Bucking Hell. I hate my entire bucking life nowdays.
Some ponies love bucking. Applejack and Big Mac can't get enough of it at the moment, and I'm one of several workers paid in all too few good honest bits to buck all day in the hot sun. Me, I can't stand it and only buck because I feel I have no choice. To look at me, you would think that I'm perfectly suited to life out here with that single large red apple as my Cutie Mark and my brown tawny unicorn body. My horn, useful as it is, makes it impossible to wear a buffalopony hat to keep the sun off my head, and there are times when I feel like passing out. And Applejack and Big Mac are far from friendly or sympathetic to my plight. They've docked my pay plenty of times and I guess I'm lucky they have not sacked me. And I can't chuck it in and find another job because there are very few other jobs to be had in this town for a lowly labourer like me. Applewine Sparkle, that's who everybody thinks I am nowadays, a country yokel who never got a chance at a higher education, fit only to toil with the earth ponies bucking apples all day until all four of my hooves are sore. And all for a few bits a day, scarcely enough to keep me in hay and pay for room in a stable. Yes, a stable. Not a flat, not a house like I used to live in, a dirty, fly infested stable with straw for a bed. There are days when I want to scream in a rage and tell everypony who I am.
But Twilight Sparkle made it clear, nopony can know who I am or I'll be thrown out of PONSEC and then they will come and kill me. They being the Cavallino Family, also known as the Fillydelphia Mob. What's PONSEC? The Pony Witness Security Program. My evidence could be enough to convince others in the Family to flip and rat out their leaders, enough to send them to the salt mines or the moon. So they are willing to do anything to find me and close my mouth for good.
Things were very different just a couple of weeks ago. My name back then was Spell Bookmark, my cutie mark that of a book because I could read as a young foal before most foals could read, and I had a media job at Tenpenny Tower. I was not quite on first names with DJ PonE but it looked as if it might be going that way, and I had the love of my life, Swift Wing, a gorgeous pegasus pony with a great personality, beautiful eyes and a songbird as her cutie mark. We were all alone one night on the beach nuzzling in private when we heard screaming from up above and a pegasus pony dropped out of the sky close by. We hurried to him and it was clear that it was no accident. His wing bones had been shattered deliberately by teeth and I saw the blood running out of them. His Cutie Mark was that of two crossed hooves. It clearly hurt him to speak but he managed to say to us..."Big Red Cavallino..." and he named two more names of his murderers..."they did it to me because I was trying to clean up the Union....tell the law, avenge me please...and don't...don't burn my body..." He shuddered a few times and then died. Swift Wing pointed her hoof up at the sky where two circling pegusai were briefly outlined against the moon, clearly the two who had done the deed. They saw us at the same time as we saw them and we fled into the woods.
Luckily for us it was night and pegusai hate flying into tree-filled areas at night, as no pegasus wants to splat his muzzle into a tree or rip out feathers or snap his wing bones in thick branches. We were able to get away and find a police pony, and half an hour later we were telling our story to a detective pony by the name of Fetlock Bones, a magnifying glass being his cutie mark. When we had told him everything and the body had been cordoned off and identified, he told us, "You are the only witnesses to the murder of All Together, the leader of the Ariel Teamster Union, the union for pegusai teamsters and carriers. Cloudsdale buys a lot of luxury goods and foods stuffs from down below, and without those workers who bring the food up to Cloudsdale, well, businesses could lose a lot of money very quickly with even a short work stoppage. He or She who can order the Union not to carry goods from certain suppliers could destroy a business with ease;or make it pay plenty of bits in protection money disguised as higher wages. That's not the only scam the Cavallinos are involved in. Loansharking, extortion, robbery, murder...and producing an illegal drug named Speed that has wrecked many a pony's life. Your evidence could get the killers to flip in the hope of a lesser sentence and could send Big Red to the moon. We've been looking for enough evidence to send him up for years."
He paused. "Once he finds out who you are and where you live, he'll send his killers after you. He'll want you dead as with you gone,we won't have enough evidence even to extradite him and those two killers from Cloudsdale, let alone have him found guilty. We'll tell the station commander, he'll tell the chief of the Fillydelphia police and he'll tell Twilight Sparkle, and she'll put you both in the Pony Security Program, with new names, new cutie marks and a new home in a new part of Equestria, far out of reach of the Fillydelphia Mob.."
Both I and Swift Wing snorted in disgust and Swift said nastily "Neither of us are entering witness protection, and if you don't like it you can kiss my cutie mark."
