Author's Note
It took me so much longer to write this than I ever intended and honestly it's not nearly as good as I wanted it to be.
If you find any spelling errors or grammar mistakes, don't hesitate to point them out for me!
Perform for me
Apple Bloom stepped into the circus and found herself surrounded by reds and yellows.
The two colours could be found anywhere she looked, in the alternating colour patterns of the tents, the chipped and worn paint that decorated the wagons, even the poles that held the numerous oil lanterns that provided the circus with a warm glow to fight away the dark and clouded sky were decorated in more of the crimson reds and fleshy yellows.
The circus was larger than any she’d seen before, which she’d admit had not been many, Ponyville wasn’t an attractive tourist spot with Canterlot and the Everfree so close, but those she had seen had never had more tents and wagons than she could count. Not more than the amount of apple trees in any given row of an orchard.
Not nearly as much as what was here.
“Whoa,” she heard from beside her, and a slight turn of her head brought Scootaloo’s agape mouth and shining eyes into her vision as she stared out at the circus.
Apple Bloom had to agree. The different tents and wagons stacked and leaned against each other with little room to spare, surrounding them on both sides and leading a winding path deeper into the circus.
It felt a bit like Canterlot, the dense collection of buildings on any given street provoking a sense of claustrophobia in her. With alleys and offshoots all around with contents that lay hidden behind darkness or sharp winding turns.
Even the large tent that towered over all the other sights in the circus reminded her of Canterlot Palace, and how no matter where you seemed to be in Canterlot, it could always be seen. Beacons of power and presence, defining everything that surrounded it.
The smell was different though. What she’d seen of Canterlot was clean, pristine, and covered in the old and fading scents of various perfumes. The circus smelt worse in every possible way, it smelt like the farm pig-pen after the one time Sweetie Belle had covered it in as much cheap perfume as she could get a hold of. A scent that rankled her nose and made Apple Bloom consider breathing through her mouth instead to avoid it.
The only halfway similar scent between the circus and Canterlot was the scent of magic, the strange feeling of something buzzing through her nostrils like a strange and over-eager fly. But even that was different in some ways, Canterlot felt like layers upon layers of magic had been built up on top of each other, striving higher and higher until it touched and triggered all of your senses and shifted everything to the left slightly. Meanwhile the magic of the circus felt old, like magic had flooded through this place suddenly, muddying the ground and allowing all kinds of mold to grow as it clogged and pushed against your senses.
It was Sweetie Belle’s high pitched squeak that caught her attention next, and turned her gaze to her pink maned friend staring up at a series of posters plastered against the back of a painted wooden cutout, the kind that you’d stick your head through and take photos of.
Even at a glance Apple Bloom could tell the posters weren’t in good condition. What was obviously meant to be a bright and colourful display to catch of the eye and advertise the attractions of the circus instead appeared as a scratched and faded reminder of the circus’ age, with time having drained the colours of their life and rendered much of what was written into incomprehensible scratches and marks.
Not all of it was rendered illegible though. A few of the posters had survived the test of time in a manner that could be described as “mostly intact” if you gave some leeway to the meaning of “mostly” and “intact”.
Something that may have once been a backdrop of striking red paired with a large silhouette could still be read, as was one that was a mix of shadowy greens and blacks decorated with large watching eyes, as well as something that was painted with the same apple reds and fleshy yellows as much of the rest of the circus.
“The Invincible Strongony! DEADLIFT!” proclaimed the first.
“Madam Klepto’s Collection of Curios” whispered the second.
And finally, in big bold text that slowly petered into illegibility;
“Welcome to our Circus! Our Ringmaster A-”
Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and herself spent a moment staring up at the collection of posters, turning over the information in their minds and what to think of it.
Scootaloo was the first to break out of her reflection, her scratchy carrying the delicacy and tact of a baseball bat.
“This place is old.”
That was not something Apple Bloom could deny, and gave a silent nod of affirmation as she gave a quick count of the dozen or so posters that couldn’t be read. This place was old.
“Old and big. Ah can’t quite remember how big it looked on the outside, but it’s darn ridiculous how many tents and wagons n’ stuff they have out here!”
“And it is my greatest honour to present it all to you, little fillies.” An unfamiliar voice cooed from behind the trio, Apple Bloom repressed a squeak of surprise as her head whipped around to the source of the silk-smooth rasp.
Batting her bow out of her eyes she saw a willowy mare with grey hair and a paling yellow coat, her lips peeled back in a grin a touch too wide, exposing a set of perfectly white teeth and the bright crimson tongue that slithered along them.
Apple Bloom opened her mouth only to find Scootaloo beating her to it, her voice echoing slightly in the silence of the circus.
“Are you a clown?”
“She’s not wearing any make-up, Scoots.” Sweetie Belle’s voice dryly answered.
“So?”
“How could she be a clown if she’s not wearing any make-up!”
“I don’t know, I didn’t go to clown school! Why does she need make-up?”
“Because clowns wear make-up!”
“How does that change anything?”
Apple Bloom found herself meeting the stranger’s amber eyes as her friends continued their back and forth. Silent amusement evident in the stranger’s expression, and Apple Bloom found herself mirroring it.
“Girls,” Apple Bloom interrupted, stepping between her two friends before things could begin to get heated, “why don’t we just ask the mare instead? Pretty sure she’s the Ringmaster anyway.”
Scootaloo paused and turned a suspicious gaze towards her friend, “How do you know she’s the Ringmaster?”
Rolling her eyes, Apple Bloom pointed to a nearby poster and a silhouette of a dancing, large hatted pony beneath the title of “Ringmaster”. Afterwards she pointed towards the stranger that stood in front of them, and the large, red-ribboned, top-hat that sat proudly on their head.
A delighted chuckle broke down any further argument, “Such an observant little filly!” they praised, stepping into a goofy bow as Apple Bloom blushed in embarrassment, she’d only looked at a poster while her friends were distracted. She hadn’t done anything like what the Ringmaster was doing now, twisting and folding over herself in a mind-boggling manner that Apple Bloom knew she had no hope of replicating without tripping over herself half a dozen times.
The trio stared at the Ringmaster as she rose from her bow, a cheshire grin dancing across the Ringmaster’s face as she met the trio’s eyes. “Good evening you three fillies! I am the Ringmaster of the Circus and I welcome you all! We’ve got many wondrous sights to share with you all, so I hope you don’t mind if I take a moment of your time to show you three around.”
Apple Bloom opened her mouth, an answer on the tip of her tongue, only to find the Ringmaster turning away from the three, marching with pride through the streets and paths of the Circus.
“Do we follow after her…?” Apple Bloom asked, glancing towards her friends. Her question earned a shrug and nod from the orange pegasus, but it was the pause from Sweetie Belle that held her step.
“Where else are we going to go?” Sweetie Belle murmured, her voice a cold breeze.
They fell into step, one behind another as they trailed after the Ringmaster, walking in silence as the Circus grew deeper around them. Yellow and red tents and stalls reaching out of the shadows, set up with enticing games or cheap and old prizes for those who won.
Meanwhile, Apple Bloom did her best to ignore how cold she was.
Scootaloo glanced at the Ringmaster once more, that nagging sense she was missing something returning once more, the nagging sensation that made her regret opening her stupid mouth so early more and more with each passing moment.
It was infuriating, the feeling of missing something, of it staring her in the face and laughing. Mocking her with her how oblivious she was, how stupid she felt.
What’s going on in that bird-brain of yours, Scootaloo?
But her friends were here, and the circus surrounded them. Tents with closed doors and empty stalls for now- but the three of them had snuck in early, it made sense that not all the attractions would be open for them to browse. They were lucky the Ringmaster had decided to show them around.
Except there was something more, wasn’t there? Something she wasn’t seeing. Something that danced around her head like stars and laughed in her ear when she wasn’t looking. Taunting her.
She’d show whatever it was that she wasn’t someone to be taken lightly.
She just needed to wait. To be patient. The opportunity will arise and when it happens... BAM! She’ll pounce on it and fly to the sky.
Her train of thought was derailed by the near-familiar feeling of being watched welling up inside of her. The feeling of being dissected by someone’s eyes as they searched and picked apart every weakness you had, leaving you with nothing to stop them but curl up and hide.
Looking around, she found the silent gaze of the Ringmaster watching her. Their head turned around like an owl’s, but without the benefit of feathers to hide the twisting contorting of her neck as she looked back at the trio.
Purple eyes met the cold amber gaze of the Ringmaster
The mare’s grin widened, displaying a top row of brilliant white teeth. Shiny and pristine to the point that it felt unnatural, especially when compared to the paleness that seemed to infect the mare’s coat. The colour faded and drained in a way that reminded her of Granny Smith and the other old ponies around Ponyville.
