One Last Mission

Central Equestrian Wasteland

Day ???

Unicorns weren’t meant to fly. We didn’t have the extra layer of fluff that pegasi had, or the feathers of griffons. Considering I was riding on a pegasus, the fluff should have helped. Instead it just made half my body warm while the other half was battered by the freezing cold wind. At least it helped distract me more… pressing concerns.

Mom told me about the gluttonous one, and her own battle against him. A battle she knew she would lose, despite all her efforts otherwise. I knew that the hunger would get worse, that his whispers would only grow more constant. Yet I also knew mom, despite having lived with that hunger for years, was still very much a sane zebra. I would still be the same pony, even with his whispers in my mind.

Joy had to have known that, because she wouldn’t have kept me alive otherwise, right? Her choice to keep me alive didn’t seem to make sense, but the constant brush of cold air against my coat reminded me that I was, indeed, alive. I was either incredibly lucky, or the gluttonous one had some amount of will on others to keep them from killing me. Pray to Celestia it was the former, and beg to the Infinite that it wasn’t the latter.

Could the Infinite even hear a zony like myself? I have absolutely no idea. Mom barely talked about her own beliefs, so I had no idea what they were like. I just knew they existed.

I’m not sure how long I laid there, on Willow’s back, shivering from the cold that surrounded us. All I knew was that, after a time, we landed in a field overlooking a small patch of buildings made from train cars. We were close enough to see a small number of ponies in the distance, but the color of their coats and whatever they said to each other was impossible.

“Before we walk in,” Willow asked, turning her head to look at me. She dusted off the bloodied clothing on her chest, and then messed with her mane, “what was it that was scaring you and the stripe? I was kind of just going off instinct back there.”

I briefly considered lying, but neither that nor telling the truth seemed like options that would end with me lasting more than a few hours. I lied, Joy explains the gluttonous one to her and Willow most likely kills me out of mercy or due to her being the definition of insane. If I was honest, there was just as likely a chance she might kill me. At the end of the day, words leaving my muzzle meant I was fucked.

Actually, I was fucked either way. A deadline to my end had been set, all because I had eaten my dads corpse. It was wrong, but was it really so bad to want to live just one more day?

Apparently I had been quite for a while, because Willow spoke back up before I did. It was preempted with a smile, and a hoof moving to caress my mane. By anypony else it might have seemed like a mother caring for their child. To me it felt more akin to a predator playing with its prey.

“It’s okay. I’ll hear it later from the stripe.” Just like that, my path to death had been chosen for me. “We should get out of these though… or at least you need to. They’ll think you are a raider if you are wearing leather.”

I blinked, and then looked down at her. I hadn’t realized it, but between Joy giving her order and Willow carrying me off, she had removed the leather clothing she had been wearing. With a quick series of rapid nods, Willow went about temporarily getting me off her back, and then getting the clothes off of me. The more my coat was exposed, the more I became aware of the light breeze that ripped through the open field. It was pleasant, warm, nothing like what I had felt while Willow flew.

“I would like to say that we can get something to finish your shoulder’s healing process, but we don’t have anything to sell,” Willow said. Her hooves clomped against each other as she eyed me over. “Blood suits you at least. It isn’t too noticeable once it is dried, thanks to your color.”

I tilted my head. “Th-thanks?”

She patted me on the head, and then once more I found myself climbing onto her back. It was actually extremely comfy when half your body wasn’t being assaulted by windigo levels of cold. With notice to do as she trotted down to the trader’s stop, I looked her body over. So many scars and marks of dried brown mixed into her coat, that it might have seemed impossible to tell there was something cute under it.

Cute by pony standards at least. Griffons would probably be salivating over a mare this brutal.

For a moment I closed my eyes and tried to picture a Willow without the permanent stains of blood; without the scars and bruises that riddled her features. There was something there that might have been radiant in a better time. A time where Celestia was still alive, and the world hadn’t ended. A world where she had been very different, but still recognizably Willow Wisp. She might have been a mare I was able to form a crush on.

