Fallout: Equestria - The Hooves of Fate

Chapters

Good Ponies
A Horse With No Name
A Foal's Errand
The Hard Yellow Line
Staring Contest With the Abyss
The Low Priestess
Alone in the Dark
What Goes Around...
Bad Pudding
Dogs!
Everypony is Broken
The Price of Failure
No Mare's Land
Legacies of the Dead
A Fragile Peace
A Last Resort
The Truth
Where We Went Wrong
The Door
The Wanderer
Storytime
Like Everyone Else
Shadow Country
Confessions
Hospital Promises
The Talk
A Darkness in Ponyville
An Outsider
Lost Souls
Ominous Scribbles
Death Yodeling
Circles
War Buddies
Great Expectations
Chosen
The Big Question
The Blood Curse
Sorcerers Are Annoying
The Final Day
Pieces
What Scares Me Most
A Council of Five
...And Then There Were Three
Bean-Secrets
Safety
A Private Party
Emotional Education
How We Treat Our Own
The White Knight
The Lesser
A Voice in the Dark
The Curse of a Thousand Emus
Battle Math
A Bridge Over Troubled Water
The Worst Generation
Light and Shadow and a Secret Third Thing
Trauma Anvils
Rivers
Pivotyness
What We Leave Behind
Foster and Me
The Tunnel Whisperer
Laid Bare
The Wasteland
The Way It's Supposed to Happen
The Pit of Infinite Duckies
A Special Kind of Friendship
A Familiar Face
The Eye of the Beholder

Good Ponies

CHAPTER TWO – GOOD PONIES
“Freedom’s just another word for ‘nothing-left-to-lose’.” – Janice Joplin

I know what you’re thinking, O, Book of Weird Magical Things That Have Happened To Me. I promised you a story about my cutie mark. Relax. I’m getting to that. Sheesh!

The fact of the matter is, when I woke up, I had a lot on my mind, and my flank wasn’t exactly the first thing I looked at when I tumbled out of bed screaming.

Roseluck held me for a long, long time. She didn’t stop me to ask why I was upset. She just let me cry.
In my whole life, I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy to see my sister as I was that morning. It felt so good to be safe again, but all good things come to an end. When I was finally ready, I pulled away.

“You done?” She asked as she bopped me playfully on the nose.

I smiled meekly.

“Good. Let’s get those knees cleaned up. I’ll be right back, okay?” She waited for me to nod, and wandered off in search of rubbing alcohol.

I had no idea why I was nodding or what she had been talking about, but when I looked down, I saw that I was bleeding all over the floor. Blood. On the floor. My blood. Coming out of my knees – the same exact knees I’d scraped in my dream!

When the realization came crashing in on me, I shrieked a good, long drawn-out vowel. (I can’t remember which one it was, but I am pretty sure it was an “e.”). At the end of it, I had just enough breath left over to whisper to myself.

“How is that possible?”

“You fell out of bed, kid. Banged yourself up pretty good.” Roseluck called out from the other side of the house.

How did she do that? Roseluck had no business being that good of a whisper-hearer.

I brought my knees so close to my face that I lost balance and toppled over. Lying there with my back against the floor, I still kept my eyes on my wounds. Ordinarily, I’d revel at how cool they looked, and imagine myself with boss scars that I could show off at the playground, but I was a bit more concerned by the fact that I hadn’t gotten the wounds from falling. They looked like the skin had been scraped clean off by tumbling down a mound of the sort of rubble you’d expect to find in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Roseluck was out of sight, so I lifted the sheets off the bed and took a little peek. There was blood there too. Whatever had happened to my knees happened in the middle of the night.

Roseluck appeared with a bottle, some cotton, and a package of bandages. I flung the blanket back down over the bed the moment I heard her hoof steps, but it was too late. She saw the terror in my eyes. Thinking quickly, I threw on my poker face, which just so happened to be a pair of glasses I kept near the edge of the bed with an exaggerated nose and mustache attached to them.

“You don’t have to pretend.” She caught me off guard.

“I don’t?” I said.

“You think I don’t know you’re scared?” She said with a touch of sass. “Who you think you’re fooling?”

I let the glasses drop to the ground. “I’m frightened.”

“Of course you are, but it’ll be over soon.” She said.

“It will?” My spirits lifted. How in Equestria could she know that? Maybe she knew more! Maybe she could tell me it was all gonna be okay, and it actually would. Maybe she could fix this! Maybe she could save that colt in my dreams. Big sisters can do that sort of thing! I looked to her desperately for answers.

“Come on.” She punched me gently in the shoulder. “It sucks. It hurts, and you’re scared, but give me your knee, I’ll swab it, and it'll all be over in 30 seconds. I promise.”

She knew nothing. My heart dropped into my stomach.

How could she know anything? Who sees the world destroyed in their dreams, and wakes up with scars to prove it’s gonna be real? Nopony! That’s who. Things like that just don’t happen. Except that apparently they do, and they were happening to me.

“It’s all gonna be okay.” She said, unknowingly twisting the knife further.

There was no way she could say that, and know what it really meant. I looked up at Roseluck’s smiling, reassuring face, and I faked a smile right back.

“You’re right.” I said. “Hit me with your best shot.”

I hate lying to Roseluck, but she has enough to worry about without having to fret over a little sister who’s going bonkers. I smiled for her. I winced at the knee swabs. I gave her a hoof bump, and when all was said and done, I felt more alone than ever.

Note to self: destroy those sheets.

Of course, Roseluck wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t the only one who could tell that my cuts were strange, but she didn’t ask any questions. Not after holding me for so long, and letting me blubber away into her mane.

Instead, we shared an abnormally quiet cup of tea over an abnormally quiet breakfast, and after a long dark silence, she finally turned to me, and said, “Did you have a bad dream?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to…I don’t know, talk about it?” She slid closer to me. She was really trying. I desperately wanted to meet her halfway. I’d never felt so distant from my sister before. We told each other everything! But I’d almost died in that wasteland. I couldn’t stand the thought of her worrying.

“I’d like to.” I said honestly. “But not right now.”

She nodded. “I didn’t know what my cutie mark meant when I first got it either.” Said Roseluck. “It’s not supposed to be that way, but you’re growing up now. Sometimes the answer isn’t always as clear as you’d like it to be.” She patted me on the back, and turned to clear the table.

What was she talking about? I whipped around, and shot my ever-perceptive gaze at the sight of my own flank.

* * *

“Rose petals? Really?” I squeaked aloud.

“What?” Said Blueberry Milkshake. “It’s what you always wanted.”

I leaned in close as we walked. I didn’t want every kid on the long slow death march to the schoolhouse to overhear us.

“I wanted to know my purpose.” I barked at her in whispers.

“And you still don’t.”

I shook my head frantically. I had been all jerky and twitchitty like that all morning. I needed real sleep.

“Hey, kid, you okay? What happened to your knees?” Asked the sofa pony as we passed him, quills dangling from his teeth.

“Ahh!” I shouted back in return.

Sweet Celestia, I had had one hoof in the grown up world for less than an hour, and already I was starting to act tense. Like a grown up. It made me feel dirty somehow.

“Well,” Blueberry Milkshake chewed on her pigtails as we trotted down Mane Street. “What were you doing just before you got it?”

“Nothing.”

I hate lying.

“Whattaya mean nothing?” Asked Blue.

“Whattaya mean, what do I mean, nothing?” I said. “I mean I was doing nothing.”

Saying that out loud stung. I mean, what had I done to help that poor kid, when you got right down to it? Nothing.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Said Blue. “Ponies don’t just get cutie marks for standing around! Whatever you were doing right before it showed up – that’s gotta be...like, your destiny.”

She gestured to the sky - her natural awe for the mysteries of the cutieverse coupled with a rather artificial flare for the dramatic. Sooo not in the mood.

“I didn’t just stand around!” I snapped.

Silence. Even the birds seemed to stop chirping for a moment as they flew over us on their southward journey. Blueberry stared at me. She wasn’t mad. She just stared.

Damn it, Rose Petal, you went and worried her too!

“I’m sorry.” I said at long last, head hung low.

“It’s okay.” She put a hoof on my shoulder. A comforting moment followed by the first awkward silence the two of us had ever shared. Even as she tried to comfort me, I stared off into space and got right back to thinking about what I was going to do to stop the megaspell.

It must have seemed like I wasn’t even there with her. I had to be the worst friend in the History of Ever.

“I was asleep.” I said at long last.

She looked at me blankly.

“When I got the cutie mark. I just sorta woke up and…well…” I gestured to my flank.

“Oh.” She nodded reassuringly,

We walked on after that in a far more comfortable silence. It only lasted a moment, though, because out of the blue, she dug into the ground and threw her hoof in front of me.

“Hold perfectly still.” She demanded.

Blueberry leaned in to examine the image further, as if a close look would reveal something special about a cutie mark earned while unconscious. Honestly, I don’t know what she expected to find. They were just a couple of red, pink, white, and yellow rose petals.

“You must have dreamt it.” She added with the firm authority of a diagnosing physician.

She brushed my bird’s nest of a mane out of my face. “Didja do anything, you know, special in your dreams?” She asked gently.

My eyes drifted as far away from her as they could possibly get. I focused on a pair of clouds that looked rather a lot like sandwiches.

“I don’t remember.” I said.

An obvious lie. When I finally worked up the nerve to turn and face her, I was met with a cocked eyebrow.

“Girl, please.” She said, bobbing and weaving her head. “Talk to me.”

I never could figure out how she did that bobby-weave-a-majig with her neck. It made me smile. She deserved an answer, or at least some kind of hint about how I was really feeling. But the only feelings I could put into words were about those silly sandwich clouds. They used to make me so happy. They used to make me want to eat sandwiches. Now they just seemed like a bunch of stupid old clouds.

“Are ponies good?” I blurted out at long last.

“What do you mean?”

“Us. Ponies. We control the Sun, the Moon, the weather. But are we, you know…good? In our hearts?”

She didn’t laugh at the question like I thought she would. She actually stopped to give it serious thought. We both stared on down the road in silence, watching our fellow Ponyvilleans getting ready for their busy days.

“Yes.” She said. “I think so. At least when we want to be.”

Hmm.

* * *

I was like that all day. Thinky.

I hate being thinky. I’d much rather be talky, or better yet, do-y. But there was nothing I could do to make it alright, and there was nothing I could say either.

I made it through the gauntlet of students’ oooh’ing and ahhh’ing over my cutie mark. Would you believe that nopony at school even thought twice about the bandages on my knees? (Was I really that clumsy and predictable?) But after getting sprayed with more attention than I cared for over the stupid rose petals on my flank, I finally made my way into that big red house o’ learning, where boredom kicked down a wall in my brain and made way for a whole new wave of thinkiness.

First of all, sounds, smells, shivers of unexplained cold, the taste of stale wasteland air on my tongue – they all drifted in and out of my consciousness at unexpected times. I hate that! It was so jarring; I didn’t even know where I was half the time.

Perhaps under different circumstances, I would have liked to forget that I was sitting in school, but everything about what was happening to me just felt totally wrong. To make matters worse, I kept nodding off.

Every time I so much as blinked, I saw that damn boy from the wasteland staring at me in disappointment again. Sometimes it was just the memory, but occasionally, I saw him in different landscapes, asleep on the back of one the meanies, trudging under the pale light of what apparently passed for dawn in the sunless wasteland.

It wasn’t long before I grew to hate blinking.

“So you see, class, it was Smart Cookie, Clover the Clever, and Private Pansy who made the first Hearth’s Warming Eve possible.” Miss Cheerilee’s voice drifted to me in fragments from the front of the classroom. “Equestria was built on the friendship and unity of everyday ponies like you and me, because the leaders at the time refused to do the right thing.”

I saw the boy and his captors in different places – traversing over dead buildings, over dead fields. I let it all wash over me in one great big giant exhausting mess. Then suddenly, it occurred to me what I’d been seeing. Just like that! With all of the thinkiness going on, I’d missed the obvious answer – I was watching their journey. I was following them.

Was part of me still there in the wasteland?

Cheerilee must have read the epiphany on my face, because the next thing I knew, my name was being called.

“Rose Petal,” (She said, as you might have guessed).

“Huh? What?” I asked with my usual poise and charm.

Miss Cheerilee tapped her hoof impatiently. She was standing right over me, staring me down.

Buck! I thought. She expected me to answer a question. “Um…Three!” I said confidently.

She looked up to the ceiling for a moment as she contemplated my answer.

“I suppose so, yes, but what did those three do?”

Darn it, our math lesson was over! When did that happen? What in Equestria was she asking me?

I sifted through the pile of loose leaf scraps scattered over the surface of my desk. Maybe I had jotted a note down somewhere – a clue of what she might be talking about! The problem was that piles of smoking wasteland rubble would have looked tidy compared to the disaster area that was my desk.

Doodles, doodles, my name and date on an otherwise blank piece of paper, more doodles, the phrase “April is the cruelest month,” scribbled down for no reason at all on an old piece of homework, doodles, doodle, still yet more strikingly haunting doodles.

Darn it, what did she ask me?

“Um…Umm…” I said.

The class giggled.

“Three…uh…um…Well, you see, the three ponies, what they did was, like…” I was starting to wish that I’d died in the wasteland the night before just so I wouldn’t have to die of embarrassment there in class.

“That’s enough.” Said Miss Cheerilee, who shot the gigglers a stern look, but thankfully chose not to make an example of me.

I closed my eyes and sighed. I didn’t get any real relief out of it, though - just a picture in my head of a boy who needed my help.

* * *

I’d hoped recess would be better, but it was too cold. That weird time of year just after the Running of the Leaves, and just before the first snow of winter. Not cold enough to need hats and scarves or to have snowball fights, but cold enough to be uncomfortable. Still, I almost wish it had been just a little bit chillier. Roseluck always sent me out in scarves when I didn’t actually need them, which is all fine and good except for the fact that if I lost one of the stupid things, it would be my fault. Again.

We jumped rope – the girls and I. It helped me think, or stop thinking, rather. It gave me the chance to just chill with Blueberry Milkshake and do something normal.

“I, 2, 3, 4! Nightmare Moon don’t dark my door. 5, 6, 7, 8! Whatcha gonna do to set her straight? Jump! Jump! Hop-skip-jump. Jump-n-skip and jump-n-skip and hop, skip, jump.”

Ok, I didn’t so much jump rope as I stood next to Blueberry and some other filly, (I don’t even remember which), calling out numbers. The last time I tried to physically jump over a piece of rope, I tripped, lost control, and when all was said and done, I had a giant bruise on my forehead, and my tail didn’t grow back for a month.

The point is, the thinkiness didn’t go away, but the rhythm of the rope sure did muffle a lot of it, which was a nice relief because I still had no idea how the hay I was supposed to single-hoofedly stop the apocalypse. The sound of clapping hooves, chanting fillies, and rope smacking against dry grass worked so well to calm me that I made it almost halfway through play time before stumbling across something I didn’t want to see.

It wasn’t a vision. Not like those phantom shivers and mysterious smells. No. Over by the schoolhouse there was a big gray pegasus colt, except that he wasn’t acting big. He was cowering. I couldn’t tell exactly what was happening, but I know it was nothing good because his back was up against the wall. Literally.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had him flanked from both sides. They weren’t touching him, of course, or pushing him or anything like that. No. They were subtler than that, but trust me, what they were doing was torture. There’s a reason I called Diamond Tiara a bitch earlier.

‘Cause she is.

She has a way of getting under your skin with her words, her judgments – her presence. She and Silver Spoon had done it to all of us at some point or another, so I could spot it a mile away when I saw it happening to somepony else.

The boy looked me in the eye for half a moment and cringed - averted his eyeballs like he’d done something wrong. Why? I took stock of the playground around me. There wasn’t a single filly or colt who hadn’t been picked on at one point or another (usually by the same two bitches). But whenever it happens, we curl up. We hide. We think that everypony else is laughing at us, or worse, watching us with sympathetic eyes. ‘Cause seriously, what good is your pity when you’re just standing there gawking, or turning your back pretending like you didn’t see anything. All you’re really thinking is “Glad it’s not me this time.” Yeah, thanks for the sympathy.

When that pegasus boy turned away from me in shame, it all suddenly made sense. We are Jerkland. Not war-torn Equestria, not Equestria hundreds of years from now. Right here. Right now. Jerkland.

The entire schoolyard was full of deaf ears and conveniently turned blind eyes, and that’s how the world is going to end – in front of deaf ears and blind eyes.

It starts out just like a new bully in town. It tests the water. It sees if you’re willing to stick up for the zebras you don’t particularly like. Just one little jerk move, but you don’t do anything about it. Then comes another jerkface move, and it starts to get a little scary, so you hide some more like that’s gonna fix it. Like the bully doesn’t notice.

The thing is: everypony can see that the bully is pushing you to see how far you’ll go, but they hide too because they’re glad it’s happening to you and not them. Before you know it, the whole schoolyard is Jerkland and you’re twirling a baton at the head of your own personal pity parade.

I was wrong to suspect that ponies are Evil. We’re not. We are Good! We do good deeds; we try each day to be a little better than we were the day before. Quarrels resolved, the charity work the Filly Scouts put their backs into, the cooperative spirit of Winter Wrap Up, the all-healing hoof bumps of forgiveness between friends – awesomeness all around. We are good when we want to be.

But doing good isn’t enough sometimes. Good though ponies may be, we are also afraid, and what good is goodness if you’re too chicken to use it when it’s needed the most?

In my life, I’d been picked on more times than I could count, and in all those years, I couldn’t think of a single occasion when somepony stood up for me. Not one! Can you?

That’s the war in a nutshell. It’s not the tattletale. It’s not the armed guards storming the zebra’s storefront, or even the colt who drew the poster depicting the whole sordid scene for all to see. It’s the folks who got up out of bed every morning to a world where that was normal. The ponies who try to be good – want to be good – the ponies who know the war is wrong, and know that the treatment of zebras is more than a thousand million jillion times unfair, but don’t do a darn thing about it. Or even say anything!

I wanted to be mad at them – to scream at the stupid ponies who are going to let the war happen, but I couldn’t. They were just afraid.

The boy from the wasteland was dragged off by truly Evil ponies right in front of my eyes, and I had done nothing to stop because I was afraid.

Who was I to judge?

The really bucked up thing is that the kid (who’d probably seen his house burned down in front of him) had had hope that I might save him. Just because I was there. The big gray pegasus colt standing right behind me didn’t even have the slightest expectation that somepony might come to his aid.

Think about that! A post-apocalyptic bucking wasteland was a place where you had more cause to expect help from a stranger than a playground in our own perfect little town. It wasn’t right. I couldn’t let it be like that. Not after what I’d seen. I had to do something, I needed to…

Wait a minute. Why is he standing behind me?

I took a quick look around. I was standing in front of Diamond Tiara. Right in her face. I was yelling. When did that happen?! How did that happen?

“…And nopony likes you, Diamond Tiara!” I shouted. “You hear me? Not even Silver Spoon. She just hangs around you to feel cool.”

Silver Spoon blushed and shrunk back into the crowd. Shocked as she was, Diamond Tiara smirked at the knowledge that her approval made other ponies feel cool.

“But you’re not cool!” I continued. She did her best to hold the smirk in place, but I could see it twitching.

“Nopony thinks you’re cool. Nopony wants to be like you. Nopony gets up in the morning and says ‘Gee, I hope whatever I do today makes Diamond Tiara happy,’ because nopony wants you to be happy. If I think of you in the morning, do you want to know what I say?” I took a series of shallow, rapid breaths.

“I say ‘I hope Diamond Tiara doesn’t show up to school today because she caught fire and she melted into goo and smoke and melty stuff.'”

Tears were streaming down my face. My voice was cracking.

“And I don’t like being that pony – somepony who thinks horrible things, because I’m a good pony. And I want to be good, but I do think these horrible things, and I’ve been thinking these horrible things because I was afraid of you.”

I was already only a few feet away, so before she could dare crack a smirk at me again, I charged right up to her and stared her down. I mean really stared her down. I got so close that our eyelashes could have gotten tangled together if one of us had blinked wrong.

“And you think that makes you cool, but you’re not!” I cried. “You are everything that is wrong with the world and you will never ever ever know what it’s like to have a real friend. So a million years from now, when you’re old and sick and crazy and crying all the time, nopony in the world is gonna take care of you. Because. No. Pony. Likes. You."

At some point in all of this, either I’d gotten taller, or Diamond Tiara’s knees had started to bend as she shrank from my aggressive stare, because I found myself looking straight down at her. My voice curled up into a low growl. She was actually shaking.

“Because I hate you, Diamond. He hates you, she hates you.” I pointed my hoof at random kids in the crowd without taking my eyes off of Diamond Tiara, even to blink. “Every single pony in the entire school hates you, and you are going to die sad, bitter, and alone.”

Her knees buckled completely, and her body flopped limply on the ground as it shook.

Silence.

Even the wind shut the heck up long enough to listen to what would happen next.

But Diamond Tiara didn’t have a word to say in her own defense. I, on the other hoof, was panting so hard that I was losing my breath. I mustered up my last bit of strength to bend down further just to drive one final point home.

“I’m not afraid of you any more.”

Thundering heartbeat. Panting. Wheezing. I was a mess. Handled with dignity, class, poise, and grace, Rose. Well done.

I’d backed off, and was busy catching my breath, so she had risen to her full height by the time I held my hoof up, and spun around slowly. I had one last thing to throw out there.

“P.S. You suck.” My little addendum.

The entire class was gathered ‘round in a semi-circle. Staring at me. The wind was making noise again. It had apparently stopped listening, but nopony else had. I scanned the crowd. Snips, Snails, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, my friend Blueberry who watched fearfully from the greatest distance of all in the crowd – every one of them was staring at me.

Suddenly, the adrenaline came crashing down. I wanted to curl up and hide. Like I’d done something wrong.

Diamond Tiara must have read the terror on my face, because she finally shook off her own shock, and whipped out the smirk again. I lowered my head to try to escape their stares, but even when I turned around to face the other way, there stood the pegasus kid I had defended – tears running down his face, just like mine.

I’d scared him! I had become the schoolyard menace. Why does everything have to be so ironic?!

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. There must be words that exist for telling somepony you’re sorry that you tried to help them but actually just ended up scaring them because you’re nothing but a big dummy, but I couldn’t think of any words like that, so I just closed my eyes.

Yes, Rose. That will make them all go away.

I don’t regret stepping in, but I really wished that I would stop messing up every single thing I tried to do. It was starting to get old.

I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as they would go, hoping the whole scene would just go away. Then, out of the dark, I heard the sound of clapping hooves. Like drops of rain on a tin roof, the sound gathered momentum. First one pair of hooves. Then another. Then a veritable storm of hoof.

I looked up. They were applauding me. My entire class. They were all applauding me.

I whipped around to face the pegasus behind me. He had his hoof held out. Were those tears of…joy?

I bumped his hoof. Slowly. Cautiously.

What had just happened?

The class walked right passed Diamond Tiara as though she wasn’t even there, and before I knew it, I was completely surrounded. They all wanted a piece.

I gave them all hoof bumps of course, but I did it while laughing. The kind of frantic, crazy hysterical laughter that rips out of you when there’s nothing funny at all going on.

I think my body just resorted to laughter because it didn’t know what else to do with the stress. I was all out of tears.

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

Column: My Derpy Hooves News column about Love, Tolerance, and Friendship, “Help! My Heart is Full of Pony!” is now archived at http://heartfullofpony.tumblr.com

Music: Check out my pony music (rock, jazz, hip-hop, blues, classical, and experimental). http://www.youtube.com/sdoggingsworth

Cover Art: http://shadesofeverfree.deviantart.com/art/The-Rose-Queen-334850063

A Horse With No Name

CHAPTER THREE – A HORSE WITH NO NAME
“Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.” - Henry James

It was kind of awkward going back to class that afternoon. I mean, it’s one thing to tell a miserable, monstrous, no-good excuse for a filly that they’re gonna die alone someday; it’s quite another to sit two desks down from her a few minutes afterwards and get working on your papier-mâché volcano like nothing had ever happened. On the one hoof, you can’t just sit there all day staring at her, but on the other hoof, you can’t exactly freak out and dodge her eye contact either, (which totally sucks cause there’s this voice in your head screaming at you the whole time, saying Look away! Look away! Look away!).

For over an hour, the tension was in the air, but toward the end of the day, Miss Cheerilee passed around our art projects from the week before. Construction paper, glitter, paste - it was the perfect excuse not to look up from my desk for any reason whatsoever.

I’d already constructed a strong border for my portrait-to-be. It was made of popsicle sticks and phony gems. All four corners were speckled with confetti, raw macaroni, and bits of blotchy color, but right smack in the middle, there were still plenty of empty spaces that needed filling – the heart of my work.

I gripped a colored pencil, and stared at the empty canvas, (so to speak). At first, I latched on to all the tiny little distractions going on around me (and didn’t draw at all): Cheerilee’s watchful eyeballs as she roamed the aisles; Diamond Tiara’s hatred radiating from two rows down. Once that pencil started moving, though, it all just sorta melted away.

I scratched at the page feverishly, slashing sharp angles of contrasting color across the page. A shape was coming into focus before my eyes. I could see my own hoof scraping against the paper furiously, and lines slowly starting to articulate themselves into ideas, but honestly, I had no idea what was coming next. It was as though my hoof had a mind of its own.

Each pencil stroke scraped away the falsehood that was the blank page, and revealed something true underneath. Something I absolutely, positively, totally needed to see.

There were jagged edges framing the picture. Blades? No, wait, it was a hole – sharp corners of a gap in some grey concrete wall, and beyond that hole was the Most Importantest Of All Things.

A fragment of a face. Pink! No, red! No, yellow! A sullen eye stared back at me through the hole in the concrete. She was hopeless - defeated. I could see just barely enough of the face to know that it didn’t have a horn. It was an earth pony, (or maybe a pegasus), but what mattered more - what haunted me - was that she was afraid. This poor girl trapped in my drawing was terrified, and yet so darn calm and resigned - as if that fear had been all she’d ever known. As I looked down and pitied her, a song poked into my head. It even had lyrics that hid from me right on the tip of my tongue. But somehow, it all seemed to sum up what I already knew deep down inside - that nopony so young should ever feel such hopelessness.

That girl was imprisoned somewhere. That much was certain. She was behind a wall, wherever that was, and she was looking right at me, waiting for me to help her. I dropped my pencil in shock.

I couldn’t believe it. It was her. The one I’m meant to save.

I suddenly felt a hoof rest gently on my shoulder. It startled me so hard I nearly leapt out of my seat.

“That’s very good,” Said Miss Cheerilee. “Does she have a name?”

I looked up. The classroom was empty. Bare-naked empty. Everypony had rushed out the door the second the bell rang. I didn’t even hear it.

“Oh…No. Not really, Miss Cheerilee.”

I froze. Here was this filly right in front of me, pleading with me through the pencil and the paper – this child who needed my help so badly that the Universe Itself had put me in harm’s way just to get it to her. But I didn’t know her story. I didn’t even know her name. I only knew that she was trapped.

“What is this here?” She asked. “A wall?”

"Mhm."

“And what’s this on the other end?”

I shrugged. “Um…That’s a filly.” I said.

Miss Cheerilee just nodded.

“She’s uh…peeking at stuff!” I added to assure her that the image was rather ordinary, and not, in fact, a plea for help. I didn’t need her thinking that I was messed up in the head.

“Well, I think it’s lovely.” Said Cheerilee. “It’s been a big day for you.”

Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no! The schoolyard gossip had reached her. She knew about what had happened between me and Diamond Tiara.

“It has?” I cringed.

“Of course!” She smiled. “First you get your cutie mark, and now, here you are, blossoming as an artist!”

I took another glimpse at the drawing: glitter and gumdrops adorning a scratchy whirlwind of colored pencil marks. It looked like a living nightmare with bits of macaroni stuck to the corners.

“Do you mind if I hang this on the wall for our Open House?”

“So everypony can gawk at it and point and laugh and be jerks to me about the window into my madness?” I clapped my hooves to my mouth.

I can’t believe I just blurted that out. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

“What makes you say that?” Said Miss Cheerilee earnestly.

“Um…” I leaped to my hooves and backed against the wall. Scouted both directions for a viable escape. I was desperate. She was asking too many questions and I was letting on too much.

“Rose Petal, Rose Petal, it’s okay.” She said. “Good art – really good art is supposed to be a little crazy. And you’re not in trouble, so relax. Nopony is going to laugh at you.”

That one caught me off guard. It even calmed my paranoia long enough for me to stop and give it some serious thought. Art is supposed to be crazy.

“Let me get this straight, Miss Cheerilee.” I said to her. “You mean to tell me that art is crazy.”

She shut her eyes and nodded with a smile.

“And that my art is good…because it’s...also crazy?”

She nodded again.

“And you want to hang this weird…thing.” I gestured down at my scribbles. “Up on the wall, so that everypony can come by and look and see how crazy it is?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, and nodded again with an even, bigger, wider smile. I was beginning to think that I wasn’t the only one in the room playing cards with only half a deck.

I sighed. There’s no sense trying to make sense out of grown-ups sometimes.

“Sure.” I said.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it. Cheerilee wanted to know everything there was to know about the picture, and all I wanted to do was high tail out of there. Luckily, there wasn’t that much to talk about, apart from the mystical significance of the picture (that I myself didn’t really understand, and didn’t want to talk about anyway).

“Can you tell me why this um, Filly With No Name over here is behind a wall?”

“I dunno. She’s stuck there, I guess.”

“Mmhmm. And what’s on the other side?” She continued. “What’s she looking at?”

“I guess she’s waiting for me to save her?” I really wasn’t sure what the filly in the picture was looking at. All I knew for sure was that it felt like she was digging straight into my soul with her stare-ity eyeballs.

“That’s very nice, Rose Petal.” Said Miss Cheerilee, trying to mask her understandable apprehension with a giggle.

“Thanks, Miss Cheerilee. Can I, um, go now?”

That’s it, Rose Petal. Make a smooth exit.

“Oh, sure.” She laughed. “This isn’t detention, you know. You’re not in trouble.”

ZIP! I was halfway out the door when she called my name out one last time.

“One more thing.”

I spun silently on my hooves and faced her. At least I meant to spin. I ended up whacking one of my knees into the doorframe instead, and stumbling all over the room to regain my balance.

After the mutual reassurances occurred, (-“Yes, I’m fine, Miss Cheerilee. Jeez!” -“No, Rose Petal, don’t worry about the broken globe”), she asked me what she’d meant to ask me all along. The thing that had made her giggle at me all awkward-like a few moments before. Grown-ups always do that. They wait to tell you what’s really on their minds dead last.

“If something’s ever bothering you,” She said. “You know you can talk to me, right?”

“Of course, Miss Cheerilee.” I faked a smile.

* * *

After school, I had quite a lot of organizing to do:

LIST OF PONIES I WORRIED

[X} Cheerilee

[X] Roseluck

[X] Blue

Have you ever seen an earth pony attempt to write in a notebook while walking? It’s not pretty. I tried doing it on the way home - walked right into a tree and almost swallowed my pencil! That sort of thing happens all the time when you take the scenic route home.

Darn trees. I swear they leap at you out of nowhere.

“You okay?”

Huh? What? Who said that? The colt I’d helped back at the playground came trotting up beside me.

Great. He’s gonna wanna talk at me now. I thought.

“Grumble, grumble, grumble.” I said out loud in those exact words, and kept walking.

“Thanks, by the way.” He said nervously.

“I saaaaaid ‘grumble, grumble, grumble.’” This was starting to get irritating.

I had important business to attend to.

When I heard that thought bouncing around the inside of my head – important business - I took a long hard look at myself.

“Jeez,” I said. “You’re talking like one of them.”

“I’m sorry?” Asked the colt.

I stopped dead in my tracks. Had I said that aloud or was he listening to my brain? Holy cow, what else did he know?! Get rid of him! I urged myself. Do it now! Do it quick!

I turned to face the colt and snapped at him.

“Grumble!” I said before going about my business and stomping away further off into the hills.

I didn’t have time for talk. I had Equestria to save.

“You didn’t have to do that for me, you know.” He added.

I rolled my eyes. “ I didn’t do it for you. I gotta keep Diamond Tiara from destroying the world.”

I was way too tired to have any hope of making anything that could even be said to resemble sense.

“Yeah, I hear you.” Said the colt without skipping a beat.

I groaned and tucked my Ponies-I’ve-Worried checklist away into my saddlebag. It was clear I wasn’t going to get any more work done. Not that I’d accomplished all that much anyway.

I had yelled at Diamond Tiara, and she’d definitely had it coming, and for just a few moments, I’d felt great – I mean really fantastic. But what good had I done? I mean what good had really come of it?

The end was extremely bucking neigh, and if I couldn’t figure something out, the blood of millions would be on my hooves.

“Are you okay?” What’s-His-Face asked me flat out.

The dreaded question. I guessed I’d worn my worries on my face.

I spun around to snap at him again, but this kid, for some stupid reason looked up to me. When I glared at him, and saw only a Say-It-Ain’t-So pout on his face, the last thing in the world I ever expected to come out of my mouth actually went and fell right out of it – the truth.

“No.” I said.

Stupid mouth! Quit saying things!

“No, I’m not okay.”

* * *

I told him everything. I thought it was a dumb move, even as the words spilled right out of my mouth like water gushing out of a hole in a bucket (that you had clumsily tried to nail to a plank of wood for some reason). I just couldn’t help myself. I had to tell somepony.

So I talked, and I talked, and I talked, and I talked, and I talked, and – Sweet Celestia, was I sobbing?

Darn it, Rose, stop that! I thought.

I wiped my face off clumsily with my hooves and caught my breath. I’d actually been heaving. When I was done with that embarrassing display, the pegasus kid looked me up and down.

“I’m so sorry.” He said. His eyes were also filled with tears.

“That’s it?"

He hung his head low, blue mane falling in front of his dull grey face.

“I wish I knew what else to say.” He whispered.

“No ‘You’re crazy,’ ‘You’re weird’?”

He stared at me blankly.

“No ‘Get away from me, you nut job?’”

“What?! No!” He objected.

“Well, why not?” I kicked a pebble. It knocked harmlessly against the display window of a storefront. “What’s wrong with you?”

He shrugged.

“What about me? What’s wrong with me?” I asked.

He shrugged again.

“What in the hoof am I gonna do?” My voice cracked with desperation.

I gave him a long and thorough stare down. He responded with yet another shrug.

“Why do you keep shrugging?” I yelled. He was starting to make me mad.

The boy just shrugged yet again. I stared at him hard.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He pleaded.

Oh, jeez! I’m intimidating him.

One rant at a spoiled brat in the playground and I had become what I hated most in the world – a bully.

“No, no. Please.” I said as he unconsciously backed away from me.

“Please what?” He said.

It was my turn to shrug and shy away.

“Please don’t be afraid of me.” I muttered softly.

My hooves were shaking.

* * *

So I cut the nonsense and was nice to the kid. He bought me milkshakes. Plural. It’s a well known fact amongst us kids that a cousin of a friend of Peppermint Swirl’s Mom’s pen pal once walked the deserts of Los Pegasus alone, drank seven milkshakes in a row to cool himself down, and got so hyper that the little teeny specks that we’re all made of...Well, they just started vibrating at a different frequency or something, and he disappeared into the ether, never to be seen or heard from again.

I was in no danger of that.

“Can I get you another?” My new kinda sorta friend-type pony asked.

I should have stopped to ask his name at some point, but we had been in the same class for a really long time, and I couldn’t just admit to him that I’d forgotten, or worse, that I’d never absorbed it in the first place.

I nodded with a weak smile.

“Sure, thanks. But two milkshakes is my limit.”

He ordered, and was kind enough to pay. We sat in silence for a bit as I gathered my thoughts. Before I knew it, Milkshake #2 was in front of me, and I was sucking it down.

“Cliff Diver!” I shouted out of the blue. His name was Cliff Diver. I remembered it!

“Yes?” He said.

I'd yelled his name real loud in public… And now he’s staring at me.

“Oh, um…I forgot what I was gonna say.”

I got back to work on my milkshake.

“Where’s the boy now?” Cliff Diver asked at long last.

“I wish I knew.” I said.

“Can you follow him?” I must have been looking at Cliff Diver like he had five legs and a suction cup growing out of his forehead, because he stifled a laugh and hurried to clarify. “You said you could see him during class, right? So where’s he now?”

Cliff was right. I had seen the poor captive shadow-boy-from-my-dreams during class. I’d followed his journey over rubble-littered hill and dilapidated plain. As I sat there in the ice cream parlor and tried to concentrate on him, though, I came up with nothing.

“I don’t know.” I said at last

The colt nodded in contemplation. “So what are we gonna do?”

What were we gonna do? We. I had to think about that for a minute. We? Really? What was wrong with this kid?

My mind shot straight to thoughts of my best friend Blueberry Milkshake. The first to give up on helping me find my cutie mark once she’d found her own, first to shrink back into the crowd and pretend she didn’t know me when I ranted at that jerk Diamond Tiara, and the very last to congratulate me on it – only after she had realized that the coast was clear, and that my explosion had actually turned me into some sort of playground folk hero.

That’s what I'd thought friendship was my whole life.

Then this pegasus kid comes along at the worst possible moment. He’s got absolutely nothing to gain, and in fact, everything to lose by putting himself out on a limb for a nut job like me. And still, he decides that he wants to help. What gives?

I gotta be honest with you, it freaked me out. It freaked me out good.

The last thing in the world I wanted to do is burden anypony else with my troubles, but one look at him told me that I couldn't just get rid of him with a clap of my hooves. I’d already selfishly invited him into my World O’ Rose Petal Problems when I’d opened up my big fat yap. That made him my responsibility.

Still, the question remained:

“What are we gonna do?” I said out loud to myself.

I sucked my chocolate shake straight to the noisy, slurpitty bottom. And when I was finally done - when even my straw was sucked dry of every speck of foam, I looked up at him and said,

“We’re gonna stop the bucking war.”

* * *

I wanted to stop the war right then and there, twenty years before it was destined to happen. I was ready to run out and find whatever Evil was fated to cause the catastrophe and kick its flank. I wanted to hop a train to Canterlot, buck the door to the throne room wide open, grab a princess – any princess – and yell, “Do you have any idea what’s going to happen?”

But I couldn’t. I had to be home in time for dinner.

Besides, there was no flank to be kicked – only our own cowardice and fear. We weren’t facing the kind of Evil that laughs at you maniacally and tells you its plan like a Daring Do villain. This was a much harder Evil to tackle – the weakness inside us all – the part of every pony that stands by, and does nothing as zebras in posters are victimized. The kind of Evil that whimpers.

The good news? Cliff Diver had a plan. There wasn’t much time before sundown, but we still got to initiate Sequence Alpha (which is like super secret spy talk for Stage One): The Library.

“Helloooooo!” I shouted, banging on the door to Twilight Sparkle’s giant treebrary. “Anypony home?”

“Maybe we should--;”

“We don’t have time for this!” I shouted at the top of my lungs as I hurled myself against the door again and again. “Let us in, you book-o’s!”

“Um, Rose?” Said the boy behind me, but I just kept on hurling myself against the door.

Suddenly it swung open with no effort at all and I fell face forward into the darkness inside.

“Hello?” I said again, this time a bit more unsure of myself now that I had broken into the joint, and was apparently, all alone.

I sucked in my first breath of treebrary air. It stank. I had to cover my mouth just to keep from choking. "Cliff Diver?" I turned around, but he was gone. The door was not only closed behind me, but barricaded too. I grabbed at the doorknob and yanked at it with all of my might, but came away only with a hoof full of grease.

I stumbled backwards. Fell into a little sliver of light, and saw the gook o my hoof for what it was. It was liquid pony.

The walls were spattered with it. Lined with bits of the dead. Everywhere. I had to stuff my clean hoof all the way into my mouth just to keep from screaming. Disaster was everywhere. Somepony had ransacked the place. I mean, scorched it! The books were gone. The globe was gone. I don’t even think I can describe what they had used as décor instead, but let me tell you, it was not an improvement.

Every muscle that I had suddenly clenched. There was so much horror around me. Except for one little thing. I could see it. Clear as day. Right in the middle of all the filth and the Evil, was one lone book, sitting out unmolested on the reading table against the wall. It was green with gold lettering.

It just sat there. Pristine. So clean that it even seemed to shine a little despite the darkness surrounding it. It didn’t belong there - not after whatever had happened. No, that book was definitely left on that table just for me. I knew it. I felt it in my bones.

The rotten floorboards moaned and creaked as I took a few steps closer. I still couldn’t make out the lettering, so I moved juuust in a little further, reached out with a steady hoof and tried and touch it. But the instant that I acknowledged the book’s importance – the moment that I finally grasped that it was really, really, really, really, really actually just sitting there, waiting for me, the book disappeared into thin air.

So did the blood and the darkness and all of the shelves and upturned tables and things.

“Rose Petal?”

I squinted my eyes. It was broad daylight again. Cliff had a hoof on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah.” I said. “There’s um…nopony home.”

The smell of rot was still souring my nose. So bad I could taste it. I threw up right there on Twilight Sparkle’s lawn.

Without even stopping to catch my breath, I whipped my head up cheerfully and flashed Cliff Diver a big “Really, I swear, I’m perfectly fine” grin.

He didn’t buy it. I just saw more worry on his face. With a sigh, I leaned against him. I wouldn’t ordinarily do such a thing, or seek this kind of comfort in another pony (except, of course, for my sister), but it had been a very weird day.

I grudgingly nuzzled up against him. I must have stank of vomit. It was so unfair to him! But I leaned in just the same, because I didn’t know what else to do. It was then and there that I decided that it was wrong that I should keep all of these dangerous secrets from Roseluck. I had confided in this boy I’d just met, who was turning out to be quite the loyal friend, (and that concept still freaked me out), but it wasn’t right that my own sister should be in the dark.

What I didn’t know is that my evening with Roseluck was gonna get weird. You see, both Roseluck and I had decided (totally separate from one another) that TONIGHT WAS THE NIGHT that we would share our deepest, strangest secrets. You know, because that sort of thing makes for the perfect fireside conversation.

* * *

I made it home in time for dinner, and with plenty of time to spare, but all I could do when I got there was lie around in bed staring at the ceiling with my eyes wide open. I desperately wanted to sleep, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not even for a nap. I was too afraid.

Besides, I needed to figure out how in Luna’s name I was going to tell Roseluck what had happened!

I turned the events of the day around in my head over and over and over again. The daydreams, the fight with Diamond Tiara, the sketch of the one I’m meant to save, the kid who followed me around, that stupid green book. Everything. But above all, I fixated on something that Cliff Diver had said to me just before I got home.

You see, I had demanded to know, quite reasonably, I think, why he believed my story about the future. I mean, it was all totally cuckoo bonkers insane, right? How could this kid just accept something like that? Like it was nothing! No questions asked.

Well, I wanted a reason, so I asked him flat out why the hay he believed my ridiculous story. Do you know what he said?

That boy looked me straight in the eyes, and with complete and total sincerity, he said to me, “Because you’re my friend.”

What kind of answer is that? What was up with that kid? He might have been the one pony in school crazier than I was for saying it, but whatever in the world was wrong with him also made him the most remarkable colt in the History of Ever! Beautiful in a way I hadn’t even thought possible before. I prayed he’d never change, the darn fool.

I was horrified by the idea the he wanted to weigh himself down with all of my problems, and to be honest, letting him do that even a little was already making me uncomfortable. But if nothing else, that boy had my respect.

Finally, after what seemed like an impossibly long quiet in my room, in which thoughts bounced and tumbled and swirled all around the inside of my brain like beads in a rattle, Roseluck called me downstairs. I sucked in a deep nervous breath, and blew a raspberry with my tongue.

Tonight’s the night, Rose Petal. You can do this.

The second I got downstairs, however, my purpose was distracted. Something was fishy. Very fishy.

For starters, the dinner table was empty. Instead our plates were laid out on the coffee table. A nice warm fire was raging in the wood stove we treated as a fireplace, and a cast iron teapot was cooling on a tile coaster right beside it. It smelt of roses and dried berries.

I approached the warm and comforting scene with suspicion.

Uh-oh.

Roseluck had made sandwiches. We never had sandwiches for dinner.

“What’s wrong?” I asked immediately.

Roseluck rolled her eyes.

“It’s your special day, dummy.” She grabbed me and gave me noogies that tangled up my mane something fierce. “And you’re very welcome.”

“Hey, quit it!” I giggled.

She let me go, and we both made for the coffee table where the food was laid out. I ate in silence, and by ate, I mean “shoveled food in my mouth faster than I could chew,” and by in silence, I mean “to the sound of my own teeth mashing and chomping against bread and flowers, and fruits, and greens.”

As always, I sat on the floor of the den. There was an extra Co-Z-Colt chair of course, but it was Mom’s Co-Z-Colt. Roseluck always insisted that Mom would have wanted me to use it, and she was probably right, but I just couldn’t. Roseluck plopped down in Dad’s old chair, (which nopony gave a darn about), and poured us both some tea.

Sandwiches can’t fix all of your problems, but when your mouth is stuffed full of them, it’s pretty much the next best thing. I was lying there, working on Sandwich #3 (green apples, rose petals, and mango mayonnaise on rye), when Roseluck started in on what she really wanted to say.

“Did I ever tell you the story of how I got my cutie mark?” She asked.

“Hmmm.” Come to think about it, she never had. She was so good at gardening, and she had so much to say about stupid plants and stuff that I just sorta presumed that her cutie mark was mixed in there somewhere with one of her many flower anecdotes.

“I think it’s time you heard it.” She said, slurping at her tea. “Rose Petal, it happened in my dreams.”

I choked a little on a throat full of sandwich.

“That’s what happened to you last night, isn’t it?”

I nodded “yes.”

“I was about your age. Mom had just tucked me in like she used to.” Roseluck closed her eyes and smiled warmly as the light from the fire in the stove made her look like an orange pony. “You were already fast asleep in Dad’s lap.

“Pbbbbt.” I said.

“Well, when I drifted off, I sort of fell into the weirdest dream. It wasn’t like other dreams at all. It was like being totally alert and awake, but in another place altogether. Another time.

“A quick look around me told me I was in Canterlot. I had never been to Canterlot before, but I recognized the castle. All the ponies around me were dressed sort of funny – all ruffles and poofy shoulders and robes.

“At first I thought it was just Canterlot fashion, but it wasn’t. I was in the past.” She leaned in close. “Canterlot: six hundred years ago.”

“I got my cutie mark in the future!” I cried out. “Hundreds of years in the future!”

Finally, a sign that I wasn’t crazy – or at least that I wasn’t alone in being crazy.

Roseluck put her teacup down gently on the end table beside her.

“I thought it might be something like that.” She said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head. “You first! You first! What was Canterlot like?”

I sprawled out on my belly and propped my head up eagerly with my hooves.

“To be honest,” Said Roseluck. “Smelly.”

I giggled.

“I wandered aimlessly.” She continued. “I figured out that it was six centuries in the past, not from any particular clues. The idea simply popped into my head, and it felt right.”

That’s exactly how I knew that my dream had been 190 years after the bomb! I dipped my fourth sandwich triangle in my tea and stared up at my sister, hanging on every word.

“I was all alone, afraid. Lost. Sure, there were other ponies, of course – hundreds of them actually, but nopony who I knew. Nopony who cared about me. I started to freak out. I even felt that lump way down deep here in my throat.” She gestured to her neck and spoke in a dark, dry voice. “You know, the kind you get just before you start to cry?”

I nodded.

“But I didn’t get to cry, because just before I lost it, I suddenly heard a sound that snapped me right out of my fool self.” She paused to take a giant gulping swig of her tea. I had never been terribly lady-like when it came to things like that, but Roseluck would've had to be pretty darn excited to rush a cup of tea.

“Well?” I asked impatiently. “What was it?”

“Somepony else who was crying. There were ponies everywhere all around me, but I could hear this one voice over it all, like it was calling to me. Like it was the whole reason I had gone back in time in the first place.”

My jaw dropped.

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Rose Petal?”

I gave her an enthusiastic nod. I knew that feeling too well.

“So I followed it until I came to an open window.” My sister continued. “It was too high for me to reach, so I stacked some crates that were lying around in the alleyway below. The actual crying wasn’t very loud, but I could still hear it echoing around inside my head, and I knew that I was close to something big.”

“When I finally got to the top, I peeked my head over the windowsill. I had to do it slow and careful to avoid being seen. There was a stallion there with a scraggly mane, sobbing boo-hoo-hoo into his long white beard.

“There were random planks of wood, and paintbrushes, and little wooden machines scattered everywhere - all across his room -and on the walls were some of the most beautiful drawings I’d ever seen.

“After standing there like a dope for Celestia only knows how long, I poked my whole head in through the window. I knew I couldn’t get what needed doing done just by standing there, so I summoned my courage and I asked him what was wrong.

“He looked up at me in confusion. ‘What magic is this?’ He said.

“Before I could answer, the old stallion rushed over and grabbed my hoof. I was scared! His grip was hard and his hooves were rough. Then the stack of crates gave out from under me and I understood what he was doing.

“That old stallion saved my life.”

“But why was he crying?” I mumbled, mouth full of sandwiches.

“I’m getting to that.” Roseluck bopped me on the nose. “When he pulled me in, I didn’t get a chance to thank him. He was too busy ranting at me about all the danger I had put myself in. You know, grown up stuff.”

She winked. I smiled at her.

“Well, after all of his blah-blah-blah’s, he finally said to me ‘What were you doing up there in the first place?’

“I cringed. His yelling had made me shy. He barked the question again until I finally whimpered out an answer. ‘Because I heard you crying.’”

I dug my hoof angrily into the rug beneath me. Nopony talks to my sister that way.

“What a jerk!” I shouted. “If I had been there, I woulda--;”

Roseluck reclined, stretched out her hind hoof, and plugged my mouth with it. I took the hint and shut up.

“He wasn’t a jerk.” She said. “I’d scared him is all.”

Ponies aren’t themselves when they’re afraid. I thought.

“Finally the old guy quit his ranting and just sighed. ‘And what business is it of yours if I was crying. Can’t a pony cry in peace? In his own room?’

“I pleaded and apologized and told him that I just wanted to see if he needed any help.

“Roseluck, seriously, why didn’t you just--;” I said.

FWOMP. She stuck her hoof in my mouth again. I furrowed my brow at her and gave her my best disapproving stare, but let her get on with the story.

“The old stallion asked me why I cared that he was crying. But I honestly didn’t know! I just shrugged and told him the truth. ‘Because you were crying.’

“He took a long, steady, silent look at me and then, completely out of the blue, startled me with the coarsest, most monstrous laughter I’d ever heard.

‘Thank you.’ He said. ‘Don’t ever lose that.’

“Of course the next thing I asked was, ‘Don’t lose what?’

“He wiped a loose lock of my mane out from in front of my eyes and told me that I had a beautiful heart. Said that if I wasn’t careful, the world would come along and sweep it away from me like dust.

“After that, we became friends. He opened up to me, told me all about his life and his work. It was mostly a bunch of crazy painter stuff that would bore you, and that I didn’t really understand either.

“Soon I was coming to his place constantly, and we had the sort of friendship where you didn’t exchange words, even names.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You went to his house constantly? How long were you there?”

Roseluck took a deep breath and hefty sigh.

She prodded the fire with a hot poker and said, “These things are weird, Rose Petal. Sometimes one night’s sleep will put you in a single time and place for months before you wake up. Sometimes you’ll spend a week over here in Ponyville trying to see the events of a single day through on the other side – a little bit each night.

“The point is: one day I showed up with some flowers, and he made a strange remark that changed both of our lives forever. Do you know what he said?”

I shook my head “no.”

“He said that my showing up at his window at that moment was proof that there was something out there, (whatever that meant), and that it cared about him. He told me he believed that, on the day that he’d been crying, I’d been sent to him by fate.”

Roseluck laughed out loud, and raised her teacup high as if to make a toast. “Well, I was. And I knew it!”

She pointed at me in an enthusiastic a-ha gesture.

“But I didn’t want to let on,” She whispered. “So I just kinda, smirked, you know? And it was at that moment that I saw the old stallion’s eyes brighten - like a colt seeing the lights on a Hearth’s Warming tree for the very first time.

“He ran up to me and grabbed my cheeks. Tears were streaming down his face, but he was laughing and smiling. I tried to ask what was going on, but he said ‘No, Wait! Please.’ He contained his laugher for a moment. He whispered to me in the most serious of tones, ‘Whatever you do, hold that smile!’

“He backed away slowly, never taking his eyes off of me, not even to blink. The awkwardness of the situation coupled with the fact that the whole fate talk had been what had triggered him in the first place – it just made me blush and smirk all the more.

“'That’s it!' He laughed and whipped out his brushes and started mixing his paints in a frantic hurry.

“And then he began to paint again.”

Roseluck sat there silently. The fire crackled and popped. I was fresh out of sandwiches.

“Well?!” I snapped at long last. “What happened next?”

“That’s it. I woke up.”

“What do you mean, that’s it? What about your cutie mark?”

She pointed to her flank. “Woke up with it that morning, just like you.”

“What does any of that have to do with roses?”

“Nothing.”

“What?! That’s stupid!” I exclaimed.

“I thought it was the flowers I’d picked for him that day that was the reason for the rose on my flank. I didn’t find out what it actually meant until I took a field trip to Canterlot with my graduating class years later.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” I said. “You get your cutie mark when you realize your special talent. You’re saying you didn’t realize it for years…”

“Sometimes these things have more than one meaning.” Said Roseluck. “Just because you found your talent doesn’t mean you’re done exploring it. Now, button your lip for one more minute. I’m almost done.”

Roseluck winked at me.

“We were all wandering the museum, giggling, being stupid teenagers, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sketch of the old stallion I’d dreamt of years before. I’d always known that those kinds of dreams were more than just dreams – that they were real (and yes, I’ve had many more like it since). But it’s one thing to know that they’re real, and a whole other thing to see the pony from your dreams sketched out on six-hundred-year-old parchment right in front of you.

“It was Leonardo DaWhinny. And do you know what I found all the way at the very end of the exhibit?” Roseluck whipped out a post card from the Royal Canterlot Museum of Art and Antiquities and placed it right in my hooves.

“My smile.” She said. “On the Pona Lisa.”

I examined it carefully, and for a long time. When I looked up from the picture, and saw my sister sitting in Dad’s old chair, there was the smirk. I had never looked at the painting all that closely. Ponyville doesn’t exactly have a lot of replicas lying around, but even on the post card, clear as day, I could tell that I was looking at my sister’s smile.

Cheerilee was right. Art is crazy.

Finally, I passed the card back to her.

“I don’t understand. How come I never heard this story before?”

“Nopony has.”

“Whattaya mean?”

“I mean I’ve never told anypony about this before.” She gestured at the post card.

“But that’s not fair, you totally, like, changed art! Like…Forever!” My voice squeaked with indignant enthusiasm. “…Or something. Didn’t you?”

“No,” Roseluck said, tucking the post card safely away in a drawer. “Leonardo DaWhinny did. I just warmed a sad old pony’s heart.”

“But without you--;”

“It’s not about me.” Roseluck interrupted very firmly.

This was starting to get really confusing.

“How do I explain this? There are great ponies who do great things, Rosie. Folks will talk about them for thousands and thousands of years after those great things are done.” She held out an open hoof. “And there are other ponies, equally great, (sometimes even more so), who do great things that nopony ever notices.

She held out her other hoof, and made a gesture mimicking a scale.

“Equestria needs all the greatness it can get sometimes, and can’t really be bothered dishing out credit everywhere that it’s deserved.”

“That sucks.” I pouted. “That’s not right. It’s not fair!”

I didn’t consider myself destined for any kind of greatness, but I was mad as Tartarus about my sister. Her name should be in history books - in art books. She should be making a living off of this, instead of just scraping by on a part time landscaping gig.

“No, seriously, Rose Petal. It’s an important job.” She looked at me with stark and serious eyes, suddenly all ablaze with the reflection of the fire in our chimney-stove. “These dreams are important! What if Princess Celestia and Luna had never discovered the Elements of Harmony?”

“That’s silly.”

“No it isn’t. Think about it! What if the whole reason we haven’t been living under Discord’s rule for thousands of years is that somepony like you or me came along and gave them a little clue. A nudge. Is that so impossible?”

“Yeah. They’re Celestia and Luna!” I said, voice cracking again. “Just…No way!”

Roseluck opened the drawer beside her again and thrust the post card of the Pona Lisa at me.

“Way.” She said.

Perhaps she had a point.

“Look, everypony wants to be a rock star, or a fashion designer, or the next big important leader who comes along and changes history, and gets parades thrown in her honor, but it just doesn’t work like that. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, what the world really needs more than anything is a good background pony.”

I must have been visibly pouting, because Roseluck snapped at me.

“Hay! Being a background pony is nothing to be ashamed of. We make history happen.”

“I guess.” It still sounded like a raw deal.

I supposed I might have seemed mopey, but it was really just more thinkiness coming back and rearing its ugly head. I had a lot to digest.

“What has any of that got to do with your cutie mark?”

“Beauty,” She said. “My friendship showed an old pony beauty, and that’s what the rose symbolizes.”

She clapped her flank and smiled. “Beauty.”

“I see.” I hung my head. Moping for real. I could even feel those darn tears coming on again.

“But…but…but,” I sniffed. “Then why is mine all broken?”

There were, after all, no roses on my flank. Just petals.

“I don’t know.” Said Roseluck honestly. “I don’t see it as broken. Just a different kind of beauty, that’s all. A whole rose ends up in a vase, and rose petals, end up…um…they end up…in tea.” She smiled and took a sip.

“So my special talent is turning into tea?”

My sister shook her head. “No. Never mind. Bad analogy. I’m being a total foal. I’ll help you make sense of this as best I can, Rosie, I promise. Would you mind telling me about your dream, though? It’ll help.”

“Well,” I said, avoiding eye contact.

“That is, if you’re ready.” Roseluck jumped in.

“No, no, I am. It’s just--;” My turn to look her gravely in the eye.

“Just…What?” She prodded gently.

I took a deep breath and a hefty sigh. “We’re gonna need a lot more sandwiches.”

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

A Foal's Errand

CHAPTER FOUR – A FOAL’S ERRAND

“It is easy to go down into Hell…but to climb back again, to retrace one’s steps to the upper air – there’s the rub, the task.” – Virgil

The thing about the Moon is: you can always count on it. It rises in the evening, sets just before morning. It’s there when you need it. It’s there when you don’t.

I suppose you could say the same thing about the Sun. But not really. You see, this one time back when I was little, the Sun didn’t come up in the morning the way it’s supposed to. It was as though the Sun stepped out to the market to pick up some milk, promised it would be back by dawn, and then, just when nopony expected it, the damned thing ditched us and left us all up in the black.

Sure, we all know the story of Nightmare Moon, and yeah, I get that she was Evil and all. But one thing I will say for her is that even when Princess Luna was at her very worst, the Moon itself was always there. That’s cause the Moon is the sort of thing you can depend on.

On the night I went back to the Wasteland, I had a little talk with the Moon. I told it about my problems, as I always do. I waited, and waited, and waited - hoping secretly that some way, somehow, Princess Luna would hear me and know exactly what to do.

But no answer came. That made two nights in a row.

I know what you’re thinking: Second night in a row? What happened to the first? Well ashamed as I am to say it, when it came time to get tucked in after Roseluck’s Leonardo DaWhinny story, I was too afraid to sleep.

So was Roseluck, actually. I mean, when she first heard the news, Rose gave me a supportive kiss. She gave me a supportive hug, but I could feel her shaking as she squeezed me. She was trying really, really hard just to hold still. She was afraid I’d notice her quivering and end up getting scared myself. I noticed, but didn’t say a word. Roseluck held me at shoulder’s length, looked me in the eye, took in a deep breath, and laid down words of wisdom and encouragement, and stuff. Solid, confident voice. Watery eyes.

But then the façade sorta cracked and crumbled, until finally, out of nowhere, she just flipped right out - and I mean totally flipped out. Shaking. Shivering. Even flailing around like a crazy pony. Seeing her like that was scarier even than the Wasteland its own self.

“Roseluck! Roseluck!” I shouted, but I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there, helpless, watching her completely come apart. When it seemed to be over, I got my senses back, knelt down and helped my sister to her hooves. She threw herself around me so hard, I thought I would suffocate from hugginess. She apologized for losing her cool, called herself selfish, swore she would always, always, always be there for me.

I told her everything was gonna be alright. Of course it wouldn’t, but what else could I say? I could be strong for the future. I could be strong for my sister. But there was no way in Equestria that I could do both.

In the end, Roseluck won. So after I had helped her to her feet, and got some tea in her, I led her upstairs. Let her tuck me in, even though I knew I wouldn’t be getting any sleep.

I spent the entire night in bed wide awake. I really wanted to help those kids – to go to sleep and finish my business in the Wasteland once and for all. But I couldn’t. Roseluck needed me.

We stayed up talking about old times, and holding hooves. She begged me to sleep, promised to watch over me, but we both knew that she couldn’t protect me.

The sun came up, and the day after was a total blur. I went to school at my own insistence, not 'cause I liked school, but because I didn’t want all this Wasteland junk to control my life back home, you know?

Anyway, it was all a total mess. Cliff Diver had found my scarf after I’d lost it for the four-millionth time, and Diamond Tiara was her usual horrible self, and decided that that scarf was some kinda evidence. She launched a smear campaign in rhyme form, articulating exactly the sorts of icky things that Cliff and I had supposedly done together while “sitting in a tree.”

I was too tired and too stressed to care. My mind was determined to make up for lost sleep, and I found myself drifting in and out of waking visions. It all amounted to the same thing – save the filly behind the wall. The universe didn’t give a damn about what happened to the kid I’d seen two nights before.

So, the day was a total bust, the library was closed yet again, I must have made miserable company for Cliff, and to top it all off, I barely even remember any of it. So I’m just gonna spare you the dumb details, get straight to the point, and tell you about the night that came after. The night I discovered just how bad it could get in the Equestrian Wasteland.

It started with a conversation with the Moon. I talked, it listened. That’s how it goes. The Moon didn’t hear the news, leap out of the sky and run to my doorstep to hoof-deliver me a bushel full of easy answers. No paint-by-numbers instructions neither. It just listened. But sometimes that’s all you really need.

I begged The Moon - pleaded with it not to have to go back to that horrible place – to be able to leave all that Wasteland stuff behind, and forget that any of it had ever happened. But the Moon can’t grant wishes like that.

Besides, as desperately as I wanted to, it was still a half-hearted little hope. In the very same breath that I prayed for my freedom, I asked for something I wanted even more: for somepony – anypony – to help that poor boy I’d seen in my dreams.

He’s not the one I’m supposed to save. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, but really, I don’t care what those stupid voices said. He didn’t deserve what was happening to him, and it wasn’t right that nopony in the entire world – past, present, or future – cared.

So the evening started out with a quiet plea for mercy, but by the time the Moon was halfway across the sky and had listened to a meandering rant about my problems for the second night in a row, I’d made up my mind.

I was gonna save that boy. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know what kind of bucked up sideways Leonardo DaWhinny mission I was actually being sent on, or who the filly in the drawing was, but I didn’t give a buck. I was the only pony in the entire Universe who cared whether that boy lived or died, and that kinda left me no choice, did it?

All of those thoughts flooded my head, and knocked around inside, bumping into one another like kernels of popcorn. But then everything calmed for a moment. Just calmed. And I finally got an answer of sorts. The Moon can do that for you sometimes, if you let it do it in its own way.

See, when I finally realized that I was the boy’s only hope, I looked up to that glorious Full Moon and felt a sense of solace – of peace. That’s how the great black sky-mystery answers you (when you shut up long enough to listen). It answers you in feelings.

I was gonna go back. I was gonna find the filly behind the wall, and I was gonna save the mystery colt if I had to tear the whole darn Wasteland apart to do it.

Down the hatch. Time for some Sleepy Tea to calm my nerves.

I lay in bed waiting for the magic to happen. I didn’t even have any cookies with my tea! That’s how serious I was! Okay, maybe two cookies (two and a half, really, if you count that little piece that I picked up after it fell to the floor). The point is: I was finally getting some sleep. I was going back to the Wasteland, and there was no turning back.

Roseluck came to check in on me one last time before I passed out.

“I got this!” I told her, with my pluckiest smile.

She nodded - promised to be right down the hall in her bedroom if I needed her, but she was lying right through her teeth. When that door closed, Rose didn’t make any hoofsteps. None at all. 'Cause she didn’t go to her room. She just sat there right outside of my room, keeping watch like one of those lion statues that they have over at the Manehattan Public Library. Knowing her, she’d probably be there all night long. Poor Roseluck.

Anyway, just before my eyelids got real heavy, it crossed my mind how foolish and insane the whole expedition was. I mean, I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t even know where I would be going.

What would Mom think if she knew I was doing something so reckless – so stupid? That her precious baby was leaping unarmed into the mouth of danger?

I started to panic. The world around me was fading to black.

There’s nothing scarier than leaping off a diving board only to realize too late that the pool is out of water. I got drowsy. I’d taken the plunge, and there was nothing left to do but wait until I smacked face-first against the bottom.

* * *

You know that feeling during hot summers, when it burns to breathe and the air you suck in feels like it weighs a thousand million pounds? Wasteland air is like that, even when it’s cold.

My awakening into the world of the future was a lot less jarring than it was the first time. No flash, no screams of millions, no piles of rubble to climb out of – just a few sparks, a mouth full of burning air and a coughing fit.

I rubbed my eyes and got my first good look at the scenic Equestrian Wasteland under what passed for the light of day. I’d been right the first time. The future sucks.

I leaned back. There was some kind of brick wall behind me. The horizon was broken and vast in all directions, but behind that one sturdy wall, I could hear sounds of life. Machinery turning. Ponies moving all around. Hoofbeats.

Alright, Rose Petal. Time for a peek.

I sucked in a chest full of Wasteland air and poked my head around the corner, all careful-like. Those jerkfaces with the daisy-patterned cloaks were everywhere. Wandering around, going to and fro.

I watched the cloaks for a while. They all seemed to be going more to than fro. The whole pack of them meandered toward the Mane Hall – this big clock-towery-looking building at the center of town.

This was it. The mouth of danger I’d been talking about – that swimming pool without any water in it. It seemed almost anticlimactic. Everypony in that town just sorta strolled along, minding their own business.

I crept around the corner. The coast was clear, so I kept going, and darted over to the next building to get a closer look. Other folks in the square were hanging around too, not just the cloak-o’s. They all had on some variant of that pink cloth with the yellow daisy print. Colts had it on their ties, mares on their ribbons and fanciest hats. Like the cloak-o’s, every last one of the civilians was making their way toward the Mane Hall at the center of town, which, I noticed, was kept in really, really good condition, considering the fact that the rest of the village was a total dump.

I watched this little town go about its day for I don’t know how long. But it all seemed pretty normal. Then it dawned on me. I’d envisioned a compound full of cloaked evil do-ers, cackling over a stew, or chaining fillies up in dungeons or something. Stereotypes as flat and unoriginal as the zebra in the war poster I’d seen. But what if this wasn’t as simple as all that?

What if I’m storming a compound full of good ponies?

I locked up in terror. I might have to face the one thing worse than death – worse than capture – worse than torture! A socially awkward situation.

I tip-hooved closer to the action. I pressed my back against the side of some house or another, only to end up with a mane full of wet paint. It was not my lucky day.

I ran my hooves through my hair to try to clean it off, but only ended up with green all over myself. After squirming around for a hundred million forevers, I just plain gave up on the mess, and poked my head around the corner to get a closer look. Turns out, I was so close to the mane square that I could actually throw a rock at one of the cloak-o’s if I wanted to.

Tock!

I spun around at the sound of hoof steps suddenly behind me. There were four cloak-o’s standing right there!

Darn it, Rose! A warzone is no place for thinkiness!

I crouched down low to avoid being seen. They were talking amongst themselves, flanks to me. It was only a matter of seconds before they noticed my presence and took it upon themselves to cook me or something! One of their tails flicked unexpectedly, and I had to duck just to avoid brushing up against it. And by “duck” I mean “fall over.”

Before they could even turn around, I dashed straight for the house I’d been leaning on, and yanked open the first door I could find. I threw myself inside, and swung the sturdy little door behind me as quietly as I could. I was heaving and panting so loud! It's a small wonder that the whole darn town couldn’t hear me.

But nopony followed.

It was dark inside. Not pitch dark, just dim. Apart from the crimson curtains, and a few knick-knacks on display in the windows where everypony could see them, the actual livable interior of the house was a horror show. Broken moldy furniture. A steadily dripping leak from Celestia-only-knows where in the ceiling. Warped floorboards.

The only decoration that seemed to be purely for the owners’ pleasure was a framed piece of needlepoint artwork – (you know, the kind that usually has “HOME SWEET HOME” or some other lame saying sewn clumsily into the fabric)? Well this one said “PURITY CORRUPTS,” and it hung proudly on the wall just over the indoor pipe chimney of a coal stove.

It would take one sick buck to sit there in his Co-Z-Colt every night, (or in this case, pile of wooden crates), look up at the mantle and draw inspiration from something like that. I didn’t know much about whoever lived here, but I didn’t like her. I needed to get out of there. Fast.

I snatched a daisy print hoofkerchief off the back of the chair, and tied it around my neck. If I was going to have any hope of blending in, I was going to have to wear one of those stupid things.

Peering out from behind the curtains, I could see the four-pack of cloak-o’s laughing, making their way toward the Mane Hall and merging with the rest of the herd. Spared for now.

I came to the obvious conclusion that I was in way over my head. I didn’t know anything about any of these ponies at all. Their strengths. Their weaknesses. Their hobbies (apart from bad needlepoint). All I could surmise was that they were totally nuts, and that there were a lot of them.

Get the buck out of town. Get out now! The little pony in my head tried to talk sense into me, but I wasn’t having any of it.

“Shut up, pony!” I said out loud in a whisper.

I was in the future for a reason. The girl behind the wall. The boy that time forgot. Some bucking answers! They were all in that big town hall-ish looking place, and I had to at least try to get my hooves on them.

I was just about ready to tip-hoof out the door, but when I backed away from the window, I didn’t find the door where I’d left it. Instead, I found a married couple, all dressed up in their finest clothes, staring at me, jaws agape. I know it must be odd to wander into your living room and find a total stranger standing there getting green paint all over your curtains, but I gotta tell you, I wasn’t prepared for the stallion of the house to shriek like a little girl when he saw me. I cringed and leapt backwards, and found myself tangled in a window curtain, which I then proceeded to panic and flail and thrash around in, till the whole darn thing came crashing down on me, and destroyed the precious tchotchkes on the sill.

“Sorry!” I called out instinctively, and made for the exit, dragging curtain and rod and just about everything else in the house with me.

The couple made no effort to stop me, but that stallion wouldn’t stop shrieking. I flung open the door and bolted right out of there. Away from those crazy ponies. Away from the cloak-o’s. Away from the whole stupid compound.

At least that was my intention. The curtain had other plans. The rod caught on the doorframe, and like a fish on a hook, I snapped backwards when the cloth tugged on my belly. Sitting there on the floor like a dummy, I squirmed and tugged and yanked at the curtain until it tore away from the rod, and I fell forward flat on my face.

That’s right, Rose. Blend in.

In little more than an instant, I was out of view of the married couple. They stood in the doorway, staring out into the hustle and bustle in utter confusion, while I was already halfway into the herd. I threw the curtain around myself like it was a cape, and acted like I totally belonged there.

My daisy print hoofkerchief needed straightening, so I tugged at it daintily. Just act natural, and nopony will notice that you’re wearing the window treatment of the house you just vandalized.

At least that’s what I thought. But once I looked up and actually observed the crowd, I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. A young couple marching beside me stopped right in their tracks and stared at me in horror.

“Um…Nice day, Ma’am?” I laughed nervously.

They backed away without saying a word. An old guy did the same. One by one all the ponies in the crowd took notice, and every last one of their jaws dropped. That’s when I realized what was wrong with the picture. It wasn’t how I wore my kerchief. It wasn’t that they didn’t know me. It wasn’t even that I was wearing the tattered remains of some strange couple’s curtain. All around me were dozens, maybe even hundreds of ponies dressed in their best, which, when you looked at closely, may as well have been tailored out of curtains.

But among them was not a single child.

I gulped.

This town had no fillies. No colts. No foals. Just sad, terrified grown-ups. Every last one of them was staring at me slack-jawed. This wasn’t a situation I could bluff my way through.

I dashed for the exit – the way out of the compound – wherever the hay that was. The good news is, the crowd couldn’t wait to part for me. Like a blade cutting waves in the water, I sliced a path through the crowd.

Then, suddenly cloak-o’s. A wall of them. They weren’t the slightest bit timid.

I skidded to a halt in front of the goons, thrusting a cloud of dust in their faces. They coughed and rubbed at their eyes and reached for me in blind confusion. I shrieked so hard I sounded like an amateur flutist. That actually was enough to startle them believe it or not.

Then I somersaulted (not in that acrobatic Wonderbolts kinda way, but more in a I’m Falling All Over Myself And So Totally Not Doing This On Purpose kinda way), and came up galloping. Galloping in the wrong direction, straight toward the Town Hall building only a few steps away.

The sight of more cloak-o’s coming from the other side made me miss my step, trip on my own curtain, fall face first, and scrape my whole cheek against the ground.

When I opened my eyes, there was a concrete wall right in front of me, with a little hole chiseled away in it, and peeking from the other side was this eye staring right at me. The One I’m Meant to Save. Just like in the drawing.

Holy Celestia, I thought as I stared in wonderment.

“Don’t worry.” I finally said to her. “I’m gonna rescue you.”

I leapt to my feet. Cloak-o’s on both sides. There was absolutely no way to rescue her. There was absolutely no way out! I had maybe a few seconds before the jerkfaces caught me.

“Purity corrupts!” I shouted completely and totally out of nowhere.

That gave them pause. I was only buying a few seconds, but hay, it was better than nothing. They stopped, muttered some garbledygook amongst themselves, nodded, and started closing in on me just the same.

“So you um…” I did my best to stall a little longer. “You better watch out because I’m full of…uh…purity, and I might…um…corrupt… you?” I cracked a smile.

I am so bucked.

They grabbed me without so much as a rebuttal. Not even the common courtesy of a mwa-ha-ha. Just flung me over their shoulder like I was a sack of flour.

Then the son of a bitch clocked me on the head.

* * *

The light was pretty dim, but it was enough to drill into my brain like a drill of unpleasanty drillness. So I kept my eyelids shut. Darn it, my head hurt.

Am I home? I thought. Was that it? Was that all? Was it finally done with?

I turned myself over and groaned. Cold, gritty ground beneath me. No. I was definitely still in the Wasteland. I sucked in a shallow breath. The unconscionable stink confirmed my suspicion.

I wiped my eyes, rubbed my throbbing head and tried to figure out what in Luna’s name was going on.

A female voice was ranting about something or other, over what sounded like a tinny old loud speaker.

“Innocence,” She said. “It was innocence that caused the waste and the ruin that you see when you look out your windows to the lands beyond our compound.”

I blinked. Metal grating in front of my face. Bars. I was in some kind of cage. If I squinted real hard, I could just barely focus enough to make out the rest of the room – rows and rows and rows of other cages extending out into the blur.

“Innocence of hate. Innocence of war.”

It was hard as heck not to throw up. I probably would have hurled had my throat not been so dry.

Not yet. I said to myself. I added “throwing up” to my mental to-do list. First and foremost, as messed up as I was, I needed to try to assess my situation.

“We all know the truth - that life is turmoil – that life is pain.”

“Wuh?” I murmured. It all felt so dreamlike. I’d blink for a moment and suddenly see bars again. Then I’d forget where I was, and have to process everything all over again.

“Cage. Hmm.” I coughed.

“190 years of poison – of darkness, and only now are you – you chosen – you few, learning the truth. Living the truth.”

The room was fairly big, and on the far end of it sat a couple of cloaks.

“Oh, yeah. Those guys.” I whispered calmly from the depth of my stupor.

They seemed to be gathered around a glass screen with blurry images on it. I think it was flickering pictures of the mare giving the lame speech. I wished she would shut up.

“The truth is that innocence is a disease. And that purity inevitably corrupts.”

There was a cold metal water dish a few inches from my face. That water was more important than some yammery phantom voice in the distance. It was real, it was in front of me, and I needed some.

“The only Universal Truth is that the world – the Wasteland – is an ugly place.”

Why did I have a steel water dish in front of me again? Was I a cat? (Strange things cross your mind when you first come to after getting conked on the head).

“If you come to expect strife from the world…”

Once I got a few gulps down and a splash or two across my face, I was able to surmise that I was not, in fact, a cat. I could see and hear a little better too, which was kind of unfortunate, since that lady that the cloak-o’s were watching was starting to get on my last nerve.

“And betrayal from your fellow pony…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

I squinted. Tried to get a better view. Tried to get my bearings. Two cages down from me, there was a faint green glow. The entire cage just kinda glowing for no reason at all. I groaned. Weird stuff like that made bearing-getting next to impossible. Couldn’t I wake up to a normal dungeon?

“…Accept this in your hearts, and you will come to experience the absolute bliss of never, ever knowing disappointment.”

“Shut up!” I muttered and passed right out again.

The only reason I even remember half of that weird anti-innocence speech is that the cloak-o’s listened to it again and again and again during my stay in their stinky old stinkhole. Honestly, at the time I came to, the whole thing was just a blur.

But after a long, dreamless sleep, I was myself again, and ready to freak out good and proper-like. First I noticed the cracked concrete floor under my belly. Again. Then the rusty metal digging into me from both sides. Again. Then it all just sorta hit me at once. I was in a cage.

A cage! There had been a chase, and a parade of tacky daisy cloth. The cloak-o’s had captured me. My Luna! The cloak-o’s – they’re everywhere! And they’d…captured me!

Just like the boy I saw two nights before!

I was suddenly sharply aware of my surroundings. I was in a basement with dozens of other kids, all in cages. It was dark. It was cold. It was nasty and horrible, and it smelled bad and the room had ponies in it who wanted to do mean and terrible things to us, and I think I even saw a maggot and ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!

I leapt up and banged my skull on the roof of the cage. Not good for my headache. I put my hoof to my head, and came away with a whole bunch of green crust.

I screamed. I was rotting! I was becoming a zombie! Or, wait, was it paint? Yeah, definitely paint.

“Calm down, Rose.” I said. “There’s a way out of this.”

I banged against the door to my cage with my hooves. It wouldn’t open no matter how hard I jiggled it. I bucked at the bars on my left, then my right. Tested all four sides plus the ceiling and the floor. There was no way out.

That’s why they call it a cage, dummy.

I couldn’t believe it! I was stuck. I’d lost. They were gonna do awful things to me. I’d never get to stop the war! I was gonna die! Roseluck would never ever see me again!

The bottom seemed to drop out from under me, and I felt a sickness in my stomach. A guilt. Roseluck was gonna be all alone in the world. Shivering. Shaking. Crying because I’d abandoned her. The worst thing anypony could ever possibly do.

How could I have been so crazy to try something like this? So selfish?

I took deep, nasty breaths, and spun around and around and around in place, I didn’t have room to pace back and forth.

“Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh, omigosh, omigosh.” I said.

My hoof hooked on a water dish, and splashed cold, fetid water everywhere.

“Hey, watch it!” Said a yellow colt behind me. He was trying to sleep.

“Sorry!” I whispered.

I looked all around, but I couldn’t find a single familiar face. “Hay, has anypony seen…”

It occurred to me that I had no idea what this kid actually looked like. “Um…A colt…I’m looking for a friend, you see. Well, he’s not really a friend, more like…he’s got, um…well, he’s got this really, really, really sad look in his eyes, you know?”

The other kids looked away from me. Like I didn’t even exist.

I guess they all had their own problems, and didn’t have time for my stupid hysterics.

I spun quickly to face the filly on the other side of me – a pink unicorn barely older than a foal. She wasn’t like the others at all. This one looked me right in the eye.

“You gotta help me,” I whispered. “How do we get outta here?”

“Fucked if I know, kid.” She said.

A real curse word. A hardcore curse word. The first I’d ever heard (bitch doesn’t count) – and from a filly so cute and squeaky!

“That guy’s busted out of his cage four times,” She continued. “Still hasn’t gotten nowhere.”

She gestured to the blue and purple unicorn beside her. The one in the glowy cage.

“I can escape any time I want.” He said in a strange accent. “Dees cage ees nothing!”

“Yuh-huh.” Said the little girl.

“Ees cheating! Skull Stomper, he use a force-a-field. His horn route through a maneframe, amplify signal like coward.” Said the foreign kid without bothering to turn and face any of us.

The aforementioned stomper of skulls appeared, pacing down the row of cages. He was a big brutish unicorn, but the foreign kid didn’t care. He shot his mouth off just the same.

“Hey, you! You call dees cage? In my country, we make cage. Twenty times stronger than your cage! We have to make bigger cages just to contain our smaller cages because these cages we make, they are so scary.”

Skull Stomper ignored him, though his eye twitched in anger. He wanted to beat us all into a pulp. He wanted to yell at us. He would take special pleasure in killing the loudmouth. But he did nothing.

He’s under orders not to talk to us. I realized.

“Not like dees cage!” The foreign kid spat - literally spat. “Dees cage is shit!”

Then Skull Stomper was gone.

“I don’t think you should do that.” I said.

“Ees coward. Ees afraid.”

“That guy is totally afraid,” I said. “But not of you.”

“What do you know?” He snapped.

“Leave the new kid alone.” Said the tiny filly next to me. “You can’t get out of here, neither. Even when you slipped out the cage, you were always right back down here in the shit with the rest of us a few minutes later.”

“I could have escaped any time.” The foreigner smiled warmly. “But you - I like you too much. I could never leave all y’all wonderful ponies behind.”

His attempted use of the word “y’all” was unnerving.

The pink girl just stared him down and rolled her eyes. “You mean you couldn’t leave your girrrrrrlfriend behind.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” The foreigner whined, his slick façade crumbling away.

“Oooooooh,” Came a bunch of voices from cages scattered throughout the room.

He pouted and blushed. That’s when I stopped paying attention. I’d heard enough.

The cloak-o’s huddled around their console way off in the corner of the room. Three of them. Listening to the same old speech.

“If you come to expect strife from the world, and betrayal from your fellow pony, you will begin to learn the truth – to live the truth. When you accept this in your hearts, you will come to experience the absolute bliss of never, ever knowing disappointment.”

The evil ponies were all so confident that they’d won, that they didn’t even pay us a wink of attention. And why shouldn’t they be confident? We were bickering in our cages while they were unified in whatever bucked up ideology those stupid cloaks represented.

I covered my ears. The other kids were razzing each other pretty good now, and it had started to get loud.

I was a foal to think I could do something good. I thought. To think I could save that kid. Or even help the one I was supposed to come here for. The whole thing is stupid.

It occurred to me then that maybe the reason that good ponies do nothing in the face of evil is that it’s just plain not worth it. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll get your moment in the Sun, but it’s the best you can hope for. A single triumph. A glorious memory. When it’s all over, everything just goes back to the way it was. Or worse.

Even Diamond Tiara, who was just an everyday schoolyard jerk, had retaliated with a war against me back home that, honestly, I didn’t have the energy to keep up with, or even resist.

The teasing just got louder and louder, so I curled into a ball, buried my head in my legs, and cried. None of that single tear stuff, either. I bawled.

The night before may have been Roseluck’s time for coming apart, but in Jerkland, I had nopony left to stay strong for. So I totally lost it, and heaved ‘till I was gasping for air. For some stupid reason, I moaned the same five words again and again while I did it. I didn’t know where they came from, or why I was saying it, but they were only words that could squeeze their way past my teeth were “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

With all the snot and the sobbing and the gargling in the back of my throat, just that one thought hung at the center. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Finally, when I was fresh out of crying, I felt a tiny hoof on my shoulder. It only just barely grazed me, since it was struggling so hard to fit through the bars, but it was enough to get me to turn around.

There was the jaded pink unicorn in the cage beside me. She was so tiny I thought she might fit in a saddlebag. I could tell from her droopy eyes that she was totally exhausted, but still, she took the time and the energy to reach out and touch me, simply because she knew I needed to be touched. (That or she was trying to shut me up; my caterwauling must have been pretty annoying).

“Sorry,” I said with a big loud sniffle. That word again. Sorry.

She cracked a warm smile. “Yeah, I gathered.”

That made me laugh. “This whole thing was stupid,” I said. “I should never have come.”

“If you came here on purpose, yeah, that’s pretty fucking stupid.”

I stared at her. It was amazing. This little girl had developed a talent for saying the coldest, harshest, most insulting things in the Universe, and yet, she had a way of making you smile when she did. I’d never seen anything like it.

“It’s not stupid.” A voice from the corner. Through the many rows of bars, I could just barely make out a yellow, pink and red earth pony filly perched on a stone jutting out of the wall in her cage. The hole she’d been peering through to the outside world shined a pale light on her. She was The One I’m Meant to Save.

“I saw what you tried to do.” She said softly, hiding behind her own raggedy bangs.

She shrugged her shoulders up so high that she was actually hiding behind those as well. “It was like, the bravest thing ever.”

“What?” I said. “No. I’m not…You really think…”

She shrunk back and murmured something to herself.

“But…Huh?” I asked her earnestly.

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Said the pink girl who’d seemed so jaded just moments before.

“Yeah,” I sniffed bitterly. “Those cloak-o’s will do that later.”

“Dem guys?” She giggled brightly. “Nah.”

I perked up. I couldn’t have heard that correctly.

“They want us in good shape for when they sacrifice us to their fucked up whack-a-doo god.”

I must have looked like such a doof, because she giggled right at me and explained.

“Some crazy bullshit about how children everywhere are responsible for The War. And their god is hungry for innocence, or something. I don’t fucking know.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I know, right? Heard it in one o’ dem sermons. They cycled it out the day before you showed up.”

“Please stop it.” Whimpered The One I’m Meant to Save.

“What?” Snapped the pink filly beside me. “She’s gonna find out soon anyway. She should hear it from a friend.”

Okay, now, I definitely wasn’t hearing right.

“You’re my friend?” I was in shock.

“Sure.” She said.

“Why?”

The pink girl stopped and looked at me funny. “Whattaya mean why?” She mimicked my tone. “Why the fuck not?”

“Well, I dunno.” I said. “Maybe cause we’re all gonna die soon?”

“So?”

I shrugged. “I always thought that was the kind of thing, you know, ponies wouldn’t want to be around for.”

I’d given the subject a great deal of thought, believe it or not. Roseluck is the kindest, most amazing, awesomest sister in the history of ever, but she was way older than me. Once you did the math, the outcome seemed kinda obvious.

“I always thought I would, like, be alone when it was time for me to…you know.” I continued with another shrug. “I kinda liked it that way.”

“Jeez, kid. I thought I was fucked in the head.”

What is up with all these crazy ponies? I thought. First Cliff Diver, then this girl. They stick around when the going got tough, and act like it’s some kind of privilege to be there for all the stuff in your life that sucks. It didn’t make any sense. I kept waiting for the other horseshoe to drop.

“Hay, don’t leave me hanging.” She snapped

I shook myself out of my daze. Her hoof was reaching out to me, squeezing through the bars as far as it would go.

“Twinkle Eyes.” She said.

“Rose Petal.” I said nervously, and bumped hooves with her.

“Look, you don’t wanna do the death pact thing, that’s cool.” She giggled. “Death pacts are for squares anyway.”

“Are you two really having dees conversation?” Said the foreign kid.

“Shut the fuck up.” Snapped Twinkle Eyes.

“In my country, when a pony make a death pact, it is twenty times more--;”

“Don’t you make me come over there.” Twinkle growled through the bars.

“I’ll do it.” I said.

Silence. Twinkle turned to face me.

“Nah, forget it, kid. You don’t have to--;”

“We stick together.” I said firmly. “Like friends.”

She looked me in the eyes, and nodded solemnly. Back home, other little girls were swearing oaths about their cutie marks, and what they’d do over summer vacation. I’d just made a bucking death pact.

“No.” I decided I hadn’t made a death pact, after all. “We hold each other’s hooves till the end, but it’s not gonna end like that. It’s gonna be alright.”

“If you say so.” She said.

I plopped down and snuggled against her end of the cage. For hours. It was the most comfortable silence I’d ever known outside of Roseluck’s company. Twinkle braided my mane through the bars as best she could, (which is to say, not very good at all). For a little while, she was no longer afraid. Oddly enough, neither was I.

Eventually, I asked the big question. It took me a while (not because I’d been afraid to ask it before; I just didn’t want to ruin the moment).

“Twinkle Eyes?” I asked.

“Yeah?” Said the tiny filly.

“Why’d you pick me out? To be your friend, I mean.”

“Oh,” She said all matter-of-fact-like. “You’re one of the good ones. I can tell.”

One of the good ones.

“Not like this cockwaffle over here.” She gestured at the unicorn behind the glow.

“Bah!” He said. “What do you know? Friends, they just disappear on you anyways.”

“Yeah. Purity corrupts, huh?”

Every muscle in his body tensed. I could tell that one stung. He even lowered his brow at me and puffed up his chest with aggressive breaths. But really, in him, I saw only sadness. I could tell that, even two whole cages away.

* * *

We were locked up down there for a while. Like, a really, really, really, really, really, really, really long time. When you’re stuck in a cage, even if there are dozens of other kids in the same room, you end up sitting through these long horrible stretches of dead silence. You lie around. You drift in and out of sleep so much, you lose track of whether you’ve been there for hours, or days, or even weeks. The terror of facing death by ritual sacrifice is nothing compared to the dull, dull, dull reality of sitting there, bored out of your skull and waiting for it to actually happen.

“Misty Mountain.” Said the foreign kid in the glowy cage. Completely out of the blue.

“What?” Snorted Twinkle Eyes, half asleep.

“My name. Ees Misty Mountain.”

“Save your applause for the end, fillies and gentlecolts.” Said Twinkle. “It has a name.”

Misty stuck his tongue out at her. “I want somepony to know my name before they bury me alive. So shoot me.”

Everypony had a different theory about how they were going to kill us. I hadn’t heard the infamous Sacrifice Them All To Xanthrados or Whatever speech yet, so my theory had less to go on than others’, but part of me hoped that it would somehow involve a catapult.

“Pbbbt!” Twinkle Eyes blew the colt a raspberry.

“Where are you from, Misty?” I asked earnestly before an argument could break out.

“Eet does not matter.” He said heavily.

“Hmmph.” I said.

So much for trying to reach out to the boy.

“I told you he was an asshole.”

“Fine. I come from all over. Romane-ia as foal, then Jerhooveselem, then sunny Fillydelphia. Why you care?”

The whole room hushed. Just like that.

“What? I said.

Twinkle, of course, was the first to break the tension. “You fucking liar.”

She threw a pebble at him. The other kids joined in and started booing.

“What?” I said.

“You believe this guy?” Said the yellow colt behind me, who later introduced himself as Butterscotch.

“What’s wrong with Romane-ia?”

Then, just like that, they were all looking in my direction.

“What? I mean…Jerhooveselem?”

Even the shy girl in the corner – The One I’m Meant to Save – actually squeaked in shock. “Fillydelphia.” She shuttered

“So we’re not talking about Jerhooveselm or Romane-ia?”

The other kids just kept on staring.

“What?” I was starting to get annoyed.

“No, we’re not talking about Jerhooveselem, or Romane-ia. I never even heard of Jerhooveselm,” said Butterscotch.

“Never heard of Jerhooveselem? Never heard of Jerhooveselem?!” Snapped Misty. “Let me tell you! In old country, we have dees yogurt. Ees twenty times bette--;”

“Would you shut up?” Twinkle and I said in unison.

“Harrumph," he replied. “You don’t want to hear about de yogurt, you don’t get to hear about de yogurt.”

Twinkle turned to me. “You really never heard of Fillydelphia?”

“No.” I replied. A white lie. Of course I’d heard of it, but the Wasteland kids and I were clearly not talking about the same city.

“What are you, some kinda stable girl?” Came a voice from the far end of the room.

“A wha?”

“No, she ain’t got no Pip Buck.” Butterscotch grumbled.

“Her teeth are too white to be from anywhere else.” Another voice nearby.

I was arousing suspicion!

“Yeah, I’m a stable girl.” I snapped, trying to think fast. “So?”

Not the smartest move, I know, but else what was I supposed to say? Hi, I’m Rose Petal, this is all a dream, and I am actually a traveler from Equestria’s semi-utopian past?

They weren’t buying it though, so I embellished a little. “Been a stable girl my whole life.” I nodded proudly. “I just don’t have a, um…Pip Duck.”

In retrospect, they probably all woulda laughed at me for that had they not been so stunned at my ignorance.

“Now who ees liar?” Misty smirked.

I turned to him. “What’s wrong with you, you jerk? You know, I’m the only pony here who believed you about Fillydelphia even a little bit.”

That shut him up. I was starting to see why Twinkle Eyes hated him so much.

“Now would somepony please explain?”

The hum of distant machinery. The buzz of fluorescent lights. Silence. Just like that, everypony had stopped caring about my white teeth and my stupid Pip Duck. I honestly didn’t know what the hay was wrong with Fillydelphia, but the fact that somepony would have to explain it to me inspired some sort of strange solemnity. Had we been wearing hats, every last child in that room would have taken them off in reverence and horror.

“Slavers,” Misty said at long last.

“As in…slavery?” I asked.

“Yes, slavery.”

I was vaguely familiar with the concept from pirate novels and history books I’d read. The reality was too terrible to even picture – a world where one pony could own another – treat them like sheep or cows. I imagined a pen full of ponies, standing in the middle of Harmony Bell square, forced to watch the rest of the city trot and prance and roam free. Just thinking about it nearly made me cry.

“They took over city a long time ago.” Said Misty. “Eenslaved everypony. Has been Hell ever since.”

“The whole city?!” I squeaked.

“Every block. Every apartment. Every roller coaster," he said.

Roller coasters?

I thought I could handle the Wasteland, but knowing that suffering on such a scale was even possible? It was too much for me to bear.

“That’s horrible.” I sniffed. “The whole city? Really?”

Twinkle gave me a somber nod.

“But what about you?” I asked Misty. “You seem alright.”

“It wasn’t always like dees.” It pained him to talk of Fillydelphia. That much was plain, but that didn’t explain why he started trembling all of a sudden – acting all nervous-like. He looked away from us all.

“Never mind. You’re right. I lied.” He said. “I never been to your Fillydelphia.”

I didn’t know what had happened to Ponyville in the centuries since The War. But if even the City of Sisterly Love had gone South, I didn’t want to know what had become of my little town. The thought of it made me cold.

* * *

The cloak-o’s had just wrapped up a shift, and were getting ready for what I could only guess was their culty cult-face version of supper when the news hit. The new guard wheeled out a cart with a box on it, and a long wire extending back to the console. Everypony groaned at the sight of it, but as soon as the image flickered on the glass panel, a stillness fell over the rowdy crowd. This was not the orientation film that those who had been there all week had seen. It was something new entirely.

“Good evening, children.” Said the mare we had all heard ranting about the evils of innocence a thousand times over.

A tall lavender unicorn, swathed in white and crimson robes. Not at all what I expected. Her warm, motherly voice and affectionate posture was disarming.

You almost wanted to like her.

“Some of you may feel conflicted and confused about your accommodations, and you have my apologies for that.”

You mean our bucking cages?

“Sadly necessary, under the circumstances.”

A float-a-majig with a bunch of doohickeys on it was hovering in the air beside her. I could see it on the screen.

“What’s that thing?” I whispered to Twinkle.

“Sprite bot.” She said. “It’s filming her.”

The shot switched to a close up from a different angle. I could only presume there were other sprite bots floating around beside her.

“But today is a new beginning.” The strange priestess continued. “This is the day we set you free.”

Misty shot to his hooves. The other kids broke out into a dull roar as Miss Cheerilee used to say. Even the quiet girl in the corner leapt off her ledge and flung herself to the front of her cage to get a better look. We all pretty much presumed the same thing – she was talking about killing us.

“That’s right, my little ponies. You’re free to go. Our little exam is over. Your guidance counselors will be around presently to escort you to safety, and of course, freedom.”

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. The cloak-o’s marched into the room in unison, and formed a line in front of our cages. They were wielding little bats. Those of us who had leaned forward up against our bars were now cringing at the back of our cages.

“Don’t let their appearance fool you. They won’t hurt you.”

Then what the buck are the bats for? I thought.

“…So long as you follow directions and exit in an orderly fashion.” The priestess continued. “Doesn’t that sound fun?”

She tried to force a giggle, but it was utterly soulless. The word “fun” must have tasted like poison on her tongue.

“Your guidance counselors are here to help. And once we’ve thrown you your going away party, they will guide you to your bold new futures.”

A quick look around told me that none of the other kids bought it either. I didn’t know about them, but I was starting to get seriously annoyed. It’s one thing to capture you – to torment you – to enslave you – to destroy you. It’s quite another to do so under the guise of friendship.

I was shaking. Partly out of fear, partly out of rage. I wanted to kill every last cloak-o in the room. Guidance counselors? Guidance counselors?! Really?

They were already escorting fillies and colts out of their cages three at a time. Every last one of them complied. They were paralyzed with fear. We all knew that freedom was not what awaited us beyond those double doors, but even the polite lie of a "bold new future" was just enough hope and uncertainty and confusion to keep us all obedient.

The last thing any cloak-o wants to face is a room full of ponies with nothing left to lose, even if they were just a bunch of little kids.

Then out of nowhere, the quiet girl in the corner started humming. It was just a simple tune, but hearing it made my own terror disappear. It was like riding a speeding train as it flew off a great big old cliff. I had never been on one, of course, but I imagine that just before the big kerplsat, somewhere in there, there’s gotta be like a perfect moment of weightlessness – of peace. Her humming did that to me.

I realized quickly that I knew the tune! It was the one that had been hiding in the back of my head as I drew “The Filly Behind the Wall” for Miss Cheerilee’s art class. She opened her mouth, and meekly started breathing words into the melody.

“Old Raiders, yes they rob I

Sold I to the merchant ships

Minutes after they took I

From the bottomless pit.”

One by one, we all fell quiet. It spread like a fire. I don’t know where the song had actually come from, but something about it was magic. It had the power to make everything else in the world stop, stand completely still and just listen.

“But my hooves have been made strong

By the light of the Sun and Moon.”

She continued bravely.

It will be taken back for our generation

Triumphantly.”

Other kids were joining in now. Softly. They knew the words. I found out later that it had been some sort of zebra folk song during The War.

“Hey, stop that.” Said one of the guidance counselors, looking around, scanning the cages for the original instigator. He was eying The One I’m Meant to Save suspiciously. Before he reached her cage, I jumped in, and sang as loud as I possibly could, which, as it turns out, it pretty darn loud.

“Won’t you help to sing

These songs of freedom?"

I knew the words. I don’t know how I knew them. They just sorta spilled right out of me.

“It’s all I ever had

Redemption song.”

The song was coming to me from a place far beyond hope of making sense – beyond reason. That part of the pony heart that we all share. It was starting to look like art wasn’t half as crazy as music.

The cloak-o poked around, and sniffed out our cages. Finally, he came right up to me, smiled, and stared with the purest hatred he could muster. That’s when Miisty joined in too. I don’t know if he did it specifically to save my flank, or just to be a jerk to the cloak-o, but he sang really loud and sounded like an opera dude, which totally succeeded in diverting his attention.

“Eemancipate yourself from mental slavery.

None but ourselves can free our minds.”

“He said knock it off!” Shouted another cloak-o, banging his club against Misty Mountain’s little cubicle.

But he didn’t stop. Neither did anypony else. We hummed. We sang. I spat the words out like they were rays of magic anger. Pew pew pew!

“Have no fear for toxic energy

None of them can stop the time.”

A few minutes ago, there had been rattling in our cages – nervous shaking. Now it was on purpose - a rhythmic hoof-on-steel stomp of protest. It kept the rhythm.

The cloakfaces yelled. They threatened to take away the freedom they’d promised if we didn’t quit disrespecting the instructional video starring their great fearless leader. Swore to revoke our bold new futures.

We didn’t care.

“How long will they kill our prophets

While we stand aside and look?

Some say it’s just a part of it

Gotta fulfill the book.”

Twinkle grabbed my hoof through the bars and smiled at me. It felt good to have a friend, even for a short while. One of the cloak-o’s snarled at our gesture of friendship. We stuck our tongues out and giggled, and turned out attention back to the song.

“Won’t you help to sing…”

I was reasonably certain even then that it wasn’t going to end well for any of us, but it didn’t matter. We had defied them. We’d exposed their weakness. We sat back with giggles and songs and smiles, and watched them panic like fools.

They were afraid of a bunch of tiny children, even though they had us tucked safely behind metal fences keeping us from doing what we all really wanted to do. A song had scared them all pale.

And no matter what was to come afterward, it was totally worth it to see a bunch of armed cloak-o’s acting like a pack of ragey spazzoids just because they couldn’t handle the fact that a couple of singing schoolfillies.

We’d pay for it later, but that moment - it brought us all together. Like magic. Kids who’d done nothing but bicker mere hours before, holding hooves like true, true friends. When we called out “Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom?” We meant it. Because we weren’t just singing to ourselves. We were singing to each other.

We knew we were totally bucked, but those songs of freedom, those stolen moments, they’re ours.

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\
Column: My Derpy Hooves News column about Love, Tolerance, and Friendship, “Help! My Heart is Full of Pony!” is now archived at http://heartfullofpony.tumblr.com

Music: Check out my pony music (rock, jazz, hip-hop, blues, classical, and experimental). http://www.youtube.com/sdoggingsworth

Cover Art: http://shadesofeverfree.deviantart.com/art/The-Rose-Queen-334850063

Lyrics to “Redemption Song” Copyright Bob Marley

The Hard Yellow Line

CHAPTER FIVE - THE HARD YELLOW LINE

“If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" -Pink Floyd

We had our moment in the Sun. We sang. We smiled. We held hooves as closely as our cages would allow. But it wasn’t long before that all ground to a halt. You see, this young, slender fancy pants cloak-o waltzed in, and started barking orders. All of a sudden, just like that, the goons got their groove back. They quit screaming impotently at us and snapped to attention - even saluted and everything.

It was all the fault of that stupid mare. Just when it was starting to liven up a little bit down there, she had to come along and spoil the fun.

This lady wasn’t like the others. For starters, her cloak was totally clean. Then there was this funky bracelet thingy with a screen and a bunch of dials and stuff, all clamped down good and tight just above her right front hoof. Atop her head, just outside her hood was a silver circlet. It looked almost like a laurel, but with crazy glittery gems and whatnots all over it. You know, just in case we couldn’t already tell that she was some kind of super special snowflake.

After a few murmurs, shrugs, and hoof signals, the cloak-o’s apparently had some sort of a plan. They lined up at attention – stiff and stupid - and awaited the opportunity to spring into action. By the looks on their faces, most of them were itching for the chance.

Our voices wobbled a little bit at the somewhat unsettling turn of events, but we kept it up just the same.

Eventually, after an entire verse of noisy, nervous children vs. eerily silent guards, one of the thugs leaned over and whispered something sheepishly into Captain Super Special Snowflake’s ear.

He leapt back like a startled cat when she snapped at him, then lowered his dopey old head when she growled at him. He stopped and pointed a quivering hoof in my direction.

No, it wasn’t just my direction. It was me. He was pointing at me.

Alright, Rose Petal. It’s okay. It’s okay. Just keep singing. Just keep singing.

“Won’t you help to sing,” My voice cracked. “These songs of freedom.”

Then came the wild gestures from the underling cloak-o. He was clearly explaining something in animated detail. Special Snowflake made a point of not looking in my direction.

Stop it! I chided myself. Quit looking at them! Are you crazy, Rose? Quit looking at them! For the love of Luna what are you doing?! Quit looking at them! They won’t suspect you if you just ignore them and blend in.

Captain Super Special Snowflake clapped her hooves together, and ordered her troops into action. She may have been all busy pretending I was beneath her notice, but she had time to sneak a glance at me out of the corner of her eye. Somehow, it exuded pure contempt.

I gulped. It felt like a giant kickball in my throat. I kept my eyes on the cloak-o’s, figuring my doom would be coming from that direction at any moment. They were all humiliated grumble-grumbles and shrugs when they were talking to each other; and all ferocious Yes, Ma’am! No, Ma’am! when dealing with Super Special Snowflake over there.

Slowly but surely, though, all eyes drifted to me, and one by one, all their hooves pointed in my direction. For me they had nothing but hard eyes and gritted teeth. Those dumb-dumbs had decided I was some kind of ringleader.

My heart pounded so hard each beat felt like a sonic rainboom in my chest. I was in serious trouble. Not gee I’m sorry I broke the vase trouble either. Every bone in my body urged me to rattle the door to my cage - to cry and moan and thrash and panic and flail. I wanted to scream, “It wasn’t my idea! It was the quiet girl in the corner! The Girl I’m Meant to Save. She started it! It was all her idea! It wasn’t me, I swear, I swear, I swear! Blame her!”

Had to bite my lip just to keep from saying it out loud. I mean really bite it. ‘Till it bled. Finally, I couldn’t hold my tongue anymore, so I just threw my whole weight into the song again, to keep my fool mouth from giving away The One I’m Meant to Save.

I sang loudly. Badly. It was all I could do to keep from screaming.

“How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look?”

Not so inspiring when the “prophet” is you.

* * *

The cloak-o’s took their sweet time in regrouping, but when it was time for the round up, they came for me first. That’s right. First. Singular. They took us out of our cages one at a time. Because nothing in the world scares a dozen armed goons more than a pair of shivering kindergarteners - or worse yet, a trio.

I don’t consider myself a brave pony. But the cloak-o’s cowardice – their fear of herding us out more than one at a time - really added insult to injury.

They’d sent a regular old unicorn to fetch me. No clubs. No shouting. Just a slow trot clapping against the concrete, as he came my way. He knelt down and sneered at me with a mouth full of rotten teeth. When the cage door opened up, I cringed.

“It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.” I muttered.

Curled up into a ball, I anticipated the beating of a lifetime. But nothing happened. He just levitated me right off the ground like I was a sack of flour. No beatings necessary. As suddenly as it had started, I found myself cowering on the ground again. It made me feel like a total foal, but I guess that was the point.

I looked down. I was right in front of a yellow line. The concrete all around us was cracked and broken, but the paint job on that line was unusually pristine. I looked up. A great big old goon warned me not to cross it.

The singing had stopped. All eyes were on me. The ringleader. The rebel.

I could feel the smugness of the grown-ups around me. They had a song of their own in their hearts and it wasn’t about freedom.

Kids, the guard beside me, Captain Super Special Snowflake. It didn’t matter. Every last one of them held their breath, waiting to see what I would do next. Even the long row of saluting cloak-o’s broke formation just enough to lean forward and get a better look. Would I cross the line? Would I hang around behind the line, waiting my turn to die like an obedient chump?

I dug my hooves into the concrete. Felt the grit crunch beneath them. The big guy next to me licked his lips. He wanted me to step over that line so bad he was salivating. The moment of truth had come and every grain of dirt beneath me seemed to echo throughout the entire room.

I didn’t cross the line.

Sure, we had hearts full of fire and heads full of lightning when we were singing, but when push came to shove, we’d all keep our hooves where we were told to keep ‘em. I was certain of it. Even then, when I was still so idealistic.

The jailer jingled his keys in front of the next cage. I just stood there, head hung humble and low till the cloak-o to my right escorted me around the corner, and far out of sight of the rest of the kids. It was a relief. My friends wouldn’t have to witness my shame.

The cloak-o grumbled that he wouldn’t get to try out his shiny new whomping stick (which he had probably named Big Carl or something like that), and went back to his post. Guardian of the Yellow Line. It was probably some kinda high honor in the Ancient Order of the Sacred Wackadoo or whatever these jerk faces called themselves, but at the end of the day, he was nothing but a hall monitor with a license to kill.

I looked up and studied my surroundings. I could actually do that with the Guardian of the Yellow Line gone. The second room was even bigger than the first, and lined wall to wall with cages.

How many kids do they have? I thought. How many kids did they need?!

They were opening up of cages quicker in there, and processing them two or three at a time. This batch hadn’t rebelled or sung, so they apparently weren’t scary enough to warrant the one-at-a-time treatment.

There was not much to do but quiver and wait, so I just kept scanning the crowd, desperately looking for signs of that one kid. The one the Universe didn’t care about. I don’t even know why I bothered. It’s not like I could save him. Maybe I just wanted to tell him I was sorry, for whatever good it would do. Either way, I still had to know what had happened to him. I had to know if he was there.

The problem was that there were children absolutely everywhere: some standing behind various painted lines far, far apart from one another on opposite ends of the room; some huddled in cages; some being herded out of sight - whisked away behind a secret curtain. A lot of us just took it. Hung our heads low – docile, depressed, accepting of whatever horrors awaited us. Others shivered and kissed themselves like crazy nervous little dogs. A few bunched their shoulders up like squirrels and darted their eyes back and forth. They were waiting for the right moment – any moment – to spring into action – any action.

They jittered – hyper-alert. But no moment came. No action came, and worst of all, no sign of the mystery colt.

A stallion marched slowly up and down the room, stiffly lecturing us. We all snapped still as boards. I’m not gonna lie. I did too. The guy was loud.

“The outside world is shrouded with dangerous radiation.” He barked as he passed pamphlets around.

“For this reason,” He continued. “Our nurse will issue you one spoon full of medicine to protect you on your homeward journey. Refusal to comply will result in the cancellation of your homeward journey, and a return to your cage! Are there any questions?”

I don’t think any of us had faith in their staff nurse’s altruistic intentions, but none of us were stupid enough to raise our hooves about it. Truth is: we all had questions, and none of us knew a darn thing. But it did seem increasingly unlikely that what they were gonna do to us would involve a catapult. That of all things made me mad.

When the pamphlet finally made its way to me, I glanced down. It was a thin piece of stamped metal. No trees, no paper. Etched on it were smiling, happy fillies and colts, and in bright bold letters were printed the words “OBEDIENCE AND YOU.”

They had to be joking.

The two kids in front of me were called. Before any of us had any clue what was going on, they disappeared behind that big blue curtain. The last thing they did before they passed out of my sight was throw me desperate pleading looks.

Do something! Is what they would have said if they could.

I wanted to, but do what?! The cloak-o’s had won. We all wanted to do something, (especially those shifty-eyed squirrel kids who were literally waiting for a chance), but so long as there was confusion in the air, and questions racing through our minds, none of us would know when to act or how.

We were supposed to be lost in the chaos, clinging to our stupid yellow lines, and our nurse appointments - desperate for something that kinda, sorta looked a little bit familiar maybe. If there’s order and direction, you do what you’re told, right to the bitter end, even when it means almost certain death. Because there’s that almost part. And no matter how much you want to scream, to shout, to put your hoof over that stupid line just to prove that you can, you don’t. 'Cause while certain death may be impossible to ignore, almost certain death makes a coward out of just about anypony.

* * *

I’m not gonna lie and say I got some genius idea, or some great big amazingly awesome super funky cool burst of fiery courage. No. I just looked too hard, and saw something I wasn’t supposed to see.

I’d been keeping my panicky mind occupied by scanning every inch of the joint looking for that darn colt from my dream - going over every nook and cranny with my eyes. Looking, looking, looking.

Well, just as one of the cloak-o’s clapped a hoof on my shoulder, I saw past the bars, past the cloaks, past the crowd. A door all the way on the other end of the room swung half open – just for a second. On the other end was a wheelbarrow full of bodies.

There were four children in there. Broken. Twisted. Beaten.

Dead.

Nopony had even bothered to shut their eyes.

I know what the dead are supposed to look like. I’d seen it on the one pony in the world I loved the most - the one that I could barely remember. But it was nothing like the sight of those kids. Nothing. This wasn’t peaceful. It wasn't right. There was agony written all over their gaunt little faces. One of them seemed to be looking right at me.

So I stared into the lifeless eyes of a poor anonymous filly. It could have easily been me. Or Twinkle. Or Roseluck back home. Any one of us. Destroyed for no reason at all. I stared at her, and I did what any calm, rational pony would do: I shrieked. I shrieked loud and shrill the way only a little girl can. I did a jittery little dance and shrieked so loud the cloak-o next to me jumped backwards in shock. I was loose!

Next thing I knew I was running. Galloping even. As fast as I possibly could. It was not the graceful act of an elusive escape artist. It wasn’t even an escape. It was just a mad dash of purest crazy.

I dodged the cloak-o’s.

They leapt on me with their full weight, but still, I came up flailing and bucking till I found myself tumbling all over the floor, my hooves entangled all up in something or other. Based on the kicks to the ribs and the sounds that followed, it seemed that they were tripping all over me, and whatever the hay I’d been dragging behind me. The cloak-o’s fell like pins under a bowling ball.

Then my somersaultish thing was all out of momentum, and my face was on the floor. I blinked. Just underneath my chin was that stupid yellow line. In front of me was the long cold room I’d come from – the one that held all the ponies I’d grown to know and love like Twinkle Eyes and Misty and The One I’m Meant to Save.

Right above me was the captain of the cloak-o’s, Super Special Snowflake.

Her cold composure was gone. There was panic there, and confusion. Most of all, blind fury.

From where I lay, Super Special Snowflake looked like a giant. She snorted, stood up tall, raised her front hooves as if to stomp my head. Out came a battle whinny of purest rage.

This is it, I thought.

In a brief moment of lucidity (I have no idea where it came from), I had the presence of mind to reach up and yank her cloak. A jeweled circlet over your hood looks super flashy and super cool, but it also pins your hood to your head. So if you’re a great big scary cloak-o, and you happen to stand up tall on your hind hooves to stomp somepony’s brains out, and then some little kid happens to come along and yank on your cloak, it’s gonna jerk your head in whatever direction the little kid wants it to.

In this case, that direction was straight. Down.

Her neck twisted and contorted in ways that a neck had never been meant to twist or contort. Super Special Snowflake cried out in distress, and then, just like that, there she was - down on the floor, her giant head groaning beside me, looking up at me through a blurry haze of What the buck just happened?

I kicked her face. Then I kicked her again.

I’d never struck another pony before. Ever. But her face was there right in front of me, and to be honest, it scared the pants off of me, (or would have, had I been wearing pants). So I kicked it.

I wasn’t no ninja, but at the sight of me free and kicking cloak-o’s, the rest of the kids burst into cheers, and shouting and jubilation. I supposed it looked like I might have been doing all of that on purpose. They were in for disappointment, though, because all I was really doing was going totally bonkers and freaking out all over the place.

The tide of cloak-o’s was rising against me. The next thing I know, I’m running back down the room I came from. There were the cages, of course, and a hallway at the end of it. I saw Twinkle’s hopeful eyes sparkle as I passed her, and awe on the face of The One I’m Meant to Save. Even Misty sprung to his hooves in a sudden surge of hope.

And then, just like that, I was myself again. Not some panic stricken little girl stampeding her way into chaos and victory. Rose Petal. Me.

I looked back over my shoulder at the guards as I ran, and before I could so much as say “Uh-oh,” a gap in the concrete hooked my hoof, and I went tumbling down. I fell and I fell hard. Pebbles and hunks of concrete scattered from the hole in the ground. I grabbed one to defend myself and spun around.

Way back by the yellow line was Skull Stomper. He was bearing toward me, horn aglow, club raised, levitating effortlessly in the air. Behind him was every single cloak-o I’d ever seen - all in a cluster, creeping toward me like a tight wall.

There was no escaping that way.

Behind me was a hallway that lead Celestia-Only-Knows where. Maybe freedom. Maybe a pit full of eels and fire breathing tree snails. All I had was maybe a few seconds head start. Tops. And not a clue where to go.

Misty pressed his face to the front of the cage. Everything about him screamed If only I were out there. Next to him was Twinkle Eyes. Everything about her said Run!

But I couldn’t run. Not without her. And I definitely couldn’t stay either. That would be just plain bone stupid.

I sprang to my feet. There was one shot to get us all out of there:

The braggart. Everypony hated him, cause he’d escaped four times and never lifted a hoof to help anypony but his girlfriend. But there was more to him than that - I just knew it. He was a better pony than he thought he was.

The cloak-o’s were closing in fast. I threw Misty the firmest of firm looks. Don’t you run off on us. He nodded with the utmost seriousness. Good enough for me.

I had a few seconds left. Skull Stomper was charging at the front of the brigade – his horn still glowing the same color as the force field around Misty’s cage.

The plan was simple: get Skull Stomper to drop the field; trust Misty Mountain to come through. I gripped the hunk of concrete firmly in my hoof and hoped that the Romaneian was as good as he seemed to think he was.

I took aim. One rock. One moving target. One second to make my maneuver. And me – the clumsiest filly in all of Ponyville.

I started at that horn and thought about all the times I’d been picked dead last at sports – the wild pitches I’d thrown. Every absent minded trip. Every stumble. Every time a total stranger gave me a bit too much space when they passed me on the road, (because the whole town knew that Rose Petal the Klutz was a danger to herself and others).

A gazillion-million memories all rushed into my brain at once like floodwater. I tried to focus on that one goon’s glowing horn, but all I could think of was my own foibles. Accidents, injuries, disapproving glares, even supportive but condescending Don’t-you-worry-about-it-dear’s. All of it. Everything. Everything. Everything.

Like drowning in failure.

And then I thought of my friends, and for just one teeny tiny instant there was this silence. All those adorable failures. All the excuses I had ever made for myself – that others had made for me - all my doubt. It all shrunk down into one tiny spot – Skull Stomper’s horn, and it was literally all I could see.

I whispered to myself three simple words. “Not this time.”

And let it fly…

What happened next was so fast, it’s hard to even describe. The hunk of concrete struck true. Green lightning scattered everywhere. The force field went down, and so did Skully - his horn shattered like chalk. He cried and wailed like a little foal, except that it sounded like he had a throat full of hot gravel.

Then I looked up and saw the stampede of cloak-o’s coming straight toward me.

Misty’s horn lit up.

The cart with the movie box suddenly glowed the same color as his horn and flung itself across the floor, but it didn’t trip a single cloak-o. Just shattered like a cheap toy when it hit the ground.

Thanks a lot, Misty. Great work!

I stumbled backwards as the tidal wave of cloaks rushed toward me.

I cringed and waited for it to crash down on me, but then I heard this great big clang. Every water dish from every cage in the room took aim and flung itself against the bars, splashing the cloak-o’s. A giant puddle swept under their hooves. Right into the shattered movie box. Then, just like that, a pile of dead cloak-o’s laying lifeless in a pool full of lightning.

Misty clapped my shoulder. He was already out of his cage.

“You killed them.” I said.

“You are sharp as razor, my friend.” He disappeared behind me.

A glowing key ring flew a-jinglin' at all the cages. The doors swung open almost as fast as the lightning that licked its way across the puddle.
Misty keeps his promises.

A keyring hit me in the head.

“Grab a key,” He said smugly.

“They’re…dead.” I said.

“Am I goot or what?” He called out over his shoulder and laughed. “Come on, let’s open dees and get the fuck out of here, eh?”

I didn’t respond. I had other things on my mind.

* * *

Once the marauding wall of cloaky death was out of the way, I started to feel this tide sweeping me away from the center of the action, down toward the important filly at the end of the hall. The One I’m Meant to Save. The second I saw that Twinkle Eyes was alright and out of her cage, I darted back and answered the call.

Keys out, I galloped straight for the last cage in the joint – the one with a hole and a view. But the cage was already wide open. Misty had a hoof on her shoulder.

“She’s your girlfriend?” I said, genuinely shocked.

They both protested at once.

“She’s not my girlfriend!” The foreigner whined, his more childish nature shining through for just a moment.

“I don’t even know this colt!” Growled The One I’m Meant to Save.

“You’re very welcome, now come on!” He charged into the eel hallway, Girl I’m Meant to Save in tow. She looked back at me, utterly confused.

“Go on.” I gestured, and pointed her towards what seemed at the time to be best escape route available.

“Dees a way!” Misty shouted.

I wanted to charge up the eel hallway with them, deal with the girl from my drawing, get the job done, and haul flank out of there. But there were still kids in those cages. Maybe even the one I’d left behind.

As if to prove the urgency of my point, those kids burst into a sudden wave of screams.

I rushed back. The puddle of lightning was drifting slowly toward the row of prison cells - kids still trapped inside. Keys in my mouth, I dove for the nearest locked cage. It was Butterscotch’s.

“Don’t let me die. Don’t let me die. Don’t let me die.” He said.

“I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!” I flipped through keys, fumbling with my teeth. None of the stupid things fit.

“Come on!” He shouted.

The water was starting to spread and inch up between my legs. One drop of that stuff and I was dead. I stood on the tips of my hooves and screamed.

“MMMMM!” I said, mouth full of keys.

In a few seconds, I would be surrounded by lightning water, and no longer able to escape. Butterscotch slammed his hooves against the cage as I tried to turn the key.

“Don’t let me die! Don’t let me die!” He was sobbing.

“Mmmmm! Mmmm!” I shouted back at him.

I won’t! I won’t!

Or at least I thought I wouldn’t. At the very last second, as I saw the water closing in on me, I leapt out of the way, and landed safely out of the puddle’s range. I watched in horror as it swept right up to the metal cages. That look of blind panic on Butterscotch’s face. The betrayal he felt – the desperation. But what could I have done? I’d stayed until the very last second. I’d done everything I could!

The water swept under them all, and they screamed like yowling cats. The crying was so loud that Misty actually came back, and stood in horror as he realized his error. But it was too late. The water swept under the cages.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

I should have stayed. I thought. Maybe one second longer, and I could have gotten at least one cage open. I should have stayed!

After about a minute of solid shrieking, we all opened our eyes, and one by one realized that nothing at all had happened.

The kids in the cages weren’t dead. Just wet.

I turned to Misty Mountain, who looked as rattled and confused as I was.

Twinkle appeared next to me, horn aglow. She levitated the plug from the movie box, which was no longer connected to the wall, and waved it in Misty Mountain’s face.

“Fucking asshole.” She said and dropped it on the ground.

For once, Misty didn’t have a smart answer.

“Come on,” Said Twinkle, magicking the keys into each of the cages one at a time. I grabbed a ring in my tooth and started playing turnkey too.

“Dees is enough! What are you doink? Dey are comink! We must go!” Said Misty. “Now!”

Everypony ignored him. He was the guy who’d left them all to fry. I made for Butterscotch. I didn’t have the nerve to look him in the eye. Not after I’d dodged the puddle and left him for dead. Finally, when I got the door open, he passed me by. He couldn’t look me in the eye either.

“Thanks,” he muttered under his breath, acid on his tongue.

As guilty as I’d felt, that tone made me mad. I wanted to scream at his ungrateful little flank. I could have rushed down the eel hallway by myself; I could have been safe on my way home and halfway out the compound by then, but no! I’d risked everything to get him and everypony else free, and dammit, I’d done everything for him I could! He had to understand that. I couldn’t get the door open in time. That’s all. I just couldn’t do it! It wasn’t my fault.

I couldn’t scream at Butterscotch, so I kicked Skull Stomper’s corpse instead, (because it happened to be near me). Ditching a friend. Stomping on the dead. Yeah, Rose Petal, you’re one of the good ones. Said the little pony in my head.

Misty, recognizing a lost cause when he saw one, levitated a ring of keys, and in a rapid whir of purple glow, opened cage after cage after cage.
Show off unicorns.

He turned to me, slapped my shoulder and said. “Ees done. We save dem. Congratulations. Whole world know Rose Petal is good pony. Now let’s get dee fuck out of here.”

“There’s more in the other room.” I grabbed him. “Come on!”

“Bah!” He snapped, shaking me off. “Go ahead. Take down entire compound one room at a time. Everything be fine! What do I know? I’m just silly colt with experience escaping from all of dee things!"

He threw his front hooves up in the air. "Dees is enough!" He pleaded. "We have to go!”

He whipped around in anger, clearly intending to storm off down that old eel hallway, but his companion, The One I’m Meant to Save, was already gone – slipped away while the two of us had been fighting. I looked around. She wasn’t near me, or Misty, or Twinkle, or the cluster of fillies and colts that were slowly congregating together. I didn’t know where she was.

Dear Luna, she’d probably run off in a panic all by herself! She was probably crying up and down the hallway, being attacked my eels and fire breathing tree snails. She was probably leading the cloak-o's straight to us! Misty and I both exchanged glances of terror.

“I’m over here.” She said dryly.

We found her all the way on the other side of the room, passed the dreaded yellow line. She was hovering over the guard’s console, banging keys and buttons and levers and stuff. She didn’t even deign to look at us.

“What are you doing? Come on!”

She plunged her hoof against my lips without taking her eyes off the screen, effectively hushing me. Misty came forward, but he didn’t even get to say a word before she kicked him in the shins. That girl wouldn’t peel her eyes off that console even for a moment.

With a final dramatic keystroke, she turned to us and said. “There are twelve guards. We took them all down except a nurse.”

“Yay team.” Said Misty sarcastically in his thick accent, and gestured toward the eel hallway.

“No.” Said The One I’m Meant to Save. “There’s only one way out that way, and it’s got tons of cloaks patrolling nearby.”

She pointed at some sort of map on the console screen. TOWNSHIP OF TROTTICA. MANE HALL. BASEMENT LEVEL 2. It read.

I had never seen anything like it before. Misty also scratched his head in sheepish confusion.

The One continued. “There’s also a single roaming patrol pony who could be here any minute now according to the work log…or twenty minutes from now. No telling.”

“How do you--;” I tried to ask, but Twinkle jumped in between us. Or should I say jumped up and down (she wasn’t tall enough to see the screen? “Rosie, do me a favor and--;”

Before I knew it she was climbing up me, and I was kneeling. The weight of her knobby knees and blunt hooves dug straight into my poor back.

“You in?” She asked The One I’m Meant to Save.

“Yes.”

They bumped hooves, and said a whole bunch of stuff I couldn’t understand. Then they summed up the plan.

“We need to get all 27 kids in the other room, and the 16 of us here down through those doors, past some kind of backstage area, and then sneak out the service area here.”

I heard the sound of one of their hooves tapping at the screen.

“We don’t have time for 27 keeds!” Squeaked Misty in protest.

The One I’m Meant to Save snorted, and hit a single button. The cages in the second room unlocked. All of them at once.

“You are genius!” He said.

I could barely hear a word over the sound of her smirking, (that’s how smug it was), but I coughed out with a raspy voice the only question left on my mind. “What about the others? Who took the medicine?”

“It says they’re being processed.”

“Processed?” I heaved. “What does that mean?”

Both the techies frantically poured over the screen.

“Doesn’t say, but there’s another 40 of them.” Our resident hacker said at long last.

Twinkle finally hopped down. I collapsed on the floor.

Above me I could faintly hear Misty and The One I’m Meant to Save arguing away about what to do. To my left, Twinkle’s hooves clopped against the gritty old pavement and drifted off to Celestia-only-knows where. I was about to investigate where she might have been headed when I heard something that terrified me far more. The One I’m Meant to Save asserted, “We have to go deeper down.”

Down to the lower levels. According to what she was reading, that Town Hall was built over some kinda massive pit, and we were gonna go down into it with 40 some odd kids, navigate their labyrinth, and come back with 80. Most of them wouldn’t even be able to carry themselves.

I looked up at the girl. She was bold and resolute. Admirable. A leader.

At that instant I was seized by a sharp pain. It surged across my entire body. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Whatever she was planning, it was wrong. All wrong

I could see, clear as the ponies before me, The Girl I’m Meant to Save lying dead in the dark on a pile of rocks. Blood all up in her mane. A coin-sized circular wound going way deep into her chest. Her eyes stared up into nothing, covered with pebbles and dust.

It was too much. Too real. The pony in my head screamed “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it!”

It was like being in the middle of a nightmare, only you know you’re awake. Horrible pictures you can’t shut your eyes to, and this all-encompassing fight-or-flight panic running amuck up and down your bloodstream. I fought for consciousness through this long dark hole - this spasm of righteous terror, and clawed my way to the surface.

I had to warn them! I couldn’t let this happen. Not on my watch. I fought and fought and fought to no avail, and then, totally out of the blue, the pictures disappeared on their own.

“No!” Misty and I yelled at the same time.

It startled The One I'm Meant to Save so bad that she jumped backwards. I instinctively scrambled to my hooves and threw myself toward her. When I got there, I found Misty, flanking her from the other side. He was pale - terrified. Covered in sweat. For the first time since we’d met, Misty was genuinely, truly, honest-and-for-real terrified. He looked as though he had seen a ghost.

Or a vision.

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

NOTE: To all the folks who've been reading all this time,

First of all, thanks for your encouragement. My apologies that I haven't added a chapter in quite a while. My new job kept me busy, along with my duties organizing the charity album Seeds of Kindness 3: A Beautiful Heart.

Secondly, you should all know that I've decided that Rose's observations so far have been a tad too adult for a filly her age. I'll be revising little things in the first four chapters. Small phrasings. Her narrative and her "voice," her kiddish use of language, and that which makes her (I hope) lovable will stay exactly the same, but it just plain makes more sense if she's an adolescent using that language because she's reminiscing - looking back at an earlier point in her childhood.

If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up in the comments. Nothing's really changing, except of course, for the framework and context of the narration. Hope you understand. -Sprocket

Sprocket Doggingsworth (the author-type person):

Column: My Derpy Hooves News column about Love, Tolerance, and Friendship, “Help! My Heart is Full of Pony!” is now archived at http://heartfullofpony.tumblr.com

Music: Check out my pony music (rock, jazz, hip-hop, blues, classical, and experimental). http://www.youtube.com/sdoggingsworth

Cover Art: http://shadesofeverfree.deviantart.com/art/The-Rose-Queen-334850063

Staring Contest With the Abyss

CHAPTER SIX – STARING CONTEST WITH THE ABYSS

“’There must be some kind of way out of here.’ Said the Joker to the Thief.” – Bob Dylan

I read a lot. I mean, like, a lot. And the one thing I totally hate is when you’re in the middle of reading some totally awesome pirate story, and right when they’re all facing an army of skeletons or sea monsters or whatever, the pirates choose that exact moment to get all touchy-feely, and bicker about their special someponies or some garbage. I can’t stand that. Seriously! It drives me crazy. ‘Cause nothing in the world can ever be as pathetic as a whiny pirate.

Anyway, you can imagine my annoyance and frustration when the kids all around me started acting like that in real life. Getting all stupid and emotional when so much was at stake.

Ok, so I was guilty of it too. Yeah, I should have been focused on getting the hell out of there. I should have put my thinkiness aside for later - locked it away in a box somewhere with an envelope tied to it that says “DO NOT OPEN ‘TILL SAFE.”

But what could I do? It came out of nowhere. BOOM! Misty and I find each other, flanking The One We Were Both Apparently Meant to Save, and suddenly we knew that that panic - that vision, this whole mission – it was something that we shared.

Is Misty like me? Another traveler. A dreamer? A pony so completely out of his mind that he put his big stupid head on his pillow one night, and dreamt himself into this total dump of a future?

Or maybe he was another Wasteland kid who just so happened to be cursed with the same brain-boilingly vague mission that I was? Get the girl who’s stuck behind the hole in the wall to safety.

The one thing I could be absolutely certain of was that Misty knew something that I didn’t.

I looked up at The One I’m Meant to Save. Then back at Misty. Then back at her. And back at him. Her. Him. Her. Him. Her. Him.

The One finally snapped. “What the fuck is going on?”

I suddenly realized how awkward the whole thing must have looked from her end.

Misty and I just stood there while she glowered at us.

Neither of us knew what to say, so we just plain didn’t answer her at all. As if that would fix everything. Finally, The One We Were Both Apparently Meant to Save lost all patience and shouted her squeaky little brains out.

“Why does everypony in the whole fucking world want to save me?!” She stomped her hooves and panted.

It was kinda scary to see this soft-spoken little pony suddenly burst into blinding rage, but we had it coming. “Tell me what’s going on. Right. Now.” She demanded.

Misty Mountain was still in shock, so he pretty much kept on ignoring her. In fact, the dummy didn’t take his fool eyes off of me for even a moment.

“Ees cause you are such nice pony,” He told The One We Were Both Apparently Meant to Save in a monotone voice. “Ees cause we like you.”

“Arg!” She growled.

Misty was impossible. Which left the handling of The One We Were Meant to Save entirely up to me. Whatever else was going on, getting the hell outta there, and keeping this girl safe had to come first. I wasn’t going to let any kind of whiny piratetry ruin that.

So I leapt up and grabbed the girl by the shoulder. She jumped in surprise, but I held on all the tighter. For what I was gonna try, I needed The One I’m Meant to Save to look me in the eye.

“Listen.” I said. “Listen careful-like.”

She actually paused. Whatever she may have been expecting from us, I don’t think she saw a pounce coming.

“What’s your name?”

“Um…Strawberry Lemonade.” She said.

“Ok, Strawberry, how do I put this? There’s a lot of uh…weirdy weirdness going on.”

I looked to Misty, who nodded in agreement. Weirdy weirdness. That about summed it up.

“You want the truth? I said. “Why you need to be saved? You of all fillies?”

She nodded, eyebrow all crooked-like.

My hooves shook. I felt like I was going to vomit, but I just clutched right on to Strawberry, and wouldn’t let go. That sense of terror I’d felt? It didn’t just go away when the vision was over. It rattled around in my brain like my skull was full of hornets. So I gripped her for dear life - as hard as an earth pony possibly could. I looked her square in the eye, and tried my damnedest not to give away the fact that I was scared out of my wits.

“I have absolutely no idea.” I said to her at long last.

There you go, Rose Petal. Now you’re on the right track. Comfort her some more.

“But’cha do need to be!” I added.

Strawberry blinked in surprise. I mean, clearly she had braced herself to disbelieve me – that much was obvious. But my total lack of logical answers, and blunt honesty about how none of this made any sense whatsoever – that of all things seemed to actually make her start to take me seriously.

“I just know that if you charge down into that pit like you’re planning, we’re all gonna die.”

Misty butted in to show his support, “Ees true.”

Strawberry Lemonade eyed him suspiciously. So strange to see Misty in agreement with anypony.

“What? Ees true!” He shrugged.

Ok. So I was in the middle of the most important talk of my young life – convincing our new fearless navigator (the only one who knew how to dig around for information in those giant whirring console doo-hickeys), not to fearlessly navigate us into some kinda fiery pit of destruction and torture. Worse yet, I had to get her to understand that my fears were based on a whole lot more than me just being a chicken.

But when I happened to glance over her shoulder, what did I see? Twinkle Eyes, beating the snot out of somepony in a nurse’s hat. She wailed on him so hard, it was actually really hard to concentrate.

“So what are you saying?” Said Strawberry Lemonade.

Across the room, I could see the little filly whacking that cloaky nurse right behind the leg till he fell to his knees. Without sparing even a teeny tiny moment, she leapt on the nurse, stomped the back of his leg and drove his kneecap straight into the concrete. He let out a scream that would have woken the dead, except that it got muffled by the blood-soaked tatter of cloak that had been stuffed into his mouth.

“I’m saying that, um, well…”

A tribe of children had gathered round to have a go at the nursey bastard. They fell on him like timberwolves. It was damn distracting.

“What the?” Strawberry Lemonade motioned to turn around, so I upped the ante.

“I’ve got a plan!” I shouted.

Nice save. A brilliant diversion-a-majig if ever there was one.

So good that Strawberry ignored the muffled screaming and moved in closer (along with half the other kids in the compound) to listen to me. The only problem was that there was no actual plan.

“Yeah, that’s right.” I added, suddenly finding myself on the spot. “I’m saying that, uh…I have a plan, and that, um…it’s a good plan?”

The children now surrounding me inched in even closer to hear the details.

“My plan is…”

Come on! Come on! Stupid brain! I need the most brilliantest escape plan ever, and I need it in 7 seconds or less.

“My plan is to, um…leave!” I said. “And, uh…leave…quickly?”

The small crowd hung on my every stuttered word. It’s amazing how much faith they gave me just because I’d kinda sorta implied that there might be a way out, and that I might conceivably know what it was.

Twinkle’s posse, on the other hoof, was busy dragging the nurse by his mane and stomping him with a hundred tiny hooves. My friend, the Pink Microscopic Unicorn of Doom, pulled the cloth from his mouth, forced his jaw open, and propped it over the step that lead up into his office.

What is she doing? I thought.

“And, uh, after we leave.” I said. “We will, um…”

Twinkle lifted her hoof slowly. She was gonna stomp on the back of the nurse’s head, and smash the nurse’s jaw into dust! This was getting crazy. Too crazy.

“Stop!” I shouted, and ran toward Twinkle, shoving my way through the crowd (and abandonizing it to Misty’s devices).

Killing all those cloak-o’s was bad enough, even in self-defense. But stomping somepony’s teeth into powdery chalky teethy bits? Twinkle was losing it. I mean really bucking losing it.

She had her hoof lifted, and was ready to stomp him. As though it were nothing at all. She didn’t even look angry. If anything, Twinkle looked cool and collected. I think the scariest thing about her was that she hadn’t actually snapped at all. This was just Twinkle Eyes being herself.

The hoof never came down on the nurse, cause as I ran toward them, totally out of the blue, he squealed like a foal and blurted something out, “Nine, okay? Nine! There are nine of them!”

Twinkle Eyes lowered her leg slowly. He was telling her what she wanted to hear.

“They won’t be awake for at least another two hours.” The nurse continued, but at that point, it was barely anything more than a whole bunch of sobbing and incoherent pleas for mercy.

Twinkle listened carefully to all the sobs, and when she’d gotten what she wanted, stepped right over him like he was a rock. “Was that so fucking hard, ya drama queen?” She broke into a trot.

Then she saw me standing there, watching, and stopped dead in her tracks. She didn’t say a word, or even look me in the eye.

Instead, there was this tense, horrible silence between us.

My eyeballs started to water. I don’t know why it had to happen then at that exact moment, especially after all the other stuff we’d been though.

I guess it’s cause, ‘till then, I’d kinda thought that, in fighting for our freedom, that maybe we were fighting for something bigger - that this was about more than just survival.

That goodness? That purity of heart that the Priestess had rounded us up so cruelly to destroy all symbolic-like? I really thought it was worth taking a stand for. Hell, with all the weird twisty-turny bits that fate seemed like to pull with us, I’d even gotten the idea that defending the ideal of innocence (or whatever you wanna call it) might even have been my whole reason for being there.

But I was wrong. The Universe just dishes out the whats. We make up our own whys.

It turned out all that sunshine and rainbows stuff was already dead.

I stood there catching my breath – getting my bearings. Twinkle Eyes just watched me silently. Somehow, she managed to stare at me without daring to make eye contact.

“I’m sorry.” She sighed at long last. “I never said I was one of the good ones too.”

Then she trotted by me in silence.

And that was that.

I couldn’t believe it. What had just happened? Were we not friends anymore?!

I wanted to scream – to grab her and talk to her and tell her that everything was gonna be okay, (and while I was at it, drag Strawberry Lemonade the buck to safety and smack Misty Mountain and ask him what the hell kinda mystical junk he was keeping from me). I wanted to do a lot of things. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even move. I just stood there crying, and tried my damnedest to do it quietly.

Damn it, Rose. Knock it off.

Then, totally out of the blue, I got this feeling. Like I was sailing. The hornets in my head that had been screeching at me constantly, saying things like, “Rose Petal, you screw up! Stop Strawberry Lemonade from sending you all down into the Great Below. She’s the one you’re meant to save. Don’t you realize that you moron?!”

They were all of a sudden quieter.

They didn’t shut up, mind you. Just got quieter. That alone was remarkable.

I looked up. Twinkle was talking to Misty and Strawberry Lemonade. They were pointing at that great big old glowy console again, (even explaining some of it to the kids who were still standing around). Charting a course, I’d bet.

Twinkle Eyes had information, and already the three of them had come up with a plan – an escape scheme that the hornets in my head didn’t hate. Had Twinkle not savagely beaten that nursey cloak-o, we probably would never have stood a chance of getting out of that room, let alone escaping the compound. Her total lack of scruples was the only thing that had empowered us to come up with a plan that shut the hornets up and let the rest of the night play out the way it’s supposed to happen.

Survival rewards the ruthless. I would have preferred the hornet’s nest to having to face that cold, awful realization.

It made me sick to my stomach.

But as I stood there, watching my friends hammer out a plan, pointing at screens and dials and things on the console, bickering over how best to save the kids headed for the great Down Below (without endangering Strawberry Lemonade, or dragging the other rescue-ees into harm’s way too much), I wondered if we had anything left that was even worth fighting for.

It was at that moment that I stopped and took a good hard look at myself – a filly with a mission, standing around in the middle of a danger zone, pining for lost ideals. I had become what I hated most in the world – a whiny pirate.

* * *

I wasn’t good at that “position so-and-so here” drawing-doodles-in-the-sand kinda stuff, so I let my friends do all the planning. Instead I went straight for the nurse. It wasn’t that I wanted to. It was just something I had to do.

First, I pulled the other kids off of the poor bastard. They were all kicking and grabbing and stomping at him while he was down.

“Buzz off!” I said as I yanked them away one by one. “Haven’t you heard those guys over there got a plan?” They bolted over to Misty in excitement.

When I finally got to the nurse, I knelt by him. Reached out to touch him with a hesitant hoof. I’d like to say that I mopped the sweat from his brow like some kind of noble Nurse Redheart and cleaned him - proved to him that even the ponies who he trampled on and jailed up could show him compassion. That we could be better than him. Or even that I’d made an effort to stop and make sense of pony brutality – to reflect on right and wrong and all that junk, and think about what Twinkle and the gang had actually done to him. Really think about it all philosophical like.

But that’s not what I did. I poked him. Just poked him. Like that dead squirrel I found in the woods once back when I was little. When the nurse didn’t respond, I poked him again. (I honestly wasn’t sure what else to do).

Eventually, his busted eye creaked open. He saw me crouched there next to him, all up-close in his face. First thing he did was cringe - tighten every muscle against every bone. Frozen like a statue of terror.

It freaked me out. I’d never imagined that anypony would ever look at me like that. That such an expression could even exist. That anypony would fear me. Was that the look that Diamond Tiara saw when she picked on defenseless kids on the playground? And the cloak-o guards! This is what their whole world must’ve looked like. A sea of horrified faces – ponies everywhere, not happy to see them.

I almost jumped back in horror. That pitiful look alone scared me out of my wits. But I stared at him right back. This was important, so I held my ground.

I watched him in silence. He cowered. We were the same height now – this child murderer and me.

And he was hiding his face from me cause he knew what I was only then slowly growing to realize.

I could do anything I wanted to him.

Avenge every kid who’d ever passed through his “Nurse’s Office.” Kiss his boo-boos. Chew on his eyeballs just to find out what eyeballs tasted like. Anything! He was completely and totally at my mercy, right up to whether he lived or died. The prisoner children of Trottica wouldn’t even bat an eye if I’d killed him. Hell, they’d probably call me a hero. It was a strange feeling.

I pulled the bloody cloth out of the nurse’s mouth, (the other kids had shoved it back in there after Twinkle was through with him). He coughed up a storm, and nasty liquid rained out of his mouth too.

“Why?” I said.

It was the one question I knew Twinkle didn’t ask him in the course of her interrogation.

He just looked at me blankly.

“Why?!” I shouted.

“Baal demands children.” He blubbered in blind panic. “It’s the only thing keeping our town alive since the mine dried up.”

Baal? Really? Your god is named Baal? I thought to myself dryly. What? Was “The Great De-Innocentizer of Souls” taken?

“When was that?” I asked. “How long have you been doing this?”

Nursey coughed and wheezed and took his sweet time catching his breath.

“I don’t know,” He said at last. “As long as I can remember. I was young when we started. But they wouldn’t let me join Baal. I was too big. The big ones enlist in the Honor Guard.”

Even with the busted up face and the broken bones, he managed to get all mopey about that of all things. The fact that he was too big to be eaten alive by his wackadoo god.

He must have been surprised that I hadn’t kicked or spat on him yet, because the moment he caught his breath, he turned to me for sympathy. Totally out of the blue.

“I know what you’re thinking!” He pleaded.

It startled me.

“But the De-Innocentizer of Souls is benevolent. He saved all of us! They don’t feel a thing, I swear. Believe me, please. I hear it’s bliss.”

“What’s bliss?”

Even his battered left eye somehow managed to light up at the mention of it.

“Drifting Down.” He nodded emphatically. “Being one with the Great Below.”

He smiled as best as anypony could in his condition. That was when I officially lost my patience with him.

“Bullshit!” I cried. My first real curse. “I saw them, you asshole. I saw the fucking wheelbarrow.”

A bushel of bodies had passed down a hallway a couple of yards from his office just a few minutes ago. There was no way this lying sack of nurse could have been in the dark!

He cringed from me again. He wasn’t getting far, though, because this time, I was grabbing him. Tugging on his mane.

Wait a minute, how did that happen? I thought. Sweet Celestia, I’m roughing him up!

I let go the second I realized. He literally dropped like a pile of meat to the floor.

“No, no, no! That wasn’t them.” He babbled. “Really, it’s in he 19th scroll! ‘When they pass into the Great Below, Baal shall transform them, and free them of their burdensome innocence. And then they shall know bliss.”

He was weeping with joy now as those words passed his busted up lips. “Should you see them after The Great De-Innocentizer of Souls has blessed them, be not afraid.”

It was his turn to clutch at me. Beaten though he was, his enthusiasm for the subject matter could not be shed. He reached up and brushed my bucked up mane out of my eyes.

“Pity not the little ones,” He smiled as much as his broken face would allow. “For the ugliness of the shells they leave behind is only the true face of the ignorance from which they have been freed.”

The nurse smiled at me. As though he’d just explained 2+2, and I should be excited at the prospect of leaping down to my horrible doom, just so I could experience the mind-blowingly amazing spiritual state of 4.

I stared at him in horror. I didn’t want to know anymore. I wanted to get away before he got any creepier, or before I scared myself more than I already had.

I had roughed up another pony. Even Diamond Tiara had never done that. And I had the nerve to judge Twinkle Eyes. At least when she had done it, it was serene. Calculated sadism. I’d ripped at the nurse’s mane cause I lost control.

Worse yet, part of me enjoyed it.

“I hear it’s beautiful.” The nurse wept.

I slowly backed away from him. The whole thing was just too weird.

"Lock him up," I said, tears running down my cheek. "Just, get him out of here."

"Awww," one of them said, "But we were gonna--;"

"Do it!" I snapped.

For whatever reason, they listened. Maybe because it was painfully obvious to anypony with eyes that I was on the verge of coming apart.

* * *

“Okay, make dee listening of the up!” Said Misty, standing elevated on a pile of something or other. He glanced in my direction from the makeshift pulpit, but immediately looked away when he saw me. What was he hiding?

“We have seven cheeldren here.” He said. “Totally asleep. Dee strongest of you – grab dem, and sling dem over your backs. Like saddlebag.”

Strawberry stood at his left and nodded. The One We’re Meant to Save, pushy though she was on the subject of tech, was still a bit too much of a wallflower to stand up and address the lot of us herself.

Twinkle, on the other hoof, who had become something of a leader when she’d headed the nurse-stomping brigade, was not really set up to give a stirring speech to the rest of us, seeing as how she was covered in blood, and liable to start ranting and cursing. The loudmouth Romaneian was, unfortunately, the only choice.

“Do you know the way out or not?” Asked Butterscotch.

“We have map.” Said Misty.

A truthful statement that didn’t quite answer the question.

“What’s the plan?” Asked another.

“We teep-hoof out, while Priestess Pony puts on her show.”

There was a moment of silence as the crowd waited for him to continue. He didn’t. There was nothing else to say.

“That’s it?” Squeaked a little green colt.

“That’s it.” He confirmed. “But don’t worry. Strawberry knows all their secrets ‘cause machine told her. She can even tell dem where to be.”

He leaned in for dramatic effect. “Or where not to be.”

The crowd started to murmur. Was it possible? Could they walk right out the back door completely and totally unnoticed? At the click of a button?

A wave of hope washed over the herd. Strawberry, on the other hoof, did not look pleased at what Misty had promised us on her behalf.

“But leesten.” He continued. “We are more than just bunch of keeds in dee same room. You, me, everypony here. We have been keecked around like Wasteland keeckball. I do not know how any of you got here, and honestly, I don’t care.

“But here we all are. Free. And ees our turn to do keecking.”

There were laughs and a few cautious cheers from the herd; he held up a hoof. “But first we have to get away. To do that, we stay together. We stay quiet. Close. And above all, we make sure not leef any pony behind.”

It was actually a pretty good speech. Strange thing is: Misty seemed to actually mean what he said. Our vision, our experience – that panic we both shared – I couldn’t help but wonder if it had shocked some decency into him.

The crowd was not so sure. A lot of folks remembered him as the pony who’d ditched them. Left them to shock and die in a puddle of lightning. A lot of the kids fiddled with their manes, ground their hooves into the concrete – found fidgety excuses not to look directly at him.

Misty acted quickly, and changed strategies to compensate.

“We can do eet,” Misty added. “Because of Rose Petal.”

Everypony turned to face me at once.

“Meep?” I meeped.

“Rose Petal ees like neenja. She took on all dee grown ups, and eet ees cause of her that you are all standing here instead of swallowed alive by whatever it is they are hiding under dat stage.”

I waved nervously. Yeah, sure, Misty. Now you look me in the eye. You jerk.

“Dees plan weel work.” He cheered. “Ees Rose Petal approved plan, yes?”

I laughed nervously. It made sense that Misty would use me as a spokespony since I was better liked than him…but damn!

“Um…Yeah.” I said. “Let’s, uh…do what he said and get out of here. With ponies on our backs.”

Silence.

Butterscotch turned and skulked away from the crowd. He was still pissed that I’d ditched him at the last moment. Left him to die. It was bad enough he thought that, but being up there on the spot – vulnerable, nervous, and touted as a hero undeserved-like – his grudge made me feel like crying.

“You know, cause they need us?”

More silence. Dead silence. I wanted to die.

Finally, an older colt spoke up. “I’ll take one of the sleepers.”

“Saddle me up.” Said another

“Give me two.” Said a filly who looked a bit too small to be carrying other fillies at all.

I sighed in relief. We were all finally coming together.

“Follow Meess Lemonade.” Said Misty Mountain. “She knows way.”

“Yeah. Strawberry, um…navigates the things!” I said, loaning him the weight of my bizarre heroine status.

* * *

We kids, confused and frazzled though we were, came to order all on our own. It was kinda like how the cloak-o guards got their groove back, only we didn’t have any training or drills to fall back on. No fancy weapons either, (except what some of us had scavenged from the dead cloak-o’s).

We had each other, and this amazing feeling that we could come out of it alive if we just stuck together. The bigger kids carried those too weak, sick, or drugged to walk, and the little ones stayed close at hoof, waiting for an opportunity to pitch in.

I looked up at Misty, who was standing right beside me, overseeing it all. It was amazing. He was like a totally different pony. One of the good ones.

He leaned down and whispered to me. “Eef dey catch us, stay close to me, and go opposite way of crowd. Dee keeds carrying extra on their back weel be slow, and we can outrun them.”

He smacked my shoulder, smiled, and maneuvered to the front of the crowd.

“Misty, wait!” I shouted.

He turned to face me.

“What about what we saw?!” I said.

Suddenly, panic on his face. “Saw?”

“In the dark!” I shouted, referring to the vision of Strawberry Lemonade’s dead body, covered in soot and pebbles and stuff, bleeding from a great big old hole in her. I didn’t want to shout all the kooky details for the entire herd to hear, but Misty totally knew what I was talking about. It was an image that had been burned into his brain as well as mine.

“I see nothing.” Misty Mountain laughed nervously and put even more distance between us. “Ees not dark. Ees well lit here. Nice décor. Rustic Wasteland chic!”

“What?!” I said.

“I gotta go do dee things for to help all the ponies here. Bye!”

He ducked down low and disappeared into the crowd.

Arg!

I tried to chase him down, but in all the crazy confusion, everypony kept looking to me for support, and physically crowding me. Well played, Misty. Even in complementing me – in naming me spokespony, he’d had ulterior motives.

What I couldn’t figure out was why he was hiding from me in the first place.

Even more importantly, there was a very real and ever-growing danger. At any moment, we could get caught pre-mature like. Those damned nagging hornets in my brain got all stingy and fluttery. Stupid hornets.

I couldn’t even tell what they wanted this time. I had to assume that it had something to do with Strawberry Lemonade getting some idea in her head that wasn’t in harmony with the way it’s supposed to happen. Hornets get real fussy about details like that.

The kids were all rounded up and ready to go, (which was no easy feat). I had decided that, while it probably was best to lock the nurse up, he probably deserved the courtesy of a blanket. He had gathered some of his wits now, and trembling though he was, he still gave me a nod of gratitude when I passed it to him.

That was literally all I needed to do to feel ready to hit the road, but when I checked in on Strawberry, I saw that she was still glued to that stupid box-y thing.

“We should get going.” I said

“This is operating on the G-7.9 OS.” She said in awe, completely ignoring me.

“That’s OS Muffin!” She continued. “I can find out more. I can get us the answer.”

The hornets were getting worse. I could see Misty all the way on the other end of the crowd. He perked his head up and looked in our direction - even ditched the kids he was herding, and bolted straight for us. The lying bastard feels it too.

“Fuck that, Strawberry,” Said Twinkle Eyes. “Come on, let’s blow this joint.”

Celestia in the sky! Even Twinkle Eyes could feel how tremendously horrible and idea it would be to stick around for even a moment longer. You didn’t need signs and portents and visions to see that. We had to move.

The time for weepy pirating had passed.

But Strawberry Lemonade was stubborn.

“I can do this.” She insisted. “I can figure out a route to those kids headed down below.”

“Come on. You can hit up the next console.” Said Twinkle.

“…Almost kinda sorta re-direct these Cloaks to another part of the building, just like Misty said.” Strawberry ignored us.

“We have no time for almost!” Shouted Misty. “We go now!”

“No!” She shouted right back.

She turned to us all, panting. Frazzled. On the verge of tears. I’d clearly missed something. Twinkle and I exchanged confused glances.

Strawberry was having a totally different argument than the rest of us, and it was definitely not about tech. Twinkle and I exchanged confused glances.

“I’ve been pushed around. By these guys.” She pointed at the pile o’ dead cloak-o’s. “By the guys who owned me before them. And the guys who owned me before them. And the guys who owned me before them. I’ve even been a fucking pawn in your stupid game, Misty. And yours.”

She was pointing at me. I averted my eyes in shame.

Strawberry was right. She had been treated like an object by the ponies who’d captured her, and now here we were, rescuing her, doing the same damn thing. It wasn’t right.

“Since the day my parents fucking sold me, it’s been all “yes, sir; no, sir.”

“Sold?!” I said, but Twinkle Eyes butted in before I could finish the thought. Sold by your own parents!

“Hey, your folks sold you too?” Twink giggled. “Parent of the Year hoof bump!”

She held out a hoof. Strawberry glanced at it contemptuously.

“Sold by your own parents.” I whispered to myself.

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t fathom it. Children stolen from fiery villages in the middle of the night, children locked up, children killed – that’s the sort of things that cloak-o’s do. Bad guys. Horrible as it was, it was something I could wrap my brain around, because bad guys existed in my world. But a future Equestria where it’s just totally normal to up and sell your own kid? And that it was so common that it happened to both Twinkle and Strawberry?!

“Hmm.” Shrugged Misty Mountain as he casually mulled over the subject. “I am glad that my parents love me.”

Facehoof. You’re not helping, Misty.

“This.” Strawberry stared me down as she flicked a bunch of dials on the console. “This, I can do.”

“I can do it.” She added for good measure. “I can get us all out of here, Rose. Please, guys. Just give me two minutes.”

Except she wasn’t asking for two minutes. She was telling us that she was gonna take them. Our plans, both mystical and practical, all hinged on this filly actually surviving. So of course she picked that exact moment to grow a spine and become a pain in the flank.

Still, I nodded softly in agreement. If she did somehow manage to work her weird doo-hickey magic, it would totally be worth it. Besides, sometimes, you actually need a minute or two to get your pirate on before you can buckle down and push forward.

Misty, however, didn’t know when to shut up. “Enough of dees.

Fuck glowink box. We go, and we go now!”

He tried to grab her, but she recoiled at his touch, and thwacked him right in the face with her forehoof. “Fuck you, Misty.”

She kicked that glowy box with her hindquarters to punctuate her point. The front of her never stopped staring Misty down. “Fuck you!”

“ACCESS GRANTED.” Said the console suddenly. We all would have applauded, or even taken the time to pick our jaws up off the floor, but it was too late.

Before I could say a word. Before Misty could burst into shouting and cursing, (his face was already turning bright red with anger); before we could even absorb what had just happened inside the whirring machinery of that big hunky metal thing that our Chosen One had become so addicted to, there came a gravelly scream that interrupted us all. Right on cue, as if to confirm everypony’s growing fears.

We all rushed over and peeked around the corner. There, standing in the doorway to the eel hallway, was the biggest, meanest looking pony I had ever seen. His face was scarred to ribbons. His torso was no better.

The first thing he did was charge straight toward us. The room was long, and he was all the way on the other end of it, but still, I found myself throwing my hooves in front of my face for protection. He was just that big, and just that scary.

But he ignored us completely.

“Stompy!” The Monster shouted.

He threw his hooves around Skull Stomper’s limp body, and blubbered like a foal.

“My Stompy!”

I lowered my hooves from my face. The three of us stood at the end of the room, right there in plain sight, staring in silence.

The giant hulk of a cloak-o kissed the shattered horn of his fallen love, and ran his hoof through the corpse’s mane.

“Poor Stompy.” He wailed. “He never hurt a soul.”

“Run.” I whispered without peeling my eyes away.

It was only a matter of time before he snapped out of it, and realized that not only were there escaped children standing there a few feet away from him, but that we were to blame for the death of his beloved.

“Stompy!” He cried out again.

Then there was a bang and a splatter, and suddenly the hulk was silent. He dropped face forward onto Stompy’s corpse. Most of the back of his head was missing.

I’d never seen anything like it.

We turned around. Behind us was Misty, levitating some kind of L shaped piece of metal. Smoke drifted out of the end with the hole in it.

“Let’s get dee fuck out of here.” He said.

* * *

So we tip-hooved down this long hallway full of pipes and boxes and flickery lights and things. All of us. It was only a 100-foot stretch, and you could totally gallop it in, ten seconds flat, but when you have close to 200 hooves shuffling and clipping and clopping against gritty concrete, and you're trying to be quiet about it, you’ve got to do it real slow.

You don’t know which noise is gonna be the big one. The sound the cloak-o’s actually hear. But you wait for it, so every step feels like n eternity. Every tiny crackle of sand beneath your hooves sounds like thunder.

Above us were creaky moany floorboards. That meant that they probably would be able to hear us if we were too noisy. The building was hundreds of years old, and unlikely to keep secrets very well.

Whatever they were doing up there, the cloak-o’s were really hustling and bustling. Each bang and loud hoofstep made one of us startle. Scared though we were, though, we all managed to choke our little shrieks and exclamations into whispers.

We stuck together - mostly because we were terrified of what would happen if we didn't. We took comfort in the fact that we were all squeezed in and huddled up against one another from all sides. Whatever caution we took, whatever panicky impulses we swallowed, we were doing it as a team.

That herd mentality that made us slaves - that kept us from acting out - that had kept us docile and stupid in the face of yellow painted lines on concrete? It also saved our flanks, (ashamed as I am to say it).

It's that almost certain death thing. All it took was somepony to come along and say, "Hay! I have a plan. Follow me and everything is gonna be okay."

And just like that, we went from the weepy, whiny, soggy-upper-lip kind of pirates to the awesome, super-cool yarrrrrr kind of pirates. We did it cause when we looked around, it’s what everypony else was doing.

* * *

The herd moved along at a slow and steady pace. Our hooves sounded like a giant sheet of sandpaper sweeping slowly over a concrete floor.

“Pssst. Twinkle." I whispered.

The two of us were guarding the rear together.

"Shh!" She said.

My whisper totally didn't matter. In fact, it blended in to that sandpaper shuffley hoof sound so well, I was surprised that Twinkle could even hear me. But it was tense down there, and we all had little things that made us paranoid. So I shuffled along in silence. We all did - huddled up against one another, inching down that long maddening stretch of hallway full of old junk nopony could ever want.

As we crept along in silence, I started to feel cold. First on my flank. Then my back. Then in my actual bones. It wasn’t like stepping outside in the winter where it hits you in the face, either. This cold snuck up from behind, and hit me by degrees.

No breeze. No warning. Just cold.

Finally, I looked back over my shoulder. Shadows behind us. Buzzing lights.

There weren’t no cloak-o’s scheduled to come that way for at least another hour, so logically, I knew that we were probably in the clear. But when you’re the last pony in line, and nopony's got your back, you get scared of what might be following. I mean: this was their building. Any one of those shadows could hide a cloaky jerkface who wasn’t on Strawberry’s map.