They were the teeth of someone far too young. It didn’t match, none of it did, the energy the mare placed into every movement was youthful and boundless. It wasn’t completely child-like, like Pinkie Pie, but it had an energy that needed to be used. The body of a young mare who liked to dance and move, with a coat that was too old for her and teeth that were too young. With eyes that looked so cold yet glowed like they too were one of the many glowing lantern lights that were strung about the circus.
Scootaloo tripped, a wave of dizziness washing through her and pulling her out of that gaze before she could get truly stuck. The gaze that seemed to melt the world around it until there was nothing but you and her and the circus that swallowed you whole.
“Are you okay?” Sweetie Belle’s high-pitched voice squeaked as she spoke, making her sound even more like a squeaky toy than she usually did, a strangely comforting and familiar sound to Scootaloo.
“Y-heah, I’m fine, just a little on edge that’s all.”
“Really?”
“Yeah! Really, I’m fine, there’s no need to worry Sweets, who cares if the circus is kinda creepy? It’s probably because there’s nopony around. It’s just us three here.”
There was no immediate reply from the white unicorn, only thoughtful silence. A silence that lingered in the back of her mind and did not so much demand or steal her attention but have it. There was no reason for it, the circus that surrounded them and Apple Bloom’s explanation to the Ringmaster about what the CMC were all about should’ve provided ample distraction from the silence.
But it didn’t.
“Are you alright, Sweets?” Scootaloo ventured, hating the anxiety that shook her voice.
“You didn’t mention the Ringmaster.”
Scootaloo blinked. “... What?”
“You said it was just us three. You forgot to mention the Ringmaster at all.”
Ha! Looks like the blank-flank pegasus got another one wrong! Can’t you get anything right?
“That’s what you got so worked up? Me saying stuff wrong?” she responded casually.
Scootaloo couldn’t see Sweetie’s reaction, but the silence that formed made her stomach twist with guilt. The need to apologise for whatever her stupid mouth had said pulled at her, and she almost gave into it.
Almost.
Just as she was about to turn to face and apologise, she found Sweetie Belle suddenly pushing herself against her side. It was a light force that pressed against her orange coat and showed no desire to let go anytime soon, nowhere near enough to push her over or cause her to trip, but unexpected enough that it caused the pegasus to stumble nonetheless.
“Sweets? What’s-”
“Shh!”
Sweets’s voice was a low whisper. Desperate and hushed, as she spoke, and Scootaloo felt she could almost smell the lingering traces of fear on her friend’s breath.
“I don’t think you did.”
“What?” Scootaloo matched her friend’s hushed tone, but could not prevent her confusion from escaping her mouth.
“Misspoke. When you said that the Ringmaster wasn’t a pony.”
“I…uh...?”
“Because I agree with you. As soon as you said those words I thought ‘that’s right, we’re the only ponies here’. But the Ringmaster is here as well, I was looking right at her, I’m used to correcting you, it’s pretty much a gut instinct for me but I… I didn’t this time... because my gut agreed.”
Scootaloo took a moment to digest her friend’s words. Focusing intently on the emerald eyes that were filled with desperation and sat so close they almost pressed up against her face.
Either she and her friend had lost it or something really was wrong.
… Rainbow Dash wouldn’t doubt her friends.
Scootaloo knew it was probably all in her head, that it was probably just her own overactive imagination and that there was nothing to be worried about.
But she knew she wasn’t the smartest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. She didn’t listen to her brain, she listened to her gut.
And her gut said something was wrong.
“I… okay Sweets, I trust you, I think you might be onto something.”
“So we’ve got the Ringmaster and the quiet.” Sweetie Belle summarised.
“The quiet?”
“It’s too quiet.”
“... We’re in an empty circus, Sweets.”
“Exactly! Where are all the performers? Where are the ponies meant to be running the stores? Why is it just us and her?”
Scootaloo blinked, a quick glance around sent a shiver up her spine as she confirmed that there wasn’t the slightest bit of anypony anywhere.
“It’s too quiet.” She agreed.
“It’s too quiet.” Her friend repeated. The words a mix of a prayer and a warning as they left her mouth.
“What can we do?” Scootaloo asked, she knew they needed a plan. You needed to have a plan. Rainbow Dash had taught her that you always needed to know what you needed to do ahead of time. Even if that plan was just to wing it, you needed to know you were going to wing it so you didn’t doubt yourself halfway through a trick.
“... I don’t know.” Sweetie Belle almost whimpered, her voice jumping in pitch in a terrified squeak.
“Okay,” Scootaloo began, she didn’t know where she was going to go, she just knew she had to wing it at the moment. She couldn’t doubt herself now, that would just scare Sweetie more. And if Sweetie was scared they might miss something. Something Sweets would be too scared and Scootaloo too stupid to notice. “We need to talk to Apple Bloom and find out if she’s noticed anything else too. Then we all have to work together to figure out what to do. For now…”
Her eyes scanned the circus trying to find something that might help Sweetie Belle. Something to calm her down. To ‘find her centre in the storm’ as Rainbow Dash would put it.
“Do you think you could sing me something?”
Her response was a hushed, if startled, “What?” from her friend.
“Well, I thought if it was too quiet, maybe you could sing something? A-and to be honest I think I could use it. Your singing always calms me down, Sweets.”
There was silence, and Scootaloo feared that she had messed up again and would have to recover from the even bigger mess she’d somehow made.
“O-okay…” Sweetie Belle’s hesitant voice answered.
And Sweetie Belle began to hum.
Sweetie Belle looked away from the brief flash of amazement in Scootaloo’s eyes. Her friends loved to watch her sing, she knew. And Sweetie Belle wouldn’t ever stop them from watching her if they really wanted to.
But no matter what she did, the feeling of eyes pressing against her skull never left.
Always staring, always judging (they’re not judging, they were her friends, she knew this), and always waiting for the first mistake, waiting to pounce on her and tear her to shreds.
Taking a quiet breath, she did her utmost to relax, lest her voice strain and ruin the song.
Sweetie Belle continued to quietly sing her lullaby. The lullaby her mother had taught her sister, and her sister had taught her, the lullaby they would sing together on stormy nights when a younger Sweetie Belle couldn’t sleep, when her sister would join her under the covers and hold her close to her warm chest.
Everything was fine.
Nothing was wrong.
Another relaxing breath, a little shallower this time, sucking in just enough air to continue the song without pause. To hold off the eventual mistake for just a little bit longer, to buy her a little bit more time. To give her a little bit more peace.
Sweetie Belle saw the Ringmaster watching her out of the corner of their eye. The mare watched her with that omnipresent grin, the grin that seemed to foul the air around it, and the amber eyes that judged and burned and always seemed a little bit too wide.
Sweetie Belle’s breath seized in her throat.
The song jarred to a halt as the Ringmaster’s head swiveled towards Sweetie Belle, the older mare’s focus pining the little filly in place.
“Oh no no no, that will not do!” the Ringmaster spoke, her grin an inch too wide for Sweetie Belle’s liking, “You have such a beautiful voice little belle! Please, continue to sing! I’d love to see you perform!”
The Ringmaster’s eyes continued to bore through her, digging into her flesh and pulling her apart with the slow methodical grace of a surgeon. Inspecting each chunk of fur and drop of blood, first as if each little bit of flesh could not possibly bore her more, but with each chunk removed from her and the longer she sung for the Ringmaster she could feel their enjoyment of Sweetie Belle’s torment rise, as if in this current moment nothing gave them more bliss than watching the little filly sing.
Sweetie Belle felt revolted. She wanted to stop, she wanted to run away and hide, wanted it all to just end. To flee back home and crawl against her sister's side and sob, to shower and bathe until she no longer felt the Ringmaster’s eyes on her skin. She didn’t want to be here.
Just a moment more, keep singing, don’t fail yet, don’t break. The song is almost over.
Words that kept repeating in Sweetie Belle’s mind as she continued her performance. Words repeated again and again in hopes they’d drown out everything else.
Sweetie Belle’s eyes opened, barely a peek, a single moment and not a second more of sight, and in that moment she caught her friends’ gazes. Watched their eyes welled with awe and worry.
Not everything. Her friends were here, they would support her. Support her when the song was over and the creature that was not a pony’s eyes stopped crawling across her skin like the spiders in the apple family attic roaming down her neck.
They would help her, they would hold her and wash her clean when she cried.
There was silence for a moment, when Sweetie Belle finally finished, hoping that no one caught the frayed edges of her nerves, finally cutting into her voice as the final note came to a close.
“Bravo! Bravo! Such a sweet sight it was, hearing you sing!” The Ringmaster danced around the trio of fillies, circling them with dizzy steps and a wide smile.
It was a weight off her shoulders as her friends stepped in and held her tight.
