The Wanderer

Chapters

1 - Exit Strategy
4 - Helping Hands
10 - Grim Tidings
2 - You Can Always Come Home
3 - Morning Ritual
5 - Reunion
6 - Ineffable
7 - Departure
8 - Delay
9 - Guidelight
11 - The Search Begins
12 - Black Magic Woman
13 - Dead Ends
14 - A Stranger
15 - All Along The Watchtower
Act I-II Interlude - Celestia's Letter
16 - In From the Cold
17 - The Approach
18 - Letters and Dreams
19 - Vignette

1 - Exit Strategy

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Leaning up against the conference table, you rub your aching temples with great force, hoping to slow the incoming migraine that you knew, in your bones, was on its way to find you.

“I’m afraid not, Director Clean Sweep.”

The errant stallion furrows his brow and grunts in response, pacing back and forth in front of the chart that your manager had suggested that you present in her stead. With a sigh of exasperation, he gestures to the ever-so-slightly downward sloping graph, his borderline disgust wafting about the room as a result.

“How, in the name of Celestia herself, are we not in an upswing with sales? Fleur’s new perfume should be smashing every other release right now!”

“With the current trends in the market, it’s more than likely going to continue for a short while as part of a post-holiday lull. Other brands are seeing similar results as-”

“I don’t care about the ‘other brands,’” he interrupts, staring daggers at you as a vein juts out from his forehead. “I care about what goes on here.”

He points to a far more optimistic line on the graph.

“And what’s going on here is that this release was projected to break records through the other end of the holidays, yet here we are - on the precipice of failure.”

At the ass-end of this long, grueling week, you want nothing more than to bring him down from his lofty, corporate bubble and let him have it, just like your former coworker did a couple months ago. Alas, you decidedly enjoy having a stable, comfortable income. Clean Sweep tends to have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to matters of severance, anyways.

So, with frustration mounting, you let one of your hands wander under the table, strangling the leg of your chair so that you can better filter yourself.

“With all due respect, sir, marketing has done everything we could to counteract the effects of the exigent release window. Wherever you look in Canterlot or Manehattan, there’s a billboard, magazine, or storefront window with Flair all over it.”

“At the cost of a more-than-sizeable chunk of the advertising budget, I might add,” he retorts without missing a beat. “Which wouldn’t be an issue if Flair had sold according to the projections.”

Rather than offer your own possibly antagonistic rebuttal, you remain silent as the director continues his tirade. Maybe it’s the end-of-week fog, but you swear you can feel the metal of the chair’s leg bending to suit your palm.

“At any rate, I struggle to understand the effectiveness of what Peachy Keen’s been directing the lot of you to do if the results look like this.”

He directs his oppressive gaze fully onto you, locking eyes and giving that ethically acceptable stare of contempt you’ve grown to hate so much.

“Especially for you, being her assistant manager.”

Despite your best efforts, your left eyebrow hikes itself upward ever so slightly.

“I beg your pardon?”

Maintaining the same contemptuous disposition, he meanders over to the other side of the conference table you’re sitting at, not stopping to take a breath.

“We have high expectations of you, you know,” he begins, his expression subtly wavering as he tries, and fails, to hide the strange sense of satisfaction this exchange brings him.

“Miss Keen all but begged us to let you take the reins for this campaign, aggrandizing your proclivity for efficiency, as well as your understanding of this line of work. As such, you’re held to a higher standard.”

He turns to face away from you, once again tracing the unfavorable sales line with his gaze.

“Which is why you should consider this a setback not just for the team’s growth, but for your advancement in particular.”

You can’t help the impending deep frown that overtakes your features as a result of his continued mockery.

“Sir, there was only so much we could do. The timing of the release was astronomically difficult to work with, and-“

“And it was necessary to not conflict with Fleur’s other product releases,” he interrupts once again, waggling a hoof and turning back around to face you.

“Those were the circumstances given to you, and your methods weren’t up to par. End of story.”

He takes a seat across from you, a hefty sigh accompanying.

“We’ll be keeping a close eye on your future projects to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” he concludes, twisting his chair to look out of the window and into the streets of Canterlot below.

You sit in stunned silence for a few moments, unsure of what exactly to say in the face of Sweep’s lack of self-awareness. A stupefied smirk finds its way onto your features; despite your boiling blood, you can’t help but have some sort of twisted respect for the sheer gall of this stallion. Quickly, you bring your face back to a neutral expression before you continue, eager to be finished with this whole ordeal.

“Do you need anything else from me, sir?”

He absent-mindedly waves a hoof toward the door, his gaze remaining somewhere beyond the window as he does so.

“No, that will be all,” he dictates sternly. “You may go.”

Without delay, you gather your binder and assorted papers from the table, opting to leave the chart and display behind just in case he decides to get his panties in a twist again for some reason. You slowly rise from your seat, being careful not to put too much enthusiasm into your departure as you cross the room in a few swift strides.

As you pull the door open, a slight rush of colder air flows in, a small concession for everything that had just transpired. Amid the new soundscape of ponies idly chatting and drumming away on their typewriters, however, you can just barely make out something Sweep murmurs from the cage you just left. Compared to everything else, it’s barely even a whisper, and yet it finds your ear regardless despite the door being almost completely closed.

“Witless ape.”

The door, only centimeters from being shut, freezes in place. The chatter of the office gives way to an unnatural silence, save for a distant ringing in your ears.

All of the restless nights spent at this very office come rushing back to you; how you and your cohorts would hold out hope that upper management would notice your efforts beyond base acknowledgement. All of the quiet evenings at the apartment, working on ideas and deals that would help your department along. All of the hopes for this gig to turn into a comfortable, livable career somewhere up the chain of employment.

All of it for naught, because people like Clean Sweep would always get their rocks off by keeping people like you under their boot heels.

In one fell swoop, you’ve become no closer to a comfortable life in Canterlot than when you started four years ago. Suddenly, the frequent bags under Peachy Keen’s eyes make sense. Perhaps you were never closer at all.

You were doomed from the very start.

...

The door to the conference room is thrown wide by your fervorous hand, bouncing off of the wall adjacent. The sound quiets the office space from a dull roar into hushed whispers. You march back into the stuffy room, not taking care to shut the door behind you this time.

Clean Sweep has already spun around to face you. His look of aggravation very quickly transforms into deep, stone-faced concern when he sees you approaching; a deep scowl has replaced whatever complacency you had when you left.

In a mere moment, you’ve crossed the room, throwing your palms down onto the table across from Clean Sweep, who recoils from your sudden motion.

“Listen here, you little shit.”

You grab your binder from your bag and throw it back down onto the table right in front of him, garnering another savory flinch.

“Every single one of us has worked our fucking asses off so that this launch wouldn’t be a total disaster.”

You lean in farther, delighting in every inch of space and comfort that you rob from him.

“Peachy Keen missed her daughter’s graduation fighting against your utter incompetence. An incredibly important memory, Sweep. Something she’ll never get to experience because the hubris of you and your friends-”

‘Friends’ is elongated with disgust, your face contorting as you struggle to equate his cohorts to anything resembling decent.

“-dictated that she needed to stay behind and cover for all of your sorry asses.”

Sweep’s face struggles to find a suitable emotion to fit the situation, struggling between uneasy and dumbfounded. Unwilling to let him find a middle ground, you continue your onslaught.

“I upended my life to come here and work for this company. I deliver quality results on time, every time, and what do I get in return? I’m made to lick your boots in order to receive anything that isn’t some scathing critique from you and your cronies. What a fucking joke.”

You finally back up, standing up straight as you reach for the I.D. lanyard around your neck. Your muscles feel distant to you, calling to you from some far off place as they do their work to undo the lone shackle from your head.

“Y-Y-you’re in deep water now, Anonymous,” he stammers out, visibly shaken from your outburst.

With the lanyard removed, you toss it at Sweep, hitting him square on the muzzle.

“I can swim, you crusty fucking mule.”

The venom in your voice drips from your mouth as you begin walking out of the room, a vein in your forehead threatening to pop from the amount of restraint you employed.

“And just in case that wasn’t clear enough, consider that my resignation.”

With your exit finalized, you cross the threshold into a dead silent office.

Countless sets of wide eyes are pointed in your direction as you straighten your tie, regain your composure, and make for the ground floor. You don’t bother stopping to gather what little things you have at your desk; they can throw the pointless knick knacks away for all you care.

As you head into the main reception area from the stairwell, the shift in mood from wary to nonchalant is very much welcomed. You stride unerringly toward the entrance, eager to put this chapter of your life behind you, when a voice catches your attention.

“Anon! Wait!”

Turning, you see a cream-colored pegasus mare barreling after you, her blonde hair falling from its loose bun in the process. When she finally reaches you, she takes a moment to catch her breath before staring up at you, bewildered.

“Anon, what in Tartarus happened?” she asks, confusion lacing her every word. “Prim Thatch came and told me there was something going down on the fourth floor between you and Clean Sweep, and-”

She inhales deeply, organizing her thoughts before continuing, her expression switching to deep concern.

“Anon, please tell me you didn’t just get fired.”

You kneel down to meet her gaze on an even level.

“Peach, can you promise me something?”

“Oh, Celestia, you did, didn’t you? I can go smooth things over with him, maybe he’ll take you back and we can-”

“Peachy.”

Cut off, she looks straight into your eyes, worries deepening by the second.

“Don’t waste your life for these people, okay?”

She searches your face for a few seconds before timidly nodding her head. Satisfied with her answer, you pat her side and rise to your feet once more, straightening out your dress shirt as you do so.

“You and the team will be okay. Hopefully, they’ll treat you better after what happened up there.”

“Are you going to be okay, Anon?”

You pause for a moment. You’re… actually not sure. A frugal lifestyle has benefitted you greatly, but as far as your life’s direction is concerned…

You don’t know.

“I’ll be alright. I should probably head to the apartment and pack my things, though.”

“Hm…? Oh, yeah,” she begins, confusion quickly subsiding. “I forgot that they made you live in the company housing units.”

Concern quickly returns when she realizes what charade Clean Sweep is likely going to pull on you.

“Do you need a place to stay? Bauble’s at her friend’s house for the weekend, so it wouldn’t be any trouble.”

You grin down at your favorite coworker, happy to know that there are still some people at this godforsaken company that genuinely care about you.

“No worries, I’ve got some friends back home who won’t mind letting me crash for a bit.”

You reach down and tussle her hair, which she makes a show of fussing over.

“Thank you for the offer, though. Genuinely.”

Not wishing to bring out the waterworks, you begin meandering over to the front door, with her following alongside you until you reach the threshold.

“You better write soon,” she half-seriously threatens. “You hear me, Anon?”

“I promise. First chance I get, you’ll be subjected to my awful penmanship again.”

A laugh is shared between the two of you as you kneel down once again for a hug, which she returns happily with a tight squeeze. You part from each other with a sigh.

“Be careful out there, Anon,” she asserts, flashing a solemn smile at you.

You return it in kind; you’re really gonna miss this plucky pegasus.

“You too, Peach.”

When all words have been spoken, she turns back and heads into the belly of the beast once more. You watch her the whole way, right up until she disappears behind the stairwell door. With one more sigh from deep within your being, you turn and throw the main doors wide, striding headfirst into the streets of Canterlot.

The walk back to your apartment is brisk, to say the least.

It hadn’t occurred to you until after talking to Peach that they’d more than likely try to void your company-provided housing as soon as possible. On better terms, they might have let you stay a week or two, but after the fallout with Clean Sweep, you suspect the clock’s ticking a lot faster than usual. You just know that bastard is going to pull rank to get you evicted.

The more you think about it, though, the more you realize that he has proper leverage to demand something like that. You did let loose on a board member, after all.

The sound of a heavily irritated sigh leaving your body brings you back to reality as you trudge down a busy street, taking care to join the flow of passers by so that you don’t step on any hooves.

The dull roar of the Canterlot crowd drowns out your thoughts for now. In their place, you pick up on isolated voices here and there, talking about anything under the sun.

A mare looking for a birthday present for her mom, accompanied by her two brothers, two older stallions talking about how their sons are doing in college, a passing mailmare listing her delivery locations out loud in order to commit them to memory…

People that more than likely have their lives in some sort of order, if not worked out entirely. It should upset you, but strangely enough, it doesn’t.

It takes you a second, but you realize that your idle frown that you’ve had since leaving the office is now gone, replaced by a neutral forward-facing gaze. The whole walk, you’ve been absorbed in the uncertainty of your own future, but now, you’re content to simply listen to the snippets of others’ lives. Anything to feel some semblance of stability, you guess.

Before long, though, you come upon your apartment complex. Being a subsidiary of the company you worked for, it’s decidedly more streamlined and modern than the rest of Canterlot’s architecture.

Fitting for a company that has no soul.

Taking care not to run into anyone, you shift your stride out of the flow of foot traffic, offering up ‘sorries’ and ‘excuse-mes’ aplenty. Once you’re free of the predetermined pace of the crowd, you slow your roll a bit as you saunter up the steps of the complex.

It hasn’t even been an hour since the meltdown; you’ve got plenty of time to get everything packed up.

Gently pushing the front door open, you’re greeted with a blast of cool air, as well as the usual smell of peppermint. The mare at the front desk of the lobby greets you with a wide smile, which you try your best to return in kind as you make your way over to your apartment down the hall.

You stop in front of the door marked ‘1G’, taking your keys out of your back pocket. It feels odd, turning the lock for what you know will be the final time. Four years spent here, all coming to an end in one afternoon. The finality of the situation demands some kind of reverence from you.

Wordlessly, you enter into the silence of a mostly empty apartment, save for the furnishings provided by the complex. By the time the door shuts behind you, you’ve already entered the kitchen and gotten to work making your final apartment lunch - a sliced chicken sandwich. You may have led a frugal life here, but one thing you couldn't live without was real meat. Thankfully, you struck a deal with a nearby market vendor to have the meat shipped in from Griffonia. It cost you an arm and a leg, but holy shit, was it good to have meat in your diet again.

As the first bite of your sandwich goes down, you take a moment to do a general survey of the living room. All of the furniture came with the apartment, so getting out of dodge shouldn’t be too much trouble. Even the little things you’ve bought here and there throughout your four years here can be shoved into your suitcase along with all of your clothes.

Kinda depressing, but it makes life easier for you, so you can’t complain. Most of the personal value behind this place is rooted in the memories of the few friends you had here, anyway.

Still, you find that leaving it behind is bittersweet.

Not bittersweet enough for you to slow down, though.

Before you realize it, you’ve wolfed down your entire sandwich, only just now registering the aftertaste. Although you’ve got plenty of time to get packed, you still feel like you need to hurry. The longer you linger here, the harder it’ll be to part with it. Not just the apartment, but the comfort of a lifestyle that you know in and out.

So, with the ardor of change stirring within you, you set about getting everything inside of your suitcase.

...

Thirty minutes and some clever organizing later, your suitcase, full to bursting, stands by your front door. You ended up having more clothes than you thought you did, but you were able to finagle some things around to get everything to fit.

Grabbing onto its handle, you turn around to look at your empty apartment one final time, nodding a couple of times in a gesture of thankfulness.

Wasting no time, though, you head out of your apartment, everything you own in tow.

The feeling of the complex shifts as you walk back down the hall toward the mare at the front desk. The comfort you once felt is…

No, that isn’t the right word for it. The complacency you once felt has gone altogether. In its stead is all-encompassing uncertainty and uneasiness, but not necessarily in a negative way.

You shrug it off as you approach the front desk. Your head’s a mess right now, anyway.

The mare behind the counter flashes you that same earnest smile from earlier.

“How can I help you, sir?” she dutifully asks, eyeing your luggage for a brief second.

“I have the final two months of this year’s rent cycle ready.”

You procure the money from your back pocket, gently placing it on the countertop between the two of you.The mare frowns, confused at your gesture.

“It’s not my business to ask,” she begins, inquisitive in tone. “But is there a reason you’re providing both months’ rent now, rather than their respective due dates?”

“My employment situation has changed. I don’t plan on renewing my lease here.”

No need to delve into the fact that you’re essentially being kicked out. They would’ve asked for the rest of the money, anyhow.

“Alright,” she replies with a flair of corporate cheerfulness, taking the money and filing it away on her desk. “I’m obligated to tell you that any personal belongings left in your apartment after your departure are considered forfeit, as per the leasing terms of the complex. Do you have everything sorted in that regard?”

“I do.”

“In that case, all I’ll need is your keys, and you’ll be all set.”

Reaching into your side pocket, you procure the set of dual keys for your mailbox and apartment, handing them over into her waiting hoof. She hangs them on the wall behind her desk, on a hook labeled ‘1G’, before turning to you once more with an increasingly plastic smile on her face.

“We hope you’ve enjoyed your stay here at Somnia Village,” she says, more than likely parroting her instruction manual. “Have a pleasant rest of your day.”

You nod at her, beginning your trek out into the streets once more.

“You as well.”

Stepping back out onto the complex grounds, you look to the horizon to gauge how much time you have left until the train station stops selling tickets. A decreasingly faint gold tinge coats the sky, signifying the oncoming march of the evening.

The station’s across town; if you leave now, you can probably get there before they close. Without a moment’s hesitation, you join the flow of the crowd once more, tuning back into the droning of the crowd for passing entertainment. Nothing really pops out at you this time, though. It seems the evening crowd isn’t quite as talkative.

Absent the stimulating discussion, you turn your focus to the passing scenery.

Canterlot’s always been a sight to behold. Of that, you’re certain. Something about it feels off now, though. You recognize that it more than likely has to do with earlier today, but even so, you can’t shake the feeling; it's as if the veneer slips further and further the closer you get to the station.

By the time you begin to make sense of it, though, the telltale whistle of a train nearby rips you from your inner monologue and back into reality.

Thankfully, the station isn’t quite bustling yet. Even better, there’s nobody in line for the ticket booth. You walk briskly over to the counter, where a friendly unicorn greets you with a seemingly genuine smile.

“Welcome to Canterlot Station,” he says to you with his toothy grin. “How can I help ya?”

His enthusiasm is so infectious that you can’t help but flash a smirk of your own back at him.

“Do you have any more tickets to Ponyville for the night?”

“We just might,” he replies, digging into a large hardcover book of records sitting on his desk. “Lemme check for ya real quick.”

He stops near the end of it, tracing through various entries with his hoof before finally settling on one.

“Ah, here we go,” he exhales, turning the book around so that you can read it. “We’ve got a few open seats for the 7:30 train. Just mark where you wanna sit with your initials, and I’ll get a ticket ready for ya.”

You grab a pen from the cup of writing utensils on the counter and initial the only spot with an open seat next to it.

“Sweet!” he nearly exclaims, spinning the book back around and eyeing your seat. “I’ll have a ticket whipped up for ya in a jiffy.”

He turns around, setting himself to work while you rest your elbows on the counter, looking around for something interesting to pass the time.

“Your timing’s impeccable, sir,” he chimes in, grabbing your attention again. “Last train to Ponyville’s supposed to get here any minute now.”

Suddenly, you’re glad you weren’t able to savor that sandwich.

“That cross-town walk takes forever, doesn’t it?”

“That it does, friend, that it does,” he agrees, grabbing the hole puncher behind him with his magic. “You live in the business sector, then?”

“I did until this afternoon. Felt like a change of scenery was in order, you know?”

“I do,” he replies, a hint of revulsion on his tongue. “I never did like that part of town. It always felt anathema to the rest of Canterlot, like some kinda urbanite virus.”

You chuckle, knowing perfectly well what he means.

“Manehattan and its consequences.”

He guffaws loudly, almost messing up the final stamp on your ticket.

“Too true, buddy!”

In the distance, you hear the steady march of an approaching train. The unicorn wheels around once more, an outstretched ticket held by his magic.

“Sounds like your train’s here. Hope ya have safe travels, sir!”

You nod at him, grabbing your ticket from his aura’s grip.

“Thank you.”

A curt nod in return from him, and he’s back to waiting for another customer.

As you pull away from the ticket booth, your train arrives with a whistle that reverberates throughout the station’s hollow housing. Without much discussion, most of the ponies in the station rose to their hooves, eager to head home, start their vacation, or what-have-you. You join them in line, showing the conductor your ticket before heading into the second cabin from the front.

You’re one of the first to board, evidently; there’s only a few ponies already sitting down from previous stops. Wordlessly, you take your seat, taking care to place your suitcase between your legs as you lean against the window, looking out into the countryside below. If you remember correctly, the ride to Ponyville only takes about an hour and a half, which should put you there at about 9.

Hopefully, that isn’t too late of a time to see your friends. Worst case scenario, you could always get a room at the inn. The one in Ponyville always used to be open pretty late for travelers.

You hope it doesn’t come to that, though. More than anything, you need to be around friends right now.

As your thoughts drift into drivel, you hear the doors close, the last of the passengers having boarded. With a parting whistle, the train gently lurches forward, its steady chug beginning ever so slowly. You elect not to look back at Canterlot as it becomes obscured by the surrounding mountain. There’s nothing for you there anymore.

Next stop, home.

4 - Helping Hands

Thunk, thunk, thunk…

With the final nail fully sunken into the painted piece of wood, you stand back and admire your handiwork.

Before you is, by all accounts, the most perfect wooden stand the world has ever seen. Every single piece is perfectly level, down to the millimeter. Zero chips or splinters anywhere; you could wrestle naked on this thing and not come away with a single scratch. That won’t be happening, of course, but you feel that the outlandish example is absolutely necessary to capture the full scope of your craftsmanship.

You circle your breathtaking work, enraptured by its magnificence, unwilling to tear your eyes away from the divine cut of the-

“Geez, Anon, are you gonna buy it dinner first, or what?”

You’re brought back to attention by Spike calling out to you from behind, holding the tool bag open for you while he walks closer. The hammer is dropped back in, its weight dragging the bag downward slightly before he zips it shut.

“Might as well, if it looks that good. How many of the stands are fully up and running now?”

The question is more apt to floating around in the open air, rather than be directed at anyone in particular. Both of you swivel your heads to survey the park in its entirety, more than happy with the progress you three have made in such a relatively short amount of time.

The snowfall from earlier this morning had died down a fair bit since you had all made it to Ponyville Park, reduced to naught more than a fleeting few flakes fluttering in the wind here and there. The morning fog, too, had disappeared, leaving you with a full view of the snow-covered field, white as the surface of the moon. You felt bad, marring the downright picturesque landscape with your boot prints, but alas, there was work to be done.

And work, you did; within only an hour and fifteen minutes - give or take a few - the three of you had finished helping with nearly the entire roster of vendors present, stopping only for a brief respite here and there. Twilight handled any logistical problems, while you and Spike sorted out any problems with anyone’s physical setup, a la their stands, overhead tarps, positioning, et cetera.

Now, the only thing that stood between you and a fun day at the fair were two booths. Coincidentally, these two were the ones you looked forward to helping the most.

With pep in your step, you grab the tool bag from Spike, who hands it to you without much thought. Slinging it over your shoulder, you turn in the direction of the end of the park, where the final two points of interest awaited you across a small, snow-capped bridge hanging closely over the gently flowing creek that separated the park into two sections.

Wordlessly, you turn to Spike and kneel down, holding out your hand for him. He climbs up to your left shoulder and perches on it, steadying himself with his claws as you stand to your full height once more. He’s not tiny, per se, but while most ponies come up to your hips or lower waist, Spike clocks in around your knees.

As you begin your brief walk toward the final two tents, you hear him sigh into the open air, his eyes skyward.

“I hope the weather stays like this for a while,” he muses, almost wistfully.

“For the day, or the season?”

“The season. The last winter we had was pretty short thanks to something that happened at the weather factory, so I’ve really been missing the cold like this.”

You cock an eyebrow at the mention of a mishap up in Cloudsdale.

“What happened up there?”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“I dunno. They said it wasn’t serious, but they wouldn’t really talk about it beyond that.”

“So, while the rest of Equestria had a genuine winter, you guys had, what, two months or something?”

“Something like that,” he grumbles, as if it had just happened. “I mean, it was still pretty cool outside for a while because of the natural weather, but it would’ve been nice to have a blizzard or two, ya know?”

You’re not entirely sure about that one. Heavy snowfall is one thing, but a blizzard? No thanks.
“Yeah, I understand. I thought dragons loved the heat, though?”

“Most of us do, but I didn’t grow up in the Dragonlands, so I’m way more used to Ponyville temperatures. Still immune to lava, though, so that’s pretty cool.”

Before your conversation has the chance to continue, you’ve come upon a rather grandiose tent, styled extravagantly with all sorts of candy-centric designs and flair. Stopping a few meters shy of the entrance, you pick up on a jovial conversation within, singling out the voices of what sounds like BonBon and Mrs. Cake, among others that you can’t quite place yet. You can’t make out what they’re saying, but you’ll figure it out soon enough. Besides - the one you’re primarily here for is probably in the back.

Rather than simply enter, you get Spike’s attention with a nudge of your shoulder, addressing him with a hushed voice.

“Can you check and see if they’re facing the doorway for me?”

He looks confused by your request at first, but quickly switches to a knowing grin, complete with a raised eyebrow.

“Trying to surprise the queen of surprise parties herself?” he jests, clearly confident that you’ll fail.

You know you’ll fail, too, but that won’t stop you from trying. Hell, you being here in the first place is a surprise in and of itself, so maybe it’ll work!

“Well, it’s definitely worth a shot. I feel like she’d appreciate the effort.”

“Either way, she’s gonna flip, so I’d get ready if I were you,” he replies, shifting himself to disembark from your shoulder as you kneel.

With a mild spring off of your shoulder, he takes off into the entrance flap, disappearing behind it as it takes its natural form once more. Standing back up, you stretch out your back with measured gusto, your breath hitching for just a moment as it reaches its apex.

It shouldn’t take him too long, hopefully. How big can one tent-

Before your thoughts can fully form, you feel two slender, minimally fuzzy appendages snake around your torso, interlocking in front of your stomach. The grip tightens to an ungodly level of pressure, and for a brief moment of breathlessness, you consign yourself to what might become the loss of your entire lower torso.

Thankfully, the intense initial grip subsides as quickly as it arrived, sparing you from a paraplegic fate.

“NONNY!!!” she squeals with delight, giving you another, far lighter squeeze.

Still, you double over, but the frenetic mare holds on tight, smushing her cheek against your back and rubbing it up and down in affection. You laugh with what strength you have left, straining your arms to reach behind you and give whatever you can reach - thankfully nothing risque - a squeeze.

“Pinkie!” you gasp, using your free hand to tap out on one of her hooves.

Mercifully, she lets you go, and the oxygen once again returns to your lungs as you turn to face your cuddly assailant. She beams up at you, her toothy smile spanning across her entire face.

You could swear she’s vibrating.

“OH MY GOSH! I had no idea you were in town! How long have you been here?” she exclaims, absolutely no pauses in between sentences.

A few years ago, you would’ve asked her to repeat herself. Thankfully, even with your extended absences, you’re accustomed to it enough now that you can usually just pick up on what she says the first time.

“Just last night, actually. Uh, how’d you-”

“Get the jump on you?” she finishes for you, not missing a beat.

As if to couple her explanation with a physical demonstration, she starts mimicking what she was doing when she supposedly noticed you coming.

“That was easy! I was helping Mrs. Cake make the last few batches of cupcakes ‘cause we were running out of time to get the stand ready for the festival, and when I went to throw one of the batches in the oven, I got this itchy feeling right behind my left ear that I only get whenever you’re nearby and I haven’t seen you yet, so I threw it in the oven really quick and snuck out of the back of the tent while you were sending Spike in, and when I saw my chance, I went in for a good old Yakyakistani bear hug!”

Well, that explains why the hug almost outright severed your spine. But, wait-

“An… itch told you I was coming?” you ask in confusion, a frown of disbelief dragging your brow downward.

“Yep!” she responds, almost proud of it. “I’ve got a different one for everypony!”

…How has this never been brought up before now?

She brings a hoof to her chin in brief contemplation.

“Well, it isn’t always an itch. Sometimes it’s a tingle, sometimes I get the shakes… You get the idea, don’t you, Nonny?”

Not at all.

“Yeah, I think I get what you’re saying. Anyways, how’ve you-”

A miniature cupcake finds its way into your mouth, courtesy of one baby pink forehoof rather haphazardly shoving it in there.

“No time for small talk!” she resolutely proclaims, a determined expression quickly replacing her signature smile. “How’s that taste?”

Were it most other mares, you’d be a bit upset at this sudden invasion of your personal space, but you’ve long since come to realize that popping personal bubbles is just something Pinkie was born to do, and very likely couldn’t help herself from doing it.

Without hesitation, you bite down, her sense of haste unusually infectious. A bit tart, with a hint of cocoa somewhere in the mix. The cream cheese you taste before you swallow binds it all together, and a cavalcade of sweet, yet savory flavors spread over every inch of the inside of your mouth. A terse grunt of approval rises from your soul; you sure do love red velvet cupcakes. Red velvet anything, honestly.

Glancing down at the best baker you’ve ever met, you stifle back a hearty chuckle when you see her head cocked at an awkward angle, one single eye pointed straight at you with the mother of all raised eyebrows reaching nearly up to her hairline.

One succinct gulp later, and you smile as your judgment is delivered.

“That was ridiculously good.”

Her beaming grin returns once more, with her beginning to bounce in place to help vent her mountains of contentment.

“Think you can help us make some more?” she asks. “We’ve only got a few batches left to make, and I could reeeeeeeally use some helping hands!~”

She punctuates her request by dragging out the final few words into a sing-song rhythm, flashing her pearly whites at you for effect. Couple that with the fact that she bothered to make the distinction for your hands in particular, and you find that it’s genuinely impossible to say no.

“As long as you don’t mind me being slower than you. Honestly, I haven’t done any baking in a really long time…”

“That’s okay!” she beams at you, content even with your self-deprecating answer. “Mrs. Cake and I can handle all the tricky stuff, like decorations. All you gotta do is fill the liners with batter and throw ‘em in the oven!”

…

Do not make the obvious joke. Not with her.

Devoid of an immediate response, she searches your face for any sign of an implicit answer. For some reason, she starts to giggle uncontrollably.

“You’re thinking of a dirty joke, aren’t you, Nonny?”

You suddenly feel a few degrees hotter, and it’s not the jacket’s fault.

“What?” you blurt out, looking unambiguously guilty.

Her giggle blossoms into full-blown laughter that doubles her over, a hoof held up to her chest to help keep her balance.

“Oh, I missed you lots, Anon,” she says after coming down from her howling. “Now, come on!”

She quickly takes your hand in her teeth and starts dragging you into the tent, careful not to bite down hard enough to hurt you. She winks back at you as you file through the tent’s entrance flaps, a rush of warmer air enveloping you both.

“That batter isn’t gonna make itself!”

The tent comes alive with the sound of duetted laughter.

A single bead of sweat rolls down your forehead, caught quickly by the sleeve of your undershirt before it can fall any further.

Letting your arm fall from your forehead, you gingerly pull the portable oven open, the last batch of cupcakes finally ready to be taken from its blisteringly hot cocoon. Keeping your eyes on the fuming maw, you reach to your left, pawing at the plastic table for a second or two before finally grabbing hold of the pony-sized oven mitts and slipping them on with a smidge of difficulty. Despite the fact that they were obviously not designed for human hands, you were able to find a workaround relatively quickly, even if it was a bit tedious.

With your appendages roughly three quarters of the way up the mitts, you scrunch the remaining length against the tray of cupcakes, using the slack to get a far better grip on it than if you had slipped them all the way on.

“You know I can get that without all the mitten issues, right?” Spike interjects, walking over from his perch on the table where he was helping you make the batter. “Heat resistance is pretty cool, ya know.”

“Yeah, but it’s easier for me to handle since I’m bigger.”

He frowns for a moment before considering your logic, ultimately deciding that an awkward grip on something small is better than having to leverage a tray that’s half his size.

“Touche, treetop.”

His little ‘jab’ earns an honest chuckle from you.

Cupcakes firmly in hand, you place them on the table, looking over each one individually before deciding that, yes, the batch is up to snuff with the rest of them. You smirk to yourself, feeling satisfied that your hideously amateur baking skills hadn’t diminished over the years in Canterlot. Years of late nights and early mornings never really left any time for hobbies, sadly.

You look back over your shoulder at the tent flap leading to the frontmost room, where you can hear Pinkie humming away as she and Mrs. Cake work on decorating the cupcakes.

“Last one’s out!” you call out to them, picking the tray back up and heading in their direction.

“Go ahead and bring it to the prep table, dearie,” Mrs. Cake calls out to you from the front room.

Pinkie was being exceptionally modest when she said they only had ‘a few batches’ left. In reality, it was something more like six batches. Not a ton for a bakery, mind you, but with the rather diminutive portable oven only able to hold one rack of something at a time, the whole ordeal became a rigorous test of time management in order to get the batches done before the fair started.

In between preparing batches and waiting for them to finish, you brought the Cakes anything that they needed so that their process, too, was sped up. They even let you decorate a couple of the cupcakes when there was downtime. Your handiwork couldn’t compare to their confectionary perfection, of course, but they seemed to love it all the same, arranging them randomly into their lineup of desserts to sell while you headed off to the kitchen again.

Coming out of your daydream-induced stupor, you brush aside the tent flap and head into the main sale area, where Mrs. Cake and Pinkie, backs turned to you, are working together on making sure the product shelves look good before the shop opens. It’s an impressive spread, really. Cakes, cupcakes, finger foods - you name it, Sugarcube Corner’s vendor tent has it.

That’s not where it stops, though. Interspersed throughout the displays are candies of all shapes and sizes, wrapped delicately and placed perfectly to compliment the ensemble of desserts that dominate your vision.

That’s strange. You don’t remember the Cakes selling any candy.

Hold on, didn’t you initially hear-

“Got that last batch for you, Mrs. Cake!”

Across the room from you, another tent flap spreads apart, revealing the candy mare of the hour holding a tray of sweets in her teeth. Her eyes rest on the center display for a moment, combing it over to find any empty space, before they eventually find you. Surprise dominates her features for a moment before Mrs. Cake’s voice brings both of you back to ground.

“Oh, good timing, Bon Bon!” she says in gratitude, both her and Pinkie turning to face the both of you. “Anonymous just finished with the last batch of cupcakes, so we’re almost done setting up.”

You take the opportunity to adopt your usual friendly disposition, flashing a smile at Bon Bon while bringing the tray over to the prep table behind the sales counter.

“Nice to see you again, Bon Bon.”

She flashes one right back at you, an eyebrow raised for flair.

“You too, Anon,” she responds after setting her tray down on the same table, subtly confused by your presence. “Celestia, it’s been a while since I last saw you. How’ve you been?”

You grab a frosting bag as the four others conglomerate around the prep table, each of you immediately setting to work.

“I’ve been…”

You trail off as you delicately pluck a cupcake out of its slot, liner and all, before handing it to Pinkie, who smiles at you before taking the frosting bag and beginning the base of the decorations.

It’s a difficult question to answer. Life has been quite shit, if you’re honest, but as of this moment, you’re pretty happy with where you are. Unemployment notwithstanding, obviously.

“…Decent, all things considered.”

She nods at your answer, taking a stack of cellophane wrapping and applying it to her candies as delicately as she can, her hooves working as well as any horn could.

How does that even work?

You chalk it up to some sort of innate magic before mentally moving on.

“Well, that’s good,” she replies, focused intently on her work while she chats with you. “Last I heard, you were up in Canterlot’s business district. Kinda surprised you’re able to be here at all, with the reputation that place has. You got a job at Flair, right?”

Memory of an elephant, this one.

“Yep. It was the ‘opportunity of a lifetime!’” you mockingly parrot, remembering their hiring manager’s exact phrasing she used to rope you in.

Another cupcake removed from the tray; this one you start to work on yourself, shadowing Pinkie’s speedy expertise with your own careful mimicry.

Your face sours as the past four years crawl through your mind.

“Until it wasn’t. I’m just glad I’m out.”

To your left, a long, drawn-out gasp rings out as Pinkie nearly drops the frosting bag she’s working with.

“You QUIT?!” she exclaims, going bug-eyed at you. “I thought it was your dream to live in Canterlot!”

Yeah, Anon. Wasn’t it your dream?

You frown as you stop your cupcake-centered ministrations. Thinking back on it now, you genuinely did want to live in Canterlot before your escapades with Flair. You met Peachy Keen there, who was one of the few reasons for your continued employment at Flair, in the last year at least. Was the agitation and displeasure you felt as you were leaving yesterday genuine disillusion, or was it something more temporary?

Pushing the business sector out of mind entirely, you think of Canterlot proper, with its stunning architecture and bustling streets. Your mind drifts to the conversations you listened to on the way home, recalling memories of regular people trading tales of family, success, and other things back and forth.

It finds Canterlot Castle at last, recollections of your first half-year in Equestria painting its halls and corridors. The two sisters smile at you from the vignetted past, as well as others who spent time with you, took care of you, and brought you up to speed with a life so unlike your previous one.

It dawns on you, then, that your attachment to Canterlot wasn’t to its brilliant locale, or its place at the throat of the nation - it was to the friends you had made. You didn’t need a stuffy job or a fancy set of dinner clothes for that. Besides…

It’s not like you can’t visit often, right?

You bring up a free hand to ruffle Pinkie’s mane, which she leans into despite still being superbly surprised.

“Guess I’ll need to find a new dream, huh?”

It’s Mrs. Cake’s turn to be surprised, looking up from her generously sprinkled cupcake to address you while she applies the finishing touches.

“You’re alright with giving up on it? Just like that?”

You shrug your shoulders, resituating your grip on the frosting bag.

“I’m not sure it was ever mine to begin with.”

A quick glance over at Pinkie turns into a held gaze as you scan her expression. Gone is the shock of your bombshell reveal; in its place is a soft, knowing smile, as if she had somehow heard every thought running through your frantic head. It’s almost prideful, in a way.

“Well, in any case,” Bon Bon chimes in, setting aside her final piece of candy. “It’s nice to have you back in Ponyville. Honestly, it was kind of weird not seeing you around for so long.”

“For some, more than others,” Spike quips from the right of you, done with his helping of cupcakes.

Actually, wait-

They’re all done with what they were doing.

You look down, and are met with a completely empty cupcake tray. In fact, the only one left is the one in your hand, still lacking any decorations beyond your adequate layer of frosting. You set it down, only for it to be immediately set upon by Pinkie, who dresses it up perfectly in a matter of seconds.

“Wh-”

The frosting bag hits the table with a resounding thud.

“How did you guys do that so fast?”

“Pinkie took, like, half of my share,” Spike replies nonchalantly, as if this had happened before. “Pretty much all of yours, too.”

…How?

“How?”

She giggles to herself as she moves to the front of the sales shelves, placing your cupcake right in the front of one of the ensembles.

“Baker’s secret!” she calls out teasingly as she surveys the counters for any missing spots.

From across the table, Mrs. Cake breathes out a sigh of relief, content with the composition of the goods.

“It looks like everything is ready,” she states resolutely, reigning in her excitement.

She looks over at Pinkie, who stands at the ready for whatever directions may come from her boss.

“You can take the rest of the day off, Pinkie Pie! You’ve earned that much, at least.”

Her surprise returns in full force.

“A-Are you sure, Mrs. Cake?” she asks. “Who’s gonna operate the sales counter?”

“Mr. Cake and Lyra will be over in a bit to help with that,” Bon Bon interjects with a smile, plucking a candy from behind the counter and unwrapping it for herself. “Four’s a crowd, don’t you think?”

Coupled with the promise of extra assistance, Mrs. Cake’s reassuring smile melts any apprehension Pinkie might’ve had.

“Go have fun with your friends, dear,” she nearly coos, her soothing tone putting even you at ease. “We’ve got this.”

Even from across the tent, you can feel the vibrations begin.

Casting your gaze toward Pinkie, you realize that as her smile grows ever wider, the tremors grow stronger, an indicator of the elder pink one’s undeniable power. As it reaches crescendo, Pinkie blinks forward within the span of what must be milliseconds, wrapping both Mrs. Cake and Bon Bon in an exceedingly familiar spine-crushing type of hug. They’re in abject agony, but their faces, with their pained smiles, paint another picture.

“OHMYGOSHTHANKYOUSOMUCHICAN’TBELIEVEIGETTOSPENDTHEWHOLEFESTIVALWITHMYFRIENDSAND-”

A strained wheeze is all that escapes their lips. Finally realizing her own strength, Pinkie relents, setting the two future chiropractor patients down on their hooves.

“Oops… My bad,” she apologizes, a bashful grin dominating her features.

She shifts her gaze over to you and Spike, and for a second, you’re afraid that your spine may not be safe after all.

“Come on, you guys!” she exclaims, hastily throwing on her winter apparel that she had left on a clothes hook behind the front counter.

You do the same, retrieving your sweater and jacket from the highest hook, slipping them on amid the heat of the tent. It’s uncomfortable at first, but you know that you’ll be thankful when you head out into the winter winds again. You file in behind Pinkie as she quite literally bounces out of the front entrance, the pom of her beanie bobbing to the rhythm of her hops.

A quick look down at your watch reveals that it’s nearly time for the festival to officially start. With Twilight not having popped over to check on you and Spike in the hour that you’ve been helping, you imagine she must be dealing with some sort of logistical nightmare in that final tent. Normally, you’d like to stay far away from something like that, but you can’t stand the thought of leaving her alone to deal with it.

Even if she does enjoy it.

The three of you cross into the snowy field once again to find that none of the snow from earlier has melted; it remains the same winter wonderland you first happened upon hours ago.

10 - Grim Tidings

The waking world stirs in a blurry mess of dark blues and grays.

Fingers - more than likely yours - reach up to your eyes and break them free from the accumulated gunk of an extended sleep. Your body cries out against the decidedly simple motion, soreness and pain rocketing down your arm as you lower it from your face. The surface you’re lying on is cloth, but whatever lies underneath is horrendously solid. It does no favors for your back, which is just as sore as the rest of you. Your vision unblurred, you’re met with a stone ceiling, blue light from somewhere in front of you casting shadows into every crack and crevice.

Odd. You don’t remember having a stone ceiling or blue house lamps.

Or the worst bed in the world, for that matter.

A frown overtakes your features as the events from earlier come back to you in perfect detail. You shoot up from wherever it is you’re laying, wincing in pain as your body decries your sudden actions.

The cell you’re in is decidedly cramped; obviously, it wasn’t built for a being of your stature. Cold gray cobblestone closes you in from all directions, the only exception being a miniscule window to the outside, frosted over and barred by iron so that you can’t see through it. The dim light it casts is drowned out by the much stronger cyan light from the hallway, which you can now see is cast by wall-mounted torches emitting similarly colored fire.

You heard Twilight mention those once. Something about magical catalysts, but right now, you’re a bit more worried about the predicament in front of you.

That being the jail cell you’re in.

The sight of an iron cell door a few inches from your feet makes your stomach drop from its perch in your midsection. The bars scream something out at you, something only you can hear: You’re in deep shit, Anon.

Slowly, you rise to your feet, unaccustomed to the aches and pains cavorting throughout your body. You stumble over to the barred door, rattling it a bit as you wrap your hands around the ice cold iron and lean your head against it to see the rest of the room. A long hallway stretches out in either direction, lined with cells much like your own. In most, you can see occupants pressed up against the bars, looking around with the same breathless confusion that you harbor. A quiet murmur lilts through the dank passageway, trembling voices decorated with the occasional flicker of the torchlight.

“Hey!” a male voice whisper-yells from somewhere close, accompanied with the telltale rattling of weight against an iron door. “Hey, you! Big guy!”

You keep quiet. If he’s this friendly, he’s probably not talking to-

“Aw, come on, I know ya can hear me. Saw ‘em draggin ya in, lookin all fancy and whatnot.”

…Is that a Bostonian accent?

You catch yourself as you’re about to reply - his demeanor is oddly alluring, more than likely a side effect of the dire straits you’ve found yourself in.

Stay silent, Anon. He could be a plant, trying to make you talk or-

“Alright, alright, fine, I get it. Stoic silent type and all that. I tried that, too, ya know. Got real boring after the first few months here.”

“For you, maybe.” The sass passes your lips before you can register the words in your head.

Fucking Canterlot reflex.

A gasp rings out.

“So ya do speak! An’ here I thought I’d be bored.”

His bellowing laughter is weighed down by the oppressively cold, dank air.

“Could still happen.”

“I highly doubt that now,” he replies almost cheerily, not put off at all by your brevity. “What’s your name?”

Yeah, no thanks. You’ve seen a version of this with some of your former coworkers; some guy acts all friendly, gets all the info he needs, and then boom, you’re up shit creek without a paddle.

“Look, if you’re some kinda informant for the people that did this, this isn’t gonna go the way you think it is,” you warn sternly.

“You really think they’d stick one-a their own in these nasty ass cells?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly - ya don’t know. For your information, they’d sooner have a roll in the hay with a manticore.”

Definitely not something you wanted to imagine.

“Why?”

“They think they’re from some ‘holy lineage’ or whatever,” he explains, exasperated. “Head honcho refuses to talk to anybody but her highest ranking officers most a’ the time. S’buncha garbage, if ya ask me.”

“So they’re a cult?”

“They’d prefer ‘organized religion,’ but yeah.”

So you’ve been captured by religious fanatics. Wonderful.

You remove your hands from the frigid bars of your cell and stumble to the side, slamming your back up against the wall and sliding downward. Propping your elbows up on your knees, you hold your head in your hands and shut your eyes. The gravity of the situation slips its icy grasp around your throat. You take a few moments to have your inner panic surge before rubbing your temples.

No use dwelling on it; that won’t help you at all. Sure, this isn’t exactly crunch time at the office, but it’s not difficult to apply the same three-step stress management principles.

Focus. You breathe deep, and gather your mind; you feel the hot breath leaving your nostrils and cascading over your clothes. When your thoughts reach stillness, you open your eyes once more, the chill of the cell stinging them slightly.

Plan. You look around the cell for any kind of opportunity that might’ve been hidden to you before; a sharp stone, a crack in the wall, an improvised weapon… unfortunately, the only thing you can take stock of is the dirty sheet on the floor. You’re no survivalist by any stretch of the word, but you can easily see how a plain sheet could be handy in some situations. In the relative quiet of these desolate cells, given enough time, you might be able to think of-

“You, uh… you good, big guy?” your neighbor asks, unwilling to let the air be clear for more than five seconds. “Gettin’ kinda quiet all of a sudden.”

Guy’s a real fucking chatterbox, isn’t he?

…

Still, he’s a voice to talk to, at least. You can’t imagine it would be a bad thing, having a friend in prison…

“I’m good,” you reply flatly, stifling an irritated sigh. “I mean, as good as I can be in cult-jail.”

You pick your head up, eyeing the opposite wall of your cell as if it were your new acquaintance.

“Good is relative here,” he says with a sigh, the first hint of downturn in his voice since he first started speaking. “I’m just glad I got someone to talk to now.”

That’s been confusing you.

“You seem pretty chipper, despite the circumstances.”

“One’a us down here’s gotta be. Ain’t much use to be a downer, ya know? I don’t wanna see the sunlight again without a big ass smile on my face. ”

You shift slightly.

“You have a plan to get out of here, then?”

The bars of his cell rattle ever so slightly.

“Nothin’ concrete yet,” he laments. “One of these days, though, something’ll give. I know it.”

“How long have you been in here?” you ask, surprised by his optimism in this hopeless circumstance.

“Truth be told?” he muses curiously. “I stopped counting after a week or two.”

“Ballpark it.”

“Gotta be at least half a year now, maybe more.”

Fuck’s sake, that’s a while. Way longer than you’re intent on staying, at least. For all you know, Cel and Lulu probably already have a squadron of guards on the way here as you sit and converse. Or better yet, a princess or two. Who knows?

Wishful thinking, perhaps, but taking a page from your new friend is helping keep you level.

“So… what’s got you so sure you’ll break outta here?”

“I’ve been eavesdroppin’,” he replies, a fair bit quieter than his usual tone. “Occasionally, I’ll hear some’a the guards chattin’ to themselves about what’s goin’ on outside. Earlier today, after they brought everybody in, I didn’t hear nearly as much as I usually do.”

“And?”

“And that means it’s tense right now. Guys like these, they get loose lips when everything’s goin’ smooth. They’d usually be hootin’ and hollerin’ about all the outsiders they snagged.”

…Oh, fuck, you didn’t even think about that. How many others were on the train with you? Families, innocent ponies, people just trying to get wherever they were going…

All plucked out of thin air and dropped into this shithole. You - dozens of times over.

Your sense of urgency rises into your throat.

“Fuck… How many did they get?”

“Dunno for sure, but they filled up a good bit o’ the cells.”

You rise to your feet again, taking a good look up and down the hallway through the bars. Sure enough, you can still hear the murmuring from earlier if you really focus - whispers on stale wind.

“Hey!” You call out to them, hoping one of them says something back. None of them do.

“‘Ey, keep it down!” your new friend whisper-shouts back at you. “You tryna get us all punished again or somethin’?”

You just barely stave off your need to keep yelling out.

“They’re fine, just shook up a bit. They were all chatty before ya woke up, but that yuppie new guy stopped it real quick.”

“What the fuck happened?”

Your answer comes in the form of a far-off door being opened, its metal hinges emitting an unbearable, grinding screech. Footsteps…

No, hoofsteps. Two sets of them.

Quiet sniffling, stifled sobs.

And… humming?

Two shadows are cast across the walls in front of your cage, broken up by the cell in front of you. As they approach, the shadows grow more and more misshapen.

“Be cool,” you hear from your left, naught more than a barely audible breath now.

Closer, still, draw the twin gaits. You back up from the bars a bit, content to stand in the middle of the cell as the strangers make their approach.

Two figures follow their silhouettes - one earth pony, one unicorn. The earth pony, with gray mane and burnt orange coat, is being led by a chain that the unicorn holds in his mana. He holds it far out in front of her, with much of the chain’s length bunched into his magical grasp, leaving almost none for the poor, sobbing mare. She makes no attempt to fight it, yet finds her neck strained by the force anyways. You glance back to her cutie mark - a roaring fire set within a red-brick chimney.

