The First Train Outta Here

by TheRedFox

Rating: everyone
Tags: Drama, Strawberry Sunrise, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Apple Fritter, Slice of Life
Length: 5075

The train runs parallel to Apple Fritter's farm, and every day she watches it pass.

In the middle of a city determined to bleed her dry, Apple Fritter is struggling to hold on to what little she has left. Then along came a debt collector named Strawberry Sunrise.

Winner of the Quills and Sofas Second Duos Contest, co-written with the brilliant Shaslan who also did the cover art!

Published 2022-03-21 19:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2022-03-21 19:50:01 UTC

Chapter 1

The shriek of the whistle was the first thing she heard: the 8:45, pulling into the station right on time. Strawberry Sunrise’s green eyes snapped open, bright as the morning sky, and she slipped out from under the covers, a smile already spreading across her face.

Today was the day.

The air in her little room was as chilly as ever, and usually, the cold would cut deep. But today Strawberry Sunrise hardly felt it. She all but skipped the three steps across to her tiny kitchen and poured herself a cup of water. A meager breakfast of dried haycakes, and she was good to go. Ready for her big day.

Humming with pleasure, she backed out of the door, flipping her saddlebags on as she went. As she trotted down the hallway, she took care to place her hooves in the spots she knew wouldn’t creak and give her away.

She passed one door, two, three, all without incident, all her neighbours unwoken -- until the door at the end of the corridor swung abruptly open.

“Strawberry!” croaked a thready voice, and Strawberry flinched.

“Morning, Mr. Cranky!”

“Rent’s due,” he spat, and she did her best to keep her smile in place.

“Cheque’s in the mail, Mr. Cranky, sir! See you later!”

Before he could open his querulous old mouth to object again, Strawberry darted past him, making for the stairs and the safety that lay beyond.

The air was thick with the morning scents of the city -- smog and coffee, cinders and the promise of something new around every corner. Whinneapolis was the bustling hub of the entire province, and though the tiny apartment took the lion’s share of Strawberry’s salary, and a heck of a lot of scrimping and saving, she wouldn’t change it for the world. She lived here, at the heart of it all -- the city where dreams could come true.

And where hers would come true today.

“My office, Miss Sunrise!” called Gasket as soon as she pushed open the door, still panting from the fourteen flights of stairs. Three years she’d worked here, and three years that elevator had been out of order.

But the prospect of what the boss would say was more than enough to restore her spirits, and she hastened inside.

“I’m ready, sir!” she said, before the door had even swung shut behind her. “I can do it!”

The grey stallion regarded her blankly over the top of his spectacles. He sighed and shook his head. “Relax, Miss Sunrise. It’s a tiny farmer, not the Princess of Equestria.”

“I know!” she chirped. “But it’s my first solo assignment, sir, and I just want you to know that I’m going to give it my all!”

Another long exhalation from his nostrils. “Well, you could stand to lose the attitude. You’re a debt collector, not a singing telegram.”

Instantly, Strawberry twisted her face into a ferocious scowl. “I will not let you down, sir.”

He slid the address across the desk to her, and she couldn’t keep the grin from her face any longer. Her first solo job! A real promotion! This was the land of opportunity. This was the reason she had left the family farm and come to the big city.

Outside, another whistle blew. The 9:30 to Canterlot, leaving the station. Who knew what that train carried? What prospects it might hold? In less than an hour, it would be climbing up the side of Canter Peak, above the clouds themselves. And just like that train, with its whistle like birdsong, who could tell how high Strawberry Sunrise might climb?

Chapter 2

The shriek of the whistle was the last thing she wanted to hear.

She paused in her work, looking up towards the railway that ran parallel to her land.

What was left of it anyways.

The sleek, black locomotive tore through the valley unrelentingly. It reminded her of the Timberwolves her grandmother would tell her about, the ones that once made the surrounding area uninhabitable. But then they, like so many other obstacles, were eradicated in the name of expansion. Now the city sprawled out across the land, belching smoke into the sky and tearing deep into the earth.

The wheels spun and axles shook, much like the twisted legs of a wolf or bear. Steam funneled out and spiraled into the air, and the entire frame hummed and shook violently as a twisted clash of metal and magic.

The abomination would run parallel to her, as it always would lest the tracks decided to move. It stalked the corners like a predator, forever closing in on her and forever lurking in the shadows.

