The Trotting Dead

When Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes again, she was not dead.  She wasn't lying on the grounds of the hospital, bleeding out, either.  She was laying in a tent with her dear friend, Fluttershy.

Fluttershy was sitting against the side of the tent when she heard Twilight groan.  "Oh good,"  Fluttershy said in a soft voice, "you're awake."

Twilight glanced in the direction of Fluttershy.  "Where...  Where am I?"  she asked.  Wherever she was, it wasn't anywhere in Ponyville; she could see shadows of trees and leaves through the thin fabric walls of the tent.

"We're in the..." Fluttershy gulped extraordinarily loudly and said quietly, "Everfree Forest."

Twilight was surprised at Fluttershy.  She knew the mare was terribly afraid of these woods, so whatever drove her in must have been awfully important.  Or dangerous... she thought to herself, recounting her experience in the hospital.  How did she manage to survive that fall, anyway?

While Twilight was still thinking, Fluttershy suddenly got up, saying something about how she was going to get the rest of their friends.

After what seemed like only a second to Twilight, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack were all stuffed into the tent, making the already humid-atmosphere even worse.  Twilight waited for her friends to sit before asking a simple question that had been bugging her.

"How did I get here?"

Rainbow Dash was the first to speak, and was very enthusiastic about doing so. "Oh that's easy!" she began, "I saw you jumping off that building to save yourself from those Trotters and took off in your direction!  I caught you, and just in the nick of time, too!  Then, I took you here where we helped you recover."  She took a big breath, as if the story had been inside of her, threatening to tear her open if she didn't let it out.  She looked at Twilight, smiling.

"That's-"

Twilight was cut off by Pinkie Pie.  "Oooh, ooh!  And then I wanted to throw a big party, but then grumpy old Applejack was all like, 'You can't throw one out here, it's dangerous,' and I was all like, 'Awwwww...' and then-"

"We get the point, Pinkie," interrupted Applejack.  "We can't go an' throw a big hoedown here because Twilight's recoverin' an'," she looked around suspiciously and lowered her voice, "we don't want any Trotters to hear us."

"Trotters?"  Twilight wondered aloud.  "What are Trotters?"

There was a rumble of chatter at this, and Twilight could easily pick out her friends surprise at her for never hearing the name.

"How have you not heard?" Rainbow Dash said, speaking mostly to the group rather than Twilight.

"Well she has—"

"It's INSANE, right?!"

"Shh, Pinkie, lower your voice, it's important."

"Girls, she has been in a—"

"I just cannot believe—"

"Well," said a much louder Fluttershy, talking over a now-disgruntled Rarity, "she has been in a coma..."

"Oooh..." Rainbow Dash said in understanding, "That explains why she was on the hospital!"

"And why—"

"So what are they?!"

All eyes turned to Twilight, and Rarity opened her mouth to speak.  "Well, to put it in the nicest way possible, Trotters are dead ponies that have come back alive to feed on us."

"How many are there?"

"We don't know for sure, but let's just put an estimate at around..."  Rarity looked at her friends for support.

"I'd reckon around ten thousand."

"Somewhere in the thousands."

"Maybe...  Maybe a few hundreds?"

"Over NI—"

"Yes, I'd say around three thousand," Rarity concluded.

Twilight remembered hearing something about ponies like that somewhere, maybe Spike told her, but she couldn't put her finger on what they were called.

Spike!  She had forgotten all about her baby dragon assistant.  Now she was worried.  "Where's Spike?" she asked, half wishing she wouldn't hear the answer.

All of her friends looked down at the ground.  Rarity shed a tear.  After what seemed like an eternity, Applejack answered, a somber note in her normally cherry-sweet voice, "We couldn't find him.  We...  Tried.  We searched all about Ponyville, Sweet Apple Acres, your treehouse; you name it, we've searched there.  We went out shoutin' his name, too, but he...  He just wasn't there."

Twilight looked at her friends in horror.  She couldn't imagine a world without her Spike.  After all, she had had him since she got her cutie mark!  Without him, life was just...

The purple unicorn was defeated.  She wanted to curl in a ball, to escape from reality.  Twilight knew she couldn't, though.  Instead, she lay there on her makeshift bed, crying, as one by one each of her friends left her, just like comforts to the world.

For the rest of the day, Twilight lay on her mattress, staring at the ceiling of the tent.  She had been crying for hours, but now she just sat there, thinking.  She remembered everything she could about Spike, how he would wake up early (or early in his mind) in the morning and get her breakfast, or about how much he loved Rarity, and how he would do anything for her.  Now all of that was gone.  Forever.

Twilight Sparkle sat up in her bed.  She was going out.  She didn't know where, but she was going out.

Unzipping her tent, Twilight found herself confronting the warm night air.  After re-zipping her tent, she started walking.  Past her tent, past her friends' camp, into the bleak, dark Everfree Forest she had once known as a source of danger and wonder.

