Chapter 11: Scratches in a Dark Room

Chapter 11

Scratches in a Dark Room

It began as a breeze. In the cold, even the lightest wind was unwelcome, but it was not so much that the ponies could not withstand it. As they continued northward, however, it became less and less mild, until soon their faces went numb under its constant assault.

The ponies donned the second layer of their hooded cold weather gear, and also covered their faces to stave off the icy blast, which seemed to come from every direction but south. There was no rhyme or reason to it. It was as if the air itself set its will against their quest, and drove them back. Still, the ponies marched onward.

In only two more days, the wind had become so intense that it threatened to rip their tents apart. The sun never truly set this far north at this time of year, but it sank low at strange intervals, and the skies waxed and waned in reds and oranges. It was during one such period, when the group had collectively decided to take a rest, that it became apparent no tent would hold against the gale.

“We're going to have to make a dugout,” said Shining Armor.

“We can try,” Applejack half-shouted over the wind, “but the ground's so damned hard I don't know how we'll ever pull it off!”

“I mean Twilight and me!” came the big unicorn's reply.

He and Twilight focused their horns on a spot in the ground, and the earth began to thaw and move, Pitching itself upward into a northward-facing berm that left a large, oval scoop in its shadow. It was just large enough to fit all the ponies comfortably, and the act left both brother and sister more than a little weary. The reward for their efforts was substantial, however; a tiny island of shelter in the vast, gray, frozen plain.

As the ponies settled in, Spike set to building a fire. Applejack lay down and nestled in close to her brother.

“You know,” she said. “We ain't gone camping hardly at all since Momma and Daddy passed away.”

“Nope,” said Big Macintosh.

“Now I remember why,” said his sister.

He laughed. “Eeyup.”

Applejack let the slow crackle of the growing fire warm her face, now absent its woolen shield in the shelter of the dugout. Her face was almost preternaturally orange in the glow of the flames and sky. “Something I been meaning to ask you for a long time, Mac,” she said.

“Shoot.”

“That night the house burned down.” She swallowed a lump that had formed in her throat. “How'd you and Granny get outside? Why were me and Applebloom the last ones out?”

“Oh. Well, Daddy gave me the job of leading Granny out, and I had just been out there a little bit when Momma pushed you out into the yard.”

“So, the house hadn't been burning long?”

“Maybe two minutes.” He sighed and shook his head slightly. “Old house went up like a goddamn box of matchsticks. It was that fresh lacquer Daddy just put on the walls, I wanna say.”

Applejack looked up at her brother. “So you don't know nothing about what went on with Momma and Daddy inside, then?”

“Nope, don't reckon so.”

“Well," she said, "I saw a little bit of it. Wasn't no kinda pretty sight, but I imagine you could guess that.” She looked up into the glow of the low, unsetting sun. “Reckon I could tell you about it if'n you wanted to know.”

“Don't reckon I much want to, AJ," he said, repositioning his legs slightly to make himself more comfortable, "but if it'd make you feel better to tell me, I ain't gonna put a stop to it.”

“Well,” she began, “Part of the roof fell down on Daddy's back, and he was burned pretty bad, already. Not as bad as he was when he finally come out, but bad. I ran over to check on him, and when he saw me, it set him off somehow or other. He threw that shit off himself and went to bucking against the door to the nursery like it was a tree wouldn't turn loose of its apples. You remember afterwards they said that near where they found Momma they found a door looked like it was broke in half and ripped clean off its hinges, somehow? That's why.”

Big Macintosh grinned and chortled. “You'll have to let me be a little bit proud of him for that.”

Applejack laughed. “You think I ain't?”

“Nope, wouldn't expect any less from you.”

“Alright, then, but that ain't what I wanted to talk about,” she replied. “What I wanted to say was that... I'll be damned if Momma and Daddy both didn't scare the hell outta me that night. That's the last memory I've got of either one of 'em; just being scared shitless.”

Big Macintosh sniffed and wiped his nose. It had nothing to do with his sister's recollections, and everything to do with the cold. He hummed and hawed to himself for a moment, staring up into the orange glow of the sky, then looked Applejack straight in the face.

“So, what about it?” he finally asked.

Applejack was momentarily stunned, but then her eyes hardened as she thrust her head in closer to her brother's face and spoke.
“Whaddaya mean, 'What about it!?' It's drove me up the goddamned walls for half my life; that's what about it!”