Twinkle kept right on trotting. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. With all that’d happened in the last hour, there was so much to think about. So much to say.

I fought the urge to lean in. Whisper. Hug her.

It wasn’t right. Something was off. She seemed so far away. Like the shadows weren’t the only things around that had grown cold.

The further down the hallway we got, the thicker the tension. Not just for us, but for everypony. We didn’t hear as many cloak-o’s moving around above, but instead, there was this low booming rumble. Like talking, except that it was really, really loud, and there was no way to make out what was being said.

“Twinkle," I stuck my muzzle right up into her ear. There was no way anypony else could hear me.

She threw me a quizzical look then shoved her own muzzle in my ear right back. "Whatcha want?"

Time for the big question.

I didn’t know how to say it. "You…you’re still my friend, right?"

She put her hoof on my shoulder and stopped us both dead in our tracks. Right there in the middle of the hallway.

The herd kept on shuffling ahead of us.

I waited for her answer, but she just looked at me. Didn’t say a word. I waited for Twinkle to say that she hated me for judging her, or to hug me and tell me I was stupid for asking in the first place.

But she didn't do either of those things. She just shrugged.

"I dunno." She whispered and lowered her head.

I could hear my heart thundering. She didn’t know?! What was that even supposed to mean?

I watched her in silence.

I wished I hadn't been such a judgmental jerk to her. I wished I could have turned my back on what she was gonna do to the nurse - made an exception for my friend on the "no more sitting idly by" rule I had made for myself ever since that poor kid had showed up in my dream.

But I couldn't! I just couldn’t. I didn't have it in me to do that anymore.

I looked her in the eye. So much sadness. I kicked myself for letting my stupid morals and my stupid thinkiness turn me into such a horrible friend.

“Can you be friends with a fuck up?” Twinkle asked at long last.

“What?”

"I'd do it again." She said, and turned to face me. “I’m not gonna lie.”

But I couldn't promise I would be okay with that. Cause I would do it again too - intervene. Be a judgmental jerk. I couldn’t promise her I’d change. Where did that leave us?

I tried to think of something to say. Something funny. Something kind. Something wise. But we just stood there, all awkward-like, not even looking at one another after a point. Friendship impasse.

Meanwhile up ahead, the giant sheet of pony sandpaper was drifting further and further away.

Finally, Twinkle gave up and sighed, head hung low.

"We should catch up.” She said, and shuffled on forward.

I was left standing there. Confused. Angry. Shivering.

Twinkle made a real effort to tip-hoof slowly and quietly, but all that amounted to was the group making more and more distance.

I was working up the strength to follow, when I heard a noise behind me like a whisper in an echoy room. I whipped around to face it. Boxes. Pipes. Beat up old trunks. That same long hallway, and there sure wasn’t nopony following us.

Then one of the lights above buzzed and, flickered and went black, and then, for just a moment, I saw it.

It wasn't a cloak-o. It wasn't a kid. It wasn't a pony at all. But it was following us. When the lights flickered, the shadows got all strobey like a dance party, and took on weird unnatural shapes.

There was something in those odd patches of darkness. Formless. Shapeless. It didn’t even move. But it was there, and I felt its malice.

For a moment as the lights danced on and off, it looked back at me. I felt naked. Nakeder than skin. Nakeder than bones. I felt intruded. There was this terrible fear: everything bad I’d ever done, from stealing that cookie when I was four to tugging at Nurse Cloak-O’s mane. The whole world could see it all, and know me for who I really was. Roseluck. Twinkle. Cliff Diver. Everypony.

I could even hear my mother’s voice whisper at me in disgust and disappointment, “I’m not sorry anymore.” She said. “I’m not sorry anymore.”

I wasn’t even really sure what that meant, but it felt like the floor had dropped out beneath me. My skin fell away. Leaving this sad fragment of pony underneath. Shivering in the dark.

And then, just like that, the lights were back on, and the thing was gone. Just a boring old hallway.

I felt colder than ever. It was still watching me from the shadows, whatever it was. Waiting for the next flicker of darkness to spring on me, I’d bet.

I turned and made for the herd as fast as I reasonably could.

I had an easy enough time catching up to the great sea of flanks I saw up ahead. But Twinkle Eyes was having trouble. She wasn't too far behind them, but she was small and had to shuffle her hooves twice as hard just to keep up, (and that would make too much noise). From the looks of things, she had to struggle just to keep from falling further behind. Or falling over.

I made my way cautiously toward them. Shuffle, shuff-shuff-shuff, shuffle crack.

Above us that booming speech grew more and more articulate. The herd even started to pick up the pace a bit under the cover of the sound.

"Evils of innocence, blah blah blah, purity, yadda yadda yadda." Said the Priestess, almost directly above us now. The lady on all the screens.

But I didn't care. That thing in the shadows was getting closer. It was watching us - studying us. And I was powerless to fight it. I couldn’t even see it!

When I threw my head over my shoulder to check, there was nothing.

I did it again. Nothing.

I made my way forward, and me, being a not terribly graceful pony, snagged my hoof on a crack in the concrete floor and stumbled. Twinkle looked back at me with sad eyes. Not puppy dog sadness. She was too accustomed to disappointment for that. No, she wore the face of an old mare - that bleak "we can't have nice things" frown.

She kept on shuffling, getting angrier and angrier at the noisy floor and at her own stubby legs as she went. Determination. Frustration. Tears.

This was ridiculous. I had enough. Maybe we couldn't agree to agree on everything that was ever gonna happen. Maybe we’d even have serious fights over our unique takes on morals and violence and stuff like that, but this was just stupid. My whole life I’ve been terrified of being a burden on everypony else. And the little pony inside my head was screaming at me to hang back. To let her go on like this, just in case it might be awkward. But I didn’t care. I just couldn’t stand to watch it anymore.

Twinkle shuffled on, grinding her teeth, cursing under her breath, and falling slowly, slowly behind. Then her hooves found themselves scraping away at nothing - walking on thin air. Below her belly, she found me and my big head.

I didn't say a word. Neither did Twinkle. She just closed her eyes and hugged the back of my neck as she perched on me. Some apologies only get ruined when you open your yap and try to talk through ‘em.

I’d cried many, many tears for many, many ponies since I’d showed up at Trottica, and I’d shed many, many, many, many more before I left. But as I pushed forward, I found I still had enough water in me to cry. For relief. For Twinkle.

It felt good to be friends with her again, even if she clutched at my mane a bit too hard. I felt her breath - hot and stinky and blowing against my neck.

I wasn’t cold anymore.

The lights flickered out one more time before we reached the space under the Priestess’ stage. I looked back over my shoulder. The shadows had stopped staring at me. They were the same as they'd always been.

Just a bunch of black stuff.

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

Column: My Derpy Hooves News column about Love, Tolerance, and Friendship, “Help! My Heart is Full of Pony!” is now archived at http://heartfullofpony.tumblr.com

Music: Check out my pony music (rock, jazz, hip-hop, blues, classical, and experimental). http://www.youtube.com/sdoggingsworth

Cover Art: http://shadesofeverfree.deviantart.com/art/The-Rose-Queen-334850063

Special Thanks to Longbottle, whose sharp proofreading eye prevents Rose Petal from rambling about morality for 40 pages at-a-go.

The Low Priestess

CHAPTER SEVEN - THE LOW PRIESTESS
"Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance in keeping its humanity repressed." - Berthold Brecht

Fake heads. Dressmaker’s mannequins. Buckets of paint long-dried. Decaying pieces of plywood cut out to look like trees. Trottica had once been home to a legitimate community theater. We found ourselves directly beneath it. The old stage.

Above us, the Priestess stomped emphatically. She was giving her speech. The old Innocence is Sin spiel. Not exactly the uplifting experience of attending Yokelahoma! or The Princess and I, like the performance space had been intended for so many years ago.

The herd came to a halt. Us kids in the back weren’t sure why. Twinkle Eyes just looked to me and shrugged. Even she was in the dark about what the hell was going on, and she had helped draft the escape plan in the first place.

I craned my neck and tried to get a peek over the crowd, but everypony in front of me was standing on their tippy-hooves, trying to do the same damn thing. All I could make out was a staircase at the far end of the room. Misty and Strawberry, who headed our little party, were hesitant to go up it. That left the rest of us standing around, getting nervous.

I looked around for living shadows and cloak-o’s and dragons and things. All I saw, apart from rotting props and set pieces, was this weird hole in the center of the room – a shaft that ran from floor-to-ceiling. It was surrounded by a fence - also floor-to-ceiling. When the bright stage lights poured down from above, it cast a hundred jagged shadows all over the place like something out of The Stable of Dr. Caligari or one of those fun house rooms that isn’t so much “fun” as it is a clumsy odyssey into the heart of madness and personal injury.

I hoped we were too dark to be seen from above. At just the right angle, when she paced back and forth for dramatic effect, I could catch tiny glimpses of the Priestess. The last pony on earth I wanted to notice us. It made my heart skip a beat every time.

“Suffering is truth, and it’s a truth we face every day.” Said Her Holiness. “But innocence – it’s an ignorance that makes all of ponykind suffer, for ‘Tyranny and War are beasts that prey hardest on the weak and the innocent and the blind.’ So sayeth Baal.”

I liked her better when she was a distorted warble of inarticulate noise.

Eventually a wave of whispers swept the crowd, and we finally got some news about our little delay. By the time it reached us, though, its reliability had gotten kinda questionable.

“There’s a hundred thousand cloak-o’s standing right at the top of the staircase.” Whispered one kid.

“There’s a dragon up there.” Whispered another.

“The door to escape has caught fire and it’s made out of snakes!”

You get the point.

Whatever else may have gone wrong, I could tell by the faint green glow at the front of the line that we had reached another console. Strawberry Lemonade was probably just screwing with it.

“Today is a beautiful day, my little ponies.” The Priestess yammered above us. “Today, Baal purifies our offerings – frees them of their terrible innocence, and blesses our humble township with prosperity. With life!”

Thomp, thomp, thomp, thomp, thomp.

Above us, a set of hooves trotted away in a hurry. As soon as they were gone, the herd stood and listened in terrified silence. For a split second, it had sounded like they were coming for us. But that feeling passed as soon as it had come, and we all started moving again.

Strawberry Lemonade had figured out how to use those glowy boxes to re-direct the cloak-o’s like chess pieces. It was a miracle. Another wave of rumors swept the crowd.

“Strawberry Lemonade made all the daisy cape guys explode!”

“The dragon’s on our side now!”

“Princess Celestia is back from the dead, and she’s fighting the whole town!”

The entire herd was teeming with quiet excitement. But I had to bite back a scream. The princess was dead. Not in hiding. Not banished. Not turned to stone. Not off fighting evil somewhere, waiting for the right moment to come back and set things right. Dead.

I tried to digest that as we tip-hooved up the stairs, single file. But each step - each moment - felt like I was getting stabbed in the heart.

“You ok?” Asked Twinkle Eyes.

“Princess Celestia is dead.”

“Don’t tell me you buy into all ‘dem princess stories?”

I threw a look at her that was so nasty it could have curdled milk. Stories?!

“Sorry. Of course you do.” Said Twinkle.

“Luna? What about Luna?”

“Ssssh!”

Twinkle was right to shush me this time. We were reaching the final stretch. The top of the stairs. Cloaktown, EQ.

* * *

We made it as far as the wings before we finally got ourselves spotted. Strawberry Lemonade had reported a fake gas leak, (whatever that is), and that, for some reason or another, had made all the cloak-o’s gallop on over to the other side of the stage in an awful hurry. The tactic gave us enough time to hustle everypony up the stairs, and got us all pointed in the right direction. I only hoped that a bunch of cloaky guys didn’t end up rushing down that old eel hallway to help. They’d find a room full of dead cloak-o’s, empty cages, and a battered, locked up nurse. Twinkle Eyes had wanted to kill him, but I just couldn't bear it.

Not that it mattered.

Either way, we were totally bucked. With forty-some-odd kids just a few yards away from the Priestess herself, (not to mention her entire entourage), it was only a matter of time before one of them spotted us and said, “Hmmm, how peculiar.”

We crept along, slowly making for the door, trying desperately to be quiet. The problem was: we kept on stumbling into one another. Each of us had to stop and stare at the Priestess as we passed. When you’re behind a bunch of rubberneckers, you want to smack them 'till they get a move on. But when I finally took that step forward and saw it with my own two eyes, I understood.

The Priestess was standing over a small platform. She looked taller in person. On the platform was a white sheet covering what was really obviously a pile of unconscious children.

I mean, they were right there! Twenty feet away! Kids whose only crime was getting caged one or two rooms over from where we’d been. Kids who never got the chance to revolt. And they were gonna get fed to Baal or Living Shadows (or whatever the buck was down there) because of it.

We had to just walk on by. Like it wasn’t happening. Like it wasn’t our problem.

I felt nauseous again.

I stopped and stared like the others, maybe even for a little bit longer. Part of me actually almost made a run for the stage even. But in the end, I didn’t. That would be stupid. That would get everypony killed.

We have a plan.

We were gonna send a team of the nimblest colts and fillies to come back for them. But first we had to get the other refugees to safety, and find Strawberry Lemonade a console she could play with without getting noticed.

My eyes were drawn to a bronze-colored hoof dangling out from under the sheet. I wondered who it belonged to. What his name was. How’d he’d gotten there. Whether he had his cutie mark or not, and if so, how he’d gotten it. For all I knew, it was the hoof of that same kid I’d turned my back on during my last trip to the Wasteland. The one nopony cared about.

As far as I was concerned, every last body on that pile was him. I mean, one of them had to be, right?

“Psst!” Whispered Twinkle.

It was time to move on. To walk away from that poor kid in his hour of need. Again.

“We’ll be back.” I whispered at the drugged up children on stage. “I promise.”

“How do you do it?” Asked Twink as we tip-hooved away.

Now I was confused.

“Keep from running out there and killing the fucking Priestess?”

I shrugged. “How do you?”

I was feeling pretty sickened with myself, actually. I honestly didn’t know how I did it – kept myself from running out there like an idiot. If Twink had the answer – if there was some magic button I could push to make myself feel good about turning my back on those kids, I wanted to know about it.

Looking at her, she was taking it even worse than me. She, who was used to the Wasteland and its stupid injustices. Twink, who didn’t have any love in her life, or even parents.

“I dunno.” She whispered, desperate not to cry.

I stopped and I grabbed her.

“We’re coming back.” I whispered.

“It’s like drowning.” She quaked, sobbing in silence. “Fucking drowning.”

I held her firmly.

“Then fucking swim.”

She looked at me, and nodded. Puffed out her chest. She could make it through this. So could I.

'Cause I knew I would be back for those kids.

A quick glance over Twinkle’s shoulder told me that the cloak-o across the way was staring at us. Eyes flung open, gigantic and wide. We’d been spotted.

“Run.” I said out loud.

Murmurs washed over the crowd. Kids jerked their necks around looking for the direction of the danger.

“Run!” I yelled.

We stampeded like cows. Out of control. We just took off and ran.

Had this been an open space, there would have been no way at all that we could have stuck together. We would have scattered, and we would have died, come to think of it. But this was a theater. There was only direction that didn’t lead to the stage itself, and we all charged there in unison. There was only one door at the end of that stampede, and we made for it with purpose.

The good thing about being a massive cluster of stomping hooves is that grown-ups or not - armed-to-the-teeth or naked-as-newborns, there ain’t nopony fool enough to get in your way. All the cloak-o’s scattered, or at least tried to. One of them didn’t quite make it. By the time his body reached us kids in the back, it had been mashed into some kinda gak.

The doorway up ahead was covered with jewels and fancy paint and stuff. That had to be the super special room where the Priestess went to hang out. Knock back a cold pint of foal’s blood after a long hard day of giving speeches that made no bucking sense.

Her door would have a lock. I was certain of it.

Some of the herd was already inside. But there were a lot of us, and the cloaky troops were re-grouping, and charging from both directions, strange-looking weapons in tow. We ran and we ran and we ran, but no matter how I played it out in my head, the rear was gonna get cut off. We just were.

The unicorn cloak-o’s used their levitation powers to throw barriers in our way, and the unicorn kids parried them off. It looked like a tornado of old theater junk. Just a few feet ahead of me, a cloak-o was smacked in the face by a fake brick wall. The kid he’d been trying to grab stumbled and almost took a bunch of us with him.

“Come on!” I shouted as I caught him with my face. As if he didn’t already know that he ought to pick himself up in a hurry.

The plan was shot to Tartarus.

We could maybe possibly hopefully just about make it past the door, but what then? Buy ourselves 120 seconds while they dug around for the keys? It wasn’t enough. Even if we did make it in, there was no way we could make it all the way home.

It felt like watching the lightning water sneak up on those cages all over again, only this time, I was right in the middle of it. There was no dry spot to leap to - no smartass unicorns to unplug the box. We were thoroughly and completely screwed. All of us.

I turned to Twinkle as I ran.

“Twink?” I panted.

But she was gone! Totally gone! Skidding to a halt, I looked around all frantic-like. She turned out to be way behind - just inches from the cloak-o guard riding her tail. A seasoned Wastelander Twinkle Eyes might well have been, but her legs were just too damn tiny.

I ran toward them. They ran toward me. The cloak-o’s teeth chomped at Twinkle’s tail. She shrieked. He was so close to nabbing her! And so focused on that tail. The bastard didn’t see it coming when I leapt up in the air and threw myself at his face (with the opposite of expert precision).

We both went down pretty hard. But I was the only one who got back up. Twinkle leant a helping hoof in that, and steered my face in the general direction of the gilded door as I stumbled to my hooves.

The two of us darted for it with everything we had. The whirlwind of levitated junk had bought us a little bit of time, but we were way behind the rest of the group. With them waiting for us - door wide open, the best we could hope for was a 30-second head start once we slammed the lock shut. I wasn’t even sure they would even be able to close it in time to keep the cloak-o’s out at all.

The plan wasn’t just shot to Tartarus. It was fucked. We were fucked. Yes, I actually said ‘fucked.’

That’s how completely and totally fucked we all were.

As we neared the door, I could see Misty Mountain standing behind the frame. It suddenly dawned on me what I had to do.

“Sorry,” I said.

Before Twinkle could respond, I reached around, grabbed her mane without any warning, and spun with all of my weight. I ended up tumbling and flinging her like a discus at the same time.

BAM!

I slammed the door shut with Twinkle on the other end. A cloak-o ran right into it face first, and fell on me from above - all busted up and unconscious-like.

“Eep!” I eeped.

I listened hard. Come on, come on, come on! I thought.

Click.

Yes! Misty’d bolted the door shut. I was locked out. And Twinkle Eyes was locked in.

“Rose!” She screamed and cried and banged on the door.

“I’ll be fine!” I shouted back at the thumping door and ran off.

BFF Death Pacts are one thing, but I had a shot at getting us all out of there alive, and I was gonna take it.

“Whatever you do, just keep going!” I hollered back.

* * *

We had a chance to get through this. I had to do something so crazy, and so stupid – something so catastrophically ginormous – so in your face – that the guards would think that I was more important than the exodus of forty some-odd child sacrifices rummaging through the Priestess’ junk and slipping out the back door.

In books, when you wanna distract a guard, you usually have to yell something stupid like, “Over here!” or “This way!”

But that’s just dumb. It turns a clever plan into an obvious plan.

So I made straight for the Priestess and let the cloak-o’s make up their own minds to follow.

I ran. Of course, I tripped. I found myself face-to-face with a discarded box-cutter that had been slung around all over the unicornado. Grabbing it in my teeth, I scrambled to my hooves again, and ran some more. As hard as I could.

The second I turned and looked back to see if I was being followed, though, I stumbled like a great big ball of moron right into a curtain. Cloth everywhere! I shook myself free of it, and came up facing an army of panicked cloak-o’s. They charged at me.

Some of them came straight from the direction of the Priestess’ super special room where my friends had made their escape. The plan was working. Working too well apparently! They ditched that door so hard, and bolted for me so fast, that I wasn’t sure I could even get away before they caught up with me.

“Eeeeeeeeeek!” I said as best as I could with a mouth full of box cutter.

Shaking my hoof free of the last entanglement of the curtain, I took off. Next thing I know, it all comes flopping down, and the whole squad of cloak-o’s is buried in curtain like a giant fishing net.

There I was, right off stage, staring at the Priestess. She stared back, clearly shocked, but doing a decent job of keeping her cool, acting all princess-y and regal.

“A ha!” I mumbled.

I knew just what to do!

I opened that box cutter and started hacking at one of the ropes. It was attached to a sandbag directly above the Priestess’ head. One slash, and I could make it fall on her, and knock her out. Then the stage would be mine! I could run on up there, and, in all the confusion, buy some more time for my friends! Maybe even convince the townsponies that what they were doing was wrong.

And then, after that, um…rescue the druggy ones somehow!

…Except that theater ropes are thicker than they are in stories. I sawed and sawed and sawed and sawed and sawed. I got it to fray pretty close to the center, but no matter what, there was still no getting it to snap.

Meanwhile, the Priestess stood right there on stage, watching my every move.

“Arg!” I growled in frustration.

The element of surprise – totally ruined.

The guards squirmed looked like a basket of confused puppies with a blanket thrown over it. I looked back at the gilded door where I’d last seen my friends. No matter what, I couldn’t run back there. Hell, some of the cloak-o’s were already jiggling the knob and fussing with keys, trying to get inside.

I had nowhere left to run.

“This is it.” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and bolted.

Stomping on the great big old pile of cloaky thugs under the curtain, I made for the one place left I hadn’t gone to yet. On stage.

The entire town gasped when I stepped into the spotlight. Then there was, like, this awkward silence. A really, really, really, reeeeally awkward silence. Tension hung on the air so thick you’d need to hack through it like the vines in one of those Daring Do jungles just to be able to breathe a little.

There I was. A child. Awake. Unchained. Not some deep secret de-ponified anonymous sacrifice prettied up to look like something holy. Not an enemy. Not an ideal to be fought and conquered, but a pony – a living breathing pony. With feelings and stuff.

I got the impression that that wasn’t a reality they had to face every day.

“Hi.” I said, waving to the crowd.

Unsure of what else to do, some of them actually waved back.

A whole mess of guards stood on the edge of the stage, haunting the wings, unsure of whether or not they should charge on out there, and make even more of a scene than I already had.

The High Priestess held up a hoof. They didn’t move.

Even the cloak-o’s who had been messing with the gilded door dropped what they were doing, and charged up there to see what the commotion was. They stumbled into their fellow cloak-o’s’ flanks and froze in place when they saw the Priestess.

Well, I’ve got their attention. I thought.

I only hoped my friends could get away fast enough. If Strawberry Lemonade could just get to safety, this whole hornets-in-the-brain super-important-secret-mission thing would be over and done with. Then I could finally wake up. If not, then everything was about to get a whole lot worse.

“This, my little ponies.” Said the Priestess smugly, as though she’d planned my whole on-stage cameo. “Is what you all used to be.”

Oh, great. An object lesson. I thought.

“Nervous. Weak. Vulnerable.”

“Hey!” I said.

The Priestess cocked an eyebrow at me but didn’t actually deign to respond.

“This is what we will never be again.” She continued.

I wanted to kill her. For what she had done to my friends – to countless other kids, I felt she deserved it. More importantly, I wanted to get off that damn stage, even if it meant running right into the hooves of those big, mean guards waiting for me off in the wings.

But I was there to buy time, so that’s what I did. Or at least tried to do.

“Buy time, buy time, buy time, buy time, buy time.” I whispered to myself.

The crowd stared. The Priestess was already dragging it out all by her lonesome, making an example of me, so I decided to button my lip and let her do what she did best – yap.

“Blah blah blah blah blah innocence.” Said the Priestess.

My eyes drifted toward the drugged up kids under the sheet. That bronze hoof was still hanging out. I swear it was taunting me for not doing anything to save them.

“I’m trying!” I whispered as though the hoof could hear me.

“Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah horrors of war.” The Priestess continued.

Maybe if I tugged on the sheet a little. I thought. Maybe if the town was actually forced to look at what they were sacrificing, they’ll change.

“Yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda.” The pontiff continued.

“Maybe if I --;” I stopped when I realized I could suddenly hear myself loud and clear.

I looked up. The stage was silent. She’d finished making her big dumb elaborate point.

Wake up, wake up, wake up. I said to myself.

So far, no good.

The cloak-o guards started inching on to the stage from both sides. They no longer cared about being seen. They just stood there, as orderly as possible, waiting to snatch me up. None of them wanted to make the initial pounce, because it was kind of an undignified thing to do in front of the entire town. Scrambling around all-slapstick-like after some kid. Judging by the stern, but stage-frighty expressions on their big dumb faces, those cloak-o goons would probably never live it down.

I could see it so clearly. Some old mare mocking the cloak-o’s in my head. “Remember when Cloak-O Sergeant Stupidpants made an ass of himself on stage chasing that little one around?”

“But that was 20 years ago!” The poor cloak-o would reply.

“Funniest thing to happen in 20 years.” She’ll say.

Some things never change about small towns. Whoever catches me is never gonna live it down.

I inched closer and closer toward the center. They inched closer and closer toward me. The Priestess stood firm as a statue – the very picture of regality, or Priestess-ality, or whatever you call some holier-than-thou despot.

Stage-left. Stage right. This time there was literally was nowhere to run.

The Priestess broke her pose for a firm nod, and just like that, a great white light came from below. That same fun house pattern of shadows that I’d seen from underneath the stage was shining upward now.

The big platform full of kids shook and rumbled.

“No.” I whispered.

I made for the platform. I had to do something to stop whatever it was from happening!

I reached for the ceremonial sheet when I got there, but found an angry hoof stomping down right in front of my face. It was the Priestess. She’d lost her cool. Her patience. She was done toying around, playing teacher.

I stumbled backward and fell flat on my flank. From where I lied on the floor she seemed to stand a-hundred-thousand miles tall. With the mask of cordial dignity gone, all that was left was a demon’s eyes. No fury like a pontiff scorned.

She raised her hoof, and the floor made a terrible whirring noise. The Priestess may have been all “look at this innocenty thing” and cute rhetorical arguments and stuff when I was acting quiet and confused. But I’d made for her tray o’ Baal Meat. She was not gonna be trifled with on the subject of her sacrifices.

She bore down on me. I scrambled backward. Scary as she was, all I could focus on was that tray. It vibrated. It jittered. It lowered itself down. Under the stage. My heart sank with it. The kids were gone.

Gone!

All those children. That boy I saw in the Wasteland. The pony with the bronze hoof.

I’d made a promise to them five minutes before, and already, they were gone.

I wanted to throw myself at that stupid Priestess. To find the magic lever that would make the kids come back. To rescue them from Whatever Was Down There with a snap of a hoof and a bit of the old Rose Family Luck that had served me so well so far. But no matter how I sliced it, it was hopeless. Even if I'd had a magic button, right in front of me was this big stupid mare ready to bite my throat out.

Over twenty kids were going deep down into that terrible Great Below and there wasn’t anything in the whole world that I could do to stop it! My lungs felt like they were full of concrete. I was just too damn horrified to remember how to breathe.

We lost.

The good guys lost.

I scrambled further backward. About two dozen of the Priestess’ closest and meanest friends were closing in on me from behind.

Meanwhile, Her Holiness watched me, and I, her. A contest to see who could hate the other pony more using only their eyeballs. That bitch had just fed a bunch of kids to Baal, or whatever the hell was actually down there. The shadow that had followed us in the basement and interrogated my soul could have been the tip of the iceberg! What kind of dark creatures was this maniac keeping?

I shook with anger. Stupid. So fucking stupid. What had she done?!

The thugs gathered round like wolves, making a great big old semi-circle. Not quite ready to spring. They waited for The Word.

The drugged up kids? They were on their way down to Luna-only-knows-where.

The audience did what audiences do – they watched the fucking tragedy in silence. Twenty children had just dipped down into some Hell, never to be seen again, and these jerks just sat there and watched.

For a long and terrible moment we all stood there, ready to spring, ready to run, ready to kill.

Then the sandbag fell. And all Hell broke loose.

I’d done a better job of cutting that rope than I thought.

The Priestess startled, and stumbled backward like a unicyclist who doesn’t know what she’s doing.

“Fuck it.” I said and charged her.

My only chance to make any kind of move at all.

The cloak-o’s gritty hooves were already reaching for me, but I’d broken into a gallop first. I leapt up as high as I could, using the fallen sandbag as an extra step. Flew at the Priestess, screaming and flailing wildly.

“Arrrrararararaghhhrrrr!” I said.

When I finally came down, I grabbed her by the face - clung to it, and dragged her even more off balance than she already was. Next thing I know, I’m flung across the stage, all the way over to the other side of the hole in the ground where the kids were still sinking. They hadn’t gotten far. The platform was slow.

I looked up. Right in front of me was a whole fresh troupe of cloak-o’s.

“Yipe!” I said, and I ran back the other way. Back toward center stage. Back toward the Priestess. Back toward the hole, stumbling around like Berry Punch as I went.

In all the confusion, I tripped on my own ankles and fell. With a desperate hoof, I caught one of the Priestess’ sprite bots. I’m not sure what exactly had gone down, but I was already a few feet into the hole, dangling over the platform full of kids. It sank deeper and deeper and deeper till it disappeared into that dark vertical tunnel below. I clung to that cheerful floaty metal sprite bot thingy for dear life, but it just kept drifting further and further down under my weight.

The damn thing wanted to get back to the Priestess so bad, it was pushing as hard as it could to go back upward, but I weighed too much. Meanwhile, that bitch Priestess was kneeling over the edge, rubbing her own head, trying to figure out which way was up. She just barely avoided stumbling into the hole herself.

“In the Name of The Great De-Innocentizer of Souls.” Said the Priestess with a tremble in her voice. “Let this sacrifice be consecrated.”

Even as she faltered, she had not forgotten her audience, or her purpose. A true showpony to the end.

And then, just like that, as if she had cast some kind of magic spell of really apt timing, the last of my grip slipped off the smooth metal surface, and the sprite bot went flying eagerly upward like a little kid rushing to greet his Mommy after work.

The last thing I heard was a thud and a giant twang. The sprite bot had hit its beloved Priestess in the face.

And me? I just dropped off into the Great Below.

* * *

I landed, and I landed hard. I found myself flat on my back, head ringing. The cold metal floor jerked and hummed and made my chest feel hollow as it sank and sank and sank deeper down into the black.

We passed the area under the stage full of century-old set pieces, passed the hole in its floor, passed the weird lighting and jagged shadows through the fence, and kept going down into a dark, rocky chute. Beside me was the ceremonial sheet. Underneath it were twenty of the luckiest kids I knew.

The trap door entrance above me was now nothing more than a bright light that shrank further and further away into the great big old blackness. Oh, and something was spiraling toward me violently from above.

I barely had a chance to blink, but when I realized that that shadow was actually: a) gigantic; b) flailing around; and c) about to fall on me - I snapped wide awake and scurried away like a maniac. Right into the metal fence that lined the walls.

Twang! Like an idiot maniac.

I didn’t even have a moment to get my bearings. 'Cause WHAM! The Priestess’ big ugly head landed right there next to me.

“Ahhhhhh! Ahh! Ahhh!” I said, a portrait of poise and grace, clinging to the fence behind me.

But she didn’t say anything. Didn’t even move. There was nothing at all going on but a sinking feeling, the grindy whirring sound of the machinery, and the pale light from the screen on the Priestess’ bracelet. It made all sorts of crazy green shadows on the rocky walls as they moved up and up and up and up and up.

In its light, the blood on the Priestess’ face looked gray.

After a long sinking silence, her big ugly head groaned. I climbed onto the pile o’ kids, (careful not to hurt anypony), and put as much distance between myself and the Priestess as I could.

A seasoned Wastelandy traveler-type pony would probably have taken the opportunity to kill her or hold her hostage or something, but I didn’t think of that. I just waited. Whatever else was at the bottom of that terrible deep down below, every cloak-o in town was gonna come looking for us now that their beloved leader was injured, and stuck here with me.

It was a race, really.

All Strawberry had to do was get away.

I closed my eyes. Begged. Pleaded. Waited.

“Come on,” I whispered to myself. “Wake up.”

But nothing happened. Nothing at all! I just kept on getting lower and lower and lower.

“Roseluck!” I yelled.

In desperation, I hoped that I could make myself talk in my sleep. That she could wake me up.

“Roseluck!” I shouted again, tears in my eyes.

But I was all alone.

We passed a tunnel – a hole in the walls that kept drifting upward.

Shovels. Boxes. Great big old holes that used to be Trottica’s mines. Abandoned.

It was hard to see much of anything. Eventually it rose above us and disappeared.

A dim light came up to greet us from below. We were nearing the bottom.

Behind me: the groaning sound of pained laughter. The Priestess.

“You little bitch.” She croaked.

I turned away from my tear soaked hooves and stared at her in shock. It may sound stupid, considering all that was going on down there, but nopony had ever talked to me like that. Not even Diamond Tiara.

“Your virgin ears?” She snorted at me.

I slid against the floor and pressed my back against the grating as hard as I could. I didn’t like this conversation one bit. Had there been a cliff to jump off of with gators and spikes at the bottom, I would have taken the plunge just to get away from the Priestess.

“You thought you could make a foal out of me.” She said. “Thought you were clever.”

She grimaced as she tried to lift her head. It was clear her body wasn’t all it could be. Pity her mouth still worked.

“Now look at you. Cowering like a child.”

“I am a child!” I snapped at her.

She just watched me. Expressionless. We stared at each other in silence.

“Why do you hate us so much?” I shouted.

More contempt-y silence.

The light from below was getting brighter.

“Because.” She said at long last. “You waste away your lives on frivolity. On play.”

That last word was a bitter one for her. Judging by her face, it tasted bad just to say it out loud.

“While you’re busy frolicking about like blissful idiots, the world goes to shit.” She added. “Innocence – your innocence destroyed it.”

“Did not!” I shouted.

“Did too.” She replied.

“Did not.” I said again.

“Did too.” Said the Priestess.

“Did. Not!” I stomped on the metal beneath my hooves.

“Ugh.” The Priestess rolled her eyes. Too dignified to respond.

I didn’t know what universe she was from, but I’d seen Wasteland kids. They weren’t exactly a lollipops-and-sunshine crowd. But this Priestess was totally bonkers, so I doubted it would be a point worth debating.

Had any of them ever even seen a lollipop?!

As if to emphasize my point, we sunk further down – so far down my ears popped – and came upon the source of the light. Another tunnel. Like the one I’d seen just a few moments before, only this one wasn’t bare at all. Instead of great big old empty hallways, it was full of wormholes. I couldn’t quite figure them out at first, but a small avalanche poured from one, and out from the mound of rocks came a squirmy little dirt creature, wriggling to the surface. It gasped for breath with terrifying desperation. The hacking sound was so awful, it made me feel like I was drowning just to have to listen to it.

One of the cloak-o’s reached in and yanked the poor thing halfway out. It was a colt, buried up to his neck in dirt. The cloak-o mare held him by his mane until he spat out a gem.

She let go of his hair and he tumbled out on to the floor, erupting into a fit of heaving and wheezing.

“Hay!” Shouted the cloak-o mare.

She kicked him till he hobbled to his hooves and scurried meekly back into the hole.

The last thing I saw before going deeper down into the great below was a filly shackled to a cart of dirt more than twice her size. She looked right at me. It was like having a staring contest with the dead.

I just pressed my hoof against the metal gate as she and I passed one another. I was desperate to say something. Anything. But I couldn’t find the words.

I continued staring, even as we sunk down some more, and my view of the tunnel was gone. I never saw that girl again. I was left watching the stone walls rise.

Lord Baal. The cloak-o’s. The daisies. Their whole way of life. It was all just an elaborate front for a jewel mine.

“How?” I said to myself.

How could nopony not notice what was going on? Nopony even questioned the Priestess’ lies.

And the cloaky nurse! He’d spent his whole life regretting that he was too big to get sacrificed. That he had to join the thug corps. Truth was, he was just too damn bulky to fit in those tiny tunnels.

Not a single pony seemed to have a clue. The whole damn town! They sent their own children to be beaten and broken and worked to death. Then, when they ran out of kids, they stole other fillies and colts. In the name of goodness! In the name of preventing the war that had already happened hundreds of years ago.

And in all of that, not one of them had stopped to think that maybe what they were doing was wrong. That maybe Baal was a jerk. Nopony had stopped to say, “Hey, guess what! I’m on to you! And I have a problem with this.”

It didn’t seem possible. Even in a wasteland – even in a world where folks like Twinkle’s parents sold their own kids into slavery – the village of Trottica didn’t make any sense. The Baal lie. The invisible war against innocence itself. It was all too fucking stupid.

“How?” I said again.

The rocky walls kept rising and rising as our platform sank further and further into the pit.

“Survival first.” Said the Priestess.

I turned to face her.

“Morals follow on.” She flashed me a smug little grin.

Enough cowering. I stomped my hoof down. Yelled till my voice cracked and broke and squeaked under the strain of my anger.

“You made them kill their own children!”

“It’s always black and white with you kids.” She quipped with a cough. “The big mean eeeeeevil villain swooped in and forced a village full of decent hard-working ponies to kill their kids, all so she could be fabulous and cover herself in jewels.”

“Well, aren’t you?” I said.

“I am fabulous, I admit, and I do look good in rubies.” She said. “But no.”

Now I was really confused. Was she actually going to try to convince me that they weren’t killing these kids?!

“I didn’t force anypony to do anything.” Said the Priestess.

She struggled hard to lift her head, but didn’t quite have the strength to crane her neck, (at least not for more than a few seconds).

“They were feeding their sons and daughters to the mines before I even got here. The only thing I made anypony do was feel good about it.”

We passed another tunnel. In the middle of the hustle and bustle of the mine was a filly lying on the floor. She was barely breathing. One of the “drivers” tried beating her to her hooves. When it didn’t work, off she went. Dragged off and hucked onto a mining car like an old sack of potatoes.

Everypony else in that mine was staring at us. Like they’d heard us coming and knew the score.

“Ponies do what they have to.” She continued. “Trottica is way up in the mountains. Easily defended from raiders. Wealthy in jewels, but too far South to be of any interest to the Hellhounds. We’ve always enjoyed a certain prosperity here that other townships don’t share.”

If those prettied up shanties and leaky floors were what passed for prosperity in this dump of a future, I would hate to see what poverty looked like.

“It’s the only way.” The Priestess’ shoulders gave out a faint spasm. The closest thing to a shrug she could muster. “Abandon the mines, and everypony is as good as dead. Not just the precious children. Everypony. Do you have any idea how many of these ponies are refugees? Trottica did what it had to. But before I came along, the townsponies had a bad habit of killing themselves afterwards.” The Priestess rolled her eyes. “So tacky.”

I looked back at her blankly. I was not amused.

“So I made up a story,” she continued. “And told them that it wasn’t their fault. That we had no choice, (which just so happened to be the truth). And, well, the cameras have always loved me, so really, the rest is all just razzle-dazzle.”

I was still trying to make sense of what I’d seen. The colt choking on dirt. That poor girl flung carelessly into the mining car to die. Like so many others.

How many others?! I wondered.

Did anypony ever even stop to ask their names?

I was struck with the urge to leap up like a pegasus, fly into that tunnel and take that kid in my hooves. Hold her. Ask her name. Just so somepony would know it.

Beside me was the Priestess – monologue-y, but motionless – possibly even dying herself. She didn’t unlock her cold yellow eyes from mine. Not even to blink. She just stared me down, beaming with pride. The Priestess. The hero.

She’d come along and hid the worst kind of Hell right there in plain sight, and given fake comfort and phony-ass solace to ponies who damn well deserved to feel ashamed.

And there she was now, spending what could be her last moments on Equestria blah blah blah’ing to me – like she expected a 'thank you' or something.

“Why are you telling me this?” I growled.

“Cause I fucking hate children!” The Priestess snapped. “And I want to watch you discover.”

She said that like it was a bad thing. Like the only stuff there was to discover in the whole wide world was her sick, messed up version of the truth, and discovery itself could only be synonymous with pain.

“So that’s your plan?” I said. “That’s your big finale. You wanna spend your last moments convincing some totally random filly that ponies everywhere are all a bunch of jerks.”

She grinned a sarcastic grin. Under the faint glow of her braceletty thing, I could just barely make out a row of clean white teeth.

Nopony else in the entire Wasteland had teeth like that.

“You’re a stable girl. Aren’t you?” I said totally out of the blue.

Long deadpan silence.

Finally, she rolled her eyes and gestured to her glowy bracelet thing.

“What was your first clue, Sherclop?”

So that must have been one of those Pip Ducks the other kids were on about.

Ok, so I’m not good at thinking like a Wasteland kid. But I know an outsider when I see one. I know exactly what it feels like to be thrust into this apocalyptic junk like a catapult into a brick wall.

Then it dawned on me. Just like that.

I know why the Priestess is such a bitch!

“You loved your childhood.” I said calmly.

“Childhood is ignorance.” She said. “Ignorance is sin.”

I snorted. She thought I could be parried off by citing a little bit of scripture from the belief system that she had made up her own damn self.

“You laughed.” I said. “And played.”

She blinked in surprise. Clearly the last thing she expected me to say.

“You had friends. You were so bucking happy.”

I stood up and stretched my legs and inched on closer to her. “Then you came here. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? Your life didn’t turn out like you wanted, so you built a…”

I stuttered a bit. There wasn’t a single word I knew of that could describe what she’d done here. “A…a…I don’t know even what to call what you’ve built…And then you murdered a bunch of children. Why? Cause you couldn’t take a little disappointment?!”

She didn’t have a smart answer for that one. All she could do was babble. She knew I was on to her. Not just her scam, which she freely confessed, but her. I saw the Priestess for who she really was.

“The truth is always disappointing!” She said with feigned confidence.

“You killed hundreds of kids. Because you. Didn’t. Get. Your. Way.”

All her suave villain talk went right out the window. The Priestess was fuming. Bright red all over. Even in the pale green Pip Duck light.

I just shook my head at her. “Grow up!”

Her horn flickered faintly, but she was too weak to magic at me. She just grunted and howled in frustration.

She couldn’t bear the thought of anypony being on to her.

It got me wondering. What else was the Priestess hiding? I’d had enough nonsense. She was a Filly-Come-Lately to all this. What the hell was her actual destiny? I had to know.

I reached over and grabbed the cloak right off of her. The battered old thing looked like it had seen better days.

“Hey!” She said.

“What’s your cutie mark anyway?” I said. “A jerk skull?”

“Fuck off.” She said.

I yanked up her frock. It was all entangled in jewels and stuff, but eventually, I got to her flank. All I had to do is ignore her curses and insults long enough to dig around and excavate a good solid view of it.

After digging through seventy-million ropes and dangly-bits of cloth, I finally caught a glimpse of her cutie mark.

Two masks. One laughing. One crying.

The crazy lady was an actress.

“Give that back!” She said.

An actress!

There was real panic in her voice. I cocked an eyebrow. Give what back? The only thing I’d actually taken off of her was that run down old cloak. I shook it around. There weren’t even any keys or coins or anything hidden in it.

“Give it back.” She growled, more out of desperation than anger.

“Huh?” I said to myself.

The Priestess was practically crying for the thing.

Weird. I thought.

I didn’t have a use for it. And I may have hated the Priestess' guts, but withholding it just seemed stupid and petty. So I folded that raggedy piece of cloth up nice and neat, with every intention of giving it back to her. But then she snapped at me, all nasty-like.

“You’ve made your point, now gimme my fucking cloak, you motherless cunt!” She snapped

Motherless.

I stopped. Looked into her cold, hateful yellow eyes.

Motherless.

I grinned at her defiantly. I put that fucking thing on myself. Even did a little dance. That’s right, all that compassion and preachy crap flew right out the window, and I danced a cloaky dance right in the Priestess’ face. 'Cause fuck her, that’s why. Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her, fuck her, fuck her.

She brought my Mom into it.

Funny thing - big as the Priestess was, the cloak still fit me pretty good. It was even surprisingly warm.

I stopped dancing when I noticed the light rising up from underneath us. More than just a beam or a patch from one of those tunnels like before. This was a warmer, brighter glow spilling our way. We were nearing bottom.

“You’re very sharp.” The Priestess said coolly.

She glanced toward the floor and smirked at me. What she actually meant to say didn’t need saying. Once that platform stopped sinking, it would all be over. In just under a minute, I would be at the mercy of the very same drivers I’d seen beat young fillies half to death without a second thought.

The Priestess looked me over with hard, sunken eyes. Mean eyes. The kind of eyes that stare at you and dream about how awesome your insides would look splattered all over the outside.

“Do you have any friends?” I asked her at last.

“What?” She blinked.

“I mean, you’ve got all these townsponies who worship you cause you tricked ‘em.” I said. “And all these cloak-o meanies who are really just in it cause you give ‘em a chance to be mean. But does anypony actually like you? Without all the razzle-dazzle? They don’t, do they? They just want comfort, or protection, or a chance to be a great big jerk.”

Her silence answered for her.

“That’s sad.” I said shielding my eyes from the light below. Too damn bright.

We were so close that I could actually see a bunch of figures waiting for us at the bottom. Guard ponies. Drivers. About half of them were looking up. The others huddled around one of those console thingies that Strawberry Lemonade was so obsessed with.

“You underestimate me.” Said the Priestess dryly. “I’ll manage.”

“No, you won’t!” I said. “Cause you’re the underestimater of things. And you won’t manage, cause you’re a great big stupid jerkface!”

Not the most badass of things to say to somepony before you put your cards on the table, but hay, I’m being honest. It’s what came to mind. Think it’s lame? You do better the next time you’re a mile underground and telling off a priestess who sacrifices kids in the High Holy Name of a Bunch of Stuff That She Made Up Off The Top Of Her Head.

One of the walls of metal grating swung upwards like a giant doggie door when we landed. And there was the Priestess. Her big stupid head all over the massive screen of a great big super-console.

Everything she’d said about the townsponies. About the cloak-o’s. About Baal. Put on screen all over town.

I could see the Priestess chomping at the bit. She clenched her teeth, straining to look upward. The stringy bits in her neck were all tense and bulgey-like. Then, suddenly her pupils shrank into two sharp terrified little dots, and all the color ran from her face. She’d finally caught a glimpse of what lurked above.

A pair of sprite bots trained to follow her and film her every motion floated down. Cheerful. Eager. Ready to please.

You’re right, Priestess. I thought to myself. The cameras have always loved you.

You always come up with the best one-liners when it’s too late to say them out loud.

* * *

First thing I did was scramble right into the pile of children and tuck that ceremonial sheet back over us. Whatever was gonna happen, the last thing I wanted was to be noticed while it was all going down.

Cachung. We’d reached the bottom.

At first there was only the sound of the metal gates being flung open. Then the whole tray of drugged up kids got jerked around, wheeled out, jostled along, and hitched on to some kinda automated carriage device. The weight of the Priestess was smooshing us all the way, tugging on that stupid ceremonial sheet as we bounced around. I wasn’t sure what was happening out there, but it wasn’t long before the weight of the Priestess was gone. Poof.

She’d fallen off the pile. Or got dragged off, judging by the begging and pleading that followed, (not to mention the clumsy attempts at commanding their loyalty).

“In the name of Baal, I command you t--;"

Then there came a bang-ka-pow sound. Brief, matter-of-fact, and just like that, the Priestess spoke no more.

The carriage-a-majig didn’t make it very far. Neither did the guy driving it. In fact, the whole area erupted into a giant clusterbuck of banging, screaming, and sulfur smoke.

I buried myself under that thin cloth as best I possibly could. It was impossible to tell what was going down: who was winning, who was losing, or even who was fighting. But the hell that rained down out there – it was nopony’s friend. That stupid sheet was the only thing standing between me and the chaos, (even if it only helped in my imagination). So I huddled under it and waited.

I have no bucking clue how long the battle lasted. Each ka-pow felt like a great big eternity of worry. Would it hit me? Would I die? And yet, at the same time, the whole thing zoomed by so fast that the details got blurry even as they were happening.

But the worst part, hooves down, was when the smoke started to clear at last, and I thought, “Hay, maybe this fight might finally be over.” But I couldn't know. I was just sorta...left there, huddling under that sheet. Afraid to breathe. It wasn’t even safe for the cloak-o’s, let alone a kid.

One overconfident thug got up, brushed himself off, and started yammering. He thought the battle was over, and it didn’t work out too well for him.

“The heretic has been slain.” Said the idiot thug, presumably addressing the Priestess’ cameras. “Remain calm and return to your homes. As your new High Priest-;’

Bang. Splat. Thud.

Shortest reign ever.

No, sir, I wouldn’t be repeating his mistake.

A few bangs and screams later, there was total silence again, except of course for the hum of the machinery and that obnoxious ringing in my ears. I lay there stuffed all up into a pile of my peers, and waited. Then waited. And then, when I was done waiting, I waited some more.

The problem was this: if I took too long, the cloak-o’s would come for us; if I jumped out too soon, I’d be dead on the spot. So I listened hard. Desperate for a clue. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t tell for sure if there was anypony still out there. The kids under the sheet breathed deep. Some even snored. The whole pile got all knobbed and undulate-y and loud.

“Come on, Rose Petal. Come on.” I said, but no matter what, I just couldn’t work up the nerve.

It was like standing over a cold lake, swearing to Celestia that you’ll jump in on the count of three. You want to. You mean to, but when the time comes, your body just plain refuses to budge. It was a lot like that, only about a billion times worse.

Come on, Rose. You can do it. Come on! I hit myself in the head, frustrated with my own cowardice. But the rest of my body still wouldn’t move.

“Rose Petal,” Came a voice that, at first, I didn’t recognize as being anything other than my own.

“Come on, come on, come on.” It sounded like a newspaper crumbling inside of a tin can.

I perked my head up – another lump under the sheet.

“Rose Petal, come in. Rose Petal, are you there?” The tin can said at last, loud and clear.

I flung the sheet up and scrambled off of the kid-pile, (careful not to knee anypony in the process).

“Strawberry Lemonade?!” I whispered frantically.

What the Hell was The One I’m Meant to Save doing down there?

“She’s alive!” Said Twinkle Eye’s voice, all crackly and distorted.

It was coming from that great big old console. The one with the giant movie screen displaying the Priestess’ big ugly lifeless head. A sprite bot that had survived the fight just floated there gleefully, fulfilling its purpose.

Suddenly a whole choir of kids were laughing and calling my name from inside of the box. I was able to surmise by their numbers that they weren’t hiding in the console. Nor were they physically down there with me at all. It had to be some of Strawberry Lemonade’s weird machine magic.

I bolted for the glowy box, scrambling over dead cloak-o after dead cloak-o as I went. The damn idiots had annihilated themselves.

“Rose, are you alright?” Asked Strawberry Lemonade.

“What are you doing?!” I said. “Get outta here!”

They may not have been down there with me in the Great Below, but they weren’t exactly safe either. And neither was I! Those beautiful friends of mine were gonna get us all killed. Couldn’t they see that I was stuck there? That I couldn’t wake up till Strawberry Lemonade was good and saved?

No, of course not.

Twinkle’s voice squeaked from inside the can.

Uh-oh. I thought.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” She was laughing and sobbing at the same time.

“Saving your flank.” I said.

“I’m so sorry.” She wept. “I’m so sorry.”

She was referring to our fight earlier. We’d already good and made up, but those words still ripped right into me like a spear. I’m so sorry. It seemed like everypony I ever cared about was destined to worry like crazy over me. It made me feel like the Worst Friend Ever.

I’m the one who’s sorry. I said to myself. The same words I’d repeated again and again ans again as I'd cried myself to sleep my first night in Trottica prison.

“You all have to get outta here.” I repeated firmly. “I’ll be fine, I swear.”

I was deep in a Hell Mine. No time for weepy piratetry.

“Fuck you, Rose Petal. Don’t you do this to me.” She blubbered unexpectedly. “We’re not leaving without you.”

Misty Mountain jumped right on in there. “I try, Rose Petal. I try! Dee feelies are crazy. I tell dem you be safer if we leave you down there to die. Do they listen to reason? No.”

The bucking bastard was on to my plan. That could only mean that he was a dreamer too. Displaced in time. I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!

“What does Meesty know?” He added. “Dey just hit me.”

“Shut up,” Grumbled Strawberry Lemonade.

“Meesty only done dees sort of thing fifty times before in Old Country.”

“He’s right,” I pleaded. “Get outta there. Go! Please!”

“No!” Shouted Twinkle Eyes with the kind of fire that simply couldn’t be reasoned with.

Strawberry Lemonade took control of whatever it was that allowed them to talk to me through that console.

“Rose, listen.” She said. “You can’t come back the way you came. There’s too much fighting up there on the stage.”

The adults are revolting. I thought with a smile. Was the whole town collapsing on itself? I hoped so.

“I can get you outta there.” She added. “Pull up the map on the central console.”

I looked at the big metal box. Blinks and bleeps and dials and a screen. “Um…um...”

Strawberry let out a heavy sigh. I could hear it, even through the tin can effect that the console seemed to have on ponies’ voices.

“Fine. Hit Horseshoe, Apple, 6 on the keyboard.” She said in the bubbly condescending tone of a kindergarten teacher talking to a kid who doesn’t even speak Equestrian. “Hold it down for the count of three.”

“Great idea!” I said and nervously poked my way around the machine.

Hoping I could scam my way through it enough to pass for a Wastelander.

“Wait, Strawberry?”

“Horseshoe, Apple, 6.” She growled. “Come on, Rose! We don’t have time.”

“Yeah, I got that part.” I said.

“Great.” Staring blankly at the console for another moment, I just had to ask. “What’s a keyboard?”

“Arrrrgg!”

On the other end, I could make out a harsh banging sound. It was not the sort that came from those cloak-o weapons that spit fire and death.

No. Strawberry Lemonade was whacking her own head against the console in frustration.

* * *

Misty gave me directions I could actually understand, but they only took me as far as the next console. The mines were too much of a maze to explain all at once. Besides, the cloak-o’s were listening.

So there I stood. Shaking. Fidgeting. Picking the pebbles out from under my hooves.

We still had one big problem. A giant hole in our plan.

“Rose? Come in. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.” I said, rustling my ratty old mane as I tried to think on what the hell it was that I was gonna do.

“Why haven’t you left?” Screamed Twinkle Eyes. “Get the fuck. Out. Of there!”

But I just stood there some more. Thinkiness.

“No.” I said at long last.

“What now?!” They all said in unison.

“Strawberry, can you make it so the whole mine can see and hear me? All the consoles. You know, the cameras on the sprite bots?”

“Yeaaaah,” She said hesitantly. “But the cloak-o’s--;”

“Do it.” I said. “Do it now.”

I galloped over to the Priestess’ corpse, and peeked my face in front of the sprite bots. My dork head popped up on the big screen all upside down like. It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen! I bobbed my head either way, and watched backwards-me do it on the screen! I waved at the cameras.

I look terrible. I thought.

Come on, this is serious! Another part of my brain thought.

It was starting to get crowded up in my brain, what with all of the arguing, so I figured I’d best say what I'd come to say.

“Hi. Children of Trottica, um…I know you’re tired. I know you’re afraid, but look.”

I stepped aside. “That stupid priestessy lady is dead. Dead!”

A lot of them had probably seen the whole thing live, but you never knew which consoles would be tuning in for the first time thanks to Strawberry Lemonade’s doo-hickey magic.

I grabbed the sprite bot and put my face right up to the camera. “We did it! The mines are ours!”

A bald lie.

“Um…I know you’re tired. I know you’re afraid.”

“You said that already, dipshit.” Said Twinkle Eyes from inside the console.

“Shut up!” I whispered and snapped at her at the same time.

Then I turned back to face my intended audience with a nervous laugh. I didn’t know what to say next – how to give them hope. Or even how to share our plan with them! The cloak-o’s would be listening too. Not that it mattered. We didn’t even have a plan anymore!

So I thought of their faces – the kids I’d seen on the way down. I remembered what it was like to stand behind that yellow line, waiting my turn to die. Hoping. Praying for the tiniest sliver of a chance to break free.

Their hope was even fainter than mine. They’d been living in this hole for Luna-only-knows how long. And big mean cloak-o’s were standing over every last one of them, itching for an excuse to whip out the whomping stick. I couldn’t afford to babble.

“Now’s our chance!” I shouted suddenly. “The cloak-o’s don’t have a leader. You can take ‘em! I know they’re big and mean and evil and it doesn’t seem possible, but it is, it is! It is! I swear it is. Because there are more of us than there are of them. Because they’re a bunch of jerkfaces, and we don’t deserve this shit!”

“Do it for every time they ever kicked you cause they wanted you to dig for jewels and stuff! For every one of us they ever fucking killed! Do it for, for--;”

I needed to think! What else would make me pick myself up off the floor if I was in their horseshoes? I needed to make them see that they could do this! It would work if everypony acted at once! If they didn’t cringe or hesitate. They could all have their freedom if they just took it. But as I stood there, strategizing, I started to stammer. I didn’t have time to stammer.

Oh, Luna, I’m losing them. I thought.

It was then that I realized what I feared the most. I thought of Roseluck, and Twinkle. They deserved to see me again. Alive.

“Do it for your friends!” I said at long last.

I was crying now. “Do it for each other.”

I’m coming, Roseluck. I’m coming.

“It’s now or never, Trottica. Now or fucking never!” I squeaked and growled. “Cause living in a mine totally sucks, and we’re. Not. Gonna. Take it. Anymore!”

I panted. A lot to say in one breath. But it wasn’t enough. They needed direction. Coordination. Or they would just rise up, only to be smacked back down a gazillion times worse than before.

“All you gotta do is get to a console. Any console. There are a whole bunch of helpful console-mine-labyrinth-expert ponies waiting to guide you out.” I added.

Strawberry Lemonade snapped. “What?!”

She thought she was gonna have to steer a rescue team out, not a whole mine full of kids answering her from a hundred different places.

I turned to face the console and shrugged, as though she were right there looking at me.

“Oh, and you can find a map by Horseshoe-Apple-6…ing on the um…the…Keyboard right?” I whispered to the console.

“Yeah, that’s it.” I confirmed

Then there was this weird silence. I wasn’t sure if there was anything else I should say. A few moments later, Strawberry Lemonade chimed in.

“Rose, um, Sub-Mine W just checked in.”

“Already?”

I couldn’t believe it. The kids had actually made it to the console! If they could do it, so could I! That meant that, in all this craziness, I might actually have just saved a hooffull of lives. My heart lifted. It was an incredible feeling.

“Uh…yeah. They haven’t um…got everything quite under control yet, but you might want to listen to this.”

That crumbly paper noise came up on the console again and suddenly I could hear what Strawberry was hearing.

Too many voices to count. If I didn’t know better, I would have guessed a hundred thousand billion. All chanting in unison. “Trottica! Trottica! Trottica!”

Shivers ran all down my spine. There was fire in those cries. Not just for freedom. For vengeance.

“Girls?”

They all responded with some variation of “yes?” or “what’s up?”

“Um…” I stuttered in disbelief. “Did I just, like, you know…Start a war?”

“Yeah.” Said Twinkle Eyes. This is so fucking boss!”

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

Cover Art: http://shadesofeverfree.deviantart.com/art/The-Rose-Queen-334850063

Alone in the Dark

CHAPTER EIGHT – ALONE IN THE DARK

“Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.” – Albert Camus

I don’t know what it’s like to be a grown-up, but it’s probably pretty stupid. As far as I can tell, half of them spend their entire lives chasing their childhoods. The other half spend it running away. The Priestess was the living embodiment of the worst of both worlds.

But all that talk about innocence had gotten me thinking that maybe that was what I’d been sent into the Wasteland to protect. The innocence of children.

But you can’t fight to protect innocence. Once you know what innocence really is, and understand that it’s something you may have lost, it’s too late. It’s gone. You’re not innocent anymore. But those mine-o slave kids and me – we may have been miles from innocence, but there was still something magic – something child-like left in us.

I guess you’d call it purity, if you had to pick a word for it. One that neither the Wasteland, nor the Priestess had corrupted. We weren’t fighting for virtues. Nopony really does. We were ready to fight for each other, though. And sometimes that’s virtue enough.

Those kids who’d been living deep within the mine for Luna-only-knows how long? They had something more. They were ready to kill. They had slave’s anger – a rage more pure and righteous than any other anger on earth. And just hearing it over the console had scared me. Way more than some two-bit cloak-o goon ever could.

* * *

Time to split.

Strawberry Lemonade was busy yammering at me from the other end of the machine, but time was sorta of the essence so I don’t think she held it against me when I just plain took off.

“Okay, now what you want to do is open up the roll call directory and the shift log.” She told the pony on the other end of a conversation I wasn’t a part of. “That’s it…Got it okay? Hold on.”

Even as I abandoned the console and made for the automatic carriagey-thing, I could still hear her fiddling with buttons and talking to ponies on the other end.

“Mine N. So glad to have you with us.” She laughed nervously. “No, I don’t know…Show me…I can’t see if the camera function is activated on your end, can you…yes.”

Strawberry Lemonade’s elation at having helped out with all that freedom and stuff dissolved almost immediately when she realized the sorts of colts she would be dealing with on the other end.

“Yes,” She grumbled.

A long pause.

“Yes,” She said again. “With the on button.”

The last thing I heard before I hopped on to the drivers’ seat of that big old convey-a-majig was Strawberry cursing my name, swearing to kill me herself if ever we made it out of Trottica alive.

“See you later, Jerkmine!” I hollered from the driver’s seat, and was off.

At least that’s how I imagined it would go.

The problem was, the damn auto-carriage wouldn’t move.

“So long, suckers!” I cried out again.

Nothing.

I galloped back to the console.

“Um, Strawberry?” I

“What?” She snapped.

“How do you drive this thing?”

“Ugh!”

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.

* * *

A little while later, I was on my way, weaving and swerving down the long dark path to the next console. According to Misty’s directions, it would be about ten minutes away.

I sat perched on a crate, the Priestess’ old cloak wrapped around me as I drove. I was hoping that maybe I could pass for a grown-up if the cloak-o’s saw me from far off, or out of the corners of their eyes, or I dunno, in the middle of a panicked stupor or something. In the meantime, I hooked one hoof into the horseshoe-shaped steering thingy and focused on not swerving.

All the hallways and burrowing spots I passed were abandoned. At least at first. As I got deeper, I started seeing more and more signs of what had once been life. Shovels discarded in a hurry. Drag marks where kids had been pulled away before they even had the chance to fight. I wasn’t a detective, but anypony who’d ever pitched a fit in a sandbox could tell you what those marks in the dirt were.

I’d failed them.

Those poor miner kids had been dragged off to some dungeon somewhere. Even Strawberry Lemonade wouldn’t be able to find them.

They’d listened to me. Trusted me. They'd tried to escape because I lied and told them that we knew how to set them free.

Now they were gone. Off somewhere suffering even worse than ever before. I almost crashed when I realized the seriousness of the war I’d started.

The real kind. The kind with casualties.

The next few tunnels were all cloak-o skirmishes. Their big cloaky bodies strewn around like toys in a foal’s bedroom. I got to wondering if there were any adult survivors at all, or if they had just blasted one another to smithereens like a bunch of morons.

It was sorta heartening. Even as I fretted over those poor kids who’d been dragged away, I thought about the cloak-o population. By now, it’s got to have taken a big hit. All that in-fighting over stupid Priestess drama. That idiotic scramble for power that'd started the very second that she was gone. I closed my eyes and hoped that the distractions and the cloak-o brawls had helped get some kid to safety. Any kid.

Then I opened my eyes again, 'cause, you know, I was driving. I drove on and on and on as fast as I could, carrying the platform o’ drugged-up kids in the back. Hoping with all of my might that somewhere up there, there had to be at least one mine-filly who escaped because of me. A child who hadn’t gotten dragged off and tortured.

Strawberry Lemonade'd played me the sounds of the uprising. Righteous cheers. Furioius cries of children who would be slaves no more. But had they actually succeeded? Surely somepony made it out alive. Right?

The next area was labeled Sub-Mine F. I glanced down the hallway that lead to its tunnels, just like I had all the other sectors, but there were no drag marks here - no shovels - no scattered clues.

Dead kids. Everywhere. A whole pile of them. The aftermath of a failed revolt. I swear they couldn’t have been older than Kindergarteners.

I froze in place, and stared. My heart plunged into my stomach like a bowling ball. I didn’t even have the breath to scream.

What have I done?

I scanned all the dark tunnels as I drove by them, desperate to see any motion – any signs of life at all. But they were dead. All of them. Dead.

My carriage kept rolling. Even as my hooves trembled on the wheel and Sub Mine F drifted far behind me.

There were no words for the hatred I felt. For the cloak-o’s. For myself. For every pat on the back I’d accepted from my peers since the whole thing started. Rose Petal the fucking hero.

I gritted my teeth, and turned to face forward. I had to get those sleeping kids to safety! I couldn’t afford to cry or mourn or wail like my bowling-ball heart was screaming at me to do. I couldn’t even blink, 'cause every time I shut my eyes, those poor kids were all I saw.

I pried my eyes open. Gripped the steering levers and throttle so hard, it hurt my hooves. And I pushed forward. Not 'cause I had a great big strong will, or 'cause I let logic and pragmatism be my lifeline. No. Steering that stupid thing – saving the sleepy ones in the back – was all I had left.

Every other thought I normally turned to for strength: friends; Ponyville; even Roseluck – it all felt miles away. So I bit my lip. Focused. And kept driving.

I stopped at the second console, got my reports from Strawberry Lemonade, and said as little as possible. That suited her just fine. Then on I went.

I zig-zagged all over the mine. Left, right, up, down. Strawberry kept on changing my course again and again and again to avoid the cloak-o’s. Always helpful. Always cranky. Always grumbling.

When I reached the console by Sub-Mine K, it was a different story. Strawberry was literally cheering, and not actually answering my calls.

“Yeah, they’re all huggy and stuff right now.” Said Twinkle Eyes on the other end.

I had never heard so many ponies in one place at one time. Even through that crackly tin can effect, it sounded massive. More than the chants of those angry rioters I’d heard when the whole revolt thing first started an hour before.

“Who are they?” I said.

“The ponies we saved, dumbass.”

“All of them?” I couldn’t believe that so many kids had fit in that one mine.

Twinkle misunderstood me completely.
“Didn’t lose a soul.” She said. “You’re a fucking hero.”

“Shut up!” I said.

This is crazy. I thought. Didn’t lose a soul? Was she joking? Hadn’t anypony heard about Sub-Mine F?

Twinkle laughed on the other end. Apparently not. Twink still believed that we could make it through this - all of us in tact. It was a side of her I’d never seen. Twink the Optimist.

I couldn’t bear to tell her.

“Um…I need to keep moving.” I said. “Which way next?”

I forced myself to sound as normal as possible. To fight the quiver in my throat. My friends were up there worrying to pieces about me 'cause I’d gotten the bright idea to run ahead. They were in danger of a cloak-o attack just like I was. They needed as much hope as they could get.

I shook with frustration. With self-hatred. Choking back the truth actually felt like a jagged lump of coal living right in my throat. But it didn’t matter. I made up my mind then and there not to tell anypony about the massacre, no matter what. No matter how much it hurt.

I drove on, blinded by tears 'till my eyes were bone dry. Then, after that, still blinded. Just from the strain of having cried so much. My throat hurt from choking back my sobs for so long. I was afraid they’d give me away. (Even though the wagon I was driving was way louder).

Needless to say, I wasn’t at my best. By the time I saw them, it was too late – a huge cluster of cloaks up ahead. This wasn’t just some straggler, or harried cloak-o patrol pony. No. I was fast approaching a whole squad of cloak-o’s standing sturdy and patient-like. With purpose.

There was no way to turn around without looking suspicious. It was too late. So I flung the cloak over as much of my face as I could (without blocking my view), and hoped for the best.

That’s it, Rose. Be cool. I said to myself as I drew nearer.

You’re bringing the drugged up kids straight to them! The Panicked Little Pony In My Head retorted. Why are you bringing the kids straight to them?!

“Shut up, pony!” I whispered at the paranoid voice inside my head.

For the first time since any of the craziness had started, I wished that the other voice in my head would come back. The one that always seemed to want to force some kind of urgent mission on me. The One I’m Meant to Save. The One I’m Not Meant to Save. The Way It’s Supposed to Happen. The Way It’s Not Supposed to Happen.

But there was nothing up there. No guidance. No direction. Just the same-old warnings about Strawberry Lemonade.

I cursed my stubborn friends. If they had just split like they were supposed to, I’d be awake by now, and none of this would be happening!

The squad of cloak-o’s was getting closer. They were gonna see me. I could feel it!

I pushed the throttle all the way down, hoping I could zoom by the cloak-o’s fast enough that they wouldn’t notice I was a kid. The tray full of children bounced around in the back. I cringed when we hit our first bump. What if somepony fell off?!

Slamming on the breaks would only make matters worse, so I buckled down, gripped tight, and tried desperately to keep from swerving. So far, so good.

“I’m just another cloak-o.” I whispered to myself. “Just another cloak-o.”

Maybe if I actually believed it, then they would too. As I got closer, though, I knew that something had to be wrong. They watched me without actually watching me. Corners of their eyes. Shadows under their cloaks.

They know! I thought. They know and they’re getting ready to make their move!

I looked around. I didn’t even have anything to defend myself with. Not so much as a stick I could use to whack at them. Maybe my “cargo” is valuable to them. I laughed nervously to myself. That at least might slow them down a little, right?

Finally one of the cloak-o’s shouted. Suddenly, just like that, they all leapt on to the carriage with me - blades and whips in their teeth. There was blood all over them.

Before I could so much as scream, one of the bastards knocked me from the driver's seat, and another was already on top of me, murder in his orange eyes.

“Eeeeek!” I eeked.

I was powerless. Taken completely off guard, even though I’d seen it coming a mile away. This is the end. I thought.

But then I lucked out. The cloak-o blinked. Hesitated.

So I headbutted him right in the schnoz.

Duuujjj!

“Ow!” He fell backward on to the hood of the automatic carriage I was driving.

Both our cloaks fell away from our faces. He was a colt! Just a little colt! Why was this kid a cloak-o?

“Hay!” I said, waving my hoof, pointing at him in shock.

He pointed at me right back.

The filly who’d taken over the driver’s seat had one of those L-Shaped death thingies pointed in my face, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the road.

“What? What? What? Do I shoot him?” She asked the colt with the orange eyes, who was still rubbing his sore face where I’d hit him.

The driver turned to face me just long enough to catch a gander.

I was not, in fact, a bad-guy. Check. She sighed in relief and lowered her weapon.

“You scared me, you jerk!” She said. As though it were my fault. She turned to her partner. “You alright?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He said back to her.

Then all the attention was back on me. They tried asking me a bunch of questions, but I couldn’t focus on them. Instead I just locked up and got all thinky inside. There were so many kids around me. I couldn’t help but ask myself, Where did all those cloaks come from?

I scratched my chin and caught a glimpse of my own hoof. It was covered in blood. So was his cloak. I pointed and stuttered.

“Ah, don’t worry.” He said with a warm smile. “The blood ain’t mine.”

“Girls girls!” Came another voice. “It’s the kid who killed the Priestess!”

Oh, boy, here it comes. I thought.

The leader shoved a hoof in my face and pointed.

I cringed. A whole mass of kids in cloaks waved as we passed by. I threw on a frail little grin.

“They think I’m a hero,” I said to myself through my smiley teeth. “Of course they bucking do.”

I wondered how they’d all feel if they’d seen the massacre at Sub Mine F.

“Peach Cobbler!” Said the orange colt. He extended his hoof cheerily.

“Rose Petal.” I bumped it.

“Morning Flower.” Said the driver, all snippity-like.

“Um…Howdy.” I replied.

Cobbler clapped his hooves together and burst into a smile so bright it could blind you.

“So!” He said. “What do we do next?”

* * *

“Shit!” Said Strawberry Lemonade.

Peach Cobbler and I exchanged glances. Not exactly what you want to hear from your one and only lifeline.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Strawberry elaborated on her initial point.

On her end of the tin can, I could hear bangs and pops all over the place – the kinda sounds those death weapons made.

“Is everypony okay?” I shouted.

“Yeah, we’re holding ‘em back!” Her voice warbled. We could barely make it out over the kapows in the background.

“Fuck you too, buddy!” Shouted Twinkle.

Ratatatatatatata-tat.

Whereever the buck they all were, Twink was having the time of her life.

“We raided the Priestess’ stash.” Shouted Strawberry Lemonade. “We may be out numbered but they are sure as Hell outgunned.”

“Can you still get us out?”

Silence on the other end.

“Strawberry?”

The mine kids and I held our breaths as we awaited her answer. I swear, you could have heard a single blade of hay hit the ground if somepony had dropped one.

“I-I think so.” Said Strawberry Lemonade at long last.

“You think so?” Said Morning Flower and I in unison.

“You think so?” Echoed one of the drugged up kids as he staggered by and fell. “Ha!”

One by one, they started to come awake, and stumble off the carriage thingy. Meanwhile, the rest of us just cringed.

Morning Flower gave me the nastiest of looks. Like the kink in our plan was somehow my fault.

“Ok, I got it. The refuge chute in Sector B. Just gimme a sec.”

Suddenly, ratatatat-tats and screams again. Only they weren’t coming from the console this time. The cloak-o’s were right here in the mine, and they were firing at us.

A pair of kids in stolen cloaks came galloping up from around the corner. They were carrying their kid brother on their backs. His leg was gushing blood and he was crying up a storm.

“They’re coming.” The big sister said just before skidding to a halt.

We were at a crossroads of several different hallways and tunnels. She looked frantically left, and right, and pretzeled her neck all over the place trying to make sense of where the buck we were.

“Which way’s out?!” She said.

“Put pressure on it, put pressure on it.” She told her kid brother.

“Gimme a minute.” Shouted Strawberry Lemonade from the other side of the console.

Meanwhile, the war sounds were growing louder and closer by the second.

“We don’t have a minute!” I shouted. “Which fucking way?”

A herd of kids stormed toward us, panicked and afraid. They were fleeing the carnage. Meanwhile, two members of Cobbler’s gang bravely rushed into the action, waving a birthday candle of all things.

Soldiers of Cake. I thought.

“Which fucking way?” I repeated.

“Go straight, make a left, then a right. Then you’re gonna wanna get into one of the wormhole side-tunnel…things.” She said.

“Side-tunnel?! Are you nuts?” Squeaked Peach Cobbler.

So far, the hallways we’d chosen could fit all of us easily. Heading single file into a dark little unknown would not only take forever, but leave us totally vulnerable if we couldn’t get out in time or if we hit a dead end.

“You’re lucky I found it at all, the way I was originally gonna send you is swarming with cloaks now.” Said Strawberry.

“I am not going back in one of those.” Stomped Morning Flower.

“Hurry. It’s the se--;” But Strawberry didn’t get to finish her sentence

Or if she did, we sure as buck couldn’t hear it. You see, those Cake Soldier kids came rushing back to us in an awful hurry, minus a birthday candle.

Then suddenly fire. A terrible thunder rumbled from behind them, and a gust of pebbles and hot air hit us like a hurricane. Rocks tumbled down from the ceiling and spilled out over the hallway, blocking the cloak-os’ path. Everywhere, everything was smoke and burning dust.

The two kids who’d lead the charge picked one another up and laughed. Even as they wiped their eyes and coughed their lungs out, they shared a hoof bump of victory.

“You fucking idiots!” Said Cobbler, covering his head. “You’re gonna get us all killed.”

“Hay!” One of them protested.

“I know what I’m doing.” Whined the other.

Doom! A giant bolder fell from the ceiling right next to him.

Cobbler ran over and snatched up one of their saddlebags.

“What was that?!” Said Twinkle, or at least that’s what a crackly, distorted version of her voice said. “What the fuck was--;”

“We’re fine, we’re fine, we’re fine!” I coughed into the console.

Only we weren’t fine.

I could hear the voices of cloak-o’s echoing through the crazy confusing hallways. The explosion had only bought us time, and probably not very much of it.

Ka-pow!

That one was close. I ducked instinctively (for whatever good it might have done).

Six or seven of the cloak-o’s came stumbling up to us, all disoriented-like. They were covered in rubble, and firing wildly like a pack of morons. Apparently, the cave-in hadn’t sealed us off in time to stop the entire horde-o-cloak. We still had a hoofful of stragglers to deal with.

“Which….tunnel?….Strawberry?” I hacked and wheezed and rubbed the explosion dust from my eyes. “Go straight and make a left and then a right…and then what?”

The voice on the other end of the tin can had always been crackly, but now it was worse than ever.

“Se--…-unnel on the right.” It said.

“Was that second or seventh?” I shouted

The cloak-o morons were getting so loud I could barely hear Strawberry.

“Strawberry!” I kicked the console when she didn’t respond. “Second or seventh?”

Gripping the wall for support, I threw the Priestess’ cloak over my face like I was some kinda daisy print vampire. I sucked in careful breaths through the cloth. It didn’t help. The dust was fucking everywhere.

“Strawberry.” I called out in a hoarse whisper.

When she didn’t respond I turned around and bucked the console.

“Second or seventh?!!!”

“Take the se-“ The console said.

Then it exploded. Glass. Metal. Everywhere. Dead console.

I stumbled backward and fell on my flank.

“Go, go, go, go, go!” Said Peach Cobbler, but all I could do was stare at the busted machine.

We were lost. Cut off completely from the outside. From my friends. From hope. From the only filly in all of Trottica who could throw us a lifeline.

It was just me, Cobbler’s rebels, and the drugged up kids from the ceremony. All alone in the dark.

Twinkle must be freaking out.

Cobbler grabbed me, and we ran. We made for the tunnel like Lemonade had said. Some kids were already galloping way ahead of us. The rest leapt on to the carriage thing.

"Ow! Get off!" Said one of the drowsy lumps still not quite with-it enough to leap up and run around.

Others just scooted over.

Morning Flower pushed the lever down as far as it would go, and we zoomed our way up the hall, finally putting some distance between us and the cloaks.

As I sat in the back, bouncing along, I played back the sound of Strawberry Lemonade's voice again and again and again in my head. There had to be a way to figure out which tunnel she'd been talking about. There just had to!

"Second, seventh, second, seventh, second, seventh." I whispered.

But every time I cycled through it in my head, it got less and less like the actual sound of her voice, and more and more imaginationy.

“Second, seventh. Seventh, second. Second, seventh. Seventh, second.”

The hornets in my head were starting to really have a field day too. It was open season. Worst part is, they didn't even smack me with pictures or voices or answers or anything. They just buzzed around and stung at my brain indiscriminate-like.

"Second. Seventh." I panted and wheezed, lungs full of mine dust.

We are gonna die. The little pony in my head told me. We. Are going. To die.

"Shut up, pony!" I finally shouted, clutching my head.

Suddenly, everypony on the back of the carriage-a-majig was looking at me.

"Hehehe." I said. "Um..."

But I could think of no smart explanations. Not even a dumb excuse. Instead, I just sort of sighed. I didn't even have time to worry about what they all thought. They probably didn't have time to pay much attention to me either.

They were busy dreaming about life on the outside, and I was busy thinking how the hell I was gonna break it to them that I actually had no clue where we were going, and we were even fucked-er than ever.

“You okay?” Asked Cobbler at last, hoof on my shoulder.

Morning Flower looked back at me and glowered at Cobbler’s gesture of affection.

What the Hell did I do? I wanted to yell, but I ignored her and turned to Peach Cobbler instead.

“I’m fine,” I said. I put my hoof on his to reassure him.

We screeched to a halt. TWONG! I thwacked my head into cobbler's head, who in turn, thwacked his head into a metal bar.

"Owww!" We said in unison.

“We’re he-ere!” Morning snapped, cranky as all get-out.

Then the reality of the situation punched me right in the gut again. It was almost time for the big coin toss.

Second. Seventh.

The kids all leapt off. I rose to follow, but a hoof up-and-grabbed me by the tail.

"Help," Moaned the colt next to me. He was in a serious drug haze.

"Sweet Luna," I whispered to myself. "Gimme your hoof."

He slung his foreleg over my shoulder.

A lot of the kids bolted for the tunnels, leaving only a hoof full of us behind to help the stumblers.

“Hold up, hold up, hold up!” I coughed.

The air was still dense with explosion dust.

The children all skidded to halts. I’d like to say it was cause they cared so very much about their fellow pony, and about what I had to say, but truth be told, they all just sort of trickled in one-by-one when they realized that they had no idea where they were going.

“Everypony grab a druggo!” I said.

There came a hesitant silence. Cobbler stepped up.

“Druggos!” He commanded.

He threw me a sideways glance. “Druggos? Really?”

I need to start coming up with better names for things.

"If you are sick or injured, or a um...druggo." Cobbler coughed. "And you need help, raise a hoof."

A few trembling hooves raised themselves into the air. Other druggos stumbled off the carriage altogether.

"If you think you can make it, stay close to somepony who can catch you. Just in case!"

The healthy ponies leant helping hooves, but they looked jittery. Anxious to get going. It was nerve-wracking for all of us - the tiny delays under the shadow of a doom so impend-y you could taste it. But some kids - the ones who had bolted off blindly just a few moments before - looked more nervous than others.

"I know the way." I said.

The lie that always seemed to do the trick.

Morale was on the upswing again.

We made our way down the final hallway as fast as our druggos would allow. Then, tunnel time.

"Second or seventh?" Said Peach as we dragged ourselves down the hallway.

Clop clop cloppity clop clop clop. I struggled not to stumble over under the weight of my druggo.

"Seventh!" I said, panting out mine dust.

Luck had been on my side so far, so why not?

"You sure?" Hollered Peach Cobbler.

"Positive!" I said.

Then, more trotting in silence.

"You are a terrible liar!" Said Cobbler at last.

"I know." I panted back.

Smoke from the explosion was still hanging, stagnant-like, even all the way down by the tunnels. I looked down the one I’d chosen. Number Seven. Dark. Cramped. It seemed to stare right back at me in defiance – to dare me to come inside.

I took a deep breath full of dust, and stepped in. Right or wrong, all we could do is commit to a course, charge our way through, and hope for the best. It wasn’t long before my druggo and I were in the tunnel passed the point where we could see. Stuffed all together with a bunch of other kids.

My lucky streak had gotten us pretty far. The entire escape had been one great big bumbling slapstick cascade toward freedom. So my guess would probably be the best shot we had, right?

At least that’s what I told myself, but honesty, I wasn’t sure anymore. Something didn’t feel quite right, but what could I do? We were heading in there blind. Literally.

“What’s your name?” I said to my druggo, trying to keep him focused.

“Flughjjn.” He mumbled.

“What?” I said.

“Flubhjdf.”

“I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Flutterstrings,” He said at last.

That would explain the guitar cutie mark.

He and I pushed down tunnel seven. Idle conversation kept him alert, and me distracted. Still, inside my own head, I just kept chanting “right tunnel, right tunnel, right tunnel,” as if thinking it would make it so.

“Out, out! Everypony out!” Came a voice from behind.

We all stumbled over ourselves trying to stop.

“Get out, get out, get out. Hurry.”

“What’s wrong?” I called back.

“Wrong tunnel.” He somehow managed to shout and whisper at the same time.

Burrowing through a path of hooves and tails undulating around, my druggo and I burst out.

“How do you know?”

“Look.” He pointed to the smoke from the explosion.

It was wafting all over the place. The dust. The soot. But there was a small current in it. All that air was trying just as hard as we were to get the buck out of the mines. It seemed to just hang there, but if you stopped and really looked carefully, the dust was drifting down tunnel number two. Slowly but surely.

I’d picked the wrong one.

* * *

We dragged ourselves through the right tunnel for what seemed like an eternity. Ahead there was nothing but darkness. Behind us, more of the same.

Those of us lucky enough to have horns made them glow and lit our paths, but we were mostly an earth pony crowd. Unless you were standing right next to a unicorn, all you could see were eerie rows of glowing flanks and dance-itty shadows.

Flutterstrings gasped for air most of the time we were in there. Pushing himself hard. We had nothing to breathe but dust, and after we’d all sucked out the freshest of the tunnel air, there wasn’t anything left to breathe but each others’ stale breath. I was the newbie. The healthiest of the lot. When even I had trouble breathing, I started to really worry about Flutterstrings.

“How much further?” I whispered to the flank in front of me.

No answer.

“Pssst.” I said. “How much further.”

After all the times her tail had whipped me in the face, I felt that, at the very least, she owed me a response.

“I don’t fucking know.”

“Well Flutterstrings,” I coughed. “Can’t breathe.”

“Neither can I.” Hacked the pony in front of me.

“I’m fine.” Said Flutterstrings in a coarse whisper.

“Shhhh!” Said voices both from behind and from the front.

Nopony likes the “are we there yet” kid.

I did my best not to complain. These ponies had it so much worse than I did. To be honest, I was afraid to so much as grunt.

But Flutterstrings was doing bad. Real bad. As he grew weaker and weaker and weaker, he also got heavier. I wasn’t up to carrying anypony’s weight all by myself, even if he was skin and bones like the other mine-o kids.

I dragged his stumbly drugged-up self ‘till I was good and stumbly myself. We were packed in so tight that, even as I faltered, the other kids’ steady push forward actually kept me from falling behind.

It wasn’t even that they leant a helping hoof, and caught my druggo and me. We were more like a slow-oozing river. We followed the path, and swept each other along.

* * *

I thought about the seventh tunnel. How much worse it would have been had we gone through all of this, gotten to the end, and found nothing but stone. These burrows didn't even have enough room to turn ourselves around.

In my head, I saw the cloak-o's storming the hallway, reaching tunnel seven and pulling us out one-by-one, whooping us back into slavery, or worse, just plain sealing us in - leaving us to suffocate in that dark and crowded place.

I looked at what little I could see of the ponies around me - flanks and heads. Peach Cobbler was in here with us, and I couldn’t help but like him. (I mean, we had met because we each mistook the other for enemy slavers - how serendipity-ish is that?) Flutterstrings too. He wasn’t just some druggo. He was my druggo! If I dropped him, he’d lie there. If I left him, he’d die. In a short, short time, I had developed a real sense of responsibility for that kid. Like being a big sister almost. I looked all around (as best as I could in the dark). Ponies I knew, ponies I didn't. And I saw Sub Mine F all over again.

I closed my eyes and trotted on.

What was I thinking?! How could I presume to lead anyone here? How’d I get so full of myself?

I’d forgotten something so basic – so important. 99% of the time what the world really needs is a good background pony.

Like Roseluck had said.

I gasped in a mouth full of mountain gunk. Roseluck!

What would she do if I just...died in my sleep?!

The thought of ever having to make a dumb luck guess ever again scared the pants off me, (or would have had I been wearing pants). I bit back screams of rage – turned them into grunts as I dragged Flutterstrings.

Damn brain hornets. I thought. That stupid stingy sensation in my head had no problem attacking me with everything it had whenever Strawberry Lemonade's life was at stake. Mine? A hundred or so Trottica mine kids? Roseluck - the most amazing sister any filly could ever ask for - left all alone in the world? Not a peep.

Fuck you, hornets. Fuck you.

I closed my eyes and kept going, Flutterstrings leaning practically limp all over me. I almost thought I wouldn’t be able to make it, but then the air started to thin out. Just a little. The subtle current pushing the dust out of the tunnel actually felt kinda cool for a change. I thanked my lucky stars. We were not only nearing the end of the tunnel, but from the taste of the air, slightly closer to the outside of the whole mine.

Suddenly there was hope.

A minute later, Flutterstrings took a deep breath - started lifting his own hooves again, rather than dragging them over the ground. The drugs were wearing off. A little bit of semi-fresh air went a long way.

But just as things were looking up, out of nowhere, the herd just randomly erupted Panic. Shoving from behind.

"Hey watch it!"

"They're coming they're coming! They're coming!"

Panic spread across the tunnel from back to front. It started with a push. Then a shove. Then somepony hurled themselves at me, and I, in turn, rammed full speed into the pony in front of me. It’s not even that I wanted to. I did it just to keep myself from falling.

So it all just sort of degenerated into this horrible little panicked shove match. Within seconds, it was total chaos.

Fear.

Even when our only hope for survival rested on our unity - our friendship – fear still made idiots out of us all.

So we stampeded.

Some of us clung to our druggos. Others dropped them like bags of turnips.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. In such a short time, all these so-called good ponies turned into total jerk faces. We were supposed to be the good guys here! It’s not like an evil deed somehow gets less evil if nopony can see you do it. Just cause you won’t get called out on it later.

Fucking fear.

As I stopped to grab an extra druggo, I cursed the bastard who'd dropped her. I hated him more than I hated the cloak-o's. I hoped he galloped out of the tunnel straight over the edge of a cliff. I hoped the bottom of the cliff was full of lava. I hoped the lava was full of lava-proof alligators that chomped on him extra-slow-like.

"Run run run run run!" Came a panicked voice behind me.

But there was noplace to run. Just a bunch of flanks and stomping hooves. After struggling for a while, I finally got hit with one shove too many.

I went down. Flutter went with me. By some miracle, one colt scooped up my second druggo just before getting swept away herself. Off into the flailing madness. Everyone else just sorta kept on going, stumbling ahead, tripping over Flutterstrings and me.

A lot of the hooves that crushed us belonged to kids who just plain couldn't see, and couldn't fight the stampede in time to help. They weren't even being jerks. They just wanted to keep from getting stomped. And yet, the result was still exactly the same. I never thought I'd be kicked in the face twenty times over the course of a single minute, and get fifteen Sorry's for it just as quickly.

My eyes watered. My nose ran like a waterfall. I threw my body over Flutterstrings, and my hooves over my head. We huddled into a nook in the jaggedy stone wall to deflect the worst it, but it really didn’t do any good. The hooves fell like anvils. It still hurt like fuck.

I cried. I moaned. It was worse than a shot at the doctor. Worse than a crack on the skull from a cloak-o. It hurt more than anything I'd ever felt before. And it just kept on happening.

Pow! Thwack! Oof!

Agony.

It got to the point where I almost hoped that the cloak-o's would come and catch us already. Just so I could be spared the hooves of my comrades.

I screamed and wailed for it to stop. I actually wanted to die.

Then I suddenly felt cold. Right down to my stomach. At first I thought it was just numbness from the pain, but then I recognized the feeling from before. That shivering that seemed to go down deeper than my bones. The shadow thing.

I looked up.

No shape. No color. Just vague movement in the inky blackness. Like the spooky stuff you sometimes see in the corner of your eyes. Except that it didn't go away when I blinked. It looked at me head on. Living darkness, as stupid as that may sound.

The shadow thing stood over me. Calm. Unaffected. I knew right away that it wasn't like being back in the basement of the Town Hall – an hour’s worth of paralyzing terror in a single flicker of bad lighting. No. It had all the time in the world, and I was stuck there, cringing under the hammers of a hundred stampeding hooves.

There was no way to fight the cold, no flash of light to scare it off, no friends to pull me away. It was just me and this thing, alone together in the deep, dark black.

It grabbed me by the hoof. I couldn't see it at all anymore, but my whole leg burned with cold and frost. Then, even as I squeezed my eyes shut, a thousand images smacked me in the face.

Children. Screaming. Hiding. Shivering. Great turbines turning. Smoke rising from a chimney - cold smoke. Black as the shadow I'd gotten stuck in.

I could see vials and tubes getting all bubbly like in science class. There was a great big castle perched on a dirty old cloud. Around it, everything was as dark and endless as the night sky, but without any stars. The kind of night that would make Luna sad.

Instead, there were shards of ice that seemed to rain down and up and left and right and forward.

From that castle came a sound so piercing – so shrill – that even I could hear it, far away as I was. Screams. Coming from the inside. Worse even than the ones that had scratched at my brain when I first saw the bomb. It was like some kind of pained choir making a sound so terrible that it could curdle milk.

I shut my eyes, but I could still see it, plain as day. I covered my ears, but that accomplished nothing. The sound just made me shiver instead as it trickled up my spine.

* * *

And suddenly, Ponyville. Just like that. Not Jerkland Ponyville either. The real deal.

Home.

I trembled and looked around. I was back in my old bedroom. I sat there, on the floor, gripping the shaggy red rug, wading through sensations. Impulses. Fears I’d had when I was small.

Greeblies in my closet. Monsters under my bed. They were there. I was sure of it.

Roseluck had always chased those fears away. Or my Mother. She'd kiss me goodnight and banish them all out into the cold. Back into the shadows where they belonged.

But Mom was gone now, and the darkness, whatever it was, could see right through me. It was everywhere I turned. It saw everything I did. It knew how badly I missed my Mom, even though I could barely remember her. It knew how lost I felt. How helpless I was.

The cold ran up my hoof from its totally nasty touch, and coursed through my leg. Like my veins were full of ice. I could feel its thoughts. It was sniffing around, savoring everything - grabbing a hold of the scent. It was touching my memories. Tasting my feelings.

In a single pang of fear, this shadow thing knew me. It fucking knew me. And now that it had poked around my head a bit, it knew Ponyville too. My Ponyville. The only place in the world I had ever really loved, (even though it could be a little fucked up sometimes).

This entity – this thing - it knew where I lived. And it could follow.

"Stay the fuck away!" I yelled.

But I only got colder. Its lips twisted upward into a smile. It felt like razorblades grinding over a chalkboard.

"You hear me?" I started to cry again. “I said stay the fuck away!”

But I was still on that red shaggedy rug I used to have when I was small – sitting there, screaming at an empty bedroom, wincing at the pain in my hoof. I couldn’t even see the tunnel anymore, or taste the dust in the tunnel air. It was just me and my old bedroom, and the big red door with the rose on it.

“Fuck off!” I sobbed.

There was only silence.

I crept up to the door.

“Roseluck?” I sniffed. My voice felt so squeaky and small.

No answer.

“Hello?”

I couldn’t quite figure out why I expected to see Roseluck there, but when I darted out the door, and suddenly, found myself to be a little kid again, I started to get the idea.

“Rose?” I said, wandering a dark and empty house.

I felt so helpless. So bare.

That's when I remembered. Roseluck had been out in the garden while I was napping, but I was barely older than a foal. I didn't know jack. I thought she had left me forever! Like Dad.

So I paced the house in circles, sniffling and afraid. For what must have been over an hour. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

And now, this shadowy asshole was chomping on primordial popcorn, watching it happen to me all over again.

“Stop.” I whimpered.

Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp.

"Stay away!" I screamed, tears running down my cheeks. “Stay the fuck away!”

But its freezing cold claw just dug deeper into my hoof.

I sobbed. The cold rose up passed my hoof, but I couldn’t pull away. My whole leg burned with it. Soon it was all I could think of. It washed over me. I was so desperate and so afraid.

“Mom, help!” I called out, not even thinking. I just wanted it to stop.

Then, totally out of the blue, the pain was distant again, and I wasn’t alone in the house anymore. It was dark. I could hear machinery, rhythmically bleep’ing away. I knew that sound. The Intensive Care Unit.

"No." I whispered. "Leave her out of this."

But I opened my eyes, and there she was. Mom. Bald. Maneless. Tailless. There was a scratch on her face from falling out of bed the night before. Holding me as a tiny tiny foal, she cried.

"I'm so sorry," she said again and again as she clung to me. "I'm so sorry."

I remembered this. The last time I ever saw her alive. Normally I tried not to think about it. And now this shadowy fuck was not only watching, but relishing it.

“I said leave her out of this!” I shouted, but my lips wouldn’t even move.

Instead, I just focused on Mom. I saw her weeping, trying to hide the tears from me. Always worrying. Just like Roseluck. And Cliff Diver.

Even Twinkle Eyes had lit into me earlier that day. "Fuck you, Rose Petal. Don’t you do this to me." I could still hear her little voice tearing me a new one from the other side of the console.

"I'm so sorry." Said my Mother as she stroked my mane and kissed my head. "I'm so sorry."

Mom was afraid of leaving me alone in the world. A fear so powerful I could smell it on her even then. It terrified me so bad I cried. Moms weren’t supposed to be afraid.

But when I sobbed, she sucked it up and used what strength she had to wipe my face clean, even while tears flowed freely from her own sunken eyes. From that moment on, she didn’t make a sound.

She was terrified. The last feeling that my mother ever knew in the whole wide world was fear. Sadness. Anxiety. And it was all cause of me.

"Don't cry." I tried to scream. "I'm the one who's sorry, Mom! I'm the one who's sorry!"

But I couldn't say shit. It was a memory.

And that icy bastard was watching it. Nom'ing on fucking soul popcorn. This was my mother here. My. Mother.

As I lay there on top of her, even in that terrible moment, I would have done anything in the world just to feel her chest rise one more time. But this son of bitch was watching. Getting his jollies tugging on my guilt. Tasting her fear.

My teeth ground together as I growled “No,” raising a trembling hoof.

I shut my eyes and stomped. And then there was only black.

"Fuck off!" I yelled.

The thing stared me down - that stupid abyss - and the whole world felt cold. I could barely hold my eyes open without them burning, but I still wouldn’t look away. This was about Mom.

“You hear me?” I shrieked, teeth chattering, limbs shaking. “Fuck. Off!”

Then I turned back to my mother.

But she was gone. Even with nothing there in front of me, (no medicine smell; no face to try and touch) all I could do was call out to her, and hope that somehow, somewhere, she was still out there and could hear me.

“Mommy!" I sobbed. "Don't cry! Please don't cry."

Finally I got kicked in the face one last time by a stampeding pony, and fell back pretty hard.

“I’m sorry.” I whimpered at my memory, still fresh in my mind, but when I opened my eyes, I just saw Flutterstrings underneath me - moaning and babbling.

I threw myself over him before I could even figure out which way was up and which way was down. I'd failed everypony else. Everypony I tried to help. Everypony who’d ever tried to love me. Even as I heard the rummaging sounds and saw the pale light of distant cloak-o unicorn horns at the tunnel’s entrance, I shielded Flutterstrings. Hunched right over him. It was literally all I could do. Even if it only bought him a couple of seconds.

"Leave him alone!" I shouted.

Then a gentle hoof hooked under my waist and picked me up.

“Whoa, you’re cold.”

I recognized that voice.

“Morning Flower?”

“Rose Petal?”

I smiled at her faintly.

“Come on, come on, come on! We gotta go.”

She hoisted me up and tried to drag me forward, but I winced and dug my hooves into the ground.

“Flutterstrings first.” I groaned.

“I’m fine!” The druggo babbled and rose to his feet.

“He says he’s fine.” Morning Flower looked at me and shrugged.

“And I’m not Flutterstrings, by the way.” The druggo added. “My name is Mushrooooooom.”

He sucked in a ragged breath and coughed it out again.

“I got him.” She rolled her eyes and slung a foreleg around Flutterstrings’ shoulder. “You good?”

She turned to me, and honestly, I wasn’t sure. I looked back down that tunnel. It was gone. It’d carried a piece of me with it. My fears. My memories. My town. It knew me. And one day, it would follow. But for now, it had bailed Tunnel #2.

“Come on!” Said Morning Flower.

And we were off.

I didn’t think I had the strength to walk, let alone run, but I didn’t really have a choice. The cloak-o light from behind us was already closing in. All they had to do was spot us, and they could nab us with their stupid unicorn levitation. When I saw that light, I bolted. Not out of fear.

It was anger.

I’d survived the Priestess, the coup, Skull Stomper and his monstrous lover, a stage performance for the whole town, surrounded by the elite-est of the elite cloak-o guards. I’d looked into the soul of the shadows themselves and found a terror waiting for me there that I couldn’t have imagined, and damnit, I survived that jerk too.

I threw my weight on my hooves - the busted one and all - 'cause I refused to get captured there of all places. So near to the end. By some greasy thug who probably smelt like moldy potatoes. (They all do).

No. Just no.

I limped and Morning Flower grabbed Flutterstrings/Mushroooooom, who was already stumbling sturdier than before. The cloak-o’s behind us were gaining, but ahead, I could only make out a tiny pinhole of light – like a star all alone in the sky.

I thought we might even make it there, but that hope shattered when we ran into another fallen colt.

Morning Flower and I looked at one another and nodded. It was understood. Better to get caught than to leave somepony on the floor to die. We struggled, we grunted, we lifted him up and draped his weight over our backs.

Morning took the bulk of it, but I could barely stand, so every little pound of weight on my busted hoof made a difference.

They were marching behind us. Stomping in unison like big kettle drums.

DOOM! DOOM! DOOM! DOOM!

It was a sound that went straight into your stomach.

I looked ahead. The light was bigger than a pinhole now - more than a star. I could hear the clamoring sound of ponies on the other end. I closed my eyes and hoped it was our friends, and not a whole other troupe of stupid cloak-o’s waiting for us.

“Run!” I tried to call out to the kids I hoped were on the other side, but my throat felt like it was full of ashes.

I tried not to focus on it. Just pushed myself toward the end.

“There they are!” Came a voice from the outside.

It was so echoy that I could hardly make it out.

“Go, go, go, go, go!” Shouted Morning.

She was yelling more at the opening than at me. If there were kids on the other end, and we hadn’t gotten captured, they needed to get the buck out of there! The cloak-o’s were on our tail.

I threw myself into a proper trot. Broken hoof be damned. Sharp daggers of pain shot up my leg, and I screamed like a baby. It felt like an icicle was stabbing me with every step. I cried, and cried, and cried, and cried, and cried. But I didn’t dare stop. I was surging with raw energy.

“There they are!” Came a gravelly voice from behind.

“Ow, fuck! Ow, fuck! Ow, fuck! Ow, fuck! Ow, fuck!” The battle cry of the wounded.

We hit the end of the tunnel and just sort of stumbled and flopped forward on to the ground. It was so bright I couldn’t see a thing.

I felt a violent tugging at my tail. Levitation magic. They’d spotted me. I started to get dragged back.

“No, no, no!” I dug my hooves into the dirt.

Before I could even make sense of what was happening, though, somepony else threw themselves on top of me, crammed my head onto a jaggedy rock on the ground, and pinned me to the ground.

Even with my eyes shut and thrust into the dirt, I could tell that that bright room chose that exact moment to get even brighter. Above me came a hundred thousand loud noises all at once.

I threw my hooves over my head and sobbed. “Leave us alone!”

But it just kept going, and going, and going. I screamed the whole time. I couldn’t take it anymore.

Finally after a long and terrifying while, everything was silent. The air stank of smoke. Sulfur. And I huddled there, pinned to the ground. A hoof grabbed me firmly by the shoulder.

I squirmed, and cringed, and shielded my face with clumsy hooves. It was all I had the energy to do.

“Happy to see you too, you fucking mook.”

“Twinkle?”

I flopped over to my side, and tried to look up at her and make sense of what had happened, but she already had me in a crippling death hug.

She laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and somewhere in all that, broke into heaving sobs.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? You worried the fuck outta me, you cockgoblin!” She hit me lightly, and started laughing again.

I couldn’t look her in the eye though. I was so ashamed. “I wasn’t trying to worry you.”

Great, now I’m crying again too.

Above us, out of nowhere, I heard some more of those rapid banging noises.

Ratatatatatatatatatat!

“Yipe!” I said.

“Do you fucking mind?” Said Twinkle, sitting up. “Fucking friendship going on over here.”

Misty Mountain stood over us, draped head to hoof in the priestess’ jewels, and rigged with a giant metal ratatatatat-a-majig. It was some kinda battle saddle, (yeah, I know, I really gotta work on coming up with better nicknames for things). It was way too big for Misty, but he levitated it over himself pretty steady. I don’t know how he could stand it, though. The damn thing was burning hot just to be near.

Twinkle looked up at him.

“You got shells in my mane, you kielbasa-eating douchebag.”

She reached into her magenta hair and hucked a hoof full of metal at him.

“Geef to me pony!” Misty laughed.

I could feel myself suddenly yanked off the ground by an odd tingly floating sensation. Twinkle too. Then crunch. Giant bear hug.

I yelped loud enough for the whole mountain to hear me. My poor ribs.

“Are you okay? Are you okay?” Said Misty.
He put me down easy, but the whole standing thing just wasn’t working out for me. My legs weren’t ready for it.

Twinkle caught me as I fell.

“I’m fine! I’m fine!” I said, brushing myself off, forcing myself up on shake-itty knees.

I was sobbing though, and therefore, not doing a very good job of convincing anypony that I was, in fact, fine. I didn’t exactly want to be sobbing, but what could I do? It fucking hurt.

“Yuh-huh.” Said Flutterstrings/Mushroom sarcastically as he stumbled passed us, wandering aimlessly around.

Twinkle looked me up and down. I was in pretty bad shape. I clutched my chest and moaned. I wasn’t sure which hurt more. My ribs or the hoof I rubbed them with. It throbbed like a bad tooth.

Twink shook with anger at the sight of me. She was so mad she actually found herself at a loss for curse words and colorful metaphors. “Those mother….mother…mother”

“Actually. It wasn’t the cloak-o’s.” I coughed. “These--;” I meant to point at the crowd, but ended up just gawking at the herd of kids around us. I had to stop and blink just to make sure I saw what I thought I saw.

“What the?”

Children everywhere. Not just Cobbler and his gang, not just my friends from the cage room, not just a carriage’s worth of stumbling druggos. Hundreds of us. Everywhere! Fillies and colts who’d escaped from nooks and crannies of that mine that we didn’t even know were there. All of them crowded with us in this great big old cavern.

There were too many. It was impossible. There were just...too many!

I finally managed to raise my busted hoof and point slack-jawed at the crowd. When they saw it though, my friends fell silent.

“How deed dat happen?” Misty said. The color ran from his face.

“How did wha-?” I got a good look at my hoof and shrieked.

It wasn’t broken. It was black. I held the throbbing thing up to my face. The entire tip was dark as night, but little inky ashy tendril-y bits extended upward. Like the discoloration had been trying to work its way up my leg, but got stuck where it was.

Twinkle reached out to touch my hoof.

“It’s freezing!” She said.

Misty’s eyes slowly widened.

He grabbed me by the shoulder, his stare drilling holes into my eyeballs. “Where you get dees?”

I shrugged. I wanted to tell him. This, after all, was the pony who’d been dream-pocalypse-traveling longer than I had - presumably. The pony who didn’t want to talk about it. The guy who made lame excuses every time I tried to get an answer out of him. Now he was pressing me for information. It was unnerving. What did the black hoof mean? What did he know? I had a thousand questions, but couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“My hoof is black.” I muttered at last.

“What happened?” Said Misty.

“What the fuck?” Added Twinkle.

I thought back to the encounter with the shadow thing. Even if I had wanted to tell my friends everything – even if I thought that it wouldn’t freak them out – even if they’d had a magical antidote for blackhoof that they could have given me - thinking back on my meeting with that bucking thing, I couldn’t come up with any words at all to describe what had happened. I just remembered how awful it felt to be so afraid - to feel so helpless in the face of my mother’s suffering. So guilty.

I couldn’t say it out loud. Just thinking about made all that shame and fear paralyze me all over again.

“I-I-stepped in some ink.” I said.

“You fucking liar.” Said Twinkle. She turned to Misty. “What’s going on? You know something, you asshole.”

She hit him.

“Cold is bad.” Was all he said.

“I’m fine!” I shouted, but it didn’t matter.

The two of them started bickering like a married couple. I watched them, and smiled. We may not have been safe. We may have been stuck in that stupid mine. We may have had murderous cloak-o's waiting ahead of us, or tracking us from behind. But when I saw Misty and Twinkle Eyes come together to argue, I cried with a smile on my cheeks twenty miles wide.

I wasn’t alone anymore.

Author's Note

NOTE: It's been almost one year since I first published Chapter 1, and here we are, almost done with Rose's first adventure. While there is an ambitious, broader story arc that will span several "Books," I'm really gonna try to get the end of "Book One" out to you guys by the one year anniversary. Wish me luck! Thanks for reading!

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

Sprocket Doggingsworth (the author-type person):

Column: My Derpy Hooves News column about Love, Tolerance, and Friendship, “Help! My Heart is Full of Pony!” is now archived at http://heartfullofpony.tumblr.com

Music: Check out my pony music (rock, jazz, hip-hop, blues, classical, and experimental). http://www.youtube.com/sdoggingsworth

Book: Apple Cider for the Brony Soul book project. http://www.bronyapplecider.com

Cover Art: http://shadesofeverfree.deviantart.com/art/The-Rose-Queen-334850063

Special Thanks to Longbottle for your tireless patience and keen editing advice.

What Goes Around...

CHAPTER NINE - WHAT GOES AROUND...
"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a dew drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." - Gandhi

Bit by bit, Peach Cobbler rounded the mine kids onto this great big old ledge above us. It was like a cave-within-a-cave. The metal staircase leading up to it was rickety as all get out, so we could only climb it a few ponies at a time. The whole thing looked like a Manehattan fire escape held in place with dental floss.

"Twenty minutes!" Shouted Strawberry Lemonade.

"Ve don't even have ten minutes," Misty shouted back.

Not this again, I thought.

I couldn't tell if Strawberry was counting down how long we had before the cloak-o's caught up with us; or how long she had left to finish…whatever the heck she was trying to accomplish.

Hesitant to interrupt, I whispered to Twink instead. "Does Strawberry still wanna kill me?"

"Naww," laughed the little pink unicorn. "After the first couple of kids came hollering for tech support, she was ready to fucking skin you."

"I'm right he-ere," said Strawbery Lemonade in a sing-songitty voice. "I can hear you." She perched over the console. A familiar sight.

"Are no-ot," sang Twinkle Eyes right back.

And it was a fair point. Strawberry wasn’t exactly present. She just sorta punched buttons and ignored us.

I found that to be a relief actually, not just 'cause it meant she didn’t wanna skin me anymore. I felt off. The stampede, the shadow. The lack of food and water. When you gallop for your life as fast as you possibly can, stomping on an injured hoof the whole way – you turn into a flaming lantern fueled by a heart-hammering rush. By the time I made it even to temporary safety, I had no oil left to burn.

Click a click a click clickitty click.

"Am too,” answered Strawberry at long last.

I cringed. It felt weird being caught in the middle of this stupid argument.

"Oh yeah? If you’re paying so much attention,” said Twinkle. “What color is Rose's hoof?"

Strawberry spun around. It finally dawned on her that I'd actually made it out. That I was standing right behind her. Safe and sound.

"Whoa, you're alive!" She said.

Before I knew it, I found myself in another painful embrace. My poor ribs. Strawberry laughed and squeezed me as tight as she could. Then, out of nowhere she just sort of stopped, tried to bite down her own smile to feign seriousness, and held me at hoof's distance.

"Just so you know, I'm still gonna kill you," Strawberry said. But she was bad at hiding her smirk. "Some of these kids couldn't even find the ON button."

"Um, yeah,” I said. “That's pretty stupid."

"Ooh!" Strawberry Lemonade whipped back around, and threw herself into her work yet again.

The sound of her voice echoed in my brain. “Ooh. Oooh. Oooooh.” I was starting to getting seriously dizzy.

"Pfft. Don't worry about Strawberry." Twink reassured me. "You shoulda seen her when the first mine-o's came down that tunnel."

Mine-o's. Twinkle Eyes had stolen my nick-naming-of-things method.

Meanwhile, Strawberry occupied herself with that screen. Images and words and symbols and numbers. Looking at pictures of console after console after console. Scouring the mine for signs of life. Anypony who might still be stuck down there. When Strawberry switched points of view, and found that the screen was black, she even pressed her ear against the machine, hoping for a rustle or a peep to reveal itself from the other end. Just to be sure.

Helping other ponies is like zap apple jam, I thought, as my hooves wobbled beneath me. Addictive.

Watching her go, it was clear that Strawberry Lemonade wasn't simply scared, and reaching out for a lifeline of hope anymore. She was on fire.

The way she's meant to be. That little voice in my head again. The one that sounded like me but said stupid garbage about the way things were and weren't supposed to be.

Stupid voice.

"Sure, now you speak up, you fuck."

And that’s the last thing I remember just before my legs gave out beneath me. I reached out, flailing like a flailitty flailing flaily thing, but there was nothing to grab a hold of. Nothing to catch myself with. In desperation, I chomped down on Misty’s nasty unwashed tail, but it still wasn’t enough. Down I went. Into a pale pass-out-ish sort of sleep-but-not-sleep land, with the taste of Misty’s flank on my teeth.

All I could hear was the distant barking of dogs. It was a sound I recognized. In my first dream - my first night in the Wasteland, I heard them just before I woke up screaming. Now they were back, and they were coming for us. Things were finally starting to happen the way they’re meant to.

* * *

After a blackness washed over me (that could have lasted a few seconds, or a few thousand years for all I know), I opened up my eyes. Cobbler, Morning Flower, Misty and Twink were all standing over me in a great big old circle o’ friend.

“Did it work?” Said Twinkle Eyes.

Damnit, she’s worrying about me again.

“Ain’t’cha never had a potion before?” Snapped Cobbler. “Of course it’s working.”

Twink smacked him. The sound of hoof on skull, at just the right velocity and angle, sounds an awful lot like two blocks of wood knocking together.

Clonk.

“Ow!” Said Peach Cobbler.

"Ten minutes, everypony!" Strawberry Lemonade called out, predictable as ever.

“No mind dee Twinkle," said Misty. “She ees slave whole life. Of course she has not had rejuvenative eleexir.”

He wagged his hoof at Peach. “You should learn to be more sensitive, Meester Cobbler.”

The enemy may have been several minutes away, separated from us by several thousand tons of rock, but I was pretty sure that even they could feel the smugness radiating from Misty Mountain’s smirk. It was finally his turn to dish out condescending sensitivity lessons.

“Well, gee, I’m really sorry—“ Cobbler yammered, but I cut him off and went straight to the point.

“Potion?” I rubbed my head. “How does that even work?”

We didn’t have a whole lot by way of healing potions back home. I knew that magic drinks existed, but to be honest, they were kind of mysterious. The sort of thing you'd expect to see in a Starswirl the Bearded museum, or a zebra hut.

“How do you feel?” Said Twinkle.

I thought about it. Tired. My bones and bruises still ached from the stampede. My entire right hoof felt cold as a windigo’s dick. Thanks, Twinkle, for your wonderful influence on the Equestrian Language. But I was well enough to pick myself up off the floor and stand on my three good hooves.

I wondered if such medical magic could have saved Mom.

“Where did you get this?” I said.

“Plucked it off a slave driver back in the mines," answered Cobbler. “Given the condition we left him in, I reckoned he wouldn’t be needing it anymore.”

He meant dead.

I looked around. Druggos. Wounded mine-o’s. Tired, meek slave children. The implications of this news were so mind-boggling I squee'd.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Pass it around, and let’s get out of here!” I giggled.

They all looked at one another. Awkward-like.

“How much did you give me?” I snapped.

“Just a few drops,” said Cobbler.

I let loose a sigh of relief, but the looks on their faces told me I was sighing too soon.

“How much do we have left?”

“Um...none?” Cobbler replied.

“What?!”

Wounded, wounded everywhere, and not a drop to drink. I looked around at the stumblers, and the hobblers, and those being carried and dragged. It was my turn to smack Cobbler.

Clonk! 2x4.

“Fucking assholes!”

I stormed off.

I was off in a corner crying my eyes out when Twinkle came up behind me. Damnit. I was in no mood to be consoled. As luck would have it, she had no intention of doing so.

“You mind telling me what all that bullshit was about?” Twinkle scolded me.

I didn’t face her. I wasn’t sure what I'd say if I did.

“Other kids need it more,” I whimpered. “You know it.”

“Fuck them," said Twinkle. “If I picked some kid at random, for all I know, he’d be a douchebag like Misty.”

I couldn’t help but snort a little laugh.

“What if somepony dies?” I trembled with guilt and anger and confusion. I wasn’t even sure if I was acting out of fear anymore, or if I was just plain pissed off. Probably both.

“What if you fucking died? Do you even care anymore?”

I turned around to look her in the eye.

“Cause I do,” Twinkle added. “Call me crazy but I care about shit like that.”

Go ahead, Twink. Twist the guilt knife. I don’t have enough of that right now.

“I—I—“

“You what?” She snapped.

And that was all I could take. I threw myself at her sobbing. Whatever she’d been trying to do, it had worked better than she’d expected. She ran her hoof through my mane.

“It’s all I have," I moaned. “It’s all I have.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“The idea that I helped some of these kids. It’s all I have.”

“You helped all of us, you dumb fuck.”

I froze. I’d said too much.

“Who in this mountain didn’t you help? Huh?”

I lowered my eyes in shame.

“Seriously who? Name one! Was it that guy?” She pointed. “The one heading out of the cave all ‘look at me I’m breathing fresh air for the first time in months’?”

Twinkle Eyes pointed at another pair of faces in the crowd. “Oh, look, those poor twins over there. Life sure does suck for them. Bet they wish they were getting their asses kicked by cloak-o’s right about now.”

“You’re right," I said softly.

Anything to keep from spilling the beans about the massacre at Sub Mine F. She didn’t need that.

“Damn skippy I’m right.”

She saw me slouching, retreating into my head, and smacked me.

Clonk! 2x4.

I looked up at her, aghast. “What the hell was that for?”

“Nopony picks on my friends.”

“I didn’t!”

I wasn’t sure whether to be scared of her, indignant, or just plain confused.

“Yes you did," she said. “You’re my friend. And you’re picking on yourself. And if I ever catch you doing it again, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“But that doesn’t even--;”

“Nopony picks on my friends,” Twinkle growled. “Nopony.”

I couldn’t help but smile. She was doing it again. Being so kind and so harsh at the same time.

“Seven minutes!" Shouted Strawberry Lemonade.

Everypony was getting a move on. There were more kids up on the top platform now than on the stairs or the clearing below.

Meep! Twink and I had been whiny pirating so long, that we were practically alone.

“What are you even counting down for?!” I snapped at long last.

Strawberry Lemonade actually heard that one – probably cause it had something to do with one of her stupid countdowns.

“The cloaks are coming!” She snapped. “Now quit bickering and get up there with the rest.”

“You get up there," I barked right back.

Twink and I broke into a gallop.

“Can’t," said Strawberry. “I’m staying.”

Type typitty type type type. Click, clickitty click click click.

I skidded to a halt. Strawberry Lemonade was staying behind?!

"Fine!” I said the last thing she expected. “Why are we running at all? There are, like…a billion of us. We have, like…a trillion of those…"

I waved my hooves around, pointing at the arsenal my friends had pilfered from the Priestess' super special clubhouse.

"…Blam blam kapow…things."

Twink raised an eyebrow.

"Can't we just..."

"Shoot our way out?" Said Cobbler who was still busy herding refugees up those rusty old stairs above us.

"Um...Yeah?"

I had just casually suggested we massacre our enemies. Luna help me, the mines had scrambled my brain.

"Half of these kids are half dead," pleaded Cobbler. “They won't last a giant showdown.”

I wondered how many of them could have benefited from my potion. Then I caught Twinkle eyeballing me. She knew I was on the verge of beating myself up again. I threw my hooves up.

“Don’t hit me!”

“Do you have any idea how many of these kids we had to drag straight out of the brig?" Said Cobbler.

"Brig?" I said. "Like the kids that got captured outta Mine B?" .

I bit my lip and tried to choke back the feeling of hope. It couldn't be true. Those drag marks in the dirt! The kids who'd been snatched away kicking and screaming before they'd had a chance to revolt. Had they actually gotten free?

"Yeah those kids, and from Sub-Mine M, and R."

"They're all from the brig?" I laughed with excitement.

Everypony was starting to look at me funny.

"They are from the brig!" I cheered. "They're from the brig! They’re from the brig!"

I must have looked like the world’s biggest asshole, cheering about their capture and torture, but really, I was just amazed that they’d made it out alive.

"Well, like, ah reckon we ain't no good to these folks if we’s daid," said one nearby pony in a slow and inscrutable drawl.

I could tell just by his grim tone that he was one of the Brig Kids. Victims of a failed rebellion.

"After a while,” he continued. “The cloak-o’s got to shooting, seeing as how things was getting’ outside-a their ordinary comfortin' zone.” The stranger smiled. “They was quite rightfully spooked too. All you fellers with your guns and yer dyn-o-mite. But that wasn’t for a while. Us lucky ones just got all brigged up good and tight.”

They’d only shot when they’d realized we were a bucking army. It made sense. They wanted first and foremost, to keep us enslaved.

"But you're alive?" I said.

The stranger looked himself over, and carefully considered the question. "Last tahme ah checked."

I leapt up - actually literally leapt for joy, as weak as I was. (The landing wasn't so good though. I stumbled forward and hugged the colt who'd told me so. Hugged him so hard he fell down.)

"We seen better days though," he coughed.

As I lay there, propping myself up on my legs, trying not to crush him, I got an up-close look of just how messed up the poor kid was. A mass of small burns were speckled all up and down his face like the chicken pox; his eye was bleeding. He had a wound on his leg - all gross and oozing. It disarmed me to see anypony in that kind of condition.

"We gotta get outta here," I said grimly.

“Reckon, you’re right, Miss um…”

“Rose Petal.”

“Ah. Name’s Turnip Truck, the 14th.” Answered the stranger. “After me pappy, Turnip Truck the 13th.”

"Five minutes," called Strawberry Lemonade.

The last of the kids were almost done making their way up the stairs. It was a small miracle that Cobbler and Misty had gotten them up in time.

"Yo, Straw Lems. Got to go."

"I haven't found them yet." She'd gone from focused and excited to just plain frantic again.

I knew that look. The I Left Them Behind Last Time, But Dammit, Not This Time look.

“There’s more down there, aren’t there?”

Straw turned to me and nodded in blind panic.

I was ready to stay, but honestly, I couldn’t help. I couldn't even find the keyboard on those stupid console things. Plus, Twinkle gripped my shoulder and looked at me sternly. The message was clear: Stick with the group or I’ll kill you.

Strawberry Lemonade turned back to face the console.

“Come on, come on, come on,” she pleaded.

“Who’s still down there?”

“Sub Mine F!” She snapped.

I felt my throat drop into my stomach like a bowling ball.

"Sub Mine F?"

“I haven’t gotten a signal at all.”

“Twink’s right. We need to go," I whispered.

“Really?” Said Twink.

“They’re um...empty," I said. “Sub Mine F. I passed by. There is nothing there.”

“Oh, come on!” Misty shouted from up above. He'd just finished herding the relatively healthy kids out of the opening up there that passed for a door. By the time Turnip Truck the 14th moseyed by, laden head to hoof with weapons, the cave was pretty bare.

"The fuck is this?" Asked Twinkle.

"Reckon once we head off ‘dem daisy cape fellers, they'll come a-chargin' from this here tunnel, and run after us down yonder mountain pass." Turnip pointed outside. "You know, all downhill and advantageous like. Can't have that. Ah’ll hold ‘em back as they charge up yonder stairs."

He patted his weapon lovingly.

"Yeah whatever, Turnip," said Twink. "What the fuck is this? Everypony be a hero day? Get back upstairs you hillbilly fuck."

“No can do, ma’am," he said. “Not with this here leg all infetcified.”

He shook his gooey leg at us.

“Ewwwwwww!” I said.

“Don’t stand a chance out there anyway, so I may as well blow those summabitches straight back to their precious Lord Baal.”

I tried not to think of the potion, and the good it could have done this kid and his leg, but that was damn near impossible with the taste of the damn elixir still lingering on my throat, all coppery and nasty.

“This is crazy," I said.

Mine-o’s, druggo’s. The last of the kids' flanks made it out the big bright hole up there.

“Come on,” I said, putting my hoof on Strawberry Lemonade’s shoulder, trying to physically pry her away. “There’s nothing down there in Sub Mine F. I saw it myself.”

Strawberry swatted my hoof away and stared me down with eyes that could melt coal. “We didn’t find those kids in the brig. The system’s logs show that they were in Section F last anypony checked, and now you’re telling me there’s nothing there? Those kids are down in those mines and I’m gonna find them. Touch me again and I’ll fuck you up so bad you’ll wish the cloak-o’s had gotten to you instead.”

I stumbled back in shock, as much from the harsh words as from the fact that the hornets in my brain got all fired up and pissed off again. Strawberry Lemonade was, after all, The One I’m Meant to Save, and she was refusing to leave.

Twink stepped in. “What the fuck did you just say?”

Uh-oh.

“Girls, stop," I said urgently. “Twink, I’m fine. Seriously.”

“What’d you say to Rose?” Twink snapped. “Go ahead. Say it to me.”

She was a whole foot shorter than Strawberry, but Twink went right to her, looked straight up, and stared at her with eyeballs like canons.

“Say what you said to Rose. I didn’t quite hear you the first fucking time. Say it the fuck again!”

Misty came charging back in. "Girls! Dee cloakos are out there with trucks. Doink fishy thinks!"

“Go!” Said Strawberry. “I’m staying.”

She turned to face the console again.

Hornets, hornets, hornets. Why the Hell wouldn’t this bitch leave?!

I suddenly felt a tiny glimpse of what Twinkle Eyes must have been going through every time I’d thrown myself face first into danger.

I looked up at Misty, who was up on the platform, clutching his own head in pain. He had a bad case of brain hornets too.

Twink on the other hoof, wasn’t done making her point. She grabbed Strawberry, who turned around and smacked her right in the face.

“Don’t touch me!” She roared.

I saw Twink rubbing her cheek. I thought for sure she was gonna whip out a knife or something - carve Strawberry Lemonade up and drink her blood like it actually was lemonade. But something about the rage in Strawberry’s eyes caught Twink off guard. It shocked all of us.

“I—“ Strawberry was shaking as much with fear as with anger.

“I don’t like it when ponies touch me.”

I suddenly remembered how much Strawberry Lemonade had cringed when I’d gripped her by the shoulder back in the cage room. Twink looked up at her with silent understanding. She nodded. Something was happening that I didn’t quite understand.

“Look, just leave Rose Petal the fuck alone, alright?” Said Twink. “Or I am gonna find a fucking brick and introduce it to your teeth. Capice?”

“Agreed,” said Strawberry Lemonade as she turned back to her console and buried herself in her work.

"We need to poosh through while we can!" Misty called down at us.

“Then go,” growled Strawberry.

A terrifying silence followed.

Strawberry seriously wasn’t going anywhere. The One I’m Meant to Save. The One I’m Meant to Save. The One I’m Meant to Save. The voices in my head shouting at me all at once.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it!

“They’re dead, alright?” I said at long last.

Suddenly all eyes were on me.

“Sub Mine F.”

More silence.

“What?” said Strawberry

“You’re not going to find them,” I said. “Cause they’re dead.”

“But you said--;”

“You all seemed so happy and I didn’t wanna bring you down, and--;”

I looked around at all of their shocked and mournful faces.

“They were just so fucking small,” I blubbered.

The one thing I couldn’t get over about Sub Mine F. All those kids lying dead in that mountain. They were all so small. Kindergarteners who never stood a chance.

I completely fell apart right there in front of everypony.

“I’m sorry," I said with a sniff.

They all just sort of stared at me awkwardly. Even Twinkle didn’t have anything clever to say. She was busy pounding the walls with her hoofs in frustration and grief.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Strawberry sighed, and pulled a metal cover over the console she’d been working on. When the hook hit the knob and the thing was good and shut, I got smacked in the face with a sudden quiet. The hornets in my head were only whispering now.

I looked up at Misty. He nodded at me in silence. He felt it too. Strawberry was coming with us, and things were starting to fall into place.

Misty closed his eyes, and lit up his horn. Then, just like that, the entire bucking staircase wrenched itself from the masonry - all aglow with unicorn magic. All it took was a little loosening and the whole damn thing crumbled under its own weight.

Before any of us really knew what was going on - before the dust could even settle, Misty had lifted Twink, Strawberry and me up on to the platform. The very last of us. We were ready to go.

Those bucking dogs were barking again in the distance. We were finally getting close. I could practically taste it. In the vision, Strawberry Lemonade had been underground - in the dim. So once we left the mine, she would be safe - at least from what I’d seen in my head. That meant that whatever else may have been going down - whatever strange wheels may have been turning – things were finally starting to happen the way they're meant to happen.

Turnip trotted up to us and looked down at the wreckage of the staircase, which would delay the cloak-o’s better than he ever could.

“Well, how do you like that?”

He turned and whistled right on out the cave.

* * *

Everypony galloped as best they could down the mountain pass. Me? I hobbled. Misty was busy leading, and Twink was too damn small to help me. So, like so many other kids, I just stumbled along and tried to keep up. Those few drops of potion, after all, could only do so much.

It started with a fall. Then, a few minutes later, I fell again on Twinkle. The third time, my bad leg just plain stopped working altogether, and forward we tumbled. But I didn’t hit the ground. Instead, I found myself draped over a colt’s back.

“Whu?” I was already starting to doze.

I faded. I bounced around a little on his back, and though my focus was shifting and blurring, the one thing I could make out was the cutie mark on my ride’s flank. A guitar.

“Druggo?” I said.

“Hang in there,” was all Flutterstrings said. “Hang in there.”

“I’m fine.”

“You fainted again,” said Twink.

“Did not,” I replied.

“Did too.”

“Did not!” I snapped.

She smirked at me. For once, I was actually alright-er than I appeared.

“Did too!”

She reveled in it a bit too much.

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

“Did bucking too!”

Everypony we knew stopped and stared.
Even Flutterstrings. Twinkle had just softened a curse word.

“What?”

“Bucking?” I said.

“Blow me," she replied.

I bit back a smirk.

“What? Maybe I feel like daintying it the fuck up every now and again.” Twink was blushing. “You got a problem with that?”

Up ahead were five great big old boxes on wheels, each with ratatat-tat-amjigs mounted on top. My friends corrected me when I babbled, and told me they were called trucks and guns respectively, but I liked my names better.

“Are those the cloak-o’s that Misty was on about?” I asked.

“Not sure,” grunted Flutterstrings.

Carrying me couldn’t have been any easier for him than carrying him had been for me.

“I dunno!” Said a nervous filly. “They haven’t been doing much, just wheeling those trucks out one at a time. Do you think it’s a trap?”

I pretzeled my neck backwards. If I really strained, I could make out the way we came – just barely.

“Why don’t we just go the other way?” I moaned. And kept streeeetching my neck muscles as far as they would go. 'Till I just sorta collapsed backwards on Flutterstring's back - bones like wet pasta.

Next thing I know, Twink is staring at me, upside-down-like.

“The villagers are that way," she said.

“The ones who rebelled against the cloak-o’s?”

She nodded.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” I smiled, eager to seek allies. Safety in numbers! But Twink didn’t return my enthusiasm.

“We barely held them back the last time,” said Upside Down Twinkle Eyes. “Who do you think was doing all that shooting while you were off dicking around down there in the mines?”

“What?” I squirmed so bad that I fell, and took Flutterstrings with me. “Why?!”

Twink stood over me and extended a helping hoof. Once I was up again, and hoisted back on top of Flutterstings, Twinkle said, “Not getting any help from those cockmuffins.”

So it’s like this: it turns out that the villagers had, in fact, revolted just like I thought – only they weren’t fighting for our freedom. They were fighting for the freedom to be the ones profiting from our slavery. At least that's how it was explained to me. And it made a certain kind of sense. If there was any truth in what the Priestess had said at all, without us kids to work the mines, the town was as good as dead.

Food first. Morals follow on (if at all).

This was bad news. Real bad. It wasn’t just about surviving the cloak-o blitz anymore. Even if we fended off every last goon – blew them all to bits – the mine-o slave kids weren’t exactly gonna find loving homes here in Trottica. What were they supposed to do?

Even if we managed to “poosh” past the “fishy” cloak-o activity in that giant docking bay down there at the bottom of the hill, we couldn’t exactly charge inside and demand to be treated well. That was the service entrance to the Town Hall, from whence my friends had escaped. There was still a great big old Civil War going on in there, and the only thing that any of the factions could agree upon was that we kids should keep on slaving.

I knew there had to be good grown-ups in that town somewhere. That it wasn't all kids: good; adults: bad like Twinkle Eyes seemed to think. But if there were any friendlies around, they weren't doing us a whole lot of good as we tried to make our way down that mountain pass.

Further down the road, there was a naked gauntlet. If we tried to walk down it, we would be wide open to attack from the walls and buildings above, and left completely exposed – unable, even with all our numbers and badass weaponry, to defend ourselves. The townsfolk would be way too high-groundsy.

We were about three hundred kids trying to hoof it. Almost half of us were fucked up, drugged, or infirm in some way.

Past “the gauntlet” were the great outdoors – the road to freedom. One-hundred-and-fifty straight miles of nothing.

To make a long story short, we were completely and totally fucked.

* * *

“I need to talk to Misty,” I said, but Flutterstrings just sort of grunted in reply.

I was the druggo now. Nopony ever takes what the luggage has to say seriously.

A chill breeze swept over our little company. You could hear shivering amongst the crowd of children. Chattering of teeth even. I wrapped that old cloak of the Priestess' around me and just sort of lay there, bouncing along on Flutterstrings’ back like a sack of flour. A piece of Misty Mountain's nasty old tail hair was still stuck in my teeth. Blech.

I tried not to think about what lay ahead. Instead, I focused on that stupid hair. I picked at it with my tongue, and picked at it, and picked at it, 'till out of the blue, came that old familiar cry.

“They’re coming!”

Just once, I’d like to go one measly hour without having to hear anypony shout those words. Was that too much to ask?

I braced myself for a stampede, but this time, we were all pretty weak, and none of us were terribly anxious to rush forward into the cloak-o trucks. There was also a great big old cliff to our right, so for once we didn’t run around like maniacs. Apparently, mass panic isn’t blind. It’s opportunistic. Even in chaos and hysteria, fear’s still holding the reigns, like it’s got a mind of its own.

This time, the beat up old cloak-o army (that had scrambled out of the mountain without help of a staircase) was actually a lot less scary than the eerie silence below - the wheely-box-y-things just sitting there. Waiting for us. We couldn’t even see the cloak-o’s anymore. It felt wrong –ambushy even, but what choice did we have?

The cloak-o’s were still a while behind us, and they weren’t worth wasting ratatatatat’s on - not yet. But they were closing in fast.

It wasn't long before I got a visual. And they came within range. They didn’t fire on us, though. Even after they got close enough. No. The cloak-o's wanted to subdue every last slave back into the mines. They were maneuvering - herding us straight into the backs of those trucks down below.

We all knew it. And there we were - obliging them!

We moved forward nervously. There was nothing else we could do. We certainly couldn’t defend ourselves the way we were – no cover – no nothing. Our only hope was to dig ourselves into the clutter down there and hope that we could fend them off.

Flutterstrings broke into a gallop. I was a little uneasy, but kinda detatched. I mean, all this danger, and still no hornets. Misty and I were meant to save Strawberry Lemonade, so there had to be a way out of this. Right? Or were the voices just a bunch of dicks who liked to show up, say a bunch of ominous confusing crap, and then ditch you?

Damn voices.

One of those boxy truck things down there revved up real loud, and started charging up the hill at us. It was smaller than the other trucks, but it had a giant barrel on top - almost like a canon, (except that I was willing to bet that it didn’t shoot confetti). We knocked into one another left and right. We couldn’t figure out whether we should grind our hooves into the dust and stop, keep charging down and try to go around the thing, or just plain run backwards.

“I can’t go back there!” Said a blue unicorn filly nearby. “I can’t go back there!”

The thought of another moment driven back into the mines was too much for her to bear. She made for the giant cliff on the shoulder of the road, and jumped! Just fucking jumped! My jaw dropped at the sight of it.

Fwoosh. Twinkle caught her with her horn magic. This was getting crazier by the second.

“We’re still in this, you stupid cunt," said Twinkle reassuringly. “We’re still in this.”

“We are?” Laughed Flutterstrings nervously.

Since when had Twink become the town optimist?

Finally the truck stopped. It was close enough to be damn menacing, but just far enough away that we couldn’t make it down there in time to go around the stupid thing. The barrel of the canon lowered itself and took aim.

The cloak-o’s weren’t even out to preserve us anymore. That giant box was gonna blow us all away.

The entire herd skidded to a halt. There was no room to gallop anymore.

Twink was beside me now. No longer optimistic. She clutched Flutterstrings as the barrel on the doom cannon lowered.

Several other kids tried to make a run for it – to jump off the cliff, but those on the edge gathered their wits enough to lock hooves. To throw themselves in the way - to keep them from passing. We weren’t going to go out like that. We just weren’t.

The truck stared us down. And it stood there - ominously still, even as we panicked. I reached out and grabbed Twinkle’s hair. It was the only part of her I could get to from way up on Flutterstrings’ back.

Louder than thunder, the Big One fired.

BLAM!

Hundreds of hooves shielded hundreds of faces.

Boom! Hundreds of girlish screams.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! It fired again and again and again and again and again till my brain felt like ear-explosion-pudding. Echoes of the death thunder swept over the hills below, and then, the rest of the sound just sort of faded away. We were left with nothing but the ringing in our ears.

One by one, we all lowered our hooves and looked around to survey the damage. The mine-o’s, the druggo’s, my rebel friends. We were all still there. Every last one of us! Still standing on that mountain pass - the opposite of dead.

Behind us, were scorch marks and scattered pieces of about sixty cloak-o’s. It had blown them to smithereens. The big death box stared us down. Inscrutable.

Nopony said a word.

Finally, the front door opened, and a pair of hooves held themselves out, waving a bloody white cloth. A sign of surrender.

Before any of us could respond, or even guess what the hell was going on, a grown-up fell out, and landed flat on his face. He was a cloak-o, and he looked even worse than I felt. For a while, he just sorta lay there wheezing. With a groan, he rose to his hooves, straightened out his daisy cloak with pride, and limped toward us with grim determination.

Crunch, thump, crunch, thump, crunch, thump. He hobbled over the gravel.

When he got closer by, I actually recognized him. It was the nurse who’d drugged all of those kids back in the cage room. I gasped and fell off of Flutterstrings’ back. My friends helped me back to my hooves, and I found that he was looking in my direction.

“Um, hello?” I said awkwardly.

I turned around to get a look at the crowd behind me. Twinkle had already disappeared.

The nurse just kept on limping. “Hi,” he coughed.

The herd parted silently for him.

Crunch, thump, crunch, thump, crunch, thump, crunch.

We all stared, but he didn’t look any one us in particular in the eye. He just sort of hobbled and marched as though we weren’t there at all. At least until he found Twinkle, who’d been hiding under some of the taller Trottica kids, who, frankly, weren’t very big either. Twink looked up, and found Nursey’s battered face staring at her – a busted lip and broken nose that she had put there.

She rose to meet his gaze, and mustered up her best defiant glower. She’d done nothing wrong, after all. He’d had the beating coming. How was she supposed to know that this guy was gonna come along and save us all for no apparent reason!

“Twinkle," I whispered to myself – hoping she wouldn’t do anything stupid.

I hoped even harder that the nurse wasn’t gonna try anything either.

They stared at one another long and hard before Nursey finally held out a hoof. Twinkle stared at it. He stared right back at her.

They both knew why she’d beaten the snot out of him. But things had changed, and blame no longer mattered.

She sighed. Her defiant pose cracked and sunk into a slouch. Hesitantly, she lifted her own hoof to meet his, and just like that – hoof bump.

I wanted to cheer, but it was too quiet.

Nursey nodded, and kept limping right past her. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. It was just plain painful to watch him grind and limp and drag himself up that path, but none of us were sure whether or not we should lend a helping hoof. In fact, Nursey shook his head whenever somepony even looked at him like they might offer.

So he just hobbled on up there, and the crowd continued to part for him, though the question on all of our minds was the same. Why?

“Hey, Nurse," Twinkle said at last.

Leave it to her to call out the elephant in the room. Nursey, with some effort, stopped and turned around.

“What the fuck?” Twinkle asked.

The nurse sighed. “’Ignorance, trust, the gullibility of good ponies – these are the weapons of the tyrants of war. Such innocence is sin.’”

By the look on his face, he did not expect to be received well, but still he quoted his scripture without shame.

“’…Blessed is he who strikes down the tyrants – who comes in the name of Hard Truth. Blessed is he who abhors ignorance.’ So sayeth Baal.”

Silence.

We all looked at one another, not sure what to make of the wacko who’d just saved all our hides. He, in return, just sorta looked at us all blankly.

“But Baal is a lie,” came a small voice from the crowd.

It was a frail little earth pony colt - even younger than Twink.

“Not to me," said the Nurse. He turned and hobbled further down the road.

"Wait," I said. “Come with us.”

I just made a great big decision without asking anypony. I looked around. Thankfully, all the children of Trottica nodded silently in stunned agreement.

At me, Nursey actually smiled. Me - the girl who’d grabbed him and shook him as hard as I could in anger and frustration. Apparently not letting the others beat him to death distinguished me as some kind of super pony.

“Nah,” he grinned a wide grin – bloody, and almost toothless. “There are more tyrants in there that could use a blessing or two.”

He winked at me and patted a saddlebag packed to the brim with explosive birthday candles. I wasn’t sure precisely what he was gonna try, but I was pretty sure that it would be shitfuck crazy.

“Those trucks are for you," said the nurse. “You’ll find everything you need.”

He started hobbling back toward me. I trotted in his direction, just to make the trip easier on him.

“Good luck. And thank you,” he kissed my forehead. “But I’m going to meet with Baal. Become one with the Great Below.”

He looked out over the mountain range – possibly his last view of the vast and cloudy skies of the Wasteland.

“I hear it’s bliss.” He smiled, and limped the rest of the way up the road in silence.

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

NOTE: It has been one year since I first published Chapter One of Hooves of Fate, and I'd like to thank all the folks who have been following it all this time. It's taken turns I didn't expect. I thought I'd end up finishing the Trottica segment of Hooves of Fate in this chapter, for example, but it didn't turn out that way. One more chapter, and it's back to Ponyville, I swear.

I know for sure this time, because the next chapter is pretty much done already.

There is a vast story a-brewin', and this is just the beginning of it. I hope you'll stick around to discover it with me. Thanks for a great year.

Special Thanks to Longbottle and all his tireless hours helping me edit this thing. Special Thanks to Kkat for writing the original story that inspired Hooves of Fate in the first place, and for her encouragement.

Bad Pudding

* * *

BOOK TWO
NO MARE'S LAND

* * *

CHAPTER ELEVEN - BAD PUDDING
"We are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

I never dreamt of Trottica again. I didn’t dream of the Wasteland at all. Not for a little while anyway. You’d think that would be a relief, but it wasn’t. Not after the way I was yanked away from my friends – away from Twinkle Eyes.

When I got back from the Wasteland the first time, a little piece of me had been left behind. I could kinda sorta catch glimpses of what was going on, (and doodle on construction paper to figure out the rest). But now the mission was over with. Done. There were no hints. No clues. No pictures in my head. Nothing.

Strawberry Lemonade was safe at last, and that was all that fucking mattered apparently.

I opened my eyes. Just barely. It was like staring straight up into the Sun.

“Twinkle,” I moaned, and shut them again.

My voice sounded like it was a million miles away. But my throat felt real up close, like it was full of broken glass.

There were other voices all around me. Panicked voices. Excited voices. I couldn’t quite place them. It sounded like echoes on the other end of a long hallway. I forced my eyes open and grunted. Somepony must have noticed, because they clutched my hoof in reply.

“Rose Petal,” she said. It sounded sweet – laughing and crying at the same time.

The sound split my head open like a great big old hammer made out of all-that-is-loud-in-this-world, but it was still a voice that was good to hear.

“Roseluck?” My voice creaked.

“Get over here, get over here, get over here!” Yapped a voice that sounded like Cliff Diver’s.

The sound of urgent hoof-clopping followed. It shook me so much that I forced my eyes open again, as much as I hated it.

“Whu?” I said.

The walls were bare. No Sapphire Shores poster, no toys, no construction paper doodles. Nada. In a moment of stupid panic, I thought my room had been packed away – that Roseluck had fretted over me one too many times, and decided that she was sick of it. Sick of me. But her joyous relief and giddy hug told me that that was a stupid thing to think.

That annoying hoof-clopping sound gathered closer around me, and with it, a smug murmur followed. The kinda sound that only a gaggle of doctors could ever make. I was in a hospital.
Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

I hate hospitals.

“Rose Petal, can you hear me?” A condescending voice.

It was a doctor. I hate doctors.

“How many hooves am I holding up?” He shoved a single hoof in my face.

“Shut up,” I groaned.

Cliff Diver snickered. When I squinted, I could finally see him.

“What are you doing here?” I wasn’t trying to be rude. I was just confused.

Cliff frowned and hid behind his mane.

“Sweetie, I need you to tell me how many hooves I’m holding up,” the doctor sang.

“Too many,” I said.

I looked past the army of lab coats, “Thanks for coming, Cliff...”

“...Mumble mumble mumble,” I added for good measure.

“Anytime,” he chuckled and chewed on his blue hair.

“Rose, you’re in the hospital,” said my sister as she squeezed my good hoof again.

“I know.”

“Do me a favor and answer the geese, okay?”

My brain snapped wide awake. Just for a moment. I’d completely forgotten! When I was very young, Mom used to call doctors that. Geese. It was all the white coats. The way they followed the Mama Doctor around, taking notes. The tight little clusters they made as they wandered the hospital doing their rounds. Sometimes she dubbed them silly geese if she thought they were being particularly annoying.

Answer the geese. I had to hoof it to Roseluck. She always knew just what to say. I looked to her and nodded.

“One hoof,” I told the doctor.

He smiled. All his little doctor goslings scribbled in their notepads.

“But you already knew that, didn’t you?” It hurt like crazy to talk, but I just couldn’t resist mouthing off. “You seem like a smart guy.”

One of the goslings brought a hoof to his mouth to cover up his smirk. The rest of them just scribbled sternly.

“Hehehe," Mama Goose forced out a joyless chuckle, and looked to my sister. “You’ve got a spunky one on your hooves. That’s good.”

I hated him. Hated his guts. I didn’t go to Hell and back, destroy a town full of filly-slavers, and watch my own best friend die in my hooves to have some dope talk down to me when I got back, just because he was a grown-up with a big fat fancy degree.

“So Rose Stem,” Mama Goose continued.

“Rose Petal,”

He lit up his horn, levitated his clipboard and murmured to himself.

“Can you tell me what happened to your hoof?”

“It’s Evil," I said dryly.

A long uncomfortable silence followed. Nothing but the whirring of some unseen machinery on the other side of the room, and the shrill chirps of my own medical bleep-a-majig.

“I see,” said the doctor.

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

“Ms. Roseluck,” said Mama Goose. “I’d like to talk with you in private please.”

He paced all the way around to the other side of my bed, and went right up to Roseluck.

Cliff and I looked at one another in confusion. How exactly was standing right next to me supposed to be “in private”? It seemed to make perfect sense to Mama Goose, though. He just pretended like I wasn’t there.

The flock of goslings migrated around the bed to be with him. One tall blue mare in a white coat tripped on the wheel of my hospital bed mid-yawn.

“Ms. Roseluck, your sister is going to be fine. The results came back from last week’s tests…”

“Last week?!”

No. That couldn’t be right. It was just tea!

The doctor grunted. Roseluck looked over his shoulder and nodded at me with a shrug. It really had been a whole week. She held up an apologetic hoof. She knew I was freaking out, but she was also trying to get answers out of the goose.

I glanced at Cliff Diver who just kinda shrugged and tip-hooved over to me 'till he was standing right by my side, where the goslings had perched just a few moments before.

“How do you feel?”

“Fantastic,” I said dryly.

Cliff snorted and ran his hoof through his ratty, tangled-up mane. Either he’d had a terrible accident involving an egg-beater and a drum of paste, or the poor bastard hadn’t slept.

“Have you been here all week?” I groaned.

“Well, sorta," he said. “Not all week, I mean, mostly…”

“Thanks," I said.

He smiled. After a long silence, he tapped my shoulder to get my attention even though I was already right next to him and already looking in his direction.

“Yes?”

“Did you save the kid you saw?” He whispered.

“I-I don’t know.” I thought about it. “I think I might have. I can’t be sure.”

“Oh.” He scratched his head.

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

“What about the girl in the drawing?”

“She’s fantastic,” I said, venom on my tongue.

The whole damn Universe would just shrivel up and die if Strawberry Fucking Lemonade wasn’t safe.

“Oh,” said Cliff. “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

I looked down. He was touching the Bad Hoof. The moment I realized he was doing it, I yanked my whole leg away. Covered it with a blanket. I moved so suddenly that Cliff jumped back. And left me huddling there. Like a huddley...huddling...thing. Cliff made a point of putting his hoof on mine. Unwrapping it from the blanket, and just holding it to show he wasn't afraid.

Like Twinkle had.

“Thanks,” I whispered meekly.

I was not about to get caught crying in front of all these other ponies, so I just shut my eyes - drifted for a while.

* * *

Twink was gone. Actually gone. Every time I tried to rest, that fact just came creeping out of my chest to kick me in the brain. Twinkle Eyes was dead.

I’m not sure how long I lay there with my eyes shut. Wading through hazy memories, kicking myself for every single one.

I hated myself for judging Twink when she’d kicked the Nurse’s ass. I hated myself for throwing that stupid tantrum over the last healing potion - getting her all worked up and worried. How many times had I allowed Twinkle to stop everything and comfort me? She had even held my hoof right before she got shot. Told me to fucking swim when she should have been paying attention.

I was afraid of the dark like a pathetic little foal. Twink didn’t even see the pony who shot her because of me. She should've been blowing every last one of those cockmuffins away. Why couldn’t she have just smacked me and told me to quit being such a wuss? Why the fuck did Twink have to be so kind? I ran it over in my head a thousand times. She died cause she took her eye off the ball. There was no way around it. It all lead to one terrible conclusion.

“I killed her,” I whispered faintly.

The Most Horrible Friend Ever To Walk Equestria. Even Priestess Happy Sad was better. She, at least, had stood by her cloak. Loyal to the very end.

Clonk! As I swam through random memories of Twinkle, I hit one that physically hurt. Like a 2x4 to the head.

“Nopony picks on my friends,” Twinkle had said.

What?

“You’re my friend. And you’re picking on yourself. And if I ever catch you doing it again, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

I stared at the Twink in my head as she boiled with rage. Even through veils of memory, that little girl was still scarier than fire.

“Nopony picks on my friends. Nopony.”

Twink had a point. I hadn't killed her. I’d done everything right. It was Fate.

I mean that not in the serene “it was meant to be,” kinda way, but in the, “if I could condense all that mystical mumbo-jumbo tossing me through space and time, stick it into one pony - something with a body and a face - I would have shot the fucker with one of those giant battle saddles, and set the body on fire” kinda way. And I’d have had the right.

I’d been used.

The more I let that realization ferment, the more I finally started to understand Twinkle’s slave rage. I was not my own pony. I was a puppet. I didn't even know who or what was standing above the strings, but it was fucking heartless. The Way It’s Supposed to Happen was nothing more than a twisted joke. The idea of doing any more dream favors for It made me sick to my empty little stomach. But the shadows were coming for me, and all that Fate Junk was gonna end up getting involved all over again. I didn’t have any choice at all. It pissed me the fuck off.

* * *

With a sigh, I pulled my eyes open. There was Cliff, sitting right by my side. Watching. Fretting over what he could do to help. The answer of course, was nothing, but there he was just the same. That was worth, at the very least, a smile.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said.

He nodded and crooked his cheeks into a faint little smile - right back at me.

“How long have you been here?” I asked him.

“A while,” he replied sheepishly.

I licked my lips. Dry as dust.

“Don’t your parents mind?”

“Naw,” he boasted. “They’re cool about this sorta thing.”

“This happen to your friends a lot?” I snorted meekly.

“All the time,” he rolled his eyes.

“What about Miss Cheerilee?”

Cliff Diver froze in place like a deer in the woods. He said one word. “Oooh!” And was off. Bolted right out the door. I was left lying there - just sort of drowsy and confused. He couldn’t possibly have forgotten about school for an entire week!

I turned my head and groaned. On the other side of me, the doctor was still yammering science at my sister.

“Science, science, science, science, science, science, science,” said Mama Goose.

“But what about science, science, science, science, science, science, science?” Snapped Roseluck.

Mama Goose grimaced. Roseluck had science’d right back at him. She was always that kinda smart. I was not. I couldn't even figure out how to keep my gums from itching. Out of the whole giant buffet o' pain that was my body, that stupid itch was the one thing that my brain decided to go hog wild, and really feast upon.

So fucking annoying! I tongued at it while the grown-ups blah blah blah'd their science crap.

One of the goslings turned to face me at last. A green colt with a pink mane. RX notepad for a cutie mark.

“How you holding up, champ?”

I groaned in confusion and smacked my crusty old lips. He can’t possibly be talking to me. If I could have, I would’ve looked over my shoulder to see what was going on. Instead, I just sorta shifted my eyes.

“Um…okay,” I groaned.

“Science, science, science, science,” said Mama Goose.

“Oh!” Whispered the kind young doctor. “Well, hang in there.” He winked at me in a hurry, and went back to scribbling notes.

Then more silence. So much for that.

I wasn’t aware of much of anything going on around me 'till I caught a couple of words that I actually understood.

“The pain in her hoof was caused by cellular damage,” said the doctor. “Oddly enough, it resembled the opening stages of frost bite.”

My heart skipped a beat. That shadowy cockface gave me frost bite.

“What?!” Said Roseluck.

“Oh, no, no, no. Calm down, Miss. We can save the leg.”

Save the leg?! It had never even occurred to me that I was in any danger of losing it.

Roseluck snapped. She had an entire anxiety attack in the span of a few seconds. I could see it. And when it was up, she lunged up at the doctor and stared him down – eyeball-to-eyeball.

“What.” She backed him into a literal corner until he had no place to go but down. “Is wrong. With my sister’s. Leg?!”

“Nothing. Nothing. Medically, she’s fine!” He pleaded desperately, a thousand breaths a minute. “She’ll make a full recovery.”

“Geez!” Roseluck sighed relief, her old self again.

When Rose got mad, it was terrifying. But she couldn’t hold on it too long.

“Then why didn’t you say so?”

“Well,” the doctor laughed nervously. “It’s a funny thing…”

He looked over and suddenly noticed all the little goslings snickering at him, and snapped back to attention like a member of the Royal Guard.

“Ahem," he cleared his throat with authority - Big Mama Goose once again. “While her hoof is not necrotic…”

Roseluck was on edge again.

“...And there’s absolutely nothing medically wrong with it,” the doctor added in a hurry. “It’s still black, and shows no signs of regaining coloration, even though tests confirm that it’s almost completely healed.”

“I don’t understand," said my sister.

“Ms. Roseluck, I’m afraid that that leg is just plain Evil.”

Hospital silence. Even the sound of pencil scribbling stopped. The whole room was nothing but a pool of dull whirring sounds, and that old familiar bleep-bleep, bleep-bleep. One-by-one, the goslings’ heads turned to my direction. Two-by-two, all eyes were on me. I waved at them with my Hoof O' Evil.

“Heh-heh," I laughed nervously. I hated being belle of the ball.

“Guess what?!” Cliff darted back into the room with a smile and a crash.

He was waving a giant piece of oak tag that left a cloud of glitter behind it wherever it went.

“The whole class made you a card!”

He flashed the sort of grin that squeaked, but the room was still somber and quiet.

“What?” He asked innocently.

* * *

By the time the geese finally left us all alone, I felt like my brain had been pounded down flat like some kinda brain-dough. I wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and simply cease to exist, but I didn’t have that luxury. The hospital was fresh out of holes.

I opened my eyes and turned to Roseluck. “There are no do-overs, are there?”

She shook her head 'no.'

I nodded solemnly, and stared off into space for Luna-only-knows how long.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Asked Cliff.

I shook my head 'no.' How could I possibly explain what had happened? Where would I even begin?

No way, I said to myself firmly. The shadow thing was coming - at least I thought it might. I had to cut straight to business. Any other train of thought just sent me careening down Memory Lane anyway. Face first into a 2x4 of Guilt from Dream Twinkle. Nopony talks that way about my friends.

“Cliff,” I groaned. “Is the library open yet?”

“Yeah. The dragon wouldn’t send the letter.”

“Figures. What about books on zebras?”

“A couple of rare plant books by zebras - nothing about them.”

“Ooh, I should check those out,” said Roseluck, always the plant enthusiast.

“But I got the next best thing!”

Cliff rummaged through a saddlebag full of candy wrappers and crumpled up old assignments. Finally he produced a notebook.

“Miss Cheerilee said we could do our Hearth’s Warming Eve assignment together so you don’t fall behind.”

He flipped the book to a sketch of the Equestrian flag and shoved it in front of me.

“What do you see there?”

“The flag.”

“A Sun Alicorn and a Moon Alicorn.”

“Like I said: The flag.”

I messed with that sore spot in my gums some more.

Cliff stared at me. “This flag was made at Equestria's founding. Hearth's Warming. Long before Princess Celestia and Luna!”

He beamed a bright, enthusiastic smile. I turned to Roseluck as he passed his notebook over to her. She examined it closely.

“I never thought about it before,” she said. "You're right."

“Maybe the flag we use is just wrong," I said. “Like all our pageants are just bad history or something.”

“No!” He snatched the book out of Roseluck’s hooves.

“Excuse me?” She said with polite indignance.

“Ssh, he’s on a roll," I whispered.

“I checked it out! I did my research,” said Cliff. “Twilight Sparkle even dug up some bound copies of old records and stuff. The flag is older.”

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep, Bleep-bleep. Hospital silence.

“You think somepony like Rose Petal might have seen it in their dreams?” She leaned forward with interest.

“And leaked a spoiler,” I added.

The smile fell from Cliff Diver's face. He scratched at his chin.

“I suppose that would explain it too.”

He rummaged a pencil out of his bag, frantically whipped some pages around, scribbling notes here and there, and everywhere.

“Nope,” said Cliff at last, snapping his notebook closed. “My explanation is way better.”

He went back to rummaging - spilling trinkets and peanut shells and homework assignments from last year everywhere. Roseluck tensed up at the sight of it – always the neat freak.

“Are you okay?” She asked.

“Yes,” he said, sticking his tongue out as he dug. “See, I’ve been reading up – the kind of books you don’t see in the library.”

Roseluck and I glanced at each other with raised eyebrows.

“They’re afraid of the truth,” he continued.

“Out with it,” I said.

“A ha!” Cliff Diver dug out the book he had apparently been looking for.

He shoved it in my face. Literally.

“Other Worlds and You: Applications of Interdimensional Theoretical Physics in the Everyday World,” I read the cover out loud. “By Professor Science? What is this?”

“Let me see that,” said Roseluck.

As I passed it to her, Cliff yanked more books out of the bottom of his bag. Papers spilled over onto the hospital floor. They strew themselves over the tiles like cedar chips in a hamster cage.

Piercing the Veil

Searching for Otherworld

Lower the Moon – Fluctuations in the Celestio-Lunar Balance Field – A Dialectic Analysis of How Nightmare Moon Tore a Hole in the Fabric of Existence.

All by 'Professor Science.'

“Careful with that last one," said Cliff. “It’s rare. The Professor’s first published book. A thesis. A bit more academic than the rest.” He beamed.

“Ummm okay,” I said. “What are you getting at?”

“Alright, here’s what I figure. You ready?”

“I’m all ears,” said Roseluck, genuinely curious, even if not exactly a believer.

I have to admit, I was curious too. Cliff Diver’s enthusiasm was adorable and, in its own way, kinda contagious.

“The flag was the symbol of the union of the pony races. A symbol of friendship and unity and stuff. You follow?”

“Yes.”

“When Discord reigned, millions and millions and millions of ponies were in misery, right? They looked to that symbol for hope. Thought about unity and stuff. And all those thoughts rolled together and blasted across Universes all the way to some other world like one of those comic book superhero symbols shining in the sky.

'And, um...in those dimensions, the rules are maybe different – like all sorts of things are real there that can’t be real here. And the two alicorns came to Equestria when they were needed the most, from the distant Magical Land of Awesome 'cause of all that hope energy and stuff.

Another one of those show-stopping tooth-grins.

But we replied only with stunned silence.
Hospital silence. Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

It’s no wonder he believed my crazy story about dreaming my way into the future. Cliff was out of his bucking mind.

“This is what Professor, um…Science says?” Roseluck hooved through one of the books.

“No! This is my discovery!” He squeaked. “Applying the principles Professor Science wrote about in Chapter 17 of the book you’re holding.”

“Of course,” said Roseluck.

“Cliff?” I asked nervously. “Is this what our Hearth’s Warming Eve report is going to be about?”

“No, no, no, no, no," he said.
“They’re not ready for the truth." Cliff winked at me. "...Well, not all of it anyway." A tight little chuckle escaped Cliff's nervously-clenched teeth. 'Cause he totally had turned in a paper all about alien alicorns. A paper with my name on it.

“Ok, Cliff," I said. “Can you do me a huge favor?”

Time to get down to business. I didn’t know how much energy I had left to think, or to strategize, or even to talk.

“Anything,” he replied.

“Can you go back to the library, and find a way to look up the address of a colt named Misty Mountain?”

“Who’s that?”

“A friend. He lives in Fillydelphia. We’ve got a lot of figuring-out-of-things to do and I think he might be able to, you know, get us some answers.”

