sharp and made of a blend of blue flashy locks like streaks of lightning bolt slashing the sky. Her eyes were hidden behind two massive purple sunglasses. The second pony was all mannered. Did Rarity have a sister? Her grey fur matched with a well-done dark grey mane. She had a pink bow tie.

Both of them showed a music-related cutie-mark.

“Vinyl Scratch,” the first mare said, wobbling her head to pull back her headphones on her neck. “And she is Octavia, my roommate.”

She saluted the humans, raising her eyes toward the sky as Vinyl was jumping on her hooves, not hiding her excitement.

“Did you say music?” she moved on.

Maria shrugged, she had not seen these ponies before, but they already seemed to be accustomed seeing alien creatures. News were going fast around Canterlot.

“Hey, what did you expect? Verd’ said it all. No weapons, no music,” Maria sniggered.

“Oh, come on!” Vinyl complained. “I’m sure you have some good music from your world… like electro, wubs...”

Every human fixed her with blank eyes.

“You have music instruments?” a deep voice asked.

Everybody and everypony turned on their feet or hooves and looked at Verdugo. He received weird looks.

“You’re interested in music now?” Ray asked with a pinch of irony.

“No,” Verdugo replied instantly. “But between sitting here and going to see something, it’s damn easy to choose.” His friends nodded. “And I don’t want to have that purple uni-thing to drown me with ‘tard questions.”

Twilight sat close to the bench and pouted, vexed. Everybody laughed except Twilight who seemed to shrink on her hooves, covering her ears as the chuckles reminded her some dark times of her past… the kindergarten.

“Oh sugarcube,” AppleJack started, putting her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “We’re sorry.”

“I ain’t,” Maria replied.

“Me too,” Verdugo added.

Everypony glared daggers at them. They were not making the situation easier. Ray interposed, stopping the upcoming strife.

“Well,” he settled. “Don’t we have some instruments to see?”

Octavia nodded and, with everypony and everybody in tow, she went to a shop she knew well. Yet, she could not fight back this eerie impression she was going to regret it.

“Luna!” Celestia cried out.

The Princess of the Sun burst through the doors of her sister’s private chamber. She stopped and looked at the scene. Luna was having her own temper tantrum, turning her furniture upside down, shaking them to squeeze their content out with her magic. Pillows were ripped open, the bed linens had been thrown out of the window and her many toy boxes were sliced in half. When Celestia entered, Luna looked at her and saw the small human behind. Luna’s pupil shrunk to pinpricks when she saw her teddy-bear.

“You,” she whispered with anger. “We meet again.”

The child stuck his tongue out at her and disappeared in the hallway, running. Luna was ready to leap in his tow and chase him down, but Celestia blocked her way.

“We’ve got more decisive things to do Sister,” she claimed.

Luna was not convinced, forcing Celestia to take her time explaining the situation. Luna’s mouth opened wide when she heard that a sword of Damocles was hanging above them.

“Who could do that?” Luna asked, awe stricken.

“I have no idea. But we have to set up the castle before the arrivals in a few hours.”

“Can’t we just all send them back home?”

Celestia sighed. Her horn glowed white and with the same scintillating colour, quotation marks appeared in the air.

“Diplomacy,” Celestia spelled ironically. “Do you speak it?”

Luna grunted.

“We have to set up the castle! Fast!” Celestia hurried, before she started running away to pump some stress into Canterlot’s staff.

“What do we do with the humans?” Luna asked hesitantly before her sister left the throne room.

Celestia stopped, her shoulders falling slightly. She gave a low grumble. Luna had revealed her sister’s ignorance on this issue.

“This is a spine in my heel.” Celestia facehooved in front of her younger sister. “I take care of the castle. You, go and hide the humans.”

Celestia teleported away in a white wisp. Luna’s face went red.

“Why me?”

She cried out her discontentment and looked around, nopony was there to listen to her. She did not even know where the group of primates were, and with the little one on the loose, it was going to be a hell of an afternoon. Luna ran into every room of the castle and found nopony that could help her. Then she headed to the catacombs of the castle, humans liked creepy things, right? They should have been there. Unfortunately, Luna only found old and dusty skulls.

There was only one place she had not checked yet… the outside. The immense, flat or steep outside where the humans were within the sight of everypony. She cursed them for being so reckless. What if the incoming guests saw them? It would be a catastrophe. And the child, Luna was convinced he was looking at her from the depths of a shadow, right behind her, grinning. She was convinced he was mocking her while holding her teddy-bear. Luna was angry, and at the moment, she sought for nothing but an argument with somepony, or somebody.

“Anyone of them would do fine,” she said with a grin and crept out of the catacombs.

The surroundings of the castle, the parks and mazes were empty of human life and even Twilight and her friends were nowhere to be found. Luna was going to burst out. There was only one place she had not ventured in… Canterlot’s city. And oh god she knew she hated that place! She hated it so much for the stares she usually got back from everypony. She was a princess and thus, seeing her among the mortalswas considered as disrespectful for her own person. She never entered a shop and never bought anything. Secretly she thrived to try, at least for a day, to be a casual pony. She desired to hang around this kingdom her sister had run all on her own for centuries. Luna got an idea.

In a pop, Luna changed into her filly’s shape, a light blue coated form that had not even her cutie mark. She felt like she had become one thousand years younger. She was far smaller than what she was used to. Everything seemed gigantic and unreachable. It was an eerie feeling, scary. And to be honest, she was also a bit amused. But she would never confess it. She shook her head and looked at Canterlot’s city. It was time to take a tour inside.

Ponies stepped aside as fast as lizards fleeing a threat. The sight of the four humans accompanying a hoof-full of ponies was surprising, if not unsettling. And nopony dared to cross their path. Octavia headed the procession with Verdugo and Maria at her sides. She was not feeling good. Two large shadows cast on her back raised the fur on her neck. A chill ran beneath her skin.

Only Lyra was really fascinated by the humans, and she did not hide herself from it. It was indeed a fascination, but a different kind from what Twilight had shown since the first contact. Lyra was annoying the thinner of the four creatures, Kreps. Mimicking Pinkie Pie, she was bouncing around the human, holding one of his hands in her hooves. True sadness was scarring Kreps’s face. And it’s with badly-repressed smiles that everypony and everybody were looking at the weird and loud duo.

“Hey!” Kreps shouted. “Get over with that. I don’t want to get a fan club.”

“This is irrelevant,” Lyra answered back. “You’re too extraordinary to let you… just go.”

At the back of the queue, Applejack titled her head toward Rainbow Dash.

“Ah’m thinking that we’ve found Twilight’s twin.”

The two ponies chuckled.

Everypony in Canterlot was aware of the humans staying within the walls of the city. They had been informed by Celestia and Luna. Yet, they had been forbidden to talk about it to strangers and ponies from the outside. The humans were kept in Canterlot as prisoners inside a golden jail.

“Here we are,” Octavia announced.

They all raised their heads and read the writing above the front door, ‘Absolute’s melody’. It was one of the old buildings of Canterlot. The front window was only showing closed navy blue curtains.

“Well,” Maria initiated. “I’d have expected somethin’ fancier, coming from a talking pony.”

“My name is Octavia,” the mare before her retorted. “And it’s a friend’s boutique. I will not complain about it. So won’t you.”

Maria put her hands up, mimicking a scared foal.

“Watch out, we have an angry pony over here.”

Verdugo, Ray and Kreps laughed raucously. Octavia cursed them all and pushed the door inward. All followed. The inside of the store was blanketed with beige velvet. But the most amazing part was the hundreds of music instruments strewn over the place. Ray whistled with Verdugo and Kreps. Only one thing disturbed the group. The room was plunged into a slight darkness. Only shafts lights poured through the curtains.

“Eh, eh you like what you see?” a feminine voice rose from a corner of the boutique.

“Absolute… how many times did I tell you not to stay in the dark?” Octavia reprimanded. “We can’t see anything in this blackness.”

The mare called Absolute chuckled. Octavia opened wide the curtains and sunlight flooded the room instantly. More than one pony blinked, eyes aching. The mare, a unicorn, in the boutique had two black glasses hiding her eyes. She had a brown fur and her mane was black. Next to her, given to see to everyone and everypony, was a walking stick.

“Octavia, you know that’s useless for me, light,” she joked.

“Maybe for you, but you won’t get earnings if you can’t attract clients. I’m not your boss you know. You should start thinking about yourself a little.”

Absolute gave another chuckle as Verdugo walked around noisily, looking at the instruments.

“You bring a minotaur here Octavia?” Absolute growled. “I thought I’ve already told you that they always break my instruments, they are too strong! My work need dexterousness.”

“I don’t think we are minotaurs,” Maria retorted, she looked at Kreps. “Are we?”

“Erm…” Kreps tried to reply.

He was not really good at improvising. Maria looked back at Absolute and found the blind pony standing only an inch from her. The mare slowly raised her hoof and probed Maria’s face, searching for known features.

“You must be the creatures that everypony is talking about,” she guessed.

“Clever girl,” Kreps deadpanned, winking at Verdugo.

Both laughed. Ray scowled at them, asking for silence.

“Don’t worry, just a reference from a movie from our world,” Ray explained to the frowning ponies

Rainbow Dash was the first to grumble.

“Well, shall I show you around?” Absolute asked.

“Of course,” Twilight cut off before any human reply with a stupid sentence or quote.

Luna had tracked down the path left by the humans for nearly an hour. And now, she had found herself facing a dusty and old store. She jumped back when the curtains behind the window burst open, and hid behind a cart passing by before anypony could see her. A few seconds later, she made the decision to peer an eye through the door. She saw twelve ponies, and the four humans she was searching for inside. Thinking quickly, Luna cast a simple invisibility spell on herself and slithered in.

“So, around here you’ll see cellos like the one Octavia owns,” Absolute explained.

“Shush!” Octavia berated. “I don’t want ponies to know that my cello isn’t a unique one-of-a-kind model.”

Luna chuckled, she knew Octavia for being one of the main musicians of the castle. She was always showing off her cello, pretending it was unique. Luna would now have a reason for Octavia to play more for her.

Absolute gave a cute laugh and went on. She showed off her violins, lyres, double basses, saxophones, flutes, pipes, oboes and on and on for what seemed to be eons. As blind as she was, she could not see the bored expressions on everyone’s faces. Yet, no pony or human dared to disturb her. She was nearly in trance and nopony wanted to snap her out of it. Talking about the work she had done with her own hooves was a hobby she could not often do, she had probably only a few clients. To her avail, her instruments were a wonderful work. Luna stayed still in a corner of the room, invisible. Immobile she could not refrain herself from smiling as Maria drew bunny’s ears with her hand behind Absolute’s head.

Footsteps echoed.

Luna saw Verdugo breaking the circle. The human drifted toward an alcove next to him. A curtain hid the content of the chamber, flooded into darkness. Stares shot at him as he had cut Absolute’s speech.

“Hey,” Applejack tried to contest.

Verdugo was stomping correctness with not a pinch of care.

“I just want to know what’s behind,” he growled.

“Can’t you ask before?”

“No.”

Verdugo slid the veil on its rod and went inside. Twilight and Octavia followed. The second room was an empty space where a massive instrument was standing alone in the middle. A translucent Luna infiltrated the room in silence. She stood next to the wall where nopony could catch her. Octavia sighed.

“Oh, the piano…” she said.

Verdugo was awe struck, his mouth opened slightly. Amazed, he transfixed the instrument taking a nearly religious stance. A hoof full of heads stood in the frame of the door and stared at the human. Verdugo raised his only valid hand, trembling. He pull a single not from the ebony piano. The tone was grave and echoed in the chamber. Octavia frowned and looked at her friend Absolute, standing in the threshold of the door.

“I thought you had got rid of that bunch of wood. It’s a griffon’s model, it isn’t useful for us pony.”

Verdugo’s hand slipped on the keyboard of the piano and produced an ear-splitting tuning.

“You said… what?” he erupted.

Surprise got hold of Octavia. She cringed on her hooves at the sight of Verdugo’s bloodshot eyes. If they had the potential, they would have glowed bright red.

“N… nothing,” she muttered.

Verdugo was on the brink to let his anger flow out.

“You said it was useless.”

Octavia ran with sweat.

“… for ponies,” she specified

Verdugo’s rage exploded.

“You don’t know what true music is!”

Octavia wanted to reply, but stopped. Her eyes went watery, and big tears dripped on her cheeks. She dashed out of the piano room, crying, bumped into Absolute and Rainbow Dash and fled outside. Nopony tried to hold her back. Once every pair of eyes came back on Verdugo, they all saw the crippled human boiling red.

“Just… get the fuck out,” Verdugo clamoured. “I need to be alone.”

Twilight murmured they had to find out where Octavia had gone. And they all passed by the entrance door. Luna, still muted felt sweat running on her face, she knew she had to keep track of every human in Canterlot, she had to follow Maria, Ray and Kreps. But, she was not sure about leaving Verdugo alone her. He was dangerous after all. She took a short minute to make up her mind and choose to Twilight, keeping her invisibility up.

Only Verdugo and the blind instrument maker stayed in the boutique. Verdugo faced the piano again and tried to play one-handed. His right hand stumbled and played a wrong tone. With rage spread on his face, Verdugo banged the keyboard with his hand. Then he let himself fall on the ground, laying. It has been too long since he had touched a piano for the last time. He gave a swift sob, then grunted.

Absolute could not see but Verdugo was constricting the stump replacing his left arm so much that drops of blood dripped over his bandages. Pain numbed his body. The human shivered.

“Something’s wrong,” Absolute asked, hesitant.

“Phantom limb,” Verdugo replied between two sobs. “It hurts.”

Absolute moved closer. She groped around the wound and understood Verdugo’s plight. The blind mare felt dizzy. Half an hour passed before she broke the ice.

“I’m… I’m so sorry,” she said.

“You shouldn’t. You’ve done nothing for breaking me.”

“What are… were you?”

Verdugo sobbed, then took a deep breath.

“I was a professional pianist. You know before… No you don’t know… My world has been destroyed, and with him a lot of stuffs were lost or broken apart. When I saw it,” he continued, mentioning the piano. “I… it was the first time in years I’ve seen one, one that did work.”

He grunted again, holding the shoulder of his amputated limb.

“Funny thing is that fate must hate me… I find a working piano but I had to lose my arm just before… Fucking fair trade.”

“Don’t think about it, you can’t fight to get back what is already lost… you have to get over with it. I could have stay in the dark, depressing because I lost my eyesight. But I moved on.”

Absolute smiled at the human. Verdugo ruffled her mane gently.

“I’m not over with my period of mourning. I’ve lost so much. And I’ve made a choice a while ago. I can’t back anymore and I will carry on. But I see so much memories surfacing along the path… Sometimes I just let the doubts drowning me. I just can’t kick them away. I try to, for my friends, but… It’s so difficult sometimes.”

Absolute nodded.

“Could you leave me alone here for a moment,” Verdugo asked. “I just need some time.”

Verdugo wiped off tears from his face and saw Absolute acquiescing. She left him in the alcove and went through a secondary door that should go to the backyard of the store. Verdugo faced the piano in silence. Outside, the night was slowly setting and the interior was getting darker as minutes passed.

“I never thought you would be that sentimental,” a voice whispered at his ears.

Verdugo jumped with surprise. Twilight was right next to him. He had not heard her enter.

“You were spying on me?” verdugo asked.

“No, I mean… Yes,” she lowered her eyes, shameful. “But you know. You, Kreps, Maria, Ray and that child all came from a world I cannot imagine. You’re an object of curiosity for me. I must understand your group, what you went through, how you can adapt to Equestria. And of course, how you can threaten it.”

Verdugo smiled.

“Thanks for your outspokenness, your highness. I…”

“I understand that you have chosen, maybe sworn an oath to protect your friends, whatever the cost. And I understand that you want to retrieve your weapons. It’s dear to you.”

Twilight dropped a key on the floor.

“Near of the garrison, there is the armoury. And right next to it there is a room. Here we locked the weapons we’ve taken from you. To get to it easily, just use one of the garrison backdoor. The guards are doing their shifts you won’t annoy anypony like this.”

Verdugo’s face brightened. Strangely he hugged the young alicorn for rather a long time.

“Awkward,” Twilight added.

“I must go, thanks.”

Verdugo jumped on his feet and was nearly out of the store when Twilight called him.

“We also found your metal box, the exact way you described it.”

Verdugo left the place running, leaving Twilight with a grin on her lips and a green light in her eyes.

“Okay,” Vinyl said. “We should split to find Octavia.”

“Well,” Maria countered. “Ponies and Humans form two different groups first.”

“Y’all not gonna give up and walk back ta your rooms?” Applejack asked, suspicious.

“No,” Maria laughed. “But I’ve had enough walking with… y’all for today.”

Rarity huffed.

“So be it,” the fashion pony declared.

They separated and went down opposite ways. But thereafter, everypony found out that they had all to split again. Canterlot was huge after all. And therefore, Twilight walked down her own street, all alone.

“Oh goddesses, why do I always have to face a jerk that can’t hold back his tongue,” she berated. “I…”

Luna popped in front of Twilight so abruptly that she shrieked in terror.

“Twilight! It’s just me, Luna.”

Panting, Twilight got a grip on herself.

“Don’t do that… ever again, understood?”

“Sorry,” Luna giggled. “But I have bad news.”

Luna explained the sudden trick Canterlot had fallen to, the impromptu invitations, the hundreds of guests coming over and the probable mess if the humans were to be discovered.

“But tonight… it’s like in one hour!” Twilight shouted, her eyes shot open.

Her head reeled, she had to rethink her whole schedule.

“I guess you don’t know who planned this?”

Luna shook her head and took a deep breath.

“We don’t know.” she hesitated. “I’ve chosen to give back the weapons to the humans. They might be useful if somepony decided to attack.”

Twilight did not reply instantly. She gave a strange look at the Princess, she sighed thereafter.

“I guess you’re right. Does Celestia know?”

“Not yet, I have to tell her. But acknowledge that for the moment I’m too busy to take care of it, if you see my sister, tell her that what the humans will do tonight is on your behalf. You must make sure that they are kept in security.”

Twilight hesitated.

“Don’t fret,” Luna reassured. “Go now. Celestia needs you.”

Twilight dashed in the next alley, only her duty in mind. Luna smiled and gave a laugh. She swivelled soon on her hooves and a green flash revealed a tall and slender black pony-shaped creature. Her algae-like mane crawled on her face and her white smile changed into a wide grin. Next to her appeared a young blue coated filly with no cutie mark. The young pony was glued to the ground with slimy rivets and her mouth was gagged.

“Too bad that you won’t participate to the party tonight, princess,” the taller changeling queen that had called herself Luna snickered.

Celestia had to thank her subjects, the whole castle had been reshaped so fast it was a new record. The hallways shone with golden, ruby and silver draperies. The banquet room was overwhelmed with food and the air smelt of lavender. Celestia was proud of her little ponies. She swore internally she would reward them greatly. Yet, she had to greet every diplomat that had come inside Canterlot at the moment. It was boring.

“Welcome to Canterlot, Lady Andraste,” Celestia announced, shaking the talon of the Griffin Empire’s Emissary.

“Thank thee Princess, I’m thrilled to hear the reason why thou hast invited so many individuals from abroad Equestria. Your letter was quite surprising,” the griffon chuckled and passed by the princess.

Celestia’s ears twitched. She felt stress getting a grasp on her.

“Welcome to Canterlot, Sir Baramond,” Celestia announced, shaking the hoof of the Saddle Arabia’s horse representative.

The diplomat smiled.

“Thank you, Princess Celestia. How do you do since that last time two years ago?”

“Quite well,” she answered.

“Your letter was really funny, I can’t wait for your presentation,” Baramond said before joining the crowd queuing for the buffet.

“I…” Celestia tried.

The princess laughed dryly. Would she get any tips about the content of the letters? Where was Luna and Twilight? Celestia felt her hooves trembling in their majestic golden horseshoes. And then she saw the opportunity. A Condor from the Andine Federation and a bear from Sibearia were bargaining over their letters. The princess drifted toward the duo.

“Everything is okay my lords,” she asked.

“Oh Princess,” the massive bear said, surprised. “Your venue occurred at the right time. My friend and I are trying to understand the item you sent to both of us. But we are clueless.”

Celestia asked to see them, pretending she did not remember which items she had send to them. The Condor had received a long cable of copper protected by a sheath of an unknown matter. The bear had been given a small bulb made of glass containing a strangely shaped wire of metal. Building on her thousand years old art of masquerade, Celestia smiled and gave them nothing to chew on.

“Oh, you will see sooner or later,” Celestia said mystically.

Both diplomats shrugged with a smile.

It was bad, everybody was present and the Princess was alone to manage the banquet, and the stares and hoofshakes she was given betrayed that all the guests were impatient about her announcement, whatever it should be.

She had to hurry…

The assembly went silent so quickly it spooked Celestia. She raised her head searching for the evidence of an incident between two attendees. But her ears caught something instead. A whistle… no, it was a song, and the singer was singing loudly.

“Mon petit oiseau a pris sa volée,
Mon petit oiseau a pris sa volée,
A pris sa… à la volette,
A pris sa… à la volette,
A pris sa volée,”

Everybody had frozen,watching a massive gate carved in the wall opposed to Celestia’s location. It gave on the hallway leading to the garrison.

“Il s’est appuyé sur un oranger,
Il s’est appuyé sur un oranger,
Sur un o… à la volette,
Sur un o… à la volette,
Sur un oranger…”

And then the gate slid on its hinges and what Celestia feared happened. Turning his back to the crowd, Verdugo entered the banquet room, dragging a heavy metal case with his only arm left. He was sweating heavily and had taken off his shirt, unveiling all his ugly scars and marks, as well as his stump.
After a few meters inside the room, he stopped to catch his breath. But it went short-lived as he heard a mumble behind him. On instinct, he jumped to face the origin of the sound. And more than a hundred pairs of eyes met his own.

“Oh fuck man.”

Old Version:

Birds chirped carelessly In the middle of Canterlot’s maze as the sun rose from beneath the horizon. The sunbeams licked the façades of the castle, casting its warming touch on every surface it could reach. In a remote place of the park, a statue of a unicorn stood high in the middle of a pond. Water jetted out of its mouth and the lapping of the stream was recurring, reminding to the ponies passing by that time was moving slowly, unbearably slowly.

“I’m so fucking bored!” Maria complained loudly, chasing the birds away.

“Shut up,” everybody replied with the same amount of boredom.

Maria, Kreps, Verdugo and Ray were sitting on a bench facing the pond, as steady as the statue. They could see the canopy of the castle from their position, but they could not care less. They sighed once again searching around them anything that could be entertaining. Yet, with nothing but their unanswered question bouncing endlessly in their heads they could experience a slow but settling depression.

“Two weeks!” Maria burst out. “Two damn bloody weeks we’re stuck here, doing nothing but standing with freaking talking ponies hanging around with wide smiles on their faces! Joker faces!”

She took a deep breath.

“Paradise is so annoyinh!” she shouted.

“Shut up…” they repeated, on the brink of punching her in the face.

Maria pouted and kicked a small rock with her foot.

“Can we break something?” Maria asked.

“No,” Ray ordered, hiding his face behind the palms of his hands.

“Can I break something?” she continued.

“Definitely no!”

“Party-poopers!” she growled. “We can’t do anything, and we are always being spied on. Can’t we spice up this place a tiny little bit?”

The bushes behind them rustled. They all shot deadly stares back at the wall of leaves. A pink pony dashed onto the edge of the bench. And bounced on Maria’s knees who gasped under the pony’s weight.

“Somepony said ‘party’?” Pinkie Pie busted into laughter. “I love parties. Do you like parties? Because everypony love minmrglghmrlgl….”

Verdugo had caught Pinkie’s muzzle with only his left hand. This did not stop Pinkie from bouncing around like crazy, unaffected by Verdugo’s attempt to shut her up. In one of her joyful jolts, she carried away the wounded man. Verdugo fell on the ground, flat on his wound. A grunt later, Verdugo started wobbling, grumbling, and cursing. Pinkie Pie laughed.

“Oh, oh! I love riddles!” Pinkie intoned gleefully. “You’re a snake! No, that’s silly. A reed? No that’s crazy, but… I’d say a badger!”

She giggled again under the bewildered looks of the three remaining humans. Kreps was taken aback, Maria wanted to kick the pony in the face and Ray, well, he was still stuck in his facepalming stance. Pinkie Pie finally heard Verdugo’s grunts. She stopped jerking around and focused on the poor human. Verdugo kept a hand over his damaged shoulder, screwing his eyes in an attempt to hold back his tears.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Pinkie blabbered, her mane flattening instantly.

“That’s okay,” the man creeping on the floor retorted. “I’ve endured worse.”

“But not a talking horse!” Maria snickered with a rhyme.

Pinkie and everybody except Verdugo chuckled. Maria stood up and put a foot on Verdugo’s right side. From above he looked like a snail she thought, crawling away from a shoe trying to squeeze him. Verdugo had enough and tried to get up. Resting upon his arm, he trembled. Maria kicked him in the butt and Verdugo’s head dug into the grass in front of him. Maria laughed raucously. Pinkie Pie’s eyeballed her, horrified.

“Hey! That’s not cool!” A mare voice bashed Maria. “That’s even the opposite of being cool!”

Rainbow Dash leaped to Verdugo’s position from behind a cloud. She tried to put him back on his feet. Verdugo was heavy and she struggled helping him to stand on his unsteady feet. She grunted as much as Verdugo in the effort. Then the bulky human pushed her away.

“No. I’m fine. I don’t need help,” Verdugo said, pushing Rainbow aside. “Maria is just slightly annoying when she can’t play the game.”

Pinkie gasped at the last word.

“Which game?” The pink pony asked, bouncing in joy. “I love games.”

Verdugo stood up and looked down at Rainbow Dash.

“Oh,” he interjected, casting an eerie grin at his friends. “It is not a simple game. It is called the ‘Baraka’, an old world coming from an ancient and foreign language.”

“Ancient?” a new voice beckoned from behind the pool. Twilight came to sight, curiosity driving her to slither out of her hideout.

“No, really!” Kreps raged, breaking the silence he had kept for a long moment. “Is everypony here watching us secretly?”

Twilight came in full sight, blushing. She refused to meet the inquisitive stares the humans were shooting at her. Verdugo cleared his throat and continued, facing Pinkie again.

“Baraka means luck, because you need it in this game, a lot. Because for playing it, the two duellists will need music and weapons, a lot of weapons.”

Pinkie Pie’s smile died instantly. Rainbow and Twilight arched a brow, sensing a mean trick coming quickly.

“Celestia told us to not give you back the… stuff you had,” Twilight teased, putting a hoof on Pinkie’s mouth. “We’re not stupid, Verd’, is that it?”

“For you, it will be Verdugo,” He bashed before giving a swift glance at Maria. “Was worth the try I guess.”

He looked back at the pony trio.

“You know you only have a few objects we once had. We lost all our… stuff when your yellow friend brought a dra… wyvern on us all.”

Maria sighed and eyed the sky through spite. She cursed the lack of tact her friend had just shown. Verdugo shrugged back at her.

“Stop blaming Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash ordered inquisitively. “You should be concerned for her. We know she had been attacked by changelings.”

The last word disturbed Kreps who was going to ask a question about the nature of those… ‘changelings’, but Verdugo cut him off.

“Therefore there will be no game. And for your own knowledge, Miss Dash, Baraka is much more dangerous for those who play it…” Verdugo paused, creating a slight suspense. “…than for those who just watch. It’s like a rodeo, the first one to get hurt or out lose.”

Applejack popped out of a neighbouring corridor, holding her hat in her hooves. She had this smile on her face showing that she had finally heard something that interested her. She had rings under her eyes, showing that the human conversation had been deeply tiring.

“Did someone say rodeo?” Applejack beamed.

The four humans raged. Then their shoulders fell a little, abandoning.

“If anybody…” Maria started.

“Pony!” Rarity’s and Twilight’s voices corrected together as the mannered pony joined the group.

Maria stared blankly at her.

“If anypony could stop spying us! We ain’t monsters or lepers.”

At the moment, they all wanted to stand up and leave. Having a bunch of ponies on their tracks was something they refused to let happen again. The ambiance defiled so rapidly it was poignant. Ray took the next step and yelled.

“If anypony is spying on us right now, you can get out of your hideout and come here. It is not like we’re gonna eat you.”

“But horse mea…” Verdugo added, only to get wacked back on the ground by Maria.

A small bunny showed itself from the opposite of the square, pulling with him a butter yellow pony. Fluttershy cringed on her hooves once everypony and body had stuck their eyes on her. She shivered and covered her eyes like it was of any help.

“We said everypony,” Ray asserted.

Finally, four ponies showed up in pairs. Ray, Maria and the two other humans frowned, they did not know those faces.

Celestia smiled at the muted child toddling inside the chamber of the throne. Only a couple of guards were present, standing still beyond the threshold of the gate. With her magic the princess levitated Luna’s teddy-bear and handed it to the kid. He grasped it greedily and rewarded the princess with a smile comparable to Pinkie Pie’s, like an alien version of it.

“Luna will send me to the sun for this,” Celestia snorted with a small chuckle.

The child ran around the vast room and laughed, surprising Celestia. The child’s genuine happiness was contagious. The child’s steps echoed on the marbled floor and the sound flew into the hallway leading to the room.

Somepony cleared their throat and Celestia raised her eyes. A spokespony had just entered. Respectful, he bent to the princess. He had a several scrolls under his hoof, and in spite of his assertiveness, he seemed ill-at-ease. Celestia had a talent to pierce the masks of her subjects, one thousand years of experience was everything but irrelevant. Whatever the effort the spokespony would have put in staying as expressive as a rock, Celestia would have known. Sometimes, guards swore the princesses could read minds. Celestia arched a brow and the emissary took a deep breath.

“We might have a problem. A big one.”

The pony licked his lips, moistening them as the words he was going to say was making him sweat.

“Somepony invited nearly all nations in the world to a reception in Canterlot. Today…” he finally said.

Celestia slipped off her throne, eyes wide open. She laughed dryly and then snickered, still with a pinch of hesitation.

“You’re kidding me right? Just tell me you’re joking?” she asked, unassured.

“Somepony replicated official invitations with your signature…” The spokespony bit his lower lips. “The guests do think it is official.”

“That’s really bad,” Celestia whispered, biting her tongue.

She fretted, thinking at a fast-pace about the best way to get out of this plight. Another question sparked in her mind, the identity of the prankster. Pinkie? No, even if she was the queen of the tricksters, she knew that such a matter was not laughable. She would not have. Celestia could not come up with a perfect suspect. She was enraged, but shovelled her anger deep inside.

“How much delegations are coming?” Celestia asked with a knot in her heart. “And when?”

“Tonight, and there are at least a hundred expected emissaries,” the spokespony blurted out.

Even he had a hard time believing it.

“This will be a long night,” Celestia grumbled. “Take a note please. We’re going to need some help.”

“What’s your names?” Maria asked, drumming on ground with her foot. “Your mothers never told you that spying was bad, m’kay?”

The four ponies had lowered their head, ashamed and refusing to meet the woman’s eyes. The first pair of ponies was a contrasting couple. Two mares with completely different mane styles and colours.

“Name’s Bon Bon,” the mare with a beige coat and a magnificent curled navy blue and pink mane said. “But it’s Lyra who got me here!”

“Hey?!” her stooge shot back, ruffling her white and turquoise hair.

Maria sighed and turned around to face the second group of spies. She eyed them with an inquisitive gaze. The group was as colourful as the first one. It was also like looking at a clash between two opposite lifestyles. The first mare was as white-coated as Rarity but her mane was ruffled, sharp and made of a blend of blue flashy locks like streaks of lightning bolt slashing the sky. Her eyes were hidden behind two massive purple sunglasses. The second pony was all mannered. Did Rarity have a sister? Her grey fur matched with a well-done dark grey mane. She had a pink bow tie.

Both of them showed a music-related cutie-mark.

“Vinyl Scratch,” the first mare said, wobbling her head to pull back her headphones on her neck. “And she is Octavia, my roommate.”

She saluted the humans, raising her eyes toward the sky as Vinyl was jumping on her hooves, not hiding her excitement.

“Did you say music?” she moved on.

Maria shrugged, she had not seen these ponies before, but they already seemed to be accustomed seeing alien creatures. News were going fast around Canterlot.

“Hey, what did you expect? Verd’ said it all. No weapons, no music,” Maria sniggered.

“Oh, come on!” Vinyl complained. “I’m sure you have some good music from your world… like electro, wubs...”

Every human fixed her with blank eyes.

“You have music instruments?” a deep voice asked.

Everybody and everypony turned on their feet or hooves and looked at Verdugo. He received weird looks.

“You’re interested in music now?” Ray asked with a pinch of irony.

“No,” Verdugo replied instantly. “But between sitting here and going to see something, it’s damn easy to choose.” His friends nodded. “And I don’t want to have that purple uni-thing to drown me with ‘tard questions.”

Twilight sat close to the bench and pouted, vexed. Everybody laughed except Twilight who seemed to shrink on her hooves, covering her ears as the chuckles reminded her some dark times of her past… the kindergarten.

“Oh sugarcube,” AppleJack started, putting her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “We’re sorry.”

“I ain’t,” Maria replied.

“Me too,” Verdugo added.

Everypony glared daggers at them. They were not making the situation easier. Ray interposed, stopping the upcoming strife.

“Well,” he settled. “Don’t we have some instruments to see?”

Octavia nodded and, with everypony and everybody in tow, she went to a shop she knew well. Yet, she could not fight back this eerie impression she was going to regret it.

“Luna!” Celestia cried out.

The Princess of the Sun burst through the doors of her sister’s private chamber. She stopped and looked at the scene. Luna was having her own temper tantrum, turning her furniture upside down, shaking them to squeeze their content out with her magic. Pillows were ripped open, the bed linens had been thrown out of the window and her many toy boxes were sliced in half. When Celestia entered, Luna looked at her and saw the small human behind. Luna’s pupil shrunk to pinpricks when she saw her teddy-bear.

“You,” she whispered with anger. “We meet again.”

The child stuck his tongue out at her and disappeared in the hallway, running. Luna was ready to leap in his tow and chase him down, but Celestia blocked her way.

“We’ve got more decisive things to do Sister,” she claimed.

Luna was not convinced, forcing Celestia to take her time explaining the situation. Luna’s mouth opened wide when she heard that a sword of Damocles was hanging above them.

“Who could do that?” Luna asked, awe stricken.

“I have no idea. But we have to set up the castle before the arrivals in a few hours.”

“Can’t we just all send them back home?”

Celestia sighed. Her horn glowed white and with the same scintillating colour, quotation marks appeared in the air.

“Diplomacy,” Celestia spelled ironically. “Do you speak it?”

Luna grunted.

“We have to set up the castle! Fast!” Celestia hurried, before she started running away to pump some stress into Canterlot’s staff.

“What do we do with the humans?” Luna asked hesitantly before her sister left the throne room.

Celestia stopped, her shoulders falling slightly. She gave a low grumble. Luna had revealed her sister’s ignorance on this issue.

“This is a spine in my heel.” Celestia facehooved in front of her younger sister. “I take care of the castle. You, go and hide the humans.”

Celestia teleported away in a white wisp. Luna’s face went red.

“Why me?”

She cried out her discontentment and looked around, nopony was there to listen to her. She did not even know where the group of primates were, and with the little one on the loose, it was going to be a hell of an afternoon. Luna ran into every room of the castle and found nopony that could help her. Then she headed to the catacombs of the castle, humans liked creepy things, right? They should have been there. Unfortunately, Luna only found old and dusty skulls.

There was only one place she had not checked yet… the outside. The immense, flat or steep outside where the humans were within the sight of everypony. She cursed them for being so reckless. What if the incoming guests saw them? It would be a catastrophe. And the child, Luna was convinced he was looking at her from the depths of a shadow, right behind her, grinning. She was convinced he was mocking her while holding her teddy-bear. Luna was angry, and at the moment, she sought for nothing but an argument with somepony, or somebody.

“Anyone of them would do fine,” she said with a grin and crept out of the catacombs.

The surroundings of the castle, the parks and mazes were empty of human life and even Twilight and her friends were nowhere to be found. Luna was going to burst out. There was only one place she had not ventured in… Canterlot’s city. And oh god she knew she hated that place! She hated it so much for the stares she usually got back from everypony. She was a princess and thus, seeing her among the mortalswas considered as disrespectful for her own person. She never entered a shop and never bought anything. Secretly she thrived to try, at least for a day, to be a casual pony. She desired to hang around this kingdom her sister had run all on her own for centuries. Luna got an idea.

In a pop, Luna changed into her filly’s shape, a light blue coated form that had not even her cutie mark. She felt like she had become one thousand years younger. She was far smaller than what she was used to. Everything seemed gigantic and unreachable. It was an eerie feeling, scary. And to be honest, she was also a bit amused. But she would never confess it. She shook her head and looked at Canterlot’s city. It was time to take a tour inside.

Ponies stepped aside as fast as lizards fleeing a threat. The sight of the four humans accompanying a hoof-full of ponies was surprising, if not unsettling. And nopony dared to cross their path. Octavia headed the procession with Verdugo and Maria at her sides. She was not feeling good. Two large shadows cast on her back raised the fur on her neck. A chill ran beneath her skin.

Only Lyra was really fascinated by the humans, and she did not hide herself from it. It was indeed a fascination, but a different kind from what Twilight had shown since the first contact. Lyra was annoying the thinner of the four creatures, Kreps. Mimicking Pinkie Pie, she was bouncing around the human, holding one of his hands in her hooves. True sadness was scarring Kreps’s face. And it’s with badly-repressed smiles that everypony and everybody were looking at the weird and loud duo.

“Hey!” Kreps shouted. “Get over with that. I don’t want to get a fan club.”

“This is irrelevant,” Lyra answered back. “You’re too extraordinary to let you… just go.”

At the back of the queue, Applejack titled her head toward Rainbow Dash.

“Ah’m thinking that we’ve found Twilight’s twin.”

The two ponies chuckled.

Everypony in Canterlot was aware of the humans staying within the walls of the city. They had been informed by Celestia and Luna. Yet, they had been forbidden to talk about it to strangers and ponies from the outside. The humans were kept in Canterlot as prisoners inside a golden jail.

“Here we are,” Octavia announced.

They all raised their heads and read the writing above the front door, ‘Absolute’s melody’. It was one of the old buildings of Canterlot. The front window was only showing closed navy blue curtains.

“Well,” Maria initiated. “I’d have expected somethin’ fancier, coming from a talking pony.”

“My name is Octavia,” the mare before her retorted. “And it’s a friend’s boutique. I will not complain about it. So won’t you.”

Maria put her hands up, mimicking a scared foal.

“Watch out, we have an angry pony over here.”

Verdugo, Ray and Kreps laughed raucously. Octavia cursed them all and pushed the door inward. All followed. The inside of the store was blanketed with beige velvet. But the most amazing part was the hundreds of music instruments strewn over the place. Ray whistled with Verdugo and Kreps. Only one thing disturbed the group. The room was plunged into a slight darkness. Only shafts lights poured through the curtains.

“Eh, eh you like what you see?” a feminine voice rose from a corner of the boutique.

“Absolute… how many times did I tell you not to stay in the dark?” Octavia reprimanded. “We can’t see anything in this blackness.”

The mare called Absolute chuckled. Octavia opened wide the curtains and sunlight flooded the room instantly. More than one pony blinked, eyes aching. The mare, a unicorn, in the boutique had two black glasses hiding her eyes. She had a brown fur and her mane was black. Next to her, given to see to everyone and everypony, was a walking stick.

“Octavia, you know that’s useless for me, light,” she joked.

“Maybe for you, but you won’t get earnings if you can’t attract clients. I’m not your boss you know. You should start thinking about yourself a little.”

Absolute gave another chuckle as Verdugo walked around noisily, looking at the instruments.

“You bring a minotaur here Octavia?” Absolute growled. “I thought I’ve already told you that they always break my instruments, they are too strong! My work need dexterousness.”

“I don’t think we are minotaurs,” Maria retorted, she looked at Kreps. “Are we?”

“Erm…” Kreps tried to reply.

He was not really good at improvising. Maria looked back at Absolute and found the blind pony standing only an inch from her. The mare slowly raised her hoof and probed Maria’s face, searching for known features.

“You must be the creatures that everypony is talking about,” she guessed.

“Clever girl,” Kreps deadpanned, winking at Verdugo.

Both laughed. Ray scowled at them, asking for silence.

“Don’t worry, just a reference from a movie from our world,” Ray explained to the frowning ponies

Rainbow Dash was the first to grumble.

“Well, shall I show you around?” Absolute asked.

“Of course,” Twilight cut off before any human reply with a stupid sentence or quote.

Luna had tracked down the path left by the humans for nearly an hour. And now, she had found herself facing a dusty and old store. She jumped back when the curtains behind the window burst open, and hid behind a cart passing by before anypony could see her. A few seconds later, she made the decision to peer an eye through the door. She saw twelve ponies, and the four humans she was searching for inside. Thinking quickly, Luna cast a simple invisibility spell on herself and slithered in.

“So, around here you’ll see cellos like the one Octavia owns,” Absolute explained.

“Shush!” Octavia berated. “I don’t want ponies to know that my cello isn’t a unique one-of-a-kind model.”

Luna chuckled, she knew Octavia for being one of the main musicians of the castle. She was always showing off her cello, pretending it was unique. Luna would now have a reason for Octavia to play more for her.

Absolute gave a cute laugh and went on. She showed off her violins, lyres, double basses, saxophones, flutes, pipes, oboes and on and on for what seemed to be eons. As blind as she was, she could not see the bored expressions on everyone’s faces. Yet, no pony or human dared to disturb her. She was nearly in trance and nopony wanted to snap her out of it. Talking about the work she had done with her own hooves was a hobby she could not often do, she had probably only a few clients. To her avail, her instruments were a wonderful work. Luna stayed still in a corner of the room, invisible. Immobile she could not refrain herself from smiling as Maria drew bunny’s ears with her hand behind Absolute’s head.

Footsteps echoed.

Luna saw Verdugo breaking the circle. The human drifted toward an alcove next to him. A curtain hid the content of the chamber, flooded into darkness. Stares shot at him as he had cut Absolute’s speech.

“Hey,” Applejack tried to contest.

Verdugo was stomping correctness with not a pinch of care.

“I just want to know what’s behind,” he growled.

“Can’t you ask before?”

“No.”

Verdugo slid the veil on its rod and went inside. Twilight and Octavia followed. The second room was an empty space where a massive instrument was standing alone in the middle. A translucent Luna infiltrated the room in silence. She stood next to the wall where nopony could catch her. Octavia sighed.

“Oh, the piano…” she said.

Verdugo was awe struck, his mouth opened slightly. Amazed, he transfixed the instrument taking a nearly religious stance. A hoof full of heads stood in the frame of the door and stared at the human. Verdugo raised his only valid hand, trembling. He pull a single not from the ebony piano. The tone was grave and echoed in the chamber. Octavia frowned and looked at her friend Absolute, standing in the threshold of the door.

“I thought you had got rid of that bunch of wood. It’s a griffon’s model, it isn’t useful for us pony.”

Verdugo’s hand slipped on the keyboard of the piano and produced an ear-splitting tuning.

“You said… what?” he erupted.

Surprise got hold of Octavia. She cringed on her hooves at the sight of Verdugo’s bloodshot eyes. If they had the potential, they would have glowed bright red.

“N… nothing,” she muttered.

Verdugo was on the brink to let his anger flow out.

“You said it was useless.”

Octavia ran with sweat.

“… for ponies,” she specified

Verdugo’s rage exploded.

“You don’t know what true music is!”

Octavia wanted to reply, but stopped. Her eyes went watery, and big tears dripped on her cheeks. She dashed out of the piano room, crying, bumped into Absolute and Rainbow Dash and fled outside. Nopony tried to hold her back. Once every pair of eyes came back on Verdugo, they all saw the crippled human boiling red.

“Just… get the fuck out,” Verdugo clamoured. “I need to be alone.”

Twilight murmured they had to find out where Octavia had gone. And they all passed by the entrance door. Luna, still muted felt sweat running on her face, she knew she had to keep track of every human in Canterlot, she had to follow Maria, Ray and Kreps. But, she was not sure about leaving Verdugo alone her. He was dangerous after all. She took a short minute to make up her mind and choose to Twilight, keeping her invisibility up.

Only Verdugo and the blind instrument maker stayed in the boutique. Verdugo faced the piano again and tried to play one-handed. His right hand stumbled and played a wrong tone. With rage spread on his face, Verdugo banged the keyboard with his hand. Then he let himself fall on the ground, laying. It has been too long since he had touched a piano for the last time. He gave a swift sob, then grunted.

Absolute could not see but Verdugo was constricting the stump replacing his left arm so much that drops of blood dripped over his bandages. Pain numbed his body. The human shivered.

“Something’s wrong,” Absolute asked, hesitant.

“Phantom limb,” Verdugo replied between two sobs. “It hurts.”

Absolute moved closer. She groped around the wound and understood Verdugo’s plight. The blind mare felt dizzy. Half an hour passed before she broke the ice.

“I’m… I’m so sorry,” she said.

“You shouldn’t. You’ve done nothing for breaking me.”

“What are… were you?”

Verdugo sobbed, then took a deep breath.

“I was a professional pianist. You know before… No you don’t know… My world has been destroyed, and with him a lot of stuffs were lost or broken apart. When I saw it,” he continued, mentioning the piano. “I… it was the first time in years I’ve seen one, one that did work.”

He grunted again, holding the shoulder of his amputated limb.

“Funny thing is that fate must hate me… I find a working piano but I had to lose my arm just before… Fucking fair trade.”

“Don’t think about it, you can’t fight to get back what is already lost… you have to get over with it. I could have stay in the dark, depressing because I lost my eyesight. But I moved on.”

Absolute smiled at the human. Verdugo ruffled her mane gently.

“I’m not over with my period of mourning. I’ve lost so much. And I’ve made a choice a while ago. I can’t back anymore and I will carry on. But I see so much memories surfacing along the path… Sometimes I just let the doubts drowning me. I just can’t kick them away. I try to, for my friends, but… It’s so difficult sometimes.”

Absolute nodded.

“Could you leave me alone here for a moment,” Verdugo asked. “I just need some time.”

Verdugo wiped off tears from his face and saw Absolute acquiescing. She left him in the alcove and went through a secondary door that should go to the backyard of the store. Verdugo faced the piano in silence. Outside, the night was slowly setting and the interior was getting darker as minutes passed.

“I never thought you would be that sentimental,” a voice whispered at his ears.

Verdugo jumped with surprise. Twilight was right next to him. He had not heard her enter.

“You were spying on me?” verdugo asked.

“No, I mean… Yes,” she lowered her eyes, shameful. “But you know. You, Kreps, Maria, Ray and that child all came from a world I cannot imagine. You’re an object of curiosity for me. I must understand your group, what you went through, how you can adapt to Equestria. And of course, how you can threaten it.”

Verdugo smiled.

“Thanks for your outspokenness, your highness. I…”

“I understand that you have chosen, maybe sworn an oath to protect your friends, whatever the cost. And I understand that you want to retrieve your weapons. It’s dear to you.”

Twilight dropped a key on the floor.

“Near of the garrison, there is the armoury. And right next to it there is a room. Here we locked the weapons we’ve taken from you. To get to it easily, just use one of the garrison backdoor. The guards are doing their shifts you won’t annoy anypony like this.”

Verdugo’s face brightened. Strangely he hugged the young alicorn for rather a long time.

“Awkward,” Twilight added.

“I must go, thanks.”

Verdugo jumped on his feet and was nearly out of the store when Twilight called him.

“We also found your metal box, the exact way you described it.”

Verdugo left the place running, leaving Twilight with a grin on her lips and a green light in her eyes.

“Okay,” Vinyl said. “We should split to find Octavia.”

“Well,” Maria countered. “Ponies and Humans form two different groups first.”

“Y’all not gonna give up and walk back ta your rooms?” Applejack asked, suspicious.

“No,” Maria laughed. “But I’ve had enough walking with… y’all for today.”

Rarity huffed.

“So be it,” the fashion pony declared.

They separated and went down opposite ways. But thereafter, everypony found out that they had all to split again. Canterlot was huge after all. And therefore, Twilight walked down her own street, all alone.

“Oh goddesses, why do I always have to face a jerk that can’t hold back his tongue,” she berated. “I…”

Luna popped in front of Twilight so abruptly that she shrieked in terror.

“Twilight! It’s just me, Luna.”

Panting, Twilight got a grip on herself.

“Don’t do that… ever again, understood?”

“Sorry,” Luna giggled. “But I have bad news.”

Luna explained the sudden trick Canterlot had fallen to, the impromptu invitations, the hundreds of guests coming over and the probable mess if the humans were to be discovered.

“But tonight… it’s like in one hour!” Twilight shouted, her eyes shot open.

Her head reeled, she had to rethink her whole schedule.

“I guess you don’t know who planned this?”

Luna shook her head and took a deep breath.

“We don’t know.” she hesitated. “I’ve chosen to give back the weapons to the humans. They might be useful if somepony decided to attack.”

Twilight did not reply instantly. She gave a strange look at the Princess, she sighed thereafter.

“I guess you’re right. Does Celestia know?”

“Not yet, I have to tell her. But acknowledge that for the moment I’m too busy to take care of it, if you see my sister, tell her that what the humans will do tonight is on your behalf. You must make sure that they are kept in security.”

Twilight hesitated.

“Don’t fret,” Luna reassured. “Go now. Celestia needs you.”

Twilight dashed in the next alley, only her duty in mind. Luna smiled and gave a laugh. She swivelled soon on her hooves and a green flash revealed a tall and slender black pony-shaped creature. Her algae-like mane crawled on her face and her white smile changed into a wide grin. Next to her appeared a young blue coated filly with no cutie mark. The young pony was glued to the ground with slimy rivets and her mouth was gagged.

“Too bad that you won’t participate to the party tonight, princess,” the taller changeling queen that had called herself Luna snickered.

Celestia had to thank her subjects, the whole castle had been reshaped so fast it was a new record. The hallways shone with golden, ruby and silver draperies. The banquet room was overwhelmed with food and the air smelt of lavender. Celestia was proud of her little ponies. She swore internally she would reward them greatly. Yet, she had to greet every diplomat that had come inside Canterlot at the moment. It was boring.

“Welcome to Canterlot, Lady Andraste,” Celestia announced, shaking the talon of the Griffin Empire’s Emissary.

“Thank thee Princess, I’m thrilled to hear the reason why thou hast invited so many individuals from abroad Equestria. Your letter was quite surprising,” the griffon chuckled and passed by the princess.

Celestia’s ears twitched. She felt stress getting a grasp on her.

“Welcome to Canterlot, Sir Baramond,” Celestia announced, shaking the hoof of the Saddle Arabia’s horse representative.

The diplomat smiled.

“Thank you, Princess Celestia. How do you do since that last time two years ago?”

“Quite well,” she answered.

“Your letter was really funny, I can’t wait for your presentation,” Baramond said before joining the crowd queuing for the buffet.

“I…” Celestia tried.

The princess laughed dryly. Would she get any tips about the content of the letters? Where was Luna and Twilight? Celestia felt her hooves trembling in their majestic golden horseshoes. And then she saw the opportunity. A Condor from the Andine Federation and a bear from Sibearia were bargaining over their letters. The princess drifted toward the duo.

“Everything is okay my lords,” she asked.

“Oh Princess,” the massive bear said, surprised. “Your venue occurred at the right time. My friend and I are trying to understand the item you sent to both of us. But we are clueless.”

Celestia asked to see them, pretending she did not remember which items she had send to them. The Condor had received a long cable of copper protected by a sheath of an unknown matter. The bear had been given a small bulb made of glass containing a strangely shaped wire of metal. Building on her thousand years old art of masquerade, Celestia smiled and gave them nothing to chew on.

“Oh, you will see sooner or later,” Celestia said mystically.

Both diplomats shrugged with a smile.

It was bad, everybody was present and the Princess was alone to manage the banquet, and the stares and hoofshakes she was given betrayed that all the guests were impatient about her announcement, whatever it should be.

She had to hurry…

The assembly went silent so quickly it spooked Celestia. She raised her head searching for the evidence of an incident between two attendees. But her ears caught something instead. A whistle… no, it was a song, and the singer was singing loudly.

“Mon petit oiseau a pris sa volée,
Mon petit oiseau a pris sa volée,
A pris sa… à la volette,
A pris sa… à la volette,
A pris sa volée,”

Everybody had frozen,watching a massive gate carved in the wall opposed to Celestia’s location. It gave on the hallway leading to the garrison.

“Il s’est appuyé sur un oranger,
Il s’est appuyé sur un oranger,
Sur un o… à la volette,
Sur un o… à la volette,
Sur un oranger…”

And then the gate slid on its hinges and what Celestia feared happened. Turning his back to the crowd, Verdugo entered the banquet room, dragging a heavy metal case with his only arm left. He was sweating heavily and had taken off his shirt, unveiling all his ugly scars and marks, as well as his stump.
After a few meters inside the room, he stopped to catch his breath. But it went short-lived as he heard a mumble behind him. On instinct, he jumped to face the origin of the sound. And more than a hundred pairs of eyes met his own.

“Oh fuck man.”

Jun. 2014 - My Little Nightmare

How does it feel to dive into the foremost nightmares every night…?

Many would expect an immortal being to get used to the madness and its uncountable spawns. Truth is: it never bores. At least it never did get to me in another way than horror, pain, and fear. Ponies and the from-afar-the-shores are the kilns of the evanescent dreams I cannot forget, of the mangled hopes I cannot listen to, and of the endless flow of questions I never found an answer to.

I may be the queen of the night… but the night never accepted me as regent as she, the Night, is but an eternal war to regain control.

The night is madness for sure.

But in this madness dwells beauty.

Chapter 1, Failure

"The first thing you learn when you enter a dream, and even more a nightmare, is that nothing comes in easy."

I opened my eyes to a lonesome forest. A small breeze hanging in the air gave this common summer night a delightfully fresh sweep of air. The abandoned wood was dark and silent. The night was nearing to its end, the first shades of blue starting to seep over the horizon behind a far streak of saw-toothed mountains. A thick mist had slowly risen across the vegetation, its green turned black by the creeping darkness.

I tensed at a crystalline foal’s voice crawling aloft in the night. The whisper was not spared from hiccups and sobs: a pleading constantly repeated, definitely hopeless. The dreamer, a filly, was desperately scared, probably alone. No filly deserved such treatment. The only thing a filly needed was guidance, and I would be the light in her darkness.

A scream shattered the woodland peacefulness. It was a shriek, a saw grinding over a piece of rusty iron bar. Unnatural sounds clung to that rushing complaint, waltz of discordant violins weaving between the rustlings leaves.

What I had misinterpreted for bushes flew off in the air, plummeting trails of dripping blackness in their wake. Crows. Hundreds of them. The breeze turned into wind. The fog forced its path sideway from mine, streaking with lingering shards of black. I could only see my own footpath in that haze: a dark footpath made of gravel covered with lichen.

I lifted my head from the unstridden passage. I could not see further than a few metres. I was, to be honest, completely blind. Yet, another call in the distance reasserted me. I had to walk the way up, even though it was to be a hard road to pace along.

A raven lurched at me from behind a tree, clawing at my face, cackling mockery. I gasped, striking it away from the back of my hoof. I tasted blood, dripping from my cheeks and forehead into my mouth and eyes.

I forced my way forth, fighting the gusts that had turned to face me, to fight me back into the deepest and darkest folds of this dreamt Tartarus. Was I crying? I couldn’t tell. The wind was ripping off leaves, thrusting them at me like shards of glass. I had to move on. I could not stop here. I would not be given that privilege anyway.

Screams were getting closer; as much as the length of time between each of them. I was running out of time.

Trees cracked not so far from the road; somewhere I could not see. Their trunks split under a force I had no way to fathom. I heard the branches whirl, the trunks fell in a loud rat-a-tat. Tremors cracked open the footpath. I quickened my pace. I was already late.

Another tree fell. Yet, instead of the tearing up sound came a voice. No, not a voice… a vibrant whistle. I raised my head, paying heed to the lurking sound. The whistle broke into a howl, trashing. I hated it. My ears rang. My head reeled. I wanted out from here. I knew, however, that the only exit was keeping walking.

“You’re going to die,” an echoing and creaking voice crowed ahead of me, adult, definitely male. “Why don’t you die!?”

The stallion, or whatever that was, vented a rage I had not seen often in the limbos. I heard a lash of leather whipping in the air and hit in a clack. The foal’s voice rose, a meek shriek that had lost its strength. Not even a sob. Not even a tear.

I pressed myself forward and step in a small round clearing in the forest. There stood a shack, and next to ita brown stallion with an ageing blue mane was waving a makeshift whip of tanned leather in his mouth. The young filly was facing him, her back stuck against the rotting wood frame of the shed.

“Why don’t you die?! You sickening monster!” the stallion bellowed.

I saw the whip swept in the air, gashing deep in my hide before I gathered enough wit to react. I leaped forward and shielded the foal with my body. The lash gashed at my side. Burn. It burnt as I had never experienced before.

In dreams, senses were exacerbated. Thus, in dreams, pain had to be avoided. Through what had been that foal? What was she fleeing? An abusive father? A violent relative? Nightmares were just a mirror pond of reality. As always, I had stepped in something personal, intimate.

“You won’t touch her anymore,” I warned, hugging the poor, trembling shape of a foal between my hooves.

The leather strap struck four times before the stallion backed in, scrutinizing me. Those piercing green eyes stared at me like they could bite through my flesh. The pause did not last long. He resumed his thrashing fit of rage, roaring.

“Why don’t you die? I’m fed up with you! Tormenting me every day! Night!” he pleaded. “Why don’t you go away?! Why?!”

Tears streaked down his cheeks, boring at his skin like scars of old, badly healed burns. His fur fell into clumps on the ground. His mouth dripped with muddy saliva. His hindquarters failed him, falling into the wet, blackish grass. His frail, broken body was just a shadow of its former self. It had been through fire, literally. He had jumped into fire, literally.

“Why don’t you understand?” he seethed, his voice gradually turning into a low whimper. “Why won’t you let me turn the page?”

I frowned.

“I want to reach the blank page,” he cried. “I want to go on. I was an undeserving father. I failed you. But I can’t suffer anymore. You died! You’re dead. But they are others. Family. They need me… as much you needed me.”

The foal between my hooves gagged a ripping laughter. She… seeped away. The foal slipped between my hooves, her skin changing into a black sludge dangling through my embrace. It began drowning me, reaching my mouth. It forced its way through, hurting… violating. I felt… raped.

I had been wrong the whole footpath. The foal had never been the dreamer. The stallion had been the dreamer all along, prey to his own sins and pains. I had failed him. As much he had failed his daughter. I shook my head.

I had been defeated.

ⱴĦ – V α ϵ R, E! Ω – Ħⱴ

I opened my eyes to my room ceiling. The severed nightmare still blinding my eyes. It was time to lower the moon, like every night. It would not be a good day to begin with for sure, for today I would find another pony in the newspaper’s obituary.

Oct. 2014 project - Fallout:Equestria No God Below - Intro

Author's Note

Short Description:
The lightbringer sacrificed herself to open the gate to a radiant future. It is now up to the new generation to do better. And sometimes, the adventure continues abroad.

Long Description:
Ten years have passed since the day the sky was opened again, the NCR now needs pre-war tech and help from the outside world to ensure its stability for the years to come. One objective is set: Saddle Arabia, an old ally of Equestria that turned against the Diarchy at the start of the Great War.
On board of the HMS Canterlot, an old frigate patched up by the NCR, the volunteers will find themselves in the city-state of Bahrneigh, a place where the war never ended.

Oct. 2014 project - Fallout:Equestria No God Below - Intro

α₹҉₸₫ µ₢₰₣₮ћꜚ ⱴ ћ Ω₸῁ ὦ ћꜚ₮ ћ‽ꜗ₮₫₸῁ ћ β₮₹ꜚ ћ‽₢₫ µ₣₮ ᶋ

“Hatred is universal. Not because it is a necessary evil but because we deserved to suffer its wrath. We opened the door of our home to anger and destruction. In doing so it destroyed everything we had. Even drowning despair, we never kicked it out of our rubbles. We just let it conduct our lives.

The Wasteland has been home to hatred for far too long. We need to build our home again, that very home we have always dreamt of every Luna’s beautiful nights. We thrive for that home once called Equestria. Only the future will unravel if we do deserve a second chance. For us to catch that opportunity, we must do better.

I only have one word. Rebuild. We need ponies to go, wander, and spread the NCR’s and the Followers’ common voice. We need to find new allies, whether they are builders, savants, leaders, ponies or other races that will gladly join us and share our project: A project of hope. If we show kindness, maybe they will be ready to join us.

To bring back the home we all wish for, I just need volunteers. What I’m offering you is a purpose without hatred, without fear, without shackles. And in the end, it will forever be your personal accomplishment.”

It had all started like this: an offer that tasted like redemption, a hope for a better future… an opportunity to fly away at least for a few months from the harsh reality the Equestrian Wasteland still was. Many times I had heard about the mythical Gardens of Equestria. But the hope had grown weary for the elements of harmony were still awaited ten years after the sky had been cleared.

The buttery yellow Pegasus’s pink and grey curly mane swung as she spoke with a silk-like voice. In the pouring light from many spotlights with the promiscuous feeling oozing from a theatre bathing in the heat of its own stacked-in crowd, trickles of sweat rolled down her brow. Standing in that overcrowded theatre, Fluttershy’s mane and fur reflected that light. She was our beacon, piercing through the darkness in our hearts and our minds, obliterating our doubts. She stood forth in front of her microphone.

“We found an old warship, the HMS Canterlot. We patched it up and gave him a mission: a mission that won’t be fulfilled without its future crew. That mission, my friends, is to find survivors abroad. Survivors that desire to join the NCR and make the travel back to Equestria. If they want it of course. I- I wouldn’t mind if they refuse. It’s because of u… me that this mess happened.”

My throat tightened in a knot. I was new in the NCR and, at the time, I was very young. But like everypony, I had heard tales about Fluttershy. We all knew how old she was, and, of course, what she had done. It was hard to believe to be honest but I once talked to her. She had told me the truth. I remember I cried at her hooves. I had cried out of rage, disgust, pity, shame, and maybe compassion.

The Minister of Peace hung her head low and rubbed one forehoof over the other. At that point, Velvet Remedy made an entrance and walked slowly towards her friend. The charcoal Unicorn said words we never heard then hugged the Pegasus. They both smiled and let out a shared and long breath. With a radiant smile that made our fears and stress vanish, Fluttershy swept the sweat off her cheek. I wasn’t the only pony to see her hooves shake. She inhaled and drew a long breath while a tear rolled down her cheek. Her voice broke the silence that had eerily took hold of the audience without us noticing.

“The first mission of the HMS Canterlot will be to reach the Saddle. For those who don’t know, Saddle Arabia is… was a small nation that once sided with Equestria. The Saddle has… had a common border with the Zebra Empire. For that reason among many others, Roam was close to the border, Saddle Arabia preferred joining the Zebras despite our treaties with them. They chose a security that in the end defaulted everybody,” she said without second thoughts.

The crowd became louder. Hooves clattered on the parquet polished by hooves and time and hit-chats grew noisier. Fluttershy softly thumped her hoof on the wooden stage asking ponies to pay heed.

“Past is the past, friends. If they are survivors, we will offer them the trip to Equestria.” Her eyes dropped and she nibbled her lower lip. “But I have not much hope for survivors. The Saddle was already a barren land even before the Balefire struck. Be gentle if you find survivors. You are NCR ambassadors… bringers of hope. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not lie. Please. This mission has another purpose. One as pressing as helping survivors. We must find technology to bring back to Equestria. To help rebuilding. Otherwise… I don’t know.”

Whispers travelled across the crowd and I heard doubts, questions, and fear express themselves openly.

“Awfully sounds like old time rangers, I’m out of that fucked up shit!” A random pony growled as the dim gained momentum.

“Please,” she intoned softly. “Pretty please.”

Some guard ponies made sure some agitated ponies stay in line. Fluttershy took a step back and looked down in defeat. Miss Remedy urged for silence as she tapped on the microphone. A hoof suddenly raised in the air and went high enough that more than a few heads turned and watched.

“I have a question!” a red mare boomed after she pushed her midnight blue mane from her crimson face.

The crowd fell silent and eyes riveted on her.

“What’s the topic of your worries?” Fluttershy mumbled, too far away from the microphone to reverberate her voice.

“Why are you throwing so many ponies, caps, and resources at this mission? To me it seems a bit overkill.”

Ponies agreed and Fluttershy nodded. The question sounded indeed key to me. Fluttershy walked back to the microphone and cleared her voice with a hint of a warm smile drawn on her face.

“Every day we see more and more ponies coming to NCR territories. Security, food, water, help. We have those in quantity.” She paused and sighed. “But it’s not enough. If we do nothing. It will never be enough. To have security, we need stability. Stability comes from equal access to resources. To have that equality we must have a productive agriculture. Food needs water to grow. And water… pure water I mean… We don’t have enough. The tools we have today are not fast enough. If we do nothing, we will never have enough of what we need… and… it will be war on resources all over again.”

The red unicorn slid a lock of her dark blue hair behind her horn and went to say something. Fluttershy raised her hoof with a smile.

“Please.” The red mare pouted in answer but let Fluttershy continue. “I already said that the Saddle was barren even before the war. To prevent droughts, they invented the water purification process with zebra advisors. It’s there that Stable-Tec stole the technology they used for the Stable Project. It is that technology that we use today to provide water to NCR cities and refugees. But we don’t have enough of those… We lack of ponies able to make replacements. If… If we can find a talisman factory in the Saddle and reengineer it or even bring one back to Equestria, it would be one great landmark for the return of our prosperity. The NCR and the followers hope this would insure peace in Equestria. And if there is peace in Equestria, then we can hope we will be able to bring it back our homeland to life. This is why I need volunteers for a dangerous trip to the other side of the world.”

It had all started like this. A simple six-month trip to the Saddle, five to six thousand kilometres from the remains of Manehattan, South of a nation we annihilated two hundred and ten years ago. The red mare’s hoof rose as she volunteered. New hooves followed in mass. Velvet Remedy stepped up and sent her words spread over the heads.

“May Luna’s beautiful night sky guide you to where Celestia’s sight cannot venture, and further beyond.”

I knew so little.

Fallout Equestria: No God Below

Oct. 2014 project - Fallout:Equestria No God Below - Prologue

The sand came and slowly swallowed the City. It stormed the crowded streets and engulfed everything in a fiery, blazing embrace. Like an angry god, it desiccated, blurred, and buried the memories, the shells, and those who’d been given peace at last.

The sand came but, as strong as it might have been, it was still a weak remedy for the world’s insanity. The desert wasn’t strong enough to tame the shadow that has always dwelled in the heart of the living. A lurking monster with one simple name… War.

α₹₮ ћꜚ₮₹₰ ћꜘ₢₸₮ ћ π₮₫₮₹₰₮ ὦ ћ‽ ⱴ₰ ћꜘ₮῁҉₮῁ ћ ⱴ₸ ћ µꜚ₹ β

“I double dare you,” the red unicorn teased me as a white mist rose around her muzzle.

She lifted her long, curly locks of navy blue mane and pushed them back behind her horn and perked up ears. Then, with her wonderful, puppy and purple eyes boring at my soul, she gave me the most saccharine pout from around the block. It was hard not to obey and the shivers beneath in my hooves made it impossible to assert myself. The chamber was so damn cold.

“You first, Alea,” I muttered back, cowering a little as her wide-eyed creeping face drew closer. “Mares are always first.”

And I sneezed straight at her face… Wasn’t going to flirt for a few days after that. Clumsily, I rubbed her muzzle, only to spread the misdeed a bit more.

“Why the long face, Sharky?” I puffed, holding back my laugh.

A little bit of spreading here and there and, Tadaaa! It was disgustingly perfect. A broken smile on my face, I watched a tiny bit of yellowish green slip off her cheek.

“Sharky?” she grinned. “I thought you hated them teeth.”

Eeyup. Not my fault if she had carved her teeth into razor-sharp fangs when she was younger. She was a reformed raider after all. People called her ‘Sharky’ for that reason. She had also the habit to crunch the life with full tooth to many ponies’ dismay.

She leaped on me and screwed me to the ground. My yelp echoed in the room and reverberated on the walls. Her dank breath washed over my face and she showed off her teeth and snapped then right above my left eyes. I cried out and tried to slip away from her lock. She let out a madly stretched out laugh as a shadow cast over her face, her two purple eyes tainting with the colour of blood. Her face slowly lowered next to my ear. Pinned down, I could only listen. She licked her curvy lips and rasped a raggedy breath.

“You know, little toy,” she cajoled at a horribly slow pace. “I need only one thing from you.”

“What?” I whined, feeling the touch of her canines on my temples, cold, sharp, and avid.

“A towel!” she shouted.

“No, please! Mercy!”

My ears ringing with her cry, she buried her snout in my neck and washed my own snort on my hide. We rolled, yapped, and chided around, the place keeping the screams and shouts trapped, echoing, tick-ticking in my ears.

Breathing and sweating in the cold, we rested on our back, uncaring of the frostbite.

“I’m gonna need a shower now,” I growled.

“Prude,” was her only answer.

She rubbed her hooves together, spreading a bit of warmth beneath the red fur that covered her all. My head rolled aside I surprised myself smiling as I looked at her. She was damn beautiful with her purple eyes and smooth lines. Alea was a pretty mare many ponies on the HMS Canterlot desired. I was making many jealous. We were childhood friends, though, that helped. And her flank, I wished I could have a bite… But her cutie mark, one dagger and a pair of dice jumping out of a magician hat, was a grim reminder of who she was and had been. I had never tried anything. She would have had my head on her shelf if so.

With my stupid smile drawn across my face, she batted my head with the back of her hoof.

“Tick, tick? Anypony inside? You lost in time?” she mused. “Clock’s broken? Wake up, Dervish!”

Glaring daggers in her general direction, I pushed myself on my side and lifted myself up with a grunt.

“It hurts, knuckle-head!” I spat, shaking my head. “Can’t you be less… you.”

“Eh, you’re talking to…” She thrust herself on her backlegs, startling me, and stretched her forehooves in a heroic stance and said with a wink, “… The Monster of Hollow Shades!”

“Dun… dun… dun…” I huffed half-heartedly with a slow sarcastic applause, “yay.”

She stuck out her tongue at me like a childish reprimand. At least until she needled it with one of her teeth. She gurgled, fell aside, and swerved like a beaten dog, a tiny bit of blood trickling on her lips. She would never change and I would never get used to them. Dem teeth! She always had had ponies on edge with them. She had watered down the flame of many lovers before with just a swift bite. Somehow, I was used to it. Not paying attention, I missed her getting up and she pinned me on a wall with her hooves.

“You know I know you like them,” she breathed next to my neck and laughed with a dreadful rasp, “Ah… Ah… Ah…”

I pushed her aside. She dropped and squirmed on the ice that covered the floor.

“You creep,” I mumbled. “I hoped I hadn’t been teamed with you.”

“Still afraid, limp dick?” she teased a second before she lunged, grabbed me by the neck, and pushed me back in front of what we had been studying before she’d started her antics. “You gonna make me sooooo sad if you don’t do it. We had a bet, remember?”

She hit the contraption with her hoof and the clatter ringed in my flopped ears. Cowering, I tried to laser her down with deadly eyes. She pouted, fluttering her eyelids so painfully slowly her puppy eyes made me wallow in remorse. She would own me one day, I swear.

I sighed, trying to erase the click-clicking from my ears, and watched her sport the smile of victory.

“Yeah, yeah…You won, Alea,” I said. “Let’s get over with it.”

“Oh, waffle-head, it’s the game. You bet. You lost,” she snarled. “You gonna have to deal with the challenge. My challenge.”

Trapped in the coldness with icy mist forming in front of our mouths, I pleadingly stared at her.

“Tut, tut, lil’ colt,” she giggled, clacking her tongue in her mouth. “You gonna fulfil the promise. No bargain or anything allowed.”

“Don’t you think we have more important things to attend but your raider games,” I said, rolling my eyes at the ceiling. “Like preparing for the docking. We’ve got a briefing in a few minutes.”

“Nuff said,” she put her hoof on my lips. “You played. You lost. Now stuck out the tongue and do it. And grow up a bit. Wake up.”

I grunted dismissively. She was the one who needed to grow up. Not me. As she watched me closely, I stuck out my tongue in the cold and closed the gap between me and… the thing…

“Come on,” she said, jumping on her clicking hooves, repressing a laugh. “Do it.”

“Yeah, I know,” I countered. She still had a bit of blood on her lips. Fucking maniac. “Just… let me sync.”

“Do it! Do it! Do it!” she cackled. “Or you’re chicken! Gok, bwok, gok!”

She rose on her hindlegs and wobbled her head back and forth with her forehooves behind her back.

“Oh com…”

Then she screamed at me. Screaming back instinctively, she bit in my mane avidly and ploughed me against the metal pole that had been sitting before us all along. I saw stars, tweeting birds, and clicking PipBucks. I was stuck tongue all out against the freezing metal pole. Damn, I hated her for winning every bet.

“Ah, b’avo!” I retorted, grunting with my tongue stuck on the frozen metal. I think she had broke one of my teeth. “ha’’y ‘ow?”

My butt slid slowly on the three inches thick ice-cover. My only bollard was that pole and my tongue, the only rope anchoring me.

Alea stretched her slender legs and lay in the cold next to me with a smug face. Pressing her lips together playfully, she poked my side without a word. Each time she poked, she went it a bit harder until I was gasping for air. Gagging as her painful blow dug in my flank, I slid aside, my tongue still stuck to the pole. My fare abruptly ended when my butt hit a nearby wall.

Alea rose on her hooves and walked up to my sore rump as I moaned in pain. Her hooves click-clicking on the ground she stood next to me. I saw droplets of blood fall down on the ice and crystallise.

“’ou hu’t ‘ou’self,” I warned.

She didn’t care or answered as she sat on my back with a rueful smile. She hummed a song, her head resting in her hooves, a slow trickle of blood going down her lip.

“’ou ‘eavy,” I growled. “’ou ‘ould go ‘o infi’ma’y.”

“You should wake up instead,” she said.

“Uh?”

She lowered herself and whispered in saccades into my ear, covering the tinkering of an unknown origin that engulfed the room, “One little pony sitting in an icy tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

“You’re creeping me out, Alea.”

She whacked my head so hard my snout bit in the ice. My blood joined hers. She cackled, pouncing on top of my shoulders. I rolled aside and departed from her nightmarish grip. Sitting in the ice, I rubbed my sore mouth and my cold tongue, and shook my heavy head. She had hit my eye pretty hard and I could already feel the bruise coming up. Everything was ringing, clicking, repeatedly. With lights. And I could hear dripping. We shouldn’t have left the door of the Canterlot’s hold open. Everything was starting to leak and unfreeze here. I was so gonna be blamed for it.

“Done with your shenanigans, Alea?” I complained, munching on my tongue as she pouted like a foal and I rolled my eyes. “What if somepony finds us in the refrigerated hold?”

“Nothing, nopony ever comes here,” Alea answered flatly. “You should wake up.”

“Except us and your stupid bets,” I retorted. “And I hate that place full of noises and clicks. I’m sure the boat is haunted. Let’s just go get some preparation so we don’t get killed in the city.”

“It’s not like I’m gonna die,” she assured as I heard her thumping her hoof on her chest. “I’ve survived the Wastes. I got to geld some unfaithful Red Eye remnants if you remember. Wake up.”

I shook my head in disbelief as she clacked her teeth together in a bear trap-like thump that made me jump back. After blowing the snort off my muzzle, I wiped it on the icicle fallen by my side. A few drops of water fell on my back and the freezing sensation burnt me. Dripping sounds and clatters filled my ears. I heard a scream. Shivering, I shot a glance back at Alea but she had been silent all along.

“Don’t talk about de…”

“Wake up,” she cut me off robotically.

Blood was dripping out of her mouth… Her maw clanged and clacked… tick, click, tick…

“… Death…” I ended.

I fell silent.

“What,” she spoke with a long deadpan as her tone grew darker. “Wake up.”

But I couldn’t hear but the ringing and click-clicking. I pointed my hoof at her backlegs. Her backside side was soaked in blood, redder and gluer than her hide had ever been. Was it mine, was it hers? Thinking I was playing another game, she looked back. Her eyes grew wider as she took in the situation. It was the first time I had seen her that afraid.

“It hurts, so damn much now,” she cried. “Wake up.”

Her head swerved back in my direction. She tried to speak but no words came out of her mouth, just blood, annoying noises, ticks, blood… She had one deep gash that was cutting her in half. Her innards crumbled on the ground in a steaming puddle. The ice turned red. Water turned redder. And then, she screamed. She screamed until her voice shattered into a low screech. I heard nothing of her call to help.

Nothing… nothing but a click-clicking… Make. It. Stop. I didn’t want to die that same way as she was. I wanted to go home and to flee from here as she died in front of me. I wanted away. Far away. Everything blurred and feel to the darkness. I was burning. Everything but a far-far away tick-ticking that drew me back to reality.

Then everything was gone. The blood. The pain. The ice. The life… there was only Alea, boring at my soul with blank eyes riveted on me. Her colours seemed to fade. Her facial expression melted away like a mask of wax. Only her mouth remained. Her mouth and her shark-like teeth.

“Wake up, Dervish!” she ordered.

The ticking of my radiation meter woke me up. It was just a dream, I thought. I was not in that cold room. No. I was lying on some searing sand, my chest burning like hot embers. Hung at its zenith, the sun was grinning at me, its gnawing light drinking my steaming blood… blood…

“Where…?”

I rolled on my battered chest and crawled across the bloody mess unravelling around me. The hellishly hot city was echoing with yells, gunfire, and far-reaching cries. Yet, my ears turned deaf to the constant complaint. Something had hit and dazed me hard. My right eye was swollen, blinding half of my vision. My own blood had tainted the sand with a long trail. I followed the track and saw a wide splash against a crumbled concrete wall. There still were a bit of silvery grey fur on the rebar that protruded out of the rubble.

A shattering scream made me cringe. It was Alea’s. I buried my ears under my bloodied hooves just before a long jet of red splattered the ground in front of me. What had once been a large and animated plaza circled by magnificent and shiny buildings was now nothing but a patch of ruins. A few cables still dangled down centuries-old poles and were dripping with blood. A spark of electricity reanimated for a glimpse of a second a screen still screwed to an advertisement pole. In this short-lived moment, screeching static then a plain red image flashed back at me.

The sand had covered everything. The roads had changed into beaches. The carts that had survived time were shattered, broken, and probably looted, and the place sweated a perfume of abandonment. Yet, I hadn’t been alone since I had stepped in that city. And I wasn’t talking about the ponies I had made the crossing with.

Locked in the air by an invisible force, a Unicorn mare I knew so well wracked in two separate parts. The bottom halve barrelled through the air past me and disappeared through an open window of a neighbouring construction. The other halve hacked on the ground, ricocheted, and made a heavy and wet landing by my side. With my eyes widened, I heard the neck crack and the horn break. A shiver crept beneath my skin. Alea’s massive navy blue locks fell on the ground and brushed my blood.

I couldn’t tell where I was. My memories were too messed up at the moment, rushing like one rising tide in my brain. Dizziness made things worse. I was shell-shocked and as my surroundings reeled, I struggled to make out my name.

“Dervish,” the dead body of Alea answered for me. “Dervish. Help. Me.”

“A-Alea…?”

She stretched her hoof at me and I tried to cower away. The hoof poked my blood-soaked nose and fell aside. A wave of quivers washed over me and I whimpered. My heart hurt and burnt. I wanted away. The mare’s eyes went empty but her mouth was still wording. She wanted to speak but she was dead. She was already dead! I could see the blood, the bowels! Now dripping with her own blood, her sharky teeth sent a grim message. She had found a bigger predator. It was over. She was dead. No, Celestia, please, no!

“Away,” she whispered. “Go…”

Something blurred across the plaza like an invisible force that could only be seen by the distorted light going through its hide. It grabbed her by what remained of her waist and lifted her corpse off the ground. Her hooves wobbled and, gobbled by an invisible unknown, she vanished in a mist of red paint. Static was whirling out of the working speakers screwed to the walls that still made up the plaza. That music from Tartarus screamed around like an improper, defiant, and sadistic ode to death. Threatening with an incoming sandstorm, the sky wore the colours of battles and fires. A loud echo zoomed over my head and the earth quaked. Somewhere, somehow, a building was coming down.

My mane crawled as a wretched air washed over my bleeding face. It was the breath from an unknown creature that I couldn’t see. The sand levelled in front of me. The print of a claw twice the size of my head bit in the red-tainted ground. The claws clicked on the hard surface beneath, like a talon playing a piano made of broken asphalt. The floor screeched and cracked. I gasped and fell through along with cutting shards of glass.

I had broken through a tiny, hidden glass ceiling that had been hiding under the sand just beneath my hooves. My fall lasted more than I wished and I hit a sandy slope with a loud thump. I yelped as a barb of metal scrapped deep in my back. I rolled with chafing glass and sand showering me and the end of the treacherous steep welcomed me with another fall.

My reckless race suddenly halted when my shoulders crashed on top of a metal cart. My ribcage cracked as my back hammered in the abandoned vehicle. Dust slowly plummeted over me while I was fighting back unconsciousness. I focused on a sunray piercing through a far-reaching hole above my dizzy head. It was tickling my torn up chest and bloodiedface. I was beaten and my stomach was churning from thirst and hunger. Wisps of sand whizzed in the opening I had left in my trail, only to fall into small heaps over my immobile body.

“My name is Dervish,” I repeated, trying to convince myself.

I was a volunteer on the HMS Canterlot, going to Saddle Arabia to help survivors and scavenged old tech. I was born right out in the Wasteland and not one of those fancy, deadly, and horrible stables. I had celebrated my twentieth or so birthday during the crossing with my friend Alea or the ‘monster’ as they called her on the HMS. As far as I could remember, my life had been quite boring prior to the trip. For once, making it to Saddle Arabia would have added the bit of fantasy that so lacked in my daily life in the NCR territories.

Grunting as I raised my head, my eyes fell on my flank and my cutie mark welcomed me. I had a fucking box as a butt tattoo. Not a fancy box. Not one with holes and writings on it or anything. Nothing like that. I had a plain, dull, and annoyingly closed cardboard box for a cutie mark. Much thrilling, very sense, so potential, yay!

The quick memory-check done, I groaned and pushed myself on my rump with my head pounding horribly. Somepony was trying to bore holes in my temples, I swore it. I was seeing specks of white crawling in my vision and my breath rasped in my sore throat. For how long I lay unmoving, I couldn’t tell. I remembered the patched up frigate early that day. I had woken up that morning with a fucking hangover from some denatured alcohol I had snatched in the canteen. And I had lost that bet. After the hold, I remembered getting on the deck for a briefing and thereafter… the bodies… the ruins… That’s when the scream in the speakers began. And Alea… She had volunteered first and I had followed her. She was dead. Now she was dead. I bit my lower lips, dropped my stare, and hugged my legs. Tears rolled on my cheeks. I let that horrible fact sink in. I had been so lucky.

My eyes bawling out, I dropped on the ground and my legs gave way. I was too weak to stand on my first try and barely strong enough to think. At least, it was less hellishly hot here. And more than anything else, I was alive.

I didn’t know where I was. With the dim light pouring from above and lighting my path, I scanned the forlorn area. This underground place was huge; I couldn’t see its farthest wall, drowned in darkness. There were rows of carts parked on the cracked asphalt that littered the ground. A thick lid of sand and dust covered them all and I often couldn’t see through the windshields.

The situation struck me. Those carts still had pristine windshields and windows! They were untouched. I saw silver and golden linings etched in the bumpers, wings, and closed doors. I wiped some of my tears, and trying not to feel the void lulling in my heart, I focused on the display of richness in that parking lot. The ponies or whoever who had lived here were rich… immensely rich. The awe soon changed into a devouring curiosity.

Gathering all my might, I stood on my shaking legs and grabbed a rock that had fallen along with me. A shattered window later, I unlocked the door of the nearest cart. The dusty inside was made of high-quality leather and was big enough to fit in more than five ponies. As I sat in the back, I hit my leg on a massive metal box and a searing pain settled in my knee-cap.

It was a radio transmitter encased in the bottom of the cart. The well-crafted seats had been built around it and a round-shaped print on top of it was still visible under the dust on its top. Maybe a bottle. I smiled wistfully. Booze. Pony never changes.

To be honest, it looked like a cart built for parties. On the side of the transmitter, a small diode with the inscription ‘Recording’ written under it still flashed green. Curious, I pushed the black button that throned in the middle of the transmitter. The radio cracked, startling me, and seemed to rewind for a couple of seconds. Then, static blasted at me as the contraption tuned to a joyful female voice.

“Shut up!” I bawled at the box, afraid I could be spotted from the shear loudness of the transmitter.

“...Aaaaaaad welcome back on Stormy High 640-1240 AM, my friends. It’s your forever awaken fellow, Immortal, speaking to you from the top of the Burj. And it’s time for… Brace for it! The neeews. What can I say? It’s another magnificent morning in the city of Bahrneigh, outside temperature… fifty degrees centigrade, one hundred and twenty-two Fahrenhneight. Inside temperature? Eh! Whatever floats your air conditioning talisman? Today’s report… Nothing’s changed. It’s as it has been for years. War, war, war… There is only war. But I assure you, it’s not all bleak. The Pegasus Army that stepped on our shores one year ago after they invaded the Emirates launched another assault yesterday night and… Nah, they didn’t fail this time, those fuckers. They took the Northern Governorate… How’s that good news, you’d say?! No, of course. It isn’t good news. And how can I say that on the radio? Eh, I’m no Equestrian pony. Propaganda is for weaklings! But don’t worry lads. Our allies, the Zebras and Saddle Arabian horses, are preparing a counter-attack against those sub-races of birds. Whatever the Pegasus army sought in our faithful city, they will pay for it with the price of blood. Believe me, I’ve seen what’s coming! Those birdies won’t last on our embankment any longer. The sand and sky will taint red and, who knows, maybe green one day…?”

If only she had knew… Had she been a zebra? A horse? A pony that emigrated here a long time ago so that her bonds to Equestria had been lost? I’ll probably never know.

“We will all see the end of the war, lads. Hardships can’t last forever. Oh, it’s seen that the military police is staring at me from behind the recording booth window. They look pissed, lads.” She emitted a little, cute laughter. “Now let’s listen to some good ol’ music. I’ll tell the tale later on! Now is time for Oasis Baraka, the voice from the desert and her delightful flagship song: ‘Home Sweet Hone’. It was Immortal, always her head hung at the sky.”

A soothing music followed. A strange instrument, maybe a guitar, a mandolin, or a high-pitched banjo, started a tune that was soon joined by a crystalline female voice.

The radio cut abruptly. The cart shook with a series of short quivers and I lay there silent, a trickle of sweat rolling down my back.

Something was there. I could feel it. Something was tracking the scent of blood that had leaked from my stinging flank. Fear clutching my heart, I rose my eyes to just above the frame of the window I had broken. In the reflection of the outside rear-view mirror, I could see that something! My blood ran as cold as ice and I ducked back in. I rubbed my eyes hopeful I could erase the horror off them. I would need more than bleach this time. It was unbelievable.

There in the dark, lifting the carts one after the other, a force was slipping through. A force, I say… I couldn’t see anything but a blurred blueish outline with specks of light peppering the air in between. It snorted puffs of air that crystallised into ice. Then it opened its huge jaw and I saw the sharp teeth. From it slurred a saliva slipping in between the razor-sharp canines like dark water, rendering the ground with black puddles.

I squeaked and crammed myself in the cart, and then I heard it turn in my direction. For the sake of my rear… I was fucked.

The thing forced its way slowly through the inert carts, bending metal and crushing glass in its wake under its heavy and unstoppable claws. My heart beating wildly in my chest, my body was screaming at me to leap outside the cart and run. I couldn’t. I was too weak. Moments before it reached the cart where I was hiding, I looked outside and saw an emergency exit not so far. If only I could limp away towards it. The dim red light above its threshold led the way. My beacon.

The cart bent under the weight of the monster’s legs. The other windows cracked and shattered, spewing like shrapnel over me. I gasped and squeezed myself behind a seat. Its head was inside at a hoof-length from me! It was sniffing for me! The beast reeked a foul stench of rotten meat. Dark sludge dripped out of its wide-open mouth, slithering between the fangs. Biting on my lips, a hoof in front of my mouth, I gagged. It was as if I could taste the stench through my eyeballs.

Somepony screamed somewhere. The beast trashed away, throwing the cart aside in the process. Rolling over, I was thrust butt over head against the inside of the vehicle until it stopped. With my back in pain, my breath was nothing but repeated hiccups.

The beast howled a crippling cry that petrified me. I closed my eyes and repressed my sobs. My head pounded as my heart rate spiked up. My vision blurred and, though I fought back and made no sound, puke dripped out of my mouth. Febrile, I left myself rest a few minutes until a pony’s scream detonated through the underground only to be shushed forever by a dreadful roar.

I couldn’t stay here. My one swollen eye and my flank undermining my movements, I crawled outside the wrecked cart and hit my head on the door frame in the process. As I held my wounded side, I limped towards the open emergency exit. On my way I snatched the rear-view mirror that lay on the ground, now dislodged from its support. It would be useful to check angles, I thought.

A bit of dust trickled from the ceiling as I slipped in between the cracked open emergency door. It was earthquake day apparently.

I closed the creaking door behind me and found myself in an immense and half-torn staircase that rose and descended far in the building. I was given two choices… up or down. For sure, going up would be nice. Time had preyed on the top of the building and what had surely been a tower was now an open-pit towards the sun and sky. Rays of light grimly illuminated the ruined staircase. Going up was tempting, but outside… there were those monsters, invisible and powerful. I couldn’t risk myself up there. And downstairs, there was darkness.

Depressed, I wondered if I could just stayed there and wait for the night. My stomach growled at me and I realised how sore and cracked my lips were. Staying here was a stupid idea anyway.

I needed water and food quickly and I chose in despair to go towards the unknown below. My path only lit by the worn-off red emergency lights that counted the underground floors, I went downstairs. Minus one floor… Minus two…

The twenty-fifth floor below the earth marked the end of my staircase trip. My head reeled and I held myself against a wall, leaving small peps of blood on the bare grey concrete. The air was cold and my breath formed a white mist in front of my beaten muzzle. The heat from the surface couldn’t reach out here. I slid against the wall until I came to a stop, my hooves folded under my sore body. There was nothing to pay heed at but the slow and ragged breath of mine, and a slow dripping. I looked around for the drip sound. I saw a small pond of water streaming slowly from a crack in the wall. A smile dashed on my face.

The taste was of rock and charcoal but it was still water. I drank avidly each drop that came to me, moistening my lips with the few I could spare. I couldn’t even breathe a thanks to Celestia. Speaking was hurting too much. Even patting my lips with humid hooves was painful. I stayed there ten maybe twenty minutes until I let myself drop aside the small rotten pond that had formed under the wall over the last two centuries.

Sitting uncomfortably, I spotted the rear-view mirror at the bottom of the stairs where I had dropped it. I too far from me to reach it with my hooves. I was losing all of my stuff today. I had left my radmeter up there…

“Oh… fuck me…” I rasped.

I hit my forehead so hard my vision went white. I had left it up there with the blood of Alea. Holding my head, I could do nothing but blame myself. I had lost my stuff, bags, food, everything. And I had lost Alea. Especially her. Why her. Why had she to die? She was dead. The claw of anxiousness closed on my heart. I curled up on my spot, squirmed and kept my hooves tight around my backlegs. Hot tears crawled over my face and slipped in the pond next to me. I’d be blamed when I’ll be back on the boat. Had to watch out for teammates. And everypony wanted her in their teams. I’d be blamed. Me. Just me. I was dead. And who could tell if I wasn’t in a deadly irradiated area? I coughed. That wasn’t helping.

I sighed, blew my muzzle on my forehoof, and looked back at the rear-view mirror. I concentrated, focused, and pictured my mind reaching out for it and floating it back to me.

It never happened. I scrubbed my empty forehead with a regretful smile crawling on my face. I wished I was a Unicorn. Everything would have been so easier. I was just lucky to be an Earth Pony.

I wiped the tears off my face and rubbed my watery eyes. Couldn’t see properly. I wiggled my ass on the dirty floor and carried my poor lonely ass to the mirror. Holding it between my hooves, I settled it so I could see the frail stallion I was. Skin had sunken over my bristle cheeks and ribs. My light blue mane was falling over my reddened face. Red from tears… Red from blood. The same silvery grey fur I had seen scratched on some barbed metal earlier patched me up along with dirt, caked blood, and a weird black goo.

I shuddered with anxiety. The beast had drooled on me back in the car and the sludge had glued to my mane. I reached my locks with the back of my hoof and tried to scrub the dirty substance away. Hairs and fur stuck together to my hoof, entangled and nasty. After a few minutes fighting off the foul-smeeling goo, I surrendered. Grooming myself was too much of an ordeal. I let myself lie on the ground with the broken rear-view mirror balancing above my forehead, puffing up the few less scrawny strands of my mane up with short and focused breaths.

A shushed whisper popped in my ears that perked instinctively. I had reached the end of the staircase when I hat hit the twenty-fifth floor below the ground level. There, a massive metal door had barred me from advancing. I had try to pry it open but the rust of the locking wheel was far too thick to break. Though the door was massive, I had seen some made out of thirteen tons of steel. Stable-Tec underground hostels knew the deal.

Anyway, the door I had in front of me was still too heavy to force my way through. Somepony had scratched on the metal door and had etched marks in the white paint that had once covered it. I supposed those markings belonged to the pony or zebra skeleton that rested in a corner. I pressed my cheek against the floor. I could hear whispers coming from under the gate, through the blade’s width crack left between the ground and the piece of metal. I crawled closer to the slit and eavesdropped.

“Okay, I don’t want this to be bloody. Give it to me and you won’t be hurt,” somepony growled rudely, his voice growing in power as if it was coming closer to the door. “I just want what you found in the room. Give it to me nicely, then we can all go home without calling any spawn on us. That would be nice of you, dear.”

“There are strangers coming into town.” Somepony answered rudely. “I won’t let you fuck this up. Go fuck your own wretched lineage.”

“I won’t repeat myself,” the menacing voice threatened. “I won’t let you jeopardise our plan.”

I heard a shard of metal click back and fro and mayhem broke lose behind the door. Thunder rumbled through the underground building and the walls shook wildly with bits of paint detaching from them. Somepony liked explosives. I rolled over and away from the door and backed up in a corner. It’s only then that I saw light and flashes of thunder coming from under the door with rust falling into clumps from its hinges. The light pouring in the slip beneath the gate was suddenly barred by a set of hooves.

An order than came like a dreadful sharp scream blared from behind the door. Gunfire grew louder and the orders went drowned in the din. A swoosh resonated and a yellow and orange taint flooded through the crack. Nearly petrified, I pressed myself against the farthest wall. A salve of bullets ricocheted against the door and the echoing ping sound made me sick.

The steering wheel in the middle of the door suddenly vibrated as somepony grunted behind. The whell cracked and finally gave way, rolling aside. I rushed under the staircase and squeezed myself in its shadow. The wheel finally clicked and the pony, or whoever was behind, backed up in a twist of fate. A wave of bullets rammed once again in the metal door. I let a breath of relief as nopony came back to action the handle.

The door exploded in a tide of flames and debris. Knocked back by the force of the explosion, the bent door blasted inward and smashed into the stairs in a flying heap of rubbles. Heat burnt my face and, showered with concrete, I crooked back further in my hiding spot and tried to avoid the flames.

“GET IN!” a brownish Pegasus shouted gravely at comrades I couldn’t see. “Retreat!”

As he limped in the staircase I could get a better view of the brown Pegasus. His armour was a patchwork of sheets of metal and the tips that mounted his wings were strewn with blood. His yellow mane was tangled in the bits and screws that held his barding in place. Two twin turquoise Pegasi mares stormed in the staircase, one with her khaki green mane fuming with fire.

“It’s madness coming upstairs,” the untouched mare cried out. “Spawns and stalkers are on the loose!”

“It’s them or here! And you heard the report, a warship docked in the SG!”

“Move up!” a fourth voice screamed from behind the frame of the blown off door. “NOW!”

The three Pegasi rushed higher in the staircase, took off, and slipped over the stairs as fast as their wings could carry them. A fourth Pegasus came into view, the metal demijohn strapped to his side undermining his balance. Linked to it, a long hose led to a thin, straight metal pipe which tip was on fire.

The Pegasus bit on the trigger in his mouth and the contraption sparked with a stream of black oil spurting out of the tip. A wave of heat washed over my face again as everything caught fire in front of the flamethrower.

The heat stopped with a wet and sloshy tearing sound. Blood splattered all over the debris strewn at the pony’s hooves. The Pegasus’s head hit the ground, detached. Both wings wracked off of behind the beheaded body and fell on the ground too. A final blow cut the flaming tip from the rest of the weapon and sent it fly far away from the oil that started leaking off the arm. Finally, the dead body slumped over in a wet squashed squish.

Above the bloody heap stood a zebra. His face was rounder than normal and topped by a short and brush-like mane. He was definitely young. A blue and golden ring dangled from his right ear. A blue necklace was hung around his neck. Breathing in short and hastened puffs of air, he had knives mounted on retractable strings strapped to his hooves. He had one sawed-off shotgun strapped to his back that time hadn’t spared. Blood covered his dark grey and cream hide, trickling down to his hooves. He had moved too fast for me.

The Pegasus’s head was still rolling on the ground when I looked down at it. Diverted by a pebble, it fell in the small pond of water I had drunk from. Fine little bubbles escaped from its mouth.

“Oh, Celestia…” I gasped.

‘Oh, Celestia’ indeed… Idiot.

The zebra pulled me out of my spot and sent me flying through the door threshold with an incredible force. My back hit a sturdy piece of metal and I bumped over. Flailing, I found myself on my back, a knife at a speck-length above my right eye.

“Please, please!” I blubbered, waving my hooves at him. “I d-don’t want no trouble.”

The zebra took a step back and, as he kicked his forehooves on the ground, the knives strapped on them rotated back to a safety position. He still had me pinned down with all his weight on what seemed to be an old vending machine.

“I see no wing on you, birdy,” he spoke ominously.

He was scanning me from tail to top and smirked. His eyes narrowed and his face crept dangerously close.

“Who do you serve?”

“Eh… what? Who?”

The question had come like a whisper with cold and terrible apprehension. I was shaking. Sweat was slithering down my back and falling from my brow into my eyes. His eyelid narrowed at me and I laughed out of fear.

“I- I serve nopony. I’m not even from here! I- I came on a boat, from Equestria- ah… Aaah!”

His eyes went wide and he kicked his left foreleg next to my head, breaking the glass of the vending machine to bits. His knife clicked and sprung forth and he threw a punch towards my neck. In all my misfortune, I looked upward and froze the glimpse of a second. Above us, a blueish form had just materialised out of the nothingness. Latched to the ceiling like a monstrously large spider, its open maw gaped open. I saw long and crooked appendices aim then leap.

“WATCH OUT!” I yelled.

I pushed the zebra away just when I felt a painful nip in my neck. Building on the momentum, I dodged the ethereal limb that smashed in the vending machine. My heart on a speeding rampage, I rolled behind a heap of rubble that had fell down from the ceiling and hid. Fatefully, the beast roared and launched itself at the zebra who rushed to the staircase and disappeared.

The monster in the young zebra‘s tread, I again found myself alone in a dimly lit underground level that had nothing to do with a parking. With only the far rumble of the pursuit echoing down to here, I finally rose on my shaky hooves.

“What’s wrong with this place?” I stuttered, a hoof on my now red dripping neck, a flesh wound that still burnt like fucking Celestia’s sun.

The place seemed to have been the security office of the building. Many desks once pristine and shiny were left to rot here, overturned and smashed to bits. Terminals of an unknown brand lay on the ground, broken only for a few. Those which remained alive were screwed to one wall, suspended over one long desk that had had several chairs in a row. Ponies or Zebra had sat here to observe the building and beyond. In the middle of the room a small crater marked the place where the fight had all begun. I looked away and took in how vast the room was. I had found the security level of the building.

At that point, I spotted hoofprints cast in the dust that blanketed the area. Prints that weren’t mine. Tracing back the path, I was led to a large opening in a wall. Explosives had left a blackened hole around it that could let five ponies goes in all lined up. Cowering in with shivers of apprehension, I face the dimly lit room. To the dark ashes strewn on the ground blood soon joined. Among the black and grey ashes a pair of Pegasi sat in their own blood, their neck slit open in such a gory way that it made me gag.

“What the fuck is going on in this city…?” I sighed tiredly.

The room was as large as the one I had just left. Yet similar, it struck me with dread. A cold rush of quivers crept up my sweaty backbone. My beaten eye stung from the dust that swamped the air and my side still hurt. Each time I was prodding my painful ribs, my hoof came back a little redder.

Compared to the other room, this one had a fantastic display of military tech. Or I thought it was military-related. The decrepit walls were marked with old bullet holes. Large and flat terminal screens still flashed greenish images, recorded by cameras scattered across the city. Unused shells had flooded out of a turned-over ammo box and had sunken in the blood that covered the floor. What screamed that all this was military to me was that every piece of furniture was etched with the same symbol: three stripes shaped in lightning bolts and encased in one smooth circle that showed only one break on its top. It was some scary insignia.

Papers had been thrown on and off the desks and the ground hastily. Some had been stomped on and often, they had been left soaking in the gore that had spread on the ground. Looking down at some, they all bore the same red stamp of secrecy.

The fight that had occurred here had been violent and quick. In the flashing light that lit the scene, I thought I understood what had happened. The few desks that had drawers had been broke to shreds and their content had been looted. I looked back at the other room through the hole dug in the wall. Was that zebra chasing for those documents? The Pegasi had probably took all the juicy stuff.

I turned back at the two Pegasi that lay immobile in their own grim, the colour of their fur and mane barely visible under the crimson red of their own fluids and green light coming from the monitors. As I had seen with the Pegasus that had shouted orders, the sergeant probably, they all wore patchwork pieces of metal that could barely be called armour.

Yet something caught my attention. Sewed to the leather patch that covered their shoulders, they both had a round black fabric that sported a white inscription: ‘1st’.

They had a makeshift battle saddle and both carried the same weapon: a long and thick wooden rifle that was definitely semi-automatic. It wasn’t built like the assault rifles I had often seen on Applejack’s Rangers back in Equestria. Those weapons were old and not produced in masse. They looked to me more the product of an artisan that had to use spare parts to build replacements to weapons that couldn’t be repaired anymore. And they were fucking heavy! Using my own weight to dislodge the rifle that seemed the most intact to me, I struggled to get it out from beneath the heavy cadaver. Finally, it went off and I fell face first on the ground, the weight of the weapon carrying me down with it.

Rubbing my head, I looked back at the other room. There were obviously nopony there but witnessing one of those blue monsters appear into thin air had me on edge. I felt watched and it drew me to an insane paranoia.

Taking some random papers on a desk, I started sweeping the coagulating blood off the weapon. I needed it. Wanted it. I had lost all my stuff. I needed to survive. The top of the rifle had a broken support. Maybe it had a scope a long time ago and, maybe, it had served during the Great War… Who knew?

Now partially cleaned – I would still need to clean the inside string – I left the weapon on the same desk and went back to the two bodies. I needed one of those armours. Then I spotted the saddlebags strapped to the flank of the closest one. Food! There must have been some in there. My stomach growled with glee with the hope of finding anything eatable inside.

As I approached, an intercom cracked and I jumped, slipped, and ended in the pool of blood. In the cold and dank of the room, my flank washed in blood that wasn’t mine, I heard a voice rising from an earplug that dangled from one of the Pegasus’s flopped ears.

“Team Four report.” the voice urged. “Team Four report!”

“Team Four here, we’ve got what you wanted, the proof about Luna… Maybe a location,” a grave voice answered in the channel. It was the one of the green Pegasus I had seen earlier. “We’ve been ambushed, a bit of a resistance from one zebra. One wounded to bring back.”

Luna? Wait, what?

“Do you think we have been busted. Spied on?”

A pause ensued, followed by a short-lived stream of swears.

“I think, Sir. We had a welcoming party down the special security booth. I think we were followed. We need to get rid of that zebra as fast as possible.”

“This communication channel isn’t secure anymore,” the order snapped. “Change to channel Zeta. Over.”

The transponder went silent and left me all alone in the coldness of the room. What proof about Luna? It had been proven she was dead yeah! The fuck!

After trying to scrub the blood off my flank with the papers around me that still wasn’t soaked, I chose to snatch the Pegasus’s saddlebag. I was lucky. The Pegasus had a bottle of an amber liquid that smelled like alcohol. But more important, he had a square of bread packed in a dry tissue. The bread was crispy like a piece of glass but to my empty stomach, what a hell of a meal!

Sitting in silence in a chair I had scavenged in a corner, my eyes never leaving the hole in the wall that served as an entry, I finally felt my heart coming back to a healthy beat. After making sure I was undoubtedly alone, throwing bits of wall and balls of folded paper around, I finally stopped focusing on that blackened opening. I still threw some furtive glances at it from time to time, though.

I think I expected Alea to pop her head around the corner, a shark-smile adorning her face and crying ‘jokes on you, bitch!’ as she jumped on my backside and batted the back of my neck. But I was dreaming, as always.

Crying, I went watching the screens as I savoured bitterly my small bread. The city was a ghostly desert, empty and covered with a thick cloud of sand. A sandstorm was gaining momentum and one by one the skyscrapers I could see on the videos gradually disappeared. It would still be hours before the real storm hit the city.

On one of the streaming cameras, I could see the HMS Canterlot anchored in the City’s bay where once a massive harbour surely had made the inhabitants proud. Sometimes, the speakers carried a gunshot to me or a shadow, but nothing more. I felt alone down here.

Scanning the room around me, avoiding to look directly at the two bodies that began smelling, I found a door cast in the wall far away from the hole pierced in that chamber. In the chiaroscuro, I hadn’t seen it.

Painfully, I lifted my sore rump off of my spot, went to the bodies and finally unstrapped one of the battle saddle with a grimace. A few minutes cleaning it afterward, I put it on and found myself wondering how to clip on the large rifle. I was fearful I couldn’t handle such a chunk of wood and metal.

The sides of the battle saddle were devoid of straps or clips and it was only when I turned my head over that I found why. Unlike the majority of battle saddles I had seen in my life, this one had been designed to support the weapon above the wearer’s shoulder, probably to give a steadier grip and provide more accuracy. But to be honest, it was probably meant to balance the horrible weight of that semi-auto rifle I’d scavenged. Five minutes flew by until I had finally lumbered myself. I ripped off the black herald sewed to the shoulder of the armour, afraid to be targeted by a faction I knew nothing about, then headed for the door which, as I had expected, was locked.

Well... that was anticlimactic. The fact that I didn’t know how to lock pick a door didn’t help either. Swelling my cheeks with air, I pondered what to do. I wasn’t going to buck it open, was I?

I went for the busted open desks. I wasn’t going to go away without something, really. It would feel like failure and apparently with my partner dead, I wasn’t going to go back to the HMS with empty hooves. And Alea… I sighed. ‘First in, last out’ she’d said back in the boat. Well… It didn’t turn out that well. It never did apparently. I buried my snout in the hollow of my shoulder.

After I unstrapped the uncomfortable rifle off my back, I let myself slid against one of the busted open desks. Resting with my butt sitting in the dirt, my face only lit by the light of a nearby terminal, I looked down at the heap of papers. Beneath a lying long cable caught my attention. That must have been important. I threw the papers away, there were enough of water droplets on those. I had to focus on something relevant. Tears. Are. Bad.

It was a interphone linked to a transmitter. I had seen some before. I think I knew how to operate one. My hooves hesitated over the range of buttons. I checked if there was still remaining power. If the microphone was still well preserved. I found what seemed to be a switch. I pushed clumsily. Static was the only thing I could hear on all the frequencies. No, that can’t be. Then I switched to the left and heard somepony.

“HMS? HMS? Canterlot? Is that you?”

Silence. I bashed my hooves on top of the transmitter.

“HMS! HMS? Please.”

“Stop it! You’re saturating the frequency,” a gravely voice cut in the static silent and I held my breath. “Yeah, Captain of the HMS here. Report.”

“Alea is dead!” I cried. “We’ve got caught by monsters. I’m alone.”

“Where is the rest of your team?”

“Dead,” I whimpered. “I’m trapped in an underground. I don’t know where I am. I’m alone.”

“Calm down, son,” the captain soothed. “You’re not alone in that mess. Other teams reported hidden assailants. We’ve ordered a retreat to the HMS.”

“They are invisible!” I warned wiping my leaking nose.

“What?”

The radio cracked with static and a buzz shut down the conversation for two horrifyingly long seconds.

“I’ve seen Pegasi and a Zebra fighting each others. They were talking about Luna…” Silence. “Captain?!”

“Here is Sergeant Stuka, First Pegasus Army. Do you have it!?” a Pegasus’s avid and menacing voice urged. “The weapon? Did you bring it?”

“Captain,” I howled at the microphone.

The transmitter fumed, buzzed, and clacked with an arc of electricity popping up from under its top.

“FUCK!” I screamed, throwing the intercom to the ground.

“What?” the captain blurted, his voice fading as he backed off his microphone. “Who’re you?”

“The Word of Genesis, did you bring it here?” he repeated.

“Wait… No! The fuck you’re talking about? We’re here to take back any survivor. T’find tech for the homeland.” the captain explained. “How many are there left? And the fuck of a weapon are you talking?”

“Soldiers? Maybe five… eight… nine hundred still fighting actively, Sir,” the Pegasus answered. “Two thousands with the mares and children in the camps. And there are probably Five to six thousands enemies still alive left in the city. Then there are the traitors. Fuck them. We’ve done a good job, though. Luna told us to wait for her to come back. She promised us the Word to end that city! We’re true to our oath. We fight!”

“Wait, what are you...”

“Captain,” the Pegasus cut him off with a creeping calmness that sent shivers down my spine. “Tell me. Did we win?”

“Win… what?” the captain blurted out, unphased with the Pegasus’s train of thoughts.

“The WAR!” the captain blared back frantically. “Did we win the war?!”

“Wait, no!” Voices rose in the background, voices the captain didn’t wait to silence with an order. “No, we lost… Everypony lost. Everyzebra lost. Equestria is no more. There was the balefire. The Zebra Empire is no more too.”

“Oh...” somepony had a sudden realisation. “So Luna…”

“Luna’s dead… Don’t tell me you’ve been fighting for two hundred years,” the captain asked bemusedly.

“Loyal to the crown. Loyal to the core, Captain. We are the Night Guard. Loyal ‘til the end, generation after generation,” the voice trailed extensively and broke into a wicked laugh. “She’s dead… Luna is dead. She lied to us… No, she won’t. She was betrayed. We must avenge her.”

“You. Are. Insane.”

The Pegasus snorted. “Back in the day, you would be put in martial court for that foul language, Sir.”

“The fuck you’re talking ab… What’s happening in this city!?” the HMS Canterlot’s captain roared through his own intercom.

“This city is cursed, Sir.” the sergeant answered. “We need the Word to make it end.”

I heard screams coming from the captain’s side. My eyes deported on the screen where I had seen the HMS Canterlot anchored in the bay. I couldn’t believe what I saw. The air around the warship was frizzling and vibrating as if monstrous heat distortion was engulfing the warship. The frigate quaked violently and I heard loud scream coming from the transmitter.

“Oh.” The Pegasus let out a long sight. “They are quite on the schedule today…”

The Pegasus, that Stuka, and I were apparently watching the same thing. An invisible talon clutched around the frigate. I could see the metal bend and crack through the image. And the screams. It reminded me Alea’s. Oh, Celestia. The sounds that a far and still alive CCTV carried to my little greenish screen chilled me to the bone. The thing I couldn’t see lifted the warship above the sea level like a toy. lifted the warship above the sea level! Then the invisible hand smashed it down. The wreck crashed and shattered in a massive storm of metal, blood, and screams.

“My friends…” the Pegasus said, his voice tainted with something that I couldn’t say if it was delectation or pity. “Welcome to Bahrneigh.”

[α Ω α]

Footnote!

Dervish

Specials:

Strength: 4

Perception: 6

Endurance: 5

Charisma: 5

Intelligence: 5

Agility: 7

Luck: 6

Thanks to Kkat for writing Fallout: Equestria

Oct. 2014 project - Fallout:Equestria No God Below - 1. Hideout

Ursa was destroyed and Bears, unwavering in their fortress of ice, were no more. Marozi was destroyed and Lions, treading their endless savannahs of golden wheat, were no more. Alveare was destroyed and Changelings, timeless masters of the underworld, were no more. Andina was destroyed and condors, majestic far above the clouds and the Pegasi, were no more.

Canterlot will be brought down. Roam will be annihilated. All of you, no matter that you’ve got stripes or not, will be eradicated just in time. Who do you think you are to deserve eternity? It is just a matter of hatred… Sweet, sweet hatred.

τϧφΞϙυαϡѮφΟϗ҉ᶉẞӾЁɧɈɎȷɮɠəȟȾǵǖǞȖᶱ₫₪β

I wiped my eyes again. I was slowly spinning in a chair I had scavenged in a corner. The HMS Canterlot was lying destroyed in the bay. I could see it through the greenish screens displayed before my watery eyes. With its demise, all my hopes to go back to Equestria had been dashed. I could just watch the ashes flying by.

Alone and probably trapped down the city underground, withering away was a tempting idea. It would be fine. The dead have seen the end of suffering. I remembered the faces of Hollow Shades raiders’ victims. They had stuck to my dreams.

I buried my head deep in my hooves, covering a pair of eyes that I had been so ashamed to feel tearing up. My stomach growled; I had nothing left. I had already eaten all the bread I had stolen from the two dead bodies. They smelt like rotten yet the flies were still awaited. How long had it been since I’d wandered there. It was cold. Bodies shouldn’t rot that fast.

My vision was blurry. My hooves were trembling from the coldness of the room. My cheeks had dried out of tears and the few remaining drops of saliva I had were dangling on the side of my lips. How long had it been since I had left the Canterlot? I had lost track. Day and night cycles were an eerie thing deep down the pits…

When you’re unprepared, starvation and lack of sleep causes weird effects on the body after two to four days. It starts with disorientation soon followed with mental confusion and a loss of equilibrium. You just want to sit down and make the spinning in your head stop. Your temples hurt. You want to puke but nothing really comes up… just some acrid bile. It’s just your stomach fighting over its own acidic fluids. You want to drink but there is nothing around you. You’re too weak to move. So you grab rocks, wood, anything that could fill and feed the gap. You mouth just feels like dirt. You shiver. You want to gag and eat something, anything, everything… It drives you mad. And that’s the point… Lacking of nutrients, the body and even worse, the mind, start going to shit.

First it was auditory. Songs, laughs, and foggy words flying in and out my buzzing ears. Away. Coming from nowhere. Nowhere but from inside. Then, it was visual. You see the shit your body yearns for. Food. Water. Freedom. Light. Warmth. Security. Whatever… To me, it was Alea, crawling like a wisp of air between the chairs and desks of the room. Silent, she was paying absolutely no heed to me.

“Alea,” I whispered. “Alea, it’s me?”

She didn’t budge.

“Alea, please,” I gurgled. “Tell me it’s a joke.”

She looked around, ransacked some piles of rubbish, then she glared at me.

A voice in the distance cracked through the uncanny silent and Alea disappeared in a cloud of shadows, meddling in the ambient darkness.

“You sure they went through that hole?” A female voice reached my ears.

I held a hoof in front of my mouth after another gag had wracked my throat.

“Yeah! I think I’ve seen a group of Pegasi. They broke through the ground to get to the lower level. Another group came through too,” a stallion pressed to answer. “There was some gunfire.”

“I’m really questioning how you got to walk through here,” the mare mumbled, her voice nearly unintelligible. “You gonna get killed one day.”

“One day, yeah,” the stallion snorted back. “Don’t worry. I can fight off a spawn with closed eyes!”

“Yeah… and I can offer you a flying fare from Roam to Warclaw by flapping my buttcheeks,” the mare deadpanned. “So keep quiet and hold your weapon tight. It’s too calm ‘round here.”

“It’s always calm before the fun begins,” he defended. “Eh… your weapon is unloaded.”

“What? Oh!”

I heard somepony fumble through her gear and swear as a heavy metallic item clanged on the ground.

“Ah, bravo…” the stallion sighed. “Miss Seriousest-than-thee even lost her shit. What’s next? A boat crashing on our head?”

“Silence!” she snapped back with a hiss.

I already had my heavy gun readied between my quaking hooves. Though I struggled keeping the barrel straight towards the blown up hole in the wall, I was ready. I could see far shadows going around the other security chamber. They hadn’t spotted me yet. I was lucky. I won’t let them.

“Don’t come…” I rasped. “I’m… I’m armed.”

“Uh? You heard?” somepony crowed at a stone-throw from me.

Was I grunting in pain? I couldn’t tell. My ear were buzzing. I was starved out. I wanted away… even it was through and at the end of a bullet. My hooves failed me and my wooden rifle slipped and dropped on my side. I could imagine the dead Pegasi I had stripped off facehoof at the feat.

Heavy, the semi-auto weapon clattered and gave a loud shot. The bullet flew by through the hole and zipped far above the targets I had intended to hit. The metal shard pinged on the ceiling and vanished far away.

Answering my stupid action, a spray of firepower riposted. A burning sensation snipped in my right flank…

As dust settled down and silent took hold of the short-lived battleground, somepony unwisely popped his head out in the threshold of the large carved out hole. With picky eyes, he scanned the surroundings for a brief instant, saw my throne of leather, dirt and blood, and ducked back.

“There’s somepony,” he murmured.

“Of course there is somepony, idiot,” the mare grunted. “Who do you think shot at us..? Is it dead?”

“Haven’t checked…”

“Deadweight!” she spat.

“I’m sorry…”

A shadow thrust over the rubbles marking the entry of the booth. A shot echoed and something sharp grazed over my cheek. Somepony rushed over like a whirlwind and threw me off my chair. With a hoof pressed on my throat, I was lying on the ground.

“Water,” I begged as my vision grew dark.

“Come on!” she ranted. “You were shooting a dead.”

“I’m not dead,” I hissed with difficulty.

“What?” the stallion said as he came closer.

“Nothing,” the mare answered.

“I’m not dead!” I urged.

“He says he’s not dead,” the stallion pointed out.

“He’ll be very soon,” she said ominously as she lowered her head towards mine.

“I’m getting better,” I claimed.

Her hoof released pressure and I struggled away, grinding my chin on the concrete floor. Once again, she pinned me down, her two forelegs on my back as she pulled on my barding and spat next to my head.

“I’m not dead!” I pleaded.

“Bring me the knife,” the mare ordered. “He’s one of the Firsts.”

“Damn, they really went here?” the stallion gulped. “I’d hoped those were just scavengers.”

“Apparently,” she announced.

Like a grim guillotine’s edge hovering over my neck, I heard a knife being unsheathed. Then, a swift whistle slit through the air.

“No, please, I’m not!” I said, rolling over to my back and raising my hooves above my sorry head.

She spoke but the knife in her munching mouth kept me from understanding. The knife whistled down right at my throat.

“Hop! Hop! Hop!” the stallion shouted as it reached out the mare’s mouth with a claw.

A claw…? I wiped the dried tears off my eyelids. I had a Griffon and a Zebra hung above my head, staring down at me. The Griffon was the bigger and taller of the two, his yellow face and his pinprick black eyes standing over a puffy and feathery white chest. The sharp edge of his brown claws shone in the dim light of the room’s monitors. With that smug grin constantly cast on his face, I guess he was expecting to face off the world and win. Two strange three-barrelled guns tipped out from under his wings. Set in a triangle pointing downward, one barrel – the bottom one – was significantly larger than the others. Looking further, I saw another knife strapped to his right back leg.

My head fell aside towards the Zebra mare. Her white stripes contrasted with her very dark grey colour. Or was that grey stripes over a white fur? I could never remember which one was right. She was pissed, her frowned-up face darting fire at me from her narrowed yellow eyes. She was tense and still trying to lung at me, ready to cut open my neck. She was so close that her long uncurled mane and her blue necklace was resting upon my shoulder. Only the Griffon was standing between her rage and my poor rump. With her mouth-gun strapped to her side with a makeshift leather band and the Griffon’s claw pinched on her knife’s glistening edge, I was safe from now. I was definitely too tired for those antics.

“He ain’t a Pegasus,” the Griffon pointed out.

“Ain’t the first time they employ proxies,” the Zebra warned as she letting the knife slip away from her grasp in the Griffon’s talon. “What’s the deal, Cartier? You know we can’t mess around with the Firsts…”

“Pay attention, Zina,” he cut her off, pointing at two heaps of flesh a few meters away. “You gotta check your sense of smell, really. He just scavenged those two birdies.”

She frowned at the two cadavers, spat on the nearest one, and rolled her eyes.

“Not my fault if peeps want to be live targets. Brainfucked Ponies…”

“You really start sounding like them,” the Griffon smirked.

“Yeah, whatever,” she waived away. “What do we do with the bag of bones?”

They both looked at me with questions in their eyes.

“Am… from the HMS C-Canterlot…” I breathed. “Water.”

They glanced at each other. Cartier rose an eyebrow before peering back at me.

“You mean the big shiny wreck in the bay?” he asked.

“Y- yes…” I coughed after a long raspy break.

I rubbed my sides and my hoof came back a newly revived red.

“Hang in there, bro,” Cartier said, grabbing me by the waist and hauling me to his back.

“Are you crazy!?” Zina countered. “Hideout is not to be shown to anypony, Zebra, or dust specks.”

“He’s from outside Bahrneigh,” the Griffon snapped back, any trace of lightness gone from his speech. “He might know things.”

“I wash my hooves of it,” she blurted. “You bear responsibilities.”

“No care,” Cartier brushed off. “I’m curious ‘bout the outside.”

“Griffons…” she grunted, her head resting in her hoof.

After I had been stripped off of my snatched barding, we started moving. The trip saw me in and out quite a few times and, at each of my blink of eyes, I found myself in a different place. On a narrow glass-covered bridge above the city, back in the hotness. In a dark and steep tunnel, dank and sweaty. Down a pipe and a ladder, engulfed by murmurs…

My ears were listening to the sound of the silent walk, the air whistling through the cracks and the ruins. The sand was crumbling under hooves and claws. My rasped breath and dehydration pained my lungs. The moaning of a far sounding storm without rain and thunder was trailing behind us. The swearing of a disgruntled Zebra mare melted in the constant complaint of the city. My difficult breath echoed as I blacked out again.

“The password?” a male voice barked through an intercom, jerking me awoken.

“Come on…” Cartier complained. “Can’t you see the most beloved Griffon of the village?”

“I see one more than expected? Reason?”

“Cartier’s caprice,” Zina grunted.

“Tut, tut…” the Griffon rose up. “Scavenger found in the Southern Governorate, came on the boat the spawns took down three days ago.”

Had it been already three days…? It had no importance now.

“There are survivors?” the voice said in surprise.

“At least one,” Cartier shrugged.

“Did he speak? Did he say from where he come?”

The Zebra and the Griffon looked at each other. Cartier pondered, a claw on his chin, just before his face lit up.

“He said Canterlot,” the Griffon announced.

“Let me check with the procurator,” the voice declared after a long unsettling silent.

“Canterlot?” Zina asked her friend with a raised eyebrow.

“Haven’t followed in class history? You who’s always so swift at blaming Ponies?” Cartier snarled.

“Shut up. I just have a hard time with names. And schools don’t exist anymore anyway.”

“It’s Equestria’s capital. Probably blown up like Roam and companies in the Levant.” Somepony prodded my side and I grunted, trying to roll over as I still lay on Cartier’s fluffy, comfy back. “That those Ponies had a boat called as such is… interesting.”

“What if he’s a spy?” Zina supposed.

“It’s been like… two centuries, Zina. I don’t think they are that spiteful. They ain’t like you.”

The back of a hoof slapped across a grinning face and I fell off the Griffon’s barding. Hitting the ground sturdily, I sprawled on the dirt that made out the floor.

“Ziiiinna!” Cartier grunted. “It hurts!”

“It means you learn.”

“Shit, shit!” the Griffon complained, tip-toe jumping around as he held his cheek.

“You dropped your prize,” the mare smirked, poking at my side with the tip of her hoof.

I was lying my head under my chest, puffing clumps of dirt off and around my muzzle. A sharp rock was nibbling at my neck and though the position was uncomfortable, I couldn’t find the force to move.

“You made me drop it,” Cartier blamed.

“You chose to keep it,” Zina defended. “It’s yours by law.”

“You accepted that we kept it too! And laws don’t exist anymore!”

“I? You…” The Zebra threw her hooves above her head and lashed out at the air with a loud grumble.

“I’m here,” I growled weakly.

“Hey? The two birds of love?” the stallion gate-keeper called them back.

“We’re not together!” the Griffon and Zebra denied at the same time.

“Yeah, whatever. You can bring him inside. To the doc’.” The stallion coughed repeatedly through the intercom, giving us some bursts of static. “Cartier?”

I heard claws dig in the dirt as the Griffon focused apprehensively.

“Yep?” Cartier acknowledged.

“You get to speak to Shaman about it, though.” The stallion’s voice stipulated.

“The wheeled rag-mare? Don’t want! Granny’s creepy.”

“She came to me. She wants to see you presto!” The gate-keeper sighed. “Just, grab the flesh-bag and you two come in. Something’s lurking out around the metro station… It tripped on the carillon trap.”

As the intercom cracked, Cartier’s claws hastily bit in my hide and threw me back on his back. A metal door creaked on its hinges and the three of us walked in somewhere.

The first thing I felt was the warmth. I had left the dank coldness of the underground to some place warmer and slightly better smelling. I was finally safe.

“Doc’s in his office,” the gate-keeper said, his voice graver than I had heard through the sound-warping speaker outside. “You should stop bringing new pets in, Cartier. It’s not that we have an open buffet here.”

“The dude might have some good stories to tell. If he’s useless, at least he’ll entertain the kids,” the Griffon said, poking my side.

I weakly grunted back at him. He was upsetting to say the least, hurting even. But who was I to protest? I was the one free-riding on his back.

“You see what I have to deal with, Grinding?” Zina rumbled. “Damn child.”

Opening my eyes again in a huge effort, I looked with difficulty at a brown Unicorn wearing nothing but a key around his neck. His short sandy yellow mane was brushed back behind his ears and horn. He missed a few teeth and his flank bore a white millstone.

Grinding – It was his name apparently – had been sitting all along on a chair next to a small rectangular metal door, which he had closed behind us. Next to the chair dwelled a small desk on which a terminal was still flashing alive, a microphone plugged in one of its many empty ports.

“Shaman’s busy at the moment, but she’ll come,” the stallion stated before looking at me doubtful. “Just go see the Doc; your little Pony is quite a bruise.”

“No way,” Cartier joked.

Without any further ado, I was carried through a long underground alleyway. Its ceiling sparkled with old frizzling, dangling lamps and decrepit mosaics had once adorned the walls with heroic scenes. A massive Zebra holding a black sword in his mouth was lashing out at a massive lion in a whirling assault. One three-legged mare was smashing open a jar of blue goo that unleashed a stream of bats…

I guessed it represented some Zebra mythology. Stars, magic, military feats, and sacrifices seemed to be recurring themes… The most used colours? Light grey, blood red, grass green, and midnight blue. The flashy shades of the colours had long diluted and only a spectre of their former self still shone under the dim light.

I heard some Ponies and Zebras gasp.

“Cartier! Cartier!” A set of young, shrilling voices called out.

“Wow, wow, children,” the Griffon pleaded with a sudden honey-like, grand-fatherly tone. “I’ve got a wounded up here.”

“Where did you find him?” a foal’s voice asked blaringly.

Opening an eye, I found myself hanging upside down on Cartier’s back with four foals watching me curiously. Two young Zebras fillies stood on edge along with one creamy rose young Earth Pony colt with a chocolate mane and a slightly older bright yellow Unicorn filly with an electric blue mane. All of them were looking at me with their wide blue, green, and brown eyes.

“What’s your name?” the two Zebra fillies asked in concert.

Rolling over Cartier’s back, I fell on my hooves and shakily got up.

“Name’s Dervish,” I croaked, my mouth feeling like my teeth were falling out.

Wiping my forehead, I saw sweat trickling over my fur. My vision blurred and I would have fallen if Cartier hadn’t rushed to my side to hold me up.

“Is he okay?” the rosy colt asked.

“Not really,” Cartier answered for me. “Bad things happened.”

“Star monsters?” the foal added.

Cartier reached out and shuffled through the young Pony’s brown mane with a grim smile.

“Yeah,” he said simply. “Again.”

Once the kids were gone towards their own little games, I was brought around through a series of shacks build with scrap metal, wood, and pieces of fabric. Stuck in between the ground and a two-Pony high ceiling, the place reeked an atmosphere of closeness I wasn’t so happy about. It felt like a stable; a poorer version of one.

Hardly walking on my own, I passed by at least two dozen adults, Zebras or Ponies. All of them bore the marks of old or recent fights. One had even lost his two back legs and was now rolling around with two wheels stuck to his back end. Every time, they stopped their activity to look at my sore sides, sorry face, and bloody fur. They were all carrying weapons.

Looking away from the rows of habitations, I saw that we were treading along a hole in the ground. Rectangular, the embankment we were walking on was tiled and had decaying yellow markings. The bottom of the hole had rusty rails. Looking slightly further, I witnessed that the other side of the hole was a symmetrical replica of where I was. There, a set of stone stairs had been barricaded with rocks. The exit sign still shone red above the rubbles. I was in a metro station.

As expected in such a place, there was a wagon further down the platform. Stuck to its position for two centuries, the whole construction of metal had rusted, the once blue paint nothing more than old clumps on the track that ran through the station. The shattered windows of the wagon had been covered with brownish curtains and the entry to the carriage was also blocked by such fabric. A small rectangle wooden piece had been stapled to the fabric with ‘busy’ written on it.

“Here we are,” Cartier said.

“Finally,” Zina grumbled. “We were supposed to go scavenge some food cans, remember? Now, it’s too late to go back in the tunnels.”

“It’s the opposite, my dear. We can go back now,” Cartier noted. “We’ve just made a detour.”

Zina hung her head low with one long sigh.

“I hate you, really.”

Even I chuckled. Centring the attention on my now sitting rump, I weakly smiled at Cartier who shared it with me.

“You’re okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Not dead yet. Good thing. I guess,” I panted. “Thank you. Both of you.”

Zina nodded and Cartier brushed his claws through the feathers peppering his forehead.

“Was nothing, really,” he said. “We gave you water when you passed out.”

I will have to make up to that too, I guessed.

“How can I be of any help?” I croaked. “I owe you my life.”

“Stay alive,” Cartier grinned. “You owe me the tale of what’s going on outside the city.”

I chuckled, and looked at the Zebra.

“Th…”

“I want nothing to do with an Equestrian,” she cut me off. “I’m just tolerating you.”

She snipped her tail through the air, nearly slapping it in my face, and swivelled on her hooves. As she departed, the gun hanging on her chest clanged at each of her hoofsteps.

Shooting a wondering look at Cartier, who was still grinning by the way, I small-talked, “Is she always like that with everypony?”

“Uh?” Cartier blinked and glanced down at me. “Noooo… She just hates when things or people mess with her agenda. She’s a busy mare.”

“I guess,” I replied.

“Hey, Cartier!” a stallion called.

As an old blue stallion walked out of the train, a far younger and slimmer white Unicorn with a long orange mane falling over his face popped his head outside the door curtain.

“Hey, Gigli,” the Griffon responded, waiving his claw at him. “I’ve got a new client for you.”

Saying so, Cartier pointed a talon at me. The white Unicorn frowned at my general direction.

“New guy?” Gigli wondered.

“Yep.”

“Come on in, you two.”

Hauling me on my back legs, Cartier helped me enter the wagon. Inside, a series of bunk beds had been screwed to the walls, occupying the space where seats had once been installed. I was the only client. The head of the train had been made up in a small bureau. Though the exterior gave no hint about it, the interior was the cleanest place I had seen in a long while. On the wall had been hung a whole set of medical items which I refused to know the real use.

“So, what’s it for?” Gigli asked as he peered down to a series of boxes he kept under one of the bunk beds.

“I…” Damn my throat was sore. “I…”

Rummaging through his stuff, Gigli let out a cry of victory. Meanwhile, my eyes settled on his butt and went wide in terror. The buck’s cutie mark was a cartoonish pink Pony screaming in pain with a saw going half through his right back leg.

“What time is it?” Gigli said as he turned back to me with the widest smile he could muster, a saw hovering in his white magic next to his head. “Amputation time!”

I think I squealed like a foal. He rushed at me with a shout and I blacked out.

When I woke up, I had been laid in a bed with a Griffon and a Unicorn laughing in concert right next to me. My cheeks burnt with shame and, unwilling to cross their tearful stares, I scooped under the stained bed sheets.

“Fuck you,” I hissed. “Fuck you, both.”

“Oh, come on,” Gigli laughed. “It was a pretty good joke.”

I grumbled, “I’m more concerned about how you got that cutie mark.”

“Oh, that? Long story short, I saved somepony in a dire situation.”

“Are you… Were you a raider?” I asked.

“A what now?”

I raised my hoof, my mouth hanging open at him. How could he not know what a raider was? In which heaven was he… I sighed deeply as the truth sunk in. I was not in Equestria anymore. Nothing that I had learnt there would probably be useful here and thus, I felt naked.

Facing my silence, the Doc’ stripped me off my bed linens and prodded my sides. A sharp pain burst through my skin and I shrunk away from him. Crawling on my belly with long quivers running down my spine, I whimpered.

“It hurts,” I complained.

“No shit,” the doctor confirmed. “You’re in an advanced state of starvation and dehydration. You’ve got several gashes, two bullets wounds, you’ve got rat bites on your skin, and a knife wound on the neck, and probably what was two sharp claws dug in your flank.”

I glared accusation at Cartier and he put his claws on in chest dismissively.

“Not him,” the orange-maned stallion explained. “It was much bigger. To be short, you’re one damn lucky Pony. It will take a week to recover at least.”

Looking around, I saw an I.V. bag dangling at a pole, pumping some translucent mixture right into my leg. The ceiling had a screwed lamp that irradiated a powerful white light. On the back of the tram, a series of terminals biped at the rhythm of my heart.

“And you’ve got some radiation poisoning too. And I don’t have those…” He looked at Cartier. “You know… those orange bags.”

“RadAway,” Cartier brought forth.

“Yeah, those… I don’t have any of those anymore. You’ll have to be careful about going outside now. Your condition will have to be monitored closely.”

“Don’t you have some health potions to patch me up?” I asked.

“A what, now?” Cartier interjected.

Gigli was laughing slowly, shaking his head with a rueful smile.

“Where are you from?” the doctor asked.

“Equestria,” I answered half-heartedly. “I came on a boat…”

In the background, what sounded like an electronic bell clanged three times, cutting off our conversation for a few seconds.

“I must go,” Cartier chirped in. “Keep the juicy story stuff when I’m back, you… eh…”

“Dervish,” I said.

“Yeah, that name,” Cartier said as he walked outside the train.

Gigli and I remained silent until the clatter of Cartier’s claws had vanished in the dim ambient noise of the metro station.

“You’re really from Equestria?” Gigli restated, hardly believing me.

“Does it really matter now?” I glowered. “I’ve got no way to go back home. The mission is a failure.”

Silence hung between the two of us long enough to become awkward, which Gigli put an end to by coughing profusely.

“About the health potion…”

“You don’t want to spare one for me?” I said, neutral. “I understand.”

Yes, that would be understandable. I was not from that place. No Pony nor Zebra knew me. I was a threat for their security. In fact I was glad they hadn’t left me to die… I was happy that Cartier had taken me up.

“No, no! That’s not that at all. We ain’t assholes,” Gigli denied. “Health potions don’t exist anymore.”

I turned back and stared back at him with incomprehension. Health potions were a basic commodity back in Equestria. They were the blood of the warriors, wastelanders, traders, scavengers, and everypony else, old or young.

“Uh?” I uttered, baffled.

“The health potion technology is unstable. When temperatures changes rapidly and on a great scale, it degrades,” the white Unicorn explained matter-of-factly. “Unless you’ve got special carriages, refrigerated boxes, etcetera… Health potions often go to shit after two to three hours outside in Bahrneigh. When Equestria invaded two centuries ago, the First Pegasus Army experienced first-hoof the ravage of such flaw.”

“So no health potion at all here?”

Gigli nodded with a slight shrug. What in tartarus was that barbaric world? Health potions were somehow at least as important as caps. Speaking of those…

“How do you trade around here?” I asked and, trying not to sound too stupid, I added, “I guess I have to pay you back somehow.”

Nodding comprehensively, Gigli walked back to his desk, his hooves hammering on the metal floor. I heard a zip and he moved some stuff around in a leather bag. After a minut, he walked back to me.

“We use that as currency,” he said, dropping something on my bed linen.

It was round-shaped with little indents on its side and pressed in like a cap. In fact, it was a capsule, the beverage name ripped out by time, leaving nothing but old green and orange shades. I laughed out loud so much my sides wracked in pain.

“Some things will never change.”

Laughing lowly with Gigli raising an eyebrow at me, my head suddenly burst in pain and I held it in my hooves.

“Something’s wrong?” Gigli demanded, concerned, as he rushed to my side.

I was seeing spots of white in my eyes, small dots crawling against my closely shut eyelids. My ears were buzzing with a hissing that wouldn’t go.

“I’m…”

I opened my eyes with difficulty. She was there. Looking at me from behind the Doc’ with her purple eyes, she was smiling. A little, peaceful smile hanging in the middle of her scarred, red face. Alea… The Doc’ stared at my eyes and with a shiver looked back above his shoulders. His stare met the nothingness between the metal wall and himself.

“Do you see something?” he asked.

I wiped my cheeks. I was in tears. What was the use to lie? Alea’s shaking head was already vanishing.

“No,” I ghouled out. “Not at all.”

I curled up on my knees and broke into tears. She was dead now. I couldn’t save her. I hadn’t been strong enough… I wasn’t strong enough anyway. It was all my fault. I wished it was just a dream. Gigli stayed silent for a couple of seconds until he went patting my back.

“In an hour or two, when the I.V. has started to act, we’ll move out to the bar. I’m sure you’re thirsty.”

To be honest, I was.

“I would give a limb for a sparkle cola.”

Gigli widely grinned at my statement and I violently cowered away until my back hit the cold wall of the train.

“It’s a figure of speech!” I defended.

Gigli chuckled silently and asked, “What were you doing in Bahrneigh? You’re so far from home… Dervish. Is that your name?”

I nodded. After a fit of coughs, I started explaining the deal about that Equestria needed water cleansing talismans, which technology could probably be recovered intact in Zebra lands. I brushed over the last ten-year events that impacted the Equestrian Wasteland. I also broached over LittlePip’s plight, one of the names that would leave an eternal print on my homeland. However, I never went in the details. I had promised Cartier I’d keep it all for him.

“What happened to the city?” I said, willing to learn more about Bahrneigh.

“Well, Bahrneigh is not the name of the city itself actually. It’s the city-state’s name. We’re currently in Al-Marenama, the capital. Bahrneigh was one of the frontlines of the Great War. There was once ten to twenty millions inhabitants in the state. One year prior to the megaspell attack, it was invaded by Equestria who took the Northern Govern… region. There were close-quarters combats everywhere. Pegasi and Zebra fought for each corridor, each floor of each building. It was a bloody mess.” He sighed. “Who would have thought a paradise where the land of the sun meets the endless ocean would turn into a hellish pit…?”

“What happened during the Last Day?”

I told him about the Balefire megaspells and the pink cloud in Canterlot, which he winced at.

“It was fairly similar,” he confessed. “One thing though was that Bahrneigh is a small state but also a gigantic sprawling city. Two megaspells, what you called balefire, struck the Southern part of the state. The other struck the Northern part.”

“Wait… But there were Pegasi there!”

“In fact Equestria launched the one that hit the South. The Zebra Empire launched the one that exploded over the North.”

In the end, both sides had betrayed the city.

“I’m sorry…” I muttered.

“What are you talking about? You’ve got no responsibility in that mess, really! And the buildings are still standing.”

Speaking of which…

“How Bahrneigh did survive the blast so easily. The cities in Equestria were just a patch of ruins,” I notified, remembering the view from the upper deck of the HMS Canterlot. “We had a large view of the city from the harbour.”

“Yep, it must be weird for you,” Gigli confessed, “but Bahrneigh had an immense aerial defence system. That’s why many people had thought it untouchable… unreachable for Equestrians. The odds played against the city, again. The two megaspells were intercepted. It spared the people from the blast. However, the fallout… They were terrible for both sides. I think that that about eighty percent of the survivors in the city died in the first weeks after the megaspells struck.”

“I’m…”

“But it’s not all. There was a third megaspells that exploded in the city.”

“A third?”

“Yep. We don’t know who shot it… The weirdest part was that it happened five weeks after the balefire struck. Five weeks after the radio contact with the outside had been cut.”

Five weeks… How was that possible? Who would in a sane state of mind do that? That was stupid. Worse, that meant somebody had been still alive with that kind of firepower more than a month after the canons had finally shut up.

“It wasn’t a balefire bomb,” Gigli developed. “It was weaker. It still left a crater near the city centre, just next to the Burj.”

“Burj…?” I interrupted. “I’ve heard that name.”

“It’s the highest tower of Al-Marenama, like… one kilometre high. The finest construction of the realm. A monument to science and faith and victory.”

He chuckled cynically.

Back on the HMS Canterlot, I should have seen it easily, but at the time, the sand storm was already coming, obstructing the sight.

“It’s all rubbish,” he continued. “We know the Burj because of the crater. It’s from there that the star… monsters like the kids say happened to appear.”

I shivered. A megaspell that created… Star spawns, legends coming from in Zebra tales, was something that terrified me to the core.

“Yay, they eat Ponies like candies, my mother told me!” a foal who knew what he was talking about claimed, his rose snout poking in through a window with three other pairs of eyes.

Gigli shot up on his legs and leaped towards the window, towering the four foals with a surly face.

“I’m going to ground y’all!” Gigli warned.

“He saw us!” the two Zebra fillies shrieked and scampered away.

Like wisps of air, they all slipped out Gigli’s hoof-range and ran away. Only then, Gigli came back to me with a sullen chuckle.

“How depressed we would be without the gang… Bahrneigh and Al-Marenama are a living hell once you’ve stepped outside the station.”

“You must hate me,” I dropped.

Gigli stepped back. “No. Why so?”

“Equestria made your life a living hell.”

“Oh come on!” he countered. “I’m from Equestrian descent myself!”

“Uh?” I glanced at the door, expecting Zina to be pointing his hoof at her barbed-wire-wrapped dagger glaring eyes then towards me. “But I though…”

“Hideout is pretty cosmopolitan,” Gigli explained. “There must be like…”

Somepony knocked on the door and a Zebra stallion popped his head through the closed curtain.

“Ni karibu. Mimi nina busy na mteja,” Gibli spoke with a voice and language that surprised me.

“Auo vestro vidistis?” the Zebra asked.

“Ah…” Gigli mumbled, rubbing his forehead. “Taceo de illo bene ... Et… misit illum in domum suam. Nolite ergo esse solliciti.”

“Gratias,” the Zebra said and walked away.

“Even if I put up a multi-lingual plaque, he will never read, that buck!” Gigli ranted towards the door.

“You speak Zebra,” I said, impressed.

“Two dialects!” Gigli confirmed with a smile. “More or less, to be honest. Their languages are bloody difficult. Bahrneigh was very open towards the outside before the war, Equestrian was the lingua franca here. Though, with the war and dealing with the aftermath, it’s become less prevalent. Anyway… where was I? Yes! Hideout is maybe fifty percent Zebras, forty-five percent ponies, and five percent of others, horses, etcetera…”

“You’ve got horses?”

“Uh-uh,” he confirmed.

I was curious now.

“Say again?”

“We have horses.”

My head reeled.

“Are they…”

“Tall?” he ended for me. “Oh bloody hell, they are. Anyway, yes I’m from Equestrian descent. My grand-grand-grand-grand-grandfather was a Pegasus who was part of the invasion. He survived the megaspells and ended up stranded here.”

“But… I heard on the radio!” I protested. “The army is still fighting.”

Gigli sighed and, as he pushed his orange mane aside to reveal his green eyes, he sat next to me.

“Why do you think we call this place Hideout?”

He gulped and looked at me with his dark-ringed eyes. He hadn’t had a good sleep in ages. After holding himself silent for a couple of seconds he answered himself.

“Most people in the city have gathered in small villages. However, there are Zebras and Pegasi still fighting each other. They still think the war their forbearers fought is still worth fighting for. They still think Roam for some, or Canterlot for the others, will come to save them. And… I’ll be honest with you, Dervish, your arrival in Bahrneigh kicked the warmongering anthill back to life. We’ve survived until now, villagers, by detaching ourselves from the armies’ remnants and by keeping a low profile.”

I stared at my hoof, only able to listen to the stinging truth.

“That doesn’t mean I’m asking you to repair all this. It’d be stupid. It’s just that whatever your party wanted to do here, Hideout and its inhabitants won’t help you.” He wiped his muzzle with a long snort. “I hope Shaman will explain that to you better than I can.”

“Shaman…?” I pondered. “It’s a she, isn’t it?”

“Yes. She’s an old mare. She founded Hideout like… sixty years ago. She’s very old and crippled. But she’s our mother to all somehow.”

“So she rules here?”

“Shaman?” Gigli laughed. “Oh no, we elect our Procurator every year… I think it was called mayor in Equestria. Shaman is just… a general advisor, a priest. Well, she does the weddings. Some says she can read the future.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Rumours. It’s just that she talks very cryptically. She’s very old,” Gigli explained. “It’s not that I say she’s senile but sometimes her potions make you see weird things.”

“So you have a drug dealer in instance of a priest?” I asked.

Gigli raised his hoof, ready to interject, opened his mouth, but stayed silent. As he licked his upper lip with doubts cast on his face, his voice trailed out in a long hum.

“Well… From that point of view...” Holding his left hoof in front of his muzzle, he quaked a little from some repressed laughs. “I’m gonna store that joke somewhere.”

Gigli stood up and walked back to his desk. Meanwhile I lay in the bed in the most comfortable position I could find. There still was a damn spring pinching my back. Now wearing a stained white vest, Gigli came back to me with a bottle of water.

“Drink and get some rest,” he advised me as I sucked on the bottle. “I’ll come and wake you up a bit later.”

“Okay.” He began walking to the door’s curtain. “Gigli?”

“Yes?” he said after he’d turned his head.

“Thanks. I’d have died without you, Cartier, or Zina.”

He smirked, “Don’t thank us yet. I’m sure some people around the corner will want to put you to good use for basic work as a payment. Get some rest.”

“Yeah,” I guffawed, my guts already wrenching with apprehension. “I… I have another question.”

Gigli shifted back towards me and sat on the metal floor.

“While I’m still here, shoot.”

“What is the Word of Genesis?” I asked.

A chill washed over Gigli’s face and a swift tremor crawled down his back. With his eyes staring at me from above invisible glasses, all trace of joy vanished in his voice, his next words struck me like a hammer.

“How do you know that name?” he swallowed.

Unable to sustain his glare, I looked at the ceiling as I nibbled on my lower lip.

“On the radio, there was that Pegasus. He asked if we had brought it with us.” I met back his stare. “What is it?”

“It’s a weapon.” I held my breath. “In fact we don’t know… There is a legend going on that Luna herself promised something to the First Pegasus Army… I don’t think that even they knew what it was.”

“You have no idea?”

“We, Ponies, have the distasteful habit to give pompous names to our projects. We probably try to compensate for something. In fact, talking about hypothesises… I have one.” My ears perked up. “Equestria tested a weapon on civilians during the last year of war. It was called the Cococ, or cinnamon gas.”

Gigli dropped his stare and held himself between his forehooves, shivering as his eyes looked a thousand-yard away above me.

“You’ve seen it?” I wondered.

“Unexploded ordinances, compound pools, and stagnant residues. A long time ago… Back when…” He shook his head. “This gas was meant to kill living beings while leaving the infrastructure quite intact. Didn’t work very well.”

Pain and hurtful memories cast on his face, he swallowed as he slowly looked up at me.

“This gas sets people on fire… from the inside. I’m not talking about metaphors here. It really sets Ponies, Zebras, everything that breath on fire. I’ve seen people screaming.”

He drew a long, raggedy breath in and let it all out in short hissing puffs.

“I think that at the time they wanted to retreat out of Al-Marenama. It was a hellhole. A place where somepony died every seven seconds. I think they wanted to drop a cinnamon gas megaspell on the city and…”

“What about that… Word?”

“I think it’s a way to wash off the ‘fallout’. The compound glues to the walls, slips into every cracks, and it even melts in the bones of those it killed. It’s a death trap. But it was a way to take over Bahrneigh without anymore Pegasi dead.”

“It’s evil.”

“It’s war,” he said, wiping his nose. “Excuse me for being such a wussy. Um… I’m going out now. Go back to sleep. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

I laid in silent on my bunk bed, the linens crept over my curled up body, protecting me from the relative coldness of the station. War had never ended in Bahrneigh, Al-Marenama, or whatever. I was back in hell, prior to the Day of Sunshine and Rainbows, even prior to the Last Day. I was back two hundred and ten years in the past, back when bodies fell like sheep. It seemed impossible.

“Celestia, if you hear me… Please, help me.”

Left to my thoughts, I slowly slumbered away to the rhythm of the distant cacophony of villagers going around their daily antics. Sleep welcomes the ones whose souls seek rest.

“Hey! Wake up, wood log!”

Opening one eye, I found myself snuggled into a ball under my bed sheets. Four foals were looking at me from above the edge of my bunk bed. They were the same ones than earlier. The bright yellow filly with a mane so blue it hurt my eyes, the two Zebra twins, and the rose colt. They were relentless. Point for them.

“Was it fun?” the most talkative of the two Zebra fillies broke the ice.

“Fun, what?” I grumbled.

“Fighting star monsters, of course!” She kicked and punched through the air at invisible enemies. “Boom! Bam! Ka-tching!”

“No,” I snapped back. “Ponies died.”

A small silent hung between me and the… gang. The filly rolled her eyes.

“Not fun,” she grumbled.

“Mommy said that everypony dies last time I saw her,” the rose colt said egg-headly.

“She’s right,” I confirmed with a trailing, low voice and a nod. “Everypony wants to live but… we all die in the end. It isn’t fun...” I looked at the Zebra filly. “… at all.”

“But you should have fun then!” the bright yellow Unicorn filly finally blurted out. “Adults never have fun. Only Cartier is funny. The others are just grimacing and never smile.”

She started grimacing herself with the corresponding onomatopoeias. I smiled ruefully and sighed.

“What’s fun in all that?” I said. “Fighting, no thanks, I got my load back home and it was a mess. Helping out? It didn’t turn out so well lately.”

“He sounds like grandpa,” the other Zebra filly cut me off with a giggle.

“You didn’t have fun?” the colt asked again vehemently, banging his forehooves on the metal of the bed. “But Cartier always says great fight stories.”

“No! In a fight, there is always a winner and a loser. Cartier just had the luck to be a winner all along!

He’s just a child, Dervish. Maintain yourself. He’s just a child. It’s no use to be mean.

“One day, he will not come back! Then, what will you say?” I breathed harshly and, upon seeing the colt stepping back from me, I gurgled, “Sorry… It’s just… Somepony dear to me died.”

“But you’re alive, that’s what…” One of the two Zebras bashed the colt over the head. “Ow!”

Chuckling sadly, pushing a birthing tear off my eye, I shook my head and focused on the colt. Rubbing his forehead, a little drop of blood was trickling over down to his cheek.

“Look what’s you’ve done,” I scolded the violent Zebra. “What your mother will say?”

They just laughed. Rolling my eyes, I grabbed the cold and dragged him back to me. Though he fought off and hacked a bit, he let me examine the scratch. It wasn’t deep or large but I had seen smaller getting very nasty if left untreated.

“Stop moving,” I ordered at the laughing colt, scrubbing over his forehead with the tip of my linen. “Come on! If you don’t let me, it won’t come off.”

“I’ll have a super-duper scar! Like father showed me once!”

I shook my head. Colts… The four youngsters laughed together. One of the Zebras scrambled around making me slip over the colt’s forehead making the small cut a bit worse. We both irked and gasped, and my throat tightened.

“Stop it!” I vented angrily at the Zebra.

I hated blood. As I scrubbed over, it tainted all the sheet and worse, I was painting the colt’s forehead with it.

“And stop laughing,” I ordered.

“It was fun!” the colt assured.

“No it’s not,” I countered. “You’ve got blood on your face. Getting wounded is no fun.”

“Oh, t’is just a scratch. I don’t worry,” the colt exclaimed. “I’m not gonna get blamed for it.”

“Aren’t you worry about your mother knowing you got hurt?” I replied. “You’re gonna get grounded.”

“Oh, I won’t get blamed,” the rose colt snarled.

I paused and eyed him with a wondering look. His mother was very liberal… maybe too much for my liking.

“Somepony else will,” he dropped, his pinpricks eyes piercing me.

I froze with a knot in my stomach. A cold sweat licked over my neck and back. I felt shivery.

“Who?” I blabbered, biting on my tongue as I focused on scrubbing the ever-flowing blood. “Come on, your mother will be dead serious about you getting harmed.”

It was getting everywhere, reddening his rosy fur. Celestia dammit, it was messy.

“No, mother won’t!” he assured. “She will never blame me!”

I rolled my eyes at him and stared straight in his eyes.

“And why so?” I defied him.

His smile spread widely across his round red and rose face.

“Because she’s dead,” he stated coldly.

I recoiled from his defiant grin and looked at the three others foals.

“Was it fun?” the two Zebras cried out at me in unison.

“No!” I burst out. Blood fell in drops from their throat where no slash had been dug yet. “It was… not.”

The blood tainted my bed sheets. First it had just been mere peeps. Now, the linen drunk at it into large puddles of red. It washed over my fur and dripped slowly down the ground.

“Look what you’ve done,” I blamed the colt as I grabbed him by the shoulders.

I went to stare right into his eyes but they had drifted away in opposed directions. His mouth was hanging open, limp. The laughter stopped abruptly. My breath speed rocketed. Unbearably slowly, I raised my head from the heap of a colt I had in my hooves, crushed, lifeless, blank-eyed. The remaining three foals were staring at me silently, a light griming out from the pit of their irises.

“Somepony else will.”

The words echoed in my head. Red covered everything. It dripped from out the cracks, trickled, and drip-dripped over my face, getting in my sore, teary eyes. Crimson. Ecarlate. My breath depleted in small, ragged in and out puffs. I was cold. I could barely open my eyes and with an heavy weight on my shoulders, I let the hissing silence engulfed me. I could only hear my breath, a whispering murmur, as I knew that accusing eyes awaited me if I reopened mine.

“Was it fun?” a female voice cracked through the uncanny silent.

“No,” I uttered.

“But you killed…” it answered. “Was it fun?”

I contemplated the contorted heap between my black red hooves. Where were my natural colours gone? My grey fur. My light blue mane. There was just red. Just that fucking red.

“No!” I boomed. “I… I could have done better. Fluttershy, she told me. We. Must. Do. Better.”

How could it be fun? There were blood everywhere! On their faces. On and out their gashes. Streaming down their cheeks like tears dripping from their bleached eyes. Sliding in their mouth in between the cracked, broken-in teeth. How could it be fun when there was blood everywhere? On everypony’s hooves, and especially on mine.

“Hey, wake up, wood log!”

I jerked from under my bed sheets with a hoof on my racing heart.

“Aaah! Sorry, Alea!” I apologized.

I wiggled aside and slipped off down the bunk bed. My head hit the sturdy floor and white crawled in my vision.

“Ow…” I grunted, rubbing my forehead.

With a spike in my gut, I saw that my friendly and beloved red Unicorn in front of me vanished, giving space to an angry-looking Zebra. I sighed and looked down in shame.

“Zina, am I right?” I mumbled.

“You’re star-damn right,” she said, giving me harmless hoofkicks into the side. “Gigli can’t come, he had an urgent course to do. He asked me to wake you up.”

“Sounds like a torture the way you say it.”

She rumbled, “Don’t be a second Cartier, I’d use one of you to bat the other.”

I zipped my mouth close and helped myself back on my shaky hooves. I was sore and hurting. A stinging pain sparked in my back leg and I crumbled on the ground in a moping, shaky heap. I felt Zina extract the painful I.V. needle very slowly.

“Stupid,” she rumbled.

As I wiped my tears, pressing hard on a gauze above the tiny hole in my hide, the Zebra reached out for something in her saddlebag. She gave me a long, tiny orange paper tube and we both looked at each other silently for a few seconds. Awkward.

“What is it?”

“Painkillers,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Hey, it’s not the same we have back home!” I protested.

“Yeah, sure,” she snarled. “Take some, I don’t want to have to carry you around. I’m not a cart.”

I took the tube and limped towards Gigli’s desk. Not willing to bit in the paper tube, I scrambled around in search for a knife. Instead I found a scalpel and proceeded to open the tip of the tube. A series of vaguely round-shaped tabs welcomed me. Inspecting further the tube for prescription advice, I faced indecipherable Zebra glyphs.

“Um… Zina?”

Already by my side, she glared between me and the tube back and forth, disappointed.

“Could you…” I gave her my best smile. “… read this to me?”

“It’s one tab every six hours. Don’t take much. Those pills are addictive.”

I stared back at the tabs. Well… Addiction was a real thing in Equestria. Careful, I used the scalpel to break one tab in two and gulped the first halve. I would save the next one for later.

“I guess you’re hungry,” Zina deadpanned. “I have to bring you to the canteen.”

“I am,” I answered honestly, looking at the window where Gigli had chased off the children. “That… gang of fillies and colt… who are they?”

“Orphans,” Zina breathed. “Their parents went for a scavenging streak one year ago. They are still waiting for them to come back.”

She shook her head.

“At least,” she continued. “Shaman and Cartier are taking good care of them while they… wait.”

Sadness. Her head was hung a little, the side of her lips slightly scrunched up and down. She sighed and rubbed her forehead.

“Oh, fuck it,” she rasped and glared at me with some reddened stare of her, trying to set me on fire. “Get your ass moving. I’m not here to play the psychologist.”

Looking around, I found a little worn out saddlebag that I threw over my right flank.

“Just borrowing,” I excused myself.

I slipped in the tabs and a few bandages. I will have to do with those. Damn this place for not having any health potions.

We walked outside the wagon and made our way through the underground city. As I had already seen, the habitations were just mounts of slightly arranged scrapped metal, wood, and fabric. Fire camps were settled regularly to spread warmth as evenly as possible. Parents snuggled their slipping child and snores could be heard coming through many windows.

“So that’s Hiedout?” I wondered.

“Yes, it is.”

“You’re a lot here?”

“One hundred at most,” she said. “But the number is dwindling month after month.”

That shut me up for a good minute. Only after did I tried to small-talk my way out of a shameful awkwardness.

“What time is it?” I asked the Zebra mare.

“It’s night. Maybe thirty past eleven… Our clock broke two months ago and we haven’t yet find a good replacement part.”

“A cogwheel?”

“Yep. You know something about it?”

“No. Not really,” I confessed.

She didn’t answer. Instead, we kept moving through the habitation until I could see the thick entry door. Grinding was still sitting in his chair, sleeping. Only then did I see a long corridor opening behind his booth. For once, a vivid light slithered through and projected many shadows up onto the rusty rails that sat by. To the light soon joined sounds and, as we turned in the narrow alleyway, laughs.

“And then I took out my two beloved guns, ‘Head’ and ‘Tails’ and blasted off the wings of the flying Pegasus. He fell right in between three star spawns. As they fed on him, Zina and I reached out the Trading Exchange of North Al-Marenama and headed for the vault. To our greatest and upmost disappointment, it was empty!”

“Ooooh,” young voices answered.

Zina and I stepped in what was surely a saloon. Round tables adorned the place and many chairs had gathered with their occupant around a white and brown Griffon, Cartier. Mimicking his feats with his two three-barrelled gun in his talons, he managed to swerve and hack his arms across the air as he still sat. More impressive, he had the gang sitting on his lap as he did so.

“So who stole the prize?” an adult Pony asked even before the kids did.

“I’m coming to it,” Cartier smirked with a wide smile. “The truth is… we don’t know. The vault was protected by active turrets and they hadn’t fired a single shot yet before we arrived. The Gentlecoalt who’d been there before us had the keys and codes of the Exchange.”

“But, do you have an idea?”

I looked around, Ponies and zebras were playing poker on a table and one other groups of two residents were facing each other. Between them was displayed an open box with twelve sewed in triangles on each side. Little ivory tokens, black or white, were stacked on those triangles. One of the Pony grabbed two dice, put them in his glass, shook, and let the odds work it out for him. As the result came up, he moved his tokens, the whites, clockwise. I didn’t know that game.

My eyes wandered further towards the counter. Some Ponies and Zebras were drinking a murky brew served by a… Oh, fuck me… As tall as an alicorn, as large and bulky as a Macintosh, completely black from top to bottom with only a grey mane to contrast, a Horse barman was talking to his clients. He was, at least, twice my size and… look at those gigantic hooves!