“But why?” The big, red stallion was totally calm.

“Don't you get it? I don't want to remember Momma and Daddy that way, Big Mac. Look here; I couldn't do nothing about that fire. It took me a long time to understand that, but I got there. Still, that don't make it okay, somehow. By rights, didn't I – Hell, didn't we – deserve a better goodbye than that?”

“Eenope.”

Applejack was stopped cold by her brother's response.

“Don't nopony deserve much of nothing, really.” Big Macintosh yawned, then continued to speak. “You get what you get, whether it's fair or not. You can try to do right by everypony else, but that don't mean life owes you shit.'

“I miss 'em, too, you know,” he continued. “Wish I'da got to said something to 'em there at the end, but looking back, all the things I want to say... Hell I never took time to figure on 'em until it was too late for 'em to be said.”

Applejack squeezed her eyes shut, but she couldn't hold in a pair of tears. They dropped to the cold, hard ground, and quickly froze.

“I feel the same way,” she said. “And I feel like it's my own fault I didn't take the time...”

“Bullshit,” Big Macintosh snorted. “Ain't nopony's fault. We were both too busy growin' up to waste our time worrying about that. Hell, you think Applebloom thinks about telling us that sort of shit? Probably not a lick, and we both might freeze to death out here in the middle of this godforsaken hell hole.”

“Hey!” The voices of Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor shot across the small camp in perfect unison.

“Not the dugout; it's fine and dandy,” said the red pony. “This is a totally different conversation.”

“And speaking of Applebloom,” Big Macintosh went on, “How many times have we both scared the shit out of her? How many times has Granny? How many times did Momma and Daddy scare both of us shitless before that night? My guess is you couldn't count the number on all four hooves and every hair in your tail. Sometimes it's just what you need to do to set a young'un straight. Sometimes it's the only way to keep 'em safe. So, forget about it, and go get us some goddamned apples; I'm hungry.”

Applejack leaned over and rested her head against her brother's thick neck. “In a minute,” she said, forlornly.

* * *

After another day's travel, the mountain range the ponies had sought came into view. As it crept over the horizon, the temperature continued to drop, forcing the addition of more layers of cold weather clothing. Finally, in spite of all this insulation, the cold began to produce complaints, beginning first with Rarity, who broke a silence that had lasted the bulk of an entire day with an uncharacteristically vulgar observation.

“Celestia's motherfucking mane, it is colder than a motherfucking pimp's heart in this motherfucking wasteland!”

The other ponies all turned to stare at the unicorn.

“Well, it is,” she said with not the least hint of shame or apology, her face fixed in a look of absolute disgust.

Nopony disputed the statement. The vast, empty waste afforded no shelter from the wind. And they had to reserve the charcoal they'd brought for cooking meals, so that not even breaking to make camp allowed them to truly escape the bitter, terrible climate.

“It's going to get colder,” said Twilight.

“I know,” whined Rarity.

“Just try not to think about it,” said Fluttershy.

“You can always cuddle up with me tonight,” said Spike, arching his eyebrows several times. “I'm full of fire, remember?”

“I'll be fine,” sighed Rarity, and the group continued on.

It had seemed as if a mere two or three days should have brought them to the edge of the mountains, but as the ponies continued to approach, the peaks merely loomed higher and larger on the horizon, so that they began to realize that they were seeing mountains of incredibly prodigious height. Twilight Sparkle confirmed that the Princess had said the mountains would be high, but even she was astonished at their seemingly limitless ability to soar ever more skyward as the ponies moved toward them. Worse, they became more and more terrifying as their outline became clearer. They were jagged and gray, being not in the least snow-capped, and their slopes were phenomenally steep. Finally, some ten days after they had first been sighted, the ponies stood at their foothills, and only a day's travel eastward brought into view a small, ruined town which must surely be the current objective of their trek. As they finally strode into it, they were struck by a peculiar sense of antiquity and uneasiness.

“We're the first ponies here in thousands of years,” said Twilight.

“I know,” said Rainbow Dash. “Isn't it amazing? I wonder if there are ghosts, or ice monsters, or abominable snow horses, or...”

“You sound just a little too excited by those prospects,” Rarity quipped. “Also, you're frightening Fluttershy.” She gestured toward the yellow pegasus, whose knees were clattering more than even the brutal cold could account for.

“I just hope there's wood somewhere,” said Applejack. “It'd be nice to be able to make a real fire, for once.”