The unicorn leading her on is the source of the eerily chipper humming you heard as they approached. His light, blonde mane is styled into a tightly kept coif, standing out strongly against his light blue coat. Your eyes instinctively look for a cutie mark, but it’s obscured by dark purple ceremonial robes that reach all the way to his hind legs. The robes are adorned with gold trimmings and other such decorations, outwardly opulent even in the pale blue light.

It takes you a few seconds, but it finally hits you: this is the same unicorn that put you to sleep after the train derailment. He seems content - ecstatic, even - to be leading this battered and bruised mare to her cell.

Without even turning to look at you, he levitates a key out of a pocket in his robe. He slips it into the lock of the cell opposite to you, humming as he turns it and opens the door with an overpoweringly loud metallic screech. The earth pony is ushered in with an outstretched hoof, and she quickly obeys, robbed of any sense of defiance she might have previously had. As he closes the cell door behind her, your mind races to conclusions about what he might have done to her, none of them pleasant.

Fuck being silent, you need answers and this little cunt is going to give them to you.

“What happened to her?” you interrogate. Your voice leaves you with a raspy overtone, and you fight the urge to clear your throat.

The cultist jumps, and it looks like it’s all he can do to keep from yelling out.

“Mother above!” he shouts, hushing himself immediately after.

“You sure are quiet for a creature of your size,” he comments, turning in your direction. His voice is light and airy, almost as if he’s pleased to be speaking with you.

Uh-uh, nope. He’s not deflecting you that easily.

“What the fuck did you do to her?”

“You misunderstand. She did this to herself, stranger.”

The carelessness of his smile catches you off guard; he really believes that. You bite back your scathing remarks for now, and focus on trying to get as much information as possible.

“Where the hell are we?”

His features lift into elation; other than his appearance, there’s no sign of the shit-scared waterboy you encountered earlier.

“We have the fortune of being in the Great Basin,” he says, almost vibrating with genuine joy. “The most sacred of lands, where the Holy Mother was brought forth into existence!”

…Alright, so you’re dealing with a fanatic. Great. Maybe try appealing to reason?

“Look, I don’t know why you people did what you did to the train, but I can bet that none of us are part of it. Please, I just want to go home.”

“Your presence may not have been intentional on our part,” he responds, “but the Holy Mother has guided your pilgrimage here regardless. You should be proud, stranger; few can claim that honor.”

Alright, so reason has flown out the window.

You can feel your temper knocking at your throat. You gesture to the cell in front of you, the earth pony within eyeing your exchange nervously.

“Doesn’t seem very fucking honorable to me.”

The unicorn, still jubilant, closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“I don’t expect you to understand right away,” he replies, a tinge of disappointment in his voice. “You are an outsider, after all.”

He adopts a more serious tone, his smile faltering a bit as he looks at you once more.

“Know this, stranger - our wish isn’t to harm any of you. We simply desire to see you find your true purpose under the Holy Mother.”

“Or else, right?”

Again, you gesture to the broken mare, who is now pressing herself firmly into the back corner of her cell. The unicorn seems pensive for a moment, as if pondering what to say next.

“You’ll see in time. I’ll be back for you when Her Grace is ready. All will be explained then.”

He turns to leave, but you’re not having it. You thrust your arms against the door to your cell, rattling it heavily.

“Uh-uh, we’re not done here.”

Your rage boils over as he starts walking back the way he came, humming the same tune from earlier to himself.

“You little fucking bastard! Get back here or-”

Untold amounts of colorful expletives are hurled his way, but not once does he turn back around. You only stop when you hear the faint sound of a metal door shutting over your frantic shit fit, the built-up anger slowly leaving you through each raggedy breath that passes from your chapped lips.

“Not what I meant by ‘be cool’,” your new friend chimes in.

You ignore his comment and fix your gaze upon the mare in the cell in front of you, taking a closer look at her injuries. Her bruising is so bad that you can see the discolored skin under her fur. What’s more, it’s all over - there’s not a spot on her body that doesn’t have at least a few. That you can see, that is. Dotted here and there are tiny lacerations as well. Far less numerous than her bruises, sure, but plenty all the same.

Tiny, strained sobs wrack her already shaking form, and if you squint, you can see tears running down her matted cheeks. For a few moments, you think about asking what happened to her, what that godless runt could have done to her to leave her like this. If she saw any exits or weapons anywhere.

Instead, the words form in your mouth, and die there. You silently observe her diminutive form melding into the corner, every sob dragging her further in. Her mouth hangs open in a cry that you can’t hear, snot and drool mixing as it drips from her snout.

“You, uh… you alright, miss?” your neighbor asks aloud, tone far gentler now.

She, however, is unresponsive; if anything, she shrinks further back into her prison.

“What…?”

You mean to ask what they did to her, but only the first word ever leaves your mouth in a croak. Thankfully, he understands what you meant to say.

“They call it ‘enlightenment'. It’s a punishment meant for the ‘specially defiant. First time’s, uh, always the worst. They don’t do anything weird or nothin’, but… it’s not pretty. ”

They beat her. You knew the world outside of Equestria wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, and sure, it’s tame compared to home, but…

After a few silent moments, you finally manage to tear your eyes off of her, looking in the direction of your friend’s voice.

“We have to get them out of here.”

“Been tryin’. No luck yet, but ain’t nothin’ wrong with two skulls, ‘stead’a one.”

Despite the uncertainty of the future hanging over your head, you feel a faint relief that you aren’t alone in your efforts.

A few moments pass before he speaks up again.

“Name’s Pal. Short for Palatìn, if you care. You?”

You breathe deep, resting your back against the wall once more.

“Anon.”

2 - You Can Always Come Home

The resounding last call of the train’s whistle brings your thoughts to the forefront of reality.

Peeling your head from its well-used perch on the window, you turn to see your fellow passengers beginning their disembarkment. Not wanting to be left behind, you clutch the handle of your suitcase and roll it out into the aisle, joining the tired masses with a huff of exhausted breath as you stand. You give a polite nod to the cabin’s attendant as you step out onto the landing, the cold air greeting you by nipping at your nose with a stray breeze.

Ponyville is the same as it’s ever been; that is to say, infinitely more welcoming and homey, even this late at night. Since it’s Friday, the streets are busier than usual, as is the norm with the onset of the weekend looming on high.

In the business sector, the Friday rush was largely unpleasant, due mostly to the belligerence of most of its elitist residents. Here, though, among the commonality of those much like you, you’d go so far as to say that hitting the local bar with friends was a great time.

The remembrance of nights spent under the stars, all of you tipsy and beset with joy, draws your focus back to the purpose of your stint in town. Wordlessly, you march onward, your recollection having faintly painted your expression with jubilation.

Your memory of the town ensures a quick trip, much to the dismay of your frozen face, buffeted by the wind all the while. You bring your free hand to your collar and tug upward, obscuring your chin and part of your mouth from the harsh winter chill.

Before long, an all-too-familiar oak stands tall in front of you, illuminated from the outside by the orange glow of various lanterns and lights from other buildings. The shrubbery on some of the window arches has grown quite a bit since you were last here; where there were once bushes, there now sits flowing cascades of greenery and flora, the front of which hang slightly over the windows themselves, silhouetted by the light within.

She must’ve been letting it grow out for winter. Better insulation, or something along those lines.

Whatever the case may be, you close the distance between yourself and the front door, where the earthy, almost bitter scent of the tree wafts into your nose. Bringing your hand up to the door, you gently place three firm knocks into the carved-out impression of a candle, stepping back a tad once you’ve finished.

From within, just above the dull row of the windy night, you can make out the rustling of someone leaving their seat. A few seconds later, footsteps; faster than a normal gait. Hoofsteps, then.

Wispy thrums of magic grace your ears as the handle is enveloped in a bright purple aura. The door turns ajar gingerly, revealing the first friend you’d ever made in Equestria, clad in her reading glasses and pajamas.

Her purple coat is a bit disheveled; by the looks of it, the poor mare was almost asleep when you knocked on her door. Her hair shares the same fate, matted on one side. More than likely, it ended up that way after nearly passing out on a book, if you know her well enough.

“Anon?” she asks, visibly confused by your sudden and unannounced presence.

You offer her the most sincere smile you’ve given since leaving for Canterlot four years ago, hoping to defuse any uncertainty you’ve brought to the table.

“It’s nice to see you again, Twilight.”

You rub your left cheek bashfully, regretful for having woken her from what would’ve likely been a peaceful night’s sleep.

“I’m really sorry if I woke you up. A lot’s happened, and I didn’t really know where else to go, so I hopped on the first train here that I could find, and-”

You’re cut off by a purple blur latching onto you, forehooves thrown around your midsection as she mats her hair further by resting her head against the bottom of your chest.

“I missed you, you big goofball,” she greets you, muted slightly as you return the gesture and bring her in for a tight hug.

As she steps down from the embrace, she grabs the handle of your suitcase with her aura, dragging it into the house alongside her.

“Come on in,” she offers warmly, looking back at you, decidedly more awake than when she first answered the door. “I’ll make us some tea.”

A familiar offer that you can’t refuse.

You follow after her, taking care to gently shut the door behind you as you cross into your old home. Above all, the familiar scent of lavender hits you like a runaway train. You can remember only faintly smelling it when you lived here, but in the four years since you’ve been gone, it’s grown far stronger than you ever could have imagined it would.

Apart from the domination of your olfactory system, you see that Twilight reorganized the actual library section of her house into something like an extension of her living room. Rather than a relatively empty space with a few book stands strewn about, there now sits a couch, a few loveseats, and the odd reading chair.

“I really like what you did with the front room,” you compliment, genuinely enthused by the change. “It feels even cozier than it used to.”

“You really think so?” she calls back to you as you catch up to her, both of you crossing into the actual living room. “I figured that the extra furniture would make it a nice place to settle in with a good book. You know, for the odd pony that comes in and checks something out.”

“And for you, no doubt,” you tease.

She grins sheepishly, looking up at you from your left side.

“Somepony had to make sure it was comfortable, Anon,” she responds with a slight giggle. “Without proper testing, how could I have justified the expense?”

“Touchè.”

Passing by the living room, she leads you to the guest bedroom, where she drops off your suitcase just inside before turning to you once more.

“You still like chamomile, right?” she asks.

“I can’t even imagine a day where I would stop liking chamomile.”

“That’s a relief,” she half-laughs. “Rarity’s developed a palette for tea recently, and Spike took after it with her, so I’ve run out of every other kind of tea.”

You can’t help but chuckle.

“He’ll grow out of it eventually, I bet.”

She giggles as she turns to head toward the kitchen. You follow in kind, resting your elbows on the island countertop while she fetches the leaves from one of her cabinets.

“I hope so. He doesn’t even like tea, he just thinks she’ll be impressed by his ‘refined taste.’”

“Speaking of him, what’s he up to?” you inquire, looking around for any sign of him. “Isn’t he usually still up around now?”

“He’s probably fast asleep upstairs,” she responds as she gets the kettle ready. “We had a long day today.”

“Do tell.”

“Well,” she begins, moving to light her heinously old - at least by your standards - stove. “We did a lot of running around in town, trying to get the last touches for the winter festival ready.”

The flame in the stove ignites, enshrouding the kitchen, as well as the two of you, in a dull, warm glow.

“Being in charge of the whole thing this time around has been fun, but it’s also been really stressful. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe how many ponies that signed up to help out were just slacking off until the last minute.”

“How many were there?”

She adopts a dumbfounded expression, most likely the same one she wore when she initially discovered how much work was left.

“Three whole ponies!” she exclaims, careful to keep her volume down. “Three!”

She sets the kettle down on the stovetop and turns her full attention to you.

“It felt like thirty with all the work we had to help them catch up on.”

The exhaustion of the day makes itself known in her gaze, a tired and fed-up pair of eyes pointed right at you. You mentally kick yourself again for interrupting what was probably a well-deserved rest.

“Were you able to kick their butts into gear?”

“Just barely,” she sighs, “There shouldn’t be any problems tomorrow, hopefully.”

Tomorrow, huh? You sure picked a hell of a time to play couch surfer, Anon.

“Well, I’m more than happy to help out, if you need.”

She beams at you from across the countertop, her exhaustion replaced by a grateful smile.

“I might just take you up on that offer, Anon,” she replies, using her magic to lift the lid of the kettle and check on the tea before gently placing it back down. “In fact, did you want to come to the festival with me tomorrow? The booths only need one last lookover, so it should give us plenty of time to catch up.”

As she finishes her sentence, the low whine of the kettle fills the room, prompting her to turn the stove off and place the kettle on a nearby rag.

“Besides,” she continues, searching her cabinet for the tea leaves. “You could surprise the girls! I know they’d be excited to see you again.”

It had been quite some time since you’d connected with the motley crew in any meaningful capacity beyond back-and-forth letters. Letters, for better or worse, had become routine in your hectic day-to-day crawl. There wasn’t much room for anything else, shy of the odd holiday off here and there.

You’re ashamed to admit it, but keeping the flames of friendship kindled had been knocked down a few notches on the totem pole of responsibilities thanks to your previous job. Even so, the girls did a good job of acting like nothing had changed, Twilight included. Despite your letters becoming sparse during busy product releases, it was always as if you had replied to them just yesterday.

A pit in your gut opens, its maw unhinged.

“...Yeah. Yeah, I’d really like that.”

Twilight, looking over at you while she pours the tea, seems to notice the tension building up within you, though you can’t place exactly where on your neutral features she discerned it from. Ever the analyst, that mare.

“Is everything okay, Anon?” she inquires, placing tea bags across the tops of both cups as she does so. “You look bothered by something all of a sudden.”

You’re far too tired for any sort of deflection tonight.

“It’s just… it’s been so long since I’ve made time to see any of you.”

She rests her expectant gaze squarely on you, saying nothing as she finishes pouring the tea, opting to let you expound your thoughts.

“And I haven’t exactly been timely with my letters, either. I guess I was…”

It’s not a guess, it’s a fact.

You fidget slightly against the counter, discomfort with yourself manifesting a malignant tightness in your heart.

“I haven’t been a good friend to any of you.”

You lean further into the counter, hanging your head over your forearms.

“I got so bogged down with trying to make it in Canterlot, I just… lost sight of everything else.”

She shifts in place slightly, readjusting as she gracefully passes you your steaming cup of tea with her aura. Mulling in careful consideration for a few moments, she softly speaks up, doing her best to soothe you.

“Is that why you came back so suddenly?” she asks, speaking steadily with careful, gentle intonation.

Was it? Are you sure you didn’t come back just to bum a bed off of your old friend? Twilight was the first person that crossed your mind after quitting, sure, but the only thing you were preoccupied with was getting the hell out of Canterlot.

You’re terrified of the notion of having picked up the acidic habit of selfishness from your poisonous environment. You rub your face roughly in a cyclical motion, attempting to rid yourself of your acquired depravity.

“Hey,” she interrupts, not letting your thoughts have one moment more in the spotlight.

Removing your face from your palms, you’re greeted by Twilight’s worn-out countenance, mere inches from you. Though there is no grin present, you can feel no malice of any kind behind her affable eyes.

Without a word, she rears up on her hind legs, once again wrapping herself around your midsection in a warm embrace, cheek pressed tightly against your solar plexus. Her warmth sinks through your clothes and into your body, and you become a conjoined radiator of comfort and kindness. You reach over and squeeze her tighter against you, feeling wholly undeserving of such a display of empathy.

“Everything is alright, Anon,” she coos into your chest, giving you a good squeeze after a few moments before stepping back down, staggered hoofsteps echoing gently throughout the kitchen as she does so. Her disarmingly amiable smile returns in full force, halting most thoughts from running rampant.

“Sometimes, when we chase our dreams,” she begins, never once breaking eye contact, “we get so caught up in the chase itself that we lose sight of everything else. Nothing exists in that moment but ourselves, and the goal we’ve fought for so long to achieve.”

“It can happen to anyone. I mean, look at how I used to be before Ponyville!” she exclaims, a chuckle rising from her chest.

“The thing is,” she continues, a mentorly tone guiding her voice as her face takes on a more serious expression. “In our race to cross the finish line, we end up making sacrifices that aren’t necessary without ever realizing it. And then, only when we’ve finally reached the end, the weight of what we’ve lost hits us all at once.”

Your heart contorts with pain at the thought of your fate, should you have stayed at Flair and continued slaving away. Memories of past holidays where Rarity would ask you to visit more frequently now stab at you with unholy vigor.

“It’s important to chase your dreams, there’s no doubt about that,” she expands. “But it’s even more important to live your life in the present tense while you’re chasing those dreams. And if it’s really your dream, you won’t have to compromise any part of your inner self to achieve it.”

You pore over her advice, hanging on each word amid the silence that follows. It all reflects back at you, casting clearly the image of yourself that you had imagined you would reach someday.

The ideal was always distant, with its intimate details hazy at best, but you could always envision your overarching qualities.

Successful, opulent, promising, et cetera.

Now, removed from your cubicle hellscape, the introspection has become far clearer. The future you looks great, sure. Nice clothes, spacious house, friends in high places; the song and dance of luxury.

But there’s no mistaking that glint of pure exhaustion in his flat eyes, nor the bags that accentuate it so. The graying hair atop his head is neatly groomed, but lifeless and flat from years of overwhelming stress. There is no jubilance in his stature, only prostration and weariness.

What’s more, for the first time ever, the destination of your once-dream becomes clear. All around this future self are those like him; a menagerie of royal husks, surrounded by their nigh-servile laborers who provide them succor with no recompense. Important chatter is passed back and forth, but not one of them - not a one - ever truly means what they say to one another. Masks behind masks behind masks, all playing the same game for the rest of their pitiable lives.

They extend for miles into immeasurable, golden space; a grove of standing dead.

“Anon, are you okay?”

The vision rips itself away, planting you firmly back in the dimly lit kitchen of the treebrary. Across from you, closer than before, Twilight reaches out to you with a single hoof, looking absolutely mortified.

“...Huh?” you ask, not sure what just happened.

“Y-You had this glassy look in your eyes, and you were starting to lean forward, a-and I didn’t know if you were gonna fall, so I just-”

She cuts her manic explanation off, unsure of what to say next.

“Are you alright?” she asks, now uncaring of her volume.

You place your hands against the edge of the countertop, leaning against it to steady yourself against the wave of vertigo.

“I think your impromptu friendship lesson just kick-started my midlife crisis.”

It’s a fight to get every word out from the bottom of your throat.

“I thought you said you were young for your species?” Twilight asks, a hint of confusion clouding the rest of her concern.

“I am.”

You grasp for your teacup on the counter, careful not to spill any with your relatively unsteady hand. With a single swig, half of the soporific liquid is gone, the still-hot nectar serving to open your throat up once more. It burns on the way down, but you take the pain on the chin with naught more than a deep wince.

Looking back up, Twilight seems a lot more mellowed out now that you’ve broken out of… whatever it is that just happened.

“Wanna go sit on the couch?” she asks with a gentle smile, levitating her cup alongside her. “It’s always easier to get tired when you’re resting. Plus, I don’t want you falling over if whatever that was happens again.”

You nod wordlessly, removing yourself from the kitchen counter and testing your legs. Everything feels alright; no dizziness, legs aren’t weak, and your vision is okay.

“Lead the way, purple smart.”

She throws a half-hearted scowl your way before heading back into her living room, with you in tow.

“Anon, you know how I feel about that awful nickname,” she chastises, putting on the most serious face she can muster.

“Oh, come on, it’s on the same level as ‘goofball.’”

“It’s not, and you know it!”

You can’t hold back your laughter as you both take your seat on the couch, each of you on separate sides.

“Okay, it’s pretty bad,” you concede, lowering your volume as you remember Spike is just upstairs.

She hums in approval, both of you sipping gingerly at the calming tea in silence for a time. It’s surprisingly quiet with both of you focused on your drinks; the combined gentle breathing from both of you is enough to stand out from the sounds of the house settling and the wind outside.

“You know,” she begins, breaking the silence with her voice barely above a whisper. “You never did say what brought you back home. You made allusions to it, but nothing specific.”

You lean into the cushion behind you, letting your head rest on it as your vision locks onto the ceiling.

“I quit my job at Flair after my boss’s boss called me an ape.”

She nearly chokes on her tea, clearly baffled.
“He what?” she exclaims, albeit in a hushed tone.

“Yeah, a product launch went bad because of another department’s mistake, and I got all of the heat for it. He’d always been breathing down our necks anyways, so any excuse to get on our cases was like a holiday to him. He even threatened my career growth…”

You take another dainty sip, already feeling more at ease after having drunk most of the cup.

“He called me an ape under his breath as I was leaving, but I heard it. I made it very clear that he was the reason I quit.”

“What did you say to him?” she asks, frustration at your former employer leaking out through her words.

You refocus your gaze onto her, cocking an eyebrow as your smirk grows.

“I’m not repeating any of that in front of you,” you admit, a chuckle overtaking your sentence.

“Was it really that bad?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if I was blacklisted from working in the business sector entirely.”

Her expression turns to bewilderment as she takes another sip from her cup, her drowsiness beginning to show as much as yours. She finishes it with one final swig, setting it down on the coffee table in front of her.

“Well, I’m glad you got out of there,” she replies, turning to face you fully. “I was starting to get worried about you, to be honest.”

It’s your turn to be surprised.

“Really?”

“Really. The last few times you visited, you just seemed so… out of it. Almost everypony could tell.”

You think back to the last time you saw everyone together. As far as you can remember, you felt fine. Were you really so deeply buried that you couldn’t even recognize it...?

“We asked if everything was okay in Canterlot,” she continued solemnly, “but you just kept insisting that you were alright, and that your job was just getting a bit stressful. We could see a different story written all over your expression.”

“I really looked that bad?”

“Anon, your dark circles were so pronounced when you got here that Rarity wanted to offer you concealer.”

...Shit.

“Well, don’t worry,” you reply, mustering up a resolute smile and throwing it her way. “I don’t intend on going back for anything.”

She tosses the same expression right back at you, clearly pleased with your decision.

“Good. After everything you’ve told me, there was no way I was going to let you.”

Just then, a twinned yawn breaks out in the two of you; the somnolent nectar has fully nested itself within the both of you, it seems. Combined with the heft of the day’s events, you’re having trouble even keeping your eyes open. Next to you, a stifled giggle rings out.

“Tired?” Twilight asks, her own exhaustion threatening to overtake her as well.

“Mhm. Everything’s just… crashing all at once. God, what brand of chamomile was that?”

She gets up off of the couch, reaching with her magic for a blanket tucked away in one of the shelves on the wall.

“A local vendor,” she says as she fishes it off of the shelf, reeling it back in. “We can actually get some more tomorrow at the festival, if you’d like to.”

“Please.”

Another giggle drapes itself over the soundscape as she hands you the comforter, which you hold to your chest.

“It’s still supposed to get a fair bit colder, so here’s a spare blanket for tonight. I wouldn’t want to wake up and find a human popsicle downstairs, would I?”

“Depends. What flavor would I be?”

She brings her hoof to her chin, tackling your inquiry head-on.

“Hmmm… You strike me as a spearmint flavor, I think.”

“I’ll take that.”

“What about me?” she asks, searching your features as if trying to figure out your answer before even you do.

You take far less time to decide than she did.

“Grape, no question about it.”

She deadpans, looking you square in the eyes.

“Let me guess…” she sighs, clearly done with your shit. “It’s because I’m purple.”

“Nnnnnnnnnnyes.”

She plants her head firmly into her waiting hoof with a resounding thud. Even through her disappointment, you can see the faint smile breaking through her lips.

“I don’t have the energy to argue about that,” she says, trying to hold back a laugh.

She shifts her gaze upward to the ticking clock on her wall. You follow in suit, reading the clock as your eyes pore over it: 11:42 PM.

“We should get some sleep,” she resigns, another strong yawn wracking her entire body. “We’ve got a relatively early schedule tomorrow, and we need to be in tip top shape so we can help anypony who needs it.”

You rise from your seat, still clinging tightly to the down comforter for its continued warmth.

“You got it, Twi. What should I set the alarm to?”

“The festival starts at noon,” she says, collecting her thoughts. “We should be there to help set everything up by ten at the latest, so… Let’s say around eight for the alarms.”

“Gotcha. I’ll be up and at ‘em.”

“You better be,” she jokingly threatens, exchanging a warm expression with you as she walks up to you, rearing up on her hind legs for the final embrace of the night.

“Goodnight, Anon,” she murmurs against you, the heat of her breath melting into your shirt as you squeeze back.

“G’night, Twi. Thanks again for letting me stay, I’m sorry it was so sudden…”

She pulls away, gently hitting your arm with her hoof as she does.

“Stop apologizing,” she responds, “You’re always welcome here, no matter what.”

“...Thank you, Twilight.”

A tired grin graces your features as you step back from each other, turning to head in the direction of your respective bedrooms. As you’re about to reach for the door to close it, her voice rings out from the staircase one more time.

“Anon?”

You swing the door back open, Twilight looking down at you from the top step before the wall. There’s an innocent hesitance in her bright expression, not unlike the student of a public speaking class delivering their first speech. It’s present for only a moment before whatever hurdle she wrestled with is put firmly in its place.

“I’m really happy that you’re home.”

Before you realize it, you’re beaming back up at her, cheeks straining with elation.

“Me too.”

Satisfied, she continues heading back up the stairs. You watch her until she disappears behind the wall, content to be among friends once more. Without so much as a peep, you shut the door to your bedroom, marching over to your bedside without any fanfare or delay whatsoever.

Your head doesn’t even hit the pillow before you’re out like a light, thrown deep into a gentle, restful sleep.

3 - Morning Ritual

A creeping chill, running amok down your back, is the first thing that registers. The dull thrum of idly creaking wood follows shortly after, bouncing to and fro in your ears, giving the sound an almost echo-like quality. The soft, floral smell of freshly washed linens wafts about, a pleasant addition to an otherwise poor array of senses thus far.

Your eyes peel open, vision obscured by half of the blanket that Twilight had given you. Even having adjusted to the darkness, you still have to squint to see most things in your room. They instinctively lock onto the alarm clock, your fogged mind sluggishly processing the positions of the hands.

6:48 in the morning. Seems that even after being freed of your short-lived career, you still can’t stop beating the alarm.

You can already feel how tired you’re going to be during the festival, given how late it was before you finally passed out. Still, though, you hold close to your chest the fact that the bluish-amber light breaking through the windows signifies the start of a new chapter for you. One with less brown-nosing, hopefully.

You write the first few words by sitting up on the side of the bed, a few delightful pops sounding off as your joints spring to use. You stretch your back concavely and extend your arms to the sky, wringing out the remaining cracks the further you extend. With a contented grunt, you rise from the bed, static ensuring that the front of your pajamas stick to your legs as your feet meet the cold, wooden floor.

The brisk, still air envelops your nude upper half as the down blanket slides off of you, coming to rest with a gentle thud from its surprising weight. As you stand, you involuntarily stretch your legs out as well, every muscle straining against you in the ecstasy of long-awaited movement. A yawn escapes from deep within your throat, airing a particularly noxious bout of morning breath into the otherwise pleasantly scented room. One accidental whiff and a scowl develops; this simply won’t do.

Scanning the poorly lit room, you find your suitcase still standing in the spot that Twilight had left it in. You walk over and throw it on its side, zipping it open with ease due to how full it is. Digging through the entirety of your wardrobe and belongings, you find the bag of your various toiletries resting somewhere near the bottom, disrupting your carefully calculated mess as you fish it out. You grab an outfit for good measure, resolving to get completely ready. No sense in breaking the process up, is there?

Carefully, quietly, you open the door to your room, peeking out to see if anyone is awake. The darkened living room to your left is dead silent, as is the kitchen to your right; it seems your friends have yet to stir from their deep slumber.

Clutching your outfit and other articles, you open the door fully and pass into the noticeably colder open room, a shiver threatening to once again use your spine as transit. You make haste for the bathroom adjacent to the kitchen, not wanting to offend your prudent hostess with your partial indecency.

Not that it would, in a land of pastel nudists. Sure, it’s not the same, since they’re only actually exposed when they feel like it, but…

You throw out that train of thought entirely with a shake of your head, opting instead to focus on freshening up. A brief trek across the kitchen lands you in the bathroom, which is somehow colder than the rest of the house. Teeth chittering almost comically, you shut the door behind you, holding the handle down until it makes no noise as you release your grip on it.

You slip the lock into place and strip out of your clothes, placing your toiletries and your clothes to the right of the sink as you dig into your bag of essentials first, picking out your toothbrush and toothpaste.

A quick shimmy over to the sink, and you’re face to face with your reflection. You pause for a moment, eyeing yourself up and down. Not bad, but not great, either - an unremarkable body reflects a thusly unremarkable life, you guess.

You don’t give yourself any time to linger on it, quickly dispensing some toothpaste on your brush and going to town. After a lengthy round-trip through your mouth, you spit out what remains, only rinsing slightly to keep your breath minty. Drying off the brush, you put both it and the tube of paste back into your bag before heading over to the shower and letting the water heat up.

Before long, steam steadily begins billowing out from behind the curtain, prompting you to fetch your various washes from the bag and hop in. The jump from the dry cold of the house to the humid heat of the shower is bliss, and that’s before the water even starts hitting you. You shuffle underneath the stream, and the sheer difference in temperature is enough to chase your shivering away almost instantly.

The water washes over all, dragging all of the woes of yesterday - as well as the past few years - down the drain, where they belong. It’s a while before you actually begin your self-ministrations, and slowly at that. Time crosses your mind once or twice, but you woke up early enough that you can comfortably relax.

Rarity Mode initiated.

One last look in the mirror.

Outfit looks good; the beige turtleneck that Rarity gave you for Hearth’s Warming ties it all together. You hope she notices the effort. It’s the least you can do, since she’s effectively the only seamstress that goes out of her way to make clothes for you.

Hair’s styled properly, but now that you’ve broken free of Flair’s restrictive dress code, you openly wonder what it would look like if you let it grow out.

Deodorant: applied. Cologne: delectable and fragrant.

Breath?

You exhale onto the back of your hand to quickly check - immaculately minty.

With everything shipshape, you make for the door but stop yourself just short of opening it, gaze affixed to the mirror. Even with your neutral glare, you look genuinely happier, as if your features themselves had been lifted from their plight. It puts an actual, real smile on your face. Not a big one, and not even that wide, but real nonetheless.

Here’s hoping you can keep that going.

You open the door and traipse into the kitchen once more, greeted - surprisingly - by Spike, sitting down at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee, looking outrageously tired. Immediately, you catch his eye, and he frowns out of confusion, slowly raising his pointer finger in your direction as you stand there, a dumb smile plastered all over your face as you cross your arms.

A few seconds pass without an exchange of words, each of you waiting patiently for the other to finally say something.

“Am I still…?” Spike mumbles, tapering off before he can finish his sentence.

“Spin a top and find out,” you reply cheekily.

He retracts his finger, putting said hand to better use by taking a swig of his coffee.

“...Huh?”

Your pert grin falls a bit, but you didn’t expect him to get it anyway.

“Human thing. But no, you’re not still dreaming.”

Another swig is lazily gulped down, the mug draining at an astonishing rate for the young dragon.

“Okay, good,” he says in return, rubbing one of his eyes as he does. “Didn’t wanna get my hopes up for nothing.”

A pang of content in your chest tugs the corner of your mouth upward into a good-natured smirk.

“Missed you too, Spike.”

He smiles softly through his tired expression, gaze affixed to his coffee.

“Let me finish this stuff, and I’ll be a bit more chatty, I think.”

“You think?”

“It’s just not the same thing as tea, dude,” he replies, a tinge of annoyance toward his drink in his tone. “I usually crash more often than it gives me any energy.”

You repress a chuckle just barely.

“Yeah? We can get some from the vendors today, then.”

Mid-swig of coffee, his eyes light up, pointed directly at you.

“No way! Are you coming with us?” he asks after finishing his sip, tone expectant of your confirmation.

Did he think you were just popping in to say hi? Just how much of a husk were you the last time you saw everyone…?

You opt to sit across from him. Beats standing around like a jerk while you’re waiting for Twilight, anyway.

“You bet, little dude! I couldn’t think of anything better to do even if I tried.”

Your face falls when you realize that your choice of words was harshly subpar at best.

“Wow, that, uh, came out wrong. I meant that, like-”

A few stiff moments pass without further input. You can’t really come up with anything beyond your backpedaling.

That’s odd; usually you’re a lot better at talking than this. Come to think of it, just about everything you’ve said to him so far seemed kinda sloppily put together. Maybe you’re just nervous about seeing everyone again?

“Nah, nah, I get what you mean,” Spike interjected. “I live with the princess of misspeaking, remember?”

You both share a hearty chuckle at his good-natured jab.

“Speaking of her, is she still getting ready?”

“Yep. She should be finished pretty soon, though. I still have to get freshened up, but I’m about done with my coffee, so it won’t take long at all.”

He goes to take another swig, but stops himself halfway and glares with thinly veiled disgust at the contents of his mug.

“Actually… Do you want the rest of this?”

You weren’t exactly the commissar of coffee, but what the hell, you could use a little pick-me-up.

“Sure, why not?”

He eagerly hands you the mug before he slips out of his seat and heads back upstairs, presumably to complete the morning routine. As such, you’re left in contemplative silence once more. Or, at least, you would be, if a gentle pitter-patter on the kitchen window didn’t draw your attention.

The gentle blue light from before has been replaced with gorgeous amber light, somehow breaking through the dense cloud cover and blanketing the outside in an early sunshine, slightly obscured by the light snowfall piling up at the windowsill. How does Princess Celestia do this every day?

...

Wait, it’s-

It’s snowing! And quite a bit, too, if that sizable little pile was anything to go by.

That shouldn’t excite you as much as it does, what with you having lived in Canterlot, but still! It’s snowing, and for once, you can actually take some time to enjoy it. The fact that you can actually give yourself the opportunity to be happy about it is, in turn, putting a dopey grin on your face that you don’t bother hiding, not even when a familiar set of hoofsteps graces your ears.

“Whoo… Okay!”

You turn around, equally as mirthful about the unicorn descending the stairs. Still, you don’t wanna just up and hit her with a smile that’s registered at a category 5 on the ham-scale, so you settle it down into a light grin.

She’s bundled up in a dark blue down jacket, a fuchsia sweater, and her favorite beanie, as well as a nice pair of fur-lined winter boots. Ethically sourced fur, of course. Fluttershy would have pitched a fit, otherwise.

She quickly eyes the clock as she descends the final few steps, turning to you once she reaches the ground floor.

“It’s 9:34 right now. The walk to Ponyville Park takes around ten or so minutes, and Spike just started his routine, which will only take a couple minutes since he bathed last night.”

Her gaze tapers off into indiscriminate space, focused on thought alone.

“Everything taken into account, we should be there right before preparations start!”

Sounds perfect to you. All that’s left is to wait for Spike and-

You haven’t eaten yet.

“Oh, god, I should probably eat something fast, then, huh?”

Without delay, you down the rest of Spike’s coffee on the spot.

Eugh - this blend is really fucking bitter, no wonder he didn’t like it.

You move to check the cabinets to see if there are any breakfast bars, but Twilight happily chimes in before you have the chance to leave your seat.

“Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to grab something on the way? A new breakfast place moved into town since you’ve been here, and I think you’d really like it.”

That piques your attention to a degree that somewhat embarasses you. Internally, at least.

You slowly look back at the mare, an eyebrow of utmost interest cocked into the heavens, your face taking on a grave expression.

“Do they serve… gourmet bagels?” you inquire, sounding like a Bond villain revealing his master plan.

She giggles up a storm at your ridiculous expression, her gaze firmly locked onto yours. Her little laughing fit wears off, but her smile doesn’t. You drop the faux seriousness, her infectious smile taking you over easily.

“What? I’m serious about my bagels, Twilight.”

“I know, I know,” she relents, “I just… You haven’t even been here a day, and it already feels like you’re bouncing back to how you were when you first got here.”

She frowns just a bit, catching something in her wording that you hadn’t noticed.

“Well, n-not right when you first got here, that was… pretty traumatic. I-I meant the months after that.”

The infamous ‘awkward Twilight grin’ is on full display, likely due to her little lapse in speech that you never would’ve caught, had she not corrected herself. You rise from your seat properly, the same gentle smile from earlier still lightly set upon your features as you walk over to Twilight, stopping just shy of the mildly perplexed mare.

Her confusion ends as you reach your hand out toward her head and begin scratching away at the base of her ear, a gentle firmness throughout. Instantly, she leans into it, having been on the receiving end of it for as long as she’s known you. She grunts softly as her eyes close halfway, glassing over a tad.

“I still don’t know what to think about the fact that humans do this to their pets, too.”

You scoff at the notion, mild banter at the ready.

“Well, I sure as hell don’t consider any of you guys my pets, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I-I didn’t mean-”

“Besides, that pet play stuff is waaaaay too kinky for me.”

She wrenches free of your scritching hand, her exasperated glare threatening to melt you down into human soup.

“A-Anon! Gross! You know that’s not what I meant!”

You cannot help the bellowing guffaw that rises from the deepest pit of your gut, leaning on a nearby wall for support while you laugh your ass clean off.

“Oh, it’s too fun to mess with you, Twi,” you struggle out, unable to stop laughing long enough to get the sentence to flow together in one piece.

She scrunches her muzzle at you with a frown; widely known as the universal pony symbol for “I’m mad at you, but in a friendly kind of way.” As your laughter finally fizzes out, a voice from the stairs grabs both of your attention.

“What’d you get her with this time, Anon?” Spike calls out, the prominent scales on his head looking shinier than they were earlier.

A shit-eating grin takes hold, not unnoticed by Twilight, who once more affixes her laser-like gaze solely on you, almost daring you to say something. Luckily for her, you’d rather not traumatize your dragon bro.

“A good one. Remind me to tell you about it when you’re older.”

A sigh of relief can be heard next to you. Glancing down at its source, you see a far more relaxed Twilight, raising her signature Eyebrow of Shame™. Even so, the unmistakable traces of a smile form as she lowers her guard.

Yeah, this mare is definitely your best friend by a damn sight.

“Aw, man,” Spike dejectedly sighs. “You know I age slower than you guys, right?”

“All the better,” Twilight stonewalls in unison with you.

Another groan as Spike reaches the bottom of the stairwell.

“Fine, suit yourselves. We should get going, though, if we still wanna get breakfast.”

Oh, right, that. You should have plenty of-

“Oh, shoot!” the perfect attendance holder next to you exclaims. “We really do need to leave!”

A wayward glance up at the clock reveals that it’s 9:46. Hopefully, that’s just enough time to eat on the go. Wouldn’t wanna be starved while you’re trying to help somebody out, would you?

“I’m ready if you two are. That bagel’s callin’ my name.”

“I’m ready to roll,” Spike confirms, grabbing his little coat off of the rack by the front door.

“Well, in that case,” Twilight replies, using her magic to grab her scarf from the same rack. “Let’s go see about helping some ponies, shall we?”

That infectious grin is back. You grab your own standing-collar jacket before holding the door open for the two of them, both thanking you as they step out into the sunlit snowfall. With a dip of your head, you, too, pass through the doorway, deeply joyful to be with those close to you like this again.

…

Okay, the promise of a bagel is helping, too.

5 - Reunion

The winter wind whips at your face, skin pulling tight against muscle as a result. Though Sweet Apple Acres’s tent is only a short walk to the west, the frigid conditions make it feel like a small hike.

You pull up your collar again, fighting for every inch of warmth as your skin grows goosebumps all over to compensate for a rogue gust of wind. Clearly, being in that tent with the portable ovens for over an hour did you no favors. Hopefully, it won’t take you very long to get re-acclimated to the weather again.

“Was it like this before…?” Spike chimes in from your shoulder, holding his extremities close to preserve his body heat.

He’s got a point. You’ve sat through some pretty crazy Canterlot winters, but this feels different somehow. When a dragon starts trying to keep warm, that’s how you know it’s chilly outside.

To your left, Pinkie continues to bounce away towards your destination, seemingly undeterred by the frigid weather.

“The weather team’s trying to make this the coldest day of the season,” Pinkie informs the both of you, her tone as chipper as ever. “Dashie gave me a heads up a few days ago.”

She spins around mid-hop to face both of you, no momentum lost as she remains the leader of your little troupe.

“She said this was about as cold as it’ll get, though, so you two shouldn’t be shivering for much longer!” she reassures the both of you before she once again spins around mid-hop.

As if the universe itself seeks to spite her, you are compelled into a particularly violent bout of shivering; although it ends relatively quickly, it succeeds in further opening you up to the cold. It seems like Spike suffers from the same thing, as you feel him curl his tail around himself for any further warmth he can afford.

“God, I hope she’s right. Do you know when she’s supposed to be meeting up with us?”

“It should be sometime after the fair starts, but not too much later,” Spike chimes in. “Twilight couldn’t get an exact time out of her.”

Yeah, that sounds about right for Rainbow.

“What about Rarity and Fluttershy?”

“Rarity’ll come in with the rest of the ponies when the park opens, since she didn’t have a booth this year. I think she’s bringing ‘Shy with her, so they’ll get here at the same time.”

With only one tent left, it won’t be too long until they all know you’re back in town. Every step you take toward it, you feel a strange tension building; the same tension you felt last night, you’d venture to guess.

Just what is it that you’re nervous about? Pinkie acted like she always does when she saw you, why would the others be any different?

…Actually, maybe Pinkie isn’t the best metric to judge the others by. Nothing against her, of course, she’s just genuinely the friendliest person you’ve ever met, pony or otherwise. Still, it’s not like they’ll hold your negligence against you, right?

…

You wouldn’t blame them if they did. It’s not exactly a tenet of friendship, slowly disappearing from a friend’s life. In such a hyper-social society, that’s tantamount to spitting on someone’s mother. That, or maybe you’ve just been spending time with the wrong crowd for a couple years. The business sector had some striking similarities to Earth, now that you think about it.

As you draw closer to the entrance, you cast a glance over at Pinkie, who nonchalantly continues bouncing along, now humming a tune that you can’t quite place.

You really hope they’ll be like her, even if you feel you don’t deserve it.

As Pinkie goes to draw the tent’s entrance open, a country drawl from just beyond the veil of polyester and canvas breaks through a mere half second before it opens.

“...don’t know how I feel about leavin’ em to themselves like this. Are ya sure they’ll-”

With her gaze firmly affixed behind her, the familiar winter-dressed farm mare bumps into Pinkie, losing her hat and nearly sending them both toppling over into the snow. Apologies are immediately exchanged back and forth as they find their footing (hoofing?), both of them not even registering who the other is for a brief moment. When their expressions of regret eventually tail off, they giggle about it for a moment, AJ having yet to take notice of you.

She’s got a fur-lined denim work jacket on, which hangs just a bit loosely off of her barrel even with it zipped up a tad. Apart from that, she’s actually pretty sparsely dressed for the winter. Not that it matters for her, of course.
The memory of an old lecture from Twilight springs to the surface of your mind; anatomical illustrations of pony anatomy, replete with every difference between the three races that she could think of. Apparently, Earth ponies’ naturally denser muscle mass means their body temperature is uniquely difficult to bring down. Pegasi have something similar to deal with altitude and flight speed, but it’s not quite as effective as good old bulk.

Twilight explained it in much better detail, but you were content to dumb it down and fluster her with your utterly basic descriptions. You really miss those lectures.

“Sorry ‘bout that, Pinkie,” she apologizes, brushing herself off and retrieving her hat. “Shoulda looked where I was goin’.”

“No worries, silly!” Pinkie reassures her with a beaming grin. “Do you girls need any last minute help?”

“Actually, we just got done,” AJ replies, turning around and holding Twilight’s gaze as she steps out of the tent, still as bundled up as when you left this morning.

She notices you out of the corner of her eye, smiling at you as if she hadn’t been with you and Spike all morning. It’s a kind of bright, unfiltered thing that you can’t help but reflect back at her, almost taken aback by how sincere it is.

Like clockwork, AJ follows the route of Twilight’s eyes, her own landing on you and freezing in place. It only takes a second or two before a similarly crooked - yet not quite as vibrant - grin finds itself on her countenance.

“Land sakes, Anon!” she exclaims, walking over and holding her hoof up toward your head.

You bend down to her level and hug it out, light squeezes from both of you decorating the exchange.

“I didn’t know you were in town!” she says as she breaks the hug, both of you returning to your standing positions. “What’s the occasion, sugarcube?”

“Long story,” you reply with a smile, arms folding over themselves for extra warmth. “Mind if I wait ‘till everyone’s here to tell it again?”

“It don’t bother me none. Shoot, I’m just glad t’see ya again. You stayin’ for the festival?”

“Yup! Spike and I have been helping Twilight all morning.”

“Even better,” she says before looking at Twilight once more.

“Again, are ya sure I don’t need to stay behind n’ help? I feel bad galavantin’ around while Granny is slavin’ away in the tent.”

Twilight shakes her head and pulls out a clipboard from one of her saddlebags, meeting AJ’s uncertainty with a disarming grin.

“There’s no need to worry, Applejack,” Twilight reassures, leafing through her clipboard and perusing her notes. “Caramel and Big Mac can handle the heavy lifting together, and Apple Bloom can help some of your other family members with-”

“Ah thought ah told ya to git, young lady!”

A somewhat shrill, aged voice laden with a heavy country accent cries out from within the tent, and not a moment later, a heavily-bundled Granny Smith shuffles out, looking positively peeved. It’s actually almost comical how many layers she has on. Sweaters within vests within jackets, all swimming around their host in a sea of wintry heat retention.

“I’m just worried about ya, Granny, that’s all!” AJ protests, albeit with her ears angled slightly back.

The matriarch’s face softens a bit.

“Ah know, Applejack, but ya been workin’ yer tail off helpin’ us get set up since the start a’ this week, and ah think ya deserve a break.”

AJ winces, more than likely at the thought of giving up her share of the work.

“Granny, I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I’d feel better if-”

“Hooey.”

AJ visibly recoils, wholly smited by such an explicit country-ism. Her expression is unreadable, save for eyebrows upturned in genuine surprise. Quickly regaining her composure, she attempts to assert her opinion once more.

“I just feel like y’all’ll need my help with-”

“Hooey!” Mrs. Smith repeats, more forcefully this time. “An’ ya know it, too.”

You look over at Spike to gauge his opinion, only to find that he had already been looking your way from his perch on your shoulder. You raise an eyebrow, your unspoken question reaching out to him. Only a few times had you ever really interacted with Granny Smith, and fewer still had it been anything beyond a greeting, so you’re uncertain whether she’s actually upset or not.

All he offers in response is a gentle shrug and pursed lips. You look to the others as well, but they’re too invested in the conversation to notice your wayward gaze.

“Jackie, sugarcube,” she continues, voice and face softening to a great degree. “Ah’m mighty thankful for all ya do, ah really am. Heck, you n’ Mac’re the reason the farm always runs so well.”

“But even after all this time, ah swear ya have no idea when ta hang yer hat n’ kick yer hooves up.”

“That ain’t true!” AJ retorts in defense.

Mrs. Smith simply deadpans at her granddaughter.

“Applejack, ya skipped breakfast this mornin’ ta get down here early when ya knew the family would be comin’ to help out.”

“...I did?”

“Ya did. Grabbed an apple from the pantry and darn near galloped out the door while grub was sittin’ on the table. The fact ya don’t remember it proves m’point even more.”

The flow of conversation halts as Applejack takes a moment to recollect the events of the morning, a defeated sigh escaping her lips when she presumably remembers what her grandma is talking about.

“Guess I really did get carried away…”

You’ve got some sort of quip about breakfast being an Apple specialty in your head, but you hold your tongue, not wanting to dilute the impact of a tried-and-true Apple family lesson. Mrs. Smith takes the opportunity to walk up to her granddaughter, resting a mentorly hoof at the base of her neck.

“Ah know ah’m gettin’ old, Jackie, but that don’t mean ya gotta make up for it somehow. ‘Specially not when it’s eatin’ up all yer free time.”

Silence takes hold once more, but Mrs. Smith is quick to dispel it.

“Ya know what ah was doin’ at yer age, ‘sides workin’ on the farm?”

AJ says nothing, only searching her grandmother’s smirking face for answers.

“Well, my memory ain’t quite what it used ta be,” Mrs. Smith jokes, a quick chortle leaving her throat before she continues. “But even durin’ the busy times, ah remember gettin’ together with friends a whole lot, sometimes even at festivals like this’n. Shoot, ah even skipped out on work a couple o’ times so I could see ‘em!”

…Really?

Seems even Applejack has her doubts about that, if her expression is anything to go by.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Mrs. Smith adds flatly before AJ can ask anything. “The point is, sugarcube, ya got yer whole life ahead o’ ya to work hard. Take some time ta be a young mare, alright?”

AJ smiles as the time-tested advice washes over her, meeting her grandma’s gaze with grateful eyes.

“…I’ll do my best, Granny.”

They both step forward, hanging off of each other in a hug that only family can really know of. The display tugs at the corners of your mouth as Mrs. Smith’s advice runs through your head. Some time to be young, huh…?

You’ve no time to ruminate for too long; the breeze from the east softens below your waist, and you realize that Twilight has joined your side.

“How’d everything go over there, you two?” she asks, gesturing to Sugarcube Corner’s tent.

“Great, actually,” Spike chimes in. “Mrs. Cake even made us some eclairs toward the end, which was pretty nice.”

“Oh, god, yeah, those were so good…”

“I know, right!?”

Twilight’s giggling interrupts the two of you before your eclair-centered ramblings can continue.

“I meant how the setup went, Spike.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, it went well,” Spike says, returning to earth from his dessert-fueled haze.

Before the conversation can trail off, a wayward gaze to the entrance of the park helps you find your way into it.

“Yeah, it took us a while, but we finished up a bit before you did. Just in time, too.”

You nod over in that direction, and Twilight follows it. There, spilling in through the gates, is an utter swarm of ponies - more than likely the majority of the town, if the size of the crowd just outside the grounds is anything to judge by.

Combing through the oncoming crowd, you can’t quite make out any sign of Rarity or Fluttershy, which makes you a bit anxious. Instead of tackling your nerves head-on, it seems you’re meant to abide suspense for a while. The pit in your stomach expands, fueled by the passage of time.

AJ seemed to appreciate you coming into town, but you can never be too sure, right?