That pierogie-eating douche had info about the shadows. I could smell it on him. He seemed to know his way around the Wasteland pretty damn good too. I didn’t really have a plan, or even an idea of what I hoped to find out from him, but Misty was still my best and only lead.

I was gonna track him down if it killed me.

“Ummm…okay.” Cliff lowered his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well,” he laughed nervously. “It’s kinda awkward.”

“What?”

“I was so excited about my discovery that I kinda shared it with Twilight Sparkle before I could prove it, and she kinda...well, she didn’t mean to be discouraging, but she shoved a bunch of ‘real science’ books at me.”

Cliff put his hooves up in the air and made quotation marks of contempt.

“You’re a kid,” said Roseluck. “You can get away with it. I’m sure you’re welcome back there anytime.”

“Besides,” I said. “What’s the point of being a weirdo if you’ve got to be ashamed of it all the time?”

“I’m a weirdo?”

Sad eyes of doom.

"Yeah.” I shrugged, though my shoulders felt like rocks. “But don't worry. You get used to it.”

* * *

Hospital hours are long. I needed real rest. But exhausted as I was, that kinda beauty sleep just wasn’t gonna happen. It felt a lot like that cage room in the Trottica Town Hall basement. You spend so much time drifting out of bad sleep, that night and day start to blur together into a sort of terrible pudding, and before you know it, you can’t even tell the difference between a couple of hours and a couple of weeks anymore.

But Cliff and Rose were there a real long time. Whenever I opened my eyes, boom! There they were. Haggard. Tired. Cheerily supportive.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Roseluck filling out paperwork, chewing on her mane as she wrote. I knew that face. She was worried about making ends meet. You know, boring grown-up stuff.

“Hay there,” I groaned.

Like a kid caught red-handed doodling during class, her hooves casually drifted over her lap to cover up the papers.

“When’s the last time you sold any flowers?” I cut to the chase.

“The flowers are fine,” she said, patting my hoof. “We’re fine.”

“I’m not stupid.” I let that sink in. “That a big order?” I glanced at her lap.

“Don’t worry, I’ll--;”

“Looks big,” as I spoke, it sounded like there was some kind of frog jamboree in my throat.

“It is,” Roseluck sighed. “It’s a wedding. I wish I--;”

I held up my hoof, all dangley with wires and tubes and stuff.

“Do it,” I said.

“What?”

“Go home. Get your flower on. Come back. I’ll be fine,” I lied through my itchy teeth.

I would rather rot there alone and afraid than be responsible for the family downfall.

“Zzznnnnngggggg...” Cliff Diver was on the floor to my right, snoring up a storm.

“No, really,” said Roseluck. “It’s not that bad. Besides, what would you have me do? Just leave you here?”

“Do the wedding. You’ll be able to afford to take off later,” I said with a perky smile.

“Who cares about taking off later? You need me now.”

“But I’m gonna need you , later," I said.

My connection to the Wasteland might have been gone, but there was more apocalypse drama on the horizon. I could feel it in my bones.

“You know,” I added with a smirk. “In case something serious happens with all this Wasteland stuff.”

“Something serious?!” She snapped.

Grown-ups have no sense of humor.

“You almost died!”

“Oh, yeah. That.” The old guilt-knife was twisting in my sides.

Roseluck shook her head at me. “Do you even care?”

Suddenly Twink’s words in my head all over again. Do I even care? It was a low blow, and my sister didn’t even know it.

“Sorry,” I whimpered.

“Cause I do," said Roseluck. "I care.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. The whole dam broke and I was left lying there sobbing. Heaving. Wheezing. Wailing inarticulately. You can only push your whiny piratetry aside for so long before it sneaks up on you and explodes. Then explodes again. It can do that.

Rose didn’t say a word. She just sat there, let me get it aaaall out of my system, and pumped out tissues at me whenever I reached for them. Then, when it was over, she said, “Need more?”

I shook my head.

A calm silence followed. Then my sister looked down at me with great big eyes and pleaded. “I have your back, Rose Petal. You know that.”

I nodded.

“So does that lump over there.”

Cliff Diver was still asleep on the floor. “Zzzzzzzzznnnggg!”

“Thanks,” I sniffed.

“But enough is enough. You have to meet me halfway.”

I frowned. I was kinda hoping that, if nothing else, breaking down into a great big blubbering mess would have a silver lining, and that I’d get a little space.

“You know you’re not protecting us with this ‘everything’s fine’ stuff.” She gripped my hoof in desperation. “Come on. What the buck is going on?”

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

Roseluck never cursed. In Ponyville, 'buck' was the closest thing we had. It made me stop for a second just to make sure that I’d heard her right. Then I thought on what she'd said. Twink had hated it when I acted all secretive like this – when I tried to be a one-mare army. Roseluck hated it too apparently. I couldn’t stand the stress of talking about Trottica - not so soon anyway - but no matter how I tossed it around in my brain, it’s what Twinkle Eyes would have wanted me to do.

“Alright,” I said at last. “But you gotta do your flowers.”

Roseluck considered it. I could see the gears turning in her brain.

“I can handle myself,” I said firmly and calmly.

I survived Trottica. I survived the Priestess. I survived the fucking shadow. I could be left alone in the hospital for a day or two.

Roseluck took a deep breath. Shut her eyes.

“I swear, sometimes..." she grumbled. “...Alright. Deal.”

“Cupcake?” I said.

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“In the eye, or the deal’s off.”

We both brought our hooves to our faces and made the appropriate gesture. When I lowered my hoof, she was staring at me. Waiting.

Oh, yeah. Time to fulfill my end of the bargain. I gulped. It hurt.

“I think—“ I started to tell her, but didn’t have the courage to finish my thought. Instead I just sort of drifted off and stared into space. “Whatever’s happening,” I said at last. “Whatever’s going on – it’s gonna get worse.”

I examined my Evil Hoof. It was inky. Still a little bit cold even. It felt wrong. Just plain wrong. The damn thing terrified me.
“When you dreamt your way through time, you know, all that Pona Lisa stuff, did you ever meet anything not-entirely-pony? Like, made out of shadows and stuff?"

I finally looked Roseluck in the eye. She just sort of shook her head slowly. She was as confused as ever.

“I’m sorry," I said softly. “I think I might have brought something back with me.”

“A not-entirely-pony?”

I nodded.

“Made out of shadows?”

I nodded again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“But how?”

“It was, um…” I thought back to my experience in the tunnel. The fear. The helplessness. The guilt. “…Inside my head,” I said with a whimper.

Roseluck, like me, is a cream-colored pony. When she realized what I meant, she turned marshmallow white.

“Do you still feel it?” Tremors in her voice.

I thought hard. Felt around inside. (If that makes any sense). “Hmmm. No, not a trace,” I said at last.

If anything, it was too quiet. The shadow was nowhere near us. But it was still watching somehow. Just hanging back, waiting. It had to be. I’d seen its thoughts back in the tunnel when we were connected. One way or another, it was coming to Ponyville.

“Something’s wrong," I said. “I can’t figure it out, it’s just...wrong. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“You’re not really making a compelling argument for why I should leave you here.”

“You promised!” I whined.

Roseluck stared me down. She couldn’t go back on a cupcake promise. Not no way. Not nohow. But it still ate her up inside.

“Think of Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So," I smiled. “Could you really deprive them of the best floral arrangement Ponyville has to offer?”

“Lyra and Bon-Bon.”

“Really?”

Roseluck nodded.

“About time.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“Yup!” I smiled.

She rolled her eyes.

“Look, I’ll be fine, I just--;” my lips stumbled over each other. There were words out there - ones that needed to be said - but they evaded my tongue. And left me with a vague sorta feeling. A silent impulse - not unlike the brain hornets from my dream, except I couldn’t quite put my hoof on it.

“It’s important I do this,” I said. “That you do this.”

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

“I’ll miss you," she said.

“Me too,” I sighed. “But I’m in a giant building full of grown-ups, and I can’t even get out of bed to get into any trouble. I’ll be fine.”

She nodded.

I didn’t tell her that I no longer trusted grown-ups. Fact is, I could barely bring myself to tolerate being around anypony taller than me. But that was besides the point.

For a long, long while we just sat there. She held my good hoof. The one with all the tubes and wires sticking out of it.

Finally, she asked, “You wanna tell me about this Twinkle?”

I sighed. “She was the most amazing filly I ever met.”

Roseluck nodded.

For a long time, we just sort of hung there, side by side, my hoof in hers. I didn’t really have anything more to say, and she was done pressing me.

“It’s wrong," she said at last. “Leaving you here like this.”

“I know,” I said, patting her as she finally let go of my hoof. “But you gotta do what you gotta do.”

* * *

I sent Cliff on his way too. I appreciated the support, and liked having them both around, but really, it could only help so much.

“ZZZZzzzznnnnng!” Cliff snored.

Rose actually had to trot back in and kick on him ‘til he rolled over.

“Whu, wuh, wuuhh?” Said Cliff.

"Time to go."

"I really, really, really need you to get that address for Misty Mountain before the library closes again for another stupid wedding or something."

"It was a royal wedding," said Roseluck.

"Pfft!” I said. “I flunked my science project ‘cause of it. They locked up that darn treebrary for a week without warning anypony."

"We did have a whole month to do it," said Cliff. "You should have-;"

"Humph," I said.

"So uh..." Cliff Diver yawned. "Misty Mountain."

"Yes."

He hugged me. "Leaving you here doesn't feel right."

"Would you guys stop with that? Please just get going before the library closes. I'll be fine. Promise."

Not a moment to lose! At least that was the official story. I tried not to think about it, or even admit it, but the more time he spent away from me, the safer Cliff Diver was gonna be. I could just picture his adorkable face covered in mine dust and blood, wincing and gasping like Twinkle had.

No. Not Cliff.

“Are you sure it’ll be okay?” He said to me.

“What?” I froze. "Did I just say my brain-thoughts out loud?"

“I’m worried what Twilight Sparkle will say. She seemed to think I was stupid.”

“You’ll be fine,” I replied. “You’re just looking up an address. Geez! What did she even say to you, anyway?”

“Well, you know how in Chapter 32 of Piercing the Veil, Professor Science writes about how some of these worlds might be so similar to our own, that they might be home to only slightly different-ish versions of ourselves?”

Roseluck and I looked at one another.

“Um...yeah?” I said.

“Well, I was trying to explain how close these Universes are together, right? Because you know, that might make a visit from pan-dimensional alicorns more plausible, right? I mean, that’s totally obvious.”

“Um...yeah," said Roseluck.

"...Totally obvious," I added.

“Well, you know what Twilight did when I told her about all this alternate world stuff? That there was alternate everything. Me, you, her.”

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep. Hospital silence.

“No.”

“She laughed at me! She laughed and she said at me, all sarcastical, ‘Alicorns. Mirror Worlds,'" Cliff did his best Twilight Sparkle impression, which wasn't very good. "’...What next? A world where I grow wings and fly?’” Cliff was mad. I could see him shaking. "She patted me on the head with her hoof and laughed at me. Can you believe that?”

"Pleeeease?" I said. "Misty has answers."

He nodded. Kissed my black hoof like a boo-boo, which, I'll be honest, came as a total surprise. I couldn't even stand the sight of the thing.

"Go on, get outta here," I laughed. "Fly on over to the library before it's too late."

Cliff cringed, and scuttled away shyly before I could figure out what the hell was wrong.

* * *

Rose left right after him. Hugs, kisses, promises to check on me, promises to come back in the morning.

It was the right thing to do - sending them away - the fair thing to do too. But the moment they actually set hoof out the door, I regretted it. I was alone. At my worst.

I lay there for Luna-only-knows how long. It was horribly quiet. Well, hospital quiet. Bleeps and bloops and hoofsteps and commotion.

Eventually, I got bored enough to reach for the giant glittery get well card from my classmates. There was literally nothing else to do.

Get healthier. It’s what you want to do.

From, Scootaloo

They all rhymed. Every last one.

No better friends than you and me,

Your personal idol, Diamond T.

Personal idol. Hard to believe, right?
Diamond Tiara was piggybacking on the class’ sympathy for me to boost her own popularity. A couple of days before, that might have gotten under my hide, but as I lay there, tubes in my veins, and Twink on my mind, nothing could make me care about Diamond T.

I looked over the signatures, the bright colors, and the hearts, and the scribbles, and the little cut-outs that got pasted on. I couldn’t even tell what half of them were supposed to be. It didn’t cheer me up any. If anything, I felt like all those happy children - all those well-wishes - were ten-hundred-million-thousand miles away. It was just so sweet. So innocent. They had everything that the Wasteland had stolen from Twinkle Eyes.

“You know, I wasn’t going to say anything,” came a squeaky little voice off somewhere to my left. “But I’d kill to have friends like yours. The owner of the voice let that sink in for a minute. “Why you wanna shove them away?”

A judgemental judgehead from the Land of Sunshine. Great. I craned my neck as best I could, but saw only curtains, dividing the room in half.

“I’m not shoving them away,” I said. “I wish they were here, but there’s, well, all this stuff that needs to happen.”

I don’t even know why I bothered to answer.

“Oh.” The filly on the other side of the curtain fell silent.

I kicked myself for blah-blah-blah’ing so openly. I hadn’t even asked if we were alone in the room! Cliff’s crazy theories, my mourning Twink, my argument with Rose. I must have looked like a real jerk. I brought my bad hoof to my face. The other one was still covered with tubes and wires.

As I looked at its inky inky blackness, I suddenly realized the sorts of conversations I’d been having. Evil hooves. Dead friends Not-quite-ponies. What else had this kid heard?

“Uh...uh. I don’t wanna bother you,” the voice said, quaking. “But is there a shadow monster after you?” She spoke in whispers. The poor thing had trouble even drawing breath.

Clonk! Clonk! Clonk! Clonk! Clonk! I smacked myself in the head with my bad hoof.

“No,” I said with a sigh. “There’s no such thing as monsters.”

I was so stupid. I’d been so careless!

“Oh. Ok,” said the filly behind the curtain, not terribly reassured.

For a long, long while, the voice was quiet, and I was left again with nothing but my own thinkiness. Bored out of my mind.

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

I took a deep breath and sighed again. Curtain Girl was right. I shouldn’t have sent my family away.

I turned to the giant get-well card. I had this image in my head of glitter getting in all of the medical machinery. Sparks flying out. Explosions. The whole nine yards. I almost wished it would happen. Anything would be better than just lying around.

I read all the other passages.

Hope you heal up real, real soon.

Yours in Apples,

Apple Bloom

Underneath it was Cliff Diver’s entry. Dark black writing. The only friend who had actually come to see me. The only message not written in pastel.

You haven’t died, you’re a survivor.

By Your Side,

Cliff Diver

By your side. That part stuck with me. I stared a long while at his scribbley hoofwriting. I didn’t deserve a friend like him.

The giganto page was covered with a whole bunch more notes that barely even rhymed, and a couple of random doodles of Power Ponies and Daring Do.

The last message was Blueberry Milkshake's. “I’m so sorry,” was all she wrote.

That and her name. No rhyme.

It hit me pretty hard. My almost dying had probably hit her pretty hard. She wasn’t my rock like Cliff and Rose were, but that didn’t mean she was heartless. We’d known each other our whole lives. We’d been through a lot together.

I could see her in my head, standing outside the hospital, itching to go inside. She’s always been terrified-edly afraid of hospitals. Who could blame her? I hated them too.

I ran my hoof absent-mindedly over the inside of the card, thinking about her. Blueberry might not have had all that crazy psychotic loyalty that Cliff did, but that’s an unfair comparison. Cliff was unusual. He thought the princesses were aliens. I still cared about Blue, and if my tea poisoning had affected her so bad, I was willing to bet I'd underestimated how hard it had been on everypony else.

I stared at that card. Pressed my hoof against it, for what good it could possibly do. I knew I couldn't reach through that oaktag and stroke Blueberry Milkshake's mane or anything, but still.

Eventually, I noticed a rough patch. The paper under her message felt weird to the touch.

I brought it in for a closer look. Underneath Blueberry Milkshake’s message was something else that she had apparently gone to a lot of effort to cross out. Under some glitter marker paste-ish crusty stuff was something that had been scribbled down frantically. I could only barely make out the words. “PS WE NEED TO TALK.”

It was unsettling.

Why had she written that? Why cross it out?

“Are you sure there aren’t any monsters?” The voice from behind the curtain interrupted.

“Yes,” I snapped.

“Ok. Sorry.”

After another long, awful silence, I gave up. “I’m sorry too,” I said. “I’m lousy company right now.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t really wanna talk about it.”

“Maybe I can help.”

“No offense,” I said. “But I doubt it.”

“Ok.”

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

So much time to kill. I actually started reading Professor Science’s nonsensical ramblings just so I'd have something to do. Two chapters into Lower the Moon – Fluctuations in the Celestio-Lunar Balance Field – A Dialectic Analysis of How Nightmare Moon Tore a Hole in the Fabric of Existence, I heard the voice again.

“Rose? That is your name, right?”

“Yeah,” I sighed.

“I’m sorry for your loss," she said.

I closed the book.

I was being a jerk. There was no way around it.

“Thanks,” I replied.

It was good to hear. This girl was sweet. Kind. One of the good ones.

“Listen,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m going through a lot right now. Can we start again? My name is Rose Petal.”

“Bananas Foster,” she replied.

“I’d shake your hoof right now, but I’m kinda hooked up to a bunch of wires and tubes and stuff like that. I owe you a hoof bump once we’re well enough to get outta bed.”

“No thanks.”

“What? Why not?”

The curtain parted, and I saw a yellow filly. She was actually older than me. A teenager. I’d expected something different from the smallness of her voice, and all that 'no such thing as monsters' stuff, but this girl had to be at least two years older than me. She wasn’t normal.

Her entire corner of the room was surrounded by this weird dome of magic. Almost like a bubble.

The girl lived in a bubble. And she was fragile. Afraid.

“If you touch me, I’ll die," she said.

* * *

Well, damn.

My jaw hung off my face by about a mile.

Pain makes you forget. You say things you wouldn’t ordinarily say. You do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do. (Even us “good ones,” as Twinkle once called me). You just plain forget that there are other things out there besides your pain, and it makes you kind of a dick.

I had been insanely rude to some kid who was living her entire life inside a bubble. The Wasteland had slammed me repeatedly with the harsh reality that what it means to be “good,” is sometimes actually kinda flexible depending on the situation. Slave revolts, violence, all that stuff. Extenuating circumstances. However, I’m pretty sure that, in all the craziness the world has to offer - past, present, or future - the one universal constant in any of it is: don’t be a cockmuffin to the bubble girl.

“Oh, geez! I’m--I’m…” I stammered. “I’m so sorry!”

Bananas Foster closed her eyes, took a deep breath and said, “Stop it.”

“What?”

“I don’t need your pity. I get plenty of that from the ponies who work here.”

“Sorry,” I repeated. “I’m not normally like this, I--;”

I struggled to find the words. Not even to excuse my behavior. Just to explain that this jerkface she was talking to - this cuntwaffle - wasn’t really what I was about.

Bananas just went back to her business. Arranging notes. She didn’t have much room to herself, but inside the weird glowing dome were stacks of books, notebooks, papers, pencils. It was almost like she’d built herself a fortress - an immaculate Fort o’ Knowledge.

“...I don’t feel like myself lately,” I told her.

It sounded like a weak excuse. But if I rambled all of the crazy stuff I was actually thinking, Bananas would just think I was throwing her more sympathy that she absolutely didn’t want. The truth is: I was really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really sorry.

“Who are you?”

“What?”

She just laughed at me. Giggled even. I marveled at how this girl could be stuck in a bubble with nothing but a bunch of books and stuff, and still find the energy to laugh. Still have enough light and hope left to, you know - shine like that.

“If you’re not yourself, then who are you?” Bananas Foster smirked at me. The damn girl knew exactly how cute she was. Her smile was like a little tiny needle stab straight to the heart.

“Somepony I’m not sure I like anymore," I said.

“Oh.” She frowned.

She didn't say much after that. I don’t think either one of us knew what to say.

In the silence that followed, I just lay there like a fool, staring at the ceiling. Counting the cracks.

I thought about Roseluck toiling away over her flowers. Without me. She was worried sick. I bet she fucking hated that.
I thought about Cliff, trying to pry Misty's information out of the town librarian without any talk about alien princesses from another dimension or whatever. I thought about Misty himself. What it might have been like for him. He'd been pretty weirded out by my presence in Trottica. I wondered if he was out there looking for answers too. Looking for me.

I thought about Twink.

“Not for nothing,” said the Girl in the Bubble. “But maybe you’d like yourself again if you didn’t push your friends away so much.”

“What business is it of yours?” I said.

“Hay,” said the girl. “You’re the one whining to me.”

“Am not!”

“Yeah, but you were.”

“I was being totally quiet”

“Yeah, ‘I hate who I've become, by the way, I'm gonna be totally quiet now for six whole minutes. I'm not whining I'm just sitting here and brooding about why I tried to kill myself.’”

Bubble Girl bobbed her head.

“I did not try to kill myself!”

“You ate a half a pound of sedative tea!”

“I was trying to get to sleep in a hurry cause I needed to see Twinkle!”

"The girl who died," she said dryly.

"Yes!" I squeaked.

Bleep-bleep.

I suddenly realized how crazy that sounded. How suicidal.

"Whatever," said the bubble girl. "Some of us are here ‘cause we have to be."

That girl had eyes that burned. She looked right at me and made me feel two inches tall.

“Look, I’m sorry to bring you into my problems. I don’t want to. It’s just complicated, okay?” I yammered. “Quit looking at me like that.”

Burn burn burnitty eyeballs of doom.

“Seriously, stop that.” I averted my eyes.

"You just shouldn't push your friends away like that. You don't like what I gotta say? Fine."

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

I faced that cold white ceiling again.

“Roseluck’s business is important, you know? And sometimes, well...you gotta do what you gotta do.”

“That’s a grown-up excuse," said Foster.

She'd backed into a corner. I mean, yeah, she was totally right, but still. It wasn’t that simple. It just wasn’t.

“Stop!" I squeaked. I finally turned to look at her. She was no longer burning. “That's not fair," I added. "Sometimes food-and-work-and-stuff-like-that really does have to come first.”

“Morals follow on?” She said.

Suddenly, the bottom of everything I thought I knew dropped out from underneath me like some kind of sick carnival ride.

“W-what did you say?” I asked with shallow breaths.

Bananas Foster whipped out some old tome covered with protective materials. “The Rise and Fall of the Discordian Empire. You were quoting Dusty Parchment, weren’t you? What he wrote about all those failed rebellions? ‘Food first, morals follow on?’”

Had Priestess Happy Sad read ancient history? Philosophy? Had such knowledge even survived the explosion-y future?

“‘If ye unite without embracing the spirit of friendship, ye have not united at all,’” Bananas read straight out of her book, then started hoofing through it idly for her own pleasure. “Ponies tried for years to take Discord down, you know, but they just kept fighting each other instead. You should read it sometime.”

It’s easy to condemn somepony like the Priestess - somepony capable of persuading others to do such horrible things. But it was pain that had made her that way. Anger. Resentment.

It’s just as easy to condemn all those villagers for buying it hook, line, and sinker. A Way of Life - a whole gift-basket of lies to go with it. Just so they wouldn’t have to face the fact that they were jerkfaces.

But when I hurt bad, I forgot about everypony else too. I had to shut it all out just to keep from hurting some more. Twink's gone, I'd thought. Nothing else matters.

I bit my lip and squeezed my eyes shut. I refused to cry. I didn’t want anypony’s sympathy. Certainly not from some girl in a bubble who had it way worse than I did. The air passed my throat like sandpaper as I tried to choke back my tears in silence.

Food first. Morals follow on? Fuck that. I decided. I’d rather starve. I never felt so disgusted with myself.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” I whispered.

Bananas started ringing a little bell, calling, “Nurse, nurse, nurse!”

“What? No!” I held up my hoof. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.”

Not that kinda sick.

Moments later, there were three nurses in the room - two mares and a colt - ready to rescue Bananas Foster. She just pointed the second she saw them and sent them over my way instead.

“No, really. Really. I’m fine," I said.

The male nurse came up on one side and started checking the machines and tubes and wires and all that junk. A tall blue mare was next to him, grumbling with a clipboard in her mouth. Nurse Redheart flanked me on the other side.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” She said.

“I’m fine. Really.”

She looked me over, then back at the nurse opposite her.

“Everything seems alright.” He shrugged.

The tall blue mare just sort of mumbled at me.

"Hay, I know you! You're a gosling!"

“A what?” She said.

“A doctor. I mean, you’re nursing, and doctor...ing.”

“I’ve been a nurse for a few years now, and decided that I wanted to train to --;”

Her voice trailed off into murmurs.

“You what?” The male nurse nudged her.

“Oh, what? What?” She looked at me. “I’ve been a nurse for a few years now, and decided that I wanted to train to be a doctor.”

She started to sway a little.

“Oh.”

The male nurse leaned over me.

“Don’t mind Prescription Pad, she hasn’t slept in a couple of days.”

“Oh,” I whispered.

I liked him. As a rule I like nurses better than doctors. I guess it’s because they actually care for you. Geese don’t do that. They tend to just kinda care at you. I could remember Nurse Redheart staying up all night to help me when I was little - to talk to me - to help my Mom. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that she didn’t have to do that at all. She could have gone home and gotten some sleep.

“You feeling okay?” Said the male nurse.

I lifted up my hoof - all dangling tubes and wires.

“When can I get rid of all this stuff?” I said.

“You haven’t even touched your pudding, honey," said Redheart.

The tray they’d brought me was sitting by my side next to Nursedoctor. The empty spot where Roseluck had sat and watched over me from just a few hours before.

The pudding looked like it sucked.

“If I eat, will you unhook me?”

Nursedoctor said, “No, but it’ll be the first step.”

Once she realized I was fine, Nurse Redheart looked past me straight at Bananas Foster. “What’s all this about?”

“She said she was feeling sick,” Foster answered meekly. “Honest.”

Nurse Redheart turned to her colleague. “Can you take it from here?”

I was already eating the pudding. Yup. Terrible.

The male nurse just nodded while she went over to Bananas Foster. Redheart slowly raised her hoof against the bubble.

“You hang in there, child," she said.

“I will,” Foster replied, bright as sunshine.

The nurse stood there for a short while, watching poor Foster, then perked her ears up and suddenly trotted on out the door in response to some noise from outside.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she said.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know?” I said to the girl.

“You said you were sick.” She shrugged.

What's up with her? I never knew a kid to holler for grown-ups so fast. I guess when you’re stuck in a bubble, you get used to calling for every little thing. Or maybe the little things actually were big things to her. I mean, if anypony touched her, apparently, she would die. As I lay there, all grouchy-like, the reality of that smacked me in the face. Had Bananas Foster ever even been hugged?

“Hospitals are no fun,” said the male nurse. “Are they?”

He was sitting beside me in Roseluck’s seat.

“Oh, hi,” I said.

I watched him for a minute as he watched over me.

“It seems like an eternity now,” he said at last. “But you’ll be out of here in no time. Just you wait and see.”

“And Bananas Foster?” I was really worried about her.

He ran his hoof through his mane. “Yeah, um, well…”

Right away, I was sorry I’d asked.

“We’re not allowed to discuss other patients.”

“Oh,” I said.

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

“Hay, Nurse?” Said Bananas Foster at long last.

“Yes?”

“It’s Wednesday,” she sang.

“Yes it is. Wait. Oh, gee…” the male nurse just sorta trailed off. “I’m not sure I’ll have time today.”

“But storytime!” She may have been older than me, but Foster pouted like a foal.
It was like...a whole other side to her. Fucking weird.

“I’ll try, I’ll really try," he swore.

The girl in the bubble looked like she was about to cry.

“I--; I--;”

“Paging Nurse Stethoscope. Paging Nurse Stethoscope.”

He brought his hoof to his face.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll try to be back here tonight. I really will. It’s just so--;”

“Nurse Stethoscope to ICU,” said the tinny voice in the megaphone. “Stethoscope to ICU.”

“It’s not usually quite so crazy around here.”

“I”ll come up with something,” I said.

“What?”

Time to quit hiding in the folds of my own brain. I couldn’t do much for Foster from where I lay, but I could find a way to occupy her. Keep her spirits up.

“We’ll find something to do - Bananas Foster and me.”

I gave him a hoof’s up.

Nurse Stethoscope nodded and darted off.

* * *

So apart from a a few nosy doctors poking their heads in, stabbing my big black evil hoof with needles, and jotting notes down when I screamed "ow", and of course, the occasional nurse, it was pretty much just Bananas Foster and me all day and all night.

“He's not coming back,” she pouted. She was still upset about Nurse Stethoscope.

“You don't know that.”

"’I'll try,’" she mimicked him. “That's grown-up for 'no.'"

I couldn't argue with her there.

“Do you really care that much about something called storytime?”

“It's boring here!” She snapped.

“See this?” She held up one of her books. “I read this one twenty-seven times.”

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

“I don't even like this book!”

She threw it against the wall of her bubble. To my surprise, it went straight through. Whacked right into a railing on my bed and wedged itself against my mattress.

"Okay then, um...well...once upon a time there was a sandwich named Ryelight Sparkle who came to Sandwichville to oversee the Summer Sandwich Celebration."

Foster looked at me. Just looked at me.

"Ok so not a sandwich fan."

“It's alright,” she said. “You tried.”

Then came more of that awful hospital silence. I was getting sick of that stuff. Fucking bleeps. Foster went back to writing in her notebook. I went back to digging at my itchy gums with my tongue. So fucking annoying.

Finally, I gave up and reached for the book she'd thrown. “Your bubble isn't book-proof?”

“It stops living things," she said “Germs. Ponies.”

“Ah. Neat," I replied.

She rolled her eyes.

“I mean…“What about you?” I said.

“I'm not book-proof.”

“I mean, when's the last time anypony asked you to tell them a story?”

“You want me to tell you a story?”

“No.” I scratched at my face. Fidgeted with that damn itch in my gums. “Just, you know, wanna know about you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

She looked at the ceiling. Ran her hoof through her mane. “Uh…”

“I mean. No pressure or anything. I don't mean to.”

“Well it's just that I'm not supposed to say,” Foster’s voice trailed off.

“It's ok, just...wait, what?! Why?”

“The doctors said it would scare everypony.”

“Who cares what those stupid geese say? What about your family?”

She shrugged and hid behind her mane. Fidgeted with her blanket.

In that moment, I knew.

“Oh,” I said.

Bleep-bleep, bleep-bleep.

“I'm sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks,” she replied.

All her masks. All her crazy. It all just sorta crumbled away.

Bananas Foster bit down on her hoof. Tried not to sob, but there were still tears all over her cheeks. She bit down even harder. Her hoof was starting to turn bright red. Finally, she caught her breath.

"I miss my brothers," she said at last.

"Jeez."

Her brothers? Somepony so young?

"I miss my Mom too," she coughed.

My heart skipped a beat.

"I know how you feel," I said.

She turned to me and stared me down with the fear, anger, and desperation of a wounded animal. Everything about her screamed "you don't know how I feel."

"My Mom!” I said. “She died when I was two...."

Yeah, I know. I put myself out there and opened up to a total stranger. Again. I needed practice keeping my fucking mouth shut.

"Your brothers," I added. "I don't...I can't even imagine."

She looked at me with so much hatred, I would have stumbled backwards had I been standing.

And then the moment was over. She took a deep breath, spat the words, “It’s okay,” grouchily, and that was that.

We both just sorta lay there. Alone in our separate bubbles.

She couldn't talk about it. I couldn't talk about it. At least not in the way I really needed to. And she was fucking pissed at me. I wasn’t even sure if I could’ve said anything differently. It totally sucked.

I wished with all my heart that I could just rip my tubes out, go over there and stroke her mane. But of course that was impossible.

"Bananas?" I said.

She didn’t reply.

As she sat on the corner of her bed, waiting for me to ask what I wanted to ask anyway, I suddenly heard another one of those whispers in my brain. A simple phrase. I honestly can’t say where the hell it came from, because it wasn't like all that other stupid hornet stuff. It came from me. Somehow, if that makes any sense. But it was a message just the same. And it just sorta spilled right out of my mouth.

"There's always the bomb," I whispered.

“What's that?” Said Foster.

She was caught so off guard that her anger melted away. I was caught so off guard, that my anxiety melted away too. I found myself laying there, on the cusp of talking about the fucking apocalypse to a stranger who was totally batshit insane.
Still, I knew that I had to. Not just to get through an awkward night alone with a stranger. Not just to get my own baggage off my chest. But to get through to Bananas. To help her.

I couldn’t have explained the feeling even if I’d tried, but there was still some of my heart left intact - even after Trottica, and it suddenly woke up on me, right then and there. I followed.

“Hey, um...Bananas? Do you want to hear a different kind of story?”

* * *

I remember back when Twilight Sparkle’s brother-I’d-never-heard-of got married to a princess-I’d-never-heard-of, and I flunked my science project because the library shut down for a week. I was mad. Real mad. 'Til I read all those eyewitness accounts of what had actually happened at the Royal Wedding.

I remember feeling alone because everypony else was sooo thrilled that True Love had won the day, that they forgot all about the one thing that should have been haunting their nightmares. I'd dropped the newspaper all over the floor when I realized it.

Princess Celestia was weak.

The most powerful pony in all of Equestria - a fucking immortal alicorn - and she was taken down like a chump by some bug lady, all because she had eaten recently. The love of one guy.

For a while, I’d felt like the world had ended. I slept with a lamp burning in my room. I flinched when I stepped around corners. I kept waiting for civilization to collapse upon itself or something. But it didn’t. It was just business as usual everywhere I went. Folks buying fruit at the market. Kids going to school. Shopkeepers selling stuff.

It wasn’t 'til I saw what life was like for ponies after civilization actually did go kaboom that I finally understood.

The world is a fragile thing. You have to believe in it. Celestia’s power didn’t come from being the most magical pony in all of Equestria. The place we know and love stays true to itself, not because she is invincible, but because we all believe in her. Because when we all pitch in for the greater good, we believe in ourselves. All because of a simple bedtime story. The beautiful myth that Celestia has everything under control.

The Wasteland was totally dead. The war had poisoned everything, but in two whole centuries, they could have fixed it if they’d put their minds to it. The real problem was that nopony believed in themselves anymore. Nopony believed in each other. The Wasteland was a place where stupid actresses could just waltz right into some horrorshow down-on-their-luck town, tell a halfway-engaging story, and bam!! Something to believe in. Something to work for. Something to kill for.

A story is a powerful thing. Bigger than princesses. Bigger than bombs.

I trusted Bananas Foster with my story because she needed a friend, and I needed to follow my heart a little. What I didn’t know is that it would end up saving my life.

* * *

I rambled a bit. Told her about my cutie mark quest, and the explosion, and the screaming of millions of ponies coming from inside my brain. I got as far as the billboard before she snapped. The zebra with the cauldron.

Foster dropped all her papers on the floor and brought her hooves up to her mouth.

“No,” she whispered.

It's hard to take news of the apocalypse well. Unless you're Cliff, of course.

“Zebras fighting ponies. You’re sure that’s what made the uh…”

“Big kaboom?”

Bananas nodded frantically.

“Yeah.”

I started to tell her more, but she just sort of stared off into space. I wasn’t even sure she was listening anymore.

“Bananas?” I said. “You okay?”

She nodded.

“What is it?”

Just then, Nursedoctor poked her head in the door. “Night time, girls."

"Ah!" I yelped.

"The rest of the ward’s sleeping.” She let out a great big yawn herself as she closed the curtain between Bananas Foster and me.

Not that it mattered, the bubble girl had a lever.

Disappearing as quickly and as drowsily as she had come, Nursedoctor left a horrible silence between us kids.

“Foster?”

She didn’t answer.

“Hello?”

Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

“I think I’m gonna get some sleep,” she whimpered at last.

I would have pushed the subject a little further. Something was clearly wrong with the bubble girl. But at that exact moment, I got a little distracted. The source of all that damn itching finally came loose.

It was a hair. A purple hair.

Misty Mountain’s tail hair. There in my hoof.

It wasn't till I held it up to the light that I realized what I had there in my hoof. It was a strand of Misty Mountain's tail, brought back with me through the centuries.

Ordinarily, I'm a real graceful-like pony. Not the slightest bit accident prone. But I was weak. Focusing my eyes was an effort. Gripping it between my hooves was, likewise, an effort.

What if I drop it? I thought. They'll sweep it away!

I needed that hair. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but fuck, I needed the damn thing.

In desperation, I reached for the one thing I could think of to hide the hair in. To keep it safe before I smuggled it home. My giant glittery get well card. I flossed it right into that rough spot where Blueberry Milkshake had crossed out her note with paste and paint.

And hoped that I could keep it safe until morning.

Then I just lay there. Terrified. For a long, long time.

If only I hadn't sent my family away, I thought. So stupid.

Clonk. 2x4 o' Friendship.

Yeah, thanks, Twink.

My world was spinning out of control. I felt like I was gonna vomit. My heart was pounding like a bass drum. The future of Equestria was tucked loosely into an arts-and-crafts project. And the memory of my best friend kept whacking me in the head, telling me to feel good about myself. I was so freaked out, I literally couldn’t tell which way was up, and which was down. But then, I heard a terrible sound, and everything sort of snapped right back into place. That old familiar warning. The barking of dogs.

Oh, no, I thought. Not again. Not here.

Dogs!

CHAPTER TWELVE - DOGS
"The present has no rhythm." -Daft Punk

Dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs. They were are always right there. In my dreams. In the Wasteland. Barking whenever I stood at the threshold of something really big.

But it was just noise. Weird sounds off in the distant hills or something. Never, you know, actual dogs.

Lemme back up a bit. I was laying there in the hospital bed, clutching the get well card that I'd hidden Misty Mountain's nasty old tail hair in. It was an actual for-real relic from the Wasteland. Something I could hold. Something I could touch. Proof that all that crazy shit had actually happened. More importantly, it was a reminder of my Trottica friends.

I clutched that card like it was one of those life saver donuts they huck at ponies who fall out of boats.

Bananas Foster was still behind her curtain. A major relief. I didn’t want anypony to see me freaking out and panicking.

Where did it come from? Why just the hair? What else could I take with me?

I whipped the get well card open to make sure it was still safe, and slammed it shut just as quickly. Then, oof! It dawned on me: I probably should handle the thing a bit more gingerly. So I freaked out all over again cause I thought I might have screwed it up. A gentle peek confirmed that the hair was fine.

Still, there was a giant question mark made out of fire and nails and acid and snakes bouncing around the inside of my head. Why? Not to mention its twin sister, The-Fuck-How?

I could hear crying behind the curtain. Foster was coming apart back there. She wasn’t whining at nurses. She wasn’t criticizing my friendship skills. She wasn’t making a plea for storytime or any stupid shit like that. Just sobbing to herself in little whispers. For once trying not to be heard.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she coughed.

"Are you sure?"

But she didn't answer after that, so I left her alone. Maybe she was as off-the-wall crazy as Cliff Diver, and she actually believed me. News of the apocalypse might have been a bit too much to take in before bedtime. Or maybe she was just plain crazy in some totally different way I wasn’t prepared to deal with. She was a teenager who acted like she was six-years-old. Who could even tell with her?

The point is that between her whimpers, the chirps of the medical bleep-a-majigs, and the sound of my own panicky heart climbing up into my head and thumping away like a hammer against the inside of my skull, I couldn't hear very much else.
But eventually I grew aware of it. The barking sound.

When I realized what it was, I gripped that get well card so hard I crumpled a corner of it in my hoof.

"Oh, no." I thought. "Not here.”

Why did I send my family away?! What if I dreamt again while in the fucking hospital? Woke up with bizarre injuries? Thrashed in my sleep and said things nopony ought to hear? Sweet Celestia, what if I died that night, and Roseluck and Cliff spent their rest of their lives going "If only, if only, if only!"?

I looked around me. Not a sign or a clue that I might be in a dream. Nothing. Just a boring empty old room with a bunch of useless medical junk in it.

Then I heard a great baying howl. It was getting closer, louder. More articulate. That’s not supposed to happen!
Whatever was making that noise, it was fucking there. In the hospital with me. This Wasteland dogthing. It had actually found my scent somehow, and it was coming.

That or my mind had taken a giant high dive out the window into a swimming pool full of cottage cheese, mane conditioner, and spatulas, and I’d just lost all ability to tell the fucking difference between present and future.

"Bananas!" I whispered.

No reply.

"Hey, Foster, you hear that?"

Again, she said nothing. Just sniffled to herself and ignored me.

"Foster!!” I finally snapped; I couldn’t take her silence anymore.

But still, she gave no reply. Then I heard the barking again. It was close.

“Luna, help me. Luna, help me. Luna, help me.” I chanted to myself.

In my condition, I was pretty sure at that point that nopony else could.

I folded the card up in a hurry, shimmied and wedged the thing safely under my back. Then pasted my eyes to that bucking door. No dog, or shadow, or monster, or pony was going to pry Misty Mountain's nasty old tail hair from me. I gripped the sheets and shook with anger at the mere thought of it.

"No way. I whispered to myself. "No fucking way."

Bang! Crash! Yelling. Screaming just outside my door.

The nurses! They were out there with that thing. The thought of them getting all killed and mutilated and eaten up on my watch was so horrifying that I forget to breathe. I needed to get up. To get help. To get them help. Those nurses never did anything to hurt anypony!

“Argg!” I grunted in frustration.

Why couldn't the fucking dog have come when more goose doctors were on duty? It could eat as many of those jerkface fucks as it wanted to.

I tugged gently on one of the tubes, to see if I could get it out of my hoof. No way.

It's not like in the books you read. You can’t just yank them out and then go trotting along on your merry way, fighting zombies.

Scramble, scramble, scramble, scramble, scramble.

Something zipped down the hallway right past my door. I didn't even hear it coming.

“Buck, buck, buck, buck, buck!” I tried tugging on the wires again, but there was just no way.

That thing hurt like crazy. There's a needle in there!

"Somepony get some rope!" Nurse Stethoscope shouted from just outside my door.

Rope?

“I got it, I got it!” Called another.

No one shouts for a rope to tie down The Living Embodiment of Their Own Most-Awfulest-of-Fears.
I held up my evil hoof. Tapped it as though it were broken. The damn thing wasn’t even cold.

The barking in my dreams had showed up just before the end, right? Just before I woke up. Each and every time. I mean, the dogs show up right before something big happens. That's what they do.

But that didn’t make them Evil. Not necessarily.

I took a deep breath and silenced the orchestra of rambling voices in my head. I couldn't run or fight. I couldn't even sit up properly, but this was still my problem - my apocalypse to deal with, and this monster dog-a-majig was bothering my fucking nurses. I had only one option, as much as I hated to admit it. And it scared the buck out of me.

I swallowed hard and told the cowardly pirate inside my head to get stuffed.

“Come here boy, come here!” I said in my sweetest voice - raspy and fucked up though it may have been. “Who's a good dog?"

"Are you nuts?" Foster finally spoke up. "Sssshhh!"

"Sure, now you hear me!" I snapped. "You alright?"

"Ssssh!" She replied.

I took that as a yes.

“Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?” I continued.

As I paused to catch my breath, I found that the barking had actually stopped. The clamoring too. It had noticed me.
Either I was a total genius, or I had about fifteen seconds before I got turned into rosemeat.

Before I could think on it any further, the thing bounded right on in - fast as lightning in a hurry - and before I could even flinch, it was already on top of me.

"Eek!"

Yes, I literally said eek. It slobbered on my face and pinned me down with its crushing weight. Definitely friendly. But it licked my eye of all places and I still couldn’t see a damn thing. It was actually hurting me.

"Ow stop that!" I squirmed.

The thing had the worst breath I had ever smelt. Like really, really, really, really, really old oatmeal. But it listened.
It stopped licking me the moment I told it to, and when I rubbed my face with my only free hoof, it didn’t give any resistance.
Just looked me square in the eyes. And that's when I finally got a look at hers.

"What the--;"

The damn bark-y thing was a pony! A fucking pony. A crazy blue lady with hair like a birds nest.

"Uh, hi." I said.

She lunged her face at me again, and tried to lick at me some more, but I wouldn’t have it.

"No!" I snapped. “Stop it. Sit!”

Again, she actually listened to me. And sat. Right there on top of my leg.

"Rose, Rose, are you okay?" said Bananas Foster in a panic.

The crazy dogmare turned to face the curtain and growled.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine." I grunted, trying not to let it show that the weight of a full grown pony on my leg actually hurt quite a lot.

Next thing I know the room is full of nurses and orderlies.

The Dog Lady hopped off me in a rush and scurried under my hospital bed.

“Oof!” I oofed as she stepped on my stomach.

Once I caught my breath, I found that the room was totally still. All the grown-ups were staring at me. Frozen in place.

“I’m fine!” I yelled as best as I could through all the coughing. “Don’t hurt her, she’s harmless.”

But Nurse Redheart was stepping closer and closer to me, inching up slowly. The fear in her eyes told me something was terribly wrong. Something I couldn’t see.

“She’s harmless.” I whispered.

With a grunt, I turned myself over on my side, and reached my evil hoof over the edge of the bed. I was just feeling my way around for the dogmare. But one tiny motion, and the whole room gasped at once. It sounded like steam escaping.

“Don’t move.” Said Redheart. “Please, just hold still.”

I did as I was told. It was no easy position to hold, leaning over my own IV, dangling my other hoof over the edge, but I didn’t dare move. I wasn't stupid.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

Before the nurse could answer, my hoof brushed up against the mane of the crazy dog lady. She licked my hoof in reply.

“Its gonna be okay, girl.” I patted her head. “Shh.”

Then I felt something else down there and realized why everypony was so tense.

"Listen," said Nurse Redheart. "Were not gonna hurt her. You're right.”

She tip-hooved closer. “She's harmless. But she’s very close to a lot of machinery and important stuff running into your hoof."

I knew that. I could feel it. I glanced over at the tubes and wires that I'd tried to get free from just a minute ago.

“If she knocks into them, you could get hurt," said Redheart both calm and cautious-like. "Do you understand?"
I nodded.

The dog lady looked up at me from underneath the bed. She knew damn well that playtime was over. But she didn't run. She just sat there looking at me with these fragile lunatic eyes. They screamed at me for help. Threw a trust at my hooves so complete - so unconditional - that it actually frightened me a little.

My own eyes started to water in reply.

Nurse Stethoscope and the Nursedoctor inched closer, but the dogmare tensed and growled at them.

“Shh!” I said quickly. “I’m gonna call you Queenie. Do you like that name?”
It was literally the first thing to pop into my head.

She looked up at me from under the bed with such elation and joy that I almost forgot to breathe.

“Actually.” Nursedoctor said. “Her name is Screw Loose.”

"Do you mind?" I snapped. "I'm trying to--;"

Queenie thrust her head all the way out from under my bed to growl at him. It tugged on the tube so hard I could actually feel it.

“Ow,” I winced meekly.

Stethoscope smacked Nursedoctor in the shoulder.

Nursedoctor smacked him right back. “You got some nerve. You’re the one who started this whole stupid thing. I told you to quit teasing the dog.”

“Oh come on, it was just--;”
“Out, everypony out.” Said Redheart.

“What?”

“Too many chefs.” She snapped. “Out. Now.”

Bleep-bleep.

They did as they were told and tiphooved out the door.

“It’s gonna be okay, Queenie.” I said.

I pet her till she stopped growling.

“Why do you even keep that crazy dog around?” Whined Bananas Foster.

That got Queenie all revved up and barking again.

“Ow,” I winced. My eyes watered up some more, this time just because of the pain in my hoof.

“Bananas, quiet!” Said Nurse Redheart, never taking her eye off of me. “Stethoscope!”

He came galloping back.

“Keep the kid occupied until Rose is safe.”

Nurse Stethescope nodded.

“Hey, but--;” Bananas’ started to protest being dismissed, but her whining kinda trailed off when Stethoscope pulled up a stool beside her. After that point, all I could make out over there was a bunch of murmuring. I guess Bananas Foster got her storytime after all.

Meanwhile, I pet the dog lady’s head frantically. My good hoof - the one with the tubes in it - was starting to hurt.

“Please, calm down.” I whimpered at her. “Please.”

Queenie watched me carefully with great big soulful eyes. She saw the pain I was in. But all she could do was look at me sadly. Then, out of nowhere, this little flicker ran across her face. I could see it. It was a weird moment, where she just sorta looked around. At me. At the nurses. At the tubes.

And that was when the poor thing went pale with horror. Queenie realized that she was the cause of my pain.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, petting her as best I could, but damnit, my hoof really fucking hurt. “It’s okay.”

I was short of breath. It was getting harder to talk.

Nurse Redheart spoke up again. “Listen, I need you both to stay calm, and--;”

Her voice trailed off, not out of fear, but amazement.

Screw Loose was calmly disentangling herself from my tubes and wires. Her movements seemed less dog-like - just for an instant. And then, just like that, she was out from under the bed. She looked over her shoulder at me. She wanted so bad to say she was sorry. I could tell. But she couldn’t even muster a whine.

Instead, Queenie slunk away, tail between her legs, toward Nurse Redheart, who sorta stood there speechless. The poor thing didn’t even flinch or try to run when Nurse Stethoscope reached for his rope. Just sat meekly at Redheart’s heel, crying.

“No ropes.” Said the head nurse.

“But--;”

“No ropes.”

Redheart patted Queenie on the head. Queenie was sobbing now. Heaving. It was one of the most unnerving things I’d ever seen. A grown mare. Coming apart like that.

“Check the injection site.” Redheart said to the other nurse.

Next thing I knew, he was all over my hoof, checking the machines. Prodding at the tubes. Tapping gauges.

“She’s okay.” Stehtescope gave the hooves up.

“Keep an eye on her.” Said Redheart. “I’ll be right back.”

She turned to the dog lady, and said. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

Queenie followed without protest, head hung low. Too ashamed to even look my way. She knew what had almost happened.

It was truly tragic. Just pony enough to understand. Still too much of a dog to really cope. Screw Loose whined with each dragging hoofstep. Just listening to it tore my soul into pieces.

“Queenie,” I called to her with effort.

Nurse Redheart stopped and stood in the doorway. The dog turned vaguely in my direction to face me, but still averted her eyes in shame.

“You’re a very, very good dog.” I said.

Bam! A thousand pounds lifted from the crevices in her face. All at once. She literally leapt with joy and bounced up and down, looking up to Nurse Redheart as if to say, “Did you hear that? Did you hear that? Didya? Didya? Didya?”

They trotted out the door together. Queenie with held her head up high. She was a good dog. I’d told her so!

“Be right back,” Redheart called to us, already in the hallway.

I was left alone with Nurse Stethoscope. At first he didn’t say anything. Didn’t make eye contact. Nothing. The bleep-a-majig just chirp-chirp-chirp-ed away, and that was that.

It was so quiet, I heard every little hook and ring on Bananas Foster’s curtain as it dragged across the rack. She was watching. Kinda timid. Kinda hopeful. That girl was strangely obsessed with Nurse Stethoscope and his stupid story time. It was sad in its own way.

I just ignored them both and waited for Redheart to get back. I needed to hear that Queenie had made it back okay. That she wasn’t scraping away at the door of whatever room they kept her in. That she wasn’t howling to be let out and see me again.
She was a fragile dog.

“You're very lucky there,” said Good Old Stethoscope with a smile as he tapped the machine.

I just stared him down in reply. That bastard had messed with my friend. And I wanted him dead.

Luckily, he backed off. Stumbled backwards in a hurry like I was some kind of poisonous snake.

Bleep-bleep.

Stethoscope and I were alone together for a little while. And he looked at everything in the whole damn room, so long as it wasn’t me. The ceiling. The floor. The meters on the machines. Any excuse to avoid eye contact.

Somehow he reminded me of tunnel number two back in the Trottica mines. The stampede. Kids who were all about unity, and togetherness, and fighting the good fight until the lights went off and nopony was watching. Then they dropped their druggos like sacks of moldy pears. Just 'cause they could. 'Cause nopony would ever know.

Nurse Stethoscope was like that. He was all "Hey, kids," one second, and, “Let me tell you a story,” and acted super friendly and nice. ‘Till you got him alone with somepony who couldn't tattle on him. Then he was a druggo-dropper. Which makes him worse than a fucking shadow thing if you ask me, cause at least with them, you know exactly what kind of evil you’re dealing with.

I watched him closely. He was way more tired than he had been just a few minutes before. What did that druggo-dropping fuck do to Queenie? I thought.

I would’ve asked, but if this guy’d babbled some dumb excuse about how all he’d done is tease her a little bit. How it was just some good fun. How he didn't mean any harm by it. Or any of that shit, I would have ripped that stupid needle out of my hoof, lunged across the room and stabbed him in the eye with it.

The only thing keeping me from doing it that very second was the knowledge that, at the very least, Queenie seemed to be physically alright.

In any case, Nurse Stethoscope was smart enough to shut the hell up, and quit trying to win me over, but the second that Redheart came back, he was out of there. That swell guy persona is hard to keep up when there's a broken-hearted, furious little kid staring you down, and he couldn't wait to get away. Didn't even stop to say goodbye to Bananas Foster who actually kinda needed him in a weird messed-up way that I couldn't quite put my hoof on.

* * *

Nurse Redheart trotted up to me and asked to examine my leg. I nodded.

“You alright?" She said, trying to be all reassuring.

“I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine!” I said. “Is Queenie okay?”

Redheart bit back a smile. “Screw Loose has had a long night, but yes, she's doing just fine now.”

I sighed relief.

“Really?”

“She’s sleeping.” Redheart chuckled. “I’ve never seen her so content.”

“Content?”

She nodded with a smile.

Content. What kinda dog is content after getting her escape thwarted? After getting locked up all over again? What kinda pony even?

Nurse Redheart put her hoof on my shoulder and whispered, “Can I let you in on a little secret?”

“Um...Sure.”

“I think you're the best thing that ever happened to that mare.”

Holy Celestia, way to stab me right in the heart with a fork made out of sunshine and happiness. I smiled so hard it squeaked.

“I need you to do me a favor, though.” She leaned in and whispered even more quiet-like.

Not even Bananas Foster could hear us.

“What is it?”

“I need you to be totally quiet about this.”

Before I could even ask why, Nurse Redheart explained that she was going to have to write up a whole bunch of stupid paperwork about what had happened that night, and while she didn't know what she was going to say, she was damn sure it wasn't going to be the truth.

I zipped my lip and mimed putting the zipper in my pocket, even tho I didn't actually have any pockets. Then we got some more of that hospital silence. Not the awkward kind. Just a quiet understanding.

Bleep-bleep.

Queenie was off sleeping tight somewhere. Content. Thinking about me. I was so happy to hear that - you have no idea - but at the same time I had to wonder. What the buck? Had the evening actually turned out better for her than she’d planned? The more I thought about it - the sadder it all seemed. She never expected to get away at all.

Queenie wasn’t a dog. She knew exactly how fucked she was. Her mind was way too smart - way too pony for carefree romps through the hallways at the end of a broken leash, or mad dashes for escape. But she still couldn’t hatch a real plan. The way she’d allowed herself to be lead away at the end? She never really dreamed of what it might be like to ever get the buck out of there. She was just stealing a moment.

Maybe I’m putting words in her mouth that she wouldn’t actually say, and thoughts in her head that had never actually crossed her mind. But to me, it seemed that Queenie was stuck where she was. And all she could ever hope for was a moment of power - a tiny little protest - a song of freedom. Like I had back in Trottica.

It broke my heart and confused the hell out of me just to think about it.

“Nurse?” I said at last, disrupting our little silence.

“Yeah?”

“Why is she like that?”

Redheart just sighed. “Some ponies. Sometimes their brains just don't play by the rules.”

“Was she always like that?” I pressed the issue tenaciously the way only a child can. “I mean did she just wake up one day, and snap, and decide she was sick of being a pony or something?”

I wouldn’t blame her if she had. After mistaking the howls of a pony for an interdimensional monster traveling from the future to try and kill me, I had to wonder if before all this bomb drama was up, I might just end up barking mad myself.

“That, I can't say.” Redheart replied. “Somepony found her wandering the Everfree Forest lost and confused a couple of years ago.”

Poor thing.

“Ooh!” I exclaimed. “When can I see her again?”

Nurse Redheart took her hat off and ran her hoof through her hair. Looked away from my eyes. Not good.

“But you can't!” I squeaked.

She shoved her hoof against my mouth and shushed me. She didn’t remove it till I stopped squeaking, which was an admittedly long time.

“Mm hmmm eeeeeeeem! Ennnggggm mm mmmm mmm mnnngggh! Unnn mmmm meeemmuuu mummmm!”

“Rose,” she said at last. “You can’t just check her out of here, take her home with you, drop a water dish on the floor, and expect everything to be okay. You do understand that, sweetie, don’t you?”

Bleep-bleep.

“Well, when you put it like that…”

I closed my eyes. It sounded so stupid when you said it out loud. But it was also what I was kinda hoping might happen. I knew Screw Loose wasn't exactly a real dog, but I also knew that getting to live like one is what she would want most. Look at how instantly she fell in love with me. All for a kind voice and a couple of pets.

“She is a very sick pony,” said Redheart. “And there is no doctor in Equestria who’s gonna let a kid leap head first into the life of somepony who is sick like that, especially if you start telling her that she actually is a dog.”

“But--;”

Plunk. She shushed me again. Hoof in mouth and all.

When I was quiet, she leaned in real close and whispered in my ear, “But no doctor in Equestria saw what I just saw either.”

I had to jerk my head away just to get a look at her face to make sure she wasn’t teasing me. What was she getting at? Could I actually see Queenie again?!

“That mare made more progress tonight than in all the years she’s been here combined. I can’t ignore that.” Redheart shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “Just give me some time to figure this out, okay? Can you do that for me please?”

I nodded sadly.

She didn’t say anything else on the subject, but she didn’t really have to. Hospitals aren't these places that you just wander into whenever you're sick, or hurt, or something, and they whistle a little tune and take care of you, and it’s all just hunky dory. Everything is paperwork, and forms, and big fat goose-ministrators telling everypony else what to do. It’s a bunch of stupid crap that everypony hates cause it makes everypony's life more difficult - doctors, nurses, patients - everypony. But for some stupid grown-up reason, they all just keep on doing it that way anyhow.

Redheart went back to messing with my tubes and wires. Acting all casual, like we hadn’t just had a great big secret conversation about Screw Loose. It was only when she finally got out of the chair that I realized that she had actually been holding my hoof the whole time. I suddenly wished she hadn’t let go.

“It was the tape coming loose,” said Redheart all of a sudden - a bit too loud, a bit too clear.

She’d have made a lousy spy.

“You're very lucky.”

“Tape?” I said.

“That's what hurt you so much.”

“Oh,” I rubbed my hoof.

It didn’t feel like luck.

“That stuff’ll rip your flesh off,” she said, surprisingly blunt.

“You got some rest now, child. The sooner you get better, the sooner you can get out of here.”

I sighed.

“And the sooner,” Redheart brushed my mane from my face and lifted my chin, “That you and your sister can start filling out visitors forms.”

When she whispered those last two words, they hit me like a shovel to the face. I could see my dog again! Getting out of bed - getting better - suddenly became the most important thing that I could ever hope to do.

I vowed then and there never to fail Screw Loose. And if I was gonna live up to that vow, I had a lot of work to do.

* * *

Roseluck. Cliff Diver. The ponies closest to me in the whole wide world. They couldn’t get me to stop moping. Even the memory of Twinkle Eyes, armed though she was, could only smack me when I was being a jerk to myself. None of them could light a proper fire under my flank.

But I had a goal to work towards now - one that wasn’t tainted by death, or slavery, or whiny piratetry. And this grown mare. This dog. She was counting on me.

Nurse Redheart straightened out her hat, gave a final glance at the bleep-a-majig, and kissed my forehead. Totally the last thing in the world I was expecting her to do, but I needed that. I mean really needed it. I didn’t even realize how badly I'd needed a forehead kiss until she went and did it. And when it was over I looked up at her and smiled, wondering how in the world she knew.

After a long and tranquil moment of smiling right back at me, she finally turned to leave.

“Please…” I called out, holding back the tears in my eyes.

She stopped. Cocked her head in concern.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

“Please, um…” I took a deep breath, and a deep sigh. “Tell her I love her, okay?”
I felt kinda stupid for saying it, but Redheart didn't seem to think so.

“You have a good heart,” she said to me. “Just like your mother.”

* * *

I lay there for a long, long, long, long while. Just like your mother.

Nurse Redheart had taken care of Mom in her dying days. It was Redheart who’d come running when the bleep-a-majig stopped and I was left crying in my mother’s bed - Redheart who’d held me whenever Mom couldn’t.

They may not have known each other for very long, but you can get awfully close to someone in an awfully short time when they are dying. So I wondered what it was that Nurse Redheart saw in me that was worthy of my mother.

I couldn’t begin to imagine.

All my life, I thought of Mom as this perfect being. This vague memory of warmth and solace and comfort. But who was she really? What did she do all day? What did she like to talk about? What would it be like to just sit down and talk to her?

No matter how many stories Roseluck told, I would never really know. Never really understand. Because to me, Mom was a feeling. An abstract. Something as awe-inspiring and earth-shatteringly amazing as a great big starry sky. In my mind, she was a deep and perfect mystery.

The idea that I might in some way be like her?

Wow.

Everypony is Broken

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - EVERYPONY IS BROKEN
"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view — until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." - Harper Lee

One of the good ones. Just like your mother. Ponies kept telling me I was good folk. But it was still kinda hard to believe, you know? Cause what do they know? Other ponies can only see the stuff that you do. Not the crazy stuff running through your head as you're doing it.

The Sub Mine F's. The cloak-o nurses you rough up. The kids you abandon cause trying to save them just doesn't add up when you weigh the pro's and con's of it.

But maybe Nurse Redheart was on to something. “You have a good heart.” She’d told me. Maybe that's the part that counts. The part that tries in the first place - the part that cares.

I was only just starting to understand what a rarity that was. In ponies past, present, and future.

If you think about it, all the kids of Trottica really needed was to believe in themselves. Stirring Nurse Redheart's words around in my brain like thinky cake batter, I wondered if maybe that belief that I had - that hope - was the good heart that my Mom would have approved of.

The good one that Twink had seen in me.

Ordinarily questions like this just rattle around my head until they wear me out or smack me with an idea, but as I lay there in my hospital bed, tuning out the bleep-a-majig, I felt a warm glow all over.

Screw Loose loved me. Needed me. And Mom. Wherever she was, she might actually even be proud of me. The idea was cloud nine.

“Rose?” Said Bananas Foster from out of nowhere.

“Huh?”

I blinked. Remembered I was in the fucking hospital. It was not a pleasant transition.

“What?” I snapped at her.

Real good-hearted of me, right?

I turned to her. Expected her to say something nasty about Screw Loose. To try to get more story time. To complain about how Nurse Stethoscope was gone. Anything. But Foster just sat there twittering her hooves. When I looked closer, I saw that she was actually really shaking. The poor girl was terrified.

Before I could even ask what was wrong, she hit me with the big question. “How does all the zebra hate start?”

I had no answer but stunned silence.

“How does it start?!” Bananas Foster yipped at me in panic and desperation.

“I...don’t know.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard.

“Then can you tell me some more of your story please?” She was pressing her hoof against the magic bubble now. “I have to know.”

“About zebra hate?”

“About everything.”

Bananas Foster left me in awe. Eyes wide open. All that time, my thoughts had been about the war. The actual bomb. The princesses. But you can’t stop a war with a letter to the princess. War is like this tidal wave that sucks everything and everypony up into a giant frenzy, tosses them around, and spatters them against the rocks till there’s nothing left of them but mist. Even the winners end up in tears when all’s said and done. Trottica taught me that.

But Foster was on to something. She had come along - this kid who’d known nothing but the inside of a bubble - and just cut it all straight to the core.

Forget the bomb. Forget the war. If we played our cards right, there was a slim chance that maybe. Just fucking maybe, we could stop the hate.

The problem was, first we had to figure out where we ponies went wrong.

For the second time in a single night, I had been way too hard on Bananas Foster. I felt like a big stupid jerkface from Jerkland. So she acts a bit immature. I thought. So she feeds a little on the attention and pity of others. So what?

Bananas Foster couldn’t help being needy any more than I could help pushing my own inner pirate deep, deep, deep way down inside to yarrrr at me in silent tears. We’re both messed up. Both broken.

But she cared. She had a good heart. That did count for something.

Besides, last I checked, Bananas Foster hadn’t had a great big stupid freak out because she thought a barking pony was actually an otherworldly shadow-thing from the future coming to get her. I wasn’t in a position to judge.

* * *

So once again, I found myself opening up to her, even though I didn’t appreciate her attitude toward Queenie. She was in it now as deep as me. And maybe, I thought. Between her ability to quote ancient texts, and her perspective on pony nature, she might even have a part to play in what’s to come.

I didn’t tell her everything, though. That Leonardo DaWhinny story was shared with me in confidence. And I didn’t have the right to go shooting my mouth about Cliff Diver either. There was the bit about Blueberry Milkshake too. To blabber the story of what’d happened between us on the playground would make her seem like a lousy pony.

But Blue had left me a note. “We need to talk.” How could I go blah-blah-blah’ing about what she’d done, and what she’d failed to do before we'd even settled our differences and had that talk?

No. Bananas Foster ended up with a bit of an edited version of what happened where my friends were concerned, but I didn’t pull any punches on the me stuff.

That meant she got all the details that made me look crazy. She heard all about the visions. The dreams. The scribbly drawing of The-One-I-Saved-Because-I-Was-Fucking-Supposed-To. But unlike Cliff and Roseluck, Foster just plain hated it all. Scowled every time I so much as mentioned a voice in my head.

When I got up to the part in the library, and I saw The Book I’m Meant To Have, I finally just stopped and said, “Alright, I have to know. What do you have against all this...Rosie Sense stuff?”

‘Cause I knew she believed it.

Bananas just looked back at me and shook with anger. Gritted her teeth. Clenched her hooves.

“They never gave you a choice.” She said with a growl. “They’re using you.”

“They?” I said.

She threw me an accusatory glower. “You know. Fate.” Like it was my fault for playing along, or something.

She pounded her bubble in anger. Then turned around and bucked that magic shield as hard as she could. Then she whipped right back around again and threw herself at it - chest first. Flailing. Punching.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down. It’s fine. I’m fine. Really! Fate sucks, sure. But I’m still fine! That’s just...life, I guess...Or something.” So strange to hear such optimistic words spilling out of my mouth. It happened without warning.

But Foster was down on her knees now, pressed against her bubble. Unimpressed.

“You think I don’t know that?” She said dryly.

Suddenly, I understood. It felt like being punched in the gut. Bananas Foster was even more fucked by her fate than I was by mine. A horror crept over my heart as I watched her come apart right there on the floor. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t even reach out to touch her. And it wouldn’t have worked to tell her that she was a good dog.

I felt so bad for her! I didn’t know what to do. So I lay there just sort of watching like a jackass.

“How can you be so cool about it?” Bananas said to me at last.

“What?”

She lifted her head up, mane all disheveled, and threw a fiery stare at me. Every bit as righteous and intense as that Trottica slave rage. Only pointed at me.

“How could you?” She growled, more an accusation than a question.

Had gravity and my own frailty not already been pinning me to that hospital bed, her stare would have nailed me to it like a butterfly under glass. Bananas Foster fucking hated me. I mean really hated me.

“What? What did I do?”

I could feel myself shrinking as she stared me down. There was a darkness about her I can’t describe. All of that anger. That resentment. That awful loneliness she must have felt being cooped up in that bubble for a fucking lifetime. All pointed at me.

“I didn’t have a choice, okay?” I whimpered. “Please, it’s not my fault.”

The words felt thin even as they escaped my mouth. As that haunted face of hers stared me down, I was suddenly reminded of every bad deed of my own - every failure - every shortcoming. That girl looked at me with so much disdain, I felt somehow certain that she knew it all. From punking out on that poor kid in the open wastes, The One I’m Not Meant to Save, to the massacre at Sub Mine F, to Twinkle Eyes.

Then from somewhere deep inside my brain, the memory of Twink clonked me on the head again with that 2x4 o’ friendship.

No. Fucking no.

All the little reprimands and doubts I’d been knocking around my own head since Trottica were suddenly being hurled at me by somepony else. I found myself arguing with Foster, defending myself - telling her all the things I’d failed to make myself believe the first time around.

“I did the best I could.” I told her. “And yeah, I rolled with this weird fate stuff. I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have a choice. None of us do.”

That smacked the anger right out of her. None of us do. It hurt her to be so powerless. She fell backwards. Closed her eyes. Brought her hooves to her face, but it didn’t stop the tears.

“How could you?” She said again, and this time punctuated the point by clobbering herself in the face with her hoof.

“How could you?” She said, this time in a whisper.

“It’s not your fault either,” I said.

I didn’t know exactly what she was beating herself up about, but I thought I might have a pretty good idea.

“You wanna talk about it?”

She shook her head ‘no,' and sobbed there in that awful, bleepity hospital silence.

Finally, she sucked in a mouthful of air. It sounded like sandpaper.

“I’m sorry.” She said. “This has nothing to do with you.”

I could tell she only half-believed that. But she was trying. She really was.

“What I said…” Bananas trailed off for a moment or two. “...That wasn’t right.”

“It’s okay.” I said.

“No, it’s not.” She added. “But that’s inconsequential. You have every right to hate me now.”

“I don’t.”

She held a hoof up, “And I got no right to ask this after what I did, but could you please finish your story?”

It was the most grown-up I’d ever heard her sound. And though the apology was definitely real, I was pretty exhausted.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “You should get some sleep.”

“No!” She said firmly.

After a brief moment she composed herself and said to me in a quivering voice, “Please. I need clues. About the zebra hate.”

She looked at me as though my next words would either be an execution or a pardon. That dark intensity I’d seen in her eyes a few moments prior had turned into more helplessness and terror. It was like watching one of the mine kids getting beaten.

“My brothers…” She tried to finish her thought, but just ended up biting down on her own hoof and wailing into it.

The war, the bomb, the zebra hate, as she called it - it was personal to her in ways I couldn’t begin to guess or understand. My heart went out to her again. It was getting exhausted from all the strain, but I reached over to my tray of leftover bad pudding, swigged a cup of water, dropped the paper cup on the floor, and said, “Okay, I’ll tell you more.”

She sighed relief.

“Just, please. Understand that I play along because, well...maybe with all this stuff going on, all the stupid fate stuff, maybe there’s a reason, you know? I’m really, really hoping there’s some kinda reason for what’s going on.”

Saying it out loud made me sort of believe it. For the first time since Twink died. That old pony platitude was a strange comfort to me - everything happens for a reason.

“I’m sure there is,” said Bananas Foster dryly. “But do you really think it’s a good one?”

I didn’t have a smart answer to that. I really didn’t. But I was sick of the debate.

“Do you want me to tell you the story or not?”

Bananas Foster nodded, and I continued. As draining as it was to relive, I actually did want to catch her up on what had happened. Whatever problems she may have had with her own fate, she was onboard with mine now, like I said. For better or for worse.

Foster listened with anxious enthusiasm. Not the “exciting campfire story” enthusiasm that folks like Cliff tend to display. She was tearing her mane out over it. The thing is, she kept waiting for the good news - the clue about zebra hate that never came. From a problem-solving angle, my story just didn’t give us much to work with. How the hell were a couple of kids supposed to fight the future knowing only that the future's gonna suck, and absolutely nothing about how it’s gonna get that way?

Sadly, I did not finish my story that night. I wanted to catch her up. Really, I did, but I barely got past the part with Misty and Twink and me in the cages, I just plain started crying. Again.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” I said.

“Wait, please.”

But I turned myself over then and there as best as I could with the tubes still in my hoof. Faced the opposite side of the room. I didn’t say another word to Foster. The girl pleaded with me, but I shut her out, and cried like a foal.

“Sorry Twink,” I whispered into my pillow. I said it about a thousand-million times until eventually, I drifted off to sleep.

* * *

That night I dreamt I was back in school again. It was recess time, and we were all knocking around this big red kickball - Misty Mountain, Twinkle, Cliff Diver, Blueberry Milkshake, and me. We were playing some game that didn't really have any rules, though the one thing we could all agree on was that Misty was a big fat cheater.

Twink tackled him and everything. Bit him in the ear.

"Ow!" He said. "Ees not my fault I am better at things than who ees not me!"

The rest of us just laughed. You know, because biting is funny.

Even Screw Loose joined in the fun. She came to us as the dog she imagined herself to be. Paws, not hooves. Long carnivore teeth digging casually into a tennis ball. A tail that could really wag. It matched her bird's nest head of hair. Her dog body was the same greyish blue color as her pony body, which is just kinda weird, cause who’s ever heard of a blue dog? Queenie pounced on Misty the cheater as he rolled on the floor, shielding himself from Twink. Laughing.

This was the Way It's Actually Supposed to Be. Not cause some fool voice in my head tricked me, and spit a bunch of hornets at my brain. It’s just that it all felt so perfect. Like the way we were all meant to live.

Twink was giggling. The birthright of every child. A joy she seldom knew in the Wasteland, except that time when she was blowing villagers away. But she was doing it there on the grass.

The whistle blew. Five minutes left. I looked across the field toward the schoolhouse. The sun was going down behind it, as if to double-warn us that we didn't have very much time. The sun doesn't usually set during our lunch hour. But it was a dream, and strange as it may have seemed, I couldn't quite put my hoof on why it was strange. So I forgot all about it.

We just kept on playing. We were together. All of us free. It was one of those moments where time seems to stand still, just for a little bit, and you think "wouldn't it be great if this never had to end?"

But it did. Twink eventually stopped wailing on Misty.

The Sun got redder, and redder, and redder behind her, and that wholesome little schoolhouse stretched out a long shadow across the entire field. A crooked shadow that sorta crept along the floor in jagged little motions. Like it was reaching for something.

But I was the only one who seemed to notice. Everypony else ignored it.

“Guys? Do you see this?”

The door to the schoolhouse opened, and it was totally black inside. Not dark. Black. So black that it looked like light simply couldn’t escape.

A figure stepped out of the ink and stood by the doorway. It wasn't like the creature from before. This one was shaped like a pony. But it wasn't a pony. It was wrong. It flickered like the shadow of a tree cast by a campfire. Bending. Contorting. Twitching every instant.

It made my stomach sink like an anvil, but still I found myself wandering toward it. Both afraid of it, and terrified to look away. What the fuck was that thing? It had something for me. I couldn't tell. A message? I couldn't make out its whispers.

A hoof fell on my shoulder. I looked up and there was Roseluck.

"Don't go there." She said.

"Rose!" I threw myself at her chest and hugged her. "Help, the shadows are back."

"No they're not." She said.

"Huh?"

"Check your hoof."

I looked down. My black hoof. It wasn't cold. Not even a little.

"I don't understand."

"This is how they find you." She tapped my head.

"That is how they get you."

She pointed to the door. Now a normal schoolhouse once again, but I knew what she meant. I was really worried now. I'd almost wandered in there on purpose!

"And when they come back?"

Roseluck put a hoof against my heart. "This is how you beat them." She smiled.

I rolled my eyes. Roseluck always was a sap.

Ring-ring.

Ring-ring.
The recess bell rang again, calling all the children back to class. The Flickery Guy was gone. Miss Cheerilee was standing there instead, right next to the door that, mere moments ago, had been a portal into The Dark.

Twink came up behind me and clapped me on the back before running off.

“You’re It!” She called over her shoulder as she galloped off.

Misty Mountain was walking away from the schoolhouse too, rather than toward it with the rest of the kids. But he slipped off quietly.

I couldn’t figure out which way to go.

Ring-ring.

The bell chimed for us again. Cheerilee was getting impatient. She didn’t notice the two stragglers, because they had never been in her class in the first place, but looking around, Cliff, Blueberry and me all decided that we had better go.

I gazed out across the field and found Twinkle Eyes hollering at me all the way from the hill.

“Ha! Ha!" She said. "You’ll never catch me.”

I’d never seen her so happy.

I awoke to the sound of my own bleeping. It blended into the background at first and I didn't quite realize where I was, or that the whole schoolyard thing had been a dream. But when I opened my eyes, I saw white. Hospital white, and like a kick to the face, it dawned on me. Twinkle Eyes hadn't merely wandered off. She was dead. I swear I nearly screamed when I first saw that empty chair to the right of my hospital bed.

It was like losing her all over again.

"How are you feeling?" Said a familiar voice next to me.

I couldn't quite place it. When I groaned, and turned myself over, I found Miss Cheerilee beside me, just to my left, sitting in Roseluck’s chair.

"Ahhh!" I said.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm sorry." I looked around me in confusion. "You scared me. I thought you were my sister."

My teacher’s face tightened upon hearing that. A grim look.

"Where is she?" Asked Miss Cheerilee.

"She's home,"

"Oh," she said, looking away as she spoke. "I see."

Bleep-bleep.

"Oh no, Miss Cheerilee!" I exclaimed in horror. "Don't get the wrong idea. She didn't just leave me here. I sent her home."

Bleep-bleep.

That didn't sound good either.

"Why wouldn't you want your sister here with you?"

Dammit, I wasn't awake enough for this. Cheerilee was getting the worst possible impression. A wave of anxiety hit me so hard, I lost my breath.

I don't need this. I don’t need this. I really don't need this.

"It's okay, it's okay," she said. "You don't have to talk about it."

"But you don't understand," I insisted.

"Rose Petal," she said gently, but firmly. "I am here to visit you - to comfort you. You've been through a lot. Why don't you just relax, okay?"

I nodded.

She let me be for a long while. Just sorta sat there. It gave me time to gather my thoughts. Get my bearings.

I looked around. I was back in Ponyville, no shadow things had found me yet, I was very firmly planted in the present for the time being, Twinkle Eyes wasn't even going to be born for another couple of centuries, but she was still dead, and the dogmare was somewhere in this hospital waiting to see me again. Checklist complete. Oh, yeah, and Miss Cheerilee was sitting next to me as I tossed these thoughts around, waiting to make polite conversation.

"I'm glad you're alright," she said at last.

"Me too." I opened my eyes and groaned.

"Did you get the card?"

"Oh, yeah. It was beautiful." I perked up.

The thing really had cheered me up, you know. Once I stopped and thought about it a little. So sweet. So innocent. Everything we'd fought to preserve. Twink may never have skipped through a field and bathed in sunshine, but she probably would have appreciated a bunch of doodles from fillies who actually had. I felt bad for having been so negative, and detached, and piratey when I'd first gotten the thing.

"Where is it now?" Said Miss Cheerilee.

I stopped. The project that my entire class had gone through great effort to make for me was now crumpled up and stuffed underneath my back.

I laughed awkwardly.

"It's safe." I said.

"Are you looking forward to Hearth's Warming Eve?" Said Cheerilee with a bounce.

Before I could even respond, a nurse in colorful scrubs trotted by my door in a hurry. Whoosh. For a moment - just a blink of the eye - I could swear it was a cloak-o. I chomped my teeth down and hugged my bedsheets, convinced that I was going to die. Checklist or no, I suddenly had no idea where I was. When I was. I just felt this surge of blind terror. It seized me and annihilated all other thoughts from my brain like a bolt of brain lightning.

And then it subsided just as quickly as it had come, and I felt so stupid. I’d just freaked out over a rosey pair of nurse’s scrubs. You know you've officially lost your mind when you develop a phobia of floral prints.

"Rose Petal?" Said Cheerilee.

"Huh? What?"

I looked around me. Teacher. Bleep-a-majig. Curtain that Bananas Foster was hiding behind. I was safe again in the present.

"Are you looking forward to Hearth's Warming Eve?" She repeated.

I shrugged. "Oh, yeah sure."

"Hmm." She said all puzzled and concerned-like all of a sudden.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," she replied.

But that’s not what she meant.

Miss Cheerilee was starting to get on my nerves. I had just gotten out of a coma. I could barely move, and I felt like garbage. Why was she acting like I was some kind of freak for not being chock full o' holiday spirit? Was I supposed to rip the tubes outta my hoof and start dancing with joy?

It made me want to scream.

"What is it, Miss Cheerilee?"

"Nothing, Rose." She asserted. "Really."

I sighed.

How could I assure her that I wasn't some disturbed wackadoo, or that Roseluck was, in fact, the best fucking big sister ever, when Cheerilee didn't even say what she was actually thinking?

I bit back a great big old scream. Then I saw the worry lines on her face. It occurred to me that I didn't even know what she thought had happened. Or what the rest of the town had presumed. I mean, did they think I ate a bunch of tea for no reason? Did they even know about the tea? Did they think I was dying?

"Hey, Miss Cheerilee," I asked. "How is everypony back at school taking the news?

"We’re all pulling for you. You read the card."

"Yeah, but I'm not sure how they're gonna react when I come back."

"You know," I raised my big black evil hoof.

She gasped.

So they don't know about the hoof. Check.

"It's fine," I said. "It doesn't hurt. See?"

I thwacked my hoof against the railing of my bed to show off how totally fine it was. Of course, the thwacking itself hurt, but I tried not to let that show.

Miss Cheerilee pulled back so hard the chair skidded across the floor a little. She was actually scared of it. What Cliff Diver and Twinkle Eyes had done - holding my hoof, comforting me - suddenly became all the more special. They didn't have to do that. Most ponies - even good ones - would probably be too freaked out by a black hoof o' evil.

Not my friends.

"Really, Miss Cheerilee." I rolled my eyes. "It doesn't bite."

Out of pity, Cheerilee forced herself to lean forward and pretend not to be scared. But she still wouldn't touch it.

"Is it really...evil?"

Oh, boy. So the town did know. Maybe even a little too much. I honestly didn't know what to say. 'Cause, yeah, sure, the hoof was evil, but it wasn't anypony else's problem but mine.

Like I said, the damn thing doesn't bite.

"I'm fine. Really." I grumbled. "Look, it says 'Hi.'"

I waved to her. You know, to lighten the mood.

She just waved back and whispered, "Does it always talk?"

"Huh?"

"Did the hoof tell you to drink too much tea?" Said Cheerilee in a hushed tone. "Does it tell you to do other things?"

Grown ups suck at joke-getting.

"It's a hoof," I replied. "It can't talk."

"Oh."

Bleep-bleep.

"Well, that's nice." She added.

"How's Cliff been doing?" I was pretty desperate to change the subject.

"Oh, just great." She said. "Your's Hearth Warming presentation was wonderful, and, um...interesting."

Sweet Luna, what did he say?

"Don't worry," said Miss Cheerilee when she saw the look on my face. "You got an A. The presentation was unorthodox, but your research is very, well...thorough."

Cliff told her about his theories. I knew it. He’d told the whole class! I wasn't even sure I believed in that alternate dimension stuff, and he’d gone and told everypony about it. In a project that was supposed to have come from both of us!

I facehoofed.

"Don't worry, it's fine." She said, putting a hoof on my shoulder.

Everypony kept putting their damn hooves on my shoulder.

"The other kids enjoyed it. Your grades are better than ever. You're still a good student. Ooh..."

She slid a fancy type-written letter on to my lap.

"And a great artist."

"What's this?"

"The school newspaper published pictures of our open house art exhibit."

"Who's Stuffed Shirt?" I said, turning the letter over in confusion.

Whoever he was, his big fat fancy signature took up half the page.

"A very famous and influential art critic. He saw your picture and wants to take it on tour."

Picture? I just cocked my head like a dumb dog and looked at her. I was honestly confused.

"The one that you drew..."

I just stared at her blankly some more.

"...The day before you...you know."

I thought about it long and hard. She was talking about Strawberry Lemonade. My frantic doodle.

"Oh. That." I said.

I could do without ever looking at that helpless eye, or that crack in the wall again.

"He can keep it." I said.

"What?" Said Cheerilee, taken aback that I didn't seem to care. "Oh. Well, um, I'll just talk to Roseluck next time I see her. This could be a big opportunity for you, you know."

"Art isn't really my thing." I said honestly. "I'm more into books."

"Your piece could be seen all across Equestria! Canterlot. Los Pegasus. Fillydelphia. Manehattan."

"Did you say Fillydelphia?"

"Mmhmm." She nodded.

I was suddenly real glad that I had sent Roseluck away. After a great big wedding gig, she could afford to take some time off to help me with all of this bomb stuff. And it looked like I might actually have an excuse to go looking for answers in the City of Sisterly Love, before too long.

"I always wanted to visit Filly," I told Cheerilee.

"More than Manehattan? Or Canterlot?" She said all cheerful-like.

She must have been relieved that I was actually showing enthusiasm about something.

"Yeah. Uh. I like cracked bells. They're uh...my favorite kind of bell."

Just then Cliff Diver burst in, eyes buried in paper.

"Got good news and bad news," he said. "Bad news is, I can't find an address of anypony named Misty Mountain anywhere in Fillydelphia. There's a Mountain Family, but no--;"

"Hi, Cliff." Cheerilee waved.

"Ahh! " He shouted when he realized he wasn't alone with me. "Miss Cheerilee."

"Misty Mountain?" She asked.

"He's Rose's--:"

"Pen pal!" I blurted out a smooth lie before Cliff had the chance to spit out a clumsy one.

"You have a penpal, and you don't know his address?"

So much for smooth lies.

"Uh...He moved," I said. "...And I...um...lost his new address. Cliff looked it up at the library for me."

"You're a very devoted friend," she said. "It's something I've admired in you since Rose had her accident."

"Thanks, Miss Cheerilee." He said all sheepish-like.

The fact that Cheerilee referred to it as an "accident" without any of that awkward pretense was kind of a relief to me.

"And you gave us all so much to think about with your report!" She beamed.

Cliff blushed.

"Can you do us both a favor though, and go get Rose's orderly? She's awake now, and could use some food that it isn't cold."

He looked at us both. I threw him an "it's okay" nod.

When he was gone, Cheerilee pulled the chair up close to me again and hit me with the big question, "How is everything with your sister Roseluck?"

"Um...fine, I guess? Why?"

"So you're doing okay at home?" She pressed.

"Well, we've both seen better days, you know? I'd like to get out of the hospital, and she would too, so it's not um...great. Why do you ask?"

"If you could live anywhere," she asked. "With anypony in the whole wide world, who would it be?"

I give that some serious thought. It didn't take a whole lot of time. Sure a lot of kids would say “in Sapphire Shores’ mansion,” or something, and the idea sounds fun, but when I was stuck in that cage in Trottica, I knew who I missed the most. Who I feared for the most if anything happened to me.

And when Misty had mentioned Fillydelphia, and everyone else squirmed, it was the idea of a post-apocalyptic Ponyville that somehow hit home the hardest - the one piece of the Wasteland my brain just plain refused to wrap around. Cause Ponyville was home.

"With my sister." I said suspiciously. "Here in Ponyville."

"Oh good," she said." That's wonderful. So you...uh, like living with Roseluck, yes?"

"She loves me, and our cottage is my home." I said crossly.

"That's wonderful news." She put her hoof on top of mine.

I yanked it away. Tubes and all.

"Relax," said Miss Cheerilee. "I'm here to help."

"This wasn't Roseluck's fault." I said.

"No, of course not," said my rapidly more-irritating-getting teacher. "I know that. Even the doctors say it was that hoof that made you do it."

"It was a stupid mistake!" My voice cracked. "Nopony makes me do anything."

I'd been toyed with, locked up, pushed around by cloak-o's, ordered around by voices that had intruded on me from the inside of my own fucking brain. And after all that crazy crap, I finally, finally, finally do something bone-stupid all on my own - actually create my own misery for once, and overdose on herbal tea like a great big dumb-dumb - and all of a sudden Roseluck is a bad sister?

All of a sudden my hoof is to blame, like I was its slave or something?!

"Agggh!" I grunted.

"Rose, calm down."

"Please go, Miss Cheerilee." Damnit, I was crying again. "I'm not feeling well."

"Ok. Do you need me to get a nurse?"

I shook my head, and swallowed yet another scream.

"Well, okay." She said as she rose to her hooves, and inched toward the door. "Just please remember that I'm trying to help. l feel awful. The other day, I wish I could have...."

She trailed off. Cheerilee blamed herself for what had happened. I hate ponies who do that. I shouldn't have to spend my hospital time reassuring everypony.

"Just let me know if there's anything I can do for you or your family." She said.

That did it. I snapped. First she acted like this was Roseluck-the-Terrible-Sister's fault, then all of a sudden she wants to help our family? She had some nerve.

I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just told her the truth.

"The day that I drew that picture, and you pulled me aside to have that little talk with me, you asked if there was something else bothering me. I was really, really upset and you knew it, but it wasn't about my cutie mark."

She perked up a bit, anxious to hear all the juicy details that she could be oh-so-helpful to repair.

"Diamond Tiara made Cliff Diver cry, and it was so terrible to watch, that it made me cry, so I yelled at her, and I screamed at her so hard that I bet she cried too after she got home. The whole school saw it. Every single kid had gathered around. Why didn't you come?"

She looked at me as though I had just told her the princesses were aliens. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Diamond Tiara has made every single kid in class miserable since kindergarten."

I tried to rack my brain for a list of names of her victims to rattle off, but really, it was all just a blur.

"She's mean to us. She makes us all feel like garbage and you never, ever, ever stop her."

"I can't be everywhere," said Cheerilee. "And I can't address an issue if nopony comes to me. If you two are having a --;"

"It's not me. I have bigger problems." I said frankly, lifting up the hoof that I knew would scare her.

And, to be honest, I didn't even care about Diamond Tiara anymore. But it really irked me that Cheerilee had come to me all "let me help your family" like there was something wrong with us.

She was like a single-minded diggity little badger for detail when it came to excavating "problems at home," but still totally blind and stupid when it came to the one thing she could actually fix!

Unfortunately, I didn't articulate those ideas as smoothly as I would have liked.

"You made her head of the school newspaper?" I said. "Why? That was dumb."

"Now hold it right there."

"That made us all miserable for weeks." I squeaked.

"Rose, this is getting inappropriate,"

I could see the wheels in her brain turning. Defiant kid. Clearly disturbed. Problems at home.

I didn't want to say anything else after that, so I just grunted in frustration and shut up.

"Ugh! Forget it."

She shut up too. We looked one another up-and-down.

"Well, thank you for bringing that to my attention." She said at last.

""I'll think about it over the break, I promise."

"Thanks." I said dryly.

I wasn't sure if I had gotten through to her at all, or if she was just dismissing me.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I whispered.

She waited by the doorway until Cliff Diver trotted in with the tray balanced on his back.

"Here we are!" He exclaimed with pomp and pride.

"You kids have a Merry Hearth's Warming." She said. "I'll be on my way."

Even after she trotted on her merry way, I was still steaming mad.

How was Equestria ever going to stand a chance at turning itself around? How could we pull together to overcome something as powerful as hate? Something as universal as fear? When one of the pillars of our community didn’t even have the guts to stand up to a spoiled little girl. We didn’t stand a chance.

I thought she was one of the good ones. But she wasn't. I couldn’t even be mad at Cheerilee. I was just plain disappointed.

Roseluck and Nurse Redheart were the only grown-ups left in the whole wide world that I felt I could trust. And that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

* * *

At first it was really weird trying to eat. My stomach was so totally not used to solid food. It couldn't decide what to do with those first couple of bites - up or down - but it in the end, it all settled in. Well enough, anyway.

"How you doing?" I asked, mouth full of cardboard-tasting moosh.

"Fine," said Cliff. "How are you?"

I just shrugged. Wasn't it obvious?

Bananas Foster sat in her bubble reading silently as usual, or scribbling almost silently in some kinda journal. I'd gotten so used to her long periods of quiet from her, that at times, I kinda forgot she was there.

"Oh, Cliff, this is Bananas Foster by the way. Foster, this is Cliff Diver."

He turned to shake her hoof but when he got his first good look at the bubble, and realized that that wouldn't be possible, he just sort of waved instead.

"Hiya!"

It’s weird. You'd expect it to be awkward for him, especially with his track record for stepping on words, but somehow, the bubble didn't seem to phase him at all.

"Whatcha readin?"

She held up The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide. Not exactly a Daring Do novel.

"Catching up on history," she said.

"There's a lot of it." Cliff joked.

That one won a smile, but not for long. Bananas got derailed.

"Hey, wait a minute. Isn't Misty Mountain supposed to be from the future?"

Cliff turned to me in shock.

"Yeah, she's on board." I groaned.

That didn't seem to put him at ease.

"It's okay," I said. "She's a friend."

Now Bananas was the one looking at me funny. I had never really thought about it, but I suppose it was true. I considered her my friend. I had opened up to her. She knew Equestria’s Biggest Secret, and all she wanted to do in the whole wide world was to stop the zebra hate. That was enough for me.

"Misty Mountain is from the future?!" Cliff blurted out so loud that Nursedoctor poked her head in for a second just to shush us.

I was getting flak from both ends now.

"No, not exactly either." I said softly. "He kind of dreamed his way there. Like me.”

"Misty Mountain's from now?!" Said Bananas Foster

"I didn't get to that part yet!" I said.

"How come she knows more than me?" Said Cliff.

"Because we were up all night."

I was starting to get really fucking annoyed with both of them.

"And because we are friends," Foster said with pride.

She nodded at Cliff with false confidence.

"Hey! She was my friend first!" Said Cliff.

"Would you stop it? You're both my friends!"

Then suddenly Bananas Foster out of nowhere started coughing - I mean really going at it. "I'm sorry. I have to sit down," she said.

"Holy Celestia! Are you okay?"

"Oh, quit faking." Cliff rolled his eyes at her. "You're just feeling sorry for yourself."

I looked at him in shock. So did she.

This is Cliff Diver I'm talking about. The guy who shrugged in fear when I so much as asked him a mildly confrontational question. The kid who stumbled for words and never, ever, ever found them.

"You can't say that!" I whispered in awe.

"Why not?"

"Cause she's...well..."

I shouldn’t have had to explain it. He knew. He had to know.

"Because she's what? In a bubble?"

"Yes." I whispered urgently.

I looked to Bananas for back up, but she was just watching me silently. Studying my discomfort.

"Rose, seriously, stop." Cliff rolled his eyes at me.

"Me?"

What had come over him? Bananas Foster had hurled herself at her bubbly prison last night. Crying and kicking and all that. And Cliff just came along and acted like a giant dick about it.

"Me?!" My voice cracked. "Me stop?"

He folded his hooves at me.

"What?" I said. "It's...it's...it's... You who is uh... Uh...you know, uh..."

I gestured in Bananas' direction.

"Shhhh." I said.

I don't know why I shushed him. We all knew about the elephant in the room. I guess I thought I was being slick and stealthy.

"For Luna' sake, it doesn't bite!" Cliff finally snapped.

It doesn't bite.

My own words to Cheerilee about my black evil hoof. Bouncing right back to me to smack me in the face.

"What?" I asked.

"It. Doesn't. Bite. It's totally fine. See?"

Cliff tapped the bubble and little magic sparks flew off.

"And she's fine." He turned to her, pointing an accusatory hoof.

"Am not!" She snapped.

"You're not even coughing anymore. Geez!" Cliff growled at me in genuine frustration. "Can you believe this?"

"Am too," Bananas Foster shook herself out of her daze, and rose to her hooves with a fake ass wheeze.

She was shaking. Twitching with anger. Like a wild animal backed into a corner.

"Liar." Said Cliff, now genuinely pissed off.

"It doesn't bite." I whispered to myself.

Was this what I had to look forward to? A lifetime of kids whispering behind my back? Is that who I was now? The Be Glad It's Not You Girl? All cause of the color of my hoof?

I’d been a condescending idiot to Bananas Foster - and the worst part was that I’d done it with the best of intentions.

"I'm...so sorry, Bananas."

"What?!" Said Cliff.

Nursedoctor poked her head in the door yet again. "Shhhhh!"

She stared us down, and we all fell silent. Once we had shut the buck up to her satisfaction, Nursedoctor lingered just long enough to keep us all good and intimidated. After she was gone, we were left with this strange tense quiet between the three of us.

I'd looked down on that girl. Cause she was in a bubble. I'd made her a full-fledged, card-carrying member of The Apocalypse Club, but I still coddled her cause I thought she was weak.

And I was trying to be one of the good ones.

After all my thinkiness, and carrying on, and charging through mountains - all that one of the good ones stuff - I was just as dumb, and crooked, and weak as everypony else. So much for the heart's intentions.

"I'm so sorry, Foster." I whispered.

"Since when are you so sensitive?!" Said Cliff Diver, tears in his eyes, rambling at me in hushed tones.

"Huh?" I said. "What's wrong?"

"You're all, 'Oh, no we can't call her on this, she's too helpless.' But you're not making her any better."

"I-I know," I stammered.

Bananas Foster fainted at the stress of what was going on, or at least she pretended to.

"But you have no problem rubbing my problems in my face. Why? Am I not a good enough friend?" He said.

"What are you talking about?"

ThIs was getting really fucking confusing.

"Oh, come on, you know. 'Fly on out of here? Go home?'" He did his best to impersonate my voice. "How was I supposed to feel?"

Bananas Foster cracked her eye open. She was still lying on the floor, pretending to have fainted, but she broke character and spoke up anyway. Loud and clear.

"You said that?"

"Yes!" Cliff turned to her. "And I don't even know why!"

"That seriously wasn't cool." Bananas Foster rolled over and threw me the evil eye.

So now she was on Cliff's side all of a sudden.

"Yeah," he said. "Not cool."

"What's going on?"

Cliff Diver extended his wings for me the first time since I'd known him. They were all fucked up and mangled. Bent in ways no wing should ever bend. I could tell by his wincing that it must have hurt like crazy just to open them. But he did it anyway to make a point.

"As if you didn't know." He growled.

"Holy...Sweet Luna!" I shouted. "What happened?!"

Bleep-bleep.

Nursedoctor poked her head in again, ready to yell at us, but she found instead a couple of kids staring at one another in stunned silence.

So she slinked away. Put upon.

Cliff and Bananas exchanged glances, then turned to me.

"I noticed it yesterday just from a casual glance," said Foster.

It's almost as though she was enjoying making me squirm.

"You seriously didn't know?" Cliff whimpered. "Everypony knows! Why do you think I go to school in Ponyville instead of Cloudsdale?"

It was my turn to shrug awkwardly.

"I don't know. Scootaloo's a pegasus. She goes to our school."

"Scootaloo can't fly either." Cliff Diver said.

I puzzled on that for a long while. How could I have missed this?

“Featherweight?”

“Parents are unicorns.” He said dryly.

“How do you know all this?”

“Um...We’ve been going to the same school for years.”

"What?" I said. "He just showed up a few months ago."

He did. He really really did, I swear. But Cliff just looked at me like I was the craziest, stupidest, obliviousest filly in the Universe, so I let it go. After all I'd failed to notice, I was starting to feel pretty stupid myself.

“Arg!” Cliff clonked himself in the head with his forehoof out of frustration.

I was a single-minded diggity little badger for detail when I wanted to be. I'd deducted Priestess Happy Sad's entire personal history from her Pip Duck alone. I'd noticed Cheerilee's Diamond-Tiara-shaped blind spot and called her out on it. I'd made sharp guesses about Trottica, and its ponies just from cobbling together little tiny shreds of observations.

And yet, I was still so damn blind and stupid.

Every single time I had dealt with Cliff Diver at all, I was off in Rose Petal Land, swimming in thinkiness. Wrapped up in my own problems.

The only pony capable of missing such an obviously important and sensitive detail, would, by definition, have to be either a great big idiot, or a great big jerk.

I was both.

That fact was slowly dawning on Cliff Diver too. The disappointment was written all over his face.

He stopped ranting in anger - stopped fuming over what he'd thought was cruel jab at him, and just sort of grew silent instead.

"Cliff," I said. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he whispered. "It's not your fault. I know that I can be pretty invisible when I'm at school."

"Cliff, come on."

"No. Really." He said "It's true. I don't blame you for not noticing it these last few days either, cause you've had...more important things to worry about."

The fact that he wasn’t even mad just twisted the knife further. I was hurting him more and more as we spoke and he had already fucking forgiven me.

"Darn it!" I said out loud. "Friendship is so much easier when there's somepony shooting at you!"

I felt awful. Cliff felt awful. And none of us knew quite what to say.

"So...uh...how was your day?" I said at last.

Cliff looked at me like I'd just kicked him in the gut.

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm trying. Please."

He bit his lip. I could tell he really wanted to stay mad. But his heart just wouldn't let him.

"Look," I said. "You and Roseluck. You're all I have. When I was imprisoned - when I was lost in the mines - you helped me stay sane."

"You were imprisoned?!" Said Cliff.

"Wait a minute," said Bananas Foster. "Mines?!"

"Ugh." I facehoofed.

With my big black evil hoof in my eyes, I couldn't see them, but five seconds after I buried my face in it, I heard what sounded like poor Cliff Diver sobbing.

Sweet Celestia! I thought. Can't I do anything right?!

When I opened my eyes, I found him slapping his knee with his front hoof, laughing his flank off. Bananas Foster too.

"What?" I said.

That just made them crack up all the more.

"Guys!"

Cliff was on the floor now, face drenched in tears. Nursedoctor had to come in and shush us. I guess we all just kind of snapped because, when I saw her tired face looking disapprovingly at those other two buffoons, I broke out into laughter too. It's contagious.

Cliff summoned the breath to wheeze at her, "I'm sorry. We'll keep it do--;"

But then he broke. Started giggling all over again.

Nursedoctor was about to snarl at us, but then she glanced at Foster, and found her laughing too. Not just laughing but guffawing. By the expression on Nursedoctor’s face, I reckoned that that must have been a rare sight. With a long suffering sigh, she left us alone and shut the door behind her. I guess she just didn't have the heart.

"Do you really want to hear about my day?" Said Cliff with a wicked smile. "Lemme tell you about our Hearth's Warming Eve report!"

"Now this I gotta hear," said Bananas Foster.

She flashed me an almost sadistic smile.

Oh, no.

* * *

It turns out that Cliff had started his report out like normal. Like he’d planned. It was my report too after all.

"This is the flag of Equestria. It has two Alicorns on it. It symbolizes the union of the three pony tribes. The three pony tribes were the unicorn tribe, the earth pony tribe, and the pegasus tribe. It got drawn up on the first Hearth's Warming Eve." Typical report, reading from an index card sort of stuff.

Then, to hear him tell it, Cliff looked out over all the bored faces, and fixated on the open house art display in the back of the class. Apparently, he was entranced by that eyeball of Strawberry Lemonade's. That filly hopelessly dreaming of being free.

"And then I thought of you, Rose."

"Me?"

"What's the point of being a little crazy if you don't get to have fun with it?"

He quoted my own advice to him from the day before.

“Oh, no, what did you do?” I interrupted his story.

“Yeah,” Bananas Foster said with a wicked smile. “What did you do?”

“Shut up.”

“I told them the truth.”

Oh, Luna, no.
“The alicorns, the flag, the way that the hopes and dreams of all those ponies in trouble had sent out a light for our princesses to find. I told them about it. And I could see tell that I was reaching some of them! Because they went from yawning and talking amongst themselves to hanging on my every word!”

“They didn't laugh at you?” I asked, utterly shocked.

“No, no, no, no, no.” He said all matter-of-fact-like. “That didn't happen till much later.”

He flashed me a smile that was meant to be reassuring.

“So I'm telling them, right? And they're eating it up.”

Facehoof.

“Then Silver Spoon says to me, ‘What does any of this even mean?’"

“Oh Celestia.” Double-Facehoof.

"So I turn to them, and I have them all eating out of my hoof, right? And I'm all like ‘Celestia and Luna are powers beyond our comprehension.’”

He was giving the speech like normal now, telling it to Bananas Foster and me as though we were the class. The only difference is that, had we actually been in the class, I would have stopped him.

"Now I don't want to say it's aliens…” Said Cliff Diver, grinning ear-to-ear just from the retelling of it. "...But it's aliens."

The Mother of all Facehoofs. I'd created a monster.

“Dude, you're awesome.” Said Bananas Foster.

I swear she encouraged him just as a way of fucking with me.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I kept the part that has to do with us a secret.”

“It’s our report! It all has to do with us.”

“I meant the part about the F-U-T-U-R-E.” He spelled it out loud. You know, in case a three-year-old might be eavesdropping, and think that we were out of our fucking minds.

“Oh,” he added. “And this!”

His saddlebag was sort of just lying around on the floor somewhere. He disappeared from my range of vision to fetch it, and fuss around in its compartments. Finally, he popped up from under my bed, crumpled up piece of paper in his mouth. He dropped it on me, and watched me with eagerly.

When I unfolded it, I read the headline out loud. “Crystal Empire Reappears?”

“It's the good news I was talking about. Read it.” He said with wide, bright eyes.

I read it with him watching. It told the whole story of the saving of Crystal Empire, which I’m sure you know by now, O Book of Magical Things That Have Happened. My favorite part was when Shining Armor hucked his Princess Wife off the balcony, but I couldn't figure out what any of it had to do with anything. Anyway, when I was done, I looked up at him and shrugged.

"That's just weird."

This coming from the filly who battles actresses from the future.

“That!” He snatched the page from my hoof, and brought it over to the bubble so that Bananas could read it. “Is why the library has been closed for days.”

The page fell right through the bubble, his hoof still leaning against the outside. Cliff looked at Bananas in disbelief.

"It's not alive." She said casually and bent down to pick up the article.

Cliff looked at me, clearly expecting some kind of reaction. I just shrugged. Paper's not alive.

"Don't you get it?" Cliff's voice cracked. "An entire empire, guys! Where's it been this whole time?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

"Another world! They exist. No one can deny that now."

Bananas and I exchanged glances. She seemed unfazed. But it shook me up quite a bit. Cliff was starting to make an alarming amount of sense. All that crystal had to come from somewhere.

“You’re right.” I said

“I’m glad we agree.” He ducked down, disappearing into his saddlebag again.

A moment later, he popped back up, crudely drawn diagram in his mouth.

“So,” he said, letting the doodle fall into my lap.

I picked it up. It was a drawing of the Crystal Palace. There were arrows drawn and notes written all over it.

“How do we steal the Crystal Heart?”

“What?!”

“Relax, it’s not really stealing. We’re just gonna borrow it to stop the apocalypse for a little while. They’ll never know it’s gone.”

“What? Huh? How? What?”

“Um...Why do we need to steal the Crystal Heart?” Said Bananas.

“Duh! It's not like they're just gonna give it to us if we ask.”

Facehoof.

“What makes you think it can stop the apocalypse?” I asked, face still buried firmly in hoof.

“Cause this can’t be a coincidence!” Cliff was back to not making sense. “Rose, can’t you close your eyes and, I don’t know, ask around or something? Maybe that's your next mission!”

“If I had a mission to go steal some royal mantlepiece, I’d know, Cliff.”

“How?”

“Cause I would be full of brain hornets right now.”

“Huh?” Said Cliff.

It was Bananas Foster’s turn to facehoof. The whole thing was one giant confusing mess. I put an end to it.

“We’re not stealing the Crystal Heart.” I snapped.

Cliff drooped a little. Let his doodle fall straight to the floor. “Oh,” he sighed.

I hated bursting his bubble, but his bubble was stupid.

“But if it’s not about the heart." He picked his chin up and looked at me again. "Then what are we supposed to do? Why the connection?”

“What connection? It proves there are other worlds. That’s it. It doesn’t have anything to do with us."

"Arg." Cliff's turn to facehoof. “The Crystal Empire has been gone over a thousand years.”

“Yeah, I read the article.”

“Well, don’t you think it’s weird that it just sorta pops up - out of the blue - on the same day you find the Wasteland - the exact same day you get your cutie mark? After over a thousand years? That. Same. Day. What 's that about?”

“I...don’t know.”

“Tell me everything,” he said. "Maybe there's a clue."

It was getting to be the mantra of all my friends.

Cliff pulled up Roseluck's chair.

“No.” I said.

“But--;”

“It hurts too much,”

“But--;”

“I'm gonna do it, okay? Cause I gotta.” I grumbled. “’But not till Roseluck gets here. I’m not re-telling that story twice.”

* * *

Cliff couldn’t stay much longer. Maybe an hour. Maybe two. And Roseluck still didn’t show. But we spent our time well. Just Cliff, Foster, and me. Talking. We even forgot about the big boom for a little while.

As the time went by, Cliff got more and more apologetic that he had to split.

"If it were any other day, my parents wouldn't care." He said. "Any. Other. Day."

He banged his head against the rail of my hospital bed.

"What's so special about today?"

The sound of party favors exploded in the hallway.

"Happy Hearth's Warming Eve, everypony!" Came a cheerful voice.

It was Pinkie Pie. The mare who'd thrown all of my birthday parties since the day I was actually born. She bounced through the doorway, accordion around her neck, and velvet sack slung over her back. From the way it sagged all empty-like, it looked like we were one of her last stops.

"It's Hearth's Warming Eve?!" I said. "Now?"

"No, not really." She replied.

I sighed in relief. A dumb thought. It couldn't be Hearth's Warming Eve. Roseluck hadn't gotten back yet.

"It's more like Hearth's Warming Early Afternoon." Pinkie added. "But that doesn't have the same ring to it. I know cause I practiced yelling 'Happy Hearth's Warming Early-Afternoon' in the mirror this morning."

She looked at us seriously for a moment, and said. "It didn't work out."

"That can't be." I whimpered.

“No, really.” Said Pinkie. “I tried it. It doesn’t work.”

I looked over to Cliff, standing beside me at my right. He nodded. It looked like he was going to cry. I wasn't gonna see him for at least two days. And he knew how badly I needed him. And worse yet, there was a chance - however slim - that Roseluck wouldn’t be back in time. Judging by the look on his face, Cliff knew that too.

I mean, what if she thought I knew what day it was? And thought I didn’t care about Hearth’s Warming Eve? Hell, even I'd thought that I didn’t care about Hearth’s Warming Eve just a short while ago. I told Cheerilee as much. But the idea of actually spending it without Roseluck was unfathomable. Terrifying even.

"Wow, thanks." Bananas Foster giggled, flipping the pages of an old book Pinkie had gotten for her.

"You're welcome." Pinkie was leaning against the bubble, smiling faintly.

Then it was time to move on to the next infirm-o.

"Hoo!" Pinkie said as she stumbled over to me. "You mind if I sit down for a second?"

She lowered her accordion to the floor and plopped down next to me in Roseluck's chair.

"Singing to every mare, stallion, and colt in this hospital is exhausting."

"I imagine." I said softly, not really attentive, not really there.

I was still fretting over my sister. What if she didn't come?

"I heard about you, Rose Petal." She put her hoof on top of mine - the "good hoof" - the one with all the tubes and wires in it. "Are you okay?"

"I guess." I said.

I slowly slid my other eviler hoof under the sheets, hoping she wouldn't notice it. I had Roseluck on my mind, and I just didn't have the energy for any more hoof drama.

"I know you're probably sad," she said.

I looked up into her eyes.

"But here." She placed a small present on my chest. "Maybe this will cheer you up, just a little."

A small red box. The problem was if I opened it, she would see my bad hoof, and get freaked out. Just like Miss Cheerilee had.

"Thanks." I said nervously, and just sort of stared at it, unsure what to do.

"Oh," she said.

There was just a little bit of heartbreak in her voice.

She'd clearly expected me to be excited - to smile. That was her thing. We had even all sung about it. The whole town. But I didn't have it in me right then and there. Not with Roseluck gone on Hearth's Warming Early Afternoon.

Cliff reached for the present. "Um...Let me help you open that."

"I'm sorry." I said to Pinkie.

I felt like such a downer.

"Don't be sorry. Not many ponies in here feel like smiling." She rubbed her head. "I understand."

I nodded solemnly at Pinkie, as Cliff knocked my gift around and tugged clumsily at the ribbon with his teeth.

"I smiled!" Bananas Foster called out, waving one of the books that Pinkie had just gotten her. "Why don't you just give it all to me?" She added, half–jokingly.

Pinkie just kept on looking at me, and shrugged. "It's always worth a try."

That earned a smile from me. A genuine smile. I couldn't even articulate how, but her drive, and her mission just made me smile. One of those smiles you feel all the way on the inside.

It's always worth a try.

I smiled so hard that I started to cry.

"Thank you." I said.

She threw a smile right back at me, a little bit of her old self again.

"Here! Here!" Cliff shouted. "I got it open."

He plopped the box back down on my chest, lid wide open. I was so stunned by what I saw, that I reached for it with my evil hoof without even thinking.

"I made that just for you." Said Pinkie.

A watch on a chain.

"In case you ever need to figure out when you are." She giggled. "Get it? When you are?"

"How did you know I would need that?" I was stunned.

"No, wait!" She thrust her hoof on mine as I fiddled with the button on the top.

"Don't. Open it." She said gravely. "Not yet."

"Why not?"

"Duh! You'll ruin the surprise, silly." She said, the usual smile returning to her face.

"Um..."

"That is no ordinary pocket watch," she said. "That is the most accurate, most super-duper-mega special watch ever invented, because it was invented by me!"

Cliff Diver and I just looked at one another suspiciously.

"No matter where you find yourself, if you're lost, or confused, that watch will tell you everything you need to know about when you are."

I looked down at the watch. Her pink hoof rested on my black hoof as I clutched it. She didn't care about the evil. At all.

Just don't spoil the surprise.

"Open it only when you really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, need to."

"Okay."

"Pinkie promise?"

"Pinkie promise." I said back to her, still totally stunned.

"Do you like it?"

I slipped the chain over my neck like a necklace, and wore it with pride. Smiling. Pinkie beamed when she saw my reaction.

"Awesome!" She leapt to her hooves.

Grabbed her accordion.

"Happy Hearth's Warming!" She said. "See you next Thursday, same time as always."

Foster looked to me and mouthed behind her back, "she's always late."

"Off to catch my train!"

Pinkie Pie bounced off - instruments, present sack and all. It made a little boingy sound all the way out the door.

"Wait, Pinkie!" I said.

She elongated her neck to unnatural proportions to stick it back in the doorway.

"What's up?"

"How...How did you know I needed this?"

"Oh! I don't know. I just figured it would cheer up that whiny old pirate in your brain!"

"What?" I said

"La la la la la!"

And just as suddenly as she came, Pinkie Pie was gone.

"The pirate in your brain?" Said Foster.

"The pirate in my brain." I whispered to myself as I examined that watch further.

It was physically unremarkable in every conceivable way except that it was pink.

"Wow." Said Cliff. "That mare is so random."

The Price of Failure

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - THE PRICE OF FAILURE

The best way out is always through." - Robert Frost

There's magic in Hearth’s Warming. Grown-ups don't always see it. I know I didn't see it. Not while I was laying there in that cold hospital bed. But it's still there. It sneaks up on you. It comes out at night after the candles have been snuffed, or allowed to droop down into a droopity, waxy mess.

That night in Ponyville Hospital was the worst, and the best Hearth's Warming I ever knew. Certainly the weirdest. It was the night that the shadows made their move.

We should have stood together - given them what for. But we were scattered. Disheartened. Each of us hurting. Each of us alone. And like Nightmare Moon showing up on the most Sun-Happy day of the year, those shadowy cunts couldn't resist the opportunity to trample on a day of hope - to shit all over the one night of the year that was rightfully ours.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

* * *

The mid-afternoon started out okay. At least as okay it could get under the circumstances. First, there was a bunch of boring medical stuff.

"Hey, Happy Hearth’s Warming, kids!" Said Stethoscope bursting through the door.

I didn't respond. He'd been mean to Queenie. Fuck him. Bananas on the other hoof, turned her frown upside-down on a dime-bit.

"Nurse Stethoscope!" She called out clapping her hooves together.

It was really weird seeing her slide back into "Yay, storytime" mode after I'd gotten to know this whole other side of her. That girl was smart - genius even - so much better than any of this storytime stuff. I was certain that if she showed more of the real Bananas Foster to everypony else, they would still like her plenty. Hell, they might even respect her. But for some reason, she thought she needed to cute herself up. Cough for sympathy.

Now that I had seen her pain - her intelligence; now that I considered her my friend, rather than something to be pitied, it was actually painful to watch her act like that. But luckily, I didn't have to see too much of it, cause some other nurse came along and started unhooking me from all the doo-dads. Before I knew it, I was being wheeled to the other end of the hospital in a chair.

In a way, it was kind of exciting at first. They'd squeezed me in to see the physical therapist before he went home for the holiday, so I finally got treatment that didn't involve lying around. My enthusiasm didn't last very long, though. Physical therapy may sound like a great big fancy massage, but what it really involves is hours spent doing exercises that make you feel like your muscles are full of lava and bees. They had to strengthen me up, they said. I'd be getting out of the hospital pretty soon.

When we got back to the room, Bananas was more content than I had ever seen her. She'd finally gotten her storytime, and was reclining in bed. She yawned just a bit.

Once the grown-ups left us alone, I turned to her. "Why?" I said.

"Why what?" She replied.

"You read at, like a billionth grade level. Why storytime?"

Foster took a deep breath. Still relaxed. Still calm.

"There’s so much I don't get to do around here, you know?” She said, staring at the doorway. “Sometimes you just sort of have to tell yourself, ‘If I can only get this one thing. If just this one thing goes right, I’ll be able to hang on.’"

I thought about it a while. It made a certain kind of sense.

"Why storytime, though?" I asked, and in the long silence that followed, I stammered. "That is, if you don't mind my asking."

"Mother used to tell us stories."

From there she just sort of stared into space. Thinking.

"I hear you." I said.

And then I lay there too. Thinking right alongside her. For a moment, I almost asked what had happened. But she’d tell me when she was ready. And I didn’t want to push it. I knew how awful it felt when ponies pushed it.

"What story did Nurse Stethoscope tell you today?" I asked instead.

"I'm not sure." She rolled over on that bed to face me. There was a smile on her face. "You know, I wasn't even really paying attention."

* * *

The rest of my eve wasn't very Hearth's Warmings-y. It was just Bananas and me. Alone in there. Whittling away the hours like a bunch of time-whittlers. Meanwhile, not a creature was stirring at Ponyville Hospital. The staff was bare bones, and hoofsteps in the hallway got fewer and farther between, as those visiting loved ones had either moved on, and had skipped along home to the real party, or settled in quietly with the sick in their hospital rooms.

For a while, I lay there, just listening for signs of life. Anything at all. But all I heard was that irritating bleep, and the scribble of Bananas Foster's pencil in her journal. After what must have been at least an hour, I finally picked up a noise beyond our door. A laugh. A shuffle. Some hoofsteps approaching. I perked up in my bed.
Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, clop.

But it wasn't Roseluck. Just some nurse all decked out in winter gear, laden with presents. She strolled right by our door without paying us infirm-o's no never mind.

She was humming a Hearth's Warming carol.

I closed my eyes and banged the back of my head against my pillow. Roseluck wasn't coming. I could feel it in my bones. The thing is, that wasn't like her. Something was wrong. Really, really, really, really wrong.

Damnit, Roseluck, what the hell is taking you so long?

“Hey, Rose Petal!” Foster called for my attention with a bit of a laugh.

“What?!” I grumbled.

“A skeleton pony walks into a cider tavern.”

“Huh?” The randomness of it caught my attention.

“A skeleton. Pony. Walks. Into. A. Cider tavern.” Said Foster. “Let me know when I’ve lost you.”

“Um...okay.”

“He says to the salespony, ‘I’ll have an apple cider...and a mop.’”

Bleep-bleep.

I got the joke. It took me a minute, but I got it. Then, against my better judgment, I actually started laughing. It was so stupid, but for some reason, I couldn’t help but just laugh.

“Where did that even come from?” I said, now wheezing with oh-my-Celestia-this-is-so-dumb-but-damnit-I’m-chuckling-anyway laughter.

Bananas shrugged and held up a slip of paper that had been tucked into her new book. Of course.

I caught my breath.

"Is it always so dreary around here on the holidays?" I said, the echo of a smile still lingering on my face.

"I wouldn't know." Said Bananas Foster. "I haven't been in Ponyville long enough."

She reclined in her bed, forehooves behind her head, and stared up at the ceiling, looking relaxed. Self-satisfied.

"Well, at least you seem to be having a good holiday."

"Pinkie's present." She said. "I haven't gotten new books in forever. And, of course, the joke."

She waved that piece of paper with the skeleton joke around before tucking it back in, and using it as a bookmark.

I held the watch that Pinkie Pie had given me. Turned it over in my hoof. It was a very simple design. Just a pink watch on a chain. No fancy designs. No fancy inscriptions. But somehow that just made it more magical.

I listened to it tick. The Most Accurate, Most Super Duper Mega Special Watch ever, as designed by the mare who was late to visit the hospital every Thursday. I fiddled with the button a bit, tempted as hell, but I didn't dare press it. I'd made a promise. Still, it was driving me nuts. How did it work?

How did an earth pony know how to use magic? How did Pinkie Pie know I was having issues with time? How the hell did she know about the pirate in my head?

There were a million mysteries surrounding Pinkie, and a million more surrounding that watch, but the thing that hit me the hardest was that she had thought of me in the first place. It sounds so stupid, I know, but look at it this way: if a giant purple monster with a billion eyeballs passed you a cup of water after you had just crawled through the desert, you'd drink first and ask questions later. So it was with smiles in that dreary desert of a hospital bed.

I turned the watch over and over as it hung from the chain around my neck. Left and right, and right and left. It felt good. Knowing that other ponies cared. Ponies I didn't even know all that well. It made me think of that get well card from my classmates.

That was when I got the idea.

I reached underneath me for the card. Unfolded it carefully. Plucked out Misty's old tail hair. It came loose no problem. Flakes of that old school-paste fell off. That stuff never was any good.

I took the watch around my neck and held it really still. If I could tie the hair to the bale, it wouldn't get lost. Cause nopony was going to just come along and take the watch off of my neck for no reason. So I fiddled with my hoof, and the hair, and my mouth. A little awkward, but still, just like threading a needle. I suck at threading needles, by the way. But I could manage this one so long as I worked at it long enough.

I fiddled, and fiddled, and fussed, and fussed, and when I was done with that, I fiddled some more. I challenge any unicorn to go just one day using only your mouth and your hooves for basic everyday tasks. Go ahead. I dare you.

Anyway, I was grunting, and growling, and mumbling, and squeaking when Bananas interrupted.

"Hey, Rose."

"What?!" I snapped.

By some miracle I got the hair through.

"Got it!" I exclaimed, and went about the business of tying it tight. The easy part. Then I looked over and found Foster staring at me.

"Oh. I'm sorry about that. I just sort of um...Hehehe." I laughed to myself. "This is hard."

She looked at me with a raised eyebrow. Just sort of looked at me for a long, long time.

"It's ok." She said. "I just wanted to tell you how glad I am that you're here to spend Hearth's Warming with."

Well, damn.

* * *

It was good to have a friend. Scratch that. Bananas Foster was a life saver. I don't think I could have made it through Hearth's Warming Eve all alone.

Because Roseluck didn't come. She actually stood me up.

It was just Bananas Foster and me.

* * *

We weren’t completely alone, of course. But we might as well have been. There was this big cluster of folks down the hall somewhere. They'd come to visit somepony. I don't know who he or she was, but their whole family had gathered a few doors down to be with ‘em on Hearth's Warming.

At one point, a little kid about six or seven wandered up the hallway and stopped right in front of my door. She was holding a brand new button-eyed plush. Clearly a present. You know, that one present you get on the night before Hearth's Warming Morning.

She looked at me. Gawked at my bleep-a-majig. At my empty room. At my get well card half-crumpled on the end table beside me. Just stared at all of it - not sure what to say - like I'd caught her doing something wrong or something. So I waved. Gave a weak little reassuring smile.

"Hey." I said.

But one glance at my hoof, and she gasped. Panicked. Galloped off. It wasn't even my evil hoof that she saw. The tubes were enough to scare her.

Fucking Hearth's Warming. Fucking health-o's.

"Buck her," said Foster. "She'll learn soon enough it's all a sham."

"Yeah!" I said,

"That Hearth's Warming sucks."

"Yeah," I repeated, but my heart wasn't in it.

I didn't want Hearth's Warming Eve to be a sham. I didn't want it to suck for anypony. I just wanted it to be a day I shared with my sister. I wanted to sit in the garden with all of those roses - preserved out of season by my sister's magic touch - and smile at all the shinies we'd put on the tree. I wanted to warm up by the fireplace afterward with a mug of hot cider. I wanted presents. I wanted Roseluck to take the mass of yarn that I had tied together, and the googly eyes I'd pasted on to it in an attempt to make her a present, and to cherish the silly thing like it was made out of gold.

But even if I hadn't gotten stood up - even if I wasn't stuck in that crummy hospital - I didn't think Hearth’s Warming could ever be the same for me. That holiday magic? Somehow, it didn't feel real anymore. I just wasn't that stupid, sweet little filly anymore.

I suppose I could have taken it worse. I could have started sacrificing children to The De-Innocentizer of Souls. But the holiday was still getting off to an awful start, and thinking about it still hurt.

* * *

So, of course I thought about it plenty. I was off in my own little world - being my usual mopey old self – the mess I'd let myself become - when I suddenly got hit in the stomach with something.

"Oof!" I oofed.

"I'm so sorry!" Laughed Bananas Foster. "Why didn't you catch it?"

"Why didn't you warn me?" I moaned.

"I did!"

"Well, I wasn't paying attention!" I snapped.

"Maybe you should."

"Maybe I don't wanna." I said, rubbing my stomach.

"Just read the book." Bananas Foster rolled her eyes.

I picked it up. It had settled just a little to my side. The book was pretty big, and was tied all good and tight with a ribbon so that she could huck it at me without breaking it.

"The Ponies' History of Equestria?" I read the title out loud.

"You hate authority. You'll love it."

Did I hate authority? I’d never really thought about it.

"Um ok. But why?" I mumbled as I pulled the ribbon off with my teeth.

I mean, I read plenty of nonfiction. And I don't mind a little history. But i couldn't help but feel like she was giving me homework.

"You can't stop Equestria from crumbling if you don't learn how it got the way it is in the first place."

"Fair enough." I said. "I did get an A in history, you know?"

Bananas just raised an eyebrow.

"Which executive order gave Chancellor Puddinghat the authority to round up earth pony political protesters, and shove them into brainwashing 'happy camps' during the War of the Three Races?"

"I'm not all that good at remembering numbers...Hold on a second. What?"

"What was the death count on The Blockade, ordered by Commander Hurricane?"

"The pegasi didn't make the blizzard." I whipped through the pages.

"They sealed off the clouds though, when the earth ponies refused to pay the tithe. The result wasn't pretty. Read the book."

* * *

I flipped through it with fervor. Devoured it.

War. War. War. It had almost destroyed us once before. More than anypony likes to admit.

"But...We've gotten better than this." I said out loud, turning the pages bitterly. "The flag. The princesses answering our call, like Cliff said."

At some point, I’d just sort of casually accepted Cliff Diver's crazy theory. In my state, is that really a surprise?

"They all say that." Said Foster. "Do you have any idea how many civilizations came before us that thought the same thing?" Foster asked totally out of nowhere.

"Um...two?"

"Any idea how many were forgotten ‘cause they didn't leave any written records behind at all?"

She was on a roll now.

"Um...four?"

Foster just stopped. Looked at me. Waited for me to realize what a spazz I was being, which, of course, I already knew. After a long awkward silence, I finally just caved and asked, "Alright, how many?"

"I don't know." She shrugged. "They’re forgotten. They didn't write anything down."

Foster gave me a smug little grin. "That's why we read."

This coming from the girl who debased herself to get attention from nurses and orderlies.

"Yeah, thanks, Professor."

I turned the pages of the chapter on the War of the Three Races, and found a whole other kind of history I had never known about before. Diaries. Snippets of records. The words of Clover the Clever herself.

* * *

"It was upon mine honor that I did take my vows as servant of the crowne, and it was with honor that I have executed those duties for all these longe years. But lately, bearing the yoke of those charges and duties has taken a grave toll upon my conscience. In the end, I feare I am disgraced regardless of my course. Betray myself, or betray my oath, which, in a matter of speaking, is another betrayal of self - a lesson you taught me so very longe ago.

We are at odds not only with the enemy, but with one another, and all the while, the tortures of winter have chilled our hearts, and blunted our wits. The Summit begins tomorrow. With any luck, the three tribes will come to a peacefull agreement. I longe for your enlightened counsel, Master Starswirl, for I feare this task that you have set me upone may prove to be one test that I cannot pass.

I was not prepared for this.

I await news from the homefront.

I hope it is not as bleake as the rumors have lead me to believe?

Your faithfulle student,

Clover the Clever"

I stopped reading for a moment.

"Chilled our hearts." I whispered to myself out loud, running my black evil hoof over the page.

I turned the words over in my head. Even got excited for a moment. This was a clue. A connection! The shadows were cold. The windigo were cold. That had to mean something - the way they both fed on strife and discord!

Then I thought about it a little longer and realized that I had just come up with a whole lot of nothing. All I'd really found out was that cold is fucking evil. And I already knew that.

I devoured the section on Pre-Discordian history. I can't even guess how much time it took, but when I looked up, I found Bananas Foster unconscious. Twitching in her bed. Squirming. She turned herself over a bit here, and a bit there, but she was definitely asleep. It occurred to me that in all the time I'd been there, I'd never actually seen that girl sleep. So I let her be.

I'm not going to trouble you or bore you with every detail of my whiny piratery. But I was alone with my thoughts for quite a long time. I tried hiding from them in that history book, but eventually, I had to put it aside. So I closed my eyes. Did my best to go to sleep.

It was no use. Luna knows how tired I was. But all these stupid fucking thoughts just kept on coming at me. They tossed my feelings around the inside of my heart like one of those baskets full of BINGO balls that old folks play with. G-17. Disappointment. B-4. Loneliness. I-7. Abandonment.

Did Screw Loose know it was Hearth’s Warming? Did they have Hearth 's Warming Eve in the Wasteland? Had Twink ever experienced one? What the fuck was Roseluck doing?

How could she do this to me?

Fuck Roseluck.

I hope she's okay. If she's not okay, I've got to do something to save her! If she is okay then I'll kill her for leaving me alone. What the hell is she thinking?! What if she's not coming back cause she finally realized Dad was right, and I'm not worth the trouble?

CLONK! Twinkle Eyes' 2x4. "Nopony talks that way about my friends."

You get the idea.

At some point in all that madness, I looked up and I was in that field again. The one outside the schoolhouse. The pink light of sunset was already kissing the hills on the edge of the grounds. It was the same thing as before: Twink attacking Misty for cheating in a game with no actual rules; Misty protesting "ees not my fault I'm good at dee things." Laughter.

The big red kickball rolled away from the chaos and stopped at my bad hoof.

"Hey, guys!" I turned to them. "I got the ball."

But they didn't answer. They just kept on doing their thing, rolling around. Having fun.

"Guys?" I said, trotting up to them with a forced smile, but they just completely ignored me. Like I was invisible.

It occurred to me then and there that this perfect little moment that I'd seen before - it wasn't mine to enjoy. I wasn’t that stupid sweet little filly anymore. And they were all happier without me.

I squeaked out a little whimper, and plopped my flank down on that kickball. I hung my head down low, just listening to everypony else as they had their fun without me. Eventually it all faded. The game. The laughter. The waggitty-tailed Screw Loose dog. When I finally looked up, they were gone altogether.
Probably for the best. I thought.

BINGO. I was finally completely and totally alone. That was when that damn bell chimed again. The schoolbell calling me back from recess.

A breeze picked up, and a whisper scratched at me all the way from inside my ear drums. It was loud and insistent. It burned the inside of my ears like scratchy grains of sand stuck all up in there, but I couldn't make out any words. All I knew was that recess was officially over, and that it wanted me to come back inside. The voice behind all that noise. I thought back to how messed up that schoolhouse had looked the last time. Remembered Roseluck’s warning about it too.

But still, part of me started to wonder. Part of me got to thinking that maybe that place was where I really belonged after all. My friends were better off without me, and Roseluck was off somewhere, having a good time. I knew it. I could see it! Like looking into the window of a bakery when you don't have any money. I could literally see Roseluck. Laughing by the fireside. With her own friends. Having the holiday she deserved.

In that moment, I was confirmed in what I had quietly suspected my entire life. Roseluck didn’t need some bratty little sister dragging her down all the time. I know that sounds like a stupid thing to think, but dreams are pretty much just feelings with pictures, so that asshole pirate was in control for once. And he was having a field day. Tossing more Desolation Bingo balls right at my heart.

“Come home,” said the whisper in my head, totally out of nowhere. “Come home.”

The kickball under my flank started to wobble and slide out from under me. There was a current underneath my hooves too. An undertow. I didn’t fight it, and it didn’t matter, cause I was standing in darkness. And it clung to me like tar.

That long schoolhouse shadow had come up behind me. Stretched its way all the way toward the hills.

And I got lost in it.

Maybe that creepy voice was right. Maybe the schoolhouse was home.

Then the voice grew bolder.

When I was just a foal, we had gone to help clear out Great Aunt Roseroot’s old cottage. My sister and me.

The inside was full of junk, and cobwebs, and strange unpleasant smells. When Roseluck lit the first candle, four hundred thousand bugs startled all of a sudden, and noticed us too, and scurried like crazy to get away from the light. A million little scratches. On tile. On wood. On metal. In every direction. Left, right, forward, back, ceiling, floor. Awful, awful scratches everywhere.

There was no place to run to, so I just froze in place - screamed and cried. But the sound just got louder, and louder, and louder. I didn't stop freaking out till I looked up and realized that Roseluck had already taken me outside.

In that field, surrounded by tar and shadow gunk, I heard that sound again for the first time since I was small. Scratches. Millions of them. All somehow assembling themselves into one voice.

“Come home." It said. "Come home.”

I shivered. Shot up to my hooves. And there in the distance, I finally got a good look at that weird schoolhouse. I realized just how terrible a place it actually was. That I didn’t belong there - really, really, really, really didn't fucking belong there.

I turned. Tried to run. Tried to pull away from the tarry floor. But it just tugged at me, and tugged at me, and tugged at me harder.

"Twink?" I said. "Misty? Cliff!"

But they didn’t answer. They were nowhere at all to be found.

"Twink is gone." Said that voice, scratching at the inside of my ear drum again.

"No," I whispered to myself.

I kept looking for her, but I couldn't even see the hill anymore. Let alone Twinkle Eyes.

Meanwhile the shade I stood in was moving. Rustling. It didn’t sound like bugs anymore. These things, whatever they were, were much bigger now. My size. There had to be dozens of them from the sound of it, and they were creeping up on me from behind. Dragging themselves through the dirt.

I didn’t want to look at that schoolhouse again, and risk getting sucked towards it, so I didn’t dare turn around. But I checked my hoof like Roseluck had said. It was warm.

“What?!” I said out loud. “So this is all in my fucking imagination then?”

I was safe. I had to be. I assured myself quietly. The shadows couldn’t trick me with my own piratery. They couldn’t suck me in with their stupid tar either. The shadows sucked. And I told them so.

"Fuck you, shadows!" I yelled. "You suck!"

But still, I felt that old familiar terror.

If only I can lay eyes on my friends again, I thought. Just for a minute! Then I knew I would be out of their grasp for good. You had to beat them with a strong heart. Or some shit. Dream Roseluck had told me so the night before.

"Twink! Rose? Cliff?” I called out. “Anypony?"

But the creatures just got closer. Dragging. Crunching on leaves.

Then one of the rustlers called to me from behind.

"Rose Petal," she pleaded. "Help."

It stunned me so much that I actually turned around, and found myself face-to-face with them. Forty-some-odd children. Dressed in rags. Covered in dirt. And they looked to me with blank expressions.

Those poor kids couldn't have been older than kindergartners.

"Why?" Said the one closest to me.

Just why.

"I believed in you," said another.

They stepped closer. One-by-one. The mass of them seemed to emerge from the black like an army marching out of the ocean. When I saw them up close, it became really obvious that they were fucked up and mangled in someway. All of them. Obviously broken limbs. Holes in the head that had stopped bleeding long ago.

"We need you," said one of the littler ones. "Come home."

I looked her in the eyes. Eyes that did not blink. Eyes that looked back at me so coldly I felt like my bones were naked.

"Who are you?" I whispered.

But she didn't answer.

None of them did. They just stared me down scornfully.

I looked out over their shoulders. Beyond them, still in the distance, was a vague and distorted outline of the schoolhouse. That's where the inky black stuff was coming from. Bad news.

"Come on!" I said. "We gotta get away from here."

I turned, but the field was gone. Then I turned around some more, and around, and around again, but it was all just black. I couldn't find the hills. I couldn't find the playground. I could barely tell up from down, let alone figure out which way to go.

"I'll um...I'll get you out." I did my best to wing it. "Please just, uh...Follow me."

I kept looking desperately for an exit. A drop of light. Anything. But it was all just black. Everywhere.

The little girl at my side looked up at me. "That's what you said before." She said dryly.

The wind blew her ratty old cape off. It disappeared clean into the darkness around us. Her poor chest was riddled with holes. The kind you can only get in the Wasteland.

"It should have been you." She said.

I clapped my hoof against my mouth. "You poor thing," I started crying.

I reached out to touch her face with my other forehoof, but she just looked at me with purest hate.

"It should have been you." She said again, and spat on me.

"It should have been you," said another voice from behind.

Then another. And another. And another. It should have been you.

I dropped to my knees there on the playground.

"No," I whispered.

I was looking at the kids of Sub Mine F.

I wanted to call out to them. Tell them I was sorry. Tell them that I had tried. Really, really tried. But I couldn't summon up even a syllable. I didn't have enough breath for words.

Then the recess bell rang, and one-by-one, they turned their backs on me and filed away back towards the schoolhouse.

"Wait!" I cried at last, and got up to gallop after them. "Don't go in there!"

I caught up with the crowd, and tried to pull the fillies and colts back. But they just kept marching - filing their way back into this horrible, jagged version of the little red schoolhouse I'd once known.

A cloud of pungent smoke rose out of the chimney.

"Wait!" I said. "Wait!"

Finally one of them turned around. A colt. The one I saw on the back of those cloak-o's the night I first stumbled through the Wasteland. The One I'm Not Meant to Save.

It was him! It was him! I was sure of it.

"You," I said in awe.

He stared me down. Dead judgmental eyes.

"You." He replied coldly.

We just stood there, alone together in the field as the other kids marched right on into "class." He didn't blink. Didn't breathe. Didn't do anything. It was unnatural.

Finally, after a long staring contest, he turned his back on me without saying another word, and followed the rest.

"No!" I said, grabbing him. "Don't go in there! It's evil!"

But he didn't listen. So I followed. Threw myself at him. I couldn't let that kid go. Not this time.

With my hooves wrapped around his torso, the One I'd Failed to Save merged seamlessly into the crowd.

My hooves dragged through the tar. No matter how deeply I dug in, or pressed, or tugged, there was no stopping him. No slowing him down. He moved like I wasn't there at all. It wasn't long before we were closed in, and surrounded by the crowd of all the other slaughtered mine kids.

"Stop!" I said. "Please!"

As we drew closer, my hoof started tingling again. Getting chills. I looked back at that doorway, and the impenetrable ink that seemed to spill from inside. That stuff was made of evil shadow. The real thing. The kind that Dream Roseluck had warned me would attack if I lingered on my heartache for too long. The kind that freezes you solid, and plunges into your worst memories, and dyes your hoof, and turns you into a quivering mess.

The kind of shadow you can't escape from.

I shrieked wildly. "Ahh! Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahh! Ahhh!"

Then I did it some more. "Ahhhhhhhh!"

But they all just marched. Coldly.

It hurt to abandon those poor mine-o's a second time, but I didn't want to run into another shadow thing. I couldn't. I couldn't even think about it without degenerating into a rampaging mindless panic. So I pushed and charged through the crowd. Screaming like a foal. There were so many kids, that I couldn't even tell what was what anymore. It was all just black and gray. Black and gray. Black and gray.

"No." I howled. "Stop."

But it was too late to turn back. The crowd kept marching on toward its doom, and sweeping me with them.

"It should have been you," was all any of them said to me. "It should have been you."

"I'm sorry." I cried.

"It should have been you."

"I'm so sorry."

At some point I stopped pleading with them, and just plain begged to be spared for my own sake. "Please,” I said. “Just leave me alone."

But they did not.

We were damn close to the door now, and they knew it. I still couldn't see anything on the inside. Just black. But the echoes of a whole bunch of voices reverberated from the inside.

“It should have been you, Rose.” They said. “It should have been you.”

I tried to run. To push. To climb away from all of them. But they were grabbing me now. And those kids were burning-fucking-cold to the touch. Almost like they were shadows themselves.

I tossed, and I writhed and swung out at anypony who touched me with their icy hooves, but it was no use. Because deep down inside, I knew that they were right. It should have been me.

My struggles got random. Desperate. I started lashing out wildly, without even having any targets. There was nothing more that I could do. The mine-o's were everywhere, they were fixed on taking me inside, and I couldn’t stop them.

I looked up. The schoolhouse wasn't even lying anymore. It showed itself for what it was - the castle tower from my vision in the Trottica tunnels. The place with all the screams that you could hear for miles, and miles, and miles. The home of the shadows.

A gust of wind chilled my back. My evil hoof felt like it was on cold fire now. I clutched it and screamed, it hurt so bad.

The doorway was looming right over us - a great stone arch. It was so dark where I was, that the gray outline of that doorway became all that I could see. In just a moment, I would be inside, and there would be no use in fighting at all anymore. A claw almost grazed my back as it whipped around behind me. Hungry.

I could feel it.

“Help!” I called out one last time, more a whimper than a yell. "Please?"

And to my surprise, help came.

“Enough!"

A bold and terrifying voice. Booming over everything. Suddenly, it all ground to a halt, and the cursed souls of Sub Mine F carried me no more. Instead, I found myself on the floor. Heaving. Sobbing. Practically a puddle. Apologizing. Pleading for mercy. Shielding myself instinctively, as if that could do any good.

Then a hoof set down before me, and a light started shining down from above. A real light.

"Dry your tears, child. " Said the voice.

The hoof lifted my chin. And then I saw her through salty, teary eyes.

"Princess Luna!"

A spark of moonlight lit up her face. The very air around her seemed to hum like some strange and mysterious choir. Without thinking, I threw myself around her leg. I had never met a real live princess before, or even come close. Maybe I should have bowed or something, but I was so relieved I just couldn't help myself.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!" I cried. "You saved me."

Her hoof stroked my mane as the rest of the field around us warmed up slowly, and became its old self under the light of the Moon.

"You saved me." I sobbed for a long while.

"I'm afraid that I did not." She said at last.

I looked up at her. Shocked and confused.

"The real danger is yet to come." Princess Luna pointed at a scene beside us.

It was me. Frozen in time. Like a photograph, or something out of a wax museum. It was all exactly as it had been right before she had come. I could see myself just outside the doorway to that hellish castle. Like a statue trying to claw its way out of a sea of black syrup.

"I cannot fight the shadows for you," said the princess. "Because I did not invite them here."

"Who did?"

She looked down her muzzle at me. "You, child. This is your dream."

I couldn't tell if she was chiding me, or just being frank.

"No, I...I--;”

I tried to think of an excuse, but then I remembered what Dream Roseluck had said the night before. How they find you. How they get you. How you fight them. There was no way around it. Luna was right.

"Loneliness. Fear. Despair." She said. "This is what the shad--;"

"What about Sub Mine F?!” I interrupted her without shame or tact. “The kid from the Wasteland! The shadow things have them."

I pointed back at the scene: The statue of me getting sucked into that castle, still frozen in time. But no mine-o’s were anywhere to be seen. Just me and a whole lot of tar.

"I don't know what it is that you speak of,” said Princess Luna. “But anything that you've seen here is a trick."

"So what now, this isn't real?" I waved my evil hoof around, gesticulating wildly at Statue Rose Petal and the shadow waters. "All this over a silly dream!"

I reached out to touch the statue, but Luna snatched my hoof away.

"Rose Petal." She looked at me sternly. "You of all ponies should know that there is nothing silly about dreams."

I seized up, as still as a wax statue myself. Luna knew! She knew! The Princess actually knew.

"Uh...umm." I couldn’t figure out what to say.

She held back and watched me fumble a bit. Measured me with her eyes. And I just kept on acting like a dufus. I mean, really, what do you do when a princess casually happens to know your biggest secret? I wanted to crawl into a hole and shrink into nothing. But I didn't dare to look away. She just held on to me with her bright blue eyes. They almost glowed.

It made me wonder. Could Princess Luna help me in the wasteland? Had she seen everything? Had she been watching this whole time?

"Every dream has a door," she said, as if to answer the questions in my head. "Where yours lead..."

She lifted an eyebrow at me. "...I cannot follow."

I nodded. But the answer wasn't reassuring. Every dream has a door.

I turned to look at Statue Rose Petal again. Struggling. Screaming. The black was dragging her through the doorway of the castle with all its might.

"What's that door?"

I said, trembling just a little.

Luna looked at me gravely.

"The Point of No Return."

Statue Me was inches from it. And surrounded in all directions. Roseluck had said that my heart was how I could beat them, but it was my heart that sunk as I watched. There was no way I could get free from that.

Statue Rose Petal was totally fucked. Which meant that I was totally fucked.

“Wait, wait, wait!” I pleaded. “There’s gotta be...maybe some--;”

“I built it myself,” said Luna. “Once upon a time.”

I was about to make a great big loud obnoxious exclamation. “You what?!” But I saw the worry on her face. The pain. The regret.

That castle, however it had come to be, was her Sub Mine F.

“I built it to keep the children safe." She said at last. "To keep the nightmares away. But in my long absence, it fell.” Her voice trailed off into a whisper.

We were left with the dreaded silence of night. Not even a cricket. Just the sound of waves on distant shores. Luna took a deep breath at last. “Not with all the magic in Equestria could I liberate this place.” She said, summoning her composure once again. “And if you set hoof inside, there is no power in this world that could set you free.”

"What about the Elements of Harmony?" I whimpered, as though they would come to the aid of a background pony anyway.

"The Elements belong to Equestria. This place - these dreams - they belong to a vast ocean between worlds. If there is a way to bring the Elements here, I do not know it. It is up to each and everypony to stand alone against their fear."

“And you can’t get me out of...this?” I gestured to the chaos. The wax museum sculpture. The ink. The shadows.

“No,” she said from behind me. “I can only show you how.”

I kept on staring. It's impossible to describe what it’s like to see your own self struggling right there before your eyes. Fucking screaming. Getting dragged into someplace truly unspeakable.

"So, um…” I ran my hoof nervously through my mane. “I'll actually have to...You know...All by myself?"

I turned back to face the princess, but she was already gone. Trotting amongst the stars.

"No! Wait!" I yelled. "Come back! How do I..."

I looked back at my own screaming statue self, and whimpered. "How do I fight the impossible?"

* * *

She was out of sight now. The choir was silent. The hum was gone. And I was left alone in the field, looking up at a gigantic yellow moon that took up nearly half the sky.

"Please,” I shouted at the great black sky. "I didn't get to tell you about the future. The war!"

No answer. Not even crickets.

"You die, Princess! You fucking die!"

A whisper hit me from the inside of my ear. It was the Princess' voice one last time.

"I know, child." She said, frighteningly calm. "I know."

I looked up at that moon. It was silent. Tranquil. Patient.

Luna knew. There was a Way It Was Supposed to Happen. And she was following it. Just like I had. Following it straight to her own doom.

* * *

I looked around. It was just that big yellow moon and me. And, of course, Screaming Quite Reasonably In Terror Statue Rose Petal. I scuttled my hooves through the dust to get as far away from that thing as possible, but even when I closed my eyes, I could see every detail of my own statue face. That horrifying desperation.

I shuffled away, and kept my eyes on the stars, and listened. But there were no voices. Not even a brain hornet. Just hoof-shuffling and silence. When I got far enough away, I stopped and looked up at that big old moon. With Luna gone, it was all I had.

"What am I supposed to do?" I cried. "Tell me!”

No answer.

“Tell me!"

Still no answer.

At least until I noticed a strange object all the way on the other end of the field. I couldn't figure out what it was at first, but it was bigger than a pony. And it didn't belong there. I walked over, staring. Hoping.

It was a door. A metal door like the kind that leads to an apple cellar, but standing straight up. In the middle of the field. As far as I could tell, it lead to absolutely nothing. After a bit of a walk, I soon found myself standing right in front of it. It towered over me. I touched it. It was chilly but not that Evil kind of cold. Just regular cold. The door was splashed in sloppy white paint. "No Mare's Land." It said in uninviting letters.

I looked back at the sky. But the Moon just hovered there. Watching. Waiting.

I circled the door, inspecting it carefully. When I came around to the other side, there was nothing there at all. No door. Just air. It had dis-a-fucking-ppeared. I could look right through the spot where the door was supposed to be, and see my own hoofprints right there where I had just been standing. But when I came back around, there it was again.

The door. Like magic. The writing as stark and un-reassuring as ever: No Mare's Land.

The fucking thing stared at me. Daring me to open it. At least that's what it felt like.

Stupid door.

It was hard to look away from. There was some strange kind of magnetic pull about it or something. But with effort, I looked back up at the Moon again anyway.

"I'm supposed to learn how to beat the shadow things in a place called ‘No Mare's Land’?"

Silence.

"Isn't that, you know, just a little creepy?!"

Silence.

Moon.

The sound of distant waves.

"Well," I took a deep breath. "Um. Okay, then. Here goes nothing."

I wedged my hoof under the metal handle and tugged it open gently. Immediately, I fell forward right through it.

Right into No Mare's Land.

Fucking Moon.

No Mare's Land

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - NO MARE'S LAND
"I got soul but I'm not a soldier." - The Killers

There's no getting used to the Big Kaboom. That great big explosion you have to pass through on your way to the future. But when I fell through that door to No Mare's Land, those million screams, that smack across the face - it was a blink-of-the-eye pit-stop this time. All that stuff flew over me, past me, around me, through me, and afterwards, I found myself face-to-face with something else entirely.

It was this moment. Like every cloud in Equestria suddenly crumbled away and parted at once. The big bright blue showed itself in a gigantic flash – a cataclysm just as big as the bomb had been, except it was a good thing.

I was moving past the Wasteland. And as I careened through this new vision, three words were left on the tip of my tongue.

Sunshine and rainbows.

Then, all of a sudden, the weightlessness of it all sort of fell away, and I found myself tumbling face first down a flight of rickety wooden stairs. I hit the ground with a thud. I'd arrived.

"Sunshine and rainbows," I said to myself, spitting dirt out of my mouth.

Eighty years after "Sunshine and Rainbows," to be precise. Whatever the hell that meant.

I sprung to my hooves, and tried to get my bearings. In case I was in danger. I felt like one of those squirrels who jerks his head every which way as he clutches his acorn - the kind that, if given the power of speech, would just waste it on screaming "oh, no, oh, no, oh, no," all the time. "Everything wants to eat me!!!"

But there was no one around. Just dirt, and wood, and crates, and stuff. From the looks of things, No Mare's Land was some kinda cellar. I poked around all over. There was a piece of paper taped to one of the crates. An inventory. I looked it over, but the contents were all fucking boring. So I moved on.

There didn't seem to be a single thing down there that could help me fight shadows at all.

So instead, I grabbed a bandage out of a giant metal first aid box. Wrapped it around my evil hoof, so I could blend in a little better if I needed to, but that was about all the cellar had to offer.

I was alone in a tiny space. Just me, a bunch of crates, some burlap sacks, and a crummy old pile of brown blankets in the corner. Up above, I heard banging. Like cannon fire, but distant. Muffled. The rumbles were few and far between. There was no way to know for certain whether or not it was the sound of fighting. I suspected it might be, and after a moment of steeping the idea like a tea bag bobbing around a head full of think-juice, I reckoned it was probably best to act as though there was actual fighting going on. Just in case.

I made my way up the stairs to get a better look. At the top of it was a big metal flap that lifted upward. The door. The same door that had catapulted me into No Mare's Land in the first place.

I swallowed hard.

It didn't make a whole lot of sense, but I couldn't help but wonder: Would it spit me back out again into an evil castle full of shadow tar if I tried to go through it?

I didn't have too much time to think on the issue, cause out of nowhere, the door opened.

* * *

I leapt off of the stairs. Totally blind. In fear. Not knowing who was coming down there to join me.

Thwack! I hit the ground awkwardly and stumbled face first into a crate. I only fell a couple of feet, but it sure didn't feel like it.

A figure stood at the top of the stairs, all bundled up in a scarf. A gust of freezing wind followed him. He was busy fussing with the door, so he didn't see me.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! I thought.

There was wooden framework under the stairs. It was my only shot. I scurried over, and hid underneath. It was like this web of supporting scaffolding and stuff. I managed to fit. Just barely. I forced my frantic breaths down and tried to be as quiet as possible. There was nothing to do but watch and wait. And try to stay calm over the deafening sound of my own thundery heart.

A colt came down. All bundled up in a long brown coat that was just a little bit too big for him. His scarf levitated off of his face and hung loosely from his neck. The kid was a unicorn, light blue, with a scruffy red mane - not that you could tell with all the dirt on him. He was sneaking around too. Suspicious-like. He backed his way toward one of the stacks of crates on the far end of the room, never taking his eyes off the door.

He could have seen me had he been looking. Easily. But he was more worried about getting caught than about catching somepony else. He turned his attention toward one of the burlap sacks, eager to accomplish his task, which, judging by his demeanor, was really, really important. I didn't dare move for most of his rummage-fest, but when he telekinetically opened that bag, I leaned forward just a little bit.

What did he want? What was he after? Was that my mission? The bag? Was there something in this cellar I needed after all? Was he snatching it right there in front of me?

The colt’s eyes lit up as he hovered over it.

He took one last paranoid look toward the door. Then closed his eyes and concentrated. Flashed his horn till the bag itself glowed blue. And then out it came.

An onion. He grabbed it and devoured it like it was cake. Cleaned himself up in a frenzied hurry, and grabbed all the dry onion skins that had shed. Shoved it all back in the corner.

Onion Boy darted for the staircase, but he didn't make it in time. The door flung open again, and, thinking fast, he dove under the scaffolding to hide.

Fuck!

I cringed further into the corner to make space, but there just wasn't anywhere for me to go. The guy landed right next to me, and when I got a good look at him, I could tell he was only a little bit older than me. A teen like Foster. Onion Boy cringed at the sound of hoofsteps creaking on down the stairs.

That’s when his eyes finally met mine.

He stumbled backward in shock, and nearly smacked right into a pile of noisy wood. He whipped around to face me, and threw his hooves up in defense like I was gonna hit him or something. I put my hoof to my mouth and mimed a shush gesture. I hoped, and hoped, and hoped that he had the sense not to scream, or flail, or do something stupid.

"Sterry, you down here?" An older teenager's voice.

Sterry didn't answer. He just kept looking at me the whole time.

"Hey, Short Stack, Colonel Wormwood is looking for you."

Colonel. Whatever I was mixed up in was some kind of military operation.

The owner of the voice creaked his way down those stairs, and on to the dirt floor. It was another colt - an older one. Dressed in brown. A grown up, but only barely.

The kid beside me, Sterry, jerked his head back and forth. His turn for the frightened squirrel routine. He didn't want to keep this Colonel Wormwood waiting. But also didn't want to get caught. So he looked at me. Looked at the other guy. Looked back at me like he wanted to kill me. Looked at the other guy like he was about to get killed.

"Sterry!" The guy finally spotted him. Spotted us both.

"Uhh..." The kid backed up against the dirt wall.

Put as much distance between me and him as he could. Sterry had gone from scared-of-getting-caught to terrified-of-being-seen-with-me.

"It's not what you think, sir." His voice was trembling.

The older one - a brown earth pony - turned to me. Lowered his gigantic bushy eyebrows and measured me carefully. So I waved back at him.

"How..." The older one's jaw dropped. "How did that kid get down here?" He sounded terrified too.

Uh-oh. I thought. Did I just stumble into another Trottica? Some fucked up future where being under a certain age was illegal?
Or maybe it's because I'm a girl. The place was called No Mare's Land after all.

The older one turned to Sterry. He wanted to beat the crap out of the poor kid. Like it was his fault I was there.

"Uhh, uhh, uh..." Sterry was all slick, and quick on his hooves and stuff. "Uh...Hey kid, are you okay?"

Suddenly all eyes were on me.

Well played, Sterry.

"Um, umm..." I fared no better than he did.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I said to myself. He just asked if you were okay. Thats not even a hard question!

But I couldn't come up with the words. Finally, I just nodded my head "yes."

"How did you get here?" The older one approached.

All the stupid things I could possibly say ran rampant through my head all at once, but I bit down on my lip real hard, and didn't say any of them. I just answered by pointing at the door.

The older one rolled his eyes while Sterry just sort of sighed in relief that the attention was off him for a while - that he wasn't in trouble. The kid whipped a flask out from under his coat and took a swig from it - to hide the smell of onions most likely. Instead he just ended up smelling like that stuff they put on your cuts before giving you a bandage.

"Where is your mother?" Asked the older one.

"She passed." I could hear the quiver in my own voice. I didn't put it there on purpose. I was just telling the truth.

"Father?"

"Meh." I shrugged.

That got a laugh.

I didn't tell them about Roseluck. They would just wanna know where she was. So I observed some more instead and let them think that I was an all-around orphan. It was kind of amazing. The less I spoke, the more I learned about these ponies. I made a little checklist in my head.

-They weren't used to seeing kids.

-But they weren't out to get us either.

-This wasn't a safe place like back home in Ponyville.

-But for once I wasn't plopped down in the middle of a crowd of murderous bastards.

The older one - I called him Oldy in my head - wasn't surprised to learn that I had no parents.

-So such a thing must be at least somewhat common.

Orphaned kids. Death. War. Good intentions. On a scale from Ponyville to the Wasteland, this Sunshine and Rainbows world got about a 5. Not quite enough to live up to its nickname.

"Hey, kid, speak up, what's your name?" Sterry was short on patience. "Where'd you come from?"

"Rose Petal," I snapped. "And I don't know."

Clonk! Oldy smacked him upside the head.

"Leave her alone and go sterilize...blankets or something." He pointed at the first thing he saw – the pile of blankets.

"I already did."

"Then just back off and let me handle this kid, okay?"

Sterry grumbled.

"That's an order."

I never thought it would be possible to salute somepony with petulance, but in that moment, Sterry managed. A salute of purest contempt. Oldy just ignored him, and focused on me.

"Hey, so...um..." He stuttered, straightened his coat collar with his mouth. The way he fidgeted as he talked, he looked like a little kid chewing on his clothes. “Um...um...um…”

Sterry stood behind him, mocking his nervous, uncertain mannerisms with surgical accuracy. I had to cover my face just to hide the smirk. That kid was good at impressions. Damn good.

"How are you today?" Oldy said at last.

"I'm...well, to be honest..."

Boom! A rumble from the outside broke the bizarre comedic tension. The ground shook so hard, that it rained dirt from the ceiling. And suddenly, the situation wasn't funny anymore. I squealed and pressed myself against the wall. For a moment I could even swear I was back in the tunnels of Trottica again. But the other two just acted like it was nothing.

I blinked. Found myself clinging to a wooden beam in anticipation of a cellar collapse, or an army of enemies storming down, or I don't fucking know, something.

Sterry and Oldy were both looking at me - pitying me. Like I was a little baby. So I cleared my throat, brushed myself off, and kicked the wall with my hind legs to show it to who was boss.

"That's for startling me!"

Oldy smiled. Sterry visibly loosened up a bit too. For some reason, it was a relief to him knowing I wasn't some fragile pathetic thing. At least when it came to menacing dirt. I felt pathetic though - freaking out like that - and it made me mad as hell at those fucking cloak-o’s all the way back in Trottica for turning me into such a basket case in the first place.

"Yeah, that's the spirit." Said the older one. "Kick it like it's corn."

There was shouting up above, just beyond the door at the top of the stairs. Sterry and Oldy looked at one another, then looked back at me. I couldn't make out what was being yelled up there, but they sure understood.

"Listen, I have to go for a bit." Oldy sat on his hindquarters, put his forehooves on my shoulders. "Can you stay right here?" He asked. "Just for a little while?"

I nodded. A fucking lie. I wasn't gonna stay nowhere.

The teenage soldiers drew their guns from under their coats. The younger one levitated it as he messed around with his scarf. Oldy, being an earth pony, just gripped his gun in his teeth.

I didn't want to give away how totally clueless I was. That would be suspicious. But I needed answers, and I did seem to be amongst ponies who actually wanted to protect me. For a change.

So I took a page out of Bananas Foster's playbook. It was a terrible idea, but something in me had to at least try it.

"Sterry!" I called.

He stopped at the top of the stairs just before the door. Oldy bumped into him from behind.

"Is Equestria at war?" I did my best to sound helpless and unimposing.

I was bad at it. I hated the words even as they came out of my mouth. It showed.

Sterry sighed an impatient "yes," whilst Oldy spat out his gun to answer "no." He caught the gun in one hoof, and clopped Sterry in the head with the other.

"We are not at war." He snapped. "This is an armed conflict."