But Sweetie Belle still noticed that even when the Ringmaster seemed to be looking away, their gaze, the one that reminded Sweetie Belle of her scarce few encounters with timberwolves in the Everfree Forest, never left the three fillies as they huddled against each other.
“I can just tell that the three of you performing here would be a delight! The act for the ages. The sweet melodic siren, the daring bombast, and the hard grown grandeur!” A giggle escaped the Ringmaster’s lips, “I almost wish I would have a chance to see it in full! Alas, it is not to be.” The creature sighed theatrically, briefly pausing in her circling dance to stand on two legs and bend backwards as she did so, with a hoof pressed against their overly large tophat in mock devastation. Somehow managing to maintain a balance that seemed defiant of natural laws.
She bent a little too far, and held the position for a little too long, Sweetie Belle was sure of it.
The Ringmaster tumbled into a cartwheel to right herself, and began to march onwards. “But I promised a tour, did I not? We shall continue then. This way little fillies come and meet one of our longest running acts.”
The trio hesitated for a moment, trading worried glances before reluctantly following the Ringmaster further into the wandering maze of the circus.
They didn’t have far to go, it turned out. The Ringmaster brought them to a nest of wagons hiding just out of sight of the jungle of tents. The ground was littered with boxes and supplies, as if they were in the process of being unpacked before that task was abandoned and left behind to rot in the dirt. Sweetie Belle spied Scootaloo peering deeper into one of the boxes while Apple Bloom kept her rapt attention on the Ringmaster.
“A part of our Circus for longer than I and a staple act for any troupe of travelling performers.” The Ringmaster hopped in front of one particular wagon, the wooden walls decorated with more worn posters, each clearly labelling a single individual. “It’s an act that you’ve come to expect, but one that will amaze you to see all the same, and I can promise there is nothing quite like it in the world,” The Ringmaster flashed the trio a grin, “Hold your breath and prepare to cheer, for it is my joy to welcome and present to you our amazing, our invincible, our incredible…”
The next thing she heard was a bone shaking roar. A single, powerful note that shook the ground beneath them as much as it did the loose wood of the wagon door.
“STRONGPONY!”
The Ringmaster swung the entrance to the wagon open, revealing the hulking frame of a pony that sat pressed against the other side.
Bulbous.
That was the first word that came to mind when Sweetie Belle saw them. The second was ‘big’.
Sweetie Belle had never seen anything that made her want to throw up more.
The pony wasn’t merely muscular, they were muscle. It was as if they’d been taken over by cancerous growth, twisting and bulging throughout the body in the pursuit of more muscle. Sweetie Belle could not find an inch that wasn’t covered by the swelling collection mass that seemed to strain against the creature’s skin. There was no similarity between what she was witnessing and those muscley stallions in the magazines her sister read and tried to hide from her, nor the muscled and toned bodies of Apple Bloom and her siblings.
The Strongpony’s muscles were grotesquely inflated, as if somepony had stuffed a balloon pump into each and every one and pumped until they were about to burst before giving them just a little bit more to see how far they could stretch and bulge.s.
Sweetie Belle stared into wide, crazed eyes. There were no emotions in those eyes, no thought or compassion or even rage. Instead only more grotesque muscle pulsating with sick strength.
She could not recognise it as a pony, her very gut twisted at the thought of associating the hulking mass of muscle as a pony. Maybe it once was a pony, but much like the Ringmaster, Sweetie Belle didn’t think it was one anymore.
Her gaze slowly crept towards the Ringmaster, who cackled in delight as if the corpse she introduced was something to be proud of.
The words slipped out of her mouth before she could really stop them, a low murmur that travelled across the small circle of wagons.
“What are you?”
The Ringmaster stared deeply into Sweetie Belle’s eyes, and she felt the world around them begin to twist and blur as a sick smile slipped across the creature’s face.
“I’m the Ringmaster dear, here to welcome you special three to the Circus.”
Sweetie Belle thought she would’ve been frozen in her place, long enough for the Strongpony to crush her beneath their grossly enlarged hooves, had not Apple Bloom shouted and saved her, “Run girls! Run!”
Nothing more was needed, nothing more could be done. Fear took over and Sweetie Belle took flight, her eyes locked on her friends running ahead of her.
She could hear her heart pounding, the rapid sound of hooves sprinting across dirt, and the terrible thuds of the Strongpony behind her.
But she didn’t think anything was quite as terrifying as the voice that tried to whisper in her head. Laughing and cackling as it whispered the words over and over.
Perform for me.
They had found themselves hiding inside a tent, peeking through a crack in the curtain and straining their ears listening for the heavy thuds of the Strongpony.
As the thuds grew quieter, Apple Bloom allowed herself to take a deep breath and found herself almost collapsing as relief chased away the adrenaline in her body.
But she was an earth pony, she was a farmfilly, she had thick-headed endurance if nothing else. So pulling herself up to her hooves she took in the tent around her.
The smell was the first thing that struck her. There was something in the air that just smelt…. Bad. Worse than the pig pens on the farm during the summer, a combination of vomit, sweat, rotting wood, and unwashed gutters all mixed with something else that she couldn’t identify, all magnified as it perforated the choking layer of old magic that still filled the air.
Her throat seized as she took in the murky darkness that covered the room. Silence muffled her ears and Apple Bloom felt phantom spiders crawling down her spine as she searched for something she could see. Anything to provide an anchor in the dark.
“Girls?” Her voice twanged into the space of the tent, as loud as she dared with the threat of that… monster still lurking somewhere. She felt rather than saw something shifting in the darkness to her side, and her heart almost stopped in her chest until it spoke.
“Apple Bloom?” Sweetie’s dainty voice spoke
“Bloom?” Scootaloo rasped from somewhere else.
“Can you girls see anything?”
The sound of both her friends chorusing ‘noes’ at her was disheartening, but at least she could guess where they were with them speaking.
“Anypony have any ideas? I dun wanna walk ‘round in the dark here.”
The idea of bumping into something in the dark was not something she wanted to experience as she slowly shuffled further into the room, her hooves stretching out in front of her in a hopeful attempt at forewarning her of anything in her path.
Sweetie Belle broke from quietly whispering her lullaby to herself - something Apple Bloom didn’t quite notice but found out she vastly preferred to the silence otherwise found - to speak, “I… could try some magic but….”
“What’s the problem Sweets?” Scootaloo croaked from somewhere behind her.
“I’m still practicing,” she murmured, “I don’t know if it’ll do anything.”
“Well it’s better than nothin’ Sweetie, think ya can give it a shot?”
Apple Bloom’s question was met with a momentary silence, only for a flickering green spark of light to appear between them, illuminating the scrunched ivory face of her friend.
“You’re doing it Sweets! We can see you now!” Scootaloo quietly cheered, the barest hint of her purple mane visibible on the very edges of the tiny bubbling of flickering light Sweetie was creating.
A startled noise gasped as Sweetie’s eyes shot open and the bubble of light that surrounded her horn collapsed.
“Sorry girls.” Sweetie apologised into the dark.
“Do you think you can try again?” Scootaloo’s scratchy voice asked.
“I think I could-”
“Nah, don’t bother Sweetie, better save your strength for the long hall.” Apple Bloom interrupted.
“But we can’t see, Bloom.” Scootaloo retorted.
“Yeah but Ah’d rather Sweetie save her strength. Remember last time she tried too hard with her magic and almost collapsed? I dun think any of us want that happenin’ right now.”
There was a silence between the three of them, each awaiting for another to respond. Finally, Scootaloo’s resigned voice answered.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Uh, anypony got any other ideas? We could try to sneak past ‘em, right?”
Sneaking out didn’t seem too bad an idea to Apple Bloom. They had to be careful to avoid the Ringmaster or Strongpony but she didn’t think that would be too hard, the Strongpony didn’t seem like something that could understand ‘subtlety’ if it was stamped on their face, and she could hear the Ringmaster still calling out for them from somewhere outside the tent.
Just as her confidence in the plan began to rise, Sweetie’s voice whispered something that smothered the burgeoning flame, “Do either of you remember the way out?”
Apple Bloom desperately tried to recall the steps they’d taken, but the winding path the Ringmaster had led them down and the desperate escape from the Strongpony gave only blurred memories of whatever path they had taken.
At this very moment, Apple Bloom silently hated that Sweetie had said that.
Filling her voice with a confidence she really didn’t feel, Apple Bloom spoke, “We should stay put then. Our sisters and their friends will save us right? So we lets stay here until the shows over.”
Her sister would save her, she had faith in that. That they’d return to the farm, Apple Bloom would be scolded for being so reckless, and then her sister would hold her tight when they went to bed and tell her how everything would be alright.
The sound of something landing with a limp thwump behind her drained those thoughts away, leaving only pitch black terror.