She remembered the first time she had heard that feral contraption: she had only been a filly, but the shaking and screaming of its engines had brought her nightmares for days to come. It would chase her through the endless streets of the city, tearing through walls and buildings and horn wailing like a burning bat from hell.

Apple Fritter hated the city, and she was slowly growing more confident that the city shared the same sentiment.

She spat out her shovel and sighed, wiping her brow. Sweat and dirt clung to her pale coat and vibrant green mane, which hung in two braids down the side of her head.

The soil used to be richer. She remembered playing in it when her family had first arrived in Whinneapolis, when her father had that gleam in his eye and her mother would mock him for it.

She ran a hoof through it solemnly.

Apple Fritter looked back to the passing train and spat in its direction.

“Stupid city slickers.”

She fell onto her haunches and looked up at the sky. It was blue, once. Now she would be lucky to pick out a cloud from the blanket of smog that clung in the air.

Apple Fritter tried to think of the older days, when her family had talked of their bright future. When they had lived out their wildest fantasies and had been happy in this new land. Perhaps it was better that they were no longer here.

They would never see the city swallow up everything whole, gorging itself on dreams as if they were a buffet.

She tried to think of better times. She tried not to think about how there were only two dozen healthy apple trees left. She tried not to think about the pile of unopened letters on her desk. She tried not to think about any of it.

But the train’s horn wailed again, and reminded her that with the first train would come the devil incarnate herself.

Apple Fritter pulled herself to her hooves and kicked the soil in disgust.

This little patch of earth was all she had left.

It was a shame that the devil knew that too.

Chapter 3

Frowning down at the address on the scrap of paper she held, Strawberry wondered again if this was the right place. A small farmer, Gasket had said. She had been expecting a...a farmhouse, or something.

Not a barren, scrappy patch of earth by the railway tracks, surrounded on every other side by tower blocks so tall they nearly blotted out the sun. The ground was partitioned off into smaller plots with stunted fences, or in some cases just twine on sticks. The soil was well-trodden, but only a very few green things had dared to show their faces aboveground.

“Can I help you?”

Strawberry jumped guiltily and looked around wildly to find the speaker before her gaze alighted on a mare leaning against the gate, chewing idly on a piece of dead grass.

“I’m...uh…” Strawberry trailed off before catching herself and straightening her spine. You promised you would make Gasket proud. Do this right.

“I’m looking for a Miss Apple Fritter,” she said, in a tone that was glacial enough to make the ground freeze solid.

“You found her,” the green-maned mare answered with a laconic smile. “What can I do ya fer, stranger? You after a vegetable plot? They’re mighty popular with the earth ponies ‘round these parts. We charge five bits a week. Very affordable.”

For a moment, Strawberry was almost tempted. It had been a long time since she had felt good loam beneath her hooves. Since she had worked and touched the earth to bring out a living thing, crisp new leaves and ripe red berries.

But -- no. She had a job to do. And this soiled earth was hardly good loam. Farming was...it was passé, now. The new steam tractors took care of everything, and what had once taken fifty earth ponies now took only one. The family farms were a thing of the past, and the large-scale industrial farms provided all the food the city needed. That was why Strawberry had come here. That was why she had sought the opportunity she so badly needed so far from home.

No. She didn’t need a little square of dead land beside the railroad.

“Thank you,” she said politely. “But I’m actually here from Gasket and Co.”

It was like flipping a switch. The shutters came down on that open, friendly expression instantaneously, and the kind mare was transformed into a cold-eyed stranger.

“Oh,” she said, just as lazily as before, but now her hooves curled tight over the gate instead of resting atop it. “You’re with the loan sharks.”

Strawberry coughed. “We prefer debt collection agency.”

Apple Fritter gave no quarter. Not an inch of compromise. “I say it like I see it.”

There was a pause, and it stretched on far too long before Strawberry hastily stepped in to fill it. “You -- you must be aware we’ve sent you several letters over the last few months--”

“--Read the first one, put the rest in the fire,” answered Apple Fritter, and as Strawberry gasped she could have sworn she saw a hint of mirth in those pea-green eyes.

“You’ve been burning our letters?”

“Sure have.”

“But -- but why?” There was nothing like working for a debt collection agency to give a mare a crash course in financial literacy, and Strawberry knew for a fact that debt could be tackled. If you stayed on the ball, worked hard, and made your payments on time, you could dig your way out of any hole, no matter how deep.

Burning letters, though, was pretty much the equivalent of getting a shovel and digging the hole deeper all on your own.