On the top of the bar, a transmitter was being manipulate by a Zebra, probably listening with a pair of earplugs to transmission going around the city. The transmitter’s antenna had been replaced by a long cable that went directly to the ceiling and disappeared in a hole. It was probably going up to the surface.

“It is the… Newcomer, Dervish!” Cartier boomed over at me, making me duck.

Eyes dashed in my direction and looked at me with curiosity, apprehension, and wonder.

“And he comes from Equestria…”

Fuck you, Cartier. Just… go sit on a dragon’s dick. Cold stares, wondrous stares, curious stares, I was entitled to all of those as I stepped in with Zina. And, as I closed in the gap between me and the Griffon, I never expected the stream of questions that assaulted me.

The next hour was spent getting harassed with questions about the outside by everypony, Zebras and whatnot. I tried to be the most concise possible and helpful. Trying to tame the spite of some Zebras, which didn’t turn out so well to be honest, I skimmed over Luna’s death, which brought some relief in some of them. Telling them about the Enclave and the war that opened the sky ten years ago was the hardest part… LittlePip’s adventure was something that was hard to believe for those who hadn’t experienced it first-hoof like me. The Great and Powerful goddess and Red Eye were topics I didn’t broach much. Honestly, those two deserved their own story time, especially Red Eye.

While the attraction I created slowly withered, Zina sat next to Cartier as the four foals slowly drifted asleep next to him. It was getting late.

“I’m really thankful,” I began. “I’d not have survived out there without you both.”

“Oh, come on,” Cartier answered. “It was nothing.”

“It was something,” Zina hissed, keeping it a whisper for the children. “We lost a day of scavenging because of you.”

“Don’t be so mean, Zina. I’m sure you like to go off the road from time to time.”

“Um…” I tried.

“Mean! Me? How dare you? You’re the one trying to go checking on Pegasi.”

“Um…?”

I raised my hoof.

“It’s all fun, Zina. I’m sure you…”

“Um…?”

“What!?” Zina barked at me.

Cartier grimaced, pointing at the yawning children at his paws.

“Are… Are you two together?” I supposed

Thunderbolts sparkled out of her eyes.

“No,” she said and, slowly turning her head and staring with narrowed, pinprick eyes at Cartier’s snarky face, she growled, “Careful about your next words, birdy…”

He eyed Zina with a cowering look.

“Not yet?” he said with an amused smile.

“You’re dead!” Zina warned.

“Hey! Guys, keep quiet! I’m getting a transmission,” the Zebra working on the transmitter called out at the two birds of love. “Some scavengers got stranded in the Cathedral, they are emitting a distress signal.”

He unplugged his earplugs and a burst of static filled the saloon. Ears perked up and a ragged grave voice tuned in.

“… lost. We’ve taken refuge in a cult centre in the city. Oh, fuck! Shoot!” A barrage of bullets echoed through the intercom, soon followed by the characteristic sounds of an exploding grenade. “We’ve gathered. We’re maybe twenty, thirty survivors… Damn it.” Another explosion wracked out and left the channel hissing. “There are those monsters coming from the underground. Invisible. Please, if there is somepony out there from the Canterlot, stay safe! And if you can, come and find us. Please. If there is somepony out there...”

I rushed, pushed over the operator, and snatched the microphone.

“Hey what are you doing!?” the operator gasped as I pushed on the button at its bottom. “We must not send outward message! It’s forbidden!”

I didn’t care. At that moment, I didn’t know my move would settle my fate for the six months forward. I had people to meet. I had a mission to fulfil.

“Here is Dervish from the HMS Canterlot,” I blared. “I’m coming. You’re not alone. They are other survivors.”

I had sins to attend.

[α Ω α]

Footnote!

Level Up

New Perk: Fast Metabolism

You recover fast, but you get worn out more easily and faster than others.

+1 ENDURANCE in the eight following hours after resting, - 1 afterward.

Oct. 2014 project - Fallout:Equestria No God Below - 2. Ideas

“You don’t want to open that door,” a female voice whispered at an inch from my ear.

I think my face melted away just by pure terror. The mare wrapped her hoof around my shoulder even before I reacted. She was cold like death. I slowly turned my head to see the sneaky mare’s face. She wore a large black hood leaving only her two creepy yellow eyes visible. Well, no sleep for me tonight.

“Sometimes you don’t want to know what’s behind a door.”

I grunted as she put all her weight on my shoulder and knocked her other forehoof on the door. I wanted out but the mare had me locked under her grip.

“Sometimes, yes, you wished you could open a door and have the answer behind. Sometimes, what is behind the door is something you have locked away and refuse to confront ever again.” Under her hood, her smile grew, eerily white in the darkness.

She had pointy teeth. My blood did one turn and I failed again to shy away.

“You’re dea…” She put her free hoof on my lips.

“Tut, tut…” she giggled. “I am the one talking and I hate being cut off during my esoteric rants.”

She grinned at me even wider and her cold, dank breath rolled over my face. With the swift jerk of her head, she threw her hood back on her shoulders. I was right. That mare was dead. I had seen her just seconds ago. That red mare with a crimson hide and a mane as blue as mine was dead. But seeing her going back to the handle and trying to open it again assured me that she was alive, somehow. She frowned.

“Eh, don’t do that trick on me,” she pouted. “Not when I’m messing with somepony.”

My heart derailed when she knocked on the door, lurched her hoof at the handle, turned and opened that gate.

“Ah, ah!” she said gleefully.

She looked at me with a playful grin. She did the unexpected. She licked me in one long sway of her tongue. She licked my face! I cringed on my hooves but she held me tight, hugging me like an old friend.

“And sometimes,” she smirked. “Ponies will open what you’ve buried deep and away.”

And she threw me in. I screamed, screamed, and screamed. But nothing happened. The room was fucking barren. Empty. That mare had set me up! I turned back towards the door, my heart trying to break a speed world record.

“You…”

She was gone. The threshold was empty and only a cold breeze was brushing over my wet neck. But there is no wind inside. There never was. The whisper came with a stinging pain in my head, a feeling of nausea bubbling in my head. I threw up.

“The city is cursed, Dervich,” her voice, now disincarnated resonated in the empty room. “You will understand that soon, like all those who’ve been suffering. Do what you must to escape before the city owns you… before you’re forever trapped here. Because it will. This city will own you.” I froze as her voice hacked and swerved like an old radio record being messed with. “This city is curse and it will make you lose who you were. Bahrneigh. Will. Defile. You.”

My mane crawled as silence drowned out my raggedy breath. Holding my sides with my shivering hooves, I looked around and back at the door. I was alone.

Pushing myself back on my hooves, dusting the dirt of my pale coat, I looked around. The room was empty indeed, but with the marks left on the ground I could tell it had not been always that way. Time had left the traces of chairs, heavy furniture and a large round print like a stage in the middle. Dust had taken over the room

Nov. 2014 - Our Lost Tales - 1. The Message

Author's Note

Short Description:
Adults vanished from Equestria five years ago. Yet, a beloved trio still survive and roam.

Long Description:
Five years have gone by since every adult disappeared from the Equestria's surface. As a thick blizzard that no Pegasus can control blankets the land once again, some surviving kids, often in their teenage years, still roam. Among them, three Ponies finally reach a large city where they hope to protect themselves against the harshest parts of the winter.

Nov. 2014 - Our Lost Tales - 1. The Message

“ It was the harshest of times. It was the wildest of times. It was the time of our most violent vibes. The time of our most conceited caprices. The time of our less well-thought fuck-ups.
And you know… We never cared. It was, without a doubt, the best of times.
We did think we would never die.”

[ α Ω α ]

“When everypony disappeared, for you it was a disaster…” The pale Earth Pony mare whispered as her hoof prodded the wound. “For me, it was freedom.”

She coughed violently and her breath died into a raspy complaint. Her backlegs hacked on the snowy ground and, while she held her mess of a flank from which spurted long trails of red, she whimpered. The blood stained her rose hide. She could only cast a hazy glance at the hooded Pegasus mare, now towering over her dying body.

“We must go,” another hooded pony came forth, reaching out at the Pegasus. “The blizzard is buildin’ up. We gonna to die if we stay here.”

As the clouds spewed whiter and bulged darker, the second hooded pony mare lit her horn, casting a faint white light across the frozen clearing. The leaf-less trees were still standing proud, like a series of bleached ribcages trying to fork out at the sky.

“Just…” The Pegasus sighed. “Gimme a sec’. I have something to do.”

The Pegasus’s friend nodded and walked afar. As the crunching of hooves over the snow fainted away, the Pegasus glanced back at the dying Earth Pony. Her lungs were hissing and the snow slowly drank her blood, taking bit by bit the same colour as her fur.

“I’m cold,” the Earth Pony mare muttered.

“I know,” was the answer. “But it will be over soon.”

The tears were crystallising on their cheeks and the whistle of the wind accompanied those last shared moments.

“It’s sad,” the dying mare said. “After all those years, you still give me a bit of… friendship… I don’t know. I’m hurting.”

The Pegasus put her hoof on her lips, hushing her.

“Just. Stay put, please. It will be over soon.”

The Earth Pony mare pushed back the foreleg and coughed.

“I remember what the teacher said just before… before she went away… Can’t remember her name…” She said with a sad voice graveling down slowly as death gradually made its path.

“Cheerilee!” the Pegasus cut off, her voice uneven and hesitant. “Her name was Cheerilee. Please stop.”

“I don’t know… Don’t remember. It’s been so long since it happened. How long has it been…?”

The Pegasus looked at her hooves and counted, muttering her way to the right number.

“Five years,” the Pegasus replied as her head slowly hung down, quivering. “Please, no more.”

Time dawned on the Earth Pony mare. Her sullen blue eyes watered even more. Her nose leaked slightly faster and sobs filled the freezing air.

“I don’t want to die,” she pleaded.

“It’s too late,” the Pegasus bubbled back. “I can’t do… anything. You’re a lost cause. You’ve always been one.”

The Earth Pony stretched a hoof out and tried to reach the Pegasus. She stepped back to avoid contact with the dying mare. As a result, the hoof dropped and sunk a little in the snow.

“Do you think that I’m going to see Cheerilee again?

“Just stop,” the Pegasus hissed, arching her body. “Please, just die now… I… Can’t hear anymore.”

“Do you think I’m going to see everypony? Even father?” the Earth Pony continued. “Do you think I’m going back home?”

Too weak to rub her icing eyes, the Earth Pony gasped as her eyelids pained her. Dignity faintly departed. She grunted and tried to roll aside. A wounded stray dog was the only thing the Pegasus could think of as she watched.

“Please, stop!” the Pegasus cried.

Unable to take it anymore, the winged Pony shivered and her rump dropped on the grizzling cold ice. Now crying, she stretched her hooves and went for one very last, animalistic hug.

“You never understood, Diamond Tiara. Didn’t you…? Why did you follow us?” Scootaloo asked, pushing her hood back on her shoulders as her lips trembled, white from the cold. “Why… did you try to kill us… again?”

Heavy tears rolled on Tiara’s cheeks along with one single stream of blood, hanging from the side of her mouth. The fallen mare sobbed, coughed, and jerked sideways in the process. The large piece of rebar was hurting, going straight through her back and protruding from out of her flank.

“I was hungry,” she whined. “I was just… hungry.”

She was rachitic, her skin playing mountains and valleys over her frail ribs. Scootaloo could now feel it as her hooves clawed in and closed around the Earth Pony’s neck. She was small, so malnourished she had had no real adolescent growth. She couldn’t have prevailed… One against three. What had she been thinking? She had been crazy and she had paid for it.

Diamond Tiara coughed, her eyes rosy as she spewed peeps of red over her face, “Can… Can we still be friends…?”

No answer came.

“If… If you see Silver Spoon,” she continued, her voice now just a ghostly whisper. “Tell her… I’m sorry.”

The cold kiss of death came as she slumbered away in Scootaloo’s hooves. She coughed one last time, her blood tainting slowly her white and indigo mane. She hacked one last time, until her whole body finally lay unmoving, prey to the snow that had never stopped falling.

When everypony disappeared, for you it was a disaster… for me, it was freedom… The word echoed in Scootaloo’s blurry mind. Diamond Tiara was wrong. Not everypony vanished; it was just the adults. It had been a free-for-all ever since… Time spent fighting, fleeing, and scavenging. The orange mare thought about the hurting past, especially about her foster sister. She went for her face and rubbed the large scar running from her left ear to her muzzle just under the eye. After all this time, it was still hurting so bad.

“You’re wrong,” Scootaloo whispered, sniffing back the snot rushing out of her nose.

Still hugging the limp pony that she had vowed as her arch nemesis a long time ago, she tried to repress the cry but failed.

“For me, it was freedom as well.”

“Scootaloo?!” Apple Bloom’s voice called out through the blizzard.

“I’m coming!” she replied. “I’m coming…”

With a last glance at the body’s glassy eyes, Scootaloo gently dropped the wobbly head down the ground. There, snow would soon bury the misdeed and she will be long gone when the spring would come and claim its due.

Scootaloo walked away, followed the voice trail until a large, decrepit home appeared in the white. The roof had been blown off by the harsh wind and one single yellow light was filtering through the crack of the first floor window shutter. The door was open and a shadow of a Pony was waiting.

“Close the door, Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo grunted. “We’re not warming up the outside...”

“Ah Ah… you know ah don’t like sarcasm. Fer yer good sake, ye could ha’ been killed outside.”

Scootaloo shrugged it off and stumbled across the room. She went down crashing on the mattress they had dragged from the only room of the place. Apple Bloom sighed and walked silently towards her partner. She sat next to the fire and soon lost herself in looking at the ever-changing flames.

“Look at you, dear!” Sweetie Bell said as she finally looked away from the stew she was preparing.

She rushed at her Pegasus friend’s side and, using her own brown and torn up hood, she started brushing the blood off her fur and barding.

“Are we there yet?” Scootaloo sighed. “I’m tired of walking.”

“Tomorrow if the storm is down,” Sweetie Bell answered, scrubbing the red paint off Scootaloo’s face.

The Pegasus ticked as her friend went far too close to the scar. She tut-tuted and pushed the friendly hoof. Awkwardness settled between the two.

“Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo broke the silence. “Am… Am I a bad Pony?”

Scootaloo swallowed and turned her head towards her friend, avoiding eye contact.

“No, you’re not,” Sweetie Belle comforted, rushing out to hug her winged friend.

Scootaloo’s eyes fluttered. Her lips blubbered and her febrile hooves went into a frail commonly shared hug. She broke and sobbed out loud, her hooves suddenly crushing over her Unicorn friend’s back. Sweetie Belle winced but said nothing as she stroked over Scootaloo’s mane with a faint smile.

“It hurts,” Scootaloo whimpered. “It hurts so much.”

Apple Bloom, ever so silent, joined in for the hug, resting her face over Scootaloo’s right wing.

“I know it hurts,” Sweetie Belle said. “But, you remember the message, don’t you?”

Slowly, Scootaloo nodded and her face took refuge in Sweetie Belle’s messy and dirty mane. With a warm smile, Apple bloom dropped a hoof in the saddlebag hidden under her makeshift barding. She ransacked it and pulled out a compact cassette reader. Even old and battered, it still had a print of an electric blue double music note with a light blue outline on its side. Apple Bloom pushed a button and after a sizzling crack of static burst out of it, a mare’s voice tuned.

“Hello Scootaloo. I don’t know where you are right now or if you can hear me. I’m in Manehattan right now. If you can hear me, please let me know. I’ll be waiting. I hope you can reach me. Please, Scootaloo, for Celestia’s sake please… Come back.”

As the end of the recording crackled with the sobbing of a mare, Scootaloo’s ragged breath came to a halt. She closed her eyes and inhaled one long breath, kept it for ten full seconds before releasing it.

All three tightened into a hug, they could hear each other heartbeat. And, for once, they weren’t cold.

“Hey, girls?” Apple Bloom broke in with a grin.

“What?” Scootaloo coughed, stripping her reddened eyes from their tears.

“Regardin’ this hug session, it’s no homo, right?”

The trio laughed silently as the night trailed out and, ever so stronger, the blizzard screamed outside. Tomorrow would be another day, for the voice on the recording had been Rainbow Dash’s voice.

Nov. 2014 - Our Lost Tales - 2. The Voice

“Look around you and tell me what you see. Now look again and tell me once again what you were seeing. Now do it one more time and repeat what your words exactly were. Repeat them, and let me laugh… Repeat them, and make me cry…
There is a lesson in all this mess, young lad.
Believe no one.
Don’t even trust yourself.
The best of liars are your own eyes.”

[ α Ω α ]

“Are you sure it is safe, Scootaloo?” Sweetie Belle asked, her voice shushed by the dim of the blaring wind. “Really sure?”

In the wind’s harshest gusts, unable to see farther than a hoof throw, three hooded forms were shuddering in the numbing cold. A sky as white as the ground drizzled with millions of snowdrops, sharp and cutting in all their coldness. Tartarus could have frozen that it was its icy bits that were raining on the three crusaders.

“It’s this or there,” the Pegasus pointed out, swiping her hoof across the vast and invisible white no-pony’s-land that stretched beyond her sight. “Now… or never.”

“I think I peed…” Sweetie Belle sniffed. “…on myself.”

“It’s the cold,” Scootaloo snapped an explanation. “Compress the bladder.”

“Alright…” Sweetie Belle murmured shakily. “If you say so…”

Apple Bloom grunted loudly and rolled butt over head as a screech of metal wracked in the air. The massive ponyhole that had blocked the three survivors’ escape route now lay aside with its locks broken. A round and ominous black maw contrasted out of the snow. The white dust whirled and screamed through the orifice, down to a rotten place that exhaled putrefied fumes.

The three looked at each other. Though Sweetie Belle pleaded them with tearful, widened eyes, her two companions crawled in and went down the hole on a rusty and unsteady ladder.

“Don’t tell me I warned you,” she howled down, her head the only thing she let squeeze in the ponyhole.

Sweetie Belle fidgeted, rubbed her forehooves together, felt the coldness between her legs, and heard a scream in the far distant nether. Biting her lips, she mumbled in apprehension and followed in her friends’ stead. Gulping down, she strained on her muscles and dragged the piece of metal back over her head. As it closed down in a shattering and echoing screak, she felt a bursting tingle in her chest. She felt trapped.

“I’ve got a bad feeling, girls,” the Unicorn mumbled, pocking her horn repeatedly until the sparks cracking out of it became a steady whitish light.

“Welp,” Apple Bloom mentioned, a hoof on her forehead. “Ah’m sure we ain’t gonna freeze down here.”

Scootaloo grumbled, scrapping the thin icy stalactites that had enveloped her feathers’ tips.

“Hey,” Sweetie Belle bellowed, receiving a bit in her eyes. “Careful!”

Scootaloo groaned back.

“What’s happening to you today,” Sweetie Belle noticed with a hiss, trudging up on her backlegs and hitting down the ground.

A dirty splash answered her reckless move and Sweetie Belle froze. With shot-open eyes, she slowly hung her head down and stared at a thin, semi-stagnant stream of sludge running between her hooves.

“I’m not feeling very well, girls,” she mumbled. “I don’t… want to be here.”

“Pony up,” Scootaloo said, rolling her eyes. “We’re not going to stay in the sewers for long.”

“Why did say you so?” Sweetie Belle challenged crossing her forehooves until she grimaced, seeing she’d spread some murk on her chest.

“It’s close to a metro station,” Scootaloo said, pointing at the information plate cast into the wall next to the ladder. “We’ve entered the…”

While Sweetie Belle tried to sweep the shallow water off herself with a cross-eye look, Scootaloo squinted her eyes and washed a thick piece of dust off the plate with the back of her hoof.

“… Greater Manehattan Area,” she finished.

Apple Bloom walked up to her left side and scrutinised the map on her own.

“Damn, that seems to be a heck of a walk from here to… well…” She was lost. “Sweetie Belle?”

The pale Unicorn’s ears perked up at the mention as she shook off the last bit of sludge of her left forehoof. She was not so white now.

“Yes?” she smiled ruefully.

“Ye’re the one who went to the Big Apple with yer sister back in the time. Where did ya say the signal must be coming from?”

Sweetie Belle sniffed, frowned, and slipped in between Scootaloo and the unheeding Earth Pony.

“Like I told you dozens of time,” she said, pointing at a location on the map, “the radio station was on top of the Diarchy State Building, hmmm… there!”

Apple Bloom stared closer, rumbled, grabbed her friend’s horny head and shook it up to get some more light.

“Hey!” Sweetie Belle whined. “It doesn’t work like that!”

A whisper echoed on the disgusting walls of the tunnels, reaching the trio’s ears like the distorted whistling of a thousand centipedes scurrying legs. A gust of wind whistled above their heads and a rasping scrap of metal cackled in the air. For a mere second, the trio looked at each other in silence.

“Sounds like an echo,” Apple Bloom advanced looking at Scootaloo with a forced nod. “T’is nuthin’.”

“Definitely,” Sweetie Belle approved far too quickly with the same dishonest nod. “Do you agree, Scootaloo?”

The Unicorn squinted her eyes at the Pegasus as her face drew closer, soon joined by Apple Bloom.

“We. Don’t. Wanna. Know,” Apple Bloom whispered. “Got me?”

Scootaloo smirked grimly, turned away, and showed her rump to her two companions.

“There is no wind inside,” Scootaloo stated.

The orange Pegasus swept her nose and reached for a fold of her hood just below her left wing. The edge of a knife gleamed in the light of Sweetie Belle’s horn.

“Follow me,” she intoned as her backside slowly vanished in the darkness of the tunnel, her hoofsteps the only sound that carried backward.

“Wait for us,” Sweetie Belle hissed, scurrying towards the Pegasus with Apple Bloom behind.

The old sewer, smelly and swamped by the gut-wrenching sound of the shallow water dripping down its walls, whistled again. It was closer this time.

“My little pony…”

The trio stopped, petrified as the singing marish voice crawled over their head.

“… Why aren’t you with me?”

“You heard?” Sweetie Belle called slowly, getting a deadpan stares from her two friends. “I… don’t want to be here.”

“My little pony…”

“Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom urged as the Unicorn slid and rested tight next to her. “Stop talkin’, you gonna summon ghosts.”

“Why are you crying…”

“It’s a bit farther,” Scootaloo warned, biting harder on the handle of her long, smeared, and rusty knife.

“…when you can trot freely?”

Sweetie Belle’s light crawled over the walls, denuded of everything but troubled water streams, murky moss, and scrapped and unreadable old markings.

“My little pony…”

A crack on the right side of the tunnel was large enough to let pass a small river of dirty murk, pushing out the opening like claws in a closing door. The trio walked around it and though Scootaloo eyed it with ill-feeling pinching her heart, they still faced an unending loneliness.

“Don’t you cry…”

Drops of water fell off the ceiling, hitting the round-shaped tunnel’s walls and the three Ponies’ hide in a gloomy musical cycle.

“Tell me you’ll be brave…”

A cry erupted in the settling silence as a poorly kept light crept out of a far fork in the tunnel. The crusaders’ path slowed down as the three kept the distance tight between each other.

“Tell me you’ll be strong…”

The clatter of a rock falling through a tube reverberated in the tunnel, sending a chill down the trio’s bones.

“When your core shines brightly…”

A sheet of metal being torn up. Wet papers sploshing down a small steep. Invisible bugs buzzing over and around the ears. The ill sensation of miasma obstructing noses and throats. The psychic unease from feeling absent insects crawling beneath the skin…

The three young mares’ manes crawled, and Sweetie Belle whimpered as they finally reached the fork. Scootaloo sheathed back her knife in a hiss that startle her two friends.

“… over the darkness and the fury,” whispered the voice one last time before falling silent.

The light came from an old but still working greenish diode, still flashing inside an exit sign. It was the maintenance tunnel of the metro they had been looking for. A yellow plaque above an unending group of pipes running across the curved wall of the alleyway told them so. The silence was, as always, deafening.

The trio stopped and, upon seeing the walls of the maintenance, they scampered back away in the sewer. They were covered in writing, uncannily white. Hooves had scratched those words to life.

Those were testimonies… witnesses’ last words… testaments… prayers. So many words scratched up like the memories of a long gone world. Scootaloo was the first to enter the tunnel, avoiding eye contact with the writings. She was far more interested in a plaque screwed to one of the pipes, holding a worker’s plastic map.

Sweetie Belle, her horn still lit up, went in a corner and sat down, breathing hot hair on her chilled hooves.

“Hmmm,” Apple Bloom rumbled, looking left and right in the darkness of the tunnel. “Ain’t no singing pony down here.”

“Hush now,” Scootaloo called with a dagger-throwing glare before she looked closer at the map.

Apple Bloom frowned and cast her glance away from her friend right at the writings. She neared towards the writings until her nose touched the cold concrete. She gulped as her eyes streamed past words, sentences, and paragraphs, always ended with a name. Her hooves started shaking. She sniffed loudly and her backend slid in a loud thump.

“Apple Bloom?” Sweetie Belled said as she raised her head. “Are you alright?”

Even Scootaloo’s focused reading session stopped. She stepped backward and caught her friend’s state of mind. Apple Bloom’s rear rested on the floor and she was crying, on the edge of collapsing. With a hoof hung on the wall just below a text, the young mare’s whimpers echoed and lost themselves in the vastness of the underground. The text itself was scribbled, probably written in a hurry, a few years old and attacked by the ambient derelictness and humidity.

Scootaloo drew closer and watched over the small bit of text. As she started reading out loud, her heart fell in her chest, an anchor of repressed emotions finally called her back to memories she had buried in the depths of her mind.

“For all I know, this message will probably get lost. I can’t talk to you directly at the moment. I was just going to hope that, if you find this, just know that your big sis’ love you out of her all heart. And that I’d have given all I own just to see you once again.” Scootaloo stopped, swallowed, and blinked a few times as small plundering tears formed on her cheeks. “I’m so sorry I can’t be with you… right now. But I’m watching over you while you’re out somewhere I can’t go to. I am sorry I can’t be there by your side. What a bad big sis’ I am. But I still love you. And I’m waiting. Please. I pray every night Luna’s making you’ll be back soon.”

Scootaloo broke away and strolled down the left part of the tunnel until the pipes on her right resonated, bellowed, vibrated… and finally screamed out. The trio screamed, scared with hot sweat crawling down their backbone. They plundged, tried to hide, and shielded themselves from the scream. Only when the shattering, high-pitched, and heart-wrenching cry died in a gurgled that a tiny, broken, and raspy voice whispered in the echo.

“I still love you, lil’ sister. Despite what you did…”

Sweetie Bell had crooked into a ball under the pipes, uncaring for the drips of mud falling in her dishevelled mane. Scootaloo held her face in between her hooves and pressed on her ears to shush out the voice. She would have enjoyed the silence if her Earth Pony friend’s voice had not trudged in.

“Look…” Apple Bloom voice shakily called.

She got up hesitantly, stumbled across the tunnel in Scootaloo’s opposite direction. Apple Bloom nearly disappeared in the darkness for a second. When she came back, her hooves had closed on something she dearly held against her chest. She was crying, not even trying to hide it as her complaint replaced the whispering voice in the tunnel and echoed through the pipes, shafts, and ventilations.

She was holding a hat, torn up, rotten, and scrapped…

Applejack’s hat.

2014 project - The Tombstones and Barbed Wires - 1

Chapter 1. Washed Ashore
“Last night the so-overpraised Night Shift found another corpse on the embankment near the Castellane Bridge. Features: Earth Pony, young mare, prostitute. Cause of death was not stated, but it was said that it matched, without a doubt, the Lone Traveler’s modus operandi. Victim n°33.
Where is the police? The real one, that is.”
The Morning, 23.07+1027

_____________

The city stood in all its ominousness.
High in the sky, the foggy moon had succeeded to the blemish sun. Hidden behind never-ending black clouds, it poured its chiaroscuro bite onto the megalopolis ancient spires and buildings. Street lights flickered over the city’s arteries with a dirty orange glow. It cast shadows onto the walls that fenced this decrepit urban world. Monsters from my imagination inhabited the stained windows and gutter-like passageways.
A massive clock tower loomed the city centre, spearing out of a hill one could mistake with some overgrown vertebra of an underground gargantuan monster. Its dark presence crawled over like the uncaring stare of a mother glaring at her undesired children. It struck at me how dangerously bent and crooked it was, an antique product of an ill mind threatening to fall at any time… And still, it remained, unbreakable, standing against the cursed work of time. Its large and wide, white dial was a zit in the city’s overwhelming darkness. Its wicked hand was moving in fit and starts with a loud creaking. It struck noon and its bells yanked. The roar echoed up to me with ripping, high-pitched, and discordant cries. My bones shook at the eerie view and sounds.
The ship I was travelling on passed under a hundred-foot high bridge. This architectural monster cast in rusting brass marked the harbour entry. Despite its huge size, it allowed newcomers to take a peek at the sprawling commercial hub of the city. It was buzzing with life, agitated, rushing and sweaty with all the ponies, griffins, and many others species wandering around the boulevards the place had.
The city, this urban monster, was a pony-sized ant hill that had stretched to an eldritch extent. It reeked a dull perfume of anonymity as hundreds of thousands, if not millions lived here. An impression slowly made its way to my heart, cold and wicked. Everything here was meant to be born and to die there, in the belly of an ogre of brickwork and shadow games. The city, it was a living machine, slowly growing over miles and further across the region: a bay carved out of a series of high, snow-less mountains. The sky glowed for a glimpse of a second. A loud rumble quickly followed as the far cry of thunder cracked open above me, flooding the city with the same tremor. Dark, acidic sludge started to fall down. Heavy, it stunk as it soaked me through my robe. The downpour was dragging down the filth dumped by factories that etched the horizons with their dark silhouettes. The black drops forced down the carried aloft trash. The whole world was being smashed onto my hooded robe with such a strength that I couldn’t move. I felt like anvils were being riveted to my limbs.
The boat neared the end of its fare: the docks, that was just twenty feet away. Its chimney cracked a loud whine that came with an excruciating, lung-tearing, black steam that wretched my insides. I coughed, tears in my eyes, gagging as I raised my hoof to my muzzle. The paddle steamer’s wheels sloshing up and down stopped right in their track, bringing the harbour’s murky waters up onto the wooden deck. Horrid stench splattered everywhere.
Despite the rain, the docks swarmed with the crews of many docked boats discharging of their content. Nopony cared that those ships threatened to sink at any moment. They waited to be emptied and filled again, idle in the creeping darkness. Some swashers rested between broke-open crates that urchins had looted or were still looting. Rats hopped between the clattering hooves or talons. Soldiers watched over that endless waltz of broken backs.
The sewers drained an atrocious stirring mix down the roads, gurgling out their content right into the shores. Despite this hellish sight, a few old bucks were fishing with long nets down a small embankment bordering the West end of the port.
I looked North, and felt minuscule. Every habitation creaked on its foundations, three storeys-high at minimum. The walls trickled with darkness, giving to the red-bricks that shaped the city a gutted look. The rain formed tears under the windows. The light that still weaved below the locked-up doors formed as many rueful smiles as the tears that the sky was shedding. The street lights dimly blazed over the whole play, reflecting in many, tired, wandering eyes.
This creature, infant of a thousand years of architecture stacked one upon the others, worked to twist my perception of reality and geometry. I felt lost.
“Welcome to Warclaw!” the captain screamed to reach us over the ambient noise. “Terminus, everypony out of my boat!”
The steamer hissed a loud complaint, kicking me out of the shocked reverie. My eyes settled back on what and who was surrounding me. Crates stacked upon the others and overcrowded ponies waiting for the pontoon to finally be set between the earth and the boat. Whispers, cries and hopes mixed around me in one unimaginable cacophony of feelings. Too eager to finally step back on the ground after those forty-one days of travel from the South. We started to buzz. We were many there, at the end of a long travel to reach that place: Warclaw, the last standing city of this cursed world.
The rain burnt and froze me at the same time. My brain just shut and as soon as large wooden ramps were set, I just let myself be carried away by the crowd. Soldiers shouted over the clatters of hooves and the screams of the families trying to reunite. I feared for my belongings. Jostlers were so easy to stumble upon and pass by carelessly.
A thunderbolt slashed through the sky over my head with a hurting brightness. The dock trembled. A baby foal broke into a cry. I wished to away from here. I was too tired, too broken. My hooves hurt from standing up, my eyes ached from restless nights, my belly growled with hunger, and my mouth retched with thirst. Some soldiers wearing a rusty iron armour with a second-hand helmet, shoved me aside back in a line: the mares’ line.
“Each immigrant has to go into his or her own line, one per gender, one per race!” another higher-graded military barked, standing on a pedestal made of scavenged empty crates. His armour was a makeshift of metal pieces pasted together. It was still more pristine than the common armed folks that forced us into specific lines. “Foals go with their mother! Wait for your turn! Don’t make a mess of yourself or we’ll have to use force.”
I saw swords, halberds and spears, rusty and trickling with the downpour. I also caught the glimmers of one or two of those new weapons, subject of many heated conversation in the bars: black-powdered fire engines of death. The soldiers kept those precious tools hidden behind their holed and rotting black capes. My line was already stretching from the end of the dock to the bowels of the boat. The navigator that had yelled at us to leave his ship was throwing orders around at his crew. He was an old, cream white earth pony with a dark grey mane. As always no cutie mark. He was guiding around hurried ponies, already scrapping the content of the boat’s hold. Business, as always. I narrowed my eyes, he had stopped a group of ponies from stepping outside the boat. A family that hadn’t paid yet. The father stared at his gaolers with widened eyes. I saw a plea forming on his lips that I couldn’t hear over the din. I looked away.
I looked away, indeed, back to the plot of the mare before me, a pitiful bag of bones also waiting for her turn. She shivered on her indigo legs and she couldn’t keep her brown tail from swinging madly. She whimpered, holding her belly with her left forehoof. I saw blood squirting on her fur. She had been stabbed. In the confusion, somepony had left a gushing jab on her side. I hadn’t seen anything though. I… The wound was not too deep at least but I feared for her. Here, in the filth and agitation, gangrene was the enemy, not the knife. I looked around, searching for the assaulter, and I just kept silent.
“Next!” a voice cracked five-pony lengths in front of me.
Focusing, I fell in line, took a step forward and waited.
When it came to the mare before me to turn up, her hoof and chest were soaked with dark red, dripping down on the wood and scrapped pavement. Ghoulish, she struggled to step forth. She had a hard time just to stand. She stumbled in front of two ponies. A military and a unicorn stallion wearing what seemed to be a filthy chirurgic suit stared down at her. The mare couldn’t raise her eyes, moaning in pain, curling over her wound. Her state, of course, didn’t slip through the two ponies’ attention. Yet, they did nothing but asking two simple questions.
“Name? Reason for immigrating?”
“Dan- Dandelion,” she whispered, gagging on her tongue as breathing was putting her in a painful and stressful plight. “Working,” she hissed.
“You can’t work. You’re not fit.” the doctor pony said with all the neutrality he could muster. He turned toward two guards who nodded back at him. “Take her away to the infirmary, make sure she has no fleas.”
She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She let them both carry her away, her limp hindquarters scrapping their kneecaps on the ground. I raised my hoof. I wanted to say something, but… I focused back on the two ponies. They stared back at me and the military pony just yelled, “Next!”
I did as ordered. I stepped in front of them, my head hung low.
“Strip off,” the captain yelled and, as he saw my sudden hesitation, tuned up his voice. “Now!”
I shivered, and slightly dunked my head between my shoulders, shocked at the bluntness of the request.
“Strip off, or I make sure one of my pony does it for you,” he slurred at me.
I gulped and untied my robe, threw the hood back on my shoulders and let the whole thing slip off my hide onto the wet ground. I winced as my attire started to suck in the content of a murky puddle below my hooves. The rain smashed onto my hide and ran through my thin fur as if it had had been completely shaved. The coldness washed over my numbed flesh. Tremors slithered across my body and my eyelids started to close by themselves.
I wasn’t in the prime of my youth anymore. I knew that. I wasn’t a beautiful mare anymore. I knew that too. However, the way they glanced at me still stung. I knew myself enough to know the first thing they’d peer at: not at the bleached blue-coated mare in her late forties, wrinkles under her dark-ringed, blue eyes, not at her dishevelled and badly cut emerald mane with white streaks that stretched down her neck, not at the apple green bandana that held it from falling before my eyes. None of this mattered in their hawking eyes.
My neck was the subject of all their attention. There, an all circular mark bore at my skin. A reminder of a painful past I wanted to forget so direly imprinted into my flesh. My fur had never grown back there, tracing a complete round furrow into my flesh. A rope had had burnt away my skin, leaving a deep trace like the bite of some savage animal. I closed my eyes, trying to cast away the memories… wiggling around a noose… gagging. The rope was not here anymore but… its touch would forever remain. It was always lurking down to my most terrifying nightmares. I froze, shivers trickling down my spine like cold sweat.
“You,” the doctor called at somepony outside my vision. “Strip her off. Check on her. Vermine. Parasites. Complete check-up.”
Somepony shoved my robe away. I stiffened. Hooves rubbed on my coat, unclipped a small bag I had forgotten I had. It flopped down on the wet tiles in a splotch. The hooves stretched my fur apart, seeking for insects and other vessels of illness. He inspected some samples of my mane he’d plucked out. Then, his hooves went further down where it shouldn’t have. I whimpered, trembled, and swallowed up. It will be over soon. Don’t move. Don’t say a word. It will be over. Soon. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine. Just. Fine.
I was crying when the inspector pushed me forward with the same level of caring. My legs wiggled horribly. The unforgiving world reeled around my head. I barely kept myself from vomiting.
“She’s clean,” the stallion behind me notified.

I did not even have the courage to look back at him.
“You can go,” the doctor said, pointing at my stuff so that I get it off the line.
“Go to the next line,” the captain added.
There was another line?
Not just one. I went through a few checkpoints, each time, they asked the same questions meddled with some new ones. Origin. Name. Age. Race. Gender… if it was not blatant enough. Repetitive and unbearable. At the end of the ultimate line, ponies had to go through a tent. Every time, a flash cracked inside and two minutes later the pony was leaving by the other side of the tent, free to go.
When my turn came up, I slipped in and faced a grey mare, a bun of white mane sitting on top of her head. Next to her stood an stallion. He glanced at me, scanning me from tip of tail to top of ears, and readjusted a large contraption: a box camera.
“Take off your hood. Readjust your mane. No smile. Look at the objective,” the mare said mechanically.
There was a large sheet of immaculate white paper stretched in the back of the tent. I walked up to it, looked at the photograph and his apparel. My hood slipped off my shoulder. I tried to push back a lock of wet mane off my face, but it kept falling back. My bandana helped not.
“Three, two, one,” the stallion announced.
The flash blinded me. As I rubbed my eyes, the mare started a last check.
“Name’s Carat?”
I nodded, grunting at the pain in my eyes.
“No surname?”
I shook my head.
“Forty-seven years old?”
“Yes,” I moaned.
“Origin’s…” She paused, surprised, looked at her partner with an expression mixing wonder and shock. Then she resumed, “Equestria?”
“Yes.”
An awkward silence ensured. I had made a long, unpleasant trip.
“Place to stay?”
Her pinprick eyes hawked down at me and I gulped.
“I’m fit. I can take care of myself until I find a job,” I explained as my guts wrenched with fear.
She smiled and turned over her stallion photograph. “Ready?”
“Just give me two more seconds and… it’s done,” he announced, tired.
How many had they seen tonight? How many remained to be seen yet?
A crack of fire blasted in the background. Ponies screamed. Clatters of hooves echoed through the tent’s fabric. I heard muffled military orders. Armoured hooves and claws trooped past the tent outside. Another crack ripped the air, and the panic was already tamed.
Calling me back to reality, the mare hoofed me a small green card, hot from being just covered with a shiny substance that had made it rigid. Along with my credentials, I could see my face, that same dishevelled basic green mane and the same light blue coat, the same exhausted eyes and features, covered with wrinkles. The snapshot had also caught a speck of my neck scar. I hated photos. I really did now.
Tired, I readjusted my hood, bid them an unheard farewell, and stood in the nether outside. The deluge hadn’t stopped. The sky was still as dark. I wanted out… Out of this retching basement of the world that called itself Warclaw. And still, we all knew, small and big, rags and rich, that here was the best we could ever have… that we would ever have.
I erred on the docks, levelling up until it reached the true entrance of the city. The sign said ‘South Gate’. At the top of this open gate made from black iron stood three massive words that struck deep at my soul.
‘Freedom through industry’, I read, and hung my head low.
Cold and dank, a draft of wind smashed my face, washing over the narrow street caged between two stained façades. A series of posters flapped over the walls. One ripped off its nails and flew up to my hooves. It was a general announcement. The paper was already wet and yellow. Its black and red ink had leaked under the rain, crooking the scripture in a chilling way.
‘To every inhabitant of Warclaw,

– Report any unordinary behaviour – Report any crime – Report any misdeed –
For the tenth consecutive month the plague has been taking its toll on our gorgeous city. Keep up the fight against the malady:
Report any strange symptoms to the CPS,
Burn your dead,
Burn their belongings,
Do not let it spread,
Stay safe,
The CPS is working on a cure.
– Report any unordinary behaviour – Report any crime – Report any misdeed –

Committee of Public Safety.’
Between the text and the bottom of the paper had been printed a large stylised temple which three colonnades that sported this very motto, ‘Work, Family, Fatherland’. Its pediment beamed the three capital letters of the Committee of Public Safety, enclosed in a griffon’s claw.
It had been mass-printed, stamped on every wall I could see… Repeated over and over again. Some had been defaced. Red, white, or whatever colour of paint had been used, the writings on the wall all bore the same messages: “They forgot us”, “Where is the cure?”, “The rock always hurtles down”, that one was weird… And… “Who will bury my children when I’m gone?”
My heart pinched only to turn to ice as I heard a sullen, aloft scream. Stay safe, the words had said. Stay safe.
I ran through the streets and paths streaking the city. I jumped over a hobo: a slender, drooling, and white-eyed griffon. His wings were missing, leaving two stumps of flesh wiggling lamely on his back. I hurtled down the streets as fast as I could and passed by groups of drunken sailors, sat down at the table of some pubs with obscure names. They sang words that escaped my flopped ears. I bumped into a mare, stumbled, and got back to running.
“Whore!” she shouted at me as I trailed away, sweating under the rain.
I kept going. I couldn’t cry. Not now. I had finally arrived to the Eastern Bead. I shall be safe. Should…
A massive, slowly falling apart church cast its shadow on me. It was built in the middle of a narrow paved esplanade. The lack of space had forced its architect to stretch the construction towards the sky. No bells rested in the hearth of its dull and crooked tower. The gargoyles and statues, either armoured ponies or griffins of war, trickled with tears of rain. Sculpted to swagger around, they had lost all idea of grandiose and were displayed so their heads bent and would look right at the passers-by. The erected ponies had wings and horns. Those alicorns made of stone were devouring me with their empty, shadowy sockets. A thunderbolt cracked and flashed over their features, reflecting into the dark rivers vomiting from the church’s many drains. Gusts of wind whistled through the holes in the steeple. I rushed to the door, ready to knock on it wildly as the storm boomed brighter and louder above me.
The door cracked open under my sheer weight and I lamely stumbled in, head first. My chin hit the floor in a painful thump and I lay there for a long moment, my rear still peppered by the roaring rain outside. Lying there wasn’t a bad option in the end. I wanted the world to stop spinning so horribly. I hoped my legs would stop shaking. I yearned to curl up next to a fire. My belly ached so much I cramped my hooves around it and I finally stretched away from the entrance. I think I cried, the numbness and cold bite on my cheeks sucking my senses away. One thing remained, though. Closing my reddened eyes, I could still feel those alien hooves rushing over me, plucking, stretching, scrutinizing…
After tens of minutes spent waiting for nothingness to swallow me, I realised I couldn’t stay like this. Marble beneath my cheek had warmed up to my own low body temperature. The belt buckle of my nearly undamaged bag strapped to my flank clattered on the ground with my quivers. My behaviour was definitely improper for a church… for any civilised place. I sat on my hindquarters, grunting under the strain put into my limbs. I pushed myself to stand up, though my hooves were shaking from exhaustion. My hood nearly slipped off my murky hide, a small bag of bruises, whines, and bones.
As I sighed, my voice echoed through the building. Suddenly flooded by the absence of choirs or walking ponies I shocked by the silence that adorned the church. It was so different from the outside.

I lifted my eyes and saw a barren nave. Mangled illuminations poured from a ceiling made of filthy transverse arches. The middle of the ceiling showed a large, stained glass dome. A lone and large candelabra carrying hundreds lit candles dangled its song from it. Days had clearly passed by this antique place and, left stranded above my head, the candle wax had trickled down into small heaps on the black and white tiled floor.
There was no bench for the scarce pilgrims to sit on. The aisles had no painting nor tapestry. Every wall was just a dull façade of crackled white pain. Sometimes a patch of black moss had settled around the humid cracks streaking the walls. One of the shapeless, stained glasses that formed the bema’s wall even had fissures and holes. The scent of decay plagued the place. I could hear the wind whistling through the holes in the windows. As I walked up to the centre of the church, I stopped at the sight. The light descending in flickers from the ceiling was cast onto a massive statue that stood alone in place of an altar. Chills crawled down my spine. My wet mane stood on edge with a mix of thrill, reverence and fear. Awestruck, my mouth slowly dropped. I was facing the sculpted shapes of two intertwined, caregiving alicorns.
“Celestia, and… Luna… Oh, dear,” I whispered, shocked.

It had been so long.
Hovering over a sun and a moon made of stone merged into one single chiselled orb, the dual real statue was impressive. The immaculate, simple block of marble had been carved out into two smiling beings I hadn’t seen for more than two decades. Celestia sported that motherly smile that ponykind had grown up with and only forgotten recently. Melting to a deep shade of grey at its base, the marble changed to a jet black colour on its other half. Deified, Luna bore many silver linings, showing a stern expression. Opposed to her older sister, she carried a complete, antique and pompous armour straight from the old ages. Her helmet was missing, though. The sculptor had left their wings folded, which wasn’t a good artistic choice in my opinion. However, had they been spread out, the church wouldn’t have been big enough to contain the sculpture. I came to wonder if the church hadn’t been built around the statue. I chuckled at an invisible pony trying to figure out how to organise the mess the construction should have been.
My eyes drifted away from the massive statue, its cleanliness contrasting with the church itself. I fixed my eyes on its pedestal. Paper, pieces of tissue and parchment dangled limply from dozen of metallic poles riveted inside the stone. Taped, glued, or hammered, they came by thousands, covering the mass of polished rock with a foot-thick of scribbled words. They were prayers, some recent, other already decayed by the work of time and the ambient humidity. The small and cold breeze washing over the bema made their tips flap slowly.
“Are ya ‘ere ta address a praya ta the princesses?” a foreign-sounding, voice slipped into my left ear. I just flipped over, scared by surprise.
A hoof on my chest, heaving painfully, I found myself at the feet of a stallion. He was, at least, ten years my cadet. His dull yellow mane was falling over his light brown back, half of it hidden behind a black toga falling over his rachitic sides. Too large, some of its folds pressed on his sunken face. His smile forced on the prominence of his cheekbones and barred his face with faint wrinkles. He gave me a febrile hoof.
“Never,” I hissed and groaned as he helped me get back on my hooves, “ever do that again.”
“What’s the craic, lady? Ya do look tired ta be on the lash outside.” He gave a gentle, tired squeaking laugh. “Is not proper ta a fine lad’ to get shagged off by the rain. Don’tcha come by me fire?”
I answered with a frown, trying to grasp the words his chuckling, thick accent was throwing at me. His voice as acute, like an overgrown filly… a male filly. It was funny and bit in my cheek not to gave a low chuckle.

“Well, thanks, sir,” I replied, shaking myself from the rain soaking both my hide and clothes.

I rose my eyes towards the high ceiling. I could hear my voice’s echo.

“What is that place…?” I whispered.
He looked at me with a blank stare and giggled, “T’is nothin’ but a church, lady.”
He shook my hoof so vividly that my backbone trembled.
“So…” I hesitated, speaking despite the vibration in my voice. “Are you a sort of a priest?”
He paused, glad I was happy for that, and raised a hoof to his beardless chin. His narrowing eyes locked on something hovering above his head. Was he was trying to find an invisible idea hanging there?
“Of course,” he confirmed. “Name’s Ejit. I’m the monk of that fair brickwork.”
“Carat,” I gave back the courtesy.
“Like I said, dah! I’m the keepa of that place,” he rambled on. “Helpin’ ponies and such in their daily life. I’m so happy ta see people still coming by me.”
Still holding my hoof and without asking, he led the way towards behind the alicorns’ statue. There, a crackling hearth had been dug into the ground and filled with sizzling embers. The bright light washed warmth over my wrinkles. I caught a meek smile on Ejit’s face. He was really tired too. The burning bite filled me with joy as the freezing sensation in my numbed hooves began to fade. For a couple of minutes, we stayed there, standing in front of the resting light, respecting a religious silence only broken by Ejit’s recurrent sighs.
“So, are you like... worshiping Celestia and Luna as… gods?” I risked asking, trying not to do no offense.

I had seen cults growing in the gutters,the villages and shanty towns I passed by as I fared towards Warclaw. Ponies and other species were trying to nurture the last, remaining bonds they had with the grandeur of the past. He didn’t know how to react, being happy for them, or sad. He chuckled softly, swallowed and brought his hoof to his chest.
“Do ya ‘ave faith, m’lady?” he asked, his cheek over-stretched by a smile.
“I…” I sighed.

My mouth hung open a little and I folded my legs beneath me to sit in front of the soothing fire. I looked away from this strange and welcoming Ejit at the statues. The question was bizarre at least. I wasn’t fond of metaphysical questions and, to be honest, I had simply pushed that mess under the rug.
“Faith? I wonder…” I let out a long breath as I looked up at the hidden faces of the two alicorns. “They aren’t… here anymore to guide us all, are they?”
I smiled a little, scrunching up my face, having a hard time to be convincing… That’s why nopony ever played poker with me.
Ejit shook his head disappointedly. I shouldn’t have said that, I knew it. Although, I still had said it. I had often caught myself whispering words to both Celestia and Luna. I knew it was stupid, but somehow, I… I needed it. I looked down dismissively, staring at my hooves as if I could set them on fire. Truth hurts. It always does.
“Would ya share a prayer with me?” he asked, the same overbearing smile on his face.
Not even waiting, he held my hooves between his and intoned a long, sad tirade that slipped in my mind like a contagious illness. I could just listen to his whisper of lament.
“Dire needs call for coalescin’,
In dark times comin’,
When worlds shatter,
Lone souls wander.
When truth fades away,
Minds stray.
The vice,
That took a hold on our minds of ice,
It cannot mend a broken splice.”
I lowered my eyes as he closed his. His hooves gripped mine and I couldn’t let go of them. I just buried my snout beneath the hollow of my shoulder.
“Pony hates and Pony lies.
Though trust, he must grasp,
Has not price in a world goddesses despise.
Lost forever, askin’ for a path in the nether,
Mind crawls through the path of faint hopes,
And others’ vain words.
Searchin’ for will, wallowin’ in false virtues,
Unprepared to back the wishes under your sights,
Ponies search for a sign,
But to resolution they cannot resign.
Yet, we all keep searchin’ for your line.
Pony kills and Pony dies.
Under the blackened skies,
Goddesses he still defies.
Pony himself in violence exerts
And Pony hurts,
Unaware that the other,
In fact is his brother.
Selflessness,
Forgotten virtue,
Cannot fix the cursed city,
Where is much needed,
Your way of forgiveness.
Through the gates of Tartarus,
Making one way to greener lands,
Pony forgot how to feel.
Through the lands of the ill,
He buried his soul under the hill.
But, should we blame our mother, the War,
For our misled misdeed?
Pointless, indeed.
Compassion is nothing but a need.
In time of clashin’ wills and stronger crimes unleashed,
We ask for your guidance,
When our neighbour can’t share even a glance,
At those who lies around the shallow street.
Altruism, why Pony sees you as an enemy?
He asks for nothin’ to be done,
The pony only seeks a remedy,
Just happiness for all the aeons to come.”
He finished and hummed softly a lyric-less song that brought a tear to his eye, tear he rapidly wiped away.
“It’s not... particularly uplifting,” I pointed out sadly, also wiping a tear off my cheek.
“Shoul’ really a praya be happy?” he asked me, tilting his head on the side as he looked back at the fire
I shrugged and got up. Curious I trotted towards the statue and the mass of papers and parchments nailed to its base. With the tip of my hoof I lifted the sheets one by one, eager to look at what ponies wished for.

“Don’t!” Ejit shrieked.

I flinched at the high-pitched voice and my hoof slipped off the papers. I ended up with more than a few prayers torn up on the group. I looked at Ejit silently. He stared at me, silently. He blinked quite a few. I gulped and smiled the best I could.

“Something’s wrong, pries… Ejit?” I said through my clenched smile.
“T’is bad luck ta touch somepony else’s praya?”

“And… breaking some?” I asked, trying not to laugh at my misdeed.

He gave me a concerned stare and rubbed his forehead. I wanted to defuse the awkward situation when a louder thunderbolt cracked above the cathedral.

“Well… It’s not like the sky is going to fall on my back.”
A shattering sound of torn metal and glass flooded the bema. Its decrepit walls threw echoes at us, reaching my ears in a distorted, hear-splitting complaint. Dark purple, blue, green and yellow bits of glass slashed through my hide in a rainbow-coloured sharp rain. I cried out in pain. As the stained glass dome crashed down, something limp and foul-smelling fell along with it. With a sickening crack that grinded my teeth together, it bounced off Celestia’s statue. Its head broke off and went shattering down on the tiled floor. Rain and wind invaded the church in an uproar of wild elements. The rumbling of the outside stormed the peaceful place. The rain hushed the hearth behind the statue and nothing but a rising puff of smoke remained. Only a few protected candles survived. Well… fuck.
“Oh, Dear. Oh, Dear!” I muttered, trembling, as I scrambled on my hooves.
Ejit lifted his starving carcass on his hooves and got round the decapitated statue. I saw his head drop a little, shaking as he sighed, “Not again.”
I shot him a bemused look and asked, “What do you mean, ‘not again’?”
He shrugged off my question and passed by me at an unbearably slow pace. I saw him walk to a remote alcove built in an aisle of the church. An intercom had been screwed to the wall. The wood and brass shone in the flickering darkness. The contraption had been polished by time. Ejit stuck his left ear into a receptacle. Ten times, he hit a range of black keys built in the device. The machine sparked twice, zoomed and ringed. Ejit grabbed a miniaturised horn with his right hoof. His eyes low, stuck onto a paper nailed to the machine, he spoke with a raspy voice.
“Ehm… Night Shift? Ya. It’s Ejit, church, I’ve got another dead.” He paused, a mare’s voice coming from the other side. “Na, haven’t touched it. I remember what y’all… told me last time. Meh, suicide maybe? Poor lad… How? Th’ pone broke through ma dome. Though, he’s kinda seared… No repair handled by the mayor this time? Okay… Ye coming in a few? Alright. See y’all soon… Yeah, nopony leaves.”
He looked at me with tired eyes, knowing I was listening. I swallowed as I understood I couldn’t bargain to leave. He knew my name. I turned my head to look behind the princesses’ statue where should be what… who had fallen. I walked around the paper-invaded pedestal, careful not to step over the parchments I had torn down. Damn me! The rain Was drumming over the cold marble. As second passed, the trickling water ripped an increasing number of rotten papers from their nail. Soaking again under the heavy rain, I stood in front a large black shape. I had seen death before. Yet, even unaccustomed eyes could find what wasn’t fitting here. The bones had broken in many spots during its reckless fall. The body lay in a physically impossible position. Its skull had shattered, spreading a series of cracks on the tiles. Yet, there was no blood on the ground apart from a slow, and murky stream of black crawling out of its hears. The legs were cracked and horribly bent. Rotten and stinking scabs were lying around its landing point. The droplets of rain hitting on its body steamed away in spite of the coldness of the church.
I looked above, in the dead of the black-cloudy night marred with countless acrid drops of greyish rain. It was a cold and dank evening. It looked like a bad accident. But... why could nopony tell me why all this seemed so weird?
Then it struck me like an anvil on top of my head. This body had been cooked by a hellish fire… on a deluge day and dropped from enough height to break into the cathedral. How could that be that despite the cold the body was steaming. It reeked cooked meat. Why? How was that possible? What kind of fire could do that?
Nopony answered me. I looked at Ejit, seeking for an answer. He just lay, blank-eyed, his face buried between his trembling hooves. Mumbling incoherently, his torso was going back and forth in a slightly maddened waltz. I couldn’t hear his words. I only listened to the rain and the roaring storm outside. It was my little Warclaw’s kind welcome, with its shiny ‘happiness and dream-to-come true for all’.

2014 project - The Tombstones and Barbed Wires - 2

Chapter 2. The Plague
“Don’t wander the gutter,
And, of course, don’t stutter,
Unless you wanna meet,
The murderer!”
Urchins’ proverb, Warclaw, Lower City

_____________

“Errr… Well, that ain’t banal,” a scrawny griffon sighed, crouching in front of the crooked and seared cadaver, letting himself soak in the rain pouring from the ripped open ceiling.
He ruffled through the scarce, deep grey feathers that peppered his chin and growled. Long streaks of black ran along his backbone, reuniting in the middle of his face, giving him a natural pair of glasses around his yellow eyes. He wasn’t a scholar, though. I could tell so by how much swearing he’d done since he had come in. He sat in front of the beheaded dual statue, uncaring at the rain trickling over his black cape falling over his fragile shoulders. Small and frail wings dangled limply on his sides, hidden beneath the fabric. From time to time a larger droplet hit his eye making him wince and grumble. He was not old but, oh Princesses I swear, he acted like an old rag.
A thunderbolt flashed across the sky, illuminating the church. The necklace around the griffon’s neck shone for a moment. It was an herald: an etched magnifying glass above a curved sword encased in a griffon’s claw. The jeweller’s fine work sent chills down my spine.
Ejit and I didn’t move. A huge imperious monster of dark brown fur with lighter-coloured natal rings around his ears was watching over us. When he entered the church, my jaw had gaped open: he was – at least – twice my size. I had even tried to duck my head between my shoulders like a tortoise when he had risen on his hindquarters. That bear was a monster with sharp teeth as large as my hoof! After an order from the griffon, he had us both, Ejit and me, pinned down with his two unblinking black eyes. He was wearing a cape similar to his chief. As it was obviously too small for his frightening frame, he had tied it around his neck like a scarf. The necklace, also similar to the investigator’s, was a mere earring piercing in his left ear.
Ejit had kept his eyes down since then. From time to time a quiver crawled across his legs. I had peered at the mass of muscles and fat only once or twice. Switching often from one foot to the other, he was repeatedly drumming his claws on the tiled floor, his patience withering as the storm strengthened outside.
Two black coated ponies were meticulously inspecting the statue’s surroundings. I had also spotted another griffon far in the background. Hidden in the darkness, he’d watched over the church’s entrance, waiting to deter any passer-by.
“Medved?” The grey griffon called with a faint whisper. “Proceed with an identity check.”
Never drifting his eyes away from us, that mass of testosterone called Medved grumbled, “Even Ejit?”
“Especially Ejit.”
Medved stretched his shoulders, wrestling some satisfying pops out of his dense articulations. Shaking himself, the air ruffling through his long fur, he stared at my companion of misfortune. At the mention of his name, and at how he wiggled on his hindquarters, I suspected that he was trying to shrink away through the cracks on the floor. Sadly, to no avail.
“Well,” Medved began, giving up his inquisitive bipedal position to a more comfortable quadrupedal stance. “You know the deal, Ejit. Show me your card.”
The poor light brown stallion jerked away from Medved’s stretching paw. To be honest, I did too. It was big enough to rip me in two pieces and the cut would not be clean. Ejit also said nothing.
“Ejit!” the bear warned, letting out a long sigh after the stallion avoided the reclaiming paw once again. “You’ve got it stolen again, am I right?”
Ejit’s shoulders dropped a little as he hung his head low.
“Oh, come on?” Medved grunted. “Who’s it this time? The Ponish gangs? They’ve asked your stuff again?”
Ejit said nothing, shame surrounding him like an aura that I wished to evade when it would be my turn to answer questions. Medved facepawed as he grunted in discontent.
“You look like you’re about to die. You know that stuff is really important. It’s how you get your food from the Directoire.” Medved ranted. He was definitely tired of it. “You know that, don’t you?”
Ejit nodded silently.
“And you know that the gangers you supplied can use your stuff to get past securities and harm people… not just ponies.” Medved paused, raised his claw and grabbed the monk by the neck. The way he shrieked told me that Medved’s embrace was painful. The bear growled, “You don’t want to hurt people, don’t you?”
“No,” Ejit muttered, a whisper of a sob in his voice.
The bear’s massive shadow cast over the feeble features of the starving priest. It was pitiful. I looked up at the ceiling from which the body had fallen. At first sight, it had been a unicorn stallion of an average size. its burnt flesh had left no clue about its fur and mane colours. The body had been fried by a blazing fire. When the investigator had arrived, the body had just cooled down enough not to smoke anymore. Its lips had slivered up, revealing two rows of cracked, yellow teeth. Its eyes had bulged out of their sockets and leaked off its cooked cheeks. I had not continued my swift inspection – I had ran in a corner and puked.
I caught two pairs of young bright eyes a few yards above my head. Two faces were spying on us. Children. A colt and a filly in their ten to twelve years. They seemed to have been chit-chatting, too low for me to hear. The filly, her pale white coat and ultramarine mane contrasting with the church’s brickwork met my stare. She ‘eeped, and both foals ran away in the darkness.
“Medved?” the griffon called.
“Yep, Crow?” Medved answered, turning away from Ejit whose cheeks trickled with heavy tears.
“Bring them back to me,” he ordered. “They might have seen something.”
“Why?”
“You’re good at it, tracking children.”
Medved huffed a laugh, rubbed his snout and hitched up his lips in a sharp wicked smile. With an overbearingly sugar-coated voice, bowing with a paw over his heart, he declaimed, “Your desires are my orders.”
His footsteps hammering the ground, Medved walked across the two other ponies who moved aside, definitely scared. As the bear was nearly out, Crow called him again, “Medved, do you know what the verb ‘to spay’ means?”
The voice, raspy and cutting, threw a cold in the church, even the griffon in the background peaked an ear at them. Medved had froze a foot mid-air and, unbearably slowly, he turned his head back at the grey and black griffon. The smile had vanished from his face, replaced with two blazing, murderous eyes that could bore holes at my soul. Ejit curled his forehooves across his chest, unable to suppress a small fit of whimpers.
“No,” he responded bluntly, one or two tendons of his neck pulsing unconsciously. “Beg to explain?”
“It’s what I will make sure will happen to you if I find out that you’ve touched those two kids,” Crow said. “I know your credentials.” Medved grinded his teeth and contracted a few muscles, but Crow’s words went faster, “Now go and find them both. Unharmed!”
“Kurwa,” Medved spat with a grimace before disappearing in the stormy night.
Crow let out a long breath of respite. Ordering to the two ponies to continue the investigation, he stood up from his crouched position and headed towards Ejit and me. He didn’t even give a look at the poor monk. He had eyes only on me, piercing and unsettling.
“And you,” he began. “Who are you?”
“My name is…”
He swept his claw at me and closed my muzzle with the tip of his sharp digits.
“I never asked you to speak. Do you have your card?” He looked sideways at Ejit. “Or you’re as reliable as him.”
I let the remark sink in without a peep, avoiding to glance at the stallion. He couldn’t hang his head lower. I untied my bag under my scrapped wet robe. From it, I pulled out the small card the mare with the bun on the dock had given me. Crow’s eyes moved back and forth between me and the identity card. A faint smile slowly crawled on his lips.
“Eh… Equestria, lady?” He raised a brow at me. “Just came in the city too? You’re lucky. You’ve been given a good taste of the city’s daily routine… and you’re still alive!” He laughed dryly. “Hope you appreciated the sightseeing?”
“I… I guess,” I struggled on my words.
He looked at the card again, rubbed his forehead as he was already tired of repeating the same procedures over and over again.
“So, miss Carat. Have you seen anything strange coming here?”
I sneezed. The soaked clothing glueing at my fur and skin spread a undesired coldness in my chest.
“Apart from a mare swearing at me,” I joked, wiping the tip of my muzzle with the back of my hoof. “No, it was too dark and rainy.”
I looked behind Crow at the two ponies marking the ground with little pieces of yellow paper, each sporting a different number. They had not touched the corpse, mangled and horribly bent by the fall. At least, the water pouring from the hole in the ceiling kept the reek out of our reach.
“And I was more cautious about where I was putting my hooves than stargazing,” I ended.
Crow chuckled and gave me a snarling smile, “Yep, better have your hooves right on the floor. The city won’t be gentle on you.” His voice tuned down into a growling warning. “I’m tired of finding newcomers in the sewers. Dead. Hope you can learn your way around.”
I gulped, “I…”
“Let’s go back to proper procedure, will you?” he cut me off, never dropping the grin off his lips. “Came with family?”
I shook my head.
“Place to stay actually?”
Again, I shook my head.
“Job?”
I pinched my lips, looked away and shook my head.
“Such vanilla girl,” he cackled as my cheeks tinted with a shameful red. “Hope you don’t get enrolled in the ‘filles de joie’.”
“fi-y…?” I stumbled upon my words as the words went over my head.
“Prostitutes,” a voice weaved behind me. I jumped aside with a squeak. “Cheap ones.”
Ejit and I stared at the griffon that had been guarding the gate. Sitting behind us, he preening the feathers off his rachitic wings. Under the spotlights of the candles stacked upon a near ebony desk, the brown of his fur and feathers was clearly visible. As my eyes wandered further down, it struck me. He actually was a she! She had a bulkier frame than Crow. She also wore the same attire as her smaller co-worker. What had caught me was her voice, too grave for a girl.
“I won’t fall to this kind of level,” I muttered back at her. She gave me a rueful grin.
“Crow,” she said. “We have to do extended research on the site, and especially on the roof. We should get the keys of the place and take the two suspects to the post… until we’ve find something here.”
Ejit’s eyes burst open and locked on the grey and black griffon.
“You can’t take me away, po- people might need me here.”
Sarcastically, Crow scanned the whole church for any other sign of life. Meanwhile, the female griffon walked back to the two other investigators. Crow sighed and put his claw upon Ejit’s shoulder.
“You’ll have to come with us.” Then he looked at me. “And you too.”
“Me?” I protested. “Why? I’ve done nothing!”
“The guy behind,” he answered, giving a nod of his head at the dead body, “may want to differ.”
Offended, I raised my hoof up to my heart, but was silenced by Crow’s raised index talon. He fixed Ejit with darting eyes.
“Your keys, Ejit,” he ordered imperiously.
The monk let out a long sigh and pushed back a strand of his mid-long blond mane to reveal one large brass key tied to the root of one lock. He winced as he ripped off a few of his hairs while he untied the key. He then hoofed it to the griffon.
“It opens everything.”
“Everything?” Crow asked with a raised brow.
“Well… You locked the access to the catacombs yourself, two years ago. And you never gave me back that special key.” There was a hint of resentment in Ejit’s piping voice, but never would it raise over a whisper of discontent.
Crow laughed open-heartedly. “Yeah, boss’s order. Seeing how you’re easy to talk in offering your belongings to ill-minded strangers, it was a good thing to do.”
Ejit fell back into silence that suited him all so well with the same resigned, defeated and expressionless face.
“So, are we under arrest?” I asked meekly. “I expected something of more… professional approach.”
“Maybe,” he replied with a smile and pointed his claw at his companion. “Let’s say that the Night Shift… isn’t the most lawful government wing out there.”
One of two pony investigators puffed, raising a hoof at his mouth to repress the laughter. He had been eavesdropping all along. Crow smiled at him, acknowledging the misdeed.
“I see,” I mumbled, avoiding crow’s eyes while I rubbed my hooves together.
I swallowed hard, the butterflies rustling in my belly making me fret.
“Eh, look at that,” one of the investigators whispered.
Crow’s attention departed from us and focused back on the corpse.
“Found something?”
Ejit covered his ears, humming a counting rhyme to cut himself from what was going to be announced. I wished to wander in another room. If not for the rain to temper the stench, I would have fled, but something else was struggling within me too: curiosity.
The ponies pushed the body on the side, its raide limbs cracking up as it moved. Some of its skin fell like dried and seared scab. A spasm crawled through my left cheek. The oldest of the two waved his hoof along the corpse's backbone. I pushed myself on my haunches trying to see what he was pointing at.
“Look here, shards of wood are embedded in the skin.” I bit my lip as I saw him clenching his teeth on something and extracting the object from the flesh in a ripping splash. He spat it between his hooves and wiped a few droplets of blackened blood off his face. “Pretty deep.”
“Well,” Crow started, “he fell from above.”
“Do you see wood around you?” the pony noticed. “On the walls? In the debris?”
Crow scanned the area, pondered a few seconds and nodded. “So?”
“He may have been blasted away by a bomb.” The pony held the shard on the back of his hoof and cast a wondering look at the griffon. “Any terrorist attack today? A bomb in a cart?”
“No. No,” Crow rejected. “And even if they had been one, I know no explosive capable to throw a pony that far.”
“Wanna take a bet?” The pony replied as his assistant made another tour of the statue.
Another thunderbolt beamed in the sky with the same repeating splash of rain on the tiled floor.
“Well, I’d glad-...” Crow stopped in track as he looked down. I could see his skin turn white beneath his sparse face feathers.
The pony looked down too and his eyes meet two black shining dots. Two dead malignant eyes. We all gasped. the body, dead until now, shrieked and I heard a splash. It wasn’t from the rain this time. The black and white tiles rapidly dyed crimson. The pony investigator Crow had joked with screamed, or rather tried to. Two ranges of clenching teeth mauled his neck. Blood squirted off deep holes in his flesh and splattered Crow’s face. Trying to wipe the red of his own eyes, he fell on the ground and moaned in pain.
Like a piece of paper being torn in two, the mass of scabs we had believed dead bit in further, reached the bones and forced again… The head of the investigator fell off with a sickening scream, quickly silenced as it rolled in my direction. Ejit had frozen, eyes widening and nearly bulging out. I tasted bile in my mouth. It crawled up my throat and reached my tongue. I swallowed back. The acrid smell washed over my senses.
The burnt body threw the headless bag of meat aside. It slid off the air and crashed onto the soaked prayer plates, adding red on them. Silently, the dead stallion rose on its four limbs and exhaled steam out of its broken snout. Its eyes were gleaming ominously with a grey aura. The second pony cried out and fled towards the exit. He never had a chance to step outside.
In a move that forced one or two bones to spurt out of its flesh, the… monster… hacked sideway and thrust himself on the investigator’s back. he screamed, trying to get away from the monster. The maw cut through the black cape, sawed off the necklace and attacked the bottom of the investigator’s neck. The crush came off with two vertebrae enclosed between the beast’s broken teeth. I felt dizzy.
“Don’t let it get away!” Crow screamed as he continuously tried to rub the blood off his eyes. “Don’t!”
It turned around and faced us. My eyes met its. Across its desiccated face soaked in blood tore a smile. It trotted forward in our direction, nearly playful. Its right foreleg was bent in the wrong way and I could see the kneecap thrusting out of the skin, cutting a dent in the flesh at each new step. The head was curved inward and a vile pink and brown liquid was oozing from its right eye socket. A fallen eyeball was dangling at its nerve, bouncing on its cheek. Flesh was stuck between its teeth. Its movements were erratic, random. Although I could see the hunger on its cut open lips. It was coming.
A wave of coldness washed over me. The wild pounding of my heart was the only sound I could hear. Blood was rushing through my temples with great pain. My stomach churned. Ejit gagged, tampering his whimpers with a sound that made my skin crawl. He scrambled around and started running to the nearest door… locked. The sound of his struggles with the wooden gate startled the monster. It jumped, its dented hooves the first things aiming at both of us.
With a cry, the brown griffoness caught it mid-air, using a candelabrum to stick it to a nearby column. The monster whirled on its pinned position, sweating blood and mucus and drooling a sickly goo that made me turn my head.
“The fuck!” she screamed. “It wasn’t supposed to get back to life!”
Crow shouted but the din the monster was creating silenced his words.
“Flee, flee, flee, flee, flee,” Ejit repeated over and over again, febrile.
Getting nowhere with the lock, Ejit rushed towards Crow, grabbed himby the waist and pulled the brass key he had hoofed over off his belt.
“What are you…?” the female griffon protested. Big mistake.
Tightening its two hooves on the multi-headed candelabra, the creature threw itself on the side, snapping its own neck and sending the griffon on the ground. Her shoulder hit the tiles with a crack and she growled in pain. The beast jumped on her, but Crow kicked it away. He had finally managed to open one eye.
It dodged Crow’s second kick. To my stupor, it grabbed his leg and bit in deep with a cunning and wretched smile. Crow shrieked and wiped off clean a tenth of its face with a large blow of his talon. It didn’t kill it. It merely pushed it back a second. The griffon built on the momentum and punched it away. The sac of broken bones and burnt flesh rolled away and it was still moving.
“Ejit!” Crow screamed. “Open the fucking…”
Ejit was already at the backdoor of the church, behind Celestia and Luna’s statue. He dropped the key once, twice… He was crying, and the salty tears in his eyes didn’t help his quivering hoof to open the fucking door.
For the first time since ever, the creature howled. Its complaint shattered my ears, making me scream in pain. My head practically felt like exploding. Needles were jabbing at my skin, cranium and further beneath me from inside out. Cold, and hot intermittently, it made my vision reel. I rolled on my side.
I think I blacked-out for one or two seconds. When I opened my eyes, it was there, right above me. Its tongue stretched out from its bloody mouth. A spark of fear rushed through my nerves. He was already lowering its head to bite. The two gaping eye sockets locked on me. Its eyes had now completely fallen off. What stared down at me was some liquefied brain dripping onto my face. I pushed my hooves to its chest as its teeth clacked a mere blade’s width away from my cheek, its reeking murky saliva sputtering onto my hide. My legs wobbled, numbness overtaking me. As it forced its way, my hooves slided off its chest to its shoulders and sides. What I felt at the tip of my left hoof made me gag.
I struggled to force it back. My left hoof slid away… My left hoof slipped on its side… inside. It entered the body through a hole just beneath its left shoulder with a squishy, slurring noise. At first it had been as thin as a beverage coaster. However, after showing a tiny bit of resistance, it had stretched open like a wound and made no resistance. As the monster continually tried to eat my face, I felt my hoof slip in the round-shaped wound. And, as my hoof literally slided inside the beast, I came to lock in a position I couldn’t escape. I was tetanised. A hoof stuck, I forced my free limb onto its back so that he had no space to bite me. I felt the wretched air it exhaled weave over my back as its head was right next to mine. it couldn’t bit me in this position. Its teeth still scrapped on my fur as it munched on my green mane. Its cracking jaw kept echoing in my left ear. As he scrambled on me, the disgusting fluid on its cheeks peppered my face.
“Help!” I cried out.
The beast struck the tiles with its hindlegs and threw both of us in the air. My back hit hard against Celestia’s statue. Unable to breath, I dropped my hoof lock. It roared, swerved around and bit onto my mane. Pain burst on the back of my head as it pulled on my hair and threw me flying across the room with a rotation of its head.
Head first, I crashed on the door Ejit was desperately trying to pry open. The sheer impact shook him and, screaming, I heard Ejit drop the key, again. I could taste iron in my mouth. I was bleeding. The creature screamed so loud I lost my hearing for a couple of seconds.
“Shaddup!” the griffon girl barked over, bashing a candelabra over its head until the iron had curved.
The creature was gurgling with bubbles of blood as it brought itself back onto its hooves. The griffoness was panting, the candelabra held quizzically between her two trembling claws. It turned back and jumped on her. Crow kicked it again far away.
“Open the fucking door!” he screamed.
Ejit stuttered an answer as he finally pushed the key in the lock and turned.
He rushed in first, the griffon girl threw the used candelabra away and snatched another one resting aside a nearby colonnade. Crow grabbed me by the hooves, hauled me over his shoulders and ran as fast as he could. I think I puked on his cape.
“It’s coming back!” Ejit shrieked, his nose leaking and mixing with his tears.
Crow threw me on the floor in a long dark corridor. He and his griffon counterpart tossed their two bodies on the door, trying to close it. The creature rocketed on the other side and a plank of the door exploded in splinters. Its head was jutting through a hole. In a moment of wit, both Crow and the other griffon took the remaining candelabra and forced it down the creature’s neck. I drifted my eyes from the door as they started their work on the whirling monster. I was stinking, hurt and horrendously exhausted.
I rolled on my back until I could face the dark brick ceiling. It seemed incredibly low hanging after spending one hour in the church. My vision reeled atrociously. I lifted my left hoof above my head, the one I had stuck in the undead’s wound. A black stream of murky water fell on my face, dripping from my left hoof. The liquid slipped in my mouth and I gasped. Like a burning cold coffee mixed with sewer sludge, it attacked at my tongue. I screamed. It was the creature’s blood. My whole left forehoof was blacked up to my shoulder, splatters inked over my chest. I refused to picture my face. I just screamed.
My howl sparked a new wave of strength in the monster. Crow had broken down the candelabra into two sharp metal sticks, and had given one to the brown griffoness. I should really have asked her name… Together, they had been repeatedly stabbing the creature’s neck, severing half of the wretched skin and flesh. Though, the neck bone was more resistant than they had originally thought.
It started destroying the piece of wood that separated us from its deadly and sharp hooves. Splinters showered us. Crow dropped his improvised crowbar and kicked Ejit forward down the narrow alley that led to the basement of the church.
“Down, down!” Crow barked.
“You, stupid Night Shift, closed the access to the catacombs!” the brown priest pony blared back, raising his shrilling voice for the real first time. His eyes, red with tears, riveted on the scared black griffon. In this moment of faint revolt, Ejit bit his lower lip to the blood.
Crow was not patient. He punched Ejit in the face, knocking a couple of teeth out of his mouth and repeated the same words again and again: “Down. Down. Down!”
Ejit crawled back to his hooves as the creature finally blew in the corridors, growled and jumped in the way, chasing us. We ran for our lives
We hurtled down a series of stairs and nearly slipped off the layer of water pouring through the humid cracks in the ceiling.We reached another long corridor with one door in the far back. I could see a yellow piece of paper nailed to the lock with a seal on the hinge. We had made it to the catacombs, and it was locked.
Claustrophobia kicked in and my eyes, searching for an escape, locked on a door on our right, cracked open a little. We burst and locked ourselves in. The beast rammed into the door. Dust fell off the bricks above our head under the assaults. The door started bending.
“What are we gonna do?” Ejit sputtered.
“I don’t know, think! Think!” Crow answered, his claw trembling as he rubbed maniacally his chin.
Only illuminated by a forlorn torch next to the door, we were all panting and staining the dirty floor as cold sweat ran down our brows. Dusty old shelves were aligned in the room. Brownish candles, antique books and useless pieces of rusted metal were stacked upon them. A few amphores rested on the back wall.
The beast’s impervious throws ripped off a part of the door. It flew past above Ejit’s eyes, nearly knocking him out. The ceiling growled and creaked.
“It’s going to fall over!” The griffoness warned.
The beast sent himself in the wall. The world shook. Bricks and lintels collapsed from the ceiling. An impenetrable cloud of dark smuck engulfed us all. I heard clay breaking. I caught the female griffon crying out for help.
Half of the door was already smashed open. The undead monster was kicking his forehooves at it to reach us, in a vain attempt so far. Its empty sockets were devouring us through the smoke.
“Help me!” she called out.
As I waved the dust from my face, I saw that half the ceiling had crumbled down on her, trapping her hindquarters under a large chunk of rock. The hole in the ceiling was not big enough for us to slip in. No exit route for us yet.
Her hindlegs were broken by the sheer weight of the the rubbles. She was crying, hitting the floor with her bare fists as spasms crawled along her spine and cheeks. In my back, the undead’s attacks on the door were like the ticks of a rushing clock. I had to think fast.

Why were my hooves slimy?
I looked down and saw a crawling liquid spread across the room, slithering through the cracks and broken down shelves. Oil. I looked at the stacked amphores, some had slid aside and broke on the floor. Their content spread across the room that was going to become our tomb. I wasn’t the only one to see that.
Crow’s stare hesitated back and forth between the amphores, the ground, me… the griffoness… and the torch. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. He caught my stupor. I raised my hoof.
“No, you d…” His fist against my cheek silenced me.
Trembling, he rushed at the amphores, forced on his back legs, grabbed one and hauled it over his head. His comrade, trapped under a pile of stones we hadn’tthe time or the strength to lift, began struggling. She hacked and screamed as Crow was coming close. We all understood what he was going to do.
“Please,” she begged. “No, please, please... please! Don’t!”
Neither Ejit nor I did anything to stop the maddened Crow. Maybe was he the sanest?
Crow knocked the amphore down, breaking the clay recipient over his comrade's head. the oil soaked her. It slurred down her face. As she screamed bubbles formed around her mouth.
The beast renewed its attack on the door. Ejit and I glared with dread at the black and grey griffon as he took another amphores and smashed it down in front of his wounded friend. With his talon he spread it on the floor as much as he could.
“Please, I don’t want to die,” the griffoness supplicated.
“One for three. It’s a good deal,” Crow blurted with his whimpering, hesitating voice. “Remember the tabletop strategy game.”
She hiccuped a long, gagging sob and whispered, choking on her words, “please I don’t want to… die. Please.”
He didn’t answer. She wailed so loudly I shut my ears with my forehooves. Crow grabbed me and Ejit by the hooves.
“You rush out when I say,” he ordered, his voice so convinced it was petrifying.
We were too afraid to nod. He threw a last glance at his friend.

“Thanks,” he just said.
“I’ll kill you!” she threatened. “You heard me! I will rip your throat with my beak!”
Crow snatched the torch off the wall with his right talon. Then, he unlocked the chunk that was left of the door. The monster brawled in and, seeking for the noisiest target, pushed Crow aside and jumped on the griffoness’s face. A sickening rip of flesh and loud crush echoed. I shivered.

Falling, Crow hit the floor and dropped the torch. It bounced on his arm, covered with oil. His limb burst into flames. the rest of the room quickly followed.
The fire ate at his forearm and he screamed. He raised on his back legs and ran to the door, his fur and feathers searing on his arm, melting. The fire crawled up to his neck. As he went outside the room, he threw himself in a thin puddle of water that had formed with humidity. The oil didn’t tame down, though. He simply rushed up the stairs toward the rain. Ejit followed him on his wobbly legs.
As I looked back at the infierno swallowing the storage room, I shivered at the fire gnawing at everything it contained. The griffoness, I never came to know her name, was still screaming. I had to step back onto the staircase, back to the church in the land of the decrepit living, to be finally welcomed again by the numbing sound of silence.

I fled.

2014 project - The Tombstones and Barbed Wires - 3

Chapter 3. The Night Shift

“Even a tamed and dying warrior remains a beast within… You will never walk through our gates. Hear my city roar!”

Andraste de Rouge-Coeur, Empress of the Griffin Marches, Last Statement.

_____________

“Cup of tea?” a gentle mare asked me.

Shivering beneath a humid blanket, I nodded at her. A warm beverage was more than needed I thought. After readjusting my soaked green bandana, constantly trying to slip over my eyes, I sighed heavily. I was tired and the night was not over yet.

A knot in my chest made my whimpers hard to swallow. I clenched the wet fabric on my shoulders. I was trembling. Pain was crawling through my shaky and itchy hooves. My head was a mess of dishevelled, nasty locks. Don’t let me start rambling about my headache. My hair roots still stung from where the creature had gnawed at my mane. When I escaped the church fire had also been eating my tail. It was now nothing but an ugly and painful snake of cooked flesh. All the hair and fur we gone. I wanted to lie and not move ever again. I felt cold inside, like a void dragging me down. I wasn’t really wounded, but damn it hurt so much. I had come close to meeting Death. My heart was still pounding. Yet, I couldn’t complain. I was definitely not entitled to that privilege.

A scream burst behind the large metal door that stood across the hall. Yes, some people always had it worse. Always. Crow –it was him, of course– howled loud and clear, pushing the weaks of heart outside through a wooden gate adjoining the improvised infirmary’s entrance. After a few minutes, only six remained: Ejit munching with blank eyes on his butter-coloured mane, me with my growling belly, three mares wearing black capes and a fat yellow griffon, treading in circle. That was all that remained from at least forty ponies and other people that had been there when we had brought Crow. The sight of the heavy wounded griffon had been sufficient to drive some away. Looking at somebody who’d just been immolated was hard to sustain. When the screams had begun, at least two dozens people had fled towards the paved yard outside. Some were more inclined to brave the rain than to hear their comrade’s cries.

“Keep him quiet! And still!” a tired male voice yelled, muffled by the thick metal door.

Four hooded stallions from Crow’s group had reached us as we had been escaping from the church. We had rushed through the alleyways, carrying the black and grey griffon after we had stopped the flames. Our fare had ended there.

The building was a sickly ancient batisse of concrete and wood. Three storeys high with many small windows. Somehow it looked like an inn. There had been no light in the windows though. The building displayed a large yard and, as far as I had seen, was heavily guarded. The agitation there started when we had rushed through the yard’s door.

As we entered, I had caught a glimpse of a storage room behind that wooden door. An old murky green stallion had swept away all the weapons carelessly left on an old ebony table. He was in need of more space.

“We’ve got no aether!” A mare called me back from my reverie.

Then a shout followed, not Crow’s scream this time, though. A sudden slam on a table echoed and an awkward silence settled.

“There, asleep. Now let’s get to the practice. Gimme some fuckin’ scissors and pliers.”

I felt nauseous when I heard the first snip through a thick fabric, then through some hide. The second snip met something squishier. I tasted bile.

“Here is your tea,” the same caring mare told me, diverting my attention from the metal door. She laid a hoof above my shoulder with a warming smile.

I took the mug in my hooves and blew the steam off of the brew. I hunched over my hurt back, sore from stiff muscles, and took a sip. I had butterflies rushing beneath my skin, the numbness making it hard for me to even hold the cup. I nearly dropped it twice. My nose was leaking. My head was hot and it seemed that the world was reeling.

“Hey, faggots! Get yo sore assholes inside, wet pussy shreds!” a loud voice broke the unsettling silence.

My ears flinched and I saw the huge griffon, his warm yellow feathers enveloping his withers and shoulders like an oversized coat. A head through the opened door, he was taunting at the cowards who had just fled. He was fat. A large bag of flesh was dangling under his chin. Some white and brown fur blanketed his face, gifting him with a large but filthy beard. Bawling at those that had taken refuge outside, his profusion of profanities drew a few smiles on the faces of mares who had stayed behind.

The rain hadn’t stopped outside. So, after a while, a long line of soaked ponies, griffons… and even a minotaur entered the hall. In a fumble of screeching chairs and benches, all hurried to sit around large tables. It was a kind of military mess. A kitchen was adjoining the hall at the opposite side of the infirmary. Its door was etched with the same symbol I had seen on Crow’s necklace: a magnifying glass over a curved sword the whole encased in a griffon’s claw. The small crowd finally made its way inside and I found myself next to the big yellow griffon. He was smirking at those who had defied the bad weather.

“Look at those quivery stains,” he drawled at them, smashing his right fist on his chest. “Can’t even stand the Fall. Get some strength and armour.”

A stallion nearby stopped and snarled, “Sorry, I ain’t considerin’ ten layers o’ fat an armour, Doom Ball. And speaking o’ weapon…”

“Well,” The griffon cut him off, his smirk growing wider. “Care reminding me who always wins at thumb wrestling.”

The stallion looked at his hooves, pondered and paused.

“girls like great dexterity,” he added.

The stallion sighed, shaking his head. I chuckled a little and so did the two teasing comrades.

“Fuck you, Doom,” the stallion replied with a smirk.

“That’s more like it.”

As the mess slowly calmed down, griffins and ponies shuffled cards they had kept inside drawers. A longing silence settled and, feeling awkwardly, I turned towards the griffon…

“D- Doom, is that your name?”

He turned his head in my direction so fast I gasped. Maybe it was due to the bag of flesh under his chin… it nearly flogged his left shoulder. He walked up to me, his talonsteps wrestling creaking whines out of the parquet.

“Yes, my dear,” he asked with a sugarcoated voice that made my guts wrench. Or was it the smell? Oh, Celestia almighty, he was drawing an effluve of sweat in his trail, a kind of pepper and salty scent. I gagged just a little and looked at his blue pupils. His lips were half-torn with a smile.

“What is that place?” I mumbled.

He frowned, rolled his eyes to the ceiling and cackled loudly.

“It’s the Night Shift’s HQ.” I didn’t follow up with his laugh and soon Doom caught my wondering look. “You’re new here, ain’t you?”

“I… I’ve just arrived,” I confessed. I showed him my identity card but he shoved it back into my hoof, just after he had checked my name, of course.

“So, Carat...” He rubbed his neck, “what can I say... welcome to the great life!”

Joyous, he brawled his talon in my back, sending me off the ground. My cup flew to a nearby table and splashed over a mare’s hood. By simple reflex, painfully acquired after years of wandering through the city’s darkest alleyways I guess, she ducked her head. Too bad she had been looking at her cards far too close to the table. Her head bunked on its edge, she gasped in pain and fell backward, sending off the stallion on her left with her. Half a dozen cards pinned out of his cape and flapped aloft before everyone’s eyes. Ponies and griffins shouted in rage. Soon enough, a fight broke over who was cheating and who was not and captivated everybody’s attention. As if on cue, someone started singing.

“If you kick her in the rump, clap your hooves! If you smite her in the rear, raise your screws!”

I blocked my mouth with a hoof. It was not proper to laugh at the rest of that ballad. It was hard, though, no pun intended. My chin was still sweeping the floor when Doom closed his talon on my robe and lifted me up. I wiggled around my hooves as I hovered over the ground. He dropped me, and I was once again standing.

“Sorry about that,” he said. I shook my head. It was nothing. “Let’s check up on your friend.”

Nudging me to move forward, we contoured the ongoing fight and the witnesses around it. Some were already making bets. The place was animated, rather violent… and highly alcoholised; some tables had started soaking with spilled ciders. By the smell I even started doubting it was cider. I plucked my nostrils as we searched for Ejit. His light yellow mane was technically not that difficult to find but after a minute looking around, even Doom’s hawkish eyes missed his presence. The fat griffon shrugged and we sat at a table. I received some mixed stares but no animosity. I didn’t have the black cape. I wasn’t one of them, I guess. Many had scars. Some even had shaved some patches of their fur so others could see black tattoos imprinted on their bare skin. Roses, dragons, nothing really out of ordinary. Like at many other tables, they were playing cards.

“So, what’s the Night Shift?” I continued. “It’s just that many things happened at once today.”

“Madame is being difficult,” Doom joked.

I sighed and gave him a disgruntled stare. Pinching my lips together, I caught glimpses of amused smiles on my neighbours’ faces. Blushing slightly, I pushed myself up, hooves on the edge of the table. I looked above Doom’s shoulders at the metal door leading to the improvised infirmary. It was still closed and it had been dead silent for too long.

“Don’t think about it,” Doom said, forcing me back on the bench with his right talon. “Crow is a tough motherfucker. Ain’t the first time he got screwed. Don’t care about him.”

“He… He saved my life,” I answered while still scanning the hall, “and Ejit’s life too.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s our job,” Doom claimed, huffing a little to convince himself it was absolute truth. “We save people.”

I looked back at my neighbour pony again: a dirty red stallion with brown mane. He had a pair of aces in his hooves. He was sweating, was he trying to keep composure? Some of the other players caught my smile, glared at the stallion and put their cards next to the deck in the middle of the table.

“I’m out,” one said, quickly followed by everyone.

Just before the stallion jerked his head at me with raging eyes, I looked away at the ceiling, scrunching up my nose. I was definitely not meant for card games. Grunting, the stallion took the deck and reshuffled, wiggling on his rear to get the farthest away from me. I chuckled softly.

“You…” I trailed up, “don’t really look like a common peacekeeping organisation.”

“Words, words, words…” he complained.

The ponies and other species that inhabited the room were all filthy, with missing teeth among their yellow dentition. Many had gnawed ears and sometimes a missing limb, replaced with some hoofmade prosthetic. This patchwork of people was strange, loud and savage. The only common point I could find was the clothing: the black cape and the Night Shift necklace. There were more males than females here and everybody wore scars and old wounds. Under the light coming from the scarce candles, I pictured a few swords and axes under the capes. Sometimes, my eyes found a barrel. Nobody was doing any effort to hid their arsenal. It was different from the soldiers on the docks. I never saw a hoofcuff nor a rope. Those people weren’t police. Even I could see that.

“We are…” Doom pondered, rubbing his feathers and frowning, “cleaners. Yeah, that’s the best word. Cleaners.”

“And what do you clean?” I chuckled sarcastically. “Ponies that come back from death to kill us all?”

My closest neighbours stopped playing and turned their heads, their hooves and claws suspended above the table. I stared back at them. I saw pain. I saw strain. I saw… fear. My giggle died in my throat with a hard gag. I held myself in silence. I had nearly died, all the laughter I could seep in the wound would not heal that painful truth.

“You ain’t knowing a t’ing, lady,” a griffon missing an eye said with a sneering hiss. “Better not think about it. Ain’t ta a civilian thing ta worry about. You know nothin’.”

He grumbled, shaking his head, and returned to his cards. He reeked alcohol.

“Oh, come on,” I defended myself, “you don’t know me. I…”

“Shut up,” he said tiredly, playing with the cards in his claws. “Y’all f’cking immigrants know nothin’ about Warclaw. Warclaw is a griffin’s city. Ain’t for ponies. You always make a mess of beautiful things.”

My heart skept a bit and a wave of heat wrapped around me. His words stung, hard to stand. Doom tried to put me back on my ass.

“W- What?” I blabbered.

“You heard me. Y’all scum. You broke everythin’ when the Beast came. You destroyed everythin’ and worse o’ all, you can’t even repair what y’all did. Let the work ta those who aren’t worse than useless.”

Some griffins shook their heads, the nearby ponies rolled their eyes. Some even laughed.

“What?!” I was shocked. I lifted myself up the table’s edge and stared with indignation at Doom. “Are you going to wave that shit-talk off?”

The yellow griffon shrugged. My blood started to boil and I swerved back towards the racist griffon.

“You’ve got that guy, Crow, behind that door! You’ve got people who got killed! And I’ve nearly been killed by a fucking zombie! A zombie! And you don’t know me. You, too, know nothing.”

He went up to my eye’s level. Oh Celestia, he was bug.

“Do you think we ain’t carin’, got a friend killed by one o’ those!” The one-eyed griffon yelled. His voice was febrile, sad and pained. “Got my bro’ killed by one! T’is just all random shit!”

“And do you think I am to blame!?”

“Yes!” he spat at me in the eye. It petrified an instant.

Doom stood up and put himself in between, pushing us away from each other. I sought for something to smash up above the stallion’s fucking head. There were just flabby cards.

“And, who’re ye to talk to me like that?” he blurted, his jaw clenched with anger.

“Some pony who got her hoof stuck in some zombie’s misplaced a-hole! Up to the shoulder!” I said, wiping his saliva off my cheek.

He barfed and glared at me with pinprick eyes, his muzzle at an inch from mine. I suddenly felt a long, awkward silence slowly crawling around me as if giving me a freezing shower. Po- people around were looking at me with a hard silence. Many curious eyes had locked on me. Some comprehensive. Some… more like critical. I hated that. And some were… weirdly amused. I hated that even more. Couldn’t they stop looking at me!

“Who you’re looking at, gals!?” I reprimanded, choosing the nearest mare and griffon that weren’t a ball of brown and yellow fat as my victims. Talking about that one, I locked my eyes back on Doom’s picky blue eyes. “And you, keep your claws off my hide!”

I whirled back in the half-blind griffon’s direction and repeated, “Who you’re looking at?”

I wanted to blame his inebriety for his chuckles. I was just getting mad for nothing. Why was I getting mad?

“Did you really fist a Plaguer’s mark?” he asked, unbelieving.

“Uh?” Perplexed, I pinned Doom with my stare, seeking for an explanation.

He sighed with a smile and closed his right talon’s thumb and index to form a circle. With the tip of his other index he started to in and out the circle, back and fro… oh Luna.

I wished I could have set people on fire with my blazing cheeks. The witnesses laughed and I cringed back on my bench, hiding my face beneath my hooves. The word was quickly spread and laughter arose like a contagious illness.

“You know,” Doom started, “the undead have this black hole wound-thingy somewhere on their body, don’t ask me why. It’s a mark. Some say it’s a curse. If you really put your hoof in one, well… You earned my respect. It’s gross.”

Couldn’t he just finish me off in a cleaner way, like… with a sword.

“It’s nothing…” I mumbled.

I ended up with a florilege of people asking for truth, which I answered with meek yes, nods, and long meaningful silences. At least it tamed off the tension a bit. The place started dying out as many began to fall asleep on their tables. Snores replaced the noise of countless conversations and, swiftly, the light of a wan sun began to peer in the building through the windows. The sun… a simple dot of white behind an endless cover of black clouds. I, in good faith, couldn’t even call that a sun. But it was what we were left with. And we, the poorest, will always cherish the few and futile we had like the most precious gem. I smiled when a mare walked to an open frame, sat up and drifted away into slumber on the window’s threshold with the sunlight tickling her muzzle. It had been one hell of a night… A long, bloody night.

Heads sprawled on the tabletops, it suddenly became a lot easier to find Ejit. He had been sitting at a table with ten soldiers… policepeople… Shifters? - I had no name for them yet. After a long night spent being harassed and fighting back curious people, it was quite refreshing to see him there.

He was… holding cards. Not surprising, I thought. The ponies he was sitting with had dragged him to their table. I swore he had the face of the perfect victim. Indeed, I was expecting him to get robbed on the first occasion… Crow and Medved’s hurtful words back at the church had convinced me so. But he was the one amassing a mountain of goods. One pony had been stripped of everything and I guessed the sword next to Ejit used to belong to him.

“Sorry, Princesses, for I am going ta sin,” Ejit whispered with his eyes closed, his hooves clasped on his cards, “again.”

“Oh come on, not this bullshit again!” a griffon growled, playing with a brass watch between his claws. “Stop messing with me!”

Half the players backed out of the game, leaving the risk upon others’ shoulders. As I leaned next to the table, I thought I knew the game: poker. After three cards had been drawn on the table, they all checked. I saw two pairs, one four of a kind, one three of a kind. Ejit laid down a royal flash and ended the game. He’d taken everything from everypony. To add to the insult, he had that meek smile on his face – as if he couldn’t understand why the other players were so… weak. The griffon played with his claws on the table. None talked and, strangely, they accepted the defeat.

“What are you going to do with all that?” Doom asked, breaking the silence as he pointed out the heap of stuff next to the brown stallion.

Ejit pondered, rubbing his cheek’s brown fur and playing with one of his butter-yellow locks.

“I might give it all to an orphanage,” he said with a sigh. “It’s not that I’m going to use it anyway.”

It was a pretty big sum to be honest. Maybe two to three hundred bits. I came to the realisation that I didn’t actually know how money worked in Warclaw… a dire lack of knowledge I needed an explaination for.

“Won’t you use it to rebuild the church?” Doom asked.

Ejit raised an eyebrow, “Apart from cleaning, I don’t see much to do in my shrine.” He let a long breath of resignation. “Not that it’s the first time that happened.”

My belly wrenched, I had to be more precautious before judging somepony. Sure, Ejit looked discomforted and shy... but it wasn’t the reason to think he was not experimented.

“Uh…” Doom grimaced. “The church is burning right now.”

Ejit opened his mouth, but said nothing. Accepting the truth, he let out a long breath.

“How’s that possible?” I countered. “The church was made of stone!”

“Carat,” Ejit answered. “Eh… Ya remember… th’ ceiling broke down over us. Above, there was my room. I kept books there. th’ oil… did th’ rest. I think.”

“But the hole was small,” I said.

“It was enough, I guess.”

His voice was tired, languish and slow. His shoulders hunched over, his head was hanging low with one single tear rolling down his cheek. He swallowed hard, bit his lips a few times, tasting the sound of silence. Numbness crawled through my legs. I hated that silence.

“I have to start it all over,” he said. “Again.”

With a resigned smile, Ejit locked his eyes on Doom as he rubbed his hooves together.

“Do you think… the Night Shift could offer me a ceiling for the time being?”

Doom laughed.

“Why do you think I will keep you there? Both of you?” he pointed out. “We don’t do charity. You’re both under custody.”

I let that sink in a bit, eyes wide and lips plucked together.

“I don’t see shackles on my hooves?” I chimed in.

He pointed the door with his claw and grinned. “Run then. We’ll see how far you will get.”

The taunt dried all of my wit, commanding me to flee through the door at all cost.

“I know people well,” Doom rambled on, looking at Ejit. “I know you haven’t killed anypony. And… I know you quite well.”

The earth pony cringed a bit at the remark.

“And you?” The griffon’s talon laid on my shoulder, all its fat weighing down on me. “You’d be a stupid murderer to give me your card, to have raised your voice at a patroller and to hang around people in the HQ.”

“Or a cunning one?” I pointed out.

He smirked at me with a grin of his beak. He did not answer.

“Are you the captain, here?” I wondered.

He chuckled. “Oh no. Of course, no. I’m just the chef. And that’s good enough.”

It left me puzzled. His constant smile wasn’t helping. At that point, I caught something I hadn’t paid heed to, at least until now. His left forearm had a long furrow where nor fur or feathers were puncturing his white skin. Over that bare land of flesh a series of letters and numbers had been imprinted. Doom saw my curiosity acting up and waved his arm away from my sight. I looked around atthe sleeping soldiers. Some of them had the same type of marking.

“What are you all?” I asked once again. “What is the Night Shift?”

Doom shook his head and growled at my curiosity. After a few seconds, he let his annoyance vanish, mustering his most honest answer. My guts wrenched together and I held my breath. He rubbed his nose and scratched his chin.

“The Shift is a penal legion. We’re all convicts,” he said. The smile on his face was gone. “Not all of us of course, but vast majority. It’s common knowledge in Warclaw. What can be better than scoundrels and street-scums to fight and drive off other scums?”

Uneased, I kept silent at his words. My body was itching hard and it made it difficult not to move.

“We all have been offered a deal. The Shift or the prison. Or, for some of us who got the matricule, the Shift or death sentence.”

I looked instinctively at his arm and cursed myself for doing so. He laughed at me and pinned my hood with a claw. Smirking, he pulled it off my shoulders, revealing the scar around my neck. Ejit gasped at the sight, instinctively touching his own. I swallowed hard. I wanted to kill that griffon.

“I see we’ve gone the same way,” he said, somewhat satisfied.

I pushed his talon and, to my surprise, he let me do so.

“Don’t you dare touching me again,” I growled. “I’m not like you.”

“They always say that,” he cackled, making circles with his hands disdainfully.

I sat on a nearby bench, held my face in my hooves and whispered, “please, don’t bring it up… don’t bring it up.”

I couldn’t cry. Not now.

“You’re gonna have to get used to it. We are the only people who still do something good in this city. And everybody here had done something wrong at some point. Better not to poke the sleeping dragon,” he advised. “If you’re going to pay the shelter the Shift gave ya tonight. You’re gonna get used to be close to people that might be murderers.”

Chills ran down my spine. Stupefied, I glared daggers at him.

“You’re telling me that I have to pay for my stay in custody?” I blabbered, being given nothing but his poker face. “That’s completely stupid!”
“Hey! it’s the rule,” Doom told me with an exaggerated shrug.
“But I don’t have any money,” I countered and suddenly fell silent.

“There are many other ways to get paid here.”
I was homeless. That truth sunk in slowly… That truth playing on me like a knife in a wound. I had to find an opportunity to get me out of this mess. I looked at Ejit and his pile of scrap. Maybe, just maybe, I could ask him if he could… help me? He didn’t know me at all but he was kind and… I felt like shit. He owed me nothing. I owed him much. He had welcomed me in his church, church that had now been burnt down. He had been charmingly shy but also quite a pain in the ass. He could… Ah! And Doom, he’d said getting close to people… Oh no. No, no, no. Just. No! Scream! I wanted to cry out. But I couldn’t. The pony inside me was denying me this. Don’t give him the privilege.
“Hey,” Doom called me back to reality with a smile. “You’re crying.”

He swept a tear from my cheek with his flabby, yellow talon. I had rubbed my hooves so dutifully on my chest that it burnt.

“What are you thinking about, lady,” he laughed. “I’m not the monster you think I am.”

I felt ill. My stomach churned. I wished I couldn’t taste the bile.

“I’ve heard that before too.” I glanced at him with hatred.

“I also heard you were out of job,” he explained. “Since my prep-cook died tonight in the church, I need another pair of claws or hooves to help me out.”

“Uh? You want me to serve the meal?” I asked.

He nodded and grinned. “Yep, and you better hurry taking that decision. The wake up call is in thirty minutes. And I’m late on my own morning duty.”

“Why being so kind with me?” I wondered.

“Being kind?” He held his sides. “I’m just pragmatic. Too much people for me to take care of it alone. And you’re the cheapest around to hire. I hate owing other shifters.”

So it wasn’t for me? Somehow I prefered the idea that he was being kind.

“Y-...” I stopped and felt like something was missing. “What was he called?”

“Who? Oh, the prep? Never bothered to ask, he hated the job.” He scrunched up his beak and laughed wholeheartedly. “And soon you will hate it too.”

I raised an eyebrow. He was right, as soon as I took on the job, I understood how shitty it was.

₰₸₹₺₪₺₹₸₰

The following hour had stretched to infinity. When it finally passed by, the first shifters were waking up as I, firmly fumbling behind a stall, was grimacing at the horrible smell that emanated from Doom’s marmites. Porridge, white and gluey, bubbled up as it was slowly cooling. I had managed to bring the logs to fuel the fire of the kitchen. Then I had gone in the cold room to fetch ingredients and so on. Apparently, it was in the life of a prep-cook.

The mess’s kitchen, built in an adjacent room to the hall had one entrance and one defined exit so that everybody had to form a long queue, waiting for their meal to be served. The kitchen itself was built in three areas: the stall where I was at the moment, the kitchen itself where Doom was rummaging through and finally a cold room far in the back. The sight of a dangling carcass hung by a hook had eased my decision that I wouldn’t wander there anymore.

The shifters smelled a foul stench that matched well the food. Dark rings under the eyes. Pained backs. Seeping wounds from recent altercations. Sleepwalking through the corridors, apathetic to their surroundings. Not too many cast a glance at me and I was glad about that. Everybody, myself included, fell into a numbing routine. It was soothing. Clatter of hooves and claws on the old parquets. Sneezes of the ill. A morning like many others.

The air cracked with a tuning track and a voice slipped in the air from an old speaker hung on the ceiling. An echo coming from the hall told me there was more than one. A cranky voice of an old mare, munching on her tongue, erupted.

“Team leaders Pünktlich, Valiant Heart, Deep Gash and Melchior are to come to Shackle for urgent morning duty. A riot is happening on the Yore Avenue in Lower City. The food distribution has been canceled there.”

Two griffins, a mare and a stallion made their way out of the queue, swearing at whoever stood in their way. At least a dozen of other ponies and griffins followed. I tensed. Some started shouting over at the disgruntled conscripted shifters pushing through the queue towards the exit. A griffon bumped into somepony’s shoulder. A bowl of porridge went crashing on the ground and a fight began.

I hid beneath the stall as one griffon grabbed his nearest neighbour and held him above the ground. The stall shook under the smash, sending one series of bowls off to the floor. Screams and yells all over the room. The stall shook again. I closed my eyes and covered my ears. It was all I can do. I just waited. I just had to be patient. Let’s appreciate the silence.

When I finally peered from under the stall, a few impacts embedded the walls. And there he was. One single stallion, a murky verdigris coat topped by a greyish mane. He was slightly older than me but his bulk had not faded with age. His wrinkles intensified as he narrowed his eyes.

“You, you and you,” he said with a nudge of his head. “Catacomb shift tonight. Together.”

A chill swept above our heads. The griffon that started it all opened his mouth after all the colours had seeped out of his face. He said nothing though.

“You three,” the stallion said. “Take your meal and off to the Yore Avenue. No sleep for you today.”

The stallion took a step forward and everybody drew back a bit. Only one behind the stall, I slowly dunked my head between my shoulders and under my hood. He was scary. His green eyes looked at me with concern and curiosity.

“Doom?” he said flatly.

“Yes?” the griffon answered, showing only his head in the threshold of the kitchen door.

“I told you to stop manipulating strangers to give you a hoof. What is it this time?” he sighed.

“Custody,” Doom replied with a eerily meek tone. He was sporting that uneased grin across his face. His talon was drumming over the frame of the door.

The stallion looked back at me. “Custody?” He raised an eyebrow. “What has she done?”

His stare was frightening. My hooves on the edge of the stall, I had been cringing on my hindlegs to the point where only my eyes transpired from over the tabletop. He was perfectly neutral and the battle scars he bore made it uneasy to keep contact with his eyes for too long. He had a long gash on his right cheek and a round puncturing mark on his right shoulder. I looked further down and my eyes met his cape, and beneath it… A pair of wings. He was a pegasus. The first I had seen so far in Warclaw. He saw my interest and huffed.

“Murder witness. And she fought off a plaguer.” Doom paused. “Without shelter, recent immigrant and jobless.”

Chill ran down my chest. I was being assessed, coldly, industrially. It was… I had no word for that. Just that chill sparkling through my body. That coldness and silence.

“I thought it would be good giving her something to do. At least she would earn the meal.”

The stallion nodded, never drifting his eyes off me. He looked at my light blue fur, my green mane, my bandana, my dirty brown hood.

“You’re malnourished,” he said. “After that, go get some sleep. Crow won’t be waking up until tomorrow.”

That was all and he departed. I thought I understood why everybody was scared of him but my suspicions were wrong. As I stood back I looked at the ground. His hoofsteps had left traces of blood. His forelegs were soaked along with his cape. And the reek...

The cortege of shifters reshuffled back in line and the rest of the distribution was spent in utter silence. An hour later, everybody had obtained their bowl and Doom ordered those who arrived last to take upon the dish washing, a common punishment apparently reserved for the late-comers. The yellow griffon gave me a wink.

When we headed back to the main hall, a dozen of griffins and ponies remained there, enjoying a dull and slow morning. With my own bowl of wet, dank and tasteless food, I sat at an empty table. I was completely exhausted. I hadn’t slept since ever. I couldn’t even remember when I had woken up on the boat. Had it been already that long?

My eyes were closing by themselves as I ate the patch of whitish sludge and gruel. On the table a set of decanters had been left and, thirsty, I greedily sipped one. It was just water, with an earthy aftertaste. I was going to be sick. But I didn’t care. I wanted to sleep.

“Who was he?” I muttered. “I don’t know many doc’ hanging around like that.”

“Shackle?” Doom mumbled back, tired too. “He’s not just the doc. He’s the chief of the Shift.”

I raised my brows. “He’s old.”

“He’s strong. There is a bet going around to know why he’s here. He funded the Shift.”

I sneezed, splattering a bit of my meal over the table. Rubbing my eyes, I searched for the murky brownish-green stallion. He was nowhere to be found.

“He doesn’t usually hang around the common folks. He reports to the prancing griffins and pegasi in the Higher City,” Doom said, scrubbing his cheek as he yawned. “He doesn’t have many friends. I… We… He’s just scary.”

I nodded in approval, not really paying attention to his words.

“So, am I in the gang?” I drawled.

He giggled tiredly. “Until you decide to go away. You’re lucky anyway that I needed a replacement when you were there. If not for Crow, you would be sleeping outside now.

The unfortunate fate of some made the fortune of others, I guessed.

“So yes, you can help. Not that I’m paying you or anything. Just a ceiling over the head, some food and a bed. All you can have. Nothing more you’ll ever have.”

And it was better than nothing. Again, I nodded and plunged back into contemplating my empty bowl. I had sipped it like a beer. The taste was not that bad but the feeling you get when it went down the throat… slimy and raspy… I disliked it.

“Why’s the Night Shift working the day?” I highlighted. “You’re the night shift.”

Doom rolled his eyes, rubbing the unibrow of feathers that towered his eyes.

“There is a day shift, yes. But they don’t come in the Lower City. Too dangerous. Much higher attrition rate.”

“And about the soldiers on the dock?” I asked.

“Private militias working with the CPS, they are… more ruthless than us in cleaning practice.”

I don’t know why but it sounded sick.

I opened my mouth, licked my lips and swallowed. I sighed. “Are there many people dying in the Night Shift?”

He was keeping his head low towards his empty bowl and his belly was growling for more. I saw his eyes slowly drifting in my direction. The dim morning light going through the dirty windows reflected in his pupils.

“You haven’t seen the backyard yet, have you?”

I didn’t answered. Instead, somepony shambled in the hall, greedily breaking a silence I had tried to respect so far.

It wasn’t a somepony… it was a somebear.

“Would you kindly stop biting my finger!” Medved roared, waking up half the audience.

Locked on his index was the young colt I had seen spying on the investigation back at the church. While the white filly that had accompanied him was kept tight under Medved’s other arm, her flashy blue mane falling over her face, her friend was shaking around. Warm blood dripped off Medved’s clawed finger at each of his swerves, staining the colt’s bleached orange coat and soaking his black mane.

In a fit of rage, Medved dropped the filly who shrieked in surprise. His other hand freed, Medved closed his index and thumb together and, like a spring, clacked his finger at the colt’s face. It was a blow strong enough to stun. Medved caught the kid mid-flight and impaired him over a nearby table.

“Leave him, brute!” the filly bawled after she pushed her disheveled locks behind her head.

With her frail hooves she couldn’t do any harm to the mass of muscles: a mere tickling that amused many witnesses. Getting no result, the filly tried to puncture the bear’s hide with her horn, which her friend didn’t have.

“Oh, get on with it,” Medved spat, his paw firmly settled over the unconscious colt. “You don’t want to finish like him, do you?”

Crosseyed, the orange colt was drooling, his tongue hanging out of his mouth while a lump was already forming on his forehead. Medved huffed a little at the view and resumed sucking on his hurt finger.

“‘at ‘ucker ‘amn ‘urt,” he grumbled.

Pouting, the filly climbed up the table and sat in front of the bear and crossed her frontlegs. Medved rolled his eyes and laughed. With his drooly paw, he patted her head.

“Eeeew!” she protested.

“Puppy eyes don’t work with me.”

Medved looked around and his eyes fell on me. He smiled with his yellowish fangs pointing prominently from under his lips.

“The maid of the church followed the carcass hunter,” he crytically said. “Where’s Crow? I ain’t no babysitter.”

I tapped my hoof on the parquet, nervously enough he caught my spasm.

“What happened?”

“The dead pony… wasn’t that dead in the end,” I explained.

He smiled, nodding comprehensively. “Is he dead?”

“Who? Crow? No.” I glanced at the improvised infirmary door. “But he’s hurt.”

Medved shook his head and growled. “Damn shit, not today! I’m gonna do the widowment.”

He laughed, staring right in my eyes. His laugh, dry and cackling, chilled me whole. Was there sarcasm in that statement? I saw him claw back down on the colt as he started waking up.

“Leave me alone.” The colt fumbled inside the bear’s paw, trying to bite again.

Wary of the kid’s teeth, Medved blocked the kid’s neck between two fingers and huffed. The child gasped and gagged, kicked and swore, but, in the end, he fell silent.

“Please,” the filly implored. “Release us. We’ve done nothing.”

Medved snickered, “Everybody is guilty of something here. You too saw something and Crow wants to know.”

The white filly put her two forehooves on Medved’s paw, the one restrained her friend.

“The pony fell from the cloud, I swear. We haven’t killed it.”

This time, the laughter didn’t come from the bear but from the shifters still in the hall.

“Yes, I swear,” she continued.

“Not my cup of tea,” Medved cut her off and leaned next to her ear. “It’s not my job to interrogate ponies as young as you are… Not. Anymore.”

That definitely tensed the audience. The filly cringed back away from medved’s filthy paw. Mute.

“Please, don’t hurt him,” she begged, avoiding eye contact.

“He won’t,” a grave voice affirmed.

The old murky green pegasus I had seen earlier, Shackle, moved between the tables to the massive bear.

“I know you won’t, don’t I?”

He plunged his two narrowed, greyish eyes into the carnivorous shifter’s pupils. Medved swallowed, chewed on his lips and broke contact.

“Yes, Shackle, I w…”

He grinded his teeth together and growled. Lifting his paw from a burst of pain, tooth prints were imprinted in his little finger. He had let the colt run over. The filly fell behind as fast as she could, but Shackle rushed too fast for her. He extended his wing and wrapped it around her. She fought against the feather cage for a couple of seconds before she stopped. She just glared knives at the captain in retaliation.

Instinctively I ran behind the colt and, weaving between the benches and tables, I passed through the hall’s backdoor. I paced as fast as I could through a narrow and not very well lit corridor, the colt ahead of me. In my back I heard Medved shout. He was too large to go through the same way. I reached the light at the end of the tunnel.

And I bumped into the colt. Butt over head, I threw him and myself further down a soft yet slippery sleep. My jaw hit the dirt hard at the feet of a long dead tree, his whitish trunk was the only thing that remained. My back had also hit something edgy, painful. Reaching for it, I drew a large heavy stone from beneath me. Blinking repeatedly, trying to adjust to the low but still blinding light of the always cloudy day, I saw the colt just by my side. He had those pinprick eyes, as if caught into deep thoughts that only a colt that young could fathom.

“Hey, miss,” he asked poking me in the nose, making me sneeze.

Rubbing my muzzle and offing the dirt off my face and hide, I glared at him.

“What?” I hissed.

I twisted my tongue in my mouth, a disgusting taste of murk seeping beneath my teeth. I had mud in my mouth. I coughed and wiped my tongue with the back of my hooves. At least it had stopped raining.

“Umh…” he hesitated, his piping voice trailing. “Why do they all have the same name?”

I frowned and scratched my forehead as I scrambled back on my hooves. Medved appeared over the wall that enclosed the large backyard… In fact, it wasn’t a backyard. It was a large, barren patch of land with only some few clumps of yellow grass that stuck out of the murk. As large as three cottages, it was open to the sky and the neighbouring decrepit houses towered the place. I felt caged between walls with as many eyes as windows. It was bleak, colourless… nightmarish. The rain had formed streams of water that still clambered down the walls and drains, leaving sludgy black trails behind. A small stream of water was running in the yard between erected greyish stones, laid in rows and lines, sometimes stacked one next to the other.

“R...r...r...i…” The colt struggled and looked back at me and repeated, “Why they all have the same name?”

It pinched my heart. Very hard. Medved heard that too and the anger in his face slowly faded away as he made his way up to me. My ears twitched at the filly’s clattering hooves in my back as she trotted outside and gasped.

“Because,” Medved broke the silence, “we all are the same in the end.”

Three letters, chiselled messily in each of the tombstones. Three letters that reminded me how feeble I was… how weak I was. I saw three graves already dug out in one of the last few remaining spots in the yard. One fourth had been started and the shovel had been left, stuck in the ground, acting as a landmark.

I held the piece of stone that had hit my back. The three letters were there too, broken by one single crack in the middle that separated the stone in two. I had broken a tombstone. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly. It was bad.

The ground shook. The windows of the nearby buildings trembled, some even cracked. Then the boom reached our ears like the cry of a whip. I ducked next to the dead tree and held my ears. As one window shattered and went crashing down the wall that delimited the backyard, peppering us with shards of glass, two young ponies ran inside. They passed beneath Shackle’s legs.

“Medved,” he called. “Yore Avenue, now!”

The bear was already gone. Shackle looked at me with concern and hesitation. He muttered something I didn’t hear and rubbed his forehead with his wing.

“Go find Doom. He’s the one employing you,” he said, and upon seeing my quivers. “He’s gone in Yore Avenue. You’ll see, it’s easy to find.”

He went back inside, and he was right. Already, a thick black smoke was rising over the city three to four blocks away.

Before I ran towards wherever, I glanced back at the tombstone.

R.I.P.

Rest In Peace… I wasn’t entitled to that privilege. Peace was not for me. Not yet, at least.

2014 project - The Tombstones and Barbed Wires - 4

Chapter 4. Black and White

“We’re always six meals, one pay and one tantrum away from it.”

Princess Luna about Anarchy, date of statement: unknown.

_____________

Remind me that fat is only one letter away from fast. And, I swear on a misty horn kink that this fucker of yellow griffon was fast.

Doom was rushing through the alleyways, throwing his own mass in between ponies and griffins staring at us in bewilderment. More than one ended face buried in the murk flowing down the street drains adjoining the walk paths. Breathing steam, I tried to keep track of him. At least the sight of Doom’s cape, black and notorious, was enough to dig a tunnel into the crowd. Nearly. More than once did I had to jump over somepony.

2014 project - Post-Apocalyptic Ponyville - Prologue

I woke up to the smell of sludge, to the noise of creeping water. I was cold, soaked to the bone while I lay face down in a narrow, inundated tunnel.
I jerked out of the water and took in a short, panicked breath. My head hit the ceiling of the tunnel and a metallic bang echoed.
Trapped in a flooded vent, I found myself somewhere I didn’t know.
I groaned, hauling myself to a reasonable height. My hooves hurt and my ears rang in pain. There was not enough place for me to stretch. My heart bumped wild in my hissing chest while I sought for an escape. Stuck in an uncomfortable position, I wished I could breathe. Air wasn’t there to brush my face. If I stood too high, my head would scrap against the walls. If I were to crawl low, swimming and suffocating under the murk awaited. Please, I wanted out.
A violent shake tore through the vent.
Thrown aside, I sunk under the torrent of mud. My head hit a metal slab and white pain shot through my shut-closed eyes. I screamed but murk rolled down my throat and silenced me. Coughing, I could do nothing but drift away.
Tumbling down the throat of an underground and steel-made giant, my head ricocheted against the edges of the vent. My strength drained away from my limbs and a coppery taste filled my mouth. Encaged in deep water and darkness, the fear of drowning crippled my thoughts.
Shivers wracked through my body and, in a surge of survivalist instincts, I shot my head out of the water. Struggling to breathe, I wailed and hacked my hooves around me until I reached and held onto a small crossway in the vent. Eyelids heavy, I hauled myself up into the diverging and –praise the princesses– dry, narrow alley.
“… V-…!”
White noise cracked aloft in the tight vent, sparking a short but numbing shudder along my backbone. I looked down and saw a tiny red light glowing right next to my flank. It was like a devouring eye to my dizzied self, looking deep into my soul, seeking for some fears to feast upon.
“Vox!”
The voice came and went with interferences, spewed by the tiny metal box screwed to my belt. The red diode glowed bright until it died while I tried to reach for the contraption. I dropped against the metal floor and the tools strapped to my hide with long leather bands banged loud and clear in my ears.
“Vox, answer me!”
Prodding around in the darkness, I scrambled to the com-link. I hit the outward transmission button after turning it over twice.
“Vox reporting,” I croaked, trying to spit away the taste of spoiled mud. “I’m… here.”
“Vox, where were… Wh-… are you?” the voice of a mare cried out. “It’s been… five hou... I can’t reach... well.”
Five hours… I had been crawling in that gutter for five hours.
“I’m…”
I contemplated darkness around me in utter silence.
“I’m lost,” I whined. “Do you know where I am?!”
Static noise was my only answer. With my head hanging low, I switched the item on and off for a few minutes until I ended up lying stoic, hugging the broken device.
The ground quaked and roared.
In pain and sobbing, I pushed myself back on my hooves and rolled forward. I climbed and bit on whatever lay around to help me move up and away. Half drowning, half asphyxiating in the horrid stench of the place, I fought the whirl in my guts. Crawling into a ball in a dank corner had never been so tempting.
I heard thunder crack in the distance. That sound, distorted by the contorting and broke apart vents, gave me a direction.
Rumbles shot through the pipes that bared my route. With a cry, I punched my way through with the monkey wrench in my mouth that was still attached to my belt. I felt a tooth crack and shatter. With no horn to light my way, there was just noises, water, and death.
I gasped in pain, screamed, and hurled forward on my shaking hindlegs. I fumbled into a hidden pit hole. In my fall, my head hit something. Rolling butt over head, I hit a slope and fast-paced through a rusty, and patched-up fence set to bar access to the rest of the vent onwards. I came to a sudden halt against the dead-end. Breathless, my body crawled in pain just seconds before weightlessness took hold of my senses.
The dead-end broke apart and I fell through. After a couple of seconds, my back hit something squishy and wet and the ride was over.
Light shot through my eyes and blinded me as a cold and raging rain began to batter my hide. A deluge of rain filled my ears. With coldness drumming over my bare back, the rain forced me down. Struggling, I crawled eyes-shut towards the nearest place where the downpour was less intense. I soon found refuge under a decrepit concrete embankment and dropped exhausted on the wet and grassy floor.
It took me minutes, if not an hour to get my eyes to open. The light was of a blinding white. With fear, I lifted my head to watch a dark grey sky looming over. Thunderbolts streaked across the sky like zebra-stripes. I closed my hurtful eyes and the roar of nature reached me soon after.
Living underground for years had deteriorated my eyesight. It also forced ponies to reconsider the concept of sunlight. After all, who wanted to live outside anymore? Life there was impossible.
Sucking in the fact that I was far away from the city’s safety, jolts of adrenaline burst in my chest.
Febrile, I looked upward at the smashed open vent I had fallen from. It stood out twenty hooves above my head and extruded from a sandstone cliff that had no practical grip which could help me climb back up.
Outside and left stranded; two facts I had a hard time wrapping my head around.
White blasted through the air and deafness dizzied me. When I opened my eyes again, a nearby tree had exploded to smithereens. Flames devoured the bleached-white trunk, throwing deep shadows crawling on the surroundings.
Endless rows of dead trees of the same white dissimulated the horizon. Above all, a bubbling fog obstructed my sight past a hundred yards at most, melting sky and earth together.
While adrenaline filtered through my brain, I contemplated the fact that I hadn’t been outside for years. It was a raining day and, without a doubt, a perfect day if you had asked somepony a long time ago.
For me though, rain hadn’t stopped for twenty long and deadly years.
Equestria was gone.
The diarchy? Gone.
All semblance of comfort and safety? Gone all together.
Civilisation? Surviving behind cages.
I was only two years old when the Deluge began. To this day, I kept no recollection or memories from that time except some wild, colourful dreams. Of course, the city’s elders loved repeating over and over nostalgic stories of the glorious past. If those bored fillies to death, let’s not start with the history books my city had printed for the school.
Raven-Flank was my city’s name. It was one of the last equine cities that still survived the wasteland… murkyland that once was Equestria. We took refuge deep underground twenty years ago. When we had collected everything we could, mother told me, we locked ourselves behind thick concrete walls. There, we thought that rain couldn’t reach us. We were wrong.
The world shook and trickles of wet dust fell on my muzzle. First inaudible, a grunt rose to a heart-sickening litany. A grave growl echoed in the distance, far beyond the veil of fog. I tried to hide under my improvised cover and shrunk on my hooves. That litany came back and forth like a heartbeat… like a slow march.

In the earth’s bowels we despaired behind closed doors,
For we knew that the outside was not for ponies anymore

The verse I had once read in a book which name I had forgotten popped back in my memories. My heartbeat upped a notch and my erratic breath pained my ribcage.
The fog buzzed, rolled, and transformed. I watched with horror a shadow crawl below its surface. Skeletal, black, and immense, and crooked, it went by fast –fast enough that I questioned my trust in my eyes. Like a fin surfacing the water, the shadow returned for a split second, and set ablaze fear in my heart. The growl came louder and, to my dismay, closer.
The nature of the thing I saw... I refused to guess about it. 'The fog hid everything away from sanity' I remembered the mayor saying. Rejecting reality couldn’t erase the cold sweat running down my back though.
The rain had not been alone in bringing down our world. With the deluge had come other unequine entities.

Something lurks beyond the veil, fillies,
So behind wielded vaults hide and don’t seek,
In fear it catch you, sillies

The school memories where a remorseful old buck had lectured us on the outside’s deadly reality rushed back. With those painful moments knocking in my mind in larger numbers, I tried to squeeze myself deeper in the mud. Covering my eyes, I listened to the song of rain hitting the ground and washing it away. What had once been a forest had become a dead, rotten swamp. And I wasn’t alone. Nopony was alone outside, ever.
A bird sang nearby, jolting me out of my petrified comatose. Small and rachitic, the bird had lost its colours. As grey as the swamp itself, the petite creature chirped and tweeted. In starts and jerks, the bird hopped and turned on its branch. I watched in silent, fascinated to see that life stiff existed up above. I was happy to have something that could relieve me from stress, even for a second.
Sharp obsidians stumbled out of the fog, snapped, and gobbled up the grey nightingale.
High as a tree, a reptilian rock gulped down the prey and roared. The creature’s back ran with sprouting plates of granite and the joints of its stone scales glowed a dull green. It then turned its head in my direction.
A rockodile.
The monster rushed at me. Fear struggled in my legs. I screamed and leaped aside, hearing its large legs battling against the muddy ground as it gave way under the beast’s weight.
It bought me seconds. The beast crashed against the cliff where I had took refuge. The shattered slope crashed down in boulders over the beast and the vent I had fallen from disappeared, broken.
Scrambling forward, I swam in the sludge that covered my way out. The algae that had grown over the ground wrapped around my legs and hindered my run. Behind me, the rockodile howled, turned, and charged. In its violent surge, the beast nudged me forward with its gargantuan muzzle and threw me in the air. Thrust away, I hit a tree in a murky splosh and slid off its whitish bark. My head landed on a rock and I staggered to stand up.
There was nowhere to go but I ran. I had lost my tools, my wrench, and everything else. I had dropped my radio. Something hit me, a thought I cast away in fear: The rockodile was too small to be the creature that had pierced through the fog.
I swooped through the dead forest, jumping from slippery stone to another. I was able to put some distance between me and the monster while it growled in anger, destroying the trees that separated it from me.
I found my way to a large clearing. Straight and stretching far beyond the fog, it looked like a river that had spilled over. The rockodile smashed a tree a few throws behind me. Whining, I jumped away.
I stretched my hooves to steady my river landing. I was ready to dive and swim as fast as I could.
My hooves hit rocks less than a head below the water. Something cracked around my right frontleg kneecap and I fell on the side.
Stunned, I prodded the hidden ground below the water surface with my valid hoof. I felt many rectangular-shaped rocks.
This wasn’t a river. It was a road; an old, paved boulevard swallowed by nature years ago. I looked all around me and fear struck my heart. I had no hideout in my reach, nowhere to hide. I couldn’t even crawled under the water. The layer was too thin. I was dead.
I rolled over and saw the rockodile. Standing above me with a maw drooling murky green sludge, its foul breath crawled over my nose. My heart came to a halt and colours drained off my face. I was, indeed, dead.
The snapping maw never came. The rockodile lifted its heavy head, sniffed the wretched air, and grunted. The earth shook and the frizzle of a hellish fire rolled over in the distance, getting nearer and nearer. Something ominous was coming.
The rock-armoured beast whined and ran away in the cover of the dead forest. Only then did the hurricane burst out of its hiding spot. Leaving a wide, billowing hole through the fog, a metal monster fenced above my head like one gigantic, rushing bullet.
Let there be silent, I thought, as air leeched away from me, swallowed behind the steel canonball. My head snapped back as if somepony had bitten on my mane. Clawed away in the trail of the racing engine, water blasted away from the ground in countless drops and flying puddles.
Sounds rushed back to my buzzing ears, booming like many explosions. Heat washed over my face and only then an invisible force tore me off the ground.
I felt like butcher hooks had sunken into my back skin and, though I had no wings, I flew.
Screeching roared over the flooded road from which the water had fled in a blink of an eye. Landscape snapped pas me in a blur and I landed in a loud, squishy thump. Rolling over, my body took a sudden halt in a gruesome and methane-scented pond.
Steam decompressed from many pipes and pistons. To the violent hissing joined a sudden mass of water. Rain rushed back to the ground and with it, the Deluge’s cacophony claimed back its rightful place in this world.
An amp cracked up to life and a voice called out to me.
“You okay over there?” said a digitalized voice, definitely the one of a mare.
I rolled my head over, my neck cracking in the process, and lay my eyes above a beast. Fullmetal, mat as one dark grey stone, an elongated vehicle hovered at a couple of hooves above the ground. Sending ripples on the water below, its engine wubbed, passive and slow. Steam whistled and dissipated in the cold rain above the fuming hood of the flying cart. Two long red stripes traversed the engine, from bumper to spoiler, circling around a glass cockpit. A speaker hid under the carbon-coloured frame, right above one cooling vent. The whole looked like an arrow type, thin, sharp, ready to fend through anything, from air to granite and concrete.
“You’re okay…?” the voice trailed over. “It’s not that but I’ve got a problem a bit further back, you know. I don’t wanna have a skunk catching me anytime soon. Neither do you, I think.”
Febrile, I stood up on my hooves and climbed over the hood of the vehicle. The mare inside the machine smirked and, I had no doubt, gave a nod behind her dark-tinted cockpit glass.
“Don’t worry, lad,” the mare boomed over her interphone. “The city’s door ain’t not that far.”
As I clung onto the bolide, misty air brushed in my mane. I was flying. Not for long though as the door was already in sight after a minute faring along the dead forest. That door… A one meter thick piece of steel that stood for over five storeys. I knew it well.
“Transporter matriculate number one-two-one ‘o nine, request access,” the mare said.
The mare was a transporter. One of the ponies that dared face the outside and link the cities together like business logisticians. Meeting one was an occurrence, but owing your life to one? That’s more than luck.
My legs trembled and I couldn’t stop my hooves from shivering, clattering over the metal hood. My mind reeled and my eyes rolled as exhaustion wracked my muscles. I wanted in and knowing that I was going to leave behind the outside rejoiced me. I was safe, safe… safe.
The massive vault’s door creaked and started rolling on its two-decade old pony-sized hinges. Though the cockpit of the transporter’s ride was thick, I heard a voice traverse a speaker and the glass.
“Access granted. Opening of Raven-Flank’s northern door engaged,” said the operator. “Welcome home, Scootaloo.”
And so forth we entered the city. Swallowed in the penumbra inside, I finally entered the place I had grew up in with a smile. Raven-Flank was where I expected to spend my days in, till the end, away from the worries of up above. The deadly outside.

2014 project - Post-Apocalyptic Ponyville - 1

Chapter 1.

I remember a slim unicorn mare calling out for me. Her brown mane was waving in the golden of the morning with the sun shining over its yellow streaks.

“Oh, here you are!” the mare growled, making me dunk my head between my shoulders. “You know I hate it when you run outside.”

“Mooooom,” I complained as she lifted me off the grass.

“Tut-tut,” she countered, dragging me back home. “We aren’t in Canterlot here. It’s dangerous.”

“But mooooom,” I muttered. “Father told me sun chase baddies!”

The sun would keep harm at bay, my father had told me. I didn’t know at that time what ‘at bay’ meant but I was okay with it. Pouting, I looked up at the warm orb hanging in the sky. The sun was there every day and always on time.

“And what will you do when the blazing sun is gone?” she huffed.

I didn’t know. The sun couldn’t disappear, right?

* * *

Lying on my back in a narrow and inundated tunnel, I woke up to a foul smell clogging my lungs. Cold water soaked me to the bone, creeping into my ears and over my eyes; muddling my senses with its intense and unending bubbling.

I cried for help in the air duct and jumped to my hooves. My head smashed against the low ceiling and sent me tumbling. Dizzied, I sank back into the water and was quickly dragged away.

Bleeding and twitching, I tried to hook myself on anything sticking out of the walls while I slid through the vent for Celestia knew how long.

A wave of relief finally washed over me only when the torrent started to ebb, letting me stand back up. As the widening air duct took a sudden turn to the right, I peered over the corner and set my hoof on a small metal embankment spared from the freezing water. With a grunt, I climbed over the slab.

I hadn’t sat yet that a fit of wracking coughs forced me to lay paralysed on the floor. A strange feeling was gnawing at my crawling skin, like ants scurrying beneath it. Blood rammed through my temples while my chest begged for air.

Curled into a ball, hushing my body’s cry for space, I took in the shape of my surroundings at the tip of my shaking hooves. Metal shards covered the ceiling, cutting deep clumps into my mane as I crouched below it.

A violent rumble tore through the wall, a breeze blew over my face, and a wave of mud blasted through the vent. The tidal force submerged me whole and swept me away.

Prey to the raging water, my head hit a torn up sheet of metal and a white-hot pain shot through my eyes. Murk rolled down my throat and silenced me.

Coughing icy mud, I sunk deeper into the pitch-black throat of an underground giant. While a coppery taste filled my mouth, weakness set in and my eyes rolled.

* * *

I remember.

“Dad? You okay,” I whimpered as I grimaced at his weirdly bent leg.

“Hey, Listen,” Father rasped, forcing me closer with a sweep of his shaky hoof. “We’re going to play a game, okay?”

“Oh, I love playing!” I answered.

He gave a short and huffed laugh and sponged the heavy drops of sweat that rolled off his forehead with the back of his hoof.

“Okay, sweetie. You listen very clearly,” he insisted between two breaths.

“You okay?” I mumbled.

“Yes, yes… don’t interrupt me. Where was I?” he trailed on, letting silence set in. “Ah, yes… There is just one rule. You stick up with Mom. You don’t leave her… You don’t walk away. You never lose… her. Understand?”

I nodded but quickly stopped. I couldn’t bear his glassy eyes locked on me. They were big and black, empty… like the well in the garden. We had only one well though.

“But why?” I sniffed. “Mom can’t get lost… She can?”

He closed his eyes and sighed. I was impatient to go back to Mom, and he was very slow. So slow. Daddy was never slow. It was always annoying when he walked fast… So why was he slow!?

“Yes,” he told me. “You have to make sure she doesn’t get lost. You follow her and watch she doesn’t make mistakes.”

I pouted.

“What do I get if I win?” I asked.

Thunder boomed above our head and I hid between my father’s strong legs. He looked up and stared hard at something. Rain started to fall while the menacing clouds that filled the sky grew blacker.

“Son?” Father warned.

“Yes?”

“Run,” he ordered.

I didn’t move at first.

“Please, run,” he growled at me.

Again, I didn’t move and he kicked me.

“RUN!” he shouted. “FIND MOM! OR I’ll WHOOP YOUR ASS!”

I remember I ran. And I remember I cried.

* * *

I flailed as I couldn’t anchor myself on a grip in the vent. Shivers crawled down my neck. My mouth wanted to open. My brain tried to force me to breathe... but I wanted to live. Mud was rolling at the back of my throat. My screams? Nothing but bubbles out of my lungs.

I was shaking, throwing my hooves around me as my vision grew darker. I met a sudden lack of water resistance. Instincts kicked in and I pierced in an air pocket.

I drew one rasped breath that went down my throat like sand paper. A scream died in me and I swerved, fighting to escape the sucking current. My shoulder banged against the frame of a small diversion in the air duct built right above my head. I grabbed the edge, crawled into the narrow bypass, and collapsed.

Curled up and sobbing with the cold air biting through my wet fur, shivers wracked through me. I was exhausted and bleeding, and the darkness around me cut me off from any potential landmarks. But I was out of the water. I was safe. So finally safe.

“… V-…!” a syllable clicked out.

A white noise spurred in the tight vent, triggering a short but disheartening shudder along my back. I looked down and saw a red eye glaring straight into my soul. A trickle of sweat rolled against my cheek and I gulped.

“VOX!” a voice barked, shaking me out of shock.

As the voice died with static, I lay my eyes on a tiny metal box strapped to my belt along with some tools and a monkey wrench. A few seconds spanned before I scrambled to the device. Trying to unclip the contraption, my hoof slipped and smashed the diode into dust.

“Vox, answ-er …e!”

I had the com-link at the tip of my hoof. Careful as I prodded its contours, I found the side button. My heart beating wildly, I switched it on and spoke.

“Vox reporting,” I croaked, trying to spit away the taste of spoiled mud on my tongue. “I’m… here.”

“Vox, where were… Wh-… are you?” the same female voice cried, barely audible. “It’s been… five hou... I can’t reach... well.”

“Five hours…?” I gargled out worried laugh, nearly punched myself to wash away the fog that shrouded my memories. “I’m at… I… around…”

I hesitated and looked around. I contemplated darkness, bathing me in quasi-silence. Only the discordant song of the nearby water churned in the vent.

“I’m lost,” I said to whoever was listening. “Do you copy?”

I switched the item on and off, hoping it was a joke. The joyful ‘gotcha!’ I dreamed about never came. As I hung my head low, static noise was my only confident. The voice never came back.

I screamed and threw the device away.

With my head between my hooves, my long sigh was only covered by the soft rustling dust crawling on the outside of the vent. A fine stream of murk dripped on my muzzle from a slit in the ceiling.

“Somebody’s there?” I whispered.

The walls crisped with a loud metal screech. Choking on the dust cloud that quickly rolled in my section of the vent, I pushed myself back to my hooves and hurtled deeper in the tunnel.

Biting on whatever could help me move faster, I got tripped up by the methane stench that spoiled my claustrophobic world. Bile churned in my stomach and my chest burned all the same.

Thunder roared… Thunder roared…

That faint and distorted rumble echoed to my ears. A few seconds passed before I was convinced it was real. Relief washed over me as it had never done before. I had a direction.

I dug my way forward with my monkey wrench held tight in my mouth. With nothing, nor a lighter or a horn to light my path, I just kept running and ploughing through spider cobwebs, hoping that I wouldn’t race head-first into a wall.

I never met the wall; a hidden pit though…

I smashed against the sides of the vent. I barrelled through a rusty and patched-up fence barring the way, rolled down, and crashed against a dead-end as the vent became horizontal again.

Breathless, I shuddered in pain mere seconds before the sound of breaking screws rang in my ears. Weightlessness took hold of me and my fall ended when my right side crashing against something wet and squishy.

* * *

I remember the screams of the fathers and mothers. I remember the cries of the fillies and colts like I was once.

“Mom? Why do they push the ponies away?” I asked, tugging at my mother’s very rough wool cape under which I hid.

Nothing.

“Mom? Why are they crying?” I insisted, tugging harder.

Nothing.

“Mom? Why are you crying?” I mumbled, letting the cape fall over my muzzle.

Nothing…

“Mom…?” I whispered. “Where is daddy?”

Again, nothing. Nothing. Just nothing…

“Next!” a guard in a dull armour shouted.

Mother nudged forward with her foreleg and we stood in front of a desk; three planks nailed together.

“We request an access to the stronghold,” Mother urged.

The guard stood over the improvised desk and looked down hard at me as I lifted Mother’s cape. With a low growl and biting his lower lip, he went back to her.

“M’am, you ca… You’ve got nothing to pay for one entry. Let’s not speak about… two,” he muttered. “Understand, it does me as much pain as you but…”

“Bullshit!” Mom spat, making me scuttle back under her cape.

“Mom,” I whispered, pulling on the bandage wrapped around her leg. “Don’t tell bad words.”

“You’ll need engineers to run the shit down there,” she continued. “You’ll need ponies like me. I. Am. One. Fucking. Engineer.”

The guard stepped back with his mouth slightly hung open. With dread, he looked up at his superior standing over two wooden pallets. After a long pause, the old, grey stallion nodded.

“Welcome, Madam,” the guard said, stepping aside after he had hoofed out a stamped paper to Mother.

“Thank you,” she said while tears wet the cape above my head.

* * *

Thunder cracked above my head, its rumble carried aloft by the breeze brushing over my face.

“My head…,” I growled.

Freezing rain battered my hide and its massive din filled my ears. Growling painful breaths, I rolled over my back and spent a long moment quasi-paralysed. Heaving, I gather my strengths and opened my eyes.

Blinding light plunged through them and jabbed in my brain. Shutting them close instantly, I yelped and curled into a ball as I held my head between my hooves.

Blind and half-deaf, I quickly crawled towards the nearest place where the storm was less intense. There, I slowly accommodated my eyes to the light, opening them to a slit over the course of ten minutes.

I had found refuge under a decrepit concrete slab sticking out of a sandstone cliff. The ground was covered in patches of wet grass where it hadn’t turned into deep, sloshing mud. It felt wrong under my legs. My hooves knew concrete and metal better.

With fear, I glanced up at a dark grey sky looming over the world like a lid. A streak of thunderbolts flashed across the clouds and forced my eyes closed. I breathed in and heard nature’s roar boom for the first time in years.

Sunlight was more of a concept after all and living underground had deteriorated my eyesight.

I sucked in the fact that I was far away from my city-state’s safety and, as I looked up at the smashed open vent I had fallen from, I saw that my way to safety was out of reach.

The vent was sticking out of a sandstone cliff twenty hooves above my head, and the cliff had no practical grip on which I could climb.

As I abandoned the idea of climbing back in the vent, I turned around and faced endless rows of dead white trees. As they hid the horizon, the stood beneath a thick fog that obstructed my sight past a hundred yards. The world itself was a grim patchwork of melted sky and earth.

White blasted through the air and I went deaf.

When I opened my eyes again, a nearby tree had exploded to smithereens. Flames were devouring the bleached-white trunk, giving out steam in the rain while the flames threw shadows crawling onto my world.

I hadn’t been outside for years yet nothing had really changed. It was a raining day, maybe a perfect day if you had asked somepony a long time ago. But for me though, that rain hadn’t stopped for twenty long and deadly years.

The rain had washed away Equestria, washed away the diarchy, carried away any semblance of civilisation, and eroded any trace of what ponykind life was prior to the Deluge. We had been pushed back into our strongholds where we survived behind prison bars we had set for our own good.

I was only four years old when the deluge started. To this day, I kept no real recollection from that time apart from some wild, colourful dreams and snapshots. Of course, the city’s elders loved repeating themselves like broken records about nostalgic stories of the glorious past. If those stories bored fillies to death, it was better not to ask about the aftermaths of reading the history books my city had printed for the school.

My city was named Raven-Flank and it was one of the last equine strongholds that still survived the murky land that was once called Equestria.

A roar shattered the relative calmness of the clearing and stopped. Then a growl grew louder, massive. My bones vibrated in unison as the complaint stretched into a heart sickening and unequine litany till it boomed into a grave scream that ripped through the sky.

I hide under my improvised cover while the beastly hum travelled back and forth above my head. A predator of an otherworldly size was lurking nearby, invisible, and I could only hear its heartbeat.

The fog throbbed and billowed. Clumps of clouds rolled over themselves and a skeletal and crooked shadow crawled below its surface. With widened eyes, I watched a hint slip through the fog. It was a bony fin; black, sharp, and polished.

The shadow sunk and never returned; only its growl remained. The hum rumbled louder, building up into one glass-shattering shriek before it shattered. An abrupt silence filled my ears; an ominous silence that only the thunder dared to break.

I was petrified, scanning the fog for any evidence of the being coming back. I knew the rain had not been alone into the initiative of bringing down our world. I knew monsters had joined the feast. I knew that so well. I just wanted not to believe in those things.

The school memories where a remorseful old buck had lectured us on the outside’s deadly reality rushed back to me. I remembered when we had been told the tale of the filly who got blocked outside. Ponies said the pipes of Raven-Flank had carried the scream. With those moments knocking up in my mind in larger numbers, I tried to squeeze myself deeper in the mud.

I listened to the rain hitting the ground and washing it away. What had once been a forest had become a dead, rotten swamp. And I knew I wasn’t alone. Nopony was alone outside. Ever.

A bird hopped on the branches of a nearby dead tree. After a pause it sang, startling me out.

Small and rachitic, the animal had lost its colours. As grey as the swamp itself, the nightingale – I think that was the name – chirped and tweeted weakly as I watched in silence, fascinated to see that life still existed up above.

Sharp obsidians stumbled out of the fog and snapped over the filthy bird. A maw went into full view as it shook right and left and gulped down the bird with much noise.

High as a tree, a reptilian rock stepped forward, emerging from the fog. The creature’s back ran with sprouting plates of granite and the joints of its stone scales glowed a dull green.

A rockodile.

The monster sniffed the air, breathed steam, and turned its head in my direction. Our eyes locked together and I felt my heart fall to the bottom of my hooves.

The rockodile’s massive legs shook the ground as it furrowed its way to me and its roar echoed in my bones.

I leaped aside with a scream and hardly dodged the attack. The rockodile’s large legs cut through the mudd as it tried to turn away and catch me under its canines. A weak patch of grass gave way under the beast’s weight and sent it bite the murk. The beast rolled over in its momentum and crashed against the cliff under which I had took refuge moments ago. The rock shattered and hurtled down over the monster in a cloud of dust.

The monster’s clumsiness had bought me seconds and I scrambled forward, swimming my way through the swamp. Algae had grown in the puddle barring the way. They wrapped around my legs and hindered my run. I had no time left to buy though. The rockodile howled behind me as it stood up. I heard it swivel and plough the ground in my wake. The beast jumped and crashed right behind me.

I bounced away when something caught me by the belt and lifted me off. Flailing and screaming, I looked back and saw my belt stuck around one of the rockodile’s teeth. The beast lifted me up and shook me up. My belt ripped apart with one violent nudge of the rockodile’s gargantuan muzzle. Sent flying over, I hit a tree in a murky splosh.

I slid off the tree’s whitish bark and ended lying on a bed of pebbles. Staggering to stand up, I saw my belt land in a close pond where it promptly sank. I had lost my tools, my wrench, everything. I had even threw away my radio away in the vent.

Glancing back, I saw the rockodile digging its way between the trees. I swooped through the dead forest, jumping from slippery stone to another.

I found my way to a large clearing. Straight and stretching far beyond the fog, it looked like a river that had spilled over. Hearing the beast creeping closer in my back, I jumped with a cry. Ready to swim as fast as I could, I stretched my hooves and braced for the dive.

I hit a bedrock hiding right beneath the river’s unbroken and brown surface. My right foreleg cracked and I fell to my side, sputtering the water that kept covering half of my face. Stunned and bawling in pain, I kept trying to force myself back up. Similar rectangle rocks lay aligned a couple of inches below the surface.

I was standing on a flooded road; an old, paved boulevard long swallowed by water. I looked all around me and fear struck my heart. I had nowhere to hide when the rockodile came into view. It stood above me with its maw drooling murky green sludge with grey feathers stuck between its teeth. Its revolting breath crawled over my nose as its head drew closer. My heart came to a halt when I saw myself in the monster’s glassy eyes; my face was colourless, bleached. I was dead.

A monster of alloy and steel fenced through the billowing fog, leaving a wide hole behind. Like a gigantic bullet, it flew over my head without a whistle to hear and ripped through the beast.

Air, water, and gore leeched away from me, ripped away from me in the trail of the steel cannonball. My ears buzzed with the sudden, overwhelming silence and my head snapped back as if somepony had bitten in my mane. Clawed away in the wake of the flying machine, water blasted off from the ground. Puddles flew away in thousands of twinkling droplets, eerie and silent. The machine’s shockwave finally hooked me in its trail and sent me flying.

Roaring fire exploded and heat washed over me. The world screeched as the landscape snapped past my eyes in a blur. I landed in a loud thump and rolled over.

I bounced on the hard paved road and the water that had cowered away from it rained back to it in one liquid wall. My whole body slapped against the ground and my ribcage squeezed like under a vice.

“You okay over there?” a mare said over the din of rolling steam and zooming machinery.

I turned my head and lay my eyes on a mat grey elongated full metal vehicle. Hovering at a couple of hooves above the ground, the passive machine wubbed as its bent jet engine sent ripples on the bed of water below.

Steam dissipated in the cold rain, rising from the fuming hood of the flying cart. Two long red stripes traversed the cast body of the vehicle, running from bumper to spoiler and circling around a tainted glass cockpit. The speaker the mare had used hid somewhere under the coal-coloured frame.

The whole thing looked like an arrow tip: thin and sharp, able to fence through anything from air to granite and concrete. The black sludge that marred the metal body and dripped over its edge was a testimony of it. Gashes and holes too big to have been caused by the recent impact covered the vehicle.

“You’re okay…?” the voice repeated. “It’s not that but I’ve got a problem a bit further back, you know. I don’t wanna have a skunk catching me anytime soon. Neither do you, I think.”

Febrile, I stood up on my still valid hooves and climbed over the burning hood of the vehicle. I heard the mare smirk through her speaker.

“Don’t worry, lad,” the mare boomed over her interphone. “The city’s door ain’t that far.”

As I clung onto the bolide, misty air brushed in my mane. I was flying. Soon enough, the vault door of Raven-Flank was already in sight. That door… it was always something to see; a one-meter thick piece of steel that stood for over five storeys.

“Transporter matriculate number one-two-one ‘o nine, request access,” the mare said. “Do you have a M.I.A.? I’ve just found a pone outside.”

That mare was a transporter, one of the ponies that dared face the outside and link the surviving cities together like business-ponies and unequalled logisticians. Meeting one was an occurrence, but owing your life to one? That was more than luck.

I shivered and couldn’t stop my hooves from drumming over the metal hood. I was so cold. My mind reeled and my eyes rolled over as exhaustion wracked my sore muscles. Knowing that I was going to leave the outside behind rejoiced me. I was safe, safe… so finally safe.

The massive vault’s door creaked and started to roll on its two-decade old pony-sized hinges. Though the cockpit of the transporter’s ride was thick, I heard a voice traverse a speaker and the glass.

“Access granted. Opening of Raven-Flank’s northern door engaged,” said a city operator. “Welcome home, Transporter.”

With the whine of the door hinges accompanying us, we entered the city’s hangar and were swallowed by the penumbra that reigned inside.

The place buzzed with agitation, covering the rusty whine of its massive vault as it closed behind us. I heard gasps and whistles as the poor state of the transporter’s vehicle came into view. Its steel alloy sizzled, turning the thin layer of water that covered it into steam. As the saucer slowly came to a halt, an ever-growing crowd gathered around it.

I was lying on the vehicle’s hood. Smoke rolled off my face, cooking the mud cast over it into dried, cracked patches that pulled on my fur in a painful fashion. I tried to tear myself away from the cart’s burning vents but cringed in pain; my right foreleg was definitely wrong.

A cry pierced the ambient noise and a pair of hooves rushed through the smoke. A firm grip closed on my haunches and dragged me off the fuming cart.

I fell and hit the hard concrete floor of the hangar in a muddy splosh. As I raised my head and begged for help, I stared into the disgusted looks of two dozen ponies. While my skin crawled with my glued fur, I lifted my dirty and shivering hoof. They stepped away even further.

Somepony called out for help over the din of the hangar and a mare flew to me. She pushed me on the side and dutifully prodded my neck, legs and hooves for hidden wounds. She scurried over my back and forelegs and sent me into a sobbing ball of muck. I gargled and arched when she reached for my left hindleg. I screamed when she bit down and I watched her pull out a long ivory spike from my leg.

“My alicorn!” the mare chuckled and spat a curved rockodile’s canine. “Where have you been?!”

That voice tasted of home. The mare bounced away and reached over for a bystander of the same sex and slit a long piece of fabric off her robe, earning an outraged shout. The nurse ran back to me and roped my bleeding leg with the improvised bandage. She called it a victory with a little yay.

Wearing a thin and strict white blouse, the pony doctress was of the cleanest white. A patch of rose mane fell behind her left ear in a long pony tail and only a few flakes of mud spoiled the side of her mouth where she had bit on the rockodile fang. She was a big smile; a snow-flake that slowly drew closer to my face. Her head turned slightly on the side and her pony tail softly brushed over my shoulder. I smiled and broke into a short and blissful giggle. She was so beautiful.

“Your shoulder and kneecap are dislocated,” she noted, arching a brow with a large smile.

“Uh?” I blabbered before a hellish pain shot through my right foreleg.

A slow shudder trickled over the top of my head and didn’t stop before it had reached my hindlegs. Pain dripped out of my shoulder without an end and I lay petrified on the ground with my eyes probably bulging out of their sockets.

While I wallowed in pain, the mare trotted to a nearby pond formed by a constant stream of droplets coming from the ceiling. She glanced at her reflection and dusted the mud off her cheek with concern in her eyes.

Looking back at me with her marvellous purple eyes, she softly bit in her lips and let them go with a pop. She opened her mouth but said no word. She scrunched up, filled her cheeks with air, and let it go again in little puffs.

“You’re okay?” she finally chortled. “I didn’t break you I hope…?”

I stared in silence at the ceiling, cursing the invisible monster gnawing my shoulder. The nurse grimaced and poked me in the side. Before she could break the relative silence, a loud hiss cut her off and startled the whole crowd.

I managed to focus on that transporter’s saucer. The vehicle was covered with scraps, nips, and gashes. Only claws could have done that; claws as big as my head, bigger than a rockodile’s.

The vehicle’s bottom had opened hidden hatches and landing gears clicked as they touched the ground. Its single jet engine singed at its far end vomited glowing jet fuel onto the ground in one large and fuming puddle. The white-hot liquid devoured the bare concrete like paper and fireponies struggled to contain the damage with their extinguishers. The vehicle rolled forward to a landing spot and gave a final breath of steam.

“Transporter, docking arms are descending, please disengage,” a speaker boomed above my head as the vehicle lowered on its landing gears.

The wrecked hood slit in two trapdoors that slid sideways, revealing a monstrous engine beneath. Massive air intakes were evenly distributed on the motor’s sides. A sheet of metal had been ripped off its top and I could see dozens of glowing thin fans still rolling inside.

From the dark ceiling emerged a massive mechanic arm that locked onto the front of the saucer and a second one came over the vehicle’s exhaust. Rolling orange warning light lit up and both arms blasted a foaming bluish coolant on the vehicle. A bluish and irritating steam that smelt of ozone covered the place like fog. Intakes screwed to the two robotic limbs switched to life and vacuumed the smog.

“Docking locked and engaged,” the voice continued. “Pilot, you can evacuate the cockpit.”

Everypony’s eyes narrowed, eager to take a first look at the transporter. Transporters weren’t an oddity in Raven-Flank. However, that saucer was in such a bad state that it had gathered every curious pony’s attention. What had happened on that transporter’s way to our city would be the subject of every conversation tonight. The reason of her coming could only be bad though and the mayor would undoubtedly be the first mare to talk to the mare. I was surprised she wasn’t there already.

The cockpit’s locks shattered and blasted ten hooves above the metal carcass. Ripped from the top of the cart and ploughing through the air, the remains of the rounded glass whirled and embedded itself in the middle of the crowd. It nearly cleaned off an onlooker’s leg.

A hoof pierced through the bubbling steam that filled the cockpit and an orange mare staggered out. She fell head-first on the concrete, absorbing most of the shock with her shoulder blades where small wings were quivered.

“Oh, Celestia!” a stallion cried out. “It’s Scootaloo!”

That mare, Scootaloo, was wet with steam and sweat. Her skin had moulded over her bones, her lips sleeved up above her teeth, and her long dishevelled mane trickled like a towel taken out of a pool. Even her landing spot fumed. Wires and cables jabbed in her legs still linked her to her flying cart and a headset was firmly strapped to her face, covering her eyes.

Past the moment of stupor, a hoof full of ponies rushed to the transporter’s side and instantly carried her away towards the hospital.

Looking back at the place where the orange mare had fallen, I saw blood – a lot of it. Each cable had a needle at its end.

“What the…,” the nurse mumbled while she stared intensely at the elevator door where Scootaloo had been evacuated. She turned towards a grease pony and shouted, “Was that flight scheduled?”

The earth pony lowered the notepad on which he was listing the damages covering the vehicle and locked his dark-ringed eyes on the snow-white mare. He gravely shook his head. With a sigh and avoiding the puddle of blood that covered the concrete, he went back to work.

The nurse pinched her lips and scrapped the top of her neck. She then glanced at me with a broad smile, showing me her perfect set of white teeth. She poked my shoulder and sent me into a crushing state of pain.

“Eh…,” she giggled. “Can you walk to the hospital by yourself or do I have to walk a big, meany crybaby?”

I grumbled and weakly rolled over. Standing up with a great effort, I hopped on three legs and fell. The nurse caught me up before I broke myself on the floor.

“Take it easy, boy,” she laughed.

Dragging me away from the landing site and away from the crowd, she called for two ponies to help me stand up while she left. She came back a minute later with a wheelchair and an armed guard at her side. He was asking questions and even glanced at me quite a few time with a surprised look.

The guard quickly motioned to the nurse to move on with the chair and went back to his patrol around the transporter jet. With the butt of his spear, he shoved away half a dozen ponies that had crept too close to the vehicle. Better be safe as they always said.

“Thanks,” I muttered at the nurse as she hauled me in the wheelchair.

I felt like I hadn’t spoken in years. Curious, I studied the contours of the jet. My jaw dropped a little when a firepony extracted a long flat plate from the cast of the vehicle’s body. Blood dripped from it. It was a reptilian scale. I shook my head and looked away back at the nurse’s face.

“Who was she, the transporter?” I asked.

The white mare didn’t answer me at first. She granted a condescending glare that hurt a little.

“You don’t know? It’s Scootaloo! She drives one of the most powerful Jetstream of Equestria! The Scoot I think it’s called! She… She is the fastest transporter alive!” she explained like it was such an obvious answer. “Well… the fastest after Rainbow Dash of course. Dash is a cheater though! She doesn’t even use a Jetstream.”

The saucers were called jetstreams, I had forgotten that. Big beasts they were, really.

“How do you know that?” I coughed, holding my hoof over my chest.

Something snapped behind my head and I squeaked. Turning over, I saw the nurse’s wings fully stretched. I hadn’t even caught up the fact she was a pegasus. I crooked over my chair, downhearted.