"Watch your tounge, filly, or I'll have you arrested for swearing at a police stallion. Nopony has the right to speak to me like that."
"Can't you assign some police ponies or Royal Guards to protect us until the trial? Or let me have a crossbow and a permit for it, and give Swift Wing a battle harness so we can defend ourselves?"
It was Fetlock's turn to snort at us. "Police ponies? Royal Guards? Who do you think you are, Princess Celestia herself? As for letting you have weapons, no. You might kill an innocent pony or foal who you think looked at you the wrong way. There is no right to bear arms in Equestria. Either you enter witness protection or you're on your own."
"Then we're on our own then."
For a few days I went to work with a knife hidden illegally in my saddlebag, ready to be levitated out and used on anypony who attacked me, but nopony did so and I started to relax until the day Swift Wing did not turn up to prepare for her latest concert and I went to her flat. Allthough she was born in Cloudsdale she chose to live in Filliydelphia for her job and to be close to me. My heart was thumping as I saw that her door was spintered and had clearly been kicked open. I galloped into her bedroom and saw her lying in bed, her head facing away from me. I pulled off the duvet with my teeth and screamed. And screamed some more.
My loved one's head lay in a pool of pony blood, having been chopped off by her killers and placed beside her body in the bed.
My screaming brought a crowd of ponies to the scene as I burst into tears over my beloved marefriend’s body. I’ll never feel another kiss from her again, never hear her sweet voice or see her fly. At that point I decided that I just wanted to be with her in the Otherworld, if such a place really existed after death. I certainly was not going to try and kill myself, I didn’t want to fail and end up brain damaged or paralysed from the neck down, even though there was a chance that healing magic could save me from such a fate. I decided I would wait for them to find me. Swift Wing, I’m coming for you, just give me a little time. Soon enough the police ponies turned up and ordered everypony out of there before they put their hoofprints all over whatever evidence there was.
Fetlock Bones was soon at the scene and said angrily “That’s why we wanted you both in witness protection, where you could be safe. That’s the sort of thing the Cavallinos do to anypony that gets in their way or threatens to bring them down. No medical potion or spell can bring back Swift Wing now, and you’re their next target. With you dead the case against Big Red will have to be dropped for lack of evidence. You have to come with me now.”
He was surprised when I shook my head in disgust. “Fetlock, without Swift Wing I don’t want to live anymore. I want them to come and kill me so that I can be by her side in the Otherworld. I loved her that much.”
There was a light pop and I stared in amazement. Twilight Sparkle, one of Princess Celestia’s closest friends, had teleported right next to us. “Spell Bookmark, Big Red is a major threat to Equestria and for the good of the country he has to be stopped and sent to the salt mines or the moon. And for that we need you alive, so I’m ordering you into witness protection for everypony’s sake.”
“If he is doing such damage to Equestria, why can’t Her Majesty just use her powers to banish him to the moon, like she did to Nightmare Moon? We’re not a democracy, why do we need fair trials?” I snapped, in my sadness and my anger not caring how important Twilight was.
There was another pop and I bowed low to the ground for standing in front of me in all her royal finery was Princess Celestia herself!
“If I was to just send Big Red and other criminals to the mines or the moon without a trial and without proof, then sooner or later I would do the same to an innocent pony without meaning to, or worse, would begin misusing my powers deliberately. As it is, almost everypony loves me, if I did as you said, sooner or later everypony would fear me and the genuine love and warmth would be lost. Misusing power is like scratching an itchy rash; once you start doing it, it’s almost impossible to stop, and I might end up being as bad as Discord. I put Twilight Sparkle in charge of witness protection as she loves to help everypony, and she is just the right pony for the job. So far, she’s helped thirty two ponies hide from those who want them dead, and I very much want you to be the thirty-third.”
She walked up to my side and bent her head towards my flank, and for a moment I thought that the Princess of Equestria was going to kiss my cutie mark! Instead she touched it with the tip of her horn and I felt a jolt as the cutie mark that I was so proud of changed from a book to an apple. “I order you to enter witness protection and do whatever Twilight Sparkle says to keep you safe,” she said, and with another pop she was gone. Well, I could hardly disobey a direct royal order, and Twilight took me to the police station and gave me my new name and told me what to say if asked, and put me on the first train to Applelosia. I protested that I wanted to be at Swift Wing’s funeral but she told me that the Cavellinos knew that and would try and kill me at or near the funeral. And that is how I came to be trying not to cry on the night train to Applelosia.