Apple Fritter shrugged, but her eyes were hard. “Ain’t nothing else I can do.”

“You could pay what you owe.” Surely it was obvious?

“And I’m tellin’ you I can’t pay that. You know how much I owe that slug Gasket?”

Her cheeks pinking at hearing her almighty boss described like that, Strawberry reached for the file in her saddlebag. “Of course I do! I’ve got it all right here. It’s three--”

“--Three thousand bits, lil’ miss leech. And how’d’ya think a baker earnin’ less than a sixty bits a month is gonna pay that off?”

“Y-you could take another loan,” stuttered Strawberry. It was a resort only to be utilized in dire straits, but if ever there was a pony in dire straits, it was this one.

Apple Fritter scoffed. "Take a loan? And go from owin’ three thousand bits for a pile of dirt in the middle of what the rest of the Apple family called ‘the Bowels of Celestia’ to two hundred thousand owed to eight different ponies plus the three thousand, all to not have a pile of dirt in the middle of the urban wasteland?"

“Then sell!” said Strawberry triumphantly. She was no financial advisor, but surely here was a solution. “This is prime building land. You could sell it to developers. Surely that’d be enough to cover your debt.”

The other mare’s expression soured. “An’ lose the last scrap of my family’s farm? The thing I went into debt to keep? No thanks.” She pointed an indignant hoof at the shabby buildings around them. “Ya think anyone wants to live here anyway, by the train tracks? Only the poor ponies live down these parts.”

Strawberry flushed. Her flat was right by the train tracks.

Apple Fritter’s face grew more sombre. “All o’ this used to be ours. Our farm went on for miles. The Whinneapolis Apple Family. Look at us now.”

Strawberry’s ears tilted back. That was a tale she knew well. “I’m sorry that happened to your family, Fritter.”

If she was startled at this touch of equinity from a debt collector, Apple Fritter didn’t show it. She sighed and dropped back to four legs. “We were...we were the heart an’ soul of this town. At least we were till it weren’t a town no more. This lil’ old field was the only thing I could hold onto, after my Pappy’s debts were settled. And even this…” she tailed off.

“It’s...it’s a good field,” Strawberry said softly, suddenly wanting to help, even if only a little. And she wasn’t lying -- those few dusty plants were wilting and weak, but they were there. Bravely alive and green in the face of all the steel and stone surrounding them.

Apple Fritter chuckled, her good humour restored. “Well. It was. Me an’ my brother used to have a treehouse over there, in the corner.” She pointed at the railroad, expression turning wistful. “Had a swing, too. We had some real good times there.”

“I bet you did,” Strawberry echoed, watching the ghosts of two little foals galloping over the ruins just as Fritter did.

“Well,” said Apple Fritter reluctantly. “Why don’t you come on in? I’m not so far gone as I can’t offer a guest some tea, and you may as well see the place you’re gonna take away.”

Her cheeks burning with sudden guilt, the thrill of her promotion forgotten in the sympathy she felt for this stranger, Strawberry Sunrise could only nod. “That...that would be really nice. Thank you.”

“I’d apologize for the mess, but as my Pa used to say, it’s my mess and I might as well be proud of it.”

Strawberry chuckled, looking around the dim room. A few boxes were scattered and piled around the room, unlabeled and blank-faced. In the middle of the room was a table surrounded by chairs. Fritter approached it and pulled one out, gesturing for Strawberry to sit.

“So this is the house your father built?” Strawberry asked, running a hoof over the back edge of the chair.

Fritter laughed as she trotted towards the kitchen. “Naw, he couldn’t build worth a damn. My ma actually did most of that. Had help, of course. Back then you could muster up an army to do near anythin’. Ain’t like that no more.”

Strawberry nodded, sitting down.

“How long’ve you been here anyways?” Fritter asked as she fiddled with a kettle.

“Not too long I guess. Believe it or not I came up as a farmer too,” Strawberry explained. “I’m Strawberry by the way. Strawberry Sunrise.”

Apple Fritter brightened up. “Well I’ll be darned! Small world, I reckon.” She set down two mugs and the pot on the table. “How’d you end up saddled with Gasket?”

Strawberry sipped the tea, feeling the warmth of the cup against the tips of her hooves. Her mouth was filled with the tangy taste of apples. “Mm. I just… wanted to branch out I guess. I started struggling hard, and the farm just wasn’t growing as much as I wanted it to. My friends kept pushing me to get up and get out and… I guess I gave in.”