No, no, you’re doing none of that today. Take an interaction at face value, god damn it, she’s not Clean Sweep. I mean, for christ’s sake, AJ? Of all ponies, you think AJ would be insincere?

“You good, Anon?”

The little dragon’s slightly hushed inquiry rips you out of your introspection almost as fast as you leapt into it.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m good. Why?”

The words leave your mouth as scant mumblings as you turn to face him. A twinge of disbelief replaces his concern.

“I mean, you were clenching your jaw like crazy, dude. That, and I could feel your shoulder tense up for a bit.”

Whoops. Time to deflect.

“Yeah, I dunno about you, but I’m ready for it to get a bit warmer than this.”

“I thought the ponies up in Canterlot loved the cold?” he mocks, stifling a low chuckle.

“You can like the cold and still not enjoy standing in a freezer, man.”

Off in the background, Pinkie seems engaged with AJ and her grandma, leaving Twilight without a conversation partner. Feeling a little guilty about that, you take the opportunity to bring her into your little back-and-forth.

“How ‘bout you, Twi? You holding up alright in this weather?”

Your head turns idly toward your friend, expecting a response of some kind. Instead, you see that her gaze is still firmly locked onto the billowing crowd now spreading throughout the park.

She’s wearing the same crooked grin that she directed at you earlier, only now, you can see her rightfully prideful eyes darting around to different points in the massive gathering of ponies. A deep sigh escapes unsteadily through her nose, her uneven breath visible as it slowly ascends into the surrounding trees. A shiver runs through her; the visible parts of her fur ripple ever so slightly, begging for warmth. Despite this, she appears unbothered.

You think about calling her name again, but don’t. Something wriggling around in your midsection is asking you to stay silent, if for but a moment.

Some seconds pass before she finally addresses you, albeit without breaking eye contact with the crowd.

“Can you believe how many ponies ended up attending?” she asks.

Her voice seems airy; the depth of her gratification is made plain to you.

“I know, right? If I were a betting man, I’d say that’s most of the town right there.”

You take a moment to scan the crowd yourself, zeroing in on ponies in a sort of rapid-fire fashion. Even the most dour one you spot still looks like she’s having a good time, being tugged along by her far cheerier friend group.

“I’m happy to have helped put all this together,” she muses, tightening her scarf against the cold.

“What, not even a mention of the two best handymen in Ponyville?” you jokingly chide, gesturing to yourself and Spike. “That’s cold, Twi. Colder than this weather, even.”

“Oh, hush,” she giggles, finally turning to you. “You know you were included in that.”

The three of you laugh in tandem, and for a moment, you forget about anything you could’ve been worried about.

Until a familiar transatlantic accent cuts through the growing ambience of the distant crowd, that is.

“Yoohoo~!”

Oh, shit.

Well, so much for bliss.

You comb the crowd once more, only this time you stop just shy of reaching the middle. Pun not intended, because the first of the two that you see is Flutters herself, looking like a warm-weather tourist caught in a blizzard; bundled up almost as much as Mrs. Smith, with two scarves and…

…Is that a teal trapper hat?

Despite the implications, it actually suits her quite well. It fits a bit loosely with the flaps down, though, since it falls forward into her brow a bit with every few steps.

You catch her eye and she grins sheepishly, stopping for a moment to wave at you and adjust her hat tight against her head. It’s hard not to smile at that, nerves be damned.

Beside her, the patron saintess of elegance strides toward the three of you, donning a black wool coat with a matching fur collar. Upon closer inspection, you can see subtly darker pinstripes running from collar to hem. Topping off the look are a pair of rounded sunglasses with vibrant pink lenses and a matching teal trapper hat, much like Fluttershy’s, but with the flaps pinned up. She’s even got some stylish winter boots on - it’s all very chic, and her expression conveys her acute sense of awareness of that fact.

The duo wait until they’re a bit closer to start any conversation, but before that can even happen, Twilight takes off at a steady canter to meet them in the middle. Names aren’t even exchanged between the three as a way of greeting; instead, Rarity catches Twilight in an embrace, bringing in Fluttershy with a free hoof to share in the affection.

Before you head over to them, you check on the three earth ponies behind you, who all still seem to be absorbed in their conversation. Unwilling to interrupt them, you turn to Spike, still perched on your shoulder, gaze unerringly aimed straight at Rarity.

“You wanna stay up here, or greet ‘em yourself?”

No response. You scan his eyes, only to find somewhat transparent hearts in place of his pupils. You freaked out the first time you saw it happen way back when, but you’ve gotten used to it since then.

“Spike?”

Nothing; his awestruck reaction continues. At this rate, he’s going to start hovering over there, carried by the scent of her perfume or something. You bring your right hand up in front of his face, snapping twice in hopes of getting his attention.

“Dude.”

“Wh-huh?” he almost exclaims, shaking his head as he snaps out of his decidedly amorous trance.

“Please don’t drool all over my jacket, man.”

He instinctively looks downward, eyes poring over your shoulder for any stains he might’ve left. Satisfied that there aren’t any, he adopts a bashful grin as he looks up at you.

“Sorry, Anon,” he says shyly, a chuckle deep in his throat afterward. “What were you saying?”

“Did you wanna go say hi on your own two feet, or are you cool chilling on my shoulder?”

He contemplates the choice for all of a half a second.

“I’ll get down. I actually haven’t seen Rarity in a while, so…”

“No, really?” you tease with a smarmy look.

You kneel down to get rid of a good chunk of Spike’s ground clearance, lightly touching your knee into the snow so as to reduce any wetness. He takes the opportunity to hurriedly hop off and into the snow, wasting no time in making his way over to the object of his affection. They exchange greetings and she gives him a dainty squeeze, which he leans into fully and without hesitation.

Kids and their crushes.

Not one to keep a friend - much less two - waiting, you follow behind him, hands safe from the cold in your pockets.

“Well, here’s a face I haven’t seen in a long while,” Rarity greets you, breaking from the group’s conversation and reaching for you.

You laugh heartily as you accept her embrace, going through the motions of both of you air-kissing each others’ cheeks. These sort of high-class greetings normally weird you out, but with a close friend like Rarity, it isn’t so bad.

Maybe that’s the point of it, then?

You both go to stand once more, but as she pulls away, Rarity’s horn lights up. Both of your jacket’s zipper lines are enveloped in her blue aura as she moves them to and fro, her eyes scanning the minute details of your outfit before they eventually land on yours.

“And wearing one of my ensembles, no less! If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume you were trying to flatter me, Anonymous.”

You chuckle lightly as she lets you go. It comes out naturally, but it’s a bit constricted by the nerves you wish you didn’t have.

“Only a little bit. How’ve you been, Rarity?”

“Very well, actually!” she responds, “I just recently had a wedding order come in at the boutique. An entire group of bridesmares wants their dresses tailor-made, so it’s been a busy week, but seeing their faces whenever they finally put them on will be more than worth it.”

“I don’t doubt it. Who’s the lucky mare?”

“Somepony who moved here recently, believe it or not! An adorable pegasus named Sunshine Smiles.”

That name rings a bell…

Wait!

“Sunshine Smiles?” you ask, eyebrows raised in surprise. “As in, Sunny from the QA department?”

“Oh, do you know her?” Rarity inquires, curious.

“Yeah, she used to work a couple of cubicles away from me. She never did say where was moving to, only that she was finally gonna be free from Flair, which - understandable.”

Another, flown to the homely streets of this cozy town. What’re the odds?

“Anyway, who’s she getting hitched to?”

“Get this,” Spike responds, eager for your reaction. “You remember the old earth pony that used to run the book store over by Quills and Sofas?”

“Yeah, Page Turner.”

He’s waaaay too old for her, though. So that just leaves…

“No way!” you blurt out in surprise. “Tide Turner? His son? The one we played O&O with that one time?”

“The very same,” Rarity replies. “We were surprised, too.”

You’re not too taken aback by it; you remember seeing some miniatures next to her pen cup a couple times.

“Oh, but you should see them together,” she adds wistfully. “They’re absolutely wonderful as a pair. You can practically feel the love they have for each other every time you’re in the same room with them. Why, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tide Turner as talkative as when he’s with Sunny!”

The thought of her finally breaking out of the hell-grind and into a better life, complete with a special someone, gives you cause for a hopeful smile.

“I’m happy they’re doing well. Flair wasn’t good to Sunny, but she was always really nice to everyone in spite of that. If any of us deserved to get out, it was her.”

“She never does talk about her days there with any sort of fond remembrance,” Rarity says, an eyebrow gently raised in concern. “A shared experience, I presume?”

“Oh, is it ever!” Spike interjects, which gets a laugh out of you.

You cross your arms, more out of comfort than any other reason - your nerves must have cooled. For now, at least. You still aren’t overly eager to launch into the story about why you came back, though. Somehow, now, it feels even more selfish than it did when you first got here.

You hope you’ve got the gumption to tell all later.

“More than you might think. I’ll tell you all about it later when everyone’s here.”

Rarity nods her head, flashing you a smile.

“Of course, darling.”

“Tell us all about what?”

A look to your left, and you’re greeted by Twilight, having joined your circle of conversation along with Fluttershy.

“The thing we talked about last night. I just figured it’d be better if I could get everyone on the same page at the same time, you know?

“Oh!” she responds, confusion erased just as fast as it came. “Yeah, I don’t blame you. Explaining yourself repeatedly can get tiring when it’s a lot of information at once.”

“It’s all good information, though, right…?” Fluttershy chimes in, her voice barely registering above the noise of the crowd.

Her eyes dance back and forth between you and Twilight, scanning your faces for any sort of tell as to the nature of your circumstances here.

“Yep! It’s nothing to worry about. Honestly, it’s probably a good thing.”

Relief washes over her features as she tucks herself tighter into her scarf, a misty sigh leaving her nostrils.

“And it’s nice to see you again, by the way, ‘Shy.”

“I-It’s nice to see you too, Anon. How long will you be in town?”

Hmm. How do you dress that without giving away the big news…?

“Actually, I’ll-”

“LOOK OUT BELOW!”

That works too, you guess.

The raspy yell rings out behind you, echoing from some far-off point in the sky. When you turn around to pinpoint where it came from, a cyan blur rockets into existence in the open field between the two groups, blowing wind every which way from the sheer speed and force of her entrance as a full-spectrum rainbow trails behind her, dissipating after a few seconds. With a few strong beats of her wings and a slight contortion of her barrel, she comes to an abrupt stop just above the grass, hovering for a second before touching down with all four hooves.

She actually has a surprisingly conservative amount of clothing on for the weather; the only article she’s donning is her favorite Wonderbolts jacket,

“For the love a-” AJ calls out from behind her, picking up her hat from the ground after it had been blown off. “Pull off a Rainboom, why don’tcha?”

Pinkie blows past her, straight-on galloping over to-

“DASHIEEEEEE!”

In the blink of an eye, she tackles her, and they both go rolling for some distance before they finally come to rest only a few yards from your group. Applejack follows them over with a sigh, bringing you in the midst of everyone again for the first time in what must be a year. The realization is not lost on you as Rainbow untangles herself from Pinkie, facing her on her own four hooves as she laughs straight from her gut, mouth upturned in abject elation.

“It’s good to see you, too, Pinkie,” she says when she comes down from her guffawing, blowing strands of her prismatic mane out of her eyes. “Hope I didn’t keep any of you waiting too long! I flew over here as soon as work ended.”

She says that while sweeping her gaze over a good chunk of the group. You're still largely behind her, though, so she doesn’t notice you quite yet.

“Actually, the festival only opened a few minutes ago,” Twilight responds.

She pulls her clipboard out from her bag and checks it one last time before filing it away, presumably for the rest of the day.

“And since we just got done helping out with the stands, that gives us the whole rest of the day to have fun together!”

Dash rears up on two legs and hoof-pumps, her excitement radiating off of her as she does so. It’s contagious, apparently; the rest of the girls react similarly, though not as boisterous.

“Aw, yeah!” she shouts. “Mare’s day out!”

“Not quite, but close enough.”

Her ears rotate toward you for all but a millisecond before she whips around faster than you thought feasible, her eyes finding yours and locking on immediately. A grin cracks that surprised expression of hers as she takes off again with a flourish of her wings, flying up to you with her front legs outstretched toward you.

“Anon!”

You go to accept her embrace, only to find out that the display was a front; she uses the misdirection to sidestep you, bringing one hoof around your neck and resting the other atop your head, herself positioned behind you. With a total lack of mercy, she noogies the absolute shit out of you.

It actually kinda hurts, but it only lasts for a few moments.

“Where ya been, big guy?” she interrogates enthusiastically as she lets you go, touching down once more in front of you. “It’s been too long since I last saw you.”

“Up in Canterlot, mostly. And honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t see me when you rocketed down here.”

“Eh, I sorta saw you, I just thought you might’ve been some kinda pole. Everything blurs pretty hard when I’m going that fast. Besides, I meant figuratively, not literally.”

You can’t hold a chuckle back.

“Missed you too, Dash.”

You turn and look at everyone - all eyes are on you.

Well, mostly. Spike’s stealing glances at Rarity every couple of seconds, but it still counts.

Strangely enough, your stomach isn’t in knots anymore. It’s still not completely calm, but it’s getting there. You sigh deeply, blowing steam into the nippy air.

“…I really missed all of you.”

The words come out a bit strained. Twilight steps forward, holding one hoof up to her chest as she addresses you with an authenticity you’ve been sorely lacking up in Canterlot.

“The feeling is mutual, Anon,” she says, a sparkle in her eyes. “For all of us.”

Your throat gets ever so slightly tighter. You can’t hold eye contact with her for some reason. As your gaze falls into the snow, a disastrously genuine smirk holds itself in place. A nod of your head in silent reverence, and your nerves are nowhere to be found.

Facing them again, you feel a surge of excitement take you, one that is reflected in their own expressions.

“How’s some cider sound to you guys?”

“Sounds like heaven,” AJ replies, making headway for her tent again. “I’ll get us some’a the big mugs we got hidin’ in the back of the tent.”

“Oh, I’ll just take a regular-sized cup, darling,” Rarity says. “I’d like to pace myself until later tonight.”

“Suit yourself! I’ll take the biggest mug ya got, AJ,” Dash all but demands.

“Not if I get to it first, Dashie!” Pinkie interjects, taking off in a sprint toward the tent.

Fluttershy tries to speak up, but is drowned out by the resulting argument, electing to settle for whatever she’s given. Spike hops onto the back of Rarity, both eager to set off for their beverages. Non-alcoholic for Spike, of course. Twilight takes a spot by your side as you all set off, eager to get some cider in your bellies.

It’s a wonderful feeling, being home.

Author's Note

DID YOU KNOW:
This is where the story was originally supposed to end! Before I came up with a much larger narrative, this was just going to be a short little heartwarming romp. Glad I didn't stop here.

6 - Ineffable

Thunk!

“Yeeeah! Another one for Team Pegasus! Woooo!”

Dash, drunkenly uncaring of her volume as several passing ponies throw concerned glances her way, wraps Fluttershy in a tightly woven aerial embrace, squeezing tightly as she sings their praises for all to hear. Another game of Arc has seemingly won in their name given that all of their bags are sitting outrageously close to the bullseye.

It was like Skeeball’s backwoods cousin; instead of underhandedly rolling balls up a slope and into holes, you toss bean bags onto a floor-adjacent target, hoping they land where you aim them. The closer you get to the bullseye, the more points you get, and since there aren’t any holes for the bags to sink into, that means things get competitive - especially when one team knocks another’s bean bag off of the platform. Two teams play at a time, and currently, it’s Team Pegasus versus Team Earth Pony, consisting of Pinkie and AJ.

“Now don’t count us out just yet, missy,” AJ retorts, securing her hat more firmly to her head. “This lil’ tango ain’t over!”

Her words, even from a few feet away, are sharper in the chilly evening than they were at the beginning of the day. Same with most of the noise; the soundscape filled your ears from top to bottom, louder and without much focus yet still remarkably clear.

Touch was impacted similarly. Your clothes became a cocoon, and each brush against the denim of your jeans or the cotton of your shirt was uncompromisingly vivid, despite the cold. Your head swims, but comfortably so, swaying at a pace you dictate. Another swig of cider travels down your throat, warming your already cozy stomach.

What a buzz. God, you love this shit so much. How’d you ever go without it up there?

Beside you, you feel Twilight stir slightly, riding out a blissful tipsiness of her own. Her expression is stuck as a smile; you don’t think she’s stopped ever since her second mug.

Not that you’d like to change it. The first image that comes to mind when you think of her is that big, dorky smile she’s got on her library card. It’s too adorable to not giggle at, especially in your cider-addled mind. You try to stifle it, but a very faint snort escapes, catching the attention of your bitter Arc rival.

“What’re you giggling about, Anon?” she asks as she turns to look at you, one eyebrow raised in accusatory fashion, no doubt thanks to the cider’s influence.

“Oh, nothing. I just, uh, remembered something funny.”

The entire sentence is warped by your incessant chuckle fit.

“Tell me!”

“Huh?”

“I wanna hear it,” she explains, already starting to laugh at nothing in particular. “If it’s got you laughing, I definitely wanna hear it.”

Even her speaking mannerisms have changed slightly. Just how much has she had?

Nevermind that, though - you are wholly unprepared for her question, and you’re not one to be overly funny on the fly, either. Quick, Anon! Put on your thinking cap! Surely there must be some off-the-cuff joke buried in that head of yours.

You search fiendishly, milliseconds stretching into years behind your eyes. From the depths of the farthest reaches of your mind emerges a joke so old, so terrible, it makes you shiver as it reaches your mouth and demands release.

“W-Why do math teachers love going to dance clubs?”

“Hmm…”

She puts on a show of pondering what the answer could be before turning to face you again.

“I’m actually not sure. Why?”

“It’s ‘cause… they like breakin’ it down.”

After you deliver the decidedly underwhelming punchline, your face autonomously rearranges its expression into the physical representation of the phrase ‘I’m sorry.’ You look ahead to the two teams battling it out, clueing into a yelled ‘consarn it’ here, and a raspy ‘no way’ there. The silence beside you gives way to a barely stifled laugh; when you turn to face her, you find Twilight starting to double over, catching herself on the edge of the bench.

Honestly, you… didn’t expect that. Maybe it’s the alcohol?

“Anon, that…” she manages to get out during lapses in her giggle fit. “I think that might have been the worst dad joke I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh yeah? Well, you’re laughing at it, purplesmart.”

She doesn’t seem to notice that you’ve used the dreaded nickname once more.

“It was so repugnant that it circled back around to being funny, honestly.”

…Mission accomplished, sorta?

“You know what? I’ll take that.”

The two of you fall silent, both watching AJ desperately trying to displace Fluttershy’s expertly tossed bean bags with mixed results. Over time, though, you’re compelled to keep talking. There’s no discernible reason; the words simply take shape before you’ve had time to think of them.

“Are you having fun?”

“Oh, absolutely! I’d hoped that the festival would end up being a success, but I had no idea today would be this…”

She hangs on ‘this’ for a few moments, looking to capture a word she can properly ascribe to the feeling.

“This magical, I suppose.”

You laugh at her ironic choice of words.

“The element of magic, planning a festival that ends up being magical? Color me shocked.”

“No, no, I mean…” she laughs out before a tone akin to that of wistful gratitude. “I mean us. Look at us, Anon!”

Your eyes scan the two teams out in front, still engaged in their heated battle, cut off from the world around them as their conflict rages on. With only a quick flick of your head rightward, you spy Rarity and Spike, chatting at a food booth while they wait for their order.

Every single one of them - even the ones embroiled in the Arc war - all seem content beyond measure, as if they’re aware of how good things are, but on a more primal level than upfront recognition. Turning back to Twilight, she’s probably the most aware of it out of all of them, judging by her beaming smile.

“You sure it isn’t just the cider, Miss Lightweight?”

She shakes her head, her expression unchanging.

“I know it isn’t. Today being a mare’s day, I already knew it was going to be wonderful like it always is, but then…”

She stops for a second, the weight of her chosen next words showing in her hesitance. All at once, she barrels through those second thoughts.

“Then you showed up out of nowhere, and now we’re all back together again having fun, just like it used to be… I was hoping we would come back to that.”

Her words twist your stomach into a solid knot. How do you even respond to something that levels you completely like that…?

“I was, too.”

Your response has her full attention; sensing this, you launch into it.

“I was scared that I messed up our friendship. When I boarded the train, I realized just how much I had alienated myself from your lives, all in the effort of…

You sigh deeply.

“Of living out someone else’s vision of fulfillment.”

Your arms cross as you lean back into the bench.

“Yesterday, I would have given anything to get those four years back. To spend them here, with you all. Now, though…”

You turn to Twilight.

“Now, I know I already have all the time I need.”

It’s like she’s awestruck, with those near-bulging eyes of hers shining even in the dim light of the receding sun.

“You mean…?”

“Yep. I get to browse the housing market again.”

You don’t even get an opportunity to laugh at your own dry joke before she launches into you, throwing her hooves around your torso and resting her head on your chest. The sensation of her hugging you so tightly sends sparks across your flesh, setting it alight.

She’s laughing again, although this time, it’s a lot more sing-songy. It lilts through the air and vibrates through your chest, a declaration of joy belted with her eyes closed. Her breath reaches you, cider and lavender co-mingling in your nose. She’s definitely tipsy; she’s received better news before and been more reserved than this.

Still, the gesture tugs at your heartstrings. You embrace her fully in return, squeezing as hard as you think she can take. She’s actually surprisingly warm, despite the steadily dropping evening temperatures. That down jacket of hers must be working wonders alongside the alcohol.

A couple seconds later, it seems like she gains some of her self-awareness back, tensing up just a tad and pulling back to give you your space.

“S-Sorry, Anon,” she stammers out, her face flush. “It’s just- that’s amazing news!”

You chuckle, a bit lightheaded from the attention.

“It’ll be a while before I can make any kind of down payment on a house, so it’s not quite set in stone, but I really would like to do that. I don’t know what I want to do with my life right now, especially after yesterday, but Ponyville’s a great place to try and figure it out, right?”

“I don’t think you could have picked a better town for it, honestly.”

Thinking about it, she’s absolutely right. Last time you combed the job listings here, the variety of positions and apprenticeships offered was so staggering that it was hard to believe. Back home it was front desk associate, mail clerk, office assistant, and other soul-draining positions if you ever wanted to just get your foot in the door of a practice.

In Ponyville? You can basically walk up to any store in town, ask for an apprenticeship, and if the trial period goes well, you’d have an interesting, engaging career path. Bookkeeper, assistant caretaker at the animal sanctuary… Hell, there was even a blacksmith that was taking on students.

At least, that’s what the job listings said the last time you were in town. It makes you wonder why you ever wanted your old job in the first place. A memory lost in the swathes of corporate skullduggery, you suppose.

“I just hope I can slide into a career I really enjoy. I’ve been on autopilot for so long, I feel like I don’t even know what I wanna do anymore.”

“Luckily, you’ve got a place to stay while you figure it out,” she says, unsubtly winking at you.

“Twi, the last thing I wanna do is bum off of you.”

“Is it bumming if I want you to stay with us?”

“I mean… inverse stockholm-bumming syndrome, maybe?”

“Anon, I thought we were enjoying the festival, not working out,” she pseudo-whines, disappointment plain for you to hear.

“...Huh?”

“You know, with all that stretching you just did.”

“Ha-ha. I’m serious.”

“So am I,” she says sternly. “That bedroom’s been yours since before you left, and it always will be.”

You’re not sure what to say to that, snark or otherwise. Her genuine kindness is welcomed, but there’s a nagging feeling in your gut that you can’t quite shake.

“I’m sorry, Twilight. I’d be more than happy to stay with you two. I don’t really know why I…”

The words die in your throat as Twilight listens intently, her expression disarmingly neutral, attentive to a fault. Soft gaze, slightly upturned eyebrows, the ghost of a grin as you struggle to explain your initial refusal… It’s like she knows what you’re going to say, but you feel compelled to say it anyways.

You’re cut off, unfortunately, by what can only be described as a ‘victory screech.’

“YAAAAAA-”

A cannon goes off next to the game of Arc taking place in front of you, forcing your hands to shoot up to your ears. The party armament - which, by all accounts, wasn’t there five seconds ago - blasts confetti to and fro, a fair bit of it landing on both you and Twi. More than a few passers by are stealing glances in your general direction, a good many of them startled out of their wits.

Well, at least you know who won.

Looking over, your suspicions are confirmed by Pinkie and AJ’s brief victory dance, Rainbow momentarily sulking in the background while ‘Shy claps her hooves for the winning team.

“Now what was that about putin’ our bits where our mouths are?” AJ goads, her competitive spirit winning out over her humility.

Rainbow openly sighs, shaking the sour taste of victory off.

“You know what?” she harrumphs. “Fair play. Don’t think you’ll get so lucky next time, bub.”

“Luck ain’t got anything to do with it, sugarcube. Good game, though.”

They close the distance between each other and shake hooves, leaving their bitter rivalry behind for merrier pastures. Suddenly, the enchanted lamps scattered throughout the park come alight, signaling the official transition from evening to night.

You look back over at Twilight, who returns your gaze just as soon as you give it.

“We’ll talk about it more later, okay?”

She smiles fully at you, brushing some of the confetti out of her mane as she does so.

“Of course, Anon.”

The two of you hop off of the bench and head toward your friends, all convening around the peppered target and picking up the bags. AJ holds a bigger bag open while you all toss the sacks in, cleaning up so that the next group wouldn’t have to do the dirty work.

“Who’s got the next game?” Pinkie asks excitedly, already raring to go.

Maybe it’s just your imagination, but you swear you can feel her vibrating next to you.

“Nopony, unfortunately,” Twilight chimes in, mild dejection painting her features. “The festival was only scheduled to operate until the lights came on, that way the vendors can pack up before it gets too dark out.”

“What!? It can’t be over yet, we barely even started!”

“I’m sorry, Pinkie. Mayor Mare’s the one who set the limits, I can’t bend them.”

The partier of eons literally deflates before your eyes, accompanied by a comical sputtering noise as she slumps further and further into a pile on the ground.

“It’s hard to believe it’s already over,” Fluttershy chimes in. “It really doesn’t feel like it’s been seven hours, does it?”

The others hem and haw at her statement; your own answer is to look around you as their words blur in your ears. It doesn’t feel like seven hours have passed, but the flow of time presents itself under the dim lamplight of the late evening. Once pristine blankets of snow are now heavily tread, bits of waterlogged grass peering out in messy clumps.

The goings-on have died down considerably; where once a giant crowd resided, there are only inklings of groups here and there, finishing up their loose ends before making for the entrance of the park. Night hasn’t fully descended yet, and a dull glow seeping through the clouds paints everything one or two shades toward amber, irrespective of its prior color. Celestia’s handiwork, of course. Who else could be responsible for a sunset blooming through cloud cover like that?

She must’ve had a particularly good day.

A small smirk tugs at the corners of your lips; a good day for her usually means that something funny happened in court, or at some mind-numbing delegate meeting. ‘What could it be this time?’ you wonder. A mischief of her own design, perhaps?

Oh, you hope so. You’ve always loved hearing about her legendary gags in your back-and-forths with her, written or otherwise. Come to think of it, her letters are the only ones you’ve responded to with some sort of regularity. Though, you suppose that’s to be expected, given she was one of the first friends you’d happened to make here.

A bomb hits your gut - you haven’t told her what happened yet.She likes her impromptu visits once in a blue moon, and the last thing you want is for her to show up at an empty apartment none the wiser. Looks like you’re gonna be writing a letter tonight when you get home. With any luck, it’ll reach her while she’s still awake, now that you have Spike nearby.

Hopefully, it won’t take her too long to see it. You’ve seen the busier end of her and Luna’s schedules firsthand; sometimes, the sea of responsibilities swallows all.

Funny, that.

Infinitely busier than you were, and yet she still found time to get back to you every week or so.

“Do we have anything else planned for tonight?” Rarity chimes in, breaking you out of your runaway thoughts.

“Yeah, I was gonna ask the same thing,” Dash says. “We can’t end it here, it’s not even that late yet!”

Twilight looks off into the waning crowd for a second, weighing the possible post-festival options for entertainment. She frowns momentarily, seemingly coming up short.

You, however, might just have an ace.

“I mean, it is Saturday night.”

Six sets of eyes dart to you, expecting a continuation. Pinkie miraculously reinflates, aiming that seventh set straight at yours with barely contained anticipation.

“Is Ponyville Pub still open?”

Rarity giggles daintily, bringing a hoof up to her face.

“Anonymous, dear, we’ve already been drinking quite a bit of cider.”

“Oh, no, I meant for dinner.”

As if on cue, your stomach grumbles.

“I haven’t had their mushroom stew since the last time I was here, and honestly, I could probably eat two bowls right now.”

Looks of consideration take the group by storm.

“Well, you already know my answer,” Spike chuckles, patting his stomach with his claw.

“I didn’t eat very much for lunch, so I wouldn’t mind coming along,” Shy adds.

Everyone else nods along with your two vocal supporters, clearly into the suggestion.

“Any extra time together sounds good to me!” Pinkie interjects, hopping merrily in the direction of the pub.

You all follow suit, conversation springing up around you once more.

“See ya later! And good to have you back again, Anon!”

Rainbow waves hastily, flashing a winning smile before jetting directly upward into the night sky, her signature rainbow trail lighting up the street that you and Twilight are standing on, Spike riding on her back. The technicolored light strips stay behind for just a few seconds before dissipating into thin air, leaving the three of you once again blanketed in starlight, save for the dim lamps strewn about the town.

Cloudsdale’s shadow blots out the stars behind it, its usual array of lights and rainbows missing for the night. Back on earth, the streets have died down considerably; now, only a few ponies mill about, most having retreated indoors for the night.

You turn to your two closest friends, both of them still looking with gentle regard at the floating town’s impression against the sky. Errant snowflakes dot their clothing here and there, the snowfall having kicked up once more after dinner ended. And yet, despite the recurring onset of the cold, they aren’t shivering. Not like you, at least.

Before long, you find that their grin has found its way onto your face as well. Maybe, if they’re generous, they’ll lend you a bit of that cold resistance they’ve got going right now. Why not, if their smiles were so infectious?

A sudden sigh from Twilight breaks your attention, the steam from her breath billowing forth from her nostrils and curling into the night air before ultimately fading into nothing. You stay silent, unconsciously echoing her with a much gentler sigh of your own.

Apart from the crickets and the gentle pittering of the snowfall, all is still.

She shares with you not her inherent warmth, but the hidden feeling fastened just behind her eyes, locked onto the clouds above. The nighttime introspection of a day shared with loved ones, all crashing at once now that they’ve gone home. She doesn’t look sad; far from it, in fact. Her joy more than likely looped back into relative neutrality. It’s a strikingly familiar feeling, having experienced it yourself during every trip back here from Canterlot.

She looks back at you, that wistful smile still holding, ending your train of thought.

“Ready to go home, Anon?”

You nod, the three of you once more setting off for home. The uneven firmness of the cobbled streets feel nice against the soles of your shoes, even slippery and covered with snow.

You speak, but your voice comes out as a murmur, still audible against the delicate ambience.

“I’ll never get used to how quiet it gets after dark here.”

“Even after living here for a while?” Spike asks, twisting to look at you.

“Mhm. It’s different than just quiet, though, it’s… weirdly calm.”

Ach, poor choice of words.

“Not weird in a bad way, of course. It’s just… agh, how do I even convey it?”

The sound of hooves, feet, and claws marching homeward, buffeted by the gentle snowfall, is the only response you get for a few moments.

“Serene?” Twilight muses, both of you still looking ahead.

“Not quite, but I feel like that’s pretty close.”

Your eyes sweep the quaint homes around you, each cottage with its own somewhat unique architecture and decorations despite being mostly uniform. Most of the houses are illuminated from the inside, giving a lived-in feeling to the otherwise empty path.

“I was thinking ‘homey’ might do it justice, but that seems too aggressive a descriptor.”

Even after a few more moments of deeper thought, you struggle to come up with anything, especially under your friends’ curious gaze. Maybe later on, whenever you’ve settled back in, you’ll be able to-

“It’s gentle.”

The word sort of falls out of you as opposed to being spoken confidently. It did come to your mouth before your mind, after all. Spike cocks his head at your answer, while Twilight raises an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Well, that isn’t exactly it, but it’s close. You get what I mean?”

You gesture to the town around you, your hand falling against your pants with a slap afterward.

“It’s like there’s this giant blanket covering the town, keeping everything cozy or something.”

You sigh openly.

“I don’t know, that probably sounds stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Twilight retorts, sounding almost taken aback by your self-reprimanding. “Trying to understand those strange, ineffable feelings is really interesting. I actually did a study on it once when I was still in school.”

“Did you find anything out?”

“Well, it was more of a thesis than anything, but in laymare’s terms, I proposed that certain ineffable emotions could be attributed to color, with an individual’s upbringing and social environment being the largest determining factors of what color denotes which feeling.”

“How’d you summarize the unnamed emotions?”

The three of you turn onto the street leading to the library, and you inwardly wish that the road would go on forever.

“Mostly by combining other known emotions, or describing the experience somepony had when they felt it, like you just did. It wasn’t exactly the best or most thorough study I’ve ever done, given that it wasn’t about anything related to magic, but it ended up making me a lot more conscious of my own feelings.”

“In a more analytical way, I presume?”

“To a degree,” she concedes. “Afterward, I started seeing the context of why I felt certain ways at certain times.”

Before she can continue, she squints in the direction of Golden Oaks, scanning something that you don’t quite see yet, even when you pore over the homestead with your own eyes.

“Odd… I wasn’t expecting any mail today.”

You affix your gaze to the mailbox, just barely picking up the outline of the red flag raised above the box proper. How she was able to make out that tiny detail in the dark, you’ll never know.

The two of you pick up the pace slightly, her confusion growing as you both reach the mailbox. With a flourish of her horn, the flag is nestled on its side once more and the hatch is pulled gently open, revealing nothing but a single letter inside. She envelops it within her aura and pulls it out, a confused frown gracing her features as she reads over the addressing information.

“It’s for you…?” she half-asks as she floats it over to you, befuddled.

You grab it out of the air, leafing it over in your hand to look at the cover. In the very center of the envelope is Fleur de Lis’s cutie mark, with ‘Flair’ superimposed over it in eloquent script.

It takes a second or two before some mild alarm bells ring out in your head. Chief among them is the fact that the letter was addressed directly to here, with no trace of your old apartment’s address to be found. You’d think they would’ve re-addressed it here after the initial delivery failed, but no; straight to Golden Oaks.

Then, there’s the timing of the letter. You quit yesterday, and you’ve already gotten written correspondence from them for who knows what. Eager to dispel the mystery, you tear at the envelope’s fold, cold fingers ringing along as you open it. You unfold the delicate slip of paper within and begin reading.

Mister Anonymous,

The employees in charge of clearing out your vacant cubicle found that a number of your belongings were still present. These include, but are not limited to: Office decorations, books, a lunch box, personal photos, and a scheduling journal. These items will be held for pickup until end-of-day Sunday. In the event that we do not hear from you by then, we will have no choice but to dispose of them. We apologize for this inconvenience; our storage facility is currently at capacity, and we cannot afford overflow at this time. We look forward to your arrival!

Yours truly,
Clean Sweep, Senior Director of Sales

…

Motherfucker.

He saw those pictures and knew he’d have you by the nuts.

You know for a fact that storage isn’t at capacity. At least, it wasn’t yesterday. Even then, how the hell do some knick knacks cause an overflow? And for that matter, why’s his signature even on the letter, anyway? This dreck reeks of corporate copy-and-paste.

Fuuuuuuuuck. If it were anything but the pictures of you and your friends, you’d leave Flair to rot.

…God damn it, you hope the station opens early.

“What’s it say?” Spike chimes in, interrupting your inward rant.

A dejected breath leaves you in a hurry.

“I left some stuff with sentimental value at the office by accident, and they’re gonna throw it away if I don’t go pick it up tomorrow. Pictures of all of us, a few months after I got here.”

“They’d really do that?”

“Not normally, no. Clean Sweep’s pulling out all the stops to fuck me over, I guess.”

“Anon!”

Your head whips to a decidedly displeased Twilight mad-dogging you.

Ah, shit, right. She hates when you curse, especially in front of Spike.

“Sorry, Twilight.”

“I swear, one day, I’m going to break that habit of yours,” she promises, her expression switching to that of concern over your situation. “Is there any way we can help?”

Despite an extensive internal search, you come up with nothing. The fate of your pictures lies solely with you.

“Not that I can think of. I just hope he hasn’t already gotten rid of all of it.”

“He’d have to be awfully rotten to do something like that.”

Although misplaced, you really did miss her unflinching optimism.

“He is. You don’t get to his position in that company without stepping on others.”

You crumple the letter and envelope in your hand, balling it up and shoving it deeply into your palm with your curled fingers.

“Knowing him, he’s gonna be there when I show up, complete with his trademark snide.”

“Do you want us to come along with you?” Twilight asks. “The library is closed until the week starts, so it wouldn’t be any trouble.”

You honestly consider it for a second, but…

“I think I’ll be okay. I doubt he’d try to be overly confrontational about it.”

You turn to the two of them, both holding your gaze with neutral expressions.

“Besides, I wouldn’t want to drag you two along on a fetch quest the day before work starts back up.”

“I do like having the day to relax,” Twilight admits with a giggle. “Still, are you sure you’re alright with going alone?”

You nod, shooting a disarming smile at her.

“Yep. One last headache to deal with, am I right?”

And then you can get on with your dreams, whatever those are.

Spike smiles back at you, nodding along with your statement. Twilight looks like she’s going to argue a case for going along with you, but relents after a moment, smiling with a barely audible sigh.

“One last headache.”

Without warning, she yawns, bringing one out of you as well.

“We should probably head in and start winding down,” she suggests in the midst of an exhale, both of you heading for the front door. “It’s nine right now, and the station opens at six, so you’ll need as much sleep as you can get.”

“Looks like chamomile’s on the menu again, then.”

“Too right,” Spike agrees, his own yawn taking over at the end.

You open the door for the both of them, and they thank you as they head inside, the floorboards creaking gently beneath them. Shutting the door behind you, you’re blasted by a gust of cold outdoor wind before the slightly warmer air of the library envelops you. You follow them into the living room proper, and before you get too far in, you stop as you realize you’ve almost forgotten something.

“Hey, Twilight?” you call out across the room.

“Hm?” she responds, looking back as she lights an overhead lamp with the help of her magic.

“Would you mind if I borrowed some of your parchment? I wanna write a letter to Celestia real quick.”

“Oh, sure! I keep a stack in the front desk in the library room, second drawer from the top.”

“Thanks!”

You traipse back into the library room, heading back behind the desk and taking a seat. You pull some fresh parchment from the aforementioned stash, smoothing it out against the wood surface as you place it down. The material gently catches your fingers, rough to the touch. Pulling her fountain pen from its receptacle, you hover your hand over the paper, ready to write.

You pause just before the ink starts to flow, molding your thoughts with care. When you’re satisfied with the composition, you press the tip into the page, translating mind into ink.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Hail, fair Celestia, whose friendship and acquaintanceship is a boon to us all! How have you been faring as of late, Your Majesty?’

Okay, that even felt bad to write. I don’t think I could ever be one of the advisors in the castle, I don’t have the stomach for their vernacular. In all seriousness, how’ve you been, Cel? I know it’s been a bit longer than usual since I last wrote to you, and I want to apologize for that. Hopefully my negligence hasn’t upset you too much. If I know you at all, then you’ve already figured out that I’m not in Canterlot by now from this letter’s method of delivery. There’s a story surrounding that, and although I usually prefer waiting to tell you in person, I feel like this one’s too important to sit on the proverbial shelf. I’ll save the juicier gossip for the next time I see you, but in short, I quit my job at Flair and moved out of my apartment in Canterlot. Let’s just say I was made aware of how people were being treated by certain people in power at the company. ~~I just wanted to-~~ ~~I can’t believe I let-~~

I don’t know what I’m here for, Cel.

The pen moves far slower than before; its weight drags your fingers along with it. Your chest tightens, but you keep writing, pausing to dictate almost every single word.

All I’ve ever known is the path that was set for me, for better or worse. It helped keep me focused when I was in school, but now that I’ve got to make my own way forward, I realize how suffocating it’s been. The only part of my life, work or otherwise, that I’ve ever been passionate about was the end result. Always beyond me, always dangling from a rope. It was always the next milestone, and when I eventually did reach it? It was no big deal; I should’ve been there already. It’s devastating, realizing you’ve been chasing someone else’s dream on autopilot for so long that you’re starting to wonder where the ghost ends, and where you start.

…

But it’s not all bad. I’m back in Ponyville, surrounded by friends who genuinely care about me and want to see me grow. It’s a far cry from what I’m used to, but it’s exactly what the doctor ordered. They’re making this whole thing manageable. I don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t for them.

You chuckle to yourself.

Here I was, thinking they’d be mad at me for not writing to them when I came back, but they ended up inviting me out to Mare’s Night and drinking me under the table.

An exaggeration, but one made in goodwill.

I don’t think I’m worthy of them, but I’m gonna make sure I spend the rest of my life trying to be.

You only realize you’re smiling when your cheeks start hurting. Rubbing them cyclically with your left hand, you continue to write with your free one.

In other news, I’ve gotta come back up to Canterlot tomorrow to pick up some mementos I accidentally left at the office before they throw them away. Do you remember that picture Luna got of you nailing me in the face with a pie from around the corner? Yeah, I wouldn’t wanna lose that one. Anyway, I’m starting to run out of parchment, so I’ll cut it short. I know you probably won’t get this before morning, but I just wanted to reach out and say hello. Miss ya, Cel.

Wishing you all the best,
Anonymous

With your friendly outpouring complete, you let the pen fall from your hand, its surprising weight crashing onto the table with a resounding thud. You lean back into the chair, letting your head loll back onto the cushion at the very top.

7 - Departure

The floorboards give a tad underneath your weight as you make your way back to the kitchen, where Twilight and Spike are already partaking in their nighttime tea. Letter in hand, you pull out the chair next to Spike and gingerly take your seat, a steaming cup waiting to grace your lips on the table in front of you.

“Hey, Spike, do you mind sending this out when you get a chance?”

He nods mid-swig, not even bothering to open his eyes as a spot of tea streaks down his cheek from the sudden motion. Not an insignificant amount of time later, he finally sets his mug down with a resoundingly empty clink. The vibration of the motion reaches your knee pressed up against the kitchen island’s base.

He gestures for you to hand him the letter with a quick beckoning motion of his claw, which you oblige. Holding the scroll in front of him, he takes a deep breath, straightening his back out in the process. In one swift movement, he forces all of the air out of his lungs. Just past his lips, the intangible stream is painted into a brilliant verdant flame, engulfing your letter in a billowing cloud of blinding color.

Your letter takes on a dark green shine before crumbling bit by bit into dark ash, floating away into nothing. The flames dissipate along with it, returning the room to its warm, orange tone.

He clears his throat a few times, blinking slowly as he props his head on his claws, placing his elbows on the counter.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, how does that even work?”

“Do you want the long answer, or the short one?” he replies.

Your brain isn’t exactly ready for a Twilight-level explanation right now, unfortunately.

“Short.”

He grunts in response, his tea seemingly already taking hold over him.

“It’s a self-sustaining spell. Whenever my fire breath comes into contact with any paper or parchment, it gets de-materialized and teleported to wherever she is at the moment.”

“So, essentially, you’re the world’s most efficient delivery service.”

“Basically.”

That’s… actually really cool.

“Still looking for a short answer here - how complicated is that spell?”

“Very,” Twilight chimes in from across the table. “If I remember correctly, it took Celestia half a year to put it together.”

“I’m guessing it’s because both of your exact positions are always changing, and it needs to be able to account for it accurately?”

“That, and it has to be able to hold up under considerable distances.”

Well, holy shit. It’s the magical equivalent of texting someone.

“It still blows my mind that you guys can just shoot laser beams out of your horns willy-nilly, but things like that are what takes time.”

“In laymare’s terms, it’s a matter of strength versus finesse,” Twilight says, her tone developing into the one she uses in her famous lectures. “Even then, lasers aren’t exactly an easy feat for the average unicorn. The enormous mana drain alone could pose serious health risks if not mitigated properly, and that’s not even touching on whether or not their reservoirs are deep enough to support a sustained beam in the first place!”

You nod along with her educational ramble, grateful that she feels it necessary to go back-and-forth with you.

“I don’t think I’m present enough to understand magic right now.”

“Not with that attitude, you aren’t,” she jokes.

Even though her wealth of knowledge currently has nowhere to go in your tired brain, you find a smile gracing your features; she’s always fun to listen to.

In the comfortable silence of a settling kitchen, you take hold of the handle of your steaming mug and gently bring the rim to your lips. Even smelling the chamomile is enough to make you drowsy; closing your eyes, you lazily tilt the cup toward you, letting the hot tea run across your tongue for the second day in a row. With your luck, you’ll develop a dependency on this stuff while you’re living here. Hands steadied by the new warmth spreading outward from your stomach, you set the cup back down and lean against the counter. You’re tempted to lay your head down, but you know that you’ll fall asleep shortly after if you aren’t careful, so you abstain for now.

Still, you find that your eyelids are getting quite heavy, dragging themselves downward in microscopic increments against your will even as you sit straight. It wouldn’t be awful if you fell asleep right here, but you’d rather not drool all over Twilight’s countertop, or wake up with a wicked backache from being hunched over.

“Oh, by the way,” Twilight chimes back in, picking her gaze up from her half-full cup and resting it on you. “What were you going to say earlier, while everypony was playing Arc?”

You’re brought back to the realm of the living, locking eyes with her as your full awareness returns.

“Hm?”

“You know, when Pinkie interrupted you with her party cannon.”

Huh…?

Oh!

“You mean when we were talking about having me stay here?”

She nods before taking another frugal sip of tea, still gently smiling. You align your forearms to be parallel on the counter, your right hand grasping your left elbow through the layers of warm clothing. This isn’t exactly the easiest thing to jump into after casual conversation, but you’ll try for her sake.

“I just don’t want to take advantage of your hospitality.”

Instead of responding immediately like earlier, she focuses intently at the table for a fleeting few seconds, seemingly gathering her thoughts before proceeding.

“Why do you feel like that’s what you’d be doing, Anon?”

You rub your fingers back and forth, friction heating the skin just above your elbows.

“Well, I mean… It’s not like I got fired, right? I quit, abandoned my apartment, and ran home all of my own volition.”

You scoff at your lack of forethought.

“I mean, I didn’t even let you know I was coming home. I just showed up, and honestly, I didn’t really leave you much of a choice whether to take me in or not.”

Twilight sips deeply from her cup, knocking back what must be almost the entire rest of her tea. As she lowers the mug back down to the table, you notice that a slight frown has replaced her otherwise omnipresent cheeriness.

“It’s true that it was a bit sudden, but I don’t see that as a bad thing, Anon.”

“How? I mean, what if you had plans and my homecoming totally screwed them up?”

A chuckle escapes her throat as she leans against the table with her hooves.

“I did have plans,” she says, her airy tone a much needed push against the otherwise seriousness of the conversation. “And you became a part of them.”

Even you can’t help but smirk just a bit; you’ve been here only a day, and already they’re rubbing off on you.

“Okay, maybe not the best example, but you get what I mean, don’t you?”

“In general, but your reasoning doesn’t apply in this specific situation.”

She takes one last dainty sip before disembarking from her chair and heading over to the sink to rinse her cup out.

“I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it: you aren’t taking advantage of us by staying here. I promise, you’ll feel differently once you’ve been away from your old job for a while.”

She sets her cup down and turns to you, a determined look on her face.

Her reasoning is sound; already, you feel different. A bit better, you’d venture to say.

“Do you have an ETA on that?” you ask, a bit more timidly than you’d like.

“Coming from somepony who’s gone through a variation of the same thing," she explains, "I’d give it until you find your next job.”

“Are we talking Canterlot time or Ponyville time here?”

“Ponyville time, I think? Whichever one’s shorter.”

“Ponyville it is, then. I swear, you have to sign a stack of paperwork to bring a bagel into the office in the business district.”

That earns a chuckle out of both of you, each one turning into a yawn seconds later. As you cover your mouth with the top of your hand and squint, you try to get a glimpse at Spike’s reaction. Instead of any reaction at all, you find the poor guy face down on the countertop, his mug sitting a few inches from his upturned hand. His body heaves with his inward breaths, only to press itself against the counter again with every exhale.

Not too long from now, you’ll be in the same boat. Already, gravity seems to be a much easier trap for your limbs to succumb to. Looking back at Twilight, you see the same ghost of sleep beginning to possess her as well. With a few shakes of her head, she resists, but you know that another wave will hit her in short order.

“Gettin’ tired?”

A simple nod is her only reply, her half-lidded stare threatening to turn into closed eyes any second. Sheesh, the chamomile’s hitting a lot faster than usual tonight.

Even so, you don’t want to go to bed without a proper capstone for your conversation.

“Hey, Twi?”

“Mm?” she vocalizes, opening her eyes as wide as she can under the influence of exhaustion.

“Thank you. For all of this, I mean. Letting me stay here, having me come along to your get-together… I didn’t know how much I needed this.”

She bats a hoof at you, smiling all the while.

“I’m just happy you’re home, Anon.”

You hum your approval, eyelids growing heavier by the second as you rise from your seat.

“I’m gonna try to get some sleep,” you mumble, exhaustion’s warm grip coiling around your chest. “I have no idea when the first train to Canterlot leaves tomorrow, so I’ll head out early to check the schedules.”

“We’ll come with you to see you off,” Twilight offers. “When do you think you’ll be back?”

“Hopefully before dinner, with belongings in hand.”

“In that case…”

She meanders over and stops just shy of you, holding out a hoof in your direction. As you kneel down to meet her, she rears up on her hind legs, rising to meet your height halfway through your downward motion.

All at once, you’re wrapped in each others’ warm embraces. The nightly chill is sent cowering into nothing for a few fleeting moments as she rests her cheek on the base of your neck.

“Goodnight, Anon.”

“See you in the morning, Twi.”

