White

Chapters

The Hitchhiker
Home Is...
...Where the Bodies Are Buried
Twenty Questions
Running On Empty
Welcome To the Club
Recommended Reading
And On the Fifth Day...
Four On the Floor
The Calm
The Storm (I)
The Storm (II)
Do Not Provoke the Dressmaker (Epilogue II)
The New Normal (Epilogue I)

The Hitchhiker

“I don't like guns.”

The speaker of these words pressed herself against the trunk of a great oak tree, peeking around one side, then the other, for her pursuer. She could hear the other woman shouting angrily, the noise echoing sharply in the night air. Twice, a faint flashlight beam swept past, but never lit up the concealed woman. The yelling drew closer, so the woman had to move, but the going wasn't easy in her black sundress and sandals.

Another enraged shout rang through the forest as she began walking again. “I'm gonna fucking kill you!”

The reaction from the one being pursued was something far less than fearful, more closely resembling resignation than terror. She pushed uneasily through bushes and over exposed tree roots, squinting hard to see in the slivers of moonlight that pierced the canopy above. The woman chasing her was gaining; she likely knew the area much better, given the fact that she lived in a cabin enveloped by the forest. The flashlight beam swept by again, but this time it lit the woman up fully.

“Found you!” A shot was fired. The bullet found its mark, planting itself in her right shoulder. She grunted audibly, but didn't turn around. She didn't have time to; the pursuer tackled her to the ground and straddled her, pointing a flat black pistol right at her nose. A bright light washed out her vision for a moment. “Not getting away now. I'm gonna make you pay for what you did to my sister.”

She looked up at the other woman with idle blue eyes and shrugged as best she could. “That makes sense.”

That was apparently not the reaction the pistol-wielding woman expected, as the gun dropped slightly while she stared down with unsure hazel eyes. “Aren't you afraid?”

She squirmed on the ground, annoyed with the itchiness of the woman's jeans. She was leaking from the wound in her shoulder, leaving a small, warm puddle in the dead leaves. “Not really,” she said evenly. The pistol soon returned to its original position.

“My sister never did anything to deserve this!”

The reply was like a placid sea, smooth and calm. “I know.” Now the pistol was jammed into her forehead; it stung a bit, but the pain in her shoulder washed most of the feeling out.

“You cut off her arms!” the bereaved woman shrieked, tears pouring down her face. “She bled to death...” In the uneven light, she could see that the woman wasn't wearing a red shirt, but that it was bloody. “Why?”

Another shrug of her shoulders as she lay on the ground. “If I told you, it wouldn't change anything.”

A bullet suddenly ripped into her skull; the pain was unlike anything else she'd ever known, but it lasted for only a split second. Sobbing, the shooter snatched up her flashlight and rose to her feet, stumbling away. She collapsed against a tree trunk and wept bitterly. She remained in this position until a noise startled her, coming from directly behind. She whipped her flashlight around and halfway fell with the force. The beam rested on the sullen face of the woman in the black dress.

“I don't think it worked.”

She looked at the terrified woman, her face a mask of stone. A mixture of red and black liquid trickled down her face, dripping off the end of her nose and running over her lips. She was shot again eight times, and the other woman kept pulling the trigger despite the hollow clicks that followed. She dropped the gun and began to run back the way she came, but something caught her foot. As she thrashed and screamed, it dragged her back to the tree.

“Help!” she wailed, clawing at the ground. She rolled over and tried to attack whatever was holding her, only to see a black, wriggling thing ensnaring her ankle. She followed it with the light back to its source, rooted in the open right hand of the woman in the dress. With a grunt, she was pulled closer, flailing and grabbing at the earth. Suddenly, she was lifted by the ankle and placed roughly against the trunk, so high off the ground that she was face to face with the other woman, but upside down.

“Be quiet,” the woman in black said, lifting her left arm and placing her palm on the crying woman's forehead. Her face was still marred with blood and something else, something darker, but the wound itself was no longer visible. “I have to eat just like everyone else.” Her hanging victim shrieked, but it was a short, shrill noise. The other woman withdrew her palm; it was studded with a hard, black spike, which withdrew into her flesh. After she dropped the body, she sat again by it.

For a moment, she stared at the slit of red in her palm where the spike had gone in. Her palm was bloody, too, but the entrance wound was still easily visible. She reached over and gripped the corpse's right arm, yanking it up and putting her other hand on the shoulder. Another ebony knife emerged, severing the arm cleanly. Now grasping it in both her hands, she brought it up and took a bite out of the part below the elbow, like she were eating a corn cob.

She ate quietly, freeing one hand from holding her meal to wipe the crimson off her mouth. A crunch rang out with her next bite; she had struck bone, but her teeth were closer in strength to a shark's than a human's. She powered through it, swallowing the marrow and minerals as easily as the meat that cloaked it. When she finished eating that arm, she hacked off the other and started to chew on it idly. Abruptly, she spat out the appendage and wept quietly. Just as abruptly, a few seconds later she stopped and snatched it up, devouring the dirt and leaves that clung to it with no regard. She was full, now, but not knowing when she'd eat again, she took more flesh from the corpse, stripping away its shirt and tearing out chunks of its torso, gulping them down until her mind said to cease. She was well and truly stuffed, and it showed after she rose to her feet. Her steps were wobbly and slow, and her eyes half closed. It took her much longer to find the cabin in the clearing than it did to leave it, and once there she addled up the front steps and found the door locked.

Quietly, she placed her palm over the keyhole, injecting the gooey blackness into it. It became hard and defeated the lock as she rotated her wrist back and forth, allowing her entry. Once inside, she looked around for the bathroom, and once it was found, immediately took a long, long shower, paying special attention to washing her face, as well as her blue and black hair. After she was satisfied with that, she rummaged through the bedrooms for new clothes to wear. She had to settle for the nicest pair of jeans she could find and a black tank top; the sandals she had came clean in the bathroom sink with a little scrubbing, so she kept them. Before departing, she wandered out into the backyard.

Here was the corpse that had started all this, a teenaged girl with dusty brown hair and a white shirt and jean shorts. Her arms were missing, not only from her body but the area entirely. Something from the woods must have claimed them while she was away. Her eyes lingered on the body for a moment before she turned and drifted into the forest.

She had no idea where her walking had taken her, only that the sun now shone down angrily upon her head. With her hands shoved in her pockets, she wandered slowly down the side of the two lane highway, affording only a passing glance to every car that sped by. She did not bother attempting to hitchhike; there was no hurry, and furthermore she hadn't anywhere in particular to go. Her eyes were mostly cast down at the grassy shoulder, darting about as things moved nearby. She was only snapped out of her automated gait when a rough, gurgling noise reached her ears. It approached from behind, not bearing the smooth sort of tone that the other passing cars had. It revealed itself in short order as an old, slightly grimy red truck as it trundled past.

To her surprise, it pulled off onto the shoulder a few yards ahead.

When she reached it again, the passenger side window was down. Looking out of it was a blonde woman with a tan Stetson – which had a notch missing from the front of the brim – and friendly green eyes. A smile was plastered on her freckled face. She took a moment to dab at her forehead with a red and white handkerchief before waving.

“Howdy! Look like you could use a ride.”

She gazed at the driver blankly for a second or two and shrugged. “I'm fine.”

“Are you nuts?” the driver replied, stuffing the handkerchief back into the pocket of her orange shirt. “It's hotter than a volcano out here!” The word 'volcano' was so lathered with accent, it took the woman in black a moment to process the thing. “Come on. I don't mind givin' ya a lift ta town.”

“Town?” she asked, now turning fully to the blonde and staring. “What town?”

“Ponyville!” the blonde chirped happily, before her face dropped into a wry smirk. “Don't ask why we call it that. Long story an' all. Come on, I insist! You're gonna get roasted straight through if ya stay out here all mornin'.”

She ran a hand through her black and blue hair and sighed a bit. She wasn't tired of walking – she'd gone distances much greater than this before – but the kindness stung her in an odd sort of way. It was a pang of something she found familiar and totally alien all at once. She did know one thing, however; it was not unpleasant. It didn't make her instincts tingle with warning, or her reflexes ready themselves. It was somehow...refreshing.

And she decided that she wanted to see if there was more of it. Without another word, she opened the door of the old truck and climbed in. Once they were underway, she regarded the blonde woman more fully. She seemed to be a farmer; her arms certainly had the abrupt tan of one. Her faded jeans were pulled over brown, heavy cowboy boots.

“So, where ya headin'?”

The time for regarding had gone. The woman in black locked her gaze on the view out the passenger window, leaning against the door slightly. Her reply came without missing a beat. “Nowhere in particular.”

The blonde rested her left arm on top of the driver's door, steering easily with her right and looking ahead with slightly confused eyes. “One of those wanderin' types, huh?”

“Yes, you could say that.” Almost reflexively, she turned over her left hand, raising it and looking at her palm. A thick red line ran straight down the center.

“Whoa, nasty scar,” the blonde blurted out. Her hand instantly clenched into a fist. She looked over just as the blonde gave her a nervous smile. “Sorry. Couldn't help but see it. What happened?”

She looked back out the window, her eyes suddenly hard and hostile. “...nothing.”

Even with the limited reaction, the blonde assumed she had crossed some kind of line, and drove on with a sheepish look. “Pardon...by the way, name's Applejack!” she offered, latching an expectant tone to the end in an attempt to break the ice. She frowned when no reply came, and glanced over to see that her passenger was still staring out the window. “What's your name?” she tried again.

She was now resting her chin on her right hand, and Applejack could see the red line on that palm as well. This time, however, she kept her mouth shut about it. “I am Fuyu.”

That response earned Fuyu a blink from the blonde that she paid no attention to whatsoever. The truck came to a squeaky stop at an intersection, and it was now time for Applejack to regard her passenger. What she saw was a very pale, slender woman with mostly black hair – two turquoise stripes ran through it, originating from above her eyebrows – which she wore slicked back. It fell stiffly to a spot between her shoulders, the strands curling up at their ends. The one thing Applejack could tell was that this woman was no stranger to physical labor, though what kind of work defied her. Her arms were toned lengths of flawless porcelain, save the red lines on her palms. When Fuyu felt the gaze on her, she turned her head and looked back, revealing her faintly almond-shaped blue eyes and thin lips.

“What?”

“Uh, nothin'!” Applejack replied hastily, snapping her head back forward and gripping the wheel with both hands as she pressed on the accelerator. “Just, uh, that's a weird-soundin' name, is all.” Mentally, she slapped herself as she realized her insinuation and tried to clarify. “I mean, not the kinda name I hear a lot!” she added abruptly and sighed. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”

“Oh.”

She looked over at Fuyu after pulling away from the stop sign. If the woman was angry, she showed no sign of it, staring out the window once again. A silence fell over them, and an awkward Applejack decided to busy herself with the trip. She had to squint against the sun as the road wound its way through the subtle hills, dropping her hat a little to take the edge off the light. Now that she had a few minutes to think, she realized she had failed to consider what she would do with her passenger once they got to town. Still stung by what she viewed as an accidental insult to Fuyu's name, she felt obligated to try and make it up.

“Y'all can relax at the farmhouse once we get there, if ya like. Until ya get your bearings, I mean. Figure out what ta do next.”

Suddenly, Fuyu's hollow gaze gained a bit of surprise. She turned her head away from the window just enough for her to lay eyes on Applejack. “But you just met me,” she said, an undertone of confusion in her voice.

The blonde was confused now, simply because she didn't understand the confusion she heard. She lifted her hat to scratch at her head, glancing between Fuyu and the road. “Well, yeah. So what? Ya need a place to crash, and we've got room. It's no problem!”

That strange pang returned forcefully, causing Fuyu to raise up from the door and sit stiffly in her seat with her hands firmly on her knees. Applejack blinked, not comprehending the reaction, and feared she'd again done something wrong. “I mean, ya don't have ta, if ya--”

“Thank you.”

It was gratitude unlike the blonde had ever seen it, stone-faced and distant and unpracticed, a raw emotion without any shape or direction. She still felt better about the situation, but the oddness of the tone and demeanor stuck to the back of her mind and nagged at her for a few miles after she nodded and smiled in reply.

Outside, the scenery changed; houses were now planted in the sparse clumps of trees on both sides of the highway, and traffic began to increase. The buildings grew increasingly thick until they lined the road, which was now more a street than a highway. They passed a large wooden sign proclaiming the town limits of Ponyville and the date of the town's establishment, at which Fuyu only glanced. Applejack pulled into a parking spot beside the sidewalk, in front of a white building whose sign identified it as a farmer's supply store. Fuyu stared up at it for a moment, then through the plate glass windows at the shelves lined with items inside. She heard faint words behind her and turned to see that the blonde was counting out bills from a wad of money and laying them on her lap. Once she'd counted them all, she grabbed them up again in a clump and looked back with a small smile.

“Sit tight, gotta pick up a few things in here. Won't take long!” She waved and climbed out of the truck. Fuyu watched her enter the store, once again leaning on the door as she stared. She continued to watch for several minutes, only snapping out of her fugue when she again saw Applejack at the store counter, attempting to maneuver two heavy bags of something. She raised up as she saw the blonde having a slightly animated conversation with the man behind the counter, after which she folded her arms, made an annoyed face, and walked out of the store. She came up to the passenger door and motioned for Fuyu to roll down the window.

“I really hate to bother ya about this, but can ya help me load up some of this stuff?” she asked, an apologetic look in her eyes. “Joe's runnin' the place by himself today...says he's got a bad back. I think he's just lazy,” she added, smirking. “Would ya mind?”

Fuyu wordlessly opened the door and slid out onto the sidewalk, smoothing back her hair and following Applejack into the store. Joe was busy ringing up the rest of Applejack's purchases, and indicated he'd already scanned the two heavy bags of fertilizer. The blonde stooped down by one, motioning for Fuyu to go and stand at the other end of it.

“Now, these are real heavy,” she warned, preparing to grab her end of the bag. “We're gonna have ta lift it toget--” She fell silent as Fuyu, after some contemplation of the item, not only grabbed her end and lifted, but pulled the bag toward her, slid her left hand under it, and hefted it onto her right shoulder with a low grunt. Noting the silence, she looked at both Applejack and Joe, staring from behind the counter.

“What?” she asked of them.

“Dang, girl!” Applejack blurted out, her mouth slightly open with shock as she stood up. “I didn't think anybody but Big Macintosh could do that!”

Fuyu shrugged her free shoulder and began walking, her gait seemingly unchanged by the cargo. “I'll be back for the other one,” she stated as she pushed open the door. Applejack blinked as she watched the other woman handle the bag; Fuyu wasn't quite as tall as the blonde, and she certainly wasn't as stout; she simply could not figure out where the strength was coming from. As she promised, Fuyu wandered back in as Applejack gathered up her other purchases, lifting the second bag with as little trouble as the first. This time, Applejack followed her out after paying.

“I am serious, that's amazin'!” she said, placing several smaller bags full of various items into the truckbed as Fuyu dropped the heavy bag in. “I oughta tell Big Macintosh just ta stay out west and hire ya,” she added with a chuckle, walking around to get back in the truck.

Fuyu said nothing in reply as she did the same, and in a moment more they were off again. Applejack turned the truck around and began going back from whence they came, although about a mile past the town limit she took a right turn onto a dusty, winding road. The trees began to change in their type and placement; dozens of the same kind stood in neat rows as far as Fuyu could see. The road undulated firmly, snaking between hills and wandering generally upward until reaching the crest of a wide, green plateau that seemed to be in the center of the hilly terrain. On this ground sat a bright red barn with a black roof, and a two-story farmhouse clad in pale yellow siding, with twin chimneys jutting through the gray shingles. Applejack brought the truck to a stop between the two buildings.

“Here we are!” she chirped, climbing out of the truck. Fuyu exited a moment later after looking around a bit more, and went to the rear of the vehicle. The farmer was in the bed, grabbing the smaller bags. “Could ya take these two to the barn for me? I don't wanna leave 'em out in the sun too long.”

Fuyu nodded quietly and climbed into the bed, using the back tire as a stepping stone. She picked up one of the bags, again placing it on her shoulder, and jumped back out onto the ground. She landed on her feet with a thud, kneeling to dissipate the force before standing and walking to the barn.

“Seriously, how can ya carry that so easy?” Applejack shouted from the truckbed, a slightly jealous look on her face.

Fuyu contemplated that for a moment; the bag weighed about as much as the bodies she was so good at hauling around, so the answer was, to her, quite obvious. With a shrug, she called back simply, “Practice,” before disappearing into the barn. Inside, she found some like sacks of fertilizer in a corner off to the left, so she deposited her own bag there and went back out for the other. She retrieved and carried this bag as easily as the first, and by the time she was again outside, Applejack was at the front door of the farmhouse fiddling with a key ring.

She arrived just as the farmer got the door open. The interior of the house betrayed some of its age, but was otherwise well kept. What wasn't painted a soothing green was bare wood, including the floors and ceiling. All the furniture was worn in some way; the red couch needed new upholstery here and there, the wooden end tables were scratched, the enormous coffee table was chipped. Against the wall facing the couch, between two windows, was a brand new flat panel TV that looked entirely out of place amongst everything else. Against the back wall was a staircase, whose side was painted green like the walls, and had a small door built in. Applejack carried the bags in her arms to this door, opened it, and set them inside.

“Whew!” she sighed, dabbing at her forehead again with the handkerchief. “Make yourself at home,” she added, waving Fuyu over to the fat couch. She walked over slowly and sat down, looking behind her as she heard noise from the stairs. A brown and white dog with a red collar scrambled down the steps, tail wagging furiously as she ran over to Applejack.

“Hey, Winona,” she smiled, stopping and crouching down to pet her. When the dog saw Fuyu, she barked once and ran around the couch, jumping up and sniffing at the new arrival. “Be nice, girl.” Winona wagged her tail happily, expecting pets that Fuyu, after a blinking a few times, finally gave her. After that, the dog jumped down and followed Applejack into the kitchen. “Thirsty?” she called, opening the door and looking at Fuyu, who nodded back in reply. She reached into the fridge and pulled out two glass bottles, one of which she tossed all the way through the kitchen and back into the living room. Surprised, Fuyu caught it and turned it in her hand to look at the label. 'Sparkling Apple Juice', it said, and on the bottom of the colorful label was a yellow ribbon bearing the words 'Sweet Apple Acres'. She opened it and began drinking as Applejack sat down on the couch beside her.

“We made that,” she said proudly, taking a powerful swig. “Grew the apples here, harvested 'em, pressed 'em. Only things that came from outside were the bottles an' the fizz.” She looked at Fuyu to gauge how impressed she was, but found the needle hadn't moved a bit; she didn't say a word, or even look back. Sightly annoyed, Applejack took another drink and tried to shake off the sting. “So, where ya from?”

That certainly got a reaction from her guest, but not the kind she expected. Fuyu looked up at her, eyes hollow. “I don't know.”

Applejack opened her mouth to say something, but her mind stopped her from letting the words out. How could ya not know?, she wanted to say, but realized just in time how blunt and uncaring that would have sounded. She looked down at the bottle in her hands for a moment, deliberately collecting her thoughts for a very careful reply. “Ya...ya don't know?” she finally asked, her tone overflowing with gentleness.

“I don't know,” Fuyu repeated, now gazing down at her lap. “I have no idea at all.”

Suddenly, the farmer felt more uncomfortable than she had in a long while. She set her bottle on the coffee table and turned to face her guest more fully, but didn't move any closer. “What do ya know? If ya don't mind my askin', I mean. I sure don't wanna pry.”

Fuyu's answer was short, and made Applejack cringe with sympathy. “Just my name.”

“That's it?” She sat up straight, her face an open-mouthed mask of something between compassion and shock. The woman in black nodded quietly, but wasn't emotional in the least. Somehow, that made Applejack feel even worse. “Oh, honey...” She did the only thing she felt was right in that moment, which was place her hand on Fuyu's left shoulder. “I can't imagine how you must feel.”

She wasn't the only one. Fuyu looked down at the hand, then allowed her eyes to travel up the arm and to the face of its owner. “It's all I've ever known,” she finally admitted, her voice unnervingly toneless.

Applejack wanted to give this woman the biggest hug she could muster, but was wont to violate her personal space without asking first. For now, she stayed her arms, withdrawing her hand. “Y'all can stay here for as long as ya need.”

Again, Fuyu regarded the kindness with confusion. “But you just met me,” she said, almost perfectly repeating the statement the same way she had earlier. This time, however, Applejack believed she was much closer to understanding why.

“Y'all haven't been treated very kindly, have ya?”

Fuyu seemed to slump a little, but her face was blank. “I suppose not,” she stated quietly, then drank again from her bottle.

Applejack folded her arms and attained a very serious air. “I don't care. All my friends'll tell ya I can spot a liar or a thief or a bad apple...” she paused for just a moment to snicker at her fruit pun, “...from a mile away. You don't seem like any of 'em. I don't have any problem lettin' ya stay here, and I can give ya work, if ya want it.”

Fuyu, for lack of a better term, had been stunned speechless, but her face was just as blank and expressionless as ever. “What could I do here?” she finally asked.

“Heck, anything! You're strong as an ox! I can always use someone like that,” Applejack said, waving her hand as she stood up. “Besides, with my brother – that's Big Macintosh – and my Granny Smith out west for a while, I could...” she trailed off, rubbing the back of her neck and looking rather sheepish, “Well, I could use the extra company. It's just me and my little sister here. The place gets kinda lonely.”

Fuyu tilted her head very slightly and blinked. “Very well.”

“Woman of few words, huh,” the farmer chuckled lightly. “Tell ya what, in the mornin' I'll show you the routine, then ya can see how ya handle it. If ya do well, then we can talk about your pay. How's that sound?”

“All right,” Fuyu nodded simply, finishing off the contents of her bottle.

“Great! Now, I'm starvin',” she muttered, Winona running circles around her feet as she returned to the kitchen. “How about you?”

“Not really,” she replied, her face completely straight.

“Suit yourself,” Applejack shrugged. Fuyu watched her wander around the kitchen and start cooking, breaking into a mostly one-sided discussion as she did so about her little sister's picky eating habits. The woman in black's mind immediately darted back to the two women at the cabin. For an hour, she listened to the farmer speak glowingly about Apple Bloom, and after a while, Fuyu could only sigh as she spoke. After a while more of watching the blonde smile and listening to her crow about her family, she realized something:

The thought of eating this woman was actually making her frown.

Home Is...

Fuyu could hardly comprehend how two people could make such a frenzied whirlwind of activity by themselves, yet here she was, perched on the couch and watching Applejack and a young girl with incredibly red hair zip back and forth time and again. Outside, the dawn light was beginning to creep over the hills and through the windows, hampered somewhat by a layer of fog that clung to the ground.

“Where's my bow?!” the young girl shouted from the top of the stairs.

“I had to wash it!” Applejack replied, a hand cupped around her mouth. “Check your dresser!” She noticed Fuyu looking at her and smiled a little. “Gets pretty nuts in the mornin', heh. Sorry we woke ya,” she added, before again moving toward the stairs.

Fuyu shook her head slowly. “I was not asleep.” She never needed much sleep. About an hour a day of unconsciousness would usually see her through. She only left her room because she heard an unfamiliar voice outside of it, and came out to see who it belonged to. Applejack had introduced her to Apple Bloom, the youngest of the family, after she emerged, although introduction might have been stretching it a bit – Bloom did all the talking, only falling silent when she realized Fuyu herself hadn't uttered a word. She was then compared to a woman named Fluttershy before Bloom departed, saying she had to get ready for school. This was the madness she now beheld, a restless storm of footsteps on the wooden stairs as one or both of them made the trip to get or take something they needed or realized they didn't need. Fuyu ceased trying to follow their movements, instead fixing her eyes upon the TV. The local morning news was on, and she used the weather forecast to determine where exactly in the country she had ended up. Only when she heard a loud series of noises behind her did her attention wander. She looked over the back of the couch and saw Applejack, a hand on her chest and leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs.

“Dang it, Apple Bloom, your bookbag almost killed me!” she chided loudly, calling back down the hall. Fuyu heard a muffled 'sorry' as the blonde came down, shaking her head. The brown Stetson again adorned that head, and she fussed with it upon reaching the bottom. “That girl would forget her noggin if it weren't screwed on,” she sighed, sitting by Fuyu on the couch. “Anyway, I gotta have the oil changed in the truck after I take Bloom to school, so just hang around until I get back, 'kay?”

“Very well,” Fuyu nodded stoically, again glancing back as heavy footfalls struck the steps.

“Ready!” Apple Bloom waved, decked out in a yellow t-shirt and green overalls, whose legs were cuffed over white sneakers. She bore a tremendous pink bow in her hair and a wide grin on her face. “Let's rock!”

Smiling, Applejack stood up and smoothed down her white shirt. “Right. See ya later, Fu!” she said, with a wave, and strode to the door after her little sister. Fuyu idly watched the old red truck pull in front of the house before turning and grumbling away down the dirt path. After it had left her sight, she suddenly realized something.

“Fu?” she blinked. After considering it for a moment, she shrugged and also rose from the couch, drifting out the door and off the porch. After picking a random direction, she began to walk, moving like a black ghost through the foggy orchard. As she went, she more closely examined what terrain she could see; it never seemed to be flat at all, rising and falling like waves in an unsettled – but frozen – green ocean. Every hill was studded with trees, and the trees themselves were studded with fruit – at least, most of them. On occasion, and seemingly at random, Fuyu would walk under branches that were completely bare. As she walked, she noted the fog thinning out, and a pervasive noise growing louder. The closer she got, however, the thicker the fog again grew, until she could hardly see past the side of the hill she now found herself walking down. At the bottom, she found a wide, noisy stream. Pursing her lips, she began to follow it. The ground was much flatter here, carved into submission by the flowing water, and the hills all began to look the same. By the time Fuyu realized how lost she truly was, the fog was burning away. She squinted against the bright sun and sighed, dropping her eyes and glancing about.

“I suppose it doesn't matter,” she finally admitted, and began walking again. She didn't get far however, as a spark of something above and behind her attracted her attention. She had felt such a thing before, and from experience knew exactly what it was.

“Hey, you! Stop right there!” a loud voice commanded, increasing in volume as its source came closer. Fuyu turned around and folded her arms as a woman with cyan wings landed roughly on the bank. She had to take a moment to steady herself afterward, but once she did she bristled visibly and dismissed her wings with a snap of her fingers. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Fuyu stared at the arrival silently, sizing her up. This lithe woman had hair unlike any she'd ever seen – it was a rainbow of colors that faded in and out of each other with no rhyme or reason, a bushy, short clump of technicolor strands that stuck up or out at random. Her skin was tanned, at least what of it she could see, and her eyes were a harsh rose color. She wore a bright blue, sleeveless tank top and black jeans over black and white high-top sneakers. Silver hoops glittered in the upper cartilage of both her ears.

“Answer me!” she demanded, taking a few steps forward.

“I was walking,” Fuyu replied quietly.

“I know that,” the woman replied in a huff. “Why are you walking here? This is private property!”

“And?” Fuyu countered, beginning to grow agitated with the tone of the questioning. “I am just looking around.”

“You're one of those thieves, aren't you?” the woman accused, and to Fuyu's surprise, she suddenly charged with her left hand balled into a fist and cocked back. “Leave Applejack's stuff alone!” Upon arrival, she threw the ready punch at Fuyu, but the woman caught her incoming hand and yanked on the arm, pulling her past. She kept a grip on her left wrist and bent the arm behind the woman's back, torquing it into a painful submission hold. As she solidified her grasp, she consulted her stomach; it reported back full. This one would get to live, depending on how she acted.

“Aaaaaagh!” the woman yelped, struggling even as she collapsed to her knees. Fuyu stooped a little to maintain the position. “Let me go! Ow! Applejack is gonna shoot you when she finds out!”

“How do you know her?” Fuyu asked, her iron grip on the woman's arm drawing anguished whimpers from her lips with every breath.

“She's my girlfriend, and you're stealing her app—aaaaaaagh!” she screamed as Fuyu twisted her arm a little harder.

“I am not a thief,” Fuyu replied harshly. “I am only out here waiting for her to return.”

“Sh-she knows you?” the woman gasped, suddenly becoming much less tense in Fuyu's grasp. “Okay, okay, my bad, pl-please let m-me go,” she pleaded, tears collecting in her eyes. Fuyu obliged, and the second she did the woman grabbed her arm and grimaced, taking wobbly steps away before turning to face her. “Damn, man, where'd you learn that hold?” she asked, rubbing her elbow.

“I don't know,” Fuyu replied stoically, before pinning her down with an icy glare. “Who are you, and why did you try to hit me?”

“I'm Rainbow Dash,” she replied, inhaling sharply as she checked her upper arm. “AJ's been having problems with robbers since her brother and grandma left, so I fly over every morning to check the orchard for her.”

“I am not a thief,” Fuyu repeated, turning crisply on her heel and walking away.

“Wait!” Rainbow called, moving quickly to catch up with her. “Are you the hitchhiker she told me about yesterday?”

Fuyu glanced sideways at her. “Yes, what of it?”

“Fuyu, right? She said you lifted one of those stupid bags of fertilizer like it was nothing. I guess I should have believed her,” she finished, frowning as she tried to shake the feeling back into her arm. “Geez! Least you didn't break it, I guess...”

“I could have, if I wanted to.”

Rainbow gulped and laughed nervously. “I bet...I can take you back to the house, if you want. We're kinda going the wrong way.”

Fuyu stopped dead and blinked before folding her arms again and sighing. “Very well.”

She fell in with Rainbow and walked silently for a few minutes, shoving her hands in her pockets to prevent her from seeing the marks on her palms if she hadn't already. The other woman was still dealing with her aching arm, grimacing and grunting as she moved. After cresting a hill and going down the other side, they found themselves on the dirt path and ascending slowly.

Rainbow was tired of being quiet. “Sooooo...AJ said you were an amnesiac?”

Fuyu contemplated that word for a moment. “I suppose.”

“Must suck, not knowing who you are,” Rainbow nodded, glancing up at the now clear blue sky.

That was something Fuyu had never considered before, and she had no reply for it. Rainbow, realizing she might have come off wrong, frowned.

“Sorry. Just, uh, I can't imagine not knowing about yourself, you know?”

Fuyu shrugged a little as she strode on, her sandals kicking up little puffs of dust with each step. Rainbow's arm felt better, but without that to focus on she was growing bored of the silence and let out a loud sigh.

“You don't talk much, do you?”

Fuyu didn't even glance at her. “I've not much to say.”

“No kidding,” she muttered, making a face. She was used to quiet people, her best friend being amongst the most quiet she'd ever known. Fuyu's silence, however, was somehow harder and colder than Fluttershy's. Still wincing whenever she tried to move her arm too wildly, she decided it would be best not to push it and kept quiet for the moment. The roof of the barn was just coming into view, followed shortly by that of the farmhouse, and Rainbow sighed again.

“I may as well stay until AJ gets back,” she decided, sprinting ahead of Fuyu and up the front steps. She was in no hurry to catch up, and only entered the house a couple of minutes after Rainbow did. She found her sprawled out on the couch with remote in hand, making a variety of faces as she flipped channels. “Oh, uh, sorry for trying to punch you,” she offered randomly, an awkward grin on her face. “Ngh...very sorry,” she added, rubbing her left shoulder.

“Mmm,” Fuyu breathed in response, sitting on what was left of the sofa and staring at the screen.

Rainbow blinked at the non-reply, but shrugged, assuming her apology had been accepted. She suddenly hopped off the couch and went to the stairs. “Maybe I left some of my books here,” she thought out loud, scaling the steps. Fuyu didn't even watch her go. A few minutes later, an empty-handed Rainbow thumped down the steps, grumbling unhappily. “Guess not. And there's nothing on TV at this time of day worth watching,” she lamented, plopping back down on the couch. She stared at Fuyu, who hadn't changed her position at all, and blinked. “You all right?”

“Yes,” Fuyu said quietly, still gazing at the TV. Rainbow tried to figure out what she was watching, but had never seen the show before.

“What is this?” she asked, again stretching out and occupying most of the couch.

“I don't know.” Fuyu pointed at the remote, which Rainbow had left on the coffee table. “Whatever channel you left it on.”

She snatched it up and checked, groaning when she saw it and channel surfing again. “I hate that network. It's way too boring.”

Fuyu had no reply for this, and sat quietly. A few minutes of deafening silence passed before a noise reached their ears. Rainbow sat up and smiled.

“I think that's her!” she said, hopping up again and walking to the door. Fuyu followed at length, wandering out onto the porch and standing beside Rainbow, who was gazing expectantly at an encroaching cloud of dust that wandered to and fro through the trees. Finally, the old red truck trundled into view, coming to a stop between the farmhouse and the barn. Applejack climbed out and waved as she shut the door, grinning all the way to the steps.

“Howdy, RD!” she chirped, blushing slightly as she received a peck on the cheek. “Heh...what're ya doin' here? Did ya catch anybody?” She blinked as Rainbow pointed to Fuyu. “Dash, she ain't a thief.”

“I know that now,” Rainbow replied, frowning and rubbing her left arm. “I tried to punch her 'cause I thought she was, and she nearly broke my arm.”

“Fu!” Applejack scolded, hands on her hips. “Don't go hurtin' people!”

Fuyu shot her down instantly with a flat reply. “She tried to hit me. What did you expect me to do?”

Applejack stared blankly as she tried to formulate a retort. “Uh...run away?”

“She can fly. Do you honestly believe I'm faster than she is?”

The blonde's arms dropped limply at her sides as she gained a rather sheepish look. “Oh, yeah. Uh, never mind,” she said, giving up and walking into the house. Rainbow and Fuyu followed her in, and all three of them sat on the couch. “Let me catch mah breath for a minute, then we can get to work. That is, unless ya have to get outta here,” she said, looking at Rainbow. She smiled when the other woman shook her head.

“Nah, I'm off tonight,” she yawned, stretching and wincing. “This late shift is so lame, I hate missing all the daylight.”

Fuyu ignored the conversation entirely, hands clasped on her lap and staring out the window. Only when she heard her name did she drop back into consciousness and turn her head. “Yes?”

“We're gonna go harvest some apples and take 'em to town,” Applejack explained, rising from the sofa. “Ya ready to go?”

Fuyu nodded and also stood. Rainbow had beaten both of them to the door and loitered there, yawning.

“Come on!” she complained, waving them over and tapping her foot. “Before I fall asleep!”

Applejack's lips curled into an amused smirk as she walked. “We're comin', we're comin'.” They all departed together, Fuyu bringing up the rear. The blonde lead them to the barn, fumbling for a moment with the heavy lock before opening the doors and pushing them aside. She directed the other two to get a pair of crates and bring them back to the truck. Once they had finished, Rainbow and Applejack climbed into the cab, leaving Fuyu to hop into the bed and sit.

“She's weird,” Rainbow muttered after shutting the door.

The blonde made an annoyed face. “She's not weird.”

“Yeah, she kinda is!” Rainbow replied over the starting of the old truck, resting her chin in her right hand. “She doesn't talk, and don't even say that Fluttershy doesn't either. This is not the same thing, and you know it.”

Applejack fixed her eyes dead ahead as she steered with both hands. “Are ya worried, or somethin'?”

“Of course I am!” she replied, an anxious undertone in her voice as she glanced over.

“She had all of last night to do somethin' awful, and she didn't. So what if she comes off as strange? Twilight does too, if ya hadn't noticed.” Applejack fell silent for a moment as she guided the truck down a row between apple trees. “Besides, if you didn't remember a thing about yourself 'sides your name, how would you act?”