“...Show...?” A half-familiar voice croaked out.
Apple Bloom heard the sound of hooves being dragged across wood as whatever was behind her moved.
“Show….? Yes… Welcome them to the g-great and- No… Welcome them to the show… Is it show time yet? C-can I g-get a volunteer…? No no! Not yet… Where… Where is…?”
The voice trailed off, its confused ramblings echoing across the tent. Slowly, Apple Bloom began to see the darkness around her disappear like fog as small lanterns became alit with strange blue flames.
She saw the rows of chairs as she turned around. They faced a wooden stage propped up on the far side of the room. The stages yellow and red curtains were slowly being drawn open, revealing the source of the confused murmurs.
Apple Bloom didn’t recognise her at first, having only met the mare once, but even she felt sick at her appearance.
The figure turned too speak with the audience, seemingly ignoring the wounds her body held, her voice carrying far more bravado than her murmurs had offered as she announced herself to the audience.
“Welcome one and all to the terrifying and mystical performance of…” The performer stood on her hind legs, throwing her hands into the air as if she was cheering herself on as the curtain finally drew all the way back, “The grrreat and powerrrful…. TRIXIE!”
Apple Bloom felt sick looking at her.
Appearing above the stage, attached to dangling wires that did not even try to hide themselves, was Trixie. She hung limp, her face shrouded by the brim of her hat as the wires slowly lowered her onto the stage. One might call her angelic if they could ignore the ragged clothes she wore and her exhausted disposition. The purple fabric stuck to her, stained by so much blood and grime that the yellow stars that decorated her cape looked more like sick blotches of pus crawling up her skin and taking over her body than the symbols of mysticism they were meant to be.
The wires did not retract back into the ceiling once their job was done, instead they remained, soaking up the attention of the crowd as if they too were apart of the performance. Dangling with grim pride as they trailed down into-
Bile rose through Apple Bloom’s throat, and she felt her tongue burn as she spat vomit onto the dirt beneath her hooves.
The wires led to bloodied metallic spikes. Larger than the length of her leg and almost as thick they reminded her of the branches dropped by the oldest trees in the orchards whenever a storm passed by. The kind she couldn’t lift on lonesome and that her sister or granny would scold her for attempting to even try and pick the unwieldy things up.
The spikes punctured Trixie’s flesh, punching through her limbs and joints, leaving gaping uneven holes in their wake as they trailed wires through her body and strung Trixie up like some sort of cruel demented puppet.
Trixie’s heavy, rasping breaths became all the more prominent in Apple Bloom’s ears.
Sweetie Belle was the first to respond, her voice wobbled and shook as she stammered out the only question Apple Bloom felt could be asked.
“W-what happened to her?”
There was no reaction from Trixie, no acknowledgement that something was wrong as the bloody wires pulled and controlled her body, moving in a jubilant dance as she began to speak once more.
“I’ll need a volunteer from the audience for my opening act, any volunteer will do, so please come and join me on the stage! We’ll make a-”
Trixie words were cut off as the showmare began to thrash violently. Apple Bloom felt her ears fold against her head as Trixie began to scream.
“NO! GET OFF THE STAGE GET OFF THE STAGE! I CAN’T PERFORM IF YOU’RE NOT ON THE STAGE!”
Apple Bloom shivered as she continued to watch the mare scream and shake, fighting against the wires that controlled her. Her eyes saw how fresh blood slithered down the punctures the wires made, marring Trixie’s already stained fur with deep streaks of red.
The three fillies were petrified as they watched the mare fight against herself, cringing whenever the sounds of tearing flesh and snapping bones reached their ears, it wasn’t until the ratted hat she wore was torn off her head and her unkempt and greasy silver mane fell free that she calmed down.
“Can we help her?” Apple Bloom heard Sweetie whisper, and out of the corner of her eye she saw her unicorn friend curled up and shaking with fear, eyes wide and glued to the stage.
“Ah…. Ah don’t rightly know how… We... Ah don't think we can stay here anyway with all the noise she made. Some… thing is bound to come lookin’.”
“Pick a direction and run?” Scootaloo suggested, her tiny wings nervously buzzing.
Making a run back for home didn’t seem like too bad an idea to Apple Bloom, but before she could voice such thoughts Trixie’s gasping breaths interrupted her.
Her voice lacked any sort of pride or bravado, as did it the arrogance she spoke with when she first came to Ponyville. Instead there was anger. She could hear it, frustration and hopelessness, tied together by determined anger as the mare grit her teeth and spoke to the fillies.
“Won’t… work…”
Her speaking seemed to have taken Scootaloo off-guard as well, but she saw her friend’s eyes narrow and glare at the mare. “Why not?”
“How did you… get here? Why are you… here?”
Apple Bloom blinked and thought back.
Then desperately tried to think harder, to remember, to recall.
Her mind came up blank.
“Girls,” she whispered, “Ah can’t remember leaving Ponyville.”
“You just walked in… didn’t you? Just like... Trixie…” She murmured.
Hesitating slightly, Apple Bloom stepped towards the showmare, “Do ya know how to get outta here?”
“Bloom!” Scootaloo shouted, wrapping her hooves around Apple Bloom and pulling her back as she sent a glare towards Trixie, “We can’t trust her!”
Trixie matched the little pegasus’s glare for a moment, if only to tilt her head back in raucous, uproarous, hacking laughter. Apple Bloom saw blood dribble from the mare’s lips as she turned and leered at the three.
“No… No you can’t! Even Trixie can’t trust Trixie right now, but... “ The mare’s eyes turned downward, and her voice turned sombre. “Trixie doesn’t want to hurt ponies. So Trixie won’t hurt you if you do what she says.”
Shuffling backwards with Scootaloo, Apple Bloom continued to watch Trixie, “What do ya suggest we do?”
Ignoring her friend’s glare, Apple Bloom continued to listen as Trixie spoke. “This place is a circus-” she ignored Scootaloo snorting, “- the Ringmaster is at its head and the Big Top is at its centre.”
“Well, that’s obvious.”
Anger flashed across Trixie’s face, leaning forward she sent a needle-like glare at her friend, “Shut it, brat, you need Trixie’s help if you want to get out of here.”
“Why not? Can’t we just pick a direction and get out of here?”
“That won’t work, there’s nothing out there, I checked. Just trees and fog until you-” A terrible sound emanated from Trixie as she began to cough and heave. Apple Bloom watched as the mare convulsed for a moment, her body twitching in place as something began to slowly rise through the mare’s throat.
Finally, with a final, horrible heave, Trixie spat a warped chunk of flesh, tar-black and as rotten as a decade old apple, onto the stage. It dripped with blood and vomit as it sat there on the stage, there was a moment of silence as all stared at it.
Sweetie was the first to speak, her eyes wide and staring. “I think that’s a lung.”
Trixie stared at it for a moment before slowly raising a hoof to wipe her mouth.
“Trees and fog until you starve,” she continued, “and are drawn back here and it gets you. Only way out is the gate. Else they’ll get in your head and you’ll never leave.”
Behind her, she heard Sweetie let out a terrified squeak.
“I think we should go.”
Apple Bloom stared at Trixie’s desolate figure, a half-rotting and half-living corpse and puppet tied to her stage. Distantly, she could hear the voice of the Ringmaster, calling out to the three of them.
“Yeah, Ah couldn’t agree more Sweetie.”
Sweetie Belle could only barely make out the Ringmaster’s taunts as they snuck through the jungle of tents, but every now and then she could hear the Ringmaster’s voice with a strange piercing clarity that seemed to drill through her skull and bury the words into her head.
She did her best to block it out, to ignore their cruel jests thrown her way. Whether it be calling to her like a lost dog, insulting and belittling her, imitating her sister, or, worst of all, just talking to her. Not talking down to her, but talking to her like they were friends. Friends who had spent too many nights staying up too late and giggling at secrets traded under the stars.
It was strange that somehow they knew enough about her sister to imitate her so perfectly. She’d almost cried out when she first heard her sister’s voice calling for her, only to recoil when she saw the Ringmaster nearby. Their mouth flapping in perfect sync to her sister’s apparent words.
Sometimes, they’d ask me to do something for them.
It was always the same thing, and sometimes, Sweetie Belle felt herself almost begin to follow through the instructions before stopping herself.
Perform for me.
Hunching her shoulders she did the best to ignore the words pressing against her skull. Her friends were barely reacting to it, not even an unconscious flick or turn of the ear to get a closer listen to what the Ringmaster was saying.