Before long, you both pull away, influenced in no small part by your growing sense of sleepy delirium. You turn and head for your bedroom, her magic gently ringing through the room as she snuffs out the light and picks Spike up from his seat.

When you make it to your room and shut the door behind you, you barely have time to crawl into bed before the sandman whisks you away.

“Lunch?”

Your hand rummages around feverishly inside your bag before finding the container, cold to the touch from the refrigerated salad inside.

“Check.”

“Water bottle?”

A short shift leftward, and the condensation dampens the top of your fingers.

“Check.”

“Snack bars, just in case?”

There they are, right under the emergency change of clothes; your ring finger brushes against three rectangular shapes, foil wrapping crinkling under your minute touch.

“Triple check. Is that everything, or are we missing something?”

Twilight takes hold of the bag in her magic and places it between you and herself, leaning back against the cold metal of the white bench. She’s silent as she gives the contents one last passthrough, giving the busy station an opportunity to fill the air with the goings on of its many soon-to-be passengers.

Even this early in the morning, the platform is relatively lively, mostly with out-of-towners. Funnily enough, if you know what to look for, it’s relatively easy to figure out who’s from where. The ones who are the most bundled up are usually from Las Pegasus or Appleloosa, or some other southern town that never really gets much cold. Poor things look downright pitiful, shivering in the relatively fair winds.

Manehattanites and ponies from Baltimare are similarly dressed, but they’re decidedly more accustomed to the climate than their southern counterparts. The wind may be blowing their hair and this way and that, but they look comfortable, if not a tad chilly.

Ponies from Canterlot are almost completely accustomed to the cold, even with the unusually low temperatures. More often than not, they’re carrying on conversation like it’s a crisp seventy degrees outside. You hadn’t lived there quite long enough to develop the same immunity, but it did help keep you from being a sniveling mess, so the four years weren’t completely wasted.

“I don’t think we missed anything back home,” Twilight chimes in, zipping your bag back up and handing it to you. “Even if we did, you’re coming back later, so it’s not a big deal.”

You sling the strap around your arm, riding it all the way up to your shoulder. While you sit, it rests on the bench, freeing you of the burden of its weight for now. It used to be one of Twilight’s saddlebags, but it became your messenger bag after she re-purposed it for you a few weeks after your arrival to Equestria.

“Hey, is your old office anywhere near that one really good pizza place?” Spike asks, looking up to you from your right.

“Cloud Nine?”

“Yep, that’s the one.”

You chuckle at your matching enthusiasm for the eatery.

“It’s a couple blocks away, nothing too bad. Why, you want me to bring back a slice or two?”

“Please?” He clasps his hands together, eyes pleading.

That gets a curt laugh out of you as you reach out to gently pat him on his back.

“I’ll do you one better and get us a pie. Probably be cold by the time I get back, though.”

“You do know who you’re talking to, right, dude?”

“…I don’t know why I keep forgetting you’ve got fire breath.”

“And an oven,” Twilight sternly interjects, unenthused by the prospect of an open flame in her almost entirely oaken house. “Which I would prefer you use, for the sake of everypony’s safety.”

“Aw, come on!” you bargain with a smile. “I bet the green flames give it a good kick.”

“As long as you both do it outside,” she says with a sigh, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt. Just don’t set anything on fire, please.”

“We’ll be on our best behavior, ma’am,” Spike says, saluting Twilight’s authority.

As you and Spike have a good-natured chuckle, you notice a faint chugging moving into earshot.

Looking in the direction it’s coming from, you see that familiar pinkish-purple engine coming into view over the horizon, tugging along its many cabin cars. Steam billows high into the air as it trudges along, and before long, the screech of the brakes greets your ears as it begins its mile-long stopping process.

Only a matter of time before it eventually comes to rest in the station.

The three of you stand from your seats on the bench, and the weight from your bag’s convenience supplies finally starts tugging at your shoulder. You fish your ticket out of your pocket, thumbing it around as you make certain which car you’d be boarding.

Out of curiosity, you’d checked to see if the private cabin had already been booked, but luck hadn’t been on your side this morning; coincidentally, it was booked all the way until Canterlot. You did manage to snag some pretty good seating, though - right next to the private cabins, actually.

Before long, the train finally lurches into the station, signaling its arrival with a few blows of the steam whistle. Unceremoniously, you all head to the second to last cabin, and you hop in line as Twilight and Spike stay at your side.

“Stay safe, okay, Anon?” Twilight all but demands, looking up at you with a smile.

There’s a hint of something else behind her words, but you’re too focused on boarding to take much note of it. Maybe bittersweetness?

“I will, Twi, don’t worry. Don’t let any monsters attack the town while I’m gone, ya hear?”

She giggles, standing up on her hind legs to catch you in a brief hug.

“I won’t. See you later, Anon.”

As you both return to standing, the line of ponies moves forward, and you’re compelled to flow with the crowd. Twilight and Spike stay behind, idling by a support beam as they watch you go.

When you reach the boarding door, you show your ticket to the concierge, who lets you in with a curt nod and an earnest grin. As your shoes cross from concrete to carpet, the first thing you notice is how comparatively empty your cabin is with the rest of the train. You have to bend down a bit to not hit your head on the ceiling, and if you don’t angle your body a certain way, you’re liable to shoulder check either the various seats or an unfortunate passenger.

Your seat waits for you in the back, near the door to the privacy cabin. As you crouch down and shimmy in, you get a brief glimpse of the people in the cabin next door.

A flash of gold and silver, of regality and elegance, greets your eyes for a few fleeting moments. Armor; upright armor, that is, so it rules out ponies. Casting your eyes a bit further upward reveals beaks, fur, and piercing eyes directed right at you, mostly out of bewilderment. You can only assume that they’re Gryphon royal guards, judging by the flamboyant decorations on their gear. You’re about to question why they’re on the train when the answer makes itself strikingly apparent.

From behind one of the rearmost chairs in the privacy cabin, a head juts out, noticeably younger than those of the numerous guards surrounding it. A young gryphon, no older than twelve years, eyes you up on down, an eyebrow raised in curiosity as she leverages herself against the chair ahead of her for a better look.

Not one to stare, you give a quick smile and a nod before going about your business, shimmying the rest of the way into your seat without waiting for a reply. You suppose that they’re on the agenda for Celestia today, since the train’s headed for the capitol.

The royalty behind you is pushed to the back of your mind as you look out of the window, watching Twilight and Spike have a conversation as the train’s doors close. Spike’s the first to notice you in the window, getting Twilight’s attention and pointing in your direction, waving at you all the while.

You wave back as Twilight joins in, her grin spreading ear-to-ear.

As the train lurches forward with a brief blowing of its whistle, you see Spike suddenly clutch his stomach and cover his mouth with his claw. Not a moment later, green fire erupts from his maw and manifests into a letter, no doubt sealed with Celestia’s cutie mark.

Fuck. Well, guess you’re not reading that until later.

Twilight checks on him, still waving to you as they slide out of sight, replaced by houses that pass idly by as you pick up speed. You sigh inwardly, already missing them.

Unzipping your bag from beneath you, you dig through its contents until you find the book that Twilight gave you to pass the time on the train rides.

‘Panacea: Tales from the Veil.’

Huh. Twilight’s never mentioned this one before; must be a new addition to the library catalog. Maybe you’ll finally be able to talk her to death about a book she’s never read before!

Excited by the prospect of such uncharted territory, you flip to the first page, leaning back in your chair as you settle in for the ride.

Okay, what?

How would Signus even be able to do that? As far as you know, the book never even hinted at the prospect of him being a rift weaver. Although, the rest of what you’ve read is decidedly well written, so you suppose you can forgive a plot hole or two. Agh, but it’s so glaring, though…

You put the book down, dog-earing the eighty-first page to save it for later.

Don’t tell Twilight.

A glance outside doesn’t reveal much, given the onset of the rain halfway through the trip, but you can see the mountain in the distance, so it’s safe to assume you’re at least a little over halfway through. Through the window, the countryside looks wavy and mottled, thanks to the rainwater rushing over the glass. You lean your head against the cold window, shutting your eyes for a brief second.

A nap wouldn’t hurt. You’d been awake since dawn, and at this rate, you still had-

Without warning, the train car rattles a bit. Not the standard bout of turbulence that you’ve come to expect, either; this was a bit too rough.

Your eyes fling open, your head searching the cabin for any clues as to what might’ve happened. The few ponies in the cabin with you are doing the same, some more alarmed than others.

For a few moments, other than the rain and the ambient chugging of the train, everything seems quiet. Calm, even.

But as you go to rest your head again, the cabin rattles once more, much stronger this time. The seat below you is locked in your death grip as you look to the other passengers, who trade looks of deep concern with you. The steady trudge of the train has noticeably slowed; the terrain outside passes by leisurely at best.

“Ladies and gentlecolts,” the conductor announces over the loudspeaker.

“It looks like we’re having a bit of trouble with some debris on the tracks. Please remain seated, we’re going to come to a slow stop and attempt some-”

A deafening roar blocks out the rest of his statement, and you feel the cabin being lifted straight off of the railway by some unknown force.

A frantic look out of the window reveals four figures, black as ink against the warped landscape. Three of them stand as quadrupeds, one as a biped. The biped has its arms outstretched toward the sky, and the quadrupeds are seated, doing much the same with their front legs.

Another terrifying lurch upward rips your eyes from the strange congregation. Back in your immediate surroundings, the entire cabin is coated in a deep crimson light. To your horror, your body is enshrouded by the light as well, warbling as you wave your hands in front of yourself. The deafening noise builds without end as the light gets brighter, brighter still until-

The cacophony reaches its apex, and the world goes dark as the worst bout of turbulence yet bounces your head violently against the window.

8 - Delay

You shut Advanced Magical Theory with a contented sigh, setting it down gently on your nightstand.

Of all the authors you’ve read over your life, you can’t help but keep coming back to Starswirl. You’ve already been through Volume VII at least a hundred times, but can anypony really blame you? The way he wove tales of his life into his instructional material was just… Ugh, you could read it forever.

Which, judging by the amber glow being cast across the oaken walls of your bedroom, you very nearly did. And so closes another perfect Sunday; reading, organizing, and some good old rest and relaxation.

You hop to your hooves off of the side of your bed, the floorboards gently creaking under the pressure of your landing. You stretch out your back legs, throwing your head to the ceiling as you feel your withers pop a few times. Gosh, you must’ve been in bed for a good while. Normally, you’d feel guilty about being a lazy lump, but surprisingly, there wasn’t much to do after the festival. You’ll have to thank Mayor Mare somehow for overseeing the cleanup for you. Maybe some cupcakes from Sugarcube Corner as a friendly gesture?

A yawn forces itself out of your lungs as you traipse over to the staircase, making your way down to the living room to start making dinner. The rest of the house bathes in the same golden light from your bedroom; the wooden fixtures appear almost luminescent.

Unfortunately, you’re too distracted by your grumbling stomach to pay proper attention to the decidedly wondrous lighting.

Hmm… What to make? You had a hayburger yesterday at the fair, so you’ll more than likely keep it relatively light tonight. Maybe you’ll make the same kind of salad you made for Anon this morning? Ah, but you’ve had that a few times this week already…

Oh, what the hay. You can’t beat a classic.

As you retrieve the ingredients from the fridge with a smidge of your magic, you find that your thoughts start drifting toward Anon. Rather, they’re drifting toward his absence.

You turn to the clock as you levitate a sizable bowl over from one of your cabinets. Quarter to five, it reads.

Absent-mindedly, you begin combining the ingredients, not really paying attention to the order in which they fall in.

He still has about an hour before dinnertime proper, so you’re not overly concerned, but you still feel a pang of worry when you let your thoughts wander. In a futile attempt to rationalize the situation, you weigh the length of the train ride with the timing of both his arrival and the rough distance from the train to his former offices, doubling that to account for his return trip.

Oh, yes, and the pizza that he said he would bring back. That has to add another fifteen minutes at least, given how popular the establishment is in that part of town.

Still, all of that together, it only shakes out to about seven hours in total if everything goes well. Given that he boarded the first train at around nine this morning, he should have been home forty-five minutes ago, if everything went to plan. You inwardly staunch your overly worried conclusions about what might be holding him up, remembering Princess Celestia’s advice about remaining in the here and now in stressful situations. After all, plans almost never happen perfectly, do they? Maybe he had some trouble with his old boss, or the pizza place was busy, or his return trip was delayed…

You suddenly become very aware that you’ve been standing still, staring at the countertop, for several minutes according to the clock on the wall. With a quick shake of your head, you get back to throwing the salad together, pouring in some sauce before grabbing a spoon and stirring the contents into what ultimately becomes your dinner. You drag a stool out from under the island, promptly sitting down and placing the bowl in front of you.

There’s no need to worry, Twilight. He’ll be home soon, and then you can give him the letter that Celestia-

The front door crashes open and bounces off of the adjacent wall, revealing a sweaty, panting Spike, a slightly scrunched scroll with Celestia’s insignia in his right claw. His sudden, boisterous arrival very nearly sends you reeling off of your seat, but a quick shift of your weight forward prevents your fall.

“Twilight?!” he calls out in distress, not having seen you yet.

“I’m here!” You reply, leaving your dinner at the table and quickly trotting into the living room.

Spike locks eyes with you, and up close, you can see that the depth of his concern is packed intensely within his downturned brow. You get as close as you can, checking him over for any injuries. A onceover doesn’t reveal any, but you can never be too careful.

“Spike, what happened? You look like you’re about to faint.”

“I am,” he struggles out between breaths. “I had to run all the way back here from Rarity’s.”

You frown; the Carousel Boutique isn’t exactly close to the library in terms of the town’s layout.

“Why? What’s going on?”

You can’t hide the growing pit in your stomach; your voice wavers ever so slightly at the apex of your sentence.

“You-”

He takes a second to catch his breath, leaning against the wall by the door as he does so.

“You should read this,” he says, shakily holding the letter out towards you. You quickly envelop it in your magic and bring it in front of you, unrolling the letter in the process.

Twilight,

Alarm bells immediately ring out in your head. In your years of tutelage, she’s only been this curt with you on three occasions, all of them about something grave.

Your presence is needed at Canterlot Castle. Due to the time-sensitive nature of the situation, I believe it best to explain everything once you arrive. For now, know that Anonymous may be in danger.

Wh-

What?

I’ve sent a personal carriage for both you and Spike that should arrive within an hour or so. Bring overnight necessities; it will be late when you arrive, and presently, I do not know how long you will be here. Stay safe, both of you.

Your faithful teacher,
Princess Celestia

…

Your blood runs cold.

You don’t-

He…

What?

He was… just here.

What happened to him? Did he make it to Canterlot? No, no, if he… if he somehow-

No, no, no, you just got him back. He was just here, and-

…and these runaway thoughts aren’t getting you anywhere.

Hold it together, Twilight. Focus on the things you can control.

You re-roll the scroll and set it on a nearby table, taking a deep breath and shutting your eyes as you do so. No time for speculation; root yourself in the here and now, just like she taught you. Another deep breath enters your lungs as you open your eyes.

You can do this.

You turn back to Spike, standing at the ready now that he’s regained relative control of his lungs.

“Let’s get our things packed. Only the essentials this time, alright?”

Your voice still comes out a bit shaky, but you have no time to worry about delivery. He nods and runs off to your bedroom, wood steps creaking the whole way up. You almost trot up after him, but the open door to Anon’s room catches your attention. Even though it’s your home, it feels rude to just leave it open like that, his business visible to the world.

You head over and make to shut the door, but stop midway as you glance inside. The bed is made, but the sheets are ruffled just a bit. Just as well, his suitcase lay open, clothes within lightly messed with as if he had pulled today’s outfit right from the top layer. The light from outside is dulled as it’s parsed by the closed curtains, the room resting sleepily without its owner.

If you can help it, it’s not going to stay like this.

Gathering your inner resolve, you gently shut the door, the click of the latch ringing throughout the living room. As you trot upstairs to get your things ready, you try to channel your mentor and save the what-ifs for another, more appropriate time.

Toothbrush, shampoo, soap, hairbrush, Spike’s deodorant, an emergency book… Everything looks like it’s in order.

From across the room, three solid knocks ring out from the front door, yanking you from your troubled thoughts. You disembark from the couch, Spike following close behind, as you let your saddlebags slip over your withers. Trotting over to the door, you briskly open it with a brief flash of your magic.

Beyond the threshold stands a pegasus donning the traditional Royal Guard armor, eyes steely and serious as he looks you over. The sun dipping below the horizon in the distance makes it a bit hard to maintain eye contact with him without burning your retinas.

“Miss Sparkle?” he inquires stoically, befitting most of the guard’s you’ve known in your life.

“Yes, that’s me.”

You try your best to sound cordial, but it falls flat given the circumstances. The words come out rushed, and a tad exasperated.

“Your transport is waiting for you outside,” he explains flatly. “Are you both prepared to board?”

“We are.” You look over to Spike, who nods at both you and the guard, before facing him again yourself.

The guard nods, then steps aside to let you through, holding a hoof out toward the idle carriage and its team of pegasi guards.

“Right this way, then.”

You oblige him, heading over to the ornately decorated vehicle and hopping inside without delay. Were it not for the dire situation, there’d be quite a bit of fanfare from you about riding in Celestia’s personal carriage again.

Alas, fate conspires otherwise.

Once you and Spike are comfortably nestled inside, the pegasus who greeted you closes the door of the carriage and addresses you once more.

“Weather permitting, the trip will take about an hour and fifteen minutes. We’ll initiate takeoff in just a moment, ma’am.”

“Thank you.”

The guard bows slightly before moving to rejoin the rest of his flying team, all talking amongst themselves. You lean into your seat for a moment, closing your eyes as the back of your head hits the velvety cushion behind you. As good as you think you’re handling the overall stress, this is the part of the process you were dreading since the moment you read the letter.

The wait.

For a little over an hour, you won’t have anything to do but speculate, hypothesize, and worry your head off. Maybe it’s good to get it all out now, as opposed to bottling it up until you reach the princess? Agh, but then it might spiral out of control, and by the time you’d arrive, you’d be a few steps away from a blubbering mess.

“Are you okay, Twilight?”

Spike’s question stops you from getting too carried away with your thoughts. You turn, and he’s looking up at you, his expression clearly conveying his own inner battle to remain level-headed. The last thing you would want to do is feed into that.

“I’m alright, Spike. Just… staying level headed, you know?”

“Yeah, I understand.”

You look out of the other side of the cabin at the passing ponies in the street. Some steal glances at you and the carriage. Some gawk openly, wide-eyed with the realization of whose chariot this is. Others, still, mind their business as they go about their ordinary day. You wish Anon was one of them.

“What do you think happened?” Spike chimes in softly, bringing your attention back to him.

Your gaze drifts away for a moment. What happened, indeed…

“If Princess Celestia herself is telling us about it, I can’t even begin to venture a guess.”

You sigh deeply, attempting to expel some of the nerves keeping you riled up.

“Whatever it was, I just hope he’s okay.”

Hooooooly fucking shit, your head is pounding. Good god, that is not pleasant.

The numbness in your body slowly gives way to an unbelievably intense ringing in your right arm, as well as the throbbing sting of cuts and bruises littered… well, judging from the pain, everywhere.

The rest of your senses start to come back online one at a time, delayed no doubt by the sorry state you’re in. Wherever you are smells burnt, and that’s putting it lightly. It’s as if you huffed a bag full of glowing cinders from a trash fire.

…Oh, fuck, is wherever you are on fire?

When your touch returns, it replies a resounding ‘no;’ it’s decidedly warmer where you’re laying, yes, but it’s not on fire. Taste creeps in, and suddenly, you’ve got a figurative mouthful of iron and saliva. You spit, and it clears up just a bit. Luckily, you don’t feel any loose teeth or gaps where one is supposed to be, so you’re probably fine in that regard.

All you can hear is steam, the sound of wood settling against its will, and a far-off pair of voices that you can’t quite make out yet. At last, your eyes come open, and you’re greeting a face full of felt seating.

You go to sit yourself up, but are met with a vicious series of aches and pains radiating from various locations on your body, stopping you midway. Your arm is still ringing, but it’s not in any special kind of pain; more than likely, you just hit a nerve extra hard or something. You don’t know, you’re not a doctor.

Instead of getting up all the way, you shift your torso slightly to face away from the seat. You’re greeted by the once-beautiful train car you were riding in, now tilted at an odd angle and in ruins, everyone’s luggage strewn about the cabin. A glance downward reveals that you’re laying on the floor in the aisle, textured walkway digging into your ribs, which protest the obstruction fervently.

Summoning all of your strength with a strained groan, you fight against the aching pains and sit yourself up, shifting some glass around on the floor as you do so.

A look down at yourself, palms held up to your face, reveals that whatever the hell happened roughed you up quite a bit. Your clothes actually took a good bit of the damage, but they’re utterly filthy now; all you feel underneath is undoubtedly a good bit of bruising. You’ve got a decent cut on your left hand, but it’ll be fine for now. Nothing that some medicine and a bandage won’t fix.

Content that you’re mostly alright, you realize something that should’ve been glaringly obvious from the moment you opened your eyes.

All of the passengers are gone.

Before you can even begin to try to wrap your head around that, the two voices from earlier steadily rise above the ambience of the ruined train, leveling out as barely audible.

“…give me, Grand Vizier! The arcane circles we weaved should have been enough to cover the entire distance!” The first voice - a young male, most likely - is panicked, almost frantic in tone.

“Cease your obsequious groveling, child. We are here now because of your oversight, and must deal with the hand that fate has dealt us.” A soft, older male’s voice quickly cuts the first off, impatience dripping from every word spoken.

“How far are we from the Mecca?”

“W-well, since most of the teleportation circle activated, we should be within… f-five miles, give or take a few.”

Hold on, are these the people you saw outside of the train when all hell was breaking loose?

“Is your locator attuned to the outpost?” Another voice chimes in, this one female, maybe middle aged.

“Y-yes, your Grace. The attunement was a simple matter.”

“As simple as the teleportation circle?”

“M-m-much simpler, your G-Grace!”

Silence follows; these definitely sound like people who would kidnap a fucking train.

What do you do, though? Do you sit here and wait for them to leave, or what? You’re not charging out there. If they plucked a whole train away to god-knows-where, who knows what other kinds of freaky shit they could do?

“Still,” the female voice continues, “despite this setback, we are fortunate enough to have intercepted our quarry all the same.”

“Indeed, your Grace,” the older male agrees. “Our benefactor will be pleased.”

Yeah, fuck this, you’re grabbing something you can swing just in case.

As quietly as you can, you shimmy along the floor, avoiding the windows as you pick through the various debris and belongings for anything even slightly resembling a weapon. From underneath a loose coat, you spot a broken-off piece of the steel railing from the wall. It’s not much, but it’s something.

You try to take it as silently as possible, but when you do, a hidden suitcase that was dependent on its support clatters loudly onto its side.

“It seems you’ve missed a passenger or two, Virtue,” the older voice scolds.

“My apologies, Grand Vizier… I could have sworn that was all of them. I’ll go look again to make sure!”

Fuck’s sake, you’re doomed.

Unless…

Wait, no, this could actually work to your advantage.

If you can get the jump on the suck-up and give him a good one right in the head, you might be able to use him as leverage against the other two. That, or they could just fry the both of you. They didn’t seem to care too much about the guy.

…

Oh, to hell with it, you’re not about to have their figurative boot on your neck. In for a penny, in for a pound.

You shimmy on your knees closer to the open train door, stopping just shy of revealing yourself and readying your makeshift club for the hardest swing of your life.

Oh, wow, you’re trembling pretty hard.

Okay, you’re… actually afraid.

You could actually die here if you mess this up.

Nerves be damned, you steady your breathing and focus on what you can control. That, of course, being the arc and power of your swing. You can hear him drawing closer; the pace of the gait can only mean he’s a quadruped. The arm holding the club adjusts accordingly for his anticipated height.

The steps draw closer.

You think of your friends back home. Of the sisters, of Spike, of Twilight…

Closer still.

You wish they were here.

Closer.

Your breathing stops.

Right outside.

Your grip tightens; you rear back.

The steps culminate as the assailant steps through…

…the next door over.

Huh. Guess the echo in here is bad.

You get a brief look at him; unicorn, sky blue coat, light blonde mane. Covered in what looks like ceremony robes. That’s all you get to take in, though, before he notices you crouched up against the wall, yelps, and blasts you with something that hits you square in the chest. You shout, too, but there’s no pain; fearing the worst, you look down at yourself once more.

There’s… no wound.

You’d breathe a sigh of relief, but you’re feeling rather tired all of a sudden.

Actually, you’re downright exhausted. If you could just… maybe…

The metal railing clatters back to the floor, sleep taking you before you can even finish falling over.

9 - Guidelight

The sudden lurch of the carriage beginning its descent rips your focus from its fixed point in the starry horizon.

You press your side against the firmly locked door and look out at the mountain below. The three vertically ordered ringed districts of the city are bustling with life and light, and even from your windy vantage point, you can just barely see the ponies below going about their lofty business. From here, you can actually point out the business district, sprouting out from the left edges of the middle district.

So that’s where Anon lived! You find it strange how you never visited him up here. He never really invited anypony to his house, always opting to come home any time he wanted to see any of you.

The ghost of pain spreads through every vein in your chest as the memories bring you right back around to the current situation. Just as quickly as it comes, though, you banish it to the depths of your mind.

Focus, Twilight. Right now, act on facts, not emotions.

Your resolve renewed, you cast a glance at Spike, who seems to be echoing you if his tepid, lingering gaze forward is anything to go by.

“Are you alright, Spike?”

“Huh?” he says, startled into his usual demeanor. “Yeah, I’m good. Just… hanging in there.”

You give him a reassuring smile. Both of you know it’s forced, but he seems to appreciate the gesture nonetheless, flashing his own grin back at you.

“Just a little bit further and we’ll work on getting him back home.”

“I know,” he replies, seemingly not swayed by your words of encouragement. “I just… I can’t stop worrying. Something about this feels weird, Twilight.”

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel the same. Unsure of what to say, you scooch closer to him, reaching your hoof out for a hug. He readily accepts it, and as he sinks into your embrace, you bring your other hoof around him for comfort. Some possibilities for what you could say swell within you, and a few even reach the precipice of forming words, but in the end, you aren’t really sure what to say to comfort him without sounding like you’re deflecting, or telling him to suck it up, or dismissing his concerns altogether.

So, in place of that, you stay silent.

“You know what I mean?” he asks, breaking the hug a bit to look up at you.

You nod.

“We’ll get him back in no time, Spike. You’ll see.”

How long will you regurgitate that before it becomes reality, you wonder?

Silencing your inner detractor, you take another quick glance out of the carriage. Oddly enough, it doesn’t look like you’re being taken to the usual landing area just inside the castle’s main gates; if you were, the guard retinue would be coming in from the side of the castle onward. Instead, you see canterlot start to disappear underneath the carriage as they look to circle around the castle.

A frown takes hold of your brow; you don’t remember there being any landing zones on the backside of the mountain. Sure, there are the peak’s springs just past the castle, but there isn’t much room to land there for a carriage this size. Where are they taking you…?

That anxiety you’ve been forcing a lid on threatens to bubble over as hundreds of different scenarios and reasonings flash through your head, each one cut off as the next one starts. They’re amplified by an untold amount when you lean over and see that your carriage has started heading straight for a rock face just beyond the lowest point of the castle. For a moment, you think your fliers are just maneuvering for a turn, but when they hold their line, you start panicking.

You practically throw your head out of the window, eyeing the guards out front.

“What’re you doing?!” you yell, catching the attention of the left rearmost pegasus.

“Going in for a landing, ma’am,” the guard replies, the sheer audacity of his apparent confusion astounding you.

“We’re about to hit the cliff face, not land!”

His confusion deepens for a second before it’s wiped away in favor of a smirk.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” he says, something conniving hidden within his reassurance. “There’s nothing to worry ab-”

“Private, explain what’s happening to her or the whole team gets fifty poles,” the surly stallion from earlier says from somewhere within their formation.

The private’s cocky smirk instantly makes way for stone-faced terror as he glances quickly back at his superior before returning to you.

“The platform is obscured by an illusion spell’s area of effect. When we get close enough, you’ll be able to see it clear as day.”

Even though that was supposed to lessen your nerves, your hoof still grips your seat with a force only black holes could rival. From where you are, it still looks like you’re about thirty seconds out from a direct impact with the mountain.

Deep breaths, Twilight.

“T-Thank you.”

“Of course, ma’am,” the private replies, voice now laden with professionalism. You slide back into your seat, still high-strung.

“Uh, Twilight?” Spike chimes in from beside you, leaning out of his own window. “Why are we-”

“Illusion field, we’ll pass through it any second now.”

The sentence comes out at a speed you didn’t quite intend, betraying your anxiety.

“S-sorry, it's just- it’s really convincing.”

He chuckles half-heartedly, clearly uncomfortable with the oncoming rock face as well. Even informed, you yank Spike from his spot and hold him as close as you can, eyes shut tight as you draw ever-nearer. Come to think of it, this is like one of those roller coaster rides in Manehattan, but with a much more heightened sense of imminent doom. In all honesty, you can’t say you’d recommend it to anypony.

A few moments later, though, you feel an unmistakable gust of magic rush past you, a cold wind grazing over your fur for a split second.

You just barely lift your left eye open.

In front of you, what once was nothing but crags of rock is now a runway going all the way into the mountainside. Looking back at where you came from, you see the night sky as if it were shards of dotted black glass, all mirroring each other ad infinitum. You’ve tried illusory magic before, but you’ve never quite been able to get the hang of it beyond the basics. Whoever cast a field of this size and detail was either seriously talented or had been studying the art for decades. Either way, it’s an impressive feat.

You’re ever so slightly jolted by the sensation of a smooth landing, and as your team of fliers begins to slow on the runway, you take in the strangeness of the hidden enclave. The walls and ceiling are all simply the jagged innards of the mountain itself, dotted abundantly with glowing stone to provide a fair amount of light to work under. The floor is a solid slab of what looks to be concrete, the runway underneath you marked by solid white lines going all the way to the end of the cave.

Something that surprises you is just how spacious the area is; from the outside, it looks relatively cramped, but now that you’re here, it’s like you’re in the middle of a smaller-sized warehouse. That wouldn’t be an entirely apt name for it, though; there are copious amounts of carriages and other modes of transportation uniformly placed around the rearmost wall, most of them appearing to be outfitted for battle.

This is no ordinary takeoff platform - this is a war hangar.

Thankfully, there aren’t that many ponies in here working. If it were busier, you’d be much more worried.

Eventually, your carriage comes to a stop, and your entourage shucks their flight reins. Before you can even think about stepping out, the officer leading them comes around to your side and opens the door for you.

“Follow me, miss Sparkle,” he says, making room for you to disembark. “We’re right on schedule.”

Spike joining you at your side, you match the guard’s brisk pace as he leads you toward the back left side of the hangar. The halls leading out of the giant room look like they’ve also been carved out of the mountain; as you walk through them, the only decor you can spot are torches periodically placed to grant some usable lighting. It smells slightly damp, as if the outside weather had never reached this far inward.

As you’re following along, a question for the guard gnaws at you.

“Was there a reason why Princess Celestia chose to have us enter this way? I’ve never seen these passages of the castle before.”

“She’ll fill you in on everything once we reach her,” he stonewalls, just as curt with you as he was with the private. As much as his dismissal irks you, you suppose you understand. He’s more than likely been sworn to secrecy.

Before long, the hallway culminates, smooth stone impeding your progress. Just before the dead end is a small gap on the left side, large enough to hold several ponies.

“One moment,” the guard says, pulling a pendant from an indentation in his chest plate.

He heads over to the wall and feels around with his wing for a second, grunting a tad when he finds something that you can’t quite see in the dim lighting. With his hoof, he centers his hoof over where his wing is, and replaces his outstretched feather tips with the pendant. Blue lines of magic pulse outward in intricate patterns, overlapping each other repeatedly until the image of a sun forms, its light overpowering that of the torches.

The guard retracts the pendant and steps back a few paces, resituating the pendant on his armor. A resounding clunk rings out from the door as it begins to slide backwards, filling the gaps that were there before. You take a step back yourself, even though you’re already far enough away.

A surprisingly loud scraping of stone-on-stone fills the air as the wall slides open, revealing the dimly lit restricted area of the royal library. The air within rushes to fill the hallway, the familiar scent of old books wafting into your nostrils.

Your jaw drops. You had always assumed the off-limits area was for forbidden tomes, dangerous literary artifacts, and the like.

...okay, maybe that's still its primary purpose, but your point stands.

How long has this passage been here? A question for later, you suppose, since the guard isn’t exactly one for stunning revelations.

“Right this way,” he gently orders.

He opts to let you and Spike pass through first, holding a hoof out toward the library as if to hurry you both along. You oblige, stepping through the threshold and gawking at the shelves around you, this being your first time in this all-but-fabled section of the library.

Most of the books are nameless, but a few titles here and there catch your eye. On the Manipulation of Spirits, An Anarchist’s Elixirs, The Grimoire of Shadows… it’s about what you expected, honestly.

Now’s no time to be distracted, though - not with things as they are.

As the guard follows after you, the wall behind him begins to close once more, revealing a bookshelf on its inward face. Curiously enough, as it scrapes along just like before, it eerily makes no sound at all from this side. A few moments later, the false wall settles back into its natural state, no visible trace of the doorway remaining.

An aural cancellation spell for the library side of the entrance makes sense. It would probably wake up half of the castle, otherwise.

The guard continues on as you follow his lead.

“The Princess is in her private study,” he informs you, voice low despite nopony else being around to overhear him. “I’ll escort you there.”

“Oh, you’re okay. We know our way around the castle.”

He turns to you, his stern gaze leveling your confidence.

“She ordered that I accompany you.”

Okay, that makes you nervous.

“O-Okay. Lead the way, then.”

Your forced giggle comes out as more of an uneasy whine than anything. The three of you are silent as you begin your walk through the torchlit halls of the castle.

You remember being afraid of these ornate passages at night when you were a filly. Something about the way the shadows lengthened whenever you weren’t looking, only to stop whenever you would hold them under your gaze. Tricks of your young mind, of course. Over time, the castle was a second home to you, irrespective of the state it was in.

Tonight, as you move from hallway to hallway, that filly you used to be makes herself known quite strongly. The anxiety’s origin differs, but the end result is the same disquieting feeling from all those years ago.

It’s one that you manage to quell, though, and as you draw nearer to your mentor’s dwelling, you can feel it fading. The mere knowledge of her presence is enough to assure you that everything will be okay, that things will be solved as soon as you join her side - that peace that she always seems to bathe the room in.

It takes some time, but eventually, the three of you find yourselves outside of her office. The hallway it’s housed in has no torchlight to speak of; rather, the windows cast a sufficient amount of dim, blue moonlight inward, providing more than enough illumination to be able to see.

From under the door adorned with her cutie mark, you can see the faint glow of candlelight, its glow just barely reaching through from what must be her desk. The guard makes his way over, his armor clunking softly as it shifts along his back. The three knocks of his hoof upon the wooden door reverberate a bit in the otherwise soundless hallway.

“Your Majesty?” he calls out, his tone softening a tad when addressing her. “Miss Sparkle and her companion are here.”

There’s no response at first, but after a few seconds, you hear the muffled, yet unmistakable swish of a horn coming alight with magic. It’s active for a few moments before the handle of the door is awash in her pastel yellow aura. The door is pulled open, and a wide grin - as bright as the situation allows - finds its way onto your face.

Ever the image of grace, your mentor returns a smile that is untethered by circumstance; if you were to judge by appearances alone, you might say nothing has even happened. If you look closely, though, minor tells can be found.

The ethereal wind in her hair isn’t quite as active, each wave passing by a fair bit slower than they usually do. Her posture is upright, but she’s leaning almost imperceptibly more to one side than the other; she’s been on her hooves all day.

Even her expression, as perfectly constructed as it is, isn’t safe from your scrutiny. Her eyelids are just a bit too taut for this to be genuine, unabated happiness to see you - she’s stressed, and far more than usual at that. Had you known her for a day shorter than you do now, you suspect you would never have picked up on any of these. Those books on reading expressions from a few years back helped, too, but still.

“Thank you,” she says warmly, bowing her head to him as he salutes her.

“My pleasure, ma’am,” he replies, ending his salute. “Is there anything else you need from me?”

“Not presently, no - I have everything taken care of from here. You may rest for tonight, Captain Vigil.”

The captain ends his salute, flashing a quick, yet grateful smile at his commander.

“Thank you, ma’am. Have a good rest of your night.”

“You as well.”

With one last nod from the captain, he turns and leaves the same way you arrived, armor clicking even as he moves out of your line of sight.

“I can’t begin to tell you how good it is to have you both here,” Celestia says with an exhale. “Today has been eventful, to say the least.”

She leans down to nuzzle you, which you wholeheartedly return.

“It’s good to see you too, Princess.” You retreat from the embrace, eager to get to the heart of the matter. “What happened? S-sorry, not to jump right into business, it’s just - we’re really worried.”

“There’s no need to apologize, Twilight,” she replies, her grin diminishing a bit. “I understand. I only wish your visit were under better circumstances.”

She gestures to the inside of her study with a hoof. You and Spike oblige, heading in side by side.

It looks like Celestia’s redecorated since the last time you’ve been here. The bookshelves line the left hoof side of the room now. Usually, there would be one or two missing due to your mentor’s nightly leisure reading, but they’re all present and accounted for tonight. She’s moved most of her knick-knacks and memorabilia to the right side, all placed on various shelves and displays, whereas before they were on pedestals.

Immediately out in front of the desk are a few leisure cushions strewn about on the floor, no doubt for when she has time to take a break from whatever’s going on. Though undoubtedly spacious, the room in its current state seems much cozier than it used to; it’s certainly earned its name as a study, rather than an office masquerading as one. Apart from her desk, of course, which boasts a ridiculously high stack of scrolls in the intake basket, with comparatively little in the outgoing one. Her hot plate for tea is on it as well, a steaming cup on an elegantly designed coaster next to it.

“Make yourselves at home,” she says as she closes the door behind her, making her way over to her desk. “I can pour you some tea, if either of you would enjoy it.”

“Would you mind if I had some?” Spike asks, taking a seat on one of the cushions.

“Of course not.” Her smile returns to its full force as she grabs the kettle atop of the plate with her magic, pulling a mug from one of the drawers of her desk as well.

“Coincidentally, I just so happen to have brewed some chamomile, which I’m told you’ve acquired a particularly strong taste for.”

“Heh, guilty as charged, Your Highness.”

His tea poured, she hovers it over to him. He grabs it out of the air by the handle and blows on the steaming beverage.

“Would you like some as well, Twilight?” Celestia asks, the kettle still held in her aura.

“I’m okay for now, but thank you. I don’t want to be too reliant on tea to put me to sleep.”

You remove your saddlebags with your magic, wresting a notepad and fountain pen from the depths of the leftmost one.

“I brought some scratch scrolls along with me so that I can visually map out the situation. W-Whenever you’re ready, of course! I don’t want to rush you.”

Celestia doesn’t respond right away; nodding with a gentle hum, she departs from behind her desk and moves to sit on one of the cushions, directly across from you and Spike. You take a seat as well.

“I apologize if it seems like I’m being dismissive of your concerns,” she begins. “Today has been extraordinarily stressful, so I try to lighten the mood whenever I can.”

She breathes deeply.

“But we can save that for another time. For now, we’ll attend to the situation at hoof. Are you ready to begin, Twilight?”

You hover the pen over the parchment.

“I’m ready, Princess.”

She nods, her smile disappearing.

“A train - one of many under the Friendship Express railway company - was expected to arrive in Canterlot today around noon, with a leniency of five minutes of delay at the most.”

That’s the train that Anon boarded - the timing matches up exactly. You scribble away, underlining important details.

“At around ten minutes past its expected arrival, Canterlot Station sent out an inquiry to the station in Ponyville, formally asking if the train had departed later than scheduled. Ponyville replied that it had left as planned, and an investigation was launched roughly two hours after the first correspondence, thanks to their specialty mail services.”

“Sheesh,” interjects Spike. “Maybe the rail offices should’ve hired a letter-sending dragon.”

“If only,” Celestia replies dryly, the ghost of a smirk on her lips.

“The investigation itself was much quicker, however. Two Pegasi survey teams from both stations were sent out to comb the railway from their end onwards, both of them intending to meet in the middle and exchange any findings.”

A short silence follows, in which Celestia takes a sip of her own tea.

“A-and that’s… not what happened?”

She replies with a gentle shake of her head as she sets her cup back down.

“Both teams convened about six miles before the railway started heading up the mountain. They found the wreckage of the train there, most of its cars derailed and strewn about the surrounding area.”

Your pen stops; your fears weren’t misplaced.

“Was, um…” Your voice is meek as it leaves you.

You swallow hard.

“Anon was on that train, right?”

Your mentor nods solemnly.

“He was among its list of passengers, yes.”

You frown; the specificity of her wording piques your curiosity. Still, you let her continue, opting to have the full picture of events before firing off your myriad of questions.

“Needless to say, both survey teams stayed with the survivors to assist in whatever way they could, save for two pegasi they sent back to each station to report what they had found.”

She pauses; a deep sigh escapes her nostrils, accompanied by a deepening frown, gaze pointed at the floor.

“There were a few casualties. Given the state that the train was in, though, I… suppose that was to be expected.”

Your heart sinks.

No, no, no, no, he can’t-

You practically explode out of your seat, pen sent clattering to the floor as your aura’s grip on it releases, on all four hooves before anypony can even blink.

“Is Anon okay!?”

Spike recoils next to you, surprised by your outburst. Celestia appears surprised as well, but maintains her calm composure.

“He wasn’t there.”

…

What?

“W-what do you mean?”

She looks away for a second, more than likely contemplating how to proceed.

“I suppose I should start with when I found out about the incident,” she began again, her attention fully on you. “When word of what happened reached me, I canceled the rest of today’s schedule and accompanied several relief teams to the crash site. Seeing what had happened to those innocent little ponies, it was…”

Her face strains as she looks away for a brief second; an uneven sigh escapes her, and she focuses on you once more.

“In any case, once I had found out that Anonymous was on the train, I scoured the wreckage for any sign of him, but he wasn’t there. A vastly expanded search with investigation teams yielded nothing, either; it was as if he was never there to begin with.”

…That doesn’t-

“As the last of the survivors were being transported to the nearest hospital, one approached me and told me his account of what had happened. According to him, the train had been wrenched from the tracks by something - he couldn’t see what - and bathed in a strange red light.”

“After a few moments of being hoisted high into the air, the light suddenly vanished, and the train was dropped from its suspension. Eventually, he came to, and after checking himself and others for injuries, he noticed that the two cabins behind the one he was riding in had vanished - the first of which housed Anon, according to Ponyville Station’s passenger documents.”

He vanished along with the train car…?

“Hearing this, I traveled back to where the train had initially been lifted to see if I could find anything else of note. It took some time, but I eventually found a runic circle, its etchings carved into the ground around the tracks, barely visible even to a trained eye.”

Celestia stands and begins conjuring an image with her magic. In front of you, cast in her golden glow, lies her vivid recreation of the circle, scaled down to fit in the space in front of you. If memory serves you right, this looks like it’s geared for large-scale teleportation, which would align with that survivor’s testimony. The ringed inscriptions do form a complete band, but…

“There are some components missing.”

Pride briefly colors your mentor’s features.

“A keen observation, Twilight. Which components?”

Let’s see here…

“It looks like the runic equation for distance, direction, and elevation are all absent. If I’m reading it correctly, it looks like the catalyst rune is missing, too.”

Celestia nods her head, dispelling the projection.

“Exactly. Everything that could have been used to identify the destination of the train or the source of the magic was expunged - only the circle’s basic construction remains.”

A deaf pony could hear the gears turning in your head.

“S-so…”

Celestia meets you in the middle with a steely, serious gaze.

“The train was attacked by somepony.”

Your mouth opens, but no words leave; they’re all caught by the lump in your throat. You were ready for bad news, but to think the situation surrounding him was this dire…

“What’s more,” she continues, “I believe I know who their intended target was.”

“Who?” you manage to choke out, throat still tight.

“Sitting one car behind him - the only other one that was taken - was the young heiress to the throne of Griffonia.”

Bewilderment throws itself atop your already-boiling pot of emotions.

“What was she doing in Equestria…?”

“We don’t know yet,” Celestia replies. “I sent word of what’s happened to the royal family of Griffonia, but haven’t gotten a reply. Given the distance between our nations, it might take a few days for us to receive one.”

She walks around to the other side of her desk, taking a seat and pouring herself some more tea.

“Hence why I chose to have you both enter through the hangar. Whoever did this, they conducted this skullduggery mere miles from the capital of Equestria; I cannot afford to risk your wellbeing. If their list of targets extends to you, I would much rather have you close by.”

Y-You!?

“W-w-why would they target me?”

Celestia looks confused for a moment, but realizes her misstep quickly.

“I’m sorry,” she soothingly reassures you. “I didn’t mean to startle you - it’s simply a precaution. Right now, there are too many unknowns to draw any conclusions for certain. I would simply like to keep those I care about as close as possible.”

Oh. Okay, you suppose that does make sense. Goodness… you were a few seconds from fainting, you think.

“In that case, can you bring my friends here, too? I know they’re probably not in danger, but with everything going on, I just… don’t feel good about leaving them in Ponyville.”

“Of course, Twilight. I’ll send a carriage for them as soon as I raise the sun tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Princess.”

Smiling, she nods at you with a gentle hum before continuing to rummage through her paperwork.

And so, the room enters silence once more. Looking over at Spike, you can almost feel his dejected anxiety from where you’re standing.

“W-what…” he stammers out, taking a few moments to compose himself before continuing. “What can we do to help? We can’t just sit around while he’s out there somewhere!”

Is there even anything you can do to help right now? You’ve faced down evil before, sure, but nothing like this. Discord, Nightmare Moon, Sombra… all boisterous, present, and easy to understand. These ponies? You don’t even know their name yet.

“Actually,” Celestia replies, looking up from her paperwork. “That’s another reason why I’ve called you both here.”

“Tomorrow, I’m going to be sending out the Arcane Board’s top magic scholars and analysts to study the teleportation circle we found earlier, myself and Luna accompanying. I’d like it if you joined us in the endeavor.”

Had the circumstances been different, you’d be awed… no, floored at the opportunity to collaborate with some of the greatest living minds in Equestria. Now, though, all you feel is cold, focused determination.

“I’ll go. I just hope that my input will be valuable to everypony.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Celestia replies with a slight frown, “Your observations will hold just as much weight as theirs, I assure you.”

Hearing that from her puts a smile on your face despite the circumstances. Still, though…

“Celestia?”

“Yes?”

“He’s going to be okay, right?”

The sentence leaves you as it would that little filly from so long ago; full of uncertainty, all hinging on the promise of an elder.

Celestia doesn’t falter, not even for a second.

“Of course, Twilight. No matter what, he’s coming home.”

Even though the rational part of your mind knows that there’s no way she can guarantee that, your faith in her overcomes its foregone conclusion. It doesn’t assuage your fears fully, but it’s enough for you to finally be able to let your guard down. When you do, it becomes strikingly apparent just how exhausted you are; with one or two deep breaths, you’re already laying back down on the leisure pad.

“Feeling tired?” Celestia asks, again focused fully on both you and Spike.

“More than I thought I was, evidently.” You trail into a yawn at the end of your sentence, one that Spike shares as he stretches out.

“I’m getting there, but this is a lot to take in,” he chimes in once his yawn is over.

“In that case,” Celestia replies, “why don’t you two get some rest? The investigation will start early tomorrow, so you’ll need as much sleep as you can get.”

As much as your mind still races, your body demands its nightly stillness.

“That sounds…”

Another yawn.

“…really nice right about now.”

“Splendid. I’ve prepared the ambassador suite down the hall from my quarters for the both of you.”

Your eyebrows shoot up despite your fatigue.

“The ambassador suite? Princess, you didn’t have to do that just for us.”

“I insist. Like I said - the closer, the better.”

You giggle to yourself.

“In that case, I think I’m going to go lie down. Today was… a lot.”

Celestia nods. She flicks her eyes across you, more than likely judging her fatigue for herself as you wearily rise to your hooves.

“I’m afraid it’s only going to get more complicated as we proceed, my dear pupil.”

She catches herself before she can make you further anxious.

“Ah, but we have more than enough time for that in the morning. For now, you needn’t worry; I’ve instructed for there to be a posting of guards outside the door to your room at all times, so that you may rest unburdened.”

Your smile spreads from ear to ear. The amount of gratitude that you feel for her is immense.

“Aren’t you going to bed, too?” Spike asks.

“Not yet, I’m afraid,” Celestia replies, sifting through a heft stack of paper before plucking one out of the middle. “I still have some paperwork to finish. By all accounts, don’t wait on me - I hope you have a wonderful night’s rest.”

“I’ll give it my best,” Spike jokes, to which both of them giggle.

She grins at you two, and you return your beaming smile right back.

“Goodnight, Princess.”

“Sweet dreams, Twilight.”

You resituate your saddlebags across your shoulders, and with a final wave, you and Spike depart for your bedroom. You may have only just arrived, but at least for tonight, rest will come easy.

Author's Note

Lots of talking this chapter. Dialogue is hard. :trixieshiftleft:

11 - The Search Begins

“…were this not the case, Bright Eyes’s theorem might have held far less credence with the Arcana Communitas. Thankfully, though, his steadfast dedication to the truth ensured that he…”

The golden threads of early sunlight lilting through the curtains make your book’s passages seem far more grand than they actually are. Though you’ve read these specific words time and time again in your pursuit of knowledge, today, they’re nothing more than fitting distractions, pulling your attention away from the heady task you’ve been entrusted with.

You wipe the sleep dust from your eyes with an unsteady hoof, taking a deep breath to gather whatever energy you’re hanging onto right now. A deep, arcing yawn arises from the depths of your chest, a shiver running through your body as it reaches its zenith. Rest came easy last night, but it had a hard time staying easy.

You woke up several times throughout the night, sleep becoming harder to return to with every stint of consciousness. It didn’t help that, every time you would wake up, you’d think about everything that was happening.