"War." Sterry pretended to cough.

"And it's not all of Equestria." The older one turned to me.

"...Yet," coughed Sterry.

Oldy wrapped a leg around Sterry's neck and got him into a headlock.

"Don't worry about it," he said to me. "Equestria would never go to war again."

Boom!

Dirt rained down from the ceiling.

"But," he laughed nervously. "Our outpost here is well...just sort of in a little bit of a skirmish right now. Don't you worry about a thing, little girl."

Oldy looked daggers at Sterry, who was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Then he let him go. Sterry coughed, and coughed, and coughed, and caught his breath. But even after all that, it was still me that he was worried about. I could see it in his eyes, as he looked down at me nervously from the top of those stairs.

"Just stay here." They both said at once.

The Helpless Kid Routine had worked all too well. Yuck.

A gust of freezing air came down into the cellar as they flung the door open. Along with the smell of smoke, and the sounds of ratatatatatat guns, explosions, and a whole lot of shouting.

You know, war.

Then wham! The door slammed shut and I was alone again.

"Don't worry about a thing, little girl." I said in a mocking tone once they were gone.
So stupid. Why did I do that? Play the pity card. Why did it actually work? What the fuck, world? Ew, ew, ew, ew!

I couldn't even begin to guess how Bananas Foster could stand any of it. Because Eww. Seriously. Fucking Ewwwwwwww.

* * *

But there were more pressing concerns: a world at war that wasn't really a war; an outpost that got sucked into the center of it; an Equestria that hated war so bad, it wouldn't even admit when it was spiraling face-first into one.

Is this whatI was sent there to learn? That the Wasteland wouldn't last forever. That even when ponies do go to war in the far, far distant future, things are gonna be far, far better because they'd learn their lesson - because they wouldn't go around torturing kids in mines anymore, and worshiping de-innocentizers, and actresses and stuff?

I got to work rummaging around that cellar. Grabbed myself a coat that was ridiculously too big. Brown with white lining like the others. Hideous. Grabbed myself an onion. I might actually be desperate enough to eat it before the day was done. Kicked and pried at other boxes in search of weapons, maps, clues - anything at all that I could use. Another door maybe, to get the fuck out of there, and by the way, skip all that shadow castle stuff and move straight on into the sort of dreams that involved brownies and caramel.

As if it would be that easy.

There was nothing. The hornets weren't helping either. Even the me-voices in my head were useless. I had no idea how this day was supposed to go down, because the inside of my head was completely fucking silent. It was like being dumped into the middle of a high-stakes game of marbles, with a whole bunch of stupid house rules that made no fucking sense, and nopony bothering to explain them.

Before long, I found myself sitting on the floor. Staring up at the door I had just come through. The big metal door that had sucked me into No Mare's Land in the first place.

Yes, I was contemplating running out there into a war zone. Unarmed.

The cellar was a dead end. I couldn't hide there forever, and couldn't just wait for Sterry and his friend to come back either. Or to talk with Colonel Wormwood. She sounded like a real pleasure to deal with.

No. I was there in No Mare's Land for a reason.

I didn't even believe I was there for a good reason. Like Bananas had said. But I hadn't come hundreds of years into the future just to hang around some cellar. So up the stairs I went. I kept my eyes fixed on the door as I climbed step-by-creaking-step. All six of them. It wasn't a very deep cellar.

I perched at the top of the steps, and put my hoof on the cold metal door. Stood there for a long, long time. Working up the nerve.

"Ok, on the count of three." I said.

"1..."

I pressed firmly against the door.

"2..." I rocked back-and-forth like a battering ram in anticipation.

"Two-and-a-half..." I kept rocking myself back-and-forth like a battering ram in further anticipation.

I got as high as two-and-three-quarters before I said, "Fuck it," and just opened the damned door already. Charged out there into the bitter cold. Ready to gallop through fire, and kabooms, and flee from bad guys in easy-to-identify floral print uniforms. Or something.

But what I found wasn't that kind of war at all.

The door opened up along the bottom of some kind of a ditch. And there were long, long, long, long rows of soldier ponies bunched up in their coats, sitting in the dirt, huddling in the same ditch as me. They looked like a patch of lumpy brown potatoes.

Some ponies were running up and down the trench. All of them were huddling against the fall of raining dirt. There was shooting and shouting, but the strangest thing of all was the soldiers who just sat there. Ignoring it. Being potatoes.

I couldn't put my hoof on it, but there was something horrifically wrong out there. Something the opposite of good.

I could feel it in the air. In the dirt. See it written on all of their faces.

A gust of wind whipped through the lot of us, and a shivering unicorn turned around to huddle. She almost looked right at me!

I yelped and scurried back down the stairs so fast, I hit the dirt before the door even fell shut behind me.

Maybe Sterry and Oldy are right, I thought to myself .

I mean, sure, the answers I was looking for weren't going to be down in some cellar, but maybe I needed to be patient and hang around. You know, someplace relatively warm. That doomyness out there might even go away on its own. Resolve itself if we were lucky. Maybe I could just kick back, and figure out what to do later once Sterry returned.

"Yeah," I said, pacing back-and-forth. "That's what I'll do."

I walked around in tiny circles. It warmed me up pretty quick. Without the chill of the wind, the cellar itself was almost comfortable.

"Just hang out here," I said to myself. "Eeyup."

I circled a while longer, and sang a little song about buckets of oats on the wall. But I'd only counted down to 95 before I went and saw something that made me stop dead in my tracks.

Blankets. I was face-to-face with that pile of blankets. Blankets those ponies out there could really, really, really use.

"Fuck."

* * *

I stepped outside for real. Stood there in the trench staring down a nauseatingly long row of hideous brown trench coats. There were dozens of soldiers down in that trench - probably more around the corner. And lots of very, very big guns.

They are going to shoot me. They're going to shoot me. They are going to shoot me. An annoying voice in my head kept on saying.

"They are going to fucking shoot me." I whispered out loud to myself out loud.

But it was too late for me to turn back.

Besides, they all looked so damn cold and miserable, that I just plain had no choice but to blanket them up. Or at least try.

I straightened my coat. Held my head high. After a long, deep breath, I readied the first blanket - yanked it from under the straps on my back, and approached the first soldier.

"Blanket Brigade," I mumbled, mouth full of wool.

The green unicorn potato mare looked at me. Blinked in surprise. Blinked so hard it made a bloinky bloink sound.

"Holy shit, it's a fucking kid!" She shouted.

"Ahhh!" I spun around in shock. Stumbled backwards. Her voice was that fucking loud.

I knocked into somepony or other, bounced against him so hard, I fell forward again.

"Ow!" I said, as my knees banged against the wooden planks that stretched across the floor of the trench.

Then Boom! Distant cannon fire.

From that moment on, everything was chaos, not just me.

Shouting. Shouting. Shouting. Ponies grabbing their guns. The unicorn mare turned away from me, and aimed a big long gun through a crevice in a couple of sandbags. "You shit-licking corns! We got a kid in here!"

Blam. Blam. Blam.

"You fucking monsters."

Blam. Blam. Blam.

"Have you no..."

Blam.

"Fucking."

Blam.

"Decency?!"

The second soldier, a white gryphon, just stared at me totally fucking mesmerized. He dropped his weird-looking made-for-gryphons backpack and everything.

I stared right back. What was a gryphon even doing there?

He reached out a big yellow talon. Like he was gonna touch me just to see if I was real.

"Kid!" Mr. Gryphon exclaimed in horror. A big, dark, booming voice. "What are you doing here, you're going to get hu--"

I reached around and yanked a blanket off my back with my teeth. Shoved the ugly brown bundle of cloth into his outstretched talon.

He looked at it, not sure what to do or say. This clearly wasn't part of the script.

"Blanket Brigade!" I said, and shot him a clumsy salute. "Um...Colonel Wormwood's orders?"

"She sent a kid down here?!" Snapped the unicorn sniper as she reloaded. "I told you. Wormwood's losing her mind. First Sterry,"

The sniper flipped a frantic, inarticulate gesture in my direction.

"Now this poor thing."

"Hey!" I snapped. "I'm not a poor nothin'!"

My voice cracked.

Mr. Gryphon pressed his blanket over the sniper's mouth. "Would you shut the fuck up?" He whispered. "That's treason."

The sniper froze. I had only given out two blankets so far, and already everything was spinning out of control.

"No!" I said, not wanting to cause any trouble for anypony. "Colonel Wormwood isn't losing her mind. She, um...it's just, well, uh...something for me to do until I can get home. To...you know...safety."

The wind whistled down the trenches. When they hunched under their blankets, I bolted. Leapt up high over Mr. Gryphon's big ugly bag, and just ran. But Mr. Gryphon was fast. He grabbed me by the back of my hoof with his free talon, and Wham! Down on the floor I went, chin first.

"Ow, fuck!"

“Stay low." Said Mr. Gryphon. His booming voice cracked and trembled. "For the love of the Sun, stay low."

I looked into his fear-struck eyes, and nodded silently. If that guy was afraid of something, I would be pretty fucking dumb not to be afraid of it too.

Finally, he let go, and I hurried on. Staying low.

* * *

I ran, and ran, and ducked into a corner. The trenches were sort of maze-like that way.

"Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving." I muttered to myself as I broke into a trot.

At least the best trot I could with a tight belt cinching blankets to my back. Then, just as I kinda sorta started to get my bearings, Ka-pow! A big old cannon thing went off not too far away.

I shrieked. Stumbled. Knocked my leg into something or other - fell on my knees. Again.

Arg. The ground was jaggedy. I looked down at my hoof. I was actually bleeding a little down my leg.

"For fuck's sake, come on!" I yelled.

Punched the dirt wall of the trench with my forehooves.

"Stupid..."

Punch.

"Land..."

Punch.

"Of sunshine..."

Punch.

"And rainbows!"

I whipped around and gave the wall a solid buck with my hind hooves. Then dropped to the ground and caught my breath.

A whole war where ponies hated corn? A place where gryphons and ponies fought side-by-side for no apparent reason?

What did any of this have to do with anything?

I peeked down the perpendicular-like trench - the one leading away from the enemy line. A zebra was back there loading a cannon. Getting ready to fire again. Beside her was a big metal pony with devices sticking out his body. Guns. And something that looked like fireworks - all part of some wacko suit of armor.

"What the fuck?" I ogled them both.

Was that what I was sent to discover? That Equestria had finally learned its lesson? That we could blow each other to bits, but hey, at least we weren't racist anymore? Is that what counts for Sunshine and Fucking Rainbows in the future?

I brushed myself off, and looked up at the sky. Started to ask it a question, but never got to finish. 'Cause up there in the great big blue was the Moon. Hanging still for all to see. In broad daylight.

I shrieked like a foal. Scrambled backwards, pressed myself up against the dirt wall as far as I could go.

"No." I whimpered. "No."

The Moon looked back down at me - wild as the Everfree. And my blood ran cold.

Princess Luna really was gone.

* * *

I blacked out. I don't know for how long, but my guess was not very, since the sky looked exactly the same when I woke up. But for all I knew, the future sky always looked exactly the same.

It might sound stupid, but all my life the princesses were like gravity – a constant force that was always there, always holding us ponies together, even when we weren't paying attention. Especially the Moon. The Moon you could always count on.

But now, we were on our own.

Even if the Wastelanders manage to fix their world, no matter how many slaves they liberate; no matter how many wars they fight, no matter how many mountains we blow up, Equestria will never, ever be the same again.

Looking up at that crazy moon, pale as a ghost with a bright blue sky as its backdrop, I felt, for the first time in all my travels, lost. Truly and thoroughly lost. Like I wasn't even in Equestria anymore.

I whimpered at the sky. Stared at the crescent as it hung there. Cold. Distant. Princessless.

I watched it long and hard, till something in me snapped.

"No." I growled.

I waved my legs in the air and pointed an accusatory hoof at the Moon.

"Fuck you," I said. "Fuck you!"

I had hugged her ankles such a short while ago. The Princess wasn't really dead. She couldn't be.

"Listen here." I said. "I know Luna's still up there. So don't you give me that look."

Silence.

Moon.

I screamed. Curses. Squeaks. All drowned out by more cannon fire that got my ears ringing all over again. Probably that zebra asshole and his armor pony friend. Backing up in rage and disbelief, I tripped on something - spun and and fell to my scrape-itty knees. Winced and made the kind of howl that sounds like steam escaping a teapot. And when I looked up, tears were blurring my eyes.

"I know you're up there." I said to her. "I know you can hear me."

But the wind just whipped through the trenches. The smell of smoke, and grease, and ash carried with it. The Moon gave no answer.

* * *

I bundled up for warmth. All instinctive-like. Hid from the wind. Like one of the potato guys.

In its own way, it was a blessing, ‘cause it made me shut my stupid mouth. Actually look down for a minute instead of up. And there it was. A wagon. Right in front of me. The thing I'd tripped on in the first place. I gave it a good hard look. Found that the damn thing was actually small enough for me to pull. Me! I guess that made sense. It was, a crowded, crazy, cramped-up trench after all. But still, it was almost too perfect. I poked it. Prodded it. Marveled at it.

I could get a lot of freezing ponies a lot of warm blankets with that wagon. Right quick, too. I wouldn't even have to go back-and-forth much to rebuild my pile.

It may not have been a slave rebellion, or a rescue mission, or a quest to stop the bomb, but still, it needed doing, and I needed whatever hope I could get.

I unbuckled my strap, shrugged the load of drooping dragging, coming-unfolded-as-I-walked blankets off my back into the wagon. And hitched up in a hurry.

That's when I found the thing that really blew my mind. Proof positive that there was something more to this whole Blanket Brigade thing.

The harness pinched my chest. Under my big ugly brown army trenchcoat, was a lump. I wrestled with the buttons till I found what was jabbing me underneath.

Pinkie Pie’s magic watch. Misty's nasty tail hair tied tight around the bale. I had taken it all with me. That whole time in the schoolyard, I hadn't even noticed it. In the cellar. In the trenches. I'd been so distracted.

But there it was. Around my neck.

"How?" I muttered to myself.

I held it up and examined it again, even though I knew damn well what it looked like.

Should I open it? I thought, but Pinkie had been very specific.

Whatever else my confusing-ass problems may have been, I knew exactly when I was.

I turned to face that rogue moon again, watch still clutched against my chest.

"How?" I repeated.

But there came no answer. And, for once, it didn't matter. Because my little timepiece reminded me of what Pinkie Pie had done for us infirm-o's. Of what she had said to me in that moment when she herself was feeling down. It's always worth a try.

* * *

I trotted back around the corner. Focused. Determined.

The Blanket Brigade had a mission.

I approached the next potato soldier with a grin. A purple pegasus mare. I was gonna brighten her fucking day if it killed me. And I wasn't going to let her go all concernitty on me neither.

“Here, you go.” I said trying really, really hard to keep my spirits high and Pinkie-like. That's how you beat the shadows, isn't it? With your heart?

I held my head up like I belonged there. But the mare didn’t reply. In the awkward silence that followed, I watched her. Her wings were tucked away in her coat. Like the army we belonged to had no intention of letting her fly. Mr. Gryphon's had been too, once I thought about it. Fucking strange.

"Um...Blanket Brigade." I said at last when the potato mare still didn't respond.

I struck my noblest pose.

Silence. The Pegasus was inscrutable.

"Look, I'm supposed to be here, I promise, and I will be safe, and out of your hair really, really soon." I yammered. "It's just till I get home, ok? So please, please, please don't freak out at me."

She looked at me cautiously. "You sure you're ok?"

"No, uh...yes! I mean, Blanket Brigade at your service." I saluted badly.

"Ok. Thanks." She saluted back with a smile.

I trotted off.

"Happy Hearth’s Warming, Private!” She called out after me.

And I froze right there on the spot. Blinked. Looked back at the mare, already wrapping herself up in the blanket. Warm-and-cozy-like.

It was Hearth's Warming here too. Centuries later, they still celebrated the awesomest holiday ever. The Wasteland hadn't killed it after all.

"...Uh, to you too." I replied. "And a Happy New Year."

* * *

I kept passing out blankets, only now with “Happy Hearth’s Warming” wishes to go with them.

I couldn't be sure what any of it was supposed to mean exactly, or what I was supposed to take from the experience, but whatever it was, it put me in a damn good mood.

Yeah, every couple of minutes, I had somepony or other grabbing me, shielding me, whispering at me in hushed, urgent tones, “Stay low. Stay low!" Which I did. But I also kept moving. Didn’t let it stop me. Reloaded the wagon from the cellar. Went back out. Gave away more blankets.

A single phrase rattled around inside my head. It came from I Don't Even Know Wheresburgh. But it was stuck up there like a bad song.

"Pony pulls the wagon." I said to myself, and it kept me going.

* * *

I blanketed like crazy. I sang carols.

Only after a while, my carols ended up with lyrics of my own design. ‘Cause I was bored, and cause I could. It was great. Folks even started getting used to me, and the holiday spirit loosened up our little tensions.

"Happy Hearth's Warming!" I would say.

"And a Happy New Year!" They'd say right back at me.

It was all going pretty fucking amazingly awesomely. At least, until I met Golden Delicious.

"Shit, the boys weren't lying." Said the orange mare as she took the blanket from my mouth. “Ah'm Golden Delicious.”

"No, ma'am. They weren't." I said. I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Thanks, Blanket Girl." She replied. "Hey, everypony, Blanket Girl is here!"

"Blanket Girl?" I said dryly.

Rumor of me had apparently travelled faster than I could. I guess it was better than shock, and the concern-itty horror I'd seen from the first couple of soldiers. But still, Blanket Girl?! Was that the best nickname those potato soldiers could come up with? Seriously?!

I shook off my ire. "Happy Hearth's Warming," I said.

She bundled up in the scratchy brown blanket. Rubbed herself with her hooves. Grinned right at me.

"Shucks," she said. "Happy Hearth's Warming to you too, B.G."

B.G. Blanket Girl. I tried not to roll my eyes too obviously.

"Um...Well, there you go." I said with an awkward little chuckle. "Now you can be the warmest pony in No Mare’s Land.”

The smile fell from her face.

“Why would you say that?”

“Huh?”

She tossed the blanket in my face.

“What the fuck, kid, do you think you’re funny?”

“Um...kinda?” I winced.

Before I knew it, Golden was grabbing me by the shoulders. Shook me so hard, my wagon tipped. I flailed and squirmed, but I was still stuck in the harness, and all entangled in the blankets. All I could see was the clouds above and this crazy bitch right there in my face. All I could do was throw my hooves up, and try to shield my face from blows that never came.

“Take it back,” said Golden.

Her eyes were wild.

“Take what back?” I peeked at her from behind my hoof.

Mr. Gryphon rushed up to us. “Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?”

The crazy bitch on top of me just threw poison at me with her glare. “Tell him what you said.”

Suddenly, both pony and gryphon were staring at me. Waiting for me to answer. Then up trotted a third. And a fourth. I was surrounded. And still stuck to the stupid wagon.

“Um..." I laughed nervously. "Now you can be the, uh...warmest pony in No Mare’s Land?”

Next thing I know, I’m getting yelled at by everyone. They're all grabbing me. Not an attack kind of grabbing me, but forcing me to my hooves and shooing me along, all, ‘don't come back,’ and such.

I shouted, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it," in reply, trying not to cry as I hurried along, but the stupid wheel of my stupid wagon got stuck on a stupid plank, and and my whole plan-like-thing just plain crashed and burned.

"I'm jinxed," rambled Golden Delicious. "We's all jinxed now."

Then one nervous voice spoke up. “She doesn’t know.” He said.

The others fell silent.

I could see him there - the guy who'd spoken up - still huddled on the floor. He was sad and afraid. Even more than the other potatoes, but when he spoke, they backed off. It all happened so fast, I just couldn't make sense of it. It wasn't seniority. He was every bit as young as the other soldiers. It wasn't that he was tougher, or even a leader. In fact, he looked more rundown than anypony else in the whole damn ditch, and he shook like a neurotic little dog. Flinched like a terrified chipmunk when he talked. But still, when he spoke, the others listened.

"Sh-sh-she doesn't know." He repeated.

They all turned and faced me. These ponies who had hated me just a few moments before. Now ashamed all of a sudden. More than a hooffull of them averted their eyes.

"What the fuck is going on?" I shouted.

The big eagley gryphon dude kicked my wheel loose. He patted the wagon so I'd know it was free again.

"Um..." He stammered with his deep, deep voice. "Just do yourself a favor and don't tell anybody they're going to No Mares Land."

And that's when my throat dropped like a boulder into my stomach. The door had lied.

"You mean this isn't No Mares Land?"

The soldiers exchanged awkward glances. My turn to flinch like a chipmunk. I had to get to No Mares Land! That's what I was supposed to do. And the clock was ticking! I could feel it.

"No kid." Said the gryphon. "This ain't No Mares Land."

"Well please," I grabbed his shoulder. "You gotta help me get there."

He stumbled back in shock. "What?"

"I gotta get to No Mare’s Land. Quick!"

"Don't talk like that."

His head feathers stuck up straight in self defense. I didn't even know they could do that.

I looked to Golden Delicious, but she just threw up her forehooves and scurried backward along the ground like I was holding an explosive birthday candle or something.

"Jinx jinx jinx jinx." She muttered to herself.

"Please, it's important." I looked all around, but saw only panicked faces. Felt only bitter cold.

"You don't have to come with me," I begged. " Please just--;"

"Kid,” said Jinxy aka Golden, “it's called No Mare's Land for a reason." .

"Yeah, I get it, okay?." I snarled at them all. "There are dragons, and a cliff over some lava, and it's full of lava-breathing eels. And I have to cross a bridge to get there, and by the way, the bridge is made out of a sword for some reason. I get it. I get it. I get it. The journey is perilous. Whatever. Can somepony please just show me the way?"

Mr. Gryphon, still with his stressed out mohawk headfeathers, turned to Golden Delicious. She, in turn, turned to some unicorn girl nearby, all bundled up in a coat and scarf like a mummy with a yellow horn sticking out. But Mummy just shrugged.

"I'll show you the way." Said the guy lying on the floor - the one everypony respected.

Next thing I know, the others were gone. Zoom. Out of there. And I'm alone with this stranger. Just like that. The gryphon was the only one who bothered to shake my hoof goodbye, then it was Splitsville for him too.

The stranger sat up with a groan and a sigh of defeat.

"You wanna know about No Mare's Land?" He patted the ground beside him and waved me over.

Now, if No Mare's Land were a pirate book, this would be the part where the young cabin girl meets the grizzled old sea captain who's wrestled with the sea monsters and lived. And he is this giant badass, with a great big old aura of salty charisma and all that kind of stuff. The mysterious stranger. But this potato guy here was anything but. He was rattled and nervous. Barely aware of his surroundings. Just a few dog biscuits shy of being another Screw Loose.

"I'll tell you about it," he said with resignation. "C-Come here...Please?"

I nodded.

I couldn't get to him right away. I was stuck in that stupid wagon. So I had to listen to all that stupid wind whistleyness while I unhitched. It creeped me out. The random gunshots in the distance didn’t help either.

I snuck over there slowly, ducking my head down, remembering my trench safety tips. Stay low, kid. Stay low.

Finally, I came up right beside the guy. "Look, I'm sorry if I--;"

"Just... just...just have a seat." He said.

He brought a paper stick to his mouth. His hoof was trembling as he held it, but not from the cold. He struck a match and set it on fire. Next thing I know, the guy’s breathing foul-smelling smoke.

“No Mare’s Land?” He asked.

I nodded.

"It's that way." He said, pointing behind him at the lip of the trench.

Of course it was. The one direction that everypony was terrified to so much as look at.

"How far?" I gulped.

"A couple of feet." He said

"That's it?"

He looked at me, totally deadpan. I couldn't read him at all.

"Those guys over there. They all respect me." He twitched. "Because I'm the only one to have gone over there and survived."

He sucked in that paper smoke, and let out a long sigh. Then a piece of wood somewhere creaked and snapped in the cold, and he whipped his head left and right as though there were cloak-o's coming for him. Like a shadow might come and whisk him away at any moment. This guy was jumpier than I was.

When the coast was clear, he closed his eyes and sucked in some more fire.

"What's out there?" I said.

"Not too far away is another trench. Filled with corn." He grabbed the blanket I had given him, grabbed a stick.

"Corn?"

"You know. The fucking enemy. Greycoats. Corns! Anyway, we got guys aiming at them, and they got guys aiming at us."

"...And No Mare's Land is in between." I whispered to myself.

He nodded. Put the blanket on the stick, lifted it up above the lip of the trench, out into the open air, where all of No Mare's Land could see, and finally, passed it to me. No sooner did the stick touch my hoof, than a bunch of shots were fired all at once. Somewhere from the other side. The whole thing flew out of my grip.

"Damn!" My hoof really hurt.

When I was done rubbing that hoof in pain and disbelief, I picked the blanket up off the ground. It was riddled with holes.

"But I have to get to No Mare’s Land," I stared at it in horror.

I looked back up at the stranger. He was pale.

"No, you don't."

The way he shook, I wasn't sure who was going to burst into tears first - me or him.

"You survived." I said. "That means there has to be a way. There has to!" I squeaked.

All I heard in reply was a long stretch of that wind-in-trench whistle.

The mysterious stranger just shook his head. Shoved his sleeve in his mouth and chewed on it nervously. Like a kid might. The fire stick dangled from the other cheek.

"Tell me." I said.

He gave no reply. Just more coat-chewing.

"Because I'm going over there one way or another." I tried to sound strong, but I had my doubts. Cause seriously, how could I?

The stranger panicked. Grabbed me.

"No." He whispered.

"But you--;"

He sighed. The paper stick fell out of his mouth and he ignored it.

"I joined the Rangers with my best friend, Tulip. He was always the brave one. Not me. A bully got in my face, he was there. If we had to make a jump with our scooters, he did it first to make sure it was safe. We even used to have little games we played on the playground called Who's Crazier. He would jump from a height, I would jump from something higher. Then he would outdo me, and I would outdo him.

“I always tried. W-w-Wanted to be brave like him. He won every time. Whenever he got to the point where I couldn't match him, he'd call out to me. 'Tag,' he'd say. 'You're it.' Like, he thought I could be just a little bit braver, but I never actually was."

The stranger fumbled around in the dirt for his lost paper smoke stick.

"Damn it, where is it?" He was crying.

About the stick of all things.

I looked around and spotted it under one of the wooden planks pretty quickly. He dug it out with a knife in his teeth because a hoof wouldn't fit under there.

Only when he was breathing fire again did he resume the story.

"Tulip was the best friend a pony could ever hope for. I joined because of him. 'We'll be back home in time to sing Rest Ye Merry Gentlecolts,' he said. That's his favorite carol. He loved Hearth's Warming so much."

He leaned his head back against the dirt wall and looked straight up into the sky. Passed the fire stick over to me. I wasn't sure what else to do, so I stuck the thing in my mouth. It just sort of hung there on my lips, smelling nasty.

"What happened?" I mumbled.

He threw me a wounded look. As if it should have been obvious. I looked right back at him, as confused as ever.

"Oh, jeez."

Yes, I thought. I honestly don't know.

He took the fire stick from my mouth and put it in his own. Took in a deep puff and got a grip.

"Every couple of weeks, we get word from on high." He said. "Over-the-top they call it."

I pointed upwards at the wall of the trench. Toward No Mare’s Land. He nodded.

"But they'll..."

He nodded.

"Why?" I demanded.

"The brass figures if enough of us go over at once, maybe we can gain some ground and take the enemy trench.

"Hundred feet gained here, hundred feet lost there. Either way, hundreds of us die. If not from the gunshots, the explosions. The razor wire."

I tried to imagine what razor wire might look like.

"F-For hours after a battle," he said. "They just hang there all tangled up. Screaming. Crying."

He went silent.

Sitting there beside that fucked up bastard, I wanted to cry so bad. For him. For all of them. But I held back. If I'd burst into tears then and there, I might never have heard the end of the story.

Finally, he took a deep breath, and continued.

"Our snipers have to pick them off just for mercy's fucking sake. Colonel Wormwood's own son was caught up in there." He sucked on his fire stick some more. Puffed on it for dear life. "Rumor has it she pulled the trigger herself."

"That's crazy." I whispered.

"I'd want them to do the same for me."

"But, but, but..." I tried to wrap my brain around it. "Why go? Who would do that knowing what was gonna happen?"

I looked up and down the trenches. All the other ponies were keeping their distance from the stranger and me. I suddenly understood the gloom that had choked us all. These soldiers weren't just scared, weren't just cold, weren't just bored. They were in Death's waiting room. Just sitting there, awaiting the order.

Over-the-top.

"Why!" I cried - literally cried now. "If it's so pointless. Why don't you just say no?"

"Soldier's duty." He replied, suddenly wooden, as if reading from a script. "The chain of command. Calls for sacrifice. If it falls apart, we are all as good as dead."

"So that's it? They tell you the plan and you go with it? Just like that? You just up and die?"

"Of course not." He let out a chuckle so bitter it could ferment cider. "They don't tell us the plan. I have no idea what the fucking plan is."

"You just hope that the reason is a good one." I whispered to myself, echoes of Bananas Foster.

He wept into his coat. I put the blanket over him but he shrugged it away. Even when that bitter wind hit us again.

"You didn't go, did you?" I asked.

He shook his head 'no.'

"I th-th-threw up when the order came through. We gathered our shit. I made it as far as to ready my weapon. Then they gave us to the count of 3. I dropped my rifle, I was shaking so hard.

"When I looked up, we hadn't even counted up to two yet, but Tulip was right there over me. I thought he was going to help me up the way he always had when we were kids. Our whole fucking lives."

The jittery stranger shook his head.

"You know what Tulip said?"

I shook my head.

"'Tag'. 'You're it. '"

He took a deep breath from his fire stick and let it out with a sigh. "Kicked me unconscious."

I reached a trembling hoof to put on his shoulder, but he turned away from me. I fought my lungs for enough air to breathe, but even when I got it, I couldn't summon a single word to say.

The stranger flicked away the last of his fire stick.

"They found me in a pile of bodies." He concluded. "All folks who got shot right away, and fell right back into the trenches. The lucky ones."

After that, he ignored me, having issued his warning about No Mare's Land. And went back to doing his usual business. Lying down and rambling to himself.

"I-I'm sorry." I told him.

He didn't answer. Just waved me off.

So I backed away. Hitched up. Looked over my shoulder to check on him.

I hated just walking away, but I couldn't come up with anything at all to tell him. Nothing could make it better. Finally, I just turned and moved on. Last thing I heard him say before the wind brushed his voice away was five simple words that sent chills down my spine.

"It should have been me." He said.
It should have been me.

Author's Note

Special Thanks to: Longbottle, Pony Joe, and Seraphem for your priceless feedback and proofreading advice.

Legacies of the Dead

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - LEGACIES OF THE DEAD

"They're sharing a drink they call loneliness. Well, it's better than drinking alone." - Billy Joel

The thought of the stranger's fallen friend stuck with me.

I stumbled awestruck through the trenches, passing out blankets, forcing myself to be practical. To be helpful. But still, I couldn't stop thinking about him. I got hung up on the little things - the kinds of details you don't stop to ask the storyteller about when they're sitting there, on the verge of coming apart before your eyes.
What happened to him? Was he one of the guys who got tangled in the razor wire? Was he one of the lucky ones who just got shot? Was it some combination of both? Neither?

Every single time the Over the Top order came down from on high, hundreds died. Hundreds like Tulip. When something awful like that happens in a book, or a story, or even in real life, if it's on a totally grandiose scale, it's easy to just picture it as an elaborate dramatic painting, or worse, see the ponies as a bunch of numbers. But Tulip haunted me. Because he had a friend. And a name. And there were so many more just like him.

They weren't numbers.

For every one of those ponies who died, there was a family broken, a potato soldier left behind in the trenches, trembling and stuttering, and weeping over their memory.

* * *

If fate decided that I was only supposed to save one little pony - if I was just there to readjust some itty bitty nit-pickitty detail of future history, and let hundreds get blown to smithereens in the meantime - then I just plain wasn't gonna.

I had my own plan. A solid plan. I mulled it over in my head as I stomped down that trench, back the way I came.

-Phase One: Blanket the living shit out of every last pony I could find.

-Phase Two: Find out what the fuck was going on without giving away the fact that I didn't actually belong there.

-Phase Three: Save everypony somehow.

The beauty of my plan was its simplicity.

* * *

I made my way to the cellar, staring up at the pale moon as I lugged that wagon. Waiting for a whisper. A clue. Instead I just got distracted walking the gauntlet of concernitty ponies. They crowded me all over again.

Rumor had spread that "Blanket Girl" had gotten Rainbow Glimmer to talk - to open up. Apparently that poor bastard back there was named Rainbow Glimmer, and he hardly ever said a word to anyone but himself. Either as he lied around, or roamed the trenches, pretending to patrol them.

The point is, the potato soldiers crowded me - those same concernitty pricks as before, happy to see me all of a sudden. Mr. Gryphon tried to stammer his way through a flank-kissing apology, but he only made it worse. 'Cause I was standing in a graveyard. And every last one of those ponies was someone else's Sub Mine F waiting to happen.

I stared down the trench – those long rows of soldiers. I got dizzy.

"Here," I said as I tossed a blanket to somepony or other, and stumbled on.

My whiny pirate was on the verge of coming out, but this wasn't the time or place.

* * *

Eventually, I made it out of the gauntlet. All jittery and messed up. I reached one of the lonelier corners of the trench maze, and when I finally got a moment to myself, I used it to turn to the Moon for guidance. Yet again.

It was still up there. Haunting the sky in broad daylight. Watching me.

"Come on, show me the way, already," I snapped. "Show me the fucking way."

But the Moon, as always, was silent.

When I looked down, there she was. Princess Luna herself. Right there in the trenches with us. Just like that.

She was dressed as a soldier.

I stopped and stared. The Princess was alive. There on earth, beneath her own weird daytime

moon. Alive!

"You need to get to the door," whispered Princess Luna.

"The door." I muttered to myself.

Her voice was like magic. It resounded not only in the open air, but on the inside of my skull, almost like one of the brain hornets.

My flank plopped onto the cold, hard ground.

So that was it. Another door. The way out. The way to get the answers I needed. To get the strength I needed. To beat the shadow things.

I sat there mystified. It all made perfect sense somehow. I needed to get to the door.

“Princess,” I said with what little breath I'd had left after the shock of seeing her.

This time I remembered to bow. Though it was tough to contain my awe and my glee.

Luna cleared her throat. "Hay!" She said in a thick Bucklyn accent. "Ya need to get to the door, kid?"

"Huh? What?"

Luna shuffled over a little bit. She was big and tall, and had to hunch down further than the average pony. But she shimmied and was able to make a little room for me. Behind her was that metal door that led back into the storage cellar.

"Helloooo?" She said impatiently, Thoroughly un-princess-like. "Anypony ho-oome?"

I gawked up at her eyes. They were the wrong color. Looked at her coat and her horn up close. The wrong blue.

"Luna?" Was all I could bring myself to say.

But It wasn't the princess. It wasn’t her at all!

"What?"

I poked my head over to the left, then the right. I could see for sure that under her ill-fitting coat was a pair of wings. I even double checked the front and did a little forehead inventory. Yup. She had a horn, alright.

"You're an alicorn." I said.

"Yeah I know. And?"

"Um, well, um um..."

"Take a pitcha, " she said. "It'll last longer."

"I'm sorry, I. I. I...just.."
Don't cry, Rose. Don't cry.

I looked up at the Moon again, then just hung my head.

"I thought you were somepony else."

"Hey.” Said Not-Luna, extending a hoof. “My friends call me Big Blue."

“I can’t." I bumped her hoof shyly. "I already know a Blue back home.”

She just nodded.

"Betcha don't know a Big Blue." A great big hearty guffaw ripped out of her throat. “So you want in or what?”

Big Blue scrunched and shimmied and swerved. Contorted herself into a ball.

“Um, thank you." I replied. "Yes, please.”

She took up more than half the trench, but somehow, she managed to make room. And in I went. Back into the cellar to restock.

That lady may not have been Luna, and she may not have done it on purpose, but her words burrowed deep into my brain and staked their territory.

“You need to get to the door.” The alicorn had said.

You need to get to the door.

* * *

I took a moment to freak out when I was sure I was alone. Did race matter so little to us in the future, that alicorns were right there in the trenches with the rest of us? From the look of her plain brown trenchcoat, Big Blue wasn't even an officer, let alone a princess! It seemed so enlightened, and yet, so stupid.

* * *

When I got out, I loaded the wagon full of blankets, buckled my pile down one last time. And looked out over a whole other row of potato ponies I hadn't gotten to yet.

There was so much to do. What with the door, and the blankets, and the impending doom, and stuff. But there was also an alicorn sitting there right by the cellar door. And a fucked up crescent moon running around unsupervised across the reddening sky. I'd kick myself forever if I didn't stop for a second and at least try to get some answers. Even if it was a longshot.

"Hey, Blue?" I said.

"Yeah?"

"This may sound stupid, but uh, do you mind if I ask you a question," I looked away, all nervous and bashful-like. "An alicorn question."

"Shoot."

"Well, how do I put this? Everyone knows that mortality isn't exactly the same with you."

"Uh-huh..."

"Do you think maybe it's possible that somehow Princess Luna is still alive?"

I looked up at her, eager for any sign of hope. Anything at all. But Blue just turned away from me, and scratched her head.

"Gee, kid. Nothin's more dead than a skeleton, know what I'm saying?"

I felt a little whimper escape my throat. They'd found a skeleton.

Big Blue watched me and cringed. Made a face like someone had just rubbed lemons all up and down a paper cut of hers.

"But hey, you know, anything is possible." She said, quick to apologize. "Luna could still be around. In spirit, you know? There's uh...the Moon right there."

The alicorn pointed at the sky.

"Yeah." I said. "I guess so."

I wandered off. My heart was breaking all over again.

"Hey kid," Big Blue followed me. "C'mon. What's really eating atcha?"

I shrugged. Tried to ignore her, but she kept on following me.

"We all need a princess every now and again." She pleaded. "We all wish that some great magical pony could come along and fix everything."

I didn't have much to say in response.

"Hey," she snapped. "Luna is a hero of mine too, you know?"

"I just spoke to her." I said to myself.

"What?"

"Princess Luna." I looked up into Big Blue's big blue eyes. "She hugged me. In my dreams."

I could almost see the gears turning in her brain. She was thinking real hard.

"Well," she said at last. "Anything's possible in your dreams."

It sounds like the kind of thing you write in crayon for a homemade motivational poster, but I could tell Big Blue actually believed it. With all of her heart. Somehow, that made a difference.

She put a hoof on my shoulder, and I threw myself at her. She may not have been a Princess, but Big Blue gave good hug.

* * *

I met an awful lot of ponies before the Sun went down. Gave out an awful lot of blankets. Asked a fuck ton of questions.

"So uh, some war, huh?" I asked one stallion.

"How about those jerkface corns?" I said to another.

“See any doors around here?”

None of it worked. Sherclop Pones, I am not.

But still, I had to try to find out. It was only a matter of time before every last one of us was sent over the top. And besides, these guys Knew. The fucking. Future.

After so many desperate, desperate attempts to coax, and pry, and squeeze answers out of folks using surgical subtlety, I took a look at that sky again. Got the same impression I'd had during my school yard dream. That my time would be up once the lights went out.

Finally, I just went right up to the next pony I saw, and said, "You wouldn't happen to know how the zebra war started, would you?"

She lifted her head. It was Golden Delicious.

Her eyes locked with mine. She stiffened. Like she was afraid of me.

“Um...uh...about before, Ah'm awful sorry. I didn't know.”

"Neither did I," I said as I scuffed my hooves idly against the dirt.

I kinda hoped a stray kaboom would come along and blow us all to smithereens. It would punctuate that cringey, bury-your-face-in-your-overcoat silence.

"What are you, uh, aren't you usually over there?" I spun around.

Had I lost my way already?

"Naw, just movin' fer to keep warm. Plus they cycle us 'round a bit."

I looked around. Spotted a familiar face or two. And a couple of blankets I had already given away.

The once outgoing Golden Delicious hid half behind her blanket. Like it could shield her from the great big awkward mess she and I had made.

"So...uh, you don't know the zebrer war history, huh?" She said, reaching for that life preserver.

"Nope,"

"Well, uh." She said. "I could instruct ya some if'n ya want, B.G.?"

She was really, really, really trying to make amends.

"Ok." I smirked. "But it's Rose Petal, not Blanket Girl."

I still fucking hated that name.

"Sure thing, RP." Golden leaned in to tell the story. Looking like she was ready to burst confetti.

"On the one hoof, that's the zebrers. A meteor destroyed 'em. Whole damn homeland - snuffed right out thousands a years ago. So they moved. And they hated the stars ever since. Hated 'em something fierce. I mean woooooo-eee, did they ever--"

She reigned in her enthusiasm, cleared her throat and moved on.

"Anywho, stars is Evil. And the Stripes thought Nightmare Moon hadn't never changed. And that we was all evil too just for following Her."

"Why does everypony have to blame Luna for everything?!"

I couldn't shake the thought of her haunted expression. The way she looked out over the shadow castle in my dreams. Her grim resolution, even about her own death. "I know."

And now it turned out that Luna was the whole reason the zebras hated us in the first place.

Why couldn't everypony leave her alone? And what was up with those stripey fucking assholes? Seriously, guys?

I had long been looking for the root of ponies' hatred for zebras. It never even occurred to me that the zebras themselves might be as big a pack of jerks as us.

I shook with anger.

"You alright, kid?"

"What happened on the pony end?"

I drew myself so close I almost stabbed myself in the eye with her chin.

"Where did we go wrong?"

"On the pony end?” She stumbled back a bit. “Whelp, thar's all sorts a things what happened."

"Gimme the cheat sheet."

"Quick answer? It was our innocence what got us into this."

"Our what?"

"Innocence. Ever-pony knows we had it too good for too long.” Golden Delicious, shook her head. “We just wasn't ready when the other horseshoe dropped. You hear?."

"Innocence." I whispered, and nodded to myself. “Thank you.”

I staggered away in shock.

“Anytime, kiddo. You okay?” She called after me.

I nodded. Told her thanks. Made some lame excuse or other, and moved on.

* * *

No matter where I went, no matter what future, I couldn't escape the notion that innocence was sin. That the love and peace and harmony we all shared - the wonders we all took for granted back home - would be paid for in blood by future generations.

I pulled the wagon. Passed out blankets, dazed as I felt. At the end of the day, it didn't matter how fucked up the news was, stewing in it wasn't going to make these ponies any warmer.

I found a colt shivering. About 19 years old. He was hunched over an old photograph. I sighed. The sun was getting lower in the sky, and I could feel the pressure building up. To get answers. To get to the door. But I didn't have the heart to interrogate this guy. He looked kind of sad. Kinda lonely.

So instead of doing the practical thing, I draped a blanket over him all gentle-like.

"Family?" I asked.

He nodded.

The bitter wind whistled down the trenches.

"It's my first Hearth's Warming away from home too," I said.

The photo was a goofy group shot of him, a younger brother, a younger sister, plus a mom and a dad.

"Who's the one with the spiky green mane?" I asked.

"My brother." He said. "Kiwi. He's almost nine now."

He didn't take his eyes off the picture in his hooves. "Mom says he's trying to learn the drums - making all kinds of noise, and she's ready to kill him."

The cracks in his chapped lips broke as he smiled.

"He's really good, though!" He rolled up his floppity sleeve with his teeth.

Showed off the Pip Buck on his wrist. It was my first good look at one up close. As worn by someone not trying to kill me.

He pressed some buttons, and a bunch of crazy crap flashed on the screen. The sort of stuff that Strawberry Lemonade had been good at. The next thing I knew, the sound of a drum set was coming from inside the thing.

"Whoa," I said.

"He's good, right?"

"That's...so useful.” I marveled at the tech.

Sure I’d seen a little bit of future machine stuff here and there in Trottica, but I’d been running for my life at the time, and mostly didn't have a clue what I was looking at. This was like having a home phonograph recorder and player right there on your leg.

I blinked. The guy was looking at me like I was some kinda moron.

“I mean, yeah.” I added quickly. “He's got a, um...future in…drumming?"

But it didn’t work. I was doing a shit job of blending in. Why did I have to open up my big fat mouth?

The guy cocked his eyebrow at me. I threw him a smile. Skimmed every bit of information I’d ever picked up in my entire brain, looking, searching, digging for something useful to help me blend in.

"Did you um...get that fitted in your stable?"

Pip Bucks come from stables. Clever, Rose Petal. Clever.

The guy just snorted.

"Very funny."

Or not.

"This is model 6.1." He bragged. "Standard issue. Well, they say standard issue, but what they really mean is you get bumped up the waiting list if your family can afford to front the expedition some cash. They don't issue you shit."

"Ah," I said, all disconnected and uncertain-like.

He must have thought I had some kind of rich kid jealousy or something, cause he was lightning fast to back pedal.

"We’re not rich or anything. But, you see, Kiwi sold his piano. The old family piano. I told'm not to, but one day, this package just sort of showed up. An early Hearth’s Warming present. The officers in the big metal suits helped me get fitted."

“That's awesome.”

“The drums are homemade,” the guy added. “He's a fucking regular Bee-hoof-en, that kid.”

“I miss my sister too,” I told him.

I didn't give away anything specific - didn't really have to. He understood pretty much right away. He draped his foreleg around me, and didn't say a word.

It was nice. I actually got kind of choked up. To the point where I was on the verge of spilling my guts. But I was a stranger in a strange land. I had to focus on the chattering of my teeth just to keep from spilling the beans. I might ramble something that would give me away. It might fuck up my plan to save the potatoes.

Hold it together, Rose Petal. Hold it together.

“This isn't how it's supposed to be,” was all I had the nerve to say.

He nodded.

"You know, Kiwi sent me a message. The whole family did. When I got the Pip Buck."

I craned my neck upwards to look him in the eye.

"They called me their little Lightbringer." He laughed to himself.

I smiled back.

"We used to play Saviors of the Wasteland together," he whispered. "Kiwi was always Calamity. I was the Lightbringer, that little squirt right there- she was Velvet or Steelhooves depending."

He let out a joyless laugh. Stared at the photo some more.

"You know what the message said?"

I shook my head “no.”

"'Be better.' You know, like the book said. ‘We're all so proud.’"

The guy was snarling. Angry now.

"Isn't that a good thing?" I asked.

He just shook his head.

"I signed up to make a difference. Came all the way out here cause I figured, 'Hey, look, the Crystal Fucking Empire showed up out of the blue. For the first time in centuries. Here's my chance to explore. Save the world! Just like in the stories.'"

"The Crystal Fucking Empire?!" I exclaimed.

I swear, that thing is following me. What the hell?

"What do we do when we get here?" He said.

I shrugged.

"Fight over it." The guy ranted. "Over a door we can't even open! You've got the world's best magicians on one side, and the world's most advanced techies on the other. Standing on the fucking threshold of the worlds biggest treasure trove of ancient wisdom. And what do we do? Kill each other.”

He sucked in a deep breath. "Fuck. The only reason I'm still alive is cause I've spent most of the war trying to hack that stupid door."

"From here?"

"The ruined town on the hill. It's about a mile from here. You have to have seen it on your way in.”

"Oh, yeah. That."
Note to self: Get to that town.

"The Colonel sent me down here." There was acid on his tongue now. "I was no longer necessary."

"Colonel Wormwood?"

"Yeah," He spat. "Kicked me outta the town. Sent me down here when I started asking questions. Section 14. Skill No longer Relevant."

He grumbled bitterly and shrugged.

"Is it true what they say about the Colonel?" I used my hoof to make the universal gesture for cuckoo.

"Who can even tell? If you ask me, you'd have to be out of your fucking mind to stay sane during a war like this."

* * *

He went back to gazing at that photograph. Watched it a long, long time. His hooves trembled. It wasn't just from the cold. At last, he sucked in a great big deep breath. Turned to me, and he said, "So what's your name, kid? "

"Rose Petal." I answered.

I never was good at rants and raves. Never knew what to say. So I just asked him his name in return.

"Dazzle Shine," he replied.

He didn't seem very shiny to me, but who was I to judge?

"Can I ask you something, Rose Petal?"

"Sure."

"What do you think Little Pip would make of all this?" Dazzle gestured at the trenches, threw an obscene gesture at No Mare's Land.

"Is she the other one?" I pointed at the photo with my hoof. "The one in the yellow hat?"

“Huh?”

I could only presume that this Littlepip he was talking about was the other kid in the picture.

And I had no clue what she might think. This was unlike any kind of war I had ever heard of before. Wars of necessity. Wars of passion. That's what I'd read about. That's what I'd seen in Trottica.

Nopony actually wanted to be there. Which honestly made me wonder why any of them were still there at all.

I looked past Dazzle - out over the rows and rows of soldiers. Spending their Hearth’s Warming in a trench. Shivering. Cold. Homesick. I had no way of knowing for sure what this Littlepip might think. But I knew what I saw in Dazzle Shine. It was the same thing that Twinkle Eyes had seen in me. That Nurse Redheart had seen.

"Honestly," I told him. “I don't know what she would think, but if I had to guess, Littlepip would probably just tell you that you have a good heart."

He took his hoof off of my shoulder. Looked at me from a leg's distance away. Like he wanted to hug me. Like he was on the verge of real tears.

But he sucked it up. Laughed a little laugh. And smiled a little smile.

Honestly, I didn't understand why what I’d said had meant anything to him at all. But it did.

"Thanks for the blanket, kid." He said.

* * *

I suppose I should've been concerned or puzzled by the way the Crystal Empire seemed to keep following me. And wonder about the war. Try to piece together all that crazy stuff. But instead, I thought of Pinkie Pie’s words. It's always worth a try.

When I turned to part ways with Dazzle Shine and get to passing out more blankets, I found that the way was blocked. We were surrounded by other potato folks. At some point they had gravitated toward us, and were eager to join in.

"Hey, I played Heroes of the Wasteland too!"

"I heard you say something about LittlePip?" Said the mummy unicorn from before all swaddled in scarves.

"Yeah, bro." Said Dazzle Shine.

"Tell it," said Big Blue, also popping up from out of nowhere.

"You tell it. I suck at storytelling."

"But it's on your wrist."

They all bickered back and forth for quite a bit over who should read from this Littlepip book, and which part they should listen to today. It turned into an odd sort of story in and of itself - these grown ponies geeking out over random chapters of a future book I'd never heard of. I listened very carefully, and as disjointed as it was, I was able to figure out a few things.

Littlepip was apparently an actual historical figure. A hero who'd saved the Wasteland from itself. She'd crossed that hard yellow line time and time again, and one day, found the whole world was watching. It gave me hope, just hearing about it. The Wasteland was actually overcome. Just cause a bunch of regular folks - background ponies - woke up and realized that they could. Because one mare gave them something to believe in.

I got to figuring: if a lowly toaster repair pony had managed to change the world, then maybe I could too.

* * *

They talked, and talked, and talked till the Sun was damn near setting. It made me nervous, 'cause it reminded me of my dream. And whatever it was that I was supposed to accomplish in the trenches, I was running out of time to do it. Still, there wasn't much to do but just sit there. And listen.

So I did.

I'm not going to relate to every Littlepip story I heard, especially since I picked them up out of order – out of context. But the big blue alicorn nudged me when it was her turn, and her take on it was especially important.

"Blanket Girl here got me thinkin'." She said. "About my favorite story."

She pulled herself closer to me. It snapped me out of my thinkiness. Right back into the moment.

"Canterlot." Big Blue looked at the rest of the gang. All expectantly and such. They just blink-bloinked at her. None of them knew what the fuck she meant.

"Which part?" Mummy rolled her eyes. "That chapter is like 200 pages long."

Everypony laughed.

"190, and what part do ya think, dumb shit? Princess Luna."

I perked up. Leaned forward. These guys knew more about their own history than I thought. They didn't just find a skeleton, they actually knew what happened!

"Yuk it up." Said Big Blue. "'Dis is alicoyn bidness. You's guys has years a-history. My mom? She was made in a friggin' lab."

That shut most of them up pretty good. You'd have to be a special kind of stupid to insult an alicorn's mother.

"The way I sees it, its the very best and very woist of what an alicoyn can be. You've got this monster, right? A fuckin' disgrace. Struttin' around toxic Canterlot like she's the bee's fuckin' knees. Wearin' the Moon Princess' bones like a fuckin' necklace."

What?! I ground my hoof into the ground so fucking hard I thought the ditch itself might break. No. No. No. No. No. No. No!

"Now Littlepip's as fucked as she's ever been. None of her usual tricks gonna work 'gainst a alicoyn. Not mono-a-mono like dat. But Luna..." She pointed at the Moon. "Luna was so friggin' awesome, that Littlepip worshipped her even after she knew damn well the Princess was dead. So when Littlepip saw dat skeleton, she wasn't tinkin' bout strategies or fightin' or nuttin'. Just rage."

I kept watching the Moon.

"What did she do?" I asked urgently.

"Whattaya mean 'what'd she do?' She telekenetically stabbed that bitch with Luna's own horn. BAM!"

Big Blue stabbed the air with her head and laughed.

"Yes!" I cheered.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

The Gryphon raised a bushy feathery eyebrow at me.

"So?" Mumbled the unicorn scarf Mummy.

"So how does Littlepip's act of self-preservation make Luna the very best of what an alicorn can be?" Asked Dazzle. "She was dead at the time. Besides, Celestia-;."

"Celestia skipped town. Luna stayed. Don't ever forget that. Secondly, Littlepip didn't do it for self-preservation."

"Of course she did," Mr. Gryphon quit eyeballing me long enough to get in on the action. "Don't be stupid."

"Shaddup! Ya don't know whatcha talkin' about."

"Well, why else then, genius?"

"Littlepip killed that bitch 'cause her love for Princess Luna - who was Pip's fucking goddess, you mook, so show a little respect - was so friggin' strong - so friggin' pure - that Littlepip forgot about everything else. Just went nuts and wasted the bitch."

I could see the wonder in Big Blue's big blue eyes. She wanted to be Luna so bad. Like Dazzle wanted to be Littlepip. And it made its own kind of sense, really. What other role model could an alicorn hope to have?

We all had heroes growing up. Pirates and wizards and sports superstars, but for someone like big blue, there was only Luna and of course The Big C.

"I think that's a very good pick for a favorite story." I said.

"Thanks, kid."

She rustled my mane. I hate it when ponies do that, but I appreciated the sentiment.

"You're gonna be just like Luna someday," I said, trying to be reassuring.

"Nah." She sighed. "That's a lost cause. But still, the story's a reminder."

"Of what?" Said Mummy, who had gone all concernitty for once.

Blue clutched at her own neck, as though she was afraid that a necklace of bones might magically appear there all by themselves.

"Not to take home too many war trophies."

* * *

I went back to watching the Moon.

Poor Blue. I thought to myself. Growing up in the shadow of so much evil. And unable to live up to the legacy of such phenomenal good.
It made me stop and wonder. If Princess Luna was...

"Hey, Rosie, how aboutchoo?" Big Blue broke my train of thought.

All of a sudden, all the potatoes were looking at me expectantly.

"You're the guest," Blue continued. "You pick the next story."

"Umm...ummm."

Not good. Not good. Not good. Not good.

"Actually, um..."

Think, Rose Petal, think!

"I was getting...contemplatey...uhhh, and contemplating...if Littlepip were right here in the trenches with us right now, what would she say?"

"Happy Hearth's Warming." Dazzle laughed. So did all the others.

"No, I mean how would you explain this war?"

Dazzle scratched his head. Big Blue averted her eyes. Mr. Gryphon held up a talon, and opened his mouth as though he had something to say, but it was obvious he had nothing.

Meanwhile, more of those random gunshots rang out over the air. A bitter wind whipped through the trenches. And nopony said a word.

"...You know," I said. "Because she's uh...from the past and wouldn't get it?"

"Mmmph." Said the mummy unicorn, all bundled up all over again. "Mmm mmm mfffurrrmmm. Mmmph mmmurf."

Finally, she got frustrated and tore the scarf from her face. Again.

"The corns are fucking evil."

"And who are the corns?" I pressed eagerly. "Um...Littlepip would probably ask."

"Those evil pricks." Mummy gestured in the direction of the enemy line.

That earned a laugh.

"I know that. Duh! But what's a corn?" I leaned in, desperate to find out. "What makes them so evil in the first place?"

"You-nuh-corns," said Big Blue.

“But you're a unicorn," I said to the Mummy dryly.

"Not all unicorns," she replied. "Just those corns."

She made a rude gesture at the air. “You know, them Twilight Sparkle Society snobs."

"Twilight Sparkle, the librarian?!"

They all looked at me like I was nutso. I couldn't help but give myself away on that one. Yeah, back home she was tight with the Royals. Elements of Harmony and all that. But to me, she was still the spazzy lady who leant out books. The idea that 300 years later, she'd have followers. Murderous douchebag followers. It was too much.

"But why?" I sounded like a whiny little kid. "What do they want? What's with the door?"

"Kid, relax." Dazzle put a hoof on my shoulder.

"I'm...I'm...Just asking what, you know, Littlepip would ask...Being from the past and all.... Which, by the way, I'm not....In case you were wondering."

Smiles and laughter.

"I got this one." Big Blue scooted next to me.

"We was doing good. All of us getting along, you see? 'Cause we had a goal. Cleaning up the Wasteland, like you said, Pip. But once they was clean, we didn't have quite so much in common. Ya get me?"

I nodded.

"So we all gots these armies lying around, you see? When we rebuilt our civilization, we had to liberate every single compound in Equestria by force. And after the fight was done, we used 'em to explore. New lands. New resources. New jobs. You see?

"And all the nations of Equestria got along just fine, Littlepip. We really did. Till BAM! Crystal Empire. Shows up outta nowhere's after a hundred years. Just, ya know, reappears!"

"It's got ancient secrets in there. Missing pieces of our history. Tech. Magic. Paintings. All that fancy stuff. You name it.

“But we can't get the door open. Some security spell that some pretty pink princess we ain't never heard of put up towards the end of the war. A whole bubble to protect it.

"Somethin' bout a heart.

“And then when we was finally close to hacking into it, those corns came along. Said it was theirs. Their secrets to keep. Or some bullshit.

"And you wanted for yourselves.” I said.

"No." Said the Mummy, genuinely horrified. "For all pony kind. But those fucking corns..."

"I would tell Littlepip I'm sorry." Dazzle interrupted all of a sudden like, his eyes fixed on his own hooves.

The other soldiers looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"We didn't mean to." Dazzle hung his head in silence. "We didn't want any of this."

Mr. Gryphon smacked it.

"Ow."

"Sure we did. Those maniacs killed Root Beer Float."

"And Lily Leaf!" Said Mummy.

"And Dew Drop," Big Blue said softly.

All lost friends and comrades.

"Twinkle." I said to myself.

Silence again. I probably shouldn't have said anything. But I couldn't help it.

"Who's that?" Said Dazzle.

"The best friend a filly could ever ask for." I told them.

"'Corns got her?" The gryphon asked.

I shook my head. "Not exactly. But war still did."

A gust of wind whipped thru the trench. Whistley, whistley wind. Like an idiot, I'd given away my last blanket.

"I'm sorry." Dazzle stammered.

"War? What war if not this one?" Said Mummy.

"We were slaves." I told the truth. "Twinkle and me. It was an uprising kinda war."

I didn't dare to look any of them in the concernitty eyes. "I made it. She didn't."

The Mummy laughed for a minute. No one else did. I didn't take it personal. The moment I glanced in her direction, and she saw just how serious I was, the color ran from her face.

"Luna fuck me with moon rocks," she said. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok," I said.

"But-but...How?"

I found myself surrounded by concerned ponies again. But it wasn't that condescending concernitty kinda worry. They looked at me the way they looked at Rainbow Glimmer. With awe. These guys had it way rougher if you asked me. But the idea of slavery was just so shocking to them.

They treated me like a relic.

"I met Twink in a cage." I told them. "Hers was right next to mine. She had been a slave her whole life. I'd just been captured that day. She stroked my hair through the bars. Told me I was one of the good ones. Gave me hope and stuff.

"Eventually, we escaped. Took the whole compound with us. Ponies looked to me like I was some kinda Littlepip 'cause I sorta started the whole thing," I blushed.

Especially when I realized how eagerly the soldiers were hanging on my words.

"It was an accident!" I threw in there. "Twink deserves all the credit. It was her friendship that got me through it in the first place."

I told them about the hard yellow line. The lightning puddle. The mines. The rest of the story. I left out all the stupid psychic stuff about Strawberry Lemonade, of course, and played down the priestess.

But the point is, I told them all about Twink. And how wonderful she was. And what we had gone through together.

It was a story that needed to be told. Not just for me, but for her memory's sake. When I was done, and I had said every thing that needed to be said, they understood.

Actually understood. They didn't need to imagine how I might feel. Everyone of them had lost a friend, or two, or seven.

I stared at the ground for a long, long time. 'Till I found a talon resting on my shoulder. Mr. Gryphon was looking down on me.

"Can I give you something?" He said.

"Um, ok?" I sniffled a little.

Mr. Gryphon held up a stick. I took it from him with my teeth, and wedged it between my knees.

I looked down at the stick. Then back up at him. Then down at the thing again. Then back at him.

"It's a stick." I said.

"Twinkle's not really dead, you know?"

"Sooo...She's a stick." I said dryly.

"When I was eight, my dog died. Calamity."

The others smirked at the mention of the name.

"Fucked me up, you know? For weeks, and weeks, and weeks. Well, one weekend we visited my Bobbi. She sat me down and said, 'Hey Sam, guess what? Calamity ain't really dead, you know?'

"And I'm all like 'What? Do you think I'm stupid?'

"And she's all like, 'No, I'm just stating facts,'

"And I'm like, 'Facts? Whattaya mean, facts?'

"What kinda fact says a dead dog isn't dead?'

"Well normally that sort of talk woulda got me into big trouble with her, but she just waited for me to shut the Hell up, and it didn't help that Ma was yelling at me, 'Sam! Have you finished your homework yet?!'

"And I'm all, "No, cause Bobbi thinks my dog's a zombie or something, I dunno!'

"And Ma was all.."

Clonk! Big Blue smacked him in the head.

"Yeah, anyway," Sam Gryphon rubbed his eagley head and continued. "She said Life, love, friendship, it all starts with a spark. And it becomes like this flame we pass on. And Calamity wasn't really dead. Not if I kept a candle lit for him. And she passed me a candle."

Sam broke off another root jutting out from the trench dirt. Sprinkled a little flask juice on the tip.

"She said Calamity was gone, but the only way he could really die was if I let my heart burn out. Turn into smoke."

He stared at his makeshift candle. Flicked a little button on a pocket doo hickey and lit it on fire. Watched it burn, thoughtfully.

"Don't let Twinkle's death destroy you, kid."

He got all stern for a second, and turned away from his candle to look me square in the eyes.

"I don't know much about your friend Twinkle Eyes," he said. "But she wouldn't want that."

* * *

The wind died down. And we were left with a moment of real quiet. I stared at my stick.

Sam Gryphon held up his "candle" again – lost himself in the flame.

"To Root Beer Float." He said.

Then he whispered something under his breath. Some language I had never heard before.

"This ones for you, buddy." He held up his flask, and took a swig.

Silence again. None of us were sure of what to say. I just stared at my stick.

It was Mummy who broke the silence. She snapped a root out of the wall o' dirt for herself. Soaked it, lit it, and levitated it before her.

"Lily Leaf." She said.

Another swig.

"Dew drop." Said Big Blue, lighting her own "candle" with magic.

I stared at my stick. And up at the reddening sky. The pale moon.

"Twinkle Eyes," I said at last.

And the alicorn lit me up.

I stared at the flame. Watched it dance blue around the tip of the stick.

"Twink." I whispered.

* * *

As it burned, I watched. I mean really looked deep into it. And slowly, I started to feel warm again. The kind of warm that comes from the inside. I lost myself in the fire. Watched it burn and burn till everything else around me just sort of dropped away. And I was left with this feeling. It was a lot like that moment of joy that Twink and I had shared when I'd first burst out of the tunnels and found her standing over me. Only it kept building. The sensation just kept getting closer. 'Till finally, I heard an actual whisper.

"Kick those shadowy clitweasels." It said.

And I was left in silent awe.

"I will," I whispered back. "I promise."

Out of nowhere, Big Blue started singing a carol. A deep rich voice. "Deck This Barn."

I was so startled, I almost dropped the candle. I looked up at her in disbelief.

After all that had been forgotten, "Deck This Barn," of all things, had survived. Totally intact. Every note. Every lyric. Exactly as I remembered it. Exactly as Great Aunt Roseroot had sung it. As ponies everywhere had sung it on Hearth's Warming Eve's since long before Celestia, or Luna, or even Discord.

Sam the Gryphon closed his eyes, and listened to the alicorn's robust voice. He puffed smoke from one of those fire sticks. A little bit leaked out the weird little nostril holes in his beak. It dispersed over the air. In that moment, I realized precisely what we were missing.

What I had to do.

"Wait!" I shouted.

They all stopped and looked at me.

"Something's not right," I tried to stand up with my candle still between my legs, but it jerked and jostled, and threatened to burn out. So, I wedged it good and firm between some planks of wood on the ground.

"Twink," I knelt. Stared into the flickering light. "Wait right here."

I rose to my hooves, and turned to Sam.

"Keep Twink burning. I'll be back in a sec. Promise."

Before any of them could protest, or stop me, I snatched a spare stick and galloped off.

* * *

I had to find him. Rainbow Glimmer was around somewhere, either lying around feeling sorry for himself, or patrolling, like some of the other ponies had reported. I dashed down that catacomb of ditches. But he wasn't where I'd left him.

I doubled back and found him not too far from where I started, actually. Huddled up on the floor again, alone.

"Maimbow Glimmer?" I mumbled.

He turned to face me. I offered him the stick in my mouth, but he wouldn’t take it.

"We are lighting them," I mumbled some more. "To um...Honor the dead."

He flinched like I was going to hit him.

I spit it out into my hoof.

“A bunch of us are doing it.” I said. “An old Gryphon tradition, sorta, and, I thought, well, you might wanna, you know...light a candle for Tulip."

The wind whipped through the trenches yet again. I shivered. The frosty breeze thing was getting real fucking old. Rainbow Glimmer stared at the stick I offered him, but didn’t take it.

"It should have been me." He said all over again.

That old familiar song. The sound of it made my stomach turn.

"But it wasn't." I told him.

He looked up at me.

"It wasn't you." I repeated. "Tulip bought you a second chance!"

Rainbow looked worried. "B-but, a second chance at what?"

I thought about the kind of life Twink wanted for herself. The kind of life she'd want for me. The kind of stuff she herself believed in - what she stood for. What she fought for.

“I dunno." I said.

His eyes flittered left, and right, and all the fuck over the place. In his head, Rainbow Glimmer was playing his own game of desolation BINGO. A tug of war between desperation, and hope - sorrow, and fear splashed all over his face like a flickering film strip.

"It's up to you." I said.

He stopped, and looked up at me fearfully. Took the stick. Examined it carefully.

“How does it work?” He asked with a shaky voice.

* * *

I brought him back to the rest of the gang. Explained along the way. They all fell silent the moment we rounded the corner, and they could see us coming.

Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop.

As we drew nearer, Rainbow grew visibly twitchy. More than usual.

“It’s fine.” I said. “They won’t hurt you.”

“It’s not them I’m worried about.” He started rambling. “The corns. The corns are gonna see the fire.”

“Not while the Sun’s still up.” I thought quickly. Hoped I was right.

Rainbow Glimmer watched the darkening sky as anxiously as I had.

“But the wall up there in No Mare’s Land. It’s g-guarding the door! That’s fire they have there."

Rainbow pointed a trembling hoof.

"Blue fire. Magic fire. The alicorn used her magic, d-didn't she? The defense systems don’t like magic. The turrets. The canons. They’ll fire if...”

"It will be fine." I said as I chomped on his coat.

Grabbed it, and tugged him along. All the way back to the rest of the gang. A little filly dragging this grown stallion with all her might. The sight must have been absurd.

"Hey, maybe you should--;" One of them shouted.

"Mmph. Mmph." I mumbled.

That shut them up.

It was a little awkward at first, but eventually they all started singing again. Circle of Pony Friends. It seemed to loosen Rainbow up. At least loose enough that I felt comfortable he wasn't going to freak out and gallop away. He plopped himself down and sat just a teeny tiny little bit on the outskirts of our little herd. And minded his business.

"Hold up your stick," I told him.

I yanked my twink "candle" out from between the floor planks with my teeth. Brought it to his. I caught Big Blue lighting up her horn - helping the fire catch. Rainbow Glimmer didn't notice. He just gazed into the flame like it was a crystal ball.

"For Tulip," I said.

"For Tulip," he muttered to himself.

* * *

The gang erupted into another hearth's warming Carol. They all knew the words. It was totally spontaneous-like. When it was done, they sang another carol. Then Another. And another. Glim didn't have much to say, but his eyes lit up with traces of wonder as he watched Tulip in the flame, and I could even see the lyrics to the carols moving along his lips, as he sang them softly to himself.

When they finished The Twelve Days of Hearth's Warming, I couldn't hold back anymore. I had to fucking ask.

"Isn't it amazing how all these ancient songs survived?"

I tried to be slick about it.

"Oh yeah," said Dazzle Shine. "I've got the whole album right here."

He fiddled with his Pip Buck till music started coming out of it. It was a little tinny and thin, but the song was clear. We Wish You a Merry Hearth's Warming. Sung by the most amazing voice I had ever heard. Even after it crackled to a finish, the soldiers just sort of sat in silence and drifted.

* * *

"I'm so glad these old recordings survived the war." Said Dazzle Shine at last.

"Me too," whispered Mr. Griffin.

I scooted over a little closer to get a good look at the device that'd granted us access to such beautiful music. And saw the album's original cover art on display.

A white unicorn. Pink and purple mane. Her cutie Mark was an old-fashioned microphone adorned with flowers. She sat by a fireplace and a piano. Above her, were big red and green letters: "It's a Sweetie Belle Hearth's Warming: Vol. 4."

My brain exploded. I babbled gibberish. Pointed at the screen of Dazzle Shine's Pip Buck.

The girl in my class. The crusader. The squeaky one. A grownup. A legend. One of the only windows to our past. Centuries in the future.

I started to gather my thoughts on it, but my brain just went and exploded all over again.

"Wha? How? Huh?"

"These oldies are great." Said Dazzle. "Even if the lyrics of the Hearth's Warming ones are, you know, a little different."

They all just sort of nodded along. As though it were a mystery. The sight of them all scratching at their heads and staring at their hooves, snapped me out of my brain explodey fugue state. 'Cause none of them brought up the obvious argument. That the lyrics were antiquated. Even in our time, they'd come off Old Fashioned.

That was when it really hit me. They didn't know. They didn't know the history behind any of the pre-war stuff. They weren’t like the Priestess, who’d had access to ancient texts for some reason. These ponies were piecing together a past, just like I was piecing together a future.

“I have a favorite story.” I said with a wicked smile. “But it’s not about Littlepip.”

The potatoes all looked at one another and shrugged.

“Shoot, Blanket Girl,” said Big Blue.

“The first ever Hearth’s Warming Eve.”

* * *

None of them had ever heard it before. None of them had known that there was an Equestria before the princesses. That there had been an exodus. A war. That unicorns and pegasi and earth ponies once hated each other as strongly as they all later hated zebras. As we Rangers now hated 'corns. Nopony had ever told them that our very nation was founded not by our royalty – not by our leaders, not by our generals, but by ourselves.

In telling that story out loud as though it were brand-new, I realized what it was that had led ponykind to the bomb. What we ponies had lost.

It wasn't innocence. No matter how many priestesses or wasteland saviors claimed otherwise. Everyone loses their innocence eventually. What matters is what you do afterwards – that you keep that special spark - that little bit of magic and wonder that makes you somehow able to not turn into a total fucking asshole once your innocence is gone.

Back in Trottica I'd called it purity. For the ancient settlers, it boiled down to one thing. The ability to say "no," to something when they knew it was fucking wrong.

* * *

When the story was over, the gang was totally awestruck, Rainbow Glimmer most of all. A smile crept across his face. He had actually survived an order to go over the fucking top, and saw first hoof what happens to those who go willingly.

The fact that the founders of All That We Hold Dear defeated evil not with obedience, but with the rebellion – with singing and celebration - with friendship? I could only imagine what that revelation might mean to him.

Rainbow Glimmer clutched his candle between his hooves and huddled over it. Full of holiday cheer.

Tulip loved Hearth's Warming so much.

"How do you even know this?" Asked Dazzle Shine, fiddling with his Pip Buck as though the answer would be inside of it.

"An old book," I said.

"Great story, kid." Mr. Griffin slapped my back.

I let out one of those laughs of pride, where you blush a little and try not to let on that you're proud, but everyone can still tell, and that just makes it all the more embarrassing.

Sam struck up another carol to cover for me. We sang. And sang. And sang. And sang. And sang. And crazy as it sounds, after a while, it didn't feel so cold out anymore. When we were done with round twenty-seven-or-so, Mr. Gryphon pointed a talon at Rainbow Glimmer.

"What about you?" He said. "What's your favorite story?"

He panicked. Shook his head.

"C'mon," said Big Blue. "You don't even gotta tell it. Dazzle gots the whole book, just pick a story."

"He doesn't have to," said Mr. Gryphon. He turned to Rainbow and apologized for Blue. "Sorry, brother."

"It's okay." Said Rainbow Glimmer, slightly terrified of the request.

"C'mon," said Big Blue, who just wouldn't let it go. "We all told ours. Tag. You're it."

In the moment that followed, everything else fell silent. Even the gunshots. Even the wind.

Rainbow Glimmer looked like his heart had been smashed. And only I knew why.

Then, out of the blue, something truly incredible happened. As he sat, mulling over those last words coming back to haunt him all over again, there came the sound of music. Rest Ye Merry Gentlecolts. Tulip's favorite carol.

Coming from the enemy trench.

* * *

Rainbow Glimmer lowered his candle and wedged it firmly between tree roots. It continued to burn thanks to Blue's magic.
And then he was off. Stripping off his coat like a mad horse.

I ran after him. The others followed not too far behind.

I found him tearing the lining out from under his coat. Back pressed against the wall.

"Rainbow," I said. "What are you doing?"

"Tag," he smiled. "You're it."

And laughed. Time to do something totally fucking stupid.

He stood up tall, way above the lip of the trench, and waved the lining in the air. A big white flag.

And sang.

"Rest ye Merry gentlecolts let none of you dismay. "

"Rainbow, no!"

But it was too late. He was already climbing over my abandoned wagon, and had gotten halfway over the top all by himself.

For a moment they all fell quiet over there on the enemy trench. But Rainbow kept on singing.

It was the most terrifying silence ever. But they didn't shoot him. Even as he stood up, on the surface ground, right there for the world to see - right out in the open. Right there in No Mare's Land.

Mr. Gryphon clutched at his ankle but Rainbow would have none of it. He kicked the talon away.

"Remember the friendships that were forged upon this day

And saved us all from icy power

When we'd gone astray."

He paraded full on, dragging the white flag behind him. Singing Rest Ye Merry Gentlecolts for Tulip. Out into the unknown. Bringing tidings of comfort and joy.

We all freaked out in silent horror. Waited the gunshot. Some of us even scrambled to peek thru the little chinks between the sandbags, Big Blue chief among them.

"Holy fuck." She said.

"What? What? What is it?!" I said, the only one too short to see.

The alicorn craned her neck down and squatted - let me climb onto her back. When we popped back up, I could finally make out Rainbow Glimmer marching across those horrifying wastes. Still Singing.

And out there way on the other end, was a corn. All decked out in a gray uniform.

She had to be as crazy as Rainbow. Because she was doing the same.

* * *

One by one, we all made our way over the top in stunned silence, as only the two lunatics had held it together enough to keep singing. We got to the center, amazed and confused. But Rainbow got there first. He stood by the razor wire. Waited for the corn to come. The one who was as crazy as him.

Then the song ended, and they were face-to-face. A tangled nest of wire between them. A crowd on either side.

Rainbow waved. The enemy waved right back.

I couldn't tell what else went on between them; they were too far ahead of us.

But eventually, the enemy mare lit her horn up. Encased the posts of the razor wire fence in magic and grunted as she concentrated. It shook but did not move. Rainbow rammed into the post of the fence. A giant wooden X. He bucked it again, and again. Threw his back into it.

Horns from both sides started lighting up. We earth ponies rushed forward to help, but by the time we got there, the fence was already down. Dragged and dumped to the side like used wrapping paper on Hearth's Warming morning.

The corns were every bit as confused and astounded as we were. Except their coats gray instead of brown.

The shortest of the bunch came straight up to me. A teen like Sterry.

I smiled because It reminded me of every other holiday party in history. No matter what, the first thing you do is gravitate toward the kids your age.

"Happy Hearth's Warming," said the corn girl.

"To you too," I replied, still sort of stunned.

"Sprinkles." She extended a hoof bump.

"Rose Petal." I obliged.

For a moment, we both just stood there in each other's company, and soaked in the scene. The grownups were giving each other stuff. Fire sticks. Contraband snacks. Swigs from each other's flasks. Any gift that they could find or think of.

And on the far, far, far end of No Mare's Land was a great and terrible wall, built-in cannons - the kind that didn't need ponies to staff them - and a force field coming out of the top, arcing into a giant dome. I could see the tip of the Crystal Spire over that wall, rising high above the rest of the city.

And a giant door under the wall o' cannons. Sealed shut.

Me and the corn kid sat on a burnt tree stump, and just sorta marveled at it.

"I need to get that door open," I said at last, shivering in the open air.

The sun was almost down.

The other girl fiddled with her saddle bag. I could see it out of the corner of my eye. And as good as it was to have the company, I was pretty fixated on the door.

Next thing I know her hoof is around me. And I felt that last little bit of coldness leave for good.

I huddled up. Toasty and warm.

"It isn't much," she said. "But Happy Hearth's Warming."

I looked down. The girl had wrapped me in a nice warm blanket.

Gray instead of brown.

Author's Note

On Christmas Eve of 1914, the soldiers of WWI held spontaneous Christmas Truces all over the fronts without permission from their commanding officers. They flooded No Man's Land at great personal risk to express joy and faith in mankind. My ponification of these events could never begin to do the actual events justice. It was, simply put, one of the most beautiful moments in human history.

I wrote about the actual events here, and if you're unfamiliar with the story, I strongly suggest you read up on it.

http://mlp.derpynews.com/help-my-heart-is-full-of-pony-a-truce-heard-round-the-world/

For some hard history, go here: http://www.christmastruce.co.uk/article.html

Seriously, if friendship ever did become actual magic here on earth, it was on December 24, 1914.

Special Thanks to: Longbottle, Pony Joe, and Seraphem for your feedback and criticism and proofreading and stuff.

A Fragile Peace

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - A FRAGILE PEACE

"The ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame, and on each end of the rifle, we are the same." - John McCutcheon

Grown-ups spend their whole lives either running away from, or running toward their childhoods. Well, Hearth’s Warming is one of those things, you know. There's a certain magic about it. It may feel like it’s lost its specialness as you get older, but everyone's still carrying around a million holiday memories in their brains. And if just one of them had a drop of Hearth’s Warming magic, there's hope.

I was standing right smack in the middle of a beat up, charred, rancid old field where thousands had died. And we'd turned it into a paradise. 'Cause we'd all just stopped, looked around, and said "enough." All of us at the same time.

Hearth's Warming - our faith in it - our longing for those wonderful feelings again - it was bigger than war. Bigger than death. Bigger than all of us.

* * *

The soldiers found a beat up pine tree from somewhere or other, and cut it down. Dragged it to No Mare's Land. We decked the hell out of the thing with whatever we could find. And those candles of the dead – they made their way right near the top. Even stayed lit thanks to a little bit of magic. But we hardly needed it. By the time we'd put the tree up, the wind had stopped altogether.

There was this fire burning in all of us, and not a pony was left untouched or unchanged. That lime green mare who had shot at the corns yelling, "Fucking monsters, have you no decency?" She was drunk now. Singing. Forelegs intertwined with one of the ponies in gray. Mummy too. And Mummy had called them fucking evil just an hour before. Rainbow Glimmer was puffing smoke again. Thanks to a gift of fire sticks from that crazy corn lady who'd met him in the middle of the field.

Me? I kept busy draping pine branches all over those razor wire fences to make them more festive. Sprinkles and me both. We decked the living fuck out of them. Having the kinds of conversations that really teach you something about the other pony. You know, deep thoughts and stuff.

"Ok my turn!" Said Sprinkles. "Who would win in a fight? Steelhooves or Littlepip."

Having never read the Book of Littlepip, I took the safe answer. "Littlepip."

"I think so too! What's your reason?"

"Uh..."

I paused to tie that gray blanket around my neck like a cape. I had to use my teeth, which sucked, because their blankets tasted nastier than ours. But at least it gave me an extra minute to think of a reply.

"Uh, she is cleverer, and better at, um...repairing toasters."

Sprinkles snorted out a laugh.

"My turn!" I said. "Do you think there was any way the war could have been avoided?"

Good one, Rose Petal. Crafty. At least I thought so, but Sprinkles just looked at me like I was nuts for asking.

"You think too much." She said.

"What's wrong with--;"

"Ooh! I got one!" Sprinkles interrupted me.

"Hey! You didn't answer mine."

"Yes. Okay? Coulda been avoided." She said. "If you--;"

"But how?" I insisted, my mission ever on my mind.

"Don't care. Now listen, if you could go back in time..."

"What?" I stopped.

"If you could go back in time, meet any princess, and say one thing to her, what would it be?"

I had to think on it. So I thought on it, and thought on it, and thought on it, and thought on it, and thought on it.

Out of the blue, the sound of laughter suddenly carried across No Mare's Land. They were playing soccer. Rangers versus Corns. Hundreds of grown stallions and mares laughing again - playing again. It reminded me of the playground back home. Where everypony battles, nopony dies, and you all go out for milkshakes afterward.

“Hey, you cheated!" Somepony shouted.

I don't know who made the accusation, who had supposedly cheated, or how, but at the end of it all, a ranger and a corn broke out into a friendly wrestle. Just like Misty Mountain and Twinkle Eyes. Squabbling over the imaginary game in my dream.

Everypony laughed, cheered, rooted for their favorite of the two wrestlers - you know, generally acting like idiots - 'til finally, the fighters got up off the ground and hugged. Stumbled around like a couple of Berry Punches.

What we were doing - the corns and us - it was a miracle.

"Princess Luna." I turned to Sprinkles and said. "I'd tell her 'Thank you.'"

* * *

Sprinkles and I took a step back and looked at our work. The pine. The long strings of jinglies that I later learned were called bullet shells.

You could hardly tell that it had once been a flesh-ripping agony fence. It even had a nice glow to it. Our flares were on the ground, burning red and orange. The Wall itself, with its gigantic panels, its long, veiny iron cables, its lumpy, techy guns and stuff - it cast neat-o shadows like a Hearth's Warming tree at night when all the other lamplights are out. And the Crystal Empire dome, even from half-a-mile away, cast a pale purple glow on all of us. Our decorations shone like tinsel.

It was perfection.

Then Oldie, the guy I'd met in the cellar, wandered by and killed the mood.

"Hey, Oldie," I said.

He looked over his shoulder to see who I was talking to.

"Um, I mean, hey, uh..."

"Pumpkin Scone." He formally introduced himself for the first time.

"Yeah, that's what I meant to say. Pumpkin, meet Sprinkles. Sprinkles, Pumpkin."

"Hey," he said dryly and gave an unenthusiastic hoof bump to the corn.

"What's wrong?" I said. "Come on. It's Hearth's Warming! It's a party!"

He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. The moment after the words left my mouth, I realized exactly what was wrong. Oldie was all by himself.

"Um, say, uh...where is Sterry?"

He lifted his eyes to meet mine. Sad eyes. Scaredy eyes.

Fuck.

"What happened?" I rushed him so hard my head almost knocked into his chin.

He looked to Sprinkles, "A moment alone, please?"

Sprinkles backed off without having to be told twice. Oldie leaned in real close. Right up to my ear.

"That's just it." He whispered. "I don't know. No one knows. Nopony's seen him since he reported in with the colonel six hours ago."

I looked out over the trenches where we'd come from. Way over them. Past them.

There was a ruined little crap town on a hill wedged right against the wall of the Crystal Empire. They had fires burning there, and strange unnatural lights in the windows. I could see them all the way from No Mare’s Land. It was like the whole town was watching us. Lurking. Waiting.

"Not on Hearth's Warming." I growled.

* * *

After I said my polite goodbyes to Sprinkles, I climbed back into the trenches, and made for the town, if you could even call it a town. Pumpkin Scone tailed me. Nagging.

"What are you going to do?"

I ignored him.

"Hey, kid, come on, this isn't safe."

I grumbled and trotted faster. When I hit a wall in the trenches, I made a left. Then I hit another wall, and made a right.

Left, right. Left right. Pumpkin following me all the way like an annoying little puppy. Nag, nag, nag, nag, nag. Finally, when I hit my twenty-seventh dirt wall, my patience wore down to a nub.

I whipped around, and yelled at him. "What?!"

I had to pant just to catch my breath.

"Um...Uh..." He took a deep breath and rolled his eyes. "This way." He said with a sigh.

* * *

We made our way through a long and tedious maze of dirt. It drove me crazy. I was itching to charge right the fuck up there and grab Sterry - to take down Colonel Wormwood for being such a jerk. I wanted to yell at somepony - anypony - and say, "Hey! It's fucking Hearth's Warming! What the hell is wrong with you?!"

But there was no opportunity for any of that. Just dirt. What seemed like miles, and miles, and miles of dirt.

When we got close to the “town,” we started seeing more of those iron-clad ponies. Officers. Then I just wished for more dirt. We had to creep along at a snail's pace. Ducking, and bobbing, and hiding to avoid being seen. At the end of it all, our trench turned into a road, and we were out in the open.

"Fuck," I said. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

I scanned the landscape for cover. Found only a building that had been destroyed long ago. Nothing was left but the foundation and a single wall. But it was better than nothing.

I ran. Darted for it so eagerly that I tripped on my sleeve. Fell flat on my face and tumbled forward.

It was only then, as I lay there with my back against the ground, eyes facing the stars in the calm night sky, that I realized what should have been obvious from the start.

I was a moron. A total fucking moron.

We had no reason to run. No reason to hide. Pumpkin Scone was a fucking soldier, who had every reason to be there. And I was safe with him, so long as we both played it cool.

"Ok," I said, brushing myself off, rising to my knees. "I’m thinking that maybe you can show me th--;"

I turned to Pumpkin, but he was just fucking standing there. Staring. Wide-eyed. Like a dumbass.

"What?" I whisper-shouted. "What is it?"

“I can't,” he said. “I-I took an oath. This…”

He pointed in the direction of the town.

"This is treason."

“This isn't fucking treason!” I snapped. “You're walking into a town you have been in before, not assassinating a princess. Do you care what happens to Sterry or not?”

He swallowed hard. That wind was creeping back up on us, and it was whistley. Pumpkin rubbed his bright brown eyes, licked his chapped scabby lips, and nodded at me.

“Okay,” he said, and inched over toward me. “What's the plan?”

“Um…”

Before we could get into the inevitable argument about how bad an idea it was to go busting into a compound without an actual plan, we spotted two of those steel ponies coming up the road.

"Okay, you go over there," I said.

But Pumpkin was already gone. He darted into that burnt up old building and hid behind it's only wall. Crouched good and tight against a pile of bricks.

Fuck. I ran after him.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Hiding,” he said.

“You're a soldier,” I said. “You belong here. Go out there and...I dunno, salute them or something.”

“I can't,” he whispered.

He was trembling. And not from the cold.

There was so much to say, but the officers were getting close. So close, we could hear the metal on their hooves crunching against the gravel and frozen dirt. It was too late for pep talks.

“So I was like, 'Dude, give me back my bowling ball,' and the other guy was like, 'Dude, make me.'”

“What’d you do?”

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

“Uh...Nothing. He dropped it on his own hoof. Had to go to the fucking hospital. Douche.”

“Oh.”

Crunch. Crunchitty, crunch-crunch, crunch.

“That’s the dumbest story I’ve ever heard.”

They crunchitty-crunched all the way up to the battered wall we were huddling against, and flipped open what sounded like a small metal hatch. They were so close, I could hear every raggedy detail of their breaths. I had to clutch my hoof against my mouth just to muffle my own. Pumpkin did the same.

“I think the antenna is fine,” said one iron pony to the other.

He sounded like he was coming down with a cold.

“It doesn't make any damn sense at all.” Said the second one.

“Well, if Wormwood says she never received the orders, she never received them.”

I turned to Pumpkin. He just shrugged. Terrified and confused.

“Really? I'm not so sure.”

The not sick one lowered his voice to a whisper. It made the two of them harder to tell apart. “What do you mean you're not so sure.”

“I don't know, bro. She hasn't been right in the head since…well...”

“Dude, her fucking son died. Of course she's not right. Doesn't mean that she...”

They both fell silent again. Let the wind do the talking.

“Look, I never said that she did." The sick one said at last.

“Just drop it, ok?”

They quit talking for a bit while their hooves fiddled with whatever was on the other side of that wall. It made little creaky sounds. Scratchy sounds.

I wished the whole time that they would talk again. I could swear my heart was beating louder than the work they were doing - that it would give us away.

But they just kept on fiddling with whatever it was they were fiddling with, content to ignore the thunderous pounding sound coming from inside my chest.

"She's not a traitor.” Said the sick one, stern as the grave. “But I'm telling you she's not herself either. She arrested that poor kid. Sterile Field.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why?”

The other pony was silent. Even he didn't know.

"I guess that kid finally swiped one too many onions." Said the not sick one with a sigh.

Then the little metal lid flicked shut.

"Aaaand the transmitter is working. Like I said."

I couldn't see what was going on on the other side of the wall, but somehow I could feel them looking at each other. Their worry. Their apprehension. Their suspicion.

What the fuck was going on?

There was a painfully awkward silence. Pierced only by the sound of gravel grinding underneath their nervous hooves.

"Let's go check the other transmitter.” Not Sick said at last. “You know, just in case."

"Yeah," Sick Pony coughed in reply.

A couple of hesitant hoofsteps later, they marched past us and headed on down the road.

* * *

Pumpkin and I didn't dare move 'til they drifted out of earshot. It took a long while, cause those two had marched away real slow-like. Finally, when they were gone, I turned to him.

“You okay?” I asked.

He shook his head no. He was shaking with anger.

"You ready?" He said to me dryly.

"Yeah," I said, peering down the road. "Let's go."

* * *

Breaking into the "town" was easy. There were no fences. No walls. The big brick buildings on the perimeter had been left completely unponied - their three-century old ratatatatatat-er's reduced to nasty old lumps of rust.

There was not much left of the old defenses. Just a scar of singed earth around the town's borders. Probably from a protection dome that had burnt out long ago.

The important thing is that Pumpkin Scone was a soldier who actually belonged there. So nervous as we were, there was no need to hide or sneak around at all. I, on the other hoof, got scowls and dirty looks from every iron pony we passed everywhere we went. It made me wish they'd put the helmet parts of their suits back on so I wouldn't have to look at their big ugly glowery heads.

But no one stopped us. And that's all that mattered.

Pumpkin was there to "escort" me to Wormwood, after finding me wandering around. That was the official story, and he was quick to trip over his tongue with it at any officer who so much as looked at us funny. But no one cared. They all let us pass.

As we got deeper into "town," the broken brick buildings faded away, in favor of a small row of cottages. Quaint little thatched roofs, long collapsed. Crumbling wooden beams. Uneven foundations visibly sloping. There was barely anything left of the fragile little houses at all, but what I saw reminded me of Ponyville. One cottage was even a dead ringer for Miss Cheerilee's. Except that the Rangers had draped tarps where the roof had been, and turned it into some kind of tent.

The sight of it sent shivers across my spine.

"What is this place?" I whispered to Pumpkin.

"Nopony knows for sure,” he whispered back. "We think it used to be a village that sprung up just before the empire disappeared. Maintenance workers fixing glitches in The Wall.

"We’ve had our hackers up there trying to get into the maneframe pretty much around-the-clock since we got here. If you ask me, the whole thing is stupid. If you could hack the door from that building..."

He pointed at the giant hideous central structure.

"They would never have built it on the outside of the fucking wall."

* * *

And so we'd arrived.

The headquarters looked like a Fillydelphia apartment building with massive squiggle-majigs coming out, plugging into The Wall like swirly straws. Between the giant tubes and the lit up windows, the whole thing looked like one of those spiders with the billion eyes.

I called it the Town Hall for lack of a better term, but the cluster of rubble we'd trudged across was hardly a town. I doubt it ever had been, even in it's hay day. The reason they'd mimicked Ponyville architecture was probably 'cause it's simple, cheap, and disposable. It doesn't matter if bugs eat your plumbing, and rabbits stampede through your living room - it never takes more than a week or two to repair.

* * *

That seven story headquarters was, bigger and weirder than anything I'd ever seen in real life. And still, compared to The Wall, it was just a pebble at the foot of a mountain.

A mountain made out of guns and stuff.

We clip-clopped slowly to the steps that lead to the front door. Took our deep breaths, composed ourselves, and approached.

Two iron ponies stood at the bottom. And unlike the others, their heads were covered with armor too. They were in full on I'm so cool as I stand here, all-still-and-scary-like-a-statue mode. They were inscrutable. I couldn't tell if they were sizing me up, or ignorifying me. It didn't matter. I was distracted by the big red apples painted on their shiny steel flanks.

Had they all had those?

"You got papers for that prisoner?" One of the iron ponies said to my escort.

"Prisoner? No, I--;"

Pumpkin turned to me. Stared at me. The orange ran from his face. Something was wrong. Wrong enough to make Pumpkin Scone go all white on me.

"Umm..."

I had no idea what the fuck was going on, but I didn't like it.

"The prisoner...yeah." Pumpkin stammered. "The prisoner."

"Wait, hold on a second!"

I looked to Pumpkin for reassurance, but found only apologies in his eyes. And fear.

"Zip it, corn." Snapped one of the iron ponies.

"But I'm not--;"

"Ease off, she's just a kid." Said the other officer.

"Corn?" I said, still utterly confused.

But that just earned me scornful looks. Even through his helmet, I could tell that the dude on the left hated me for being a corn. It was only when I stopped and had a good, hard look at myself that I realized why.

There was a blanket still tied around my neck like a cape. A gray blanket.

The mother of all facehoofs. How could I be so fucking stupid?

And Pumpkin? With his O-Dear-Celestia-What-Have-I-Done face. How could he be so fucking stupid?

"I'm, I'm, I'm...Not a corn, it's just a blanket!" I said. "Check it out! Underneath, I'm a brown coat. Like you."

The iron ponies turned to Pumpkin. He looked like he was about to cry.

"Um...uh..."

He's gonna sell me out. Fuck! He's gonna sell me out. That cockgoblin is gonna sell me out.

"She's--;"

I am losing him.

"Pumpkin," I said.

He looked down at me, utterly mortified.

Please. The word was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't say it. Couldn't give us away.

But he knew damn well what I was asking.

"She's...a filly, sir." He said at last, suddenly all military-like. "I found her wandering the trenches."

"A corn spy it would seem." Iron Douche was smirking underneath that helmet. I could tell.

The other metal pony officer guy just brought his hoof to his face.

"Sir! Private Pumpkin Scone intends to deliver the prisoner to Colonel Wormwood," Pumpkin spoke of himself in the third person. "And let the Colonel reach her own conclusions once I have given her my testimony, and full report, sir!"

The douchey iron pony didn't move. Or speak. His part in this was officially over. He was fucking pissed about it too. Cause there was nothing left to do but to let us pass. We hiked up the front steps solemnly. Step-by-terrifying-step. The sympathetic one followed us, and stopped Pumpkin before we could reach the door. Grabbed him. Whispered something in his ear. Pumpkin listened, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and nodded.

Whatever that guy had said, it was not good.

* * *

"What the fuck was that?" I barked at Pumpkin in an angry whisper once we got inside.

"I don't know." He whispered back.

"Why didn't you tell them I wasn't a corn?!"

I stomped on his hoof.

"Ow. What the hell?"

I smiled. Started walking ahead of him out of spite, but he grabbed me.

"Hey!" I growled at him. "Don't you dare--;"

"This way, dumbass," he whispered.

Pumpkin led me through a doorway, and up the stairs. Our clopping hooves echoed in the stairwell.

For the first flight or two, we didn't say a word. Then I got tired from the hike, ran out of breath, and took it out on him.

"Why didn't you tell them," I huffed. "I wasn't...a corn?!"

Wheeze. Wheeze. Wheeze.

"I couldn't. I..."

I could tell he wanted to say more, but in the end, he ran out of words and just sighed

Desolation Bingo. N-14. Betrayal.

"Come on, don't look at me like that." He said.

"Druggo-dropper;" I snarled.

"What? Huh? Listen--;"

He started murmuring some excuse or other, but at that precise moment, I just so happened to see something that made me completely stop giving a fuck what Pumpkin had to say. His voice just sorta trailed off.

There was a great big hole in the wall of the stairwell. One of those giant metal veins stuck right out of the building just one floor below us, and ran out into the open.

"Whoa."

I poked my head out of the gap. The cable was so close, I could make out the thousands of tiny runes written all the fuck over it. They seemed to pulse, and vibrate color ever so faintly under the steel. The glowy vibratey appendage-a-majig ran crooked, but not squiggly, into a crevice in the wall's machinery. Tucked in to this long, long stretch of wall stuff that seemed to go on, and on, and on forever, and ever, and ever.

But as I looked out over the vast expanse of the Crystal Empire wall - the miles of magic and machine that powered it - the stuff that still worked after three centuries of abuse - all I could think about was the fact that we ponies actually built that.

And it would happen in my lifetime. Start to finish.

"Come on." Pumpkin yanked me away.

For once, he was right. We had to keep moving. I scurried back inside. Started up the stairs after him.

* * *

We carried on in silence after that. At least 'til we reached the top. Then we just stood in front of the door together and panted. The door with the big number seven painted on it. It took a long, long while, but we both eventually stopped wheezing, and when we did, Pumpkin cracked his neck, and turned to me.

"Okay," He said. "On the other side of this door is a hallway. Wormwood's office is at the end of it."

After that, he just stood there like a jackass. Silently. I kept waiting for him to finish his thought, but he didn't say a word.

"And..."

"And what?" He said.

"And...What's the fucking plan." I asked.

"I thought you had one."

"Me? You're the one who works here. What do I know?"

Pumpkin shrugged.

I had to fight the urge to kick him.

"Okay," I said through gritted teeth. "Where do you think they are keeping Sterry most likely?"

"The basement," he replied.

"The basement?! What are we doing up here?"

"I thought we were turning you over to Colonel Wormwood."

Arg.

I banged my head against the wall.

"Why"

Thud.

"Would..."

Thud.

"We..."

Thud.

"Fucking..."

Thud.

"Do that?!"

Thud.

Pumpkin grabbed me. Shoved a hoof in my face and shushed me. There were other ponies in the stairwell. Six flights below us, it seemed when I poked my head out over the rail.

Shit.

"Okay, you're a corn." Pumpkin whispered.

"Pumpkin, fucking no!"

"Listen, listen, listen, listen." He said. "We go in there, and I turn you in. Then I escort you. To the basement because they will want to lock you up, you see?"

I nodded.

"I get the key, unlock Sterry, and we all gallop the fuck out of there."

I ran the whole thing through my panicky brain as fast as I could.

Echoey clip-clop's resonated all the way up the stairwell. We didn't have a whole lot of privacy time left.

"That's...Not a bad idea at all." I said.

"Great!" He motioned to open the door, but I threw myself in front of him and wrapped my legs around his hoof.

"Wait!"

"What?" He snapped.

"What about Wormwood? She's up to something."

"Sterry will know, I'm sure. Why else would he be locked up?"

I nodded again. He motioned to go inside, more urgent-like than before.

"Wait!" I blocked the door. "What if they don't give you the key? What if they think I'm a corn? And do something else to me? Like they take me out back and--;"

"They won't kill you. You're a prisoner of war."

"Armed conflict," I said.

"Whatever! If another guard takes custody of you..." Pumpkin scratched his head. "Uh, I don't fucking know, I'll pick the lock or something while you distract them."

"But--;"

"I aced breaking and entering in basic training!"

He winked, clearly a point of pride for him.

"We'll be fine either way. Now let's go!"

I thought about it. And thought about it. And thought about it.

We had a plan.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop. Clip-clop.

The hoof steps were getting closer. Third floor probably.

Both of us flung open the door and ran through together. We didn't even have to confer. Pumpkin closed it gently behind us.

I gawked at the long hallway. There was a big door at the end of it. Neither of us were in a terrible hurry to get there. So we crept up on it. Past another not-so-important door or two.

"One more thing," I said to him, never peeling my eyes from that door. "Before we go through with this, I gotta know. What did that guy whisper to you back there?"

"Uh...You really don't want to know."

"I'm putting my life in your hooves, you cuntmuffin. No secrets."

Twink had left me with only a small fragment of her verbal arsenal, but I could make it count.

"Fine," he said. "The sentry told me to be careful, cause, um...Wormwood is in a real bad mood today."

Wonderful.

* * *

The very last thing we did before making our grand entrance was to spy a little. I lay on the broken tile floor and peeked under the crack in the door. There was a uniformed figure at the end of the spacious room. I could make her out. Just barely. She was green and brown, as you might guess from her namesake, and she was sitting at her desk, looking over some papers in a compact version of one of those folders that look like an accordion. There were stacks of paper everywhere.

I don't know what exactly I'd expected to see. A helpless pony tied up against the wall as a figure in a black hood tickled her hooves with feathers? A gang of shadow-things holding a conference? A weather-control machine?

Colonel Wormwood was just doing a bunch of grown-up desk stuff, and like all grown-ups doing grown-up desk stuff, she looked really, really stressed out.

I rose to my hooves. Slowly. Carefully. We couldn't let her hear us stalking her door.

Pumpkin looked to me expectantly. I shook my head. There was nothing to report.

He brought a trembling hoof up, and let it hover by the door. He was doing exactly what I had done back in the cellar. Counting in his head.

Buying time. One, two, two-and-a-half, two-and-three-quarters...

"Oh, for Celestia's sake."

I got fed up and just knocked on the fucking door.

Pumpkin looked at me like I had thrown rotten eggs at his mother, but I didn't care. We had bigger problems.

"Um, uh...ma'am." He addressed the door. "Private Pumpkin Scone here, escorting a prisoner with news from the front, ma'am!"

He physically stiffened. Held his head high, even though she obviously couldn't see him through the door.

"Come in, Private." Came a cold, dry voice from the other side.

Pumpkin pushed down on the knob. The door creaked open.

Colonel Wormwood glanced at us briefly as we entered, and resumed her grown-up desk business - examining loose papers. The accordion thingy was, for some suspicious reason, nowhere to be seen.

"Have a seat," she said, without lifting her eyes from her work.

There was a cushy chair about ten feet from her desk. It was all beat up and worn, but like everything else in the room, it was the nicest of luxuries that the post-post-apocalyptic village had to offer. When we finally reached it, Pumpkin made to sit down.

"Not you," said Wormwood, still focused on her paperwork. "Dismissed, Private."

"What?" I couldn't help but exclaim.

We were supposed to stick together!

"Ma'am," Oldy's voice shook. "Private Pumpkin believes that--;"

"Yes, yes, yes. I will hear your full report after the filly has been processed."

"But, ma'am she's a corn, aren't we supposed to--;"

Wormwood removed her reading glasses. Set them down gingerly on the desk. And finally looked Pumpkin Scone in the eye.

"That," She pointed at me. "Most certainly is not a Twilight Society spy, nor soldier. Your objections have been noted, Private. I'll take it from here. Dismissed."

He stood there. Trying not to quake or quiver. Afraid to stay. Afraid to go. Terrified for me most of all.

"That's an order." The Colonel's voice was gentle and relaxed; her intent: hostile.

Pumpkin looked to me, desperate for some sort of visual clue about what he should do next. But I was as lost as he was. Lost-er, considering that I was the one in the hot seat.

He smacked the dryness from his lips. He looked like he was gonna cry. But he kept it together. Saluted the Colonel. Held the pose as long as he reasonably could without coming off all weird. He was trying to buy just a few more seconds of time.

Finally, with all other options totally exhausted, he lowered his forehoof, straightened his coat, and made his way to the door.

Neither of us dared make any other gestures toward one another. When the door closed behind him, it sounded like two mountains slamming into each other.

"Uh..." I had to clear my throat a little. "Colonel, ma'am."

"Just a moment."

She signed some documents. Stamped some others. Never looking at me once.

I struggled to swallow. Fought the urge to scream while Wormwood casually made more paper rustley sounds.

Once she tucked away her first stack of documents, and straightened out the next, Wormwood lowered her reading glasses.

"You don't think very highly of me, do you, Rose Petal?"

"Um..."

She hit me with the kind of eye contact that bores holes into your brain. Didn't even blink once. Just cordially and hospitably made me feel three-inches-tall.

"No," I said shyly. "I don't."

I tried to hold my own. Really, I did. But eventually I just plain had to look the fuck away.

"And why is that?"

She turned her attention toward her paperwork once more.

"You called me Rose Petal. How do you--;"

"An officer who doesn't know her own trenches is no officer at all," she spat out rapidly as if by reflex. "Now Blanket Girl, Rose Petal, whichever forehooves down on the desk, and leaned forward at me. Got all stareitty.

"You have a low opinion of me." She said curtly. "And I should very much like to know why."

What was I supposed to say? I don't trust you? Everypony keeps telling me you’re a whack job meanie?

She was crazy. Drunk with power. No doubt about it. But I couldn't tell her what I thought of her without revealing who’d been sowing discontent behind her back. She was trying to trick me.

"Uh...For starters," I said. "You're really creeping me out right now."

Stick to the observable facts.

Colonel Wormwood raised an eyebrow. Gestured. Waited for me to finish.

"And, uh...I've been told I have problems with authority."

She sat motionless and watched me. Examined me. Calculated me 'til she exposed whatever truth it was she was trying to discover, took a mental note of it, and resumed her desk work. Assembling loose pages, stacking them neatly.

"Fair enough." She said.

Her papers scrape-scrape-scrape-scrape-scraped against the splintery wood 'till the sound got intolerable. I gritted my teeth. Everything inside my head was screaming at me to leap up on the desk, kick over those ledgers and papers, and yell at her. Demand that she fucking look at me. That she fucking say something.

Luckily, she broke the silence.

"You caused me quite a headache with that little Hearth’s Warming stunt you pulled down there."

I swallowed my heart. It exploded in my chest - an acid volcano. She knew. Wormwood fucking knew.

I trembled. As much with anger as with fear. The idea of anyone coming along and fucking up something so beautiful - it was too much to bear.

"Relax," she said. "No one is going to steal the presents out from under your tree."

“Well, uh...good!” I laid down the law.

"So what now?" Colonel Wormwood ignored my defiance.

Busied herself with the stack of papers on her desk. Got them all tidy-like, and slid the first pile into a manila envelope.

Pant. Pant. Pant. "What?"

"Hearth’s Warming Eve is almost over." She said briskly. "We’ve got corns and rangers down there right now. Singing, drinking non-regulation spirits. What do you propose we do next?"

Wormwood put her hooves down and looked at me directly. It was her go on, the class is waiting face.

"Uh...Call off the war?"

She looked at me. Got all stareitty again. It made me feel stupid. Even though I knew in my heart I was right.

"Um...please?"

She tapped her hoof on the desk. Looked away from me for the first time that didn't directly involve papers and desk stuff.

"And when we get the Crystal Empire doors open?" She continued.

"We, uh...Share?"

The Colonel sighed, ran a hoof through her mane.

"Please," I said. "The corns - they're not evil. They love Hearth’s Warming as much as we do."

"Of course they do." Wormwood rose from her desk. "Everypony loves Hearth’s Warming, don't be ridiculous."

She tugged at the tails of her coat with her mouth. Straightened it over the waistline of her iron pony suit.

"Oh."

Being sufficiently tidy, Colonel Wormwood turned and approached the cluster of little rectangular windows behind her desk. A few moments later she glanced over her shoulder at me, and threw me a well, what are you waiting for look.

I hopped off of the chair and approached. You could see the whole damn Crap Town from up there. Even the trenches. They looked like deep violent gashes in the earth. And of course, there was The Wall. It was as much of a breathtaking mindfuck to look at as before.

"When this conflict first began," she said. "We had a choice. We all agreed that trench warfare was better than the alternative."

I turned to the colonel in disbelief. But she wasn't looking out the window at all. That stareitty bitch had never stopped sizing me up. Never stopped measuring.

"Um, Colonel Wormwood...Ma'am?"

She looked down her muzzle at me with what I could only guess was suspicion. The last thing she expected was to be addressed with respect.

"The trenches kinda suck." I said honestly.

The colonel turned away from me. Looked out the window for real.

"We have the bomb." She said all matter-of-fact-like.

"What?!"

"The bomb. The megaspells. The materials. The know how. We're a push of a button away."

"Luna fuck me with moon rocks," I whispered to myself.

"And the corns have megaspells of their own. Devices." Wormwood watched the crap town below in silence.

It was a terrifying thought. Going down that road all over again. No toaster repair pony to catch you when you fall. No princesses.

It was stupid. So fucking stupid.

* * *

A long, heavy silence later, I asked the obvious question.

"Are you fucking nuts?!"

"The modern world is about balance." She said after a long, long breath. "They have the bomb. We have the bomb. They have the science. We have the engineering."

She looked down. Locked eyes with me.

“The Twilight Sparkle Society has always hoarded their little secrets, held themselves above the rest, believed themselves to be the ones worthy of carrying the torch. But the Crystal Empire is a horse of a different color. It was the epicenter of both arcane research and technological development during the war."

She let that sink in for a minute.

"Knowledge like that," She concluded. "Power like that - it's too dangerous for one nation to hold."

There was sadness in her voice. Fear. I got the strange impression that when she'd asked me “what now,” at least part of her had actually hoped for some kind of answer.

I had none.

* * *

No matter how many different directions I tossed it in my head, Wormwood was right. About the bombs. About the megaspells. About the world teetering on the edge of armegelding. But she also hadn't seen the truce. The Songs. Our tree!

All that stuff had seemed impossible, but we did it. Cause there was a strange magic on our side. A faith that we could do better. That we could be better. Our ancestors had believed it. Littlepip had believed in it. And hundreds of hardened soldiers had come to believe it too, all at once.

I just had to get that magic to touch Colonel Wormwood. There had to be a way to make her see.

"Things can be different now," I pleaded. "Go down there. Look around. Please. It can change. We just have to try."

Like Pinkie Pie had said.

The colonel turned to faced me once again. Surprisingly enough, she conceded my point.

"That might very well be so."

"What?"

"I believe you, Rose Petal." She spoke with brisk military formality.

"You do?"

"I would be a fool not to believe that we are capable - that we can overcome our worst natures. And if I were you, I would very much like to, as you say, try.

“But what of the millions back home?" She continued. "They have no idea how bad it's gotten down here. How much worse it could get in the blink of an eye. They are busy stuffing stockings. Baking pies. As well they should. Would you gamble their whole world on try?"

She didn't give me a chance to answer.

“There are 2,742 soldiers down there right now under my direct command." She said. "Thousands more in reserves. They place their lives in our hooves in good faith every day. They trust our orders. I wouldn't gamble even one of their lives. Not on try."

I could suddenly see myself in the truck again. Escaping Trottica, blowing away targets without ever stopping to be sure they were enemies. But what were we supposed to do? One wrong move, and it would have meant the end for us all.

We'd had no way of knowing for sure if any of the villagers we'd shot at had been good guys after all. And even if they did turn out to be all bad, how many families had we destroyed?

How many friends had we left behind, babbling to themselves, crying, "It should have been me. It should have been me. "

How many new priestesses did we create? Embittered by loss?

It was awful. Truly awful. But no matter how I ran it through my head, it had still been the only possible way.

"What do we do?" I echoed back the question that Wormwood had asked me a minute earlier.

She sat back down in her big chair. Rolled it forward. I could see the accordion folder under her desk. Thrust hastily there, most likely when she'd heard the knock at the door.

I rushed to follow Wormwood's example. Took my seat again before she could notice me noticing the folder.

She straightened her things, and lifted her reading glasses. Affixed them haughtily on the tip of her muzzle.

"Insubordination, fraternization with the enemy - these are crimes. If I were to simply overlook them, then I myself would be in dereliction of duty." She rounded up another stack of pages. "I am, unfortunately, obligated by law to investigate and punish such infractions."

She was so casual. So matter-of-fact about it.

Not me. I'd reached my breaking point. That jerk was gonna punish every pony! For trucing without her permission. I didn't care how scary she was, or how skilled at making me feel stupid. I didn't care what horrors she had the power to unleash on me. That fucking cuntwaffle was a hypocrite. And it made me see red.

"You bitch!" I shouted. "Your soldiers mean sooooooo much to you that you're gonna lock them up? For having a Merry Hearth's Warming?!"

She didn't bat an eye. But I kept going. I was on a roll.

"You hide behind that chain of commandy stuff when it's fun for you, but everyone knows you're up to something. No one fucking trusts you. You're not protecting those potatoes by sending them to die. You're…You're…You're…Sending them to die!"

There were tears streaming down my face again. I hate it when that happens. I wanted to fucking kill her for that reason alone. But she didn't wince. Not so much as an eye twitch. All she did was sit back behind her desk, and watch me freak out. If anything, the bitch was amused.

I panted, totally out of breath from all the shouting. She just cleared her throat. Slid the manila envelopes to the front of her desk.

"Is that all?" She said.

I looked at her defiantly, head held high. But I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Good," she nodded. "I'm glad that's finally out of the way. I do appreciate your honesty."

She let that one hang there in the air. A long silence trailing behind it, broken only by the sound of pencil scratches.

Then, like a brick to the face, it suddenly hit me. The first question she had asked - why I had "such a low opinion of her?"

I'd just given her her answer. After all that crazy stuff we'd talked about? It had all came back to that. And I had given her exactly what she wanted.

"You...you..." I stammered in disbelief.

"Moving on." She said, having made her point. "If you would be so kind as to run these over to the clerk's office at the end of the hall on your way out, I would be much obliged."

She plopped her last envelope on the pile. Straightened it out some more. Gestured at me. I was apparently supposed to take it.

"What?"

"It's two doors down. You can't miss it."

Silence. Stareitty, unblinking eyes.

"So you're...letting me go?" I panted, still a little winded from my rant.

"You're not a prisoner. You've sworn no oaths to Applejack’s Ranger Corps, and committed no civilian crimes that would obligate or permit me to detain you."

Applejack? I thought. The farmer?!

I filed that little piece of what-the-fuck away in my brain for later.

"The trenches are not, at this exact time, an active war zone, either," She said. "So technically, I can't keep you from it - at least until the fighting resumes. But I would still strongly advise you to stay away."

"Strongly advise" was polite colonel talk. What she meant to say was that if I set one hoof in those trenches, she would personally set fire to all of my internal organs, toss them in the air, and have a Flaming Organ Jamboree.

"Um..."

I grabbed the envelopes. Dropped them down on the floor. Gave them a good hard look.

"Why are you trusting me with your papers?" I said.

"Because they are Hearth's Warming pardons, and you care deeply about the potatoes down there in the trenches, or so you called them."

"But you said--;"

"There's a loophole in the regulations." Wormwood whipped out a whole new stack of forms. "It took me four-and-a-half hours to find, thus the aforementioned headache."

"Oh." I said.

I hung my head in confusion and embarrassment, and even though her face was hard as granite, I could tell it amused Colonel Wormwood to see me humbled like that.

"So what now?" I asked.

It seemed to be the eternal questIon.

"Come dawn," she said. "My little ponies and I will make a trip to the trenches, and offer all the insubordinates their pardons. The best present should, of course, always be saved for Hearths Warming morning."

Her real intentions were clear.

"And they all go back to the trenches," I said to myself in disgust. "And carry on like nothing had ever happened."

"Clever." She said.

It was that hard yellow line. With something to lose, they'd all go back. They'd have to.

The truce would be remembered as a glorious moment that had passed, and Colonel Wormwood praised for her holiday spirit. When the time came, we would get back in those trenches, relieved to have dodged an insubordination charge.

And we'd all live to kill each other another day.

Wormwood watched me again. Not measuring or calculating. Just waiting. Because she already knew what I was going to do.

I looked down at those envelopes. It made me sick to my stomach.

If Colonel Wormwood still wanted me to, I would do exactly as I was told, and take those pardons over to the office. See that they got filed. She knew it.

Because I wanted those potatoes to be free.

"Please," I threw myself at the front of her desk and clutched the surface of it.

Her empty tea cup banged after the impact.

"Just come down there. Have a look." I pleaded.

If I couldn't get through to her, then maybe the magic of Hearth's Warming could. There was a chance, however small, that the beauty of our truce - the joy of our celebration - would make her see.

And if, after the holiday spirit had had a crack at her, she was still intent on being a bitch, the potatoes and I could stand against her. With that Hearth's Warming magic fresh on our side, we could force a lasting truce.

'Cause that place - that moment in time. There was power in it. Just standing in the paradise that had once been No Mare's Land, you could feel this energy in the air. The war, the moment – the whole fucking world was up for grabs.

If ever there was a time and a place where the brown coats and the gray coats could rise up against the fucking cockgoblins who said they had to wear different colored coats in the first place, it was that night. Down there in No Mare's Land.

It was just plain pivoty.

"Please, Colonel" I said, staring into her hard eyes. Right up close and personal.

"Come down. Do it for your troops. Do it just to see."

But the colonel did not respond. Only watched me some more.

"Do it for your son," I pleaded at last.

Those cold, emotionless eyes flickered instantly to life. Like coals on fire.

"Don't." She roared.

A sound so loud I had scramble backward just to escape it.

"You speak."

I cringed when I reached the foot of the chair.

"Of my son."

She didn't have to come at me to make her intent clear. She just rose to her hooves. Slowly.

I had looked into the eyes of slavers, murderers - wrestled with shadow monsters from in-between-the-fucking-dimensions - but none of it compared to the hate I saw in Colonel Wormwood at that moment. It radiated off her like a furnace.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I said a thousand times over.

But she didn't say anything in response. Just burned.

I lunged for the papers and bolted for the door.

"Let me just go and file these for you." I said, sobbing.

As I ran, I got the feeling that a giant flaming net would be cast, or that great big spikes would pop out of an iron door, and the shadows themselves would suddenly swoop in and steal away everything I saw, and leave me in blackness. Or worse yet, I would be left alone, and forced to talk with Colonel Wormwood some more.

But when I reached the door, they were no tricks or traps. Just a handle. When I put a hoof on it, she growled to me from behind gritted teeth.

"Rose," she said.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, halfway to freedom, mouth full of envelopes.

"When you get back, there is one more thing we need to discuss."

"When I get back?" I whimpered.

"Your friend, Private Sterile Field."

I froze, faced with the grim realization that I couldn't just cut and run after I was done with the clerk and the pardons. Even at her most hot-headed and impulsive, Wormwood still had me right where she wanted me.

She had The One I’d Come to Save.

It was a haunting realization - the position she had me in - that she had poor Sterry in - and one that didn't need to be expressed in words.

"Do hurry back, child." She said, back to her brisk, practical, cordial office persona once more.

Calm as could possibly be.

But her words may as well have been acid. Do hurry back.

* * *

Once on the other end of the door, I had a proper freak out. Closed my eyes. Sobbed silently, clutched the papers to my chest while I pressed my back against the door.

I opened my eyes, and there were two iron ponies standing over me. I clutched the envelopes harder, afraid they might try to take them from me.

"Kid," One of them said, raspy and coughitty - oblivious to my panic. "Is it a…bad time to go in there?"

I nodded.

The two iron ponies looked at one another and gulped.

As I started past them, and headed for the clerks office, the two of them got to bickering over who would knock first. Pulled the old one, two, two-and-a-half routine. That was when it dawned on me where I had heard those voices before.

"Did you ever get the transmissionizer working?" I stopped.

Spat out the envelope.

They both got these totally freaked out looks on their faces. If some little girl was onto them, who could even guess how many steps ahead of them Colonel Wormwood was?

"How? How did you--;"

They didn't answer me, of course. Couldn't give me details. Confidentiality and all that stupid crap. But the way they looked at that big old door in total abject fucking terror told me everything.

Those transmission thingies worked perfectly. They'd even said it themselves when they'd thought they were alone.

And now they had to go deliver the news to the colonel.

* * *

Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. And I was losing valuable time.

Papers still in my teeth, I crept down that hallway and knocked on the door.

I was met with a gentle reply, "Come in."

I went inside.

The clerk’s office was a wonderland of boring grown-up desk stuff. Computater consoles. Stacks of paper, neat and orderly. A meek gentlecolt, about four hundred billion years old, was filing folders away.

"What's a little girl like you doing around here?" He said when he saw me.

Ordinarily, I hate that kind of talk, but coming from a guy who had probably been there at the first Hearth’s Warming, it was hard to take offense.

"I'm fine," I mumbled. "I got these for you."

I dropped the envelope on a nearby table and nudged it with my nose.

He snatched it up. "Well, let's just have a look."

He slid the papers out onto the desk, and leaned in real close, like he was gonna sniff them, or kiss them, or something. He was actually just straining to see.

"Excited to finally get access to paper again." He said to me, ignoring the pardons. "Never thought I'd see the day. Wave of the future - paper."

He winked at me.

"You can't hack a folder. Can’t destroy evidence - not without getting your hooves dirty. The Age of Accountability. That's what I call it."

The old stallion looked at me blankly for a moment. Then suddenly realized what he was supposed to be doing. He dipped down and squinted at the paperwork once again. When he finally saw what they were, his face widened into a great big wrinkly smile.

"They're here." He laughed. "They're ready!"

He snatched them up, and whisked them behind another table. He moved way faster than I would have thought possible, and got right to typing on one of those computaters.

Typitty. Typitty. Type. Type-type.

"She chewed you out, didn't she?" He said, multitasking harder than an octopus DJ.

"Well, not really." I fidgeted. "I'm fine. Really, I'm just, uh...Really, really...Fine."

When I was done making a total ass of myself, I spoke my mind.

"Is Colonel Wormwood actually pardoning everypony?" I asked.

"I should hope so," he said hastily, running over to one of those computaters. "Took us long enough to find the clause."

"She's been acting kinda weird though, right?"

He stopped punching buttons for a moment and craned his neck to look right at me. "That's not for me to say, young lady."

"Oh."

Type-type, typitty-type.

"Well," I pressed. "What do you think of her?"

"Also not for me to say."

He plopped a folder down off a shelf and kept computating.

"But you just said--;"

"Whoa, there. I made an observation about the behavior of other officers in her presence. Not the same as an opinion. A pony don't get to be head clerk of the 107th for thirty years and running by gossiping about commanding officers."

"Ok, um..."

I had to struggle to figure out what to say.

"What about the potatoes? I mean soldiers? I, um...call the soldiers potatoes sometimes. It's a long story."

I realized that I still didn't know a damn thing about how Wormwood actually felt about her troops. Just a bunch of bullshit about the chain of command and her duty to protect them. How could I tell the truth from her manipulations? I got to wondering if she even cared about them at all? Or had all of that just been talk?

The clerk grabbed some new papers and stamped them.

"The colonel would never ever brag about this sort of thing, and I would never ever offer a prejudicial opinion.” He said. “But in her two decades of service as an officer, Colonel Wormwood has buried over nine-hundred soldiers. That's a matter of public record, you see. And of the condolence letters that have crossed my office, there was not one that came from her that she had not written by hoof, and personalized."

I struggled to reconcile this with the cold manipulative bitch I had just met.

"That is also a matter of public record." The clerk threw in for good measure. "Not the content of the letters, of course, but the fact that she declined the templates."

"Thank you," I nodded to myself.

I couldn't help but smile at the clerk's helpfulness - the kind that insisted upon avoiding being helpful in any official capacity.

"You know, the soldiers are just going to go right back to fighting tomorrow."

I had to be honest with him.

"Reckon so." He said sadly.

He pounded at the computer like a regular Strawberry Lemonade. 'Til it hummed and spat out a piece of paper. He stuck it in a small envelope, wet it, and sealed it.

Once that was taken care of, the old stallion took a moment. Stopped.

With a sigh of resignation, he said, "I know this all must sound silly to a filly like you. Rules. Regulations. Orders."

"No." I protested to be polite.

"It's alright." He said. "Everyone wants to be Littlepip. As well they should. But you get to be a certain age, and you realize you're just not cut out for it. Made too many mistakes. Too many Arbu's."

I shook my head, not having a clue what he was talking about.

"Littlepip is what you call a moral compass. Great to look to. But the real reason we need her is that, if everyone was their own compass, they'd all spin off in different directions. It wouldn't be five minutes before the whole wide world couldn't tell North from South."

I tried to absorb what he was saying. Tried to soak it in. And it was a reasonable, logical argument for the importance of conformity. To a degree.

But I didn't care. Because conformity is fucking dumb.

I smiled sweetly and did my best to disagree with courtesy and respect for the old stallion.

"And if your commanding officer is wrong?" I said.

“It happens less than 50% of the time."

"I don't like those numbers."

"A whole lot better than a platoon full of folks all thinking they’re lightbringers. That spells trouble every time.”

I stared into space. Thought about it long and hard.

"99% of the time, what the world really needs is a good background pony." I whispered to myself.

"Come again?"

"Oh um, I was just....I don't know. I can’t. I really hate it when..."

"I’m sorry." He backed off when he saw me getting all worked up. "You’re a good kid. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Don’t you worry about it.” He said. “You fight your fight. That's your job. Just promise me one thing.”

He smiled at me sweetly.

“What?”

“Try not to be so hard on the rest of us." He winked.

A strange buzzing sound came from behind the desk. The clerk whipped around, disappeared to the drawer where the buzzing was coming from, grabbed a sticker that only a printing press could have made back home, slapped it on the envelope, and slid it to me.

"Hurry up and get this to her, please. We don't want anypony's pardon status slipping between the cracks when they call this war off."

"When they what?"

"Oh," the clerk laughed a shrill high-pitched nervous little laugh. "Forgive an old stallion. It's not official--;"

"Wormwood? She's calling off the war?"

That couldn't be. I may not have trusted the colonel, but she still seemed really genuine about the whole not-letting-the-corns-get-another-bomb thing.

And if the war was almost over, what would have been the fucking point of interrogating me?

"No," said the clerk. "The colonel doesn't have the authority to do that. But rumor has it the folks back home are talking it out. Also a matter of public record, I might add, though not something most folks down in the trenches have heard about, and nothing official as of yet."

"So there is hope?" I said, more confused than relieved.

"Just waiting on word from above. The transmission should be here any day now."

“The what?” I said.

I felt like I was going to throw up.

“The transmission from High Command.” The clerk repeated.

The one that Wormwood refused to admit she'd already received.

“I see.” I backed away toward the door, scarcely able to breathe.

“Thank you,” I added.

My throat felt like it was full of quicksand.

"What is it?" Said the old stallion.

Wormwood was going to do something crazy to stop the peace. But I couldn't tell him that. Not without proof. I looked up at his kind face. Wanting to trust him. Hell, my heart already trusted him. But my brain couldn't muster the words. Or the nerve.

My only advantage against Wormwood was that she didn't know I was on to her. I couldn't blow it.

"The transmission," I croaked at last through my chokeitty throat. "Who gets to see it?"

“Don’t you worry. It’s secure. Goes straight to the colonel. She decrypts it manually. On paper.” He winked. “Wave of the future.”

“Oh.”

We were fucked.

“Here!” The old stallion rushed toward me, waving the envelope with a smile. “Don’t forget this.”

He plopped it on my back. Stroked some loose strands of hair from my face when he saw my worry.

“Don’t fret, child.” Said the Clerk. “You’ll do fine. But please hurry. The potatoes are counting on you.”

He nudged me out the door. Closed it behind me. Next thing I knew, I was looking down that long hallway again.

I should go back and tell the clerk she’s hiding something. Said one voice in my head.

What good could he do? Everything’s by the books with that guy. Said another.

It’s better than nothing, said Rose Petal Number One.

Yeah, but we need that accordion folder first!

Then there was a brain silence. Mind Voice #2 was right. Hearth’s Warming Eve. Sterry. The War. It all hinged on exposing Colonel Wormwood. I couldn't risk it.

* * *

I moved on ahead. Got into another one of my staring contests with the door at the end of the hallway. The colonel was more dangerous than I’d thought, and I had been terrified of her from the get-go. What the fuck was I supposed to do?

“Psst.” Came a voice from behind. “Little girl.”

It was the clerk, poking his head out from behind his door.

“What is it?”

The old stallion looked around to make sure he couldn’t be heard. “I said that you would be fine with Colonel Wormwood. And that is true, but only 97% true.”

“What do you mean?” My damn heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear him.

“Whatever you do,” he said. “Do not mention her son.”

The colonel's door at the end of the hall flung itself open. Out came those transmissionizer-repair ponies, fleeing like there was a dragon on their tails.

They ran right past me.

“Mr. Clerk, Mr. Clerk, what do I do if--;”

I turned, and he was gone. Hiding behind his own door again.

Meanwhile, Wormwood’s door was slightly open. It seemed to be waiting for me now. I couldn’t turn back. Couldn’t even hide on the other end of it, and count to three. I was pretty sure she could see my every move.

“Rose, we haven’t got all day.” Came a voice from the inside.

I took a deep breath, and crept nervously back into the colonel's office. The sound of my hoofsteps echoed through the hallway.

Author's Note

Special thanks to Pony Joe and Seraphem for your proofreading, and your story advice.

Special thanks to Princess Luna, guardian of lost children, angel of our dreams, for giving Rose Petal a second chance. You are Best Pony!

Happy Full Moon, everypony. Hope you enjoy this chapter. I'm already working on wrapping up the No Mare's Land adventure in the next one.

A Last Resort

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - A LAST RESORT
"Surrender. Surrender. But don't give yourself away." - Cheap Trick

When you lose somepony close to you, theres a terror that sneaks up on you - a need. All their suffering. All your loss.
You get hungry for answers. Desperate for them.

You have to know there was a reason.

The bullet that killed Twinkle Eyes had kept on going and ripped a hole in my heart a mile wide. But, at the very least, I knew that it had happened for some kind of reason. I had no idea if I would ever find out what that reason was, or if it was even a good one, but that One I'm Supposed to Save stuff? It was just too fucking weird to be senseless.

Wormwood had recently buried her son. I'm not going to pretend to know how that feels. But that poor guy had gotten torn up in a razor wire deathbed. 'Cause of a bone fucking stupid war. A war that she was in charge of. A war that was about to get called off anyway.

* * *

I watched the colonel, typitting away at her desk. Glaring at me here and there as she worked. There was pain behind that mask. Rage. Hatred.

Wormwood was prepared to drag that war on 'til every last corn and potato was dead, just to prove it had happened for a reason.

And I just sat there. No idea how to stop her. Waltzing up to that desk, stealing her secret incriminating documents, moseying down to No Mare's Land, and convincing everypony to rise up against her was the best plan I could think of, and I just couldn't envision it working out.

"You're awfully quiet." The colonel said coolly.

I suddenly realized how suspicious my thinkiness had made me.

"I just don't wanna distract you." I said. "From your important...desk stuff. I wanna make sure everypony gets their pardons."

"They will." She looked down her muzzle at me as she typed.

Fuck! She was on to me. Think, Brain! Think! You're acting strange. Knock it off, knock it off, knock it off!.

Rant about the war. One voice in my head suggested.

Demand to know what she did to Sterry! Screamed another.

Give her something she expects to hear. Anything! Pleaded a third, not terribly helpful voice. And do it quick!

I fidgeted all over my seat. I had to sit on my hooves just to keep them still. Even though it made me all the more obvious. My brain rattled panicky thoughts around the inside of my head like popcorn until I felt like my skull was going to explode. My mouth, sick of my brain and all its bullshit, finally spat out words at random without bothering to consult me.

"I'm sorry." I said.

Colonel Wormwood stopped typing. Stopped messing with her papers even. She pointed her attention directly at me and me alone. I would rather she have pointed a gun in my face.

"Sorry for what?" She asked.

"Well, you know..."

The clerk had warned me not to bring up Wormwood's son. And there I was. Bringing him up. Again.

I turned away from her death glare. Hid behind my mane.

"No," she said. "I don't."

"Nevermind." I muttered.

"You aren't sorry, then?"

"No! I didn't say that."

"Either you have something to apologize for or you don't."

"I'm sorry about your son." I blurted out. "I was way out of line. I--;"

The words escaped me. I turned away and cringed. And not just because the colonel made for terrifying company. Because I was wrong.

If some stranger came into my room in my home, and tried to sway my course of action - my beliefs - by invoking my mother's name, or Twink's, I might just kick their teeth right in.

"I...had no right."

I fought to keep my voice from trembling. Tears were backing up behind my eyeballs, running through my skull, and pouring straight down my throat. But I sucked in a raspy breath and looked her straight in the eye.

"I had no right." I said again firmly.

"Apology accepted." She replied.

I braced myself for the coming storm. Squeezed my eyes shut as tight as they would go. Swallowed an entire bucket's worth of skull tears. Then I realized what she'd actually said. How matter-of-fact she'd been.

"Come again?" I looked up in confusion.

"It takes a mare of integrity to admit when they're wrong."

"Thanks." I said shyly.

Then, just like that, the colonel was quiet again. She'd said all she had to say on the matter.

* * *

It was a long, long, long, long quiet. But at least the elephant in the room was finally spoken of. One small load off my mind. I fucking hate conversation elephants.

Focus, Rose Petal. Focus! I told myself.

I had to find proof. I had to get that folder. I had to stop the fucking war. I had to find out where she was keeping Sterry!

"Your friend is being held in the basement," said Wormwood totally out of the blue.

"Really?"

Pumpkin had guessed right!

"Yes." She said dryly.

My twitchitty mouth fought back a smirk.

"Why are you holding him?" I asked.

"He's under arrest. I had hoped better for the boy, but...."

She shrugged. Left her statement hanging. Waited for me to ask the obvious question.

"Under arrest for what?"

"A series of minor infractions. Don't worry, he's not facing the gallows."

"What infractions?"

"That information is classified." She replied. "For his own privacy of course."

Bullshit. I thought.

I had only known Sterry a short while, but one thing was damn certain: that kid committed minor infractions all the time. He comes to her office on the same night that she conveniently misplaces an important transmission. And next thing he knows, he is getting arrested?

Something didn't add up. And it pissed me the fuck off.

I ground my teeth together in anger.

What had that fucking cockgoblin done with Sterry?

I fumed, threw her my nastiest glower, but Wormwood just looked at me like I was one of those gross squiggle-majigs you peep at under a microscope in science class. Her little experiment. Behaving predictably.

I would rather she have gloated.

* * *

A voice came at me from inside my head. Not the kind of voice that gives hints about the future. A crueller voice. A feeling. An urge.

"Leap across the room." It said. "Scale the desk. Grab the colonel and beat the secrets out of her with your bare hooves."

And I could see it playing out in my mind's eye, too. Very clearly. I could feel every satisfying punch like an itch in my hooves being soothed.

"You can do it." The voice said to me.

A reassuring whisper.

But I shut my eyes and sat on those itchy hooves. Swallowed my rage till it turned my stomach into a chamber of blurbley horrors.
Stewed there. Shaking. It took everything I had to keep from attacking Colonel Wormwood. But I managed. I was no Commander Hurricane. I was the girl who panicked during tackle hoofball games and got tripped over.

"Please." I whispered to myself out of the blue.

I didn't even know who I was asking, or what l I was even asking for. It's just one of things my mouth said without consulting me.

"Please," I said again through gritted teeth, and hoped Wormwood didn't hear me. "Please."

Then I stopped. Thought about what I should be wishing for. And remembered what was really important. In that moment, I hoped, and prayed, and begged every last brain hornet in the universe that Sterry was ok. That he actually did know something. That he really could prove something.

I pictured Pumpkin Scone in my mind and sent my hopes out into the wind.

If he was as good at picking locks as he'd said he was - if he was a good enough friend not to druggo-drop Sterry - we might maybe kinda possibly be able to pull this thing off.

Okay, Rose. I said to myself. There's no way to get to those papers under her desk. You've got to quit your stupid fantasies. Do something doable. Something useful.

You've got to distractify her.

“I don't believe you." I said smugly.

If I goaded her on just right, maybe I could buy them just a little more time. I had to pick a fight. Start an argument. Keep her eye off the ball.

"I know you don't believe me." The colonel replied with disinterest.

And was content to go on multitasking.

"Oh...um..."

Fuck.

I apparently wasn't very good at subtlety. The last time I had created a diversion, I'd run onto a fucking auditorium stage and waved hello to a town full of child-fearing ponies. But it didn't matter, cause Wormwood, out of the blue, just sorta stopped. Quit her scribbling. Quit her typing. For just a moment, focused her attention on her Pip Buck. As though it had poked her by surprise.

There was a strange flicker in her eye. She tapped a button on her wrist and threw me a checkmate glance. My second ever glimpse at the real pony behind the poker face. I didn't like it.

"Have I been secretive?" Said Wormwood, dryly playful.

"What?"

"Have I answered all of your questions? Do you feel that I have been straightforward?"

I shrugged. How do you even answer a question like that? But I did think about it, and Wormwood was right. She had been straight with me so far, giving out all the answers that I had asked for. Technically speaking anyway.

"Can you do me a favor then, and answer a question of mine?" She said. "Something that's been irking me?"

"Uh...depends on the question."

"Why did Private Pumpkin Scone refer to you as a corn?"

"Oh. This stupid blanket." I replied, somewhat taken aback.

"He detained you for wearing an enemy blanket during a truce?"

"Um..."

Every feuding voice inside my head screamed at once.

"Uh...I wasn't in No Mare's Land like the others." I thought quickly. "I was in the Ranger trenches! Like Pumpkin said."

"Mmmhmm." Wormwood glanced at her Pip Buck.

"Hey!" I snapped.

Trying to distractify her. Draw her attention away from that stupid thing. 'Cause whatever she was doing on her Pip Buck was bad. Really, really, really, really bad.

"You're Queen Straightforwardpants," I snarled at her. "With your if-you-have-something-to-apologize-for-then-do-it talk. Are you accusing us of stuff or what?"

"Us?"

She lowered her forehooves off the desk. Ignored her Pip Buck like I'd wanted. But with a new found interest in me that I didn't. Fucking. Want. A thousand screaming alarms went off in my head.

"Uh. You know, that jerk who captured me, and...uh, you know...me. One plus one equals two? Get it? Us."

I wished with all of my heart that she would go back to looking at her stupid Pip Buck.

"In the Academy," Wormwood explained. "Private Scone excelled in one area, and one area only. Lock picking."

Uh-oh.

"That's nice." I said.

"He mastered every technique in the field manual."

"Good for him."

"A few minutes ago, he attempted to use those techniques to break Private Sterile Field out of the brig."

I leapt to my hooves. Charged with a sudden urgency.

It was all on me now. Pumpkin had fucked up his end. Sterry was still stuck in the basement brig.

The evidence under Wormwood's desk was all we had left. Pumpkin and Sterry's only shot at freedom. The potatoes' and corns' last chance for peace.

I needed that fucking folder.

"Rose, " said the colonel out of the blue. "I'm placing you into protective custody."

"What?" My hooves started shaking again .

"It means you stay here."

"No!"

"Yes."

"But you said I was free to go?"

Half of my brain screamed at me to run up to her, push her aside, grab the folder, jump out the window, and hope for the best. The smart half nailed my hooves straight to the floor. I'm no Commander Hurricane.

"You have given me reason to believe that you have been cavorting with Private Scone, a known traitor."

"What?!" I shouted. "He's just a spaz!"

"Your testimony may be required at his court-martial, and being a minor in the eyes of the law, I cannot in good conscience let you go until a doctor has examined you, signed off, and confirmed your well-being, to assure that Private Scone has inflicted no lasting harm."

The biggest load of bullshit in the history of ever. But Colonel Wormwood had me right where she wanted me - locked up like a Trottica mine-o.

That checkmate glance she had thrown me earlier suddenly made sense.

I ran up to the side of her desk, shouting, "Please, please, please."

Pleading. Groveling. Trying to sneak a peek under that desk.

"No hysterics." Was Wormwood's only reply.

She braced herself for a megaspell of a tantrum. Took a step back into a defensive hai-ya stance.

That's when I saw it. The folder. Right there under the desk. Exactly where it had been before.

My heart quickened. My breath shortened. The sight of it was a jolt to my system. Like a gust of cool, tingly, refreshing air straight into my forehead.

Get it to No Mare’s Land. The cool air whispered once safe inside my skull. Get it to The Door.

I looked back up. There was the Colonel, strong and tall, and ready.

But she didn't suspect that I knew.

"No hysterics on my office," she repeated. Gentle. Sincere. As though informing me the rules of her office would be some kind of a comfort to me.

I looked her in the eye. Nodded. Focused on the colonel's face. Anything to keep from letting my wandering eyes give me away. And now that I'd finally forced myself to confront her intimidating stare, I noticed something.

She didn't hate me. There was no cackling. No gloating going on underneath that mask of hers. Colonel Wormwood had simply gotten the job done. Plain and simple.

* * *

Thud. Thud. Thud.

A knock at the door cut our staring contest short.

Wormwood raised a patient eyebrow at me. It made me all self-conscious-like about my outburst. Even though I knew I'd been in the right.

"Mmm." She cleared her throat. Gestured at the door with her eyes. Hint number two.

She was giving me a moment to get up off my knees with dignity.

"Oh!"

I laughed an awkward little laugh and stood the fuck up. The colonel nodded her approval and ignored me from there. Rose to her hooves, ready to receive her latest prisoner.

Every inch she backed up was an extra inch of wiggle room I might get if I decided to go for it and rush on in there. But it still wasn't enough. I counted her steps and kept my eyes peeled for a fragment of a chance.

"Rose! Rose!" Came Pumpkin’s voice from the other end of the door. "It's a trap!"

"I know, Pumpkin." Facehoof.

Wormwood closed her eyes and let out a long, heavy sigh

"Come in," she said.

The door swung open. Pumpkin stumbled in, and behind him, were two iron ponies.

Their presence instantly whittled my chances for dashing out the door down to nil.

Panic ridden, Pumpkin looked left and right and all around, like a equiolithic cavepony who had never seen an office before.

"Where's Sterry?" I asked.

I had assumed all this time that they would, at the very least, be together.

"I, I..." Pumpkin stammered.

"Is he okay?!"

"I don't know." Pumpkin Scone rambled. "I never got inside."

"Yes." Colonel Wormwood said dryly. "That's what happens when you try to pick a lock designed by the same ponies who wrote the field manual on lock picking."

Pumpkin hung his head, not just in regular old shame, but the kind of defeat that cuts you straight to your very soul. I got the impression that in his entire life, he had only ever been good at one thing. And even that he'd managed to fuck up.

"Is Sterry okay?" I repeated.

Wormwood looked down at Pumpkin, pointedly not offering any information about Sterry. I couldn't tell if it was because he was actually not, in fact, okay, or if Colonel Wormwood simply refused to respond to "hysterics".

"The Court-martial hearing is set for next Thursday. The charge is felony Breaking and Entering, Obstruction of Justice, Corruption of Youth, and Treason."

"Treason?" He whimpered.

The room fell silent. The guards even hung their heads.

Pumpkin was left standing there, babbling like a foal. "Treason?"

It was all he could muster the wits to say.

He looked to me. Desperate. Terrified.

I had gotten him into this. Now he was the one who was more fucked than me.

Please. He seemed to say. Help me.

I couldn't bear to look. I shut my eyes instead and tried to think. Dug around my mind for something - anything at all I could do to give him some hope. But I came up empty hooved. When I opened my eyes back up again, poor Pumpkin's head was hung low. He wasn't looking me in the eye either.

It was my first night in the Wastelands all over again.

"No." I whispered to myself.

I had to do something.

"Treason," Pumpkin babbled.

You're not fucked yet. I yearned to tell him, but I didn't know how.

I gritted my teeth again and reassured myself. We still stood a chance. Pumpkin still stood a chance. Sterry still stood a chance. The corns and the potatoes might even come together for good.

If I could get my hooves on that folder. Get it in No Mare's Land. To The Door. Like the brain-wind had said.

I took deep breaths and tried as best I could stop stay calm, reminding myself again and again and again that we hadn't lost yet. There was still one tiny shred of hope left.

Because Wormwood didn't know we were on to her.

"We're onto you!" Shouted Pumpkin Scone.

Oh, sweet Celestia. No.

"You're the one committing treason."

Fucking scream at him to shut up! Said a voice inside my head.

If I scream at him to shut up, it'll just prove that what he's saying has merit! Said another.

I don't care! Said a third Rose Petal voice in my brain, even more hysterical than the others. Do something!

Shut up, shut up, shut up! I told my brain, but it didn't listen.

"It's you!" Growled Pumpkin Scone. "It's you! I heard all about the transmi--."

But before he could even finish, before he could say the word transmission - I interrupted with a great big scream.

"AaaAAaAaaaAaAaahhh!" I said, and threw myself at Colonel Wormwood flailing.

She slid backward into a defensive stance, ready to strike me down, or subdue me, or whatever it is that Colonels are trained to do in situations like that. It gave me about eighteen more inches of maneuvering room to get to the folder. But it wasn't enough. So I freaked the fuck out. And freaked the fuck out. And freaked the fuck out some more. Cause freaking the fuck out was the entirety of my plan.

"Aaaahhh!" I flung myself at Colonel Wormwood, but my hoof snagged on the blanket-cape tied around my neck. The next thing I know, the world is spinning, and I've got a floor smacking me in the face.

I look up, and there she is – Colonel Wormwood jumping backwards. Actual shock - panic written all over her face.

"Luna fuck me with moon rocks!" she exclaimed in horror.

I followed her eyes. She was staring intently at my hoof. My inky black evil-looking hoof. The bandage had come undone.

"Oh no!" I shouted. "It's um...It's...spreading again."

"Medic! My office! Stat!" Wormwood hollered into her Pip Buck.

Then she turned to me. "Let me see it."

Shit!

Wormwood came at me.

With nothing clever to say, I just freaked out some more. Scurried under that desk and belly-flopped onto the accordion folder, scrambling around, and around, and around, rambling, "My hoof, my hoof, my hoof, my hoof, my hoof! My evil fucking hoof!"

"Stop fussing and let me see it." Wormwood crouched to my level.

Fuck! She could see my every move.

"Don't hurt me!"

I spun around, and wiggled backwards, sweeping the folder with me.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she snapped. "Now let me see it!"

Wormwood proffered a genuine helping hoof.

I didn't dare take it. My back was pressed up against the corner. The folder in between the two.

I was fucking stuck there and out of options. A dead end only two feet wide. I had to come out.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

The folder was still hidden - wedged against my back - but that didn't help all that much. One wrong move, and it would slide right out from behind me.

I looked to Wormwood, who was still holding her hoof out to me. Patiently. I nodded at her and shimmied a little. Then I shimmied some more. There was no fucking way to position myself to swipe the thing without arousing suspicion.

I looked into those stern sharp eyes of hers, and what little hope I'd had drained from me like water. Everything I needed was right there in my grasp, just inches away. Pressed up against my back! But she was watching me like a hawk. And I just couldn't.

"Are you sure it won't hurt?" I asked with a trembly voice.

Wormwood nodded.

I took a deep breath and sighed, stroking the folder behind me with the tip of my hoof. Praying silently that I would get another shot at this before the day was done.

Then the door swung open, and heavy hooves galloped in.

Wormwood stood up and barked, "She's under the desk and won't come out."

I didn't waste an instant! I tore my cape blanket off with my teeth, swept the folder up in it, and hugged it against my chest. I limped out, holding it at my side. Just another bundled up blanket.

And there was Wormwood, waiting. Beside her, a great big iron clad, but helmetless zebra with a red cross patch on his coat. He knelt down to me.

"Does it hurt?" He asked. There was kindness in his voice.

I shrugged at both of them, too terrified to speak.

The colonel eyeballed me pretty heavily, but kept her suspicions to herself.

"It doesn't hurt?" The zebra pressed.

"Yes, I mean no, I mean..." I looked back to Wormwood again, but couldn't bear the eye contact. "I mean...it did."

"But it doesn't anymore?"

I slowly put the black evil hoof on the ground to test it out. I knew it was fine, but I had to put on a show.

"I think it's okay." My voice cracked.

They seemed to be buying it. Not because I'm any good at faking, but because my terror was quite real.

"May I see it?" Asked the zebra medic.

I looked to Wormwood, then back at him. I nodded slowly and held out my bad hoof.

"Is that frostbite?" asked Colonel Wormwood.

"What?! Is she okay?" Pumpkin Scone shouted from somewhere out of sight. The iron ponies restrained him. I could tell 'cause the struggle sounded like a drawer full of silverware getting knocked around.

"It's covering most of her leg. How can she walk?" Wormwood was disturbed and perplexed.

I was willing to bet she'd seen a lot of actual frostbite in the field, but my hoof defied description.

I closed my eyes. Begged the universe that the zebra wouldn't wig out and take my coat off. I wasn't sure how long I could keep the blanket full of evidence looking casual.

"No," he said at last.

He looked down on me, joyless. Rummaged through his saddlebag, and produced a small bundle of leaves tied up with twine.

"I am going to crush some herbs against your hoof. It will not hurt. Do you trust me?"

I nodded again. It sure beat actually saying stuff.

The medic did exactly what he said he would do, and like he promised, it didn't hurt a bit. It felt just like plants rubbing against my hoof for no reason.

"Your saucer, please."

Wormwood passed the medic a tea saucer from off her desk. The zebra nabbed it quickly, placed it on the floor and produced a blade. He cut the tips of the herb into the saucer. Splashed a few drops from a flask over it, whipped out one of those flicky-firemajigs, and up it went.

Burning gray.

Me fidgeting all the while to keep the folder balanced.

"What is it?" Wormwood asked.

The zebra stopped, and gave me a weird look. He was on to me. He knew that the inky blackness on my hoof didn't just start hurting and spreading right there out of the blue. He knew.

"No way to be sure." He lied his stripey balls off and never took his know-itty eyes off of me, even as he addressed the colonel. "Permission to take her to sick bay, ma'am. I need to run some tests."

"Permission granted." Said Wormwood without hesitation.

But the second the medic moved toward me, she threw a leg in front of him.

"Rose Petal is a witness, and a flight risk." She added.

She could have said a whole hell of a lot more, but she didn't have to. She just stabbed the zebra with her eyeballs instead. Stabbed him right in the soul. He nodded back at her, and swallowed hard. The message was unspoken, but clear as crystal: If I made a break for it, it was his ass.

"Can you walk?" The zebra asked me.

I looked to Colonel Wormwood for approval. But she didn't so much as blink. Just watched me with that stone hard face of hers. Somewhere behind that mask was a bunch of feelings. Like an ice cream swirl of different flavors: Actual concern for my well being. Anger. Desperation. Ambition. All topped with colorful rainbow sprinkles of distrust for me.

But she hadn't figured out what I was up to. So she watched, and grudgingly allowed the medic to continue.

“I can walk," I said, more than ready to get the fuck out of there.

Grabbing the blanket with my teeth, I inched nervously over to the medic and hid behind his hindquarters so Wormwood could see less of me. Played the frightened child. It didn't matter that she knew I was up to something, so long as she didn't figure out what I was up to.

Zebro, as I decided to name him, guided me with a gentle hoof. I stumbled and limped a little bit just for good measure. Plus it helped me balance the folder. Mostly I focused on keeping my cool. It took every ounce pf strength I had not to panic and holler and gallop straight the fuck for the door.

Come on, come on, come on! Said The little Rose Petal in my head.

But we just strolled out of there. Calmly. Every hoof step felt like a year.

Clip.

Clop.

Clip.

Clop.

Clip.

Clop.

I swear, we could have built a whole new civilization, decline-ified it and blown it up all over again in the time it took to get to that fucking door.

And I could feel her watching our every move too. I was so nervous, I had to remind myself to breathe.

"It's ok," Zebro said.

He looked down, waited for me to meet his eyes and repeated himself. "It's. Okay."

Somehow, that made me feel calm again. He opened the door for me.

Almost free.

Wormwood didn't stop us. But she sucked the joy out of my escape, cause just as we left, she turned her attention to Pumpkin Scone.

"Have a seat, Private."

When Zebro spun to close the door behind him, I got a teeny tiny peek inside. Pumpkin lowered himself into that chair. He was looking right at me, tears running down his cheeks. There was nothing at all that I could do for him, and he knew it. But that just made the whole thing so much worse.

It was the last I ever laid eyes on him.

* * *

Zebro didn't say a word at first. Neither did I. We were deep in the stairwell before he finally broke the silence.

"How long has your hoof been like this?"

I shrugged the world's tiniest shrug, afraid I would drop the folder.

"Ponies have no words with which to mark this," he said, reverting to a thick zebra accent. "Tu'kamba, is what we'd call your hoof. Touched by Darkness."

"You have seen it before?!" I reeled a bit. Stumbled at the shock of what he'd just said. Then stared at him when I got my hoofing.

Zebro just shook his head. "Only in texts that survived the war."

He gestured for us to keep walking. I stuffed the blanket and the folder firmly under my coat. Buttoned it up good and tight.

"You can cure it though, right?"

"No."

And down the stairs we went.

"What about the zebras before the war?" I pressed.

"I don't know. I never met one. "

"But they could, right?! They wrote the book."

There was hope. Because I had access to Zebras before the war! Sort of. One at least. Maybe.

"What makes you so sure that curing it would be the best thing for you?"

I couldn't believe my ears.

"Because it's fucking evil. Duh."

Zebro shook his head. "Then you don't understand zebra magic. Even if they could have cured it, it is doubtful that they would have."

"Why the hell not?"

"Darkness cannot be destroyed or killed or blown apart." He said, talking funny yet again. "The path begins and ends in your own heart."

I paused to think about what he was trying to say, but Zebro spoke again before I could make any sense of it.

"Look at my face," he said. "Am I black or am I white?"

"What?"

He didn't say anything else. Just awaited a reply.

"Uh...You're kinda, I dunno... both-ish. White mostly, maybe black."

"And ponies? Would you say that they are good?"

I looked around at the stairwell of the big beat up old building. Ruins of a stupid fucking war. I remembered the cold surgical gaze of Colonel Wormwood - her dedication to perpetuating a war perhaps even more stupid – even more senseless. Then there were the potatoes. Frustrated. Afraid. Hateful when they weren't thinking. And prone to acts of kindness. They had a faith in the hearts of their fellow pony so profound, that I would not have even thought itpossible.

Are ponies good? I had asked Blueberry Milkshake the same question only a week ago - a week that felt like years. But after all I’d seen and learned - in Trottica, in the trenches, in the hospital - the answer still hadn't changed one bit.

When we want to be, I whispered myself.

But Zebro hit me with an out of nowhere proclamation before I even had the chance to formulate a reply out loud.

"You are not a good pony, Rose Petal."

"What?! How can you say that?" What a jerk! How did he know? What I'd seen? Where I'd been? What I'd done? I wanted to set his stripey ass on fire. "I. I--;"

"You are not a bad pony either."

"Great." I glowered at him. "That just makes it all okay. The Zebras can fucking cure me, but they won't because I'm what?! Too mediocre for them?"

"No. The soul of every pony is as black as it is white. You cannot defeat your fears - your darkness - by hiding it from the world. No more than I can defeat my stripes with paint."

"But your stripes are cool."

He laughed. "Thank you."

I looked down at my hoof. Shook my head in anger and disappointment. Zebro didn't get it. That stain was more than just a metaphor to me. Moral failings I wanted to hide out of vanity. What the shadows had done - what they were trying to do – it was personal.

"I fucking hate it," I said.

The medic cracked a smile. "Shame." He said. "It is the best weapon you have against them."

* * *

Before I could ask any of the five million questions running through my head: Why? How? What the fuck? My evil hoof helping me fight shadows?! Wuh??? Zebro's Pip Buck went off.

"Bring the girl back here." It said.

Colonel. Wormwood’s voice.

"Ma'am, but--;"

"Now!" Her panic and rage poured out of the medic's Pip Buck.

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

And while he was busy fidgeting with his wrist-a-majig, I leapt down the stairs. Tumbled onto the landing and thwack! Slammed into the wall.

"Hey!"

"Sorry!" I called out behind me, and really, honestly, I was.

I didn't want him to get in trouble. But I darted down the next batch of stairs anyways, around in circles. Floor after floor. I had been found out.

I ran, and ran, and leapt, and ran, and ran some more, but it wasn't enough. Zebro was bigger than me, and faster, and I could only get so far for so long before he caught up.

"Rose!" He shouted just inches behind me.

He chomped at my tail. That's how fucking close he was. One wrong move - one wrong tail swish, and he would have me.

So I made for the hole in the stairwell. That big gaping hole in the wall with the freezing wind and the fifty foot drop. I leapt for it just as he caught up with me.

"No!" He shouted from behind.

But it was too late. I was out in the open. Soaring. Falling.

WHAM!

I landed on that giant vein thing that ran from the building into The Wall. I landed so fucking hard I tumbled forward, and almost fell off.

I found myself on my belly. Squirming. Two of my knees dangled over the side. I couldn't bring them back up again. Warm tingly magic pulsed through that cable, and it made me jittery and disoriented.

"Get back in here!" Zebro cried.

He was stood at the edge of the hole in the wall, watching in horror.

"I promise I won't hurt you, just please get back in here."

Three more guards came up from behind him. Iron ponies. They looked at each other, then at me.

Above was Wormwood’s window. She'd spotted me too. I don't know why it made a difference one way or another. She had already sent her guards after me, and there was nothing she could do from up there anyway. But when our eyes locked I felt like I was going to vomit.

Something about her.

I rose to my hooves. Backed away from the building. Toward that big weird Crystal Empire Wall. I was careful to keep my eyes on the cable I stood on. It was wide as a Manehattan sidewalk, but tell that to my poundy heart, freaking out at the idea of being fifty feet in the air with no guardrails or safety net.

I patted myself down. The blanket and folder were still tucked snuggly under my coat.

"Rose Petal," said Zebro calmly, “Please?"

And I really, really wanted to. But I didn't trust the guards standing next to him. And what I had concealed in my coat was way too important. Wormwood's tangible rage and fear only confirmed that.

I shook my head at him, mouthed the words, “I'm sorry,” turned, and ran up the cable.

* * *

The giganto cable was squiggly and weird, but not hard to make it to the wall. I had no idea what was waiting for me when I got there.

At first, it was a maintenance scaffold. "Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" I said as I rushed up the cable.

And when I finally reached the thing - the bars – the safety rail – I hugged it like crazy and caught my breath. I was so happy to be away from the drop, that I would've slapped a bow tie on that beam, called it my special somepony, and made it my husband.

But I didn't have very long. Two iron ponies were tip-hoofing up the cable, and not far behind.

I broke into a gallop. Enjoying the safety of the scaffolding while I could. I was in that slot where the cable ran in between the giant panels of the wall, like a piece of yarn snugged in the space between bathroom tiles.

I ran, and I ran, and I ran, and I ran, and I ran, but the space between the cable and the wall just kept getting smaller. Eventually I just plain ran out of scaffolding. I whipped around. The iron ponies were catching up fast.

There were only three ways out of there. One involved a plummet to my death. Another: getting scooped up by those assholes. And then there was the last option - the worst of all: a tunnel.

The crease between the cable and the wall had shrunk down to a crawl space. A spot so tight, those iron ponies wouldn't be able to reach me. It seemed to keep going too.

I poked my head in but saw only pitch black. Maybe the tunnel lead to freedom, maybe death. All I knew for sure is that it was fucking dark in there, and I wanted to cry.

The iron ponies made it to the scaffold. They were at full gallop now. It sounded like a roller coaster the way their hooves rumbled over the metal floor.

I poked my head into the crawlspace. Still pure black.

"Luna fuck me with moon rocks!" My voice squeaked.

I kicked the wall. "Damn stupid wall. Damn stupid darkness."

I was sobbing - damn near ready to give up even - to go with them and take my chances with Wormwood. But then I actually saw her up there. Just a figure in the distance, sticking her head out of that office window. She radiated this wild fear - this hate - an anger so palpable I could feel it even from where I stood.

The iron ponies closed in on me. I had only seconds to spare. But seeing Colonel Wormwood clearly fuming, flailing, freaking out - for once as vulnerable and desperate as she had made me feel - as she had made Pumpkin feel - it made everything all of a sudden become so clear.

I took one last moment to raise my hoof to my lips and shout, "Fuck you!"

I knew that bitch could hear me, even over the mechanical hum, so I sucked in another breath and let 'er rip one more time.

"Fuck! You!"

And disappeared into the unknown.