Yet the attitude, the way ponies had fucked with her both mentally and otherwise, made it feel impossible. She terrified me more than anything else. The pieces fell differently, she would have ended up as my death instead of being my lifeline. For as unfamiliar as I was with the emotion called “love”, I knew nopony should fear the love of their life… or at least in this manner.

Dad was definitely terrified of mom when she got angry.

After a moment of watching each individual scar on Willow’s body, and each hair that made up her coat, I looked before her. A brown stallion and rather disheveled looking gray pegasus were talking with a blue earth pony. The latter of the three was the one to first take notice of us. Her eyes looked ready to pop out of her eyes at the sight of Willow’s battered form. Words were spoken, and while I didn’t catch exactly what was spoken the sudden drawing of a serrated blade and carbine made it clear what was going on.

This time, I was glad my mouth managed to speak without my consent. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! We aren’t raiders!”

The disheveled pegasus was the first to act… though the closer I got the term “disheveled” started to seem like more of an understatement. Mare looked like she had walked out of a mega spell impact site. Words were exchanged between the three before us as Willow stopped. She turned back to me, a desperate want in her eyes. She wanted them dead, apparently thinking these ponies were far less negotiable then Joy. Easier to just kill them.

I disagreed, and continued to move my mouth. “We need medical treatment. Both of us do. A town a few hours away tore us up. We’re only alive because of the last ash storm.”

The blue earth pony shoved the gray pegasus to the side. “And how do we know you’re not lying? How do we know you aren’t from some raider gang trying to attack us?”

“My legs don’t fucking work. Why do you think I’m riding on a pegasus?!” I shouted, pointing towards my flank. “Does that sound like a raider, or a raider’s breeding stock?”

I shudder at the mere thought of what I had just called myself. It was true, everypony present knew that, but it didn’t make what I said any worse. Another wordless prayer was sent upwards to Celestia, thinking she would listen to me more than the Infinite. Speaking of what I might have become made it feel far more real than merely thinking about it.

“I won’t allow you to become that,” Willow said. My eyes darted to her in surprise, her hoof once again patting my own. “Would defeat the purpose of saving a life.”

There was something solemn in her statement that made my heart sink. Her words suddenly felt less crazy and more… broken. Apparently I had hit too close to home.

“Thanks Willow.”

She smiled, and then turned her attention back to the ponies before us. The blue earth pony mare was slowly making her way towards us, blade still ready to cut either of us open… which would likely end up with her dead, instead of either Willow or myself. Willow had widened her stance and stretched her wings out, ready to defend us at the first sign of attack. The mare barely paid the pegasus any attention, instead focusing on me.

“Okay, you two are clear,” she said suddenly. Her tone alone was enough to tell me it wasn’t a change of heart. “Stay within my sight at all times until I’m damn sure you are a hundred percent honest. Got me?”

I bobbed my head as quickly as possible; Willow didn’t. The pegasus instead put her muzzle to the mare’s ear and whispered something. It was another series of whispers I didn’t understand, but I didn’t need to. All that mattered was that the mare’s eyes had gone unsteady, and her mouth had gripped the blade she held tighter. After a moment, the mare nodded, and Willow started walking with a satisfied smile.

The earth pony followed behind us, seeming the slightest bit angrier than before now that Willow wasn’t looking at her. The timer in my head was cut off by a third at the malice in her eyes. I dared to greet her with a smile, in hopes it might alleviate the hostility in the air around her. She didn’t return it.

“I-I’m Dead Hooves,” I said in another attempt to save myself.

“Stitches.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Radio silence. I smiled a little harder, but it seemed to have minimal effect. First impressions were a lot harder when the pony wasn’t crazy or made explosions out of nowhere. I thought I had hit all the correct ques as well.