“I guess you have a point,” Rainbow admitted, sighing. “Still, she creeps me out. Oh, and she nearly broke my arm, by the way.”

“Yeah...I'll talk to her 'bout that later,” Applejack promised, bringing the truck to a lurching stop. They got out and glanced around at the branches. “Good,” the blonde said, folding her arms. “Apples are still here.” She looked over as Fuyu leaped out of the bed and landed on the grass, brushing at her pants as she stood up. “Get the crates. We've gotta clear these four trees,” she directed, pointing at the four in question. Rainbow and Fuyu nodded, grabbing the empty wooden boxes and bringing them over. Applejack examined the first trunk, rubbing her chin.

“All right,” she finally said, backing up a few steps. “Stand back, y'all.” Once they had moved, she unleashed a fearsome straight kick at the trunk, the sole of her boot slamming into the bark with a woody thunk. A second later, apples began to rain from the branches, pelting the grassy earth. “Heh. All right, let's load 'em up.”

With three of them working at it, the task was done in no time at all. One crate was now fully packed, and another had a few apples rolling about. Rainbow and Fuyu followed Applejack to the next tree.

“Hey, Rainbow, wanna kick this one?” she asked, snickering loudly.

The other woman was less than amused, folding her arms and frowning. “Are you insane? I'd break my entire freaking leg.”

Fuyu's interest, however, had been piqued. “May I try?”

Applejack turned and blinked at her, shrugging shortly afterward. “Sure, why not. Let's see how strong ya really are!” She moved aside as Fuyu approached, gazing listlessly at the trunk. Her eyes traveled all the way up to the green canopy, heavy with fruit and swaying in the wispy breeze.

“Wait!” the blonde called. “I can't make ya kick in sandals, you'll hurt your feet. Come on, I'll get this'un.”

Fuyu, still at the trunk, blinked back at her but did not move away. “Very well, I'll use my hand.”

“Are you nuts?” Rainbow exclaimed, snickering lightly and shaking her head. “You'd break all of your fingers!” She gasped when Fuyu loaded her right hand and pulled it back. “Dude! No! You're gonna--!” She fell silent as the punch was thrown. Both of them closed their eyes and cringed, Applejack looking away as Rainbow placed both her hands on her head, teeth clenched. They expected screams of pain, but all they got was a solid thud, the rattling of branches, and a cacophony of falling fruit. Silence filled the void that followed, and they only looked at Fuyu again when she spoke.

“Did I do it incorrectly?” she asked, busy collecting the apples.

Rainbow stared at her, wide eyed and with jaw dropped. “Holy hell...”

“No kiddin',” Applejack agreed quietly, moving to help gather the fruit. “Wow. Nice job, Fu.”

A whisper of a smile ran across her face, vanishing as she went back to work picking up apples. Two crates were now full. The other two trees were dispensed with in no time, and after the last apple was in the last crate, Applejack dusted off her hands and let out a loud phew.

“Nothin' to it!” she nodded, smiling at the others. “I'll drop you back at home, 'kay Fu? Dash, you headin' off?”

“Yep,” she confirmed, walking over to give the blonde a tight hug and kiss. “See you tomorrow?” Applejack, a bit flushed, just nodded. “Heh, speechless as usual. I'm off!” she said, waving, then snapping with that hand and recalling her cyan wings. With a few powerful beats, she detached herself from the earth and weaved through the trees for a distance before streaking off into the blue sky. Fuyu watched her go blankly before looking back to Applejack.

“Home?” she asked, having never encountered the word before.

“Yeah. You're stickin' around, right? I'd love to have ya, 'specially if you can keep doin' that punchin' thing. In fact, when I get back from sellin' these, I'll give ya a cut of the cash. Sound fair?”

Money was something she'd never encountered, either, but she nodded in reply. “Very well.” She was more interested in the wellspring of feeling that suddenly appeared inside of her at this word, 'home'. It hit her in a way she only felt after she'd eaten, a satisfying clump in her stomach that was warm and pleasant and made her smile no matter how she felt, or how many times she'd burst into tears while eating. She placed a hand on her stomach and stared at the ground.

“You all right?” Applejack asked, looking back as she loaded the last crate into the bed.

Fuyu looked up and at her and nodded. “Yes. Let's go.”

As they drove back to the farmhouse, she realized she was smiling again, but couldn't figure out why.

The sun had just dropped behind the horizon, but its last hurrah for the day was a pink and orange masterpiece that consumed the sky. Fuyu was at the window, but paid no attention to the sight; she had her eyes locked on the bills in her hands, turning them over and examining them as if for the first time – which was entirely correct. Two of the bills were denominations of 50, a rich monotone green with a gold seal on the left of the reverse, which featured a view of Canterlot from a distance. Princess Celestia graced the obverse, her bust framed in an oval braced at the bottom by a ribbon bearing her name. The other bill was a 20, whose reverse and color were the same, but whose obverse bore a picture of the Princess Luna. Fuyu tilted her head at the money once more before shoving it into her pocket and blinking. She had no idea what to do with it, even after Applejack gently explained it to her.

“Ya can buy anything!”

Of course, her first thought was buying someone to consume. It certainly would save her a lot of effort. Something in her mind told her that wasn't going to happen, though, and she let the idea go. As the sun's light continued to retreat, she went back over to the tremendous, red-clad bed that dominated the room and climbed onto it. She sighed loudly and continued to run that word through her mind over and over again.

Home.

It rolled around in her skull continuously, dancing like a butterfly and forcing her to again smile to herself. She couldn't put a label on the contentedness it gave her – she even thought, briefly, about saying it out loud when she was hungry. Her stomach gently reminded her that this course of action wouldn't work, and she frowned, only to smile again.

“Home.”

Her head jerked up as a knock rang out. “Yes?” she called. The door opened slowly and Applejack stuck her head in.

“Hey, we're gonna order pizza. Ya got any particular toppings ya like?” she asked, readjusting her hat. Fuyu simply stared at her, and it took the blonde a few seconds to figure out why. “Ya've...ya've never had a pizza, have ya?”

“Not that I know of,” she replied, never taking her eyes off Applejack.

“Shoot,” the blonde muttered, doffing her hat and holding it. “I'm sorry, Fu, I keep forgettin' that ya...never mind,” she cut herself off, putting her hat back on and clearing her throat. “We'll just try pepperoni for now, okay?”

“Very well,” Fuyu agreed. “I will try it later.”

“Right,” Applejack nodded once, then waved and shut the door quietly. Fuyu followed the clunks of her boots as they faded down the hall, then vanished somewhere on the staircase. Once they left, she looked back at the window. The dying sunset threw a pastel explosion of color through the glass. She sighed again and fell back on the bed, closing her eyes.

When she opened them again, the room was completely dark. She sat up groggily and glanced about, slowly realizing that she'd just taken her nap for the day. She got out of bed and walked over to the window, moving the curtains to look out. A half moon now hung over the orchard, bathing the landscape in pale light. Her brain told her she had been out for a little longer than usual, something she chalked up to the physical work. She stepped away and went to the door, opening it and peeking down the hallway. There was no light coming from the stairs, and one of the closed doors across the hall had a yellow glow leaking out from beneath it. Another door across the way was ajar, and Fuyu heard snoring from within. She re-entered her own room and shut the door, sliding back onto the bed and blinking. She glanced back at the window and looked away, but her eyes returned when she realized something wasn't right. She rolled off and went over, peering through the panes at a hazy yellow light, tucked behind the bushy tops of the far trees. For a moment, she considered what they could be, and her mind settled quickly on headlights. Confused, she opened the window and stuck her head out, looking to her right. Applejack's truck was there, between the house and barn, just as she'd left it upon returning from town earlier. Her eyes went back to the yellow light again.

“What?” she blurted out quietly, unable to process why a car would be there. Only when her mind drifted back to her initial encounter with Rainbow did an explanation offer itself. “Thieves?”

Normally, Fuyu cared little about the things humans did to each other, but this concept, in this place, stung her viciously. Yes, she stole things, but only when absolutely necessary, and never more than the clothing of her victims if her own was irreparable. She tried to think of a logical reason why someone would steal apples. Perhaps they were hungry? Something in her brain rejected this, and she felt herself frowning. They were stealing. Stealing from Applejack.

Applejack gave her home. Applejack gave her that happy feeling that she once could only get by the bloody, brutal suffering of others. Her fists clenched.

“That's not...” she said, trailing off as words failed her. Her lips curled down into a snarl, baring her teeth. Another feeling welled up, this the utter opposite of the one that gave her smiles. It was sharp and hard and cold, and the longer it sat the angrier she felt.

How dare they.

Fuyu's stomach suddenly buzzed up, indicating it was not as full as it liked. Her initial reply was a thought about trying the pizza, but then another crept along and drowned it out. She stared out at the light again for a long time, her snarl fading, then transforming entirely into a wicked smile that again revealed her angry teeth.

“I think I will eat out tonight,” she breathed, lifting her hands. She summoned the black tentacles and looked at each as they emerged, writhing and wiggling like wounded earthworms. With one fluid motion, she used them to grasp the windowsill, and hurled herself out of the house.

...Where the Bodies Are Buried

“Hey, Stormy, give me a hand, will ya?”

The request drew a light cackle from her lips as she leaned against the driver's door of the black truck. Idly, she tossed her white hair over her shoulder and smirked at the man that was her partner. “You're the brawn, Clyde, you do it.”

Clyde muttered under his breath for a moment before speaking up. “I don't wanna get caught. We'll get out of here faster if you help me.”

Stormy batted her yellow eyes at him and pouted, but Clyde would not yield. Sighing with exasperation, she stood up and walked over, her long tan skirt flowing with each step. “Fine. But if my new white blouse gets dirty, I'm gonna punch you.” She began snatching apples off the ground and placing them in one of the many buckets that sat around this particular apple tree.

“Once we sell these apples, you can buy whatever clothes you want,” Clyde said, stopping for a moment to stretch and run a hand through his red hair. “I can't believe how much people up in Manehattan pay for these things.”

“I can't believe that crazy blonde chick hasn't found us out yet,” Stormy added, cackling again. “This is like stealing candy from a baby. A sleeping baby!”

Clyde couldn't help but laugh at the cliché, placing apples in the crook of his right arm before dumping them all into one of the buckets. “Yeah. That's the price you pay for having more land than you can keep tabs on.”

Stormy hopped around daintily, choosing to deposit each apple as she picked them up instead of grabbing handfuls. She paused for a moment to rest, shielding her eyes against the bright headlights. “I'd say we're doing her a favor by saving her the work!”

“Is that so.”

They looked at each other and blinked. Upon realizing neither of them had said that, they dropped what fruit they were carrying and backed toward the truck, glancing around frantically.

“Who's there?” Stormy called out, trying her best to sound assertive. “Show yourself!” They both whirled when something eclipsed one headlight, and were greeted by the silhouette of a woman framed in the dusky yellow glow. Stormy was again the first to respond, drawing a stiletto folder from her cleavage and opening it. She brandished the gleaming blade and pointed it at the shadow, all the while squinting at the light. “Who are you?” she asked, while Clyde reached under his shirt to retrieve the pistol tucked in his jeans.

They saw the silhouette's head move slightly as she looked at the gun now pointed at her. She released an audible groan and raised her forearms to waist height.

“Don't move!” Clyde bellowed, both hands on the grip of his pistol.

“She must be somebody that chick hired to watch the place at night,” Stormy surmised, gripping the knife tightly. “Well, lady, you're out of luck. Get lost before you get hurt.”

“Yeah, the apples ain't worth dying for,” Clyde said, his pistol trained on the target's head.

She said nothing, only dropping her left hand so the palm of it pointed at Clyde. He didn't detect the motion, and by the time the writhing black horror shot out of Fuyu's flesh and ran through his skull, he was only just starting to squeeze the trigger. The wiggling thing hung in the air, keeping its victim upright even as he slumped into death. With a sharp crack, the end of it broke off and Clyde fell to the earth, wound plugged up by an ebony spike. Stormy was rendered speechless, staring at the body and trembling violently. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fuyu's head turn. With a shriek, she threw her stiletto and turned away, running. Her long skirt hampered her steps, and she eventually fell over a bucket and crashed to the ground.

“Ow,” she breathed, lifting her upper body off the ground and getting to her knees. When she realized she was still alive, she looked back over her shoulder. She could see the gleaming brass of her stiletto; the knife was impaled in Fuyu's chest, and she was standing where Stormy and Clyde had first seen her. Staring, she hauled herself to her feet and approached slowly. The closer she got, the more confident she became. “Yeah, I told you,” she said, anxiously. “That's what you get!” She had only a moment to look sadly at Clyde's corpse before she saw Fuyu lift her right arm. She watched as those pale fingers wrapped around the handle, and extracted the knife with a wet pop. Droplets of dark liquid fell off the blade as she held it. Stormy did the only thing she could think of at the moment: turn and run again. As before, it was a clumsy gait, and her skirt caused her to topple to the ground. Fuyu walked quietly over to her, dropping the open knife on the ground by her head.

“You forgot this.”

Stormy wept quietly, covering her head as she lay on the grass. “P-please d-don't hurt m-me...” When something warm and gooey wrapped around her waist, she began to flail. “No! I'm sorry!” she pleaded, “Let me go!” The black cords lifted her up, causing Fuyu to grunt lightly until her arms got hold of the trembling frame. Stormy thrashed as best she could while being carried, but the woman in black had too much strength for her to fight. A few moments passed before she fell limp, exhausted and sobbing. “Wh-what are you?” she asked, staring up at her captor's face.

Fuyu glanced down for all of one second before looking away. “Hungry.”

Stormy supposed that was sarcasm, and she didn't appreciate it in the least. “Let me go, damn you!” she growled, pounding her free right arm against Fuyu's ribs. It was like hitting a rock. “Ow!” she yelped, shaking her hand. She became instantly more repentant when Fuyu threw her against the trunk of a tree. “Aaaaah! Ah...ow...I'm sorry for hitting you, please, no...”

Her pleas were ignored as Fuyu set about gluing her to the tree. Fuyu restrained her arms by sticking them to the trunk via her wrists, leaving Stormy with her back to the tree and her arms awkwardly at her sides. Since she was still crying, Fuyu silenced her by injecting a squirt of black into her mouth. Stormy tried to chew on it, but it was like rubberized glue. The taste caused her genuine pain, as well; it was vaguely reminiscent of motor oil and a tire and something spicy, much stronger than the jalapeno peppers she liked to eat sometimes. Now that she was reduced to quiet sobbing and twitching, Fuyu walked away from her, up the hill and out of sight. She continued to emit muffled noises for several minutes afterward, until chewing against the horror in her much drew all her focus and made her silent. She stopped trying after a while, forced to be content with pushing the material against her lips as much as possible so she could breathe. Engulfed in silence, save for her raspy breath, she listened for footsteps that would signal her doom. Twice, she heard crunching sounds that she couldn't identify, but that was all. More time passed until she heard the dreaded footfalls coming, but they went behind her and departed again. Exhausted, both from terror and trying to loosen her gooey bonds, Stormy slumped against the tree and wept, closing her eyes.

“Wake up.”

Her eyes shot open. She raised them and saw Fuyu standing before her, a dim shadow in the moonlight. A thin trail of something dark ran from the right corner of her mouth. She froze, awaiting her fate. That fate was having a palm placed on her mouth; something pushed open her lips and wiggled around inside, causing her to let out a muffled cry. When it left, however, the goo in her mouth went with it. She gasped for air while Fuyu's attention went toward her ankles.

“What are you doing?!” she growled, trying to get her feet away from the iron grip. In an instant, a dark rope wrapped around them. Overwhelmed by adrenaline, she tried to kick as Fuyu began tying her knees together, but she couldn't lift her legs high enough. When her wrists were freed, she tried swatting and punching instead, only for her blows to glance off. Fuyu picked her up, hefting her onto her right shoulder, and started walking.

“Put me down!” Stormy screeched, thrashing weakly.

Fuyu's arm tightened around her waist as she wiggled. “Shut up.”

“No! Help!” Stormy began to scream. She was unceremoniously dumped onto the grass and grunted loudly, trying to wiggle away from Fuyu as if she were an inchworm. She yelped as she was pulled by the hair, forcing her upper body to bend backward. Fuyu crouched down and glared at her. With the moon off to their right, Stormy saw the dark trail on her face was actually red. She stared at the crimson smear for a long moment, until her mind came to a realization: if there was blood on her mouth, that blood had to come from Clyde. If that blood came from Clyde, then that meant she had...

“No no no no no no no no no!” she squealed, writhing furiously in Fuyu's grasp. “I'm not dinner! Let me go! Let me go!” She was again silenced when a pale palm was pressed to her lips, leaving a gooey black splotch that sealed her mouth. “Mmmph!”

Fuyu picked Stormy up and resumed walking. She crested and descended half a dozen hills, all of which looked nearly identical. The top of the seventh hill, however, was starkly different. It was wide and flat at the top, much like the bump of earth where the barn and farmhouse stood. There was a burned out husk of some structure near the center of the space, and off to the left was a tremendous tree that didn't resemble the others. Curious, Fuyu walked over to it, ignoring the murmuring wail of her captive. At the base of the gnarled trunk were two oddly shaped gray stones, two feet high and about four feet apart. As she examined them, Stormy began to pound on her back, causing her to make an annoyed face. She threw the woman off again and looked at the rocks. They were grave markers.

“What?” she breathed, blinking. There was a gentle rustling noise behind her as Stormy dragged herself away with her arms, but she paid it no mind. It was too dark for her to read anything carved on the rock, and after a few seconds she gave up and turned around, watching Stormy try to escape. She walked over after a minute and picked her back up, continuing on down the large hill. On the other side, she found the stream, winding its way toward a much thicker and varied clump of trees a few hundred yards away.

“This will do.” Fuyu dumped Stormy on the ground again, this time snatching her arms up and gluing her wrists together. She roughly stood her up when she had finished, dragging her awkwardly to the bank. Stormy, for her part, was screaming as ferociously as her limited air intake would allow. She unleashed a torrent of barely comprehensible words as Fuyu positioned her on the edge, readying to shove her into the water. With a gentle push, Stormy began to topple forward, and her desperate pleas became loud enough to understand. She spat out four words that caused Fuyu to snatch the back of her blouse, holding her above the water.

“What did you say?” she asked, pulling Stormy back enough to see her face. She repeated the four words again; Fuyu placed a palm over her lips and took away the black gag.

“I'll bring you food!” she repeated, a third time. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks as Fuyu held her upright. Her offer didn't seem to be swaying the woman in black, so she clarified it. “P-people! I s-swear!” That didn't help her case, either. “Look! We make a ton of money off these apples! My boss is gonna send more people! If you let me go, I can make sure you can...” she trailed off, retching at the concept of what she was about to say, “You can eat 'em without...without any problem. I'll just keep saying you sc-scared them off so h-he'll send m-more,” she finished, stammering as she saw the blank look on Fuyu's face. “Please, I swear! I don't wanna die...”

Fuyu genuinely didn't know what to think. She'd never been offered such a deal before. She folded her arms and stared at Stormy, who became ever more frantic at the lack of reaction.

“Listen!” she blurted out, sure she was about to met her end. Seeing no other way to convince the woman in black, she unleashed a flood of pent up emotion. “I only do this stuff because I have no choice! My family kicked my out 'cause I can't fly like them, I didn't have anywhere else to go! I'm just trying to survive!” To her horror, there was no expression on Fuyu's face. She pressed on, desperate. “If you kill enough of these guys, maybe I can leave and start over!”

“Why can't you leave now?” Fuyu asked flatly.

“They'd find me,” she replied, hanging her head. “The boss doesn't take kindly to people just leavin', especially not if he's given them a particular job. L-look, if I bring you guys here, a few at a time, then you can take them out for me! If he loses enough, maybe he'll come down here himself and you can kill him too! Then I could just, you know, go,” she concluded, a hopeful smile on her face. That vanished quickly when she saw Fuyu's mask of stone. “P-please don't k-kill me,” she tried again, reverting to basic begging.

“Four days.”

Stormy blinked at those words, suppressing her sniffles. “W-what?”

Fuyu crouched by Stormy's ankles, reclaiming the black rope around them. She moved a hand up to afterward to retrieve the one around her knees. “I cannot go without food for more than four days. If you don't bring me any, I'll have to take the nearest I can find.”

Stormy considered that for a moment, rubbing her aching joints. “No!” she gasped. “You can't kill the farmers. Who'll grow the apples? If the boss sends me somewhere else, I'll never get away from him!”

If she were looking for sympathy, there was none to be found in Fuyu's icy eyes. “That's not my problem.”

For a moment, Stormy just sat there, eye twitching as she realized how awful of a corner she'd just painted herself into. “Okay, so if I don't bring you somebody every four days, you'll kill the farmers...but if you kill the farmers, I'm gonna get sent somewhere else...” She swallowed hard and clumsily got to her feet. “What happens if you do kill 'em? I'll know it! I could go to the cops!”

That threat triggered a severe response from Fuyu, who flung a black tentacle from her hand that wrapped around Stormy's neck. She forced the woman closer to her; once they were face to face, she spoke. “I could always save you for later.”

Stormy shook her head violently, gagging as she tried to pull the dark rope away from her throat. Fuyu released her and she stumbled back, wheezing and coughing. “Okay!” she finally got out, “I won't talk, but you can't kill them, please.”

“You're using me to get away from these people,” Fuyu summed up, again folding her arms.

Stormy rubbed at her neck as she looked up, slumped over and gasping. “In exchange for food, yeah.” She paused to cough again. “A steady supply! So, what do you say?”

“Very well. I will see you in four days.”

“You're serious,” Stormy blinked, raising up fully. “You're not going to kill me?”

“Unless you want me to,” Fuyu replied, turning and walking away. Stormy watched her go back up the hill until she disappeared, and continued to stand there dumbfounded for several seconds afterward. Abruptly, she hiked up her skirt and started running in a different direction, bursting into tears as she went.

By the time Fuyu returned to the truck, whose light was the only landmark she could really see from where she'd come, a series of increasingly loud barks filled the night air. She decided just to wait there, standing by the driver door as a hat-less Applejack arrived, wearing an orange t-shirt, gray sweatpants and sneakers. She brandished an over-under shotgun, which she pointed at Fuyu briefly while her eyes adjusted to the light.

“Don't move!” she bellowed, moving closer. Winona arrived a moment later, but went up to Fuyu and barked happily. “Fu? What're ya doin' out here?” she asked after recognizing her, lowering the gun and walking over.

“They were trying to steal these,” she said, pointing to the buckets full of fruit. Applejack walked around and surveyed the items scattered about, gasping audibly when she saw Clyde's pistol amongst the grass.

“Fuyu!” the blonde stared at her. “They had guns! Ya could have gotten killed!” She was wont to even pick up the weapon, instead leaving it where it lay. “I appreciate the sentiment, but this ain't worth dyin' over!”

“He said the same thing,” Fuyu replied, watching Winona bounce around happily as she sniffed at the buckets. “I'm fine. He didn't even get a shot off.”

Applejack smoothed back her bed hair and sighed, glancing around before finally laying eyes on the woman in black. “I...” she started, but couldn't finish, looking down. “Look, I appreciate you tryin' ta help, but if ya got killed...” she trailed off again, staring at the ground. “Never mind. Ya all right?”

“I'm fine. They got away, though.” Fuyu began walking, hands shoved in her pockets. “I'm going back.”

“Wait,” Applejack said, moving to get in front of her. She nodded over at the truck, then the buckets of apples on the grass. “Let's load these and drive back. May as well sell 'em in the mornin' since they've already been picked,” she said, resting her shotgun on her left shoulder. Fuyu nodded, and after the blonde set her weapon in the truck-bed, they loaded the buckets. “I wonder if this was stolen too,” she asked, gazing longingly at the gleaming black machine. “We sure could use a new one...I'll ask the sheriff tomorrow when I get ta town.”

“Mm,” Fuyu replied, moving cargo like some sort of pale robot. As she worked, her mind traveled back to the grave markers, and she could not help but vocalize her confusion. “Whose graves are those I saw?”

The blonde stopped dead, nearly dropping the buckets in her hands and clenching her teeth. “Ya...ya saw 'em?”

“While trying to deal with that woman, yes,” Fuyu nodded, having set the buckets she was carrying into the bed. She watched Applejack's reaction and tilted her head, waiting for a reply.

“My parents,” she blurted out, carrying on with the buckets. She said nothing else besides idle words to Winona as they worked, and remained silent even after they'd finished. She looked in the cab to confirm the keys were still in the truck, and once she had, bade Fuyu to get in so they could go. She put Winona in the bed and slammed the door after getting in.

“Are you angry?” Fuyu asked, eyes unwavering.

“'Course not, just...” Applejack fell silent again, allowing her head to hang slightly. “It just seems like it only happened yesterday, is all. I don't really wanna talk about it.”

Fuyu nodded, gaze stiffly ahead. “Very well.” The look in Applejack's eyes bothered her immensely; it was the same kind of pain she'd seen when she attacked people that were related. She'd seen it the night before she met the farmer. As they drove, a frown gently tugged at her lips. “I'm...I'm sorry?” The words out of her mouth caused her to blink – she had no idea at all where they'd come from. They just seemed correct.

“Don't worry none,” Applejack replied, failing totally at her attempt to be reassuring. “Bad memories, is all. Uh...thank ya for carin' enough to risk yourself for my apples,” she added awkwardly.

Fuyu was about to speak when a thought occurred to her. Once again, it seemed right to speak it, so she did. “You helped me. I helped you back.”

The blonde made a face at the odd wording, but the sentiment struck true. “Ya don't owe me anything, sugarcube. I ain't gonna leave someone homeless if I can help it.” She seemed to relax a little, and began looking around the interior of the vehicle in earnest. “Be careful, though, seriously. Next time, take the shotgun with ya. I keep it over the fireplace.”

That idea was considered and dismissed almost instantly. “I don't need it.” Her tone silenced Applejack and continued to hang between them like an icicle, cold and heavy, until they reached the farmhouse. Before Fuyu could open her door, Applejack broke the quiet.

“Who are ya?” she asked, folding her arms. “Were ya like, in the military before, or somethin'?”

That idea caused Fuyu's eyes to widen for the briefest instant, but her stoic mask went otherwise unchanged. She opened the door and emerged from the truck, leaving a quiet “I don't know.” in her wake. Applejack pursued her, only pausing to retrieve her gun and dog.

“I think I may know how to find out,” she offered when they reached the front door. Come with me ta town tomorrow. My friend might be able to help ya.”

Fuyu was genuinely stunned by those words, and almost helplessly turned to Applejack as she unlocked the door. “Help me...help me remember?”

“Yeah,” Applejack nodded, unlocking the door and pushing it aside. “She's real smart and stuff. If anybody'd know, it be her. Uh...” she paused, rubbing her neck. “You're probably tired, right? I'll see ya in the mornin'.” Fuyu was still a bit shocked, and wandered up the stairs as Applejack returned her shotgun to the mount above the mantle. She only got halfway up when the blonde called for her to stop.

“Thanks, again,” she said, smiling broadly. “I knew ya were a good apple.”

She considered what she'd done in the course of being a 'good apple', and the dissonance made her brain ache. “Yes...I suppose,” was all she could offer in reply as she continued on up the staircase.

Fuyu found herself in the cab of the old red truck the next morning. Applejack had just dropped Bloom at school, and they were on their way to town to deal with the business of selling the apples and finding out about the vehicle itself. The blonde was in a terrific mood, humming along with the twangy country song on the radio as she drove. Fuyu was busy looking out her window, absorbing the sights of the town as they moved past. Her eyes fixed on a tremendously brightly colored building that looked like a gingerbread house. Applejack saw she was looking at it and smiled.

“That's Sugarcube Corner,” she explained, tapping her fingers on the wheel in time with the beat. “My friend Pinkie works there. She's a real card,” she explained, concluding with a giggle.

“A real...card?” Fuyu asked, looking back at her.

“Oh, uh, she's kinda crazy. In a good way, I mean, don't get me wrong,” she clarified, flicking the indicator as they came to a traffic light. “She's a party planner on the side, too, always tryin' to make people feel happy. I should take ya to meet her later, I think ya'd like her.”

Fuyu stared blankly, wondering where in the world Applejack had come up with that conclusion, but turned away soon after and said nothing. They continued into town until, at last, they arrived at the police station. This was a squat limestone building, surrounded by small elm trees and a statue of some woman out front that Fuyu didn't recognize. There were only two cruisers parked on the right side of the structure, and three civilian cars out front. Applejack brought the truck in to occupy the last available space beside them.

“Be right back!” she promised, turning off the truck and hopping out. Fuyu watched her enter the building, but couldn't see her after that. Sighing, she stared out the window and tried to occupy herself.

“Home,” she whispered. Once again, the word drew a smile on her face.

She cast her eyes up at the cloudy sky and watched the puffs of gray float past, until after a while they blended down into a solid, dreary wall of color and got darker. She was so absorbed in this that the sudden knocking on her window startled her to the point of summoning short lengths of black tentacle from her palms. She stared out the glass at the offender and saw Rainbow Dash, waving back with an amused smirk on her face. Frowning, Fuyu sent away her ebony weapons and rolled down the window.

“Did I scare you?” she asked, snickering gently and crossing her arms. “What's up? Kinda wondering why AJ's truck was parked here.”

The corner of Fuyu's lips dropped, betraying she was still annoyed at the interruption. “There were thieves last night that left their vehicle. She wanted to see if she could keep it.”

All the humor left Rainbow's face in a flash. “What?!” she exclaimed, dropping her arms and resting her hands on the door. “Why didn't she call the police?”

“I had already dealt with them by the time she arrived,” Fuyu explained, turning away from her and looking out the windshield. She only glanced back when Rainbow failed to speak, and squinted at the look she had on her face. “What?”

“You did what?” Rainbow asked, shaking her head slightly and staring. “I heard they almost always carry guns! You could have gotten seriously messed up!”

“One of them did try to shoot me, but I stopped him,” she explained flatly, still staring out the windshield. “They escaped, but I stopped them from taking any more of the apples.” Again, Rainbow was quiet, but she extended her right arm into the cab, hand open. Fuyu had no idea what she was doing at first, until her brain stepped in and guided her. Gingerly, she lifted her own hand and shook Rainbow's, the motion awkward and unsure.

“That's awesome,” Rainbow said seriously, framing the words as if they were the highest compliment she could muster – and they were. “Applejack's always worrying about her crop getting snatched. Thanks a lot.”

“Why are you thanking me?” Fuyu asked, quickly closing her hand after the shake ended to conceal the mark on her palm. “They're not your apples.”

Rainbow smirked a little. “No, but AJ loves her apples, and if she loves her apples, then I love her apples too,” she explained, smoothing down her unruly locks. “Why do you think I fly over every morning to check on them for her?”

That explanation confused Fuyu for a moment, forcing her to try and process why someone would care about a thing that didn't belong to them. She failed, and almost automatically vocalized it. “I do not understand.”

“That's how love works,” Rainbow said, shrugging and stepping away. “Well, I gotta fly, it's gonna storm soon. Catch you later, Fu!” she said, raising her hands and flashing the woman in black a pair of finger guns before recalling her wings and flying away. Fuyu blinked several times as she shifted in the seat.

“Love?” she asked herself. For her, trying to define the word was like teaching a goldfish how to play a cello, and the attempt almost instantly gave her a headache. She threw the thought aside and went to another, more easily reconciled one: “Fu? That's not my name.” Sighing, she emptied her mind and went back to waiting. She didn't have long; Applejack came back out just as drops of rain started to fall, jogging quickly to the door and climbing in. Her face bore a look that was a shade or two less intense than disappointment as she turned the key in the ignition.

“Gonna have ta check ta see if it's missin' anywhere,” she said, without any prodding. “Could take a while. At least they said it don't count as a crime scene,” she grumbled, pulling out of the parking space and driving off down the street. “Said it'd be best if I not use it 'til they get done checkin', though, and they wanna dust it for prints.”

“I see,” she nodded, while not really understanding at all. They were both quiet as Applejack drove, the only noises being the radio and the increasing rainfall. After a few turns, Fuyu noted the appearance of a massive oak tree that towered over the nearby buildings. It was this object at which they came to a stop, and she could not help but look up out the windshield at it.

“Here we are!” Applejack said, exiting. Fuyu got out as well and followed her to a door set into the trunk of the massive tree, waiting on the stoop as the blonde knocked. A minute passed before the door opened.

“Hello, Applejack! Come in before you get soa--” The blue-haired woman fell silent when she saw Fuyu. “Um, hello. Who's this?”

“A friend of mine, more or less,” the blonde explained briefly, doffing her hat out of respect. “We were wonderin' if ya could help her with somethin'.” Fuyu quietly eyed the woman in the doorway. She was a dainty, slender figure with gleaming violet eyes and a faintly olive complexion, clasping a thick brown book to her chest. Her blue hair was straight and exceedingly neat; not even the bangs above her eyebrows contained an errant strand. Fuyu tilted her head at the random violet and rose stripes that ran through it. She was clad in a collared white long sleeved blouse and a pleated purple skirt that ended at her knees. Shiny black Mary Janes enclosed her white-socked feet.

Fuyu's eyes snapped away when Applejack spoke again. “This is Fu. I mean, Fuyu. I just call her, Fu, heh...” There was an awkward pause. “Fu, this is...”

Her brain had been running a million miles an hour since that door opened, and had already provided her a name. Unlike the hazy thoughts that had dominated her mind for the past two days, this bit of data was as clear as a diamond. “Twilight Sparkle,” the woman in black stated. “I know.”

Twilight frowned a little, hugging the book more closely to herself. “You...you know me?” she asked. Applejack looked between the two of them, confused and quiet.

“Yes,” Fuyu nodded. “And I'm not sure why.”

Twenty Questions

Twilight lead them both into the library, and Fuyu examined her surroundings as they went. She thought it was a building shaped like a tree, but it was wood all the way through, and a rich oaken odor hung thickly in the air. There were books almost everywhere her eyes fell; books on shelves, books on other books on the floor, books on tables, even books in the windowsills. They passed through an opening into a wide room with large windows. They had come in the back entrance, and this room, the front room, faced the street. Several boxy leather chairs were loosely arranged here around round tables, and in one of these slept a teenage boy with wild green hair, a purple jacket, and khaki-colored shorts. Twilight saw him and rolled her eyes.

"That's Spike," she explained lowly, motioning them over to a set of chairs across the room. "He's my assistant, when he's not sleeping." She bade them to sit, and after they had seated herself, looking at the woman in black with curious eyes. Fuyu spent the silence while they were getting situated on more closely examining the librarian. She felt a twinge of something odd coming from her, something akin to the spark she felt when confronting one of those that could fly, but this was different. It was stronger, more electric, and she'd never experienced it before. She spent a moment burning the sensation to her memory, only regaining awareness of her surroundings when she felt Twilight's eyes on her.

"What can I do for you, exactly?" She blinked when Fuyu looked at Applejack, and also glanced over. "Um, whoever wants to start is fine?" she said, confused.

The blonde took up the task and went first. "Fu doesn't remember anything about herself but her name," she said, crossing her legs and sitting back in the chair. "What do ya know about amnesia?"