They moved quietly, sneaking between the tents in the direction Trixie had instructed would be the most likely to lead them towards the entrance of the circus and out of this wretched place. Scootaloo crept in front, despite Apple Bloom’s protest, protests that had devolved into a whole argument that boiled down to- if Sweetie Belle decided to be crass and use words she’d overheard on the Apple family farm and occasionally Scootaloo- a dickmeasuring contest about who was the most self-sacrificing, a contest Sweetie Belle was too scared would bring the attention of the Ringmaster who had seemed right outside Trixie’s tent for her to carry on with.
So it was decided that, since Scootaloo was the sneakiest and the least likely to be caught, that she would lead the way while Sweetie hung back with Apple Bloom to protect each other.
And while she was appreciative of her friend’s presence by her side, she was fully aware that ‘protect each other’ meant ‘protect Sweetie Belle’. Apple Bloom might’ve still been young, but she still had the strength of an earth pony, one who lived on a farm and had the largest muscles out of anypony their age that Sweetie Belle had ever met.
Meanwhile, she was just a blankflank unicorn who could barely conjure enough magic to make some sparks. If one of those monsters were to suddenly appear in front of her she knew that she was more likely to freeze in fear rather than do anything useful.
From behind the folds of a now thoroughly ruffled tent wall, Sweetie Belle watched as Scootaloo snuck closer and stuck her head out into what Sweetie Belle had mentally labelled one of the ‘streets’ of the circus. Where it was wider and obviously meant for ponies to be travelling through, not the cramped and often dead ended alleys they’d hidden in.
Perform for me.
It was surreal, watching Scootaloo check both directions as if crossing a road before signalling for Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle to approach. Not wanting to be left behind, she found herself quickly falling into step behind Apple Bloom as they snuck towards their pegasus friend. A soft hum began to build in her throat, and she felt the nerves that had been so recently frayed slowly begin to stitch together as the notes within her were given sound.
“What’s goin’ on Scoots?” Apple Bloom drawled.
“Well, we want to find where we came in, right?” Scootaloo paused, if only for long enough to see her and Apple Bloom return silent nods, “Then we might not want to go to the edge right now. I mean, if we end up picking the wrong directions once we get to the edge we might have to circle round the entire thing!”
“So what’d ya suppose we do instead?” Apple Bloom’s tone was dry, “Ask for directions?”
Scootaloo shook her head and pointed. Leaning out of their little alcove, Sweetie Belle followed the direction and saw what must’ve been Scootaloo’s goal.
“The Big Top?”
“Trixie said it’s in the centre, right? We make it there and we might be able to see where the way out is. We won’t have to go nearly as far!”
Sweetie eyes found themselves fixated on the imposing image of the Big Top. She couldn’t see all of it, only it’s roof, but the image still stuck itself in it’s mind. Some sort of fat king of tents peering over the heads of its subjects. Watching the three of them scurry around it’s maze like mice.
“Ah don’t trust the Big Top not to be the most dangerous place ‘ere!” Apple Bloom cried out, her voice a panicked whisper-shout.
“It’ll be better than skirting the entire edge of the Circus where they’ll be looking for us!” Scootaloo retorted, her voice.
“Girls!” Sweetie Belle whispered.
“At least it’ll only be one of ‘em findin’ us instead of the whole place crashin’ on our heads if we get spotted!”
Scootaloo let out a scratchy growl, “At least we’ll have somewhere to run and a direction to go rather than just aimlessly wandering around!”
“Girls!” She tried once more only to be spoken over by Apple Bloom’s retort..
“At least we won’t be lifting our flanks to them and askin’ for a buckin’!”
“Yeah, instead we’ll be letting them corner our-”
Anger flared through Sweetie Belle, her horn became alit with arcane energy, wrapping around both her friend’s mouths and slamming them shut with an audible clack.
“QUIET!” Sweetie seethed, glaring down at the two noise makers she held in her magic, “They can hear you. So you two be quiet or I will-"
A soft whimper broke through the red veil that had taken her. The magic holding her friends vanished as she stumbled backwards, the tent behind her brushing up against her back like the crawl of a spider as her head spun.
She saw her two friends nursing their jaws, winces split across both their expressions as they cringed from pain.
Her ears twitched as she heard another voice. A familiar voice, slowly reaching inside her skull and carving it’s words into her.
Her voice.
Perform for me.
She ran.
Running through a maze of creepy…
She glanced at a nearby shelf, her eyes landing on what seemed to be a hairless rat, curled up and suspended in a jar of green liquid. Doing her best to suppress a shiver of revolution she pulled her eyes away and back towards the darkness ahead of her.
Running through a maze of creepy stuff wasn’t Scootaloo’s idea of a good time. But she didn’t want Sweetie running off alone more-so. The feeling of her heart freezing in her chest when she saw Sweetie Belle turn and blindly run off still echoed inside her chest, and the burning condemnation of failure that weighed down her gut did more than enough to numb the soreness in her jaw.
She wouldn’t leave Sweetie Belle here for the monsters to get her. Rainbow Dash was the Bearer of Loyalty, she wouldn’t leave her friends behind if they ran off into some sort of creepy junk-filled maze so Scootaloo wouldn’t either.
It was hard to spot, but Sweetie had left a trail behind her when she ran through here. Scuffed hoof marks in the dirt as she ran, the rare fallen object from where she had bumped into a shelf by going around a corner faster than she could handle.
It had taken a while for Scootaloo to spot the trail, with the maze lacking any sort of oil lanterns for light and instead only populated and illuminated by the eerie green glow many of the curios gave off. Jars of eyes, lava lamps, that hairless rat-thing, some glow-in-the-dark stickers. All of it gave off the same glow, cloaking the place in a half-darkness that made it difficult to find the trail Sweetie Belle had left.
But not impossible. The trail was there to be found, and Sweetie’s could still be heard.
She would follow them, find wherever Sweetie Belle ran, and get her out of this creepy place. A simple but effective plan.
Are you sure that’s the best idea Scoots?
Apple Bloom was outside, keeping an eye out in case something came or Scootaloo took too long.
But it was Scootaloo’s job to find Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo wouldn’t leave her friend behind, she was going to save Sweets, and Apple Bloom had seen the look on her face and decided to keep an eye out.
So Scootaloo didn’t get into any more trouble.
Deeper.
And
Deeper.
Into the maze.
The maze of heavy shelves, that stood so precariously with all the junk in them that Scootaloo was surprised a stiff breeze didn’t knock them tumbling forwards and make everything in them crush whatever was underneath.
The weird, disgusting breeze that flowed through the Circus still moved even in here, and Scootaloo shivered as the ill-wind blew threw her feathers.
She just had to ignore it. She had to focus on finding Sweetie Belle.
“COME BACK HERE YOU FLIGHTLESS FREAK!”
Scootaloo flinched at the echoing voice, whipping her head around the dark halls in a futile attempt to find the source.
Nothing.
Slowly, Scootaloo resumed her trek. Slow, careful measured steps as she checked around every corner and glanced behind her every so often.
“A PEGASUS THAT CAN’T EVEN FLY? WHAT A JOKE!”
Flinching, she whipped her head around to the sight of darkness, softly illuminated by the shadowy green glows of various jars and bottles of fluid.
“WHAT’S WRONG CHICKEN?” A voice blared into her ear.
“Who’s there?” Scootaloo whispered, desperately searching for a source amongst all the crap that littered this place.
Silence.
“I said who's there!” She shouted, her tiny wings flaring in a futile instinctual attempt to make herself look bigger.
But nothing answered her.
“Anypony?”
Perform for me.
Turning her back on the wind that seemed to carry voices, Scootaloo returned to the path ahead, and the leering face of the Ringmaster peeking out from the darkness and into the dim light.
Scootaloo screamed as the Ringmaster cackled, the little pegasus diving to the floor as the grinning monster lunged across the distance between them. She felt a hoof impact the dirt beside her head.
Flapping her wings and kicking her legs, she crawled out from the pile of limbs and mirthless laughter, stumbling to her hooves and breaking into a dead sprint away from the Ringmaster and into the maze ahead of her.
“What’s wrong, my little dare devil?” The Ringmaster cooed from behind Scootaloo, “Just fly fly away! We all know what you can do! Fly! Scream!”
Tiny wings buzzed on Scootaloo’s back.
“Don’t you want to hear them cheer? See the stars in their eyes as they see you perform? They’ll love you more than anything else? Perform,little Scootaloo.”
Scootaloo didn’t bother responding, darting through the maze as her mine desperately sought a way to get away.
“Listen little filly!” The Ringmaster shrieked, and Scootaloo felt her tail suddenly pinned to the ground beneath a pair of hooves. She tripped, and was sent sprawling onto the ground, her head landing with a heavy thud.
She tried to wriggle her way out, but her attempts only led to more pain as the Ringmaster bit into her underdeveloped wings. She tried to find some sort of leverage, something to escape, but the only things around were shelves full of creepy junk.