* * *

It was dark in there. Real fucking dark. I hated it. And I had no idea how deep the hole went, where it lead, or even if it stopped. There could be pitfalls. Gears. Pointy bits! Dangerous machinery.

There could be shadow things.

I was confronted with the very real possibility that I might end up stuck in there, crawling through miles, and miles, and miles of living nightmare sauce.

Come on, Rose, you can do this.

I tried to turn around. Just a little. To get my bearings. But there was no room. WHAM! I whacked my face simply from trying to crane my neck. It made me see spots. Little purple splotches dancing around my vision, ebbing and flowing through the dark.

"Ow."

I couldn't get my blanket out of my coat, stuff it in there and come back for it later. I couldn't even get up off my knees. Nothing. It was forward or back. And either way I couldn't see a thing.

"Hello?" I hollered into the void, though I don't know why.

There was no reply of course. I heard only the hum of the walls' machinery coming at me from all directions.

"It's okay, Rose." I said out loud. "It's just a tight space. A pain in the flank. Nothing more. You'll go, you’ll follow the tube, it'll suck, and it'll let you out…somewhere. Well, eventually. "

Thunk.

I whacked my head against the wall, this time on purpose. Out of sheer frustration. I sucked in a deep breath of surprisingly warm air.

"You can do this." I told myself one more time,

But my legs didn't even fucking move. My muscles had seized up. All of them. Useless as rocks. I had been standing there like an idiot, barely fifteen feet past the entrance to the tunnel. It wasn't 'till the iron ponies shined a beam of light at me from behind that I realized just how little ground I’d covered.

"Hey, kid!" A voice shouted at me from the mouth of the crawl space .

"Ah!" I startled, banged my head yet again, and my legs finally just took off, moving all on their own.

One of the iron ponies tried to reach inside. He couldn't get to me but they were still way too close for comfort.

I scurried further inward out of reflex. They were right the fuck behind me, and I was just barely out of hoof's reach.

"What are you doing, kid?! Are you nuts? Get the fuck back here."

But I didn't stop. Those cowardly muscles had sprung to life again. And I didn't dare re-lock-them-up on purpose.

The iron ponies kept yelling, and banging, and clanking around behind me, trying to reach in. Trying to see. Shining bright ass lights down my tunnel, even though the space was too twisty.

But I squirmed along, and got the fuck away, dragging my knees over the itchy tweed of my trench coat as I went. I squirmed, and squirmed, and squirmed 'till every last trace of those assholes was gone. The light. The shouting. The banging.

Just gone.

I was alone. In the dark. Again.

I fucking hate the dark.

Author's Note

This chapter is dedicated to BangBoom and Ray.

Special thanks to Pony Joe and Seraphem for your help editing and proofreading, and to Kkat for your kind encouragement, (and of course, for writing the original FoE source material).

The Truth

CHAPTER TWENTY - THE TRUTH

"Everything you tried to hide will be revealed on the other side." - Squirrel Nut Zippers

The night before I first fell into the Wasteland, Roseluck had told me the tale of Ryelight Sparkle and the Summer Sandwich Celebration. I never did find out how it ended, but if the bedtime story was anything at all like the real life events that’d inspired it, a bunch of sandwiches probably would’ve become friends, discovered the Elements of Mayonnaise or something, and defeated some kinda nightmare two-decker club sandwich princess, and blasted her to crumbs using the magic of their newfound friendship.

But here's the thing. The story doesn't make any sense.

* * *

I trudged down that corridor turning it over in my mind again, and again, and again. The Elements. The brain hornets. The time travel. Everything. I had plenty of time to think about it cause that corridor was really long.

I had seen and been through a lot in that weird vortex of duckies, but I was the one who’d done it. Me. By myself.

The time. The location. I'd sensed it without any help from brain hornets, or chilly wind, or voices or any stupid crap like that.

The swirling maelstrom of Universes? I had used it to jump in and out of other worlds. Other times. Other duckies. Because I could make it happen. Me!

I may have totally sucked at what I was doing, but I was still the one doing it.

It made me wonder if I was really that big of a puppet - that much of a squiggle-majig. Maybe there was more to this whole time travel thing than just getting dropped in a box against your will and being told to find your way out of it. How much of it was really me? How much could I pin on some highfalutin universe-thing?

What if all The Powers That Be ever, ever, ever did was give me a little push?

* * *

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that brain hornets, mystical crap, magic relics like the Elements of Mayonnaise really aren't anything without us ponies.

They aren’t anything at all.

Without sandwiches to live in, mayonnaise tastes awful. And without hearts to live in, the Elements of Harmony are just a bunch of rocks on an empty pedestal.

* * *

My stomach growled. I wanted mayonnaise. I wanted sandwiches. I stopped. Looked around. The inside of the wall was getting lighter. I even saw a blinking light far ahead in what passed for the horizon. I was getting closer to the end.

It looked like a cupcake - that blinky light - a cupcake that flipped in and out of existence. Or a sandwich.

Fuck, I was hungry.

I did the math. It had been over a day since I’d eaten. And then I remembered the onion. The one in my pocket. I had looked down on Sterry for ravaging one back there in that cellar, but now, it seemed like a pretty damn good idea.

I dug my face into my pocket, and fumbled with the onion in the dark. Bit into it.

"Eck."

The damn thing burned all the way down.

My stomach could only take a little of it at a time after being empty for so long, so I had to pace myself, hungry as I was.

I put the onion away and moved on. Made for the blinky cupcake light. My Northstar.

* * *

It took forever. I walked so long, I could feel the air gradually growing thinner. Colder. Fresher. When I finally got there, it was cold enough to make me shiver. Turns out that that blinking light wasn't a cupcake. It was just a tiny yellow, inedible dot.

It didn't light anything up either. Didn't show the way. All I could make out was that it was part of one of those console things that Strawberry Lemonade used to sit and fiddle with. As far as I could tell, there was nothing else remarkable there. The corridor just kept going in both directions. Darkness on either side.

I stopped. Stood in front of the yellow cupcake light. Stared. Wished it was an actual cupcake. And wondered what the hell I was supposed to do next.

A strange breeze seemed to be coming from behind the console. So I reached out with my black evil hoof and opened one of the hatches.

Bang! Crash! The whole panel came down. Just a big sheet of metal.

I leapt back. It tipped over all the way, and Boom! Echoed like crazy against the walls of the metal corridor.

When I looked up, I saw that the light was blinking brighter. And inside of the console was a great big empty space. Little metal strings dangled loosely. In the back of the great big gaping hole was a sliding metal hatch.

I stuck my head in. The cupcake light dangled over me by some kind of metal thread.

I reached out slowly and touched the sliding hatch door. It was freezing. That meant that all this time, the cold air I had felt had been coming, not from some great big "Exit This Way, Rose, and Watch Your Step on the Way Out" sort of doorway, but from a hole I might not even be able to find.

With some effort I was able to slide it open. On the other side of the hatch was another hallway. Dimly lit with purple light leaking in from somewhere. Stacks of those sheet metal panels were leaning against the wall. Next to a tool box.

"Shit," I muttered to myself. "They never finished it."

That's what was wrong. This hallway wasn't coming apart because of hundreds of years of decay. It was never finished in the first place!

I thought about it. It explained so much. Why a small town had sprung up outside of the wall rather than on the inside, where it could be protected. Why Wormwood had been able to access it. Why there even seemed to be a way out if I followed the breeze. (Because really, what is the point of a giant wall around your city to keep out enemies, if all a zebra has to do is walk right in through some hatch or another, and start messing with your fancy machinery?)

This great big structure – this marvel of technology and magic that had been mythologized by the soldiers down below - it wasn't some gift from some unknown force that had fallen from the sky. It was the work of ponies like you and me. It was imperfect.

* * *

I crawled through. Went down the second hallway until I came to a rickety staircase that looked like a Manehattan fire escape. The breeze was coming from down there. The purple glow, faint as it was, was also coming from down there.

I put one hoof on the railing. The other three hooves crept down those stairs slowly, carefully. Feeling their way around.

I felt it tremble and shake under my weight. Whispered a little prayer to Luna as I went, and made my way down seven terrifying flights of metal staircase.

‘Till suddenly - finally - my hooves were touching ground. Not just stone or metal floors. Actual ground.

When the dirt crunched under my hoof I stopped. Marveled. I had almost forgotten that that's what walking was supposed to sound like.

I lifted up my hoof and squinted - stared at that dirt under what little light I could get.

In front of me was a door. A hatch made out of the same strange onyxy material that the outside of the walls were made of. I slid it. And felt a gust of truly, remarkably, unbelievably fresh air.

* * *

And just like that, I was out. In the open. At last.

That cold air that had been creeping toward me in the hallway was way colder on the outside. That purple light that had been bleeding through the cracks - blinding.

I staggered around. Reveled the gritty feeling of more real dirt under my forehoof. Squeezed my aching eyes shut, and sucked in the coolest, most refreshingly awesome gust of air my mouth had ever tasted.

Then another one. Again. And again and again.

I was out. Out! Out! Out! Finally done with tunnels and not-knowin’sy darkness!

* * *

"Okay, Rose." I said out loud. "Get to it."

I forced my eyelids open, little by little. Then moved forward. Step by quivering step. Everything was a chore.

A gust of wind whipped through my drippity, sweatorious mane, and I got all shivery. It reminded me of the time back in kindergarten when I had gone out to play without a hat and got a bad case of icicle mane. My head got so spiky I looked like one of those punk colts from the Ra-manes, or the Buck Pistols, and when it was over, I was stuck inside for a week with the flu. I had to live off of soup, which sucked because soup is dumb.

I looked out over the hazy purple air. Listened for Hearth's Warming carols. Hoped I wasn't too late.

"Go get the folder, Rose." A voice came at me from somewhere off to the side.

"Ahh!" I shouted.

It was Wormwood. She'd been waiting. I spun around. Tried to run. Tripped. Fell. The colonel stood still, and watched from the shadows just outside of the purple spotlight.

I scurried backward. Instinctively shielding my belly with my evil hoof.

"You have it with you!" She exclaimed.

“Damnit.”

I’d given my hiding spot away.

I dug my hooves into the dirt - tried to scramble back some more, but the colonel was coming at me now. Harried. Wild eyed.

"Give it to me." She said, and stepped into the light.

"Help!" I yelled.

But we were totally alone, and that hummy wall sound drowned everything else out.

“Help!” I called out again.

No answer came so I shrieked and yelled as high and as loud as I could.

"Aiiieeee!" I screeched, in the vain hope that somepony might hear it.

Wormwood's ear twitched. She glanced to her left - the direction she worried "help" might maybe kinda possibly be coming from.

It was only a fragment of a gesture, but it told me which way to run.

I spun around again and leapt to my hooves, stumbling, screeching like a second grader on fire.

"Help! Help!" I cried, and bolted away from the wall. Away from the purple spotlight. Off toward wherever the fuck I was going.

* * *

I didn’t have much of a head start, and I was still all discombobulated from the tunnel.

I had to whip my head around all frantic-like just to figure out where I was - what exactly I was running toward.

I could barely see. I was lost as fuck.

Until I heard it. Singing. The Twelve Days of Hearth's Warming.

The soldiers. The celebration. The pivoty-ness! I hadn't missed it! And it was close. I was standing in No Mare's Land!

“Aha!” I exclaimed.

I ran! Ran across No Mare's Land till that purple light started to fade. I leapt over abandoned rubble and craters and stuff, and made for a ridge up ahead in the distance - a little piece of earth higher than the rest - an abandoned attempt at a trench wall that had tried and failed to cut across No Mare’s Land perpendicular-ish.

There was a soft white glow coming from the other side of that ridge. And singing.

I galloped toward it with everything I had.

Crampy muscles be damned! I pushed myself harder and harder and harder! ‘Till a chomp at my tail yanked me back so hard my hooves came up off the ground. I spun like a tetherball that had come loose, and got slingshotted straight into the ground.

Thud! I hit the dirt. Wormwood fell too. We tumbled in separate directions.

I somersaulted a hundred million times like a circus clown 'till I banged my head on a rock, and that damned chilly brain wind hit me again. The one that drives messages into your head with a gust of fresh air.

"Get it to the door." A voice whispered at me from inside my skull.

I looked up. Head spinning. Overcoat open.

Wormwood’s folder was on the ground some twenty feet away. And way past it was the door. The giant fucking door to the giant fucking wall of the giant fucking Crystal fucking Empire. Back the way I had come. I hadn't even realized I'd been so close!

Behind me, Wormwood was grunting. Digging her steel-coated hooves into the frozen ground. I could hear it all.

I forced myself to get up.

“Head for the singing. Head for the potatoes. The corns. The truce!" All the screaming Rose Voices in my head cried out in unison.

And there was a good chance I could make it too. But when I picked myself up, the brain wind hit me again.

"Get it to the door." It said firmly.

No explanation. No how. No why. Not even a clue about what the hell I was supposed to do with the damn thing once I got there. Just get it to the door.

Stupid brain wind.

I dashed for the folder, no clue what the hell I was going to do. Wormwood made for it too.

I could make it. I could beat her to it. I knew I could! She may have been close, but I was closer, dammit.

But once I got the folder, what then? We were on a collision course, and Wormwood was just gonna nab me half a second later anyway.

I looked her way, saw her readying herself for the lunge as she ran. Fuck. There was no way around it! I may not have been any good at hoofball back home, but I knew damn well when someone was fixing to make a tackle.

I sprinted. Leapt. And threw myself over the folder like a blanket.

Whoosh. Wormwood slipped sideways. She'd expected me to scoop it up and keep going. Her metal hooves skidded, stumbled, and whacked right into me.

"Ahhhh!" I cried. "Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahh Owww, Celestiafuck!"

It was agony.

But Wormwood took it worse. She tumbled over, and fell hard. Bitch went down like a tossed anvil, digging a crater in the dirt.

"Ow!" I came up limping, but still came up fast.

I dashed over to her, kicked some of the frozen dirt she'd knocked loose. Right into her face. Just shrieked and stomped and blasted it into her eyes. Crying like a foal the whole time.

The fallen colonel grunted and cursed.

And then I was off. Up on a tree stump. Ready to leap, run up the hill, and make for the soldiers on the other side of that ridge. I could still hear them singing!

But something wouldn’t let me. Something more than just brain wind. When I looked over my shoulder to gauge how far behind Wormwood was, I saw it: the giant wall of the giant Crystal Empire with a gigantomoon hanging over it, getting ready to set.

"Fuck."

I hated those brain hornets. Didn't trust them. Didn't trust their reasons. But Luna did. She trusted on 'em so hard, she was ready to follow their hints and riddles straight to the grave.

I don't think I have it in me for that kind of dedication, but still, I owed Luna. If not for her, the shadows would have made rosemeat out of me before I even got here.

I only saw that massive moon for the span of a single breath, but it was enough. I knew what to do.

Like a big rubber bouncy ball pinging off of the tree stump, I sprung off. And made for the Crystal Door.

* * *

Wormwood leapt up. She was fast to recover, but she got a stumbley start in the wrong direction.

Because what idiot would go back to the wall?!

I ran. Brain wind tingling. Took my head start and galloped for the door like my tail was on fire.

"This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy." I panted out loud.

I looked up for more guidance, but that big old moon had disappeared behind the wall and the dome. All it'd left behind was a couple of glowy clouds, alive with moonlight.

“Fucking...clouds” I panted. And hoped that, once I got to the wall, the Universe had some kinda plan that involved me not getting murdered.

The colonel gained on me fast, screaming and cursing. All of that polite cool as a cucumber social chess shit had gone straight out the window.

But it didn't matter. I was getting close. I was gonna make it. I was running so hard, my veins pumped lava, but dammit, I was gonna make it.

All I had to do was not fuck up. I plastered my eyes to the ground, which was rocky. Uneven. Poorly lit.

Don't trip. I told myself. Don't trip. Don't trip. Don't trip. For once in your life, don't fucking trip.

Then I bounded over the last crater, and the ground got level. I was bathed in that purple light again! I was close. The door was dead ahead.

I pushed myself harder and harder and harder. It made me get tingly all over. Maybe from the running. Maybe from the cold. Maybe because the brain wind was giving me one last burst of energy from sources unexpected.

But whatever it was, I felt alive. Un-fucking-stoppable. I was finally gonna find out what the big fucking deal was. The folder. The door. All that crap the brain wind had been riding me about.

I didn't even care if Wormwood killed me once I got there if my last breath could be a giant fuck you to the not-knowin's.

I was gonna find out. I was unfuckingstoppable. That's right. Unfuckingstoppable. I felt like I could take on the whole damn world.

'Till Wham! I hit the door.

Literally hit it. Face first.

* * *

I reeled around. Wormwood was charging toward me, fire in her eyes.

I pressed my back against the door. Knocked. Banged. Smacked it with the folder. Like that was somehow gonna make an ancient door that the future's leading experts couldn't even crack suddenly come the fuck open just for me.

"Help!" I shouted my lungs out. "Help me, you stupid door. Help!!"

Nothing. Useless. I huddled down and shielded myself. Protected the folder. For what good it would do.

Hunched over the damn thing, and screeched at the top of my lungs like a kindergartener with snails in her hair, and braced myself for Wormwood's wrath.

And then, just when I thought she was gonna whip out a giant gun that spat fire and cannonballs and nails and splinters and stuff, It happened. A terrible sound. Like thunder had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed that morning.

There was a rumbling coming from deep within the mechanisms of the wall. It felt like an earthquake. Gears that had slept for three centuries screeched suddenly and violently to life. With a great big old whoosh, and a click, the canons above me whirred into action.

"Ahh! Ahh! Aahh! Aahhh!" I shrieked.

But the wall wasn't concerned with me.

Those guns took aim and fixed their sights on Colonel Wormwood, who had been charging towards me (and incidentally, charging toward the door), aggressive-like.

All hundred-million-billion-infinity-thousand cannons.

Colonel Wormwood skidded to a halt, fell flat on her flank. Even from where I stood, I could see the green color run from her complexion.

Her eyes opened up wide. I thought they were trying to swallow the rest of her face they got so damn big. She scrambled backwards - tried to get the fuck away, but the wall just moaned and creaked in reply. No matter where she went, the guns followed her.

Wormwood scurried to the edge of the purple light. Gasped for breath. Stared down the barrels of more ancient weaponry than an army of walking, talking abacuses could count in a lifetime.

And a silence followed.

Even the caroling had stopped.

It was just Wormwood and the wall. Facing off. Locked in a showdown so tense that it seemed to freeze time.

I wouldn't've been surprised if a tumbleweed had blown between them.

I was left huddling there in shock. The listening to the voices and running toward the wall for no apparent reason trick had actually worked.

Wormwood watched the guns intently. Took long hesitant breaths. Determined not to make any sudden movements, or do anything that could be interpreted as aggressive.

Then she turned to me. Straightened her lapels and rose to her hooves. Slowly.

She stared at the folder at my side.

"Rose Petal," she said with as much dignity as she could muster. "The folder, please."

She showed neither fear nor rage.

I hugged it closer. Looked around. Let my brain catch up with everything that had happened. The colonel. The guns. The light on the other end of the ridge.

That whistling wind whipped around all the little trenches and pockets of earth. It made unearthly sounds. And I stood there, too stunned even to breathe

Slowly, I rose up. Stood tall. Took the folder in my mouth. And mumbled at her.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me."

Now she was the one shaking in place with anger. Just like I had done back in her office, when she'd played her colonel-y power games, and I had been powerless to stop her.

"Rose!" She snapped at me in bitter rage.

But one look at the wall's arsenal, and she clapped her hooves to her mouth. Afraid of pissing it off, she held back - growled at me through gritted teeth. It didn't matter. I could still feel her hatred from all the way over there like a whipcrack.

"Fuck you," I mumbled back at her, mouth still full of folder.

It felt good to finally say It out loud.

She shook her head and fixed her eyes on the guns above me. And took a step into the purple light. Risking it. Moving slowly. Cautiously. Eyes on me. Then another step. And another. The wall creaked and grinded, and followed her attentively, but did not fire.

"Oh for fucks sake, come on!" I cried.

A figure fluttered in the shadows beyond the purple light. It was big. It was dark. It flew in real low, landed just outside the wall's spotlight, and emerged on hoof from the darkness.

"Luna?" I said to myself.

Before I knew it, she was blocking the colonel's path, standing over her.

"Leave Blanket Girl alone." Said the alicorn in a thick Bucklyn accent.

I spat the folder into my hooves.

"Big Blue!" I called out.

"You okay, kid?" Blue shouted over her shoulder without turning to face me proper.

"I guess so." I wasn't sure what else to say. "Um...How are you?"

"Stand down, soldier." Wormwood shouted, ignoring me completely.

Blue didn't budge.

"That's an order."

The alicorn stood at attention. Saluted respectfully - formally - but refused to let Wormwood pass.

"Ma'am, you can send me to the gates-a-Tartarus naked and unarmed. Order me ta charge, and I'd folla ya, and fight fa ya wit my dyin' breat'. But dat is a child, ma'am, and I ain't gonna letcha hurt her. Ma'am."

Wormwood pressed up to Big Blue - stared her down eyeball-to-eyeball.

The sound of murmuring and commotion and hoofsteps carried from somewhere beyond the purple spotlight. The other soldiers were coming.

The colonel looked Blue over very carefully. Weighed her - measured her in that special way that only Wormwood could.

The commotion grew louder. The crowd was drawing near. I could make out a couple of silhouettes on that ridge I had run toward, backlit by some weird soft-white glow coming from the other side.

It wouldn't be long before a whole bunch of potatoes and corns made it down, and saw Wormwood and the alicorn standing off.

That sounds great and all on the surface, but there was no way the Colonel was gonna let her authority get questioned in front of everypony. She would have to act. And Blue would have to act back. It was gonna get ugly.

And they both knew it.

But Big Blue didn't back down. Her tail fought a nervous twitch that only I was close enough to see. Wormwood didn't either. She didn't so much as blink.

The two of them just locked in this tense bout of eyeball wrestling

"Very well." Wormwood said at last.

Held her head high.

"At ease, soldier." She added through gritted teeth.

Blue lowered her saluting hoof and slouched in relief. Wormwood sucked in a deep breath, and swallowed her rage. By the time the frosty air left her mouth, she appeared calm and relaxed again. Her frustration hidden behind a mask that may as well have been made of actual stone.

The whistling wind blew some more. The colonel peeked around Big Blue's gigantic sides. She glowered at me coldly, awaiting my next move.

Blue called to me over her shoulder without taking her eyes off of Wormwood. "What's goin' on back 'dere, Rosie? You sure, you's alright?"

I examined the folder in my hooves. There was nothing left to do but open it.

"Yeah." I said.

I bit down, and untied the ribbon that had held it shut through all of my leaps and bounds and tumbles.

Wormwood gasped as my teeth lifted the flap. Sucked in a ragged breath. I glanced up. Saw in her face the first ever traces of real defeat. Sadness. The kind of despair I had seen in Pumpkin Scone's eyes when he'd realized how fucked he was.

Good. I thought.

Finally, I flipped it open. Inside was a small wooden box, and bundles of crumbling old construction paper. Colorful ribbons too. I took one of the sheets out and held it up to the light. Glitter shed all the fuck over me just from touching the stuff..

"Happy Mother's Day," it said in crayon. The card was faded. It was older than me. But it was stained with moisture that was still brand-new. Teardrops.

I tucked it back into the folder.

This can't be right.

I dug out another piece. "Happy Birtday Mommy," it read. Spelt wrong. It came complete with a crayon drawing of a green military pony, a small colt, a happy cross-eyed sun, some flowers, and for some reason, an aardvark playing the ukulele.

I hoofed through them all. Page after page. Sentimental mementos. Every last one. I even opened the box. It was empty. The imprint of a medal was there against the felt.

My heart skipped a beat. That was a service medal. Her son's service medal! What if I had lost it? I dug through the folder with my face. Shook it around. Felt for anything heavy.

It couldn't have gone anywhere! I couldn't have lost it! That stupid folder had been tied shut in my jacket the whole time!

I closed my eyes. Hoped that she had it with her or something. Tried to remember the clutter on her desk. Searched my memory for a shadow of a clue.

Nothing.

I tucked the construction paper back in neatly, along with the box. There, at the very end of the pile, was one actual document. Not a kid's drawing. It was a fresh white slip with a bunch of gibberish printed on it. It looked like it had come out of one of those automatic printing presses the clerk had had back in his office.

The transmission.

Wormwood had decoded it in pencil and written the message from high command in the margins. Paper documents. The Wave of the Future.

"Initiate Attack Plan R." It read.

"Time: 1600

Date: Hearth's Warming Day

Enlisted Infantry Dispatched to Frontline (excluding officers): 2,000

Infantry Held in Reserves: 0

Security Level: Red

3,000 Reinforcements to be Dispatched. ETA: 120 hours.

Confirm."

There was no treaty getting signed back in Rangertown. No peace agreement. No plans to draw the war to a close. Wormwood's bosses were pushing for total annihilation. And all day she had been hiding it, "acting strange" as her fellow iron ponies had put it, pretending she hadn't seen the order.

"What does it say?" Big Blue asked.

I slammed the folder shut. Looked up. A cluster of potato soldiers was coming all the way down from the ridge. Some corns trickled in too. Then still more potatoes. They gathered and they watched. From a safe distance, of course. Blue had been the only one fool enough to rush toward the wall.

"Nothing." I said as loud as I could.

"Nuttin'?"

"Nothing!" I hollered nervously.

Blue lowered his voice. She was getting real cross.

"I am riskin' court-mah-shall for...Nothin'?"

"Uh..."

The crowd had already doubled in size, but they were still far enough away that we could talk normal-like and not be heard.

I looked to Wormwood.

And my Desolation Bingo basket exploded.

N-14. Embarrassment.

I-61. Terror.

B-16. Confusion.

G-11. Regret.

O-27. A whole lot of leftover distrust.

Bitch had tried to kill me, after all.

"A word in private?" I laughed nervously.

Wormwood just tapped her hoof, rolled her eyes and gestured at the giant guns above me.

"Oh yeah." I had to go to her.

I took the folder in my mouth, and hurried across the purple-lit patch of land that surrounded the door.

I was desperate for answers so I stole a glance at those moony, glowy clouds. But there was no brain wind anymore. No hornets. No voices. This truce - this gathering - it was pivoty. So pivoty that there actually was no Way It's Supposed to Happen.

I'd gotten the folder-thing to the door like I was told. Gotten my flank saved. Made a jackass of myself by opening it (no offense to any jackasses who might be reading).

I had done exactly what I was supposed to. Whatever went down next was out of the claws of the shadows and The Powers That Be. I don't know how to explain it. I sorta knew somehow. The same way that I'd known that the shadows and the hornets hadn’t been watching me in that weird desert I’d found myself in.

This one was just us ponies.

The purple light faded and I found myself standing between Wormwood and Big Blue.

I opened my mouth, set the folder down at the colonel's hooves. She looked down her nose at me and took it without saying a word.

"I'm sorry." I whispered.

Wormwood ignored me. Rummaged through the folder. She didn't care what I had to say. Didn't even care about the crowd anymore. Just dug through those papers with the delicacy of an archivist handling ancient documents, and the urgency of a little kid tearing her room apart looking for a lost toy.

When, at last, she was satisfied, Wormwood sighed a gentle breath of relief.

I couldn't rest quite so easy. She had never opened the box. Merely ascertained that it was still there. I fought the urge to panic. All those Rose Voices in my head were ranting and screaming and bumping into one another.

But we didn't have time for that. I focused on the transmission. The war. Figuring out Colonel Wormwood. I couldn’t even pin down exactly where she stood.

"What the hell are we going to do?" I whispered to her through my teeth.

"Keep our mouths shut and save who we can." She said under her breath.

The colonel closed the folder gently. Tied it shut with her teeth, bringing her right at eye level with me.

"Not a word." She picked up the folder and clutched it to her chest like it was a foal.

She was referring to the crayon art. Dead fucking seriously too. Like she would kill me harder if I told anyone about the drawings than if I shot my mouth about Attack Plan R.

"Geez, alright," I said,

And shrunk back from her stareitty eyes. I swear those things were as as deadly as the wall cannons.

"There's nothing to be ashamed--;"

"He died a soldier." She said briskly. Coldly. "He will. Be. Remembered. As one."

I looked to the crowd. The ridge in the distance was lined with soldiers. Silhouettes against that strange glow. They had gotten brave enough to trickle over a little and start oozing their way towards us.

"What about the war?" I said through smiling teeth. "The transmission?"

She looked away. Just held her head high and pretended I wasn't there.

"You're gonna go through with it aren't you?"

The colonel slipped the folder into her saddle bag. Sucked in a great big deep breath, knocked her hooves together. And click! Snapped to attention like a toy soldier.

"No Mare’s Land is no place for a child. Even during a truce.” She changed the subject. “I'd order you back to the camp, but I know you won't listen."

I shook my head at her. She was damn right about that.

"So, what are you gonna do...arrest...me?"

My words faded to a whisper before I could even finish saying them.

Sterry.

Wormwood wasn't out to get him. He hadn't stumbled on any secrets. Wormwood was trying to save him. From having to go over the top. From the coming storm. From the horrors of No Mare's Land. I looked up at Wormwood, totally fucking speechless. But she was inscrutable again. It was that damn look of hers.

She turned away from me and approached the crowd. Walking casually toward the ridge.

I was dismissed as far as she was concerned.

"Sterry?" I darted after her.

No reply.

"Pumpkin Scone?" I said softly, trotting at her side.

"Private Scone needed a good scare. The treason charge will get pled down to insubordination. He'll be so grateful to only end up scrubbing latrines, he won't step out of line ever again."

"And the war?"

She trotted on. Again with the silent treatment.

"The war?"

No reply.

She was going to proceed as planned. Give out pardons by night, and annihilate everyone come morning.

But she hated it. I could tell. That confidence of hers was shaken. She couldn't bear to look me in the eye.

Wormwood hadn't spent the day simply sifting through paperwork looking for loopholes. She'd stared at those drawings. Cried on them. Wondered how many other mothers’ sons were going to die at her command in less than 24 hours time. Wormwood wanted another way. Desperately.

* * *

We came up to the crowd at long last. Potatoes and corns. Mingling all informal-like. My empty stomach turned and blurbled. I was feeling pretty weak, but it was not the time for complaining. Sam the Gryphon was the first to come down.

"What's going on?” He called to us. “Are you okay?"

Some of the others snapped to attention, but Wormwood waved her hoof at them.

"It's Hearth's Warming. Nopony's in trouble." She said dryly.

But they all kept staring. Confused. Concernitty.

"Everypony here gets a pardon." She waved her hoof at them again.

The potatoes broke out into cheers. Jubilation. The corns hollered right along with them. The pardons didn’t affect them, but cheering clearly seemed like the thing to do.

They erupted into songs too - chaotic revelry - like when the bell rings at school, and everyone rushes out to the playground at the same time, laughing and screaming.

None of them knowing they were all gonna fucking die tomorrow.

My heart sank. I couldn't breathe. I felt like the whole world was one of those film strips at school that's stuck in slow motion with warbly sound. But before I could even gather a moment to stew in my own piratetry, Whomp! I got tackled to the ground.

"Ahhh!" I threw up my forehooves and shielded my face.

Dug my hindquarters into the ground, ready to spring back.

"Wha?!" I squirmed.

"Hey!" Said the pony on top of me.

I looked up. It was Sprinkles.

"There you are!" She laughed. "Are you okay? I thought you were gonna miss the rest of the party."

"I'm a little, uh." I laughed nervously. "Out of it."

"Here, have some chocolate. I stole it from the supply shed." She giggled.

Shoved a piece of chocolate bar in my mouth. It was amazing. Better than sandwiches. My whole mouth snapped back to life. My head quit its swimming. My stomach finally chilled the fuck out.

The corn girl helped me up. Then there we were. The two of us. Standing right in front of Wormwood. She looked like she'd seen a ghost. Her eyes were fixed on Sprinkles.

For the first time in ever, she seemed at a loss for words.

"I...I..." The colonel stuttered.

Sprinkles stiffened in response. She may have been a bit bubbly, but even she knew an officer when she saw one. She hopped up off of me in a hurry, digging her knee into my gut on the way.

"Oof." I oofed.

The girl looked to Wormwood. Held her chin way up in the air. She didn't salute, of course. That wouldn't have been proper. But still, she showed her version of respect.

Wormwood stared. Celestia only knows how long it was before she actually remembered to inhale. For a moment, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but then it hit me.

Sprinkles wasn't a potato.

Wormwood couldn't arrest her – couldn't whisk her way. There were no loopholes or forms or letters the colonel could sign to save her.

"No Mare’s Land is no place for a child," she'd said just a few moments ago. But if the battle plan moved forward, Sprinkles was as good as dead.

Sam the Gryphon, not the type to stand around doing nothing, saluted, and broke the silence.

"Ma'am, welcome to the front, ma'am. We sort of Hearth's Warming'd it up, you see, and well..."

Wormwood muttered to herself and furrowed her brow. Sam stopped mid-babble. Leaned in to make sure she was all right.

"Oh, uh, at ease," said the colonel when at last she realized that he was there.

Big Blue came up next to me. What the fuck, he mouthed. It was not like the colonel to be so uncolonel-y.

I just shrugged. I wasn't about to try explaining it.

Then, in the middle of all that confusion, this corn stumbled up to us out of nowhere. Tripped all over himself. A regular Berry Punch.

"Heyyyyy!" He glarbled.

He sounded like he had a clothespin on his tongue.

Sam stepped up in a hurry and tried to lead him away.

"No!" The corn shouted. "Everypony gets a candle. And she don't have no candle!"

The stumbler pointed an accusatory hoof at Wormwood.

"Here!" He spat, and waved his hoof all around 'till some sticks fell out of his sleeve.

"Thanks," Big Blue said nervously, hurrying to levitate them all up. "Why don't you go uh...Over there now.”

There was shuffling. And stumbling. Everypony involved tried to wrangle this guy away from the colonel as undramatically as possible. But it got awkwarder and awkwarder. A big chunk of the crowd was starting to trickle in.

Wormwood stood there all inscrutableish as usual. To everyone else, she must've looked like a statue, but I could feel her shock.

"Here ya go," Sprinkles mumbled, mouth totally full.

She pressed her face into Wormwood's chest. And tucked a stick in the colonel's pocket.

Wormwood examined it. Pulled it out with her teeth.

Sam and Blue just watched on, horrified.

"It's a stick." Wormwood raised an eyebrow.

"It's a candle," said Sprinkles somberly. "To honor the fallen."

Silence swept over the potatoes in the crowd. Like a great big tidal wave that plowed over everyone in No Mare's Land.

Even the corns froze.

"What?" Said Sprinkles.

She looked back over her shoulder at the crowd of stunned onlookers - both potatoes and corns.

"I'm sorry, I--;"

Wormwood spat the stick out into her hoof. Sprinkles zipped her lip.

The colonel examined it for a good long while. Gave it the old what the fuck it's just a stick look-over. Then shifted those hard stareitty eyes of hers to Sprinkles.

"How does it work?" She asked at last.

Sprinkles was good and terrified now. She wasn't quite sure what she had done wrong, and had no idea how to proceed.

"Um..."

Sprinkles looked to me. But I didn't know what to say either.

“It’s a gryphon tradition, actually,” Sam butted in. “You see--;”

“I asked the girl.” Colonel Wormwood snorted.

She turned to Sprinkles.

"It's okay," said Wormwood gently. “Tell me. How does it work?”

"Well, um , you light it. Like a candle, you know? And you look at the fire and sort of talk to...your friend. You know, someone who..."

"Fell."

Sprinkles bit her lip and nodded.

"But it's a stick." Colonel Wormwood replied.

Sprinkles facehoofed. "Can I just...show you something?"

* * *

We headed back across No Mare’s Land away from the wall, back towards that ridge. That's where the rest of the holiday party was. The place where the truce had started.

Sprinkles lead the colonel. Sam, Big Blue, Dazzle Shine and I followed close behind, whispering to one another.

"She's not explaining it right," said Blue.

"Shut up!" Said Dazzle Shine, the guy with the Pip Buck and little drummer brother back home. “Shh.”

We listened for clues to help us figure out how the talk was going. We were all sorta amazed that Sprinkles had made it this far without setting Wormwood off.

"...And I lit mine for Butterscotch. She was the only Twilight Sparkle Society infantrymare who was close to my age. We kiiiiiiinda snuck on a train to get out here together and join the effort."

The effort. Wormwood's tail swished around in agitation. I could hear it thwacking and scraping against the inside of her armor.

"I'll introduce you if you want. If that's okay? I mean," Sprinkles suddenly noticed the crowd that was parting for her and the colonel. Remembered her military discipline.

She straightened up, dipped her voice down low, and said firmly, "We are not very far."

They walked together like that for a while. Sprinkles blah-blah-blah'ing all over the place while Wormwood kept quiet and got all thinky. It was out of nowhere when Wormwood finally said what was on her mind.

"I'm sorry about Butterscotch," she looked straight at Sprinkles. Waited for her to notice.

At first Sprinkles didn't notice, just rambled a bunch as they made their way up the slope, but Wormwood waited her out. When Sprinkles realized she was being looked at, she stopped and turned to face the colonel.

"I'm sorry." Wormwood repeated solemnly.

Sprinkles closed her eyes and nodded.

* * *

I looked back at the big wall. I mean, What the fuck, Wall?! I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do next. We were running out of time. Out of pivotyness. I had to think of something to say. To help me to warn everyone about the coming battle. To help Sprinkles not set off the colonel. To...I don't know, save Hearth's Warming. Again.

But I was as speechless as the others.

"So you talk to the candle. And you look really hard at the fire till you feel like your friend is next to you, right? And then you just ...tell her what's on your mind. And sometimes it feels like she's talking right back at you."

"Really?" Wormwood was amused.

"Yeah. You know what Butterscotch said to me?"

"No."

"Make friends." Sprinkles snorted a nervous little laugh.

"You should have no trouble." Wormwood said dryly.

Sprinkles smiled so brightly it made a squeaky noise.

"Yeah." She rambled. "Butterscotch tells me to make friends, and what's the very next thing I do? Make friends with a Applejackoff...I mean uh...Applejack officer. A Ranger officer. A, um...a steel pony."

Wormwood looked away.

"What?” Sprinkles asked.

The colonel stiffened. Hid herself behind military formality. Didn't say a word.

“I'm sorry. Please don't be mad."

But Wormwood didn’t reply. She didn't even look Sprinkles in the eye anymore.

The corn girl sighed. Hung her head low, thinking she had fucked up. She'd called the colonel an Applejackoff, and the very next thing she knew, Wormwood was sulking.

But that wasn't the problem.

Sprinkles was going to die tomorrow. Because of Attack Plan R. And that sweet doomed girl had just called Colonel Wormwood friend.

* * *

They headed up the hill in silence, at least for a while. While the rest of us whispered. Questions and rumors. The usual.

"This friend of yours, Butterscotch, she's over that ledge?" Said Wormwood at last, breaking the ice. "Her candle, I mean."

"Yeah," said Sprinkles with a raised eyebrow.

They neared the top of the ledge. And we came up not far behind.

“Butterscotch is there." Sprinkles continued. "They all are."

Wormwood nodded. Even from fifteen feet behind, I could tell that she was confused. Until they made it to the top.

Wormwood stopped dead in her tracks the second she looked over that ledge. Dug her hooves into the ground so fast, she almost skidded forward. Her knees were wobbling inside that steel exoskeleton of hers. I ran up the hill. Straight to Wormwood right as she dropped to her flank. I put my hoof on her shoulder. But she just looked at me, jaw trembling. Her face had gone white. Bleach fucking white. She was shaking so hard her medals jingled. When the colonel turned to Sprinkles, I finally got a look at the valley down below - No Mare's Land as the trucing soldiers had left it.

There were Hearth's Warming trees. Everywhere. As far as the eye could see. Each decorated for the season with "candles." Little magic fires. There must have been thousands of lights down there scattering their glow across the trenches.

The sight of them was breathtaking. The knowledge that each of those flames was a friend lost? A family broken? That every little flicker belonged to somebody else's Twinkle Eyes? Somebody's Tulip? It was so overwhelming, I could hardly breathe.

Wormwood grabbed the folder she'd tucked in to her saddlebag. Whipped it out, and hugged it close.

I stepped back and gave her some space, but Sprinkles pressed in closer.

"Are you okay?"

The colonel reached for Sprinkles’ lapels with trembling hooves. Looked back at the broken, uneven valley that glowed from the bottom up with candle light.

She had this stunned expression on her face that I'll never forget. Her irises shrunk to little tiny pin-sized dots as the full weight of what she saw came crashing down on her. Tears ran down her cheeks, but the rest of her face didn’t twitch. For us, the candles were a chance to reconnect with the departed. For Colonel Wormwood, it was Sub Mine F.

She tried to grab a hold of that stick that Sprinkles had given her. To wrangle it with her teeth, but she was shaking like crazy and it fell.

"I'm sorry," said Sprinkles.

She looked straight at Wormwood. Waited for the colonel to turn and notice. It took a good long while. Eventually, Wormwood stopped. Snapped out of it, and looked the girl in the eye.

"I'm sorry." Sprinkles repeated.

Wormwood threw open her forelegs, drew Sprinkles closer, and hugged her tight.

I thought the kid was gonna get crushed.

But she just rolled with it. Craned her neck to rest against Wormwood's chest as the colonel hugged her tighter and tighter and tighter and stared out over that ocean of glow.

* * *

Then, suddenly, thwip-a-crumple whoosh-a-whoosh. The colonel's folder hit the floor. Construction paper spilled out everywhere.

Wormwood snapped out of it, bent down hurriedly to gather her "papers" before they got away, or were seen by another living soul. But Sprinkles was right there. And she saw.

She stooped down to help. And got all hurry-ish about it just like Wormwood. 'Till she actually held one of those pages. She lingered on it. I couldn't make out the drawing from where I stood, but like so many others, it was on construction paper.

"Oh my Celestia," Sprinkles figured it out.

She levitated the page and passed it to the colonel discretely. The two of them locked eyes. Wormwood was stiff as a statue again. Sprinkles just looked like she was gonna cry.

"I'm so sorry." She whispered meekly.

"Not a word." Wormwood replied sternly.

The girl nodded in reply.

* * *

A ruckus suddenly arose from down below. Out of nowhere. It startled us all. Then came another holiday carol.

Wormwood rose to her hooves and looked down into the valley. Stared real hard.

It was tough to tell through all that candle light, but most of the potatoes and corns were actually still down there.

There were thousands of them. The loud cheer had been for another one of those soccer games.

Wormwood stuck her neck out and leaned forward as far as she could. "No." She said after a long and careful examination. It was under her breath. Had I not been so close, I would never have heard it.

She turned to Sprinkles. Held her at legs' distance.

"I need you to do something very important for me. As a friend. Okay?"

Sprinkles nodded.

"Go find us a good spot in that valley. A nice tree. I'll be down in twenty minutes or so. Take this." She pressed the folder against Sprinkle's chest, and used her stareitty eyes to drive the message home. "Don't. Let. Anything. Happen to it." Sprinkles nodded solemnly.

"See ya, Rose!" She smiled at me, waved, and was off.

I waved back nervously. Thought of the missing medal. The wooden box. Sprinkles had the folder now. Whatever else happened, I couldn't let her take the heat for losing it.

I scanned Wormwood's insanely decorated jacket for any medals that looked like the right shape and size, but came up with zilch. I just couldn't tell.

* * *

That was when Wormwood turned to me. She knew I was wigging out. Knew I was confused. But she held up a hoof as if to say I'll get to you in a minute.

I nodded.

The colonel spun away from me and faced the crowd that had gathered behind us. It was a sea of faces - all of them almost as confused as I was. These were the guys who'd heard the Crystal Empire canons take aim and had rushed toward it. That, or they had just happened to be on the other side of the hill.

They were officers, infantry mares. Potatoes. Corns.

They looked to the colonel with desperate hopeful terrified eyes, waiting to find out what was going to happen next.

"Twilight Society soldiers!" Wormwood called out. "I need you to find me your highest ranking officer."

The corns in the crowd looked at one another, timid-like. The corn nearest me tilted his hat down over his face, as if to try to hide. Nopony budged.

I guess there's something inherently unappealing about the prospect of running back to your boss, admitting that you had been cavorting with the enemy behind her back, and dragging her into what's supposed to be a danger zone, all cause the leader of the Applejackoffs told you to.

Wormwood looked out patiently over the crowd as they whispered amongst themselves. Just stood there and waited for them all to get it out of their systems.

"I'm looking to call a truce." She said at last. "A lasting truce."

Sam turned to me, "Did she say--;"

"Shh!" Snapped Dazzle Shine as he punched a bunch of buttons on his Pip Buck.

There were murmurs. Whispers. Everywhere. In an instant, the whole hill was talking. The excitement was so palpable, I could almost taste it in the air. But the second Wormwood cleared her throat, the crowd got quiet. Only a few Pip Bucks scattered throughout the masses were left making any noise at all. It sounded like crumpling wrapping paper.

The colonel looked down across those faces, her old inscrutable self once again. She stood like a fancy society pony in one of those fancy society portraits.

Every last one of those soldiers - potatoes, corns - they were eating right out of her hoof. And she knew it.

"Send word to General Sun Sparkle. I'll be waiting down in the valley in one hour." The colonel pointed to the candle lit trees below. "Happy Hearth's Warming, everypony."

At last, she dismissed us all with a firm salute.

The potatoes snapped to attention and saluted back. The corns stood respectfully quiet. Then there were the Berry Punches - too messed up in the horse brain to remember that they had ever belonged to either side. The Punches erupted into jubilant chaos. Laughing and hugging and singing so hard, it put our former celebrations to shame. The whole thing was a clusterfuck - a mishmash of unbridled joy and solemn reverence.

Underneath it all was this feeling of urgency. An unspoken truth. Whatever else happened, that place – that moment in time – it was pivoty.

It was up to all of us to make it count.

The folks lucky enough to have Pip Bucks fidgeted with them frantically. Those with business to attend to carried it out. Hustled back-and-forth. Everyone else just kept their spirits up, and occupied their time celebrating. There was a lot to be hopeful for.

Wormwood stood there watching it all. Observing it all. 'Till finally, she put her hoof down, and turned to me.

"A moment alone," she said.

The colonel stared down her muzzle at me, eyes like granite.

"Uh..."

"Come on."

She put a hoof on my shoulder and escorted me down the hill.

I wasn't sure what she wanted from me exactly, but I was pretty sure it'd have something to do with the whole stolen folder, lying-to-everypony-about-the-Rangers'-attack-plan thing.

We made our way down a little path. Together in awkward silence. It was a small strip of earth that ran along the side of the hill, devoid of pointy wire, and steep declines, and all that stuff.

* * *

"This'll do." Said Wormwood at last.

She led me to the charred remains of an old tree stump. A little oasis of relative privacy. Everything about her - the tightness in her lips, the tension in her gait - radiated cold disapproval. It hit me so hard my knees wobbled.

"Listen, um...I'm sorry, I uh..." Before I could get a proper ramble going, Wormwood cut me off.

"Not a word about the transmission." She said without deigning to look at me.

She was studying the valley.

"Oh, uh. I wasn't going to say anything, I swear. Really. I wasn't! But, uh...I don't get it. How are you going to --;"

"Rose Petal, do you know why I arranged to have you put in protective custody rather than simply throwing you into the brig with Private Sterile Field?"

"What?"

Wormwood just looked at me. Waited for my reply.

I thought about it. I had originally presumed she had done it because I wasn't a potato, or maybe just because she felt like being a bitch. Then, after I'd found out about the transmission and her plan, I'd just sort of presumed that Wormwood had been 'saving who she could.'

I had a lot of theories, but looking up at that stareitty stare, every word turned to dust in my throat. My courage failed me. "Uh...um...uhhh...."

"Because you're a pain in the fucking ass," said the colonel.

I held my hoof up and opened my mouth to protest, but no words came out. There really was no refuting it. I was, in fact, a colossal pain in the ass.

"I need you to do something." She said. "They need you to do something." She gestured at the thousands of ponies singing below. At the trees that they hovered around. At the candles.

"Okay." I said.

"I need you to trust me."

The request took me by surprise. My heart quickened. My throat dried up some more. It was a lot like finding out you have a pop quiz, only deadly.

I didn't know if I could trust her. I didn't know how I felt about anything. The past half hour or so had thrown all of my feelings into a great big sloppy old egg beater, and where Wormwood was concerned, I couldn't even tell up from down anymore.

"What's the plan?" I said.

"I can't tell you, which is why I need you to trust me."

"Oh."

I watched the lights below. Thought about it long and hard. Looked up at the night sky, as though it would have an answer.

I wanted to promise her. Tried to promise her.

But I couldn't.

It wasn't that I thought she was up to no good – wasn't that I distrusted her. But the need to know was stronger.

I turned away in shame. I couldn't promise anything. I just didn't have that soldiers' blood in my veins. That part of you that can follow orders and not be a giant pain in everypony's ass.

The thing is: I really, really, really, really, really did believe that her heart was in the right place, but something in me couldn't just follow her blindly.

"Well, what's the basic outline of the plan?" I laughed nervously. "Can you at least tell me that?"

Wormwood sighed. Sat down, leaned against that tree stump, and started messing with her Pip Buck.

"Hold that thought." She said.

"Um...okay."

"Paper Pusher, this is Colonel Wormwood, do you read me? Over."

There was no response at first. We both sorta hung around waiting.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Do you remember when I had you courier those papers to the clerks' office down the hall from my office? Well, by now, he's gotten word of our truce down here. Several of my officers were in that crowd." Wormwood gestured at the top of the hill. "Some of them I'm sure have paged headquarters by now, either for a sit rep, or to rat me out to the brass, and lay down the groundwork for staging a coup."

"Cockwaffles!"

I hadn't even thought of that.

"This is a conversation I'd prefer you stick around for." The colonel added unexpectedly.

I raised an eyebrow at her. Why would she want me around? I thought. It didn't make any sense. Wormwood didn't even like me. Is this some kind of stunt to try to get me to trust her? Show off her best side? What? Why? What the hell is going on?

"It's not a stunt." Wormwood rolled her eyes. "I was going to make this call anyway. If I tried to do it in private, you would have only assumed the worst, and become an even bigger pain in my ass."

Wow. I thought to myself. Am I really that predictable?

"Yes, Rose." Wormwood said dryly. "You really are that predictable."

A few crackles later, a tinny voice came out of her Pip Buck. "Sergeant Paper Pusher here. I read you, colonel. This channel is secure. Over."

It was the old stallion, alright. The clerk.

"No doubt you've heard by now about my truce." Said Wormwood. "Over."

The wrist-a-majig fizzed into silence for a few moments, as we awaited the old guy's reply.

"Oh, yeah. I got a whole slew of messages from some of the steelfolks down there. Over."

Wormwood waited a moment before replying. She gazed at the Hearth's Warming trees below.

"You know what I plan to do then. Over."

"Reckon you'll be evoking the Steelhooves Clause of Conscience. Been decades since anypony has needed to. Over."

"Yes." Wormwood replied. "I reckon you'll be siding with high command. Over."

"It's been my pleasure and honor to serve you, ma'am, but, yes, I reckon I will. Over."

I recalled the old stallion's speech about the ways of the world. About everyone wanting to be their own Littlepip. About the disaster of the notion.

"I have a favor to ask regarding the prisoners." Said Wormwood. "Private Sterile Field and Private Pumpkin Scone. Have their charges been filed? With the Rangers splitting down the middle, as I imagine they might, and the headquarters being of strategic value to both factions, their fates remain somewhat precarious, and I would like my last order as your commanding officer to be their release. Over."

I would like. Wormwood was a commander of thousands - Paper Pusher's boss - and still she addressed the old stallion with humility and respect.

For a good long while, the colonel's Pip Buck was silent. I reckoned Paper Pusher was thinking out his reply. Wormwood breathed deeply and waited, but didn't let so much as an eyelash twitch 'till her Pip Buck crackled to life once again.

"I am deeply sorry, ma'am, but you know that, under the current circumstances, to recognize your authority would be an act of treason, and a betrayal of my duty. I hope you understand. Over."

Wormwood hung her head. Squeezed her eyes shut. Hard. It was not for show.

"However," the clerk continued. "It just so happens that before you called, their arrest records were misplaced."

Wormwood picked her head up.

"Private Pumpkin Scone and Private Sterile Field were released a short while ago on a technicality. They should be on their way to the trenches right now. Over."

Wormwood squinted at the Pip Buck in disbelief. As though she could somehow stare the device down until it told her the truth.

"How?"

"It's these paper records, ma'am. Haven't quite gotten the hang of them yet. Just one doc' ends up in the wrong folder. And they could take weeks to find...Months even."

Wormwood clasped a hoof over her mouth to hide a smile.

"You're a good pony." She said.

"Me? Nah. I'm just getting too old to remember where I put things. Over."

"Happy Hearth's Warming." Said Wormwood. "It is been a privilege and an honor. Over and out."

She grinned wide. A real smile. Closed her eyes and sighed in relief.

I noticed her folder was clutched against her chest again. She hugged it tight without even realizing she was doing it.

And then, just like that, the moment was gone and it was back to business again.

"It's going to get ugly, Rose." She said. "Every mare and stallion in the corps is going to have to choose. And they deserve to know, but not tonight. Let them have tonight."

I nodded. “So you need me to keep my mouth shut 'till tomorrow.”

“I’ve got a plan. And you, regrettably, have a part to play in it. But they have to find out at just the right moment. In just the right way.” She pointed down at the revelry of the revelers. “Or it all falls apart, you understand? You have to trust me, and follow my lead. Or it all falls apart.”

“I do trust you.” I said. “It’s just--;”

“No,” Wormwood said sternly. “You’re a terrible liar, and you’ll fuck it up if you try.”

“Hay!” I snapped at her even though I knew she was right. “You gotta lotta nerve!"

“That may be so, Rose,” said Wormwood, cool as a cucumber. “But take a look down there. Take a good hard look.”

She pointed to a couple of corns roughhousing with the potatoes. And a bunch of Berry Punches next to them, caterwauling all up and down the valley.

“You’ve done a beautiful thing here. But do you really think you have the know-how to turn that into a lasting peace?”

I had no smart answers.

Her Pip Buck made another buzz sound. Totally out of nowhere. The colonel hit a button on it.

"Wormwood here. Secure channel. Over."

"Me again, colonel. Over but not out," said Paper Pusher. "One more thing needs discussing. Over."

"Yes, sergeant, what is it? Over."

"While I would never dream of interfering with the prerogative of the high command, and of course, no longer recognize you as my commanding officer, there are certain initiatives I fulfilled before I was made officially aware of your insubordination, and those actions are technically a matter of public record for any member of the corps, which, treason or no, you still happen to be. Over."

Wormwood wrinkled her nose and cocked an eyebrow.

"Go on."

"Well, colonel, I recalled you were having difficulties with the transmitters. Getting messages to or from high command. And when I got wind that you were having trouble down there in No Mare's Land, I took it upon myself to rush a work order down to maintenance. Ordered all the transmitters taken apart, and reassembled with whatever spare parts we had over down in supply."

Wormwood's face lit up like a child on Hearth's Warming morning. With the transmitters down, whatever loyalists remained behind in the Applejack Ranger Corps would be unable to reach high command.

"I apologize sincerely, ma'am. In my youthful haste to communicate our predicament, I ordered them all taken down at once. Damn foolish of me. It'll be 72 hours at least before we can establish communication. Last they heard from us was a confirmation of receipt of their transmission that I sent on your behalf this morning."

A wicked smile stretched across Wormwood's face. I almost thought she was going to start hopping up and down like a foal at a Sapphire Shores concert.

"Thank you." She said. "It's been an honor, old friend."

"Only doing my duty, ma'am. Over and out."

The colonel's Pip Buck fizzled for a second longer before going totally silent.

* * *

Wormwood leapt to her hooves. Examined the valley of decorated trees. The top of the hill. Looked up at the sky. Punched something or other into her Pip Buck by mashing buttons with her face.

"Colonel," I said.

She stopped. That actually caught her attention. I had never called her 'colonel' before.

"It'd be an honor." I stood upright. Tried to give her the respect I felt she deserved. But it came out weird. I wasn't used to that sort of thing. I lifted my front hoof halfway off the ground. I kind of wanted to salute, but didn't because It made me feel like a dork. "You know, to...trust you. Um, ma'am."

"Don't be shy." She said. "I knew you'd come around once you saw the truth."

"Hmmph!" I stomped. "What truth is that?"

I may have trusted her, but I still didn't like being condescended to.

"That I am an even bigger pain in the ass than you are." She said, totally deadpan. "Come on."

She led the way down that path. Down into the valley with all the trees and candles. The pivoty-est place in all of Equestria.

Author's Note

Special thanks to Seraphem and Michael for your valuable feedback!

Where We Went Wrong

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - WHERE WE WENT WRONG

“You can beat us with wires, you can beat us with chains, you can run out your rules.

But you know you can't outrun the history train.” -Paul Simon

Since I got to No Mare's Land, all those crazy voices and stuff had only given me three messages: get to the door; get it - the folder - to No Mare's Land; and once there, get it to the door.

That's all.

The truce wasn't destined. It wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't even something we tried to make happen. It just sorta, you know, happened.

And Wormwood. What if I had told everyone about Attack Plan R back there when the wall drew its guns on Colonel Wormwood? The voices had never told me to keep that to myself. But I'd choked. And look what happened!

There we were - the colonel and I, going downhill - down into the candlelit valley - down to try to carve out a peace for all of Equestria.

Because we had made friends.

* * *

"How are we gonna find Sprinkles?" I asked.

There were an awful lot of ponies down below in the clearings - thousands of them. Even as we made our way down that tiny secluded little pass, I could see at least a hundred more pouring down the hill. The valley bustled with hopeful ponies, eager for a truce. And the candlelit forest was already too damn big to find Sprinkles in.

Wormwood blinked. Ignored my question. Like she was trying to drive me crazy on purpose.

"What?" I said.

The colonel turned to me, mischief in her eyes. Smugness blasting off of her like pollen from a dandelion being dangled out the window of a moving train.

"Fucking what?" I snapped.

She held up her wrist and showed off her Pip Buck. "I dropped a tracking device in the folder."

Sweet Celestia! The folder.

That missing medal of honor wasn't inside – still wasn't accounted for.

I got dizzy. Terrified. Nauseous.

What if I had fucked everything up? Lost her son's irreplaceable medal of honor?

Fuck! I had spent so much time and energy trying to figure out if I could trust Colonel Wormwood. What if I was the one unworthy of her trust?

I gulped.

"So you have a pretty good idea what's in there, then?" My throat was so dry, my tongue tasted like ash.

"Yup." The colonel kept her eyes on the valley. Studied it. Interrogated it in her mind.

"What about me?" I asked. "The, uh...tracking device - is that how you found me when I came out of –;"

"No. You caught me by surprise," said Wormwood. "Did I mention you're a real pain in the ass?"

I smiled faintly. I knew I was. But the knowledge didn't give me any joy.

Not anymore.

The colonel stopped. Quit scanning the landscape altogether, and turned to me studiously. She wasn't stupid. She knew I was keeping something from her. Knew that I wished I didn't have to.

"We should go down there soon to meet up with Sprinkles," she said suspiciously, never prying those stareitty eyes from me.

I nodded silently.

* * *

On the way down, I actually learned a little bit of Wormwood's plan. Not the part of it that I wasn't supposed to know. A peek into the Colonel's mind - what she was actually up to when she went about keeping the rest of us in the dark.

"Colonel! Colonel!"

Sam the Gryphon landed in front of us, obstructing our path.

"Colonel, a moment please?"

Wormwood looked him up and down, and raised an eyebrow.

Snap. A look of terror stretched over the gryphon's face. He suddenly remembered himself. Stood upright, saluted, and stepped aside.

Wormwood kept walking. I followed.

"At ease." She called out over her shoulder.

"Permission to speak freely, ma'am."

"Granted."

Sam took to hovering, treading air beside us.

"I have concerns about your choice of meeting spot for the negotiations." He said.

"Do you?"

"If the corns decide to attack, they'll have the high ground. If we gather in the valley, they can sweep in and take that hill, and we'll all be sitting ducks."

Wormwood didn't react. Didn't respond. Left Sam in a sort of awkward silence where he was forced to finish what he had to say.

"Uh...You see, Colonel Candyheart is a hard mare. And General Sun Sparkle won't get the message until it's too late. They won't want to negotiate a truce in front of their troops. Puts them on the spot, since the soldiers want peace, and they want war. I think Candyheart might just be willing to take a few losses and fire artillery into the crowd. She's just that kind of bloodthirsty, you know what I'm saying?" Sam laughed nervously. "With your permission, ma'am, I would like to discreetly position a few well armed steel ponies up top, just in case."

"Denied."

"But--;"

"Your objections have been noted, and permission denied. This is a peace negotiation. I will not have my troops visibly readying for battle"

"We can be discreet."

"I picked the valley for a reason, corporal. And we are all to be in it. You. Me. The well-armed steel ponies, the infantry. Everyone. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal, ma'am."

"Good." She said. "I'm placing you personally in charge. See to it that they all make it down there."

Sam frowned. His top beak and bottom beak scraped against one another. But he nodded. Perched on the ledge. Stood at attention. Saluted.

Wormwood stopped. Looked him up and down.

"One more thing," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

She reached out and placed a steel hoof on his shoulder

"Make some friends out there, soldier."

The gryphon cocked his head like some kind of confused parrot.

"That's an order."

* * *

After Sam was gone, I meditated on it a bit. Got worried.

"Colonel?"

"Yes?" She answered dryly.

"Is what he said true?"

"Corporal Sam is a brilliant battlefield tactician. Yes, it's true."

She waited for me to ask the obvious question: Why didn't you listen to him, then?

But I waited longer. 'Till she was forced to finish that thought on her own.

"Sam doesn't know ponies," said Wormwood. "Colonel Candyheart has a reputation for being cold, calculating, and brutal. But I have studied her career carefully, and her tactics are always heartless in their pragmatism.

"Firing into the crowd would not further her bottom line. She would view the peace as a stepping stone. A means to getting inside the Crystal Empire. Her second in command is who we have to worry about. Colonel Candyheart is sick, if my intel is accurate, and Major Pickle Barrel is young and anxious to prove himself. He is the sort who would, in fact, fire into the crowd, simply because it's what he believes Colonel Candyheart would want him to do."

"So...why?”

"Why not follow Corporal Sam's advice?"

I nodded.

Wormwood gave me inscrutable-face.

"If the corns do go that route, and I'm not saying that they necessarily will, everyone is going to scatter when they fire. Rush for safety. If anyone is left up on top of that hill, the Twilight Society soldiers will make for their own trenches in the chaos."

She walked three-legged for a moment to extend a hoof and point at the landscape below.

"Down in the valley, those trees will block the way, leaving only one path of retreat: our trenches. Having been betrayed by their own leadership, the disenfranchised corns will turn to us. I just called openly for a truce. They will view me as a leader in the fight for peace, which is what they want. Our numbers will double. We will gain the advantage without having to take a single shot."

"So your plan is to turn the potatoes, uh...into corns?"

"Oh, dear Celestia, no." She said. "But If we make enough friends, we might just win a few rogue officers. Which is all we'll need."

I looked down into the valley. Looked hard. Tried to picture it in my mind. I was no tactician, but her plan seemed like it would work. I could picture the masses of ponies stampeding - see it all going down in my head exactly as the colonel said it would. And then a sickening thought hit me.

I was just like one of them.

Even the simple act of trying to imagine how thousands of ponies might respond to a crisis had made me, just for a moment, start to think of those masses like checker pieces to be moved around on a great big board. I had only been looking down from a hill for about fifteen minutes, but it was already super easy to forget what it's like to be on the bottom.

What hope did any of us have at all if the ones in charge were, by default, always destined to be so fucking far away?

I felt like throwing up.

My stomach was too empty to try.

"I pray it doesn't come to that," said the Colonel.

"Me too." I said solemnly.

* * *

We were near the bottom now. Ponies everywhere. Packed into the clearing. Candlelit trees walled everyone off from retreat into the corns' trenches.

I used our last few minutes of privacy to press the Colonel. Something that had been eating at my me.

"Why didn't you tell all of this to Sam?"

"Because he'd doubt me. He would follow his orders of course, but his mind would be scrambled the whole time with every possible scenario under which my plan could go wrong. If he knows nothing of my reasoning, he is forced to trust me."

"To believe that your reason must be a good one." I muttered to myself in shock and awe.

Bananas Foster's words.

"Yes." Wormwood smiled. "If things go south tonight, and the corns start firing, Sam will see exactly why I made the decision, and he will lead the retreat to our trenches with newfound gusto and enthusiasm."

Wormwood saw me furrowing my brow, contemplatizing real hard.

"Here's the best part." The colonel talked like Miss Cheerilee does when explaining a difficult math lesson. "Sam will realize that I had thought of scenarios that he hadn't, and presume that I know more than I actually do - that there are far more machinations at play than there actually are.

"He will get everypony safely into our trenches, and he will do a better job of it because he'll believe in what he's doing. And believe that my reasons must be, as you say, good ones."

She let that sink in a minute.

It made perfect logical totally symmetrical sense. But I couldn't help but feel sorry for Sam. I knew what it felt like to get jerked around by forces outside of my control.

"Do you understand now how important it is to know ponies?"

Again with that teacherly attitude. It was weird.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" I asked.

"Because," she replied, "You're a natural leader."

Clip clop

Clip clop.

"You're kidding."

She looked at me with a sort of benevolent scorn. Wormwood did not kid. Ever.

"A good tactician," she said. "Plans with her head. A good officer leads with her heart, or no one will follow her plans in the first place, no matter how many stars or bars are on their shoulders. You're going to go far, Rose Petal. I can tell. But you've got to work on the planning with your head part." She looked out over the valley. Her turn to get all gaze-y. "It could save your life someday."

My thoughts went straight to Sub Mine F.

To the lies I had told Strawberry Lemonade that had almost gotten her killed because she refused to leave her console.

To the time I almost lead everypony down the wrong tunnel. "Seventh? Second? What's the difference? I'm Rose Petal. I can smell the future. Everything will be fine!" It felt wrong.

"Can I ask you a question?" I said.

Wormwood looked at me impatiently. Everyone knows the answer to that is always yes.

I took a deep breath. Shrunk back a bit. I didn't have the nerve to look Wormwood in the eye. Not for what was on my mind.

"Um...When you are, you know, leading, did you ever make mistakes? Like really bad ones?"

Even as the words tumbled from my mouth, I realized I was being an insensitive jackass.

"No, I mean... Cause I did." I added hastily. "I...tried leading, and it went badly. And I was just wondering how you, um..."

"It never stops hurting."

"Oh."

Wormwood was a statue again. Her voice. Her posture. Cold as ice. "All you can do is look for a light. And fight like hell to get to it."

"I see."

The two of us were silent the rest of the way down.

* * *

Sprinkles met me with a hug. Just wham. Blind-sided me out of nowhere. Again.

Before I could so much as oof, she had a bunched up old blanket grinding against my mane. "Noogies."

"Hey!"

I wrestled free, grabbed that blanket with my teeth, and tossed it onto the floor with a whipping motion of my head.

"Engg!"

I squirmed out from under Sprinkles, leapt up to fend her off. Ready to tell her I wasn't in the mood. But she turned away from me.

Lunged right at Wormwood. Just sort of wrapped herself around the colonel's chest.

By the time I stretched out, brushed myself off, and swiped my disheveled mane out of my face, Sprinkles was already way ahead, tugging at the colonel's uniform, leading her through the forest of candlelit Hearth's Warming trees.

"Come on!" She shouted. "We're almost there."

And then they both disappeared into the "forest."

* * *

I followed. Slowly. They had found some sort of path because Sprinkles knew the way. But I had no clue what I was doing. I was lost. I had to weave my way through just to keep from knocking into any of the branches.

"Hello?" I called out, but nopony answered.

I kept wriggling around and tip-hooving. 'Till, at last, the trees got too close together. Up close, I could see each "candle" burning. Twigs tied to pine branches with twine and wire, kept alight with magic flames.

"Sprinkles?" I called out. "Wormwood?"

"He he hee!" Echoey laughter coming from out of nowhere.

I spun around. Found myself face-to-face with one of the candles.

I could swear It was looking right at me.

"Whoa."

I leaned in closer, and stared into its blue fire.

There was a whispering voice behind it, but I couldn't make out any of the words. Its message was not for me.

"Hey there." I said.

"Shut the fuck up, Rose." A voice snapped at me from below.

I looked down, and kneeling there on the other side of the very same tree, was Sprinkles, right next to Colonel Wormwood.

"Oh, I uh--;"

"Sshhh!"

Colonel Wormwood gripped a stick between her hooves. It wasn't even lit yet. But she wrinkled her forehead and focused on the tip intensely. Like she was trying to stare it down or something.

I realized then that everypony else – every single one of us – had had some chance to celebrate our loved ones. To celebrate Hearth's Warming. To sing. To play. To mourn.

But Wormwood was all alone.

She had to orchestrate a lasting peace. She had to worry about keeping order. About leading others. Inspiring others. About moving those social chess pieces around.

The world was on her saddle.

Seeing her down there on the ground. Fixated on the tip of the stick. It broke my heart.

After all that she'd done for us that Hearth’s Warming - after all she had done to save Hearth’s Warming - Colonel Wormwood still hadn't had the chance to get into the spirit of it for herself.

She sat there, still as a statue. Focused on her stick. But her breath was soft and shallow. Her eyes big as crystal balls. For a good long time she just stared at the thing. Working up the nerve.

When, finally she was ready, Colonel Wormwood looked up at Sprinkles and gave a nod.

The corn girl bent one of the branches down and used the tip of one of the other "candles" that had been tied there to light Wormwood's stick. The flame was magic so it took pretty easily.

She looked deep into her candlelight. Stoic and still. The wind whipped the flame around. Blew so hard that all the candles swung around on their branches. But the colonel didn't so much as shiver.

She was like a rock with an entire ocean frothing around her. She just sat there. Watching the fire.

Then, out of the blue, she just plain collapsed. Slammed her own head into the ground. And huddled there. Sobbing. Wailing. She pounded her giant steel hooves on the frozen dirt.

And shrieked so loud and so shrill, it sent shivers across my spine.

I started crying. Sprinkles too.

It was awful. Just too fucking awful.

I reached out to put a hoof on Wormwood's shoulder, but just sorta stood there trembling. Wormwood heaved and pressed her head against the ground, huddling there, shaking like pudding. I wanted so bad to do something. To reach out. To comfort her. To touch her shoulder. Anything. I looked to Sprinkles. But she was terrified.

"Why couldn't it have been me?" Wormwood whimpered. "It should have been me."

“No.” I said to myself.

Staggered backwards into a tree.

The shadow things. The ones who’d come to me as victims of Sub Mine F. That was what they had said.

"It should have been you, Rose Petal. It should have been you."

Wormwood let it all out. Her cries trailed off into a gentle heaving, and when she was finally done, she looked up. And froze. Something in the candle had caught her eye.

She leaned in closer. Stared at it in amazement. Looked at that flickering light with the eyes of a foal seeing a firefly for the first time.

Then, she just nodded in silence. Looked up at Sprinkles. Desperate.

"Can I have the folder please?" She said meekly.

Sprinkles nodded hurriedly and thrust it at her. Wormwood grabbed the folder. Untied the ribbon with her teeth, and prodded it open with her face. Then she pulled out the wooden box with her teeth. The empty wooden box.

Oh, no. Oh fuck. Oh, fucking no.

"Luna help her." I whispered.

"Um...I, I--;"

I tried to find the words to explain, but she opened the lid before I could figure out what to say.

"No." She whispered.

"I--; I didn't mean to--;"

Wormwood plunged her face into the folder. Sifted through it.

"No. No. No! No, no, no."

She dug, and dug, and dug, and dug, and dug. 'Till suddenly she jerked her head upward, having realized what I had just said.

"Rose?"

Uh-oh.

"Didn't mean to what?"

"It's, you see, I --;"

"Rose," she said weakly. "What did you do?"

The whole walk back from the door, I'd dreaded that Wormwood would find out that that medal was missing, and go fucking berserk at me. Get real mad and just annihilate me. But when I heard that voice crack - saw that frailty in her - I wished that she would get angry. Yearned for her to go berserk at me instead.

"I-- the medal, I don't know what happened it...I--;"

"Medal? Geez, I'm soooooo sorry." Sprinkles interrupted.

"You're sorry?" This was starting to get confusing.

"I didn't mean to upset you," said Sprinkles. "Honest, I didn't. I just sorta found it on the ground when you dropped your folder up there on the top of the hill."

"You found it?" Wormwood and I exclaimed at the same time.

"It spilled out, and I picked it up and I took it, and I got an idea and--;"

"Where is it now?" Said Wormwood.

Sprinkles pointed up. "I'm really, really, really, really sorry." She said. "It was supposed to be a surprise. I shoulda asked."

I followed the direction of her hoof. Wormwood did too.

And there it was: a yellow and red crystal star attached to a ribbon. Crowning the top of the Hearth's Warming tree. Shining with the light of all the candles.

The colonel brought her hooves to her mouth. A smile stretched itself across her face.

She got up off the ground. Fresh tears ran down her cheeks.

I drew closer to get a better look. It was so small - that star. It seemed quaint on top of that big old pine tree. But when it caught the candlelight, it seemed to sing.

"Whoa."

The colonel put a hoof on my shoulder.

"Happy Hearth's Warming." She said softly.

"Happy Hearth's Warming." I got all choked up. Even as the words left my mouth. I leaned against her chest. "Happy Hearth's Warming." I blubbered again like a fool.

She put a hoof over my mane. Drew me closer. Her overcoat was itchy as hell. But I didn't want to pull away. So the two of us just sorta stood there for a good long while.

Up 'till that moment, there were only two ponies in all of Equestria who could hug me like that and make me feel safe – actually safe. Roseluck, and Mom. Colonel Wormwood made three.

"Does this mean I'm not in trouble?" Sprinkles butted in.

Wormwood and I stopped. Finally withdrew from our hug. Looked at one another. Then looked at Sprinkles. Then looked at one another yet again.

This strange surreal silence hung over the three of us.

Then, boom. We all broke into a fit of hysterical laughter. Even Wormwood.

* * *

We hung out there for a good long while admiring the medal. Wormwood, Sprinkles, and me.

I wanted to tell her that her son had been lucky to have her as a mother. But she would have withdrawn into her guilt. I wanted to tell her that he would have wanted her to move on, but I had never even met the kid. And even in my head it sounded so generic. I must have played a hundred different condolences in my head, but each time, it came out wrong. So I shut up. And admired the star.

"What was he like?" Sprinkles blurted out.

"Stubborn." Wormwood looked down at her candle. "First, he didn't want to enlist in the corps. His passion was mathematics. Pre-war academia. He was working on a dissertation on something called Moondancer's Constant when the war broke out. Then, the Crystal Empire showed up and the corns did their thing. And all of a sudden, he was gung ho, passionate for 'the cause.'

'All those books. All that ancient wisdom. He couldn't bear the thought of it rotting in some Twilight Society vault."

The colonel stopped to admire the star.

"He even offered to conduct an interdisciplinary study with the brains over at the University of Manehattan. Their magic, our tech, his math. It was a good idea."

"Why didn't it work?" Sprinkles asked.

"They turned him down." Wormwood shook her head. "He enlisted the next day."

Wormwood closed her eyes. Turned away from the tree. I put my hoof on hers. She patted me in thanks.

"What about your friend, Butterscotch?" Wormwood said out of the blue, changing the subject completely. "What was Butterscotch like?"

"Oh, she was a total bitch." Said Sprinkles with a smile.

Wormwood flung her eyes open. She had not been expecting to hear that.

"But she was a bitch to the right ponies." Sprinkles continued. “She once saw this stallion make fun of Orange Peel...Orange Peel is this guy who stutters a lot, by the way. And Butterscotch waited till the jerk was asleep. She stole his blanket just to watch him shiver."

Sprinkles shook her head and sighed. "She was the whole reason I got the idea later on to really start staying on top of the blanket situation. She uh...gave me the evidence to stash that night, you know the stolen blanket, and I went way, way, way, way further down the trenches, and gave it to someone who was shivering bad because they had torn their coat."

"You're a good kid." Said Wormwood.

"Thanks."

"One of the good ones." I muttered to myself.

"What?" Sprinkles asked me.

"Nothing." I smiled faintly. "Twinkle Eyes would have liked you."

* * *

"Come on, girls." Said Wormwood at last, ever the practical one. "It's time to go."

She rose to her hooves, and straightened her lapels. Picked her "candle" up between her hooves, and tied it to one of the branches with some kind of wire.

"Be seeing you," she whispered, and kissed it good night.

Colonel Wormwood gathered both her wits and belongings while Sprinkles levitated the medal of honor off the top of the tree. It glided gently down into Wormwood's hooves.

She grabbed it, held it tight. Nurtured it.

"For all of our fights, I still think he just wanted to know I was proud of him."

"Are you?" I asked.

Wormwood nodded.

"He was very brave." I said.

"I know. Brave for refusing to enlist when I pushed him to. Braver still for chasing that stupid math dream. And most of all, for coming back to the corps. Even though I know it cost him pride. But he believed in the cause. Everything that boy did, he did for the right reasons." She said. "If only they gave out medals for integrity."

"What's that one for?"

"Dying." She said bluntly, as she tucked it into her breast pocket.

Colonel Wormwood made her way through the "forest," back toward the clearing. Sprinkles and I followed.

* * *

When at last, we came to the end of the trees, and stood facing the clearing, we saw ponies hustling and bustling everywhere. An irate greycoat corn officer stood in the center of it all.

He was yelling at somepony or another to straighten up their posture. Looking daggers at another. Barking orders at one of the stumbling, hiccupy Berry Punch types in his regiment. Every corn within a quarter mile radius tensed up around the stallion.

“Major Pickle Barrel? They sent him to negotiate?" Sprinkles cried.

"Is that the young, eager to prove himself guy?" I tried to ask, but got interrupted.

"He's a fucking douche," said Sprinkles.

Wormwood furrowed her brow.

"The good news is: he's not firing into the crowd. The bad news is: he's the only one here, which means he was sent with very specific instructions," She turned to me. "Scripted responses to projected scenarios. He can't authorize the kind of truce we need,"

"The bad news is, he's a fucking douche." said Sprinkles.

It was a side of the girl I’d never seen before.

"Watch him carefully, Rose. You see how his infantrymares scurry? It's because they are eager to appear busy, and get as far away from him as possible."

She was getting all teacher-y at me again.

"Because he is a Luna-damn douche," said Sprinkles.

Wormwood watched Major Pickle Barrel grimly. Didn't so much as blink. Just watched and studied. Then her eyes went suddenly wide for reasons I couldn't begin to guess.

She fidgeted first with the pocket her son's service medal was in. Dug around in there. Got it safe and secure. Then pulled her head out, stared straight ahead into nothing, and spoke up as if in a trance.

"Sprinkles, I have a job for you," she said, almost zombie-like.

"What?”

Wormwood fixed her eyes on the corn major at the center of the distant clearing. "In my saddlebag is a hard drive. It has vital information."

The colonel plunged her face into her bag, and pulled out a small black rectangle on a string. She draped it lovingly over Sprinkles' head. Like it were a ribbon in one of those awards ceremonies at the end of the Equestria Games.

"There's an alicorn on the far end of this field. Answers to 'Big Blue.' Looks like Luna. Can't miss her. It is very, very important that you get this to her. Can you do that?"

"Yeah, but--;"

Wormwood kissed the top of Sprinkles' forehead.

"Go."

Sprinkles saluted. For real. It no longer mattered that she was a corn, and Wormwood was a potato. She saluted like a true soldier, and disappeared into the crowd.

"Luna," she called out. "Big Bluuuue."

Once Sprinkles was gone, Wormwood turned to me. She was back to being the hard lady. As grim as a gravestone.

"Follow me." She said.

* * *

We made our way through the crowd. There were so many ponies everywhere that Wormwood and I hardly stood out, but folks got out of our way once they saw us up close.

"It's her." One of them whispered.

"Hurry. Move!" Said another.

The colonel carried herself like a princess. Held her head high and kept looking straight ahead, eye always on the prize.

Me, I just got all nervous and paranoid. Every eyeball that stared at me made me just want to slip back in those trenches, and bury myself in a pile of blankets. But I couldn't. I had given them all away.

* * *

Finally, we came to a clearing. A great big circle of ponies gathered around Major Pickle Barrel - infamous douche. Everypony watching kept their distance.

We made it to the very edge of the circle. The final pony cleared out of our way, mouth full of apologies.

Wormwood looked all around. Studied everything.

"What's the plan?" I asked.

She looked me square in the eye. Irises like pin drops.

"You're one of the good ones." She said.

"What?"

"Plan with your head, lead with your heart."

"What?"

Then Wormwood stepped out into the clearing for all to see. A wave of whispers and murmurs moved its way through the crowd from front to back.

"What?" I said again. "That's it?!"

I tried to follow her into the clearing. She threw a hoof up to block me.

"No!" She snapped.

I would have asked a bunch more questions – pressed the issue further, but Wormwood and Pickle Barrel were in a staring contest now - one I dared not interrupt.

The colonel crossed the clearing with dignity, one rigid step at a time.

What had she meant? Plan with your head, Lead with your heart?

I had no practice at all planning with my head! I couldn't do that!

Was she expecting me to come up with some kinda idea? Was this one of those mind games, like she had done with Sam the Gryphon, where I'm supposed to realize something at just the right moment? And know what to do when that moment came? What if I didn't realize? What if I couldn't? What if I screwed it all up?

By the time Colonel Wormwood was one quarter the way across the clearing, the crowd had hushed.

She was rigid – the colonel - even more than usual. Marching proud, but marching slow.

Pickle Barrel stood at attention. Looked down his nose at Wormwood. The ghost of a smile crinkled at his lips. Dealing with Colonel Wormwood had taught me to notice little things like that. And it didn't add up. Pickle Barrel had been forced to be there. Ordered to be there. And like Wormwood had said, there was no way he was authorized to make real decisions. All Pickle Barrel had done in the short time I had observed him was bark orders and yell a lot.

But now that Wormwood was approaching, the fucking douche was calm. Smug even.

Something wasn't right.

I looked around. At the trees. At the crowd. At the top of the hill.

Nothing.

I watched Colonel Wormwood carefully. Waited for some sign. Some gesture. Like she was gonna spin around any second and call out to me, "Now, Rose! Now! Do it now!"

But there was nothing like that. Nothing at all.

So I watched. And waited.

When I looked closely, I could see a cluster of little red dots of light. They followed Colonel Wormwood and hovered around her mane as she crossed the clearing.

I didn't like them - those little red things. I didn't know exactly what they meant, but I was sure it was nothing good. My stomach turned at the sight of them. They were bad dots.

Wormwood carried on, her regular calm, stoic self. Calmer even. Stoicer.

I couldn't figure it out.

She knew. She had to know. There were bad dots all the fuck over her. But she kept on going. Like nothing was happening at all.

What the hell was her plan?

I watched. And waited. And chewed my filthy mane.

‘Till suddenly, it hit me like a lightning strike to the brain. Colonel Wormwood had sent Sprinkles away to go find Big Blue. But the two of them had never even met. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever! Wormwood knew that something terrible was going to happen. She knew it the second she saw Pickle Barrel out there on the clearing.

She knew. And she didn't want Sprinkles to have to see.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

Plan with your head. Lead with your heart.

Dammit! That wasn't a battle plan, it was a piece of parting advice.

She was halfway across the clearing now. Evil red dots eager to strike.

"Stop! Stop!" I wanted to cry. But if I ran to her. If I yelled, if I flinched, the evil red dots might just strike early.

She was gonna die. In front of everyone.

No, no, no, no, no.

"What do red dots mean?" I turned to the corn next to me.

He was useless. He just leaned forward. Mouth agape. They all did. Thirsty for peace. I hadn't seen anyone that eager since those cider sales ponies had come by and whipped the whole town into a state of excitement. We had all gotten so damn thirsty and so damn excited we'd burst into song.

Wait! That's it! I thought. A song

Twelve Days of Hearth's Warming? Too annoying.

Rest Ye Merry Gentlecolts? Too sombre.
Jingle Bells? Too jingly.

Fuck. My brain went blank. De-brainified.

Then a voice came out of nowhere and beat me to it.

"Deck this barn with boughs of holly." A stranger sang softly.

And No Mare's Land was quiet.

Wormwood stopped. For just a fraction of a second. Her ear twitched with excitement.

"Tis the Season to be jolly," she sang out out in a bold, if somewhat atonal voice.

Unlike the stranger in the crowd, Wormwood's singing carried all the way across the valley. I could even hear the echo.

"Don we now our gay apparel." She continued.

And left an empty space in the song.

But the crowd was too stunned to sing along. There was this weird space between the lyrics. It wasn't right. We needed more than that. Wormwood had kept me along rather than sending me off like Sprinkles. She was counting on me. I needed, for the sake of my friends, and for the good of all pony kind, to be a gigantic pain in the ass.

"Fa la-la, fa la-la, la la la!" I answered as loudly as I could.

Downright shouted it.

A smirk made its way across the colonel's face.

"Toll the ancient Hearth's Tide Carol," she sang.

"Fa la la la la, la la la la." A few more of us replied.

"Come on, everypony!" I yelled. "Louder!"

The smile faded from Pickle Barrel's face. He looked to the highground eagerly. Impatient-like. But nothing happened.

The singing just grew stronger, and stronger, and stronger. Even the little red dots shook and wavered. Major Pickle Barrel stood there. Dumbstruck while the crowd thundered with Fa's and La's. This was not a part of his script.

He muttered something panicky into his Pip Buck. Freaked the fuck out at it in whispers. 'Till suddenly, the dots quietly went away.

"Sing we joyous all together..."

We took to stomping in rhythm. All of us. I don't know who started that one either, but it caught on, and caught on fast.

Boom boom boom boom. Three thousand hoofstomps shaking the very earth. You could feel it. From the look on his face, Major Pickle Barrel could feel it too.

His twitchy eyes watched the highground.

Even I was starting to get a little nervous. With every stomp, the impact pounded deep in my chest.

Boom boom boom boom boom!

Then Wormwood got to the middle of the circle, and the song came to an end. We all joined in a great big old rally of, “Fa la la la la la la la la,” and cheered. But the stomping kept on going.

Stomps of joy. Hope. Anticipation. With the singing gone, it had an edge to it too.

Boom! Anger in our hooves.

Pickle Barrel was so startled by the raw power of it, that he jumped backward.

Doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom.

We continued.

Yeah! I thought.

You.

Better.

Leap. You. Cockwaffle.

Stomp stomp stomp.

That's. What. You. Get. For. Fucking. With. Our. Hearth's. Tide. Cheer.

Colonel Wormwood held up her hoof. With a single gesture, she hushed the entire crowd.

Utter silence.

Pickle Barrel straightened himself up, looked around, put on his best dignified officer mask, and stood perfectly still like he was posing for a photo.

"Happy Hearth's Warming, Major," said Wormwood. "I'm glad you could join us."

"Happy Hearth’s Warming to you too." Pickle Barrel said stiffly. "General Sun Sparkle requests your presence back at headquarters.”

He was anxious to get the fuck out of there.

Wormwood, at first, didn't say a word. Didn't make a motion. Just stood there, making Major Pickle Barrel all the more uncomfortable.

"My son died." She replied at last. "Not two hundred feet from this spot. This is where I stand. This is where I negotiate.”

A reverent silence hung over the air. Potatoes and corns alike.

Pickle Barrel again defaulted to military formality. Got all upright and statue-y.

"I don't have the authority to sign a truce or negotiate terms. If you're serious about peace talks, you are going to have to talk to the general." He held so still he might as well have been made out of marble. "I have orders."

“And I have a gift for you, Major."

"What?"

"A token of friendship. Between the good folks at the Twilight Society and us Applejackoffs."

The crowd busted out laughing. That insult - that word that the Twilight Society had used to deponify the Rangers - in a mere instant, Wormwood had robbed it of all its power. Like magic.

Major Pickle Barrel looked scornfully at the crowd. Potatoes and corns alike. All of us laughing in the face of hate. The major wasn't happy.

Colonel Wormwood buried her face in her coat. Mumbled back at Pickle Barrel with a mouthful of something or other.

"Tell your snipers to ease off so I can get it." She said. "You can disable that force field too, Major. I won't hurt you."

Everyone laughed again.

Pickle Barrel stopped. Blinked. Snuck a few more peaks at the high ground above the valley, then hit some buttons on his Pip Buck as discreetly as he could.

Despite his best efforts, Pickle Barrel was shaking. With anger. Or maybe fear? I couldn't tell. But it all went out the window once Wormwood whipped out that gift.

"This...is the Strawberry Lemonade Medal of Honor," said Colonel Wormwood, clutching the medal with her teeth. "Awarded to my son. He made the ultimate sacrifice, and won the highest honor a Ranger can receive. Now I want you to have it, major."

Pickle Barrel froze. No one dared make a sound. Just the rustling of hundreds of manes. Those in the crowd who had been wearing hats took them off and held them to their chests.

Me? My brain broke. I stood there babbling like a foal.

"S-Straw...Strawberry Lemonade? How? What? Strawberry..."

“Shh.” Said the corn standing next to me.

"Please accept it.” Said Wormwood. “As a symbol of friendship between the Rangers and the Twilight Society, or at least the potential for one.”

The colonel placed the medal into her hoof and held it out for the taking.

Pickle Barrel looked down at it. Eyes like saucers. He was stuck. He couldn’t publicly refuse the medal.

"I..."

He lifted a hoof. Looked left, looked right. Over his shoulder. All around. As though something might swoop in, and relieve him of the responsibility.

But It didn’t. Wormwood was still standing there. Hoof extended. And everyone was still watching. Waiting for him to step up and, for once in his life, not be a total fucking douche.

“I…" He stammered again, but couldn’t muster up a single other word.

Finally, he reached out. Not even with telekinesis, but with his bare hooves. And took it.

“S-Strawberry Lemonade?” I babbled to myself some more.

Turned to the ponies around me to try to get an explanation. The corn to my right was busy watching Pickle Barrel accept the medal.

“Psst, who is Strawberry Lemonade?” I asked the stranger. "Why is she famous?"

But tears flooded the stranger's eyes as the peace unfolded. He didn't say a word.

Fucking useless.

I spun left. One of the potatoes next to me.

“You,” I whisper-shouted. “Strawberry Lemonade! You’ve got to tell me--;”

“Shh!” Said the brown coat mare.

"Arg!"

I turned and watched what she was watching. An extremely awkward scene between Wormwood and Major Pickle Barrel.

“It’s an honor-;” Said the major in his boldest public-speaking-type voice.

He looked down at the medal in his hoof, and levitated it into his pocket.

“I accept.”

Everyone cheered. The corn to my right, out of nowhere, gripped me in a crushing bear hug. I coughed. No sooner than when he dropped me, did I get glomped by the potato to my left. It was utter jubilation.

“My son believed in the cause." Wormwood turned away from Pickle Barrel.

She was speaking to us now. We hushed down to listen.

"He wanted what everyone here wants - to see that door open. The ancient magic. The ancient tech. The ancient wonders."

Wormwood called out. "But we can't get the door open without cooperation. We can't! Not without sharing each other’s expertise. Magic and tech."

There were some general murmurs and nods of approval.

"And what then?" The major spoke up at last. “How do we protect deadly information from falling into the wrong hooves?”

Silence. We had all gotten so wrapped up in that desire for peace - that thirst - that we had forgotten about the actual core disagreement between the potatoes and corns. PIckle Barrel cut through all the lovey-dovey stuff. And he was right. There was no easy answer. We all wanted peace so very, very, very badly. But none of us could even begin to imagine how.

"I'm all for friendship. Who isn't? I'm touched by your gesture. Sorry for your loss. Honestly." He said, as wooden and rigid as an actor in a kindergarten play. "But we're talking about the fate of the world here. That has to take precedent over friendship and wishful thinking."

Corns and potatoes all looked to one another. Mournfully. My throat dropped like a bowling ball into my stomach. That hope. That pivotyness. It was slipping.

"No." Wormwood replied.

She shook her head. "That's where the Ministry Mares went wrong."

Three-thousand heads lifted. Six-thousand eyes widened.

Even Pickle Barrel's. I didn't get the reference, but I could tell it was some kind of checkmate.

"That's where we went wrong." Wormwood shook her head.

A sombre silence hung there over all of us.

"What would you have us do?! Huh?" Snapped the major at last.

He wasn't even angry anymore. He was just plain frustrated. Trying with all his might to get through to us. To be the voice of reason.

Wormwood turned away from Pickle Barrel and looked me in the eye. Just for a second.

“We’re going to have to try.” She said.

She was using my words. Pinkie Pie’s words. It’s worth a try.

"Oh, Luna." I moaned to myself.

Shrunk back. Hid under my collar. No one knew that Wormwood was referencing our conversation, but I still felt like everypony was suddenly watching me.

“It’s what the Lightbringer wanted." Said Wormwood. "It’s what Private Mugwort, my son, would have wanted.”

The colonel took a deep breath.

"Maybe the true test of whether or not we are ready for the responsibility of wielding the relics of the past...is whether or not we have learned from the past." She let that one sink in.

Pickle Barrel was a fool to get sucked into a debate. And he knew it. He'd lost. And he knew it.

"If you won't come to meet with General Sun Sparkle, a moment alone, then?” He said through gritted teeth. "If you would be so kind?"

“Of course.” Wormwood obliged.

Pickle Barrel lifted his head up, spun around, and did that weird canter thing that fancy rich ponies do - you know - where they pick their knees up really high. The two huddled together. Wormwood and Pickle Barrel. They huddled together for a good solid minute, which, in Trying To Find Out If The Lives of Everyone You Know and Love are About to Be Spared time, translates to about a thousand years.

I had no idea how the colonel was going to pull this off. Neither did anyone. Sure, Wormwood could mop the floor with him in a debate. It wouldn't add up to a lasting peace. We could stomp our hooves in unison. Wouldn’t resolve the crisis.

How could it?

Still, we watched them convene in silence. And waited.

“Come on, come on.” I whispered to myself. To the sky. To Luna.

But the huddle just seemed to go on, and on, and on, and on, and on. After a certain point, I don't even think Colonel Wormwood was saying anything. All I could tell was that the major was tense. Nopony can hide that tail swish, no matter how good a liar.

All around me, everyone was the same. Terrified. Thirsty for peace. Desperate. The potato and the corn on either side of me actually huddled together for support. The pivotyness got so damn thick I couldn't breathe. The tides of history were like one great big coin. Spinning and spinning. Teasing whether it was going to come up heads or tails.

Finally, the two officers turned away from one another, and faced us.

Pickle Barrel, with noticeable effort, carried himself with pride. Wormwood just radiated it casually.

The major approached the center of the circle. And found himself standing in his own hoofprints. His head was lifted higher than ever. But he swallowed hard. Licked his lips. Took a deep breath. Kept stealing glances at Wormwood. Major Pickle Barrel was nervous as hell. At last, he turned and addressed the rest of us.

"Fellow Twilight Society soldiers." He said. "Oh, and Applejackoffs too, of course."

He laughed.

No one laughed with him. The wind whipped and whistled through the trenches.

"Eh...There are of course, fine points to be negotiated." Pickle Barrel snuck another glance in Wormwood's direction.

The colonel didn't say a word.

"However, in the common interest of getting that um…door open, we have negotiated a temporary armistice – a cease-fire.” Pickle Barrel looked over his shoulder. Then back at Wormwood again.

“The war is over." He sighed.

And we replied with silence. There had to be a catch. It couldn't be that simple. We all stood there waiting. Surely, the other horseshoe was gonna drop. Any second.

“It’s happening,” said Colonel Wormwood at last. “The peace is won.”

All eyes turned to Pickle Barrel. It was too un-fucking-believable to fucking believe.

“There’s no catch,” said the major. “I’ll take the word to General Sun Sparkle. The peace is happening. I swear it. By Twilight’s honor.”

Pickle Barrel held up her hoof. Wormwood held up hers. They bumped.

And just like that, the war was over.

All of No Mare’s Land erupted. Like a valve that had burst.

Tears. Laughter. Songs. All at once, we just sort of tripped over one another in joyous chaos. We shouted. We stomped. Some random pony grabbed me and hugged me. I don’t even know if they were a potato or a corn. It didn’t matter anymore. When he put me down, I flung myself at the corn beside me and hugged him.

And in the middle of all that celebration, a great white light swept over No Mare’s Land.

Whoosh. A gust of wind. A blue miasma. The next thing any of us knew, we were sparkley. Like glitter. Or rutilated crystal. I didn’t even see it at first. My bad hoof was black, and the rest of me was draped in oversized coats. But I felt it.

All of us did. A sort of warmth that seemed to come up at you from the inside. Like a cup of hot cocoa. It felt wonderful.

Even Pickle Barrel, who, moments before, had seemed to be conceding to peace out of sheer fucking terror, was looking at his own green fur, and ogling its shimmer.

Then Colonel Wormwood’s Pip Buck lit up. Pickle Barrel’s too. Strange bleeping sounds came from machinery scattered loosely amongst the crowd. Pickle Barrel looked to Wormwood. But she just shrugged. Neither of them had a clue what was going on. 'Till Big Blue came barrel rolling in from out of nowhere, Sprinkles clinging to her back, yelling, “Yeeeeeeehaaaaa.”

“Da door! It’s open!" Blue shouted. "The Crystal Empire! It’s fucking open!”

Pickle Barrel looked up. Totally stunned.

“How?” He said.

Wormwood just examined her Pip Buck carefully. Pounded on buttons and said at last, “A message….the door. We just intercepted a signal from the Crystal Wall's maneframe.”

We all stopped. Hung on her words.

“It said, ‘Crystal Heart activated.”

* * *

Judging by the excitement and confusion that followed, no one had a damn clue what the Crystal Heart even was. But the corns and potatoes rejoiced just the same.

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither.”

“What the--;”

“I know.” I said to myself. And was surprised at how many eyes turned to me and how quickly.

Silence. More whistley wind.

"Rose?" said Colonel Wormwood "You know something about this?"

I looked around. Suddenly the whole fucking army was watching.

Wormwood summoned me forward with a head gesture. I laughed nervously and crept up to her. All shy like. As if slinking toward center stage instead of trotting there would keep me from getting noticed.

I stopped when I reached the colonel.

Looked up. She was getting all stareitty at me again.

"Well, uh, you know how the Crystal Empire is like a prism?" I said. "And when everything is…Good, it spreads love and light to all of Equestria? But if it goes bad, then the entire world, you know...starts to suck?"

I looked to the crowd. Blank faces. All of them. They knew nothing.

"Well, uh… they manage to keep everything happyish over there by holding a street fair. And they have this big magic heart thing made out of crystal. It’s called the Crystal Heart, because it’s crystal, and it’s uh…It’s uh...well, it's shaped like a heart.”

I laughed nervously.

No one laughed with me. Even Wormwood was losing patience.

Quick, Rose. I told myself. You’re losing them. Pull yourself together! Think of the basics. The empire! The heart! What it all does. What it all means. That’s what they need to know.

I took a deep breath. But folks were already wandering away - inching toward that walkway. Shoving on up the hill to see the open door for themselves.

"Atten hut!" Wormwood shouted, and the whole army froze. “There will be no stampeding here tonight, do I make myself clear?"

The stragglers stopped.

"We go in together. In formation!" Shouted Pickle Barrel.

The crowd responded with a mixture of sir, yes sir and ma'am, yes ma'am, depending on who they were answering to.

Wormwood turned to me. Make it quick. Make it good. She said to me without having to utter a single word.

There were thousands of confused, hopeful faces. Waiting. This was a lead with the heart sort of moment, and I was overthinking it with my stupid old head.

“Fuck the Crystal Faire." I said. "We just fixed a war. We made enough love and light and stuff to get the Crystal Heart going anyway. From all the way out here. Without the Crystal Faire. Because, you know, like, that happiness that you feel at a street fair? It's, like funnel cake and petting zoo and flugelhorn joy. But there are thousands of us, and we just created like, a holy shit, we just saved the world, and aren't going to die...Kind of joy. And the Crystal Heart felt us. All the way over here! It felt us. And it knew! It knew we were good ponies. Like ponies used to be. Before the war. Before Littlepip. Before the bomb and Wasteland and all that stupid stuff. We had the kind of love and light that the Crystal Empire needed. And the Crystal Heart knew it.”

I stopped to catch my breath. I had been panting like I'd just run a mareathon.

It did know, didn’t it? The Crystal Heart. How the fuck did it know? I wondered.

I looked up to that same sea of faces. All smiling. I remembered where I was.

“The Crystal Heart, it...uh, well, it opened the door." I sighed. “Because it knew.”

For a moment all you could hear was murmuring. As folks tried to make sense of all that I had rambled.

"Just like the elements of mayonnaise taste terrible without a sandwich to put it in!" I exclaimed, finally having gotten my confidence back.

More blank faces.

"Um...I mean..."

Fuck.

I buried my whole head back in my oversized coat.

“There you have it,” said Colonel Wormwood with authority. “The Crystal Heart knew.”

They all cheered. Wormwood to the rescue. I closed my eyes. Sighed. Turned to the colonel and mouthed two words, “thank you.”

She didn’t smile or nod back. Just used the roaring crowd as a chance to cut to the chase and talk serious.

"How do you know all this?”

"I don't." I said. "At least I don't know about the last part. That flugelhorn joy vs. saving-the-world joy is, like, my theory."

She looked at me sternly.

"B-but the part about the Crystal Empire – I swear that's real. I read that in an interview with Twilight Sparkle in the Foal Free Press."

That of all things made Wormwood's jaw drop. The first time I’d ever seen her caught off guard.

I smiled.

"So you know it's true,” I added. “Because the Foal Free Press doesn't do namby-pamby stories anymore. Not since Namby Pamby left as editor-in-chief.”

“I see.” Wormwood replied.

Dammit. This was going to take a lot of explaining. I racked my brain trying to think of the right words. Turned away from Wormwood. And there he was. Major Pickle Barrel. Eyeballing us suspiciously. Nervously.

I didn't like it.

"Hey, Colonel,"

"Yes?"

"Now that we have the door open, and the treasure inside is actually a real concern, how do we know we can trust The Douche?"

"The spirit of Hearth's Warming." Wormwood dismissed me. Gave me poker-face. It didn't work.

"I'm serious. He keeps looking at us like he's afraid we might try something. Like, make a run for the Crystal Empire without him, or I don't know, make off with one of those end of the world megaspell superbomb things."

Wormwood glanced over her shoulder at Major Pickle Barrel. Pickle Barrel forced a fake nervous little smile in reply.

"What did you say to him anyway?"

Colonel Wormwood turned back to me. Did that thing where she measured me in her mind. Calculated at me. It was unnerving. Even when she was my friend. Getting looked at like that was fucking unnerving.

"You're not good at keeping secrets." She said.

"Hey!"

"I trust you, Rose. You would never betray anyone's trust, but you're still a terrible liar."

"Fair point." I grumbled.

"But you’re also going to be a pain in the ass about this," she continued. "I can tell. And I don't want you fucking it up by asking the wrong questions of the wrong ponies, so I am going to share a secret with you. Take it as another lesson in leadership."

"Okay."

I perked up. Not just because I was gonna find out. But because she trusted me. Cared about me. Wanted me to learn.

"I offered to surrender."

"Huh?"

"It wouldn't have gone well with the crowd to do so publicly, but I offered to turn all of my resources, soldiers and all, over to the corns, and to answer to General Sun Sparkle directly so that we could put our heads together and figure out how to hack the door. It's a union we were going to need to form anyway. It could buy us some protection from the inevitable backlash from Ranger Headquarters, and most importantly, it gave The Douche, as you call him, an out. He could save face. He could go back to Sun Sparkle. He could take credit."

"That's really diplomatic." I said.

Wormwood smiled at me.

"What if he said 'no'? And why is he acting--;"

"Major Pickle Barrel asked me that very same question. 'What if I say no?' So I told him the other half of my plan."

She held her head up. Looked over at Pickle Barrel. Wormwood's face was a stone mask as always, but I knew her well enough to know that there was a smirk hiding under there somewhere.

"That my son's Medal of Honor was laced with a slow-acting neurotoxin." She turned to look at me directly. Let that smirk really break loose. "And that only I have the antidote."

Sweet, merciful Celestia.

I wasn't sure whether to hug her or run away screaming

"But it wasn't actually, right?" I said. "I mean, you didn't actually…Do that? With a nouveaux toxin or whatever you call it."

Wormwood did not reply.

"Your plan would work just as well if you had lied about it."

"Maybe."

"Maybe what? Maybe it would work, or maybe you lied?"

Wormwood rested a hoof on my shoulder.

"Rose, I'm sorry. Some things a lady never tells."

* * *

We headed up the hill. Wormwood, Pickle Barrel, three-thousand soldiers, and me. Light pouring over that ridge above us.

The commanding officers were all busy. Keeping the peace. Making sure Nopony trampled one another. We were all so excited. So eager. It took a whole lot of atten-huts and stuff just to keep everypony from stepping on one another.

They let me stay up front because I was small, but it still took forever.

By the time we actually started climbing up the hill, I was so excited to finally see it. The door. The empire. Actually fucking open. But as I neared the top, I started getting a really strange feeling. Light was spilling down over the top of the ridge. Like mist from a waterfall.

And the moment that I felt the real power of that warm delightful glow, my evil hoof started to hurt. And every step up that hill after that - every inch closer to the door of the Crystal Empire made it hurt just a little bit more.

Fuck damnit. Stupid shadowy clitweasels.

Author's Note

Special Thanks to Seraphem, and FireclawDrake - two all around swell dudes who actually care enough about Rose Petal to put up with my obsessing over every little sentence like a madpony.

Happy fifth anniversary to the show, and congrats to the CMC's.

The Door

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - THE DOOR

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The door was open. The dome was down. And with that purple spotlight gone, there was nothing but white coming out of the Crystal Wall.

The colonel and Pickle Barrel marched up front and kept us all from stampeding. Led us up No Mare’s Land. Back toward the door. And I was right there with Wormwood.

She had insisted.

"So what you're saying is that the Crystal Empire is like a giant prism that projects 'love and light' throughout Equestria."

"Yes, my turn."

My hoof hurt. I didn't have the energy for questions.

"And that the Crystal Heart is, essentially, a smaller prism that projects ‘love and light’ throughout the city."

"Yes, my turn." I grumbled.

My hoof hurt. I did not have the energy for questions.

"And you're saying that it does this by amplifying the good cheer of ponies attending a simple festival?"

"Ugh! Yes!” I snapped.

Wormwood turned away from me. Furrowed her brow. She was planning something. I could practically see the gears inside her brain turning.

“So according to your source, that's what we know for sure." The colonel said to herself.

I stopped to roll up my sleeve. Fiddled with it with my teeth ‘till I could get to that evil hoof.

“Ow,” I winced.

The damn thing was getting worse. It looked normal. For a cursed evil hoof anyways. But it itched at me from under my hide, and each step closer to that big old Crystal Wall doorway made it itch just a little bit more.

“Hmm. So that's what we know for sure.” The colonel said to herself.

She got so excited she picked up her pace. I had to hobble into a trot on my aching hoof just to keep up.

"Your theory about the Crystal Heart detecting our truce - it’s the best we have to go on, but right now it's still just a theory. So let me ask you--;"

"No."

I pouted. Refused to answer.

"What?"

"No more questions. It's my turn."

"Rose, this is important," said Wormwood.

"Mmm mmm mm." I spoke with my mouth closed to indicate that I couldn't possibly answer.

"Rose,"

I turned away.

"Mm mmm."

All across the field, everyone else was sparkly and smiling. Because everyone else could march toward the door with hope in their hearts, rather than get asked a bunch of dumb questions. Plus they didn't have to deal with those obnoxious pins and needles o' darkness .

"Rose, we don't know what's behind that door. I'm basing a lot of judgments on your word – judgments that could be life or death for all the ponies here.

“I'm sorry to press you so hard, but I really need to know one thing."

I sighed. Grumbled.

"What do you need to know?"

Wormwood smiled. She was proud of me 'cause I didn't ask for anything in exchange. Duty. Doing stuff for the right reasons and all that.

I threw a weak little smile back at her.

"I need to know," she said, licking her lips, "where you found a copy of a prewar newspaper."

I tripped. Stumbled. Fell face first to the ground. Would have smacked my noggin too if Wormwood hadn't thrown out a leg to catch me.

Oh, no. I thought. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

What could I say that the colonel could possibly believe? I couldn't get anything past her! That mare could smell lies.

I scrambled to my hooves again.

“Ponyviille," I mumbled, mouth full of my own lapels as I straightened them. “Mm-it’s sort of a mmlong story."

Wormwood waited for me to elaborate. I didn't. Just kept walking, lips zipped.

Clip-clop.

Clip-clop.

"Rose, I need assurance I can rely on this information."

"You can."

"But how?"

I took a deep breath. Summoned what confidence I could.

"Some things a lady never tells." I said, and flashed a great big doofy grin, hoping that Colonel Wormwood would kinda sorta maybe appreciate the joke, and laugh with me.

She did not.

"I'm sorry." I said meekly. " I would really rather not get into it. Please."

"Rose,"

"Please," I squeaked.

Wormwood looked at me long and hard. Without blinking. Quantified me with that calculating stare of hers.

“Please,” I whispered.

"Okay," said the Colonel with a quiet nod, and that was the end of that.

She turned away from me. Got all thinky, and watched that Crystal Tower in silent contemplation.

Light and color poured out of the Crystal Empire - spilled right over the wall like a waterfall.

And I walked right there beside her, admiring it too.

My hoof stung pretty bad. It hated everything about the place, but I didn't care. My hoof could get fucked. It was beautiful.

"What's your question?" Wormwood broke the silence.

"What?"

"You had a question." She said. "You wouldn’t shut up about it."

"But I never answered yours."

“I'm feeling generous.” She shrugged.

This was it! My turn at last! Sweet Celestia! Answers!

"Ok." I leapt with enthusiasm. Licked my lips. "Strawberry Lemonade."

"Ah,” she nodded. “The medal."

"The pony!"

Without even realizing it, I had pressed myself up against the colonel all eager-like while we were walking. She raised an eyebrow at me.

"Please?" I said, all adorable-like.

"Hmm. Well, let's see. We do have service records of course. Dates, missions, but they're just names on rosters and logs. Sadly, the Applejack’s Rangers know very little about her. Apart from the obvious."

"Which is..."

I leaned in harder.

She looked at me like I was crazy, which of course was that same hard-faced expressionless stick-in-the-butt glare as usual, but I knew her well enough to decipher what it meant.

"What…Littlepip wrote about." Said Colonel Wormwood slowly, suspicion oozing off of her.

Squee!

Littlepip - the pony from the future past that everyone looked up to - the one who had saved all of Equestria -The Lightbringer - she knew Strawberry Lemonade!

I squee'd. Out loud. Again.

Wormwood raised an eyebrow at me. Dammit, this was getting uncomfortable. The strange gaps in my knowledge were really starting to stick out

What the Hell? In for a bit, in for a jewel.

"What did Littlepip say?" I bit my lip and asked.

We walked together in silence. Colonel Wormwood weighing me all the way, trying to figure out where this strange question could have come from. Why I didn't already know. Why I could possibly care.

"That when Steelhooves split the Rangers, and started the Civil War, Paladin Strawberry Lemonade was key among his allies." She said.

I leaned in harder.

"But, well, her greatest legacy was her sacrifice in the Battle of Dragon Mountain, thus the medal."

"Oh." I said.

Two different wheels got to spinning around in my head, turning in thinkitty little circles.

Each in opposite directions.

A heroine! One of my Rose voices said to me.

But there was also a sad little voice in my head. Poor Straw Lem, it whimpered.

"Truth be told, I would never have enlisted if not for her." Said the Colonel totally out of Nowheresville.

"What? Why?"

"Everypony always focuses on Littlepip, as well they should,” said Wormwood. “But her great legacy was not what she had accomplished on her own. Paladin Strawberry Lemonade inspired others. Lead them. She headed the defense of Dragon Mountain, and made the ultimate sacrifice. It was that sacrifice that protected the Gardens of Equestria - that sacrifice that saved the Elements of Harmony from the Enclave."

The Elements of Harmony! Strawberry Lemonade grew up to save the. Elements. Of. Harmony.

“No way,” I whispered.

"Ponies romanticize that simply because it was a sacrifice, but they don't know what it really means.” Wormwood lowered her head. “Only a soldier knows. Paladin Strawberry Lemonade sacrificed herself to save the Elements without knowing what they were, or why they were important. That's what a soldier does."

She looked at me firmly, bursting with pride.

"Follow orders." I said.

"No!" Wormwood exclaimed with frantic excitement. "That's just it! She followed her conscience during the time of the Civil War, and stood up against the Rangers when they were wrong."

“What made her fight for the Elements any different, then? When do you follow orders and when do you decide to break them?"

"Paladin Lemonade went into that battle knowing it was probably suicide. She followed those orders because she believed. She believed in what Littlepip was fighting for. In what Steelhooves had stood for. She believed in her friends." Wormwood turned to me, all teacherly again. “Strawberry Lemonade did it for the right reasons.”

I nodded solemnly. And thought of the Strawberry Lemonade I knew, hovering by the console, determined to see every last filly and colt out of the mines. No matter the cost.

She didn't change. I thought. Celestia bless her. She never changed.

"I joined the corps because I dreamed of following a cause as nobly as she had, and of inspiring others to do the same."

The colonel arched her neck and looked out over the thousands of soldiers, marching toward the empire with great big sparkly smiles on their faces. "Tonight, I think we may have accomplished just that."

A faint smile was on her lips. But it faded when she looked down and saw me.

"Are you alright?" she said.

Oh, Luna. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I must have looked like such a flake. Oh, jeez.

“Yes." I whispered. "I'm fine."

Colonel Wormwood turned away from me. But she had that thinky look on her face again. She focused hard on some far off point somewhere up ahead, and marched in silence.

"You knew her," Wormwood said at last, totally out of the blue.

I froze. She was on to me. I had no idea how, but Colonel Wormwood was on to me.

Quick! My Rose voices freaked the fuck out at me. Say something! For the love of Celestia, say something! Anything!

“Nuh-uh!” I pouted at the colonel.

Good one, Rose.

Wormwood whipped out her colonely stare powers. The kind where it actually hurts to make eye contact with her. And she waited me out. But the moment I turned to her, Wormwood, strangely enough, softened.

"Tears don't lie, Rose.” She said. "I have no idea how it's possible, but you knew Paladin Strawberry Lemonade. Before she was a Ranger. Didn't you?"

I had no idea what to say, or what to do. Where to even start? So I nodded. Just nodded.

"I’m not going to pry." Said the colonel. "In fact, it's better if I don't know."

I looked her in those stareitty eyes of hers. It was a shock to hear that of all things. The mare who habitually studied every inch of everything didn't want an explanation for how I, a kid, had known somepony famous from almost a century ago.

"Rose, whatever you've been through, I'm so sorry." Wormwood said solemnly.

She turned away - used that great big open door in front of us as an excuse to gather her thoughts without looking me in the eye.

"I heard the stories about your escape from the slave compound." She said. "Trench gossip. Didn't know quite what to make of the rumors until now.”

The colonel shook her head.

“I'm so sorry.” She added.

“AndI really don't want to pry. Somethings are best left quiet. But I do have one final question, and I hope you will forgive me for asking."

"Ok," the word awkwardly escaped my throat.

The colonel licked her lips.

"What was Strawberry Lemonade like?" She said.

Her eyes were bright and wide, literally sparkling with stars. It took me off guard.

“Sweet Celestia,” I whispered to myself when I realized.

Colonel Wormwood was a fangirl. A Straw Lem fangirl.

"Oh, um...I guess she was, uh…"

I thought about it. Really, really thought about it.

"Strawberry Lemonade was, well, she was a gigantic pain in the ass."

Wormwood smiled.

* * *

The wall was fast coming on us when Big Blue and Sprinkles trotted up next to me.

"Hey!" I said.

Sprinkles ran up to Wormwood and gave her a hug. Wormwood, without missing a beat, scooped her right up and spun around. They actually fell behind a couple of feet because they had to stop walking just to untangle.

“Hey, BG!” Said Blue. “Dis door thing. Ain't it amazin’? You ready to get in there and see some incredible shit or what?”

I looked over her shoulder and saw The Doorway.

It was beautiful. Even more than the spire. The magic pouring out of that thing was so strong I could taste it. But I couldn't celebrate. I had this feeling. Like I would probably be going home soon. To a Hearth’s Warming, Roseluckless.

And that second chance that Princess Luna had bought me? It was just about up.

She’d said herself that she hadn't saved me – merely brought me some time.

What if somewhere on the other end of that shiny happy doorway was another Rose Petal? Screaming. Writhing. Covered in shadow gunk that was trying to drag her into some unspeakable castle? All frozen in time. Like a projector stuck on a single frame.

What if that other Rose Petal was gonna be me again pretty soon?

Get to the door, a voice whispered at me from inside my head. Again.

“Arg! Where the hell else do you think I'm going?” I snapped out loud.

The smile ran from Blue’s face. “You don't hafta--;”

“No, wait, I mean.”

“It's ok.”

“No! Really!” I said.

"It's ok, BG.”

But it wasn't OK. I could tell.

“I swear, I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the brain horne--;"

Zing! desperate as I was to her to prove that I hadn't meant to hurt her feelings,

My hoof gave out underneath me. Out of nowhere.

"Yahh!" I shouted, and down I went.

"Little buddy!" Big Blue dropped to her knees. “Are you OK?"

I clutched my hoof. Looked up at her through watery eyes. There was dread written all over her face. Which is kind of disconcerting. Because you don't want an alicorn looking at you like that.

"Ow, ow, ow.” I replied. “I think so, yeah. Ow!”

I bit my lip. Quit my ow’ing. Summoned all my strength for Blue. And propped myself up - dug my good hoof right into the ground.

But something was off. The dirt beneath my hooves felt weird - all smooth and even to the touch. The rest of No Mare’s Land had been craggy.

I squinted at it real close. Looked back up at the threshold of the glowy crystaly doorway.

We had come to the clearing. That super special radius-thing that had once been flooded by the wall's purple spotlight.

The same radius-thing that had set all those guns on Colonel Wormwood.

And my shadow hoof was pissed about it.

"Rose!" Wormwood rushed over to me.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine." I said as I struggled to my hooves.

"What happened?" Asked Sprinkles.

"Nothing, nothing. I. Am. Fine."

But the second I put that hoof down, pain shot straight up my leg like a lightning bolt. Not pins and needles. Not a dull ache. Blinding, stabbing pain. Like my leg was one giant eyeball rolling around in salt.

And then the world went white.

* * *

I felt a jostling sensation underneath me. Like my bed was moving. Was I back in the hospital? Were they moving me around?

“Uhh,” I groaned.

I was starting to come to. And it sucked.

I woke up on the alicorn’s back. I had fainted. Actually fainted. That's worse than being a whiny pirate. That's like something the pirate’s useless love interest does!

Get a grip, Rose. Get a grip.

I shimmied over a bit to try to get a look around. But my hoof really hurt. I moaned in pain. And prayed that nopony was listening .

I checked the ground. It was still smooth. I must've only blacked out for a minute.

We were still crossing that smooth-ground-radius-thingy,

“You ok back there , BG?” Blue craned her neck.

“Just pe-e-eachy!” I shouted.

And, oddly enough, most of me was. I could feel that Crystal Heart magic all over me. Pumping through my veins. And arteries. And that other kind of blood vessel too – you know the little one - carterpillars or something.

It was love, and light, and friendship.

It felt fucking incredible. But that damn shadow hoof was freaking out. Pain-O-Rama.

“Fucking shadows.” I whispered bitterly.

I hated my hoof so much, I would have hacked it off myself had you given me the saw.

“Are you okay?" Came a squeaky little voice from down below.

It was Sprinkles.

“Yeah,” I said, summoning the strength to smile. “But come here a sec. I've got something important to tell you.”

Next thing I know, Blue has both of us riding on her enormous back.

“Listen." I whispered so softly only Sprinkles could hear. "My hoof is weird. And I'm gonna be okay..."

I stopped. Winced. The damn thing hurt. A lot.

“...But I think I'm gonna vanish or something. I don't know how soon. But it might get um...pretty weird over here on this end. Understand?”

She looked at me like I had two heads.

“I know it sounds stupid. But really, I'll be fine. I'm just going home to my ducky.”

“Ducky?”

“Arg! Nevermind. The point is: grown-ups are crazy. And I need you to keep them from freaking out.

"Okay,”

Sprinkles reached out, bumped my good hoof.

Finally something she understood.

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” She whispered. “But okay.”

* * *

The second the archway to the Crystal Empire finally started passing over us, I felt myself slipping away. Like I had back in the truck outside of Trottica before disappearing on Strawberry Lemonade.

Big Blue’s mane was in my face. I couldn't even see the rest of her, but she was worried. I could tell. Wormwood too. They were whispering together.

Then suddenly it hit me. A terrifying rush, stronger than a thousand cups of tea. I realized I might disappear on Colonel Wormwood.

“No,” I whispered. “Oh, no.”

She had so many regrets - so many Sub Mine F’s under her saddle. I refused to become another.

I started to fade. I could feel it happening. We had passed the giant archway thing, and on into a long, onyx corridor. I had done it. I had finally “gotten to the door.” And just as the hornets in my head let out a huge sigh of relief, the No Mare’s Land duckyverse got fuzzy. Disjointed. It all but disappeared.

“No!” I growled at the universe.

I'm not gonna let that happen. I'm not going to disappear. I'm not gonna freak everyone out.

So I held on tight. Even though the brain hornets were at peace. Even though it was time to go.

I squeezed my eyes shut, buckled down,

and forced myself to stay.

It's just another ducky, I told myself. So just hang on.

I focused. Gritted my teeth. Clutched my hoof in pain, and in the middle of all that spacetime ducky drama I grunted, “Colonel.”

She came up by my side.

“Hey.” Wormwood nudged my hair out of my face.

“Listen." I said.

It was tough to talk and maintain concentration at the same time.

"I'm going home soon. Okay? And it might be weird. I might, uhh...” I winced as we got deeper and deeper into that long hallway.

A sharp pain shot up my leg.

“I might disappear or something. But I'm gonna be fine. I promise you, I'm going to be fine. And I need you not to worry.”

“Don't talk like that, Rose. Sssh.” Wormwood whipped around to whoever was behind her.

"Where's that fucking medic?" She snapped.

Oh, geez.

I was saying goodbye while clutching myself in pain, riding on somepony else's back.

It didn't look good.

“No-no no-no no! I'm not gonna fucking die. I'm just--;”

“Shh,” Said Wormwood.

"What's going on?” Big Blue whispered at the Colonel. “She's talking crazy.”

“No!” I said. “That's. Not. It!”

I leapt right off of her back, hit the ground harder than I’d expected, and tumbled over on my side. They both rushed to me. Dropped down to my side, but I waved them away.

“Stop!” I snapped.

And planted that bad hoof on the ground. It felt like it was on fire. Cold fire. But I puffed out my chest, stood on shaking limbs, and looked Wormwood right in the eye.

“I'm not crazy.” I said. “I'm not dying.”

Tears ran down my cheeks. It felt like there were a hundred thousand nails in my hoof. But the rest of me was so strong - so charged with that Crystal Empire magic - that I stood there and took it.

“I'm going home.” I said, staring the colonel down, all furious like. "Home."

Wormwood’s eyes widened.

"Do you understand?" I grunted.

She nodded at me slowly.

“Good.” I nodded right back, and in my determinationy state, stepped on the hoof too hard. Fell over again, clutching it.

“Rose, stop it. This is nuts!” Big Blue tried to run to my side, but Wormwood threw a leg sideways to stop her.

I forced myself to my hooves. They looked at me like they were afraid I might break. It was so embarrassing.

“Ro-;” Said Wormwood, but I snapped at her before she could finish the thought.

“Colonel,” I said. “I need you to trust me."

She gave me that stareitty face.

“Trust me.” I said again. Firmly.

Wormwood clenched up all rigid-like.

The rest of the army wasn't far behind us, and we didn't have much time before they swept us into their current. So I saluted her. I lifted up my throbbing evil hoof and I saluted.

“It's been an honor." I said. "Thank you."

Wormwood stood there. The worst of her maternal protectiveyness, and the worst of her authoritarian mojo radiating the fuck off of her. But in the end she saluted me back.

“Go,” she said. “Be a pain in somepony else’s ass. That’s an order.”

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

I gestured my saluting hoof at her, all respectful-like. And I was off.

* * *

I ran, and I ran hard. Three legged. There was energy all warbling and blargling around me - crystal energy. It felt incredible. Like having the sun beat down on your face. Only all over. Inside and out.

Just pure love. And light. And awesomeness.

But I was losing it. Every brick in that wall. Every fleck of dirt. Every breath I took was all part of one great big unstable ducky.

That internal clock in my brain started spazzing out. Flickering. Throwing random numbers at me. I had to squeeze my eyes shut even as I galloped. Just cause I was afraid. Of the shadows waiting for me on the other end. Of turning into Statue Rose again.

And my hoof. That was agony.

So I galloped and galloped and galloped and galloped and galloped. Like a scuba diver with a broken mask, I held on as long as I could. ‘Till finally, I just couldn’t take it any more. And fwoomp! It all dropped out from under me. The ground. The Crystal Empire. The world.

I got this weightless feeling. Like that terrifying moment after you misstep and first realize you're falling down the stairs.

“Waa!” I squeaked. And reached out, flailing. But I never hit bottom. The whole world simply went black.

I was in another ducky entirely. A dark ducky.

* * *

I looked around. Left. Right. Up. Down. Black. Black. Black. Black. Black.

Icouldn't see a Celestia-damned thing.

A shivery sensation crawled over my skin and coat. My tail flicked uncontrollably.

Where am I? I thought.

My evil hoof, as if in reply, quit hurting, and felt downright calm all of a sudden.

“No,” I said softly.

If my hoof had had lips, it would have smirked at me.

I sucked in a ragged, freezing breath, un-stuck myself from that spot, and tried to run, but Bang! I hit my headthe moment I moved.

“Ow!”

I recoiled in pain, but bang, whack, thunk!

There was no room anywhere.Just rocky walls boxing me in.

I panicked. Kicked. Writhed. But there was nowhere to go, and every damn thing I touched was cold. The kind of cold that sends a shock straight to your bones.

No. I thought. No, no, no!

This can't be it. Luna saved me! She gave me a second chance!

But Luna wasn't there, nor the doom castle she’d statue-ized me in front of. There was nothing but rock. Lots and lots of evil rock.

It didn't make any sense!

What about the hornets? Where were they now? And the door! I’d gotten it open. Run through it and everything. I’d even stopped the fucking war!

I had done every-damn-thing the voices had wanted. But now they were gone. The inside of my head was hornetless.

“Luna!” I called out.

“KkkkcKCCKCckKkk.”

Shrill whispers scratched at my skull in reply. Millions of them. It was like having an ear full of rusted metal centipedes.

“Stop!” I cried.

But they gathered together - every scrape and crack – to form a single wave of articulate noise inside my head.

“Luna cannot help you here.” It said.

“Ahhh!”

My hoof was going crazy now. Coldness seemed to radiate off of it.

Shadow presence was every fucking where. And I was trapped in some kinda evil pocket of doom rock. Nowhere to run.

“Hurry!" A voice called at me from behind. A real voice. A little kid’s voice. “Get out!”

“What?!”

Somepony yanked on my tail.

“Yipe!”

I tumbled backwards out of a hole I didn’t know I was in. Landed on my back on a warped plank of wood.

“Yah!” I held my legs up. Shielded my face.

“They are coming!” A little boy stood over me, grey with red hair. “Get up! Get up! Hurry!”

He helped me to my hooves. I rubbed my eyes. It was dull and gray in there, but still way brighter than the inside of that tunnel.

There were a bunch of kids all around me. Little kids. They were worn. Bruised. Haunted. Touched by shadows.

“We can fight them!” Shouted the boy who’d helped me up.

“Hooray!” They all cheered. Cheered like really really little kids. They actually said the word, “hooray.”

“Please, we should hide.” Said a timid filly, green with blue hair. “There's a hole back there, big enough for all of us.”

I looked all around. There was nothing but caves. Dark caves everywhere. Like a dungeon.

“No! No! No! Come on! We gotta fight our way out,” the redhead shouted back. “The Voice says we have to do it now!”

“Voice?" I said.

I stopped. Listened. Focused as hard as I could, but there was no brain wind. Not a single hornet. No get to the door. No save this guy, but not that guy nonsense. Nothing. Just more of that awful scratching sound.

“Silver is right.” Squeaked yet another little filly. “We have to fight. It's our only hope!”

“Wait,” I said, totally confused. “You know how to fight them?"

“Yeah!” A squeaky little colt with buck teeth grabbed me and said, huge smile stretched across his tiny face. “The Voice told us how!”

“There are more of us then there are of them.” The redhead climbed up and perched himself upon a rock as though it were a soapbox. “They’re a bunch of jerkfaces, and we don’t deserve this shit!”

All the little kids cheered again in unison. Except me. Something wasn't right. Those words. They seemed familiar.

“Do it for yourselves. Do it for every time they ever kicked you cause they wanted you to dig for jewels and stuff!” The redhead leaped off the rock. Charged ahead.

"Not that.” I whispered. “Not here.”

I leapt up, but the kids were already on the move. They converged all at once into one big herd.

“Wait!” I grabbed one of them, but the crowd just shoved at me.

“Do it for every one of us they ever fucking killed! “ The redhead called out as he charged.

“No, stop!” I shouted. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

But they wouldn't listen.

“Do it for your friends!”

I got shoved to my knees. Stepped on.

“Ahh!” I cried.

Still they stormed ahead. Swept right over me.

“Do it for each other.” The Voice said.

I could finally hear it. It was my voice. Coming out of one of the horn-shaped speakers tied to the ceiling.

The horn had been marked crudely with the letter "F.”

“Don't listen!” I sobbed. “Don't listen.”

But it was too late. The kids were charging full on ahead. And I couldn’t stop them.

* * *

I staggered to my hooves just as the rest of the kids reached the mouth of the cave up ahead and hit a wall of soldiers. Cloak-o’s.

Their mere presence blasted cold, smoky shadow-wind all over Sub Mine F. And then the guns went off all ratatatat.

My hooves couldn't figure out if they wanted to run forward and try to grab one of those poor mine kids, or turn around and gallop for dear life. So I froze.

Like being nailed to the ground with four railroad spikes, I just stood there.

Silver, the redhead, was crawling on the floor, struggling to suck in raspy breaths. The timid kid who’d wanted to hide in the corner dropped with a single bang. The eager little boy? Just laid there on the floor, motionless. Eyes wide open. Staring at a whole lot of nothing,

And out from behind the smoke came the clip, clop, draaaaag of a lone colt struggling to walk.

“Fuck.” I snapped out of my shock. Ran to him. Threw my weight under him. Pulled him away from the carnage as best I could. But we weren't safe. They were coming.

“Don't leave me.” Moaned the kid.

“I won't!”

“Don't leave me!” He sobbed.

“I won't!”

Freezing cold wind pushed at us from behind. My hoof was bone-chilled again. The shadowy cloako’s were near. But they were busysweeping up Sub Mine F, making sure that no stone was left unturned, no child left behind.

“Please,” wailed a tiny voice way back there.

A kid trembling before the cloak-o’s presumably.

“Please. Please. Please.” He sobbed. “Plea-;”

Pow.

Silence

I had to swallow my own scream. But I pushed ahead, determined to save the boy on my back.

Just one kid. I told myself. If I could only save just one kid..

A gust of cold smoky wind blew at us from behind. They were finally coming for us.

The kid on my back got heavier and heavier the deeper into the mine I went. He may have been a kindergartner, but with my shadow hoof threatening to give out, he felt like a sack of anvils.

“Don't leave me.” He groaned as we both fell to the ground.

“Uhh.”

He spilled right off of me.

The floor seemed to open up. That scratchy sensation, that feeling of unease - it wrapped around me like a blanket. The air itself got colder. Tendrils of inky blackness reached up from the ground and started tugging at me, and at the kid who could barely move.

“Don't leave me." He shivered.

I huddled over him to keep us both warm.

“I won't!” I shouted over the gusts. “I promise! I won't. Just please, hang on.”

Then, out of nowhere, fwoom, the wind was suddenly still. And the mine was quiet.

Like the eye of a storm.

My heart thundered. I fought to catch my breath. Even that rasping sound in my throat seemed to echo off the rocky wallsin all that quiet. But there was no use hiding.

It came up from behind. I felt it. A cloak-o shadowmajig standing over me. Smiling. Toying with me.

The wooden planks beneath me bubbled. Oozed. And out came this foul tar from below. There was unnatural motion in it. Like a million tiny starving little claws reaching desperately for the same sandwich.

It grabbed me. Scraped at me. Frantically tried to drag me the fuck down.

“Fuck!” I shouted.

The black swept over the kid beneath me like an ocean tide. I had to grab his face and brush away the evil just so he could breathe. Again and again and again.

“You can't have him!" I shouted at the waves, frantically clearing the tar from the colt’s nose and lips.

"Not this one!” I yelled. “Not this one.”

The shadow thing did nothing. Didn't even fight me. Just smiled with lips that parted like an old wound breaking open again to let out the pus. Don’t ask me how I saw it. Because there was nothing to see. The whole thing was just a shape, black as pitch. And I even had my back to it, but somehow that just made it worse. Like the Moon, the shadow spoke to me in feelings, and my mind’s eye flooded with images that made me want to go blind.

“You can’t have him!” I shouted again, tears in my eyes.

But the shadow thing just kept on watching me smugly until I finally realized what it already knew - that the kid was dead.

My heart thumped at me from inside my chest. I strained even to take shallow breaths. I had failed. Again.

I stopped struggling. Wiped the blood from his poor face. And shook my head in disbelief.

I thought I could do it - thoght I could save one. But even the second time around, Sub Mine F was just a bloodbath.

The tides of tar washed over him bit by bit, and the boy’s lifeless corpse started sinking.

The ink rose so high that it was starting to cling even to my chest.

I leapt up. Tossed and writhed against the tide. Struggled to pull away, till a claw lowered itself delicately onto my head.

It felt like a razor blade,

I gasped. Stopped dead in my tracks. Sucked in shallow little breaths. Tried desperately to hold still, while it lingered there, taking its sweet time. Then another claw came down, and started brushing my hair. Delicately.

I could feel it scraaaaaape across my scalp. Just enough to make me wince, but not enough to break the skin.

“You said you'd never leave him.” It spoke with that old familiar chalkboard screech of a voice. “You promisssssed.”

I swallowed hard. There was no use denying it. I had promised the kid. And I’d failed.

A trembling came up on me from the inside. I quaked, and shook. ‘Till finally I couldn't hold it in anymore, and I burst into tears. The shadow thing stood over me like a douchebag, soaking it all in. Brushing my mane, even as I heaved.

Every discouraging thought that had ever crossed my mind – every cruel word that had ever been said to me - every fiber of self-doubt - in that moment, flooded into my brain. All at once.

The look on Butterscotch’s face when I had leapt out of the way of the lightning puddle back in the Trottica cage room. The boy from the Wasteland I’d never found. The time I had snapped at Cliff. The pain and the worry I had caused my dying mother.

I didn't fight it. Any of it. Just went limp as the cold shadows stretched their way over me. Because that shame was mine, and it felt like home.

The tar got higher. I sank. And sank. And sank. And sank. And sank. The shadow thing was relishing my sorrow like fine chocolates. ‘Till finally, it took its claw from off my head, and lifted up my chin. Forced me to look into the deep black void where its face should have been. The abyss.

“It should have been you.” It said to me in almost soothing tones.

I shivered all over.

The shadow thing leaned down closer to whisper at me.

“It should have been you.” It said again.

The shadow clutched at my face, relishing its conquest, but when I heard those words, something inside me woke up.

I remembered Colonel Wormwood. Clutching her candle. "It should have been me.” She’d wept. “It should've been me." And the stallion from the trenches who’d started the truce! I had found him all crazy and messed up because his friend Tulip had left him behind to go over the top and die.

“It should have been me.” He'd said again and again. “It should have been me.”

I remembered. Everything that had happened. Everything we had gone through.

And when it all hit me - when it all came back - I gritted my teeth in anger.

I hadn't come as far as I did. Hadn't spent all night starving in a trench, crawling through tunnels, fighting off evil red dots, just to die there at the claws of some shadow thing!

“It should have been your mom.” I shouted, and tossed myself backwards. Threw my weight as far as it would go.

I landed, spun, and tried to run from the thing, but it still had a grip on me. The tendrils from the ink pool stretched like rubber bands.

I pushed. Ran. Plowed my way through the ink.

‘Till snap! Its hold on me broke. And the smoke cleared. And I finally saw the battle for what it really was.

There was no kid to save. No Sub Mine F. Just a schoolyard, and a frothing river of blackstuff coursing all over me as I stood in the exact spot where the princess had frozen me.

“Sweet Luna,” I said. “It was all bullshit.”

The shadowsshook with anger. Pulled on me. Like a fishing hook tearing through my cold evil hoof.

It ripped me back into the darkness, and I slid spiraling through a giant storm of cold smoke and chaos.

The shadow thing was done toying around.

“Let the fuck go of me, you fucking dick-fuck!”

I shouted.

BAM! I whacked into a stone wall, threw my legs up against it instinctively - grabbed on as best I could.

A freezing hurricane whipped at my face. I refused to huddle this time. I had to get my bearings - had to search around – had to find a way out. I had to fight.

I was already losing my grip, sliding along the wall. Through blurry-ass tear-soaked eyes I managed to look up, and see the outside of the castle - that horrible fucking shit cock castle..

Tar swept my legs out from under me like the undertow of a tidal wave. A gazillion tiny claws from inside the goo ripped at me like the pointy wires of No Mare’s Land that had claimed so many soldiers.

I cascaded along the wall towards The Door That Wanted to Eat Me. The point of no return, Luna had called it.

“Ahhhh!”

I threw my legs up. Grappled with the doorframe. The tide splashed against my belly, and tried to wash me away, but still, I held on. Grunted to myself. Winced and screamed. My brain went almost totally blank, and all I could think about was how much it all hurt.

Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.

My grip weakened. My hooves started to slide.

‘Till the memory of Colonel Wormwood popped into in my head again.

“It never stops hurting." She said. “All you can do is look for a light and fight like hell to get to it."

I picked my head up. Unclenched my eyes. And there it was way out in the distance - a speck where there was no ink. No smoke. Just a light. like a tiny star just above the horizon. I would never have spotted it had I not been looking, but I recognized that flame right away.

It was a stick-candle. Twinkle Eyes’ stick candle. She was the light.

"Quit cunting around." Said Candle-Twink.

“You wanna get your ass over here?”

At the sound of her voice I felt that awesome Crystal Empire feeling again. That warmth. That love. That light. I could barely even see the tiny fire, but it brought tears to my eyes just to hear her voice again.

“Twink,” I grunted. “I’m coming.”

The goo kept rising, But I slammed one of my good hooves through it, straight on down to the ground. Anchored it there by force of will. Then, gritting my teeth, focusing on that faraway light, I pried the other three hooves from the doorway. One by one. Just slammed them down. Right through the tar. And stood there. In the middle of a shadow storm. And held the fuck on.

"Don't!" I yelled at the goo claws. "You! Fucking! Touch me!"

I plowed my way through. One step, then another. Like a workhorse with a heavy yoke, I moved slowly. But I could do it! If I was sturdy enough to make it even an inch from that door, against the current, I knew I could make it a mile.

Twink was by my side. Like old times. Helping me to be strong again.

When we first met, I had cried like a foal in those Trottica cages. Twink had reached out a hoof to calm me. Even though she was exhausted. Even though she’d had problems of her own. Twink had reached out and stroked my mane. Because she cared.

And as I made my way up that slippery hill through that hurricane of shadow, and concentrated liquid fear, I could feel that hoof on my head once again.

With tears in my eyes, I pushed ahead. Kicking. Stomping.

"No!" I shouted again.

I wasn't going to let them take me. Wasn’t going to give up. Wasn't going to let Twink down.

"Fuck. Off. You. Damn. Shadowy. Clitweasels!"

The goo weakened, and I broke into a gallop. Broke good and free. I ran for that light with everything I had. It was like trying to ride a scooter up a steep hill covered in oil. But I pushed, and pushed, and pushed and remembered the feeling of her hoof on my head. And gave myself one last push.

A wave of shadow reached for my tail, and chased after me. But I just focused on The Light. Watched that little flame burn. And in all the chaos, for just one tiny second, I saw more than just a candle. My eyes were blurred with tears, but I swear, in that weird light, I saw her face.

I saw Twinkle Eyes. She was cheering for me.

* * *

The waves of evil gunk crashed far behind me, and receded ‘till the schoolhouse from my dream was just a regular old schoolhouse again. Not a castle at all. Or a dungeon.

The oil seeped back into the ground. I was running on grass. Fresh grass.

But I kept going anyway until I was completely out of breath.

I collapsed, laughing and crying all at once.

“I made it.” I said to myself. “I actually made it.”

The waves from that oceanside cliff in my dream were rolling. Crashing like a soothing kind of thunder. Everything else was dead quiet. I don't know how long I spent lying exhausted on the grass, catching my breath. But eventually, something poked at me from under my chin. I rolled over. It was the stick. Twink's candle. It had followed me back! I clutched the thing and smiled, and listened to the waves with Twink’s candle for company..

* * *

When finally, I was ready, I got up. Walked over to the edge of the playground, which was now a cliff. And saw that same gigantic moon from before. Setting over a vast grey ocean. Tucking itself in and getting ready for a new day.

"I really made it." I said to myself.

I poked my head over the edge, and looked down at the rocks below. Watched the frothy waters splash around them. It was amazing. I'd never seen an ocean before. Even in dreams.

As I watched those waves in awe and wonder, my hoof clutched at the stick that had been Twink’s candle.

"Luna fuck me with moon rocks, Twink,” I said with a smile. “We really made it."

"Come again?" A voice from behind me.

The Princess. The actual Princess Luna. Standing there. Right there next to me. Her mane and tail flowing with ethereal nighttime glory.

"No!" I threw my hooves over my mouth.

"No, no, no! I'm sorry!"

She raised a cynical eyebrow at me.

"I didn't mean…It's just, it's a figure of speech! I swear. I didn't mean--I'm sorry. It's just, uh, something ponies say, you know, in the future."

"Imagine my relief to learn that I am fated to be so fondly remembered."

She looked down her nose at me. It was awful. Just awful.

To be disapproved of like that. By the Princess of the Moon! The one you could always count on.

"No.” I said. “You have it wrong. You are revered!”

I fell to my knees. Bowed to her. Started to cry. I didn't even realize I had any tears left, but out they came.

Until a silver-clad hoof touched the underside of my chin. The princess was kneeling at my side.

"Please don't fear me." She said.

And while she may have tried to maintain princessly formality, there was tenderness in those words, and pain behind those eyes.

I was taken aback by it. It hurt Luna dearly to be feared. So I looked her in the eye, and nodded silently.

“Come,” she got up off the ground, and offered me her hoof. “We need to talk.”

I threw my leg over hers, and pulled myself up. Wondered how she managed to keep those sterling silver shoes so clean.

The rest of her had seen better days. There was anxiety written all over her face, in that Colonel Wormwood silent nervous breakdown sort of way.

“Is something wrong?”

"It's been a busy night.” She said sternly. “For all of us.”

“What do you mean?”

“The shadows are on the move,” she said. “And I fear that there are some who may not have fared as well against them as you have."

“What?!”

“Follow me," she said. “There is something I need to show you, and much to talk about along the way.”

Author's Note

Special thanks to Fireclawdrake and Seraphim for your help editing and proofreading!

The Wanderer

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - THE WANDERER

"Fairy tales are more than true – not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten" - Neil Gaiman [paraphrase of G.K. Chesterton quote]*

"Roseluck!" I shouted. "Is she okay?"

I had spent so much of my time worrying about war, and shadows, and insurrection, and duckies, and soldiers like Sterry, and Pumpkin Scone, that I hadn't had much time to fret over Roseluck. What had happened to her? How come she hadn't come to visit on Hearth's Warming? Was she hurt? Had she been swallowed by giant pony-eating eels? What the fuck?

I had pushed all of that uncertainty to the back of my mind for a long, long time. But the moment that Princess Luna mentioned that the shadow things had attacked not only me, but a whole bunch of folks en masse, all that dread came crashing through. My mouth went suddenly dry. My head felt like an anvil that threatened to tip me over and drive my face into the ground.

Oh my goodness! I thought. Had those clitweasels gotten their inky claws on Roseluck?!

"I don't know, child.” Answered the princess. “I didn’t see her in her dreams tonight.”

Oh jeez. I thought. Oh, no.

“But," Luna added hurriedly when she saw the panic in my face. "That's not necessarily a bad sign. It just means that she didn't sleep.”

"So what's going on then?"

“Come.” Luna gestured forward with her head, and started walking.

I followed her. The cliff and the ocean was off to our right. The vast empty field, to our left.

The schoolhouse was a tiny speck way up ahead, but we were on our own little path that didn't go that way directly, so I wasn't scared.

The two of us just walked through the empty landscape together. Luna acting weird the whole time. She kept looking at me, then looking away. Plus, she was quiet. Not that peaceful, meditative type of quiet either. More like a nervous kinda quiet. She kept taking these really deep breaths.

“You’ll face them again, I'm afraid.” Princess Luna broke the silence at last.

That was her big announcement. That’s what she was so nervous about telling me. As if I didn’t already know.

“I'm so sorry." She whispered, and looked down on me with caring eyes.

“Pff, I'm fine!” I said. “But what about my friends?”

I leaned in close. “You said the shadows attacked others. Are they--;”

“The only way to protect your friends,” Luna interrupted. “Is to teach them to protect themselves.”

“So do that then!”

Luna turned away from me.

“I could," she said. "When the shadows were only attacking in dreams.”

I stared at her. Shook my head no. It couldn't be! Luna closed her eyes and nodded yes.

Images flooded my head. Trees toppled. Houses leveled. Ponies, running and screaming as their brains exploded out of their ears. Shadows everywhere! My hometown in ruins.

“Ahhhhh!” I shouted.

“Rose,” Princess Luna put a hoof on my shoulder.

“Ahhh!” I shouted again, and proceeded to have a complete and total mental breakdown. On the floor. Like a foal. Freaking out and screaming.

“Ahh! Ahhh! Ahhh!”

Those soldiers in the trenches. They'd had things to hold onto. Family back home. The idea of a little brother banging away at a drum set. A mom rooting for princess and country. It had kept them going.

Ponyville was my homeland. My anchor. My obnoxious drummer back home. The idea of it under attack churned my stomach and made me want to puke.

“Rose Petal!” Luna shouted so loud the grass blew in all directions.

She had used that booming screaming voice trick thing just like she’d done back on Nightmare Night.

I looked up. Found the princess standing over me. I caught my breath, looked around. The field. The ocean. The schoolhouse. I was still in that old familiar dreamscape. And The Princess of the Night was standing over me. Looking all concernitty.

“Is there anything left at all?” I asked in a whimper.

Luna’s eyes widened.

“Child, it's not like that.” She said. “I felt a disturbance. And I won't lie, I am deeply concerned. Something is indeed very wrong.”

Luna shook her head. “But their physical power is still faint right now. Nothing is in ruins. There is still hope.”

Luna reached out her hoof to me, all silvery with those slipper-shoe-a-majigs of hers. I took it. Marveled at how clean she managed to keep those things. And let her help me to my hooves.

"What happened then?” I asked. “Who’d they go after? Did they get anypony? Is Roseluck safe? What about Cliff Diver?

“I don't know.” Said Princess Luna with a sigh. “I’ve been fighting the shadows here, in the realm of sleep, like you.”

“Well, what are they up to? What do we do?”

“I'm afraid I don't have the answers yet. Give it time, child.”

“Well, you gotta know something! What are they capable of? How does any of this even work?”

“Rose.” She said gravely. “They are using a magic I don't understand.”

“What? Huh?” I scratched my head. “That's stupid.”

Luna raised an eyebrow at me.

“It is! It's ridiculous,” I continued. “A magic you don't understand? How? You're the princess of the moon and dreams and nighttime and stuff!”

Luna turned to look at the stars. The sky was already turning dark blue instead of black - lightening up a little to get ready for morning.

“There was once a great powerful wizard.” She said. Her voice was rich and dark and serious. “His name was Star --;”

“..swirl the Beardo!" I interrupted, all proud of myself for knowing.

Luna paused. Blinked. Loudly. Then blinked again. Then just shook her head and continued.
“Yes, close enough. He and his protégé conducted a great deal of research at the castle: defense against shadows; scrying spells; she mysteries of time; et cetera. Their work was never completed, but they may have left relics behind: scrolls; discoveries; artifacts of power.”

“So the shadows have figured out Beard Magic?” I asked.

“The shadows know things that they shouldn't know - are capable of things I cannot explain.” She answered. “They've changed something. I felt them do it. In our time, and in our world. Yes, Rose, I fear in my heart that it might just be, er...beard magic they are employing.”

I thought back to what I had seen in the Pit of Infinite Duckies. Her castle. The old beard wizard comforting the children despite his own uncertainties. He had chided them for breaking into his room to use one of his artifacts – his relics of power.

“The shadows are not terribly strong in our world, yet,” Luna continued. “They are shrewd. All it takes to kill a king, they say, is a well-placed stone at the top of the stairs.”

“Little things.” I murmured to myself.

Princess Luna nodded.

And suddenly it hit me. All my machinations - all my hornet-chasing - all that One I'm Meant to Save, get to the door stuff? The shadows could be doing the same thing. Manipulating history by messing with the little things.

“So what do we do? How do we stop them?" I asked.

“For now, all we can do is fight them one pony at a time. And pray that our stones are better placed than theirs.”

* * *

We walked for a while in silence. Luna wasn't the trembling, screaming, mess that I was. But something was clearly on her mind. So I let her be. She had things well under control. Even if times were dark, and a little shadowcrazy, I still felt safe by her side. So I shut my mouth, watched her carefully, and followed her lead.

The lack of blah-blah-blah’ing, and the sound of crashing waves down below also forced me to get some thinking done.

Luna had said it was up to me to teach my friends to fight the shadows. But how?

I’d barely escaped their clutches myself. And I’d had so much help! From Twink, from Luna. I needed somepony to teach me. Not the other way around. What was I gonna tell Cliff? “Hay! There are these shadow monsters that tried to eat my soul in the future, but guess what, they’re here now, and they're coming after you - probably because of me, but don't worry, you can fight them. You'll do fine, trust me.”

And Bananas Foster! What could I possibly tell her? “Don't worry about the shadows, just hold onto a happy thought of your friends or family or something. Oh yeah, they're all dead, and you're stuck in a bubble. Well, I'm sure you'll think of something. It's not like the shadows are gonna exploit your deepest sorrows or anything.”

The thought was maddening. The pressure made me want to scream. And I had already freaked out like a baby right in front of Luna just a few minutes ago when I’d thought that the shadow things had turned Ponyville into some kind of clitweasel jamboree. I couldn't let the princess think I was a wuss.

So I watched her as she walked in silence. Meditating on her own concerns. On her own plans.

She had confidence in me. That much seemed obvious. But it made saying what I had to say, and doing what I had to do that much more difficult.

“Luna?" I spoke up at last.

I didn't realize I'd been shaking ‘till my voice came out all warbly. “I...don't think I can protect my friends. I...I, I'm sorry. I'm not even all that sure I can, you know, protect myself.”

I hung my head low. I couldn't bear to look her in the eye. But I had to be honest. If I tried to brazen my way through it, and pretend I knew what I was doing like I had back in Trottica, I would just pick the wrong tunnel again. And get my friends killed.

“I, I, I--;” I stuttered again.

Luna just craned her neck down, and nudged me with her giant princessly head.

“Tell me what you learned behind that door.” She said. Calm. Collected. Motherly.

It put the brakes on my inner rambling. I stopped and thought about it. For real.

What had I learned? I’d seen so much in No Mare’s land, picked so much up from the colonel. Even Rainbow Glimmer, and Big Blue, and Dazzle Shine, and Pumpkin Scone, and Sterry. The war. The bits of future history I'd managed to piece together. That crazy shit I saw in the Pit of Infinite Duckies. Strawberry Lemonade! And the amazing soul I’d found inside of Colonel Wormwood, of all places. How could I possibly sum that all up? What was the friendship lesson? What was the friendship lesson?!! It was all a giant cluster of Holy Fuck, Wow, lessons everywhere.

"I, I--;" I looked down at the piece of Twinklestick clinging to the necklace that my watch was on. The bark from Twink’s candle.

"I found my light." I said at last.

And Princess Luna smiled. She seemed to approve.

"You'll do just fine."

* * *

I smiled back, all proud of myself. The princess nodded at me. Kept walking.

Fwoosh-fwoosh.

The sound of our eight hooves on grass. Luna seemed content in her quiet, soaking in the beautiful fake scenery of my personal brainland, rather than, you know, magicking us to where we needed to go.

But I grew impatient. “Uh...Princess?” I asked. “What is it you were gonna show me?”

Luna didn’t answer. Just looked down her long nose at me, and gestured at the ocean.

“You'll see." She said. "Why don't you enjoy the view? We’ll get there soon enough.”

I did as I was told. The horizon was so low, that when I looked out over the ocean, I felt like I was floating amongst the stars, even as they faded against the blue-en-ing sky.

“It's beautiful.” I said. And for a moment, felt totally at peace. Luna even smiled at me. “But seriously, where are we going?” I said.

The princess sighed. Looked at me for a good long while. “Sometimes, child, it pays to just stop and observe.”

“I do observe!”

Luna raised an eyebrow at me.

“No, really.” I said. “Listen. I'll prove it!”

Don't make an ass of yourself. My Rose Voices said to me. You already threw yourself on the floor and screamed like a foal. This is a princess here! She believes in you. She believes you can fight shadows - that you are super badass funky cool enough to teach your friends to fight shadows. Don't be a moron!

I sucked a great big puff of air into my chest, and in one long, rambling exhale, showed off my powers of observation.

“We have about a mile of open space behind us, a few hundred feet in front of us before the plateau dips down toward the ocean and we start to lose visibility.” I gestured to the cliff on our right. “We’re only about ten feet from the edge, so if anything up and attacks us from the cliff, we’ll have the least warning there. Except that those rocks on the edge are loose and will probably make a buncha clckclckkkkk pa-chocock noises or something if anything scrambles over them to attack.”

I turned and faced the princess, smiling. Proud of myself. But she just looked at me in horror. Jaw open. Even her ethereal mane went astray and started to frizz.

“What?” I asked. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, and turned away from me - collected her thoughts - gazed over the edge of the cliff at the ocean and the starry sky.

“You're still sparkling, you know.” She sighed.

I looked down, and saw myself. A brighter version of myself. Like I was made of glitter. Or crystal. Or glittery crystal. It was that Crystal Empire glow. That magic. I had brought it back with me.

“Did you notice?”

“No.” I answered, totally stunned.

* * *

To our left was the one thing I didn't mention: the schoolhouse. It was one of those conversation elephants. The shadows seemed to have completely retreated for the night, and I didn't doubt its safety. But everything about it still felt wrong. ‘Cause it just sat there. Like a schoolhouse. That sits in the middle of an empty field. For no reason. Even Luna snuck uncomfortable glances at it.

“Is this what you brought me--;”

“Just keep walking,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut good and tight.

The princess swallowed hard - a great big loud alicorn-sized gulp, and took deep breaths. When she finally opened her eyes again, she was a totally different pony - as stiff as Colonel Wormwood.

“Are you alri…” I started to ask her about it - to talk about that castle - what it had been, what it had become, what it meant to her, but before I could get one more word out, FWIMP! She changed the subject.

“I am taking you to meet The Wanderer.” Luna said.

And just like that, my focus was totally redirected. Like she wanted. (*FWIMP - the sound of somepony completely and totally changing the subject).

“Oooh!” I said. “Who's that? It sounds mystical or whatever.”

“You could say that.” Luna cleared her throat.

“It's a creature.”

I knew she was distracting me, fwimping me. But still, my concerns softened a bit. ‘Cause once she got to talking about the Wanderer, Princess Luna seemed like her old self again.

“A creature?” I asked.

“A creature with a very special gift.” She continued.

“Cool! What kinda creature? Can it talk?”

“No.”

“Awww.”

“How many eyes does it have? Five? Seven? A thousand?”

“Two.”

“Awww.”

“But its gift, if you will allow me to finish, is to walk between dreams.”

When I didn't answer, the princess looked down, and checked on me to make sure I’d understood. But I hadn't. She’d confused the hell out of me. I had no idea what Luna was talking about, so she slowed down and spoke all instructive-like at me.

"Every dream has a door." She said. “And there…”

She gestured at the stars.

“...There is a long, near infinite hallway of doors that leads to everyponies’ dreams.”

“And The Wanderer, uh... wanders between them?”

“Yes.”

“To help ponies? Like you did for me?”

“No.”

My muscles tensed up. All at once. Was this gonna be another fight? A demon to face? A monster to slay?

“To hurt them?” I asked.

“No.” Luna said dryly.

“Well, what does it do, then?! What does it want?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Until tonight.” Luna replied. “The Wanderer always steers clear of dreams with a shadow presence. Even run of the mill nightmares it won't dare go near, but tonight, when the shadows attacked, this creature started pounding on your door. I had to barricade it just to make sure we weren’t disturbed.”

“Why me?”

“That's what I hope to find out." Luna answered.

* * *

The ground started to slope downward, and dip into a path that led to the raucous ocean below. The princess stole one final look at the schoolhouse before it disappeared from view.

In that moment, she reminded me of Colonel Wormwood. ‘Cause she got all stiff and inscrutable. It was then that I suddenly realized what was eating at her - why the schoolhouse castle troubled her so.

“You miss them, don't you?" I asked.

She turned to me, pain on her face. Like I had just ripped the scab from a wound.

“Miss whom?”

"The kids." I said. “Who used to live in that castle with you. You miss them."

"Yes." She said stiffly, but didn't offer up another word.

And I didn't press her, desperate as I was for answers. I just leaned up against her.

"I'm so sorry." I said.

Princess Luna sunk. Slouched. That ethereal mane of hers waved carelessly against my face, and in it, I could see the whole universe.Stars everywhere. Justfor an instant. Then the hair parted, and I found myself looking straight up at the princess’ face.

“Guilt is a powerful thing, Rose.” She sighed non-sequiturishly. “It can drive a pony to build an orphanage. It can drive a pony to suicide.”

She opened up her deep blue eyes.

“The shadows will use your conscience against you. If they cannot drag you into their castle, they'll make you desperate enough to try to storm it all by yourself, and trick you into thinking that you can.”

There was ferocity in her voice. Anger. I could tell that she wanted to gallop back up the hill, dash over to that empty schoolhouse, bust down the door herself, and look for clitweasels to stomp.

“Is that why the shadows are after my friends?" I asked her at last, stammering. “To get me mad enough to come after them?”

"Yes," said Luna.

My heart sank a thousand miles to the bottom of the earth.

“...And no.” She continued. “Their plans and machinations are multifaceted. Right now, they are placing their best stones at the tops of the highest stairs. Nopony is safe. They will come for you again, and they will come for your friends, but you cannot blame yourself, child. One way or another, they were planning to come.”

“But not for my friends.”

Luna hesitated. “Perhaps.” She said. “But are you certain you're the only one they're after?”

“Huh?”

I looked up at her, squinting in confusion. I was, after all, the filly with the demon hoof. The princess looked down on me, all warm and compassionate-like, and patient.

“Every heart is full of magic, Rose Petal. Love. Friendship. It is what the darkness dreads. It is what they hope to destroy in us when they shackle ponies to their own fears. It's our magic...our--;”

Luna stopped. Rolled her eyes up, trying to think of a word she couldn't quite recall.

“Purity,” I said.

“That's a good way of putting it.” She replied.

“Purity corrupts,” I whispered to myself, recalling the old Trottica slogan. I got to wondering who had put that idea in The Priestess’ mind in the first place.

“You have friends that are very pure of heart. Would you presume your personal battles with the shadows to be more important than that?”

“Yeah, I mean no. I guess not. Not when you put it like that. It’s just that, uh...well, something Zebro told me just before I ran into the Crystal Wall and fell into the Pit of Infinite Duckies.”

Luna blinkitty-bloinked at me again.

“This zebra medic from the future said my hoof was Tu’kamba, and that the shadows feared me ‘cause I could hoof against them...Or something, I dunno.”

Luna’s lips tightened.

“What?”

“Rose,” she sighed. “I can tell what you're thinking. You plan to seek Zecora’s advice.”

“Yeaaaaah.” I said sheepishly.