“Ah. Sounds awfully familiar. Lotta my friends and family don’t get why I’m holdin’ on to this place.” Fritter paused, looking carefully at Strawberry. “Do you… ever regret it? Giving it up, I mean.”

The house was quiet for a moment, only accentuated by the distant ticking of a grandfather clock.

Strawberry set her cup down. “Honestly? I’ve never really thought about it much,” she admitted. “It was just… something I did. I never really stopped to think if I had another option. It felt like the only thing to do was to change everything, so… That’s what I did.”

Fritter hummed. “Reckon I’m a bit of the opposite then. Givin’ up ain’t an option for me.”

Strawberry looked around as shadows danced across the intricate woodwork. “...I can see that,” she admitted. “Working for Gasket all these years… I promised myself things would get better. I never really stopped to wonder what would happen if they didn’t.” She turned her gaze to Apple Fritter. “Do you mind if I see your garden? It’s been so long since I’ve done any gardening… I think I miss it.”

Apple Fritter smiled, standing up. “Thought you’d never ask. Right this way.”

Chapter 4

“Do you name your crops?”

Apple Fritter blinked and looked up. “What?”

Strawberry shrugged. “Your plants. Do you give them names?”

“What?! Of course I don’t,” Apple Fritter remarked with a laugh. Her laughter quickly faded when she saw Strawberry looking at her strangely. “You… you’re not serious, are you?”

“I’m dead serious,” Strawberry replied. “This is serious stuff! You’re taking something and giving it life, like a foal. You’re raising it and one day, it’s going to return the favor. But only if you treat it well.”

Apple Fritter just stared as Strawberry patted one of the sprouts on its head. “You… So you're telling me you named your plants?”

“Yup! There was Sammy, Sebastian, Seymour, See-less, Syracuse, Sherman, and Greg.”

“...Greg?”

“Greg died first. One of the teenagers I hired thought he was a weed and yanked him out.” Strawberry shrugged.

“Did you… give him a funeral or somethin’?”

“I’m not that attached to my plants,” Strawberry scoffed.

Apple Fritter raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m just sayin’, I never named my pastries.”

“Well of course,” Strawberry said, clicking her tongue. “You just eat them. Plants are different, you gotta care for them, make sure they’re healthy.”

“Fine, I never named my ovens either,” Apple Fritter said, sticking out her tongue.

“Maybe you should’ve,” Strawberry fired back, grinning.

Apple Fritter went back to her work, carefully analyzing the tiny tomato plant below her. The cynical part of her thought that naming plants was still silly, but if Strawberry thought it was a good idea…

“Hey, you should do that sometime,” Strawberry said aloud, pulling Apple Fritter from her thoughts.

“Hm? Do what?”

“Bake,” Strawberry elaborated, staring up at the sky. “I… I’d love to try some of your stuff. It’s been forever since I had a treat that didn’t taste like lead and acrylic… Or brought something that didn’t come with seventeen warnings about products known to cause sickness in ponies slapped on it.”

“I’d love to,” Apple Fritter replied sincerely. “If this garden works out I’ll bake you more treats than you could ever eat.”

Strawberry laughed, ruffling her feathers good-naturedly. “I’d love that.”

“You should see what I could do with a whole garden full of stuff,” Apple Fritter continued. “Squashes, pumpkins, beets… tons of apples of course. Pears, grapes maybe… ‘course all that’d take room that the city just plain don’t got.” Her ears drooped at that.

“Y’know, I never really liked apples,” Strawberry said.

Apple Fritter whirled around. “What?!”

“Maybe I never had one that didn’t taste of industrial farming,” Strawberry conceded, holding up her hooves in mock surrender. “They just taste too much like steam tractor for me.”

“Oh. Yeah, most apples at the market…they just ain’t right,” Apple Fritter agreed. “Don’t grow ‘em like they used to.”

Strawberry sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for fresh, organic strawberries… honestly, I’d eat them whole, stem and all if I could get my hooves on some.”

“... you city ponies are weird,” Apple Fritter muttered.

The two fell quiet again.

Deep beneath the earth, Apple Fritter felt the rumblings of a train passing by. Its steam poked up over the sides of the buildings, and the earth shook more and more as it drew closer to them.

Strawberry had paused in her work too to look towards the tracks. A terse frown crossed her lips, and she almost looked angry. “This…this isn’t a place to grow up,” she muttered.