Eventually, you gave up at around five in the morning, settling for a cup of coffee instead. Its miniscule boost of energy is very welcomed, but you can’t imagine it will carry you very far into the day. To lunch at best, you surmise.

A sigh escapes from deep within your lungs as you use your magic to slot a bookmark into your textbook. You can’t believe it, but reading is actually making your nerves worse.

The sudden opening of the bathroom door mercifully distracts you from the pit in your stomach. Turning your head in its direction, you see Spike meandering out into the room you’re in, followed by an almost comical amount of steam trailing behind him, the edges of which curl around him as he struts outward. Despite him having no hair to speak of, there’s a bright pink towel around his head, curled perfectly into the shape of a cone. The odd sight makes you smile for the first time since waking up.

“Good shower?”

He nods, placing one of his claws on the towel cone so it doesn’t tip over.

“Try amazing,” he replies with a contented sigh. “We need one of these water heaters back home.”

That gets you to giggle.

“On a librarian’s salary? I don’t think so, Spike.”

“Aw, come on! I’ll bet if I went gem hunting with Rarity for a week or two and saved up, we could totally afford it.”

“You’d have to bring home an awfully rare batch.”

It’s true - you had a glimpse at the castle’s expenses once when you were still a filly. Even without a solid grasp of finance at the time, you nearly fainted. Nevertheless, Spike appears undeterred.

“Okay, so gem hunting for a few months.”

“Miiiight be a year or two…”

His eyebrows shoot up.

“They’re really that expensive?”

“More than likely. This is Canterlot Castle we’re talking about, after all,” you explain, the sentence leaving you a bit more dismissive than you would’ve liked it to.

Thankfully, Spike either doesn’t notice, or takes it in stride.

“I guess you’re right. I mean, the shower at home is more comfy than this one, so…”

You hum in agreement, your mind elsewhere as you turn to look out the window.

“So, uh… are you ready for today?” Spike asks, his tone a great deal more subdued.

Your gaze remains affixed to some undefined point beyond the window, golden light painting your face in a hue of apprehension.

“I guess so. I didn’t get much sleep, so that’s going to be difficult to deal with…”

As if to accentuate your statement, you can almost feel the bags under your eyes become heavier.

“I can get some coffee going if you want?” Spike offers.

You shake your head, turning to look at him.

“I’m okay. If anything, being tired is… actually helping me keep it together, surprisingly.”

He nods - although he can’t relate, he seems to understand where you’re coming from.

“Well, that’s good, at least. You think we’ll be able to make some headway on figuring out where all those ponies were taken?”

Before you can cobble together what you think he might want to hear, three gentle knocks ring out from the front door of the room. Both you and Spike’s heads whip around to face the noise. You’re inwardly thankful for the intrusion - difficult conversations have never been your forte.

“Coming!” you call out, hopping off of the bed and onto your hooves.

Walking over to the door and peering through the peephole, the fish-eyed visage of your mentor greets you, and in spite of the circumstances, you have to suppress a giggle. With a flourish of your magic, you twist the handle and gently guide the door open, smiles worn happily as the barrier between the two of you glides away.

“Good morning, Princess!”

She bows her head slightly for a brief moment, as do you.

“Good morning, Twilight,” she greets you, a warm smile gracing her features. “Did the two of you sleep well?”

It was difficult to even put your head on the pillow.

“As well as we could, with what’s going on.”

Her expression, colored by ever-so-subtle dark circles, cracks just a tad upon hearing that, but it’s mostly unnoticeable.

“I suppose that’s all anypony can hope for right now,” she responds, accompanied with a sigh. “As always, if there’s anything I can do to alleviate some of your stress, let me know.”

At this point, internally, it feels like nothing may be able to do that. Hearing that from her, though…

You close the distance between the two of you and wrap her in a tight embrace - a gesture she seems to have planned for, going by how tightly she squeezes you in return. You sigh into her, releasing as much anxiety as you can into her embrace.

“Hugs are a good starting point.”

You feel her giggle against you as you both step down from each other.

“That they are, Twilight,” she responds with a renewed smile, her voice falling back into its soothing neutral. Did she need that as much as you did…?

Regardless, you’ve got a good guess as to why she’s here, and you’d rather not put it off.

“I’m guessing it’s almost time?”

She nods, her outwardly soothing demeanor making way for something more focused.

“That it is. Most members are already present in the conference hall, but the meeting won’t officially begin until I ordain it.”

Oh, shoot! You didn’t even realize you were running-

“Not to worry, though - you aren’t late by any stretch of the word.”

You release a breath that you didn’t know you were holding in. Judging from Celestia’s quick smirk, you must have worn your reactionary terror all over your face.

“That being said, the meeting does need to start soon, so that we can reserve most of the day for the investigation.”

You nod, using your magic to grab your saddlebags full of scratch paper from the coffee table where you had left it the night before.

“I think we’re ready. Right, Spike?”

As your bags come to rest over your withers, you cast your gaze backwards at him, and you catch him in the middle of throwing his head towel aside. It hits the floor before you can catch it in your aura, and your inner sense of cleanliness shrieks at the offense. Against years of habit, you staunch it for now.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he proclaims confidently. “Let’s do this.”

Celestia’s focused smile returns as she steps aside, allowing the two of you to exit the room. As you both cross the threshold, she shuts the door behind you, making sure to lock it. She begins making headway toward the conference hall, and you and Spike file in beside her for the brief trek.

“So, what can we expect when we get there?” Spike asks, looking up at her as he walks.

“Well, everypony is understandably a bit on edge,” Celestia explains, her expression falling a bit as she delves into business. “Some of them have been doing their own work outside of…”

Her account fades into dull noise. On any other day, under any other circumstances, you would’ve been the most attentive pony in the room. Now, though, Celestia’s voice has become the backdrop for reflection.

No, reflection isn’t right…

Inner turmoil is far more fitting, if you’re being honest with yourself.

Where was Anon taken? Is he hurt?

They better not have hurt him.

Was he able to get away from whoever took him? Who’s behind all of this? How could they do this to all of those innocent ponies?

You half-heartedly attempt to stop the storm of questions before it can spiral out of control, but nothing staunches the flow.

Impatience gnaws at you, propelling you forward. Even now, in the middle of the short walk over to the meeting, you find yourself wishing that you could just teleport in and get things going already. Every second that’s spent idling is critical to everypony that was on board those cars, and that’s without even factoring in that the heiress to Griffonia is one of the victims. And Anon…

…

It’s just…

It’s not fair.

You had him back home for all of a day, and then all this happened.

Your mind keeps trying to draw foregone conclusions, and you keep barely reigning yourself in before launching down the path of self-destruction.

You could have gone with him. Tartarus, you almost did. Part of you wishes you had, in spite of how dangerous it may have been. Maybe, if you had been there, you could’ve-

“Twilight?”

Your mentor’s voice stops you in your tracks, your head swiftly turning to the left to address her, only to find nopony there. With a frown, you look around, only to find that she and Spike are a good seven hooves behind you, confused and waiting at a set of closed double doors. Embarrassment quickly flushes your cheeks, a sheepish smile on your face.

“Oh! Um… s-sorry.”

You quickly rejoin them, a conversation from within the room audible even from the miniscule space between the door and the marble tile. Celestia hesitates for a moment, looking you over with a hint of concern in her otherwise neutral expression.

“Were you listening?” she asks, an eyebrow raised slightly.

For a moment, you’re struck by the compulsion to save face, but…

“…No. I’m sorry, Princess.”

The heat of shame burns your face as your eyes meet her hooves. It isn’t there for too long before one of them reaches out to your chin and gently raises it to meet her gaze.

“Twilight, if this is too much for you right now, I understand. You don’t have to push yourself, not for this.”

Her hoof finds ground once more, but you hold her worried stare.

“No, no, I can…”

You can do this.

“I can do this.”

You have to do this. You can’t just leave them out there! You can’t just leave him out there!

Her eyes pierce right through yours, looking somewhere deeper. In a twitch, you see several different, conflicting emotions fighting for dominance just underneath her brow.

“I know you can,” she reassuringly responds.

Sympathy colors her expression as her wing pulls you in for a light embrace, which you readily sink into as she continues.

“I want nothing less than his safe return, too, Twilight. And with you among our ranks, I genuinely believe that outcome is well within reach…”

She pulls back from the embrace but still holds you close, locking eyes with you again. The room is bathed in her resolve.

“…So I need you at your very best. Nothing less will do.”

Her call to action finds itself planted deeply within you, and from some indescribable place, you begin to shift, a single domino starting its top-heavy descent. Focus renewed, you begin to inwardly kick yourself for not getting control of yourself sooner, but even this self-criticism is staunched before it can fully form.

You are bathed in her resolve.

“I won’t let you down,” you reaffirm, the determination in your voice a surprise even to you.

She smiles down at you, stepping away from the embrace once more.

“I believe you, my dear student.”

Spike walks up to you and pats you on the side, giving you a wink.

“Plus, you’ve got me! You need some scales to lean on, I’ve got ya.”

You giggle a bit at that. How could you ever forget your little brother?

“Count myself and Luna among your support group as well,” Celestia adds, shuffling her wings a bit. “You’ll be accompanying us for most of the day as we oversee each team. If you ever need anything, we’ll be a wing away.”

Your heart warms at the confidence they have in you. While you’re still undoubtedly riddled with uncertainty, for now, your focus feels unclouded and directed.

“…One last hug?” you bashfully ask. “A group one, preferably.”

They laugh as you reach out to both of them, and they happily reciprocate. After you all step down from one another for the final time, you take a deep breath.

As Celestia opens the door to the meeting room, your thoughts fall back to something that Anon used to repeat to himself when he was stressed, or had a lot of work.

Focus, plan, execute.

…You can do that.

The cold of the room rushes out into the hall to meet you, moving the bangs of your mane just a tad to the left. A quick puff of air upward fixes it. Can’t look odd in front of Equestria’s highest officials on magic, can you?

You’re actually quite put off by just how chilly it seems to be in the meeting room. Not in the traditional sense, either - the chills you’re experiencing seem to be magically induced, if your intuition is correct.

Spike picks up on it, too, crossing his arms and making himself small against the sudden thermal change.

Celestia, if she notices it at all, doesn’t show it.

The three of you file into the room, and most discussion falls silent, or at the very least becomes hushed. A generous amount of ponies surround an imposingly large circular table, the face of which is adorned by the conjoined cutie marks of Celestia and Luna. They’re mostly unicorns, but you spot a few pegasi and an earth pony or two as well. At the farthest end of the table from you is a refreshingly familiar face, as well as the source of the cold permeating the room.

Princess Luna looks to be wrapping up a conversation with a stallion to her left, her horn idly casting a sizable projection of what looks like a sequence of runes onto the table in front of her. The magic she casts does have a tendency to make the room a bit nippy - funnily enough, the inverse of Celestia’s magic.

The sudden silence of the room catches her attention as she casts her gaze around the table, quickly settling on the three of you. She perks up ever so slightly, excusing herself from her conversation and heading over to join your group.

“Impeccable timing as always, sister,” she says as she closes the distance. “Everypony is present and accounted for.”

“Just as well, it’s a pleasure to see the both of you again,” she greets you and Spike, a tired smile directed at you. “I only wish it were under more pleasant circumstances.”

“Likewise, Princess,” you reply, comforted by the solidarity of your predicament.

She nods at your reply and takes her place next to Spike, the princesses effectively sandwiching the two of you in between them. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel like the safest pony in the room right now.

“If I may have your attention, everypony,” Celestia calls out.

It’s only now that you begin scanning the various faces at the table. Most remain relatively stoic, but a few look either neutral or optimistic about the task they’ve been entrusted with. You actually recognize a few of them from your studies, if you’re not mistaken. Before you can inwardly harp on the history of the ponies gathered around the table, however, Celestia continues her announcement.

“Since we’re all present, we can now formally begin. I trust that you’ve all been briefed about our intended method of approach prior to your arrival?”

Her tone is even and weighty, as are everypony’s silent nods in response.

“Good. In that case, we will begin shortly. I’ve arranged carriages for each of the four teams that comprise this operation. Does anypony have any questions before we depart for the crash site?”

A moment or two passes before an older, surly looking stallion to the far right raises his hoof. Gray beard, wide-brimmed hat, and even a robe to boot… You’re not quite sure who this is, but it looks like he’s emulating Starswirl.

“Is that your pupil, Your Majesty?” he asks gruffly, eyeing you up and down.

A smile rests upon Celestia’s face as she answers.

“She is. I’ve invited her along to assist with the investigation.”

The stallion, along with a few others in the crowd, seem perturbed by this decision, turning to their neighbors and whispering under the idle noise of the group. Celestia seems to notice this, clearing her throat to dispel the murmurs.

“I believe you’ll find that her input will be invaluable to our efforts. If there are no further questions or comments, then I believe it would be best to leave at once.”

That seems to quell all but a stoic few of the members, who simply look a bit off-put by your presence. It wears on your confidence a bit, but remembrance of Celestia’s words of affirmation keeps you centered.

Everypony makes their way to a door at the opposite end of the room, which, if your memory serves you correctly, leads in the direction of the castle’s main landing pad. Your entourage begins making their way out as well, but before you can all make much headway, one of the disgruntled looking unicorns from earlier interrupts the lot of you.

“Your Majesty?” she beseeches, directed at no one else but Celestia. “A word, if you would?”

“Of course, Ruby Seeker,” she replies before turning to you, Spike, and Luna. “Go on ahead, you three. I’ll be with you shortly.”

Now that name rings a bell - she’s one of the senior members of the board, with decades worth of experience to boot. You can’t help but feel that she might not be all too thrilled by your presence, what with you not being a member of the community, but you take it on the chin and head into the adjacent hallway anyways, Luna leading you out.

Her metal shoes reverberate across the largely marble hallway, joining the cacophony of the crowd of Arcana Communitas members in front of you.

“Well, some of ‘em sure seemed uptight, huh?” Spike interjects, just quiet enough so that none of them you can hear.

Luna sighs deeply in agreement.

“Most of the board’s members are tolerable, if not pleasant,” she says, uncaring of who might hear. “But the senior representatives are… uniquely difficult at times. Most of the time, if I’m honest.”

“How come?”

“They’re all about their little rules and regulations,” Luna spits. “Even if it costs us precious time that we don’t have. They’re the ones that wanted to meet in the castle, rather than in the field.”

You didn’t even think about that. How much time have you lost now? Minutes, hours… More?

The thought alone makes you angrier than you’d care to admit.

“Why didn’t you just order them to meet at the crash site?” Spike asks, genuinely confused. “They’re under you and Princess Celestia at the end of the day, right?”

“We could,” she begins, “but it would invoke mountains of paperwork that would ultimately take up more time than if we were to just abide by their silly rituals.”

You’d rather not focus on them for now - their old-fashioned processes are already starting to exasperate you, and all that will do is make your task more difficult.

“Have you been able to see anypony from the crash in the dream realm?” you ask, doing your best to mask your irritation.

Luna’s tone evens out as you bring her back to the matter at hand.

“Merely flashes and whispers. Some of the victims’ dream bubbles fully formed, but only for a few moments before fading away.”

“Was Anon’s one of them?”

Luna’s expression deepens, colored by worry as opposed to anger - you can see it in the lines that form on her face, and the way her frown sits lighter on her brow as she turns to look at you.

“No. I searched for most of the night, but I couldn’t find him.”

She isn’t lying - the dark circles under her eyes become more noticeable the longer you hold her gaze, even against her midnight fur. Her eyes move to her front once more as you both approach the entranceway to the landing strip.

“I was able to find a great many of the passengers in his cabin, though, which means there’s a fair chance that he’s alright. Relatively speaking, that is.”

You release a breath that you didn’t know you were holding. ‘Relatively’ doesn’t exactly assuage your anxieties surrounding his circumstances, but it does its job of stringing you along.

“Do you have any idea where they could be?”

“Not a clue, unfortunately,” she replies, frustration mounting once more. “Ordinarily, I might dreamwalk with one of them to start ascertaining clues, but every single one of their dreams were cut short.”

That’s far too convenient to be a coincidence… somepony really doesn’t want them to be found.

“Some kind of obscuring spell, maybe?” you offer.

Luna nods in agreement.

“Given my current findings, that is what I’m inclined to believe. Most other alternatives don’t fit what happened.”

…You’d rather not explore any other possibilities at this point, for your own sake.

The three of you cross into the ringed courtyard, the space bustling with ponies as your group and the members of the board file out onto the patterned, laminated concrete. Just as Celestia promised, four high-capacity roofless carriages sit among landing platforms around the platform’s edges, all complete with their own flying squads. A fifth sits in the middle of the open rotunda, its carriage closed to the air - Celestia’s personal method of transportation.

What’s more, you even spot a familiar face among its crew in the captain that headed the flight team that brought you here yesterday. You suppose he must be the leader of Celestia’s personal flight squadron. Who else would she have entrusted to bring you here in one piece?

“Everything appears to be in order,” Luna muses, surveying the crowd filing into their respective carriages. “Come - let us board.”

The three of you waste no time in making for Celestia’s carriage, Luna sitting across from you and Spike. As she shuts the door with a flourish of her magic, the dull roar of the courtyard comes to a close, and a comfortable, boxy silence settles in.

“My apologies if I‘ve given you a negative impression of the board’s leadership,” Luna apologizes, sighing deeply. “They really are quite effective at their duties, I’m just… rather stirred right now, is all.”

“No need to apologize, Princess. I know how you’re feeling.”

Possibly the most underexaggerated thing you’ve said in the past few months.

“Was he well?” she asks, gleeful to move onto far more jovial matters for the time being. “Before he left, I mean. It’s been a spell since we’ve been able to visit with him.”

Memories of the two nights he had spent in Ponyville come flooding back, his genuine happiness at the forefront of the torrent. The moment where he stood in front of all six of you at the park firmly plants itself in your brain and refuses to leave, inciting a genuine smile that you didn’t think you could pull off right now.

“He seemed a lot happier, even just in the two days we had with him.”

Luna adopts your mirth at this news.

“Good,” she remarks, mood slightly improved. “I read the letter that he sent to my sister. It brings me great joy to see that he’s finally come to his senses.”

You giggle at that.

“That makes two of us.”

“Three, if you wanna get technical,” Spike interrupts. “But hey, sentence clarity, I get it.”

All three of you openly laugh, and a tentative silence takes hold for some time. You opt to watch the carriage flight teams get ready as you wait for Celestia to return. It’s not too long, though, before a question bubbles forth before you can so much as run it by yourself.

“Do you think he’s okay, Luna?”

She looks tentative for a moment before turning to you.

“That colt is more stubborn than he has any right to be,” she says with a crooked smile, almost as if she’s boasting about it. “He’ll be alright - they all will. Even if We have to move the very heavens above to make sure of it, they'll be alright.”

Her sheer confidence surprises you - even with the innumerable number of unknowns, she unflinchingly marches toward her singular goal, undeterred even in the slightest. You sense the same steadfast resolve in her that radiated from Celestia. She even let slip a royal ‘We’, which has steadily been growing rarer since you’ve come to know her.

“Besides, he owes me fifty bits.”

“…Huh?” You briefly glance at Spike, who shares your confusion.

“We made a bet of sorts,” Luna explains, a brief chuckle coloring her words. “When he first started his job in Canterlot, I wagered that he would find his way back to Ponyville within five years, and he insisted otherwise. I intend to collect, naturally.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him,” Spike replies. “Why were you so sure he’d come back, though?”

She faces him, the ghost of pride still playing upon her face.

“Simply a matter of belonging, young Spike.”

Before you can continue to ponder the nature of her phrasing, though, the carriage door opens once more, revealing an exasperated-looking Celestia as she steps inside.

“I apologize for the delay,” she apologizes as she shuts the door behind her and shuffles in next to Luna. “Hopefully, that’s the last bit of bureaucracy we have to deal with for now.”

“I’m shocked to see your ears haven’t fallen off,” Luna jests, her gaze jokingly flitting between the two appendages.

Celestia chuffs amusedly, throwing her sister a sideways glance.

“Were it so easy.”

You feel the carriage jerk forward, and as such, you’re compelled to take a look out of your window. Yours is the final carriage to take off - the others are already in the air, heading off on their descent down the mountain.

With a lurch, your party is airborne, joining the tail end of the formation as the rotunda disappears from view.

12 - Black Magic Woman

“I’m just sayin’, that sounds like a load o’ crud,” Palatìn pokes at you.

“Is it really that unbelievable?”

Palatìn chortles, and it echoes slightly, reverberating to and fro in your slightly musty cell.

“Six girlies, galavantin’ all over th’ place and beatin’ baddies with the power o’ friendship? I don’t even know how you’re sittin’ here tellin’ me all that with a straight face.”

You hear his sheets shuffle briefly as you sit leaning against the cell wall adjacent to his.

“Actually, ya know what? I can’t even see your face, you probably got a shit-eatin’ grin or somethin’ plastered all over it.”

A laugh rises from your gut, and you hang your head as it rocks you in waves.

“Pal, why would I lie to you about shit that happens in a country you hadn’t even heard of until three hours ago?”

“Iunno, but I jus’ can’t bring myself to believe it. I mean, really?”

Aside from the quiet chuckle of your new friend, a silence hangs in the air after your exchange, interrupted only by the hushed sound of wind coming from just outside your barred, opaque window. For the past…

How long has it been? A few hours, maybe more? In any case, Pal’s been keeping you sane with idle conversation. That creepily chipper cultist keeps coming back every hour or so to grab a new prisoner, taking them god knows where. Most of them are ponies, presumably from the train, but a few are from other species, more than likely native to wherever you are right now. A couple of them, you can’t quite place what they even are.

They always come back with varying degrees of abuse over most of their bodies. True to Pal’s word, the feistier ones are covered in marks, sometimes bleeding from lacerations or orifices on their face. All of them return in quietude, complacent or defeated in stature and expression. It still shakes you a bit, but the frequency of it has dulled the initial shock.

You’re anticipating that unicorn’s return anytime now - it feels like he’s combed the entire block except for you and Pal.

“He’s, um…” The soft, almost frail voice coming from beyond the entrance of your cell catches you off guard.

Your head jolts to face it, and for a second, you can’t quite place that the voice belongs to the sobbing mare from earlier, now neutral and leaning against the bars of her own cell, burnt orange shaded coat matted against them.

“He’s not lying. I live in the same town they’re all in,” she says, voice just barely over a whisper.

“No kidding?” Pal responds, sounding genuinely surprised. “They really did allat stuff with the moon mare and that chaos guy and all?”

She looks your way for a brief second, befuddled by Pal’s lack of world history, before turning back to him.

“T-They did. You noticed the nighttime lasting longer than usual a few years ago, right?”

Pal grunts in realization - that seems to have jogged his memory.

“Oooohhhh!” he exclaims, though careful of his overall volume. “That’s what that was? The eggheads here chalked it up to some kinda 'event foretold by prophecy.’”

You perk up a bit at the mention of ‘prophecy.’ So far, you don’t really know much about your captors other than that they’re some kind of religious cult, which was kind of obvious after you met that unicorn earlier. Beyond that, though, you’re flying blind here.

“Who are they, anyway?” you inquire, afraid of the answers you might be given.

Your new friend seems interested in this too; she perks up at your question, listening intently for Pal’s reply.

“Their name’s in some language I can’t get the grasp of, but I heard ‘em say it in Dunetongue once - Her Children.”

…A name like that doesn’t exactly bode well. But hold on a second, isn’t-

“Dunetongue?” the earth pony asks, clearly on the same wavelength as you. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“You’re speakin’ it right now, miss,” Pal responds humorously, not missing a beat. “Maybe we all got a different word for it? It’s just th’ universal language ‘round these parts, is all. Lotta different folk from a buncha different places live here, we gotta have somethin’ we can all speak.”

You have a great many questions about that, but you’ve got more pressing matters to inquire about for now.

“What’re they about? The cult, I mean.”

“Officially? Spreadin’ the ‘good word’ o’ the Holy Mother, their patron deity.”

“And unofficially?”

“Same as any other group a’ crazies,” Pal sighs, his tone lowering into agitation. “Control.”

You hear him shuffle slightly on his sheets, likely repositioning to convey his point more clearly.

“Their little combine's always been one o' the smaller religions here, but about four 'er five years ago, their new head honcho just started swayin’ guys over to her cause like it was nothin’. Now, she and her cronies have their mitts in almost everything, all the way up to th’ governin’ body o’ the mecca and its townships.”

You can’t hold the frown from appearing on your face.

“She just… wormed her way in? Just like that, with no resistance?”

“There was some, here and there,” he responds. “But it was a quiet affair overall, that’s for sure. Some’a us still didn’t sing their tune, and, well… here we all are, I suppose.”

“Are there others in town like you? Like us?” The earth pony asks, her expressing growing more dour with every sentence that leaves Pal’s mouth.

“There are. I ain’t seen any of the ones I know here, so they’re prob’ly still meetin’ in secret on the outer fringes an’ all, trying to get some kinda foothold back.”

“Listen, Anon…” Pal’s voice takes on a grave undertone as he addresses you directly. “I overheard that yuppie earlier sayin’ that his boss wanted to meet with ya personally. Just… don’t lean into whatever kinda shit she spews, alright? I don’t know what she’s got goin’ on, but it isn’t anything good.”

You take a deep breath, the heat of which fans out in front of you as a light fog against the cold of the prison. The sense of anxiety that’s been nestled within your stomach is beginning to spread.

“What can I expect?”

“Nothing pleasant,” the earth pony sullenly declares, a thousand-yard stare directed aimlessly at the floor as she no doubt recounts the events of earlier.

As much as you’d like to know what’s going to happen to you, you keep your distance from that topic out of respect. Actually, come to think of it…

“What’s your name, by the way?”

The earth pony perks up at your question, locking eyes with you and brushing her silverish hair out of her face.

“Huh?” she asks, seemingly having just been pulled out of her stupor.

The corners of your mouth creep up into your best attempt at a disarming smile.

“Your name.”

She shifts slightly to better face you, but winces as a particularly bruised spot up on her hind leg comes into sudden contact with a rough patch in the floor. You can tell she’s still wary of everything, judging by how skittishly she reacts to your voice when directly addressed, but there’s an unmistakable smidge of warmth behind her eyes - you’ll have to thank Pal later for helping with that.

“B-Blazing Hearth,” she stutters slightly.

It’s only fitting to offer your own in return.

“Anon.”

Suddenly, she squints at you, studying you up and down.

“I think I’ve seen you before, actually,” she says. “Back in Ponyville, once or twice over the past few years.”

“Yeah, I came down every so often to visit. Lived up in Canterlot before… well, three days ago now, actually.”

“Where’d you-”

Hearth’s question is left nebulous, interrupted by the telltale screech of an iron door swinging open at the end of the hall. The three of you let silence overtake your discussion as a set of sprightly hoofsteps echo on from your right.

Hearth instinctively shuffles away, fear overtaking her features as she shrinks back into the farthest corner of her cell. You relocate, too, standing up and taking your place in the center of yours. That’s what they usually tell prisoners to do, right? Stand back so they can open the door? Your knowledge of prison only extends to what you’ve seen in movies and read in fiction, so you don’t really know.

Before long, the echoes shrink against the soundscape, making way for only the unfettered sound of hoofsteps drawing nearer to you. And then, he comes into view once more - that sky blue sadist.

Instead of meandering past your cell like he’s done dozens of times since your awakening, he comes to rest just outside and locks eyes with you, flashing his trademark eerie grin, albeit in a strained manner.

“Her Grace is ready for you now,” he almost sings, brandishing with his magic a key ring from some hidden pocket in his robe.

You try to take note of the appearance of the key, but the only thing you can properly register before he slots it into the door is that the head is vaguely round. A breath sits deeply in your lungs, releasing as the door is opened.

As you leave your cell and join the sadist’s side, your new friends offer you no farewell - no verbal one, at least. You still can’t see Pal, but as the unicorn locks the door behind you, Hearth’s eyes meet yours. In them, beyond her ever-present fright, she pleads with you to be careful. You give a nod her way, hoping it’s sufficient enough to count as a reply.

The unicorn pockets the key ring before turning to you and pulling a cloth out of another of his pockets.

“I’ll need you to wear this,” he says matter-of-factly. “As requested by Her Grace until we reach her location.”

A blindfold? Well, finding an escape route was never going to be easy, was it? Reluctantly, you slip it over your eyes, and an uncomfortable darkness takes hold.

Interesting… you never saw him do this for any of the other victims he carted away.

You feel something metallic slip over your left wrist and tighten, accompanied by the jingling of chain link.

“Just follow me. We’ll be there in no time.”

He sounds oddly dejected. Well, as dejected as someone as him can sound.

In any case, you don’t give any sort of reply; you simply follow wherever the chain leads you when he starts walking. You hear the iron door open in front of you, and he leads you through into another quiet space.

Before long, voices of all octaves and tones steadily fill the soundscape, and the echo-y hall gives way to what sounds like a much larger room. Some of them turn to whispers as you draw nearer, as if your presence as an outsider is enough to curtail even the most casual conversation.

“Watch your step, we’re about to be on a staircase,” the unicorn warns you.

He even reaches out to support your back with his magic in case of a fall. His treatment of you strikes you as odd - most of the other prisoners came back with bruises or worse. Shouldn’t this guy not care what happens to you?

Up the stairs you go, regardless, before the path you’re being led on winds to and fro - a left here, a right there, a curve, a hard angle, more stairs…

Until the dull cacophony of voices tapers off, and you’re left with only the ringing of chains, the unicorn’s hoofsteps, and your own breath.

After being led through an open door, he comes to a gradual stop, and you follow suit. Your cuff is unlocked and removed from your wrist, which you begin to rub unconsciously.

You go to remove your blindfold, but the cold grip of the little sadist’s aura takes an uncomfortably firm hold on your forearm.

“Not yet,” he explains plainly. “Tradition dictates that your blindfold remains on until Her Grace greets you verbally.”

His magical grip loosens, and you let your arm fall to your side once more. Inwardly, you’re more than a bit irritated, but you think it’s best to play it cool for now.

Huh.

Maybe those four years of brown-nosing might finally benefit you. Who knew?

“There’s a seat in front of you now. Wait there until Her Grace calls for you,” the unicorn instructs as you feel out for the seat, slipping into it when you do. “Behave yourself, creature. This is an honor that few receive.”

For the first time since you laid eyes on him, you can actually hear a bit of venom on his tongue. It’s not exactly threatening, but you’re wary all the same - he put you to sleep without much of an effort last time, and that’s to say nothing of his sudden change in disposition.

A deep stirring in the pit of your stomach rises in severity, as if to signal incoming danger. You hear the unicorn leave, shutting the door behind him with a gentle click of the latch. The temptation to rip the insufferable piece of cloth off of your face is titanic, yet you hold steady in the face of your predicament.

And what’s with this chair? You were expecting something akin to what you’d see - feel, in this case - in a torture chamber, not plush and comfortable. The back of your seat rises up to your head, cushioning and all, and is slightly leaned back for lounging. It doesn’t feel like cheap cloth, either - it caresses your skin like cashmere. If you were somewhere more accommodating, you might be tempted to fall asleep after everything you’ve been through.

You let your hands rest upon the chair’s arms and wait as patiently as you can. Wherever you are, it’s certainly spacious - it echoes slightly, like the ground floor of Flair’s office building. Immediately under your feet, you feel a plush rug, and just a foot or two away, hard tile.

You wrack your brain to try and figure out wherever you could be, but it comes up short no matter which avenue of reasoning you tread down. Your thoughts, however, are interrupted by the door behind you opening once more, though this time with no audible “swish” of aura to speak of.

The door clicks back into place, this time with the audible latching of a lock.

It must be her, right? Who else could it be?

As calm as you’d like to be, your heart would love to beat right out of your chest. Would you be any better off without the blindfold, or would it be worse, you wonder?

The unannounced presence draws nearer to you with a careful, drawn-out gait - hoofsteps, if your ears don’t deceive you. It reaches your left side and starts encircling you, not unlike a shark investigating its prey.

One rotation, two, three…

Eventually, it pauses to your right and leans in to get a good whiff of you. You just barely keep yourself from recoiling in apprehension.

After a few moments, it pauses, heading off to somewhere in front of you. You hear fabric shuffling for a bit, before-

“My, my… What might you be?” Her voice is husky and drawn out, like molten caramel dripping from on high.

You raise your hand to remove your blindfold, but hesitate as you thumb the fabric, letting only a smidge of light in. She chuckles to herself, a throaty song of amusement.

“You may.”

You finish your motion, all but ripping the blindfold off of your head, desperate to remove the headwear from your person. Your eyes first dart to the room around you - you can hardly believe you’re in the same general location as your prison.

The layout is relatively open, with floor-to-ceiling marble pillars spaced out a fair distance from the center of the room, which you’re currently seated in, in a hexagonal pattern. Everything you can see, from the patterning in the tiled floor to the upholstery and decorations, is decorated in white, gold, or some combination of the two. Every now and then, especially in the curtains, some muted burgundy peeks out, but it’s all done tastefully.

Statues of some historical figures dot the place here and there, none of which are familiar to you. Vast windows to the cold of the outside are opened, and you take a quiet microsecond to appreciate the fresh air as opposed to the dank staleness of the prison.

You can’t see any land outside from where you’re sitting, in fact. It gives off the impression of being separate from the earth as a whole, right up until-

“A wandering eye, are we?”

Your attention is, at once, ripped from your surroundings and directed toward the lightly plum-colored mare lying across from you on a raised cushion, silk sheets built up behind her. Her pale hair spills forth from her head in carefully kept rivers, apart from in front of her surprisingly welcoming sapphire eyes, wherein it’s cut relatively flat across her brow. Oddly enough, she isn’t wearing anything ornate or intricate on her supernaturally lithe figure - simply a necklace with an opal pendant.

You try to sneak a peek at her cutie mark, but it’s covered by a spot of flowing silk over her flank. In fact, the only thing you do spot from under the sheet is a wingtip - a pegasus.

“There you are,” she coos, a sickeningly sweet smile arresting any further analysis on your part. “I bid you welcome, outlander. Make yourself comfortable… we’ve much to discuss.”

Your dread piles up in your throat, which tries in vain to shove it all back down. A million reasons for her sudden interest in you fly through your head, but none of them hold form long enough to make any sort of sense. Luckily, your body ends up acting for you long before your mind comes to any sort of decision.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity.” The words come out strained and uneasy, but there it is - a starting point.

For what, you’re not entirely sure, but first thing’s first…

Set the expectations.

“Forgive me if I seem tense, this is… well, it’s been a long day.”

She dismisses your concerns with a wave of her hoof. Suddenly, she claps both of them together twice, looking somewhere deeper into her vast chambers.

“Musicians!”

With some shuffling, cloaked bipeds saunter into view, taking their place at instruments that you hadn’t quite spotted before - namely, several golden, engraved harps, almost as tall as you. Without even a word, they begin their melody.

“My forgiveness is given freely.” she finally replies, turning back to you. “Yours has been an unusual journey, indeed.”

She reaches out and grabs her cup, taking a swig as gracefully as one possibly can. Her movements are airy and light, as if each part of her body were floating, guided only by her will.

“Speaking of which,” she continues plainly, “How much did you hear?”

“…I’m sorry?”

“You were conscious upon your arrival, were you not? Surely, you must have heard some of our discussion before you were incapacitated.”

The nonchalant nature with which her inquiry is formed unsettles you. Surely, the head of a cult would be more than upset at the thought of private business leaking past her inner circle? As much as you’d like to hide that you heard anything at all, you feel like telling the truth here will take you farther in the long run.

You almost imperceptibly fidget with your hands as you deign to do so.

“Something about a benefactor, and having found your ‘quarry.’ Apart from that, I couldn’t hear much.”

Her brow barely furrows for but a moment before returning to a more relaxed state.

“Well, I suppose I can’t place blame on you,” she replies, a hint of resignation in her voice. “Nobody can listen selectively, after all.”

You’ve never heard that from a pony before.

‘Nobody.’

Initially, you thought that she might be an Equestrian, but her minute difference in dialect has thrown you for a loop. She notices you deep in thought, and her smile widens once more as she shifts into a position that more directly faces you.

“I’m sure you have no end of questions, outlander, but before I answer them, I have a few of my own…”

Her eyes crawl over every pore of your body at an agonizingly slow pace lingering here and there to drink in more of you. You fight the urge to close your already-clothed legs when her gaze lingers downward and stays there for a moment or two.

She looks back up at you with a few sumptuous beats of her eyelashes.

“What’s your name?”

You clear your throat so that your voice comes through as more than a hoarse croak.

“Anonymous.”

“Really?” she asks, raising an almost playful eyebrow at you. “I’ve known many exotic names in my time overseeing the mecca, but yours is… well, to be curt, it’s quite ‘out there,’ as it were.”

Huh. Haven’t heard that in a long while.

“That’s what it says on my citizenship papers back home. Lemme go grab ‘em, I’ll show you.” The sass leaves your mouth before you can put a lid on it - you inwardly curse your years at Flair.

Thankfully, she simply giggles at your not-so-subtle suggestion.

“Oh, no, I trust you,” she responds, enjoying this a little too much. “Perhaps one day, I’ll let you prove it to me, but for now… just what are you, Anonymous?”

Every word that leaves her tongue is subtly saccharine, which only raises more questions that bounce around your head with reckless abandon.

“I’m a human.”

“Ooh… I’ve never heard of your kind before. Where do you hail from?” Even sweeter now, replete with her soft, attentive gaze affixed squarely on your face.

You clear your throat again, more fervently this time - her attempts at charm are throwing you off of your game. Fuck’s sake, why couldn’t she just be outwardly cold or something?

…Just focus on what’s in front of you, Anon.

She gestures to the cup in front of you with a hoof, bolstered by a crooked, yet genuine, grin.

“By all means, have as much as you like. I thought you might be parched, so I had my servants keep it ice cold for us.”

Even with the weather being a bit nippy as is, an ice cold drink does sound really nice right about now. When’s the last time you had something to drink, anyway? Before the train, probably?

You lean forward in your seat and reach down, taking hold of the cylindrical porcelain cup and bringing it closer to look at its contents. It looks like plain water, but you’ve seen all the spy movies and political thrillers and whatnot - what if there’s something in it that you can’t smell? Or, hell, even taste. Some sort of poison, or something that leaves you open to suggestion?

You look up at her for a brief moment as she cocks her head at you. She’s perturbed for but a moment before she understands what’s happening, a sinful smile taking hold as the realization dawns on her.

Rather than reply verbally, she slides off of her cushion onto all fours, the silk sheets on her back hugging the curvature of her barrel as they slide off. She glides to her full height, a mere inch or two shorter than Luna, and sashays over to your side of the table, stopping just short of you, so close that you can feel her body heat radiating off of her.

Notes of jasmine waft into your nose as she gently takes your cup from your hands and brings it to her own mouth. She holds eye contact with you as she slowly gulps down a third of your water, the muscles in her throat constricting visibly with every swig.

Once she’s had her fill, she gives it back to you, pushing it into your still hands. She doesn’t back off, though, choosing to remain painfully close to you as she eyes you expectantly.

Well… she did just drink it, right? You suppose there’s no harm, in that case - you bring the cup to your mouth and tip it toward you.

The water brushes past your lips and runs over your tongue, bringing with it the startling realization of just how dehydrated you really are. Your conservative sip turns into a greedy chug, your eyes slamming shut as you let the chill of the liquid bring you to a genuine state of relaxation for the first time since your arrival here. All the while, your hostess chuckles beside you, a weight joining you on what you now realize must be a loveseat.

Before long, the last of the water trickles into your waiting maw, and you swish it around a bit before swallowing to stave off any additional thirst.

“Trust is what keeps us not simply alive, but prosperous out here in the Great Basin,” she explains as you set your cup down once more and turn to face her. “The sooner we take this truth to heart, the sooner we may all benefit from it.”

You don’t care to believe a word out of this mare’s mouth, but she doesn’t need to know that. Might as well answer her question while you’ve got the space to speak.

“Would you trust that I’m not from this world?”

She looks you up and down again, a growing excitement in her eyes.

“You certainly look otherworldly. So, you’re saying you’re from another planet, then?”

“That was one of Cel’s theories, yeah. I wasn’t conscious for any of it, so even my own guesses are just conjecture.”

“How fascinating…” Her growing smile is, against all odds, somewhat infectious.

“You really believe me? Like, right off the bat? Even my friends were skeptical at first.”

She shifts in her seat, leaning her side against the back of the cushion as she more forwardly faces you.

“Had they seen you as I do, they would not have been.”

You’re about to ask what she means by that, but she continues.

“For you to not just arrive in this world, but to appear before me in the manner that you did… She has great things planned for you.”

Or ‘she’ hates you. That makes far more sense to you right now. Speaking of…

“‘She?’”

“The Holy Mother,” she explains, beaming with pride as she launches into a speech that she’s no doubt rehearsed before. “Our patron deity of prosperity and longevity. Though I claim my position as head of our religious organization, I am but Her humble emissary, spreading Her benevolent teachings to whomever will listen.”

Your eyes leave her to wander aimlessly in front of you. What do you even say to that? You’ve never exactly been part of a clergy, so you’re just kinda winging the brown-nosing here.

“So you’re something like an interpreter for your holy texts?”

“Close, but not quite, Anonymous.”

You turn to look at her again - she’s only a few inches from you on the loveseat now. When did she get this close…?

Strangely enough, you’re not altogether repulsed by it.

“We do not have any holy texts - we have no need of them. I interpret Her will through direct communion.”

Yeah, your ass.

“You can really talk to her?”

“Only when She reaches out,” she explains with a twinge of disappointment. “But yes, I can. She even told me a bit about you, shortly after our little soiree with the train.”

Your. Ass.

“Only good things, I hope?”

Subdued laughter rises from deep within her throat, a husky thing that sounds like a song over the musicians’ strings.

“Very good things,” she emphasizes, dropping her eyelids halfway with an oddly confident smile.

Christ, it’s getting warm in here. Did someone shut the windows while you weren’t looking?

“And that you’re searching for purpose, ever since losing your vocation.”

…

“How’d you…?”

The words die in your throat as you drink in her features. They’re sharper than you’d expect for an otherwise normal pegasus - really, she’s more akin to an alicorn in appearance alone, save for her lack of a horn. Her gaze seeks to shred away layer after layer of you, until the barest form of self remains. It’s…

Oddly exhilarating.

You lean into the back of your seat, the cashmere below you akin to an angel’s wings.

“She could not reveal too much, but She told me of your struggle to find your place in this world…”

She shuffles forward, gently crossing her two front hooves over your leg. The sensation of her touch, even through your pant leg, is startlingly acute, as if your senses were dialed up to eleven.

“But what if I told you…” Her voice barely pokes out over her whisper, and your lips involuntarily part - you’ve been holding your breath.

“…you already have a place in the world?”

Your mind’s on fire. Every thought turns to slush.

“Wh… what do you mean?” you shakily exhale.

Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you feel as if you should be alarmed by what’s happening, but… you aren’t.

“We are to be joined, Anonymous,” she breathes right into your face, jasmine dominating your world. “To be bound as one, as ordained by the Holy Mother herself. Would you enjoy that?”

You slide onto your back against one end of the loveseat, and she slides right down with you, orienting far more of her barrel onto your midsection as she takes her place in between her legs. She paws at your abdomen, and you’re suddenly aware of how cramped it is down below. As if on autopilot, you reach out for her neck, which she leans into with gusto, never once breaking eye contact with you.

“I-I don’t even… know your n-name…”

She giggles, and her chest vibrates against you. Your whole body feels like it’s on fire.

“Ambrosia, my dear. My name is Ambrosia.”

The irony is not lost on you, a dopey smile taking hold of your mouth before you can even think to curtail it. She crawls up further, her whole body now saddled over you. It’s only now that you’re aware of another unyieldingly intense heat down below - and it isn’t yours.

Whatever objections you have against what’s happening, they’re buried under a sea of molten desire.

“Now…”

She leans in, her lips a mere fingertip away from yours.

Ṭ̴̨̛̰̲͔͆̐̐̉̈ẍ̴̨̺̤̖̣́̓͊a̷͍̖͒̃̚ȋ̵͍̜̘̲̗̳͗͊̾́̌ŝ̵̬̩͖͂̀̉̕͝ ̵̲͎͉̮̻̙̍̾k̸̤̽̉̌̒͠͝ú̵̢͖̲̿v̷̖̟̜̓̈́͆̈́͒.̴̲̄̒

…

…Huh?

You frown quizzically as her garbled speech quite literally hits you like a freight train, no clue on earth what she just said. It actually kind of freaks you out, despite your obvious tent that’s smooshed up against her.

“Whuh…?”

The high of the moment plummets like a boulder dropped from a cliff, and she’s wrenched from her state of bliss by your reaction. She’s downright perturbed - far more than she was earlier, when you initially refused the drink. She says… whatever the hell that was again, and it starts to really put you off.

The strangeness of the moment causes you to shift backward a bit, your right leg pushing against the ground to help you straighten up in your seat. She backs away from you as well, and thankfully, your inhibitions return in short order.

Your body does feel like it’s on fire - what the hell happened to keeping your guard up earlier? What the fuck was in that drink? She took it, too, so is that why the loveseat and your lap are soaked through right now?

And what the fuck even was that thing she said? It sounds stupid in your head, but her words actually felt prickly whenever she spoke them. The weight you felt was real, too; you could feel its residual pressure leaving your chest.

“What was…?”

She says nothing for a moment before suddenly remembering that you’re asking her a very important question.

“I-I apologize, Anonymous,” she says, flustered for the first time since you’ve laid eyes on her. “I was… simply reciting a customary phrase our people say before taking their beloved to bed. Are you alright?”

You look down at yourself. You’re not drunk, not by any stretch of the word; if anything, the world is far more acute and available to you than it was before. Sitting up, you’re painfully aware of even the individual stitches of your shirt brushing against your back.

“I… I-I don’t know. Listen, Ambrosia, I…”

You have to buy time.

She said this shit was ‘ordained by the Holy Mother,’ right? A fanatic like her isn’t gonna wait around forever for you to finally get your dick up and ‘fulfill your hallowed duty’ or whatever. So just…

Play along for now.

“I’m not against the idea of being with you, but…”

Your eyes search the floor for your next words.

“But?” she asks, walking on eggshells even with a simple interjection.

“I w-wanna be aware when we do this, you know? A-and I wanna get to know you more first. I mean, I just learned your name, like, twenty seconds ago…”

You look back up at her with the most genuine smile you can manage. She, however, gawks at you like a deer in headlights, jaw slightly slack as ragged breaths leave her every other second or so. It takes her an eternity and a half to finally reply to you.

“O-Of course… how thoughtless of me. I must apologize, it’s been s-so long since I’ve… done this from the very beginning.”

You’re in the black.

“It’s alright. Like I said, I just… need some time to get to know you first, is all. It’s not like it’ll be that long, either, you’re… beautiful, honestly.”

A little bit of bile comes up, but you choke it back down.

“I can… do that,” she utters, still perturbed but regaining composure by the second. “Do you wish to continue, then…? With our conversation, not our more carnal desires.”

Not even for one second. You’ve gotta get back to Pal and Blazing Hearth, let them know what’s going on.

“I don’t know if I can hold a conversation after… that. A bit distracted, you know?”

You’re not lying, not even remotely so. It’s downright painful down there now.

“I understand. Normally, I’d insist that we continue, but… I’m afraid I have other matters to attend to.”

She shifts backwards slightly in her seat, and the reason for her hesitation makes itself plainly clear.

She’s totally going to get her rocks off.

“I get it. I really am looking forward to seeing you again, though.”

More bile, more suppressing.

She looks up at you once more, smiling as if she were a high schooler talking to her first crush, and not some terrorist leading a cult.

“The feeling is mutual, Anonymous. Heavenly Virtue will take you back to your cell tonight, since there’s no room and board at this outpost, but we’ll leave for the mecca tomorrow. There, we’ll have plenty of room for you and I to… get used to each other.”

The sultriness has returned, against all odds. You involuntarily shudder, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Virtue!” she calls out, her voice still trembling ever so slightly.

The door to the room unlocks, and in the blink of an eye, that sadist pony from earlier stands at attention, eyes affixed to a distant point in the room.

“Yes, Your Grace?” he barks, a dutiful dog.

“We’re finished for now,” Ambrosia relays. “Take Anonymous back to his cell for tonight, but arrange a space for him to travel with us tomorrow.”

“Right away, ma’am!”

Ambrosia lifts herself off of the loveseat, wings jittering as she stretches them out for the first time in a while. She turns away to retreat to the inner sanctum of her room, but before she does, she looks back at you one last time, winking at you in two separate ways.

“Until tomorrow, dear,” she coos, sashaying away into the inner depths of the chambers.

Evil be damned, that’s one hell of an ass.

…God, fuck whatever she put in your drink.

Author's Note

DID YOU KNOW:
Most of the OCs featured in this story have their origins rooted in songs that I've listened to and drawn ideas from. In Ambrosia's case, she came about after listening to Santana's "Black Magic Woman" on the way home from a late night out on the town, hence the chapter title. :raritywink:

13 - Dead Ends

Taking a shaky breath, you rise to your feet, legs unsteady as you stretch to your full height. Every little micromovement of yours is now unbearably noticeable, down to what feels like individual strands of muscle sliding over each other in your hamstrings.

Every little thing - a rogue bead of sweat, a stray breeze - threatens to collapse you under the weight of sheer sensation. In the relative silence of the resplendent bedroom, you heave a sigh of relief, surprised at just how loud it is under the effects of… well, whatever was in your drink. You’re just thankful for the moment of peace. If anyone else had-

“Turn around and face me, prisoner.”

Holy shit, that was loud.

The little asshole, clearly a grating tenor, isn’t exactly trying to be pleasant in his intonation. You turn on your heel, facing him from across the loveseat.

His expression doesn’t exactly fit the “chipper, ignorant little inductee” image he gave off earlier. Try as he might to remain neutral, hints of a frown drag his brow downward, and his mouth ever-so-slightly curls in what looks like disgust. As good as he is at keeping a straight expression, though, one thing he can’t hide is his shame - his cheeks are alight with a rosy tint so intense that it forms a bridge over his snout.