Twilight hunched over, elbows on her knees and hands clasped in her classical thinking pose. "Well, I know that it can be caused by blows to the head," she offered, looking up at Fuyu, who shook her head in reply. "Severe emotional trauma can cause it too, it's something called dissociative amnesia." Applejack made a face at the large word and shrugged, looking over at Fuyu.

"I don't remember being hit in the head," she said quietly, eyes cast at the floor. Twilight frowned and sat up again, also crossing her legs.

"You should probably see a doctor if you're having trouble recalling things," she advised, her tone gentle and serious. "How long ago is your earliest memory?"

Fuyu looked up at her blankly. Time was extremely fluid to her, as she never really dealt with clocks in her daily life. She measured its passage in the days and the changing of the seasons. She counted off five times previous when the weather had been this hot, including the time in which she first remembered remembering. Her brain converted that abstraction into a number. "Five years."

Twilight blinked a few times, shifting in the seat to get more comfortable. "Wow, that's a long time. What have you been doing since?"

The blankness in her eyes was drowned out by ice as she stared off to the side. "Surviving."

"Surviving?" Twilight repeated, unsure. She looked over at Applejack for clarification. The blonde sighed, frowning hard as she closed her eyes.

"Near as I can tell, she's been homeless all that time." They both looked at her for a reaction to that statement, but her empty face gave them no confirmation or denial of it. Applejack pressed on. "I think she has a military background, 'cause last night she ran off some thieves with guns. Didn't even bat an eye when I scolded her about it."

Twilight shook her head a little at that revelation and looked over at the woman in black. "Those robbers are insane, you could have gotten hurt!" she whispered harshly, growing confused again when she saw no reaction on Fuyu's face. "You could have been killed!"

"She don't care, Twi, that's why I think she's been through some sort of trainin' or somethin'," Applejack added. They were both looking at her now with questioning eyes, until the blonde's look softened and she turned to her friend. "Not that I'm implyin' anything bad about her. She's been nothin' but helpful since I picked her up."

"She's staying with you?" Twilight asked, lifting a hand to scratch her head. It was then that Fuyu saw the purple jewel embedded in her palm, a flat, square-shaped crystal framed in something that looked like gold. Twilight caught her look and blinked. "What's wrong?" She then looked at her hand. "Oh, don't mind these," she chuckled lightly, showing off the one on her other palm. "Did you know that only about 1% of the population has them? They're supposed to signify the concentration of magic one has," she began. Applejack could sense a prattling coming on, but she remained quiet, smirking and leaning back as Twilight talked. "In fact, a lot of people go through their entire lives without ever meeting someone with them," she added, turning her hands over and looking at them herself. "And yet, there are quite a few of us here in Ponyville, like our friend Rarity," she said, looking over at Applejack briefly before returning her eyes to Fuyu. She blinked again at the look on her face. "What's wrong?"

Her hands were firmly attached to the ends of the armrests, and she frowned lightly thinking about the marks on her palms. While she glanced quickly between Twilight and Applejack, she queried her brain about the lines, trying to determine whether or not she had ever had such jewels, if someone had taken them away, but her brain refused to give her any answers. After a few seconds of one-sided, internal arguing, she replied, "Nothing."

"Oh no ya don't," Applejack countered, crossing her arms and giving Fuyu a stern look. "Y'all are gonna learn not to try and hide anything from us, it ain't gonna work. What's eatin' ya?"

Had Fuyu been the grimacing type, she would have made quite a face at that poorly-chosen word. Instead, it remained mostly stoic. Another silent battle broke out about whether or not to turn her hands over, though the questioning looks from the other two women cut that fight short. Reluctantly, she showed them her palms.

"What in the world?" Twilight breathed, staring at the red lines. She got up and walked over, gently taking Fuyu's left hand and examining it. The sensation caused her to twitch briefly, but she held fast to her composure and watched. "What happened to you?"

"I don't know," she replied, her lips twisting faintly every time Twilight ran her finger up and down the red line. "They've been like that as long as I can remember."

Applejack rose and walked over to join them, gazing at the hand Twilight didn't have. "What do ya think, Twi? Could somebody remove those things, or somethin'?"

Twilight's eyes were closed, and a look of deep concentration etched itself on her face. "I don't think so. These jewels are something like vents for us; they let off excess energy, like wings do for the ones that fly," she explained. "If she had them before, she'd still be trying to vent from them. I don't feel a thing," she concluded, opening her eyes and removing her hand from Fuyu's. "I don't have any idea what they are. I'm sorry."

The blonde gave her a pat on the back as she went to sit again, before looking down at Fuyu with a frown. "Sorry, Fu...guess the best we can do is take ya to a doctor and see what they say."

"Mm," she replied quietly, staring at her palms.

Twilight made a noise, tapping her fingers on the armrest and scowling. "This is going to bug me," she said, mostly to herself.

Applejack looked over and grinned. "Oh boy," she started, wandering back over to her own chair. "Whenever Twi says that, she spends a whole buncha sleepless nights tryin' ta find answers to questions."

"Speaking of questions, I'm still not sure how you know my name," Twilight said, rubbing her chin. "Then again, I guess you probably don't either..." She looked at Fuyu, who just shook her head quietly.

"Well, ya are kinda famous. Aren't ya technically a princess?" the blonde asked, stretching in her seat and getting a little more comfortable.

"By marriage, yes," she admitted, looking a bit sheepish. "Am I really that famous? I mean, I don't see any paparazzi hiding in my bushes when I wake up in the morning."

"Papa what now?" Applejack blinked. "Pepperoni? Why would there be pepperoni in your bushes?"

Twilight rolled her eyes and smiled. "Paparazzi. People with cameras that follow you around and take pictures to sell to tabloids," she explained, smoothing down her skirt.

The blonde's face went blank. "Oh," she nodded, rubbing the back of her neck and shrugging. "Aheh, right. Well, I'd wager there aren't none 'cause Princess Celestia would have their hides. Probably wouldn't appreciate her student gettin' bothered like that."

That name rang hollowly in Fuyu's mind; like Twilight's, she knew it without having ever heard it before. This time, however, she kept that fact to herself, content to allow the others to speak to each other while she hid in a cloak of silence. They spent a few minutes more in idle conversation, although her role in this was to nod only when addressed, which was fairly often. After a while, Applejack stood and stretched, yawning in an exaggerated fashion before looking out the windows at the steady rain.

"Shoot," she grumbled, plopping her hat back on. "Hey, Fu, what do ya think?" she asked, pointing out the window.

Fuyu stared out the window for a moment before looking up at the blonde. "I think it's raining." Twilight stifled a giggle while Applejack made a face.

"I noticed," she replied, crossing her arms. "I'm askin' if ya mind it any. I've still got apples ta sell before we can go home."

There was that word again, and as usual, it pulled a smile across Fuyu's lips. She shook it off and addressed the question. "I don't mind." They were all standing now, and she followed Applejack to the door while Twilight brought up the rear. Once they arrived, she was surprised when the librarian gave her a hug during their goodbyes.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help you," she said, stepping back. "I'll keep looking though. Oh, and welcome to Ponyville!" she added cheerfully, waving as the two of them walked out into the rainy, humid air.

It was still raining as Fuyu climbed back into the old truck, which was parked in front of the town's grocer. It was a fairly large building, but nowhere near the size of the average supermarket she'd seen on her travels. She had just finished helping Applejack unload the apples the thieves had tried to steal yesterday, and the blonde was confident she'd sell every single one of them. Left to her own devices, she just sat there, staring at the red line on her right palm.

"If this isn't magic, then what is it?" she asked herself, summoning just a little of the black goo. She cupped her hand and swished it around; it didn't leave a stain as it traveled, instead behaving like a darker-colored mercury. She sent it away, watching as it drained into the red line, which split open slightly to accept it. With a sigh, she leaned against the door and looked out the window. The sky had darkened as the day wore on, and a full-on thunderstorm seemed to be approaching, just as Rainbow Dash had said earlier. With the weather growing worse, very few were out on the streets. Fuyu didn't pay much attention to any of those braving the elements, until she caught a flash of color out of the very corner of her right eye. She turned to look and saw a woman on the sidewalk, about thirty feet away. She was dressed in a pale yellow blouse and a long, dark green skirt, and clutched a white umbrella in her hands. Her faded pink hair was long and straight. It looked as though she'd been frozen in the act of walking, and a curious Fuyu couldn't figure out what she was doing. She began to approach, but about ten feet away she froze again. Her cyan eyes locked on to Fuyu, and she appeared to be shaking. She stared right back, and suddenly the woman skittered away, entering the market.

"What?" Fuyu said, watching her go. Through the plate glass windows, she watched as the woman scampered about, only stopping when Applejack appeared. She went over to the blonde, pointed out at the truck, and a conversation started. After five minutes, Applejack came out, shaking her head and smiling, but the other woman went further into the store. As she got in, Fuyu posed the question. "Who was that?"

"That's Fluttershy," Applejack replied, still grinning. She counted the money in her hands and stuffed it into her jeans pocket before starting the truck. "And that's her way of sayin' hello. Poor girl's afraid of her own shadow, and I do mean that literally," she added, swiping at a drop of water on the brim of her hat. "Anyway, I'm starvin'. Want some lunch?"

At the mention of food, she automatically queried her stomach, which reported back full. "I'm not really hungry," she replied, settling back into the seat and folding her arms.

The blonde had a rather concerned look in her eyes as she drove back out onto the street. "Ya sure? Ya hardly ate any breakfast..."

"I'm fine," Fuyu said flatly, looking down at her palms again.

"Shoot, I've upset ya, haven't I?" She looked down slightly as she drove, frowning hard. "I didn't mean ta. I just wanted ta help."

"I'm fine," she repeated, dropping her hands and gazing out the window. Applejack scowled lightly, but her eyes lit up as she got an idea. Without saying a word, she drove them to that gaudy building they'd passed earlier, and parked the truck there.

"I'll be right back," she said, smiling to herself as she got out. It was still raining, so Fuyu watched her rush into the building, but lost sight of her afterward due to the small windows. Paying it no mind, she simply went to staring out the window and waiting. A few minutes passed like this, and she found herself wondering what exactly was going on. Just as she sat up straighter, a face appeared outside her window. This was a woman she'd never seen before, with blue eyes and wild, hot pink hair. She had a multicolored umbrella hat on her head, and the only piece of clothing Fuyu could see was her light pink t-shirt. She motioned exaggeratedly for the window to be rolled down, and she was obliged. The moment the glass had departed, the speech explosion began.

"Hi!" she started, a wide smile on her face. "I'm Pinkie! Applejack said you were new here and I was like whoa because she'd tell you that I know everyone here in Ponyville but I didn't know you so I decided to come out here and say hi!"

It took Fuyu a few seconds to decipher what Pinkie had said, simply due to the speed at which she said it. This process required a few blinks. "...hello?"

The grin that appeared on Pinkie's face was so vast, it required her eyes to close briefly. "Applejack says you're staying at the farm! I love the farm, it's so nice and quiet and pretty and the apples are yummy and I really like apples, do you like apples? Rainbow Dash says my nose is shaped like an apple but that's silly, my nose is shaped like a nose!" she said, poking at it with both her index fingers. "An apple nose would be so weird, right? All you could smell is apples, and I like apples a bunch but I don't think I'd wanna smell apples aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllll the time, you know?" she continued, framing that long 'all' with a wide, arching sweep of her arms. "Don't tell Applejack I said that though, because she really likes apples and I think she'd like it if she had an apple nose." There was a loud gasp. "Ohmygosh I should see if the joke shop has an apple nose! She'd love it!"

The stream of consciousness rattled around in Fuyu's mind like a bag of marbles, causing her to place her left hand on her head and stare at Pinkie. "Wh-what?" she said, still in the process of interpreting the tidal wave.

"Oh no! That's the look that Fluttershy gets whenever I talk too fast and she gets a headache!" Pinkie blurted out, abruptly slamming both her hands over her mouth. "I'm sorry!" she said, muffled almost to the point of being unintelligible. "Does your head hurt?"

"I don't know?" she replied helplessly, although her hand remained where it was. She didn't have the foggiest idea whether or not she had a headache, as Pinkie's verbal assault had rendered her slightly dazed.

Pinkie dropped her hands and took a ridiculously deep breath, preparing herself for the herculean task of speaking like a normal person. "I talk really fast when I'm happy, and I'm always happy to meet someone new," she said, the slowness of her speech hilariously out of sorts with the high pitch of her tone. "I don't mean to, sometimes I just can't stop myself!" she added, visibly having to remind herself not to get excited even as she said the word itself. "Does your head hurt now?"

"No," Fuyu finally decided, feeling less foggy as the seconds passed. "I'm fine."

For Pinkie, this was a signal to drop her vocal governor and let rip again. "Great! I would have been so unhappy if I'd given you a headache. Headaches are bad because they make you sad and being sad is even worse than bad!" She fell silent when Fuyu didn't immediately reply, but that big smile never left her face. Out of seemingly nowhere, she produced a small, brightly colored plate with a cupcake. The icing was white and red, and pockmarked with rainbow sprinkles. "Here's a welcome to Ponyville cupcake! By the way, what was your name again?"

Hesitantly, she took the cupcake and looked at it, tilting her head. "My name is Fuyu."

"Oooooooooooooo that's a pretty name! I've never heard anything like it before, but it's pretty!" Pinkie said, nodding furiously. "Oh, that icing is vanilla and cherry! Do you like cherries? One time Applejack ended up working for a lady with a cherry orchard! I got the recipe from her! Try it!"

Fuyu looked between the confection and the woman, and finally took a bite of it. She was never really able to taste what most people considered food. This cupcake was so overpoweringly sweet, however, even she could detect the flavors. It was the first time she'd ever known the taste of something besides flesh, and she took a long while to analyze it. Pinkie, meanwhile, stood patiently with her hands on the door, ignoring the rain, and smiling widely. Finally, Fuyu had an opinion: "It's...nice?"

"Yay!" Pinkie blurted out, clapping a few times. "I'll go back in and get you a whole box!" With that, she was gone, darting into the store with speed that surprised the woman in black. After she went out of sight, Fuyu finished off the cupcake, stuffing the remainder in her mouth and chewing on it contemplatively. "Nice," she repeated, wondering why that word gave her roughly the same sensation as 'home' did. Applejack appeared shortly after, carrying a pink box under her arm, which she handed over as she got into the truck.

"Well, how'd it go?" she asked, starting the truck and backing it out of the parking space. When there was no answer, she looked at the other woman. "Fu? What happened?"

Fuyu looked back after swallowing the cupcake and blinked. "I have no idea."

An hour later, they were back at the farmhouse. The weather had gotten much worse on their way back; realizing she wasn't going to get any work done today with the lightning around, the blonde had fallen asleep on the couch. She was snoring so loudly, Fuyu could hear her despite being on the front porch. She gazed out at the pounding rain, only flinching a bit when a crash of thunder would roll past. Usually, she would be seeking shelter in weather like this; without needing to look, she found her mind full of unknown thoughts.

"Home," she whispered, barely audible over the dull roar. She turned and looked back through one of the windows at the sleeping Applejack for a moment. A flash of light came, and she looked back out across the orchard just in time for the thunder to arrive. She let the noise wash over her before she resumed thinking. "I wonder if I had one before."

Hearing herself speak those words startled her, and she shook her head briefly. She had never given much consideration to the time before she remembered. Since she was always on the move, always looking for a suitable meal, she never really had time to think about it. While the latter was still mostly true – she still didn't know what to think about Stormy's offer – the former wasn't. For the first time, she found herself not wanting to wander. This change of thought nagged at her, so she spent some time trying to figure out why. Some of it she could write off as physical needs, for instance being dry while it poured rain outside, something she rarely got unless she could find a cave. A great chunk of this feeling could not be explained away, however, and it caused her to frown. Once again, she looked back at the snoozing apple farmer.

"Friend," she murmured tonelessly. The word caused her heart to leap into her throat. "Friend?" It made her tremble and feel uneasy, but not in the same way she did when her stomach shrieked at her for food. She could only label the feeling as anxiety, but it was lighter and far more tolerable than that. In fact, it was pleasant, like the feeling she got from 'home' but a dozen times more potent. She queried her mind to see if the label she wanted was contained therein. A whole list of words flashed past, as did their definitions, but none of them fit her feeling. She was just about to give up when the word she wanted appeared.

"Happiness?" she said, uncertain. Automatically, she nodded. That was it. This strange sensation bubbling in her chest was happiness. She put a hand lightly over her heart and stared out across the apple trees. The hand moved up to her face when she felt something on her cheeks. She had started to cry.

"What?" she breathed, confused. She only cried when she was eating, or when in sufficient pain. Reflexively, she patted herself, checking for injuries. "I am not hurt," she informed herself, but the tears continued to flow. "I don't understand..." She wandered over to one of the porch swings and sat down, drying her eyes with the back of her hand. "Is happiness supposed to make me cry?" Another bolt of lightning descended upon the orchard, but the resulting thunder didn't even make her blink. She was much too busy internally to care; a hole that she didn't even know existed was filling up. From here, she couldn't see the blonde as she looked through the nearest window, but it didn't matter.

"Friend..." More questions came, an avalanche of uncertainties that overwhelmed her. Did she have friends before? What happened to them? Did she...

...did she eat them too?

That image fell upon her like a ton of bricks, and the force caused her to emit a broken sob. Happiness departed, leaving in its wake a feeling absolutely opposite. She had felt it before; it was the sensation that caused her to burst into tears while feeding, but she didn't know what to call it, and she'd never felt it at any other time. It was like a punch to the gut, and she hunched over in the swing with clenched teeth and tightly shut eyes.

"No," she moaned. Stress was beginning to make itself apparent as she tore at the clefts in her memory, desperate to figure out whether or not she had friends before, and even more desperate to know whether or not they had met their ends by her hand. She flashed back to what Twilight had said earlier, and that only made things worse.

"Severe emotional trauma can cause it too, it's something called dissociative amnesia."

Those words stung her bitterly. "No!" she said, her tone demanding and upset. She raised up enough to stare ahead, plumbing her thoughts for answers again. Her brain had nothing to give her, and she left the swing, pacing in frustration. Suddenly, her stomach alerted her about not being quite as full as it liked again. The feeling caused her to stop pacing. She found herself by a window, and looked in at the sleeping Applejack. Her stomach continued to bother her about the emptiness, and she stared for a long while at the woman sprawled on the couch. "Hungry," she droned. That anti-happiness slammed into her again, and it was loud enough to drown out the grumbling in her belly for a brief time. Her stomach won out eventually, though, and resumed pestering. Fuyu looked down at it, with tears streaming anew, and sighed.

She walked through the front door, shutting it gently behind her.

Running On Empty

The rain had passed by the next morning, but a soupy, humid mess was left in its wake. Upon learning that more bad weather was coming, Applejack was keen to get outside and clear the trees most desperately in need of harvesting. Fuyu obediently followed her as they walked away from the farmhouse. It was oppressively hot despite the thick clouds hanging over them, and the blonde was already sweating.

“Phew! Let's make this fast. Dang apples are gonna cook on the trees at this rate!” she joked, dabbing at her forehead with a handkerchief. She glanced over at the woman in black as they walked, and blinked. “You're not even sweatin'.”

Fuyu's pale skin was indeed completely dry, save for the thick humidity that enveloped both of them. She said nothing in reply, only shrugging at the comment and walking on. It took them ten minutes to reach the particular stand, and once they arrived the blonde explained what she was aiming to do.

“Got twenty trees we need to clear,” she began, walking around one of them and examining its load. “Pinkie and – can't even believe she agreed to it – Rarity are comin' over ta help us crate 'em and carry 'em to the press. Once we get 'em in there, I can do the rest.” She doffed her hat again to wipe away the sweat. “I'll take these ten,” she pointed, finger tracing a path down the row past the tree she stood under, “and you get those ten,” she concluded, pointing to the tree directly beside that in the row adjacent, then over at nine more trees down the way. “Got it?”

“Yes,” Fuyu nodded once, then shuffled over to her first tree. While Applejack was carefully lining up her kick, the woman in black simply threw a punch. The blonde cringed but watched this time, amazed at the velocity of the blow. Fuyu held her follow through for a fraction of a second after contacting the trunk, not even flinching when one of the apples struck her in the head. By the time Applejack launched her kick, Fuyu had moved on and already performed her second punch.

“Dang! Wait for me!” the blonde gasped, the one kick having sapped a great deal of strength thanks to the humid air. Fuyu paid her no attention, and by the time Applejack started aiming her second attack, the woman in black was on her fourth tree. “Fu! Don't break your hand!” she called out worriedly. Her words were almost perfectly punctuated with a fifth punch, and the blonde couldn't help but cringe again. “Good grief,” she whispered to herself, going back to eying the trunk in front of her. Fuyu was done with her row by the time Applejack had gotten halfway finished, and the blonde was again wiping sweat off her brow as the other woman came over.

“I am done,” she advised, standing there with her hands jammed in her pockets. “What now?”

“Hold on,” the blonde panted, doffing her hat and using it to fan herself. She looked up at Fuyu again, and saw only the faintest sheen on her skin. “Just gotta catch my breath,” she added, grimacing as she leaned on the tree trunk. She blinked when Fuyu abruptly walked away, and followed her as she went to the next tree in line. “What're ya doin'?” She cringed again as the woman fired another punch, bringing down a shower of apples. “Fu, stop it. I'll get these, I just need a br—Fuyu!” she exclaimed, following her to the next tree. “You're gonna hurt yourself! Stop!”

Her plea was ignored yet again. There was a whisper of a flinch when her hand struck this trunk; she could feel the bones in her hand shattering for the twelfth time, all the way up to her wrist. As with each punch before it, she shook her hand for a few seconds afterward as she walked to the next tree. Applejack was behind her, scolding her and demanding she cease, but she pushed the noise out of her mind and continued on. She could feel the black sludge inside of her, coursing through her veins and concentrating itself on her ruined hand. By the time she was ready to throw her next punch, the goo had already mended and restored her broken bones. It was a heavy draw on her reserves, and the more damage she did to herself, the louder her stomach began to rail. She considered the tradeoff to be worth it, however. The faster she was done, the faster she could hide in her room. Being out of sight of Applejack was the only way she could stop thinking of her as a tall, blonde sandwich, ready to eat. She reacted badly, therefore, when she was physically stopped from hitting her next target. Her arm had been grabbed as she drew back her fist, and the blonde appeared beside her with genuine terror in her eyes.

“Stop, damn it!” she demanded again, her grip tight on Fuyu's arm. “You're gonna mess yourself up real bad!”

Fuyu had to look up at Applejack slightly – she lacked three inches of height when compared to the farmer – but despite the size difference, she was able to easily yank her limb away. “I'm fine.” While the blonde was stunned by her strength, she threw the delayed punch. Her bones again broke, but the noise was masked by the crackling of the bark. As she walked through the fallen fruit to her next target, Applejack moved over and stood in front of her.

“No,” she bellowed, arms spread wide, “That's enough! I appreciate ya tryin' ta pick up my slack, but I ain't gonna let ya hurt yourself in the process! Let me finish!” Her demand was met with the iciest glare she'd yet seen from the woman in black, and despite her determination she felt a faint chill move down her spine. “Please, Fu, I'm worried. Ease off.”

With those words, Applejack's obstruction downgraded itself from grave mistake to confusing gesture. Fuyu looked down, then up again and blinked, trying to determine what worry was. It somehow attached itself to the word friend in her brain, and the association snapped her into a calmer state despite her stomach sending angry messages. She relaxed her stance and glanced off to the side with half-lidded eyes. “Very well.”

The blonde slumped a little with relief and sighed, afterward gaining a slight smile. “Thank ya.” She then took Fuyu's hand in her own and pressed on it, checking her for injuries. She was stunned when she felt nothing out of the ordinary. “Dang. You must be made of rock.”

She found the touch to be rather odd, and twitched every time Applejack pressed on her fingers, and very nearly squirmed when she pressed the line in her palm. “I'm fine,” she droned out again, simply wishing the blonde would withdraw her hand. She finally did, and Fuyu took a step back, jamming her hands in her pockets. “What should I do now?”

“Just take a break, I ain't gonna start pickin' these up until the others get here,” Applejack advised, again doffing her hat to deal with the sweat. “Should be pretty soon.” Fuyu nodded and watched as she kicked the next two trees, and soon the grass around them was covered in a splotchy red layer of ripe apples. Applejack sat down against the trunk of her last target and let out a loud exhale, removing her hat entirely and letting it lay on the ground beside her. “This heat is ridiculous!” she complained, trying to sop the sweat off her brow.

Fuyu had no response for that, and simply stood nearby with her arms folded. After a few moments, a low noise began to permeate the air, and she looked back in the direction of the farmhouse to see that the old red truck was slowly approaching them. Applejack stood up and started walking to meet it, so Fuyu followed her. She recognized the passenger as Pinkie, bouncing up and down happily in the seat, but the driver was unfamiliar. The truck stopped short of the apples littering the ground, and the pink-haired woman quickly hopped out and rushed over to them. Her chaotic hair was tied back in a ponytail, and most of her was covered by denim overalls.

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii!” she chirped shrilly, latching on to the blonde in a fierce hug. Applejack chuckled lightly and hugged her back, trying to keep her face out of the bouncy bang that wasn't tied back.

“Howdy Pinkie,” she said as they released each other. She chuckled again as the process repeated, although Fuyu's reaction was decidedly more confused in the face of the bear hug.

“Hello?” she stammered, unable to lift her arms because the baker's own were wrapped around them.

Pinkie squeezed her for a few seconds more with a big smile on her face before letting go and looking back at the truck. The purple-haired driver still hadn't gotten out, and seemed to be in some distress, having an unhappy look on her face. “Why hasn't she gotten out yet?”

“Let's find out,” Applejack replied, leading the three of them over to the driver's door. The woman inside rolled down the window and frowned, continuously smoothing down her shimmering locks.

“This humidity is going to ruin my hair!” she lamented, her words rich with accent. She looked at Fuyu and stared quietly for a moment. She stared right back, feeling that electric spark again, albeit in a weaker form. “Pardon me, I don't think we've met...”

“Figures y'all would be worried about your dang hair,” Applejack said, standing aside a bit so the woman could approach the door. “Fu, this is my friend Rarity.”

She did indeed step up, but only to get a better look at the new arrival. Rarity was a slender bronzed goddess with shining purple hair that fell in waves to the small of her back. As she reluctantly climbed out, Fuyu found they were the same height. She wore a white baby tee and tan capri pants, and had white and purple tennis shoes on her feet. After she had finished brushing herself off, Fuyu had only one question for her.

“Are you going to hug me, too?” she asked, folding her arms.

Rarity considered that for a moment and smiled a bit, instead offering a hand. Fuyu saw the blue jewel on her palm. “Let's try that. I'm surprised Pinkie didn't hurt you with hers,” she noted, blinking at the red line when Fuyu lifted her own hand. “Oh my, what happened to your palm?”

“I don't know,” she replied flatly, only shaking briefly before letting go. Pinkie blinked and zipped over, grabbing one of her hands before she could jam them in her pockets and looking at it. The act agitated her, but she stood still and waited for it to be over with.

“Oh no, you've been hurt!” the baker exclaimed, frowning as hard as her facial muscles would allow her.

“It doesn't hurt.” She reclaimed her hand and turned around, looking at the crates in the truck bed. Without another word, she grabbed four of the heavy wooden boxes and hauled them out, two in each hand, and braced them against her chest as she walked to the nearest cleared tree.

“My goodness,” Rarity blinked, staring after her as she went. “She certainly is a strong one.” Applejack shrugged at her while Pinkie, still frowning, rubbed her chin in thought.

“Y'all missed what she did a few minutes ago,” the blonde finally said, moving to get two crates of her own. “Ya know how I get the apples down? Well, she punches 'em off the branches. I don't know how she didn't break her hand.” The other two got a crate each and pursued the blonde to the first tree. Fuyu, meanwhile, had already filled one of her crates.

“I didn't catch your name,” Rarity said as she arrived, daintily plucking apples off the ground with her magic and glancing over at her.

Pinkie began to bounce, dropping the apples in her grasp in the process. “Ooo! Oooooo, I know it!” she cheered, hand raised as if she were in a classroom.

Rarity giggled lightly, but shook her head as she continued to magically pick up fruit. “Darling, let her answer.”

Fuyu stopped her work and looked up, staring at Rarity's use of magic for a moment before laying eyes on the woman herself. “I am Fuyu,” she stated simply, and bent down again to grab apples.

“Still pretty!” Pinkie blurted out randomly, skipping around and retrieving the fruit she had dropped.

Applejack and Rarity laughed, but the woman in black was silent. Her problem was now worse, roughly akin to a starving man being shown a buffet he cannot reach. She was surrounded by food, and yet she could not – would not, she found, to her mild surprise – make herself strike. Since she'd stopped injuring herself, at least her stomach was a little quieter, but the labor was still drawing on her energy at a rate higher than she was used to. All she wanted to do at the moment was get the work done and get away from the three of them before something awful happened, and because of that singular goal, she was loading apples at a frightening pace.

“Look at her go,” Rarity blinked, watching her take two of the crates to the tree across the row. Now that she was across the way, Applejack's demeanor changed from focus to slight concern.

“Hey, Rarity,” she said, waiting until the woman looked over. “Can I ask ya a favor?” She again paused for the nod of confirmation. “Could...could ya make Fu some clothes? She ain't got any. She ain't got anything, come ta think of it.”

“What do you mean?” the dressmaker asked, walking over to the blonde after filling her crate full of apples. Pinkie sensed the change in the air and stopped skipping around, looking between her two friends with confused eyes.

“I ain't got all the details, but I'm pretty sure she was homeless before I found her,” the blonde stated, standing up fully and dusting off her hands. “I talked to Granny and Big Macintosh about lettin' her stay here, but all she's got are the clothes on her back.”

Pinkie looked rather droopy at hearing this information, as did Rarity. The latter spoke for them both. “That's terrible! How long has she been that way? Did she say?”

Applejack shook her head, and for a second they all watched her as she continued to tear through her task. “She don't remember nothin' 'bout herself but her name. Said she'd been like that for five years. Dunno if she's been homeless that long, but it wouldn't surprise me none.” There were gasps, and Applejack sighed. “Breaks my heart.” She turned back to her friends and saw roughly similar feelings. Rarity had both her hands over her mouth, while tears clung to the corners of Pinkie's eyes.

“Of course I will,” the dressmaker finally said, trying to shake off her emotion and lift the crate with her magic. She grunted involuntarily at the weight. “No wonder she's so quiet, who knows what happened to her out there.”

Pinkie stewed quietly for a moment before dashing over to the topic of their conversation and throwing her arms around her. Her victim was holding a loaded box of apples in preparation to move them to the truck, but the impact didn't seem to faze her much. “Poor Fuyu! You must have been so lonely and sad and scared and, and, and...” she trailed off, running out of words. Instead, she hugged tighter and sniffled. “I'm gonna cry!”

Wordlessly, Fuyu stared ahead and remained still as she waited for the embrace to pass, but it took almost a minute for the baker to stop sniffling and let her go. Once she did, Fuyu simply picked up where she left off and carried her cargo back to the truck. Rarity and Applejack, having done the same, were already there. They watched the exchange and glanced at each other.

“She's a quiet one, too,” Rarity said, after Fuyu had gone back to get another loaded crate. Pinkie was too busy feeling sad enough for the both of them to notice anything, and made a hilariously exaggerated face as she brought her own full crate back. “Pinkie, darling, I'm not sure she likes being hugged so hard,” the dressmaker advised on her arrival.

“She didn't say that,” was the confused reply. “She didn't say anything!” Pinkie grabbed another box from the truck. “Come to think of it, she didn't even move really.”

“Try askin' first, Pinkie. I think she might be a little like Fluttershy, ya know, doesn't like her personal space gettin' all hugged to death,” Applejack said, picking up two more boxes of her own and heading back to the trees.

“Oh, okay!” Pinkie nodded rapidly.

They all went back to work, but even the three of them together couldn't keep pace with Fuyu. Without their interrupting, she finished her row quickly – they had three trees to go, but this time she waited at the rear of the truck while they continued on. She was visibly weary, and not just from the effort put into the harvest.

“Shut up,” she mumbled to herself. Her stomach was wailing like a banshee, so loud she could hardly think. It seemed like hours before the other three women were finally done, bringing their last crates back to the truck.

“I'm going to have to use an entire bottle of conditioner after this,” Rarity cried, her once perfectly coiffed hair now as frizzy as it could be. “Look at my hair! Look at it!” She set her last box in the truck bed, called off her magic and glared at a chuckling Applejack while folding her arms. “You owe me.”

“I know, I know,” the blonde said, raising her hands after offloading her final crate.

Pinkie giggled too, but her laugh was louder and much longer than the blonde's. “You look like me!”

Rarity tried desperately to flatten her hair down with her hands, but failed time and again. “I don't do the poofy look as well as you, I'm afraid,” she sighed. In the quiet that followed, they all finally looked at Fuyu. “Darling, you don't look well.”

“I'm fine,” she said, but her appearance betrayed her as she turned around to face them. She looked absolutely exhausted, despite the lack of expression on her face.

Applejack frowned for a moment and walked over to the woman in black, patting her on the back gently. “We can take it from here, Fu. Can ya walk back?”

“Yes,” she replied, twitching a little each time the blonde's hand contacted her. She started her journey immediately, waving a hand at the goodbyes from Pinkie and Rarity. As soon as she felt she was out of their sight, she looked over her shoulder and sighed with relief. “I can't do it,” she told her stomach, placing a hand on it. “We have to find someone else.” This idea didn't please her hunger in the least, and she frowned as her stomach roared unhappily. “But...but friend,” she offered weakly, only to be shouted down. She gave up after that, shuffling toward the farmhouse. It took her twice as long to get back, and once she was inside she immediately went upstairs, into her room, and locked the door. Slowly, she climbed into the bed and laid down on it, deciding to get her daily catnap out of the way while she was alone in the house.

When her eyes opened again, she knew right away that something was wrong. She slid out of bed and went to the window, finding that it was far too dark for her to have just taken a nap. The clouds were thick and heavy, and off in the distance, some of them bore the dusky yellow glow of the town's streetlights. The moment she was fully awake, her stomach began demanding again.

“No,” she scolded it, glaring at nothing as she went to the door. It was still locked, as she'd left it earlier, but a white shape on the floor in front of it caught her attention. She picked it up and found it to be a note, although she had to bring it to the bed and turn on the lamp to read it. It was Applejack's advising her of a trip to Rarity's boutique in the morning, scrawled across the paper and difficult for Fuyu to read. The thought of being trapped in an enclosed space with the two of them made her extremely uneasy. On the one hand, she enjoyed the company to be sure, in an odd sort of way. On the other, she had miscalculated her endurance under such heavy work. She was long used to the rigors of constantly being on the move, but the repeated application of her strength was new and draining. Worse yet, it would be three days until Stormy returned with someone she could feel all right about killing.

If she returned.

The consideration of that possible outcome only caused Fuyu even more stress; stress that pulled at her reserves of energy. It was too much for her to take. She needed something to tide her over for just a little while. She rose from the bed again and went to the door, unlocking it and pulling it aside. The hall was just as dark as the orchard outside, and she stalked down it barefooted, glancing at each door she passed. Not all of them were closed; the one across the hall from hers, at the end nearest the staircase, was ajar slightly. Curious, she peeked inside.