“It really ain’t,” agreed Apple Fritter. “It really ain’t.”

“It’s so hard to remember there’s a world beyond the city,” Strawberry said, biting her lip. “With so much of this technology and stuff… It's like the rest of the world doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t know, there was this… wonder I used to have as a foal. That there were things I’d have to discover, new things to see and learn. There was just something magical in the unattainable. Now… Now it seems all you need to do is get on a train and you can have everything you ever want. Nobody wants to know anything anymore. Nobody wants to go anywhere.”

“Well…what do you wanna do?” Apple Fritter asked cautiously.

“Me? I…I thought I wanted this promotion,” Strawberry whispered.

“And now?”

“Now... now I think I want to get out of here.”

Apple Fritter stood, wiping the dirt from her body, and approached the pegasus. She gently put a hoof on Strawberry’s back and rubbed small circles into it.

The train arrived, engines and pistons roaring and screaming while the whistle shrieked into their ears.

The noise made it impossible to talk, but at that moment, Strawberry felt there wasn’t anything to say anyways. Instead, she spread a wing and wrapped it around Apple Fritter’s body in a hug.

They stood in silence as the train passed them by, carriages blurring together and making the sections of the train morph into an endless shape. Neither of them watched it, with Strawberry dipping her head to the ground instead.

When it finally passed, the silence came crashing in.

Strawberry blinked, she felt something trail down her cheek and fall into the dirt. There were small stains in it, and when she touched her cheek it came up wet. “Ah, geez,” she muttered as she wiped the tears out of her eyes. “I… I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

Apple Fritter said nothing, letting Strawberry lean into her.

“I gotta get out of here,” she whispered. “I want to go...I want to go home.” The last part was little more than a breath, the words almost silent. But it was true. She had been here in the city so long, she had all but forgotten how it felt to have real, living earth beneath her hooves. Instead of dead concrete and stone. She wanted to go home.

“Tom,” Apple Fritter said.

“Huh?”

Apple Fritter pointed to the tomato plant she had been tending to. “I’m gonna name him Tom.”

That got a smile out of Strawberry. “Oh? Well, what do you know? I’ll make a farmer out of you yet.”

“I am a farmer!”

With that, they laughed and withdrew from their embrace, each returning to their spots.

As Strawberry hovered over the potato plants, she turned to watch the now receding form of the distant train.

Then she turned back to Apple Fritter, who was watering the tomato plants, and a thought occurred to her.

Ah, screw Gasket. I’m going to help her. I don’t know how yet, but… I’m not leaving this place without her.

With that, she nodded in affirmation and returned to her work.

Chapter 5

Thoughts of Apple Fritter still clung to Strawberry as she clocked in, smiling at the receptionist and meandering over to her desk. She almost danced over to her desk, the smell of earth still fresh in her nostrils.

It was such a shame that the tiny garden was under such scrutiny. She sighed, wondering what would become of Apple Fritter if she would be unable to pay.

Automatically, she began sorting through the mail cluttering her desk.

One telegram caught her eye. It was not addressed to her but to another fellow collector. The mailmare must have made a mistake.

As Strawberry rose to bring the letter to its intended destination, something in it caught her eye: Miss Apple Fritter.

Strawberry froze, reading the rest of the line. ...is proving to be stubborn. Perhaps further persuasion is necessary.

Her eyes widened. “No.” She quickly scanned the letter rapidly, words flying through her mind.

Make a statement. Destroy what you can, not that there’s much there. Send her a message. If that’s still not enough, then tomorrow we send in the bailiffs. Debtors' prison will make her sing a different song soon enough. We’ll soon find out if she believes all this is really worth it.

“Miss Sunrise!”

She jumped as Gasket’s voice rang out across the office. “Miss Sunrise! My office! Now!”

Strawberry looked at the letter, then back towards Gasket’s office.

She knew what she had to do.

Strawberry bolted away, racing for the station.

“Please please please,” Strawberry panted as she flew around the street corner. She dodged angry pedestrians and wagons, ignoring all of them as she barreled towards her destination. “Please don’t be too late.”

She skidded to a halt in front of the garden.

A yellow mare was sitting in the middle. Strawberry sighed in relief, but her breath quickly hitched when the rest of the garden came into view.

The plants had been uprooted and trampled. The shovels were broken in half and strewn across the land. The soil had been flung around, the remains of young buds were scattered across the earth, and on the far side of the fence was a message in spray paint: WAS IT WORTH IT?