You might not be able to get a read on the guy ordinarily, but thanks to his flush features, his behavior and scathing warning from earlier make so much more sense.

He’s got a thing for Ambrosia.

“Stand still, creature,” he orders, dropping his volume a fair degree to deliver his insult.

…Does he think you slept with her? In that short of a time?

Well, that’s a bit insulting.

He procures the same blindfold from earlier, wordlessly slipping it over your head a great deal rougher this time around. As it slides down over your eyes, you can just barely make out his expression deepening in intensity before the world fades to black once more.

The handcuff slips over your wrist and locks uncomfortably into place, metal digging into your wrist far deeper than before. The chain tugs to your left as Heavenly Virtue leads you around the loveseat and simultaneously opens the door leading out into the hall.

As you step through what sounds like the threshold, he shuts the door behind you, and your trek back to your prison cell begins in agonizing silence. Now that you know you’ve got some leverage, though, you might be able to push it and ascertain his relationship to Ambrosia for sure. He strikes you as the kind of guy who wouldn’t dare damage the goods if it’d bring down his leader’s ire.

“You’re not even going to ask how it was?”

There’s no verbal reply, but the chain grows tighter as you hear him quietly take a deep breath.

“I mean, you should be happy, right? Your religious leader’s apparently fated husband just strolled into town, that’s gotta be something to celebrate.”

Still nothing. As satisfying as it is to give this guy shit, you get the feeling that you should probably tread carefully with whatever you say next.

“Look, I’m just trying to get a better idea of what’s going on, okay? It’d probably be a bit easier to get along if I-”

A resoundingly solid pressure to the back of your leg buckles you. Your hands shoot out to catch your fall, but the left is yanked in that direction, leading you to fall hard onto your right hand and the inside of your left shoulder.

It’s all you can do to lift your head up just before it hits the ground - you can feel the cold marble inches from your face.

“Her concubine you may very well be,” he barks lowly, “but you will never be equal to us, you disgusting, ungrateful wretch. Get up.”

He loosens his grip on your chain, and your left arm falls slack, allowing you to support yourself again. Ordinarily, you’d say you have a pretty long fuse, courtesy of another life spent in an office with snide down-talkers around every cubicle. You’ve gotta have a little backbone to survive in an environment like that, you know?

Evidently, physicality shortens said fuse considerably. You’ve half a mind to rip the blindfold off and try to give him something right back, but reacting erratically isn’t going to get you anywhere. Swallowing your anger, you push off of the floor and stand once more, an ache now present in your shoulder and palm. You stand for a moment and rub said shoulder, scowl only hidden by the immense cloth around your head.

“What?” he asks, still measured and restrained in his fuming. “Nothing else to say?”

“Nothing you’d like.”

Wordlessly, the chain pulls tight once more, and again, you’re off down the path you’ve previously taken. At least you got your answer, if his near-assault of you was anything to go by. He’s definitely jaded over you being chosen by their god.

Or by Ambrosia, rather. You’re not sure you buy into her bull just yet. She could’ve just scoured your suitcase and put the pieces together - you did bring the letter from Flair with you, after all.

What the hell is her deal, anyway? Why the sudden interest in you? As you traipse from hall to stairway and back to hall, the only conclusion that you can really draw is that you’re extraordinarily exotic, even for this place, and she gets off on the thrill of having something like that all to herself. That, or she was genuinely telling you the truth, what with her emphasis on trust during her eloquent rambling.

Unfortunately for her, blind faith isn’t really something you give out, much less to someone like her.

She’s not really giving you much of an option, though. Whether you trust her or not, you’re set to leave with them tomorrow for who knows where.

…Which means that you’ll be leaving Pal, Blazing Hearth, and the others behind.

You really should have thought about that being a possibility when you were lying to get back to your cell. So much for careful planning.

Your thoughts wander like this for a solid amount of time, never once settling on something for more than a minute or two. It could be the drug in your system doing its thing, but you’re not sure you’d place all of the blame on it for your restlessness.

Before long, though, the path becomes familiarly dank and musty, marble giving way for concrete, concrete giving way for rough stone. A door opens in front of you, and the stagnant cold of the cell block greets you once more.

You both come to a halt in front of what must be your cell, where he removes your chained cuff with little care for how it scrapes against your still-sensitive skin. Your blindfold is unceremoniously ripped from your head, and you’re greeted by the sight of your miserable little hovel, empty and waiting for you to occupy it once more.

“In,” Virtue commands, patience nonexistent.

When you enter, you feel more at ease than you did at any point in Ambrosia’s bedchambers, despite the oppressive scenery. Curiously enough, the light from the glazed-over window is a deep, pale blue - you find it hard to believe, given how quick your meeting felt, but it looks like nighttime is crawling along.

You turn back around as the iron bars clink back into place, the barred door rattling against your confines. Virtue’s back to his usual neutral expression, but even so, he looks more than a little relieved that you’re out of his hair. He looks right at you, and behind his eyes, you see a barely-restrained anger bubbling just below the surface.

“We’ll be leaving quite early in the morning. Don’t expect a full night’s sleep, creature.”

You simply nod, biting back harsher words as he turns to leave.

…

Although, now that you’re behind these bars…

“I won’t. Ambrosia and I probably won’t get that much sleep anymore, anyways.”

He freezes in place, staring straight ahead. If not for the rapid clenching and unclenching of his jaw and a particularly wicked side eye, you might’ve mistaken him for a statue.

“Be thankful that her desire for you guarantees your wellbeing.”

Without waiting for a reply, he fixes his gaze forward and continues his heated march. Apart from the roaring wind outside, it’s dead silent until the telltale latch of the door closing.

“Sorry, do I got some crud in my ears, or did I jus’ hear that right?”

Pal’s Equestrian-adjacent Bostonian accent breaks the silence at last, which prompts Hearth to crawl forward and lean against her own door, her downtrodden eyes meeting yours.

“Didn’t I specifically tell ya not to buy into her garbage, ‘Non?” Pal chides heavy-handedly. “Maybe it’s you that’s got gunk in ya ears, not me…”

“I didn’t!”

“Then what was he talking about? What happened?” Hearth interjects, her expression somewhere between disappointment and confusion.

“She, uh…”

You sit down, back against the wall, and unfortunately realize that whatever she drugged you with is still going strong; you wince against the overwhelming touch of freezing brick, fabric doing little to stow the cold.

“Oh, God, I’m still fucked up…”

Your voice involuntarily comes out strained and shaky, just like before. How long is this shit going to take to run its course?

You look over to Hearth, whose eyes now betray a deepening concern as they pore over you.

“D-did she do something to you…?” she asks, voice just barely above a whisper.

“She, uh… s-she tried to. A lot happened pretty quickly.”

“Take it from the top, then,” Pal replies, tone a great deal more understanding than a few seconds ago. “We’re all ears, bud.”

You gently run your hands over your face a few times, letting the back of your head rest against the wall when you’re through. Where do you even begin…?

“I guess I’ll just start from the beginning.”

“Take your time, Twilight,” Fluttershy reassures, that warm smile of hers keeping you level-headed. “We’re all here for you.”

You shift a bit under the covers of your bed, silken sheets acting as an oven for your otherwise chilly barrel. On the floor in front of you, the girls are sprawled out on blankets of their own, sleeping bags tucked away behind them for whenever they become tired enough. Spike is up on the bed with you, laying on his back with his head resting against you as he stares up into the ceiling. You’d insisted on being down there with them, but they were extraordinarily stubborn about you being as comfortable as possible.

Thank Celestia they were here whenever you were done for the day. If they hadn’t been, you might have-

“Twilight?” Rainbow Dash’s raspy inquiry brings you out of your rumination, and you’re suddenly aware of five pairs of concerned eyes tearing a hole into your face. “You okay?”

You purse your lips for a moment before replying.

“…No. No, I’m not.”

None of them say anything; they’re waiting for you to continue. Thankfully, they’ve all been brought up to speed on what happened, so you can pick up from when the investigation started.

“Everything was alright when we all first arrived at the crash site. The initial team had already done their part of the job, so the sanitation workers had come through and… cleaned everything up beforehand.”

You’re not sure you would have been able to stay there if they hadn’t.

“I wasn’t on any particular team, so I just followed the princesses around, assisting everypony however I could. The initial plan was to recreate the teleportation circle in its entirety by using what we already had - the basic rune structure - to find out what we didn’t have, that being the directional components. We thought that maybe there would be clues hidden in the runic equation they had written.”

You check each of their expressions to make sure they’re following along, and so far, they are.

“The issue is, the circle is massive, and instead of using larger runes for a simpler weaving process, they used thousands of smaller ones, meaning the flow of magic was ridiculously difficult to trace from beginning to end. It took four hours to map the entirety of it. Just to figure out what path the magic was taking! And it could still be wrong, because we had to use guesswork for the directionals.”

Your voice is rising in volume, but in all honesty, you care little for whom it may bother at this hour.

“Did y'all learn anything from it?” Applejack interjects.

You heave a sigh into the air, frustration tangibly exiting your lungs; if you were a dragon, you might have breathed fire. Not really, because they don’t just do it whenever they’re upset, but… you know what, that’s unimportant right now.

“Things anypony could’ve guessed, sure. It would have been a lot easier for them to use larger runes, since they draw a lot more mana from the surrounding aether, but they didn’t. They deliberately chose to use smaller runes made with less-than-stellar materials so that most of their work would be burned away before anypony could glean anything useful from it… we’re lucky that the mana output was so large that it left imprints behind for most of the circle. Speaking of which, we were also able to determine from the residue left behind that, even with its size and intricacy, the circle still only used just enough mana to complete the teleportation of the train cars.”

“Meaning?” Rarity asks.

“Wherever they went,” Spike morosely interjects, “it was far away. Some of the mages were thinking they might have left Equestria’s borders entirely.”

“So…”

Your gaze shifts to Pinkie, whose visible dejection and demure tone catch most of the other girls slightly off guard.

“Nonny’s… not gonna be home for a while?”

You nod, each word from her twisting the knife.

“We spent the rest of the day trying to recreate the portions that had burned away completely, but we weren’t able to make much headway, maybe one or two runes at most. The average number of runes used in an equation in that circle was three hundred.”

Your lungs suck in the air you had been missing all on their own. A dreadful silence hangs over everypony as your eyes fixate on nothing in particular.

What time is it, anyways? You lost track during your jaunt back to the castle. Everything’s just…

…

“I’m scared.”

You pause to let the wavering in your throat die out, but nopony speaks up.

“Scared that we’re not going to be able to get to them before something happens to all of the victims… to Anon. We can only work so fast, and every second that passes, our chances of finding them keep getting lower and lower. I’d still be down there if Celestia hadn’t ordered a majority of us to get some rest for the night. Luna’s leading the remaining officials right now.”

“Perhaps sleep might do you some good, darling,” Rarity replies, her own exhaustion presenting itself in the form of an onset yawn. “I’m sure Princess Luna and her team will have made meaningful progress come tomorrow.”

As much as your sense of reason points you in the direction of hopelessness, you can’t help but feel that if anypony deserves your blind faith, it’s the princesses.

“I hope so.”

You force a grin for all but half a second, before deciding that it’s not fooling anypony.

“I really do think you should try to get some sleep, though, Twilight,” Fluttershy offers, shuffling to her hooves. “I brewed some chamomile before I left, just in case we needed it.”

She procures a small picnic basket from the confines of her bunched-up sleeping bag and peels back its lid. Seven cups of tea sit bunched together in the tight confines of the thatch container, all room temperature after sitting undisturbed for the majority of the day. Hushed expressions of gratitude pass back and forth as the girls shuffle over and procure their cups.

You’re more than happy to slide down from your bed and grab some yourself; you’re not at all sure how you would’ve gotten to sleep otherwise. Before you do, though, Fluttershy brings her basket along and stops you with an outstretched hoof - one carrying your tea.

“Just relax, Twilight. We know how stressed you are, and it may seem bad now, but everything is going to be okay.”

Your smile comes out crooked, and your throat constricts - it’s all you can do to stop a tear or two from running down your cheeks.

“Thank you, Fluttershy.”

You envelop the cup in your aura and swiftly bring it to your lips. Spike’s refusal of his cup is muddied against your enjoyment of the drink.

For the first time since morning, you allow yourself this opportunity to finally relax. As your muscles slowly lose their tension, the full weight of your exhaustion hits you all at once. Though the more troublesome part of your mind still fights to rouse you, you feel much more inclined to rest your head on your pillow, which you do.

Normally, you’d go through the motions of saying goodnight to everypony, but your eyelids are already threatening to close on you. Your wayward, steadily-hazier gaze finds its way out of your window, focusing finally on Luna’s full moon, set high in the Equestrian sky.

As you deign to let your thoughts drift into nothing, you find peace in the possibility that Anon might be doing the same thing right now.

14 - A Stranger

“Ya really said that to ‘em?” Pal asks incredulously. “Even knowin’ what he does to people? How’d ya even make it outta there without somethin’ a’ yours gettin’ broken?”

“I mean, if he hurt me for real, Ambrosia would’ve probably banished him… Or made him sit and watch us.”

Gruff, infectious laughter echoes down the pitch-black prison block. Some time after you had been dropped back off by Heavenly Virtue, all of the wall sconces had simultaneously been extinguished, plunging you and your new friends into an almost complete darkness. If not for the dim moonlight slithering in through everyone’s frosted panes of glass, you might’ve been well and truly blind.

Instead, the only thing you can see apart from the small, intrusive moonbeam is Hearth’s faint silhouette, dashed against the black like an abstract painting. Everything else about her is inky, blotted out of view by the darkness as she lays on her cot - it makes you wonder what she looks like when she’s not covered in injuries.

Pal’s laughter dies down, and amid the touchy silence, he speaks up once more.

“So, you’re, ah… gettin’ taken to the city in the mornin’?”

You heave a dread-laden sigh into the open air.

“Yup. Don’t think I’ll be able to weasel my way out of it, either.”

“Shit…” Pal grunts, shifting about in his cell. “Maybe I’ll think o’ somethin’ before they come to take ya.”

The hope in his voice is entirely for show; he just doesn’t want you to spend the rest of the night dreading your future.

“I wouldn’t waste your time, Pal.” You deliver the words gently, but there’s no reply all the same - just the dull roar of the incessant wind outside.

Hearth hasn’t said anything in a while, and you start to wonder if the events of today have finally caught up with her.

“You still with us, Hearth?”

She shuffles slightly, and her outline undulates in the darkness, presumably turning around to face you.

“Yeah,” she replies, her downtrodden tone just barely croaking over the white noise. “Just… trying to stay calm.”

The events of the day have definitely caught up to her at this point. Poor mare’s about three words from crying, if the waver in her voice is anything to go by. You want to reassure her, but what good would it do? You’re not even sure you would believe it at this point.

For now, all you can do is just hope that some facet of the Royal Guard isn’t too far behind. Preferably led by one or two very angry princesses, but that might be asking for too much.

“Are you…” Hearth chokes out, cut off by a sniffle. “Are you going to be okay?”

You chuckle, feeling around in the dark for your own mat to sleep on.

“Not at all. I’m not exactly keen to be a terrorist’s plaything, if you couldn’t tell.”

A grimace crosses your face as the events of earlier flash through your mind.

“…But if I have to commit to it to get out of this alive, then so be it.”

Silence invades your dingy sanctuary once more.

“You got somebody back home, Anon?” Pal asks after a while, eager to lift the mood.

You have a feeling that if you did have someone back home, your previous conversation wouldn’t have been the best lead-in, but he gets an ‘A’ for effort.
“Nah. I was thinking about it, though. Being back in Ponyville would’ve definitely given me the time for it.”

“Ohoho, you definitely had someone in mind, didn’t ya? Who’d ya have googoo eyes for?”

“Nobody yet, Cupid,” you reply, laughing openly at his phrasing. “Was just more open to the idea, that’s all.

“No idea who Cupid is,” Pal replies, “but I know ya gotta have at least considered some o’ the girls around ya. Or dudes, I don’t judge.”

He’s not gonna let up, is he?

In the interest of solidifying his trust, you dig deep and think of old feelings long since past. Even though they’re not current, they might still serve their purpose in getting you through this conversation without too much embarrassment. It wouldn’t even be that bad, but Hearth’s from Ponyville - any mare you can think of, she probably knows, or knows of.

“I mean… one or two. One of my coworkers in Canterlot used to be really sweet on me, but you know what they say. Company ink, and all.”

Pal waits in anticipatory silence for your second answer; even Hearth has turned over in her cot to better listen to you.

“Had a thing for a school teacher from Ponyville once, too, but that was just a little crush that lasted a week or two, nothing serious.”

“Cheerilee?” Hearth responds, a slightly positive shift in her tone.

“Yep! She’s really sweet, but it was just a passing feeling after I helped her with some paperwork.”

“That’s nice an’ all,” Pal interjects haphazardly. “But I was referrin’ more to the here n’ now.”

“That would be nobody, then.”

“Aw, come on! Ya can’t see yourself bein’ all tangled up with anybody ya know?”

Your gaze flits back over to Hearth amidst your interrogation, hoping for an easy out.

“Hearth, please get me out of this.”

To your dismay, though, she’s waiting with bated breath for your answer - she’s even sat up straight, exhaustion seemingly a thing of the past. You swear, somewhere in the blackness, you can see a demure smile peeking through over tear-stained cheeks.

“Come ooooon,” Pal goads, his sheets audibly shifting. “If ya had to pick.”

Were it so easy. You’re just… not like that, insofar as browsing the market is concerned. Really, you hardly do any browsing at all. If you had someone you truly felt something for at the moment, this would be so much simpler. Relaying a truth is far easier than manufacturing a lie on the spot.

In your haste to find an answer suitable for your ravenous audience, you slide onto your sleeping mat and lay your head back on the bunched-up blanket that serves as your pillow. You sigh into the open air just as an idea graces you - you’ll mold in your head an ideal mare, and leave the name ambiguous.

“There is someone, actually.”

“Who is it?” Hearth asks, her pale blue outline inched slightly forward in anticipation. “Is it somepony I know?”

“Could be. She knows a lot of ponies, honestly, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“She got a name?” Pal asks, sounding like he’s on the edge of his seat.

“She does, but the only way you’re gonna get this out of me is without it.”

“Ah, screw it, fair play. Now tell us about ‘er.”

“I mean, she’s…”

What? What is she, Anon?

“She’s been there for me for a long time. I don’t really know why she didn’t pop into my head earlier, honestly.”

Okay, that’s a good start, but what else? Christ, you didn’t think your well of creativity would run dry this fast.

What else could you-

Your job!

“Even when I quit my job and ran back home, it was like nothing changed. She still wanted me around, even though I didn’t really have any prospects to think of.”

Hearth coos at the dedication of your would-be marefriend - seems like she’s the type to appreciate highschool sweethearts.

“She a looker?” Pal cuts in, seemingly irritating her with the shallowness of his question.

Thankfully, answering that seems to come naturally to you somehow.

“She’s got no idea how cute she really is. She’s got these little bangs that hang over her eyes, and every now and then when she hasn’t had a haircut in a while, she’ll have to blow them out of the way and it’s just… look, you just have to take my word for it, okay? I’m not really good at this sort of thing.”

That isn’t necessarily true - it’s just that your ability to go off-the-cuff is now thoroughly depleted. Mercifully, Pal’s deep chuckle seems to signal the end of his friendly tirade.

“Oh, I believe ya, buddy,” he relents, warm tones of nostalgia in his voice. “All that trippin’ over what you’re tryin’ to say… Reminds me o’ how I was when I first met Kalliope.”

You were believable? Oh, thank God.

“Is she your wife?” Hearth asks, looking over in the direction of his cell.

You wonder if she can see him from here. From what you can tell, most of the cells are spaced far enough apart so that a prisoner can only see the individual in front of them.

What is he, you wonder? Pony? Griffon? Hell, maybe even a dragon?

“Ohoho, ya don’t even know the half of it,” Pal replies, wistful in his remembrance. “I met ‘er a good while before the Ambrosia gal n’ her cronies took over…”

The night crawled on.

Stories of love, of loss, and of better tidings were passed back and forth between the three of you, and in the frigid desolation of that damnable hallway, the tender threads of new friendships were weaved into the world. Said world was, of course, indifferent to such a development.

Here you all lay, still in your cages, your fates still at the mercy of your doggedly fanatical captors.

For now, though, it doesn’t matter. In your restless apprehension of the day to come, you feel glad to have known them, even for the short time that you did. Perhaps your stint with them, however brief, will join your greater array of comforting memories - a solace amid your new, pre-dictated life.

…

You hope everyone back home is alright. Twilight and Spike probably aren’t taking it very well…

Oh, how you miss them with all of your heart. What a cruel thing, to have them all back again, only for it to be robbed from you by happenstance. You’ve still no small amount of hope that they’ll come for you eventually, but it seems as if you’ll have some rather unpleasant stories to tell by then.

Oh, well. Maybe it’ll build character. Who knows?

You fix your restless gaze to your pitiful window; if you squint, you can see Luna’s full moon somewhere in the distance, its glittering light somehow seeping through the intensive frost covering the glass. Would that she could see you through that pale orb…

Your eyes wander back over to Hearth, whose sleeping form hasn’t moved an inch since an hour or two ago.

It must be one or two in the morning by now. Your companions haven’t made a peep, other than the occasional stir of their sheets, or somnolent sigh. You’d like to follow their lead, but try as you might, your brain won’t rest - knowing what’s in store for you tomorrow, it can’t.

As your thoughts race along, however, you just barely hear something over the sound of the howling wind outside.

Tip, tap, tip, tap…

Bare flesh stepping along damp concrete, each impact spaced far apart from each other. An apprehensive frown takes hold of you. Who would be down here at this hour? The rhythm is erratic, too - stopping and starting seemingly at random.

Slowly, almost achingly so, you sit up in your makeshift cot, careful not to make any noise as you listen out for anything else. Your eyes have adjusted ever so slightly to the blackness, and you can see faint outlines of your surroundings.

All is still for a moment, including you.

Tip, tap, tip, tap…

There it is again, coming from somewhere down the hall to your right. You rest yourself against the back of the cell, breath catching in your throat so as not to make any noise.

Tip, tap, tip, tap…

Ever so slightly louder.

It’s drawing closer.

You wrack your brain trying to figure out who this could be. It’s not hoofsteps, so that rules out your little sadist, or Ambrosia.

Tip, tap, tip, tap…

The hall in front of you is still empty, but the steps sound just out of view. Your heart pounds in your chest so viciously that you’re afraid the uninvited guest might hear it.

Tip, tap, tip -

A silhouette.

It creeps in from the right, standing tall and blotting out the crepuscular rays from outside.

A biped.

You can’t judge its height accurately from where you sit, but if you had to guess, it’d probably come up to your shoulder if you were standing up. The sizable cloak it’s wearing makes it impossible to discern what species it is for now. It stops just outside Hearth’s cell, peering in and giving her a once-over as she slumbers, blissfully unaware of what’s taking place. The stranger shakes his head before turning around soundlessly, not even a rustle from its cloak.

As it makes its way over to the bars of your cell, it freezes just shy of them. You can’t see underneath the hood it’s wearing, but you know it’s locking eyes with you.

The blood in your veins runs cold. Do you say something? Wave, maybe?

You deign to move your hand shakily from its resting point against the floor, showing your palm to the stranger as a sign of good faith.

“H-Hello?” Your greeting falls from your mouth as a whisper, no louder than its steps from earlier.

It doesn’t move, or say anything in response for a few moments. Suddenly, though, its tensed shoulders relax, and it comes right up to the bars of your cell. A four-fingered hand wraps itself around one.

“You’re one of the new ones, right?” he says in a whisper even softer than yours. “From the train?”

You go to stand, placing your hand against the wall for support as you stretch out to your full height.

“Yeah?”

He sizes you up when you come closer to the bars, hood subtly nodding up and down once or twice.

“I figured. I overheard some guards talking about an ‘alien captive’ when I made my way in.”

Made his way in…?

“Who are you?”

“Unimportant,” he deflects. “Have you seen a phthalo green male unicorn anywhere in this prison block? Lengthy sky blue mane, gray eyes? Cutie mark of an ornate crystal flask?”

“No, sorry. The only time I left my cell was with a blindfold on.”

“Damn…” he curses, looking down at the floor of your cell. “He has to be here. This is the only place I haven’t searched.”

He drops his hand from the bar and backs up, casting a cautious gaze down both directions of the hall.

“Are you here to rescue us?” you ask, chest filling with hope…

“I’m sorry, but I’m only here for the unicorn.”

…only to be replaced with disbelief.

“What…? You’ve got to be fucking with me, we need help!”

“And one day, you will have it,” he replies, undeterred by your desperation. “My window is too tight as it is, and you are not critical to my mission.”

“Is there a rescue team coming after you, then?”

“No. Even though this compound is smaller than the others, we lack the numbers for such an operation.”

On a deeper level, you get it. One misconstructed plan could spell disaster for a small team - you just got done living through that.

On a surface level? Fuck this.

“So we all have to just sit here on our asses getting beaten into submission while we wait for you to show up again?”

Your temper flares as you press yourself against the bars.

“Do you even know what they’re doing to us?”

The stranger turns back to you, his attention captured by the vitriol in your whisper.

“Intimately,” he responds flatly. “And it will get much worse before it gets any better. You will persevere, though, I’m sure.”

What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?

He moves to continue down the hallway, but only gets an inch or two before you call after him with a hushed voice.

“How the fuck is anything supposed to be worse than being that bitch’s concubine?”

He stops in his tracks, doing a double take before returning to the front of your cell again.

“Concubine?” he whispers, confusion strikingly apparent even in his breath.

“Yeah. She’s taking me with her to the ‘mecca’ tomorrow, wherever that is. Apparently, I’m supposed to be her husband, according to her fairytale cult bullshit.”

Even without seeing his facial features, you can sense his utter confusion from under the black hood. He casts his gaze warily to and fro before locking eyes with you once more, saying nothing the entire time.

Without even the hint of a warning, he backs away from you and continues meandering down the hallway, barely a sound to his movement; it’s like he’s floating, really. Not that you care, of course. You’re far too busy being livid.

“Hey! What the fuck? I’m not done with you!”

You whisper-shout after him, but he pays you no mind as he continues checking the cells for his target.

Well, that’s just fucking wonderful, isn’t it? Your one avenue of escape - your only way out of this - and he’s not even here for any of you.

Some luck you have, Anon.

You back away from the bars, steaming with indignation. The temperature in your cell has easily gone up a few degrees in the wake of your incoming shit fit. A brief rumble in your throat capitalizes your dissatisfaction as you lean against the Pal-adjacent wall of your cell.

God damn it, Anon, just… breathe.

The stale air of the prison hall fills your lungs, quelling your deep desire to shout your grievances at the stranger.

“Anonymous?” a timid voice calls out from your right. “What’s going on?”

Glancing up, you see Hearth stirring in her cot, rubbing her eyes and squinting to see you.

You feel for her; this is the last thing she needs to wake up to.

“Rescue’s here, and it’s not for us.”

She frowns in confusion as she shakily rises to her hooves.

“…W-What?”

Down the hall, you hear the unmistakable click of a steel lock being twisted. The shriek of a cell door opening rings out for but half a second before everything falls silent once more. He must’ve found his guy.

Hearth’s eyes widen with caution, as if the very noise were compelling her to shrink back into the corner of her cell again. She stands firm, though - out of curiosity or courage, you can’t tell.

“What do you mean? W-Who’s here?”

As if to answer her question, the stranger strides into view from your left once more, albeit with a four-legged plus one. His description of the fellow was apt, but it left the overall condition of the stallion up to interpretation.

Judging from how thin he was, you guess that he must’ve been here for a long while; it might be the lack of light playing tricks on you, but you swear you can see his ribs through his fur. He already looks to be of a thinner build, judging by his facial structure, but malnutrition must have been a factor in his current state.

If you thought Hearth was roughed up, this guy is covered in injuries. Scabbed-over lacerations here, heavy bruising there, and if you squint, you can see that one of his eyes has a subconjunctival hemorrhage. A silver, oblong contraption is fastened tightly to his horn, adorned with several low-profile locks. You can’t make out the finer details, given how dark it is, but you surmise that it must be some kind of magic suppressant.

He’s dressed in some kind of shabby robe, but with a heavier coat over the top - probably courtesy of the biped, who hands him a bottle of silver, faintly glowing liquid. Without a moment’s hesitation, the unicorn downs it, some of it overflowing and dripping down his chin. As he stops to properly drink without spilling, the biped strolls up to your cell once more, stopping just shy of the bars again.

“What’s your name?” he asks, voice still a flat whisper like earlier.

Your anger is begging you to mouth off to him, but you hold it in for now.

“Anonymous.”

Just barely, if your tone is anything to go by.

“Interesting name,” he replies, the ghost of intrigue playing at his words. He looks to the right for a brief second, checking for something, before returning his attention to you.

“Stick your hand out.”

…What?

“Why?”

“I want to shake it.”

Is this guy serious? Are you being fucked with right now? Here, of all places?

“Why the hell would I-”

“Just do it,” he interjects, glancing both ways again.

You hesitate for a moment. He’s not even sticking his hand out yet. What kind of asshole-

…

Just swallow your fucking pride, Anon. If he actually does come back at some point to get the rest of you, it wouldn’t hurt to be in his good graces.

Sighing, you head over to the bars of your cell, eyeing him sharply as you close the distance. Without a word, you offer your hand out to him between the bars. He wastes no time in sweeping it up in his… paw?

You look down, and are greeted with a hand-shaped mass of slick, gray fur enveloping your hand as his fingers curl around it. He’s only got four of them, as you saw earlier, and they’re quite a bit more sizable than yours. Padded, too; they’re oddly warm for how cold it is. A cursory inspection reveals the absence of any claws at the moment, so he can’t be a Diamond Dog.

The inner analysis is interrupted, though, when a cold, metallic object presses firmly into your palm. Your surprise is involuntary.

“Uh-?”

Before you can move past your gut reaction into a coherent sentence, the stranger turns your hand over so that it’s on top of his, and places his other hand over it. His firm grip holds you in place, and for the first time, you can finally see his eyes as he leans in further. They give off a dull glow amid the darkness of his hood. Unflinchingly blue, with vertically slitted pupils - an Abyssinian.

“The guards are in the middle of a shift change, so there are none on any of the towers, and their overall presence throughout the compound has decreased,” he explains, monotone. “You have about eight minutes before they return to normal coverage.”

“Wh-”

“There’s a hidden passage to the outside that goes under the first floor’s easternmost wall. Exit the door to the right end of this hallway and follow the leftmost path until you come up to a set of stairs - take those to the ground floor. They’re not often used, so you should be safe.”

You nod, struggling to keep up with the frenetic pace of his instructions.

“When you get down there, hug the right wall until you reach a hallway. Take it until the end, and then go through a door labeled ‘Janitorial Staff Only.’ The hatch leading out will be under a stack of pallets.”

Fuck, okay, that’s a lot to remember.

“W-What then?”

“Run for the city. If you’re quick, you’ll be too far for the tower guards to see you, especially given that it’s nighttime. The snowstorm will give you some cover.”

Holy fuck, okay. Right door, left hallway, stairs, right wall, janitor door, and then through the hatch.

Wait…

“How are we gonna-”

He removes his paws from your hand, revealing a worn-down, rusted key resting in the center of your palm.

“Master key,” he explains simply as he steps back and hoists the unicorn up onto his back. “Be seeing you, Anonymous.”

He barely even gets your name out before he and his VIP are barreling down the hallway in the opposite direction of where he told you to go, taking massive, graceful strides. Despite his greatly quickened pace, he’s still nearly dead silent.

“Did h-he just…” Hearth utters, still in disbelief. Her voice barely even reaches your ears.

Your muscles spring to life before your thoughts can get themselves in order. The key nearly falls from your hand entirely because of your overloaded nerves, but you fumble it back into a tight grip with the pin facing outwards. Legs operated by a far-away mind carry you as close to the iron door as they’ll go, and you smush yourself against it as you slot your whole arm through the bars. Your hand races for the lock mechanism, but you can’t quite get the pin into the hole…

“A little to the left!” Hearth guides, trying her best to keep to a whisper.

Alright, to the left then… aaaaaand-

Bingo. There’s a bit of resistance, but the key does eventually slide all the way in. Your fingers strain against the rough metal, but turn it does, and when the latch clicks, your heart skips a beat. Pausing for a moment to collect yourself, you push against the door…

…and it swings open, its signature piercing shriek signaling your freedom.

15 - All Along The Watchtower

Holy shit.

Holy shit, okay… stay calm, Anon. Breathe.

You’ve still gotta get everyone else outta here somehow.

Hearth is befuddled in her cell; her lips are curled upward in a half-smile, but the urgency in her eyes is still clearly present.

Once again, your body moves on its own, ahead of your thoughts by at least a few seconds. After you retrieve the key from the ajar door, you stride over to her, kneeling down to be better leveled with the keyhole. It goes in a fair bit smoother this time, and after another quick turn, you’ve wrenched Hearth free from the jaws of her prison.

You hold the door open for her, and she doesn’t hesitate to bolt out of her cell and join your side, repulsed by the thought of staying for even one moment longer. She draws a shaky breath before looking up at you, every single ounce of despair from earlier nowhere to be seen. In its place is pure, focused determination.

“Let’s get Pal, and then we’ll start with everyone else,” you all but command, not even sure the voice belongs to you.

She nods, falling in behind you.

As you trudge over to his cell, you wonder why none of the commotion woke him up. Sure, everyone was mostly whispering, he definitely should have heard the cell doors opening. Regardless, you don’t have time to speculate.

Just before you come to the front of his cell, you call out to him as loudly as you think you can get away with.

“Pal! Wake up, man!”

As he comes into view, though, you’re stopped dead in your tracks, mouth hanging open in dubiety.

Your initial thoughts for what Pal might’ve been were nebulous at best. After your lengthy conversation with him earlier, your mental image of him settled on a griffon, and it never really deviated from there onward. His personality reminded you of your meat vendor back in Canterlot, who just so happened to be one as well, so it stuck.

You expected to be wrong, but not quite this wrong.

Before you, lying perfectly still on the cot, is a concerningly large bipedal skeleton. A minotaur skeleton, if those horns on his head are anything to go by.

…

You know you aren’t hallucinating. If you were, Hearth wouldn’t have outwardly gasped behind you.

You’ve a myriad of questions, but you don’t have time for speculation. Focus, Anon!

“Pal? You gotta get up, come on!”

As you draw closer to the latch and kneel, he stirs, his inappropriately small blanket sliding off of his bones as he returns to the waking world. A faint green glow populates his eye sockets, and after a second or two, the light concentrates into two pin-prick sized points of color. He wrests his head - skull, rather - from his pillow, ethereal gaze locking onto you after a few moments of supposed confusion.

“Anon? Whadda ya…”

To your absolute astonishment, his skull contorts to display an uncanny mixture of embarrassment and horror. He extends his bony arm out toward you, five-fingered hand attempting to defuse the situation.

“N-Now I know what this looks like, an’ I jus’ gotta say-”

“I got plenty of questions about it for later, man. We gotta get the fuck out of here.”

This time, the key’s giving you all sorts of hell trying to get into the lock. It’s all you can do not to strain to insert it fully. Pal, bless his soul if he still has one, seems to understand exactly what’s going on as his skeletal expression switches to one of anxious enthusiasm.

“Say no more,” he replies, rising to his full height, almost a full head taller than you. No idea how he still pronounces words without lips or a tongue, but that’s a thought for another day.

You curse under your breath as the pin struggles to get past what feels like a layer of hardened rust. It finally does, and you breathe a sigh of relief, only for the turn of the key to be an even more daunting task.

Inch by inch, though, it trudges counter-clockwise.

“What’s wrong?” Hearth asks from behind you as it’s halfway turned. “Is it not-”

She’s cut off by the swish of a unicorn’s horn firing off a spell.

As the key snags something in the lock, you turn to face the source of the noise, but are interrupted by a pair of hind hooves colliding with your upper left cheek at an alarming velocity. You’re sent toppling over onto your back as you clutch your ringing face, vision painted over with stars from the brutal impact. Blood drips from where you were hit - the strike broke skin, it seems.

You look down, and in your hand, the bow of the key lies broken and useless, snapped off from the pin that’s undoubtedly still lodged in the lock. It slips from your grasp as the reality of what it means hits you.

Your only method of freeing everyone… gone.

With adrenaline and anger now pumping through you, you find enough willpower to sit up as much as you can and face the incoming threat. Beside you, Hearth lays slumped against the floor, no wounds visible on her still form. Her chest rises and falls slowly, and her eyelids twitch uncontrollably with every breath that leaves her.

She was put to sleep. Which can only mean-

“Sacrilegious fool.”

Heavenly Virtue marches toward you.

“You were given a golden opportunity to be of service to Her Grace, and to our future, and what do you do with it?” he asks facetiously, not intending to wait for an answer. “You spit in Her face, as if she were nothing more than a common lay.”

You backpedal on your ass until you can rise to your full height, vision still clearing after the blow.

“I warned you, creature,” he spits, malice overflowing. “All you had to do was behave, and you would have had the privilege of siring a new age of royalty with Her. You will be punished for your flagrant disobedience, you undeserving, godless whore.”

Every word that leaves his mouth seems to make him even more furious than before. Against all odds, shocking even you, you find time for banter amid this dire situation.

“You’re really gonna do this, huh? Didn’t she tell you all not to lay a hand on me?”

His frown deepens as a sick smile curls into his cheeks.

“She will understand.”

He charges you, baring his horn toward you as he charges a spell. Although you’ve only been in a proper fight once in your life, your guard goes up instinctively as you wait for him to get closer. If you can bait that spell out, then-

Too late. Halfway through his charge, he lets it fly straight at your head.

You just barely manage to bob your head to the left enough to dodge it, but the sudden jolt so soon after his kick threatens to throw you off balance. Your left hand shoots out against the wall to stop you from falling, and before you know it, he’s on you, jumping straight at your chest in an attempt to tackle you to the ground. You’re able to catch him with a glancing blow from a right swing, but with him already hurtling through the air at you, it doesn’t do much to slow him down.

His full weight slams into you, his head angled precariously with his horn just barely slipping under your armpit thanks to that punch. You stay on your feet for a second or two, but the weight proves to be too much, and the two of you fall backward onto the cold, damp stone.

Virtue gets his bearings before you and starts trying to wail on you with his two front hooves. Your arms go up to block all of the incoming hits. A few find their mark on your body, but your arms catch most of them. It still hurts like hell, but you get the feeling that Virtue might not be a fighter either.

How lucky you are.

He relents, channeling a spell through his horn as he rears his head back. Your hands shoot out from your guard and wrap around his snout, stopping him from angling his head downward. He pushes with all his might against your grip, but you hold him off, and his spell fires at the ceiling. The impact loosens some debris from the ceiling, dust and rocks raining down on the two of you. Virtue’s grip loses some of its strength when a stray falling rock hits him in the snout.

Mustering together all of the strength you can manage, you maintain your grip on his face and twist yourself to the right in an effort to throw him off of you. He buckles, and when you sweep your left leg outward, he falls over completely, slamming against the floor next to you.

You scramble to your knees, and he levels an unholy glare right at you, charging up another spell. Your fist flies out to his head to try to stop it, but you’re a little too late, and the spell is sent into your left shoulder.

A distant, far-away voice - your own - cries out, but the pain dulls as you surge forward with your other hand, rocking Virtue on the chin as he’s trying to get back up. He’s knocked back down onto his side and shuffles toward the opposite wall, but you’re on him the whole way.He brings his hooves up to cover his face as you throw blow after clumsy blow at him, a fusillade of soft-handed wrath.

He rears his head back again. Another spell being charged - not happening.

Operating on instinct alone at this point, your wounded arm shoots out, grabbing his horn before he can fire anything at you. You wrench his head forward and drive your knee into his nose as hard as you can, which is inhibited by the fact that you’re on your knees to begin with. It still hits hard enough to draw blood, though, and Virtue yelps in pain.

His hind legs frantically strike against the right side of your ribs over and over, but you hold out against the pain. Somewhere in the distant soundscape, a metallic scraping sound rings out, but it barely registers in your single-minded frenzy.

Your grip on his horn holds, and you drive your knee into his nose again.

And again.

And again, and again, and again, until he stops crying out, and his legs fall slack.

When you finally deign to stop your amateurish assault on Virtue’s face, you fall onto your hands, left shoulder buckling as you make acquaintance with the individual bricks that line the floor.

Every single ragged breath heaving in and out of your lungs sets your chest ablaze. You look over to your unconscious assailant, blood dripping from his snout into the cracks of the damp stone beneath him.

Amid the subsiding anger pounding in your chest, a profound sense of what might be called guilt creeps forth, as if you’ve just done something terribly wrong. It holds your gaze leveled at Virtue’s battered body, forcing you to drink in the product of excess violence. Your regret is, at once, irrational; this much, you can recognize.

And yet, it’s there. Gnawing at you. Undiminishable.

Fortunately, it isn’t allowed to eat at you for long; a slender hand slips over your shoulder, pulling you from the upsetting scene before you. Your head twists in the direction of the unexpected contact, only to be greeted by Pal’s skeletal visage, towering over you even as he kneels down.

“He’s done, Anon,” he reassures you, grip tightening as your muscles start to go slack. “He’s done.”

Your eyes shut as the catharsis of his words crawl over you, and you shiver as if to rid yourself of the excess of emotion you just experienced.

“H-How did you… How’d you g-get out of the cell?”

Even talking is a tall order for you right now.

“Key got just far enough ‘fore it broke off,” he replies, his usual light-heartedness missing. “Can ya stand?”

You flex the muscles in your leg; even though they burn like hell, you can still feel them.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can s-stand.”

Proving your point, you shakily get up on your own two feet, glancing down the whole time to make sure Virtue stays asleep. From up above, he-

“Don’t,” Pal says simply as he traces your gaze. “He deserved it, end of story.”

You don’t have a reply readily available for that.

…

Oh, fuck, how much time did you lose fighting him? Why the fuck was he even down here, anyway?

“Pal, we… we gotta go. They’re doing a shift change, we gotta get out of here before they’re done.”

“How’d ya know that?”

“Guy came through to pick up his friend and he left the key with me.”

A glimmer of disbelief flashes through his eyes before he shakes the feeling off.

“Good enough for me. He happen to tell ya a way outta ‘ere?”

You nod, recalling the stranger’s directions.

“Yeah, but… what about everyone else here?”

You nod at the long hallway of cells, most of which house faces that peer out at you from between the bars.Races of all kinds; pony, gryphon, dragon… some you couldn’t even recognize, just like before. Some surprised, some shocked… some anticipating Pal’s answer.

A good number of the faces you recognize as having been on the train.

“We’ll be back for ‘em,” Pal replies, grip tightening further. “All of ‘em. I swear it.”

With great effort, you tear your eyes away from their pleading expressions as they begin to make more and more noise to get your attention. A great wave of stinging agony in your shoulder slowly throbs its way to your attention, and you grab around the afflicted area with your other hand, groaning as you do so.

A cursory look at the source of the pain reveals a torn-up section of your long-sleeve shirt, soaked through with your sticky lifeblood.

Virtue wasn’t firing sleep spells at you. He was trying to carve you.

Fuck’s sake, if that one aimed at your face had landed, you’d have been way worse off.

You can still move the afflicted arm, but not without grievous waves of pain spreading from the shoulder.

“Carry Hearth for me, he put her to sleep.”

“You got it,” he replies, jogging over to where she lies and hoisting her into a piggyback hold. “Lead the way, big guy.”

You don’t have to be asked twice. As fast as you can muster with your shot nerves, you gun it down the hallway where Virtue came from, Pal following close behind. Slowing your roll when you get to the door, you crack it just a smidge and peek through to see if there might be anyone on the other side.

No one so far - the coast is clear. Throwing the door open wide, you make for the leftmost hallway that you can see, opting for a brisk run instead of a slow sneak.

The room immediately adjacent to the cells is lined with various instruments of pain - hot irons, pliers, needles, syringes of various fluids, et cetera. The very center of it is a slightly raised platform with drainage ditches along the side, housing a long, concrete table atop it that sits under the same blue lamplight from the prison hallway.

Must be the little asshole’s favorite room here.

Deeper analysis of the decor is shoved aside as you and Pal file into what must be a maintenance hallway, given how tight and desolate it is. You aren’t quite sure just how unguarded this place is at the moment, but right now, you’ve no choice but to trust that your new friend meant very unguarded.

Before long, the staircase comes into view, almost as tight as the hallway you barrelled through. Your legs burn like fire as the two of you descend downward through several flights, and as you reach the bottom floor, you hear one of the doors three or four floors above you swing ajar. Holding your breath, you gesture back at Pal to keep quiet, and he nods, freeing one of his hands to reassure you by metaphorically zipping his lips - teeth, rather - shut.

As the mystery individual’s steps begin to ring out through the stairwell, you peek through a glass window on the ornate door at the bottom. It leads to an outdoor courtyard of some kind, stretching out a good distance with plenty of shrubbery, benches, and other architecture that you can duck behind if needed. As opposed to earlier, when you could hear the howling of the wind even from your cell, the wind has died down a bit. Thankfully, though, the snowfall is still heavy, helping reduce visibility for you, Pal, and Hearth.

The entire yard is covered in a blanket of white, and there are only a handful of guards milling about closer to the other end of the space. They’re looking in your general direction, but you think you can duck behind a bench adjacent to the right wall without being spotted if you’re quick enough.

Echoing footsteps from above compel you to take the chance. You whisper back to Pal so that he’s on the same page.

“Keep up with me.”

He nods, and with his acknowledgement, you open the door just far enough so that you and Pal can squeeze through. You don’t even bother looking in the guards’ direction; with speed you didn’t know you were capable of, you drop as low as you possibly can, almost crawling over to the far end of the stone bench so that he has enough room behind you to slide in. Resting on one knee, you deign to peer around the side, praying that the gaggle of assholes across the yard didn’t notice anything.

They’re still milling about and gazing in your general direction, but aren’t focused on anything in particular. It’s hard to see from this far away, but it looks faintly like five of them are more focused on listening to the leftmost one, who switches to looking at them every once in a while. Maybe you can time your advance with that…?

You don’t get a chance to mull over it - the leftmost guard turns to them, and they respond in kind. You book it over to the next set of benches using shrubbery and statues as partial cover, keeping your eye on them the whole time as you quietly dash forth.

As the guards continue to yammer on about who-knows-what, you seize the opportunity to extend your small dash all the way into the rightmost covered hallway, ducking back into the belly of the beast and out of the elements.

Compared to the auxiliary hallway from earlier, this one looks like you’ve stepped right into the Biltmore, with elegant crown molding and the like. You’re too focused to soak in all of the details, though - most of your attention is directed toward making sure you’re not followed, and that no one sees you as you delve deeper into the unknown.

So far, so good… but why the hell is the hallway so long? Not only that, you’d swear this part of the compound would have had at least a guard or two patrolling, even during a guard change.

A quick check behind lets you know that Pal’s still right on your tail, just like he said he’d be. Before long, you both come upon a dead end, just like the stranger said you would. You frantically search the doors’ labels, hoping for-

The latch of a door to your leftmost rear clicks, indicative of a turned handle.

A muffled female voice drones out from within.

Without a moment’s hesitation, you reach for the nearest door, labeled ‘Document Storage’, and fling it open. You grab a surprised Pal and drag him into the cramped room behind you, throwing the door closed up until the very last second, where you shut it gently with the handle still turned. Slowly, you release it, and the latch makes little noise.

As you do so, you hear the other door swing all the way open, voices becoming understandable even through your wooden threshold.

“-don’t see the reason for his overwhelming concern. The only place she could have run off to was the mecca, and we have informants in every district waiting to report back at the mere sight of her.”

That voice…!

The older, gravelly texture, that middling baritone… he’s the older male from the crash site, you’re sure of it.

What the hell is he-

“His anxiety is well-founded, Grand Vizier Atlas. If she was cunning enough to escape the compound, she might cause further trouble for us in the future.”

Ambrosia.

Your startled eyes find a similar reaction in Pal’s glowing eye sockets when you exchange glances. Both of the strangers you met earlier were male - was there another escapee?

Putting that aside, why are they both here? Isn’t it three or four in the morning…?

As their voices fade into the distance along with their hoofsteps, you try to pick up on more of their conversation.

“Be that as it may, Your Grace,” Atlas replies, “She is still only one child, and one bearing the crest of foreign royalty, at that. It won’t take long for us to find her once more.”

The voices grow dim, but you can still just barely make out what’s being said…

“Perhaps,” Ambrosia replies, just as level headed as she was with you earlier. “But I won’t leave anything up to chance. I’ll consult the Holy Mother when we return to the city, after I’ve spent some time with my husband-to-be. I had planned to, anyway. Something happened earlier that I need to investigate…”

The urge to vomit is replaced with a sharp, twisting pain in your ribs, and in all honesty, you’re not sure which you prefer at this point. After a time, their voices fade along with their hoofsteps, but the prospect of stepping out into the hall after having heard them is a daunting one indeed.

“Ya good?” Pal whispers, just loud enough for it to be discernible.

“Y-yeah, I’m… Yeah. I’m just waiting for a second before I open it.”

“We don’t got that kinda time, Anon,” he replies, urgency present in his expression. “I’ll lead the rest o’ the way, if ya want.”

“No, no, I’m good… Ready?”

“Go.”

With utmost caution, you gently pry the door open once more, mouth ajar in concentration. Through the slit of clearance, you see that the door they came through is closed once more. Without the insulation of the door, you can hear much further - their hoofsteps are still present, but you thankfully can’t see them anywhere.

They must have headed the way that you came from. Probably on their way to get ready for departure, no doubt. There’s no other reason they’d be up this early.

Slowly, steadily, you push the door outward, thankful for the fact that they evidently keep their doors well-oiled, apart from the cells. You and Pal file out into the hallway as quickly as you can without making too much noise, and continue your search for the correct label.

Conference room, bathroom, another storage room…

A mountain of relief washes over you as you finally spot the properly labeled door.

‘Janitorial Staff Only.’