“I listen to the news,” the nurse mocked. “That’s the only thing to do here, anyway. Ponies are so tame there is usually nothing to do in the hospital.”

Well, I was going to give her work apparently… I just nodded though, afraid she would knock my head with her wing again. She bent down and talked in my ear.

“If you’re lucky, we organise stretcher races sometimes.”

“What?!” I sputtered.

With a big smile, she pushed me in an empty elevator and actioned some buttons that shook the machine alive. The rusty mechanism of the elevator cranked up and began its slow descent towards the deeper levels of Raven-Flank.

Raven-Flank had been built in a former mine, one of the largest in Equestria to be fair. Ten thousands ponies lived now in the city. Early on, the mayor had it divided in twenty levels – each one with its own purpose. The first level, the hangar, was the only one that wasn’t built underground. Transporters came and go from there and all our trade with other cities circulated through that hub. The hangar had become a pretty tensed place over the years. It was heavily guarded though we never had an attack in seven years. There, ponies always watched you, often through the scope of their rifles.

The city had grown over the years and the second to sixth levels had become the largest. Devoted to hydroponic farming and the meagre industry of Raven-Flank, this area was the workplace of more than two-third of the city’s inhabitants. It required horsepower, time, and resources to take care of our only source of food: indoor apples and daisy flowers. The oldest ponies always said it tasted like nothing compared to the food from before the deluge.

The next ten levels had been allocated to everything that was anyhow related to social activities: schools, atriums, a cinema, a theatre, and all sort of places had sprawled in those levels in twenty years. It was also where we had dug the most to expand our living space.

We had abandoned the seventeenth level though, filled it up in most parts and reinforced the structure with steel to sustain the weight of the levels above.

An underground river spanned through the eighteenth level. In the early days of Raven-Flank’s inception, the most savant earth ponies had set up turbines inside the flooded cave. Light was something most ponies thought granted and we often didn’t give much credit to how hard the maintenance team worked day and night. They deserved it though. Mother was one of them.

At that point, ponies had to change from elevators. The next six levels had been built far away from the city’s main body to avoid structural hazard. Believe me, if there was a problem coming from that decision, it was a traffic one. When night time rang in the city’s speakers, everypony always overcrowded and jammed through the elevator area and the emergency stairs. At least we had increased the number of staircases over the years.

Thinking about that recurring problem, I found myself pretty lucky that the hangar had an elevator available when the nurse had needed it. It was even more surprising that we were alone.

The remaining floors were accessible through a long alleyway built far beneath the earth. The rooms and dormitories had been set up there and everypony hated them. It was crammed, smelly, and noisy. Family quarters were rare and only given to families with young kids, the crying kind. It was why the mayor had lately began an expansion program that would grant personal quarters to everypony. The snarkiest ponies affirmed it had granted her re-election.

“My name is Socha,” the nurse broke in.

“Vox,” I mumbled.

“How was it?” she whispered right into my ear.

I shuddered and backed away slightly.

“How was it what?” I mumbled, keeping my wounded hoof against my chest.

The elevator pinged and its large door slid open to the eleventh level, letting a low light pour in. Socha pushed my wheelchair in an alleyway. The walls of the place, once been painted white, had degraded to a pale green. The obsessive cleanliness of the level contrasted with my filthiness; I was still buried beneath a layer of dry mud that flacked away on the way.

“The outside, silly,” she chortled. “You went outside, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer. My hindlegs shook as I stared into Socha’s purple irises. Standing high on her slender legs, her wings tightly locked on her sides, she looked at me with devouring curiosity. Her head cast a large shadow on mine and I couldn’t get to mimic the nascent smile growing on her face.

“You ain’t talkish today. I see,” she said with a note of disappointment in her speech.

I nodded as she pushed me through the level’s corridors. Ponies stopped their conversation when we passed by, lowering their eyes to avoid to look at me and pinching their muzzles. As we turned a corner, I caught a mare cleaning small stains of blood on the floor. As we rapidly approached the hospital, those became increasingly more common.

We finally saw the swinging doors of the hospital. The second we crossed them, mayhem broke lose.

“Bring me the pliers!”

“IVs en route!” another voice blared.

“We’re losing her!” a mare spat at her nearest assistant and missed touching him with the defibrillator she had in her hooves. “Bring me a zebra brew.”

“Are you crazy?” a nearby surgeon castigated.

“Fuck off!” the head-mare boomed. “Do what I said!”

The emergency room had moved to the front desk. Blood was spilled on the floor, fitting closely to the joints that linked the marble tilling together. It was a waltz of white blouses and faint turquoise outfits. Discarded tools had been unprofessionally thrown in a corner and the smell of cleansing alcohol and blood swamped the place. An E.R. pony had even taken a hoofstep back to gather his wit.

Among the havoc, I saw an orange hoof dangling off the edge of the front desk, a true chopping block at the moment.

That’s when I caught a glimpse of one pony out of place. A white mare was sitting on the farthest bench, resting her muzzle on her joined up hooves. Her large purple with streaks of grey mane curled over her face and nearly fell to her haunches.

“Mayor Rarity,” Socha gasped.

The mayor was overlooking the room in silence, not flinching or blinking, just starting intensely at the scene. She didn’t even threw us a glare to acknowledge our presence.

The head-surgeon flared her defibrillator on the orange mess lying on the counter and a flash caught my eyes off-guard.

“Reload!” the mare warned.

Socha bounced over me and landed like a featherweight next to my flank, blocking the view. With a forced smile, she motioned me away from the scene and dragged my chair and me out in an adjoining corridor.

“Sorry you had to see that?” she apologised.

“Is she going to survive?” I asked.

A flash slithered below the swing door that separated us from the reception desk. Socha grimaced.

“I trust the doctors,” she said. “Let’s go to the care room, shall we?”

With a nip from her left hoof, she knocked off my hide a patch of dried mud and exposed my cutie mark, plus or minus a few clumps of fur. I cringed at the sharp and located pain and backed away from the intrusive mare.

“Oh,” she pouted. “I expected something else.”

We both looked down at my cutie mark then shared the same distraught look. I wasn’t thrilled either. Such was the life of a pony with a stallion with a little bell and a coin stamped on his ass. Socha arched a brow. She was really unconvinced.

“So, what’s your talent?” she cracked as we passed through another door.

We stopped in a large room entirely tiled with white stones. She walked in front of me and took a closer look to my shoulder and leg.

“I dunno,” I shrugged. “When I was a colt, my class used to go play hide and seek in the hangar. We used a coin to choose who the seeker was. And the bell…”

Socha looked at me and gave a little nod and a chuckle before she circled around me and busied herself where I couldn’t see her.

“Well…” I continued. “If the seeker found anypony, he would throw the bell on him or her. It’s a mean kind of tag now that I think about it. Got a milk tooth broken once.”

I turned on my haunches, my sore muscles throwing a tantrum around my chest, and sought for Socha.

“And what are you doing behind me?” I asked.

“Well, cleaning you, of course!”

I faced the tip of a hose, held by the snarling nurse. My world became water as I received the shower treatment.

A minute passed, two minutes… maybe three before she shut off the hose. Panting and still seated on my now soaked wheelchair, I watched the last bit of diluted murk roll down the syphon built in the middle of the room.
I looked down at my right foreleg. The cold water had tamed the pain a bit but it still hurt.

“Come on, crybaby,” Socha teased. “It ain’t broken.”

“You could have told me,” I grumbled.

Socha rolled her eyes and tut-tuted me all the way to the patient yard. I was the only one here that day.

Socha helped me on a new chair where she dried me up with a towel. Shortly after she settled my forehoof in a splinter and helped me lie in a bed. The place where the rockodile tooth had bitten was not as damaged as I thought. It had scrapped a long but superficial gash and had stayed there, entangled in my fur.

Putting back a bandage, I finally felt like my ordeal was over. My head dropped on the pillow and I aimlessly stared at the ceiling. As seconds passed and the room became more silent, my eyelids became heavier.

The door slammed open, jolting Socha and me out of our growing numbness. Two doctors were pushing a stretcher to a bed set at the opposite side of the room. They counted to three and transferred the transporter to her new bed.

Covered in bandages, the mare’s chest heaved loudly, stretching on her bloody bandages. Her right foreleg was stung with five different tubes that reached out for bags of different colours and a gauze was wrapped around her head. At least she looked better than when she had exited the Jetstream.

Then I saw the mayor stroll in the yard. Keeping a fair distance from the doctors, she waited for them to walk away after twenty or so minutes before making a move. She crept to Scootaloo’s bedside, barely hiding her discomfort at looking at her long-time friend’s poor state.

“Scootaloo…” mayor Rarity sighed, brushing her hoof through the sparse deep purple mane of the transporter.

She turned around and looked at the two surgeons. She sighed, forcing both of them to slowly crawl back.

“Thanks for your inestimable help, both of you. I couldn’t be any more rejoiced by the incredible work you’ve made here. Would you kindly leave while I have business with our invitee?” She smiled. “I need calm and… anonymity.

The two doctors shared a short and febrile look.

“Please,” Mayor Rarity grew menacing.

“Excuse our boldness, Mayor,” one apologised before they ran through the nearest swinging door.

Hearing the mayor’s voice unfiltered by a speaker was a spectacle. Her voice was slow, like she was choosing each of her words with a grand care. It carried the weight of her wisdom and experience as our mayor of twenty years.

She was old and her face was marked by many sleepless nights. Wrinkles marred the sides of her blue eyes while small, black bags hanged below them. But overall, she had kept nearly all of her youthful beauty. I guessed the make-up help.

“Scootaloo?” Mayor Rarity whispered, bringing her hoof to the orange mare’s cheek.

The transporter burst on her haunches and took a long, distressed breath. Coughing, she extracted the tube going down her throat and spat peps of blood on her white bed sheets.

“Rarity,” Scootaloo rasped. “Rarity, are you there?”

The orange mare swept her valid hoof around, trying to find her startled friend. Mayor Rarity swept the sweat off her brow and trotted to scootaloo’s side. She caught the shaky orange hoof and secured it against her own cheek.

“I am here, Sweetheart,” the mayor answered.

The imperious tone of before had vanished, replaced by a gentleness that she had left to dust on a shelves for year.

“Rarity,” Scootaloo repeated with tears streaming under the gauze covering her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

The mayor gulped on her shivering hindlegs. Her lips quivered and her breath grew louder.

“Tell me,” Mayor Rarity prayed her to do, forgetting her formality. “I know I don’t want to hear that, but, please, tell me.”

With a grimace, mayor Rarity went to hug the wounded pegasus who lay her chin on the unicorn’s shoulder.

“Applejack,” the pegasus bawled, “she’s dead.”

Mayor Rarity’s hoof fell behind Scootaloo’s back and her head sagged.

“She’s been assassinated.”

A heavy silence fell upon the patient yard. It lasted until I heard a drip drop hitting the floor, a cry rise from the couple of mares. But it wasn’t Scootaloo’s cry. Socha and I didn’t move. We were hearing the mayor’s tears. The first one, I think, that she shed in ages.

“I think we shouldn’t be here,” Socha muttered.

I couldn’t look away though, it was like witnessing an old and worn-out emotionless mask of clay shatter on the cold, hard floor.

2014 project - Post-Apocalyptic Ponyville - 2

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

2014 project - Sons and Girls of the Badlands - 1

Author's Note

Badland investigation in rarity's disappearance.

2014 project - Sons and Girls of the Badlands - 1

Sons And Girls Of The Badlands

[ α Ω α ]

“What happened between you two?” I muttered, moving my paw from a hunched over Trixie towards a pissed off Twilight.

Both ponies were sipping the content of their dusty tea cups. My words earned me a thunderous glare from the princess’s dark-ringed eyes. With a grunt, she looked down and took another sip of the hazing brew.

“It’s a long story,” Trixie mumbled without any conviction. “I made mistakes.”

Twilight huffed softly, “At least the… Great and Powerful Trixie did get the memo.”

Trixie shut herself up in silence. Soon enough, Twilight rubbed her right temple and mused an apology.

“You did leave a bad taste in many ponies’ mouths the last time we saw you, Trixie,” Twilight breathed an explanation. “Understand that, seeing you here, I’m not going to be all happy and gentle all of a sudden. Especially in those circumstances. Last time I saw you, you got thrown out of Ponyville for your distasteful behaviour.”

Again Trixie remained silent, looking down at her backlegs.

“You shouldn’t say such words. Everypony deserves a second chance,” Mac chimed in with a rumbling bass voice. “Do you know where we found Trixie?”

Twilight frowned and raised her dirty face and with questions trotting in her mind, she glanced at the ahuizotl. She was about to speak when Trixie finally broke her own fortress of silence.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Mac,” she asked as she met his eyes for a second. “I… I’m not comfortable… I don’t want to talk about it. Especially with her. Please, Mac.”

Twilight pondered the bottom of her cup until she gave a small series of nods.

“Something did happen between the two of you,” Mac broke out with a rueful smile. “She must know what happened to you after she apparently… threw you out.”

“No…” Trixie pleaded with a shrilling voice. “I… don’t want to.”

“I understand,” Twilight clarified, lifting a hoof to calm Trixie down. “I understand.”

“No, you don’t…” Trixie murmured with a glimpse of a tear rolling down her cheek. “You don’t.”

The alicorn glanced over at her fallen rival. With a sigh she looked away. Avoiding Twilight’s stare, our light blue unicorn was sitting with her forehooves crossed. Her blank eyes were locked on the ground and her right leg slightly shook up. With the same compassionate smile, Mac leaned aside towards her and gave a gentle pat on her shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said.

“Onward to the edge, ma CRICKAH!!”

We all jumped on our seat. Some anonymous barflies even spat their drinks. Startled, we all looked down at the floor with hooves, paws, and hands over our hearts. There, a dark shape was rolling over and over, spewing, hacking, and grunting.

With a holed hoof stretched towards the ceiling, Kril was battling against some invisible monsters. With her eyes closed, she did some fairly good fencing movements. That’s when she instinctively went for her sword with a hint of changeling magic. We all hissed or cried out when she started whistling her edgy tool around, her eyes still closed.

Trixie rolled her eyes, lit up her magic, and lifted up the changeling. She unceremoniously dropped Kril on the nearest empty chair and dragged her closer to the table. Then she threw the rusty sword in a corner.

Twilight rose her eyebrows as the changeling mumbled, finally opened an eye, groaned, and tried to grab a pint of beer that had long been taken away.

“I’m thirsty,” Kril groaned.

“You should stop drinking,” Mac teased with a wide grin and a slightly loud and annoying voice.

“Fuck off,” she answered, holding her head between her hoof, then called out, “Barpone! Beer! Now!”

The barpony, a large brown and white earth pony, gloated at his faithful client. It was another line on Kril’s tab… and another bit out of my pocket. I sighed.

“Why a princess would come here, to such a shithole, to find a group of scrub-the-ground asses like us?” I finally asked. “What happened between the silky and goldly walls of Canterlot to get a princess’s rump over and out in the wilderness.”

Twilight chuckled dryly as she made her shoulder blades pop up.

“You are investigators, aren’t you?” she asked.

“More like mercenaries,” Mac answered before me with one raised finger. “But… yeah, we do investigations.”

With picky eyes, Twilight scanned Mac from head to tail until she diverted her eyes on me. Instinctively, she locked her eyes on the gun, now lying down the table top. Guns weren’t common in Equestria. It was a cruel weapon designed, built, and used by griffons or sand dogs for their own strives… not something meant for the peaceful ponies that lived happily behind Equestrian borders.

“Your name is Teeth,” Twilight broke the ice with purple eyes boring in my soul. “However, people knew you as ‘Shark’ when you worked as a broker in Manehatten a few years ago for a big private bank. You made a fair amount of bits by trading commodities excavated by the your kind. At least it lasted until you got caught in a tax evasion scandal and nearly got caught red-pawed. You fled from Equestria to avoid being arrested… along with sixteen million bits in letters of changes, stolen from your company accounts.”

Kril, Mac, and Trixie’s head slowly swivelled in my direction. With eyes devouring me with a barely hidden greed, they made me feel very, very small. I smiled awkwardly.

“I don’t have the money anymore,” I hissed through gritted teeth with my paw raised in front of me. “Otherwise I’d not be here.”

Kril threw her hooves in the air with a grunt of disappointment. Mac laughed lowly. Trixie simply looked sad. Money, it drives minds around, believe me. I was a good example of it. Meanwhile, Twilight stared hard at Mac who, I knew it well, was clenching his butt quite hard on our old sofa. The alicorn continued listing her gathered facts.

“Macuahuilt, you are a foreigner coming from the far-South who got thrown out of Equestria for digging gold out of state-owned mines… illegally.”

Mac raised his hand and tried to speak up for himself. Twilight quickly cut him off.

“You were also involved in a scheme to rob the Canterlot Central Bank.”

“Really!” Trixie, Kril, and I exclaimed.

I was quite impressed. I had heard the CCB had a massive stock of gold, silver, and platinum. It was from where the Diarchy’s wealth came from. The hoard was only matched by the Crystal Empire’s many gem caves. All in all, it was a story sand dogs shared around at night to get the pups to drift off to sleep.

“Not bad,” I giggled with an envious grimace cast on my face.

“Hush,” Mac grunted with squinted eyes.

As I dodge a slap from his tail, Twilight clacked her hoof on top of the ebony table, making Trixie’s cup jump up.

“But you failed because one of your collaborators set you up…” the princess continued.

“And the royal guard failed to get me arrested,” Mac notified with a large grin.

“Right,” Twilight said with a nod. “Still, you are a most-wanted back in Equestria.”

Trixie’s face was stretching down as the facts about how we ended up in that hellhole unravelled. I guessed nobody around the table was very happy wrapping out his or her past. We were friends, but we were also partners. Knowing one’s past was a powerful weapon, and giving out harmful hints to people for free wasn’t in our agenda. To be honest, we had agreed not to stir up the past. It was an untold rule of our group. Trixie had just jumped in the rushing train two months ago. Finally, Twilight’s picky eyes settled on a Kril. The fidgeting changeling rolled her eyes.

“Come on!” Kril blabbered as the barpony brought her the beer, which she grabbed and downed without any further ado. “I know the deal. I tried to overthrow queen Chrysalis after her disastrous tentative of invasion in Canterlot. And my own coup also failed. All the yaddi-yadda... I guess we, changelings, are bad at coups d’état.”

Kril ended her rant with a few rolls of hoof in the air. She really wanted to get over with it and it made Mac and I chuckled. Kril was always ready to get head-first in the dirty stuff.

“Well, I learnt something,” Twilight smirked.

Kril’s grey and green eyes widened and her own snarl vanished from her face.

“What? What were you going to say?” she cried out.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Twilight snickered, playing with the changeling hot-blooded behaviour. “It’s also interesting to learn that changeling drones have a gender.”

Kril’s temper violently chilled. She rose up on her seat and leaned closer over until her face nearly touched the alicorn’s muzzle. Her angry eyes shone greener.

“Eh, eh, eh,” I cackled defensively, getting a paw on Kril’s nearest shoulder and my face in between the two mares. “Let’s not get into a fight… again.”

Kril closed her eyes to a blade’s width and slowly sat down.

“I don’t like her,” our changeling brought forth.

“Me neither,” I approved as I focused back on Twilight. “But… Why did you come here? Especially for us.”

“As I said,” Twilight began. “You are investigators. You’ve made a name of yourself in the Badlands.”

Mac repressed a laugh.

“People around here are as dense as diamonds,” the ahuizotl dropped. “It’s not that hard to stand out.”

My paw pointed at him, I asked for some slient. Only after did I turn over and faced the Princess.

“What are you searching for?” I asked.

Twilight smiled at me. We were getting to serious business.

“Not a what,” Twilight began, “but a who.”
I frowned as she moved around. Her purple eyes bored in Trixie’s hide as her hoof slammed down on the table.

“You remember my friends?” Twilight said.

“Yes,” Trixie mumbled. “Fluttershy was very kind.”

Twilight didn’t answer to that observation. However, she left a single piece of paper on the table: a photo.

The mare on the worn out photo was surrounded by a mess of fabrics, needles, and mannequins. Her curly, deep purple mane shone under the light filtering through her window. Her smiling face did no hide the sweat rolling off her brow. She was at work and the light did outline the strain put on her. I’d have taken a bit out of the gems printed into her flank. A damn fine mare, if you asked me.

“Rarity, the element of generosity,” Twilight added for our attention, “disappeared two weeks ago.”

The four of us looked at each other as we started to really focus in the conversation. By the look Trixie had on her face, this disappearance was some kind of big deal. I knew about the elements yet it was more of a fire camp story for me than a rock-hard reality.

“How is this possible?” Trixie broke out first. “I heard about Tirek. You six should be… unmatched.”

Trixie had swallowed up her own pride by saying those words. It could be easily read on her face.

“I’m not finished,” Twilight geared up. “When it was clear she’d disappeared we called out for a search… We found blood in her home. A lot of it.”

A chill flew over our heads.

“And you found nothing?” Mac asked.

“There are teams of guards on the line, taking care of it. But it takes far. Too. Long.” She spat out.

“You…” Trixie stepped in. “You’re not here on official duty, aren’t you.”

Twilight stared blankly at the markings of the table.

“You’re right,” Twilight agreed just before she glanced at us with watery eyes. “I’m fearing that something really bad happened and… and… official stuff takes too much time to get sorted out.”

Twilight sighed and pushed back a strand of mane that had fallen on her face behind her shivery ear.

“I want you to find out what happened to Rarity. I may be an alicorn, but I am not omniscient or gifted with prescience. And I can’t be everywhere at once. I need pon… people who can handle a real investigation… without caring for laws, etiquette, and procedures.”

“How much are you going to pay us for such a… dangerous service?” Mac finally asked the most important question.

“I’ll erase your cases,” Twilight said, throwing at us a bone we could avidly chew over. “You’ll be as clean and white as a new-born sheep. You’ll be able to go back to Equestria. Go back to your original lives. Evade the dirt and horridness of the Badlands.”

We all looked at each other. Though Mac and I were quite happy with such a deal, Kril was definitely not going to agree. Her ass shaking on her seat, she was mustering some mean words of her own cru.

“I’ll also pay you,” Twilight added.

“How much?” Kril avidly asked.

“Set your price,” Twilight grinned haughtily.

“Oh, beauty,” Kril laughed, “you’re playing with fire right here.”

While a wild banter began, Mac and I leaned over the table.

“You sure about it?” he asked me.

2014 project - The Tombstones and Barbed Wires - Prologue

Prologue. The Letter

_____________

Dear Princess Celestia,
I’ve spent many years living, learning and growing under your aegis, discovering the world alongside my dearest friends. I’ve always been happy and I have found that I have never told you something that has been very close to my heart.
Thank you. Thank you for everything you have offered me since I completely destroyed your school. It was a long while ago but somehow it feels like yesterday. For the past four years everything has been going for the better: freeing Luna from Nightmare Moon’s influence, vanquishing King Sombra, fighting back Queen Chrysalis, even reforming Discord. If you had told me that I would overcome those hardships before I even left Canterlot, I wouldn’t have believed you. Those four years were the greatest I ever had, and for this: Thank you.

The fact that I became a princess is not even on top of my ‘best things to ever happen’ list, in between the existence of Starswirl the Bearded and illuminated hoofscripts, of course. I believe the greatest gift you have given me was the opportunity to befriend everypony I have met so far: Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, the CMC, everypony. I am so glad. Thank you again. I love you...

But… I’m also scared. Scared to lose them, you, everypony. What if something does have to happen, something very bad. As I grew up and bestowed upon myself and my friends more and more challenges, I started being scared. Scared that at some point, somepony, somebody… something will come and end up being too strong, too wicked for us all. I am undoubtedly scared of that kind of outcome. I would lose everything. I must be strong but being strong doesn’t mean not being afraid.

Princess Celestia, I’m sorry. He won. He took everything. Magic, Harmony, Life, everything. Every damn thing! Sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry. I was not strong enough to refuse his offer. I wasn’t enough. I lost everything. My friends, my home, my family. I feel like I am the one to blame. I feel like I stole everything from everypony. I am a coward. I abandoned them, and I can only be sorry about it. I am alone and he’s already looking over at the lands across the ocean. I see no future. No happiness. Nothing.

I tried to hide but it wasn’t enough. He found me.

I had a vision. I’ve seen far away towards scorched lands, black skies and desperate hopes. I’ve seen a light. But the darkness is overwhelming. There was a city. I’ve seen death, illness, despair, and yet, there was light. One light. I’ve seen something. Hope. Unfortunately, this flickering hope is not for me or to be expected from me. I am, by far, your greatest failure. Somepony else will have to take over the quest for Harmony far in those dark foreign territories. There maybe, there will be people to fight for what is right. There, I hope, will be somebody entitled to mend my crimes.

I don’t know where you are, and I hope you’re still alive. I am sorry.

I would have loved that my last letter was about rainbows and sunshine but… it will never happen. I hope Spike’s last flame will find you, wherever you are. I love you more than ever. If you see Princess Luna and Cadance, tell them I’m sorry.

Forgive me, please. I’m so sorry. Please.

Your forever faithful student,

Twilight

2014 project - Sons and Girls of the Badlands - 2 v1

Story

[ α Ω α ]

We stood in front of a massive marble building that bore the mark of the two sisters. As the night’s breeze blew through our furs and manes, we shared grins and amused looks. Two royal guards lay unconscious on the ground. Kril cracked a giggle and stretched her exoskeleton with her translucent wings buzzing with satisfaction. The changeling mare winked at me with her bluish-glowing eyes.
“The bodies? What’re we going to do with them?” Macahauilt bashed angrily as he pointed his finger at the first guard.
I eyed him big. He was noisy and we were supposed to keep low profile.
“It’s not like that they’re not going to wake up at some point,” Maca continued, whispering. “They gonna make a fuss. Leaving them just… here… it’s stupid, Kril.”
Disgruntled, Maca stretched his hand-tail and dragged the second guard closer to his fainted comrade. Ahuizotls made so great scoundrels and Maca was a benediction from our cunning, shining star. With his dark blue fur, he was hard to distinguish in the dead of the night. The moonlight that poured on the two yellow markings that travelled along his back was the only gave-way that he was here.
“Dammit,” Maca growled. “They’re fucking fat.”
Our little dramaqueen was not very sneaky.
“Let’s do a barbeque,” Kril giggled softly, rubbing her holed hooves together before she prodded the nearest guard’s flank.
Maca and I glared daggers at her.
“What…?” she defended, throwing her hooves over her cocked up head. “I’m. Just. Joking.”
Maca shook his head and looked at me with his eyes, starkly yellow in moonshine.
“Can’t you dig a hole and dump the two down the bottom?” he asked me.
I looked at my paws and stretching the claws out I grunted.
“I’m not a savage, Maca,” I spat lowly. “I may be a sand dog, but I ain’t burying ponies alive.”
“What are you doing?” a fourth voice berated behind us.
Kril, Maca, and I jumped up with a gasp. In an instant, Kril had reached out for her knife sheathed under her green belly and Maca had pulled a small baton from his strapped bag.
One pony was facing us, hidden in the shadow of one of the nearby columns that circled the building. We fall into scoundrel stance – which was a common street-slang for running away like chickens. We were tense.
“Come on. It’s me, idiots,” the mare hissed.
A light blue unicorn slipped out of the darkness. Her slightly glittering, purple cap was waving behind her as she closed in.
“Trixie,” Kril gargled. “Don’t do that!”
“You’re sitting butts,” Trixie scolded back. “What are you…”
She looked down at the two knocked-out royal guards and stopped cold in her track. She sighed and buried her face in her hoof.
“Luna…” she muttered.
“Does the Great and Powerful Trixie have an idea on how to deal with those two?” Maca teased back.
Trixie’s backside slopped in a thump as her bottom hit the ground. With a hoof on her chest, she breathed in and out slowly. I could even hear her heart bumping. It was her first time after all.
“Why did I agree to come?” she complained slightly louder than the whispering tone we had kept all along.
“Hey, we saved your ass back in the Badlands,” I mentioned with Maca agreeing with a smirk next to me. “You owe us one.”
The mare rolled her eyes and pouted.
“Hush!” Kril commanded as she pulled Maca’s pocket watch out of his bag. “There is a patrol every ten minutes around the building. The next one is set to come in three minutes. Remember the plan? Stick to the plan.”
I nodded and looked back at the two unconscious ponies.
“I…” I started.
“I have an idea,” Kril cut me off. “Help me out.”
Without a word, we dragged the two ponies away from the building entrance and left them beneath a nearby boutique that had been built on short stilts. Canterlot had such weird architectures sometimes. Who would build a house on stilts… on a mountain?!
After Kril had stripped the guards from their armours, she swiftly slid her hoof in my backpack and took one of my ropes.
“Make yourself at home,” I sneered.
She winked at me and began to lick her straight, black lips. I hated her when she did that, acting like she was all thug and stuff, landlord of our bags and shit… I sighed.
After she worked on the first stallion, tying him to one of the wooden piles, she drifted her attention on the second guard. She stared at the remains of the rope and her eyes narrowed. A wicked grin drew on her face and she chuckled. This time rummaging through her own saddlebag, she pulled out one single bottle… Whiskey.
“I’m sorry,” Kril apologised with some kind of deep religious respect. “May you find rest once life is drained out of ya.”
With a pop, Kril opened the bottle and spilled the content all over the two stallions. Then, she dragged the second guard, still untied and let him rest over his strapped comrade. Maca gave a short laugh. Kril was, however, still unhappy.
She looked at me, then at Maca. Finally she winked at Trixie who prudely grimaced and looked away, foreshadowing what was sure to happen. We shared Kril’s wide and smug grin as she took the empty bottle and stuck it up in the untied stallion’s manly flower. With such a job done, it was really hard not to laugh.
Meanwhile, the Royal guard patrol had finally reached the building’s corner and started walking along the massive stairs that led to its huge and pristine porch. Each scanned their surroundings with their torches yet they never caught up on the fact that guards had gone missing. Meanwhile we hid, enjoying our luck.
As we waited for them to disappear, I spent much time studying the building’s architecture. It was a massive five-storey high marble construction which colonnades stretched out all around it. It was that kind of classical era type of building I’d say, all majestic and pompous and probably a thousand years old. The tympanum, decorated with warmongering sculptures, sported three massive words: Equestria Central Bank.
“Sit on a dragon’s log!” Kril growled through her gritted fangs.
“What?” Maca whispered.
Kril had been silently picking out any items the guards had in their armours and equipment. She was definitely angry.
“The key,” she rumbled. “They don’t have it.”
“The key…?” I began, “… of the front door?”
I shot a look back at the bank’s carved, ebony door. Fuck.
“So,” Trixie initiated, febrile, “are we still going with plan A?”
“No,” Maca broke in the conversation. “We can’t use the guards to our advantage now. Thanks to Dire Teeth, here. Thank him and his heavy paws.”
My ears hung low and I sheepishly smiled.
“Sorry,” I mouthed.
“What do we do, now?” Trixie breathed shakily.
“Calm down first,” Kril brought out with a grunt.
She paused, breathed in, and looked at the stars hung in the sky.
“We missed the first opening,” Kril mentioned. “We can’t go through the front door anymore. We don’t have the key anyway. We can’t hack our way through; Teeth is as noisy as Trixie is egomaniac.”
Trixie and I tried to set the big-mouthed changeling on fire with our glares.
“I don’t want to go through the sewers,” Trixie whined after a long silence.
Kril shook her head, staring unfocused at the ground.
“No,” the changeling said just before her glowing eyes rose and locked on Maca and I. “I hope you like climbing.”
We both grimaced at the same time. I was okay to be standing up on a ladder, a chair, whatever… but climbing, that was a no-no.
“Clench yo butts, kids,” Kril said as she pointed at the bank’s roof. “We’re going for a ride.”
Kril smiled and gave Maca and I a small slap behind the head. We whined.
We… I. Hated. Climbing. At least, I had an excuse. I was a sand dog! And even though I was an educated one, I belonged to the underground. Walking on the surface still had me on edge. How could ponies or anybody walk up around there without a ceiling above their head? What if… what if suddenly we all started falling upward? Damn physics scare!
“Hey?” Kril called me out of my reverie with a second slap behind my head.
We had climbed up one of the building’s pillars. I had to lift myself up there with my claws deeply buried in the stone. It would have been easier if I hadn’t had a wiggling unicorn clogged up on my back.
“Damn you’re heavy, Trixie,” I panted, my head between my legs.
“Humpf!” Trixie pouted away, her chin pointing at the starry sky.
“So?” I growled between two breaths as I looked at Kril. “Why did you took us up there?”
“You’ve got pretty sharp claws, don’t you?” she asked me with a smirk.
I showed up my middle claw to join proof to the word. She nodded with that same stupid grin cast on her face. I didn’t like where it was going.
“Come with me,” Kril ordered.
As we followed, my glare wandered across Canterlot’s skyline. From our high position, we had a good view on the city. Similarly, the view on the castle was breath-taking and though it was very late at night, some rooms were still lit up. Somehow I missed how it was like… living in luxury. The four of us were hoodlums, outcasts… sometimes outlaws. We lived out of the derelicts of the society. But today, this all would end. We had a plan, and even if it wasn’t perfect before the sun would rise, we would be rich.
“If I remember the map we stole,” Kril thought out loud, “Here. Dig a hole here.”
Kril lifted one of the roof tile, unveiling the wood plank that lay below. With the tip of her hoof, she drew a small circle on it.
“Saw it off,” Kril ordered.
With my left claw buried in the wood so that the sawed-off part wouldn’t fall and alert anypony below, I unsteadily began to cut it out with my other paw. I instantly stopped and cringed at how noisy the process was.
“Trixie?” I called. “Don’t you have something for… the sound?”
The blue unicorn rubbed her right eyebrow, thinking about it. After a dozen of seconds, she dragged a little book out of her bag, opened it on the tiled floor, and flipped through the pages.
“I think I have something,” she finally answered.
After a few minutes spent trying and wasting her sweat, Trixie’s horn finally glowed bright and we enjoyed a short moment of nearly unaltered silence. Without a pop, I ripped out a thick, roughly round piece of wood off the rooftop. It was big enough that we could see what lay beneath.
We were right above a lit up corridor. The floor was littered with crimson carpet and the walls were decorated with paintings enclosed in massive golden frames.
“Give me some space,” Maca asked.
Taking a pocket mirror out of his own bag, Maca slipped it in the opening, holding it with his tail like only ahuizolts could do.
“There is nobody down here,” he concluded after looking at the reflection.
“Fine,” Kril said. “Do you see a window? I don’t want us to cut out a bigger hole in the roof. That’s a give-away.”
“Yep,” Maca replied. “But it’s too small for Dire’s fat ass.”
“Hey!” I boomed.
Trixie’s eyes widened as clanging noises broke out on the streets below.
“Somepony’s been roof-walking again!” a voice called out. “Don’t let that Mare-Do-Well fly away again!”
“Mare-Do-Well?” Krill wondered with a cocked-up eyebrow.
“Hurry up!” Trixie panicked, kicking me in the flank.
I resumed cutting out the roof, breaking the tiles that barred us access one after the other. I finally broke open a hole of Trixie’s size who swiftly jumped in and crashed over the carpet below. Kril followed up and landed right on the unicorn’s comfy rear with a giggle.
“Sorry,” Kril apologized as she dragged a distraught Trixie away from the landing position.
Meanwhile, Maca and I worked relentlessly to get a hole large enough for both of us.
“What are you doing!?” a new voice barked just in front of us.
Slowly, we both looked up and our eyes met the piercing glare of a pegasi stallion, wearing the tight Wonderbolt uniform. As we stared in silent at each other, he slowly reared up on his two backlegs and lifted his hooves above his head. Maca and I gulped.
Kril jumped from beneath. Propelled by her buzzing wings, she hit the stallion right between the legs. Maca and I cringed and gargled at the sight. The stallion didn’t even gasp. His eyes bulged and rolled over as he gagged with a bit of frothing drooling from his hung-open mouth. The pegasus slumped over and fell through the hole. His face hit first the carpet in a small thump.
Hovering with just her head hanging through the hole, Kril looked at us with a sickening and toothy smile. Maca and I stepped back, protecting our family jewels. She smirked and with a little gesture of her head motioned us to move down.
“Come on,” she cackled before she arched up one of her chitineous eyebrow. “Afraid to be geld.”
“More than anything,” I replied as I fell in the hole.
Maca followed behind.
“What are we going to do with the hole?” Trixie muttered. “It’s not like the wonderbolts aren’t going to notice it or…”
Trixie looked at the febrile and passed-out stallion slumped on the ground with a grimace. Kril was already tying him up, putting a bit of carpet in his mouth to keep him put.
“Or a missing comrade…”
“I may have an idea,” Maca retorted.
The corridor was lit with a long series of candles, throwing everything into a stark fanciness. Maca rushed around and left behind nothing but fuming, put out wicks. Soon we were drowning in darkness. I guess without lights pouring through, a hole was going to be less visible.
“Well,” Kril smirked, her eyes glowing like lamps, “I don’t know if you come with in-built night vision but I do.”
“I do too,” Maca added.
Trixie and l looked at each other’s general direction. At least I could see her outlines. Trixie however… that was another challenge.
“Eeh… guys,” I called out.
I pointed my claw at Trixie who had clamped up on my leg. Kril flew up to us.
“So, pupil one and pupil two, hold your hooves and do not let go. Would be a shame to lose you up on the way down to wealth and glory,” she mused.
I smiled, hearing Trixie sticking her tongue out at the changeling.
“Creep,” the unicorn whispered.
At this time of the night, the bank was completely empty. Only weary guards roamed its corridors. They weren’t a problem to be honest… The parquet however. It creaked like my grandmother’s rusty ankles and it had to creak all the wall down to the first floor. We were lucky though. One guard had been sleeping on duty. A second one was too busy humping the girlfriend he’d sneaked in the place. The third one wasn’t even a guard, just a simple accountant from an obscure treasury team, far too focused on closing his fiscal year to hear us creaking around him. All in all, this bank was a big cheese-holed pile of gold. Let us blame pacific ponies that have never known the wickedness of the Badlands.
At one point though, Maca had to choke out cold one guard. The unlucky stallion had been doing his own stuff in the toilets. He had unfortunately caught us red-pawed while we were putting out the nearby candles. His face when he had opened the toilet door had been a mix between panic, surprise, and unconsciousness... Maca’s large hands had done their work on him. We left the guard in a fancy wooden locker.
Though the bank had a big name on the front porch, we had expected it to be an easy target. It had been two hundred years since the last time somepony tried such a cocky stick-up. We were sure to break the tradition that very night.
“Hey, guys!” Kril called as we closed by corner. “Look at the beauty.”
Kril had found a massive mirror. Bolted to the wall on our left, it stretched all the way up to the next corner where a sign mentioned one among many staircases.
If changelings are mostly brainless drones, I can testify before a court under a oath that the one remaining percent of those mind-gifted insects do make it up in terms of ego. I buried my head in my head, trying to avoid watching Kril waving her belly in front of the mirror.
“I’m such a shame,” she smirked at me, “aren’t I, sweetie puppy?”
“You’re a walking embarrassment,” I retorted.
“Because I’m worth it,” the changeling cackled, throwing her messy, pitch-black and dark turquoise mane behind her horn and ears.
As I stood in the middle of the hallway, I let Trixie and Maca pass by me. The Unicorn had finally shaken off the quirks and shivers she’d experienced in the street. Though her cape hid the major part of her leather saddlebags, one bump in the fabric acknowledged she still had her hat neatly folded in there. Since she had nicked it up in the Badlands where we’d found her, she had grown very protective of it. I still wondered why she kept that cape, with all those flashy stars and all. It wasn’t a good outfit for a yet-to-be good burglar.
I laughed to myself… As if Kril, Maca, and I had ever been good at that game. At least, I hoped that would change that very night.
Maca called me out of my reverie and motioned to me to move forward. With his baton slowly clicking against his shoulder bag as only background noise, I looked at the mirror. I met my own yellow eyes, small between my large and furry eyebrows. My white fur contrasted badly with the crimson walls and carpet and my relatively small and anaemic build for a sand dog gave me a ghostly look. Maybe could I have scared ponies away for fun, who knew? I just wore a ripped apart linen short and my only possession was my loyal long and thin wooden box, strapped to my back like a backpack. I smiled; this sole item of mine had seen a good load of travel. Twenty years it had belonged to me.
“You’re alright, Teeth?” Trixie asked, making me jump.
“Yeah,” I lied. “Just checking on my health.”
Sticking a claw in my mouth, I stretched my cheek to see the bottom of my dentition. No tooth decay. Never had one anyway.
“Come on, then,” Trixie hesitated. “The stairs goes down to the hall. There’s nobody in sight. The vault is down in the basement.”
I nodded and followed. The basement was deprived of all the fanciness we had experienced above. The bland, white concrete walls were flacking away and only one corridor led to a one single massive, twenty-ton heavy, round-shaped steel door. The cherry on the cake? The was just one guard standing behind a metallic counter. Unfortunately, he saw us before we did.
“You shall not pass,” he said shakily, pointing his spear at us.
“Yeah, sure,” Kril mocked out loud.
The guard was pinned between the massive steel door of the bank’s vault and us. He had absolutely no way out. In panic, he reached out to something under his desk. Kril blasted forward instinctively and slammed into the guard. Both hit the wall and sent specks of paint flying aloft.
Kril shot a glare back at under the counter and screamed in rage. Dropping the shaken up guard, she kicked the counter over. Ripping its top, she revealed a series of cables that had been linked to a red button.
“Classic,” Maca growled.
“What do you mean classic?” Trixie urged.
“How long?!” Maca asked, not paying heed at Trixie.
“Five minutes at most!” Kril blared back. “Teeth, Maca? Get over with the door.”
We ran and clung up to the metal wheel that throned in the middle of it. Kril engulfed herself in bright turquoise flame and melted away into the shape of a big male griffon. Trixie had positioned herself at the entrance of the vault antechamber, spying for any sign of activity.
We gave three… Five… Seven turns to the wheel until a breath of air washed over our faces. Grunting, we dragged the vault’s door aside. When it was large enough to let Maca go in, we stopped and ushered forward.
“Trixie!” Kril called out.
“Nopony yet,” we heard back.

2014 project - Sons and Girls of the Badlands - 2 v2

Who Would Remember This Story?

[ α Ω α ]

No one ever disliked that kind of night, peaceful and devoid of life – the perfect bride of the weary thieves. I was cold, scratching my nose until I stained my creamy fur with a sneeze. The wind blew over our faces while my friends and I shared amused grins. We were standing in silence in front of a massive marble building. In its ebony door was etched the two sisters’ insignia: a finely merged sun and moon, leafed with gold and silver. I really struggled not to scrap the precious metals of it. I had a bigger and more worrying concern.

Two royal guards lay in front of us, left unconscious after Kril’s swift strike. The changeling mare cracked a giggle as she pranced over her victims, stretching her exoskeleton. Her translucent wings buzzed with satisfaction and she winked at me with her bluish-glowing eyes. I gave her a toothy smile before a deeper voice vented out right next to us.

“The bodies? What’re we going to do with them?” Macahauilt berated as he pointed his finger at the passed-out guards.

“Hush,” Kril and I growled under our breath, a hoof or paw against our lips.

We were supposed to keep a low profile and the wide stares Maca earned from us reminded him about that. We were counting time.

“It’s not like that they’re not going to wake up at some point,” Maca hissed at the changeling, switching to an ushered whisper. “They’re going to fuss all around when they get back up. Leaving them just… here… it’s numbskulled, Kril.”

Disgruntled, Maca dragged the two guards closer to each other. He was definitely hard to spot with his dark blue coat. In the dead of the night, only the faint moonlight that poured on the two yellow markings that travelled along his back did gave his position away. It was hard to forget he was akin to the ahuizotls, great scoundrels that roamed the lands beyond the Bad Lands. Maca was still bigger than anypony. At least his size had him looked less of a chimera in a room.

“By jove,” Maca growled, breaking the silence.

Our little dramaqueen was definitely not the sneakiest though. We should have had his mouth snitched before coming up here.

“Let us think,” I bashed back.

The ahuizolth closed his eyelids to a knife’s width and sneered at me, showing off his sharp fangs.

“I know how to deal with them,” Kril giggled with her shrilling voice, rubbing her holed hooves together before she prodded the nearest guard’s flank. “Let’s do a barbeque.”

Dagger-throwing glares answered her call.

“What…?” she defended, throwing her hooves theatrically over her cocked up head. “I’m. Just. Joking.”

Maca shook his head and looked at me with his glimmering yellow eyes.

“Can’t you dig a hole and dump those two down the bottom?” he asked me.

I looked at my paws and stretching the claws out. As a diamond dog, it would have been easier done that said. I may have lived up to the stereotype of dog dirtiness but I did wish I could outlive the one saying we were blood-thirsty ignorant…

“I’m not a savage, Maca,” I slurred. “I ain’t burying ponies alive.”

“Why are you doing here?” a female voice that was definitely not Kril’s called out with anger.

We jumped and swerved. Kril instantly reached out for the knife sheathed under her green belly. Maca had already pulled a small baton out of his strapped bag and I nearly grabbed the wooden box settled on my back. My fellow box had met some bumpy heads and earned dents along the way.

One mare was standing in the ominous shadows cast by the columns circling the building and holding up its imposing porch. We summoned the ancient martial style of the scoundrel stance, ready to run away like butt-clenched, fearful chickens.

“Come on. It’s me, idiots,” the mare hissed after a short pause.

A light blue unicorn slipped out of the darkness. Her slightly glittering, purple cape sporting shiny yellow and silvery stars waved behind her as she closed in. In the dim light of the starry night, she seemed to float all the way up to us. As the cape gave a final flap, I caught a sight of her saddlebags. The pony had especially emptied them and it made me smile.

“Trixie! Don’t do that ever again!” Kril gargled before she tensed and growled severely. “You were supposed to keep an eye on the patrols.”

“You’re sitting butts,” Trixie warned. “The patrol was nowhere around… I could see you even from my spot. What were you at…?”

She finally looked down at the two knocked-out royal guards and stopped cold. She pointed her hoof at them in silence and opened her mouth. No word slipped out. Instead she sighed and buried her face in her hoof.

“Luna…” she muttered as small shivers crawled down her spine.

“Does the Great and Powerful Trixie have an idea on how to deal with those two?” Kril teased with a rightly placed smirk.

Trixie’s backside slopped in a thump as her bottom hit the ground. With a hoof on her chest, she breathed in and out the slowest she could. It was her first time after all.

“I shouldn’t have come…” she complained, breaking her whisper.

“We saved your ass back in the Badlands,” Maca brought forth. “You owe us one on that heist.”

The mare rolled her eyes, pouted, and slumped her head in defeat.

“Hush!” Maca commanded as he pulled his pocket watch. “There is a patrol about every ten minutes around the building. The next one is set to come very soon. Remember the plan? Stick to the plan.”

I nodded silently and looked back at the two unconscious guards. We still didn’t know how to deal with them.

“I…” I started.

“I have an idea,” Kril cut me off. “Help me out.”

Without a word, we dragged the two ponies away from the building entrance and left them beneath a nearby boutique that had been built on short stilts. Canterlot had such weird architectures sometimes. Who would build a house on stilts… on a mountain!?

After Kril had stripped the guards off their armours, she swiftly slid her hoof in Maca’s backpack and took one of his ropes.

“Make yourself at home,” he sneered.

She licked her black lips and gave him a small wink. Maca grunted and sat, turning his back to her while his hand-tail gave her the middle finger.

After she had worked on the first stallion, tying him to one of the wooden piles, Kril drifted her attention on the second guard. She stared at the remains of the rope with narrowed eyes. A short moment passed by before a wicked grin drew on her face. Rummaging through her own saddlebag with a chuckle, she pulled out one single bottle. It was Whiskey, and not a no-name brand.

“I’m sorry,” Kril apologised with deep religious respect as she hugged the bottle. “May you find peace once your tasty life is drained outta ya.”

With a pop, Kril opened the bottle and spilled half of its content over the first guard. She then dragged the second guard over his strapped comrade. She finally spared what remained in the bottle over him. Maca gave a short laugh at the full sight and shook his head disapprovingly. Kril was still unhappy with her misdeed.

The playful changeling looked at Trixie with a haughty, playful look. The wink that followed forced a grimace on Trixie’s face. The unicorn prudely looked away. Kril’s wide and smug grin grew wider as she took the empty bottle and stuck it up in the untied stallion’s manly flower. With such a job done, it was really hard not to laugh.

Meanwhile, one guard patrol had finally reached the street corner and started walking down the boulevard. Each scanning their surroundings with their torches, they walked past the set of stairs on top of which we had taken out the two guards. They never caught up on their disappearance. Lucky as we were, we hid until they vanished by the next corner.

I looked back at the building, a massive five-storey high marble construction which colonnades stretched out all around it. It was that kind of classical era type of building I’d say, all majestic and pompous and probably a thousand years old. The tympanum, decorated with warmongering sculptures, sported three massive words: Equestria Central Bank. Reading those words somehow let me with the sour taste we had gotten far too ballsy.

“Sit on a dragon’s log!” Kril growled through her gritted fangs.

“Uh?” Maca whispered.

Kril had been silently picking out any items the guards had in their armours and equipment. Anger seeped out of her.

“The key,” she rumbled. “They didn’t have it.”

“The key…?” I began, “… of the front door?”

I shot a look back at the bank’s carved, ebony door. Fuck.

“So,” Trixie initiated, febrile, “are we still going with plan A?”

“No,” Maca broke in the conversation. “We’re going to take another way. I hope Dire Teeth, our dear leader, has an idea hanging around the back of his head.”

At the mention of my name, his eyes rolled back to me with a long deadpan. I pinched my lips, my ears hung low, and I sheepishly smiled.

“Sorry,” I mouthed.

“What do we do, now?” Trixie breathed. “I think we should bail out.”

“Calm down first,” Kril brought out with a grunt, putting a hoof on the mare’s shaking lips.

The changeling paused and looked at the stars that hung in the sky.

“We missed the first opening,” Kril finally opened. “We don’t have the key. We could hack our way through even though Teeth is as noisy as Trixie is egomaniac.”

Trixie and I tried to set the big-mouthed changeling on fire with our glares.

“I don’t want to go through the sewers,” Trixie whined after a long silence.

Kril shook her head, staring unfocused at the ground.

“No, we still need to clear the building in full before trying to hijack the vault,” the changeling mentioned just before her glowing eyes rose and locked on Maca and I. “I hope you like climbing.”

We both grimaced.

“Clench yo butts, kids,” Kril said as she pointed at the bank’s roof. “We’re going for a ride.”

With a smile, Kril gave us a small slap on the back of our whiny heads.

We. Hated. Climbing. At least, I had an excuse. I was a sand dog! And even though I was an educated one, I belonged to the underground. Walking on the surface still had me on edge. How could ponies or anybody walk up around there without a ceiling above their head? What if… what if suddenly we all started falling upward? Damn physics scare!

“Hey?” Kril called me out of my reverie with a second slap behind my head.

Climbing would have been made easier if I hadn’t had to carry Trixie on my back. Her wiggling ass was a danger to my balance. With my claws deeply buried in the stone, we soon stood on the bank roof.

“Damn you’re heavy, Trixie,” I panted, my head between my legs.

Trixie huffed and pouted away, her chin pointing at the starry sky.

“So?” I growled between two breaths as I looked at Kril. “Why did you take us up there?”

“You’ve got pretty sharp claws, don’t you?” she asked me with a smirk.

I showed up my middle claw to join proof to the word. She nodded with that same stupid grin cast on her face. I didn’t like where it was going.

“Come with me,” Kril ordered.

As we followed, my glare wandered across Canterlot’s skyline. We had a good view on the city from our venture point. The view on the castle was breath-taking and though it was very late at night, some rooms were still lit up. The four of us were hoodlums, outcasts… sometimes outlaws. There was no way we could understand the luxury that was lying up there. I sighed heavily. This whole city reminded me that we lived out of the derelicts of the society.

However, this all would end that day I had thought. We had a plan and even if it wasn’t perfect, before the sun would rise, we would be rich.

“If I remember the map we stole,” Kril thought out loud, “Here. Dig a hole here.”

Kril lifted one of the roof tile, unveiling the wood plank that lay below. With the tip of her hoof, she drew a small circle on it.

“Saw it off,” Kril ordered.

With my left claw buried in the wood so that the sawed-off part wouldn’t fall and alert anypony below, I unsteadily began to cut it out with my other paw. It was slightly noisy but by slowing down I could make it nearly unnoticed. Let’s just hope there hadn’t been anypony below. After a long stream of sweat spent on holing up the roof, I finally saw light below.

We were right above a sharply lit corridor. Its floor was littered with crimson carpet and the walls were decorated with paintings enclosed in massive golden frames.

“Give me some space,” Maca asked.

Taking a pocket mirror out of his own bag, Maca slipped it in the opening, holding it with his tail like only ahuizolts could do.

“There is nobody down here,” he concluded after looking at the reflection.

“Fine,” Kril said. “Do you see a window? I don’t want us to cut out a bigger hole in the roof. That’s a give-away.”

“Yep,” Maca replied. “But it’s too small for Dire’s fat ass.”

“Hey!” I boomed.

Trixie’s eyes widened as clanging noises broke out on the streets below.

“Somepony’s been roof-walking again!” a voice called out. “Don’t let that Mare-Do-Well fly away once again!”

“Mare-Do-Well?” Kril wondered with a cocked-up eyebrow.

“Hurry up!” Trixie panicked, kicking me in the flank.

I resumed cutting out the roof, breaking the tiles that barred us access one after the other. I finally broke open a hole of Trixie’s size who jumped in and crashed on the carpet below. Kril followed and landed right on the unicorn’s comfy rear with a giggle.

“Sorry,” Kril apologized as she dragged a distraught Trixie away from the landing position.

Meanwhile, Maca and I worked relentlessly to get a hole large enough for both of us.

“What are you doing!?” a new voice barked just in front of us.

Slowly, we both looked up and our eyes met the piercing glare of a pegasi stallion. The lad wore the tight Wonderbolt uniform. As we stared in silence at each other, he slowly reared up on his two backlegs and lifted his hooves above his head. Maca and I gulped.

Kril jumped from beneath. Propelled by her buzzing wings, she hit the stallion right between the legs. Maca and I cringed and gargled at the sight. The stallion didn’t even gasp. His eyes bulged and rolled over as he gagged, a bit of frothing drooling from his hung-open mouth. The pegasus slumped over and fell through the hole. His face hit the carpet first in a small thump.

Hovering with just her head hanging through the hole, Kril looked at us with a sickening and toothy smile. As we stepped back from her, she smirked and with a little gesture of her head motioned us to come down.

“What are we going to do with the hole?” Trixie muttered. “It’s not like the wonderbolts aren’t going to notice it or…”

Trixie looked at the febrile and passed-out stallion slumped on the ground with a grimace. Kril was already tying him up, putting a bit of carpet in his mouth to keep him put.

“Or a missing comrade…”

“I may have an idea,” Maca retorted.

The corridor was lit with a long series of candles, throwing everything into a stark fanciness. Maca rushed around and left behind nothing but fuming, put out wicks. Soon we were drowning in darkness. I guessed that without lights pouring through, a hole was less visible.

“Well,” Kril smirked, her eyes glowing like lamps, “I don’t know if you come with in-built night vision but I do.”

“I do too,” Maca added.

Trixie and l looked at each other’s general direction. At least I could see her outlines. Trixie however… that was another challenge.

“Eeh… guys,” I called out.

I pointed my claw at Trixie who had clamped up on my leg. Kril flew up to us.

“So mu pupils, hold your hooves and do not let go. Would be a shame to lose you up on the way down to wealth and glory,” she mused.

I smiled, hearing Trixie sticking her tongue out at the changeling.

“Creep,” the unicorn whispered.

The bank was nearly empty with only a few guards to roam its corridors. One guard had been sleeping on duty. A second one was too busy humping the girlfriend he’d sneaked in the place. The third one wasn’t even a guard, just a simple accountant from an obscure treasury team, far too focused on closing his fiscal year to hear us walking around him on the creaky parquet. All in all, this bank was a big cheese-holed pile of gold. Let us blame equine pacifism. They had never known the wickedness of the Badlands.

At one point though, Maca had to choke out cold one guard. The unlucky stallion had been doing his own stuff in the toilets. He had unfortunately caught us red-pawed while we were putting out the nearby candles. His face when he had opened the toilet door had been a mix of panic, surprise, and unconsciousness... Maca’s large hands had done their work quicker than I would have though. We left the guard in a fancy wooden locker.

Though the bank had a big name on the front porch, we had expected it to be an easy target. It had been two hundred years since the last time somepony tried such a cocky stick-up. We were sure to break the tradition that very night.

“Hey, guys!” Kril called as we closed by corner. “Look at the beauty.”

Kril had found a massive mirror. Bolted to the wall on our left, it stretched all the way up to the next corner where a sign mentioned one among many staircases.

If changelings were mostly brainless drones, I can testify before a court and under an oath that the one remaining percent of those mind-gifted insects do make it up in terms of ego. I buried my head in my head, trying to avoid watching Kril waving her belly in front of the mirror.

“I’m such a shame,” she smirked at me, “Aren’t I, sweetie puppy?”

“You’re a walking embarrassment,” I retorted.

“Because I’m worth it,” the changeling cackled, throwing her messy, pitch-black and dark turquoise mane behind her horn and ears.

As I stood in the middle of the hallway, I let Trixie and Maca pass by me. The Unicorn had finally shaken off the quirks and shivers. She wasn’t an outlaw like us for sure. Soon enough she will be one, though.

Trixie’s cape hid the major part of her leather saddlebags. One bump in the fabric acknowledged she still had her hat neatly folded in there. Since she had nicked it up in the Badlands where we’d found her, she had grown very protective of it. I still wondered why she kept that cape, with all those flashy stars and all. It wasn’t a good outfit for a yet-to-be good burglar.

I laughed to myself… As if Kril, Maca, and I had ever been good at that game. At least, I hoped that would change that very night.

Maca called me out of my reverie and motioned to me to move forward. With his baton slowly clicking against his shoulder bag as only background noise, I looked at the mirror. I met my own yellow eyes, small between my large and furry eyebrows. My white fur contrasted badly with the crimson walls and carpet and my relatively small and anaemic build for a sand dog gave me a ghostly look. Maybe could I have scared ponies away for fun, who knew? I just wore a ripped apart linen short and my only possession was my loyal long and thin wooden box, strapped to my back like a backpack. I smiled; this sole item of mine had seen a good load of travel. Twenty years it had belonged to me.

“You’re alright, Teeth?” Trixie asked, making me jump.

“Yeah,” I lied. “Just checking on my health.”

Sticking a claw in my mouth, I stretched my cheek to see the bottom of my dentition. No tooth decay. Never had one anyway.

“Come on, then,” Trixie hesitated. “The stairs goes down to the hall. There’s nobody in sight. The vault is down in the basement.”

I nodded and followed. The basement was deprived of all the fanciness we had experienced above. Shaped in a long and large alleyway, the bland, white concrete alleyway was slowly flacking its paint away. We weren’t assessing the design though. We were focused on the massive, twenty-ton worth of steel, round-shaped door that stood at the basement’s end. The cherry on the cake? There was just one guard standing behind a metallic counter next to the vault. Unfortunately, he saw us before we did.

“You shall not pass,” he shouted shakily, lowering and pointing his spear in our direction.

“Yeah, sure,” Kril mocked out loud.

The guard was pinned between the bank’s vault and our ragtag group. He had absolutely no way out. Giving way to panic, he dove and reached out to something under his metal desk. Kril triggered her wings and blasted forward. She slammed into the guard who fell short of air. Both hit the wall and sent specks of paint flying aloft. A small brawl followed as we ran to reach her but the fight was already over.

Standing above the knocked-out guard, Kril shot a glare back at under the counter, screamed in rage, and decapitated the desktop with a swing of her right hindleg. Though her leg’s exoskeleton did crack, she didn’t flinch. She just stared with a hellfire-spewing hatred at a series of cables that had been linked to a red button.

“Classic,” Maca smirked.

“What do you mean?” Trixie urged.

“How long?!” Maca asked Kril, leaving Trixie unanswered.

“Five minutes at most!” Kril barked. “Teeth, Maca? Get over with the door.”

We ran and clung up to the metal wheel that sat in the middle of the vault’s thick door. Kril engulfed herself in bright turquoise flames and melted away into one large male griffon. Trixie had rushed towards the entrance of the vault antechamber and positioned herself to spy for any sign of activity.

With beads of sweat rolling down our brows, we gave to the wheel up to seven turns until a breath of slightly fool air washed over our faces. Grunting, we dragged the vault’s door aside on its rusty and creaking hinges. When the opening had been made large enough to let Maca in, we ushered forward.

“Trixie!” Kril called out.

“Nopony yet,” we heard back.

I finally got a full view of the vault’s inside and I dropped on my haunches. The hall was empty.

“Fuck…” Maca said.

There was no gold nor silver. Nothing. Only rows and rows of drawers covering the walls were there to greet us. I felt played, cheated… defeated. In the background another vault door stood, nearly mocking at us.

“It wasn’t on the blueprint,” Kril growled, boiling with anger.

This time there was no wheel that would have let pass. Only a single hole inside an esoteric circle had been etched in the metal.

“A horn lock,” Maca whispered. “Trixie! Come back here!”

Trixie slipped in the vault room, trembling terribly from stress and fear. Kril flew out above her head, blowing her in her dishevelled light blue mane. Trixie’s eyes widened as she looked over the magical lock.

“I’ve never touched one,” she muttered. “I… I can’t!”

“Try anyway,” Maca called.

While they berated each other as Trixie hastily slipped her horn in the lock, I took a closer look to the drawers that completely surrounded us. The occupied every space available, from floor to ceiling. Each had a name written on a sticker and, aside from a very few ones, all their locks had dust on them. I looked over the recently used drawers and smiled. I praised the ponies who had designed such weak locks.

I drew a claw out and easily slid it in the nearest lock. Pressuring the inside mechanism, I pressed my other paw against the wall pulled as forcefully as I could. I heard a mechanic screech. Something fell and the drawer popped open, unveiling a block of paper sheets.

“Damn it,” Maca growled as he looked above my shoulder. “Ain’t no gold in here.”

I took a few sheets out and read flew through their content. Those were companies’ records, net income statement, balance sheets, cash flow statements. There were even a few unaudited minutes. I could have traded those to greedy insider-traders in Manehatten for sure; so sad I weren’t there at the moment. One paper, twice folded and sealed with a small red wax patch attracted my attention.

“Do you know what this is?” I laughed as my grin grew on my face.

“Ain’t no gold,” Maca complained.

“All gold doesn’t shine, Maca” I answered, scrubbing my furry chin. “This is a promissory note.”

Maca looked at me with a dumbfounded look. I shook my head and sighed.

“It’s a note payable. Companies use them to pay other business partners,” I said with a lick on my lips. “Those notes are blanks.”

The best? There were more of them inside the drawer. The pony called Filthy Rich was going to have a bad wake-up call from his bank in one or two days. I could guarantee that.

“We’re so fucking rich,” I cackled.

“I hear noises!” Kril shouted outside the vault.

“A minute!” I screamed back before I turned to face Trixie and Maca. “Take everything you can.”

I started shredding drawers open at random. We would sort the booty later. As Maca was shoving paper en masse in his backpack, not even caring about the integrity of his snatch. Trixie on the other paw was searching for known names so that I was not wasting time opening empty and anonymous drawers.

“Open that one, this one I think and…” She paused with a frown on her face. “This one.”

Many drawers contained wills and other useless documents that held no face value for us. Sometimes we befell on one or two old books and even one drawer had stored a sword. Trixie slipped as much things as possible in her bag with her telekinesis and she looked already weighted down.

The minute passed and Kril cried out for help. Maca reached out for something in his bag as I rushed outside. Trixie grabbed one last thing that weighted on her right side and scrambled in our trail.

Kril was facing five royal guards now pointing their spears at us.

“Surrender now, you criminal…”

Kril jumped and struck, leaving no time for the captain to finish his sentence. The hit brought him down and his head bashed against the tiled floor. His helmet had not already ricocheted that mayhem broke loose. Kril shrieked when a guard thrust his spear in one of her hoove-holes. Swung around like a flag, Kril crashed on the ground as the guard brought his weapon down.

Maca swept his tail around and smacked down the spearpony before he stepped over the spear head and breaking it off. With two guards down, the three other stepped back, at least until the only unicorn lit up his horn and shrouded Maca in a restrictive blue grasp. He fought back only to make the magical vice tighten.

It last until I took my wooden box off my back and smashed it in the guard face. The wood got a new dent, his jaw got worse. It left two guards up.

“D-drop your weapons,” one blared at us.

Kril zipped over them, propelled by her wings and dove. The guards, rushed aside and her hoof struck the ground, cracking the thin marble tile open. Kril cried out and fell on the ground with a sludgy green smudge drooping out of a cracked open hoof.

With Kril’s scream of pain echoing in the basement, I closed my eyes as her wails were like dagger jab to my ears.

Maca bounced and swept his tail under the two guards’ legs, sending them to scramble down. The ahuizotl scrammed over them and bashed their heads together like coconuts. I could nearly see the stars in their eyes.

“Trixie,” I urged, holding my ears. “Help her.”

Kril’s wails turned into grunts as she curled up in a ball, holding her broken hoof. Trixie rushed to her and grimaced at the cracked limb.

“I… I’ve never treated someling,” she apologised. “I’ve never treated anypony!”

“It’s easy,” Maca explained, rushing up to her. “Changelings heal fast but you have to make sure the exo’ is back where it is and is not slicing in the flesh.”

Kril threw some death threats at the two improvised healers. She screamed louder when Maca resettled an exoskeleton plaque out of her green and gooish meat.

“Guys,” I called.

“Sit on Chrysalis’ horn and twist!” Kril howled.

As Trixie hauled the panting changeling, they turned and joined my stand-off with a dozen of guards. Staring at us, they smirked, seeing that we had definitely not breached in the second vault.

“Sad thing,” the captain snarled. “Skanks like you should stay out of the upper city.”

“Well, I’m sure there is still some place for your clenched up butts,” Kril growled. “Ponies do like it tight.”

The captain narrowed his eyes and huffed. The eleven soldiers of his squad took a step forward and lowered their spears.

“Surrender now and no harm will be done unto you,” he proposed.

“Why don’t you…” Krill tried to up the ante before I held a paw against her mouth.

“I’m sure we can get to a deal. There is no reason to blow smoke between all of us,” I said, looking down at Trixie with over-the-top widened eyes. “Don’t you think?”

Trixie didn’t answer, she simply stared at me with her mouth slightly open.

“You know Trixie, this conversation would end pretty soon if we were to get… some smoke…”

The mare’s eyes turned to pinprick and she glanced a second at the captain. The armoured pony suddenly got the hint.

“Stop them!” he ordered.

Pushing Kril over Maca’s shoulder, Trixie’s horn glowed bright. Engulfed in a blinding aura, Trixie reared up, stopping the unassured guards in their track.

“Bow before the Great and Powerful Trixie!” she emphased, rolling her tongue in delight. “Bow!”

She brought her hooves down and struck the floor. The basement vanished in a thick, grey, and irritating cloud.

“Onward,” I shouted over the dim.

I grabbed Trixie’s hoof and hearing Maca’s feet drumming behind me, I pushed over three guards and forced my way up to the outside. Coughs and shouts echoing in my back, I ran until cleaner air brushed over my face.

“Eh, sir?” somepony said.

I had been holding a guard’s hoof. We looked at each other for a split second until I buried my fist in his face and sent him whining on the ground.

2014 project - From the Workbench - 1. Bestiring

Author's Note

Short Description:
Three unfinished creations of a Canterlot carpenter wake up in an empty castle, everything cast in a thick, grey fog.

Long Description:

"Why am'ah talkin' to a fooking moving stained glass?"

"Well, I could retort that you're the boringest doodle I've ever stumbled upon."

In the basement of the Canterlot Castle carpenter, three of his creations suddenly awake to an empty, foggy world. Unfortunately, the grey mist might not be as dull and dead as they first thought it would be.

2014 project - From the Workbench - 1. Bestiring

Chapter 1. Bestirring

A sigh broke the silence, throwing dust plummeting away.

“Fer the fooking last time, ye’re not fooking Discord…” Celestia moaned in pain, rubbing her eyebrows as migraine slowly spread across her head. “Ye ain’t the real Discord. Just a fooking glass in a frame. A petty painting on a piece of fooking melted sand. Just’a thing on a wall!”

The so-called Discord chuckled at the remark and shrugged it off, shaking himself off the specks of dust stacked on him at the same time. He jumped away from Celestia and landed lightly onto the ageing wooden frame of a large mirror.

“And you, my dear, are a rather sad and bizarre, picky doodle,” he said, looking at his image, wiggling the shards of glass he was made off. He giggled. “Oh myself, I’m such an Apollo!”

Celestia, or rather the neat and florid doodle of a magnificent and beaming white alicorn, facehoofed letting a low grunt slip out. She was burning for beating him back to read, but she was stuck inside an uncommon cage: a single piece of paper simply lain above a carpenter’s bench, among pencils, pens, brushes, wrenches, charcoal, and gears. Everything was swamped with a thick layer of dust, throwing the whole room into a forgotten, old, and abandoned ambiance.

“Fer the last time, piece o’glass. Put yo ass back on the workbench before the carpenter’s back!” paper-Celestia warned, gritting her teeth. “Last time he caught us. He ain’t happy at all!”

Discord, not even glancing back at her huffed disapprovingly, “Come on, Celi… Would you kindly let me call you Celi? Oh, why am I even asking, of course you like that name, sweetheart.”

Celestia grumbled, nothing strong enough in the world to seep the headache out of her.

“Oh, ah’ve got the feelin’ ah’m worth a trip onto insanity roller coaster…”

“Can I ride with you?” Discord asked, his irises swelling to puppy-standard size as he gazed at her through the mirror reflection.

“No!” Celestia spat back through the same clenched teeth.

“Can I…?

“No!” she cut her off. “Ye’re just pissing me off!”

Caged in her piece of rough drawing paper, Celestia vented her rage, bubbles foaming out of her mouth. She turned her back to the whimsical creature and shielded herself in silence.

“Oh, you’re such a treat,” Discord’s teasing voice soothed at her.

Tiny drops of blue ink trickled from Celestia’s eyes, which Discord caught the twinkle as they tipped over her chin and impacted down. They weaved onto the paper the carpenter had drawn her on and vanished once they reached its bottom.

“Come on, Celestia,” Discord whispered.

He jumped off the mirror’s edge and hit the wood-toppled ground next to Celestia’s drawing paper. Few screws rolled away, grinding through the muck blanketing the table in their wake.

“You’re making me look like the bad guy,” he continued, waving his arms around to attract more attention than he needed.

Celestia’s head swivelled, her eyes sparkling shrivelling drawn thunderbolts that jerked out and away from the paper. “Ye sure are, ye piece o’disposal.”

He sighed, hanging his head low.

Dodging some of the impairing cartoonish bullets, Discord walked up to Celestia, and crouched. He then put a steady clawed foot on the piece of paper, trying to get a better view of the drawing.

“Hey, don’t ye step on me!”

He lifted his feet, stopped and put it back down gently.

“I will not. Pinkie-promise,” Discord reassured, a paw on his absent hear. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed as Discord had suddenly silenced. Both their stares met and a long awkward second ensued. Discord’s index was going through his forehead, digging a hole through like a large needle. His face slightly reddened from discomfort. Pinching his lips into a meekly smile, he popped his digit out, throwing few bits of himself hurtling down.

The shared happiness vanished as Celestia backed again into silence. Discord rubbed his paws together, marking again discomfort. He looked behind, likely searching for a support that had never been there. He signed and drifted his eyes back on Celestia who avoided eye contact in answer.

“Something is bothering you, Celestia.” Discord stated, his grim voice carrying away. “I can see it, even through your smiley face.”

“How long has it been since the carpenter went out?”

Discord shrugged with disdain, not really caring. Yet, as he started pondering, carelessness gave place to wrinkles on his features. Troubled, he looked at the dwindling flame balancing on the wick of a nearly consumed candle on the far side of the table. The flame was in fact long gone since he had last paid attention to it. Its wax had trickled all over the burnished desk and dust had since amassed in small hills blanketing everything on the desk and further.

“Now that you mention it, it’s rather... unusual.”

“Ah told ya. Sumethin’s strange.” Celestia shivered, holding her hooves tight against her chest. “It’s like he abandoned us.” Turning over, she eyed for Discord’s location. “Wow, wow, wow, what’cha doing there?”

Holding a pen as large as himself, Discord was stuck in motion, tip-toeing toward Celestia.

“Drawing you a moustache. What else would I be doing with a sharpie?” Then a grinn sparked on his face, slowly crawling up to his ears. “Or, would you rather have something kinky? I knew mares who would give their souls to be redrawn at the tip of a pen?”

“Ye wot, mate!?” Celestia howled, her blue stroke turning in shades of violet and red.

Discord brandished the pen like a sword, giggling. “En garde!”

“Oh, fock all kind of chimeras! Ye won’t!”

“Make me,” Discord murmured through pinched lips.

Eyes sparkling with anger, Celestia rushed out of Discord’s range as he kept chasing her around the piece of paper. Laughter carrying away, Discord drew a single moustache in the midle of the drawing paper, threw the pen across, which ricocheted and spilled ink onto the page.

“Ye ain’t a clean guy, ain’t ya?”

With no time spared to answer, Discord jumped off the ebony workbench and landed in a puff of dust. On her own, Celestia, trapped in her two-dimension cage of paper, tried to see what misdeed her companion was brewing… to no avail.

Celestia winced as a shrieking sound of breaking items falling over erupted. “Piece o’glass, whatcha doing? STAPH!”

Discord was climbing up a mass of rejects from the carpenter: screws, pieces of scrap metal, splinters of wood, throwing it all away from beneath his paws.

“Staph, Discord, ye’re gonna get us put in the trash can!”

“Oh, Celestia. Your entitlement to panic will always amuse me,” Discord answered as he set his paws on the lock of a skylight. “Mmmh… Pretty cloudy outside.”

“What the actual fock are ye doing?”

“Let me guess. Opening a window. Maybe?” Discord grinned.

“Don’t ye dare!”

“Come get me,” he cackled, lifting the lock and forcing the rusty hinges of the dormer to creak forth.

Discord opened it a crack and a wave of fog washed over him. Coughing and clumsy, his mass of multicoloured glass hurtled down the steep the pyramid of reject had formed, bringing it down with him a massive and noisy landslide of bric-a-brac.

“Ah fooking told ya,” Celestia grunted from the top of the workbench. “Ain’t ye a messy dude.”

“Damn it,” Discord pouted. “Why isn’t my magic woking?”

“Maybe because ye ain’t Luna-fooking Discord!”

“Hush with nonsenses, Princess,” he said, lifting a paw at her once he was again up on top of the pile of trash. “I’ve got a carpenter to check upon.”

From the skylight was pouring a thick smog, slowly trickling down to the ground, blanketing everything with a cloudy lid, slowly swallowing the tiles.

“Ye won’t leave me there, will ya?” Celestia brought forth, a vibrant fear in a voice.

Discord had just disappeared through the swallowed open window. Upon Celestia’s call, his head pierced through the mist.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Discord contested. “Would you draw a line on our short-term love if I were to leave a few seconds?”

Celestia frowned. “It su’e is unsafe out…”

“Eh,” Discord cut her off and giggled. “’Draw a line’, get it?”

Celestia paused, blinked, and grunted loudly. “Ah’m so going to kill ya…” she sighed.

“Why such a drawl?”

“Just shut…” Celestia’s eyes widened in shock and fear struck her face even before she could scream her warning. “WATCH OUT!”

From the fog stretched out two black tendrils, shredded, and torn like the scattered branches of a long dead tree. Weaving and cracking in silence, they thrust their tips around Discord.

Discord dodged with difficulty. Yelping, he escaped the dreary thorns of darkness and fell down the scrap mass a second time, the seeping monstruosities in his stead.

Like a mouth vomiting an overwhelming flow of bile, the skylight burst out with blackening, dank mist, crumbling like water inside the carpenter’s basement. A third tendril appeared, followed with another… and another… and from beyond the mist, a crystalline, slythering voice, as soothing as silk, and yet frightening as the dead of the night.

“...the magic, it must be all mine...” a marish voice hooted.

Phantasmal greyish hooves crawled through the vent with two blood red eyes glowing from beyond the mist. A ghostly smile creeped across the opening.

“H’lp me!” Celestia yelled, her hooves striking against the threshold of the sheet of paper as the tendrils reached the border of the workbench, bitting in the dark wood like a knife through butter. “Ple-e-ease!”

Holding his glass head between his paws, Discord escaped another assault from the black tendrils. Switfly, he jumped up on top of the top of the desk and, weary of the many gashing tentacles advancing slowly on Celestia’s paper, he set up a plan. Proud, readjusting his glass head over his shoulders, he stood between her and those eerie enemies and the creature controlling them gratting at the entry of the dormer.

“Definitely not my fetish,” he assessed.

“Halp me, instea’ of waitin’ there like a dumbo!”

He chuckled, “as you wish, my peasant milady.” And a tendril struck, wiping off clean one of his arms. Discord screamed.

Celestia gasped, tears rolling on her check. “Discord!”

“You finally call me by my name,” he stood high, pointing the ceiling in a pose of victory with his remaining paw. His scream had been more from surprise than pain. “You finally acknowledge my all-powerfulness!”

“Ye… Are ye for real?” Celestia babbled, dumbstruck as Discord carelessly walked up to a corner of the workbench and started picking up scrap glass.

“I have the advantage to come in spare parts,” he casually said aloud, building his arm anew.

As he turned back to face the dark entity, the red eyes looking at him with a hungry glare, he put up on his muzzle a set of two pieces of somber glass, stretched out his indexes at the creature from beyond the fog, “You, miss, are trying to catch me on a foggy day? Well let’s play a game of hit and mist!”

“H’lp me!” Celestia cried out, calling back Discord’s attention on here.

The tendrils had bitten into the paper, gnawing it away with an irresistible hunger. Discord stood at the other extremity of the paper, pulling it away to rip it off the Black Death’s embrace. Too weak to enforce his idea, Discord leaped across the paper under Celestia’s horrified eyes.

“Chaos-chop!”

Striking the black from the back of his paw, Discord’s arm wobbled away as if he had struck a concrete wall. Hopping back, holding his painful limb now scarred with tiny cracks, he glared around, searching for any way to get as far as possible with his doodled friend. He bit his lips.

“Do you trust me, Celestia?” he asked as the dreadful tentacle gobbled a new piece of the drawing paper.

“Ah’m not… Oh, fook it!” Celestia saw Discord heading claw-first at her. Shudders. “Whattcha doing?!”

“Hum…” Discorded stopped and wondered, looking at the ceiling now crawling with tendrils from which was pouring away streams of fog. “Cutting a way out?”

“Ye gonna hurt me!”

“Just a papercut,” Discord joked as his claws started slitting through the paper.

A few seconds later, Discord had cleaned cut around Celestia’s forced immobile stance. Grabbing her, and rolling her under his arm, muffling any of her supplications and flows of swearing, Discord rushed across the room, leaving a puffing trail of dust in his back. He reached the basement door, turned over to look at the two red eyes peering down at him from beyond the skylight, and smiled meekly.

“Come back…” it hissed. “I need it!”

“Not today, monster.”

And he slid away through the door interstice, the creature’s howl following him through the rotten wood of the door.

Discord blasted through empty, dirty hallways which cathedral-like columns was putting to a new scale even the biggest pony. From his three-apple height, Discord felt like an ant in a monstrous lair.

He walked in the main passageway of a Castle, the ten… hundreds of majestic stained glasses decorating the whole chamber laid shattered, desecrated, or simply crumbled over from their screws and stands. Fog was slowly creeping in, covering the white marble that tiled the flood with a thin but impenetrable lid of cloud. The tapestries had been ripped off, shredded, and pulled apart with an ungodly strength, now laying obscenely onto the ground, rotten and splattered by time. In the back of the room sat, like king and queen, two secular items.

“Canterlot… What happened to you?” Discord murmured as he approached two thrones, one sewed with crimson and gold, the other with night blue and silver, dusty, damaged, and abandoned.

“Mmmmhmhmhmhmmhm,” a muffled shrieking voice broke the eerie contemplation.

“Excuse me?” Discord frowned at the scroll folded under his armpit.

“Mhmhmmhmhmhmh,” it continued.

“I beg your pardon?”

Putting a paw over the paper, Discord folded down a third of it.

“Would ya kindly put me fooking back down ta earth!” Celestia barked.

“Of course your Majesty, thy will is thy order.”

Smirking, Discord readied himself and strained on his imaginary muscles. In a swift jerk, he threw the scrolled up Celestia into the air.

Screaming, Celestia unfolded, waving her paper legs in the air as she started descending…slowly, like a leaf prey to a weak breeze. Bemused, she landed silently on her four legs on top of the gold throne. Searching for Discord, she found him next to her, lying on the crimson frame of the regal chair, smiling wickedly, swallowing down his upcoming burst of laughter.

Celestia glared daggers at him, eyes narrowed with cartoonish bolts of thunder rushing out of them. Then, curious, she cocked up her head and watched over the deserted and crumbling throne room.

“Where’re we?” she whispered.

“Welcome back on your throne,” Discord solemnly announced, lifting his paw and sweeping it before him. “This is all yours.”

A mass of rubble, broken shards of glass, and empty hallways, everything throw in stark relief under a greyish light that struggled to pierce the smog enveloping the castle.

“Ah’m not… Oh, fook it…” She sighed heavily, questions bubbling in her mind. “What happened ta Canterlot?”

Discord paused, thinking, greatly troubled. After a moment, he looked back at his scribbled interlocutor, reaching out at her with his glassy paw. Before Celestia even had time to protest, Discord put his index onto her lips.

“Shhh… It’s okay,” he huffed. “Everypony is gone somewhere... I think.”

Doubt was eating away at him, washing all his assertiveness away, bleaching the colours out of his cracked features.

“Everypony… is gone.” He nearly chocked.

“Eh, ye… Discord, ah’m sor…”

“BOO!” a shrilling voice brashed from behind.

Discord and Celestia jumped on their feet, hooves, or whatever and fell down the top of the throne.

Celestia planed down slowly and landed ten seconds after her glassy counterpart had crashed down on the old and raggedy velour.

“What the actual fook!” Celestia blurted.

From the top of the chair rested a small pink filly, her indigo mane struck with a white lock of hair. Her flank sported a greyish tiara.

“I. Am. Bored!” the filly wailed, jumping off her position to land between Celestia and Discord, blowing the first away in her landing. Celestia hit one of the armrest and flopped down, two crosses barring her face instead of her pair of eyes.

“Diamond… Tiara?” Discord asked, surprised and a tiny horrified to meet the filly. From the crusaders’ tales, he knew she was a pest.

It was rather a doll of Diamond Tiara, painted with matching colours, her eyes, two globes of porcelain with two bright blue dots, and limbs showing expertly crafted articulations. She started stomping the ground with her artificial hooves. Cogwheels could be seen from a hole in her chest. Her limbs were marked with cracks and scratches.

“I. Am. So. Bored!!” she screamed. “I wanna play!”

As Celestia slowly woke up from her short-lived unconsciousness, she saw Discord trying to calm her.

“Who’re you?” Celestia asked.

“Diamond Tiara,” she beamed, prancing over. “The sweetest filly in Equestria, like… ever!”

Discord gave ‘that’ look at Celestia, the latter giving it back with the same level of hopelessness.

“Sweet Celestia,” Discord muttered.

“Oh fooking Discord,” Celestia outbid.

“What’ve we got ourselves in?” they finished together, their voices echoing in the empty skeleton of Canterlot… Long dead. Long forgotten. Swallowed in a strange mist that only filtered a grim light.

A castle creaking over its aeon-old foundations.

There, In this cathedral of death, three souls remained.

[…]

The carpenter’s bench is the place where the hooves give shape to raw materials, could it be wood, glass, or simple paper. Through melding, moulding, planning, painting, carving, and writing, only the carpenter was able to nurture the wanted shapes.

Some said the best carpenters could even light life in their creations.

Below Canterlot was a carpenter’s bench. The carpenter, famous for having made the two Sisters’ castle windows, had dedicated his life to creating, to the search of artistic awe itself. His basement… his kiln, not many ever saw it. However, those who did visited him speak about the toys, drawings, mechanisms, and paintings populating the walls of his place. They tell about the toys’ eyes following the visitors, the paintings, never really fixed on their support, as if the whole place was bursting with a life that the common eye couldn’t fathom.

But no object ever told the tale until one day, the carpenter never came back.

2014 project - From the Workbench - 2. History

Chapter 2. History

“Gotta tell her…?” Celestia wondered, laying, bored, on the edge of a kitchen tap. “She’s kinda a poor ball o’ pity right now.”

“Tell her what?” Discord smirked as he slid on the layer of muck covering the work surfaces of the Canterlot cuisines, jumping off from one to another in a perfect ice-skating figure.

“That the jar she’s trying ta pry open is twice her size?” Celestia snickered. “An’ that, by the look of its inside, it’s not safe ta eat anymore.”

Passing by in a large curve, Discord chuckled, “If only she could eat.”

Grunting and moaning in despair, Diamond Tiara was hacking her wooden teeth on the lid of a rotten pickles jar. Around her mouth, the paint cracked, falling into scabs of pinkish colours.

The trio of wanderers had found the large kitchen as filthy as the surrounding rooms and towers shaping Canterlot out of a mountain pic. Everything lay silent and abandoned as if years of inactivity had washed over the castle with nopony to guard the gates, now squeaking over their rusty hinges. It was just as if everypony had just…

“… Vanished,” Discord broke the silence settling between Celestia and him.

“Uh?” Celestia rose her head, quitting her dangerous game: waving her paper-hoof below the end of the tap, preparing herself to dodge any droplet that was expected to fall.

“It’s weird, last time I focused…”

“Cause, ye can focus?” Celestia smirked.

“Stop interrupting me, will you?” Discord grumbled, crossing his arms in disbelief. “Last time I had my eyes open, I… Everything was still alive. And now? It’s just ruins and dirt… and dust…”

“Ah thought you like ta be the destructive villain?” Celestia playfully nickered.

Discord struck the ground with his left hind leg and slid away with a long, chin-toward-the-ceiling, ignoring face. After a few swift drifts and movements, he marked another trait into the murk covering the stainless steel of the furniture.

“Tadaaa!” Discord cackled, opening his arms in a gesture belonging to a showmare.

“Whatcha doin…?” Celestia asked, breaking her reverie and looking down at the draconequus. “Oh… Discord.”

In the dirt, the glass figurine of an all-powerful creature had drawn, badly, a cheerful image of Celestia’s face. Hearts and froufrou circled the smiling visage, saying words that the air would never carry.

“Drawing.” Discord beamed. “Instant mood enhancer.”

“Ye’ve watched th’carpenter too much, am’ah right?” Celestia remarked.

“I’m just curious. And I also like when you call me Discord.”

Celestia laughed meekly, and sighed, again looking away. Sadness veiled her face, casting her eyes with dark shades of grey. “Ye’ve seen it?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The sun. It’s been hours already, an’ the sun hasn’t set or nuthing,” Celestia pointed out, looking at a vent at the top of the opposite wall. Since their waking up, the castle had remained prisoner of a grey and chiaroscuro cage of fog and grim glimmers with nothing willing to trouble such a state.

“And that… thing,” Celestia geared up, her voice slowly shrilling to a higher tone. “It nearly killed ye… us.”

“Let’s not talk about it,” Discord simply asked.

“Why?” Celestia brought forth, surprised.

“It’s… it is just that speaking of the spooky often summons it sooner than a pony wants.”

Celestia cocked her eyes in disbelief, a smile on her face. “I didn’t know th’almighty Discord was like… superstitious.”

“Big words for a peasant mouth,” Discord struck back, pinching Celestia’s paper face between his glass fingers. “Be happy I cut you out of trouble back there.”

“Puns? Again?” Celestia huffed, annoyed.

“Have you got better in stock?” Discord raised an eyebrow, a mocking grin in the corner of his lips. “Do you really have a good joke?”

“Eeyup!” Celestia countered, nodding, before she pointed her hoof toward the edge of the kitchen work station. “Right’here.”

Her royal doodle tip was aimed at Diamond Tiara, still playing on the edge of the jar lid, and next to the edge of the table tip. She rolled aside and fell with the jar. The crash came up a second later, quickly followed by a scream.

Rushing to the border of the table, Discord and Celestia watched over a broken jar, its rotten and black content sprawled over a moving, whirling, and whinging moving shape. Perplexed, Celestia darted her head in Discord’s direction and stared incriminatingly at him. Discord replied with a tenuous shrug.

“She’s yours, not mine!”

Celestia’s blue features turned red. “What? I ain’t her mother!”

“I am not her mother too,” he accused. “And you were the one who ought to look over her!”

“What, me?” she disagreed. “Ye’re th’one who wanted to keep her!”

“No, that’s not true, and… you’re the mare: the loving mother archetype!”

Celestia would have spit and spill milk if she had just drunk some, if she could even drink.

“Ye fooking what, mate!”

Celestia’s eyes had swollen outside their orbits, biting at Discord with rage and outrage. Diamond Tiara cried out and charged under a near set of crumbled casseroles, bumping them over in a pigsty of thundering echoes of metal. Celestia and Discord, turned over and leaned over the workstation’s edge. From the pickle of jar was running a long series of minuscule hoofprints, rushing away and out of the Canterlot royal kitchens.

“Your fault!” both said simultaneous, then smashed their hoof and paw respectively onto their face.

“What Ahma gonna do with both of ya?” Celestia grunted, rubbing her forehead.

“Nurturing?” Discord supposed. “I need at bath at ten, four diner a day, ten chicken dips for teeth flossing, and…”

Celestia threw a paper tantrum, not even buggering up Discord’s glass body. A small smile on his lips, containing the laughter behind, Discord watched over Celestia’s paper-hooves folding and twisting on his chest.

“Would be so much fun in a bed,” he teased.

Celestia stopped, narrowing her eyes to a blade’s width, forcing her lips in an angry plucked face.

“I’ll find a way to break ya, piece o’glass.”

A crash echoed away down the alleyway.

“Daddy!” a distant filly’s voice called out.

Celestia smirked at Discord who looked away to mark his discontent.

“Not going to happen,” he defended, shaking his head, before jumping off the kitchen promontory.

He ran, Celestia in his stead in Diamond Tiara’s trail of wailing.
The passageways, rooms, and alcoves were completely empty, prey to the same thick fog seeping out the cracks and the same emptiness that blanketed everything under a lid of silence, deafening, zooming over. All windows had been shattered and nothing but grey could be seen outside. The few terraces that had once bore vegetal life only displayed crooked, darkened trees, which scattered, cracked, and broken branches had stopped growing toward an absent sky.

At a crossing between two large alleys, Celestia stopped, looking at the wooden pediment of a golden gate. The wall around was fissured, its painting fallen into clumps on the ground, revealing beneath a far older painting of a blazing sun. The yellow had evaporated away, giving place to a dull cream white.

“Ah know that room,” Celestia said, troubled.

Discord looked back and forth at her and the door, wondering.

“Ah think it’s… was mah room.”

Celestia was fighting against glimpse of images she had stuck in her head. The pictures, sounds, colours, and smells that were far, unreachable, unreliable. Images that definitely seemed to belong to another mare.

The gate was slightly open, a grim light filtering through the crack, and, among the defects of paint fallen before the opening appeared tiny hoofprints. Celestia entered, slowly, likely trying not to wake up a monster that only she could imagine dwelling behind the massive chunk of chiselled wood. Discord’s heart suffered from a crippling knot, a feeling of being unfazed with the environment: calm, boring, and stable. As Celestia disappeared, he looked at his paw and snapped his fingers in a vivid clack, but nothing happened.

He sighed and entered.

The room, shaped in a circle and spacious, presented one small bed in the middle and four massive bookshelves reaching the top of the impressively high round wall. The farthest wall had a massive window, not broken strangely, sporting the image of six ponies whose colours and features had washed away with time.

“Is this your room?” Discord asked grimly, feeling so little in a room so large as he walked in, his hind legs walking on what seemed to be eggshells.

“If it’d been. It ain’t anymore,” Celestia answered, looking at the bookshelves, empty.

“Where are all the books?” Discord asked.

Tension pinched in his glassy heart.

“Down,” Celestia found the courage to reply as her eyes widened once they had set them onto the ground.

The marble tiles were covered with burnt, cracked, and shattered remains of thousands of pages that inestimable books had once contained. The leather covers, now closing on empty space had withered into formless brown and black masses. Somepony had performed a complete auto-da-fé. Flames had been spilled onto the shelves, now blackened and unstable. What blanketed the floor, ashes, remains, and dust had once been a treasure.

Celestia nearly shed a tear at this spectacle. Yet, she broke when she saw Diamond Tiara, sitting, slumped over before a massive shape curled up beneath the filth. The air was filled with the repetitive pokes Tiara was giving with her wooden hoof against something sturdy and disturbingly hollow. Hearing Celestia and Discord walking up to her, she turned her head. Her porcelain eyes couldn’t cry, but she exuded an aura of sadness that made both the drawn alicorn and the cast-in-glass spirit of chaos gag. Sobs without sniffs. Eyes without tears.

“I… I can’t remember,” Diamond Tiara began, her voice trembling, interrupted with short fit of maddened and raspy laughter. “I was… somewhere with ponies, mean ponies… and… then, I was alone.”

A corpse. Diamond Tiara was sitting before a decomposed corpse that had left nothing behind but a preserved set of bones and a large cracked and dry dark puddle beneath it.

Discord hugged her first and raised her head with the tip of his paw.

“Diamond Tiara, is that it?” She acquiesced silently. “I know you are hurt, we all are right now. But the castle is not safe… anymore. We must be careful. And when we find out what happened to your daddy, we… we will see. Okay?”

Diamond Tiara nodded and slipped out of Discord’s embrace, walked to Celestia and briefly hugged her. Then, she jumped up to the dusty bed and lay silent.

“Ye really think the… thing gonna chase us?” Celestia whispered, frightened.

“Maybe,” Discord said, touring around the cadaver and stated, “a pegasus.”

“Uh?”

“That pony was a Pegasus. And he, or she, was killed.”

Pushing the murk from over the bones, Discord revealed the body’s wings, then its neck. Two vertebras, greyish and filthy, showed a large gash made by something long and edgy. What had spread and splattered beneath its now desiccated hooves was simply caked blood.

“A knife?” Celestia risked to bring up.

“I can’t tell for sure.”

Looking sideway, Celestia caught something out of the ordinary. Somepony had stacked up vinyl disks next to the bedside table. Broken and reduced to dust. Whoever had wanted to burn the books had not stopped there. Her eyes wandered to the night table and to the dark round tip poking from under its frame.

The tip stroked her curiosity chord and she called Discord for help. Together, they pulled, not with its lot of difficulty, the black tip.

It was a vinyl disk, intact and dusty. It had been hidden beneath the table, the pony who had done so hoping nopony with vile intentions would find it. And it succeeded. Discord looked around and found it. Dissimulated under a shadow, a massive box displaying a massive brass horn and a tiny golden arm, a diamond at its tip. The top of the contraption showed a rotary section with a small pike in the middle. A phonograph.

“Think we should?” Celestia wondered.

Discord shrugged, “Not that I will for once go against my curiosity. Let’s try. It’s not like a record can kill.”

Together they set the vinyl on the spinner and Discord, the only one able to move the side-lever started going back and forth, his paws biting in the antique piece of wood. The phonograph burst with static, a voice slowly tuning out of the horn as its stylus stabilised on the microgrooves. The first voice to manifest itself was feminine, and by the short and repeated little breaths she suffered from, she was deeply stressed. In the background could be heard the muffled cacophony of thousands, if not dozen of thousands, of voices. She sighed.

“Are you sure we have to record this, Blueblood?” she asked, febrile. “I- I’m not sure…”

Celestia shot on her hooves, ears perking up at the words, “Ah know that voice,” she bellowed.

Discord grunted as he pushed on his knee-caps to stand up, “Me too,” he announced sourly.

“It’s for historical posterity,” a stallion answered, displaying a low and impassive tone, betraying the gravity of a situation both of them were deep in, “and, to be honest, I don’t think we… that you have any choice. You’re meant to be here.”

The way Blueblood had pronounced those last words sounded eerie, if not wrong, in Celestia’s ears, He seemed jealous, but also thankful.

“You’re going to save Equestria from another year of civil war.”

“How can have we fallen so low?”

No answer came as Blueblood let out a long breath first. Trumpets roared from an ‘outside’, making the horn saturate.

“Don’t worry,” Blueblood finally broke the ice. “You’ve got a large part of the aristocracy and the commons with you, and…” A long pause followed; Blueblood sounded wounded, nearly ashamed, “you have foreign approval for this.”

The mare let out a sob.

“Oh, please. Don’t cry,” Blueblood reprimanded softly. “Just there, on that balcony, destiny awaits. You don’t know how much ponies would give to be there, now.”

He apparently spoke out of personal experience.

“Okay,” the mare acquiesced, ripping a piece of tissue from a box that had to be next to her to wipe her tears. “It’s just… it went too fast.”

“If not for you, do it for everypony.”

The recorder who had once carried the vinyl shook and probably rolled toward an exit, the noise intensifying as the two ponies seemingly stepped in a gigantic stadium or esplanade overcrowded with uncountable talking ponies.

A unicorn horn lit up with magic with clacking sparks. In a few seconds, the majority of ponies shushed and a tensing silent hovered aloft through the gramophone. It lasted a full minute, buzzing softly with the low whispers of many.

“Fillies and Gentlecoalts,” the Canterlot feminine voice boomed, magically amplified, carrying across lands unknown to Celestia, Discord, and to Diamond Tiara, finally cocking her head toward the phonograph. “Mares and Stallions, Equestrians and From-afar-the-shores, thank you for coming. If you are here today, in this dire situation, it is because you have been deemed to represent in its entirety the millions of citizens of our wounded nation.” The mare breathed in. “Today was meant to be another Summer Sun Celebration, but, two years ago, the assassination of princesses Celestia and Luna left us in deep mourning and social unrest. In spite of…” Pause, again. “…Cloudsdale and Manehatten Communes, we survived those dark times. I had to make a choice. All together, we have to make a choice. With Celestia and Luna’s death, worldwide political balance has been reshuffled. Thus why I asked for help to the Empire of Kralle three months ago. A plead they answered yesterday.”

A massive contestation outburst from a side of the spectators, swears and insults could sometimes be heard, thrown vehemently at the speaking mare.

“Silence,” the mare ordered without raising her voice, “please. This is not an option, and we will all comply with this. If not, this will be the Equestria’s ruin. Our dire end.”

The mare stopped, taking a little breath in, readying herself to what was coming next.

“Equestria has stayed isolated for too long. We have lost our advances and privileges. Furthermore, the last two years had wrecked our society, economy, and moral. We must change. And thus, this is why today, to mark the end of the Great Turmoil, I, Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship and Magic, abolish the Equestrian Diarchy and its one thousand and six years of long and peaceful duration.” Whispers filled the air. “Today is a new opening door for all ponies of Equestria. I declare official the new Equestrian Monarchy. The civil war is now officially over and, as Regent, I declare that better days are before us.”

Claps erupted, sparking overwhelming statics in the phonograph. The record stopped a few seconds after a full standing ovation had sprawl like fire on black powder in the pony assembly. That mass of pony had indeed witnessed history scroll down before their eyes.

“Ah am... dead?”

Discord and Celestia’s stares met. But there was no time for complain. Diamond Tiara shrieked and alerted as a shadow slid in the interstice left in the door frame. A creeping laughter erupted and a chill invaded the air.

The trio made its way through the windows and stepped outside the room, hoping what was before them would not mar the troubled memories they had left.

2014 project - From the Workbench - 3. Void

Chapter 3. Void

The run lasted some long minutes as Celestia heading first, the trio made its way through a vast esplanade through a thick smog. Once the laughter had vanished into thin air, lost in the far away, only then they slowed down and stopped. As they finally rested, no landmark to guide them out of the mist, they kept silent, lost to what their mind believed could dwell beyond the mist. Only the muffled zoom of a far landslide broke the setting immobility.

“The empire of Kralle?” Discord asked, looking at Celestia who, prostrated, was eyeing her own hooves.

She cringed in reaction, biting her lower lips in full resignation before lifting her head, overwhelmingly slowly.

“Why the fook did ye have to lift that fooking window!?” she burst out, Diamond Tiara jerking away from her in sheer reaction. “Why did ye have to do such crap move!”

Discord began to back away as Celestia crawled forth to him, casting shadows with her murderous eyes. Diamond Tiara smirked at the glass draconequus and waved a goodbye from the tip of her hoof.

“I was just being curious, sweetheart,” he blabbered. “It’s not like I wanted to harm us in any way.”

Celestia steadied, stiff, taking in a long, noisy breath. Eyes closed, she breathed out as slowly. Her left hoof was hovering over the ground, swaying swiftly up and down, betraying an intense flow of inner questions and thinking.

“First, dontcha call me that way, Ah’m not your thing,” she dropped like an anvil on Discord’s head. “Ye’re. So. Disappointing.”

He sighed and looked down, defeated. Both turned their head away from each other, a pregnant and awkward silence slowly setting like a knife in a wound.

“Hey, the two lovebirds,” Diamond Tiara cut in, calling from behind.

“We’re not together,” both said gullibly, swivelling toward the voice’s direction.

However, Diamond Tiara was anywhere to be seen, the fog creepily intensifying for Celestia and Discord, two dots of life in an ocean of dead grey nether.

“Remind me why we should take care of her?” Discord wondered aloud, massaging his temples.

Celestia huffed, “She’s a child. Ah won’t let her walk arou’ here. An’ so will ya!”

Discord gave up, his shoulders levelling down a little, “Alright, alright. But trust me, it’s gonna be a lot of trouble.”

A high-pitch scream echoed, piercing through the smog like through a thick metal door. It repeated, not only once.

“Celestia?” Discord brought forth, staring at her, an eyebrow cocked up.

She shook her head and walked away, rapidly disappearing beyond the misty veil. Discord grunted.

“Damn good, it couldn’t start any better,” he reprimanded himself, another scream flying by.

“Tiara?” Celestia called, already gone through the mist.

“Celestia?” Discord howled.

“I’m here!” a voice popped from somewhere.

“Oh, I’m going to like this thorough,” Discord exasperatedly said, rubbing his forehead.

Half an hour later, Discord and Celestia reunited in front of a large brass pond. The water that had once filled it and reflected the intertwined figures of two mighty alicorns, one younger than the other, had dried out. The bottom of the pond was covered in shatteringly old leafs, fallen from a nearby barren and black tree.

“Tiara,” Celestia beckoned loudly, instantly answered by a shrilling scream.

She was running along the edge of the pond, head and mane shaking as if she tried to get rid of something stuck on her.

“Catch her,” Celestia ordered.

“Why me?” Discord pondered, his paw on his chest in a gesture of incomprehension.

Celestia punched at his face, doing nothing but tearing a bit of the paper she was made. Her eyes narrowed, speaking silent words. Discord rolled his eyes.

“Oh…” he nodded. “As you wish Princess.”

As Diamond Tiara passed by, Discord grabbed her by her flank, his paw etching slightly in the wood of the filly figurine.

She kept running, Discord looking now at where his right paw was missing, stayed on the wooden hide of the filly. Both Celestia and he looked at the stump. Celestia burst in laughter. A playful pout settled on the draconequus face, decided to retrieve his hand made of glass.

“Diamond,” he called, starting running behind the poor filly that was still bigger than the doll of glass.

Watching Discord bouncing behind his hand, stuck in Diamond hindquarter, Celestia puffed a little, and narrowed her eyes. Diamond Tiara was… glowing.

Indeed, Diamond Tiara, from her imposing size in spite of her filly appearance was glowing with a faint yellow light, going through her mouth, belly, and eyes, the whole amplified by the dust and mist blanketing the castle. Something struck Celestia. She had already thought about it, but nearly completely paid it the attention it deserved. The sound of silence. Apart from her two companions, chasing in other on the other size of the pond, everything was drowning in a sarcophagus of silence. It was unsettling to Celestia, in her memories, she had always the souvenirs of the craftmaster tinkering around his workbench: pulling, lifting, welding, and sawing. She had become acclimated to it, and now, dwelling in the silence, she felt eerily out of place. She wanted to go back in the basement and take her place back in the frame of paper. But the beast might be waiting, patient.

She shivered and looked away from her paper-hooves. Discord jumped, grabbed Diamond Tiara, and, from the destabilising weight of his thin body, made her fall in the pond. Together, they hit the rocky bottom, passing through leaves so dried they crumbled to ashes and dust.

“Got it!” Discord eructed in victory.

“Get it off! Get it off!” Diamond screamed out.

Reaching in the broken panel on Diamond Tiara’s chest, Discord caught in his paw a firefly, buzzing loudly.

Holding it above his head like a vrooming trophy, Discord cracked a laugh at the filly, “I think you had a bug! Isn’t that uproarious?”

Diamond Tiara, who had been silent for most of the time, drawn in her thought, narrowed her eyes and unveiled her teeth, missing a part of their pristine white paint since her assault on the pickle jar.

“Hey, Fragments. If I wanted you to lend me a paw, I’d have asked. Oh, that’s true, how would I count on you as you just come to have the ability to lose ‘em all!” she drawled, punching in Discord loose claw who bounced away on the ground, leaving Discord with only one paw, tightened over the whirling insect.

His eyelids closed to a knife’s width, slowly stretching a long face as he neared at a hoof-length from Diamond Tiara’s muzzle.

“Lady, why would not you go planking around away from me? Eh, coconut head!”

Celestia slipped in between the two of them.

“Calmos, fellow!” she spat, and ended crushed between the two of them trying to pinch-punch each-other.

They rolled over into a whirling childish fight, balling over Celestia’s flattened form. She pouted, stretching her hooves into a pop as she buried herself from the cover of ashes covering the bottom of the pond. Both Diamond Tiara and Discord had noisily spread chaos across it.

Huffing, Celestia sat, slowly unfolding herself, her eyes wandering over the mighty statutes standing on a pedestal in the centre of the construction. There, a bigger representation of herself was cast into iron, covered with a thin layer of gold that had started falling into patches at her own hooves. The once shiny statute was twining with Princess Luna, cast in the same way but with silver. Residues of pollution had set onto their features, trickling down into dried blackened and rusted tears, the iron beneath prey to the elements.

She looked at the two fighting pieces of craft and sighed. Lifting herself up, Celestia neared toward the pedestal. Above the water mark lay a single sentence.

‘To our dearest fallen Princesses, your memories will be kept ablaze in our heart, in times of peace as in times of wars.’

The firefly whizzed past before Celestia’s eyes who cocked her head back by instinct. The insect rounded above her head and landed on her streaked doodled main. Celestia laughed until her held tilted down under the weight of the animal. She bit the dust.

The insect was still waving its translucent wings above Celestia’s head when she heard Diamond Tiara and Discord stopped. A long moment of silent ensued that washed over Celestia with a growing shame. The two distinct burst of laughter that followed made her hope the firefly would have buried her face only deeper.

“You’re unfortunately not going to find a brighter light down there,” Discord cooed. “The idea might fly over your head.”

Diamond and he kept laughing together. Celestia even caught the thump of a rump hitting the floor. She muttered.

“Can’t hear you,” Tiara added.

“Wasp the point in talking to her?” Discord grinned. “If she cannot be made understandable. She won’t catch us.”

“True, true,” Tiara confirmed, nodding firmly.

The firefly suddenly flew up around the statute, giving the poor doodle of a princess time to crawl up back to her hooves.

“Ah’m going to whip both of ya!” she growled.

Discord was ready to drop another anvil, which would have quickly been follow by a piano as he saw Celestia, crying silently, minuscule dot of blue going down her cheeks.

“Oh, come on, Celi,” he asserted. “We’re just joking. Look around you. All’s grey and dull. Spoon some uncertainty and chaos in your mood.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t even give him a hard look. Celestia weaved in between the two bullies and climbed up to the edge of the farthest part of the pond and sat, alone.

“Excuse me,” Discord said, walking away from the two statutes. “I have to apology.”

His face was tired, marked with remorse with that twitch of a lip. Looking at his feet, he slid between the crumbling grey leaves and made his way to Celestia’s side. Both started talking together but Diamond Tiara was too far to hear something but a low murmur.

“Why be sorry?” she reassured even if she was the only one to give an ear to her words. “It was funny.”

Rolling her eyes, she wandered away across the pond to a part that had been broken by an unknown feat of time. Walking over the rubbles, she stepped out of the pond and looked back at the two forms in the fog. By her movements, they were vehemently talking, maybe shouting, but the sounds were lost in the mist. Straightening herself, Diamond Tiara scanned the surroundings that were still visible.

Something fluttered in the distance, eerie, like a thin piece of paper waving under an absent wind, fixed onto an invisible support in mid-air. Curious, she made her way to the apparition, and, as she closed in at each of her footstep, more appeared into thin air.

There were hundreds of them, tiny pieces of paper pinned onto the many branches of a metal pole. A soft breeze was sweeping by, making of that artificial tree a phantom waving his appendices, casting its overwhelming and bizarre presence onto its spectators.

Prayers.

Each piece of tissue, wool, parchment, or simply paper, wore one of two sentences, often scribbled. Words of faith. Words of fear.

Diamond Tiara tore one off the metal tree.

‘Dear Celestia, help us.’

Surprised she pull a second.

‘I wished it had gone different, pardon me.
BonBon.’

Diamond Tiara discarded it.

‘Make him come back in one piece.’ that one was signed with a cross.

Diamond Tiara shockingly let it drop.

‘Celestia, Luna, if you’re here somewhere, please, give me back my girl.’

She bit her lower lip, meeting the hard structure of the wood she was made of. She managed to take off another one. Old darker marks had been sprained on it. Tears

‘Hello daddy, mommy is sad, when are you coming home? I miss you.’ claimed the next, full of mistakes with a side marred with remains of a pastel badly drawn pictures. It had been ripped off a drawing book and nailed there.

Hanging her head low, Diamond Tiara continued, starting to lack of prayers low enough to be reached.

‘Give me back my Sweetie Belle’

‘Please, let me repair all of this.’

‘I don’t want to be alone anymore, please!’

‘Give me strength.’

‘Help me out.’

‘I can’t continue anymore, if somepony reads this, please help me.’

‘Let me be heard!’

‘I want to live.’

It continued, over and over again until Diamond Tiara snatched the last two she could. She was crying… Or more likely she wanted two. Two porcelains eyes that couldn’t go red, that couldn’t bulge, that couldn’t water, that could do nothing but see and witness. She couldn’t even blink.

She opened the before-the-last and her eyes would have widened in shock if she had been able to.

‘don’t read the last one, not yet.
Pinkie Pie.’

“Diamond Tiara,” Celestia called from behind. “Are you okay?”

The filly, still twice Celestia’s size gasped in fear, holding the two pieces of paper tight to her chest. She turned and faced Discord and the alicorn, worry cast onto their features. She opened her mouth, ready to lie, but just dropped her stare.

“No,” she confessed. “Not really.”

Celestia drew a meekly smile and hugged the filly, for all it could mean. Diamond Tiara hesitated but finally lifted her hoof and gently shared the embrace. Discord caught the two tiny sheets in her hoof. He smiled comprehensively. He would have liked to boast the mystery, but he had once learnt that hurting was bad, and hurting what was already wounded was just vile.

“We must go, now,” Celestia urged them. “I don’t feel safe here.”

Both Discord and Diamond Tiara approved of the idea and fell in line behind the frail alicorn. Before stepping forth however, Diamond Tiara looked one last time to the first bit and Pinkie’s message.

“How did…” she whispered, glaring at the second one, still folded.

She looked down at the paper and shoved it in the hole in her chest. There, maybe, would it be safe for later.

Walking away, Celestia looked back first at the pole of prayer, then at the pond. The firefly was still flying softly around her statute’s head. In the blink of an eye, the light flashed out of existence so fast she blinked away. Like a pony catching a fly with a cigarette in its flight, the fog had swallowed the tiny creature in an instant. Somehow, Celestia wondered how long it would take to gobble her up. Overthinking brisk events was never a good thing. This in mind, Celestia gulped and stared gravely at her two companions, oblivious of such event, urging them to move faster.

Apr. 2015 - Manaja

Author's Note

A Zebra comes to town.

Apr. 2015 - Manaja

“Rarity! You will never guess who’s just come in town!?” Pinkie Pie spilled out, circling around her friend in hurried and overjoyed bounces.

“Cannot you just wait for an hour or two?” Rarity hissed as gently as she could as her attempt to bore a hole through the pink wall barring her way failed again. “Please, Pinkie, please. I am in a hurry.”

“Sompeony came in town!” the earth pony beamed, oblivious to her friend’s plea.

Pinkie leaped and grabbed her friend’s shoulder with a hoof.

“And he’s spoo-oo-ooky…” she whispered in her ear.

“Please, Pinkie,” Rarity squeaked. “Plea-ea-ease, I’ve got a very important appointment with a Canterlot fashion herald. It. Is. Extremely. Important.”

Pinkie Pie’s brows perked up and she let her friend slip away. The silence settled between the two for a second before Pinkie Pie’s face furrowed. Curious, she hung her head on the side and finally saw the huge cart Rarity had been pulling forward on the newly built paved road that crossed Ponyville. The cart was full of neatly packed and shiny dresses. Pinkie Pie broadly smiled and rushed on top of the cart.

“That is soooooooo sweet!” she burst just before she jumped off to hug her friend. “Go, go, go! Now!”

With a smack on Rarity’s flank, Pinkie Pie threw momentum in the conversation and both ponies began walking. An old mule passing by smiled at the sight of one beautiful unicorn blaming an earth pony for being so uncouth.

“You’re going to show a new collection?” Pinkie asked. “Winter!? No! No. It’s too early. Fall? No it’s not yet fall… I know! Summer-Fall! Summall! Am I right?”

Pinkie Pie turned her head and saw Rarity had stopped in her track, eyeing her hyperactive friend with a mix of wonder and… Well, Rarity did not know either.

“Or a special order, I guess…?” Pinkie Pie said, backing up slightly with an awkward smile as Rarity’s deadpan chilled the party pony.

Rarity sighed and nodded.

“Yes, Pinkie. It is a very special order. Canterlot’s fashion scene has been shaking up lately. Though I am not living in the castle, I am still willing to retake my status of avant-gardist.”

“Why?” Pinkie Pie giggled. “You lost it?”

For once, Rarity shrugged; she frowned and her mouth scrunched up as she looked down. She was not sure about it all.

“Well… One couturier takes the lead on the scene, then it is challenged by another and so on. It’s competition. A fair game.”

Pinkie Pie mimicked her friend’s scrunched up face as she struggled to see the fuss about it all. Rarity rubbed her forehead and took a short breath in.

“Imagine that suddenly, another family of bakers came into town,” Rarity continued. “What would you do?”

“Greet them!”

Rarity hung her head low.

“No. No, Pinkie,” Rarity replied shortly after. “What if they were stealing… no, not stealing… attracting Mr and Mrs Cake’s clients because the newcomers’ products were kind of… better? What would you do?”

Pinkie Pie sat up and held a hoof on her chin. She contemplated the sky as if the answer was dangling right there. Her face lit up.

“I’d do a mega-super-sugar-ultra-savoury treat! So the clients would come back!”

“Exactly,” Rarity said with a rueful smile. “And so forth, it is the same for me. But it is about clothing and luxury wears, not… cakes.”

While Rarity scrambled to find her watch, deeply hidden between the folds of fabric hanging on her back, Pinkie Pie stroke her beardless cheek.

“Edible clothes!” Pinkie boomed as she locked her eyes on her startled friend.

“What?!” Rarity blurted, jutting her head out of her mountain of clothing.

“You have to do edible costumes!” Pinkie repeated, holding her friend’s reddening cheeks.

Rarity softly pushed away Pinkie’s hooves and, massaging her jaw, she rumbled. Pinkie giggled defensively, ducking her head slightly between her hunkering shoulders.

“No, really,” Pinkie explained with an amused smile. “Imagine! Edible. Clothes!”

“How would they even be washed?” Rarity pointed out.

“I dunno! But… Just… Imagine!”

With Pinkie’s incessant demands harassing her, Rarity forced her hoof on Pinkie’s lips and tasted the silence with a broad and tired smile.

Then, the unicorn smirked, “If you can invent a way to dry a fabric made out of sugar, I will reconsider… creating an edible cloth just for you.”

“Really!?” Pinkie cried out with widened eyes. “Oh, yes, yes, yes!”

All of a sudden, the pink earth pony frowned as she looked around, peering at invisible spies trying to steal the plan she had come up with.

“If I can’t get a sugar fabric to dry, I’m not called Pinkie Pie!” she said. “Now, I go!”

She whizzed away, leaving behind just a puff of dirt as she trotted down a narrow alleyway standing between two old houses.

“Oh, Pinkie Pie,” Rarity sighed with a troubled smile. “What would we do without you?”

Summer time was definitely over but Fall’s cold mornings had not yet taken hold of the land. Wind blew through Rarity’s curled mane and a few slightly yellow leaves fell before her hooves. She held a hoof on her chest, prodding the tingling pinch that dwelled in her heart. Her guts wrenched as her coming appointment was throwing her in a starkly stressful apprehension. Everything had to be absolutely perfect. Deeply in thoughts, Rarity stared at the hazy and greyish sky until the ringing of a distant bell called her back.

“Oh, dear. I’m so late!”

Rarity quickened her pace as a first raindrop hit her muzzle. She reached the city hall as a thunderbolt echoed in the distance. At least, she thought, she had had herself and her couture samples out of harm’s way, dry under the building’s porch.

“Hello, Rarity,” Derpy Hooves said as she opened the hall’s massive door, not without getting her mailbag’s strap stuck in the door handle. “Eh, sorry… bye…!”

The grey pegasus flew out in the wind and went on her hectic delivery shift. Meanwhile, Rarity had started moving all her merchandise inside the hall.

The inside was lit up with lights and fires and, with an eruditely dispatched set of mirrors, the hall was decently bathed in a whitish light. The centre of the place displayed a large wooden table and two doors in the background gave onto the mayor’s office and a storage area. Raising her head, Rarity saw the promontory from where the whole adventure her life had been for the past five years had started. She remembered Nightmare Moon shimmering to existence out of a dark and bluish cloud up there. It still gave her shivers. However, Rarity had at that specific moment another reason to fear. The hall was strangely empty.

“Uh…? Hello?” Rarity called out.

Only a faint echo answered. The mare frowned and stacked her clothes on top of the table. She had rented the grand hall for the afternoon and she was not expecting it to be barren of any life. It was far too big to be empty.

“Oh, she must be late,” Rarity spoke to herself. “With that outrageous weather outside, I can understand. Let’s prepare some tea.”

Mindfully, a small chest had been left next to the hall’s chimney. It contained all the things Rarity required: a kettle, a bottle of water, a set of mugs, and a small wooden box filled with teabags.

As another thunderbolt cracked outside, Rarity activated herself around the fire. She waited in silence, reshuffling with febrile hooves between her neatly set of dresses twice. The herald was very late.

“Something wrong must have happened,” Rarity grumbled as she stood off her chair and went taking the whistling kettle off the fire. “How inconvenient.”

The entrance door creaked on its hinges and, with the flash of thunder, two shadows crawled on the marbled floor of the hall. Rarity swivelled on her hooves and faced them tensely. The first face Rarity saw was Applejack’s, earning her a breath of relief.

“Here ya go,” the orange mare said while she folded a wet and ragged umbrella. “Ah’m gonna try to check on your carriage. Ah must have some spare wheels in mah barn.”

“Thank you kindly, Miss Apple,” a second voice answered. “I am sure you will be able to find a way to help. But do not put yourself in danger. This is not a time for fillies and gentlecolts.”

Applejack smirked, pinching her lips together, and slipped outside, unaware of Rarity’s presence. The unicorn’s features drawled as where she had expected a refined mare to come in, a large and bulky stallion stepped in instead. Taller than Big Mac, the brown stallion pulled a small towel out of his austere, black and white suit and began sponging his face and his gold-like mane.

Stretching on his massive legs, the stallion cracked his cranky shoulders.

“Damn, I hate travelling. Train operators shouldn’t be able to go on strike,” he laughed.

“Hello, Sir,” Rarity exclaimed as she stood next to the newcomer, startling him. “I am so delighted to finally meet you.”

His suit was completely ruined, wet and probably chilling him to the bones. Rarity scanned him from tail to head – which she had to raise quite a lot to get a full view of the towering stallion.

“My… My name is Rarity. Would you like a cup of tea next to a warm fire?”

She raised her hoof.

“Hello, Miss,” the stallion answered, shaking Rarity’s hoof. “My name is Malt Ale. And indeed, a warm fire is all that I yearn for at the moment.”

The next twenty minutes were spent in silence, only cut by Rarity and Malt Ale’s sips of their own cup.

“So…” Rarity trailed on. “You are from Canterlot? I thought that Hawkeye Jury would come herself. She is… the one pony Sir Fancy Pants introduced me to a few years ago.”

Hawkeye Jury was one of Fancy Pants’s friends. A mare that had made fortune in the fashion industry and was currently the sole supplier of traditional clothing for Canterlot’s aristocracy. Having Hawkeye as a client was the insurance of fame for any craftpony like Rarity.

“Indeed,” Malt Ale confirmed after a short smile. “I’m Miss Jury’s envoy. It is sad that she couldn’t come herself as I know she has valued your work for the past years and held you among her best couturier of the precedent season.”

Rarity’s heart beat faster as the small compliment soothed her stress.

“Miss Jury,” Ale continued, “is indisposed for personal reasons and has taken a step back last month until next month. I’m her VP.”

“Well…” Rarity muttered, looking at the stallion’s massive stature. “A pony like you must attract attention. And Hawkeye Jury…”

“… likes attention,” Ale finished with a short laugh. “I know. I’m also her cousin.”

“Oh?” Rarity said, surprised.

“But, enough of talks,” Ale said. “We’re here for business, aren’t we?”

Rarity’s face lit up and she trotted diligently to the centre of the city hall and activated her telekinetic magic. Shuffling through her dresses, shirts, pants, suits, costumes, and robes, Rarity nearly giggled in excitement. Everything was an artist’s masterpiece. Each crochet, point, fold, and details had been wonderfully been cared for and all in all, it was magnified by the charm and powerful reflects of hundreds of crystals and gems. A work of a demoiselle for a refined audience who wished for more than extravagance and sparkled glitters.

Rarity had used crocheted wool from Prance, ice spider silk of the Crystal Empire, or ahuizotl lace. She even managed to obtain changeling threads, a refined component that magically changed to a colour matching the dress’s main colour.

In Rarity’s eyes, this was true art. His unique audience was watching her presenting, swerving, and showing off her vast knowledge of the mundane and fashion in a respectful silence. Ah hour passed

“This is by far my most magnificent item!” Rarity exclaimed as she dragged her last package off the table. “I know Canterlot does only know me for my clothing but I also do jewellery on my spare time!”

Malt Ale arched his brows in surprise and smiled gently as Rarity unfolded a sheath of paper. Even Rarity stopped a second to admire her own work. Stars danced in her eyes as the firelights reflected on a parure made out thinly chiselled gold, incrusted with rose diamonds and blue topazes. Finally, a set of translucent crystals dangled from silver threads and shone with the colours of the rainbow. Malt Ale’s eyes widened but soon enough he returned to a phlegmatic expression.

Rarity put the parure on and wandered around, showing that the piece did not clatter or emit a sound as she moved. She had had everything planned and attended for.

This luxury show ended soon after as Rarity put back the parure in its paper fold. She turned around and gave a broad smile at her unique audience. She hid well the drop of sweat rolling off her neck.

Malt Ale nodded silently as he stood on his massive legs and joined Rarity next to the table.

“May I have another cup of tea, please?” he asked.

Rarity did not peep a word and rushed to the kettle. The water was still warm and in a few minutes she had brought a new cup to the brown stallion. He seemed in a deep thinking.

“So?” Rarity pressed on.

Malt Ale drew his head back at the remark.

“So what?” he answered.

“What do you think?” Rarity hesitated.

“You are not the market, Miss Rarity. The market does make you and not the other way around. Did you really think your work, as beautiful as it is, would be enough to make you the centre of the industry?” Brown Ale said neutrally. “If you wanted Hawkeye to say those word to you, I’ll say it: ‘You are a wonderful craftpony’. However, your work is not important enough to drive Canterlot fashion. You are a has-been, Miss Rarity. And your inflated self of importance has been ruining your reputation and work for far too long.”

Rarity was horrified by the stallion’s word. She couldn’t even muster to cry. She was petrified, a wall in which Malt Ale’s words came crashing on. Silent she was and silent she remained as the herald continued.

“How long have you been in Ponyville without at least stepping once in Canterlot? Wandered in its hyped streets and watched the moving, shaking, changing?” He paused and sighed. “Hawkeye warned me about it. You’ve grown out of touch with the fashion scene. You’ve driven yourself afar from the reality and grown overconfident of yourself…”

“But it’s my talent!” Rarity countered. “I… I… I’m made to create, sew, and produce goods that are imbedded with gems and crystals. That’s my talent.”

“It’s falling out of fashion, Miss Rarity. You’ve grown out old of the system. It’s time to change. To do better and change. To adapt. Hawkeye asked me to come because I have one talent. Look at my cutie mark.”

Rarity’s lips quivered as her eyes dropped down on Malt Ale’s cutie mark. It was a rock under a magnifying glass. The glass was focusing on one single golden nugget sprouting out of the muddy, tasteless rock.

“I can see talent in ponies. You, Miss Rarity, have an enormous talent, something inside you that you don’t even recognize or know about. Hawkeye is just annoyed you’ve come to wasting it.”

Rarity slumped over and hung her head low. Malt Ale sighed and shook his head.

“Look, Miss Rarity. You are a talented couturier but I think it is time for you to rethink your position and ask yourself what you want to do with your knowledge, if not talent.”

“Can I have some time for myself?” Rarity asked.

“Of course. I’m doing this for you,” Malt Ale drawled on.

“They all say that,” Rarity hissed. “Detractors, competitors, manipulators… all of them.”

“Truth can hurt,” he said. “But sometimes, you have to be generous with hurtful advice.”

Malt Ale unfolded the paper that enshrouded the parure and caught himself contemplating it for too long.

“Take a bunch of holidays,” he said, dropping the haughty tone. “I think you’ve driven yourself to the burnout.”

Rarity sniffed when the door of the city hall clacked close.

[ α Ω α ]

“I’m really worried about Rarity?” Twilight said as she looked outside. “Haven’t seen her since the morning.”

The moon shone through Fluttershy’s ground floor door window and Twilight’s eyes wandered in its white glim.

“Hey! Don’t worry,” Applejack soothed. “Ah’ve seen her with that pony from Canterlot. She’s in good comp’.”

“I believe you, Applejack,” the alicorn replied. “I’m just… It’s taking an awful lot of time.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Twilight,” Fluttershy comforted. “Rarity likes to take her time.”

Fluttershy softly floated over the dinner table and poured another soft drink to the small assembly. There, alongside Zecora, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash, who was fairly asleep on her chair, her mouth drooling like a hose, a last minute invitee was sitting.

“Best parties are welcome parties!” Pinkie cheered with a pint of cider in her hoof.

The newcomer chuckled at the over-abundance of friendliness the pink pony spread around.

“Thanks, Pinkie,” a zebra answered with a deep, masculine voice. “It’s a real pleasure to sit at a table. I haven’t for a while.”

Rainbow Dash chocked on her saliva and hacked her back legs under the table. Opening one eye, she struggled around and tried to reach out for Applejack’s pint. The apple bucker kicked her hoof off her plate.

“Don’t touch ma stuff,” Applejack warned. “Yah got ‘nough of it already.”

Pouting, Rainbow Dash growled and turned over towards the male zebra.

“Why dontcha tell me why you ain’t speaking with rhymes?” Rainbow Dash rambled. “Zecora’s much funnier like that.”

Applejack gave a slap from the back of her hoof on Rainbow Dash’s top of her head.

“Yah don’t ask those kind of thing, Dash!”

The two zebras shared an amused stare and laughed.

“Rainbow Dash, truth be told,” Zecora started, “Manaja and I come from two tribes, very different and old. We do not share the same traditions, and such not the same alliterations.”

Manaja was setting at the right of Zecora and both were fairly different. Manaja was fairly taller though he couldn’t rival with Applejack’s brother. His mane was not as straight as his brethren and the dark in his fur was far less pronounced. Instead of wearing gold piercing and jewellery, he had clothed himself with simple leather fabric that hid his whole hide. When he had come in town he had been wearing a simple traveler’s bag. Finally, the mud on his hooves talked about the length of his travel.

“So why are you a pilgrim?” Twilight asked with her striking curiosity. “And what is your pilgrimage all about?”

“Eh…” Manaja blurted. “I’m… I can make an exception for you. But, it’s a party-pooper.”

“Oh,” Twilight back up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to.”

“No,” Manaja said with a weak smile. “I’m making my travel ‘round the world. I’m in search of something.”

“You’re playing hide ‘n seek?” Pinkie Pie burst out, setting her two forehooves on the edge of the table.

Applejack punched her in the shoulder and threw her a dark stare. Rubbing her scratch, Pinkie Pie sat up with a scrunched up face.

“I’m searching for a burial place.” Fluttershy’s cottage drown in a stark silence. “I told you. It’s commonplace in my tribe to send the kin on a quest to find the perfect resting place for the deceased. So they may sleep soundly.”

“I shouldn’t have asked, sorry,” Twilight apologized. “Sorry for your loss.”

Zecora and Manaja shared a faint look and glanced at the alicorn.

“It’s been five years now,” Manaja explained. “I think this travel has now more to do with me finding a resting place that whom I carry.”

Manaja gave one short chuckle while everypony kept silent.

“Five years?” Twilight finally broke the ice. “You must have seen the world.”

“Not even a glimpse,” Manaja noted. “It’s so vast I’m really wondering if this piece of earth is round or flat.”

“Eh… Mister… May I come with you?”

Apr. 2015 - Wonder, Yonder, Wander

Time had clawed part of the light blue paint off the walls of the tunnel. Below the still glued flakes, bleached orange and yellow shades transpired. Water pipes cast in the bare concrete ceiling had broken at some point and a steady stream of sludgy water came crashing down through a crack. Old and decrepit, the underground alleyway stank of stagnant water, moss, and rotting murk. Nothing lay alive there and only three small shapes traveled across the shadows.

“We should have taken to the right,” a colt’s voice broke open. “Now we’re lost!”

“I don’t feel great. Can we just… go back?” another sheepish voice added.

“Come, guys. Relax,” a slightly older filly mused back. “Ain’t no ghost here. It’s just the old castle’s caves.”

The second colt stopped dead on the concrete embankment they had walked on for an hour. Looking down on his left, he saw the filly’s lit up horn reflection in the rusting and disaffected railway. He gulped and stopped, ready to turn around and run back to the outside.

“Tut, tut,” the filly countered as she stepped behind the colt and nudged him forward with her muzzle. “You’ll see. T‘will be fun. Big sis’ gotta show her brothers some fun tricks.”

“Why did you bring us here, Sonder?” the first colt hissed. “Codex and I… We didn’t want to come.”

The second colt, Codex was his name, nodded hastily, throwing a look right and left as they reached a crosswalk. In the distance, a slow trickle of water hit a pond intermittently.

“Hush, Wonder."

May 2015 - The Ride

“What is so important about going faster than anypony else?”

The guards in the middle of the faintly-lit throne room stepped back from a shackled mare. Alone, prey to myriads of stares and drowning in silence, she rose. Her eyes shone in the penumbra as a maddened smile crawled upon her face.

“Waiting. We always have to wait. Everything is a matter of… boredom. But when you hit the track, the air… the road. Everything has to keep up with you. It feels like you’re ahead of life.
The smell is so peculiar. Burnt tires on the track. Fire of gasoline. Blood and sweat. No matter how you fly, how you run, what you drive… The air hitting your face is a song: the song of freedom. Something that nothing else, not even you, ever offered me.
I can see ponies’ grimaces. I am a blaspheme. Have you ever hit the road? Felt the sparks of those crashing down around you? Smashed down below your hooves?
Going fast is to conquer and, on the track, I am the empress. There, I am the queen. There, I am somepony you’ll never be. There, I am finally myself.”

The mare’s voice echoed shortly in the massive room. Nopony spoke, not even the Nightmare Queen. The chained up and restrained Pegasus snorted and smiled ruefully.

“To be number one is all there is. If I’m not first, I am nothing.”

The mare stopped and growled, finally meeting the cat-like turquoise eyes of a millennium-old queen.

“You want to get rid of me,” the Pegasus continued. “Go ahead, try to shut me out, shackle me, silence me… kill me. Prohibit the race. Prohibit what I’ve made years to put up. Or at least, I challenge you to try. Nopony will bow. This race, my queen, it is our personal act of rebellion against you. And nopony, no… goddess will ever steal that drive from us. The race will live on until you’ve extinguished all spark of life of your servant. But at that point you’ll be alone, in a dead country, under a dead sky which nopony will ever watch and relief under. For now, the next aeon, and the aeons ever after.”

The queen did not speak but her face told a thousand word. Frowning, her blazing eyes devoured the relentless and defying pony that dared speaking out. With a low, nearly inaudible, groan, the queen of the nigh turned towards a nearby squire who stepped forth. Unrolling a scroll, the stallion cleared his throat.

“Rainbow Dash, I hereby condemn you, for the accounts of drug-dealing, conspiration, outspoken rebellion, attempted murder, murder and lèse-majesté, to death.” The stallion stopped, cast a glance at the queen, and resumed without enthousiasm. “You’ll be executed tomorrow. As hath spoken our dear queen, Nightmare Moon.”

As Rainbow Dash lowered her head with her dagger-throwing eyes riveted on the mighty alicorn, she hissed:

“I may pass, but the ride must go on. And this ride will outlive your sorry ass.”

Jun. 2015 - Fallout:Equestria (French Translation Test)

Fallout : Equestria

Ecrit par Kkat

Traduit par RealmOfMereShadows

Ce roman est avant tout un travail de fiction et toutes ressemblances avec la réalité, qu’elles s’agissent de personnes, localisations et évènements, sont purement fortuites.

« My Little Pony : Friendship is Magic » est une marque déposée par Hasbro Inc, basée aux Etats-Unis, et tous dérivés font partis de la propriété intellectuelle de l’entreprise.

« Fallout » est une marque déposée par Bethesda Softworks LLC, basée aux Etats-Unis, et tous dérivés font partis de la propriété intellectuelle de l’entreprise.

« Fallout : Equestria » est un pur travail de passionnés à but non-lucratif et dont l’objectif premier est de partager l’amour et l’engouement pour le dessin animé et la communauté qui a su en fleurir.

Notes du traducteur :

« Bonjour à vous tous, lecteurs,

Je ne prétends pas être une brute de la langue française ni être un démon majeur de la langue shakespearienne. Toutefois je suis animé par un amour profond envers le travail littéraire de Kkat et pour la communauté qui en a découlé. Si mon travail contient des erreurs et anglicismes qui me vaudraient le bûcher sous le porche de l’Académie Française faîte-le moi savoir.

J’espère que vous apprécierai ce travail de longue haleine et que vous saurez partager ce petit bout de vie avec vos connaissances et amis.

RoMS »

Introduction

Il était une fois dans le royaume magique d’Equestria…

Vint une époque où les idéaux enfantés par l’amitié prirent fin. L’avarice, l’égoïsme et la paranoïa firent leur nid. La jalousie engendra une lutte acharnée pour des terres et ressources naturelles toujours plus rare. Les pays entrèrent en guerre avec leurs voisins et la fin des temps se produisit presque comme attendu. Le monde s’enfonça dans l’abîme, dévoré par la magie noire et le feu funèbre. Les détails n’ont plus aucune importance et les raisons qui nous menèrent dans le précipice ne furent que les nôtres, comme toujours. Forgée par des sabots équins, une étincelle échappa à tout contrôle. Alors que des supra-sorts striaient le ciel, les continents en proie aux flammes s’affaissèrent sous les océans en ébullition. La race équine fut presque anéantie et ses âmes errantes se fondirent dans les radiations dévorant le paysage. Ainsi, alors que le silence et l’obscurité s’abattirent sur le monde, toute vie se vit purgée de sa surface.

Toute ? Non ! L’apocalypse ne fut que le prélude d’un épisode bien plus sanglant de l’histoire équine. Ils furent des milliers à échapper aux premières heures de cet holocauste en s’encloisonnant au sein de gigantesques abris souterrains connus sous le nom d’Etables. Lorsque leurs occupants en émergèrent, la désolation ambiante fut leur unique hôte. Seul l’Etable Deux demeura close car en ce jour maudit où un feu maléfique zébra les cieux, sa massive porte d’acier se referma pour ne plus jamais se rouvrir.

Volume Un, Les Terres Désolées d’Equestria

Prologue, Des PipBucks et Marques de Beauté

Si je dois vous conter l’histoire de ma vie, vous expliquer comment je suis arrivé en ces lieux avec de tel poneys et le pourquoi derrière ce que je vais bientôt faire, il serait peut-être judicieux de commencer par vous expliquer ce que sont les PipBucks[1].

Qu’est-ce qu’un PipBuck ? Il s’agit d’un appareil porté sur la patte avant au-dessus du sabot, fourni à chaque poney de l’Etable dès lors que qu’il a atteint sa maturité. Savant mélange de magie et de science licornéenne, un PipBuck sera en mesure de constamment garder un œil sur votre santé, de vous injecter médicaments et autres remèdes, et de lister et organiser votre selle. Il jouera aussi le rôle d’assistant lors de vos tentatives de réparation et stockera pour vous notes et cartes, accessibles du bout du sabot. Enfin, il vous permettra d’écouter le réseau radio de l’Etable quand bon vous le semble grâce à sa capacité hors-norme à se connecter et décrypter n’importe quelle fréquence radio.

Et ce n’est pas tout, loin de là. Un PipBuck produit un Champ de Projection Visuel où C.P.V. qui vous guidera en vous donnant vos directions et en gaugeant le niveau de dangerosité de vos rencontres. Qu’importe le fait que vous faîtes face à des monstres ou poneys. Et probablement le meilleur pour la fin, un PipBuck peut vous fournir une aide magique en plein combat pour une durée de temps impartie grâce à la Visée Arcanique Stable-Tec[2] où V.A.S.T.

Par ailleurs j’oubliais, il peut garder en mémoire et suivre la localisation des objets et personnes préalablement marquées dans son registre. Parmi ces personnes font notablement partis les autres détenteurs de PipBucks. Ainsi, dans le cadre où quelqu’un se perdrait dans une Etable, quiconque posséderai le nom de l’individu égaré sera à même de le retrouver instantanément. Ne demandez pas comment on peut se perdre dans une Etable mais cela arrive de temps à autres. Le PipBuck peut même servir de lampe.

Plus besoin de le répéter, les PipBucks sont un chef-d’œuvre de la science arcanique licornéenne. En détenir un représente un avantage considérable. Dès lors, il devient quasiment impossible de convaincre quiconque n’a jamais mis un sabot dans l’Etable Deux qu’un tel objet est d’une banalité sans égal pour les poneys qui y vivent. Et c’est la raison pour laquelle j’étais déçu d’en avoir un comme marque de beauté.

Tout le monde possédait un PipBuck dans l’Etable Deux. Qu’advenait-il donc de toutes les choses que j’ai déjà mentionné ? Et bien la plupart des poneys n’utilisait même pas la moitié de ces fonctionnalités. Les habitants s’en servaient uniquement pour se connecter à la radio de l’Etable afin d’écouter la belle, oh magnifique voix de Velvet Remedy[3] dans la soirée, ou les compétitions de chants organisées par l’école pendant la journée. L’Etable possédait aussi deux ligues de football, l’une autorisant l’usage du V.A.S.T. contrairement à l’autre. Hormis cette occasion, la majorité d’entre nous n’accordaient à leur PipBuck presque aucune attention.

C’est la Superviseuse qui confit à chacun d’entre nous son propre PipBuck, le jour de leur intronisation, une fête ayant lieu un à deux jours après l’obtention de sa marque de beauté. Nul besoin de rappeler qu’il s’agit de l’expression de votre talent, inscrit à jamais sur votre flanc et ce à la vue de tous. Dans l’Etable Deux, votre marque de beauté indique ce à quoi vous excellez et donc ce à quoi vous servirez.

Une fois que celle-ci est apparue, la Superviseuse sera à même de vous assigner un travail adapté et une place déterminée au sein de l’Etable. Donc, non… je n’étais pas enchantée le moins du monde de savoir que ce qui me rendait unique était quelque chose que tout le monde possédait. C’était comme me dire que je n’étais pas spéciale du tout. Bien sûr qu’obtenir un PipBuck comme marque de beauté pouvait signifier que j’étais destinée à devenir une technicienne affiliée hors-pair ou quelque chose comme ça. Mais en réalité c’était comme obtenir une marque de beauté d’une marque de beauté.

Le fait que je fus la dernière à obtenir ma marque n’aida pas non plus. Ce n’était pas surprenant à bien y penser. C’est un peu compliqué de trouver ce à quoi vous êtes supposée être bon si vous ne touchez à l’objet en question qu’après avoir découvert ce à quoi vous êtes supposé être bon... J’avais tout essayé, même inventer de nouvelles choses. Etant une licorne, mes capacités magiques innées me permettaient de réaliser des travaux minutieux auxquels les autres poneys ne pouvaient espérer rivaliser. On peut tous tenir une clé dans sa boucher et ouvrir une serrure mais manipuler plusieurs outils au cours d’une opération délicate ? De la télékinésie précise sera nécessaire. C’est comme ça que j’ai décidé d’apprendre à crocheter des serrures avec un tournevis et une épingle à crin. J’étais même devenue particulièrement bonne à ça. Dommage que je n’obtins pas de marque de beauté avec la pratique. Je ne me fis beaucoup d’ennuis par contre.

A ma plus grande honte, j’eus à passer le Test d’Obtention de Marque où T.O.M. dans l’espoir que je trouverais ce qui me rendrait spéciale. Mais non… Mon T.O.M. était médiocrement ordinaire avec quelques notes un tant soit peu supérieures à la moyenne dans quelques matières. En conclusion je pouvais autant être une potentielle technicienne PipBuck qu’une commissaire de l’Etable. Il était à noter que ces deux options étaient encore moins surprenantes qu’elles étaient le plus souvent octroyées à des licornes, plus aptes aux travaux techniques et administratifs. Il y avait tout de même une exception : avoir un talent d’artiste comme Velvet Remedy.

Comme je l’ai déjà dit, notre magie innée nous permettait le genre de manipulation minutieuse qu’un travail technique demande. C’était pour cette raison que les rôles de Superviseuse et son conseil étaient réservés aux licornes. Après tout, c’était bien la magie de la Superviseuse qui alimentait la lumière artificielle utilisée dans la pommeraie souterraine. Malgré le fait que nos pommes n’aient jamais eu la belle teinte rouge des spécimens photographiées dans nos livres, elles nous gardaient en vie.

C’est parce qu’on me fit essayer chaque position présente dans mon T.O.M. que j’eus accès à un PipBuck avant de recevoir le mien. Je n’aurais probablement jamais obtenu de marque de beauté autrement.

Oh ! Je m’appelle LittlePip. Allez savoir. On m’a nommé comme ça parce que j’étais la plus jeune et la plus petite. Même ma mère eut la présence d’esprit de ne pas m’appeler « Pipsqueak »[4]. Ce n’est pas que je ne l’aime pas, mais lorsque la marque de beauté d’une petite ponette est un verre de cidre brut… Qu’importe, c’est toujours drôle de voir ce qu’il advient des noms parfois.

Ravie de faire votre connaissance et voici mon histoire…

Chapitre Un, En Dehors de l’Etable

« Parce que dans l’Etable Deux, aucun n’est jamais entré et aucun n’en est jamais ressorti. »

Du gris à en pleurer.

Les murs de la maintenance étaient tous d’un gris des plus mornes et monotones. Le mur auquel je faisais actuellement face avait tout de même le mérite d’être d’un gris particulièrement propre. Les PipBucks étant connus pour être résistants et fiables, être le Technicien Habilité aux PipBucks signifiaient de longues périodes d’arrêt. Être l’assistante dudit technicien faisait que j’avais à m’occuper de toutes les tâches ingrates pendant que mon supérieur se la coulait douce dans l’arrière-boutique. Le lavage de mur figurait parmi ces tâches.

« Ce mur a besoin d’une fresque. »

L’esprit à la dérive, je m’imaginais la Superviseuse, acquiesçant et intimant Palette de faire de notre atelier l’un de ses chefs d’œuvre vivides et colorés. Palette était la meilleure peintre de l’Etable Deux et, comme tout artiste de renom, cela faisait d’elle un trésor. La vie dans l’Etable Deux dévore votre âme. Vous êtes né dans l’Etable, vous vivez toute votre vie dans l’Etable et vous mourrez aussi dans cette Etable. Une fois votre marque de beauté obtenue, votre vie au sein de l’Etable est pour la plupart déjà écrite. C’est pour cette raison que la Superviseuse insistait pour qu’une nouvelle chanson soit ajoutée sur les ondes chaque semaine, que les espaces publics soient recouverts de fresques inspirantes et motivantes, et que des fêtes soient organisées de manière régulière dans l’atrium… Tout n’était que distraction pour lutter contre la dépression.

Le désespoir de ma situation m’envahit alors que je faisais face à tout ce gris. Ajouter de la couleur aux espaces de maintenance était déjà bien bas dans l’agenda, alors s’occuper de l’atelier des techniciens, l’un des endroits les moins visités relevait de l’impossible. Mes oreilles tombèrent avec le sentiment grandissant que j’allais faire face à ce même mur grisâtre pour le restant de mes jours.

« Oh, ma pauvre. C’est vraiment si horrible que ça ? »

Elle était là devant moi, une magnifique licorne au pelage d’un noir de jet avec une chevelure blanche striée de couleurs. Avec sa voix douce comme la soie et aussi savoureuse que du chocolat, Velvet Remedy se tenait à l’entrée de mes quartiers. Je me sentis toute heureuse d’avoir fini le nettoyage juste avant, mais honteuse aussi que l’apparence de la pièce ne soit pas à la hauteur de sa personne.

Je n’en croyais pas mes yeux. Je l’avais déjà vu sur scène, sur l’estrade nous surplombant lors des soirées les plus mémorables. J’écoutais ses morceaux tout le temps. Je prenais même le temps d’enregistrer chaque nouvelle chanson sur mon PipBuck pour ne pas avoir à attendre pour l’entendre à nouveau. Je peux l’avouer, j’avais le béguin pour elle, et ce depuis des années. C’était aussi le cas pour trois cents autre poneys et ponette au moins. Ma mère avait l’habitude d’en rire.

« LittlePip », elle disait, partageant un petit rire avec ses amis. « La porte de sa grange ne balance pas dans ce sens-là. »

Il m’a fallu plusieurs années pour en saisir le sens, et plusieurs secondes pour capter que Velvet Remedy venait juste de me poser une question.

« Eh, que ? Quoi ? »

Superbe réponse, LittlePip. Très élégante. Je n’avais plus qu’à creuser ma tombe au travers du béton de la maintenance, m’y glisser et le recouvrir de gravats.

Elle me retourna un petit sourire. Un sourire !

« Tu paraissais tellement déprimée quand je suis entrée. Rien que je ne puisse faire ? » elle dit avec sa voix d’or.

Velvet Remedy venait de m’offrir de l’aide !

Comme happée d’un rêve, mes sens me revinrent en un bon. Elle avait une raison pour venir ici. Venir crapahuter ici n’avait pas de sens pour elle si ce n’était pour autre chose qu’une question de PipBuck. Jetant un œil aux alentours, je me rendis compte que j’étais la seule en astreinte. Mon chef était endormie dans son bureau, comme toujours.

« Oh… Non, ce n’est rien », j’ajoutai, essayant de retrouver un tant soit peu d’aplomb. « En quoi puis-je vous aider ? »

Peu convaincu mais compréhensive, Velvet Remedy me tendit sa patte avant autour de laquelle se trouvait son PipBuck. C’était un modèle plus raffiné que le mien. Sur le côté étaient finement gravés ses initiales ainsi que sa marque de beauté, un oiseau chantant en plein vol.

« Je n’aime pas pinailler mais le revêtement interne devient de plus en plus inconfortable. Pourrais-tu le changer ?

– Tout à fait ! »

J’avais déjà attrapé mes clés spéciales avec ma télékinésie. En tant que technicienne affiliée, les poches de mon bleu de travail regorgeaient d’outils de précision en tout genre.

« Ce sera fait en un rien de temps. »

Aussitôt dit, le verrou du PipBuck sauta. Avec un petit rire, Velvet Remedy ouvrit la parole :

« Oh, non. Ce n’est pas un problème. Prends ton temps. Je vais mettre un peu de pommade sur mon sabot dans ma chambre. Je vais prendre mon après-midi. »

J’avais oublié, Velvet Remedy allait chanté demain soir dans le salle de spectacle de l’Etable ! J’allais faire briller son PipBuck, qu’il soit digne de se tenir à son sabot. Si j’y passai la nuit, j’étais sûre que je pouvais le remettre totalement à neuf pour demain quand elle viendra le chercher juste avant son spectacle.

« Pas de problème ! Je l’aurais prêt demain, même heure pétante. Je te le promets, tu ne seras pas déçu ! »

Le petit sourire qu’elle me lança de nouveau allait effacer la morne grisaille de mon esprit pour le reste de la journée.

« Merci », dit-elle en partant.

A peine eussé-je le temps de zieuter sa marque qu’elle était partie.

Parcourant les couloirs le jour suivant en me rendant vers la chambre de Velvet Remedy, je sifflais l’une de ses chansons. A mes côtés flottait son PipBuck, enrobé dans mon champ de magie. Le PipBuck brillait, fraichement rembourré et réparé avec les meilleurs composants que j’avais glanés. J’allais faire une heureuse.

L’amoncellement de poneys au détour d’un couloir me sortit de ma rêverie. Tous se pressaient autour de la porte de Velvet Remedy. J’allais devoir me battre museau et sabots pour passer à travers les paparazzis et les demandeurs d’autographes. Lévitant le PipBuck un peu plus haut, je commençai à me frayer un passage.

« Elle a disparu !

– Comment est-ce possible ? »

Les chuchotements paniqués et complaintes autour de moi crurent en intensité.

« Pourquoi nous abandonnerait-elle ? »

Disparue ? Comment ça disparu ? Puis vinrent les mots qui me glacèrent le sang.

« Je ne savais même pas que la porte de l’Etable pouvait s’ouvrir ! »

Elle était sortie ?!?

« Ne vous inquiétez pas, la Superviseuse cria au-dessus du raffut. J’ai l’identifiant de chaque poney de l’Etable. Je vais me charger personnellement d’envoyer une équipe de sauvetage. Je vous promets que Velvet sera de retour d’ici ce soir. »

Doucement, mon regard se fixa sur le PipBuck flottant au-dessus de moi. Essayant d’échapper à la foule en gardant la tête baisse, l’impression de me noyer dans du ciment frais me prit aux tripes. Lorsque la Superviseuse allait lancer tout le monde à la poursuite de Velvet, son identifiant allait tous les guider vers le PipBuck dans la maintenance…

Mon arrière-train heurta un poney et, surprise, je lâchai prise sur le PipBuck. Celui-ci chuta sur le sol bruyamment. En me retournant, je me retrouvai museau à museau avec la Superviseuse. Elle ne dit pas un mot alors que son regard se verrouilla sur le PipBuck à nos sabots. La marque de beauté de Velvet Remedy et ses initiales étaient plus que visibles.

« Qu’est-ce. Que. Ceci ? »

Parlant lentement, sa voix ne présageait rien de bon. Tous les poneys me fixèrent, me dévorèrent du regard, mais personne ne dit un mot et le silence s’abattit sur moi comme une chape de plomb. La gorge sèche, les mots me manquèrent.

Je pouvais sentir la haine autour de moi, émanant des douzaines d’admirateurs de Velvet Remedy. J’étais celle à blâmer pour la perte de leur idole.

La Superviseuse brisa le silence. Elle ne haussa ni le ton ni ne fit preuve de méchanceté :

« Prends ça avec toi et cours dans tes quartiers. Rapidement. »

Elle n’eut pas à le dire deux fois.

Le soir venu, Je me trouvai allongée dans mon lit, donnant des petits coups dans le PipBuck de Velvet Remedy tout en écoutant la radio à partir du mien. L’annonce de la tragédie du jour se répéta une énième fois.

Je ne pouvais le croire. Elle était partie. Comment avait-elle pu ouvrir la porte ? Elle était fermée, scellée, et seule la Superviseuse savait comment la déverrouiller si la porte pouvait encore s’ouvrir bien sûr. Apparemment elle pouvait d’ailleurs. Mais surtout, pourquoi Velvet Remedy était-elle partie ?

Pourquoi ? On ne savait pas vraiment ce qui se tenait derrière la porte, ni même s’il restait quoi que ce soit derrière celle-ci. Les livres d’histoire supposait que l’extérieur n’était plus qu’un vaste cratère sans vie et irradié. C’était la logique sur laquelle tout le monde s’accordait au moins. Je me souviens tout de même d’une histoire de fantômes que j’avais entendue pendant ma première soirée pyjama. J’en avais fait des cauchemars et l’histoire elle-même continuait de me hanter à ce jour. C’était l’histoire d’un poney qui avait ouvert la porte d’une manière ou d’une autre. Lorsqu’il avait mis un pied au dehors, il se rendit compte qu’il n’y avait pas de dehors en réalité. Il n’y avait rien du tout. Et ce rien avait emporté le poney pour lui dévorer son âme et que lui aussi joigne le néant.

Avec un peu de logique je savais très bien que cette histoire n’avait aucun fondement mais l’idée que je m’en étais faite m’avait impressionnée.

Deux choses dont j’étais tout de même sûre : Velvet m’avait manipulé afin de retirer son PipBuck de sorte que la Superviseuse ne puisse la suivre et que j’étais foutu.

Être la plus petite ponette de mon âge, et la dernière à obtenir ma marque de beauté ne m’a pas facilité la tâche dans le cadre de nouer des amitiés avec mes pairs. Ma mère n’aida pas grandement pour être honnête. Me réveiller en hurlant lors de ma première soirée pyjama non plus. Je m’étais donc habitué à être seule mais je ne n’étais jamais fait d’ennemis jusqu’à présent. Je ne valais pas la peine des autres mais jamais aucun ne m’avais haï jusqu’alors.

Je ne pouvais pas les blâmer non plus même si c’était totalement injuste. En colère et blessés, ils avaient besoin d’une victime. L’annonce de la nouvelle n’avait pas mentionné mon nom, juste « Le PipBuck personnalisé de Velvet Remedy a été retrouvé en possession du technicien affilié ». Mais comme seuls deux poneys partageaient ce titre faire le lien n’était pas si difficile. La scène à l’extérieur de la chambre de Velvet n’y aurait rien changé.

La Superviseuse était en train de parler à la radio :

« Nous ressentons tous cette perte. Mais je tiens à rappeler à chacun d’entre nous qu’il s’agit du choix de Velvet Remedy uniquement. C’est elle a choisi de quitter son domicile. Nous abandonnant, nous sa famille. Elle a trahi ma confiance tout comme elle a trahi la vôtre, et tout comme elle a trahi la confiance du celle qu’elle trompé en enlevant son PipBuck, assurant ainsi que nous ne puissions la trouver. Je comprends que beaucoup d’entre vous sont en colère ou blessés. Je vous exhorte à diriger cette colère là où elle appartient vraiment... »

Malgré toute la reconnaissance que j’avais pour ses mots, cela n’allait en aucun cas changer le ressentiment à mon égard. J’allais y avoir droit pour le restant de mes jours, même si les autres habitants de l’Etable le garderaient pour eux-mêmes. Cela se sentait dans l’air.

Me distrayant avec le PipBuck abandonné par son propriétaire, je m’attardai sur un fichier encrypté. Je l’avais déjà repéré hier et l’avais prise pour ce qui devait probablement être une chanson inachevée. Je ne voulais pas l’ouvrir d’une part par respect pour la vie privée de Velvet Remedy et d’autre pour conserver la surprise. Cela n’avait probablement plus d’importance à ce moment. La chanson n’allait jamais être parachevée.

Ouvrant une poche de mon habit de technicien, j’en extirpai les outils qui allaient me permettre de craquer en toute sécurité et avec aise le cryptage. C’était un fichier audio et je l’ouvris.

"Le code de sécurité afin d’ouvrir la porte de l’Etable Deux est ... CMC3BFF[5]."

Me redressant, surprise par la teneur du message, j’éteignis ma radio et relança le message.

Je ne reconnaissais pas la voix. Il s’agissait d’une femme, un peu mielleuse, et dotée d’un étrange accent n’appartenant à personne au sein de l’Etable. Mais je savais à présent comme Velvet était partie.

J’ai dû rester assis pendant des heures, contemplant les choix à ma disposition. Au final, ma décision fut prise.

J’allais sortir, partir à sa recherche. Et j’allais la ramener.

Je me tenais debout, scrutant la massive porte d’acier qui protégeait l’Etable Deux des horreurs (ou bien du néant !) que se tenaient de l’autre côté. Deux gardes en bloquaient l’accès. Ayant rempli mes sacoche de pommes et de nécessaires de survie, même un gros livre de science des arcanes pour me donner quelque chose à lire, deux gabelles autour de mon cou, j’étais prête à partir. La superviseuse s’était toutefois assurer que personne n’allait retenter l’acte.

Insister et lancer quelques regards n’allaient me mener nulle part. Ma corne luisait mais il tenait leur position, fort peu impressionnés. Ce n’était pas comme ça que j’allais m’approcher de ce panneau de contrôle.

« Eh, ce serait pas toi la pouliche qui aurait laissé notre Velvet s’égarer dehors ? » l’un des gardes m’accusa presque, faisant un pas en avant dans une tentative d’intimidation.

L’autre garde détourna les yeux par dégout. L’était-il à mon égard ou au fait que la Superviseuse avait formellement interdit quiconque de me prendre à part. J’espérai durement que c’était la deuxième raison, considérant ce que j’allai leur faire.

BAM !

La malle en métal suspendue au-dessus d’eux s’abattit sur leurs têtes, leur faisant mordre la poussière. Ah, ces poneys, la lévitation ça leur passe au-dessus de la tête.

Me mettant aux commandes, je composai le code de sécurité lorsque la voix de la Superviseuse hurla au travers des haut-parleurs les plus proches.

« Arrête ! Je t’ordonne de t’arrêter! »

Ouais, c’était pas prêt d’arriver.

« Gardes! Tous les gardes à la porte de l’Etable! Arrêtez cette pouliche! »

Et merde!

Mes sabots s’agrippèrent sur l’interrupteur principal de la porte, priant Celestia pour que le code fonctionne. Puis, tirant de toutes mes forces, j’activai l’interrupteur.

Un ramdam assourdissant secoua la chambre, suivit rapidement par un sifflement mêlant vapeur et grondement. Un bras mécanique s’abaissa du le plafond et s’arrima à la porte. Avec un cri à m’en faire grincer les dents, le bras sorti la porte d’acier de plusieurs tonnes de ses gonds et la fit rouler sur le côte.

Je me surpris par hasard à ressasser l’adage de ma mère : « la porte de l’Etable Deux ne balance pas dans ce sens. »

Cette porte ne devrait même pas se balancer. Malgré que j’eus activé moi-même l’interrupteur, j’étais stupéfaite que la porte s’était effectivement ouverte.

« Tu n’as pas à faire ça… LittlePip, c’est bien ton nom ? »

La voix de la Superviseuse m’arracha de ma stupeur et j’entendis les fracas des sabots de gardes se rapprocher.

Je fis un pas en avant vers la porte.

« Ne vous inquiétez pas. Je vais la ramener. »

« Non, tu ne le feras pas. Une fois dehors, plus jamais tu ne rentreras. »

L’injustice de ses mots me piqua au vif pendant un court instant. La Superviseuse était prête à envoyer une équipe de recherche afin de ramener Velvet Remedy. Mais elle était spéciale et moi… pas du tout.

Une partie de moi voulait faire marche arrière, ramper en sens inverse dans ma chambre, de retour dans ma vie morne mais stable.

Me reprenant, je fis un pas au dehors.

Avec un dernier sifflement et grondement, la porte d'acier de l’Etable Deux se scella à jamais derrière moi.

Je ne savais pas à quoi m’attendre au-delà de la porte. Il était clair par contre que je ne m’attendais pas à un long couloir sombre, puant le bois en décomposition et le caveau. L’Etable était derrière moi, mais je n’étais pas encore dehors. J’étais dans les limbes.

Allumant la lampe de mon PipBuck, les squelettes de poneys morts depuis belle lurette mes prirent au dépourvu, me forçant à faire un pas haletant en arrière. L’exterieur de la porte était défigurée par les griffures et coups laissées par les poneys qui avaient tenté de l’ouvrir, en vain. Leurs sabots étaient fendus, brisés.

Marchant rapidement, je mis sabot dans un couloir donnant sur une ancienne salle dotée d’un escalier, celui-ci menant à une porte dont la serrure était brisée. L’entrée menant à l’Etable Deux avait été savamment dissimulée en tant que simple porte d’un vieux cellier où l’on y entreposait des pommes. Et par dissimulée, j’entendais bien que la personne qui avait construit cette entrée avait réellement construit un cellier pour y entreposer des pommes.