Twilight stayed in the woods for quite a while, thinking.  She thought about Spike, about what had happened to him.  All signs pointed to him being dead, but Twilight wasn't ready for that.

There must be some other way, thought Twilight, he can't just be...  She trailed off there, not wanting to think about it.

Twilight thought for a while longer until she had come to her conclusion; according to her, Spike wasn't dead.  He was just... lost.  In her cold, logical mind, she knew that this was unlikely, but she could not accept her own logic.  Not yet, at least.

Twilight Sparkle headed back to the camp.  As she arrived, she could see the sun rise in the east.  While she was watching the beautiful sight, Fluttershy trotted up.

"Oh, good," said the pink-haired mare for the second time, still with a grin.  "You're awake."

Twilight turned to face her.  It looked like the mare had just gotten out of bed.  Probably to check up on me, thought Twilight.  She was touched by how much her friends cared about her.

"Listen, Twilight," Fluttershy began, "we all feel awfully terrible about Spike, but we were wondering if you'd want to take a little tour of our camp," she paused and said in a much softer voice, "of course, only if you feel like it."

Twilight smiled.  Ponyville may be a disaster, but her friend was still acting as shy as ever.  "Sure,"  she responded.

"Great!"

There were a few other tents set up around, some of her friends (and some others) milling about, and a rather large clearing overlooking Ponyville.  When she was within sight, Twilight took a closer look at the ruins of the once great town.  Sure enough, she could see the gray ponies walking around aimlessly around the town.  Terrible as it was, she was too numb to feel anything.

No surprise there, she thought bitterly.

A voice from above exclaimed, "Hey, Twilight!  The camp's pretty nice, right?"

Twilight looked up to find Rainbow Dash hovering several feet above her.  "Yeah, it's great!" she yelled up to the blue pegasus.  "Fluttershy is giving me a tour!"

"Oh really?"  Rainbow Dash floated down the ground.  "I guess I'll tag along, too."

The tour wasn't very interesting, with there only being a few tents and and a large merchant's cart.  However, Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie all tagged along with Twilight, and soon enough, the sky was being filled with red and orange hues.

"I reckon it's gettin' late,"  remarked Applejack.

"And I'm STARVING!"  exclaimed Pinkie Pie as her stomach rumbled.  "I don't get to eat like I did when I worked for Sugar Cube Corner!"

There was a pause in conversation.

"IDEA!" yelled Rarity in excitement.  "We should all go to my tent and eat dinner!"

"Uh, Rarity, our food storage has been running low lately,"  Rainbow Dash pointed out.

"No, no, no.  Remember when we all went to Ponyville to search for," Rarity looked Twilight and paused, "our friend?" she finally said cautiously.  After no response, she continued, "Well, I grabbed a huge box with bags of chips from one of the markets I was searching!"

The ponies all smiled, and Rainbow Dash pumped her fist up in delight; they were happy the pony with the chips was the generous one.

After arriving at Rarity's relatively large tent, the six friends all sat down.  Rarity took out her prized chips and tore through the packaging with her horn.

"Very creative use for your horn, Rarity,"  Twilight Sparkle commented as the chips were being passed around.

The white mare smiled.  "Thanks!  I learned it from my mother."

As she got her bag of chips, Twilight opened it and ate a few, then looked over to the rest of her friends.  Most of them were halfway through the bag, and the remains of broken potato crisps were scattered around the tent.

"How long was I out?"

"Mm?" answered Pinkie Pie as she reached for another bag of chips.

"I mean, how long was I in that hospital?"

"Oh, around a month, maybe two, or even—OW!"

"Sorry dear, but only one bag for each of us."

This news surprised Twilight.  She thought she had only been out for a week or two, but a full month?  She guessed that explained why the MND was empty, or how Ponyville was so destroyed.  But how?

"Yer probably thinkin' 'bout where ya gonna sleep, aren't ya?"

"Hm?" Twilight said, slowly processing what Applejack had said.  "Oh, yeah...  So, uh, do I get my own tent, or is the one I woke up in mine?"

"Nah, that was the medic tent.  But I guess we can get another one,"

"I don't know, Applejack, we might not have enough for another one.  We're already missing one for Sco—

Applejack waved her hoof, dismissing Rainbow Dash's concern as well as interrupting it, "Nah, we jus' got one from our last search of Ponyville,"  she then turned to face Twilight.  "You can have that one."

Twilight beamed.  "Okay, thanks!"

After a bit more chat, each of the mares left, with Rarity exchanging nice greetings as they did so.  Most of them went towards their own tent, but Applejack went with Twilight to help her set up her own tent.  After bit of trial-and-error, the two ponies finally got it all set up.

"Ya'll set now?"  asked Applejack.

"Yes," replied Twilight as she sat in her new home.

The orange pony started to walk away into the dark night when Twilight spoke, "Hey Applejack..." she said softly.  "Thanks."

Applejack smiled.  "Don't mention it."

With that, Twilight Sparkle lay her head onto her pillow and fell asleep.