Desperately, she began bucking at the Ringmaster, thrashing on the floor and trying to grab hold of anything.
“Let go of me!” Scootaloo screamed, throwing her head and as much weight behind it forward, feeling tiny feathers being torn out of her back as her head crashed into something.
She could feel blood in her eyes when they were open, and saw the free standing shelf teetering in front of her face.
But she couldn’t feel the Ringmaster’s grip on her.
The shelf came crashing down, glass jars and junk falling to the floor and shattering, littering the ground with shards of glass.
Scootaloo threw herself into a panic-filled roll, ignoring the glass that embedded itself in her body.
With a thud the heavy shelf landed.
Peeling her eyes open, she saw the shelf inches from her, and no Ringmaster in sight.
Scootaloo exhaled a heavy, worn breath, and winced as her body stung with pain.
Moving into a wobbly stand, and wincing with every other step, Scootaloo trudged along into the maze.
Through the answerless dark, where her only company were the ancient curios that decorated the shelves and the leering memories that followed her.
She couldn’t exactly place where she was anymore, but when she turned another corner she paused to take one big, relieved breath.
There, in an intersection not any more special than the others sat a glass vat, more than large enough to contain a full grown pony, and filled with the same green liquid as all the others. Dark shapes floated in the murky liquid, and Scootaloo could only pick out the impressions of long tangled hair amongst the blurry mass.
But sitting at the base of the vat was another shape, small and shaking, with a white coat that heaved up and down with each sporadic breath they took.
“Sweets?”
The shape froze, and it was a long moment before her friend lifted her head from the floor and turned to face her.
Her eyes were wet, her mane was disheveled, her mouth was pressed into a tight line, and her face was covered in dirt and grime.
It didn’t take more than a thought to wrap her hooves around Sweetie Belle, pulling her into a tight embrace.
“It’s okay Sweets, we’re gonna get you outta here. We’re gonna leave this stupid place and get home and- and-”
Her hooves tightened her grip on her friend, and she fought against the tears that burned against her eyes. She couldn’t cry now, she had to stay strong, had to pretend to be alright or else Sweets would know everything wasn’t.
Despite being chased around a creepy circus filled with creepy ponies, she had to be strong and pretend everything was alright.
That soon, they’d just run away and never see any of this again.
Scootaloo felt Sweetie heave and shake under in her grip, fighting against herself as she choked out the words she wanted to say.
“I’m sorry, Scoots.”
Tears welled in Scootaloo’s eyes.
“What do you have to be sorry for Sweets? You did nothing wrong.”
“I-I hurt you. I was just so scared and angry and- and I hurt you and Apple Bloom.”
“It’s not your fault Sweets. It’s this place, it’s driving us crazy. We just gotta get out of here.”
“W-what if we can’t, Scoots? What if Trixie’s wrong? What if there is no way out and we’re stuck here forever?”
It became hard to breathe, and Scootaloo felt her eyes clenched shut as they burned with tears. “Then your sister- and her friends- and- and Rainbow Dash will save us. They’ll come in here and kick that- that Ringmaster’s butt and rescue us.”
“And if they don’t?” She heard Sweets whimper, “If they can’t save us- or don’t save us- or- or decide we’re not good enough to save?”
“Then-” Scootaloo began, “Then we’ll have each other. Cutie Mark Crusaders, together forever, right?”
“Scoots I-” Her friend began, and Scootaloo felt her friend’s entire body shudder with pain between her hooves.
Doing her best to continue holding her friend, continue letting her know that she was here, that she wouldn’t be abandoned if she could help it. She turned her friend around, and watched as her friend’s eyes refused to meet her face. “What is it, Sweets?”
“Scootaloo you need to-”
Sweetie Belle’s mouth burst open, and for a brief moment all Scootaloo could hear was her unnatural violent shriek. It tore through the maze, shattering glass and throwing anything it came across into the air. She felt the force of her own body being slammed into her hooves as the sound came to a slow end, crawling back into Sweetie Belle and transforming into something else.
Something beautiful.
It was Sweetie’s lullaby, but it’s quiet and meek notes had become proud and elegant, dancing across the air for all to hear and witness.
Scootaloo could barely hear anything else, not until the tent was torn away around her like a magician pulling out a cloth from underneath a table.
But rather than revealing a pretty mare or unharmed set of expensive cutlery the cloth pulled away to reveal something else. The Ringmaster, grinning ear to ear, eyes wide with psychotic mirth as she took in a deep breath..
The sound felt like a dinner bell to Scootaloo. Loud and clear as it rang across the Circus and announced itself to all the cockroaches that refused to die that lived inside of it.
“Fillies and Gentlecolts,” The Ringmaster smiled, a beautiful winning smile, the monster continued to talk, but Scootaloo wasn't listening. Instead she was staring at her friend.
Sweetie stared back at her, wide eyed, she made no attempt to move, and between pained and gasping breaths of her song, mouthed a single word.
Run.
Her instincts screamed at her. She hated it. She hated it as hooves scrambled through the dirt. As Scootaloo pushed herself away from the leering face of the Ringmaster. Hated it as Scootaloo fled the maze with Sweetie Belle’s song trailing behind her.
Sweetie Belle winced as the Siren continued it’s prowl, bloody barbed wires dug into her hooves with each and every step. She did her best to continue to sing the song despite the building pain. The memories of the barbed wire growing when she refused to sing was more than enough motivation for her.
All she had to do was continue to sing, she was lucky it was something so simple. Just perform and sing and she’d never feel that pain again.
So she continued to sing, even as the song dug into her own mind and showed her things.
Performers, acrobats, peddlers, and fortune tellers, creatures twisted and unwanted, raising their heads and following the sound of her voice.
She had to sing. She had to perform.
She had to let…. It continue its prowl.
Step after wincing step, she continued to sing. The fleeting form of Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, turning corners and running, running from what she brought, only ever sparing a distraught glance for their lost friend as the distance between them became greater and greater.
She couldn’t do anything to help them. Couldn’t stop her hooves from moving. Couldn’t stop her song filling her mind with information, thousands of hateful eyes drilling the location of her friends into her mind.
If they could hear her, she could see them.
And if she could see them, she followed.
She didn’t have a choice.
She really, really wanted a choice.
Tears stung her eyes, but she continued to sing.
She didn’t want to hurt. She didn’t want to hurt her friends. She didn’t want to find them.
They’re hiding beneath a tablecloth at the Test Your Strength game. Performers are passing them by.
But they can still hear me. I can still find them.
Step after painful step, she followed after her friends.
Sweetie Belle travelled through the twists and turns of the Circus, doing her best not to choke on the smell of death, decay, and wrongness that grew stronger as she approached what lived inside the Big Top.
She stepped carefully through the scattered debris of splintered wood, torn cloth, and fractured slices of metal that littered the ground in the Strongpony’s wake, although that did nothing to stop the pain of the barbed and twisting wires digging that grew out of her hooves and dug right back into her flesh with every step.
Her eyes caught on a poster on the edge of her vision, and she looked up to find the impossible thing displayed proudly on a nearby lantern pole, one of the few things that always went untouched by the Strongpony, for even their brutish instincts made them wary of the dangerous flames they housed.
The poster had once been decorated with bright colours, but time had already worn it down and drained it of its life. Like many of the posters she had seen in the Circus, it too advertised somepony that belonged to the twisted place.
As Sweetie Belle read, she found herself silent, the notes of her lullaby escaping her as her breath caught and heart seized.
She wasn’t silent for long. A single missed note, less than half a second where her song failed to travel and she lost the sight it granted her.
It was still half a second too long.
Her world was filled with the sound of her own flesh being ripped apart as angry metal wires twisted and burst out of her body, crawling out of straining bones and weaving their way through soft flesh. Ensuring her body with twisting, metal, barbed vines that pinch and dug and grew with every thrashing movement she made.
Sweetie Belle screamed in pain as her vision turned and tumbled as she collapsed to the ground. Barbed wire digging and growing throughout her body with reckless glee until the Siren caught her. She felt the Siren embrace her, shadowy limbs wrapping body and mind in a warm and gentle embrace, numbing the pain as it took her voice and began to sing once more.
The pain ceased, and the Siren whispered comforting words into her ears as the outside world slowly bled back into her perception. When all was right and the pain ceased she felt her voice once more became her own.
Don’t stop singing. Make them hear our song. Perform and keep the pain away.
Sweetie Belle didn’t stop singing. Whispering her lullaby to herself.
Louder. The Siren ushered, and with slow, halting and shaking movements, Sweetie Belle obeyed. Singing louder and louder as she lay on the ground and stared up at the dark, cloud stained sky.
Slowly, she felt the pain drift away as the Siren buried the sensations deeper within her.