I did take the time to give Stitches a bit more of a look over. She was a hell of a mare, taller than anypony else I had known and built like the brick house I had always heard earth ponies were. This brick house was not keeping the fire inside it hidden at all, and more than a little unnerving. Dark gray irises nearly blended into her pupils if somepony wasn’t focused on them, and along with that long, straight purple and green she almost looked straight out of a nightmare.

Thinking about it more, perhaps “normal” wasn’t exactly a term that could be used to describe her. She seemed ready to stab somepony.

“Well, you two definitely look like you walked through Ponyville,” the stallion said, letting out a whistle before his statement. “You two escaped slaves?”

“I wouldn’t say I’ve escaped just yet. Not till master is dead,” Willow replied, a bit of her inner psychopath sneaking into her voice. The stallion before us flinched at her voice and tone. Strangely, the rather deceased looking pegasus next to him did not. “You are all fine as long as you don’t hurt Deady. Don’t worry.”

Stitches came up to our side, eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening my brother?”

“N-no! She’s just being… protective,” I explained sheepishly to the angry mare before me. I gave Willow a pat on the head, much like she had given me, being surprised at how she tensed up at my attempt for affection. “Willow’s a good pony. I promise.”

To my surprise, given her consistent manic nature up to that point, Willow wilted the very moment I had called her good. I did bother to hide my shock and worry as she hung her head, her smile the only constant that remained on her face. Here it showed itself clearly as a mask of sorts, unlike the more natural – if unsettling – smiles that she usually wore.

“Just don’t hurt, Deady. She’s the good pony here,” she replied, sitting down and allowing me to slide down her back. “Give her attention first. She needs it.”

Before I had a chance to respond, Stitches spoke up. “You are still coming with me. Trudge mama that I got a bit of unexpected work. I’ll need to have lunch in the medical car. Ditzy, if I could have your help with the blank flank.”

“Of course!” the deceased looking pegasus said with a friendly nod of her head. She made her way over to me and flashed me a friendly smile. Thankfully, her appearance didn’t seem to draw out the gluttonous one’s whispers. “Name’s Ditzy. Nice to meet you.”

“D-Dead Hooves.”

“Okay, the other pegasus goes in front of us. I’ll guide you all to the medical car,” Stitches replied as she and Ditzy lifted me up. I doubt she needed Ditzy for help, given she was an earth pony, but I wasn’t about to say anything. Stitches still had that blade in her mouth.

It was clear the moment we had stepped inside the medical car that it clearly wasn’t originally meant to be used as one. It was, like every other train car around us apparently, a passenger car. They had derailed during the Last Day, a graveyard for many and a place of horror for the few that had managed to survive. Earth ponies and unicorns had worked together to turn it into the little traders hub we knew it as now.

By wasteland standards, the car we were currently in was clean. Windows had either been completely boarded up or duck taped together to prevent ash storms from invading it. Luggage compartments turned into areas for medical supplies, seats made into makeshift beds. Along with it were hoof-made tables, shelving, chairs, desks and otherwise. Anything they had managed to get from traders passing by.

I was plopped down onto a seat-turned-bed. Willow was told to sit down in the one right next to me, Ditzy went off to somewhere else and Stitches got to work. A lot of what she asked me to do went over my head, but I followed along. That included her asking questions about drinking, smoking, and other things that I all said no to… with the exception of my eating habits. Truth be told, outside of my dads corpse and that disgusting canned ravioli, I had barely eaten anything in the last four days. The hunger had gotten so normal I didn’t even think about it.

Turns out my lack of strength, having gone a few days with barely anything to eat, and a chosen tumble was what undid the healing potion’s effects. In other words, me deciding to fall off Willow’s back, back in the bakery was not especially bright. The glare she gave me then also made a lot more sense… especially since that same exact glare was being leveled at me right now.

“What is with ponies and thinking that those little Ministry bottles are some magical cure all,” Stitches replied, looking at the reopened wound on my shoulder. I swear, this mare was angrier than Joy seemed to be. “It’s a good final measure, but the body doesn’t always heal correctly. That goes doubly so for less pure bottles, or those made after the Last Day, and so on. I’m guessing you had one of those.”