“Well,” said Shining Armor, we need to find shelter, anyway. Let's spread out and look. We can meet back here...”

“Wait a minute!” Spike made a time-out signal with his claws.

“Hmm?” Shining Armor responded, inquisitively.

“Now, I don't read as much as Twilight, but I've been through enough horror books to know that right after you split up in a strange, ancient place like this is the part where you start dying.”

“Oh, Spike,” said Pinkie Pie, “Those are just silly stories. What could there be to hurt us in a place like this?”

“Did you hear even one of those things that Rainbow Dash mentioned?” asked the dragon.

“You're being ridiculous,” said Twilight. “There are nine of us here, total, right? We'll split up into groups of three. Will being with at least two ponies make you feel safer, you little scaredy-dragon?”

“Fine, but who do I go with?”

“Me, duh.” Twilight scooped her head under the little dragon, and let him slide down onto her back. “You're still a baby dragon, and you're still my responsibility.”

“Can Rarity come with us?”

“No,” Twilight shook her head. There are three unicorns here, so each group gets one of us. That way, everypony has access to magic, in case they need it.”

“Oh, right,” said Spike, obviously disappointed.

“So, let's see... Every group should get an Earth pony, too, in case we do find some wood, and want to haul it back.”

“I call Big Mac,” said Spike. “You know... in case of monsters.”

“Fine,” said Twilight.

Pinkie Pie skipped over next to Twilight's brother. “Shiny, you like pink ponies, right?”

“Don't get any ideas,” said Shining Armor, bluntly.

Pinkie Smiled. “Only teasing!”

“Aw, ponyfeathers,” said Applejack. “Fluttershy, come with me and Rarity. No way in hell I can handle being stuck alone with her and Dash at the same time, right now... No offense to anypony; I'm just hungry, cold, and a little put-out.”

“Oh, trust me darling, I understand,” said Rarity.

* * *

Big Macintosh listened quietly to Twilight Sparkle's long, rambling assessments of the ruins that he, she, and the dragon passed by in their search. She mentioned many times that it was strange to see them in such good condition, given their age, but it was easy for Big Mac to see why: Everything was stone. Moreover, everything was huge. All the buildings, doorways, and windows seemed far too large. He wondered faintly if this town hadn't been occupied by horses, rather than ponies.

Whoever or whatever had lived here, they had not been poor. The arched doorways and windows showed a great deal of ornate, Florentine carving, and occasionally, they would run across some small alcove where the wind had not been able to blast away all evidence that the buildings had at one time been stuccoed. This would have been a lovely little town in its own time, which made Big Macintosh wonder all the more why it seemed so thoroughly abandoned. If they really were the first ponies to step into it in all these ages, there should have been more to be found here. It was as if its citizens had, at some point, packed up everything they owned, and left.

Twilight entered every house for a cursory inspection, but finding them all empty, she quickly re-emerged. Finally, the trio came to a large house on the town's western outskirts. Stepping into it, they found evidence to suggest there had once been a second floor anchored in the walls, but now the erstwhile home was only an empty, roofless shell that stood higher than the surrounding empty, roofless shells.

“I'm starting to think we won't find anything useful here, at all,” said Twilight, as she emerged from the back door, followed by the red earth pony.

“Why not try looking in that cellar,” asked Spike, tapping on the side of Twilight's neck to get her attention as he pointed to his left.

“Good eyes, Spike.”

The cellar Spike had indicated had no remaining doors, but its stone stairway was still present.

What they found below drew a grunt of mild amazement from the normally stolid Macintosh. It was a pile of strange metal shapes laying against the opposite wall.

“What are those things?” asked Twilight.

“Plowshares,” said Big Macintosh. “Big ones.”

“That means...” Twilight began.

“This place was a farm,” said the red pony. “Makes sense. There's plenty of flat land around here, and the soil looks pretty good, too, excepting it's frozen solid. If only it wasn't so dry and cold, you could grow food easy. Don't guess it was always this way.”

“No; Princess Celestia said this land used to be green. This town must have been where they grew food for the population of Frigidus proper.”

“Well, ain't nopony growing nothing here, now,” said Macintosh. “Dirt's solid as a rock.”

“Yeah,” said Twilight, “Let's keep looking for wood.”

They stepped back into the dimming sunlight, and looked around for the next likely house to inspect.