She saw The Strongpony had found her friends. Scootaloo's ragged steps dragging behind as Apple Bloom lead their way towards The Big Top.
She felt tears well in her eyes. She was helpless- no, she was worse than helpless. Worse than useless. She was a burden, a parasite, leeching off the generosity and kindness of her friends at the very same time she doomed them.
Could she really call them her friends, even after all she had done that was going to get them killed or worse? If she hadn't run off- if she hadn’t given in- if she hadn’t-
Scootaloo climbed and dove off a nearby wagon, plummeting onto the outstretched limb of the Strongpony, Apple Bloom fell to the floor from where she was pinned and began to crawl away as Scootaloo raged and wailed against the Strongpony's impossible strength. She was lucky that the surprise bought her enough time to jump away once Apple Bloom was free. Only a hair's breadth away from being crushed.
She took in a slow, shaky breath, but did not dare stop the song. Not when tears stung her eyes, not when her voice started to grow sore, not as she grew closer and closer to her friends.
Nopony was going to save her, she wasn’t anything worth saving, only a blankflank and a burden and a parasite.
The poster still stood before her, laughing and taunting her from the corner of her vision as Sweetie Belle refused to look at it.
But the memory of what she saw was still there. A colourful background, the adorable smile of a tiny pale-coated unicorn, and big bubble text introducing them.
‘The Singing Siren, Sweetie Belle’
She tried not to cry, for fear of interrupting her song, as she trailed after her friends.
The sounds of the Strongpony crashing their way through the maze added the necessary percussion to Sweetie Belle’s voice that transformed it from a simple song or lullaby to the malevolent call it was.
Scootaloo found Apple Bloom frozen still outside the front of the maze, eyes wide and ears swivelling sporadically.
“RUN!”
Her own voice didn’t reach her ears as the sounds of the circus seized her and began to choke out the rest. The entire circus had become more alive with Sweetie Belle’s singing, as if her friend’s own voice had decided to take part in the chase.
A yellowed, skinless head shot out of the entrance of a nearby tent, cracking and biting with bony jaws. It wasn’t until a second after that Scootaloo’s mind caught up and realised she had dodged the thing like it was a pedestrian walking down the streets in Ponyville.
Further thoughts of recollection were shut as a bloodcurdling roar echoed down the circus lane and through Scootaloo’s bones.
She threw herself to the side, and felt the hairs of her coat brush up against the bulbous muscle of the Strongpony as it barrelled past her.
She tumbled, the shuddering earth and her own desperate and scrambling movements throwing her senses into disarray as dirt and dust was flung into her eyes.
Hacking breaths stunned her as her ringing ears told her that the Strongpony’s steps had halted, if only to big anew and grow louder and louder as the monster approached her once more.
Wiping an orange hoof over dust-soaked eyes did little to clear Scootaloo’s blurry image, but it was enough to show her the approach of the massive creature intent on running her down.
Where was Apple Bloom? Her mind asked, only for the thought to be pressed down as more pressing concerns manifested.
A raging mass of stretched and over-grow muscle, tearing down the open path of the Circus and seemingly intent on running down the little pegasus that stood before it without a care in the world.
A voice planned in her head, scratchy, familiar, but above all else inspiring. Speaking with an unwavering confidence in herself and her abilities.
C’mon Squirt, we both know you can get into the air. Flap your wings or you’re never going to get anywhere kiddo.
Rainbow Dash.
The rampaging tremors grew with the monster’s approach.
Scootaloo rose to her hooves, wincing momentarily as pain shot through her ankle, and flared her wings. Squinting, glaring, growling, daring, the monster that approached her.
Rainbow Dash would’ve run circles around them. Made the dumb brute crash and hurt themselves before they tired themselves out and beat themselves to a pulp in the process.
Ha! Now she remembered, Rainbow had said something just like this once. Sprinters were fast, but they wore out faster and if you wanted to win any of the real races you needed endurance as well. You need to pace yourself, move only when you need to.
Strongponies, she realised inbetween shouting panicked thoughts, were kinda like sprinters. They had a lot of muscle for lifting a lot of stuff all at once, but they only really lifted for a short amount of time. Enough to amaze, but not too long to tire the Strongpony or bore the audience.
Show me what you’ve got, Squirt, I believe in you.
Scootaloo stared at the monster through blurred eyes, determined to win this game of chicken.
Maybe she still had trouble getting off the ground, but there was one thing Scootaloo knew she wasn’t.
No matter how much they teased, how many times they called her, how many comparisons to Fluttershy’s animal friends were made.
Scootaloo wasn’t chicken.
The monster approached, and Scootaloo threw herself to the side, buzzing her injured wings as much as she was able, lifting herself upon launch however briefly before she tucked them in with the rest of her limbs as she rolled across the ground once more.
The tremors in the earth grew faint as the monster ran past her.
C’mon Squirt, you can do this! Just a little more!
She climbed to her hooves once more, Rainbow Dash’s inspiring words swimming through her head. She could do this. She could outlast them.
Wiping hooves across her eyes once more she trusted the ground and her ears to tell her if the Strongpony was running.
There was nothing, when her eyes blinked open and she found herself seeing once more. Not the crisp shape of pegasi vision, but it was something that could be called sight rather than the collection of blurred colours she could see before.
The Strongpony had turned away. It’s big frothing mouth and bulging eyes facing outward towards something else.
Sweetie Belle’s singing.
She was losing its attention.
Scootaloo knew she wasn’t a smart pony, but she had a plan and a goal in mind, and even if she didn’t know what she was going to do to get there she knew one thing.
She wasn’t going to fail her friends.
“Hey ugly!” Her voice strained, and she found herself coughing up more dirt and dust.
But she saw the Strongpony’s head turn towards her.
“What’s wrong? Can’t keep up?” Bulging, yellow eyes stared at her, “You chicken or something? Bawk bawk! Haha! C’mon! Me and my friends are gonna beat your stupid Circus and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
Raging eyes stared at her, and she saw the Strongpony take a step forward.
“I’m sorry I didn’t bring a red cape! If I knew I needed one I would’ve stolen something from Trixie’s tent!”
Scootaloo flinched, pinning her ears to the sides of her head as an enraged roar sent her ears ringing.
Finally, she saw the Strongpony charging.
The key to a good trick is to keep them waiting. You’ve gotta flick your nose at danger and wait for the last minute sometimes or else you’re not gonna keep them invested.
Shuffling her shoulders and spreading her wings, Scootaloo got ready, preparing herself to throw her entire weight and body to flinging her weight to the side once more.
But not too soon, not before the Strongpony got closer, not before it was too late for them to stop to veer or change directions.
So she waited, as the Strongpony got closer.
As tremors shook the ground beneath her.
Closer.
As she saw the red in the Strongpony’s eyes.
Closer.
As dread crept up her spine and instincts told her to move or die.
Closer.
C’mon Squirt- Rainbow Dash’s voice started once more inside her head, brash and confident. Scootaloo could imagine the reckless grin that would no doubt be worn across her idol’s face if she were here now.
Scootaloo froze.
Staring helplessly at the charging wall of muscle before her, Scootaloo realised she was too late to dodge.
Scootaloo felt, for one brief moment, the impact of the Strongpony and her body being flung away like a ragdoll.
For one brief moment, Scootaloo’s mouth opened and sucked in a gasp as the wind from her lungs was crushed out of her body.
Then the hurt took over, a thick sea of molasses descending upon her mind and body. A fog of pain that slowed every sifting thought to a crawl and dulled every screaming sense into burning whiteness.
Slowly, or maybe quickly? With the pain so bright she could not tell, but it felt slow. It felt like hours had crawled past before her eyes found themselves opening. An ugly, pug-like face greeted her. Disgusting, rotten breath tumbling out of the beast's jaws with each and every breath.
Scootaloo hated the stupid, dumb smile the thing wore on its face.
Slowly, and with the delicacy of a butterfly, Scootaloo felt one of the Strongpony’s massive hooves press against her leg, and slowly, gently, begin to crush and grind her bones against the earth beneath them.
In that moment, Scootaloo was not entirely sure if she began screaming when she saw the Strongpony standing over her, or afterwards.
It didn’t matter, as she felt cracks began to form and spread across her bones, as with each slow addition of force the sound of her leg slowly snapping beneath the weight became louder and clearer.
A soft, deep, almost growl like sound registered in her ears as she finally heard the Strongpony make a sound beyond grunts and roars.
“Purrdy…”
Scootaloo felt her voice grow hoarse as the Strongpony began to lean in with its incredible weight, she felt tears in her eyes as the pain of her bones becoming nothing but dust grew too much to bear.
She wasn’t smart like her friends, she knew that. She was just a reckless idiot. She wasn’t Rainbow Dash who could save the day in ten seconds flat, she wasn’t her Aunts who made everything better whenever she got hurt. She wasn’t anything, just a talentless filly that couldn’t save her friends.