I felt like I had been smacked. The princess knew what I'd been thinking. But she disapproved. What the hell?

“...And I would not dissuade you of this course.” Luna held up a hoof settle-down-ishly. “Zecora is indeed wise.”

“Buuuuut…”

“How do I put this? Zebras know a great deal about evil and how it works,” Luna told me. “They may even have learned things about the shadows that I myself do not know.”

The princess grew visibly uncomfortable. She bit her lip, closed her eyes.

“But you've got to take zebra findings with a grain of salt. I’m afraid that sometimes their wisdom tends to get bogged down by misconceptions and superstitions.”

“Like, how?”

I didn't want to judge zebras. I had seen those horrible posters from the future. But on the other hoof, if Luna distrusted zebra wisdom, I was willing to bet that she at least had some kind of reason. What I didn't get was: why the beating around the bush? If there was some horrible zebra secret, why didn't she just fucking tell me already?!

“Rose Petal, listen to me. You can learn much from Zecora, but please trust me when I tell you that the zebras, while mostly well informed, have also developed some misguided ideas about shadow-evil, particularly in regards to its origins.”

“Tell me then!” I said. “What's going on? What is up with the stupid doom castle that tried to eat me?!”

I stood on my hind legs, and gestured wildly at the direction of the schoolhouse that had passed out of sight.

“I know you want me to think, and meditate, and whatnot on all the pretty scenery in my brain, but these things are after me, and it's my fight too.” I stopped, held up my evil hoof. “Please, princess! Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty please. I need to know. What's with the castle?”

Luna stopped. Looked at me patiently until i was done flailing.

“I mean, your highness.” I added hurriedly when I realized I had just wigged out at a princess. I let out a nervous little laugh and clumsily tried to curtsey and walk at the same time. Luna didn't seem to mind.

“It's a place of power,” she said. “A castle on a cloud - full of a magic as old as dreams themselves.”

The princess lit up her horn, and pointed to the sky. An image of a cloud appeared, and molded itself - changed form - to show me how shadow castle had looked once upon a time.

"I discovered it long ago, and turned it into a sanctuary for troubled souls.”

The image was so clear. I could see it all as it once had been. Its great halls, and long corridors, packed with playing children. I even saw Princess Luna - young Princess Luna - tucking them all in at night. One by one.

And their dreams! I could see earth pony kids, flying with no wings at all - like you do in your dreams. And little foals walking side by side with their imaginary friends - equipomorphic donuts with big smiles on their faces, and clownish anteater buddies with way too many arms.

“But as is often the case with troubled souls, the troubles followed.” Said the real Princess Luna as the vision-castle drowned in ink and vanished in a puff of mist. “Took form. I...thought I could defend the children against them by myself.”

She squeezed her eyes shut good and tight. Sucked in a deep breath to brace herself for having to finish that thought, but she never did. Just let out a trembling sigh, hung her head, and kept walking.

“I thought I could.” She whispered to herself.

* * *

Submine F. The boy I left behind my very first night in the Wasteland. That damn tunnel. Seventh, or was it second? I reflected on my vast smorgasbord of failings. All the way down to the beach. Over rocks and crags and patches of washed up seaweed that I slipped on more than once. But I couldn’t help it. All I could think about was that It Should Have Been Me feeling. And the horrifying realization that whatever Luna must have felt was probably a thousand times worse.

She had been carrying that pain for such a long time. I felt for her - really felt for her. I had this drive to just leap forward and hug her, and tell her that she was wonderful – one of the good ones. Maybe even the best one. But I had no idea how to put it into words. 'Cause how do you comfort a princess? How does anyone? I couldn't think of anything. Not a single word to say. So I just walked beside her, trembling until we got to the water.

Luna stopped. Looked out over the vast wide ocean. The sea breeze was whipping sand up in my face, but her ethereal mane remained perfect as always.

She set her flank down on a great big rocky platform, and spoke at long last. “I'm so sorry.”

She was looking right at me too. It wasn't one of those generalized I'm so sorry for all the pain I've caused apologies. She was apologizing. To me. Directly.

“For what?"

“Your fate seems to be entangled with the shadows.”

“That? That's not your fault," I shrugged - the world’s most generic response to apologies.

But it didn't help. At all. ‘Cause Princess Luna kept looking at me. And I kept on not knowing what to say. The sadness in her millennia-old eyes clobbered my heart with a giant moon-shaped feels-hammer, and it made me feel lost. Afraid. Luna - the princess of the fucking moon - was giving me one of those it should have been me looks. The thought that had haunted Wormwood, and me, and so many of those soldiers back in the trenches - it had plagued an alicorn princess. The very best of us. Nopony was immune.

“I may not be able to fight your battles for you,” she said. “But I want you to know that I’m not abandoning you. The moon is always watching, and I will never stop fighting the shadows.”

“I know.” I said.

And the silence that followed was punctuated only by the roar of the ocean, and this dark booming sound that seemed to roll in with it.

I thought about what Luna’d said. All the horrors that fate had put me through. The mines. The war. The nightmares. Grownups couldn't have accomplished any of that. And I wouldn't wish it on any other kid.

“It's my fight too." I said.

Princess Luna turned to me. But I didn’t say anything. Just stood tall and proud and held up my evil hoof. Those clitweasels had mutilated me, haunted me, followed me - fucked with me so hard, that the whole inky nightmareitty mess was already way too personal for comfort.

“I can't go back now,” I told the princess. “Even if there was a way to make it stop, even if poof! I could eat a magic sandwich that would get me outta this, and in the process, turn everything around me into awesome sandwiches instead, so I could eat delicious sandwiches all the time - even if I could, I...wouldn't.”

The princess looked me up and down. She was clearly shocked - taken aback. I guess she was used to dealing with regular kids and their regular nightmares. But me? I stood at attention. Saluted her. Sure, I wasn't in front of Wormwood anymore, but I was dedicated to Luna’s cause, and damnit, it felt right.

“Please don't pity me, ma’am.” I said in my most soldierly voice.

Luna shook her head. “I wouldn't dream of it.”

* * *

We sat there together for a good long while.
"We should probably look into all of that Wanderer stuff.” I said.

Luna didn't react. Just leaned in close. And plunged her face all up in my mane.

“What are you--;”

She tugged at my hair, and spit out a piece of seaweed that I hadn't known was tangled there. She could have just levitated it. She could have kept her distance. But she’d grabbed it with her teeth. Almost motherly-like.

And when her mouth was right up against my ear, she whispered. “We're already here.”

“What do you mean?”

I looked left, looked right – looked all around, and frantically ran my hooves through my mane to straighten it out. As if the Wanderer would care how it looked. But I didn't see anyone. Or anything.

'Till boom! That ocean sound. When I listened carefully, I could hear it better. A sound like thunder coming from the cliffs. I jumped up. Clung to Luna's leg.

"What was that?"

Luna took her time in answering me. “Ready when you are." She said, and pointed, all ominous-like.

I followed her hoof with my eyes, and traced it to the wall of the cliff. There was a hole in that wall. A cave. The little rock clearing where we stood led right to it. A jagged little path.

“Boom boom boom!" Said the cave.

"What's the hell is in there?" I whispered.

"Your door."

"And that banging is--;"

She nodded.

"I'll be near if there's any trouble,” said the princess. “But the Wanderer is afraid of me, so I'll stay out of sight."

“Boom!” The cave said again. “Boom, boom, boom!" That door sure was loud.

"Okay. If you say so. Are you sure I'll--;"

I turned around. But Princess Luna was already gone. It was just me, and the rolly waves roaring against the shore.

* * *

I headed for the cave, more than a little on edge. Even if I knew what to expect in there, the banging noise was very loud. Just bracing myself to get startled again got me super tense. When I came to the mouth of the cave, I stopped to peer inside.

“Damnit,” I said out loud.

It was dark in there.

Of course it's dark in there. I chided myself. It's a fucking cave.

And in I went. No more messing around. No more stalling. It was dank, and super annoying. I was totally blind. But I pushed myself forward anyway, determined not to wuss out on my first royal assignment.

"Stupid brain," I muttered to myself. “Why’d you have to stick my brain door in a stupid cave?”

My words echoed off the walls, but when the sound of my voice decayed, I heard something else - trickling waters.

"Hello?" I said.

Boom! Went the door. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom! Like it had all of a sudden gotten doubly excited. I could even see it once I figured out where to look. The door had a certain light to it even though it appeared to be made out of wood.

It glowed, and faint as it was, I could see it all the way from the other end of the cave. It lit up this trickley little waterfall that emptied into a tiny pool.

Boom! Boom! Boomboomboomboomboom!

The banging was constant now. It knew that I was here. I turned around and looked back over my rump. The mouth of the cave still there, of course. Bright and shining. A clear escape path should I need one.

"Luna says it's harmless." I whispered to myself. "You'll be fine."

And deeper in I went.

* * *

The doorway was barricaded with boards. So I swallowed my fears, and lifted the planks from their braces, one by one. All but the last block of wood, which I left to hold the door in place as I fiddled with the little latches, and locks, and hooks, and things. I loosened those with my teeth. Jumped every time the door shook.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

I got to the final latch, and the final board.

Hiding behind it was a picture, painted onto the door itself. A scattering of rose petals. My cutie mark. The board was big and heavy like a 4" by 4". I had to get under it and lift it with my back, but I managed. Even as the door banged against me like there was a wrecking ball on the other end, I stayed focused on my task.

'Till dujj. The great big board hit the ground. And the banging stopped. The Wanderer was on the other end. Listening. With the final bit of wood out of the way, all that remained was one little latch. I think the creature somehow knew that.

I reached for it. Stuck out my head and got ready to flip it. There was a rumbling snifflysnuff waiting for me on the other end.

"Luna says it's safe." I reassured myself, winced, and flicked the last latch open with my teeth. '

The handle got to jiggling.

I scurried backwards. Ran into a wall. Pressed myself against it with my back.

The door dragged open, pushing away all the discarded boards and stuff. And out leapt this creature. Confused. Lost. Furry as hell and way bigger than me. It smelled its way around the dark. Growled at the air. Let out a rumble that boomed and echoed all up and down the cave.

I backed up further, inched toward the exit. But it was no use. The creature saw me. It stopped. Froze. Lowered its shaggity head, raised its backside, and lunged.

"Ahhh!" I shrieked.

And whack! It knocked me to the ground. Stood over me. I threw my forelegs up to shield my face, but the Wanderer shoved its head through them with brute force. And licked my cheeks.

I looked up. It was some kinda great big dog. I pried its mouth from my face with all my strength - pushed it away with my legs. Somewhere in that struggle, I caught sight of the Wanderer's eyes.

I knew them! I knew her.

"Screw Loose? I mean, Queenie?"

She bounded all around. Elated. Excited to hear her name. Ecstatic to see me safe.

"You're the Wanderer?"

I had a thousand questions, most of them some variation of: What? Huh? How?

But Screw Loose just leapt, and bounded, and spun around all over the damn place - up-and-down, back-and-forth, wagging her tail, running in circles. When she darted through the light, I got a better peek at her. She looked like a big gray dog with wild pale blue hair. Maybe normal pony height, but twice as wide. Big for dog, but hardly monstrous for a pony.

"Screw Loose, Screw Loose, Screw Loose, Screw Loose, Screw Loose!" I called, whistled, tried to get her attention.

But she just ran around all frantic-like. Occasionally stopping to lick me in the face again.

"Hold on a second, hold on!” I shouted. "Please, Queenie...I’m calling in a friend, okay? And I don't want you to get scared!"

I shouted so loud the cavern made those big echoes at me. But she just wouldn't. Calm. Down.

"Queeeenie," I pleaded to no avail.

"Damn it, sit!" I shouted.

Pomf. Her rump hit the ground. She gave me this piteous wide-eyed, I'm-not-in-trouble, am-I? look.

I sighed. Trotted over to her. She leapt up again as I approached.

"Ah, ah, ah!" I said, all authoritarian-like. "Sit."

The dogpony did as she was told. And gave me nervous puppy eyes as I approached.

She was so damn fragile and childlike.

I sighed, nuzzled up against her, and said, "Good girl,” because I didn't know what else to do.

She was no dog. No child either. But Queenie sighed in relief when she heard the praise. Rested her head on top of mine. And licked my mane. Next thing I know, she's drawing me closer, and sobbing.

I felt like I did back when I was five years old, and this soapbox scooter I was riding flew out from under me and down into a ravine. I was totally fine, but Roseluck’d thought I'd died, and when she found me unharmed, she hugged me so tight I couldn't breathe, and wept all over me ‘till I was like, "Geez, let me go already, I'm fine."

That's what Queenie did. See wept like a mom.

"Shh." I said, and let her do her thing. "Good girl."

And she just wept, and wept, and wept, and held me close.

* * *

When she finally started to calm down, I took a step away, and said, "Listen. I have a friend outside this cave. I need you to come with me and meet her. You can trust her. So don't run away, okay? Friend. Friend."

She looked back-and-forth, a little nervous. I got the feeling that she was like me, always looking for exits just in case of attack.

"Trust me." I said. "Now come on."

Queenie followed. Held her head up high. Proud of obeying. Proud of being a good dog. It felt weird.

We had all fought so hard for freedom - the slaves of Trottica - the soldiers of No Mare’s Land. Only for me to come home to this grown mare who was just so damn eager to belong to me. I held my tongue. Led the way. Gave her reassuring looks, because it's what she needed. When we stepped out into the open, Screw Loose sniffed at the air. I didn't smell anything. Only oceany stuff. But she did, and she had to do her sniffly dog thing.

"Okay, now I want you to meet somepony. You ready?”

The overgrown dogpony stopped. Got all hesitant and nervous-like, but in the end, puffed out her chest like a show dog. She was telling me she had herself under control.

“Princess Luna, you can come out now."

The princess came up behind us from inside the cave. Looking majestic. Horn aglow and everything. Queenie startled, but I leapt up and hugged her.

“Shh," I said firmly. "Stay. Staaay."

Queenie obeyed. She and Luna looked at one another, then back at me.

"I see you two are acquainted," Luna said awkwardly. "Which would explain her eagerness to..."

"Come to my rescue." I said.

"Yes." Luna replied. "That."

"Alright, where to begin? Queenie, also known as Screw Loose, also known as the Wanderer, this here is Princess Luna, also known as, uh...Princess Luna. She guards dreams and stuff." I pointed to the princess. "Princess Luna, this is Screw Loose. She's sort of…my dog...kinda."

"Your dog?"

"Well, she's actually a pony."

"A pony?”

That seemed to shock Luna more than anything else.

"Well, she's a pony who thinks she's a dog."

Screw Loose tensed up.

"Shush," I said. "I know you're really a dog, but..."

Screw Loose tilted her head at me, all canine and confused.

"...Oh you know very well that you're not easy to explain. Now shh, be a good girl and give Luna your paw."

Queenie dutifully held up a paw. And sat there at attention. Looking to me for reassurance. Luna came forward hesitantly, gave me a What-do-I-do? look. I answered with one of those, Go-on, shake-her-paw-already gestures with my eyeballs.

So the princess lifted a hoof. And it met Queenie's paw. And they shook.

"Pleasure to finally make your acquaintance."

Queenie just bit her doggie jowl nervously. I was struck by how pony a gesture it was for so canine a face.

"Why are you so afraid, girl?" I asked.

"She's been avoiding me." Answered Princess Luna. "Hiding ever since I became aware of her existence last year."

"She managed to get away from you for that long?"

"I have not been actively hunting her." Luna replied. "I've been curious, but the realm of sleep has an ecosystem all it's own, and all manner of..."

Luna stopped to look Screw Loose over.

"Oddities." Luna lowered Queenie's paw, turned to me and continued. "There's no time to pursue every last one, but now that we are all here together, I have many questions. What strange world did you find her in?"

"Oh, back home at Ponyville."

"Ponyville?"

"Yeah."

"Ponyville?!" She repeated. Luna was so shocked by the news that she broke her royal princessity bearing.

"She lives over at the hospital ‘cause she runs around all over the place acting like a dog."

Luna thought about it long and hard.

"What I don't get," I continued. "Is how she could be your Wanderer. Or how she's even a dog! Back home she looks totally pony."

Then suddenly it dawned on me. This was a dream.

"Hay!" I shouted. "Can I be anything I want too? Ooh! Can I be a sandwich the next time I travel to the future? A fire-breathing sandwich?"

"No."

"Awwww."

"Every world has rules to protect itself.” She lectured. “Some are more flexible than others, but you can't bring just any being into a world where such beings don't already exist. The Universe will not allow it. Unless you found a world populated by fire-breathing sandwiches, there is no way that you could become one."

I thought about it. It made a certain kinda sense. But it also got me wondering.

"What if I found a magic portal to a world where there were no ponies, just sandwiches. Would I come out the other end, and turn into a sandwich?" I pressed. "You know, so that I fit in?"

Luna put hoof a in front of her mouth to hide her smirk. "Theoretically."

“Wow.”

There were so many possibilities. Infinite ones! The list was as vast and endless as the ducky-filled ether. They flickered through my head like a Las Pegasus slot machine, but for some reason my brain fixated on one possibility. One duckyverse.

"Soooo...hypothetically, if there was a world where the whole town was, like, you know one of those big city high schools I've read about, would you and Princess Celestia, be, you know, principals, instead of princesses?"

"No." Luna said dryly.

“Why not?”

"The Universe may be a strange place, but that is too silly and undignified a notion to entertain."

"But not the firebreathing sandwiches?"

"Slightly more plausible." She replied.

And that was that.

Luna scratched her chin with her hoof. Put those undignified notions out of her head. And watched Queenie carefully. The big dog was too busy chewing on her own leg to notice.

“You say this creature is a pony?"

"Yeah."

"And she thinks she's a dog."

"Yeah."

"It makes sense then that it would be her dream form."

"But that doesn't explain how she’s, you know, walking between dreams?"

Luna put a hoof on my shoulder. And looked me in the eyes. "The world we can see and touch and smell is just a small aspect of the Universe.” She levitated a small mirror. Held it up in front of me 'till I was looking right at my own reflection.
"Tell me what you see.”

“Uh...me?”

The image was particularly clear, even if I was looking a little disheveled.

“This is the mind of a pony who functions in everyday society. Your image is whole – something that ponies recognize and understand – something that fits in.”

“Just like a firebreathing sandwich fits in Sandwichia!” I exclaimed.

“Sandwichia?”

“The Land of the Firebreathing Sandw--;”

“Yes, well anyway,” Luna interrupted. “Keep looking at the mirror.”

I did. Stared really hard. ‘Till the glass all of a sudden shattered. Out of the blue.

“Ahhh!” The damn thing startled me.
Screw Loose leapt up, prepared to defend me.

“No, no, no.” I said, rushing over to her. “It's okay.”

I nuzzled her chest with my face. “Sssh.” I said, and did my best to reassure her.

The floaty mirror floated on over to us. I turned to Luna.

"I get it. Her brain is broken.”

Luna gave me a stern look. So I gave the mirror a second chance. Examined it carefully. But all I saw was about eighty fragments of Screw Loose.

“The Wanderer’s consciousness is divided - split between worlds.” Said Luna. “The Universe is a vast puzzle of intertwining realms, and sometimes, a mind can move around several of them at once, just like you can see several versions of her reflection in each shard of the broken mirror."

I looked away from the glass. Looked straight at Screw Loose. The actual Screw Loose. Her tail was wagging. And something behind her eyes wasn't quite there.

"So when you break your brain, you go crazy, and get superpowers?"

"Perhaps." Luna said. "Or maybe it was her powers that drove her crazy in the first place."

I suddenly remembered what it was like to be sitting in the classroom. Drawing Strawberry Lemonade. Frantically. I could've gone at it for a week, and I wouldn't have noticed. Because in that moment, I was there. My consciousness, in Trottica. I could see her. Clearer than anything I could perceive with just my eyes. The One I Was Meant to Save.

While I had been busy scratching away at that picture, my brain was far from Ponyville. And when I'd snapped out of it, Miss Cheerilee had told me that art - truly inspired art - was always a little bit cuckoo.

I reached up with my hoof to touch Queenie. When she lowered her head, I scratched it.

Was that weird drawing trance state of mind how she lived her whole life? Brain so deep in so many scribblelands, that she’d forgotten how to pull herself together?

Could the same thing could happen to me?

"You have quite a special friend there, Rose." Said Luna.

She'd been watching Screw Loose and I. Just sorta stood back and admired the two of us together as the sound of the ocean filled the little gaps in our conversation.

"Because her head is a broken mirror?" I asked.

"No. That is actually more common than you might think.”

“What then?”

“In all my months of observation, I've learned that the Wanderer fears the shadows more than anything. But tonight she charged against them to come to your aid."

"Awwww."

I smiled. Queenie smiled back with her great big dog face. Flopped on her back, belly in the air. I giggled. Climbed up on her, and scratched her belly. But then, as Princess Luna’s words settled in, a disturbing notion crossed my mind.

"Do you think the shadows got her? Are they the ones who, uh, broke her brain to begin with?

"I don't know, child."

"Can we find out?"

"It's possible, but only if you get her to go back to her own door, but--;"

"Yipe!" Something awakened in Screw Loose’s eyes. Something sentient. Something pony. She leapt up, and, in her panic - thud - knocked me to the ground. Without hesitation, she ran away whimpering back into my cave.

“Yipe, yipe, yipe, yipe, yipe!”

"Stop!" I shouted, but she didn't listen. "Stay! Queenie, stay!"

I ran in after her. Into the echoey cave. Back toward the door, and the trickling water.

"Queeeeeenie!"

I tripped on a rock in the dark. Climbed back up again. Ran panting to the door. But when I got there, it was closed. And there was no sign at all that anypony had been there, or anydog.

Luna came up from behind me, lighting the way with her horn. "I do not think she's ready."

"Queenie?" I whimpered.

I was answered by the echo. "Queenie, Queenie, Queenie, Queenie, Queenie."

"She'll be back." Said Luna.

“You think so?"

"I am certain." She replied. "A powerful magic draws you two together."

“Really?” I sniffled.

And was shocked when I heard my own voice bouncing off of those stonewalls. I sounded like such a little foal.

“Yes.” Princess Luna nodded.

She seemed so confident that I stopped. Thought about it. I mean reeeeally thought about it.

What if I hadn't swallowed all of that tea? Or even if I had swallowed just a little bit more, or a little bit less of it? I might not have been awake for the time when Screw Loose came romping through my room. I might never have known that she existed! And she might never have decided that she just had to be my dog.

And what about her being the Wanderer? One who knows how to avoid shadows? Travel the dream world? Maybe even the duckyverse? What were the odds of her just happening to cross my path? Everything had fallen into place just so. It couldn't be coincidence. Nothing ever was.

Luna was right! We were being drawn together. A powerful magic indeed.

"Fate." I whispered, mildly astonished, still running all the what if's,and the ohmygosh-I-see-it-all-so-clearly-now's through my brain.

"No. " Luna replied.

I looked to her. Cocked my head in confusion.

"Wuh?"

"Friendship."

I blushed. "Oh yeah." I said, all sheepish-like.

I'd been overthinking things again. Stupid Rosebrain! I looked back into that cave. Where my pony dog friend had retreated.

"Friendship." I said, and headed out of the cave with Princess Luna by my side.

* * *

She was right about friendship. But I still had fate on my mind. So many questions! So I summoned my courage and poked her for answers.

"Luna? Can I ask you something? About, you know, destiny?"

She nodded.

"Well, I know you’re, like, willing to die for the cause. Like you said. But I, uh...I've been wondering. You see..." Sick of beating around the bush, I sighed, took one great big gigantic breath, and let it all out. "Does it really have to be that way? Is there really nothing we can do? Is the world just gonna end. How can Equestria simply blow the fuck up like that? I mean, really, what the hell?"

I clapped my hooves to my mouth. Luna was not amused.

“I'm sorry."

“It would be wise to temper your futuristic vocabulary." She said. "Especially when you go home."

“Yeah," I said. “That sounds like a good idea."

I shuffled my hooves. Avoided looking her in the eye. So stupid! Me and my fucking futurisms.

"As for the world, Rose Petal, the future has many paths. Sometimes, even when they split off in wildly different directions, they still lead to the same place."

Those last couple of words seemed to echo. Even without the cave.

Luna shook her head. "It is not in my power to stop the end."

The waves suddenly crashed against the rocks, louder than they had before. The stillness that followed felt all the heavier.

“But we have something more important to do.” Said the princess.

I blink-bloinked at her.

“Huh?” I said out loud.

More important than saving the world? My brain scrambled itself trying to process what she was saying – scrambled so hard that one of my futurisms almost slipped out.

“We may be able to lay the groundwork for a new beginning."

Princess Luna looked out over the vast wide ocean. All determinationy. The twilight hours had invited all kinds of daytime stuff. A much lighter sky. Early morning seagulls kicking the shit out of each other on the shore.

"Golden ages never last, child.” Luna hung her head. “It is not their job to. All things crumble with time.”

She paused as the waves thundered again.

“...But civilization always finds a way. Ponies look to those golden ages. They look, and they remember. They dream of the way things had once been. They aspire. And…” She held up a hoof, all instructive-like. “They build."

"All it takes is a story." I said to myself, thinking not only of the Lightbringer, and how she’d discovered (or would eventually discover) the stories of my time, but also, how her story would inspire so many others in the generations that followed.

Every No Mare’s Land soldier had grown up playing games based on those stories, dreaming of heroism. Big Blue had Princess Luna to aspire toward – or at least her thoughts of what Luna must've been like. Dazzle Shine had Littlepip. Even Colonel Wormwood, the most pragmatic of the bunch, had founded her military career upon a childhood dream of living up to the example of the great Strawberry Lemonade.

“Equestria is more than lines on a map or princesses in a throne room.” Said Luna. “It's a dream we all share, and important dreams – the kind of dreams that bear messages – always recur. It's how we remember who we are - who we are supposed to be - as ponies. The end of Equestria as we know it is inevitable. One day, in one form or another, it will fall.”

I lowered my head. Watched the rocky ground. ‘Cause I didn't wanna think about it. But Luna reached down, and lifted my chin with her silver-clad hoof.

“But if everything goes as it’s supposed to, we can save the dream.”

Luna smiled down on me. Eyes far sadder than her lips.

“But, but, but--;” I stuttered.

I didn't know what to say. Because I actually understood what she was saying. Because it actually felt right. Because my fights with the shadows all of a sudden made fucking sense. It wasn't just about nightmares. And stealing pony souls. It was about rocks on top of staircases killing kings. They were fucking with history. Trying to prevent us from remembering who we were supposed to be. Trying to keep the stories from happening. Trying to keep us in the dark.

But knowing it to be true just made the whole thing that much harder. As I stood there listening to the princess, I freaked out silently. ‘Cause even if Equestria was a dream, it was also my home. My friends’ home. My sister’s. What good is a dream for somepony else's distant future when your own future - your own life - is just gonna go up in smoke?

Luna knelt down to my level, which, for her, meant crouching pretty damn low. She reached out and wiped tears from my eyes that I hadn't even realized I’d been shedding.

“Rose Petal, listen. When the end draws nearer, if it is in my power to do so, I will fight it,” she said. “I will not go gently into that good night, and neither will you.”

“What do you mean if it's in your power?” I sniffled.

“The Elements have been passed on, and the Era of the Princess is passing quickly with it.” She said. “I'm afraid that very much of what lies ahead may no longer be my story. But I promise you…Look at me, child.”

She lifted my chin again. Forced me to meet her eyes so that I could understand the gravity of her promise.

“Like a captain goes down with her ship, I will never give up. I will fight for Equestria down to my last breath. I'll fight with my very bones if I have to.”

“Your w-w-what?”

The whole world felt like it suddenly narrowed into a tiny pinhole. Luna, the beach, the cave - it was all so distant. I could only think about what would become of the princess. What would become of her bones.

It all makes sense. My Rose Voices said to me. It all makes perfect sense.

My heart leapt up into my head and pounded against the inside of it. Like it was trying to leap out through my ear.

Eventually, I heard the princess again. She was calling my name.

“Rose? Rose?”

When I realized that she was still beside me, I leapt up and threw myself at her. Hugged her. Squeezed her as tightly as anypony possibly could. To feel her coat. To feel her flesh while it was still attached to her bones. She held me gently. Rocked back and forth like she was holding a foal. And even though the future was terrifying, in that moment, I knew peace. ‘Cause the Era of the Princess wasn't over yet.

* * *

We sat like that a good long while. ‘Till the sun appeared over the horizon, and fucked it all up. I could hear voices. Nurse voices. Hospital voices from the waking world.

“Hay! I think she's waking up.” One of them said.

As though my regaining consciousness was some kind of surprise.

“Thank Celestia, she's okay.” Said another.

As I watched the first rays of sunshine warm the top layer of the ocean with a thousand faint little colors, I heard Princess Luna muttering under her breath.

“Yes, thank Celestia.” She said bitterly.

I spun around to look at her one more time before I got sucked back to the waking world.

“Thank you.” I said.

She smiled at me warmly. She'd needed to hear that.

“Be good, child. Teach your friends.” She whispered into my ear. “And train your dog.”

“Okay,” I said to her softly. "So...is this it? Am I ever gonna see you again?"

"You won't need to," she replied. "If ever you feel lost, or afraid, all you need to do to find your way is look to the Moon."

End Book Two
No Mare's Land

Author's Note

The quote I used at the beginning of the chapter is oft misquoted. Neil Gaiman, in Coraline, said, "Fairy tales are more than true – not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten." This was a paraphrase of a famous quote by G.K. Chesterton, which Gaiman gave proper credit to.

The original Chesterton quote is:
"Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon." The opening of this chapter quoted the Gaiman version because it is more succinct, but Chesterton deserves proper attribution as well.

Special thanks to Seraphem for going over the same couple of passages again, and again, and again with me. I get OCD about details, and if I were him, I would have smacked me by now. Seraphem, I think the chapter, and the story as a whole benefits greatly from your dedication and patience.

Also, thanks to Kkat for believing in, and promoting this story within the fandom; and to the FOE subreddit community for voting for this story to be featured on EqD. I am very grateful that so many people seem to care about Rose Petal.

This concludes the No Mare's Land adventure, which I, in my head, consider to be "HOOVES OF FATE: BOOK TWO." I'm excited to get back to Ponyville in the next chapter. There's so much story left to tell, and I can't wait to get back to exploring Cliff Diver, and Bananas Foster, and the whole gang.

Thanks for reading.

Storytime

* * *

BOOK THREE
AFTER THE STORM

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - STORYTIME
"Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children." - William Makepeace Thackeray

I missed Roseluck. The entire time I was gone, I missed her like crazy. A rambling, raving, there are snails living in my eyeballs kinda crazy. But I couldn't think about it down in the trenches. Not while I had all that truce and war and get thee to the door business going on. So I’d stayed focused, chased down my goals, and, for the most part, my inner pirate had behaved herself. Didn't cry or yarrrr at me for attention or nothing.

But Roseluck hadn't shown up for Hearth's Warming. And it really scared me. ‘Cause what the hell?

What the hell? What the hell? What the hell?

There are no words that I can come up with for just how much what the hell was going through my brain back there. But there's a passage in that history book that Bananas Foster gave me - a letter from Chancellor Puddinghead to Clover the Clever that captured my deepest, darkest, scariest fear.

Dearest Clover,

It is my hope that this letter will reach you at your new poste. I've sent correspondence to both your Manehattan office as well as the princess' old estate, all to no avail, as your sudden departure has left both manors in something of a state of disarraye, but my pudding sense tells me that you might be in the company of that olde wizard once agayne, so I've dispatched messengeres to deliver this most important letter to him in the hopes that my words might reach you.

I am sorry, Clover. You were right about everything.

A few weeks ago, this nation celebrated its thirtieth Hearth's Warming. It's hard to believe that it has been so very long since the six of us conquered the windigo, but thirty sugar-plum-fueled winters have indeed come and gone, and the anniversary of sayed victory passed rather unceremoniously, with neither pomp nor spectacle. The five of us remaining “founding sisters,” as the ponies have taken to calling us, gathered as we had on Hearth's Warmings' past, and feasted on the elderberry pastries you fancy, and the special eclairs that your princess adoreth; we also imbibed those fine mulled liqueurs, my affinity for which is so extreme, that it has become the subject of gossip and conjecture throughout the kingdom.

My dearest Clover, it would be a lie to pretend that such an assembly could possibly be the same without you. To be honest, I cannot help but wonder if my presence is the very thing that warded you away, (not to mention my legendary affinity for the aforementioned liqueurs).

I would not blame you if this were the case. For what little it is worth, Clover, I am sorry. You were right.

I thought you would want to know that I plan to seek help. I have ordered my vineyard, and my distillery to be auctioned off.

I'm scared, Clover.

I know that, by the time my words reach you, I will either have died or recovered, (as the rehabilitation facilities employ rather extreme methods). In either case, the worst will be long behind me, but you deserve to know that I am sorry. I am so very sorry, Clover.

I'm sorry for everything.

Yours in Friendship,

Puddin’

She signed it Puddin'. Not Puddinghead. Not Chancellor. Just Puddin'.

According to the Ponies' History of Equestria, the letter never made it to Clover. Discord came and took over everything. And the letter was lost for many, many years. Most of the founding sisters were never seen or heard from again.

That's the part that terrified me! What if something happened to me in my dreams? None of my friends would know what had gone down, or why. And Roseluck! She hadn't shown up for Hearth's Warming. What if she was in trouble? Would I want her last thoughts to be spent worrying about me? Wondering if I would be the one to miss out on the letter?

* * *

I opened up my eyes. It wasn't like waking up after having poisoned myself with all that tea. It wasn't like coming to in the cages at Trottica, where we just kinda phased in and out of a messed up, weird, not-sleeping, not-waking state. It wasn't even like getting up normally. I was just suddenly really fucking awake.

Swoomp! My eyes flung open like they were spring-loaded,

And boom. There I was: back in the old Ponyville hospital bed. The room was decked. Festive strings and banners hanging from the ceiling. Strands of popcorn. Unlit candles propped up in fancy-hearths-warmingsy-loooking holders, red, and green, and gold, hung with care from hooks on the walls, right next to the stockings.

And there were a bunch of nurses staring at me. I didn't recognize any of them. Except the jerk nurse who'd been a dick to Screw Loose. He was there, ogling.

Some kinda doctor was in the room too - all be-stethescope’d. His pencil slowly slid off his ear as he stared at me, frozen in shock. Silent as the night. An older nurse, pink with white hair, slowly lifted her foreleg up to point at me. The younger, purpler nurse beside her just stood there, jaw agape.

"How?" She said.

"What?" I snapped. And surprised myself. It came out louder than I’d expected. None of that croaky, raspy sick-mouth. It sounded like my old voice. When I gulped, I didn't have any of that dead-rat-in-my-throat taste either. The air came in fresh and clear with no effort at all.

I thought about it for a moment. Moved my limbs around. Stretched them out real good. Turned my head without any effort.

I wasn't sick anymore. Wasn't weak! I didn't ache. In fact, I was glowing. I looked down. Even through the sheets, I could see a faint aura. A shimmer. Love and light from the Crystal Empire.

"How?" I asked out loud, marveling at the glow.

But the captive audience at the foot of my bed just stood there. Wondering the same thing. A mix of terror and wonder lit their eyes up as they gawked. A great big old pegasus - not a medipony, but a visitor - blue with a white mustache - babbled and shot his eyes toward the door. A white Pegasus mare. Also a visitor. Stood there next to him. Gawking.

Then there was the Jerk Nurse who’d taunted Screw Loose. He staggered backwards. Tripped on his own hooves. While the young purple nurse - the one who'd had the presence of mind to actually open her mouth and ask, "how" - held it together well enough to come up to me and start talking to me. Like a regular pony.

The young nurse - barely old enough to be out of school - cleared her throat, floated a clipboard and pencil in front of her face with her unicorn magic. Got on with the protocol as though she'd done it a thousand times before.

"Rose Petal," she said, reading my name off the chart. "Can you tell me how you feel?"

"Um...good-ish?" I replied.. I lifted the bedsheets. Looked down at my crystallness. Secretly wondered how long the glow would last.
"Yeah, goodish, I'd say."

"You're shiny." Came a groaning voice at my side.

I rolled over, and there was Roseluck! The top half of her head was all bandaged up like a mummy. A head-wound mummy. But she was there. Alive. And she still loved me!

"Roseluck!” I shouted. “Omigosh! What happened? Are you okay?"

The grim faced, determined young nurse came up to me, levitated some cotton, pressed it against the spot in my leg where the needle and tubes went. The doctor didn't object.

"Put pressure here." Said the nurse, pressing down on my little IV wound, showing me how.

Without thinking, my hooves did as I was told. But I totally ignored the nurse beyond that.

"Roseluck!” I cried. “What the hay happened?"

"Just a little spill," she said. "I'll be fiiiiiiiiine." She smiled a dazed little smile at me, even as her head waved around.

“Ahem.” The young professionalistic-ish nurse messed with the clipboard again. And whipped out her fake ass I’m talking to a wittle kid now voice.

"Can you tell me your name, little girl?" The bitch said to me all singitty-songitty.

The sound of it made my eye twitch, and my teeth grind against one another. It must've been obvious, 'cause Roseluck, even in her woozy state, managed to throw me a don't you dare give this lady a hard time look.

"Rose Petal.” I grumbled. "You read it to me off the chart, just a moment ago."

"Ah, so I did." The nurse answered. "Do you know what your cutie mark is?"

"It's rose petals."

"Do you know what day it is?"

"Hearth's Warming."

"Who is the Princess of the Sun?"

"Celestia. Are you kidding me?"

I turned to my sister.

"Roseluck, what's going on? Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine." She patted my hoof. "Thanks to your friend Cliff Diver."

"Cliff?!"

"That's my boy!" Came a voice from the other end of the room.

"Who are you?" I said.

"Name's First Place." The mustache pegasus stepped forward. Offered me his hoof. "Cliff Diver The Hero's old dad."

"Um, hi?" I bumped his hoof.

"And I'm Gold Medal, Cliff's mother." Said the white pegasus lady.

She was colder, more reserved. She didn't even bother stepping forward.

"First Place?" I said. "Gold Medal? Are you seri--;"

"Yes!" The older, pinker nurse jumped in with an awkward laugh. "It's been a busy night for us all."

The purple professional grabbed my leg. Started poking it.

"Any tingling, numbness in your hooves?"

"No. It's fine."

"Does it hurt when I do this?"

Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke.

"No." I turned back to Roseluck. "What happened to you?"

"I fell,"

"You fell?"

"I'll tell the story later." She said, all woozy-like. "For now--;"

"There he was!" Cliff’s Mustache Dad stepped even further forward. "In the middle of the worst blizzard this side of the frozen North.”

"Hooooo, boy." Roseluck sighed.

"He knew your sister might be in trouble because you hadn't heard from her all day, so he and his mother…” Mustache threw Gold Medal a quick nod. “Trudged through the snow to ensure her safety."

The purple professional ignored First Place completely, and kept on prodding at me. "How about now?"

Poke, poke, poke, poke, poke.

"...And just when it looked like the snow was too heavy for them to make it to the other end of town, my son - the hero - and my wife - the other hero - turned to one another boldly, and said..."

"Ayyyiieeeeeeeeeeeee!"

The real Cliff Diver ran into my room, shrieking like a little foal in a basket full of worms. "...eeeeeeee!"

He slammed the door shut. Pressed his back to it, and panted.

"That pony out there is nuts!" He squeaked.

"What pony?"

"Bow wow wow wow rrrrrrrrruff!" Screw Loose darted passed my doorway. Barking. Followed by a team of orderlies. Some of the nurses in my room brushed Cliff aside, and ran out there to deal with Queenie. The doctor too. Even the purple professional whipped around to see.

"Jeez, again?” She said as she got up to draw the privacy curtain that hung from the ceiling. "She's been at it all night."

I smiled. Silently rooted for Screw Loose. The underdog. ‘Till it hit me.

"Did you say all night?"

"Yeah."

"As in all night?"

The nurse rolled her eyes. "Yeah," she said, dropping her professional demeanor. "Don't get me started on that one."

"But she slept, right?" I said. "She had to have slept."

“I wish!” The nurse answered. “Not a wink, poor thing."

My heart thundered in my chest. How could it be? I had seen her in my dreams! But she never even winked! Had I been tricked? Had the Wanderer really been her? If not her, then who?!

Screw Loose slammed her face against the thin glass window in the door to my hospital room. Between the curtain that the nurse kept trying to use to ward off distractions, and the distance between the door and me, and the narrow, tiny little glass space that the dogmare had to peek through, I barely had a chance to get a good look at her. But we still shared a moment, Queenie and I. We locked eyes. And somehow, in that instant, I knew. It had been her. Screw Loose was the Wanderer.

Then unseen hooves whisked the dogmare away. The moment went as quickly as it had come. And I was left pondering her madness. The mirror in her brain must have been so broken, that she didn't even need to sleep to dream. Was that what it meant to be crazy? Trapped in a waking dream? Unable to tell the real from the imaginary?

"Hello, son." Said First Place, King of all Mustaches. "I was just telling everypony how you--;"

"Eeeee!" Cliff Driver shrieked again. "She tried to eeeeat me!"

Cliff's dear old dad sighed, and raised a hoof to his face. His mom just cleared her throat, and looked at him disapprovingly.

"Enough." Snapped the older nurse - the pink one. "Everypony out."

Almost everyone scurried away, but Cliff's parents kinda sorta tip-hooved toward the door, and just, you know...stood there. They threw each other these "she couldn't possibly mean us" looks. Again, and again, and again. It was like watching a game of Privileged-Asshole-Who-Can’t-Take-a-Hint eyeball ping pong.

"Cliff stays." I said.

Gold Medal smiled at her husband.

"Just Cliff." I whispered to the purple young nurse.

She stopped. Held me at leg's length. Studied me closely.

"Pleeeease," I said.

The nurse put her clipboard down. Leaned over me, and got close. I mean really, really close. Lifted up a hoof ever so delicately. I swear I thought she was going to whisper some deep dark secret at me.

But all she did was touch my cheek. And after that, my nose. "No pain?" She said.

Poke, poke, poke, poke, poke.

"No!" I snapped.

And just when I was starting to feel the urge to leap up and strangle her, the older pink nurse swept in and dealt with Cliff's folks. "Sir, madam, if you would be so kind, the patient needs her rest."

"What of, er..." Cliff's mom cleared her throat and gestured at the door. Referring, of course, to Screw Loose. First Place had a look of disgust on her face like she was trying to swallow a slug that had just finished squirming its way through a puddle of sour milk.

"It's fine." The older nurse said all diplomatic-like. "The patient has been subdued."

The nurse turned away from the bitch and the mustache to look me square in the eye, and reassure me. "Screw Loose is safe." She said. "And resting."

It was good to hear. Reassuring to learn that somepony actually cared.

Apparently satisfied, Gold Medal and First Place turned to leave. Cliff tried to follow, but the nurse threw her hoof at him.

"I have a special job, however, for your son."

The parents looked at one another skeptically.

"...The hero." The older nurse cunningly added.

Cliff hung his head. Turned bright red. I could tell he'd already come to hate that word. But Cliff's parents didn't seem to notice. His dad beamed with pride. His mom radiated smug satisfaction.

"Why don't you go get something from the cafeteria? No charge. Er...Hero's Parents Special."

Cliff's folks left with smiles on their faces, totally oblivious to the actual Cliff Diver, who looked just about ready to cry.

* * *

Once they were gone, Cliff Diver squeezed his eyes shut, and said, "I'm so sorry about uh, my--;."

"Don't be." The older nurse said stiffly. "We actually do have a job for you."

She stepped forward, turned to my sister.

"Roseluck has got a pretty bad head wound. She'll be fine, but she needs someone to make sure she doesn't fall asleep. Can you do that?"

Cliff Diver nodded. Saluted.

The purple professional grabbed the clipboard with her mouth. Passed it to her senior. And trotted to the door. Letting loose a sigh of relief, glad to have the pressure taken off.

"What about me?" I said.

"Yeah," Roseluck yawned. "What about Rose Petal?"

"She's fine. Better than fine in fact."

The nurse smiled an awkward little smile. “You may even be out of here soon. I can't say anything ‘till the attending physician has a look at you, but from the looks of it, I'd say everything's coming up roses."

"Ughhh," I groaned.

Cliff brought a hoof to his face.

Roseluck just shut her eyes and sighed.

The nurse grinned a wicked grin at all of us, knowing full well the crime she'd just committed against good taste.

"You need anything, you just ring that bell, you hear?” She said.

“Okay.”

* * *

Before she left, the nurse disappeared behind Bananas Foster's curtain to go check on her. Bananas couldn’t have been too happy about all of this stupid commotion.

The rest of the room went quiet. Cliff looked at me. Then at Roseluck. Then Roseluck looked at me. And I whipped around to exchange glances with Cliff Diver again. We all kept trading stares with one another, like a three way game of hot potato, ‘till eventually, we just sorta stopped, turned our heads in unison. And watched Bananas Foster's curtain. Waiting impatiently for the moment when the nurse would leave, and we could finally get ourselves some privacy.

After a few minutes, the nurse staggered away from the curtain, looking like she had seen a ghost.

"Just ring if you need anything." The nurse told us yet again. But this time, she sounded different than before - like she was a thousand miles away.

What the hell? I mouthed to myself as she left, and the door swung shut behind her.

"Bananas,” I called out. “Are you OK?"

"Yeah," she answered softly. "I'm fine."

The curtain slid across its track. Crick-a crick-a crick-a crick-a crick-a crick.

Foster was standing on the other side, looking anything but fine.
Her eyelids were puffy and twitching. Her tail swished, and swatted back-and-forth all over the place, agitated-like. Her teeth chattered as they chomped on a dangly rope suspended from the ceiling of her forcefield bubble - the rope that drew the curtains. And the whole time, her bloodshot eyes fixed themselves on me.

Help, help me! Please, I'll do anything, just somehow fucking help me!

Her silent plea hit me like a kick to the face. I scrambled back. Almost fell right off the edge of the bed.

I had seen that look before. In the Wasteland. Butterscotch. The lightning water had approached his cage. "Don't leave us." He'd shouted. Just before I abandoned him and dove to my own safety. "Don't you dare leave us."

The echoes of Trottica shook me pretty hard. And Bananas Foster somehow kept on drilling that thought straight into my brain, even as I recoiled.

Help me.

"Sweet Luna," I whispered.

I pulled my bedsheet halfway over my face, as though that could somehow help. Roseluck drowsily turned to say hello. She shot straight up in her chair when she actually caught sight of Bananas. Clapped her hooves to her mouth to stifle an exclamation of shock. Cliff, on the other hoof, came right out and said what we all were thinking.

"Are you sure you're fine?" He said. "You look like you ran your face through a hay bailer."

"Slept badly," Bananas replied, staring at me still, not blinking at all. ‘Till at last, after a long, uncomfortable silence full of eye wrestling, Bananas turned away from me - slow and uncertain-like - bent her neck down, and reached for a breakfast tray that the nurse had left for her at the edge of the bubble. Grabbed her cup of tea. Struggled to lift it with trembling hooves.

"Bananas?" I asked her.

She didn't answer. Just focused instead on balancing her teacup in its saucer.

Cran-tinka tinka tinka tinka tinka tinka tink.

“What happened?” I added in a whimper. I felt like I was gonna cry. “W-was it nightmares?"

Bananas dropped her cup.

Cliff Diver looked to me. Roseluck too. They’d noticed that I’d somehow struck a nerve.

"You know.” I added. "Is that what, uh, kept you up all night? I don't wanna intrude. And it sounds kinda stupid, but I kinda need to know if you're nightmaring. It's...um...well, it's like, a really long story but,…"

“You're sparkly,” Bananas said dryly without looking at me.

Fwimp. The sound of someone changing the subject. Hard.

I pulled the sheet over my glowy coat. Even though I had nothing to hide.

“It's temporary." I said. I'm pretty sure I was blushing. "What about you? Was it nightmares?" I asked again.

Foster didn't reply. Not at first. She just sucked a deep breath in, and composed herself. Then another breath. And another. ‘Till that tea cup in her hooves finally quit its tinka tanking.

Rose and Cliff looked all concernily at me. Like, 'why should you care so much if it was nightmares or not?'

I decided then and there that I couldn't lie to them. Couldn't pretty it up. They needed to know the truth. "It's part of what's going on." I said. "Nightmares, I mean."

"Oh." Bananas Foster replied, already calmer than before. "Yeah. Don't worry. I always have nightmares. I just slipped up this time - let myself fall asleep.”

"Wait." Roseluck whipped around to face her. "You never sleep?"

Foster didn't answer. Just got up and started pacing. She had a what-the-hell-am I-gonna-do look written all over her face.

"Spill it." Said Cliff. "What's going on?"

She reared up, flailed her forelegs around and shooed him. So deep in thought was she.

"What's. Going. On." Cliff Diver pressed her harder.

"Not now." She muttered. Paced around some more.

"Bananas, what the--;"

"Ugh!" Foster snapped at last, acid on her tongue. "Leave me alone. It's nothing Cliff the Hero can fix."

"Hey, you shut up!"

He got up. Punched the bubble. Punched it ‘till sparks flew. Cliff hated the "H" word. More than any of us had expected. Even Bananas was taken aback. She stopped pacing and everything.

"Stop it!" Roseluck and I shouted at the same time.

And everypony turned to us.

Fuck. I thought. We'd all been way too loud. The last thing we needed was more mediponies in the room.

Cliff blushed. He'd lost control too.

"Listen," I said in hushed tones. "There's serious stuff going on. Not just with the end of the world and all that, but here. In Ponyville. Right now. And it’s possible that your nightmares." I pointed to Bananas. "Your accident." I pointed to my sister. "And your um...heroism, I mean adventure." I pointed to Cliff. "Have something to do with it. Bananas, you first. What happened?"

"I get nightmares." She said. “It sucks. I don't wanna talk about it."

"No, really," I said. "Listen, seriously, I --;"

"Nope." She shook her head firmly.

“Bananas, come on.”

“I said no.”

“But--;”

"Don't force her." Roseluck interrupted, a little bit like her old self again.

"But, but--;"

I was speechless. I looked to Cliff Diver for support, but he just reared up and threw his hooves in the air, all don't-involve-me-like.

"Fine." I turned my attention to Roseluck. "What about you? What happened? I've been worried about you! All day. All night. In the future. In the duckyverse."

"Ducky...?" Cliff looked at me like I was nuts.

"In the castle," I continued. "In the playground. In my cave in Lunaland--;"

Foster quit her pacing.

"Lunaland?!" Said Roseluck.

Oh, jeez.

"Uh..."

Now all three of them were looking at me, hanging on my every word. My every non-sensical word. But I couldn't tell them about Luna. Or my adventures. Not yet. I needed to hear them out first. In their own words. See if I could find some kind of connection. The last thing I needed was everypony imagining shadows where there had been none, just ‘cause I had told my story first.

So I stopped. Thought real hard. I could feel the seedling of a plan itching around in my brain soil. “You first.” I said to Rose.

"I don't really know." She looked away from me. Shifted in her seat. "I was on my way to see you, rushing to leave the cottage cause..."

Her voice trailed off awkwardly.

“Well, uh, I was running late, trying to get here before the blizzard got too bad. I had just gotten out the door when I heard this weird noise." Roseluck rubbed her head. Looked up, all confused. Almost as though she was half-surprised to find the bandage still there. "And next thing I know, your friend Cliff Diver's digging me out from under the snow. Waking me up."

Cliff blushed and looked away.

"There was some yelling over something or other, and, well, I ended up here." Roseluck shrugged.

And that was it. Not much of a story.

“What was the sound?” Bananas asked.

“Huh?”

“You said you heard a sound before the snow fell on you. What sound?”

“Oh, uh…” Roseluck looked up in the air. Did that eye-rolly thing she does when she’s trying to remember something. “Like a click-clack sort of sound.”

Bananas scratched her chin. Studied Roseluck. It made me wonder. Was she testing the waters too? Trying to figure out what everyone else knew?

“Like the sound of a bunch of rusted metal centipedes scurrying along a chalkboard?” I said, watching them both carefully.

Bananas twitched. Her breath quickened. She turned to me, and tried to pretend like she was fine. But she wasn’t. She knew that sound. She had tangled with the shadowy clitweasels at least once before!

Roseluck, on the other hoof, just sorta nodded along. “Kinda, yeah. It sounded rusty like that. Why?”

“No reason.” I laughed nervously, and quietly worried to myself about the schemes and machinations of the shadowy clitweasels. “Well, okay,” I admitted. “There is a reason, and I’ll tell it to you. I promise. But your story’s um, well, it needs...more, you know, details. What happened? I really, really, reeeally need to know.”

From the look on her face, it seemed that Bananas, likewise, really, really, reeeally needed to know.

But Roseluck shrugged. Totally clueless. “I don't know.”

One by one, we all unanimously turned to Cliff. He cringed. ‘Cause he’d clearly been hoping to share his harrowing tale of heroism dead last. Or not at all. But Rose's half-sorta-not-actually-a-story story begged all kinds of questions that only he could answer.

"Okay, fine," he sighed. "So we're on our way home to Hearth's Warming dinner. My mom and me. She’s all yelling at me for making her late, you know? 'Cause I spent so much time in the hospital with you girls.

"She's all like, 'Cliff Diver, I can't believe you left the house with your mane looking like that.'

"And I'm all like, 'Looking like what, Mom?'

"And she's all like, 'It's a mess. I taught you better than that. You look like a loser.'

"And I'm all like, 'I'm not a loser!'" Cliff raised his voice up real loud. But shut his lips as quickly as the outcry had escaped them. Realizing where he was, Cliff huffled his hooves in embarassment. Looked down at his own tail.

"Only I didn't shout like that." He said. "I just, you know, thought it. But I soooooo wished that I had said it.

"Anyway, Mom's leading me. And the snow -it's really coming down, you know? 'Cause of the blizzard. And I'm all worried about my stupid hair. Even though it's under a winter hat anyway, and gonna be totally messy under there no matter what!

"The point is, I'm not as big as Mom, so it's hard for me to keep up in all that snow. She's lecturing me from, like, ten feet ahead.

"So I quit listening. And I get to thinking. I'm worried about you, Rose Petal. And I was worried about Roseluck too."

He turned to my sister. She smiled graciously back at him.

"So I stopped. There in the middle of the snow. The pegasus ponies hadn't cleared any skies yet. And the earth ponies hadn't plowed anything. So it was deep - real deep. And Mom was mad, so she just kept charging up the road without me. She didn't even notice when I fell behind.

“I stopped walking altogether. Looked down, and realized I'm standing in these crossroads, you see? Up ahead is mom, and off to the side is the path that heads West. The way to your cottage.

"So I get this thought. Like maybe I should check on Roseluck. While Mom just keeps going, and going, and going...Next thing I know, she is, like, thirty feet away from me. Then forty. Then fifty. Still ranting about how stupid I am.

“And I got afraid. Like really, really afraid. ‘Cause I know if I don't catch up soon, I'm gonna hear about it for, like, the next six months. And I hate that."

Cliff was turning cherry red. Shaking.

"Yeah, sure, now they're all like, 'My son, the hero.'" He shot up straight. Did a spot-on impression of the old stallion's posture. "But when we get home, he's gonna forget all about it, and be all, 'So, son, did you find anything you don't suck at yet?’

“Like that's gonna help me or something. And Mom is just gonna sit there, reading like she always does, and then just, like casually remind me of the time that I ruined her Hearth’s Warming. But it's okay, ‘cause, you know,"

He started doing impressions again. First his dad: "'You're a hero. A winner.'"

Then his mom: "'At least you were for a day. Why can't you be like that all the time?'

"So anyway, I'm standing there, right? In the snow," Cliff sniffled.

I wouldn't have thought it possible to sniffle angrily, but he managed. A sniffle of purest rage.

"...And just when I'm not sure that I can do it. When I think, 'Hay! I'd better catch up before I get caught,' my mom turns around, and she's like, 'C'mon, Cliff. What's wrong with you? What? Now your legs don't work either?'"

Cliff stretched out his broken, mangled wings. Looked on them with shame.

"I didn't know what to do. But I had this weird moment, where I just stopped thinking about it. And I...ran. I made straight for your cottage - forced my way through all the snow.

'But when I looked over my shoulder behind me, my mom was, like, flying right after me. And I didn't know what she was gonna do to me! 'Cause I never ran from her before. I never did anything like that before.

"So she came at me real, real fast, right? And dove down to scoop me up. But she's so stupid, 'cause she did one of those fancy Wonderbolts Reserves maneuvers she's so proud of. As if I hadn't seen it a thousand times before.

"I know exactly how she's going to dip, and where. So I jump away in a zigzag, and dive into the snow. And she missed me." Cliff laughed. "Gold Medal - the great, aerobatic champion dove down on me, and actually missed!

"So I got up and ran again. 'Cause I knew that your cottage was close. I ran as hard as I could. Like really, really hard. But when I finally got there, I didn't see anything! I wasn't sure what I expected to see. But I didn't see it!

"Then my mom landed right in fronna me. And I thought: 'she's gonna kill me.'" Cliff sniffled some more. "I fell back, you know, ‘cause I was startled."

Cliff looked away.

"She grabbed me. By my wing." He whispered that last part. Like he was ashamed of it.

"And I tried to tell her about Roseluck. Why I did what I did. But she didn't listen. She just started pulling - leading me away. And I knew she was wrong! But I gave up and went along with her ‘cause, ‘cause..."

Cliff Diver trailed off. Hung his head, and his tail down low. He wouldn't even look at us. 'Till Bananas finished his thought for him.

"Because it hurt." She said.

Cliff nodded meekly.

A coldness came over Foster. A distant look in her eyes. Like she had just quietly added Killing Cliff's Mom to her if I ever get out of this bubble to-do list. And the scary thing is: I had no doubt that she would do it in a heartbeat, if only she could.

Cliff stood there though. Looking at his hooves. Summoning the nerve to finish his story.

"So I went with her." He said to the floor. "I shouldn't have. But I did."

He shivered. Rubbed his hooves together as if for warmth.

"I'm sorry, Roseluck. I get the chills just thinking about it. That I didn't...I dunno,...try harder. You could have...You might have..."

"Sweetie," said Roseluck. "You saved me."

"I guess."

"The chills?" I pressed him.

He nodded.

"Ma dragged me away, and when she did, I felt cold. Real cold. Like a bad kinda cold. I dunno how else to describe it.”

Bananas Foster’s face twitched when she heard him say that. She definitely knew the shadows. Her eyes darted straight to me. To measure my reaction. I looked away.

“But then,” Cliff Diver got going again. “I looked back and saw something out of the corner of my eye. Like, this one part of your roof. It didn't have any snow on it like everything else did. And there was a little mound underneath it, while everything else was, you know, even."

Roseluck was fully awake now, leaning forward, all eager-like. She hadn't heard Cliff's side of the story before.

Me? I couldn't believe it. The shadowy clitweasels' plan. That tiny rock at the top of the stairs that killed kings? Was it just a bit of ice on a thatched roof? A piece of straw come loose? That little snap that almost killed Roseluck, ruined my life, and Cliff’s life forever, if he hadn’t had the courage to go looking?

"It was Roseluck stuck under there. I knew it. And I tried to tell Ma. But she still wouldn't listen!" Cliff squeaked when he talked. “She wouldn’t listen!”

He pounded his hooves together. Then laughed uncomfortably at what he had to say next.

“So I, um...I sorta lost control for a bit. ‘Cause, you know, Rose, you're so brave."

He looked to me and blushed.

"Me?"

"Yeah." He said. "I thought maybe I could be brave too, so I um...I did what you would do. Hehehehe."

Silence. He didn't finish his thought. even though he knew the rest of us were waiting.

"Well, what'd you do?" Foster snapped at him.

"Oh, uh," Cliff tapped his hooves together all nervous-like. "I ran back to the mound and started digging. And, yeah, Mom came after me, but I saw some red hair in the snow. And I shouted 'look!' And, uh, she did look, and we dug Roseluck up. The end."

He grinned sheepishly.

Bananas Foster glared at him. Tapped impatiently on the inside of her bubble. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

When he saw her wry little look, Cliff wiped that grin clean off his face.

"What?" He said.

"That's it?"

"Yeah that's it. Whattaya mean, 'That's it?'"

"I mean," Bananas growled. "How'd you get away from your mothe...from her?"

"Oh, that."

"Well, uh, I kinda, you know. Well, funny thing is, I, uh...maybe, sorta...bit her."

"You bit her?!" We all said at the same time.

"I didn't mean to! I mean, I did mean to. But it just uh, sorta, you know--;" Cliff babbled, and babbled, and babbled, and babbled. "Well, it happened when she was grabbing me, and I had to get loose ‘cause I was worried, and--;."

"Ha!" Roseluck interrupted.

"What?" I asked.

“Ha ha ha ha ha!” Roseluck was too busy wheezing and laughing to answer me.

“What?” I snapped.

"That…Sounds…Just...Like...Rose Petal."

She laughed so hard that her throat went silent. Nothing but a high-pitched screech managed to squeak its way out.

"Hay!" I said. "No."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

"I would never!" I said. "I wouldn't bite my own mother? Are you crazy? You seriously think I woul--;"

Fuck. I stopped midsentence. Looked over at Cliff, who was clearly mortified. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. So Stupid!

"I mean, uh, that I would never...bite my own mother...unless I had a very good reason. Which you did, Cliff. Of course."

And I wasn’t lying. He’d had a great reason. And I couldn't even begin to imagine what it must feel like to have a mom like that. And to have to worry all the time about what she thinks. And to be scared. And to actually have to choose between saving somepony's life, and saving your own ass. I admired the hell out of Cliff Diver for what he did. I wanted to hug him and tell him that he was a hero. That he was amazing. That I owed him big time for the rest of my life for bringing my sister back to me! But it all came out wrong.

"Biting moms is good when you have a reason." I said.

Stupid Rose. So fucking stupid.

"Whatever." Cliff pouted. "It's fine."

“Really, I--;”

Whack. Roseluck crumpled up a paper cup and threw it at my head.

“Ow.”

“Ha.” Bananas Foster snickered.

“Hey, Cliff?” Roseluck said sweetly.

“What?”

"Thanks," She smiled.

"It was nothing." He blushed. "Happy Hearth's Warming, I guess."

Roseluck held open her forelegs. Cliff blinked. Watched her for a minute, then crept over. And sank into a hug.

“You’re a good kid.” My sister told him. “You’re welcome at our house anytime.”

“Thanks.” He said.

And they held a while. But after their long moment of tender silence, Cliff pulled away from her, and bounced a little. All happy-like. ‘Cause he knew what Roseluck had actually meant by her offer: If you ever need to get away from your crazy asshole jerkface parents, just come on over.

“Cliff, seriously, thank you.” Roseluck repeated. Trying to drill it home to him that he actually had done a heroic deed.

“It was nothing." He smiled back, blushing. "Think of it like a Hearth's Warming gift."

Roseluck's smile faded. Her face went from white to whiter.

"What?" Cliff said. "What's wrong?"

"The gift." She whispered to herself. "My Celestia!”

She turned to me, wearing the fakest, bravest smile I'd seen on her since I was seven years old, and she’d tried to pretend that my hamster hadn't died.

"Rose Petal, I'm sorry. I forgot your gift."

Something was wrong. It was more than that. Roseluck was lying. I could tell.

"Rose," I said. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, really." She replied. "Well, actually, I was carrying your gifts out the door when the snow hit me. It's why I was so late. I had to look around for them.”

Roseluck smiled at me. But I didn't smile back. 'Cause "look around" for my gifts? Look around?! My sister was super organized! She never lost anything around the house. Not in my whole life. What wasn't she telling me? What was going on?

"They've got to be under three feet of snow by now.” My sister said with a heavy heart - like some pony had just died. “I'll buy you new stuff as soon as we're both well. I swear."

"Hmmph." Bananas Foster grunted in disapproval.

I looked past Roseluck to see what Foster was on about. But the bubble girl just gave me the evil eye in return, even as she shook with fear and anger
Like one of those nervous chihuahuas.

"What?" I asked her.

But Bananas wouldn't reply. She just spun, and turned away from me. Leaving me completely flabbergasted. 'Cause what the hell had I said? What the hay had I done? I was so confused, I felt like screaming. ‘Till it hit me. Suddenly, out of the blue, I realized what had set her off. "I'll buy you new stuff.” Roseluck had said. “As soon as we are both well."

I was feeling better - a fuck of a lot better. And Roseluck only had a minor concussion. We would be going home soon. Both of us, and Cliff too, since he was only visiting after all. We would heal, and laugh, and get released, and move on with our merry old lives. Except for the girl in the bubble.

I wanted to leap off of that bed and hug her. But I couldn't. I wanted to reach out and touch her, and tell her that everything was going to be all right. But it wasn't. Not for her. So I just stumbled and did my best to assure Bananas Foster that, at the very least, I wouldn't bail on her like she thought I would.

"Bananas," I said. "Listen, just 'cause we're doing better--;"

"Can it." She said.

The bubble girl yanked on a rope, and the curtains swished closed.

I turned back to look at my sister. Roseluck was so wrapped up in trying to put on a brave face for me, that she hadn't even noticed my exchange with Bananas Foster. She hit me with another insecure smile even harder than before - that, "no, this isn't a new hamster that I bought to replace your old hamster" smile, followed by that, "really, I swear, sometimes hamsters just spontaneously change color when you're not looking, which is why this hamster is brown instead of white" laugh she did sometimes when she was terrified, and trying not to show it.

"Rose," I whispered. “What's wrong?"

She shut her eyes. Sighed. Took a deep breath.

"Rose Petal, I--;" Her voice trailed off.

And then finally, out of fucking nowhere, she snapped completely, and started sobbing.

I froze. Oh, Jeez. Said the voice inside my head. Rose! Do something! Quick! I put a hoof on Roseluck's shoulder. It was probably a bad idea to touch Rose's bandaged up head. So I stroked her back instead. Shushed her. And tried to calm her down. She shook and heaved and brought her hoof up to her shoulder to meet mine. And as I sat there, giving what comfort I could, I had a terrifying realization. All my life had been safety net after safety net. Stories before bed. Kisses on my boo-boos. Comfort sandwiches. But now I was the grown-up. At least for the moment.

Yeah, sure, I had been in wars and slave revolts and stuff. That was hardly kids' play. But Roseluck was still my rock. Through all of it. Even when she wasn't there.

For me to suddenly be her rock? It meant that there was no one left to catch me if I started to come apart.

I looked to Bananas Foster's curtain. She had problems of her own. Cliff Diver? He was busy digging in that backpack of his. Tossing papers around.

Not helpful.

Screw Loose? Her heart was made of gold, but she couldn't give me that kind of support. Her head was full of oatmeal.

I was alone. Truly, truly alone.

"It's okay." I told my sister. "It's okay."

And patted her back silently. While inside, I felt anything but okay.

* * *

We hugged that way for a good long while. Me sprawled out over my bed. Reaching out to my sister, leaning on her shoulder, dangling over the edge. 'Till Cliff called out, "Hay, Roseluck!"

She picked her head up somberly, and looked to him without saying a word.

"Uh, it's not much." He said. "But I think I found one of those presents you were talking about."

Roseluck jolted upright so fast I almost fell.

"Which one?"

"Oh, uh...just a beat up old doll. It's kinda dirty and wet. I only grabbed it because it was there, but, you know, it's better than nothi--;"

He quit his rambling when he noticed the rainbows bursting out of Roseluck’s face. She looked like her eyeballs were made out of sunshine.

"Bring it here. Bring it here. Bring it here!” She squealed.

"What?" I said.

Cliff produced a ragdoll from his bag, and trotted it across the room.

Roseluck squee'd when she saw the raggedy old thing.

"Pass it to Rose Petal. Pass it to Rose Petal!" She said.

Cliff dropped it in my lap. Pomf. A ragdoll. Basically sack cloth. With some yarn hair. It wasn't much to look at at all. But my sister freaked the hell out over it.

"Rosie," she said, as she leaned over and took my hooves in hers.

"This is your Hearth's Warming doll." She said somberly. "From Mom."

"From Mom?" I whispered, my voice suddenly failing me.

"She made it for you when she was sick. She knew she wasn't going to be there when you got your cutie mark, so she made this doll for you. And made me promise not to give it to you until the Hearth's Warming after you discovered your special talent."

"Mom?” I said to myself as I stroked one of the doll’s scraggly hairs.

Under the grunge, the yarn mane was red, and yellow, and white, and pink. Just like mine.

"It's a Rose Family tradition to pass these things down." She said. "Mom just bent the rules a little bit. 'Cause of the timing."

Roseluck stared off into space, and smiled.

"She used to dream about your cutecinera." Roseluck mused.

While I just squee'd internally. Squee! Squee! Squee! I squee’d squee-ishly. And hugged the doll. Small as it was. Scratchy as it was. I held the saggy old thing against my face. ‘Cause for the first time since my curse o' future vision, I felt like a little kid again.

I quit my embrace. Held the heirloom out in front of me. Examined every stitch. Ran my hoof over the rugged cloth. Noted the clumsy way the seams all came together right around the heart. Crissa-crossa-cross-stitch. I thought to myself randomly.

But mostly I just couldn't believe what I was holding. Mom made this. I thought to myself, as I stroked the doll. I could almost see her holding it, too! Tugging the thread with her mouth.

I wondered what she'd been thinking when she’d laced the stitches. Did she know that I would turn out to be like…well...like me? What would she have made of all this end of the world stuff? Would she be proud of me? Had I been good enough? I hoped I'd been good enough.

I ran a bunch of thoughts through my brain. Fantasized about all the things that might have been going through my mom’s head when she’d made the doll. But most of all, I just touched it. And imagined her touching it too. It was like reaching into the past and feeling her hoof on mine. Almost.

“Mom.” I said again in a whisper.

I hadn't even noticed that I had been crying until I opened my mouth to talk, and tasted a stream of tears.

* * *

I cuddled that doll a good long while. When I opened my eyes, I found Bananas Foster's curtain open again. She was standing there. Watching me.

Whatever iron had gotten stuck in her heart - whatever bitterness - it was gone now. She didn't hide behind that cutesy wootsie mask of hers either. The real Bananas Foster was watching me longingly. The real Bananas Foster was just plain sad.

I rolled over in my bed. Propped my head up with my hoof.

"I'm sorry about your mother." She said.

"Thanks." I replied. “I'm sorry about your family."

“May I see the doll?” Foster asked without missing a beat.

“Um...Sure,” I told her.

But my hooves didn't want to let it go. They clutched the sackcloth poppet closer to my chest, as though parting ways with it, even for a second, would somehow make it disappear forever.

I knew I was being stupid. So I pried the doll free. Took it in my mouth. And swung my legs over the edge of the hospital bed.

The floors were white. Like really, really, really white. I hadn't noticed them before ‘cause I hadn't actually gotten a good look at the ground the entire time I'd been there. For days, I’d been stuck staring at the same ceiling, the same walls, the same curtains, but never the floor.

I leapt off the edge. And was amazed at how good it felt. To have ground beneath my hooves again. It was exhilarating. Simply to stand. On my own. I felt so alive! It's one of those things you take for granted until you're stuck in bed for a couple of days.

I went to Bananas Foster's bubble, and pressed the doll through. ‘Till my face hit it the magic border. Thunk. It felt like glass. I leaned against it clownishly with my smooshed-up face, doll dangling from my teeth. ‘Till I felt a gentle tug - Bananas grabbing it from the other end. I opened my mouth and let go.

She took the Hearth’s Warming doll inside the bubble, and dropped it into her lap. Held it. Stroked that scraggly yarn mane. Ran her hoof over it. While I ran my left hoof over the bubble. I had never really thought about it before, but that thing was a cage.

I remembered what it had been like for me. To be imprisoned, back in the Trottica Town Hall basement. I’d felt devastated. Alone. Even though I’d had tons of company.

It was only ‘cause of Twink that everything had turned around. It was Twink who’d taught me that it was fucked up and stupid to expect to die alone. It was Twink who’d reached out in my hour of need and touched me.

But Bananas didn't have anything like that. No love, or friendship that she could touch. And she had been in her cage a whole hell of a lot longer. She ran her hoof on the doll’s heart. That jagged seam that mom had made. Foster seemed to relish the gentle dragging sound her other hoof made as it scraped along the wood in the doll’s button eyes. And as she huddled there, tears streamed silently down her cheeks. They seemed to wash that terrifying complexion away with it.

“When I was younger, I had to go away sometimes.” Bananas mused, never prying her eyes from the doll. “Mother would send me letters, and pack the envelope with little trinkets. TOMA they were called.”

She laughed.

“Tokens of Maternal Affection. It was just a little gem, or a figure, or even a doodle on the page. But they kept me strong. They were her love, you see. In solid form.”

She held the doll and stared off into space for a long, long time

“...Something you could touch.” I said out loud at last.

Bananas nodded.

“I never thought I would see a TOMA again. I know Mother won't be sending me any more of them.” Bananas got all choked up. Forced herself to swallow. Started heaving. “...The fact that your mother thought to do the same thing, though? Send you TOMA's from The Great Tomorrow?” Bananas laughed again. “Great minds think alike.”

She said it with a smile. But in a matter of seconds her laughter devolved into a sob. Bananas broke down. Completely. And utterly.

Just bawled.

Cliff drifted toward her bubble. Stood outside its borders, watching, powerless to ease her pain. Roseluck dropped a hoof on my head and stroked my mane. And the three of us waited in silence while poor Bananas Foster huddled on the floor trembling, still clutching my mother’s TOMA.

* * *

The meltdown had been a long time coming. And it took a long time to die down. But eventually, Bananas Foster stopped wailing, and heaving. And just lay there motionless on the hospital floor. While the rest of us sorta hung around like idiots. Wishing we could do more.

When, at last, she sat up, Bananas Foster opened her eyes, and startled when she saw me. She had forgotten how close I was. Her eyelids flung open in horror. Her irises shrunk to the size of pinpoints. She looked like a prey animal backed in a corner, desperately seeking an escape route.

She turned to Cliff next, then to Roseluck.

But we'd all seen it, all witnessed her break down.

Foster scrambled to her hooves, rubbed her face all over her forelegs to wipe away the tears, and straightened herself up. Good and tall. Putting on a show of composure.

It was a strange new side of her. Bananas was a pony who played the pity card every day just to get "story time." And there she was, acting like nothing had happened at all, because she was ashamed of having cried over her dead mother.

I blinked. And BAM! Already she was looking stoic as hell. Wearing a face hard enough to rival Colonel Wormwood's.

"Do you know how to fight them?" Foster asked firmly.

She was talking about the shadows. Her legs shook, but she forced herself not to sway or waiver. She just focused all of her energy on me.

"What?" I said.

Both Cliff and Rose looked to me all curious-like. It made me uneasy.

"Fight who?" Said Cliff.

"Yes." I answered dryly, never prying my eyes off of Bananas Foster.

"Can you help me?" She asked.

And I paused, breathless. 'Cause I honestly wasn't sure. Could I help her? Would I even know how if I tried?

Bananas looked to me, all grim-like. If she’d stared me down any harder, her eyeballs would’ve leapt out of their sockets, ripped through the magic sterilization bubble, and beat up my eyeballs. For Foster, this shadow business was about more than just protection. She was mad as hell. This was about revenge.

I started to tremble. Fought to keep my hooves still. 'Cause I didn't want to let it show. Foster needed an answer - a real answer. This wasn't one of those situations where I could just say, “let's give it a shot," or "I'll try my best to teach you to fight the evil thing that's probably plagued you your entire existence, but if it doesn't work out, then hay, no worries.” This was all or nothing

Could I help her?

"Yes." I answered in a whisper, wondering secretly how the hell I was gonna manage. How I could possibly help Bananas to beat her nightmares when I could barely stay on top of my own.

But mostly, I just looked on that poor girl, and wondered what torture those clitweasels had put her through.

I swallowed hard. “Yes,” I said again, louder than before. “I can help you.”

Bananas nodded firmly, and dashed for her bed. Whipped out that journal of hers, and readied a pencil.

“Tell me everything." She said.

“Now?” I chuckled.

Silence.

“Okay, um, well, you know that drawing I did?”

“No,” said Bananas Foster.

“The one we did in class?” Cliff jumped in. “That you said was making you all cuckoo insane?”

"Yeah.” I said. “The Strawberry Lemonade picture."

"Huh?" All three of them cried out in unison.

"Start from the beginning." Bananas said, rubbing her temples in frustration.

"Oh, yeah, okay.” I nodded, and got to thinking where I should start. “Well uh...I guess my story starts where, you know, so many other stories get started, and like, so many beginnings get begun," I rambled. "The quest for a cutie mark."

All three of them leaned forward. I'm pretty sure they already knew this part, but my other tellings had involved a whole lot of rambling. And this time, we were gonna do it start to finish.

Everypony was together. In one room. And I was finally ready to open up. About the future. About my past. About Twink. I sucked in a long, deep breath, and sighed.

"Cliff," I said. "Can you do me a favor?"

"What?" He replied.

"Can you pass me one of those candles hanging up there on the wall?"

I pointed to the unlit holiday decorations.

Zip! He grabbed it.

"Candle?" He said, trotting over to me, candle already in his mouth. "You got it. One candle. Coming right up. Just for you."

Cliff Diver dropped the Hearth's Warming candle on my bed, and looked at me eagerly. I leaned in and grabbed it with my mouth.

"No," I mumbled. "It's not for me. It's for a friend."

Author's Note

I intended to get this one out by Mother's Day, because of all of the stories centering around mothers in this chapter, but alas, I could not. It's the Full Moon, though! Luna's like a dream mother, so that works too.

Also, special thanks to Seraphem, who, as always, put in countless hours helping me edit, and proofread.

Like Everyone Else

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - LIKE EVERYONE ELSE
“Sometimes monsters are invisible, and sometimes demons attack you from the inside.
Just because you cannot see the claws and the teeth does not mean they aren’t ripping through me.
Pain does not need to be seen to be felt.” - Emm Roy

It was our last night in the hospital together. Rose and I got cleared to go home as soon as the “observational period" was done, and as soon as the paths outside were plowed. Cliff Diver got permission from his folks to stay and help us out because one of the nurses had made up a story about a Ponytarian of the Month Award, or some bullshit. Cliff cringed at the idea, but his folks ate it right up. So he got to stay.

But the next day, we'd all be gone. Cliff. Roseluck. Me. Sure, we all vowed to come back and visit Bananas Foster whenever possible, and truly, we meant it from the bottom of our hearts. But it wasn't going to be the same after that.

* * *

Cliff was stretched out over a chair, elephant-snoring. His limbs dangled over the edges of the seat like loose spaghetti. Roseluck was out cold in a little reclining cot beside me. She'd crashed even harder than Cliff Diver once the hospital'd quit fussing about her concussion and cleared her for a good night’s rest.

That left Bananas Foster and me. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. It had been hours since either one of us had spoken, but I didn't want to push anything.

After I’d told the story of the mines, she'd stopped being herself - turned moody. Moodier than usual. Like a spark had left her.

She was disappointed. I could tell. She’d gotten her hopes up. Expected an answer - a way to beat the shadows. But I didn't have any of that. Just my own story.

And once I got up to the part with the tunnel - Foster just sort of turned away. Stopped asking questions. Stopped caring.

It wasn't 'till late that night, after everypony else was asleep, that she broke her silence.

"Did you really mean it when you said you would come back and visit me?"

"Huh? What?" I said.

It startled me to hear her talking again after spending so many hours lying quietly awake in a room full of snores.

"Yeah, of course.” I answered. “I--;"

"Why?" She didn't let me finish. Just cut straight to the next question.

"Why?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "Why?"

I didn't know how to answer. I mean, shouldn't it be obvious? What kinda question was that anyway?

I snorted. Let out a nervous little chuckle. "Why?" I said yet again. "What do you mean why?"

"I mean, why are you coming back?" Bananas said dryly. All disconnected-like.

"Uh...I'm sorry." I said. "I don't understand what you're getting at."

"Then just answer the question." She said. "Please."

There were tremors in her voice.

"Um...Well, you know. We're in this together. I get that you're upset that my story didn't help you more. To be honest, I don't really feel all that qualified to help anypony. At all." I hung my head. "I don't know why Princess Luna said it was my job to teach you."

"To keep you busy." Said Foster matter-of-fact-ishly.

Ouch.

I stopped to let that one sink in. Wondered if it were true. Did I stand a chance of making a difference? Was the princess just putting me on to 'keep me busy'? To keep me fighting. To keep me from dwelling on the futility of it all while she orchestrated a great big old chess move - a future two hundred years from now with a faint glimmer of hope called Littlepip.

"What if we weren't in this together?" Bananas said.

"Huh?"

"If there were no such things as shadows; if you had never met one; if I had never met one. Would you still visit?"

The room suddenly fell quiet. Both my sister, and Cliff had quit snoring in unison.

I saw what Foster was getting at. Was our friendship really only based on a common enemy? If that was the case, what would be the point if I couldn't teach her? Or protect her?

I had the same fear that she did. I understood where she was coming from. But no. Our friendship wasn't like that. I wouldn't let it be. I wasn't that kind of pony.

"Yeah." I said. "Of course I'd visit."

As the words left my mouth, I was relieved to realize the truth of them. I would visit her. No matter what. Really, I would.

"Why?" She said again.

"Why? What do you mean why?" I squeaked. "Look at this place. I can't just leave you here all alone."

I hoped that my dedication would get through to her. If only just a little bit. That she would understand that I wasn't like her previous roommates – that I wasn't going to abandon her. But Foster just lay there, staring at the ceiling.

Something was wrong.

"Oh," she replied.

Just oh.

A fire went off at the base of my brain, trying to figure out what was bothering her – screaming at me to comfort her somehow. But instead of thinking of things, the way brains are supposed to do, my brain just sort of locked up - melted like a marshmallow coming apart on its stick, and fell off, all charred and gooey right into the brain fire.

"Listen," I pleaded. "I'm not going to abandon you. No matter what."

That was the only thing I could think of that could possibly be eating at her. But she still just stewed in further silence as the rest of the room snored. It was maddening.

“Bananas, please. Talk to me."

"I didn't think that you would abandon me.” She said dispassionately. “You are a pony of conscience. I have no doubt that you would come back and visit - obsessively even - every single day if you thought that it was the right thing to do."

"Well, it is!" I said. "It is the right thing to do. That's what friends are supposed to do for each other."

"Are we friends?" Foster asked. Gravel in her voice. A monotone drone that made me more and more uncomfortable with every passing second.

"Yeah." I replied. "Of course."

Bananas lay there silently a good while longer. 'Till at last, she rolled over to face me, and finally, looked me in the eye.

“Do you like me?" She said.

"Yeah, sure. Of course."

"So if there weren't any shadows, and I wasn't in this bubble," she said. "You would enjoy hanging out with me."

Fuck. I froze. Searched my brain for answers. Any answers. Or at least something I could say to put Bananas at ease as she awaited my reply. But all I could think of at that moment was what a pain in the ass she had been.

Did I actually enjoy her company? Was our whole friendship built on my sense of duty? Were we even friends at all?

"I don't know.” I scratched my head. “Probably?"

"Rose, come on."

Bananas stared at me, all judgmental-like. I could tell. Even through the bubble. Even through the darkness. I could feel her disappointment.

I cringed. I had read her wrong - all wrong. That whole time I'd thought she’d wanted reassurance that I would be a good friend. That I would come back. That I would help her. And I would! I'd totally do all of those things.

But that's not what she’d been hoping for at all. Bananas Foster wanted someone who liked her for her. Someone who was a real friend, not just a pony willing to pretend to be one.

"No." I said with a sigh. "I want to. I want to get to know you.” I added hastily. “But you haven't let me.”

Bananas didn't answer.

I sat up to face her good and proper-like. Swung my hind legs over the edge of the bed.

“I'm trying, Bananas. Seriously! I don't know if I like you. But I really, really, really would like to find out.”

Foster closed her eyes.

"I appreciate your honesty." She sighed in relief.

It turns out that that was all Bananas had wanted to hear. She’d actually been dreading a trite "of course I like you" sort of answer.
Foster rolled over on her back again. And took to staring at the ceiling.

"I know I've been a jerk." She mused. "I haven't given you very much to like at all. It's...just that, well--I, I...I. I am, well...uh…It's just...”

Bananas stammered on and on. ‘Till she just sort of trailed off. Left me in the dark with all of those noisy snoring sounds. I waited, and waited, and waited, but it was clear she wasn't gonna finish her thought.

“You're what?” I said at last. “It's just what?"

"Look,” she said. “I’d make you promise only to visit if you actually wanted to, but I know you'd still come anyway out of obligation. You are a pony of conscience."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

“It's not." She replied. "But I have enough ponies to pity me. I don't want that from you.”

I nodded, even though I knew she couldn't see.

"I'm tired, Rose." She continued. "Really tired. I'm not interested in being anyone else's inspiration porn at this stage of the game."

I coughed.

"Inspiration what?"

Foster facehoofed. Shook her head. “Forget it, never mind.”

"No. You don't get to open a door like that and then just pretend you never said it."

"I'm sorry I did. Look, just don't…"

“Inspiration. What?"

Bananas Foster sighed and grumped. "You're seriously going to make me get out of bed right now."

"Um..."

Bananas shook her head.

"Fine."

She rolled over, landed on the floor. And stumbled over to a storage trunk she kept in the corner.

"Uh, what are you doing?" I asked.

"Digging for a copy of The Foal Free Press.
What’s it look like I'm doing?”

Clunk, whoosh, thud. Rustle, rustle, rustle.

"The Foal Free Press?"

Bananas shushed me. Threw a hoof up and swatted at the air while she rummaged.

"Here we go!" She mumbled, mouthful of newspaper.

"What were you looking for?"

Foster trotted over to the edge of the bubble. Whipped her head suddenly, and gave it a good toss. Straight through the force field. Next thing I know the paper’s on my lap.

"Turn to page seven."

"Okay."

I could barely see, so I rolled out of bed, and tip-hooved around Rose's cot.

Tip-tip. Tip-tip. Luckily, Roseluck didn't wake up. Not even when I tripped over her cot and banged my knee. She just kinda lay there snoring as I stuffed my mane into my mouth and screamed, and dropped Bananas’ newspaper on the floor, .

“Engg!” I shouted into a mouthful of hair. “Ennngh!”

When I was done, I spat out my mane, took a deep breath, and looked around. Listened. The room echoed with the sound of snoring. I hadn't woken anypony up. The only sign of waking life was Bananas Foster glowering at me for having dropped her paper.

“Sorry,” I mouthed at her, and stepped gingerly over Cliff Diver.

Once clear of obstructions, I made for the table in the corner, where my two candles burned – one for Twink, one for Mom. I plopped the newspaper down on the table. Flipped it open. There were two stories on Page 7.

"Zap Apple Jam Season Almost Here?" I whisper-shouted.

"No, the other one." Bananas whisper-shouted back.

I squinted down. Saw a photo of an employee at a local coffee shop, assisting another pony with no front legs, and what appeared to be a deformed jaw. Above it was the headline.

"Do the Right Thing, by Namby-Pamby?" I read.

"That's the one." Foster said contemptuously.

"Namby-Pamby? How old is this thing?"

"Just read it."

“It's Thursday evening, the sun has just started to hang in the horizon like a foal in a hammock, and local barista, Foam Latte is working hard at making the world a better place. He doesn't have many bits to donate. He doesn't hold grand sweeping baroque fundraisers. He doesn't even own the shop. His heart, however, is enough.

I noticed him in the corner, assisting a mare in need, who had difficulty feeding herself, and it struck me in that moment how benifulant that manner of kindness can be.

He asks for no accolades, has no thought of reward. Foam Latte simply does the right thing, even when no one is looking.

We can all learn from that."

It was a short article – probably because there was no interview or anything like that. Just a moment in time captured, and analyzed, and combed for sentiment. Namby's trademark style.

I closed the newspaper and furrowed my brow. Something was weird about that article. But I couldn't pinpoint it. Apart, of course, from Namby-Pamby's abuse of the thesaurus.

"What was that pony's name?" Bananas snapped.

"Foam Latte." I said.

“The other one."

I stopped. Thought about it. Namby hadn't mentioned the other pony's name.

"I don't know." I said.

Bananas watched me. Studied me closely. I'm sure my confusion was quite apparent.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. She tapped the bubble.

"How would you feel if your shadow hoof acted up in public, and you fell, and somepony had to walk you all the way home, and then you found out later that some self-absorbed jerk had taken your picture while you were at your most pathetic, and wrote a story about how great it was that helpless cripples like you had random acts of kindness to rely upon?"

My blood started to boil. Bananas Foster was right. Nopony had ever asked that pony how she felt about any of it - whether she wanted that story spread around, or if she preferred to enjoy her meal in peace. Nothing. She wasn't even an equine being as far as the article was concerned. Just a prop for Namby's inspiring fucking perspective.

I looked up from the newspaper to find Bananas pressed up against the inside of the bubble. The light from her force field was just enough to expose a bitter scowl.

"Inspiration porn." She said.

* * *

That thought rattled around in my brain. Probably for longer than was healthy. The poor pony in the picture. It bothered me that I hadn't considered her feelings at all. That it even needed pointing out. It was almost as though she had been less than pony in my mind.

An object.

And I felt like total garbage for thinking it.

By the time I stumbled back to my bed, Bananas was holding up a stack she’d dug out of her trunk.

“Inkwell.” She said, turning to the inside cover of a book on her lap. “‘Was born with thymic alymphoplasia, a condition which confined her to an immunosphere for most of her brief life, but still, despite her personal challenges, she managed a triumphant ascension to the top of the literary world. Her profound and unique perspective breathed such life into her Cunning Candy Heart mystery novels that, knowing her as I did, it became almost impossible for me to separate the art from the artist. So much of her soul is in that titular character we’ve all come to adore, and it is through the legacy of Candy Heart that Inkwell will live on. It was my honor, as her editor and friend, to complete The Gates of Tartarus, her fourth and final novel, after her tragic passing. It was a task I did not take lightly…”

Bananas slammed the book shut. Pressed the covers together angrily. While I tensed up. ‘Cause I honestly couldn't figure out what was wrong with the passage. Was it the editor? The fact that he ultimately made it about His Great Honor, instead of about Inkwell? No.

At least I didn't think that it was. I looked to Foster for answers, but she was gritting her teeth in rage.

Yipe. I cringed. Forced myself to think. Tried to play Spot the Offense. But no matter what I did, I couldn't make sense of Bananas’ outrage.

Was it the fact that the editor had played up Inkwell’s disease? Made it her identity? The fact that lymphic whatever-you-call-it was the very first thing the editor even mentioned about her? I didn't know! I couldn't know. I tried to see things from Bananas’ perspective, but it was too fucking impossible. I simply hadn't been there.

“I, I, I…” I stammered, terrified of hurting Foster’s feelings, determined not to be another Namby. Desperate to prove that I was, in fact, a good pony - that I wasn't “part of the problem.” But I failed. My burnt marshmallow brain came up with absolutely nothing.

“I'm sorry,” I said at last, voice quivering. “I don't see it. What's wrong with what the editor wrote?”

Bananas opened her mouth up to explain, but I was so nervous and upset that I kept on rambling.

“Please don't be mad!” I said. “I want to understand; I want to help, but I, just...I don't know, I don't--;”

“Stop.” Bananas glowered at me.

I cringed again, afraid of having offended her.

“This isn't a quiz.” She said, rolling her eyes. “Quit the walking on eggshells bit. It's pathetic.”

“Sorry.” I whimpered.

“You're better than that.”

In that moment, Bananas Foster reminded me of Twink. The realization felt like a spear puncturing my chest and poking at my heart. Dull end first.

“What is it?” Foster asked.

My shock must have been showing.

“Just a two-by-four.” I whispered to myself. “Continue, please.”

Bananas nodded patiently before snapping right back into her furious rant.

“It's Inkwell!” She whisper-shouted. “She's the public face of...” Bananas waved frantically at her bubble while she tried to summon the right words.

“This.” She growled.

“Thymic, Alisoplayground? Uh…”

“Alymphoplasia.” Foster corrected me.

“Yeah. Is that what you have?”

“No.” She replied, shaking her head in disapproval. “But close enough.”

Bananas clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes. Sucked in a deep breath, and let out a hefty sigh.

“Look, everyone loves to reflect on her life story, right? They read her lousy books, and think about that plucky cripple, and feel soooo good about her. But do you know what I get?”

I shook my head ‘no.’

Foster snapped into an impression of Nurse Redheart. She was so precise in her mannerisms that it was downright unnerving. Bananas even had her minutest of facial expressions down.

“‘Don't feel bad.’” Foster said as Redheart. “‘Look at Inkwell. She was in very much the situation you are now, and she went on to be a very accomplished author.’”

At the stomp of a hoof, Bananas dropped that tight cheek muscle and let her face sag again. Looked like herself again.

“Well, what if I can't write, huh? What if I don't want to write? What if that's not me? What if I wanna be a carpenter? An explorer? A soldier? Am I supposed to feel better that some other bubble girl wrote a bunch of mediocre mystery novels that I don't care about?”

Foster plunged her face into the pile of documents on the floor in front of her. Next, she held up a record sleeve.

“Beehoofen’s Sixth Symphony?” I said, squinting to read the cover.

“Conducted by Golden Baton.” Foster replied. “A wheelchair-bound maestro.”

“And?”

“Do you have any idea how much I have to hear about him? A bright and shining example that you can do anything if you put your mind to it.”

Bananas made a blech face.

"But he's in a wheelchair.” I said. “You're in a bubble. You can't run an orchestra from inside a bubble.”

“I know!” She said super loud.

Cliff mumbled to himself, as if in reply, tossing and turning under the cheap blanket the hospital had given him.

“Eep.” Bananas cringed and clapped her hooves to her mouth. Waited for him to settle in again, and calm down.

We both sat there, holding our breaths, and we both sighed in relief when Cliff Diver didn't rouse.

Foster took a deep breath, leaned in close - as close as the bubble would allow - and whispered. “The list is long, Rose Petal - very long: Dusty Tome, the historian; Inkwell; Gold Baton; Swiftwing, the amputee Wonderbolt.”

“Swiftwing.” Cliff babbled angrily in his sleep. “I’ll kill her.”

Foster and I stopped. Exchanged glances. Looked at Cliff.

“Cliff?” Foster said all prim and cold-like.

“Mmmm mmmm mngg,” he mumbled in reply.

Foster furrowed her brow, and studied him carefully.

“Er, hello?" She said delicately.

“Mmm.” He mumbled in reply.

“Why can't you be more like Swiftwing?” Her dry, detached cadence was eerily reminiscent of Cliff’s mom’s voice.

“She's missing a leg.” Cliff groaned. “I. Can't. Fly. It's not the same.”

He smacked his lips up and down. Made an angry face in his sleep. Mumbled some words that I couldn't understand.

Foster and I turned to face one another once again. She was just as disturbed as I was to hear that stuff coming from Cliff Diver. The two of us sat there in silence, watching him.

Contemplatey.

I was starting to hate Cliff's mom as much as Bananas did.

* * *

Eventually, Foster broke the silence. Back to her "inspiration porn” rant.

“Anyways,” she whispered. “The point is that, while everyone is feeling good about themselves, patting themselves on the back for being such good ponies, Cliff is still stuck on the ground. Comparing himself to ponies he'll never be.

“And I'm stuck in here.” Foster made a face at the bubble.

“I’m expected to be like Inkwell, the success story, or worse yet, her vapid protagonist, the sad sack plucky cripple kid who solves mysteries and makes everypony go ‘D’awww’.”

Foster stuck her hoof in her mouth and mimed vomiting.

“If I dare get mad, if I cry or complain or kick this stupid thing ‘cause I'm bucking sick of it,” she thunked at the bubble again. “Do you know what I get? Rolling eyes. Sunny advice to stay positive. This, coming from ponies who have no idea how positive I have to force myself to be every single day just to keep from screaming.

“I get comparisons to ponies who are way more functional than I am, or ever could be - like Gold Baton, the maestro; or compared to ponies who have it far worse than I do.

“‘Look on the bright side,’” She said, imitating the nurse I’d nicknamed the Purple Professional.

“‘It could be worse,’” Foster added, this time mimicking the jerk nurse who’d messed with Screw Loose. “‘You’re lucky to be stable and not in pain.’”

Foster stomped on the ground. Spoke as herself again.

“Like contemplating that level of suffering is supposed to make me feel grateful?! Like there is some kind of Illness Hierarchy, and I should smile and feel good about myself because there is some pathetic mess out there somewhere who has it worse than I do?

“Is that what able ponies think about when they remember me? They come in here for a broken leg, are ‘friends’ with me for a couple of weeks,” Bananas made quotation marks with her hooves. “And then they go home to their nice cozy beds, and cuddle a nice cozy pillow to the tender comforting thought that at least they aren't me?”

Bananas panted like a wild mare. Clenched her teeth. Shook her head.

“I'm so sorry,” I whispered in the awkward silence that followed.

“Please stop saying that.” She snapped.

And I shrunk back in shame.

“Sorry.” I said again. Almost by reflex.

I winced half a moment later when I realized how stupid I sounded. But Foster ignored it. Thank Celestia.

...

I, on the other hoof, was less forgiving of myself.

I felt so bad for Bananas Foster. Like really, really, really, really bad. But the last thing she wanted or needed was pity. And knowing that just made me feel bad about feeling bad for her.

It all snowballed into this terrible, terrible feeling. And I couldn't think of a damn thing to say.

So I just sat there. Like an idiot.

‘Till I happened to lift my hoof to massage my throat, and it brushed against the pocket watch necklace that Pinkie Pie had made me.

Suddenly, I remembered her efforts to cheer up the ponies of Ponyville General Hospital. The words she’d said to me just the night before - a phrase that had since become something of a personal motto.

It's worth a try.

I looked back up at Bananas. And an even more terrifying thought came, and hit me like a cart full of anvils, and bricks.

“What about Pinkie Pie?” I asked.

”Pinkie?” Foster said, somewhat taken aback.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Is she an inspiration pornizer too?”

I crossed my hooves for luck. Hoped that Foster hadn't found some insult underlying Pinkie’s acts of kindness. ‘Cause Pinkie Pie had thrown me every birthday party I’d ever had. She'd stopped to cheer me up whenever she’d seen me dragging my hooves. She’d always been around. I wasn't super close to her, or anything. I didn't see her every single day, but Pinkie’s presence had always been a constant - something you could count on. Something all of Ponyville could count on. Like the Moon. The thought of Bananas being secretly hurt by her - the way she'd been secretly hurt by just about everypony else - it made the whole world seem wrong somehow.

“No,” said Foster. “I'm not her inspiration porn.”

I sighed in relief.

“Um...Why do you care?”

Foster’s rage had fallen from her face. Now she just looked puzzled.

I shrugged.

"I guess it's just ‘cause she's always been there." I said. “And she's always been selfless. It might sound stupid, but that was a comfort to me when I was in the trenches.”

I fondled the pink watch hanging around my neck. The Most Accurate Watch of All Time, not to be opened ‘till I really, really, reaaaaally needed it.

Bananas nodded slowly, struggling to digest what I’d just said.

“Well, uh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that she's selfless.” Foster retorted delicately.

“What?”

“She and I have a mutually symbiotic relationship.”

“You make it sound like a business deal.” I snapped.

Foster shrugged. “Pinkie Pie is a profoundly unhappy pony.”

“Huh? Are you sure we’re talking about--;”

“Let me finish.” Bananas held up her hoof.

I raised a suspicious eyebrow at Foster, and nodded for her to continue.

“Pinkie Pie needs constant affirmation. Constant. She has dedicated her entire life to making others smile because it beats away her sadness, and she's addicted to the way that that makes her feel. Pinkie Pie is, at her core, an addict. A smile addiction may be harmless, but it's an addiction nonetheless.

"What we have – she and I – we both get something out of it. I genuinely enjoy her company. She never condescends to me with trite platitudes. I am free to just laugh when she's around - something very few others can give me. And in exchange, she gets her smiles, and her peace of mind - both well-earned. It's great for her. It's great for me.” Foster held her hooves up as though they were a scale, balancing a weight on each side. “Symbiosis.” Foster added emphatically.

* * *

I mulled that over for a while. Got to wondering what Cliff Diver got out of his friendship with me. Or Twink. Or Bananas Foster. Apart from a common goal. Could all of friendship actually be whittled down to a simple matter of symbiosis? No. Definitely not. The very idea felt wrong. Utilitariany. I didn't like it.

But that seemed to be Foster's idea of friendship. And I had nothing to offer her. Nothing.

“What's the matter?" Bananas Foster said, reading the worry on my face.

I stopped. Stared off into space. And in a sorta state of shock, I muttered an uncomfortable truth – something that I had been hiding from her - hiding from myself - ever since I’d woken up.

“I don't think I can help you.” I said.

And waited for a reaction.

But Foster said nothing in reply. Even her face was blank.

"I’m sorry." I continued. "I...don't know what I'm doing. I try not to show it, 'cause Roseluck is always terrified. And Cliff Diver, well, he looks up to me.”

“But I don't know how to fight shadows.” I squeaked. “Not really. All I know is what Wormwood told me. Find your light and fight to get to it.”

I looked to Bananas. Anxious for forgiveness. Desperate for understanding. But she didn't say a word.

She just closed her eyes, pounded down a few deep breaths, and said, “Alright. I...guess if you can't help me, we’ll have to try to help each other. Compare notes. We are both, er...shadow survivors after all."

Foster sounded more like she was trying to reassure herself than me. I waited patiently as she cleared her throat. Clamped her teeth around a paper cup of water that had been sitting at the end table, and downed the whole thing.

Flump. She dropped it on the end table, licked her lips, and plopped on to the edge of her bed with a fwoosh of the sheets.

"My experience with the shadows was different from yours." She said at last. “My family and I were stalked by them - hunted, you might say. We were on a long journey at the time, and we had gotten horribly lost."

Foster must've seen the puzzlement in my face, because she offered an explanation right away.

"Oh, I was being transferred to another hospital. My family and I had saved up for my transport."

"The hospital made you pay for it?"

"Don't be absurd. They're not griffins." She made a face like a toddler who'd just tasted a lemon for the first time. "The mobile transport unit came free. No hassle. It's basically just a box that generates a dome. It rests easily in any carriage. But the argonite crystals that power them are hard to come by, and only good for a single use. Most hospitals don't even have access to them. Mother had to pull a lot of strings."

She held up her hoof, as if to warn me to shut the hell up.

"Anyway," Foster grumbled and flashed a nasty this is very difficult for me so don't give me a hard time look. "We got lost along the way. Wandered for days. I don't know how, but we found ourselves in a desert.”

"A desert?" I scratched my head, trying to figure out where in Equestria they could have accidently run into a desert. “Uh, a desert, like, where?”

“When we left, we were still in the Canterlot region.” She replied.

“But--;”

Snap. Foster clocked her teeth together to get my attention. Gave me the evil eye.

“Are you going to let me explain, or what?” She said with a grimace on her face.

“Sorry.”

Foster sighed.

“The point I'm trying to make, Rose, is that the desert had no business being there. It wasn't on any map. We had all fallen into a sort of haze as we travelled, and then suddenly, it was hot. And dry." Foster shook her head. “By the time any of us realized what had happened, we were so deep in it, that there was no sign of any other life.”

“What?” I said.

The fourteen million reasons why that should not have been possible ran rapidly through my thinkitty brain.

“Well, we had started in a forest, but that place we found ourselves in? Not a single tree - neither ahead of us, nor behind.” She replied. “Not even a cactus. Only cracked red sands as far as the eye could see.”

Bananas Foster shuttered a little at the thought of it. While I was left with a strange feeling of familiarity I couldn't quite put my hoof on. Cracked red sands.

“There was a stillness there I can't describe." She said. "Normally, you feel a slight breeze as air gets pushed around a room. A door opens. A door closes. Air circulates. I feel it just like you do. But that place was stagnant. Moving around felt like waking a ghost - like the air itself was some kind of corpse we were disturbing simply by being there.

“I panicked. Spun around. Scanned the horizon for something familiar - anything other than sand. My brothers too. But all we did was kick up dust that had been sleeping.

“We gathered into a cluster, or should I say, my family gathered around me.” She tapped at her bubble.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. As if to remind me that she was separate from the rest of her family. That she couldn't exactly ‘gather around’ anything.

“We huddled there, afraid to move. We watched in horror as the dust stirred and swayed in tiny little cyclones of air we’d made. Those lands had not been disturbed for a very, very long time. Not by wind. Not by hoof.

“I looked around, desperate to try to see something that wasn't stagnant - that wasn't dead. I was on top of the cart, so I had a better view than most, but nothing about that place felt right. Even the skies were wrong.”

“The skies? Wrong how?” I said, feeling more and more like her desert landscape might be familiar.

“The sky was purple.” Bananas said. “A sickly purple, like lavender getting ready to die.”

“Red sands? Purple skies?” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“The pit.” I said, suddenly realizing why her mystery desert felt so familiar. “The Pit of Infinite Duckies!”

Bananas cocked her head at me.

“When I fell in," I said. "I came out the other side. Into a desert. Not of this world. With red sands...”

“And purple skies.” Foster whispered.

She looked like she has just been hoof-smacked in the face.

“You didn't mention that!" She snapped. "You didn't mention that when you told your story!”

“I had a lot to tell.” I replied, feeling a little shy and stupid for having skipped over some of the finer details.

“Well, what else did you forget?”

“Uh…” I said, shrugging apologetically. “I dunno. Nothing important. Um… Probably?”

I let loose a nervous little laugh.

Bananas rolled her eyes and sulked. Muttered to herself. Like she was trying to figure something out. She chewed on her hoof. She fidgeted with her mane. But it did her no good. After an agonizing stretch of time had passed, Bananas Foster sighed, gave up on whatever her train of thought had been, and scribbled some notes in her book.

“We were stuck there," she turned to me, and said. “My brothers and I didn't know what to do, so we held perfectly still, as that unnatural dust cloud stirred around us, and we waited. We waited for instructions from Mother.”

“Instructions?”

What kind of family raises you to await instructions? Who even calls it that?

Something was seriously starting to feel off about her story. But I couldn't quite put my hoof on what.

“My family isn't like yours, Rose.” Foster said contemptuously.

My skepticism must have been obvious.

“They were always on the move, and they had to adapt quickly to any environment they found themselves in. We were a well-oiled machine. Whether they had to leave me behind, or send me ahead, throughout our entire lives, no matter what else happened, Mother was poised. Like a princess, she always, always, always knew exactly what to do.”

Bananas sighed, cast her eyes downward, and shook her head.

“Until that desert. This time, Mother was nervous. The arrow on our compass was spinning in wild and crazy directions, and uh...Mother didn't take it well. She paced around us, half contemplating a plan, half cursing the ponies who’d sent us on our way in the first place”

“Sent you on your--;”

“We were thieves.” Bananas snapped. “Con artists. And I don't need you judging us.”

Foster added before I could even begin to express my shock. I shook my head to assure her I wouldn't. Foster was pissed and I was not about to poke that wasp’s nest.

“This is about the shadows. So don't get all self-righteous on me. Not over my family. Not over this.” She spat. “They're dead anyway.”

Foster sunk forward, leaned her head on the inside of her bubble. And panted. Caught her breath. Gently banged her head against the inside of the dome.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

While I raised my hoof to ask a nervous little question.

She couldn't see it at first. So I waited. Trying as hard as I could not to be intrusive. When she finally did look up and take notice, Foster rolled her eyes.

“What?” She groaned.

I had a million questions in my head at that point. How they had traveled without her. How she had managed to be a functioning member of such a family while confined to a bubble. How it felt to make due with Tokens Of Maternal Affection while her mom was off somewhere stealing.

But when I saw her wild eyes. Angry. Accusatory. Tired. I tabled all of that.

"It doesn't matter." I told her.

For a moment, Foster didn't react at all. Just kept panting.

I felt like I should say something else - something to let her know that it was okay - but I couldn't find the words. Not without coming off as condescending. Not without risking being the "It's okay, I forgive your dead family for ethical transgressions that had nothing to do with me" pony. So I held my breath, and hoped that by the time I exhaled, something more constructive would spill out of me.

It didn't.

The two of us just locked eyes in dreadful silence.

"It doesn't matter." I said again. 'Cause one of us had to break the ice.

Foster sighed. "Are you up for hearing the rest?"

I nodded ‘yes’ silently.

Bananas got up, downed another cup of water from her end table, plopped on to her bed, and continued.

"Well, Mother picked a direction, and lead. There was a jagged rock jutting out of the ground way off in the distance. From where we stood, it could've been a hundred feet away, and ten feet high, or five-hundred miles away, and fifty miles tall. There was no way to tell. But it was our only landmark, so that's where we headed.

“My brothers took turns towing my cart. It was a slow march because of all the dust. We stirred up a giant cloud of it everywhere we went. It burned to taste. To breathe. I can only imagine how bad it must've been outside the bubble.

“Mother kept us moving because she had to, but I’ll bet that the sound of all that coughing broke her heart. We pushed forward like that for what felt like the better part of a day, but with no sun in the sky, there was no way to tell. You’ve been there. You know what I mean?”

I did. I remembered. It was far from the weirdest thing I saw after I fell into the ducky pit, but that desert had no sun. It was lit like daytime. A dull sort of dusk. But there had been no sun at all in the sky. And no clouds for it to hide behind.

“Yeah.” I told her solemnly. “I remember.”

“In all that time, we felt remarkably alone. Not just because we were, in fact, alone, but because of that strange sense of stasis - not a single sound but that of our own coughing, our own hooves grinding against sand and brittle rock, and the creaking of the wheels under my cart.

“That kind of silence is terrifying. Every move you make is deafening. After a while, it made me wonder if we had even survived, or if we were all stuck in some manner of afterlife - an infinite landscape of pure nothing.” Bananas ran her hoof through her mane. “That kind of emptiness is unnatural, Rose.”

“My Rose Voices were gone when I was there." I said. "The ones in my head.”

Bananas nodded. Grabbed a pencil with her teeth, flipped open that book again, and jotted some notes.

Shadow business.

When she was done, she spit it out all unceremonious-like, and continued.

“Eventually, after a very long hike, the desert started changing. The more miles we put behind us, the more the ground beneath my family's hooves started to sound like clopping on bedrock, rather than crunching on brittle sand. The clouds of dust beneath us got smaller and smaller, until there was barely any at all."

She stared off into space, as if she were delivering terrible news.

“Well,” I said. “That's good, right? Less, you know, cloudsyness?”

Foster shook her head. “I’d rather breathe the dust.”

* * *

“I saw something up ahead by the horizon - a hairline just under the mountain. At first I thought it was a mirage, but as the hours passed, the line sharpened and grew.

"It was a chasm - a gash in the landscape that stretched out in both directions as far as the eye could see, and it stood in our way. The nearer we came, the more my heart sank. It was more than just the prospect of potentially having to turn back. The canyon itself was so..."

Bananas twittled her hooves in the air trying to think of the right word. I could see the frustration making crinkles in her forehead.

"It was all, just so...full of nothing." She said.

“The little bit of dust that we did stir up? It simply drifted along a hundred feet ahead of us, straight off the edge, and hung there over the chasm.”

Foster looked at me impatiently. I apparently had failed to realize the significance of what she was trying to say.

“Miles, and miles, and miles of canyon, Rose, and not even a breeze.”

When I thought about it, I realized how strange that really was. Even a modest ravine like Ponyville's always had wind running through it. I can't really explain why. It's physics, or rock science, or wind science, or something like that, but there's no such thing as a chasm without wind. A cloud of dust drifting lazily over one? Without so much as a breeze? It was against nature.

“How?” I asked.

“The canyon was empty.” Bananas answered simply.

Empty.

“Mother signaled us to stay put.” Foster continued. “That little dust cloud drifted further and further away while she went ahead on her own. She marched, proudly but cautiously, to the edge, and stood there, studying the mountain on the other side, strategizing how to cross."

Foster bit her lip.

“I didn't like it - Mother being so far ahead. We were stronger together!” She said to me, as though she were pleading. “I know it must be hard for you to understand, but you should've seen my brothers. They were accustomed to dangerous situations, and not one of them watched her make that walk without holding their breath the whole time.”

“Of course,” Foster cracked a broken little smirk. “Mother herself showed no fear. She stood there like a statue of some warrior of old, gazing boldly at nothing in particular.

“It was a staring contest with the abyss, as you put it. Once she perceived herself as having won, she spun around, and gave the order we’d all been dreading. We were to fly over it. Pegasi carrying earth ponies and unicorns.”

“What?” I squeaked. “How? Why?!”

It sounded so wrong. So stupid. Had Bananas’ mom really been that crazy? I hadn't even been there, and I got a bad feeling about that chasm.

“Mother wasn't dim, Rose Petal.” Foster said dryly. “She knew the canyon was bad news, but she also saw something on the other side. She bent down low when she got back, and pointed it out to us all. We couldn't make it out exactly. Some cloth draped over a rock. A tent, maybe? We had absolutely no way of knowing for certain, especially since the canyon had a haze about it - a way of sucking the light out of the air. Bending it. Making it weak somehow. Like a pale photograph.

“But there was nothing else for miles, and miles, and miles, so Mother reasoned that it was better to risk making the crossing than to lie down in the dust, and wait to die.

“Yeah, but--;”

“Don't!” Foster snapped, a stern warning. “Don't. Blame. Mother.”

There was lava in her eyes.

“I won't.” I said, throwing my hooves up in the air defensively. “I mean I don't. I, mean I, uh--;”

“We had no water left.” Foster said dryly.

Her words were like a kick to the face. I stopped my babbling. Contemplated the burden of such a decision. I still hadn't finished punishing myself over getting the tunnel wrong back in Trottica! Second, or was it seventh?

A move as desperate as Bananas’ family’s? I couldn't even imagine.

I looked to Foster and was completely dumbstruck, so I just nodded slowly in silent understanding.

* * *

“Mother leapt off the edge.” Bananas continued. “I can still hear the whoosh of her wings. Every flap was like a whip crack. We were all so quiet.

“I watched her get smaller, and smaller, and further, and further away until she seemed almost still - a fleck on an otherwise empty skyline.

“I chewed my hooves raw worrying about her. I’m used to worrying.
I'm accustomed to helplessness, but seeing her alone out there? Seeing her so small?”

Foster closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Shook her head.

“It was hard to watch.” She continued. “But Mother made it, and wasted no time once she got to the other side. The moment she landed, she shouted back, ‘One-two, one-two, one-two!’ rushing the rest of us to cross.

“We couldn't see her very well, and the chasm had a way of distorting sound too, so it was difficult to make out what she was saying, but 'One-two, one-two, one-two'? We all knew that rhythm, and that cadence. Even I knew what that meant, and I had never been out in the field with my brothers.

It was time to get moving.”

“My family hitched up - started rigging harnesses out of what little rope we had with us. They had all done this sort of operation before, so they knew what to do, but it was all new to me. I had never scaled a wall, or fled a scene. I was always the forger - the one who got sent into town ahead of time with fake medical documents of my own design."

Bananas’ eyes lit up and sparkled. She forgot about the shadows and the canyon for just a moment and spat out her ideas like one of those rapid fire rat-at-at’ers.

“My job was to research - learn every local custom - every quirk." She leapt out of bed, and started pacing back and forth as she spoke. "The trick to a good con is figuring out what your mark wants most - what they need you to be. I devoted my whole life to research. I did it wherever I could – however I could. Newspapers, books, pamphlets, even archives when the rubes let me. Academically, I left no stone unturned. I knew that, if I worked hard enough, I’d convince the others that I could contribute. That I could be a part of the family! That--;”

Bananas stopped mid-sentence. Remembered what she was supposed to be talking about. And just sort of stared off into space. Her gusto faded as quickly as it had come.

“I had never gone out into the field.” She said, lowering her head in shame. “There was no protocol for carrying me across. So when I saw the others getting ready to fly, I realized that I couldn't go with them, and that I shouldn't go with them.

“I told them to leave me.” Bananas leaned against the inside of her bubble. “I’d only hold them back. Even if they did find food or water, without an Argonite Crystal, I was doomed anyway.

“Some of my brothers took to flying ahead, rushing to meet Mother as she shouted from the other side. Others stayed and pleaded with me not to give up. They took--;”

"What were their names?" I interrupted.

"What?"

"Your brothers." I said. "You never mention them by name.”

Foster startled. A brief moment of panic. Like a little filly caught face-deep in the cookie jar. It was odd. It made me wonder what she might have been holding back.

“My brothers, well..." Bananas said. “We weren't terribly close.” She fussed with her mane. “It's complicated. They loved me. All of them. And I love them back. They would kill or die to protect me, because that's what family do--;”

“Kill?!”

“That's what family does," she said through gritted teeth.

"But--;”

“It’s theoretical," Bananas rolled her eyes. “It never actually came up, we didn't kill anypony, so quit high horsing and let me finish. This isn't easy for me.”

I nodded, all affirmative-like, but more out of shock than anything else.

“My siblings were used to putting on a brave face, so they held their heads high, emulating Mother - trying desperately to stiff-upper-lip their way through the problem while they struggled to come up with a solution.

“Sugarplum, the oldest, an earth pony - he went straight to work and started tying my bubble generator to one of the harnesses. He was one of those so-called alpha types - accustomed to brazening his way through just about everything.

“But Glitterwing rushed to me, and took to asking me questions. He wanted to know technical details about the filtration system on my bubble - whether or not the air passed through instantly, or if there was a delay.”

Foster shrugged at me. “I didn't know for sure, so Glitterwing flipped.”

“‘How could you not know?!’” She said, imitating the nasal tones of her brother's voice. “‘You live in this thing!’”

Foster was damn good at impressions.

“But I didn't live in that thing!” Bananas said as herself. “I live in an A-13 grade Immunofiltration Unit. The transport was an H-11 mobile unit. I didn't know if there was a delay in the filtration or not. I only had suspicions based on the behavior of the dust clouds, and what little of the manual I had glanced at.

“‘I think so,’ I told him. ‘A fraction of a second.’ And then I asked, ‘Why?’

“‘Wind resistance!’ Glitterwing shouted back at me. He couldn’t lift me if I was dragging air behind me like a sail.

“When I realized that he was probably right, the whole world seemed to fall silent. I watched helplessly as my family dissolved - became a blur in the distance, hovering over the chasm. I had talked a great deal about staying behind for the greater good, but this was different. This was real! Once I actually saw so much of my family already so far ahead, I...cried. Like a foal.”

Bananas Foster scowled at herself. Like she was ashamed. Like she wished her crying self were there in front of her, so that she could smack the tears back into her own foalish eyeballs, and say, ‘Knock it off.’

“I don't remember exactly what happened after that. I was curled up in a ball. But I know that there was yelling. The last of my siblings had been readying for take off, and Sugarplum and Glitterwing were hollering for reinforcements.”

“It was Mother who scooped me up at last.” Bananas mused.

“Because they shouted for her?” I asked.

“Because she already knew.” Foster replied, almost whimsically.

“She swooped in out of nowhere, stomped her hoof on the ground, pointed at the chasm, and shouted, ‘Go! Go! Go!’

“Glitterwing nodded, grabbed Sugarplum and swept him away in a tandem harness while Mother hitched the dome generator to herself using the rope that had secured it to the cart.

“I gazed far away across the chasm, tried to see the others – tried to find the spot on the other side that she had flown back from. But I couldn't. It was all a blur. The landscape across the chasm was still, like a smudgy charcoal drawing. I squinted, and tried to make out Glitterwing and Sugarplum, but it wasn't long before even they started fading into the background.

“Once Mother tightened the final rope, she spoke up, ‘Hang in there, scout.’ She said, breaking the trance I hadn't realized I was in. ‘It's going to be alright.’

“I nodded back to her. Whatever else was wrong, I knew that, as long as Mother was in charge, I would come out safe. Somehow.”

* * *

“The moment Mother took off, I seized up. The dome was like a rounded glass floor. When the ground dropped out from underneath us, every muscle I had simply froze.” Foster visibly tensed just from the act of describing it. “I barely even breathed. I was terrified that I’d jostle the bubble, throw off Mother’s equilibrium, or fall through the floor of the dome and die.

“I had never faced a real height before, let alone a creepy chasm so...I seized up.

“It, too, was weak of me.” Bananas Foster let out a quivering breath. “I looked down into the darkness below my hooves, and for all I could tell, the chasm had no bottom. It was so big, it was almost hypnotizing.”

Bananas shook her head. “I watched the walls of red rock plunge for miles downward, and disappear into the black. Once we were far out over it, away from the cliff, and there weren’t even any walls nearby to be seen, I kept a sharp eye on the abyss instead.”

Foster sighed. “I wish I could say that I was keeping an eye out below for any sign of trouble - acting as a sentry of sorts - but I’ll be perfectly honest. I couldn't look away. The longer I watched the depths, the harder it became to pull my eyes from them.

“A feeling latched ahold of me - a suspicion. There was something down there, watching us. I couldn’t see it, but somehow, I knew. That chasm may have been still, but it wasn't empty. And the further along we got, the more that feeling of unease grew.

"I was able to hold it together for a while. For Mother’s sake. But when I actually gathered the strength to break my focus on the darkness, and look up to her to see how she was doing? That’s when I truly got scared.

“Mother was clamping her teeth shut, flapping her wings like crazy. She pushed forward as fast, and as hard as she could, but it wasn’t the extra weight that drove her, nor the negligible amount of air that the bubble dragged with it. Mother only permitted herself to look up, and she kept her eyes on whatever happened to be straightahead. She completely refused to look down for any reason, which as any Pegasus knows, is terrible flying.

“Mother was acting strange. Mother wasn't herself. Mother was afraid. I felt a chill when I realized it.” Foster looked to me with hopeless eyes. “The kind of cold that seems to come at you from inside your bones.”

She quoted my own words back to me.

“I redoubled my efforts to find the thing that I knew was hiding in the dark chasm - to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that Mother had seen down there that had freaked her out so badly.

“Eventually, I saw motion. It seemed as though the darkness itself was stirring, like the clouds you get in your coffee when you pour milk in. Only there was no creamy white, just pitch black mixing with a dull, unholy shade of gray.

“That was when the nothingness truly took control. It had drawn my eyes and my focus like a magnet before, but when I saw that motion, I shivered, and forgot everything else: Mother, my family, the desert we had come from. All gone.

“I knew only the black and gray. It was all I saw, even when I closed my eyes. The cold was all I felt. And then, once I was thoroughly entranced, the shadows whispered at me.” Foster shuddered. “It spoke in words I couldn't understand - a scratching sound that almost seemed to come from the inside of my own head.”

The rusty centipedes. I thought.

“I tried to scramble my way up the bubble. I shrieked, and yelled, and forgot all my concerns about jostling the dome. I risked everything just to get a few extra inches away from whatever...presence was down there. I panicked all over my dome like a stupid, stupid, stupid foal.

“‘Till Mother rapped on the outside of the bubble.”

Tap, tap, tap. Foster knocked on her bed frame.

“‘Hey,’ Mother said to me sternly, but gently. ‘Eyes forward, soldier.’

“So I did.”

“Eyes forward, soldier?!” I interrupted, trying to contain my shock.

They were flying over a fucking shadow chasm, and she was supposed to magically get it together at the clap of a hoof? Just like that?! Eyes forward, soldier? Really?!

"Yes." Bananas said with a huge smile suddenly stretched across her face.

It was disarming.

“Huh?” I said out loud.

“Rose! Mother talked to me like everyone else! Not the cripple. Not the nerd with strange ideas about the value of research. Not the kid whom she just humors out of love, and mercy, and pity, and indulges in fantasies of being useful. Like. Everyone. Else!”

Bananas closed her eyes for a minute, as though basking in the sunlight. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“After Mother said that, I felt like I could do anything. I kept my eyes forward, just like she instructed, and the longer I did that, like a soldier, the more that those whispers scratching at the inside of my head decayed, and echoed, and faded away, until, finally, I couldn't hear them at all anymore.”

Bananas paused for more water. Downed yet another cup on her end table.

“So you did it.” I told her. “You beat the shadows. With love, and strength.”

Like Wormwood had said.

Foster lowered her cup gingerly back onto the end table, and dabbed at her lips with a napkin.

“I suppose you could say that," she replied with a sigh. "But it was a, short-lived victory. When we got to the other side, that's when it all started to go downhill.”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Author's Note

Special thanks to Seraphem, for his tireless hours of putting up with my nitpicking during the editing process.

And thanks to you all for waiting. I know it's been a long, long wait for this chapter. A lot of finer points had to be ironed out. I eagerly await your feedback on Bananas Foster, who is finally, after many, many chapters, starting to shine, (in my opinion). Sorry about the cliff hanger, but her story turned out to be too big to cover in a single chapter. I've already got a head start on the next one, so hopefully, it won't take as long to finish.

Last, and certainly least, I just wanted to insert a shameless plug for my Patreon. I have mouths to feed, and every little bit helps. So if my story, or my essays have moved you, I hope you'll make a pledge.

That is, if you want to.

(Seriously, though no pressure. Thanks for reading. You guys are the best. Your comments are a huge part of what motivates me to keep writing in the first place.)

Shadow Country

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - SHADOW COUNTRY
"The world is still a weird place, despite my efforts to make clear and perfect sense of it." - Hunter S. Thompson

The Bananas Foster sitting cross-legged on the edge of her bed, telling her story - she was a different pony than the one I had seen before – the one I thought I knew. But that's the point of façades, isn't it?

To protect yourself. To hide.

The Bananas Foster in front of me - the real Foster - was gravityish. Intense.

Listening to her open up about her mom, about the the desert, about the shadows - it was a lot like watching her tear her own skin off. But even as she laid herself bare, I still got the feeling that there was more. Something Foster wasn't telling me. Something she couldn't tell me.

It drove me crazy. Trying to connect Point A to Point B - struggling to figure out what it could be. Until she got to the part of the story where her mom flew her over that giant doom chasm. Tapped her bubble when she freaked out, and said “eyes forward, soldier.”

The look on Bananas’ face - that glow she emitted - that pride at being treated just like everypony else - it told me that Bananas Foster was not only being genuine, but that she was actually trusting me with one of her most intimate memories.

When I’d told my friends of my experiences, I‘d been far less open. The shadows. The tunnels. I’d skipped over all the details. None of my friends knew about Sub Mine F. Or my memories of mom. I hadn't talked about the way that she'd cradled me. The way she'd said, "I'm so sorry.” The way I’d yearned to tell her that I was the one who was sorry, but couldn't articulate the words

That memory was mine. Mine alone. Even after the shadows had intruded upon it, it still wasn't something I wanted to share. Especially with Roseluck in the room. She’d always prided herself on having shielded me from the worst of Mom's illness.

Bananas Foster, for all that she kept to herself, still told me more about herself than I’d told her. Foster, at least, was sharing the story of what’d happened to her mother.

* * *

"When we got to the other side," Bananas said. "Mother wasted no time. We got moving right away. Everypony was exhausted - especially the pegasi after their long flight across the chasm - but we hauled flank. And once we made some distance from the chasm, my family and I even started to feel a faint glimmer of optimism. We'd made it after all."

Foster laughed a little. A snort that sounded like her throat was full of glass and nails.

“We got pretty close to the camp that Mother had spotted from across the canyon,” Foster said. “The sheet that hung there seemed almost like a beacon - a great white hope.

“But it didn't take long for us to realize that that presence - that evil force - it hadn't simply gone away after we’d crossed the canyon.

“Shadow Country." I whispered.

“What?”

The implications of the idea tumbled around the inside of my head, even as the words spilled from my mouth.

“You said the chasm warped your vision...And sound!” I added excitedly. “The chasm warped what you could hear from the other side, yes?”

“Yeah.” Foster whipped out a book and pencil, eager to jot down notes on what I had to say.

“Well, here's what I'm thinking. If you had brain silence on one end of the canyon, and you felt a shadow presence on the other, then like, what if the chasm was some kinda border? You know, to, um...Shadowville or something?”

Bananas sighed. Rolled her eyes.

“Okay,” I said. “So maybe it's not actually called Shadowville...uh, Shadownia?” I added awkwardly. “Shadowstan?”

Foster spat out her pencil, and slammed her book shut altogether.

“What? Why not?” I pleaded, even more sure of my theory once Bananas Foster appeared to reject it. “Think about it! If that chasm was a border--;”

“Of course it's a border." Bananas retorted dryly.

“What?”

“But it wasn't Shadownia. As you call it.”

“Oh," I replied, feeling kind of stupid.

I’d thought that my border theory would be a big revelation.

“You're sure?” I said.

Bananas nodded.

“The shadows had reach on the other side of the canyon.” Foster brushed her book aside and leaned over the edge of the bed.. “They followed us. Gave us chills, taunted us in whispers, disappeared on us, just to make us paranoid about when they'd be coming back.”

Bananas shook her head. “But Shadow Country is a different thing altogether.”

“How do you know?” I said.

“That's um...where they took me afterwards.”

Bananas spun back around. Pretended to flip the pages on that book of hers. She couldn't bear to look me in the eye.

“Took you?!” I said.

“Yes,” she said crisply, sounding all bright, and sing-songitty, and fake.

Her hooves shook as she rummaged through the pages.

“The shadows took you?" I repeated in astonishment.

“Isn't that what I just said?!” She snapped. Whisper-shouted at me with venom on her tongue.

And I was left befuddled.

Had they actually taken her prisoner? If that were true, how the fuck did she get free?

‘Till then, I had kinda presumed that Bananas’d evaded capture. Just like I had.

Love. Light. Friendship. That sort of thing.

Part of me had even thought that maybe they couldn't take her ‘cause of her bubble or something.

* * *

The two of us sat there alone in the dark and quiet, not speaking a word. Foster stared at the floor. Fidgeted with the white bedsheet underneath her flank. Studied it.

“The big white ‘sheet’ we’d seen from so far away,” Bananas Foster made quotation marks with her hooves. “Turned out to be an old deflated parachute, hung up as a beacon of sorts, waiting to be noticed.

“When we got close to it, Mother stopped, held up a hoof, and ordered us to stay put while she trotted off to investigate the small forest of pointy red boulders surrounding it at the base of the mountain.”

Bananas looked up at the ceiling. Sighed.

"Well, Mother was gone for a long time." She said. “Some of us even started to wonder if something had happened - if we should maybe send Sugarplum in after her - if we’d been wise to come anywhere near that spot in the first place.

“My dome was propped right on the backsides of three of my brothers, so I overheard a lot of whispering.” She added all conspiratorial-like.

“But I kept my eye on the rocks, and waited for her to emerge, faithful that whatever happened next was going to result in a plan.”

Bananas Foster drew her blanket tight around her.

“Mother always had a plan.” She said softly.

“Well, eventually, Mother came back grim-faced, determined, and ready to move on. She didn't even want to let us see the camp that we’d struggled so hard to get to.”

“What?!”

Foster held up a hoof to silence my outrage.

“I felt the same way, Rose. When Mother disappeared for so long, only to come back in a hurry, it freaked all of us out.

“We pressed her for answers - insisted upon knowing more about what she'd found.”

Bananas laughed meekly to herself. Her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. She was ashamed of having been assertive toward her mom, even after the fact.

“Ordinarily, we were good kids. Didn't backtalk. Didn't ask a lot of questions. So when we all came together to express our fears, and concerns, Mother actually took it seriously.

“But her reply was still blunt, and to the point.

“‘A dead pegasus.’ She said. ‘I found her body beside a series of notes scribbled into the sand.’”

“Notes?” I interrupted.

Foster nodded.

“The pegasus had left writings about the desert.” She said. “Mother told my siblings and I the barest minimum about it, but before we could ask any questions, she spun away from us, scanned the horizon, and stopped to squint, focusing on something far off in the distance.

“‘That,’ Mother pointed. ‘Is the way.’ But, the thing is: I couldn't see anything at all. None of us could.”

“Wait a minute.” I interrupted. “What does a pegasus need with parachute?"

“That's what I thought!” Foster said enthusiastically. Leapt up out of bed and everything.

“I knew something wasn't right. You see, Mother would never, ever, ever, ever lie to us, but I thought she might've been...um...optimistically interpreting what she'd found...as a way to keep us focused.” Bananas said, pressing herself up against the inside of the dome. “Some of the others suspected too, but we didn't say anything. Because we had to believe her.”

“Why'd you have to?” I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. “And what does any of that have to do with the parachute?”

Foster held up yet another, I’m getting to that hoof.

“My family had a pact. Our shared profession kept us lying all the time. We fibbed to every living soul we ever met, so it was vital that we never, never, ever lie to one another. It's what made us a family.”

“You read pirate novels," Bananas added. “Surely you're familiar with the concept of honor amongst thieves.”

I nodded.

Bananas Foster threw me a well, there you go look, and continued.

“Naturally, we took Mother at her word. We knew she wasn't lying, but that didn't stop us from suspecting her of, um...downplaying the hopelessness of the situation. I could smell the doubt on my siblings. But no one dared question her out loud.”

Bananas chuckled lightly. A spark of mischief and excitement lit her eyes.

“Except for me.” She said. “I knew something Mother didn't. Otherwise, I would never have questioned her, especially in a time of crisis.”

Bananas darted over to her trunk. Got to rummaging.

“But the parachute!” She said, face deep in trunk stuff. “It drove me crazy, ‘cause like you said, why would a pegasus need one?! So I ruminated on it, turned the scenario upside down, and inside out, like a puzzle cube in my head. Even as everypony was getting ready to leave – as Mother studied the horizon - I pounced on that one detail in my mind - tore it apart ‘till finally everything clicked.”

Foster clapped her hooves together.

“I called out loud to Mother. And I nagged her.”

Bananas ranted with her back to me, face still buried in her trunk like an ostrich.

“Yes, Mother scowled at me at first. My siblings all looked upon me with disgust. As though I had been disloyal - as though I actually had accused her of lying.”

Foster looked back over her shoulder at me.

“But I needed to know one thing. I needed to, Rose. So I pleaded with her.

“‘The pegasus,’ I shouted to Mother over a sea of flanks and necks. ‘Was there a name anywhere? On her goggles. Or her jacket? Or maybe the notes she left behind in the sand? An initial? Anything?’

“Mother didn't answer, only hushed me scornfully from a distance.

“‘Shut up.’ Sugarplum snapped at me.

"But I wasn't being disrespectful, Rose, I wasn't!" Bananas Foster pleaded with me - desperate for me to understand that she wasn't some kind of Mother-questioning brat. "It's just that I knew what was going on. So as Mother turned her back, and got ready to lead us all deeper into the vast emptiness of the desert, I got scared of where we were headed, of never finding out whether or not my theory – my first real clue as to what might be happening to all of us – was true. So I called out to her.

“‘Mareheart.’ I shouted. ‘Mareheart!’

“Mother turned around when she heard me, made her way to the back of our little formation. I could see her head, towering above everypony else's, like a ship cutting across the surface of the sea.

“But by the time she got to me, the scowl had fallen from her face. She looked to me with only amazement, and wonder.

“‘Please,’ I said. ‘The goggles. Did the name inscribed on them say, Amelia Mareheart?’

“‘Yes,’ she answered in a whisper. ‘How did you know?’”

Bananas grabbed a book with her mouth, and dragged it out of the trunk.

“Mmm mmph mm,” She mumbled at first.

But then she realized that she couldn't talk and hold the book at the same time. So she brought it to the foot of her bed, and dropped it before continuing with her story.

“‘Come with me.’ Mother said.

“She hitched the immunofiltration unit to herself, dragged me away from the rest of the family, and parked us both somewhere private. We ended up behind one of those big jagged rocks jutting out of the ground.

“Once we were settled, she knelt down, eye level with me, and spoke in secrecy.

“‘How did you know?' Mother whispered, even though we were far enough away that no one would've been able to hear.

“I told her!” Bananas broke her narrative to speak to me directly. “See, about a hundred years ago, daredevil exploration was all the craze. Pegasi were in fierce competition to outdo one another, so it was not uncommon for young upstarters to embark on overly ambitious expeditions.

"After several pegasi pushed themselves to the point of literal exhaustion, and crashed, Princess Celestia ordered several mandatory safety measures to keep the craze from getting out of control. So any Pegasus to carry an emergency parachute would have to have come from that era.”

Foster shared her logic with me.

“One particularly crazy pegasus by the name of Amelia Mareheart attempted to fly across the ocean. She gathered on the docks of Manehattan to wave goodbye - to sign autographs, to take off in a flamboyant spectacle of stuntsmareship the world was sure to hear about. But after she flew east over the sea, no one ever saw or heard from her again.

“Yeah!” I said, the old urban legends coming back to me like dim memories. “I think I heard about that. She crashed into the ocean.”

“No.” Foster said, a touch of crazy fire in her eyes. “That's just what everypony presumed. She disappeared. And turned up in that desert.”

My brain twisted and turned around the idea. Chased its implications over, under, around, and through, like a wiener dog pursuing its own tail 'till it turned into a dog-pretzel.

“I told Mother all of this.” Foster said. “How Mareheart went missing over the ocean. How her body had never been found. How the only way for Mareheart to have ended up there of all places - in the desert with us - would have been for the sky to have literally opened up and swallowed her.

“And then, in a rare spark of intuition, I told her what I thought that the desert really was.”

Bananas Foster inched forward toward the edge of the dome. Forgot all about the book on aviators she'd spent so much time and effort fishing out.

“It's a limbo of sorts,” she said. “A place for lost souls - ponies who fell out of their own worlds - their own universes.”

“A space between duckies.” I interrupted as my brain struggled to digest all of the strange new ideas running around inside of it.

“Yes! And when I explained all of this to Mother, she didn't interrupt once. She stood there, listening, and furrowing her brow. When I finished, she pressed her hooves to her lips and stared grimly at nothing - sat motionless for a good long while, until, at last, her head slowly began to nod.

"‘Yes,’ she whispered in silent awe. ‘That would seem likely.’"

“It was good to hear.” Bananas’ face lit up with girlish glee. “To be taken seriously!

"Mother shared with me everything she knew after that. We even took the time to go have a look at Amelia Mareheart's campsite. Just Mother and I, and the remains of a legend!”

Bananas looked to me with nerdish enthusiasm. “You know what's amazing?”

I shook my head no.

“Mareheart was defiant, even to the end. When I finally saw the body, it was shriveled, but it still held this weird posture, even as it lay there on the ground. One leg was pointing forward, as if to accuse the ground.

"'Go ahead and say I lost. Tell me I'm dead. I dare you!'"

“One tough lady.” Foster added.

I nodded in agreement. Though I found her fascination with Mareheart’s body a little weird.

“It was great to spend time with Mother again,” she continued. “To be useful! But after we had our look around, we still weren't any better off. Nothing that we learned about the desert was of much practical use."

“What about the notes on the ground?” I pressed. “What did they say?"

"All sorts of things. She gave directions, drew maps. But we couldn't use them. Mareheart had been dead a long time, and the desert had since changed, if her descriptions were anything to go by.”

“What? Changed?” I asked. “How?"

That land had been so stagnant that even hundred-year-old scribblings in the sand had remained undisturbed. It was hard to imagine that anything about it could have changed so drastically so as to alter a map.

"The chasm." Foster replied. “Mareheart said nothing about it in any of her writings or doodles. I don't think it existed yet.”

“But how is that possible? Where did it even come from?”

“I don't know. The Lost Lands are anything but normal. (That's what Mareheart called them)." She said to me in a whisper, as though Mareheart's direct words were some kind of sacred secret to be kept. " All I can tell you is that the notes that we discovered contradicted the landscape we’d found ourselves in.”

I nodded. Scratched at my chin, all thinkitty-like.

“When we rummaged through Mareheart’s supplies,” Foster added with a whisper. “We found a compass. The needle was bent out of shape, and spinning so fast that it was dangerous to touch.”

“For real?”

Foster nodded.

“Weird.”

“Tell me about it! Anyway, we got out of there after seeing that.” Foster continued with her story. “Mother and I may have gotten creeped out a little, but once we emerged from the campsite, the whole family rushed over. Greeted us with enthusiasm. Hope!

“My siblings had taken our absence as a sign that there really was something at the campsite worth seeing – that Mother really did have something resembling a plan, and that I was part of it.”

Foster shook her head. Smiled faintly. Sighed.

“It wasn't much of a plan. Water was still a pressing concern, and I couldn't ignore the fact that I was almost out of argonite crystal, but Mother had extrapolated a location for a potential oasis, and that, at least, was something to shoot for.”

Foster drifted off. Glanced down at that same book on aviators that she still hadn't opened.

“Mother was a lot like Mareheart, you know?” She tapped the book thoughtfully. “Not the type to take life lying down. Better to head for something, than to lie around and wait to die.”

“But how did she know where an oasis was going to be?” I asked eagerly.

“Mother and I had studied what little relevant information Mareheart had left behind. We couldn't be sure, but we made our best guess and hoped that the oasis was still out there somewhere.”

“Was it?” I interrupted.

“I don't know." Bananas Foster said. "We never made it that far.”

“You, um...they…” I stammered in shock.

“Yeah.” Bananas replied dryly. “They followed us. Stalked us - played head games for a couple of hours. And then, when our spirits were lowest, and half of us had already passed out from dehydration, the shadows swept in.”

Foster pursed her lips. Tightened up her posture like an invisible plank had just gotten hitched to her back. At the clip of a hoof, she became a totally different pony. I would have expected her to tear up or something, but instead the fear fell right off her face. Her eyes stared out, all oblivious-like. As though she wasn't even awake - like her mind was off somewhere a gazillion miles away.

“They killed Mother.” Bananas Foster said dryly. “And everyone else too. But they didn't even try with me.”

“‘'Cause of the bubble?” I asked.

“‘Because they wanted me for something else.”

“Oh.”

I cast my eyes downward at my evil hoof. Turned it over. Studied it closely. The shadows had plans for me too.

“Uh, wanted you for what?" I asked nervously.

“That's a whole other story.” Foster replied.

* * *

It took Bananas Foster a really, really long time to work up the nerve to talk about the rest. First she paused for some water. Then to put away her aviator book. Then to fix her bed, before finally plopping a pillow down on the ground by the edge of the dome, and sitting on it.

But I didn't press her. Even though my stomach was doing nervous somersaults in anticipation. This was hard on Bananas, and she already knew that she couldn't put it off forever. What was to follow - the truth about Shadownia - that was the entire point of our conversation. The whole reason she was putting herself through this. We needed to learn as much as we could about those bastards.

I let her sit and mourn a while in peace. ‘Till I noticed that what she was doing wasn't mourning at all, but some kind of weird mental exercise. Her eyes were closed, but even in the dark, I could see her eyeballs rolling around underneath their lids. She was concentrating really, really, reeeally hard on something.

I was just about to ask if she was okay, when, floimp! Her eyes shot open, all-of a-sudden-like.

“Ahhhh!” I startled.

“Okay,” she said, perfectly calm and matter-of-fact-ishly. “Here's the thing: Shadow Country - it's not like our world, or even like the deserts of the Lost Lands. It's a realm of dreams. So when they took me without my bubble, it didn't kill me.”

“Wait, you mean, you--;”

“I don't dream about being inside of bubbles.” Bananas replied. “Not all the time anyway. So there, in their realm, I didn't need the IFU.”

“But how?” I said.

Foster shrugged. “How were you able to run around the trenches outside of the future Crystal Empire? Your body back here in Ponyville could barely get out of bed.”

I shrugged back at her. She raised a good point.

Was the body that I used to travel into the future really mine? Or was it a projection? An idea? Like Screw Loose pouncing around my mind-beaches, looking like a giant dog?

“Okay,” I said. “But if you were dreaming, where was your real body?”

“There was none.” She replied. “I don't know how to explain it, but I got this feeling, and, uh..."

She ran her hoof through her mane. Foster's stiff sense of formality - that calm, eerie distance she was keeping between her memories and herself - it crumbled. She turned away from me. Started to shake.

"I’m not sure.” She concluded with a sigh. “I just sort of...knew."

"You just knew?” I asked.

Foster nodded. Braced herself for an onslaught of questions. I could even see her physically cringe a little. But I just nodded right back at her again, all non-judgemental like. I may not have had any idea what it was like to lose yourself in a dream that much - to know for certain that there was no body back home sleeping. But I understood the feeling that Foster had. That spark of intuition.

Sometimes you just know.

“It's hard to nail down." Foster added. "Or even to talk about.”

"I understand.” I said, offering my sympathies.

"No. Not like that."

“Really, I--;”

“No.” Foster snapped, and pressed herself against the inside of the dome. Got as close to me as she possibly could. "If I'm not careful,” she whispered. “They’ll hear me."

"They'll what?!”

My heart skipped a beat. I looked around. As if some monster was gonna crawl out from behind the end table, or from under Roseluck’s chair. In my panic, I even threw a pillow over my big evil hoof. You know, just in case it might be listening.

Foster shook her head.

“Not like that.” She said. “When they captured me, the shadows...did things. Up here."

Foster pointed to her own head.

"But I know how to shut them out!” She exclaimed, before I could even begin to respond.

“They can't find me, Rose.” She flashed a lunatic grin. “So long as I keep it together. So long as I don't think about the castle too hard.”

“The castle?! The one that I saw?"

“Yeah." Bananas nodded. "Forgive me if I don't get into too much detail about it. For now. But it's hard, and what I saw on the journey there may actually be more useful, anyway.”

“Of course.” I whispered to myself, but all I could think about was the castle - the sense of doom I’d felt when the shadowy clitweasels had tried to drag me in there. All the kicking, and the screaming. I remembered what it was like to fight through an ocean of Sub Mine F kids. To hear them chanting, “it should have been you, it should have been you, it should have been you.”

“The shadows swept me away in a wave of smoke.” Foster continued.

Her voice snapped me out of my little trance.

“They dragged me deep down into one of the chasms,” she said. “And suddenly, I wasn't in the desert anymore. The next thing I know, they're taking me across whole other landscapes, moving at speeds I can't describe.”

Bananas stopped and shuddered.

“I'm not going to get into what it felt like to be in their grasp.” She said. “You already know.”

I winced at the suggestion. And nodded back at her in appreciation for her restraint.

“But the way they moved across Shadow Country? It was weird. I was on a black cloud, and there were these long tendrils of freezing cold smoke that reached out in front of me, and formed a rail of sorts.”

“Like a Doom Train?” I said.

“Sorta, I guess. But faster. Over not just one landscape, but countless ones. I passed through whole worlds, Rose. Every one of them in ruins.”

“Like the Wasteland?” I said. “Our future?”

I ground my hooves together in anger. The idea of the ruins of Equestria woven into Clitweasel Country - it made my blood boil.

“No.” She replied. “Your future still has hope. These places - they were different. Shadow Country was nothing but miles, and miles, and miles of broken dreams."

"Huh?"

"This wasn't like our world. I saw scorched fields of tree stumps that had once been enchanted forests. And there was this place with pillars of marble, rising up out of the ocean, going nowhere at all! Whatever they’d once supported had long ago fallen into the water.”

“Okay...” I nodded, straining to follow her train of thought.

“Every single one of those landscapes had once been a dreamland. A world where folks went to escape."

I raised an eyebrow. It seemed like an awfully big conclusion to leap to.

“Rose, these were fantasy worlds," she said firmly. “I know them when I see them.”

“But how?”

“Well, uh, I…” Foster turned away from me, ashamed again to look me in the eye. “Look, I know it sounds a little crazy, but...I'm kind of a professional patient. I've had a lot of really unpleasant procedures. And I, um, know how...to...escape. Up here.”

She tapped her noggin.

“Oh,” I said.

In the quiet that followed, I was forced to confront the fact that what Foster had done with her mental exercises - with her fantasy worlds - it was a method for coping with torture. I'd read about stuff like that in pirate books. I had always thought it was super awesome in The Adventures of Pinkbeard. It suddenly didn't seem all that cool anymore now that the reality of it was huddled there in front of me.

“Gingerbread." Said Bananas Foster, finally breaking the silence. “If there's any doubt in your mind that the ruins I saw had once been escape places - then explain the gingerbread castle I saw.”

I found myself suddenly at a loss for words.

“I could see the crusty old frosting,” Foster continued. “Even from a distance. And the walls! They hadn't collapsed like wood or stone. That fortress had broken like a cookie. I know it sounds weird, but I was passing through the ruins of some sort of storybook land. From old mare’s tales! Please, please, please believe me.”

“I do, but…” My voice trailed off as I tried to wrap my brain around what she was saying. “...But how?”

“I don't know exactly. The Doom Train took me so fast that nothing made sense. Whole worlds flickered by at times. Of all the things that I saw - all the places - there was only one real detail that I managed to catch."

I leaned forward in anticipation.

"It was a sign on a pole above a dusty old crossroads." She said. “I don't know why, but the sight of it burned its way into my memory.”

“What did it say?”

"This Way to the Hall of the Brittle King.”

I scratched my head. Furrowed my brow.

“Brittle King?”

Bananas shrugged. Let out a meek little laugh. “I don't know,” she said. “It doesn't make any sense to me either.”

“Oh.”

“Nothing made any sense whatsoever until after the shadows took me prisoner in their shadow castle."

I jolted upright.

“Inside?! So they did--;” I squeaked.

“Shhh!” Foster snapped.

She looked around the room all paranoid-like, checking Cliff, and Roseluck. To make sure nopony had woken up. To make sure we wouldn't get interrupted. Then she threw me a look that said, Do you fucking mind?

I cringed. Mouthed the words, I'm sorry. I hadn't been able to help it. I was in shock. Princess Luna had called the doorway to that castle the point of no return. So even when Bananas Foster had mentioned it, I’d still assumed that she had managed to escape the shadows like I had. Before they got her to their HQ.

“They actually took you...inside?" I whispered.

Bananas nodded.

“Geez.”

"Once they had me," she said. “I saw things - got lost in my own mind. Like a nightmare. I have no idea how long it went on. Time isn't normal over there. I won't get into specifics because, uh…like I said, it's...hard.”

Foster paused to suck in a deep breath, and to calm herself. She was getting concentratey again. To keep the shadows out of her mind.

“Eventually,” she said. “I figured them out. I know what the shadow things are up to.”

Foster got up on her hooves.

“It's more than just random terror in there, Rose. They weren't just feeding off my pain, or my fear. On some level, I was being interrogated. The shadows actually wanted something from me.

“Doesn't that strike you as weird? That these things have so many demolished worlds to play with, and all of this unthinkable power, and still, they want me. Just like they want you."

I swallowed hard. What Bananas Foster said was an obvious fact, but I didn't like to think about it.

“Why, though?" Foster pressed me. “Why kids? Why us?"

She looked to me all excited-like, as though I might figure out the answer on my own. But all I could do was shrug. I had no fucking idea.

“They’re weak, Rose!" She giggled in a whisper. "Shadow Country stretched thousands of miles across countless worlds. And there wasn't a single thing anywhere that they had actually built. Nothing that they had created themselves. Because shadows can’t create. They can't build anything at all. They can only corrupt.”

Foster stopped. Watched me as I tossed her ideas around the inside of my head some more. I wanted to add something constructive to the conversation – to compare notes. But I was speechless. It wasn't just that every single experience that I’d ever had with the shadows – every encounter – all fit her theory. It was deeper than that. More sinister. When you tie all of that stuff to the big questions: what the shadowmajigs are - what they’re up to - why they want us - everything suddenly makes a whole lot more sense.

I thought of the gingerbread castle that Foster'd described, laid waste like the spires of Canterlot in the Wasteland. And, like a splash of cold water to the face, it hit me - the reason why all of this crazy stuff seemed to center around us. Children. The one thing that we had and they needed.

"Imagination." I whispered.

Author's Note

Please support my writing on Patreon. That is, if you want to. :yay: (I have mouths to feed.)

Seriously though, thanks for reading, and being patient with this latest chapter. You all are the best, and I look forward to your comments more than anything.

This chapter is a bit shorter than usual. I know it's a short chapter for a long wait, but it was either that or leave you all waiting for another couple of months whilst I pounded out the next 10,000 words or so. :twilightsheepish: Anyway, I hope Shadow Country leaves you with something to think about. I know that writing this chapter was a bit of a revelation for me personally. I don't know about you, but I'm excited to see the main story - the big arc - really start to unfold itself.

SPECIAL THANKS TO SERAPHEM (for putting up with my OCD nitpickery, and helping me edit this thing). :pinkiehappy:
SPECIAL THANKS ALSO TO KKAT obviously, for inspiring me with the original Fallout: Equestria story.

Confessions

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - CONFESSIONS

"I asked for water. You gave me gasoline." - Howlin' Wolf

With Bananas Foster's revelation came 100,000 billion more questions. How the shadowmajigs operated; what their next move might be; what we could do to protect ourselves now that we knew their angle, if anything could be done at all. But the one thing that really made my brain itch, more than any of that other stuff, was the need to know how exactly Bananas Foster had managed to escape that doom castle.

I didn't get to find out.

Not right away.

As Foster stood by the wall of her bubble, and I sat on the edge of my bed, contemplating her discovery, the door swung open, and a cheerful head popped inside.

"Good morning, good morning," it said in bubbly, but muted tones. "It's breakfast time. Who's up for muffins?"

Foster darted to the far corner of her dome, leapt for the rope that drew her curtain closed, and Zip!

Just like that, I was left alone with this orange lady, and her tray full of muffins. Even though I still had all that doom talk rattling around inside my head. The desert that swallowed up lost souls. The ruined worlds from storybook lore. The revelation that the shadow monsters were incapable of original thought – of imagination. I had barely begun to digest any of that when this lady had barged in.

I was not ready for small talk.

The mare in the stripey scrubs tip-hooved over to the chair next to me, and gently roused my sister. Roseluck awoke with a startle and a whimper. She looked around, all confused and such. When she finally saw me, she dodged my eyes.

“Oops,” said the mare in the striped scrubs. “You havin’ a dream, sugar?”

"What? No." Roseluck said defensively. “I’m fine.”

I reached out to put my hoof on her shoulder. But she just held up her own hoof. A give me a minute gesture.

"She’ll be fine." Muffin Nurse mouthed to me silently.

She made her way around my bed with a wink, and headed for Cliff Diver. It took her a solid minute. She had to climb over a great big old pile of crap on the floor - trinkets, and books, and crumbled-up pieces of paper - things that’d spilled out of Cliff's saddlebag. When the nurse got to him, she nudged his snorey, drooly face awake.

Meanwhile, Roseluck took my hoof into hers. When I turned to face her, she gave me a warm, fragile smile.

“What happened?" I whispered.

My sister closed her eyes and shook her head.

“It was just a dream.” She whispered back. “Not that kind of dream."

She was quick to add.

“Okay.”

“Really,” she said. “It's fine.”

Cliff let out a yawn like a moaning whale. But the second that I craned my neck, even a little bit, to glance in his direction, the pony in the striped scrubs was suddenly next to me again. Talking. Expecting me to be coherent.

"You sleep well, sweetie?"

I stopped for a minute. Blinked at her in confusion. Because Sweetie was the actual name of a classmate of mine. Then my barely-awake brain finally kicked at me from the inside of my skull.

She’s using a term of endearment, stupid.

I laughed at myself, and shook my head no in reply. I had not, in fact, slept well.

"Aww. Well, that's a shame." Said the stripey mare. "How's about a muffin? We've got raisin bran, blueberry, and banana."

I didn't answer. Instead, I stared off into space, and fretted about Roseluck. She fretted right back at me too, though she did her level best to hide it.

“Raisin bran, blueberry, or banana?” The mare repeated, and shoved a tray of muffins right up in front of my face.

“Bananas,” I said.

I didn't even want a muffin. But Bananas Foster was still on my mind.

* * *

"You all right?" Said Cliff, a few minutes later around a mouthful of muffin.

We were alone now - the three of us. Four if you counted the filly behind the curtain. The Muffin Mare was long gone.

"I guess so," I replied, all cold and distant-like.

"What is it?" Cliff Diver climbed up off the floor. "Did you have another dream? Already?"

I shook my head.

“I didn't sleep at all. A lot on my mind, I guess. You know, destroyed worlds and stuff."

I looked to Foster's curtain. I neeeeeeded to pick her brain. I mean really, really, reeeally needed to. To hear the end of her story. To compare notes!

And my sister - she was sitting right between us. Something was up with her too. The second that I mentioned destroyed worlds, Roseluck got all nervous again. She startled. Twitched like somepony had just flicked her nose with a pencil.

When she finally worked up the nerve to look at me directly, Roseluck just sorta deflated. "I'm really sorry." She said to me. “There's something I need to tell you. I, um...should have brought it up earlier when this all started, but, well…”

Roseluck let out a nervous little laugh, and flashed a nervous little smile. While I just stared at her what-the-fuckishly. ‘Cause what the fuck? We were sisters. We didn't hide stuff from one another. I mean, we did, but nothing major. Nothing that warranted a giant confession, like she seemed to be making.

“I had a dream just now,” she said. “Not the type with shadows, or time travel, or any of that.”

My sister was quick to clarify. Again.

“The kind of dream where your conscience takes a bite out of you." Roseluck closed her eyes. "You can't stop the bomb.”

“What?”

“The bomb, the future, the megaspell that's destined to obliterate Equestria. You can't stop it. None of us can.”

Rose clutched at my foreleg. Hard. Pleaded with me.

“I'm sorry.” She said. “I didn't want to say anything at first, but I…” She bit her lip, squeezed her eyes shut again, and stopped before she could finish her thought.

"Well, why the hay not?" Cliff huffed. "We've got Rose Petal's superpowers."

"Shut up." I said, all blushitty. “I don't have superpowers."

"And my science stuff." Cliff continued - frantically collecting his papers off the floor. “And...And you!"

He pointed a hoof at my sister.

"You got attacked by ice. 'Cause…’cause, ‘cause the shadows are trying to stop us!"

"I know." Roseluck pleaded.

“Then how can you say that we’re doomed? If they want to stop us so bad, we must be close!” Cliff’s voice cracked.

"Not if what they're trying to stop us from doing has nothing to do with the war."

That shut Cliff up.

"These things you encountered, they aren't going to cause the war." My sister added meekly. "Or the apocalypse. We will. Ponies will."

Cliff Diver looked to me. For confirmation. For reassurance. But Roseluck was right.

"Then I guess we have to stop the ponies too." Cliff said.

Roseluck shook her head again.

"Even if there is a way to prevent the war, and there might be," she added brightly. "It still can't be us who do it."

My stomach started doing cartwheels. Roseluck was talking like Luna now. I didn't like it. That destiny stuff was tranquil somehow when it came from the princess. She was over a thousand years old. She could afford to think in epochs. But to hear my own sister talk like that? It was awful.

I felt alone. Angry. Like grown-ups everywhere were just folks you couldn't count on at all. They were too busy being logical, and sensible to understand that, when something's wrong with the world, it's your job to fucking fix it.

"If not us, then who?" I growled through gritted teeth.

"I don't know." She said.

There was sadness in her voice.

“But we have to try." Cliff Diver whimpered.

Roseluck shook her head.

"We have to." He repeated.

Rose shook her head again. Shaking her head seemed like all that she knew how to do.

"Let's say we do prevent the war. If the apocalypse never happened, then you would never have visions about it." Roseluck pointed at me. "You would never meet Twinkle Eyes, who would probably never even be born. You wouldn't have made friends with Cliff Diver over there, because your vision set certain wheels in motion that lead up to your introduction, and your friendship.

“You would never have taken too much tea, after Twinkle Eyes died. You would never have ended up here at Ponyville General, and met Bananas Foster."

I looked to the curtain. I knew that Foster was listening on the other end.

"I don't know what's going on between you two," my sister continued. "But I can tell that you're connected. Same with that pony who thinks she's a dog."

"Screw Loose," I whimpered.

"Yeah, her." My sister replied.

I cringed. Roseluck had no idea how important Screw Loose really was. I had told no one at all that the dogmare in the psych ward was really The Wanderer. Or that there even was a Wanderer. It wasn't my place to say.

"These are all ponies that you would never have met if not for what you saw, Rose, and where you've been. Everything you've done so far, everything you're planning to do – wouldn't happen if the bomb, and the apocalypse, and all of that wasn't already, on some level, part of your past."

"My past?!" I whisper-squeaked.

She put her hoof on mine again.

"Our past is what makes us who we are today." She said. "Even if, technically speaking, it's part of the future."

“No.”

I started to shake. Tears ran silently down my cheeks. I didn't sniffle, or weep. Just looked to Cliff Diver, desperate for some kind of hope. He was always full of theories - full of ideas. There had to be a way out. There just had to!

“So if we stop the bomb because we came together as friends," Cliff Diver said slowly. "Then the bomb will never bring us together as friends to stop it.”

Roseluck nodded in reply.

“There's nothing we can do to stop it. Or anyone else who knows about it, for that matter.”

A silence fell over the room.

Cliff furrowed his brow. Like he was doing math inside his head or something. While I just sat there and contemplated a universe where Twinkle Eyes never came to be.

* * *

I found my hooves stroking the piece of bark that was tied to the pocket watch around my neck. A piece of Twink’s “candle.”