What she found was Applejack's bedroom. She was not by herself in bed. Fuyu could barely see the unruly hair of Rainbow Dash, though most of her was hidden by the blonde's larger frame. They were snuggled together under the green blanket, and one of them – she couldn't tell which – was snoring gently. A further look inside revealed Winona sprawled out on the foot of the bed, on her back and paws in the air. This drew a frown; one of the things she hated most in a potential target was an accompanying dog, as they were able to detect her presence and alert her food. Winona, however, didn't budge. Deterred for the moment, Fuyu left the doorway and began moving down the stairs. When she got to the bottom, she detected a faint light that was not coming from the windows. After taking a few steps more, she saw that it was coming from the open refrigerator. Apple Bloom, clad in yellow pajamas, was standing nearby with a glass from which she was drinking. She only noticed the woman in black after she had walked past the counter that divided the kitchen from the living room.

“Oh, hey miss Fuyu,” she said, her tone a bit startled at first. “Ya couldn't sleep either? It's so dang hot upstairs.”

“Something woke me up,” was her reply. She looked at the bottle on the counter next to the fridge. Bloom had gotten some of the sparkling cider.

“Shoot, was it me? I'm real sorry,” Bloom apologized, her face dropping into a frown.

“It wasn't you.” Fuyu took the bottle and stared at it for a moment before looking back at the young girl. “Can I have this?”

She nodded happily and grinned. “Sure! That came from the case Applejack and them just made today! It's the best when it's real fresh like that,” she said, sounding for all the world like her sister.

Fuyu tipped the bottle up and drained it with one pass, emitting a slight belch when she removed it from her lips. Bloom giggled at the noise, setting her glass in the sink and shutting the refrigerator door.

“Just leave the bottle there, we can take 'em to town and recycle 'em,” she said, shuffling out of the kitchen with a wave. “Good night!”

“Good night,” Fuyu repeated tonelessly, lifting her right hand away from her hip just enough for a black blade to emerge. She stalked Bloom like a shadow, her footfalls so light the girl didn't even hear them on the usually noisy steps. Just past the open door, the girl tripped with a squeak, landing on the wooden floor and groaning.

“Dang it,” she whispered lowly, grimacing as she braced her upper body with her arms. Behind her, Fuyu had her right arm straight up, readying the strike. Before she could bring it down, however, a noise from Applejack's room froze her.

“Apple Bloom?” It was the blonde, her voice groggy but laced with concern. “Y'all okay? Why are ya up?”

“I'm fine,” the girl called back, standing up and dusting off her knees. “Just got somethin' ta drink.” She had no idea Fuyu was behind her and simply walked on to her room. The woman in black slowly dropped her arm, but let the ebony knife remain out.

“Come here, you,” another voice said. This was Rainbow Dash. Fuyu didn't stay to eavesdrop, instead retreating to her own quarters and again locking the door.

“What is wrong with me?!” she hissed at herself, pacing around the bed. In this case, however, her stomach was almost literally doing the talking. “I could have eaten her whole, no one would have known!” She sat stiffly on the bed and clutched at her skull, hunched over and breathing heavily. “Hungry...”

In reality, she knew exactly why. To hurt Bloom would be to hurt Applejack. To hurt Applejack would be to hurt her friend. Even in her panic, the thought of that word made her feel a slight pop of happiness. The sensation was intoxicating.

She had become addicted to the kindness. Even with her incomplete logic, she had figured out that hurting any of them would probably bring that kindness to an end, and it was a notion that sent her heart plummeting to her feet. Now that she knew kindness, she was bitterly unwilling to let it go. No matter how much she liked it, though, it still wasn't going to fill up her stomach.

“Three days,” she said to herself, then glanced up at the wall clock. “Two,” she corrected herself, seeing that it was after midnight. “Two days. Just...just two days, then I can...” She could not even speak the words detailing her last resort, and instead let the thought sit like an icy stone in her mind. “I don't want to!”

If that much time was allowed to pass without her eating, there would be no choice, and she knew it. She slid back onto the bed and turned off the lamp, allowing the darkness to envelope her as she laid down again. All the while, her hunger roiled, just a little bit louder than when she had woken up.

Welcome To the Club

Morning arrived again, although it was dark and slow in coming. The sun was imprisoned by heavy gray clouds, and it appeared as though it would pour rain at any moment. As Fuyu drifted down the stairs, she found Rainbow Dash still there, lounging on the couch and watching the news. Applejack and her younger sister were both in the kitchen, fussing over what to cook alongside the breakfast sausage.

“Hey, Fuyu,” Rainbow said with a wave as the woman sat stiffly on the other end of the couch. “Wow, you don't look so good.”

“I'm fine,” was her automatic reply. This was, of course, a total lie. Inside, her entire body felt like it was on fire, and her stomach shrieked unceasingly.

“You look kinda tired,” Rainbow countered, sitting up straighter and turning to look at her. Her face dropped, and then she smirked faintly. “Did we keep you up?”

Fuyu's head swiveled just enough to look at Rainbow, but the rest of her was statue still. “What?”

“You know,” the athletic woman said lowly, grinning and waggling her eyebrows. Her innuendo slammed against the cold wall of Fuyu's silence, however, and soon she just felt incredibly awkward. “Uh, never mind,” she hastily added, flopping back on the couch as she made an uncomfortable expression. They were both quiet for a while afterward, but only Rainbow responded to the call to eat.

“Hey, Fu! Ya comin'?” Applejack called, standing behind the counter that separated the two rooms.

“I'm...” Fuyu stopped cold, doubling over slightly and sighing, then raising a hand to rub at her tired eyes. “I'm not really hungry.” Once again, the dissonance caused her a minor headache. She was hungry, and yes, hungry for something in the kitchen, but it wasn't going to fit on a plate.

The blonde folded her arms and frowned, ignoring the obnoxious noises being made by her girlfriend and little sister as they ate furiously. “Come on, Fu, eat somethin'.”

“I'm not--” She stopped talking and looked down as she felt something in her palms. She squeezed her hands a few times, and her blank demeanor was shattered by panic. Without another word, she threw herself off the couch and sprinted up the stairs. Her movements were so quick, Applejack couldn't even get the words of surprise out of her mouth. Once upstairs, Fuyu slid into the bathroom and shut the door roughly. She unclenched her fists over the white sink and watched as little drops of black sludge began to leak from her palms.

“I can't!” she growled at them, and herself.

A few minutes later she heard footsteps outside approaching, but they went past for a moment before coming back. That's when the knock on the door happened. “Hey, Fu? Y'all okay in there? What happened?”

“I'm fi--” She clenched her teeth and grimaced as her palms cried again. Her mind told her not to even bother completing her reply, and she scrapped it for a diluted version of the truth instead. “I don't feel very well.”

“Is it your hand?” Applejack called through the door.

“No, my stomach,” she replied, tingling with uncertainty about admitting anything – even if were only a half-truth.

“Oh boy. Well, uh, I'll go talk to Rarity and call off the appointment, if ya want.”

“Very well.” Fuyu was busy sopping up the sludge from the basin, rubbing her palms in a circular motion over the porcelain.

“'Kay. Should I call the doctor while I'm on the phone?”

That suggestion made her bristle slightly, but she tried to modulate her unhappiness and keep calm. The stress would only make her hungrier. “No, I just feel sick to my stomach,” she mostly lied, finally clearing the sink of her black goo.

“If ya say so. Listen, I gotta take Apple Bloom ta school, but I'll ask RD if she'll stick around and keep an eye on ya, okay?”

It wasn't okay in the least, but she had no choice and relented. “All right,” she groaned, placing both hands on her stomach as it churned furiously.

“Poor Fu. Sleep it off, I'm sure y'all will be fine in a little while,” the blond encouraged. At last, Fuyu heard her walk away from the door, and she took the opportunity to dart out of the bathroom and back into her room, closing the door and locking it as she went. She kept her fists tightly closed in case they began to weep, and stared out the window at the drizzling rain.

“This is bad,” she admitted to herself, uttering the words through clenched teeth. It only happened a few times before, when she'd been forced to take a child instead of an adult. Their flesh was never enough to last her the full four days of her limit, and by the end her palms would leak whenever she got around someone big enough to satisfy her hunger. If Rainbow Dash indeed agreed to stay here, she would be dead by the time Applejack returned. Fuyu was genuinely beginning to starve.

And yet, despite her physical distress, she resisted the idea of allowing the woman to check up on her and walk right into an ambush. After all, girlfriend did contain that six-letter word that caused her so much joy. It still did, even in her time of utter – if contained – desperation. Behind her, she heard the ruckus of Apple Bloom and her older sister getting ready, and the thought of the latter caused her palms to cry again. She had to cup her hands to hold the goo, but soon it overflowed and began to drip onto the wood floor. Frustration joined desperation in her heart, and she wept regular tears from her eyes.

“I've never had a friend before,” she whispered, stooping and trying to collect the black puddle that gathered on the oak boards. “Can't we just wait? I don't want to...”

Her stomach refused, and she felt herself getting lost in a mental fog. Soon, she would be on autopilot, and the first person she saw would end up being breakfast. After weakly cleaning up the black puddle, she stood, just in time to see the old red truck disappearing down the path. A moment later, a knock rang out from behind her.

“Hey, you asleep?” Rainbow called. “AJ said you weren't feeling well.”

Fuyu tried to formulate a response that would make the woman leave; even the thought of her behind that door was causing the woman great stress. Once again, her palms leaked. “I was trying to sleep, yes,” she finally blurted out, desperate to sound as even-keeled as possible.

“Oh, my bad!” she said, apologetic. “I'm gonna crash on the couch, okay? If you need something, just come down and wake me up.”

“Very well.” Her footsteps started and went away, and Fuyu breathed a sigh of genuine relief. Again, she stooped to collect her liquid hunger off the floor. As she got up and glanced out the window, trying to think of an option, more movement caught her eye. She walked closer to the window and looked to her right. The black truck was still parked there, awaiting pickup by the police for examination. At the passenger door was a redheaded woman in a blue jacket and jeans that she didn't recognize, apparently trying to break into the vehicle without attracting attention. Fuyu looked down, at first to calculate her jump out onto the ground. Instead, she saw someone else directly below her window.

It was Stormy.

Quietly, she opened the window and stuck her head out. Stormy looked up and shrunk back a little, but gained a look of helplessness a few seconds later. Fuyu pointed at the other woman, and Stormy nodded her confirmation. The delivery had arrived. Satiated by the thought of imminent food, her stomach became silent and handed off full command of her faculties. She slid partially out of the window and placed her left palm on the siding, sticking herself to it with a squirt of black. Then she emerged entirely, sticking her other hand to the side of the house and hanging for a moment, before she brought her feet up and let them sit on the siding. She climbed down under the window and closer to the corner of the house, all the while judging her launch point to hit the other woman without alerting Rainbow Dash to anything happening. When the other woman started to turn to look at Stormy, Fuyu threw herself off the house and collided with her. Before she could shout in protest, Fuyu slammed a hand on her mouth and gagged her with the ebony sludge. The woman clawed at her face to get it off, allowing her hands to be bound together. It was more difficult to tie her legs, but she could not match the strength of her captor and eventually wore herself out trying to kick the woman away. Her prey subdued, Fuyu picked up the woman and looked back at Stormy.

“Come on.”

“Wh-why?” Stormy asked, hugging herself and trembling. “I did what you wanted.”

Fuyu hefted the writhing, crying woman onto her shoulder and stared at the thief. “There's someone else here, and they may see you. I have to take her somewhere out of sight to eat and I don't want you being discovered.” Stormy was extremely reluctant to even approach, but the unending icy glare eventually changed her mind. She skittered to catch up as Fuyu began walking.

“Glad I'm wearing pants this time,” she muttered, jogging after the woman in black. Her partner's upper body was behind Fuyu and facing out, so she was treated to the pleading, confused looks of the victim as they moved. “Sorry, Ruby. I found someone I'm more afraid of than the boss.”

Fuyu looked back as they went, only slowing down after the farmhouse disappeared behind a hill. “What were you trying to do?”

“The boss really wants his truck back,” Stormy replied, frowning up at the rain as Fuyu set Ruby against a tree trunk on the ground. “Uh, can I go now?” She gulped as icy blue eyes gazed at her coldly. “Pl-please?” she begged, beginning to tremble. “I don't wanna see this...”

“I may need you to drop someone off more often than I thought,” Fuyu replied, sizing up her victim.

Stormy's jaw dropped. “Are you nuts? It took me hours of begging Ruby to come with me! If she doesn't come back – when she doesn't come back, nobody's gonna want to be my partner!”

Ruby began to screech through her gag at Stormy's revealing of her fate. She thrashed enough to cause her to tip over onto her side, but that was as far as she got.

“Kidnap someone. I don't care how you do it.” Fuyu sat on the ground beside Ruby, hauling the redhead into her lap until the back of her head was underneath her chin.

“What have I gotten myself into,” Stormy lamented, walking to another tree and sitting underneath it. “Hey, uh...” she began, freezing when Fuyu looked up at her. “What did you do with Clyde? I mean, when you were done ea--” she fell quiet as she watched Fuyu open her mouth and latch onto the back of Ruby's head. Stormy made a series of unhappy noises and got up, walking quickly away from the two of them. “Fuck it! I don't want to know! Celestia help me...” she moaned, slamming her hands over her ears as she went.

“Wait,” Fuyu called, having moved her head away. “You actually did it.”

“Did what?” Stormy asked, turning around and dropping her arms. “Oh, bring you someone to...ugh. Now I'm a murderer, too. Great. Look, I got lucky that the boss loves his truck, and even luckier that he agreed to let me try and make it up to him. When I come back without it, though, I am fucked.”

“Wait until night and then take it. I won't bother you.”

Stormy folded her arms and blinked. “Okay, but then how will I get him to keep sending me back here? He sounded like he just wanted to cut his losses. After he got his truck back, I mean.”

Fuyu looked down briefly at the squirming Ruby, locking her arms around her chest to keep her still. “Perhaps I can kill him for you.” Her hands wept again, but with food secured she remained in control, and her stomach, while grumbling, was otherwise silent. “Maybe he will view me as a threat if you tell him what I've done.”

Stormy considered this for a moment, idly wiping the rain from her forehead as she thought. She let out a helpless laugh and shrugged, giving Fuyu a weird sort of smile. “That would be great, but he's gonna send a ton of people down here after you if he does think you're dangerous.” She stared at Fuyu's blank look and scratched her wet head. “I guess you don't give a damn, huh?”

“Not really,” Fuyu responded, parting Ruby's messy red hair and bringing her head back down. She latched onto the back of the skull before her and bit, causing Ruby to unleash a muffled shriek of pain. Stormy cringed powerfully and turned, walking away again.

“I'll come back later,” she said, running to get away from the noise. This time, Fuyu did not stop her, instead focusing on her meal. Her teeth had cracked Ruby's skull, but she bit again to break it open more completely. The helpless woman tried to thrash, but was held still by strong, pale arms. Just as soon as she could reach it, she bit into Ruby's brain stem to paralyze and kill her. With her arms freed from holding her down, Fuyu began cracking off pieces of skull, swallowing them whole. She ate from the top down, taking bites out of the brain as if it were a large apple. Once the skull was gone, she recalled the black bindings from Ruby's wrists and legs and removed her inedible clothes. Twenty minutes later, the only thing remaining of the redheaded thief was a bloody stain on the grass, and that was being washed away by the increasingly heavy rain.

“A bit spicy,” she remarked, looking to see how much blood she'd gotten on herself. There were small spots of it, but they were hard to distinguish against the dark fabric. Satisfied, she began looking for the river, both to dispose of the clothing and to take a quick dip to get the blood out of her hair. By the time she found it, however, she could hear the grumbling engine noise of Applejack's old truck off near the road. Sighing, she had to limit her bath to a dunk of her head in the water and a quick, clumsy scrub of her hair. As she raised it back out of the stream, she watched the red bloom flow lazily away and break up as it was pelted by the raindrops. She placed a hand on her stomach and sighed, then let out a loud belch which was accompanied by a red mist. After that, she turned back to where she thought the house was and started to sprint. Her bare feet slipped constantly on the wet grass, but she managed to stay upright the entire way. Upon arrival, she saw the old truck already parked; instead of going in the front door, however, she deployed the black suction cups again and scrambled up the side of the house, daintily sliding herself into the window just in time to hear the worried voice of the blonde.

“Fu! Are ya all right in there? I saw the window open. Hey, Fu? Fuyu?” she called through the door.

“I'm fine,” she called back, positioning herself as near the bed as she could to make her voice sound correct. She was soaked from the rainfall, and was leaving a little puddle where she stood. “It was hot, so I opened it.” She looked around the room for something to dry off with, but couldn't find anything. Shrugging, she stepped over quietly, unlocked the door, and poked her wet head around it to look at Applejack. “May I have a towel? It's hot up here.”

The blonde stared at her for a moment, then started chuckling and nodded. “Sure, just a second. This old house is real bad about trappin' heat upstairs.”

Fuyu watched her go retrieve a blue towel from the bathroom, which she handed over through the cracked door. She toweled off her head as best she could, although even dry her hair was still shiny.

“Feelin' better?” Applejack asked, still near the door with her hands on her hips.

“Yes.” Fuyu went to work on her tank top next, pausing briefly to re-patch the hole left by Stormy's knife with a squirt of black.

“Good, 'cause Rarity insisted on comin' over to do measurements. I told her over and over again that ya weren't feelin' too great, but I think Twilight may have mentioned ya riskin' your life in the defense of my crop,” she chuckled again, shaking her head and grinning to herself. “Can't stop that woman from anythin' once her mind gets set. Ya hungry? Still some sausage left over downstairs.”

Fuyu had scrubbed herself over several times by now, and had gone from dripping wet to mildly damp. She opened the door fully and looked at the blonde, holding the wet towel in her hand. “Just thirsty,” she replied, walking past and depositing the towel in the bathroom hamper. If Applejack noticed anything off, she didn't say it.

“Come get some of the cider, the fizz might help your stomach settle down,” she offered, adjusting her hat and moving back toward the stairway. “Oh, could ya shut the window, please? Don't want that oak floor in there gettin' wet.”

“Yes,” Fuyu nodded, moving to do just that before coming back out and walking toward the steps herself.

Rainbow Dash had not long departed when Rarity arrived, darting through the raindrops after getting out of her silver SUV and avoiding puddles as if they were landmines. The soft ground fought against her white heels, and thrice she nearly fell over. Applejack and Fuyu met her at the top of the front steps, the former smirking at her plight.

“Not funny,” Rarity glared at her, setting aside the large purple box she was carrying and closing her umbrella, setting it in one of the swings. She gently patted at her hair and smoothed down her shimmering white bias cut dress, a garment that sported short sleeves, a small collar, and a narrow, diamond-shaped cleavage cutout. After she was satisfied with her appearance, she took up her box again and cleared her throat. “Pardon me for taking so long,” she said, strutting between the two of them to the front door. “I had to ship a few things to Canterlot. Dreadfully long line.”

“Ya didn't even have to come in the first place,” Applejack grumbled with a smile, falling in behind her. Fuyu brought up the rear and closed the door. “Well, good luck, Fu,” she added with a snicker. Rarity beckoned the woman in black to follow her upstairs.

“Come along, darling, I'll make this quick,” she chirped happily, sauntering up the stairs. Fuyu followed her after a brief delay, catching up when both of them reached the top. “I gather you've never been fitted for clothing before?”

“No,” she replied, having to show Rarity which room was hers. The dressmaker cringed while entering, due to a loud crash of thunder that rattled the windows.

“I wish the sun would come back,” she moaned, a hand lightly on her chest as she calmed herself down. “At any rate, this won't take long at all. I only need to measure you, and if you're still ill we can talk about color and fabric some other time, all right?”

She shrugged a little and nodded, standing at the end of the bed and watching the other woman unload her tools. “I feel fine now.”

“Good! I'm glad I brought the bolts, then,” she said, laying out several squares of fabric on the bed and spreading them out. She put on a pair of thickly rimmed red glasses and walked over with a yellow tape measure in her left hand. “Now, stand like this, please.”

Fuyu copied her pose, standing with her legs together and arms down at her sides. Rarity moved behind her and pressed the tape to her back. Off to their left, a notepad and pencil floated over, sheathed in cornflower blue magic. A number was scribbled down before both pad and pencil dropped on the bed.

“I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?” she asked, unnerved by the quiet as she continued to press the tape on various parts of the woman in black.

“I'm fine,” she replied quietly. Cleared of physical worries, her mind was wandering again to more abstract thoughts. “Why are you doing this for me?”

“Arms straight up, please. To be honest, Applejack asked me to yesterday, but in the course of talking to Twilight this morning I learned about what you did in the face of those evil apple rustlers,” she explained, moving to Fuyu's left side to take further measurements. “Anyone willing to do such a thing for a friend of mine is my friend as well.”

“Huh.” Fuyu looked down as Rarity moved to her front, crouching down and rubbing her chin. “What?”

“Oh, just considering a few designs,” she laughed lightly, pushing her glasses back up. “You and I have rather similar figures, besides the muscle tone.” A few more awkwardly quiet minutes passed before Rarity felt she could no longer avoid the subject nagging at her brain. “If you don't mind my asking...were you actually homeless before you met Applejack?”

“Yes.” Fuyu opened her stance as Rarity gestured for it, then tilted her head at the sadness in the dressmaker's eyes. “What?”

“I cannot imagine what you must have gone through,” she said, frowning as she magically wrote down more numbers on the notepad. “Five whole years? Well, I'll tell you this much, as long as you're in Ponyville, you'll never have to worry about that again.”

That sentiment caused her to blink and shift in her stance a bit while Rarity fussed with the yellow tape. “I don't understand.”

“Darling, I take care of my friends. We all do,” she said, smiling as she rose fully to her feet. She wrapped up the tape in a neat spool and dropped it in the purple box, removing and setting her glasses inside at the same time. She took the notepad out of the air and gazed at the numbers for a moment, nodding and making little noises as her mind worked. “Now then, colors!” she blurted out, setting the pad down and gathering the bolts of fabric.

Fuyu, however, was not quite ready to move on. “We?” she asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed nearest the window. Rarity moved over to her and sat down with the bolts in hand, smiling.

“The six of us. Myself, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow, Pinkie, and Fluttershy – whom, by the way, asked me to apologize on her behalf for running off. She doesn't handle new faces terribly well. As I was saying, we all look out for each other,” she concluded, idly shuffling the bolts on her lap as she spoke.

It took a moment for it all to hit her, but once it did, Fuyu found tears stinging her eyes. “I...” A hand gently squeezed at her shoulder as she hunched over a little, trying to collect the whirlwind of feeling inside of her. “I don't remember having any friends before.”

Rarity grasped Fuyu's left hand, holding it in both of her own. “You do now. As for your amnesia,” she frowned, looking down at the floor briefly, “I'm not sure if there's anything we can do, but Twilight is going to try. Even if she can't help, you can make some new memories. Now then, dry those eyes! We've got fabric to look at!”

They spent the next ten minutes examining the bolts. Fuyu ended up picking black and blue as her favorite colors, although this was more a function of her selecting what she knew more so than having a legitimate preference. Rarity was packing up when Applejack arrived, peeking in the doorway with a smile.

“How'd it go?” she asked, pushing up the brim of her hat.

“Wonderfully,” the dressmaker replied, clicking her box shut and smiling. “I'll call you when I've got some things for you to try on, all right?” she added, looking at Fuyu as she stood and turned around.

There was a nod, and once again Applejack witnessed that odd, stilted sort of gratitude emerge from the woman. “Yes. Thank you.”

“It's no trou--” Another crash of thunder interrupted Rarity, and she cringed deeply again. “...trouble. I'd best be getting back before this weather somehow gets worse. Ta ta!” she said, lightly waving her fingers and striding out into the hallway.

“See ya!” Applejack nodded, tipping her hat and watching her go for a moment. Once she'd gone down the stairs, the blonde looked at Fuyu. “Looks like ya been cryin'...”

Fuyu wouldn't make eye contact, instead looking down at her bare feet. “It's nothing.”

“Oh, no ya don't,” the blonde countered, walking over to her. “Talk. What's eatin' ya?”

That word would have caused her genuine misery had it come a few hours ago, but she shrugged it off easily and looked up. “I have friends now. It's...” She struggled to find an appropriate word for it, but ended up falling back on one she'd used for something far less significant. “It's nice.”

Applejack gave her a few pats on the back and grinned. “It sure is. Ya hungry yet? Got some leftover pizza warmin' up in the oven.”

Fuyu wasn't quite sure how her stomach would react to taking in anything else while it was so full, but she shrugged and nodded a little. “Very well.” They both went down the stairs. The rest of the day was a blur until the point where Applejack retired for the night. Fuyu also went up to her room, wrapped up in thoughts that were still fresh and unfamiliar. As she watched the shrieking thunderstorm through her window, she considered the idea of having many friends, not just one. Her brain distilled it into a very simple equation: more friends meant more kindness, and more of that feeling to slake her addiction. She frowned, however, at the thought of having to keep her secret from so many.

“I will find a way,” she resolved, lying down on the big bed. Just the idea of having to go back to her lonely life made her stomach twist unhappily. She settled in to sleep, the last noises she heard before drifting off being a loud rumble of thunder and lower, mechanical droning – a sound that was very close by. She didn't even have to open her eyes to know exactly what it was.

And On the Fifth Day...

Two more days passed, and in those two days Fuyu finished her morbid book, and read it another time from cover to cover to burn the words to her mind. Her planned doctor visit had been postponed; Twilight said she could reschedule it for whenever Fuyu felt comfortable, and she thanked the librarian for that offer. Without that to stress her, she found herself quite relaxed, working alongside Applejack and leading a strangely normal existence for once. Most of her time outside of that work was spent reading and processing her book. It turned out to be full of things she wanted to try on her next victim.

That thought brought up a problem, however: it had been nearly five days since her last meal. She was detectably hungry, but the noise from her stomach was background chatter and easy to ignore – for the moment. She turned on the lamp to check the time on the wall clock. It was just after five in the morning. She noted that taking it easy as far as the physical labor went allowed her to outlast her usual limits – or perhaps it was eating much more than she was accustomed to. Whatever it was, she resolved to keep doing it, while also wondering where Stormy was with her next delivery. She sighed lowly and glanced at the door. Usually, at this time of morning there would be audible activity from behind it, but today was a Saturday. Apple Bloom would not be going to school, and Rainbow Dash was spending the whole weekend at the farmhouse. Thinking of them didn't cause her stomach to shout, so she still had a decent amount of fuel in the tank to play with.

For the first time in all the days she could recall, she had no idea what to do with herself.

As the sun began to peek over the hills, she took up the book again and opened it. She tried to make the weaponry in its pages by honing and bending the black sludge. For blades, this was easy, but she could not match the complexity of guns; even if she could, the goo wasn't explosive and would be incapable of firing a bullet. The best projectile weapon she could manage to bend out of her palms was a longbow, and even that took a few tries. The stave was easy enough to get down, but the black sludge, when hardened, proved to be rather brittle. Even worse, she could not provide a string without linking it to her palm, as the goo lost flexibility when not attached to her and exposed to air for too long. She worked on the stave first, creating a hard outer shell, then injecting it with the sludge and sealing it before the goo could start to dry out. This version of the nascent bow bent wonderfully, and she spent the next hour testing different designs in the book. She settled on a tremendous stave that was as long as she was tall, with recurve built into the upper and lower limbs. A test pull with the new weapon and a connected ebony string caused her to smile uncontrollably with the possibilities. She could knock down someone from a long way with this. They would never even have to see her.

Before she could make any arrows, however, the house began to get noisy. She sent the bow away as she heard voices beyond her door, frowning that she hadn't yet solved the string problem. Then a thought crossed her mind:

She could buy some.

She leaned over and opened the nightstand drawer, retrieving the money Applejack had given her on the second day of her time here. After slipping on her sandals, she quietly opened the door and peeked out, discovering Rainbow Dash in the hallway just outside Applejack's bedroom door. She was walking away from it, dressed in only a white sleeveless undershirt and a pair of blue panties. She waved nonchalantly as she walked past, disappearing into the bathroom – which, Fuyu found out at that moment, was already occupied. Blinking, she wandered down the stairs and sat on the couch to wait. It took about ten minutes for someone to come down; it was Rainbow again, still dressed as earlier. She was busy with a black device in her hand, and as she sat down on the couch, Fuyu peered at it curiously.

“Pretty neat, huh,” she grinned, holding it over so Fuyu could get a better look. She had seen something like it a few times in her travels, but only from victims that had been very well off. From experience, she knew it was a phone, but portable.

“I haven't seen one in a while,” she replied.

Rainbow drew it back and started fussing with it again as Fuyu spoke, drawing her thumb up and down across the screen. “Yeah, they're still too expensive for most people to have. We've only got one 'cause we're friends with Twilight, and Princess Celestia gave 'em to us as gifts.”

There was that name again. Fuyu thought about it for a moment before discarding it and moving on. “You all have one?”

“Yep. AJ forgets about hers half the time, and I don't think Fluttershy even knows how to work hers,” Rainbow cackled a bit, turning the smartphone off and setting it on the table. “They come in handy, though. The Princess literally put up a signal tower in the town just for us – not that other people aren't using it now. Still, we had our own personal tower. Isn't that awesome?” She grinned widely at the woman in black, but again her words bounced off a blank-faced fortress wall of silence. She cringed and blinked, crossing her arms. “You sure are hard to impress, Fuyu.”

“I suppose,” she replied, glancing out the window at the fully risen sun. “I'm going for a walk. I will be back later.” She rose from the couch and strode toward the door without another word. Rainbow watched her go until point she shut the front door behind her and blinked.

“And I thought Pinkie was strange,” she muttered, snatching the remote off the coffee table and proceeding to channel surf.

The mile between the orchard and town was dealt with swiftly, but now that she was here Fuyu realized she was a bit lost. There was the not only the matter of figuring out where she could buy her precious string, but also how to go about it without seeming too awkward. She found herself smack in the middle of downtown as she searched, peering through an almost endless row of plate glass windows into shops for the item she sought. After passing a storefront whose sole offerings appeared to be ballpoint pens and sectional sofas, she grew annoyed and decided to rest a moment. She sat down on a wooden bench between two small, decorative trees and watched the people wander by. That's when it hit her. As she glanced about, she realized her proximity to what was effectively a wandering buffet line was not making her stomach all that unhappy.

“Hmm,” she muttered to herself, actually leaning back against the bench and relaxing. A few minutes passed as she took in the sights of the town at her own pace, and the whole scene caused her to smile faintly. She rarely had cause or wish to enter populated areas, preferring instead to stick to rural places where she could hide. She had to admit, however, there was something to being around people – at least when she wasn't about to eat them. Just after that thought had faded, she heard a very familiar voice approaching from her right and turned her head to look.

“Darling!” Rarity waved, strutting down the sidewalk as if it were a fashion runway. She again wore a dress, although this one was strapless, purple, and shimmered in the sunlight. There was a small white clutch hanging from her left shoulder, which bounced about slightly as she moved. “Good morning!” When she arrived at the bench, she sat down, tossing her glittering curls and smiling. “I'm surprised Applejack let you get away, she loves to work weekends. Come to think of it, I can't recall a day she doesn't like to work,” she added, smirking to herself and laying her right arm over the back of the bench.

“She doesn't know I left,” Fuyu admitted, folding her hands in her lap and looking down slightly. “I wanted to go shopping, but I didn't want to bother her about it.”

“Don't be silly! She wouldn't have been bothered by that at all,” the dressmaker said, leaning closer as she reassured Fuyu with a smile. “I can tag along, if you'd like. Where were you heading?”

That drew a frown across her face as she realized she had to admit her helplessness. She turned away from Rarity and sighed, closing her eyes briefly. “I'm not sure which store has what I want.” She looked back as the other woman got up, crossing her arms and smiling again. “What?”

“Why didn't you just say that in the first place? I'll be glad to help you find your way,” she said, shaking her head a little and looking down at the woman in black. “You can't expect to know the whole town by now, you've only been here for a few days. What were you looking for?”

“Bow string,” Fuyu replied, also standing up and glancing around. “I'm not sure where to start.”

“Bows? Oh, a bow would look stunning on you, I think,” the dressmaker said, lifting her left arm so her chin could rest on the back of that hand. “Something subtle and understated, perhaps like Apple Bloom wears, but not quite that size or color...I could make a few for you!” She blinked as the other woman shook her head and dropped her arms. “What? Why not?”

“Not a hair bow, a bow,” she clarified, making a motion as if she were wielding an invisible one. “I want to string a bow.”

Rarity's face went blank for a moment as she processed this, and it took her another to reply. “I see. To be honest, I'm not sure where to buy any of that, either.” She looked up and down the street, glancing at the various storefronts along the way until she pointed at one across the street. “That shop seems to have bows. Perhaps they have string, too?”

Fuyu followed the gesture until her eyes landed on the store. Her lips twisted in slight annoyance at the fact that she'd walked right past it. “I didn't see that.”

Rarity giggled faintly as they waited to cross the street; there wasn't much vehicle traffic despite the time of day, so this was accomplished right away. “I must admit, I've never been in this shop before. Not much appeal for a lady,” she said, lips curling at the thought of going out and killing some helpless animal with a shotgun, like Applejack did on occasion. As they drew closer, they saw a woman behind the counter talking lowly with a man in a green jacket, with slick blonde hair, on the other side of it. Neither of them paid much attention, because the second they opened the door they were struck with an odor even Fuyu blinked at. “My word! What is that smell?!” When there was no reply from the shopkeeper, they went on their way down an aisle.

Their curt glances did not catch the fact that her hands were raised, and her eyes were full of terror.

“Well, good luck, darling,” Rarity offered, blinking down the way at a collection of camouflage clothing. “My, that's an interesting pattern,” she muttered, approaching it. Fuyu allowed her to get out of sight before going in a different direction. It took her three aisles before she discovered the item she was looking for. In fact, there was an entire aisle of the string, and she found herself not knowing what to purchase. For several minutes she pondered the shelves, hands on her hips, as she tried to make sense of the packages. Off to her left, she saw the man in the green jacket walk out of her sight with the shopkeeper, but paid it no attention. Only when she heard a panicked shriek from Rarity did she look away from the shelves, moving slowly toward the end of the aisle to see what was going on. She was met at the end by the man, who pointed a gun at her and smiled coldly.

“Hey there, baby doll,” he purred, his voice smooth and confident. “Why don't you come over here with your friends for me?” She looked to her left and saw Rarity and the shopkeeper, mouths sealed with duct tape and huddled in the corner, heads just below the plate glass windows. He glanced over too to make sure they were still where he'd left them, then returned his eyes to Fuyu. “I don't want anyone to get hurt, I just want to see what's in that fat safe behind the counter.”

Fuyu cast her eyes down at the gun, then back up at his face, her face as blank as stone. “I don't like guns.”

Those words made him close his eyes and cackle for a second. “Sister, I don't think anyone likes g--”

That instant was all it took for her to smack the gun right out of his grip and send it clattering across the linoleum, where it skidded to a halt next to Rarity's polished purple heels. In an instant more, her right hand balled into a fist and slammed into his stomach; as he doubled over, she drove that hand up along his chest, catching his neck and lifting him wholly off the ground. He kicked at her as he struggled, his nails digging into her forearm, but she stared unflinchingly at him as she suspended him in the air. “I don't like guns, and I don't appreciate you pointing them at my friend,” she hissed, lifting him a little higher. Rarity and the shopkeeper were standing again, having ripped their tape gags off. The latter was calling the police, but the dressmaker was frozen, horrified and awestruck by Fuyu's strength.