Relief, however miniscule, flushed through her as she felt the pressure on her leg begin to dissipate and disappear. Her eyes looked up to find the Strongpony, smiling down at her as it lifted its ginormous hoof off her.
Scootaloo's eyes widened, and her sobs began anew when she saw the Strongpony begin to descend again, and felt the pressure as he aimed for another leg.
It was in the few moments that pain burned away her thoughts once more that she wished for something, anything to save her.
Perform for me.
Apple Bloom had lost Scootaloo in the chaos.
She could see the massive structure of the Big Top in front of her, surrounded by a small, almost respectful… moat, she guessed, of space where no tents or wagons, as if the monsters that set them up feared what was inside too the Big Top too.
Apple Bloom wasn’t sure how she knew something was in the Big Top, but it was there.
But that wasn’t important.
She’d lost her friends. Were they dead? Were they like Trixie? Could she save them?
A faint memory, orange fur and blonde mane jumping into the dark depths of the water.
Maybe she could find the way out, tell their sisters?
She’d be leaving them behind. Who said her sister could save her this time?
Pacing around the edge of the “moat” she found an almost mocking sight. Scootaloo was right, there was almost a perfectly straight line. A big wide runway that led straight from the entrance to the Big Top and whatever dwelled within it.
Apple Bloom stood still, staring at the exit so easily in sight. Wood coated with faded red and yellow paint, and even from this distance Apple Bloom could see the stains and damage rain had done to it.
And that was when she noticed what it had that nothing had before.
Wear.
Everything in the Circus was old. Sickly and rotten, drained away of all the life within it.
But never were they worn. Never had it looked like they had been used, only that they had existed there. Unattended and waiting.
The gate was different.
Apple Bloom wasn’t quite sure why she started laughing, only that the slow realisation that Trixie had been right had triggered the descent into mania.
She and her friends had been right there, right next to the way home, and let the Ringmaster take them away.
Perform for me.
The voice in the wind caused her to pause, and Apple Bloom looked up from her cackling laughter to find an unpleasant sight.
The Ringmaster stood in front of her, framed in the warm lantern lights of the Circus. Standing between Apple Bloom and the exit with a grin on their face. Their silly, ridiculous hat sitting proudly on their head.
“Oh.”
She had never heard her own voice sound so hollow before.
“You’ve done well, little Apple! Do you plan to bow out so soon? I would think your friends would enjoy your company!” The Ringmaster’s amber eyes didn’t burn with any sort of passion. They weren’t cold and uncaring as they stared at her.
No, instead they were filled with a sort of dark happiness. As if Apple Bloom was the most interesting and fun thing in the room, no more than a doll or puppy to play twisted games with.
“So what do ya say, little apple? Care for another game? Another performance perhaps? Are you read to-”
- Perform for me
Apple Bloom shook her head.
“Ah don’t rightly know who ya think you are,” Her own voice strange her ears, tremors of fear so blinding she didn’t even realise that was what she felt leaking through her. Squaring her body, Apple Bloom did her best to keep her voice steady as she continued, “And Ah don’t rightly care neither. My folks’ll probably call it rude, but Ah think they’ll forgive me for callin’ ya a monster.”
Perform for me.
The Ringmaster continued to watch her as she approached, “Ah don’t care if ya fancy yourself some sort of performer or leader or what. ‘Cause the way Ah see it you don’t do much but talk and hurt any good ponies that come ’ere.”
Perform for me.
“Maybe somepony’ll say you're just misunderstood, or you don’t have a choice in the matter anymore, but Ah just see everypony around here hurtin’ and you making a grand old time out of it.” She grit her teeth and tried to ignore her friend’s faces flashing through her mind. “And to me that makes ya a monster.”
Perform for me.
Her head was pounding as blood and- Perform for me- adrenaline ran through it. “And Ah ain’t the smartest filly Ah know, that honour there goes to Sweetie, no doubt about that. So Ah’m not gonna do what’s probably the smartest thing, ‘cause you hurt my friends and Ah rightly don’t like that one bit.”
She began to circle around, to where tents and stands were set up and made the edges of the path to the outside world.
Perfo-
No. She growled. “So Ah ain’t gonna do what ya want me to do. Ah ain’t gonna perform for y'all, Ah ain’t gonna dance or sing and Ah sure as Celestia’s sun ain’t gonna kill fer ya! So Ah want ya to listen up real nice and real close, ‘cause there’s one thing Ah wanna say before we start tussling, ‘cause that’s the only way Ah’m gonna let this end.”
She stopped in front of one of the game stands. A simple ball toss. The same type of metal pins you had to aim for decorated the table that separated the customers from the game. The game itself was probably rigged, but the pins on display seemed real enough.
Perform-
“Shuddup and listen ya stupid voice, when Ah’m done with ya Ah ain’ ain’t gonna be performin’ for you, nah we’re gonna dance-” Apple Bloom stomped a hoof into the dirt and swung herself up onto the table, “-and y’all are gonna-”
Apple Bloom glared into the eyes of the Ringmaster as she leant down to pick up a metal pin between her teeth. The Ringmaster only smiled as Apple Bloom growled the last of her challenge, “Perform for me this time ‘round.”
There was a beat of silence between the two.
“Bravo! Bravo!” The Ringmaster cheered, leaping forward with a feral grin and wild eyes. The monster landed in front of the filly in an elegant pivot, and Apple Bloom saw half a second of a familiar pose before she dived out of the way.
She felt the rush of displaced air as the Ringmaster bucked the space she had just been, and with adrenaline burning in her veins Apple turned and swung her weapon.
She heard rather than felt the contact of her attack, a sickening crack echoing in the air. Like a great tree branch being torn off in a storm.
But there was no cry of pain, no shout of alarm, despite the unnatural bend now present in the Ringmaster’s forehoof.
Apple Bloom saw the Ringmaster lift her broken hoof, but only managed to widen her eyes in surprise as rather than drawing it in or inspecting the damage, limp hoof came flying at her, kicking her jaw and sending her stumbling back.
She could feel her teeth ache and crack as when the kick landed. And she saw her own blood drip to the dirt as the metal pin slipped out of her grip.
The Ringmaster seemed quite pleased with themself as she trotted towards the filly, uncaring of the malformed state of their leg.
Apple Bloom scrambled for something, kicking her fallen pin in attack towards the Ringmaster as she scrambled for something else.
The pin bounced off the Ringmaster’s face, knocking of the demented creature’s hat but and leaving what Apple Bloom took to be a pretty nasty bruse, but the thing did not flinch or stop in its approach.
“Marvelous attempt, little apple, give us a fine showing, wouldn’t you?” The Ringmaster cackled, amber eyes glinting in the twisted light of the Circus.
Panic seized Apple Bloom’s mind, and she desperately sought for some sort of weapon.
Amber eyes landed on the warm glow of a metal lantern, loosely attached to a hook. It’s flames warm and inviting.
Grabbing the thing with both hooves, she swung it at the leaping Ringmaster.
The attempt concluded in one of the worst sounds Apple Bloom had ever heard.
She stared at the Ringmaster, slowly rising from the ground, their face covered in a large and ugly gash of broken flesh.
It refused to scream.
Swinging the lantern she still heard again, Apple Bloom was rewarded by the sounds of a skull cracking and the metal frame of the lantern bending in her grip.
It still refused to scream.
Apple Bloom swung again.
And again.
And again.
She kept swinging. Kept swinging when the Ringmaster’s eyes became replaced with scraps of metal, when half their jaw shattered into dust and hung loosely above their mouth, when their nose was torn open, when all that seemed to be left was a ugly lump of flesh, decorated with metal shards and jagged slices of bone that reached out towards the cloud stained sky.
Apple Bloom only stopped when she felt two ponies gather around her.
Her friends stared at her, not in silence, for Sweetie’s song murmured sweetly in her ears, and Scootaloo grumbled profanities with every step she took.
Apple Bloom dropped the hunk of metal to the ground.
She trotted over to where the thing lay. Old, dusty, but well cared for and an obvious point of pride.
Slowly, almost reverently, Apple Bloom placed the Ringmaster’s hat on her head.
It felt comforting wearing it, like she was being wrapped in the warm embrace of her family.
She heard it’s voice speak to her, gentle and familiar. Whispering faint reassurances and welcomes to her and her friends.
A memory tugged on her mind. Of waking up after a nightmare and curling up with her big sis under the covers while granny read her stories until she found sleep once more.
She let the memory slip from her mind. She didn't need it right now.
Reaching up, she minutely adjusted her hat, positioning it just right. First impressions were important.
She gave her friends a small smile and shuffled on towards the Big Top.