“I have no idea what most of that means, but it hasn’t hurt too much since drinking the potion so that is good, right?” I asked with a large, fake grin. All Stitches needed to do was look at me, and through a combination of shame and embarrassment I found myself unable to meet her eyes. “Sorry.”

She went to her desk, grabbed cloth from the cabinet, and brought it back to me. “You might want to bite down on this for what's coming.”

Deciding to trust the earth pony before me, I took the cloth in my magic, twisted it up, and placed it in my mouth. Willow leaned over, seemingly waiting in anticipation for whatever was about to come. I didn’t understand the excitement.

Then, with gritted teeth, I clenched down on it as the earth pony did… something to my shoulder. I had no idea what, and I was far too scared to look and find out. I was too busy clenching my eyes shut and groaning in pain to do so anyways. No matter what she was doing, no matter how bad the pain was, it cemented on clear thing in my mind: I had fucked my shoulder up more than I realized.

“Yep, broken bone. Believe it or not, Miss Hooves, but you are not the most delicate pony I’ve ever had to work on,” Stitches said, something in her mouth slurring her words a little. Whatever it was, I think it had just opened up my skin. “Pegasus, keep the blank flank steady for me. Something tells me she ain’t going to like this.”

My jaw fell open, a nervous shiver coursing through my body. “L-Like wha–”

Willow’s forelegs wrapped around my own, and bit down as hard as possible into the cloth again. Willow’s strength was the only reason that my entire moveable body wasn’t squirming around. Pained groan after pained groan escaped my muzzle as I tried anyway, but I was locked in place. Whatever Stitches was doing, it was worse than anything I had ever felt in my life.

It must have been normal though, because she was rolling her eyes and muttering about foals under her breath.

I’ll just… skip over the rest of the experience. It wasn’t fun, I never want to relive it again, and hopefully I never will. The good news was that, after everything was put back in place, all it took was a healing potion and suturing to close the reopened wound back up. Thank Celestia for small blessings.

That was all that needed taking care of myself, so Stitches moved on to the “bigger problem”. With all the cuts, bruises, and bigger wounds Willow had on her, it was apparently going to take a decent chunk of today plus a bit more tomorrow to get her in top shape. It was good, but also slightly unnerving. The idea Willow wasn’t in top shape made everything she had done far scarier.

I didn’t watch the Stitches work, partly because it was clear the moment she started doing it that Willow was enjoying it. Like, really enjoying it. As if the mare wasn’t a boatload of messed up already. It led my eyes to wander elsewhere. Far too many things to really settle on a single object of attention, but that was probably better than staring at the wooden planks in a farmhouse.

The door to the train car opened, and that brown stallion from earlier walked in. Three well age bowls came in with him, two sitting on his hoof, the last on his rump. He and Stitches shared a brief, silent conversation that seemed to involve nothing but eye motion, and the latter returned to Willow. The stallion first went to Stitches desk and placed down two of the bowls, then came up to me.

“You I believe, but are you positive that pegasus there ain’t some raider?” He whispered. “Enclave perhaps?”

I shook my head. “I-I don’t think so. She mentioned some master. Maybe a slave to raiders, but not raiders themselves.”

“Well if she is the slave, I don’t want to meet the pony who was holding her leash… though I guess now that is you, eh?” The smile his words ended left a bitter taste in my mouth. Lifeline or not, I didn’t want to think of myself as Willow’s new master. “Mud Trudge. That’s my sister, Stitches. Nice to meet ya… Dead Hooves, right?”

“Yes Dead Hooves,” I replied with another nod. “That’s Willow Wisp. There might be a zebra named Joy coming along later, with us… kind of. Let her know we’re here when she arrives?”

The timer got shorter as soon as those words left my mouth.