Prenant une profonde inspiration, je trottinai jusqu’en haut des escaliers et ouvrit la porte, et je fis un pas au dehors.

Note de fin: Vous gagnez un niveau.

Nouveau trait de caractère: Cherchez La Pouliche – Vous faites 10% de dégâts supplémentaires contre les individus de même sexe et débloquez des nouvelles options de dialogues unique avec certains poneys.

Chapitre Deux, La Terre Gaste[6] d’Equestria

« Dans quel monde est-ce que tu vis ? Ici c’est la réalité et le sang coule à flot, ma petite pouliche. Le sang coule à flot… »

Le néant !

Mes premières secondes passées à l’extérieure parurent une éternité à en broyer mon cœur, passée dans une terreur à en faire vibrer mes sabots. L’histoire était vraie ! L’extérieur n’était qu’un vide abyssal ! Il m’entourait, me faisait suffoquer. Si je n’avais pas manqué d’air, j’aurais hurler.

Puis mes yeux commencèrent à s’adapter à l’obscurité. Me sentant faible (et pas seulement un peu bête), je revins peu à peu à mes esprits. Pour ma défense, je n’avais expérimenté la nuit auparavant. J’éteignais la lumière bien sur avant de me blottir dans mon lit. Et la pénombre était toute relative, confinée à ma chambre. Une lueur se faufilait toujours sous le pas de ma porte. La lumière des couloirs de l’Etable Deux ne s’éteignaient jamais.

Là, c’était différent. Un vent frai comme jamais je n’avais ressenti dans l’étable me chatouillait ma fourrure et refroidissant la peau en dessous. Le vent portait des odeurs avec lui, humides, pourries, poussières, étrangères. Je pouvais entendre le bruit des insectes nocturnes, les craquements de bois et un écoulement lointain… mais ce qui me frappa le plus fut ce que je ne pouvais pas entendre. Le bourdonnement constant des générateurs électriques de l’Etable et l’incessant crépitement des lumières avaient disparu, si assourdissant en leur absence que j’avais cru l’extérieur silencieux dans un premier temps. Je pouvais sentir la poussière et les cailloux concassés sous mes sabots, si contraire aux corridors lisses et stériles sur lesquels j’avais trottés toute ma vie. Bien que je ne pouvais pas voir très loin, je voyais déjà plus loin qu’à aucun moment de ma vie. Il n’y avait aucun mur pour marquer la fin de la pièce. Un abysse horizontal était offert à mes yeux où que je regarde.

Une peur toute nouvelle commença à faire son nid dans mon esprit. Mes jambes s’affaissèrent et je m’assis, sonnée. Clouant mes yeux au sol et respirant profondément, je le remerciai non seulement pour me garder ancrer mais aussi pour m’offrir un point de repère. Je fis alors l’erreur de regarder vers le ciel et ce vide sans fin me donna le tournis et l’envie de vomir. Des nuages massifs couvraient la plupart du ciel, mais pas totalement. Des trous persistaient au travers desquels une lumière faible s’écoulait. Après les nuages le vide n’avait pas de fin. Un petit grain de folie me persuada un instant que ces nuages formaient un vaste filet, créé afin de m’attraper au vol si par malheur je venais à tomber vers le haut. Mais si j’en venais à passer à travers les mailles, je ne ferais que tomber à tout jamais.

[1] « PipBucks » est un jeu de mot anglais intraduisible faisant référence à la fois au PipBoy, un outil emblématique des jeux vidéo « Fallout », et aux surnoms des poneys de sexe masculin et à leurs fameux coups de sabots. Il est cocasse de noter qu’un « buck » aux Etats-Unis est un synonyme courant pour un billet de un dollar.

[2] « Stable-Tec » ou traduit mot pour mot Etable Technologie est le nom d’une entreprise faisant partie intégrante de l’univers de Fallout: Equestria. Tout comme PipBuck, j’ai fait le choix de ne pas traduire ce nom car il s’agit d’un nom propre. Je ne connais personne qui se vante de posséder un téléphone « Je-Pomme ».

[3]Velvet Remedy, nom d’un des personnages de ce roman pourrait se traduire par Remède de Velours, mais restons-en au nom anglais, don’t you think ?
[4] « Pipsqueak » en anglais signifie « demi-portion », « gringalet » ou « avorton ». L’on doit bien voir ici la comparaison avec le nom de LittlePip qui en anglais signifie « petit pépin » une version plus subtile que la première option dont LittlePip avait si peur de se faire appeler.
[5] CMC3BFF est une référence à « Cutie Mark Crusaders 3 Best Friends Forever », marquant le lienqui unit Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle et Applebloom jusqu’à la fin.
[6] Allez, un petit peu de culture pour vous mesdames et messieurs. T.S. Eliot écrit en 1922 un poème appelé « The Waste Land » qui est une allégorie de la première guerre mondiale et de ses conséquences sur la société contemporaine européenne. Le gars était polyglotte et traduisait parfois son poème (qui contient des passages en allemand, latin, grec ancien et français) en français par « La Terre Vaine » ou « La Terre Gaste ». Gaste étant de l’ancien français pour le terme « désolé » tel qu’employé dans la franchise Fallout.

2015 project - Beneath an Endless Dusk - Prologue

Author's Note

Short Description:
Equestria was destroyed one hundred years ago, and nowadays two young ponies might push its remains over the edge by unveiling an antic and forbidden secret

Long Description:
Set more than one hundred years in the future after a cataclysm shook Equestria… one pony, with the friends he will make along his path, will learn that a dying and twisted world still has things to share.

The peace and prosperity Equestria knew is long gone now. With the sun stuck at dusk, Ponykind's broken world has stepped into a vicious circle of self-destruction.

Fate and faith mean nothing anymore. And when even nations are heading toward their own doom, how one hoof full of friends could rise against a danger lurking in the shadows, and unveil a long forgotten truth that could push the last scraps of Equestria toward the end?

2015 project - Beneath an Endless Dusk - Prologue

“A new outburst has thronged the mine with flames and death today. The earthquake lasted for what seemed to be hours. The pit was filled with aching smoke and choking gas. It burnt the colliers alive. I still hear their screams of agony pouncing in my head; blend with the din of the fire.

I don’t remember how I escaped the tunnels. I’m not even wounded or seared. Maybe I used the draining pipes under the mine.

I can’t remember.

The sizzling in my ears doesn’t want to fade away. My hooves shake; I can’t stop it. I’m so afraid.

Is Mother searching for me?

And father… He was also in the mine, but not in the same wing as me. Did he make it out?

I don’t want to go home. Three times this week an explosion broke out in the pit. Always during the night shift… my shift. I’m tired of going down there. I don’t even make a quarter of dad’s earnings and we’re starving at home.

The Direction is on everypony’s back. With the Duma, the pegasi dissolved our union two weeks ago. Aunty has been arrested. We haven’t heard of her since. They reduced our pauses and forced us, earthbound, to do overtimes.

Who’s going to defend us tomorrow?

One says they are searching for something other than coal or gems.

I wish something different could happen. I hate this place so much.

I want somepony to help us… to save me.

I’m going to die someday. I just hope somepony will keep my diary safe. Please don’t burn it as they do with the other books. Please?

I’m so scared.

Please help us.

Candelabra”

Oaks, firs and maples stood high, gathered in a thick, dark, green ocean. Gusts of wind ruffled their leaves. A casual ear would say the forest was whispering ominously.

A young filly was napping between two massive chunks of granite. The clearing and its surroundings were so quiet. She was curled up in a hollow, naturally dug in the cold coaled soil. Withered roots sprout out of the edges of the hole, scratching her flanks.

She paid attention to the swelling of her chest as she gave long and deep breathes. She was eager to feel each itch, peak of pain and shivers running beneath her skin. Her fur creased against the dirt. She moaned as her tickled stiff rubbed on few gravels. She changed her position. Several cuts triggered a throbbing pain as she moved.

A saddlebag hung at her side. She crossed her both hooves on her face. She was covered with a nasty layer of coal and mud. Stains of dried blood had dappled her hooves.

Flickering shafts of light pierced through the the trees. The tender kiss of dusk lapped the filly’s flanks without warming her up. The northern wind had taken care of sweeping away the sun’s heat. The morning dew had started condensing. Dewdrops fell from a leaf on her hind legs. Annoying quivers sparked in her muscles. Her fur rose on her skin.

She moved again, this time with a grunt.

In spite of the shakes of cold running through her body, she lay still. She shoveled up the craving to run back home for safety. She wondered how long she would resist this urge. She pictured the puncturing stares her parents would give her… It was enough to shatter the scraps of courage she had left. She was not going to face them even if it meant a place by a fire.

She shook her head. Coming back home was out of question. She had fled out of the mine during her shift. She would not earn her day's pay. Without these few bits, she knew that a long starving night was coming; dampening her already weakened conditions. She wanted to burst into tears. But, her eyes were completely dried.

A new dispiriting question came up. Did anypony die because she had left her spot this night? She moped in silence. A painful knot tightened up in her stomach.

She eyed the surroundings, bored and ashamed. If happiness had someday filled the forest, it was long gone now. Every tree was crooked. Forced to grow on a blackened soil, acrid and impure, their trunks were bent and twisted, and eerily slender for old trees. The ground itself was blanketed with dead branches and brownish leaves. A slight odor of putrefaction slipped into her muzzle; she frowned.

Yet, the not-so-peaceful clearing had brought the filly the rest she had hoped for months. She was away from her daily worries. Here, she could put aside the traumatizing event of the previous night. At least she tried not to think about it too much. She was waiting for a dreamless slumber to cradle her soul and body. She wished nopony would come and disturb her… Slowly, she got rid of the interrogations jostling in her mind and she fell asleep.

Inhaling once again, the young mare smelled a new bitter, and unsettling, perfume. It was sweat.

“There you are!” a squeaking stallion’s voice exclaimed, ending her rest brusquely.

Scared, the filly jumped out of her curled position. She banged her head against the rock right above her. She cursed the world for letting somepony find her. It has to be there, in this goddesses-forsaken place. Worse of all, she knew this twang-pitched male voice very well. She sighed, in pain.

“Are you okay?” he blabbered hesitantly.

She opened a lid and rubbed her painful forehead. Phosphene danced before her eyes, blurring her vision. Standing on a boulder above, the colt was staring, fretted. He was slightly older than her.

His washed-out navy-blue fur and his dirtiness contrasted with his white smile. Having a bath of dirt could not worsen his condition. Two green eyes plagued with dark rings shined under his messy and greenish forelocks. He was bulky, but his sunken cheeks betrayed a state of malnutrition. In the end, a pair of massive and worngoggles was hung around his neck. Its leather straps shred into tatters.

Yellow reflects beamed from their glasses when the colt stood in the sunlight. He was far from being a stud, but he had still something charming about him. It was a shame his irritating voice was a call to slap him in the face.

A drop of sweat fell off the colt’s chin, landing on his friend’s face. The bead splattered in her eyes. The young filly snapped.

“Fire!” she gasped his name.

Fuming, she rose straight on her hooves and dashed forward, giving chase to this colt who had dared bother her.

Light years from her reaction, the colt laughed and ran away playfully. His green mane fluttered in the wind, and his tail tickled his pursuer’s nose. She sneezed. Fire deliberately gave space to his friend. Bouncing on the opportunity, the filly leaped like a bolt of lightning, aiming to his back. They rolled in the dirt, punching each other.

Laughter burst between the two ponies. It blended with the moans of the wind through the forest.

“Look at you, Candel’, you’re filthy!” Fire snickered with a smile. “I’m gonna hang you out to the laudry room.”

Candel inspected her hooves. Her usually white fur was hidden under a disparaging black layer. She coughed, rasping her voice. Specks of dirt flew off her mane, unveiling locks of red, yellow and orange mane. Fire gently swept the gloomy particles off her flanks, only to get himself dirtier than he already was. No doubt he was lax and was not paying much attention about it. His eyes opened wide. He gave an amazed look at Candel.

“You’ve got it!” He gratified her with a magnificent smile.

She looked at her flank. Her voice turned into an unconvinced whisper.

“Oh, this. Yeah,” she breathed, neutral.

“What? Wait a minute. That’s amazing, I still don’t have mine. You’re the…” he paused, “…the third in the class to get it.”

Candel raised her eyes to the sky, sighed and shrugged.

Right over her stiffs, her sides sported a weird symbol, her cutie mark. It was a small white candle with black outlines. Its wick was consumed by a grim blue and purple flame, contrasting with the hot colours of her mane. It was some surprising colours for a cutie mark. In general they matched or were tone on tone. In Candel’s case, it would raise some eyebrows.

Fire refused to hide his amazement. His smile grew into a grin of joy until it joined his two ears. He laughed.

“It’s gorgeous, Candel! You’ve got the most beautiful cutie mark I’ve seen so far.”

“It’s just a cutie mark, nothing useful. I don’t even know what it means. I woke up with it after…" She hesitated. "Te incident.”

Fire squeaked, shocked.

“You were part of the night shift?” he blabbered.

Candel nodded, unsure if she had to be thankful about it or not.

“Twenty ponies died, and everypony is searching for survivors,” her friend brought forth, alarmed.

Candel winced. Knowing the Direction, the company that controled Murmanesk's economic and political life, she supposed its private security force was focusing on bodies search, scurried to throw them into the Vault. A grim unfitting name for the mass grave located at the north of the mine, not far away from the colliers’ blocks. She knew that everything would be done in a record time. The Direction always wanted the miners to finish the work as soon as possible. And with the political backing of the Duma, it was a matter of time. There was something extremely important down there; something more valuable than mere ponies’ existences.

Seeing her friend’s innocent face, Candel preferred not to mention it. He had the luck not to be a miner.

Fire hugged her, giving her a warm smile. He was happy to find her here. He was now assured he would not find her cadaver at the entrance of the mine, rotting with several other corpses in the culverts.

“You’re choking me, Fire Damp…” she gasped.

She coughed, trying to escape her friend’s grasp. But he was too strong. She nibbled his shoulder. Fire Damp laughed. Releasing Candel, he held her back with his hoof and dusted her entirely. He blew the last remains of coal of her mane. He smiled, Candel’s features was something he would never get bored looking at. White was a rare colour nowadays.

In his contemplation, Fire Damp blundered. His hoof slipped over Candel’s mane and his heel clanged onto two rustic circles of metal. Hung tight to her back, the atrocious contraption was encaing her two atrophied wings. Their deformed shape was revolting. A long captivity from this fetters had them withered and crooked on their joints. Added to this device were two screws pressing on her bones, sparkling a constant pain. It was a wing-cuff sporting the Duma’s brand, a blue edged wing.

Candel winced with a gasp. She shed a tear.

“I… I’m so sorry if I hurt you!” Fire Damp blabbered.

“If you hurt me?” She retorted with a bitter voice.

He tried to ease the pain sparkling in Candel’s wings. He bumped a second time his hooves on the cuffs. Enraged and sore, Candel pushed Fire aside. She cringed and started crying. At the moment, she could only feel shame.

“Shut up,” she cast. “Go away.”

Silence settled between both ponies. Fire Damp refused to move, muted apologizes moved his lips. He had long thought about Candel’s plight. And to be true, reality always backfired. Candel had lived for so long with the wing-cuff she usually forgot about her situation. The only reminders of such condition were the disgusted glances ponies gave her daily. The way back home after her shift was an ordeal.

Fire felt remorseful about the wing-cuff. They were blatantly shining on her back. Even a blind pony would be able to spot them with the clattering they made when Candel walked. Everypony knew, and everypony laughed at her. However, like many of the miners, Fire did not care so much about a pegasus wearing such contraption. Or somehow, he had trained himself not to see it. After all, a wing-cuff was a rare and gruesome garment only a few pegasi were forced to wear perpetually. The contraption was meant to cripple their wings until they were unable to fly. But it was also meant to deal a constant pain. In the end, it was nothing but torture.

Down in the pit, the miners were in the same dark destitution. Without a sky to look at and where to thrive or find a speck of hope, everypony was an earth pony in the tunnels, a filthy earthbound.

Unnerved by the painful silence he had created, Fire Damp spoke, eager to break the ice.

“Come,” he comforted.

Putting his hoof on Candel’s shoulder, he led her to the edge of the forest. The last bits of snow a recent storm had brought were melting with tardiness on the trees. Droplets of water fell on the ground, twinkling in the dusk’s light. They dashed over a stream and snaked through the young sprouts that had grown over the past days. They crossed the border of the forest.

“Follow me,” Fire Damp pressed.

Their hooves crushed a block of ice, shattering it in hundreds of morsels. Under their heels sprawled a hectare of scorched land, burnt for the future crops. Candel swallowed. The field was located behind a spoil tip. It was a monstrous mass of digging rubble, three hundred hooves high.

“Fire, wait, I can’t follow! You’re too fast,” Candel complained.

They crossed an old stone bridge and headed to the tip, and finally stepped on its rough and crumbled hill. Made of uncountable grains of black, dark red and brown, the ground lowered under Candel and Fire Damp’s hoofsteps. They both snatched dust and coal residue with their hooves. The wind took care to sweep the smoke away.

Candel coughed. A tear rolled on her cheek. She could not stop wincing, rubbing her eyes as she tried to wash the burning off her pupils.

“Something in your eyes?” Fire Damp smiled, worried about her.

The ground started sloping. Moving forward became more difficult. They started clambering. They stumbled, toddling between the debris. Their eyes were tearful, assaulted by the caustic cold air and the grating smokes. Subsiding under their hooves, the slope collapsed and rumbled further down.

Candel gave a scared stare behind her back. Her eyes swelled. The height was sickening; she felt vertigo numbing her mind. Everything started whirling. Her stomach ached with a knot. She was going to threw up. She gasped and nearly slip off her steady position. A fateful hoof held her still before she hurtled down.

“Come on,” Fire Damp reassured. "We aren't finished yet!"

Hauling Candel next to him, Fire Damp lifted her right back on her hooves. With a nudge of his muzzle, he pushed her before him, willing to watch over Candel’s clumsy steps. He smiled. Candel’s features were indeed really beautiful, in spite of her skinniness of course. He liked her hazel eyes even more and her smile was worth a gold mine.

Pulling themselves together, they resumed the ascent. They fell, slipped and tripped over the unstable mounds of coal. But, step by step they climbed. They kept moving, straightening up and raising their muzzles toward the top. Whatever the obstacles, the hurting dust or the aching air filling their lungs, they never never strayed from their path.

And in the end, they stomped on the highest chunk of hardened scoriae.

The sun was beaming low in the West. The clouds were transfigured with hundreds of shades of blue, purple, orange, red, yellow and pink; giving to the sky the aspect of a burning fire. The breeze brought the same eerie coldness it had backed in the forest. The freezing northern wind tickled their nostrils and froze the tears on their cheeks.

The clouds shaped a lid over the land. Nopony could see the sky and this blanket of grey and white was stretching infinitely toward the sun. To be accurate, nopony ever saw the sky in eons.

Similarly even darker clouds were stuck in motion thousands of miles in the east, shaped like immobile gargantuan hurricanes. Terrific bolts of lightning slashed through them intermittently. Their flashes reverberated with violence. If they had been nearer, Candel was assured would she have gone deaf.

The spectacle was terrifying. Fire and Candel were glad they would never come closer to them. It was the so-called Frozen Horizon, the Land of the darkness. It was a place from where nopony ever came back, and where nopony was allowed to venture in.

Candel shivered.

“The hurricanes are darker today,” she concluded with a spooked voice, her eyes riveted on the east.

“Dad says it announces bad things,” Fire assured.

“You father is a bigot,” she replied.

Fire disapproved with a loud protest and stuck out his tongue. They looked at each other, blushing.

“It’s beautiful,” Candel mumbled, thankful.

“You see, if you always stay grounded in the mud, you’ll never see the light in the never-ending twilight,” Fire Damp foretold.

Candel gave him a deadpanned look.

“My mother told me,” he giggled. “You know, mother’s things.”

Fire kept his eyes on his friend. Candel’s stare was now lost in the landscape. She had stars of wonder in her eyes. The colt blushed even more. He braced himself and took a deep breath.

“Thanks Fire. You’re a true friend,” Candel cut him off.

Fire Damp’s ears fell flat, dangling before his eyes. He pouted in silence. The hug Candel gave him afterward as a reward brightened his face up. He wanted to reply, but appropriate words failed him.

Candel was called back to reality. The quote of Fire’s mother had been too accurate it was heart-shattering. Candel had now few questions she knew that would stay unanswered. How was the day at noon? What does the stars look like? What is night time? Which colour was the sky? No living pony could answer these queries.

Nowadays, the weather was always messed up. The stories of dawn, noon, midnight or even the night itself were nothing but tales told to fillies during sleepovers. The sun in the West had not moved for more than a century, stuck in the horizon at the same accurate and unsettling position, Dusk.

Candel felt an anchor pulling her heart down. These questions burned inside her, and she would never know. She sobbed.

In the distance, the taiga spread toward the horizon and beyond. The crowns of the trees were still whitened by the dying remains of snow, melting in brown puddles below.

“You’re a pegasus after all, don’t stay glued to the ground!” Fire challenged.

He poked her in the flank, right under her restrained wings. She shot her friend with a daggers-throwing glare. He knew she hated that ponies talked about it. And he also acknowledged she had sent more than one foalish classmate to the infirmary for that matter. Her frail constitution was deceitful.

“Sorry… again,” Fire regretted, lowering his head in remorse.

Candel swivelled on her hooves, ready to go down the spoil tip. But it was so high and steep her head wobbled with vertigo. She drifted toward Fire’s side and cramped herself to his mane.

“Sort of,” she sighed, resigned to her fate. “You know that I will never fly.”

The wind moaned on the top of the pile, blowing through both ponies’ manes. It whizzed unpleasantly and brought a disgusting odour.

Turning over, they looked down. Bordering the forest, a cyclopean city sprawled in every direction, taking space over a scorched and barren land. The buildings were built off the same pattern, repeated over and over again. Three floors high with wall of bricks and wood, all blackened by a lack of cleaning and years of coaled dust accumulation.

“Murmanesk…” Candel growled with a pinch of disgust.

It was a colliers' city as they were so many in the Federation, the only nation everypony was meant to live in. And of this archipelago of nasty towns, den of twisted and coughing ponies, Murmanesk was the biggest and dirtiest.

Dark smokes exhaled out of thousands smokestacks. From above, the city looked like a pony hive. In the north-eastern side of the city, smog was rising from a gigantic hole carved into the bowels of the earth. Similar to a slumbering dragon’s breath, the wind struggled to dissipate it. The accursed pit was dwelling there; the opened mine which tunnels extended under Murmanesk over hundreds of miles. The bordering blocks were dirty and poverty-stricken. On the opposite, the south part of the city shined under the sun, and a massive semi-circular building casted its shadows on the quarter.

“It’s time to get our hooves down on earth, Candel. Your father must me biting his owns down to the quick searching for you,” Fire offered.

“Yeah… he is more interested in the money I bring to him than anything else,” she stated with rancour.

“You’re too mean at him.”

Fire stepped forward on the steep, paving the way to Candel. He stopped abruptly and raised his head, scrutinizing all around.

“Did you feel that?” he demanded, widening his eyes.

“What are you talk–”

The earth shuddered abruptly. Sides of the spoil tips started crumbling down, rumbling like the thunder.

“It can’t be a mining burst!” Fire cried out.

The shakes gained in momentum. A deafening zoom invaded the air. Scared, Candel glanced up at the cloudy sky. Her jaw dropped. Staring back at her, Fire saw Candel’s horrified expression. He looked up too. He could not believe it. It was awe-striking.

“A shard…” Candel whispered.

A shadow passed on their faces, literally. Coming from the east, a massive chunk of rock pierced through the dark lid of clouds. It headed toward Murmanesk. Its shadow covered the city beneath. Ponies’ screams were loud enough to be heard from the spoil tip. The size of a mountain, the flying mass squealed with speed. There was no strong enough word to describe such spectacle, petrifying was the least to say about it.

The ‘shard’ was similar to an inverted mountain. A piece of earth a disincarnated gargantuan talon had ripped of its original location, only to thrust it into the air. The earthquake trebled in intensity, and somehow Fire and Candel felt lighter. Chunks and dust ascended into the air, likely attracted by an invisible pull.

The flying mountain rotated and was now tilting to the left. Candel and Fire Damp cringed. They could hardly believe their own eyes. Completing an ellipse, the tip of the hovering island pointed at its bottom.

The vision was apocalyptic, widening Fire and Candel’s eyes. Powerless, they watched a play that would be forever imprinted into their memories.

The opposite side of the floating chunk was the remains of a plain. Its edges were shattered. A lighthouse was sitting in state on it, Circled by a dried river bed. Its light was still round dancing crazily. The beam passed over Candel and Fire. For a second, it seemed that a mighty eye had aimed at them, seeking for something.

Candel asked herself if gods played Boules. If the answer was affirmative, the balls were entire cities.

In a loud burst, the floating island executed a last rotation. Its tip crashed into the north-west outskirt of Murmanesk, ripping off a whole block of miners’ cottages. Facing an obstacle, the monstrous mass of rock bent and overturned. Now to the horizontal, it shattered in uncountable number of bits. The pieces pounced aimlessly, forming a cone of fallout. The debris cleaned hectares of land in an instant. Spoil tips, buildings, checkpoints and trees alike were annihilated. The picture of a hoof passing over a board game struck Fire’s imagination. He shivered.

He and Candel swallowed, stunned by the devastation brought by the falling ‘shard’. For both of them, it was the first time they witnessed such devastation in such short period. This spectacle of destruction was striking, scary.

They watched the last act of the piece. The last remains of the shard collapsed and the lighthouse, standing still until now, shattered. Its light died inside its compartment. Something strange occurred, a bubble formed over the crash-landing zone, growing menacingly at top speed.

Fire saw the incoming shockwave. He turned back at Candel. She was stunned, glued to the ground, hiding her eyes behind her hooves. He jumped and circled his forelegs over Candel.

The blow hit the hill, wiping the tip out with an ungodly easiness. Its sides slid and crumbled on themselves.

A haze of dust swallowed the region.

And everything sunk into darkness.

2015 project - Beneath an Endless Dusk - 1. Going Down

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2015 project - Beneath an Endless Dusk - 2. The Lighthouse

Encounters…

Sometimes, we do dream of ordeals, epoch-making deeds and heroic sacrifices. We dream, unaware of the truth that our wishes are impossible promises. We imagine and magnify a flow that would carry us away from the mourning and dull reality. We ask for a change. We beg for it. We plead for somepony to thrust us in its irresistible rapids. We pray and worship beings and ideas we don’t clearly understand, only to wait for something which may never come.

But sometimes, it does occur.

For the ponies that get lucky enough, something might come and knock loudly at the gate. Call it fate; call it luck; call it destiny; call it whatever you want. But in this world, there are no mighty gods which will ever glance at us and take part in our daily misery. Thus, none of them will ever stretch his hoof in our direction. So, what is fate all about?

Encounters…

They are the true evidence of fate. However minuscule, meaningless and short they can be, they will always influence us. Like an obstacle on a road they will force us to drift and change the way we behave and step forward… for the better, or for the worse… over and over again until the moment we are swept from the surface of this world.

We are the product of these encounters.

With them we grow, we evolve and we die.

Never underestimate the strength of a meeting; because in the end, everything will be linked together and will unfold in front of our eyes.

Candelabra

The falling shard had wiped out the north-western blocks of Murmanesk, setting upon it a lid of dust. The sun was shining weakly behind this cover, plunging the place in a chiaroscuro light. Only ruins erected from the ground, pricking up into the air like the ribs of a skeleton. The silence was overwhelming. Everything was dead. The air was swamped with an excessive stench-ridden fog and seeing through it was an ordeal.

In the wake of the shardfall, the Direction had made sure the access to the area would be restricted to a few privileged. Alone, two silhouettes were laboriously walking inside the smog, coughing. Their lungs ached under the assault of the specks of dirt burying the devastated quarters. They often passed by a puddle of dark red, adding to the taste of mud floating in the air a darting odour of blood.

One of the shadows toddled.

“Ah! I bumped my claw again,” Argen cawed in a complaint. “Those cities aren’t made for me.”

“You’re not supposed to live in a pony town, Master. You quite outmatch a lot of standards,” a squeaking voice responded.

The little buck stretched his body and shook himself, splattering grime on his custodian’s feathers. Dust had washed over him, gluing his orange fur and blue mane together. His white kerchief had turned brownish. The little colt was not pleased at all. This fine layer itched horribly and he was having a hard time getting rid of it. Argen had not been spared from this care too.

To the scruffy foal’s surprise, a talon closed on his back. The sharp claws swept all the greyish soot off the tiny pony. He could not hold back a snort. Feeling the edges running on his skin was tickling. Yet he started complaining, pouting. Being treated like a child was the last think he wanted to; he hated it. The young pony loved pretending he was older than he really was. He deeply desired to be bigger, to be a grown-up. And, more than anything else, he poured out this opinion to whoever gave him an attentive ear.

Hence, the small buck complained loudly, ashamed he had enjoyed his guardian’s rub and showed so. Argen responded with an amused smirk. However, the gigantic bird’s humour went short-lived.

“Shush little one. Now is time to work,” Argen instructed.

The foal sighed.

“I still don’t understand, Master. Why do we… you have to come here? A shard crashed into another one, end of the story,” he vented. “I…”

Argen closed the foal’s mouth with the picky embrace of his claws.

“Hush now, I said. You’re getting annoying.”

All the pony’s nerves were itching to answer back. But for once in a lifetime, his reasoning got in the way. The foal backpedalled and shovel down his opinion. He slowed his pace and let Argen take the lead. It was useless to argue and it would bring nothing but a load of troubles. The child lowered his head in a sign of surrender. Imperturbable, Argen paved the way with the intimidating rattling of his talons.

The investigator and his protégé moved forward, cutting through the haze. They focused on recording each anomaly they could evidence around them. But they had to admit they had drawn a blank so far. Argen’s assistant sniggered.

“I told you, end of the –“He bumped into his master’s tail, slightly creasing his feathers.

The small pony’s head span. Queasy, he tilted his head from behind his master.

Argen was standing silently in front of a cadaver. It was a mare. Her legs were crushed under a chunk of rock. It was blatant she had died from exhaustion and blood loss. The foal winced, shocked; the mare’s face was contracted, awestruck. Her glassy eyes were petrified, staring at something long gone now, something atrociously scary.

The young colt was used to death; he was the assistant of an inspector after all. But the mare’s expression of despair was something he did not witness on a daily basis.

“May Death have pity on your miserable existence on this soil,” Argen whispered.

Forcing on the boulder with his talon, Argen pushed it away. A skanky noise of breaking bones and tearing flesh cracked in the air. The foal hid his eyes behind his hoof and nearly stripped his tightly wrapped bandana.

“Move along, little one,” Argen forewarned. “I have business with this pony.”

Following the order without any enthusiasm, he trotted away from Argen until his shape had vanished in the fog.

“Blah blah blah… I’m an inspector, I know better, go play away you little pony,” the foal muttered dryly. Again, he felt thrown away like an unwanted doll. Anger died slowly in his heart, replaced with sadness. He wanted Argen to be proud of him.

After a moment, the knee-high pony tried to distinguish the features of the neighbourhood he was in. He grumbled; seeing through a wall would be easier. He let out a deep breath of disappointment, and anxiety started bathing him. He hated being trapped.

The young colt turned the content of his saddle bag upside down until he found the wanted object. It was a small sphere of fired clay, sculpted with four rectangular loopholes. To each of the embrasures was riveted a thin and sealed piece of glass. The globe was half-filled with a dark liquid and on one of its extremities was screwed a thong of wreathed hemp.

He bit in the lash and shook his head. The sphere wobbled in the air, jolting. Its contents gurgled and a strange chemical reaction occurred. Four bleak shafts of turquoise light burst out of the object as the component inside sparked with electricity. It was not perfectly luminescent but the liquid was brighter enough to cast an outlining light around the pony’s hooves. Still, the brightness of the lamp reflected on the airborne particles, burning slightly his eyes like thousands of minuscule suns hovering around him.

A muffled crack erupted far behind the foal. He swivelled to face it, startled.

“Master?” he asked shyly.

No response echoed back.

Anxious, the little pony chose to move on, following the path the gleam his strangely shaped torch drew in front of his hooves. A reflection caught his attention. His curiosity aroused, he trotted to the object that was shining a few yards away from him.

It was a shard of broken glass. And it was certainly not alone. Thousands were scattered all around, making the ground uneasy to wander on, nearly painful. Each one glowed in the beam of the foal’s torch like the pieces of a stained glass. Sometimes the transient colours of the rainbow reflected on the morsels.

The spectacle was surprising if not eerie. It required an important dose of self-control not to venture deeper on this field; a large esplanade, the limits of which were hidden beyond the fog.

The foal found the nearest building and stabilized his lamp on its threshold. The wall was what remained of a colliers’ cottage, the rest had been devastated to its foundations. He took his pencil in his mouth and started drawing a sketch of the spectacle on his notebook. He had to be as precise as possible. Argen would be proud. He became absorbed in his task, picturing a forthcoming stare of approval from his guardian.

Concentrating, the little pony had slipped into his own bubble, forgetting about his surroundings. He did not remark drops of sweat dripping off his face and falling, turning muddy once they reached the ground.

“You draw super well!”

The lead of the pencil broke and ripped on the sheet, tracing a long and ugly mark on the drawing. The foal blinked, multiple times, in silence. He forced his mouth closed, chewing the empty space between his teeth. He blinked again, fixing the crossing-out striking his assiduous work. He turned his head, very slowly. His cheeks were swelled as if he was holding back a scream of rage.

A colt, older than him, was smiling awkwardly. He was wearing a dusty pair of goggles, and even if the dirt covering him was thick and nasty, one could easily guess his fur was dark, probably blue and his mane was somehow greenish.

“Name’s Fire, and you?”

Oh god, the foal hated that childish, stupid, smile casted on that so-called Fire. He gazed bluntly at this impromptu troublemaker. This… Fire was standing right next to the glowing lamp, his both hooves lying on the frame of the window.

The foal turned his head and started drifting away.

“Oh come one,” Fire pleaded. “Don’t make me use the long face.

Fire jumped out of the window and laughed, unnerving once more his younger peer. They wandered silently for a short spell of time before the foal finally stopped.

“Little One,” he responded as if these words had been squeezed out of him.

“That’s not a name,” Fire claimed.

“It will be enough for you.”

Fire smirked. The foal who called himself Little One wasn’t really helpful.

“You’ve got a stick up your arse, don’t you?” Fire slithered.

Little One shot a death glare at him. Fire answered with a new laughter.

“So, that’s a yes.”

Little One facehooved.

“Do all the savages from this city act like you?”

“Hey, why are you so mean?” Fire replied. “We’re good guys!”

Little One scanned the colt from muzzle to tail.

“More like the nasty ones,” he sniggered. “I wonder how you passed the cordon.”

“The pegasi are easy to kid around,” Fire bragged before clearing his throat. “And you forgot your… light thing back at the ruin.”

Little One grumbled and turned on his hooves, flogging Fire’s nose with his tail when he passed him. Little One struggled finding his way back to the ravaged house and the glass field, but the sphere had not moved at all. Of course, hooves were not going to sprout out of it only to run away, weren’t they?

Fire sneezed and complained, rubbing the tip of his face. Then he raised his head in Little One’s direction and smiled. He leaped straight forward, bumping at Little One on the way.

“You want it?” Fire’s voice shouted. “You’re going to chase me to get it back.”

Little One’s hooves pressing on his forehead was not enough to express his level of disappointment. Fire jumped where the shards of glasses were scattered, causing Little One to twitch. The foal looked behind him, hoping to see the massive and reassuring shadow of Argen bathing him. It was hopeless. Little One turned back to Fire, glaring daggers at him.

“This place is absolutely crucial to my master’s work. Don’t you dare walk on evidence,” he cautioned.

Fire looked down at the shards beneath him with a criminal smile on his face. In

Fire’s eye, the foal was an amusement stock. He was talking quite posh and seemed to respect a lot authority. Fire hatched a plan to spread a bit of fun in the air.

“Well, you’re gonna have to follow me if you want to get your gadget back.” Fire dashed in the smog, the beams of the lamp spotting him through it. “Catch me if you can,” Fire cackled.

“Wait!” Little One called again, sighed then paused. “Oh, those stupid colliers!”

He ran in Fire’s tow.

“Give me back my lamp!” Little One shrieked with a high pitched voice.

Argen put down the emptied bone he had chewed in his teethed beak. He breathed in relief.

“It’s been a long time,” he shuddered to himself with a pinch of thrill. “Good old instincts are always sweet.”

He withdrew his claws on the empty skull of a pony right beneath him and lifted it gently to his ventral satchel.

“You can join my collection,” he whispered to the macabre item as it slid inside the leather bag.

Argen pounced to a large and steep rock at a cable length from him, eager to take a rest. He jumped and perched himself on his top, balancing on one talon. With the other one, he reached a small pocket of his bag and drew out an antique silver necklace. A small translucent tube was dangling at the bottom, empty.

Argen rustled his black feather, uncurling the ones that had suffered from his errant feed. Satisfied, he then blew on the surface of the medallion. The void inside began to glow a melange of golden white and bluish black. Both taints were fighting each other in a silent war. A battle for space raged yet always seemed to end in a draw. The dark and lighting gleams kept thrusting themselves at each other endlessly. Argen’s voice rose, loud and stern like the rumble coming from the depths of a thunderstorm.

“Our Sun who art in the day sky; Thy time is over and thy wisdom is lost; Yet thy memories are still struggling within; The heart of the true and bygone watchers.

Give me the strength to fight the shadows; Unveiling my eyes and thy ravaged land; Depraved under thy malicious usurper; That they shall be all thine once again.

Tears have fallen on thy grave now forgotten; And drops of sorrow are shed upon emptiness; That groweth and blacken our errant souls.

I see no escape and plead thee; That thou seeth the future of this land; Forever forgotten, forever forsaken; I plead you, lead, forgive and deliver us.”

Argen paused in his liturgy and wiped a tear off his cheek before tightening the pressure of his talon onto the necklace. The gold wisp within the recipient overwhelmed its sibling until it was nothing but a black point cornered at the bottom of the tube. Argen cleared his throat and resumed his prayer. His voice was deeper than before, betraying a hidden anger.

”Our Moon who art in the night sky; Thy shiny stars have left this grim world; And gave away their space to the great deceiver; That tells itself thy own beaming sister.

The time of everlasting despair hath come; And no more pure sparks will ever arise; Nor under thy resting gleam or thy sister’s care; Without bathing in Dusk’s depravity.

We await thy return as night bringer; On thy sister’s ravaged and dried lands; But for now we away from the dull light.

That thy return means the end; Or that thou mean a new glorious era; We will await with hope thy return; With thee comforting sister.

Celestia and Luna, Let our prayer be heard; That this kingdom be yours once again.”

Again, he strengthened the embrace of his talon upon the necklace, printing the mark of his claws on its old ragged chain. Within the tube, the speck of dark burst out and enveloped the golden and hopeful light. Blackness swallowed all the space and disappeared, letting nothing but transparent emptiness inside the cylinder. Silence settled over the gigantic bird and he felt himself slipping away.

The catnap was cut short. Behind the curtain of dust, Argen spotted a dull light dancing agitatedly far away from his position. Muffled shouts were audible. After a sigh, Argen dropped off his perch and landed heavily. He tracked down the trail Little One had left behind him. The majestic and imposing bird did not hurry. He even chose to slow his pace.

He wanted to dry his tears before joining his protégé. He also wished to take his time gathering his rational mind. He too wanted to be strong. Moreover, he aspired to look inflexible like a stoic stone, careless about what life could throw at him.

“Give it back to me,” Little One panted.

The foal had a hard time following Fire. The shattered shards formed an endless rug of glass thorns and his small hooves had started bleeding from walking on this sharp blanket. On his own, Fire whirled and dashed with the sheerness of an excited youngling.

“Nope,” Fire snickered, the lash of the torch impeding his elocution.

Fire gradually slowed his pace, witnessing Little One suffering in silence. The broken shards were pruning slightly the soft part of the foal’s hooves. Fire could not keep this petty game going on forever. He decided he had enough amusement from Little One’s cute attempt to retrieve his lamp.

Fire turned left and headed toward a massive ruin. Lying on its side, it formed a steep slope of dark red bricks. Small arrow slits cut through its façade in dark and unfathomable mouths. Hawk-eyes would not be enough to pierce the darkness dwelling inside the building. Jumping over one, Fire gulped. A second, he feared a monstrous and disincarnated hoof would surge from the opening, catch him in the air and drag him in only to devour his soul. He had read too much of the comics he had stolen from the municipal library. Fire avoided the next hole, drawing a large circle around it.

Little One was not that careful. Narrowing the space Fire had cleared between them during the pursuit, he leaped. Fire dashed away and ran until he stopped at the top of the slump tower. He stood on the safety barrier of the roof, now inclined nearly horizontally. Emptiness welcomed his hooves.

The roof itself displayed a glasshouse. Through the dark, Fire could not see the inside. Jumping on the glass walls was not a clever idea. Fire knew it would either break his legs, or the wall would shatter under his weight and it would be a last mighty fall. Little One disagreed totally with this statement and skipped on his target.

After a short fight, Little One succeeded in snatching the lamp from Fire’s mouth and pushed him off the cliff. Fire yelped and fell over, rapidly followed by Little One who had lost his balance. Both went through the wall of the greenhouse which broke in thousands of parts. Inside, a second guardrail caught Fire and Little One in their fall. Fire gargled under the foal’s weight on his thorax. Being a runway was not easy.

“I’ve won!” Little One scolded with his small laugh as he pounded Fire’s chest.

“I– I surrender,” Fire hissed. “Get off me… please.”

With a smirk, Little One stepped off the colt. Fire panted trying to catch his breath. He coughed and turned on his back. The bars of the rail were stinging his sides. Beneath, emptiness was awaiting both ponies to fall. Fire looked at Little One askance. He was balancing himself on the rail.

“Well,” Little One broke in. “Now we’re trapped inside.”

Fire gave a look at the surroundings and realised; they were in the top of the lighthouse he had seen crashing on Murmanesk. The gigantic edifice had left scraps behind and its nearly intact head had survived. The beacon inside the glasshouse had been smashed and only its base was still present. When the tower had broken on the ground, the beacon had been catapulted out of its position, piercing the ceiling of the greenhouse with an incommensurable strength. The shards of glass he had seen earlier below were the last remains of it. Right now, the shattered walls of the room were still standing, menacing to slide off their rivets.

“Hey, look,” Little One called.

He was pointing with his hoof at the entrance of a spiral staircase, located above them. Fire gained momentum and jumped. He reached the opening with ease. The rail he had stood on shook and nearly jettisoned Little One.

“Be careful, stupid!” the orange-coated pony shouted back with exasperation. “I nearly…”

A noisy crack echoed and the rack bent dangerously. Little One shrieked. He stood on his two hindlegs, trying to reach the staircases with his forehooves. He was too small. The Lamp fidgeted on its lash still tightened in his mouth. The torch cast weird shadows on his wielder.

“Help me!” Little One cried.

Fire panicked. He had no rope to help Little One, nothing to reach him. He turned about for seconds when a second load of rivets snapped under the foal’s mass. The crack was louder this time. Fire thought quickly.

“Grab this,” he ordered.

Fire presented his bum to Little One.

The foal stared stoically at this moon, not really amused of this cynical joke.

“Are you kidding me, you sick…”

Fire’s tail fell flat on Little One’s face. The foal suddenly understood. He bit in the lock with all of his strength. The barrier unhooked and hurtled down in a metallic cacophony of scrap metal. Fire shed a tear of pain and yapped, trying to pull the foal over. On his own, Little One was suspended at the tip of Fire’s green tail.

It took a few minutes for Fire to haul Little One over.

The latter coughed, spitting the hairs stuck in his mouth. Still having his glowing lamp, he massaged his aching jaw. Fire was holding the dock of his tail and the bottom of his croup, small drops of blood dripped off them. He sobbed silently.

“Well… I owe you thanks," Little One conceded.

He stretched his hoof and wait for Fire to shake it.

“Lose some weight next time,” Fire sniggered. “It hurts like hell.”

Little One sniggered as Fire caught his hoof and shook it fiercely. After that, Fire poked Little One’s shoulder with his hoof, showing a large smile.

“That was fun!”

Surprised, the foal let the lamp slip out of his mouth. Both ponies stared the globe of clay rolling down the staircase. The ball bounced endlessly and disappeared in a corner, only the sound of the repeated hits of the lamp on the floor echoed. Its light faded away.

“I’m afraid of the dark,” Fire confessed.

“Me too.”

Both were petrified as the darkness enshrouded them. Something cracked behind their back, and they felt their heart leaping out of their chests. Screaming, they ran down the staircase.

They fell and landed in a large room inside the ruin of the lighthouse. Its former furniture had been shattered and piled up in a corner. Little One’s lamp had pounced out of the stairs and crashed on a plaque of metal, cracking it open. Its content was leaking out, printing a large glowing puddle of blue. The sticky goo cast a strange atmosphere on the walls and small arcs of electricity sparked off its surface. Both Fire and Little One stared in awe where the ball of clay had broken out. The plaque of metal was a shield tightly held in the hoof of a dead pegasus.

Little One inspected him, mimicking Argen. The pegasus was apparently long dead and his flesh had dried, giving him the aspect of a mummy. His mane was straw-coloured and his fur should have been indigo once. Its fur fallen, the corpse was buck naked. The pegasus was not a soldier of the Direction. He was not wearing the typical armour. Apart of his shield he displayed no piece of protection at all. Its only possession was a dangling necklace around his neck, and a long band of metal blocked under a tensed hoof.

With a quasi-religious silence, Little One and Fire approached the body. They inspected it from a safe distant, fearing it might come back to life and hunt them down. Zombie ponies did not exist, did they? The body was perfectly immobile and the two little ponies would not be stupid enough to disturb the rest of the pegasus.

“You think he was killed?” Fire asked in an undertone.

“There is only one way to know,” Little One responded with a shiver.

He walked past Fire and scanned the cadaver without touching it. The foal rubbed his bare chin like a philosopher.

“I see nothing that indicates so,” he pouted.

Little One wanted to find a clue, something that showed the opposite. Boring, he thought; it was nothing but a boring dead pony… a boring case in the end. It reminded him he was unaware of the reason that attracted Argen in this affair. Little One was clueless.

“What are you doing?” Fire asked.

Fire was looking at Little One with wide eyes. The foal raised an eyebrow.

“What? You’ve never seen a dead pony?”

“Well…”

Fire paused, a bit shaken by the question. Of course he had seen some. He had even seen somepony dying. He remembered very well the pegasus soldier after the shardfall. The memories were fresh. He had been struck at the moment. His train of thought had gone blurred and soaked with fear. But then, he had shovelled the thought inside his brain where he could not keep banging on about it. When it occurred, Candel had been at the centre of his attention.

But now Fire was perfectly aware, nearly worriless. The image of the dying pegasus rushed back into his mind. He remembered that hissing and broken corpse crying for help in a horrible silent. Fire bit his bottom lip and sat down, his eyes lost in that image.

“I– I…” He stopped. “He was a soldier, I shouldn’t feel… should feel nothing about him.”

Fire looked at the cadaver. Now he was picturing the dying soldier, his image glued onto the mummy corpse. Fire was just waiting for the cadaver to call for his help. He held back a gag of disgust.

“I feel bad,” Fire whispered.

“For something you did not do?”

“No, for… I don’t know. That’s sick. I let that guy die because I hate the Direction. I hate Pegasuses.”

“Pegasi,” Little One corrected.

Fire paid no attention. He felt guilty over the fresh memories of the shardfall he had cast away so easily. He had done so for only one pony he held dear into his heart…

“That’s stupid,” Little One sniggered. “And you know that I work for the Direction.”

Little One got the reaction he wanted. Fire gave him a stare betraying that he did not agree.

“You’re not, the big bird works for them. You’re just a kind of sidekick.”

“No, that’s not true,” Little One countered, vexed. “And the ‘big bird’ is called Argen.”

The foal turned back to the pegasus.

“Look, there is nothing to fear.”

With his hoof, Little One prodded the body. It was surprisingly squishy and left in Little One’s hoof an unsettling impression. The body slumped with a sound of tearing flesh and suction. Fire and Little One jumped away from the pegasus with a wince. The reek hit them like a hoof in the bowel, forcing its way into their muzzles. Fire threw up.

The pegasus had the look of a mummy indeed, as if somepony had suck out all the water his body could contain. Nothing was left but a dry and empty shell. But it was only the visible part of the cadaver. The body’s back had melt and liquefied under an undisclosed force. Drying, it had coagulated against the armoire it was pressing on. When the lighthouse had crashed, both had been thrust in a corner, packing up with the rest of the furniture. The joint of flesh between the corpse and the cabinet had been damaged. The swift and disrespectful poke of Little One’s hoof had been enough to untie them. And the hidden face of the scene was now revealed.

The pegasus was rotting on the inside. Seared and putrefied tatters of flesh dripped on the floor. His ribs were visible and beyond them his ravaged internal organs. His lungs were pierced from end to end and his heart was crushed. A section of his intestine was still glued to the armoire. With the body sliding slowly on its side, the intestine crept out of the pegasus’s ribcage like a monstrous worm.

Both Fire and Little One held back a gag. Stunned, it took time before they backed away from the corpse. Little One was undoubtedly shocked. Being Argen’s assistant had him immune to the sight of dead bodies. But this… this was too much. Fire threw up loudly.

The pegasus wreck finally collapsed with a fleshy thump, his neck cracking on the impact. A muffled clatter followed. Lit up with the phosphorescent liquid, the pegasus’s necklace shined on the floor.

After having calmed themselves, both ponies looked at the cadaver again, a new knot tied in their stomach. And both saw the necklace. Fire snatched it before Little One could even react. The foal, also interested in the jewel, whined.

It was a medallion. Made of oxidized silver, it was sporting a small diamond-shaped black symbol. Its contours had been sunken in several spot. Fire and Little One shivered. The symbol exhaled an aura of creepiness. With curiosity, Fire forced open the object. A small folded piece of paper fell, swinging in the air like a feather.

Fire caught the tiny sheet in his hooves. Little One tilted his head over his shoulder. A quote was written inside. Fire deciphered the message. It was poorly written, as if the writer had been in a hurry. The ink had leaked in small drops on the sheet.

‘There is a hero in everypony’

The words echoed with the voices of Fire and Little One in unison.

“What does that mean?” Little One asked.

“Bah! Everypony can be a hero,” Fire replied sarcastically.

“No, I mean, that’s stupid. Argen told me that heroes die quickly.”

“I’d like to be a hero,” Fire snickered.

At least, Fire thought, it would be worth it. He wanted so desperately somepony’s attention.

“Candel…” he sighed.

“Who?”

Fire remained silent, confusing the foal. Little One saw tears coming in Fire’s eyes.

“Everything’s okay?” Little One asked gently.

“Yeah. Yes, it’s just…” he hesitated. “I have a friend I like a lot and she is getting hurt every day.”

Fire lacked of convenient words to describe Candel’s plight. His cluelessness about his dearest friend’s daily suffering engulfed him with sadness. Fire was aware of his condition. He was a colt, an earthbound and a collier’s son. He could not be proud of feats he never did, or hope doing an exploit worth the sacrifice.

He was chained to his monotone and short life of Murmanesk’s worker.

The sudden realisation strengthened his feeling he was being held, trapped here. He was just Murmanesk’s worker. Yes, he was just an outcast among the pariahs. He could not even picture himself standing still against anypony. Fighting the Direction was a sweet dream. The pegasi imperiously commanded the pit and the city, only to fulfil deadlines. Hell, he was not even aware of who he was working for, for who so many ponies died every day.

Fire felt minuscule and miserable, bound to some chains in a remote place of the world. Was he nothing but speck among an overwhelming mass of faceless ponies? His body cried for freedom. But there was no ear to listen. Joy flew away from Fire’s face. His eyes darkened and he remained silent.

Little One stared at Fire. He was immobile, lost in his thought, his eyes watery and transfixed on the corpse.

“You okay?” Little One asked again.

Fire nodded. He folded the piece of paper and put it back in the medallion. The necklace slid in his saddlebag.

“Can we go?” Fire asked, depressed.

They passed by the cadaver and left the room, taking with them the shield splattered with the glowing goo. Fire casted a last glance to the soundless corpse and swivelled on his hooves. Little One and He went down the whole staircase, and reached the exit. The fog bathed them and suffocation plagued their lungs once more.

Argen was waiting. His dim shadow covered the two ponies; his two yellow eyes pierced them with disappointment.

“You’re late,” the massive bird berated.

Little One trotted to his guardian and placed his cheek on Argen’s talon, giving him a family embrace. Argen raised his eyes to the sky and posed the tip of his wings on Little One’s shoulders. Then his attention drifted on Fire. The colt was petrified in the hole of the lighthouse.

“Don’t tell the Direction I was here!” Fire blurted in fear.

Argen narrowed his eyes.

“You were on the harbour when we landed,” he asked.

Fire nodded, ill-at-ease.

“Well... Apart from being in a restricted area I don’t see what you did wrong. You’ll just get punished by your schoolmaster for missing school,” he replied ironically.

“Are you crazy,” Fire erupted, spooked. “They will kill me if they learn.”

Fire cringed on his hooves, a dash of fear numbing his mind. He mumbled inaudibly, begging for the bird to spare him. Argen sighed in response.

“I know, stupid. I’ve been in the Direction’s good books for a long time. I understand they aren’t really lenient with the earthbounds.”

Fire was looking at him with puppy’s eyes. Argen grumbled, “Okay, I won’t tell.”

The colt’s eyes burst with joy and he covered the inspector with thanks.

“But it won’t be cheap,” Argen added with a smile.

“Everything you want!” Fire burst out.

“You’ll owe me a service.”

Fire’s relief crumbled. A knot birthed in his stomach.

“I don’t know the terms yet,” Argen continued. “But do you agree with my proposition?”

“Like I had a choice,” Fire whined hesitantly, kicking away a small pebble of coal.

Argen turned and faced his assistant, Little One.

“Can you present me your friend?”

Little One frowned.

“He isn’t my friend! He bullied me and broke my lamp!” the foal interjected.

“Hey that’s fake, it broke in the ruin,” Fire blurted.

“It’s true!”

“It’s not!”

“Silence,” Argen ordered as he facehooved, or rather… facetaloned. He stared at the two combative ponies through his claws.

“You’re giving me a headache. Explain, one at a time.”

Little One took a deep breath.

“I…”

“I wanted to play and I took Little’s lamp,” Fire cut him off. “And we climbed on the façade of the ruin.”

The blue-coated colt pointed the lowered scraps of the lighthouse.

“We fell inside and we broke the lamp,” he continued. “And there was the pegasus.”

“The pegasus?” Argen asked for details.

Little One and Fire narrated their short adventure within the lighthouse. When they broached the dead pegasus, both shivered.

“So, it was a mummy in the open air but his back was rotting?” Argen asked, hardly comprehending. Both ponies acquiesced.

“Yeah, he looked like a dried fruit,” Fire pointed out, jabbing Little One’s side with his elbow. Both laughed cynically.

“Well that’s new,” Argen alleged.

An idea popped in Little One’s mind. He dashed under Argen.

“Hey, what are you…”

Argen looked beneath him, intrigued.

Little One was digging in Argen’s ventral satchel. He muffled in victory and showed to his peers the strange shaped object he had found. It was a black cube hollowed in its middle with a cylinder-shaped hole. At the bottom of the opening, a circular receptacle surrounded a green gem. Finally, a crank handle sprouted from its side.

The box was half the size of Little One. Yet, it was undoubtedly light; the foal moved it with a surprising easiness.

“I’ve found this next to the pegasus,” Little One bragged after having the box set.

He showed the long strip of curled metal to his protector. Fire gasped, he had completely forgotten about it. He could not even remember when the foal had taken it from the pegasus. Another question galloped in his mind.

“What is that thing?”

Two bemused stares set upon the Murmanesk’s inhabitant.

“You’ve never seen a caster before?” Argen asked.

Argen believed it was a joke but Fire denied that altogether.

“We ain’t rich in Murmanesk,” Fire defended himself.

“Maybe…” Little One protested. “But you seriously never heard of it?”

Fire shook his head again.

“Well,” Argen stated. “Give him a taste of it Little One.”

Respectfully silent, Fire approached. Little One placed the band of metal inside the receptacle and pressed on it. The foal got back a click and smiled. Then, he put his hoof on the handle and gave it a couple of turns. It released a sudden backslash and a noise of static cracked in the air.

A greenish monochrome image burst out of the hollowed box. Fire had seen shadow theatres before. This was far beyond his understanding. It was a picture projected right into the air, and it was moving. Fire was taken aback, his jaw open wide. He stammered.

“How is that…?”

The image focused. The sorry face of a pony sprung up in the projection. He was a pegasus. His straw-blond mane was ruffled and some cuts appeared on his indigo fur. He was utterly panicked.

“My name is… Oh for the Direction’s sake, it doesn’t matter anymore.” A voice intoned from the box. “I’m the scrivener of Hoofston. I… oh screw this… I’ve been hired two months ago to keep tracks of the events of the Eastern Horizon. Yeah…. those monstrous hurricanes and lightning…”

The sound of an explosion boomed in the record. The pegasus gulped and cast a glance behind.

“I need to record this… Focus… Focus”

The pegasus took several deep breaths.

“One week ago, the Direction sent us a new contingent of inmates… Like the ones before and the ones before those ones… We know what’s next… They were told that if they go to the East and come back alive with some evidence… something relevant, they would be freed.”

The pegasus’s features were marked with disgust.

“They were all rapists, murderers and old renegades, all pegasus of course. I would like to see an earthbound trying to fly.” The pegasus gave a weak laugh. “Nopony ever came back from the East. The Direction should have them executed instead of sending all of them there. It would have spared us hoping for nothing;”

Another rumbled roared, closer this time.

“Or technically, nopony ever came back… until now. Twelve hours ago, a pegasus made his way back to Hoofston. He was elusive… completely insane! He kept repeating the same words.

It beckons

He convulsed repeatedly. That… That was horrible. His hooves were broken and he was covered in blood. And then it happened. I… Everypony… Everypony’s dead now and I’m trapped in the lighthouse. I can’t go out. I… I just want to go home.”

Something, probably a door, burst open behind the pegasus. The recorded tape failed to show the background scene. The pegasus leaped in front of the recording device he had used and bumped it over. A scream followed and the movie went black.

Argen’s caster clicked and the same greenish image of the scared Pegasus reappeared.

“My name is…”

Little One shut it down.

“What was that?” Fire breathed heavily.

“The last words of our pegasus,” Little One belittled.

“No, that… thing.”

Fire pointed the box.

“It’s a caster, also called pictograph,” Argen explained. “It’s a mechanical and magical device who can record and show sounds, images and, for some of them, even smells.”

Fire struggled accepting such a technology existed. And magic… it was the first time he heard this word. Magic should

“Have you ever used a punched card?” Argen asked.

“Yes. The Direction gave one to each worker for identification,” Fire explained.

Argen took out the strip of metal from the pictograph and exposed it.

“Well. This is quite the same, but the technology is far more advanced. The video is engraved in this small strip Little One had found, with a magic gem as a catalyst. That’s pretty simple to understand.”

Fire was lost in his thoughts. This invention was marvellous, he had to tell Candel.

“And no,” Argen clarified. “You won’t disclose to anypony what you’ve seen.”

He shot a disappointed stare at Little One, who lowered his eyes. “Thanks to my assistant’s hurry, you’ve seen something you should have not to.”

Fire tried to protest but Argen was unyielding. He grabbed the colt with his talon and lifted him to his face.

“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not a good guy. That’s my last case before my retirement. I’m not going to let a brat like you endangered it.” With his beak Argen picked in Fire’s saddlebag and took out his punched card to read it. “I know where you live.”

Fire struggled, constricted in Argen’s claw, but gave up easily.

“Good,” Argen stated. “Now, you two, into my bag.”

Little One jumped in the satchel and Argen pushed Fire in, closing the bag afterwards.

“What was the pegasus afraid of?” Little One broke the silence with a whisper.

“I don’t know, maybe a monster?”

“There is no monster in the East,” Little One deadpanned. “Just nothing. Everypony, even a collier knows that.”

“Hey, I’m not a miner,” Fire protested.

“Yeah? So what’s your job?”

“I’m… eh… I.”

“Silence,” Argen cut through the muffled discussion. “We’re approaching the Direction’s cordon and I don’t want them to find you… Fire is that it?”

“Eeyup!”

A couple of voices welcomed Argen when he arrived at the checkpoint. The pegasi stood at attention.

“At rest,” Argen stated.

“Hello, Sir Tavis. You know the procedure… Have you anything to declare?”

“I’ve found a dead mare in the block.”

Fire swallowed silently. He saw Little One’s eyes were riveted on an object jabbing his flank. Fire looked at it. It was a perfectly cleaned skull. He bit his lips, shovelling down a cry of surprise.

“And also…” Argen gave a knock on his satchel. Fire tensed in stupor. “I went with my assistant Little One. Show yourself.”

Little One’s head emerged from the bag. The pegasi around jumped back with surprise.

“Hi, misters,” the foal welcomed with a fake smile. “How do you do?”

One of the soldiers pushed the colt back inside with his hoof.

“Sir, we have to warn you the Pit is momentarily closed. Something happened there and security law enforcement is currently in application. Even you can’t go there,” A well-shaped stallion explained.

Argen felt somepony move slightly in his satchel.

“A burst of gas?” he asked.

“Not this time, the Direction closed everything and a special team has been called. There is a whole wing of the tunnels which isn’t responding. There was an explosion, but it was scheduled.”

The soldier paused and gave a look at his stooges. Well, they were talking to Argen, an emissary who had a load of security clearance. They could tell him. The pegasus took a deep breath.

“Some ponies heard screams a few minutes after the incident. The tunnels have been silent since.”

He signalled to Argen he could pass. The bird took away from the checkpoint and turned in a narrow street. Nopony was there to spot his massive shadow.

“It’s okay, you can go out.”

Fire dashed out of the pocket and tried to flee. A talon caught him in motion.

“Let me go!” Fire cried, struggling with violence. “A friend is down there.”

Fire bit in a soft spot of Argen’s talon. The inspector yelped and released his grasp. Fire fell with a thump on the ground. A little dizzy, he leaped in the next corner and disappeared. Argen looked at his protégé.

“Follow him.”

“Why?” Little One complained.

“You’re small, you can go unnoticed. And there is too much problems in this city to believe it’s just a coincidence,” Argen croaked. “And I must pay a visit to the Duma. I have some unanswered questions. Now go.”

Argen flicked him away, and Little One raced in Fire’s stead.

“What did I put my talon in?” he grumbled.

The security barrier around the pit was impassable. Pegasi were patrolling on the ground and high in the sky, keeping an open-wide eye on any suspect movement. Everypony had been evacuated. Some speakers claimed intruders would be shot on sight. A stallion had tried and his body was now seared right out the street. Nopony was giving the dead any attention. The closest neighbourhoods were under curfew and every door was guarded by a pegasus armed to the teeth.

“Well, end of the story,” Little One sniggered.

Fire grumbled from the shadows. Both Little One and he were hiding from the patrols, walking in rounds like clockwork. Filled with coal, a cart had been abandoned in the middle of its way. Fire found it unusual. Even with a curfew on, the Direction would have made sure that the tasks in progress would be done before escorting the workers to their cottages.

“I’ve got an idea,” Fire finally affirmed. “Are you claustrophobic?”

“Eh, I don’t think so…” Little One hesitated. “Why?”

Fire smiled and dragged the foal with him to the next street. They waited a patrol to pass by and crept out of their hiding spot.

“Hide and seek,” Fire explained to his new found friend. “And why did you come with me?”

“I have to make sure you won’t get killed,” Little One lied poorly.

“Yeah sure,” Fire jeered. “Well follow me, it’s gonna be fun!”

Little One was not so sure. They turned at the next corner.

“Ouch,” Fire yelped. Rubbing his forehead, Fire raised his head. A dash of fear struck his brain.

“What are you doing here, earthbound?” a voice barked in front of him.

Fire was gazing at a pegasus, a sparkling spear separating them. The colt ran with sweat and the electricity bouncing off the tip of the weapon tickled his muzzle. Fire backed slowly, avoiding any stupid move. The colt looked behind him, Little One had disappeared. He was alone, abandoned.

“I repeat…”

The pegasus was not given the time to finish. A brick indented the top of his helmet, knocking the soldier out who fell on the ground. Little One appeared behind him, one of his hindlegs stretched in the air, a pile of bricks at his hooves. He was panting, unsure about what he had done.

“Are you crazy,” Fire panicked. “They’ll kill us now.”

“I...Argen wants me to follow you. If you get caught there is nopony to follow,” Little One hissed. The foal scored a point.

“At least it was a really good move,” Fire assented with a wavering laugh.

The two young ponies skirted around the unconscious soldier and ran away, their hearts pounding wildly. They refused to slow down until they reached the border of Murmanesk. The city’s forest sprawled in front of them.

“The forest?” Little One deadpanned. “We’re not going into the mine anymore?”

Fire remained silent, running straight forward, forcing Little One to follow. Fire wandered randomly and stopped in a screech of hooves. Before their eyes, two huge blocks of granite dwelled in a clearing, bracing themselves over a tiny hole dug into the ground. Fire could still see the mark of Candel’s body in the dirt. Fire figured he ought to give an explanation to Little One.

“My friend, Candel, escaped from an outburst with an old evacuation pipe or something like this. It must be around here.”

He lifted up a branch and looked under a bush.

“We just have to find it and we go save her,” Fire reassured.

Little One grunted.

“We’re risking our life for a girl?” He frowned.

“You don’t understand.”

“Yes, I definitely don’t,” Little One sniggered with his childish snort.

Getting no answer from the Fire, he joined the search and started probing the ground, each bush and shrub. After half an hour they finally found it. It was a tiny entrance, enough to let a stallion crawl inside. For Little One and Fire’s situation it was easier to venture inside. But it was a pitch-black tunnel.

“You got any light?” Fire asked.

“Definitely, no.”

“I know these pipes go straight to the bottom of the mine. Think about it like a slide.”

“And how will we come back?” Little One replied, unconvinced. “Because I don’t know you but in my opinion it’s dangerous to go there.”

“Chicken!” Fire cackled and jumped head first in the pipe. Little One facehooved before leaping after him.

The pipe was muddied. A horrible stench plagued the air. During the descent some indents left cuts on Fire and Little One’s furs. Their heads reeled, the dark was not helping. At least one was enjoying the ride. Fire let out a cry of amusement during the whole sliding.

They fell flat inside a tunnel. Its walls were lit up with arc lanterns, bathing them with a flickering light. The mine was emptied of its workers and a deafening silence assaulted the two little ponies.

“This mine is creepy,” Little One remarked.

Everypony had left their tools on their working spot, abandoning everything they were doing. It was like the colliers had vanished during their shift. Explosives were spread on the ground. Pickaxes were hammered in the wall and the trolleys were on their way to the surface, filled to overflowing. Again, the silence was oppressive. They could even hear the dirt falling from the ceiling, the cracking of the restraining structure and the distant rumble of an uncertain origin.

They walked up to the surface, and reached the exit. The tunnel was short and should have been opened recently. Out, they were at the bottom of the pit. Pegasi flew in the sky and curiously nopony was looking at them. Nopony would have thought the intruders would come from beneath, at leat no pegasi.

At the edges of the open-cast pit, they could see a team of pegasi being prepared to a descent. They wore a light armour and had a sparkling pick under their wings instead of spears.

“Come, we must find Candel before they do,” Fire pressed his friend.

“I’m not sure. I don’t even know her.”

“You signed for it,” Fire grinned, and pushed Little One forward.

They penetrated the north wing. The smell of death swamped Fire and Little One’s nostrils. Even though light showered from the lanterns, an eerie atmosphere was flying around. Fire felt something wrong growing in his heart, a crude fear of the unknown.

The lift of the north wing was broken midway, forcing the two apprentice adventurers to use the security staircase. When they passed the cage of metal, nopony was inside. Little One spotted the massive layer of dust blanketing the stairs. Inevitably, a small unsettling idea germinated in their mind; that the miners could still be trapped beneath them.

The last set of staircase showed up. The reek had gradually gained in strength and the tunnel appearing underneath was illuminated by a thousand of biased lights.

“You’re ready?” Little One asked.

The foal’s voice was hesitant, he wanted to be reassured. Fire passed him and hurdled down the stairs, crying.

“Candel!”

Afraid, Little One ended the descent without any urge. He found Fire stuck in motion, awestruck. Little One focused on the inside of the tunnel and gasped.

Words could not disclose what was lying before them.

“It is when we stand on the brink of the end

When there is no weeping soul that can be mend

That we rise, that we fight against a grim destiny

I see dripping tears on you my little pony

Please stop and smile, please come and join me

That we do not pass this last moment lonely

We wandered on the earth that we call dreary

We roamed on a ground that we fear deadly

With all our burdens that we refuse to deny

Listen to the stars, twinkling high in the sky

Listen to the birds, chirping today nearby,

Open your eyes at the beauty of the outside

Isn’t there almighty rapids we swim riptide

Isn’t there majestic wonders we haven’t elide

Yet the end is near and it’s with you that I stay

Together on the trail we’re bracing to away

With around only a world that is going to fray

But I want you to know that you will be loved

So do not fear it, welcome it, my beloved…

Please do not cry and of course do not weep

We are running before a threat that’s meant to creep

Yet never forget that forever my love will be yours.

…will be yours

Forever my love.”

The End’s song

Sweetie Belle

Date of creation, Unknown

2015 project - Beneath an Endless Dusk - 3. The Gems

"Knowledge… Knowledge is power.

Who’s the stupid pony who ever dared telling such bullshit? You really want my opinion, ignorance is the true power. Keep ponies ignorant or perverted, and the evil-minded teacher’s power will end limitless. Hence, I hate school. You’ll never learn anything interesting there. Or at least you’ll learn nothing but what others want you to. Others… a vague word for monsters who trample the most basic rights of my kind, education. And thus, freedom.

I always dreamt about knowing what the old world was looking like.

What was the Pony country’s name? Equestrus? Equestra? I don’t really know. What was the minotaur’s appearance? How was the world before? Now, everything is locked away from our reach. And I keep dreaming so much… I dream about endless green meadows, fully grown trees, pure air and of course, stars and night. But once I’ve awoken and understood my plight, I see my hope being shattered like a mirror falling on the ground. Why is everything this way? What series of events led us to such dead-end?

At school, we only learn about rocks, gems, rocks, rocks and, you guessed it, rocks. We’re colliers, not literary-minded ponies. For the pegasi, we’re meant to be ignorant, and the only books I read were the ones I successfully managed to save from the recurrent books auto-da-fé all across Murmanesk.

And by being ignorant, we gave away our right to exist, to live and to think. We are Earthbounds, stupidity bound, all blind, all deaf, and all controlled. Forever...

Who knows how many secrets are kept hidden from us? Who knows how much knowledge has been erased and is now forgotten by Ponykind?

Sometimes, I find myself dreaming for a change. I hope that somepony will rise for us. For I’m too weak. I’m just a coward. And yet, the hatred remains, grows and blossoms.

I keep rambling... Good job Candel’, next time you’ll talk about originality… not your stupid despair.

Candelabra"

“Is everything ready?” somepony intoned, unassured.

“I definitely hope so,” a mare’s voice retorted.

“Silence you two. Tis not time to fret!” a last one shouted sternly. “We’re damn too close from da objective to be allowed to fail. We’ve got an openin’. We must take it before tis too late.”

Plunged into darkness, the trio crawled within a narrow tunnel made of concrete. The walls were blackened with dust and covered with lichens. All together, they pulled a bag with a rudimentary assembly of lashes. The satchel was incredibly heavy, and each time its content rattled on the ground, the echoes reverberated into the trio’s ears.

The bag rolled on the side and screeched on the floor. They ground their teeth.

“Be careful with dat!” the most assertive of the three berated. “Ah don’t want da contraptions to trigger before we’re done with dem.”

“Two stallions and a mare walk into a pipe. It’s like the beginning of a bad joke,” the mare muttered audibly, trying to ease the ambience.

A harsh silence welcomed her. She shut up.

In the tunnel, the air reeked and the humidity stained the ponies’ furs. Droplets of water fell on their foreheads, melting with the sweat dripping on them.

“I think we’re getting closer. I’m hearing whispers,” the mare asserted.

They all looked right into the bag. Blue light blasted their faces when they opened the central pocket. They gasped at the sudden blinding burst of light. They spent a long time doing a final check of the inside.

“We’re going to make history today. Finally,” the second stallion, the most careless of the three, bragged.

“Nah! Not history,” his serious peer foretold. “We’re going to pour some change into dat city. Tis fully suffice to me.”

The stallion with a strange accent glared at his friends. His two companions nodded in silence.

Argen swept off the dust glued to his feathers as he walked casually down the vast boulevards shaping the South of Murmanesk. This part, the wealthiest of the city, was called the Upper City by its inhabitants. Contrasting with the colliers’ blocks, the buildings and streets here had been cleaned of trash and dirt. The sidewalks were spacious compared to the overcrowded Lower City. Yet, the most blatant distinction between both sides of the industrial town was the pegasi. Nopony but them lived there. And it was with shooting stares that they glared at Argen. Here, pegasi were not used to strangeness, and thus, foreigners.

Everypony withdrew quickly from Argen’s way, giving him ten times the space he would usually need. Fear was easily readable on everypony’s features, and Argen could see up in the sky a couple of guards eyeing him, weapons tightened between their hooves. It was obvious he was not welcome. Each parcel of this district was a reminder of this truth. It would have been painful if Argen had not been used to such discrimination. The emissary sighed and resumed walking. Even his noble title was of no use in that place. He had a destination in mind and nopony, even the Direction’s watchdogs, would slow him down.

Lined up like toy soldiers, the shops shined under the dusk’s light. Dress, jewels and goods from all across the Federation were exposed behind the window displays. Argen was stricken with awe. Murmanesk was one of the most secluded places in the country. Such demonstration of wealth was rare even on the shards close to the capital. Murmanesk was immensely rich, no doubt about it. Argen even saw a heraldic carved in a blue dragon’s scale. Should not those creatures be all extinct now? Argen found himself looking at a shop selling quills and... Argen laughed. It was just an office supplies store. The stale name and symbol were written on an old plaque of ebony. An old red sofa had been erased from the frame with a plane a long time ago. It was a scrap and finding it in the Upper City was amusing. Everything was so shiny and artificial that the store plaque was slightly out of context.

Argen smirked and passed his way. In spite of the freezing looks he received, today was a good day. The sky was filled with yellowish clouds. Only the sun and the black and scary hurricanes reared their head in their respective place; the West and the East. As always; the forever lost blue sky was out of reach, hidden behind the curtain blanketing the world. Yet, today, no northern wind was here to freeze ponies to the bones. No flooding rains from the West and no signs of chaos from the population were noticeable. The city was strangely peaceful.

Argen finally reached his destination. It was a monstrous building. Eight stories high, the old architecture was impressive. Showing off majestic colonnades, the front square bordered two gates of silver. And exposed before them, four statutes of bronze beamed under the low sun’s light. Four massive, metallic pegasi in flying stance crossed their hooves forever at the centre of the square. Argen felt minuscule when he passed under the quartet. He could now feel that fear everypony had when they were passing by his side. A blend of scariness and respect filled the emissary’s heart and he stopped. Argen chose to take time getting a closer look to the statutes. They have been undoubtedly created by the same sculptor.

Respecting parity, two mares faced two stallions. The first mare was holding a curved sword under her hoof. Complete plate armour covered her carnal body, only giving to see her face. The tip of her wings showed sharp metallic extensions, razor edges. Argen had heard about such tools. It was a deadly and horrific weapon only a few pegasi had mastered. The mare’s stare was imperious, filled with violence and unforgiveness. The visitors had to pass under her mighty eyes to enter the gate, strengthening the ill-feeling in every heart.

The second mare was dressed in a long and folding toga. A majestic golden branch of laurel circled her head like an empress’s crown. She had a foal in her left hoof, wrapped in swaddling clothes. The foal was silently crying. She beamed kindness. Yet, stillness was readable on the statue mare’s face.

Argen swivelled on his talons.

The first stallion was bulky. His features were filled with satisfaction. In his left hoof was held a complex brass compass. From his saddlebag hung on his bag sprouted hundreds of scrolls displaying runes and writings of a language that was now dead. He showed no weapons but a purse of ingot and a gear at his side. The last pegasus, as well as the second stallion contrasted with his three peers, as the statue showed an unsettlingly common appearance. It was slender and adorned with a few scars. Its bare stiffs showed a space emptied of cutie mark. In the end, the statute pictured a simple and anonymous pegasus closing the circle with his fellow peers. Argen tried to find words to describe the scene.

Each sculpture tended a hoof to the centre of the circle. Together, they held a scroll onto which was carved ‘Nation’. Together, they shaped a gargantuan play forcing respect into any witness’s mind. Argen lowered his eyes. Each pedestal was engraved with a single word.

“Power, Family, Industry and Unity,” Argen whispered.

“Eeyup.”

Argen tilted his head to the side. An old pegasus trembled on his hooves next to the investigator. He was looking at the sculptures with admiring eyes.

“You carved them?” Argen asked.

“Nope. My father did, a long time ago,” he replied. “I’m just the clean-up pony; I make sure that my father’s work keeps doing good impression on foreigners.”

“You do a good job,” Argen stated.

“Thanks.”

“But I don’t like the sculpture,” Argen added, vexing the pegasus. “You said truth; I’m a foreigner, an outsider. I can respect this sculpture but I can’t like it.”

Argen looked away from the statutes and fixed his eyes on the monstrous building. Constructed like a hemicycle, it overwhelmed anypony standing on the entrance square with its heavy shadow. Behind the windows Argen saw crimson velvet curtains and hundreds of blue lights cast from arcs hung on the walls. Such display of technological wealth was a waste from Argen’s point of view. But as was the government’s will to impress any commoner.

Argen pushed the gate inward and was welcomed by a pair of guards. He showed a pass and went up the marble stairs.

“Welcome to the Duma,” warned the clean-up pegasus from his position.

Argen sniggered and passed through the wooden doors of the Duma. The vestibule was massive and arrayed with the same red velvets he had seen from the outside. Mirrors and gold embellished the place that was so large Argen felt at ease. He could move freely without the fear of bumping a million bits worth jar of dirt. After a moment of amazement, the emissary walked past the vestibule toward a mare attending the reception. She was sitting behind a desk of varnished wood; and she was an earth pony. Argen fixed the space where the missing wings of the pony should have been for too long as the mare cleared her throat, calling the bird back to reality.

“How can I help you?” she asked with a fawning accent.

She was not pleased about Argen pointing out she was an earth pony and was not hiding it. She had a notebook in front of her eyes. Rows of names were written with a beautiful scripture and few drops of ink were scattered on the bottom of the sheet. Argen remarked the quill to blame in the nearest trash can.

“Yes,” Argen initiated. “I’m here to request an audience to the Parliament.”

“You have a pass?” she nearly spat.

Argen sighed and checked his ventral pack. He drew a tiny briefcase and gave it to the mare. She found several sealed and stamped documents inside. A photo identified the bird easily.

“I’m Argen Tavis. I was delegated by the Direction to investigate on the shardfall,” he explained.

The mare looked at him with doubting eyes.

“I need to talk to the Duma right now,” Argen brought forward. “It implicates the war protocol.”

Argen got the response he expected. He always got this reaction once he had mentioned this obscure law. The mare hesitated, looked at the clock hung high on the opposite wall, lowered her eyes and gave up. She took a deep breath and put out of a drawer a small stamp. She took out one sheet of Argen’s case and hammered it with the seal.

“Have a nice day,” she admonished, faking gentleness.

The mare showed a path with her hoof, indicating the way to the chamber of the Duma. Argen walked pass the reception after a brief thanks. The building was a maze. Hundreds of empty rooms aligned endlessly through hallways devoid of ponies. The silent would have been oppressing if a distant buzz had not been audible. The noise intensified when he went around a corner.

The walls were decorated with paintings and pictograms of current and previous representatives of the Duma. Over the past one hundred years, the place had seen more than a hoof full of politicians. The paintings were large and their eyes seemed to watch upon the bird with unblinking stares. Argen wanted to rip them off the walls and tear them down. He hated being watched, even by paintings.

Cacophony was slithering from under a massive door of oak wood. Grating on their hinges, the gate swung open under Argen’s strength. Raising his head, Argen scanned the parliament. Half of the seats were occupied by nothing but emptiness and the rest showed scared pegasi. They had been interrupted in the midst of a hot debate.

Built as a levelled hemicycle, rows of seats circled a stage. A single pegasus sat there behind a granite desk. He was old and slender, and his tanned fur had turned white. His eyes were burning with an inner flame. He looked at Argen in silence. The assembly on the other hoof was shouting threats and queries that turned inaudible in the ambient din. The chairpony at the center of the room raised his voice, stern and deep. Everypony shut up and dug their sides in their respective chairs.

“You’re the investigator?” the head of the chamber asked.

Argen nodded in silence.

“Well, you’re late,” the pony berated.

Argen hid his laugh. It was comic. The small pegasus was yelling at a black monster who could swallow him in a bite.

“I’m sorry Chairpony, but some unexpected events slowed my pace,” Argen deadpanned.

“Well, I’m impatient to hear about your discoveries.” The president of the Duma glared daggers at his peers. “The Direction has pressed us like apples to get the pit reopened as fast as possible.”

Dark rings plagued the chairpony’s eyes. He was tired and obviously angry. And at the moment, everypony was a convenient stock for his temper tantrum.

“Indeed, I’ve done quite a job since my arrival. I was given to see some evidence from Hoofston’s fallen shard.”

“So it was Hoofston’s,” some voices whispered.

“Yes, it was,” Argen pushed forth. “Within the smoke and debris I found the last remains of the shard’s lighthouse. Inside was a pictograph record.”

Every pegasus jumped on their hooves, willing to hear the following development. Argen snickered. Being this taken into consideration after being nearly thrown away by all of them was somehow rewarding.

“Do you know anything about the pegasi sent into the East?” Argen cackled.

A wave of whispers welcomed the emissary. Members of the Duma were bluntly scared. Some hooves trembled, kicking the parquet loudly.

“You’re speaking of the penal legion, aren’t you?” somepony asked.

“I guess so. But I’m here because I have questions, not to answer yours.”

“Damn, I knew that idea of the Direction was going to backfire on our arses,” the same pony growled.

“It’s not something we usually speak about with civilian pegasi,” Another politician added. “We avoided any reference to it to be honest.”

The pegasus’s nearest neighbour cut him off.

“It’s a good way to get rid of the unwanted pegasi. Those traitors are bad examples for earth-frees and earthbounds.”

“A pegasus returned,” Argen revealed, stopping the beginning agitation right away.

The silence was numbing.

“Is that some kind of joke?” the chairpony finally had the courage to say.

Argen shook his head.

“No. A pegasus came back from the hurricanes… and apparently, he was not alone.”

Argen was making things worse to stand for anypony. He was not even over yet.

“He came with something that may have brought down Hoofston’s shard. But of such threat, I’ve found no evidence.”

Argen paused and caught his breath. He disliked what he was going to say.

“I can’t tell you what happen there. But I can tell you what did not happen. Magic Erosion, that bane, is to be put aside. Second, we’re too distant from the Republic for it to be the origin of an attack. And it is not an uprising, Hoofston had a research purpose. It was to study the East weather’s outbursts, thus only scientific and militaries were present. Of course it was the last ground before the great nothingness of the hurricanes.” Argen paused.

“And now that Hoofston’s shard is lost for ever, Murmanesk has become his replacement.”

Argen clattered his talons on the wooden floor. Nopony wanted to hear that truth, but the inspector continued.

“Murmanesk is now the most remote land of the Federation, good job and good luck.”

The statement was harsh and stressful.

“You won’t let us down now, will you?” a fat pegasi asked with anger.

“No I won’t,” Argen replied with a twisted smile, dunking the ugly pony in his chair. “I’m here to talk about the war protocol.”

Argen’s grin of cynicism unsettled more than one.

“You know that the war against the Republic is a long-lasting, bloody and merciless show of power,” Argen stated. “In my role of emissary and investigator, I have to report any trouble within the nation to the capital. And this means I will have to report the recent events here.”

“So go forth, mister,” the chairpony replied, unhappy about it.

“There is only one tiny issue right now,” Argen purred. “I have been signified that you had to take upon an uprising after the shardfall and that you perform a… quick cleanse of the Lower City. You clearly know that the Federation is currently lacking of workforce…”

“Like the Republic,” a pegasus cut him off. “It’s a war to death, remember? And the renegades aren’t helping. At least we know that the enemy also has its own inner troubles. But it still means that we have to crack down on every earthbounds’ revolts… while it’s still in the womb.”

Argen frowned with disgust.

“Welcome to reality, mister Argen.” The chairpony grinned. “We are stuck into an endless war with the Republic. The total annihilation of our common enemy is the last resort we have. To bring back peace is what we’re fighting for. And if we need to sacrifice the well-being of this generation for the future of those yet-to-be born, I’ll do it. Twice.”

The assembly approved loudly.

“If we need to wipe out Murmanesk’s earthbound population to keep the Federation moving on ideologically, economically and of course, militarily, we’ll do it,” the chairpony concluded. “I think there are plenty of unemployed ponies in the country who would be glad to take upon the traitors’ jobs and make the trip to our shard.”

“Well this is not the topic of the discussion. Do not deride,” Argen bashed. “I’m talking about the war protocol. This means that currently, I can overthrow you for going against the capital’s will.”

The chairpony gulped.

“However, it is not my intention” Argen reconsidered. “I am preoccupied by the reason behind Hoofston’s shard downfall. And I have to clear the fallout zone to find evidence. Yet, I can’t do it all alone; the area is too vast for me to clear. In virtue of the war protocol, to protect the Federation, I am requisitioning one hundred ponies to check the whole area.”

Whispers spread like wildfire between the pegasi.

“You can’t do that. We need to keep the industries going on. For the secret project…”

The anonymous politician covered his mouth with both of his hooves. Stares riveted on him as he had done the biggest mistake ever. Argen could not stop himself from smiling. Since he had landed on Murmanesk’s shard, he knew something was off. This was the confirmation.

“Yes, thanks for confirming my suspicions. Following the war protocol and as an emissary, I command you to tell me what’s really going on here. Murmanesk’s seems to be a pearl in an ocean of mud. You’re too rich, too powerful and influential within the Federation for the geographical position you’re occupying. I would like to know the story behind that wealth.”

Every pegasus shouted in disbelief, anger and angst. The cacophony rose violently and echoed in the room.

“Silence!” Argen roared before lowering his voice to a brisk tone, “I need to know. If the Hoofston’s fall was an attack, I need to know why Murmanesk is so worthy of interest. You can’t build such an isolated city, from where no news and information go out, with only coal as a source of revenue. I repeat: there is something off happening here.”

The silence was hard to take, and only a clatter was audible. The chairpony broke it with hesitation.

“You’re right, mister Argen. We can’t go against the law and even more against the war protocol. But in fact, the secrecy about Murmanesk is something well known from the Capital as it is somehow an order from the senior level of the Federation’s power.”

Argen arched a brow. The clatter was clicking in his ears, annoying.

“So?” he asked.

“Murmanesk is the last shard providing gems for the Federation,” the chairpony stated with grief. “Every shard left except ours has gone out of stock. We’re the last shard and city mining useful gems for the war. It is our benediction and curse as well.”

The chairpony pierced Argen from side to side with his stare.

“This is a secret you’ll have to keep mister Argen. You may invoke the war protocol to get this information. But I use the same protocol to tell you now to shut the fuck up about it.”

The clatter, like the tick of the clock on the wall strengthened the tension in the hemicycle.

“But it’s not everything. We’ve discovered a new property of some gems. Something we didn’t expect… It’s…” The chairpony rose on his hindlegs. “That the one playing with his pen stop. That clicking is fucking pissing me off!”

Whispers…

“It’s not from anypony here,” a voice hesitated.

The chairpony looked around. Argen stared at his talons. He saw a pair of blue eyes looking at him from the opening of an ajar vent.

“G’d night Sir,” a voice with a strange accent toned from the pipe.

The pony a few hoof under fled in a wisp. Argen was stunned. The clatter came from there, stronger than ever. The clatter, the ticking… Argen looked at the chairpony, who had heard too. Argen burst open his wings, knocking out some pegasi with the blow. He jumped in the air, reaching the ceiling.

An explosion of blue and white followed, crackling in the hemicycle with arcs of electricity. The lights shattered and only screams rose before being silenced forever.

The harbour was agitated today. Pegasus were landing and taking off continuously, pulling their flying carts filled with goods. On the runaway stood an old pegasus. With a notebook he took the identity of each pony entering and leaving as well as their shipment content.

He did so for an hour and, tired, swapped with a colleague as he took a pause from his shift. Next to the harbour was the guards’ garrison. The pegasus entered and took a seat in one of the comfy chairs left empty in the living room. Coffee had been poured in cups and displayed on a table. He snatched one and drunk it slowly.

“Hey pony! What’s up?” a pegasus joined the empty circle of chair.

“Mmmh?” his counterpart replied, focused on drinking his cup.

“Well you’re not very talkative today…”

“I’m just concerned by the shardfall, my son is in the frontline guard and he was called this morning from his day-off to go into the pit. I’m afraid of what could happen to him,” the drinking guard sighed.

“Don’t worry bro’. Your son is going to do well. What do you think we are? We are Pegasi, not the vulgar crowd bound to the dirt.”

The pegasus father waved his hoof toward his friend, sweeping away his argument taken right from the propaganda.

“Nah! You don’t understand. My son is in the highest rank of the military. It’s not his role to go and baton the uprisings. Something really dangerous should have happened.”

They both shrugged.

“He’s gonna be fine!” the second pegasus assured. “Last time I’ve seen your little colt he was as bulky as a cart.”

“That’s not the matter. It’s just that it’s the first time he’s called for such trivial work. I’m worried. I…”

A flash burst through the windows. The earth growled and rumbled. A loud crack blasted the walls and the glasses in every frame shattered. The loudness deafened the ponies on the harbour. Within the garrison, the two ponies stood up, holding their ears with clumsy hooves. The torn apart curtains waved and clacked on their rods as the wind blew through the broken thresholds. A massive cloud of black smoke rose over the Upper City. They could see flames from their position, blue flames.

“This is bad,” The pegasus father’s friend gulped. “Where is your son, you said?”

“Near of the pit, in the North of the city… with nearly all of the guards.”

“This is really bad…”

A second explosion boomed, an aftershock.

Argen hauled himself from under the chunks of concrete burying him. He grunted and pushed on his talon to surface. Dust and remains of the Duma building dropped on his wings, torn and broken. He cried his rage and opened his eyes. He was bleeding.

The hemicycle had been blasted out, replaced by a massive hole in the construction. The wind, melting with aching smokes, slapped his face. The harshness of the air burned his lungs. The fire had lit the crimson velvet curtains of the chamber and flames consumed all around Argen.

“Nothing to brighten up my day, ain’t ya?” he whispered in pain with nopony to hear him.

A blue flame licked Argen’s leg. He fell on his side, feeling his feathers searing. Grumbling he violently preened the burning ones off. He coughed. The dust in the air slithered in his eyes. Argen crept away from this deadly place. Argen scanned the surroundings. Dead pegasi were strewn within the area, torn apart, broken, burnt, ugly and distorted. He heard a complaint and a hoof bumped his claw. Next to him, an emerging form trembled, lying under a lintel of wood.

“Help…”

Argen bent toward the body. It was the chairpony. Crawling, his hindlegs joints were reverted and bleeding. Two ribs jutted out of his thorax. He was hissing loudly. Gargling as blood drooled in his lungs, he was a limping-dead pony. Argen could do nothing for him. He put his talon on his neck ready to snap it and bring rest to the wreck of a pony facing him.

“You wanted to know why the gems are so important?” the chairpony gurgled. “Eh, eh, eh…”

Argen’s eyes narrowed.

“Spit it out! You’re dead anyway,” the bird warned, tightening the embrace of his claws on the rag-doll of bleeding meat.

“Dying with a look of disappointment on your face would be satisfying enough. You, sub-races, are always fucking everything up. We, pegasi, always have to sweep the dirt behind you all,” the chairpony smiled. “We did so for more than a hundred years.”

Argen grinned. He raised his talon, reaping the pony from the ground. And with his beak, the emissary cut the sinew off the pony’s hoof. The pegasus screamed.

“You’ll beg for death,” Argen stated. “Now tell me, you have a foal, a filly or a colt, haven’t you?”

The pony widened his eyes.

“You won’t?” he beseeched.

Argen smiled, this kind of bluff always worked. The fact he was an investigator helped, a lot.

“I will,” he sniggered. “Now tell me and your death will be fast.”

The pegasus quivered and slowly confessed.

“The gems, you know the pictographs… You think they are artificial products?” the pony crackled.

Argen screwed his pupils to the size of pinpricks.

“Spill…”

“It ain’t. They are magic,” the chairpony brought forth before Argen nearly squeezed his neck, unconvinced.

“Magic…” Argen hesitated. “True magic is dead one hundred and eleven years ago during the event, you liar.”

“No, you don’t understand. The gems… some of them… are medium to see the past and the present like recording devices.”

The pony started panting. Death was beckoning close to him.

“Nothing’s new here,” Argen deadpanned.

“They can also show you the future… Some of them… just a few.”

Argen dropped the pony, shocked.

“Repeat me that, you liar!” He shrieked.

It was too late. The pony’s neck had broken in the fall. Argen cursed himself and after a long moment chose to creep out of the ruins of the Duma.

The Upper City was strangely quiet. Every pegasus had locked himself behind their heavy doors, waiting for the Direction to come and clear out the situation. In the distance a zoom could be heard. The clamour of ponies, crying, shouting, screaming… dying? Argen fretted. He wondered where Little One was.

Revelation stuck him. They were at the pit. Did they go down, deeper in the mine? What if the chairpony was right? It was bad. Argen quickened his path and tried to fly. Pain burst in his wings. He could only bounce on his chicken’s legs. It was not comfortable at all. He had to move fast. Time was running out if he expected to find Little One alive. The Direction was probably ready to exterminate the witnesses of a secret that could kill ponies and reverse the outcome of the war.

Stench…

A horrid stench plagued the air; nothing but a smell of burnt flesh and drying blood. Fire threw up while Little One gave two steps back in the metallic staircase. The lights had been blown out with a rare violence. Only the glowing liquid of arc lamps splattered the walls. The last flames surviving on the hard-hats scattered around made the shadows flicker in the gallery. It was grim dark; gore and revolting. Miners’ body parts were strewn all over the place. The walls of the tunnels were covered with blood. Intermittently, chunks of coal fell off the ceiling.

“What happened?” Little One trembled.

“An AA,” Fire gulped.

Little One gave him a bemused look.

“An arc accident. Look.” Fire pointed with his hoof the glowing blue particles stippling the whole cavern and the bodies. “They used explosives to pierce tunnels. One exploded during the preparation. And Candel…”

Fire stopped and shivered in silence

“Candel!” he shouted, scared. “Where are you?”

He dashed forward with a horrible anxiousness harassing his mind. Little One did not even try to stop him, leaving Fire turning the cadavers over, searching for known faces. Grins of pained death welcomed him. Fire started crying as Candel was nowhere to be found. All around Mares, Stallions, fillies and colts that had just got their cutie marks were scattered, broken. It was revolting. Fire stopped on the corpse of a pony and wept. Little One came closer and saw the stallion whose burnt fur wet with Fire’s tears. The body’s white eyes had swelled and blistered.

“Who?” Little One asked shyly.

“Candel’s father,” Fire blabbered, distraught. “He… he’s dead. Candel’s father… is dead.”

The stallion had always been a great figure of the colliers’ union, and thus, of Murmanesk’s working class. He dedicated his life fighting for the well-being of the earthbounds. And now, he was dead. And more than anything else, it was a stupid death. Everypony would have bet he would finish on the pillory of the Duma and Direction for being a big mouth. But no… he was a damn good arc engineer, and he died stupidly in an arc explosion.

“It’s so… unfair.”

“Fire?” Little One hesitated.

The young pony replied with a grunt. Little One showed a missing wall. A whole side of the tunnel had crumbled down; blown away was a better description. The edges of the hole, ten times the size of a pony, opened on a dark place.

“Your friend doesn’t seem to be around,” Little One explained. “If she survived, she must have gone down there.”

Fire raised his eyes, wiping his tears, and stared in the obscurity beyond the threshold. He gulped.

“Well, I guess we have to go inside...” Little One squeaked. "Maybe she is in there."

Fire nodded hesitantly, the cavern was pitch-black.

Behind the two ponies, a corpse that had been flung against a spear of rock slid off its support. It fell in a loud thumb, startling Fire and Little One. By instinct, they jumped in the dark tunnel and stumbled. They hit the ground hard, head first.

“Are you okay,” Fire asked rubbing his forehead, wincing.

“Can’t see anything.” Little One struggled and bumped into something. “Oh sorry.”

“Wasn’t me!” Fire gasped.

They stopped and looked down. It was limp, squishy… pony-shaped. Fire and Little One craved for a light. From the opening the arcs had blown in the tunnel wall, the remaining and scarce light of the miners’ equipment casted a dull light in the cave. The weak beams lit up the form.

It was a pony, and a horrifying one. Lying on the side, the stallion had shrunk on itself. Wrinkled and dried as if all the fluids had been sucked out from within his skin. His eyes had withered into dust, leaving behind two deep and black holes. His mouth was distorted in a last scream of agony. Fire and Little One felt suddenly dizzy. The new found body was not alone. At least a hoof full of ponies was spread in the chamber. None of them were alive and all showed the same horrific aspect of the first stallion. All was petrified in the same expression of horror. Their death should have been atrociously painful. But something was afoot. In spite of their mummified state, they all presented a brand new miners’ equipment, unstained if it had not suffered from the arc explosion.

“Candel?!” Fire shouted in disbelief.

“What happened here?” Little One blabbered.

“They are just old rags.” Fire shrugged before taking a deep breath. “Candel?”

“No,” Little One countered. “They are colliers from your friend’s shift.”

Little One kneeled near a dead mare and triggered on her hard-hat, bursting a tiny flame from its mechanism. Now lit up, the colt could picture the cadaver. The mare’s metallic tag twinkled in Little One’s hoof, a name was punched on it.

“Let me see,” Fire deadpanned, unconvinced.

Hurried, Fire bumped Little One and took the tag. Argen’s assistant fell over loudly and pushed aside the mare’s hard hat. It rolled and clinked against a wall. A humming noise filled the atmosphere, scaring the two colts. Both young ponies raised their eyes as a slow blue wave spread on the wall, refracting the light coming from the hat. The surface was covered with hundreds of gems. All started pulsing with energy. Reflections of blue and green beamed in the antechamber. Fire and Little One screwed their eyes. The sound amplified up to an unbearable level. They covered their ears with their hooves and stared at the wall. A violent crack burst out in the cavern and echoed deep inside it. The light, glowing within the gems until now, converged in one big raw diamond. It focused and weaved out of the translucent rock.

As the glimmer snaked in the air and began to shape, a voice rose from the emptiness. A deep clamour of a stallion, wounded, angry, in disbelief.

“… can’t do that to me! Why did you send me there? I’ve sacrificed everything for this moment and now you’ve fooled me and ask me to throw my goal away! You sick goddess!”

Little One and his counterpart looked up. In the depths of the cave an image was standing still. They went closer to the stageplay. The character of the image, an earth pony, was a bulky stallion covered with scars and filth. Similarly to the pictograph he had seen earlier, Fire could not distinguish the colour of the stallion. The light pouring out of the gems was bright blue, so was the pony playing in front of him. Little One was amazed. It was coming from a raw gem still stuck in the wall, untouched. The foal’s mind boggled as he could not figure how this was possible.

The stallion’s talking image had a massive contraption on his left hindleg, up to his knee, like armour. His cutie mark was blurred, maybe covered with dust… or blood. Apparently, he had several cuts and was bleeding from his eyes. On his side was attached few weapons. The first arm was a spear. Not the one the Direction’s soldiers usually used. It was a forged spear. Its tip was large and heavy, and the shaft was made of wood. He also displayed a strange mechanism neither Fire or Little One could identify, a series of flat disk hung on a strap.

The stallion had talked to somepony outside the frame the gem had recorded. But when the protagonist’s voice rose, there was no doubt it was a mare; or a goddess if the stallion was right.

“You went through this epoch, and you’re still asking why? You’ve always been so stupid. Open your eyes. Everything was written even before the beginning of your own existence. Everything sticks to the plan, my plan.”

The image of the stallion flickered. A clatter echoed and a knife bounced at his hooves. A second clatter followed outside of the frame. The stallion’s look was heart-breaking. His face was deformed with disbelief, fear and anger. When his eyes left the knife, he could not stand steadily on his hooves.

“No, you can’t force me to make this choice. It’s unfair,” the stallion stammered.

“ But you will,” she took time to spell. “ Because nopony else was meant to do it. There is no escape for you. Choose one of the two solutions I offer you. Prove to me that heroes… there are no more. ”

From her position the goddess laughed at the stallion cringing on his hooves. He wept from the weight of the heavy burden thrust on his shoulders. He could not do the right choice and the stallion knew it.

“Now son,” the so-called goddess ordered. “Go forth and seal the future of this world.”

“I- I can’t…”

The image vanished in a pop and the light filling the cavern exploded in thousands of scintillating particles. They fell slowly on the ground, losing in momentum and brightness until they definitely disappeared. Fire and Little One came closer to the massive gems and put their hooves on its shining surface, waiting for some kind of reaction. Nothing occurred to their disarray.

“What was that?” Fire found the strength to blabber.

“I don’t know,” Little One replied, as shaken as his friend. “But, that shouldn’t be possible. Gems aren’t magic, are they?”

A third voice rose behind them.

“What are you doing here?”

The voice was harsh, deep, and military-like. Fire and Little One pivoted abruptly and found themselves facing a pegasus soldier. He was holding an arc spear in their direction. How long had he been there? Fire and Little One could not tell. They both gulped. The soldier looked around at the dead bodies. A polished round-shaped gem glowed at the tip of his necklace, casting so much light in the cave the flame of the hard-hat looked pitiful in comparison. For the first time, Fire and Little One got a clear view on the surrounding. The cavern was gigantesque; the ceiling was thirty ponies high. A patient enough pony could stack up a dozen of colliers’ cottages there and still get some space for a flying carriage.

A pair of wings passed over the pegasus’s head, ruffling his mane a little. A creature flapped mechanically and landed few meters away from him. Fire recognized it. He had seen the same model in the sewer. The small automaton was a bird made of copper and shining metal. His two red eyes fixed both colts. It stretched its wings and flew toward Fire only to print the mark of its talon in his forehead when it passed by. Few drops of blood slipped in his eyes. Fire felt a chill running beneath his skin, melt with pain. Was it the same automaton he had met during his escape through the sewers? A drop of sweat ran off his neck. The bird cackled and came back to its former position, next to the guard. Then it bounced to the closest shadow and disappeared.

“Answer!” the soldier ordered; his spear crackled with a spark of electricity.

“Ye… Yes mister,” Little One berated.

He punched Fire in the flank and yelled.

“Run!”

For a second, Fire and the soldier looked at the colt running away deep in the bowels of the earth. They looked at each other and Fire dashed away in Little One’s tow. The soldier shot at him with his magic spear before leaping behind the duo going deeper in the cavern. As expected, the air compressed mechanism thrust the tip of the weapon in Fire’s direction. It missed and exploded against the ground a few meters from Fire. The blue-furred colt felt pushed aside by the kinetic and electric shockwave. However, he did not stop and kept running.

As he fled from the soldier and his mechanical bird, Fire remarked that the cave was shrinking to a narrow tunnel where a small underground river was streaming. Little One jumped in. Without a second thinking, Fire followed and yelped as he felt falling. He hit the bottom of the tunnel and slid inside as the stream carried him away. It was sickening.

Fire landed on Little One and both emerged from the water falling on them. Panting, they had ended their race in a natural pool. The waters were terribly cold and when they finally put their hooves on its edge, they felt the chilling bite of the air. They wiped the water off their eyes. The newly found cave was a cathedral of stalagmites and stalactites that outmatched the height of the highest buildings of Murmanesk. Water burst out of the dark ceiling.

Lost in chiaroscuro darkness, the only present light came from an object displayed in the middle of the chamber. Getting over the coldness of this frozen chamber, Fire and Little One walked to the bright landmark. It was a grave, built of finely chiselled red gems. The light was coming from square-shape gems riveted to the stone. It was green, steady and unharmed by the time that had passed by since the erection of the grave. The tombstone was engraved with a simple sentence, it contained typos.

“Here lies last alpha of the diamond dogs,” Fire read. “died defending own wealth deep within the earth.”

The nameless epitaph was followed with a quote.

“Better break than bend,” Fire continued.

The buried diamond dog should have been a leader of a few words when he was still alive. Little One took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to picture how a diamond dog should look like. He had never seen one. Of course, everypony said they were all dead now. The only thing he had read about them came from Argen’s personal library, kept safe from the ravage of time and Federation’s revengeful army. Little One imagined a monstrous quadruped creature with bulky limbs and a mouth armed with rows of teeth like sharks. Like monsters, they should have glowing red eyes and probably a bad hygiene. But the stone mentioned wealth. They were diamond dogs of course, diamonds meant richness.

Yet, after scanning the surroundings, Little One felt slightly betrayed. This place was remote and forgotten, nearly untouched. The grave should date from even before the event that messed the world upside down. Nopony never knew the truth, but everything started in Canterlot. Canterlot, another word that had been devoid from its meaning. Did this diamond dog see it with his own eyes? Was it a city? A region? Little One sighed at his own ignorance.

A rumble forced Little One to snap out of his dreaming. He looked around and found Fire being busy over the tomb.

“Are you crazy?” Little One gasped. “Don’t you know that it’s disrespectful to scavenge the graves?”

“He won’t need anything anymore. And you weren’t so considered earlier with the miners.”

Little One’s mouth swung wide, but he said nothing. He took a closer look to Fire’s machinations. He had pushed the thin cover of gems sealing the top of the grave. The odour was unpleasant but with time, the smell of rotting flesh had lost in strength. Within the gem coffin was the skeleton of a massive creature; a monster of teeth and claws that would easily erase anypony off the surface of a shard. His claws were impressive. Little One smiled; it was not so different from what he had imagined.

“Now, hope that there isn’t any curse on that one,” Fire grinned.

The grave contained nothing helpful but an old and dusty book. Opening it, the colt gave a glance at it and hesitated. He looked at Little One and hoofed the book.

“Can you read it to me?” Fire asked.

“You can’t read?”

“I can!” Fire replied quickly, too quickly.

With a look of disapproval, Little One snatched the book out of Fire’s hooves and looked at the writings. After a loud sneeze, as the book was covered with dust, Little One started reading a random page. It was a diary. And surprisingly it was quite well written compared with what ponies would have expected from a common diamond dog. But the grave said it all. The tomb dweller was the last alpha and Little One remembered that this meant he would have been bigger, stronger and of course, smarter.

‘It’s the Last-Decade of the Late Harvests, the whining queen has come back! I can’t believe it. She messed with us few years ago with my clan and now she comes back. I can’t believe it at all.

And worse than anything else, she comes to claim our gems. And not any kind of gems, she wants the magic ones. Just… why? It’s our wealth, our treasure. She said she only need sample… But I know better. Ponies are all same. First, they ask for small gift and once you give it to them, they become unsatisfied. And then, they ask for more, again and again until you’re naked as worm.

I can’t let this happen at all. The underground is not their territory. It’s ours… mine. And I only deal with dragons and changelings. At least they are frank and easy to deal with. You give them gems, they give you fire and food. You give them gems, they give you gold. You give them gems and they give you lands.

Since new purple princess’s got to throne with the goddesses Moon and Sun, things go pretty bad for my liegedogs. Equestria grows too much. They thrive on my lands and push us away, again and again. They said it was for the greater good. Their greater good! Not ours. Everything is changing outside. They call it the era of science. I call it the age of bigotry and zealotry of ponies. All hidden behind their twisted methods and laws. They are always searching for power, knowledge and prosperity. And others, Diamond Dogs, zebras, Dragons, Griffons… No, not griffons… they work talon in hoof with filthy ponies. What we going to be? I remember words of young princess.

“There is no place in this world for backward cranky peoples.”

Oh, that gods of Under are my witnesses! I make her pay for that offense.

But I’m worried. Ponies thrive today while own citizens are suffering and starving under empty ceilings. We can’t fall for jealousy because one should know that annoying alicorns is tickling sleeping dragons. Sometimes it better to keep buried some dark knowledge because no one smart enough to understand. And magic gems aren’t toys you can freely use without expecting major issues.

They never ever get sample. They can go lick their horns to Tartarus and dance on Cerberus’s arse for me.’

Fire and Little One looked at each other. Little One found the will to break the ice.

“This is really old.”

“Just…” Fire hesitated. “Already above, they talked about goddesses… What are goddesses? And… alicorns?”

Little One gave back the same troubled face Fire showed.

“I have no idea.” Little One shrugged. “You went to school, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, school,” Fire laughed.

Little One raised an eyebrow, not sure to understand his humour. Fire kept snickering and walked away, leaving Little One to his own thoughts. The foal snapped out of his pondering.

“Wait, what are you going to do?” Little One asked.

“Look.”

The ground was marked with hoofprints. They were recent and were not those of Fire and Little One.

“Candel came here,” Fire assured, trying to convince himself rather than his friend.

“What would you do for her?” Little One asked rhetorically.

Candel’s trail, if it was hers, was easily tracked down. The ground was murky and with the shadows the gem above the tombstone casted from his pedestal, the path was blatant. One of the walls of the gargantuan cave had an opening on its side and carved in the rock was a staircase. Each stair was polished by the water streaming off the wall.

The ascension seemed to last for hours. When Fire and Little One thought they had finally escaped from the depths of earth, they ended in a narrow tunnel… another one. The opposite side had collapsed. And through the stones, a minuscule breeze licked the colts’ faces. After a short investigation, they found that somepony had crawled inside a small crack of the subsiding. Shafts of light poured from it with fresh air.

The outside welcomed Fire and his friend. The collapsing was covered with moss, proving the underground passage was long forgotten. They were a mile south of Murmanesk, and even from there, they could see the black cloud rising from the city. The smell of burning buildings was noticeable even from such distance.

“Is Murmanesk always that messy?” Little One asked.

Fire shook his head. It was not usual and with a shivering hoof, he sighed. Candel was nowhere to be found. From his position to the border of the city no white shape was noticeable on the green and murky landscape. Disillusion was important in Fire’s heart and the colt started feeling Little One’s exasperation. Fire feared the foal was getting tired of the adventure. He was just following Fire without asking questions.

“Come with me,” Fire finally offered. “My father will know better.”

Little One lowered his head and walked in Fire’s stead. The procession went short-lived. Two pegasi, flying high, leaped and tackled Fire and Little One to the ground. One carried a long spear which tip was not a sharp pike, but an open hoop of brass. Its inner side was armed with small blades, leaving enough space to welcome the neck of an unfortunate pony. The two ends of the metallic circle folded in a way that anything trapped inside could not go out.

The weapon clattered around Fire’s neck. A terrible pain spiked on his neck’s skin. The colt fell on the ground, giving up under the expert manoeuvres of the soldier and his vile tool. Crying, Fire bit the dust and jerked around. A kick in his flank shut him up. On his own, Little One had shrunk on his hooves, fearful. The second pegasus admonished him with dreadful eyes.

“My, my, my… Look what we’ve got here. Some younglings that fell from the nest,” both soldiers laughed raucously.

Whacked in the face, Little One put a foreleg on the ground, stunned.

“Earthbounds are ugly!” the soldier threatening Fire snickered.

Little One’s orange fur and blue mane indeed contrasted with Fire’s green mane and dark blue fur in an awkward way. But for both young colts, this insult was a direct shot to their hearts. The pegasi focused on Fire and his forehead. The flesh wound inflicted by the mechanic bird earlier had just coagulated, the blood melding with dirt.

“Where did you get this?” the armed soldier spat.

Fire refused to respond. The pegasus gave a turn to his weapon. The tips of the inner blades bit Fire’s neck, ripping off a loud scream from him. Fire bounced on the side trying to dampen the pain. From his position Little One jolted on his hooves, only to get his head smacked to the ground by the other soldier. Little One’s turban flew off and hit the dirt.

A grieving silence ensued.

“Just… how…” the soldiers whispered.

Fire raised his eyes and saw for the first Little One’s tip of his head. A large part of his forehead was marked with an atrocious scar. Where should have been his forelocks was replaced with a scarred piece of flesh. It was not a simple burn, it looked much more like somepony had carved and cut out a part of his skull only to fix the aftermath with a white-hot firebrand. Printed onto the legacy were the outlines of a crossed out diamond. Little One’s face was praying that this moment had never happened. He rubbed his disgusting mark and gave a pleading look at the soldiers, curled up and started weeping. The soldiers never gave him the rest he had silently asked for. Little One spat blood after several punches in his side. Anger and horror plagued the pegasi’s eyes, leaving Fire alone. They showed a blind hatred for the foal. Fire used this providential situation to get free from the weapon.

Little One cried, unable to give back the blows the soldier showered on his bruised body.

“Monster!” they shouted.

Anger rushing through his veins, Fire cried out and gave a buck to the first soldier, forcing the second one to swivel and face him. Quick to act, Fire shot a shingle in the surprised pegasus’s face. The soldier limped and fell, shaken.

“Run!” Fire ordered, pulling his young friend on his hooves.

They ran into the narrow streets of Murmanesk, but Little One was not in condition to run properly anymore. On the path, ponies eyed Little One with horrified eyes and backed from him like ponies from a leper. But something else was off; Fire could tell it from a greater fear casted on everypony’s faces.

After a glance back, Fire saw the pegasi flying low. Their intent to flee from the soldiers was desperate. The chase lasted for a dozen of minutes while Fire used as well as he could the maze Murmanesk was to dodge each attempt of the pegasi to get him. At some points, Fire even thought he had lost them. The two colts slowed down, hoping for a short rest to catch their breath.

“How did you get that scar and mark?” Fire panted.

Little One was still crying and his heavy tears fell off his cheeks. His lips were bruised and one of his eyelids had swelled, covering his eye. He refused to respond and his hooves failed him. Little One fell and seemed he would never move again. Leaving him for a second, Fire looked around. Everypony was numbed with fear and agitation. The noise filling the city was deafening and, a few streets from where they had stopped, he could hear explosions, arc weapons’ explosions… Fire turned around, trying to stand still as hundreds of earth ponies cavorted. A white shape caught his eyes.

“Candel?” Fire called. “Candel?!”

Nothing.

Little One glared with tired eyes at his friend.

“I’m a unicorn okay!” he blabbered. “A should-be-dead damn unicorn.”

Fire turned back and stared blankly at Little One.

“A what?”

A shout in their back echoed. The messy crowd jumped on the sides of the boulevard revealing the two pegasi and, at least, a hoof full of stooges. The shouted in Fire’s direction orders to get him dead or alive. Fire, back on track, pulled his friend up and jumped into the neighbouring street. The chase resumed and lasted until Little One and Fire dashed inside the latter’s home. They slammed the door on their hinges.

“Dad!” Fire cried out.

A loud bang smashed on the door which cracked. Still pulling Little One, Fire clambered up the staircase and burst into his family’s living room.

“Dad?!” Fire repeated. “Dad, we need help!”

His eyes lay upon the vestibule and his voice went hesitant.

“Dad?”

Fire’s father was busy manipulating a box of glowing explosive arcs with another Earth Pony the colt had never seen before. A second bang echoed from downstairs. A drop of sweat fell off Fire’s face. His father’s head rose. The large stallion’s stare stayed locked on Little One’s features for a dozen of seconds until a new bang made the walls tremble. Then, his eyes transfixed Fire.

“What have ya done?” his father breathed.

His voice was deprived of anger or rage. Only sadness and resignation was blatant in his tone. A third bang rumbled and the sound of a door shattering on the ground reached everypony’s ears. Fire saw his mother and sister entered the room. They were scared. Fire looked at his father, his lips quivering. He had made a huge mistake. Fire could only apologize.

“I… I’m sorry.”

“We are walking on the middle of the roads

Without seeing the gifts far beyond its sides

And we are following nothing but the codes

Rejecting this century’s greatest rising tides

Why do we keep hurtling along the empty line

While we are seeking just a kind of a guide

What we’ve asked is nothing but a shrine

Where our hopes won’t always have to collide

Today we do affirm our right for freedom

To be free from the hordes up in the sky

So we’ll keep singing this rhythmic anthem

Until our voices get to break the dull lie

We took a coach to the racks of the Death

Laughing our asses at its damn sorry face

We will sing till we’re all out of breath

Because this song is a motherfucking race

They will hear our cry from North to South

They will know that we ain’t wingers

And they won’t shut the darn mouth

That’ll keep carrying the spirit of singers

Of course the party will be getting hot

Boiling up with the buzz of the heathen

Sons go and sing what you’ve been taught

You know this fever, I know you’re bitten”

Scraps from a banned Earthbound song

Le Manes’s shard

2015 project - Beneath an Endless Dusk - 4. The Way Out

“Somepony once said that what make us truly beings is in what we do, not who we are deep within. And what I can tell is that I totally agree. Death is not the outcome of making bad choices. Death is the unwanted child of emptiness of choice.

Whatever the outcome of a choice, that it wages destruction and disgrace upon us, or that it spreads in our heart hopes and valour, a choice is always praiseworthy. Because making a choice is so difficult, because it doesn’t only commit yourself but the ponies around you, because a choice is a change and a change is a bearer of fears, because a choice is a trail to ruin, or renewal… And of course, because a choice is what writes down the scrolls of fate our own story and those we carry with us.

Ponies are meant to go beyond the obstacles and ordeals that are thrust on their path. This is why we make choices, sometimes. Otherwise we just die and fall in the ditches bordering the way, only to be forgotten. Henceforth, we could draw a line between the ponies who do decisions and choices, and those who don’t. However this mere discrimination is too simple. We have to go beyond such, if I want to repeat myself, simple-minded truth. It is just our accepted belief.

The truth is that there are, among us, ponies we could call ‘frontrunners’ and other we could name ‘icebreakers’. Throughout eras and ages, only a hoof full of ponies had been given the hammer to shape the fate of Ponykind. Only a few were given the right to decide of the present and future of all. A future that somehow, came to be the world we live in right now.

Among these ponies were admirals, warriors, heroes, peace-bringers or warmongers, conquerors and leaders, idealists and egotists. And all had only one idea anchored, not only in their mind but also in their true soul. An idea that drove them to do great or despicable deeds. Some wanted to hear once in their lifetime the rattle of weapons and horseshoes on barren lands of endless sorrows. Some only desired to listen to the peaceful chirping of the paradise birds over the green meadows of the world, away from the growls of Tartarus.

All were motivated to fulfil this wish. And all made a fateful choice that changed everything. But among them were the frontrunners and the icebreakers, two opposed kind of ponies.

The frontrunners are the most impressive ponies that we could ever meet. They break barriers, overthrow records and stomp the scorched soils of their times, claiming the world as theirs. For their own ideas, they will lead, they will fight, they will kill and they will die. For their ideas, they will run to the war, first to come and last to away, first to cry out and last to weep. Yet, they are only frontrunners. They stand only for their ideas, for themselves. They go through the ordeals and predicaments all alone. They will survive whatever the costs. They will fight whatever the causalities, and they will sacrifice anything for their ideas. For these ponies, everything has a price on the altar of their biggest dreams… their greatest sins. And this, in the end, will consume their soul, making them monsters.

The icebreakers are scarce among the ponies that stand out of the anonymous crowd. This makes them even more precious than they are fragile. Like the frontrunners, they face and stand still in front of events that shatter realms and break worlds apart. They are the instigators of change. Their deeds are epoch-making and will bring the greats to their knees only to give us a new dawn of time, a fresh start. They do move forward as they will walk through rain and fire. They cross the seas and climb mountains to give what they think right its rightful place within the cosmic order. They are the ponies we need when the darkest corners of the world are filled with unspoken and atrocious monsters. They are the ponies that fight in the dark, the ones that go forward.

But unlike the frontrunners, they do not fight only for their desires, they also fight for principles they may not understand clearly. Yes, they are the ponies we need… but do we deserve them? They do not run for themselves. They break the ice. They open the way, pave it and mark it out for the ponies that follow them. They share their treasures and keep the burdens for themselves. They are the biggest insult Ponyking could spit on the face of Fate, as they are the one that can break destiny itself. Icebreakers carry worlds on their shoulders. But even titans of steel, they have feet of clay. They rise, fight and fall like flies. But the print they leave on the world remains indelible.

Ponies choose to be frontrunners as they hold their desires higher than anything else, and will never yield. Ponies do not choose to be icebreaker, but they do choose to accept this plight. They choose to carry the desires that may not be theirs on their shoulders because they know, or at least think, it’s what has to be done. Icebreakers are not heroes; they may carry the wrong answers to the world. Yet, they are the ones that open the way. Because we all know deep within our souls that we are all ashamed by this simple truth:

‘We are all waiting for sompony’s hoof to help us out of our own misery.’

We are hoping for this fateful hoof. And this is why icebreakers are wonders among the frontrunners that are themselves beads among ponies. They did not choose to be in this situation, but they do choose to get it together and fight, not for themselves, but for others… for the weak.

We are all hoping for this helping hoof, yet we are not ready to make any choice. So, here is my question: ‘Will you choose to stay weak? Will you choose to be a frontrunner? Or will you accept to pave the way for others? Even if this means you will die!’

Candelabra”

The chiaroscuro cavern was swamped with an increasingly emetic smell. Corpses were piled up across the dirty floor and only one light poured from the arc-light hung to the natural ceiling. The beams reverberated onto the gems blanketing the walls. Diffracted, the light cast shadows of blue, green and purple everywhere in the cold chamber.

A group of military pegasi was inspecting, with caution, the grim spectacle with a macabre and scientific interest. They were a dozen, sporting the symbol of the Direction on the armour protecting their flank and stiffs, an identical washed-out blue bolt of lightning piercing a black rock. The emblem had no real signification, but for most of the pegasi, it represented justice and force. Valour that could slay the strongest enemies that could be found. But at the moment the only enemies in sight were dead bodies strewn across the cave. And the atmosphere was darkening bit by bit as nopony could solve the mystery revolving around their deaths.

“What caused all this mess?” one of the pegasus asked dryly, tired from taking care of some earthbounds’ remains.

“I have strictly no idea Lieutenant,” a private displaying a red cross on his shoulder responded. He was clearly not at ease. “I… I just don’t see any wound that would have killed them. They aren’t like the ones found dead in the first part of the cave; those ones only have bruises and burns from the arc explosion. These ponies died from something else.”

The soldier hesitated. Throwing away his disclosed disgust, he rolled a corpse over, giving its face to see. It was a dead stallion. Moreover, it was disfigured by a silent scream of agony. The state of the body was hard to describe. His eyes had shrunk like dried fruits. His flesh and skin had withered like an old and wrinkled parchment. Its tongue was dangling out of his mouth like a loose leather strap, ripped off by its charcoal teeth. Somehow, the body had been mummified. Yet, the stains of blood that had dripped on his collier’s barding were still fresh.

“There is neither internal organ deficiency nor haemorrhage,” the forensic continued. He was perplexed. “They just died.”

“That’s nonsense,” the lieutenant sighed, shovelling his anger down his throat. “It’s like they’ve been cooked on the hoof.”

“Not even, they just… died there.”

Not satisfied with the coroner’s answer, the lieutenant left him to his work and walked past a few other groups of Direction’s investigators. Nearly all of them were teamed up in duo. After a minute, he stood in front of a pegasus. He was encircled by two of his peers. He had hoofcuffs and was mumbling curses.

His comrades glanced at the lieutenant’s eyes and gulped. One of them tapped his restrained friend’s shoulder, who looked up. A pony could not be paler. By instinct, the soldier’s stare riveted on his hooves, not daring looking again at his chief. The lieutenant could read through emotionless faces like open books, he was used to such play.

“What happened soldier?”

The questioned pegasus kicked a rock away and swallowed his saliva. He gave a long and slow breath afterward.

“I nearly got them, Lieutenant, those little…” he blurted and stopped, seeing his superior was looking at him with a hard face. “Oh, sorry Sir. I’m just… I just messed up.”

“Care to explain?”

“I was the first one to go down the stairs. Pegasi can’t fly in the pit, it’s too narrow. I was the first to see the scene,” he muttered before raising his head, only to stare into his lieutenant’s eyes with a pitiful look. “Two young ponies’d intruded the mine with nopony noticing. I just don’t know how they went down here without being caught. And… they did something in that cave.”

The soldier pointed the wall of gems surrounding a creepy scene that would give nightmares to more than one.

“They activated some shit and I saw a pony talking, as if a pictograph was hidden somewhere.”

His curiosity tickled, the lieutenant cut off the soldier before he could go on with his story.

“And you let them fly away?”

“They…” The soldier wanted to burst out but lowered his eyes instead. “They just jumped into the underground river hole right there.” He waved a hoof toward a corner of the cave. A small stream was flowing in a wide crack. “I was too big to follow them.”

The lieutenant inspected the wall, many gems had been shattered by an explosion and were lying on the ground, scattered among the corpses. He screwed his eyes and inspected something hidden beyond the dirt. It was the tip of a pegasus weapon.

“You… You used an arc-spear?” the lieutenant toned harshly in the shameful soldier’s direction.

“Understand me, Sir. I… I tried to stop them!”

“And you destroyed something extremely important in the process. Well done,” the high-ranked pony berated, nearly clapping his hooves. “I’ll take care of you and your lack of discipline later…”

Again, the soldier’s face went pallid. Following the Lieutenant’s mood, he knew he could end with his head at the end of a spear for this mistake. He shuddered, trying to cast away the gory idea.

The muffled sound of hurried hoofsteps clattered in the tunnel nearby. It was noisy enough to be heard from afar. The lieutenant turned over and left the arrested soldier alone. He stood in the frame of the hole arcs had opened and waited. Another soldier leaped through the metallic staircase in the back of the tunnel. He was limping, holding his bleeding side with a hoof.

“Lieutenant! You need to know!” He panted and winced under the pain. “The Duma’s been bombed by insurgents.”

Many heads rose in the cavern, hung onto the newcomer’s words. Tension crystallized the ponies around. If it was true, the situation was more than serious. Everypony wanted to know the next developments.

“Earthbounds’re revolting again. It’s complete panic above us. We need all forces available to restore order. A chain of command has to be restored,” he cried out.

The lieutenant stared blankly at the pony a few seconds. He shook his head.

“Anything else that matters?” he asked, his throat dried.

“My team got what we think to be the bombers with their close families.”

The lieutenant’s face brightened. A grin sliced his face from ear to ear.

“When?”

“Maybe half an hour ago.”

“You got them all!?”

The soldier running with sweat sat down and inhaled.

The massive chunk that served as the door of the cottage burst inward. The sound of exploding wood left no doubt about it. Standing stunned on the second floor, Little One, Fire and his family heard soldiers enter. They smashed furniture and doors alike, searching for somepony, yapping like enraged dogs. Everypony felt sweat rolling off their faces.

A foal started crying below. Fire’s family was not the only inhabitants of the house. Unfortunately, the ponies on the first floor would pay for some deeds they were not even aware of. Louds bangs echoed. The foal’s cry stopped all of a sudden. The silence left behind was deafening, sickening.

Fire looked at his father with watery eyes. He could not formulate words. His mouth stumbled over them. His tongue was petrified with fear. And no sounds could slither out of his lungs. Fire was ashamed, pained and terribly sorry. He let out a pitiful hiccup. He remembered the harsh words of Candel’s father, ‘Ponies must not be sorry for anything. When a pony does a mistake, it is his duty to fix it’. These sentences bounced into the colt’s head. His legs failed him. He put a knee on the wood floor, and nearly faint. Truth was hard to take and Fire could only contemplate his powerlessness. He would die if he did anything. He would die if he did nothing.

“Dad, I…”

“Honey…” her mother added, seeking her husband’s attention.

“Shut up,” The bulky stallion replied. “Ah just need to think straight.”

The Earth Pony next to him grumbled.

“We have to attack, we can’t stay trapped up here,” he spat. “Plough, do you hear me?”

“Plough?” Fire broke in. “But Father, that’s not your n…”

A series of loud bangs echoed once again below. The walls shook. Fire’s mother hugged her two sisters, trying not having them crying. A waste of time. A voice shouting a raucous ‘clear’ rose from the first floor. The two young fillies started sobbing.

“There is somepony upstairs!” a voice toned.

Plough looked at his son, then at his partner. He still had the bag of explosives between his hooves. He grabbed one as horseshoes rumbled in the wooden staircase. He threw it in and jumped aside, pushing Fire and his wife over to protect them from the blast wave. The blue explosion shredded a wall of the house into pieces. Screams of pain rose from the rubbles that had replaced the stairs. The atmosphere went filled with dust and everypony coughed.

In the ambient chaos, Fire, his family and Little One had a short rest to build on. They needed an escape. Fire’s father bucked a window, shattering it to bits. Then he ransacked the kitchen and came back with a pair of knives and a table. Hurried, he ripped the latter from its legs. The neighbouring house was close enough to create a bridge with the remaining slab. He threw it into the gap, breaking into one of the frame built into the wall of the other cottage. He turned back and looked at his children. He was going to speak.

From the dust floating mid-air emerged a duo of pegasi, armed and ready to attack. Both sniggered.

“We order you to surrender,” they ordered. “Put your hooves on the ground and…”

One of the pegasi spotted Plough’s stooge. The stallion was standing his ground, blowing hot air with his nose. The soldier also saw the bag of arcs at the pony’s hooves. Negotiations ended instantly. The atmosphere went downward explosive. The pegasus aimed and shot in a fraction of second, leaving nopony had the time to react. Fire closed his eyes and waited for an explosion. It never came. A disgusting sound burst instead. A gurgling.

The unnamed stallion gargled and kicked the bag of arcs aside in a jolt. Blood jetted from his neck, splattering the old and dusty parquet floor with large stains of dark red. The stallion trembled as he put his heels on a cable that thrust itself out of his throat. A thin barbed harpoon had gone through his neck, stabbing him from side to side. The jagged edge was linked to the mouth of the pegasus’s weapon with the cable. The stallion was desperate to set himself free. He crackled inaudible words and started fidgeting with pain and fear.

Everypony took a hoofstep back. Fire held his breath and winced. He raised a hoof to his neck, trying to chase the choking feeling away. Still flying, the Pegasus switched on a mechanism incorporated to the butt of his weapon. The cable began rewinding with a low whistle. The atrociously wounded pony jerked on his sides. The pain was too intense and he could not scream it out. Bubbles of red swelled and popped around his mouth.

Once again the stallion tried to get rid of the embrace of the harpoon struck in his throat. It was a horrible waste of breath. Like in slow-motion, Fire watched the pony getting pulled by the Pegasus, leaving behind him a large puddle of blood as if he was a useless mop.

Fire did not even know the stallion’s name. And he was already dead. Well, nearly dead. His starting body was reminding him of a dying bunny. Fire had seen one in Murmanesk’s market a long time ago. The tiny white animal had been passed over by a cart. Fire had watched meticulously the last moments of the animal with a morbid avidity. And right now, the dying pony was moving exactly like that bunny, pitifully… miserably, in fits and starts. A creepy comparison showed up in Fire’s mind. The pegasi soldiers had gone fishing and the stallion was the first catch of the day.

Fire swallowed his saliva when the pony gave up the ghost. He had seen him passing from a perfectly healthy stallion to the most miserable cadaver in less than five seconds. The colours of Fire’s face washed out, chased by an irrepressible crave to throw up.

A click rammed the ambient silence. The harpoon retracted its fangs and sliced back the dead stallion’s neck. Crawling on the ground, the edge took off and jumped back to its place, inside the mouth of the pegasus’s weapon. With an unsettling smile, the flying stallion stared at the collier family, stunned before him. Scanning them, he settled his eyes on Fire and Little One. He gave a look of utter disgust to the latter.

“We meet again you little pieces of shit,” he giggled and then transfixed the younger of the two colts. “I’ll take care of you first, aberration.”

The pegasus had a cut on his forehead. The shingle Fire had shot at him had left its mark. Small droplets of blood dripped over the pegasus’s face. The red outlined its traits, deformed with anger, pleasure and sadism. He was going to make him pay too. Behind the pegasus, the second soldier pull out of his military saddlebag a series of hoofcuffs. There were even pairs made for children.

“Now surrender calmly and nothing will go wrong,” The first military pony commanded with a slightly amused tone.

Fire’s father moved so fast nopony had time to bat an eye. The two knives he had brought from the kitchen had been lying on the ground. In a swift start he bucked them, aiming at the soldier carrying the harpoon. One missed but the other pierced through his fur and side. The soldier yelped and fell on the ground, shrieking from the pain. He dropped his weapon. The second soldier ducked to the ground, trying to reach it. A heavy hoof struck his throat hard. It flung him away from the harpoon. The soldier coughed, lying on the ground. He tried to catch his breath.

A hoof full of pegasi emerged from the dust still flying where the stairs had stood. Some had cuts and bruises. They had survived the arc explosion.

“Fire, you gotta flee right now,” his father shouted.

Fire nodded hesitantly. With Little One he jumped onto the improvised bridge. Ready to cross it, he gave a glance at his sisters. They could not move a centimetre. Stoic, their eyes were transfixed on the stallion’s dead body. Blood were splattered everywhere. Fire hesitated again. A wild instinct wanted him to come back in, to fight. Little One bit on his crackled goggles, pulling him away of the window. He made him cross the wooden bridge. Still looking at his father, Fire caught the stabbed pegasus fleeing away.

“Pay attention!” Little One shouted.

He pulled Fire over a second before a spearhead struck the makeshift wooden bridge. They jumped through the frame of the other cottage and a blue burst smashed the plaque into chips. Fire heard the cries of her sister resonated in his ears, followed by the roar of his father.

“So you didn’t catch the two colts?” The lieutenant asked with a dry tone.

The wounded pegasus shook his head. He was angry too. He rubbed his forehead and winced. His side was stabbing him. Two times he had been ridiculed by Earthbounds.

“You’re all fucking useless!” the lieutenant raged.

“We would have but… But the North quarters are a maze. It’s impossible to really manoeuvre through. Streets are too narrow, ponies are too violent,” he explained, ducking his head in his shoulders. “There are always causalities when we try something there. And you do know Sir that, at the moment, Earthbounds are on the loose.”

The lieutenant wanted to punch him in the face.

“What about the Duma?” he asked, hiding his inner feelings.

“I don’t really know. But some random news says that there’s a whole bunch of survivors. The families’re being evacuated toward the nearest shard until the uprising is over. The Upper City is being protected. And a curfew has been enforced. Earthbounds are shot on sight.”

The lieutenant sighed. It would be bad on his monthly report.

“I…”

“Lieutenant, you might want to see this,” a forensic called for from a corner of the cave.

The concerned pony swivelled and abandoned the soldier to his wounds.

“What do you want from me?” the lieutenant asked.

“Look at what I’ve found.” The medical examiner showed something stuck at the tip of a thin plier.

“It’s a white feather,” The lieutenant deadpanned. “What’s so interesting about it?”

“Do you see any white pegasus around?” the investigator wondered.

After a quick look at everypony around, the lieutenant shook his head.

“Now do you see a white pegasus among the dead?”

A second no answered back. The forensic was right. It was odd.

“Somepony else ran out of this cave.”

The lieutenant whispered some curses.

“Okay, keep doing the good job; I need to go to the surface. Pegasi above our heads need me more than you.”

Nopony replied.

“I need to help them,” Fire shrieked trying to run toward the broken windows. Little One held him back as much as he could.

“No you won’t, you’re just going to get killed.” Little One slapped him in the face. “You can’t do anything.”

“I…”

Fire held back a gag and looked deep in the eyes of this colt, two years younger than him. Forced to swallow his pride, Fire let tears flow on his cheeks. He sniffed. All had happened so fast.

They stood on the first floor of the neighbouring cottage. The house was empty of life but was a matter of second before pegasi would try to break through the door or the windows. Fire thought about his father, mother and sisters. They were so close, behind two walls of bricks, but somehow out of reach. Fire pictured the dead features of the stallion on each of his family’s faces. He shivered. His situation was hellish; for him, Tartarus had literally materialised in his life. Like a greedy maw, it had shattered and brought to ruin every hope and bonds he had lived with since he was born, years ago. He whined.

Little One patted Fire’s shoulder.

“We need to go.” He trembled.

“Crack that crap open, they must be inside,” a voice broke in through the interstices of the door.

A metallic battering ram banged on the door so loudly it brought Fire back to reality. The nearest windows shattered. A hoof slithered in the hole, trying to unlock the opening. Looking around, the two colts spotted a small window. Nopony was trying to go through. Was it an exit?

They threw a chair on the dusty glass. Breaking it, they jumped through and landed in the street. It was a narrow and dark alleyway between two cottages. Nopony was passing by at the moment. Yet it was a matter of seconds before soldiers rushed in to catch them. Two pegasus showed their heads in the passage. They shouted threats at the two colts. Both ran off in the opposite direction.

A hoof full of pegasi gave chase to the two young ponies. As expected, the colliers’ habitations were a labyrinth of small streets and paths. Back roads went through the ground only to surface a dozen of meters away. Keeping two moving shapes in sight was impossible. Byways were dark and impossible to fly through. It had been built over decade on the sole purpose to be a stronghold for the miners.

In less than a few minutes, the pegasi were already scattered, searching for any evidence of the two colts’ passage. Sometimes they did spot them, only to lose their tracks seconds after. It needed no time before the pissed off soldiers started barraging the ground. Anger was aimed toward any moving shadow. Whether it was a pony, a rat or their imagination… It did not matter.

“They’re here!” a pegasus called out, pointing with his spear two shapes weaving between two houses.

The chase started again.

Down below, Little One and Fire panted heavily, suffocating. The sweat blurred their eyes, paining them with a salty bite. Their manes were swamped with mud. The atrocious scar slicing Little One’s forehead was hidden under this layer of dirt. Once again they succeed in shaking off the soldiers. They turned left. A dead-end.

“Shit,” Fire let out.

“Found you,” a delighted voice cackled behind.

Turning around slowly, the two colts stared into the eyes of a pegasus mare. She was sweating a river while juggling with her spear. Joy was readable on her face and both Fire and Little One were sure she was going to enjoy the punishment.

“You sick kids made me fly too much for today,” she berated. “Time to go to sleep.”

Fire and Little One’s eyes widened with fear. The mare replied with a quick laughter and lifted her weapon, aiming at them.

“I don’t think so,” a deep voice denied behind the pegasus.

She was not given the time to face the unexpected newcomer. A massive claw cut down her back and buried her head deep in the mud swamping the street. Then, the huge shadow caved its talons into the mare’s back, throat and skull, making sure she would be quiet forever.

“Argen!” Little One beamed at the sight of the massive crow and jumped between his slender legs.

The colt hugged thankfully this figure, a foster father in his eyes. He patted the bird’s feathers, all moistened, humid and muddy. With a gentle pressure of his wing, Argen pushed Little One away. The orange clot felt sticky. He looked down his fur. It was soaked with red and shredded feathers.

“You… you’re hurt?” Little One blabbered.

Argen gave a short-lived cackle, trying to laugh. A sudden pain in his chest broke his mood.

“I’ve seen worse,” he coughed as if a knife was ramming his throat.

Fire stood between Little One and Argen, and let his stress flow out. He wept, his legs trembling, failing him. He fell on the ground.

“You must help me,” he cried. “My family’s just there, they need help! They will kill them!”

Argen sighed. And he whacked Fire with his claw, ripping off clumps of his mane, knocking him out.

Little One’s eyes widened in fear and shivered. He felt his mane itched like hell.

“Don’t hit me… master.”

Argen grinned ironically.

“I won’t. I just needed him to be quiet. I must take you out of here.”

All the events Little One had ran through rushed out of his mind in seconds. A heavy burden seemed to lift away from his shoulders. He sighed and fell.

“Are you okay?” Argen asked, hiding his worry deep behind his stoic face.

“I… I’m fine.” Little One paused and took a long breath. “This city is just a crazy hole.”

“This world is a nave of lunatics.”

Argen ransacked his ventral bag and took out a piece of fabric.

“Hide that wound, which I can’t endure to look,” he quoted.

His assistant chortled, and a tear rolled on his cheek.

“You’ll never tell me from where I come?” he brought forth.

Argen shook his head negatively and let out a small breath.

“It’s for your own security.”

Little One lay down the dirt, giving up his guard. The sounds filling the city reached his ears. He had been so focused on fleeing away he had cut himself from the ambient zoom. Distant screams burst randomly in Murmanesk, loud explosions crackled hundreds of meters from his position. He caught the whistling of a pegasus’s wings flying above him. A shadow in the sky passed by, unaware of Little One and Argen’s presences. Having narrow streets was a benediction, sometimes.

“We’ll go to the harbour. It’s the safest place at the moment,” Argen stated sternly. “I can’t work on the investigation with such mess. And…”

Little One shook his head, clearing his mind. Revelation struck him hard, like an alarm clock early morning.

“The mine,” the colt shouted.

He tried to get up. The adrenaline had worn off and the bruises covering his body pained him more than he had expected.

“The mine. There was dead everywhere. Sucked out like…”

Little One’s pupils went huge. Again he attempted to rise on his hooves but his backbone gave a series of small cracks.

“Like the pegasus in the tower!” he finished.

Argen stepped back, puzzled.

“That doesn’t make any sense. How…”

“That Candel, Fire is so fond of.” Little One gave a look at his friend, still unconscious. “I think there might be a link.”

Argen shrugged ironically. He doubted of it. Yet, a lot of things were off in this city. The ponies were crazy, the pegasi were… no pegasi were all the same everywhere in the Federation. This shard was not working sanely. Something had been brewing here for too long and was ready to explode.

“We go to the harbour right now,” Argen ordered, grabbing Fire’s inanimate body and placing him in his ventral pack. Little One jumped in and hid as much as he could.

Argen started walking. Limping was a better description and the pegasi flying over his head did not paid attention. Who was crazy enough to tackle a monster like that? Before disappearing in the next corner, Argen gave a last glance at the mare he had killed. Hidden by the shadows of the street she was silent, swimming in her own blood. Flies were already on her, savouring the feast.

The massive bird walked to an empty boulevard. Ponies had barricaded themselves in their cottages. Everypony outside could feel eyes watching upon them from behind every curtain. Argen shook his head and focused. In the middle of the road a group of pegasi were escorting four earth ponies. He limped in their direction, leaving behind some drops of blood. A soldier found the courage to stand before the bird and face him. His trembling limbs were easily spottable. The pegasus was utterly scared.

“You can’t pass, Sir,” He alerted with a shaky voice. “Those ponies are under arrest. They are accused of being terrorists. Those ones destroyed the Duma.”

The soldier paused and scanned Argen from head to tail. A piece of paper, dangling out of the ventral pack, caught his attention. A red symbol had been stamped on it. The pony’s mind went click.

“You were in the Duma, weren’t you?” he asked. “Could you recognize one of them?”

Argen took a closer look to the group of ponies. Two fillies were crying under their hooves-cuffed mother. A large stallion had been put aside. He was bloodied, bruised and panting. A large cut on his flank showed he had been swiftly tortured.

A pegasus smashed a baton over his legs. The earth pony yelped, bent and fell on his side. The fillies’ cries intensified. Argen stepped forward and leaned over the crooked form. The arches of the stallion’s eyebrows were broken. His eyelids had swollen and he had some jagged teeth.

The stallion looked up at the shadow covering him. His vision blurred, he blinked a few times. When he finally gazed into Argen’s eyes adrenaline kicked in his brain. His blue eyes widened. Instantly, he tried to repel his surprise. But it was too late.

“Speak,” Argen ordered.

The stallion refused to talk.

“Again. Speak,” Argen continued.

“Go fack yerself with an a’c-spear,” he murmured.

Argen growled. He titled his head toward the soldiers.

“Eeyup,” Argen stated neutrally. “I think it’s him.”

The pegasi’s features brightened with creepy smiles of content. Their stares were like daggers thrown at the Earthbound family. It was a matter of time before the stallion would be given another series of shots, bucks, smashes and baton strikes. Argen felt somepony jeerking in his ventral bag. Turning over, he gave a punch on it, mimicking a cough. The agitator inside went silent.

“What are you going to do with them?” Argen asked the military supervisor.

“They’re going to be executed on the harbour, hung or shot and left to rot as the law requires it,” he supported. “Well, I’d be glad to do it myself.”

The soldier kicked the stallion in the chest making his breath more erratic than ever.

“It’s a shame it’s an executioner’s duty.”

Argen shook his head sheepishly, pinching his beak. Again he felt something rummaging in his bag. Taking leave, Argen walked away swiftly and turned into another street, empty of life. Little One’s head ejected from one of the bag’s pocket. He was reddish with anger. He pierced his mentor with a killing stare, burning internally.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” he spat.

“I condemned a pony to death because he killed many others?” Argen shrugged then sighed. “Well, he will be beaten and tortured before… That’s sadder.”

“No,” Little One burst out. “You’ve just killed Fire’s father! And now everypony will see him being killed on the harbour.”

“You what?” a third voice rose, a bit muffled.

Suddenly Fire jumped out of the bag, his eyes red with tears, lost and flickering like candles. Awakening, he shot hurried and frightened looks across the street, searching for a landmark. Then, he ran away.

“Stop,” Argen shouted without conviction.

Fire disappeared in the next crossroads.

“Horseapples!” Argen enraged, and kicked the air in front of him.

The lieutenant flew past a flood of ponies. The mass buzzing in the street near the harbour was overwhelming like a torrent. Ponies were swimming against the tide. Ponies pushed each other fiercely. From his position, the pegasus waited for the moment a pony would fall, only to be smashed under careless stomping hooves.

The harbour was not distant. From above and afar, the lieutenant could watch upon the devastation rampaging the city. Gargantuan clouds of black smokes rose slowly from the colliers’ quarters while in the background the eviscerated shape of the Duma was giving fumes and flames. The atmosphere was sombre, eerie. Below, ponies whispered that the night was coming. A chill ran over their spines and some stopped, trying to distinguish a beaming sphere low in the horizon. The wan sun stuck in the west was darkened by the ashes in the air.

The harbour was overcrowded by rows and lines of ponies; earth ponies being repelled, pegasi being selected. A terrible mess during a breaking records situation. Large shadows were cast upon the ponies waiting for a way out, caming came from three flying barges. Each needed to be manoeuvred by five pegasi, capable of moving slightly less than a hundred ponies. Attentive watchers could see that pegasi were the first to go in. The reason why they were the first was blatant. Why they needed to be transported was less evident; they could fly to the next shard. Of course they could, the only reason they did not was that shards constantly moved. Everypony needed navigators to travel, even the pegasi. And at the moment, they were at least two thousands of them hoping to embark.

The lieutenant shook his head. It would not end well. He landed near of the garrison. Another one, older, went out and ran across the square. The old buck hugged the lieutenant.

“Father, stop,” the lieutenant hissed with a low tone. “You’re shaming me.”

The older pegasus shed a tear.

“I was worried, with all that silly stuff happening around.” He swept his hooves in front of everypony, showing the chaos raging before him.

“What’s going on? How about the evacuation alert?”

“It’s all going smoothly,” the older clarified. “The very important ponies are evacuated first. Others can wait. They are transferred on other shards until the troubles and delinquencies are crackdown, mended and fixed.”

He emphasised on the four last words with a growing angry tone.

“I…” the Lieutenant started but his voice died in his mouth.

His glare scanned a crowd moving like one mass of mindless insects. His pupils contracted to pinprick. Something was afoot. Was it that old buck, his flank bleeding? No. Was it that mare, conducting her child toward a less agitated area? No. He could not figure it out. Unless…

He spotted her. A pegasus, a white filly trotting by, lost in the ambient mess. White feathers, scruffy fire-coloured mane, pegasus’s wings hung to her back, and a pair of wing-cuff screwed on them.

“Meh,” he smirked, scowling at her. “A fallen.”

And she was white-feathered. The lieutenant focused. Was it blood smearing her immaculate face?

The soldier raised his hooves, notifying his father to wait. Like a shadow, he crept toward the filly, willing to follow her. She was limping, roaming among the ponies hurrying around her. She did not seem to have a clear destination.

The wandering filly was splattered with mud, and blood. The lieutenant rubbed his eyes. She was not wounded at all. Well, she had bruised and trembled, but she had nothing that would soak her with this much blood. She appeared minuscule among the crowd. Yet she was inspiring interrogations, fear, and of course, disgust. Ponies backed away from her with a wince. The pegasi, the pure ones, even insulted her. However, the filly was not paying attention.

She crossed the way of a pair of guards. Spotting her, they smiled and move in her direction. The lieutenant refused to interfere at the moment. The civilians stepped back, leaving a fairly large space to the three ponies. Forming a circle around them, the ponies gulped, knowing what was going to happen. Mane itched and ears twisted. The soldiers were often cruel and messy. Foals were among the spectators and many parents hoped it would not end in a gore bullying. They had to preserve their children’s innocence.

The armoured ponies stood in front of the white filly. Slowly, she raised her head, making the guards shudder.

Everypony around whimpered and stepped back again. The lieutenant dug his path through the ponies, forgetting to use his wings. Some ponies cursed but many were glad to put a pony between them and the scene. The lieutenant understood why. The filly…

“It aches,” she whispered.

Her mouth dangled wide opened and through the gap between her white teeth slithered a dark red drool. Her sweaty mane flowed over her forehead and neck like a liquid-fire. Dust covered her hooves and her tail was torn in many locations. The scariest was not all of this. It was her eyes. Two white burst open globe deprived of pupils and irises stared aimlessly toward the guards. The tiniest remain of smile had left their lips, now cast with fear.

Her cutie mark was beaming a pale blue light. Burning like a small flame. It was frightening and ponies shivered on their hooves, giving a step back. The lieutenant had never seen a cutie mark moving on itself. And the weak fire on the candle’s wick was flickering randomly, hypnotic.

The filly’s muttering were not loud, yet everypony around could hear her. She hesitated on the same syllable for a minute. Repeating‘e’ again and again like clockwork until it died in her raspy throat.

“It hurts so much,” she whimpered direly.

The lieutenant’s pupils contracted.

“What’s hurting you?” he asked with a quite spooked voice.

“The world,” she foreshadowed. “This world is dying and…”

She stopped, looked around, and growled.

“Everypony will die soon. They have to.”

This last sentence echoed more than it should have. Ponies trembled. A soldier stepped forward, glanced upon the moving cutie mark, then the wing-cuffs.

“Silence, you little witch!”

He raised his spear and knocked its butt onto her face. She shrieked and leaned on her side, curling up. She began sobbing. Three more blows struck her hard. Blood splattered the asphalt. Ponies, Pegasi or Earth Ponies, turned away, hiding the scene from their foals. Some stayed, fascinated by the gore. The filly’s sides had turned bluish. She coughed blood, spitting it between two jolts. The soldier laughed openly, calling his friends to join the fair.

A freezing wind blew through the crowd, like a low whisper. The soldier grunted and left the filly alone, searching for the eerie complaint’s origin. He felt something birthing in his thorax. Anxiety. He looked around, again, and saw the terrified glares his comrades gave him. He frowned. Why was he hearing a sizzling in his ears? The terror spread across the witnesses. He lifted his hooves before his eyes. Now, the soldier was scared.

His fur was melting, falling into clumps on the ground. His skin withered, wrenched, and wrinkled like a sponge under the sun. But there was no pain, only a crude horror that grabbed his heart. He screamed. Tried to. No air entered nor exited his lungs. He felt rotting, burning and searing from the inside. He jumped on his hind legs, sought help in everypony’s faces. Only fear could be read on them.

He tried to breath. Impossible. His eyes cracked and popped. Before he lost his vision, he glared at the small white pegasus facing him. Her stiff was beaming. His eyes met hers. Those ghostly white eyes shot open and pierced him as an arrow goes through flesh. They could be as white as the snow, but they also seemed like two open-pits. Two wide opened maw sucking the will out of those who dared looking inside. The soldier heard his bones crack, his spine shatter and his brain break into pieces. Again he tried to cry out. Silence gaged him. He shrunk on itself like a dried and smashed fruit and fell on the ground.

A hard thump echoed. The dead do not talk.

Silence settled across the harbour. Many ponies had seen the soldier die and the ambient buzz that had died around him had attracted attention. Ponies had gathered around the grim walloping before it tipped up. And now, ponies backed from the pegasus filly. She was standing in front of the cadaver, mute and stoic. Her cutie mark never stopped glowing.

“Candel?” an undecided voice brought forth.

Many eyes set upon a scruffy colt. He broke the circle and ran past the soldiers as if they were not there. He cast a glance over the cadaver and shivered. He swallowed his saliva and jumped over it. He could feel eyes looking at him like having red-hot embers pressed onto his fur. But her thought was all focused on Candel. Running in the harbour he had seen the strange gathering and heard gasps. Curiosity did the rest. When he had found out Candel was inside a circle, near a cadaver, his heart had nearly stopped.

He hugged her tight. And he wept in the hollow under her wings. She did not talk or even remarked his presence. She stood still. He looked at her in her eyes, saw their states and his eyes ran across her features. The blood, the bruises, the pain… All could be read on her. She had suffered. Fire turned his head and inspected quickly the soldier.

“What happened?” He held back a gag. “Candel?”

“Get away from her,” A pegasus took time to spell. “You have one second.”

Fire blinked and turned over. He dunked his head into his shoulders. A muscled pegasus making the colt looking two apples-high blew air on him. A rattling whistled in the air as he drew a curved sword out of its sheath fastened under the stallion’s wing.

“In virtue of the power the Direction gave me, I hereby decree this filly to die for murder,” he grumbled, chewing off the pommel of the sword.

“No, no, no,” Fire repeated.

The pegasus punched him aside and neared toward Candel.

She was smiling. It was not her gentle and innocent smile, Fire could tell it. It was something else. A creepy, evil and monstrous grin a filly should not make. Candel chuckled. The scene was so out of context whispers filled the airs. Panic ran beneath the skins. Nervousness numbed minds. Everything was going to topple over and nopony dared to interpose. Her giggles changed into a deep laugh. Even the soldiers stopped. She sat and titled her head on her left shoulder. She cracked her spine and a pop rung. Her smile widened from ear to ear.

“And what are you gonna do?” she cackled. “Kill me?”

It was enough. The soldier trembled with rage and charged, ready to put the filly out of her misery. Fire closed his eyes and waited for the slash to be heard. It never came. Lifting an eyelid he looked at Candel. Fire held his breath.

Candel hopped around the stallion, stuck mid-air. Fire blinked a second time and his eyes widened in a start. A blue aura was encasing him. In an instant the pegasus dried like a rotting flower. A second body slammed onto the ground. Ribs cracked open under its still warm flesh. The blue aura never faded away.

“Fire?” A voice cried behind him.

The so-called colt looked back. Little One was right behind him. He was now carrying a saddlebag. His eyes were petrified onto Candel’s silhouette. He whined as fear enshrouded his heart. Fire also saw Argen standing feet away from his position. He was watching over the crowd and his shadow made ponies run away. An ‘eep brought Fire back to Candel. The blue aura shaped into hundreds of tentacles and sprawled over the harbour. It crawled on the fleeing ponies around, mares, stallions and youngsters alike. And like dying roses, they wilted.

Fire and Little One hugged, shaking forcefully. They saw the aura creeping in their direction. They cried out for help and froze. It stopped, as if it was thinking, and bypassed them. Looking at the blue forms was to die of fear. But it held them back from doing anything stupid. Little One looked at his mentor. He had run or flown away as he was not amongst the fallen.

The wave of death bounced across the tarmac over a hundred of feet. The thousands of ponies that had stomped it were running without any restrain. Crying, shouting, screaming like animals conducted to the slaughterhouse.

A hundred of corpses were scattered on the runaway of the harbour. All showed the same withered aspect, gaving nausea. Pegasi had flown up in the sky and now ponies were pressing to enter one of the three barges. Everypony had fled from Candel.

The small pegasus stood high among the many dead, facing Fire. She winced and the veil whitening her eyes vanished, giving her back her beautiful hazel irises. She started crying and ran to Fire. Little One shuddered and tried not to come closer to the filly. He stumbled on his legs and crawled away from her, weeping in fear. He had wet himself. The stench grew.

Candel did not pay attention. She curled on Fire’s arm, crying loudly, seeking for a warmth hug in the hollow of his shoulder. Ponies were still fidgeting around as panic had spread like wildfire.

A horn roared on one of the barge. At the same time, explosions burst in the Lower City. Fire cast a glance around. The vision was hellish. Smokes, death, terror. He felt sick. He wanted to run away… Fly away. He chuckled ironically. He was stuck on the ground. The only way to get away was by the air. Murmanesk was a damn shard. Nopony could get out unless he had wings.

“In the mine, I felt so alone,” Candel finally explained. “Father died. Ponies tried to…”

She sobbed and closed her eyes. She tightened her grasp onto Fire’s hoof.

“And when I thought everything was lost. I…” She paused. “I just wanted to die.”

An explosion rammed afar. The ground quaked.

“In the dark I prayed for somepony to come.” Her lips quivered. “You never came there.”

“I…”

“I heard a voice in my head.”

From creepy, the situation went downward insane. A voice? Fire was doubting now. He gave a worried look at Candel, trying to hide his scepticism. Yet, the spectacle given to see around was a show that shatter all rational explanation. Candel had done something she was not supposed to. Fire could give her the benefice of doubt.

“It told me things I never wanted to,” she confided. “It was frightening. I felt naked… worse than that. And… And the gems glowed. I’ve seen what they held secret. And I ran away. I’ve seen too much.”

Fire’s heart stopped during a moment. A claw tightened his soul and tied a knot in his stomach.

“What did you hear?” Fire brought in, ashamed.

Fear changed into terror as Candel’s voice changed from her usual kind tone to a more nightmarish one.

“This world is going to end. And nopony will see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she announced.

Candel kissed Fire on the neck. He winced then blushed, pinching his lips trying not to look surprised. And he gave a shy smile, this feeling was all new, strange. Candel resumed talking.

“Yet, there is a way to stop everything and go backward.”

She laughed and the voice Fire knew so much came back, replacing the dark tone she had shown.

“I must go,” she explained. “It calls me. It beckons and waves at me.”

She pressed her hooves on her temples, squeezing them until drops of blood fell on her cheeks.

“I want them to go. It calls. It calls…”

“What is calling you?” Fire cried.

“The end.”

Shaken, Fire let her stand up. Her head was wobbling back and forth like a crazymare. She passed him. Fire felt her orange, red and yellow mane ran across his face, the touch sensation was raspy, long was now gone the time of smooth manes. He wanted to talk, but he was stunned.

Candel stopped next to Little One. She eyed him with an inquisitive stare giving to the colt the feeling he was just a prey between two predatory talons. She huffed and drifted away. Little One dripped with sweat and let all his contracted muscles go limp. On her own, Candel trotted toward the nearest barge. Ponies spotted her and ran or fly away. The atmosphere crystallized in her tow. After what she had done, forbidden, forsaken and forgotten magic or anything that could be called so, nopony dared stand against her. Pegasi guards had taken their distance.

From his position Fire could not see how the barge looked like inside. It was a massive carriage, more like a big crate of wood and metal. Only writing had been punched on a white plaque, screwed on its rear. ‘DH-47’ it read. Fire repeated the inscriptions dozens of times before he got up.

The barges rumbled and started hovering. It slowly took off in an overwhelming cacophony. Fire screamed Candel’s name. The sound went covered by the loud buzz of the flying building. And it flew away slowly until it disappeared in the horizons.

“We’ve got to follow her!” Fire shouted, forcing Little One onto his hooves.

The blue coated colt saw in a corner a duo of pegasi debating, harnessed to an empty cart. An idea popped in his mind. With a taint of anger, Fire took the sword the dead soldier had dropped a minute ago.

Little One left Fire to his own business. Something had caught his attention. At his hooves was a small carnet. It was torn at some points and old. Half of the pages had been filled with small scriptures. Everything was signed by a name.

“Candelabra,” he slowly spoke up.

Little One looked where one of the three barges had docked.

“When did she…”

Reality called him back as he heard a shout. Fire was threatening the two pegasi with the sword.

“You’re going to fly to that chariot’s destination!” he boomed.

The two stallions were scared. And the leather straps joining them to the carriage held them back from running away or flying... Fire was standing inside the vehicle, biting the sword pointed at the two stallions’ flanks.

“We don’t know where the barge went. You should ask the mapmakers!” they begged.

“Who?”

Fire nearly stabbed them. They hissed in stupor.

“They forecast the shard’s roaming and keep tracks of flying movement!” One of the two confessed.

“Where are they?”

“In the capital!”

“Take me there!” Fire ordered.

“I…”

Fire poked the stubborn pegasus with the tip of his weapon.

“Now!”

The pegasi nodded and flapped their wings. A shriek stopped it all. Fire turned over his shoulder, seeking for the scream’s origin. The no-pony’s land-like harbour was a mess of agitated ponies, cadavers, smokes and madness. It was like looking into a mirror and watching an even more twisted and crooked version of this abominable city.