You grab the handle and give it a twist - unlocked. Pulling it open, you’re greeted with a relatively tiny custodial storage room, but there’s enough space for the both of you to fit without any trouble, Hearth included. You file in one by one, locking the door behind you once Pal is in.

At this point, with your goal so close to completion, your capacity for caution is waning. The stack of pallets in the corner of the room stick out like a sore thumb amid all of the cleaning supplies. Before either of you can say anything, you’re already clawing pallets off with your good arm, discarding them haphazardly to the side as you dig for the prize.

And what a prize it is - the wooden hatch with metal fixtures lays bare, free for you to open…

…apart from the padlock keeping it sealed.

The mountain of relief makes way for an ocean of unending despair. The key that the Abyssinian gave you was probably for this lock, too, not just the cells.

“Pal…” you croak.

“What is it?” he asks, giving up his watch on the door to hold your defeated gaze.

“We’re locked out.”

“…What?”

“It’s got a padlock.”

“Lemme see,” he says, turning his back to present Hearth to you. “Hold ‘er for me.”

You take her with your good shoulder, her head resting against your shoulder as you struggle to find a good grip with only one arm.

Huh. Apart from the obvious grime of having been in a prison for a whole day, she smells like a freshly-lit log fire. Ironically enough, it fits her cutie mark. Go figure.

An alarmingly loud crunch, followed by an even louder metallic snapping sound, yanks your startled eyes over to Pal.

Below him sits a ruined padlock, guts of its mechanism strewn about on the floor. Its ring that held it to both the hatch and the floor lies distorted in two pieces. Pal steps back from his handiwork, gesturing for you to hand Hearth back to him. You gladly oblige.

“Were you always that strong…?”

“Yup,” he replies, looking between you and the hatch expectantly.

“Could you have done that to your cell, too?”

“Nah, too sturdy. Get the damn thing open already, somebody prob’ly heard that.”

No arguments there. You throw the hatch open, revealing an eight-or-so foot drop into a narrow dirt passageway, a ladder lining the way down on the side closest to you. As far as you can tell, there aren’t any lights, leaving the passageway swathed in pure black.

“You first, ya take up less space.”

Heeding Pal’s words, you descend down the latter, dropping the last few feet as opposed to climbing all the way down. You look back up to see Pal sizing up the entrance before readjusting Hearth slightly higher up on his back. He hops onto the first few rungs and shuts the hatch behind him, ushering in total darkness. He then hops down the rest of the way, the impact of which is ever so slightly felt in your feet.

Feeling along the wall, you quickly trudge forward into the unknown. You’d call out for Pal to check if he’s still following, but his footsteps and shuffling are all the confirmation you need in the confines of this dingy tunnel.

Eventually, after what feels like ages, you feel the mushy dirt beneath you begin to slope upward. As a precaution, you hold your hand out in front of you so as not to run into anything, and before long, the sound of muffled wind graces your ears as you come to what must be the tunnel’s end.

Your hand finds resistance at last against an angled, steel hatch. Resituating yourself to face slanted with your bad shoulder turned away, you prop your good one underneath the door and place your right palm flat against it.

If anyone is out there listening, anyone at all…

Please don’t let this one be locked.

To your relief, the door does budge. With the added weight of what must be snow, however, you have to strain against it with all of your might to make any headway on getting it opened.

Once it reaches a certain angle, it becomes far easier; you feel the heaping pile of snow sliding off of the door as your legs catch fire from the force needed to lift it. When the hatch fully opens, you stumble forward, half of you exposed to the elements and half of you still in the tunnel.

Before you commit to either, you spin around onto your back and gaze back up at the compound. The snow has calmed down considerably, making the ominous structure more visible given that there’s a full moon out.

The core building itself seems featureless on the outside - must be an ominous sight for prisoners that are still awake when they’re taken in. Ambrosia’s tower must be somewhere over the main building, since you can’t see its exterior from here.

The guard towers look like they’re made out of sandstone brick, culminating at the top in a traditional rounded outpost. From where you are, you can see three of them; one directly in front of you, one to the far left, and one way in the distance to the right.

And if you squint…

There are no guards manning those towers yet.

They’re empty.

You’re still within the time frame, somehow! Which means-

“Holy shit, we’re out!”

You involuntarily yell it out, cringing after you’ve realized how loud that actually was, even against the blowing wind.

“Then go, dumbass! We’re still in eyesight o’ the place!” Pal’s volume isn’t much better as he pulls you to your feet, clambering out alongside you with Hearth still asleep on his back. When he lets go, you hit the ground running, trying desperately not to trip over yourself in the deep snow.

Something that should have been apparent in the courtyard now beats you over the head as the wind whips against the exposed parts of your skin.

It’s cold. Very, very cold.

You thank your lucky stars that you had the foresight to at least wear one of Rarity’s sweaters for the train yesterday.

As Pal runs beside you, he pulls ahead slightly thanks to his bigger build, despite being literally nothing but bones. Your eyes are glued to your feet, but as you find your balance navigating through the copious snow, you find enough confidence to look up as you run.

There, in the distance, lies a behemoth of a city. Divided into rings with buildings spider-webbing out from the middle and reaching for the sky towards its center, it sits miraculously amid an endless expanse of pearly white dunes, lights from its seemingly ancient architecture reaching out amid the darkness as beacons in the night. Even from what must be a considerable distance, its size is staggering - certainly deserving of its title as ‘the mecca.’

It whispers to you over the harsh winter winds of the frozen wasteland.

‘Run to me,’ it calls. ‘Run to me.’

So, on weary legs, you do.

- END OF ACT I -

Author's Note

FUN FACT:

A Horse With No Name is the song that I had in mind the whole time I was writing Act I. Honestly, it's responsible for The Wanderer existing in the first place; the idea for extending the original story came to me while I was listening to it. I felt it fitting that we cap off the first act with it as the outro song.

Act I-II Interlude - Celestia's Letter

Author's Note

Between each act of the story, I have interludes planned - small tidbits that don't fit into the overall flow of the story, but add to it all the same. This one is Celestia's letter to Anon, delivered as his train was leaving in Chapter 7.

Act II begins soon.

Act I-II Interlude - Celestia's Letter

Dear Anonymous,

Hail, fair Anonymous, shining example of mankind, and a truly peerless companion!

It appears that I’ve lost my patience for the Old Ponish dialect as well, at least when it comes to having a back-and-forth with dear friends. In truth, it isn’t nearly as abundant as it used to be, as far as most of my advisors are concerned. Plainhoof, however… I cherish that stallion’s mind, but sometimes, his manner of speaking makes me feel young, if you can believe it.

Oh, but we can prattle on about all of our wonderful little nothings whenever we see each other next. It’s nice to hear from you again, Anon! Believe it or not, I was actually just about to write to you as well. I knew things had been busy for you, but I wasn’t aware of just how turbulent things had become at your job. Don’t ever feel like you have to apologize for not writing, either. I, of all ponies, understand how busy things can be at times.

To answer your question, I’ve actually been quite well. There hasn’t been anything particularly exciting happening as of late, which is an unusual development for the castle. Why, I even found myself with some downtime earlier today! Needless to say, I almost didn’t know what to do with myself, but I did eventually decide to spend some time out in the gardens with a book I’d been recommended recently. If you haven’t heard of Bright Horizon, I strongly encourage you to read one of her works for yourself. I have a feeling that they might be right up your alley.

That’s enough about me, though. I’m sorry that your work has taken such an upsetting turn, Anon. While I can’t say that I’m personally familiar with your particular situation, I offer my heartfelt support all the same. Should you ever need somepony to talk to, you need only ask. In truth, though, I’m glad that you’ve parted ways with the company you worked for. In breaking free of those preconceived dreams, you’ve taken the important first step in figuring out what kind of person you want to be. It can be a terrifying prospect, starting over, but the comfort and joy that arise from finally coming into your own is nothing short of momentous.

I think you’ve got a fantastic start, too. Relocating to Ponyville for the time being was a wonderful idea, and if the tail end of your letter is any indication, your friends seem to agree as well. Don’t get too caught up in figuring everything out while you’re there; take everything in this time around. Breathe deeply, look closely, and just be - unconditionally. You may find that the answer to what ails you has always been just out of sight.

Regarding your former boss’s conduct surrounding your personal belongings, I certainly hope he doesn’t make any rash decisions. That was far too perfect of a moment to simply leave as a memory. Speaking of which, you still haven’t made any moves to retaliate since that day, Anon. What could you be planning, I wonder…?

In all seriousness, I’d very much enjoy it if you came to visit after you retrieved your things. It’s been too long, and I believe some tea and lunch with a close friend would make my day. Don’t worry about it if you’re pressed for time, though - I understand completely. Be safe on your journey, Anonymous!

Fondly yours,
Celestia

Celestia, with a flourish of her magic, strips the quill of any excess ink before placing it back into its receptacle. The intense morning rays of gold reflect off of the singular silver strip adorning the implement, narrowly missing her eyes by a few inches, as it settles into place. Smiling warmly, she sighs, contented; after toiling for what felt like hours, it seems that the right words had found her after all.

As she stands and glides out from behind her desk, ready to begin a long day of court, she wonders if Anon still likes chamomile.

16 - In From the Cold

The air is naught but pure frost, yet your lungs catch fire with every ragged breath. Your legs, alight with agony, extend and retract on pure instinct.

An otherworldly force bids you flee with everything you have, and then some. Across the midnight haze, through the frost, sinking almost shin-deep into white death with every step.

Your shoulder throbs with every down-beat of your gait, and every swing of your arm wrenches staggering pain from a well of prickling numbness. For a stint, you followed the distant lights of the mecca. Now, in the midst of a furious winter storm, you can only follow your friends, carrying on in the same vague direction.

How long you’ve been on the run is nebulous - whether it’s been five minutes or five hours, it’s felt like eternity either way. The wind, having picked up tremendously since your hasty departure, whips at your exposed skin like pins and needles. You squint over at Pal, his enchanted bones having a somewhat easier time trudging through the unending dunes of snow.

On his back, Hearth still slumbers, oblivious to your dire circumstances. Even now, in the midst of the tundra’s assault on your senses, you worry for her; Virtue’s spell must have been dangerously potent to render her unconscious for so long. You inwardly wonder whether or not it would be better to be awake for the harrowing jaunt into the city.

Before you can distract yourself with another train of thought, though, your foot gets caught on a particularly solid patch of snow, sending you tumbling forward. You catch yourself on both hands, the impact riveting up your arms and through your shoulders, another jolt of suffering radiating from your wound. A hoarse groan escapes your lungs, already thirsting for more frigid air before it even leaves you. Subconscious anger swells in your chest as you ball your fists, lamenting the loss of your feverish pace.

“Damn!” Pal swears, doubling back to check on you. “Y’alright, big guy?”

Two skeletal feet appear in the snow in front of you as a bony, four-fingered hand plants itself firmly on your good shoulder. You look up into the endless dark of Pal’s eye sockets, beset with green light.

“M’fine.”

The deep crimson staining of your clothes around your shoulder begs to differ. Pal’s pinpoint stare scans you for a few moments as he helps you to your feet.

“Ain’t much further now,” he says, pointing toward the city with his free hand. “We gotta get the hell outta this wind, ‘fore it gets even worse. C’mon!”

As he sets off once more, so do you, ignoring the worsening torture of cloth on exposed flesh. In just the short amount of time that you had taken to recover, the snowfall further worsened. Your face stings as the frost nips at your skin. Pal leads the way, pushing further into the white noise.

The only other thing that starts to jut out from the haze is a vast wall stretching into obscurity, which all three of you close in on after a few more minutes of perseverance. Pal presses against it and looks tentatively in both directions that it continues in, switching Hearth into a front-carry position to better shield her against the elements.

“Stick close ta me,” Pal commands. “The storm should cover us from the guards up on the walls. With any luck, they ain’t sealed up the old tunnels.”

Old, musty passageways with an open wound? Wonderful.

“Tunnels…?”

“They’re technically ‘auxiliary exits,’ but we all just call ‘em tunnels. I dunno how close we are ta one, but there were plenty of ‘em, so hopefully we won’t be out here much longer.”

The sooner, the better; the tips of your fingers are beginning to lose feeling. You file in behind Pal as he shimmies along the wall, his free hand feeling for something along the rough stone.

Forever and a half passes as all three of your trudge forward. Numbness steadily creeps up your digits. You blow hot breath on them to preserve some level of warmth, but it brings back nothing more than static.

Shivering uncontrollably, you shove your hands under your armpits, desperate to prevent any significant consequences from prolonged exposure. Eventually - mercifully - Pal stops in his tracks, his bony fingers working a divot in the otherwise featureless wall.

“C’mon, you sonuva-”

Over the roaring wind, stone sliding on stone rings out.

Pal’s head rears up at the sound and he fidgets harder, fighting for any grip at all. Finally, he finds it, and a small, rectangle-esque section of the wall begins to slide outward. It moves an inch every million years, even as strong as Pal appears to be.

Impatient, you spring forward in assistance and find your own diminished grip, settling for the friction along your fingertips when an edge fails to present itself to you. All the same, you pull as hard as you can, the rough stone registering as no more than a hefty force on your weary bones.

Spending energy you can’t afford to part with, the hidden door inches along ever so slightly faster, building up snow in the wake of its arc. Your footing falters, almost sending you tumbling over again, but your meager grip on the heavy slab somehow manages to keep you up right. The added leverage is enough to wrench it ajar just enough for someone to slip through.

You release the door with a slight stumble backwards, ragged breaths producing a worrying ache in your chest.

“You first,” Pal instructs. “Can’t fit both’a us with Hearth like this.”

Your body adheres to his request before your brain does. Shimmying into the diminutive opening, you’re met with a strikingly narrow passageway lined with cobwebs and dust.

The architecture itself is staggeringly simple - the walls, floor, and ceiling are all carved out of the stone wall itself, decidedly utilitarian in finish. Beyond the entrance, it’s strikingly dark. Thanks to the dim light bleeding in from the outside, though, you can just barely make out a room in the distance that connects with other carved-out hallways. As you shuffle in, blowing through your mouth at the occasional web caressing your face, the violent cold of the elements is replaced with an infinitely preferable stagnant chill. It must be the same temperature here, but without the howling wind, it’s much more bearable. Your body, however, struggles to tell the difference; you shiver with the exact same ferocity, despite the welcomed change in circumstance.

As you tread deeper into the derelict hovel, you hear Pal slip in behind you, grunting as he figures out how to share the minimal space with Hearth’s sleeping form.

Before long, the cramped hall opens up into the room you glimpsed at the entrance. You almost fall into it, steadying yourself at the last second as you make room for Pal to crawl through. You swipe at your face, clearing away the cobwebs tickling your taut skin. Once they’re gone, you scan your immediate environment, trust in your isolation a fleeting prospect.

Amid the oppressive darkness of the room, you can just barely make out some sparse “living” arrangements; a shoddy cot, several unlit lanterns, a hanging wooden table affixed to the wall, and a chest of drawers. Aside from that, the room is littered with crates of glass bottles, some of them still full of some unknown liquid. Dust coats everything, a topping that gives away the room’s age.

You make a beeline for the end of the bed, cautiously planting your sore ass onto the rigid mattress. You half-expect a den of spiders to come flooding out.

It hardly gives, even under your full weight; whoever bought this thing was definitely scammed. As you lean back into the frigid stone wall, the excruciating throbbing of your shoulder that you had shoved from your mind makes its startling return. Every fervent beat of your heart sends a new wave of stinging pain through the afflicted area. You try to steady your breathing, but to no avail - your lungs hunger, and you cannot deny them a meal.

Shuffling slightly to rest your back against the wall, Pal finally sidesteps in, no more exhausted than he was at the start of your escape.

“Sweet, merciful shit,” he cries, stumbling over to you, Hearth still cradled in his arms. “It’s gotta be close to midwinter or somethin’.”

The gentle glow of his eyes illuminates the space in front of him as he lumbers over to the bed, setting her down on her side next to you. With haste, he turns and makes for the drawers, throwing one open and pulling out a set of thick, woolen blankets. He tosses one at you, and it lands in your lap.

“Get that around ya, nice an’ tight,” he says.

He doesn’t need to tell you twice. As he works the second blanket around Hearth, you unravel yours, desperate for its shelter. You just barely feel its coarseness under your fingertips - a distant, muted sensation, but proof that they still belong to you.

An unsteady flourish rests the covering around your shoulders. You scoot backwards on the bed and bring your legs up, wrapping the blanket across them to form a pitiful sauna. It quakes as your tremors continue, uncaring.

“How’s the shoulder?” Pal asks as he finishes cocooning Hearth.

A particularly agonizing wave of searing torment surges through your wound, and you wince as your tortured voice fills the air. Your voice quivers as you deign to speak.

“P-pretty fucking s-shit, man.”

Your breath billows out in fog, lilting away from you.

“Lemme get a good look at it,” he says, focusing his attention on you.

Slowly, you slide the blanket off of your shoulder, exposing your scalding wound to the open air. What little heat you’ve gathered threatens to leave. Pal eyes it, grimacing as he surveys the damage.

“Hell of a flesh wound, but you’ll be fine. Guess the half-pint was tryin’ ta kill ya after all.”

He looks around for a moment before returning his gaze to you.

“There should be some bandages n’ a medical kit ‘round ‘ere somewhere, lemme see if I can find ‘em. Just stay put and get warm, alright?”

He rushes off, ducking into a hallway to your right. Apart from Hearth and her slow, steady breathing, you’re alone for the first time since all of this started. You pull the blanket tight against you once more, watching each shaky breath manifest in front of you as they dance in the dismal light from outside.

…

What the hell are you going to do?

You fight with all of your might against the oncoming dread, but you’re already awash in its surf. You still have no idea where you are, no idea where you’re going, and no idea how far away Equestria is, or what direction it’s even in. Even in the farthest reaches of your unconscious mind, you fail to liken this place to anywhere that you’ve learned of during your decidedly minimal time in Equestria. It’s like some sort of frozen hell, chosen especially for you.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, you’re no doubt going to be hunted soon, too. The way Ambrosia eyed you like a starving animal, it might as well be guaranteed. Will you even be able to survive long enough to be rescued in the first place?

Is rescue even coming?

Fear renders you rigid; even minimal movement incites a groaning within your bones that dissipates after a quarter of a second or so. How the hell are you going to get out of this…?

Before you can spiral further, the return of Pal’s cloven steps ringing from down the hallway to your left brings you out of your stupor. What’s more, a flickering yellow light accompanies it, and as he rounds the corner, you register its dismal source; a weathered lantern, just barely clinging to life.

“Got one,” Pal greets you cheerily, setting his lantern down on the table. “Found some oil and a lighter, too. Looks like they ain’t cracked down on this particular den just yet.”

He treads down the hallway again and shuts the door with great effort before returning to you again and kneeling, the medical bag in one of his hands.

“Think ya can get your shirt off?”

You nod, reluctantly dropping your blanket around your sides. It takes some finagling, as well as no shortage of blunt, throbbing pain, but you manage to remove it along with your sweater. Pal reaches into his bag and pulls out a nondescript bottle of… something.

“Alright, I gotta pour this stuff over the wound. It’s fixin’ to hurt like hell, buddy, so I’ll count to three, yeah?”

You seat a breath deep within your shaky lungs.

“Do it.”

He nods, uncorking the bottle and hovering it above your shoulder.

“Alright… One.”

He tips the bottle, showering your shredded flesh in the frigid liquid.

You cry out behind tightly clamped lips as the wound foams over with a strangely sweet-smelling froth, nearly becoming nauseous from the horrible, stinging pain. Your lungs work overtime to parse the pain as you shoot him an irritated glare. Pal pays no mind, immediately setting upon the area with bandages.

“What the hell was that…?” you mutter.

“Topical healin’ solution,” he explains. “Made right in town. Works pretty good for stuff that ain’t too severe.”

You lift your arm so he can get a better angle with the wrappings.

“No complaints,” you say. “Just… actually count down next time, will you?”

“Ha! If ya say so, bud.”

The next few moments pass in silence as he shrouds your shoulder and surrounding flesh in beige gauze, the beginnings of crimson coloration peeking through as it presses against you. He pats your back as he finishes, the wrappings pulling taut over your shoulder as you let your arm fall slack. You pick your shirt back up and slip it on, the crimson-line hole in the shoulder now contrasting against the bandages.

“Found some food in there, too, but I dunno if it’s still good or not,” Pal says as he takes a seat against the far wall. “Guess this hole hasn’t been used in a good while.”

You bring the blanket back over your shoulders, restoring your cocoon and shivering against the sudden change.

“W-What is this place, anyway?”

“It’s an old maintenance tunnel,” he replies. “Engineers come ‘n do work on the innards o’ the wall durin’ the hot season. Mostly abandoned in winter, though, which works well for us. The only people comin’ in and out o’ here right now’re usually smugglers, or the homeless.”

…Well, that’s great.

“Any chance of law enforcement busting in?”

“Nah. Tunnel network’s too complex to comb the whole thing over, so ‘less they really want someone, they’ll just let ‘em brave the elements. Comin’ in here without gettin’ properly ready is about the same as headin’ outside the wall, honestly.”

…

“…You know the way out, right?” you ask.

He laughs, filling the stale air.

“Sure do, big guy.”

You release a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

“Did you work here before, or something?”

His skull morphs into a disappointed frown as he leans his own head (or is it his horns?) back against the wall.

“What, ya didn’t pay attention back in the prison? That’s pretty rude o’ ya, Anon.”

“Forgive me, but today’s been pretty fucking stressful, man. Half the shit that happened back there feels like a dream at this point.”

He rolls his… eyes? Magic? Peepers? He rolls his magic eye-things at you; you’ll decide on a technical name for them later.

“Fine, fine. I guess I’ll let ya slide fer now.”

He leans forward again, hanging his elbows off of his knees as his arms dangle in front of him.

“I own a lil’ restaurant in the industrial ring with my wife n’ kids. Used ta be a pub, back ‘fore they outlawed nectar of any kind.”

“Nectar…?”

A bony indentation forms and elevates above his eye socket - a skeletal imitation of a raised eyebrow. It holds for a moment before he shakes his head.

“Sorry, forgot ya ain’t from here. Used to be a delicacy ‘round these parts, ‘specially in the inner rings. You drink it and ya just…” He throws his arms outward to encompass the entirety of your mutual surroundings.

“Feel more connected with everything around you, ya know what I mean?”

So… alcohol.

“I think so. Go on, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

He nods before continuing on.

“Anyway, I didn’t take too kindly to those cult freaks cuttin’ my business clean in two. Mix that with the tight curfew they started enforcin’, and we were ‘bout to go clean under! We ended up just changin’ over to a no-nonsense restaurant, which kept us afloat for a bit.”

Reminiscence flashes both literally and metaphorically through the viridian glow of his sight.

“We didn’t take it lyin’ down, though… turns out nectar’s worth a lot more when it’s illegal.”

A smirk crawls onto your lips as you connect the dots; no wonder he knows how to navigate here.

“You smuggled it in.”

“In, out, every which way you could think of ta anyone who had the coin t’ buy it. Had to sneak outside the walls ta harvest the raw stuff ourselves, which was tough as all get out, but it was way more than worth it. For a while there, we never had to worry about nothin’.”

“Something happened, though?”

He nods, his ocular glow dimming considerably.

“Little rats caught me n’ one o’ my sons comin’ back from a trip outside one day. They were gonna take us both to the prison, but I told ‘em where we were storin’ the nectar in exchange for his freedom. The rest is right in front o’ ya.”

He gestures to his skeletal self, diminished against the dusty sandstone. You frown, dismayed.

“They did that to you…?”

“They brought me in for ‘punishment’ on a day where I was bein’ particularly rowdy with ‘em. Kept the blindfold on while they strapped me in, though, and then… I woke up in my cell, an’ I couldn’t feel anything. Touch, taste, smell… nothin’. Just a vague sense that there’s somethin’ there, just outta reach.”

You shudder as you fail to imagine what unholy process they could have made him undergo. Your eyes flitter across the glowing scrawlings on his ribs, unsure of what to say.

“Shit, Pal… I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he replies, appearing to level out. “I’m alive, n’ that’s all I really care about, far as I’m concerned.”

You frown at yourself, disappointed.

“I can’t believe I forgot all of that between the prison and here.”

To your surprise, he chuckles, and his regular glow returns to his sockets.

“Well, I didn’t really go into that much detail back then. Can’t remember somethin’ ya never heard before.”

“Come ta think of it,” he continues, “you didn’t either, big guy. Ya told us ‘bout the mystery girl, and that ya worked in an ‘office’ - whatever that is - but apart from that, I don’t really know much about ya.”

You hold the blanket around you ever tighter, having finally worked up a decent amount of body heat.

“I mean, what’s there to tell?”

“Well, for starters, I ain’t ever seen anything like you in my life, and that’s sayin’ somethin’, considerin’ where I live. What’s up with that?”

Huh… been a long while since you’ve been through one of these talks. Thoughts of Twilight’s thorough questionnaire bring a genuine smile to your face as you answer his question.

“Well, when you said I wasn't from here, you were right in more than one way. I’m not from here, yeah, but I’m not from anywhere, either.”

You pause, eager to let him mull over your confusing choice of words.

“Meaning…?” he replies after a few moments, a skeletal eyebrow raised in what looks like disbelief.

“I’m not native to this planet. Or this universe, for that matter.”

The other ‘eyebrow’ shoots up as Pal eyes you from head to toe.

“Didn’t take ya for a fibber, Anon. Where’re ya from, really? That Equestria place you talked about?”

Before you can continue your coy antics, the reality of where you are hits you like a truck. How could you mill about at a time like this?

“Shouldn’t we get somewhere safer before we get into telling our life stories? I’m worried about Hearth, she’s been asleep ever since she got hit.”

Your eyes pore over her sleeping form again. She almost looks peaceful, tucked away in her blanket like that.

“She’ll be fine, Anon,” Pal tries to reassure you. “I’ve been on the receiving end of that spell before, this is par for th’ course.”

“What if he supercharged it, like the one he hit my shoulder with?”

Pal’s expression becomes contemplative for a moment as he weighs the decision in his mind.

“They got night patrols that roll through the industrial sector lookin’ for people violatin’ curfew. They catch us, we’re goin’ straight back into cells.”

“How many are there, usually?”

“Last I remember, they usually send out nineteen or twenty teams o’ four to walk the whole ring. I remember usin’ this exit in particular a few times, so we’re probably on the eastern part o’ the wall, not far from where my restaurant is.”

“Do they patrol around there often?”

“Not when I was around, but they coulda tightened up since then. Anon, you gotta slow down, bud. Rushin’ into this is gonna get us caught. You and Hearth’ve never been here, and it’s been a while since I set foot in town.”

He’s got a point. You don’t like sitting here while she’s like this, but what else can you do?

“What should we do, then?”

“We probably got a few hours ‘till day breaks,” he proposes, shifting to sit up more. “There’s a big rush o’ people that go ta work around then, so it’ll be easy to blend in with the crowd.”

Normally, that would be a solid plan, but…

“Pal?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a skeleton.”

He deadpans, staring you straight in the eyes.

“…That cuts deep, Anon.”

A sigh comes from his intangible lungs… wait, how does that even work?

“I’ll find somethin’ to wear that covers me. I'll carry Hearth and just pull somethin' over her so people think I'm toting a sack o’ food or somethin’.”

The solidity of your plan decreases a little with that method of disguising her, but it should still hold up in theory if you can avoid close scrutiny.

“And nobody’ll take an interest in us? Even looking like we do?”

“Trust me,” he reassures as he goes to stand, fetching his lantern from the table. “We’ll be fine. People in this sector pretty much keep to themselves in public after the takeover.”

He strolls over to the outside door again and, grunting, nudges it open. The same amount of light from before floods in, coating the hall in a dim, blue light. The wind threatens to blow Pal’s lantern out, but remarkably, the flame fights it with everything it has.

He readjusts the door just enough to leave naught more than a crack leading to the outside before returning to the mouth of the hallway and sitting down facing the opposite wall.

“I’ll watch the light so we don’t miss our chance,” he says as he turns to face you again. “Get some rest if ya need to, it might be a while.”

In the depths of your worry, you find time to fling a friendly jab his way.

“What, you don’t want my company?”

“Ha! What happened ta gettin’ somewhere safer first, eh?”

“It got put on the backburner, that’s what.”

He chuckles before replying.

“Even still, I need ya alert. It’s safer durin’ the day, but that don’t mean there aren’t gonna be any o’ Her Cronies around. How long’s it been since ya got any sleep?”

…Oh, shit, how long has it been? Since you passed out in the wreckage of the train, maybe?

“I’ll take your silence as an answer. Get some winks, alien boy.”

With that, he returns his attention to the door, his silent vigil having begun.

Well, you aren’t going to argue with that.

The pain in your shoulder has subsided quite a bit - whatever was in that liquid, you’re downright ecstatic that it’s working as well as it is. You shuffle backwards onto the strikingly solid mattress, pressing your back against the cold wall as you let your head fall against it once more.

Sleep won’t come easily, but you’re more than willing to try.

17 - The Approach

A gray infinity stretches out into entropy.

Flashes of dark, amorphous movements flitter about, black patches against the dull canvas. You look down; your lack of a body somehow doesn’t frighten you.

Hushed murmurs come from somewhere out in the expanse, unintelligible even when you focus. The attempt to do so hastens the little voids’ movements, obscuring the endless space further. Against the droning indifference of nothing, the whispers break out into a single, coherent word.

“…obscured…”

You try to formulate thoughts about it, but it’s all just extra noise, akin to static in an echo chamber.

Ages pass, and a force from behind begins to tug at your lack of form. A vague sensation of speed registers just barely as you glide against nothing, frictionless into terminus, until-

You wake violently, neck tensing uncontrollably as your head shoots up from the dusty sheets. At some point, you must’ve dropped onto your right side, pointing away from Hearth. Mercifully, gravity had chosen the shoulder that wasn’t wounded to have you fall onto.

The world spins as you come to, reaching out and gripping the bed for support as you blink away the remnants of dreamless sleep. Just before conking out, you’d held out hope that Luna would reach out, but it seems you’ll have to wait for proper rest for that to happen.

It takes an embarrassing length of time to take stock of the pressure wrapped firmly around your other forearm; one groggy gaze downward reveals Pal’s familiar, bony appendages gently shaking you awake.

“Come on, big guy,” he calls out to you. “Sun’s gonna come out, we need to get goin’.”

You lock eyes with him, everything still hazy. From beyond the blur, his ethereal pupils are unnaturally clear to you.

“How long was I out?”

You shimmy yourself into an upright position, and your body decries your actions with a wave of soreness.

“An hour or two, tops,” he replies, retreating from you. “You were twitchin’ a bunch. Felt so bad, I almost didn’t wanna wake ya.”

You can only grunt in response as you rub the sleep from your tired eyes. Your left shoulder aches like hell with every micromovement of your arm, but you’re so tired that it doesn’t properly register.

“Thanks, man,” you say, clearing your throat afterward.

“Don’t mention it, bud. By the way, ya ever worn a disguise before?”

“Can’t say I have.”

An infectious smile graces his ivory features. Before you can ask why, he backpedals over to the wall-mounted table, smoothing his bony hand over a mound of what looks like fabric.

“Well, you’re about to,” he says, almost enthusiastic about it. “Did a bit of scroungin’ around the place and found a maintenance worker’s uniform relatively in your size. Went a bit oversized for my disguise so I can carry Hearth underneath it.”

Your eyes flicker over to her still-slumbering form. The gentle rise and fall of the blanket covering her is the only way you’re able to confidently tell that she’s still breathing. You’ve been on the other side of sleep-inducing spells before during bouts of insomnia, but even the most potent ones seem to pale in comparison to whatever she was hit with.

The spell’s exact nature aside, you just hope it isn’t permanent.

You refocus back on Pal, who’s having trouble slipping… something over his head. Honestly, with it caught on his horns like that, it looks like a giant burlap sack.

Your grogginess slowly begins to fade as you sit up fully, a yawn escaping from somewhere deep in your lungs.

“You, uh… you need some help?” you ask.

He grunts as he finagles the baggy fabric around his horns, finally allowing him to slip his skull all the way through.

“I’m good,” he replies. “Go ahead n’ put yours on, we don’t got much time.”

“Got anything to carry the clothes I’m already wearing?”

“Huh? Oh, nah, just slip the uniform on over all that. You’ll probably enjoy the extra warmth, anyway.”

Good enough, you suppose. The warmer, the better, especially after that hellish blizzard you ran a marathon through. Letting your blanket fall to the cot, you rise unsteadily to your feet, thighs aching as they struggle desperately to function. Although you’re still quite cold, the rest you got underneath that shaggy mat certainly did some good in terms of conserving your body heat.

Hurrying as much as your body will allow, you meander over to the table and grab the outfit Pal laid out for you, turning it over in your hands until you can see it in its entirety. All in all, it’s relatively ordinary apart from how dusty the thing is. From head to toe, it’s a simple slate gray, and no markings or logos pop out at you. In fact, the only thing that really catches your eye is the fairly lush black fur collar. That and the insulation, which is thick enough to feel through the outer fabric. Holding it by its shoulders, it looks like it’ll be a bit baggy on you, but comfort is the farthest thing from your mind at the moment as you kick your shoes off.

You work your left foot into the uniform, then your right foot, holding the coveralls by their hips and letting the upper half fall slack. It takes some effort, and you almost stumble over, but before long, you’re halfway in.

Your right arm slides in flawlessly, but as your left seeks to mirror the action, your shoulder cries out in renewed agony once more.

Alright, you really need to get this injury checked out. The medicine Pal found is helping, sure, but it can’t replace a medical professional giving you a once-over.

You push away thoughts of your festering wound as you zip the coveralls up, adjusting the collar as well for good measure. Though your body has yet to adjust, you can feel the chill of your dingy hovel stagnate within the confines of the uniform; within minutes, you’ll be isolated from the inner wall’s biting cold.

As much as you appreciate it, though, you do find an issue with it.

“Find anything to cover our faces? I mean, I don’t think there are gonna be wanted posters of us this soon, but you can never be too careful.”

Pal chuckles from behind you, and when you turn to face him, you understand why. Standing ominously across the room is Pal, covered head to toe in a hooded black cloak that completely obscures his skeletal form. You use “ominously” very loosely, of course - Pal’s goofy grin actively works against his imposing stature.

“Fancy one o’ these?” he asks, clearly having a bit too much fun considering the circumstances.

You chuff in disbelief, a grin supplanting your serious disposition.

“Is it normal here to go around looking like the grim reaper?”

“In the winter, yeah,” he replies, ignorant of (or unengaged with?) your sarcasm. “Folks’ll all have somethin’ like this on while they’re headin’ to work. One I’m wearin’ just happens to be a bit on the older side, is all. Go ahead n’ throw yours on.”

A quick glance at the table reveals that you had glossed over your own cloak. You oblige Pal, and in no time, you look like some hapless fantasy cosplayer. No accounting for taste out here in… well, wherever the Mecca is.

“Alright,” Pal says, adjusting his robe before heading over to you with the lantern from earlier, already lit. “This is gonna be real simple. We gotta get through the tunnels first. Should be easy, just stick close n’ stay quiet. I don’t think there’re any City Watch shitheads up in here, but you can never be too careful. You carry Hearth for now, and I’ll light the way.”

“Once we get to the exit, keep that head down n’ follow my lead. No sightseein’, alright? Act like ya belong here, and we’ll make it to the pub just fine.”

You nod, and Pal smiles.

“Good, let’s get goin’.”

With considerably more effort than you’d anticipated, you manage to hoist Hearth into your arms in a baby-style carry, her head slumped over your shoulder. What is she, two hundred pounds of pure muscle or something?

He starts heading down one of the dingy halls leading further into the wall, but stops abruptly and turns to you.

“Oh, I almost forgot. ‘Fore we get carried away with all o’ this…”

He extends a hand toward you, replete with an award-winning toothy grin. You quirk an eyebrow at the gesture, but find yourself meeting him halfway with your own free hand, the flesh of your digits wrapped tightly within his bony grip.

“Welcome to Khodasa, Anon. Remind me to take ya over to the entertainment district sometime, if this stuff with Her Children ever blows over.”

You frown.

“I thought this place was called the Mecca.”

“It is now,” he explains, a bit dejected as you follow him into the derelict halls. “No accountin’ for taste with these nutjobs, though.”

A chuckle escapes your throat as the three of you tread deeper into the wall’s inner maze.

You continue in silence, which Pal doesn’t seem to mind. He’s more than likely keeping an ear out for any unwelcome guests, so the more space you give him to work, the better.

The farther you delve, the more labyrinthine the structure becomes; hallways branch off into seemingly illogical paths, and none of them bear any sort of distinction barring esoteric markings that only frequent flyers would understand. Eventually, the paths become far more illicit, devolving into carved-out hovels that twist and wind every which way you can fathom. Occasionally, you’ll even dip downward, or have to crawl on your knees to slip through a passage.

Through it all, Pal is undeterred, taking only a few moments at a time here and there to gather his bearings before plugging onward. The farther in you travel, the more built-up the structure becomes; desolate stone hallways become carved out with flooring and tile, and signs of life, such as recent calendars and a relative absence of dust.

An inordinate amount of time flies by in this manner, the flow of movement steady and unending. Suddenly, though, Pal’s expression brightens as you round what must be the seven thousandth corner you’ve passed.

“Just a couple more turns and we’ll be at the exit,” he exhales, despite having no need to. “Not gettin’ cold feet on me, are ya?”

“You want a straight answer, or a light joke?”

“Straight answer for now.”

You heave an unsteady breath as you adjust Hearth closer to your center, making her a bit easier to carry.

“Being completely transparent right now, I’m freaking out a bit. But, uh…”

He looks back at you, and you meet his contemplative gaze with your best attempt at confidence.

“But I trust you, so… yeah.”

Despite having only known him for what feels like a day, you still firmly believe that he’s looking out for you. His facial bones morph into a level-headed smile as he turns slightly farther to better face you.

“Glad to hear it, bud,” he replies. “That goes both ways, ya know.”

Your left eyebrow instinctively hikes upward.

“Really?”

He scoffs lightheartedly as you both continue down the path.

“‘Course! Anybody who’s willin’ to lay the smackdown on those weirdo cultists is alright by me.”

…Oh, yeah.

You did do that, didn’t you?

The struggle seems distant now, a speckled smudge against the convoluted mess of the past twenty four hours. The shock of the fight, especially after having lived in cushy Canterlot for so long, gave you pause. Not out of guilt for Virtue, no, but out of guilt for engaging in violence at all.

This was different though, right? It’s not like you were seeking it out, no - you were just defending yourself.

“Alright, this is it.”

…A moral dilemma for another time, then.

You’re ripped from your inadvertent self-critique as you both round the final turn. Despite the feverish pace that you both kept, you don’t feel remotely overheated, even in the insulation of the jumpsuit.

Pal’s lantern chases the blackness away from the unremarkably rectangular exit door, marked as such by the sign at its crown. You can hear the faintest of murmurs coming from the other side, and all at once, your heart sails into your throat. Before you can choke it down, Pal sets his lantern on the floor and turns to you, both arms reaching out as he crouches down.

“Hand ‘er over,” he says, far less levity in his voice now.

With as much care as you can muster, you hoist her off of your shoulder and place her in his arms. As he cradles her gently, he shifts a tad, allowing his robe to fall over her and conceal her completely.

“We’re gonna take this nice n’ slow,” he explains as he stands upright again. “Remember - we belong out there, in that crowd. Got it?”

Ignoring the clamminess building up in your hands, you nod fervently.

“Good. Stick close n’ stay quiet, an’ we’ll get through this just fine.”

“What if we get separated?”

“We shouldn’t,” he reassures you. “But if we do, just look for a cafe called ‘The Bellowing Bull’ in the inner portion o’ the district. Big sign, good food - ya can’t miss it. Once you’re in, sit down at the bar and order an Incaru topped off with a thin layer of Strider honey. The wife’ll know what to do.”

You wrack your brain committing the bizarre order to memory, the rhythm eventually sticking after a few seconds.

“Is that a dish you used to like, or something?”

“Very, very much,” he reminisces, a spectral teardrop falling from his eye socket. “But we can chat about all that later. You ready?”

The tumult of your ordeal manifests itself as an uneven exhale, wrought with worry.

To be frank, you aren’t ready, not in the slightest. Waiting here isn’t an option, though, so you’d prefer to rip the bandaid off sooner rather than later.

Your troubled gaze falls upon the exit door once more, idly roaming over its patterns and divots.

“…Yeah. Yeah, let’s get this over with.”

Pal, freeing up one of his hands momentarily, throws his hood up, obscuring his face and cementing his deathly visage. You have no idea how he’s gonna go unnoticed like that, but if he’s confident, then you have no real objections.

“‘Atta boy,” he says. “Mind gettin’ the door?”

With another deep breath, you slide past him into the narrow corridor, tentatively reaching for the door handle as he falls in behind you. When your fingers come into contact with the frigid metal, the chill worms its way up your arm, the cold battling against the inner heat of anxiety for dominance over your body. Your skin crawls from the sensation, and you shiver against your will in the face of the task ahead.

All at once, though, you will your body into action, throwing the handle downward and yanking the door open. Frigid air rushes in, knocking your hood down and threatening to push you backward. Snow follows into the vacuum you’ve created, a few errant flakes needling your face and hands.

In opposition to the darkness you’ve been bathing in, the assault of the early morning light is all but blinding, and you turn away as your sight struggles to compensate. Once you’ve adjusted, though, you prop the door open with your foot and let Pal leave first. Your eyes follow him as he steps through the threshold, and despite his no-sightseeing mandate, you can’t help but ogle your surroundings as you follow suit.

You exit into an alleyway, beset on both sides by towering buildings made from what looks like cobblestone; it’s as if you’ve stepped straight into late nineteenth century England. Snowfall, though undoubtedly calmer than it was during your trek here, still peppers the world around you, thinly coating any flat surface you can see. The sky is completely overcast by rolling clouds, coating everything in dull gray light.

A fair distance ahead, you can see that the alley breaks out into what looks like a road, tread upon by a veritable sea of warmly dressed strangers. Pal wasn’t lying, either; even from this distance, you spot far more than a few cloaked individuals in the narrow window in which you can see. Your nerves kick up a gear as you pray that none of them notice you during your approach.

“We’re up,” Pal whispers out to you over the distant murmur of the crowd.

As if you needed to be reminded.

You fall in line behind him as you both approach, passing trash cans and backdoors aplenty. Thankfully, the alley you’re in seems to be completely abandoned for now, which will make blending in a far more seamless experience.

Hopefully.

As the two of you draw near, you remember to throw your hood back up over your head. Your hearing becomes a tad muffled as your admittedly heavy breaths are caged by the cloth swathing your head. A deep breath or two doesn’t help much, but the sting of the cold air through your nostrils does help keep you rooted in the moment. Only a few meters away, and then you’ll be joining the masses.

The alley’s entrance is widened by your closer point of view, and with a quick flick of your eyes, you realize that “sea” might not have been an adequate enough descriptor for the sheer tide of people heading in every manner of direction.

Every single species you can name and then some, countless of each, all hushedly hurrying along to what you assume to be their jobs. The murmur of the endless crowd is a dull roar from up close; Pal says something, but it’s drowned out by the cacophony. You’re about to try calling out to him yourself, but you’re surprised when his bony hand shoots out from within his cloak and takes hold of yours, turning you to the left.

He brings you almost right up against him, and without any fanfare, the both of you are subsumed into the flow of people. You do as you’ve been instructed and keep your head down while he guides the three of you deeper into the fray. Every now and then, though, you steal glances at your surroundings whenever you think you can afford it.

Industrial buildings jut high into the snowy haze on your left, the sound of steelwork and other laborial practices ringing out just above the voices of the crowd around you. Thinly interspersed down the deceptively wide street are small lookout towers in front of the factories, each manned by uniformed individuals, either biped or quadruped, who look like they’re scanning the crowd for any oddities.

You grip Pal’s hand tighter and cast your gaze to the floor, eager to be as diminutive as possible. Your eyes trace the rocks as you use your free hand to pull your hood down tighter. Instead of skyward, you turn your attention to the undulating mass of people around you.

It’s like the universe took a heaping handful of species from around the world and just… dumped them all in the middle of nowhere. Everything you considered ‘exotic’ back in Equestria is more or less commonplace here. Hell, half of the races you see, you don’t even recognize. Most of them are dressed for what look like factory jobs, too, so none of them really stand out. It takes all of your willpower not to gawk, but you just barely manage it.

Pal, not privy to your inner turmoil, guides you further into the flow, butting up against passers by in the process. You mutter apologies to them, but you don’t get many in return. Some won’t even acknowledge your presence.

Eventually, Pal stops leading you to the right and simply matches the pace of the crowd once more. You inwardly wonder whether you can sneak a quick glance at your surroundings, and perhaps get your bearings so that you have an idea of what to expect from Pal’s movements. The way those towers were spread out, you might be able to-

“Hey!”

Your veins run ice cold. A voice in the crowd, but who? Civilian, or guard?

Pal’s grip on your hand tightens, but you can barely feel it.

“You!” the raspy voice shouts, rife with irritation as it inches closer. “Yeah, you! You think you can just… get away without any consequences, huh?”

This is the end, then.

Pal grips your hand even tighter, and your thoughts fly into a frenzy. Flashes of the past few days play out in excruciating detail as you come to terms with your impending doom.

…You hope Twilight and Spike are-

“Is there something I can do for you?”

Another gruff voice, cool-headed as can be, cuts through your inner monologue. It sounds as if it’s right behind you. The grip on your hand loosens, as does the phantom pressure around your heart. Your legs, however, remain primed to run.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, there is,” the first voice replies. “Give it back.”

Now that he’s closer, you can almost hear the intoxication dripping off of his tongue with every slurred word.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” the second voice replies, more confused than anything.

“You’re about to,” the first voice threatens, his voice shooting up about eight thousand decibels. “Gimme back my stash, or I’m gonna make you wish you never got out of bed this morning!”

“No one’s taken your contemptible drugs,” the second one replies, suddenly going sour. “Fly from me, junkie.”

A moment of silence passes before sounds of a struggle ring out behind you, air from the brawl pressing your cloak further into your back. You feel the people behind you peel apart to make room for their skirmish, some even slowing down - to watch the skirmish, no doubt.

Pal, in response, picks up the pace as a whistle from one of the towers rings out. You dutifully follow suit, eager to get away from… well, whatever the fuck that was.

You’re on edge now, though; in fact, you suddenly become very aware of just how much air you’re heaving in and out of your lungs.

The two of you continue on for some time, Pal occasionally course-correcting as you stare at the countless rounded rocks of the cobble path. Suddenly, he slows; if you weren’t so alert, you might’ve accidentally ran into him.

He tugs your arm to the right, and you follow, slithering slightly against the flow of the crowd. The volume gets thinner and thinner, sets of legs disappearing slowly until it’s finally just you and Pal.

“We’re here,” he calls out to you, voice still low.

Timidly, you raise your head, pulling your hood back a bit so you can see better. The starkly white watering hole in front of you looks, much like the rest of what you’ve seen so far, as if it’s been ripped out of old England.

Its dark, wooden shingles and fixtures make it stand out among neighboring establishments’ drab stonework. It all looks a bit dusty and aged, but it works in the place’s favor. The front doors are shaded by a thick awning, at the forefront of which is the golden ornamented sign Pal had pointed out to you prior; The Bellowing Bull.

“There she is, in all ‘er glory,” Pal says, sighing deeply as he steps back to survey the entirety of the establishment.

While he drinks it in, you look around to see if you’ve been followed. Apart from the odd passerby, though, the street you’re on is relatively empty.

“With everyone headin’ to work, should be easy for Kalliope to close the place for a bit.”

“Do you think anyone noticed us?”

Pal looks sideways at you, a skeletal eyebrow raised.

“I don’t think you got anything to be worried about, ‘Non. It’s like you said - it ain’t even been a full day yet.”

Your gaze continues sweeping the area, almost as if you want to find something out of place. His reassurance doesn’t quite satisfy your need for security, but that’s just something you’ll have to swallow for the time being.

“…Yeah. Yeah, alright.”

You release your held breath, fog billowing out in front of you as you turn back to Pal.

“Alright, so what now? Do we just walk in, or…?”

He looks at his restaurant, glaring pensively at the front door. A few moments pass, tender and bruised, as his expression slowly falls.

“Uh… Yeah, yeah. I just…”

The sleepy, barely noticeable lump under his cloak bobs up and down twice as he adjusts his stance.

“I gotta find a place to put Hearth down first. Kalliope always kept a spare key to the back door in her garden out back, so I’ll set her down in one o’ the spare rooms. Keep my wife company until I’m done, will ya?”

You frown incredulously.

“Wouldn’t it be better to just put everything on the table at once, man?”

He shakes his head.

“She don’t do well with a lotta change. All o’ this after months o’ silence…”

He “blinks” a couple of times, staring at the ground for a second before meeting you with uncertain eyes.

“Better to take it slow here. Trust me, Anon.”

You scan him, put off by his sudden hesitancy, but decide that now wouldn’t exactly be the best time to revoke your trust. The trust he’s earned, no less. You’d do well to discard that nasty habit of flip-flopping sooner rather than later.

“Just hurry, alright?”

“‘Course. You remember my order?”

“Incaru with strider jelly, I got it.”

“A thin layer o’ strider jelly,” he emphasizes. “Gotta be specific or she won’t pick up on it.”

“I’ll remember, Pal.”

“Just makin’ sure,” he says, a disarming smile beaming at you from under the shade of his hood. “See ya in a bit, Anon.”

The sound of his tarsals tapping against the concrete rings out gently as he heads around back; for a creature of his size and strength, he’s remarkably quiet. As he disappears from view, you lock eyes with the homely set of front doors.

Deep breaths, Anon.

Inhale.

The frost in the air sets your lungs ablaze.

Hold.

The battleground in your chest rages.

Exhale.

The remains of your uncertainty are scattered to the whipping wind, leaving only action in its wake.Your legs carry you over to the entrance, and gingerly, you throw wide the left door.

A resounding bell announces your arrival. Immediately, you’re hit with the wonderfully succulent smell of fresh pancakes, a strong odor of syrup accompanying. And if you’re not mistaken, hiding rather brazenly among the aromatic pallet is…

Umami.