“You're going to kill him! Put him down!” she yelled, finally coming to her senses. He was beginning to choke in Fuyu's iron grasp, but she showed no signs of letting him go. “Fuyu! Stop! It's over! We're fine!”

Those words finally made Fuyu look away, and she gazed at Rarity for a moment. Shrugging, she opened her hand and allowed the man to plummet roughly to the floor, where he landed in a coughing heap. She turned on her heel and walked back into the aisle, contemplating the reels of string as though nothing interesting had happened. In a few more minutes, two uniformed policemen arrived. One of these was a burly man with flaming red hair and a similarly colored mustache, and he did most of the talking.

“Finally got ya, laddie,” he scoffed, cuffing the wheezing man and hauling him to his feet. “Which of ya ladies did him in?” Rarity pointed to Fuyu, who had plucked a reel of blue string off the shelf and was examining it. “Hey lass! I appreciate the heroism, but ya'd best be leavin' the foiling of robbers to us, aye?”

“He pointed a gun at me,” she replied flatly, walking toward the counter with the reel in hand, intending to finish the purchase for which she'd come. “I don't like guns.”

The other officer was busy dragging the robber out to his cruiser, leaving the red-haired cop inside to finish up with the three women. “Ya coulda gotten hurt, lass.”

She glanced back at him as she set the reel on the counter, her eyes empty. “I sincerely doubt it.” They gained a little life again as she tried to inject them full of what her brain told her was pleasantness and looked at the shopkeeper. “I would like to buy this.”

“It's on the house,” she replied, pushing her glasses back up onto her nose and leaning on the counter. “Hell, you want a bow too?”

“No, I have one already.” She turned away from the counter with the reel in hand and looked between the officer and a dumbfounded Rarity, tilting her head. “Can we go now?”

“Not quite yet, lass,” he replied, producing a notepad. He took down statements from each of them, seeming most impressed with Fuyu's, whom he recorded last. After she related her actions to him, he gave her a hearty clap on the back and laughed.

“Come join the force!” he said, putting the pad away. “We could use the help!” He departed with a friendly wave, and Fuyu exited the store not long afterward. Rarity skittered quickly after her, heels clacking on the sidewalk as she went.

“How in the world could you be so calm?” she asked, fussing with her frazzled hair. “He could have shot you!”

Fuyu was turning the reel over in her hand as she walked, examining the blue fiber that encircled it. “I was not afraid.”

“But you could have died!” Rarity said harshly, stomping the concrete with her left heel. Not even that outburst of emotion caused her to turn around, though, and the dressmaker had to walk quickly to catch up. “And by the way, how did you even pick him up? Applejack doesn't have that sort of strength!”

The questions were beginning to agitate the woman in black, and she finally whirled to face the dressmaker. “It's over. Stop,” she said, using her own words against her.

Taken aback, Rarity laid a hand on her chest and blinked several times, automatically collecting herself in the process. She took a small breath, which became a ladylike sigh, and her face softened. “Forgive me. I just can't understand how you could be so...so unflappable.”

“Because I am not like you,” she let slip, mentally slapping herself for the leak after it emerged. Rarity was silenced again, and Fuyu, unable to think of any further words, turned again and walked away.

“What in the hell were ya thinkin'?!”

Fuyu was unmoved as she sat rigidly on Applejack's couch, having been subjected to a rather loud rant for the past twenty minutes. The blonde had asked that particular question for the sixth time, and for the sixth time Fuyu just looked up and shrugged, which sent Applejack on the same tirade all over again. Rainbow Dash – dressed, this time – was on the other end of the couch trying to watch the TV, but she couldn't hear a thing for the unhappy shouting.

“AJ, calm down,” she finally said, throwing her arms in the air and standing up. “It's not like she hasn't stopped people with guns before.”

“I get that,” she huffed, folding her arms and looking down at her girlfriend. “That don't mean she should keep doin' it. Fu, one of these days you're gonna get hurt!” They both glanced at her for a reply, but she just shrugged again. “And y'all call me stubborn. Ya could least say somethin'!”

That finally did it, and Fuyu stood up, pinning Applejack down with a glare that made the tall blonde shrink back a little. “And what would you have me do? Let him take me hostage?” she began, a scowl drawing itself across her lips. “I did what I had to do to make sure Rarity would be safe. If it is your intention to scold me for that, so be it. I will not, however, stand idle when I am absolutely certain I can prevent something bad before it even starts.” She fell back on the couch after that and looked away, blinking. She had never spoken that many words at once before, and was surprised with herself.

Rainbow and Applejack were equally astonished, their eyes darting between each other and the seated woman. The blonde, fidgety and unsure, took up speaking again. This time, her tone was far more gentle. “I'm not sayin' ya shouldn't defend your friends, I'm sayin' sometimes the best thing ta do is pick your battles,” she explained, sitting beside her on the couch. Rainbow wandered off to the kitchen, seemingly annoyed with something, but the blonde only gave her a passing glance. “I don't want ya ta get hurt, is all.”

“You're getting attached!” Rainbow called from the kitchen, head in the fridge as she rummaged.

“So what if I am?” Applejack shouted in return, looking quite cross as she took off her hat.

Their voices faded as Fuyu went to analyzing what of the encounter with the gunman she could recall, and realized she had run a long spectrum of emotion. The majority of that emotion was similar to the feeling she felt the night Stormy and Clyde were robbing the orchard, but the specter of possible harm to Rarity had brought it to a level she was totally unfamiliar with. If he had hurt her, she would have killed him right then and there. No questions asked.

It was disturbing to her, somehow. She never killed without need, and in the early days after her awakening even resisted that for a period. The thought of her friend being harmed, however, waved away a fraction of the white fog that obscured so much of her brain, revealing a wisp of something else, the fringes of a higher purpose to her existence. She wanted at once to pull that mist away again, yet knew that a similar situation would require endangering the people she found herself becoming fond of. While she considered a course of action, she barely paid any attention to the playful argument that had erupted between Applejack and Rainbow Dash, even as she came back from the kitchen and sat on the couch with them.

“All right, all right,” Applejack huffed. The tone broke through Fuyu's internal wrangling, and she looked over as the blonde continued to speak. “Look, she's a hard worker, she keeps her promises, and she'll stick her neck out for ya. So what if she's the silent type?”

Fuyu blinked at the sensation being caused by being spoken of as if one weren't there, but was. She shook it off and kept silent.

Rainbow grinned widely, swishing the cider around in her bottle as she leaned back against the arm of the sofa. “Basically, she's your brother. AJ, you're such a sucker for family, you're adopting random people off the side of the road!”

“I ain't doin' no such thing!” the blonde huffed again, folding her arms and pouting strongly.

“What?” Fuyu finally interjected, leaning forward so she could look at Rainbow around the back of the blonde. “Adopting me?”

“Aw, she's just pokin' fun at me,” Applejack explained, sitting back so Fuyu could regard her girlfriend without having to lean so far up. “Although, that does kinda remind me...” Now she swiveled to look at the woman in black with a serious expression. “I talked to my granny and Big Macintosh about ya.” She waited for a response, but seeing that none would come, pressed on. “They say it's fine with them if ya live here. It's fine with me too, so...what do ya say?”

“Permanently?” was all Fuyu could reply with. That bubbly feeling was starting to well up again, but it felt more like a tidal wave than the perky little spring of happiness she was used to.

“Well, yeah,” Applejack smiled. “Look, I don't know what all happened to ya out there, and honestly, it's up to your own wishes if ya wanna tell us. But from what I've seen, we'd all be happy to have ya around...even if ya are a bit reckless sometimes.”

“Reckless? More like awesome,” Rainbow scoffed, taking a swig of the cider and crossing her slender legs.

“Shush,” the blonde grumbled, sneaking a look back at her. She returned her eyes to Fuyu and smiled again. “I guess what I'm sayin' is...y'all don't have ta wander.”

That tidal wave was approaching shore, and it threatened to drown Fuyu's self-control. She could barely feel her limbs as she stared at Applejack. All she could sense was the widening of her eyes. “I don't have to...”

Even Rainbow sensed the gravity of the moment, and she let the smirk fall off her face as she scooted to the edge of the couch to look at her girlfriend. Applejack took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, they contained tears despite the broadening smile on her lips.

“Y'all don't have to be alone anymore.”

The wave arrived, and it swept up all the thoughts and memories in her mind, forcing them along until they streamed from her eyes as tears. She could not restrain the flow and wept bitterly, more bitterly than she ever had before. Applejack collapsed on her in a hug. Even Rainbow was moved; she soon got up and switched sides on the couch, embracing the part of Fuyu the other woman hadn't enveloped. She knew a happiness unlike anything she ever felt before, but with it came regret of equal intensity. She now knew exactly why she cried when she ate; some part of her subconscious had a faint reckoning of the pain she wrought with every meal. She did eat friends, but not hers. They were the friends of people she would never meet. She didn't have a home; she was too busy destroying them, rendering them a traumatic horror for the ones left behind. She now had the things she had spent so many years taking away and ruining.

She did not feel worthy, and it made her cry.

The combined outpouring of joy and grief was enough to crack the white fog again, and through it her mind's eye saw an unfamiliar shape. It resembled a human figure, but its outline was so vague that she had no idea what it truly looked like. It spoke to her in an equally shapeless voice, so bland and wispy that words written on a page would have more tone and form.

I am sorry.

It was the same voice with which her mind guided her in regular times, but she had never before seen its source. Unlike those times, where it offered her certainty in an uncertain existence, she found no comfort in what it spoke.

It only made her cry harder.

Hours later, an emotionally exhausted Fuyu lay stiffly on her bed, staring at the ceiling and the pall cast on it by the moonlight. Her stomach roared unhappily; the stress she'd released was replaced by an even heavier sadness, and it left her drained and weak. She was unable to think about food, though. Her appetite had been ruined by the truth.

“What am I?” she asked herself, the first time that question had ever escaped her lips. “What I am supposed to do?”

Her mind was silent.

“Hungry,” she tacked on a few seconds later, allowing her body to speak for an instant. She could barely make out the wall clock in the dim light, and realized it was after midnight. Day five had arrived, and she was starting to worry about the next meal. Sighing, she rolled over onto her stomach and closed her eyes, hoping a catnap would take her. It did, eventually, but the next time her eyes opened she sensed a problem. Something was restraining her. There was a weight on the bed that shouldn't have been. She wanted to lift her head and look out the window, but couldn't. A hard thing was jabbed into the base of her skull, and it held her face down into the pillow. Her hair was so slick and rigid, she couldn't quite figure out what it was.

“Oh, you're awake, baby doll?” a voice rang out from behind and above her, smooth and confident. “That's good, 'cause you and I need to have a talk.”

Now she knew. It was a gun.

Again.

Four On the Floor

Of all the questions Fuyu could have had at that moment, only one got vocalized: “How did you get in here?”

It drew a chuckle from her captor's lips, and he left his position, straddling her back, and slid off the bed. “Your podunk little jail can't hold me. I guess I should have listened to Stormy when she said you were a total badass.”

Her eyes went blank at hearing that name, and she shifted a little to see what was and wasn't tied up. Her wrists were bound behind her back, which wasn't a problem, but her mind said it may be best to play along until she figured out what had happened to Applejack and Rainbow Dash. After a moment she managed to roll over, and found herself looking at him as he stood at the side of the bed, still pointing the gun at her. Ignoring this, she queried her stomach; it was not yet empty enough to cause her palms to cry. Despite having some time, she didn't feel particularly patient as she sat up and glared at him.

He didn't care about her glower, and continued talking with a wicked grin on his face. “Dad told me to stay away from the orchard because of you. I don't take kindly to havin' my routine upended. We've been stealing these apples for three or four years now. Hell, I'd say there's a fine balance we've struck here, you know? They can't harvest all this land by themselves. We're doin' them a favor.”

Fuyu watched him move around to the end of the bed, the muzzle of the gun never pointing away from her. He glanced out the window, then to her open door, waving the gun in that direction. “Get up. We're going downstairs.”

“Why?” she asked him flatly, her gaze as chilly as the driven snow.

“'Cause I'm the one with the gun, sister!” he cackled, raising the weapon so it pointed at her face.

She was unmoved again, staring a hole into his soul as she sat awkwardly on the bed. “You're not the first to say that, and you won't be the first for whom it will not matter.”

That threw him for a split second, but he regained his composure and smirked again. “Fine. You might have a death wish, but I doubt your friends downstairs do. Besides, if you manage to fuck me up and I don't come back, they're gonna get it, if you get my drift.”

The hate drained out of her blue eyes; her question answered, she now went to planning. She scooted to the side of the bed and stood up, foregoing her sandals as she moved to the doorway. Satisfied, he fell in behind her, gun jammed into the small of her back as they walked. As they descended the stairs into the lit living room, she found that there were four people guarding a bound and gagged Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who were together in the corner near the door under the stairs. All of his partners were large, burly men. He sat her down roughly on the couch, and that was when she heard the quiet crying off to her right. It wasn't Apple Bloom; the young Apple was off for a sleepover at Rarity's with a girl named Sweetie Belle. She could barely see a wisp of white hair over the tall dividing counter, which caused her to blink.

“Stormy! Get your ass in here!” he yelled, plopping down on the couch beside Fuyu. She arrived a few seconds later, red-faced and weeping quietly as she tucked her hair behind an ear. “Damn, woman, why are you still crying? We've got this all wrapped up.”

Her eyes were on the woman in black, however. Her face begged for forgiveness; the fact that Fuyu didn't even seem angry only terrified her further. “I'm sorry...I had to do it, please don't kill me...”

“You are such a fucking drama queen. So what if she works out,” he said, waving a dismissive hand – which afterward went up to rub at the bruise on his neck. “She can't do shit tied up, and if she cares about them,” he added, glancing back at his hostages with a hateful smile, “then she'll do exactly what I tell her.”

“Connie, you don't get it!” Stormy said, her hands clenched into fists and sounding bitterly desperate as she stalked back into the kitchen. “All we're doing is pissing her off!”

Connie rolled his eyes at her as she went, lounging on the sofa and glancing at his men. “I don't even know why you wanted to come, you crazy bitch. You better have cut the phone line like I told you!”

“I said I did!” she yelled back, taking her seat at the table again and weeping quietly. Fuyu barely heard the words she tacked on next. “Please, Celestia, I don't wanna die...”

After that, Fuyu decided to focus on the muffled noises being made by the women behind her, using them as justification to her stomach to bide its time and be patient while she worked out some course of action. It replied that she should kill the others and eat them, something she ignored. With a light sigh, she squirmed until her bound wrists were a little more comfortable against the back of the couch, and settled in to wait. A glance up at the clock revealed it was just after two in the morning; some careful listening uncovered a stifled yawn or two.

“Man, I'm sleepy,” one of the brutes groaned, scratching his side as he walked around in front of the couch. “How long we gotta wait, Connie?”

Connie ran a hand through his hair and gave him an easygoing smile. “Relax. Once I get word from dad that they're ready to accept the body,” he explained, pulling out a phone similar to the one Fuyu had seen Rainbow carrying and waving it, “I'll kill this bitch and we'll be on our way. I'm just using the ladies back here as leverage so she don't do anything silly.”

Applejack unleashed a torrent of muffled curses through her gag, which caused Connie to snicker. Beside her, Rainbow tried to summon her magical wings, but her hands were bound in such a way as to prevent the snap that initiated the spell. They were limited to angry muttering, squirming, and shooting hateful glares whenever one of Connie's men got near them.

Fuyu was unmoved yet again at her assumed fate, having entered such a state of concentration that she barely detected anything around her. An hour passed in this foggy state, before three words from Stormy finally sparked an idea in her head.

“I gotta pee,” she said wearily, shuffling behind the couch and moving toward the stairs.

Fuyu emerged from the haze and looked back, then over at Connie. “I do too.”

He tore his eyes away from the TV show he was watching, glanced over at Stormy, then at the two hostages on the floor. “Fine. Stormy, make sure she comes back in a reasonable amount of time, eh?”

“Oh no,” she replied, whimpering and slumping as she climbed the steps. “Fine...come on...” Fuyu hopped off the couch and caught up with her as she reached the top. Now out of the sight of her cohorts, she gazed at Fuyu helplessly, expecting to meet her end. “I swear I didn't have any choice,” she said as they went, hands clasped and walking sideways as she begged for forgiveness. “I didn't think he was gonna tie them up! I thought he just wanted to shoot you!”

“I am not angry with you,” she replied quietly, moving past Stormy to open the bathroom door with the black appendage that she threaded through the rope. “I have a plan.”

Stormy's eyes lit up as she walked in after her, shutting the door behind them. “You're not gonna kill me?”

A colloquialism popped into Fuyu's head just then, and although she could not recall its source, it said everything she needed to at that moment to get the nervous thief to move on quickly. “I do not bite the hand that feeds me. Can you cut the power?” She watched as Stormy paced a tight circle on the tile, her legs tossing her long skirt as she traveled.

“Y-yeah,” she finally nodded, wringing her hands furiously. “The box was right beside the phone...I can flip the main. That'll kill the lights.” She moved over to the shower and looked at the small window. “I can fit through here okay, but how the fuck am I gonna get down?” she asked, opening it. When she turned around, a black rope wiggled in front of her face, causing her to gasp. “Shit! Don't do that!”

“I will drop you. When you're done, pull on it and I will bring you up,” Fuyu said, stepping into the shower with Stormy and gazing at the window. She wrapped the horrible thing around the thief's waist and lifted her, guiding her frame through the window. After she was outside, Fuyu used another ebony appendage to pull herself up enough to poke her head out the window. She set Stormy down on the grass and watched as she skittered to a metal box a few feet to the right, open it, and fiddle with something inside. The lights flickered, then went out entirely. She came back and tugged on the black tentacle, and it wrapped around her again. Fuyu grunted with the strain – this was about as far as she could make her awful assistants go – but in a moment she hauled Stormy back up and through the window again. There was a commotion erupting in the living room, and they could hear it as it bumbled and rambled up the stairs and to their door.

“The fuck happened?!” Connie yelled, knocking on it. “Stormy!”

“How should I know?” she shot back, cringing at the feeling as Fuyu unwrapped her waist and sent the sludge away.

“What about our little friend?”

“I am here,” Fuyu replied, making sure the ropes were still tight enough to give the appearance that her wrists were bound. Stormy felt her way around and opened the door, almost bumping into Connie in the process. He roughly grabbed Fuyu and turned her around, poking her in the back with the gun and forcing her to move to the hallway. Beams of flashlights danced around below, casting a pall glow in the living room.

“Fuck it,” Connie muttered. “You five keep an eye on them,” he directed as they came down the stairs. “I'm gonna ice this whore. If I ain't back in ten minutes, kill them.”

“Got it,” one of the men said, shining his flashlight on his watch to mark the time.

Fuyu did the same as she was made to exit through the front door, counting off the seconds by timing her footfalls. She glanced up through the branches of the trees at the sky, saturated with glittering stars.

“Beautiful night to die, ain't it?” Connie said, also looking up. “I wish you could see them like this in Manehattan. Then again, I'll trade the stars for the cash,” he added, chuckling to himself. They crested one hill, then another, and he tugged on her shoulder to get her to stop walking. She continued to count the seconds, tapping her foot as he forced her against a tree. “Good night, sister,” he uttered with a chilly smirk, placing the gun to her forehead. Before he could pull the trigger, he glanced down, noticing the ropes piled at her ankles. “The fu--”

In a flash, the heel of her hand slammed into his face, knocking him back and loosening the gun from his grip. She darted around him and grabbed a handful of his hair, driving his head into the tree trunk several times. Bleeding profusely, he tried to swing at her, but his attacks either missed or were deflected by her powerful arms. She threw him back against the trunk and bound him to it with the black sludge. Each wrist was stuck fast, both ankles were rendered immobile; she even glued him down by the nape of his neck. Once she gagged him, she took a moment to savor the fear in his eyes and smile. Logic and calculation had departed now, replaced by a feeling that was totally new. Like fear, she already had a name for it.

It was anger, and it was glorious. She felt the black goo coursing through her veins in a way that she could barely comprehend, but it petted her like a cat and made her feel incredible. She patted Connie gently on the cheek and smiled again.

“I'll be right back,” she said, looking around at the grass for the gun. She was well aware that her friends would have to watch her kill, but she also knew that the black sludge would be too much for their fondness to overcome. She found the pistol after a few seconds and tore off for the farmhouse, assuming that time was short. She lost count of its passage at about six minutes, but it took her a little more than one to get back at this speed. She slid to a stop at the base of the front steps, noting that it was still dark in the house. The flashlights seemed to be focused on the corner where Applejack and Rainbow Dash were. Through one window, then another, she could see the silhouette of Stormy pacing around the room. The front door was slightly ajar, and she crept up the steps and over to it, brandishing the pistol in her left hand.

“One more minute,” one of the men said. They were all gathered around the hostages, backs to the door and waiting. Stormy watched as Fuyu entered, but didn't breathe a word, electing to crouch down and place her hands over her ears. Rainbow's cries were loud, even through her gag, and Fuyu could faintly detect that she was begging for Applejack's life.

“Time's up,” the man said, opening his flannel shirt. Fuyu raised the pistol and fired it, punching a hole in the base of his skull and dropping him where he stood. The other three began to turn around. The second man received a bullet in the temple as he whirled, tumbling in a spiral as he fell. The third caught his lead present above the left eye, snapping his head back and causing him to fall beside the blonde on the floor. The fourth managed to turn fully and throw up his hands, surrendering and dropping his flashlight. Fuyu put a bullet in his forehead before she finally lowered the gun, walked through the dark room, and picked up one of the flashlights.

“I'm sorry,” she said lowly, shining it on Applejack and Rainbow Dash. They were huddled together and whimpering with fear, but neither could take their wide eyes off the woman in black. “Stormy, untie them and take them upstairs. I will be back directly,” she said, borrowing a word from the blonde, tucking the pistol into the waist of her pants, and walking upstairs. She heard the thief moving around behind her as she got to work, but the sound faded as she reached the top and entered her room. Once inside, she whipped a black bow out of her palms as she had the morning before, pulled the reel of string from the nightstand drawer, and strung her ebony weapon. After a few test pulls, she smiled, taking the assembled device along as she went back into the hallway. She heard an angry Applejack berating Stormy in her bedroom as she walked past, but the door was shut. When she reached bottom of the stairs, she took a flashlight off the floor and carried it outside, taking her sweet time to cover the distance to her captive. Once she arrived, he started screaming through the gag. She smiled at him again.

“Now, it's your turn,” she said, placing the flashlight on the grass so it lit up his feet and made it easier to see her target. She stepped off twenty yards as she went between trees, turned, and squirted a spike of black out of her right hand. She hardened it into something like an arrow and placed it against the string. “Let's see if I did this right.” She drew the bow and launched the spike, watching it fly in a lazy arc and impale itself into Connie's right thigh. She plucked at the string, briefly watching him thrash in pain as she produced another arrow. She fired this one too; it sailed through the night and sank into the right side of his chest. “It works.” Her stomach growled unhappily at how much of the black sludge she expended, and she walked back over to Connie, setting the bow on the grass as she reached him. Without any delay, she opened her mouth and sank her teeth into the left side of his face around his eye and bit down, pulling her head back and tearing out his eyeball along with the flesh and bone around it. While she chewed contemplatively and listened to the noise that filtered through the black gag, she could not help but smile. She swallowed, sucking the dangling optic nerve through her lips like a strand of spaghetti.

“There's something to be said for playing with your food,” she admitted, opening her mouth and moving in again.

An hour later, all that was left of the blonde criminal were his clothes and the phone in his pocket. Fuyu dumped the former in the river but kept the phone, and was walking back to the farmhouse after ensuring she wasn't a bloody mess. It had started ringing on the way, and she didn't know how to silence it. It fell quiet on its own soon enough, but as she entered the house it rang again. The living room was empty, so she wandered past the dead bodies and up the stairs to put away her bow before checking on her friends. It was oddly quiet behind Applejack's bedroom door, and at first she thought something was wrong. She pushed it open to find the couple seated on the bed. Stormy was holding them at gunpoint, with a flashlight in her other hand.

“Sorry,” she whimpered, lowering the pistol as Fuyu entered. “This was the only way to keep them up here.”

“It's fine,” she nodded, sitting beside Rainbow. She glanced up and saw unreadable looks of emotion on their faces. They couldn't even move to hug her, and were unable to shrink away. “Are you all right?” While waiting for an answer, she tossed the phone to Stormy, who fumbled with it before looking at the screen.

“Yeah, I guess, but I've got some questions that need answerin',” Applejack finally uttered, standing up off the bed and taking a few steps forward. “Do y'all two know each other or somethin'?” she asked, looking between Stormy and Fuyu.

The thief squeaked nervously, staring up at the towering blonde and trembling. “I was trying to take your crop when she ran me off. I ended up leaving the truck.”

Applejack folded her arms and glared down at the white-headed girl, scowling as though she wanted to punch the woman. She stayed her hand, however, and took a breath. “Why are y'all so afraid of Fuyu?”

“Pl-pl-please don't make me answer that,” she begged quickly, the color draining out of her cheeks.

That was all the answer the blonde needed, and she turned to face Fuyu with a gravely serious look on her face. “This ain't the first time, is it?”

“I defended myself from her partner,” she replied flatly, glancing at Rainbow. She was shaking, hunched over with her head in her hands.

“Th-this is so fucked up,” she finally whimpered, revealing her tear-soaked face and looking at the three of them. “Your living room's full of dead people that were about to kill us, Fuyu's like some sort of fucking ninja assassin out of my Daring Do novel, I don't...I don't know what the fuck to think!” she said anxiously. Applejack strode back to the bed to sit and embrace her with one arm, whispering something into her ear to calm her down. It didn't work, and Rainbow turned to look at her. “It's not okay, damn it! I feel so weak next to her...” There were some more quiet words from the blonde, and Rainbow again hid her face as she returned to her doubled over position.

“All right,” Applejack said, standing up once more. “We gotta do somethin' about the dead folks in my livin' room before Bloom gets back in a few hours.” She looked at Stormy with hostile eyes. “Y'all best get outta here.”

She stood up and gazed at the door for a moment, but took no steps toward it. “I can't go back without Connie, I'll be a dead woman...”

“Ain't my problem,” the blonde spat, moving out of the room. Rainbow was crying quietly, and Fuyu had no idea what to do. She too rose and began walking, but paused to look at the thief.

“Go fix the power, then wait on the porch,” she whispered, glancing back at Rainbow before walking out into the hall. Applejack was at the bottom of the stairs, hand on her forehead and in awe of the carnage behind her sofa. “I'll move them,” she said as she walked down, eyes passing over the corpses.

Stormy darted past, and both women afforded her a brief look as she flew out the door. She watched as Fuyu walked over to the closest corpse, sizing him up to lift him. “Wait! We gotta call the cops!” Applejack moved to intercept, getting between Fuyu and her prospective cargo.

“The phone line was cut,” she reminded her, looking down and staring at the blood on the wooden floor. “We can't use your phone.”

“Nah, but I can use that fancy one the Princess got for my birthday. I'll be right back,” she said. Before she could get moving, the lights came back on. “Huh. I was wonderin' how y'all did that...”

“It was my idea for Stormy to cut the power,” Fuyu said, moving to the couch to sit down. The TV and receiver came back to life, and she found herself watching some sort of late night infomercial. Applejack ascended the steps without saying anything else. After she had gone, Stormy popped her head through the front door.

“I, uh, didn't actually cut the line,” she grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck. “Your farmer buddy's gonna be unhappy if she catches me out here...”

“I will deal with her,” Fuyu replied, looking back and up the stairs. “You might wish to hide. She is calling the police.”

Stormy blinked, then looked down in her hand at Connie's phone as it began ringing again. This time, she answered it. “Hello? Oh, hi boss...uh, well...” Fuyu stared at her as the conversation began. “Where's Connie? Well, you see, he's kinda...” Stormy paused, took a comically deep breath, and then let rip. “Connie's dead. She killed him. She killed the other guys too. No, I saw her kill them. Why didn't I stop her?” She looked and Fuyu and shrugged. “Because she would have killed me too.” She put her free hand on her hip and glared off as the discussion kept going. “Look, you want revenge? You get it. I'm done with this. I don't know why I'm not dead right now, but I'm not gonna keep testing fate. What? Yeah, I am way more afraid of her than you. Yeah, fuck off.” She hung up and stuffed the phone in her shirt pocket, suddenly blanching as she realized what she'd just done. “I told him to fuck off! I am so dead!”

“I told ya to get outta here!” Applejack growled, stomping down the stairs with the orange phone in her hand. She had dressed hastily, her shirt untucked and lacking her hat. “Nah, stay and get arrested. Y'all deserve it, ya damn thief.” She took a series of steps toward Stormy, her gait threatening and fists clenched, but the dainty thief stood her ground.

“He's coming. My boss, I mean. To kill you guys,” she said, stopping the blonde in her tracks. “Yeah, I'm warning you. It's not like I want to steal your stuff, but I don't want to end up at the bottom of a lake wearing concrete shoes, either!” she railed on, entering the house fully and plopping down on the couch beside Fuyu. “Sure, I'll go to jail. Least I won't have to worry about getting killed there.” She folded her arms roughly and frowned.

“Suit yourself,” Applejack replied, making a disgusted face every time her eyes passed over the bodies. “I wish they'd hurry up so they can get these guys outta here.” She went outside onto the porch to wait for the police.

“Man, she must hate me,” Stormy sighed, covering her eyes with her right forearm and leaning back against the sofa. “Guess I can't blame her.”

“He's coming here?” Fuyu asked, her mind on more important matters. She was stuffed to the gills with flesh, and felt rather sleepy. Once or twice, her eyes slid shut, but she shook herself awake and tried to encourage the black goo to work faster. “When?”

“I don't know, I didn't ask,” the thief replied sarcastically, moving her arm and looking out the window. She could faintly detect the flashing lights through the trees as they approached, and sighed once again. “On second thought, screw jail,” she muttered, standing up and walking toward the kitchen. “I'll come back when the heat is off.” Fuyu watched her walk out the front door and sneak past Applejack, who had her back turned as she was on her phone, through each window in succession. Once she had gone, Fuyu walked out to stand with the blonde, just in time for three police cars and a large dark blue van to arrive. Officers piled out of the cruisers and moved quickly to the steps.

“They're in here,” Applejack said, waving them through with her hand as she continued her phone conversation. “No, Big Macintosh, we're all fine,” she said, looking down at the phone briefly. “She...she did what she had ta.”

The coroner walked past next, a mousy headed woman with glasses and sad gray eyes. As soon as she had surveyed the scene, two officers came back out to start the interview process. Applejack went first, having to cut her phone call short.

“Where do I even start,” she grumbled, sitting on one of the porch swings. “I was sleepin', next thing I know, this thin blonde guy is pokin' me in the face with a nine millimeter,” she began, running a hand through her unruly hair. “He has these two guys tie me and Rainbow Dash up – I tried ta punch 'em but I couldn't do anything – and then he brings us downstairs. Said he broke out of jail just ta settle a score with Fuyu,” she concluded, nodding to the woman when she sat on the swing beside her. “She can tell ya the rest.”

“I woke up already bound by the wrists,” she said, taking up the tale and crossing her arms. “He lead me at gunpoint down the stairs and held us while he waited for a phone call. The power went out, then he took me outside to execute me. I managed to free my hands and strike him, take his gun, and flee. When I returned to the house, his partners were about to murder my friends, so I shot them all with his weapon.”

Applejack's face twisted slightly at Fuyu's last words. She looked up at the cops with worried eyes. “Is she in trouble?” They all looked as another car with flashing lights arrived, this one an unmarked vehicle. Two men in suits got out and came up onto the porch, nodding politely as they entered the house.

“I doubt it,” one of them said. It was the same cop from the hunting store, and he flashed a reassuring smile at Fuyu. “Don't ya worry, lass. If this all checks out, why, we'll chalk it up to justifiable homicide,” he said, slapping closed his notepad and placing it in his pants pocket. “By the by, I'm serious about ya joinin' the force. You're a hell of a shot.”

“There's something else,” Fuyu said, brushing off his compliment. “There was one more woman with them. She said his father would be coming for revenge.”

“She got away, eh?” the cop asked, peeking back through the open front door. “I'm afraid we may not be able to do much there. Mayor's not terribly interested in the territory outside the city limits.”

“She will if I end up gettin' killed and the Princess hears about it,” Applejack spat, her words dripping with venom. “Ain't fair, Flannery! She gets to levy taxes on my land and I don't see a damn whit of the benefits!” Angry, the blonde got up and stalked to the other side of the porch. “I just want my house cleaned before my sister gets home. Can I at least get that?”

“I'll see to it,” he nodded, entering the house again with his partner. Fuyu walked over after they had gone.

“You know him?” she asked, noting the name by which she had called him. She glanced into the house again each time someone walked past the doorway.

“Everyone does. He's the chief of police,” she replied, her face full of weary anxiousness. “Do y'all see Rainbow in there anywhere?”

Fuyu peeked into the house again and shook her head. “No.”

“Shoot, she must still be freakin' out upstairs. I'd better go see to her,” the blonde sighed, entering the living room and trying to navigate the bustle. The coroner asked for stretchers just as she made the stairs, and Fuyu watched her go until she walked out of sight. She turned her eyes to the cars parked out front, their lights casting alternating red and blue glows on the countless trees that surrounded them.

“This won't be the last mess that needs cleaning,” she murmured, remembering Stormy's warning. She turned on her heel and walked into the house.

The Calm

The living room of the farmhouse was deadly quiet, save for the quiet whimpering of Apple Bloom as she sat and clung to her older sister, but at least it was pristine again. An emergency meeting of sorts had been called by Twilight Sparkle, and every one of the six women was in attendance. Rainbow sat beside her girlfriend on the sofa, Rarity and Pinkie Pie occupied the two chairs on each end of the couch, and a nervous Fluttershy sat to the left of the former in a chair brought from the kitchen. Twilight did not sit, electing instead to pace in front of the TV. Fuyu herself occupied the couch on the other side of Applejack, her gaze affixed on the sobbing young girl.

“I should call the Princess,” Twilight blurted out, her Mary Janes clacking on the wood floor as she paced. “She can give you a place to stay in Canterlot until this all blows over.”

“She's got more important things ta worry 'bout,” Applejack protested, gently stroking Bloom's hair as she wept. “Who knows if anything's even gonna happen? I'd hate ta bother her 'bout nothin'.”

“I can't think of many things more important than the life of someone you care about,” Twilight shot back, her tone hard and unyielding. Her face softened in apology quickly after, and she whirled again to begin the next leg of her pace. “Fuyu threw down the gauntlet to whoever this man is, and if his underlings are any indication, he'll answer her challenge as violently as he can.” All six of them turned their eyes to the woman in black as she looked up and glanced between them.

“I did what I had to do,” she said quietly, clasping her hands in her lap and feeling uneasy. She knew that statement was only eighty percent correct; what she had done to Connie was not at all mandatory, save for the actual eating.

“I'm not challenging you on that,” Twilight said gently, ceasing her walk and trying her best to be reassuring. “We all appreciate what you did. I'm afraid that it's going to invite more bloodshed, that's all I'm saying.” There was a muted murmur of agreement from everyone save Rainbow and Applejack. Seeing that she needed additional convincing, Twilight came over and sat directly in front of her on the large coffee table. She smiled at Bloom when the girl looked over, but gave her older sister a grave stare. “Applejack, you can't risk it. And I know you wouldn't, especially for her sake,” she said, pointing lightly at the young girl. “I have to be sure you're safe.” She looked over at Rainbow, who wouldn't make eye contact at first. “All of you.”

