To The Last

As I stood out upon the great glass sands, I thanked the old goddesses for them having made my escape. I thanked the old rainbowed servant especially, as many ponies had come to do. Ponies had been running for years. How many, nopony had the means to measure.

I cleared some glass with my hoof, the one covered with a boot I had taken and fit to myself. Laying down, I held the rusted sigil I wore around my neck in that same hoof, praying to the star-spangled servant to keep me free of the rotting sickness. Like my boot, it had been stolen and made to fit pony purposes, but it had been long ago. When times were good, it had often been anointed with oil from the olives. A peaceful offering for a peaceful protector.

How foolish we had been, to think those who had wasted us would show any kindness. But what option did we have? The old Bird Mountains had grown more and more poisoned, so much that even the strongest pegasi in their blessed hosed-masks could not muster enough strength to turn the winds back.

I did not worry for my companions, my family, for worry did nothing but waste the energy and disharmonize the soul. They would leave this place for another, the same or better.

I turned to look at my sigil, taking comfort in the fact that even those who ruled now respected them. The three points, it could not be for anything but the goddesses who ruled our tribes before. Their blackness, the old peace of the night, the coolness under which ponykind now often traveled. Their yellow surrounding, surely the old comforting warmth of the day, now a reminder of ponykind's resilience.

As I looked out over the horizon, past the dunes and into the sky, I attempted to get my bearings. I looked for the tamed Ursa Major to the east. It was there, as it had always been. The goddesses' servants' deeds etched into the sky, so that ponykind may always remember them. A not-star, blinking and racing needlessly, passed over it.

When I was young, I had hated watching the night sky because of them. The not-stars were the new one's own crude attempt to etch their deeds into the sky. The herd's priestess always had to remind me, that one day we would knock them out of the sky.

Smiling from the memories of easier times, I began to trot towards it. We had agreed, whatever might happen, to meet up eastwards in the ruins.

It had taken most of the night, and thankfully not an hour later, for the sun had begun its slow, unguided flight as I walked into the village of the ruins. It had been a seasonal camp for decades, of another herd who had since declined and gone with others. Now, however, it seems it will see more use by mine.

As I pushed the tarp aside and entered into the longhouse, I was not at all surprised at what I did not see. My mother, my sister. One look at the priestess confirmed what I had already thought. They're in much better fields than this Gehenna, and I still have to face another day.

"My dear colt, you passed through the hot fields, didn't you?", she asked knowingly

"I had no other option, we had to scatter"

She trotted over to me, pulling out a small ball of lead from her saddle bags with her magic. I swallowed it, my dry throat attempting to reject it. Lead a day keeps the burns away, my mother told me as a colt.

"My mother, how?" is all I could muster

"You already know, just as they did to everypony else missing"

I found a blanket laid out on the floor, sewn together from Birdy cotton and old scraps found here. I should grieve, but that would lead to anger. Anger brings disharmony.

"I know you think me foolish to bring us here, Coke", she said as she laid beside me, both of us watching a little candle dancing in the light breezes which came through the cracks

"I do"

"May I tell you why I did so?", she asked, putting her foreleg around my bony shoulders.

"It would not be right to refuse a priestess" was all I could muster

She gave a light laugh at that.

"Some unicorns are naturally gifted, as the star-spangled servant was. We can naturally feel the comings and goings of Equus, whether of nature or of those which think. I felt something, a change to come."

What she said was true, it was how they showed their right to lead, what made them priestesses. Yet, I had already known this from foalhood.

"I felt something, a big change - just after the poison began to take over the Bird Mountains, and I felt it here"

"Was this just a feeling, or did Harmony tell you something?"

"A return. To what or when, it did not say, but the faithful have little doubt"

I jolted up at that. I had never held any doubts about Harmony, and Sparkle had never given me reason to doubt her interpretations of it.

"A return? From before the cataclysm?!", I yelled, looking into her purple eyes franticly.

She simply nodded, with that same kind expression she had given me since my foalhood.

"It was for that reason which I sent you out, to see which way I was to act. You have all proved which road we are to trot, and for that all ponykind will thank you"

"What do you mean? We knew already what they would do"

"A pony needs proof before acting harshly, my little pony. We needed proof the new ones had not changed, lest we bring disharmony by any rash actions"

"But, but what rash actions could we take?! We take from them, what else could we do?!"

She put her hoof on my back, pushing me back down and bidding me to rest. She gently eased the growth upon my croup, but I had long since lost feeling there. Blowing out the candle and heading for another section of the longhouse, she turned to look at me.

"What Equestria could not"