Glancing over his shoulder he saw two young fillies, a mare and a broken stallion. His mouth dropped. He winced, shivered, cried, and finally cursed…

His father raised his head. His mouth was dangling open, the jaw broken. One of his hooves was screwed on the side and his stiffs that had sported cutie marks were covered with mud and blood. Her mother was afraid. No, not afraid, terrified. When she caught Fire on the cart carrying a sword, huge tears dripped off her face. She screamed his name.

The soldiers escorting the family glared daggers at the two colts and their two pegasi hostages. Among them were the same stallions they had fled from in the Lower City. Some had sworn to catch them only to quench their anger. Others had only wished for some fun. The destruction scattered on the harbour had given then an excuse. Fire covered his ears; he refused to listen to the coming statement. Yet, he heard it.

“Surrender or your parents will be killed.”

“No, no, no, no, no…” he whispered. “No, no, no!”

His hooves trembled as he dropped the weapon in the carriage floor under him. He looked at the cloudy sky, hoping to see the barges coming back. No black spot was visible. He looked at Little One; he refused to meet his eyes.

“Somepony help me,” he cried softly, glancing at his parents. “Tell me what to do?”

Soldiers took off all around, ready to capture the two colts. Fire hoped Argen would appear from nowhere, telling him to go away from Murmanesk. Forcing him to do so, using the service he owed him. But the emissary was nowhere to be found. ‘You come to life on Murmanesk, you live on Mumanesk and you die on Murmanesk as it is an open-sky jail’ he had heard from somewhere. Was it coming from Candel’s father?

“Please, tell me something?” he begged to anypony willing to hear him.

Alone. Being alone took its entire signification at that moment. The image of many faces, Candel’s, his father’s, mother’s, sisters’s, everypony’s flew past before his closed eyes. His heart beat faster and a pull dragged down it in his chest, like an anchor screwing him to the ground of the city, of the Pit, of that open maw that had swallowed so many ponies. The ties he was going to shatter if he left appeared clearer into Fire’s mind. He wept again.

Little One shivered at the sight of the coming pegasi.

“I don’t want to die,” he blabbered.

Tears broke on Fire’s face. He took a long breath and sighed. His eyes, red with passion, anger and shame, drifted in his parents’ direction.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered with shame, “I’m so sorry. But… I have to do something.”

Fire turned his gaze away, his eyes wet with tears.

“Fly away!” he ordered, “Fast, fast, fast. Never come back here. Please, go away.”

The two pegasi first look at themselves and they took off, fearing the colt would attack them with the weapon at his hooves. Fire curled up and shivered at the sounds of her mother calling him from beneath. He covered his ears once again when the call changed into a cry, then into a scream.

Fire bit his lower lips. He had not said goodbye, he had not looked into his father’s blue eyes, and he had not reassured his sisters. He had left, ran away, flew away like a coward. He bit his lips with even more strength until blood ran into his mouth. He hiccupped.

And he screamed as he never did before. A scream so loud the world would shake.

Argen watched the events stack on over the other until the silence was reinforced on the tarmac. A large number of ponies had seen everything. Stares were kept low, avoiding crossing the path of any pegasus soldier. Like sheep, the civilians formed rows. Like mindless beings, they waited for their turn. A pegasus stopped at his side. He was carrying another one, older, dead. He had been killed by the blue aura like many others.

“Why haven’t you done something Emissary?” The lieutenant asked with a pinch of anger melted with disappointment.

“There was not much than I can do.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Sir,” he retorted as a tear fell off his cheek. “You had a good time here, killing, watching but not acting, why?”

Argen smiled.

“You heard the filly, this world is in decay. It will end soon. And to be honest, I want to know more about that young lady.”

He ransacked his bag and pull out the clean skull of a mare, he handled it to the pegasus. The lieutenant frowned upon the macabre item.

“And I’m old,” Argen continued. “I hoped I’d have a good, slow-paced retirement. But now that I’ve seen magic come back to life, I’m thrilled. I thought the pegasus race had eradicated it when you took over.

He gave a sadistic smile to the Lieutenant.

“There are still mysteries to discover in this world,” he continued. “And I’m gonna discover them before this world crumble to its own demise.”

“It’s a game for you, ain’t it?”

“Exactly,” Argen snickered.

“You’re all monsters.”

Argen gave a surprised chortle. He sighed and craned his head toward the stallion.

“Tell me. Who exterminated the unicorns?”

The lieutenant shot a murderous glare at the emissary. In the distance the two others barges thundered as they were lifted up to the sky. An undertaker cross the frontier of the tarmac and walked quasi-ritually toward the slaughter in the middle of the runaway.

“Now tell me,” Argen articulated, “Do you remember why you killed them all?”

Argen chuckled at the silent Pegasus when no reply came.

“We are all monsters bound by blood. So let’s all appreciate the perfume of the end flying in the air until the beat of our hearts dies in our ears.”

The lieutenant shook his head in bereavement.

The trip will last long, maybe a week. We will make stops on some shards before going to the Capital. Maybe they know where the barge is gone. Every inch of my body quivers. I felt I was going to die on that shard. Everything is gone too fast.

Fire doesn’t talk too much. He just cried for hours and now he’s silent, deaf at my calls. We still have the sword to threaten the pegasi to lead us to the Capital. They look at us, sometimes. I think they fear us. Everypony has seen what that girl… Candelabra has done to other ponies.

Magic. Why am I so thrilled and jealous? She is a pegasus, I am a unicorn. And she is the one that has magic. It’s unfair.

Now my forehead aches. I remember how she eyed me. It was scary. I felt like she was going to devour me.

And I left Argen. Will he search for me? Punish me?

I don’t want to think about it.

Lit’

“I’ve been through so much troubles

For the beauty in your eyes

I buried my reason under rubbles

And screamed up to the skies

I’ve seen you suffer for so long

From your daily condition

When all seemed so wrong

These words went as redemption

‘I’ll find you, I’ll bring you back

Once again into the light

I’ll chase away that freight

For you only to smile’

I cried so much for what I’m denied

I envied those who can fly

They told me to abandon my pride

Until my eyes go dry

I only wished for a life gone tranquil

With my love only for you

Yet my heart dropped like ‘n anvil

Facing all I cannot undo

‘I’ll find you, I’ll bring you back

Once again into the light

I’ll chase away that freight

For you only to smile’

Thunder ‘n rain drumming in the air

I stare silently into the abyss

Seeking for only a light to flare

A light you would never miss ”

2015 project - Beneath an Endless Dusk - 5. First Steps

“Fire hasn’t spoken for a week. I could say that I’m worried, but it’s worse than that.

With Murmanesk’s events, I fear something has been broken inside. He doesn’t talk, he doesn’t look at me, and he just sit there, silent. He always shies away from everything, even himself. Damn, he didn’t even react when the two pegasi took the sword and threw it away. It was our lever. I still wonder why they haven’t kicked us over the edge of the cart, like that scimitar. I guess we are pitiful and harmless. That’s all you can think of two colts, dirty and stinky in the back of a cart. This truth hurts so much, knowing my life is in the hooves of two pegasi that despise us openly. It’s difficult to sleep peacefully with that in mind.

Fire’s friend, Candelabra, is gone with one of the three barges, and if I want to kick some life up in Fire’s arse, I need to find evidence of her passage, a glimpse of something. Even a hair. But where shall I start? Where shall we start?

Murmanesk was and still is a hellhole. Argen had always taken me with him during his work, but I’m young and the Federation is immensely big. And with the war with the Republic and the Renegades, I wasn’t given to see much of the world. And the most obscure places of the Federation, where common law and logic do not apply, were still unknown for me. Of course, I wasn’t naïve enough to think the world was made of rainbows and sunshine but still... Now, I can say that I know things are fucked up.

For the moment, Fire and I are heading toward the centre of the Federation, the capital. I fear what I can find. Argen had often gone there but he had never brought me with him. I remember his description of the place: ‘a piece of misery wrapped in a silk of wealth’. I’m afraid. He told me it was a cut-throat area if you didn’t know where to go, from where to start. It was a Court of Miracles.

I’m stupid and I hate not knowing. And this diary. It’s so freaky. As far as I’ve read, it was Candelabra’s. Who was she really? She writes so well for a colliers’ daughter. And she is a PEGASUS. Why does she have magic, and I don’t? I’m the unicorn… she is the pegasus.

Why did I have my horn cut off? Argen told me I would be killed if it was revealed to the “pure ones”, those damn “pure-blood” pegasi. The common folk wouldn’t understand what I am. There is something kept secret about my people. And I don’t know what… But Murmanesk gave me an outlook of what is awaiting me beyond the threshold, hatred from the flying ponies, fear and lack of understanding from the earthbounds. Sometimes I really wonder what part of the past has been hidden. Like many, I wasn’t given to go to school. I’m an autodidact. Being a pariah is a difficult life.

Well, I should stop reading Candelabra’s words. Her spelling is influencing me. She writes so damn well.

Little One

PS: Maybe I should tell Fire my name, my real name… Why Argen had to come up with a fake one.

No, he would laugh his ass off.”

The emptiness stretched to eternity around the cart. There was neither up nor down. Only thick and intertwined clouds stood above and under the vehicle until they merged in the horizon, thousands of kilometres away, blurred with the distance. As usual, the sun hovered in the west, unmovable like a mighty landmark of bleak yellow. The vision was nauseous, sending chills down Little One’s spine as he stared blankly at the frightening sight with widened eyes. Standing on the edge of the flying cart, still pulled by two panting and fatigued pegasi, the young colt wanted more than to throw up. And somehow as he leaned over the edge, he wondered what would happen if he stepped forward. Would he fall? He had flown many times with his master Argen before. Yet, he never got rid of his fear of heights.

Little One shut out his eyes to a knife blade’s width, trying to outline any shapes appearing on the dull painting the clouds seemed to be. Bleak, beige and dark shades were everywhere.

“Are we there yet?” Little One asked with a lump in his throat as his legs trembled from the airsickness.

“Soon,” one of the tired pegasi spat, their wings flapping madly in the air, throwing gust of winds at Little One’s face.

The colt humidified his crackled lips and repositioned his messy and nasty scarf around his head. He had not drank for two days and with the constant wind he could nearly feel his orange skin wrinkle. He shuddered when thinking about the two flyers; they should be on the brink of death from flying madly like that. Little One took a deep, long breath and seeking a sign of hope in the horizon he brought forth hurting words.

“You can tell us if you’re lost.”

The stare he got back from the two pegasi highlighted how much they had been pained by the statement. One growled, still biting on the rope tying him to the cart. The other slowed down its pace and gave the earthbound’s pony a stern look.

“We know where we’re going! We would not be transporters otherwise. We’re hurrying ‘cause we might miss the window. You should care about your friend instead of asking stupid questions.”

Taken aback, Little One sat down next to Fire’s unanimated body; he was awake. Yet, he had stayed immobile for the whole week, only creeping at night when he thought everypony was sleeping deeply, to eat out some rations and drink water when these commodities were available. He was still in shock and even a herd of Pegasus soldiers storming on his back would not be enough to get him out of his stupor. Fire had taken the traits of a ragdoll, not answering any call, ears slammed shut and his voice dead by the gag crystallizing his throat.

“Fire, wanna talk?”

Little One received a grunt for sole answer and Fire rolled over his side, showing his back and rear to his friend. Little One huffed.

“Fine, you dumbass,” he berated with a dark scowl.

Raising up his head once again, Little One shot a perplexed look at the east. As usual, the black hurricanes were there, waiting like they were frozen solid with angry bolts of lightning slashing through their surface again and again. Sometimes a flash burst out larger than the others and even with the distance, Little One swore he could see shockwaves running on the dark storm behind.

Drifting away his eyes, Little One looked straight at the front of the cart, far away from his location started shaping a cream-coloured cloudy mass. It was remote, but in a land of nothingness a tiny stain was similar to a griffon in a closet, impossible to miss. A sigh of relief from the two pegasi alerted they had finally found their objective.

Little One cracked his muscles as he stretched on the wooden board of the cart, forcing his hooves on it. Two days he had been standing idly on that piece of flying wood and metal since they had left the last shard. He was still surprised they had not called the guard during their halt there, a small harbour used as a relay for the transporters and barges that passed by on a daily basis, forming the synapses of many trading routes inside the Federation, an archipelago made of many shards of many sizes.

“We’ve already told you, the guard would have arrested us as well for ‘accepting’ helping you. And paperwork and a rope around the neck are bad for commerce.”

Little One looked at the cart, empty of any goods except Fire and him. Traders? Meh, pass. However, Little One told nothing about his doubts, he knew that once they would arrive to the Capital they would abandon him as quickly as possible. Fire and he were burdens, but threats, they weren’t anymore. The fact that the two pegasi had managed to throw the sword away in the great emptiness of space was the proof.

Little One shook his head and focused on the strange cloud shape in the distance. It was gaining momentum at an extremely slow pace making Little One wonder how far they really were from it. But while Fire was still in a despondent and bleak demeanour, Little One watched a sip of dust flying away from the bottom of the cart. A sudden question came into his mind.

“Just sayin’,” he brought forth to the two pegasi, “what happens if I jump off the cart? Would I fall? In which direction?”

The two pegasi gave a questioning glare at the young colt, then grinned at each other. It was some creepy yet amused smiles.

In the two stallion’s tow the cart swerved on and off, making Little One scream like a madmare. The cart went up and down and tail-spun fiercely, Little One cramped himself to the cart, only to see he was still stuck on its surface in spite of a complete looping that would have thrown overboard even the bulkier of the ponies. Shaking, Little One blabbered.

“What did you do to this?” Little One eructed through quick and raspy breaths. Then his eyes widened, understanding what had happened. “How is that possible?”

The two pegasi laughed raucously at the small colt, who blushed in return and sought for a hideout behind his hooves.

“Sincerely,” the initiator of the unexpected manoeuvre began, “I don’t really know. All this stuff has always been working strange. Step out of the cart and I won’t guarantee what will happen of you. A shard can roll over without the ponies settled on it to bat a brow but step off its cliff and…”

He mimicked a flying shape with his hooves with a whizzing whistle.

“I never saw a pony stepping off. But we call them the ‘off-the-cliffs’. Ponies said that they fell somewhere and die of exhaustion, thirst and hunger before they reach the ground.” He paused and snickered. “If there is any.”

“Nah, you’re saying shit!” His stooge replied with a teasing voice. “When you do the leap of faith you go straight to the hurricanes. There, the wind will tear you apart. Or some says dragon ghosts will eat you if you go down too much.”

Little One failed to repress a smile on his lips. The last assumption seemed particularly stupid, yet amusing. How could a pony define ‘too low’ in a world where there was no ceiling nor floor and where the only landmark were a sun and a bunch of sombre storm clouds in a forsaken place nopony would never wander about.

The mass of clouds grew and grew over the hours until it filled one third of the space around the cart. Gigantic, Little One could not estimate its heights, and its dark shadow cast upon the pony quartet foreshadowed nothing good. The darkening shape was like a maw, which smoky teeth were going to close on the group. Muffled, a rumbling hum pierced through the fog, coming from afar.

“Are you ready?” one of the driver alerted. “It might shake a bit but it’s the last step before the trip’s end.”

He laughed cynically.

“Of course, you can just sit there and do nothing. Just watch. I won’t ask you to flap your hooves.”

The two pegasi snickered and, gathering together the little strength they had left, they leaped into the cloud with a roar. The ascension began.

The cart trembled and even Fire sought for reassurance in one of its corner. The smooth quivers intensified into violent shakes as they went deeper and deeper into the cloud. The darkness gained in momentum and blasted away the tame sunbeams that had warmed the two colts. An impression of a night clenched Little One’s soul as he stared around, seeing nothing but the sparks running through the sweat drop dripping on the pegasi’s faces, grunting and spitting they kept their pace.

With everything shutting out the sight, the growing in strength wind punched on the cart, making the nails and screws crack in the joints. Grunts changed into panting and one of the pegasi gave out a badly held shout. Up, always going up. The journey had no end and the rumble beyond the unfathomable fog rammed like thunder in the air.

Then a faint light seemed to birth beyond the veil of grey, brown and black. The gleam was weak and shadowed, but it made everypony think about a trail’s end, after clambering a steep and harsh mountain.

“We’re closing in!” a voice spat, coughing.

The thick and dusty cloud ended abruptly and the cart threw itself over a bottomless void. Little One would have shrieked about the terrifying view if his attention had not been focused on something that even kicked Fire out of his prostrated state.

A shard…

Not a simple, big shard like Murmanesk’s was. No, it was much more than that. It was The Shard! The almighty, monstrous, gigantic and intimidating floating mountain that seemed to tickle both the upper and the lower horizons of the world, or what remained of them. Gargantuan was not even enough to describe the monster that hovered ‘next’ to Little One, Fire and the two merchants.

The landmark was at least fifty kilometres high for two to three hundred kilometres wide. Looking exactly like a mountain a godly lumberjack would have sawed off, the monolith of rock was rolling slowly over itself. The two pegasi kept the cart away from the shard. And even if still a couple of kilometres had to be crossed, the shard was already the scariest and overwhelming spectacle they had been given to see. Its cracked and scattering sides were made of sharp and bulky obsidian reflecting the light of the sun hidden behind the clouds. However, what took aback the two colts wasn’t the size of the rock monster. It was the city built on its flat side where the metaphoric lumberjack’s saw had passed, cleaning a large and flat area that could nurture life.

A majestic spire of nacre buildings glittered with the slivers piercing the clouds, showering scarcely the city, a coiling of houses, castles, factories and routes. Built like a snail’s shell, nearly helical, the city was nothing but a pantheon of architectural prowess. Fire’s jaw dropped slightly and so did Little One’s. Bells, golden frescos and chiselled silver decorations beamed dully under the cloudy sky.

As both pegasi pulled the cart further up, Little One got a better view on the vast urban area sprawling on the surface of the shard. Circled by high wall of white bricks, the large spire watched over a flat land of insanely close cottages in bad shape, covered by the spire’s shadow. The whole outskirts reeked poverty and insalubrity. And dark smokes rose over the roofs.

The city’s size itself was hair-rising; larger than Murmanesk’s shard itself. Yet, it occupied less than a quarter of the shard’s surface. The three quarters left were reserved to many activities such as agriculture. Little One leaned over the cart’s edge and screwed his eyes to pinprick, curiosity kicking in. Over the meadows and wheat fields far beyond the city floated smaller shards. Anchored to the ground by heavy chains, they were spilling out an endless stream of water into artificial pool. Little One first pinched his cheek, and even gave himself a punch to his face. The watering shards were far too small to contain such volume of water. Nonetheless, it continued flowing out, slowly though, never stopping. Shaking his head, Little One tried to get rid of this physic-defying question.

“Better not think about it,” he laughed.

Little One coughed and looked at the air around the spire. Many shadows flew pass it in a round dance of carts, flying pegasi and monstrous vehicles he had never seen. The air vibrated with the agitation, and coming from the ground, heat haze washed over the walls of the city. From the top of the spire rang the mighty toll of a golden bell, fixed in the highest tower of the awe striking castle a pony could only hope to see once in his life. Panting, one of the pulling pegasi announced with a rather pleased voice.

“Welcome to Capital, pearl of the Federation.”

Fire and Little One let out a ‘wow’ of admiration and lost themselves into the contemplation of the city. An opening broke through the cylinder of clouds encasing Capital, and a large shaft of light poured over the city like a golden shower. Magnified, Capital gave reflects of rainbow that Fire and Little One had never seen, making their mouth drop even more. Little One was preoccupied with the thousands of ponies moving like a mass of ants beneath. Unfortunately, they were too small to catch who was who.

Little One took a deep breath, willing to smell the odour of such a magnificent city. He frowned. The air was raspy and induced a few coughs in his throat. While the cart lowered toward an area adjoining Capital’s white rampart, a poignant aching plagued his eyes and the air suddenly darkened. Little One blinked, desperate to wash away this uncomfortable feeling of having his eyes burnt with acid, his lungs drown in sludge.

A hiss settled in his throat and as the cart was a few meters away from landing, Little One gave a look at the sky, in the direction of Capital’s spire. The harbour was built on the eastern side of the helicoidally built monolith and the shadow of the Spire was cast upon the runaway, the near buildings, and garrisons. Little One gave a sheepish glance at the pilling up of houses, castles and towers. The low sun was hidden by the highest building, the thin and insanely high tower bearing the bell that had rung earlier. It was watching down at the ground like a teasing promontory everypony knew would remain inaccessible for the common folks. It was so high and distant it seemed eerily curved. And as the sun was stuck behind it at the moment, the shafts of light peered at the runaway through a thick and polluted air like the hooves of an angel that couldn’t reach ponies needing help. A strange night was cast upon the soil of Capital, and around the cart, the autochthones were ghoulish.

The ponies around the harbour, were they earth ponies or pegasi did not matter, had horrendous features. Their cheeks sunk inside their mouths with deflated skin like sponges under a radiant sun. Starvation, privation and despair built inside everypony.

In a loud thump followed by a short screech, the cart landed. The two pegasis shuddered at their painful wings as they folded on their numbed sides. They held each other with a hoof in a friendly embrace. They had done something extremely exhausting and praiseworthy. A yelp echoed in their back. Swivelling, they saw Little One had jumped on the ground, nearly kissing it. On his own, Fire crawled out of the cart with tired and depressed features. Giving a look around, his eyes blinked, trying to fight back the rising tears. He had swapped a world of demise for another one, and he had broken and lost the only bonds he had in the process, his family.

The two pegasi’s cheering went short live as a group of soldiers loomed at the end of the runaway, coming for them. Both looked swiftly at Little One. Sweat induced by a growing fear dripped on his neck. Grabbing Fire by the rump, he dragged him behind an empty cask, finding a hideout in its sombre shadow.

Little One gasped at the sight of the two pegasus soldiers. Massive and bulky, the two dark-coated stallions had copper-coloured armour that covered them entirely, their joints protected by a savant patchwork of chainmail and leather. Their eyes, questioning and haughty, scanned the two transporters. Nearing, Little One peered at them and heard a redundant click, the grating of heavy metallic tools on a few gravels, repeated again and again as the two soldiers trotted forward like the horseshoes of a long gone profession, cowcolt. The military duo was impressively scary, sending chills down the spine of the neighbouring ponies, looking at the wild interrogatory with interested eyes. Little One spotted the source of the noise; the two stallions had impressive weapons hung at their rump, two shiny claymores slid inside their sheaths. Again, the colt gulped, cringing on his hooves, trying to be the littlest possible.

“State your names, origins, point A and point B, your business in the Capital, and your pass,” the first of the two soldiers berated.

The two stallions backed to their empty cart, and Little One heard a click. The two transporters had hidden a compartment in one of the cart’s side. This revelation shocked the young pony, and a frowned pout slowly shaped on his lips. One week waiting idly inside that vehicle and his boredom had not been sufficient to unveil the trick. The soldiers inspected the two transporters’ identity, looking to and fro between their sweaty faces and the empty carts.

“You made the trip to Capital with nothing to sell?” One of the militaries asked, questioning.

Still panting, the two pegasi looked at each other. One nodded to the other with a tired look. He showed off a scroll of paper closed with a read, crackled seal.

“We’re just transporters, we take contracts. We are not merchants. And, to be swift, Murmanesk wasn’t going well when we departed.”

The soldiers swept their hooves before the two pegasi, willing to cut off the conversation.

“We already know, one of the three barges landed here two days ago.”

Little One heard Fire’s ears twitched and the colt, finally back from his blank state, shot a look at the two plated ponies, ready to catch any of their words in spite of the ambient hum.

“Where are the other two?” one of the two transporters asked shyly.

Fire was ready to jump right out of his hideout but Little One shovelled his hoof in his mouth, a drop of sweat running across his face. Something seemed wrong in his eyes and ears. This metallic shriek of an eerie creature comforted his suspicions. Similar to Murmanesk soldiers’ pets, a small bird made of scrap metal landed on the side of the cart, eyeing the two pegasi with bulged and red glowing eyes. It cackled with a mechanic cough and clattered its sharp claws onto the wood. The two soldiers smirked at the creature, a long-lasting partner. As everypony had focused on the automaton, one of the military ponies snapped the building silence which a clack of his hooves.

“We don’t know, we’re not from the Cartographers’ guild.”

Ending straight the discussion, the soldiers fall back in another street, next to the runaway. In their wake shrieked the mechanical bird, which flew over the cottages, scanning from above the dull faces populating the overcrowded city.

On their own, the two transporters passed the barrel which shadows had hidden Little One and Fire from any sight. And it worked particularly well; no pony had spotted the two young shapes eyeing the common folks trotting by. Silent, they waited for the two stallions turned into a small byway. Yet, the two pegasi stooped and looked around, seeking for a threat. Assured that nopony would disturb them, they both pushed a hidden button of the side of their cart. A pop clacked in the air and a secret compartment slid open where Little One had stood during a whole week. The young colt facehoofed, Argen would be ashamed of him.

But something else caught his immediate attention. Inside the hidden box dwelled a series of arcs, glowing dully. It was nothing but explosives, exactly the same as the one he had seen in Murmanesk.

“Hide this, I don’t want somepony to spy on us,” the first pegasi berated.

“The Capitol’s branch needs them. Murmanesk’s has been wiped out. Now, we must focus on the castle,” the second whispered with angst.

They hid back the compartment, pushing it back into its former position. Then, slowly and ready to face any threat, they disappeared further into the narrow street.

Together, Little One and Fire waited a few minutes, inspecting the surrounding runaway and the houses bordering it. The massive shadows of the far away spire were of the utmost unsettling impression, spreading chill down their spines.

“We have to move,” Little One brought forth.

Fire’s hooves shook swiftly. The air was chill and raspy and the shadow cast on the two colts intensified the coldness. Fire snickered, breaking the long silence he had kept for a week.

“Do we even have a starting point?”

Little One raised his eyes to the cloudy sky, and brought his hoof to his face, knocking it hard enough to make him wince. Fire wasn’t easy, but right now, he was nothing but obnoxious.

“You heard the soldiers; we have to find something called the Cartographers’ guild. They must know where your friend is.”

“For what purpose, now?” Fire sighed, sliding his back on the barrel until his rump hit the dirt, silent. “Look at us.”

Little One complied and sat next to Fire. Slightly defeated, he looked at himself, an orange unicorn hiding his frontal scar and thus his true nature for a reason he had never been told. With clumsy hooves Little One tightened the scraps of fabric over his head, leaving nothing but clumps of blue and dusty mane falling over his eyes. Little One felt miserable. He had truly nothing left, the saddlebag he had, a gift from Argen, had been lost in Murmanesk.

Little One’s eyes drifted toward Fire, he had no barding or piece of equipment but a pair of cracked goggles. And they knew that with no items to trade, no money and a craving thirst and hunger, they weren’t given much chance in Capital. The sudden and heavy weight of despair swamped their mind and a long-lasting pain plagued their limbs. Little One shut his eyes and rubbed his achy forehead.

The sound of torn leather erupted next to him. Opening his eyes out of fear, Little One saw Fire’s goggles were gone. Seeing the wondering stare of his young friend, Fire palpated his neck and chest where the pair of thick glasses had hung until now. It was truly gone.

Followed by a loud whistle, a snicker echoed behind them. Jumping on their hooves, Fire and Little One looked up. A filly, roughly their age, stood on the top of the barrel, playing forcefully with the leather strap of the goggles, making it turn around her left hoof. In the shadow of the castle, her features appeared darker, her light pink fur was streaked with orchid purple reflects and her bright blue mane shone with the spark of purple in her eyes. Around her neck shone the glitter of a golden necklace. She loathed at the two colts.

“Look what we’ve got here,” she laughed. “Two nestlings fallen from the nest.”

“Give it back to me,” Fire spat at her, and jumped trying to catch his goggles, out of reach.

The filly grinned and mimicked a sad face.

“Oh, the bad girl stole ma glasses, I’ll call my mother and she will kick her ass!”

She gave a couple of snorts, sweeping inexistent tears off her cheeks and burst into raucous laughs at Fire, awe-stricken. The colt trembled, and filled with anger, he bucked the barrel away pushing the filly off her balance. Agile, the mare jumped and landed on Little’s head, crushing him under her weight and burying his face in the mud of the road.

“Oupsy,” she apologised, blinking her eyebrows in Fire’s direction, showing off a pouty face with puppy’s eyes. “Hope you won’t be too bad with me, daddy!”

Again, she laughed with a crystalline voice. Looking at the two colts, she stuck out her tongue and darted in the nearest street. Shaking his head to gather his spirit together, Fire leaped in her tow, and Little One, wrestling his face out of the dirt, loped behind with difficulty.

Sweat ran across Fire’s face as he leaped, leaned, slid and jumped between moving carts, hurried and shouting ponies and narrow and rusted stales. He passed by two soldiers and drifted under them. A question hit Fire hard. Since when were earth ponies soldiers? Fire had stopped and looked behind at the two armoured ponies, struggling to dig away in the crowd. They struggled a long time to reach the running colt, but quickly abandoned as the crowd and barding dampened their movement. A few meters afar from the soldiers, Little One appeared between two massive stallions, each pulling a cart filled with scraps and scavenged materials. Fire smiled; at least the young colt was not lost.

A wild pain burst in the back of Fire’s neck. Yapping, he turned back and saw a young mare standing atop of a pile of crates, his goggles on her eyes, juggling with a pebble in her hoof. She shot at him and hit his leg, wrestling another cry of pain out of him.

“Catch me!” she taunted. “If you stop whining, of course.”

What Little One had feared came true, all the anger Fire had kept hidden and unspoken flowed out in an enraged shout. Some witnesses took a hoofstep back. Many ponies stopped their goings-on and stared at two young ponies chasing each other.

“Come here, you thief!” Fire ordered without any success.

“Ee… nope!” the mischievous filly countered before jumping on another crate, showing off her agility.

In a long and powerful leap, she reached the balcony of a ruined and stinky cottage, bit into the ivy crawling on its crackled brick wall and hoof by hoof she hurled herself onto the top of the roof. She made a small dance of victory, blasting dust at Fire’s face below, struggling to follow her path and pace. Little One on his own was too small and weak to follow up. to keep track of Fire, he could only trust his ears, following the torrents of swears coming out of his friend’s mouth, and sightseeing his shadows each time the filly and he jumped between two close cottages.

The mare left impressed faces in her stead, twisting and turning over, making Fire madder at each of his failed attempt to catch her. Both were covered with the dust and junk left onto the top of the roofs as nopony could afford any cleaning in the Lower City of the Capital. The filly was a dark angel soaring in the sky, over the muddy and overcrowded streets of the heart of the Federation, making of the buildings the diving boards for her flightless and frail body. It was magic and sad at the same time.

Little One weaved between the legs of many anonymous ponies, crossing an open market where dealers and vendors rubbed their shoulders with smugglers, cut-throat ponies, beggars and thieves. Prostitution, despair, misery and poverty reeked from these ponies, were they earth ponies or pegasi. The latter had wing-cuffs. All of them. Seeing these tools, biting the flesh of so many ponies was a cold talon tightening on Little One’s heart, the image of Candel sparked in his mind. He remembered also seeing her wing-cuffs, left alone on the runaway of Murmanesk. She had freed herself, somehow, among the hundreds corpses of her magic.

Little One shook his head, chasing away those unhealthy thoughts. He had to focus on his chase, keeping track of Fire and the thief. He smiled, faces were ghoulish, watery, eaten away by sickness, malnourishment and endless suffering their daily lives had inflicted to their flesh, spirit and relatives.

Getting rid of the sensation of fear building up in his mind, Little One continued the chase from below, running with sweat as the heat from the over-closeness drove him mad. Bumping into a cart of cabbages, the colt dodged the long baton of the merchant, a moustached stallion showing a row of ragged and blackened teeth.

A crack hummed the air and the rumble of broken wood and bricks rammed inside a near cottage. Screams and shouts made the dirty windows of the cottage vibrated as the sound of two heavy falling shapes echoed inside. Little One burst through the entry door and find his way inside a tavern. Many ponies drank their blurry and muddy alcohol in old and crackled pints, loathing and teasing with many words the two young lads that had crashed into the middle of the place. Fire coughed a mist of dust, sprawl on the ground like a new born foal while the filly he had chased was already up, shaking her limbs, splattering her surroundings with dirt. She looked around, seeking for an exit; Little One was blocking the entrance and the windows would not move. She looked up with amused eyes, smirking at Fire lying at her hooves, knocked out. A rope stretched out through the ceiling. Little One followed up its way up in the hole with wondering eyes.

Going through the roof, the rope passed through a pulley and tied on the central pillar of the tavern, it held high a candelabra made of wood. A series of candles stood on its armature, their flames flickering weakly. The filly grunted. Like a whirlwind, she kicked in the air a knife that had been thrust off a table during the mess her journey through the ceiling had created. With a violent sidekick she flung the knife at the knot. The rope snapped and the candelabra began its fall. She bit the loose rope and rose in the air as the massive chunk of wood went down. It banged on the ground and rolled over, continuing its mad race on the ground floor of the tavern. Many customers cried out and jumped aside of the rolling furniture. A whipping sound rammed the air, Fire shouted, feeling his left hind leg being pulled over, the rope tangled around his limb. As the mare did, he passed through the ceiling, from where he had come. Still hesitating, Little One bit the cord and followed the track. One of his teeth cracked under the pressure.

The rope clacked through the pulley and fell through the hole opened in the thatch roof. Little One nearly hurtled down its edge, yet his hooves steadied themselves. Slightly shaken, he glared around, seeking for a landmark. His eyes settled upon Fire. Stopping was out of question for him, amplifying the fun he procured to the filly. She gained momentum and jumped over the street below, landing on a far cottage after a monumental and awe-striking move. She turned over and looked at Fire with pleading eyes, making Fire grunt. For him, it was nothing but feigned.

“Don’t follow me, you ain’t strong enough,” she warned, playing with the goggles in her hoof.

“Mind if I try?” Fire tried, his eyes bloodshot, panting, and spitting the phlegm he couldn’t swallow.

Fire ran across the roof, brought his hooves to the edge of the cottage and stretched all of his muscles jumped with a screeching roar. Little One shot open his eyes, looking at Fire’s silhouette flying over the street two stories below. He could see the tension in his back legs, the sweat running across his face, the stress scarring his features and the pain creasing his heart. Now and there, Little One knew his friend was bound to fail. When there is too much to hoofle, a pony always fail somewhere. For Fire, it had to be at this moment.

Fire saw the edge of the next cottage nearing. Yet, the smile had left the filly’s face, replaced with a negative shake, sorrowful. She bit her lower lip as Fire slowly began his descent to the dirt below. The air whizzed in Fire’s ears. The passers-by saw his nearing shadow and stepped away on time. In a loud thump raising puffs of dust, Fire hit the ground hard, knocking the air out of his lungs. One of his ribs cracked, as did one of his legs. And for him, everything went black.

Standing on the edge of the roof, Little One looked down at his blacked-out friend. Many ponies had gone closer. Some poked him, checking if he was still alive.

“I’m sorry,” the filly shouted back at him from the other construction. She shrugged at Little as he glared daggers at her. She rolled her eyes. “Oh, I’m not the one who jumped!”

“Oh, shut up you thief!” Little One croaked before drifting his attention back at Fire.

“Can’t you stop a second,” she countered with a pout that creased the dust on her face. “Look, your friend’s alright!”

Indeed, Fire was getting up despite the horrible shivers running across his legs. Shaken, his vision blurred, he stared at anonymous faces looking down at him with not-so-worried eyes. Grumbling, seeking for balance while his ribcage spiked burst of pain through his bones, Fire did not hear a loud warning that forced everypony but him to jump aside of the road.

Fire blinked, and screamed. Two heavy armoured ponies crashed into him as they could not stop their charge on time. Flung away, Fire hit the ground a second time and rolled over, a brick wall stopping his mad race nearly instantly. The pulling ponies neighed heavily and braking on their hooves stopped the heavy carriage they were pulling, a magnificent coach, glittering with gold and silver. Gasps and clatters of horseshoes later, many witnesses had fled from the scene. A few onlookers remained, and two pegasi flew up to the carriage position, landing next to the two soldiers.

“Why have you stopped?” one of the pegasi asked with a dire tone.

“We hit something,” the coach driver spat.

A glance over his shoulder, the pegasi saw Fire, lying on the ground. Shaken, his eyes blurred with dust, blood and fear, Fire blinked, trying to focus on his surrounding, to no avail. A heavy and reeking puff of steam blasted onto his face, waking Fire up in a violent jerk. Pain ran beneath his veins and his eyes wide open peered in two pairs of reddish, glowing and burning eyes. Four dots of fire screwed in metallic pony-shape faces were dunk in bulky corpses made of metal, pistons, springs and glowing blue arcs, sparking electricity of their surface. Fire screamed. These were not the metallic bird that had scarred his face a week ago in Murmanesk. These were two replicas of earth ponies, pulling a coach and breathing steam. Machines, two machines of doom. And next to them, a pegasus neared.

“Just a piece of…” the soldier blurted out with a smirk of annoyance before being cut off. Fire was just a waste of time for him.

“Father, are we there yet?” a young feminine voice slithered out of the coach.

“We hit something, honey. Please don’t make any scramble,” a deeper voice answered, muffled to a whisper by the thickness of the frame of the cart.

The coach door slid open and the voice that had echoed inside the vehicle became clearer.

“Come back inside, Daisy!” the fatherly voice advised with a pleading tone. “This part of the city isn’t safe!”

“See if I care, the vulgar ponies wouldn’t dare touch me. As much as you fear my father.”

“Please, Daisy.”

“And it will be Lady for you!”

Fire rolled over his flanks, trying to wrestle himself from under the two mechanical horses facing him. Stings of pain rammed his flesh and forced a shriek out of his lungs. Blinking, his stare drifted upon a small silhouette moving in his direction. Even the soldier stepped aside with a stoic face betraying a sudden craving to shovel down any misbehaviour.

“Oh, the poor little boy.”

Fire coughed, splattering the shiny dress of the mare standing in front of him. She repressed a yip as the red stains broke the whiteness of her robe, sewed with gold and set with rubies. Fire’s eyes focused and he finally saw the features of the noble pegasus, staring down at him as he was lying down the dirt. Her fur was as white as the snow and her mane was burgundy-coloured. Her beautiful traits was contrasting with the dull surroundings, putting everypony to shame as they could not stand such beauty. Her eyelashes flapped when she lowered her head, bringing her nose a few centimetres afar from Fire’s eyes.

“Candel?” Fire whispered, a drop of blood slithering between his ragged teeth.

His voice had been so low only her ears could have heard. The young mare who had not reached her twenties stepped back in surprise.

“No, I’m…” She stopped, a smile clearing her face.

“Tutor, bring this child in. It seems that your driver’s careless drive nearly killed something.”

A visage dashed out of the coach, a greyish eyebrow raised.

“You can’t be serious, since when a member of the royal family must care about…” Chewing on his words, the old buck glared daggers at Fire. “Such things as an earthbound? Daisy…”

Many witnesses had heard the word ‘royal’ and peeps at the mare, the coach, the tutor and the nearing soldiers built up tension as seconds passed by. Whispers crawled in the air and ponies, attracted by the eerie scene began rambling on forbidden ideas. One soldiers pulled out his spear, sparkling with blue electricity, making the stress reach a new height as afraid or murderous stares were shot at him. The lady mare stomped the ground with his hoof, making her tutor’s head dunk in his shoulder and a short silence return.

“I care about my pets,” she stated with the accent of a spoiled child. “And I could tell father you refused something to me. You know how annoying I can be.”

Mimicking a whining filly, the tutor’s face blushed with shame, fear and exasperation.

“Alright, alright,” the tutor gave in and looking at the coach driver, started shouting orders. “Bring him in and let’s go. This part of the city is creeping me out.”

The pegasi soldier lifted Fire and moved him in the vehicle under the eyes of the regal mare. A burst of laughter broke in.

“You should see your flank. You’re so funny!”

The pegasi met the eyes of the thief two stories above, mimicking the spoiled child with a pouting face. Tension built as silence settled between them with ponies watching in utter awe, waiting for anything to happen.

“Why are you taking him!?”

Little One cringed as pairs of eyes set upon his tired face.

“Why are you kidnapping him?” he blurted out, lowering his voice until he shut up.

One of the pegasi soldier watching upon the scene scanned the filly, still making fun of the mannered mare below. His eyes screwed to pinprick as he saw the golden necklace around her neck.

“Where did you get that item, you filth?” he asked.

The filly made the necklace clatter with Fire’s goggles in her hoof.

“I… dunno…”

And she ran away.

“Catch me those two thieves!” the soldier screamed.

“Why me?” Little One whined as he fled away, a duo of soldier flying in his tow.

“Come with me,” the filly shouted from the other side of the street as she jumped from a cottage to the next.

Little One nodded and jumped aside, dodging the grasp of the soldiers. Taking advantage of a beam linking together the two side of the road, Little One crossed the channel separating her potential saviour and him. The pegasi closed in as second flowed by.

“Trust me,” the filly shouted at Little One.

“Why should I?”

“It’s me or the arcs. I can see your face. You know what it does.”

Little One swallowed his saliva and the filly grabbed his hoof and jumped. Little One eyes widened in fear. Carried away by the filly’s momentum, he followed her leap over the nothingness. There was no cottage where to land. Looking down, Little One spotted a two meters thick drainage canal ten meters below. He screamed in fear as the free-falling sensation clenched on his heart and limbs. After a second that had seemed to last forever, the filly and Little One hit the water heard and sunk into murky and stinky water.

“Breath in!” the filly cried out as they surfaced, the pegasi still behind them.

“Why?”

The sound of a cascade rumbled in Little One’s ears and looking behind him, where the greenish torrent was carrying them, he saw an opening in a brick wall. The sewers of Capital.

The fall was long and led into a pit of darkness where sounds echoed and deafened.

Have you ever believed, that luck was behind every meeting?

Can’t we sometimes trust fate to share greetings?

Neigh, we say. Fate ain’t the master of my wandering!

I’m the captain of my ship, even it means I’ll soon be dying!

Neigh, I say!

Leave me alone goddesses and fate, it’s my turn to be epoch-making!

2015 project - Fallout:Equestria Family Matters - Prologue

Prologue

Don’t bring a sword to a gunfight. According to the laws of this universe, it should be considered cheating. The swordspone will always fuck you up so badly.

“Okay, mate. We may have gotten ourselves into a bad head start, you and I,” I muttered with my eyes riveted on the sword hanging above my head.

Blood dripped in slow drops on my face into one garish rain. If only it could just avoid my eyes, I’d be so damn happy. Slowly, my eyes crawled up to my assailant.

I glared shotgun loads at that bulky yellow stallion standing over me; his greyish mane made his blue eyes hard to see. He held a strange sword in his mouth. Short but large, its upper part was sickle-shaped and a gold lining was etched all along its edge. That would fetch a pretty price on the second-hoof market if you asked me. If only I could have it. Patched up protection plastered the stallion’s chest and forehooves. I bet those parts were made out of a steelranger armour. That stallion was definitely not the kind of pony to mess around with.

“I may have tried to rob you, extort you, and even kill you, but I ain’t that of a bad pone you know,” I trailed on. “You’ve killed like five of my lads so maybe, just maybe, should we consider ourselves even, don’tcha think?”

I had never smiled that broadly in my whole, boring life. I growled, grinned, wiggled around, and licked my lips. The stallion just huffed, breathing foul air onto my face through his yellow teeth. His sweat trickled down and spilled over me and the parquet.

“Tell me one reason I shouldn’t kill ya, Caffeine,” the pony spat at me, pinning me down with his hoof and closing in with his sword.

“I don’t know,” I replied dryly. “Didn’t you have a contract? You haven’t told me me yet how much ponies put on my face this time.”

He raggedy breath became louder. Anger transpired off his hide and his fire-blazing eyes never diverted from mine.

“I shouldn’t have taken that contract,” he broke in. “Dealing with bandits like ya… always a problem. You didn’t even let me tell ya what the matter was. I just wanted…”

I rolled my eyes and cackled.

“Oh, come on! You know what you stepped in. You’re not the first one to come here and try to kill the business,” I berated, cutting him off. “We ain’t the bad bunch around here. I even let the merchants go through unharmed… if they pay a small fee of course. If they don’t… well, Luna can watch upon them all.”

I squeaked when the sword dropped at a mere inch from my face. I did try to melt away into the dusty parquet. His narrowed eyes betrayed his broken patience.

“Such an irritating, blaring pony,” he growled through his gritted teeth. “Will ya ever let me finish speaking?”

I pinched my lips together, looked right and left, and sighed deeply. I was seriously getting tired of the shitty situation. If only I could have something to drink, a weapon… or any kind of opportunity.

“You’re talking about contract,” I brought forth, decided to delay my death penalty. “Who’s sending you? Bloodskulls, Ragnar’rocks? Or maybe those sneaky, incestuous Blacknecks?”

The pony arched a brow at my question and I grinned back.

“What? No?” he hesitated. “Stop trying to draw conclu…”

“Because, you know,” I slurred again. “For any urgent request you have to go through my intendant first. And she’s right behind you, awaiting your order.”

The yellow stallion swerved his head back and I kicked out. That trick always worked like a charm.

As he scrambled away, shaking off the sudden daze, I reached out for my ripped apart bag lying a hoof from me. I pulled out a short and jagged knife and thrust it in a long sweep. Stepping back with a parry, he sent sparks flying over our heads. I screamed and jumped. He grimaced. I leaped and attacked. He dodged. Moving forward, his edge found its way in a table. I growled, hacked through his defence and sought for his neck. He let go the sword, reared up and blew the air out of my chest with a violent buck.

I crashed in the set of chairs that circled the bar counter. My head hit the wooden stock and splinters flew all around. Dizzied, I saw him fetch his sword, ripping apart the table it had been embedded in.

“Don’t destroy my furniture!” I bawled, tasting blood in my mouth.

The stallion trembled with anger, “First ya don’t listen, then ya lie, then ya make it as if I was the bad guy?!”

He bounced sideway and swivelled, seeking my headleg’s kneecap. I kicked in a chair that went smashing in him mid-air. Pushing my rear hooves against the bar counter, I slipped beneath the jumping pony and crawled at the opposite side of the vast room. He landed, turned, and charged.

I was panting. Sweat dripped into my eyes. I was burning like hell. The disgruntled stallion clenched his teeth on his sword’s pommel as he reached at me. No more talking. No more bargaining.

“Come and get me,” I drawled just before contact. “Make yourself at home!”

I slipped on the side and pointed my knife in his cheek. He dove backward and avoided the edge. Reaching the nearest wall in his charge, he rolled over and bucked the bricks. Propelling himself right at me, he smashed in my chest full force. My knife dropped and his sword whistled to my neck.

Yet, the blow never came.

“I’ve got a message for ya,” he pated heavily.

“Me too.”

With a spit flying in his eyes, my rearleg found its way to the stallion’s family jewels. I glanced aside and grabbed a splintered table leg.

With a roar, my jab reached and pierced through the stallion’s neck. I pushed him back and scrambled away on my haunches. Unable to see, unable to speak, and unable to breath, he randomly whipped his whistling sword around. I slipped behind a turned over table just before the sickle-sword blasted midway through and got blocked. He grunted as he forced on the sword’s guard to take it out.

Only then did I hear a thump, quickly followed by the scrapping noise of a bloodied fur against wood.

I jumped over the split open table and crashed with all my might into his ribs.

“Ah! You hear that! Nobody fuck with me!” I howled. “Nobody!”

I stood up and took in full view the reddish and bent body. The sight made me take a few steps away. Reaching the middle of the saloon, my knees jerked and I fell face flat on the floor. Shivers had taken hold my body.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t hear. But rest wasn’t an option.

I wanted to fight. To punch. To bite.

My body refused to move.

Fuck it!

“AND WHO THE FUCK WAS THAT STALLION ANYWAY!?” I screamed.

I laughed… grinned… quivered.

I loved adrenaline. I hated it too.

My heart was shaky, bumping…wild.

Quaking like a dildo, I lifted my hoof above my head and hid my eyes from the blinding light pouring from the broken windows.

It was suddenly so calm. There was only the wind to sing a lullaby.

My heart beating like crazy, I lay unable to move for goddesses knew how long. Only a cough that weren’t mine called me back to the world of the livings.

I sat with difficulty and my mane crawled as I got to see how my saloon had turned into a pandemonium.

It was utterly destroyed, fucked up, whatever. Bodies piled up all around. I could count seven of them with the bloody stallion not accounted in. Blood had leaked in the cracks of the parquet. At least it was some oil to its creaking. It will need some polishing though… again.

My bookshelves had broken down and book that I had traded, taken, or scavenged lay in heap on the ground. A bullet hole marked the Ponies’ Tales prints I had had so much difficulty to complete.

I closed my eyes and sucked up my roar. I breathed in, reopened my reddish and achy eyes, and looked away.

The mirror that had stood behind the bar counter lay in sharp shards on the ground. Only an eighth of it still remained screwed to the wall, cracked and uneven. There were too many bullet holes to count. I should have definitely invested in targeting lessons for my pals. Lessons on survival would have been a must-have too…

Witnessing the damage caused to my property, I finally saw a pony’s head hanging in the doorway. Even the entrance door had been smashed.

“You fine, boss?”

After one long sigh, I rubbed my forehead with an approving grunt. Sponging away the red that stained my cheeks with the back of my hoof, I glanced at a gaunt pale blue mare whose teeth had seen some wild beating.

“No, Bilberry. I am not fine,” I growled. “And don’t call me boss, please.”

The place smelled like shit, blood, and powder. I rose to my hooves and stumbled forward to the mare. She caught me before I fell. I was going to ask something but a ceiling fan went crashing down on the ground behind me. One blade even snapped off a deadpony’s back.

Bilberry spied at my face, grimaced, and cowered away towards the entry. I closed my eyes, exhaled… I. Was. Fine…

No I wasn’t, silly. I hung my head low and threw a fire-setting glare ad the dead swordspone. I was almighty pissed… so much I took his own weapon and embedded it in his flank. Again… Again…

I kicked, screamed, ran, cried, roared around… bawled around until I slipped and fell in the large red puddle that had stretched from the body. Sprawling flat in the grim didn’t stop me from grunting and hacking around. I drummed my hooves hard on the floor. I had had enough. Why couldn’t have had that bail out card like in that game Bilberry always had me to play.

I held one hoof to my face then one to my chest. I was in pain. I had to stop… easier said than done.

When I opened my eyes again, the mare was standing next to me, a half-filled glass on her hoof and a towel on her back.

“You want… a drink,” Bilberry asked, trying not to get her messy, bleached mane in the small glass she held out to me. “I don’t like you when you’re angry.”

I sat up and looked at her ravaged smile. I tried to grin back but found I couldn’t. I met her eyes and breathed out. After a couple of seconds spent in silence, I took the drink and sipped it all.

“Luna almighty, I hate whiskey,” I croaked.

“I’m sorry,” Bilberry sniffed, lying low.

I grabbed her before she ran away.

“It’s not your fault, sweetie,” I said. “Let’s blame the pony there.”

I kicked the dead body of the swordspone. With a forced giggle, Bilberry kicked it too, pushing the heap of flesh on its side.

“The fucker didn’t know who is was messing with,” I said. “Don’t you think?”

While Bilberry mumbled approvingly, I scanned the dead stallion’s patchwork equipment. His sword was the only item of value he had on him at first sight. Aside from his armour, now drenched in red, he had carried a worn out saddlebag. I frowned and narrowed my eyes. Until now I hadn’t seen the scroll that had been lying inside.

Spiked by curiosity, I stretched my hoof and dragged the bag to my side. My name had been written on a small paper slag glued to the metal clip that held the scroll closed. I had never seen such kind of paper and I was definitely ready to see how many caps they had put on my face. It would go on the wall with the others anyway. It helps to show who the boss was around here. Snapping it open, I scrolled down the paper and read.

When I finished, my head dropped.

“Oh goddesses,” I rasped.

“Tell me, tell me,” Bilberry intoned. “I can’t read.”

The paper held one single paragraph and it was something I wouldn’t have wished to hear.

Yo Caffeine Shot. It’s Mom.

I’m sorry to tell you that but I am probably dead. I asked my lawyer to open my will and to carry it out in my name. This message has probably be sent by him to you through a specially hired courier –Not a bad one, though, I know your habits… You’re not the calmest kid I brought to this world.

Anyway, I need to split the estate after my death. Hence, you’re expected in Philomena. Since the sky was opened five years ago, I can now set up a date for the will to become effective. If you’re not there on time for the will opening, which is set to be on the Summer Sun Celebration’s Eve, your brothers and sisters will get everything you had. I know how much you love each others. I.e. get your fat ass down to town so you can get my cold, wrinkly body out of that dank murderhouse they dare call a hospital.

Mom,

P.S. You’re the one to receive my PipBuck, I know how bad you are with maps so I give you mine. Don’t fiddle with it. You always break stuff down when you shouldn’t.

P.S.2 Check the courier’s bag if you killed him. If you did, I’m kinda disappointed in you, son.

“Oh, come on!” I cried out, throwing the paper away.

Bilberry cringed slightly but she found the strength to ask, “Something’s wrong?”

I slumped slightly over my rump and could only get myself to stare at my earth pony hooves.

“Mom is dead,” I muttered and repeated, “Mom… is… dead. How could she…?”

I reread the fact once again to wash away the sense of surreal that hung in my brain. I couldn’t believe that the steel slab of a mare she was… was dead. That was going to be so complicated.

“Go fetch my bag,” I asked Bilberry. “Please.”

As she ran like a gust of wind, I shakily stood on my haunches, soaked and wet in so much red it made my cream white fur as grim as it could be. I needed a shower the town had never got to work. Rusty and cranky, I sat on the nearest, still intact chair in front of the bar counter. I stared at myself in the cracked mirror. With my short, brown mane and eyes and a cream white fur, I was a pretty common sort of earth pony. I grunted, cleared my throat, and struck the counter with my hoof.

“Barpone!” I yelled.

“Yep!”

A green stallion with a neatly trimmed blue moustache popped out from under the bar counter. Looking at me with widened eyes, his hooves went for under the counter and brought up a set of towels.

“I… thought you had a shotgun under the vodka shots?” I growled, rubbing my nascent beard.

He gave me the widest and most sheepish grin he could muster and kept silent. Meanwhile, I took one towel and started scrapping off the already drying grim off my hid. It took more than ten swipes to finally get a view of my cutie mark… a fucking cardboard box. I grimaced and focused back on the barpone.

“I’m sure I’m going to regret it but you’re the more competent around here to run the business,” I gave out with a grunt. “You take care of the affairs for the time being ‘til I come back.”

“Wait? What…? You sure?” he fumbled through.

“Yes, I am,” I mumbled.

“Sincere condolences by the way,” he apologized.

“Oh come on.” I smirked. “The ragmare should have broken her pipe earlier in my opinion. She had her time.”

I heard somepony stroll back in the saloon with a load of backpack clanging around.

“Bilberry?” I called out.

“Mmmh,” she chewed over something.

“You can use the gun under my pillow when I’m not here if misters and misses around the place ain’t giving compliance,” I said.

“Oh yiiiiiis!” she said, dropping what she held in her mouth.

A gunshot roared, splitting my ears. A little bit of wall crashed on the ground right after.

I was still staring at the bartender while he was struggling not to laugh. I would have made him swallow his arm if he had laughed.

“You can especially hit him,” I motioned towards the bartender.

All trace of smug grin vanished from the stallion’s face. The pleading kind of look he gave me was satisfying enough that I wouldn’t go back on my words… not just yet. Bilberry however was ravished.

After I had relatively fairly and somehowishly cleaned myself, I went back to the courier’s corpse and rummaged through his saddlebag. I rapidly found the PipBuck mentioned in the letter. It was bulkier than models I had already seen. And not very well protected too. Cable sprouted out of its side and coil stuck up around its screen. Was that a battery hanging out to a cable? Mother, what had you done?

Strapping it to my left hoof, I waved the engine around, feeling the pulling weight on my leg. Shortly after, I pushed a button and the screen lit up. First completely white, the screen snapped to black and strips of green code scrolled down. It turned dark again before it restarted, this time with a blue-coloured bios. Mother always liked personalisation.

‘>> Welcome Mr Shot’ it spelled before initializing the main menu.

“Leave,” I abruptly said.

“Who, me?” the bartender asked.

“Yes you, only you.”

He ran past Bilberry, who clacked her teeth next to his tail, and disappeared outside.

“You okay?” Bilberry asked, walking to my side.

I grimaced and slowly looked up to her.

“I’m gonna have to leave, Bilberry,” I said. “And no, you can’t come with me.”

She pouted and went to a tight hug.

“I don’t wanna to,” she said, rubbing her face in my neck.

“Can you promise me something?” I whispered.

She mumbled a yes.

“Don’t hit ponies too much while I’m gone, okay.”

I felt a nod at the tip of her muzzle against my skin.

“Can you promise also?” she added.

“Everything you want,” I said.

“Come back,” she told me.

“I will,” I replied. “I will.”

“And don’t cry,” she rasped.

“It’s nothing,” I said tugging her close to me. “It’s nothing.”

“I don’t like when you cry,” she said.

With no smile, I looked down. It was a rainy saloon today…

As three dots of water struck my PipBuck’s locked screen, a few words flashed into life.

>> Good Luck, Son.

>>Family matters.

Chapter 1. Inside To Emptiness

“I was stalling in the garish morning, alone in the desert. No song strollin’ my mind to sing. Alone, but with all my rueful thoughts.”

* * *

I heartlessly watched the scenery roll by with my forehoof sitting on the edge of the wagon’s window frame.

Patches of dried grass.

Sandy dunes in the distance.

Desert anywhere to look.

My mind trailed off as the music blared by my PipBuck cracked and spurred at each bump the train wagon made on the two-century old track.

“Don’t look at him, sweetie,” a red mare warned, hiding her filly’s eyes from my smelly sight.

Blinking, I looked away from the landscape and stared at the mare. I would have bet my head she was wondering how I had gotten into the first class wagon. Money’s privilege m’lady! We get some money to spare in my field of study.

“But, mommy!” the filly protested. “Look at his stuff!”

“Yes. Exactly. Don’t look at it.”

A hoof resting on my forehead, I smirked. The mother desperately tried to hide her child from looking at the big ass bag resting next to me. The unicorn filly hadn’t had her cutie mark yet. Her rosy blank flank stood out, even though she always tried to hide it with her golden pony tail.

“He must have stolen that Pip Buck,” the mother muttered.

Unheeding, I took a pack of gums out of my pocket and chewed over two tabs. Then I let the pack on top of the table.

“Want some?” I asked the filly.

The mother’s eyes widened, her eyes going back and fro from me to her puppy-eyed kid.

“There aren’t those kind of mints,” I pointed out. “I don’t want to add kidslaughter on my bar tab.”

The filly’s lower lips rolled over as she gave her poutiest pout to her mother.

“No,” the unicorn mare snapped.

“But mooooom,” the filly whined, pushing a strand of bright yellow mane off her muzzle.

Biting the tiny dried bits of skin off my lips, I turned up my PipBuck’s volume and drifted back to the landscape. The kid’s horn glowed yellow as she tried to reach out to one tab. The Mother licked her hoof and wash her filly’s magic off her tiny horn. The filly instantly whined and it made me smile. Kids were always a small light in the grim and dank, the dirt, and the sweat of the wasteland.

While my PipBuck vomited guitar riffs, I carelessly scrolled down my backpack’s content on its lit up screen. It was probably the twelfth time I did so today.

I got supplies, food and water, spare ammo for my boomstick, some med-x, and enough caps to last a month in the city if I stay put on my expenses. I had gotten no health potion with me though. There were useless where I was going anyway. The desert had proved itself too hot to keep potions in a bag without wasting them away. I couldn’t carry a fridge with me to that hot as fuck city of Philomena. As I reached the bottom of the list, the last entry still held that one bizarre name.

“Brisée,” I butchered.

The sword had sat on top of my saddlebags all along the trip, strapped to them with leather belts. For once, my curiosity struck and I untied the weapon. Lifting it, I made it shine in the blazing sun’s rays of light and set it up on top of the table.

The sword was dented in many places. Only the external part of its sickle-shaped edge had been sharpened, probably hundredth of times so that it was uneven and jagged. To be honest, I didn’t want to be hit by that monstrosity.

Asking my PipBuck for details, I scrolled to the one sentence that had popped up when I had added the tool to my inventory.

“Zebra khopesh, old,” I reread and sighed, “Bleh, nothing worth of it.”

The red mare coughed and I raised my head.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she pointed out with anger.

“Looking through my stuff, ma’am,” I said. “It ain’t going to take care of itself.”

Fumbling through my supplies, I closed my teeth on a long and thin sharpening stone. Pinning my sword down, I started the work. Sparks cracked up when I forced too much on the sword with the stone. The filly seemed in marvel at the light bursts.

“What?” I called, puzzled by the mother’s dagger-throwing stare. “I still can ask your daughter if she want to do it herself.”

“Oh, yes, mommy! Please, say yes.”

“N-No!” she spewed back.

I chortled and went back to work.

“Ouch,” I cried.

Not paying attention had me earned a cut. Thanks! I put the tip of my hoof in my mouth, silent witness to the mare’s grin, an I-told-you-so look haunting her face.

“See,” the mare smirked. “He’s just a poor sod.”

Keeping silent, I studied her dress. She wore a wide and fluffy multi-layered crimson robe decorated with black lace. It was very neat. Pricey I’d even say. And that corset. Umm, damn... That was kinky.

“Going to some formal event, Miss?” I asked with a toothy grin. “You must die out of heat in there.”

“Only since you’ve opened the damn window,” she teased back. “I was fine with the air conditioning on. Thank you.”

She took a folded fan from her purse, snapped it open, and hid her face behind.

“Mommy and I are going to see the new metro!” the filly burst. “It’s an anau… ino…”

“Inauguration, my dear,” the mare interjected from behind her fan, “and don’t talk to him.”

“But mooooom, you’re always talking about it,” the small-framed unicorn murmured. “You said you put a lot of money in it!”

I arched a brow and smiled. The mare had reached out to her filly’s mouth not fast enough. I loved to hear about money matters and that mare, she saw my greedy eyes and gulped.

“So…” I began, my muzzle drawing closer

I was trailing off on purpose, feeding off her apprehension. It always brought me a smile to see ponies squirm around, especially nobility or what remained of it.

“You’re an investor, aren’t you?” I beamed off. “Why choosing Philomena? Last time I went there it was a vast shithole filled with radioactive wast and monsters. I remember fillies and colts used to throw rocks at radwhip snakes down there.”

I looked over at the filly and snapped my teeth together. She squeaked and sought refuge in her mother’s dress.

“They would gobble you up in one throw if you aren’t fast enough.” I giggled. “And if you’re fast enough, they would bite in their own tail and roll like a wheel behind you… Until they barrel over you and snap you bones aaall together.”

The filly cringed a bit in her mother’s dress with a whine.

“Mommy. He’s scary.”

The mare shook her head.

“He’s only talking legends, sweetie,” she said before calling me out, “And you, sir… have to see the changes in the city. With all the good coming from the Eastern Coast, Philomena is getting revived. The region is, you’re right on that point, as dangerous as before the Lightbringer’s coming… but Philomena’s city centre is a beacon of light in the desert.”

“Ain’t New Pegas, though,” I mocked. “Ever been there?”

The mare took offense of me suspecting her of wild gambling apparently. She didn’t answer.

“So you’ve invested in the city, right?” I asked. “It seems to be a risky bet in my opinion. Do you expect a high-yield?”

“And what does a…” She looked at me from head to tail with a slight disgust, “… a raider know about finance?”

I looked at my right hoof, then my left one. Come on, they weren’t bloody enough to earn me the title of raider, not yet. I held my hoof on my heart.

“Oh, come on, lady,” I giggled with an over-the-top aristocratic accent. “We, gangers, hold a high respect to the concept of equity investment and venture. Shall we not take into account the risk of losing one’s life in a bargain we would be no more than raiders. My mother educated me well before I went astray.”

Her face grew dark.

“I’m still thinking that you’re playing with my nerves,” she spat.

“Maybe,” I replied with a shrug and a slight grin, “maybe not. You’re just entertaining.”

“What would a distinguished bandit like you do in Philomena? The local government is trying to import order, not…” She held a hoof towards me. “…desolation.”

Her eyes swiftly glanced at my sword. I rolled my eyes and finally strapped it back on top of my saddlebag. I got the message.

“Family,” I answered. “I gotta buried my mother.”

“Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” I replied, seeing that she hugged tight her filly. “The Shot family has seen worse than that.”

Her eyes widened.

“The… Shot?” She pondered, narrowing her eyes. “The Shot Family? Like in Ambedo Shot?”

“Oh, you know my mother?” I spurred with an arched brow.

She pinched her lips together, grunted, and stood up.

“Come one, sweetie,” she ordered harshly. “We go.”

“But mooom,” the rose filly complained.

“No,” she barked. “We. Go.”

As I watched them pack away silently, I couldn’t scrap away the ill-feeling that had just set in my heart. Apparently, mom was more notorious than I thought.

“Hey, what’s your name?” I asked the filly before she slipped through the door, pulled by her mother.

“I’m Sunburst,” she said with a broad smile. “And you?”

“Caffeine.”

“Come on,” her mother groaned through her gritted teeth outside.

The filly disappeared in the alleyway of the wagon and I felt drowned in silence and slight darkness… In fact, I was drowning in silence and darkness. I looked back at mother’s PipBuck to check on the radio. Only a faint static sound emerged from its small speaker. I tapped repeatedly on its screen but nothing came out of it.

“Mmmh…” I growled. “Something must block the signal.”

“Hello, everypony,” a voice cracked out from the interphone in the wagon through neatly hidden speakers. “We will be arriving in Philomena in three hours. The outside temperature is reaching a hundred and twenty, or nearly a fifty for the griffons on board. Meanwhile, we’ve got a haboob inbound and it is expected to cover the whole region from here to Philomena. Thereof, we diligently ask you to strap yourself on your sit and to close any open window. We wish you a pleasant and marvellous journey through the sandstorm.”

“A haboob?” I spoke out loud. “Haven’t seen one in a while.”

I looked through the window and saw nothing. It was very dark and plain… like a wall. A wall that was racing towards me.

“Oh, fuck, fuck!”

Sand.

There was sand everywhere.

I closed the window too late. The wagon’s room had been yellowed with fine sand and it was everywhere. Mane, fur… even eyes, buttcrack. Goddesses! That itched like star spiders up my arse.

“You’re alright, mister?” a groom asked me through the slit-open door of my cubicle.

“Yeah,” I grunted, waving a hoof in the voice’s direction, throwing dust in the air. “Bring me water… please.”

“Right now, sir!”

“And a towel!” I called.

Sitting in my seat, I witnessed the mess around me. I should have called the dustroom service too.

The light bulb above my head cracked alive with the duststorm outside thick enough to trigger the nightlight system. A second later, the wagon creaked and swayed on its right side. I slipped and rolled, hitting a wall.

“Wow,” I laughed. “Impressive.”

Then the wagon swerved back on the right and I rolled in the opposite direction. I ended up with my ass above my head.

“Luna fuck me,” I grunted, rubbing my forehead.

Eyes closed, I prodded for the nearest seatbelts. Acting rapidly, I had myself strapped down before the next bump acted up. I would have ended on the ceiling if not for those sweet leather straps. Something heavy thumped on the ground outside.

“May I?” a voice called me out.

I looked down at the groom crawling in my wagon’s alleyway. With my cubicle’s door swinging open, the poor stallion came in, his face as wet as it could get.

“There are enough seats for another pony,” I said.

“Thanks,” he muttered, strapping himself down.

A long awkward silence followed, only cut from time to time by a violent gust of sand grinding at the outside of the train.

“Eh, looks like a radigator’s trying to pry open the ceiling?” I joked.

With the stallion’s forced smile as sole answer, we both drew back in silence. The next few hours went uneventful and the few words I exchanged with the groom were too boring to be mentioned here. It was with relief that I welcomed the train driver’s call for terminus.

“Inbound Philomena. Everypony out,” the voice said. “Thanks for travelling with Westward Railway Incorporated, brought to you by Tenpony Tower Capital, Manhatten.”

The haboob was still blowing strong in the outskirts of “New Philomena”. At least, that’s what the plaque I was standing in front of said that the city was called now.

Looking up, I couldn’t see shit. Ponies ran all around, their faces and bodies hidden under heavy scarves and capes even though it was terribly hot out here.

2015 project - The Child of Solace - Intro

Short description:
Centuries ago, Ponykind fled from Equestria, letting many parts of its history sink into oblivion. It just needed a captain and its crew to wake up the past.

Long description:
My name is Starscape, captain of the Dust and its crew of smugglers and outlaws. Until recently, my name meant nothing: Just a little yobbo going on a ruin crawl to stay up in the sky another month. Somehow, fate stretched its hoof. As we paid a visit to a newly discovered solar system, we found something that would spark troubles of galactic proportions.
What we found wasn’t a something, though. It was somepony. One that will later be called the Child Of Solace.

Introduction.

₮ ₰ ₣ ₪ ₹ ₸ ₢ ₸ ₹ ₪ ₣ ₰ ₮

An era of Science, ordeals, and upheavals once came in the magical land of Equestria. Science aimed at the stars and competed with its wise and ancient sister: Magic. Magic, seeking for revelation and inner contemplation, looked at its younger relative with fear and suspicion. Both so stretched apart, they found their most vivid expression in Ponykind, this fool race. Equines, always led by great intentions, threw themselves at each other’s throat. They waged a war that spiralled out of control. Blood quenched the thirst of Equestria’s furrows. And at the end, when the mists of war finally dissipated, an unexpected outcome shook the nation’s foundations. Magic, though raw and powerful, was defeated.
However it came with a price, as everything. Ponykind lost its most precious gift in the process: Equestria itself.
Kiln of a long lasting battle of ideologies, that admirable land that saw the birth of Civilisation was no longer fit for life. Consequently, Science did what it was meant for from the start, aiming skywards at the stars and beyond the cold emptiness of space.
The time of Ponies on Equestria was over but the end it was not. A new epoch followed: an era of exploration, expansion, exploitation, and unfortunately… extermination. Ponykind spread, broke down, thrived… It fed on as many divides as the mysteries that still lie far up the stars.
And, as everything, the sky was forever changed.

The Child Of Solace

2015 project - The Child of Solace - Prologue

Prologue.

“Ponykind looked at the stars and dreamt of bigger things. But dreaming was not enough. The equines jumped and reached what they wished upon for too long. Soon however, they understood they had lost their way into the coldness. Wherever they searched, their shared and beloved cradle was nowhere to be found.

Although we cut our own roots, it never saved us from our animal wickedness.”

Glitter Pie, last leader of the Free Republic of Apel.

₮ ₰ ₣ ₪ ₹ ₸ ₢ ₸ ₹ ₪ ₣ ₰ ₮

We meet once again, my dearest enemy.

I busted open my alarm clock with the back of my hoof. With my eyes still closed, I heard it fly across my bedside table. A second later, it crashed on the ground, splintering all over my room in a screeching echo. The cacophony didn’t stop until the screws and bits had stopped scattering across the darkness that filled my flat.

“Fuck off,” I spat at the machine as I kept munching on my pillow already soaked in my saliva.

The beeping didn’t stop though. My doorbell was laughing at me and the scapegoat of an alarm clock in between. I took a long breath of the hot and wretched air that flooded my room. I wanted to lie down and fall asleep again. But I couldn’t. I shambled around and tried to reach my bedside lamp with the tip of my hoof. Clumsy, I pushed it off too. Porcelain bits blanketed my room, joining what I could already call my own little mess. My morning couldn’t have been finer.

“It’s not locked!” I bawled at whoever was repeatedly buzzing on the doorbell.

My door slid open with a hydraulic hiss and a blinding light flared in my small room. I wailed and forced myself back under the blankets. Couldn’t ponies know I had better things to do… like sleeping?!

She, because it was she, gagged at the stench that greeted her muzzle. I heard her step outside, take a long, deep breath, and walk back in.

“Starscape?” the mare probed carefully. She knew I knew she knew myself well enough to know how legendary my morning grumpiness was. “We’ve reached it.”

“Already…?” I mumbled, sighed, grunted, and other whatnot-ed that would make her go away.

“Yes, Captain,” she answered as she rubbed her nose. “You’ve been asleep since we jumped in hyperspace.”

“Perfect,” I retorted with a smile.

Captain’s advice: hyperspace jumps are, believe me, the most boring thing out there. It’s just nothing but being patient. And when you stay in the cockpit, the only thing you see outside is just some plain white space in front of you. Sometimes there is a bit of blue, pink, and yellow of course… but that’s all. Otherwise, it’s just a concentrate of boringness. In hyperspace, ships drive themselves.

“You’re awaited on the deck, Captain,” she said.

I muffled my discontent.

“Why?” I spat.

“You still haven’t told the crew why we spent our stipend on jumping to… there.” Her voice broke as she searched for her words. “And in regards to the Erikean Space Laws you, as a captain, are subject to, you have breached the code more than eleven times during the past twenty-four galactic hours...”

Big sentences in the morning were such a relief.

“...which the first was not explaining to the crew the purpose of the mission, which grants your right-hand the right to build up a mutiny against your persona. Moreover, you entered coordinates without the consent of our navigator, who I can’t find anywhere… and I wonder if we haven’t left her on Erikea. Furthermore, no information towards where we were heading was disclosed. This grants our flying operators the right to claim the next whole stipend we will receive, which our armament personnel is firmly opposed to.”

I stuck my tongue out at her under my fortification of pillows and thick bed sheets. I even squeezed my head between my hooves but that didn’t stop me from hearing her rant.

“This place has a name, Albion,” I rambled.

“Uh?” She chuckled gravely. There was no need for critics from her, her voice alone was stinging enough. “Since when?”

“Since I, captain Starscape, gave it one.” I shuffled across my mind for the less stupid idea I could find. “I’m calling it Finistère. Isn’t’ it beautiful, Albion?”

She sighed deeply and held her hoof to her face. I was such a disappointment and I wasn’t even going to let her speak.

“I asked the ship to reach an unexplored solar system that was discovered last week by some Erikean space telescopes. That’s why I didn’t inform the crew. The coordinates… weren’t really registered as an authorised space jump destination.”

I, too, could spit out long sentences in the morning. It was hurting my temples, though. I giggled. I could nearly see her eyes rolling from under my bed sheets.

“I’ll inform the crew about the situation,” she dropped her words like an anvil above my head. “Viking will not be happy.”

“Perfide Albion,” I called her. “You can tell my right-hand he can go fuck himself with a rotative laser beam.”

“You’re still awaited,” she pointed out. “And you know I don’t like that first name.”

“I know, Perfide.” I was smiling.

An eye out of my bed cover, I saw her scan the room with her picky bleached-blue eyes. They would have been beautiful if she wasn’t itself a fully snow-white mare. White coat, white mane, nearly white eyes… where could I find some contrast in that? Her icy eyes wandered on my left and she grinned widely. She had perfectly white teeth too. I look at the mare by my side, emerging from the sheets.

“So she was here all along… I thought interracial relationships were forbidden,” Albion said matter-of-factly, her judging eyes locked on me. “Your ability to abide by the law is formidable, Starscape. The count goes up to twelve. You’re close to breaking your own record.”

“You don’t even know how high I can get.” My bed companion snickered with her crystalline voice. There was no pun intended. “Are we still in Erikean territory, Perfide?”

“No,” the Earth Pony mare answered flatly. “We’ve left the Diktat’s area of expansion since we’ve jumped.”

“As such…?” I drawled.

I took advantage of her lack of answer and looked on my right. A red Pegasus with a charcoal mane pinching her lips together was facing me, holding the bed sheets up to her torso. Her cheeks couldn’t be redder. We grinned at each other like two children being caught after another misdeed. Oh, she was good. She giggled as if she could read my mind.

“As an Erikean citizen, Captain, you have to abide by the law of your native nation in case no other set of administrative obligations applies...”

I rubbed my forehead. Under the blanket I felt my lady’s hoof slowly crawling and oh, oh, oh mama mia… We both looked at each other and shared one same snarky smile. She winked at me, slowly licking her lips with the tip of her tongue. I felt butterflies at the tips of my forehooves. It was going to get good, if only...

“... and so, as these rules do apply in each nation that calls itself civilised, you are not by your status to have a relation with a peg… Do you even listen to me?”

“Albion?” I cut her off. “Could you… just give me back my privacy? Like… go away?”

She tilted her head on the side and let the words sink in. A massive pout drew on her face at the sight of my large, overbearing smile. Funny how such awkward situation could speak a thousand words and carry more meaning.

“Is that an order?” Her icy eyes darted at me.

“Yeeeees…” I confirmed, avoiding her cold irises.

Her shoulder dropped a little and her head slowly hung low.

“You promised me not to do that, playing with my freedom.” She whispered, looking down as she poked the ground with her hoof.

“You’re breaking my own freedom, try to enforce laws that don’t work on my ship, and you’re the one complaining?” I huffed, burying my face in my left hoof.

The look of her face was going to give me such guilt. I breathed in slowly.

“I’m just asking you,” I mumbled, glancing at her from behind my hoof.

Oh come on, I hadn’t betrayed her or wanted to be hurtful. What did she have to be that of a clenched-butt with ponies that didn’t go her way!? She had been the one to sneak up on me during my good time. She was the wrong pony… this time at least.

“Pleeease,” I begged.

Disgruntled, her frostbiting eyes glared daggers at me. Hopefully, she hadn’t lasers built in those. Not yet.

“Earth Ponies,” she grunted with a mimicked huff as she turned away, her tail whipping in the air.

“Androids…” I muttered back.

Question. How do one recognise an android aside from their way of speaking? Butt staring! Don’t get me wrong on that one, I’m not a perv’. It’s just that androids don’t come out of the factory with a cutie mark.

She gasped, bit on her celluloid tongue, and her shoulders dunked low. She left in silence and, once she had completely dragged her white butt outside, the door slid back close. I and my bride enjoyed a dim darkness once again. My eyes thanked me.

I went back looking at my little red Pegasus. She was not smiling anymore, staring at me with her hooves crossed on her chest.

“What am I standing accused for?” I growled.

She didn’t answer.

“Not you too, Amaryllis!” I put my head between my hooves. “Why does everypony have to give me the stare?”

“You hurt her,” she said with her sultry voice that sparked shivers down my spine.

How could I stand against her hawkish green eyes, standing like islands in the middle of a crimson red sea of silk-like fur and frizzling feathers? She was, without a doubt, beautiful. How could I resist? I held out my hoof but she pushed it away.

My hoof hung mid-air, she crawled to the side of the bed and let herself fall on her hooves. She stretched her wings and preened the ones we had mangled during the night. My shoulders dunked a little and I finally put my hoof back on my soft blankets.

“I know. I know!” I was going to skin the skin off my forehead if I kept rubbing like that.

“Go apologize,” she asked… advised? Ordered, yeah… ordered.

“But…” I intoned.

“No buts,” she shushed me with a raised hoof. “Otherwise, no butts.”

I rolled my eyes dismissively.

“Yes, mom,” I whined. “I will tidy up my room too.”

“Start taking care of your ship. Dust was what I put my hooves on when I came in. Now, it could be recalled Pigsty.”

She was being picky. Dust was a pretty good spaceship. It was one of those old Erikean frigates. How did I acquired Dust? I have scavenged my baby on a drifting space battlefield. I couldn’t recall the type of vessel though. It was three hundred and fifteen metres long for fifty metres in width and thirty five in height. It was, believe me, a really good old ship. Instead of the two to three hundred millions it should have costed. I just paid the reparation and some few… minor changes. Don’t ask me how I got the money, it’s a professional secret. However, whatever the words I would use, nothing was perfect enough for madame.

Looking back at her, I saw she had already put on her dark leather suit, covering every patch of her blood red hide. Only the cybernetic plugs were left, protruding out of her backbone, legs, and wings where skin had been left uncovered. The suit enveloped the implants as it magnetically locked itself on them like a second heavier and sturdier skin. Damn! Aside from those cold crumbs, I was lucky to have tasted some bits of her. Navigators, Pegasi, whatever the name or cast she belonged to, she was damn fine to me. There was just her spooky cutie mark. I didn’t even need to look at the print of it plastered on her suit. I knew it by heart: one wide open bright green eye, such as the pair she had on her face. The crew often joked that she was like our Big Sister, constantly watching over us.

She pressed her hoof on the light switch and a powerful white glow burst into the room. Gurgling out a scream, I put myself back under the thick blankets.

“Please!” I whimpered. “Tell me when you do that, Amaryllis!”

She snarled and walked away from the bed. Her horseshoes of latex and steel hammered on the metal floor.

“Viking must be waiting,” she said and the door clicked back down, leaving me alone.

“So let him wait,” I whispered to myself. “Everypony wants to ruin my day apparently.”

My eyelids opened a blade’s width, I shambled away from my bed and crawled to the round-shaped interrupter. Rolling it to the left, the light intensity degraded to a level I could withstand.

Now able to open my eyes, I stood up and dragged myself to my chest and its many drawers. On the wall above was mounted a large and stained mirror. I smiled at myself, checking on my teeth before I took a peek at the first drawer. It contained an old speaker wired to a patchwork of old printed circuits. I had once scavenged all that stuff from an old space wreck. I pushed a button and a cranky old electric guitar riff welcomed my morning. A mare’s voice started slowly, tuning up as the guitar announced the main rhythm. I followed through with my own cranky voice.

“I’m being chased,

Through the wasteland,

And nuthin’ gonna stop me,

Now.”

Like an assault, the guitar wah-wahed at me through the old speaker. As vibrations crawled on my skin, I reared up and put on my dusty brown leather coat which folded onto my khaki-yellow hide. It was a bit too wide for my small frame. I wiggled on my rear legs. Ponies often said that I had the Daring Do style. Not that I knew what a Daring Do was, nor ponies using the slang. It was something from the past carrying a meaning that had long been forgotten. I guessed it meant savage, strong, powerful… or maybe was I just being a tardy-bit narcissistic? At least I had my white mane. Dishevelled and long enough to brush past the back of my neck, I always had had a hard time putting some orders between my locks.

“Rain fire across the galaxy,

Bring nether upon my enemy,

For this’s Erikean Army’s motto,

One that everypony should know.”

As I danced at the blaring tune in front of the mirror, I watched my semi-long mane wave back and forth over my muzzle. My stare drifted down to my own cutie mark: a small purple meteor with a yellow trail going down my flank in a curve. My name is Starscape after all...

“Ahem…” somepony coughed next to my ear.

And… I punched out. After an awkward moment spent looking down at a pony at my hooves, I rushed to his help.

“Sorry, sorry!” I apologised, cutting off the deafening music, so loud I didn’t even hear him enter.

An old ultramarine stallion with his short yellow mane was laying on the floor, blood spurting of his mouth. I had taken a tooth out. Grimacing, I held him up back on his hooves. His name was Viking, my second-hand.

Not even a ghost of a smile on my face, I poked him with the tip of my hoof. The earth pony growled as his right black eye, the only one that still worked, riveted on me.

“Shoul’ have go’ with a mutiny,” he spat, leaving a flob of blood between the porcelain and screws on the ground.

Speaking of porcelain, he had one bit puncturing his cheek. I had hit a bit hard, I concede, and I couldn’t stop now from looking suspiciously at his right hindleg and the long curved dagger strapped one it. that was one bloody weapon and the exact replica of his cutie mark.

“You okay, Viking?” I asked.

“Ya know I hate the infirmary,” he said, taking his tooth off the ground and putting it in a shoulder bag hanging on his side.

“You know I hate mutiny when Albion is ranting on my ass customs.”

“She’s dang pissed.”

“No, really?” I fainted surprise.

We laughed. As we slowly fell back silent, he looked at the speaker inside the drawer. I chuckled. In the end, he was like our own little snow-white android: curious. Viking raised an eyebrow.

“Amaryl’ was dang pissed too. She had those eyes,” he joked about her cutie mark, raising his hoof to his open wide eyes then pointing it at me.

Yep, Amaryllis was watching me. It wasn’t something to worry about though. She was our navigator, as such, she had de-facto more authority than me. Not that I disliked that during our shared free time. I shivered at the thought, a large smile drawing on my face.

“Hey?” Viking wondered with his raspy voice, banging on my empty-echoing head with his hoof. “Somepony’s still here?”

I pushed it away, and muttered, “Yeah, yeah. So, new planet?”

A look of disapproval above all measurable levels came from the eyes of my right-hand… right-hoof. Whatever, Griffons had created that term. So my right-hand was going to be dang pissed too.

“You spent our salary from our last commission,” he paused and growled, “on coming to... an unknown planet?”

I nodded. “You know the scavenger’s proverb: What’s unknown is more than a gemstone.”

The Dust’s speakers cracked with saturation covering Viking’s deep, annoyed sigh. Albion’s voice tuned in our ears as she cleared her throat. I heard some ponies in the neighbouring rooms yelp. The old speakers of my spaceship could get pretty loud at some point.

“Albion reporting. We will exit hyperspace in five minutes. Destination is an unexplored planet called Finistère, unregistered to the Erikean authorities, making our exploration an outlawed operation in virtue of the Intergalactic Law of Exploration number forty three thousand five hundred and sixty seven, alinea number forty two, modification nine thousand five hundred and twelve...”

Viking and I looked at each other. Albion was just that… Albion. I finished buttoning up my brown leather coat and readjusted my captain insignia, a golden horseshoe. I tried to push back some of my white locks behind my ears, to no avail. It was now just between them and me, puffing air at them to get them away from my eyes.

Viking and I walked outside and wandered across the Dust: three hundred metres of alloys, armaments, protections, reactors, and crew travelling at something over five thousand times the speed of light.

It was prodigiously... backward. I had heard of those new Erikean military frigates, with their built-in wormhole systems. But as always, only the militaries could enjoy those toys. We, the civilians, were restricted to the hyperspace currents, only safe way to travel between two solar systems. Let me mash up this into something understandable. Until recently, the only way to travel in between solar systems was through natural motorways made of black matter that linked each celestial corpse to each other. Only a few were ridable for ships though, making a hyperspace jump quite… bumpy, dangerous. I hoped my crew would never learn that I had made the jump to Finistère through an unsecure current. But that was a secret between me and nopony else.

“... Though, due to the amendment number one made after the Erikean war of +761A.M.L, thirty one years ago, we can claim as an Erikean ship the exclusive access to the discovered planets for a proved period of two weeks.” She paused. “After a first scan is made of the existing planets of this solar system, a series of teams will be sent to see if any valuables are found on ground.” Albion was ready to cut the one-way boring conversation when she cleared her throat again. “Captain Starscape is as bad in bed as a paraplegic rock.”

A long, overbearing silence suddenly filled the ship. I even felt like it had stopped creaking just to savour this very moment. It was as awkward as the mare who’d just spoken. Suddenly, fits of laughter echoed across the Dust, through the plumbery, the corridors, and the holes in between the different storeys.

“Oh, the biat…”

Viking whacked the back of my head, making me bit on my tongue. He was laughing too.

The way to the cockpit was a long walk of shame where I met amused smiles, playful eyes, and jokes that could nearly scrape off some of my self-esteem. Damn, I was the captain. Though, that didn’t make me a Diktator. I wasn’t the ruler of Erikea…

The cockpit was a large bay located on top of the Dust, with its large windows giving to see a large sea of white that burnt my eyes like hot embers. And there she was, the white mare, waving a hoof at me as I stepped on the deck. That innocent smile of hers could nearly make me forget about her little games.

Amaryllis was harnessing herself in the navigant habitacle in the forefront of the cockpit, giving her a privileged sight on whatever was there outside. Wires were lowering down above her head and, one by one, she locked them on her cybernetic implants. She finished with the most delicate part, her wings. She kicked a pedal built in the habitacle and a hundred holograms swooshed alive around her, red, yellow, blue, and green. Finally, a mechanic arm dangled from the ceiling of the habitacle and went locking itself on the back of her head like a helmet. A hiss filled the air, Amaryllis grunted, and all the holograms flashed green.

“Navigator linkage routine succeeded. Reported errors: zero,” a robotic voice announced. “Prepare for hyperspace rupture.”

The bay was enough to welcome two to three dozens ponies. Yet, it already being swarmed as everypony wished to get a first glance at the system. Thanks to the scanners of the Dust, informations about Finistère were going to be displayed on the window bay quickly after our exit point.

“Gooooooood morning, everypony. Amaryllis there, your delightful supreme leader,” The red Pegasus was enjoying herself through the intercom. “We will exit hyperspace in one minute. Once stabilized, Dust’s sensors will take two minutes before giving us results, after that I will divide the crew into teams to explore the planets we might discover.”

Amaryllis had put emphasis on the might I didn’t like, throwing me a playful stare.

“Any complaints are to be addressed to Starscape, our caregiving captain.”

It was my time to wave at my little ponies with an awkward smile. I made my way past Amaryllis’s habitacle, Viking and his dirty yellow mane in my stead. A large series of panels had been built on the edge of the dock, only separated from the emptiness of space by the thick glass windows. Trying not to look at the blinding white outside, I pushed my hoof on my own intercom. My voice echoed in the ship’s speakers and reverberated in my ears. I hated hearing myself talking.

“Hello everypony, so thing is, we’re going to have the first hoof on an unexplored system. What’s there is just ours. So let’s cross our hooves that I did a good bet going in first.”

Viking pushed me off the intercom with his dagger-branded flank and continued, “And, of course, as we ain’t being payed for last month, crew’s getting the first bite.”

He smirked at me and I shrugged in response. What could I say? I may have been a captain, but a captain without his crew. That’s just plain rubbish. Amaryllis’s voice boomed over our heads with radio static.

“Exit route in three, two, one!”

The whole ship tainted with green, then light blue, and finally a darker shade of purple that degraded into a deep black. We all stayed there in silence. No jump. No sudden braking, nothing. I already said that hyperspace was ultimately boring.

“Eeeehm… Amaryllis?” Viking broke the silence. “Light, please.”

Through the window bay could be seen nothing but emptiness towards infinity. the blackness was peppered with small dots of light, far, far away. I closed my eyes, and the lamps of the deck zoomed into life, throwing us all in a dim orange glow.

“Sorry,” she said from her uncomfortable position, not using her intercom this time. “I told Starscape he should replace the reactor. It tends to malfunction more and more.”

“You pay for it,” I challenged, walking away not to hear her rant.

I pressed my head on the cold window and tried to see the sun.

“Amaryllis?” I called.

“On it,” she shouted.

No need to look at her to know her movements. She leaned on the left and pulled her right forehoof and right hindleg closer to her body as she tilted her head down, pulling on both her wings. The ship shifted path instantly, creaking as it suddenly tore through space on its left. Like many, I tensed my left hooves to stay upright.

Slowly, a dim round yellow light made its way before the window bay. A sun, old and dying out, lit our faces with its cold shafts of light. Even though, as a captain, I had seen such scene hundred of times, if not thousand, it still had its own little effect.

The ship beeped, calling many of us back to reality. The window bay suddenly flashed with many numbers, data, and pictures, three of which were planets. And one… had an atmosphere. Booya! I was already rubbing my hooves.

“Attention, crew,” Amaryllis began through her microphone. “Three planets have been discovered so far. No moons, but one planet does have a series of rings. Viking and team Parsec will take care of the smallest planet, no atmosphere but the surface bears traces of an old volcanic activity. You’re up for some gold mining and meteor scavenging. Nebula and team Cadrant will take care of the second planet, no atmosphere but many water residues can be found on the poles. You’re going to mine some deuterium for the reactor and auxiliary compounds, otherwise we can say adios to coming back to Erikea.”

I rushed in front of her habitacle, put my hooves on the glass protection, and gave her my saddest puppy eyes.

“I know that you’ll find somewhere deep in your heart…” I started.

“Alright, alright,” she sighed and switched back on her intercom. “Captain Starscape will lead the last team on the last planet. I haven’t got all the details yet as it’s nearly behind the sun. Though it has an atmosphere. Crew… eh, what are you doing!?”

My head and one hoof inside the habitacle, I struggled to reach her microphone. I finally pressed one forehoof on the mare’s face and reached the mic’.

“And Albion, you come with me!” I asserted.

Even muffled by the soundproof glass of the navigator’s post, I heard the poor white Earth Pony android vent her no-no.

₮ ₰ ₣ ₪ ₹ ₸ ₢ ₸ ₹ ₪ ₣ ₰ ₮

After we had passed by the first two planets where we left two teams of thirty ponies go down with auxiliary ships and their mining and exploration equipment, Amaryllis pushed on the Dust’s reactors. As we wanted to reached the last planet, she used the natural gravity pull of Finistère’s small sun, we reached the planet’s orbit after a two-hour trip. Finally, we could get some more information on the planet.

While the remaining crew was looking at the planet, its atmosphere flashing with monstrous lightning bolts, Albion was staring at me. Was she trying to set me on fire with her icy eyes? But so was life, we don’t often get what we want, as everything.

“Captain?” Amaryllis called, this time preferring not to do it through an intercom.

I broke away from the stare contest Albion was assured to win –Androids don’t need to blink– and walked up to my navigator. Her green eyes were perplexe. She raised an eyebrow when I put my head in her habitacle.

“Something’s wrong, honey?” I hinted.

She rolled her eyes and from the tip of her hoof poked on a hologram hovering next to her chest.

“You told me the system has just been discovered, am I right?”

I nodded, “Yeah, satellites found it one or two weeks ago.”

“Well,” she retorted. “I don’t think it is as unexplored as you think.”

She moved her hoof across the habitacle, she brought the orange hologram at my eyes level. It was a picture of the planet we had headed to. A red spot was flashing on its surface and like a legend on a graph, the waves of sound signal was live:

· · · — — — · · ·

“Is that?” I started.

“Morse code,” she confirmed. “Old signal. Very old. And it’s repeating like a loop every four to five seconds. However, the time gap between two emissions is not constant.”

She let silence sink in as her eyes drifted towards the window bay. The same hologram was displayed on the glass so everypony could see. As such, I wasn’t the only one to have unanswered questions.

“You tried a contact?”

“No. Following the code of navigation it is not advised until we have a clear view on the target. There has been too many pirate attacks in the recent years,” she growled.

I nodded again. Albion had her lectured more than once on the subject.

“Try to put us in low orbit, so that we get an orbital view of the emission point. Send a message to team Parsec and team Cadrant. I don’t want Viking and Co. to be left in the unknown.”

“Okay…”

“What is that code?” I asked while I poked on the hologram.

I wasn’t literate in morse. I had heard of it sure, but it hadn’t been used for like what… Three hundred… five hundred galactic years. Amaryllis broke her eye contact with me and lowered her head, biting a bit on her lower lip.

“It’s a mayday,” she sadly said.

We looked at each other gravely.

“A what?” I retorted.

“Oh, my goddess!” she eructed, shoving her head in her hooves. “A S.O.S., you idiot!”

“Ah…” I looked at the planet through the holograms and HUDs showing on two layers of glass between me and space. “Try to make a contact back in morse, there might an answer.”

Amaryllis closed her red eyelids and a high-pitched series of fast and slightly less fast beeps filtered through the sound attenuation of the cabin. It emitted for ten to fifteen seconds before she opened her eyes again. What we heard back was silence. We looked at each other in complete bewilderment. The signal red pointer on the picture had disappeared. Only twenty seconds later it went back to life with the same three short, three long, three short beeps. I poked on Amaryllis’s microphone, flooding the Dust with my voice and speaker saturation.

“Alright, lads, pack your bag!” I warned. “The planet is inhabited and there is a distress signal coming from down below. This is not a scavenging mission anymore. So let’s get our shiny asses on deck.”

Amaryllis punched on a series of button and the light inside the ship turned blaring red, with a loud siren coming from the speakers.

“Everypony with their personal transponder flashing, get on to the choppa. The Dust isn’t made for atmospheric entries.”

Already, ponies were running to their posts. Looking back at Amaryllis, whose coat made her nearly invisible in the bright red light, I winked.

“You better watch on me from up here,” I hinted.

“Don’t worry,” she snarled. “I’ll have my guns on your damn plot.”

I extracted myself from her cabin and turned around...

… and nearly bunked my head on Albion’s. I shook my head.

“Only I am authorized to use puppy eyes, Albion.”

“I don’t want to go. It’s all stinky and dirty out there.” She caught my sarcastic stare as I looked on my right and left at my very ship. “Even more than here.”

“I need a traductor,” I said. “Who knows what’s waiting on that planet? And you’re my spokepony.”

She pouted.

“I’ll give you a gift if you come,” I promised.

Her eyes lit up with hopes.

“Promise?”

“With a cupcake in my eyes.”

She giggled. “Okay, but if I ever get stained, you pay the repairpony.”

I facehoofed.

“You’re water-repellant, Albion.”

She tilted her head on the side and agreed, “You’re right. You’re right.”

We were thirty-six to take place in the last navette the Dust had in its hold. On the way to the vessel dock, Amaryllis had briefed us on the planet’s nature: Humid, with a breathable atmosphere but constant acidic rains that made it improper to life. Who was left stranded down there was in bad luck, bad shape, or just close to dying.

My crew and I were too poor to get full protection suits and the pressurised suits were used by the other teams as I was speaking. As everything we had, patchwork stuff and makeshift instruments, some of my engineers had created temporary force-field umbrella we could hold in our mouth, giving enough protection for a dozen of us. Advice: give it to the most annoying pony of the group so that he can’t talk. This time, it was me...

The surface of the planet was a barren desert of soaked black rocks. The sky was darkened by black clouds with blueish edges, crying a flood of yellowish murk that slid off the shield above our head. At least twice a minute, a gargantuan lightning bolt slashed through the sky. Each time, the light was strong enough to make us all wince. The shattering rumble of thunder that followed made the ground quake.

Albion was the only one to wander out of the protection, the dangerous rain trickling off her like clean water. She enjoyed playing under the jealous pairs of eyes darting at her. She tip-toed in between the brown puddles, sometimes jumping wholeheartedly in one. Always, she walked out as white as snow.

“Eh, captain?” A grey stallion patted my shoulder. “I’ve got something on the radar.”

All who could looked at the small screen sitting in front of the stallion face. Held at the tip of a mechanical arm stretched from a series of contraptions harnessed to his back, it flashed a big orange shape.

We had landed at the bottom of an old mountain, beheaded by what seemed to be an old volcanic eruption. As we walked forward we reached the edge of a cliff that gave to a canyon. Crashed at the bottom was a massive shape of bricks and rocks, chiselled and shaped artificially.

“It’s a building, Capt’n.”

It was, indeed, not Nature’s work. Even though it was the night on that part of the planet, the flashes of the thunderbolts gave us a pretty good idea of the location. Fallen in the canyon in the wake of an apocalyptic landslide, what seemed to be an old fortification had been mangled by time and horrific weather conditions. If there had once been paint on those dark rocks, it was gone now.

In between two counterforts made of old pieces of bricks that had to weigh half a hundred tons, we found the remain of an old door. Only a frame was left…

“Is that…” a mare gasped.

“Pure gold,” Albion confirmed with a nod, lifting a bit in between her hooves, not risking to bit on it and get some acid in her mouth. That part wasn’t protected.

Who had lived here was a mystery. Yet, something was still in there and the marking on the stallion’s radar was yet another proof.

“We will take the gold when we’re certain the area is safe,” I ordered gravely.

Nods answered me and we entered the ruins, careful not to step on any potential traps. As we crossed the open gate, the shield fit snugly the frame and the walls of the corridor behind. The force field spared us the streams dripping from the holes in the ceiling. I loved my engineers.

Some walls were covered with rotten and blackened tapestries whose contours and colours had been mangled by time. The wind wiggled in the alleyway through the holes in some few broken windows, whistling in our ears. Ruins, I hated that. You often stumbled across old corpses and notes from a past best left forgotten, prayers to some gods and goddesses, supplications, administrative papers… All the boring stuff. What my crew needed, what I needed, was money to get by the next month. Papers never helped.

As we passed by a large hall, a bas-relief carved into a wall caught Albion’s attention.

“Look, look,” she said, excited.

We closed down on her and found ourselves in front of a sculpted scene that represented six ponies sitting around a large table. I counted two Earth Ponies, two Pegasi, and…

“The fuck is that?” I asked.

Albion looked closer and snorted.

“You have dropped out of history class, haven’t you, Captain?”

“Yeah, yeah, I was more interested in blowing stuff up with what I learnt in chemistry.” I rubbed my face, blowing the dust that floated aloft in front of my muzzle. “What…”

“Those are Unicorns,” she explained.

By the look on my companions’ face, I wasn’t the only ignorant here.

“An extinct pony race. I think the last one lived eight hundred years ago. there are many myths about them. It was even before we went to the skies.”

“Were they rich?” A blueish mare asked in the background.

Albion shrugged.

“Maybe. I don’t know. It’s been a long time. What they had back then might not exist anymore.”

I turned back to look at my team.

“Well, by looking at the entrance door, I guess we can get some booty out of here. So let’s find the signal first, then it’s first arrived, first served.”

With smiles, we left the bas-relief and went down a series of circular staircases. To my stupefaction, everything, though ruined, still stood through some miracles I couldn’t understand. However, I guess I was sharing the same level of uneasiness with everypony as the floor creaked at each of our step.

“The signal comes from here,” the stallion whispered, a white Albion watching over his shoulder. “One contact.”

He pointed at a nearby door. I heard weapons getting unstrapped and held firmly in more than one mouth.

Looking at the ceiling, I saw for the first time wires and cables dangling. Some still in one piece sparked with electricity. It was the first proof of technology we had encountered on Finistère.

A distinct beeping was coming from the room. We took position in silence and braced ourselves. Somepony sneezed behind the door. We all tensed, glanced a last time at each other, and took a deep breath. In one charge, we burst in and held our guns to the only occupant of the room.

“Don’t move,” I roared. “Identify yourself.”

The chamber was room to one single huge computer screwed to a wall. Large and thick red, blue, and green wires was connected to it, running toward a large parabola left in a corner of the room. Large red diodes were flashing on a transmitter cast in the machine. A hand was jerking on an analog interface as the machine spat its three short, three long, three short tones. It was a monster from an era that was far beyond my understanding. But the awe left its place for shock as my eyes wandered down toward the operator.

There she was, one single orange filly with a deep purple mane with two streaks of pink. Alone, she stared at us with wide blue eyes, a hoof pressing on a single key, wrestling one long beep out of the machine.

Once the surprise gone by, she turned her head from us back to the button and pushed again. Three shorts. Three longs. Three shorts. Again and again.

My crew looked in stupor. After a long moment spent observing her, I broke rank and walked up to her. I waved my hoof in front of her blank eyes.

“Hey, how are you?” I asked. “What’s your name?”

She stayed as silent as a rock, focused on pushing on the keys the same repeated notes. I looked back at my team.

“Come on, lads!” I teased. “It’s just a lone filly. I’m sure there is a crash site somewhere around here. If I found that place, I’m sure somepony else did.”

My words met a cold silence only a white mare could break.

“D- Don’t you see what’s wrong with her, captain?” Albion’s voice seeped in the silence that built between my team and the lonesome filly.

“No.” I shook my head as I looked back at her.

She was just a filly, weak and innocent in such a remote place. She was … Wait… a filly with a horn.

“Is that a Unicorn?”

I was breathless. No, wait again... She… She had wings too. Every head whirled in Perfide Albion’s direction.

“What is that?” we all blubbered.

For once, the white walking dictionary said no word. Her eyes locked on the filly, Albion just shrugged.

2015 project - The Child of Solace - Chapter 1

Prologue.

“Damn you, Celi’! For those dang damn annoying sailing boats can’t fly in space! Where shall I hoist my black flag now?!”

Captain Pipsqueak the First!!! (Yes. With three exclamation points, you peasant!)

₮ ₰ ₣ ₪ ₹ ₸ ₢ ₸ ₹ ₪ ₣ ₰ ₮

Viking rubbed his forehooves together while his teeth were unconsciously munching over his lower lip.

“So…” He stopped and sighed.

His eyes riveted on the winged unicorn filly, the bulky blue stallion had a hard time hiding his uneasiness. For the tenth time, he ruffled through his short yellow mane with his twitching ear. I couldn’t tell if it was the wings, the horns, or the combination of both that crept him out.

The filly met his stare, glared blankly for a few seconds at him before she focused back on what she was doing: building… something out of the paper she had snatched from our table. I couldn’t tell what she was trying to fold. We had brought her back to the Dust. Surprisingly the filly had showed no sign of resistance. She had cried a bit thought… at least until we had given her back the morse straight key. We had unplugged it and brought back the old antique computer with us.

She never spoke to us. She simply grunted and fidgeted when we entered our auxiliary spacecraft and went back to the Dust. The look on her face when we went from natural gravity to a short period of zero gravity then back to its artificial ersatz amused the team.

“... How much is it worth?” Viking dropped with a smirk.

His words echoed a few seconds in the nearly empty cockpit of the Dust. At least until Amaryllis raised her voice.

“Bravo…” She applauded very, very slowly. “Another like this one and it’s the door for you…Out. No respirator. No suit.”

She was overplaying the sarcasm in my opinion. I thought the joined dagger-glaring stares of Albion, Amaryllis, Nebula, and I were enough for Viking to get the message.

Nebula scratched her forehead with her claws. Eeyup! Nebula, tall on her two hindlegs and scary with her rows of sharp teeth and her ebony fur, wasn’t a pony at all. With her two yellow darting eyes and the two streaks of red marks on her cheeks, she was one frightening hell of a Diamond Dog. She was my mechano and Amaryllis’s best friend as well. Let’s say that when I recruited my red ball of silk-fur, that ruthless, rustic, and drinking-oriented female alpha came as a business gift.

“This gonna be so much trouble…” she grumbled, her talon tips biting slightly in her leathery skin.

She was the one who’d issued the ‘no child on board’ rule. Not that I ever had children on the Dust but... by showing her around the reactor and key parts of the propulsion system she had asked me about that. No, I know you’re coming to a false conclusion right now, and no! We do not behave like kids on the Dust… I promise.

“Well,” I broke the chit-chatting. “We found her. Now what? We ain’t going to dump her back on that rock.”

“I’d rather like to understand what it is first!”

That gleeful voice belonged to our pristine white Albion, touring around the filly as she scanned her from head to tail with her picky blue eyes. Curiosity was distorting her face with a large smile.

“It’s an incredible discovery, Captain!” she assured. “You’ve found some kind of hybrid between a Pegasus and an extinct Unicorn, I think. It’s incredible! The mates that did that might have dumped that chimera her by fear of…”

“Albion,” Amaryllis warned. “Not you too. I’ve already too much to deal with Viking’s piraty ways to have to listen to your creepiness.”

Albion lifted her head and pouted at the Pegasus.

“No, Albion,” Amaryllis seeped in. “No experiment. No attempt to see ‘what’s inside’. No medical scanner and other X-ray carpet-bombing.” Albion extended her hoof at the navigator pleadingly. “And no wiring to one of my computers.”

“Oh, come on!” Albion wailed, spreading her hooves wide in protest.

Doing so, she nearly knocked the filly off with the back of her hoof. The young pony dodged at the last second and grimaced at her. The orange filly pushed the android in retaliation. Or, to be honest, she tried. Her two little hooves bunked on Albion’s flank with a squish followed by tunk. Albion didn’t move at all while the filly’s hindlegs grinded on the floor. Her wings flapped around but Albion never moved. Androids were thicker than normal ponies. We just laughed.

The filly understood her attempt to topple her white aggressor down had failed. As such, she huffed, turned her back at Albion and resumed her origami...thingy.

“So, Albion,” Nebula asked with her voice as sharp as her teeth. “Got a name for this pony. Pegacorn?”

“Your idea is ugly as hell!” Albion stuck out her tongue.

I saw Nebula plucked her lips together. Yet, she said nothing.

2015 project - Fallout:Equestria [tbd] - Prologue

A black unicorn with a white mane strewn with red and gold stood before us. Velvet Remedy had crossed the barren wasteland, now NCR-claimed, to address us, Fillydelphians. For the occasion, we’d gathered in the recess dug in one of the hillsides that enclosed the outskirts of the city. A wooden stage had been set for her, built from the remains of the nearby houses. The desolation of the place couldn’t afford anypony better amenities.

“Hatred fueled this day and age. Yet, we no longer need to suffer the wrath of unnecessary evils.” With a wide berth of her hoof, she exposed the lay of the land to show the fittest of example. The massive walls of Fillydelphia still stood defiantly in the background. “We’ve let our homes be open to rage and destruction. We’ve depleted everything, resources, hope, and lives. All the wealth and richness Equestria once accumulated, gathered for over a millennium, now gone. We cannot conduct our lives anymore down the path to annihilation. We need not an empire of dust.”

Standing in front of a thousand of us and flanked by two large speakers, the Lightbringer’s companion hugged a patched-up microphone we’d scrapped for her. She blended with the ashen sky, her coat akin to the soot-blackened walls of the former slaver city. Even though the war had ended a few months ago, the city had barely changed. It kept bellowing squeals of steel. Its gardens of buildings and crooked metal skeletons creaked under the wind and roared in their collapses. Foul smokes still rose from the ever-burning craters and body piles. Only keen eyes could spot the premises of the endeavor tasked to the ponies still allowed by the NCR to roam around the city. A work of an upcoming decade that would see us erase the place, leave nothing of this Equestrian urban scar. All of us were recruits, former Fillydelphians, or soldiers, all brought up to the task. And soon enough, we hoped, we would harness the long-rumored Gardens of Equestria to cleanse this hallmark of cement, steel, and pain.

“The Wasteland is over,” Velvet Remedy said with a silk-like voice impaired by the chaffing ash blowing over us. “This land enters its renaissance, a slow but steady change. It will be a common effort from us all an only the future will tell us if we deserve this second chance. If hope was dead, we can rejuvenate it. I hope home will be back again. For you. For everypony. And maybe, maybe… for her.”

My throat tightened as a yellow pegasus, gaunt to the point of sickness, climbed her way up to the stage. She sighed and closed her eyes, fighting for her composure. We all knew her from a poster, a billboard, or at least from somewhere. As she neared towards the microphone, we hung at her every heavy breath, the clearing of her throat, eagerly expecting each of her rasping words. Words from another age, a better time of greens, yellows, and colors we’d never seen until recent days.

“Eh- Hello,” the pegasus murmured, brushing off the sweat gleaming on her forehead. “My name is Fluttershy. You must know me as I a- was a ministry mare. A long time ago. If my ministry once stood for an ideal, it was for a shared vision of the future. A future of healing and peace and restoration. I have stood by powerless as ponies enslaved, killed, or brought one down under the might of another. I cannot bear it now as I couldn’t bear it back then.”

I looked behind my shoulder at the assembly. We were febrile, assaulted by the elements and nasty grime carried by the winds from the city. Manes flew and snapped as gusts obscured our ranks. We were exhausted, our traits dirtied by the engineering work in and around the city. Though we had not put on the tunic of slaves, we sure had its look. At least the NCR fed us all. The army needed workers and many of us were eager to be employed.

My closest neighbor jabbed his elbow into my side, inviting me with a nod to focus back on the stage. Fluttershy was struggling with the sand and filth brought by the gale that ran in between her wings and legs. Velvet constantly kept by her side, helping her stand though she struggled herself.

“This common voice… we need to share it,” Fluttershy rasped. “We ought to make allies, friends, not enemies. We need builders, savants, leaders, whether plain or striped. Let’s welcome those who will join us in a common and shared project of hope. For once, let’s show kindness and make the first step. Without fear, without hatred, without shackles. Joining in for a better future will be our personal accomplishment.”

Her words shone like a beacon of light in darkness. But light didn’t go so far through the smog of Fillydelphia. Many of us were dubious of such grand parables from another time. Hope could only buy its way into gullible hearts. We had chosen the pragmatic deal. Though we weren’t conscripts, we still received orders from sergeants and NCR envoys. They would tell us to build walls, fill holes, salvage scraps. That was tangible. To rebuild was too uncertain and hazy. Bright visions of the future never went so far or worse, did walk thousands over the wrong cliff even in recent days. Such heartfelt speeches warmed the hearts but it didn’t fill plates.

Commandment had not drilled us into the hillside only for surprise invitees and propaganda, though. We’d been called, picked up out of the army lists for specific jobs we could fill. This charade was recruitment for an upcoming expedition. The NCR needed volunteers as another megaproject was coming up to shove. That they brought jewels to dangle like baits in front of our eyes triggered our suspicion.

“The NCR has refitted a troopship, the HMS Canterlot,” Velvet Remedy announced as she leaned over the microphone, raising eyebrows at the mention of such an old name. “We need a crew to pony it up and go… abroad.”

Whispers rose from among the crowd as two NCR higher-ups trotted up onto the stage. A major and a colonel walked imperturbably until they stopped by Fluttershy. Transfixed for a few seconds, their eyes lit in earnest and both beamed at the old mare. Fluttershy curled over at the sign of respect, trying to slip away. Only Velvet Remedy’s tender words calmed her down. A moment passed before Fluttershy looked up and returned a forced but gracious smile to the two military ponies. The Pegasus startled as the colonel sprung into a salute. Two hundred years might have passed, yet controversy still couldn’t outclass the rank of ministry mare.

The former Ministry of Peace hung her head low, rubbing one forehoof over the other. One of the star-spangled NCR representatives lingered with a compassionate smile. With a dawdled sigh, the major turned to the microphone and broke the silence we had all come to share. His voice was coarse and gritty, betraying a long habit of heavy smoking.

“We are currently lacking volunteers,” the major admitted. “The war, the wastes, the opening of the sky, and Red Eye. All worked together to take many in needless warring. Some may say, even testify, that we’re only a sliver from what we were or could have become. Rebuilding will only come to pass if we find ways to survive.”

We weren’t silent anymore. The crowd spoke rumors born in the instant. We looked at each other expectantly. We were offered on a plate the opportunity to leave Fillydephia and its filth. Yet, the words of going abroad sowed angst and distrust.

“The NCR is struggling to find technology, industrial assets, tools… anything we can salvage or trade. In the latter case, if possible, negotiate to hire skilled workers to help us in the effort.” He brushed his mane back behind his ear and looked over to his superior who returned an approving nod. The major continued, “The HMS Canterlot is ready to sail. The route, charted as we speak. The NCR council is planning a round trip from Baltimare further East across the ocean. A straight two thousand nautical miles to Zebrica, and another five-hundred sailed along its northernmost coastline to the Saddle.”

Zebrica. The sinister name tolled legends, unknowns, and dangers yet to be discovered. It spread through the crowd like wildfire, sparking cries of protest against the idea and a flurry of hoof stomps that clattered in the dust. Disgruntled ponies broke rank to walk away.

“Why?” somepony shouted only to be met with rumbling approval from us all.

“Because the Gardens of Equestria aren’t working for us,” the major gratingly replied, striking the ground with one heavy thud. “At least for now. The elements of Magic and Generosity are still nowhere to be found!”

Sullenness censored the crowd into silence. Some ponies on the verge of leaving stopped in their track to face the stage with heaving chests. As we stomached the news, we observed Fluttershy wince. A first sob darted through the air. A tinge of despair filled my heart as Fluttershy’s eyes began to glisten.

“This information will be broadcast today on the airwaves. Maybe it has already been. Due to unforeseen consequences and events, the NCR has activated its contingency plans. One of which is taking the HMS Canterlot and reaching Saddle Arabia. The target would be the ruins of Mustangbal, the Saddle’s capital.”

“Sounds like old time ranger shit!” a green unicorn near me burst out as the outcry exploded with renewed momentum. “I’m outta here.”

The incoherent brouhaha deafened Velvet Remedy’s calls as she stood at the microphone to reason with the crowd. Meanwhile, both NCR envoys retrieved yellowish papers from their saddlebags. A few minutes passed while they reviewed the documents.

The major and colonel threw worried glances at Velvet Remedy and Fluttershy. The four of them were stuck on the stage as masses of ponies blocked the stairs and road out of the hillside. The major leaned over to the colonel to exchange a few words before walking towards Velvet. He appeared to thank her despite her fruitless attempts. The unicorn then backed away from the microphone. Alone at the stand, the major weighed up the crowd who focused on him with darting, angry eyes. As the upset slowly receded, he drew a large breath and sighed.

“The NCR is in a dire situation,” he admitted. “We face downturns with water supply and food production, daily! We never have enough to feed everypony properly. We lack water for our future crops, and our needs keep growing. That’s why the NCR council has decided to send contingents across land and sea. To find anything that helps! The mission we are tasked to staff involves a twenty-day crossing, including fifteen in open ocean. Then, six months searching for assets at the destination before initiating a return. The expedition is dangerous but we’re not ordering anypony to go. We’re only looking for volunteers.”

Unphased, ponies clamored in disapproval. Many were walking away again, cruising by the stage and spitting at the ground to get at the envoys. Those who stayed drummed at the ground in a barrage of hoof stomps.

“We’re no steel rangers,” someone cried out. “Why would we even go steal from ponies on the other side of the world?”

The major and colonel shared a look of defeat. They gaped when Fluttershy left Velvet Remedy’s side and slithered past them to stand in front of the stage. As she tapped her soft hoof on the mic next to her, the vocal assault from the crowd settled into an eerie silence.

“Please, pretty please,” she pleaded before wiping the dust settling on her muzzle. “We’re not thieves. We are ambassadors. We do not wish to cause harm nor deprive anypony of their hard-earned labor. We do not wish you to kill, to steal or to lie.”

“Are we going to hand out megaspells like candy again?” spat a lone pony stallion hidden among us.

A brawl erupted around the culprit. As screams and audible punches split and shuffled the crowd, Fluttershy shrunk away from the front of the stage. Blanched, mute, she slumped to her haunches and broke into tears.

Velvet Remedy reached past her and grabbed the microphone. She brandished the improvised mallet and brought it down on the floorboard in a flurry of ear-splitting electrostatic shrieks. The combat grounded to a halt as the cacophony threw some of us to the ground covering our ears. As the saturation from the speakers died, everypony turned to the charcoal pony and the simper crawling on her face.

“You’re no more worth than raiders if you’re so eager to fight,” the unicorn chastised into the warped and beaten up contraption with an accusing hoof pointed at us. “The past is the past. If the HMS Canterlot finds survivors in that Saddle city, you will offer help! As ambassadors like Fluttershy said. Now you listen clear, ponies. We’re talking about the future of Equestria here. We’re done playing turf wars. Our survival in the short run is at stake. Your own survival.”

Security barged in to separate a writhing body gasping for air from a troop of hooligans. Blood was pooling under the huddled figure and a circle of red hoofprints separated him from the nearest pony. Fluttershy rushed over and cried for anypony to help her carry the victim to the nearest hospital tent.

Velvet Remedy took her leave from the two NCR envoys and ran to catch up with Fluttershy. Helpers paced behind her, lifting the makeshift stretcher and the crying pony tucked on. Fluttershy was still weeping when she left along with Velvet Remedy. They both split the horde of ponies huddled against the stage by their simple presence.

A long moment passed till the major took hold of the microphone. “Mustangbal is… was a ten thousand square miles city,” he resumed. “The largest city in the world pre-war. It’s locked between the Arabian deserts, mountain range, and sea. Back before the war, the city had a massive commercial harbor. That’s where the NCR council tasked the HMS Canterlot to go.”

The crowd erupted in complaints and refusals over the major’s stubbornness.

“I know you have many questions,” he reassured. “We’re not recruiting volunteers for a plunder. Some of you may know that Saddle Arabia betrayed Equestria at the start of the war, two hundred years ago. Even though we fought them, technologies key to our survival were created there and only later retrieved by Equestrian forces during the war. The water talisman is the most important technology that came out of the Saddle and their Zebra allies.”

No water talisman factories survived in Equestria, long-lost or destroyed. Most ponies who’d never seen one thought they just produced water indefinitely. In reality, they simply were the best purification tools available to us. Their value was inestimable. Their price so high, talismans were targets by all the powers at play. It was worth a rich lifetime in Tenpony, a quick and swift attack by steel rangers, or the extermination of a pristine stable. The last factory had belonged to Red Eye. One of the marvels of one-eleven now lost after his demise and that of his city. The ruins of the factory now stood in the destruction wrought by Operation Cauterize, behind the Fillydelphia’s walls.

“That’s why going to the Saddle is so important,” the major hammered to us. “They had massive talisman factories before the war to desalt sea water, and we need to purify water for out agriculture. At an industrial scale! Without the Gardens, we won’t have enough crop production to feed both the Enclave refugees and the wasteland inhabitants banging at the NCR’s doors.”

“Just kick the chickens out,” someone derided. “What have they done for us? Look what they even did to us!”

The major sighed as he faced a tough panel of judgmental soldiers, workers, and former slaves. The colonel walked forward and took place by his peer before the microphone. Younger and taller, he gaged us from the extra height of the stage.

“We’ve already been bled dry and we can’t turn our muzzle up at valuable workforce,” the colonel quipped. “If we can find a talisman factory in the Saddle and bring it back here… It will afford us far more freedom of movement. It might even save the future of Equestria; It’s a matter of life and death.”

“Is there special pay for the job?” somepony inquired, sparking a wave of interests and agreements.

“No. Not upfront at least,” the colonel confessed. “The NCR is looking out to ensure peace in Equestria despite most supplies running low. The council decided to hedge our bet by sending contingents in different places at once. To make sure we increase our chances to get something that helps. This is why we need volunteers for a dangerous trip to the other side of the world. No riches. No glory. We’re not setting you up for a pillage or a trip to the moon. This is a military rescue mission.”

As the speech ended, the colonel drew up a long paper. With a booming voice, he listed the specificities of the trip, the skillsets the expedition sought after, the ranks and former experiences needed on board the ship. He had not yet finished speaking that several officers arrived by the road from Fillydelphia with tables to set alongside the edge of the track. From wooden crates, they drew large blank registries that would be filed by the end of the day. This was a career fair, old-world style.

“All volunteer, raise your hoof,” the major called. “We will also provide a series of names from ponies working around Fillydelphia we would personally like to see on board. We will pin the list to the wall of the resting camp.”

A substantial portion of the crowd raised their hooves. The rest turned and marched to our barracks, preferring dismantling Filly as a definite and more secure employment.

As an earth pony, I was neither a remarkable fighter nor an expert in any specific combat field. I was still raising my hoof. I would discover later that my name, Papercut, would figure on the colonel’s list. The ship needed a quartermaster and I was one of the available inventory managers and accountants attached to Fillydelphia’s operations. Of all of them, however, I was the only one with a firm advantage secured around my hoof, shining in the afternoon light above my head. A Pipbuck.

“Good evening, my little ponies,” the soothing voice of DJ-Pon3 dinged in my ear. “Every day we see more and more ponies coming to NCR territories, seeking food, water, security, whatever help to be found. Let’s not deny it, we have those in quantity. But for how long can we keep up this wonderful charity? If we do nothing, it will never be enough. My little ears told me the NCR is shifting in its plans. Their own words: to have security, we need stability. There is no best way to have the latter than when ponies are quenched and fed. But food needs water to grow. And water, the real kind I mean… not that common irradiated sludge… we’ve been low on it for a long time. It’s been a hard time for us all. Rationing is painful to deal with and it will only get harder in the future. To avoid another resource war, the NCR has launched a vast operation… one that will even lead some Equestrian hooves into places untrodden in two centuries.”

Author's Note

Short Description:
To save the Wasteland from civil war, the NCR sends a task force to Saddle Arabia to retrieve technology to insure its future safety.

Long Description:
Activating the Gardens of Equestria is at a standstill. With the last Elements nowhere to be found, the NCR decided to send search parties across the wasteland, the Equestria continent, and abroad. Only one goal: bring back any technology able to stop the famine on the horizon if the GoE fails.

Among those parties is the HMS Canterlot, a refitted troopship sent by the NCR to Saddle Arabia. Hoping to bring back a working water talisman factory, the ship and its crew aim at Mustangbal, the largest city in the world before the war.

Jul. 2016 - Untitled

I woke up to the smell of sludge and the noise of creeping water. I was cold, soaked to the bone as I lay face down in a narrow and inundated tunnel.

I jerked out of the streaming water and took in a short, panicked breath. My head hit the ceiling of the tunnel, banging out a metallic echo. I was trapped in a flooded vent, somewhere I didn’t know about.

I groaned and hauled myself to a reasonable height. My hooves hurt and my ears rang out loud. I tried to stretch but there wasn’t enough space. Pain gripped my heart and I sought for more space. I wished I could breathe. I couldn’t find a comfortable position. Too high on my haunches, my head scrapped against the sharp and ripped apart ceiling. Too low, I was forced to swim and suffocate in murk and rotten water. In all my distress, I wanted out.

A violent shake tore through the vent, throwing me on my side and submerging me under the murk. My head hit a metal slab and white pain shot through my shut-closed eyes. I screamed and gulped rushing stream of mud. My body slid away dangerously. I felt like tumbling down the throat of a giant. MY head banged against a metal edge and I lost strength for a second. A disgusting taste of copper filled my mouth and I couldn’t scream, out of fear I’d drown. In here, trapped, darkness and deep water were my only companions.

Shivers wracked through my body and I shot my head outside the water. Struggling to breathe, I wailed and hacked my hooves around me in the dark until I settled against a small crossway in the vent. Eyelids heavy, I hauled myself up into the diverging vent, still spared from the flooding at the moment.

“… V-…!”

White noise crackled in the tight vent, shooting a sudden and nerve-paining shudder along my backbone. I looked down and saw a tiny red light glowing right next to my flank. It was like a devouring eye, looking deep into my soul, seeking for some fears to feast upon.

“Vox!”

The voice came and go with interferences, spewed by a tiny metal box screwed to my belt. The red diode glowed brightly then died as I tried to reach for the contraption. I dropped against the metal floor and the tools strapped to my hide with long leather bands banged loud and clear in my ears.

“Vox, answer me!”

I scrambled to the com-link, prodded around in the blackness, and hit the outward transmission button.

“Vox reporting,” I croaked, trying to spit away the taste of spoiled mud. “I’m… here.”

“Vox, where were… Wh-… are you?” a mare’s voice cried out from the other side. “It’s been… five hou... I can’t reach... well.”

Five hours… I had been crawling in a gutter for five hours.

“I’m…” I hesitated, fell silent, and contemplated darkness around me. “I’m lost. I’m trapped.”

White noise was the only thing that answered me afterward. I switched the item on and off for a few minutes until I lay stoic, hugging tight the broken device.

The ground shook and roared under mighty forces, covering my sobs.

Crying out in pain, I pushed myself on my hooves and forward. I climbed and bit on whatever lay around to help me move up, away. Half drowning, half suffocating in the dankness of the place, I fought the whirl in my guts that wanted me to vomit and crawl into a ball. I was going to die.

Thunder cracked and spurted in the distance, distorted by the contorting and broke apart vent. Rumbles quaked through the pipes that bared my route. With a cry, I punched my way through, hitting down the vent holding my monkey wrench in my mouth. I felt a tooth crack and shatter. With no horn to lit my way onwards, there was just noises, water, and death.

I gasped in pain, shot forward on my shaky hindlegs and fumbled into a pit hole I hadn’t seen coming. In my screaming fall, my head hit a piece of steel. I rolled butt over head, hit a slope, and fast-paced forward through an old, rusty and patched up fence set to bar access to the rest of the vent. I came to a sudden halt against the dead-end. My body cried out in pain and breathless, weightlessness took hold of my senses.

I fell again and my back hit something squishy and wet. Light shot through my eyes and blinded me as a cold and raging rain battered my hide. I heard clearly the deluge of water happening all around me, drumming over my bare back. With the rain forcing me down, I crawled eyes-shut toward the nearest place where the downpour was less intense. I found refuge under a decrepit concrete embankment and dropped exhausted on the wet and grassy floor.

It took me minutes, if not an hour to get my eyes to open. The light was of a blinding white and it was with fear that I slowly lifted my head to watch a dangerously grey sky, rumbling with thunderbolts that cracked across the natural low ceiling.

Life underground had had my eyes gone to shit. It had had everypony forget the concept of sunlight. After all, who wanted to live outside anymore? Life there was impossible, and it was why, as I sucked in the fact that I was cut from the city and left stranded outside, that jolts of adrenaline sparked in my chest.

I needed to go back.

Febrile, I looked upward at the smashed open vent I had fallen from. It stood out ten hooves above my head and extruded from a sandstone cliff that had no practical grip which could help me climb.

I was trapped. Outside.

A thunderbolt slit in half a nearby tree, starting a fire on its dead, bleached-white bark Deep shadows crawled on the surroundings like black, contorted, and moving hands. I was in the middle of a forest and the horizon was hidden by endless rows of dead trees. The sky was empty and grey and a crawling fog obstructed sight past a hundred yards at most.

It was raining, and that rain hadn’t stopped for twenty long and horrible years.

Equestria? Gone.

The diarchy? Gone.

All semblance of comfort and safety? Gone.

Civilisation? Don’t even talk about that.

I had no memories of the years before. I was two years old when the Deluge began. I had no recollection or memories from that time except, maybe, some wild dreams I had had during my childhood spent underground.

Raven-Flank.

One of the last equine cities that still survived the wasteland… murkyland that once was Equestria. We took refuge twenty years ago, deep underground, locked behind concrete walls the rain couldn’t reach.

A grave growl echoed in the distance, far beyond the veil of fog that stopped my vision. First inaudible, the grunt rose to a heart-sickening litany. The world shook around me and trickles of wet dust fell on my muzzle. I tried to hide under my improvised cover and shrunk on my shivering hooves.

In the earth’s bowels we despaired behind closed doors, for we knew that the outside was not for ponies anymore

The verse I had once read in a book which name I had forgotten crawled back in my memories. MY heartbeat upped a notch and my breath, erratic, pained my chest.

Something moved in the fog, skeletal, black, and of disproportionate crookedness. A shadow crawled at the surface of the fog, fast enough I questioned if my eyes were playing fool with me. Like a fin slowly surfacing the water, the shadow returned, and the growl became louder.

What did I saw? I couldn’t tell as I didn’t know what it was. The fog hid everything. But cold sweat ran across my back and my mane crawled. The rain had not been alone in bringing down our world. With the deluge something else had come.

Something lurks beyond the veil, fillies, so behind wielded vault hide and don’t seek, in fear it catch you, sillies.

And as all the souvenirs from my classes where a remorseful old buck had lectured us on the outside’s deadly manners, I tried to squeeze myself deeper in the mud. Below the concrete porch, I found myself alone, covering my eyes, listening to the song of rain hitting the ground and washing it away. What had once been a forest had become a dead swamp, rotten and stinking. And I wasn’t alone.

A bird chirped nearby, jolting me out of my petrified comatose. Small and rachitic, the bird had lost its colour. Grey and brown, fitting in the swamp, the petite creature chirped and tweeted. In starts and jerks, the bird jumped and turned on its branch. I focused and watched, fascinated to see that life stiff existed up above.

Then a rock snapped and gobbled up the tweeting thing. A maw made of sharp obsidian stumbled out of the cloud. High as a tree, the reptilian entity gulped down the prey and roared. Its back ran with sprouting plate of granite and the joints of its stone scales glowed a dull green. Then, it turned its head in my direction.

A rockodile.

Adrenaline shot through my veins as the monstrous being rushed in my direction, battling against the muddy ground that swallowed its heavy and large limbs.

It bought me seconds and the beast came crashing against the cliff, ripping it apart and throwing down a whole part of it. The vent opening disappeared below rubbles.

I screamed as I scrambled forwards, nearly swimming in the sludge that had covered the world. Algae wrapped around my legs and I felt trapped. The rockodile howled, turned, and charged. In its violent surge, the beast nudged me forward and threw me in the air. Thrust away, I hit a tree in a murky splosh and slid off its whitish bark. My head hit a rock and I staggered to stand up.

I ran. There was nowhere to go. I had lost my tools, my wrench, and everything else. Worse than anything, I had dropped my radio.

Swooping through the dead forest, hoping from stone to stone and slipping more than once, I put some distance between me and the monster. The creature barked and growled in anger behind me while it destroyed the trees that blocked its way.

Somehow, I found my way to a large clearing. Nearly straight and stretching far beyond the fog, it looked like a river that had spilled over. The rockodile smashed a tree a few throws away behind and I jumped.

As I expected to dive into water, I stretched my hooves to steady my river landing. I hid rock less than a hoof below the brown water. Something cracked around the kneecap of my right foreleg and I fell on the side.

Prodding the hidden ground below the water surface with my valid hoof, I felt many rectangular-shaped rock. My eyes shot open. This wasn’t a river. It was a road; an old, paved boulevard that had been swallowed by nature. I looked right and left and fear struck my heart. I had no hideout in my reach. Nowhere to hide. I couldn’t even crawled under water. I was dead.

I rolled over and saw the rockodile. Standing above me with a maw drooling murky green sludge, its foul breathe crawled upon my face. My heart came to a halt and colours drained off my face.

2016 project - Fallout:Equestria Break Even - 1

“A business is all about an idea. That idea is the prologue. The business, the adventure. The profit, of course, the treasure.”

*
* *

“Still dreaming, Even?”

I jumped out of my skin, threw off my binoculars. Hissing and gasping, I scampered away until the goggles flew back down and smashed in the back of my head. My heart drumming with dread, I lied my head buried in the dirt for a split second before I spun over. Hoping to fend off the sneak attack, I threw my hooves and laid eyes upon my opponent, and finally calmed down.

“Fuckin’ Mother Cap!” I blared, neighing out a long whine as I dropped a hoof on my beating chest. “Cat’! Don’t sneak up on me like that…”
My business partner smirked back at me with a fair share of disappointment in her blue eyes. As I didn’t answer, she joined me in gazing at the landscape. I grumbled about as I picked up my now cracked goggles.

Scanning over the land with them was a tedious task. An ever-present smoke burned our lungs and made it hard to see. I had stopped counting the high-reaching pyres strewn before my eyes an hour ago. And it reeked.

“You’re crazy, Even,” she whispered. “You know that city’s dangerous. With your head in the pegasi-damned clouds, you gonna get us killed.”

Ablaze for what had surely been days, the fires filled the sky with ichor. If the Vault Dweller had really opened the sky like DJ-Pon3 said, we were standing somewhere definitely out of her reach. We were close to noon yet the sky was dark, dry and hellishly hot. At least, it didn’t rain.

“I wasn’t star-gazing, Catalina...” I frowned in discontent behind my binoculars. “Well… maybe a bit, just a teeny tiny bit.”

We stood on top of nearby hill made of scrap. Though it was a vantage point, I couldn’t see much. Anything worth my caps was definitely somewhere behind those big fortifications. I rubbed my eyes, expecting to clear my vision, and watched again over long and crumbled concrete battlements.

A sickly red hue crept over a ruined city recently brought to its knee. That bloody glow perspired through each shattered windows, reflected over the mud and struck me with morbid curiosity. The red that stained the streets was slowly washing away while grim shadows danced over countless bodies left to rot across barricaded boulevards.

The rumble of a building crashing down reached my ears. The home of death was shining brighter than any light-bulb had ever done for two centuries and too many had waited for that end to come. Fillydelphia was burning and it just made me smile.

“I know that face,” Catalina mumbled, gazing at me like I was a damn book, “and I don’t like it.”

I grumbled back when she poked me in the side. Well… let’s say I told her to ‘fuck off’. She yanked my mane back and I whined as she forced our eyes to meet. Mild disappointment and some bottled-up anxiety, the kind of stares she granted me much too often.

“You’ve got an idea.” Why did she have to make it sound like I was a mad scientist? I was just a wandering merchant! “You know how I feel about that.”

“I think we can pull something here,” I grunted back, smacking my mane out of her grasp with the back of my hoof. “Can’t you see that?”

I pointed at Fillydelphia while I picked and rolled the inside of my cheeks between my teeth. Couldn’t she see that? I was onto an opportunity. I had a business idea. And I was ready to go in there. She was the one always talking about investing our funds into projects. There was my venture. She didn’t criticize it. She didn’t reply at all as a matter of fact.

“Fuck off,” I suggested again.

Her haunches dropped on the dirt and she crossed her legs to cover her eyes. We both let out a long breath and didn’t talk for a moment. I hated when silence was the only answer.

“You take care of the accounts,” I initiated, rubbing my clunky neck with my hoof. “We. Need. Cash. You know that better than I do. And this city… it’s a lifetime chance.”

Her ears drooped a little and there she went rubbing her eyes like I had sprinkled sand in them. She didn’t even try to tame down that massive growl of hers.

“I never asked you to risk our lives in that city of death,” she scolded.

I closed my eyes behind my binoculars, letting my eye-sockets rest against the item, and the item against the ground. Dirt was so interesting that time of the year…

“Look,” I shot. “You know that I felt like something was happening with that Vault Dweller, right…? Am I right?!”

She hesitated for a second but didn’t answer. I took that as a nod.

“Does that mean you knew about that cauterize operation or whatnot?” she advanced.

“No,” I dryly laughed. “I would have loved though… To be honest, we were just lucky to be a week away from Fillydelphia when all the fuss started.”

I wiped the dirt off my binocular lenses onto my cornsilk fur, leaving two streaks of brown on it. My belly growled with hunger. I had only water for the past two days.

“What a chance you dragged me in the most dangerous place out there…” And here she went the sarcasm… again. “Very much thanks, Even.”

The city was definitely dead. War torn and fresh, ready to be harvested. The wreckage and its casualties were all that remained. What was down there was now only known by those who had managed to flee. Rumors were rumors but the truth? Only those who had died had it. Pegasi, slavers and slaves now rested in peace. And pieces. I chortled at the thought, which didn’t last. Catalina had smacked the back of my head.

“What are you thinking about?” she rumbled.

“Oh, nothing,” I lied, shaking my head off.

She wacked my left ear.

“Speak to me, for my sake!” she vented.

I massaged the hit spot and kept on chuckling. After a few minutes, I gave a big yawn and finally shared a look with my partner, letting my binoculars dangle around my neck. She wasn’t happy.

“Fucking empty head,” she muttered under her breath, turning away from me.

“I know. I know,” I cooed back as she watched over the chimneys towering Fillydelphia. “I think we’re the first scavenger around since the city fell.”

“And you think it’s a place for a merchant and his Brahmin?” she retorted with a voice that rang like a gunshot. “What about the raiders… slavers still inside? And the slaves? I’ve heard terrible things about what they do because of hunger.”

Not that I wasn’t going to do anything because of hunger…

I caught the brown and beige Brahmin’s grimace. Her two heads were torn with anxiety.

“Come on, Cat’,” I comforted, patting her on the heads. “You’re a big, intelligent girl. If I don’t know when to pull out, just tell me.”

“Didn’t I mention that in Friendship City already? Detrot? My Amie? God you’re thicker than a Brahmin’s forehead.”

We finally laughed. If some cows were considered lucky, Catalina could brag she was among the twice-lucky ones.

“Detrot…” I wandered in my thoughts. “I’d settle there. Business ops are fresh there.”

“I know you won’t.”

“Come on,” I whined, hugging her at the shoulders. “You’re a great partner. We will make a fortune together.”

With tired eyes, she sighed, “If you say so.”

We watched in silence over the dead hell before us. It was easy to forget it was still somehow Red Eye’s den. A gunshot rang afar and a disincarnated scream echoed in its wake, shushed a few seconds later.

“I think we did a mistake by recruiting my two old raiders,” I voiced after a painful gulp, looking over my shoulder to check that the two concerned earth ponies weren’t listening.

“Tribals,” Catalina countered.

I frowned at her.

“Eh, What?”

“They ain’t raiders, Even,” she continued. “They would have killed us right out the street when we met.”

“Oh, they are raiders, Cat’. But bear with me on this, the two down there… They owe me some...”

“Services?” she ended for me with not much conviction and a raised eyebrow.

“Eeyup,” I confirmed. “Otherwise, they are pure bred raiders. Old pals.”

Who said brahmin’s eyes couldn’t grow that big and menacing. As a result, I dunk my head between my shoulders and cowered away slowly. Maybe she wouldn’t notice. Then she calmed down and sighed.

“You’ve got interesting friends,” she noted.

“Long story,” I said, raising a hoof to cut any word from pouring out of her mouth. “Don’t ask for detail. It’s between the Cuts and I.”

The Cuts… The mare and stallion, twin by birth, who currently sat next to a campfire set further below the hill. From time to time we could hear them swears. They had been playing an exotic game for a few hours now. Backgammon it was called and, to my knowledge, they were the only ponies to do so in the whole damn Wasteland.

“You think they will turn on us?” Catalina whimpered, trying to bottle-up some panic mania only she could display. “Why are you saying you should have recruited more?”

“Cat’… Cat’,” I sighed, letting my rump hit the dirt while I patted her closest head. “No. I don’t pinch pick my contractors like I do with… my food, I guess. I trust them both.”

I stared back at the burning city. Who knew what awaited in the ruins of Fillydelphia? Slavers still kicking? Husks of slaves? Death or Fortune? I didn’t know and I was terribly impatient to make an idea for myself. And with the Cuts as our bodyguards, it should be a breezy. I knew them. They knew me. All was fine. Everything would be fine.

“I think I haven’t recruited enough ponies for that scavenger party,” I confessed after drawing a short breath. “That’s what I’m thinking about.”

Catalina snapped a small book out of my saddlebag. Biting over her lips, she glared hard at me with a mix of disappointment and down-to-earth attitude.

“We didn’t have the money,” she chipped in. “Accounts are in the red.”

“Thus why we’re here,” I stated again. “It’s a gold mine down there. Red Eye’s dead. His troops are… mostly dead. Time to harvest and make a profit for ourselves.”

“An’ us too,” a rough voice cackled in my back.

Cat’ and I jumped the further away from the voice and I landed on top of her – at least it wasn’t the opposite, not that I was calling her fat. Two foul-smelling ponies with messy rosy manes glared at us with threatening red eyes carved into scarred light steel blue faces. They wore dirty, patched-up armors, ones that had seen battles. A true knight is known by how weary his equipment looks. But those weren’t knights. They were raiders.

“Don’t worry, bro,” the mare slurred, patting her brother’s shoulder blades. “Break Even’s good pal. He won’t try to fuck us over. Could he? Eh, eh… he can hardly stand to his name.”

Thank you very much, Sharp Cut…

Sharp Cut was the most talkative of the two siblings. Her brother, Cutting Edge, was a pony of a few often incoherent words. Both fought close-combat like it was some kind of lost art and their hooves talked for them. The two had carried out the ritual taught by their forbearers even after their gang went extinct. Twice a year, they dipped their four hooves into molten iron, seeking to strengthen their body, mind and their uppercuts… It was peculiar and I always had doubts about the practice, especially when it could make them less… apt to be efficient bodyguards. Their last ritual had occurred five days ago and here they were kicking around like foals. I still couldn’t stare at their furless legs without a grimace, they reminded me mines.

I was myself an earth pony with a dirty white coat and a blonde and chocolate mane. Compared to my three team members, I was physically underperforming with not much to even the chances in a fight. But they were friends, or at least I thought them to be. I wore saddlebags made of Brahmin leather –Cat’ never said anything about it– and the only weapon I had was a self-made shotgun. Never fired it though. I was a trader and I paid for my security. Speaking of which, I shook my head and focused back on Sharp and Cutting.

“You ready?” I glanced down at Sharp’s forehooves. “I wouldn’t want you both in pain to…”

“Shoo,” she cut me off with a grin of her yellowish, shark-filed teeth. “We’ve never been pantsies like you. Hurting is good. It keeps us awake.”

Blabbering any witty remark was a bad idea with Sharp Cut. She wasn’t the mare to accept critics. Even less from me.

“Look guys,” I began, walking in between the two siblings. “I expected to go out at night but…”

I waved at the city and its horrendously thick black clouds throwing the city into darkness.

“You get me,” I kept going. “That city must be a goldmine for stuff like ammo, weapons, ingots, anything.”

“Well, duh!” Sharp grinned. “We ain’t your mules though. You paid us for protection, not transport. You’ve got a Brahmin for that stupid stuff.”

The raider mare elbowed Catalina whose face grew darker but didn’t waver. Cutting’s dumb laugh didn’t help in the regard.

“Break,” Cat’ muttered through gritted teeth. “Do something…”

I merely shrugged and she ambled away to sit as further away from Sharp as she could, not leaving me time to do anything.

“So, pretty face,” Sharp purred in my ear, “what’s today’s catch? You want to grab some chems in dem basements? Steals the weapons in the pit? Stockpiles the Red Eye’s slave collars?”

“Casts,” I broke in.

“Casts?”

Cat’, Sharp and Cutting had all said the magic word. Tasting the suspense in the air, I walked to the nearest rock against which I could lay my back. With a smile and tilting my head to mimic tipping an absent cowboy hat, I prepared my answer.

“How do you think ammos and weapons started flowing the Wasteland over the past decade?”

“Better scavengers?” Cutting breached in with a creeping smile.

He instantly earned a smack from his sister.

“Shut up,” she growled.

“Red Eye found blue prints and old factories in Fillydelphia. And he built those back up!” I explained. “And he had the Wasteland flooded with weapons, armors, ammo… Do you know that…”

“So what?” Sharp broke off my tirade.

I facehoofed.

“Look, creating a bullet, or a weapon requires a lot of things and some of those are casts and molds,” I detailed, hammering the floor with my hoof. “I want those casts.”

“You want to become an arm-dealer?” Catalina gasped, stepping away.

“Big words,” I snarled. “Bullets are the most useful items out there in the Waste. And nearly nobody knows how they are made.”

“Not true, we scavenged them,” Sharp countered, biting on her tongue like she had outwitted me.

“When was the last time you did find bullets in a trashcan or an envelope,” I huffed. “You loot bullets off traders’ bodies, right?”

Sharp stayed silent for a few second, scrunched her face to finally giggle like a foal. Her eyebrows raised, she glanced at me with mild amusement.

“You know the deal, Even.” She smiled with those Devil’s teeth. “You’ve seen how it works.”

A trickle of sweat rolled down my neck and I rubbed my legs together. They were tingling and I was cold. I shouldn’t sweat when I was cold.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“Anyway,” Cat’ chimed in. “You made us crawl to Fillydelphia for bullet casts?”

“Easy road from rags to riches,” I foretold. “The wasteland needs bullets and if I don’t go in and make them, somepony else will.”

“So that’s it?” Cat’ said, hiding her enjoyment far too well. “We’re going to risk our life to find casts to make whatever stuff we can…? We’re itinerant merchants, Even! What in the goddamn fucking Wasteland don’t you understand about the word itinerant?”

“Shut up,” I snapped, my neck twitching. “You’re always talking about putting the rifle on the rack, settling in… finding that… good patch of grass wherever you want. You’re just wishful thinking, Cat’! For once listen. I’ve got here the opportunity for you to settle. We won’t be young forever. So for the Wasteland Savior’s grace, shut up for once and do that!”

She hit me… What? For my ass’s sake, she smashed her hoof in my face.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, a hoof pressed on my hurt cheek.

She was crying.

“Oh, don’t do that to me, Cat’?” I gulped, rummaged my tongue inside my mouth with teary eyes. “We do it one last time. I think I’m right on that one.”

She huffed and that was the most painful one she ever gave me, “It’s always about you, isn’t it? You want to prove things to yourself, Even…”

She sighed and looked at the bleeding sky.

“We do it one last time,” she said, listening to the wind’s complain across the land.

“One last time,” I repeated with a smile.

I crawled back up to my hooves and stared at Fillydelphia. So many had died there and I was going to make a profit out of it. Like a true businessman. I shook my head and glanced at Sharp and her brother. Both had their face scrunched up like they had bit into a mutant lime crossbred with a taint pepper

“What?” Cat’ barked at them, taking the words out of my mouth.

Sharp raised her hooves in the air, zebra-like.

“Your couple’s affairs,” the raider mare defended. “Not mine and that’s as good as it is.”

Cat’ and I shared a look. We rolled our eyes and started walking down the hill.

“Grab your chips and board, Sharp,” I called. “We’re going in.”

She frowned and spoke up, “We’re ready?”

“What do you think?” I deadpanned. “I’ve watched over the fucking city for the past three hours.”

An infantile smile on her face, she drew a short breath and raised her hoof to make a point.

“I’ll explain the plan en route,” I cut off with a growl. “We move now.”

Well… we spent most of the walk to the walls of Fillydelphia in silence. The plan took me less than a minute to explain in fact. I had spotted a crack in the fortification wide enough to let a tank go through. With all the black marks around the hole, my bet was that we owed that opening to some ammo storage explosion. Fillies should know not to play with fire around a powder keg.

The opening was located not far from the Fillydelphian factories and nobody voiced any other alternative. As such, we didn’t stall outside the fortifications and walked in the opening, leading us directly into a carbonized basement, leveled and smelling of charcoal.

“Eeyup, ammo flashover,” Sharp confirmed, biting on a smashed up piece of copper.

It was a tank shell casing, melted, pierced through and through and smashed by the utter hell that engulfed into that basement. The ground was covered with holes and stubs of metal had gnawed into the concrete, making it hard to walk around. I could still see the demarcation of where had once stood walls. The streak of ammo explosions had clawed at the fortifications and soil like a hot spoon into an ice-cream –You wonder how I know that? I’ve seen ice-cream once in my life, awesome, duh! That basement had probably be a sizeable stockyard before the Operation Cauterize, measuring around forty yards over thirty. The place was now twice its original size, the explosions having eaten through the stories above and the ground below and aside.

“Welp,” Cat’ coughed, breaking the stark silence that had settled between us, “I’m glad I wasn’t in there when it happened.”

“Hey! Look, look!” Sharp called extensively, rushing around a spot of concrete that had made through the furnace, bullets and shells.

Cat’ and I frowned as we tip-toed our way to Sharp and her brother. She was pointing small black dots embedded in the ground. I drew closer.

“Are those… teeth?” Sharp pondered with a sick smile crawling on her cheek.

Cat’ and I stared back at her.

“That’s disgusting,” Cat’ stole the words from me.

“Pussy,” she mused.

Cutting crawled below her, ransacked into his saddleback and flashed a torchlight under her sister’s chin. Sharp jumped on her backlegs and went on waving her front hooves over her head. I raised an eyebrow. Cat’s mouth slightly dangled open.

“You gonna enter the den of the moooonster,” she croaked, taking on some badly imitated ghoul’s voice. “There, blood flows so hold on onto your bowels.”

She screamed, Cat’ screamed, I screamed. And she jumped out of the lamp’s light, grabbing a hold of Cat’s two heads with a lock of her right hoof. Her face crawled slowly to Cat’s eye level. In the darkness, only a faint light reflecting on their eyes and Sharp’s shark teeth gave their positions.

“You gonna die up there if you don’t buckled up, meat-stick,” Sharp panted out a laugh.

Cat’ hacked out of Sharp’s hold and glared daggers at the raider.

“You sick bitch,” she rasped, sweeping off some of Sharp’s drool. “What do a fucking raider like you even know about that place?”

Cutting was already out the other side of the blown up basement and Sharp was following him close. A hoof outside, the light steel blue mare turned around and pushed one of her strands of rosy mane behind her ear.

“Some raiders read books and listen to the radio, b-i-a-t-c-h.” She savored her words, feasting on Cat’s disgust, anger and disdain for her. With a chuckled and a roll of her eyes, she shook her head. “Who am I kidding?”

She spun on her hooves and stared at something that I hadn’t seen yet. Her face lit up with the light of a nearby fire and I stopped in my track as a wide grin stretched up her face.

“Yeah,” she spoke to herself before walking out of sight. “It’s good to be home.”

Cat’ and I shared a febrile glance and we gulped down. One after the other we walked up and found ourselves right in the middle of a battlefield.

Fires everywhere. Stakes where dead bodies piled on top of the other vanishing into dust and smoke. Exploded howitzers. Limbs. Blood. Craters. Unexploded ordinances. A few pegasus vehicles disemboweled by missile hits. Barricades wherever to see. And the smell… That smell. Death. I retched and emptied myself. Cat’ ran to the closest building probably to do the same.

When I lifted my head, my eyes darted on a known figure. Sharp was dancing among the rubbles, listening to her whistling while her hooves rolled over thousands of empty shells that covered the asphalt. So much bullets I couldn’t see the concrete. So much bullets I felt I could still hear the echoes of the battle that had taken place there.

Screaming.

And it was Catalina’s.

Sharp dashed forward, cutting my track, and jumped through a broken window of the building we’d seen Cat’ enter. I blasted through the opened doorframe of what had once been a store, refurbished into a machine-gun nest. The machine-gun lied on the floor, a bullet having smashed into its bore.

Sharp had already run deeper into the fortified building, rushing up a series of staircases. As I jumped over a rotting body, I followed through. The aftermaths of one ugly post-apocalyptic war were everywhere to be seen. Bullet holes and laser impacts covered the walls. The fight had been fierce and bloody.

It’s nauseous that I reached the fourth floor and head-butted into Sharp’s rump. Shaking my head I focused on our dear Brahmin. She was petrified, her eyes riveted on a shape hidden in the shadow of a crumpled closet.

That’s when I saw the state of the room –and of that level at the same occasion. Everything bore black marks, the wooden door frames had burned away, as did most of the furniture. The windows lied broken and melted on the floor. Any two hundred years old paint that could have still stuck onto the decrepit walls had washed away. Hellfire had licked over this place and it smelled like smoked flesh, the one still hanging from bodies some ravenous birds had already pecked. Flamethrowers, such ugly things.

Cat’ was looking at what had once been a pegasus mare, her legs spread and broken and her wings dangling across her back. She was nested into a ball against a wall and the ashes on the ground marked a trail, starting with the ante-shadow left by a flamethrower against an adjoining wall. She had dragged herself under the wardrobe to find refuge. I sighed. That was a horrible death. Burnt but not dead yet, having to wait organ failures, hunger or thirst to deal the misericord. But why was Cat’ so scared? What had she seen? The shape budged and my mane crawled.

“Help,” the body gargled. “Water…”

Her cheeks crisped like dried, crackled mud, peeling away at each of her complaints, seeping red. Only one of her eyes opened, marking her destroyed face with a completely off-white, iris-less ball. Her hissing lungs breathed out, coughed themselves out. Tension hung between Cat’, I and the pegasus. It was too late anyway. And I wasn’t up to wasting my rations. But…

It was bad. I should do better… And that’s when I heard a chortle.

Cat’ and I swiveled over and locked on Sharp. She was holding her sides, bottling in an infectious laughter while she elbowed her brother for his approval.

“You think dying from fire gives you a discount at the crematorium?” She chuckled.

Their laugh was terrible.

I looked back at the mare and saw Cat’ handling over a small bottle of purified water. There went ten caps but I wasn’t going to stop her.

“Drink, miss,” she whispered.

Sharp snapped her way through to Cat’ and grabbed her hoof.

“She’s gonna die when she drinks,” Sharp warned. “You okay with that?”

“It’s mercy,” Cat’ snarled. “Now off of me, raider.”

Sharp took a step back and stared down at the wreck of a pony. So did I. Cat’ held the bottle to the pegasus’s lips. The mare couldn’t move anymore. Could she feel anything, anyway? Fire had probably destroyed her skin and the nerves beneath. Could she even cry? She gulped slowly and let out a breath of relief.

“There you go,” Cat’ reassured, throwing a death glare at Sharp.

The mare vomited, arched her back in tremendous pain and a scream hacked his way out of her lungs. She shook, rasped and squealed. Cat’s face bleached out of its colors.

I couldn’t even say those were screams. Barely short, painful and wracking wheezes. Her hooves hammered on the ground, clawing at the burnt parquet in a vain attempt to escape pain. A pain I couldn’t even wrap my head around.

Sharp’s hoof knocked down the mare’s head. A deep gashes that didn’t bleed sent the mare to the ground. She went silent and only final quivers snaked across her limbs. Sharp didn’t quit looking at the poor sod for a few seconds. She didn’t breathe. She didn’t talk. And we waited till the unconscious body gave out a last breath.

“Let’s go,” I suggested.

Nobody peeped a word as we walked out and down the stairs. When we finally stepped back outside the ruined building, I looked down the street. Past a dozen barricades, most of which were simple patches of metal sheaths bolted together, was a massive square. The square gave onto a gigantic building who displayed five large and sky-reaching chimneys which still spat a dense smog. There was the industry block. As we made our way further, looking at each window hoping nopony was watching, Sharp and Cutting walked apart.

“Wait for us in the booth there,” Sharp ordered, pointing at a close wooden shack on the right side of the road.

Each scampered away in the buildings on each side of the street. Meanwhile, Cat’ and I walked into what had probably been a checkpoint. The shack was built with only one tiny window which offered some cover. I grabbed my rusty shotgun and held it against my chest as Cat’ and I pressed ourselves inside the shack.

Being the nearest to the window, I peered an eye outside and saw a shadow on the fifth story of the building on the left side of the road. Cutting had called dibs on it and it was probably him. At least I thought as a scream echoed from there. A still unbroken window shattered, followed by a short whistle and a loud thump. Looking again, I saw a body staining the concrete. It was a dull yellow earth pony stallion with a large collar around his neck. The thing was beeping.

A cloud of red splattered around the pony with a teeth-grinding pop and I hid back inside the shack. A gunshot rang shortly after and wood splintered over my mane.

Raising my eyes, I witnessed a new hole in the wood through which slithered a sick reddish ray of light. A second hole blast to life and I hissed at Cat’.

“Move out!”

Cat’ ran outside and towards the closest building, passing through a doorframe long without its door. We head-butted against Sharp’s backside and shambled one over the other. Opening my eyes, I faced the end of a sawed-off barrel.

“Who’re you?” a sheepish voice called.

The two-gauge shotgun was shaking terribly, held at the pommel by a skeletal turquoise green mare. She was missing her mane and only a matted patch of dark red fur still dangled at the tip of her tail. Huge dark bags scarred her cheeks under her eyes. She had a slave collar too. Her eyes darted between Cat’ and me, until they settled on Sharp’s flank, and her cutie mark: a pony skull pierced at its top by a corkscrew.

“Slavers…” the mare blabbered, her eyes tearing up.

“Wait,” I coughed.

Snapping, she stared right at me. A trapped animal. Terror behind pony’s eyes.

“Wait!” I cried.

She aimed at me and shot. The buckshot grazed at my fur but smashed through my saddlebag, spilling out its content. I rolled over Cat’ and scampered away in a corner, leaving enough space for Sharp to slip from under the Brahmin. Shaking her head, she found herself right in the line of fire.

The former slave mare looked at the raider and raised the gun in a halo of blue. She was a unicorn, trickling with sweat, making her skin shin under the light coming from the nearby windows. Her ribs formed mountains below her overstretched skin. Her face was round and fairly underdeveloped… She was small too. She was just a damn teen.

Cutting barged through a window and rammed into the girl. The shotgun cashed out its last shell, nibbling into Sharp’s mane before flying against a wall. The two ponies hadn’t touched the ground yet that Cutting’s hooves were already dropping hard. Cracks after cracks sent shiver crawling down my spine as I grabbed onto Cat’s back and we backed up in a corner. Tearing up at the mare’s face, Cutting made great use of his metal-covered hooves, smashing down in a mist of red until a clank against concrete rang. The raider nagged his teeth on the beeping collar, spun and threw the lifeless mess out the door. A pop echoed in my ears and the air became a little redder.

I was heaving hard, a hoof held on my beating chest. I nibbled on the skin just above my hoof. I wanted away, praying I could melt through the cracks in the wall behind me. To no avail.

“It’s fine,” Sharp whispered to herself before turning to. “It’s fine. She’s dead now.”

Her voice came to me like through a lead blanket.

“You’re okay, Break?” Cat’ whispered in my ears.

I tasted blood as I had bitten a bit too deep. The little spike of pain brought me back to lucidity.

“I’m… I’m fine,” I retched.

“You look like you miss something,” Sharp giggled.

“My innocence,” I deadpanned, forcing myself back onto my hooves.

She snarled, “Like you ever got one,” and shrugged, walking to the nearest window to get a short look at the outside.

The light put her in stark relief and shone over the blood matting her traits.

“You’re hurt!” Cat’ gasped.

Sharp turned over and frowned, rubbing the drying grim off her face.

“Nah. It’s just the mare’s buckbuddy’s blood,” she casually said, pointing at the door where a hoof was visible. “Caught them sleepin’.”

We had killed ponies who had only be free for a week. Ponies that were terrified of us to be the monsters that had enslaved them… We were the bad guys…

“Well, time to go. Those casts aren’t going to loot themselves,” Sharp laughed before throwing us a numbing glare. “We go now.”

Cutting thumped his hoof twice, catching our attention. Crawling beneath a windowless frame, he growled and waved his hoof in sign of deterrent. You know, Cutting and Sharp always surprised me with their cutie marks. Cutting’s was a pony skull pierced at its bottom by a corkscrew. Sharp and he were undoubtedly siblings.

“One I couldn’t find,” he rumbled, the only words he would say for the rest of the day.

“Change of planning, peeps,” Sharp called. “We go through the building till the square. Too dangerous outside.”

Meanwhile, I had untied what remained my saddlebags, discarding the one riddled with holes. I had only one pouch left where I pushed in what remained of my belongings. The slave’s buckshot had smashed two health potions to pieces. That was quite a sum to amortize. I had only my gun, five rations and a few shells left, along with two bottles of purified water.

With Cutting heading the procession, we worked our way through the floors till we reached the last one before the roof. Somepony had hammered out a hole in the wall, giving enough space even for Cat’ to crawl into the adjoining building.

Night fell when we reached the building the closest to the square. We had weaved through blown up walls, shell craters into the façades and makeshift wood bridges between the stories. Using the cover of the night, we finally descended and ventured on the massive square we had spotted earlier. I was tired and so was everypony else, even though Sharp and her brother wouldn’t confess it.

“I suggest we crawl into a safe spot and call it a night,” I yawned, captivated by a blinking streetlamp a hundred yards from where I stood.