* * *

Rainbow Dash was sitting on top of a high wall of one of the old, broken-down houses, looking upward at the looming mountain range above her, painted deep orange-red by the never-setting sun. She was getting bored with the emptiness of this old, dead town, and growing more and more curious about what lay in those high, jagged peaks.

“Dashie!” It was Pinkie Pie. “Do you see anything from up there?”

“Nothing really, Pinkie.” She sighed as she turned her gaze back to her more immediate surroundings. “This old town is just... meh. You'd think we could have found at least one or two monsters or ghosts or something. Where's Shining Armor?”

“Over here,” came the unicorn's voice from inside a nearby house. “This one's empty too, it looks like... wait a second. What the hell?”

Rainbow Dash hopped down and flitted her wings to slow her fall, then trotted into the house. Pinkie Pie came close behind.

“You find something?” asked Rainbow Dash, noticing Shining Armor looking at a spot on the wall. He was staring at something in a dim, shadowy corner of the house's large, front room.

“There are some kind of markings. It looks like old letters scratched into the wall. I can't read them. Can either of you?”

Pinkie Pie looked at the markings on the wall. “Nope. Not any language that I know.”

Rainbow Dash likewise inspected the peculiar marks. They were a strange, jagged text, and appeared to have been hastily scratched. “Well,” she said, “I sure don't know what it says. Maybe we should go find Twilight.”

“You fly up and see if you can do that,” said Shining Armor. Pinkie and I will go find the others. Let's all meet back here in this house. It'll be time to make camp, soon, anyway.”

* * *

Rarity saw it first as she rounded a corner, and the sight produced a gasp which quickly brought Fluttershy and Applejack to her sides.

It was the remains of what appeared to have once been a great stone arch. In its day, it would have been taller than Ponyville's town hall, and the several enormous chunks of it which lay at its still-standing bases were covered in ancient, weathered carvings that appeared to have once been of equines, though time and the battering of the wind had left them vague and cryptic as to their meaning. Likewise, any lettering the obvious gateway may once have born was worn too deeply to be apparent. All the same, the three ponies knew this was the gateway to the road they had been searching for.

“Well, at least we know where we're going,” said Rarity. “Though I must say I find the sight a teensy bit foreboding.”

“Rarity, you find a day without a shower foreboding,” said Applejack.

Rarity raised an eyebrow at the orange pony. “And you don't?”

“Well, of course not. We've been on the trail for weeks, and it ain't bothered me a bit. To be honest, I'm kinda impressed you haven't bitched and moaned about it, so far.” There was real, though smug, admiration in Applejack's words.

“Well, actually... I know a few hygiene spells for just this sort of situation. All they require is a bit of soap, shampoo, conditioner...”

“Wait a minute,” Applejack stopped her. “You know a spell that works as a substitute for a shower?”

Rarity was confused.

“Why... yes. You cast the spell, the soap and such are consumed in exactly the same quantities as if you had bathed, and then you're clean. Would you like me to cast it on you? I have plenty of the things I need in my saddlebags.”

Applejack frowned. “Rarity,” she almost launched into a tirade about how ridiculous it was to waste cargo space on something so frivolous, but then she realized how filthy she felt, and how clean Rarity looked by comparison. “Well... uh... actually... you know what? Yeah. But wait until later. This is gonna be weird enough without Fluttershy watching.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “You know I don't actually have to touch you, right?”

Fluttershy cleared her throat quietly. “Umm, Rarity? I'd... I'd like a shower spell or bath spell or whatever, please. I feel really dirty, and I smell like rancid milk and pickles.”

“I had... noticed,” said Rarity. Her horn glowed for a moment, and there was a slight glow from inside her saddlebag. Fluttershy's body shone briefly, and was clean.

“Wait, that's it?” asked Applejack. “Shit, do it now.”

Rarity gladly obliged, and as Applejack glowed, her mane and tail fluffed outward and curled noticeably.

“Whoops,” said Rarity. “Wrong conditioner.”

Applejack growled quietly in her throat, and Fluttershy giggled.

“Oh, it's just a joke, Applejack,” Rarity laughed. She cast the spell again, and Applejack resumed her normal appearance, though noticeably devoid of grime.

“Thank you kindly. Now, wash everypony else when we see 'em again, so we don't all smell like dead animals.”

“I'm not using up all my supplies on everypony else's account,” said Rarity. “If you all wanted to be clean, you should have brought your own.

