EVERFREE: The Bitter Boogie of a Mare From Skaia

Lyra and Bon Bon had expected more of a fight.
When they had awoken to the numerous yelps of civilians cowering in fear at the moon hanging ominously in the daylight sky, they had feared that something awful had come to Equestria.

When they had heard that whatever took Luna’s magical pool had also taken some of her life force, and that Celestia was having to supply her own magic to keep her alive, they had geared up for a life or death scenario.

When Twilight had explained that she could not help hunt down the source of this issue, only provide a vague direction of where the source could be, because everypony was looking to her for guidance and leadership, and to her friends for controlling and consoling the inevitable panicked crowds, and therefore they were the only two that could take on this horrorterror on such short notice, they were truly and fearfully convinced that one of them would have to say goodbye forever.

Instead, what they faced was a shivering, sobbing, heavily injured mess of a pony. She was stumbling around like she didn't know how to walk on all fours, and indiscriminately jumping between having an argument with what seemed to be herself, and erratically attacking the trees in the Everfree. Sometimes, she left them in stumps and splinters, and in others, barely made a dent in the bark.

It didn’t take long to find her, because of the frequent screams of despair that came deep from within the woods. They didn’t even have to really make any command of authority. The second this strange pony spotted the two staring at her, the inner argument this mare was facing intensified, muttering something about “they’re going to kill me” and “this isn’t how I wanted it to go”, before collapsing weakly onto the ground. The pony looked up at the two agents, and confessed in a wavering voice, “We surrender.”

Princess Twilight was both delighted and shocked to see the secret agents return completely unscathed, while their quarry was quite thoroughly thrashed and barely able to stand. Bon Bon whispered in a private report that the strange mare had been found in that state, which gave Twilight some concern as well.

Her mixed emotions were overtaken by pleasant surprise, when she saw this culprit beg for mercy, mostly because this was the first time anypony, or anything, had simply gone down without a fight. Curious about the motive, Twilight asked her pseudo-prisoner, “What made you yield so quickly?”

The mare simply replied, “I know what happens to those who cross you. We’re too tired to elaborate.” She then began to sway uneasily. “I think we’re dying of dehydration again,” she muttered in a different voice, before she dropped onto the floor, motionless as any corpse could be.

She got better.

After recovering from what was definitely confirmed to be her death, she was given food, water, medical attention, and a chance to properly introduce herself. She told the Council of Friendship her name was C-Side Disco, and then introduced herself again in the second, distinctly different voice, this time as Dandy Curacao.
Dandy weakly extended her hoof in offering from the hospital bed, before C-Side pulled the hoof back, and hissed to her alter, “No, Dandy- they don’t shake hooves here! Much less with a princess!”
Twilight was stunned, to say the least, by this mare’s behavior. She gave a soft, but warm smile to Dandy, and offered her hoof out anyway. Awkwardly, Dandy ‘shook’ it, visibly relieved to see that Twilight knew what exactly shaking hands signified.

She was a magenta pony with a violet mane, and curiously, her heavily fatigued eyes were red and blue. They hid behind a pair of bent and scratched glasses, and one eye had an occasional twitch. Her cutie mark seemed to be a vinyl record, but with a soft grey color instead of charcoal black, with two highlighted lines shining across the diameter of the disc, signifying the red and blue motif once again. Her body was slightly stocky and muscular, almost like Applejack’s, but clearly starved of nutrition. It made her look like a ghoul at the time.

The most garish part of her appearance was the outfit, which Rarity had fainted at when she had the chance to see it. Deep dark browns and bright crimson highlights clashed against her magenta coat, topped off with the ever-so-obvious symbol of an open wound emblazoned across the chest.
Truly a crime against fashion, if it weren’t for the major crimes that this mare had already committed.

“So.. I need y’all to understand that.. this was a mistake.”
“I’m sorry?” Twilight responded, finally pausing from her frantic note-taking about her study on C-Side’s strange inability to die. They were surrounded by medical records and equipment, books that were brought in by Twilight to see if there was any correlation to past phenomena of death deniers, and a balloon with a card attached that read, ‘Get better soon so I can plan a Welcome-To-Ponyville party for you! -Pinkie”.
“We didn’t.. we didn’t mean to do this to the moon, or to Princess Luna. We- I- We’re so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Let us fix it for you.”
Twilight stared with wide eyes and a slightly opened mouth.
“Please..?” C-Side weakly added.
Twilight snapped back into reality. “..Oh! Yes, of course you can! I’d love that!”
“Really..?” Some vigor returned to the pony’s eyes.
“Yes! First you turn yourself in without any issue, and then you offer to rectify the damage? This is wonderful!!” Twilight threw her arms into the air in reverie. “You are such a different case from all the other times I’ve had to deal with somepony who messed with the Sun and Moon, it really takes a weight off of my shoulders! And, well, I’ll be honest, I’ve got a lot on my shoulders right now. With Celestia busy making sure Luna stays alive and stable, all of Equestria is going to be relying on my rule until Luna is back in good health.”