“Was thinking the same,” Cat’ panted, scratching her sore legs.

“Yep,” Sharp mumbled.

Cutting dragged our group toward a smelly and dried canal. We soon found a draining pipe large enough to make our way in. We took turns at the entry and everypony slowly started to drift asleep.

Morning came without an incident and surprisingly enough, it was Sharp who woke me up. Where I had expected a scream from a nearby murder, her shaking my shoulder was quite welcomed.

“We gotta move,” she hushed. “Now.”

And me who thought it was starting so well.

“War. War never changes,” she advised me with a tear streaking her eye, “and the best time to buy out is when there is blood on the streets.”

“LET US OUT, CAT’!” I screamed, hammering my hooves on the bulletproof glass.

The bandolier of grenades rang incessantly at my hooves. No time. I turned to Sharp and her brother.

“DO SOMETHING!”

Fear in her eyes. Her brother desperately scanned the room for a way out.

“Sorry, Break Even,” Cat’ said as she turned away. “You were a good friend.”

I mashed my hooves again and again. Rip them if I must. I needed out. To live.

“DON’T DO IT!” I cried. “PLE-EASE.”

“But you were a bad business partner.”

Sharp darted into a corner and rolled into a ball. Cutting jumped forward. And I? I screamed.

I saw fire.

2016 project - Fallout:Equestria Break Even - 2

“Fillies. Gentlecolts. Here is DJ-Pon3 reaching out to you through every broadband. You know… Truth has always been dear to me. It is a key to rebuilding our old Equestria.
No matter how bad it hurts. No matter how deep it can go under your skin. Truth is and will always be primordial. And here, right now, I am talking to you as a messenger of truth.
Fillies. Gentlecolts. We are under attack. Friendship City is gone. Canterlot is gone... Fillydelphia is gone. For many of you, the last statement will bring you smiles and cheers. But hear my words. No matter how tyrannical, how gut-wrenching Red Eye’s forces and ideals were, they were a faction to reckon with. A faction that fell to its knee this very day.
We… Wait, what…? Okay… New development, folks. I can’t stay on air any longer so hear me. I may not be up for the next few days or weeks. You might have to rely on other sources to stay in the know till I go back.
Fillies… Gentlecolts. The Enclave fell on us like bad hail. They ransacked, pillaged, ‘cleansed’ what they deemed sub-equine. They might have deemed us sub-equine. Families. Fathers. Mothers. Brothers. Sisters. Kids. You all over the Wastes. Hide! Oh please, hide.
The next months, years maybe, will be a great shake-up. We enter a new era. Bonds will be broken. New alliances will be forged over the ashes of the old ones. The Wasteland will change, whether you want it or not. I beg you, don’t let yourself carried away by change, this great tide.
Ponies, zebras, griffons, raiders, traders, everypony. Many aspiring movers and shakers will want their hippogriff’s share of this new epoch. Be open. But don’t be naïve. And stay put. Survive. Lie low. Duck and cover. The Wasteland is not a gentle place. It has never been. Be righteous. Keep true to yourself. Be better. Do better.
We won’t recover by our egoism. No invisible hoof will work towards our greater good if we don’t actively seek for that end.
Many ponies will try to act under the cover of war. Beware. Beware… Don’t fall into bad hooves. Keep your friends close and survive. Avoid the warzones. Survive. Today, we might be taking a darker turn into a new chapter of our history.
Those of you who fight the good fight, don’t give yourselves out. Sacrifice is only good in books and a living fighter is better than a dead hero. Be careful, this land will see his new breed of vultures soon enough. Don’t add to the fresh bodies already lying in the dirt. You have families, friends to defend and if you fall, who’s gonna be there for them? Remember that some ponies will sell their kin for head-starts. Don’t be one them. Be better. Do. Better.
Remember. War… War never changes. But as everything somber, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
Hope won’t die. It never will.
This was DJ-Pon3, bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts.”
*
* *
“Still dreaming, Even?” Hesitation. “Break? BREAK! EVEN!”
I jumped out of my skin with a gasp, dropping my binoculars. With a hiss, I scampered away until the goggles flew back down and smashed in the back of my head. My heart drumming with dread, I lied my head buried in the dirt for a split second before I spun over. Hoping to fend off the sneak attack, I threw my hooves and laid eyes upon my opponent, and finally calmed down.
A brown Brahmin with white patches of sparse fur around her eyes stared down at me. With two-pony-sized bags on each of her sides, she was a large shadow in the twilight of the day. She was stomping her hoof, visibly annoyed.
“You dropped something,” the two head sassed conjointly.
She pointed at my dusty goggles.
“Fuckin’ Mother Cap!” I finally eructed, neighing out a long whine as I held a hoof on my beating chest. “Cat’! Don’t sneak up on me like that…”
Catalina –my business partner– smirked back at me with a fair share of disappointment in her blue eyes. As I didn’t answer, she joined me in gazing at the landscape. I grumbled about as I picked up my now cracked goggles.
Scanning the land with them was a tedious task. An ever-present smoke burned my lungs and made it hard to see. I had stopped counting the high-reaching pyres strewn before my eyes an hour ago. And it reeked.
“You’re crazy, Even,” she whispered. “You know that city’s dangerous. With your head in the pegasi-damned clouds, you gonna get us killed.”
Ablaze for what had surely been days, the fires filled the sky with ichor. If the Vault Dweller had really opened the sky like DJ-Pon3 said, we were standing somewhere definitely out of her reach. We were close to noon yet the sky was dark, dry and hellishly hot. At least, it had stopped drizzling.
I lowered my goggles and looked down at the small pond that had formed at my hooves. An earth pony with a dirty white coat and a mi-long blond and chocolate mane glanced back at me with dark bags under his eyes. With two saddlebags on my back, I was slightly arched and my spine ached. I had at least found a way to tie my self-made shotgun so the bore would stop scraping at my shoulder. A pair of muddy black-iron horseshoes adorned my flank. Old memories onto which I wiped my dirty binoculars.
“I wasn’t stargazing, Catalina...” I frowned in discontent. “Well… maybe a bit, just a teeny tiny bit.”
We were standing on top of a hill and though it was a vantage point, I couldn’t see much. Anything worth my caps was definitely somewhere behind those big fortifications. I rubbed my eyes, expecting to clear my vision, and focused again over long and crumbled concrete battlements.
A sickly red hue crept over a ruined city recently brought to its knee. That bloody glow perspired through each shattered windows, reflected over the mud and struck me with morbid curiosity. The red that stained the streets was slowly washing away while grim shadows danced over countless bodies left to rot across barricaded boulevards.
The rumble of a collapsing building reached my ears. The home of death was shining brighter than any light-bulb had ever done for two centuries and too many had waited for that end to come. Fillydelphia was burning and it just made me smile.
“I know that face,” Catalina mumbled, deciphering at me like I was a damn book, “and I don’t like it.”
I grumbled back when she poked me in the side. Well… let’s say I told her to ‘fuck off’. She yanked my mane back and I whined as she forced our eyes to meet. Mild disappointment and some bottled-up anxiety, the kind of stares she granted me much too often.
“You’ve got an idea.” Why did she have to make it sound like I was a mad scientist? I was just a wandering merchant! “You know how I feel about that.”
“I think we can pull something here,” I growled back, smacking my mane out of her grasp with the back of my hoof. “Can’t you see that?”
I pointed at Fillydelphia while I picked and rolled the inside of my cheeks between my teeth. Couldn’t she see that? I was onto an opportunity. I had a business idea. And I was ready to go in there. She was the one always talking about investing our funds into projects. There was my venture. She didn’t criticize it. She didn’t reply at all as a matter of fact.
“Fuck off,” I suggested again.
Her haunches dropped on the dirt and she crossed her legs to cover her eyes. We both let out a long breath and didn’t talk for a moment. I hated when silence was the only answer.
“You take care of the accounts,” I initiated, rubbing my sore neck with my hoof. “We. Need. Cash. You know that better than I do. And this city… it’s a lifetime chance.”
Her ears drooped a little and there she went rubbing her eyes like I had sprinkled sand in them. She didn’t even try to lower that massive growl of hers.
“I never asked you to risk our lives in that city of death,” she scolded.
I closed my eyes behind my binoculars, letting my eye-sockets rest against the item, and the item against the ground. Dirt was so interesting that time of the year…
“Look,” I shot. “You know that I felt like something was happening with that Vault Dweller, right…? Am I right?!”
She hesitated for a second but didn’t answer. I took that as a nod.
“Does that mean you knew about that cauterize operation or whatnot?” she advanced.
“No,” I laughed dryly. “I would have loved though… To be honest, we were just lucky to be a week away from Fillydelphia when all the fuss started.”
“What a chance you dragged me in the most dangerous place out there…” And here she went the sarcasm… again. “Very much thanks, Even.”
The city was definitely dead. War torn and fresh, ready to be harvested. The wreckage and its casualties were all that remained. What was down there was now only known by those who had managed to flee. Rumors were rumors but the truth? It belonged only to the dead. Pegasi, slavers and slaves now rested in peace.

And pieces! I chortled at the thought, which didn’t last. Catalina smacked the back of my head.
“What are you thinking about?” she rumbled.
“Oh, nothing,” I lied, shaking my head off.
She whacked my left ear.
“Speak to me, for my sake!” she vented.
I massaged the hit spot and kept on chuckling. After a few minutes, I gave a big yawn and finally shared a look with my partner, letting my binoculars dangle around my neck. She wasn’t happy.
“Fucking empty head,” she muttered under her breath, turning away from me.
“I know. I know,” I cooed back as she watched over the chimneys towering Fillydelphia. “I think we’re the first scavengers around since the city fell.”
“And you think it’s a place for a merchant and his Brahmin?” she retorted with a voice that rang like a gunshot. “What about the raiders… slavers still inside? And the slaves? I’ve heard terrible things about what they do because of hunger.”
Not that I wasn’t going to do anything because of hunger… My belly growled accordingly and I took a small bread out of my saddlebag. It has the same consistence as cracked glass.
I caught the Brahmin’s grimace. Her two heads were torn with anxiety.
“Come on, Cat’,” I comforted, patting her on the foreheads. “You’re a big, intelligent girl. If I don’t know when to pull out, just tell me.”
“Didn’t I mention that in Friendship City already? Detrot? My Amie? You’re thicker than a Brahmin’s forehead, aren’t you?”
If some cows were considered lucky, Catalina could brag she was among the twice-lucky ones. Her joking about her own kin’s limits wasn’t any less cringe-worthy though. We laughe anyway.
“Detrot…” I wandered in my thoughts. “I’d settle there. Fresh business ops up there.”
“I know you won’t.”
“Come on,” I whined, hugging her at the shoulders. “You’re a great partner. We will make a fortune together. Whether in Detrot, or here...”
With a sweep of my hoof, I motioned towards Fillydelphia.

With tired eyes, she sighed, “If you say so.”
We watched in silence over the dead hell before us. It was easy to forget it was still Red Eye’s den somehow. A gunshot rang afar and a disincarnated scream echoed in its wake, shushed a few seconds later.
“I think we did a mistake by recruiting my two old raiders,” I voiced after a painful gulp, looking over my shoulder to check that the two concerned earth ponies weren’t listening.
“Tribals,” Catalina countered.
I frowned at her.
“Eh, What?”
“They ain’t raiders, Even,” she continued. “They would have killed us right out the street when we met.”
“Oh, they are raiders, Cat’. But bear with me on this, the two down there… They owe me some...”
“Services?” she ended for me with not much conviction and a raised eyebrow.
“Eeyup,” I confirmed. “Otherwise, they are pure bred raiders. Old pals.”
Who said brahmin’s eyes couldn’t grow that big and menacing. I dunk my head between my shoulders and cowered away in slow motion. Maybe she wouldn’t notice. A ragged sigh later, she had calmed down.
“You’ve got interesting friends,” she noted.
“Long story,” I said, raising a hoof to cut any word from pouring out of her mouth. “Don’t ask for details. It’s between the Cuts and I.”
The Cuts… A nickname made up by the mare and stallion, twin by birth, who currently sat next to a campfire set at the foot of the hill. From time to time we could hear them swear. They had been playing an exotic game for a few hours now. Backgammon it was called and to my knowledge, they were the only ponies to do so in the whole damn Wasteland.
“You think they will turn on us?” Catalina whimpered, trying to bottle-up some panic mania only she could display. “Why are you saying you should have recruited more?”
“Cat’… Cat’,” I sighed, letting my rump hit the dirt while I patted her closest head. “No. I don’t pinch pick my contractors like I do with… my food, I guess. I trust them both.”
I stared back at the burning city. Who knew what awaited in the ruins of Fillydelphia? Slavers still kicking? Husks of slaves? Death or Fortune? I didn’t know and I was terribly impatient to make an idea for myself. And with the Cuts as our bodyguards, it should be a breezy. I knew them. They knew me. All was fine. Everything would be fine.
“I think I haven’t recruited enough ponies for that scavenger party,” I confessed after drawing a short breath. “That’s what I’m thinking about.”
Catalina snapped a small book out of my saddlebag. Biting over her lips, she glared hard at me with a mix of disappointment and down-to-earth attitude.
“We didn’t have the money,” she chipped in. “Accounts are in the red.”
“Thus why we’re here,” I stated again. “It’s a gold mine down there. Red Eye’s dead. His troops are… mostly dead. Time to harvest and make a profit for ourselves.”
“An’ us too,” a rough voice cackled in my back.
Cat’ and I jumped the further away from the voice and I landed on top of her –at least it wasn’t the opposite, not that I was calling her fat. Two foul-smelling ponies with messy rosy manes glared at us with threatening red eyes carved into scarred light steel blue faces. They wore dirty, patched-up armors, ones that had seen battles. A true knight is known by how weary his equipment looks but they weren’t knights. They were raiders.
“Don’t worry, bro,” the mare chuckled, patting her brother’s shoulder blades. “Break Even’s good pal. He won’t try to fuck us over. Could he? Eh, eh… he can hardly stand to his name.”
Thank you very much, Sharp Cut…
Sharp Cut was the most talkative of the two siblings. Her brother, Cutting Edge, was a pony her opposite, a stallion of a few, often incoherent, words. Both fought close-combat like it was some kind of lost art and their hooves talked for them. The two carried out the ritual taught by their forbearers even after their gang went extinct. Twice a year, they dipped their four hooves into molten iron, seeking to strengthen their body, mind and their uppercuts… It was peculiar and I always had doubts about the practice, especially when it could make them less… apt to be efficient bodyguards. Their last ritual had occurred five days ago and here they were kicking around like foals. I still couldn’t stare at their furless legs without a grimace, they reminded me mines.
Compared to my three team members, I was physically underperforming with not much to even the chances in a fight. But they were friends, or at least I thought them to be. I had my shotgun which I often bragged about as self-made. I had never fired it though. I was a trader and I paid for my security. Speaking of which, I shook my head and focused back on Sharp and Cutting.
“You ready?” I glanced down at Sharp’s forehooves. “I wouldn’t want you both in pain to…”
“Shoo,” she cut me off with a grin of her yellowish, shark-filed teeth. “We’ve never been pantsies like you. Hurting is good. It keeps us awake.”
Blabbering any witty remark was a bad idea with Sharp Cut. She wasn’t the mare to accept critics. Even less from me.
“Look guys,” I began, walking in between the two siblings. “I expected to go out at night but…”
I waved at the city and its horrendously thick black clouds throwing the city into darkness.
“You get me,” I kept going. “That city must be a goldmine for stuff like ammo, weapons, ingots, anything.”
“Well, duh!” Sharp grinned. “We ain’t your mules though. You paid us for protection, not transport. You’ve got a Brahmin for that stupid stuff.”
The raider mare elbowed Catalina whose face grew darker but didn’t waver. Cutting’s dumb laugh didn’t help in the regard.
“Break,” Cat’ muttered through gritted teeth. “Do something…”
I merely shrugged and she ambled away to sit as further away from Sharp as she could, not leaving me time to do anything.
“So, pretty face,” Sharp purred in my ear, “what’s today’s catch? You want to grab some chems in dem basements? Steals the weapons in the pit? Stockpiles the Red Eye’s slave collars?”
“Casts,” I broke in.
“Casts?”
Cat’, Sharp and Cutting had all said the magic word. Tasting the suspense in the air, I walked to the nearest rock against which I could lay my back. With a smile and tilting my head to mimic tipping an absent cowboy hat, I prepared my answer.
“How do you think ammos and weapons started flowing the Wasteland over the past decade?”
“Better scavengers?” Cutting breached in with a creeping smile.
He instantly earned a smack from his sister.
“Shut up,” she threatened.
“Red Eye found blueprints and old factories in Fillydelphia. And he built those back up!” I explained. “And he had the Wasteland flooded with weapons, armors, ammo… Do you know that…”
“So what?” Sharp broke off my tirade.
I facehoofed.
“Look, creating a bullet, or a weapon requires a lot of things and some of those are casts and molds,” I detailed, hammering the floor with my hoof. “I want those casts.”
“You want to become an arm-dealer?” Catalina gasped, stepping away.
“Big words,” I snarled. “Bullets are the most useful items out there in the Wastes. And nearly nobody knows how they are made.”
“Not true, we scavenged them,” Sharp countered, sticking out her tongue like she had outwitted me.
“When was the last time you did find bullets in a trashcan or an envelope,” I huffed. “You loot bullets off traders’ bodies, right?”
Sharp stayed silent for a few seconds, scrunched her face. She soon giggled like a foal.
“You know the deal, Even.” She smiled with those Devil’s teeth. “You’ve seen how it works.”
A trickle of sweat rolled down my neck and I rubbed my tingling legs together.
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“Anyway,” Cat’ chimed in. “You made us crawl to Fillydelphia for bullet casts?”
“Easy road from rags to riches,” I foretold. “The Wasteland needs bullets and if I don’t go in and make them, somepony else will.”
“So that’s it?” Cat’ said, hiding her enjoyment far too well. “We’re going to risk our life to find casts to make whatever stuff we can…? We’re itinerant merchants, Even! What in the goddamn fucking Wasteland-ish mind don’t you understand about the word itinerant?”
“Shut up,” I snapped, my neck twitching. “You’re always talking about putting the rifle on the rack, settling in… finding that… good patch of grass wherever you want. You’re just wishful thinking, Cat’! For once listen. I’ve got here the opportunity for you to settle. We won’t be young forever. So for the Wasteland Savior’s grace, shut up for once and do that!”
She hit me… What? For my ass’s sake, she smashed her hoof in my face. In my face! I felt a small trickle of blood slither between my patch of dirty fur.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, a hoof pressed on my hurt cheek.
She was crying.
“Oh, don’t do that to me, Cat’?” I gulped, rummaged my tongue inside my mouth with teary eyes. “We do it one last time. I think I’m right on that one.”
She huffed and that was the most painful one she ever gave me, “It’s always about you, isn’t it? You want to prove things to yourself, Even…”
She sighed and looked at the bleeding sky.
“We do it one last time,” she said, listening to the wind’s complain across the land.
“One last time,” I repeated with a smile.
I crawled back up to my hooves and stared at Fillydelphia. So many had died there and I was going to make a profit out of it. Like a true businesspone. I shook my head and glanced at Sharp and her brother. Both had their face scrunched up like they had bit into a mutant lime crossbred with a tainted pepper.
“What?” Cat’ barked at them, taking the words out of my mouth.
Sharp raised her hooves in the air, zebra-style.
“Your couple’s affairs,” the raider mare defended. “Not mine and that’s as good as it is.”
Cat’ and I shared a look. We rolled our eyes and started walking down the hill.
“Grab your chips and board, Sharp,” I called. “We’re going in.”
She frowned and spoke up, “We’re ready?”
“What do you think?” I deadpanned. “I’ve watched over the city for the past three hours.”
An infantile smile drew on her face and se raised her hoof to make a point after a short breath-in.
“I’ll explain the plan en route,” I cut off with a growl. “We move now.”
Well… we spent most of the walk to the walls of Fillydelphia in silence. The plan took me less than a minute to explain in fact. I had spotted a crack in the fortification wide enough to let a tank go through. With all the black marks around the hole, my bet was that we owed that opening to some ammo storage explosion. Fillies should know not to play with fire around a powder keg.
The opening was located not far from the Fillydelphian factories and nobody voiced any other alternative. As such, we didn’t stall outside the fortifications and walked in the opening, leading us directly into a carbonized basement, leveled and smelling of charcoal.
“Eeyup, ammo flashover,” Sharp confirmed, biting on a smashed up piece of copper.
It was a tank shell casing, melted, pierced through and through and smashed by the utter hell that engulfed that basement. The ground was covered with holes and stubs of metal gnawed into the concrete, making it hard to walk around. I could still see the demarcation of where had once stood walls. The streak of ammo explosions had clawed at the fortifications and soil like a hot spoon into an ice-cream –You wonder how I know that? I’ve seen ice-cream once in my life, awesome, duh! That basement had probably be a sizeable stockyard before the Operation Cauterize, measuring around forty yards over thirty. The place was now twice its original size, the explosions having eaten through the stories above and the ground below and aside.
“Welp,” Cat’ coughed, breaking the stark silence that had settled between us, “I’m glad I wasn’t in there when it happened.”
“Hey! Look, look!” Sharp called extensively, rushing around a spot of concrete that had made through the furnace, bullets and shells.
Cat’ and I frowned as we tip-toed our way to Sharp and her brother. She was pointing small black dots embedded in the ground.
“Are those… teeth?” Sharp pondered with a sick smile crawling on her cheek.
Cat’ and I stared back at her.
“That’s disgusting,” Cat’ stole the words from me.
“Pussy,” she mused.
Cutting crawled next to her sister, ransacked into his saddleback and pulled out a torchlight he lit up under her sister’s chin. Sharp jumped on her backlegs and went on waving her front hooves over her head. I raised an eyebrow. Cat’s mouth slightly dangled open.
“You gonna enter the den of the moooonster,” she croaked, taking on some badly imitated ghoul’s voice. “There, blood flows so hold on onto your bowels, my little pony.”
She screamed. Cat’ screamed. I screamed.

Sharp jumped out of the lamp’s light, grabbing a hold of Cat’s two heads with a lock of her right hoof. Her face crawled to Cat’s eye-level. In the darkness, only a faint light reflected on their eyes and Sharp’s shark teeth, giving their positions.
“You gonna die up there if you don’t buckled up, meat-stick,” Sharp panted out a laugh.
Cat’ hacked out of Sharp’s hold and glared daggers at the raider.
“You sick bitch,” she rasped, sweeping off some of Sharp’s drool. “What do a fucking raider like you even know about that place?”
Cutting didn’t listen, she was already out the other side of the blown up basement and Sharp was following him close. A hoof outside, the light steel blue mare turned around and pushed one of her strands of rosy mane behind her ear.
“Some raiders read books and listen to the radio, b-i-a-t-c-h.” She savored her words, feasting on Cat’s disgust, anger and disdain for her. With a chuckle and a roll of her eyes, she shook her head. “Who am I kidding?”
She spun on her hooves and stared at something that I hadn’t seen yet. Her face lit up with the light of a nearby fire and I stopped in my track as a wide grin stretched up on her face.
“Yeah,” she spoke to herself before walking out of sight. “It’s good to be home.”
Cat’ and I shared a febrile glance and we gulped down. One after the other we walked up and found ourselves right in the middle of a battlefield.
Fires everywhere. Stakes where dead bodies piled on top of the other vanishing into dust and smoke. blown up howitzers. Limbs. Blood. Craters. Unexploded ordinances. A few pegasus vehicles disemboweled by missile hits. Barricades wherever to see. And the smell… That smell. Death. I retched and emptied myself. Cat’ ran to the closest building and probably did the same.
When I lifted my head, my eyes darted on the closest known landmark. Sharp was dancing among the rubbles, listening to her own whistling whilst her hooves rolled over thousands of empty cartridge that covered the asphalt. So much bullets I couldn’t see the concrete. So much bullets I felt I could still hear the echoes of the battle that had taken place there.
Screaming.
And it was Catalina’s.
Sharp dashed forward, cutting my track, and jumped through a broken window of the building we’d seen Cat’ enter. I blasted through the opened doorframe of what had once been a store, refurbished into a machine-gun nest. The machine-gun lied on the floor, a bullet having smashed into its bore.
Sharp had already run deeper into the fortified building, rushing up a series of staircases. As I jumped over a rotting body, I followed through. The aftermaths of one ugly post-apocalyptic war were everywhere to be seen. Bullet holes and laser impacts covered the walls. The fight had been fierce and bloody.
It’s nauseous that I reached the fourth floor and head-butted into Sharp’s rump. Shaking my head off, I focused on our dear Brahmin. Cat’ was petrified, her eyes riveted on a shape hidden in the shadow of a crumpled closet.
That’s when I saw the state of the room –and of that whole level at the same occasion. Everything bore black marks, the wooden door frames had burned away, as did most of the furniture. The windows lied broken and melted on the floor. Any two hundred years old paint that could have still stuck onto the decrepit walls had washed away. Hellfire had licked over this place and it smelled like smoked flesh that still hung from bodies some ravenous birds had started to peck. Flamethrowers, such ugly things.
Cat’ was looking at what had once been a pegasus mare, her legs spread and broken and her wings dangling across her back. She was nested into a ball against a wall and the ashes on the ground marked a trail, starting with the ante-shadow left by a flamethrower against an adjoining wall. She had dragged herself under the wardrobe to find refuge.

I sighed. That was such a horrible death. Burnt but not dead yet, having to wait organ failures, hunger or thirst to deal the misericord. But why was Cat’ so scared? The shape budged, giving me the answer I sought for. My mane crawled and my fur stood on end.
“Help,” the body gargled. “Water…”
Her cheeks crisped like dried, cracked mud, peeling away at each of her complaints, and seeping red. Only one of her eyes opened, marking her destroyed face with a completely off-white, iris-less ball. Her hissing lungs breathed out, coughed themselves out. Tension hung between us and the pegasus. It was too late for her and, though it might seemed egoist, I wasn’t up to wasting my rations.
It was bad thinking. I should do better… And that’s when I heard a chortle.
Cat’ and I swiveled over and locked on Sharp. She was holding her sides, bottling-in an infectious laughter while she elbowed her brother for his approval.
“You think dying from fire gives you a discount at the crematorium?” She chuckled.
Their laugh was terrible.
I looked back at the mare and saw Cat’ hoofing over a small bottle of purified water. There went ten caps but I wasn’t going to stop her.
“Drink, miss,” she whispered.
Sharp snapped her way through to Cat’ and grabbed her hoof.
“She’s gonna die when she drinks,” Sharp warned. “You okay with that?”
“It’s mercy,” Cat’ snarled. “Now off of me, raider.”
Sharp took a step back and stared down at the wreck of a pony. So did I. Cat’ held the bottle to the pegasus’s lips. The mare couldn’t move anymore. Could she feel anything anyway? Fire had probably destroyed her skin and severed the nerves beneath. Could she even cry? The pegasus gulped slowly though and gave a tensed breath of relief.
“There you go,” Cat’ reassured, throwing a death glare at Sharp.
The mare vomited, arched her back in tremendous pain and a scream hacked its way out of her lungs. She shook, rasped and squealed. Cat’s face bleached out of its colors.
I couldn’t even say those were screams. Just barely audible, short, painful and wracking wheezes. Her hooves hammered on the ground, clawing at the burnt parquet in a vain attempt to escape pain. A pain I couldn’t even wrap my head around.
Sharp’s hoof bashed into the mare’s head. A deep gash that didn’t even bleed sent the mare to the ground. She went silent and only final quivers snaked across her limbs. Sharp didn’t quit looking at the poor sod for a few seconds. She didn’t breathe. She didn’t talk. And we waited till the unconscious body gave out a last breath.
“Let’s go,” I suggested.
Nobody peeped a word as we walked out and down the stairs. When we finally stepped back outside the ruined building, I looked down the street. Past a mass of barricades, most of which were simple patches of metal sheaths bolted together, stood a massive square. The square gave onto a gigantic building who displayed five large and sky-reaching chimneys which still spat a dense smog.

There was the industry block and because night was approaching, I was happy to see the operation was running smoothly. As we made our way further, looking at each window hoping nopony was watching, Sharp and Cutting walked apart.
“Wait for us in the booth there,” Sharp ordered, pointing at a close wooden shack on the right side of the road.
Each wandered in the buildings on each side of the street. Meanwhile, Cat’ and I walked into what had probably been a checkpoint. The shack was built with only one tiny window, offering some cover. I grabbed my rust-covered shotgun and held it against my chest as Cat’ and I pressed ourselves inside the shack.
Being the nearest to the window, I peered an eye outside and saw a shadow on the fifth story of the building on the left side of the road. Cutting had called dibs on it and it was probably him. At least I thought as a scream echoed from there. A still unbroken window shattered, followed by a short whistle and a loud thump. Looking again, I saw a body staining the concrete. It was a dull yellow earth pony stallion with a large collar around his neck. The thing was beeping.
A cloud of red splattered around the pony with a teeth-grinding pop and I hid back inside the shack. A gunshot rang shortly after and wood splintered over my mane.
Raising my eyes, I witnessed a new hole in the wood. A sick reddish ray of light crawled through it. A second hole blast to life and I hissed at Cat’.
“Move out!”
Cat’ ran outside and towards the closest building, passing through a doorframe long without its door. We head-butted against Sharp’s backside (again!) and shambled one over the other. Opening my eyes, I faced the end of a sawed-off barrel.
“Who’re you?” a sheepish voice called.
The two-gauge shotgun was shaking terribly, held at the pommel by a skeletal turquoise mare. She was missing her mane and only a matted patch of dark red fur still dangled at the tip of her tail. Huge dark bags scarred her cheeks under her eyes. She had a slave collar too. Her eyes darted between Cat’ and me, until they settled on Sharp’s flank and her cutie mark: a pony skull pierced at its top by a corkscrew.
“Slavers…” the mare blabbered, her eyes tearing up.
“Wait,” I coughed.
Snapping, she stared right at me. A trapped animal. Terror behind pony’s eyes.
“Wait!” I cried.
She aimed at me and shot. The buckshot grazed at my fur and smashed through my saddlebag, spilling out its content. I rolled over Cat’ and scampered away in a corner, leaving enough space for Sharp to slip from under the Brahmin. Shaking her head, she found herself right in the line of fire.
The former slave mare looked at the raider and raised the gun in a halo of blue magic. She was a unicorn, trickling with sweat that made her skin shin under the light coming from the nearby windows. Her ribs formed mountains below her overstretched skin. Her face was round and fairly underdeveloped… She was small too. She was just a damn teen.
Cutting barged through a window and rammed into the girl. The shotgun cashed out its last shell, nibbling into Sharp’s mane before flying against a wall. The two ponies hadn’t touched the ground yet that Cutting’s hooves were already dropping hard. Cracks after cracks sent shiver crawling down my spine as I grabbed onto Cat’s back and we backed up as far as possible. Tearing up at the mare’s face, Cutting made great use of his metal-covered hooves, smashing down in a mist of red until a clank against concrete rang. The raider nagged his teeth on the beeping collar, spun and threw the lifeless mess out the door. A pop echoed in my ears and the air became a little redder.
I was heaving hard, a hoof held on my beating chest. I nibbled on the furless skin just above my hoof. I wanted away, praying I could melt through the cracks in the wall behind me. To no avail.
“It’s fine,” Sharp whispered to herself before turning to. “It’s fine. She’s dead now.”
Her voice came to me like through a lead blanket.
“You’re okay, Break?” Cat’ whispered in my ear.
I tasted blood as I had bitten a bit too deep into my skin, releasing a little spike of pain that brought me back to lucidity.
“I’m… I’m fine,” I gurgled.
“You look like you miss something,” Sharp giggled.
“My innocence,” I deadpanned, forcing myself back onto my hooves.
She snarled, “Like you ever got one,” and shrugged, walking to the nearest window to get a short look at the outside.
The light put her in stark relief and shone over the blood matting her traits.
“You’re hurt!” Cat’ gasped.
Sharp turned over and frowned, rubbing the drying grim off her face.
“Nah. It’s just the mare’s buckbuddy’s blood,” she casually said, pointing at the door where a turquoise hoof was visible. “Caught them sleepin’.”
We had killed ponies only recently freed. We had killed ponies. Terrified ponies who thought we were the monsters that had enslaved them… We were the bad guys…
“Well, time to go. Those casts aren’t going to loot themselves,” Sharp laughed before throwing us a numbing glare. “We go now.”
Cutting thumped his hoof twice, catching our attention. Crawling beneath a windowless frame, he growled and waved his hoof in a sign of deterrence. You know, Cutting and Sharp always surprised me with their cutie marks. Cutting’s was a pony skull pierced at its bottom by a corkscrew. Sharp and he were undoubtedly siblings.
“One I couldn’t find,” he rumbled, the only words he would say for the rest of the day. “Night comes.”
“Change of planning, peeps,” Sharp called. “We go through the building till the square. Too dangerous outside.”
Meanwhile, I had untied what remained of my saddlebags, discarding the one riddled with holes. I ended up with only one pouch left where I pushed in what remained of my belongings. The slave’s buckshot had smashed two health potions to pieces. That was quite a sum to amortize. I had only my gun, five rations and a few shells left, along with two bottles of purified water.
With Cutting heading the procession, we worked our way through the floors till we reached the last one before the roof. Somepony had hammered out a hole in the wall, giving enough space even for Cat’ to crawl into the adjoining building.
Night had fallen when we reached the building the closest to the square. We had weaved through blown up walls, shell craters in the façades and makeshift wood bridges between the stories.

Using the cover of the night, we finally descended and ventured on the massive square we had set as our objective. I was tired and so was everypony else, even though Sharp and her brother wouldn’t confess it.
“I suggest we crawl into a safe spot and call it a night,” I yawned, captivated by a blinking streetlamp a hundred yards from where I stood.
“Was thinking the same,” Cat’ panted, scratching her sore legs.
“Yep,” Sharp mumbled.
Cutting dragged our group toward a smelly and dried canal. We soon found a draining pipe large enough to make our way in. We took turns at the entry and everypony slowly started to drift asleep.
Morning came without an incident and surprisingly enough, it was Sharp who woke me up. Where I had expected a scream from a nearby murder, her shaking my shoulder was quite welcomed.
“We gotta move,” she hushed. “Now.”
And me who thought it was starting so well.

“What… Wait!” I drawled, trying to grab her leg. “What’s the matter?”

“Other scavengers,” Cat’ said at the entrance of the sewer pipe. “Cutting spotted them a mile away.”

“Where is he?” I spat, sobering up like I got a lime in my throat.

“Eh…” Cat’ hesitated, looking at Sharp for confirmation.

The raider shrugged.

“A mile away. I guess.”

“Okay. I guess we move in,” I said, grabbing on my barding and saddlebags before I turned to Sharp. “Cutting told you a meet-up point?”

“No. But he told me where to go through the electric fences.”

Electric. Fences. Oh my sweet, sweet loins.

“What!? But aren’t the electric plants down with all the damages?” I choked.

“Apparently not,” Sharp cackled with a sick grin. “Try not to get fried.”

Crouching low, we wandered in the canal and followed its edge till we spotted a split in the electric fences below a collapsed bridge.

2016 project - Fallout:Equestria Land After Time - Prologue

Author's Note

Youth is a bead in the darkness. It’s to spit at the grimness of fate and head on forward on tenebrous roads. Lolly Soda, a young colt suddenly separated from everything he knew, will have to face the newly formed Wasteland head on as the green above the skyline shone bright at night. He embarks on an adventure he cannot overcome alone: going back home.

Present the main character, Lolly Soda, a Brown-maned beige twelve years old colt Pegasus as his earth pony father and unicorn mother are waiting for evacuation.

There is panic, people are screaming, sirens are blaring.

Pipsqueak the father sacrifices himself to save lolly soda and his wife from an exploding megaspell. He fgives him a necklace before he departed

Lolly Soda must head to the family home, in Hollow Shades.

2016 project - Fallout:Equestria Land After Time - Prologue

“Fly little bird. Fly where your wings can carry you. Here is no place for a colt anymore.”

[ α Ω α ]

Tall Tales was a large town south-eastern of the major city of Vanhoover. It was boring before the war, and the war itself did change nothing about it. Fillies and colts did get bored around the town. It was a place of grown-ups, where skyscrapers grew and germinated all over the place as what the adults called military-industrial complex drove the city at its historical peak of development.

Fillies and colts did get bored around that town. There was nothing much to do but attend the prestigious schools that had settled around the city. Everypony here had had a big education and served their country very well. It would have been a shame if the youth could not follow in their parents’ hoofsteps.

That’s why a young colt called Lolly Soda hated Tall Tales. The buildings were so tall that ponies from the outside would have called them tales. That was a specific part of the city. Nopony entered it. Nopony could leave it. At least not without a passport and paperwork as his father told him.

Lolly Soda’s father was a perfectly normal father. Even though he was not a lot of time at home, as mother, he was working on big projects for the government. He even had promised him to go visit his working place one day. Lolly Soda was waiting for that day impatiently.

Meanwhile, Lolly Soda, with his always scrawny and dishevelled chocolate brown mane and scruffy beige fur, hated school. Once a day they had to drill around. Rush to their stack and get horribly heavy masks to put on. Then they had to head to the basement. He hated that place. Everypony was always grumbling and there was the zebra poster looking at them all down there. Hammered on the wall, the two-pony tall piece of plastic sported a massive Zebra mare with golden ring around her neck and brightly red eyes. It had been facing some armoured ponies, the rangers. Both were as scary as they could get, grey and black, shooting lasers and bullets around. Lolly Soda sometimes wondered what would happen if the ponies and zebra on the poster would suddenly get alive. As one colt he disliked was always standing next to it, the Earth Pony colt had always hoped the rangers on the picture would nip on the bully’s ear and drag him to the zebra to be gobbled up. Well, zebras had to gobble up ponies… It was written on the poster.

“

If you don’t want to be gobbled up by evil zebras,
Talk to your parents, donate to the M.W.T.,
Fight the war.
Remember: zebras are evil.

”

That had always felt silly to Lolly Soda. His father worked for the M.W.T., the Ministry of Wartime Technology. Now that the colt had learnt the meaning of the three letters and had made the connection with his father’s job, he had been happy to tell his few friends.

All his friends’ parents worked for the M.W.T., which did not help him stand out. From time to time, the Unicorn fillies and colts had a mother or father working for the M.A.S. It was about magical stuff. Not some Earth Pony thing to mess with. In fact, Lolly Soda wasn’t interested in magic. It was gross.

“Hush now, quiet now, it’s time to go to bed,” he whispered over the ambient dim as he closed the heavy metal door.

“I’m not a baby anymore,” Lolly cried.

“For me, you’ll always be my baby.”

He closed the door. The world lit up in one fiery white hot flame, and the chaos of Tall Tales went abruptly asleep.

Apr. 15th, 2019 - Fallout:Equestria The Close of Day

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Apr. 25th, 2019 - Illness

“You have cancer.”

I said nothing. Silence settled between the doctor and I.

“I’m sorry.”

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes. My heart leaped as I lifted my hoof to my chest. I looked at the wall behind his head. A cold dripping sensation slid down my ears and back as if molasses was slowly dunked over my head. It consumed me.

“When…” I hesitated, barely swallowing, and tentatively asked, “When do I start treatment?”

A chill crawled down my legs as I clutched at the plastic chair I was sitting on. He was grimacing.

“You… don’t.”

I looked back at him, then away. The hollow in my hungry stomach grew deeper. A cool buzz sauntered in my belly. I evaded his eyes.

“I...,” I began. “Can’t you…”

“It’s too late for treatment,” he gently cut me. “I- I don’t want to give you false hopes, Drop. Can I call you that? Drop. It doesn’t mean we can’t help. Palliative care is a valid option. It's pretty advanced nowadays.”

I sunk slightly in my chair.

“How long?” I breathed.

“That’s the difficult question. It’s that…” He sighed, his breath departing with a fraction of my soul that clung at his words. “Two to three months. That’s my estimate. Maybe less.”

I looked down at the table. The radios strewn about showed a slice of my head. A distinctive white area in the middle taunted me.

"I don’t mind you going for a second opinion, by the way," he said but I didn't listen.

I was my own enemy.

Hours later, I walked down one of the few cobblestone streets left in the city. It buzzed with activities. Bars, pubs were opening to a coming clientele as the workweek came to an end. The local stores closed after a long day of trade. The smell of a fishmonger’s shop wafted at my muzzle as he scrapped the floor of melting ice, fish scales and invertebrate juices.

I turned left into a back alley and passed two hip’ food places where several ponies already lined up. Then I reached it, my bar. Not mine per se but the one I went to every week.

I opened the door, shook hooves with the owner, walked to the back where a couple of acquaintances sat along with two friends. We talked politics as we drained beer pints. A weekly ritual complaining about events we couldn’t change. Simple small talks. Not unlike the weather forecast.

“How you doin’, Drop?” one asked. “You seem barely on this earth.”

I smiled back.

“You know, nothing,” I replied. “Work and all. I’ve had a pretty rough couple of days at work; I’m already thinking about next week.”

“The ponies from the sales department still annoying you. Bunch of vampires, I tell you.”

I chuckled a couple of times and went back to my beer. I grabbed it from its coaster with my two hooves and stared at its content. I’d missed the happy hour and with how expensive it was in the city, I would only take another one after this.

As I sipped a mouthful, I lingered on the watery taste of it. At least the slice of lemon floating at the top of the brew camouflaged its taste.

“Hey, Drop,” Dièse, a leaden grey mare with a flute for a cutie mark, called from her side of the sofa. “Did ye bring the map?”

I frowned, taken aback by the question as I tried to rearrange my thoughts. My eyes widened as it fell into place.

“Yes… Yes, in fact,” I sputtered.

I looked around for my bag and after a quick search found it under my jacket. I unzipped its main pocket and rummaged through the heavy load inside. Papers, batteries, food and other things.

I pulled out a bundle of printed papers, shoddily taped together and protected from humidity with see-through duct-tape.

I tried to unfold the massive map, forcing everyone to remove their beer from the table. All in all, it was eight hooves by six.

Thereon lay a map printed in deep brown, still decipherable in the sifted light of the bar. Harder to see was the indigo fine print that was superimposed.

“Is that?” Omen pondered.

“Yeah,” Dièse confirmed. “Catacombs map. In brown, ye got the tunnels under the city. The other color is just the roads on the surface.” She frowned slightly as she searched for a specific place on there. “Where's the entry?”

She looked up at me with a quizzical expression on her face. I stared at her until she frowned hard back to me.

“Eh… ah!” I muttered as a new chill assaulted the back of my neck, allied with the void that nested under my sternum. “It’s not there. You gotta go through an entry in the cable tunnels of the state's telephone company.”

I explained it wasn’t far from here. Merely a thirty minutes walk before we could find a specific sewer entrance that wasn’t really one. Walking a mile underground would lead to a hole that somepony had dug in the concrete with an electric, portable jackhammer. We could crawl in a small bend in the ground and then voilà... Into the catacombs.

Dièse and I had decided to go a few days ago. We’d told nopony else so we wouldn’t have stragglers. So we could be together alone. I closed my eyes and breathed in. A long, deep breath.

“What’re ye afraid of, Drop? I know it’s not the first time you went in,” Dièse called, waving me in the catacombs’ entrance, having pushed aside the makeshift metal cover that hid it. “What’s wrong? Come on.”

“N-Nothing,” I sighed, swallowing a great deal as I contemplated the open hole crudely dug in the tunnel’s concrete wall.

I looked back at the dark and dusty hallway behind us. It echoed with Dièse’s breath and mine. The still water lingering the floor reflected my torchlight. Its rays glimmered over the littered, rusted copper cables strewn along ground and walls.

I closed my eyes as I took an erratic breath in, and let it go slowly. As I opened myself back to the tunnel's darkness, I switched my light off, set it at the bottom of my backpack and, only lit by Dièse’s own lamp, I contemplated the knife safely stashed in it. I nodded, swallowed, zipped it all up and turned back to my friend. I smiled faintly.

“I ain’t scared of living.”

Author's Note

Short Description:
News come and go. It's how we deal with them that matters.

Long Description:
Drop is meeting with a friend, ruminations on her mind.

[Clunky short story written for the Post-Apocalyptic Emporium discord's writing contest]

Jun. 20th, 2019 - The Letter

Author's Note

Short Description:
Bon Bon struggles. To help herself, she writes.

Long Description:
Dear Lyra,

This is a letter to the sea, meant for you, but never for you to read.
I hurt and I don't want you to share the pain with me.
I don't wish it on you or anyone. I hurt, so I write. I write to see.

Bon Bon~

Jun. 20th, 2019 - The Letter

I fall apart. That’s what I do sometimes. When the fear of exposing myself to the judgement of others becomes too great, I die inside. I don’t want to appear strong or great, just somepony else… to avoid shame.

If you read this, know I didn’t want you to. I wrote this for me, and my idealized version of you. If you do read further, I entrust you with those words. Please don’t bring shame to me, don’t share these with anypony.
__

Dear Lyra,

Shame is my great enemy. It repulses me. I can’t watch intimate or comedic movies as you’ve witnessed it. When jokes at someone’s expense are coming, when absurd situations arrive, when somepony gets the brunt of an accident, a blunder, a mishap... I retch.

It hurts, but never in a brutal way. It just seeps–

Cold, void, going outward from my sternum. A heavy weight in my intestines. A dreadful expectation. Fear. Untargeted. Merely plain, constant, background noise. It hits, goes away, comes back. But not a single day passed where I don’t feel it. This Inadequacy. Constant, pounding, self-inflicted to every extent.

I can't help I hate myself.

I will pull away, evade and even fight. If I can’t, my ears, my eyes, I will cover it all to hide and mutter to drone out the voices that jab the shameful one, that pony whom I always see as me.

It’s hard to concentrate. I’ve too often pulled away from daily life to my phone. I want to text you, Lyra. Every day. I want to tell you I need you. You’re my light, my anchor. The one pony that dims the storm that wrestles in me. A singular storm. Not of feelings but a single one. Anger–

I hate Berry Punch among many and you know it. You never asked me why and I’m glad you didn’t dig. She’s her mother’s daughter. Her mother like my own. An alcoholic. As a kid, I thought then it was normal for adults to drink. A drink to celebrate the evening, one for the dinner, another for the daughter going to sleep. I used to wake up at two or three in the morning to find my mother fast out on the couch, snoring. In her hooves, an expected half-emptied glass of shine. Mom was always furious when she found out stains and sogged rugs and sofa. She never scolded me but I didn’t want her bad self in the morning. I always took the glasses away.

The worst day of my life is a twelve-years-old mid-September Sunday. That day, father was away and Mother and I were cleaning the basement. Every now and then she left me alone, all throughout the day. She always came back, every time more tired. I didn’t understand why she was slow or I could barely understand her. Something was wrong and I couldn’t see. I couldn’t say. So I asked myself, was it me? Finally, father came back with my little brother in tow.

Home exploded. I saw everything, heard all the screaming. The fight, the shattered things, the broken hopes, the torn pieces of childhood in front of me. My brother hit me in the face as I held him back crying at the top of the stairs.

Even today, I can’t deal with noises. Whispers and shuttered voices behind walls and doors, down sets of stairs are killing me. I need absolute silence or drowning music.

“Daddy and mommy had a fight. It’s normal,” he said. “It’s what adults do.”

If I text you, Lyra, would you see it? Would you hesitate to open the message or answer it? Would you ever answer me again were you to know who I was inside? If I know you saw it but chose not to answer, am I at fault? I surely am. I can see you write to mutual friends online. Did I do something wrong, Lyra? Tell me. I fear you rejecting me. I’d rather know that be left in the dark. Then, finally, you text back and all the weights in the world lift away from me. I’m free. But I know deep down this spiral will soon come back to eat me.

If I were to share my pain and anguish, will you help or back away from me? Being misinterpreted, miscomprehended is my greatest fear. And so I say nothing. I would rather have you and suffer than lose you and be happy.

I don’t want to fight you, Lyra. I love you. I would rather die that falter to the shame of doing what adults sometimes do. And adults like Berry Punch I hate with every atom of my being, from the top of my ears to the tips of every single hair of my fur.

This is a letter to the sea, meant for you, but never for you to read.

I hurt and I don't want to rip it from me.

I don't wish it on you or anyone around me. I hurt, so I write. I write to see.

I don’t need painkillers, just ragekillers.

To kill my inadequacies, that you and I can’t relate. To stop telling lies about me to keep you loving me.

Tomorrow I will be back to candies, at work like every day is the same. Wishing hellos and bidding adieus. Taking in the modicum of cash ponies pay for my treats. Is that all there is to be. Work and one day finally die?

When I see my flank, I always wonder why I want to die. Respite is my guess. But why death when I’ve got sweet. Isn’t that all there is to be?

Candies don’t taste sweet to me. The truest ones are your many smiles when you enter my boutique.

I hope I will be the first to go, call me selfish so. I don’t want to you without a smile in a cold parlour.

Dear Lyra, you’re my anchor. My soul. I love you.

I love you~

Aug. 17th, 2019 - The Stars Are Gone

“What do you mean, you just sneezed?” Celestia said, her tone sharp and steady.

A closeby trio of guards retracted their heads inside their helmets and breastplates as the princess loomed over her sister.

“Sister, we talked about this. Could you not use your Canterlot voice on me,” Luna replied, a scowl spreading her lips apart. She pushed her sister back with her hoof on her breast. “I mean, I just sneezed—right now—but! We’ve been inside the castle this whole time. This might just be a coincidence.”

Celestia arched her brow. “Really, sister?”

Luna flicked her mane in order and shooed her sister away with a motion of her hoof. She pivoted on her haunches and crossed her forelegs.

“Don’t you Rarity me away?” Celestia replied to the offense.

“Hey!” the aforementioned burst in the background.

Luna huffed, her muzzle pointed at the ceiling and a prompt smug cast on her face. “I hold dominion over the moon, Celi’, not the stars. I’ve never, in a thousand years moved one—and I’d be incapable of it anyway.”

“You could hardly move anything the past thousand years, if I recall.”

Luna snapped her eyes wide open and glared at her sister with pinpricks pupils. She gave a noticeable sniff next to her sister’s neck and cackled at the chocolate brownie smell. “And you could hardly move, cakeflank.”

Eyelids shrunk to slits and magic sparked. Fire crackled along the length of Celestia’s horn, answered in kind with minuscule twirling comets revolving around Luna’s.

“Princesses,” a lone, assured mare’s voice called.

Celestia flared her wings. Luna cracked her pasterns.

A tiny pony came into view of the light cast by the alicorns. “Princesses?”

Celestia and Luna stretched up, convoking their whole might, flowing manes, and magic regalias. They stared at each other, muzzles teetering a hair’s width apart.

“Princesses!”

“What?” they shouted, snapping back at the mare at their side.

Raven Inkwell, Celestia’s aide, pushed her large black-framed glasses up her muzzle and cleared her throat. She looked down her notebook, sparsely lit by the glow of her horn.

“I’m afraid the Yakyakistan emissary has severed the power cable line to the Castle Hall on the way to his bed.” She grimaced and looked up with a sigh. “You’re both looking at a switched off chandelier.”

The two sisters glanced up then down at the tiny unicorn.

Raven’s tired eyes stared beyond the two sisters at the trembling guards. She tilted her head quickly and they went away. Raven sucked air and sighed. Her horn lit and a brook of magic flowed from her horn to snatch up a trove of discarded bottles. A cloudy liquid swished down the bottom of a few.

“No more Yakvavit sampling during impromptu diplomatic reunions.” Raven turned around and gazed with annoyance at the pack of paparazzi and spectators. “During the gala most of all.”

The princesses blinked intermittently as many unicorns lit with their horns the colonnade of the Canterlot main hall. Its large golden door loudly creaked open and faces swiveled to the culprit.

“Where is the Academy of Equestrian Lettres?” Rarity hollered back, ready to slip in the gate’s slit. “I must ensure my name is not neologized!”

Oct. 7th, 2019 - Drifting Away

Author's Note

Arrived 10th out of 12.

Oct. 7th, 2019 - Drifting Away

“I disagree.”

“What do you mean?” Starswirl asked, finishing a graph on the blackboard that detailed the mechanical process of spellcasting and the relation between unicorns and magic.

“I am sorry but I think that idea is wrong, master,” Clover said, shakily raising from her cold desk as her hind leg drummed against the tiled castle floor. “I– I am acting out of place, b– but I feel that I ought to speak.”

“Then do so, student of mine,” Starswirl said with squinted eyes as he turned away from his blackboard, chalk hovering in his magical aura. “You take a stand as a potential future archmage of Equestria—this cold, forsaken land. Better make your words count, oh you too clever of a clover.”

“I– I don’t think you’re telling the truth. I mean, I don’t accuse you of telling a lie but have you ever considered that magic isn’t just… a unicorn’s field?”

“What do you mean, pupil?”

“In all your years of studies, have you ever considered the possibility that our forebears were, if not wrong, lost on a specific pursuit, a singular concept of magic that dooms us rather than helps us understand the world?”

Starswirl pursed his lips and looked up at the shadow-cast ceiling where frost gnawed at the plaster and images of long-past events forgotten by all but a few unicorn scholars.

“Clover…” He sighed and walked away from the board to get a better look of his single student. In his stead, each of his garment bells fell silent, locked in his silencing magic. “Our masters, ancestors, all those long lines of proud unicorns who’ve fought against the blaze of earth ponies’ crude industry and the roaring thunder of pegasi tomfoolery… they’ve worked on describing the world, to understand it philosophically, to approach the Truth.”

“I know, master.” Clover bit her lip and looked askance as she rubbed her forelegs together. She took a deep breath and bore her eyes into her master’s, sunken by fatigue and the lack of sun in Equestria’s everwinter. “But what if they were wrong in doing so? Have they ever considered that merely describing magic as a transcendental field, that aether we just bath in and from which we, unicorns, may tap into thanks to the gifts granted to us—horns and cutie marks—would be biased? What if “magic” as we conceived it is merely a concept we’ve misconstrued over time? What if ‘magic’ as we describe it is just a terrible mistake, a concealment of the actual truth?”

Starswirl shook his head, disconcerted. “What concealment? Are you telling me you want to throw to the fire a thousand years of unicorn tradition?”

“No… y– yes? Maybe. What I mean, master, is that by enshrining magic as an object only we unicorns can use, own, and master, may be wrong.”

Clover swallowed and wiped her brow where beads of sweat trickled despite the frigid cold of the castle room. She threw a quick look at the slit of a window carved in the stone masonry where the whine of winter winds crawled through and made their presence known at the back of Clover’s mind.

“I think that your teaching, that magic is essential to unicorns, and to a lesser—ah, ‘lesser,’ what a terrible term to apply to our brethrens—extent earth ponies and pegasi as they only have a cutie mark… That is wrong! Doesn’t that appear to you to be a terrible path of thinking. We built the exclusion of our very kin, and other races on it. Where is the emancipation in what we teach and learn, master? War… War seems to be the pride and result and process to which what you call unicorn reason leads.”

“And you’ve just come up with that now,” he said with a tired smirk.

“No!” she screamed. Her eyes went wide and she sheepishly retreated away from her master until her rump hit her cold granite desk. She’d walked around it to shove herself straight in front of Starswirl’s face without really registering. Her heart raced and she could hardly breath. “No… S– sorry for screaming. I have been thinking about this for a long time. At least what I think has been a long time. I’m not chastising our tradition, merely saying we should consider other ways. All those ideas are born from some bygone epoch. Our plight is different. So must be our methods.”

She walked away to cast a glance out the window slit to the gloomy realm of winter. Dark shadows ran through the wind and the howl of the wind seemed more alive and hungry and filled with hatred.

“I’ve never seen the sun over Equestria, master,” she said between two hiccups. “And I think our worldview are a reason why. We should strive for emancipation. Our shame is thinking we advance the world from our granite towers, away from any strives, when we don’t create some more. That’s our shame, the shame of all ponies to have locked ourselves in a way of thinking that doesn’t allow self-reflection and self-fulfillment. And we have the audacity to call it reason. That’s my shame too, but I at least have the courage to admit that is a fault in my judgement.”

Starswirl’s chalk snapped in his magic but the white shards stayed stuck in the aura. “Fine, you think you can stomp over the work of our teachers, walk away? Out there, in the cold? I am so… disappointed in you.”

Clover grabbed her quills, notebooks, and shoved them into her bags. She sucked a deep breath then sighed, one tear trickling in the candlelight. She looked at her master one last time.

“You don’t have the monopoly on reason. I just hope you can see the issue in our judgement, master,” Clover muttered. She straightened herself to banish the quivers that numbed her legs. “We can’t stay stuck in this castle any longer. We’re hiding from the world. The tribes are warring outside and we could be doing something: Change things!”

“I am protecting you, pupil of mine.” Starswirl’s jaw clenched and air sifted between his yellowed, old teeth. “You will die outside in the wintertime.”

“I will emancipate us all from the darkness.” Clover threw a look at the door of the study room, and flung it open with her magic. “We sure can’t cling to the idea that magic is born from unicorns only. Tied to something outside of us, tied to something akin to fate, predestination, cutie marks. Those ideas will be the ruin of us.”

She took a first step through the doorframe and dared not look back.

“We should be free from strife. Magic is not our property or even our essence. Instead, it should be something that should be possible from all ponies, everypony, every creatures that walk this earth. Our ancestors’ framework is flawed and it will be the ruin of us all.”

“I wished you could have not settled such a broad judgement on a mere definition, pupil,” Starswirl said if not spat. “I just want you to be safe.”

“We’re building a dead world on old ideas we’re not ready to question. Yet, we must question them. I don’t want to sequester generations in ruins, in the cold outside, just because we’re too afraid from reconsidering our own preconceptions. This world is larger than you think. Magic is not a game of fate and a unicorn’s realm. Magic is possible anywhere, everywhere, from anypony, and I will prove it.”

“Ah, and how will you do this? Outside in the cold of winter, ravished and devoured by the evils of the North. They will eat you, Clover. The war will destroy you. The tribes will grind you to a dust and spread you to the blizzard!”

“At least, I’ll try. I’m leaving your tutelage, Starswirl. Thank you for the education, but now, I need to learn on my own. I depart with fear and anguish in my breast.”

Before she took down the marble stairs to the lower levels where snow piled up in the deserted corridors of the ancient castle, she turned back to her former master.

“I outgrew those walls,” Clover said, “and yet I know they still contain something great: those two little unicorns, Celestia and Luna. Please, Starswirl, before teaching them your philosophy, reconsider what it means. If they are as powerful as you think they are, please, consider my words. I am begging you. I know I am failing you, but if those two are what you believe they are, what if one of them fails you too. Fails far more than your old, recluse bones…? If you believe they’re predestined, will you bear the blame for their actions?”

Oct. 12th, 2019 - Prologue

Author's Note

Arrived 2nd out of 7.

Oct. 12th, 2019 - Prologue

A great ordeal and upheaval once graced the magical land of Equestria. Ponies looked up at the sky and aimed for the black ceiling of the night. To reach the stars, science competed with its wise and ancient sister: magic.

Unicorns, seeking for revelation and control, looked at their earth pony relatives with fear and suspicion. Earth ponies spited their horned cousins for their ego. Pegasi, meanwhile, knew the price of the feud was the sky and further above, and lent their hooves happily to either side. Glory was the reward, and their blind mistress.

Equines led by hubris or the laudable intent of exploration threw themselves at each other’s throat. War was declared and spiralled out of control. Blood quenched the thirst of many and Equestria’s furrows and, when the mists of war finally dissipated, the outcome shook Ponykind’s foundations.

Star were reached, but came with a hefty price: Equestria.

Ponies, now skybound and with dust for a home, aimed further in the black deep and ventured in search of new worlds to settle.

An era in its death’s throw let a new epoch down. Ponykind spread, broke down, and thrived… uncovering in the meantime the mysteries that still lay far between the stars.

Exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination now rhythm the cold of the emptiness of space. And, everything being equal, the sky was forever changed.

And you know what’s wrong with that? I can’t escape a forever changing sky, one that morphs all the goddamn time and wants to eat you, if my co-pilot lost the key to the bloody spaceship start-sequence! In the cargo-haul! Somewhere around that tied-up and screaming blue pegasus who stowed herself on *my* ship!

“I think she got too much of the flour juice, Captain,” my co-pilot said. “Talking about needing to go back to Equestria, and other what-nots. A bunch of hoo-wees, right?”

“I don’t care,” I spat back. “If you don’t want to get gobbled by a black hole, find the keys in one of those fucking cardboard boxes!”

Nov 4th, 2019 - Shear Consequences (collab with Regidar)

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

2019 project - Diamond Sisters - Chapter 2 draft 1

Rarityopened her eyes. Silence. She was lying in a bed with recently changed linens, alone. She tried to recall the last time she’d had the chance. Not in a long while. The Workers’ house was always busy, cramped and rancid.

She looked down at her feet under the covers. She was sweating in the damp, cool air that crawled through the open window. The room was at least on the second floor, she couldn’t hear any distinct walking sounds. Only the plucking of raindrops against the outside wooden parapet gave her a sense of time.

The lightning outside lit up the walls and she caught a glimpse of her damage arm. It burned. Messy, rust-colored gauzes wrapped her arm from her elbow down. Only the tips of her fingers were left exposed. Rarity stared at her nails, cleaned of any dirt.

“You scared me. So much.”

Rarity gasped when Tempest’s voice rose from the shadow of a corner of the room. Rarity turned her head to the right. Tempest was sitting in a chair next to a tiny nightstand where a dead oil lamp sat. Feeling tears rising, Rarity held her hand over her eyes.

“Do you mind lighting the light, please?” Rarity asked.

Tempest did as Rarity brushed a couple of tears from her eyes. The topaze light illuminated Tempest’s face.

“The doctor extracted some gem shards from your hand,” Tempest said, pointing at the small brown napkin folded in her hand.

“They also cleaned your wound with what they had...”

“Snips died… because of me,” Rarity blubbered. Tempest didn’t raise a finger. “The bird scared me and I ran away. I’m a coward.”

Rarity turned again to look at Tempest. Their eyes never met. Rarity could only hear her friend’s low and heavy breathing.

“You didn’t flee,” Tempest said.

“Yes, I did,” Rarity heaved. “You always say I can be selfish and oblivious. You’re right. I should have known we weren’t alone in that place. That stupid bird… I could have grabbed Snips and drag him to the hole.”

“If it was a monster, you’d have died too,” Tempest rumbled. “Your life is better than none.”

Tears wet Rarity’s sheets as she glanced at her bandaged arm. The wound itched. She went to scratch at it but stopped herself short of pulling the gauzes. She stared at the wall facing her bed.

“What happened down there?” Tempest asked, leaning chin up against the back of her chair.

“A monster came.”

Tempest’s pupils jittered as she seemed to dread what was nothing but a confirmation. Rarity knew she’d seen it.

“That wasn’t a monster of stone, flesh or metal,” Tempest recounted. “I saw it., it was more like a mist.”

“She talked.” Rarity met Tempest’s frozen look.

“She?”

“She used magic. The witch.”

Tempest rolled her eyes. “Magic’s a fairy tail. Have you hit your head?”

“She did used magic. Believe me.” Rarity rubbed a tear from the corner of her eye. “She did something to Snips. He was bleeding.”

“Nothing that a sword or good claw can’t do.”

Rarity gripped her chest, her heart beating wildly inside her ribcage. She took several sobbing breaths. “She tossed me like I was a sort of mannequin.”

“A what now?”

“She never touched me,” Rarity threw her hand out, mimicking the scene. She only met Tempest’s confused expression in return. “She was flying and she chucked me around with her mind.”

Tempest set a hand on Rarity’s shoulder. Rarity shuddered. “You don’t trust me?”

“I can only speak of what I saw. And you don’t want that tale to be the first thing people hear from you, Rarity.” Tempest gulped hard. “Six people have died so far in the collapse.”

A cold knife plunged into Rarity’s heart. She closed her eyes.

“The bossyboots from Canterhigh castle will want a word with you,” Tempest continued, grabbing Rarity by the shoulders. “I needed to let you know. We were several to see the black smoke snake thingy. But the sheriffs weren’t satisfied, at all.”

“What do I tell them?”

“What you saw.”

Rarity sighed. “Nobody will believe me. You don’t.”

“I know what I saw,” Tempest repeated with a somber smile, her hand pressing further, painful. “I’m your friend but I wasn’t in there with you. I can’t be here when they’ll interrogate you. My word is worthless.”

“The place was old, Tempest. And the statue. It was so beautiful. And the ceiling, encrusted with diamonds.”

Rarity caught Tempest’s first earnest smile of the day. “At least we’re making banks on those. Maybe they’ll get you off easy for it.”

It dawned on Rarity there would be a trial. There was always one after a collapse or a blast. Tempest had been through several.

“But…” Rarity coughed, clutching at the knot in her belly. “I’m the only one that saw it all. Nobody’ll believe me. The council will just blame a blast and a coal firedamp.”

She was screwed. Tempest’s silence told her as much. Her biting her lips was a pressing condemnation–she never did.

“Can you…” Rarity begged, retching.

“I don’t know how,” Tempest replied, letting go to press her forehead in her palms.

“Just do something!” Rarity yelled, throwing her arms out with great pain. “You’re my best frie—”

Tempest’s eyes grew wide. Rarity traced Tempest’s stare to her bandaged forearm, and her brain froze.

A sapphire glow pulsed from under the gauzes. Rarity darted her focus to Tempest’s napkin. Its content had spilled over the bed sheets. The fragments of the amethyst that’d exploded in Rarity’s hand in the mine lay about. They glowed the same hue as her arm.

“I didn’t do that,” Rarity said, watching with dread as Tempest’s expressions ran from fear to wonder and cluelessness.

The door opened with a kick. Rarity froze, Tempest sprung, grabbing onto Rarity’s left arm and pulling it down under the bed sheets. Rarity fought a wince and watched stupefied as Tempest held onto her, locked sitting astride her legs. One of her knees pressed the amethyst shards deep in the mattress.

Rarity’s eyes followed Tempest’s as she gawked at a light lapis teenager with silver hair walking in backward with a small cart in tow.

“Hello, my name is nurse Trixie,” the white-clad teenager said with a tinge of sass followed by a long-winded angry sigh. She readjusted her cream blouse as she turned. “I will be changing your g— gauzes?”

Rarity’s eyes shifted from Tempest to the visitor. She tried to babble a word but sputtered herself into silence. Rarity glanced up at Tempest.

“What?” her senior replied.

“Do something!” Rarity peeped.

“I’m gonna let you finish… outside,” Trixie said, coughing in her hand.

Rarity goggled back at the nurse. She felt a blush burning her cheeks. “No that’s not what you think!”

“Oh, don’t worry! I’ve seen craz—” Trixie frowned at Tempest. “What’’re you looking at?”

Rarity looked up. Tempest hadn’t moved, staring bewildered at Trixie. Rarity followed her gaze and saw the nurse’s necklace.

“What?” Trixie said exasperated.

The bead dangling on the iron chain teetered an inch or two above Trixie’s chest. It glowed too.

“Make it stop,” Rarity heard Tempest breath, never diverting her eyes.

Rarity didn’t answer. She was entranced as she watched Trixie seize the bead between her fingers. The teen untied the necklace with her other hand and flicked the bead away. Dragging the chain behind it, the small gem wobbled, suspended in the air by an invisible force. Rarity held her breath. Tempest audibly did too.

Rarity cold picture gears mull over behind the teen’s eyes. The room had swiftly fallen to a frightening silence.

“Someone’s gotta see this,” Trixie exclaimed, swivelling on her feet.

Trixie pushed the cart aside and ran away.

“Wait!” Tempest ordered.

Trixie was already out as the cart came crashing down in a ear-splitting racket.

Tempest lifted her knee, swiping the amethyst shards to hide them under the mattress. She rushed to Rarity’s side and pulled the cover down to reveal the mangled, bandaged and glowing forearm.

“What’s that,” she scolded, pointing with an open palm.

“Bandages,” Rarity humored.

“Ah, shut your mouth,” Tempest burst, swiping Trixie’s necklace off the air as it made its way above the bed. “How you do it?”

“I don’t know.” Rarity’s tears came back, her lips shaking.

Rarity scrapped the bandage up, tearing at some early scabs. Tempest winced as the sight of the open wound. The three-diamonds-and-swirl brand pulsed through Rarity’s skin, glowing like sapphire cast under a jeweller’s light.

Sobs wracked Rarity as she watched the light ebb and flow. She could feel the markings throb, a wave of heat that ran deep under her skin.

“Make it stop,” Tempest hushed.

“Make it go,” Rarity begged.

And it went. Rarity felt the pressure drain from under her like emerging out of cold water. Tempest leaned backward to sit at the edge of the bed. They both shared a deep sigh of relief.

“You ought to see this, Red Heart,” Trixie said in the hallway leading to the room.

“It’s Chief Nurse Red Heart, for you,” an imperious voice thundered in the teen’s stead.

Trixie and a pristine white woman at the upper limit of her prime walked into the room. Trixie was jittering, pulling at the chief nurse’s arm ecstatically.

“Her arm was throwing lights!”

Rarity diverted her gaze as she felt eyes undress her for any signs. She locked down on her ravaged forearm and the ripped off gauzes lying about. She tasted blood and bile.

Red Heart grunted, Rarity looked up. The Chief Nurse set a foot against the toppled cart, inspecting the splayed open content.

“I’m done with your antics, Trixie,” the nurse seethed, storming out.

“No, I tell you, it really glowed!”

“Clean your mess and get back to work! Prep’ the miner up. She’s got company soon.”

Trixie held out her hand in the doorway, hoping to drag her boss back. Red Heart’s heavy steps rattled down the hallway and a series of stairs.

“You ruined everything,” Trixie scalded Rarity as she snapped around. “For once there was something interesting happening in this boring city.”

“Interesting?” Rarity and Tempest stammered together.

Rarity backed down after they shared a glance, letting her friend do the talking.

“Interesting?” Tempest said, standing up to stroll down the room till she loomed over the sheepish teen. “Do you know what Canterhigh does to witches?”

“We…” Trixie gulped. She chuckled slightly, “burn them?”

Rarity felt her insides crash down to her feet. She recalled the stories she got to listen in the amphitheater of the Workers’ house. The last witch trials might have had happened a hundred years old, a story of stakes and fires was still recounted by the elders, telling of the grimness of the city’s past civil war. Magic was just a prop, a way to embellish an old story. Rarity had thought so her whole life. She glanced at the brand in her arm.

“Yes, we burnt them.” Tempest thundered as she grabbed Trixie by the neck of her blouse. “And I don’t want you to cry monsters and tricks over something like…”

“Please, stop.” Rarity lifted her hand to her friend and whimpered as the pulse came back.

She started backward, hitting her back against the head of the bed. The light was gone again.

Still holding on Trixie, Tempest had followed the commotion. “Do it again, Rarity.”

“Do what?” Rarity replied, vacillating.

“Just move your arm around, I don’t know.”

Wincing as she lifted her left forearm, Rarity traced a semi-circle in the air. Only when she pointed towards an indistinct point at the wall did it light up.

“Cool,” Trixie muttered.

Tempest slapped the back of the teen’s head.

“Hey, how dare you, pauper?”

“Keep it up,” Tempest ordered Rarity, shoving Trixie away with a hand.

Rarity painfully held her hand in the direction that caused the light.

Tempest strolled back and forth between the wall and her hand. She scraped the wood of the wall as if to look at anything embedded in. Then, she walked outside the door, only to come back.

“That must be saying something,” Tempest said.

“I don’t wanna burn,” Rarity replied.

“Maybe you’re going to explode like smoke and bombs?!” Trixie squeed. She earned Tempest’s glowering stare. “Or not.”

Tempest walked back to the chair by the nightstand and slumped, holding her head between her hands.

“She be cursed, right?”

Rarity gaped at Trixie, “No, I’m not.”

“Well!” Trixie unceremoniously walked to the edge of the bed and plopped her butt down the mattress. “I heard about the black smoke! Pretty cool stuff by the way. Apparently you caused some powerful explosion or whatnots. But the sheriffs’ve been pretty active since. There was looting in the town square sinkhole.”

“The sinkhole happened in the townsquare?!” Rarity gasped.

“Well, duh?” Trixie rolled her eyes. “And everyone saw the statue and stuff. People say it’s from the time before the civil war, or better even… The end of the world! Imagine, a time with clear skies to watch fireworks! I even read about what’s called stars when I was little.”

Rarity looked at Trixie with a scowl. That teen had been taught how to read. Tempest and she hadn’t. Rarity had done it herself. Resentment bubbled inside her.

“You live on the hills under the castle?” Rarity asked febrilly.

“Yes, I do!” Trixie replied with pride. “I’m just here because of community service.”

Rarity slightly backed away in surprise.

“What does a kid from the high society have to do to get a punition?” Tempest rumbled, mirroring Rarity’s mind.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Trixie giggled by herself. “I may have… uh, I, the calm and very studious Trixie, was accused of stealing dynamite to make fireworks.”

Tempest groused, setting her head against the chair’s headrest, a hand over her face. “You don’t make fireworks with dynamite.”

“What do you know?” Trixie retorted.

“She does explosives in the mines,” Rarity quickly said, seeing her friend’s teeth grind behind her hand.

“Oh! Well, if not for the sheriffs, I’m sure they’d need you at the mine.”

Tempest jumped to her feet. “What about the mine.”

“Well, your friend here.” Trixie pointed at Rarity. “She may have killed about six people, but there are about twenty others stuck in the lower levels since yesterday. Red Heart was fussing about it because that’s going to make our job harder when they get them out. Getting woundier or something.”

Rarity eyes grew wide. She’d been out for a day. She glanced at Tempest who was now taking in slow and measured breath.

“I don’t know why, but the sheriffs have locked down the area around the shaft and sinkhole. No rescue mission.” Trixie shrugged and looked at Rarity. “At least until they’ve had a word with you, I believe.”

Tempest tensed, her fists clenched by her side.

“I was told to keep you all lively and well,” Trixie continued. “At least till they come.”

“You ratted her out,” Tempest spat.

“Not at all, I just do what I’ve been told,” Trixie rolled her eyes. “That’s what good Canterhigh citizens do, don’t you think?” She pointed at Rarity. “Especially since you’re a witch, and you let a monster loose in the city.”

Rarity felt the cold water bucket of realisation being slowly dunked over her head. After a long moment staring at nothing, she looked first at Tempest, who wasn’t focused either, then at Trixie. She’d crossed her arms.

“All this monster talk, though it’s cool, is making people angry. Maybe they’re going to string you, Rarity am I right, up for example. They do that sometimes to keep the paupers calm.”

“I thought you were oblivious, Rarity,” Tempest said, rubbing the ridge of her nose. “But that kid takes the cake.”

Tempest covered the distance to Trixie with three long steps. Trixie had the reflex to flinch away. Tempest’s reach outran Trixie’s attempt.

Tempest slapped the back of her head again. “Stupid kid.”

“What do I do?” Rarity said with a sob.

“We move.” Tempest walked to the window and glanced down outside in the rain.

“Aren’t you going to give her to the militia?” Trixie asked. She didn’t press further as Tempest raised her hand again, palm opened. “Well, can I come with you?”

“Are you dense?”

“Eh, oh!” Trixie tut-tutted. “First, I come from a great and powerful family. Have some respect.” She dodged another of Tempest’s hearty head pats. “Second, I’m not gonna stay here and explain to the sheriffs I’ve let you go. I’m making myself your hostage.”

Rarity let got a single guffaw that sent a shiver of pain down her ribcage. The first earnest laugh she’d had in a long while.

“And,” Trixie continued, bending ever slightly forward as she wiggled a finger at the many years her senior, “I don’t understand why you’re helping her?”

Trixie pointed at Rarity. “You’re gonna throw away your job and life for that whiny woman.”

“What,” Rarity stuttered. “I’m not.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. She motioned at Tempest. “When the tall gall here wasn’t there yet, you were all sobs and tremors in the bed.” She shook her head. “Talking in your sleep about that woman with golden hair.”

“What woman?” Tempest asked.

A blush rising on her cheeks, Rarity curled against the head of the bed. “I’ve been having dreams about the same woman for a week now. She doesn’t look as sickly as we are. Pale I mean. The place. The tastes. The sights. It’s all too real. Like I’ve been there before and want to go back.”

“Ah, visions!” Trixie said, beaming victory at Tempest. “Told you she’s a witch!”

“No, I’m not,” Rarity protested.

“That honestly doesn’t help your case,” Tempest finally said, earning a pout from her friend.

“Tempest!”

“Who’s there?” a strong male voice echoed in the hallway.

“That’s the clue,” Trixie said rushing to the doorstep. “Sorry, Sheriff, it seems I’m being taken hostage.”

Trixie slapped and locked the door. She took a deep breath, and glanced at Tempest with a crossed look.

“Uhm, they have…” A sword slashed through the top of the door. “You get the hint.”

“Help me,” Tempest called. The two swiftly pushed the bed against the door. “Do you know of to hop rooftops?”

“You hurt me, I am the best!” Trixie huffed as if disgraced had fallen her. “Just watch and learn.”

She jumped out the window and yelped.

“Can you walk?” Tempest asked Rarity.

“Yes, I do,” Rarity muttered. “But where are we going?”

“Not here, that’s for sure,” Tempest said as a second sword joined the door hacking. “There’s something more to this story than the telltale says. If we need to clear a misunderstanding, it can’t be done here. Now run.”

Rarity carried herself out of bed. Tempest tied the brown napkin around Rarity’s injured arm. Holding on tight, Rarity walked through the window frame with Tempest in her stead.

⇜⇝

“I’m bleeding,” Rarity said with a wince.

“Give me your coat,” Tempest ordered Trixie. “I’m gonna bandage her.”

“Are you crazy? It soaked in the rain. She’s going to get infected.” Trixie looked down at the wounded arm. “It’s definitely going to get infected. I advise early amputation.”

Tempest whacked the underside of Trixie’s head.

“If you continue with that, I’m gonna complain to my parents.” Trixie pouted. “And I’m serious. No arm, no weird symbol.” She looked Rarity in the eyes as if she expected her to connect to the conclusion. “Thus no witch.”

“I’m not—” Rarity started.

“What’s the best second solution?” Tempest cut.

Trixie shrugged. “I’ve just been working at the infirmary for like two days. I’m sure rubbing alcohol would help. And clean bandages of course.”

Rarity took a deep breath. She’d been wounded before in the mines. Alcohol straight on a cut was painful. She looked down at her injury. That was going to be a bad trip.

“Where are we anyway?” Trixie asked, looking around the city skyline. “I can barely see the hills and castle through the fog.”

Rarity knew the place. It was the old roof at the top of the Workers’ house. A derelict balcony sat hidden between two massive chimneys. The door leading to it had been filled with cement decades ago. Not many people could see it from other houses, and so not many knew about it.

Rarity knew thanks to Tempest. She’d brought her there years ago for her first cigarette. And some illegal moonshine tastings. Rarity wouldn’t tell, though. She kept heaving, exhausted by the ladder climb on two legs and one arm.

“You two stay here,” Tempest whispered, patting Rarity’s knee. “I’m gonna fetch what you need.” She turned to Trixie. “And you shut your word-hole.”

Trixie rolled her eyes and mimicked locking a key between her lips. She threw the imagined key away. Tempest crawled to the ladder and disappeared off the edge.

“So, how is it?” Trixie asked.

Rarity’s head drooped. “What is how?”

“I mean, the mine.”

Rarity’s back cracked as she slowly leaned against the concrete wall. She looked up at the rusty corrugated iron porch that protected the balcony from the drumming rain. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen, and you?”

Rarity hesitated. “Twenty eight.”

“Old.”

Rarity nodded. She took a deep breath and hunched over to hide her tears in her hands.

“Sheesh, I’m sorry.” Trixie’s blouse scrapped on the bare concrete as she got closer. Rarity felt a pat on her shoulder. “I didn’t know your kind could be so emotional.”

“You’re really not helping,” Rarity said, looking up to the teen. “Of everything that could have happened today, everything took the worst possible turn.”

“You mean yesterday.”

“I let a kid your age died.” A knot welled up in Rarity’s throat. The fact itself was painful to say.

“Well, doesn’t that happen like everyday in the mine? I mean, you should be used to it by now.”

Nobody was used to it. Miners were a family. And though the city didn’t care, they did. Rarity didn’t answer. A pampered up kid wouldn’t understand.

“I’m sorry,” Trixie said. “I didn’t mean to be mean. It’s… my teachers told me the lower city people are… just that they’re not worth much. But there are some cool people there, like your friend. Tempest, right? And gallow birds like you and your magic arm! I didn’t even know anyone could magick around!”

Rarity pressed her knees to her chest, wrapping her legs between her arms, and look beyond the roof at the city skyline. “Teachers…”

Canterhigh was built in the middle of a depression at the foot of a mountain. Rarity knew that but she'd never see the mountain itself. A fog fermented over the city, making it impossible to see more than two hundred yards in every direction during the best days.

From the top of the Worker's house, rarity could only see the many brick buildings where people stacked over each other in overcrowded dormitories. It was a wretched life.

It was still better than beyond the wall.

Rarity had only seen it a few times. The rempart separated the city from the wilderness, the dead forest. From the monsters.

She'd never seen any, but the story infected her with cool shivers every time she thought about it. She’d heard the stories, read the loss reports stamped on the town square walls. She was a miner, but at least she was not a courier or a caravanier to other cities.

Rarity thought of the witch. She could still picture her ragged face under the hooded dress. She shivered. She wondered if she was a monster too. It had been so long since the city had been attacked. Rarity wasn't alive yet at the time.

Trixie waved a hand in front of Rarity. "Trixie to weird witch lady, do you see me?"

"Ah, cut it," Rarity pestered, pushing the hand away.

Rarity huddled her knees closer and watched as the forever rain dripped and drummed along the sheet metal roof of the balcony. The rain soaked everything, dragging any smell to the mud that mulched on the ground.

"So why does you arm glow on and off?"

Rarity exhaled. "I am as new to this as you are."

"You tell me. You said you've had visions for a week."

"Dreams..."

"Whatever."

Rarity painfully raised her hand and extended her arm out. She winced as her fingers touched the water streaming down the edge of the balcony.

"Was it you who cleaned my nails?" Rarity asked.

"Well, yeah. Red Heart told me to. I'd have anyway, you were quite nasty, I-"

"Thanks." Rarity turned to smile at Trixie.

Trixie’s face lit up. “Even the great and powerful me can make friends in this mudhole, ah! Take that, d—”

Rarity’s smile faded as she Trixie became livid, her eyes riveted to the edge of the Workers’ house roof. Rarity turned and froze.

A black smoke was crawling up and over, needling with fuzzy tendrils at the metal sheets to get a grip.

“I think we’re going to need your girlfriend,” Trixie deadpanned.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

The smoke reshaped Two claws slashed. in the metal as if to haul itself. A single cold eye opened in the coal mist.

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Something to go on your debt to me by the way. Your tall gall didn’t give my necklace back.”

2019 project - Diamond Sisters - Chapter 3 draft 1

Rarity can’t let go of the embrace. It doesn’t matter if she has a few hairs flying in her eyes and mouth. They taste of strawberry and apple. “When will you tell me your name?”

The lady brushes her hair aside. Rarity warms up as she meets her eyes. “You already know it.”

“You really shouldn’t be here,” the woman says, a tear streaming down the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry. Sometimes, it’s for your own good that others take the plunge.”

She sends Rarity tumbling back.

⇜⇝

“Come on, move!” Trixie yelped.

Rarity fell to her knees and winced, holding tight on her wounded arm as the glow pulsed violently.

The mist rigidified, growing into a spire as a human shape slithered out from the darkness. The witch took in the faint light of the sky with squinted eyes. Her face still sagged but she already appeared younger than in the cave. The reverie didn’t last.

The witch didn’t walk. She shifted. She turned to the duo, hovering in the air with thunder streaking the sky.

Her raucous voice echoed in Rarity’s ears. “You have something that’s mine.”

Trixie sprung in front of Rarity. “My great and powerful family owns this pathetic town. I own everything here and you... don’t?” The witch raised a clawed hand. “Well, sort of. Only a good percent of it, really.”

The witch closed her fingers and Trixie tensed like a wooden stick.

“Magic,” Trixie choked with pain and glee.

The teen went flying across the roof and down its edge.

“Trixie!” Rarity cried out.

The witch lifted Rarity off her knees with a motion of her hand and dragged her to her side.

Rarity felt the dizzying cold of the mist touching her skin through her clothing. She gagged at the sight and tried to push away. The witch kept a secure distance this time.

“Where is the amethyst?” the monstrous lady barked.

“Bro– ken,” Rarity gasped as the ethereal strength choked her throat. “It exploded in my hand.”

“No,” the witch cried. “I need it! Give it back.”

Rarity’s vision blurred under the strength of the witch. Rarity clawed before her, trying to hold onto the absent hand that strangled her. The witch dropped her and Rarity hit the tin roof with a cry.

The invisible force came back, circling Rarity’s injury this time.

“What is this?” the witch rasped, lifting Rarity off the ground by her arm.

Rarity’s legs shook as she teetered off the ground. Her skin cracked and blood join the cold rain that trickled over her arm. Rarity opened an eye and saw the pulse over the brand reflect in the witch’s glaring eyes. Mangled teeth showed behind her growing grin.

“My finder spell,” she irked, boring Rarity with angry eyes. “You’re coming with me.”

“I don’t think so,” Tempest called from behind.

Rarity dropped to the ground, jerking her hand instantly to hold down the reopened gashes. Through tears, she saw Tempest, Trixie hanging limp over her shoulders. Her friend had two filled glass bottles in her hands.

The witch hadn’t turned fully that Tempest swung and shattered one bottle against the monster’s face. A short moment of silence passed and the screaming followed.

The shriek rattled Rarity’s bones and the Workers’ house structure. A great rumble cracked through the air.

Tempest grabbed Rarity by the neck and pulled her upward. Rarity ran, glancing once back to see the witch whirl in blackness exploding outward to slash, grab and rip everything around her apart. The roof split open, sending shards of metal, concrete and wood flying.

“Like old times!” Tempest yelled.

Rarity turned back and saw the empty space between the toppling roof and the next building across. Any failure would be a seven storey fall down.

“Like old times,” Rarity hissed through gritted teeth as she jumped the couple of yards distance and landed on her knees.

Rarity grabbed onto a protruding brick to not fall backwards. A wall of the Workers’ house tumbled against her landing building. The impact whooshed her forward and burning, ocre smoke swallowed the sky.

“The great Trixie would like to get off!” the teen shrilled.

A coughing fit wracked Rarity’s chest as she watched Tempest haul the teen off her shoulders and down to the bricks that made the roof of the building.

Rarity couldn’t see anything. A tinge of despair wrenched her heart. “Did the house collapse?”

“I can’t see,” Tempest shouted out as she made her way to the parapet.

Trixie dusted herself off the ground, her blouse no longer pristine nor intact. A long gash tore its back.

The teen’s cheeks puffed up and she sashayed to Tempest’s side. She took in the lack of sight in the smoke then turned to face her saviour.

“Trixie is thankful you dragged her from the metal staircase I was stuck on. Sadly, you’re now in my debt for having ripped off my clothing.” Trixie crossed her arms, staring intently at Tempest who raised a hand. Trixie huffed. “However, Trixie will gladly accept payment in the form of her necklace. Give it back.”

Tempest rolled her eyes. She set the miraculously intact bottle in her hand to the ground and went for her left pocket. Then her right pocket, and the back ones. She whacked Trixie on the head before she could say anything.

Trixie squinted, “when my parents hear about this—”

“They may not really care about a necklace,” Tempest cut as she hunched over the parapet. “This, though.”

Rarity watched Trixie gasp as she looked over the brick roof as the smoke started to clear. “She’s still there. Wait, she’s… Oh, my goddess.”

“What’s happening?” Rarity wavered.

Tempest snatched the bottle off the ground, pulled Trixie’s blouse back, tearing it off the teen’s shoulders. To her dismay.

“She’s busy.” Tempest opened the bottle. The bottleneck exhaled vapors that stung Rarity’s eyes. “Your arm, Rarity.”

“I hate this.” Rarity replied, hearing screams coming from the streets. She lifted her wounded forearm out and hid her eyes behind her hand.

Tempest ripped bits of the blouse to make a makeshift bandage. She hesitated between the bottle and the fabric.

“Oh, let me do this,” Trixie exasperated.

She pushed Tempest aside and snatched the bottle and blouse back.

Trixie washed her hands in the alcohol then tore small bands of fabric off her ruined blouse. She slid them into the bottle and shook. With a warning, she grabbed Rarity’s wrist and dunked the content over.

Coolness fogged Rarity’s mind, quickly followed by the focusing and thundering sharp pain that crawled from her arm to her brain. She yelped.

Trixie stuck her fingers in the bottom-up bottle to fetch the straps. Each time she pulled any, she wrapped it around Rarity’s forearm. Once done she discarded the bottle and ripped another, larger bands from the blouse and tied it on both ends.

“Here you go,” Trixie said, sliding the makeshift arm sling around Rarity’s neck.

“Let’s go,” Tempest hushed, walking to the nearby roof hatch.

⇜⇝

Trixie was pacing back and forth in the small room. “So, what do we do now?”

“I have no idea,” Rarity said, resting against the wall with her face hidden behind her hands. “Why did you have to tell the sheriffs we made you hostage…?”

Tempest was looking out a dirty window. She’d safely led the group to the disused mushroom farm, now an empty hangar that some people invited themselves in at night for drinking. The massive, half built underground hangar was empty when they came by and Tempest had swiftly found her way to the foreman’s office who oversaw both the courtyard outside and the former operations inside.

“The witch talked about a… finder spell?” Rarity breathed.

She looked down at her arm and moved it around. It always lit up when pointed in a specific direction. It was even sensitive to pointing up or down.

“And she talked about that gem we removed from your hand,” Trixie added. “Oh, I know! You gotta have absorbed the magic! You are. So. Cursed!”

“No she’s not, I told you.” Tempest pestered.

“What if I am?” Rarity said, holding her tears. “She said it’s a finder spell. So it’s meant to search for something, isn’t it?”

Rarity pictured the statue, the cathedral, Snips lying on the floor. she winced and sighed.

“I think she was searching for something in the place Snips was sent in.” Rarity had not a slight idea of what it could be. The cathedral had been empty of anything but metal, water and rust.

“I’m more afraid about how she got in the mine,” Tempest said. “The shafts are always manned.”

She fixed Rarity with a questioning look.

“I didn’t see any side tunnels but the one I came from, Tempest,” Rarity stated. “But… I can’t say there was none. It was too large for the safety light to show me everything. It was a church down there.”

“A church?!” Trixie exclaimed, jumping to sit next to Rarity. “Like real old religions and stuff? I heard the old priestess had so much tricks and magicking!”

Rarity smiled briefly. “No. Everything was flooded. There was just an altar and a statue.”

“Is it true she had wings?”

Rarity nodded to which Trixie squeed. The teen turned to Tempest.

“Can Trixie go back to the hole with you and some black powder to open it up and see if there’re spell books down there?”

“No.”

Trixie fussed under her breath and glanced at Rarity’s bandaged wound.

“Can I?” she asked.

“I’m not making glow for you,” Rarity quavered.

“I just want to see if the gauzes are okay. Like Red Heart told me to look…” Trixie pouted. “Trixie will ask about making it glow afterwards.”

Rarity painfully pulled her arm out of the arm sling.

“Thank you for your help,” she said.

“None taken,” Trixie replied mechanically, examining the wounds. “It smells a lot but it doesn’t look so bad. I guess it’s good news.”

“You guess?” Rarity chuckled.

“You’re the miner, you crawl nasty holes all day. I’m sure just standing out in the open rain is less nasty than a mine.”

Rarity didn’t try to argue. It depended on the mine, the ore, and depth and of course the job. She just didn’t want to engage further into rabbit holes with the bubbly teen. She sighed.

“Okay. Let’s see what it does.” Rarity sighed, pointing her arm in every direction till the glow appeared.

Trixie clapped her hands. “Awesome.”

Tempest sat next to Rarity as well. Rarity threw her a look.

“What? If we’re going to get out of your mess, we’ve got to at least understand what all…” Tempest motioned at the glowing burrows that traced Rarity’s skin under the shoddy bandages. “All this means.”

“It points North.”Tempest and Rarity looked at Trixie. “What? Your arm sparkles when you point north-ish.”

“What’s north?”

“Nothing?” Trixie replied. “I mean, the mountain is north east of Canterhigh. If we go north-north, it’s just the badlands and the forest.”

“We won’t be going north-north,” Tempest growled.

“You lost my necklace. You owe Trixie an adventure.”

“I don’t owe you nothing.”

“Just stop,” Rarity pleaded. “You both, please.” Rarity set her arm back in the sling and laid her forehead against her knee. “I’m dead. I let loose a monster in the city. People died because of me. I’m a screw-up.”

Rarity retched but swallowed back.

“We can’t go back to the mine. We’d just get arrested,” Tempest stated, glowering at Trixie. “And I won’t lead a kid and an injured friend outside the city walls.”

“You’re such a dry wit,” Trixie protested, leaning away out of Tempest’s reach.

“We don’t even know what it’s pointing at,” Rarity said.

“Must be something precious, seeing how the witch whacked those people in the street. Or at least something she really needs, I guess.”

“We’re not going anywhere.” Tempest pounded her fist in her other hand.

“What’s north of Canterhigh?” Rarity asked Trixie, a cold sweat trickling down her back.

“Ah, ah!” Trixie exclaimed, glancing victoriously at Tempest.

“You can’t be serious, Rarity.”

“I don’t know. I guess? I don’t see how I can stay in Canterhigh and escape the noose.”

Tempest didn’t answer. She sat on the floor and closed her eyes.

“What do we do, Tempest?” Rarity pleaded her friend.

Tempest massaged her temples. Her eyes wrinkled with sudden anger.

“I don’t know Rarity. I don’t know, okay!” Tempest burst. “What I know for sure is that we all screwed up today. I screwed, you screwed up.” She looked at Trixie and range seeped through her gritted teeth. “And I know you’re going to die if you venture outside.”

She stood up and punched her fist in the wood of the wall, making dust fall from the ceiling. She only stopped once her knuckles bled.

Rarity frowned. She could see a fuse sticking out of Tempest’s work denim. “Tempest, you didn’t?”

Tempest looked down to Rarity and followed her stare. She sighed and pulled out two sticks of dynamite.

“Yeah, you screwed good,” Rarity guffawed, feeling tension ease up at the incongruity of the situation. Tempest, the most uptight forewoman, stole dynamite sticks. “You’re a criminal now.”

“So we head out the city!” Trixie exulted.

“I didn’t agree to this,” Tempest protested.

“Those two babies in your pocket sure did!”

“Not found, not caught.” Tempest took the sticks and stuffed them in the bottom drawer of the cracked office desk. “How would we even leave the city?”

“Well, by the door,” Trixie said. Visibly no answer was not what she expected. She rolled her eyes for stating what was definitely obvious. “My father could help.”

“Who’s your father?” Rarity asked.

“I’m Trixie Lulamoon, of course. Heiress of the Lulamoon business!” She held an arm out in a tadah motion, resting her other hand above her nascent breast. Rarity and Tempest shared a confused look. “You really don’t know me?”

“Should we?”

Trixie stomped the floor. “That’s just rude! My dad runs the Canterhigh import export under royal decree. In what hole, under which rock have you been staying your whole life?”

“Now, that’s rude,” Rarity said.

“Allow me.” Tempest got up and whacked Trixie. “Now, what are you planning?”

A hand rubbing the back of her head, Trixie still kept her glorified pose. She laughed.

“Behold, adventure!”

⇜⇝

“What’s happening here,” Rarity whispered, looking down a narrow street that gave onto a larger avenue.

People were running and the distant din hinted at a massive crowd gathering.

“Riots!” Trixie clapped her hand. “I’ve never been in one. Can we go?”

“No.” Tempest glanced the other way. The street was empty beyond garbage piles and a couple mangy rats. “We’re going to take a detour to the loading docks. Your father runs the loading docks, right?”

“Not just.” Trixie beamed with pride. “He also manages the postal service.”

“You mean the runners?” Rarity asked.

“Totally. My boyfriend is a runner?” She gasped and looked hard at Rarity and Tempest. “You don’t tell my father, anything.”

“I don’t think we want to meet…” Tempest motioned at Trixie. “The adult version of you.”

Trixie squinted. “You still want me to help you.”

“You’re our hostage.”

“I can walk away to that street and call for a sheriff. They’ll be really happy to see you.”

“Not if I…”

“Ple-ease, stop!” Rarity exploded. “Tempest, please. Just don’t antagonize her. She’s our ticket out.”

“To where, that’s what I’m thinking about. We’re going to walk the deadwoods.”

Trixie huffed, exasperated. “I’m not going to have you walk. I’m not a ruffian like you two. My father was overseeing the preparations for a caravan yesterday. I’m sure I can slip you in.” She gave a wink. “Of course, the condition is that I come with you.”

“I’m not having some high society spawn come in the deadwoods with us,” Tempest hissed.

“Well, don’t worry. I own myself, nobody wouldn’t dare lift a finger on me.”

The earth rocked and a distant racket echoed down the street. Trixie faltered, catching herself with a hand on Rarity’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” Trixie said, dusting off where she’d grabbed the arm sling. “What was—”

“Dynamite,” Tempest said. “I think those are far beyond riots. Let’s go.”

Rarity followed behind Tempest and Trixie as they zigzagged between sideways streets and shortcuts only Tempest knew. She remembered her tall friend’s nickname back in the day. Street urchin. Pain snapped along Rarity’s arm and she hunched over with a yelp.

Rarity gagged. “It hurts.”

Trixie looked down the bloodied arm sling with a contrite look. Her eyes lit up and she vanished down a perpendicular alley, only to enter an open door where Rarity could see vapor and shapes rush behind a dirty window. The sound of crashing tin plates confirmed it was a refectory kitchen.

“Good evening, fellow paupers! I, Trixie Lulamoon, require some freshly boiled towels.”

A racket and a cat’s hiss later, Trixie ran out with fuming towels in each hand. “Run!”

Tempest did, carrying Rarity in her arms.

“Never do that again,” Tempest rasped, out of breath a minute later.

“It’s fun!” Trixie bubbled, removing some bandages off Rarity’s arm before wrapping it in the towels.

They’d already gone cold to Rarity’s relief. The cool feeling on her skin soothed some of the pain.

“Are we there yet,” Trixie asked Tempest. “I don’t know this part of town.”

“Of course, you wouldn’t. We’re right by the walls, pampered brats like you don’t come to this cut-throat place.”

Trixie bit on her lips. “Fair. We do have standards.”

Tempest let out a rough grunt, “I’m going to find some rope and gap for you to shut the hell up if you tag along.”

“Let’s go, please,” Rarity asked.

They soon reached the bottom of the wall. The rempart was a dozen yards high and the rough cobblestone that made it up was glued together with rebar-jutted concrete.

“That’s one nasty construction,” Trixie remarked.

Tempest grabbed her hand and pulled her forward. Rarity followed suite, holding on her arm as she noticed cracks and snips in the wall. Some parts were visibly more recent, and the nearby houses were scarred with large slashes and burns.

“We’re there,” Tempest murmured.

They turned a low bent between two houses and face a large windowless warehouse wall that merged with the wall at a ninety degree angle.

“Oh I see,” Trixie burst. “I know this street.”

She ran off, Tempest chased after her, and Rarity hopped behind. She saw Trixie pass a small group of rain-soaked, wiry to the point of gaunt workers. The one who held the group’s cigarette dropped it as he laid eyes on Trixie.

Trixie grabbed onto the handle of a single door and slammed it open inward.

“Good evening!” Trixie burst. “I’m back!”

“T–Trixie?”

Tempest followed in.

“Sorry,” Rarity said to the still gaping workers outside.

She entered and found herself ingroup with Tempest, Trixie, and the tallest, leaning man she’d ever seen. He was taller than Tempest herself.

“Featherlight! I present to you Tempest, the grumpy old girl here.” She dodged the coming slap. “And that pale woman here is Rarity.”

Rarity glanced down a long row of elaborated carts and wagons. Those weren’t hand-pushed for sure. Many people busied themselves filling them with boxes and tightly locked trunks. Others handled repairs. Only a few foremen here and there oversaw the operations with pen and pencils scribbling over drawn spreadsheets.

“What are you doing here?” Featherlight said, agape. “People told us you were taken by some rioters. Your father even requested some of the courier to track your kidnappers down. I gotta call Jack.”

Featherlight ran to a landline screwed to the wall. He pulled up the earpiece and mouthpiece.

“Operator, please c–” Trixie put her finger on the call button.

“Now, now.” Trixie tut-tutted as she took the phone out of the really thin, giant’s hand and slammed it back on the post. She leaned forward, a hand on her hip. “What did I tell you about telling my father about my whereabouts?”

“It’s just… People are worried about you.”

“Pish! My father wasn’t worried about his heiress getting caught with dynamite.”

“And who are those two?” Featherlight scolded, pointing at Tempest and Rarity.

“My hostage takers.”

Featherlight sputtered, “Wait, what?”

“Well, long story short, I made myself hostage. Goddess, that infirmary was grim after the blast in the mine.” Trixie shuddered for less than a second then pressed a finger against Featherlight’s chest, stopping him short from replying. “Now, you’re gonna put them in one of the carriages that’s supposed to leave tonight.”

“You’re smuggling people out now.”

“I am not over,” Trixie boomed. “And you’re going to take me with them.”

“No,” Featherlight said, choking on a laugh. “No, no, no, no, and no.”

“Or I could tell my father of our little arrangement.”

Featherlight’s jaw slackened a little. “You have to look this up with”

“I’m not fielding in for your antics, Featherlight.” An old, sweaty man swivelled on his chair nearby. His hands were covered in oil. A cigarette smoldered at his lips. “You’re in with the boss’ brat. You deal with her. I see nothing.”

“Ah!” Trixie triomphed.

“Please,” Rarity said, pushing herself in the middle of the group. “We need safe passage. There is something after us.”

Featherlight didn’t answer right away. He looked back to his chief who’d already turned his back to the scene, then back to Rarity. He eyeballed the arm sling and the bandage work within.

“My…” He sighed. “Follow me.”

Featherlight pushed them in a nearby room and started opening metal cases.

“Who’s following you?” Featherlight asked. “I might as well know what’s gonna fall on me if I let you go.”

“A witc—” Rarity and Tempest muffled Trixie.

“Nothing,” Tempest growled at Trixie.

“The sheriffs,” Rarity spoke. “They’ve been insistent since the blast in the mine.”

“They’ve still got it under lockdown after the townhole collapse?” Featherlight waited for an answer. “Nevermind.”

Trixie jumped on the nearby wooden chair, pushing away Tempest’s grabbing hand. “And a witch!”

Featherlight deadpanned. “Yeah, no. Is it like the time you were convinced there was a dragon in the sewers?”

“I still and will forever maintain there was a dragon in the sewers.”

Featherlight didn’t answer. He retrieved instead a couple of tweezers, some dusty bandages and a bottle with a cloudy liquid inside. “A second.”

As he ran out, Trixie smiled. “You’re in luck. Featherlight may be the best courier of the Lulamoon company, well except for Dash, of course, but he’s also one of the runners’ physicians.”

“He’s pretty damn young for a physician,” Tempest said, raising an eyebrow. “Is he your boyfriend? Was that the arrangement the old lad was talking about?”

“Trixie doesn’t reveal her tricks.” She crossed her arms. She cackled under her breath. “Well, he’s not really a physician. More like… first aid person? He once looked, found and brought back a wounded runner from the deadwoods.”

That took Rarity aback and, from the looks of it, Tempest as well.

“Damn,” they said together.

“Damn right, indeed.”

Featherlight walked back in with a pot of boiling water. The bandages and tweezers swam in it.

“Can I,” he asked Rarity.

“Where is the north?” she asked.

Featherlight’s face twisted at the question. “Uhm…” He pointed towards the door.

Rarity pulled her arm out, making sure to never point in that direction.

“You’re such a bore, Rar,” Trixie said.

“Don’t you Rar, me,” Rarity winced as Featherlight inspected the wound, taking care to only lift the bandages ever slightly.

She could see questions rise in his mind as his traits twisted, arched and rose at the sight of the branding slowly revealing itself before his eyes. He kept them to himself.

“Thanks,” Rarity said.

“No problem.”

He dumped the contents of the pot on the ground and retrieved the tweezers after a moment. He gently started to remove the bandages.

“With what you had, Trixie, I think you did a good job.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“What can we do to repay you,” Rarity asked.

“Just tell me if Trixie got into that much trouble?” Featherlight asked as he removed the caps of the small bottle he’d retrieved from the case and dunked some of the liquid on one folded piece of boiled bandage.

“No, I dare you to tell him anything!”

“I—” Rarity winced as Featherlight tapped the soaked bandage all over her arm. “Not much really, it’s just that I’m in trouble.”

“I can see that.” Featherlight nodded, wrapping new bandages that Rarity swiftly set in her arm sling. “Whoever did that job sure took his time.”

“Hers.”

“What’s that?” Tempest interrupted the conversation.

She’d been leaning against the window giving to the loading stations. Everyone had stopped working. Instead they looked up and away down the boulevard that led to the massive portcullis and further wooden gate that locked the access to the outside.

Rarity heard a loud thump that rumbled through the walls. People yelled outside. As she watched next to Tempest the people frozen on the docks, Rarity caught a shadow that obscured the street.

Trixie rushed out, foot first to snap the door open, and ran out in the rain. Tempest, Featherlight and Rarity followed suite.

Piercing through the fog, a black shaped amassed, growing wider and ominous as it extended itself like two blankets on its side. It crawled in the sky, pushing aside rain and mist. Its edge whirled and grew in burst. Through the blackness, Rarity saw the creature’s skin throb as if hordes of worms writhed underneath.

It flew upward, its tail gripped to anchor points on buildings. It swirled, scanning for something. Its gaping maw opened to two glowing gashes that jerked independently from side to side.

It glanced down to Rarity and she ran back inside.

The sky came crashing down in a great quake. Tempest ushered Featherlight and Trixie inside as the blackness hurled down the boulevard and rammed against the portcullis, bounced and settled in a house-sized blob that lifted off the ground thanks to dozens of black tendrilling stilts.

It somersaulted into a sprawling hooded mantle that froze in the middle of the square. The witch, taller than before, took a step forward in the deafening silence of a hundred witnessing pairs of eyes hiding behind toppled cards, baxes, windows and tarps. Some men grabbed shovels, others pikes. None dared approached.

The witch sashayed to the gate, seizing its fifteen feet height.

“Told you, there was a witch,” Trixie whispered.

Featherlight didn’t answer. Nobody did. Rarity, like everyone, watched the witch. She threw her arms out.

“Sometimes it’s for your own good that others take the plunge,” her voice echoed.

She pulled the air towards her. The walls cracked as the metal gate bent backward and ripped off and out its guiding track. With a wave of her hand, the witch finally tore the portcullis out. The massive mangled thing crashed to the side, slashing through a house.

Some couriers sprung out of cover and ran in arms to the monster in a woman’s clothing.

“Fall back, you fools!” She shrieked, lifting a hand to the sky.

The earth cracked again in shards and debris around her, sending the courageous flying.

She focused back to the second gate. The wooden structure offered less resistance and splintered on itself.

The witch somersaulted again, changing back into the same black blob. It slid under the game and inflated. The walls that until then circled around the gates cracked and shattered outward.

The blob reshaped again into the same skybound mass that’d screamed over the district. Bigger, larger, its chest swole, its throat billowed and it finally wailed.

The window exploded and Rarity was thrown to the ground as her ears were robbed of sounds. The shockwave sent everything flying around her, a wrench flew by her head. Old wood cracked and blew away. People fell to their knees. Dust flew up and away, obscuring the sky and streets.

The blob stringed itself inside the wall, bursting open as it squeezed into too tight spaces.

It lasted only a couple seconds, Rarity realised. But in those few moments, the wall of Canterhigh was destroyed.

The witch jumped in the sky and rammed itself down in nearby streets. Screams, splitting stones and crumbling buildings filled Rarity’s ears as sounds came back to her.

Tempest grabbed her by the side, she helped pull up Trixie, splayed unconscious on the floor. Featherlight, his face bloodied, dragged everyone to the back of a standing cart, pushed several cranks forward and started it down the now open track to the outside.

Canterhigh was breached, and Rarity knew that once the night was in sight, the city would die.

2019 project - Diamond Sisters - Chapter 4 draft 1

Rarity opens her eyes. She lies in a pile of hay, rough and coarse against her skin. Light slithers in thin rays through the cracks in a wooden wall painted red. Above her a mezzanine. She’s in a barn.

“Are you there?” she asks.

“I’ll always be.”

Rarity lifts her head. The lady sits on a haystack, tying her hair in a ponytail above her shoulder. Kids laugh outside.

“Will you ever tell me your name?” Rarity wonders.

“Sugarcube, you already know it.” the lady props herself up from the rick and walks across the barn to the door. As she slips out, she turns back. The sun outside hits her broad smile. “It’s Applejack.”

⇜⇝

“Applejack,” Rarity murmured.

“Hush,” Featherlight whispered.

Rarity lay on her back, hurting all over from a rough sleep on a shaky floorboard. The cart’s engine hissed and clacked intermittently, though never in a rhythmic manner.

Rarity stared directly into Trixie’s wide eyes. The only light source was a flickering lamp dangling from the metal frame of the wagon. It dangled low enough there was no risk of lighting up the fabric that protected the inside from the rain.

Rarity fidgeted, sitting up, to look around the inside of the cart. She met Tempest’s glinting eyes. She pressed a finger to her lips. Rarity nodded as she took in the rest of the cart. Featherlight’s back was visible, sitting outside in the rain in the driving seat. A cool breeze was flowing in from the front.

Rarity found herself between two wooden boxes where she’d fallen asleep. The space was cramped with goods, bags and boxes that’d be set for delivery.

Rarity took a sudden, deep breath as the memory of the loading station rushed back to the forefront of her mind.

Rarity hit a box as the wagon hit a deep pothole. The cart slowly wobbled sideways as it continued.

“Stay put,” Featherlight breathed. “I have to drive blind.”

Rarity frowned, turning to pop a head out of the protective fabric coverhead. Two hands caught her before she’d reached the opening and pulled her back. Rarity tried to yelp but an arm wrapped around her jaw, choking in her cry.

Rarity tried to turn to glare daggers at Tempest. Trixie was choking her. Trixie’s wide eyes were not from excitement but fear. Trixie’s gritted teeth reflected the light and her eyes glimmered as she breathed low and steady.

Rarity turned her eyes to Tempest. She crouched at the back of the waggon with a dagger in hand, ready to strike.

A low muffle huffed outside the wagon. A mix between a growl and a pained wheeze. Heavy steps followed close. Something brushed at the tent, pushing the fabric several feet above Trixie’s head.

They weren’t alone.

Rarity’s legs gave out as she stared at she watched the fabric ebb and flow against what she could only say should be the creature’s shoulder.

It coughed, spitting out something that splotched on the side of the train the waggon careened on. As it shook itself, the cart took some head start. The creature quickly came back to travel along.

Rarity sat against one of the boxes, breathing in and out slowly as she could focus on nothing but the creature’s low whines and pants.

Long minutes passed and Rarity’s ears suddenly popped. There was no brushing against the fabric anymore, and the wheezes and paw hitting the mud had disappeared. Tempest and Trixie breathed in relief and slumped against the floorboard.

“My goddess, it’s over,” Trixie heaved. “What the heck was that?”

“A deadwood creature,” Featherlight scolded from outside in a hushed tone. “Please keep quiet till we reached a safe haven.”

“It was...” Tempest caught a breath and letting out a hesitant laugh. “Big.”

“Hush,” Featherlight ordered. “It might come back.”

Tempest dug herself in a silent immobility, staring at the tip of her shoes.

Trixie was rubbing the sweat off her face and, after a moment of hesitation, crawled to Rarity’s side. A shaky smile on her face, she pointed at Rarity’s injured arm. Rarity nodded back and removed it from the dirtied arm sling.

Shaking her head, Trixie took the arm sling off Rarity’s shoulder and threw it in a corner of the waggon. Rarity extended her arm out, taking care with Trixie not pull on the bandages. The recurrent sways of the carts and bumps on the road earned her a few winces and repressed hisses.

Trixie moved around Rarity, trying to get an angle from every side of the arm in the low light of the swinging light. She took a long breath and gave a long look around the interior of the waggon.

She nodded, got up, and slowly moved to each and every boxes. Whenever she could open one, she did, and rummaged through the content as silently as she could.

Rarity looked at the front of the cart, Featherlight was looking in. Bags had formed under his eyes and he was trickling with rain. He watched Trixie intently but said nothing. With a side, he turned back and left the group for the intimacy of the rain.

Trixie came back with a pout on her face, empty handed. She sat to Rarity’s left. The teen pointed at her left hand. Rarity hesitantly extended her arm. Small jabs of pain followed as Trixie pulled slowly on each finger to decontract them. The knuckles cracked as Rarity felt her fist open under Trixe’s fingers, smooth like ones that’d never known toil. As Rarity looked down, she saw her reddened palm. Blood had caked where her nails had bitten into the skin. Trixie took the edge of her shirt and scraped the residues.

Rarity mouthed a thanks when Trixie finally looked up. They exchanged a smile.

Tempest perked in her corner of the wagon. She sat on her knees, tilting the head to the side. Rarity frowned until she caught it too. The sound of rushing water.

Trixie didn’t wait, she got up and walked hunched over to the head of the cart. She tapped on Featherlight’s shoulder who, after a long pause, pushed the curtain of the tent.

Trixie poked her head out and they exchanged a few words. When she crawled back in, she’d a smile on her lips.

She sat back next to Rarity and glanced a second at Tempest who quickly made her way to the duo.

“We’re arriving at a, uhm… Featherlight call it a loading station. It’s next to a waterfall three hundred or so yards.”

Rarity pondered the size of the fall to be heard from that distance already. She didn’t question it, though. She lay on her back and listened as the carts ever slightly slowed down as the sound of rushing water gradually transformed into a deafening din.

The wagon finally stopped and Featherlight walked in on the three girls. The tired smile on his face still betrayed a sense of relief.

“Alright,” he said, raising his voice to be heard. “We’re safe enough to talk next to the waterfall.”

Tempest grunted. “Finally.”

She exited the wagon first, shaking on her legs from what Rarity guessed were pins and needles. Trixie followed Tempest right behind and the two helped Rarity walked down the single over-elevated step of the carriage.

Rarity gulped as she looked at the Deadwood. It was still day yet the light still crawled the fog, obstructed by many jutting branches of long dead or hibernating trees.

The rain dripped from the trees, streaming down glinting till they met the mud that puddled under the roots of the ominous that ensnared rocks and old walls.

Rarity looked down at her feet. What had once been a paved street was overrun with water, sludge or sickly moss and grass. Ancient traces of erosion from bustling traffic marked the path with grooves.

She looked further. Tree trunks, pavement, an old wooden guardrail. Everything extended till the fog swallowed them whole. In a sense, Rarity felt stuck in a small bubble of darkness.

Rarity turned around and gaped. A small house had been dug into the foot of a granite promontory sticking out of a steep hillside. The rock obscured a flat paved area that had once been a loading ground and a massive waterfall kissed the side of the rock, hurtling down the steep under a decrepit wooden bridge Featherlight had driven over.

The water moved a large wheel that clacked each time an old metal choke slipped to the next gear. The contraption linked to the wheel continued to a series of rotating rods. Their tips ended with a series of three small hooks.

“Help me out, here,” Featherlight said, walking to the front of the cart.

Helping with her only valid hand, Rarity pushed the wagon around with Tempest and Featherlight taking the lead. They walked the wagon until the tip of the nearest turning rod touched the front of the engine.

Tempest walked on top of the wagon head, propping herself on the driver’s seat to have a higher view of the area. Meanwhile, Rarity and Trixie watched Featherlight walked to the House wall to retrieve two large blocks of wood he swiftly propped against the right wheels of the cart.

He walked back to the front of the engine, opened a trap and dragged a rod out of it. Waiting for the right moment, he linked the engine to the waterwheel-actioned one and a slow winding sound rose from the machine.

“It’s set. We can get inside now.”

Featherlight asked Tempest to retrieve the oil lamp inside the wagon. They headed to the door and, after casting some light to check that nothing was inside, walked into a damp, cramped, dusty space.

“Rustic,” Trixie commented, looking down at two slabs of concrete that had to be bed.

Featherlight laughed, erasing a bit of the fatigue that had him hunched over. “Everything rots around here. One of your mattresses wouldn’t last a week.”

“Such a shame.”

Rarity scanned the place. The house was a single large room roughly dug inside the granite promontory. A bucket, a rusty iron desk, some metal stools, and several lined-up concrete slabs worked as only furniture. Finding a hearth at the back, Rarity jostled with the chimney hatch with her right hand. A bucket-worth of water splashed down as it swung open.

“So much for a nice fire,” Rarity pouted, closing the hatch back.

“Ah, don’t worry, I’m sure we can work that out,” Featherlight said with a strained voice.

“Those are sturdy walls,” Tempest commented, walking around the one-room house. “Was it built specially for monsters.”

Featherlight dragged his feet to the closest concrete slab and sat down. “No, that building predates the fog. We, runners, just use it as a safe house. The waterfall usually keep beasts at bay because of the noise. And, you’re right, the walls keep the curious one out of reach.” Featherlight smile. “You can drop the knife, now.”

Tempest looked down. Rarity could read the surprise in her eyes as she lifted her hand and the dagger still clutched in it. She set it on the iron desk.

“I’m hungry,” Trixie stated, sitting next to Featherlight, giving him a brush of her silver hair.

“Did you pack anything before we left?” Featherlight replied. He smirked as Trixie didn’t reply. He ruffled her hair, to which she took offense. “Don’t worry. There’s a hatch behind the desk. Usually there is a bottle or two of compressed gas downstairs in the mushroom room. We can make a stew. Anybody’s got jerky?”

Featherlight lay down as no one answered.

“Mushrooms,” Trixie muttered. “I hate those.”

“Well, you should have thought about it before wishing upon an adventure,” Tempest said, spitting in a corner of the room. “Now we’re far out in creepy land and Canterhigh is–is…” Tempest let out a long sigh.

“Will home be okay?” Trixie asked.

Tempest didn’t answer. Featherlight didn’t either.

“I’m sure it will,” Rarity said with a smile, sitting next to Trixie, patting her on the elbow. Rarity held a sigh as she felt the teen shivering at the tip of her fingers.

From the corner of her eye, Rarity caught Tempest shaking her head. Featherlight was the first to break the silence.

“You know. I’ve seen and heard my fair share of crazy stuff in the Deadwood.” He slapped his face with both hands and let a long breath out. “But what I saw in the loading yard takes the cake.”

“What’s a cake?” Tempest asked.

“A witch, eh?” Featherlight said, lifting his head up to glance at Trixie and Rarity.

Rarity gasped. “You believe it?”

“I’m a runner, miss…?”

“Rarity.”

“Miss Rarity, I’ve seen boulders move by themselves, heard tree laughs and, though nobody believes me, I’ve seen a dragon.”

Trixie laughed, springing to her feet. “Please, tell them the story!”

“I just saw a thing in the sky that spat fire. Nothing more, it’s you who told me it was a dragon.” Feather light covered his eyes, laughing. “I’m just tired, Trix. I need to rest for a bit. I was at the end of my run when you swung by in the yard.”

“I’m going to fetch the compressed gas,” Tempest said. Featherlight didn’t protest.

“Can you make it glow again,” Trixie asked, monotonically.

Rarity had kept her left arm close to her chest since Trixie had thrown the arm sling in the carriage. It hurt but she’d known worse. Featherlight’s work had been salvatory. The pus has stopped being grey.

“Let’s wait till it’s cleaned up.” Rarity hesitated before giving a hug to the teenager who’d curled her arms around her legs. “You don’t want it to throw weird light under all this… nastiness.”

Trixie snorted. She and Rarity watched Tempest work out the rusty lock of a trapdoor behind the iron desk. It swung loose after a minute. Tempest walked down a series of steps and disappeared underground. Metal banging on metal followed suite.

Trixie huddled against her, Rarity looked up through the windows. The forest was rapidly plunging into total darkness and she could barely see the faint light coming from the house reflect against the white fabric that arched around the wagon stail.

Tempest walked up the stairs, panting. She carried a head-sized metal container with curved edges over her arms. Rarity had only seen one of those a few times. They were very expensive.

“Damn this thing is heavy,” Tempest said, bending her knees to keep her back straight.

Tempest sat with the canister in front of her. She turned it around to find a notice hard-printed in the metal. She concentrated to read the list of instructions, frowning from time to time.

Rarity coughed to call her attention. “Do you want me to—”

“No, no,” Tempest said with a tinge of anger. “I can do it.”

She went back and forth between the instructions and the head of the container, a miniature version of an inverted shower head set under a hollowed-out circled that could support a pan. Tempest would a small brass wheel.

Tempest got up with a heavy grunt and walked to the door. She snapped some of the wild grass that snuck under the rotten wood and walked them to the oil lamp. Once a small flame burst from the tip of the rapidly drying grass, Tempest quickly walked back to the canister, set the flame next to the head and rolled the wheel. A blue flame burst to life.

“Done it!” Tempest exclaimed, glancing at Rarity with victory in her eyes. “See, your night lesson can pay off.”

Trixie frowned glancing at Rarity with a questioning look.

“Taught Tempest reading a couple of years ago,” Rarity said, beaming.

Trixie nodded, pursing her lips. She opened her mouth, but closed it quickly. She extracted herself from Rarity’s hug and walked to the canister.

“Do we have a pan?” she asked. “I’d like to boil Rarity’s bandages. There’s also a bag or two in the wagon we could empty to make a new arm sling.”

Tempest grabbed the bag she’d brought from the room downstairs. She glanced at the door with a worried look.

“Can’t you use that bag?” Tempest asked, opening it to show Rarity and Trixie a couple pounds of mushrooms and a pan.

“I don’t want to think we broke something people from Canterhigh could be using,” Trixie said. “If… If any come by soon, I mean.”

Tempest bit her lip, took the pan out, and got up.

“Just look if there’s wood stuck to the mushrooms, it was growing on some logs,” Tempest ordered hesitantly.

Tempest took a deep breath and opened the door. Her two hands on the pan handle, Tempest ran to the wagon, jumped at its back and disappeared inside. Tempest burst out the front a few seconds later, a full bag on her shoulder, and ran to the waterfall out of view.

Tempest ran in front of the windows, an arm out gripping on the handle of the filled up pan. She slammed the door with her back and heaved, dropping her hips to the floor. Rarity repressed a laugh.

“There are monsters outside,” Tempest growled at her friend. Rarity didn’t answer.

She got up again and febrily went to set the filled up pan over the canister flame.

“Could you also fill up the bucket over there,” Trixie asked hesitantly between clenched teeth. Rarity clenche hers too, expecting Tempest to refuse. “It’s to have refills. You need to clean and cook the mushrooms, but I also need to boil the bandages and bag.”

Tempest’s cheeks puffed out. She grabbed the bucket, ran out and back inside like a lightning bolt.

“Here you go.” She spat. “Now get to work. I’m hungry.”

Trixie didn’t answer right away. She mulled over Tempest’s angry expression and a wicked smile drew on her face. She got up and stuck her chest out. “The great Lulamoon family will not dirty their hand on anything as low as cooking. They will, however, requisition this flame and water to heal the people under their care.”

Trixie threw the bag of mushrooms at Tempest’s feet and walked to Rarity. “Can you come closer to the fire,” she asked. “I need to see your arm.”

Rarity glanced at Tempest. She was boiling. Still, the towering women dropped to her haunches and hunched over the bag of mushrooms.

“Thanks, Tempest,” Rarity said.

“You’re my friend. And you’re wounded,” she replied, never looking up. “I can suck up to that brat if it means you’ll be fine.”

Trixie stuck out her tongue, which Tempest caught from the corner of her eyes.

“By the way, catch,” Tempest laughed, throwing the bag on her shoulder straight at Trixie’s face.

The bag rotated in the air and caught Trixie around her forehead, folding it in a deflating sound. Trixie didn’t falter. As the bag slid off her face, she grabbed it in her hand and opened it. A sudden smile brightened her face.

“Where did you find this!?” Trixie burst out loud enough Featherlight jerked awake on the slab.

“It was stuck under a bag filled with diamonds.”

Trixie stomped her feet down. “I’ll have a word with my father. It’s not the first time a loader put something heavy on the expensive stuff.”

Rarity frowned as she didn’t quite catch Trixie. “What could be more precious than gems?”

“This!” Trixie bubbled, opening the bag in front of Rarity.

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Fabric, really?”

Trixie returned the expression. “Well, yes! But it’s not any trash fabric you, paupers, drape yourself it. It’s silk, satin, and fine woven linen!”

Trixie grabbed Rarity’s able hand and stick it into the bag. Rarity guffawed, feeling a softness she’d never experienced before. Trixie let go of her wrist but Rarity didn’t pull back. She turned her hand left and right inside. Finally, she drew out a small spool of thread. Inspecting it with her eyes, she found it was the same color as her air, a deep shade of amethyst.

Rarity caressed the spool against her cheek. “It’s so—”

“Delicate?” Trixie completed, getting up to retrieve something off the desk.

Rarity closed her eyes, appreciating the feel against her skin.

“Alright, water is boiling,” Trixie said as she came back to dunk Tempest’s knife in the boiling pan. “Let me have a look at your arm.”

Trixie stuck the knife out of the water, waiting for it to cool slightly before she started lifting and removing all the bandages. She threw them away.

“What are you doing?” Rarity sputtered.

“Well, replacing your bandages?” Trixie said, a knife in her hand. With the other, she rummaged from a clean and clear piece of fabric, cut two large rectangles out of it and dunked them into the boiling water.

“That’s going to be one fancy bandage,” Rarity joshed.

Trixie squinted, finding it hard to see in the half-light. With a sigh, Rarity moved her hand out of Trixie’s care and scraped her bottom around on the floor, pointing forward. As she drew an arc, the brands glowed their light sapphire shine as she extended towards and above the desk.

“That’s one hell of a convenience,” Tempest deadpanned.

A couple seconds later, Featherlight sat up on the slab. Fixating on the arm, his face swayed left and right. “What the…”

“Magic!” Trixie wooed, drawing waves in the air with her knife-wielding hand, as she circled around the canister and Tempest to sat on Rarity’s left.

Featherlight leaned forward, switching off the canister. “You gonna burn Miss Rarity if you apply that linen directly. And I’d be glad you don’t give out or destroy any more of your father’s merchandise.”

“Tell him when you see him,” Trixie huffed, her traits growing dark. “If you ever see him.”

After a few minutes, Trixie dipped a little finger in the pan and flicked the water drop away. With the tip of her knife, she removed the first rectangle and folded it in her hand, taking care not to touch any of the forward facing parts.

Trixie scraped the pus and some scabs off Rarity’s arm. The painfully hot water trickled down her arm, washing away some coagulated blood, slowly revealing the pattern again.

“Tell me who you’re tattooist is, Miss. I’ll make sure never to go there.”

Even Tempest laughed.

As the linen started to pull, Trixie threw the fabric out the broken window.

Trixie was about to retrieve the last bit of linen out of the steaming pan when she noticed the glow was gone.

“Rarity, please don’t move your arm,” Trixie said, pushing Rarity’s palm up at the tip of a finger.

“I didn’t do anything. It just disappeared.” Rarity yawned. “Anyway, let me shake a bit.”

As Rarity stretched outwards, the glow came and vanished again. She looked at the mark and traced it back to further above the desk this time. She kept her arm out hanging until the glow disappeared again. Working to find the direction of the source, Rarity started following a direction in the air, moving ever so slightly.

“That’s one mystery I’m not wishing to follow up with,” Tempest said.

“Well, keep your arm up there while I finish on those bandages,” Trixie added.

Proceeding similarly, she exchanged the last rectangle for a new canvas arm sling. As she held the rectangle at two angles, Trixie gave it a steamy squeeze and wrapped Rarity’s forearm with it.

“A magnificent and beautiful bandage designed by the sole and only Trixie!”

Rarity was glad, admiring the shine of the bandage. Once the sling out, Tempest got to work and an hour of pestering and blabbering later, Rarity shared a tin cup of mushroom gravy with everyone.

“Where did you find the cup, Tempest?” Trixie asked.

“By the window, why?”

“You washed it, I hope.”

“Uh… Yes, definitely.”

“I’m going to keep guard to see if anything comes around,” Tempest offered.

“Or anyone?” Trixie asked.

Tempest sighed. “Or anyone, Trixie. I’ll look out.”

⇜⇝

“I want to pee,” Trixie said, standing by the window as she rubbed sleepiness out of her eyes. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Just go outside,” Tempest growled. “Be an grown-up for once.”

“Can’t, there is a big thing standing by the cart.”

Rarity scratched her back, feeling needles of pain carries down her spine as she emerged through a rough sleep on one of the concrete slabs.. Tempest or Featherlight had managed to light up a fire in the hearth. It crackled and threw shadowy light across the cramped space.

Apprehensive, Rarity exhaled as she rose from the slab, her knees popping under her weight. She dragged her feet to Trixie’s side and set her hands against the edges of the window. The window pane was long gone. Only a burrow remained and Rarity made sure never to slip a finger past it. Trixie pointed at the cart, never putting a sliver of skin out in the open.

“Do you see it?” Trixie said. “It’s behind one of the trees that overlook the loading area. You can see it blink.”

Tempest walked behind Rarity, setting her two hands on her friend’s shoulders. She let out a shaky breath. “I can see it.”

Rarity squinted, watching closely she saw one tiny pinprick glint half-hidden a mangled, dead tree. It blinked. A cold shiver ran down Rarity’s back. Tempest’s hands stopped her from giving a fearful step back.

“That’s one damn predator,” Tempest said.

“How do you know?” Trixie said with a hesitant smirk. “Your type never left the city before.”

“Underground, some men act the same,” Tempest stated.

Trixie frowned but didn’t answer.

“It’s what was following us along the pathway,” Featherlight commented. His face betrayed a slight unease. “They’re not the stalking type usually.” Featherlight tried to glance at the waterfall from the safety of the room. “Those creatures are nearly blind, they’ll track down sounds. The waterfall should have kept that one at bay.”

“How do we leave?” Rarity asked with a treble in her voice.

“We just do,” Featherlight said. “It won’t attack us if we don’t disturb the silence. It may follow us, though.” He turned to Trixie. “I’ll slap your way back to Canterhigh if you peep a single pish posh out of your mouth, nose and ears. And you keep your hands in your pockets.”

“I was well-behaved the first time,” she protested.

“Keep it that way. Rarity?” Featherlight breathed, starting the small woman. “I don’t know if they have a good sense of smell but…” He looked at her arm. “Keep yourself from hitting your arm or bleeding.”

Tempest had already swiped the room, sticking the dagger in her belt, and slinging the bag of fabric over her shoulder, she rummaged through her deep denim pockets. Rarity looked dumbfounded at the dynamite stick.

“Would a diversion work?”

“No, keep it away.” Featherlight gulped. “We might need it if it attacks.”

Tempest nodded. “I’m going to stock up the oil lamp.”

“So what do we do?” Rarity pressed on.

Featherlight closed his eyes and took a deep breath. As he reopened them, he clutched the crooked door handle and twisted it open.

“We walk to the cart.”

Rarity’s legs shook as she took one step after the other. Tempest stood at the back of the queue, a hand on Rarity’s back, pushing her to keep the pace. Trixie’s hands clutched Featherlight’s back. She hid her face in his dirtied shirt.

As the processed forward, the shape of the beast slowly appeared in the thinning fog. It was longer than the cart, if not higher. It crouched on all fours, the side of its hideous head resting against the dead tree it couldn’t hide behind.

The beast was covered in extrusions of woods or what Rarity could only see as wart-like protrusions that had hardened and grown into jutting hardshells and bones.

Rarity could see the spikes click against each other as it breathed slowly. She met his eye. A milky yellow pinprick piercing through two large block of black calluses that replaced its eyelids. The other side of its face was empty of life, a rugged, oozing scar that looked like someone had popped a scab of bark off a rotten log.

Tempest grabbed Rarity by the shoulder, stopping her from faltering into the puddles they made their way through. Rarity watched Tempest’s face twisted with anger and she looked down. Tempest had nearly dropped the oil lamp.

As they arrived at the cart, Featherlight and Tempest made footboards of their hands and helped Trixie and Rarity up.

Rarity saw the print of the light on the wagon’s fabric round around the cart. Tempest appeared in the slit of the Fabric as she stepped on the driver’s bench to helped Featherlight up. Her right hand clawed on oil lamp handle and the dynamite stick.

Wood cracked and split and Rarity heard heavy claws hit the mud as the beast made its way to the cart, stopping shy of hitting its muzzle against the tent that covered the merchandise inside.

A pungent smell took over the wagon as Rarity sprawled slowly against one of the boxes and glanced at Trixie. The teen turned her back, huddling herself against her own box too.

The beast gurgled as the engine popped out of the rotating claw that linked it to the waterwheel.

Featherlight waited for the intermittent clacks of the motor to hum to slowly turn the cart and start on the road deeper into the Deadwood.

2019 project - Diamond Sisters - Chapter 5 draft 1

“Applejack?” Rarity asked, receiving an affirmative mumble. “Where are we?”

“Home I believe, sugarcube.”

The barn didn’t look like much but the dry heat that brushed her face, crawling in from the open front door, brought a smile on her face.

“It’s your home.” Rarity muttered. “Not mine. Mine is cold and lonely. It’s artificial and cramped. And there is always work to do.”

Applejack laughed. “As much work as there is here for sure, but it’s a slow process you can’t rush nature to give you what you want before it’s ripe for the taking.”

Rarity looked at the ceiling, the old wood, the old paint. The place smelled a slow aging process that had garnered wrinkles through time yet experiences hidden behind each nail and red brushstroke against dry wood, and every single flowers that decorated the woman’s hair.

“They are beautiful,” Rarity breathed.

“Thanks, you made the bouquet after all.”

⇜⇝

The creature hadn’t left the side of the wagon. Its pus-covered hide had long stained the rained-down fabric with large earthy smudges. Its grunts filled Rarity’s ears despite her palms pressing on them. Trixie held her face in her hands. She’d been brooding for the past hour.

When Rarity managed to focus away from the beast’s rattles, she could hear the recurring clacking noise of the engine. Featherlight would lower the engine’s frequency whenever the ancient path steeped downwards.

The wagon came to a brutal halt and slowly tipped to the side. The beast painted once and silence fell around Rarity.

The cart jolted once with the singular sound of the engine. A second time followed right after. The beast barked loud, guttural and gurgly. Featherlight promptly switched off the engine.

The cart came to a halt, stuck against an obstacle in the mud. Silence reigned and with it cast doubt and terror in Rarity’s heart.

Rarity closed her hands into fists, nails biting into her skin as the beast crawled around the cart and came to sat in front of it. Through the slit of that gave onto the driver’s bench, she saw its eyes look at Featherlight and Tempest with intent.

Tempest’s arm twitched as the beast exhale a damp mephitic rattle that cracked into the wagon stail. Trixie gagged.

Featherlight swallowed and motioned ever slowly to tap on Tempest’s shoulder. Slower than snail, they crawled without noise in the tented compartment of the cart. Tempest was livid, staring into the distance as she sat next to Trixie. Hunched over, she didn’t look that tall.

Featherlight hunched as well and nervously bit into the knuckles of his index fingers. Rarity could see he had no plans.

Her vision swam and she lay down to the side, her cheek scratching against the floorboard.

The cart pitched to the side, the wood and nails grating at each other in a loud racket. Rarity flinched. Trixie couldn’t hold a sob.

The beast gave a second push of his muzzle against the engine, rocking the wagon back and forth. Featherlight watched the monster’s head sway as it prepared another hit.

Tempest snatched the oil lamp and brought the dynamite stick to the light. She unscrewed the protecting glass that enclosed the flame and kissed the fuse to the end of the wick. The black match burst to fiery life, crackling loudly at it threw spark.

“No!” Featherlight cried.

The beast roared, springing to the side of the cart. The fabric and metal frame of the stail ripped off the wood body as the beast swung its mangled paw.

Rain rushed to Rarity’s face. The beast towered the cart, its sludgy drool mixing down to hit the boxes that had once been neatly stacked inside. In the deep of the night, there were only two lights, its eyes and the dynamite by Tempest’s side.

The beast howled and crashed its paw in the middle of the wagon, ripping through. Splinters, metal and goods flew to the mud.

Rarity hit the side of the road, coming to rest at the foot of an old metal guardrail. A flash of lightning flashed across the sky and she watched Tempest stand alone in the rubble of the cart.

She tensed and jumped aside to avoid the coming claws that slashed the ground and splashed muck. It shrieked and, as it maw slackened open, Tempest threw her weapon. It bit down hard and the explosion roared in the night.

Its muzzle was gone, snapped by the explosion that opened a gash down the whole length of its throat. It quavered and stumbled, a shoulder hitting a tree that instantly crumbled.

Its rattles gurgled lower and it came to a halt. Tempest lay on her back, watching the beast sway again to rest.

It snapped back alive, whistling its lungs out as it snapped at Tempest with its missing jaw. It sprung back and ran into the forest, smashing down the trees in its path.

Thunder cracked the sky once more, lighting up Tempest’s standing aghast in the middle of the road, watching down the trail dug through the landscape by the beast. She hunched over and burst out laughing, dropping a knee to the mud. As the flash receded, darkness took over and a sob followed.

Tempest never cried. Rarity was certain of that. The sound froze her blood as she heard her friend and mentor cry in the dead of the night.

Rarity got up and followed the sobbing. Hands forward, she touched her friend’s muddied hair. “Tempest, are you okay?”

“No, I’m not!” she boomed, swinging around with her arms out.

Rarity hit the old pavement, her ears ringing from the slap. Tempest cried out, Rarity heard her take hectic steps left and right in the dark. There was no light, no landmark, only blackness.

“Anybody got a light.” Her voice crackled, heaving from the knot stuck in her throat. Tempest found her way to the wagon’s torn up side. Boxes tossed over, splashing in puddles and muck. “I need a light!”

“Silence,” Featherlight ordered, throwing himself at Tempest.

A fight broke. What Rarity couldn’t see, she heard. Thuds and gasped cries as fists and kicks were thrown. Tempest hiccuped and choked. Rarity closed her eyes as she heard shoes scrapped the cracked pavement under the rain.

The thumps and blows continued for a few seconds. The sky rumbled as the din of the downpour gained in intensity, drowning the light that quickly followed.

Rarity caught Featherlight holding Tempest around the shoulders, a hand on her mouth.

“Silence,” he whispered. “There is far worse haunting those woods.”

Tempest’s short hiccups rung in Rarity’s ears as she looked around, searching for Trixie. She caught the silver hair in a flash. Trixi sat alone and stoic on a stone by the side of the road. She was bleeding.

Rarity removed her foot from under one of the merchandise boxes and stumbled her way to Trixie’s side. The brass of the oil lamp shone intermittently in her hands. She ritually snapped a spark wheel on its side every now and then. Nothing ever came of it.

Rarity took away the lamp. At the tips of her fingers, she felt the glass had cracked and the banged up fuel space had pierced. She set it aside and hugged Trixie.

“What now?” the teen whispered.

“I guess we’ll walk.”

“I’m not a runner. I’ve never run before. My father wouldn’t let me.” Trixie signed. “I’m no Dash.”

“Who’s that Dash?” Rarity breathed, rubbing a hand on Trixie’s back.

“She was my best friend.” Trixie’s wistful smile lit up under a tear in the sky. “The fastest runner of Canterhigh. She didn’t need to rest at checkpoints, Featherlight told me.” Trixie’s breath got shaky. “Featherlight told me she stopped one day in the middle of the trail, and walked into the woods.”

Rarity gulped. “I’m sorry.”

“She was my best friend but… I think she really liked me.” Trixie sniffled. “We just hung around because we both knew Featherlight.” Trixie held onto Rarity as she sunk her face against her shoulder. “But she was the only girl Father allowed me to see.”

Rarity hugged Trixie as her sobs wracked against her chest. In the darkness and the rain, there was nothing left to do but wait. Rarity drew Trixie away from the trail under the trunk of a nearby tree and they lay there, huddled in the cold and damp. Morning was so far away.

⇜⇝

Rarity opened her eyes to a morning fog so thick she could barely make out the cart’s remnants. She scanned around, focusing her eyes on the few details still piercing the mist.

Trixie lay against her, her arms wrapped around her waist. Her nose whistled softly as she slept. The rain had washed away the blood from the small gash on her forehead and her silver hair dripped over her shoulders and disappeared under the wagon’s former tent cover, soaked and sticky over their chest and legs.

Immobile, Rarity looked back up to the side of a road. Tempest’s face was covered in blackened bruises and she slept arms crossed under a large slab of wood, a piece of the wagon that she’d dragged out the trail.

Featherlight rested under a brown bush that offered no protection against the rain. His eyes were opened. He was listening to something.

Footsteps. Rarity took a deep breath as the staccato ground its way closer through the mist, down the trail that came from Canterhigh.

Rarity looked at Featherlight. Eyes wide, he drew a finger to his mouth. Rarity answered by teetering her hand above Trixie’s lips. Tempest was awake and the dagger she’d found in the refuge the night before glinted against her chest.

Rarity held her breath as a shadow appeared through the dimly lit vapors that swallowed the woods. Lancing over the cracked pavement and stone that littered the way, the runner jumped, hopped and crossed the distance, emerging fully as she arrived to the first splinters of the carriage.

She didn’t stop and never threw a stare. She kept going and Rarity’s hair straightened on her neck. The runner had no face.

Neither Rarity or another tried to call for him and rapidly she’d disappeared in the mist. Rarity held her face in her hands after long minutes, a fit of laughter slowly rising in her chest.

Featherlight was the first to break the stupor. He got up, walked to Rarity and held his hand out. She hesitated but after a couple seconds of reluctance took it.

Featherlight strained as he helped her out, hunching over under the weight of the strong miner. They exchanged a nod and while Featherlight inspected the cart, Tempest walked up to Trixie and Rarity.

She threw Trixie a look, she was still sleeping. Her eyes slid to Rarity who flinched under the glare.

“I’m sorry,” Rarity whispered. “It’s all my fault.”

Tempest’s face creased at first as she mulled over something Rarity guessed was range. Her bruised fists snapped close and small quakes rolled down her arms. She closed her eyes, breathed in and, once she’d reopened them, lowered herself to meet Rarity eye-to-eye.

Rarity winced and diverted her eyes, waiting for scorn and injury. Tempest hugged her instead.

“Ouch,” Trixie mumble, shaken out of her sleep by Tempest’s misplaced elbow.

“Sorry,” Tempest breathed before looking with a wistful smile into Rarity’s eyes. “It’s not your fault. It would be so easy if it was. But it isn’t. You’re my friend, my dearest friend, what happens happens and I’ll be there when they do.”

Tempest embraced Rarity further, her head slipping behind her messy purple hair. Tempest’s difficult breath brushed against her neck.

“You’re heavy,” Trixie huffed out.

Tempest stood up with the same sad smile and hurried to help Rarity and Trixie up. Rarity inspected her injury. The encounter had left her arm sling torn and muddy but the bandage had sustained the fall out of the wagon.

Once up, she observed Featherlight retrieving the shattered metal frame of the wagon. He used two large stones to bend the curved shaft of metal into spears.

Three in hands, he distributed each to the group and turned towards where the pathway disappeared in the haze.

“I’m not going where that thing went,” Tempest protested.

“But the monster went that way,” Trixie said, pointing at the trail cut through the woods down a gentle steep off the side of the road.

Fear quickly drew on Trixie’s face. She looked down the street and with sharp breaths held her shoulders.

“What was it anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Featherlight mumbled. “Sometimes it’s better not to ask questions in the Deadwood. You’ll feel lighter in you accept everything is unknown here.” He pointed upward towards the light. “It may be daylight, but the deadwood remains total darkness.”

Tempest held her makeshift spear closer. “I hate it.”

“We will have to deal with it.” Featherlight looked at Trixie and Rarity. Words died on his lips as he bit down on his selection of words. “I– I run those woods regularly, every two days or so. We’ll be fine if you follow my lead.”

“Why the spears?” Rarity asked, looking up at the jagged edge that ended her metal stick.

A genuine smile curled on Featherlight’s lips. “It’s a walking stick. Not a spear.”

Trixie and Rarity looked at their own rods. Rarity’s was slightly heavy, but the weight and the clacking sound it made against stones echoed reassuringly in her ears.

“Now we gotta go forward. You stay between Tempest and I, in a neat line. And try to walk in my footsteps. I don’t want you to slip.”

Rarity glanced down the hillside the beast had barreled through. It lacked steepness but made it up with ranges of spiked rotten bramble bushes. A trap.

“So where’re we going?” Rarity asked.

“There is another house several miles down the road. We can make it during the day if we carry on.” Featherlight stretched his arms to the sky. “I know this trail. By running I’d make it in about three hours. Walking… we should make it by nightfall.”

“Will the monster come back,” Trixie asked, huddling against Rarity.

“Monsters are rare during the day. They come out at dusk and stay till morning light.” Featherlight. “But the Deadwoods are unpredictable. Everything can happen and that’s why we should go now.”

Nobody protested.

As the procession carried down the path, Featherlight mentioned a few rules of runners. Never stop for any sound, any voices or anyone. Don’t be curious.

“Of course, the most important,” he whispered. “If you don’t walk alone, never peep, never steer and never look up.”

“But we’re here,” Trixie said, her voice a slimmer of a whisper. “Why are we still talking?”

“I’m not talking about you or any human.”

Nobody talked afterward. Rarity followed in Featherlight’s footsteps, her eyes riveted to the depressions he left in the caking mud that covered the pavement, she only heeded the sound of her rod as it hit sunken stones.

Landmarks sometimes dragger her attention away from the queue and Trixie, her hands closed on Rarity’s suspenders always steered her back.

Rarity saw houses, crumbled and void of life, rot at the side of the road. Those made of wood had long crumbled in heaps of fungi and moss. Those made of stones still stood. Covered with sickly vegetations, their window frame only held smudged teeth of glass that glinted under the droplets of water that glinted back the slivers of light that still pierced the fog.

Sometimes, instead of a house, a larger building still stood. Made of concrete, their bare style seemed to indicate a business inclination. Some still had doors and small signs hanging at the tip of a couple of chains. When thick covers of mush or ivy hadn’t engulfed them, Rarity could still decypher some of the words.

“What’s a Princess' Inn?” Rarity whispered.

“An inn is a place where people rest at night,” Trixie said with a low voice. Rarity felt the grip on her back slackened as Trixie threw a look at the old structure. “And as for a princess, that’s me.”

Tempest slapped Trixie on the back of her neck. She didn’t peep. Featherlight swallowed a laugh.

“Defend me, Feather,” Trixie bubbled.

“The great and powerful Trixie, a princess, shall attend to the needs of their people on their own.”

“Ass.”

“An inn as in the Workers’ house?” Rarity pressed on, a tinge of pain seized her heart as she thought of the wreckage she’d left behind. “Dormitories?”

Rarity glanced back. Trixie glanced back too, staring up at Tempest who glared back daggers.

“Slightly more upscale, let’s say,” Trixie notified.

Rarity nodded but came to a sudden halt as her eyes fixed on a strange, crooked thing.

It was small, and black. A small creature hanging on the branch of a dead tree overhanging the trail. Its beady black eyes glinted each time it blinked and its elongated, smooth jaw sprouted out of its slow-bobbing head. It cawed and Rarity flinched, her legs shaking under her.

“It’s a crow,” Featherlight reassured. “Just a bird. They’re rare around here.”

“I’ve never seen those before.” Rarity gasped as it opened its wings to reveal rows after rows of jet black feathers. “I’m only used to the canaries we bred for the mines.”

“Keep quiet and let’s move on,” Featherlight ordered, hastening his pace.

“Why?” Trixie asked, glaring at the observing bird.

“They’re carrion-eater.” Featherlight said. “Something around here is dying.”

“Dying?”

Featherlight turned around and raised a finger to his lips. With a motion of his hands, he pressed Rarity to keep forward, Trixie and Tempest at her back.

As Rarity focused on Featherlight’s slender legs and his shoes slushing in the mud, her ears caught a hissing fit further down the slop the road followed. Stone, wood or bone cracked and splintered beyond the mist. An avid eater swished and slurped over a jostling, whining victim.

Rarity never saw it. They walked right into the source of the sound, ethereal, invisible. They passed it and after long minutes she slowly looked back to Trixie and Tempest. Both were as confused as she, looking around wondering what had just occurred.

“Are you bleeding,” Trixie asked.

“No, why,” Rarity replied.

“You have… blood on your shoulders.”

Rarity plucked the top of her shirt and looked down several splashes of blood tainting her clothing. She looked up and her eyes went wide as the side droplets peppered Trixie’s silver hair.

“I’d rather not think about it,” Rarity said with a gulp.

“Then move out,” Tempest pestered, brushing her hair for anything stuck to it.

She pushed Rarity and Trixie further and kept going down the street. The rest of the walk went uneventful and by the time the sky started to grow dark, the outline of a large stone structure took shape through the thinning mist.

“We’re arriving at the barn.” Featherlight said.

Though no carts waited by the front of the bunker, light poured out from horizontal window slits.

As she walked closer, the swell of fried mushroom and meat tickled Rarity’s nostrils. The sudden void in her stomach grew loud and clear. She was tired, thirsty and hungry.

The door to the bunker was a thick slab of steel and many claw marks scratched its mate surface peppered with mud. Featherlight came up to it and banged five times consecutive times.

Multiple locks clicked open behind the door and a warm light blinded the troop. As Rarity’s eyes adjusted to the glare, a small lady stood in the open. An old lady.

“Oh, Featherlight,” she said with a shaky voice. “I see it’s not one of your bright day.” She leaned to the side. “And you brought company.”

A few seconds passed before she invited Featherlight inside. Rarity huddled in quick, pressed on by Trixie and Rarity. A blazing brazier set on steel table beamed light and warmth throughout the room, decorated with pattern tapestries and picture-coloured velours. Every colour was yellow, orange or red, warm and matching the fire that rage inside the bunker.

“Damn it’s hot in here,” Tempest breathed. “Reminds me of the deeper levels in the mine.”

“Glad you like it,” the old lady said, sitting back in her sofa. “Name’s Granny Smith. I run this establishment.”

“They’re not runners, Gran’,” Featherlight said as he took a seat on a stool, his legs trembling from fatigue. “Canterhigh was attacked yesterday.”

“I see,” Granny motioned to Tempest, Trixie and Rarity to find their own seating. “That’s why the convoy didn’t arrive today.”

“I don’t think any convoy will ever come again.”

“Trixie forbids you from saying that!” the aforementioned cried, pointing a finger at the bird of ill omen.

Featherlight clasped his hands together and sighed. “I’m sorry but the containment wall was completely destroyed around the northern gate.”

Granny Smith nodded. Whatever comments she had, she kept it to herself.

“That’s unfortunate,” the old lady said. “I’d hoped I’d never see the fall of a great city.”

She took off, snapping a cane off the sofa’s side and walked to a nearby small room. Nobody spoke, simply waiting for the old lady to come back. As she crossed the door frame with a platter in both her hands, Rarity sprung to her feet and offered to help.

“I’m old, but I’m not that old, young lady,” she pestered. “And you’re likely more tired than I am. The Deadwood drains the unhardened soul.”

Cups of mushroom soups passed around. Thick like the one Featherlight had cooked, it also contained freshly fried bits that mushed and sometimes cracked under Rarity’s teeth. She smiled.

“So, if you can’t walk backward,” Granny said between two seeps. “Where you’re heading to?”

“We don’t know,” Tempest confessed. “It’s more like we were fleeing something than we wanted to go somewhere.”

Tempest glanced at Rarity who gulped and looked down at her own brew.

“Actually…” Rarity took a deep breath. “I think I know where I want to go.”

She took off her arm out of the arm sling and, after a minute of search, made the mark glow under the bandage.

“So magic still exists,” Granny said, bending forward to get a better look.

Trixie walked to Rarity’s side and helped her unbandage the arm. The scarring process had started, and though the flesh was swollen and red, the brand was clearly visible, glowing blue out of closing furrows in her skin.

“I’m no witch,” Rarity muttered.

“I never said you were,” Granny chastised. “The Deadwood has its own surprises, I’ve seen better than some vulgar light shows.”

Tempest laughed.

“Why are you laughing?” Rarity sputtered.

“The thing you unearthed killed many. I’m sure.” She held her face in her hand. But were Rarity expected a smile she saw a grimace. “And that old fart just laughs in that situation.”

“Have some respect, lady,” Granny said without an ounce of anger. “One day you’ll be old like me. You’ll understand.”

“What is this?” Trixie exclaimed.

She looked down at an old chest of drawers. Covered with an expertly knitted cloth, ia single white ceramic plate stood on top and a small ball rested in it.

Rarity had never seen such a deeply vivid green. The lining of the ball was beautiful and shone under the brazier’s light. A single green leaf hung out of its top and fluttered under Trixie’s breath.

“That’s an apple, you see,” she said. “The faceless girl brings one to me every so and then.”

“We saw her,” Trixie said not without a flinch. “She ran past us.”

“Oh, don’t worry next time. She’s a sweet. Doesn’t talk much, though. Of course. I could picture a smile on her face every time I give her my ashes.”

“Your ashes?”

“The girl collects my brazier’s ashes. For what? I don’t know. He never told me. I’m sure the apples are her way to repay me.”

“What’s an apple for?” Rarity asked, standing up to look at the apple object closer.

“What for? Well, it’s for eating of course!”

“I’ve never seen one,” Rarity said, turning to Granny with curious eyes. “What does it taste like?”

“Well, let’s try,” Granny said, retrieving a small knife from her pocket.

“Oh, no, no,” Rarity protested. “You could sell those for a hefty price on the black market if it’s food.”

Granny laughed. “Oh, my poor dear. Tell me if you see any merchants hiding under my rug? Then maybe I’ll sell it. And if what your friend told me is true, I don’t expect many coming my way anymore.”

She took it in her hand and cut thin slices out of it. Stabbing in each, she let everyone pick a slice off.

Rarity looked down on her own. It oozed juices and had a peculiar crisp smell that tickled her nostrils. She waited for Granny to take a bite to follow.

The taste exploded in her mouth and found it hard to gulp. The sweetness balanced with a strong sparkliness she’d never tasted before. The slice went down quickly and Rarity found herself wanting for more.

She looked up and saw Tempest hadn’t tried hers. She simply smelled it and smiled.

Trixie too had never seen one before, she’d taken a bite but held the remaining half in the palm of her hand. “How long can I keep it?”

Granny chuckled. “Oh, you better eat it now. It’s going to oxidize soon.”

Tempest sputtered. “Am I eating metal?”

The old woman laughed out loud, wiping a tear off the crinkle of her eye. “No, no. It’s just going to turn mushy and brown in minutes.”

Tempest ate her piece rapidly afterwards and she smiled as well.

“You sure have a well-meaning neighbor,” Featherlight said, licking his fingers.

“She’s a sweet.”

The night was deep when Granny rolled out some blankets and Trixie went fast to sleep. Rarity, Tempest and Featherlight stayed up. So did Granny.

They shared a seat around the brazier, staring at the crackling embers and the strong heat that radiated on everyone’s faces. Heat was good. Rarity liked it and closed her eyes as she felt her skin burn softly.

“So where are we going?” Tempest asked.

“You,” Featherlight said. “I’m not going.”

Rarity opened her eyes, catching Tempest throwing him a look. “You’re staying here?”

“No, I’m going back to Canterhigh.”

“You’re crazy,” Rarity stammered. “You saw damn well what’s there.”

“And I’m still bound to my contract to Trixie’s father. I must go back, even if it’s to help fight what’s likely to be creeping in the city, right now.”

Rarity imagined monsters, the one they’d faced the night before, but also the one from bedtime stories told to kids around hot coals.

“Will you tell here?” Rarity asked, turning to the huddled form of Trixie under a musty blanket.

“No,” he said. “I don’t want the melodrama. I must go and that’s it. She just like me to piss off her father. It’s not what I want and it’s not what she needs. Especially now.”

“You better rest,” Granny cut in the deep of the conversation. “Tomorrow you must leave.”

“Must?” Rarity asked, fixating the lovely brazier.

“Anyone is allowed to stay for a single night, usually I’d also take a payment. But…” She motioned at their ripped clothes. “I’m not robbing homeless folks.”

Tempest chuckled. “We… are.” A wistful smile crawled on her lips.

“Yes, we are,” Rarity repeated. “And, I don’t know, but even though it happened, the lost and the dead, I am… happy?”

Tempest nodded. “We’re… free, I guess?”

Featherlight’s face darkened. His chest took one long breath. Rarity readied for a lash out. It never came. Featherlight exhaled, stood up, and snatched a blanket. He walked to the door frame to a side room and stopped before he stepped through the door frame. He sighed and swivelled to look back at the Brazier, Tempest and Rarity.

“I don’t think we will ever see each other. I just hope the best for you, wherever you’re going.”

Tempest nodded.

“Thanks,” said Rarity. “I just hope you’ll be able to help.”

“Help repair what you caused?” Featherlight’s tired eyes widened. He signed against and buried his face in his hand. “I’m sorry. I just… I just think we must part ways. Tell Trixie I love her and I’m gone looking her father.”

He passed the door frame and disappeared into the darkness of the room beyond.

“I think we need to sleep too,” Tempest commented. She turned to Granny. “Thanks for sheltering us.”

“None taken,” she said. “Beware, I snore.”

Granny pushed her chair away from the brazier and sat back in, facing the light. Tempest and Rarity took the last blanket, the largest.

They wrapped each other in the corner of the room. Tempest smelled of earth, mud and sweat. Rarity felt back in the mine, minus the barren smell and taste of coal. Tempest wrapped an arm around Rarity and they huddled together. It was uncomfortable but less so than the dormitories. Rarity back rocked against Tempest’s abs and she embraced the strong purple hands under the covers.

The night was a dreamless one.

2019 project - Diamond Sisters - Chapter 6 draft 1

“I hate you!”

Trixie threw her arms back leaning forwards to glare daggers at Granny. A wistful smile locked on the old lady’s face. She let Trixie vent out. Trixie spun around, pointing a finger at Tempest and Rarity, waking up under the blanket.

“Who said I, Trixie Lulamoon, allowed you to let my boyfriend go?” She kicked against the feet of the brazier and yipped in pain.

Rarity rolled to the side as Tempest yawned and brought herself to her haunches. Trixie covered the distance teetering her pointed index an inch away from Tempest’s nose.

“I didn’t and yet you let him go! Back to father. You’re terrible friends.”

Tempest got up and took a step forward, pressing her stomach against Trixie’s extended hand. Suden sagacity lit behind Trixie’s eyes.

“Shut up.” Tempest’s open hand flew against Trixie’s cheekbone, throwing the teen off-balance. Rarity winced with the clack of whip that resonated in the Barn.

Trixie hit the floor, her shoulders creasing the musty carpet below as she rolled on her back. Stunned, she looked up at the ceiling. Heavy tears rolled down her eyes and cheeks, pearling down her ears lobes to hit the floor in silence.

“Stop trying to boss people around, brat,” Tempest said, walking over her to Granny. “We will be out of your hair in a jiffy.”

“I have some food for you,” she said, nodding towards the kitchen where Featherlight had slept.

“Thanks.”

“So, where you’re heading?”

Tempest stretched, her hands easily touched the ceiling. “Chasing after the glow on Rarity’s arm is a stupid idea,” she said.

Rarity looked down at her arm, the scarring process was well underway.

“We’re malnourished, tired and we’ve got a liability.” Tempest looked down at Trixie who still laid down on the floor, covering her eyes. “We should hit the nearest town and exchange some of the goods from the cart for clothing, rations and find a way to earn a living.”

“Wise decision,” Granny said, looking down to Trixie as well. “I’m sure the lady’s name has enough clout to go around but you’re right to look for better accommodations before trudging through the deadwood and what’s beyond.”

“Beyond?” Rarity asked.

“Do you think the deadwoods continue on forever?” Granny chuckled. “No, no, you have the grasslands to the East and the Waste land to the West.”

Grass. Rarity recalled her dream of the woman Applejack. Yellow under a heat she’d never experienced and cracking under the hazy hair of a season, Summer, she’d never heard of. “What’s in the grasslands?”

“Nothing, really,” Granny said. “It’s a flat land for miles and miles without end. Like the forest, though, here be monsters.”

“Speaking of,” Tempest cut in. “Any advice for the trip. What’s the nearest town? How do we deal with monsters?”

“I’m sure Featherlight told you that the outside is pretty safe during the day, but once the night is about, you will find yourself facing horrors.”

Tempest nodded and rummaged through her pockets to retrieve the specked daggers.

“Now, your best bet is going to Dale. It’s a fortified city a day from here. You can make it before nightfall.”

Trixie sniffled, opening her eyes to glare up at Tempest. “Dale is the place Dash used to run to on a daily basis. She was so fast she could cross the forest offtrack and back in a day.”

“Well, look where it led her. She’s… The forest swallowed her.”

Trixie welled up again but she refrained from sobbing.

“I have to warn you, though,” Granny said. “The road has a tricky part that you must pay attention to. It branches off mid-trail when you reach a clearing. I’ve not been there in years but it’s not unheard of to mistake a path for another. Always take the leftmost one.”

“What happens to those who take the others?” Rarity asked.

Granny didn’t answer.