Cliff and Roseluck shared a spontaneous moment of silence - for Equestria, for ourselves, for our hopes and dreams, and shattered fantasies of saving the world. As I touched the bark from that candle-twig, a single horrifying thought ran wild through my brain, with a thousand tiny side questions.

Twink had been a driving force in my life. Her death, and my coping with it had set the wheels in motion for the peace in No Mare’s Land.

What if that had been the whole of her destiny?

Twink came into the world, and was sold into slavery. In all her life, she knew just a few hours of freedom. Was that it for her? Had the universe put her there, in Trottica, and given her a lifetime of cruelty and hardship, just so that she would be Who She Was. In the right place at the right time. To become friends with me? Was her whole purpose in life to fucking die, just to teach me a life lesson? To be my background pony?!

I couldn't accept that. And I couldn’t take orders from any more of those stupid voices in my head if it turned out that that's all Twink was to them.

A background pony.

* * *

We all got real silent, and real contemplatey, each in our own personal way. It stretched this haunting stillness over the whole room that seemed to last forever.

‘Till Cliff Diver finally broke its spell.

"It's a loop." He said, all of a sudden-like. "Just like Professor Science wrote about in her thesis."

Cliff rummaged excitedly through his bag ‘till he could produce a book. Then he flipped through it, double excited to find the right page.

"See?"

He ran over. Showed us both a picture of several intersecting cones, with arrowy lines and stuff running through them. It didn't make a whole lot of sense.

I would have humored him, but I just didn't have it in me. I waved the book away. Pushed it out of my face.

My stomach was turning sour, and I didn't have the energy for stupid time-math.

I plunged my muzzle into the tray in front of me instead. Scooped an entire muffin into my mouth, just to get my stomach to quiet down. And to not have to look anypony in the face.

“Fine. It's not my fault you don't like awesome things that are awesome." Cliff closed the book, and stuck his tongue out at me. "But lemme put it this way. Everything that's happened to me, happened because I believed you."

"Oh, Jeez. I’m sorry." I mumbled pathetically, mouth full of crumbs.

“No, no. That's not a bad thing. It's a really cool thing, actually. I'm like...totally honored to be part of this.”

He laughed at himself. Blushed a little.

“But what I mean is that we can't tell anyone. Not a princess. Not a librarian. Nopony. Anypony who hears about the apocalypse from us - anypony who believes us - is like, y’know...a part of it. So the fewer ponies who know about whatcha saw, the more ponies there are left to maybe turn it all around someday."

It was a depressing thought. Everypony else must’ve thought so too, cause that doom-y quiet hung over the room again. Silent but for the sound of me chewing my muffin. Om nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom.

"Mm...so, we're doomed, mmm." I nom-mumbled.

"Yes." Roseluck sighed. "...And no. There are other fights - other things that should not happen. Things we need to stop from happening."

"Like what?" I mumbled grumpily.

"I don't know. That's what you three have to figure out.” My sister added, all stoic and professor-like.

It was annoying, but she was right.

"Three?" I heard Bananas Foster say as the curtain opened.

Crick-a-crick-a-crick-a-crick-a-crick.

"Yeah." Roseluck replied. "You too, you little sneak."

Bananas Foster's eyes went wide as parachutes. She looked to me for reassurance, but I had nothing to offer.

"I'm not a sneak!” She pleaded with the room.

Foster was afraid. That the others knew. That they were on to her about her grifting. That our whole conversation had been heard.

"Yeah, but you are, though." Cliff chuckled.

"Am. Not!" Bananas fumed.

She ground her teeth together. Scraped her hooves against the floor. Her pallor even reddened.

"We just caught you listening to us,” said Cliff. “Hiding behind that curtain."

"What?" Bananas froze when she realized that they weren't on to her. That she was still trusted.

“Ya sneak.”

"Oh, uh, yeah." Foster forced a laugh. "You got me." She wiped her eyes. Struggled to swallow.

“You okay?” Cliff raised an eyebrow.

Foster ignored him.

"I say we make a pact.” She said, already talking like herself again. "Here and now. We promise not to tell anyone else.”

"Right." My sister agreed.

"Yeah,” said Cliff. “I'm with you. No apocalypse talk."

I shrunk. It was my turn to chime in. And I felt like such an idiot. There I was, surrounded by close friends – folks I really cared about - and I had gone and dragged them all down with me. 'Cause I'd been weak. ‘Cause I couldn't keep my fool mouth shut.

Sweet Celestia!

Everypony who knew anything about the apocalypse was doomed to it. And I’d gone and told everypony I loved!

I freaked out. Started rambling inside my head. About how terrible I had been. How selfish.

"Stupid Rose Petal," I said to myself. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid."

‘Till WHAM! I got hit with Twinkle Eyes' 2x4 o' Friendship again. Nopony talks that way about my friends.

I took a deep breath. Sighed. Got it together for Twink.

“Yeah,” I said. “No more apocalypse talk.”

Roseluck reached out and put her hoof on my shoulder. She knew I was hurting. I didn't want her to worry, so I sucked it up. Put my best I'm Okay face on.

"So where do we go from here?" I said.

"Shadow Country." Foster said bluntly, without missing a beat.

She was more than happy to grab the reins of the conversation.

“They have a country now?” Asked Cliff.

He and Roseluck looked to one another in confusion.

"We find the castle.” Foster continued, ignoring Cliff Diver completely. “We find it. And we blow it up.”

Then she stood there, scowl on her face. Confidence, flying all-the-fuck off of her like beams of sunlight. It was kinda remarkable. Bananas Foster genuinely, truly, for-real-and-a-half-ish-ly thought we might be able to pull something like that off.

The very idea of it smacked all of us silent. Cliff, Roseluck, and me. We all just sat there, stewing. ‘Till we got interrupted - yet again - by a knock on the door.

"Knock, knock." Said the young nurse from the day before. The one who’d made a point of showing off how professional she could be while everypony else had been stunned by my Crystal Empire glow.

"I'm here to interview you for the Ponytarian of the Month Award." She said dryly. "So tell me, what made you want to make the world a better place?"

The nurse turned to Cliff Diver. He didn't notice at first. Just groomed his tail, plucking stray paper clips out of the long brown hairs. Then he looked up, and found himself in a room full of eyes pointed at him.

"Who, me?" His voice cracked.

"No, no, no.” I said. “The head nurse made that up. To distract his annoying parents. So he could sleep here. I really, reeeeally needed a friend. The award is, uh, not a...well, you know...an actual award award.”

“Well, I’m supposed to write an article about it,” replied the Purple Professional.

"But..."

Cliff rustled his mane, draped it in front of his face just to have something to hide behind.

“Relax. It's only a blurb in the weekly hospital bulletin. Nopony will see it.”

“Oh, well, uh...okay.” Said Cliff. “So long as nopony makes a fus--;”

Flash!

A great big orderly with a camera stepped in through the door.
Flash! Flash! Flashitty-flash flash-flash.

“Come on, kid!” He laughed a hearty laugh while Cliff rubbed the spots from his eyes.

“Smile! It's a big day.”

The Purple Professional rolled her eyes and whipped out a clipboard.

"Don't mind him.” She said. “So, Cliff Diver, tell me, what exactly it is that you did.”

“Well, I didn't really do--;”

Cliff stiffened. A slow, soft screech escaped his throat, as his chest visibly tightened. Cliff's mother was standing in the doorway.

“Ah. There you are.” She said. “Good morning, good morning, good morning."

She turned to everypony in the room, without really looking at any of us in particular.

"Cliff," she added. "We’ll be leaving in a moment.”

“We were just doing our story on your son," said the nurse. “For the Ponytarian of the Month Award.”

“Ah,” she said. “Well, won't your father be proud.”

She made a show of lovingly rustling his mane. But he cringed at her touch. I got the impression it was not the sort of gesture he was accustomed to at home.

I had to look away. Roseluck next to me did the same. Anything to avoid contributing to Cliff’s humiliation.

It made my blood boil. To have to pretend to be okay with Cliff’s bitch-of-a-mom while every inch of my insides was screaming. Urging me to leap up on my hospital bed and shame Cliff’s mom, just like I had Diamond Tiara. Shame! Shame-shame-shame shame shame shame!

But what was I supposed to say? Hey, you! Don't rustle Cliff's mane?

I felt so powerless. A bully you can stand up to. A priestess. A General! Sure, they might blow you to smithereens, or lock you in a dungeon or something, but you can still do it. Not parents. They’re more powerful than that. They can spend decades breaking somepony on the inside, and there's not a damn thing anypony can say or do about it.
Directly.

"Science!” Bananas Foster squealed, totally out of the blue.

And suddenly all eyes were on her.

"I'm not all that good with science and stuff, you know? But Cliff Diver is.”

Bananas blushed.

“And he’s been tutoring me.” She added.

"Really?" Said the purple nurse, seeming a touch sunnier all of a sudden - less bored with the assignment.

"Yeah." Bananas Foster took to chewing on her mane. "Y’know, it's a lot like story time, but with ideas. And shapes and numbers.”

She giggled.

“Awwwwwwwwwwwww.” Both the nurse and the orderly drew in closer to Bananas.

“Tell me," said the nurse, readying her clipboard again. "What did you learn?”

“The first rule of physics.” Bananas beamed. “Cliff taught me it real good. You see, every action has an equal, but opposite reaction.”

Cliff’s mother took to silently hurrying him in gestures and in whispers. He rushed to gather his things. Shoveled them into his saddlebag. Bunched his shoulders, sunk his head down, all cowed and ashamed-like.

“An equal, but opposite reaction?” Said the orderly.

“Mmm hmm.” Bananas nodded.

“Can you tell us what that means?” Asked the purple professional. It was obvious that she already knew. But the nurse was more interested in Foster’s perspective than a physics lesson.

Bananas brought her mane down in front of her face again. Hid behind it just like Cliff had. And while the nurse and the orderly were clutching their chests, awwww’ing and d’awwww’ing over how damn cute she was, I saw what she was actually trying to conceal.

Foster may have been getting fidgety with her body, all childish and adorable-like, but Foster’s eyes were fixed on Cliff's mom. Cold as ice picks.

“It means that when you shove something,” she said. “It shoves back.”

* * *

Bananas Foster had the whole room eating out of her hooves. By the time she was done, Cliff's mom was even taking credit for his love of physics. Bragging about how she encourages him at home. How she was gonna get him a telescope to encourage him more. How, sure, yes, of course she wouldn't mind if Cliff visited Bananas twice a week.

Cliff’s mom promised the moon when she had an audience. But once the nurses had gotten what they came for, and it was time to go, she nudged her son urgently, and made straight for the door.

“Excuse me, um...Ms. Place?” Foster called after her, all sweet and innocent-like.

Cliff's mom turned around, and stood in the doorframe.

“Yes?” She said.

“I just wanted to thank you, so very, very much. Cliff Diver coming to visit means so much to me.”

“Yes." Cliff’s mom replied stiffly. Even stiffer than usual. “No trouble at all.”

Cliff shot Foster a what the fuck are you doing look.

“This Tuesday, then?” Foster continued. “Tuesdays and Thursdays is what you promised.”

“We’ll see.” Cliff’s mom grumbled through a clenched jaw.

She turned to leave again, but Foster just kept going.

“Wait!” She called after them again.

Cliff’s mom poked her head back inside. “What?”

“It’s just...that...I'll get worried. Real worried if he doesn't come. And when I get worried, I get sad.”

Bananas got so sniffly, I could almost hear the violins playing between each word.

“I'm very sorry to hear that.” Cliff’s mother replied.

“And when I get sad, there's only one pony who knows how to cheer me up.” Foster continued. “She throws me little parties all the time, and brings me news about the outside world. Luckily, she comes Wednesdays and Fridays. The exact day after Cliff Diver is supposed to come. Isn't that funny?”

Foster giggled meekly.

“So if Cliff can't make it, at least I'll have a way to get some smiles. And to help me figure out if everything’s okay with him.”

Cliff's mom stopped. The color ran from her face. You could practically see the wheels inside her brain turning. She knew Bananas Foster was talking about Pinkie Pie - the mare who would throw a parade, or whip the town up into a giant musical number if she thought a poor, sick little girl was in need. Which, incidentally, meant that, if Cliff's mom fucked with Bananas, or prevented Cliff from visiting, the whole town would find out exactly why.

“That's good to hear." Said Cliff's mom. "Tuesday. He'll be there. Won't you, Cliff?”

She turned to him sternly, as if not showing up had been his idea.

Cliff worked hard to suppress a smile. “Whatever you say, mom.”

She nodded back, and swept him out the door.

* * *

When everypony was gone, and Foster was absolutely certain that they'd stay gone, she leapt onto her bed, kicked up her hooves, and smugly stretched herself out.

“How?” I asked her.

“What?” She replied.

“How did you...?” I asked again, completely flabbergasted.

I couldn't figure it out. How Foster could dig into her shadow history one moment - get all shakeitty and teary-eyed with fear and despair - and then just go and put on a cutesy wittle show for the grownups the next moment! The kind of inspiration porn that she despised. I would've been a wreck if I were her.

“How did I what?” Foster raised an eyebrow.

My brain seized up. Flooded with so much NOPE, that it couldn't think of anything else to say, except, of course, “How?”

“Are you okay?" Roseluck asked me.

She was looking at me funny too. ‘Cause to her, this was all just business as usual.

“Well, um...I, I…” I stammered. And stammered. And stammered. ‘Till at last, my brain quit trying to think of words to say, and my mouth took over and just said them. On its own.

“I like you." I told Foster.

“Huh?”

Bananas sat up in her bed.

"Last night you asked me if I liked you, or if I just pitied you, and I said I didn't know….But now I know. And, uh...I do. I do like you."

Bananas smiled. “Thanks, I guess. But, uh...Why?”

My mouth, having said what it wanted to say, suddenly let my brain take over again. But my stupid brain wasn't ready yet. I kept tripping over words for fear of giving away Foster’s secrets in front of Roseluck.

“Uh, you know. I...like...what you did just now? For Cliff…That was, I dunno, kinda cool.”

Roseluck looked at us both, and blushed. Laughed nervously. Covered her smirk with her forehooves. It was weird. I had never seen her turn so red in all my life.

“Roseluck,” I said. “Is everything--;”

”Well, I don't know about you girls,” she interrupted. Stretching, and yawning, and getting up out of her chair. "But I'm famished. I'm gonna go, er...wander over yonder to the nurses’ station. Find out when breakfast is coming.”

She flashed us both a smile that was meant to be reassuring. It wasn't.
There were muffin crumbs all over her tray.

“Roseluck?” I said. “You okay?”

She’d only made it about halfway to the door.
"Me?” She spun around and laughed. “I am just hungry. Very, very, very hungry.”

She rubbed her belly with her hoof, all exaggerated-like. It reminded me of a Kindergarten kid struggling to remember her lines for her first school play.

“I'm so hungry, it might take me a little while to get back, you know.”

Rose turned to me and winked – a gesture of encouragement - and zipped out of the room as fast as she could. It was only after the door clicked shut behind her that I realized what my sister had thought was going on.

I'd said that I liked Bananas. Roseluck thought that I liked Bananas!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I screamed in my head, and threw my bed sheet over my face out of pure embarrassment. Even though my sister was already gone.

Bananas Foster, being the kind and sensitive soul that she was, burst out laughing.

Then, as I lay there staring at the underside of the bedsheet, my brain clobbered me with a cinder block o’ brain logic. Roseluck was gone. She was trying to give Bananas and me some space. So she was gonna stay gone, at least as long as the hospital would allow.

I threw off the bed sheet aside. Sat up in a hurry. Or tried to. I ended up face first on the floor, with my hind leg still tangled in the sheet up above.

“Bwahahahaha!” Said Foster.

“Bananas," I said, desperate to get her attention.

“Hahahahahaha!” She replied.

No luck.

“Bananas!” I snapped again, more urgent than before. But all she could do was laugh at me.

“Hahahahaha!”

“How did you escape the castle?!” I said as loudly as I could without arousing suspicion from the hospital folk outside.

Bananas stood still. Blinked in mild shock. Ploink-Ploink. Ploink-Ploink.

“W-what?" She said.

“We’re alone again. No nurses. No doctors. No Roseluck.”

Thud. I finally managed to get myself free from the tangled up bedsheet.

“Foster, I need to know.”

“You mean…”

“Yes," I said. "Come on! I don't know how much time we have!”

I leapt to my hooves. Ran to the door. Tried to get a peek through the little window above the knob. But I couldn't see squat. There was no way to even guess how much time we had left. I hoped that Roseluck was good at blending in and keeping herself occupied.

“It's...complicated.” Said Bananas, ashamed to look me in the eye.

“The shadows could come for me, Foster.” I said. “Tonight. Tomorrow. The next time I nap, they could come for me.”

For a while, she stood there. Not saying a word.

"Foster, come on!" I pressed.

“I'm sorry.” She whispered. “I...uh, I don't remember.”

“What?" I squeaked.

“My escape," she said. “I don't actually remember."

Kapow! It was like a kick to the teeth. Hearing her say that. ‘Cause I knew damn well that she remembered.

“Bananas,” I shook my head at her and whimpered. “Family doesn't lie to each other.”

Bananas Foster looked up at me. All stunned-like.

“Family?” She said, venom suddenly on her tongue.

She was not taking the complement the way I had intended it.

“Well, yeah, I've been thinking about what you said.” I rushed to my own defense. “The way your family functioned. Your motto, or code, or whatever.”

Foster stared me down with all of her hurt. Like her eyeballs were rage guns, ratatatatat’ing me to bits.

"Please,” I continued. “Please, please, please, please, please don't take this the wrong way. Nothing can replace what you lost. But, I do kinda think you're, um, I dunno...family-ish to me. So if you’re gonna refuse to tell me how you did it, for whatever reason, pleeeease just refuse to tell me. Don't lie and say you forgot.”

“It hurts.” I added.

Foster sucked her face in real tight. Stood there like a statue for Luna-only-knows how long. I had no idea what she was thinking. But eventually, she took to nodding, slow and thoughtful-like.

“Alright.” She said. “Just gimme a sec.”

Then Bananas turned her back on me. Rummaged through another one of those boxes of hers. Vinyl records this time. She dug, and dug, and dug. 'Till she found what she was looking for, slid it out of its sleeve, and dropped it down on a beat up old turntable. The horn spit out a crackling sound, and Foster tugged on the rope beside her. The curtain started closing. Slowly this time. Crick-a-crick-a-crick-a-crick-a-crick.

The curtain slid behind me, and sealed us off from the rest of the room, even though it was empty.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

A few crackles later, and classical music started playing.

“An orchestra is a living organism." Bananas said, all super-mellow now.

And that was when I lost my cool. I freaked out and poked my head around the curtain to see if anypony was coming. ‘Cause we didn't have a second to lose. As far as I could tell the coast was clear. But that could change at any moment.

"Bananas we don't have ti--;,"

"Shut up, Rose." Bananas said dryly. "I'm going to tell you, but it'll take concentration to block them out. So just be patient and listen."

The orchestra kept playing. It sounded like...well, it sounded like an orchestra. I shrugged back at her. I got nothing out of the tune. I was a Sapphire Shores kinda girl.

"Music is a type of magic." Foster said. "Shadows like to divide and conquer. But an orchestra has eighty ponies in the same room, playing as one. Flutes doubling the violins. English horns doubling the oboes. The celli and contrabass underneath, moving, driving it all forward. Do you hear it?"

I tried listening again, but just gave up and shrugged. Whatever it was that I was supposed to be listening for, I couldn't hear it.

"Well,” Foster replied. “When my mind sits front row, and imagines that kind of unity - that level of order - it's shadow repellant."

I nodded. Swallowed hard. That much I did understand.

So I gave her a moment to collect herself. Did my best to ignore the meal trolleys banging around out in the hallway. But it was damn hard. The tiniest sound made me jump. We couldn't afford for anyone to barge in and interrupt us again.

Foster closed her eyes as the music swelled. Took a deep breath. And then just sorta blurted it right out.

"I didn't escape." She said.

"Say what?"

Foster kept her eyes closed.

"I didn't escape." She repeated. "The shadows let me go."

As the words left her mouth, she winced. Cringed. Just a little bit. Waiting for the obvious question that she knew was to follow.

"Why?" I said. "After all that, why did just...let you go?"

"Because,” Foster fussed with her mane. Hid behind it a little. This time for real, not to put on some cutesy little inspiration show for the grown-ups. "’Cause they made me an offer."

The record player spat out the sound of bright happy pranceitty little flutes. It made the silence between us all the more surreal.

"...And you took it." I said.

"Not at first," she was quick to answer. "Not the second time around either. But, yes. Eventually, I did."

I didn't know what to say. So I sat there. Like a dope.

"I haven't given up." Foster assured me. "I'm not on their side. I'm gonna find a way to make them pay...But I couldn't do it from in there. I had to get out first. And now that I'm free, they can't even find me!"

"But, but, but I told you everything," I said. "They could have heard us."

"They didn't."

"But they might." I insisted.

"They won't!"

My stomach took to twisting and turning again. My face got hot. My legs started trembling.

"Rose Petal, I swear, they won't."

She put her hoof against the inside of the dome. To try to put me at ease. And when I saw her face, as stern and as confident as Colonel Wormwood's, I knew I could believe her. Whatever else may have been going on, they weren't listening. Foster would have known, and I would have felt it myself, evil hoof and all.

"The shadows think I'm working for them, but they hadn't counted on my ability to fragment my mind. To shut them out." Bananas bragged.

There was a sparkle in her eyes. A sort of lunatic pride. ‘Till I asked the other obvious question.

"What was the offer?" I said.

Her smirk suddenly sank. Whoosh! Like a candle in the wind, the light in her eyes went out too.

Foster sighed. Licked her lips. Brought a trembling hoof to her face while the classical music kept on filling the silence between us. All hornsy and bold now.

"I don't know how to escape from the castle." She said. "But there's a pony out there that does.”

Foster must have seen me perk up at the thought of it, because she raised a hoof, and shook her head.

“No.” She warned. “That's not a good thing. It's one of their inquisitors.”

"Inquisitors?"

Foster nodded. “The shadows don't want their prisoners banding together against them. So, when they dig inside your head, and make you relive your worst memories - they give you the option of making it stop...If you're willing to do it to someone else.

'Most of the time, we were kept in isolation, but I've seen the looks that these kids give each other in the mess hall. Well, grownups too, but mostly kids.” She added. "Nopony can trust anypony else. No one knows who has betrayed who. Or who is going to.

'And whenever the shadows notice that a particular pair of friends is forming a bond, they make sure to set them against each other."

Foster lowered her head.

"Everypony thinks they're a hero - that they'd never turn on a friend - but they all crack once they've spent a week or two reliving their worst memory like a broken record."

"Is that what they did..." I pointed at her.

Foster nodded solemnly. And I understood. It was either: do a job for the creatures that killed your family; or just watch your family get killed over, and over, and over again forever, and ever, and ever.

"They pit friend against friend.” Foster continued. “And once someone’s agreed to take part in the interrogations - to deliver the nightmares - to help go inside somepony else's mind..."

Bananas threw up her hooves.

"They're lost. They become part of the place. Like the walls. And eventually they don't even want to escape anymore.

"They stay. Either out of guilt ‘cause they know that they deserve whatever happens to them, or worse, because they actually like it. The power."

"That's what an inquisitor is." Foster said through gritted teeth. "Mine was a little filly. Five years old, and meaner than any shadow ever could be.

"Five?"

"Well, she looked five, but time is weird over there. No one really ages. For all I know, she was five-hundred.

"She had a lisp 'cause of her missing front tooth, and a squeaky little kid voice, but she spoke with a certain kind of confidence. Like she’d been interrogating other ponies for a very, very, very long time."

Foster cringed.

"She was the one who made me the offer.” Bananas whispered. “She actually smiled at me when I refused."

The record player hissed into a moment of silence. The end of track one. And Foster stood there for a minute, staring off into space, collecting her thoughts.

"Anyway,” she said at last, drawing her hoof across her face as she sniffled. “One of their chief inquisitors snapped - escaped after hundreds, and hundreds of years. The shadows let me out ‘cause they expect me to track her down."

I couldn't help but look at her giant glowing dome prison and raise a confusitty eyebrow.

"Yeah," said Bananas. "That was my first thought. It's ridiculous! I mean seriously, what could I possibly do?" She snorted. "But like your Rose Voices, the shadows truck in vague portents. If they knew exactly where their inquisitor was, they wouldn't need me. But they don't. The shadows don't even know what she looks like on the outside."

“Wha? Huh?”

Foster looked at me, tilty-headed, and confused.

“She lived there!” I snapped. “‘For hundreds of years,’ you said!”

"The castle doesn't publish yearbooks." Foster replied. "Shadows move between worlds, seeking fear and guilt. They smell it like sharks drawn to blood in the water, but that's all that they know about us. The traces of darkness we leave behind us like hoofprints.

“This inquisitor – she disappeared completely. No trace of shadow mojo, or whatever you wanna call it. Nothing.

"For some reason, the shadows think that I, of all ponies, can bring her back to them."

She stared at the ground again for a solid minute. And I didn't know what to say either. Because I had no fucking idea what kinda crazy shadow thoughts went through the minds of those clitweasels. I couldn't begin to guess why the fuck they’d picked Bananas Foster.

"Rose?" Bananas broke the silence.

I looked up, and found her twiddling her hooves all nervous-like.

“You do a lot of thinking about right and wrong. Good and evil.” She continued.

"Not really...I mean, well. Yeah. I guess so."

"Do you ever wonder if there's an evil so bad, that it can't be redeemed? Like some kinda point of no return? “

"I don't know." I said. "I never really thought about it like that. You mean like, is there some super special line that nopony can cross?"

Foster nodded.

"Nah." I said confidently. "Nightmare Moon was pretty evil, and look at Princess Luna now."

"No. No, no." Bananas grumbled. "Not princesses. I'm talking about folks not important enough to get blasted by rainbows, or zapped by the Elements of Harmony."

"So...You wanna know if we can change this inquisitor." I said. "Without magic.”

Foster shook her head.

"Nope. The One I’m Supposed to Find?" She did her best impression of that scratchy-metal-centipede-voice the shadows spoke in. "I've seen what she’s capable of. What she’s done.” Bananas shuddered. "No. She's way beyond redemption. I’m talking about us."

"Us?"

"Well, me, specifically." Bananas shuffled her hooves anxiously against the floor. “Rose, I really need your help."

"Sure." I said, without batting an eye.

"And I need you to keep an open mind." She added.

"Okaaay." I said, all suspicious-like, whilst I waited for her to get to the damn point.

Then Bananas Foster sat back on her hindlegs. Pressed her forehooves together. And sucked in a deep breath.

"Rose,” she said. “I’m gonna try to kill her.”

The string section on the record let out a soft, thin hum as my heart skipped a beat.

"What?" I whispered.

"Hear me out." She said. "I kinda think of it like, a big responsibility. This monster - she's loose. She's dangerous. We can't tell anypony. We can't let her go. We can't just give her back to the shadows. And there's no way we can change her nature with a bunch of friendship rocks."

"I know. But kill her?" I squeaked. “Do you actually think you could do something like that?"

Foster looked down at her own hooves. Turned them over. As if the answer might be written on them.

"No." She said with a sigh.

Hearing Foster say that should have come as a comfort to me, but there was still something unsettling about her. The way she just kept staring at her hooves. When she finally did look up at me, she had this pleading, desperate look on her face. Her eyes were the size of bowling balls.

"You want me to do it?" I whispered in reply.

"I want you to help me figure out that line. Morals and stuff. That's like, I dunno, your thing."

"My thing?" I snorted a little. I couldn't help it.

"Yeah." She smiled faintly.

"Well," I thought about it for a moment, though the answer was pretty much obvious. "For starters, killing is a pretty big line to cross."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, but what if this maniac kills other ponies because I did nothing? Or worse. What if she…” Foster winced a little bit - hushed herself down to a whisper. “What if she does things to them - makes them feel, like, you know - like how the shadows made me feel."

Bananas shrank a little bit. Like she was ashamed to admit that they had hurt her.

"I don't know." I answered honestly. “I just don't know.”

"Me neither." She sighed.

And the record settled down into a crackly quiet between tracks. We sat in silence for a while longer.

"You know, everyone says they value forgiveness.” Said Foster, scorn on her tongue. “Second chances. They say they value kindness. But what they're really talking about is how they treat their friends. Not their enemies. No one faults the princesses for annihilating Sombra, or for turning Discord into stone. Even though that's a fate a thousand times worse than death.”

“Well, they kinda had to." I said. “They did it to protect all of Equestria.”

“Then how is this any different?"

“I suppose it isn't.” I admitted, all heavy-hearted-like. “It still feels kinda wrong, you know?”

“Not to me.”

The record player hummed a few faint screechy violin tones as the next symphony movement-or-whatever started up.

“If you're so sure," I said. “Why do you even need me?”

“I didn't until yesterday!” She said. “I thought I had it all figured out. I even had a plan. Now, I don't know anything anymore.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“Why?” I asked.

She fidgeted and blushed in reply.

I tried to think on it. Struggled to figure out for myself what the fuck could have happened the day before? It drove me crazy. ‘Till suddenly, I remembered how silent Bananas Foster had been when I first woke up.

Princess Luna had warned us that those shadowy clitweasels had spent the entire evening attacking all of my friends. So we'd [shared our private battles. Cliff Diver, Roseluck, and me.
But Bananas Foster never actually told us about what had happened to her.

“Was it the nightmare?" I pressed her.

“What? No.” Bananas scoffed. “It was you.”

“Me?!”

“Yeah.” She said. “I never gave much thought to right and wrong before yesterday. For me, it's always been more about us and them. The way I figure it, either you're family, or you’re not. And what happens to ponies who aren't family, well, that just isn't my concern.”

“And now you're all about morals?” I raised an eyebrow. "Because of me.”

“Sweet Celestia, no.” She snorted. Giggled a little bit.

I wasn't sure whether I ought to be insulted or relieved.

“But you got results." Foster added, chock full of actual genuine warmth all of a sudden. "You were able to actually beat the shadows with all that lovey dovey stuff. And now I'm left wondering if maybe we could, um…”

Bananas stopped, nervously clicked her teeth together whilst she struggled to find the right words. Chomp-Chomp. Chomp-chomp. Chomp-Chomp. “...I don't know. Hunt this inquisitor. Or better! Kick down the doors of the castle. Annihilate everything. And, and, and…" She got herself worked up into a gleeful, excited little frenzy. "...And then I could go face-to-face with that little girl again. The one who climbed inside my head. The one who giggled at me, and smiled when I refused her offer again, and again, and again.”

Bananas Foster grinned a wicked smile. Rubbed her hooves together eagerly.

“I’m gonna walk right up to her, Rose. I'm gonna look her square in the eyes, and then I'm gonna friendship her to death.”

“Friendship her to death?” I said.

“Something like that. I dunno. You get the point. I seriously think we can do this.”

“We can't friendship anyone to death.”

“Why not?”

“It doesn't work like that.”

“Well, it should." Foster pouted.

For a moment, Bananas reminded me of that petulant child she pretends to be.

“What about turning Discord into stone, and banishing Nightmare Moon? And Sombra! The princesses had no problem wiping out Sombra.”

"You're missing the point."

"Then tell me!” She pleaded with me desperately. “What is the point? 'Cause there's a dangerous pony out there, and I have no idea what we're supposed to do!"

"Me neither." I said sadly. “I wish I knew.”

I lowered my head, and stared at the floor with unfocused eyes. 'Til I heard a scraping sound. Hoof on tile. It was Bananas, stomping like a mad pony, ready to charge. When I actually got a good look at her, Foster looked changed. I saw a strange passion in her - a lust for revenge that lit up her eyeballs like the lights of Bridleway. It made me queasy. Just to be near. It wasn't that I didn't understand how Foster felt. It's the fact that she was so damn understandable that made me sick. Because I knew that feeling. That righteous slave rage - we'd all felt it back in the mines of Trottica. It was a good feeling. A top of the world feeling. And absolutely everything we did because of it was totally justified too. ‘Cause we had to. Just to survive. It really, actually, literally was us or them.

But you can't live your whole life like that!

Bananas had never gotten what I had. She never got to ride a giant cart-a-majig wielding a ratatatatater like Twink. And when her mother died, there was no tearful goodbye. Foster’s mom never got an "everything's gonna be alright after I'm gone" moment with her kids, like Twinkle Eyes’d had with us.

The loss of Twink still hurt me. A lot. Every single day. But I was healing, or at least trying to.

For Bananas Foster, the battle had never ended.

"Rose?" Foster said gently. "You okay?"

I snapped out of my little trance. Realized suddenly that my worry must've been written all over my face. I shook my head no, in answer to her question. I was not okay.

Thousands of ponies were gonna end up just like Foster. In pain. Unable to move on. Living in a constant state of warfare. Of fear. Of loss. Once the ball got rolling, there would be no stopping the war. At all.

I shook my head. Raised a trembling hoof to stroke my aching temples.

“That us and them stuff.” I said softly. "It's gonna kill us all."

"Huh?" Foster replied.

"Zebras." I said. "Ponies. We really can't stop the bomb, can we?”

Foster was silent.

“Once one side wrongs the other,” I continued. “That's it. It's just a free fall. Justifiable rage all the way down."

"You’re thinking about what your sister said." Bananas remarked.

"No," I shook my head. "What you said. No morals. No rules. Just us and them."

"Well, it’s the way of the world.” Foster said sadly. “It goes back to cavepony days. The wild herds. You've got kids forming tribes in the playground. Princesses doing what it takes to protect the nation. Everyone has an us and a them. It's part of what keeps us alive."

She reached out and put her hoof against the wall of the dome, as if to try to touch me on the shoulder, and tell me it was all gonna be okay.

"But hey," she said. "That doesn't mean we're gonna be like the zebra war. None of us can stop what we are. All we can do is pick our us, and our them. And you know what, Rose?”

She paused to look me square in the eyes, and throw me a hopeful little smile.

“We have something extremely rare. Enemies actually worth killing!"

The record player started playing a blaring fanfare with a bunch of horns and drums and stuff. It was almost as though they all agreed with her.

"These are shadow creatures made out of evil," Foster said with a laugh. “For Celestia's sake, there are sadists and torturers loose among us. Don't waste your pity on them."

"It's not the inquisitor I'm worried about." I said. “I'm worried about what's gonna happen to you."

"Me?" Bananas startled just a bit. “I'll be fine.”

"Yeah? You said that shadows trap you by getting you to cross a line. By making you do bad things you wouldn't ordinarily do. To try to make you a little bit darker. More like them. What if…."

I shook my head, mouth wide-open. I had a hard time summoning the breath to finish what I had to say.

“Only if you feel guilty about it afterwards." Foster smirked at me.

“But what if they win either way?” I said. “What if you kill this inquisitor, and they take you? They smell your rage, and your violence. Like sharks drawn to blood in the water.”

Bananas Foster's irises shrunk down suddenly to the size of pinpoints. While the rest of her eyeballs widened so much that they practically took over her face.

She plopped her flank down on the ground and stared off into space. "It wouldn't happen." She shook her head. "It couldn't. We can't let that happen."

I replied with silence. For once, not because I was flustered and couldn't think of anything to say. But 'cause I had already said everything I needed to.

* * *

The music kept on playing while Foster thought on it some more. A flute solo. It swirled around and reminded me of meadows and stuff. ‘Till Bananas looked up at me, and broke the silence.

"Do you know what she said to me, just before I was sent away?” Foster whispered. “My inquisitor?"

I shook my head no.

“See ya later, traitor.” Bananas snorted, and cast her eyes on the ground again.

"Yep.” I said. “That's a preeeeetty bad joke."

“Yeah.” Bananas nodded solemnly. “Right. A joke.”

Judging by the look on her face, Foster actually took the insult to heart.

“Oh, come on!” I said. “You had no choice." But even as the words escaped my mouth, I cringed a little on the inside.

I hadn't lived through shadow torture stuff the way Bananas had. Who was I to throw stupid reassurances at her? A stupid jerk, that's who. I may as well have given her a greeting card.

I winced in embarrassment, but Foster just ignored me. She closed her eyes. Bit her lip nervously. Sucked in a deep breath.

"There’s more I haven't told you.”

“Okay.”

"I don't like to admit this,” she said. “But of everypony I've ever met outside of my family, you are the only one I've ever considered an us instead of a them. You and Cliff, anyway."

"Thanks." I answered, and silently wished that I had something more to say. That kinda complement meant a lot coming from Foster.

"I've been stewing on what you said a few minutes ago.” She continued. “About how family doesn't lie to each other. And you’re right. If we're gonna friendship my inquisitor to death, we have to be clean with each other, you know?”

“I still don't think--;”

Foster held up a hoof to shush me.

“When my inquisitor was done with me,” she said. “The shadow castle spit me out into a field not far from here. I was pretty weak, but I summoned everything I had, and made for the Town Hall."

"You were on the outside?!”

“I was so swollen, I could barely speak by the time I got to the hospital. I had to use this to identify myself."

Foster held up a medical dogtag that was hanging from her bedpost. It bore one of those symbols that looks like two snakes fighting each other over a stick.

"They referenced my number and put in a request to the Canterlot Medical Archives, where I, um…” Foster turned away from me, took to fidgeting with her hooves. “...Where I had sort of, you know...planted a series of forgeries a few weeks before.”

Foster laughed nervously.

“Um...Why were there forgeries?” I asked.

“Rose, please believe me. Absolutely everything I told you - about the desert, about the shadows, about me, about my family - it was all true."

"Okaaay."

My stomach took to spinning that muffin around inside of it.

“Except for one teensy tiny little detail."

“You're not really sick?” I whispered in horror.

Foster chuckled joylessly.

“Oh, I'm sick.” She sighed. “Getting treatment is, um...well, a lot more complicated than you might imagine.”

She sighed. Looked up at the ceiling.

“My name’s not really Bananas Foster.” She said at last.

The violins hummed while she tapped the floor nervously and worked up her nerve.

“It's Thirteen.”

“Thirteen?” I asked.

Bananas nodded meekly.

“Your name is Thirteen.” I repeated. “Like...the number?”

Foster kept nodding.

“I don't understand.”

Foster closed her eyes. And stood there, trembling like a leaf. Then she summoned one last deep breath, gulped hard, and mouthed the words, “Mother, forgive me.”

And in the blink of an eye, Bananas Foster was gone.

A changeling stood in her place. Black as pitch, and full of holes.

“There are no pretty names where I come from." It said sadly, its voice darker and raspier than the one I thought I knew.

Author's Note

SPECIAL THANKS: First of all, I would like to thank Seraphem as always for his tireless assistance providing feedback during the editing process, and Kkat for writing the original Fallout Equestria story that inspired me to write Hooves of Fate in the first place.

SUPPORT: Hooves of Fate is a labor of love. However, I also have mouths to feed. If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you in any way, and you can manage to spare a few bits, I'd very much appreciate your support on Patreon. If you can't, no pressure.
For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

On to an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

Bananas Foster is a character that I conceived of several years ago. As a fanfic author, I have always been open to, and eager for new developments in the show. I've worked to incorporate them into the Hooves of Fate universe any way that I could, even when that meant last minute re-writes.

I cannot do this for Foster, however. I had a very specific vision of changelings when first I set out to write this story: who they were; what their culture was like; and how their magic worked. If I were to change it now to more accurately reflect what we learned about the changelings in Season Six, the larger Hooves of Fate story would greatly suffer for it.

There are very big things in store for all of the characters, and they are at least another hundred thousand words in the making. Too many wheels are already in motion for me to be able to turn back now, so, after a little bit of internal debate, and soul-searching, I've decided to move forward as originally intended.

So yes, Chrysalis is Bananas Foster/Thirteen's "Mother," and yes, the family that Foster spoke of in the desert was, in fact, the changeling hive.

I ask for you, the reader, to kindly bear with me, to keep an open mind as you read future chapters, to please remember that, when this story was originally conceived, all that was known of the changelings' fate was that, immediately after they'd been blasted by Shining Armor's shield spell, the entire army of them had hurtled through the air at remarkable speeds, and disappeared into a bright flash of twinkling light in the sky.

Hospital Promises

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT- HOSPITAL PROMISES
“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away, and going away means forgetting.” - J.M. Barrie

Losing someone close to you is awful - like getting one of your teeth ripped out. They leave you with a great big bleeding hole. And even after the wound heals up, your smile never looks quite the same again.

I had taken Twink’s passing hard. Really hard. But I got to say goodbye, and she got to say "see you later."

Bananas Foster was different altogether. She had never existed at all. I didn't have words for it at the time, but finding out that she was a changeling knocked a tooth out of me. ‘Cause I’d been lied to. ‘Cause the filly I’d trusted so deeply was gone - yanked away from me just as unexpectedly as Twink had been.

And when I looked through the dome, standing in Foster’s place was this stranger. Ashamed as I am to admit it now, I hated the changeling for it. Despised her, simply for not being Foster.

* * *

“Ahh!"

I scrambled backward. Hit the curtain behind me. Panicked. Flailed. Got caught in it. Panicked some more.

"Shhhh!" Said the changeling in its nasal, raspy, not-Bananas-Foster-y voice.

"You, you...You!" I stuttered as I scrambled to my hooves.

"I'm really, really, reaaaally sorry." The changeling said. "Please just let me explain."

"Oh, geez." I said to myself, ignoring her completely.

The gravity of who she was - of what she was - had started to dawn on me. Everything I'd ever seen Bananas Foster do flashed before my eyes. Every word I’d ever heard her say echoed in my brain. All of it was tied to this idea I’d had of who Foster was and where she’d come from. But none of it was true.

“Idiot!” I said to myself. “Idiot, idiot, idiot!”

I couldn't believe I had actually been dumb enough to open up to Foster. To trust her. To confide in her!

The shadows. The future. My hopes. My fears. The stranger behind the dome knew all of my secrets.

I felt exposed. Like really, really, really exposed.

Foster could’ve skinned my hide from off my bones, flopped my internal organs around, and pinned them to a clothesline for all to see, and I still wouldn't have felt more exposed than I had in that moment, standing there like a jackass.

"I wanted to tell you sooner." The changeling’s voice cracked. “I swear.”

“Great.” I said dryly.

“Listen.” She pleaded. “It's not what it seems.”

“Oh? So you haven't been lying to me since the moment I met you.”

“Ok,” Thirteen fidgeted with the holes in her legs, all nervous-like. “So it is what it seems. But I'm really, really, reeeeaaaally sorry.”

“Do you even need to be in the bubble?” I growled through my teeth.

I had to summon all of my will power just to keep from screaming at her.

“What?”

“Do. You. Need. To. Be. In. The bubble?” I repeated, tears streaming down my cheeks.

Thirteen looked at me, jaw agape, clutching her chest, fury in her eyes. “Is that all you care about?” She said.

"Answer the question." I stomped, ground my teeth together, and tried to stare her down as I stood there trembling.

But the Bug Who Had Betrayed Me didn’t answer. She just stared right back at me, all contemptuous like. As if I were the one who had betrayed her!

“Get bent.” She snarled, and stomped off to the corner.

With quaking hooves she slid the needle across the record. Zzzzurrp. It made an ugly sound.

And then the music was gone.

“Hey, I'm talking to you.” I said.

But she ignored me. Grabbed the disc with her mouth and dropped it into its sleeve. She kept her back to me the whole time.

“Hey!”

I bucked her dome with my hind legs. DONNNNgGGhhh.

“I'm talking to you.”

“Why do you wanna know?!" Thirteen finally spun around, tears running down her cheeks just like mine. “I just finished telling you that I’m Public Enemy Number One, and all you care about is whether or not I'm sick.Is that all Bananas Foster was to you? Inspiration porn? An object to be pitied?”

“What?” I said, taken aback.

“I'm sorry if being a changeling makes our friendship harder to romanticize.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought you were different, Rose.”

She shook her head in disgust.

Suddenly, everything made a whole heap of sense. Thirteen cared what I thought of Bananas Foster - was genuinely hurt by the thought that I might not respect her. That meant that Foster was more than just a mask the changeling wore - that the pony I’d made friends with was still a part of her on some weird level.

“Thirteen, uh, listen.” I said.

“I get it.” She snapped. “Now buzz off!

“Wait!” I pleaded.

But she threw herself in bed rather than listen to me. Buried herself under her covers like a foal in hiding.

"Thirteen, listen. I care about whether or not you're sick ‘cause, um, well,” I stammered nervously. “‘Cause I believed in Foster.”

Thirteen didn't reply. Just lay motionless under the sheets.

“Take the guy in the Foal Free Press.” I said. “The one that Namby Pamby wrote that article about. And the orchestra mare in the wheelchair! All that inspiration porn stuff. You opened my eyes about it. You made me give a hoof. You!”

I started sobbing. The dam just sorta broke. Out of the blue.

“Then, when I found out you were fake, I freaked out. And now, I don't know at all anymore.” I sniffled, wiped my eyes. “I dunno if you're really, actually my friend, or if Bananas Foster is gone ‘cause she turned into another missing tooth, and you're...like...some kinda weird dental implant or something that's gonna taste weird and hurt my gums and remind me of how much I miss her for the rest of my life.”

I graduated from sobbing to bawling. I couldn't help it. I just completely fell apart. I blubbered on, and on, and on about how sorry I was - how terrified I was. How confused.

When I finally looked up, there was the changeling, sitting right in front of me on the other side of the dome. Her face crinkled with empathy – an expression I would not have thought possible for a bug had I not seen it with my own eyes. She put her hoof up against the inside of the dome, as if to reach out and touch me.

“I have no bucking idea what you just said." She remarked.

Snort. I busted out laughing. Tears and snot all over my face. She laughed too. We yuk’ed it up like a pair of morons. We laughed the kind of laughter that goes on for a while, where you try to speak, but then you can't ‘cause you're laughing so hard. And then, you laugh even harder, ‘cause, for some reason, the fact that you're dumbfounded with laughter is even funnier than whatever it was you were laughing at to begin with.

By the time we finally caught our breaths, the two of us were on the floor, looking at one another. Once I got over the initial shock, I found Thirteen fascinating. She was an insect, complete with exoskeleton, but her smile - it was a pony smile. The way her face bent around her cheeks - it mimicked flesh and fur. I wondered if there was some kind of smile magic that transcended the confines of the physical universe. Some weird mojo that could make a carapace glow with warmth.

“I meant every word, you know.” She said to me out of the blue.

"Huh?"

"When I was Bananas Foster. Everything I told you was real.”

“I know.” I replied.

"Really?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "I figure if you were gonna sugarcoat what you were up to, you probably wouldn't-a told me about your plan to friendship somepony to death.”

Thirteen chuckled. “I actually have a lot more to tell you,” she added. “Now that you know.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” She whispered. “For starters, to answer your question, I do actually need the bubble. Though back home, it's more of a cocoon."

She pointed to her own changeling body.

“Hmm.” I replied.

“But that's not really important." She pressed herself against the bubble, eyeballs gleaming wide and bright with excitement. “What matters is that I finally get to tell you about my hive! About our ethos. About changeling friendship."

"Uh…” I said. “It has its own special kind?”

“Like nothing a pony could ever know."

She said with a euphoric sigh.

* * *

I didn't know how to react. But I never got the chance to. The door swung open, a bunch of nurses flooded into the room, and Thirteen jumped up into the air like a startled cat. She breathed all panicky. She darted to her bed. She hid. But, for some reason, didn't change.

“What are you doing?” I whisper-shouted.

The nurses called out to one another. Clanged around. They couldn't see us from their end of the curtain, but it still made me nervous to have a changeling right there where Foster was supposed to be!

Thirteen poked her head out from under the sheets and looked to me in horror.

“Are you nuts?” I snapped at her. “Just change already!”

She closed her eyes. Sucked in a deep breath. Counted to three like a filly working up the nerve to jump into a freezing lake.

“Come on, ready, set, go!” Two orderlies on the other side of the curtain grunted.

Thirteen lit up in a dim green flash, and fwoosh, was suddenly Bananas Foster again. Her yellow pony face winced in pain. Her yellow pony hoof trembled as it stretched out over the edge of her bed.

“Are you okay?” I whisper-shouted, and pressed myself against her dome.

“I’m fine." She held up a hoof, still trembling.

“You're not fine.” I pleaded.

"See how well you do with no rest and an empty stomach.” She grunted angrily.

I didn't get to push the issue any further, even though I was worried sick about her. ‘Cause suddenly, something pushed up against my back from behind the curtain.

"Hey, Rose?" Came a gentle voice from behind me.

“Ahh!" I startled.

It was my sister. I instinctively grabbed the rustling cloth with my teeth, and looked to Foster for permission to drag the curtain open. But she shook her head at me all frantic-like. Shot me a don't you fucking dare look.

“Okay, okay, okay!” I whispered to Foster, and let go of the curtain.

“Just a se-cond!” I called to Roseluck over my shoulder.

“What's going on?” I whispered to Thirteen again. “Are you okay?”

Thirteen nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “I just never was very good at…”

She furrowed her brow, and struggled through her stumbly haze to think of the right word to describe her transformation.

“Ponifying?” I whispered.

“Yeah, that." She smirked.

Steadily, she rose to her hooves. Rubbed her head a little.

“Rose Petal?” My sister said urgently. “Come o-on.”

I looked to Bananas Foster. She waved me off. Shooed me away. I nodded back, took my leave, and maneuvered my way to the other side of the curtain.

* * *

“How’d it go?" Roseluck whispered with a giant grin.

She shoved her face right up to mine the second I escaped the tangle of Foster’s dangly drapes.

“Uhhh...”

“On second thought, don't tell me now.” She said. “We've gotta clear out. They need the space.”

“What?”

The nurses on the other side of the room yammered a bunch of science stuff at one another as they fussed over the pony they'd just brought in. A colt, clutching his leg and moaning. He was still wearing his ski goggles.

“I signed all the papers, got my noggin examined.” Roseluck tapped her head excitedly. “You'll be all clear to get released too once the doctor has a final look at you, but they're moving you to another room first.”

“Uh…right now?”

I looked back at Bananas Foster’s curtain. Hoped she was alright back there. But I couldn't make a fuss. Or demand to stay. That’d draw attention to her.

So I gathered my things: the Hearth’s Warming doll from my mom that Rose had dug out of the attic; the giant oak tag get well card from my class with the weak paste that shed glitter everywhere as I gripped it in my mouth; the winter clothes that Cliff had apparently run home to fetch for me, Celestia-only-knows-when.

When I ran out of stuff to pack, I fussed about all the corners of my bed. Found little reasons to stall, and keep throwing glances at Foster’s curtain, as if the cloth might say or do something on its own.

Roseluck tried to be patient, but I dragged it on, and on, and on. And on. And on and on, and on, and on, and on. The nurses were starting to look pitchforks at us.

“Rose Petal, come on.” She said through gritted teeth.

“I’m sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I answered.

And finally headed for the door, all dutiful-like, but I still kept my eyes on the curtain the whole time. Even craned my neck like an owl as I passed by.

It just didn't feel right. Leaving so suddenly. It felt like I was abandoning Thirteen. I knew she wouldn't see it that way, but I still hated it.

“Bye, Foster!” I called out to her.

To my surprise, the curtain rolled back a little bit. Just enough for me to get one last look at her as I stood in the doorway.

“Goodbye, Rose." She said with a faint little smile.

I waved meekly, and sighed in relief that she wasn't upset.

“We'll talk more later.” She added. “About that special kind of friendship I mentioned.”

“Okay.” I chuckled.

Then with a wink, and a tug of the curtain cord, Foster / Thirteen disappeared once again.

* * *

The next step was a little examination room that Roseluck and I had all to ourselves. The second that the nurses shut the door behind us, Roseluck threw herself right into the task of organizing our stuff - folding things, packing them all meticulous-like, turning our chaotic bundles of belongings into tidy little lumps that we would actually be able to hitch to our saddlebags and carry through the snow.

Me? I just stood there. Weirded out by the privacy. My sister and I hadn't been alone - truly alone - in over a week. Now we could say anything, and no one would hear! It seemed like such a luxury.

The sad thing is, I didn't have much to tell her. She was busy, and I was still running the whole Foster-changeling thing through my brain. I couldn’t stop worrying sick about Thirteen.

I wondered whether or not she would get along with her new roomie, whether she was exhausted from having exposed her secret to me, whether it bothered her that she would have to go right back to pretending again.

Most of all, I fretted that she wasn't really as safe as she thought she was.

Could the shadows descend on her any damn time they wanted? Could her classical records, and her mind tricks really hold back the evil? If so, for how long?

I was staring at the door, wool-gathering about the changeling when my sister suddenly spun around and started making chit-chat.

"Soooooooo," Roseluck bit her lip and made a coy little grin.

I glanced behind her. The pile of our stuff had been packed so prim-and-immaculate-ishly, that when I saw it, I practically heard harps and choirs singing its praises.

"Nice." I said.

But Roseluck wasn't fishing for compliments on her organizing job.

"Soooo," she said again.

She was so giddy that her whole damn face started shaking.

"So, umm...what?" I shook my head and shrugged. I didn't have a clue what Roseluck was so excited about.

"Special kind of friendship?" She winked at me.

"Arrr."

She still thought Foster and I were flirting!

I pressed my face against the wall and groaned.

"Oh, stop it." Roseluck nudged me playfully. "You can tell me."

I mashed my face harder against the wall and shook my head no.

"Come on. Please?" Her voice had an edge to it this time. She sounded strangely desperate.

But I still couldn't tell her the truth. Not when it came to Foster. And I didn't know how to lie about it either.

"I'm your sister." Pleaded Roseluck. "We should be able to talk about this stuff, you know?”

That hurt of hers was so palpableI felt like I was drowning in it. But again, I didn't answer. I couldn't.

“You're acting exactly like I did,” her voice fell suddenly into a whisper. "When Mom found out about my first crush.”

“Really?” I replied, so surprised that I forgot my dilemma for a minute.

Roseluck nodded.

“I always thought that, when the time came, we’d be able to talk about this. Sister to sister.”

I wanted so badly to turn around. To face her. To tell her that it was nothing personal. To assure her that I couldn't wait to have that talk. As sisters. But I was stuck. If I looked Roseluck in the eyes, she could look right back into mine. I was afraid of what they might give away, so I mumbled at her unconvincingly.

"Foster isn’t my special somepony." I said, face full of wall.

"Oh." Roseluck said softly.

Just oh.

* * *

The doctor came in and did her thing. Poked me. Put sticks in my mouth. Listened to my chest with her stethoscope. Before finally examining the hoof.

"Oh," she said in a creakitty old voice. "Yup. This hoof is still black."

The doctor double checked the chart in front of her.

"I know that." I said.

But inside, my Rose Voices were all screaming, What if the doctor doesn't let me go?! I looked to my sister for help.

"We know," said Roseluck. "They told us there's nothing to be done for it."

"Well, be that as it may," the old doctor-mare spoke super slowly. "We still need to keep an eye on it."

"No!" I squeaked. They'd already kicked me out of Foster's room. The idea of having to stay in the hospital, and not even get to hang out with her? It was too much to bear.

"Oh, relax," said the doctor. "As an outpatient."

My eyes darted to Roseluck yet again.

“That means we get to go home." She said.

I let out a sigh of relief. "When?"

"Well, you’ll be able to leave just...about..."

The old mare crept over to a drawer, mumbled to herself, and started rummaging around with her face.

Roseluck and I exchanged glances. By her confused expression, I gathered that she didn't know what was going on either.

"Um...doctor?"

"Here we go!" The old mare pulled out a rubber stamp. Tossed her clipboard onto the table. Stamped down on it.

"Now!” She turn to me and smiled."
Now you can go."

"That's it?"

"Thaaaat's it."

I looked to my sister again. She just shrugged.

It felt weird to be allowed to leave. I'd been stuck in the hospital for sooooooo long. Then just like that, I was free. All it took was a stupid rubber stamp.

"Oh. One more thing." Said the doc.

My heart skipped another beat.

"What?"

"I cannot in good conscience let you go until you accept this."

She plunged her face into the pocket of her lab coat, and produced a lollipop.

“Thanks.” I said out of politeness, though I couldn't help but feel condescended to.

She set it down in my lap, smiled at me, and left.

Roseluck wasted no time. She immediately started getting dressed, putting on her coat, hitching up her saddle bag, and all of our bundles with it. But I wasn't ready to leave yet, as much as I wanted to. Something felt wrong. Something needed doing. I stared into space and thought really, really, really, reeeeeally hard. I had already said goodbye to Thirteen. So that wasn't it. And we hadn't left any of our stuff behind. Roseluck’d packed absolutely everything except what little I had on me.

That Pink pocket watch: check.

Misty Mountain’s tail hair tied to it: check.

That piece of bark from Twink’s candle back in No Mare’s Land: check.

I thought, and thought, and thought, and thought, and thought. ‘Till Blammo! It hit me out of nowhere.

"Wait!" I shouted as I ran out the door, and chased the doctor down the hall.

"I made a friend here." I told the doc once I caught up to her. "I need to say goodbye. Her name is Screw Loose, and she lives, um... she lives, I don't know...wherever it is they keep all the crazy ponies."

The smile faded from the doctor's face.

"It's not nice to poke fun."

"I'm not." I squeaked. "I care about her. She’s my friend!”

The old mare looked me up and down careful-like. Scratched her chin. There was a shrewdness in her eyes that I hadn't noticed before.

"I believe you." She said. "But the mental ward isn't taking visitors today. We're too short staffed, and since special patients like Ms. Loose need supervision, visitations with her are going to have to be by appointment, sweetie."

"Appointment?"

"Yes." Said the doctor. "So we're ready if she, you know…"

The doctor made a zip, zoom gesture with her forehoof. She meant that Screw Loose was gonna make a run for it.

"But she won't run." I said. "I promise. And I can make an appointment next time, but I have to see her now. If she gets out again, and finds me gone, she might get scared, or think I abandoned her or, or, or…"

I felt a hoof drop on my shoulder from behind. It was Nurse Redheart. She looked unusually stern and serious.

"I'll keep an eye on them." She said.

The doctor squinted and grinned.

"Excellent." She turned to me with a grin. "All's well that ends well."

* * *

Nurse Redheart escorted me to the mental ward. My sister had to stay behind.

"Only one visitor at a time," the nurse had said.

You should’ve seen Roseluck's face. She'd gotten her coat on, and her scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, and she'd hitched all her belongings to her back. Only to have to take it all off again to go wait in the lobby.

Redheart lead me down hallway after hallway after hallway. Hospitals are really confusing that way - they wind around on the inside like labyrinths. The nurse kept her eyes forward. Didn't look at me much. Just got all contemplative. I found it odd.

"You're a troublemaker." She said once we'd passed through the second set of double doors and moved on to the gazillionth hallway.

"So I've been told." I said.

Redheart snorted. A faint little smile cracked it's way across her lips.

"Your mother was a troublemaker, you know.”

I looked to her in amazement, desperate to hear something new about my mom. Anything.

"What did she do?"

A blue pegasus nurse approached from the other end of the hallway, and Redheart fell silent. Went back to looking straight ahead like we weren't having a conversation at all. Then, when the other nurse had passed, and we rounded our next corner, she continued.

"Refused treatment mostly. Lashed out at us verbally."

“What?”

I had never heard anypony say anything about my mom to indicate that she could have a mean bone in her body.

"And she was a good mare, your mother." Redheart was quick to add. "It is not my intention to imply otherwise.”

I nodded solemnly.

“You should be proud to have her fire in your belly.” Redheart added. “I know she would be.”

That got a smile out of me. But it didn't last long. Nurse Redheart went back to walking stiffly, and being silent. There was something else on her mind.

“Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes, dear." She said. "It's just that…”

Redheart stopped in the middle of the hallway. I stopped too. She turned and knelt by my side. Looked at me with giant, warm, compassionate eyes.

"What I'm trying to say is that, well, I know you're going through a hard time, Rose Petal. I don't know what it is, and I don't necessarily have to know. but if you ever need anything – someone to talk to - I'm here."

“Okay,” I said somewhat taken aback by the intensity of her promise. “Thank you.”

“It’s always better than eating tea.” She added.

I blushed, and looked away. There was no way to make her or anypony else understand that, when I swallowed all that sleepy tea, I had just been trying to fall asleep again to travel through time, so I could hold Twinkle Eyes’ head, and give her comfort as she passed.

* * *

The mental ward is very different from the rest of the hospital. To get into that wing at all, Nurse Redheart had to produce a key for several doors, then sign me in at a desk full of serious-looking ponies in white. Once we got past them, we went down a corridor full of doors, bolted shut, unlike mine and Foster's had been.

The staff had done their best to pretty it all up - make everything nice and cozy and festive. There was wallpaper with flowers on it, and soothing colors everywhere. Hearth's Warming decorations hung with care from two days before. But it was still the closest thing to a prison I had ever seen in Ponyville.

It made me wonder how the hell Screw Loose managed to escape so often. Then again, this was the same mare who could evade Princess Luna in the dream realm.

Nurse Redheart stopped at a door. Flipped open a flap in the window, and gestured at it with her face, as if to tell me, 'go ahead.'

"Can I actually go inside?"

The nurse bit her lip. That was a definite no.

"Come on," I pleaded. "She's not gonna run away. Not with me there. I'm the one she wants to see."

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm bending the rules enough by taking you here at all.”

She grabbed a stool from a closet, and nudged it up to the door. Then, with a flick of her teeth, a bigger window swung open. Big enough to fit a grown pony's head through, and not much else. I stepped up, climbed the stool, and peaked my head up to the window.

The room was white. The walls looked like they were made out of mattresses. It was clean, and warm, and well lit, but it was depressingly empty.

“Does she spend all day in here?" I asked the nurse.

“Not all day. There's therapy, and exercise, and some group activities.”

“But this is her room?" I asked. "This is where she lives?”

Redheart nodded firmly.

I looked through the window again. I couldn't get over how empty her room was. I couldn't even see Screw Loose. Had she escaped again?!

I stood up on my tippy hooves, and stuck my head inside. I half expected to see her crouching there, beneath the window, ready to pounce. But she wasn't.

‘Cause she was running down the hallway straight for me.

“Look out!” Was the last thing I heard before she lunged at me from the side.

“Oomph!”

She tackled me, and we both went tumbling, but even as we spun around, she sort of curled around me to make sure I wouldn't get hurt. The second the two of us stopped rolling around, she licked my face.

Slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurrrrp.
I heard frantic yelling. Galloping. So I rolled out from under her, leapt up, threw my hooves open wide, and yelled, “Waiit!” to the big burly orderlies who were running towards us with a net. They skidded to a halt.

“Out of the way, kid.”

“No.” I said.

“Kid, this isn't a--;”

“Grrrrrrr.” Screw Loose rose up, big and tall behind me, and growled at the orderlies.

Their eyes went wide. “Get away from her!” They advanced with the net.

The situation was getting real stupid, real fast.

“Stop that,” I spun around and chided the dogmare. “Sit!”

She did.

“Now, play dead!”

Screw Loose rolled over to her side and went belly up. The others watched in amazement.

“Now you,” I spun, and pointed at one of the orderlies. “Drop the net, or you'll scare her.”

The orderlies obeyed almost as quickly and instinctively as Screw Loose.

“How'd you do that?” One of them said as he lowered his net to the ground.

“Hey, let me try.” Said the other. “Speak!”

Screw Loose shot them both a haughty look. Like a dignified queen looking down her nose at a pile of compost.

“Okay, um,” I laughed nervously. “What is it that you need, exactly? You need her to go back to her room?”

“Yes, please.” Nurse Redheart said all diplomatical-like.

I nodded.

“Screw Loose, uh…” I scratched my mane, and struggled to remember the command word for follow me. I had never had a dog before. “Uh, um...um...this way.”

I lead her into her room, and she followed me without much trouble. But the second we were both inside, what seemed like the whole damn hospital staff gathered at the door, and beckoned to me to make a break for it. Like I was stuck in there with a mad gorilla that was gonna tear my legs off or something.

I shook my head no.

“Listen,” I turned to Screw Loose. “I'm going away. I'll visit you whenever I can, but I'm not gonna be living at the hospital anymore, you understand? If you go looking for me in the middle of the night, I'm not gonna be there. And I need you not to be scared." I said. “I need you to, um...be a good dog.”

The dogmare looked at me blankly.
“Do you understand?” I said. “I will be coming back to visit, but you won't fi--;”

She ignored my pleas, wandered over to the far corner of the room, and picked something up with her mouth.

“Are you listening?" I asked. "Please, try to understand."

Screw Loose ambled over and dropped the thing right in front of me. It was a sock. A soggy, messed up sock that she had been chewing on. She sat on her hind quarters, and looked to me expectantly with her gigantic, hopeful eyes.
Her tail even wagged. I don't know how she did it. Pony tails tend to swish more than they wag. But Screw Loose managed to wag hers somehow, and she wagged it with vigor.

I brushed the sock away.

“Look, I’m trying to tell you somethi--;.”

I stopped. Screw Loose wasn't listening at all. Instead, she retrieved the sock with her mouth, dropped it directly in my lap, and wagged her tail at me all over again.

"Screw Loose." I groaned in frustration. "Please. I'm leaving. I need you to know that I. Will. Come. Back. But you’ll have to be patient, and…"

Screw Loose picked up the sock again - that soggy nasty thing - and this time, pressed her forehoof up against me, pinning it to my chest.

Her big gray eyes lit up. That innocence of hers seemed miles away now. The Wanderer was in them now. Intense. Insistent. Aware. Her hoof pressed the sock against my chest, just a little harder.

She didn't say a word, but her intent was clear. Take this, she seemed to say. You'll need it.

Stunned, I nodded back to her, and draped the sock from the chain where my pocket watch hung.

“Thank you.” I said.

Then I gave her a final hug. “I'll be back,” I whispered in her ear.

She didn't try to stop me when I turned and went for the door. She just sat there. Like a good dog. Tears streaming silently down her cheeks.

* * *

Once the door was closed and locked, and we were well on our way back to the lobby, Nurse Redheart whispered. “That's a very special friendship you have.”

“I know,” I said solemnly.

“Ordinarily, she won't part with that sock for anything.” She added, still more than a little bit flabbergasted at all that she'd seen.

I clutched the floppy, threadbare thing dangling from my chain. Wondered why it was so special to her. Why she seemed to think it so important that I have it.

“Why does she love it so much?” I said to Redheart.

“I don't know,” she replied. “She does because she does.”

I nodded. The two of us walked the rest of the way through that labyrinth-y hospital in thinkitty silence

* * *

Roseluck was asleep in the lobby by the time I got to her, buried under a pile of all our stuff. I had to shake her awake. She mumbled and she groaned, but even through her groggy haze, the very first thing she did upon waking was to ask the obvious question.

"Why do you have a dirty sock on your neck?”

Screw Loose's gift hung right next to the spot where Misty’s tail hair secured a piece of bark from Twink’s stick “candle.” It was starting to get a little crowded down there.

“It was a present.” I said.

“Who gave you a sock for Hearth’s Warming?”

“A crazy pony from the mental ward," I said. “You don't know her.”

* * *

We hitched up our stuff, and finally made our escape. The double doors swung open, and it was like a whole other ducky verse out there. A gust of cold air hit my face, and I just stood there, stunned.

The sunlight was so bright! The air, so cold! It seemed to bite me right in the nose. And the quiet! Everything was so very quiet. Stepping through that doorway was like getting hit in the face with a wrecking ball made out of silence. The crunching ice beneath my boots seemed almost deafening by comparison. I had only made it three steps out the door when I felt compelled to stop, and just listen.

...

There was no beeping, no humming of hospital machinery, or of Foster's special immunofiltration-a-majig. There was no more rustling, or moving about, no nurses’ hoofsteps going back-and-forth outside my door. Even in the middle of the night, when the hospital was at its quietest, there had always been some movement. Some sound.

But outside, there was nothing but wind and stuff. The smell of stale hospital air, and cleaning fluid was replaced by that super nice aroma you get when you catch a whiff of other ponies’ fireplaces burning wood and roasting nuts somewhere far, far away.

* * *

Once we actually got moving, we followed a path that had been plowed to allow access from the road to the hospital. It was like one of those giant mazes made out of hedges and bushes and stuff, only the walls were made out of snow.

“Wow,” I whispered.

“Good to get out in the open, isn't it?” Said Roseluck.

“Doesn't look very open to me." I replied.

I was too short to see over the walls of snow.

Roseluck laughed at me. I ignored her. Closed my eyes. The cold breeze stung my cheeks pretty hard, even down below the snow trenches, where I was. But I didn't bother to wrap my scarf around my face. The burn was invigorating. It reminded me that I was alive!

But then I heard the sound of other fillies laughing and playing. And I thought of Foster and Screw Loose. They would never get to run around and throw snowballs or whatever. They'd never get to ride a sled. They wouldn't even get to smell burning firewood.

It occurred to me just how easy it would be to forget my friends on the inside. To get caught up in all the distractions of the world, and simply drift apart. The idea haunted me. 'Cause the hospital is a sorta bubble in and of itself. And nopony on the outside would judge me even a little bit if I failed to keep my hospital promises.

But they meant something to me.

As the road wound, I stopped periodically to look back over my shoulder at Ponyville General Hospital - the place where I had spent what felt like years of my life. I couldn't see very well over the walls of snow, but I kept peeking anyway. And just before it finally disappeared completely from my sight, I clutched at the pocket watch and the sock underneath my jacket.

“I'll be back." I whispered. "Real soon. I promise."

End Book Three
After the Storm

Author's Note

SPECIAL THANKS: First of all, I would like to thank Seraphem as always for his tireless assistance providing feedback during the editing process, and Kkat for writing the original Fallout: Equestria story that inspired me to write Hooves of Fate in the first place.

SUPPORT: Hooves of Fate is a labor of love. However, I also have mouths to feed. If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you in any way, and you can manage to spare a few bits, I'd very much appreciate your support on Patreon.
If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

A LITTLE REFLECTION: For Rose Petal, it's only been a couple of days, ( a little over a week if you count the time she spent unconscious), but for me, she's been in the hospital for over three years. A great deal of that time was spent writing the No Mare's Land adventure, but she's still technically been in the hospital this whole time, or at least her corporeal form has. It's exciting to set her loose on the world and see what happens. I can't wait! In fact, I'm more than halfway done with the next chapter already!
Anyway, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you for reading, and supporting Hooves of Fate, and share in the excitement a little bit.

Rose Petal is finally going home.

The Talk

* * *

BOOK FOUR
THE SOUND OF SILENCE

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - THE TALK
“Home is a notion that only nations of the homeless fully appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend.” - Wallace Stegner

The town was full of life. Folks going about their business. Earth ponies lugging firewood and barrels of apple ale. Pushing ploughs. Salting roads. It was a lot like Winter Wrap Up, only months ahead of schedule, and twice as chaotic as usual.

The pegasi were busy moving clouds. They'd set up some kinda pega-patrol. Nothing special. Regular folks scouting around the skies. My only guess is that they were looking for odd weather phenomena, making sure they wouldn't get snuck up on again by some rogue storm. But mostly, they just coasted over us, laughing and chatting with one another, hollering to their friends down below.

"Nice snow-alicorn!" My sister’s friend, Blossomforth, shouted to a family of unicorns, who lay splayed out on the ground, making wing marks with their hooves.

"Thanks!" The mother waved.

Blossomforth giggled and waved back, just before crashing into the top of a pine tree. She was just a flower pony after all, and not very good at sky work. Roseluck, anxious to get home, hurried us underneath its branches, hoping that Blossomforth wouldn't notice her and wanna talk.

* * *

The closer we got to the square, the more crowded the roads got. This classmate of mine, Apple Bloom - she and her brother zoomed by, towing a giant sleigh full of cider kegs. Bon Bon passed moments later, going the other way, towing Celestia-only-knows-what under some tarp.

It was weird. All around us, ponies everywhere were going about their day. Like it was normal. Like a blizzard that had appeared out of nowhere, unplanned for by Cloudsdale, was totally normal. Sure, there were a few pegasi keeping an eye out, but they were still treating it like some random mishap.

But we had been attacked! By shadows! The inky bastards had assaulted the whole town, and put Roseluck in the fucking hospital. I didn't expect anypony to know about the shadow stuff. But to act like nothing weird was going on at all?

It seemed so insane.

You could see the fallen mistletoe banners that the storm had taken down, and folks just trampled right over them like they weren't there. You could see some of the side roads and walkways, still untended to. Folks just trotted on by the snow mounds like it was perfectly normal - like there was no such thing as shadows - like our golden age would last forever. Like a giant apocalyptic war wasn't waiting for us all, only a generation away.

I don't know what I'd been expecting exactly. Obviously, nopony was gonna freak out like I did. But it still felt just plain wrong. For all of Ponyville to be so full of whimsy, and mirth after what had happened.

I sighed. Closed my eyes. Decided not to think about it. I focused instead on the wind as it hit my face. Felt the sunlight warming my eyeballs even though my lids were closed. I marveled at how long it had been since I'd felt these things. It'd been even longer since I had appreciated them - really appreciated them - ‘cause as a foal, I just sorta took it all for granted.

Maybe that's the world I have been fighting for all along. I thought. A world where folks have it so good that they take it for granted.

* * *

“So," Roseluck broke the silence. “What do we do now?”

I snapped out of my haze. Thought long and hard about the question. Roseluck was right. I had to swallow my uncertainty. Formulate a plan. I couldn't afford to stand around all day, getting lamenty.

Zoom! An emerald green pegasus zipped over us all of a sudden. Sassaflash. One of the patrol. For a minute, I thought she might have seen something - that somepony somewhere was treating the shadow blizzard with the gravity that it deserved. But she stopped just a hundred feet down the road, and ungracefully karate-kicked a tiny hunk of cloud she’d hunted down.

“Ten points for me!" She hollered at the sky, and dashed away, giggling.

“We should maybe talk to some of the pegasi," I said at last. “They might not know much about the shadows, but maybe one of them noticed something about the storm, or saw something that we didn't.”

Roseluck opened her mouth as if to speak, but didn't get the chance.

"Ooh!" I exclaimed. “I’ve also gotta check out the Everfree Path and see how bad the snow is over there. Zecora might have some answers about my evil hoof. The zebra I met in the future seemed to know a thing or two about it.”

“What? Rose Peta--;”

“Oh! Oh!” I interrupted. “And books. We're gonna need lots and lots of books. Cliff’s science. Bananas Foster’s history. It's helpful. But the problem is I don't know where to start. Maybe if I--;”

My sister plunged her hoof in my mouth.

“What should we do for lunch?”

"Oh.”

My stomach growled from underneath me. I hadn't even noticed that I was hungry, but the mention of lunch woke it like a sleeping dragon.
“Anything but pudding.” I let out a shy little laugh.
I looked up at Roseluck, expecting a snicker in return, or maybe a playfully disapproving glance. But I saw worry in her face instead. She looked away when my eyes met hers.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Oh, um, nothing." She shook her head, and wiped her face with her sleeve. "We'll just, uh, get some hayburgers. I don't feel like cooking."

Her voice was dead and distant, like she was off somewhere miles away.

* * *

At first I thought it was a fluke - that my sister, like me, was a little out of it - that her brain had just gotten weird for a minute, and skipped a beat. But Roseluck acted totally odd the whole rest of the walk home. She kept stealing these glances at me from behind her scarf - kept looking at me all concerned-and-such whenever she thought I couldn't see her.

It made my guts twist around a little.

Whatever was eating at Rose was gonna come out. And sooner or later, we’d end up having a great big long talk about whatever was bothering her. But in the meantime, all I could do was guess. Was it because I'd been so distracted? Preoccupied with my mission, fixated on the future?

The idea seemed stupid. Roseluck knew about my visions. She knew what a big responsibility it was to have knowledge of the end of the world. She knew that there were shadows and stuff actively looking to destroy me, and those I cared about. She couldn't possibly be surprised that I was so focused on the fight.
What then?

Was she still hung up on the whole special kind of friendship thing that Foster had mentioned? That had really hurt Roseluck - the idea that I couldn't confide in her.

I didn't know. I just didn't fucking know.

“Roseluck?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine," she replied with a sigh. “Just a little tired.”

Even though it was super mega obvious that she was not, in fact, fine.

“Why don't you go on home while I pick up the food?” She added.

“Home?”

“Yeah, or I don't know. Play with your friends or something.”

She gestured with her face at two of my classmates playing nearby. Snips and Snails. The two colts most likely to annoy the crap out of me.

“Hey, come back!” Snips cried out in his shrill nasal voice.

“You'll have to catch me first," hollered his oafish friend, Snails, as he darted away, chuckling.

I through Roseluck a look. She had to be joking.

“Seriously?”

“What?” She replied. “They're in your class. So they're not your best friends. There's nothing wrong with being friendly.”

“Ow!” Said Snails. “Ow! Ow! Ow!”

He galloped past us.

Turns out that he and Snips were playing some weird house rules version of tag that, for some reason, involved dragging a ribbon tied to a frying pan. The pan bounced up and whacked Snails every time it hit a bump on the ground.

I turned to Roseluck again, and raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, fine," she said with a laugh that finally broke the tension between us. “I'm not gonna lie. There's something on my mind, but I'd really like it if we could talk in private after we eat. Is that okay?”

“Did I do something wrong?" I asked.

“No, dearie," she said with a kiss to my forehead. “Now go on, I'll meet you at the house in half an hour.”

“Okay,” I said. “If you're sure.”

“I'm sure.”

She did her best to be stable for me. To throw on what she thought might pass for a serene little smile. An everything's gonna be alright smile. So I returned the favor. Smiled. Pretended like I was fine with not knowing what the fuck was bothering her.

“Okay, see ya,” I said, and shuffled off nonchalant-ish-ly.

I didn't want to worry her further.

* * *

The rest of my walk home was pretty uneventful. But I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. It felt like walking through an alien landscape.

A few hundred yards from my house I came upon a stallion, fretting over a busted blade on his sleigh. The support bar had bent inwards, and he was stuck.

Logically, I know that, in his position, I would freak out too. But watching him yell and grunt and kick at the thing - it seemed so petty. So meaningless.

Thirteen would do anything to trade her problems for his. And Screw Loose! She couldn't even imagine a life on the outside. Her fear was so intense that it had turned her into a dog.

But folks like me? Folks like that stallion with the broken sleigh? We all get to be free. We get to go out in the open. And what do we do? We spend that precious time flipping out over objectively meaningless bullshit.

* * *

I got home. Somepony somewhere had been kind enough to plow the little path from the road to my house, and clear the mound of snow that had fallen on my sister. I could see the big pile they’d created just to the left of the front door. It whittled away some of my cynicism to know that some anonymous stranger had thought to do that.

I nudged the door. It swung open. The inside was full of cold air. Still air. I could taste it. I stepped into the living room, and was astonished. I could see my own breath! Inside!

“What the buck,” I whispered to myself with a puff of frosty breath mist. “Hello?”

There was, of course, no answer.

I let my saddlebag drop clumsily onto the ground. Startled myself when it went thud!

“Ah!” I jumped up, spun around expecting shadows, or attackers, or windigo, or whatever.
But there was nothing there. Just quiet. It wasn't a haunted by evil spirits kind of cold. It was a nopony had been home for days to light a fire kinda cold.

You're losing it, Rose Petal. My brain said to me, all condescending-like.

“Shut up, brain,” I said aloud, as I piled a bunch of sticks into the fireplace over a crumpled up page of the Ponyville Chronicle.

About six matchsticks, forty-seven attempts, two splinters, and three newspaper pages later, I had a fire going. A real fire. One I had made myself.

I tossed my coat vaguely in the direction of the door, and let my scarf and hat drop to the ground by the fireplace. Then I pulled up a blanket, leaned in real close, and waited for Roseluck, all smug and proud.

The flames boogied with one another, and I stared at them. Daydreaming about Hearth’s Warming. The Founding Sisters. The Fire of Friendship. I looked further back. The first pony in the history of ever to figure out how to make fire. How amazing must that have felt? To master a force so primal and so powerful!

Civilization began with her - the nameless one who taught our ancestors to get a flame going, by magic or by flint. And it seemed our civilization was gonna die that way too. in flames.

And then, of course, there were cupcakes. Somewhere between our creation-fire, and The Fire That Would Kill Us All Horribly was cupcakes. Sweet, chocolatey cupcakes that also could not exist at all without ovens to bake them.

As the room slowly warmed, I shed my blanket, stared into the flames, and thought about how damn hungry I was. How Roseluck was taking forever with our burgers. I checked the clock. She was twenty minutes later than she said she’d be.

I tried not to worry. Resolved to pass the time unpacking.

* * *

It was still pretty chilly in my room, but the heat was slowly rising. I plunged my face under my sweater and pulled out the dogmare’s sock. Her only toy.

I didn't know what to do with it. I obviously had to keep it safe, but I couldn't carry it around with me wherever I went. I rummaged through an old jewelry box, and dumped out a drawer of trinkets that I had very little use for – cheap bracelets, a Captain Pinkbeard figurine, some string - stuff I hadn't played with in years. The sock would have to live there.

I stuffed it inside, and gazed into the mirror with a sigh. It was my first time looking at my own reflection in over a week. I hadn't realized how weird it was to have gone without until I actually saw myself. I looked like I’d just crawled out from under a wagon. My eyes were puffy. My mane was frizzled. I reminded myself of this drifter pony who used to pass through town every now and again. Looking all run down and sad.

I stared, and stared, and stared until I just couldn't take it anymore.

“Pbbbt!” I stuck my tongue out, blew a raspberry at myself.

That made me smirk a little. So I made a face. Jiggled my eyebrows, and wagged my tongue around. Anything not to be so serious - so full of self pity and whiny piratetry. Then, as I watched my face soften, I got an idea.

I ran over to my end table. Grabbed a Sapphire Shores record, Get Your Pony On, dropped a needle on it, and danced. I strutted. I made duck face. I giggled at myself. I let myself get lost in the beat. And when the song was done, a slow pop ballad followed, and I stopped to catch my breath.

I checked in on the pony in the mirror once more. I looked bright again, not so run down, even if my mane still was pretty messed up. I admired the pink pocket watch too. How pretty it looked. How well it complemented the pink streak in my mane - how ridiculous I looked with a string of Misty’s tail, and Twink’s candle-twig tied to it.

It occurred to me that I could, at long last, keep those artifacts safe - tuck them away once and for all, after days, and days, and days of fretting over them - making sure they didn't get lost, and swept away at the hospital. I leaned forward, fussed with the watch, gripped it with my teeth. But the second I started actually getting to to work on the knots in Misty’s tail hair, the front door swung open and my sister called to me from below.

“Rose?” She said. “Rose Petal? Sorry I'm late. Hello?”

I turned the record player off, and rushed downstairs.

* * *

“What happened?” I said, plunging my face into one of the five million bags, and bundles she’d lowered onto the floor. “Aha!” I found it – the hay burger bag that I suspected was already pretty cold.

“Gimme that.” Roseluck playfully swatted my face with her face, and snatched up the bag.

“Sorry it's a little cold," she said as she picked my winter coat up off the floor with her teeth, and hung it on the rack where it belonged. "I would've been home sooner, but I ran into a stallion along the way. He busted his sleigh, and needed an extra set of hooves to help out.”

“A stallion?” I said softly. “With a broken sleigh?”

I suddenly realized that I had passed by him without so much as a ‘Hello,’ or an ‘Are you okay?’ I had simply judged him for being upset.

“Yeah," my sister said. "I'm surprised you didn't see him.”

“Oh," I said grimly. “I must not have noticed,"

Roseluck kissed me on the forehead.

“Don't be so hard on yourself," she said. “I know you've got a lot on your mind. And the way I was acting - I'm sure that didn't help!”

She snorted.

“It's okay.” I whispered.

“Just try to keep your eyes open," Roseluck added. “Goldengrape has a sick daughter at home, poor thing. He really needed to get home to her.

My heart and my stomach twisted around inside me. It felt like they traded places. My belly was pounding, and my chest was gurgling.

He had a sick daughter to get home to, you jerkface. My Rose Voices rightfully berated me. Jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk!

I squeezed my eyes shut good and tight. Hated myself quietly.

“Come on," Roseluck put her hoof on my shoulder. “Let's go eat.”

“I'm not hungry," I said.

My sister stopped and looked me over. She knew something was wrong. Something deeper.
She chose not to say anything about it.

“Well I’m hungry," she continued. “Come on, keep me company.”

* * *

I sat sulking at the table, burger in front of me. I took a few bites for the sake of being polite, but had a hard time working up any enthusiasm.

Roseluck, on the other hoof, inhaled her burger. She didn't ask questions. Just ate. She knew I would talk when I was ready.

"What is it you wanted to talk to me about?” I asked her totally out of the blue.

I figured that if I had to say something, it might as well be that.

My sister paused, quit her chewing even though her mouth was stuffed full of hay burger. She ran a hoof through her mane, and closed her eyes. Chewed ‘cause she had to. Swallowed hard. Sighed. “Well,” she said at last. “It's, um, about your plan.”

“My plan?”

“Yeah, well you know how said you were going to hit the library, talk to the pegasi, and consult the zebra?”

She took an awkward bite of her sandwich.

“Yeah?”

Her mouth, now full of hay again, chewed, and chewed, and chewed, and chewed and chewed. I got the feeling she was buying time.

“Well,” she said at last, as she tapped her lips with the cloth napkin, "I don't think that last part is such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” she said. “I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but zebras aren't like you and me.”

“Wait, what?”

“I know what you're thinking," she threw up her hooves. "I'm not saying we should hide from her, and I don't think she's going to gobble us all up, or make a tasty stew out of you. I just don't, you know, really trust her magic.”

I felt like somepony had just shot an anvil out of a cannon straight into my chest.

“This is how the war starts," I said.

“I don't want to go to war with them!" She exclaimed.

“You just don't trust them," I retorted. "Is that it?”

“It's their magic.”

“But you've seen her magic.” I squeaked. “She's helped heal ponies right here in Ponyville. It's just herbs.”

“That's what I don't trust." She said.

“Herbs?!”

“That's right. I don't want you messing around with herbs, Rose Petal. Especially the kind she uses - the kind we know nothing about.”

“But you use herbs." I shot up to my hooves so fast that the chair behind me fell to the floor.

“Everyone uses herbs. We have a garden in the back full of herbs. Mom had a garden full of herbs. We have a cupboard. Full of herbs.”

“Not anymore," said Roseluck sternly.

“What?”

“You almost died," she asserted.

The room fell suddenly silent. Just a crackle and pop from the fire.

“What did you do?” I stormed into the kitchen.

“I'm sorry, Rose," she said.

I flung open the cupboard with my teeth. Half the jars were gone! We had earl grey tea, and orange pekoe, but no valerian root, no ginseng. We had basil and rosemary for cooking, but no turmeric, no lavender. The little apothecary that we had collected for ourselves of the years – that Mom had collected since before I was born - it was a glorified spice rack now.

“You almost died," my sister repeated.

“You threw out the family herbs?! What, do you think I'm going to go eating a pound of chamomile with every meal, and put myself put in a coma?”

Roseluck folded her forehooves, all parental like. “I did what I had to," she said dryly.

“Why didn't you just put safety locks on all the cabinets, since clearly, I can't be trusted?!”

I slammed the cupboard shut with a kick and a buck.

“Herbs are dangerous," said Roseluck. “They're a big responsibility.”

“And I’m just a foal, is that it?--;”

“You!” Roseluck finally raised her voice - really shouted at me for the first time in years. “Are a young mare. Not a foal. That's what worries me.”

Tears flooded angrily down her face.

“You’re under a lot of stress right now - grown up stress - and yes, it's affecting your judgment. Like it would for any grown up.”

“Pfft," I said. I wasn't buying it.

“Rootwork is dangerous," she continued. “It takes patience. It takes discipline. I don't want this stuff in the house when you’re so, so...so….”

Roseluck struggled for the right word.

“...When you’re desperate.” She said at last.

“I guess I'll go be desperate somewhere else then.” I stormed across the dining room and flung open the front door, only to be greeted by a freezing cold breeze. It made me shiver.

Fucking winter. I thought. You can never just leave the house. You have to suit up.

I grumbled. Shut the door. Grabbed my coat off the rack, or at least tried to. My teeth were shaking with anger, and Roseluck had slid it over the hook very, very securely when she’d come home.

“Where do you think you're going?” She said.

I yanked at my coat again, struggled, got tangled, and wham - dragged the whole damn rack down.

“Answer me," my sister snapped.

“Out," I grumbled at her softly.

I couldn't be bothered to yell anymore. I had to focus on getting the fuck out of there,

I plopped my flank down on a stool by the door, slid my boots on hastily, and leapt up before I was even done. Then I stood there defiantly. One boot was halfway off the hoof. The other boot was sloppily buckled. The third was, by some miracle, on good and tight. And the fourth one was on sideways. I didn't even wear my socks. They were all the way on the other side of the house, drying by the fire with my scarf and hat.

I swung the door open again with my teeth. Roseluck charged across the living room.

“You shut that door this instant,” she said.

“Oh, so you're all parental now?” I scowled. “An hour ago you were all, like, why don't we talk like sisters.”

Roseluck shook her head at me and bit her lip. I had hurt her.

Good. I thought.

I stepped out into the cold, no hat, no scarf, and slammed the door behind me.

* * *

Ka-fwump, ga-jood. Ka-fwump, ga-jood. Ka-fwump, ga-jood

My sloppily buckled snow boots squirmed every which way beneath my hooves. But I wouldn't stop to adjust them. Not ‘till I was well out of sight.

Stupid Roseluck. I said to myself as I wobbled down the road. Bet she's waiting to see me fall. So she can call me a stupid foal. So she can lecture me on how I can't be trusted with boots, just like I can't be trusted with fucking tea.

I pushed myself - concentrated real hard on not tripping, Ka-fwump, ga-jood. Ka-fwump, ga-jood. Ka-fwump, ga-jood. ‘Till I finally made it around the bend. Then I plopped down on a hunk of ice-snow. Took my boots off, and slid them back on properly. Wishing the whole time that I had stopped long enough to grab some socks.

Stupid Roseluck, I grumbled to myself. I would still be good and warm, if she hadn't driven me out of my own house.

I pushed on. Right past the spot where the stallion had stood beside his broken sleigh. I still couldn't believe I had ignored his plight, because I had been oh-so-absorbed in my own. It felt awful. Because I saw in myself everything that I hated.

How are we ever gonna stop the war, if we can't even stop ourselves from coming apart? How can I stop everypony else from letting their hatred of their enemies consume them, when I don't even know how to show basic kindness to my own neighbors?

I sighed, stomped along, hating myself. ‘Till I realized how upset Roseluck had made me with all of her we need to talk about something awful, but not just yet bullshit. She was the reason I had been distracted in the first place! She was the reason I hadn’t thought to help out.

"Fucking Roseluck,” I said to myself, as I stomped down the road. “I’ll show her!”

I stormed over the snow, fully resolved to take the road as far as it would go. Damn my socks, damn my hat, damn my scarf, damn my hunger.

I was gonna make it to the Everfree Forest if it was the last thing I did! 'Cause if Roseluck wasn't gonna teach me about herbs, then I figured I’d just have to talk to the zebra about them instead.

I stomped, and stomped, and stomped. I was so mad that I didn't even notice that with each passing step, my bad hoof grew just a teeny bit colder. Shadowier.

Author's Note

SUPPORT: Hooves of Fate is a labor of love. However, I also have mouths to feed. If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you in any way, and you can manage to spare a few bits, I'd very much appreciate your support on Patreon.
If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

A Darkness in Ponyville

CHAPTER THIRTY- A DARKNESS IN PONYVILLE
"There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in." - Graham Greene

I stomped, and stomped, and stomped. Ranting and raving inside my head. But after a while, I got tired. Had to pace myself. It was a long way across town to the Everfree, and I couldn't stomp the entire way.

So instead of storming miles and miles over the snowy path, I got a quieter kind of mad. The kind where you have an argument inside your head with somepony, and you say all the things you wish you'd said the first time around. Then, when you're done doing that, you start planning for the next argument just so you can be sure to really let them have it when the time comes. Anything to make yourself feel like you have some control.

Like I could do something about the fact that my own sister didn't seem to trust me at all.

"Oh, yeah?" I said to an invisible Roseluck who wasn't actually there. "What about our family history? There's a plant on your flank. There's a plant on my flank. There was a plant on Mom's flank, and on Great Aunt Roseroot's! But you just went and threw out a bunch of our plants. Like some kinda plant-hater! You ever think of that?"

* * *

I was almost to the Town Square - the halfway point between my house and the Everfree Forest - when I stopped, and finally realized that there was something going on bigger than me and Roseluck.

It started with a strange sound. Whoosh!

One of those pegasus patrols swooped and soared overhead in some kinda formation. I stopped. Held my hoof up in front of my face to block out the sun, and gazed up at the sky.

Shwoom! They whizzed by again.

The maneuver seemed strangely rehearsed. Fluid. Elegant. But these weren't fancy flyers. They were townsfolk - Blossomforth, Sassaflash, Cloudchaser - ponies who, maybe an hour or two before, had been lounging around the skies, chatting with friends, knocking into trees, chasing stray cloud fragments with all the grace of a bull in a teapot shop.

Now they were soaring over the road. Bobbing and weaving in tight formation like Wonderbolts!

I picked up my pace and followed. Watched the skies for more weird pegasus stuff. But the faster I moved, the more obvious it became that it wasn't just the skies I had to worry about. My evil right hoof was cold. Shadow cold! I felt it with every hoofstep. That icy burn that comes from the inside.

Fuck! I said to myself. I must've been ranting about Roseluck so loudly inside my head - stomping that hoof so angrily and so hard - that I hadn't even noticed the shadow sensation sneak up on me.

"Oh, no.”

I sped up to a trot. Frantically scanned the cottages, and the bushes, and the trees as I passed them by. I looked for shadows, for monsters, for tendrils of ink reaching out from dark corners. For some sign of the presence that I felt. But there was nothing to see. Not even townsponies.

The path was clear - the houses and storefronts were completely empty. I'd have thought I was totally alone in Ponyville had I not suddenly heard the sound of fillies' voices carrying on the wind.

"Na na nan na na." They chanted in unison.

I stopped dead in my tracks. Looked around. Listened hard, but the chanting had ceased as abruptly as it had started. There was nothing left to hear but the pounding of my own heart.

“You're not welcome here.” I growled as I stared down a long, empty road. “Do you hear me?”

I spun around. “You're not welcome here!” I hollered again in the opposite direction. But all I saw was trees blowing around. And all I heard was silence. At least until that chanting came back.

“Na na nan na na." Said the voices on the wind.

It was closer this time! Close enough for me to spot the source. A small group of my classmates - three fillies who call themselves the Crusaders - they were frolicking down a path adjacent to mine. I could just barely make them out through the trees and shrubs. But it was them.

Except that they weren't acting like themselves. I couldn't quite explain it, but they all seemed entranced somehow. It felt a hundred different kinds of wrong. The sight of it made my stomach churn, and all my other internal organs twist themselves around into a fucked up organ pretzel.

I had to do something! Follow them. Hide. Or I dunno, try to call for help from Princess Luna somehow. Sadly, I didn't stand a chance. Before I got an opportunity to even move, a great thunderous sound came from town square.

Frunch! Frunch! Shficka shficka! Frunch!

What the hell was going on? I was close to the center of the action. Real close. I could feel the rumbling under my hooves.

Frunch! Frunch! Shficka shficka, frunch!

I broke into a full gallop. Dashed the rest of the way. I ran, and ran, and ran, and ran, and ran 'till I reached the end of the road where the path opened up, and merged into the great open courtyard facing Town Hall - a quaint pavilion that looked like a giant gazebo.

Frunch! Frunch! Shficka shficka! Frunch. The weird sound was coming from the other side of the building.

I followed it. Rounded the corners as quickly as I could. When I finally reached the other side, I skidded to a halt over the snow, stopped, and stared at what I saw.

Rows of townsfolk. Ponies I knew. Ponies my sister knew. Stomping in strange patterns and formations. Shuffling their hooves against the icy ground in unison.

Frunch! Frunch! Shficka shficka! Frunch!

It was like they were all in some kind of trance. Except every face was smiling. Big and wide.

“What the fuck?" I whispered to myself.

The rows of ponies parted. For a brief moment, I could even see Cliff Diver. Stomping with all the others.

"No."

I leaped back. Readied myself to hide in the bushes. I had to save him.

Maybe there's a pattern, I thought as I scurried backwards. If I can predict their motions, I can swoop in there - whisk him away.

But I didn't make it very far. I stumbled into a herd of fillies on my way to the bushes. The ones who'd been chanting, “Na na na na na.”

Without so much as an "excuse me," the three of them swept me up, and hoisted me on their backs in one fluid motion.

"Come on now," said Apple Bloom.

"Don't be shy!” Said Scootaloo beside her.

Before I could respond, the whole crowd, completely out of nowhere, erupted in song.

"It's an unexpected snow day,
It took us by surprise.

With extra time to laugh and play,
Until you realize.
That with unexpected snow, there's just so much to do,
It all goes by much quicker
With a friend like you."

It was a musical number. A fucking musical number!

The whole town had broken into song. Without me. My classmates dropped me just as dance-move-ishly as they had scooped me up. And suddenly, I found myself in the center of the action. Everypony around me moved flawlessly. With grace. With purpose.

While I just stumbled. 'Cause I couldn't feel the music. Couldn't hear the orchestra. Not so much as a single drum!

"How?" I said to myself.

It didn't make any sense! Normally when folks start singing, you get this sorta tingly feeling – like lightning shooting through your heart. Then your hooves start tapping, and your head gets to bobbing. Before you know it, you're moving with the herd. Acting as one.

Everypony knows the lyrics. Everypony knows the choreography. The whole world comes alive inside of you! It's the most intense magic a pony can feel.

But while everypony else laughed, and sang, and danced through the snow, I just stood there. ‘Cause I couldn't hear a damn thing. I didn't feel any of the magic either. Just this weird sort of emptiness inside.

I looked to Carrot Top, and then to Cheerilee, and Big MacIntosh - the ponies who happened to be nearest to me. They all looked ridiculous, smiling for no reason, swaying to the rhythm of music I still couldn't hear. Stomping, and shuffling, and grunting around as they did their dance moves - the sorta sounds that normally get drowned out by accompaniment.

I looked back to my classmates. They were singing that chant yet again. "Na na na. Na na na." Apparently, it was some kind of backup vocal.

I spun around in circles. Scanned the crowd for Cliff Diver. Tried to figure out if he was in danger. If there were shadows nearby. I lifted my hoof to my face to get a better view. But as the water dripped off my slush-covered boot and onto my muzzle, I suddenly realized something. That icy feeling - that shadow sensation inside my hoof - it wasn't there at all anymore.

There were no inky monsters pulling the strings. No sinister forces. No shadows. The townsfolk were dancing to a normal song. The only thing out of place in Ponyville was me.

I stumbled backwards. Fell to my flank. Scrambled to get away from all of the townsponies’ leaping and singing.

“It goes by so much quicker with a friend like you."

Why am I disconnected from everything? I thought as I staggered through the crowd. Was it the Wasteland that did this to me? The bomb? The future? The shadows?

I looked up at those rows of smiling faces whizzing gracefully by, and started to sniffle. But I didn't have time for that. I needed to get it together!

Don’t you cry! A voice in my head commanded. Not here. Not now.

I sucked it up, squeezed my eyes shut. Tried desperately to get a grip. I. Needed. To. Calm. The fuck. Down.

To listen. To hear the fucking music.

I started by focusing with my ears. When that didn’t work, I got all feelsy and listened with my heart. After that, I even tried concentrating real super hard - anything to try to open up the part of my mind that kept all the brain hornets, and Rose Voices, and stuff. But no matter what, I came up empty.

All I heard was shuffling and singing robbed of its musical context. And all I felt was fear. Of failure. Of isolation. ‘Cause what if this was it? What if I was doomed to spend the rest of my life sulking on the sidelines while everypony else got to sing?!

The thought was too awful to entertain.

* * *

I needed to get out of there. To the forest. To Zecora.

She’ll have answers. I thought. She has to have answers!

So I ran as fast as I could. Made for the road to the Everfree all the way on the other side of the square. But It was hard. The dance routine was getting stompier and stompier, and it didn't take me or my disconnectyness into consideration.

“Excuse me," I said as I stumbled into one cluster of jubilant ponies.

“Sorry!” I cried, as I leapt aside and almost ran right into another.

I dodged, and weaved, and got knocked around so hard that I thought I was gonna get trampled. But I kept on fighting through the ebbing and flowing herd. Until the southern path was right there in front of me. It looked like I was actually gonna get out of there! It really really did.

But then Pinkie Pie bounced in front of me from out of nowhere. There was no escaping the song.

* * *

“When you're sad and tired," she sang in a minor key. (The song had surpassed its second chorus and moved on to the somber part). “And your heart is on the ground.”

She grabbed me and swept me away from the square, all sudden-like. We moved at speeds that woulda been impossible without the magic of song. It was disorienting as hell.

“Just take a break, a friend you’ll make, join in the fun, and play with the snoooooow on the ground.”

Suddenly I was surrounded by fillies. Kids from my class. Laughing, and giggling on a snow-topped hill. One of them grabbed my tail. Yanked me hard. It was a girl I barely knew. Coconut Cream.

“Snowball fight!” She giggled.

I had barely figured out which way was up, and which way was down before I found myself cringing on the ground, huddled behind a little wall of ice, snowballs flying overhead.

“Ahh!” I said.

But Coconut didn't care. She leaped up onto the ledge of the trench to kick some pieces of ice, and hunks of snow in the direction of the enemy.

“What are you doing?” I snapped, and panicked. Crouched as low down as I could go. "Get down!"

But she didn't listen. She stepped right out into No Mare’s Land!

Bang! I heard a great big loud sound. For a moment my heart stood still. This was a snowball fight. A joyful song! But that sound. It sounded like gunfire. Actual gunfire.

* * *

I get scared.

Before I can even begin to get my bearings, somepony grabs me out of nowhere. I panic. I kick. I flail. In the midst of all the chaos, I catch a fragment of a lyric. Children singing, “...let's race with our sleds.”

And the next thing I know, I'm tumbling down that hill. No sled. Just somersaulting. And somepony else is tumbling on top of me.

Bam! Crunch! I hit every lump of ice on the way down. It feels like getting beaten. The world spins, and spins, and spins completely out of control. Until at last, I find myself on top of the other kid, panting wildly. I've got her mane pinned to the ground with one boot, and my other forehoof is stretched back, ready to strike a crushing blow to her face.

I pant, and pant, and pant, and look up all around me. All the other fillies and colts watch from the top of the hill. Grown Ups too.

They aren't singing anymore.

The filly underneath me. Its Kettle Corn. This sweet little kid from my school who's always drawing circles. But there's terror on her face now. She squeezes her eyes shut and cries, bawls, squeaks for mercy.

“Oh, my...” I get up off of her.

I don't know what to say. She squirms away. Scrambles to her hooves. Runs from me like a foal from a monster.

“I’m sorry," I stammer. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"

I call out after the girl, but she just keeps running, and the town keeps staring.

Even Big Macintosh, the strongest, and probably most unshakable pony in town, looks at me with the giant eyes of a foal - shocked at what I had done. His sister, Apple Bloom, too. She leans against him and starts crying. My teacher, Miss Cheerilee? She's in shock. She touches her heart with her hoof, and shakes her head, jaw agape.

Then finally, I see Cliff Diver up on that hill. Speechless and afraid. Just like everypony else. I start crying too.

“I'm sorry," I repeat. “I didn't mean to.”

But all I hear in reply is the dead silence of the entire town, and the distant hoofsteps of that poor filly running off. As far away from me as she can possibly get.

I turn, and I run in the other direction. I run, and I run, and I run, and I run, and I run. Southward toward the Everfree.

Author's Note

SUPPORT: Hooves of Fate is a labor of love. However, I also have mouths to feed. If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you in any way, and you can manage to spare a few bits, I'd very much appreciate your support on Patreon.
If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

An Outsider

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - AN OUTSIDER
“The woods are just trees. The trees are just wood.” -Stephen Sondheim

I galloped down the Old South Road toward the edge of town. I ran, and I ran, and I ran, and I ran, and I ran. But it didn't matter. No matter how hard I pushed myself, I kept seeing her in my head. Kettle Corn. The way she’d cringed. The way she’d thrown her hooves up to protect her face. The way she’d looked at me piteously, and begged for mercy with her eyes. Every time I closed my own eyes, even to blink, I saw that face.

But the worst part - the thing that terrified me most as I ran sobbing and bawling down the road to the Everfree Forest - was more than just Kettle Corn and her look of fear - more than the horrified expressions on the faces of everypony in town.

It was the fact that I actually could have hurt her. Like really, really, really hurt her. If I had freaked out for just half a second longer - I would've followed through with my hoof. Stomped down as hard as I could, and broken that poor little filly’s face.

Everypony was right to be horrified. They were right to fear me.

Hell, even I feared me. I was spiraling out of control

* * *

I barreled down the road, running into the wind. Cheeks cold and wet with tears. But I kept charging southward. ‘Cause I needed to get to Zecora. If there was anyone in the whole world who might understand what the hell was going on with the shadows, and the blizzard, and the dreams, and the duckies, it was her.

So I ran past the fancy fashion boutique on the South side of town. Past the stone pegasus statue. Past the frozen fountain. Past the last cottage, and the last garden, and the last stretch of road. ‘Till at last, it was in my sight: the Everfree Forest.

Its dark foreboding branches arched over the road like some sorta crooked entranceway to a goathic castle. Its underbrush rustled with life as eyes peered out from below. Even the wind that blew from deep inside the forest was weird. It smelled like rotting leaves and musty eucalyptus.

Absolutely everything about the Everfree was wrong. It felt like running toward a painting of a forest rather than the real thing. But it wasn’t ‘till I got about a stone’s kick away that I finally realized what was so very backwards about it.

The woods were bone dry. Not a flake of snow on the ground. Not a speck of frost on the leaves. Nothing. The big evil blizzard hadn’t touched the Everfree at all. That could only mean that the shadow-majigs hadn't been there!

The realization was like a kick to the face. It shocked me so bad that I slipped and skidded on the icy road. Flailed around like a moron, tumbled forward, and crunch - fell face first into an embankment of snow on the side of the road.

“Ugh.” I said.

Just ugh.

* * *

I lay there motionless and caught my breath - let the thundering sound of my own heart slow down a little. The air from my mouth felt oddly warm as it bounced off the snow, and smothered my face. It was a cold-yet-hot-but-mostly-really-really-numb sorta feeling. But something about it was oddly comforting.

"Let's not move for a while," one of my Rose Voices said.

“Yeah.” Said another in agreement. “Let's just live here.”

“Maybe if we're lucky,” said a third voice. “We’ll fall asleep, and go right back to the Wasteland. Where we belong. Where everything makes sense. Where we’ve got enemies to fight. Good gals to save. Objectives. Missions. Brain hornets keeping us from doing more harm than good.“

It was a happy thought - a warm thought. To run away from the hurt I’d caused. To go back to a place where I could actually make a difference. Be one of the good ones again.

“Nope.” Whispered a little tiny voice of reason inside my head.

“What?” I groaned aloud.

“You’ll die.” She replied.

“Nuh-uh.” I grumbled.

“Haven't you ever heard of hypothermia, you dummy?”

“Huh?”

“For Luna’s sake!” My own brain lost patience with me. “Pinkbeard and the Buccaneers of the North? Chapter seven?”

“Um…” I mumbled aloud again. "Which one was that again?”

“Helloooo. The Mountain of Frozen Sorrows.”

"Oh, fuck.” I said aloud. “That.”

My brain was right. Hypothermia was, in fact, a thing.

I struggled to my knees. Wiped the slush off my face. If I let myself fall asleep face down in the snow, I wouldn't be helping anypony. Not in the Wasteland. Not in Ponyville. Not in the hospital, or the shadow castle. Not anywhere.

I’d just turn into a Rosecicle and die, and then my sister would blame herself forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever. Roseluck didn't deserve that, even if she did throw away the family tea.

I sighed. Puffed out a groan, picked myself up off my knees, and dusted the snow off my coat. Once I was good and sturdy, I ambled over to the edge of the forest, and stared down its path.

You’re actually going to do this? I thought to myself.

“Yup,” One of My Rose Voices replied. "What choice do you have?"

I sucked in a deep breath, and took my first step off the snow and onto the crunchy, leaf-covered path. I couldn’t quite pin down the whys of it, but even the ground felt off somehow.

I crept in a little further. Inch by hesitant inch. With each step, the woods got ever so slightly darker, and the air got ever so slightly noisier. Wind in the trees. Rustling on the ground. Winter or no winter, the forest was alive. And with the great big blanket of snow gone, the ground no longer absorbed every teensy little sound. I heard crackles and pops. Random twigs snapping all around me. Swishing up above as some critter or another leaped from branch to branch, raining tree stuff down on me.

“Ahhh!”

I jumped aside. Shielded my head. Spun frantically around. Looked up to the angry, flailing tree ceiling. But there were no monsters up there, nor shadows, nor lightning-breathing tree sloths raining evil down from above.

“Get it together, Rose,” I said with a sigh. “Nothing’s gonna get you.”

“Hey!” Cried the gravelly voice of someone who was, in fact, out to get me.

Fuck. I got moving again.

“Hey,” the townspony shouted, as he pursued me. “Get back here!”

“I’m sorry!" I called back over my shoulder. “It was an accident, okay? Just...just...Leave me alone.”

I didn’t stop. Didn’t turn to face the guy. I couldn’t. If I had to actually look anypony in the eye, I might lose my nerve. So I kept moving. Pushed myself forward as best I could. Tripped around over the rocky, jutting-root-ridden terrain. Followed it as it curved down and inward, leading me deeper and deeper into the woods. I eventually had to slow down just to get my bearings. Little by little, the path got harder, and harder. ‘Till Bam!

Just like that, the guy was standing right in front of me. A gruff old donkey with blonde locks from a bad toupee sticking sideways out of a wool hat. I recognized him. He’d moved to Ponyville a few months before to settle down with Old Lady Matilda. But I didn’t really know him that well, or Old Lady Matilda. Not personally anyway.

“What in the hay do you think you’re doing out here, kid?” He said. “You could get hurt.”

By the way he looked at me, I could tell that the donkey had no idea what’d happened back in town.

“I, uh..I’m fine," I said, a little taken aback. “I’ve just got some, uhh...stuff to attend to. And it’s urgent.“

“And what’s your plan, kid? You gonna go through these woods alone?“

“I’m not afraid," I replied, head held high, despite the fact that I was obviously super nervous.

The donkey looked at me. Sighed. “And how exactly are you gonna do this urgent stuff of yours when you can’t even find the road?”

“I’m on the road," I said, stomping my hoof.

But the ground beneath me just sounded like twigs, and leaves, and underbrush. I wasn’t on the road. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t even see the road! I was standing in the middle of the forest floor.

“Sidetrack roots,” said the donkey. “They roll around. Bundle together. Form a shoddy little path.”

He kicked the ground a little. Pretended to head deeper into the woods. The roots rolled and spread themselves out before him giving the vague appearance of a path.

“And they steal you off the real road," he continued, while the roots subtlety folded behind him 'till they looked like plain old forest floor.

“But, but, but, but, why?” I gulped. “Where were they trying to lead me?”

The donkey came back my way. Patted me on the shoulder. “Kid, you don’t wanna know.”

The donkey gestured at me with his head. Indicated the direction that the real road was in, and led me there.

I followed, of course. But felt like a damn fool. I hung my head, and slunk far behind him, eyes cast downward in embarrassment. With my gaze focused on the forest floor, I noticed that those weird roots were still down there. Acting funny. Twitching beside my hooves, rolling around subtly, almost as though the air was blowing them. Except that they moved against the wind.

“Ewww.”

The sight made my skin crawl.

“Eww, eww, eww, ew, ew, ew, ew.”

I sped up. Followed hurriedly on tippy hooves 'till my boots finally touched cobble stone, dirt, and gravel. The Everfree Path. The actual Everfree Path. Then I stopped and got my bearings. The donkey was pretty far ahead of me now. I could see him silhouetted against the light at the end of the branch-tunnel. In the other direction, was the road, now clear as day. It stretched deeper into the forest. Into the savage wilds.

I don't know what I’m doing. I thought. Where to go. What dangers to look out for. How to get to the hut. Whether or not Zecora will even be around when I get there.

But what choice did I have? I needed to try. Anything beat facing Ponyville again.

“Hey kid!” The donkey called after me. “Come on.”

I froze. Shook my head ‘no.’

“Oh, for the love of…” He groaned. Ambled toward me with a heavy sigh.

“Listen,” I said. “Thanks for, um, you know, saving me from those root things. But like I said, I got really urgent business, you know? And it’s kinda that way.” I pointed up Everfree Path.

“Kid.”

“I’ve made up my mind.” I replied.

“I don’t care what you've done," said the gruff old donkey.

“What?“ I said, seriously taken aback. “I didn’t—;”

“You shouted over your shoulder,” he replied with an impatient grumble. “'It was an accident.’”

Damn. He was right. I had let on.

“I don’t know what you did," he repeated. “Don’t know why you aren't back there, stomping around town with everypony else. And I don't have to know. To be honest, I don’t even want to know.

“But this.“ He pointed at the woods all around us. “What you’re doing right here – this is stupid. Whatever you’re trying for, kid, you won’t solve anything by running into the forest blind.”

He was right. And the fact that he was right just made it that much harder to face him. To tell him ‘no.’ To make him understand that I didn’t really have any choice at all. So I just stared at the ground, letting his words rattle around inside my head. That was when a great big realization hit me like a tidal wave.

“Wait a minute," I shouted. "Did you just say stomping?”

“Huh?”

“You said you don't know why I'm not stomping around town with everypony else. You didn't say singing. Rejoicing. Plowing. You said stomping.”

“Whatever, kid.”

“But did you hear them?” I pressed in closer. “Did you hear the music? Did you feel it? Or was it all just stomping sounds to you?”

“Kid, I’m way too old for songs about shoveling.“ He replied.

This time he was the one to hide his eyes from me.

“You were!“ I said. “You were outside of the song. How did it happen? Is it a getting old thing?” I scratched my head. Took to muttering to myself. “No. It can’t be, I…That doesn’t explain…”

I scrambled to come up with the right words, but my thoughts kept bouncing around faster than I could keep up with them.

“You fell out of the song too," the donkey whispered. "Didn't'ja?"

“Yes.”

“And you’re trying to get that zebra witch to fix whatever’s wrong with you.”

Yes. Yes! I shouted on the inside. But only nodded enthusiastically on the outside. Like, super enthusiastically.

Nod nod nod nod nod nod nod nod nod nod nod nod nod nod.

“Hmm," said the donkey in reply.

He shook his head. Gazed down the long path leading deeper into the Everfree. Got all silent and contemplatey again, before finally facing me.

* * *

“I met my sweet Matilda at the Grand Galloping Gala some fifty years back,” he said. “When I first saw her, I tell ya, I could hear choirs singing.”

The donkey’s cheeks warmed into a blushy smile.

“We danced. Talked. In just a few hours, I felt like I had known Matilda my entire life," the donkey’s smile slowly faded. “But when the night was over, she disappeared. Gone without a trace.”

He lowered his head. Kicked a hunk of gravel. The sound echoed through the trees.

“Matilda took a piece of my soul with her," he said. “Come sunrise, I got moving - set out for nowhere in particular, and vowed never to call anyplace my home ‘til I found dear Matilda again.

'A few moons later, I stopped off in Fillydelphia. It was around Hearth’s Warming time, and I was feeling hopeful. I was so sure I’d find her there. I even had a Hearth’s Warming present picked out for her just in case."

“Why Fillydelphia?”

“I don’t know if you ever noticed, kid, but there ain’t too many donkeys around Equestria. At that point, I hadn’t been on the road very long. Fillydelphia was one of my first major cities. I figured: 'how long could it possibly take?'”

He rolled his eyes at himself.

“Anyway, I stumbled into a song - a Hearth’s Warming carol - but there was no music to be heard. At first, I just thought everypony was acting like idiots. But once I figured out what was going on, I reacted just like you did.”

He leaned in closer, looked me square in the eye.

“I ran," he said. “And I didn’t stop running for fifty years.”

“Fifty years?” I squeaked.

“Calm down. It don’t have to take that long, kid. That’s what I’m getting at.”

He started walking, and gestured with his head that I was to follow. This time, I obliged him. He had my attention.

“From that point on, I had two missions," he continued. "Wherever I went looking for Matilda, I also stopped to look for answers. Libraries. unicorns, bayou healers, zebra witch doctors, you name it. None of them helped.”

“So what do I do?”

“Find the piece of you that went missing.”

“Oh," I whispered as my heart slowly broke all over again.

'Cause there was no way. I wasn’t ever going to be the same again. Not after what I’d seen - what I knew. Twinkle Eyes had been in charge of the part of my soul that went missing. She had comforted it when we were in the cages. She was the one who'd brought it back to life when I saw that vision of her in the trenches, and again when I fought my way out of the shadow castle’s grasp.

I nuzzled my chest with my head. I knew that twig of hers was still under my coat. I stood there for a minute in silence, until I realized that something the donkey had said wasn’t quite right.

“Wait a second," I said suddenly. “Just a minute ago, you said you still couldn’t hear the song. You called it stomping.”

“Not that song, no," he replied. “I’m too old for plowing. But I did start hearing the music again once I found Matilda.”

“Choirs?” I said.

“Among other things," he snorted out a tiny chuckle. “But listen up, kid, here’s what I’m getting at. I knew all along I’d be an outsider ‘til I found her - separated from the music like a needle without a record. But over the years, I went ahead and wasted a lot of time on shortcuts anyway.”

I bit my lip and looked away. Because that's exactly what I was doing.

“It makes a certain kind of sense, you know.“ The donkey looked down on me, reassured me that my desire to consult Zecora was not entirely irrational. “In my gut, I knew what was happening. No use denying that Matilda was the answer. But I still felt this need. To understand why. How it all worked. The mechanics of it. I think I just kept looking 'cause I needed the Universe to make some kinda sense.”

I nodded. It was like he’d put my own thoughts to words, only better than I could. It made me feel a little less hopeless. A tiny bit braver.

“Did you learn anything from them?“ I said. “Anything at all?”

* * *

The donkey stopped. We had come upon that first bit of snow on the border of Ponyville. He didn’t answer my question. Instead he just stood there and pointed.

The town looked like a portrait, all framed by branches and dried up vines. It felt weird to see things that were so familiar from a whole new angle like that. To observe ponies going about their daily business of plowing, and shoveling, and carting. To see those pastoral hills and cottages. But all the way back from a distance. From the outside. Like looking at a nice warm hearth through a locked window while standing in the freezing rain.

“Well, kid,” the donkey answered me at last. “I learned enough to know that sooner or later, you’re gonna have to face what you’ve been running from.“

I stared up the road I had galloped down. I could still see the spot I had fallen in the snow when I’d panicked like an idiot.

I sighed. The donkey was right. I really, really, really, really, really didn’t want him to be right, but he was. With hesitant hooves, I stepped out of the woods. Off of the gravel, and onto the snow. Creeping timidly into Ponyville with a strange new ally by my side.

* * *

We made it about twenty yards out of the Everfree before the cold really hit me. Without my heart pumping in terror and excitement, without the trees to shield me from the worst of the freezing breeze, without my crazy thoughts distracting me from all of the snow still trapped under my coat from when I’d fallen - it was cold as Tartarus. But none of that compared to the iciness of my reception.

The very first pony we came across – a blue unicorn whose name I couldn’t even remember - was walking on by, talking with one of her friends, laughing, and smiling. Until she laid eyes on me. Then they both just sorta stopped. Looked away. Pretended I wasn’t there. Muttered to one another.

The donkey raised an eyebrow. Whispered to me, “So, are they the ones you gotta make amends with, kid?”

He pointed at their backs as they turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

I chuckled awkwardly. “I kiiiiiiinda have to make amends with the whole town.”

I sniffled. Shivered as a gust of snowy breeze blew our way.

"I see," replied the donkey.

As we spoke, another pair of ponies stopped dead in their tracks upon the mere sight of me. A mother and child. The little one hid behind her mother’s legs. The mother puffed out her chest and stood there defiantly, as though she were some kinda hero from a comic book facing down a dragon.

The donkey grumbled at the sight. Mirrored the action, (but without all the drama), and stepped around in front of me, so that I would not quite-so-easily be seen. Then he shook his hat off and slid it over my head with his teeth.

“Geez. What’d’ja do, kid?” He whispered in my ear.

I didn’t answer. Just looked away while the donkey wrapped his long, scratchy gray scarf around me. It covered my face and half my jacket, but I guess that was the point. But it still didn’t stop the mom from glowering at us. Like I was some kinda monster, fixing to wail on any filly I could find.

“Can I help you, lady?” The donkey snapped.

Judgy Momface scurried off, and we got moving again.

“How far away is home?” Said the donkey as he straightened his toupee.

“F-F-Flower shop n-n-n-north of here," I said through chattering teeth. The cold was really getting to me.

The donkey tsk’ed. “Matilda and Me live right over there.”

He pointed to a small wooded alcove just up the road. I could see the thatched roof from where we stood, and not much else.

“Come inside," he said. “There’ll be plenty of time for problem-facin’ once you’ve sat in front of a fire and got some soup in you.”

Normally, I would do the polite thing, and ask if he was sure, and all that. But I was freezing and exhausted. And scared even to think about facing anypony else in town.

So I nodded. Acted like it wasn’t a big deal - or at least tried to. When he put his hoof on my shoulder, I lost it completely. Started quaking. Leaned up against him, and buried my head in his chest.

I would have cried, but my eyes were tired, and had long run out of tears. When he hugged me back though, it felt as warm as any hearth fire. For the first time since I got back from the Wasteland, I actually felt safe, even if only for a moment.

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

COMMENT: Have a happy and healthy New Year, everypony. I'm very excited for the next few chapters, and can't wait to share them with you. Of course, I've got to write them first.

Seriously, though, having Rose Petal finally back in Ponyville has allowed me to start focusing on ideas I've been sitting on since I first started this story five years ago. Let me know what you think.

Lost Souls

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - LOST SOULS
“When you’re down on your luck
and you've lost all your dreams,
There's nothing like a campfire
and a can of beans.” - Tom Waits

I sat on the floor by the fireplace, huddled in blankets, nursing a bowl of lentil soup. I normally hate lentil soup - like really, really, really hate it -but it felt so good to have something hot going down that I honestly didn’t care. Plus this particular lentil soup was different. It had, like, beans, and lemon, and a bunch of Celestia-knows-what mixed in to make it taste, you know, un-terrible.

So I slurped it down and warmed up by the fire. Little by little, my shivers and tremors quieted. My lungs took to breathing normally. My hooves started feeling their tips again. Being near that blaze was like running up to the sun and giving it a great big friendly hug. So I sat there and enjoyed it. Tried not to think about the fact that such comforts were gonna end any minute now.

‘Cause I had to tell Cranky what had happened. Why I had freaked out. Why I was on the run. Why the whole town hated me. I knew he would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ask, but in my heart I knew that I owed Cranky an explanation.

That was the donkey’s name by the way. Cranky.

I could kinda sorta see why the name was fitting. Since he is all gruff and grumbly and stuff. But honestly, I had a hard time thinking of him like that.

‘Cause where would I be without him? What woulda happened to me if Cranky had seen me in trouble, and turned his back and walked away? Like I had done to that pony with the broken wagon earlier?

I’d be tangled up in a bunch of creepy, nasty roots. Freezing to death while I waited for some awful thing or another to come by and eat me. That’s where I’d be.

“I’m almost done!“ Cranky called to me from the kitchen.

“Okay!” I shouted back to him. “Thank you.“

He was brewing up some kinda cold-n'-flu remedy over there. And his fiancé, Old Lady Matilda, had headed out the door the second I showed up. Rushed to go find my sister and tell her that I was safe.

So I actually got left alone for a little while. Just me and the fire. It was a big relief.

I took the opportunity to study my surroundings. Learn what I could of this strange new ally of mine. There were a million faded pictures, framed all froo-froo-like, hung just above the mantle, and just below a bunch of shelves covered in rustic-looking junk.

The photos had little tape-and-paste marks on the edges, like they had been torn from a scrapbook. All of them were faded snapshots of Matilda and Cranky when they were young. At the gala where they’d met.

The funny thing is, a month ago, I woulda looked at stuff like that and thought of it as impossibly old – some abstract concept from a history book.

But I’d actually been to the future. I had met soldiers from hundreds of years ahead who didn’t even know the story of Hearth’s Warming. But they knew Sweetie Belle’s holiday carols! I had tangled with a priestess in Trottica who had, by some miracle or another, been able to quote philosophy from books written hundreds of years before I was even born. Stuff I hadn’t heard of!

It got me thinking. About the artifacts we leave behind. The legacies. It seemed almost random. What information survived. What got gobbled up by time.

I couldn’t help but wonder. Would anything of mine would be left behind after the bomb fell? Would any part of me be worth remembering? Would anypony in the future be able to make sense of my life if they found my tokens? My memories? A tail hair. A pink pocket watch. A fragment of a twig.

‘Cause my stuff wasn’t like Matilda’s photos, all froo-froo framed and easy to understand. It was more like Cranky’s statuettes, and ornaments, and knickknacks littering the shelves above. Grungy old tokens from journeys nopony knew a damn thing about.

I finished my soup and wrapped myself up in my blanket like a burrito. Sat there contemplating Cranky’s Wall O’ Mystery, wondering where it had all come from. What it all meant to him. It put me in a trance of sorts.

At least ‘till Cranky appeared. He had a small pot gripped between his teeth. When he got to the fireplace, he slid its long handle carefully over one of the many hooks he had rigged near the fire. Then he swung the pot around ‘till it was over the flames.

“An old Travelers’ remedy I picked up," he turned to me and said. “If this don’t clear out yer chest, and warm up your bones, chances are good you’re already dead.” He chuckled.

I gave him a polite smile in return. Then I got all moody and went back to staring into the fire while I worked up the nerve to fess up to him.

This is it. I thought. No more stalling. Do the thing!

I took a moment to summon my courage. Focused on the flames. So pretty. So angry. So serene. Then I sighed, took a deep breath, and got on with the truth-ening I had to do.

“I attacked a little girl.” I said, never taking my eyes off the fire. “I didn’t mean to. The musical number just got so outta control, and the kids started playing at war, and it reminded me of, well, it…”

I stopped. Censored myself even as I poured my heart out. ‘Cause I couldn’t go and tell Cranky what I’d actually been reminded of. Couldn’t open up about the trenches, or No Mare’s Land, or the Battle for the Crystal Door. It was all too crazy.

Plus, Foster, Cliff, Roseluck, and me had all made a pact! None of us could talk about the future. No. Matter. What.

It didn’t matter that I was dying to spill the beans, or that holding on to all those beans made me feel like my heart was exploding with beans! I couldn’t speak a word of it, which made my confession a hell of a lot harder.

“It reminded me...of, uh...bad things that happened once.” I stammered. “Again, I didn’t mean to do it, I swear! But we started tumbling down this hill, and the next thing I know…”

I stopped. Caught my breath. Stared at the ground as the crackles of the fire punctuated our silence.

“I almost stomped her face in.” I said at last. “I almost…”

Suddenly, I felt Cranky’s hoof on my back. I sniffled, looked up at him. He had kind eyes, but not the type to lie and tell you that everything was gonna be alright when it wasn’t.

“I’m so sorry.” I whispered.

“I can see that. But I ain’t the one you got to tell that to, kid.“ He said.

“I know.” I laughed and sniffled. Looked at the fire some more. “You’re like, the only one I don’t owe an apology to.”

I chuckled.

“Rose.” His voice dropped to a stern whisper, all concernitty-like. “Look at me.”

My eyes met his.

“You’ve got an apology to make. A big one.” He raised a hoof emphatically. “To that little girl, and her family.”

I turned away in shame, but he thrust his hoof under my head and lifted my chin.

“But you don’t owe a damn thing to the rest of the town. You understand me, kid?”

I shook my head. I got that Cranky was trying to help, but it still felt wrong. He hadn’t seen the looks on all those faces. The shock. The disillusionment. The horror.

“Everypony hates me.” I replied,

“I don’t hate you, kid.”

“That’s different.”

“Your sister don’t hate you either.”

I laughed nervously. “Well actually, we kinda had a giant fight riiiiiiight before I left the house.”

“And she hates you now.”

“Maybe.”

The flames popped and crackled some more while I sat there sulking.

“Alright.” The donkey said. “You know her better’n I do. Maybe you’re right. Maybe your sister does hate you. Maybe she’ll hate you forever. What do I know?”

“No!” I turned to him and protested. “She’s not like that!”

“Make up your mind, kid. Does she hate you or not?”

I sighed. “I guess she doesn’t.” I muttered, honestly a little stunned at the realization.

“Well, ain’t that a relief.” He replied. “Now, lemme ask you something. Listen close ‘cause this is important.” He leaned in and whispered. “That mare who gave you the evil eye out there. Do you have any idea who that was?”

I shook my head.

“Me neither.” He snorted. “So you tell me, kid. Who's more important? Your sister, or some mare you don’t even know?”

“My sister.” I grumbled.

Cranky was right. But in that grown-up way that doesn’t actually help. ‘Cause knowing that he was right - knowing that the opinions of strangers doesn’t matter - doesn’t make dealing with them any easier.

“What about Kettle Corn?” I asked grimly.

“Sorry, kid. Haven’t got any.“

“No, the girl. The one I attacked. Her name’s Kettle Corn.”

“Oh.”

“She’s...like, the one pony I’m afraid to apologize to.“

“But’cha gotta.” He said.

“I know.” I whimpered. “But, like, what if she doesn’t wanna hear it? What if she doesn’t forgive me? What if she hates me?”

“Could you blame her if she did?” Cranky asked.

My heart skipped a beat. Cranky’s bluntness was like a buck to the chest.

“No,” I hung my head. “I guess not.”

“If you make a sincere apology, and she still hates you, well then that’s that. It ain’t about making friends, kid. It’s about doing the right thing.”

“You have to give it a try.” I said solemnly to myself, Pinkie Pie’s words escaping my lips.

“Pretty much.”

Cranky got up, stretched his back and groaned. Once all of his bones had cracked and popped loudly into place, he leaned over to the fire, gripped an iron lever, and swung his pot away from the flames. It smelled like lemon, and ginger, and echinacea, and some other stuff I couldn’t quite place.

“Gimme a minute, kid.” Cranky clapped my back, and moseyed over to the kitchen. He took his sweet time, leaving the pot on the stone floor to cool.

When he finally did return, he had a bottle with him. He set it down on the floor. Popped the lid off with his teeth, and dumped a few splashes inside. It smelled like Great Aunt Roseroot’s secret cabinet. Carefully, he dipped a ladle into the pot, and poured some steaming yellowish stuff into a cup.

“Drink up, kid.” He said as he slid the mug across the floor.

I sniffed it. Sipped it. Then, having determined that the remedy was neither lava nor poison, grabbed the mug with both forehooves and got to work. It was really, really weird tasting. Not bad. Not exactly. Just weird. My chest warmed when I drank it. And the echinacea rose up the back of my throat like a breath of minty air. Already I could feel my nostrils starting to clear.

“I think it’s working,” I said. “Thanks!”

I peered over the brim of the cup to Cranky, expecting a smile or a nod. But he didn’t look so good. His irises had shrunk to the size of pinpoints and his face was losing color.

“W-what is it?” I said, spilling hot remedy on my hooves as I hurried to lower my mug to the floor.

Cranky didn’t answer me. Just followed my evil hoof with his eyes. The hoof that looked like frostbite.

Fuck.

I hid it instinctively. Buried my whole leg in blankets again like a dirty little secret. But I wasn’t fooling anypony. Cranky’s face had already turned flour-white. His haunted eyes were welling up with tears.

It was then that I realized that he wasn’t merely worried about frostbite, or freaked out at the sight of me.

“You know what this is.” I said, whipping the hoof out again.

He faltered. Leaned up against the stone mantle for support.

He didn’t answer my question directly, ‘cause he was too busy sucking in raspy, shallow breaths. But it was super fucking obvious that he at least had some idea.

“You know what this is.” I said again, waving my hoof in front of him. “You've seen it before?”

“No,” he let out a raspy whisper. “No.”

I couldn't tell if he was answering my question or babbling to himself. Either way, he was starting to scare me.

“Cranky!” I snapped.

And then the old guy finally quit staring at my evil hoof, and looked me square in the eye. When he did, every wrinkle - every line on his jowly donkey face - twisted into a portrait of sadness. Defeat. Like a wax statue melting.

“It was you.“ He said at last.

“What?!” My heart sunk into my belly.

What the hell did he mean “it was me”? What did I do? What didn’t I do? Sweet Celestia, had something heinous happened? What if it was my fault?!

“The blizzard.” Cranky rose to his hooves. “It was you they came for.”

“Oh,” I laughed, partly out of embarrassment, partly relief. “Kinda.”

I lowered my head. Tried to hide my dark hoof under the blanket again, but Cranky drew in closer. Grabbed me by the shoulder. Looked me up and down, and all over, as though he were expecting to find a great big gaping hole in me or something.

“You got away.“ He said.

I patted my own chest. To make sure I was real.

“Well, yeah.” I replied.

Without warning, Cranky threw his forelegs around me. Hugged and squeezed me real tight. But it wasn’t like before, where he was a rock for me to lean on. If anything, his obvious fucking terror made the whole thing worse.

I could feel how fast and how hard his heart was pounding. He held me for a long time. So long that it started to get awkward. But I let him. ‘Cause he obviously needed to.

“So that’s why you panicked and attacked that girl.” He broke away from the hug, all-of-a-sudden-like. Took a step back. “You were upset. Because of...”

Cranky gestured at my evil hoof, unable to conjure the words for whatever it was he was trying to say.

“What, this? No.“ I scoffed. “I was mad ‘cause my sister threw out all my tea.”

“Tea?”

What I’d said had made so little sense to Cranky, that it snapped him out of his daze.

“I’ve had this for like, over a week.” I laughed. Held up my evil hoof. I hadn’t really thought about it ‘till just that moment, but I’d actually long gotten over the shock of having a cursed hoof. It was something I sorta took for granted. In fact, I relied upon it. To get bone cold and tell me whenever those inky clitweasels were near.

“You mean to tell me you been walkin’ around on a shadow hoof for a week, and it was tea that tipped you over the edge?” He said, sounding a little like his curmudgeonly old self again.

I could have corrected him about the walking around part - told him that I had eaten so much sleepy tea that I'd almost died. That I’d spent over a week in the hospital, dealing with two other shadow refugees - a changeling, and a mare who thought she was a dog.

But that was a mouthful.

“Yeah.” I said. “It was my tea.”

And surprisingly enough, he nodded in understanding.

“Now please, tell me. What do you know about them?” I was done beating around the bush.

“Not much, kid.” He sighed. “And I’ll teach you what I do know. I promise.” He clapped his hoof on my shoulder. I braced myself to get hugged again, but instead, Cranky swept past me. Made straight for the window.

“But first I've got to take some precautions.”

Cranky flung the curtains closed and peeked through a crack he made in between them. Glowered at what he saw on the other side - the snow that should not have been.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he said dryly. Then he let the curtains fall shut, and darted over to the fireplace faster than I would have thought possible. He readied a fresh log, and carefully maneuvered it into the fire with a poker.

“Can't have a shadow talk in front of dying embers.” He mumbled, teeth full of cast iron poker. “Bad luck.”

A few prods later, and he was ready. His back was to me. So he didn't know that I could see, but the sigh he let out was so heavy, you’d’ve thought his back had a dozen anvils on it.

He was working up the nerve to give me the shadow talk, as he'd put it.

“Okay, kid.” He spun around, wearing his brave face. “I ain't much of a professor, and there sure ain't no textbook, so I'll be honest, got no idea where to start. But you're the one wrestling with them in the here and the now, so why don't you do an old donkey a favor and tell me what happened? I'll answer your questions as we go. Promise.”

Cranky leaned forward, awaiting my reply. He had tried to sound cool and laid back when he’d asked me, but there was some kinda fear pushing him forward. Had he been sitting on a seat, he'd've been on the edge of it.

“Uh...okay.” I said.

I thought back to the tunnels, the mines of Trottica, the shadow-majig that’d grabbed me, and clawed its way through my memories. For a brief moment, I relived it all in my head. The way I’d told the shadow to fuck off when it’d tried to nom on the only clear memory I have of my mother. The way the castle had taken to hunting me over the days that followed. How it had tricked me and dragged me under its tides of ink and shadow.

I thought of Luna. And Twink. And the candle that had saved me. Colonel Wormwood’s voice echoed inside my brain as I recalled the uphill struggle against the dark currents. “Find your light,” she had said. “And fight like hell to get to it.“

Could I tell any of this to Cranky? At all?! How was I supposed to let him know what’d happened without giving away that the world was gonna end?

We had a pact. Roseluck, Cliff Diver, Bananas Foster and me. And for good reason! Nopony could learn about my trips to the future, or we might screw everything up even worse.

“I, I, I…” I babbled like a foal, as my brain tried desperately to sort out what I was allowed to say and what I wasn't.

“It’s okay, kid.” Cranky knelt down beside me. “You can tell me.”

His reassuring words only made the secret harder to keep.

“I saw them in a dream.“ I said carefully. “The shadows - they messed with my memories. My most fragile ones, and uh...then I was trapped, but I, um...”

Cranky looked to me, all patient and gentle-like. I fucking hated it. It made me feel like total garbage for hiding things from him.

“Then...then, then…” I muttered - cringed - hid from his concernitty gaze 'till I just couldn't take it anymore. “I, I...I friendshipped them all to death! The end.“

Bloink bloink, went Cranky’s bloinkitty eyes.

I cringed. Turned away from him. Squeezed my eyes shut in embarrassment. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid stupid!

“You friendshipped them.” He repeated.

“Uh, yeah?”

“To death.” He said dryly.

“Yup.”

Cranky sighed. Rubbed his temples. “You can’t kill the shadows, kid.”

“What?“ I said. Suddenly feeling like the floor had dropped out from under me. I had expected him to raise an eyebrow at the use of ‘friendship’ as a verb. Not to refute my victory. “What do you mean you can’t kill ‘em?”

“They’re us, kid. The sum of our fear. Our guilt. Our hate. Can’t kill it. When there’s life, there’s death. When there’s light, there’s shadow.”

“So what do we do?” I whimpered.

Cranky took a deep breath. Put on his brave face for me again.

“Turn it inside out.“ He said. “The shadows are attracted to your darkness, but they can only hurt you with it if you let them. That’s why Travelers turn their troubles into song.”

“What do you mean Travelers? You keep talking about Travelers.”

“I’m not the only fella in history to take it upon himself to wander, kiddo. World’s full of drifters, and migrants, and sob stories - folks who set out on the road looking for a heart they can call home.”

He spoke as though these were distinct classes of Traveler pony. I didn't quite get what he was talking about, but I got the gist, so I nodded.

“Travelers have a way of finding one another.” He continued. “‘Cause, if in yer ramblings, you can’t snag a roof to lie under, well kiddo, you just gotta pitch a tent.” Cranky crouched down. Lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. His voice sounded like sandpaper. “But it ain’t safe out there alone, you understand what I'm saying?

“So folks come together, and set up campsites. There’s safety in numbers.” Cranky added emphatical-like.

“Safety from…” I shivered.

He nodded. “Shadows are drawn to lost souls. Love to feed on us. Pick us off. We got a lot of fear. A lot of darkness.”

Cranky licked his lips. Stared into the fire. “We’re easy pickens.” He said, his voice now little more than a gravelly rumble and a whisper. “The world doesn't miss us when we’re gone.”

“Is that what I am?” I whispered. “A ‘lost soul’?”

Cranky didn't answer at first. Just let the fire grumble some more in the silence between us as the question hung in the air.

“Dunno, kid.” He replied at last. “Are you?”

I wasn't sure. I looked to the fire for answers, but it wasn’t sure either.

The thing is, I had come really, really, really, close to running away from home. If I'd survived the sidetrack roots by magic or by fate, and if Zecora had turned out not to have any answers, I don't think I'd’ve been able to face the town again.

Or even my sister.

Just look at the vagrants that Cranky talked about! They’d fallen out of the song, they’d fallen prey to shadows on the road. They slept on the ground, and had no place to call home. That could have been me!

The very idea was a shock. I’d spent so much time getting thinky about the collapse of civilization - reading about it in Banana’s Foster's books; talking about it with Princess Luna; even watching it happen in my dreams - but I had never stopped to think that there might be able-bodied folks in the here-and-now who were closed off from it in the first place.

Outsiders looking in.

All it takes for anypony to end up like that is one really, really, reeeeeally bad day.

“Maybe.” I answered at last. “Maybe only half lost.” I put my empty mug down, and looked Cranky in the eye. “Thanks.” I added.

The ghost of a smile formed under the folds of his jowls. It was a warm smile. But it only lasted a moment. His eye accidentally strayed to my evil hoof again, and his lips tightened at the sight.

“This doesn't happen a lot,” I said, raising my hoof. “Does it?”

“I don't know.” He turned, and hid his eyes behind those floppy donkey ears of his.

I realized then that he'd never actually answered my initial question.

“You have seen this before, though, right?” I pressed in closer, practically shoving the hoof in his face. “Cranky, please, answer me.”

Cranky snuck a peek at me from behind his dangling ear. Sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “Once.”

“What happened?” I asked meekly.

His fear of the subject was starting to genuinely unnerve me. He was so candid about everything else.

“Her name was Daisy Belle," he replied. "And she was a regular at The Campsites. I didn’t know her personally. She was before my time. But to hear Old Mare McColt tell it, she used to be the kind of pony who could light up the night with her smile. You see, kid, Daisy Belle wasn’t like the rest of us ‘sad sacks’.” Again, Cranky used the term sad sack like it was a specific class of drifter. “Daisy Belle wandered ‘cause she was a clown in search of a circus.”

“A clown?”

“Yeah, but I don’t really know the details of it, kid. Some say she got thrown out of the circus - blacklisted for doing some horrific misdeed or another. Some say she had never been in a circus to begin with - that she was just starting out, trying to catch a break. Most don’t say anything at all, ‘cause, well, her clowning wasn’t really what she came to be known for, you know what I’m saying kid?”

I nodded solemnly.

“Point is, one day, a nasty blizzard showed up unannounced, and she disappeared into the night like so many others before her. The whole community was heartbroken over it. Everypony loved that girl, and everypony knew there was no point in hoping.” Cranky shook his head. “What the shadows take, they keep. That’s what we used to say.”

“But not Daisy Belle.” I interrupted.

Cranky shook his head. “She shows up eleven years later in a camp on the outskirts of Fillydelphia. Looking as young as the night she'd disappeared.”

“Okay.” I said. I was able to accept it casually. I’d seen weirder.

“Except she wasn't the same.” He paused to grab the poker with his teeth and prod at the log.

“Shadow hoof.” I said.

“Mmmmore than that," Cranky mumbled with his mouthful as he used his teeth to maneuver the poker back on its rack. “Shadow heart," he continued. “To hear Old Mare McColt tell it, the girl never smiled. Never clowned. And yeah, she was marked.”

Cranky pointed at my evil hoof with his nose. I held it up and re-examined it. I had never thought of my bad hoof as being “marked” before, but then again, I didn't know what the hell Cranky was talking about.

“But you don’t know any of that for sure,“ I said. “You just, kinda, you know..heard it.”

“No," Cranky said gravely. "I met Daisy Belle once. A long time ago. When she was old, and I was young. Believe me, that poor mare was haunted.”

“Oh," I replied. Unsure if that made matters better or worse.

“Listen, kid." Cranky knelt down beside me with a groan. "Daisy Belle may sound like a campfire story, and that’s probably my fault. It’s been so long, I don’t know how to tell it any other way. But here’s the bonafide objective truth – that hoof of hers saved us.”

“It did?”

Zebro, (or whatever the fuck his name was) back in No Mare’s Land had told me that the shadows would come for me because of my hoof. That it could be weaponized against them. That it had them running scared.

“She used that hoof for playing the blues," Cranky mused. “The old Daisy had no discernible talent for music. Her skills had been in tumbling, and juggling, and comedy, and magic tricks. But after she came back, Daisy Belle sang like her heart was on fire. And she was like a force of nature with that guitar! Her evil hoof bent those strings hard against the fretboard like they owed her money.”

I looked down at my own leg. Wondered if hidden under those inky veins and patches of darkness black as pitch was a secret magic - the kind that could grant me the power to totally shred on the guitar.

“What does that have to do with--;”

“She sang songs about the shadows, kid. Put words to what none of us dared to say out loud.”

“Bad luck?” I asked, remembering all the crazy paranoia and superstition stuff Cranky had put himself through before working up the nerve to get this shadow talk started.

“That’s the thing,“ he said. “As it turns out, it wasn't bad luck at all. When we turned them into song, our nightmares didn’t have power over us anymore. Sure, Travelers always used music to ward off evil spirits at night. Banging on barrels, and plucking on shoe box guitars. It's our tradition. Our way of staying relevant. Of feeling connected to the song, (since so many of us had fallen out of musical numbers, like you and me).”

Cranky leaned up against me with a wink and a nudge.

“Daisy took her sorrow, and sucked ours up too. She conjured the fear and the sadness of the whole damn world, and she turned it into music. And once she did that,”

Clop! Cranky clapped his forehooves together, all emphatical-like. “It became joy.”

“You can’t kill a shadow, kid. But you can change the shadow in you. Put it to work. Make it so it can’t hurt you anymore. So it can’t hurt anypony.”

“Find your light,” I said out of nowhere. “And fight like hell to get to it.“

Cranky cocked his head like a parrot. I had to try really, really hard not to laugh, as his wig slid sideways along his head, and his ears drooped sloppily about his face.

“I like that," he said. “You’re a smart kid.”

“Actually, it was Colonel Wormwood.“ I replied, and as the words left my mouth, I realized just how un-smart a kid I actually was. I was stupid - bone fucking stupid. ‘Cause my proclamation begged a question I didn't want to answer:

“Who’s Colonel Wormwood?” Cranky looked at me expectantly.

“Umm, uhhh...one of the ponies I told you about," I said, all awkward and stupid-like. “…You know, in my dreams.“

Cranky licked his lips. “Well, it’s a smart thing for this Wormwood pony to say.…in your dreams," he corrected himself. Though both he and I knew that I was holding back on that part of my story. But I didn’t care about my part of the story. I already knew my part of the story!

“What happened to Daisy Belle?“ I said.

Cranky wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead.

“Well, uh, she helped us all. That's for sure.“

“Yeah, but what happened with her hoof?“ I pressed him. Looked him square in the eye. He was starting to get avoidy.

“Well, gee,” he sighed at last. “To be honest with you, kid, it got bad. Real bad. The darkness spread. Swallowed up her leg, moved up her back, and face, and neck. By the time I met Daisy Belle, you could barely see her at all. She just seemed to recede. Like she was a part of the shadows in some dark corner.

“In the end, it spread to her heart.”

Cranky sighed. Looked away. “No one knows what happened after that. To be honest, kid, I think the shadows took her back.”

“Oh," I said.

I looked down at my hoof. Watched the fire dance around and bounce off the cream-colored fur above my knee. It seemed to flicker and turn warm shades of amber and pale marigold. Like a normal, healthy leg.

But not the shadow bits below. My bad hoof swallowed the light right up.

It made me hate the damn thing all over again. Why couldn't it be normal? Why couldn't I be normal? Was I destined to fade away like Daisy Belle? Were the inky parts spreading up the leg? I couldn't even tell! It had been less than two weeks. But what if it did start spreading?! What was i gonna do?

The thought of it drove me crazy.

All this time - ever since I’d first started having the dreams - I had been able to cope with the Apocalypse, with the war, with my own impendy death. ‘Cause even as I fought against it, and struggled to change the world, that doomsday countdown was still a long, long, looong way off. It’d never occurred to me that my escape from the shadows might just be borrowed time - that there were clocks on me - that my victories against them might only be prolonging something horrific and inevitable.

“Don't mean its gonna happen to you, kid.” Cranky reassured me out of the blue.

The suddenness of his words snapped me out of my funk. I quit my internal rambling, and looked up at the old donkey. Remembered where I was. What I was doing.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“I don't.” He shook his head grimly.

* * *

The two of us sat and watched the log burn. Just watched. There was a lot running through my mind. But I didn't need to think about it as long as I kept staring at that log. Cranky leaned a hoof on my shoulder, and together, we watched it blaze and crumble, and pop.

“So what do I do?” I asked quietly, almost to myself.

“You still wanna see that zebra witch?” Cranky asked in a dry, monotone voice.

I looked over to him. He had kind eyes. But they looked worn down and exhausted.

“‘Cause, uh...I can get you there.” He popped the cork off that bottle that smelt like wood varnish, gripped the whole thing with his teeth, and took a swig.

“Yeah," I nodded. "Let's do that.”

“Good,” he replied.

And once he set the bottle down, out of the way, I leaned my head under his.

“But please, not today," I added.

“Mmm," Cranky grunted in agreement. “Tomorrow it is, kiddo.”

And then, together we watched in silence as the log slowly burned and crumbled into ash.

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

As a special thank you to all of my patrons, I'm starting a Patreon exclusive blog, Behind the Hooves of Fate, where I share stories about the development of HoF, the inspiration, talk about writing, and share some real life anecdotes that inspired events in HoF.

Ominous Scribbles

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - OMINOUS SCRIBBLES
“The Universe loves a drama, you know.
And Ladies and a Gentlemen, this is the show.” - Paul Simon

Roseluck picked me up from Cranky’s. It was all hugs and kisses and stuff, peppered with the cacophony of grown-up chit-chat between my sister and the two old donkeys. I’m not gonna get into the details ‘cause it was all mega boring.

But once Roseluck and I finally did head out, something strange happened. We grew silent. Awkward. At the weirdest possible time. There were a hundred billion things we shoulda said to one another, but neither one of us said them. We just sorta trudged home quietly instead. Glad to be reunited. Too tired to poke one another's hornets nests.

When we finally got home, Roseluck and I didn't talk much then either. I went straight to bed and spent the evening exploring freaky weird tumultuous dreams. There was no future in them, thank Luna. No bomb. No mega spells. No shadows. Just pudding, and these pirates who had to sail through the Pudding Sea, except that they couldn’t ‘cause it was made outta pudding, so they needed me to eat my way through it, but when I got down there, there was an evil kraken monster I had to fight, which, for no reason that I could decipher, was made entirely out of books.

* * *

I woke up to a dark, dark room. Peered out my window at a moonless night sky. The New Moon. I couldn’t tell if it was really, really late, or really, really early. Probably that weird limbo in between.

That's what you get for going to sleep before the sun even has a chance to go down.

I wiped the eyeball crust from off my face, and rolled out of bed. Went straight for a satchel in the corner - stuff Cranky had leant me. Books. Old blues records. Covers of Daisy Belle’s “shadow music” as performed by ponies with bizarre names like Blind Lemon Meringue, and Smoky Oats Hooveson.

It was so fucking weird to see these grizzled ponies posing by their farms and broken old street corners. They seemed a thousand duckyverses away from the big lights and flashy costumes I was accustomed to seeing on the covers of Sapphire Shores records.

I was tempted to give the blues a listen right then and there - to explore Cranky’s world - to hear the music that legendarily turned shadow lemons into not-shadow-lemonade! But my stomach wouldn’t have it.

‘Bitch, get your flank down to the kitchen and feed me,' it blurbled.

“Okay, okay, okay,” I whispered as I stacked the records neatly on my desk, and hurried to the door.

Creeeeeeeeaaak.

The hinges groaned so hard I could feel the vibrations in the wood.

Dammit!

I stopped. Cringed. Listened. But the hallway was silent. I hadn’t woken my sister.

Good.

I sighed. I did not wanna get lassoed into having ‘the talk’ in the middle of the fucking night. I just needed to duck downstairs for some bread or jam or something.

I stepped out into the hallway, and crept over moaning floorboards all the way to the stairs. Then I set myself on the super-boring task of tip-hooving down them. One. At. A. Time. I had never really thought about it before, ‘cause I’m usually the first one asleep and the last one awake. But now that I was trying to sneak around, the passage to the kitchen suddenly seemed like a gauntlet of noisy planks.

They moaned like ghosts.

Croooak. Croooak.

Ghosts of what exactly? I couldn't be sure. Trees maybe? It didn't matter. The important thing was that they were out to get me. Brooding and conspiring to mess up my plans, and wake my sister. Plotting to keep me from eating bread.

“Shhh!" I snapped in frustration as the bottom stair screamed under my weight. “Fucking tree ghosts!”

Finally, I reached the bottom, and my hoof felt carpeting. Sweet, silent carpeting. It was such a huge relief, that I spun around that very second, and stuck my tongue out defiantly at the stairs.

But it didn't help. I still felt like a fool.

‘Cause: a) they’re stairs; taunting them is stupid; and b) it hadn’t resolved p!, which is what had actually bothered me in the first place.

I still had so many questions shaking around the inside of my head.

What was Roseluck gonna say when I told her what I had done? The musical number? The freak out? The little girl cowering for sweet mercy?

Did Roseluck already know? I couldn't tell! And which scenario was worse? Having to explain it all from scratch? Or the possibility that my sister might’ve been sitting quietly on a mountain of disappointment all evening.

I opened the pantry door. Stuck my head in, grabbed a jar of boysenberry jam with my teeth. And suddenly found myself face to face with an empty shelf. The empty shelf. Where Mom’s tea used to be.

I shut my eyes. Tried not to look. But that turned out to be a bad idea.

‘Cause Wham! I clocked my head against something or other and found myself on the floor. Teeth aching. Jaw aching too. Mouth full of jar.

“Owwww,” I groaned as I slid myself across the floor and out of the pantry. Crawled all the way to the kitchen table and climbed up a wicker chair. And that's when I saw it. The folder.

Ever since I started school, whenever I got in trouble, I'd always come home to an empty kitchen table with an envelope on it, (or a stack of papers, or a teacher's note, or a folder, or whatever). It was Roseluck’s way of letting me know that she was on to me.

And here it was now. A folder from Ponyville General Hospital. She must have readied it after I’d stormed out of the house. I twisted the dial on a nearby oil lamp ‘till the kitchen was just bright enough to read, then plunged my face into the folder. It held a small stack of forms. The bottom was just a bunch of charts stapled together, but right on top - the papers that Roseluck super-obviously wanted me to see - were sheets labeled Patient Aftercare, and Conditions of Discharge.

The paragraphs of printed words up top were gobbledegook, (‘cause forms and documents-and-stuff never make any sense). And I swear whoever’d filled out the rest of it had quillmanship worse than mine! It looked like the kind of homework assignment Miss Cheerilee would turn away, and make you start from scratch.

But the important stuff still managed to leap out at me. Terms like: substance abuse; self harm; suicidal tendencies; and the ever terrifying, released upon condition of observation.

“Shut up!” I snapped out loud at the paperwork as my hooves began to tremble.

But of course the paperwork didn't answer.

So I just growled at it and turned the page. Read up on the psych ward where Screw Loose was being kept. Where I might end up someday if they couldn't figure out what else to do with me! The brochure made it look like a spa retreat for crazies. There were photos of the facility in its heyday, with super happy fake nurses helping super happy fake inmates learn to draw and to play checkers. Everypony involved looked like a professional model, minus the duck face.

It occurred to me then that Nurse Redheart might’ve had her own reasons for letting me visit with Screw Loose. But why exactly? Had she been hoping to acquaint the staff with me, a future lunatic? That couldn’t be it. I hadn't actually met with anypony. Had she been hoping to scare me straight by showing me the real nut hatch? That didn't seem very professional.

Maybe she just had a soft spot? Maybe she was keeping two sad sack, crazy ass friends together? Maybe she cared? I couldn't tell! So I turned the page. Kept reading.

The back of the brochure was all about “Outpatient Services.” Whatever that meant. I could tell that it was important ‘cause the whole page was circled.

It had a photo of a businesspony lying on a couch with her suit wide open, and her tie undone. Another, showed a bunch of ponies sitting in a circle, talking about their problems or whatever. A third photo depicted a mustached therapist extending a hoof full of tissues. That sort of thing.

Below it all was a space for notes. And the words “Psych Intake Recommended” were written there, and underlined, right next to a signature and some numbers.

“Sweet Celestia!” I whispered. They were gonna take me in!

With trembling hooves, I read on. Studied the whole folder to try to get a clue. To maybe get some answers to my seven million questions. One page at a time. I even pored over the charts and hospital scribblings I had no hope of understanding.

I read it all. And every page made me more and more nauseous. The outrage, the betrayal, the fear, and the confusion all twisted my insides into a pretzel. But most of all, it made me feel alone.

I had turned my back on my sister for doing what she’d had to. Because of trouble that I had brought down on our family. Worse yet, I’d fucked any chance we might ever have had of going back to normal! Of letting this all blow over.

I'd had a gigantic break down in front of the whole damn town. Everypony knew that I was violent and unstable. A lunatic. A basket case. Or as the stupid paperwork said again, and again, and again, "a danger to herself."

There was no coming back from that.

My hooves trembled as I read, but when I got to the end of the stack, I looked it over once more. Wondered who the fuck had even evaluated me in the first place, and who had made these ridiculous notes! Nurse Redheart? The Purple Professional? Miss Cheerilee? Nopony had invited me onto a couch or asked me about my mom or any of that therapist junk. So where did any of these ponies get the nerve to write up charts and stuff about my mind-brain?

It made no sense! So I read through the whole thing yet again. Studied every microscopic detail several times over - ran it all through my mind until I was just plain staring at the paper blankly. Unable to read the words at all.

It was only then that I finally noticed something new. Something weird about the packet itself that I'd overlooked while obsessing over the content. There was a tiny tear on the corner. A little speck of paper clinging to the inside of the staple.

A page had been torn out. There was more somewhere. Something so bad, Roseluck didn't want me to see it!

Okay, I know that sounds paranoid, but you gotta understand. Whenever my sister left teacher’s notes on the table, or report cards, or letters from neighbors about broken windows, she always hid the worst from me. I’d seen her tuck correspondence and stuff away when she thought I wasn’t looking.

So there was no doubt about it. Roseluck was hiding something from me. Something undoubtedly worse than what I had already seen. But I had no idea what. (I just knew that none of the loose pages in the folder had torn corners to match).

With a thundering heart, I slid the chair out from under me. Turned around and glowered at the kitchen drawer as though it were a bitter enemy.

Roseluck had probably left in a hurry when Old Lady Matilda came for her. And even before that, she’d been flustered and angry. Ranting about how ungrateful I was, I’m sure. Whenever my sister was in a rush, she always put her super secret things in the same old junk drawer by the window.

I crept toward it with shaking knees.

What was I gonna find in there? What could be worse than what I already saw? What if I found nothing? What if it was empty? What if my sister had hidden the secret page already - stashed it away real good - and I never got to find out what it said?!

Worse yet, what if there was no secret page at all, and I was being stupid, and I ended up worrying about this forever and ever and ever, unable to ask Roseluck about it directly?!

I made it to the drawer. Swallowed hard. Sucked in a deep breath. Opened my teeth, closed my eyes, and reached for the little brass handle.

“Hey," came a soft voice from behind.

“Ahh!“ I spun around, pressed my back against the drawer.

Roseluck ambled out of the dark and into the kitchen. She was rubbing her eyes.

“What are you doing up?“ I said, as I maneuvered myself away from the junk drawer so as not to arouse suspicion.

“It sounded like you went bowling in the pantry.“ Roseluck groaned. “I couldn't get back to sleep after that.”

“Oh,” I said softly. “Sorry .”

Roseluck grunted in reply, waved a hoof at me, all dismissive-like, as if to say, don’t even worry about it. Then she plopped herself down in front of the table, and without a lot of fanfare, set herself to the task of straightening out all of the hospital papers, and stacking them neatly.

She wasn’t trying to draw attention to them or drop a hint or anything. Roseluck just liked a tidy stack.

“I should have told you," she said, sliding the neat and orderly folder to the side. “You’re old enough to know. I’m sorry.”

It shook me upside down, and flipped my brain inside out. To hear those words. You’re old enough. I had been braced for just about anything - a lecture, a rant, a suitcase packed with all my worldly belongings, as she sent me out into the world, and locked the door behind me. I wasn’t expecting a trust bomb.

I wondered again if she knew about the musical number. About Kettle Corn. About the fact that I had screwed up so colossally that everypony at the nut hatch was bound to find out about it, and come after me with a giant net.

“I’m sorry, too," I replied. “Uh, about, you know...” I laughed. “Everything.”

Roseluck nodded. Yawned. “Ooowrr.”

Her jaw spread wide open as she threw her forehooves apart and streeeeetched. But she didn’t respond. Not really. Not to what I'd actually said. It left me worried.

“Speaking of things I’m sorry for,“ I cringed. Cast my eyeballs downward in shame and stared at my hooves. “Did you hear? About, uh...what, um...happened this morning?”

Roseluck sighed. “Yeah,” she said. “I heard.”