C-Side visibly shuddered. Twilight made a mental note to ask Celestia to please take it easy on this pony when all was said and done. C-Side turned to look out the window of the hospital, noting that some of the ponies spotted her from the outside and made a run for it. She grimaced.
“I’m worried someone’s gonna try and exact revenge on us, since, y’know.. I haven’t really explained the whole story yet to anyone. Anypony. Ugh.”
“Well... I can assign you bodyguards.” Twilight offered.

Lyra was not a fan of hearing this news.
“What do you mean we have to foalsit this mare?!”
The two of them had traveled the short distance to the Ponyville Hospital, where C-Side was had been given one last checkup before the two SMILE agents came to escort her out of the building. They trotted into the reception, flashed their badges, and explained they were here on royal business. The stallion at reception let them in, no questions asked. Back in the relative privacy of the hallways, Bon Bon picked up where she left off.

“That’s not what I said, and you know it. We just need to make sure she does what is asked of her, and that she doesn’t snap and start attacking other ponies. You saw what she did to some of those trees,” Bon Bon explained once again. “But Twilight can’t keep her in the Castle of Friendship forever; she needs to be somewhere outside of the public eye, so that she can perform her task uninterrupted. And who better to do that than the two mares who specialize, specifically, in going unnoticed?” Bon Bon finished with a glimmer of pride in her voice.
“So, yes, we’re foalsitting her.”
Bon Bon’s ears flattened in defeat, and she sighed. “If you want to see it that way, then yes, sure. We’re foalsitting this potentially extremely dangerous pony.”

Two Canterlot guards stood at their post, and looked at the two mares with a slight hint of contempt. “Nopony is allowed to enter. Princess Twilight’s orders.” Lyra rolled her eyes, and pulled out her SMILE ID from her suit pocket once again. Bon Bon did the same, to which the two soldiers inspected closely. One of them snorted. “Is this some kinda sick joke? There’s no such thing as a SMILE organizatio-” Before he was kicked rudely in the flank by his partner.
“Shut up and let em in, rookie.”

C-Side wanted desperately to float. She still hadn’t gotten used to walking around on all fours, and it was just so much easier to float around with the flight granted to all Skaian gods. Every time she tried to, however, Bon Bon would stop and tell her to get back to walking. Not out of spite or malice, but because C-Side was practically a living corpse only a few days ago, and floating around wasn’t going to help her image. And so, she stumbled through the streets of Ponyville with two suited up bodyguards flanking either side of her. Dandy would’ve been laughing about it if it was because they were drunk.

Now that both C-Side and Dandy thought about it, they agreed in their mind that they really could use a drink right now. But Dandy shook her head. “We can do that later.” Dandy reassured C-Side mentally. Dandy eyed the two mares surrounding them. “Which one do you think would be more likely to agree to sharing a drink with us, dear?”
“Okay, well, before you get any ideas, Dandy, I’m pretty sure they’re either girlfriends, or married. One of the two. I don’t wanna intrude on that, so, let’s not... Secondly, I think maybe Lyra would? But I’m pretty sure Bon Bon would know, and would want to be the designated driver, or whatever the equivalent of that is in this universe. Third, I think we can agree that a drink tonight would make our situation so much worse. I mean.. holy shit, the looks these ponies are giving us. I want to die, again, for real this time, Dandy.”

“Please don’t say that, dear.” Dandy whispered in her mind, very audibly hurt by C-Side’s remark. Unfortunately, the part regarding the looks they were getting was all too true, and it was making their shame burn them alive. C-Side caught glimpses of the CMC peering over from behind a bush, of Carrot Top and Minuette giving the trio a very wide berth, of Mayor Mare keeping her distance. Some of the ponies made the obvious move of diving into their homes and locking the doors, followed up by horrified peeking from their windows. It was killing C-Side internally to see her be publicly judged, to say nothing of the fact that these were folk that she had watched from the other side of the fourth wall so dearly. She was here, with her and her headmate as the only sign that her universe ever existed. This was reality now, with the threat of consequence making itself known with every turn.

Much to C-Side’s relief, they had finally arrived at what she assumed to be their destination. They went through a back alley and entered a random home through its backyard door. As they did, C-Side looked around, confused.
"Uhm, Miss Heartstrings? It looks like someone already lives here.."
"Yeah. We do." Lyra confirmed.
C-Side gave her a startled look. "Wha- huh? I'm not gonna crash on y'all's couch, that's weird. You're like my parole officers. That's weird."
"You're telling me!" Lyra rolled her eyes.
"Are there like, no pre-fabbed houses you can just stuff me in? I’ll take a cabin in the woods or something, we’re not picky."
“I’m a little bit picky,” Dandy gently rebuked C-Side’s statement, “I wouldn’t want to live in an abandoned warehouse.”