Rarity extracted herself from the blanket and once she folded it, she went on to help Trixie up. Granny led the three to the kitchen where they shared a rapid breakfast.

Trixie stared down at the mushroom porridge in her hand, glancing quickly at Tempest from time to time, a hand rubbing her reddened cheek. Her pale blue skin was covered with specks of dirt and her once pristine garb was riddled with spots of mud and halos of sweat.

Dust charged Tempest’s mohawk and she often scratched her face with untrimmed nails.

“We look like vagrant,” Rarity noted.

“We always look like that,” Tempest said before slurping down some of the thick brew. “What makes you realize that.”

“Speak for yourself,” Trixie muttered. “I feel icky.”

Tempest didn’t pay attention, she glanced at Rarity instead.

“I’ve had those… dreams of another place. Everything is so… smooth? Clean and hot. And the colours. Beautiful.” Rarity sighed.

“We’re not in your dream, though,” Tempest. “Nothing but rain, mud and pain here. At least, you’re here.”

Rarity smiled gently. “We need a shower.”

“The rain will take care of it.”

Rarity chuckled. “We do.”

Minutes later, Trixie and Rarity left the Bunker behind Tempest. She swung a small satchel on her back, a gift from Granny. It contained rudimentary survival gear. Rarity was glad for the two firesteel stick she’d given. Tempest had traded them for her last dynamite stick.

The group snatched their spear-walking stick, thanked Granny who quickly closed the door behind.

The rain was cool and the fog thick. They stepped on the road and continue onward.

“Come on, Trixie,” Rarity whispered, pushing the teen between her and Tempest. “He’s not here.”

Trixie threw a last look at the road that headed to Canterhigh, sighed, and turned to focus on Tempest’s taut back. She muttered. “Let’s go.”

The deadwood fit its namesake in the morning, thought Rarity. Not an animal sound, a rustle, a peep or a chirp. Only the rain plucked the ground.

Cascades and rivers flew down the steep, crossing the road every time in rushing stream that upturned rocks and carried sediments to an unknown destination.

With the rain and the fog, the smell of rot was the other constant. It penetrated close, nose and mind, and Rarity covered her mouth with a tug of her shirt. Tempest carried through, tapping the ground with her stick to watch for traps under the muck.

Trixie was slowing the group down. Tempest often looked behind her to see Rarity and Trixie’s walking speed.

The teen was gettng sick. Her face was pale and the gash she’d earned from the beast the day prior was oozing pus that trickled down her face as the rain peppered her skin. She faltered and fell. Rarity caught her before she hit the ground.

“Trixie, are you okay?” Rarity asked, knowing she was definitely not.

“I think, I caught a cold.”

She was sickly pale and burning.

“Take the lead,” Tempest said, dropping her spear to the ground to wrap her arms under Trixie to set her up.

Rarity found herself first to watch the road. Her heat drummed in her chest as she was forced to look up and down at the earth intermittently to create a path through water and mud.

A shadow flew above her head and she yelped. Tempest fussed, nearly slipping behind as she helped Trixie walk, he hand sustaining her under the armpit.

The crow was back. It studied Tempest and Rarity for a moment. Its eye went down to Trixie whose head was bobbing slowly. It looked further as if to count them. Then it cawed loudly and flew away.

They pressed on, helping themselves of metal and wood railing to hasten further when they were available.

A distant howl echoed through the wood and broken and torn trunk shattered a mile or so away. Tempest lifted Trixie up in her arm.

“Let’s move faster.”

They did.

The sound of rushing water intensified, coming from further down the path as the forest density increased, dead branches hiding an ever increasing among of light from reaching the ground.

Rapids surged in front of them, scraping at the rocky banks where hardly a plant grew. Series of stop stabbed out of the water.

A small wooden bridge extended over the violent river but though it still stood, a large gash cut it nearly in half.

“Follow me,” Rarity said, helping Tempest manoeuvre between jagged rocks as they made their way a hundred yards up the rapid to get to the bridge.

The wood was rotten, cracking under the pressure of Rarity’s feet as she set her foot on the first step.

“Trixie feels sick,” the teen mumbled.

“Yes we know,”Tempest huffed as she gathered her breath, a hand clasped at the wet guardrail.

Trixie sat on the first step, holding her head between her knees. She retched.

Rarity walked up the few steps, wanting to inspect the state of the bridge before crossing. By the rage of the river, she knew Runners had to pass through the bridge. It had to be safe. Still she was afraid of the hole that threatened to collapse the whole construction.

Rarity froze as someone waited for her. Standing in the middle of the bridge behind the gap dug into the wood, a slender figure stood. Though she had no face, Rarity could tell she was a girl. Slender to the point of sickness, the faceless waited with an arm out, holding something in her hand. Her head tilted to the side.

With her other hand, the faceless straightened her finger above where her lips would have been, then extending her arm invited Rarity to walk up to her.

Rarity took a first step, never breaking eye contact. Large boots, denim pants and a leather apron, she didn’t look much different from the miners Rarity had lived around her whole life. The lack of facial traits rose hairs on her nape of her neck. She took one more step.

The faceless threw what she held and Rarity caught it with a coughed yelp. The small canvas bag crushed under Rarity’s fingers as she clasped the item in both hands.

Rarity opened the small string that wrapped its opening. The strong scent of fresh bark struck her face. She’d once seen a tree, a willow bark, being cut up from its roots in Canterhigh. A rare sight and with a distinctive smell that brought Rarity back.

The bag held two bundles of thin strips of willow barks and a small bottle with a reddish liquid inside. Rarity opened it and an acrid taste hit her face.

Rarity looked up to the faceless. She mimicked drinking then pointed at the bottle. Rarity looked down again at the bottle then back at the endof the bridge. Tempest was taking care of Trixie. She’d emptied her mushroom porridge.

“Th-”

The faceless was already gone. Perplexed, Rarity walked down the stairs and sat next to Rarity as she held a nauseated Trixie underher other arm. Tempest arched an eyebrow as she saw the small bag in Rarity’s hands.

“The faceless girl was on the bridge,” Rarity told bemused. “She gave me willow bark.”

“Fresh?”

As Rarity nodded, Tempest looked at the bag with surprise. Then she laughed. “Whose soul did you trade for that?”

“Nobody,” Rarity chuckled, giving a gentle swing of her shoulder against Tempest’s. “She just… gave it to me.”

“I don’t like it,” Tempest said as she retrieved the small bottle and gave it a smell test. She retched. “Ach, willow extract. Smells like baby shit.”

“From what Granny said, she doesn’t seem to be the one asking for payment down the line, don’t you think?”

“That’s because Granny paid it back. We don’t have anything to give.” Tempest observed Trixie hack her lung as a drip of snot drooled out of her nose. She sighed. “Let’s worry about debt later.”

Tempest uncapped the small bottle and forced it to Trixie’s lips. She threatened till a dizzy Trixie relented and winced as the concoction made its way down.

“We’ll boil the bark when we have fire,” Rarity said, hoping Trixie would hear.

“Let’s head out.”

They carefully crossed the bridge, Rarity leading first, her eyes looking at each and every tree, searching for the faceless girl. Hours passed and the day slowly advanced towards the evening. The path, now a mudway opened to the clearing Granny had warned them about.

A small cobblestone fountain stood at its middle, covered in ivy. A clear arc of water sprung out of the mouth of a stone fish at its middle. It was steaming.

Everyone rushed the fountain and plunged their hands into the hot bath before them. It smelled of sulfur. Tempest didn’t have to warn Trixie not to drink.

While tempest removed her top and slipped into the water, removing flakes of mud and sweat over her skin to Trixie’s horrified look, Rarity looked around the clearing. She counted five pathways going on their own deeper into the Deadwoods where thicket hugged or crawled up to the middle of pavement remnants.

“I think we’re going to have a problem,” Rarity called.

She counted five paths, but the leftmost was simply the path they’d come from, making a u-turn to drop down a steep hillside where a few stone steps had been carved. It was less a road and more an old beaten yet now-flooded trail. The second leftmost street was an actual one.

Tempest dunked her clothes in the water and quickly fit them back on top of herself. As she flicked the strands of hair that fell on her face, she walked to Rarity’s side and studied the street layout.

Trixie floundered her way to Rarity. “Who’d have thought you lacked any sense of prudeness.” She threw a glance at Tempest. “You stink now.”

“I’m clean, you’re not,” Tempest replied.

“I can’t beat that,” Rarity said, looking back at the fountain. She smiled. “Is it still clean enough? I know you usually leave a mess behind you.”

Tempest smirked, “I called dibs. You get the water you get.”

Rarity looked at Trixie who huddled against Rarity for warmth. The teen’s eyes were weary, drained of happiness. Tiredness dragged her cheeks down and her eyelids closed one after the other.

“Check which path is the best to take,” Rarity asked. “I’m gonna bath the child.”

“I’m no child!” Trixie protested, dragged away by the wrist to the fountain. “Close your eyes when I take my top off.”

Rarity looked back at Tempest. They shared a tired look, and Rarity pushed Trixie backward who basculated through the clean spray of water to splash into the fountain waters, its surface ever disturbed by the rain. Trixie shocked herself back up gasping for air. Tempest swiped her hand through the water and huffed, amused.

“You could have warned me,” Trixie boomed.

“It’s sadly too late now.” Rarity stepped in the fountain fully clothed as well. The bite of sulfur gnawed at her left. She hesitated a second, bit on her tongue and dunked herself in the water. Once her shoulders under the water, she stripped off her clothing. Her mangled shoes floated up to the top and floated around, drifting up to the drain that fell off the side of the fountain, clogging it. “I’d rather be soaked and warm than soaked and cold.”

Trixie slid back into the steaming fountain, her eyes and forehead the only thing that settled over the surface.

Rarity snatched an underwater stone with a gently grating surface. “Come here and take off your clothes.”

“Trixie Lulamoon doesn’t strip in front of commoners.”

Rarity was taken aback. “You’ve never taken showers with other people.”

“Are you kidding?” Trixie laughed. “I have my own bathroom. For myself. Sometimes my servants come in to clean, but that’s it.”

Trixie looked back at Rarity. The former miner stared at the teen with darkened eyes. She didn’t repeat herself.

Trixie looked around as if searching for prying eyes, then finally she took off her linen top who floated around. She shuffled and her pants came up as well.

“Happy?” Trixie growled, redness on her face.

Rarity rubbed the stone against Trixie’s back, asking each time when she went to a new place, arms, legs and lumbars.

“I hate you,” Rarity muttered, startling Trixie. “I mean, I don’t hate you. I–I just envy you. You’re everything I’ve never had.” Trixie turned back to look into Rarity’s eyes but Rarity was lost mindlessly scraping at the teen’s back. “The opportunities, the goods, the food, the life, everything. Happiness and childhood.”

“You’re hurting me, Rarity,” Trixie cried.

Rarity opened her left hand, releasing the grip on Trixie’s upper arm she didn’t remember closing in. “Sorry, it’s just…” She met Trixie’s teary eyes and raised the stone out of the water. “Have you ever worked in your life?”

Trixie opened her mouth, inhaling deeply, but the words never came. Her lips closed slowly and she swallowed. She lowered her gaze to her side and rubbed her shoulders above where Rarity had pinned her.

“No, I’ve never worked. I’m too young.”

Rarity took a deep breath and turned around, searching for Tempest. The tall gall was strolling around the different paths that gave onto the clearing.

“Look at Tempest,” Rarity said. “She’s seven years my elder. Watch how she walk, how I walk. Slightly hunched, a slight limp. Scars on our backs, legs and arms, and sometimes a thin slice on our head where hair will never grow back.”

Tempest inspected something on the ground, crouching rather than bending her back. A knee to the mud, she set her two hands at the bottom of her back and stretched, once, twice. As Tempest rose up, one of her knees shook and the purple woman gave it two pummels of her closed fist.

“We, miners, never grow old,” Rarity sighed. “We toil to warm up people like you. That’s why I hate you, why Tempest hates you. Who you are, represent, is just knowing full well we waste our life for a master in a castle.”

“Like father?”

Rarity nodded but didn’t reply. She wanted to circle Trixie’s neck with her hand and press. All the years stolen, the pain inflicted, the work, backbreaking and humiliating. She dropped the stone. She saw how easy it would be to maintain the kid under water. She set her two hands on Trixie’s shoulders. Trixie shuddered.

“Rarity?” Trixie asked.

“Yes?”

“Do you want me to rub your back? One woman to another, outside Canterhigh.”

Rarity’s voice broke. “I’d like to.”

Rarity turned before Trixie did, and she dunked her head under water. The pain of sulfur was better than showing the tears that ran down her cheeks. She only lifted herself back to the air when instincts kicked it. Trixie had picked up the stone and was scraping her counterpart.

Rarity felt Trixie’s curious touch over several scars. The teen hesitated every time she was about to scrape over one.

“Does it hurt,” Trixie asked?

“It doesn’t,” Rarity said. “Some do but they usually cut deeper.”

Trixie continued her work as Tempest ventured a bit further down each path. She walked backward each time. The first time scared Rarity, expecting the beast from the day prior to pouce out of the falling darkness. But after the second and the third, Rarity understood Tempest refused to show her back to the dark. After long minutes, she walked up to the fountain.

“You too still in there?”

“It feels good to be warm sometimes,” Rarity replied.

“Well, we have to head out.” Rarity gulped as she watched Tempest scratched the back of her head. “I think Granny didn’t give us all the information we needed. She said to take the leftmost road, right?”

“I heard path,” Trixie coughed and wiped her nose.

Rarity would blew her own under water. The smell of sulfur burned her nostrils.

“I saw a cave down the stone staircase, it’s a hundred yard or so away.” Tempest looked at the mist overhead and the rushing darkness. She shuddered. “Let’s find shelter now we’re lost.”

Rarity left the fountain first, putting back her wet but warm clothes on as fast as she could. The rising wind and the rain would soon cast her cold.

Trixie snatched her floating top and pants and hid behind the fountain to put them back on. She stepped over the walls of the fountain dripping in water.

“I don’t feel so good,” she said.

“We’ll boil some water for the willow bark when we’re in the cave. I’m sure we can find some wood to light on fire,” Tempest replied. “Let’s hurry. I wouldn’t like to worsen your cold.”

“Th–Thanks.”

The stairs were polished smooth by water, age and use from hundreds of years prior. Rarity nearly fell, slipping inside her splotching shoes. Trixie grunted and fussed every time she took a step.

“How do you do, walking in such a soggy… weather?”

“Mines are often flooded.” Tempest said, retrieving her dagger to cut at the bushes leading to a gaping hole in the side of the hill. Circled by two slab of stone, the entrance was black as night and the entrance was covered in multiple layers of decayed leaves.

“That's good news, Tempest?” Rarity asked, pointing the accumulation of dead branches on the ground. She hoped it would confirmed nothing had entered and left the cave in a long time.

“I’d hope so.” Tempest walked closer, heeding the darkness within. “But that’s a lot of branches. I just hope it—”

“Lalala!” Trixie echoed, both hands on her ears. “Just go inside.”

“I’m not entering… that,” Tempest said, staring at the entrance with a grimace. “I can’t see anything.”

Rarity waves her arm around till it glowed. She was glad the direction of the light wasn’t inside the cave. And so, light bearing forward, she stepped over the branch barrier and stood at the entrance of darkness.

The inside was dry in most parts, a few puddles of sale water remained here and there and slabs of stone one could sat on lay about on a bed of grey dirt.

Rarity stepped further in and the cave was merely a small room that narrowed into a gullet when she could pass under by crouching. She heard Tempest or Trixie snap a few twigs under her foot. Rarity hesitated a second then slipped under the small entrance.

To her relief, the room had no exit. It was a single hole, laid with sand and dust. She looked up and saw a few holes peppered the ceiling like chimney to the surface.

Tempest pushed Trixie in, carrying with herself a series of branches she’d picked at the outer layer of the cave. She threw it in the middle of the cove along with Granny’s satchel, and pulled back to the outdoors.

“I’m fetching firewood,” she said.

Trixie and Rarity both watched the branches in the middle of the room. Rarity started to feel cold. The clothes tucked at her skin every time she move, accompanied with a shivering cold wave down her back and torso.

Trixie was huddled in a corner, sniffling and holding her knees up to her chin. She sighed, “Adventures are boring.”

Rarity chuckled. “I don’t think this is an adventure. It’s a run away.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know.” Rarity opened the satchel and retrieved the two firesteels Tempest had traded. Shaped into handles, she gripped the two and slapped them against each other. Sparks flew.

Tempest made several trips, each time dropping dead tibers she’d managed to cut with her dagger. Rotten or decayed, they could still burn it. It would smell and burn the eyes and create smoke, but it would work. Rarity struggled to her legs and collected as much kindling she could find around the cave.

Trixie observed her for a minute until she sat up, grabbed a nearby rock and starting digging a fireplace at the center of the room. She made a stone circle.

An hour later, a small fire raged at the center of the room and the cove was slowly warming up. Night was up outside and the creeping sound of wind whistled through the ceiling holes.

As they watched the embers crackled, Rarity chuckled. Watching Tempest and Trixie’s confused looks, she smiled. “We’re safe, here. Underground. We really aren’t at home anymore.”

2019 project - Diamond Sisters - Chapter 7 draft 1

Rarity clutches the grass, its green rubbing on her white sarong that spreads onto Applejack’s legs. They watch sunlight pierce the thin cloud cover that reveals a sapphire blue sky.

The heat of summer has died down in the coming dusk and birds and animals chirp happily around the trees of the forest edge nearby. The green leaves rustle in the wind and the smell of dust from the ploughed field nearby teases her nose.

“Where are we?” Rarity asks.

“Home, if you want it to.” Applejack replies as she twiddles with a grass leaf between her fingers.

Rarity rolled over, laying her cheek on the grass and dirt below. The smell, the texture and feeling, it was wonderful. Coarse, sometimes smooth, earthy and rustling.

She played with an end of her sarong. Silk. She brought it to her face and rubbed her eyelids in it. Applejack chuckled.

“You do like to show ankles for a city girl.”

“I hope you like it,” Rarity breathed back until a sigh overtook her.

“Something’s wrong, sugar?”

“I want to stay here. Forever.” She ripped some of the grass out and brought it to her nose. “The dream is so much better than life.”

“Maybe. But you can’t stay here. For now. They’re going to need you.”

“I need you.”

“You want this,” Applejack said arching her arm across the landscape. “But you don’t need it. Your friends need you.”

⇜⇝

Rarity woke up to the sound of crackling fire. A stranger had joined the group in her slip.

Its face, if it had any, hid under a dark, muddied hood. The stench of decay assaulted Rarity’s find and she watched in terror as its back vertebras jutted through two ripped holes in the cloth below the shoulders. Rarity's eyes grew wide. She saw torn up wings with strings of flesh attached extend out to stretch, only to fall back on the creature’s back. They ebbed and flowed with each breath it took.

It didn't sit like Tempest or Trixie, themselves frozen as they dared not look away from it. Curled under its tunic, it stood on all fours, or three in the case as Rarity noticed one of its front legs bend to press against the hood. It held something against its forehead.

Rarity looked down. Under the fire’s light, the front limb ended with a scarred, gangly human hand, coloured with shades of brown and bleached piss. Decay and sewers, smells that singed her nostrils like in the Canterhigh mines when tunnels got closer to the surface. The thing sat closest to the exit. The realisation thunked down deep in Rarity’s mind as she saw she couldn’t dash before being in reach.

Rarity threw a look at Tempest, to beg her to do something. Her purple friend eyes welled up, scared to act. Rarity followed the direction of Tempest's stare. A ball of lead dropped in Rarity's stomach again.

Tempest hadn’t been looking at the hooded figure, but what stood behind it.

Rarity looked in horror at the entrance of the cove. She then knew the reek of rot wasn't from the invitee but what lay beyond the threshold. The beast, the actual beast, was back.

Its torn up head from the dynamite blast heaved, oozed, drooped and spastically sagged from side to side. No eyes, no muzzle, merely the broken edge of a jaw where a few sharp teeth still pierced pus-filled gums. Its throat hugged the small entry to the cove. Earth had found a gullet that hungered for lost folks.

The visitor coughed and a handful of ash fell to the ground from its hood, blowing around its hand and even reaching the fire where the heat dragged it up like dust motes in the wind. The one that touched the fire fizzled into a bright colour Rarity had never seen. A lighter shade of Tempest’s mohawk.

Trixie was slowly moving backward, till her back touched the wall behind. Tempest’s hand moved in a crawl trying to sneak her dagger out of her belt.

Rarity let out a nervous laugh. “Eh, welcome in our humble… domain?”

Trixie and Tempest threw her a soul shattering look. Rarity replied with a silent grimace that tore her face. Her heart was booming in her chest and the rush of blood thumped against her eardrums.

“Thanks,” it said.

It was a she and Rarity irked away as she sat back on her haunches drawing a hand out to poke her fingers directly into the fire. The flame danced away, as if to avoid the touch, but the she-thing clutched her hand in the air above the hearth and drew the fire to her.

Flames jumped over the stone perimeter, lighting invisible fodders till it reached the visitor’s lap. The flame licked and jostled on her hand and robe and nothing caught ablaze.

She opened her hand and the fire sucked itself back to its living space. Rarity watched the light show recede and glanced back to the invitee.

Her face was well hidden under her hood. She brought the hand that’d just held the fire to her lap. Her other hadn’t moved. She held the back of her hand against her forehead, pressing the hood in between. It was cracked, blackened fist, dead, burned to a crisp in a long-extinguished fire.

“He’s angry. And he’s dying,” she said.

“Good!” Tempest snidded, pointing the hooded figure with her knife. The visitor’s wing bloomed and snapped back down on her back. She shirked away and shrunk under her hood. “May it die quick. We’ve got places to go.”

The beast growled, spitting out red and black phlegm into the cove, landing against the hood and about. The globes that fell into the first sizzled into a sewer stench that took hostage Rarity’s throat.

“Do you hate him? He’s just a beast.”

“He scarred me,” Trixie said, showing the scratch on her forehead. “We did nothing to it. He attacked us first.”

“He belongs here, in the forest,” she whispered back. “You, we... don’t.”

“We?” Rarity inquired.

She nodded. Her valid hand crawled to the ridge of her hood and dragged it back as she kept her other hand clasped over nothing against her forehead.

A cracked, ashen face glanced back at the trio. Tired eyes hid behind a messy, splattered mess of a pale hair. Her lips curled over broken teeth, if not canines, and her eyes gleamed with sagacious perspicacity in the fire light. She looked to Rarity with a smile, then with a growl to Trixie and Tempest. She stretched her blackened wings, occulting the beast behind. The flames in the hearth waves up and back, stretched out to the wings as if called to a better home.

Tempest took to her knees and leaned over, extending her dagger over the fire. “You better stop your hexes, right now.” She heaved pain breath.

The visitor coiled back into its tunic, a sadness ripping through her quivering lips. “You’re afraid of the dark.”

Tempest faltered, nearly dropping the knife in the fire. “No, I’m not.”

“If you’re afraid of the dark, I can give you the light.”

Tempest’s hand retreated and pointed down. “I’ve got the light right here. I don’t need any shenanigans from a forest vagrant!”

The visitor’s shoulders dropped low and she hunched over, showing her shaky wings.

Rarity stared at Tempest, pleading silently for her to stand down. She turned to the visitor and extended her left hand. “I–” Words died in her breath.

Starting from the tip of her fingers up, crawling beneath the witch’s brand pulsed a pure bluish white glow that shone through the cove. Trixie cowered from the light, hiding her eyes behind her hand. Tempest gaped and dropped her knife.

Rarity watched her arm, heeding the gentled burn that agitated beneath her skin and funnel itself up to her shoulder and chest. She withdrew it away and the glow died.

The visitor herself looked aback. She looked up from the hand to Rarity’s eyes and Rarity could see a warm behind the mangled smile she received.

Rarity held her hand up and slowly lowered it towards the visitor and as it neared her direction, the pulse came back with blinding strength.

The winged woman shifted on her behind, scraping the dirt under her robe as she crept to Rarity to stop mere inches from her extended hand. The mangled hand reached to her palm and Rarity winced away.

The visitor grazed her fingers over Rarity’s wrist and forearm. No arm or pain came, only the fluttering feeling a canary’s feather against her skin.

Rarity opened her eyes and looked up into the unknown woman’s sheepish eyes.

“My name is Rarity.”

“And I am Fluttershy.” Her smile grew wider, revealing the jawline. Rarity tried to mimic it but let out a laugh instead.

“I’m sorry,” Rarity laughed, pointing at her teeth. “It’s just…”

“I understand.” Fluttershy smiled, lips and eyes closed. “Thank you for inviting me into your home.”

“I didn’t agree to this deal,” Tempest protested, her words pushing Fluttershy back from Rarity and in front of the beast again.

Trixie tugged at Tempest’s denim. “Maybe we should be gentle with the lady with the big scary monster on a leash?”

Fluttershy caught the whispers. “He’s not leashed. He comes and goes as he pleases. He’s the master of his own fate and life. I am no zookeeper.”

“What is it?” Rarity asked, fumbling over her words. “What is he?”

Fluttershy sighed, turning around to give a tooth a pat. Her wings scraped at the fire but didn’t ignite, the feather throwing embers against the wall.

“He’s an old creature from before the great chaos,” she said, sadness tinging her voice. “We once called them wolves, then timberwolves when the magic came, and finally as the world shattered and leyline were mangled, monsters.”

The beast shivered, retreating at the touch for a moment, then pressing forward against the walls of the gullet as if to request a scratch.

“This one is the last of its kind.” She hunched over and rasped, trickles of ash catapulting out of her throat and mouth.

Rarity cringed away as the dust spread in motes to her feet. She forced herself to utter. “Do you need help?”

“No, it is fine,” she said with a toothy smile. “Thank you.”

She grabbed the ash in her free hand and crushed it, letting a small trickle of dust filter through the bottom of her fist like a minute glass.

“You’ve been tasked to seek me and others, Rarity,” Fluttershy whispered. “I see your hand as I see my eyes. We’re marked.”

“The light?” Rarity breathed. “How do you know?”

“The light indeed.” She turned to watch Rarity, her sparsely lit eyes shining with lighter shade of magenta. “I too was gifted with the light. But mine doesn’t seek like yours. It just allows to see and connect.”

She rummaged through her robe and retrieve a hand lighter with a rusted, smooth wheel. It was similar to the size of the dynamo Tempest had gifted Rarity. She threw it into the fire and a blue tint raised from within the burning twigs and ripped logs.

“Thank you again.” Rarity sputtered. “For keeping the beast at bay.”

“He belongs to this forest, you don’t. You all belong behind walls with other humans.”

“And you,” Trixie asked with a shaky voice.

“I have no place to call my home, no friends to call my own.”

“Well,” Trixie chuckled. Rarity did too, following Fluttershy’s cryptic answer. “I guess you’re welcome around the fire. Better be here than…” Trixie pointed down the breathing open oesophagus of the beast. “Down there.”

“You said you have a light like Rarity,” Tempest mubbled with an unsure tone. “Are you a witch?”

“I’m no witch,” Rarity breathed, indignant.

“Yes, you are.” Trixie smirked.

“Please, stop fighting,” Fluttershy requested with a meek voice. Still, everyone lowered their voice and listened. “I… My light cast away pretense.”

“What do you mean?” Rarity asked.

Rarity saw Tempest’s scowl, she was clearly not buying the visitor. Tempest’s voice rose, jagged with the tone of a forewoman who’d dealt with death. “Show us.”

“Are you sure?” Fluttershy gulped. “You may not like what the light has to share.”

“Show. Us.”

Fluttershy sobbed and the blackened hand she held up to her forehead opened. Her burnt fingers opened to a flaming eye that cast blinding fire and light into the cove.

Burning. That’s all Rarity could feel. She heard screaming, closing her eyes to evade the burning eyes. She peeled, or felt so, she couldn’t tell. Her skin burned layer after layer as even her eyelid couldn’t contain the sight. She could see the sphere, the eye piercing through her skin and eye, deeper inside her skull and mind.

The light washed over her light a wave of heat and as the burn soothed into a warm breeze of a summer she’d dreamed, Rarity opened her eyes.

There was no shadow where to hide. The cove was a bright yellow of flame and light. Fluttershy’s wings ablaze cast themselves up to the ceiling and the eye in her now burning hands sizzled as it twisting round between Tempest, Trixie and Rarity.

Trixie wasn’t a teenager anymore. Older, battle-scared and covered in a long robe adorned with gold, silver and gems, regality wrapped her. She looked down scared at her finery and the missing fourth finger on her left hand. The sword at her side, thing and stringy, felt more honary than practical.

Tempest had regressed to her child feature, young enough Rarity wasn’t yet born. She was crying as her scars were gone and she could see, with both eyes as the old gash that once cut her eye had disappeared in the light.

Then Trixie and Tempest looked up at Rarity, fear struck their face first, quickly followed by marvel.

Rarity frowned as she lifted her hands in front of her. Callus were gone, and so the scars, she was watching thin beautifully trimmed hands of a refined woman her long arms had lost their muscle tautness and her beaten skin turned silky shone white like a diamond in the light. Something rubbed her back and she reached out. She pulled back a strand of lustrous purple hair she twirled between her fingers, they gave a scent she’d never smelled and glimmers she’d never seen in them.

She wished for a mirror and turned to Fluttershy, maybe her eyes would reflect who she were. But Fluttershy was eyes shut, crying as her hand scorched, cracked and blistered under the light.

“Fluttershy, stop!” Rarity called, fighting the better of her nature as she wished to bask longer in what she was seeing. “Stop…”

Fluttershy’s charred hand snapped shut, bleeding and burning with a smell of burnt meat. Trixie was back to her teenage self and Tempest’s head, scarred hung low, miserable.

“I am sorry.” She crawled under her robe and threw the hood over her head and hand and it tainted with dark as blood dripped over her crossed legs and the dirt below.

“What did I see,” Tempest blubbered, heaving.

“What could be? What could have been, or what could still be?” The light just burns away conceit and pretense.” She swallowed with difficulty, as if to pass a stone. “I call it help.”

“How is this help?” Tempest cried only for her voice to die in a sob. “Showing us the past, or something that may have never existed.”

“Are you a witch?” Trixie whispered. “A goddess?”

“I am neither. I just give to the lost.” Fluttershy turned to Rarity and crawled to her.

Rarity shirked away, hesitated as Fluttershy, like a mangy cat curled to her side. Rarity opened her hand and gave the woman, or a girl, now Rarity could see how little and puny she was, a pat on her wings.

Her hands came back coated in ash and grim and her fingers brushing against the remnants of flesh dragged it along like the sagging skin of an elder woman.

“How old are you?” Rarity asked.

“The deadwood has little concern for time,” she replied. “You sought me, even though she didn’t know. But I see that despite your doubt and pain, the light may have nothing to give you.” She removed herself from Rarity’s touch and stood, taller than Tempest, slender and thing like a twig ready to snap. Her wings mangled themselves into her back and she snaked away, towards the beast’s maw. “The light had nothing to give you, and you granted me shelter. Maybe I can give to show that I belong.”

Shrinking to a girl’s size, Fluttershy snagged one of the monster’s teeth in her hand and looked back. She never opened her blackened hand on her forehead, she smiled, then she climbed up into the mangled jaw. “The city is back up the trail, you will meet merchants tomorrow. They’re on their way.”

Trixie gasped, Tempest retched and Rarity watched as Fluttershy rubbed a cheek against the pus-covered remnant of the inside of the maw.

She purred motherly, “It’s time to go, sweety.” She turned back, her eyes yellow with flames, her mouth a burning beak. Rarity believed she was still smiling. Fluttershy basculated inside the mouth and her voice echoed. “Hush now, quiet now.”

She was engulfed in flames and the beast sobbed a guttural complaint as the fire spread. Fluttershy had disappeared inside and, as the fire raged, fatigue snatch Rarity by surprise, she closed her eyes and drifted away as the smell of ash and the lullaby of death danced in the air.

Feb. 2nd, 2020 - The Lamplighter

Neun

No limelight in the land of eternal night; only darkness and the swaying of the few and far-between curtains in the shattered windows of empty city streets. Alone in the nether of the night, a hooded mare treads carefully on three legs down a sidewalk, her hooves avoiding each crisp, wilted tuft of grass.

She stops, sighs and glances upwards to take in the shapes of constellations hung about in the starry sky. From her low vantage point, the wide universe at large is merely cold and cruel. The far away stars, like glinting diamonds, tease of a wealth and purity robbed from the land she’s condemned to inhabit.

The long spear strapped to her bruised shoulder quivers, carrying the fear that crawls down her spine to her nether. The keys of the city strung across her belt glitter but don’t clink. To avoid the noise, she’s long dipped them into melted wax to silence their complaints. They don’t need to open doors anymore.

The spear’s not a weapon anymore either. Its bearers cut its sharp head, useless against darkness. A hook and a wick sit at the tip instead.

The mare stops at a street corner. The cold night air carries the smell of wet, dead grass and rotten laminated wood. She exhales and, once her thoughts are in order, brings the head of the spear down to her face. She needs to be quick.

She trots to the first street pole and leans against its brass body to work with the spear with her only front hoof. She retrieves two stones from her hood and drops the heaviest.

She holds back a swear, hears rock striking cement, and the echoes clatter against the abandoned houses that guard the mare and the city street. Bashful ire ensnares her, but she only has teeth to grind. Not a word to share, for none is here to listen but a pouncing death.

One stone in her mouth, the other under her single leg, she strikes and sparks the wick ablaze. And there was light.

Acht

She stares at the flickering flame dancing on the candlewick snug-fit in the streetlight’s head. The smoky glass cage, greasy and blackened with disrepair and overuse, gives only a faint yellow glow. It barely lights the streetpole’s ornate bronze decoration.

Oil and gas keep it alive, the mare knows, carried to each pole through veins of steel buried deep under the cement-work of the city. She knows that vascular system, but not where its iron heart sits. One day, it will stop beating, pumping the lifeblood she seeks to light across the city.

One day, it will all dry out and night will win.

She moves on to the next pole, bent over at its foot after something heavy struck it ages ago. A cart maybe. Or does steel tire too in the everlasting midnight. She cannot tell.

She raises her spear. And light sparks once again.

Sieben

There is a ruin at this address. A blackened heap of charcoal and dead wood where a house once stood. Only the porch remains, its set of stairs, and a young black filly watching the mare.

She tightens her hood and turns to the next pole. There must be light.

Sechs

A hole stands where the next house should have been. The mare dares not step away from the sidewalk. But the smell is enough to tell her what’s half-buried within. There is no life here.

Light, there is only the light.

Fünf

“What are you doing?”

The filly is back. The filly asks. The filly judges.

There mare looks away and hides in her hood. There is no life here. Do not talk. Do not fret. Raise the spear, light another place. Even death ought not be concealed in the darkness.

Too many ponies are forgotten, lying around her beneath the charred wood, moss-covered concrete and deceased grass.

“There must be light,” the mare says.

Vier

She spoke.

“Are you trying to convince somepony?” the filly asks, trotting alongside the mare.

Everytime the filly goes to touch her with her blackened hoof, the mare jumps away, teeittering on the edge of the sidewalk, avoiding stepping onto the street, the grass, anywhere the light of the street poles do not reach.

“There’s nopony here.” The filly laughs a low chuckle that scrapes her dry-sounding throat. “Who are you trying to sway?.”

The mare raises her spear once again.

Drei

“Are you trying to peddle hope like a snake-oil peddler?”

“You do not exist,” the mare blurts out, catching her mouth with her hoof and falls face first against the sidewalk.

The filly’s laughter rings in her ears. The mare opens her eyes and sees her spear out of reach, and the filly lording over it, her yellow-slit eyes staring at the lit-up wick with oozing hatred.

“I am.”

The mare kicks her hindlegs. Her hood tears against the concrete. Her skin too. She screams and snags the spear in her teeth, and strikes.

Zwei

Alone at last, she finds her bearing against the nearest light pole. Beheaded. The address will never see the light again.

The mare shakes her head and hobbles forward. She sees the next pole. Only a few steps forward.

The spear harnessed in her teeth, she tip-hooves her way to the future guiding light. Her side is sticky and hot. The iron smell of her own blood stings her nostrils. The night has teeth.

She opens her eyes and finds herself lying at the foot of the pole. She fainted. Her eyes shoot wide, blood pumping to her head, and she catches her unlit spear discarded by in the dead grass of the abandoned house by her side.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

She shot a glance back. The filly stands there, bleeding steaming red from her struck mouth. She speaks, but her jaw doesn’t shift. Her voice flitters past her mangled teeth.

“Why did you come here, lamplighter?” she speaks, her words echoing in the mare’s head. “I think you just want to hurt.”

The filly lifts her hoof and the world is black again.

Eins

End of the road, end of the line. There is but one lamp left to light to keep up the nightly fight. For it to end and start once again. To keep the demon-mare back. The black filly is back too, staring from the dark outer edge of the gaslight’s reach. Two mangled holes, no teeth, just one gaping throat. Her voice, a whisper like the wind that comes crawling out of her jagged and rocky mountain gullet.

“Get back, fiend!” the mare cries out, swinging her long torch like an ablaze spear. But the filly doesn’t step back. The mare did and her voice, at first a shout, crackled like a weak twig. “I shall not go crazy tonight.”

Darkness oozes from the child, invisible, and yet palpable. The smell of rotten egg, her burning eyes like the smoke of a forest fire blasting past through her.

“I shall give hope to this town.”

“You shall give them lies.”

“I shall fight you back.”

“You give them something that doesn’t exist. This world doesn’t have what you seek.”

“It must be done.”

“Because you want to reassure yourself, you’re dragging everyone down in delusion.”

“Silence, Nightmare!”

She swings her spear and strikes at the fiend. But there is only smoke and the loud, crashing sound of the lamp pole she cut down. The town shall not be lit up whole tonight.

Null

“Are you asleep, or dreaming, Farola?”

Farola falls to her knees and crawls into a ball as the cold lick of the monster latches onto her hinds, back, neck… and eyes. Forced open to see outlines in the blackness, she stares at the filly’s cheeks, tensing over a missing jaw. A smile.

“Can you even tell anymore?”

Feb. 2020 - Not The Sum Of Her Parts

Twilight ran after her.

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t come here to get your approval or rejection. Sad I got the latter.”

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 1

“It was CRAZY! You had to see it. First it went woosh! then it went waaaaah! and–”

“For the last time, tell me what happened?” the stallion growls. “I don’t care about your... onomatopoeias, young lady.”

“Pinkie...”

Mayor Mare sighs, hard at work not to show a smidge of annoyance in her voice. Not at Pinkie, of course — she wouldn't dare. The poor party pony went through so much already. Mayor is just hating the new setting. The cold room, its metal chairs, and the stallion hidden in the shadow on the other side of the table.

“Just,” Mayor pleads, “please, focus, and listen to him.”

Pinkie pinches her lips, and quickly breaks into a nod. “Sorry, Mayor." An awkward smile follows with the rise of a thumping sound. Untamable jitters run down her legs, squeaking the old screws of her chair. “I’m just, I mean, Ah! You were there too! And Cheerilee as well. Right, Cheery?”

Pinkie turns over her seat’s backrest to catch a glimpse of the schoolmare lying on a makeshift bed in the room. Asleep.

Mayor Mare gives Pinkie a gentle shoulder tap. “Leave her alone,” she hushes. Forced to sit still on her uncomfortable chair, she can only simmer, answer questions, and wait. But thinking of the poor bordeaux pony, Mayor Mare only knows frustration, and that worrying won’t help, but still… She struggles not to sprint and run to her special somepony. So close, yet so far. “She… She needs time.”

An angry rumble snaps the two Ponyville residents back to their interrogator. Sitting in the shadow on the other side of the cold, featureless table, only his grey hooves shine under the blinding light of the ceiling lamp. “Can’t you two focus?”

“I’m Pinkie Pie, ahah! You know the deal,” Pinkie chuckles, quickly zipping her mouth shut in the absence of an answer. “Uh, well, where do you wanna start?”

“The beginning.”

“Are you certain you want it from the beginning?” Mayor asks, motioning her hoof to commend him for clarity.

“Yes, I am.”

Mayor Mare throws her neck back, stiff and cranky. Her joints give a satisfying pop, and she whispers, “Alright.”

“Shotgun!”

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 2

There’s never enough sweets. Be you a foal, a grown-up, a grouchy donkey or even a playful chaos god, I’m always timely to light up a party. I'll tussle and bustle and waffle around to shower everypony — and that means you! — with sugary treats. With me, It snows candy. I always deliver, that’s a pinkie promise.

But I’m just a silly pony and there can be tummy aches.

“I don’t feel so good, Discord.”

One last candy wrap tumbles over its bazillion empty siblings, piled smack-dab in the middle of Fluttershy’s living room. There was a tiny table somewhere under. At some point.

I go slumping heavily into the pile, and the many wrappers flutter back on top of me. Buried the way I want at my funerals. So satisfying.

Anyhow! The last wrapper may have been empty, but the candy it held sure doesn’t play along in my belly. Being a big meany to the end, it throws a roaring party in my stomach. A rollercoaster. A pirates’ ride!

Candies aren’t supposed to do that, you know, especially not to me. Unless...

“A doozy!” I cry. Oh, what a schemy, nasty little twitchy-twitch, catching me off-guard like that. You don’t have a taste but you sure have a gut feeling.

I carve my head out of the candy graveyard and eye Discord and his elongated smirk. I’m about to tall-tale about the storm soon to bear o’er Ponyville! And I’m gonna need a tricorne for that. A quick glance around; not a pirate’s hat to find... Too bad Fluttershy never kept the pirate outfit I gifted her for Nightmare Night.

“A twitchy-twitch is a’coming!” I blast, waving my shaky legs at Discord and the glimpse of an invisible white whale peeping behind his scrunched-up face. White whales are good at hide-and-seek, just, trust me on that. “Ye damned!”

I spring out of the pile, tip-hoof my way to Discord’s snaky side, and wrap my leg around his stringy neck. His eyebrows don’t even have time to furrow back.

He definitely smells like peppermint. His fur and feathers stick against my mane and coat with candy gore. He squeaks a bit, lifts a claw, but I stick an icky candy wrap in his muzzle — no time for his sailings-of-fancy!

I look away and finally blink.

Fluttershy’s place sure is one confiseur’s mess. Discord made sugar snow indoors! He so got to teach me that trick... Icing coats the walls, sofas, and carpets — Angel could claim Rarity’s hide-and-seek record right here and now. Rarity’s a real winner, you know, always distracting me with her “I’m not playing” tricks. She can disappear for days!

You know, melted sugar is its own kind of glue; I’m kinda stuck to Discord now. He garbles a sneeze — not a laugh, not a question, not even a snarky, millefeuille-y kind of a joke. His face is a gurgled grimace instead while he wears my breathtaking leg-lock like a necklace.

Uh, oh–

“Oh, puny Pie!” Discord says once out of my hoof-y reach. “I think you had too much sugar.”

“Me! Oh, no-no-no! Not possible, Disco.” I shake my head hard, dusting off my sugar coat. As my belly growls, I curl back onto my withers. “Ooooh, it hurts real bad.”

“Are you two alright?” Fluttershy asks from the kitchen where a tea kettle whistles. By the smell, it’s Earl Gray.

“Just Pinkie, being Pinkie,” Discord replies, a paw tucked behind his back. My tail twitches and I glare at him. He grins. I squinch hard, and he laughs back. “It’s gonna start raining chocolate again, Fluttershy.”

“I can see you crossing your fingers, Discord,” Fluttershy warns sternly a wall over.

“Oh, shoo…”

Nausea. A shudder and a jiggling and a flutter brawl inside me. The room swims and wobbles. That doozy sure is a heck-a-weird teeter totter.

“It’s not a normal twitchy-twitch, Discord.” I huff, suckling air and staring without much aim at the sugary landscape around me.

The wallpaper is dancing the Zumba while I’m splayed in the sugar-snow! I don’t have a song to sing along, though. I don’t even think Zumba’s got lyrics anyway. Futtershy’s cottage got a crack in its retaining wall and somepony recently cleaned spilled tea not far from my nostrils. Angel must have had a tantrum again.

While I’m out of business, Discord springs airborne in a flap of paws, laughter, and wings.

“Oh no!” He whines and contorts and wriths with a grin like a snake in a tangle. “What’s it going to be this time? Flying bugbears? Angry geese ogling the streets? Oh, I know, world-ending foals!”

In a clap of paw and claws, a spyglass stumbles from behind his tail and somersaults to sit on his eye. Yeah, right!? With manic glee and many cackles, he starts surveying the living room.

“Let’s find Twilight," he exclaims. "I’m sure she’ll be delighted to hear I have a shipment of pianos on the fritz.”

“Discord,” Fluttershy calls, her tone snapping alongside a clatter of plates. “What did we say about wishing harm on our friends, or anypony for that matter?”

“Oh, Fluttershy,” Discord replies, all pouty and sad. A snap of a claw and the pirate’s lens splatters into a hovering brown blotch. His tail whip-cracks and the blotch, now a centipede-legged stool, glides to the ground with him sitting atop. “They’re just pianos. Not anvils. And you pastel ponies are quite resilient. What’s a prank or two, or three, if it’s in good faith and with Pinkie here to bear witness.”

Mr. Bear peeps through the cottage’s window and licks the sugar-coated wall.

“She’s... green,” Fluttershy says, her head peeking through the kitchen door. “Oh, my.”

Fluttershy rushes to my side, sharing my above-space with Discord’s floating eyes. She gives him, or rather them, a look.

“What?” Discord complains from his stool, staring back with two big black holes instead of eyeballs. “That way, she’ll only give me the stinky eyes if she starts puking.”

Fluttershy doesn’t answer. After a while, Discord clears his throat and flies over to retrieve two floating golf balls.

“And I know of those doozies,” Discord continues, grumbling as he pushes two eggs in his sockets. “Twilight gave me the bird’s eye view.”

“Is it a shaky tail?” Fluttershy asks, a hoof covering her head.

“It’s. A. Belly ache!” I blurt then inhale. “Not a funny one but an angry one. Like something real bad’s going to happen.”

Fluttershy turns to Discord and stated, legs crossed against her chest. “Do you have something to tell me? Like, something you’ve been planning?”

He raises an eyebrow, and so does she. He holds his empty paw out, and her leg-crossing tightens. Finally, Discord’s lips puckers to the side to hug his lonely canine. Fluttershy squints.

And my right hind-leg wobbles along with my belly.

“It’s not Discord!” I call out before she could utter a word. “And I’m not sugar rushing. I never get poisoned!”

“What is it, then?” Fluttershy asks, a scaredy-shaky trill in her voice.

Discord cracks his shoulder, a wide, toothy smile on his cheeks. “Let’s just take a quick peek, shall we?”

Leaving no time for Fluttershy and I to protest, Discord’s cloven hoof snaps its digits, and the cottage turns inside out.

“Tadaaa!” he says, arms pridefully spread wide.

We’re scrambled atop one of Ponyville’s many hills. The sun's high and alone in the bluest of skies. Not a cloud at all to see. Rainbow Dash's workprint.

The greens and browns of the leaves and trunks of many trees, and the purple and yellow and white of a myriad flowers welcome us three.

To the horizon, Canterlot’s hazy shape catches the sunlight.

“You see,” Discord ahahs me, a paw stretched towards Ponyville. “Everything’s where it should be.”

“Ahem!”

A field of green grass. A toppled basket full of fruits lying atop a plaid cover. Fluttershy, awkwardly sitting on a crumpled bouquet of red roses. And behind her, two hugging mares staring at us with eyes wide like saucers.

The interrupting mare pushes her scruffy silvery mane aside. Pissed off has got a face I’d not have expected on Mayor Mare.

“Are we crashing a garden party?” I trill.

“Hello, Mayor Mare. Hello, Cheerilee,” Fluttershy whispers, lifting herself with a meep. She brushes a strand of mane over her face. “I’m sorry for, uhm, the roses.”

The two surprised mares share unsure smiles and part their tight embrace. While Cheerilee snickers under her breath, Mayor Mare stretches with the dignity and full height allowed by her sitting position — she’s a mayor after all and got to play the role. She rubs the red blush off her cheeks, and coughs in her hoof.

“Don’t worry about them, my little ponies,” Mayor Mare dispels, motioning at the flowers. “I’m more worried about…” Her attention lingers over the sugar matting my coat but soon enough her eyes drift to Discord, now sitting on a branch of the nearest tree. A wide grin splits his lips apart, “you.”

I want to cheer up, say something, but I just crawl back into a ball, hooves pressing against my belly.

“Pinkie’s got a painful doozy,” Discord says, puffing his chest. I can see him making air quotes with his paw and claws from the corner of my eyes. “And since I’m for once not responsible for it, we’re just out here to prove her wrong.” He chuckles. “And, to be honest, if there is a doozy going on, you two fair lovebirds might be it.”

“Th–There’s no shame in enjoying a routinely beautiful summer Sunday,” Mayor Mare stutters, shirking her hoof at him before she steps in front of Cheerilee.

Her drooping glasses wrestle her from her pose and she quickly pushes them up her blushing and pointed muzzle. As Cheerilee guffaws behind, she quickly lowers her head to me.

“Are you okay, Pinkie?”

“Oh, yes, the dull routine of two stray doves,” Discord peeps, pulling a bag of popcorn. “Anyhow, Pinkie’s been moaning about a wild happenstance that will cast this picturesque town in disarray. So typical. If we can’t prove her wrong, well, we can at least watch.”

I crack a sheepish smile at Mayor Mare and struggle back to my knees. A hoof on my chest, I look down at Ponyville.

The smell of baked bread carried by the wind fills my nostrils. I’d be hungry if my belly wasn’t so painfully filled.

Maybe Discord’s right. Maybe I’m just poisoned. Oh, no, am I… aging? Will I have hair as white as Mayor Mare’s!? Having her motherly smile wouldn’t be that bad, right?

I shake the thought away. All I can see is a normal day for a normal town, except for Twilight’s castle of course. It’s big and garishly exquisite, at least that’s what Rarity says. To me, it’s just real big and shiny. If only I could convince Twilight to have more parties in there — crystals make wonderful disco-balls.

Something still isn’t right.

“You see, nothing’s going to happen,” Discord says matter-of-factly, flicking a popcorn at my face.

Oh no, he said the cursed words!

My tail twitches, dances, and... rumbles? I snap around to Discord and his raised eyebrow, and return him my own flavour of a faceful because, when Fluttershy, Mayor Mare, and Cheerilee see my sorry face-y twisties too...

We all duck.

Noon turns into midnight; darkness hugs the horizon black! Silence robs my ears. My eyes! A sucker punch of air to the chest blast me backward, like I’m falling from my hot-air balloon, or when you’re slowly falling asleep… But then! You jolt awake, aware and angsty! Twilight told me it happens when your brain thinks it’s going to ‘go to the other side.’ I think my brain just wants to party some more.

Sounds and colours? gone! I’m blind. I’d be okay if I was playing Pin the Tail. But I’m not… I’m just scared and I smell copper. Does rust even have an odor?

The world rushes back to my senses like a kaleidoscope whirlwind.

Noise, unlike any party I’ve thrown. A great thundering like my head’s stuck in my trusty drum kit.

My ears ring, my head hurts, my teeth stick, and my doozy’s gone for good. At last!

I open my eyes and settle first on Canterlot in the far-far. It’s still there, at least.

No villain to deal with today. I guess.

The doozy may be gone, but it left me with a sudden, very cold hole in my chest.

That’s when I get a glimpse at Ponyville.

I shouldn’t have.

“It– It’s gone,” Cheerilee mutters as she steadies herself back up.

Fluttershy gasps. Mayor Mare doesn't say a peep.

“Well, that’s new,” Discord points out, dropping his surprisingly intact popcorn.

“The castle!” Mayor heaves at last.

There isn't one anymore; something else stands in its place. And I don’t like it.

“W– what is that?” Fluttershy chokes up.

I’ve never seen a licorice jawbreaker this gigantic before.

Dark, round, and smooth like that lava rock Maude likes a lot — obsidian I think it’s called. On a second take, I really doubt it’s obsidian, or licorice. To be honest, it’s not–

“Not something I’d bet you to lick,” Discord whispers in my ear. I’d not heard him flutter away from his tree branch and, now crouched next to me, his feathers shiver along his spine. Even his scales stand on their end.

A massive sphere has gobbled the castle whole.

Its black so deep it’s like peering into a bottomless pit leaves a knot in my throat. It's got no details or curves at all. A creepy smoothness. Light doesn’t even reflect off of it!

“N– no,” I reply.

I can see the air fuzzing off its edge like the wobbling from the hot Manehattan asphalt on a summer day. But that ball…

It’s just hungry and cold.

Oh, Twilight, what did you do?

My guts crawl once more but it’s not a doozy this time… just a terrible warning. My belly’s telling me we will never laugh about this ordeal once it’s over. If there ever will be an end to it.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy bursts, taking off in a hurry towards the edge of town.

An icy vice closes on my ribs; air leaves my lungs. My knees give out from under me. Cold sweat drips off my brow. My tail and mane shudder like they never did before.

“Pinkie, are you okay?” Cheerilee remarks, rushing to my side to prop me up.

“Danger,” I gargle, unable to shout after Fluttershy.

Mayor Mare is studying the thing from a distance, her frown pressing against the edge of her cracked glasses.

Neither she, Cheerilee or I can fly or teleport. My guts wrench furthermore and I stumble to the ground, bringing Cheerilee down with me.

That’s when I meet Discord’s anxious eyes. As I bear my rare serious face, he’s not grinning anymore.

“Stop Fluttershy,” I breathe.

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 4

I opened my eyes to her side of the bed, empty and cold. With the shutters closed, the walls across the room caught the light of the alarm clock. Not seven in the morning.

Barely visible stains taunted me from their high ground on my ceiling, reminders of the rains that had raged over Ponyville last summer. Though I lingered watching for a while, I still found the fortitude to drag the bedsheets over my head.

Not even her smell remained.

Hesitation was strong but my choice was made after a single breath.

I had to start on with the day. I crawled out from under the covers and welcomed the autumn’s cold bite on my fur. We’d forgotten to close the window.

“Good morning, Mayor,” I whispered to my reflection in the nearby mirror, left standing on the ground at an angle against the wall. What a mess of gray hair. Dissatisfaction scratching under the surface. “Let’s get ready for this marvelous day.”

Straighten up. Two push-ups. Brush those teeth and put the coffee pot on the kitchen fire. Sip it, eat some hay, and brush those teeth again. Don’t forget to smooth that mane and wipe your glasses. You got to be on par for the day.

Once you put your coat on, head out. That’s the good old routine Mayor Mare had always known.

Little activity buzzed in Ponyville’s streets as I locked my door. I reached the town square in a jiffy. Only a few dead leaves welcomed me on the Town Hall’s staircase. Walking to the building’s gate, I quickly made a crisp red-and-yellow purée of them.

I fetched the hefty golden key around my neck, only to pause. Before sliding it in the lock, I turned around to survey the plaza. Not a soul to see and greet.

My study turned into mindless wonder of the many closed-up shops and dark houses. I shook my head and closed myself to the world. Air rushed through my nostrils, biting with the morning cold. Those mornings... Ponyville didn’t smell like bread anymore.

I slid the key in the lock, turned it, and swallowed hard, pushing down the heavy weight that lurked down my throat.

Meagre sunlight dashed through the unlocked gate and chased away the darkness nesting in the main hall. Three months had passed since the last town gathering and dust had coated carpets and benches. Clean-up would have to be called someday soon. But since there was no planned gathering before the end of the year, I hadn’t bothered draining the town’s limited coffers. I couldn’t fancy a misplaced aesthetic pleasure.

I closed the town hall door behind me and hurried upstairs. I knew this place like the back of my hoof and so didn’t need to pull back the large curtains obscuring the windows. Easily enough, I locked myself in my rickety office.

And what a tidy mess it was. Paper piles and gutted reams stacked over and against each other in a haphazard display of provincial bureaucracy. Yellow and blue post-its covered everything — to-dos, key notes, and other mentions I dared not remember by rote for longer than a day marked the whole.

I’d not even sat at my desk that Ditzy was already knocking on my window. She was always on time. I waved my hoof at her and trotted to the pane’s small sliding lock.

“Hello, Miss,” I greeted as I let her in. Hoping you’re having a wonderful day.”

“Sort of, Mayor. Sorry for being brusque but I’ve got to help somepony move this morning.” She hoofed around her worn-out satchel and cleared her throat. “Quite a few letters for you today.”

“Moving in, I hope?” I asked with a half-forced grin as three letters slid my way.

Ditzy’s eyes briefly focused on me. Her smile came and went, replaced by a grim chuckle — to be honest, a parody of a huff. “Always optimistic, Mayor. That’s why we still vote for you.”

My mouth opened slightly. I bit my lips rather than talk. Fleeing her feeble smile, I stared at her satchel, and the fact it missed the symbol of the Ponyville Postal Service. “Thanks for being here, Ditzy.”

“Sure do. Whatever I can to help, Mayor. What would be a town without a post office, right?”

And like so, she and her short-lived smile flew past me through the window. The crack of a forehead against one of the building’s colonnades and a “ouch” followed suit.

I drank the heavy silence in before I found the courage to settle back into my comfy reclining chair. The three letters lined on my desk waited for me.

The first one bore Father’s name.

The second one was serious, official even. The interlaced sun and moon of the Equestrial regal seal adorned its front. I licked my lips and slid my father’s missive to the side.

I muttered a half-assed laugh as I held the royal letter. Its paper envelope was smooth and, even accounting for the content, heavy. A wise pony once told me you could tell a nation’s wealth by the quality of the mundane things a Crown would waste its bits on. With its splurge on such a hefty caliper, the Canterlot Postal showcased the depth of its coffers.

I turned over the envelope to read the address. Written instead of printed — a rare occurrence. A well-sharpened quill had carved deep in the paper and the light blue ink had happily seeped in.

It wasn’t an address. I stiffened at the name and its lack of any preceding title.

Celestia.

I turned the letter over twice, searching for an absent urgent mention. Reluctantly, I put it away squarely over father’s. I hesitated, mind you, but I set it aside nonetheless. It didn’t matter how hard I wanted to open it.

The last letter bore a red wax seal imprinted with the herald of Filthy Rich’s lawyer. Strangely, the name on the letter wasn’t his.

I studied it for a long time, unsure of what to do with it.

I took Celestia’s letter in my hoof and brought it to my muzzle. And smelled it. And laughed. At myself mostly, was I expecting perfumed letters? Maybe… I just noted my office’s old dusty smell overtaking any other scent.

I let a breath I didn’t know I held out, and my decision was made. The princess could still wait.

I retrieved a small dragon claw from my drawer. Some ponies would have raised eyebrows at such a strange letter opener, but it was a gift from a great, adventurous friend who partook in action archeology — let’s not think about that too much, it’s a can of worm all of itself.

I slid the opener under the lawyer’s wax seal and snipped it clean. It sat free on my desk, without a single crack, ready to join my decades-old mayoral collection of seals. I was proud of that collection, as boring as it sounded. Each seal had a small story to it, or rather behind it.

I unfolded the lawyer’s letter and scoured its content, quickly reading through each paragraph’s first and last lines. If Celestia’s letter was heavy, this one’s message carried its own weight in the measure of words. I reached the salutation part, and sank deeper into my seat.

“It’s a marvelous day, Mayor. You just have to accept it.”

Stillness and silence soon became unbearable. I brushed my mane back, pulled myself from the comfort of my inaction, and sprung to the door. The letter fell and scraped against the floor, but I didn’t turn back. I hurried out to the streets.

I had an important visit to make.

It wasn’t ten yet and it sure was already a wonderful morning. As it always was in Ponyville. Routinely so. With its beautiful chirping birds, clouds, houses… And especially beautiful roses, currently getting snipped by a workaholic cream pony with a fitting cutie mark.

She sure loved cutting those roses. Maybe a bit too much…

“Good morning, Miss Roseluck,” I uttered when I entered the garden by her shop. The gate slammed closed behind me, nearly covering the heavy clang of secateurs dropping on the tiled pathway beyond two lines of shaven vines. "Sorry for startling you, Miss. Hoping you’re having a great, sunny day!”

“I am not,” Roseluck gibbed, still hidden low behind her mangled rose bushes.

As she straightened up, her eyes went first to the sky then to me.

“How are you doing?” I asked with a stretched out smile.

First to look away, she arched forward to bite at something around her hooves where I couldn’t see. She grunted through gritted teeth, likely steeling her jaw, and sent her garden gloves barrel over my head.

Only to land on the workbench by the gate behind me.

“I can only guess you’ve received my letter, Mayor?” she said as I turned back to her. “I mean, the lawyer’s.”

“I’ve… Yes, I did.” I gulped and readjusted my glasses up my muzzle. “I wanted to speak with you about it. I–”

“My choice’s final, Mayor,” she cut, brushing a lock of her mane behind her twitching ear. Her pained smile snipped my plea in its bud. “Just… Just know I’m angry. I know you’re here to ask me to reconsider. But... I won’t. And if you open your mouth, you’re going to anger me even more.”

“Nothing wrong in trying, right?” I mumbled.

Her eyes locked onto mine again and she chuckled, ending with a shake of her head.

“I’m angry, but not at you,” she said. “I’m just sorry.”

Her lips were pinched shut as I stepped towards her. Right there and then I wished I could have bargained, or just voiced a sliver of how much I understood her. We fared the same boat. But my pride and hope stood in the way like a bulwark against a reality I wasn’t ready to contend with. I knew Roseluck had come to accept it, and I hadn’t. I was the captain of a ship. It didn’t matter where the wind blew.

That thought was a bit arrogant, I admitted. But I wouldn’t let my town go without a fight.

As silence drew out between the two of us, I took a tentative final step and slipped in her hoof reach. She smelled of dirt, roses, and sap.

“Are you… really sure about it?” I muttered, avoiding her deep green eyes by studying some of the mangled olive sprouts still standing in her garden.

A shudder crawled along my spine as I lingered on what lay beyond Roseluck. The Wall, that unfathomable darkness, had grown larger again and engulfed a ridge of her garden hedge.

“I mean,” I continued, “I feel like if there is any time to address the proverbial elephant in the room, it might be now.”

I had to force those words through my teeth.

“Please, don’t make this harder for me, Mayor. I–”

“Good morning everypony!” Pinkie shrilled.

Subtle, she was not.

A pink whirlwind tore her way through the opposite hedge, jumping over a bonsai tucked in between two dried-up cacti. Leaving us no time to breathe, two legs found their way around Roseluck’s neck and mine. My hooves scraped against the garden tiles till I ended head to head with her and Pinkie lording over us.

“Why the grumpy face, Rosy?” she asked the garden mare, punctuating her words with a giggle and a boop. “Not something I can’t do anything about, though! I’m sure we can find the right thing to stretch a proper smile on those sorry cheeks of ya.”

“Rosy...?” Roseluck hissed.

“Yes, exactly!” Pinkie chirped, with a smile and a roll of eyes. “No need to be so gloomy.”

Roseluck grunted, slipped out of the embrace, and struck the ground. Starting Pinkie, she swiped the garden scissors lying at her hooves with a swift kick. They somersaulted to her flank, and a swing of her withers sent them flying to the workbench where they joined her gloves.

“So what can I do for you, Rosy?” Pinkie asked after a pause and a boisterous gotcha. “It just hurts me to see everypony sad these days and–”

“Stop!” Roseluck closed her eyes, and she took a deep breath. “You, Mayor, everypony, stop.”

The veins of her neck pulsed. Her full body shook from head to hoof. Her lips pursed back between her teeth; she was seething seeth. Meanwhile, words faltered at the tip of my tongue. I failed to step in, and she was first to break the silence.

“What about the Wall that’s eating my fence?” she snarled at Pinkie. “Can you do anything about it?”

The proverbial elephant in the room. What had replaced Twilight’s castle had been a hungry beast, growing so far over the last few months that it now covered a quarter of Ponyville.

The Wall, that cold, black blob loomed over us all now. I hated it; everypony did. It’d taken too much away already and I knew well who would be the next departee. She stood in front of me.

Roseluck’s hoof struck a tile and she pointed past Pinkie at a section of garden fence, gone overnight, swallowed whole by the dark. The smooth blackness had finally spilled in her garden and Roseluck’s rows of roses ended in its grasp.

Everything touched had browned and died. And the close enough bushes lay unmoving with a layer of frost for a shroud.

“That…” Roseluck hiccuped, “will eat everything. All I’ve worked for. Don’t you two get that!?”

Her rump hit the pavement floor, slamming dust off the ground. A muffled, angry sob followed.

“Oh come on, Rosy.” Pinkie rushed to her side and comforted, “It’s mean and big, and... hungry. But it’s just a very dark party balloon, really.”

“A very deadly one,” Roseluck muttered. “It will leave nothing. Not even a trace of my work will remain.”

Pain twisted my heart at her sigh and I looked away at the hundreds of petals and buds and burgeons covering the ground. Each rose Roseluck had tediously grown lay beheaded, left to rot.

Roseluck hunched forward and held her face in her hoof. “It’s been three months.”

“We’ll find a solution,” Pinkie whispered.

The garden had no smell at all. Like the town.

“I’ve found mine.”

Pinkie hugged the garden mare tight and lay her cheek against her neck. Roseluck hesitated, but gave in and returned the favour. Her tears stained Pinkie’s coat.

“I pinkie promise,” Pinkie said.

I swallowed the recurring knot in my throat and mustered the courage to step in. “Somepony will help,” I said.

“Twilight’s gone,” Roseluck heaved.

She was right.

The princess was gone, and so was Miss Starlight Glimmer. Everypony guessed they had been inside the castle when the Wall appeared. Forked tongues spread further rumors.

Her friends had worked hard to dispel the allegations.

“Any party balloon wants to be big, Rosy,” Pinkie said, She wiped Roseluck’s tears. “We just need to find a way to pop it. Right…?”

Pinkie’s smile had lost its shine. Gone was her brightest smile, or even her sincerest. Now, she only had a smile. Most of the town denizens were like Ponyville’s accounting books. I could read them, and I could point out the fake entries. Seeing Pinkie then sent my heart tumbling. I held a hoof to my chest.

“Come on, Rosy, we’ll find a solution,” Pinkie muttered again, brushing Roseluck’s shoulder as welled-up tears carved their way down her cheeks again.

“It gets bigger everyday, Pinkie. It’s never going to stop,” Roseluck stuttered, tapping the tip of her hoof at a few uprooted flowers lying in heap at the foot of a clay pot. “I’m… I’m leaving. There’s nothing left for me in Ponyville.”

“It’s like a hungry hippo. It’s gonna be full at some point,” Pinkie said. “The Wall... It sounds really scary, I know. But you know the song, Rosy. Giggle at the ghosties. That’s what we do here in Ponyv–”

“Shut up,” Roseluck breathed. “Please. Let me have a choice.”

I worked through the tension in my legs, swallowed the acrid taste in my mouth, and ignored the apprehension in my chest. “There is no way for you to reconsider?”

Pinkie threw me a pleading glance.

“I’d not have bothered a lawyer with legalities if I weren’t,” Roseluck said. “They cost money.”

“Come on, Rosy–” Pinkie mumbled.

“I’ve declared bankruptcy.” Roseluck wrangled herself out of Pinkie’s embrace, her features twisting as she eyed us both. She pinched her lips and sighed. “I made my choice, okay? And Pinkie, please stop calling me that. I’m no filly.”

“But we’re your friends, right? I got to try,” Her strained voice died in a whimper. Her composure came back after a couple of seconds. “You have to see the bright side of things! Look, you’re cutting all your roses. You must have got a massive order from Canterlot or something.”

Roseluck studied the mess she’d made of her garden. She chuckled — a dark, rumbling laughter that never got past her teeth.

“I appreciate the attempt, Pinkie, but we’re not really friends,” she said, baring her teeth through her discomfort. “Acquaintances, maybe. But friends? I don’t know.”

Pinkie faltered, the words landing with such strength her cheery expression melted away in surprise, shame, and hurt. I too felt the gut punch.

“Ros– Roseluck,” Pinkie bargained, setting her knees to the ground. “I don’t want another Quills and Sofas… or like what happened to Timeturner’s shop. You have to stay open, for us all. We need you as much as you need… us?”

“It’s not your choice to make. It’s mine, and I’m leaving. With that bankruptcy, I’m hoping to turn a new chapter,” Roseluck stated. “Wonderful things end sometimes, Pinkie...”

Her unblinking, reddened eyes locked on mine, and she gave me her best close-lipped smile. Sad but honest and real. Her chest rose in a staccato and her breath came out in heaves.

“You have to recognize it,” she continued never looking away from me, “and, sometimes, those beautiful things happen to be whole towns. A party always ends.”

I clenched my jaw, barely nodded, and broke away from her staring to hug Pinkie. The party pony’s sobs, Ponyville’s saddest sound to my ears, rattled my core, left thorns in my throat, and brought my soul to a silent scream.

This was the terrible result of something Equestria couldn’t fight yet. If at all. As a mayor, I could only reckon the burning resentment in my chest, a heated hatred for the Wall and my dread for the future of the place I’d cherished and loved.

“It is final,” I told Roseluck over Pinkie’s shoulder. More a statement than a question.

Roseluck nodded with confidence and sympathy painting her face. “Yes. Thank you for the precious help all these years, Mayor. I am... sorry for Ponyville.”

“Stop her...” Pinkie muttered in my ear between two muffled hiccups. “Please.”

Roseluck and I shared a long, difficult look, staying immobile until I granted a silent approval I knew she didn’t need. A personal life-changing choice always impacted everypony around, but I hadn’t come to her garden to hoofcuff her to this place. Those shackles, the one I loved to wear, were only my own.

Roseluck had already cut her ties, cut everything standing in her garden, and thrown the results of her vendetta in a large wilted and withering pile. Scorched earth without a fire. An exit without fanfare.

“You cut everything?” I asked, shedding any ounce of accusation in my tone.

“I’ve seen some ponies touch the Wall,” Roseluck whispered, her eyes glassy, her breath short as she glared daggers at the Wall. “I don’t think plants feel pain but… I’m not going to forget the screams. No living thing deserves touching...” She motioned at it, “that thing.”

I noticed a small bag by Roseluck’s side. Sat behind her hoof and against an empty metal pot that once held geraniums, its flap lay opened. I readjusted my glasses to get a glimpse of the many small pouches tucked inside, each marked with sharpie or stamped with a sticker. Seeds.

“Yeah,” Roseluck mumbled, catching on the object of my curiosity. “Soon, the Wall will have eaten everything. Better harvest the seed and hope to get a clean start somewhere else.” Tears now traced a matted trail across her face. “Snip this life in the bud. Grow some new roots somewhere else, right? I… I hope you will be okay.”

“I–I– I’m sorry,” Pinkie uttered, working her jaw against my shoulder. “I just wanted to cheer you up. A lot of ponies need cheering these days. With… uhm — ” She motioned at the Wall with her hoof. “ — that. Nothing’s been right since it appeared.”

I hugged Pinkie tighter and let her rest her cheek in the bend of my neck.

As Pinkie’s breathing slowed, Roseluck and I exchanged a quick smile. With silence our overwhelming companion, I pinched my lips.

After a while, I cleared my throat, as I always did before addressing my little ponies. A routine ritual to address the day’s issues, to enunciate clearly the town’s charted course. But I had none to offer that day.

“Thank you for all the roses.”

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 5

“You’re flowery.”

“I prefer ‘elevated’,” Mayor snipes back.

“She really left that day,” Pinkie mumbles in defeat, scratching her drooping shoulders as she shuffles back and forth, unable to shake her discomfort. “She left us behind.”

A single tear rolls down Pinkie’s cheek. Many follow.

“It just… happened," Mayor Mare says, "like many other things in town.” She waves her hoof before Pinkie's face, snapping her out of her reverie. “Are you okay?”

Pinkie takes in the overbearing cleanliness of her surroundings and wipes her face. As she does, a quick smile overtakes her sadness.

“You said half-assed,” she snorts. “I didn’t know you could swear.”

Mayor rolls her eyes and shakes her head. Pinkie would never let her live that down for sure. First age, now her cracked mayoral façade… She’d buck that poor pony to town for pointing out her flaws. If she ever could. Which she couldn't. Pinkie is Pinkie, and everypony learns to live with her antics — worth more than a broken ego. As a smile breaks Mayor’s lips apart, she leans towards Pinkie and gives her a warm hug.

“You mentioned Timeturner’s shop, right?”

“You really can’t let us have a moment, can you?” Mayor mutters at the meddling stallion, not even looking. Pinkie’s mane is too warm to not take in its candy and ashy smell.

“Not really.”

“Fine. Yes,” Mayor Mare says, and Pinkie corroborates with a single nod. “Lots of things started breaking after the Wall appeared. Weather went awry. Rainbow Dash's team couldn’t do anything. Plants died. Farm animals fled. And for Timeturner… It’s hard to explain.”

“I have all the time in the world.”

“Well, after the Wall appeared, every single clock... broke down, I guess.” Mayor clears her throat and exchanges a smile with Pinkie. “Not broke down as in broke down, I mean. Clocks didn’t work right. They lost hours every day.”

“I see. Do you have any idea as to why?”

“How would I know?” Mayor shrugs. “I’m just an Earth Pony mare, not Twilight. All that nonsense flies way above my head.”

“What about the Wall? You mentioned Roseluck saw ponies touch it, am I right?” A tinge of hesitation catches the interrogator in his tracks, “What about Miss Fluttershy, did she–”

“Discord caught her in time,” Pinkie answers, wiping her runny muzzle in her elbow.

“It’s okay,” Mayor consoles, gently rocking Pinkie’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault.”

“How many?”

“Too many,” a throaty voice interrupts from back in the room.

She doesn't need to look. Mayor Mare springs out of her chair. Metal crashing against concrete covers the old mare’s heaving. In a single long stride, she’s already by the teacher’s side. It doesn’t matter if the massive bruise on her side explodes with white-hot pain. Nothing else matters but her.

“May’," Cheerilee whispers, reaching to Mayor Mare to prop her out of bed and into a tight hug.

“I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Cheerilee coughs, looking past Mayor Mare, her eyes riveted at the room in all its intimidating darkness. “Where are we?”

“We did it,” Mayor whispers, only to frown. “Don’t you remember coming in here?”

“Did what?” Cheerilee asks, her face pointed with a painful squint.

Mayor grips Cheerilee’s shoulders and gives her a long, hard look. “Don’t you remember?”

Silence. Hesitation. Another squint. Cheerilee blinks and her eyes wander, lost in her thoughts. A grunt follows, and she rubs her temples, pain rushing over. She sinks in Mayor Mare’s embrace.

Cheerilee relishes the touch, the support. The recent events couldn’t leave a dent in her feelings for Mayor. The touch of her cold fur and the warm skin underneath leaves her smiling.

"It's still fresh," she breathes. "It's just hard to wrap my head around it."

“Too many, you said?” the stallion ponders. “You remember what happened?”

“I would rather have not,” Cheerilee says after a moment of hesitation.

With Mayor’s help, Cheerilee stumble to her own chair, brushing her mane behind her ears to let the ceiling light warm her coat. The teacher’s pale face groans at the sudden clarity and she turns away, meeting Pinkie Pie and her closed-lipped smile. As she returns the favour, Pinkie stands from her seat and walks to offer a gentle and kind hug.

"I'm still a bit fuzzy," Cheerilee swallows the knot holding her breath, “but I… I clearly remember Carousel Boutique.”

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 6

“There is a fine line between laughing and crying, Darling.”

Rarity took a short whiff of her cigarette, snuffed it in the ashtray on her divan’s legrest, and flicked the butt away. Her magic trailed the discarded piece for the first rebound. The Carousel Boutique’s darkness swallowed the vice and its evidence then.

Rarity growled and laid her head in her hoof, her pinprick eyes aimed at the poor party pony who was hanging her head low.

“Who am I kidding?” Rarity lamented. “You have to understand that you can’t keep a pendulum swinging forever, Pinkie. Keeping a hoof on its thread and pushing it? To keep that bead dancing?” She rubbed her face. “Just a joke. You’ll grow tired, you know, and then... What?”

“Everypony needs to be cheered up these days, Rarity, and it also means you,” Pinkie said, stepping towards the sofa. Rarity scoffed and turned away. “Everypony’s got to laugh, Rarity, to be happy… Dontcha think?”

Pinkie tugged at Rarity’s leg buried deep in a cover of emptied ice cream tubs. Rarity wiggled away and rolled over to face her friend.

Though curtains obscured most of Carousel Boutique’s windows, a single sunray managed to slit the scene, hitting Rarity straight in the snout. She held her hoof high to protect herself. If she could hide from the light, she sure couldn't from any peering eyes. She wore somber shades of grey, purple and blue, matted and stained.

Rarity would never let melted ice cream stain her silk gown — not in her right state of mind. And yet, her overall was covered in blotches, cream and brown alike. It didn’t feel right at all.

“Ponies need laughter and fun, now a lot more than before,” Pinkie protested again, kneeling by the sofa to dig at her friend out of the caloric graveyard. “And you’re a pony, unless — unless you’re Discord or some changeling… Are you Chryssy? I mean, if you are–”

“Stop. Stop. Please,” Rarity whined. “I’m in no mood.”

Pinkie tried again and Rarity yelped. The seamstress snatched her foreleg away and rolled over, tucking herself in her garbage.

“Rarity...? Please,” Pinkie begged. “My laugh, my jokes. I’m losing it. Ponyville. With all that’s going around here, it’s too much. With Twilight and Starlight and all the others gone, I need my friends to laugh… with me. Because if– if I can’t even help my friends, who’s going to help me?”

Defeat painted Pinkie’s face pale when Rarity rolled back to her — In the faint light, the mare’s eyes gleamed with annoyance. Pinkie crooked away the moment Rarity let out a long-winded sigh. It carried more thorns and sharpened edges than a jagged knife.

“You’ll get hurt, Pinkie,” Rarity muttered. “You can’t bear the world on your shoulders. And I am not asking you to. What kind of friend would I be?”

“I may get hurt,” Pinkie replied, “but I gotta t–”

“Leave me alone, please.”

“–try because otherwise ponies might get hurt even worse. That’s why I’m here. Everypony needs some buffer against the bad and the meany, right? That means you too.”

“How long has this one been here?” Rarity noted, pointed past Pinkie, at me.

My ears hanging low, I cowered away in a darker shade of the room.

“What?” Pinkie said turning back in surprise. “Oh, hello, Cheerilee.”

“Hum, hello,” I said with a difficult smile, and waved at the party pony and her quite depressed friend. Rarity waved back and threw herself over, as if to wrap her body back in some ice-creamy bedsheets. “I was just… I was here to say your parents have arrived, Rarity. They’re waiting for you.”

“All of this, the Wall, the lost, the found, the… broken,” Rarity growled, ignoring my words. “How long has it been going on?”

I threw a look at Pinkie who shook her head back at me. I contemplated the situation, focused on the divan, and stepped forwards. I wasn't going to let that mare hurt, and hurt many ponies by proxy. “How long have you been mulling here?” I asked.

“How long since the —” Rarity motioned her hoof and contorted over to stare at me “— the commotion happened?”

“Three weeks,” I replied hesitantly, stepping once more and smiling hard at Pinkie. Tears rained down her cheeks.

“So… six months sincd this whole mess started, I see,” Rarity mumbled to herself, before exclaiming, “Ah, wintertime, how fortunate, the shortest days for the coldest nights, and the most dreadful times.” She brushed her mane over her face, hiding from Pinkie who was sobbing by my side. Meanwhile, her hoof fished for a potential surviving ice cream sludge. "How fitting for a mood."

“Come on, Rarity, today is an important day,” Pinkie pleaded between two hiccups. “You gotta come.”

“Have you ever considered some ponies like to cry, Pinkie?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Pinkie answered. “Why would anypony like to cry? It’s sad and, and, and… grouchy ponies end up alone. Nopony wants to be alone, right? It hurts, and if you hurt you get sadder, and you push ponies away, and you get aloner, and…” Pinkie’s muzzle scrunched up. “So, uhm, n– no?”

“I want to be alone right now.” Rarity’s click of her tongue rang loud, and it cut deep, like taking a cleaver on a chocolate cake. If Pinkie was the cake. The poor mare faltered and her knee hit the tiled floor.

“Are you angry, Rarity?” Pinkie asked. “Angry at me?”

A sigh is often more painful than silence. Rarity offered the former.

“Ahem!” I coughed in my hoof, calling for their attention.

“What!?” Rarity called.

“I’m sorry,” Pinkie whispered, eyes locked on her hooves.

I shook my head, steeled my jaw, and exhaled. “Many ponies are expecting you, Rarity. And to be honest, you're being a terrible friend.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“Come on, Rarity,” Pinkie pleaded next to me. “Please.”

“Pinkie,” I said, and her ears perked up. She swallowed and hunched over, hiding the tears matting her pale, pinkish face. “Could you… give me a moment with Rarity? Alone.”

Her mouth opened, but no words came forward. Her tears fell off her chin and, catching the faint light, twinkled as their way down. Each ended drumming against the tiles. I smiled as hard as I could and patted her shoulder. After a time, she sat on her withers and held onto her slick mane.

She inhaled and nodded. “I hope you’re better at cheering her than I am."

With that, she stood up and turned around. Her first hoofstep hit the parquet like an anvil, and I caught her in a surprise hug. She sniffed and reached out to my neck.

“It’s okay, Pinkie,” I said. “Sometimes, things don’t work out. Rarity is mean because she's sad.”

"No, I'm not."

Pinkie didn’t reply, nodding against my fur instead. I laid my head against her mane and let her drink in the embrace. Like foals, touch-starved ponies needed their time.

Soon enough, Pinkie slipped out from me and paced herself to the exit. Rarity groaned as the evening's sunlight rushed in for the moment Pinkie held the door open. Her hoof accompanied it on its way to a close. The hinges never squinted.

Rarity and I simmered in silence. The room was thick with smoke and the smell of poor hygiene, mixed with that of chocolate chips and vanilla ice cream. I winced as I caught a better view of the poor mare from my close vantage point. I put a hoof on the sofa, feeling its mushiness, and sought the occupant’s shoulder to give a hearty.

“I’m not going,” Rarity mumbled before I could reach her.

“You should.”

“Let me have one last evening alone in my boutique, my home, before it gets destroyed like half the town already,” Rarity asked, her voice a low whisper. Her hooves scraped against her caked up mane. “Please, leave me alone.”

“Rarity–” I said, my hoof an inch from her. "You need to come."

“I am. Not. Going!”

Her ashtray fell off the legrest and shattered into a hundred bits against the cold, hard floor. Each shard a diamond that caught the light through the Boutique’s single half-drawn curtain.

I exhaled the breath I hadn't realized I was holding, caught by surprise by her outburst. Though hesitant, I sat by the legrest. Rarity was crying as I reached out and rested my hoof against the musty fabric of the sofa by her shoulder. Her hoof soon crept up to meet mine.

"I am sorry."

“It’s not about you, you know,” I replied. “It’s about her.”

“I smell.” Rarity sobbed, “don’t I?”

I nodded slowly. “Like a skunk.”

She chuckled and turned her head at me. Her lips creased with a sadness she could hardly contain. She gulped, loud and clear. “Like a diamond dog?”

“Like a yak in a tropical forest.”

“Now you’re selling it too much, Dear,” she mumbled.

“You should dress,” I said, retracting my hoof from hers. "Shower first, though."

“For what occasion?”

I recoiled... " F– For the funeral of course,” I sputtered. “Don’t you remember?"

"There is no pony to bury, Cheerilee."

"Your parents are waiting. Rarity, I–"

"She is not there!" she screamed. Stumbling out of the sofa, she hit the floor face first and lunged at me. Her hooves scraped against my legs and her vanilla-gooped muzzle pressed against my chest.

I stood still, waiting for a blow that never came. Her face was melting through emotions fast. Anger, pain, fear, anger again, her traits twisted every time she fought back the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

"She is not THERE! Got it?” she hissed, a hoof pressed against my chest. She swallowed a knot, hiccuped, and shook her head. “No, you won’t. You didn't act when you could have, why would you now?"

She slumped and I faltered under her weight. I gasped as she brought me to my knees and forced her way into my legs.

"I won't," she sobbed in the crook of my neck, "I won't go to her funeral."

"Rarity–" I whispered, patting her dirty mane.

"You could have stopped it, you know," she spat through two gurgles. We exchanged stares and she retreated, leaving me on the ground while she stood high and towering with a blue fire raging in her eyes. "That spawn of Filthy Rich. That little, sniveling devil you've put up with at your school — in your own class! You could have stopped her. And you didn’t."

I lay on the boutique’s cold, tiled floor, crooked over and cowering from her piercing eyes. They glimmered in the icy aura of her horn. Rarity rarely looked down at ponies, but when she did… She had a certain talent to make you feel worthless.

I raised my head and she closed her eyes. Her chest rose and she held her breath. Only after a few seconds did air leave her lungs in a staccato. As many bursts of arrow that pinned me at her hoof. I could only wait for the unleashing of the rightful fury pulling her at the seams.

A twinkle and a spark. Her horn flashed and a whipping crack ripped my ears. Her sofa flew past me and crashed against the wall and down, crushing a desk and the rolls of fine, black fabrics stacked over it. Cushions and ice cream tubs rained and took down a mannequin. It snapped in half, and so did the mourning gown it wore.

As silence regained its place in the boutique, a spool of thread unspooled and rolled to my hoof. Cold sweat cascaded down my spine.

"You could have stopped that brat and her little bet," Rarity seethed. “Where were you during recess?”

Her tears clawed her cheeks with black mascara. Like trenches through pristine lands. Loud and heavy heaves wracked her, like war drums, a rhythmic flow of curses. First at me I was sure, then at a world I knew she felt had wronged her.

"You didn't do anything then, you're doing nothing now.” Her withers hit the floor in a pathetic thump and she rolled into a ball. "That bully killed my sister and you..."

She threw her head back to glance at me over her leg. Her curled lips revealed grinding teeth and her eyes, hesitation. I was crying too.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered. Her hoof struck the nearest tile, leaving a crack in the polished white ceramic. Her pastern now bleeding, she stared at the gash for a time before her eyes drifted back to me, boring into mine with burning fire. "You know the worst, Cheerilee. The most enraging, blood boiling part? It wasn't that– that kid... It was her father.” The rancid air of the boutique rumbled through her nostrils. “He never came to me, he never apologized. He never considered me — I, an arriviste in more than the nobles’ eyes."

She kicked an abandoned tube of ice cream away, its left-over content spurting in an arc against the flooring. The plastic package hit a sewing machine and splat to the floor where it rested, rocking from side to side.

"He never communicated. The coward. His lawyers did." Her lips trembled, but not from sadness. Only rage, boiling, an earthquake of emotion that stood her coat on end. "They never came to my door either, their letters came instead."

"I am sorry," I said, finally breaking my mutism. "I–"

"He was 'ready to discuss compensation'." On her back, she air-quoted the words, and a few specks of blood trickled from her hoof to her cheek. She repeated, "ready to discuss compensation. As if I was here to negotiate my sister's weight in golden bits."

She stood up and walked to her snapped mannequin, and pulled the gown from it. She wiped her face with it, both mascara and ice-cream. She threw the fabric on the overturned sofa and lingered over the mannequins parts.

They hurled against the ceiling, the floor, the ceiling again, the brute force of Rarity’s bright blue magic rippling outwards in blueish waves. Nuts, bolts, stuffing clattering, clanking, ripping. A mare’s rained.

After some time, I found the courage to sit up. Rarity was still studying the fruit of her work and only the gentle rocking of her shoulder let me know she was there in the shadow of her boutique. The sun was nearly set outside.

A thomp echoed the weight of her pain, the burden of her grief.

"I am a terrible pony," she whispered.

"No, you're not,” I said, managing to stand up, if not step forwards to her. “It's okay to be angry–"

“Am I scary?” In the light of her horn, a forced smile spread her lips apart. I stepped back, unable to muster a word. Her eyes broke away from mine and rested on her hurt leg, and a sob escaped her. "I am absolutely, thoroughly mad, dear, and– and–"

"Rarity..."

As I prodded around, I found a discarded lantern and made it work. A warm orange light bathed the boutique. I could have opened the curtains, but for the little light that remained outside, I didn’t dare risk peering eyes. Rarity didn’t deserve that.

"I’m such a bad mare, because even though what it would mean, I still wish Sweetie Belle was still her.” She rubbed the snot away from her muzzle and turned to me. “She had to save Scootaloo, right? That poor pegasus had to take that bet, didn’t she?"

I fought my hesitation and walked to her with the lantern and set it aside. We sat down together, with my hoof on her shoulder. “You can’t change the past, Rarity. What Sweetie Belle did was what friends would do.”

“I know, it’s just…” She hiccuped. "I am selfish. Oh, to hope that, for once, the universe would have been generous to me. I’m pathetic." And cried in her hooves, like I had never seen her do. And though Rarity cried a lot, this time wasn't dramatics that day, but tragedy.

And I had a first-row seat.

"I am awful, rebuking," she blubbered. “A social climber.”

"Rarity!" I called out, slapping both her ears in default of her face. She perked up, eyes wide and unfocused, and she gasped as I forced her into my open legs. "You are not okay, and that's okay — eh, It is... it's alright to cry. You are a great mare, and seeing you like that..." I gestured at the destruction she wrought in her boutique. "It shows you really loved her."

“Love doesn’t matter when it’s too late to give it," she spat once a heavy sigh passed. "She isn't dead… She isn’t dead."

I pinched my lips. Holding up my breath, I swallowed the chestnut shell deep down my throat, and forced myself to smile. "Can you do something for me?" I asked.

Her ears started up and she hummed back to me. "Yeah."

"Take a shower, you stink.” I said, and she laughed. As I held her tight, I wiped her tears and maquillage against my fur. Sneakily. “I didn't take Rarity, the greatest seamstress, for a filthy diamond dog."

“That’s prejudice, you know.”

“You started with the metaphors.”

“Touché,” she snorted and curled into my legs to smell her leg pit, and gagged. "I’m such a degenerate —" I slapped her ears again. "— Ow! What was that for?"

"Stop commiserating,” I ordered, “and go take a shower. I herd kids all day, I don't want to deal with a marebaby in the evening."

"Like you did such a good job at it in the first place."

I faltered and dropped her out of my legs, her gasp nearly unheard as my chest tightened at the strength of the verbal blow. Eyes closed, I worked on steadying my breath. But I couldn’t hold the tears back.

"I’m sorry. I’m sorry," Rarity muttered, straightening herself on her shaky legs. "I am being so uncouth right now, and hurtful, and mean. Look at me, I’ve made you cry." She scoffed. “What an element of generosity, I am!”

“Just shut up.”

She froze and I swallowed back the stronger words tittering at the tip of my tongue. I sniffled, took a deep breath, and nodded.

"I wish I could have been more vigilant that day, Rarity. I should have seen Diamond Tiara coming up with a bet about touching the Wall. I should have seen Scootaloo taking it up.” I crossed my legs and dodged her eyes. “There’s not a single day I wish I could go back. I failed her. And I am oh so... so sorry.” I burst into tears and fell apart like a house of cards. Crooked over, defeated, remorseful. “Nopony, especially Sweetie Belle, deserved that."

"She isn’t d–"

I snagged her into a strong hug and motioned at the chaotic state of her shop. "Hush now, just… let’s stop this exercise in self-destruction."

"Are you calling me melodramatic?"

“Kind of.”

“I know I’m a terrib–”

"No, stop,” I said. “Clasp that cute fuzz muzzle of yours shut, young lady.” I pressed her face against my chest as I inhaled deeply and loudly and let it all out in one single stream of air and regrets. “If you don’t get out there for her, at least do it for your parents. Your mom and dad really made the trip to here — you know the train doesn’t run anymore."

Rarity nodded, lips pinched to hold a sob much palpable against my coat.

"I just wish I could firebomb Filthy Rich's house some time," she said and I chortled. She huffed back, and pushed herself off of me, vexation clearly visible on her face. "Come on, laugh at me if you must.”

"No, I won’t," I said, embracing her once again. "I mean, I just doubt you know how to make a mareotov cocktail."

"Why, do you?" As I didn’t answer, she pushed herself away from me again. “No way. Why?”

“I was young okay,” I sputtered.

“Still are, to be frank.”

I rolled my eyes. “Compliments will bring you nowhere.”

“How are the two girls?” She mumbled. “I’ve not talked to them since.”

“They’re taking it okay.”

“Okay?”

“I don’t think ‘well’ is the proper term for it.”

A long and tenuous silence rushed in between us, spent listening to the low whistle of her runny nose or maybe the few voices outside the boutique’s door.

Ponies diligently waited for us.

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 7

“Firebombs?”

“I was young, okay, mister.”

“And stupid, I presume.”

“No, just young.”

A sniff cuts them off and eyes turned on to Pinkie, hunched over to the side of her chair. “I didn’t know Rarity hurt so much. I’m terrible.”

"It's okay, Pinkie. It's not your fault," Cheerilee says, offering a pat. "Sorry if I painted your friend in a... ungrateful light. I am sure she’s better now."

"I am sure she is," the stallion says as he lines four letters and a heavy leather-bound book on the table. He points at the latter. "But, sadly, I need to talk about this. Who gave it to you?"

Mayor Mare squints and leans forward to reach out for the letters. Sorting through them, her eyelids close to a slit. "Why are you intercepting our mail?"

"Collect would be the better term." He clears his throat. “Also those are addressed to Princess Celestia. Do you really think nopony would sift through them before they reach her? You’re not her faithful student afterall.”

"Oh, come on." Cheerilee says as she rubs her temples. " Enough with the interrogator spiel. I've debated you enough on the school board to know your annoying voice, Neighsay."

"Ah, ah!" Pinkie exclaims with a rejuvenated glee despite the redness in her eyes. "I knew it."

“Why do all the Crown’s agencies have to meddle in Ponyville?” Mayor Mare murmures, her head in her hooves.

“It’s inspector Neighsay for you, lady,” the stallion directs Cheerilee, his pointy black beard the first to appear into the light as he leans forward. "Also, impressions matter most. Come on, you know that."

"I don't recall you were the type to hang out around the Great and Powerful Trixie."

He drums his hooves on the table. "Point taken."

"So,” Mayor interferes, “why have you been, uhm, collecting our mail?"

"The Wall has lasted for a year. Most of ponyville was gone, I’ll have you know," he gripped. "Imagine how terrifying this was for the Realm. Of course, the EEA and its investigative experience was called to help. After all, one of the suspects in this affair was none other than the School of Friendship director, Miss Glimmer."

"Leave her out of that," Pikie erupts, pointing at him. "She's innocent."

"That's yet to be proven, Miss Pie."

As the argument intensifies, Mayor Mare swipes the book and turns it over, On it, the mark of a red and yellow sun.

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 8

Dear Celi,

Today was Sugarcube Corner’s last day.

The Cake and I partied in the kitchen one last time. It was awesome and amazing, and with many chocolate cakes and cookies! Mrs. Cake’s salted all-chocolates are totally the best. They use a lot of eggs from AJ’s farm, much more than the recipe calls for. But, you know, sometimes the fun’s in those little things, right? What would Rarity say…? “We must indulge sometimes.” I’m sure it’s a word like that. And let’s throw a Darling! in for good measure!

Well, we locked the door behind us, I planted a warning sign, then we went to the train station.

The Cake family and I gave each other tons of hugs! The twins even waved at me as the train left. I even managed to keep smiling the whole time! Mr. and Mrs. Cake needed that more than the twins did. I ~~pinkie~~ swear I didn’t cry.

The two sweeties are going to make looooads of friends in their new home. I helped Mr. Cake fill out some boring forms to the local daycare. There is a long waiting list and Mrs. Cake was biting hooves over it but I’m sure they’re going to fit in right away.

There isn’t much business left for them in Ponyville anyways.

Leaving was the right thing to do, Celi — Does Luna call you Celi? Can I call you Celi? —, I mean… Tomorrow, I won't be able to go to Sugarcube Corner safely. And when I say I, I mean everypony.

The wall’s going to gobble a chunk of Sugarcube Corner’s door frame tomorrow and the whole door, the day after. The Wall is a very, very hungry hippo, and a very mean one too. I don’t like it. It never stops eating, and it already did with Quills, half of the town hall, and the pond and the river and so many houses.

I tried putting on a smile when I laid the warning sign too, Celi. For the twins. But… the Wall ate ponies, and that’s very scary. I’ve seen it with my own two very blue eyes. You brush a single hair against the Wall and Wooosh!, you get sucked like, uhm, well like a vacuum cleaner!

I’ve put warnings everywhere for ponies not to go near! It’s dangerous but not dangerous like a rollercoaster ride. It’s really real this time. I’ve seen Blossomforth go hug the Wall today. She totally ignored me and the warning sign. I don’t know why.

But you already know that, of course. You came to Ponyville eleven times since Twilight’s been gone inside the wall. I counted! I just need to tell somepony because I’m repeating myself around town a lot. Everypony has really been bummed about the Wall and it just keep eating and getting bigger.

My job is to get ponies to smile, and it’s a lot harder now. Jokes get boring after a while and I’ve used much of what I know — Pinkie Pie is having a joke shortage!!! Comedy comes in threes and surely doesn’t grow on trees! It’s not like farming apples, you can’t wait for a joke to get ripe when so many ponies need them. Wait, don’t tell AJ I said that!

Ponyville is in the middle of a fun and joke famine! And that’s very sad. It’s like a cake in the middle of a kind of meh party. It’s a quarter gone, half the ponies already left, and most of them are hanging in the corners. And you can see one or two leave every minute.

Do you know when you’ll find a solution, Celi? I mean, Starlight was with Twilight inside the castle when the Wall appeared. I figure it’s hard to figure things out without them. Princess, don’t be too harsh when you find a way to break them out and pop that black balloon thingy.

I’ll make every cake in the world when Twilight and Starlight return, and plenty of extras for everypony else who got sucked in. Every single flavour… to celebrate. Everything’s going to be rainbows. And smiles. And parties.

Dear Princess Celi...

I can’t get a curl in my mane anymore, and I’m scared.

Your littlest, partiest, sugariest pony, Pinkie Pie~

Your Highness,

I like walks…

What a weird way to start a letter, but I swear I tried my hardest thinking about this first sentence for too long. So, here I go. I hope you will excuse my cavalier approach, Princess.

I wish to report on the state of my beloved town and I couldn’t find a better way to start. I like walks, by day, by night, whether in the summer or winter. It’s one of the ways I’ve found effective at refreshing my mind, brainstorming new ideas, and maybe escaping the grind of city hall affairs. I sometimes wonder if it gets better. For you, I mean. As the scale of what one pony works on increases, are there less pony faces to meet and greet? Are the names listed on each and every paper pages better to handle? It’d be less personal, for sure.

So I love walks, yes. At the drawing of dusk when the streets of Ponyville aren’t yet lit by streetlight, when only the orange glow of nightstand lamps and a few candles pour out from the houses and chases away the evening darkness.

That’s the time when that faint orange hue reflects upon the steady waters of the river that cuts Ponyville from north to south, albeit in twists and turns. Ducks and boats and barges share the waterway then and, in the coming of the night, all head out to their home or hurry to their mooring.

It's a time of peace, really. Everypony has gone home to eat; nopony has yet walked out to enjoy a party, a bar patio, or the warmth of a porch torchlight. The ponyville I know, grew up in, and love.

Nowadays, it is pretty much all gone. Everyday is that peacetime in the early evening. And I hate it.

Applejack, her family, and I finished shipping the last of her trees to her cousins at the south border. We got most families resettled—it took a long time, but it ought to be done. The last train yesterday and only the old bones remain. Like mine.

In a sense, we're dismantling Ponyville, piece by piece, bit by bit, chipped away and sent to other places where they will find usefulness. There’s nothing left to do here but wait.

And there’s nothing left to enjoy either. Most houses are now empty husks. Rotting has never gone so fast.

There used to be pontoons on the river. I never really walked down them but I’ve seen them so many times I only remarked them once they were gone. The owners pried the wooden planks off the pontoon’s metal and concrete stilts, and went away with them. Sometimes old bones really are made of steel and emptiness and rust.

Now the river is empty and cold. The late winter still lay its ice on the embankment where water once flowed. It has dried now. The Wall has recently swallowed a stretch of the river, Princess. Did you know? Now the water only flows in the northern part of the town. It ends its course in the darkness and whatever lies beyond. The rest of the riverbed is just dead ice, snow, and dust. This summer, it will evaporate and only shingles will remain.

And off course, the black.

It's been a long time since your last visit, Princess. We miss you. Some even resent you. I know I do sometimes. But when anger passes, I don't blame you. There isn't much to see here anymore. Your time is better spent elsewhere, searching or making a solution, I’m sure. I hope…

Three fourths of the town is gone. Only the north end, the eastern edge, and the south end remain—the parts furthest from Twilight's castle.

I really wonder where all the water from the river is going, where all the birds, and leaves, and plants and animals I’ve seen going in... where do they end up? i really don't want to know, but I am still curious. A sort of call of the void, you could say.

I’m really getting in over myself. Anyway.

I've recommended everypony to leave, but they're stubborn, like everypony's supposed to be, I guess. When life throws stones at you, yielding shouldn't be the first thing to do—and yet it feels more and more like an accomplishment. There is a time when stubbornness becomes obstination, then a tragic resignation.

If I am writing, it's to ask you, Your Majesty, to intercede with the remaining five Elements of Harmony. Not even Discord managed to convince them to leave, and go to Canterlot. They’re better by your side than here, waiting by the wall, everyday that you make. There is no solution here, but maybe in Canterlot.

It is a lot to ask of you, but you are a voice ponies will listen to. And Ponyville longs for yours. My own words can’t reach that far.

Please, Princess, I humbly request you to intercede. Have them see reality. Staying here won’t help. I know you must be working with Luna on finding a solution, but in the meantime, the only solution here is to retreat and bite our time. Ponyville is no more and they need to come to your help or go search for it.

That’s how I see it, what I am telling myself. A rant. Trying to convince myself on repeat.

Though I want to leave, I can’t. It’s my town, my responsibility. Please have the Elements come to you, and may they take my beloved with them too.

I think I need to end this letter here and send it right away, otherwise I will be throwing it. Like the other drafts.

When you finish reading this letter, please ask Ditzy not to come back. There is nothing in Ponyville to find. She's better off going off to where Mrs Doo she can be a great mailpony once again. She will serve her new town well.

Yours Faithfully,

Mayor Mare

Your Majesty,

I do not know what Mayor wrote. But whatever she ended up writing, discard it. Please take no offense to it. I tried my damn hard to stop Ditzy from delivering the letter but she’s a pegasus and I’m an earth pony. No matter what I do, she was still going to be faster than I. Everypony always underestimates Ditzy.

Mayor wasn’t herself when she wrote that letter. That damn mule head…

Well, now I’m tabled and writing. I guess I better have to continue?

I don’t expect you to know me. I’m just the only teacher inPonyville. Yeah, that Ponyville. Today, I’ve sent the last kid on their way somewhere. No more “Fillies and Gentlecolts” for me anymore. At least for now. I don’t know yet where I’m going. Being a unionized teacher kind of gives me the privilege to not have to care about paperwork. Even if I wanted to.

It does take away some of your freedom as a teacher, but I enjoyed the status for so long I guess it’s the other side of the coin rearing its face. I don’t know where the Rectorate will send me. Won’t till they announce it to me. I can enjoy some more days with Mayor before being sent away.

I’ve thought about resigning and staying here but… wouldn’t that be a bit selfish? Sacrificing some children’s education for my own romantic ventures.

Ah! That’s even more selfish when you think about it. I’m not irreplaceable, just a normal teacher, in a normal town, maybe in extraordinary times. I just wish extraordinary meant something different. Positive, you know. Alas.

We’ve not heard from the big-shots in a long while, Your Highness. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep and look out through the window at Ponyville, what remains of it really, I can only wonder if we’ve been forgotten, or forsaken.

I would get it, let’s be honest. The drama, the rushing, the mess of trying to save a small town at all cost. It costs labour, money, and publicity. Especially when the looming monster threatens far more than just a few houses and ponies.

When the nation is at stake, what’s a small town but an acceptable sacrifice? I get it. Just...

Could you tell Mayor?

It shouldn’t come from me, or the Elements. Nopony but you can console her. Not even I can pry her hooves off the proverbial floorboard of this place. And trust me, I’ve tried. She’s served this town for so long that she can’t let go. Ponyville can be gone tomorrow, and let’s be honest it will, and she will stay within its border. She fancy herself the captain of a ship. She means well, but… I care. I want us to enjoy our time, not anguish here.

Can you just wave your hoof? Tell her you’re at least considering the situation?

We were used to Twilight handling everything around here. But now that she’s been gone for months, eyes have turned back to you. At least Luna comes to us in our dreams. There’s a lot of nightmares to spare among the Ponyvillians, despite that so few remain.

Just a touch of a Deus ex Machina would go a long way, you know. I can only go so far for Mayor and I don’t want her to have to make her choose between the town and me. Your presence would be welcomed.

I wish you the best in finding a cure to the monster eating our lands. I hope Ponyville will have been worth it.

If I get sent somewhere and you manage to remedy this whole mess. Just save a spot for me in the line to talk to Twilight. I have some flanks to spank.

Reconsidering, I have a resignation letter to write.

Yours truly,

Cheerilee

My Little Mayor,

It is with great pain that I read your words. I can only empathize, worry, and hurry.

Being a ruler isn’t an idle task and, though Ponyville is dear to my heart, my eyes cannot always be turned inland towards the grave danger that lies and eats at our counties. A grim realization I never wished to contend with, and yet have had many times.

But rest assured, your plight is not unheeded. We are arduously working on it. Everypony is. Ponies better at the task than I am. I am not omnipotent, or omniscient. Everything would be so dull otherwise. And so I have tasked the best of the land to the task.

And the best in this situation is definitely not me. Twilight’s friends and allies have been working so, so hard, Miss Mare. Sunburst has been leading the charge, and though he doesn’t often pop by Ponyville, and I do actually mean ‘pop by,’ he still is scouring Equestria and further beyond for any information that could be of help.

Twilight and Starlight may have unleashed something they were not expecting and I am certain there are still in there, lost. It is now Equestria’s turn to save them. But help, sometimes, comes late.

Were you to choose and come to Canterlot, I would gladly welcome you to stay as long as needed, and if you want to witness the research undertaken by the giants gathered by Starlight’s dear friend, a door will always be warmly opened for you.

I am sorry I do not have more to offer now than my words, but a promise would be of ill abode, if not a lie. And I would hurt giving you false hope.

I love you, my little pony. Be strong. Though the night may be dark, you are not alone.

Also you can call me Celestia!

Cel~

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 9

“To the end of Ponyville?”

“To its end and whatever comes after, Cheery.”

We clinked our champagne flutes and she downed hers. I stayed still first, studying my yellowed, distorted reflection in the glass instead, a greyed beige coat and glasses that didn’t hide the flaccid bags under my eyes. A bubble fizzed its way to the top, then the fruity drink was gone.

In a sense, the Wall was at least good at one thing. It was a neat trash can.

I threw the empty glass bottle, and poofed it went, down the otherworldly gullet. Like the rest of it. The town. The ponies. My life.

At least I had Cheerilee by my side, and about five other bottles of the finest champagne from the region. I popped another cork and refilled our glasses once more. This intimate party couldn’t stop there. The show had to go on.

“Where did you find them?” Cheerilee asked, admiring the beverage with a hint of a cross eye.

“Oh, you know, mayoral privilege,” I said, wiggling the content of my flute from side to side. I only caught her pressing look after a while. “Oh, come on, you damn well know. I just opened the Town Hall's safe.”

“So, you stole them?”

I pinched my lips together, eyes wide. I quickly cleared my throat and fixated on my drink. Anything to avoid her furrowed brows. “Don’t you think it’s weird we call them glasses?”

“Stop avoiding the topic, you thief...”

She laughed and returned my stare, and silence followed. I squirmed, my withers cold against the plaid cover we’d laid out over the ice. With the Wall mere hoofsteps away, occupying a prominent place at the foot of the slope where we sat, I could do nothing but close my eyes. To avoid hers and the nearby ghastly sight.

Only after a moment did I reopen myself to the world, the starry sky above me, and the abandoned houses at our backs. There was no escape from the feeling of her piercing eyes. They mirrored the lamplight while her ears twitched at each crackle of its small flame.

I wanted to kiss her but she had to ask her questions, that sly teacher.

“What do you mean?” she finally said.

“Well, you know…” I motioned my hoof in vague circles, “flutes are made of crystals, right? So why call them glasses?”

That shower thought earned me a guffaw and a raised eyebrow. Cheerilee wiped a smirk off her face, along with the glistening champagne moist on her lips. “You know crystal glasses aren’t made of actual crystals, May’? It’s just branding.” She gave me another look and pointed at my drink. “That’s lead glass.”

“There’s lead in my glassware!?” I protested, staring dubiously at my champagne. She hummed positively and I downed the glass in one gulp. “Better in me than in there touching that thing then.”

“I think you’re drunk.”

“I am.” I chuckled. “But I feel good. For once. Also I am just borrowing those bottles. I'm no thief.”

"Yeah, nah. You’re just another corrupt politician now." We shared a wicked smile, toasted to our demise, and sipped some more alcohol. Only after a while spent staring at the Wall standing massive before us did she spoke again, "You stole that book too?"

I frowned and looked down at the large pockets of my winter coat. The deepest one weighed against my side with the heavy leather book that filled it past its brim. I pulled it out and set it face up for Cheerilee to read by the lamplight.

"No," I said, quite unsure how to explain, "a mare brought it to me yesterday. She was from Canterlot, working with mister Sunburst on theories about the Wall.”

“What was her name?”

I cleared my throat and rubbed my cold muzzle. “Sunset Shimmer.”

“No way!”

I leaned back at the outburst. She quickly flicked the book cover open and revealed the inner inlay and the cursive inscription of the owner’s name. And the name of who had gifted it.

From Twilight Sparkle to Sunset Shimmer~

I scratched the bridge of my muzzle and threw Cheerilee a quizzical look. “You know her?”

“You have no idea how many times poor Sweetie Belle talked about that, and I quote, ‘weird pony from the mirror’ and her magic diary.” She sighed. " Poor Sweetie Belle…” Then her face scrunched up as she glared at the strange book. “I thought that weird mirror was in Twilight's castle, though."

I worked my jaw as I fought against the champagne-induced numbness and daze. "I don’t know either, sorry. That’s unicorn stuff. But she's Twilight's friend so… she sure found another way."

Confusion flashed over Cheerilee’s face. "Why did she give it to you?" she said only to grimace. "I mean, you know... it's not like we're important ponies in the great scheme of things, right? Why you..." She motioned her hoof, "and not Rarity or somepony else."

"Actually, Sunset’s been sharing the book with everypony. I wasn’t at the top of her list." I sighed, not really knowing why. Or rather, I did — Cheerilee and I were side characters of a story that was happening elsewhere, Canterlot for some, and inside the Wall for others in all likeliness. "She's been passing the book from pony to pony. You know… Well I’m telling you now. Miss Shimmer’s been staying in Equestria for some time. A gap year off of her life on the other side of the mirror."

Cheerilee waved her empty glass at me and I served her and myself another drink.

“You’ve ever seen yourself?” Cheerilee asked, fumbling the next words to clear up her request. “The one from beyond the mirror, I mean."

I would be lying if I wasn't skeptical of another me living in another world with, uhm, hands? But… "No. But I saw two Twilights. At once! That counts for sure."

Cheerilee burst out laughing, "Talk about an apocalyptic scene. Twice the number of villain magnets."

I laughed along as I lazily swished my champagne, playing with the eye-catching cloudy tears of alcohol that hugged and seeped against the inside of the glass. It was a good batch.

"She, eh, I mean Sunset, she told me to try it out," I said, pointing at the book. "She's cast spells on it, wrote down messages, stuff I don't much get, really. But she got nothing out of it. I guess she's waiting for somepony to stumble, make a mistake, and... have the book react?"

“Try what?”

“Well, talk to Twilight of course.” Earning nothing but another look of confusion, I poked at the book. “Twilight’s got her own book in her castle. Whatever you write in one comes up in the other. It’s like sending letters, just more… unicorn-y.”

Cheerilee flipped her way through the book, squinting to read under the lamp’s flickering light. I didn’t have to look down myself. I’d read it through and through. And what had first been a journal had turned in the last pages into a swath of questions, pleas, and complaints. And a striking absence of any answer.

Cheerilee downed her drink, laid the flute by her side, and picked the hefty book in her hooves. She gave it a shake, turned it upside down as if to expect something tumbling out maybe. Well, besides some photos and scrapbook dried flowers of course. Her face turned doubtful at first, then deeply resigned. I just shook my head.

“It’s supposed to glow if anything happens,” I said.

Cheerilee studied on the book’s adorned cover, its red and golden sun that caught the meagre lamplight. Until she dropped it back against my flank, sending my glass spilling over my coat. I was too far gone to care.

I waved the bottle next to the lamp, backlighting it to see it was empty, and so I threw it at the Wall. And sorely missed.

It slipped out of my hoof and thumped in the snow, dinging against the hard soil underneath. It didn’t break as it bounced its way down the snowy slope and both Cheerilee and I watched it roll till it settled at the edge of the cleared-out path that contoured the Wall. That was a terrible shot.

Cheerilee coughed in her hoof. “So what do you…”

Her words died behind her teeth. A frown crossed her face. Her eyes locked onto something behind me and I turned around.

A lamp was swaying, its handle firmly grasped through a thick scarf in a pony’s mouth. I squinted and caught a glimpse of blue eyes and a pink coat.

Pinkie was digging her way forward through a thick layer of snow, a bit further away down the same slope we sat on at the edge of the Wall. I followed her hooftraces back to the long row of empty houses. She stumbled a couple of times before she finally reached the shoveled path below us that ran along the Wall.

Once she’d stepped fully on the way, she dusted the snow that hugged her legs and looked up. Her head lifted high and her body rigid, she seized the gigantic black monster a few feet away.

She secured her lamp at her hoof to tighten the scarf around her face. She tied it once, twice, then a grunt escaped her lips and she pulled it off her head.

Her slick mane cascaded over her face, glistened with the orange tint of her light. She brushed her smooth mane behind her ears and rolled the scarf around her neck, adding layers till only her eyes and forehead were visible.

Seeming satisfied, she bowed down to bite through the scarf on the handle of her lamp.

No matter how far away we were, we still heard the sigh that escaped her teeth.

She turned around and walked the length of the bent pathway till she reached the section right below us and she passed by, not seeing up, or not caring. I was hoping for the former.

Then she reached the half-buried stump of a tree, cut down before the Wall would engulf its branches. Her chest rose and fell as she stopped to study the dead wood. She only glanced away to look at the Wall.

“Hey, Pinkie!” Cheerilee called, startling the aforementioned mare who stumbled back butt-first in a heap of snow.

She looked around and back, and up the slope until her eyes settled on our little late-night apéritif. She seized us with pinprick eyes that gleamed in her lamplight. Behind her scarf and with her teeth locked on the handle, they never creased with the hint of a smile. Only after a while did she nod back.

“Come here!” Cheerilee boomed, motioning her up. Pinkie took a step forward but stopped. “Come on!”

Pinkie had never hesitated with joining a group before. But then, she had just done so.

Securing her lamp between her teeth, she stepped off the track and into the snow, and traced her way up to us. Each footstep crunched and fell through the rigid layer of frost that draped the snow. Like crushing through scum-dried sand. After a quick struggle, she was by our side.

“Hello Mayor Mare. Hello Cheerilee. What… What are you two doing here?” she mumbled once her lamp sat next to ours. She stood still in the snow, not setting hoof over our wool cover. Instead, she looked us over until she locked onto the remaining champagne bottles, still stacked and full by my side, ready for consumption. “Ah.”

“Want some?” I asked. “We’re celebrating.”

“I don’t–”

“How’re you doing?” Cheerilee cut her, pushing our trash to leave an open spot on the plaid cover. She tapped the fabric, inviting Pinkie to sit.

“I’m– I’m fine,” she said, pushing away my offered glass of champagne. “Just a bit down, you know.”

She untightened her scarf and brushed her mane back as she sat, crooked over by the two lamps. Or rather, she dropped. Her rump thumped against the plaid sheet and sunk with it through the cracked cover of ice beneath. Her withers sunk deep into the snow under, dragging the plaid cover with them. She slumped on her back as both Cheerilee and I stumbled back or forth, caught off-guard. She flayed. We gasped. And everypony ate the snow.

Good Celestia, we laughed. We laughed loudly, Cheerilee and I.

Only Cheerilee and I.

At first.

Pinkie heaved and her eyes welled as we dragged her up and out of the hole she’d stuck herself in. But she was heavy and, with a few drinks in Cheerilee and I, she slipped out from our grasp.

As Pinkie dropped back into her snug butt-cave, Cheerilee stumbled after, and I with her.

As we lay atop each other, I heard giggles, laughs finally escaping Pinkie’s snow-matted face.

As her chest cracked up and down, her pale face smiled. And though our orange light painted stark the dark bags tugging at her eyes, I saw a sliver of happiness. We cracked up together, helped each other up. It lasted for a bit, if not a while.

After some times and once we’d calmed down, Pinkie and I exchanged a look, and timid, closed-lipped smiles. She swallowed and her attention drifted to Cheerilee, who promptly cleared her voice.

“What are you doing here?” my beautiful teacher asked. “It’s not like there’s much to do around.”

“I could ask you the same thing, ya know?” Pinkie retorted, a shrill dying at the back of her throat. She held a hoof to her mouth, letting it go to let out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t raise my voice. I... I just wanted to be alone for a while.”

Cheerilee and I nodded and we invited her to sit by our sides. Insistent enough, we set a glass in her hooves and she gulped it in one single draw.

“She gave you the book too, eh?” Pinkie said, reaching out at the book discarded by my legs. She opened it, scurried a few pages, and snapped it shut. A frisson ran down her spine and she dropped the book back.

"Something's wrong, Pinkie?" I asked, a hoof on her shoulder.

"No, yes. Maybe? I don't really know. Every time I touch that book, it feels… weird. Like–"

"Like a doozie?" Cheerilee offered.

"Not really, I've not had one since that day last year." She tapped her lips, pondering what she was about to say. "It's like a hole, if you get me?"

We both shook our heads.

"Go on," Cheerilee said with a broad smile.

Pinkie looked down at her empty glass and I offered to refill it. She gladly accepted.

"I mean, ah! It's weird. It feels like nothing is right about this book. It's not a doozie. It's like… the opposite of a doozie. Like my guts are telling me something is supposed to happen, but it just doesn't. Like it's delayed or whatever, whatever should happen is, uhm, held back in a sense—You get me?"

“Not really,” I said, taking the book in my hooves. I flicked through the last pages again, dragging one of the lamps to my side to get a better view of the writing.

"I can't really say, Pinkie," Cheerilee mused after a short silence. "I'm just an earth pony, this whole shenanigan sure flies way above my head."

"I'm an earth pony too."

"Yeah, I know,” Cheerilee said with a giggle. “But you're Pinkie, you're different... and special. No offense."

Pinkie chortled and sipped her glass. "None taken."

"Held back, what do you mean?" I finally asked as I flipped back and forth with the last scribbled page the following blank one. "Do you mean Twilight could be calling out for us through the book but it doesn’t go through?"

Pinkie hummed, and tightened the scarf around her neck. "I don't know. Maybe? Maybe it's just the Wall. It takes but doesn’t give back? Or I'm tired and sad and alone... Everypony's gone to Canterlot or left. Even Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, and... and..."

As her eyes welled up, Cheerille took the party pony in her legs and dragged her against her chest in a tight hug.

"There, there."

"I miss Rainbow Dash's pranks.” Pinkie sniffled. “Since the accident with Sweetie Belle, she's taken Scootaloo in. And she's way serious about it, about her, about helping the filly out. And..." She wiped the snot off her face with a loose end of her scarf, and pressed her ear against the cup of Cheerilee's neck. "There's no laughter anymore,” she said between two muffled sobs. “Only ponies being serious. All because of that damn Wall. It stole everything and now the world’s just so cold."

"Today's the first day of Spring," I said, swallowing a knot in my throat. "You know that?"

"Y– Yeah."

Cheerilee and I shared a smile, hers motherly, mine likely unsure. I was really bad at allegories.

"Well," I continued, "Sun'll be back soon, and with it warmth."

"Winter Wrap Up will be late without Twilight," Pinkie countered.

"Maybe," I said, scratching my chin. "But it will still come."

“I’m still… peeved at that book?” Pinkie said pensive before her eyes darted at the culprit.

Keeping Pinkie in a tight hug, away from reaching the book, Cheerilee leaned aside and picked it up instead. She glanced at it over Pinkie’s shoulder, and threw it on the ground.

“Then it’s a bad book, wouldn’t you agree?” she said.

“Uhm, maybe?” Pinkie replied with a frown. “Wait, why a book would be bad. It’s done nothing…” Her eyes squinched harder and she glowered at it. “Yeah, it’s bad because it’s done nothing!”

Pinkie gave it a gentle kick, Cheerilee was quick to imitate. And I… to pass more flutes filled with Champagne. And we drank.

And drank.

And threw bottles at the silent beast, the guest of honor of the now late night party. And though we were cold, hungry, and alone in its looming shadow, the moon long disappeared behind it, we still celebrated.

At some point we’d lit the dead trunk on fire, don’t ask me how. And we waltzed around it. Was it defiance against the Wall. Earnest yes but we were drunk. And drunkenness was the only left to appreciate. There was nothing else remaining in Ponyville.

A teacher. A prankster. A mayor. All crumbling under a year of hardships, sacrifices, and protracted hopes that had amounted to nothing.

And yet we danced. Or stumbled rather. Drunk like sailors through a timid storm we shambled and rumbled and squandered the last smiles we could spare.

Fits of dizziness would send us rolling in the snow, sometimes catching each other from falling into the monster’s gullet, nearby past the past overlooked by where a venerable tree had once stood, and now was bursting orange and yellow flame and an acrid smoke of wet wood as the ice congealed in its crack melted and seeped in its scars.

I kissed Cherrilee. I mean, we kissed a lot, I think. And at some point, my head turning, I fell back against the snowy slope, pierced my way through the thin layer of ice, and dragged Cheerilee with me.

Oh, we laughed. And cried. We cried a lot.

“It’s funny,” I coughed up snow after my chest stopped hurting a bit.

“I know,” Cheerilee replied.

“No, no,” I grumbled, shaking my head as if it would have been that easy to cast away the alcoholic daze. “The book. I’ve got a weird idea.”

I threw a glance over at Pinkie whose laughter and joy at us enterlacing died instantly at the mention of the hintless thing.

“What do you mean?” Cheerilee asked, pushing herself off of me and dragging me out of the snow.

I hiccuped, feeling the champagne heavy on my stomach. “The book might be glowing. No, no. I can see it on your faces. Bear with me.” I coughed up and cleared my throat. “The wall has swallowed everything we’ve thrown at it, everything that’s touched it. And we’ve assumed that it takes but never gives back, right?”

Pinkie gave me a cross-eye, rubbed her hoof over her face and frowned back. “What do you mean, Mayor?”

I glanced up at Cheerilee and gave my broadest smile. “The hypothesis is that the book glows when something is being written in it. But it stops when nopony is, right?”

“I still don’t get it,” Pinkie said.

“Me either, hun,” Cheerilee said.

“Well, what if the Wall gave back actually, but very slowly?” I offered. “The book wouldn’t glow. I mean. We wouldn’t see it glow, but it would be, at an infinitely small amount. Right?”

“I still don’t get it,” Cheerilee said, as Pinkie’s eyes grew to the size of saucers.

“What if it’s glowing right now?” I said, trying to keep myself from burping. “But we can’t see it because the message’s taking months to write?”

"Here!"

Pinkie rammed her hoof against the page where four letters hadn't yet finished being written.

"Four, F, I, T ?" Pinkie enunciated.

"Help," Cheerilee whispered, then gasped. "Somepony is writing this, right now!"

The hypothesis was right. The book was shining, albeit at a glacial pace. Though, the wall was good at taking, it couldn't hold everything back.

I turned to the Wall and studied it, working the rusty gears in my head to wrap my head around the implications.

Either the Wall merely retained information and trickled it out, or time was of the uptmost matter.

"Oh, no, Twily," Pinkie muttered, eyes locked on the book. "You've played with another time spell, have you!?"

I gulped down, my alcohol-impaired mind struggling to assess the best action sequence. I reeled, feel to the side, and emptied my stomach.

"I'm too old for this," I gurgled, looking away as Cheerilee rushed to my side and propped me up to my wobbly hooves.

"This isn't meant for anypony," she consoled back. "What do we do now?"

"Pinkie!" I called and she snapped the book close. I looked at her tail, not shaking, her mane, not waving, her ears, unflopping. "I'm going in."

None of her physical features started doozying, and I smiled. I had a charted course. But...

"I need somepony to stay back," I said, "to inform Celestia about this all."

"I'm not leaving you," Cheerilee protested.

"I'm saving my friend too," Pinkie agreed.

"Okay, okay," I muttered. "Think, think."

Time was of the essence. If it flew slower inside we had all the time in the world, if it didn't and the Wall was just retaining, delaying the cries for help from within, it would already be to late.

I ran. Not in the Wall's direction but towards the edge of the village. Towards one of the last houses I knew was inhabitated.

Pinkie and Cheerilee behind me, screaming my name, I trudged my way through the snow and the late winter sleet that had started falling.

Forward, forward, forward to that house, and its last occupant. Diligent, timely, unexpendable like me.

Though it was late, the window curtains of the first floor still let out a slit of a light. And so, I punched at the door, my pastern shooting with hot pain at the blow.

Scrambling and crashing sounds rose inside as I drummed at the wood and hooves quickly trotted to the door.

"Derpy," I called out. "It's Mayor Mare. Open, please."

I fell in, shared my suspicions about the Wall while Pinkie and Cheerilee finallly caught up to me and crossed the doorframe uninvited.
Pinkie provided papers from her mane, Cheerilee pens from her coat, myself words to deliver... and Derpy, her wings.

"This is for Celestia and none other," I huffed, fighting to catch my breath. "I'm sorry for being brusque, but this is urgent."

Derpy read the missive quickly her eyes growing wide or squinting line after line.

"This is crazy talk, Mayor," she protested.

I looked to my pockets for the book, but it wasn't there. I hissed air through my teeth, ready to swear about forgetting the book back at the Wall. Until Pinkie presented it to me, with a smile.

"Look," I said, showing the last page and the half finished message. "Somepony is writing to us, for us."

"And this cursive," Cheerilee confessed and we all turned to her.

My love sniffled, rubbing her cheek now covered with tears. Sadness was fighting happiness and was losing.

"I know who’s writing."

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 11

Dumb bet, dumb bet, terribly dumb bet! And dumb Scoots too! Why did she have to do it?

Rarity's going to be pissed.

Oh, Celestia this feels weird.

I tear through a cold, black goop, a gut-dropping dive into what feels like icy water. A brief pause comes. I can’t breath, flailing around and deprived of a grip on anything. It’s like I’m floating somewhere in space. Well... I’ve never been to space but that feel matches Luna’s description of it. No grip, or up and down. Just dark, terrible dark nothing.

Focus Sweetie Belle! Focus. The weightlessness vanishes and I fall again, bursting through yet another layer of mushy darkness. And a deafening silence welcomes me, if only for a moment.

My heart jumps to my throat. I hit yet another invisible wall and light rushes in, washing away the night around me. A blue light like nothing I’d ever seen but on Rarity’s most regal dresses. Ultramarine.

A deep and hazy blue blur that burns my eyes as I’m falling down. Down… down to the ground. I scream again. No time for even a quick breath.

I land against something woody, a branch maybe — snap! The wind gets knocked out of me — I tumble down against a tree trunk, bounce off a large root, scrape my shoulder against a rock, close myself from the world, and splat face-first against the ground.

Thud, crash, womp!

Ouch...

I shake the dirt off my head, nausea bringing my lunch crawling back up my throat. A few seconds breathing in and out go by, I dare not open my eyes.

Am I through? I'm definitely through. Oh horny horn, I'm through the Wall...

My ears perk up at any sound around me. But there’s nothing to listen to but the roaring, distorted and gushing wind. It howls like the scream of a banshee. Those same ghosts from Rainbow Dash’s scary stories.

I spring up and a dash of dizziness rushes down my legs. I shake, my temples hurting like no other day, and stumble to get my footing.

The air tastes of copper. I know because I used to lick the chocolate off the kitchenware when my sister or Pinkie Pie made brownie cakes. And I am very thorough.

Done with the dirt rag-tagged to my coat and mane, I rub my shut eyes and swallow. Though I can’t hear it over the wind, it’s raining. The cold water drum on my coat and muzzle. Though I’ve not opened them yet, my eyelids can’t block all of the blue blue hue blasting behind them.

My chest rises with a deep breath and I snap my eyes wide open.

A storm of light crashes around me, stuck under an infinitely distant dome, a smooth featureless planetarium of bright blue. No light source or specific point of origin, there’s only the blue hue, covering the landscape around me.

Tree trunks, rocks, pebbles, shrugs, everything’s dyed a shining blue that only Rarity’s best dresses could achieve.

And the noise, the crashing waves of wind that level the last standing trees tackles me to the ground. I scream, I think, but no sound reaches my ears.

My head reels, I stand up, I fall to my haunches. I am inside the Wall. And the noise is deafening.

I struggle on the ground, punched down by an irresistible force, like wind, invisible and yet very present. I get to my hooves, difficily, and take a step back towards the edge of the dome where I came from.

One step, two steps, three… a jump. But I never reach it. I can’t move to it, no matter how hard I try. I’m stuck in place. I spat, I damn the wind that seems to force me back. And so I take a few steps back, ready to run up and jump. But whatever I do, I can never walk back to it.

Each step away is a step I can’t make back.

I start running around, to find a hidden way to reach the Wall back. A small canyon between two large boulders, a trunk as a runaway, I jump, and I crash back where I started, sucked back towards the center of this sphere of blue.

There’s a force that stretches me towards itself. I’m angry, unable to make my way back, I can only turn around and find the source that’s keeping me there.

Twilight’s castle, at the centre of the dome shines the bluest, a near-white blast of light, a lightning bolt in a round sphere that clings to its crystal walls. And that’s where the sounds are coming from.

What I’ve thought was wind, started sounding a lot more like a high-pitched constant scream.

“Twilight!” I scream to the wind.

I look away from the castle and back at the Wall behind me. As the edge of a house starts peeking past its threshold, I lift my hoof and push forward to it but as expected something is repelling it, like forcing two unfriendly magnets towards each other, if my hoof was one of them.

I step towards the castle and try again towards the Wall, and yet again I can’t win back what step I gave. There’s only one way forward.

To the castle.

And so I run to it.

The further I run away from the Wall, the lighter I felt. And with the pressure in my chest lifting, so doe the blue hue blanketing everything.
Snapped trees go from blue to midnight black to brown. The brook I jumped by, by the the greying walls of an empty concrete shack, regains its natural greenish color.

The gate of the castle, from afar looking like Lapislazuli turn gold once more, and I step inside.

And the sound of the wind, first a single monotone whail turns into a distinct set of screams.

Twilight, Twilight, Twilight!

Starlight, help!

My heart grips in my chest as I pressed forward in the alleyways inside the castle who's always looked larger within than without. Left, right, up a staircase, down another, and another, to the basement.

I ram a door open. Or rather twice. I'm not very strong. Until I resort to turning its handle. And down I go, to the basement where the screams continue.

I am not ready when I step through the ornate door. The basement was more like a lab.

A lab hosting a hurricane of magic. Arched lightning, fire, floating runes and burning papers, torn books, shattered chemistry bottles and stuff. And in the middle, a hole.

Black, terrifying, like looking down a caverne hole. But it's a sphere, not unlike the Wall, but smaller, floating next to the ceiling.

With Twilight racing away from it, flapping her wings like mad, enveloped in an aura of magic, that of Starlight who sweats bullet, all four hooves gripped to a crystal chair anchored to the ground.

I dare not step in the room. Feeling myself getting sucked in towards the black hole.

"What is happening!?" I scream.

Starlight snaps towards me, fear bloodshot into her eyes. I stumbled back.

"Go find help!" she barks, yelping as one of her hooves slips away from the chair. "I can't hold five more minutes."

"Five more minutes?" I mumble, then shout back, "But it's been three months, Starlight!"

Her eyes grow wide and dart around for something.

"I can't escape," Twilight screams, sweat tearing across her face and back, taking off to race to the hungry monster behind her.

"The book!" Starlight calls out to me, nudging at a leather book stamped with a half yellow and red sun, and half a pink and purple star. "Write for help! Fast!"

"I..."

"It's magical! Write fast!"

"Starlight!" Twilight screams, her voice shrill and distorted.

A grunt of pain escapes Starlight's lips as another layer of magic erupts from her horn.

"Sweetie Belle," Twilight howls between two pants, "Please, get help!"

I turn around, ready to move back up the stairs. But like the outside, I cannot retrace my steps, locked in place by an invisible force. And as I turn around and back to the chaotic room, I wonder if it's the same for them.

Stuck in place where they are, only able to magick themselves steady, so they wouldn't fall into the black pit above their head.

I hesitate, gripped to the doorframe of the basement door, head low to dodge rushing furniture and shards of glass.

Squinting hard at the book, my horn fires and shoots a ray at it. The goal is to budge it, move it towards me so I'd not have to step forward any more.

But I can't. If I can't move away from the ball, neither can anything else. I guess you could either rotate around or fall into the pit.

There is no escape from falling. And so I yell and jump, and yell some more.

I slide across the room towards the chair, and the book, looking around for a flying pen.

Here, a crayon box swiping around in the whirlwind, then snapped within my magic.

I hug the chair, the box, the book, fight the wind to open the book to the last page. It will do.

I'm sweating. Everything's wind, screams and effort. My hind legs locked on the chair, I lay the book bare under my two other hoof.

Quick, quick. Have to be quick. I bite on a crayon, snatch three other in my magic. And write down a word.

H E L P

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 12

Pinkie is going to paint the courtyard’s walls with how she’s crushing the little filly. A reunion after such a long time of worry. And I would not stop it.

I’ve missed the walls of the School of Friendship in the outskirts of ponyville. And I wasn’t alone in basking in the summer sunlight.

Cries, laughters, smiles, and so many sighs of relief. That’s all there is to be right now. We thought we were fighting something otherworldly. It now seems stupid. How mundane it all was, and yet we grew weary of a situation that we couldn’t understand.

But though pain and doubts had filled us and guided our choices, it was all over now.

Neighsay turns to me. “And so what happened?”

“We found what we were looking for. And we acted on it.”

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 13

"This is it?"

Pinkie and I turned to face Cheerilee, cross-faced as she tightened her coat.

I bit my lip and sighed. "I guess... It's not like we're walking in the belly of the beast."

"Oh, come on, it's not a beast, it's a wall," Pinkie said, leaving us no time to reply, "and we have the proof Sweetie Belle is in there! Alive! We have to go or- or Rarity would never forgive me."

"What if I'm wrong and there's nothing left on the other side?" I countered, a hoof to my throat, pushing down the spiny knot that rested there.

I breathed out and watched the puff of steam die as it left my lips. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, took my time to swallow, and avoided both Cheerilee and Pinkie's expectful eyes.

"Ponyville's at stake. Heck! Equestria may be at stake too if we don't do anything. And help is hours away." I broke stare with the black behemoth we were standing against and turned to both my friends in full. "If I'm right, we will have seconds to act inside because time is broken in there."

"That'd explain why Timeturner's clocks broke down," Cheerilee noted.

I chuckled. "Explain, I don't really know. But I hope time really does flow in there, albeit slower than out here. Otherwise, I don't think we would survive the trip."

"But we have to do it right?" Pinkie asked me, the ghost of a quiver on her lips.

I bared my teeth, sifting the cold night air in between them. I had hopes but not certainty. Actually, I knew nothing past an intuition. I was no Twilight or Sunset or anypony important. I was just a pony, in a town, in dire need of help and guidance. But I had received none, and ponies expected me to give it.

I broke my stance and with a smile carried my cold and slumbering, old body to Pinkie and hugged her, quickly inviting Cheerilee to join in. And she greedily accepted.

Feeling the warmth of their coats against my cheeks, I held back a few tears. I was betting on instinct, and carrying them with me on this uncertain trip.

"I have to do it. For Ponyville, the city I love, the city I lost. about also for the ponies trapped within," I said. "But you don't have too."

"Heck, I have," Cheerilee burst. "I am not going to let you walk in there alone."

"I don't want you to get hurt," I replied.

She laughed, and kissed me. It wasn't the first time, but she always gave them unexpectedly. As we held lips together, I threw Pinkie a glare. She better not have a doozie at this moment again.

"It's only right to have one last quickie before the jump, right?" Cheerilee asked into my ear after she departed her lips.

My face shot red, I muttered a few incoherent back. And prompted her to laugh.

"I was speaking about a kiss," she mused with a half smile curling the side of her mouth.

"You're the teacher," I huffed, "and should be aware of your double-entendre."

She chuckled. "Or play with them."

"You must have been the delight of an Equestrian Lit' teacher in college."

"If only."

We turned smiling to Pinkie, a weight on my chest I didn't know I had lifted, and the party pony smiled back. A playful one, definitely a knowing one.

"Should we go?" she asked.

"I don't want to be late to the party," I said.

"I think we're already late." She struck the snow with her hoof. "And I will solve that. Or my name isn't Pinkie Pie."

"Ready?" I asked Cheerilee.

She close her eyes and chuckled once more. "I don't think so. But it's like a school test. You're never ready even though you know it's coming." She took a deep breath, nodded to herself, exhaled, and snapped her eyes open. "Let's do it."

The three of us stood in line to face the nearby monster, the Wall, in its ominousness and sharp outline as the night sky slowly blued with the sign of the coming dawn.

Another series of smiles, huffed laughters, nods and swallows. A certain apprehension washed over me as I peered into the blackness now in the reach of my hoof.

That was until Pinkie did a pinkie.

"LET'S DO IT!"

Cheerilee jumped, her hoof clamped on the edge of my sleeve, and I followed her.

Cold. The first sensation I felt was cold. A freezing wave like steeping under an icy rain.

Second came heat. Like the burst of dry warmth over your face as she switched on the gas stove and the combustion blows hot air at the tip of your nose.

Then came the fall. In a total darkness, Cheerilee's hoof released its hold and I was alone, tumbling, every point of my body being dropped, accelerated towards an unfathomable ground.

Noise. A crashing wave that beat at my chest in shockwaves stronger than any of Vinyl's oversized speakers could ever produce. A thud-thudding that overtook the pounding blood in my ears, the beating in my chest and lifted my insides that shifted and tumbled inside my belly.

If I screamed, I never heard myself.

And finally came colors, or rather a single colour. Blue. Violent and bright. Far too strong to sustain.

I didn't pay it much mind at first to be honest. I was fixated on the agitated waters below my hooves. Barreling askance to it, It ricocheted once and crashed into the brightly lit waters.

I didn't see Cheerilee. But I felt her.

She pierced the surface above me and hit my withers. White hot pain shot through my eyes and water forced their way down my throat.

I coughed, bubbled water, gasped out, my hoof finding no place to pull myself up.

I swam towards the light, kicking and struggling until I reached oxygen again.

I opened to a world of chaos, lights and distortions.

A brightly glowing blue dome stretched far and wide above my end, encasing swirling motes of black cloud, striped with lightning which cracks like a whip rippled against my ears and the wild body of water that flooded the land.

Dead trees peeked their bleached branches through the water like legs shot upward, asking for help that never came.

Waves rumbled and crashed against my face and down I went. Back in the silence underneath the surface where the muffled gurgles and bubbles that escaped my gritted teeth remained unheard.

I kicked and jabbed, and hit something--somepony! I clasped my hoof on a torn cloth and swam upward, back to the light. Back to the mess.

I gasped for air and looked upon a known face.

Pinkie.

"Cheery!" I screamed at whoever would hear. "Cheery!?"

I looked around, searching for a hint of bordeaux purple and a dash of mauve. But Nothing!

I called out again, fighting the nerve to drop Pinkie to dive under in the blackness. But I couldn't.

I rammed hooves and legs, biting the leather of Pinkie's coat. Kick after kick, I brought us both to the whining branches of a nearby tree and helped Pinkie to lock her hooves onto the upmerged body.

Looking around, I knew now where all the river water went over the past week. Swallowed, but not vanished. It had accumulated into a lake that washed and swept across the streets and abandoned houses of a swallowed ponyville.

Like a geyser sprinting through the meanders of the town, the water cracked windows, battered walls, upturned carts and discarded everyday life items and the cacophony it sung to my ears was like a dagger plunged into my heart.

I was watching destruction rip through my town. And I couldn't bear letting it be.

I looked past debris and torn off roofs and found the sight of the castle. And then paused.

My bet had been that time played differently in this miniature world. That past the Wall, nothing would be the same. And as I crawled my way up the branch of the drowned tree, I stared in disbelief at what I saw.

As my eyes traced the way to the castle of friendship, the blue tinge that shone over the landscape seemed to give place to mauve, then to purple, and finally to read. And as the colour shifted, agitation died down.

The waves slowed on their path, their white crest foam umbreaking, steady, like epoxy dioramas from an art exposition gallery. I saw birds stuck in the air, immobile, frozen, imbued in a redden shift of light.

And even further, there stood a wall of water, a large rushing wave. A tsunami like those I'd read about in journals. In all my years, I'd never seen the sea, and then and there, I was given a prime spectator to watch unfurl one of nature's most devastating feats.

Time. We still had time, I believed.

Cheerilee.

Snapping back to the dire reality I was in, my eyes darted back to my surroundings, scouring for a hint of purple or pink in the blue haze.

Before I could cry out, a tug at my hindleg captured my attention and crooked over my branch to catch a glance of Pinkie Pie, a weary smile on her face, and Cheerilee in her arms.

A weight lifted off my chest and I crawled my way down the tree. We had no time.

And they knew it.

Sharing a nod, we clasped hooves together and battled the current of the roaring lake that had engulfed the town, stuck in the middle of thunder, storms, and otherworldly distortions.

Houses after houses, past boutiques, gutted restaurants, flooded stores, we clung to wood, poles, shutters hanging about broken windows.

I heard screams, low or high pitched, as if run through a phonograph some playful foal was playing with. Coming from behind further, it told me a harrowing truth, ponies swallowed by the beastly Wall were still there. Alive, but in danger.

I looked at windows and roofs searching for sights of survivors when Pinkie and Cheerilee dragged me further to one of the small town squares where only the marble head of a fountain statue emerged from under the battling foam.

"Careful!" Pinkie screamed, catching me off guard.

a loose wooden beam slammed into us, shattering our hold. Pinkie rolled away towards the fountain, Cheerilee, a better swimmer than I ever would be called out for me. And I, I simply sank.

Down under, my rump hid the murky gravel that once was a road and bounced off. I tossed back and forth in the current and felt myself rushed in through a small enclosure--a door.

I hacked for air, trapped in a whirlwind of water roiling inside a destroyed shop. Wood desks flung about around me and I swam and kicked to avoid them slamming their edges into me.

I battled to the nearest wall, aiming away from the windows where the mad water would spit me out into another flooding torrent.

I found a grasp on a piece of furniture screwed above the water line. A clock.

And it was ticking.

A laugh escaped my lips, water rushing in to drown my impudence. Coughing, hacking, grasping at any grip I could find, I dragged myself out of the indoor maelstrom and onto the set of stairs that led to the first floor.

I shook my head, pushed my mane back and put my wracked body into motion.

I slammed a window open onto the square where I'd been sucked from and found Cheerilee and Pinkie Pie clung to a tree.

I called and waved, motioning to them I was still around, and saw Cheerilee's brighten as Pinkie pointed in my direction.

We needed out. I looked up towards the roof of the house, its wet straw rushing with the rain that drummed, only adding to the cacophony.

I was too old for rooftop parties I told myself then. But I wasn't built for adventure either.

There was a first time to everything.

I dragged myself out of the window and onto the roof, studying the chaos to find a glimpse of the castle.

And so I did. Past two blocks of houses and down the beaten path that led to the edge of town and the Castle past that. The tsunami was still rushing towards it and hadn't yet reached the small bridge that led to its entrance gate.

I turned back to Pinkie, and at the light of cracks of lightning studied the swirls and foam that raged in a circle around the town square. The fountain top had already gone under.

Water was rising fast.

I followed the flow of the flood, its winding way in and out of the plaza, and found a way out.

Waiving at Pinkie, I called attention to the wooden beam that had struck us apart as it accomplished a last roundabout at the edge of a house nearby and evacuated towards another street, closer to the Castle.

They exchanged a word, nodded, and let go. Following them from my vantage point, I ran across the roof and skidded to a halt.

To jump or not? My heart in a vice, I watched them round the plaza, carried by the current, and reached under me.

I inhaled, ran back, and over. My hooves quit the mushy rooftop as I jumped, eyes closed with the rain hitting my eyelids.

I landed on the next roof over, and galloped down its edges, jumping from houses to houses, calling out to Pinkie and Cheerilee to guide them to the edge of town.

Throwing a look only from time to time, I saw the wall of water shift and grow in size. the closer we neared, the more violent and fast it got. It was waiting for us.

The blue haze had lifted off of houses, the water, roofs, and us all. Only clinging at the apocalyptic landscape at our back.

Dull grey colours colored the world we rushed through, towards the orange and red tinted edges of the Castle in the not so far distance.

I jumped into the water once I'd reached the last house, emerging by Pinkie and Cheerilee, embracing as we paddled on.

Until we reached the edge of the Tsunami as it engulfed the bridge.

Only seconds to think, we rode the wave like those "surfers" I'd read about in the Canterlot journal Derpi used to deliver to me.

"Brace!" Cheerilee cried.

The head of the wave crashed through the Castle's gate, and blasted the crystal doors into shards.
The formed gullet sucked us in and into the main hall of the Castle. Plunder and destruction unhinged or carried portraits and paintings off to a shredded end against the sharp edges of the rock furnitures and colonnades.

We held onto a balustrade giving to the first floor as the water rushed in between us, level always rising.

Pinkie Pie, the sturdier of us both, carried herself over the rail and caught us both, dragging us to safe, dey ground as bits and pieces of rocks, woods and shattered houses flooded in the Castle.

By the laws of this encapsulated world I was sure Ponyville had seized existing months ago.

My thought dwelled on the outside. Did the Princess ever get our message? I couldn't know.

I propped Cheerilee up.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

She burst out laughing. "Okay, I sure am not. But it could be worth. We could be battling a chaos monster, something I literally don't get, or natural disaster."

I deadpanned, then chuckled. Before I could say a word, Pinkie sprung to her hooves and shoof the wet off herself.

Only for her ears to perk up.

" Did you hear that?" Pinkie said.

I did hear the scream that came right after. A scream that, to my mayor's ears spelled disaster. The scream of a pony. Furthermore the scream of a princess.

"Twilight!" Pinkie burst into a frantic run up a nearby set of stairs, slipping off the first one and slamming her jaw against the crystal tile.

With proverbial stars shooting out of Pinkie's eyes, I grabbed her by the shoulder and propping her up on her hooves, we stumbled up the staircase till we reached a long corridor or carved doors with intermittent drawers set in between each pair, their tops devoid of even a single dust mote.

"But it's been three months, Starlight!" a shrill voice reached our ears from a room beyond a bend in the hallway.

Our eyes grew wide as we recognized the filly's voice. My legs fluttered under my body and my knee hit the ground.

She was still alive.

"I can't escape," Twilight screamed.

"The book! Write for help! Fast!"

Starlight's voice boomed vehemently, and carried through the stonework under our hooves as the Castle quaked under the water assault undergoing a level below.

Muffled words and muffled screamed followed as Pinkie, Cheerilee and I scrambled down past closed doors where knowledge I'd never understand lurked within books I'd never read.

Maybe there lay the explanation to my hitching unease that we were present within the walls of the Castle before Sweetie and even written for us to rush in.

"Sweetie Belle," Twilight howled. "Please, get help!"

But that was a unicorn's duty, and I was no unicorn.

We turned the corridor's bend and there, at a stone's throw away, an open door.

We scrambled forward, fighting a sudden gust of wind that shot out of the opening, peperring us with paper shreds, filled with eerie design and desk furnitures that ricocheted against ceiling, ground and walls.

The wind placated us to the ground and only after a few seconds did we find our bearing.

And stumbled into the antechamber of the past year's destruction.

Chaos swirled across the room, twisting and snapping in electric arcs, papers and all assortments of goods and research remains. All brushing over a large pentagram of chalked up runic inscriptions that glowed in all their cryptic nature with a powerful orange and black hue. All dancing around a black orb the size of a cart that bent colours and light around its extremities in a redden hue that bled over anything that came into contact with it.

Paper, pens, chairs, all things turned into nothing in an instant at the mere brush with the monster within the sphere. Touch, freeze for an instant as all colours and details turn into a stretched, reddened shadow, then nothing. Gone, disappeared. Eaten.

"We're here!" We three screamed in unison, once stupor seeped away from us.

Starlight, her horn erupting with magic, doesn't even turn towards us. Her foor hooves locked onto a hefty crystal chair, she only has eyes for two things.

Two ponies screaming in effort. Suspended in between space, the monster at the back, both wrapped in the salutary prison of magic shooting from Starlight's horn.

A few stares exchanged, filled with surprise, pleas, and uncertainty.

My chest sank. We were ill-equipped to deal with this crazy, monumental events. Why us and not... Miss Sunset Shimmer, Princess Celestia. Or anypony else.

my heart in a vice, I contemplated how foolish I was stepping into this world of magic and terror.

I was a mayor. Not an adventurer. I was no Daring Do, Element of Harmony. I three a glance at Pinkie who stared with horrified marvel at the spectacle of lightning and red colors that bled around the hole in the middle of the room.

I was an Earth Pony. I had practical knowledge. Not... this deadly non-sense.

Huddled behind the door frame, Cheerilee and Pinkie by my side, we could only watch the eldritch tug of war between the black sphere and two mares and one filly.

"Look," Cheerilee said, pointing at the left side of the room by a cracked large window.

A bundle of rope was snatched under a heavy, hardwood desk. Rope...

Practical knowledge.

If we didn't have magic, we could at least try to teach them our own way.

"Cheerilee, you're a genius !" I exclaimed.

She rolled her eyes and smiled. And finally I kissed her on the cheek. Pinkie Pie clapped her hoof. Cheerilee's face turned a bright, gentle tomato.

"Help us!" Starlight gasped, wiping the sweat of her forehead against the headrest of her bolted, life-saving chair. "Pretty please!"

We hadn't yet entered the room when a flying bucket flung itself against the doorframe and into the corridor where it bounced against the wall.

Looking back at it, frowned, and shot my eyes wide--an idea surging into my mind.

"Go get the rope!" I screamed over the violent howl of the ordeal. "I have an idea."

"What are you...?" Cheerilee started.

"The rope !" I said, rushing back to grab the bucket handle between my teeth. "Time is running out!"

Five seconds . I traced my way back to the stairs where the water level had risen yet again. Ten seconds. I dunked the bucket into the water and pulled away. Stumbling back against a large furniture, its drawers half opened if not shaken out of their rails by the earthquake that shook the castle.

I scrambled back.

Twenty seconds. Splashing water over its brim and myself, I rushed back to the corridor. Thirty seconds. Down the bend.

Forty seconds. The doorframe.

As I reached in the room, Pinkie and Cheerilee had already crawled their way to the rope, retrieved it, and gone to the large research crystal desk and its chair where Starlight had harnessed herself, fighting the pull of the beast with all her might.

Cheerilee's eyes shot at me and screamed. "Where were you?! It's been five minutes!"

I didn't wait. Earth Ponies are practical creatures. But we can be brash too. Down to earth no-nonsense. At least that's what I hoped I needed to be.

A life spent in bureaucracy, writing down rules and laws and audits and recommendations on blackboards and official papers. Always adding, never removing.

But now was time to remove what was written.

Shutting myself to the scream of everypony, I jumped into the room, and towards a certain doom.

I felt the ground being robbed from me as an invisible claw snagged me off before I could land, and like a hungry cat eager to play with a mouse, I felt myself being dragged towards the spherical black well.

But I had a trick. Bucket handle in my teeth, I used my jump's energy to whirl myself sideways and throw the content of the bucket towards the ground, and the runes sparkling orange and black.

Whether my eyes played tricks on me or time slowed down once again as everything neared the epicenter of this madness, the water licked its way past suspended notebooks, blueprints and furniture, till it crashed down against the tile ground, droplets and splashes shooting upwards, attracted to the vacuuming hole above.

As I barreles my way towards the hungry maw, the water reached my target. My practical bet.

The inscriptions, and its edge suddenly touched by my improvised weapon.

And all turned to white.

Jun.-Jul. 20 - When The End Came To Town 1.2

Luster Dawn wasn’t the type of gifted unicorns who should’ve felt stuck staring at a door. But there she was. And she was miffed.

It wasn’t even the most beautiful of doors. Heck, it was, mildly put, a downright mediocre one in the old sense of the term. A laminated wooden plank, likely made of oak from the nearby farm. Once a vibrant red, it was now a few years late for a paint job.

And yet she stared, pestering under her breath for being sent there. Why there even? A small town lost in the Equestrian countryside with a dirt road and a once-a-day train for only contacts with the outside world.

Ponyville.

A town where ponies enjoyed the Dolce Vita, lulled to the sounds of cicadas and harangs of rare street vendors, and humbugged to the litany of village smalltalk. But not a place where she, Luster Dawn, would learn! Could learn...

Well… She bit her lip and rubbed her face, applying a light smear of dust picked up by her hoof.

She was being too harsh. As always. That was a repressed shard of anger talking, not the Princess of Magic’s prized student. Ponyville wasn’t a tramp’s town. It was a town, but not just a town.

The School of Friendship was stuck right outside the gate — in parlance — and the Crystal Castle stood towering over it all, a museum to Princess Twilight’s past feats.

But that was it.

Ponyville was past-tense. Once the place where Princess Twilight lived, it was now an imprint of its past. A slow moving, routine-bitten landmark. All happened in Canterlot now, as it should be.

And so being sent on a tour of a past life was an errand Luster cursed about. Such a waste of her many talents.

“Bad thoughts, Luster,” she whispered under her breath, tapping her forehead with the back of her hoof. “Remember what Teacher Twilight said. Breath in, breath out. There’s always more than meets the eye.”

Her magic fiddled inside her backpack and produced a rolled-up letter stamped with Princess Twilight’s regal seal. She read the address yet another time. Then she looked up at the door, the name on a small brass plate, its lock, and the handle — fashioned for an earth pony.

What did she have to learn from an earth p–

“Thoughts, Luster. Thoughts,” she grumbled under her breath.

“So, are you going to knock or what?”

The commanding voice snapped Luster out of her wits. Stumbling to make way, her leg slipped off the wooden patio’s stairs and down she went into the flowers that adorned each side of the door. Laughter followed.

A kind one.

“Sorry,” Luster sputtered, frantic to dig herself out of the plants, her elbows sunken deep in the freshly-watered mushy ground beneath.

A bordeaux mare stood by the stairs with a grocery bag slung over her shoulders. The well-manicured hoof covering her face hid a wide smirk.

Enough was enough. Zenith sparks lit Luster’s horn and ripped her out of the flower bushes. Two quick and precise moves at an airborne right angle and there she was, enwrapped in translucent gold and gracefully standing two steps away from the mare. That would showcase her magic!

But not enough of a firework to mask the heat warming her cheeks.

“I am so sorry, young lady,” the mare said, shaking her head while Luster ground her teeth. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that, but you were fairly spellbound by —” She eyed the door “— I don’t really know, to be honest.”

Of course she didn’t know. She wasn’t Luster being stuck there in front of a purplish middle-aged mare with three smiley-face flower thingies for a cutie mark.

Luster closed her eyes, inhaled, relaxed. Bad thoughts again.

One of her hindlegs drumming against the ground, Luster dusted the dirt and petals off herself and magicked away the few compost stains that peppered her backpack like scout badges. Done with grooming, she fetched Teacher Twilight’s letter off the gravel path at the bottom of the patio.

Be amiable, be humble. Yeah, right... Luster cleared her throat.

“Name’s Luster Dawn, Mam,” Luster started, extending the letter to the Ponyville resident and fellow Equestrian. “I am Princess Twilight’s student. Just out here to deliver a letter to Miss Mayor Mare.” Biting her lower lip, she sifted air through her teeth. “Which I suppose is you since you know, you’re here, next to the door of the house where Miss Mayor Mare lives. So was I told, at least. And you got a grocery bag with vegetables on your back. So! You definitely must live here. Anyway... Teacher Twilight asked me to ask her, and I really mean you, a simple– single question. A really innocuous one for such a tedious trip to this place, really. I mean… Eh, what I mean is that, I’ll be out of your and this town’s manes in a jiffy once it’s done and–” Luster closed her eyes and let out a long-winded sigh. “I’m being awkward as Tartarus again, am I?”

“Again?” The mare chuckled. “That I’d not know. But if it’s your self-assessment, I can definitely say it’s a trait you likely got from your teacher. Pegasi of a feather and other whatnots, am I right? You’ll grow out of it, I’m sure... Someday.”

Luster bashfully blew her cheeks out at the remark and the mare laughed again. That motherly, unalarmed amusement with a smidge of concern only her teacher gave her in Canterlot. Luster Dawn didn’t come here to get lectured! That, she was certain. But there she was, getting tut-tutted by a stranger.

Small towns couldn’t give her the change of scenery she’d not even asked for.

“And sorry to disappoint,” the mare continued as she extended her hoof, “but I’m not Madame Mare — and it’s just Mare these days, young lady. It’s been a couple of years since she’s retired. Name’s Cheerilee by the way, and I am her wife.”

Luster’s agoraphobic horror of earth pony fashions kicked in when Cheerilee helped herself and reached for her hoof, and vigorously shook it. The greeting steadfastly wrapped up and sent on its proverbial way, Cheerilee stepped by Luster’s side, opened the door and, letting it sway open, invited her in.

“Mare!” Cheerilee called as Luster’s ears picked up a low music coming from the back of the house. “It’s me! We’ve got a surprise visit.”

The music cut out and a sturdy albeit aged voice rose from beyond one doorframe or another. “Come on in, I was just finishing making tea. Is it Lady Belle? She was visiting her friend Miss Bloom at the Apple farm.”

“‘Fraid not,” Cheerilee replied as she unshouldered the grocery bag before turning to Luster, “no offense.”

Luster munched on the lining of her cheeks as she stepped into a house cluttered with books. Well… ‘cluttered.’ It was comfy and bookish and smelled of old paper like a second-hoof bookstore hidden behind an unremarkable door in a sidestreet in cold, cold Yak-Yakistan. Luster did like her very specific examples.

She squinted at the desk by the left side of the door. While it housed many horseshoes and bags underneath, its countertop was sunk below a heap of hoof-written papers, strung about and haphazard.

“You’re a teacher?” Luster asked, looking more closely at what seemed to be a flurry of hoof and claw-written essays.

“You’ve got a keen eye,” she said with a nod. “I’m Ponyville’s elementary school teacher, but I also give lectures at the Friendship School.”

Luster raised an eyebrow, but took care not to show it to her host. Friendship really was an elementary thing in the end, i.e. beneath Luster’s concern.

As Cheerilee counted her vegetables, Luster dropped her bag under the desk, taking care that it didn’t touch the heap that already inhabited the space. She only kept the letter, held snatched in her magic.

“I think I can spot a yak in your cohort,” Luster noted as she looked closer at the pile of essays and picked up the shortest one she’d ever read.

‘Boring,’ it said.

“Grading, any teacher’s own homework,” Cheerilee replied without looking. “Director Glimmer had the bad idea to let students pick a topic this year. Again.” As curiosity piqued Luster, Cheerilee clicked her tongue and motioned her hoof. “Anyway, let me introduce you to Mare. So you can deliver your letter and your question. Then you’ll be on your merry way out of this little town. It sure must not seem like much to an outsider’s eyes, especially to a Canterlot student.”

“Do I look that bored and impatient to leave?” Luster asked after a quick sigh. Yet again the bad thoughts popped at the seams. Ready to burst like a dam of negative impressions, she could only roll her eyes at herself. Which she did.

“Kind of? I’m just very good at reading students. Twenty years teaching and going strong at detecting boredom, you know.”

Luster nodded and followed the teacher into a large living room littered, walls and ground alike, with artifacts, paintings, widgets, gadgets and items that would be more at home in a cabinet of curiosity. Or a plain museum.

A zebra’s mask, a gold dagger suspended on a wall, a Saddle Arabian lance darkened at the tip next to a dead chimney. Were they using it for poking embers!? So many things there had come from across the world and, lined up for anypony to see, now collected a thin layer of dust. Books, grimoires, legal deeds, and dusty boxes. An eclectic bric à brac only old ponies could gather and collect. And still, to Luster’s eyes, these embodied so many eye-catching histories, hinted at so many far cultures. She wanted to know more. But she doubted the couple had their own in-house curator.

Such a waste.

Luster!

Yes, tough thoughts, bad thoughts… But wasn’t she right? Could they appreciate what they owned? Thoughts, Luster. Silence.

She forced a smile on her lips, and mapped her many questions in her head. Then, she realised she’d stopped in the middle of the doorframe leading to this oversized and over-encumbered place.

“Oh my… you’ve travelled a lot,” Luster stated, her voice shaken with bemusement.

A quick laugh answered back. Mare’s. “More like the world has often come to us,” she said. “For better, and especially worse.”