“I'm not scared,” the athletic woman blurted out harshly, glaring at the librarian and scowling. Twilight withdrew in surprise, and that scowl faded into regret. “If Applejack doesn't want to go anywhere, then I'm not going anywhere either. If something happens, at least it'll happen to us together.”

“That's ridiculous!” Rarity protested, leaning up in her seat and pointing a bejeweled finger at Rainbow. “Are you so damned and determined to go down in a blaze of glory that you'll ignore reason? Ignore the people that love you the most?”

“You don't understand what it was like!” Rainbow shouted back at her, standing up and taking a step in her direction. “I was helpless! I thought I was about to watch her die in front of me and I couldn't do a damn thing about it!” The emotion began to pour from her in waves, and she crumpled to a knee, weeping.
“I've never felt so useless in my entire life...”

Apple Bloom handled the outburst poorly, clapping her hands over her ears and sobbing harder. Applejack frowned down at her and whispered something Fuyu could not hear. Her words drew a nod from the young girl, and the blonde rose, carrying her in her arms and walking up the stairs. Twilight watched them go with a sigh before rising and putting a hand on Rainbow's shoulder. To her surprise, she found the woman was shaking.

“Rainbow, it's okay,” she said, leaning down, but Rainbow would have none of her sympathy.

“No, it's the most not okay thing ever,” she countered, standing up and rubbing her eyes with the back of her forearm. She looked over her right shoulder and saw Fuyu's icy blue eyes staring at her, which caused her to frown slightly. “I'm not saying that I blame you,” she clarified, turning to face her. “I'm saying that next time, it won't depend on you. I'm going to make sure of it.”

Fuyu had no reply. Even if she had, there would have been no time to utter it, as Rarity emitted an exasperated sigh and began to speak. “You're right, I don't understand. That does not, however, mean you have to make it up by getting yourself hurt, or worse,” the dressmaker said, ending her point with a stiff look. “If you simply must insist on having yourself a last stand, at least let your friends help you!”

Applejack, who had been quietly listening from her perch halfway down the stairs, interjected. “I don't wanna see y'all get hurt,” she said, slowly descending the steps with her hat in her hand. “I don't know what I'd do if somethin' awful happened while y'all were tryin' ta help me.”

“How do you think we feel?” Pinkie suddenly blurted out, standing up and placing her hands on her hips. “If something super terrible happened to you guys, I...” she trailed off, wilting and staring at the floor, “I don't know what I'd do.”

Twilight could sense an argument brewing, and she moved to quell it. “Listen, I'm not saying you have to leave town. Just stay with one of us for a few days. We'd all be willing to let the four of you crash at our places, right?” she asked, looking around as she sat on the coffee table again. There was a murmur of agreement from Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy, but as Rainbow and Applejack took their seats on the couch again, their faces said they were still not convinced.

“That would put whoever we ended up with in harm's way, if anything even comes of this,” the blonde said, shaking her head. “I couldn't ask that of y'all.”

The librarian's hands clenched into fists, and her face warped into a mask of frustration. “Applejack, you're as stubborn as a mule.” She rose and walked away from the table, coming to a stop near the large counter that divided the living room from the kitchen. Her back was turned to the others, and she folded her arms while thinking. When she faced them all again, there was a frown on her lips. “Won't you at least consider it?”

“I ain't hidin' from nobody,” the blonde said gruffly, wrapping her left arm around a still sniffling Rainbow Dash. “If someone wants ta start somethin' with me, well, I'll see to it that it gets finished.”

“B-but we don't want you to get hurt,” Fluttershy said meekly, almost hiding in her baggy yellow shirt. “Pl-please?”

Fuyu had been chasing the discussion around the room until it reached the shy woman, and at last her silent question had been answered. For her, there was no doubt as to the course of future events, but she needed to know which of the four possible choices would be the best to set her plan in motion. That choice was Twilight; she was by far the strongest of the gathered besides Fuyu herself. The woman in black stood up abruptly, causing Rarity to fall silent before she could speak the first word of her agreement with Fluttershy.

“You all should stay with Twilight for a few days,” she said, her tone as hard as steel. “I will handle this.”

“And who made ya the boss?” Applejack replied unhappily, standing up and facing her down. Her green eyes stared into those frigid blue pools. What she saw in them made her uneasy, but she would not be dissuaded from deterring Fuyu from what she viewed as a fool's errand – even if she had just insinuated she would do the same not an hour earlier. “What are ya gonna do, stay here by yourself and meet 'em at the door?”

Fuyu gazed hollowly up at the blonde, her tone as chilly as her eyes. “That is exactly what I intend to do.”

“Not you too!” Twilight groaned, throwing up her hands and walking back to the gathering. “Why are you all so insistent on being lonely heroes?” Applejack and Rainbow only gave her fleeting glances, but Fuyu pinned her down with a gaze that rattled the librarian's spine. She took a couple of steps back upon seeing it, placing a hand on her chest in surprise. “Fuyu? A-are you all right?”

“Convince them, however you must, to stay with you for a while,” she stated, walking past her to the mantle. Mounted above it on a pair of brass hooks was the shotgun Applejack brandished the night Stormy paid her first visit. It was a side-by-side pump action beast, fitting for the task of protecting the endless boundaries of the Apples' sacred land. She took it down and held it in her hands. Like Connie's pistol and her makeshift bow, it felt natural, an extension of her own body capable of projecting force for a distance not even the black sludge could match. While it was cumbersome even for the sturdy blonde, in Fuyu's hands it was a tool, an implement to impose her iron will. After a pause she turned around to face their stares, the gun cradled in her arms like a child. “I do not seek to go out in a blaze of glory,” she began, resting the barrel of the gun on her left shoulder as she spoke, “I seek to end this, once and for all.”

“And ya call me stubborn,” Applejack said aside to Twilight as she moved over to Fuyu. “Sugarcube, this is our fight, if there's a fight ta be had,” she said, placing a firm hand on Fuyu's empty shoulder. “This land has been in my family since my granny's granny walked it. Ain't nobody gonna chase us off of it for no reason, revenge or not.”

“It's not about hiding, damn it!” Twilight shouted, causing Fluttershy to squeak with fear and cover her head. “It's about not putting yourself at risk unnecessarily!”

Applejack removed her hand and growled, unable to stifle her anger any longer. “They can pry these apples from my cold, dead, hands,” she said, pointing out the window. “Mom and dad left us this place to look after 'til the day we die! Ain't no fuckin' thieves gonna scare me into doin' a damn thing!”

“Pl-pl-pl-please don't yell,” Fluttershy whimpered, hugging herself tightly. Rarity moved to comfort her while Pinkie, clutching the arms of her chair, had the most uncomfortable look that Twilight had ever seen on her face. The librarian took a long breath to calm herself before again trying to reason with the farmer. She did not get the chance.

“I am not asking,” Fuyu said, peering up once again at the blonde's face. “I will repeat what I said to Rarity; I am not like you. I am not like you in ways you cannot even begin to imagine. I do not intend to go down in a blaze of glory.”

“F-Fu,” Applejack stuttered, stepping backwards from the woman in black. Fuyu's tone had grown harder and darker with every word she spoke, and the farmer had finally been shaken to the point of speechlessness. The others were equally as uncomfortable. Even Rainbow was silent, red-eyed and stuffy.

“You have given me many things. You gave me kindness, you gave me friends,” she said, pausing briefly to look around at all of them. “You gave me things I did not know existed. You gave me...you gave me life,” she added, frowning lightly. She still felt undeserving of those gifts, but resolve took over and restored her rigid edge. “This is my home now, just as much as it is yours. Allow me the chance to defend it.”

“But ya don't have ta do it alone,” Applejack replied, almost pleading. She was acutely familiar with this sort of intensity; she felt it occasionally, and when she did there was no stopping her from whatever she intended to do. “Apple Bloom can stay with Twilight, but I can't leave. And if I don't leave, then Rainbow's not gonna go either.”

“Damn right I'm not,” she confirmed, crossing her arms and looking at the blonde. “I want a little payback.”

“Ugh, we're just going in circles,” Twilight groaned, falling on the couch and rubbing her eyes.

Fuyu looked down at the shotgun in her grip for a second before setting it back on its mounting above the mantle. She turned to Twilight and folded her arms. “Do you have room for them?”

“Well, yes,” she replied, uncovering her eyes and nodding. “Not that it does any good.” She frowned at Rainbow sitting beside her, but only got an annoyed glance in response. “You're seriously going to stay here, aren't you?”

“Yep,” Applejack said curtly, striding into the kitchen and opening the fridge. “Bloom can go with ya, but I ain't goin' anywhere.” Twilight groaned at those words and covered her eyes again, and a silence fell over them as the meeting reached an impasse. Fuyu, glancing over each of the six women in turn, frowned.

And then she decided to break the stalemate herself. “You told me once that the apples were not worth dying for,” she called, addressing Applejack as the blonde rummaged in the refrigerator. That stopped her cold, and stiffly she leaned back up, shutting the door and turning around. The awkward look on her face told Fuyu that she had struck a nerve, and she kept going. “Did you mean they were not worth my death? Will Apple Bloom believe they are worth yours?”

Silently, the blonde mulled over those words, walking back into the living room and sitting beside Rainbow on the sofa. Her eyes were deeply thoughtful, and for several moments she stared out the nearest window. When she finally started looking around again, her expression was a little sheepish. “I guess I hadn't thought about it like that...”

A wide smile spread across Twilight's face as she stood. She gave Fuyu a thumbs up before addressing Applejack. “You're coming, then? Please say you're coming.”

“I still don't feel right about leavin'...” the blonde grumbled.

Rainbow's demeanor was changing as Applejack's did, and she rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. “I don't either,” she added. “And what about Fuyu? She's in just as much trouble as we are.”

They all looked over at her, and their gazes were met by a frigid mask. She was about to open her mouth and speak, but the white fog parted again briefly. As it had so many times before, her mind stepped in and guided her in a time of worry. She would never admit it, but the prospect of meeting a possible army of thieves concerned her. There were limits to her durability, and although she had yet to test them, she knew they existed. That formless figure gave her eight words to soothe her worry – even if they also served to confuse her. It was an epiphany out of nowhere, another fragment of the thing hiding behind that white mist. She couldn't help but repeat the sentence out loud.

You will do what needs to be done.

“Fufu, that sounds kinda scary,” Pinkie said, walking over with her hands clenched and raised to her chest. “Do you mean...”

She glanced back at the gun, then over at Pinkie. The silence bore her answer, and the air became extremely uncomfortable. Twilight prepared to argue again, but one stiff look from Fuyu killed her words before she could even get them out. “I will be here when you get back,” she stated flatly, addressing Applejack one more time. She walked away from Pinkie and past the couch, going up the stairs without another word.

“I'm not going to convince you to come, am I?”

Fuyu shook her head as she sat in the center of the bed in her room. Twilight was seated on the edge, looking at her with a light frown. The impromptu meeting had broken up several hours ago, but she stayed behind to help Applejack and Apple Bloom pack for their stay at the library. She also remained to convince the woman in black to tag along, but her invitation met a cold wall of denial. She sensed something else too, something in that eerie calmness, but couldn't put her finger on what it was. Therefore, she decided to offer something else instead.

“Well, if you need us, these are the numbers for our phones,” Twilight said, fishing a piece of paper out of her blouse pocket and handing it over. Fuyu took it and looked over the writing, tucking the paper into her jeans pocket when she had finished. “If something happens, don't hesitate. And don't get yourself hurt, okay?”

“I will not get hurt,” she said, glancing up as Apple Bloom went past the open door with her red book bag.

“Have you done this before?” Twilight asked, fidgeting nervously. “I mean, having to kill people?”

Fuyu was anxious at last, unsure how to answer the question without exposing more of the truth. Upon realizing that this particular part of it was already out of the bag, she decided it wasn't worth worrying about and nodded. “Many times.”

“What happened to you out there?” the librarian asked, her words dripping with sympathetic curiosity. She didn't push any further, and a moment later Applejack appeared in the doorway.

“We're 'bout as ready as we're gonna get, I guess,” she said, hands shoved in her jeans pockets. This was as unsure as Fuyu had ever seen her, and the look bothered the woman in black. “Fuyu, ya sure you're not gonna come? I can't ask ya to stay here and watch over the house by yourself, I...” She fell silent, and tears began to stream from her eyes. “Why are ya doin' this? Ya barely even know us and you're layin' down so much on our behalf!”

“That is what friends are for,” Fuyu replied, almost automatically. Applejack walked over and almost fell on the bed, embracing her on the way down. Fuyu hugged her back and sighed, her face bumping into the brim of her hat. Apple Bloom moved by the open door a second time, and upon seeing this also came over and clamped to Fuyu in a hug. “It's all right. I'll see you in a few days.”

“Y'all are somethin' else,” Applejack chuckled, pulling away and wiping at her eyes. “I can't ever repay ya for this.”

“Then we are even,” Fuyu said, blinking down as she found herself stroking Bloom's hair like her sister. “Is there anything you want me to do while you are away?”

The blonde raised up again, shaking her head and fixing her hat. She slid off the bed and turned her back on them for a moment, taking a long breath to compose herself. “Twilight'll be by to check up on ya in the mornin'. Fu...” she trailed off, turning to look her, “...be careful.”

Apple Bloom was breaking the embrace as her older sister spoke, and Fuyu let her go while nodding one more time. The two Apples departed the room, leaving Twilight with the woman in black. When they were gone, the librarian emitted a small sigh of her own.

“I have to admit, I don't really know what to think of you,” she said, placing her hands on her knees. “It's odd. You remind me of my brother, in a way.” She paused, looking back at Fuyu, but when she said nothing Twilight continued on. “He always tries to protect people. I think that's why he joined the Army. I mean, you're not as outgoing as him, or quite as friendly, no offense,” she added, chuckling a little, “but that's okay. I can't thank you enough for this. You might be a little different, but you're still a wonderful person.”

“What did you say?” Fuyu asked, looking up. Twilight's last statement yanked her out of her mental haze, and she wanted to be sure she heard the words correctly.

“You might be a little different, but you're still a wonderful person,” she repeated, shifting on the bed to face Fuyu a little more. The look on her face caused the librarian to become concerned. “What's wrong?”

She swiveled her hands to stare at the red marks on her palms. “Am I?” she asked out loud, directing the words at herself more than Twilight. She blinked when the other woman grabbed her hands gently.

“Yes, you are. If you had to do things like that...” She paused, frowning and glancing away briefly. When she looked back, her eyes were sad. “I know there was a reason. The country's not safe in some places, I hear the Princess talking about it all the time. If you had to defend yourself, then you had to defend yourself.”

It was Fuyu's turn to appear sad; Twilight's assumption was the opposite of the truth, and it made her frown. After thinking it over for a moment, she decided it was no less optional. She did have to eat, after all. “I suppose I did what I had to do.”

Over, and over, and over again.

Twilight squeezed her hands, detecting the change in Fuyu's demeanor, but didn't speak for a long while. “That's over now,” she said firmly. “I'm not going to pry into your past any further, if you don't want me to. When this is all over, we'll help you start a new life here in Ponyville.”

Fuyu tried to smile, but couldn't make the expression appear. “I'm not sure I can,” she replied solemnly. Now she was beginning to project into the future, and wasn't sure how long she could keep her secret from the six of them. For the first time, she was frightened of returning to the lonely existence she knew for so long.

“Of course you can!” Twilight replied, a wide smile on her face. “We'll all help you.”

That smile finally arrived, but it was much weaker than Fuyu intended. Twilight leaned over and also gave her a brief hug before sliding off the bed and standing. “Well, I guess I'd better get going too,” she grumbled, stretching her arms high above her head. “I'm serious about those numbers. Call us if you need us. Any of us. All of us,” she stressed, her eyes darkly serious.

“I will manage.” That was all her plea got out of Fuyu, and after a curt goodbye, the librarian walked out of the room. As the noise of her shoes faded down the hallway, Fuyu rose from the bed and went to the window. She saw the two Apples piled into Twilight's car, Applejack in the front and Bloom directly behind her. After a few moments, Twilight appeared, getting in. Another moment more went by and they were driving off, the blue compact leaving a meager trail of dust behind it. The house was now hers. She wandered down into the living room and sat on the couch, unsure of what to do next. Ten minutes went by while she lost herself in thought.

Then there was a knock.

Fuyu went over and opened the door. Behind it was the smiling face of Stormy, who presented her a flat black semi-automatic pistol, holding it by the barrel so she could take the grip. She grasped the gun after a second and blinked at the thief, who walked right past her and flopped down on the sofa. “What are you doing here?” she asked, shutting the door and returning to the couch.

There was a light shrug and a wide grin. “I said I'd be back when the heat is off.”

Her question unanswered, Fuyu tried again, crossing her arms and looking annoyed. “Are you here to steal something?”

“Are you nuts?” Stormy exclaimed, leaning away from her and staring. “You'd kill me if I did!”

“You are correct,” Fuyu nodded, turning the pistol over in her hands as she sat. She gripped it in her left hand, savoring the sensation of it. “Did you steal this?”

“Does it matter? I figured you could use the extra firepower, even if you have that weird black stuff. What is that stuff, anyway?” Stormy looked curiously at the mark on Fuyu's right hand while she examined the pistol. “Is it like, some sort of freaky magic?”

The question was dodged entirely. Fuyu put the pistol beside her on the couch and looked at the thief. “You still haven't explained why you're here.”

“I...I didn't know where else to go,” she admitted sadly. A strange smile appeared on her face soon after. “I'm tired of other people writing my story for me, you know? From now on, Stormy Skies is gonna take the pen.” She slumped over and sighed, cradling her head in her hands. “Even if it is the last chapter...”

Fuyu didn't know how to reply to that assertion, so she ignored it and changed the subject. “I am not sure Applejack will appreciate you staying.”

Stormy raised up, tossing her white hair aside as she looked over. “Hey, you think she'd let me work here? I'm gonna need a job at some point.” The look on Fuyu's face caused her to frown deeply. “Guess not. Welp, I'm gonna go find something to eat.” Off she went to the kitchen, whistling a tune as she walked. Once she opened the fridge, she made a face at the wares inside. “Sure is apples in here. Guess I should have expected that.” Fuyu did not share the light laugh; she was still getting acquainted with the pistol in her hands. “I'm just gonna sleep on the couch, okay? I swear I won't steal anything.”

“Very well.” Fuyu stood up and slid the barrel of the pistol into her jeans pocket. Her tank top wasn't long enough to cover it, but she saw no use for the element of surprise. “I am going to take a nap.”

“Cool, I'll uh...something,” Stormy replied, gazing at a bottle of the sparkling cider. She opened it and took a drink. “Hey, this is pretty good!” Silence met her words, and she turned to look back into the empty living room. “Right. Never mind.”

When Fuyu came down the stairs again two hours later, she found Stormy snoring loudly on the couch with the remote on her chest. After moving her legs aside to sit down, she looked out the window at the fading sun. Through the tree branches, distant clouds gathered in the western sky. Her time on the couch was very brief; she got up and wandered back upstairs, entering her room to get the black bow. She brought it downstairs with her and went outside, checking to ensure no one was around before forming a black spike out of her right palm. Her intent was to do some target practice, but she didn't know what to shoot at. There were apples on all the trees nearby, but those were just now ripening and would soon be harvested for sale. Grass crunched lightly under her bare feet as she walked, searching for something to shoot at. After a minute, she discovered several crates full of apples that were unsellable. These were pockmarked with bad spots, or had holes in them from where they'd been pierced by worms. She reached in and grabbed one, tossing it straight up into the air. It took her more time to break the makeshift arrow off of her palm than it did to aim the bow, and as the fruit plummeted toward her face, she fired the hard sludge into it.

“Hmm,” she murmured, surprised at her accuracy. She retrieved the arrow and repeated the process, flinging an apple straight up, and targeting it as it hung briefly in the mostly cloudy sky. Her shot was true again, and the fruit crashed to the ground with the spike impaled in it. After the fifth shot, she felt someone behind her and whirled, bow drawn and ready to attack.

“Whoa!” Stormy yelped, hands raised above her head. “It's me! Don't shoot!” After the bow was lowered, she straightened her hair and walked up to stand beside the woman in black. “What are you doing?”

“Practicing. I want to be ready,” she said, launching another practice apple into the sky and firing at it. When this shot found its target, Stormy let out a long whistle of approval.

“Nice shot,” she said, picking up the fruit before Fuyu could get to it. She removed the black lance and poked at it, the tapping of her fingernails causing the hard substance to emit a crisp, sharp noise. “Sounds like rock. This stuff is weird.” She screamed briefly as a dark appendage reached out to take the thing away, then marveled as it shed its rigidity and became flexible like the rest of the mass. “That was awesome! I wish I could do that.”

“No you don't,” Fuyu assured her, hurling another target skyward. Stormy gulped a little, but didn't press the issue.

“Okay...why aren't you practicing with the pistol, though? It'll do more damage than this. No offense,” she said, watching another successful attempt. The black arrow stuck into the ground as it landed, nearly driving itself into Stormy's right foot. “Whoa, careful!”

Fuyu walked over to retrieve the arrow again. “I have more ammunition than with the gun. I am saving it in case something happens.”

“Oh, I can guarantee something's gonna happen,” she muttered unhappily, folding her arms as she glanced off into the distance. “Hey, that reminds me!” She reached into her cleavage and produced two clips, handing them to Fuyu as she stood up fully again. “Here's some extra. You know, if he should bring a bunch of guys.”

Fuyu stared at the clips, then at Stormy before placing them in her pocket and moving a few paces away. After a few more practice shots, Stormy couldn't keep quiet.

“Do you think we're going to die?” she asked, anxious and fidgeting as she stood.

A smile appeared on Fuyu's face as she drew her bow. “You might,” she said, pausing to fire the shot. “But I won't.”

The Storm (I)

Stormy was the one that met Twilight at the door when she arrived for her check up, and the resulting commotion attracted Fuyu's attention as she read on her bed. Once she arrived in the living room, she found the thief ducked behind the couch with her head poking out, while Twilight's right hand was lit up with raspberry colored magic.

“I found a burglar!” she said, glancing up at the woman in black as she walked over. “Quick! Tie her up!” The magic enveloped the nearest dangerous object, which was an empty bottle of the sparkling cider Stormy left on the coffee table. “Don't you dare move! I'll break this...” she fell silent as Fuyu sat down on the couch, looking around for the remote so she could watch the morning news. “Um, Fuyu? A little help with the thief, please?”

Her plea was ignored until the woman in black finally plucked the remote from between the couch cushions, turning the TV on. Only then did her blue eyes fall on a confused Twilight. “It's fine, put the bottle down.”

“This chick is nuts!” Stormy whined, suddenly raising her hands. “Look! I don't have a gun! Turn your magic off!”

“What do you mean it's fine?” Twilight asked, her eyes locked onto the thief. She whipped the bottle at her to get her to back up, but didn't launch it – yet. “Stand right there! I'm watching you!”

“I haven't moved a muscle, you lunatic!” she yelled back, hands still up in the air. Fuyu glanced between them and poked at the bottle, which rested in the air about two feet from her right cheek. “Do something before she knocks me out!” she added with a yelp, making an unhappy noise when Twilight threatened her with the bottle again.

“She's the one that warned Applejack. Let her be,” Fuyu said, a touch of grumpiness entering her tone as she watched the weather. It was due to rain again; to confirm that, she peered out the window and looked for the dawn. It hadn't yet come, despite it being a few minutes after seven. “Hmm...” Twilight and Stormy continued to jostle with each other at couch width until Fuyu grabbed the floating bottle and yanked on it, causing Twilight to wince faintly. “You are both getting on my nerves.”

“Okay, fine,” the librarian huffed, setting the bottle with a glassy clank on the wooden table. After a flash of thought, however, she snatched it back up and returned it to its ready position. “Wait, if she's the one that warned Applejack...that means she was the girl working with them! She's dangerous!”

“She isn't dangerous. She knows better than to test me,” Fuyu said lowly, shifting around as she realized she was sitting on the pistol. She drew it from her waistband and set it on the table.

“Why do you have a gun?!” Twilight gasped, stepping back with her hands over her mouth. “I thought the police took them all as evidence!”

“I brought her one!” Stormy's happy chirp turned into a frightened squeak as Twilight magically swung the bottle and tried to smash it over her head. “The fuck?!” she shrieked, diving behind the couch.

“I'm calling the police!” Twilight said as she backed away toward the kitchen, all the while staring at the couch as though it would turn into a raging dragon at any moment. With a sigh, Fuyu rose from her seat and walked past the librarian, beating her easily to the cordless handset and taking it away. “Fuyu, what are you doing?! She's dangerous! She probably has a shotgun under her skirt!”

“Are you stupid? I don't keep a piece there, ever!” Stormy yelled in protest, although she remained out of sight.

“No one calls me stupid,” Twilight growled, stalking back into the living room. Both hands were lit up with magic, and she glanced around for something substantial to beat the thief with that wasn't nailed down or too valuable. Fuyu moved ahead of her and stopped in her path, grabbing her wrists and holding them firmly. “Let me go! She's going to shoot us!” The grip got a little harder, and the magic flames vanished from her palms. “Y-you're hurting me...” she whimpered, trembling just hard enough for Fuyu to detect. She released the librarian and took one step away, folding her arms.

“It's fine. Please stop arguing with each other,” she said flatly, looking over as Stormy peeked above the back of the sofa. “She will behave, and she certainly won't shoot us.”

“Y-yeah, I'm being a good girl,” she said with rapid nods as she stood up all the way and put on her most pleasant face. “I'm on Fuyu's side! I swear!” She gulped at the look Twilight sent her way and clasped her hands pleadingly. “Honest! I'm trying to get out of this whole criminal life thing!”

“I don't believe a word of it, but fine. If you take even a napkin holder off the kitchen table, you'll answer to my magic and Applejack's fists, understand?” Twilight hissed, pointing a finger at Stormy and glaring as hatefully as she could manage.

“If I wanted to steal something, I'd have done it last night. I'd be fucking gone by now. Damn, why are you such a hardass?” Stormy said, exasperated to her limits as she moved around Twilight to sit on the couch.

“Four years in the Canterlot Academy will do that to you,” Twilight fumed, turning her back on Stormy and grumbling as she looked out the window.

“Boo hoo, poor little rich girl couldn't hack it at her fancy school,” Stormy countered, almost singing the words as she waved her hand around sarcastically. Twilight whirled and nearly lunged at the thief, but Fuyu immobilized her with the first genuinely angry look she'd ever seen on that pale face.

“Did you bring me anything to read?” she asked, her voice low and stern, as the librarian's stance softened.

“Yes, I just picked out a random lot and brought them along,” she replied, taking a seat in the end chair furthest from Stormy and eying her with bitter disdain. “I would have brought them in, but she answered the door and surprised me.”

Stormy shot her a middle finger while rolling her ochre eyes. “Oh, get over it.”

Twilight's hands balled up into fists, but she stilled her anger with a long, drawn out breath before continuing. “I didn't know what else you liked, so I kind of grabbed books off shelves as I was getting ready this morning.”

“That's fine,” Fuyu replied, watching as the story of her exploits yesterday appeared on the news. “Hmm.”

Twilight watched too, blinking with mild surprise. “They're still covering that?” As they looked on, the story turned to Mayor Mare's failure to provide the police with a budget sufficient to help patrol past the town limits. “Wow. Looks like you've gotten her in trouble, Fuyu.”

“I suppose.” Abruptly she rose from the couch and walked toward the door. “I am going to get the books.”

“Hold on, I'll unlock the car.” Twilight got up and daintily moved past Fuyu, leaning out the front door and pointing the fob at her vehicle. It emitted a happy beep, and the doors opened with a faint click. While Fuyu went to retrieve the books, the librarian peered at the pistol on the table, then at Stormy. “I'm still watching you.” She received another middle finger for her effort. “Ugh!”

Obscured by a large stack of books, Fuyu returned to the living room a few moments later, setting them on the table beside the gun and grabbing the one off the top. “Another Daring Do novel?” she asked, blinking as she turned the book over to look at the back cover.

“Oops, I think that one is Rainbow Dash's,” Twilight said, walking up and looking at it herself. “I'd better take it back before she thinks I stole it,” she added, giggling a little. When Stormy also chuckled, however, the librarian fired a nasty gaze at her.

“What?” the thief asked, hands raised a little. “It was funny!”

Twilight set the book down and slammed her hands onto her hips, looking for all the world like an angry schoolteacher. “No it wasn't! Stealing isn't funny!”

“Then why did you laugh?” Stormy countered, a wicked grin on her face as she crossed her arms.

“Ugh!” Twilight stalked away into the kitchen, muttering a series of colorful words under her breath.

Fuyu paid no attention to either of them, instead looking at the selection of text the librarian had brought for her. The next book on the stack was a cookbook, which caused her to frown slightly. She moved that one aside and discovered another Daring Do novel. While Stormy and Twilight fussed back and forth between rooms, she sat down and started reading it. As she turned the pages, she felt her brain being stretched again, but in a different way from when she laid eyes on How To Kill Without Joy. The text here invoked imagery, and there was dialogue to tickle at her mind as she tried to figure out what each character sounded like. Before long, she became acutely aware of how stilted and robotic her own speech seemed at times.

“I will throw this oven at you!”

Twilight's enraged words punched through Fuyu's concentration, and she set the book in her lap. When she turned her head to see what was happening, she saw Stormy pointing the pistol at the librarian, while raspberry flames surrounded Twilight's hands once more. Sighing, Fuyu slapped Stormy in the back of the head, which caused her to drop the gun, and took it away. “Stop it.”

“It's her fault!” Twilight protested, pointing a glowing finger. “Didn't you hear her call me all of those awful things?”

Stormy stuck her tongue out at the woman before countering her assertions. “Excuse me, but where I come from 'bookworm' is a compliment!”

Fuyu smacked the thief in the back of the head once more, but this strike was somewhat lighter. “Stop being ridiculous,” she warned, then looked over at Twilight. “And you, stop being so...” Fuyu frowned when she realized she didn't have a word for what she was doing, so she had to substitute one in. “...you.”

“I need to go anyway, Applejack wants me to find Winona and bring her back to the library,” Twilight grumbled, dismissing her magic and walking toward the front door. “She isn't going to like this.”

“Tell her I'm sorry! Really!” Stormy called. This time, Twilight was the one using the middle finger. “That's not very cool, man.”

“It will be fine,” Fuyu assured her coldly, taking up the novel again.

An uneventful day passed, but as the dim light of the cloud-choked sun began to die over the hills, Fuyu found herself with a problem. She walked down the stairs and into the smoky living room with a completely blank expression, trying to see through the haze. Once she found her way into the kitchen, she saw Stormy knelt down before the open oven, waving her hands and coughing.

“What happened?”

“I tried to bake,” Stormy replied, coughing so forcefully she could barely get the words out. “I failed.”

Wordlessly, Fuyu wandered past and opened the window over the sink. The fog was sucked out by the high wind outside, and she looked up and out at the threatening skies. Rumbles of thunder bounced around above, but no lightning reached the ground while she watched. After a moment she turned back to Stormy, who had shut the oven door in an attempt to quell the rolling tide of smoke. “Sometimes the oven does not work.”

“Coulda used that knowledge about an hour ago,” the thief muttered, shedding the apple decorated oven mitt onto the counter and departing for the living room. Fuyu followed her, and outside when she went through the front door. “You probably weren't even hungry, were you?” A flash of realization darted across her face and she quickly turned to the woman in black. “You're not hungry, are you? Pl-please don't eat me...”

“I am fine,” she replied, her gaze locked on the swirling tree branches. It was faintly brighter on this side of the house, but the broken cloud deck above was being swallowed by a ghastly gray beast of a thunderstorm. The air was still humid and thick, but the approaching tempest was sucking it up via the thrashing wind and cooling things off fast. “It's going to rain.”

“Really?” Stormy replied in perfect deadpan, arms crossed as she watched the gale beat the apples off the trees. “I hadn't noticed.” Just after she fell silent, the world flashed a pinkish white. An ocean of noise rolled in and crashed against the house, so loud that the thief dropped to her knees with her hands slammed over her ears. “Fuck!” she shrieked, hardly loud enough for Fuyu to hear over the retreating rumble.

“Let's go in,” she advised, not having moved a muscle during the entire affair. Stormy scrambled along after her as she went back to the living room, covering half the distance on her knees. Once she got to her feet, the forward momentum caused her to get tangled up in her long skirt. She fell through the doorway with a squeal, prompting Fuyu to go back and literally pick her up off the floor. She was dropped unceremoniously on the sofa while Fuyu went to check the condition of the oven.

“Ow,” she whined, rubbing at her shins. Another lightning strike rattled the house, causing her to squeak loudly and cover her head. “I hate the south! I wanna go home where it just snows!”

Fuyu shut the window and walked back into the living room, taking a detour to shut the waving front door. She then sat on the couch, looking at the evening news on the TV. “Tornadoes?”

“Fuck me running,” the thief wailed, hiding her face. “If the boss doesn't kill me, nature will!” She removed her hands and looked around. “Is there a basement here?” She frowned at Fuyu's shaking head. “And we're in a house on top of a damn hill. Great!”

A dull roar faded in over their heads as the rain began, and the occurrence of lightning grew much more frequent. While Stormy muttered fearfully about being done in by the weather, Fuyu continued to watch the weather coverage without uttering a peep. A particularly close strike rattled the house so hard that Stormy fell off the couch and rolled under the coffee table, screeching a series of obscenities that did not cease for almost ten minutes.

“Calm down,” Fuyu said flatly, leaning just enough to the side to look under the table.

“F-f-f-fuck you!” Stormy replied, stuttering badly. She soon realized she was wedged under the heavy table and began to grumble. “Uh...I'm stuck.” Fuyu stood and lifted one end of it, allowing the thief to roll out and bump against the couch with a light grunt. “Thanks. Damn, you're strong.”

“That's what everyone tells me,” she replied blankly, sitting and watching the TV once more. Stormy fell quiet, content to huddle in the opposite corner of the sofa, shaking and hugging her legs. It continued to grow darker outside as the rain poured, and within an hour it was truly night. The house shuddered and creaked with every assault of wind, and Fuyu had to raise the volume of the TV to hear it.

“I'm genuinely scared now,” Stormy squeaked, eyes darting around at every noise she heard. Abruptly, she burst into terrified laughter. “A girl named Stormy afraid of storms! Ha!” Another bolt of lightning came, and she yelled unhappily over the thunder. “I wanna go home!”

Then the lights went out, and the thief screamed again.

“Damn it damn it damn it damn it,” she repeated, spitting out the words. Fuyu could barely hear her fumbling in her clothing for something, and a few seconds later a flame appeared in her hand. She held a silvertone cigarette lighter, and the orange plume cast a weak glow on her face as she moved it closer. “H-hey, use th-this and go f-find a flashlight or a candle, or s-s-something,” she begged, moving it over toward Fuyu. She took it and stood, going upstairs to her room where she'd kept one of the flashlights from the night before. As she pulled it out of the drawer of the nightstand, she glanced at the window and saw a glow that was not lightning. When she reached the window, she found a car pulled up out front, its headlights shining through the deluge onto the barn. Another burst of pinkish light revealed that it was a svelte black sedan. Bristling, Fuyu rapidly moved away from the window and reached under her tank top to draw the gun. She snuffed out Stormy's lighter and left the flashlight behind as she crept down the hall, stopping at the top of the stairs to peer down into the patchy darkness. She saw the front door swing open and four trenchcoat wearing shadows enter, and a moment later Stormy was beginning to shriek with fear. The thief was soon lit up with beams of light. A woman with intensely blue hair and green eyes was the easiest for Fuyu to see; she had Stormy by the collar of her t-shirt, holding her in a half-standing position over the couch with a gun to her forehead.