Bon Bon took off her shades, gave the mare a glance and grunted in minor annoyance. "Princess Twilight's orders were that we cannot lose track of you. We have a guest room you can use, just make sure that you don't go anywhere without notifying us, because at least one of us has to be in a close proximity to you at all times." She pointed to an open door with a basic kit of a bed and dresser drawer.

"Are you guys gonna like.. monitor us? Like do you have cameras in the walls? Will anything we say be used against us in a court of law? Do we need to plead the fifth and get a lawyer..?" C-Side's eyes were darting back and forth between Lyra and Bon Bon a little bit.

"What- no. You've already been apprehended and judged by Twilight. Your verdict was honestly pretty light, so you got lucky. Also, for the record, just Lyra is fine.” Lyra assured.

“What kind of authorities leave surveillance on their criminals like that, anyway?? And what in Celestia's mane does 'pleading the fifth' entail??" Bon Bon was beginning to regret finding this strange mare.

C-Side gave a soft chortle. "Oh, man. Remind me to tell y'all about how law stuff worked back on our planet when this is done." Lyra jolted to C-Side cartoonishly, which startled her. "Planet??" She squealed in excitement. "You're an alien?!"
"Oh, yeah, no, yeah. We used to be human. They’re like, mostly fur-less primates with no tails. We walked around on two legs, we had fingers on our front hooves which are like.. little ambulatory stumps at the end of a hoof. Like, uh... Spike! Spike has hands. Though, if I'm honest, I'm way more stoked to be a pony. Dandy, is, uh, ambivalent at best about it."

C-Side’s facial expression jumped from a weak smile to Dandy’s minor frown with softer eyes. Without even missing a beat, Dandy's voice was coming from this mare's mouth now. She sighed. "I wanted to be a dragon, but our-"
"Well, dragons are a thing here!" Lyra offered, interrupting Dandy.
"I know! That's why I agreed to come to this universe. You see-" Dandy was about to keep talking, when Bon Bon came in between them. "O-kaaay, look, glad to see you and Lyra getting along so well, but two things: One, you're supposed to be fixing the moon right now, and two, how do you know who Spike is? You've never met him before."

The mare sucked air through her teeth. “Hm. Well, we have two answers, both equally true,” C-Side began, “But one of them is an existential doozy that would probably make a lesser mind lose it from the implication.”
“Ooh! Ooh! I want the doozy! I want the doozy!” Lyra jumped up and down in excitement.

In turn, C-Side and Dandy shook their head together, and, somehow, said in both voices at the same time, “You don’t want the doozy.” Bon Bon was shaken by C-D’s fancy voice trick, and came to comprehend the impact of giving Lyra existential dread. She put a hoof on Lyra’s shoulder, which got her to stop.

“No, no. We’ll take the non-doozy.”

“So.. long story short... uh.. shit, this ones kind of a doozy as well.” C-Side began to contemplate her next choice of words, tapping her snout with a hoof.
“Our universe died.” Dandy bluntly started, waving the hoof around and stirring the air. “It died, and the entity known as ‘Skaia’, which is responsible for the death and birth of universes, chose us and some of our friends to partake in the massive and complex ritual necessary for the creation of a new universe.”

“But the thing is, as a reward for playing its game, you’re given godhood, and should you succeed, dominion over the new universe,” C-Side clarified. “We kinda fuckin’ failed that last part, but that’s not really important right now. We’re talking about how we know shit, and we know shit because we’re basically divinely ordained to.” Their voices both synced up to one another again, and this time, they tilted their head so that the light made the lenses of their glasses flash white, obscuring their eyes, they floated slightly into the air, and their outfit’s skirt began to flutter in the windless room. This time Bon Bon was sure it was for dramatic effect. “We are the Seer of Blood, and we understand and are changed by the Tradition, The Blood Bond, What Is Known, and the impact therein of the aforementioned, all for the sake of others.”

“Basically, we already know what the fuck going on,” C-Side concluded.

Lyra was a bit stunned by this news. “That was the non-doozy?”
“Yeah. The doozy would be like, wayyyy worse for you. Trust me. I’d know, because we’re supposed to know.” C-Side assured, then basically began to lean towards the privacy of the guest room. “Aaaanyway, Bon Bon’s right- I need to get started on figuring out how to fix the moon, so... later!” Before deftly floating into the room, and closing the door.

Bon Bon let her semi-stoic facade crumble. She threw off her suit coat, and flopped onto the couch. Lyra did the same, and the two relaxed together, finally getting a moment of peace, if only for now. Bon Bon sighed one more time.
“I really wish she’d watch her language.”