Apple Fritter slowly turned around, her face expressionless but the tears trailing down her cheeks all too real.

“Oh… oh no.” Strawberry rushed forwards and seized Apple Fritter in a hug.

“They came… they came during the night,” Apple Fritter whispered, her voice rapidly dissolving into hiccups. “They… they took everything.”

“It’s okay,” Strawberry said, rapidly stroking Apple Fritter’s mane and squeezing her tightly. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not, it’s not, it’s not,” Apple Fritter whimpered. She buried her face into Strawberry’s chest and muttered something incomprehensible.

Then, she screamed.

Strawberry winced as Apple Fritter clung to her, screaming and wailing for what felt like hours.

When she finally fell still, Strawberry looked around.

Something was stirring inside of her, something that she hadn’t felt in years.

The sky seemed to open a crack, and through the endless ocean of smog, a tiny bit of sunlight dropped from the sky and shot directly into her heart.

Apple Fritter was warm in her arms, and the tears falling onto her coat shot a new life into Strawberry.

“I’ve heard there’s land out west.” It took her a second to even register that she had said this, but once the words came out, Strawberry’s mind was running faster than a train could ever hope to.

Apple Fritter looked up at her, eyes bleary. “W-What?”

“Out west. There’s land,” Strawberry said. “Land that hasn’t been ruined yet by this city. Fresh, fertile land, with nothing but clear skies and earth for miles and miles.”

“What does it matter?” Fritter grumbled, wiping her eyes. “I’m never payin’ this off. Gasket’s gonna take everythin’ I got.”

“That’s just it!” Strawberry said, a smile widening on her face. “You don’t have to pay this off!”

“W-What?!” Apple Fritter pulled away, eyes wide in confusion.

“There’s one thing Gasket can’t take from you,” Strawberry continued, starting to hover in her eagerness. “Your choice! You can choose freedom!”

“Strawberry Sunrise, what the hay are you on about?!”

Strawberry rubbed her hooves together, something shining in her eyes. “Follow me.”

Apple Fritter fell onto her haunches. “You… you’re sayin’ I run away. Leave this behind?”

“Yes! Exactly! And… and I’m going with you!” Strawberry declared. “Screw Whinnyapolis, screw Gasket and his goons, screw everything!” She pulled Apple Fritter to her hooves and gently started dragging her to the garden’s entrance.

A laugh pulled from her lips at the sheer incredulity of the plan, and Apple Fritter let herself be pulled along. “But -- but where are we going?”

“Anywhere!” beamed Strawberry. “Let’s take the first train out of here!”

“The train to where?”.

Strawberry answered with a wild shrug, a toss of the mane. “East, west, who cares! We’ll make it work!”

It was crazy, it was ridiculous -- but Strawberry Sunrise was galloping, and Apple Fritter was galloping too. Laughing like mares possessed, they sprinted down the narrow path between the tiny gardens, each one parcelled into its own little fence.

Fresh loam fell from their hooves as they ran, their bellies spattered with mud, but it didn’t matter. They dipped and dodged between laundry lines and trash cans, not even sparing the brick walls a second glance. None of it mattered. They were free.

As one they hurdled the fence that barred the way to the railroad, and skipping lightly over the sleepers, they thundered down the tracks. The station loomed ahead, iron girders and brick stained dark with soot, but it was suddenly the most welcoming place Apple Fritter had ever seen.

A groan of brakes, and Strawberry gasped. “There! The 4:15!”

A freight train, creaking and cumbersome, like a tortoise become enormous over centuries of slow growth, awaited them. It was pulling out, and the two mares gave chase, abandoning the train track in favour of the platform. Businessmares and suited stallions gasped and drew back from the two sweaty, muddy madmares suddenly stampeding through their midst, but Apple Fritter was beyond caring.

The whistle shrieked, and still shaking with laughter, the two mares upped their pace again as the train began to move. Apple Fritter made the leap first, struggled into the open door of the freight car, and turned back to offer her hoof. Strawberry caught it, and with one heave the buttercream mare hauled her aboard.

Side by side, the two of them settled down and watched the city roll by. Banks and mansions, slums and skyscrapers. Apple Fritter’s flank was warm against Strawberry’s, and the mare could not keep the smile from her face. They had reached the end of the line, and now they were going to see what lay at the other end.

Together.