“H-hey Candy,” the thief greeted weakly, hands high over her head. “H-how's it g-g-going?”

“I've no time for your small talk,” Candy replied, her voice saturated with hate. “I want the bitch that killed Connie!”

“I bet! Aha...ah...hadn't you two just started dati—ow!” she yelped as Candy jammed the gun into her skull. “She's here! She went upstairs!”

The beams swept to the stairway and lit up the woman in black. Braced against a bolt of lightning, she could see Candy drop Stormy, and her three partners all raise their weapons in her direction. Candy still held the thief at gunpoint, but her flashlight was also directed at Fuyu.

“Drop the gun and get your ass down here!” she ordered, wrapping her finger around the trigger, “Or else!”

Fuyu did the first, releasing the pistol and sending it clattering down the steps. She did not do the next. Before Stormy could start begging for her life and Candy could end it, however, she threw herself off the staircase and slammed into the blue-haired criminal, landing on top of her. The force sent them both across the coffee table, and they tumbled to the floor on the other side with Fuyu still on top. Candy's help barely had time to look, much less react, and by the time they turned she was emptying her clip into Fuyu's torso.

“Heh, that's what you get for trying to be a hero,” she snarled, her words shaky with adrenaline. A second went by before she realized the body had not fallen onto her, and she glanced from side to side at the pale arms still holding the woman in black upright. “Wh-what the...”

Her partners opened fire next, and Stormy dove onto the floor as their bullets flew over the sofa. Like a big cat, Fuyu darted around the room, whipping out flexible lengths of the black sludge as she flashed in a curvy path around an end chair and back toward the stairway. When she reached them, they were trying desperately to reload, and she laid into them with living swords of ebony. The other woman in the group had her head lopped off; Fuyu grabbed it with a black tentacle and threw it at the nearest man as he fumbled with his gun. It bounced off his face, and she ducked under it to stab him in the throat after she closed the distance. The last man actually managed to reload his weapon, but Fuyu used his bulky partner as a shield, walking the dying man along in front of her as he screamed and fired uselessly into him. When she heard the hollow clicks, she dropped the corpse and lanced him through the right eye with a spike of black, sending him to the floor shortly after.

“She's running!”

Stormy's words caused Fuyu to turn, just in time to see Candy disappearing out the front door. Fuyu gave chase, ignoring the sensation of the black and bloody ooze as it ran down her torso and soaked into her jeans. They emerged into the teeth of the storm. She could hardly see through the rain, relying on the frequent lightning to provide glimpses of the blue-haired woman as she clumsily ran down the muddy path. It took her a minute to realize that a small glow was coming from her hand as she went, and a minute more to realize why it seemed so familiar.

It pressed itself to her ear. She was calling for help.

Fuyu needed to move faster than even her powerful legs could carry her. She began to launch black ropes with hooked ends out ahead, anchoring them into the ground and retracting them quickly back into herself. The effect was like a grappling hook, and she began to shoot over the ground until the point when the angle of the ebony lengths was too steep to permit her to keep recalling them without pulling the hook free. Finally, she used both ropes at once and flung herself at Candy, getting just close enough to launch a sludge snake that tripped her and caused her to drop. As Fuyu got to her feet and ran to her while she lay on the ground, she picked up the final line of her conversation.

“Don, help! She's a monster! She's a--”

It was ended with a midnight blade to the neck, which Fuyu slashed across and withdrew, stepping away from the squirts of blood. She watched Candy lie there and gurgle uselessly for a while, then had the notion to pick up her phone. It was still making noise as she held it to her ear.

“We are not far behind you,” said an older man whose words were laced with an accent she had never heard before. “Candy? Can you hear me? We are coming!”

Grumbling, Fuyu flicked the black phone away and began stalking up the path, wincing slightly with every step. She paused and turned back around, looking at Candy's corpse in the muddy path. She went back over to it and picked it up, carrying it over her shoulder. “I had better eat while I can,” she muttered, blinking as the rain became something colder and harder. It was hailing, and the ice drew tiny pricks of pain as it slammed into her bare arms and face. She ran up the path, grimacing at the dull thud of pain in her abdomen as she went. She finally reached the safety of the front porch, dumped Candy's body on the wooden boards and started stripping her of her clothing. She had just bitten into the skull when Stormy came outside.

“Fuck!” she yelped, slamming into the door frame as she tried to turn and go back in. Helpless, she sank to her knees and began to cry. “I thought you weren't hungry?”

“I will not pass up a free meal,” she replied with a mouthful of brain, swallowing it so the sludge could use it as precious fuel. It was already hard at work, pulsing through her veins and causing her torso to throb as it surrounded the wounds and began to rebuild the damaged tissues. As she ate, a bullet popped out of her stomach and got trapped against the fabric of her tank top, causing her to itch. She reached under it and pulled it free, tossing it away as she hacked off Candy's left arm. Stormy was too horrified to return indoors, but her weeping was only background noise for the raging, flashing symphony that engulfed the orchard. By the time she was done, only the bloody clothes of the thief remained. Fuyu sat back on her calves and belched loudly, expelling a long cloud of red mist. “The bullets are heavier than I am used to,” she admitted out loud, picking up the one that she had secreted and tumbling it in her fingers. She threw it aside again and looked at the clothes; upon realizing she still had Stormy's lighter, she went about burning them, walking out into the intermittent hail and retrieving a metal bucket from the barn she could use to hold them. When they were ash, she dumped the bucket off the porch and let the storm do the rest.

“What have I gotten myself into,” Stormy cried as Fuyu walked past her into the dark house. Not knowing what else to do, she rose and followed the woman, sniffling and rubbing her nose as she went. “Seriously, what the fuck are you?!”

“I am something else,” she replied, harkening back to the words Applejack had left just before she departed with Twilight yesterday. She placed a hand over her aching stomach and smiled faintly, enjoying the sensation of the black goo at work. That smile disappeared when she remembered that their problem was not yet over. “More are coming. I heard an older man with a strange accent on Candy's phone say so.”

“Oh shit, that's him! That's the boss,” Stormy said, pacing around the coffee table and trying to ignore the bodies piled behind the sofa. “He hardly ever handles business himself. Then again, you did kill his son...”

“Do they all have guns like this?” Fuyu interrupted her, pulling another bullet from under her tank top. She handed it to the thief, who held it for only a second.

“.45 cailber? Probably. He's got a bunch of guys and girls he uses as a bodyguard. They all get bigger guns than the rest of us.” Stormy's voice grew more even as she spoke, and after she went silent she fell on the sofa again and let out a long sigh. The thief had finally run out of fear. “Did that actually hurt? Getting shot, I mean.”

“It does, and doesn't,” Fuyu replied, rubbing her belly slightly. “It's dull. It probably doesn't hurt me the same way it would you.”

“No fucking kidding,” Stormy laughed, squeaking reflexively as more thunder rolled past. They became quiet and listened to the storm while Fuyu healed and Stormy contemplated the encroaching end of her existence. After an immeasurable while, Fuyu stood and went behind the couch, snatching a flashlight off the floor to shine up at the apple-shaped wall clock. It was just after eleven. After she turned the beam off, she realized it was less noisy than it had been just a few moments before, and walked back to look out the nearest window. The lightning was still frequent, but the rain had almost ceased. The wind, too, was still, and an uneasy feeling hung in the air.

“Is it over?” she asked, turning back to Stormy.

“I dunno,” she shrugged, rising from the couch and also walking over. “I heard from Ruby one time that if it just stops raining, a tornado is coming.” She gulped hard after those words, peering outside and straining her eyes. “It's not even windy anymore! Something's wrong...”

They walked out onto the porch, where the only noise left to greet them was the gentle rustling of branches. The bolts of lightning were becoming fewer and farther between, and with the longer periods of darkness, Fuyu could look toward where the dull glow of Ponyville's lights would be. She saw nothing; they too were in the dark.

“Why is it so cold now?” Stormy whined, hugging herself and rubbing her forearms. Drizzle occasionally blew in, sprinkling them with chilly mist. The air was crisp and fresh, nothing like the humid soup that had swamped the orchard earlier. As they glanced around, even the gentle breeze died. “Uh...I don't think I like this,” she added, backing toward the doorway.

Before Fuyu could reply, her eyes detected light that should not have been there, weaving and dancing through the battered limbs of far away trees. The first one she saw was followed by another, then another, until ten dusky yellow glows seemed to be weaving their way through the hills. They grew brighter, and it didn't take long for Stormy to point out the obvious.

“That must be him,” she said wearily, her tone implying that she was almost happy for the fact. “It was nice knowing you, believe or not. Thanks for sparing me and all that, even if I'm about to get bullet-fucked by half of the Manehattan Mob.”

“Get the shotgun from the mantle and go upstairs,” Fuyu ordered her, walking to the top of the front steps. Just as she arrived, a fierce gust whipped the trees into a swaying frenzy.

“What are you gonna do?” Stormy asked, knowing full well the answer but still unable to believe it. “Are you serious? You're just gonna...”

“Do what I told you to do!” Fuyu yelled, and not entirely because another round of thunder swept over the countryside. Stormy squeaked her obedience and turned, unsteadily wobbling through the doorway. “And thank you for the food.”

The thief heard those extra words and stopped, looking back and staring for a long while at her. “Y-yeah. I...uh...good luck, Fuyu. You really are something else.” With those words she was gone, and Fuyu heard her retrieving the shotgun and running up the stairs through the open door.

“Something else,” she repeated lowly, opening her hands. Black blades slid out from her flesh, edged on both sides and as long as daggers. By now, the glows had become clearly defined headlights, wandering through the trees in a convoy of vehicles as they peeked out at intervals from behind the hills. Fuyu walked down the steps and onto the slippery grass.

The wind began to howl again as the woman in black trudged down the muddy path, moving to meet the enemy.

The Storm (II)

By the time Fuyu reached the lead car, the rain was driving sideways through the air in sharp, short bursts. She saw ten black vehicles of different sorts, mostly sedans and coupes, but the rear was brought up by two SUVs. When the driver saw her in the path, he stopped the car and gave hand signals to the three people riding with him. They all got out, and quickly afterward the other vehicles began emptying. In moments, she was facing down over forty people with guns she'd never seen before. They had longer barrels, and several were equipped with drum magazines. As she glanced around, one man began to walk through the crowd. He was holding an umbrella, and by the time he reached the front of the pack, Fuyu had a fair idea of his identity.

“It was you?” he asked, his accent as thick as the rain in the air. His hair was salt and pepper and short, and he had a mustache. He was clad in a tailored, black pinstriped suit with a white shirt and red tie, and his gold cufflinks glittered in the headlights. “Well?”

She said nothing, instead busying herself with analyzing the scene. There were far too many of them for her to tangle with head on, and she wished she hadn't left the pistol on the stairway back at the farmhouse. When her eyes rested again on the Don, he spoke a third time.

“You killed my only son,” he said, reaching his empty hand out to the side. A lackey skittered up with a wooden box, which he opened and retrieved from inside a gun. The Don took it and pointed it at Fuyu, cocking the hammer with his thumb. It was a gold plated revolver, and it shone fiercely in the yellow glow. “This was to be his birthday present,” he said, his voice growing dark and angry. Another bolt came, and she could see the bitter hatred in his gray eyes. “Now it will be the instrument of my vengeance!”

He wasted no time in firing a shot, and Fuyu dove to her left, tearing across the path and toward the nearest row of trees. Behind her, she heard a yell to open fire, and all manner of ammunition flew at her as she ducked behind a trunk. Quickly, she checked herself for hits and found herself to be unscathed, although as she patted around another bullet from earlier expelled itself from her flesh. She muttered unhappily as rounds struck the wood behind her, and with the next flash of lightning pursuers became apparent. She took off again, trying to string the group out as much as possible.

“Bring her to me!” she heard the Don command loudly. “I want her alive!”

Three people were the closest to her as she ran. She lead them on a wild chase through the trees, never going in a straight line for more than a second. Occasionally, a bullet would strike the trunk next to her as she weaved about, but after a couple of minutes the shooting stopped.

“Where the hell did she go?” the woman of the bunch asked, her machine gun against her shoulder as she aimed it around.

“I dunno, just keep your eyes open,” a young man replied, brandishing twin pistols as he scanned his surroundings. Not ten feet away, Fuyu peeked out from behind a tree and loosed two swirling snakes in their direction, running them through their skulls and dropping them where they stood. The third member of this little group had his back turned, and had no idea what had just happened.

“I guess Stormy was right about this chick, huh?” he asked, waving his gun around in random directions. “Guys?” As he turned and saw them on the ground, Fuyu darted out into the empty space and slammed her bladed palm into the side of his head, snuffing him out in an instant. She was unable to rest, however; voices clamored all around her, and dozens of beams of light pierced the rainy dark. She stuck around only long enough to grab the dead woman's machine gun off the grass before moving on again. It wasn't long before she ran into a group of five more, walking beside each other in tight formation with their weapons pointed out in all directions.

“Stay frosty,” a tall man said. “I don't care if he wants her alive, I care more about staying that way myself.”

Fuyu leaned out from behind a trunk as they passed by and sprayed them with the machine gun. She was stunned momentarily by the immense recoil, but her grip tightened up and dampened the shaking enough for her to devastate them efficiently. The noise brought attention, however, and she had to start running again as incoming fire arrived. She encountered a group of four after about a minute of evasive maneuvers, almost running into them head on. She sprayed them too with her stolen weapon, and for reasons she had no time contemplate let out a maniacal laugh in the act. The remainder of his forces were beginning to hone in her location, and upon looking back she found over a dozen of them now following and shooting at her. Two bullets found their mark, and she slid behind a tree to rub at her bleeding shoulder. The rain came again, a driving, bitter assault of flying water that reached her even under the branches. Soaked to the bone, she found her body fighting both the wounds and the cold. The dull encroachment of exhaustion began to fray the edges of her mind.

“This is bad,” she murmured. Two people came around the trunk to engage her; she unloaded several rounds into the woman on the left, while the man on the right met his fate at the end of a black spike through his neck. Fuyu ran again, peeking back and grumbling at the increasing numbers. It seemed like they were all on her trail now, hollering and shooting and adding stress to her weariness. She took to pointing the gun over her left shoulder and shooting it at random, listening for hits. Based on the yelling, she wounded at least three, but their return fire was a withering wall of lead and brass. She had to hide again after taking three more bullets, panting heavily as she pressed herself against the tree. “Very...very bad,” she groaned, the pain wandering through her body in slow, unrelenting waves. They had her surrounded, and were coming around the tree in pairs and threes. Fuyu raised up and started shooting them as they appeared, or lancing them with writhing black ropes, but a few managed to shoot her. They finally stopped coming, but the damage had been done. She dropped to one knee, gasping for air.

“Isn't she caught by now?” she heard the Don say, his voice approaching. It gave her an idea. There was a sizable pile of corpses that she had dispatched; she decided to bury herself and hide until she could recover. It took all her waning strength to lift the bodies enough to insert her frame into them. Just after she fell still, muffled footsteps reached her ears.

A man spoke. “Holy hell! She's killed half our guys, chief!”

The Don replied. “I do not care, I want her found at any cost!”

Fuyu very gently shifted around in the pile, wincing at the pain that continued to flood her senses. The bullets were indeed the heavier caliber, and they were doing a number on her despite the black sludge's best efforts.

A woman chimed in next. “She must have run again. Damn it! We'll never find her in this rain!”

“I will have your heads if you don't! Get to work!”

Fuyu noticed she was face to face with one of the people she'd killed, and without a second thought bit into his cheek and began chewing. She would need the energy. As the bloody taste filled her mouth, her stomach took over and began guiding her hands. She still managed to be quiet, slicing off inedible clothing with black blades, but she ate like she'd never eaten before, tearing chunks of muscle out with her bare hands and ramming them into her mouth as fast as she could. She only paused once in a while to take a painful gasp of air. By the time she had stuffed herself to the point of vomiting the crimson mess back up, she ceased moving at all and laid there, listening for signs of what was happening outside of her flesh fortification. It was absolutely quiet; so quiet, she was suspicious. Suddenly, a scream came and went, growing and fading in volume in the space of twenty seconds. More footfalls went by, heavy and numerous. People were running. After they vanished, she poked her head out of the pile and looked around, her face and hair soaked red with blood. Nothing out of the ordinary presented itself at first until she realized it had stopped raining. The tree branches were statue still.

“What?” she whispered, swiveling her head around. A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, casting a pinkish glow for miles. That's when she saw it.

The giant, rotating cloud.

People came flying past her, throwing away their weapons and running for their lives from the roaring tornado. Fuyu yanked herself free of the victims and began to follow them. Even in her weakened state, she was still faster than most of the Don's people on foot, and as she caught up to each in turn, she thrashed a bladed whip against their heels to sever their Achilles tendons and send them tumbling to the ground, shrieking in agony. Normally she would have let them be on their way, since they weren't actively shooting at her. To her surprise, the attacks came almost as easily as reflexes. Her sympathy had exhausted itself.

In short order they were all on the path again – what was left of them, at least – and they were piling into the closest vehicles in an attempt to escaping the oncoming cyclone. Fuyu's eyes darted about until they landed on one of the large SUVs. She saw the Don getting into it, slamming the door and screaming something she could not decipher.

“No!” she hissed, summoning what sludge she could spare and molding it into items which resembled ancient caltrops that stuck to her palms. She launched herself at the vehicle with one mighty thrust of her legs and threw the spiky things at the right side tires, puncturing them. She landed with a harsh thud on the roof, and slammed her palms down onto the metal to glue herself to it.

You will do what needs to be done...tornado or not.

She nodded firmly at her mind, gritting her teeth at the inertia transferred into her arms as the SUV began to roll. It didn't get far, only making most of a u-turn before its right side rims sank uselessly into the muddy road. She could hear the Don yelling at the top of his lungs in some language she didn't understand, but the raging wind quickly became her greater concern. The lumbering gray funnel bounced along the hills, and in the scattered lightning she could see the trees and shingles and who knew what else swirling in its grasp. For an instant, she worried about Stormy, but the tornado was coming from south of the farmhouse. She could only hope it still stood; even if it did not, she had business to attend to.

“This ends, now,” she wheezed, inhaling a mighty breath and dismissing the glue from her palms. She rubbed the roof and placed her ear against it, trying to figure out where in the car he was sitting. She determined he was almost directly under her, but to the left, and sent all the available sludge to that hand to form a spike hard enough to pierce the steel and kill him before the storm arrived. The act caused her to wail in agony as the black buffer between the pain and her mind left, but she concentrated on the soothing tone of the formless figure that lived in her head.

“Do...what...” she struggled, sliding her hand back in place time and again as the swirling gusts knocked her around on the roof. “Needs to be...”

Those were the last words she uttered before another ragged claw of lightning showed the angry funnel barreling right at her. Wide eyed, she loosed the black sludge and glued herself to the car, wrapping her hands, arms, and torso completely in the ebony gunk. The car soon slipped the bonds of gravity, tumbling upward into the air. Even if she had the inclination to scream, the tornado wouldn't spare her the air. Objects of every shape and sort flew by as the car flipped and spun. She saw a cow zip by, nearly colliding with the car as it went. Sections of roofs of all sorts shattered as they were flung around by the air. There was another car; Fuyu compared it against those of her friends as it approached and then departed in slow motion, rotating lazily like a top. It was green, and a truck. Under any other circumstance, she would have sighed with relief. Telephone poles came by in waves, like giant wooden darts that twice narrowly missed recording a bull's eye on the SUV. All the while, lightning flashed, warped and twisted into a white and pink swirl outside of the rotation. Forever passed, then passed again, until the flying sensation left. Falling took over. As they emerged from the cloud, a lightning strike informed Fuyu that they were on the other side of the highway from the orchard, a vast space with sparse trees and endless, tall grass.

They were also plummeting roof down.

She could only guess at how high they were above the ground, using the spotty light from the storm above her to determine when to attempt her leap of faith. After one more finger of electricity streaked across the sky, she went, sucking all the goo back into her with a loud slurping noise and pushing herself away from the roof of the tumbling SUV.

She detached too early, falling through the air like a stone for several seconds. It was too dark for her to attempt to fling a black rope at the ground to reel herself safely in, and even if she could gauge the distance she lacked the strength to launch the implement. All of the sludge was rolling around inside, stationing itself in preparation for the catastrophic injury it – and she – knew was coming. The SUV landed first, emitting a massive crunching noise as it slammed into the earth. Fuyu met the ground three seconds later, landing back first on the grass.

The white mist of her mind vanished, replaced in totality by a gaping maw of black.

At first, Fuyu didn't understand what the little glittering dots were that were scattered all over her sight. She didn't pay them much attention at first; right now, her main concern was figuring out what worked and what didn't. The black goo had forced all of its mass around her ribcage, spine and brain, absorbing the impact and shooting out of her palms like a spring uncoiling. The two tentacles entered her vision, waving uncertainly.

“Hello,” she breathed, smiling. She then turned her eyes back to the odd little dots. “What are you?” Her head tilted to the side a little, partially in curiosity, and partially because her mind wanted to know if her neck actually still functioned. As her body ran a self-check, the answer appeared. “Stars...”

The storm had moved on, leaving a crystal clear sky behind it. To Fuyu's left, the dawn was beginning to blue the sky, but its arrival was still an hour away at least. She squirmed as the sludge left its protective station around her most vital parts and began to flow, recalling the tentacles automatically to assist. That motion revealed to her that her legs and arms were completely shattered; all she could was lie on the wet ground and move her head to look.

“Pain,” she breathed again, her smile fading into an agonized frown.

You are hurt.

“Please help me,” she begged the voice, not knowing what else to do. Her eyes darted about and eventually fell on the obliterated SUV, lying in a crumpled heap off to her right. Something was moving around near it – something human-shaped and weeping. “Friend?”

You are weak. You need to eat.

“Hungry,” she wailed in response, barely even conscious of the noise she made. The sludge rebuilt her arms first, nearly from scratch, and she used them to lift her upper body into a stiff sitting position. The human form approached her.

“Shit,” it said, revealing itself as a woman as it knelt down by her. “Are you okay?”

“Everything hurts,” Fuyu whined in reply, trying to work the stiffness out of her new limbs. “Who are you?”

“See that car over there?” she said, thumbing back over her shoulder. “I was in that thing! Can you believe it? This has to be a sign or something,” she rambled, standing up again and running a hand through her green hair. “I'm going home to Trottingham and ditching this mob thing. The Don's dead, what do I care? I'd rather be in my sister's print shop. Seriously...how did I survive that shit?” She paused, looking down at Fuyu and gasping. “Sorry! Fuck, I am so high on adrenaline I can't even see straight. Are you hurt bad?”

A choking noise was all that escaped her lips. The black goo was rising up, leaking from her mouth at the corners, then flooding out and forming into a thicker version of the appendages that she could produce from her hands. The woman screamed with terror and turned, but the thing shot out and attached itself to her back, reeling her in as she thrashed and cried.

“You will be the new me,” Fuyu droned, her voice warped as if two of her were speaking. The black sludge forced her down into Fuyu's lap and held her there, hardening and softening itself hundreds of times as it shredded her jeans away and plucked bits of her flesh, ingesting them directly. The tissue traveled up through the ebony trunk and into the woman, where filaments of the black directed it to replace what it couldn't fix. It bound the donor material to her own flesh; once it began to transfer bone, the pain reached a level she could no longer tolerate. She fell back onto the grass, eyes wide and her mouth locked open in a silent, unending scream. When the agony finally departed, she could feel her legs again and sat up in a more normal position, wiggling her toes and staring at them. The sludge retreated back into her mouth, leaving the wheezing, half-eaten woman in Fuyu's lap.

“Help...me,” she coughed, her legs totally gone. They were now a part of the woman in black.

“Help?” she replied, tilting her head.

Eat.

“Hungry,” Fuyu automatically blurted out, nodding once firmly and getting to work. Gently, she raised the woman up and sunk her teeth into the green hair, biting down hard. She could feel twitches of pain under her bite, but paid them no attention. It was like the first time she'd ever consumed a human; each detail was hyperintensive. The blood tasted like warm iron as she gulped it down. The brain matter had an odd flavor, somewhere between metal and cotton candy and hope. The heart, which she tore easily out of the woman's chest, was a bloody, meaty thing. She took bites out of it like a sandwich, laughing and crying all at once after each swallow.

Fuyu.

“Hungry,” she scolded the voice, placing the woman's left hand in her mouth and biting down, severing the fingers and crunching on them happily as she cried.

Fuyu.

“Hungry!” She worked on the forearm now, breaking it off at the elbow and turning it in her hands like a corn cob.

Fuyu?

She didn't even bother replying. The liver was too delicious, sweet and squishy and full of all the lovely tastes Fuyu could only find piecemeal in other organs.

Fuyu?!

It was only as she sank her teeth into the skull again that she realized the source of the voice calling her name was not the formless figure within, but something above and behind her. She froze, the hair on the back of her neck bristling as she felt a certain kind of spark. With her mouth still latched on, she rotated her entire upper body to look. The beam of a flashlight lit up her bloody face, and she followed it up to the hand that held it, the arm to which it was attached, and the body to which that was stuck. She had to blink the crimson out of her eyes to discern the face. It was tanned, the eyes were a rosy color...

...and the hair was a random mess of colors of all kinds, that faded in and out with no rhyme or reason.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Rainbow Dash asked, her voice shaky and weak. Her wings flapped, moving her slowly backwards and away from the bloody scene. They stared at each other for a small eternity, until she decided to turn wing and fly. The motion was glacially slow to Fuyu as adrenaline flooded her brain, but that chemical wasn't the only thing rushing in. The unnecessary thoughts came back almost all at once; it was Rainbow Dash, her friend. No, wait, the girlfriend of her very best friend, one of the six. No, she was a friend too, and all of the other things that Fuyu now realized were no less necessary than the clump of frontal lobe she swallowed with a hard gulp. It was all going to end, she would be alone again, and that concept hurt her much worse than the fall from a thousand feet she suffered some hours before.

Those flowing cyan wings issued a mighty beat, and in that tenth of a second Fuyu made a choice to protect what she had, even if the cost was inconceivably high. She threw aside the mostly eaten corpse and raised her right arm, palm facing Rainbow's back, and launched a writhing strand of black that wrapped around her waist. Like a fisherman with a catch, she locked her elbow and swung her arm back as one, yanking the woman through the air until her back impacted against Fuyu's chest. Once it had, her left arm locked around her torso and held her there. She ignored the sensation of the magical wings slapping her fiercely, concentrating on the strength required to restrain the athletic woman.

“Let me go!” she shrieked, flailing her arms and kicking her legs. She dug her rainbow nails into the flesh of Fuyu's arm, but it didn't even draw a blink from the woman's eyes.

“You can't,” she said, beginning to weep. “I'll lose everything if you tell them! I don't want to be alone again!” she added, withdrawing the black appendage and wrapping her right arm around the woman's waist. “You don't understand what it's like! I tried not to do this!” she sobbed, the blood on her cheeks transferring to Rainbow's hair as she writhed in panic. “I have to eat like you, if I don't I'll starve!”

Rainbow was reaching the end of her strength, having expended it in an attempt to break Fuyu's steely grip. Weakly, she fell back against the woman and cried. “Please don't hurt me, please, Fu, it's me, it's Rainbow, please let me go...”

“I know it's you, that's why I can't let you go,” she replied, her iron grip loosening into a strangely gentle embrace. “I know it looks terrible. It is terrible. You must understand that I would never hurt you like this, but if you tell Applejack...I don't want to be alone,” she concluded, only able to repeat her greatest fear at the moment.

“Why?” Rainbow squeaked out. “Why are you eating that woman? I don't understand!”

“I have to feed the thing that lives inside me,” she explained, turning her left hand so her palm faced the sky. A black tendril emerged from it, swaying to and fro as if waving hello at the terrified Rainbow. “See it? That's my friend. It makes me strong, it heals my wounds, but it asks me to do awful things. That's what I've been doing. I've been hunting for five years, all over the country. To stay alive! I never took anyone when I wasn't hungry,” she insisted bitterly, trying to ignore the thrill she'd gotten from the wanton killing not so long ago. Rainbow shook violently in her grip, her weeping getting louder with each passing second.

“Don't eat me, please, please Fuyu, I don't wanna die!” she begged, struggling as best she could.

“I would never,” she replied, almost as loudly. “You six are my friends, the first I've ever had. I don't want to hurt you, at all. But I don't want you to go away because you think I'm a monster.”

“Y-you are!” Rainbow blurted out, then slammed her hand over her mouth. Fuyu became angry and tightened her grip, causing the athletic woman to squeal in pain.

“If I must lose one to keep five, I will,” she hissed into Rainbow's ear. A stream of muffled 'sorry' filtered through her hand, and she ceased her struggling. “That's it. We can find a way. I really don't want to hurt you. I really, really don't, Rainbow Dash. Let's be friends again, like we were before.” Multicolored hair flew around as its owner shook her head, and Fuyu growled. “I will do what needs to be done, do you hear me?!”

“No!” Rainbow screeched, flapping her wings again. Her effort fell useless against Fuyu's power, and after a minute she became still. “I have to warn them...I have to warn the town, I have to warn Twilight, I have to—agh!”

Fuyu slapped her heavy palm over Rainbow's mouth, silencing her, and sighed. “You are being difficult.” A muffled 'fuck you' reached her ears. “Of course you'd say that. I'm trying to be reasonable!” She felt a tiny pain as Rainbow bit her flesh, but ignored it. “Let's try again,” she grumbled, squeezing the woman harder. She yelped in response, falling still once more. “Good. I'm going to figure out what to do with you, with or without your help.” A threat to kill her leaked out between the fingers over Rainbow's mouth. “That's not very nice.” She sat there, holding Rainbow, and allowed herself to get lost in thought. The thrashing grew weaker until an exhausted Rainbow fell back upon her chest, choking out a series of pleading sobs.

“I have no choice.”

With Rainbow so tired, it was easy to bind her with black goo. Fuyu tried to tie her wings, and found they were just as solid as any other part of her body. She wrapped large coils of black around them, and around the woman herself, then picked her up and hefted her over her right shoulder.

“What are you?” Rainbow breathed, unable to keep her eyes open any longer. Fuyu did not immediately reply for two reasons. The first was the myriad of flashing blue and red lights she saw in the far distance; emergency vehicles running about town, no doubt. She wondered how badly it had been hit. The second was the question itself. She had lost count of how many times her soon-to-be victims had posed it to her. It had to have been in the hundreds. Sighing, she started walking, crossing the empty highway. She considered answering with the words Applejack had used, but they failed to bring the quiet happiness they once did. As she strode along, she found herself only able to reply with the truth as she now knew it.

“I am misery,” she said, weaving through the tall trees on this side of the road. “I am suffering.” She looked down at the back of Rainbow's blue tank top and shorts, which were now thoroughly coated with dull red. “And more often than not...” She paused, both her speech and her movement, to look through the woods. She could see the neatly arranged rows of apple trees not a quarter of a mile away. They felt like they were on a different planet now. With another sigh, she continued both actions.

“...I am death.”

Do Not Provoke the Dressmaker (Epilogue II)

Fluttershy's question wouldn't be answered until two days later. Applejack had to deal with the damage to Sweet Apple Acres, so Rainbow Dash was assigned to babysit Fuyu in the interim. This involved moving into her apartment in town. Although she had wanted to help the blonde clean up the orchard, Twilight insisted she do as little physical work as possible to keep her appetite suppressed. While the librarian thought of some way to find food for her that didn't involve murder, Fuyu was to stay with Rainbow at all times. The first night with her new roommate had been somewhat tense, but the second was more relaxed.

“Morning,” Rainbow waved, walking by the couch. Fuyu was already awake and reading one of the books she had brought from the farmhouse. She had learned that Rainbow was, unless prodded, a rather late riser; this time around it was fifteen after ten. She sat down on the other end of the couch and checked her phone, while Fuyu closed her book and watched. It started to ring. “Hello?” she answered. “Oh, hey Rarity. Yeah, she's staying with me now.” Rainbow grimaced as a long, unhappy rant about how obvious it was that her friends were keeping something from her was unloaded into her right ear. “Um, about that. We need to talk.”

The 'you're certainly right we need to talk' was loud enough for even Fuyu to hear. “Okay, okay, can we come over, then? I may as well get this done with now. Pinkie's there? Great, I can save the trip. We'll be there in a flash.” She ended the call and fell back against the sofa, sighing as she decompressed. “She doesn't sound too happy. I can only imagine how she's gonna sound after we're done talking to her.” Seeking something else to think about for a second, she looked over at Fuyu and blinked. “How'd you sleep?”

“Fine. I only needed about an hour,” she replied, smoothing down her hair.

“That is freaky,” Rainbow said, sitting up and shaking her head in disbelief. “I guess the couch doesn't make your back hurt?”

She shook her head, looking down at the blue cushions. The sofa wasn't the only thing that shade; the carpet was blue, the walls were blue, even the tile in the kitchen was some variation of the color. The glass coffee table, bearing a silver frame, and the TV were the only objects that didn't have some of the color in this room. “I don't think I lay on it long enough for that to happen.”

“I guess not,” Rainbow shrugged, standing and scratching at her thigh. “You good to walk? I don't think I can lift you to fly, you weigh a ton.”

Fuyu looked down at her stomach, then back up at the woman and nodded. “Yes. There is plenty of time.”

“Cool. I'll be ready in a few and we can head over there,” she said, waving again as she wandered into the bathroom. True to her word, not five minutes later she was back, dressed in a cyan hoodie and blue jeans. She slid on her sneakers and stretched, yawning obnoxiously. “All right. Let's do this.”

They left her apartment and walked out into Ponyville. The town was much cleaner now, although little signs of the storm still remained everywhere. Leaves were all over the place, the limbs they had been attached to removed for disposal. Plywood decorated many buildings; even the library had a boarded up window. Rainbow hovered along beside Fuyu as they went, her wings beating only once in a while to keep her airborne. The news of Fuyu's exploits had permeated the populace, and many times they had to stop because people would come up to thank the woman in black. This made the walk much longer than it normally would have been.

“Geez, I didn't think Lyra was ever gonna stop talking,” Rainbow muttered, hands in her pockets as she floated along. A purple tower with a silver SUV parked beside it was directly ahead of them, and she pointed it out to Fuyu. “There it is. Looks like she already had the windows fixed.”

She examined it as they drew closer. It reminded her of Sugarcube Corner, although the motif was more akin to a carousel than confections. It was much taller than the sweets shop, and by the time they arrived she had to crane her neck to look up at it. She was only able to gaze for a brief moment before Rarity burst out of the front door.

“About time!” she huffed, slapping her hands onto her hips and fuming. “I've been hearing some ridiculous things. Every time I try to speak with Twilight, she absolutely refuses to talk about them! I want to know what's going on!”