The mere mention of a zebra seemed to make that smile of his less sure. Telling him I was a zony was a clear no-go. He didn’t realize or bother to shore up the slip in this expression as he placed the bowl down in front of me. I briefly watched the steam, then took a breath in.

I think my eyes rolled into the back of my head, but it was more than understandable. Of my parents, mom was the better cook, and this instantly reminded me of the heavenly aroma her food would always carry with it. The actual food itself might not look like it belonged in a high-end Tenpony restaurant, but the taste was far beyond anything those places could ever carry anyways.

With tears slowly starting to roll down my face, and not wanting to wait another minute, my face hit the food inside. I didn’t look at what it was, and frankly I did not give a shit. It was heavenly, creamy, soft, and the tastiest thing I’ve had since mom left. Any fear of Joy explaining my less noticeable condition went away as I gorged myself on the meal before me. Tartarus, I even started licking the bowl just to get every last bit of food I was able to.

“So uh–”

I snapped back to Mud Trudge as he stood there, my movement freezing him up for a moment. His lips and tongue moved in very odd ways, taking several seconds to figure out how to form words again. It ended with him giving me a rather sheepish smile.

“I take it you enjoy mama’s cooking.”

“Mama’s… cooking,” I mimed. I briefly looked back to the empty bowl, and then up at Trudge once again. “Y-yeah. It’s good. Really good. I haven’t had anything like it in… in a long time.”

Trudge tilted his head at me. “Are you okay, Miss Hooves?”

“Y-yeah. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just, your crying and it always seems that ponies crying mea–”

“Trudge.” Our attention turned to Stitches, the earth pony giving her brother a dirty glare as she held a blood soaked rag in her mouth. “If you're trying to be smooth, you are doing it wrong.”

He got exceptionally more sheepish at her words. “O-oh. Right. Sorry, Miss Hooves.”

“It’s…it’s fine.” I rubbed my tears away with a foreleg. We turned our attention away from Stitches, allowing her to work with only one masochistic pegasus watching her movements. “Also, it’s just Dead Hooves. Besides, I think I’m younger than both of you.”

“Really? I’m twenty-four, Stitches is twenty-two. You?”

“Seventeen.”

Trudge’s eyes went wide, and sheepishness turned into horror. He took a few steps back and turned away, leaving me confused for a good ten seconds or so. Seconds that saw gears turning, turning, and turning more before finally they clicked into place… and suddenly I desperately wished they didn’t. Mom and dad had given me enough education to know what wasn’t okay here.

The good news is his crush was destroyed immediately. The bad news was that it had appeared in the first place.

“No offense, Mud Trudge, but even if I wasn’t seventeen, I don’t think I swing that way,” I explained to him. “Granted my experience relates to just my own… w-well I don’t swing that way.”

“Oh my,” Willow said, both as seductive as a siren and creepy as fuck. “Do you mean you liked your–”

I snapped my attention to her eyes, anger sparking up from out of nowhere. “Yes, my family is fucked up. You already knew that. Next topic!”

A pleasant, if rather awkward silence descended upon the medical car. I was thankful for it, and was certain I had squashed any desires still left in Trudge. Whether that was due to liking the same sex or my… discovery of liking it was not important.

“Well, Dead Hooves is still kind of a cruel name. I feel a bit bad calling you it,” Trudge replied. His words earned him a leer. “S-s-sorry. It's just that your name seems in poor taste.”

“Well, Mud,” I replied, emphasizing his own name in disdain. “I’m sorry my name is so horrible. Didn’t realize it came with a fuck ton of radiation attached to it.”

“That isn’t what I–“

“Even if it does, I consider the name my loving and wonderful mom and dad gave me as my own,” More and more venom seeping from my mouth as I continued on. “Speaking of the ponies who gave me my name, I love them. They loved me. Don’t ever, ever call their care for me “in poor taste” again. They took years out of their lives to keep a dead weight like me alive, so don’t act like you know them.”