Beige withers back-trotted through an open door frame on the opposite side of the befuddling living room. Its owner, an old mare with a mane grey like oxidized silver, held a tray in her teeth. Steam followed after her, tracing the air from the three large ceramic cups.

Luster bit her lips, her magic crumpling the letter and snapping the seal that had held it shut till then. She was going to get stuck at a granny’s house because of Teacher Twilight. She hated the thought. Fuming. So much annoyance for a mere letter and question.

Her eyes darted left and right for an exit. But there was no envisageable escape. Instead, she only had more questions for each item that stared back at her, and each question led to further more.

Luster was, irremediably and for the next few hours, doomed to withstand the boredom of older ponies’ talk.

Damn her teacher.

She must have been laughing while sipping coffee and tea in her high tower.

Cheerilee’s chuckle rose by Luster’s side. While she’d been lost in thoughts, the Ponyville teacher had had the time to go and drop her grocery bag somewhere.

“Don’t worry, we’re not going to keep you for supper. Unless you want to, of course,” she whispered in Luster’s ear. “And Mare doesn’t bite.”

Luster didn’t have to turn around, she could feel Cheerilee’s amused smile beaming at her back, scorching like Celestia’s sunlight. Luster took a long breath of the tea-smelling air, and let it comb out of her half-closed lips.

It was going to be a long, boring, annoying, wasteful afternoon.

And she was hungry.

Admitting defeat, Luster dropped her behind like an anvil on a set of cushions, hoping the sound of crushed feathers would hide the growling in her belly.

But for naught, Mare left the tray and tea on the nearby coffee table, smiled, and evaded Luster’s stare to go into the kitchen, from where she came back with a box of dried butter crackers.

Luster closed her eyes, then rolled them. She could hear Twilight laughing from Canterlot at the thought of this ordeal.

What a weird test, Luster thought, looking down at the damaged letter and the red mark of where the seal had hugged the paper up until moments ago. She shook her head, opened her eyes wide, cursed her hastiness, and finally glanced at Mare and Cheerilee who now sat next to each other on a sofa on the other side of the living room. Purple against creme white, they contrasted each other. An odd couple, but a couple nonetheless.

She took a deep breath and finally spoke.

“Thank you for inviting me in,” Luster said, breaking out a quick smile. “I’m…” She drummed her hooves against the fluffy carpet that covered a laminated parquet. “Well, to be frank, I didn’t expect this when Teacher Twilight sent me here.”

“She really is awkward like her,” Mare noted to Cheerilee with a smile.

Cheerilee turned to meet her eyes. And simply nodded. “She does take after her.”

Luster shuffled on her haunches. She’d been quite judgemental. She still was. She deserved this, in a sense. If you judge others harshly, others will do too. That was what Teacher Twilight had told her many times. Luster loved being right. But she hated being right about being wrong.

She frowned. They didn’t call Teacher Twilight ‘Princess.’

“You know Teacher Twilight?” Luster asked.

“We do, actually,” Mare said with a smile. “She wrecked my town far too many times for me to count, and forget. I’ve forgiven her as many times as necessary. It won’t stop her Highness from sending flowers on the monthly, though.”

“Ponyville’s not your town,” Luster said aloud, more to herself than to Mare. Tapping a hoof on her lip, she turned to Cheerilee. “Didn’t you say I had to drop the Mayor mention?”

Cheerilee burst out laughing, and held a hoof on Mare’s shoulder. The former mayor was giving her wife a raised eyebrow, and the hint of a smile.

“I’m being blunt again. Stupid,” Luster groaned.

She’d smacked her forehead, then reached for a steaming hot cup of tea. Sipping the green brew would keep her silent.

Cheerilee and Mare reached out for their own cups and each took turns to grab a biscuit in the metal box. Luster followed, picking not one but two in her golden magic.

“So, what brought you here?” Mare asked over her cup, the steam fogging the edges of her black-rimmed glasses. She pointed at the letter by Luster’s side.

Luster carried the letter over the two mares in her magic. Cheerilee grabbed it and unfurled the paper open for her and Mare to read.

“I see,” Cheerilee muttered, her eyes darting from left to right. She then looked at her wife.

Mare didn’t answer, or even looked at Cheerilee. She merely nodded, her eyes narrowed to a slit, and rubbing her chin. After a while, she hummed to herself.

Luster hadn’t read the content of the letter. It was sealed and even she knew not to break open correspondence. Well, she glanced at the living room’s entrance and spotted the remains of the seal she’d cracked open.

Her horn glowed a shimmer of light and she dragged the evidence to her side and out of sight. Cleaning after oneself, that she’d learn from evading her teacher too many times, and failing.

“You mentioned a question?” Cheerilee asked.

Luster started, her magic dropping her aloft tea cup, only to catch it before it struck the carpet.

“Yes… Yes! Definitely,” Luster said. “I mean, I don’t know if it is related to the letter’s content, but…”

Luster recalled Teacher Twilight’s face when she tasked her to go to Ponyville. Uncertainty, painful memories, an unsure smile… regrets? Luster had rarely seen her teacher show those emotions. Her Highness Twilight, Princess of Magic and Regent of the Equestrian Crown, was a talented rulemaker, but even she had done stuff in the past that she wasn’t proud of. And this, Luster guessed, was why she’d been sent there.

“Teacher Twilight told me you had to teach me a lesson.” As she earned two questioning stares, she clapped her forehead again. Stupid. “I mean, she didn’t tell it like that. She said you have a valuable experience to teach me, Miss Mare.” Luster motioned her hoof. “You were a mayor for years! In a sense, you’ve successfully managed a place, no matter how small, eh… I don’t mean Ponyville is small as in small. Not at all… I, uh… It is small compared to Canterlot but it’s still a place… A– I’m going to shut up.”

Mare and Cheerilee chuckled and Luster tried to make herself small, hoping her spine could turtle up and she would disappear inside her own fleshy shell. What a terrible mental image, Luster…

“You think Twilight wants me to tell you about town shenanigans?” Mare asked, putting the letter to her lap.

“I guess?” Luster replied with a shrug. “Why else would Teacher Twilight send me here?”

Cheerilee and Mare shared a glance, and Luster saw the unsureness in their following half-smiles. For what reason would have Teacher Twilight sent her here if not for some local state-crafting stories from two aging earth pony mares? Thoughts, Luster! Thoughts. But really, Luster couldn’t understand why.

The two mares each took a singular, coordinated deep breath.

A heavy lump dropped down Luster’s throat.

Why else?

“To tell you of her biggest failure,” Mare said, offering the royal letter back.

Her horn lit up to retrieve the missive, Luster was doubtful. What was she talking about? Teacher Twilight made mistakes from time to time, sure. Even princesses could be clumsy. But failures? Nah. Njet! No. That was not possible.

“You’ve got such a look on your face, Luster,” Pinkie Pie said, peeping out from behind the sofa.

What. Luster jumped.

“What?” Cheerilee and Mare echoed, rolling back to catch Pinkie Pie jumping over the sofa’s headrest and sliding down to sit at the rightmost side of the sofa.

What!?

“Surprise!” Pinkie burst, legs wide.

“How?” Luster babbled. “Aren’t you supposed to be… not here?”

“Ah, flabbergast!” Pinkie retorted, waving her hoof. One or two candies hopped out of her mane. “I had a hunch, ya know! And I was in Fillydelphia with Cheese and Lil’ Cheese. But you know, my eyelids fluttered and my tail shivered. You —” She pointed at Cheerilee and Mare “— were going to talk about me.”

“Wait. Wait a minute,” Luster interrupted, dragging her hooves to her temples. Though she knew Pinkie Pie through her Teacher Twilight, she rubbed them vigorously. “You know when somepony is talking about you?”

“Will.”

Luster so wanted that power.

“You were going to talk about the Wall, right?” Pinkie asked her two town compatriots.

Mare didn’t say a word, but she nodded.

“You didn’t even read the letter,” Cheerilee said with a smile, more of a statement rather than a surprise. “Even after all these years, your doozies haven’t blunted even a zilch. Never change, Pinkie.”

Luster growled. “What is this Wall you’re talking about?”

“It’s an event that happened in Ponyville about ten years ago,” Mare said. She cleared her throat. “It was right after Twilight’s coronation, but not before Celestia and Luna properly handed power out to her.”

“It took about two years, right?” Luster asked.

“It did,” Cheerilee said.

“But do you know why?” Mare asked.

Luster stayed mute. She didn’t know. Why would she know? Teacher Twilight took things slow. It was her trademark: being cautious.

“Something happened in Ponyville?” Luster offered through pinched lips.

“It did,” Cheerilee confirmed. “Something that nearly destroyed Ponyville.”

Luster doubted that. She’d have heard about it…

Or would she? Ponyville was small, remote, if not isolated. She’d pestered about it. Ponyville was past-tense. Equestria was evolving fast, everchanging, ever moving forward. Why would anypony mention an event that only concerned the here, Ponyville, and the then.

Luster nodded, then rolled her eyes — and she sure took her time. “Alright, I guess it’s lecture time.”

Luster was expecting a story, a retelling, but Cheerilee and Mare’s faces darkened. Pinkie Pie twisted slightly, though she never let her smile drop.

A low sense of unease settled in Luster’s guts as the three adults shared quick glances. They talked in silence in common understanding.

Something had happened. Something dire. And Luster’s haunches tightened.

What did Teacher Twilight send her on to learn?

Cheerilee and Mare turned to Pinkie Pie, and her ear-to-ear smile.

“You call dibs?” They asked.

“Sure do.” She laughed.

Luster leaned forward. She expected a story from her teacher’s great friend. What had happened ten years ago that had so darkened the faces of those two mares? What could a pony call the Princess of Magic’s greatest mistake?

Luster leaned further, mouth agape, a leg fluttering in anticipation at Pinkie Pie’s growing smile. And after a few seconds of silence that stretched on like molass, Pinkie finally spoke.

“There’s never enough sweets.”

Jun.-Jul. 20 - When The End Came To Town 3.2

Luster stared at nothing. Much better than looking dumbfounded at that pink ball of nervous enthusiasm, and her painfully beaming smile. And because looking away didn’t hide its brightfulness enough… Luster shut her eyes, hard. For good measure, she dropped her face in her hooves.

Breathe in, breathe out, Luster. Breathe in. Breath–

Luster’s body stung with a furious envy to run out, back to Canterlot. She didn’t care if the cushions her withers had sunk into were comfortable. And damn Teacher Twilight, she hadn’t taught her teleportation yet.

Everything she’d heard so far about this Ponyville story was weird — heck, it was downright incomprehensible. And Pinkie’s story didn’t help at all.

Why was she, Luster Dawn, here? She found herself asking that again. Not the first time that afternoon, and certainly not the last time. She was betting on it. So, yeah, why did Luster Dawn have to listen to those earth ponies again? She couldn’t even invent a proper reason. Damn that town, damn them, damn her teacher.

No, Luster! That’s Pinkie Pie. Just Pinkie Pie… You know Pinkie Pie. She’s Teacher Twilight’s funniest — cringiest and wall-crawling — friend. Stop. Breathe. And breathe even harder again.

A long ponderous moment passed before Luster finally opened her eyes, a drawn-out sigh on her lips.

“Can you translate?” she whinied at Cheerilee, trying not to cause herself an aneurism by pressing her two hooves into her temples and skull. “What’s a doozy, even?”

If she had Teacher Twilight under her hoof, Luster would be asking her how she’d dealt with Pinkie in the past instead. Well… Not dealt, endured. That was, of course, if her mighty alicorn Self was there to share her survival tips. But Teacher Twilight definitely wasn’t. And so Luster only had a pair of earth ponies for help. One teacher, but not her teacher, and an old mare…

Luster wanted advice and she only got short answers: Cheerilee’s snicker, Mare’s click of her tongue, and Pinkie’s clueless smile.

Let it go; Luster got the message.

And it wasn’t helping. Like, at all.

“It’s hard to explain,” Mare finally said, prompting Luster to look up from her hooves, her jaw clenched tight. The old mare cleared her throat, pinched her lips, and blew her cheeks. Silence followed. Even Mare seemed to struggle making sense of the pink hurricane by her side.

Luster meanwhile would be drumming her hooves if she had a desk to lean on.

“Can you help me out, Pinkie?” Mayor sighed, her shoulders drooping in defeat.

“They’re hunches,” Pinkie explained, a hoof on her chin. She giggled, and glanced at the ceiling — as if the right words were printed there. “It just tingles sometimes, somewhere, you know. And when it happens, I know something will happen. Well, likely happen. That’s all.”

“Likely?” Cheerilee asked, an eyebrow raised as she leaned forward to catch a better glimpse of Pinkie’s hesitant smile. “The Pinkie I know wouldn’t mess up a doozy.”

“Eh,” Pinkie replied, waving her hoof dismissively. “I’m older now, and not as sharp as I was before. I got sweeter and mellowed, in a sense.” Pinkie poked her chub. “Case in point.”

“Speaking of old, Pinkie. I am not that old,” Mare said. And three pairs of eyes locked on her. She bit her lips, rolled her eyes, and scrunched up. She turned to Cheerilee and jabbed her hoof in her side. “Come on, hun. Pinkie did say I was old... Can’t you help?”

Cheerilee threw her head back against the sofa’s headrest, and laughed. “You’re digging your own grave on that one.”

“Right.” Mare sighed and hung her head low, only looking askance at Pinkie Pie, that damn erratic storyteller. “Alright, I wasn’t that old, Pinkie.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Let’s rewind a bit, please,” Luster cut, motioning for silence, instantly granted by the three older mares. She pointed her hoof at Pinkie. “So. You’re a seer?”

“Come again? A what now?” Pinkie asked.

“Ahem, let’s try not to get into the details,” Cheerilee said, coughing in her hoof. “You don’t want to go that route this early in the afternoon. It drove Twilight crazy once. Let’s not do that again.”

“Oh, I can totally explain again!” Pinkie offered. “I–”

Mare’s hoof closed Pinkie’s lips shut.

“Ah, come on,” Luster protested, huffing a strand of mane off her face as she struggled to find a way out of her cushions. Once done, she slammed her hooves against the carpet. “I’m sure there’s a rational explanation to th–”

Luster was often oblivious, and she knew it. But it was hard not to get the warning when both Cheerilee and Mare slowly shook their heads in unison, eyes wide and staring. Pinkie bit on her lips to repress a laugh, her back end writhing on the sofa. She definitely wanted to speak, and was fighting the urge. So. Damn. Hard.

“Alright, anyway,” Luster acknowledged in defeat, hanging her head low and falling back into her soft pillows, “let’s focus on this weird story instead. A black ball that ate Twilight’s castle? What about it? I mean, it’s like a Monday, or a Tuesday in Canterlot. Accidents happen right? ... Right?”

The three mares exchanged glances. Then sighs flew like bullets.

“Remember we said it took about two years for power to be handed out to Twilight?” Mare said.

“Yeah. Duh. You said that like thirty minutes ago.”

“Well, there is a reason…”

“Alright. Let’s hold it there,” Luster said after a long, vocal grunt. “I’m a bit disappointed, not going to lie.” She threw her legs above her head and stretched, her shoulders giving a satisfying pop. As three questioning stares answered her, she rolled her eyes. “Yeah. You know. Teacher Twilight sent me across the country to this nowhere town to listen to a story that I know already ended well.” She pointed, eyes wide like saucers, at the heaps of items littering the living room. “Like… You’re all three here, right? No changeling overlord, no draconic destruction or Tartarus mayhem as far as I could see when I arrived. Not even the buildings look new. I mean, Ponyville doesn’t look young in any measure, it’s an old town like you, M’am — eh, I mean. It’s well-aged, like fine wine.” Good catch, Luster. “Ponyville, the town, the outskirts, the valley… Everything turned out just fine. Right?”

Luster offered her open hoof, as if to hand out a well-wrapped and sorted-out case, or whatever one gave their debate opponent after a well-wrought rhetorical argument. Pinkie Pie, Cheerilee, and Mare, formerly Mayor, were indeed there. Intact, though ten years older. Nothing anypony could do anything about that latter fact, though. Not everypony could be an alicorn after all. But they were alive, and the town was fine. There was no reason to make a big deal out of this story. And so Luster went back to her first question. Why was she here?

Her mind fluttering away, Luster pondered what she would look like with wings stapled to her back. Taller for sure. She quickly wiped the smirk off her face when Cheerilee’s raised eyebrow came into view. Reverie was over.

“I mean. Sorry to be blunt,” Luster protested, “but understand me. There’s no suspense to this story! This is going to be boring. I can tell. And Teacher Twilight likes stories with suspense, like those old Daring Do drabs–”

Cheerilee set her hoof on Mare’s shoulder, the former mayor boiling to answer. “Yearling is a good friend.”

“No offense. Again,” Luster muttered, biting on her lips. “What I really mean is that Teacher Twilight must have had a reason for me to come here to listen to a story. I can’t believe she’d send me here to fetch a list of facts I could have gotten from Canterlot’s library.”

“Who wants tea?” Mare said and stood up, leaving for the kitchen.

Luster exchanged glances with Cheerilee and Pinkie, the sound of Mare’s hooves against the parquet, the only sound that filled the living room.

“You’re a real pain in the butt.”

That wasn’t Cheerilee who spoke. But Pinkie. And Luster’s jaw dropped a little. She hadn’t expected that from her mentor’s friend. But in hindsight… Luster nodded and looked down.

“I–” Luster sighed, “am.”

A crash of plates and a swear burst in the kitchen. Lips pinched and wrinkles on her forehead, Cheerilee excused herself and trotted out of the room, leaving Luster staring at Pinkie, and Pinkie at her.

“I’m… sorry.” It hurt to say.

“You should say that to Cheerilee and Mare. After all they invited you in.”

Luster nodded; she hadn’t much to add. “There’s no point in hearing a story about Teacher Twilight if it’s not from her mouth.” Well, she had some add-ons to give.

“Who said it’s about her?” Pinkie asked. “Did she tell you it was about her?”

Luster rubbed her muzzle and sniffled. “N– no. I mean, shouldn’t it be? She’s the most important pony in Equestria after all?”

“Maybe it’s about the town. Ya know, we’ve had a lot of things happen here? It’s sentimental and all.”

“Coming here does feel like a punition more than a lesson, though.”

“Maybe it’s both?”

Luster nodded. “Maybe it’s both.”

As the smell of tea started to crawl into the living room, Luster and Pinkie fell into a long moment of silence, which Luster wasn’t ready to break. Maybe it was about remembering something. Teacher Twilight had done something to the town and she had to learn from it.

“A mistake,” Luster muttered, prompting Pinkie to give her a questioning look. “That’s it. Teacher Twilight made a mistake and wants me to learn from it.”

“That, she sure did,” Cheerilee said as she trotted back in the living room, Mare behind her with a plate of tea cups in her mouth. “A big, black, round mistake.”

Luster offered to help set the plate and distribute the cup but Mare refused. Soon enough, everypony had tea the old-fashioned way.

“So the ball?” Lust asked.

“We called it the Wall,” Cheerilee said, met with Mare and Pinkie’s nods.

“Sounds stupid,” Luster commented.

“Ah-ah!” Pinkie pointed her hoof at Cheerilee and Mare. “Told ya it was a stupid name.”

Mare rolled her eyes, took a sip, and cleared her throat, calling eyes on her.

“What did it do?” Luster asked.

“It ate the town.”

Jun.-Jul. 20 - When The End Came To Town 5.2

Luster brought her cold cup of tea to her lips and sipped its content.

“That was bleak,” she said.

“It was,” Mare said, departing a warm hug with Pinkie. Scars remained, despite all the time and healing.

“So… Uhm, the town started packing and leaving after the Wall showed up?”

“Yes,” Cheerilee said. “Parents sent their kids to other towns and cities, they usually followed soon after. Ponyville, back then, was depopulating faster than you would think…” She glanced at Mare, “or hoped.”

“Not a day passed between new departures, news of bankruptcy, or just empty houses,” Mare added, working her jaw before continuing, “Friendships took a dive following the events. And the whole town fractured.”

Luster mulled over it. Friendship was important, that’s what Teacher Twilight taught her. The lifeblood of Ponykind. But she also knew that a town ought to have inhabitants to be called a proper town, and hearing Mare mention the town’s coffer, it wasn’t a long stretch to imagine that beyond the social fabric ripping apart, the town’s financial health also plunged.

“You mentioned being alone in bed,” Luster pointed out, a hoof in Cheerilee’s direction across the table. “You broke up back then?”

Cheerilee chuckled. Somberly.

“Yes, we’d broken up then. But it’s the past.”

“She fired you?”

Mare coughed in her hoof. “I didn’t.”

“You kinda did,” Cheerilee countered, an eyebrow raised while Pinkie made herself small in between the two arguing spouses.

Mare took a deep breath, and held it in. It came out a long sigh.

“Alright, yes. Yes.” She shook her head and crooked over, like her spine had deflated. She lifted her chin and crossed glances with Luster. “A lot of stuff went wrong and a lot of stuff we couldn’t afford. With no money to cover the school and since there was no kids left in town, I cut it back.” She turned to Cheerilee and extended a hoof, which was received with kindness. Cheerilee held it in between both of hers. “I still hate myself about it.”

“I’m glad it’s behind us now,” Cheerilee confessed. “Water has passed under the bridge.”

“Yes.”

“If I recall correctly,” Pinkie started, “not all kids had left when you fired Cheerilee here.”

“Pinkie,” Mare hushed under her breath as Cheerilee retracted her hoof, crossing her legs.
“Come on, don’t–”

“No, it’s true,” Pinkie chirped, her tail wiggling from left to right under her flank. “It’s when Diamond Tia–”

“I don’t want… We don’t want to talk about it, Pinkie,” Cheerilee said, her tone acerbic.

“It’s going to be hard, not gonna lie,” Pinkie giggled, grabbing her tail. “She’s here.”

“Who, Diamond?” Mare sputtered.

“No, one of the gang!”

“Who’s Diamond?” Luster asked, a hoof raised as if it would earn everypony’s attention.

The doorbell rang.

“I’m not so rusty after all,” Pinkie said, a celebrating smile stretching her cheek. She sprung from her cushion and trotted off to the hallway, shrilling, “I’m coming!”

“You were expecting somepony?” Luster asked, leaning forward.

Cheerilee and Mare shared a look, and Mare answered for them both. “No?”

Laughter and cheers filled the hallway, followed by two sets of hooves, one imparting Pinkie’s happy staccato and another, measured and strong — a stride with heft. Luster wasn’t ready for who came through the door.

A white mane with bleach pink streaks. A silver necklace with a single pearl in a plain locket. An immaculate cream coat that shone even in the subdued light of the living room. And the subtle fragrance of lavender.

Luster knew that mare. A singer. An artist. A Canterlot socialite. Very much like her sister.

Sweetie Belle.

“Hi, everypony!” the young mare greeted, waiving a hoof. “I was just passing by to say hello. Pinkie Pie dragged me in.”

“Dragged you?” Pinkie pestered. “Come on, you know you can’t escape from tea and biscuits with a bunch of old mares.”

Luster caught Mare raising her hoof at that.

“Old mares?” Sweetie Belle feigned surprise. “I only see a ground of fine ladies here.”

Then her eyes met Luster’s and her eyebrows knitted. A wide smile followed “Isn’t it Luster Dawn?” She ran to her to shake her hoof. “What are you doing here so far from your tower? I thought you were pretty much like Twilight in her teens. A recluse!”

Luster pinched her lips. Well, yes, but no… She wasn’t a recluse. Maybe? She sighed in defeat. She definitely was. She wouldn’t be doing internal monologue and pester constantly about being in Ponyville otherwise. But still! Ponyville was boring, and that story was boring.

“I think Twilight punished Luster by sending her here,” Mare said, and Luster couldn’t agree more.

“Punished?” Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, and waved her mane. Her smile faded when she met Luster’s eyes, and her shrug. “Come on, what is she having you on?”

“The Wall,” Cheerilee said.

And a shadow cast on Sweetie Belle’s face.

“Oh.”

“Twilight asked me to come here to get some… eh.” She didn’t know what to make of Twilight’s request, “witness accounts? Testimonies? I don’t really know.”

“We were about to talk about the incident,” Pinkie mentioned, and the shadow darkened on Sweetie Belle’s face.

“Can I have a seat at the table?”

“Sure,” said Cheerilee who pushed both Pinkie and Mare to leave some space for the newcomer.

Luster now faced them four. In order: Sweetie Belle, Cheerilee, Mare, Pinkie. All with their jaws worked into a thin like, gritted teeth hidden behind closed lips and somber features. She was expecting the antithesis of levity, Mare clearing her throat, or Sweetie Belle sighing — oh, how her olive green eyes hung low, her coat contrasting with the deep read of the sofa.

But instead, Sweetie Belle laughed. A hearty laughter that made the three other mare turn, eyebrows cocked. But it wasn’t a happy laugh, and Luster caught Pinkie cringing as she faced it.

“I have nothing,” Sweetie said. She noticed the staring. “No, really. I have nothing, I never really asked what happened during the incident! You” She pointed at her close neighbours “were still there.”

“And you weren’t?” Luster asked, teetering forward with crinkled eyes as her mind raced to get the implication. “Wait… You went inside that thi– the Wall?”

Sweetie Belle turned to Cheerilee who sat closest to her.

“Can the teacher cover for the student one last time.”

Cheerilee’s eyes glistened and her deep breath echoed in the otherwise silent living room. She nodded.

“Okay.”

Jun.-Jul. 20 - When The End Came To Town 7.2

Luster kept her mouth closed, not that the story wasn’t jaw-dropping.

“Always a drama-queen, my sister,” Sweetie said, echoing Luster’s thoughts.

“I mean,” Cheerilee added instantly, “we all thought you were dead.”

“True, true.”

“It wasn’t my proudest moment either,” Pinkie mumbled. “Everything was breaking down in Ponyville. And I couldn’t even cheer my friend. Friends.”

Mare leaned by her side and gave her a gentle shake. “Time has flowed under the bridge. Nothing good comes out from stirring the past too much.”

Pinkie nodded and smiled, glancing over the central table where tea was cooling again at Luster. Her blue eyes crossed Luster’s for a second. Then drifted away. Luster saw shame, something that didn’t fit the party pony whose tales Teacher Twilight had told her so many.

“It’s fine, Pinkie,” Luster surprised herself saying, “Like, Sweetie Belle’s here, right? Everything ended well.”

Mare cleared her throat. “That’s relative.”

Luster deadpanned. “Really, the town’s still standing and ponies live all around here.”

“It didn’t spring back up in a day, young lady,” Mare retorted, a tinge of annoyance in her voice. “Rebuilding a town, and even more its morale and population isn’t done in an evening of study.”

Luster hunched her head. “No, no. I get it. I was just trying to be helpful… or maybe reassuring. Ponies are hard to deal with. I’m sure you’ve got the memo a few hours ago.”

Cheerilee chuckled. “Admitting it is the first step towards redemption.”

Luster fought back, clapping her hooves together. “Eh, I’m not a villain yet!”

Mare gave Luster a look over, then turned to Cheerilee, who crossed eyes with her wife.

“I’m not betting on that.” Cheerilee grinned. “You always win.”

“Are you betting on me turning bad!?”

Luster shuffled on her cushions, pestering and grumbling, ready to drag herself out of comfy heaven to give her hosts a taste of her most villainous words. But a twinkle sounds rose, and a blue aura gently pushed her back down.

“Don’t worry about these old loons,” Sweetie joked, a wide grin on her face as both Cheerilee and Mare gave her a stink eye. “They like gossiping more than Twilight likes to-dos.”

Luster chortled. “That’d be hard to achieve. She’s sending herself to-dos by the mail.”

Even Pinkie squinted. She shrugged when Sweetie Belle, Cheerilee and Mare looked at her.

“Yeah, yeah. I should pay her a visit, I get it.”

“She doesn’t have an assistant?” Sweetie Belle asked. “What about Spike?”

“Oh, Spike outgrew the library. To some extent. And–”

“Twilight doesn’t trust any other assistant,” Sweetie Belle finished.

Luster nodded. She drew her hoof to her chin and motioned at Mare. “Speaking of letters, didn’t you receive letters that day in the city hall, Madame Mare?” As mare confirmed it, Luster continued, “What did they say?”

“Oh, uhm, I don’t recall.” She audibly swallowed a knot in her throat. “Not something I love to recall really. But I’m sure saying that wouldn’t satiate your curiosity, hmm?” Luster offered a guilty shrug. “I’m sure I have them somewhere in the attic. Let me try and get them.”

With a grunt, Mare extirpated herself from her sofa and walked off somewhere, Cheerilee with her. A few seconds later and past the sounds of a creaking staircase, the ceiling resonated with the clacks of horseshoes.

Luster shared a look with Pinkie, who passed it onto Sweetie Belle. Silence reigned, even if for a moment.

“How does my sister do?” Sweetie asked. “Since we’re on that topic.”

“You don’t talk to her?”

“Yes, I do!” That came a bit too quickly. “I mean, yeah I do, but you know sisters right. We don’t always share everything in our lives.”

“She’s a single child,” Pinkie said.

“How do you know?” Luster sputtered.

“My hunches!” Pinkie beamed, a hoof barely hiding her smirk. “Also you raised your eyebrows. Either you didn’t have a sister, or you really don’t socialize with anypony.”

Luster pinched her lips. Pinkie was right, in any case, and Luster was still ready to fight that truth back. “Anyway,” she said, “I don’t see Rarity much — barely when she visits Teacher Twilight. She seems to be doing fine. Though whenever I see her, she always talks about banquets, state visits, fashion shows, and business, business, business.”

Sweetie Belle chuckled in her hoof. “She does never change.”

“I mean, beyond the grey hair.” Luster combed her mane with her two hooves. “You’d think she would dye them but no.”

Pinkie Pie burst out laughing.

“She’d never stoop so low,” Sweetie Belle snickered, eyes closed. “She’s got pride, even in age.”

Luster hummed. “I don’t have much really. On your sister I mean. She’s a socialite, I get it. But somehow, she keeps her private life private. She’s quite effective at that.”

“She’s a business pony to the core,” Sweetie Belle offered. “She knows when to give, and when to withhold.”

“Why do you ask?”

Sweetie Belle rubbed her leg and sunk deeper in the sofa. “Rarity took it badly that I disappeared… in such a fashion. I guess grieving over, uhm, me affected her a lot. It changed how we related to each other in a sense.” She breathed in and held it for a long time, until she released a long-winded sigh. “I think she doesn’t want me around anymore.”

“You know that’s a lie, Sweetie,” Pinkie offered, along with a hug.

Sweetie Belle smiled and took Pinkie in. “I mean, not in the not liking me sense,” she said. “More like, she lost me once, getting close again and risking to lose me once again. That’s a risk. And Rarity hates risk.”

“You mean she hates adventures?” Luster asked, recalling Teacher Twilight’s stories about her own adventures and the sempiternal Rarity pestering accompanying each excursion.

“No, she does hate risk. In an economic sense. Risk ought to be understood, controlled, and minimized. That’s how she is. Though she likes to pretend it doesn’t affect her, she thinks like a business mare more than just in a negotiation room.” She gulped down and scratched at her horn. “If you can’t contain a risk, you avoid it. If you catch my drift. To her, I’m still a teen who can’t cook.”

“You can’t cook still,” Pinkie said. “Lil’ Cheese told me about the carb’ cakes.”

Sweetie Belle crooked over, her sides painful with laughter.

“Carbohydrates?” Luster said, eyebrows furrowed.

“Carbonized.” Pinkie glanced down at Sweetie Belle and held her hoof in a motherly fashion. “Sweetie Belle is a terrible babysitter.”

“At least, I’m not Fluttershy.”

“What’s wrong with Fluttershy?” Luster interjected.

“Her eyes,” Sweetie Belle explained.

“Let’s segue a bit,” Luster offered to escape the likely cryptic explanation that would revolve around Teacher Twilight’s kindest friend. How come would she be the worst babysitter? Luster couldn’t guess. “How was it?”

“How was what?”

“Well, inside the Wall. We totally drifted off of that after Cheerilee’s tale. I’m sure you have so much to tell.”

“Oh, that will come up later,” Sweetie Belle said, a playful smirk on her lips as Cheerilee and Mare’s chatter filled the hallway, then the living room.

“Come on, you actually have a neat paranormal story to tell, compared to old mares’ outsider accounts.” Luster shut her mouth as Mare and Cheerilee entered the living room. “So, found the letters?”

“I’m sorry, no,” Mare said, stopping when she laid eyes on Sweetie Belle. “You look like you’re about the cry, Sweetie. Are you okay?”

Sweetie Belle straightened herself. “Oh, I am. We were just talking about Rarity and I.”

“I’m sorry.”

Luster looked down. Being an adult sounded so worrisome. Having friends and family, anxiety-infused and regretful.

“Oh, don’t be.” Sweetie Belle coughed in her hoof. “So, those letters?”

Cheerilee and Mare took back their seat on the sofa, and Luster caught the small metal box under the former’s leg. It looked like a rectangle biscuit box, the kind that usually hid a sewing kit. But crinkled and sticking out of the lid was a laminated, yellow paper torn at its top. An envelop.

“As I said, Luster. I’m sorry I couldn’t find the specific letters I mentioned,” Mare said, before motioning at the box Cheerilee set on the table top for Luster to peer through. “But I found those.”

Luster hunched forward and out of her cushions and slid the box to her side of the table, making sure not to tip over the few neighbouring tea cups and the team bottom resting inside each. As she snapped the lid opened, a faint plume of dust spat at her face and she sneezed. Pinkie laughed.

The envelope stuck under the lid had hinted at a plethora of letters inside the box. Luster was disappointed. There were only four. And no wax seal to find in there. Somehow, Luster was sure the juicy stuff was kept hidden somewhere else and from her. She swept the petty thought away and took the four envelopes out.

Before she opened the first one and retrieved the letter inside, Luster gave a quick glance towards Cheerilee and Mare.

“I mean, first, thank you for helping me with Teacher Twilight’s… uhm–”

“Chore,” offered Sweetie Belle.

Yes. Luster waved her hoof at her to confirm, then kept on, “Thanks. But are you sure you want me to read those. I mean, it’s personal stuff.”

Cheerilee turned to Mare. “Told you, you should have looked at them before bringing them down.”

“Ah, flabbergasts,” Mare dismissed. “If I don’t remember them, I’m sure it’s fine. Also I left my reading glasses in the bedroom. And so did you.”

“Fair. Fair.”

Eyes turned to Luster, who suddenly felt small.

“What?”

“You gonna read them,” Sweetie Belle said, “aloud.”

Luster wasn’t a good public speaker. And reading aloud wasn’t her forte either. She sighed, licked her lips, and took the first letter out of its casing.

Jun.-Jul. 20 - When The End Came To Town 9.2

“That was more personal than I expected,” Mare admitted.

“And wished?” Sweetie Belle asked with a wide smirk.

Mare blew air against her cheeks. Meanwhile, Cheerilee was nodding, eyes wide.

Pinkie chortled. “I’d forgotten I gave you that letter.”

“You never sent them?” Luster asked.

“Celestia gave them back to us after the event was finally resolved,” Mare said. “I just… I just put them in a box in the attic. I don’t think many ponies wanted to discuss the Wall at the time.”

“Weren’t there any celebrations when it was all over?”

Cheerilee stretched and yawned, brushing her hoof against her muzzle before speaking. “There were, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that —” She hesitated “— it was hard celebrating in a small committee when it was done and sent on its way. Ponyville had emptied itself. And the few parts that hadn’t been swallowed felt deader than a ghost town.”

“ What do you mean?”

“Let me take a guess. You’ve ever been to the South,” Sweetie Belle asked, to which Luster shook her head. “There are a few ghost towns there. Buildings are old, creaky, bleached by the sun without windows and constantly swept by the sun. You can see, smell and feel the age.” She reached her cold cup on the table with her magic and sipped what should have amounted to a teaspoon worth of tea left at its bottom. “Ponyville was different. Ponies were leaving left and right, leaving everything behind. It wasn’t a gradual process.”

Pinkie hummed her approval, and offered to continue. Sweetie Belle nodded. “Well, ya know. Buildings were pristine, well painted, and everything. From the outskirts of the town, you’d have not believed it was near empty. Well, if you tuned out the monster black hole looming over the town like a menacing ground-bound blimp ready to burst in flame! Anyway. If you didn’t find the lack of ponies weird, the issue would have become clear at sundown. Not a single light in any window. It was dead! Like everypony had disappeared. Packed up and left.”

“Which they did,” Cheerilee confirmed.

“How many were left there?” Luster asked.

“Not much.”

“I technically wasn’t there to see it.”

“Not many.”

“Barely enough to eat a cake! Can you believe it?”

Luster sighed, her turn to grab what was left of her tea and downed it in one small gulp. “And you didn’t go, Miss Mare, Cheerilee?”

Mare sputtered, a hoof on her chest. “How could I? I was the Mayor. I– I couldn’t. A captain sinks with its ship. Or waits for all of the passengers to leave first.”

And some wouldn’t leave. Luster got that. Cheerilee fell silent and looked down. A heavy weight visibly on her chest. She laughed, a grim chortle flying past her teeth. She threw her head back in exasperation and gave a set of fully cocked eyebrows to her wife. And a grin.

“You were such a mule. Still are.”

“Language,” Pinkie whispered.

Sweetie Belle laughed while Luster grimaced.

“How come!” Mare protested. “You stood by my side!”

“Only because I didn’t want to leave you.” Cheerilee shook her head, giving away a half growl. “If I’d been more assertive, I’d have chained you up and dragged you out of town.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Of course, I didn’t.” Cheerilee threw her hooves up. “I loved you even though we’d broken up. You felt more attached to walls than you were to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Mare whispered, shoulders slouched.

Cheerilee held her muzzle up and took her in her legs. “I know you are, but you can be stupid sometimes.”

“I know. I know.”

“Ahem.” Eyes reverted to Luster who smiled and waved. “Sorry to interrupt, but when did you get back together?”

“Oh, soon enough,” Mare answered.

“How soon enough?”

“Around a bottle of wine,” Cheerilee added.

“More than one for sure,” Mare said.

“Tell them I’m an alcoholic while you’re at it, sweetheart.”

“You and me both.”

“Yeah.”

They sighed at once, threw a glance at each other before turning to Pinkie Pie, lips puckered, a shadow lingering on their face.

“Yeah,” Pinkie whispered. “I’m okay talking about that evening.”

“What do you mean?” Luster asked.

“Oh, I was there when Mare and Cheerilee made up,” Pinkie said. “I just… wasn’t in the right headspace. You know, it comes and goes, those dark moments.” She chuckled. “We did drink a lot that night.”

Luster quirked an eyebrow at Sweetie Belle who shrugged. She was clueless too, and the slight hint of a grimace told Luster that she was wary of what had transpired while she’d been gone inside.

Damn, Luster so wanted to know what had happened inside the blob. It sounded cool, eerie, dangerous! Sweetie Belle didn’t look like the battle-hardened mare, though. And given her sister, she likely wasn’t the adventurer’s type either. The lack of scars or any distinguishing mark on her alabaster coat sure sold the deal for Luster. That story was going to be boring too.

She held back her sigh, hoof on her muzzle.

“Let’s get out,” Mare offered. “I have a place in mind.”

“Oh, come on,” Luster said. “This might be boring, but I want to hear the end of it now.”

“Sunk cost and all,” Sweetie Belle asked, a smirk on her lips.

Luster gave back the shrug and the grimace.

“Cicadas went to sleep so it must be cool enough to get a quick late afternoon stroll,” Mare said, smiling at Cheerilee and Pinkie as she grabbed a purse and stuffed Teacher Twilight’s letter in. “I’m sure getting some air will help clear the mind.”

Pinkie jumped to her legs and chirped a let’s go before locking her leg around Sweetie’s neck to drag her out to the hallway.

“Follow me!” she shrilled, a gagged Belle in tow.

Luster deadpanned at her hosts. “Does she know where you want to go?”

“Pah!” Cheerilee exclaimed with a wave of her hoof. “It’s Pinkie Pie we’re talking about.”

Right.

The sun had abated, along with the cicadas as Mare had hinted and while hues of ocres filled the sky, now covered with a few high wisps of clouds, a stronger activity filled the streets. Bars had put out open tables and many ponies enjoyed a cocktail or other kind of local beverages.

Mare and Cheerilee waved and smiled while Sweetie Belle and Pinkie Pie rushed to shake hooves. Known faces abounded for sure, but none that Luster could recognize. She wasn’t expecting any Canterlot denizens there anyhow.

Of course, there were the student bunches, with the agitation and excitation that Luster always avoided in Canterlot. But when in Canterlot, she would only see unicorns, there were a flurry of species to behold. Griffons, yaks, dragons even, hippogriffs. She hadn’t seen them on the way in.

“I guess classes are out,” Luster offered to whoever would hear.

“Yes!” Mare said. “Students are really the light of this town. As I told you, the world comes to us. After five, of course.”

A young yak tried to sit at a restaurant’s table and crushed the unsuspecting chair. Laughter flew while a waiter commandeered another for a stronger replacement.

Ponies and other creatures were happy, Luster realized. And it was genuine, without the restrained demeanour everypony had in Canterlot. She frowned, racking her brain for the right word to describe the town. She was about sure Teacher Twilight would ask her about her impressions. Ah, she had the right one now.

Frivolity.

“Here we are,” Cheerilee said, earning a yes from her wife.

“Here we are where?” Luster asked.

“Well, here,” Mare said, a hoof held out to show a low steep that led to a river that seemed to cut through the town.

A lonely stump rested at the foot of the steep, a beaten-path espousing it as it ran the length of the river. The stream was calm and near silent as no rock impeded its path. The river felt very much artificial to Luster. Like it had been either rerouted to that location a long, long time ago.

But she digressed and watched Pinkie Pie break rank to walk down to the stump. She poked at him, a pout on her face. She looked down at the dust that lay the path, kicked a few rocks and turned over as if to catch a sight. But to Luster, there was nothing.

“Is there something important to see here?” Luster asked. “I only see houses, a stump and a river.”

“Actually no,” Mare said, and Luster’s shoulders drooped.

“So why–”

“But that’s where it happened,” Mare cut with a smile.

Luster frowned. “What did?”

“When it all came down together.”

Jun.-Jul. 20 - When The End Came To Town 11.2

“So, you solved the case right here,” Luster asked, her hoof stomping the grassy knoll that extended down to the river, and stump.

“Oh, it wasn’t much of a case, I think,” Sweetie Belle laughed.

“As I said, it all came down together here,” Mare confirmed.

“Let me get this straight.” Luster rubbed her face. “You were drinking your ass off right here, during a biting cold winter, while disserting on the stupidity of a message-teleporting book, when all of a sudden she —” Her hoof shot at Sweetie Belle “—wrote you, in that same book, from the other side of whatever the Wall was?”

“Uhm, about right,” Sweetie said, nodding to the absurdity of that situation with a wry smile stamped on her face.

“But why then? And not...” Luster gesticulated, “not before.”

“That’s where the terrifying, fun, eh, fun-ish thing was,” Pinkie said, startlingly popping out from behind Luster. “Time!”

“Time?”

Luster’s rump dropped with a thump. She felt little rocks hidden under the green prick at her flank. But that was a distraction. She was at a loss. Time… Time… Rubbing her temples, she let out a long, drawn-out sigh.

“Time, right?” Luster repeated, a rhetorical question rather than anything else. “But the only pony I know can mess up time is…”

“Twilight?” Sweetie Belle offered.

“The letter did talk about a mistake,” Mare said. “A gravest one.”

“No,” Luster said, a cutting tone to her voice. “You said ‘failure,’ I have a good memory.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right.”

“Don’t you yes-yes me. Teacher Twilight can’t be that reckless... couldn’t. That black thing, eh, the Wall, it could have only been an enemy, a– a monster.” Luster looked at Pinkie Pie first, looking for a cheer. But the party pony looked away. She moved on to Sweetie Belle, who rubbed her leg apologetically. And so, she was left staring at Mare and Cheerilee who stood side by side a bit lower on the hillside, at eye-level with Luster.

“Everypony makes mistakes, Luster,” Cheerilee said. “Even Twilight.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“It’s a fact, though,” Mare added as she fetched Teacher Twilight’s letter out of her purse. “She’s left a message for you at the bottom of the letter, you know.”

Luster sighed and took the letter. Swallowing, she unfolded the truth, eyes closed to wrinkles. A long breath in, then out, she opened back to the world and scoured the content down to a mention of her name, and the text that towed below.

She read.

Read.

And read again.

As she folded the letter back, a long sigh dug its way out of her lips. Mare, Cheerilee, and Pinkie Pie had walked off down to the dirt path below, next to the stump where they exchanged a few laughs. Only Sweetie Belle and a warm smile remained.

“What did she say?” She asked, walking up to put her hoof laying on Luster’s shoulder.

“Eh.” Luster had nothing else to say to her, following with a whisper to herself, “this is one overly engineered lesson… or punishment, teacher.”

“Are you okay?” Sweetie Belle continued.

“Yeah. Yeah…”

Luster ran her hoof through the grass. Though green, it had the stiffness of summertime. It would turn yellow and dead soon. She pouted, then held her face in her hooves.

“It’s been a grim story so far,” Sweetie Belle said after she cleared her throat. “I guess.”

“It is one grim story. A horrorific one.” Luster sighed and looked over at Mare, Pinkie Pie, and Cheerilee, gathered around the dead stump. “All the ponies that left. All the stores that closed. And everything that crumbled down. Though I know it’s resolved now.” Luster pointed at the town itself, a grimace maring her face. “Everything is back up, if it really was ever gone behind the Wall. And still, when I see those mares. I feel like the scars are still there. Behind closed doors, silent walls and ageing ponies.” Deep breath. “I really can’t imagine what they went through.” She turned to Sweetie Belle. “What you went through, I guess?”

Sweetie Belle waved her hoof and huffed dismissively. “Pah, it was pretty quick.”

Luster laughed. “Quick? It sounds like you were in the sphere… bubble? The Wall, I mean. You were in there for months. How did you survive?”

“You’ve not gotten it, yet? Time of course!”

“Teacher Twilight can be cryptic when she wants,” Luster mumbled.

“Ah, yes.”

Luster drummed her hoof over the grass. “Mare spoke of a mistake. I get it. That event was of Teacher Twilight’s own doing? And it was related to time.”

“Yes.”

“How could she?” Luster’s eyes shot wide. “Are you telling me she was playing around with time!?”

“She did snort the glue,” Sweetie Belle said, chuckling in her hoof, and seeing Luster’s confused expression, followed up, “It wasn’t the first time she played around with time. But that attempt… I think it was and will be her last.”

“Really?” Luster racked her brain for an example of her teacher waxing theory about time magic. “I mean. She never teached me anything about that.”

“I mean, there is a reason to it.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Yes.” Sweetie Belle nodded, a tight expression on her face. “You know Starlight right?”

“By name. She’s the director of the School of Friendship, right?”

“Yes. But there isn’t the question,” Sweetie Belle said. “Starlight is one of Twilight’s key workmares and confident. But do you know how they started?”

“Let me guess. Enemies?”

Sweetie Belle laughed. “Yeah. You’re absolutely right. But their confrontation ended on something terrible, I think. Because neither Twilight or Starlight talked about it much. What I know, though, is that it involved time.”

“Time…” Luster rubbed her chin. “So this whole ordeal is just a warning about using time magic. It sounds convoluted.”

Sweetie shrugged. “Is it? I mean, Twilight has taken a lot from Celestia. Mostly using metaphors but,”Sweetie Belle rocked back and force a little as words seemed to fall into place behind her eyes, “it’s just… She’s still a pony. Ah… I don’t know what to say. She must care so much about you, you know?”

“Yet, she sent me here, across the land, far away from Canterlot to learn a lesson I don’t quite get.” Luster threw her hooves up, followed with a sharp grunt, then produced the letter, nearly throwing it at Sweetie Belle’s folded legs. “It’s a punishment. It’s even written in there.”

“Twilight would never punish somepony if there wasn’t a valuable lesson tagged to it.”

“Or a twelve-step to-do?”

Sweetie Belle cackled. “You’re awfully right. But still, Twilight wants you to learn of her deepest mistake because it nearly broke this town she loves so much.”

“If she loves it so much, why isn’t she coming here more often?” Luster growled, only then holding a hoof to her lips. “She… She can’t, right?”

“Responsibility takes what we love away,” Sweetie Belle said. She threw her head back. “Or takes us away from what we love. In a sense, it’s the same thing. It’s only when you lose something that you really cherish it.”

“But she didn’t lose this town in the end.”

“But she nearly did,” Sweetie Belle retorted. “But I don’t think that’s what matters here.”

“What does, then?”

Sweetie Belle threw her hooves up and stretched, wrestling a satisfying pop out of her shoulders. Then she looked at Luster with a thin-lipped smile.

“You are destined for great things, Luster.”

“Nah,” Luster cut, waving the praise off, thought not without pride.

“No, no. I mean it. You wouldn’t be Twilight’s prized student if you weren’t. And in a sense, you are gifted that Twilight is your teacher. I think she’s trying to be different from Celestia.”

“What do you mean?”

“Celestia was more… hooves-off. To say the least. And sometimes, it nearly condemned a lot of us.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Celestia is… an institution more than a pony, I think. A monument? Eh, a monolith. And sometimes, I think it led to mistakes on her part, who then fell onto Twilight’s shoulder then wingblades.”

Luster hunched over and looked into her legs, enclosing a small patch of green blades of grass.

“Right,” she said, “Teacher, eh, T– Twilight wants me to learn from her mistakes?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Sigh. “I’ll have to think about it.”

Sweetie Belle rubbed her temple. “Twilight is trying to walk into her mentor’s hoofsteps, but at the same time to resolve some of the shortcomings she’s had to grapple with.”

So Luster was a sort of blank canvas. She didn’t know how to think about it.

“What about you?” Luster asked, quite jarringly.

Sweetie Belle frowned, then her eyes grew wide. She smiled and chuckled. “Oh, you mean inside the Wall.”

Luster nodded. “Yes, you’re the pony that went in right. How did it feel?”

“It was… weird.”

Jun.-Jul. 20 - A Town's Story 13.2

“The time slowed down inside the Wall.”

“Yes, it did,” Sweetie Belle confirmed. “And not just a little.”

Luster held her mouth shut, mulling over the revelation. The Wall had been a form of time twister. She didn’t know for sure, but what Sweetie Belle had said. That was a sort of time compression. Months, even years on the outside, while minutes passed on the inside.

“Twilight and Starlight never communicated–”

“Because they didn’t have the time yet.”

Luster nodded. The thought stupefied her, because if the Wall compressed time, it had to compress matter too.

“Wait, wait, a minute,” Luster said, waving her hoof. “Mare mentioned that the Wall had cut over the river, that it was going inside! What about rain, or wind, or snow!?”

“It was wild,” Cheerilee said.

Having walked back up the short steep, the trio of old mare sat down around Luster and Sweetie Belle.

“Wait,” Luster repeated. “You went in too!?” Everypony but Luster laughed out loud. “That’s not funny! Yo You could have died or worse, been stuck there! Only reckless unicorns or… or fools would mess with time! Or dared enter such a… paradoxical abomination...”

At a loss for better words, Luster pouted, and looked in turn at each pony in her audience. They all had smiles on their faces.

“You’re crazy,” Luster breathed.

“Were!” Pinkie Pie bubbled. “And also very much desperate at that point, I think.”

“You could have asked Twi–” Luster stopped herself and clopped her face. “Stupid.”

“There wasn’t anypony available in the instance,” Mare said. “We had to act.”

“And we didn’t have the time,” Cheerilee finished.

“It clicked, right?” Luster wondered. “The time shenanigans, I mean.”

“Oh, yeah,” Pinkie confirmed. “Especially when we recalled Time Turner’s shop.”

“So you went?” Luster repeated, baffled.

“We jumped!” Pinkie said.

“It was scary,” Mare said.

Cheerilee shrugged. “We had to do it.”

“But why?”

“For my friends!”

“For my student.”

“For my town.”

“I– I mean, with all due respect,” Luster stuttered, “none of you were unicorns. You weren’t prepared. Or aware of what to expect.”

“Would you have?” Sweetie Belle said, a wide smirk on her cheeks.

Luster rolled her eyes. “At least, I’d not have been drunk.”

Sweetie Belle erupted in laughter, reaching out to grab Pinkie who laughed along. Both threw a glance at Cheerilee and Mare. One that said Luster had a point, and the young student repressed a smirk.

“But you did go in in the end.” Luster took a deep breath. “How long did you take to make a decision?”

“Minutes, maybe?” Cheerilee said, rubbing her chin. “It’s been a long time.”

“Not much,” Mare corroborated.

Eyes turned to Pinkie, who threw her hooves up. “Don’t look at me, I was drunk as hell.”

Luster shook her head and let out a sigh. “So you went inside.”

“Yeah.”
“How was it?”

“Crazy,” Pinkie cackled.

“How did it feel?”

Pinkie and Cheerilee turned to Mare.

“What?”

“Well, you’re the pony who’s been telling the most of the story today.” Cheerilee grinned. “You can keep going.”

“Alright, alright.” Mare sighed and scratched her forehead, struggling for words at first, until a light shone in her eyes. “It was crazy.”

Jun.-Jul. 20 - A Town's Story 15.2

“So, that’s it?”

“What do you mean ‘that’s it’?” Mare asked, not without a firm but playful stomp of her hoof against the grass. “Yeah, it all turned to white.”

Cheerilee snickered in her hoof. “You’re underselling it, dear.” A sigh escaped her lips. “I’d not mind a glass of wine right now.”

“Come on, don’t make me squirm and beg for the rest of the story. What happened when the Wall disappeared?” Luster groused.

“It all went crashing down.”

“The most surprising thing,” Cheerilee noted, “was the silence. The storm and din inside the Wall shook the walls of the Castle itself. But when it all died down, that whole mess, we only heard a deep silence... I’d thought we’d gone deaf.”

“You exaggerate a bit,” Pinkie said.

“Me, called out by Pinkie Pie for exaggerating?” Cheerilee laughed. “Well, maybe.”

“How was it?” Luster pressed on.

“Quite noisy throughout,” Sweetie Belle offereed.

“Like, bad noisy or–”

“Happy noisy.” Sweetie Belle smiled. “Twilight and Starlight erupted with joy the moment the spell broke and the gaping portal faded. The ordeal for them was over.”

“But didn’t it last about a few minutes for them?”

“Yes, that’s why I said ‘for them.’ They were happy the cavalry had come in so quick. They still quirk some eyebrows at who came for them.” Sweetie Belle gave a sheepish smile to Cheerilee and Mare. “But, yeah, none of the rest of us were happy. And Twilight quickly caught on something was wrong. Then there was silence.”

“You could hear Twilight’s heart thumping in her chest, faster and faster!” Pinkie said. “I’ve never seen Twilight so scared as when we walked down the marble stairs of the castle, down the hallway, and out its ripped open gates.”

Stepping outside, the wind blasted their faces, rising in a twister where once an orange and blue dome stood. The clouds and the storm that accompanied them already fluttered away, while still a few lightning bolts flashed here and there.

What the Wall had taken was now free, and through the parting grey, blue sky shone down with the light of the sun. And warmth struck like a slap to the muzzle.

“It was summer,” Mare sighed. “In the minutes we’d been in, months had passed… Months!”

“Ponyville as it stood there was completely empty and abandoned,” Cheerilee said. “Not even birdsongs welcomed us. Those flying critters knew better than flying into the Wall.”

“Spooky!” Sweetie Belle and Pinkie added together.

“And there was a lot of water. Like, a lot-lot,” Sweetie instantly added.

“With the river inflowing in the Wall for months, and the…” Mare turned to Sweetie Belle who shrugged before gazing back at Luster,” I really don’t know how unicorns would call it… time, space warping? Anyway, the water created a tsunami through Ponyville as there was no Wall anymore to contain it. It destroyed some houses, and buried the rest under a thick coat of mud.”

“But at least,” Cheerille said with a smile, “nature and normal had finally come back.”

“What about Twilight and Starlight?” Luster asked avidly.

“We walked out in silence. And only after a minute or two or blankly staring, Twilight finally asked how long it had been,” Cheerilee said.

“She totes knew the answer, mind you. Cheerilee, Mare and I had our winter coats on. Twilight can do a one plus one using category theory,” Pinkie said with a laugh that barely covered the tinge of sadness at the back of her throat. “But, you know her. Double-taking everything.”

They had quickly emerged from the Friendship Castle, and witnessed further the destruction wrought to the town. Luster had expected descriptions of devastation, but Mare and Cheerilee had painted an even grimmer picture. Its banality.

Mud. Water. Abandonment. Dead plants peeking through the thick layer of mud, already crackling under the summer sky. The town’s houses, empty, their windows cracked offered no signs of life. The brownish hue of dead grass extended to the hillsides that surrounded Ponyville.

“You could make out the edge of the Wall by where plants had withered,” Cheerilee said, not without a deep rumble in her voice. “Maybe as far as one, two miles out of Ponyville. The Wall had eaten a lot while we were gone. Seven months in total.”

“And there was absolutely nopony,” Pinkie added, waving her hooves like a ghost. “Not a single Welcome Back party! Nothing planned.”

“They discarded the town as a lost cause?” Luster asked, teetering forward to better hear.

“Actually no,” Mare dispelled. “That’s the interesting part.”

Luster frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The first ponies we encountered were two guards.”

Her frown creased further.

"They were totally out of it," Cheerilee commented with a chuckle.

"Flabbergasted," Pinkie added.

"Some ponies had volunteered to go inside in the months after you went it?" Luster deduced.

“Royal guards actually,” Sweetie Belle said. “You could make out the shining gold under the mud they were covered with.”

"They saw us before we did,” Cheerilee continued. “They ran like mad to us. I recall one skidded off in the mud."

“Ah, yeah!” Pinkie exclaimed.

After that, silence came back between the four ponies. Luster looked away at the steep they sat on, the green grass, the town, the ponies she could see through windows. It was hard to imagine that ten years before, this was all different. She couldn’t keep her sigh in.

“Something’s wrong?” Pinkie asked.

“I don’t know, really,” Luster said, pouting, then she looked up at Mare. "And it just ended like that?"

Mare laughed dryly. "Of course, Dear. Whenever ponies like Twilight went on an adventure or caused some adventure to crash down on the town, they always left one big mess. A mess for us all to clean up."

Luster looked down and nodded, and asked, “How long did it take to rebuild Ponyville?”

“Roughly a year,” Mare said before inhaling loudly. “I resigned afterwards.”

Cheerilee chuckled and glanced at Mare, a hoof reaching to her lap, “it kinda broke us, really.”

“It sure did. I was due for a long, uneventful retirement.”

“We did.”

“And so Ponyville was normal again?” Luster asked, frowning. “What about the ponies that left?”

“They came back, of course,” Sweetie Belle said, hoof-waving Luster.

“Wait, really?” Luster shook her head. Of course, they came back. She wouldn’t be there otherwise. “I mean… How did you manage it?”

“It was easy,” Mare huffed. “I did nothing.”

“Trouble finds Ponyville, but Ponyvillians rise above it,” Cheerilee said.

“But the Apple Acre?” Luster asked.

“Replanted!”

“The School?”

“Restored and staffed.”

“And…”

“Everything was fine in the end,” Sweetie Belle said with a smile. “It… It just took time.”

Silence flushed back in between the group as a cool breeze flew over their head. The evening was upon the town.

“It’s getting late,” Sweetie Belle said, standing up. “Gotta come back to Apple Bloom.”

“Sleeping at the Acre?” Pinkie asked.

Sweetie Belle stood still for a second, then broke into a full-smiled yes. She bid her good-bye and ran off in the streets of Ponyville.

“It’s getting late indeed,” Cheerilee said, “and you’re welcome to stay at our home, Luster.”

“Am I?”

“Of course, you are,” Mare said with a smile. “And anyway, did you plan your overnight stay?”

“I didn’t plan for a stay at all.”

Mare closed her eyes and smiled. “Of course. Well, Cheerilee and I have to go grab some groceries again, catch you at the house.”

She fished out a key and gave it to Luster.

And quickly, only Luster and Pinkie remained.

“Are you okay, Luster,” Pinkie asked. “You don’t look happy.”

“I’m not.” Luster threw her hooves up. “I expected something else really. An actual punishment, really. Instead I just get a bizarre lesson.”

“Twilight wouldn’t do something without some well-formulated intention, trust me on that.” Pinkie guffawed. “Like we said, she does like her to-dos.”

“She sounds more like Celestia right now.”

Pinkie laughed. “Well, you don’t get the job without picking some of the quirks, right?”

Luster glared. “So did I pick some of Twilight’s?”

“You, nah,” Pinkie said. “You were born with them.”

Luster crossed her legs and turned around.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” Pinkie said, repressing a laugh.

“No, it’s fine. It’s just that, again, I feel cheated out of a punishment. Weirdly.”

“It happens.” Pinkie put her hoof on Luster’s shoulder. “Sometimes you get more than you wish, or a gift you didn’t expect. And you know what you can’t do with weird gift, right?” Luster shook her head. “Refuse them.”

“How can I refuse something I don’t really understand?”

“By not understanding them.”

Luster looked down. She knew she couldn’t expect to always get something on the first try. Though, she was good like that. Even some lessons needed some extra work. But usually she had guidelines. This homework, this field trip, it was something else.

“Come on,” Pinkie said. “It’s gonna be night soon. You must be hungry.”

And right on command, Luster’s stomach growled loudly. She turned around and smiled back at Pinkie.

“Thanks, Pinkie.” Luster held her breath, only to exhale through her nose. “I need to thank Mare and Cheerilee too.”

“I really think you should.”

Luster nodded. “Can I catch up with you? Give me five minutes.”

“Alright-y.”

As Pinkie trotted away, Luster nodded to herself and rummaged through her bag for Mare’s missive. Retrieving the now-crumpled envelope, she opened it, and removed the letter. With yet another sight, she unfolded it and went down to the post-scriptum. Lessons had to be worked on, multiple times if need be.”

“That was one terribly long lesson, Teacher.”

Aug. 20 - Megalocardia

A glass slid across the worn-out countertop and ground to a halt in front of Daring Do.

“It’s on the house.”

“I’m not asking for charity, ya know,” Daring growled, her head resting into her legs as she shuffled on her uncomfortable chair.

“None of you, space drifters, do. But sometimes that’s what you need.”

Daring threw a glance at the bartender, a unicorn mare with a coat so white it reminded Daring Do the walls of a sterile hospital — if that existed in this part of the solar system. “That’s just a trick to get me to spend my money here.”

“Tut-tut. To hell with your excuses. I can tell when somepony wants a drink.” Her laughter whizzed past Daring like a sharp blade. “Drink. Nopony comes here in my boui-boui on their own volition.”

Daring contemplated the glass. Devoid of any brand etched into its side or bottom. The type of plain glassware without a single mark of provenance peering through the rippling amber liquid it held. A good guess would say the thing had been industrially produced in factories back on some ponies’ homeworld. And though those factories had been silent and gone for a thousand years, artifacts of Ye Old still had the disposability of trash.

“What’s your name, drifter?” the mare asked.

“Daring.” Looking down at the drink, the space pilot pretended not to hear the bartender’s guffaw. “You?”

“Rarity.”

meg·a·lo·car·di·a — Abnormal enlargement of the heart
·
What if a machine, somewhere in the barren Celestial Solar System, could grant you any wish?
·
Daring Do has spent her life looking for an answer. After yet another unfruitful scouring of the ruins of her once-great pony race, she finds her way to a pub rocking along an asteroid belt. The bartender has more to offer than a drink.

Edited by.
Inspired by the song Melanocardia by the Russian post-rock band Aesthesys.

May. 21 - Grounded

“How patronizing of you...”

Entropy slapped Discord's paw out of her pink and black mane.

“I'm your father, Dear,” Discord said.

She rolled her eyes and plopped down in a puff of dirt next to the cliff edge her father had brought her to. Dragged her to, to be exact. It overlooked a large prairie the color of gold, the sun setting on the horizon casting each patch of grass with auburn shadows.

The view was neat, true, but she wouldn’t be remiss to let her father know that.

“And,” Discord said, lifting a claw to tap the large fang sticking out of his grin, “I am, after all, a god.”

“Well,” Entropy snickered, mimicking to the best of her ability her father's bravado, “so am I!”

“Oh come on, daughter,” he said with a smile, a paw laid on his chest, “You still have a long road to travel.”

“Not thanks to you,” she gruffed, then smirked. “And, at least, I’m enough of one to be as annoying.”

“Touché, kid.”

Discord raked his claws through her daughter’s disheveled mane; through her screech and punches of her tiny yellow hooves.

He sprung into the air, a longiline dash of lightning arching over Entropy, only to morph back into himself on her other side. Entropy hated when he tried to make a point.

“Stupid adults,” she growled.

Discord smiled and sat, his legs and tail dangling off the cliff.

“Teenagers,” he said with a smile.

She answered in her own way. Silence. She picked a stone and threw it.

Discord pinched his fingers together in anticipation, ready to snap the stone out of existence was an unlucky pony within range down below. But at the edge of emptiness towering over the fields of inner Equestria, Entropy and he were truly alone.

Relaxing, Discord glanced at the horizon towards a massive mountain far past the great plains. A myriad of windows shone there, lit by the twinkle of evening sunlight. So tiny they were that not a single silhouette of a building could be seen. But the reflections still carried through the distance and the late summer haze that warped the air. Discord didn’t have to see the far marble walls of Canterlot to know the city still lived, despite gone-by centuries. Like him, the castled city was a monolith. It endured.

As he reminisced about Canterlot, he smiled. Sky and castle lights would come with nighttime, pinpointing the towns around the old land of Equestria. As many places to visit, already visited in his case, and as many pranks to be hatched.

It showed there was still life here. New life that had long overtook old memories like ivy. But life nonetheless.

With a sigh, Discord stretched and lied back, elbows dug into two wilted patches of grass. Twilight was the best time of the day.

He snickered.

“Whatcha laughing at?” Entropy asked, accusatory.

“A horrifying pun,” Discord said, picking at the crook of his eye with his pinkie. “Nothing of importance.”

He gave her a tired look and she groused, crossing her legs across her chest, not missing to flare out her leathery wings in anger. “You’re... annoying.”

“Parents often are.”

“No, just you.”

Discord sighed again and sat up again, only to deflate and lay his head between his arms and knees. “I’m sorry. Even after all those centuries, I miss her too.”

Pinching his lips to a thin line, Discord lingered on the heavy weight in his chest. Cold, a void that sometimes overtook him, when the memories of the past clashed with the incertitudes of the future, and the precarities of the present. Even he, a god, sometimes felt the march of time. To be stuck in a current at the entry of a culvert pipe. Able to see everything at his back, and nothing through the darkness of the tunnel at his cloven hooves.

“How was she like?” Entropy asked. “You know that I… I don’t remember much. And I mean. You often talk about her. I just… I like when you speak about mom.”

“She was wonderful,” Discord said, not skipping a bit with a smile on his lips once the knot at the back of his throat wrestled. He scratched around his brush mane, pepper-and-salt rather than the other way around these days. “Wonderful… She made me feel grounded.”

Entropy laughed.

“What?”

“You make it sound like it’s a good thing.”

“For you, at this time of your life, maybe not. But you’ll understand.” I’m sorry you never got to be with her, or her friends really.”

“Well,” Entropy puffed, crossing her legs, “except Twilight?”

“Well, she’s… Twilight,” Discord said, a finger on his chin. “She’s more of an… eh, aunt.”

“I’d like it if you didn’t treat me like a child. I’m old!”

Discord flicked at her muzzle and she batted at his paw again. “For a pony, maybe. But you’re my daughter. And well, you age… differently.”

“Tell me I’m broken while you’re at it.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just that you grow so…”

“Slower?”

“Very much so.”

Silence held for a time.

“I grew up alone across the ages, Entropy. And I was hurting because of that. I just don’t want that for you.”

“So you keep me locked up. Away from the rest of the world.”

“No. No. I’m just trying to be a good father but I was never taught that. And you have and will outlive any carer that can help you or me. You’ve outgrown school, but not hit puberty yet. You’ve outgrown lifetimes yet nopony takes you seriously.”

“So I’m a freak?”

“You’re a goddess!”

“And yet I don’t have any power. And gods don’t know much, given you. And you’re not much of a god of chaos anymore too. Softy.”

“What’s chaos if it consistently happens. It just becomes stale and expected. No essence to that. Chaos, I’ve learned, champs at the bit.” “As for your power, you did get a cutie mark today.”

“After three hundred years!” “Fi-bloody-nally.”

“We will inscribe your name in Twilight’s book of records.”

“Which one?”

“Anyway, I don’t even know what it means. It just… appeared. Do you?”

“No, I… Gods don’t get cutie marks.”

“You’re not a really helpful father.”

“Family is a team process.”

“You were mentioning chomping at your bit. What are you planning?”

“Well, you wanted to know about your thing. So who better to ask than your Aunt. And it’s been such a long time! I would fancy some mayhem. Wouldn’t you?”

“You’re the god of chaos, not me.”

“Yeah, and you’re the god of grumple.”

Mar. 2020 - The Skinwalker

“There is a new predator in the forest,” Zecora whispered, her hoof jammed in the doorway of Fluttershy’s cottage, “and I want you to help me lay it to rest.”

“Uhm,” Fluttershy muttered back, ducking below the small chain that wouldn’t allow the door to swing further open. “You must be mistaken. Maybe A– Applejack, or Daring Do would–”

“It’s not all.” Zecora pinched her lips back, a tear of sweat tracing its way down her cheek. Her teeth bare in a pained grimace, she looked left and right, then stepped aside to press her flank by the door to see. A shoddy-taped pack of gauzes came to view, and with it, the red and brown of new blood beneath. “I need help above all.”

“Oh sweet Celestia,” Fluttershy gasped.

Wound

Trace

Nest

Stranger

Hunt

Apr. 2014 - Sweat, Flesh, Blood, And Bones - 4. We Will Lurk In Every Shadow

New Version:

Stares were riveted on the human girl, stalking each of her moves with a scientific and unnerving interest. Raising the spoon to her lips, Maria was drinking the soup she had been offered earlier. It was a mix of tomato, potato and other different vegetables she had no idea of. It was doughy but tasteful.
She was thankful for the stallion or the mare who cooked it for her. She was starving and this pain aching in her belly had lasted for too long.

The silence was quasi-religious and only her noisy swallows were twitching everypony’s ears. Raising her eyes she saw half a dozen of ponies all standing at a secured range from her, visibly afraid and paradoxically fascinated.
Still dangling over her shoulders, back and legs, her crimson cloth was awfully inconvenient and awkward, she had to readjust it regularly. But, for want of her better alternative, Maria had not left her improvised dress.

She was sitting in a vast chamber whose windows were composed of tainted glass narrating some deeds from the past. She glared at one showing six ponies, all of different colours encaging a strange monster within a purple glow. She recognized the six ponies, those she had met in that cave... She told no one, at least for the moment, and hoped nobody… nopony had seen her wince. At both sides of the windows hung the same long, red and silky curtains as the one she had snatched. They were waving eerily under the blow of an invisible wind.
The darkness was pregnant outside the windows, and sometimes a creepy howl was heard in the distance.
At nightfall, the room had been filled with thousands of candles, giving it the appearance of a gothic cathedral.

She snapped out of her daydreaming. Hoofsteps had echoed behind the massive gate of the banquet room. Sliding on their hinges the doors opened without a grating. Three stallions clad in silver-plated armor entered with Ray and Kreps in their tow. The last one was limping, helping himself with a cane. Silently they sat down next to Maria and were served the same frugal meal.

Kreps’s eyes wandered over the room. Even if the floor had been washed and the other tables moved, he recognized this place as the one where they had miserably fallen after the lavender unicorn had used her strange glowing trick. A small stain in the seal of a tile gave him the hint.
His stare stayed a long time fixed on the tainted glass. Then a gentle smile moved his lips as he fixed the contents of his bowl. He was starving too. Yet, he ate with the utmost difficulty, his throat was aching each time he swallowed and his stomach was in agony.

Ray on his own gave little importance to the goings-on around him, in the darkness produced by the biased flames of the candles he struggled finding the spoon.

“Is there a problem, sir?” one of the pony soldiers asked.

“I… I lost my glasses… I’m really short-sighed,” Ray confessed, ashamed.

The soldier nodded and evidenced the spoon with his hoof. Ray thanked him and started eating greedily once he grasped the utensil.

“You know what happened to Verd’?” Kreps put forward with hesitation, giving a glance at the unsettling stares of the ponies around.

Kreps was trying to talk as low as possible. He quickly found that the room had a perfect echoing structure. He would not be able to hide his words.

“He is in intensive care,” Maria answered without a conviction. “They said nothing if he is going to survive.”

She dealt the final blow to the specks of joy floating in the air and everyone sunk into an abyssal silent, fixing their bowls.

“And the kid?” Ray brought up.

Maria nibbled her bottom lip, Kreps drummed the tablecloth with his fingers and a scream erupted in the air. Everyone jumped out of their chair. Powerful steps stomped the ground outside. The wicks of the candles shook and some flames went blown away. From behind the closed threshold a voice started shouting.

“Princess Luna, stop! You’re going to…” – The door slammed inward – “…hurt you…” finished a purple pony with a horn and flapping wings.

Princess Luna flung herself in the room. Eyes widened and fearful, she drew circles in the middle of the chamber.
On her back was cramped the human child, his hand firmly tightened to Luna’s waving mane. Under his harm, a teddy-bear shook under the swerves of the alicorn. Luna rolled on the floor, finally able to get rid of the parasite on her back.
The kid stumbled on the floor, his hand riveted to the plush toy. His head hit a tile and droplets of blood ran on his face. He did not cry.

In the opening of the door appeared the five friends of the purple pony. They all had a hoof in front of their eyes, ready to swipe it from their forehead to their muzzle in a monumental grouped facehoof that would be remembered for generations.

Still on her flank, panting, Luna fixed the human kid with a dominant stare.

“This is mine!”

The child hissed and Luna jumped on her hooves with a mix of fear and anger in her eyes. She tried to snatch the toy off his hands, but the child’s grunt was enough to make the princess withdraw once again.

Raucous laughter rose from the neighbouring table. With her bloodshot eyes, Luna stared in its direction. The two human males were mocking her. Ponies around also had difficulty to shovel down their cravings to burst out in laughs. The girl on the other hoof was scanning the Princess with hawk-eyes.
Meanwhile, the kid disappeared under a table.

“You?!” Maria said abruptly.

Luna shifted her eyes and the revelation popped in her mind. The girl!

“You were in my dream!” Maria kept going, her voice more stern than before.

She had seen the alicorn when they miserably appeared in that chamber, but she had not paid attention at the moment. Right now, Maria was clearly visualizing the features of the blue coated winged, whatever, pony. She had seen the mighty animal in her dream… before she had even met her.

“It’s Our duty to watch upon the dreams of others!” Luna spoke, trying to get the upper hoof on the creature facing her.

The three humans became suddenly silent.

“You what?” Kreps hissed.

“We enter the dreams of our fellow ponies to chase their nightmares away,” the princess answered with proudness.

“You sneaked… into our minds,” Maria erupted, gritting her teeth and showing her canines to the assembly. “You spied on us?”

The sudden burst of anger dunked everypony’s head in their shoulders. Luna mumbled. Maria was ready to give a final turn to the screw and leap on the alicorn.
With a cry, Ray raised his hand, shutting Maria’s mouth up, making her sit slowly. Her stare kept glaring death threats at the alicorn.

“The question is how can you enter our mind?” Ray queried the Princess.

“Magic,” a purple pony interposed herself between Ray and Luna.

“Twilight…” Luna tried, vexed.

“And a rational explanation rather than the common ‘shut up it’s magic’,” Ray cut the young princess.

Twilight winced, not getting the reference.

“No I’m not kidding,” Twilight stomped the ground. “How do you think I teleported you here?”

The three humans took a pause… a long unsettling pause. Then their eyes commonly set upon Twilight with an expression of disclosed hatred. The pony swallowed.

“You tried to kill us in that cave…” Kreps hissed.

Maria studied her spoon, probing the sharpness of its contours.

“It was a sleep spell, but of course when I try something simple I have to stumble on something that somehow messed with my magic,” Twilight sniggered sarcastically. “And you were the one who attacked Fluttershy.”

Kreps raised a brow. Behind Twilight walked the butter-coated pony he had met earlier.

“Twilight, I repeat that it was okay. They saved…” she tried to convince with a voice nearly inaudible.

“And your friend, confess that you were going to kill him!” Twilight added without an ounce of attention for Fluttershy. “That you wanted to eat him, you cannibals!”

Ray raised a finger, calling for silence. Everypony remarked he was not shocked by these accusations, just strangely troubled.

“First, yes we were going to kill him before you arrived,” the listening ponies gasped and gave a hoofstep back from the table. “But he was going to die anyway. It was… mercy.”

“Mercy? And cannibalism in that story?” Twilight smirked with disgust.

“It was p…”

“Silence!” Fluttershy shouted with enough strength that Twilight jumped out of her horseshoes.

The gentle pony took place between the two parties. She fixed her friend.

“They saved me from a Wyvern,” she spelled slowly – In her back Kreps joined the palm of his hands, praying the god who gifted him somebody who finally knew the lexicon –. “It’s been five hours since I tried to tell you this, but you can be such a mule when you want to!”

Twilight’s eyes swelled, her timid Fluttershy, facing her like this. Twilight’s lips shivered, tears rolled on her cheeks.

“I… I’m sorry,” Fluttershy whispered, seeing her hurt friend. “I…”

“No it’s me who’s sorry. It’s true, I’m a mule…” Twilight gratified her friend with a hug.

Ray, Kreps and Maria frowned, sticking their tongues out with disgust, revolted by such a soppy play. Luna was still standing by Twilight side. She had been silent during the argument and she visibly wanted to come back on the leading edge.

“Let’s get back to the main topic, would thou? Yes, We entered your dream. Yes, We spied on you, but it was out of curiosity,” she threw, trying to lower her aggressiveness.

Luna calmed down and added, “Thou aren’t from this world, are you?”

The Mane Six had gathered around the princess, and the last sentence had every stare glued on the trio, who sat at the only table of the vast chamber. Kreps and Ray shared a stressed look, feeling surrounded and defenseless.

“I…” Ray initiated.

“No, we're not,” Maria slithered in. “I talked with the other princess… Celestia. We come from somewhere else.”

Everyone and everypony turned muted, giving place to an atrociously long silence who petrified every party.

“What's your world like?”

Stares set upon… Applejack. She was curious and as scared as everypony else, but honesty was also her curse.

“How did your world make y'all into wrecks?”

She mentioned their limp limbs, the skin over their bones, their horrid appearance, everything that made the humans monsters in ponies eyes.

“Kreps?” Ray asked. “You’re the best at storytelling when Verd’ is not here. Go ahead.”

The German sighed. He swept the room with his sorry eyes.

“Earth, the blue planet… A magnificent place four billions years old where life birthed in some random oceans and sprawled over the seas, the earth and the air. There, in some region called Africa a species raised itself to the top of the animal kingdom. Its name was humankind.”

Kreps saw the captivated eyes of his audience. He made the suspense last.

“Our race thrives upon the lands, scavenging it, digging it, shaping it to our own and sole will. We built self-propelled vehicles that sent us to our moon,” he said pointing the sky through the picture windows.

Luna’s jaw fell slightly, dangling at Kreps’s words.

“We built engines to go faster than any living creature,” – one of the ponies, a rainbow pegasus standing next to the princess twitched her ears –. “…breaking barriers that we thought forbidden to us. We built machines to free us from any carving. We erected monuments to our own glory, touching the sky with our burning will to compete with deaf and blind gods. We forged our path, imposing our power over everything because we were the only sentient beings on our soil. We master our world with our bare hands.”

He showed to everypony the palm of his right hand and closed it violently, mimicking the power within the palm of monarchs.

“We built our paved roads, our shining cities and our complex machineries without magic… only with the sweat of our forehead, with the pain in our hands and the blood of hundred anonymous generations. Our cities shone in the mountains, reverberate the light in the plains, brighten the sand of our deserts, interconnected with endless streets where our seven billons brothers agitate like insects within their hive…”

Drawing this superior view of his civilisation, Kreps wanted to spread an emotion in the ponies. And he did it well. No mouth was shut, no eyes was neutral. And the frail light of the candles was giving strength to his flawless speech.

“So why are y’all so… rotten?” Applejack sniggered, feeling the lie between this sweet talk.

“Because he’s saying half the truth,” a limp voice erupted from the gate.

Everypony turned around.
Celestia was standing next to an improvised wheelchair. Verdugo was sitting limply in it, wrapped in bandages, with intravenous running through his body. He was pale and shivering due to the blood loss he had suffered and pain was easily readable on his ghoulish face. He had difficulties staying awake.

Maria and her friends stood up and dashed maniacally to their friend.

“You did it!” Ray cried.

“A piece of me only,” Verdugo responded, pointing his… missing arm.

They all glared at Celestia who held back a bad feeling.

“You cut his arm?” Maria spelled slowly with a disclosed anger.

The princess tried to answer. Verdugo raised his left hand.

“Tis just a flesh wound, won’t be a burden to kick your ass during the next game,” he said to her foster sister – He gave an amused look to Kreps, then to everypony. Oh god he wanted to play a game of “Baraka” –. “But let’s go back to your little story, Kreps.”

Verdugo gently asked the stallion pushing his chair to stabilize him in the middle of the gathering. Kreps’s face whitened as Verdugo strated clearing his voice.

“What Kreps didn't have the courage to tell you,” he smiled. “The whole fucking thing. Mankind is not a peaceful race. We are warriors with no natural skin armour to protect us, with no claws to defend us, with no teeth to rip off the meat off our enemy’s neck.”

He lifted his arm over his head, grunting in pain, showing to every eyes staring at him the truth in his demonstration.

“Someday, someone, you can call it Providence, the Almighty, I don’t care… Someone said that man was a yet-to-be god, and swept us over the surface of Earth, destroying with anger and angst the first human’s common work, a tower that reached the sky. It tore apart the prime idiom of our first civilisation to be sure that in the end, we will never be able to take the upper hand on the universe.”

Verdugo stared laughing imperceptibly.

“But Man is particularly spiteful and revanchist. He gathered in many countries and each of them tried to build his own tower, with its own rules and its own languages. But man isn’t just spiteful against the universe, no…
He's a jealous being who looked down at the other's to see what he could steal, copy and use while he would force his own vision down others' throats and minds.”

Verdugo snatched a glass of water off the neighbouring table and drunk it in one mouthful. He breathed loudly.

“Men, because we can’t say ‘Man’ anymore, tried to make sure that everyone else would follow their own will instead of the other's. So they invented the almighty way of war.”

Shivers spread on everypony’s fur.

“Men are freewill-gifted wild animals, wolves which search for power and make choices, terrible choices though,” he shook his head in sorrow. “This is why men created culture and society, trying to encage themselves in a set of rules to make sure the beast and the sickness inside stay well-behaved until the end of times.”

Verdugo distorted his face with a maddening smile, unveiling his rotten yellow teeth. Some ponies held back the gag in their stomach.

“But in fact, men never cease to be violent. Because men encaged themselves, they started getting used to rules and routines. If violence entered the routine nobody will bat an eye, but once the violence or something else come tickling this insanity of repeating the same speech, habits and deeds over and over again… Then everyone loses their minds. And that is exactly what happened. We lost our minds.”

Verdugo sniggered; satisfied with the expression of horror the ponies were giving to him. He was even more amused that his three friends had lowered their stares, looking down at their feet with shame.

“More than three years ago, a trigger was pressed and our world ceased to exist as we knew it. People grabbed their weapons and threw themselves at each others’ throats, trying to do something that rules and unnatural instincts tried to make them forget… survival, simple survival,” he circled his neck with his hand, imitating strangulation. “We ripped each others’ faces, we killed, we raped, we scavenged, we ate, we hated… words can’t suffice, but keep this image in your mind that Kreps tried to hide. We may have the nature bend before ourselves, but we never break the truth lying, hidden, deep within every human’s heart… the truth that in the end we are all monsters, bound by blood.”

His three friends had taken a seat, shaking from these revelations. Verdugo had brought back ‘good old’ memories. He was even more satisfied by the graveyard silence stagnant in the air.

“What is that trigger you’re talking about?” Celestia hazarded herself with an irrepressible fear shaking her hooves.

Verdugo’s smile grew creepier, keeping the suspense aloft. He spelled with delight, pointing at Celestia’s tattoo over her stifle.

“The sun simply decided to wipe off the earth our six thousand years of history and four millions years of evolution; and leaded us to kill each other in a global bloodbath that saw six billions people put… to the sword.”

He laughed.

“You should see the look on your faces,” he spelled with amusement and turned to look at his friends. “What? Truth never killed people, did it?”

Everypony had slid their eyes on Celestia. She was blemish, having difficulty keeping her composure.

“Don’t you freak out Princess, you told me on the way that you raise the sun and other things. Not that I don’t believe that absolute monarchy is a stable regime, but why are you so shaken by a simple sun?”

“I really move the sun at my will, mister,” Celestia despised the disrespectful human.

To her avail, her horn suddenly glowed white and the sun jet from the horizon outside the palace. A second later Luna’s horn glowed a dark blue and the moon took back its rightful place up in the night sky. Verdugo smiled with amusement, Kreps slapped himself and Maria hid her face behind the palm of her hand.

“I think I’m gonna hate this place,” Ray sighed, blasé.

Accompanied with her sister and the Mane-Six, Celestia left the room a knot firmly tied in her stomach, melted in bile of anger and unfathomable sadness.

The five humans stayed in, drinking their mixed food. The kid had kept the plush and was now tearing off its obsidian eyes with his teeth.

“I think you sealed up our fate Verd’…” Maria sighed with despair.

“I made a choice. Don’t wanna blame me for this.”

“You and your choices… You’ll kill all of us someday. You really had to make yourself the villain of the story?”

Verdugo gave a last laugh before catching the soup bowl with his left hand and lift it to his mouth, drinking it with greed. He scanned his friends.

“Apparently they have locked away all of our remaining weapons,” Verdugo stated with an atrocious pragmatism, mentioning they had left they metal case in the meadow before the wyvern’s assault. “And your box, Kreps?”

The German shook his head. Everyone sighed, understanding they were short on their options.

ϧ α ϼ ϖ ϡ ϖ ϼ α ϧ

“We can’t keep them,” Luna struck the table with her hoof. “You heard that Verdugo? They are monsters!”

“I don’t want to look like a human,” Twilight added, sniggering with her comparison. “But I’m with Luna on this idea. They were ready to kill their own ‘friend’. Can you believe that?!”

The small chamber displayed little furniture, a long and oval table covered with a purple leathered cover and a rack where a cowmare hat dangled. The walls were upholstered with red covers and over a sleeping hearth stood crossed a sword and a scroll, carved in the same piece of silver.
Stares fixed both Luna and Twilight. Among them were Celestia, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Leading Hooves, the right arm stallion of Shining Armor who had been dragged there from under his bed sheets.

“Stop jumping over the cart Twilight,” Applejack tried to reason her. “We don’t really know about them, maybe they were joking or lying!”

“They are monsters, you heard them. They confess they were murderers and other stuff that creep me out so much I don’t want to bring it on the top of the agenda.”

“Twilight!” Celestia erupted, using the Canterlot voice.

Twilight dunked her head, terrified by the sudden vocal burst of her beloved teacher.

“Twilight,” Celestia added with a more gentle tone. “Don’t overcommit yourself, your mind blurs and refuses to see other’s points of view when you’re angry. Don’t you remember what I taught you?”

“Yes Princess, I’m sorry,” the concerned lavender alicorn replied, shameful.

“Nopony can be bad to the core Twilight,” Fluttershy tried.

“They are not ponies, remember.”

“They are from an advanced civilisation, if what they said is true. Don’t you understand what does that mean…” Rarity added, sparks in her eyes.

“They said their civilisation has been blown away.”

“They built super-fast machines!!” Rainbow cried, bursting her wings and flying in the air to get muzzle to muzzle with Twilight.

“That may be a lie to trick us,” Twilight sniggered, pushing aside Rainbow’s face.

Everypony sighed, stuck in a dead end.

“They need care and kindness,” Fluttershy advanced shyly. “We can all see they had suffered. Look, even that guy, Verdugo… He got his arm cut and he didn’t seem to care about it. And… that poor girl, ponies whispered about her ‘cutie mark’.”

“He was going to die Fluttershy,” Luna rolled her eyes. “We think that We would trade a hoof for staying alive, who wouldn’t? And for that girl…”

“Cease about it,” Celestia sighed. “I promised Maria we won’t talk about it until she is ready to speak about it by herself.”

Everypony shut up, worried looks plaguing their features.

“Fluttershy is right,” Rarity tagged with her friend, breaking the silence. “How can we be the Elements of Harmony if we can’t give them a chance to prove they are good, or at least not as bad as they look.”

Rarity had glued in her eyes the horrible appearance of the humans. Pigs were the only convenient comparison she had. But the girl had washed herself, and yes, she could give them a chance. Maybe she would learn about their fashion, they were wearing clothes and visibly, the girl had displayed cleverness to keep her modesty safe.

“You could learn innumerable things from them Twilight,” Celestia smiled, having found the right incentives for her faithful student.

And she was right, stars of greed sparked in Twilight’s eyes.

“And if we keep them, I’ll throw them a welcoming party!” Pinkie Pie finally burst after being silent all along, overwhelmed by the cries and screams everypony had been shooting at eachother.

“I won’t let them leave the castle for the moment Pinkie, I think you’ll have to do it with a restrained audience or wait until I am assured they are… safe for my little ponies to see and deal with them,” Celestia cut in her joy. “I must agree with Twilight and my sister on this point. Even if we give them a chance, I still consider them as dangerous. The Royal Guard is examining their possessions right now. This is why I’ve woken you up Leading.”

The stallion snapped out of his sitting nap.

“Yes, sure Princess. They had on them a load of weapons, swords, axes, and…” – Leading Hooves casted a glance at Twilight –. “… Three strange cylinders with the weapon you brought. We still don’t know how it works but we are acting with precautions. And I don’t want to take a side in your disputes, but the edges of their weapons are dirty and used… and not on something inert.”

Nopony dared counter his statement.

Days passed…

ϧ α ϼ ϖ ϡ ϖ ϼ α ϧ

Plunged in the dark, the hive was buzzing under the agitation of thousands of changelings, busy fulfilling the tasks they were given at birth and that they would carry on until the bells of death tolled for them. Thousands of glowing eyes were moving in tidy lines endlessly, a designed objective in their minds. Moving forward, drilling through the mass of his brothers, a changeling was limping toward the deepest stages of the cyclopean construction.

The walls were blackened by sick mucus produced by the builders. Everything was ruled by the dogma of efficiency. Everything had to have a place and was meant to not drift away from it. Those who failed to follow this order successfully were ineluctably thrown away. They became useless for the hive.

He stood firmly in front of a greenish bioluminescent gate. A changeling’s crown was stamped on it, likely burned with an ember. He gulped, felling nauseous as a powerful surge of magic crawled from under the door like the tongue of an undisclosed monster, licking his face, tasting a petrified prey like a predator before his deadly leap.

The gates gritted on its biologic hinges and a rotten air slapped the changeling’s muzzle. He winced; a violent light was creeping out of the chamber too.
He took a long and deep breath and entered.

In the light, the changeling’s feature became more explicit. Small clumps of dark green mane were sprouting out of his back and head, hiding his eyes slightly. Numerous scars were grieving his exoskeleton.
He stepped forward, queasy and jumped swiftly when the huge door slammed in his back. He wiped the sweat of his forehead, running in his blue eyes. His shredded wings whizzed in the hair, throwing a painful aching in his body.

He kneeled in the light, tilting his head in a message of fear and respect.

“My Queen,” he implored with respect.

“Oh, my dear Pathog you can call me by my true name,” Chrysalis replied with a grin of amusement.

“Yes… mother.”

Chrysalis was lying on a construct made of thousands of hatched eggs, all solidified into a throne of horror. The light was blooming from the celling where an opening filled with mirrors was reverberating the light from the surface.
Pathog laid his eyes on the queen, his mother. She never fully recovered from the attack on Equestria. One of her legs was twisted in the wrong way and a scar was slashing over her face. Her wings were also damaged. Yet, they were growing back, slowly, for a year and a half now they had been reshaping into their original form.

“Come to me my son,” she said with gentleness. “It has been so long since I had a discussion with you or your brothers.”

The changeling went stoic.

“Have you heard me? Come here!”

“I, I can’t,” the changeling sobbed. “Vector and Host are dead, I’m sorry.”

One of Chrysalis's hollowed hooves slid off her couch in awe, tiny tears rolled from her eyes, twinkling in the brightening light falling from the hole above her. The despair… She felt it pulling her down like a heavy anchor, down into the murky waters of oblivion. First she had lost a war and a majority of her people… now, she had lost two sons… Only one remained. Without his approval, Chrysalis grabbed Pathog with a disincarnated claw of green sparkling magic and dragged him to her side, hugging him in a mother like reflex, like a toy she could use to keep the sorrow away.
Pathog struggled at first, but as he was unable to fight back this wave of affection and the godly strength of her mother, he gave up.

“I’m so sorry, it all went wrong. We had tracked down that pony from Celestia’s peons. We wanted to mug her for you, to make you proud. But that monster came up and took us down and…”

Chrysalis put her hoof on his lips, forcing a smile from her own.

“Hush now, it’s okay…”

“No, it’s not okay, there were these five smooth-faced, blood-stained, reeking monsters walking on two legs. They flashed out in front of me. But I was not deceived. There are monsters in Equestria now.”

Pathog casted a glance at her sorrowful mother. She was lost in her thoughts, tears still dropping. With gentleness Pathog wiped them off her cheeks and dried them in his mane. Back in the cave he had been shaken by the creatures’ appearance. It was only after his escape he finally understood what happened that day.
He had made his way back to the South, down to the Badlands where the hive had withered over the last centuries. But with the help of the changeling’s he had found while withdrawing, he did not come back with empty hooves.

“Mother, I have something more to tell you.”

Chrysalis looked down at him, tightening her loving embrace, swallowing a gag of sadness.

“Yes my child?”

“We found a metal case in Equestria while I was escorted back here. We haven’t opened it yet. Do you want to be the first to see it? I think it belonged to the creatures I saw.”

Chrysalis nodded, unconvinced but unwilling to hurt her last son’s feelings. Pathog clapped his twisted hooves and two changelings entered pushing the gate inward and carrying an imposing metal case. With the help of her magic, Chrysalis blew up the lock and opened it.

She drew out a long sword splattered with dried blood. The smell was unbearable, thicker than the horrid smell of her own room. The queen’s muzzle winced under the repetitive assaults of this stench. Dropping it, the queen started rumbling in the case. Bemused and curious she spread the contents of the trunk on the floor. She watched clueless on a dozen of strangely shaped objects she knew nothing about.
Everything was rusted and dusty, and horribly stained with nothing but blood. The monsters Pathog had described were apparently warriors with an impressive technologic advance in weaponry. With her magic she lifted up a strange cylinder, approximately four feet long. Circled with a wooden protection, the cylinder displayed another large but smaller twin on what seemed to be its top. At each end was a convex lens. She looked through with curiosity. It was a magnifying glass, and a good one in spite of the cracks tearing the ledges of one. Stuck to it was a strange rectangular and metallic system. She tried to take it off. Facing a small resistance she forced the system with her magic.
The rectangle container dropped on the floor and five brass cones bounced around, rolling randomly in the corners of the room.

There were similar shaped objects in the case. All had different lengths and weights but presented in the end the same blueprint; a brass cylinder which first end showed a tiny recess circled with numbers and letters. The other end differed. The diameter was diminishing rapidly and encaged a metallic tip.
Chrysalis broke it and black particles fell on the ground. The queen titled her head toward the small pyramid of dark specks, trying to smell it.

She sneezed repetitively; a few dark grains had got into her muzzle.

“Are you alright mother?” Pathog asked with angst.

“Yes, yes it’s nothing, just dirt…” she defended herself.

Chrysalis shaped the small heap of particles with her heel, drawing a line from it.

“Bring me some fire,” she ordered. “I think I know what it is.”

Pathog, snatched a candle from Chrysalis’s chamber desk. The queen grabbed it with violence and let it drop on the compound. It instantly took fire and crackled in front of her. A horrid smile chased the sorrow off her face while random sparks of light lit her features.

“How did you…” Pathog hesitated, still stunned by the chemical reaction.

“I’m old my son, I’ve seen a lot in this world mortals would not dare imagine. Griffons and ponies use the powder for fireworks,” – she grabbed another cartridge –. “But it seemed that our intruders have made some deadly weapons from it.”

Pathog swallowed, it had been a long time since he had seen her mother with a smile this wide. It was not joy or sadness… but a grin betraying the birthing shenanigans and deceptions she was assembling in the tortuous twists and turns of her mind.

“Pathog,” Chrysalis ordered as her son came to attention. “Take a note please; I have some letters to send.”

Her smile was contagious. She started laughing maniacally, forgetting about her damaged leg. Pathog followed her fit of madness. He was happier than ever, his mother was back in track. The laughter burst out of her lungs and spread in the corridors of the hive, reaching everylings’ ears.

The insanity of her voice sprawled in their minds and the Hive shook under the hooves of the changelings, more agitated than ever, joining in with the queen’s cry of havoc.
Chrysalis howled, her sharp teeth shining under the pit of light.

“Let’s watch the castle burn!”

Old Version:

Stares were riveted on the human girl, stalking each of her moves with a scientific and unnerving interest. Raising the spoon to her lips, Maria was drinking the soup she had been offered earlier. It was a mix of tomato, potato and other different vegetables she had no idea of. It was doughy but tasteful.
She was thankful for the stallion or the mare who cooked it for her. She was starving and this pain aching in her belly had lasted for too long.

The silence was quasi-religious and only her noisy swallows were twitching everypony’s ears. Raising her eyes she saw half a dozen of ponies all standing at a secured range from her, visibly afraid and paradoxically fascinated.
Still dangling over her shoulders, back and legs, her crimson cloth was awfully inconvenient and awkward, she had to readjust it regularly. But, for want of her better alternative, Maria had not left her improvised dress.

She was sitting in a vast chamber whose windows were composed of tainted glass narrating some deeds from the past. She glared at one showing six ponies, all of different colours encaging a strange monster within a purple glow. She recognized the six ponies, those she had met in that cave... She told no one, at least for the moment, and hoped nobody… nopony had seen her wince. At both sides of the windows hung the same long, red and silky curtains as the one she had snatched. They were waving eerily under the blow of an invisible wind.
The darkness was pregnant outside the windows, and sometimes a creepy howl was heard in the distance.
At nightfall, the room had been filled with thousands of candles, giving it the appearance of a gothic cathedral.

She snapped out of her daydreaming. Hoofsteps had echoed behind the massive gate of the banquet room. Sliding on their hinges the doors opened without a grating. Three stallions clad in silver-plated armor entered with Ray and Kreps in their tow. The last one was limping, helping himself with a cane. Silently they sat down next to Maria and were served the same frugal meal.

Kreps’s eyes wandered over the room. Even if the floor had been washed and the other tables moved, he recognized this place as the one where they had miserably fallen after the lavender unicorn had used her strange glowing trick. A small stain in the seal of a tile gave him the hint.
His stare stayed a long time fixed on the tainted glass. Then a gentle smile moved his lips as he fixed the contents of his bowl. He was starving too. Yet, he ate with the utmost difficulty, his throat was aching each time he swallowed and his stomach was in agony.

Ray on his own gave little importance to the goings-on around him, in the darkness produced by the biased flames of the candles he struggled finding the spoon.

“Is there a problem, sir?” one of the pony soldiers asked.

“I… I lost my glasses… I’m really short-sighed,” Ray confessed, ashamed.

The soldier nodded and evidenced the spoon with his hoof. Ray thanked him and started eating greedily once he grasped the utensil.

“You know what happened to Verd’?” Kreps put forward with hesitation, giving a glance at the unsettling stares of the ponies around.

Kreps was trying to talk as low as possible. He quickly found that the room had a perfect echoing structure. He would not be able to hide his words.

“He is in intensive care,” Maria answered without a conviction. “They said nothing if he is going to survive.”

She dealt the final blow to the specks of joy floating in the air and everyone sunk into an abyssal silent, fixing their bowls.

“And the kid?” Ray brought up.

Maria nibbled her bottom lip, Kreps drummed the tablecloth with his fingers and a scream erupted in the air. Everyone jumped out of their chair. Powerful steps stomped the ground outside. The wicks of the candles shook and some flames went blown away. From behind the closed threshold a voice started shouting.

“Princess Luna, stop! You’re going to…” – The door slammed inward – “…hurt you…” finished a purple pony with a horn and flapping wings.

Princess Luna flung herself in the room. Eyes widened and fearful, she drew circles in the middle of the chamber.
On her back was cramped the human child, his hand firmly tightened to Luna’s waving mane. Under his harm, a teddy-bear shook under the swerves of the alicorn. Luna rolled on the floor, finally able to get rid of the parasite on her back.
The kid stumbled on the floor, his hand riveted to the plush toy. His head hit a tile and droplets of blood ran on his face. He did not cry.

In the opening of the door appeared the five friends of the purple pony. They all had a hoof in front of their eyes, ready to swipe it from their forehead to their muzzle in a monumental grouped facehoof that would be remembered for generations.

Still on her flank, panting, Luna fixed the human kid with a dominant stare.

“This is mine!”

The child hissed and Luna jumped on her hooves with a mix of fear and anger in her eyes. She tried to snatch the toy off his hands, but the child’s grunt was enough to make the princess withdraw once again.

Raucous laughter rose from the neighbouring table. With her bloodshot eyes, Luna stared in its direction. The two human males were mocking her. Ponies around also had difficulty to shovel down their cravings to burst out in laughs. The girl on the other hoof was scanning the Princess with hawk-eyes.
Meanwhile, the kid disappeared under a table.

“You?!” Maria said abruptly.

Luna shifted her eyes and the revelation popped in her mind. The girl!

“You were in my dream!” Maria kept going, her voice more stern than before.

She had seen the alicorn when they miserably appeared in that chamber, but she had not paid attention at the moment. Right now, Maria was clearly visualizing the features of the blue coated winged, whatever, pony. She had seen the mighty animal in her dream… before she had even met her.

“It’s Our duty to watch upon the dreams of others!” Luna spoke, trying to get the upper hoof on the creature facing her.

The three humans became suddenly silent.

“You what?” Kreps hissed.

“We enter the dreams of our fellow ponies to chase their nightmares away,” the princess answered with proudness.

“You sneaked… into our minds,” Maria erupted, gritting her teeth and showing her canines to the assembly. “You spied on us?”

The sudden burst of anger dunked everypony’s head in their shoulders. Luna mumbled. Maria was ready to give a final turn to the screw and leap on the alicorn.
With a cry, Ray raised his hand, shutting Maria’s mouth up, making her sit slowly. Her stare kept glaring death threats at the alicorn.

“The question is how can you enter our mind?” Ray queried the Princess.

“Magic,” a purple pony interposed herself between Ray and Luna.

“Twilight…” Luna tried, vexed.

“And a rational explanation rather than the common ‘shut up it’s magic’,” Ray cut the young princess.

Twilight winced, not getting the reference.

“No I’m not kidding,” Twilight stomped the ground. “How do you think I teleported you here?”

The three humans took a pause… a long unsettling pause. Then their eyes commonly set upon Twilight with an expression of disclosed hatred. The pony swallowed.

“You tried to kill us in that cave…” Kreps hissed.

Maria studied her spoon, probing the sharpness of its contours.

“It was a sleep spell, but of course when I try something simple I have to stumble on something that somehow messed with my magic,” Twilight sniggered sarcastically. “And you were the one who attacked Fluttershy.”

Kreps raised a brow. Behind Twilight walked the butter-coated pony he had met earlier.

“Twilight, I repeat that it was okay. They saved…” she tried to convince with a voice nearly inaudible.

“And your friend, confess that you were going to kill him!” Twilight added without an ounce of attention for Fluttershy. “That you wanted to eat him, you cannibals!”

Ray raised a finger, calling for silence. Everypony remarked he was not shocked by these accusations, just strangely troubled.

“First, yes we were going to kill him before you arrived,” the listening ponies gasped and gave a hoofstep back from the table. “But he was going to die anyway. It was… mercy.”

“Mercy? And cannibalism in that story?” Twilight smirked with disgust.

“It was p…”

“Silence!” Fluttershy shouted with enough strength that Twilight jumped out of her horseshoes.

The gentle pony took place between the two parties. She fixed her friend.

“They saved me from a Wyvern,” she spelled slowly – In her back Kreps joined the palm of his hands, praying the god who gifted him somebody who finally knew the lexicon –. “It’s been five hours since I tried to tell you this, but you can be such a mule when you want to!”

Twilight’s eyes swelled, her timid Fluttershy, facing her like this. Twilight’s lips shivered, tears rolled on her cheeks.

“I… I’m sorry,” Fluttershy whispered, seeing her hurt friend. “I…”

“No it’s me who’s sorry. It’s true, I’m a mule…” Twilight gratified her friend with a hug.

Ray, Kreps and Maria frowned, sticking their tongues out with disgust, revolted by such a soppy play. Luna was still standing by Twilight side. She had been silent during the argument and she visibly wanted to come back on the leading edge.

“Let’s get back to the main topic, would thou? Yes, We entered your dream. Yes, We spied on you, but it was out of curiosity,” she threw, trying to lower her aggressiveness.

Luna calmed down and added, “Thou aren’t from this world, are you?”

The Mane Six had gathered around the princess, and the last sentence had every stare glued on the trio, who sat at the only table of the vast chamber. Kreps and Ray shared a stressed look, feeling surrounded and defenseless.

“I…” Ray initiated.

“No, we're not,” Maria slithered in. “I talked with the other princess… Celestia. We come from somewhere else.”

Everyone and everypony turned muted, giving place to an atrociously long silence who petrified every party.

“What's your world like?”

Stares set upon… Applejack. She was curious and as scared as everypony else, but honesty was also her curse.

“How did your world make y'all into wrecks?”

She mentioned their limp limbs, the skin over their bones, their horrid appearance, everything that made the humans monsters in ponies eyes.

“Kreps?” Ray asked. “You’re the best at storytelling when Verd’ is not here. Go ahead.”

The German sighed. He swept the room with his sorry eyes.

“Earth, the blue planet… A magnificent place four billions years old where life birthed in some random oceans and sprawled over the seas, the earth and the air. There, in some region called Africa a species raised itself to the top of the animal kingdom. Its name was humankind.”

Kreps saw the captivated eyes of his audience. He made the suspense last.

“Our race thrives upon the lands, scavenging it, digging it, shaping it to our own and sole will. We built self-propelled vehicles that sent us to our moon,” he said pointing the sky through the picture windows.

Luna’s jaw fell slightly, dangling at Kreps’s words.

“We built engines to go faster than any living creature,” – one of the ponies, a rainbow pegasus standing next to the princess twitched her ears –. “…breaking barriers that we thought forbidden to us. We built machines to free us from any carving. We erected monuments to our own glory, touching the sky with our burning will to compete with deaf and blind gods. We forged our path, imposing our power over everything because we were the only sentient beings on our soil. We master our world with our bare hands.”

He showed to everypony the palm of his right hand and closed it violently, mimicking the power within the palm of monarchs.

“We built our paved roads, our shining cities and our complex machineries without magic… only with the sweat of our forehead, with the pain in our hands and the blood of hundred anonymous generations. Our cities shone in the mountains, reverberate the light in the plains, brighten the sand of our deserts, interconnected with endless streets where our seven billons brothers agitate like insects within their hive…”

Drawing this superior view of his civilisation, Kreps wanted to spread an emotion in the ponies. And he did it well. No mouth was shut, no eyes was neutral. And the frail light of the candles was giving strength to his flawless speech.

“So why are y’all so… rotten?” Applejack sniggered, feeling the lie between this sweet talk.

“Because he’s saying half the truth,” a limp voice erupted from the gate.

Everypony turned around.
Celestia was standing next to an improvised wheelchair. Verdugo was sitting limply in it, wrapped in bandages, with intravenous running through his body. He was pale and shivering due to the blood loss he had suffered and pain was easily readable on his ghoulish face. He had difficulties staying awake.

Maria and her friends stood up and dashed maniacally to their friend.

“You did it!” Ray cried.

“A piece of me only,” Verdugo responded, pointing his… missing arm.

They all glared at Celestia who held back a bad feeling.

“You cut his arm?” Maria spelled slowly with a disclosed anger.

The princess tried to answer. Verdugo raised his left hand.

“Tis just a flesh wound, won’t be a burden to kick your ass during the next game,” he said to her foster sister – He gave an amused look to Kreps, then to everypony. Oh god he wanted to play a game of “Baraka” –. “But let’s go back to your little story, Kreps.”

Verdugo gently asked the stallion pushing his chair to stabilize him in the middle of the gathering. Kreps’s face whitened as Verdugo strated clearing his voice.

“What Kreps didn't have the courage to tell you,” he smiled. “The whole fucking thing. Mankind is not a peaceful race. We are warriors with no natural skin armour to protect us, with no claws to defend us, with no teeth to rip off the meat off our enemy’s neck.”

He lifted his arm over his head, grunting in pain, showing to every eyes staring at him the truth in his demonstration.

“Someday, someone, you can call it Providence, the Almighty, I don’t care… Someone said that man was a yet-to-be god, and swept us over the surface of Earth, destroying with anger and angst the first human’s common work, a tower that reached the sky. It tore apart the prime idiom of our first civilisation to be sure that in the end, we will never be able to take the upper hand on the universe.”

Verdugo stared laughing imperceptibly.

“But Man is particularly spiteful and revanchist. He gathered in many countries and each of them tried to build his own tower, with its own rules and its own languages. But man isn’t just spiteful against the universe, no…
He's a jealous being who looked down at the other's to see what he could steal, copy and use while he would force his own vision down others' throats and minds.”

Verdugo snatched a glass of water off the neighbouring table and drunk it in one mouthful. He breathed loudly.

“Men, because we can’t say ‘Man’ anymore, tried to make sure that everyone else would follow their own will instead of the other's. So they invented the almighty way of war.”

Shivers spread on everypony’s fur.

“Men are freewill-gifted wild animals, wolves which search for power and make choices, terrible choices though,” he shook his head in sorrow. “This is why men created culture and society, trying to encage themselves in a set of rules to make sure the beast and the sickness inside stay well-behaved until the end of times.”

Verdugo distorted his face with a maddening smile, unveiling his rotten yellow teeth. Some ponies held back the gag in their stomach.

“But in fact, men never cease to be violent. Because men encaged themselves, they started getting used to rules and routines. If violence entered the routine nobody will bat an eye, but once the violence or something else come tickling this insanity of repeating the same speech, habits and deeds over and over again… Then everyone loses their minds. And that is exactly what happened. We lost our minds.”

Verdugo sniggered; satisfied with the expression of horror the ponies were giving to him. He was even more amused that his three friends had lowered their stares, looking down at their feet with shame.

“More than three years ago, a trigger was pressed and our world ceased to exist as we knew it. People grabbed their weapons and threw themselves at each others’ throats, trying to do something that rules and unnatural instincts tried to make them forget… survival, simple survival,” he circled his neck with his hand, imitating strangulation. “We ripped each others’ faces, we killed, we raped, we scavenged, we ate, we hated… words can’t suffice, but keep this image in your mind that Kreps tried to hide. We may have the nature bend before ourselves, but we never break the truth lying, hidden, deep within every human’s heart… the truth that in the end we are all monsters, bound by blood.”

His three friends had taken a seat, shaking from these revelations. Verdugo had brought back ‘good old’ memories. He was even more satisfied by the graveyard silence stagnant in the air.

“What is that trigger you’re talking about?” Celestia hazarded herself with an irrepressible fear shaking her hooves.

Verdugo’s smile grew creepier, keeping the suspense aloft. He spelled with delight, pointing at Celestia’s tattoo over her stifle.

“The sun simply decided to wipe off the earth our six thousand years of history and four millions years of evolution; and leaded us to kill each other in a global bloodbath that saw six billions people put… to the sword.”

He laughed.

“You should see the look on your faces,” he spelled with amusement and turned to look at his friends. “What? Truth never killed people, did it?”

Everypony had slid their eyes on Celestia. She was blemish, having difficulty keeping her composure.

“Don’t you freak out Princess, you told me on the way that you raise the sun and other things. Not that I don’t believe that absolute monarchy is a stable regime, but why are you so shaken by a simple sun?”

“I really move the sun at my will, mister,” Celestia despised the disrespectful human.

To her avail, her horn suddenly glowed white and the sun jet from the horizon outside the palace. A second later Luna’s horn glowed a dark blue and the moon took back its rightful place up in the night sky. Verdugo smiled with amusement, Kreps slapped himself and Maria hid her face behind the palm of her hand.

“I think I’m gonna hate this place,” Ray sighed, blasé.

Accompanied with her sister and the Mane-Six, Celestia left the room a knot firmly tied in her stomach, melted in bile of anger and unfathomable sadness.

The five humans stayed in, drinking their mixed food. The kid had kept the plush and was now tearing off its obsidian eyes with his teeth.

“I think you sealed up our fate Verd’…” Maria sighed with despair.

“I made a choice. Don’t wanna blame me for this.”

“You and your choices… You’ll kill all of us someday. You really had to make yourself the villain of the story?”

Verdugo gave a last laugh before catching the soup bowl with his left hand and lift it to his mouth, drinking it with greed. He scanned his friends.

“Apparently they have locked away all of our remaining weapons,” Verdugo stated with an atrocious pragmatism, mentioning they had left they metal case in the meadow before the wyvern’s assault. “And your box, Kreps?”

The German shook his head. Everyone sighed, understanding they were short on their options.

ϧ α ϼ ϖ ϡ ϖ ϼ α ϧ

“We can’t keep them,” Luna struck the table with her hoof. “You heard that Verdugo? They are monsters!”

“I don’t want to look like a human,” Twilight added, sniggering with her comparison. “But I’m with Luna on this idea. They were ready to kill their own ‘friend’. Can you believe that?!”

The small chamber displayed little furniture, a long and oval table covered with a purple leathered cover and a rack where a cowmare hat dangled. The walls were upholstered with red covers and over a sleeping hearth stood crossed a sword and a scroll, carved in the same piece of silver.
Stares fixed both Luna and Twilight. Among them were Celestia, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Leading Hooves, the right arm stallion of Shining Armor who had been dragged there from under his bed sheets.

“Stop jumping over the cart Twilight,” Applejack tried to reason her. “We don’t really know about them, maybe they were joking or lying!”

“They are monsters, you heard them. They confess they were murderers and other stuff that creep me out so much I don’t want to bring it on the top of the agenda.”

“Twilight!” Celestia erupted, using the Canterlot voice.

Twilight dunked her head, terrified by the sudden vocal burst of her beloved teacher.

“Twilight,” Celestia added with a more gentle tone. “Don’t overcommit yourself, your mind blurs and refuses to see other’s points of view when you’re angry. Don’t you remember what I taught you?”

“Yes Princess, I’m sorry,” the concerned lavender alicorn replied, shameful.

“Nopony can be bad to the core Twilight,” Fluttershy tried.

“They are not ponies, remember.”

“They are from an advanced civilisation, if what they said is true. Don’t you understand what does that mean…” Rarity added, sparks in her eyes.

“They said their civilisation has been blown away.”

“They built super-fast machines!!” Rainbow cried, bursting her wings and flying in the air to get muzzle to muzzle with Twilight.

“That may be a lie to trick us,” Twilight sniggered, pushing aside Rainbow’s face.

Everypony sighed, stuck in a dead end.

“They need care and kindness,” Fluttershy advanced shyly. “We can all see they had suffered. Look, even that guy, Verdugo… He got his arm cut and he didn’t seem to care about it. And… that poor girl, ponies whispered about her ‘cutie mark’.”

“He was going to die Fluttershy,” Luna rolled her eyes. “We think that We would trade a hoof for staying alive, who wouldn’t? And for that girl…”

“Cease about it,” Celestia sighed. “I promised Maria we won’t talk about it until she is ready to speak about it by herself.”

Everypony shut up, worried looks plaguing their features.

“Fluttershy is right,” Rarity tagged with her friend, breaking the silence. “How can we be the Elements of Harmony if we can’t give them a chance to prove they are good, or at least not as bad as they look.”

Rarity had glued in her eyes the horrible appearance of the humans. Pigs were the only convenient comparison she had. But the girl had washed herself, and yes, she could give them a chance. Maybe she would learn about their fashion, they were wearing clothes and visibly, the girl had displayed cleverness to keep her modesty safe.

“You could learn innumerable things from them Twilight,” Celestia smiled, having found the right incentives for her faithful student.

And she was right, stars of greed sparked in Twilight’s eyes.

“And if we keep them, I’ll throw them a welcoming party!” Pinkie Pie finally burst after being silent all along, overwhelmed by the cries and screams everypony had been shooting at eachother.

“I won’t let them leave the castle for the moment Pinkie, I think you’ll have to do it with a restrained audience or wait until I am assured they are… safe for my little ponies to see and deal with them,” Celestia cut in her joy. “I must agree with Twilight and my sister on this point. Even if we give them a chance, I still consider them as dangerous. The Royal Guard is examining their possessions right now. This is why I’ve woken you up Leading.”

The stallion snapped out of his sitting nap.

“Yes, sure Princess. They had on them a load of weapons, swords, axes, and…” – Leading Hooves casted a glance at Twilight –. “… Three strange cylinders with the weapon you brought. We still don’t know how it works but we are acting with precautions. And I don’t want to take a side in your disputes, but the edges of their weapons are dirty and used… and not on something inert.”

Nopony dared counter his statement.

Days passed…

ϧ α ϼ ϖ ϡ ϖ ϼ α ϧ

Plunged in the dark, the hive was buzzing under the agitation of thousands of changelings, busy fulfilling the tasks they were given at birth and that they would carry on until the bells of death tolled for them. Thousands of glowing eyes were moving in tidy lines endlessly, a designed objective in their minds. Moving forward, drilling through the mass of his brothers, a changeling was limping toward the deepest stages of the cyclopean construction.

The walls were blackened by sick mucus produced by the builders. Everything was ruled by the dogma of efficiency. Everything had to have a place and was meant to not drift away from it. Those who failed to follow this order successfully were ineluctably thrown away. They became useless for the hive.

He stood firmly in front of a greenish bioluminescent gate. A changeling’s crown was stamped on it, likely burned with an ember. He gulped, felling nauseous as a powerful surge of magic crawled from under the door like the tongue of an undisclosed monster, licking his face, tasting a petrified prey like a predator before his deadly leap.

The gates gritted on its biologic hinges and a rotten air slapped the changeling’s muzzle. He winced; a violent light was creeping out of the chamber too.
He took a long and deep breath and entered.

In the light, the changeling’s feature became more explicit. Small clumps of dark green mane were sprouting out of his back and head, hiding his eyes slightly. Numerous scars were grieving his exoskeleton.
He stepped forward, queasy and jumped swiftly when the huge door slammed in his back. He wiped the sweat of his forehead, running in his blue eyes. His shredded wings whizzed in the hair, throwing a painful aching in his body.

He kneeled in the light, tilting his head in a message of fear and respect.

“My Queen,” he implored with respect.

“Oh, my dear Pathog you can call me by my true name,” Chrysalis replied with a grin of amusement.

“Yes… mother.”

Chrysalis was lying on a construct made of thousands of hatched eggs, all solidified into a throne of horror. The light was blooming from the celling where an opening filled with mirrors was reverberating the light from the surface.
Pathog laid his eyes on the queen, his mother. She never fully recovered from the attack on Equestria. One of her legs was twisted in the wrong way and a scar was slashing over her face. Her wings were also damaged. Yet, they were growing back, slowly, for a year and a half now they had been reshaping into their original form.

“Come to me my son,” she said with gentleness. “It has been so long since I had a discussion with you or your brothers.”

The changeling went stoic.

“Have you heard me? Come here!”

“I, I can’t,” the changeling sobbed. “Vector and Host are dead, I’m sorry.”

One of Chrysalis's hollowed hooves slid off her couch in awe, tiny tears rolled from her eyes, twinkling in the brightening light falling from the hole above her. The despair… She felt it pulling her down like a heavy anchor, down into the murky waters of oblivion. First she had lost a war and a majority of her people… now, she had lost two sons… Only one remained. Without his approval, Chrysalis grabbed Pathog with a disincarnated claw of green sparkling magic and dragged him to her side, hugging him in a mother like reflex, like a toy she could use to keep the sorrow away.
Pathog struggled at first, but as he was unable to fight back this wave of affection and the godly strength of her mother, he gave up.

“I’m so sorry, it all went wrong. We had tracked down that pony from Celestia’s peons. We wanted to mug her for you, to make you proud. But that monster came up and took us down and…”

Chrysalis put her hoof on his lips, forcing a smile from her own.

“Hush now, it’s okay…”

“No, it’s not okay, there were these five smooth-faced, blood-stained, reeking monsters walking on two legs. They flashed out in front of me. But I was not deceived. There are monsters in Equestria now.”

Pathog casted a glance at her sorrowful mother. She was lost in her thoughts, tears still dropping. With gentleness Pathog wiped them off her cheeks and dried them in his mane. Back in the cave he had been shaken by the creatures’ appearance. It was only after his escape he finally understood what happened that day.
He had made his way back to the South, down to the Badlands where the hive had withered over the last centuries. But with the help of the changeling’s he had found while withdrawing, he did not come back with empty hooves.

“Mother, I have something more to tell you.”

Chrysalis looked down at him, tightening her loving embrace, swallowing a gag of sadness.

“Yes my child?”

“We found a metal case in Equestria while I was escorted back here. We haven’t opened it yet. Do you want to be the first to see it? I think it belonged to the creatures I saw.”

Chrysalis nodded, unconvinced but unwilling to hurt her last son’s feelings. Pathog clapped his twisted hooves and two changelings entered pushing the gate inward and carrying an imposing metal case. With the help of her magic, Chrysalis blew up the lock and opened it.

She drew out a long sword splattered with dried blood. The smell was unbearable, thicker than the horrid smell of her own room. The queen’s muzzle winced under the repetitive assaults of this stench. Dropping it, the queen started rumbling in the case. Bemused and curious she spread the contents of the trunk on the floor. She watched clueless on a dozen of strangely shaped objects she knew nothing about.
Everything was rusted and dusty, and horribly stained with nothing but blood. The monsters Pathog had described were apparently warriors with an impressive technologic advance in weaponry. With her magic she lifted up a strange cylinder, approximately four feet long. Circled with a wooden protection, the cylinder displayed another large but smaller twin on what seemed to be its top. At each end was a convex lens. She looked through with curiosity. It was a magnifying glass, and a good one in spite of the cracks tearing the ledges of one. Stuck to it was a strange rectangular and metallic system. She tried to take it off. Facing a small resistance she forced the system with her magic.
The rectangle container dropped on the floor and five brass cones bounced around, rolling randomly in the corners of the room.

There were similar shaped objects in the case. All had different lengths and weights but presented in the end the same blueprint; a brass cylinder which first end showed a tiny recess circled with numbers and letters. The other end differed. The diameter was diminishing rapidly and encaged a metallic tip.
Chrysalis broke it and black particles fell on the ground. The queen titled her head toward the small pyramid of dark specks, trying to smell it.

She sneezed repetitively; a few dark grains had got into her muzzle.

“Are you alright mother?” Pathog asked with angst.

“Yes, yes it’s nothing, just dirt…” she defended herself.

Chrysalis shaped the small heap of particles with her heel, drawing a line from it.

“Bring me some fire,” she ordered. “I think I know what it is.”

Pathog, snatched a candle from Chrysalis’s chamber desk. The queen grabbed it with violence and let it drop on the compound. It instantly took fire and crackled in front of her. A horrid smile chased the sorrow off her face while random sparks of light lit her features.

“How did you…” Pathog hesitated, still stunned by the chemical reaction.

“I’m old my son, I’ve seen a lot in this world mortals would not dare imagine. Griffons and ponies use the powder for fireworks,” – she grabbed another cartridge –. “But it seemed that our intruders have made some deadly weapons from it.”

Pathog swallowed, it had been a long time since he had seen her mother with a smile this wide. It was not joy or sadness… but a grin betraying the birthing shenanigans and deceptions she was assembling in the tortuous twists and turns of her mind.

“Pathog,” Chrysalis ordered as her son came to attention. “Take a note please; I have some letters to send.”

Her smile was contagious. She started laughing maniacally, forgetting about her damaged leg. Pathog followed her fit of madness. He was happier than ever, his mother was back in track. The laughter burst out of her lungs and spread in the corridors of the hive, reaching everylings’ ears.

The insanity of her voice sprawled in their minds and the Hive shook under the hooves of the changelings, more agitated than ever, joining in with the queen’s cry of havoc.
Chrysalis howled, her sharp teeth shining under the pit of light.

“Let’s watch the castle burn!”

Mar. 2015 - Hatred

“Stare in its eyes!” Rainbow Dash laughed with a grin stretching on her face as she pointed her hoof at the beast. “See it and laugh!”

We all stood silent, petrified as the massive… thing crawled outside the fog. Everypony did but the pale blue mare.

Rainbow Dash stretched her forehooves and wings and rose on her hindlegs.

“Look at the white of its eyes!” she roared. “Look at the predator lurking behind those orbs.”

The downpour rolled over the hills and forest that surrounded the vault entry in our back, blocking our way to safety.

“Then look at the reflection in those eyes and see yourself,” she snarled. “You are the predator around here. And the beast that towers you? It is the prey.”

She walked forward with that manic laughter that even the thunder and the deluge couldn’t tame.

“Maybe they have fascinated you!” Rainbow Dash cried.

The beast looked down at Rainbow Dash while she still walked, as if she was welcoming an old, dear friend.

“Maybe they have chased you!” the mare giggled.

The beast hummed, fencing through the billowing fog with its overwhelming mass.

“Maybe they have disregarded you!” Rainbow Dash raged.

The earth quaked as the beast lifted herself on his haunches, mimicking Rainbow Dash’s stance.

“Maybe they have wronged you!” Rainbow Dash boomed.

She screamed like I had never heard. She screamed till she lacked breath, till she had made sure the world had heard her venting anger.

“DO YOU REMEMBER ME?!” she burst. “Because I do remember you!”

The monster’s claw cut through the fog, slow and encompassing us all in its shadow. Socha, [X], [X], [X], and I didn’t react. Under the unique eyes of the beast, we knew we were dead, horribly dead.

“Maybe they have wronged you,” Rainbow Dash cried, scrapping the fur and skin off her cheeks with her sharp metal hooves.

She hadn’t shouted that time. Looking at her more closely, I understood why. Tears were rolling on her face as she unbuttoned her cape, revealing hundreds of scars marring a perfect body that would put to shame all of ponykind. Around her neck stood a black chain closing on a rough black alicorn-shaped pendant. In its middle, a blood-red ruby shone bright; the same red that suddenly oozed in Rainbow Dash’s irises.

“Do you remember me?” Rainbow Dash sobbed.

The beast’s smashing leg whistled above our head. Socha closed her eyes and whimpered, embracing me and I did the same.

“Because,” Rainbow Dash continued in barely a whisper, “I remember my children you’ve taken.”

And the world exploded.

May. 22nd, 2019 - The Things We Leave Behind

Author's Note

Short Description:
A friend comes to soothe Scootaloo on her big day.

Long Description:
Scootaloo readies herself for her big day, years in the making. As doubt engulfs her, a friend comes to soothe her worries.

[EFNW 2019 Iron Author Contest - two hours to write about a side character 10+ years in the future. The text is unedited. Here it is as it was submitted]
[Art by CaffeineJunkie]

May. 22nd, 2019 - The Things We Leave Behind

“This is so uncomfortable,” Scootaloo said.

“You’ve trained for it.”

“It clips on my wings,” Scootaloo complained. “Every time.”

“You’re used to it.”

“It reeks oil and ozone in here. I don’t like it.”

A heavy sight echoed in the room, quickly followed by two thuds of horseshoes against a metal floor.

“Today’s your big day, Scoot’. It’s okay to be stressed.”

“That doesn’t help.”

Scootaloo ruminated, unable to move as the acrid smell of the building teased her nostrils. She could only watch as she waited to be fully suited up, suspended above a large bench by large nylon straps that dropped from the ceiling.

Whenever a bout of boredom struck her, she looked down through the meshed metal flooring. She watched the agitation in the lower levels as dozens of ponies exhausted themselves on many specific and crucial tasks. Hooves rumbled and clanked through the corridors, reverberating up and down the massive building. Intermittent announcements crackled out of each speaker and intercom.

Scootaloo knew this cacophony. The pony anthill where hooves clobbered metal, manipulated wires and handled cold chemicals and passionless data. This was her doing, her home.

“Are you scared, Scoot’?”

“N-no,” Scootaloo said puffing up with pride that flared pain in her compressed her wing joints. “I’m not afraid.”

Scootaloo let out a squeak, a painful frisson running up her spine as her left hindleg was suddenly shut in a heavy boot that pulled down on the ceiling suspensions.

“Sorry. I’m not usually handling that part of the process.”

“You know I can’t move my neck much in this stupid armor,” Scootaloo mumbled. “If you’re going to lecture me and amuse yourself with the suiting, I would rather see you do it.”

A purple unicorn came in her field of view. Even though Scootaloo was suspended above the ground, they met face to face. The tall unicorn’s smile creased her slightly sagging cheeks, betraying the slow creeping of age. A gray strand of hair streaked her mohawk.

“The suiting takes hours, and you know it, Scoot’,” Tempest said. “You’re not going to escape it. I’m not going to escape it, either. You requested me to do it this time. Why?”

“I wouldn’t trust anypony but my chief of operations for this,” Scootaloo said, beaming. “It’s a really important day.”

“So important you dismissed the usual six ponies who suits you and your teammates?” Tempest shook her head. “Chicken brain.”

Scootaloo squawked a protest and started to swing slightly as she tried to hoof at Tempest’s shoulder.

“It’s just…” Scootaloo grumbled in exasperation as Tempest stabilized her on the straps. “You understand what it feels like.”

“Feels like what?” Tempest asked as she reached out for the other hindleg piece.

“Come on, you know.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes and pointed at her wings. “You understand how it feels.”

Tempest raised a hoof to her forehead. With a heavy sigh, she put the other suit piece down and sat next to her younger counterpart.

“Are you trying to prove a point, Scootaloo?”

“I, uh, ye-”

“No,” Tempest said gently, giving a good rub on Scootaloo’s cheek. “You’re not doing this to prove a point. You already did. Every time you achieved something, built something out of the dirt and created stars in every fillies and colts’ eyes. You proved it there.”

“I...”

“You’ve not made all of those sacrifices for such a trivial matter. It’s a dark road to tread. Trust me.”

As Scootaloo’s eyes lowered and her ears drooped, Tempest reached out and pushed the pegasus’ chin up.

“You do what you do because you’re an amazing mare who fought against destiny and won, in your own way. But you’re not winning now, Scoot’… You already did years ago. You didn’t have your cutie mark yet.”

Scootaloo mirrored Tempest’s smile and, after a couple of seconds, she laughed.

“Something wrong?” Tempest said with a surprised look painted on her face.

“I think your dirty hooves got some spunk on my cheek,” Scootaloo giggled. “It itches so bad.”

“Time to put the helmet on it, then?”

“Wait, no!” Scootaloo hollered, shuffling on her straps until she swung back and forth. “I’d go cray, old fart!”

“Let’s get you prettied up,” Tempest said, sharing in the laughter.

“Don’t you Rarity me.”

Tempest laughed, brushing the brown sludge off Scootaloo’s face with a piece of cloth.

“I’m not a generous, mare,” Tempest replied as she reached again for the hindleg piece and strapped it into place. “But I can make an exception for a lost foal like you.”

“I think I understand Applejack now.”

When Tempest finished an hour later, Scootaloo hit a button on the bench. The ceiling straps released her and she dropped with a heavy thud on the bench.

As the bench retracted into the ground, bringing Scootaloo down to the floor, her suit whistled and pressurized around her legs, body, and neck.

“So, this is it?” Scootaloo asked, an awkward smile on her lips.

“Fifteen years of work compounding up to that very point,” Tempest agreed, setting an earpiece in Scootaloo’s ear.

“You’re really not helping, you know?” Scootaloo replied. “I’m sitting in one of your inventions.”

“I know explosions,” Tempest laughed “Well, let’s say controlled ones. It’s not like I’m giving you one of my early airships.”

“Pinkie Pie told me about those.” Scootaloo forced a wry cough before sharing a smile with Tempest. “They were, um, fun?”

“Pure Roller Coasters.”

“Hey, Scoot’! It’s me,” a familiar voice called through Scootaloo’s earpiece. “Are you ready for this?”

“Yes, I am,” Scootaloo acquiesced. “Thank you for being there, Rainbow.”

Scootaloo nuzzled with Tempest and, after her heartfelt thank, she trotted triumphantly forward to the building’s airlock. Behind stood her future and that of her homeland.

“Remember the time I told you I couldn’t fly? You made me smile. Told me you were proud of me.”

Rainbow Dash didn’t answer. Scootaloo slid her helmet on as the airlock barring her way shifted upward. Light poured inside the corridor. She stepped under the sun and walked down a long, bright orange metal plank.

She was three hundred hooves above the ground. She contemplated a day without a breeze as acres of green, pristine fields sprawled in every direction. Only a couple of white buildings stood several miles away, shining under the ardent summer sun.

In front of her, a rocket ship billowed cold, white smoke as oxygen evaporated from its castle-sized fuel tanks. She smirked as she looked up to the sky… to the moon. Today, she would make history.

“Today, I make myself proud.”

2019 project - Diamond Sisters - Chapter 1 draft 1

Rarity’s forehead pearls with beads of sweat under the sweltering heat. She avoids the light, hiding under a large checkered parasol. The air glimmers and twirls, rising from the dirt road that slashes the small town in two. The yellow grass wastes away while people have long cowered into the cover of their homes. A few birds still sing in the branches of the plaza’s trees. Its centerpiece fountain dried out a couple of days ago.

“This is unusual,” she says.

“It’s summer, sunshine,” someone answers. “What do you expect the sun to do? Call sick?”

A frown draws on Rarity’s face. She’s supposed to be alone, except a woman is sitting across her terrasse table. Rarity blinks, quite shaken. Fighting the sweat rolling in the crinkles of her eyes, she focuses on the impromptu and cavalier interruption.

“Summer?”

“Are you okay, Rarity?” Concern flows through the strong, accented voice. “You seem out of it today.”

Rarity nods hesitantly. “I’m just a little dizzy.”

Rarity glances at her hand. The white of her skin has taken a smidge of a tan. One of her nails is cracked and some brown dirt shows under it. Nothing of much importance at the moment. It feels wrong. She claws at the glass between her hands. The hundred droplets of condensation covering it shine.

She swishes the cold orange drink before taking a small sip. The sweetness hits her tongue. She finally smiles. Orange, bergamot, a dash of vanilla and agave, a definite slitch of lime and a copious amount of diluted brown sugar cane. It’s a good drink. Her invitee expects an answer.

“Let me just have another one,” Rarity begs.

She brings it to her lips and takes a gulp in utmost silent. It doesn’t taste as sweet as it felt the first time. She sets the glass aside and sighs.

“Rarity.” She is imperious. “You worry me. Is something wrong?”

“I’m a bit out of it, I believe, darling,” Rarity replies. “But despite my sad performance, nothing to fret about.”

Rarity looks at the woman. Barely younger, her skin displays a rustic sun-baked copper shine. Her hair is a river of gold under the sun’s scornful rays. She baths in the light like a fish in water. Her olive eyes peers behind shades and her black and red shirt hints the strong muscles hiding underneath. She smokes, the cigarette held between two fingers. The ash falls down to her blue denim but she doesn’t care. She is a wanderlust, a nugget of gold in the unwelcoming plaza and its surroundings.

Rarity extends a hand to hold hers but relents. She grimaces instead as she looks around at the town, her white hand protecting her eyes even beneath the sunshade. Walls are fuzzying. Blinds are shuttered and bleached. The few remaining stones that once made a sidewalk are cracked and smoothed by time. She turns back to the woman who hides her face behind the palm of her hand.

“Where is the sun?” Rarity says. “ I’ve never seen one until today.”

No answer. The lady is handing out an apple. Rarity licks her lips once, feeling a couple of cracks at the tip of her tongue. She opens her mouth but falters.

Rarity’s words come late, “Have we ever met?”

⇜⇝

“Rarity! Wake up,” a commandeering voice thundered. “I won’t have any worm lying low during my shift.”

Rarity jumped to her feet, her hand clasped around the neck of her mangled pickaxe. Her helmet banged against a short stalactite dangling from the ceiling. Staggering back, her heel hit a rock and she fell backward. The gasp hadn’t left her lungs that a hand grabbed her suspenders’ straps.

The hammer and picks in the front pocket of Rarity’s leather apron rattled to silence. She took a deep breath, bringing her oversized helmet back up her nose.

Her forewoman’s scar and topaze iris stared her down. Tempest Shadow.

“Sleeping on the job, Rarity?” she said with a growl.

Rarity hadn’t opened her mouth yet that the towering woman brought her back from the arrested mid-fall. Tempest shook her head, gave two pats on Rarity’s shoulders to dust coal and clay bits off her dirtied gear. She rumbled.

“I got the canary,” Rarity muttered defensively, pointing at the small cage at the foot of a bench.

Two wood planks made up the makeshift seating. Hammered by Rarity herself with a few rusty nails a couple of weeks before, they had already rotten. She convinced herself everyday it was still better than sleeping on the ground, in the clay sludge, residues of coal, empty nitroglycerin boxes and detritus.

“Good,” Tempest snapped. The older woman’s traits sagged a little as she sighed. “A full week you’ve been like this, Rar’. As a forewoman I disapprove. But as your roommate, I’m worried.”

Rarity looked down at Tempest’s aged steel-toed boots. They’d lived through three forewomen. With a mumble, she stepped aside to rest her back against one of the scaffolds of the damp tunnel. She took a quick breath.

“I…”

“I will have your excuses later,” Tempest cut. “Right now, we need you and the bird.”

Rarity glanced down at the cage and grabbed its top handle. The violent swaying of the tiny prison didn’t wrestle a cry out of the animal.

“You’re still as thin as a plywood cut, right?” Tempest asked.

Rarity brought up her lean but taut forearms with a chuckle. “I’m still the same fragile swamp reed, Tempest.” She saw the concerned look on her large and far taller friend’s face. “What’s the issue?”

“We resumed blast mining this morn’ before you started your shift. We excavated a few lateral drills in the upper horizontal shafts. We popped open some old tunnels. Must date back decades if not centuries.” She cleared her throat and spat a blackened blob. “Well, all are either dead-ends or collapsed.”

Tempest’s face twisted nervously. She gritted her teeth and tried to wipe the black dust off her face. Unsuccessfully. Black powder and dried coal slurry caked her from the tip of her fingers to the edges of her gear. Her denim and leather protection were torn in several parts and a couple sticks of dynamite hung outside their secured kraft paper.

“Did someone died again?” Rarity dared to ask.

“No!” Tempest burst. “No, not... yet. Sorry for yelling. I— I don’t know.” She held her face in her hand for a moment, fussing away. “I sent a kid down that tiny shaft a couple hours ago. He’s not answered since. No scream, no sound. Nothing.”

Rarity looked down at the bird in silence. She swallowed and tapped Tempest’s bruised shoulder after a slight hesitation.

“Tempest, it’s not your fault if there’s a gas leak in there. I’ll find the kid and bring him back.”

Tempest nodded and parted a tired, wordless embrace around Rarity.

“Just don’t get in trouble,” Tempest warned. “If the bird croaks, just scamper out of there.”

“We’ll talk at the workers’ house tonight?”

“On the roof, like every week.”

Rarity ran with the bird to the elevator, joining a few miners for a short ride up the main shaft. She couldn’t recognize any with their coaled up faces. No one breathed a word as she held the door open and squeezed in with the cage.

Water poured through the metal mesh that closed over their head. There was no escaping the damp. The endless rain from the surface torrented down the shaft and regularly inundated the tunnels. More people worked at the water pumps above than in the mines below.

“Sorry, I don’t have a smoke,” Rarity said to the worried-looking, lanky boy who asked after he’d pushed himself in the lift mid-route.

Rarity left the stail when she reached the fourth level. She ran down a large tunnel equipped with rails, hopping between slabs of wood, scrap metal and small wagons.

Finally, a pathway led to a large alcove at the end of the tunnel. The walls were jagged, often running down in chunks, dirt or mud at the slightest touch. She could see a couple miners slip over an unstable sheet of rock here and there. Many waited.

The dozen miners that busied themselves were setting scaffolding and reinforcement. A couple of aged foremen stared at a map laid about on a scraped up table – a metal plate sat on a sturdy rock.

Rarity walked up to the table and set the cage down to the ground. Both men were deep in conservation, scouring the content of a very old and beaten up map. She cleared her throat to attract their attention.

The oldest looking of the two rose to meet her eyes. His face denounced his tiredness, an underground all-nighter for sure. He leaned to the side and glanced at the cage. He gave a simple nod. “I’m footing the manager. He went up in the rain upshaft. You’re here for Snips, right?”

The name struck a blow. Rarity knew the kid, a worker’s house neighbour six years her younger. She’d once been in his place. A mine’s mouse. He’d never be in hers.

“Yes. chief Tempest sent me from the twentieth level,” Rarity said, glancing around at the cave. “Where’s the hole?”

The manager pointed at a metal sheet laid against the rock lining of the dug-up hall. She walked to it and tumbled it forward. The thundering crash of metal against stone didn’t phase the miners gathered a dozen meters away around a boiling pot of mushroom infusion.

The sheet had covered an entrance that gave to a downward slope. Rarity could barely fit in. Wasting no time, she grabbed the bird cage and secured it a couple of feet inside the hole. She walked up to the deputy manager.

“You got a safety lamp?”

The manager munched his lip; he looked back at the brewing miners. “Yes we do, just grab one of the miners’. Just make sure the screws are tight. Let’s not repeat the blast from last month. It’d be a shame to lose a talented prospector like you, mademoiselle Rarity?”

Rarity froze at the mention of her name. “Oh, no, I’m just a simple miner.”

Rarity left the two foremen and groveled to the mining group. They’d started distributing small tin cups of darken brew. They all shared a couple nods of acknowledgement.

Rarity pointed to one of the lamps, a rusted piece that betrayed an ancient white paint, then to the hole.

One miner rolled his eyes and shooed her along with the lamp.

“It’s gonna be hard,” the deputy said to her as she walked past him. He handed out a rope. “Bringing him, I mean.”

Rarity looked down at the pulled length of hemp and the greasy dark hand that held it. The trip back was going to be hard indeed.

“Thanks,” she said, taking the rope. “Let’s just have a look at the bird.”

“Take this too,” he ordered, shoving a metal flask in her hand. Instead of a cap, it ended with a small glass bulb. A hand trigger sprouted out of the side. The hand-cranked lamp fit snugly in Rarity’s hand.

“I think I’m already burdened enough,” Rarity mumbled. “I won’t be able to…”

The deputy sighed. “I don’t want you to push both the cage and the safety lamp in front of you. If you break the lamp, you may blast up some gas pockets in front of you.”

Rarity knew the procedure. The plan for such a situation was always the same. Three trips. The first with gear, the cage and the light, to test the other side. The second to retrieve the prize. Finally the third, to leave nothing behind.

“Do not worry,” Rarity confirmed as she crouched in the hole and threw her helmet away. She removed her apron, kept a single pike, and pushed the cage forward. “It’s not like I can grow a third arm.”

The pike handle secured in her belt and the lamp safely rolled up in a fabric bag strapped to her ankle, Rarity crept in head-first down the drain hole.

Each crank faintly illuminated her path for a fraction of a second. before she made any further move. She had to fit the cage and herself and to never bang the top of her head against any jagged edge. Each time she contorted forward, scraping skin, clothing and ego against the stone shaft, she glanced at the bird. The bird was still well and alive, albeit camping on its perch in dead silence.

The bedrock carried to her the sound of distant pikes hitting stones. The tight tunnel came to a bend that continued up. Rarity took a deep breath and looked back. The entrance hole had long since disappeared past many twists and turns. Rarity screamed her position and heard a faint answer.

Cool, iron-tasting water flooded most of the bend. She first passed the cage without drowning the bird. She took a deep breath and dragged herself further. She held her nose and mouth high above the water line. Her heart beat pounded in her ears. Her legs shook as they scraped the tight walls of the stone gullet. Her foot skipped, she slipped and her head plunged under the water. She screamed bubbles, hit back the wall, struggled.

Her mouth emerged from the sludge past the bend with a raucous wail. She stopped, feeling her arms cramps. She looked back again at the bend. Darkness. Only her legs snuggled by the needling cold water told her it was still there. She took a deep breath. And she continued.

A couple of yards deeper, she let the cage rest. Groping around for the hand-cranked lamp, she clenched on it and pressed its side button without counting. She closed her eyes, hearing the gears and magnet churn inside. She opened her eyes and saw light. She breathed out and went forward.

Minutes later, an eerie coolness wafted at her face. She lifted her head and saw darkness espousing the end of the tunnel. She crawled out without a stumble. She sat against the wall next to the hole and cried.

Long minutes of silence passed in darkness. Only the whistling of a past botched blast ranged in her left ear. She scooped a handful from a nearby water puddle she could hear gather from a trickle dropping from a far ceiling and splashed her tears away. “Snips?”

She closed her eyes and covered the handheld lamp with her other hand. With a grunt, she cranked it over and over again till her palm burned and the rumbling of the magnet inside satisfied her ears. She pulled her hand and opened her eyes. She stared straight at the bird.

The animal was fine. For once, it moved around in its cage, jumping around the cool air’s reprieve.

Rarity smiled. As the light died back, she untied the bag at her feet and checked for any crack in its mesh and glass under her finger tips. She pulled, turned and released. She heard a spark. Another one. Nothing. Faster. She did the trick. A bigger spark ignited behind the fine metal and glass hearth of the lamp and a steady flame rose inside.

Shadows danced further down a massive cave, cast into topaze lattices as the light carried through rows of iron benches.

Large polished rocks of ancient collapsed colonnades covered the ground and crushed the metal furniture. The pillars who still stood expanded for yards ahead until the darkness swallowed the rest. Water pooled in large puddles half an inch deep nearly everywhere.

“Snips?”

A chandelier dangled from a hidden ceiling, sustained to the last few chains that’d not snapped away and now grazed a rotten and flooded ruby carpet.

The hall of stone opened itself to Rarity’s prying eyes as she wiped the sweat off her brow and rose on her tired knees. She propped the safety lamp up, casting the meager light to the underworld before her.

“Where are you?”

She advanced. The benches lined one after the other in two columns facing towards the other end of the place.

The bird sung. Startled, Rarity hesitated, glancing down the darkened bench-delineated alleyway. She snatched the handle of the cage and held it forward along. Keeping the light and its fledgling warmth close to her heart, Rarity took a step forward.

No body, no life. Just limestone, steel and the long rotten residues of a tapestry glued to the pillars standing by.

As Rarity pushed further, the light reached the end of the hall where it laped at the base of massive stone woman hunkered over an altar. A beauty from another age, the statue’s hands held a seal stamped with a six-tipped shape. Wings sprung outwards from its regal toga. Its eyes closed, the trickling of water from the ceiling pearled the marble face. Bits of paints remained in some crevices. Only the clean natural color beneath remained along with a few green and dark streaks.

Rarity stood in a cathedral.

A low wheeze startled her. Rarity dropped the cage. Oblivious to the clatter and panicked chirps, she cast the light towards the cross-section of the nave. Snips laid next to a steel desk, a hand clasped over the foot of a rotten stool. A ceramic vase lay about, shattered.

“Snips,” Rarity cried. Rushing for the boy, she let the lamp clang to the ground. “What’s happened to you?”

“W— Who?”

Rarity held the kid’s head up. She wiped her other hand in the freezing water that damped the ground and patted Snips around the chest. Her hand came back dark and sticky.

Rarity brought it to the light. Her heart ran cold and she glanced back at Snips, whispering, “Is there a monster roaming?”

Snips was out cold.

Rarity crawled to the lamp. Monsters belonged outside the city. None could be underneath unless a tunnel let to here.

The bird thrilled with distress behind Rarity. She swirled around, snapping the lamp back up to see anything that would be there. Nothing by Snips lying inanimate. The bird was pecking at the copper bars of the cage, crying loud as it tapped its head trying to slip out.

Rarity ran. She skidded the length of the hall to the tunnel. Prepared to pounce back in, she hesitated. She turned around, took in the dreaded silence. She clenched her firsts and cursed. She crouched, picturing the outlay of the cathedral in her mind as she switched off the safety lamp and tied it to her side.

A hand gripped on the crank-lamp, Rarity clambered back to the head of the nave. The bird shrieked as she fought back tears at the corner of her eyes. Every few seconds, she gave a single crank, caught glimpses of benches and falling water droplets.

After a final crank, the light licked at Snips’ boots. She stepped forward once, grabbed the safety light, pulled and let the starter crack.

Snips wasn’t alone.

A gaunt women teetered a foot or two above the passed out boy. Her dark three-tone hair whirled like water from under a barely pulled back hooded mantle. Her mangled hands covered in wrinkles ended in crooked claws that once were nails.

Rarity looked down, the bird was dead.

“Witch...” Rarity hiccuped as she faltered back.

The apparition swiveled, her hair lagging behind. Two tanzanite eyes glowed down with contempt. Rarity yielded, dropping both lamp and a knee to the ground. An invisible talon clamped around Rarity and lifted off the ground.

She yelped, trying to wriggle out. She froze as she met the witch’s eyes. One of the ethereal claws released its clutch and pressed against Rarity’s cheek, bringing her closer.

Wrinkles marred the woman’s ancient face. The bags under her eyes sagged over her cheekbones. The ghastly lady was a greyed bag of skin.

“How quaint,” she whispered with a low voice, her head swaying left to right as if she inspected Rarity.

Rarity screamed, wrestling an arm out of the talon to push a hand between her and the monstrous face. Her fingers slipped against greasy wrinkles and her hand dropped to the witch’s neck. Rarity clutched her hand over a string of metal and pulled away. Something snapped and the screaming started.

The claws that slashed at Rarity’s skin vanished. She dropped, ears reeling with the banshee’s shriek.

“You!” The howl reverberated in the cave.

Spread across the floor, Rarity watched the witch violently sway in the hair like a rag strung to a wire in the wind.

Rarity looked down at her hand, closed on a broken silver necklace enclosing a vibrant amethyst.

“Give it back!” the witch screamed repeatedly.

The air lit up with sparks and grey threads of light. Rarity pulled her eyes from the gem and watch the witch’s claw sparkle and seep light. Magic.

Rarity pushed herself away from the ghoulish display. A bench hitting her back blocked her escape.

An arc of light hurled out from the witch straight at Rarity. She held her hand out to parry. A flash of light, dizziness and deafness. Rarity swayed and cried.

Rarity opened her eyes, she’d skidded across the flooded pavement floor to end against a pillar’s base. The amethyst had shattered in her left hand. Gashes and burns crawled up to her elbow.

The stone mast shattered, slashed through with the now flying statue’s sigil. The witch’s outlines beamed in the darkness with a gnarly halo that fiered light across the entire hallway and the beheaded statue, its marble shattered.

The witch held the cracked symbol aloft like she’d done Rarity an instant before. Writhing and scalding in the air, the human-shaped beast slashed wide berths through the ranges benches, ploughing stone and metal as she clawed her way to Rarity.

Rarity jumped away from the deadly rock mowing for her. And tried to reach for the hole. She glanced back a final time.

The witch threw her hand forward and pulled. Rarity sprang off the ground and flew across the nave, ending in a glide at the foot of the destroyed statue.

“Little brat!” the witch howled, dropping the shattered stone in her invisible clasp. “You’re coming with me. Help repair what you undid!”

Lifted again like a ragdoll in the hands of an invisible giant, Rarity looked at the ceiling. Diamonds covered every pointed arch. A work of beauty.

Rarity freed her left hand, trying to reach for the ceiling. The diamonds pulled her to them and they lit up. So did her hand. The witch screamed. Among indistinct shrieks and great rumbling, the canopy caved in.

⇜⇝

Rarity woke up to pouring rain and pooling streams at the bottom of a collapsed sinkhole. Distant lightning flashed reflection in the water lapping at her back and legs. Fog slowly crept down the steep.

Staggering up, Rarity sat to see the crumbled remains of the statue that stood at her back. The shattered marble face lay next to Rarity’s hands. Its eyes wept in the rain.

Rarity heaved. Sharp burning pain erupted down her left arm. She plunged her forearm in the nearest water pool who tainted with ruby.

As she gnawed her teeth, she glanced around. Her eyelids fell heavily on her eyes. Despite the fatigue and the shudders that rattled her back, she glanced around. A hand hung out of the rubble.

“Snips!”

She jumped to her heels. Her legs promptly collapsed. She rose against, straining her stabbing back, and stumbled forward to Snips.

As she lifted stone after stone, calls and distant voices rose from the edge of the collapsed steep. Steps and boots clattered down the rubble and buried masonry.

A purple hand gently took hold of Rarity’s injured wrist. Her eyes welled up and she found refuge against Tempest’s leg.

Rarity tried to meet Tempest’s eyes. Her roommate scanned the sinkhole instead. She stared at the remains of the statue and pillars, saw the many diamonds that now littered the ancient pavement under the rubble and broken rib vault.

The earth quaked and debris exploded airborne, sending the first responders into terrified cavalcade down the hole. A vortex of blackness rose above the witnesses and, in a flash of thunder, slashed through the rain to disappear into thin air.

“What did you do?” Tempest finally asked with stupor, looking down at Rarity’s bloodied arm.

She lived. A kid didn’t. Rarity looked down the rain washed away the coal-caked blood that seeped down against her milk-white skin. Three diamonds caught in a stylized swirl was branded into her forearm.

Jan. 2020 - East Of The Barn

“Anypony ever asked what was wrong with you?”

“Many.”

“And what did you say?” She marked a pause. “I asked you a question!”

“Eeyup.”

Big Macintosh’s foreleg tinged at the seam of the deep cut the workday had dealt him. Wherever scabs hadn’t congealed, the zenith’s rays had left reddened, battered barren skin. Meanwhile, the sun, one of today’s culprits, had already fled to the horizon over the hill. Only remained the second wrongdoer, the discarded mower and its rusty blades between two apple trees somewhere in the acre far behind her and him.

Her… He turned his head, his neck cranky with soreness and fatigue against the yolk that weighed his shoulder blades. A glimpse of a filly trotted a couple of strides behind, kicking rocks away as if to defend herself and clean a path through the dirt that deeply matted her light pink coat.

Diamond Tiara.

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 3

“Oh, I’m sorry I was interrupting your Discord shenanigans, Pinkie,” Mayor Mare hummed, her eyebrows raised. “Also. I am not that old.”

“Really sorry we ruined your party, Mayor.”

“It wasn’t a party.” Mayor clenches her jaw. Unable to sustain eye contact, she looks back to Cheerilee instead. A sigh escapes her lips. “It was a–”

“Focus! Girls,” the stallion orders, ushering a pregnant silence into the room. “Please, I… I want to know what happened. Not your misadventures from several months ago.” The audible sift of the room’s cold air through his teeth punctuates his growl. “How… How in Tartarus did you do it?”

“Do what?” Pinkie bubbles, her legs swinging awkwardly under the chair.

“I may have an explanation,” Mayor replies.

“But I wasn’t done with the jawbreaker,” Pinkie interjects.

“You mean the Wall,” the stallion cuts, his tone coarse like gravel, “Right?”

“Well, duh,” Pinkie replies, crossing her front legs. “But it’s just a scary name some serious newsponies cooked up to make sellable sugar. Jawbreaker is totes better.” The interrogator breathes in, eager to follow up but Pinkie Pie continues, “And you know, a wall doesn’t grow by itself. Like this one totally did! A jawbreaker, though, you can add layers to it. So yeah nah, Wall? Not a good metaph–”

“Anyway,” he cuts, drumming his hooves on the metal table. “I say when you’re done, okay? I want to be over with this quickly. Ponies are expecting me outside.”

"When are we leaving?" Mayor asks.

In the silence that follows, extended sighs shoot across the table.

“Please, Mayor," the stallion asks, "Continue. Just… be concise.”

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 10

“So you plundered state property?”

Cheerilee guffawed behind her hoof and I threw her a look.

“I mean...” I fumbled over my words before leaning over to hug Cheerilee tight. . “Yes, I did. I was out of options and I wanted to have a good time with my dulcinée.”

“You’re speaking fancy, Mayor,” Pinkie chimed in.

“You bunch Elements of Harmony have had a strong influence over Ponyville.” I snickered. “Especially Rarity. You can’t have a business magnate in such a small town without it affecting the customs.”

“Let’s stay focused,” Neighsay ordered, his head dropping into his hooves as an angered sigh escaped them. “Let’s put aside the thievery for a moment. What did you mean by the book glowing yet not glowing?”

Cheerilee, Pinkie and I shared a look.

“We did look at the book,” Pinkie confessed.

“And what did you do then?”

“We stepped in,” Cheerilee said.

Neighsay leaned back against the back of his chair in surprise. “That was suicide.”

We burst out laughing and his expression grew gradually from indignation to horror.

“We kinda knew it, I guess,” I said.

“And you still did it.”

“We did.”

A knock at the door obscured behind Neighsay started us. “Mister Neighsay, can you let my friends out?” a young shrill voice asked vehemently. “At some point, you’re going to have to let them go.”

“I’m not finished, young one,” Neighsay called out without turning back.

“I don’t care. I’m going in!”

“Don’t you dare.”

And that shrill voice I’d not heard in months laughed, and the door opened, and with it, a single cascade of light burst in, and with it the warmth of summer and the chant of cicadas.

The writing in the book belonged to Sweetie Belle.

Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 14

“So, it wasn’t a monster,” Neighsay ponders, somewhat disappointed.

I turn to Twilight and Starlight, heads low as they sit back, shoulders drooped, in their hospital beds. I am not the best to answer unicorn questions, but as Neighsay laid the events on them, that a year has passed and how it has torn Ponyville apart, only a glassy expression inhabits their faces.

What felt like twenty minutes inside the Wall ended being thirteen months on the outside. One year gone by in the blink of an eye for them. One year gone by, slow and weary and filled with sacrifices, for us.

“I– I don’t really understand what you did within the Wall, Princess,” I say, rubbing my legs against each other. “But I don’t think you should blame yourself for a mistake.” I turn to Neighsay. “And you shouldn’t blame them too.”

“Oh, come on, I wasn’t...” a heavy sigh followed. “I was going to ask what’s next? I’ve been asked to report on the situation. But, there isn’t really one.”

A bad mistake, an consequenceless event with so many happenstances, and yet a bringer of so many changes. I snicker, earning everypony’s raised eyebrow.

“Sorry,” I apologize, rubbing the back of my neck, “but I just realize that Ponyville will rebuild. The only thing weird I worry about is Sweetie Belle. She’s a year younger than her peers now.”

“They’ll get over it,” Starlight mumbles, breaking a smile. “They’re stronger than the distance of being apart.”

I nod and turn to Neighsay who gives me back a look.

“So what do you need?”

“Time.” I chuckle. “And likely some funds. The storm has passed and now is time to go onto the next step.”

“What is it?” Twilight asks with a sniffle.

“What every earthpony does. Rebuild.”

Jun.-Jul. 20 - A Town's Story 16.2

Dear Luster,

I can only guess Mrs Cheerilee and Mare have welcomed you well, and that you’ve been the utmost respectful student. I hope you will enjoy your next few days in Ponyville. Yes, you’re right. I have cleared your schedule!

You have absolutely no excuse not to stay and enjoy the apple of my eye. No pun intended. :)

Is a smiley okay? I don’t know if it’s hype or whatever. I really think this will be a great opportunity for you to discover new things, and get some great countryside air. Canterlot can be quite the bear on your mind.

If you’re reading this, I hope you’ve heard the story from Mare, Cheerilee and anypony who has by now swung by her home — unless you’ve opened this letter before-hoof like you did that one time… But I am quasi certain you did go through the to-do on this one.

This is both a punishment, and a lesson. But I am confident you already know that. What I am also quite sure of too, is that you must be finding it jarring. Strange. Out of the norm.

Well… You’d be right.

This story is about ponies and responsibility. And I hope that with time, you’ll come not to understand it, but appreciate it. Experience must be passed on.

We are not heroes of our little stories. Sometimes, ponies have to rise to the fore and face the situation, the hoof, they’ve been dealt with.

Look around you.

Stories are made of ponies. Ponies we impact, hurt, save, forget, and often pay no heed to. They are still there. because they are part of the story too. Not your story, or mine, but of a whole in which we share a common destiny.

It’s a way of looking at the world I want to impart to you. It may seem a bit vacuous for now, I am sure, but in a sense you will come to understand its ramifications, Luster. You are a great student, a wonderful unicorn, but you are lacking something that I once lacked too.

Friends.

I would love that you make friends, Luster.

This is your next assignment. And no! The punishment is not making friends. Stop making that pout of yours! Tsk-tsk.

Education comes also from how you embed yourself in pony life. A proper worldview does not come from adventure or surmounting dragons. It comes from building yourself, and finding an authentic way to take part in this wonderful world, not as a driving force, but one of its many puzzle pieces.

And friends are the first step.

Go make some. And have fun on the way.

Your devout teacher, Twilight~