Specifically, bacon.

Bacon, which you haven’t had since before Equestria.

Your salivary glands begin to work overtime before you’ve even fully stepped through the door. How long has it been since you’ve eaten…?

You shake your head, desperate to snap yourself out of it - that’s not why you’re here.

Once you’re fully inside, you hold the door as it closes, more out of politeness than any desire to stay meek and hidden. As the door reforms its seal against the elements, the much warmer climate of the restaurant offers a luxury you haven’t had since this whole ordeal began - comfort.

Looking around, most of the interior seating is made of wood similar to the fixtures outside, whether booth or table-and-chair. Funnily enough, most of the interior is scaled up to the size of most minotaurs; for once, you feel below average. It’s easy to forget that you’re not the only tall biped out there when you live in Equestria.

Dotted around the place are potted plants of various colorations and structures, most of which you’ve never seen before. On the walls, various paintings hang, most of them depicting scenes from the Minosian mythos.

You throw back your hood - it wouldn’t do to be conspicuous here.

“Be right with you!”

A woman’s voice, deep and velvety, reaches your ears from behind the counter of the bar, which you’re surprised you didn’t notice until now. Too taken by the charming decor, you surmise.

Behind the counter, a mountain of a minotaur, easily rivaling Pal’s imposing height, stands tall. Her gray, grooved horns spiral around and point forward, cresting just beneath the curve of her jaw. Emerald eyes peer over at you, looking you over with passing interest as she finishes cleaning a glass mug.

Wavy brown hair spills forth from her head, culminating in a single braid reaching down to her shoulder blades. Her lean, yet bulging musculature is poorly hidden underneath a slick coating of winter fur, remarkably blonde in coloration. A rarity in most minotaurs, if you remember Twilight’s lectures correctly.

Her chest is covered modestly by a large embroidered white sash, red stitching patterns making up the intricate designs in the middle of it. A matching set of bottoms, down to her middle thighs, completes her ensemble, which is traditional minotaur dress, if you aren’t mistaken.

She hangs the mug up on an overhead rack, wipes her hands with a cloth, and comes out from behind the counter to make her way over to you. It doesn’t take long; much like Pal, she’s easily a foot taller than you, maybe more. It’s honestly a little intimidating.

She looks down at you, a warm smile accompanying direct eye contact.

“Dining in?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Follow me, if you wouldn’t mind.”

She grabs a menu from a nearby counter and sets off. As you follow her further in, you take a moment to survey the place for any other patrons. Thankfully, it’s completely deserted apart from you; you really did luck out, after all.

She stops just shy of a table and allows you room to sit, which you do.

“Haven’t seen anyone like you around before,” she asks as she passes you the menu. “You from one of the other districts?”

Her accent is much softer than Pal’s, but it’s still there, hidden under what sounds like years of picking it up from him.

“I’m from out of town, actually.”

Her eyebrows shoot skyward as she rests her hands on her hips.

“Shoulda figured, but it’s still hard to believe all the same. In any case, welcome to the Cradle, mister…?”

“Anon.”

“Kalliope,” she exchanges. “Now, what can I get ya?”

A welling anxiety constricts your heart as you remember the order perfectly.

…Well, shit, why not get some actual food, too? A brief look over the menu is all you need, really.

“Two pancakes, a side of bacon, and…”

She takes out a notepad, penning down your order as you go.

Alright, Anon. Time to get down to business.

“An Incaru with a thin layer of strider jelly.”

Her fervent writing ceases immediately, face contorting into dubiety. After a moment of silent consideration, her dreadfully neutral eyes lock with yours.

“Haven’t served that one in a while,” she deadpans. “Ain’t it a bit early to be drinking, mister?”

She got it!

Though, judging by her expression, you’re not sure whether that’s a good thing.

“I normally wouldn’t, but, uh… a friend of mine wanted me to try it as soon as I could. Is that alright…?”

A frown forms on her face, almost imperceptible.

“Far from me to tell a stranger how to take their breakfast. Just a moment, please.”

She retreats from the table slowly, tossing the notepad onto a nearby table. Rather than head for the kitchen, she makes for the front doors.

She reaches up, and with a flick of her wrist, the “open” sign you hadn’t taken stock of earlier flips to “closed.” A flourish with her opposite hand, and the click of a lock bounds throughout the dining area as well.

You let go of a breath you didn’t know you were holding in, letting your head fall nearly to the table in the process.

“Oh, thank god,” you exhale heavily.

You rub your face with a free hand, your other placed precariously on the table. Fuck’s sake, why were you so nervous? Pal said she would get it.

“I guess I should probably start with expl-”

You pick your head up, only registering her rapid hooffalls as her massive hand bunches up the collar of your jumpsuit and lifts you clean out of your seat. The chair you were sitting in clatters to the ground, the unpleasantly loud noise startling you just as much as her sudden aggression.

Your legs hang uselessly, though they try to regain some sense of footing to no avail. Both of your hands shoot to her forearm as she holds you well above even the highest table in the restaurant.

It’s all you can do to not shit yourself in terror.

“You’ll never leave us alone, will you?” she yells, louder than you imagined she could.

“Woah, woah, w-”

“We’ve done nothing but comply all this time, and you people still keep showing up on our doorstep, trying the same shit over and over again. It never works, and it never will, no matter how much information Atlas feeds you.”

You people?

Atlas…?

“I’m n-”

“But this… parroting his favorite things at me, sneaking under my snout like a snake, trying to get under my skin like an unrestrained cancer. You’ve all gone too far this time.”

She brings you uncomfortably close, her enraged breath washing over you.

“You want something to convict me for? Fine!”

Her other hand coils itself all the way around your neck and squeezes hard, cutting off your airflow without any effort. You try beating on her wrist to get her to let go, but your paltry blows don’t register at all in her rageful state. As the edges of your vision blur, you try desperately to squeak out some kind of explanation, but it’s no use.

Her grip tightens ever more, and you fear for your life, until-

“Kalliope!”

A voice that could’ve been sent by Heaven itself yells out, and Kalliope’s expression does a complete one-eighty into utter shock.

She lets go of you, and you fall to the ground, crumpling over in a pathetic heap as you inhale as deeply as you can. You look up and see Pal at the back door, his hood down and his skeletal arms raised, palms toward your would-be murderer.

“Kal, I… I know what this looks like, baby, but-”

She yells in terror, backpedaling behind you before holding her ground.

“Y-You… Ya just can’t stop desecrating him, can you?” she cries, a pained glare cast right at you as her adopted accent strengthens for a moment.

“No! No, Kal, it’s me. Palatìn!”

Her voice wavers, the horror in her eyes boundless.

“Ya can’t even leave him his voice!?”

You finally get enough air to speak, but it comes out strained and weak.

“It’s really him!”

Your pitiful explanation does nothing; tears flow freely from her eyes.

“We ain’t lyin’ to ya, babe,” he pleads, slowly inching forward. The devastation on his skull is plain for all to see.

“Me n’ Anon, we helped each other get outta that prison. They… they did all this to me, but I’m still me, hon. They could never take that away.”

She holds her ground, still on guard, but her features begin to soften the longer he talks.

“Baby, I swear,” he says, lowering his arms a bit. “Whatever ya need me to do to prove it, just say the word. C’mon, just… ask me somethin’ only I’d know.”

He stops inching forward, supposedly intent on giving her the space she needs. You, on the other hand, are crawling over to him as fast as your body can muster.

She doesn’t give chase; she simply stares headlong at Pal. You can see the memory of her physical body fighting with her sense of reason to figure out how to process the situation. All the while, her cheeks are wet with grief.

A tender silence later, she deigns to speak, frog entrenched in her throat.

“When… When we first made love together, you did something in the middle of it, and we laughed all night about it. What’d you do?”

“My voice cracked when I told ya I was about t’ blow,” Pal replies, laughing at the memory. “Took forever to wrap it all up afterward.”

Her eyes widen and her stance loosens, but she remains resolute.

“What was in the envelope you gave Athan when he was born?”

“A letter I wanted ‘em to open when he became an adult. Took so many tries to get it perfect, but I did, eventually. The night before he was born.”

Her guard lowers further, and she chokes up.

“W-What did…”

She swallows hard, mouth contorting uncontrollably.

“What did you whisper to me before they took you away?”

Pal’s own voice quivers, but he finds his footing.

“I made ya promise to wait for me… told ya I’d be back, no matter what that meant.”

He chuckles grimly to himself as he looks down at his skeletal form.

“Guess I was right, huh, babe?”

His final answer is the straw that breaks the camel’s back; she breaks down and runs to him, almost tripping over you in the process. She crashes into his arms, bawling openly. her agonizing cries coloring the world a few shades bluer.

You catch your breath as the two continue their tender reunion, unwilling to separate them for anything.

Shitty death… she must’ve been a few pounds per square inch away from breaking your neck.

“I… I thought you were gone,” she chokes out.

“Not gone, just delayed,” Pal answers, a bony appendage rubbing her back. “I’m just glad we didn’t lose too much time together.”

Her head rises from its perch on his shoulder, locking eyes with him in disbelief.

“Too much time?” she croaks, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, and then on Pal’s cloak. “Pal…”

He searches her features for the source of her dismay, trademark goofy grin doing its best to light up the room.

“Well, yeah! I mean, it’s only been a few months, Kal. We got all the time in the world.”

She falls onto her haunches, and you can feel the impact travel through the groaning floorboards. The broken disbelief on her face sends a shiver down your aching spine.

“What…?” Pal asks unsteadily.

Her reply comes strained, struggling to make it past the waterfall waiting in her tear ducts.

“Pal, you… You’ve been gone for twelve years.”

Author's Note

back to our regularly scheduled programming :raritywink:

18 - Letters and Dreams

“And… there.”

The unicorn from the rune recovery team finishes her airborne sigil at last, her taupe aura flickering out in a rather spectacular show of exhaustion. Her colleagues are fanned out behind her, ready to assist if something goes awry, but she holds steady on all four hooves. The intricately constructed pattern slowly dissolves into a raw, powdery aura, which she funnels directly onto the papyrus waiting on the folding table below. As the last of the mana fades into it, a glossy sheen forms over the paper, protecting it from the elements as the spell does its work.

“Another one, please,” she requests. An aide floats a scroll over to her, which she holds midair for a moment as she scans the now complete runic sequence below.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she sighs. “We can finally move on to the next string. Thank you for the help, Miss Sparkle.”

A smile graces your lips as you nod your head toward her.

“Of course! I’ll be back tomorrow to help more.”

You fetch your bags from the foot of the table and settle them over your withers once more. Before you trot off, you scan the snowy field, kissed by a late evening’s sun, to get a better view of the other investigation teams huddled under their tarps. The last few that needed help, you were able to sniff out from a distance, so it wouldn’t hurt to take a similar approach here in the interest of saving time.

You’ve largely gathered yourself since your sleepover with the girls and Spike, all of whom decided to stay back at the castle in order to be as safe as possible. They can’t be blamed, not even in the slightest. Tartarus, even some of the investigation team’s members were a bit jittery, yourself included.

Something changed within you, though, after that sleepover. You feel…

Bolstered.

In fact, no, scratch that - a simple descriptor like that doesn’t do the feeling justice. The sheer conviction you now feel has overtaken your creeping fears, the latter of which has become little more than background noise at this point. You still worry for the safety of everypony involved, of course, but you can’t help them if you’re held in place by doubts or worries.

It feels as if you’re living Princess Celestia’s advice now, rather than simply following it. You’re not sure if the catalyst for the change was the full night’s rest you’d finally had, the presence of your closest friends, or something else unaccounted for, but you’re grateful for it all the same.

Halting your introspection, your gaze sweeps across each of the tents that’ve been pitched near the crash site. Nearest the train tracks, the forensics tent seems to be forging along swimmingly; even from here, you can make out the rhythm that all of its members seem to be keen to follow. You’re grateful that their progress is unabated for now; while you’d be more than happy to lend a helping hoof to them, that particular area of magic isn’t something you’ve had the opportunity to brush up on recently.

The crime scene recreation team, too, looks like it’s moving at a steady pace. From a distance, you can make out several of their members playing out different iterations of the attack, all playing out on a table using magical projection.

The tent you just left, however, is a different story. The team that had been hand-picked to discern the teleportation circle’s full runic equation, filled to the brim with the Arcana Communitas’s brightest minds, was still moving at a snail’s pace despite your best efforts to assist them. It wasn’t anypony’s fault, either - the sheer complexity of the equation, coupled with the myriad of missing links they had to attempt to recreate, made the task downright nightmarish, if not abstract altogether. Their progress had picked up pace, but only just so, thanks to some streamlining efforts that made the tedious work of speculative runecrafting easier to swallow.

You suppose that’s where the majority of your efforts will be focused in the coming weeks. With everypony working their hardest, you’re certain that you’ll all crack the code eventually.

There, however, lies the problem.

Eventually.

Time is a luxury that you can scarcely afford, given the circumstances. Every second that ticks by is another chasm of uncertainty regarding the fate of all those aboard.

Still, though, you remain resolute. Like Princess Luna said - Anon’s a stubborn stallion, that’s for sure.

With a hefty, good-natured sigh, you make for your mentor’s personal tent, which she had set up a decent distance from the crash site in order to be more readily available should the need arise. As you make your way over, the nearly howling wind kicks up snow around you, and you wince as stray flakes sting your face.

The weather teams have been working overtime, you suppose. Although it isn’t nearly as cold as the day of the festival, you’d be lying if you said the creeping chill didn’t send a shiver up your spine.

The few ponies roaming between tents pay you no mind as you trot along, and you have to remember that this is a professional setting; if they don’t wave, it’s not because they’ve got something against you.

…Even if it seems that way. For a few of them, at least.

The rank-and-file members of the Communitas were largely aloof, and some of them in the rune tent were actually getting along quite well with you after today. The senior members, though, gave you the cold withers at nearly every single opportunity, as if their egos were wounded at the very notion of Princess Celestia depending on anypony aside from them.

You inwardly wonder if this is anything like what Anon had to put up with at his old job.

Before you can ponder any further, however, you find yourself coming up on the Princess’s spacious tent. The front flaps hang shut, but you can just barely hear the gentle swish of her magic over the restless wind.

With a moderate force rising from your chest, your throat clears.

“May I come in, Princess?”

The gentle thrum of her magic never stops as her golden glow envelops both flaps and brushes them aside. From behind mountains of paperwork stacked high on her temporary desk, she beams at you.

“My door is always open to you, Twilight,” she says. “Even if there’s technically no door to speak of.”

You both share a chuckle as you file in. Her magic finally disengages, and the entrance to the tent falls closed behind you. While admittedly far less cozy than her actual office, this temporary dwelling she’s set up, even without all of her decorations and keepsakes, has a rugged charm all its own.

“How are things going for the investigation, my dear pupil? Any developments of note?”

You siphon a quick breath, crunching down the day’s experiences into a digestible package before relaying your findings.

“As an overall unit, we’ve been making steady progress since the beginning of the day. The forensics team is on track to have analyzed all organic evidence sometime in the next day or so, at which point they’ll wrap up their findings and deliver a presentation based on what they’re able to conclude.”

She nods attentively, and you continue.

“The crime scene recreation team is persistent in their efforts to accurately summarize how the attack was carried out. From what I was able to glean while assisting them, it sounds like they’re still a fair ways away from reaching a consensus, but they’ve narrowed the amount of variations down to eleven. Without all of the pieces, though, they can only be so accurate, which brings me to the rune recovery team.”

A wayward sigh escapes your nostrils.

“There’s been little progress made, even with the newly streamlined process in place. I spent most of my day in their tent, and even with all hooves on deck, we barely made any kind of meaningful dent in the overall circle. It’s just… well, it’s gigantic, and so many components are missing.”

Celestia hums her acknowledgement, expression neutral as she leans forward against the desk.

“An unfortunate setback, but given the challenges that our assailants have left in their wake, it’s to be expected. You say you streamlined the deduction process?”

A smile returns to you.

“Not just me! I started the conversation, sure, but a lot of ponies pitched in with really good ideas. It didn’t amount to much, admittedly, but everypony seems like they’re feeling a bit better about the whole thing.”

Her eyebrows lift ever so slightly, and a warm countenance graces her features once more.

“I often find that one of the most important components of a cohesive unit is its overall morale. Perhaps now, with renewed vigor in their hearts, we might spot patterns or clues that we were unaware of before.”

“I sure hope so. I still can’t help but be a little impatient.”

“It’s only natural,” she reassures you. “Even with all of my experience, in times of duress, I find it difficult to be anything but restless.”

“What do you do to dampen the feeling?”

“Usually, some quiet time with a fresh cup of tea and close friends.”

You expected nothing less from your mentor. In all honesty, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea for later. Maybe the girls would be up for another sleepover?

“Although, if the going is particularly rough,” she muses, “I find that substituting tea for a stiff drink works wonders.”

…

Wait… really?

“You drink alcohol?”

She chuckles, a hoof daintily raised to her lips.

“I haven’t in a very long while, admittedly, but yes. Is it really so surprising?”

You blink a few times, breaking you out of your stupor. Come to think of it, she raises a good point with her question. Aside from a saintly public image, which was largely at the mercy of stark idealists, when did she ever indicate that she didn’t imbibe every now and then?

Air leaves your nose as you ponder the absurdity of your supposition.

“…I guess not. I think I’m just surprised that I’m still learning new things about you, even after all these years.”

“I could say the same of you, Twilight,” she says warmly. “I knew you were a natural leader, but to instigate change in possibly one of the most stubborn organizations under my purview on your second day alongside them? That’s no small achievement, my dear student.”

The gentle blush on your cheeks lilts into a rosy red, an uncontrollable grin tugging at the corners of your lips.

“T-Thank you, Princess. Anything to bring them home.”

She moves to speak again, but she cuts herself short as her ears flick in the direction of the tent’s entrance. The faint noise of hooves against packed snow barely juts out from the howl of the wind, and before you know it, a hoof parts the entry curtain.

A castle mailpony stands at attention, out of breath and shivering down to her very bones.

“F-Forgive the intrusion, Your Highness,” the pegasus apologizes. “Urgent m-mail for you.”

With one deft, almost graceful flex of her right wing, she unhooks her mailbag from her withers. It falls into her waiting hoof, and in what must be a long-practiced flourish, she procures a scroll from it in that same wing, extending it outward. Almost immediately, it’s enveloped in your mentor’s aura and pulled across the space, coming to rest on her desk.

“Thank you, High Flyer. Stay warm today, alright?”

The underdressed pegasus salutes, and then leaves just as quick as she came.

Celestia unfurls the scroll and reads it over curiously, an apprehensive frown dragging her brow ever so slightly downward.

“What’s it say?” you ask.

She sets the letter down on her desk before turning her attention to you again.

“It seems the young Griffonian princess’s excursion to Equestria wasn’t planned. The royal family were able to figure out where she had gone, but it appears they’re unaware of everything that’s happened since her departure.”

She leans back on her cushion and sighs, exasperation staining her breath.

“The king and queen are on their way here to receive her by private transport as we speak… I suppose they’ll have to be informed in real-time.”

You can’t help but consider the implications of their early arrival. On one hoof, this will more than likely be a good thing; Griffonia probably has their own investigation teams that can help the process along even further. Griffons may not be a race that can directly utilize magic, but their scholars on the matter are as studied as anypony.

On the other hoof, though, you’re not really sure that’s how everything will play out. Equestria’s relationship with Griffonia is one of peace, but from what you know of the Griffonian political machine - that is to say, everything you’ve studied about it - pride is something they’re in no shortage of. What if they see the capture of their heiress on Equestrian lands a slight against their nation? To add to that, considering the timing of the letters, what if they see it is a sign of incompetence? And that isn’t even factoring in the heightened emotions that will no doubt come out in full force upon delivery of the unfortunate news.

Oh, Tartarus, this is about to become incredibly complicated in a way that you’re severely unequipped to deal with. Magic is tangible to you; you can mold it with your hooves, see its origin, its terminus, and redirect its current as you see fit.

Politics? You’re hopelessly lost.

Maybe you’re just-

“Let me be the one worrying about this, Twilight. You have more than enough on your plate.”

Princess Celestia’s gentle voice carries you out of your stupor.

“S-Sorry, Princess.”

“It’s quite alright. I know that things may seem-”

Without warning, the space to your left warps and distorts, a deep blue hue pouring out from a singular point and dominating the area. The noise of a teleportation rift opening right next to you is nearly deafening; your hooves shoot up to cover your ears, and your eyes inadvertently slam shut like a scared little filly.

Ethereal wind peppers your side, and you twist away from its cold ministrations on your fur. Just as quickly as it began, though, it ends. From where the cacophony originated comes a familiar outcry.

“Sister!”

The urgency in Luna’s exclamation catches your attention, and as you turn to look at her, you’re taken aback by just how exhausted she appears to be. Her dark circles from before pale in comparison to the ones adorning her eyes now.

And yet, juxtaposing her less-than-stellar state is quite possibly the widest grin you’ve seen her wear throughout this whole ordeal.

“Don’t scare me like that, Luna,” Celestia chides, straightening herself out in her seat. “Would it behoove you to make your teleportations just a tad less violent?”

“Another time,” Luna explains, locking eyes with both of you intermittently. “I need you both to come with me.”

The sun, nestled against the mountains in the distance, finally dips below the horizon, shrouding the land in the shadows of late evening.

Breaths, as ragged as they are, are hard to come by; even with the Princesses’ help, the jaunt up the mountain is a considerable distance to clear in one teleportation. Rogue discharges of spent mana crackle off of you, arcing to the ground and fading as they travel away from your hunched-over form. Head hung in exhaustion, you maintain eye contact with the patterned tile underhoof as metal hoofsteps approach you from behind.

“My apologies, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna says as she offers a hoof for support. “It’s easy to forget that you aren’t an alicorn. Are you alright?”

Hooking your hoof around hers, you straighten yourself out one deep breath at a time. Your gaze remains locked to the floor, lest your dinner reappears in a far more digested state.

“I-I’m okay. Dizzy, but okay. Also, t-thank you; just ‘Twilight’ is fine.”

With a pleased hum, Luna’s helping hoof slips from your grasp, and when your stomach finally settles a few moments later, you return your own to the ground and pick your head up once more.

The winds atop the balcony of Luna’s spire are particularly unforgiving, and you draw further into yourself as you follow the two sisters up the winding outer staircase that leads to the very apex of the tower.

“What have you found, sister?” Princess Celestia asks earnestly.

Luna’s grin from earlier returns, although far more subdued.

“A hoofhold,” she says, enthusiasm barely hidden by her otherwise neutral expression. “One that may improve the pace of our investigation drastically.

“Ever since the victims’ dreamscape manifestations disappeared in front of me, I’ve been scouring the dream realm for any sign of them. My initial search bore no fruit, and for a time, I feared the worst.”

The staircase terminates into another, smaller balcony. Embedded into the wall of the ivory spire is an imposing black marble door, laden with constellations from various regions of the night sky. Butterflies take root in your stomach - this is one of the few areas in the castle that you’ve never seen.

“For the sake of time and decency, I won’t keep you in suspense,” Luna concedes as the three of you approach the door. “After toiling away for the past twenty-four hours or so, I was able to locate their projections, hidden away within the dream realm.”

“Have your findings given you any clue as to where they might have been taken in the physical world?” Celestia asks.

“As of yet, no,” Luna replies. “But that may not be the case forever.”

As the three of you finally reach the door, you and Celestia remain a few steps behind as Luna saunters right up to it. She gracefully leans in, tilting her head forward so that the tip of her horn is mere centimeters away from its center. As her horn sets alight, so too does every single one of the numerous stars featured within the door’s artwork. They coalesce near the center, reforming into a replica of Luna’s cutie mark around her horn and glowing brightly. The click of a hefty lock rings out, and the door splits into two halves that swing inward with another flourish of her magic. Even with the winds as brisk as they are, the air from within the chamber rushes out to meet you, smelling of incense and rosemary. Luna wastes no time entering, and both you and Princess Celestia fall in behind her.

As you cross the threshold, the doors slam behind you without the aid of magic - your hooves propel you into the air on their own volition in response. You very nearly yell out in surprise, voice reverberating off of the distant walls, but manage to contain it to a barely audible grunt stuck in your throat.

Thankfully, it seems like neither of the Princesses noticed. The last thing you want to do is look silly in front of them, especially at a time like this.

Your reservations are cut off, however, when your gaze sweeps across the structure you find yourself in.

The dome is dimly lit by the cyan glow of mana-fed candles, their light seemingly bouncing right off of the dark, tiled floor, giving off the illusion that you’re walking on a tangible void. In fact, the only reason you know the ground is still there is the thin layer of rolling fog, courtesy of the numerous hanging incense burners.

Lining the room is a curved table, nestled against every inch of the inner walls save for the entrance. All along its cluttered surface lies an impressive amount of propped-open books on the arcane, numerous journals laden with writings, and a variety of specialized magic tools. In the very heart of the esoteric study is a mildly raised platform made of…

Wait, is that pure orichalcum?

Sweet Celestia, you’ve never seen that much of it at once! What could she need all of that for? Even amateur practitioners of magic only need a gem or two to enhance whatever spell they’re-

“My apologies for the inadequate lighting,” Luna chimes in, interrupting your thoughts. “I’m afraid it’s necessary for the purpose of our visit.”

“Did you have the viewing glass removed…?” Celestia asks, confused as she looks upward.

Luna shakes her head, a small grin on her lips as she turns to address her sister.

“It’s simply obscured for the time being. The darkness helps me concentrate. I’ll have the room restored to its proper function as soon as this predicament is dealt with; I know how much you enjoy our evenings here.”

“Truthfully, our surroundings matter little to me, as long as I get to spend time with you,” Celestia replies with a warm smile. “But I am a bit preferential.”

You’d chuckle alongside them, but you’re still fixated on that egregiously massive aggregate of orichalcum.

“What is this place?”

The princesses turn their attention to you, Luna continuing to make her way around the focal dais.

“I suppose one may call this my office,” Luna says, smirking at the simplification. “The roof panels are made of one-way glass, through which I may view the heavens to better perform my nightly duties.”

The twinkle in your eye is nearly audible. As far as you’re aware, nopony outside of your mentor and a scant few of Luna’s trusted advisors have ever actually seen her office.

It’ll be another day of firsts for you, you assume.

You feel a bit of heat on your cheeks as you realize you didn’t wipe your hooves off when you walked in.

“This is where I’ve been spending the majority of my time since the start of the investigation,” she continues. “While the Arcana Communitas have busied themselves investigating for evidence around the crash site, my methods took on a more extraphysical approach, and I required adequate space for such an endeavor - hence why I haven’t been on-site as much as you two.”

Without waiting for a reply, Luna turns to her sister.

“I trust that it’s been some time since you’ve had dinner?” she asks as she skips up onto the dais.

Celestia nods her head, and Luna refocuses on you, waiting for your answer as well.

“It’s been a couple of hours, but… why, Princess?”

The two sisters share a knowing glance before Luna acknowledges your question.

“The transition can be quite disorienting if you have a full stomach,” she explains with a mischievous grin.

“Wh-”

Not a moment later, Luna rears her head, horn pointed skyward as it becomes enwreathed in her brilliant turquoise aura. The mere casting of the spell itself draws sparks from her horn that burn out as they pirouette in the air like tiny dancers, disappearing before they ever reach the ground.

A rush of phantom air emanates from where she stands, blowing out all of the candles in the sanctum; the only light source remaining is the mana conjuring around her horn. She shuts her eyes as she lifts one of her forelegs, and the mana drain becomes so monstrous that you can feel her exerting her will.

You glance over at Celestia to see if she’s reacting at all, but the creeping darkness seeping out from the wall behind her steals your attention. Darker than the blackest night you’ve seen, and then some. Just…

Consuming everything. You back away, turning to get as much distance as possible, only to find that it’s encroaching from behind you as well.

Suddenly, it violently accelerates - you don’t even have time to yell before it reaches you and…

…Passes right under you?

Your eyes follow the onslaught of vantablack as it culminates directly underneath Luna. For a few moments, the only things that seem to exist are the three of you, all still lit by some unknown light source. The stillness is staggering; you can, for what must be the first time in your life, hear the blood passing through your veins.

A white dot manifests on the impossible horizon, followed quickly by other glowing specks of multitudinous colors flashing into existence across the endless black. Swathes of cool-hued nebulae are painted right before your eyes. Glittering whalesong, lilting high, fills the soundspace, replacing the ringing in your ears.

This is…

“You might want to steady yourself.”

You spin around, your no doubt befuddled eyes locking with Luna’s smiling countenance. No sooner does your head begin to swim, nausea compelling you onto your haunches, resting on nothing. Your eyes slam shut as you struggle to dispel the false sense of motion.

“Oh, dear,” Celestia cuts in. “That may have been a bit too sudden, sister.” Her voice draws nearer with no hoofsteps to indicate her movement.

“The situation demands expedience,” Luna explains plainly.

She giggles innocently after a few moments.

“Though, I would be lying if I said I didn’t find your similarities between your first experiences amusing. My apologies, Twilight.”

A wing, smelling faintly of ozone, slips itself over your withers as the unpleasant sensation begins to dissipate. Your eyes creep open once more as you blink away the discomfort, Celestia looking you over like a doting parent.

“I-I’m okay… and very, very glad I had an early dinner today.”

“Let us know if you need to return to the material world at any point,” Celestia says. “The dream realm has a tendency to be a bit disorienting to new guests.”

You breathe in deeply, willing yourself to rise to your hooves once more. The parallaxing cosmos threaten to nauseate you further, but focusing on your mentor keeps it at bay.

“I’ll be alright, Princess.”

You turn to Luna as Celestia retracts her wing.

“Are they nearby?”

She nods, her horn alight once more. The cosmos around you begin shifting upwards, stars spreading from each other as you converse.

“They are, albeit hidden away.”

“Is that why you needed that orichalcum platform? To find them?”

She nods.

“Partially. It was installed some time ago, long before my absence. Its intended purpose is to expand the range of my dream walking capabilities so that I may safeguard not only Equestria’s citizens, but anypony in regions beyond should the need arise.”

You struggle to wrap your head around that. With that many ponies’ dreams going on, is it even possible to divide time up to help everypony in need? Does time in the dream realm work differently from time in the real world? Exactly how far does her spell reach when she’s on the platform? What about when she’s removed from it? How do other cultures react to Luna appearing in their dreams?

Agh! Your lack of knowledge about how Luna’s magic works irks you. Burning questions for later, you suppose.

“Earlier, though, I made an important discovery,” Luna continues. The stars around you continue to separate, growing further by the second.

“When I first witnessed the victims’ dream bubbles disappearing before me, they simply faded from existence. No fanfare, no instability - they simply ceased to be. Since then, I’ve been searching unendingly for any sign of them. Even when casting my dream walking spell at maximum output, I have had no luck. For a time, I feared that they had departed from this world.

“Not too long ago, however, I glimpsed one of them in the furthest reaches of the dream realm; Blazing Hearth, according to the files our intelligence teams managed to compile. This time, though, it wasn’t a dream bubble - it was her. Or, rather, an ethereal avatar of her lying on its side.”

Celestia’s face steels in confusion.

“Did she appear to be alright?” she asks evenly.

Luna shakes her head as the stars grow sparse.

“I couldn’t tell,” she replies. “She was covered in a black, viscous substance that obscured most of her features. I only recognized her due to her cutie mark just barely being visible. When I went to investigate further, however, her avatar sank beneath me. I attempted to follow, and it…”

She loses focus for a moment before locking eyes with Celestia.

“It passed out of the dream realm entirely. I watched her as she descended, but eventually, even the light of the ethereal stars couldn’t reach her.”

Your skin crawls trying to comprehend something so unnatural.

“How is that possible…?” you ask, befuddled.

A mixture of deep concern and total confusion crowd Celestia's expression.

Now, even the nebulae are getting thinner and thinner - there isn’t much around the three of you at all.

“Dreams take shape when an individual’s subconscious and soul directly interact with this very realm,” she continues. “At inception, though, dreams are nearly formless, save for the ethereal avatar of the host. The rest of the dream constructs itself accordingly around these vessels whenever they appear here.”

“They don’t start out here?”

“No.”

Suddenly, the motion in the space around you stops. The nebulae are gone, and the stars around you have dwindled to almost nothing. Above you rests a veritable galaxy. Underhoof is…

Nothing.

Not like before, either, with Luna’s dream walking spell.

An immeasurable unease tightens its grip on your stomach.

“They come from below, obscured - beyond where the barrier of the dream realm is thin. That is where we’ll find our survivors' vessels.”

You readily refocus your fearful gaze back on her, only to find her looking right back at you. Despite the maw of the world below, she still smiles at the both of you.

“That is where we’ll find Anon.”

Author's Note

anything that might be confusing in this particular chapter - especially about the way dream logic and dream walking works - will be answered in the coming Twilight chapter(s) :twilightsmile:

19 - Vignette

An aged spruce ceiling holds your exhausted eyes.

The tinge of an aching burn nibbles at their edges. You rub away at them with your good arm, but the ache deepens, tormenting you almost as much as the throbbing in your other shoulder. You haphazardly exhale through your nostrils, and the absence of air in your lungs alone is almost enough to knock you out cold again. With whatever strength you have left, though, you fight to stay awake - you’ve already slept most of the day away, and it won’t do to be so vulnerable.

Even though Kalliope swore up and down that you were safe in the annex above the restaurant, you can’t help but feel otherwise. Realizing that your bandages have become more crimson than white doesn’t help much with the anxiety, but it’s something. You’ve long since shucked your old worker’s uniform, too, which got rid of that strangely dank smell.

Owing to that creeping fear of being found out, you’re huddled away on the floor in the corner of a spare bedroom, as far as you can possibly extricate yourself from an oddly placed skylight. The crepuscular rays of the evening sun being cast onto the wooden floorboards glint off of lilting dust, a veritable shower of sparks playing around in the stale glow.

Beside you, Hearth still slumbers, blissfully unaware of the current predicament that befalls the two of you. Her chest rises and falls at a rate that you’re not altogether comfortable with; every couple minutes or so, you can’t help but press two fingers against her jugular to check for a pulse. It’s always there, but the uneasiness never leaves.

You turn to look at her, beholding every bruise, mark, and laceration her body bears. Red and purple cruelty leap out at you, even from under her thick winter coat. Almost every inch of her that you can see is covered in torturous welts and gashes. Perhaps the most disheartening part of her that your eyes meander over, though, is her face.

She’s got one hell of a black eye, and while the bruising isn’t quite enough to hinder her sight, it still looks swollen to high hell. Her bottom lip is busted in two places, and there’s some additional, lighter bruising on her right cheek as well. Couple that with the black eye, and you’ve got clear-cut evidence that they were beating her, most likely repeatedly. So hard, apparently, that it had left lacerations in her skin. Dried blood matts her fur here and there, mostly near the areas where she had been struck.

Her breathing hitches for a moment, and her forehooves twitch this way and that. For a second, you think she’s about to wake up, and your own breath gets caught in your throat. After a few tense moments, though, she returns to stillness, her breathing settled.

Your back hits the wall with a thud as you sigh in defeat. How potent was that fucking spell…?

“Won’t do ya any good to keep checkin’ ‘er over like that,” Pal says softly, bedbound on the opposite end of the room.

“I can’t help it,” you reply. “She’s been out for like, what, twenty hours or something now?”

He shrugs his shoulders as he casts his gaze to the skylight.

“I’m probably not the best person t’ ask,” he says flatly. “But yeah, somethin’ like that.”

Oh, shit… right.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to, uh…” you sputter.

“Nah, it’s fine. Was just tryin’ t’ joke around, is all.”

His fallen expression betrays how he really feels. You opt not to press it any further; the last thing you’d wanna do is upset him.

“Your wife said she might have something that could help, didn’t she?”

The mention of Kalliope seems to bring him out of his stupor for the time being. While he still isn’t quite as chipper as he was before he had the news dropped on him, it’s a marked improvement.

“Mhm. She was the one who used t’ patch us all up whenever we got into trouble.”

His spectral eyes comb over Hearth’s sleeping form for a moment before he continues.

“She’ll be able t’ take care o’ Hearth’s regular injuries, but I dunno if we got anything geared toward that sleep stuff she’s got goin’ on.”

“What do we do if she doesn’t?” you ask.

“Well,” Pal sighs. “We got two options in that case - wait it out, or get some outside help. I might know a guy, but a lot can change over eight years.”

The room falls silent for a time, the muted goings-on of the restaurant below filling the air with some merciful form of noise.

Kalliope said she’d be closing early today, but you aren’t sure just when that’ll be. There’s a shelf nearby with some books atop it that might help you kill some time, but you wouldn’t dare partake without asking her permission first. Guest’s manners, and all that. Instead, you broach whatever you can grasp for discussion.

“You excited to be with your family again?”

He lights up like a christmas tree, the spectral pinpricks in his eye sockets brightening rapidly.

“Oh, more than ever,” he muses, sitting upright as he turns to face you. “Kal ain’t aged a day, you know that? Twelve years, and she still belongs in royal paintings.”

He gestures to himself, chortling.

“Guess I hit the wall, though, huh?”

You can’t help but chuckle, even if it’s a bit forced. How the hell can he improve his mood so fast…?

“Seems like you’re taking it pretty well.”

“I’m tryin’,” he sighs again. “I just have to keep my head up. It’ll pass eventually.”

He shrugs as he rises from the bed, making his way over to your corner.

“I mean, I’m here now, ain’t I?”

You nod, pausing a moment to consider your next words. Really, though, can you even say anything of significance? His situation is so alien to anything you’ve been through - without experience to back your words, they’ll certainly fall flat.

“Yeah, you are.”

Filler it is, then.

As he takes his seat on the other side of Hearth, he nods, an air of appreciation about his skeletal features.

“Yeah… Not gonna waste that.”

His musings over, he holds your gaze.

“How ‘bout you, ‘non? You holdin’ up okay?”

You search his features, eager to pick up on any sort of sarcasm. There isn’t any.

“I mean… not really.”

He gestures to the well-kept room around you with wide arms, letting them slap the top of his knees as they come back down.

“Better than yesterday, though, isn’t it?” he asks, nodding along as if to influence your answer.

“We’re being hunted, man,” you almost spit. “We went from being neck deep in shit, to being chest deep. Push comes to shove, it’s still shit.”

“Sure, sure,” he placates, hands up in mock surrender. “Won’t argue with ya there, but you’re thinkin’ about it all wrong.”

“How?” you ask incredulously.

He deadpans as he leans in toward you.

“Weren’t you gonna be that lil’ witch’s sex slave?”

“Yeah?”

“I haven’t known ya long, but I’m willin’ to bet you wouldn’t have taken well to that gig. No freedom, no autonomy, all that.”

You let the back of your head gently hit the wall.

“…Yeah.”

“Well, there ya go,” he says. “Would I rather not be bathin’ in shit? ‘Course. But if I gotta, then I’d much rather be up to my chest than my neck. Little stuff, Anon.”

Little stuff.

You struggle to find the blissful ignorance needed to call any of what’s happened to you “little.”

Regardless, you’ve no strength or energy to argue. In any case, doing so would no doubt put your soul ill at ease, shooting down his unflinching optimism like that.

“…Guess so.”

“Chin up, Anon,” he encourages, patting your knee like a wizened old man. “I got a good feelin’ about all this.”

Your heart stirs, rattling against its cage. You want to believe he’s right, despite all sense telling you otherwise. Who knows? Maybe an assload of good news and a miracle or two are right around the corner.

Before you can play the party pooper any longer, you hear the telltale thud of a distant trap door being shut tightly. Your gaze locks onto the bedroom door, beyond which lies someone on the approach.

Before long, you feel the heft behind each footfall in the trembling floorboards beneath you. As they reach the door, you involuntarily tense. Silence reigns over the unsteady air, broken only by Hearth’s blissful exhales. The sunset seeping in through the bottom of the door curls around two thin shadows that shuffle ever so gently, the wood straining under their mass.

The door to the room doesn’t have a lock, so you aren’t sure why she’s just-

“You boys alright?” a familiar velvety tone asks as the door is gently pushed wide.

Kalliope stands at the precipice, the glow cast inside from a hallway window shrouding her in the waning daylight. She looks much the same as she did earlier, albeit more disheveled after a long day of work. Her eyes seem vacant, despite her gentle smile’s best attempts to achieve a form of normalcy. You’re certain no one in the room blames her - today is likely the strangest day she’s had in just over a decade.

“Better, now that you’re here,” Pal replies, rising to meet her.

He crosses the room, arms spread wide as she meets him halfway in an embrace. She leans into it, her lingering apprehension pushed firmly away by her devotion to her husband.

“Hey, love,” she exhales, gently swaying as they both refuse to let go.

“Hey, sweet thing,” he softly replies, hugging her tighter for a moment before finally letting go. “Work went well?”

“Mostly. It was… well, it was hard to focus.”

“Can’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout me even when I’m like this, eh?” Pal jests, flexing his humeri.

“Don’t push your luck,” she flirts back, playfully flicking his shoulder. “Where’s our sleeping beauty?”

You shuffle away from the wall, revealing Hearth’s slumbering form to her. Kalliope’s eyes travel over every crest and trough, staying a while on bluish brutalities.

“Goodness…” she whispers sharply, an inhale whistling through her teeth.

“Can you help her?” you choke out, taken aback by the timid mutter that disguises itself as your voice.

“I can patch her up, for sure,” she says as she closes the distance between the two of them. “As far as waking her up, though, the first aid cabinet ain't really geared for that.”

She gently slips her hands underneath Hearth, taking special care to keep her head steady as she cradles her against her chest.

“Would ya mind getting the kit for me, babe?” she asks, half-turned toward Pal as she carries Hearth over to the bed.

“Same place as always?” he asks, halfway out of the room already.

“Same place.”

“Sweet. Be right back, hon!”

A half-second later, he’s rounded the doorframe, humming to himself as he plods off on his mission. You rise to your feet as Kalliope sets Hearth down on the bed, the sheets beneath her bunching slightly around the relative shape of her body.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Kalliope says, turning to you at last. “It’s been so long, and the last few to try that were City Watch in disguise, so I just…”

She trails off into silence, avoiding your gaze.

You shake your head, wincing as you wave her off with your bad arm.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve got some crazy grip strength, though. Shit.”

She chuckles, offering you a polite smile as she gestures to herself.

“Comes with the territory. They get you, too?”

She points at your wrapped shoulder, your damp bandages tugging against your tender skin as if they were reacting to her scrutiny.

“Yeah,” you mutter, a heady fog surrounding your words. “Yeah, while we were, ah… getting out.”

“I can take a look at it after I’m done with her, if you want.”

You nod, a sting of appreciating rocketing down from the wound.

“Thank you.”

You meander over to the other side of the bed, observing Kalliope as she leans over Hearth, parting her fur this way and that, experienced hands refusing to waste any time.

“Poor thing,” she mused, slicking Hearth’s fur back down as she straightened up. “Must’ve been in a lot of pain, carrying on like this.”

“If she was, she’s good at hiding it.”

Kalliope hums her acknowledgement as she bends down to brush a few strands of hair out of Hearth’s eyes.

“She a friend of yours?”

You nod.

“Yeah. I mean, we just met yesterday, but I’d like to think so.”

She nods in return, now focused entirely on you.

“Pal told me a little bit about what happened before I went off to work. I knew Her Children were prone to overstepping, but I didn’t think they’d move against an entire country.”

Before you can think rationally, your questions spill forth as you inch toward the bed in anxious anticipation.

“Do you have any idea where Equestria is? Where it could be, even?”

She shakes her head.

“Today’s the first I’ve heard of it,” she replies, tone lowered in empathy. “That’s where you’re from, right?”

“Both of us, yeah.”

The desperation in your gut simmers.

“Look, does… does anyone know where it is? I mean, obviously, they do, but that’s off the table.”

She takes a second to think, but it amounts to the same denial you’re starting to dread.

“Most of the people living in Khodasa have never even seen the outside of the walls,” she explains. “Even the state-mandated traders only ever go as far as the outer settlements.”

You exhale in defeat as your palm drags itself up your face, fingers pinching the bridge of your nose.

“There aren’t any people coming in from further out? None at all?”

“Not in my lifetime, no. Any farther out than the settlements, and the ambient climate gets too rough to travel through.”

Your hand falls from your face, dangling precariously at your side. Your index and thumb twitch ever so slightly, pads gently treading against each other.

Is this some kind of cruel joke? Punishment for some morally bankrupt thing you did at some point in your life?

The tumult in your stomach rises to your chest.

You fill your lungs with the house’s still air, nostrils stinging from the indifferent cold. Your palms find their home on the back of your head as you zone out, eyes wandering across the wooden beams above you.

“…What do we even do?”

The hushed words leave an awful tang on your lips, tasting of resignation.

“The only thing you should be focusing on right now is recovering and keeping a low profile,” Kalliope replies, her guidance gently offered. “They’ll be looking for you three soon - if they ain't already started.”

“Would they think to look here?” you worriedly ask, gently letting your arms fall to your sides again. You already know the answer, of course, but you’ll hang onto whatever false hope your heart can conjure.

She nods, somber.

“Here and our sons' houses are their only real leads. You two don’t have any familial ties here, but Pal does, and they know it.”

“How long until they come looking?”

“I’m surprised they haven't already shown up,” she muses. “But knowing how they are, they’ll show up tomorrow, no doubt about it.”

You sigh deeply, letting your back hit the wall.

She searches your features for a few moments before continuing, kneeling down to inspect Hearth some more.

“I don’t have any proper hiding places here anymore, but I know some old friends who do.”

Your face lightens, some imperceptible weight lifted from your shoulders.

“They’d take in fugitives…?”

She chuckles, amused at your question.

“If I still know 'em after all this time, they’ll jump at the chance.”

The gentle rhythm of heavy footsteps returns, morphed and molded to lilt through the door and into your ears. Pal rounds the door frame with a thicker-than-average briefcase in his hand, kicking up a racket with every subtle movement it makes.

“Got it,” he proclaims, crossing the room and setting it on the bed next to Hearth with gusto. “Ya did a nice job redecoratin’, Kal.”

His phalanges come to rest on her shoulder, and she affectionately wraps them up in her own hand.

“I had to keep the house nice for when you came back,” she replies, looking up at him warmly.

His pearly teeth curl into an adoring grin. He takes a few moments to drink her features in before he separates from her, walking over and crossing his arms at the foot of the bed.

“How’s she lookin’?” he asks. “I know ya got ‘er boo-boos down pat, but what about the whole magic coma business?”

“I don’t have anything to remedy that, unfortunately,” she explains, catching him up. “But I’m willing to bet the Bakers would.”

His face lights up, near-childlike joy almost radiating off of him.

“No way!” he whisper-yells, still cognizant of his volume. “They’re still around after all that?”

“In a more… subdued way, but yeah, Ma’s kids are still here. They moved to the other side of the ring, near the unfinished developments.”

Pal raises his skeletal brow in surprise.

“In that little shopping plaza, or…?”

Kal nods as she breaks open the kit, an almost mythical assortment of medical tools and various forms of bandaging.

“They rebranded,” Kal explains. “They run an esoterica shop now. ‘Purrsian Oddities.’”

Pal uncrosses his arms, seemingly floored by the news.

“No kiddin’... What happened to ‘em?”

“Same thing that happened to us, but worse. City Watch raided their casino, seized the building and all of their assets, arrested Ma on treason, and kicked her family to the curb.”

As she cleans away the dried blood staining Hearth’s cheeks with a sterilized towelette, she looks up at the both of you.

“I’m sure they’ll fill you in once you head over tomorrow,” she says, eyes locking with Pal afterward. “It’ll be safer for the three of you there, babe. You know they’re bound to come knocking.”

Pal frowns as he crosses his arms again, the glow of his paranatural eyes beguiled by worry.

“You gonna be okay dealin’ with ‘em on your own?” he asks, his heart on his sleeve.

“One more day won’t hurt,” she sighs. “But you better be with me from then on forward, you got that?”

She jabs her pointer at him with an irresistible smile tugging at her lips.

Pal poses in a mock salute, his hooves sliding together underneath him.

“Yes ma’am,” he sounds off quietly.

They share a brief laugh, filling the otherwise tense air with a joviality you’ve been sorely missing. Even the corners of your own mouth begin to curl ever so slightly upward, as if simply being in proximity to their joy somehow commands it of you.

The moment passes, however, and Kalliope returns to her ministrations. Pal, halfway turned toward you, looks you over.

“You gonna be alright to head out on the town again?”

You shrug your shoulders, trying to ignore the sudden upswing in pain.

“If I have to.”

“We’ll be fine, ‘non,” he reassures. “It was a walk in the park today, and it’ll be a walk in the park in the mornin’.”

“You’re right to be worried, though,” Kalliope chimes in, glancing up at you after setting a bandage. “They’re not quite as overbearing now as they were twelve years ago, but it ain't due to a lack of ability.”

You nod absentmindedly, fears mounting. Pal picks the conversation with Kalliope back up, but their words fall on deaf ears.

In your own world, your eyes wander to the fading sunbeam still dancing through the window, those fleeting, golden glints of dust nowhere to be found.

The evening carried on quite quickly, the sun having set in what felt like minutes as opposed to its usual rhythm.

Kalliope, once she finished caring for Hearth, turned her attention to your own wounds. Thankfully, the spell hadn’t cut too terribly deep into your shoulder, and had only managed to sear your tender flesh with minor mana burns. After re-cleaning and re-bandaging it, Kalliope had given it a timeline of about two weeks to fully heal.

Which was, and still is, the only piece of truly good news you’ve heard in the past two days.

Now, the moon hangs low in the sky, a window-shaped beam of its light draped across your chest as you lie in bed. The uncertainty of tomorrow gnaws at your mind, keeping you awake even as the painkillers spread lullabies throughout your bloodstream.

The night drags on into eternity. Eventually, though, the medicine numbs the threshold through which your thoughts cross, and the black vignette of sleep creeps in from the edges of your vision.

Your final comprehensible thought of the day is of home.

Author's Note

we're back! sorry for the gigantic wait - a multitude of things kept me from updating, but that should all be solved soon, hopefully. more to come soon!