Apparently my words alone were enough to make him stumble back even more. His ears were pressed against his head, tail tucked in shame. Stopping there would have been enough, but I wanted to twist the dagger. The best way to do it, according to my brain? Hate-filled advice.

“Next time you talk to a mare you want to get lovey-dovey on, consider complimenting them. I hear it works a lot better than insults.”

For a moment, the gloomy look on Trudge’s face made me grin. I felt justified, a little proud, and definitely content at the work before me. The twist of the dagger had worked perfectly. It was easily the most powerful I had felt in my life, even if it was just words being spewed and not bullets. As Trudge seemed to grow more and more downtrodden as my words set in more and more, I grew happier and happier.

Then, a blue figure stepped in front of me, disgust morphing their expression into a grimace. Stitches bent her neck till her breath was on my ear, warm and carrying a horrible smell to it. That was enough to destroy that tiny bit of pride in me, my own muzzle twisting in terror. The timer was shorter before a single word was spoken; she didn’t need to do anything else.

She spoke anyway.

“Right or wrong, I expect a little respect for my own family too,” Stitches muttered. “Continue to disrespect them, and I’ll see to it your forelegs no longer work as well. Am I clear?”

A full body shiver crossed my form. “Should a doctor really be saying that?”

“Healing ponies isn’t the only way for a doctor to help ponies,” she replied, getting her nose just a little closer to my ears. “Sometimes we have to remove dangerous individuals. You and your pegasus are looking real dangerous right now.”

She stepped away from me. A few hushed words between her brother and herself, and she returned to patching Willow’s bloodied, battered form up. Trudge wasn’t happy, but there was a clear improvement in his demeanor. One of his forehooves went to the back of his neck, ruffling his mane a slight bit. Stitches’ words to him must not have been kind either.

“Sorry, Dead,” He said, quieter. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have implied anything. Forgive and forget?”

“I think I can do that first part,” I told him, holding my right foreleg out to him. He gave it a light shake. “And I’m also sorry. These last two days have been Tartarus to live through.”

“I can imagine.” There was a slight sign of amusement. I scrunched my muzzle up in distaste at the tone, but went no further; Stitches was still in the room. “Well, either way, it is still a pleasure to meet you.”

Trudge left to go eat with his mom, keep her company, and that left me without anypony to converse with. Willow was too distracted by Stitches’s continuous work on her to offer a pony to talk to. Stitches didn’t seem in the mood for small talk. It left me with nothing to do but take in every little detail available to me once again. If I wasn’t so used to it after all these years, it might drive me insane.

What it did do was drive me to darker thoughts. No distracting thoughts made the timer to my death tick louder and my heart beat a bit faster. Telling Trudge to send Joy here meant Willow would learn about the gluttonous one sooner. The sooner she learned, the sooner my neck got snapped, or received a bullet to the skull. My brain saw it all as certainty.

Here I was, spending my last few hours among the living doing jackshit with my life. How fitting. Guess ponies really do tend to die as they live.

I was so wrapped up in my own self-pity that I didn’t notice the gray, dead-looking pegasus enter till she was right in front of me. My head shot up as two uncentered eyes did their best to look at me. I didn’t yelp, and she simply smiled at me. In her hooves was what seemed to be a book, paper old but the stuff on it significantly newer. To my surprise, she held it out to me.

“I hope this proves useful, wherever you and your other pegasus friend go,” she said. She sounded dehydrated, but exceptionally sweet. “It’s a bit out of date, I’ll admit, but a large chunk of what is inside it should still stand.”

I took it and looked at the cover. Mom and dad gave me as much of an education as possible, but it wasn’t much. Literature wasn’t something I knew anything about. I doubt either of them thought I was going to leave home and find books to read. It wasn’t necessary. As I opened my mouth to tell Ditzy this, she ended up pre-empting me.

“I’ve made it with a lack of reading skill in mind. That is what the pictures are for.”