“Oh, there you are!” Pinkie Pie's voice startled the three spotless ponies. “What smells like lilac and jasmine with the faintest hints of a mountain spring?”

* * *

The ponies all crowded into the house with the strange lettering, and set up a camp. Though they hadn't found any wood, the high walls did a much better job of keeping the constant wind off of them than the dugouts they had been forced to use for the past several weeks, and a fireplace in the same room with the weird letters helped to amplify and contain their fire so that their little camp was actually quite comfortable. Rarity had been coaxed into magically washing the rest of the ponies, so that the whole situation represented the greatest degree of comfort and hominess the ponies had experienced since leaving Canterlot.

Twilight sat near the strange lettering, a book open on the floor in front of her, and with its help, she was doing her best to decipher the weird inscription. She had been dead silent and perfectly still for over a quarter of an hour, except for an occasional flick of her hoof to ash her cigarette.

“It's not a sentence,” said the purple unicorn. “It's all one word. Give me a little bit longer.'

"How's that stew coming, Spike?”

“It's perfect! Or it would be with a couple of powdered rubies.” He took a deep whiff of the bubbling mixture.

“Yes,” giggled Fluttershy, “and nopony but you would be able to eat it.”

“Exactly,” said Spike, continuing to stir the pot suspended over the fire. “And it would be delicious.”

“It's a name,” came Twilight's voice from across the room. All the ponies turned their heads towards her.

“Shimmershine," she said. "Just an ordinary pony name. No telling how it got here.” Twilight leaned forward, and squinted. “There's something else.”

Rainbow Dash walked over. “More words?”

“No; a picture,” said Twilight. “Look closely.”

Rainbow Dash came to Twilight's side, and mimicked her posture. “Hey, you're right!”

It was faint, but it was there; a crudely drawn earth pony, with a fat, oval body, a stick neck and legs, another oval for the head, and a few squiggly lines for the mane and tail. It had a faint, faint smile drawn on its face, and its lack of a cutie mark indicated that it was probably a foal. The shadow cast by the corner had hidden it earlier, but the fire now made it apparent.

“Some little foal must have drawn this,” said Twilight. She took a couple of seconds to French inhale her cigarette, then added, “thousands of years ago.”

“Why do you think they left?” asked Rarity.

“Probably just got too cold to live here, anymore,” said Shining Armor. “Would you want to live in this?”

“I know I wouldn't,” said Applejack. “And do you think you could grow food here?”

“Nope,” said Big Macintosh.

“Exactly,” said Applejack. “Believe you me; if me and Big Mac can't make an apple tree grow there, – and we damn sure can't make one grow here – then nothing can grow there. Period.”

Big Macintosh nodded.

“Eeyup.”

“That's sad,” said Fluttershy, walking over to examine the drawing. “To have to leave your home that way, I mean.”

Pinkie Pie spoke up. “Yes, but home is where the heart is, Fluttershy, or that's what everypony says, anyway.”

Spike practically yelled, “Soup's on!” and all the ponies went and crowded around the fireplace. All, that is, except one; Fluttershy remained by the sketch on the wall, staring at it silently. In his rush to dish up the soup, Spike knocked a short stick of charcoal out of the fireplace, and it rolled across the floor until it bumped into Fluttershy's hoof, where it lay still.

Fluttershy stared at the drawing through clouds of her own breath that puffed outward rhythmically, and considered the surreal nature of what she was seeing: a child's crude, frivolous self-portrait, thousands of times older than she would ever live to be. She wondered vaguely if Shimmershine had gotten in trouble for drawing on the walls.

She spoke quietly to the smiling image. “Is this all that's left of you, my little pony? Shimmershine? I wonder what your cutie mark turned out to be.”

She bent her head down, and picked up the stick of charcoal by her teeth. Carefully, she retraced the lines of the drawing, so that it stood out as if brand new. She was careful to make it exactly as it had originally been, smile and all. She was tempted to add a cutie mark, but as she stood there thinking about what sort of mark to give the little pony, she finally gave up and let the stick drop to the floor.

“I guess you had to earn that on your own, didn't you?” She wiped the black charcoal off her lips and teeth with the sleeve of her coat, then stepped back to admire her work, returning the smile of the drawing that now stood out strongly in the fire's warm, orange glow.

“Fluttershy?” It was Pinkie Pie. “Aren't you hungry?”

“Coming,” said Fluttershy.

She did not look at the drawing again.