“Here we go,” Rainbow murmured, rolling her eyes. They followed her inside and discovered Pinkie Pie running about in the shop, her arms full of rolls of fabrics.

“Where does this go?” she asked every time she went by. “And this? And these? And all of—eek!” she yelped as she tripped, falling flat on her face, although her impact was cushioned by the bolts she was hauling. “...owies...” she groaned, lifting herself up. That's when she laid eyes on Fuyu and leapt to her feet, almost tackling the woman in a hug. “Fufu! I thought the tornado got you!”

Fuyu and Rainbow exchanged an awkward glance. Her encounter with the storm had been found out by Applejack first, who had told the other three, but Rarity and Pinkie were completely in the dark. “I'm fine,” was all she could say as she was hugged.

“I want answers!” Rarity insisted, stomping her high-heeled foot. “You're both hiding something from us!”

Rainbow floated away, ceding the purple carpet to Fuyu. Sighing, she looked at the dressmaker around Pinkie's embrace and frowned. “What do you want to know?”

“What happened last night at the orchard? And do not say the tornado, I know better than to think that was all,” she warned, pulling the chair from her work desk, bringing it over and sitting down. Pinkie let go of Fuyu and blinked, looking between her and Rarity with confused eyes.

Fuyu also felt like sitting, but sat cross legged on the floor instead of hunting down a chair. “The mob attempted to kill me.” Pinkie gasped, placing her hands over her mouth.

“You mean the people that threatened Rainbow and Applejack?' she asked, looking across the room as the winged woman sent her flight implements away and sat on the staircase. She nodded in the affirmative after she was seated. “My word! How did you escape?”

“I didn't,” Fuyu said, her eyes becoming hard. “I killed them first.”

“Ohmygosh,” the baker squeaked again, also sitting on the floor. “How many of them were there?”

“Forty. Or so.”

“What?” Rarity exclaimed, standing up. “That's impossible! I can see you ambushing four,” she said, walking over, “but not forty! What really happened?”

“Rare, she's not kidding,” Rainbow interjected from the stairs. “She took out almost all of them herself.”

“I don't understand,” the dressmaker blinked, staring down at Fuyu. “How did you...” She detected that there was a larger secret, and it made her quiet for a moment as she tried to guess at what it was. “What else happened, then?”

“I got sucked up into the tornado,” Fuyu replied, her eyes calm again. “It threw me across the road into the open field.”

Pinkie wailed and scrambled over to hug the woman in black. “Nononono! Are you okay?!” she asked, beginning to sniffle. Rarity did not have equal sympathy, and began to back slowly away from them.

“She's more than all right, look at her...she doesn't have a scratch,” Frightened, the dressmaker backed away. “How can you not even look hurt? It's only been a couple of days!”

Pinkie realized that fact after it had been vocalized, and she released Fuyu to examine her. After seeing she was unscathed, she gasped again and scrambled backwards like a crab. “Fufu, you're more than okay, you're too okay...” No other words were spoken, but the unsure looks in their eyes contained everything Fuyu needed to hear. She turned over her left palm and allowed a swaying sprig of black to sprout from it. Rarity shrieked and skittered away, hiding behind Rainbow on the stairs, while Pinkie blanched white and began to chatter out a broken string of terrified words.

“It's all right, it won't hurt you,” Fuyu explained gently. “This is the thing that lives inside me. It's why I was strong enough to lift the robber in the store that day,” she added, gazing at Rarity. She was hugging Rainbow from behind, staring back with terrified eyes. “It's why I don't look injured; it heals my wounds.”

“M-m-m-m-magic?” Pinkie stammered, unable to tear her gaze away. “It's some kind of super duper magicky magic stuff? 'C-c-cause th-that's where Twilight a-and Rarity's m-m-magic comes fr-from, s-so it's j-j-just scary looking m-magic, r-r-right?”

“Here we go,” Rainbow sighed, rubbing her temples as the dressmaker clung to her back.

“It's not magic,” she said, shaking her head slowly.

“Then what in the hell is it, Fuyu?!” Rarity shrieked, causing Rainbow to cringe with the noise. “Because it certainly looks like something straight out of a nightmare!”

Fuyu noted how appropriate that word was and decided she was correct. “You're right. I have to feed it people to keep it – and me – alive.”

Pinkie was too stunned to do anything but stare with wide blue eyes. Rarity, on the other hand, had an absolute fit upon hearing that tidbit of information. She darted over to her desk and hid under it, her hands lighting up with blue magic as she mentally grabbed the nearest sharp things she could see. “Get out of my shop, you beast!” she screeched, a cloud of various types of scissors now hovering before her. “Now!” Fuyu made no attempt to move, and the dressmaker flung her makeshift weapons at the woman with a mighty grunt. A dozen scissors sank themselves into her flesh, most of them in her chest and abdomen. Pinkie began to cry loudly, turning away from the sight and laying on the floor. Quietly, Fuyu started pulling them out of her body.

“Y-you...” was all Rarity could say, her mind unable to comprehend the lack of pain on the woman's face. “I...”

“Damn, Rarity,” Rainbow said, standing up and jogging over to Fuyu as she yanked a pair of the scissors from her left forearm. “You all right?”

That act of kindness seemed to bother the dressmaker more than the ineffectiveness of her attack. “Why are you being nice to her?!” she screamed. “Get away! She's a...she's a horrible thing!”

Mottled red and black gunk oozed out of her wounds, but they were quickly being taken care of. By the time she moved over to Pinkie to check on her, she had already stopped bleeding. “Pinkie? It's all right. I'm not going to hurt you.”

“Get away from her!” Rarity shouted, using her magic to collect another round of projectiles. Rainbow growled and stood in front of her, blocking her aim. “Move, you fool! She's dangerous!”

“I'm sorry, but if you hadn't noticed, she hasn't moved a muscle to try and hurt anyone,” Rainbow scolded her, crossing her arms and peering down. Behind her, they both could hear the low voices of Fuyu and Pinkie speaking to each other. “She's lived with Applejack for almost a month and never did anything. She's lived with me for two days and I'm still here.”

“So what? She's a murderer!” Rarity shot back, leaning from side to side as she tried to get a bead on the woman. “Look! She's using Pinkie as a shield!”

Rainbow looked over her shoulder and saw Fuyu giving an awkward hug. “Uh huh. That looks so evil.”

The woman in black was paying no attention to their conversation. She was busy trying to stop Pinkie from crying. “Pinkie?” she asked quietly, knelt over beside the baker with her hand lightly on her shoulder. “Stop crying, it's all right.”

“B-b-b-b-but you're a canabila! A cananbial...” The tears finally stopped flowing as she devoted most of her thought to getting the word right. “Cannabile? Cabanabibble?”

“Cannibal?” Fuyu offered. Pinkie nodded and began to sniffle again. “I know. If I don't eat, I'll starve to death. I don't have any choice.”

“Are you g-g-g-gonna eat me?” she asked, sitting up and resting on her calves as she wiped her eyes.

She shook her head firmly and leaned back so Pinkie could shuffle around to face her. “Of course not. You're my friend. I would never do that.”

“O-o-okay,” the baker nodded, but she didn't seem all that sure. She frowned at the wounds and began to cry again. “You're hurt...”

“Rarity doesn't like me very much right now,” Fuyu admitted, glancing back at her and Rainbow.

“You're damn right I don't!” the dressmaker shouted, waving a fist in anger. She had dropped her weaponry, however; the tools lay scattered on the carpet a short distance away. “I want you out of my sight this instant!”

“Get a grip, woman!” Rainbow growled, kneeling down so she could argue face to face. “She saved our asses! She saved your ass! She's got very, very fucked up baggage, I'll grant you that, but she risked her life more than once for me and Applejack. That goes pretty far if you ask me!”

Rarity refused to yield. “She was probably just doing it to...” Suddenly, she realized she couldn't think of any legitimate reason for Fuyu to have done the things she'd done, and her face went blank. Rainbow was just about to declare her victory when the bell rang, signaling an arrival entering through the front door. All four of them looked to see Twilight. Twilight first saw Fuyu's healing wounds, then the bloody scissors nearby.

“Good grief, what happened?” she asked, walking farther into the shop. The woman in black pointed at Rarity. “Oh...right. Sorry, I was planning to tell you guys, I've just been overwhelmed with everything,” she sighed, falling into a nearby chair.

“That would have been lovely,” Rarity hissed, her anger beginning to return. She moved Rainbow aside and crawled out from under the desk, smoothing down her dress as she stood up. “You're harboring a killer!”

“It's more complicated than that,” Twilight countered, but her face admitted some truth to those words. “Fuyu has some, um, unique circumstances to deal with. I'm trying my level best to figure out a way around them.”

“She'll have us for dinner by then!” Rarity began to stalk in Fuyu's direction, her eyes shining with hostility.

Twilight groaned and moved to intercept her. “Even considering the circumstances, I think you're being a bit unreasonable here.”

“Says the woman helping a serial killer.” Twilight was stilled by those words and could only stare at the dressmaker. “Mhm. I'm right, and you know it.” Rarity stood over Fuyu, her arms crossed and a scowl on her face. “Get out. Do you hear me?”

The woman in black did rise to her feet, but moved not an inch more. She stared Rarity down. “You're no less a murderer than I am now.”

'Indignant' would not cover the look Rarity had on her face. It was closer to shock and disgust. “Excuse me?” Fuyu pointed down and to the side, and she followed the motion until her sight came to the bloody scissors on the floor.

“If I were anyone else, I would bleeding to death at the moment,” she said, her voice almost empty of emotion. “What were you doing, Rarity? Defending yourself from someone who has no intention of attacking you? Preventing me from giving my friend a hug when she was afraid?”

“I was...I was...” she struggled, trying to formulate a reason. Her shoulders slumped with failure, but she scowled and raised up again. “I don't need to explain myself to you.”

“I understand. I'm not angry. If it will help you feel better, then I'll go.” She did just that, punctuating her statement by turning away from the dressmaker and walking out the door. She left a gulf of tense silence in her wake, which was only broken when Twilight moved to help Pinkie stand up.

“That went about as well I thought it would,” Rainbow grumbled, rubbing the back of her head as she walked over to the other three. “I guess I'd better go catch up with her. See you guys later.” With a light wave and a snap, she was airborne and fluttering out the door.

Twilight was left with Pinkie and Rarity, and she had no idea what to say to either of them. “So, I guess you girls aren't too happy with me, huh?” She expected an angry response from the dressmaker, but she was stooping down and picking up a pair of the crimson-stained scissors. “Rarity?”

The adrenaline was wearing off, and now her actions were beginning to weigh heavily. “My word, I did try to kill her...”

“I'm sure you were just afraid,” the librarian offered weakly, watching her pick up the scattered scissors.

Pinkie made a few odd noises as she wiped her face clean. “I think I'm just gonna go home, I don't feel too good,” she mumbled, offering cursory hugs to her friends before she ran out the door.

Twilight raised a hand as she went, but was too slow to say anything to stop her from going. She looked back at Rarity, who had tears in her eyes, and sighed. “If it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one. Fluttershy shot her in the head and she's been apologizing ever since.”

“It really doesn't.” After she had gathered the bloody tools, she held them away from her pristine dress and looked for somewhere to deposit them. “I didn't even think, Twilight, I just fired them at her. She wasn't even provoking me.”

“So you reacted badly. I don't think that's really surprising, given what she told you.” Her words failed to help; she frowned as Rarity began to cry. “Feeling overwhelmed?” she guessed. Rarity nodded, sniffling. “You're not the only one. If I don't figure out something soon, someone is going to die.” Those words hung heavy in the air for a few minutes as Twilight allowed the desperation to get to her. After some effort, she shook it off, trying to ignore how burned out she felt. “I'll help you clean up. I need to think about something else for a while.”

“I do not understand the difference.”

It was half past one in the afternoon. Rainbow and Fuyu occupied the former's couch, watching a baseball game. The athlete was trying to teach her the finer points of the sport, and to her surprise she was picking them up quickly...except for this newest concept. She put down her slice of pizza and chewed, trying to clear her mouth to explain.

“See,” she began, her mouth not much emptier despite her efforts, “A wild pitch is when the pitcher just totally throws it so bad that the catcher's got no shot at all of keeping it from reaching the backstop.” She waited for the next pitch, which was a ball. “Aw, damn it, that caught the corner...anyway, a passed ball is when the catcher gets a mitt or something on it, he drops it, and it gets far enough away for a baserunner to advance. Or, like, if the batter strikes out, for him to get to first. Does that make sense?”

Fuyu nodded in the affirmative, but she had a different question. “If both situations allow a runner to move up, I do not see why they must be denoted separately.”

“Lemme put it this way. A wild pitch is the pitcher's fuck up, but a passed ball is the catcher's. Is that any better?” she asked, taking up her pizza again.

“Oh. Yes. Now I understand.” They fell quiet again, watching the batter get walked to load the bases. Just after an inning-ending double play, the doorbell rang.

“I got it,” Rainbow said, hopping up and walking over. She peered through the peephole and grumbled. “Oh boy, this should be good.” She opened the door and eyed a sheepish-looking Rarity. “Hey. What's up?”

“I'm here to offer an olive branch,” she replied, hands clasped in front of her. Rainbow moved aside so she could enter, and the dressmaker immediately went over to sit with Fuyu on the couch. “Hello, darling. I...I've come to apologize.”

“For what?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“For...well, for trying to murder you.” She looked at Fuyu to gauge her emotion, and was stunned to see a faint smile on her face. “You're really not angry with me?”

She shook her head slowly. “No, you were afraid. You did what you felt was necessary at that moment.” They both looked up as Rainbow sat down. “It didn't hurt me that much, anyway.”

“Right,” Rarity said, exhaling with amazement. “Well, I'm not saying I'm completely...all right, with your having to...you know,” she continued, gesticulating mildly as she spoke, “but I'm sure Twilight will figure out something. She always does!” A light laugh didn't fall as flat as she feared, and the smiles on Fuyu and Rainbow's faces reassured her further. “With the storm damage to the Boutique, and my friends being so distant, I suppose I just snapped under the strain. I'm sorry, again.”

“It's all right,” Fuyu confirmed, turning her eyes back to the game. She frowned, however, and dropped her arms. “If Twilight can't help me, I'll have to eat again in a couple of days. I...I don't want to hurt anyone here in town. They've all been so kind to me.”

The mood darkened, and neither Rainbow nor Rarity could offer her any encouragement. They watched the game in silence. Then the doorbell rang again.

“I got it!” Rainbow said, jumping up and running over. She blinked when she looked through the peephole, quickly opening the door. “Uh, hey Pinkie.”

“Fufu!” she said firmly, walking right past Rainbow with the most serious look she could manage. “You said you have to eat people, right?”

“Yes,” she blinked, unsure why Pinkie was being so direct.

She folded her arms and nodded, like an investigator confirming a clue. “And if you don't, then you'll starve because that gunky goo glob stuff will die and kill you too, right?”

“What's all this about, darling?” Rarity asked, shifting around to face her. “I don't think we need to hear all of that again.” Rainbow shut the door and walked to the back of the couch so she could look at the baker along with everyone else.

“What's with the questions, Pink?” she asked, leaning on it as she waited for an answer.

Pinkie looked at them in turn, her blue eyes slowly losing their seriousness as a smile spread across her face. The next time she spoke, her tone was back to its usual bouncy self.

“I have an idea!”

The New Normal (Epilogue I)

Ponyville proper had been spared the brunt of the tornado, but the high winds had still done a number on the trees and shops. Shattered glass littered the sidewalks, and the roads were covered in all manner of branches and limbs. Some of the trees had come down entirely, blocking whole streets.

“Dang,” Applejack said, gazing around at the scene as she doffed her hat. She and Twilight were on the front stoop of the library – another tree that had suffered some damage, but was far too stout for the wind to topple. Twilight had already repaired most of it with her magic, and was using a flashlight to check her work.

“This should hold for now,” she sighed, dropping the light and sweeping it around. “I wonder why Rainbow hasn't come back yet?”

Applejack looked down and smiled at Winona as she darted outside, picking her up and chuckling as the dog's tail repeatedly thwacked her side. “Aw, she's probably stoppin' to help everyone she sees on the way. Y'all know how she is.”

The librarian shrugged, brushing an errant leaf off her purple sweat pants. She looked off into the distance, her eyes settling on the metal tower in the east that was now easily distinguishable against the brightening sky. After a few seconds, a white light blinked on the very top of it. “Oh, the tower's up,” she noted, reaching into her pocket and producing her blue phone. “She took her phone, right? Call her and see what's going on.”

The blonde set down Winona and took it as Twilight handed it over, thumbing through the contacts list until she reached the goofy picture of her girlfriend. It drew a smile across her lips as she started the call and pressed the phone to her left ear. That smile faded with each subsequent ring. “Come on, Dash, answer the dang thing...” At last, the ringing stopped and the call was answered. “Hey! What's keepin' ya? We're gettin' a little worried.”

“Applejack...”

The tone of Rainbow's voice caused all of the color to drain from Applejack's face. Squeezing the phone, she went back into the dimly lit library, causing Twilight to blink and ask what was going on. She didn't answer the question, instead focusing on the call. “RD, what happened? Are ya hurt?”

On the other end, a wincing Rainbow Dash tried to ease the pain in her ribs by shifting around on Fuyu's bed. She had been untied, but the woman in black was right beside her, keeping a close eye on her actions. In the doorway stood a confused Stormy, still brandishing the shotgun but not pointing it at anyone. “We've got a problem.”

“What problem?” Applejack asked, pacing around one of the wooden pillars. “Where are ya?” Twilight stood to the side, visibly concerned, but remaining quiet.

“At the farmhouse.” She looked over at Fuyu with worried eyes and received a nod. “Is there any way you can get out here? I can't fly.”

“Ya are hurt!” Applejack exclaimed, slapping a hand to her head and becoming frantic. “What happened?!”

Rainbow backpedaled from the truth, but it was much too late. “I'm fine, I'm just kinda stuck. Look, I really can't explain it over the phone. Can you get back to the orchard?” She looked over again at Fuyu, frowning at the blankness of her face.

“Why?” she asked, her panic increasing with each step. “Is the house okay? Where's Fuyu?”

Rainbow scowled unhappily, staring down at her phone for a moment before trying again. “The house is all right, but the orchard's all messed up. As for Fu...” she paused, glancing over again with a frown, “There were a whole bunch of black cars all over the place. I think something happened.”

“Shit!” Applejack spat, turning to Twilight and speaking aside to her. “They musta come last night, Rainbow says there's a bunch of black cars at the orchard.”

“Oh no,” Twilight groaned, a powerful frown tugging at her lips. “Is everyone all right?”

“Hold on,” she replied, returning her attention to the call. “Dash? Where's Fuyu?”

Rainbow was beginning to crack due to the unreadable nature of Fuyu's face, so she just assumed the worst and started to cry out as much of the truth as she could get away with. “I saw something horrible and I don't know what to do!”

Confusion joined panic on Applejack's face. “I don't understand...what did ya see?”

“Damn it,” she muttered, low enough so the blonde couldn't hear it. She glanced over at Fuyu again. Taking the empty look for displeasure, Rainbow went directly to the words that she knew would get Applejack moving, swallowing hard before she spoke them. “I need you here. Now. Please,” she begged, more emotion leaking into the statement than she originally intended.

They worked to perfection. “I'm comin'!” the blonde replied firmly, ending the call and shoving the phone in Twilight's direction. “Somethin's happened, I gotta get back to Sweet Apple Acres.”

Twilight took her phone, blinking. “Applejack, the street's blocked. Even if we had your truck, we wouldn't be able to get far. What's going on?”

“I dunno, Dash is in some kinda trouble...” There was a brief pause as she collected her thoughts; when she did, an idea came to her that caused her to gasp. “Damn it! What if those thieves got her?” She started for the front door right away, an uncertain Twilight in tow.

“Wait! What are you going to do, walk there?” she asked, trying to reason with the blonde as she strode powerfully through the debris in the street. “Applejack, no!” She had to pay attention to where she walked more so than the woman she pursued. The broken glass would tear her bare feet to shreds if she didn't. “Wait! You don't even know what you're getting into!”

“I don't care!” Applejack yelled back, weaving through the fallen limbs. “It sure sounds like somethin' bad happened ta her and she needs my help,” she said, taking a breath, “and I'm gonna get out there no matter how I have ta do it!”

Twilight had her phone again, sweeping through her contact list. “I'll call Fluttershy, she can meet us at the bridge and we can use her truck to go off road,” she offered, sighing with relief when the blonde turned and stopped. “Thank you. I know you're upset, but you can't just run through the town with everything messed up like this.”

“I know, but...aw, damn it ta hell,” Applejack muttered in frustration as Twilight called Fluttershy. “Tell her to hurry!”

“She's on her way, I guess,” Rainbow sighed, placing the phone on the nightstand and sighing with discomfort. She laid anxious rose eyes on Fuyu and frowned. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

“No. You're my friend,” she replied, absentmindedly staring out the window. “I didn't mean to hurt you earlier. I panicked.” She turned to look at Rainbow, frowning at the pain on her face. “I'm sorry.”

“It's...all right, I guess?” she replied, unsure. After struggling for a moment, she managed to sit up, rubbing her torso just under her breasts. “Damn it, Fu, you're as strong as AJ and Big Macintosh put together.”

“I suppose,” Fuyu replied, looking up at Stormy in the doorway. “You don't have to stay. The Don is dead, you're free now.”

“Yeah, I know,” the thief replied, letting the shotgun hang down at the side of her legs. “I guess I don't know what to do with myself.”

Rainbow ignored their chat, placing her head in her hands and trying to resolve the conversation she'd had with the woman in black on her way back to the farmhouse. Fuyu had told her everything; how often she needed to feed, how the black goo had altered her physiology, how she had spent all those years drifting around because of her appetite. It was too much for her to process, but with her most immediate concern – not dying at Fuyu's hands – alleviated, she felt just safe enough to stay.

“You eat people,” she blurted out, revealing her face and looking over. “You have to eat people. I don't even know where to start with this! And you don't know where that black crud came from?” She watched Fuyu shake her head. “This is all sorts of screwed up, man.”

“I know,” Fuyu admitted, looking rather uncomfortable. She loosed a black rope to retrieve the bow in the corner. Once the hardened ebony contacted her active sludge, it regained its flexibility and became a part of the appendage. “I suppose I won't be needing this,” she said, watching as the bow string lost its tension and fell to the floor. After she dismissed the tentacle, her eyes returned to Rainbow. She questioned the odd look on her face. “What?”

“You could have taken us out whenever you wanted, right?” The nod in reply, although not surprising, made Rainbow's spine tingle. “Why didn't you?”

“I wasn't hungry at first,” she said, crossing her legs and staring down at the bed. “By the time I was, I realized I didn't want to do it. Applejack gave me something I never had before. She was nice to me. When Stormy came,” she added, looking up at the thief, “she made a deal for her life. She would bring me people so I didn't have to hurt you.”

“Wow,” Rainbow muttered, totally flabbergasted. “You brought her people to eat? I thought you were just an apple rustler.”

“Hey, it helped me stay alive,” Stormy said, laughing lightly, but frowning hard just afterward. “Look, I don't know how far my word will go, but I don't think she's a bad person. She never tried to hurt me after we made that little agreement. Hell, when Candy got here, she stopped her from killing me even though she probably didn't have to.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow sighed, laying uneasily back onto the bed. “I'm gonna be honest, I don't know what the fuck to think at the moment.”

“Same,” Stormy agreed, raising her left hand as though she were answering a question in school. “I'm just saying, she's not a monster...uh, even if one lives inside her.”

“Riiiiiight.” Rainbow rubbed at her face, wincing with the dull pain that continued to shoot through her ribs. “Applejack is going to throw a fit. I guarantee it.”

“We will see,” Fuyu stated flatly, using the sludge to pluck a book off her nightstand to read. “If she does, then I'll just leave, I suppose.” The moment the words were past her lips, she doubled over as though hit by a gut punch. “But I don't want to...” she sniffled through clenched teeth.

Rainbow looked over, and after a brief eternity began to lightly pat her on the back. “I'd tell you it'll be okay, but I don't think that word is ever going to apply again.” The image of Fuyu's teeth sunk into the skull of that woman dulled her sympathy to a useless level, but she still felt she owed the woman in black something for saving their lives the day before. They listened to the sound of her gentle weeping until another noise broke in. It was a tinny shriek that erupted from downstairs, and Rainbow sat up painfully. “Fluttershy?” she blinked, rubbing her ribs again.

A thunderous cadence of footsteps approached from the hall, and suddenly Applejack appeared in the doorway, almost throwing Stormy aside. “Rainbow!” she shouted, nearly falling over herself to get to the woman. “Are ya okay?!” A hug was attempted, but denied by a stern look and a stiff arm on Rainbow's part. “What happened? Why are there dead folks in my livin' room again?”

“Fuyu, you're up,” was all the athletic woman said.

Their eyes met; one set was hollow, while the other was confused beyond expression. “Fu? I saw the cars...what did they do?” the blonde asked, crouching down and taking Rainbow's hand as she waited for an answer. Twilight arrived just then, a weeping, trembling Fluttershy in tow. Her left hand was aflame with magic to provide light. The librarian was about to ask what was going on, but the tension on Fuyu and Rainbow's faces silenced her nascent question.

“They came for me,” Fuyu said, wiping her eyes with the back of her arm. “I killed most of them. The tornado took the rest.”

“Ya ki--...Fu, there were seven cars out there! Ya couldn't have...” The hollowness in those blue eyes departed, replaced by an icy chill that confirmed the impossible. “How?!”

Fuyu lifted her right hand, pointing her palm at the blonde. A wiggling length of ebony emerged, which she hardened into a blade about a foot long. It shone faintly in the raspberry light. “This is how.”

Applejack released her partner's hand and fell back onto the floor, roughly bumping into the wall as she uttered a series of unhappy, frightened noises. Twilight was quieter but no less stunned. She subconsciously put herself between Fuyu and Fluttershy, who was kneeling in the doorway, still weeping with her back turned to the whole scene.

“Wh-wh-what the hell is that?” Applejack finally choked out, her eyes so wide they seemed ready to pop from her skull. Fuyu rose from the bed and walked around it slowly, her armed hand at her side as she went. Her face was no longer blank; it bore a faint wisp of gentle resignation, mixed with a sizable dose of sheer anxiety.

“This is the thing that lives inside me,” she began, lifting the bladed palm so it caught more of the glow of Twilight's power. She summoned an identical weapon in her left hand and brought it up for them to see. “It makes me strong. It heals me when I am hurt. It gives me the ability to do things no regular human can.” She looked at the shock on their faces for a moment; that they were still here and hadn't run shrieking out of the house reassured her enough to continue on. “It is why I can lift the fertilizer by myself, why I can punch your trees and bring down the fruit. It makes me not like you.”

“What in the name of Princess Celestia...” the blonde breathed, reaching out an uncertain hand. She poked a finger at the strange obsidian. The touch caused Fuyu to twitch slightly, as though she had been tickled. “It's...it's like rock!” Twilight finally came over, also examining one of the black blades.

“This is amazing,” she breathed, curiosity flooding in. “I've never seen anything like this!” She turned to Fluttershy, still on the floor, and frowned. “Shy, it's okay. Come over here.”

She did, eventually, rising to her feet and spinning to face the librarian. When she saw the black daggers, however, she screamed again and hid her eyes, running into the hall. Twilight moved to console her, and after a long period of whispering they both walked back into the room.

“See, it's okay? It's just magic,” Twilight assured her with a half smile. That grin ran away when Fuyu shook her head. “What?”

“It's not magic,” the woman in black replied, her face becoming sad.

The librarian reached out and gently took hold of the black blade again, closing her eyes. “Of course it is, it's just really complica--” her words were cut off by a gasp as the sensation reached her brain. Not only did it lack the spark of magic, it was like a pocket vacuum, an empty space that made her tremble with a fear she could not entirely define. She let go and stepped back, the change in her demeanor causing Applejack to shrink back also and look worried.

“What is it, then?” the blonde asked, eyes darting over to Rainbow Dash. “Did you know about this stuff?”

“I found out a couple of hours ago,” she replied, rubbing her neck and looking more awkward than any of them had ever seen her. “Oh, wait. It gets weirder. And a lot worse.”

“Huh?” Twilight blinked, at last shaking off her fear and returning to awareness. “How does it get worse?”

Fuyu wasted no time in dropping the bomb, only waiting long enough for the blades to withdraw into her palms. “I have to feed it human flesh.”

Neither Applejack or Twilight could move, looks of horror etched into their faces as they stared. Stormy and Rainbow weren't much more active, preparing themselves for the reaction. Fluttershy looked ready to pass out, but her eyes – whose pupils were the size of pinpricks – indicated that the adrenaline wouldn't let her.

The blonde finally broke the silence. “Is...is this some kinda sick joke?” she stammered, trying to scramble to her feet without removing her gaze from Fuyu. She tore her eyes away as she stood, moving them to Rainbow for some sort of confirmation. “It's a joke, right?”

“I caught her eating someone,” Rainbow said, slowly tilting her head to look at Applejack. “That's why I didn't come back. Fuyu tied me up and used me as bait to get you to come here.”

Twilight placed her hands on her head, closing her eyes. “No, this can't be real,” she muttered, turning around and shuffling out into the hall. Fluttershy took a massive breath and darted out of the room with nary a word, but Twilight didn't move to stop her. She didn't leave, however, reappearing a few seconds later with a pistol in her shaking hands. Fuyu recognized it as the one Stormy had brought as the shy woman pointed it at her head.

“I will not let you hurt my friends!” she growled.

“Whoa!” Stormy blurted out, halfway raising the shotgun. Applejack tried to approach, but Fluttershy stomped her foot and gave her a threatening look. Rainbow very slowly slid off of the bed, moving to stand with her girlfriend.

“Fluttershy, no,” Twilight said weakly, coming back in and standing behind her. “We have to...we have to figure this out...”

She shook her head, sending the pale pink hair to waving furiously. “What is there to figure out?! She kidnapped Rainbow Dash! She eats people! She's a horrible, evil...thing! I will not let her hurt any of you!”

Fuyu locked eyes with Fluttershy, her icy orbs boring a hole right through the woman. “Do it.”

“Fu, no,” Applejack breathed, raising a hand. “Fluttershy, sugarcube, please put the gun down. There are enough dead people in my house...”

“Let her shoot me,” Fuyu insisted again, her voice devoid of any emotion. “She'll have to learn some time. It may as well be now.”

“This is stupid,” Twilight whined, tears beginning to gather. She balled her hands into fists and placed them on her chest. “Fluttershy! Please!”

The woman in black took one step forward, gently wrapping her hands around Fluttershy's and raising the gun higher. The longer she held on, the harder the shy woman began to shake.

“Let me go!” she shrieked, too frightened to pull away from the gentle grasp. Fuyu didn't, and fearing for her life, Fluttershy pulled the trigger. Everyone else in the room looked away, Twilight and Stormy screaming in the act. Applejack hugged Rainbow and moved her away, placing herself between the gun and her girlfriend. In the silence that followed, all they could hear was a faint whimpering; that was the shy woman. When they all finally looked again, Fuyu was standing exactly as she had been, but a stream of red and black trickled down her pale face. She still held Fluttershy's shaking hands, but made no other movement.

“No!” Fluttershy squeaked, her eyes full of fear. She at last managed to pull out of Fuyu's grasp, but could make herself go no further as she watched the woman bleed from a head wound that should have killed her instantly.

“It's all right,” Fuyu said, her voice gentle and calm. “I'm not going to hurt you. Any of you. But you're not going to hurt me, either.” While the sludge worked on fixing her injury, she made her way back to the bed and sat down on it. “I kept Rainbow Dash here so you would come to me immediately. I never had any intention to harm her. I wanted to tell Applejack the truth, and I knew no other way to force her arrival.” She took a breath and looked out the window. “I understand how this must look, and I assure you I derive no joy in having to survive this way. If I must leave, then I will,” she added weakly, tears flowing and mixing with the blood on her face, “but I don't want to be alone again...” She broke down, doubling over and weeping bitterly.

The other five woman traded looks with each other, utterly unsure what to do. Fluttershy squeaked at the gun she still clutched in her hands, dropping it on the bed and trembling with the realization that she had just shot someone. Twilight's face was a mask of exhaustion as she ran her mind ragged, trying to figure out an answer, or even the totality of the question. Applejack's expression was unreadable; all she could do was stare at Fuyu's back with a slightly dropped jaw. Rainbow's look was the softest of the four, and she abruptly pulled away from the blonde, moving around the bed and sitting next to Fuyu. Stormy did the same, setting the shotgun aside, sitting on the side opposite, and patting Fuyu on the back.

“She saved our lives,” Rainbow said, jerking the women behind her back into consciousness. “She stayed here to face an execution that was meant for me and Applejack too.” She ran a hand through her messy hair and sighed loudly. “Look, I'm not saying it's okay, but you guys have to admit that's she done a lot for us. I think...I think I believe her. She could have killed me no problem when I caught her. I don't know what to do about the whole cannibalism thing, but...” she trailed off, looking back over her shoulder. “What do you think?”

Fluttershy spoke up next. “I'm...I'm sorry I shot you,” she said first, still trembling with the thought. “I just thought you wanted to eat us.” Fuyu nodded a little, but was too overwhelmed to speak. “Maybe...maybe we can help you? I'm not sure how, but there must be some reason you have to do the things you do.”

The emotional pendulum was beginning to swing away from fear and horror, and it swept Twilight along with it. “Yes, there has to be an explanation for this!” she said, laughing anxiously as she fell back on her core ideals. “I don't know what that would be at the moment, to be honest, but that's never stopped me before!” She laughed again, only silencing herself when she received a concerned look from Applejack. “I'm fine, I promise, just...wow. This is a lot to deal with.”

“No kiddin',” the blonde agreed, doffing her hat to wipe her brow. “Fu, I have ta know...did ya ever wanna eat any of us?”

She nodded again, inhaling deeply to calm herself enough to speak. “Yes, when I first came here. After you were kind to me, however...I had never experienced that before. I didn't want to eat you anymore. That's why I worked so hard that day, when you tried to stop me from punching the trees. I was working fast so I could get away from you before I lost control and...and did something bad.”

“All right,” Applejack nodded, her face sullen. “Y'all didn't want ta hurt me then, and ya don't now... Ya know what? I'm in. I still think y'all are good under all that...whatever the hell that goo is. I owe ya, but...ya can't be goin' around killin' folks in town. We can't let ya do that. I dunno what we're gonna do when ya get hungry again.”

“When will that be?” Twilight asked, folding her arms. “Is it a set time period? Whenever you feel like it?”

“Four days from now,” Fuyu replied, drying her face. “I can go longer if I don't do much physical activity.”

“All right. We'll figure out something.” The look on the librarian's face betrayed how uncertain she was of success as she folded her arms.

“So, no hard feelings?” Stormy chirped, standing and looking at the assembled with her hands clasped together and a large smile on her face.

“Y'all sure are chipper,” Applejack said, crossing her arms and wryly smirking.

Stormy shrugged a little, walking around the bed and looking out the window. “Hey, she killed half of the Manehattan Mob. I get to do something legal for a living now. I kind of owe her my new life.”

“See?” Rainbow said, trying her best to smile. “A good person that has to do bad things. We can deal with that...right?”

There was a murmur of agreement, but Fluttershy still had a concern.

“How are we going to tell Pinkie and Rarity?” she asked, looking around at them with a deep frown.