It turns out Ditzy was responsible for something called the Wasteland Survival Guide, a book to help ponies survive in post-war Equestria. It covered everything, from the different beasts that roamed the wastes, to what kind of ponies were most likely friend or foe, and locations that made up Central Equestria. It was free for every family, and apparently Ditzy thought Willow was a member of my family. I decided it was best to not correct her and go along with it.

It didn’t really matter in the end because, thank Celestia, this actually gave me something to distract my mind. The timer faded into the background, present but significantly less noticeable unless I actually thought about it. It held that the pictures Ditzy made were both informative and pleasing to the eye. I took in each and every page, gathered as much information as I was able to from pictures alone, leading me to not notice when Stitches finished up.

It took halfway through for either of them to pull me from the survival guide. Both of them had turned to eating the food Stitches’ mom had for everypony, the two sharing some small banter all the while. Nothing really took my interest for a time, meaning it must have been boring medical stuff, until the earth pony doctor inquired in a little detail from when we had first arrived at the trader’s stop.

“For a slave you certainly don’t seem weak, and while there are clearly some mental issues I’m not qualified to solve, you seem to be a lot more there then the few other escapees I’ve met,” she said mid-chew. “Have you been free for a while? It certainly seems like you have managed to pick up the pieces the bastard left.”

“As I said, I’m not free yet. Won’t be until I have his severed head cradled happily in my hooves,” Willow answered, looking far better despite the numerous scars that still covered her body. Her tone turned dreamy near the end, her hooves re-enacting both the act of pulling his head from his body. “Also, technically it’s only been three days since I last saw him, and today is my first day not in physical chains.”

Stitches had no visible look of horror from any of the pegasi’s words, instead giving an affirming harrumph. “Really? Then you were this way while under his care? Surprised he was okay with that.”

“No reason he shouldn’t be. He didn’t want some submissive worker, he wanted a weapon. That’s what I’ve always been, and it is something I’ve learned to love. Better to enjoy the killing that fills so much of my everyday life.” Willow looked at me, a wicked grin crossing her face. “Of course, I have somepony truly worth doing it for now. The first pony I ever saved.”

“I-I appreciate the sentiment, Willow,” I said, hiding my muzzle nervously under my hooves. “But I’d prefer not getting into danger. I-It’s far safer for me.”

“Good luck with that, blank flank.” Stitches pushed her bowl away from her, lying back on the chair behind her desk. “No place is really safe in our world. Hasn’t been since the Last Day. If she’s offering you protection out of her own wish, take it.” She looked out the duct-taped window to the world outside. “Not all of us are that lucky.”

My eyes went between Stitches and Willow, until a small but noticeable change occurred in the latter’s expression. The wickedness faded into something more… pleading. I half expected her to suddenly bow and beg that I allow her to protect me, because Stitches’s word made that seem most accurate for somepony with her background. Instead, the longer she went without a response from me, her smile faded into a frown, and her eyes became watery.

“Please, Deady. I-I know there is a lot wrong with me, and that I’m not okay, but this gives me a purpose. I need it.”

The dagger I had placed in Trudge earlier found its way into my own heart. “Won’t I just slow you down on your quest to kill him.”

She shook her head. “No. Actually, you’d be a big help. Master had ways of keeping me under control, but with your help I might be able to break some of those control mechanisms.”

A means to remove the deadline stood before me. I had to take it.

“I can’t promise that I will be of much help, but I’ll try,” I told her.

Willow’s face lit up at my words. The look of hope, relief, and joy mixed into a single expression made my chest tingly. She got up from the train-seat-turned-bed and rushed over to me, ignoring the repeated yells from the doctor even as they grew harsher and louder. With no available escape, I allowed the pegasus to pick me up and hug me. Her squeals of joy were oddly cute, despite how terrifying she was.

“Thank you, Deady. Thank you so much,” she said, refusing to let go of me. “I promise, not a bullet will touch you as long as I live.”

The timer greatly extended. Our worlds blended together.