I gritted my teeth. Squeezed my eyes shut so tightly that my whole face crinkled up like a paper bag. And then I waited for Roseluck to say something. Anything. But she didn’t.

So I peeked. And to my surprise she wasn’t even staring at me, judgey-like.

Roseluck just looked exhausted. Used up. Like a dish towel that had been rung out to dry too many times, and tossed aside.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her,“ I whispered.

“I know," she said dryly, rubbing her temples.

That was the best that Roseluck had to offer: “I know.”

“So what do we do?” I squeaked.

“I have no idea, Rose Petal," she buried her head in her hooves. “None.”

It scared me. The utter lack of reassurances. The uncertainty. Roseluck had always been the anxious type - the kinda pony who freaks out at the first sign of trouble - but I’d never seen her so resigned before. So hopeless. So bare.

“I’m gonna make this right," I said.

Roseluck didn't reply. I may have as well have been shouting it in an empty cave, and listening to my own echo.

“I’m gonna apologize," I squeaked. “I’m gonna explain. I don’t know what to say yet that doesn’t involve, you know, like, shadows, and trips to the future in my brain, and stuff.”

“Rose Petal," my sister said, head still buried in her hooves.

“There’s got to be something," I kept on rambling. “Some way.”

“Rose," she grumbled my name a second time.

“There has to be.” My voice kept cracking - no, not just cracking - shattering into a thousand tiny shrill little pieces as my brains scrambled like crazy for a solution. “Maybe if I give everyone in town a giant cake! I mean, I’ll have to learn how to bake cakes first. But it can’t be that hard. Can it? What if I—;”

“Rose," my sister said my name a third time. Softly, but sternly. There was so much iron her voice that she didn’t even need to raise it.

“Wuh?”

I stopped mid-sentence, and pricked up my ears.

“I need you to listen, and listen closely," she said. “Can you do that for me?”

I nodded.

“I get that you wanna make amends. I’m all for it," she said slowly, softly. “In time, the town will come around. ‘Cause Ponies? Well, at the end of the day, we forgive. It’s who we are.”

I smiled faintly.

“But that doesn’t mean they’ll forget. Or that they’ll trust you. Baking a cake and saying you’re sorry? That just isn’t enough this time, Rose.

'The folks at the hospital. The kids at school. Your doctors, your teacher - it isn’t enough for them to believe that you’re sorry, they need to believe that you are, um…” Roseluck looked to the ceiling. Struggled for the right word. “Um...How do I put this?”

“Normal," I whispered.

My sister bit her lip and nodded. “Yeah. I know you’re going through a lot of…Not normal stuff right now.”

I broke out laughing. ‘Cause yeah, I was going through some seriously not normal shit.

“Hahahahah," I laughed so hard, I fell on the floor. Even though there was nothing funny about it. I laughed because it was too much. Because of all the stuff I’d been put through since the whole thing started – this was both the dumbest fucking thing I was gonna have to do, and the hardest.

'Cause there was no adventure. No cosmic voice. No rhyme or reason. No urgent call of right and wrong. And mostly, 'cause it crossed a line that I hadn’t even realized was there.

See, I had been prepared to be a background pony in my travels to the future. In places, and times, and worlds far from home. But to be a background pony here? In my own life? To have to prioritize pretending. Hiding?!

It was too much.

“Rose Petal?” My sister leaned over me, concernitty. Trying to get me to stop laughing.

“I have a hoof…” I heaved, struggling for breath as I giggled and wailed. “... That is scientifically confirmed…to be made…out of evil.“

And it was going to eat my heart one day too, (though I'd never tell my sister that). It was gonna kill me slowly like Daisy Belle.

As I rolled on the floor, laughing, I had this image of myself getting dragged into the abyss, drowning in darkness, slowly fading from the world, and all the while pretending to smile, using my dying breath to say to the world, “I’m fine. I’m fine. I swear, I'm fine. I’m normal.”

My sister didn’t say a word. Just watched, stunned and paralyzed, as I coughed and I laughed. Gasped for air. Squirmed around on the floor like a filly at the end of a good old fashion game of let’s see who can get the dizziest. And the next thing I knew, I wasn’t laughing anymore. I was sobbing. Bawling. My face buried in my sister’s lap as she stroked my mane.

* * *

About an hour later, I found myself lying in bed staring at the ceiling, wishing I could sleep. I wasn’t tired, just desperate - thirsty for an opportunity to forget for a while - to not have to think about anything. I lay there and begged Princess Luna, and the hornets, and the voices, and everything else that I could think of to help me hide - to disappear into my dreams for just a few hours.

Even Wasteland sleep would have been preferable.

But it didn’t come. And when I finally gave up trying, I found myself out of bed, standing by the window. Looking out at the night sky.

There was still no moon of course. No sun neither. Just a thousand stars and that pale gray light that seems to hide behind the horizon when twilight is on its way, but hasn't quite announced itself yet.

On a whim, I flung the window open, and right away, the cold clopped me in the face. Woke me right up. But even more jarring was the strange quiet that came with it.

The air was sooooooo still - motionless in that special way that only a snow-draped night can be. In an instant, all my troubles slid away like a cold draft under the door. And I was left alone, just me and the stars.

I couldn’t let that feeling stop. I wouldn’t! It was simply too sublime.

In desperation and excitement, I hurried downstairs as quietly as I could, threw on my coat and hat and boots and scarf, and left a note for Roseluck in case she woke.

When I finally stepped out onto that pastoral scene, right away I felt like I’d become a part of it. It had been a long, long time since I’d gotten to enjoy one of Princess Luna’s beautiful nights, and now, almost like a belated Hearth’s Warming gift, I had one all to myself!

I got walking. The quiet was so heavy that the crunch of snow under my boots seemed loud enough to wake the dead. I almost feared that ponies were gonna poke their heads out their windows and yell at me to keep it down.

But they kept sleeping. And I kept moving.

Ponyville finally felt like home again. Every inch of it was something I recognized. Every cottage, every tree! But I had some quiet now. I didn’t have to worry about being judged, or being sorry, or being normal. I was just sorta being. And it felt good. It felt peaceful.

At least ‘till swooshle swooshle! A rustling sound came up from behind me. I stopped. Turned. Looked, but there was nothing. That quiet that I had loved so much now filled me with dread.

“Hello?” I said softly.

Scanning every shadow and nook for signs of danger.

“Hi," came a voice from behind me.

“Ah!” I spun, and flailed, and fell.

When I looked up, there was Pinkie Pie, masked by silly eyeglasses with fake eyebrows and a funny nose attached. There was a frown behind it all. Deflated hair, and sad, desperate eyes. Everything about Pinkie looked just plain wrong, and, well, un-Pinkie.

“We need to talk,” she said. “About yesterday.”

“Oh," I shut my eyes. Winced as if she were about to hit me. But Pinkie put her hoof on mine.

“Rose Petal,“ she said softly. “I am sooooo sorry.”

“You’re sorry?!” I squeaked.

“I only wanted to lift everypony’s spirits,” she rambled back at me. Her lips moved so fast they looked like hummingbird wings. “And I wanted to make them smile so badly even though we all had so much work to do and the snow just seemed like so much fun but then everything got too big too fast and I forgot all about you. Even though I knew this was gonna happen.”

Crunch. Pinkie plunged her face into the snow.

“You...knew?”

The shock of it was dizzying. Not like, oh sweet mercy, how could you do this to me kind of shock. More like a what the fuck are you talking about kind of shock.

Pinkie Pie sat up. Brushed the snow and the silly glasses off her face.

“Well, not exactly, but I should have known," she said.

Before I could even ask why or how, a lock of Pinkie’s mane stretched itself out and passed me an index card. It was a scribble drawing. Two fillies, (clearly Kettle Corn and me judging by the color scheme), falling from a citadel made of ice as lightning struck the top and the whole structure crumbled to pieces.

The bottom of the card read “The Tower.”

“I drew it the night of the blizzard," Pinkie said, all sad and deflated still. Not Pinkie-like at all.

“That’s me!” I said.

“Yeah," she answered somberly.

“And Kettle Corn!”

“Mhm.”

“H-How?” I said.

“With crayons," Pinkie moped out an answer.

“No,” I said, still unsure of what I was looking at. “How did you know?”

I flipped the card over, looked at it left and right and upside down, like I was gonna find some kinda trap door on it somewhere.

Even though I’d seen weirder things. Even though I’d done weirder things. It really shouldn’t have come as such a shock to me. But in all my dealings with fate, I’d always been the wildcard. I had always been the Background Pony. The secret agent. The outsider who swept in and made sure everything went down the way it was supposed to.

This?! This was different. This was about me!

“I dunno." Sad Pinkie shrugged. “It’s a tarot card. I was gonna make a deck just for you. It was supposed to be for your birthday.”

She said that word with so much anguish. Birthday. Like a ruined birthday surprise was the worst thing that could possibly happen to anypony.

“But that’s...”

“167 days away," she sighed. “I know. But it would’ve been soooo perfect.”

“Uh...That’s okay.” I said, patting her shoulder with my snow-crusted boot. Though inside, all of my Rose Voices were screaming at me, for once in unison: What’s on the other cards?!

“Hey!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, cheerful all of a sudden-like. “Wanna see what’s on the other car—;?”

“YES!” I exploded before she could even finish her sentence.

Then I shoved my hooves in my mouth. 'Cause the whole town was still sleeping.

Pinkie’s face made a squeaky sound and burst into an enormous smile. “Great," she said.

Faster than I could blink, Pinkie Pie yanked me aside into a tent that hadn’t been there a moment before; and sat me in front of a crystal ball that also had not been there a moment before; and straightened out a great big poofy hat that had definitely not been on her head a moment before.

“I can’t give you an actual reading until your birthday when the whole deck is done,” she said. “Buuut it just so happens that nine days ago was your half birthday, so it’s the perfect time to show off the first half of your deck!” She giggled.

“Please do," I whispered.

“Okie dokie, Loki.” Pinkie produced a small stack of index cards from under her hat. “Now how much do you know about The MyStEriEs Of ThE TaaAaRoT?”

Pinkie warbled her voice, all sing-songitty. Strangely enough, it echoed somehow.

“Only what I read in Pinkbeard and the Soothsayer’s Curse.” I replied.

“Oooh!” Pinkie exclaimed. “That's a good one.”

“I know," I said, though I didn't really feel up to talking about pirates at the moment.

Pinkie slid an index card across the table, face down. I took it, eyed it suspiciously, afraid of what I might see on the other side. Would there be answers? Would there be nonsense? Was I working myself up over nothing? A silly card game? A coincidence?

The whole thing just seemed so weird and out of the blue.

“Go ahead,” Pinkie said. “Turn it over!”

I nodded grimly and flipped the card.

It was a drawing of me, wearing some kind of silly jester hat, cheerfully marching off a cliff, as dogs snapped at my heel. Far off in the corner was a little black triangle and a cluster of wild orange scribbles - a house burning in the background.

As I ran my hoof over the paper, musing on its meaning, I thought of the dogs I’d heard on my first night in the Wasteland, when I’d followed the cloak-o’s. They’d gone totally berserk with howling and barking as I fell off of that hill overlooking the village that the cloak-o’s had burned. And I’d heard them again when I fell off that platform inside the mines of Trottica, and grabbed onto Misty’s tail, and got his hair caught in my teeth!

Maybe I was looking too deep into it. Maybe I was scrambling for meaning where there were really only scribbles, but even without the tarot card, it was still a big damn question that had been bugging me ever since the whole thing started.

“Why cliffs?“ I said. “Why dogs?”

“The cards are like a story," Pinkie replied. “The Foal card is the very, very, very beginning, when you’re not so smart and don’t know what’s going on.“

Pinkie Pie leaned across the table, tapped the card.

“Dogs like to protect us. Warn us when there’s danger.”

“So...you’re saying I’ve been hearing brain dogs barking at me across time and space...because of some weird symbolism in a fortune telling game?”

“No, silly. The brain dogs are on the card because that’s how it works in real life! At least when you’re about to fall off a brain cliff.”

“Yeah, but what if it’s not a brain cliff?” I asked. “What if it’s, like, a cliff made out of time and space and duckies and stuff?”

I couldn't believe how stupid it all sounded when I said it out loud.

“Weeeell, in that case, you’re definitely going to hear brain dogs, silly." Pinkie giggled. “That’s what brain dogs are for!“

“I see," I said, and marveled to myself just how much, and how little I’d managed to learn at the same time.

“The next card in the deck is called The Magician," Pinkie continued. She made her voice echo again too. Magician. Magician. Magician.

She slid me the card. I flipped it over. And there was Misty Mountain, a pony that Pinkie Pie couldn’t possibly have ever have seen or met. But it was still undeniably him. A blue colt with tight purple hair. A douchey smile. A cutie mark of the mist and the mountains, (a triangle and a squiggle).

Misty’s hooves were outstretched, one pointing to the sky, one pointing below, and there was super cool lightning and stuff all around his horn. At least it looked like lightning.

“It’s Misty,“ I babbled.

“No it isn’t,” Pinkie replied. “It’s snowy out.”

She pulled open the tent flap to show me the wintery landscape outside.

“No,“ I gestured frantically at the card. “That’s my friend, Misty Mountain!”

“Oh. That’s strange,“ Pinkie Pie said. “I’m friends with everypony, but I’ve never even heard the name Misty Mountain before.”

“Not here,” I said. “On the other side of my ducky cliff.”

“Ah, gotcha." She tapped her noggin conspiratorially. It was a little alarming how easy it was for her to understand my Rose talk.

“The Magician is a good friend for The Foal to have,” she continued. “Instead of frolicking off of ducky cliffs, he has control, ‘cause he’s got two hooves in each world.”

I nodded, ’cause I didn't know what else to say. And before I could even begin to formulate a thought, Pinkie slapped down a third card, and slid it across the table.

This one came to me upside down. It was called “The High Priestess,” and you can probably guess who was on it. That Trottica bitch, draped in crimson robes speckled with daisies. Just like the cloaks they all wore in her crazy whackadoo town. She sat there, all calm and serene on her throne, cradling little curly-q’s (that I gathered were supposed to be her sacred scrolls). She was flanked by two pillars, one black, one white.

“Ahhhhh!” I said when I laid eyes on her. “What’s this card mean? Is it the jerk card? For jerks?”

“What? No," Pinkie replied. “The High Priestess is wise and fair.”

She stopped to scratch her head. “That is unleeeeeess...” she sang out that word like an opera singer holding a super high note. “...You get the card upside down. Which you did! Then it’s a jerk card for jerks who aren’t in touch with their feelings.”

“That sounds about right.”

We went through the rest of the unfinished deck carefully. And it all lined up. I didn't have a clue what any of the cards meant. I just knew that Pinkie Pie had drawn my life. And it was really fucking weird. Even for Pinkie Pie. Even for me.

Wormwood was there. The Empress. A symbol of benign authority - of leadership, and power. At least that's how Pinkie explained it.

Princess Luna was The Moon card. Of course. But the drawing didn't show just her. It showed the door I’d found in the middle of her dream meadow. The passageway to No Mare’s Land. And right there next to her was Screw Loose, the Wanderer, in her weird giant dog form, howling upwards at the night sky.

There was even a card for the bomb. Judgment, whatever that means. I shot up out of my seat when that one slid across the table.

“Yeah, this worried me too.” Pinkie said when she saw the shock on my face.

She pointed to the card. The cloud shaped like a mushroom. The green mist. The scratchy texture and frantic crayon strokes that reminded me of the chaos, and the pain, and the screams I had heard on my way to the future.

“You know what this is?“ Pinkie asked, sounding actually surprised for the first time.

“Who? Me?” I said, remembering my friends and our secrecy pact. “No! I’ve never seen that explosion before in my life!”

“Hmm.” Pinkie scratched her chin and examined the card, but only for a second. When that concernitty moment was gone, she burst into a smile, totally out of the blue. “Maybe it’s just a brain explosion, not like...an explosion explosion.”

“Maybe,“ I said, averting my eyes.

“Don’t worry,“ she put her hoof on my shoulder. “It’s gotta be! We have the Elements of Harmony! Nothing like that could ever happen. Not, like, an explosion explosion.”

I nodded grimly. Tried not to give away what I knew.

“...And if it is just a brain explosion, that’s a good thing! Judgement is one of the last of the picture cards. And after that, we start the story all over again.“ Pinkie Pie made circles over the table with her hooves, and pointed back at The Foal card. “New Foal. New challenges. New brain cliff. New dogs. New adventures!”

“What does that even mean?” I said, as I sat back down, and looked over the cards on the table, trying to make sense of it all.

“It means that everything starts over eventually. That’s part of why life so exciting. Like birthday parties! You get to have one birthday party every year. Just one. And each year, even if you have the same eclairs, and the same hay and green apple sandwiches, and —;”

“Omigosh!” I said, suddenly remembering all the awesome snacks I only ever had on my birthday. “I love those.”

“I know!” Pinkie giggled. “And even though you eat the same foods every year, and play a lot of the same games, every birthday is still different in its own special way. And every anniversary. And half birthday. And summer break. You never get ‘em back. That’s what makes them all so amazingly extra special!”

I smiled at her exuberance. I couldn’t help it, even if I had no idea how any of it connected to the tarot, and the future, and all the crazy life-and-death, light-and-shadow stuff that was going on.

“Granny Pie once told me that the world’s the same exact way. It’s like a little kid that loves to tell the same story again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.”

“Wuh?”

“Like me!” Pinkie Pie continued. “I’m the Element of Laughter. I’m not the first Element of Laughter. I won’t be the last. I’m probably not even the best, but I’m definitely the me-est. And you?” Pinkie started flipping through the cards I’d looked at already. The Magician. The Empress. The High Priestess. “You’re saying aaaaall of this actually happened to you?”

“Yeah.” I nodded somberly.

“Ooh!” She shrieked. “Then you’re probably living the story of The Foal!”

“I don’t know the story of the foal," I said.

“That's such a The Foal thing to say.” PInkie giggled.

“Please tell me! What am I supposed to do? How is the story supposed to end?!“

“And ruin the surprise?!” Pinkie gasped. One of those gigantic Pinkie Pie gasps that lasts a solid ten or eleven seconds.

“I’m sorry.” I cringed. “I’m just kinda, well...scared.”

“Aww,” Pinkie replied. “I know it’s hard, especially after those last couple of cards, but you’re here now. You won! You can handle whatever the future throws at you. You just have to remember to laugh.“

“Laugh?”

“Yeah! Beating your fears is easy once you learn how to laugh at them. And I know you. You have a great sense of humor.”

“Thanks," I said, wondering if she would think the same if she knew what I knew. If she could really giggle away a massive war full of hate and bombs and real explosions. Explosion explosions.

I let that question run through my head over and over again, ‘till suddenly, I realized what she had actually said.

“Wait!” I whisper-shouted. “Last couple of cards?!”

The other cards she had shown me weren’t scary at all. Only the one. Judgment.

“Ooops.” Pinkie blushed and let out an awkward little laugh. “Yeah, I guess I should finish showing you these, huh?”

Pinkie rummaged through the deck, muttering to herself. “Blank card, blank card, High Priestess, Foal, Judgment, blank card, blank card, here we go!”

She straightened out her big poofy hat, and with great pomp and ceremony, waved her hooves in the air, laid the next card on the table, and slid it to me.

I turned it over, and right away, everything about the picture gave me an uneasy feeling.

The name of the card was The Emperor, and it was an earth pony. Blood red. Sitting on a throne. An iron crown topped his long black mane. And a big chunk of his face had metal on it too. A glowing red eye was built right into the steel plate that covered its socket.

It was a cold eye. Almost mechanical. Somehow.

And while the card itself may only have been crayon scratches like all the others, when my hooves stroked the oak tag, a chill ran up my leg, and tingles shot across my spine. For a brief tiny thunderous moment, I saw something in my head. A sharper image of that same pony. So close I could almost touch him.

In that instant, I knew that the only thing colder or crueler than the look in his fake glowy red eye, was the look in his real one.

I pulled away. Leapt out of my chair. Gasped for air.

“You know him too?” Pinkie said sadly.

I shook my head no.

“Oh," Pinkie said. And for a while there was an uneasy quiet as we both got contemplatey over the implications of that. The scary pony I’d still have to face somewhere down the line.

“Well,” Pinkie Pie broke the silence. “At least he’s not upside down.”

The sentiment was hardly soothing, but it did leave me wondering what the hay was going on.

“Of course, upside down doesn’t necessarily mean evil," Pinkie took to rambling. “And right side up doesn’t necessarily mean good. It just means that it isn’t Opposite Day.”

“Well, what does The Emperor card mean?” I said. “...When it isn't Opposite Day?”

“Power," Pinkie replied. “Determination. Personal responsibility.”

“I see," I replied. “Hardly reassuring coming from that guy.”

“Yeah," Pinkie said. “And that’s not even the scary card."

“It’s not?”

A lock of Pinkie’s mane stretched out and slid another index card across the table. I recoiled. I didn’t wanna touch it. Not after what The Emperor card had done to me.

Pinkie Pie reached across the table and turned it over for me. The card was called The Evil.* And it was a filly. Just a little yellow filly. Smiling.

I couldn’t put my hoof on it at first. But there was something wrong about her. Something, well…Evil. Like the card said. Even though the girl looked pretty normal. (No sinister eyebrows slanted down, or crooked grin, or lightning bolts shooting out of her eye sockets or any of the things you might expect to see on an evil tarot card). But then I noticed the background.

The little girl was standing in front of an ugly stone wall. No crayon came in that particular shade of dismal gray, but the blotchy speckled mixture of crayon stabs that Pinkie had made - they somehow came together to give the impression of stone. Walls I had seen before. In my vision of the castle’s past.

And when I looked at it hard enough, the speckles started turning into one of those eyeball games, and I could suddenly perceive a smudge on the wall – the little girl’s shadow. It’d been easy to miss at first, but once I saw it, there was no way I could ever unsee.

The shadow was long and sinister, not like the girl’s shape at all. It had thin inky tendrils and dark smoky claws. It seemed to loom from behind her. And look straight at me. Right through the card. I didn’t know who that girl was, but there was a whole lot more to her than met the eye.

I thought back to what Bananas Foster had said about the shadows. How they systematically made sadists out of children. Gave them the choice of becoming torturers, or remaining the tortured.

Was this little filly one of those? The Inquisitor? The one let loose upon the world that Bananas Foster was destined to hunt and bring back to the castle? Was this the evil one that Foster wanted to kill so badly?

The one she wanted to friendship to death?

“What does The Evil card mean?“ I whispered. My throat had suddenly gone dry and scratchy.

“It means evil. Duh!” Pinkie replied. “Evil, and Temptation. But I don’t get this one at all.”

“Yeah,“ I said, trying not to let on. “Me neither.”

I stared blankly at the table. Let my eyes go out of focus. Tried not to think about that card. But still, I couldn't help but wonder if Pinkie had even noticed the shadow that she’d drawn.

“I’m supposed to be acting normal," I said, out-of-the-bluishly. I know it was the least of my problems, but it just sorta spilled out. “I’m supposed to be blending in.“

“What?! Why would you want to do a silly thing like that?“ Pinkie said.

“Because," I replied. “I hurt somepony yesterday. And the whole town is gonna wanna know what’s wrong with me. And I have to find a way to pretend that nothing’s wrong with me. And I don't know how.”

“But that’s not possible," Pinkie protested. “There’s already nothing wrong with you.”

“Thanks.” I smiled faintly.

“And if you’re worried about what everypony thinks, you can make it up to them by just giving everyone in town a huge giant cake!”

“Baking a cake and saying I’m sorry isn’t gonna be enough this time, Pinkie. The problem isn’t getting everypony to forgive me. It’s getting them to believe that I’m not crazy.”

“Then we’ll make donuts too. A huuuuge pile of them with sprinkles, and cream on the inside, and some of them...“ She leaned in real super-close like she was telling me some kinda state secret from the vaults of the Canterlot Archives. “Will eeeeven have cream on the inside, aaand sprinkles.”

“Pinkie,” I tried to plead with her, but she wouldn’t let me get a word in.

“Listen,“ she said forcefully. “Everypony in town thinks I’m crazy. Nopony cares! Do you know why?“

I shook my head no.

“Because I make them smile, silly.”

“But that’s your talent. I’m uh...” I laughed. “Going through a lot of not-normal stuff right now. And I don’t think I can just smile my way through it.”

“Then I’ll do it for you!” She exclaimed. “You make things right with Kettle Corn, and leave the town up to me.”

“Really?”

Pinkie nodded. “Cross my heart and hope to fly. Stick a cupcake in my eye.”

I smiled. Knowing what oaths meant to her. But I worried still. Pinkie Pie could put a positive spin on just about anything, but this was a promise she might not be able to keep.

“Thank you," I said. “Really, thank you. But you know, it’s more than just the town. It’s the hospital. They think I’m destructive. They think I’m crazy. Not like Pinkie Pie crazy.” I gestured right at her. “You know, like...crazy crazy.”

“Hmm. That is a doozy.” She picked a lock of her mane out of that big puffy hat of hers, and twirled it with her hoof as she thought on it. “Ooh! I know!”

Her face brightened.

“What?” I leaned forward over the table, all eager and excited-like.

“Forget all about them.”

“But they’re gonna take me away from Roseluck and lock me up!” I squeaked. “I can’t just forget about them.“

“Sure you can!“ Said Pinkie Pie. “‘Cause the more you think about them, the crazier you’ll get. And the crazier you get, the crazier they’ll think you are!”

“But I...huh? What?”

I scratched my head, and let her Pinkie logic gallop around my brain in circles.

“I can’t just...”

“Rose Petal.”

“It’s not as simple as...” I waved my forelegs wildly in the air.

“Rose Petal," Pinkie repeated.

“Look, I got a lotta not normal stuff going on right now," I repeated as I pointed at all the super prophetic cards on the table.

“RoSe PetAL!” Pinkie Pie shrieked the way only Pinkie Pie could.

I quit my babbling.

“Breathe," she said, as she laid her hooves on mine. “Look at me.”

I did. I sucked a massive breath into my panicky lungs and stared right into Pinkie’s gentle cerulean eyes.

“You fell into some duckies, didn’t you?” She said. "Bad duckies."

I froze. Unsure of what to say. Afraid that if I opened my mouth at all, information might start pouring out like floodwater, jeopardizing the future, destroying the apocalypse pact I’d made with my friends.

I nodded silently. As all the desperate Rose Voices played tug of war with all the cautious Rose Voices inside my brain.

“...And you still have a whoooole lot of duckywork to do, don’t you?” She sang out her words.

I nodded again.

“Rose Petal, when’s the last time you hung out with your friends?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but Pinkie interjectified.

“...And didn’t spend it worrying, or wondering, or planning? Or like a combo of that? You know, like worrying about wondering, or wondering about planning.” Pinkie started counting on her hooves. More hooves than a natural pony ought to have. “Or planning to wonder, or wondering if...well, you get the idea.”

“Uh, I dunno.” I had to think about it. Not just ‘cause Pinkie Pie was being Pinkie Pie, and confusing the fuck out of me. But ‘cause I honestly didn’t know.

“Geez!" She shrieked. "No wonder you flipped out and tumbled down that hill and ruined the song for everypony in the whole town and almost killed Kettle Corn!”

I flinched to hear it put that way, but couldn’t deny it.

“Rose,“ she said. “If you’re not careful, you’re gonna go crazy for real!”

She swept my tarot deck into a stack, and tucked it into her hat. Wrapped her crystal ball up in a blanket. While I thought about how nice it would be to just chill. To eat sandwiches. To have tea. To talk about pirate books. The idea kinda scared me though, to be honest. What if I’d forgotten how to relax? What then? I had all this stuff to do, and so much brain momentum.

How was I supposed to rein all that in?

Plus, Cranky and I were gonna see Zecora tomorrow! We were gonna talk about shadow stuff. We just were! And Bananas Foster! She had more baggage than I did. And Cliff! Don’t even get me started on Cliff!

He actually liked helping. He liked theorizing. All he was gonna wanna do was talk about this crazy time travel stuff.

But still, I knew in my heart that Pinkie Pie was right. I needed to put time aside to think about other things. Not to worry about the fate of all Equestria, or the evil that had followed me home to Ponyville.

“Rose Petal," Pinkie laid a hoof on my shoulder. Regular Pinkie, not Psychic Hat Pinkie.

The tent was down too. The table gone. To where? I could only guess.

I had been thinkifying so hard, I hadn’t even noticed her taking it all down. But when I finally stopped and looked around me, and climbed outside of my own head for a minute, I saw the sun. Barely starting to peek over the horizon to say ‘hello.’ The sky around it was turning a thousand shades of orange and pink and yellow.

“Of all the duckies out there,” she said. “This one’s totally the best.”

She bit into a cupcake she’d pulled out of nowhere. Passed me one too.

“Yeah," I said. “Probably.” Chomp. I inhaled my mystery pastry.

“Don’t forget what makes it worth fighting for.”

Pinkie left me slack-jawed, staring at the dawn. She headed on down the road. And as I stood there, a warm sensation welled up in my chest. Slowly. Something like hope.

“Woohoo!” I heard Pinkie holler, even though she was already a hundred feet away. Easily. “Made ya smile! Happy half birthday, Rose Petal!”

“You too,” I called back to her, almost reflexively. Though it didn’t make a lick of sense ‘cause it wasn’t her half birthday at all.

Author's Note

FOOTNOTE: *The Evil card - All of the cards that Pinkie drew are based upon traditional tarot cards. Their meanings as depicted in this chapter generally try to be accurate, but I took some interpretative liberties. "The Evil" card is known as "The Devil" in traditional tarot, but they have no such concept in Equestria, so I changed it.

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

Death Yodeling

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - DEATH YODELING
Being in a hurry does not slow down time.” - Mokokoma Mokhonoana

By the time I got home, dawn was hitting full blast, and everything felt like it had changed. Even the family cottage looked different. Not just ‘cause of the way the wood and the stone and the paint caught all the morning colors, but also because of the colt in the big orange winter jacket standing outside of it, whisper-shouting at an upstairs window.

“Rose,” the figure spun around to buck snow upward at the window. But he wasn’t good at it, so it just sorta made a small explosion of powder and ice-dust. “Rooooose!”

“Cliff?” I said.

“Ahh!” He turned left, turned right, and all-around in circles until he found me. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming down?!” He gestured at the window.

“‘Cause that’s an empty room you're shouting at," I said. “And I was out walking.”

“Oh.” Cliff forced a mirthless laugh. Nervously straightened his mane with a snow-covered sleeve.

Something was eating at him.

“It’s good to see you," I said quickly, hoping to put him at ease - silently begging any spirit or hornet or brain voice who might listen that my friendship with Cliff still be in tact. That it hadn't gotten ruined by what he’d seen yesterday.

“Are you okay?!” He trotted toward me.

“Yeah," I said. “I’m fine. But...uh, are we okay?”

Cliff looked at me blankly.

“You know,” I muttered. “...’Cause of yesterday.”

Again, he didn't respond. Just vegetated. ‘Till suddenly his eyeballs seemed to come to life.

“Oh!” He exclaimed. “No no no no no no no no no no. Don't think that. Please.” He placed his snow-crusted forehooves on my shoulders."Yes, of course we're okay.”

I closed my eyes. “Thanks.”

For a moment, I thought he was gonna hug me. But he didn't. He kept me at leg’s length. “There's something I need to talk to you about though," he said, all whispery and conspiratorial-like. “Can we go inside?"

Cliff cast nervous glances over each shoulder. As though a bunch of spies and shadow-majigs and bandits and stuff were gonna leap out from behind my bushes and tackle him to the ground.

“Uh, my sister’s kinda sleeping," I said.

“Oh.”

Cliff’s already massive shoulders bunched up and bundled themselves into two great big giant knots that I could actually see - even through the bulk of his winter coat and scarf.

Something really heavy was clearly on his mind, and he didn’t know how to hold it in.

Over those gigantic shoulder knots, I could see the sun, still in its full glory. The explosion of oranges and yellows were getting bolder and bolder and bolder. Blaring out from behind the hills that tried to hide her. The feeling that I'd just experienced with Pinkie Pie where I kinda sorta felt like everything might actually be a little bit okay for a change? It was fragile.

I didn't wanna let it go. In fact, I reeeeally wanted to share it with Cliff. Put him at ease like Pinkie had done for me.

“This, uh, urgent business you need to talk about," I said. "Is it, you know...shadow stuff?"

"No," he replied. "Well, yeah," he amended himself. "… Sort of.”

“Is anypony in super immediate danger this instant?”

“No," he replied.

“Then please can it wait?” I said. “I had a long night."

"But…" Cliff tried to bargain with me.

"Pleeeease," I said again. Softly but firmly.

Cliff threw a glance at my cottage. Probably wondering when the hell we were gonna get to go inside and talk privately. But ultimately, he nodded and agreed.

“But…” He hesitated for a moment. “Can you at least tell me what happened yesterday? I've been so worried!”

“Okay,” I sighed. “Quick recap. Then I got something to show you. Deal?"

I looked to the sun again. It could wait a few minutes. There’d still be plenty of time to get back into the sunrise groove. Time to share all that beauty with Cliff.

“Deal," he agreed.

“Well, the reason I panicked during the song was ‘cause I couldn’t hear the music.”

“Like…”

“Yeah. I was totally cut off.”

“Weird.”

“It happens sometimes," I shrugged. “To other ponies too.” I added hastily. “Not just me.”

“What other ponies?”

“Travelers mostly.”

The second those words came out of my mouth, I realized how weird they sounded. How random. How confusing.

“Travelers?” Cliff furrowed his brow and looked at me like I was speaking another language.

“Yeah. They’re like, these outcast ponies who wander Equestria, playing music, sleeping in campsites and stuff.”

“So yoooou...went, umm...camping?”

“No. I slept in my bed. But I met somepony who used to be a Traveler. He slept in campsites. And he told me about shadows, and this magical kinda music or whatever that the Travelers sing to chase the shadows away, and then I came home and found out that I‘m, like, this character from a fortune-telling game, and my story keeps telling itself over and over again or whatever. ‘Cause the universe is a little kid who’s really into repetition, and it does stuff like that.”

Cliff didn’t respond. He just stood there like a statue. Except that nopony ever carves a statue of someone with a gawking slack-jawed expression.

Finally, he raised his hoof like he was about to say something. But stopped and shook his head instead.

“Look,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense to me either, but don’t fret about it, okay? The point is: I’m fine.”

“Okay," he nodded firmly.

“Now lemme show you something!” I bit down on his jacket and dragged him across the lawn. Plopped him down on this log that I sometimes use as a bench, and I sat beside him.

“Can you believe that?“

I pointed to the sunrise. Waved wildly at it.

“Can. You. Believe. That?” I repeated. “I mean, look at it! Really look at it.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “It’s pretty.”

I sighed. The sun was more than just pretty. It was amazing! How could I get Cliff to see that? How could I share that feeling with him? My newly discovered love of the totally amazing ducky that we lived in.

How could I get him to appreciate the sun?!

“What do you think it’s made of?” Cliff asked, totally out of nowhere.

“Huh?”

“The sun," he said.

“Wuh? I dunno.” I stopped to consider it for the first time, but my brain didn’t have any bright ideas. “Celestia-ish...stuff?” I postulated.

“Nah," Cliff shook his head and gazed at the horizon.

He was as mesmerized by the sight of the sunrise as I was, but he wasn’t thinking about life and death and duckies and stuff. He was thinking crazy shit that never woulda occurred to me. “The Sun is older than Princess Celestia," he reasoned.

“Fire, then?” I shrugged and gave the Sun a c’mon, help me out here look.

It, of course, did not respond. Not even in that talk to you through your feelings way that the Moon speaks sometimes.

“But what’s on fire?” Cliff pressed. “Fire doesn’t just hang out by itself. Something has to be burning.”

“I dunno," I said. “There’s magic fire. Like...from, you know...unicorns and stuff.”

“Who cast it then?” He said. “How is it still burning after thousands of years?”

I shook my head. I had no idea.

Cliff sighed. Tightened his lips. Got all woolgathery all of a sudden.

“I hope we find out someday," he said, looking to the horizon, face painted marigold by the morning light. But there wasn’t any hope in his eyes. Not like usual. They were tight. Worried. Sad even.

I rested a hoof on his shoulder. “I hope so too," I said, not just to reassure Cliff Diver, but also to try to figure out what the fuck was going on.

“There’s not much time left," he replied softly. “Is there?“

Then suddenly, I found myself reeling. Dizzy from that smack-in-the-face feeling you get when you do a giant belly flop off the high dive.

“No, I guess not," I replied.

And as the two of us sat there, I got to wondering about all of the mysteries that were destined to go unsolved because of the ridiculous war looming over us.

But worse than that, I realized that I’d never really stopped to ask Cliff how he felt about any of this apocalypse stuff. He may not have been in the thick of it the way I was, running through war zones and fighting shadows and stuff, but the apocalypse had still taken its toll.

I’d been so busy trying to pull myself back together, that I’d taken him for granted.

I reached out and put my hoof on his. Even if it was just boot-on-boot. He cocked his head sideways in reply, and smiled back at me faintly.

“Glad you’re okay," he said as he leaned the side of his head against the top of mine.

And the two of us sat there admiring the sunrise, even as the majesty of the colors started to dull. And turn into mundane daylight.

Then suddenly, totally outta nowhere, shunk. The window slid open. And there was Roseluck. Rubbing her eyes.

Grumble grumble. She grumbled.

“Rose Petal? What’re you doing out here so early?” She held a hoof up to shield her eyes from the glare of the snow. “Cliff?” She startled. “Uh, good morning. Hi. I wasn’t expecting company.” She chuckled awkwardly.

“Oh.” Cliff froze. He looked as if bolts had been driven through his legs. “I’m soooo sorry, Ms. Luck," he pleaded nervously. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

He turned to me in blind fear. Like he’d suddenly been asked to walk a tightrope over a pit full of lava with fire-breathing squids in it.

“I’m really sorry,” Cliff turned to Roseluck and repeated. “Really. Really. Sorry.” His voice squeaked like a balloon animal.

“Uh, is everything okay?” Roseluck replied. Groggy as she was, it woulda been pretty hard not to pick up on the desperation rays emanating off of Cliff Diver.

“Yeah,” he said. “Ohhh, yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Great. Yeah. How are you?”

Roseluck sighed, smacked her lips and wiped the crust from her eyes.

“Just come in," she said. “I’ll fire up the tea kettle.”

Shunk. The window slid shut again. And Cliff sighed in relief.

But that false sense of security just made him jump all the higher when the window reopened a moment later.

Shunk.

“GaAaaAaAAh!” He leapt straight up in the air like a startled cat.

“Cliff?” Roseluck stuck her head out the window again. This time the crust was free from her eyes.

“Yeah?” Cliff clutched his chest.

“You're welcome here anytime. If you ever need to, you know, get away for a while.”

A warm smile lifted Cliff Diver's cheeks.

* * *

We went straight to my room. Got settled.

Roseluck let us be. There would, of course, be morning tea later, which was like a meal unto itself (and totally non-negotiable), but it was mega obvious that Cliff and I needed to talk. And Roseluck was barely awake anyways. So there was no rush.

At least, I thought so. Cliff, on the other hoof, was freaking out with tremendous urgency.

“I know!” He whispered frantically at me the second the two of us were alone together.

“You know...what?”

Cliff whipped the bedroom door open, poked his head out into the hallway to make sure we couldn’t be heard. Then shut it behind him again. Pressed his back against the door like he was afraid an avalanche was coming on the other side.

“Foster," he whisper-shouted. “I know. About. Bananas. Foster.”

My heart skipped a beat. He knew about Bananas Foster!

“Oh," I whispered back. “You mean...”

“Yeah." Cliff nodded. “She told me yesterday.”

“And?” I stood on my tippy hooves in anticipation. So eager was I to get another pony’s perspective.

“Aaand, she’s a...” Cliff crept up closer to me. Eyeballing the door the whole time. Still afraid we might be overheard. “C-H-A-N-G-E-L...”

“Changeling," I said aloud.

Cliff’s legs locked up again. And his back stiffened. He looked like the world’s doofiest table.

“She’s a changeling," I said bluntly. “Now come on, let’s talk about this! Lemme hear your thoughts.”

He sucked in a deep breath, held up a forehoof like he was about to give a great big lecture. But didn’t say a word. It was super annoying. Cliff had been soooo eager to get the conversation rolling, and now that it was time to actually have an opinion - to figure out how he felt - he had nothing to say!

It made me just wanna shake him!

That is...until I realized something.

Bananas Foster and I were still friends. I’d taken the news hard at first but we’d managed to work it out. What if Cliff and Foster hadn’t worked it out? What if they weren’t friends anymore?

They’d never gotten along all that well with to begin with.

As I watched Cliff Diver fidget, and shuffle, and chuckle anxiously to himself, I grew worried.

“Cliff?” I said. “Come on.”

“Okay,” he replied with a long sigh. “I’m gonna be honest. I don’t know if this makes me a bad pony or something, buuut…”

He ran his hoof through his mane, stalling while he worked up the nerve to spit out what he had to say... “I like her better this way.”

“Huh?”

“I know. I know!” He hastily replied. “They’re our enemies. They tried to take over Canterlot. But really, they were only trying to eat! And Bananas doesn’t pose any danger to us now, and...well,” Cliff reared up on two hooves, and flailed all around.

“Everything just makes sense now. Everything that used to drive me crazy about her...Makes. Sense. Now!”

He stopped. Caught his breath. Then looked up at me, and let loose that nervous little laugh again. “Heh heh heh. I’m not a traitor...am I?”

“Um...No.”

Cliff’s shoulders dropped like cinder blocks. He slouched in relief.

And I was just like, “Huh? What?”

It seemed like such an odd concern. Treason! It hadn’t even occurred to me. I mean, yeah, I worried what everypony would think if they found out, but how could befriending someone possibly be a betrayal of Equestria?

“It’s fine,” I said to Cliff. “Like...how much did Foster really have to do with all that anyway?”

I chuckled.

“All of what?“ Cliff looked at me suspiciously. It made me more than a little uneasy.

“You know,“ I said. “Raiding Canterlot.”

“She didn’t tell you?”

I shook my head. Swallowed my throat apple so hard it seemed to plunge straight into my belly.

“She planned it," Cliff said.

“Bananas Foster planned the attack on Canterlot?” I said dryly. Skeptically.

“Well, part of it," Cliff replied. “She did the research that made the raid possible. She found out about the crystal caves under the Castle of Canterlot. She found the maps, and discovered things not even Twilight Sparkle knew.” Cliff stopped, and looked at me all quizzical-like. “Wait, so Foster didn’t tell you any of that?”

I shook my head. “She mentioned that she was a researcher - that she wanted to convince her Mom-Queen that what she was doing was important - that she could, you know, contribute to their family...or hive or...whatever. But we didn’t talk much about...you know, what exactly she was researching.“

Cliff looked at me in disbelief. Clearly that had been the cornerstone of his conversation with Foster. “If you didn’t talk about research, what did you talk about?“

“Shadows," I said. “The Evil Castle. The red desert, the dust, the nothingness. The ruins of civilizations. How she lost her family.“

“Okay," Cliff chuckled. “Not what we talked about at all.”

It occurred to me then that each of our conversations had been tailored to us. Foster knew that science was Cliff’s thing. That, if our fight against the shadows were an O&O campaign, Cliff’s job would be the research. Nerd class.

She also knew that I, on the other hoof, missed my mother. And that I had a burning fear of that castle.

A creaky cynical little Rose Voice crept up to me from someplace deep inside my head. She’s manipulating you. It said. That’s what changelings do.

I didn’t like the feeling that came with it. All creepy-crawly. So I pushed the voice down. Told it to shut the fuck up.

I took control.

“Foster’s got a lot going on," I said aloud. “It’s not like she could tell us everything there is to know about her in one sitting.”

I was reassuring myself as much as I was reassuring Cliff.

“Yeah, I know," he replied. “She even told me straight up that it was okay to talk with you about all the stuff she’d told me. So I kinda figured you didn’t get the whole picture. I guess I just thought that I knew more about her story than I actually did.”

I nodded.

“Ruined civilizations?” He said.

“Yeah,” I answered somberly. “It sucks.”

“Sounds like it," I sighed. Plopped down on the bed. Stared at the floor. “So what do we do now?”

Cliff shrugged. “Be her friend.”

“Well, yeah, I know that. But…” I stopped. Wondered if Bananas had shared with him the story of her escape. Whether he knew that the shadows were expecting Foster to deliver a century-old master-torturer to them.

“Um…uh…” I stammered. Struggled to think of what I could say.

“Don’t worry so much," Cliff, of all ponies advised me. “We’ll find out more later today.”

“Huh?”

“It’s Thursday," he said.

I shook my head and shrugged. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

“A visitation day.”

I gasped. Fuck. Visitation!

I’d made a promise – a solemn promise - to Bananas Foster that I would visit her every. Single. Day. And there I was, the day after I fucking got discharged from the hospital, and already, I’d forgotten.

“I’m meeting with Zecora today," I said.

“Zecora?!” Cliff exclaimed.

I leapt off the bed and plunged my hoof deep into his big fat mouth.

“Shhh!” I whisper-growled. “Roseluck doesn’t know.”

“Mm mm mmee mm meesh," he mumbled.

I rolled my eyes. Removed my hoof from his mouth.

“The Everfree Forest?” He squeaked.

“Don’t worry,“ I said. “I’m not gonna try to go in there alone again.“

“Again?”

“I have a guide.”

“Again?!” His voice cracked.

“But Foster," I squeezed my eyes shut. “Foster, Foster, Foster, Foster, Foster!” I clopped myself in the head.

“You forgot?” Cliff said. “...How could you forget?”

“Yesterday was a little crazy, okay?!” I snapped. Turned away from him. Started pacing all around the room. Thinking. Clop-clop clop-clop clop-clop clop-clop.

“What if we go now?!“ I spun around and said.

“What?”

If we left early, I reckoned I could apologize to Kettle Corn, catch up with Bananas Foster, hang out with her too, and still have time to meet Cranky for our journey.

So much for Pinkie Pie’s super friendship sanity time.

I went to my dresser. Opened up my little box, and pulled out my trinket arsenal. The pocket watch chain. Misty’s tail hair. Twink’s twig. Screw Loose’s old sock.

I wasn’t sure what exactly was gonna happen in that zebra hut, but I needed as many lucky charms as I could get.

“Rose?”

“Yeah," I mumbled, mouth full of pocket watch chain.

“Visiting hours haven’t even started yet. I don’t think they’ll let us in this early. And I’m a little freaked out right now.”

I stopped what I was doing. Looked at Cliff through the mirror. Examined myself in the mirror too. My mane was all over the place. Like a pile of hay with chunks of wood and rusty nails sticking out of it.

I looked like a lunatic.

“I’m sorry," I told him. “I don’t wanna freak you out. It’s just that I got so much to do.“

I plopped down on the floor.

“Ahem. We’ve got so much to do," Cliff corrected me, sounding mega grown up all-of-a-sudden-like. “After tea with your sister.”

I swiveled around to look at him properly. His shyness, his anxiety - all the fear that normally radiated off his body with every fidgety gesture and hesitant motion - it was gone now.

“Okay," I said. “After tea.”

Then I fiddled with the pink pocket watch hanging from my neck. Got lost in the moment. Thinking about everything we had to do. About how little time we had to do it all.

Worrying. Worrying. Worrying.

I got so distractified, I almost clicked it open without thinking! The Most Accurate Watch in the Whole Wide World. Only to be opened when I was at my most helpless - when all sense of time was lost! I almost broke a fucking Pinkie Promise and opened it for nothing!

“Ahh!” I shrieked as my hoof depressed the button ever so slightly.

What the fuck was I doing? What was wrong with me?! How could I be so stupid?!

“What?!“ Cliff leapt to my side.

“Nothing," I laughed. “I just almost opened the magic watch.“

“Oh," he replied dryly. “Well...don’t do that!”

“Obviously," I grumbled. Blushed a little. “It’s full of, like, Pinkie magic or whatever.“

I propped the watch up with my hoof and stared at it again.

Pinkie Pie was right. I thought. I need to slow down. I need to get a grip. I need to do friend stuff or I might just go crazy for real.

“So, uh, Cliff?” I said.

He pricked his ears up

“Y’wanna do, uh, friend...stuff?”

“Huh?” He replied, utterly confused and rightfully so.

“You know,“ I said. “Like, hanging out or whatever.”

I could hear my voice coming out of my mouth. And I knew it sounded fucking stupid. But I couldn’t stop myself.

“Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?” Cliff squinted at me in confusion.

“I need to do something that’s not about the stupid apocalypse,“ I said, getting my thoughts out at last. “I feel like it’s running my life.”

“Oh,“ Cliff said. “Rose, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…“

I waved my hoof at him. A don’t worry about it gesture. The same one Roseluck had given me.

“Let’s just forget about it," I said. “Let’s do something…” For a moment I almost said the word normal. “Fun. We should do something fun.“

“I like fun," Cliff replied.

“Good.” I nodded.

He nodded back at me. Then I nodded back at him nodding back at me. Then he nodded back at me nodding back at him nodding back at me.

…

“Whatcha wanna do?“ Cliff broke the silence.

“Dunno.” I shrugged. “Wanna...play checkers?“

I blurted out the first idea to come into my head.

“Sweet Celestia, no.” Cliff Diver’s face crinkled in disgust.

“Um, okay...” I said what-the-fuck-ishly.

‘Cause seriously, who hates checkers?

“Chess?” I said, figuring maybe he might like chess better, because it requires more math, and brains and stuff.

“No," he said. “No. Games. Please.”

“You don’t like games?“

Cliff shook his head so hard his mane whipped around all over the place.

“Why not?“

He answered with a mumble and a shrug. “Just don’t like ‘em.”

“Oookay," I said.

And then the room fell silent again. I turned the idea around and around and around in my head. But I couldn’t make sense of it. It was just so fucking weird.

“You don’t like any board games, at all?”

Cliff closed his eyes.

“I don’t care that you don’t wanna play," I jumped in to reassure him. “Honestly, I’m not in the mood for any of that stuff right now either. I just…I dunno…”

I stopped. Struggled for the right words. I really didn’t wanna give him a hard time. But he had me worried. And I had to ask.

“Cliff, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s just…” He looked all over my room. At my desk. At the door. At his own hooves. Everything but me. “Promise not to laugh?” He sighed.

“Of course.”

“Well,” he sighed. “The thing with checkers and chess is: there’s always gonna be one winner and one loser. And I know it sounds dumb, but I can’t stand it! Like, why should one pony have to feel bad just so somepony else can feel good?

“I dunno," I mumbled. “It’s just supposed to be fun.”

“I’m sorry," Cliff answered firmly. “It’s not fun for me.”

“Okay," I said. “That’s cool. “So...like what do you do for fun?”

Cliff bunched up his shoulders into mounds again. Shuffled his hooves.

“Read and stuff.”

“Yeah, that’s not really something we can do together," I said.

He shrugged in reply. And we were back to square fucking one.

“You wanna listen to music?“ I said, eyeing the box of records Cranky had leant me.

Cliff leaned up to me real close, and whispered, “I thought you can’t hear music.”

“Pfft," I snorted. “Of course I can hear music.”

Cliff blushed. “It’s just the big ensemble numbers, then?”

“Yeah.” I pulled the record sleeves out. Balanced them on the ledge of the box. Flipped through all the cover photos of street corners, and swamps, and smoky rooms.

Where was I supposed to begin? I had no idea which one to pick. None of those albums were recorded by Blackhoof herself - the mare who’d shared my shadow curse. So, to me, one bluespony was much like another.

“Stop.” Cliff gasped and stared.

It stunned me. The shock on Cliff’s giant eyeballs.

“What’s wrong?” I asked letting the record sleeves drop back into their box.

“Don’t do that!” Cliff said as he plunged his face into the box and started hoofing through them. “Where’s the one you were just holding?”

“Sorry!” I said. “You startled me. What’s going on? You okay, or what?”

Cliff popped up mumbling, mouth full of record sleeve. “Mmmm mmm.” He said as he laid it down gently on the carpet.

“What?” I couldn’t understand a word he was saying.

“I’m fine.” Cliff rolled his eyes. “But check it out! Look at this.”

Flip! His hoof whapped the sleeve gently and pointed at the album cover.

It was a black and white picture of a pegasus. One of her wings was out, and it was aaaall bent out of shape, twisting and turning in directions that no wing should. It stuck out and around, and wrapped across the body of a wooden guitar sitting in the pony’s lap.

The mare was grinning a wicked little smile. The album title was just her signature.

Badwing Jubilee.

Cliff Diver studied it carefully before turning it over, and reading the back.

“Where did you get these?” He said, eyes fixed on the track list.

I opened my mouth to answer, but suddenly, it hit me: I wasn’t sure what I was allowed to say. Would Cranky mind if I told Cliff Diver about him? Was all that Traveler stuff he told me some great big giant secret? Cranky didn’t strike me as the sort of donkey who liked to hide, but he wasn’t exactly a tell-the-whole-world-your-personal-details kinda guy either.

“A friend," I said.

Cliff didn’t push the issue any further. ‘Cause he was already down on his knees, hunched over my record player. Gingerly, he slid the self-titled Badwing Jubilee disc onto the turntable, and readied the needle with his grinning teeth.

“Sooo, uh, all this excitement is ‘cause of her wing?” I said.

Before the words even finished spilling out my mouth, I cringed. I wasn’t trying to dismiss him. Really, I wasn’t! It just sorta came out wrong.

Cliff set the needle down. “You don’t understand," he pleaded. “You never see anypony like this at all! Not on a magazine. Not in comics. Not on album covers. All the pop stars - they’re like, like, like...“

Cliff flailed his forehooves around trying to figure out the right word. While my eyes drifted to my Sapphire Shores poster. Elegant. Glamorous.

“Perfect," I said. Trying to complete his thoughts.

But Cliff had other ideas.

“They’re all...like you,” he said.

“Me?!”

The comparison came out of nowhere. I wasn’t sure whether I should feel complimented or offended.

“You know!“ Cliff replied. “Complete.“

Before I could reply, he was already leaning over the turntable again, and...

PsHhHhhht. The record crackled to life.

Real super loud too. I still had it turned all the way up from when I’d danced to Sapphire Shores the day before.

“Ahh!” I lunged in and slid the volume dial down before the song could kick in.

But it didn’t kick in. Not right away. Just a looooonng looooong drawn out stretch of that sizzling-frying-pan sorta sound that old records make.

I leaned in over the turntable. Right alongside Cliff. All super eager-like. Waiting for the song to play.

It wasn’t just that Cranky had built up this blues stuff as the cure-all tonic to all things shadow-majig. Cliff was so excited about it. Like a Foal on Hearth’s Warming morning! It was kinda contagious.

I flashed him a smile. It was hard not to.

Then finally, the empty hiss came to an end, the record hummed to life, and a lone voice started to sing.

WoooAooOOoooOooOOaooOoOooooaOoOooOAooOOOohhh!

I winced. It sounded like Badwing had a throat full of hot coals and broken glass.

It almost hurt just to listen to it. But when I turned to Cliff Diver to throw him a what-the-hell-is-this-shit look, he didn’t return it. He leaned in further, entranced by Badwing’s weird ass death yodel.

I can’t reach your cloud, baby
I got a bad bad wing.
Whoooaa.
I can’t reach your cloud, baby
I got a bad bad wing.
Ain’t ashamed, ain’t ashamed, ain’t ashamed.
I just cry and I sing.

A smile lit up Cliff’s face. His hoof began to stomp as Badwing repeated the verse. I understood Cliff’s feelings. His connections to the lyrics being obvious and all. I even tried to share in his enthusiasm, smiling encouragingly and stomping (on all the wrong beats). But I had to struggle hard to find the caterwauling even a little bit palatable. Then the bluespony took a guitar solo. Bending the strings like they owed her money, as Cranky had put it.

It was the sort of sound that rusty nails would make if they knew how to scream.

I turned away. Gritted my teeth. And occupied my time by studying the record sleeve while Cliff did his thing.

I got to wondering. Was I fucking missing something? Was there some part of the equine soul that I simply didn’t have? A spark in your heart that inspires you to enjoy this crap?

I felt left out. I guess cause I’d gotten my hopes up. Allowed myself to imagine that this outcast music might, you know, not make me feel like even more of a fucking outcast.

The song faded and crackled away into nothing. Finally.

Cliff grinned at me.

I smiled back. And tried to think of a polite way to ask if maybe we could switch albums or something. Find a bluespony that both of us could enjoy.

I just couldn’t figure out how to put it.

I mean really. What the fuck could I say? ‘Hey Cliff, I know this singer is, like, the only musician you’ve ever truly related to you in your whole life, but can we put on something that I like instead?’

I agonized. But it was all moot.

Cliff switched the turntable off before I had a chance to ask.

Then he sat there, staring at the floor. Nodding intently. “I wanna show you something," he said.

“Uh, okay," I replied.

Cliff closed his eyes real tight. “I never...” He started to explain, but couldn’t bear to finish the thought.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Nothing," he answered. “For once.”

He smiled faintly to himself, and after a long, deep breath, he spread his wings out. A twisted mass of feathers that reminded me of bent up wire hangers after a kid had warped them out of shape for fun.

“Hold on, wait a minute.“ He grunted. Bit his lip in pain as the great unfold-en-ing happened. Flap by flap, his wings opened up, like pieces of origami coming undone, bending in directions they had no business bending, twisting in directions they had no business twisting.

Until, at last, they were spread all the way out.

“Hi," Cliff said through gritted teeth. As if introducing himself for the first time.

He stood up tall and proud. For a shining moment. Even though he was obviously in a lot of pain.

Then his wings collapsed. And he was left gasping for breath, cheeks shining with tears. At last, he looked up, and smiled at me warmly. “That didn’t bother you, did it?” He said. Suddenly his old self again.

I shook my head no.

“I’m just sick of hiding, y’know?” He said with a sigh. “I mean, I know they’re not pretty, they—;”

“They’re beautiful," I interrupted.

“What?” Cliff’s eyes grew gigantic and wide.

“Your wings.” I cleared my throat, (as I quickly grew aware of what I’d just blurted out). “They’re beautiful.”

He blushed. Smiled the kinda smile that could light up Las Pegasus.

And next thing I knew, I was squished up against him. He hugged me so tight I thought I would suffocate. Encased in a big gray Wall o’ Cliff. I let myself get all limp. Like my limbs were made outta wet spaghetti. Eventually, he let me go. And I found myself on the floor.

Cliff leaned over me all eager and excited-like.

“C’mon," he said. “Let’s listen to some more Badwing Jubilee!”

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

SOME COMMENTS AND STUFF: Today is the equinox, and I worked very diligently to make sure that I could release this chapter on time for it. The Sun is so very integral to this chapter, that I really wanted to honor our glorious princess by releasing this chapter on an occasion that is special to her.

Circles

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - CIRCLES
“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” -Mark Twain

Kettle Corn’s place was the first stop of a long, long, looooong busy day. There was only one problem with showing up at her cottage and asking for forgiveness:

I didn’t wanna.

How was I supposed to face Kettle Corn again? I couldn’t even hear her name without that awful image popping up in my brain. The look on her face as she cowered on the floor, afraid for her life.

Afraid of me.

She had looked at me like I was a shadow-majig. And I might as well have been! I’d hurt Kettle Corn. Really, really hurt her. Almost killed her even. She had every reason to fear me.

And I was about to make her relive it all over again. Just so I could feel better about myself.

As I walked through the snow, I pictured Kettle Corn. She'd smile as she opened the door. Laugh. Then she’d catch sight of me. And that grin would run from her face. I wasn’t sure what she would do after that. Whether she’d scowl. Whether she’d cower. Whether she’d scream, or run, or cry. But I couldn’t stand the thought of it. Any of it.

What if she doesn’t forgive me? One of my Rose Voices said quietly as I tromped over the snowy road.

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Cranky’s voice showed up in my head, totally unannounced. ‘It’s the right thing to do.’

“Ahhh!” I cried aloud when I heard that gruff voice echoing around inside my skull.

“What is it?” Cliff Diver turned to me and said.

“Oh," I said, suddenly remembering that I wasn’t alone.

Cliff was walking by my side. For moral support. It was awesomely helpful. Really, it was. I wish I hadn’t been tuning him out the whole time. But he’d been singing Badwing Jubilee songs all the way across town. And there was only so much of that that I could take.

“Are you okay?” He pressed me.

“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

We kept walking. Hearing nothing but our own boots on the tightly-packed snow. Crunch crunch. Crunch crunch. Crunch crunch. ‘Till finally, Cliff spoke up again.

“You really think you have to do this?“ He said.

I threw him a sour look.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. I know," he backpedaled. “Just look at it this way: once you’re done, our next stop is the hospital, and we’ll finally get to talk to Bananas Foster again! Together.“ He nudged me, leaned in for a whisper as best as he could without breaking pace. “She’s gonna tell us about her special kind of friendship.“

Fwoom! I felt like somepony had just shaken me awake from a deep sleep and pelted me in the head with wooden dice.

Changelings and their special brand of friendship. I had totally forgotten!

“She told you about that too?” I said.

“Oh yeah.” Cliff smiled. “I have no idea what to expect. You?”

“No”

He squeed. “I can’t wait! Like...what kinda friendship does, you know...her kind even have?“

“Yeah,“ I said. “I wanna know more too.”

Though it gave me no comfort to look forward to it. ‘Cause up ahead, just behind an old oak tree, was Kettle Corn’s cottage. Stone walls. Thatched roof. Big wooden door with a picture of a bright yellow corn-on-the-cob on it.

I gulped. Cliff watched me quizzically at first. Concernitty. I must’ve looked like I had just seen a ghost. But then he spotted the cottage too. And just sorta nodded at me. Somber-like.

From that point on, the two of us, by unspoken agreement, slowed the fuck down. Crept toward the cottage at a sloth’s pace. I felt like I was gonna hurl the whole time.

“Whatcha gonna say?“ Cliff asked me.

“I don’t know," I whimpered.

And I got to wondering. What the fuck was I gonna say? Instinctively, I found myself asking what Twink would do.

I don’t know why. Maybe ‘cause she was always so fearless. So bold. But it didn't matter. The moment my brain asked, a string of expletives started running around inside my head. Futureisms as Princess Luna had called them.

I chuckled lightly to myself. No. Emulating Twinkle Eyes was probably not the best way to go.

* * *

When we finally did make it to Kettle Corn’s cottage, Cliff went and hid behind the big oak tree. I crept up to the path that led to the front door. Inch by agonizing inch. From the flawlessly-plowed walkway straight to the doormat, which had had all traces of snow lovingly dusted off of it.

I paused to bend down and squint at that mat. Snowless though it may have been, it was still pretty worn down. “WELCOME, FRIENDS!” The doormat read in squiggly letters. There was a picture on it too. A cartoon cob of corn hugging another cartoon cob of corn.

“Hmm," I said aloud, and looked back to the tree where Cliff was hiding. His hoof stuck out and waved at me.

“You can do it," he whisper-shouted. It was barely audible, but I knew Cliff pretty well. And I could make out his inflections.

I nodded back at the tree. Then turned around and faced that big wooden door with the bright yellow cob of corn nailed to it. I think it musta been some kinda knocker or something. Whatever it was, the corn thing was just above my head now, so when I looked up at it, it seemed to loom over me like a massive Corn Tower.

I would rather have knocked on the door to Tartarus, or the fucking shadow castle than do what I was about to do. But that wasn’t an option, was it?

I took some deep breaths. Counted to three. Held my trembling hoof up in the air, ready to knock, when suddenly, I remembered.

“My peace offering!” I whispered to myself.

I had totally forgotten!

I plunged my face into my saddle bag. Grabbed the bouquet my sister’d packed there. Roses of red and white and pink and yellow - the finest we had, picked straight from our personal garden, and arranged in a speckled pattern with precision and love.

I straightened them delicately, held tightly onto the bundle with chattering teeth. And at long last, rapped on the door.

* * *

I stood there. Awaiting an answer. But none came. I waited and waited and waited and waited and waited.

Nothing.

I looked to the oak tree for support. “Knock harder," said the tree in Cliff Diver’s voice.

I gave a hooves up. As though the oak could somehow see me. Then, I breathed in good and deep, and worked up the nerve to give it another try.

Knock. Knocky. Knock-Knock. My hoof said to the door.

But again, there was no answer.

Except of course for the sound of my own mind-thoughts.

“Hooray!” One of the voices in my brain rejoiced. “They’re probably on vacation. You can come back later. Try back in a month, or two, or seventy-seven. What matters is that you tried. Now go on, get outta here!”

“Don’t be silly!” Another Rose Voice said to me defiantly. "Try again! Do the right thing!“

Then yet another voice added to the chorus inside my brain. “What if they’re hiding?” It said. "What if they’re hiding because they hate you? What if they’re hiding because they’re scared of you?...As well they should be! You’re a terrible pony who attacks little kids!”

The whole thing was starting to give me a headache. The voices. Shouting at me. Shouting at each other. Putting me down, no matter what decision I made.

‘Till Twink’s 2 x 4 o’ Friendship slammed me hard. Beat them all into silence. “No one talks that way about my friends!”

I flinched. Rubbed my head as though I’d actually been clobbered. And when I looked up, the front door was open, and a stallion was standing there. Yellow and green. Kettle Corn’s father.

“Oh," I said. “Hi.”

Corn Dad didn’t reply.

Suddenly, all the voices in my head went into panic mode. “AaaaaaAAAAaaaAAAaAHhhhh!” For once, saying something in unison.

But they all fell silent the moment I caught a glimpse inside. There were flowers everywhere. Lillies. Tulips. Chrysanthemums. Marigolds. Coxcombs. Daisies. Violets. Begonias. Bellflowers.

Everything but roses. They were gift arrangements for Kettle Corn. Gorgeous ones. Which meant that other florists had worked on them. Roseluck’s friends. Roseluck’s business partners.

I swallowed hard. Clutched Roseluck’s bouquet to my chest with a single forehoof.

“I...I’m really sorry.," I whimpered. “I, um...didn’t mean to. It was an accident. I got confused, you see." I struggled to conjure up the words to explain what had happened. You know, without getting into all the crazy mojo stuff. "I was having like a nightmare at the time," I continued. "...Except it wasn’t! Because I was awake, and not asleep, but that’s still not an excuse!“ I quickly threw in there, just in case it sounded like I was avoiding responsibility. “But really, I’m, you know, so so so so sooooooo sorry.” My voice started to crack.

I stopped to catch the rose bouquet as it slipped out of my trembling foreleg. Bunched my shoulder up to keep the bundle from coming undone. Sucked in a quivering breath, and summoned the courage to look Mr. Corn in the eye.

“I want to make this right," I said firmly, making eye contact. Standing tall. Adulting. “May I please, please, please speak with Kettle?“

Then, instead of replying like a normal pony, Mr. Corn just looked at me. Without saying a word. His stone cold face, devoid of anger or pain or contempt, or anything you might expect to read there. Just still as petrified wood.

Then he slammed the door.

I fell to my knees. Let the roses hit the ground.

It’s not supposed to go this way. I said to myself.

I'd known that it would be awkward. I knew there was a chance they might be afraid, or uneasy, or angry, or whatever. But I expected somepony to say something at the very fucking least!

I didn’t even get to speak to Kettle Corn!

I looked up at that bright yellow, happy-looking door, slammed and bolted right in my face. And I started sobbing. Zwoom. I ran away before I could make a giant spectacle of myself. Because that’s just what I fucking needed. The whole town seeing me wail and moan on the front lawn of the girl I had attacked only the day before.

I made for the oak tree. The closest spot where I could find some cover. Hide a little from public view. Get myself together.

I scrambled and stumbled, and came up bobbing and weaving. I was so desperate to get away, that I forgot that Cliff was hiding behind the tree.

Clonk! I ran right into him. Literally rammed him.

“Ow," he said. “What happened?“

And without stopping to answer, I plunged my face into his coat. Wept like a pathetic foal. Muffled my cries with his puffy down jacket.

Hoped all of Ponyville couldn’t hear.

I don’t know what Cliff was thinking. I couldn’t read his mind, or see his face. But he wrapped his forelegs around me. Carefully held his boots away from my jacket and my mane. And shushed me gently.

After Luna-only-knows-how-much-time-had-passed, I peeled my face off Cliff’s chest. Wiped the snot off my nose. Pulled my bangs away from my face. And then I saw her. Up there in the tree. Kettle Corn.

She was perched on one of the low hanging branches. Looking down on Cliff Diver and me. Still wearing her jammies.

“Hi," she said sheepishly.

I froze like a draconequus turned to stone. Cliff waved to her mechanically. He was pretty stunned too.

Kettle Corn craned her neck around the trunk of the tree. Stole a glance at her house. “My dad‘s really overprotective," she said.

I nodded back at her in shock. Half astonished to be talking to her, half amazed that she was willing to talk to me, and all kinds of confused. ‘Cause how the fuck did she get up there in the tree?

I studied the branch she was perched on. It was big, and sturdy, and stretched all the way out to what appeared to be a bedroom window. I could only presume that Kettle Corn had slipped out of it.

“I, um, heard what you said," she told me. “About yesterday.”

“I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t mean to —;”

“I know," Kettle interrupted.

I bit my lip. Tried to keep myself from bursting into tears all over again.

“I have nightmares too," said Kettle. “At least, I used to.”

She snuck another peek at her house. “Can you and me, uh...talk...about...something?”

“Uh, sure," I said.

“Of course," Cliff added.

I leaned forward in anticipation, waiting desperately for her to continue, but then a gentle gust of wind blew against us. And though Cliff and me were okay, Kettle Corn huddled up and shivered something fierce. She was only wearing jammies. And those polka dots weren’t gonna keep her warm.

“Wait here," she said with a shiver. “I’ll be out in, like, ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?“ I exclaimed, whipping my head all around to check the road for passers-by. And scoping out the house. Just to make sure Mr. Corn wasn’t eyeballing us either. I scanned the evergreens for danger too (even though I had no reason whatsoever to suspect that danger might be lurking there).

“Nopony’ll see you," Kettle Corn replied. “I used to play hide and seek here with my brother. Trust me.“

“But—;”

Without saying another word, Kettle Corn was gone. Up that branch, onto a little patch of roof, and in through the window. Leaving Cliff and me wondering what the fuck was going on. At least I thought that Cliff was as confused as I was.

“It all makes sense now!” He exclaimed.

“Huh?”

“The nightmares," he said. “Kettle Corn had nightmares! Isn’t that great?”

“Shhh!”

I plunged his scarf into his mouth. Poked my head out from behind the tree again to see if anypony was coming.

The last thing we needed was to be heard, getting all jubilant-like, laughing about Kettle Corn having nightmares!

“Are you crazy?” I snapped.

“Mmph mm mmm," Cliff mumbled, mouth full of scarf.

I rolled my eyes. Helped pull it out with my teeth.

“I didn’t mean it like that," he said as he scraped his tongue clean of wool fragments and fluffkins. “Pfff. Pftt! Pffff!”

“I know," I sighed.

“What I’m saying is that maybe...pleh!” He paused to spit out a hunk o’ scarf. “Ac-hem. Excuse me.”

Cliff Diver leaned in close to whisper in my ear. “Maybe fate made you freak out. And try to...” He paused, stammered, wrinkled his nose as he searched his mind for the politest possible word to describe what I had done to Kettle Corn. “...It made you try to, you know…stomp her.”

“What?!” I held back a squeak of outrage. Struggled to speak in whispers. “No! It was my own fault.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Cliff reassured me. “Responsibility and stuff, but you heard what Kettle said.“

“What?“

“Nightmares!” Cliff squeed softly. “She has nightmares. And she knows what to do about them.”

“Oh, come on," I said with a groan. “Everypony has nightmares. It doesn’t mean they’re being attacked by shadow monsters.”

“Seriously?” Cliff said. “You don’t see it?”

He chomped down on a low hanging branch from the tree, broke off a twig. And started drawing in the snow.

“The shadows came after all of us during the blizzard. All of your friends. Aaaand Kettle Corn…“

“I barely know Kettle Corn.“

“Yeah, but what if you’re going to be friends?” Cliff said. There was lightning in his eyes now. The words started spilling out of his mouth faster and faster and faster and faster and faster. “You’re going to be friends, she’s going to teach you to fight shadow monsters! Sooooo…”

Cliff drew some lines in the snow, weaving them around one another in knots.

“...The shadow monsters decided to attack her before that could happen!“ He brought the squiggly line back to the point it had started from. “During the blizzard, you see? But it was because they attacked her that she learned how to defeat them in the first place!” A great big smile stretched across Cliff’s face. “Maybe the shadows just did their own doom!”

The diagram in the snow became one giant ring now. And Cliff traced it.

“Circles," he whispered. “She’s always drawing circles. I’ll bet that has something to do with it. You said yourself that all this apocalypse stuff is cyclical, right?“

“Uh, all she said was that she has nightmares.”

“Had nightmares.”

“Whatever.”

“She beat them, Rose.”

“So what? So did I.”

“But...the musical number. Back on the hill—;”

“That was all me," I interrupted, leaving Cliff in confuseitty silence. “I don’t know what exactly happened out there. But it wasn’t the shadows, Cliff. It was me. Something. Is. Wrong. With my head.”

Thwick. The twig in Cliff Diver's mouth snapped. He let the pieces crumble and fall from his lips.

“Oh," he said softly.

And I couldn't bear that puppy dog disappointment of his. So I cast my eyes downward.

In the quiet that followed, I found myself studying Cliff’s great big circle in the snow. I thought about his crazy talk. About time. About going backwards and forwards. Preventing things that weren’t supposed to happen. Causing things that were supposed to happen. I thought about what Princess Luna had said. Of golden ages. Of decline. Of apocalypse. Of renaissance.

Circles.

“Maybe you’re right," I said shyly.

As ridiculous as Cliff’s presentation might have been, his theory still seemed like something worth considering. I turned it over carefully inside my head, until a flash hit my brain and I saw the flaw in his reasoning.

“No," I said. “In Pinkie Pie’s playing card games, all the fate stuff she predicted - it was from other worlds - other times. Never here. Or now.”

“What does that mean?” Said Cliff.

“I dunno," I sighed.

Cliff fiddled with the twig. Used it to scratch at his head. Pulling tufts of his mane out from under his woolen hat.

“Well, maybe there is no way it’s supposed to happen when you’re here in Ponyville. At least not one that any of us can ever see or know.”

I let the idea bounce around the inside of my brain-skull for a moment. “I think I like that," I said, a smile slowly forming on my face.

“Hey, nice circle!” Came a tiny little voice from behind me.

“Ahh!” Cliff and I both startled.

“Sorry,” said Kettle Corn.

She looked to me, clicked her teeth together nervously, and furrowed her teeny little brow. But when my eyes met hers, she shied away. “Mind if we, umm...take a walk?“

Cliff and I looked to one another. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t gesture. Just agreed with one another using only our eyeballs. It would be a big relief to get the fuck away from Kettle Corn‘s house.

So off the three of us went. Down the snowy road. Side by side.

It was a little unnerving at first.

Being out. In the open. With Kettle Corn. Even though, logically, I knew there was nothing to worry about - even though there was nopony else around - I still felt like we were being watched.

For a while, we walked down that lonely road in silence. ‘Till Cliff got the idea to drift back. Give us some space.

“You really scared me," said Kettle Corn at long last. “I spent all yesterday thinking about what I was gonna say to you.”

She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead. As if not looking at me made it easier.

“I even practiced in the mirror.”

“I see," I replied meekly.

“But I don’t wanna say any of that stuff anymore.”

For a moment the road was silent again. Except for the sound of our hooves.

Crunch-crunch crunch-crunch crunch-crunch crunch-crunch crunch-crunch.

In all the crunchitty silence between us, my Rose Voices started getting antsy. Pushing me to say something.

But I had nothing of value to add. Kettle’d already shushed me once for apologizing profusely. And that was all I could think of to do.

“I have a confession to make," said Kettle Corn. She cast her gaze down and stared at the snow. “You are my hero.“

“What?“ I said. “Why? How?”

“This Fall, my brother went away to college,” Kettle sighed. “We used to do everything together. And no matter what, he always-always, always protected me. But once he was gone, then...The whole wide world just felt kinda empty without him. I started having nightmares. Monsters. I’d wake up so exhausted, I didn’t wanna do anything at all anymore.

'I even stopped drawing circles.”

I gasped.

“I know, right?” She giggled shyly.

I smiled back at her.

“Then one day, I saw you stand up to Diamond Tiara. And I saw how easily she stumbled. And I thought. ‘I can do that.’

“So later that night, when the nightmares came back again, I…” Kettle smirked to herself. Blushed a little. “I...told the monsters to go suck an egg.“

She chuckled. Snorted a big loud elephant snort.

I feigned shock. “You didn’t.”

She nodded gleefully. “I did...But I never got to tell you what that meant to me. To all of us! ‘Cause then you went to the hospital. And we all felt so bad.”

“We?” I said.

“The younger kids. I wasn’t the only one who looked up to you after you stood up to Diamond Tiara.”

“Oh boy," I said to myself.

“Did you get our get well card?“ Kettle asked eagerly.

“Yeah," I whispered. “The card was great.“

Though I could not, for the life of me, remember what she had written in it. Or what anypony else had written in it for that matter.

I was too busy trying to force myself to breathe. ‘Cause damn! I hadn’t just hurt Kettle. I hadn’t just scared Kettle. I had let her down. I had let everypony down.

I thought of the last time that a bunch of kids had looked up to me. The mine-o slave foals. They’d viewed me as their liberator. And the littlest ones - Sub Mine F. They’d risen against their captors. And failed.

“I was so hurt yesterday," Kettle Corn continued. “I thought I did something wrong. And then, I remembered how scary you became. And believe it or not, I thought of how Diamond Tiara must’ve felt. When you flipped out at her," she laughed awkwardly. “She had it coming, but you know, I saw it from the other side. I was really confused, you know? I’m still confused. Kinda.”

“I’m so sorry." I started crying again. The dam just sorta broke. My throat tightened and my eyeballs felt like popped water balloons.

Kettle Corn stopped walking. Cliff went on ahead a little, stealing glances at me over his shoulder to make sure everything was okay. Even through my blurry watery eyes, I could tell that he was fighting the urge to come running.

For a few moments, Kettle and I just stood there. Me crying. And Kettle watching. Then, she reached out with her foreleg. Stuck her snow boot right up to my face. My eyes fixated on that boot. And my bawling ceased, if for no other reason than the fact that I was really fucking confused.

Then the tip of her boot tapped my nose. “Boop," she said.

I raised a leg. Rubbed my nose with my jacket sleeve. Totally stunned.

For a moment, the wind whistled through the bare branches in the trees.

And then, out of the depths of nowhere, I broke into laughter. The tears didn’t stop running down my cheeks.. I just sorta laugh-cried.

“That’s a trick my brother does to me," Kettle Corn said.

“It works," I answered, still heaving.

Kettle grinned a grin so wide her teeth seemed to take up half her face. “I never got to try it on anypony else.”

I buried my face in my scarf. Dried my tears with the scratchitty wool. And slowly, steadily, caught my breath.

“So what now?” I said at last.

Kettle Corn shrugged. “I dunno. I guess that's it. I said everything I wanted to.”

We started walking again. Kettle looked to the sky. I followed her gaze. Watched the sun shining through the clouds.

It gave me this weird feeling. A gratitude, so profound - so overwhelming - that I could hardly speak.

I was fortunate enough to actually live in a world that had a beautiful sky. To live under a beautiful sun. Captained by a wise and benevolent, and yes, beautiful leader. But even better than that, Kettle Corn was okay! The more I thought about it, the more incredible it seemed. She really shouldn’t-a been okay. She should have been messed up and crazy, and she shoulda hated my stupid rose guts for what I did to her. Luna knows she woulda had the right.

But Kettle didn’t hate me.

I looked to her, walking peacefully by my side, still watching the clouds. Not looking to them for answers. Not reflecting on what the world would be like without them. Just sorta ogling them. Simply because they were pretty.

It made me feel unworthy somehow. To be booped by somepony like her. One of the good ones.

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

SOME COMMENTS AND STUFF: Today is the Full Moon. This chapter got released at the exact minute the Moon was at its fullest. Praise our glorious princess of dreams!

NOTE In the original draft that I published, there were a few more paragraphs, which I cut two weeks later (on 11/13/2018) because the last line sent mixed messages and was generally problematic. I thought about reframing it, or elaborating on Rose Petal's response to clarify my intent, but upon examining the chapter, I think the new last line of the chapter works better anyway. I'm archiving the original deleted passage here...

“Kettle Corn?” I said at last.

“Yeah?” She answered.

“Mind if I, uh, ask you a question?”

“Sure.” She replied.

I sighed. Lowered my head. Watched my boots as they crunched against the freshly plowed snow.

“Why’d you forgive me?” I whispered.

The little filly furrowed her brow. Stared at me like I had seventeen eyeballs growing outta my ears. Like I had just asked the craziest, stupidest, most ridiculous question in the whole wide world.

“Um...Because,” she said. “That’s what ponies do."

War Buddies

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - WAR BUDDIES
"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do." - Potter Stewart

Letter from Smart Cookie to Clover the Clever. Date: Unknown

Dearest Clover,

I'm hoping this finds you well. The Great Equestrian Society we set out to build together has proven more successful than either of us could possibly have imagined. Chancellor Puddnghead's ambitions have transformed Fillydelphia unrecognizably since last you visited. Her spiritual leadership, and her vigorous program of festivities and culinary wonderments have inspired a sort of fever amongst the populace. Her skills as a motivator are unmatched. Simply put, she has become a better leader than I ever thought possible.

However, even though I still see Puddinghead often, when I have a crisis in the governance of my own province, yours is the council I crave the most.

You actually remember what it was like to serve.

It was us - the advisors - who worked for the greater good of our tribes, not by decree, but by steering our rulers true.

As abysmal as those days may have seemed - as catastrophic as Puddinghead’s ridiculous impulses may have been for the earth pony tribe - her recklessness, by contrast, instilled in me a purpose, and hardened my moral resolve.

It's been different since I was saddled with a province of my own to rule. My path is no longer clear.

It was your guidance and your indispensable advice that inspired me to gather the greatest thinkers of our time. It was your knowledge that helped us all come together, and found a new kind of city, built on the principles of Hay-to's Republic. (I still have the copy you sent me so many moons ago, resting on my dresser!)

Do you remember the excitement? Our bold New Democratic Experiment! The flourishing of ideas! The passion for public service.

It was unprecedented.

Ponies from all walks of life came together in friendship to construct innovative new policies - to build a society founded on the idea of a common good. Out of that common good, and that common interest came tremendous prosperity.

I write you now as that good, and that prosperity comes under attack for the first time in any meaningful way. When Mayor Blossom Bubble retired earlier this year, an unsavory traveling salespony by the name of Snake Oil appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.

He charmed the good ponies of our fair city and appealed to their worst natures. Awoke a volcano of discontent that I hadn't even known was there. Before any of us could even begin to process what he might be up to, Snake Oil actually won the election.

Now, with the inauguration a mere month away, I look around and find all eyes suddenly fixed upon me. There are thousands of ponies who see Snake Oil for the charlatan that he is, and all of them are rightly terrified of his coming administration.

Everywhere I go, ponies turn to me for answers. They turn to me for leadership. They turn to me for action.

I don't know what to do.

The terrifying thing - the thought that keeps me up at night - is that I could nullify the election. Nopony would question me, not even Snake Oil himself!

With one stroke of a quill, I could undo everything. I could issue edicts, and write policies myself, or appoint a proxy delegate.

With that power, I could help tens of thousands of struggling ponies - make their lives easier, spare them hardship, and give their children the chance for a brighter future.

But what then would I become? A princess? A queen?

Worse yet, what would we become - as a society, and as a race?

I find myself sitting by the fire every night clutching the book that you gave me one Hearth's Warming so very long ago - the anthology of the great ethicist, Aristrotle. I think back to those long conversations you and I used to have once upon a time - those strolls we took through your garden on cold, moonlit nights - those wild and passionate debates we had over the kind of world that we wanted to build - back when we were young - back when our friendship was all we had, and all we thought we'd ever need.

It's been so long since I've talked to anypony like that - as an equal.

I desperately need to figure out how to do the right thing, now that it's no longer a mere abstract - now that it's gotten so complicated. I need you.

Nopony has heard from you in ages.

I respect that you've become engrossed in your secret studies. I've grown accustomed to your long disappearances and secret missions.

But as I hoof through these brittle old pages, I desperately need to know: What does it mean to do the right thing?

Is it whatever benefits the most ponies? A question of pure pragmatism? Or are there higher ideals at stake? Justice? Fairness? Honesty? Truth? Even if it means that ponies get hurt?

I am tired. Everywhere I go, desperate ponies plead with me to think of the future. How can I explain to them that I am thinking of the future?

If I save our city now, it's an admission that we are beyond hope - that we cannot recover from bad decisions - that we cannot learn from them.

And if I should become a despot now, even if by some miracle I succeeded in staying honest, what would become of our realm after I am gone, and somepony else sits on my throne?

It's hard to look all of these ponies in the eyes and tell them that I refuse to help because of an idea - because of words - because of a highfalutin abstract that won't relieve their suffering in the here-and-now.

But in the end, those values are all we have. They're all we are.

I hope this letter finds you well, old friend. I fear we are drifting irreparably apart, and frankly, I cannot bear it. Please respond, if only to let me know that you're okay.

Yours in Friendship,
Smart Cookie

* * *

By the time we left the hospital, the sun was high and burning hot. Well, for winter anyway. The snow on the tippy tops of the hills was finally melting a little bit. And it blinded my eyeballs with all of its stupid shiny, shimmery dew as the road to the Everfree curved near to the sparkley outskirts of Sweet Apple Acres.

Cliff walked right beside me. Soaking in the scenery. Content to enjoy our silence together. As friends.

While a bunch of stupid thoughts not so contentedly squished around the inside of my brain. Thoughts about ethics and stuff. Thoughts about the good thing - the course of action that helps the most ponies. And the justicey thing. You know, fairness and junk.

How they oppose each other sometimes. And how much that sucks.

The thought ate at me. ‘Till I had no choice but to break Cliff’s peaceful little silence.

“I've been thinking,” I said.

Cliff rubbed his eyes, and squinted at me.

“About Foster.” I added.

“Ah," he said. “Yeah, I kinda figured.”

Crunch crunch crackley crunch. Our boots gnashed the gravel into the thawing dirt as I gathered my thoughts some more.

“Foster’s doing some good stuff," I said.

“Sure.”

“And she could do a lot more! Especially for Screw Loose, who needs all the help she can get, you know?”

“Yeah," Cliff nodded solemnly. “Sorry you didn't get to see her.”

The hospital hadn't let us see Screw Loose. Foster's magical brain suggestions only go so far. Especially when stupid doctors shuffle the therapy schedule around, unexpected-like.

“Do you think Screw Loose knows I tried?” I said.

The thought of her sitting there, waiting for me. Crying. Wondering why. It ripped my heart up into a million tiny pieces of cardiovascular confetti.

“I don't know," Cliff replied honestly. “I hope so.”

I lowered my head. Sighed. Kept my eyes on my boots. Crunch crunch crackley crunch.

“What do you think we should do?” I said to Cliff.

“About what?”

“About Foster,” I said, still staring downwards. “All that hypnotizing and stuff. She can do a lot of good with it. But it's still wrong, you know? Like really wrong, no matter how you slice it.”

“Oh.” Cliff shuffled his hooves as he walked, kicking up loose pebbles and tiny chunks of ice. I don't know what the rest of him was doing. I didn't look up to try and see.

“Well,” he answered. “We don't really get to do anything.”

“I know,” I said. “But still…” I trailed off. Unsure of what to say.

Instead, I let my attention drift. I gazed out at the pretty scenery again. A dirt road, neatly plowed. A patch of pasture land, neatly cleared - speckled with sheep. And rows upon rows of rolling white hills. Completely untouched.

It made me uneasy. I didn't even know why. It just made me really fucking uneasy.

That's what happens when there’s stuff on your mind. I reckoned. Even the sight of sheep makes you crazy anxious.

“Rose?” Cliff spoke up.

“Yeah?”

“Are you and Foster still friends?”

“Yeah,” I said, finally prying my gaze from the stupid field. “I mean, like, we're gonna really need each other.” I added. “There's lotsa shadow stuff going on right now. You know?”

“But are you friends?”

I sighed. “I wanna be.”

Cliff looked to me with giant, sad, puppy-dog eyes. That crushing disappointment of his reminded me why I'd been staring at the ground for so long instead of at him.

“I'm sorry," I said. “It's the mines. Ever since…I can't stand to see anypony, you know, not free.”

Cliff nodded somberly.

We walked in silence a bit more. While the last of Sweet Apple Acres dwindled and gave way to untamed fields and hills.

“Rose?” Cliff said. A touch of anxiety in his voice.

I looked over. Answered him without saying a word.

“...I know you had it real hard," Cliff continued. "And like, um, I know I can't imagine what that must have been like for you.”

“No, you really can't," I said.

Cliff's cheeks stretched out awkwardly into a nervous little smile. “But...I just wanna point out that Foster - she’s like…been through a lot too. And she never had the benefit of a lifetime growing up with, like, you know, pony morals.’

‘I'm not telling you how to feel or anything," Cliff added hurriedly. “But I actually think it's pretty amazing that she's even trying. To have a conscience, I mean. Y’ know, about all that parasitic mind control bug stuff that…” Cliff paused to look over his shoulder. Then he leaned in close, conspiratorial-like, and whispered. “...That her kind does.”

“Hmph," I grunted.

Cliff had a point. And I hated that.

“And, uh...isn't it kinda cool?” He added hesitantly. “How it all works?”

“How what works?”

“The way their mom - I mean queen - feeds ev-er-y-one. How their minds are connected?” Cliff squeaked excitedly. “It's like what Professor Science wrote. Y’know, about thought itself being the Fifth Dimension? This proves it!”

“Uh...fifth dimension?” I asked dryly.

“Yeah!” Cliff answered with colossal gusto. “We have the three dimensions of physical space. The fourth is time. And the fifth is one of ideas. Concepts. Constructs. So a stream of consciousness is, like literally travelling down a stream. And when you form ideas, you're going all over the Universe. Moving along the plane oooooofffff…” Cliff took a great big melodramatic pause. “Dimension X!”

He said it so boldly that his voice seemed to echo.

“Well,” I said. “Um, okay, I have to admit that does sound pretty cool.”

...If it made any sense. I thought to myself.

Cliff smiled. “Yeah, I know, right? And this changeling hive mind stuff proves it. All of Professor Science’s theories! Just think about it! Now we have proof - proof that psychic powers are real.”

I blinked at him in reply. Real super loudly. Blink bloink. Blink bloink.

…

‘Till Cliff remembered who he was talking to.

“Oh yeah," he blushed a little.

I grinned back at him. But I couldn't help but wonder if he was being a little too forgiving of Foster's lack of morals simply because he thought she was cool.

Then one of my Rose Voices spoke up from inside of my skull. The one that always says dumb stuff that I hate. What does that say about you? The voice posited to me in a whisper. Cliff is always so forgiving. So understanding. What if aaaall this time, he’s just been overlooking your flaws because he thought you were cool? That your powers were cool?

What if you don't deserve forgiveness? What if you don't deserve friends?

Then wham! The memory of Twink came down on my Rose Voice with that giant 2x4 o’ Friendship. Nobody. Pow! Speaks. Crunch! That. Thwack! Way. Thwack! About. Thwack! My. Thwack! Friends.

I stumbled and swayed. The inside of my head was like thunder. Earthquakes. And the sound of two cats fighting in the garbage can behind the Hayburger.

“You okay?” Cliff said.

And suddenly poof! The brain drama went dead silent.

“Uh, yeah.” I said. “I'm fine.”

* * *

Up ahead was the main road that ran straight up to Northern Ponyville one way, and down South into the Everfree the other way. There in the crossroads stood Cranky. Looking, well...kinda...cranky.

“Who in the hay is this?” He said once I was close enough to grump at without shouting.

Cliff shrank back. Pulled the hood on his winter coat down over his face.

“This is Cliff Diver," I answered. “He's a friend of mine.”

Cranky made a sour face. Sour-er than usual.

“It's okay," I said. “He knows all about my trouble with…”

Cranky threw his hooves up. Waved them around. Begged me silently not to talk of the shadows out in the open.

Traveler superstition. I thought. So I mimed it instead with my most ghoulish booga-wooga-wooga face.

“Look, Rose.” Cranky groaned. “I offered to guide you where you need to go, not to lead a field trip.”

“It's okay. I just came to see her off," said Cliff, though judging by the way his tail sagged in disappointment, he had, in fact, hoped to tag along.

“I'm sorry, kid," Cranky said. “But I'm taking a big enough risk with Rose Petal as it is. The last thing I need is a bunch of angry parents banging on my door.”

“It's okay!” Cliff’s ears perked up, all hopeful-like. “My parents don't care. They really don't! They don't care if I live or die.”

Cranky furrowed his brow. Straightened his wig. Looked Cliff up and down all over again, super thoughtful-like. Cliff wasn't making a play for sympathy. If anything, he was totally fucking oblivious. Nonchalant about the fact that his folks hated his Cliff-guts.

“Guess we ought to get going then," Cranky said to Cliff without a word of condolence. “Time's a-wastin’.”

And just like that, the old donkey turned around and led the way. While Cliff and I followed. Southward toward the Everfree.

Cliff bounced with excitement the whole time. Grinning a mile wide. At least whenever Cranky's head was turned the other way. Cliff looked to me and mouthed the words, “Everfree!” Giddy as a South Equestrian laughing snail.

And I was happy for him. This was his idea of a big adventure. A journey into the great unknown. But I couldn't get into the spirit of it. ‘Cause I just thought of those creepy side track roots and shivered.

* * *

We were just over the bridge and almost to the edge of town when suddenly, I heard my name. Saw motion out of the corner of my eye.

“Rose Petal!” A mare galloped up to us.

But before I could figure out what was going on, Cliff had already quit hisjubilant bouncing, and wedged himself right in front of me. Sternlyblocking off the mystery mare. Just in case she meant me harm.

Cranky glanced at Cliff out of the corner of his eye. Hid his smirk of approval at Cliff's protectyness.

“Oh, hi!” Said the voice, all bubbly with good intent. “I just wanted to tell you great job!”

Cliff and I turned to one another with raised eyebrows.

And once he got out of the way, I recognized the mare instantly. It was thelady who'd given Cranky and me a hard time just the day before. The same mare who’d shielded her foal from having to look at me, like I was some kinda dragon and she was some kinda hero.

“You too, Cliff. Buh-bye now.” She giggled before prancing off, humming some tune or another to herself.

“What was that all about?” Cliff stammered.

“Pinkie Pie," Cranky and I answered in unison.

Then, with a casual shrug, the three of us made our way down the final stretch of road.

* * *

It wasn't long before we reached the entrance to the Everfree - an archway of tangled branches, and twisted wooden claws reaching out over Ponyville's edge. The sight of it inspired a somber sorta reverence in Cliff Diver, Cranky, and me. But as we got closer, and the furthest tendrils of those outstretching twigs actually started looming directly over us, the old donkey stopped. Threw a hoof up telling us to do the same.

"Hey...uh, kid," he said without taking his eyes off the forest.

“Yeah?”

"Listen, before we go in there, I don't want you getting your hopes too high about this zebra witch."

"Why not?"

"Well," he straightened his toupee. "It's complicated. There ain't no quick fix to what you got going on. You understand what I'm saying?"

I nodded in reply.

But I didn't understand. Not really. ‘Cause what was I hoping to accomplish out there anyway? Could Zecora hook me up with a cure for my shadow hoof? A way to hear musical numbers again? A plan to keep the evil shadow castle from… doing…you know, evil shadow castle stuff? I had no idea.

When I had bolted in there the day before, I'd been fleeing - running away in fear and guilt and desperation. But everything had changed since then! I actually had options now. I wasn't being rejected by my sister anymore - wasn't being rejected by the town.

In fact, things were finally starting to look up, thanks to a really hard apology on my part, and a whole lotta Pinkie magic.

A stampede of thoughts-and-stuff stormed around the inside of my skull as I stared down the forest path. ‘Till at last, I realized that I didn't actually have to run anymore. The reality of it? I was betraying my sister's trust in me. Just by thinking about sneaking off to Zecora's.

But still, I couldn't let it go, even if I tried. I had to go into the Everfree. To learn what I could. I just had to.

"I want answers." I told Cranky. Super serious-like.

"Me too, kid," the old donkey answered in a raspy voice.

“What do you need answers for?” Cliff chimed in and asked.

Cranky looked up-and-down and all around. Allowed himself to just sorta gaze. For the first time since we’d met up. "I wanna know what was happening in there while the blizzard was raging back here." He gestured first at the woods, then at the Ponyville ground beneath our hooves.

Cliff blinked. Pried his eyes from the spooky branches above us, and peered deep into the forest. “There's no snow," he marveled. Stretching his neck outward, he examined the ground and the trees and the forest ceiling. To see if maybe the Everfree was hiding a whole blizzard’s worth of snow somewhere.

It wasn't.

“Where’s all the snow?” Cliff's voice cracked. It was finally dawning on him how incredibly off the Everfree Forest was.

“I just told ya, kid. I don't know. But I'm hoping the zebra does. Now, are you two ready?”

Cliff and I nodded.

“Good," said Cranky. “Let's get moving.”

* * *

The Everfree path bent and climbed and fell in mysterious ways. After only a few minutes of walking, you could look back over your flank and see nothing but trees. Everywhere.

Up ahead was no better.

Every step we took made the air get just a little bit darker. It got darker. And darker. And darker. And darker. And darker. After a while, it started to feel like the forest was swallowing us up.

Then there were the eyes. The further into the Everfree we got, the stronger I sensed them. Sometimes they look right at you - shiny orbs that seem to float on darkness as they reflect what strangled remains of sunlight reach the underbrush. And sometimes they look down from above. Watch curiously on as their owners rustle about in the trees.

But there were other eyes too. The kind you can't see. It's like that feeling you get when the teacher’s stare drills through the back of your head. There's no way you could logically know that she's behind you. No sight or sound or touch or smell. But still, you sense her. Looking disapprovingly at your pirate doodles.

The Everfree Forest was full of eyes like that. The kind that you feel looking at you, but can't ever see.

“You been all over the place, haven't you?” Cliff spoke up out of the blue.

And suddenly fwoom! All the invisible eyes were pointed at Cliff. He didn't seem to notice.

“I reckon," the old donkey answered bluntly.

“Well?” Cliff continued. “You seem to know the Everfree Forest pretty well. How? Why? Like, what made you wanna come...in here?”

Cliff flailed his forehooves around. He may not have noticed the spying eyes, but he still sensed that the forest was not an inviting place.

“Haven't been to the Everfree much," Cranky answered. “Not for a long, long time. But when I do visit, it's to drop in on an old friend.”

“You and Zecora go back?” I asked.

“Not exactly. We're acquainted. Wouldn't call her a friend, though," Cranky chuckled lightly to himself. Awkward-like.

I didn't like the sound of it. Made me nervous. The last thing I wanted was to go on this great big journey; to attract the attention of all the spooky things in the whole damn forest; to get a monster headache on top of it (thanks to those stupid invisible eyes drilling into my brain); and then, at the end of it all, to find out that Zecora hated Cranky, or something, and get sent away in anger.

“Is, uh...that gonna be a problem?” I said. “Like what if she--;”

“She'll help you," Cranky said firmly. “Don't fret it, kid.”

“Okay," I said, forced to take Cranky at his word. He hadn't let me down so far.

“Who is your friend then?” Cliff brushed a vine out of his mane. Threw the forest a who the fuck would wanna live here look.

“Sea serpent," Cranky replied. “Goes by the name of Magnet.”

“Sea serpent?!” Cliff and I said at once.

“Yeah," Cranky answered. But he didn't elaborate. Just kept on moving.

Meanwhile, all those fucking eyeballs in the dark started setting off my brain hornets. There was some kinda mojo all the fuck over the forest. Not shadows. Not light. Something primal, and crazy, and deadly that didn't give a fuck about any of that.

My brain went completely bonkers just being near it. The stinging. The headache. The sense of urgency. But when I listened to the hornets, there was no message. When I looked, there were no visions.

I focused real super hard. Squinted my eyes shut. Forced the stinging outward with all of my brain-might. ‘Till I was left with a single thought. Cranky and his monster friend. And how they made it work. Don't ask me why. It just sorta happened.

“Cranky?” I said as my head finally started to clear. “Mind if I ask you a question?"

“Go ahead, kid.”

“Well, you've got, like, a lot of friends in a lotta different places," I said.

“Yup.”

“How do you, like, maintain friendships with folks who are, you know, unscrupulous?”

Cranky scrunched his nose up at me.

“Like, say that you have a friend who does stuff that you're not totally comfortable with," I added hurriedly. “Like sea monsters doing, you know...sea monster stuff.”

“Serpent.”

“Yeah, that too," I said. “Like, say you and him are friends. And you're super close. And you have each other's loyalty and stuff. Laughter too...and generosity, and kindness, and honesty! Honesty especially! Since your serpent friend hasn't told anyone about his true identity except for you and Cliff.”

Cranky looked at me like I was crazy, while Cliff just sighed super loudly. But I kept going.

“...The thing is, like...what about when they do bad stuff? You know, like monster stuff. To other ponies? And their code of ethics is super messed up. How do you live with that?”

Cranky turned away from me. Kept his eyes on the woods. “Well, kid. Not everyone's the same. Sometimes you need a friend to help decorate your living room, and sometimes, you need a war buddy." Cranky stopped briefly to kick a stone. “It's easy to keep your war buddies from ruining your grandmother's brunch party once you start setting boundaries in your life. The real question is this.” Cranky craned his neck. Turned to me gravely. “Does this unscrupulous friend of yours have your back?”

“Yeah," I answered bashfully. “She's got my back.” I didn't even have to think about it.

“You sure?”

Cliff and I nodded to one another.

“Really sure," I said softly.

“Good," Cranky answered. “Then all you really need to do is figure out what that's worth to you.”

“Worth?” I asked nervously.

“Well, kid, what's your line in the sand? How much unscrupulousness does it take to warrant throwing a friend like that away?”

I thought about it. Long and hard. And Cranky was right. I couldn't just throw Bananas Foster away. Not lightly. But that didn't make coping with all the hypnosis-slavery-lack-of-free-will stuff easy.

“Just think on it, kid.”

“I will," I said. And walked a while in silence. Ignoring the stinging brain hornets. Just thinking. Really really really hard. About morals. About Foster. About friendship.

“Cranky?” I said once some of my mind dust had settled.

“Whatcha want, kiddo?”

“Uh…After you figure out that line in the sand, how do you...like...cope with it?”

“That I couldn't tell you," Cranky said. “You'd have to ask Magnet.”

“The sea monster?” Cliff cocked his head sideways, all confuzzled.

“Serpent," I corrected him.

Cranky nodded firmly at me.

“Yeah, Magnet," he said. “I'm the unscrupulous one.”

* * *

Mere moments later, the trees suddenly started to part, and the brain hornets simmered down. Even the wild starey eyeballs scattered and faded.

A single beam of sunlight struck down through the branches overhead. Like an orange blade stabbing the ground from above. Everything around us felt clean and clear.

We soon came upon a tree with colorful glass bottles hanging from every branch. And slowed down when we reached it. Watched in silent reverence as it shone like a rustic kaleidoscope. Just beyond its sparkley light show, on the other side of a tiny clearing stood a another tree, this one with a big wooden door at the bottom. Like the Golden Oak Library. But waaaaay cooler. The outside was covered with artifacts. Bottles and masks. Strange and foreign.

I couldn't believe it. It was breathtaking.

“Well,” Cranky said at long last. “Here we are.”

Author's Note

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

NOTE: It's the final hours of the final day of the Full Moon, but I finished it in time! Here's to Princess Luna! May she forever reign over the dream realms!

Great Expectations

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT- GREAT EXPECTATIONS
“We need the sweet pain of anticipation to tell us we are really alive.” - Albert Camus

Life on the open sea, by all logic and reason, should be miserable. It's months and months of burning sun, and freezing winds, and slimy, back-breaking work with no hot baths at the end of the day to clear the salt from your itchy mane. But Pinkbeard wouldn't have it any other way.

And while much of her crew bemoans the cruelty of their chores, most of them would also still hold true to their own fates, and to their captain, even if given a thousand other lives to choose from.

I always envied that about pirates. Connected to it. Their drive. Their vigor. Their sense of purpose. Of self.

“I am what I am what I am.” As Pinkbeard herself once said.

But I really didn't have the words to express why it resonated with me so strongly. Until I read book seven. The one where you find out that Gash - the swashbuckling warrior with two eye patches and three wooden legs - actually started out as a runaway rich kid.

On her first voyage, Gash wasn’t accustomed to swabbing decks, and peeling potatoes, and having her two spare sets of fancy shoes stolen by a slippery old octopus with dreams of making it big as a professional tap dancer.

So she cried. A lot. She cried and she cried and she cried and she cried and she cried. That is, until she confided in Slop, the ship's mess cook. Asked him directly how anypony managed to bear such a miserable day, and still have enough joy left in their hearts to laugh and sing through the night when their work was done. The way pirates do.

It turned out that the whole crew was made up of runaway sailors from the evil East Equestria Trading Company, which had made them all work just as hard, but didn't share any of its booty with them. Like, none at all. The pirate crew didn't mind a little hardship ‘cause they had never ever dreamt of a life free from toil. They dreamt of a better kind of toil. Hardship with dignity. Purpose.

“Anticerpation,” the mess cook said in his unique accent that nopony could place. “Is what makes a bloke unhappy. Not achin’ bones. The sooner you get the idea outta yer head that pitchin’ in is some manner o’ cosmic injustice, the happier ye'll be.”

And it really stuck with me, you know? The idea that, once you had all your basic needs met, anticerpation was the sole decider over whether or not you were gonna freak out, or instead be, like, totally chill, and kinda happy. Pirate happy.

* * *

I hadn't realized it during my trek through the forest, but I'd let anticerpation get the best of me. Cranky had warned me about an hour before not to get my hopes up. Not to expect a quick fix. Not to expect a fix at all! And I’d flat out told myself that I shouldn't go looking for any kind of miracle.

But somewhere along the line, my hopes and dreams and fears had all gotten built up real high, and come to tangle themselves with my anticipation of this one meeting with Zecora. And no amount of logic or reason was gonna untangle them.

So when I finally got close to Zecora's little oasis - when I actually breathed the air and smelt the musky fumes of magic brew emanating from her home, I just stood there, utterly speechless as all the feelings and stuff that I’d thought I’d gotten under control suddenly crashed out of my heart, and flooded into my brain. I was left instead with an empty skull, and only one articulate thought rattling around the inside of it. A strange fascination with the plainwooden door embedded in the trunk of Zecora's tree.

All you have to do is knock on it. One of my Rose Voices said to me. Just walk over there and knock on it. A teeeeeeny tiny little rap of a hoof, and your long, long, looooong wait to seek Zecora’s counsel will finally be over!

For better or worse.

“Hay, whatcha waiting for?” Cranky nudged me. “We ain't got all day.”

“Ahh!” I stumbled forward. Snapped out of my stupor. Caught my breath. Got my bearings.

Cliff Diver and Cranky were standing behind me. Waiting.

There were only so many daylight hours before we had to turn around and head back. We all had homes to get back to, family to answer to, lies to tell about where we had been.

This is no time for thinkiness. I said to myself.

With a hardened resolve, I marched right up to the door and knocked on it. Then I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. ‘Till at last, the door swung open, and I found myself up-close-and-personal with the five million rings around Zecora's neck.

The very first thing to pop into my brain was to wonder: how does anypony take those things on and off?!

Then I realized that I was staring. And my brain stopped dead. Like a squirrel in mortal terror, afraid to make the next move.

“Uh...uh...uh…” I said again and again and again.

‘Till finally, Cranky cleared his throat. “Ahemummum," he said. The sound snapped me out of my trance.

"Hello," I said at last. "Uhh...My name's Rose Petal. I'm here because I really, really need your help. At least I think I do. I'm not sure. See, I keep travelling to different duckies in my dreams. And now a bunch of evil has followed me home, and there's sooo much trouble and stuff going on inside my brain that I can't do music anymore, and I'm scared that the evil is gonna climb inside my hoof and kill me. And this zebra I met - you know, like, in my dream - he told me that zebras know about...this sorta thing." Then to my horror, I realized that I'd made a huge generalization. So I scrambled to correct myself. “Not all zebras! I mean I know you all don't, like, automatically know about this sorta thing. But I figured that you might. 'Cause you know a lot of stuff...And that's a good thing!

'And by the way, I'm really really really really sorry for being scared of you before. You know back when you used to come to our town, and we'd all run and hide? Like, I know you get along okay with Ponyville now, but I never got to apologize one-on-one, and I feel really really bad about it.So...um...yeah. How are you?”

Zecora raised a single eyebrow at me. Then glanced over my shoulder.

"Don't look at me," Cranky said. "I just led the kid through the forest."

Finally, the zebra knelt down. Eye level with me. The kinda thing you do when talking to small foals. "Don't be afraid," she said. "Come inside. / I will listen. You confide."

Zecora's house was surprisingly warm (on account of the big fat cauldron bubbling in the center of it). So I started tearing off my hat and coat in a hurry. As soon as I set hoof inside.

“I've been meaning to check in with you myself," Cranky said. “That is, if you don't mind.”

Zecora scrunched her nose up at Cranky. “Don't you think I’ve given you pardon / for when you puked and ruined my garden.”

I snickered. Got distracted. Ended up getting my scarf tangled in the sleeve of my coat.

“Engggh! Enggggh!” I said as I struggled to squirm out of it.

“Yeah, awfully sorry about that," Cranky replied. “But there's something going on right now much bigger than you or me. I'm not sure you know this, but there was a blizzard back in Ponyville the other day. Didn't touch the forest at all. I think it was the --;”

“Cranky!” Zecora snapped. Giving him the eyeballs of a gazillion daggers. “I could forgive your acting drunk and wild / but you know better than to speak of...such things…” She looked back-and-forth conspiratorially. “...in front of a child.”

While they were arguing, I flipped on my back, and took to rolling all over the place to try to kick all my stupid winter shit off.

“Arrrrggg!” I said, ever so gracefully. “Arrrrr.”

“We already know!” Cliff exclaimed in Cranky's defense. “We dealt with the shadows before we even met Cranky! Right, Rose?”

“Mmmmpph!” I replied. But the zebra wasn't hearing it.

Zecora snorted aggressively through her nostrils. Glowered at Cranky. “I’ve always known that you were gruff and sour.” She tsked and shook her head. “...But frightening children just gives darkness power!”

“He helped me," I said, finally managing to push the scarf aside with my tongue. “Honest!”

And I tried to be as firm as possible. As adult as possible. As persuasive. But it just so happened that I was stuck on my back like a newborn foal. Squirming all over the place. Entangled in my own jacket, spitting scarf wool off of my tongue - all at the same time. “Pleh! Pleh! Pleh! Pleh! Pleh!”

Zecora bent down and lent a hoof. Without judgments. Without words.

With a little bit of help, the boots popped off. One by one by one. ‘Till fwoosh. The coat and scarf at long last slid off with them. And I was left lying on my back. Cringing. Using my newly liberated hooves to cover my face in embarrassment.

"Thanks," I muttered into my hooves.

But Zecora didn't answer. Like, at all. So I peeked out from behind my forehoof, and saw that the zebra was frozen in place, irises shrunk to the size of pinpoints, staring at me in horror.

“What?” I scrambled to my hooves. “What is it?!"

And of course, Zecora's eyes followed, well...my hooves. She was staring at my evil hoof.

"Oh," I said. "Yeah. That's why I'm here. Or part of why I'm here anyway."

"I've never seen anything like it," she said, breaking from her normal rhyme and rhythm.

"You haven't?" I squeaked, suddenly mortified. What if I'd come all that way for nothing?! "I thought zebras were supposed to know about this stuff."

I thought back to the zebra in the future. The medic in Colonel Wormwood's camp. He had told me all about it. How he'd read up on the shadow hoof condition. How it was not just a way for the inky evil-majigs to get at me. But also a way for me to strike back at them. How they were actually scared of me.

Zecora shook her head.

"Well, have you at least heard of it? Read about it? Because Cranky knows! From old blues legends. And carnies and travelers and stuff."

"Well, maybe a little," Cranky mumbled bashfully.

“Wait!” Cliff interrupted. “You're the one who's got all those blues records?” Cliff's eyes turned to stars that sparkled out a billion shiny lights.

Up until that point, I'd figured that it’d been really fucking obvious where I'd gotten the records from, but the truth was, I had never actually told Cliff.

“Do you have any more Badwing?” Cliff exclaimed. “Ooh! What about--;”

“Kid," Cranky said. And rather than finish that thought, he just pointed at me. Then at Zecora. Reminding Cliff Diver of where we were. What we were supposed to be doing. Cliff blushed a little in reply.

Meanwhile, I was busy getting into a wrestling match with my own hazy memories. And beating them into submission until they gave up their brain secrets.

What had the future zebra said about my condition again? He had likened the shadows’ touch to the darkness in a zebra's stripes. A part of yourself that you need to embrace in order to be whole. He’d advised me not to think of my shadow hoof as a weakness, but as a weapon against evil itself.

I remembered that much! But most of my memory was pretty vague after that. I could only conjure up the feeling I'd had in his presence. The realization that I was not alone. That my black hoof was not a freak anomaly. That it had a fucking name…

“Wait!” I cried aloud suddenly. “There's a word for it!”

But my brain stopped right there. Refused to tell me what the word actually was.

"Tamuk,” I said to myself. “Takumbo, Tumaka. Tumakalaka’kumbhu."

Zecora tapped her hoof and looked at me sourly.

“Tamakuka,” I continued. “Mukata, Tukambo…”

She cleared her throat all impatient-like.

“Wait wait!” I said. “I almost got it! Takma, Tumbakalakalaka…Ta...Ta…Ta...Ta...”

As Zecora stared at me longer and harder and irritated-ly-er, it slowly occurred to me that, until I could remember the actual word, I was really just standing there like an asshole, mumbling gibberish. Mocking her native language.

"Ah!” I shrieked. “Sorry!”

Zecora rolled her eyes and knelt down beside me. Proffered a stripey leg.

It took me a minute to realize that she wasn't mad at me. But eventually, I flashed her an awkward little smile. And put my hoof in hers.

She handled it gently. Leaned in close-like. Smelt it. Tapped it ever so fucking delicate-like. Treated me like I was made out of hard tortillas, and any minute now, I would collapse in on my own shell and shatter into a million tiny pieces.

“Arg. It doesn't hurt!” I grumbled.

And my stomach grumbled with me. Because now I wanted tortillas!

Zecora patted my hoof. Looked up at me with kind eyeballs. But they were distracted eyeballs. Drifting ever downward. Focusing intently on me. Not just the hoof. But me. My chest specifically, though who could guess why?

Oh, Luna! I said to myself. What does she know? Why does she keep staring at my chest?! Is the inky evilness already spreading to my heart like Blackhoof's?! Am I doomed? What if I’m condemned to fade away? Slip into the darkness? Die of cardio-shadow poisoning?!

“What?” I said. “What is it?”

“Relax,” the zebra replied. “There's no need for alarm / I will not let you come to any harm.”

“Thanks," I said.

“Tell her about falling out of the song," Cliff called out. Totally out of nowhere. Trying to be helpful.

And in his own way, he kinda was helpful. ‘Cause I totally woulda forgotten to bring up the musical number had he not mentioned it.

But Zecora was still obsessing over my hoof. And he was distracting her. So she got up off her knee and approached Cliff, direct-like.

"It's clear you're quite devoted as a friend," she said. “And Rose will need your help before day's end. / I have a special favor I must ask / A simple but essential kind of task."

"Uh...sure," Cliff squeaked as he talked. "But uhhhhhh..." He shrunk back. Ears flattened like one of those dogs that hides under furniture, afraid of the world. "I'm not very good at...you know...doing stuff. Are you sure that I should be the one to--;"

"Not far from here you'll find a bonfire pit," Zecora cut him off before he could tear himself down any harder. "Just sit and wait and keep a fire lit."

"That's all?" Cliff whimpered.

It made me sad to see him so intimidated. So afraid. He was always bold when it came to his wacky theories, and he’d stood by me so bravely and unrelenting-like during my shadow mess, that I'd all but forgotten about the shy, friendless kid that Diamond Tiara had picked on just a few weeks before.

The boy who thought he'd never be good at anything.

“Hey, you know how to build a fire, don't you, kid?" Cranky got straight to the point.

Cliff sorta shrugged. "Weeell..."

"Come on," Cranky said dryly. "I'll teach you."

"Thanks," Cliff breathed a sigh of relief.

The old donkey put a hoof on the colt's shoulder and led him outside. But before their tails were even all the way out, Cranky called back to Zecora.

"We still gotta talk about that blizzard," he said grouchily.

And at that, the door swung shut. Leaving Zecora and I alone together. I smiled and waved my evil hoof 'hello' at her. Like an idiot.

And she just stood there. Studying me carefully.

Don't blow it! One of my Rose Voices said to me.

"So, uh...what do you need a bonfire for?" I asked. Gesturing with my face at the great big old cauldron fire already burning right there in the center of her house.

"Some herbs it's best to burn beneath the sky and over rocks. / I would not burn these in my home; they smell like filthy socks."

I snorted out a chuckle. While she got busy using her teeth to wrap up a bundle of dried leaves in some sack cloth.

"If they stink, then why burn them?” I pressed her. Roseluck had only ever burnt herbs as a kinda incense. “Is it like...a magic thing? You know, for like...a great big spell you're gonna do on me? Or is it, I dunno...medicinal, maybe? Or to keep away bugs or something?" I added, running down the list of uses that herb smoke could possibly have. "No, wait. It's Winter. There are no bugs in Winter. Unless...are there special Everfree bugs? Made out if ice magic or someth--;"

Fwomp!

Zecora crammed her hoof in my mouth to shut me up. Everyone does that to me eventually.

"Mmmmmmmm m mmm mm mmm mm," I said, trying at first, to babble through her hoof. But she wouldn't give up, and eventually, my mouth took the fucking hint, and simmered down to a soft mumble.

That's when Zecora leaned over at long last. Looked me square in my eye, super close. 'Till she was sure she had my undivided attention.

"Relax," the zebra said to me with a reassuring smile. “We have much to do. / But not before you warm up with some brew."

I nodded.

And Fweck. Zecora slid her hoof out of my mouth. She wandered off to go fuss around with a mug and a pot and the fire and whatnot. Doing...I dunno...zebra stuff. I was busy getting off the damn floor and shaking some sense into myself.

For fuck's sake, my Rose Voice said to me. You didn't come all this way just to act like an idiot.

Knock it off, snapped another voice.

Yeah! Yet Another Voice chimed in. She's never gonna help you if you can't even tell her why. You're. Here.

"But why am I here?!" I said right back.

'Cause, for all my fancy reasoning about only journeying there for answers and stuff - for all the brain juggling I'd done just an hour-and-a-half before, (when Cranky’d asked me the same damn question) - I still didn't know why the hell I was there. Not really. Not in a way that I could put into words.

"You tell me why you came here.” Zecora answered.

"Ahh!" I shrieked in alarm, interrupting the zebra before she even had a chance to rhyme.

I couldn't believe I had said that last part out loud!

“I’m not the one you need to fear," the zebra retorted, both completing her rhyme and reacting to my irrational shrieks at the same time!

It caught me off guard. Made me stop freaking out. Got me wondering. Did she...like...poetrize on the fly? Or plan out all her verses before she said them? Was it possible that she knew what I was gonna say before I said it? Or was there some alternate end to the rhyme that I'd never get to hear?

I smiled back at her. Politely. Feeling like a total jerk for freaking out in the first place. "I'm sorry," I said. "You startled me."

Zecora pointedly ignored my apology. Gestured to a massive root sticking up out of the ground that she'd fashioned into a chair - cushions and all. She set a clay mug down on a little wooden ledge that jutted over it - a kitchen table of sorts. This place wasn't at all like the treebrary back home, which pretty much looked as though a bunch of ponies had decorated a hollowed out tree. Zecora’s “house” felt as though the tree itself had kept growing loooong after its trunk went hollow. Like it had warped over time to accommodate its caretaker. The kinda symbiosis that we ponies don't even get out of our trees.

In the wild Everfree, no less! Where every plant, every mutant poison squirrel, and every eyeball-floating-in-the-darkness was supposedly feral - stewarded by nopony at all.

I picked myself up off the ground and made my way over. Smiling. Thanking her the whole way. I climbed up onto the root chair, and cupped the mug with both hooves. Blew on it. Studied it carefully.

The brew smelt really good. Even through all of the distracting aromas that the cauldron kicked up into the air, it still smelt sweet. Familiar. I studied it carefully. Once my breath parted the steam, I saw little miniature flowers floating on top of the water, and knew the brew for what it was.

"Rosebud tea?” I said.

“I do not know what you had been expecting," she said. “But you should drink instead of just dissecting.”

Thinkiness. Zecora had my number. So I trusted her. Did as I was told. Even though a thousand questions were already struggling furiously to reach the surface like drowning pirates fighting against their chains.

“Shut up, thought pirates,” I whispered to myself.

And focused on the tea. The warmth. The smell. The feeling of home. I closed my eyes and let my tongue analyze the flavor. The sweet nectar that touched my tongue first. The floral notes that seemed to rise up out of my throat after I'd swallowed some. And everything in between. I figured if my mind had to dissect something, it might as well be that.

As plans go, it worked pretty well. Before I knew it, the mug was empty, and I wasn't sure if it had taken a minute or an hour to drink it. I looked to Zecora, who sat across the “table” from me, forelegs folded, waiting patiently for me to be ready.

“I dream," my own voice said, though my brain had had no part in finding the words. “I dream, and it takes me to other places - other times...”

* * *

The whole story spilled out. Well, maybe not the whole thing. I danced around the apocalypse, and the wars, and wastelands that the future held. Focused on all the stuff that’d happened to me personally, and omitted all the historical context. And that was okay. Zecora even told me so herself.

“Just show me what you think you need to show," she’d said when she first saw me struggling to remain discreet. “The future is not always mine to know.”

So I rambled about the parts that I thought might matter. The shadow parts. The encounter in the tunnels. The memories that the shadowmajigs had invaded. My struggle to get them out of my hoof. Out of my head. Out of my life.

I told her about Twink. And about grief. About the wave of ink and cold and fear that had tried to drag me into that great big evil castle. I shared Colonel Wormwood's advice. The words that’d set me free. “Find your light and fight like Hell to get to it.”

I told her about the Pit of Infinite Duckies, and the visions, and my fear - my certainty - that the shadows were coming back. I told her about the challenges that Cliff had faced the night of the blizzard. And Roseluck too. I told her about everyone except for Foster and Screw Loose, whose secrets were their own.

And after it’d all gushed out at last, there came a silence. A calm inside my head that not even my Rose Voices could manage to fuck up. ‘Cause I knew in that moment why I had come to Zecora.

“Teach me," I said. “Please.”

Zecora reached across the table. Put my hoof in hers. My bad hoof. Even though she knew nothing about my condition. Even though she knew everything about the kinda bad news that the shadow monsters were. She touched me without fear.

“Child, I feel for you,” she said. “But can't discern / Just what it is you feel you have to learn.”

“To fight the shadows.”

“My answer then,” she replied without a moment's hesitation. “Is a simple no. / I cannot teach what you already know.”

A little smile formed at the corners of her cheeks. I smiled back. Blushed a little. But I knew that her confidence in me was only half-earned. There was a lot more to the shadow problem than she thought.

“They're getting stronger," I said softly. “It's not just the blizzard. There's a chasm deep in the desert. Full of evil shadow mist and stuff. And before you say, like, there will always be darkness or something, this. Isn't. About. Balance. That chasm? It's new. It's growing. It wasn't there a hundred years ago. Even though the shadows have had that castle for a thousand years.”

Zecora scrunched up her forehead so hard that her face stripes got all zig zaggitty. As if to say, How the fuck do you know that?

“Amelia Mareheart's lost journal confirmed it!” I answered before she even got the chance to rhyme me a question. “She disappeared like...a hundred years ago on a dangerous flight mission, and fell into the void. She landed in that dusty red desert in between worlds - the one with the purple skies. And she wrote detailed notes about the whole area before she died. Please. Believe me! It’s changing.”

"Then there’s the Inquisitor!” I leapt up out of my seat. “One of the castle's most sadistic torturers went rogue, and they're here. At large. In Equestria. Right now!”

I panted so hard, I had to stop ranting for a minute just to catch my breath.

“And...you would risk life as their prisoner / to hunt and stop this grand inquisitor?” Zecora said to me. There was iron in her voice. She stared me down hard. Like Colonel Wormwood used to do whenever she wanted information.

It made my heart skip a beat. Fuck. Was she testing me to see if I was ready? If I was prepared to fully embrace the gravity of what I was saying, and all of its consequences? Or was she doing just the opposite? Finding out if I was reckless. Prepping myself to try something truly crazy that she disapproved of?

I bit my lip, all nervous-like. My reply could determine whether or not she was gonna help me! But no matter how I tossed it around my head, I couldn't figure out what to say. ‘Cause I had no real idea what the right answer was!

So I got a bad case of the brain panic. I fretted and I fretted and I fretted and I fretted and I fretted. Until at last, I realized that I had only one option open to me. I held my head up proudly. And I told the plain honest truth.

“If something...shadowy happened, and I never even tried to stop it,” my voice quivered, even as I struggled to wear my bravest face. “...If I never even tried,” Isqueaked.Panted. Shook my head in horror at the very idea. “I couldn't live with myself.”

My eyes drifted to the floor. Staring in silent shame over moral failings that hadn't even happened yet.

The zebra replied with firm conviction. “You take too much upon your aching heart. / I cannot teach you if you fall apart. / To master life in dream worlds, you must know / yourself in this world. As above mirrors below.”

Her words stunned me into silence. Clobbered me like a megaspell bomb. Not just ‘cause the chances of her teaching me were getting slimmer and slimmer with every word that passed my stupid lips - not just the idea that, after all my anticerpation, I wasn't gonna learn a damn thing - but first and absolute foremost, I fell quiet ‘cause Zecora was right. My life ‘above the dream world’ was falling apart. And I didn't know how to stop it.

“There was a musical number yesterday," I confessed. “In the town square. And I fell out of the song. I couldn't feel the rhythm. Couldn't hear the music.” I whimpered.

“Cranky said this happens to drifters and rejects and carnies. But yesterday, it happened to me. I flipped out and hurt somepony, and ran away, and almost got eaten by plants ‘till Cranky saved me, and yeah, Pinkie Pie fixed it so the whole town doesn't hate me anymore, but that doesn't mean that I can fix it.’

'But the thing is: I love musical numbers. And I'm afraid, you know? ‘Cause what happens next time? What if I never hear them again? What if I feel left out for the rest of my days? And all of my life above gets destroyed by...like, my life below?!”

Zecora replied gently.

“This world is full of songs we cannot hear,” she said. “A thousand voices heard without the ear. / Every soul and every single stone / Will sing a melody that is its own. / The forests and the towns unite their hearts / In songs exceeding sums of all their parts. / And symphonies evolve as worlds take form, / But all our lives are just a single note performed.”

“Um, what?” I replied.

…

Zecora rolled her eyes. “Music happens all the time. / And you can learn to listen if you try. / The only songs that you can hear / Align with what it is that you hold dear.”

“Oh,” I said. “So...like...find my light and fight like Hell to get to it?”

Zecora shrugged and nodded.

I stopped for a minute. Thought reeeeeal hard about all the crazy stuff that Zecora had just laid on me. About music being everywhere. About your ability to hear it being directly connected to how in sync you were with its vibes or whatever. And then, like a hammer to the face, it struck me suddenly.

Zecora spoke in rhyme, but that future zebra guy - he hadn't. What if it wasn't a racial characteristic? Or a cultural one? What if the whole rhyming thing simply had to do with all that Music of the Universe stuff?

“Zecora, can I ask you a question?”

She nodded.

“Are you, like, hearing...y’know...lots of musical numbers right now? Songs of rocks and plants and fate and stuff?”

She nodded again.

“But you gotta hold back, right?” I added. “To talk to the rest of us who can't hear any of it.”

She nodded yet again.

“So, like, your constant rhyming...is that...lyrics?”

The zebra smiled slyly, but wouldn't confirm my theory. Or deny it. She simply changed the subject.

“If I teach you, first I have to see / If you can walk inside your head with me. / We'll try an exercise or two / to know if I am right to mentor you.”

Then Zecora turned and tidied up while I sipped my tea dregs. And twittled my hooves.

I'd tell you all about the anticerpationly thoughts that ran wild inside my skull just then, O Book of Magical Stuff That's Happened to Me, but you can pretty much guess what kinda thoughts those were. So there's no need.

I was wrong about all of them anyhow.

What happened next defied all of my anticerpation, and taught me more about fate than I had previously thought it possible to know.

Author's Note

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

Chosen

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - CHOSEN
“You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

Zecora started with candles. Big ones. The kind that seem to melt and droop right off their wicks. Then she took their fire and used it to burn a little bundle of herbs - the kind that don't smell like filthy socks - and waved mouthfuls of burning leaves around, trailing smoke around the room all zig-zaggy, before it quietly dissipated upward.

But the room didn't get foggy. Not like it should've. If anything, the air grew clearer. Like a camera lens shifting focus, the tree's natural earth tones grew sharper. Brighter. Bolder.

Beyond that, I can't really explain what was happening. Not in terms of what I saw. 'Cause technically, it all looked pretty much, well...the same as before.

But the vibe I got off of her house - the energy that had scared off the forest-eyeballs the second I’d made it to Zecora's clearing - that harmony - that strange clarity that seemed to hang over everything of hers - all of it was louder now.

"What is this stuff?" I asked.

"I'd gladly teach you of my herbal blends," Zecora replied, bundle still gripped between her teeth. "But then we'd talk of plants until the end. / So focus on what we must do today, / Or else our time will quickly fade away."

"Um, ok," I replied. "That sounds reasonable, I guess."

Zecora smiled at me and got back to work spreading smoke around.

"But...uh, like, what does it do?"

The zebra stopped dead in her tracks. Sighed a sigh of exasperating sighness. And set the half-burnt bundle of herbs down in a wooden bowl.

Her teeth now free, Zecora proceeded to fill a mug with some sorta bubbling fluid from the cauldron. And threw a pinch of her own special ingredients into the mix. Something she’d fetched from a clay jar on a high up shelf.

What was actually in her tincture? That was anypony's guess.

It made me think of the sleepy tea back home. How I had swallowed so fucking much of it that I'd knocked myself out for days. How the whole hospital thought I'd been trying to kill myself. And how Roseluck’d had to ditch our family herb pantry just to prove to those assholes that she could be trusted to take care of me.

I had a responsibility to the family not to take any potion that had lingering side effects. Even if it was a miracle cure, I had to be able to shake it off by the time I set hoof in Ponyville. Or folks might get to thinking that I was going crazy all over again.

"Uh...I don't wanna go asking too many questions," I said. "But I don't know if I should be having any, you know, magic tea." I winced, terrified of appearing ungrateful.

Zecora fixed her eyeballs on me. Without saying a word. And sipped softly from the potion she'd just concocted. Then, once it was cool enough, she proceeded to chug the whole thing down. Without ever peeling her eyes from me. Without even blinking!

As if to say, Will you fucking relax already? This potion is for me...Or...something that rhymes with, like, um...I dunno.

When she was good and done, Zecora set the mug down gently and said, "While magic teas can open up your mind to other lands, / I’d never feed you what you do not understand. / So if you are to learn from me you must / Relax and try surrendering your trust."

Zecora shook her head. As if to say don't worry about it. And gestured for me to lie down on the floor.

There was a special mat laid out and everything. It was covered in black and red and green and yellow triangles intersecting with one another. Exotic patterns I hadn't seen in any work of pony art before. These weavings were distinctly zebra.

I followed her lead, lay on my back, and looked at the ceiling. I noticed a little hole way up where a branch used to be a long, long time ago. All the smoke and steam from her brew rose straight up there like a chimney, and escaped into the cold winter air.

I wondered how she shielded that little crevice when it rained.

"There are some barriers we must remove," Zecora said softly. "So sleep, and dream and don't forget your hooves."

"My hooves?" I said. "What does that even--;"

Zecora poked her head out and leaned over me. From where I lay, she looked totally upside down.

"Shh," she said as she kissed my forehead. Stroked my mane. And draped a blanket over me.

I closed my eyes.

By all logic and reason, I shoulda been anxious. Overcome with anticerpation. Plagued by questions. Existential questions. Practical questions. Emotional questions. Shadow questions.

But Zecora managed to put me at ease somehow. Without words. Just shhhhh shhhhh, and an overwhelming feeling of benign intent.

My bones suddenly started remembering exactly how tired they were. From the long walk. From the apology to Kettle Corn. From my freaking out over Bananas Foster’s weird mind control powers, and the ethical quandaries they posed.

Zecora made me feel safe somehow.For the first time in hours.So my bones gave up - quit pretending to be hunky dory. And just plain drifted off to sleep. My head followed soon after.

* * *

Now before you get any crazy ideas, O, Book of Magical Stuff that Happened to Me, Zecora wasn't lying. There was nothing in the smoke. Nothing in the tea. She hadn't slipped me any weird herb or anything to make me slide off into Sleepland and start having visions and stuff.

I was just relaxed. Like a hot bath is relaxing. Or the way incense is relaxing. Especially when you stick the little rod in the eyeball of a cool pirate-skull-shaped coconut that catches all of your incense ashes.

The point is: I drifted off.

And at first, I thought of nothing. ‘Cause there's always a little tiny quiet time you get juuuust before your brain starts running away with itself.

But I didn't get much further.

Before my dreams could come, I heard a voice echoing in the distance. And my brain stopped to listen rather than slide away into the land of wild and unpredictable brain stories.

“Hello?” I said.

“Mshmblmbeuhm,” it answered. Just a mumble at first. But the words grew clearer as I fought to hear them. Back and forth, and back and forth we went. Me and the voice. The voice and me. Ear wrestling. Until, out of nowhere, I actually heard ponish speech, clear as day.

"Remember your hooves," the voice said.

It was Zecora talking.

“Oh!” I replied with a chuckle. “That's right.”

“There are some barriers we must remove," Zecora had told me just before I'd gone to sleep. "So sleep, and dream, and don't forget your hooves."

Obediently, I looked down. And there they were. My hooves.

In dreams everything's a little bit hazy ‘till you look at it closely. So I focused on my hooves. Hard. Like they might run off on their own somehow if I dared to look away.

I studied every nook and every hair of both the good hoof, and the evil one. It made me stop drifting. It made me feel present. Aware!

‘Till suddenly, I smelt the salty sea. I looked up, and found that I was there. On the rocky shores of my dreamscape. That place outside the cave where Princess Luna had walked with me after I'd completed my mission to No Mare's Land.

Zecora was standing beside me this time. Smiling.

"You can do what Princess Luna does?!" I exclaimed.

"No," she replied. “Luna wanders, but is never lost. / She swims along the shores where I’d be surely tossed. / I can travel space and time and dreams / Only if I build a bridge across their seams.”

She stroked my mane, all gentle-like. And suddenly, I understood what she was talking about.

“Touch," I said. “You were right next to me when I fell asleep! Touching my head was your, um...bridge.”

Zecora nodded. “We all leave traces everywhere we go. / Like hoof prints in the sand or in the snow. / So every rock and stone I touch can be / A portal you can use to follow me. / But better if you sit by me or find / A sweet and precious article of mine.”

She was staring at my chest again. Just like she'd stared back in her tree-hut. It was the pocket watch that had captivated her attention all this time. The hair. The twig!

“Twink!” I said, holding the little tiny stick of wood up with my teeth. “This is her candle. You gotta build one of those...bridges with it. You gotta take me to see Twink!”

Zecora sighed. Shook her head. The wind blowed in from the ocean and made her mohawk sway.

“Child, I'm sorry but there is no way / To follow those who’ve passed away. / You can zig zag in and out of time, / But those whose lives you've touched, you’ll follow in a line.”

“So, uh...no do-overs either, then, I guess?”

Zecora shook her head somberly.

“Oh," I said, staring off at the sea as my brain tossed around the implications of what she'd just dropped on me.

No seeing Twink again. No meeting my future self. No seeing Colonel Wormwood when she was a little tiny foal just for the fun of it. No going back in time and meeting my Mom.

I hadn't really thought of any of those things as being particularly possible in the first place, but there was a certain finality to finding out that it was totally off the menu.

I clutched the pink pocket watch with my hooves. “What about Misty?” I asked. “He's moving around time and space like me...At least I think he is. If I follow him into the past or future or whatever, the same amount of time will have passed for each of us? Like, I age a year, he ages a year?”

“I'm sure your timelines have become entwined," she answered. “But I have no idea by whose design. / The two of you should not have shared a quest. / Don't seek him 'till the mystery's at rest.

‘Aha!’ My brain said to me inside my head. ‘I knew it!’

Even Zecora thought that two time-traveling-quest-type ponies showing up at the same mission was shockingly out of the ordinary. That meant it had to be something special! That it had to be something important! Something that's supposed to happen.

I looked for my answers on the ocean. Watched, all super-excited-like, as the waves crashed against the shore of my dreamscape-brain-rocks. Contemplated everything that Misty's arrival on my mission could possibly mean.

…

But the ocean was as stupid as I was. No fucking answers. Nothing.

I felt Zecora's hoof rest gently on my shoulder. She was watching the waves with me. Only she was calm and collected.

I reached up with my sandy forehoof and touched hers. It was reassuring to know that she was there. And as we gazed together at the sunlight glistening over my brain-sea like a sheet of polished glass, she leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“There are times to stop and theorize,” she said. “But we have tasks we cannot compromise.”

“Okay,” I said, pulling away, turning to look her square in the eye. “I'm ready."

Zecora smiled back at me.

“Now these primordial shores confine our space,” she said, gesturing at my mind-ocean. “But step outside your head and find a larger place. / To learn what other dream worlds have in store, / You’ll find that every dream will have its do--;”

“Door?” I said. “It's right over there.”

I spun around. Pointed at the cave.

The opening was small, tucked away behind folds and folds of jutting rock, so it woulda been easy to miss had I not already known how to look for it. But it was also out of place - the kinda thing you can't unsee if you try.

Zecora stared at me, jaw wide open.

“What?” I said. “Luna showed me.”

“Oh,” she replied. Then, after a moment of reflection, she said it yet again. “Oh.” A perfect rhyme (technically). Her pause was even in keeping with the meter and rhythm of her usual poem-speech. But it was still odd. Zecora’s awkwardness.

And come to think of it, Princess Luna had been really fucking weird on the subject of zebras too!We had been walking down the path to these exact same dream shores when Luna had let her feelings be known.

“Take zebra knowledge with a grain of salt.” Princess Luna had said. “Sometimes their wisdom tends to get bogged down by misconceptions and superstitions...Zebras, while mostly well informed, have also developed some misguided ideas about shadow-evil, particularly in regards to its origins.”

Deep in my bones, I knew that there was something more to this bizarre conflict.

“Zebras don't like Princess Luna," I said somberly. “Do they?”

The question snapped Zecora out of her little stupor. I could see the light return to her eyes.

“No,” she answered. “Zebras come from very far off lands, / And like you ponies, fear what they misunderstand.”

“But not you.”

Zecora sighed. “I feared her too, to my disgrace, / Until, of course, I met her face-to-face.”

“What?” I recoiled. Furrowed my brow as my brain struggled to keep up.

It seemed so wrong! I couldn't imagine Zecora hating or fearing anyone, let alone Our Glorious Princess. Especially since she herself knew what it was like to be feared.

“I see you wrinkle up obsessively,” Zecora commented on the state of my face. “Tell me, child, do you think less of me?”

“No!”The question hit me like a bucket of ice water. “No! I mean…well…” I stopped. Averted my eyes. Struggled to make sense of my stupid, stupid, feelings.

Ashamed as I was to admit it, in that moment, I kinda did think less of Zecora. Not because she was horrible, but because I was horrible.

For a long time, I had thought of Zecora as sagely and perfect. I'd hitched so many of my hopes upon her like a great big yolk and plow. And of course it wasn't fair. Me and my stupid anticerpation. But I couldn't help myself. I couldn't help feeling disappointed either.

“Well,” I continued stammering. ”It's just sorta...like, I'm surprised, you know?"

“I recall one Nightmare Night," Zecora replied. "When you / Were terrified of Princess Luna too.”

“I know," I whispered, and hung my head in shame. “I have no right to judge. But it's still kinda shocking. You're normally, like...I dunno...super wise and stuff.”

“Ah!” Zecora answered with a laugh. “Wisdom is a slow-evolving song / That you just begin to hear when you admit when you've been wrong.”

“Hmm,” I said. And thought on that. Extra long and hard.

‘Till Zecora broke my concentration. “If I am to teach you,” she continued. “You must / Let me know right now if I have all your trust.”

My eyes quit their stupid averting. Looked right the fuck at her. Zecora was standing over me, awaiting MY reply with poise. Confidence. For her, this was no emotional game. No petty plea for reassurance. The need for my trust was a profoundly practical matter. If she and I were gonna start meddling around with dreams, and time, and shadow stuff, the fact was: I’d have to trust her.

The good news? I didn't need to think about it. All I had to do was look at Zecora, and my heart already knew the answer.

“Yes," I answered. “I trust you.”

She didn't smile. Only nodded firmly.

“You know tests numbers one and two / So come..." she turned around and headed up the path that led away from those rocky shores. "I have another task for you."

"One and two?" I replied.

"The tests," she said. "Come side-by-side. / One to find the door. One to learn to step outside."

"Oh! I never went through the door." I gazed back at the cave. “I, um...just sorta...know where it is.”

Zecora stopped. Dug her hooves into the sandy path. As she turned to me, the corners of her mouth curled into a devious smile. "So many wondrous sites you'll see today," she said, gesturing back the way we'd come. "I will follow. You will lead the way.”

We headed back down the pass. Rocks to our left. The sea to our right. Sand beneath our hooves. Until we came to the end of the road. A platform of sorts made of a single flat rock, jutting out over the razor shores below. For a brief moment, the ocean flanked us on three sides. And it was truly striking - how vast an expanse it was. Even ifonly in a dream. But the sea was not our destination. In the blink of an eye, that contemplatey moment was gone.

Without wasting any time, I swung a left off of the platform, and set myself to the task of climbing rocks. Nothing super jagged or dangerous, of course. Just uneven and annoying. With my hooves clip-clopping down all diagonal-like, and with my flank facing the sea, I lead Zecora up to the cavern. My cavern.

When at last, I reached its mouth, the two of us stood on the edge of shadow and sunlight. Peered inside. Deep, deep, deep, deep, deeeeep into the cave where the pale gray light slid softly into darkness.

And all I could think of was how silent it was. How empty. The last time I’d gone in there, Screw Loose had been waiting inside. Banging on my dream door so hard that it'd boomed like thunder. But everything was still now. Totally quiet, except for a faint whooooosh sound - the cave echoing back the drone of the ocean.

“Hey, Zecora,” I said. “These, um...whattaya call ‘em? Bridges we build...from one dream to the next?”

She looked to me curiously.

“Does it have to be about touch?” I continued.

Zecora blink-bloinked her eyelids at me in reply. Utterly confused by the question.

I fidgeted with the pocket watch around my neck. “I mean, like...what if you don't have a hair. And if you're not, like, in the same room with the dreamer the way you’re sitting with me right now.” I pointed to the sky as though that were somehow the way to the waking world. “Can you build a bridge out of something really precious to somepony? Like a sock.”

Zecora raised an eyebrow. Zebrishly.

“...If y’know, like...that sock…” I continued. “...Is your friend's most prized possession in the whole wide world?...Um...theoretically.”

Zecora rolled her eyes up to the sky and thought about it. “Something cherished always anchors you just like a rock, / But I cannot imagine anypony cherishing a sock.”

“Yeah,” I muttered softly. “Me neither.”

Before she could say another word, I marched into the cave right then and there. Eager to hide my face from Zecora. So she wouldn't notice the astonishment - the wonder - that was brewing inside of me.

‘Cause Screw Loose knew! She fucking knew! She'd parted with her precious sock knowing that it would tether us together.

Sure, there was no way she coulda predicted that I was gonna end up getting zebra-trained in the art of dream-walking. But Screw Loose was still The Wanderer. She could find my door in a heartbeat already. With an extra connection? An anchor, as Zecora had called it?

I could only guess what Screw Loose could do now!

I inched my way forward. The floor beneath me slid into a gentle slope, and as the light from behind faded, so did my excitement. We were going deeper. Eventually we got so far in, that he cavern walls just plain vanished to our eyes. And we were left only with the clip-clopping of our own eight hooves. I went from hiding my giddiness in the dark to hiding my anxiety.

What would I find on the other side of the door? What would it be like to step outside my own brain? What if I didn't pass the test? What if I did the door wrong, and Zecora turned me away? What was I gonna do then? Did I have a Plan B? Did I need one?

We fumbled and fumbled and fumbled, but eventually, the darkness weakened. The rocks around me lightened again, and soon after, began to take actual form.

The door was near. I recognized that unearthly periwinkle aura.

Zecora and I followed the glow in the air, watching the shapes and curves of the rocks and walls sharpen bit by bit, until at last, we arrived. A big wooden, old fashioned door was growing out of the cave’s natural walls with no regard for rhyme or reason. Its pale light illluminated a trickley little waterfall that carved tiny rivers into grooves in the rock, and emptied into a little pool the size of a park-fountain.

“What's on the other side?” I whispered.

Zecora came up beside me at last, her face all blue, except for the stripes. She didn't say anything. Merely smiled at me.

“I know, I know. I know," I groaned. “You're not gonna tell me. It's a test. But, like...my brain is kinda weird. I’m not gonna end up...like...falling through time and space or whatever, am I?”

Zecora shook her head. “To travel across time and space,” she pointed at the door. “This is not the way. / Pass the test, and that can be a lesson for another day.”

“You can teach me?” I said. “To go ducky hopping?”

She didn't answer. Just watched me, and waited for me to get on with it.

“Right," I said. “The door.”

I approached it. All tip-hoovity. As though the portal itself might bite. Clip clop. Clip Clop. Each step closer made me wanna turn tail, and run the other way. ‘Cause seeing it again - an actual portal to the actual outside of my actual fucking brain - it made me feel vulnerable. Exposed.

The creepy door even had my cutie mark carved deep into the center of the wood. Like it fucking knew me! I paused to run my hoof along the curves. Wondering briefly if the carving had appeared when I got my cutie mark, or if it'd been there all along.

Then I got to work...

There were not nearly as many locks, and chains, and hooks, and bars blocking the way as there were before. Just three simple latches. As I got to fiddling with the first one, I wondered how the whole security system worked. Like, the last time I was there, had my brain put up all those other locks and stuff to protect itself from invasion? Or had Princess Luna done it to ensure I wouldn't be interrupted? Or maybe even, like, the Moon its own self was responsible. I remembered how that cold giant light had hovered over the empty field, and stared me down.Urging me silently to journey into No Mare's Land.

Flick. The first latch came open in my hooves.

I turned to face Zecora to make sure I was doing the right thing. But she just plopped her flank down on a rock and observed. She might as well have had a tub of popcorn in her lap.

“Ugh," I groaned in annoyance. Bit down on the heavy iron of the second lock. And shuunkkkk. Slid it free.

Then there was the third lock. Part of me wondered why something so small was even there in the first place. But I didn't have any time for thinkiness so I flipped the fucking thing. "There," I whispered to myself. "Done."

Before I made my final leap, I took a quick step back. To see if a great tornado was gonna sweep through the cave, or if some crab monster was gonna try to scramble inside and shoot crab-lightning out of its claws or something.

But the door just stood there. Being a door. No cyclones. No crab-a-majigs. Nothing.

So, gripping the handle - an iron ring - with my teeth, I pulled the door open at long last.

There was nothing but darkness on the other end. I couldn't make out anything else. Not 'till I stepped inside.

* * *

I saw a faint glimmer of light. Something purple way off in the distance. Like a blurred-out cluster of stars. A smudge on the void. I stepped toward it, squinting, and...squip. My hooves touched cold water.

The ground beneath me rippled outwards, and pulsated, scattering the light, refracting it into blues and purples and speckles of teal. All just barely bright enough to see. The tiny waves fled my hoof and went outward into the distance, without ever bouncing back.

It was hypnotic.

I spun around to follow the ripples - to look around - but the door behind me was gone. I was left with nothing but water. Infinite water. Scattering out in lonely concentric waves, reaching for the horizon in every conceivable direction.

I turned my flank back around again. But I'd already forgotten which way was supposed to be forward. Or where the door had been.

Icouldn't even make out the purple horizon-smudge anymore. I was surrounded equally on all sides.

I took a deep breath. Stopped moving. Waited for the ripples to fade.

…

The light on the water shimmered softly from below. Flickered like a dying flame. 'Till I couldn't even see the waves I had made anymore.

Stupid fucking void. I said. Or tried to say. But no sound escaped my lips. Not even a rumble in my throat! I couldn't hear it. I couldn't feel it. Nothing. Hello?! I tried to speak again. Hello, Zecora?! Help!

I spun around. Flailing. Stumbling. Reaching blindly in every direction for some sign of that damn door. I didn't care anymore. Whether I passed the test or whether I failed. I just knew I was ready to get the fuck out of there.

But the door was nowhere. I was surrounded by miles and miles and miles of nothing. Except the cold water below. And the sky above. It rippled too.

Stupid sky. I thought. Its colors shifted like a cup of tea that'd just had milk splashed into it. Only it moved slooooowly. And its deep swirling purples were barely distinguishable from the black.

I stared. Fixated. But its strange beauty somehow just made me feel even more alone. My heart sunk slowly down into my belly. And I began to stagger backwards.

"Zecora," I whimpered. "Zecora? Zecoooo--;"

Splush.

I fell straight through the water. With no warning. I plunged down into the deep. That's when things really got weird.

------oooooOOOO0000OOOOooooo------

A long long time ago when I was little, Roseluck took me rafting.

We had just finished clearing out Great Aunt Roseroot's cabin after she'd died. And everything about it had freaked me out. The stacks of moldy newspapers had towered over me like Manehattan skyscrapers. The rickety cabinets gave me splinters as I'd brushed against them. And I'd spent most of the day trying to calm myself down after a swarm of cockroaches had descended upon me. I'd dashed out of the house. Screeching.

After that fiasco, Roseluck decided that I needed to escape - to forget. We were already way out in the wilderness, so she took me hiking, and later, rafting in this old boat that Great Aunt Roseroot'd had tucked away in her shed.

I don't remember much about our time above water, but at some point or another, after the current picked up, I fell in. Under the surface, I somersaulted and tumbled around so fast that I couldn't tell up from down. I paddled, and I kicked, and I stroked. But none of it mattered. Not without a direction to swim to.

When I fell through the water in that dream outside my brain-door, that's exactly what I felt. Cold. Dark. Panic. No way to tell left from right, or up from down.

At first, I tried holding my breath. As long as I could. But whole minutes rolled by and it didn't matter. I had no breath to hold. l couldn't perceive my own chest, my own lungs, my own hooves, my own anything.

I felt a thousand terrifying bodily sensations, like the feeling of being stunned, or the joy of laughter, or the sadness of loss, but no sense of my own body at all. Instead, I fell, hurtling through a web of raw emotions. Knocking me around from all directions. Like conflicting currents under roaring rapids. The terror of facing monsters. The comfort of a sister's embrace. Flying. Falling. The thrill of a kiss from a first crush. The pain of rejection. The anxiety of showing up at school and finding out about a great big test I hadn't studied for.

These feelings hit me at my very fucking core. But they came without pictures. Without memories. I don't know how long I tumbled, but after a while, I forgot everything that made me Rose Petal. Who I loved. What I hated. What I hoped for. What I feared.

I forgot pirates and sandwiches. And sisters. And mothers. And Twink.

I just sort of fell. Through the rapids. Into this weird abyss with no fucking bottom.

If feelings were colors, then shooting through those roaring waters woulda been like getting trapped inside of a kaleidoscope.

I fell and I fell and I fell and I fell and I fell.

‘Till yoink. Out of literally nowhere,I felt a tug. And suddenly, I was moving backwards against the current. My sight was the first thing to come back to me. I saw a pink thread shining with silver light. Ever so faintly in the dark waters. It had lassoed me around the chest.

I have a chest! I thought. And before I could even process how amazing a realization that was, my mane came back too. I could feel it flowing violently in the water.

And up, up, up I went. Toward the surface. Up! I thought, and laughed to myself in a great big jubilant uproar, even though it made no sound.

I could feel it now! Up. Down. My sense of direction returning.

And as I rose past those weird patches of emotion, I felt my head flood with memories. My own memories. They beat me down, but I embraced them all. ‘Cause they were my emotions.

The joy I had felt at the caroling across No Mare’s Land. The sorrow I'd suffered in Trottica. The taste of the strawberry cake I'd had on my fifth birthday.

I felt the tender solace of Twinkle Eyes’ gentle hoof stroking my mane through the bars of her cage. And I remembered Cliff Diver - how afraid he'd been of Diamond Tiara. How fearless he had been at the hospital. How he was always bursting with a thousand theories connecting my experiences to the writings of Professor Science or whatever. I felt the laughter. The annoyance of him always trying to explain his ideas at crazy inopportune times.

I wondered what he'd make of all this door stuff.

Butmost of all, I remembered my sister. And everything I had ever done to make her life harder. And easier. Every laugh we had shared. Every fight we'd had. Every faire, or race, or play she'd ever taken me to.

As I rose higher and higher and higher, I remembered that all of this - everything I'd done with Zecora that day - had been at her expense. I'd come without her knowledge or permission. Into the abyss. Into the dream. Into the zebra's hut. Into the forbidden forest.

What if I'd gotten lost? I thought. What if I'd died?!

After everything I'd felt inside the feelings-kaleidoscope, that plain old earthly fear - that simple familiar guilt that my brain called ‘home’ - it hit me the hardest.

Then...

------oooooOOOO0000OOOOooooo------

I found myself collapsed over a stone. A real stone. A solid stone. An actual stone.

I was breathing real air again too. My lungs burned for it. Panted like wild as my heart bucked at me from the inside of my chest.

Boom boom boom boom boom.

And I just lay there. Shaking. ‘Cause it's all I had the energy left to do. After what could have been a minute, or a month, or a thousand years, I opened my eyes. It was still pretty dark. But I could hear the echoes of the ocean faint and far away. And I could smell the dank air.

I was back in the cave.

A hoof reached out and touched my head gently. For a brief instant, I thought it was Roseluck. And all that guilt came flooding back. But it was Zecora. Stroking my mane. Ever so gentle-like.

I took solace in it. For a moment anyway. Zecora wasted no time in getting to business.

"Your mind is unlike any place I've ever been," she said urgently. "And there are so many things in there that I have seen.”

“You were in my head?” I squeaked. Staggered up in blind panic. Realizing that she could have seen anything! My secrets. My apocalypse stuff. Time-things she was not meant to know! “Did you…” I jumped up to ask, but I slipped and fell straight to the floor.

When I looked up, I could see Zecora, even through the darkness, holding a hair of mine. It clearly came from one of the pink streaks in my mane. I recognized it too! It was the rope that had glowed like silver and lassoed me out of the rapids!

As the cave slowly stopped spinning around me, I focused on that hair. Or more importantly, on Zecora herself. “What did you see?”

"My kind has many books and many plays,” she answered grimly. “That tell us what will come to be someday, / And none are honored more than sacred tomes / That contain our prophets’ poems."

She paused to lick her lips. "The things I saw when my mind touched with yours," she continued. "Were visions that I'd read about before."

"Huh?"

"The shadow empire one fine day will fall." She rested a hoof on my shoulder. "And you've been chosen to fulfill it all.”

"Wait. What?”

“I will teach you," Zecora nodded somberly, and gently led me into the darkness. Away from the door. Back toward the cave's mouth. “I will teach you," she repeated with even firmer resolution than before. A statement rhyming with itself.

A little voice in my head wondered if she was being lazy with her poem-speech. But then another voice chimed in to remind me that, in Zecora's head, the rhymes were all a song. And in music, really really reeeeeally important phrases get repeated.

“No!” I said. “I mean, yes,” I continued. “Teach me...But I'm not chosen for anything. I'm a background pony.”

Out of nowhere, I started to cry. Maybe it was the stress of the door, and the emotion-river, and all that shit I had just been through. Or maybe it was just the fact that this prophecy stuff was fucking creepy.

“But it's not true," I said. “It's not," I squeaked. “You saw wrong. I don't know what you saw inside my brain, but you saw it wrong.” I turned around and charged back in the direction of the door.

Zecora followed close behind.

“We'll do it again," I shouted over my shoulder, even as the words turned to acid in my stomach. Even though I never wanted to see that fucking door again.

“We'll do it over, okay?” I repeated. “‘Cause I'm not a prophet. I'm not a...light bringer. Not your chosen ...whatever. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just…”

But before I could finish ranting, I felt Zecora's hoof grab me. Firmly. Stopping me in my tracks. I spun around, all geared up to rave at her some more.

But then she hit me with the unexpected. “I know you're not," Zecora pleaded apologetically. "So put your heart at rest. / There was no prophecy, only this simple test.”

…

...

“A test? A test?!" I squeaked. “You put me through all of that for a humility test?” I waved my legs around, gesticulating wildly at the depths of the cave where we both knew the door was waiting.

She shook her head, and waved her hooves around in a no-no-no-no-no gesture.

“The door was also an instructive session," she said. “I would not toy with you. This was a lesson.”

“A lesson?” I squeaked again. “A lesson?! A lesson in what? How not to trust you? What exactly did you teach me in there?”

“To fear the powers you have tapped and found. / Respect the waters or you will be drowned.”

She held up her right forehoof. As if to say, 'That was Lesson Number One.' Then she raised her left hoof, and recited Lesson Number Two. "That trust in me may free you from your shell," she said. "But you must trust your instincts...as well."

I panted angrily. Caught my breath. I couldn't begin to figure out how I felt about what she'd said. About respecting the powers that I entangled myself with. About fearing the abyss outside my brain. About striking a balance between trusting an instructor, and having faith in my own instincts.

I only knew that I was mad.

“I can trust myself at home!!!” I cried.

And my words bounced back at me from all directions. At home...At home...At home...At home...At home.

It reminded me how far I'd come. How long I'd waited…Just to get messed with! I staggered away from Zecora, shaking my head. "You tricked me," my voice cracked. "You tricked me."

“If you don't trust me anymore,” Zecora sighed and answered sternly. “Then you can walk away, / But what you learned was not some game or play.

'Your destiny's an ever-turning tide, / And fate is never truly on your side. / Its whims are weapons we can never own. / That's why you must make peace with the unknown. / If you believe your fate will see you through, / Then darkness makes a puppet out of you. / The greatest lies are those we tell ourselves. / I cannot train one who declines to delve / For secrets in the great abyss out there.” Zecora tossed her head in the direction of the door. “That's why you,” she pressed a hoof to my chest, “Are such a fierce and worthy mare.”

Her confidence in me was so powerful, and it'd come at me so sideways-like, that, for a moment, I forgot that I was supposed to be angry.

“I'm not a mare,” I said, awkward and confused. “I'm a kid.”

Zecora shrugged. As if to say, ‘if you insist.’ And for a minute I had a thousand counterarguments building up inside my head. But Zecora was talking about fate, and shadows, and the terrifying abyss. About unknown futures, and courageous quests for Truth. She wasn't about to indulge a debate on semantics.

“Thank you," I said meekly. “Uh...I guess."

* * *

She lead me up the slope. The mouth of the cave was ahead. And I honestly wasn't sure how I felt about Zecora anymore. How I felt about anything.

I understood why she tricked me. Sorta. How there probably wasn't any other way to find out what I was made of. Or to teach me the dangers of the abyss outside my dream door. Or to reinforce in me the need to trust myself. But that didn't change how I felt about being lied to.

It’s never been easy for me to seek out guidance. To look up to someone. To trust in their wisdom. To actually have faith in another pony. At least the kinda faith I'd placed in Zecora. And no matter how I tried to rationalize it, she had betrayed that faith.

"Take the day to stop and rest," she said. "Reflect upon your lessons and your test. / If you decide you would my pupil be, / No later than tomorrow, come to me."

And in my haze, I nodded. Relieved to have an extension - some time to think.

I didn't stop to wonder whether or not Cranky would be able to take me through the forest again. Or if I'd be able to make up another excuse for Roseluck. I just knew that I didn't have any answers. And the idea of taking another day to put my thoughts in order felt like great big anvils getting unhitched from my shoulders.

So I nodded, and I plopped my flank on a rock. And sighed so hard my breath quivered. Content that I didn't have to pretend to be ok. That Zecora and I didn't have to patch up our differences. Not just yet.

I listened to the sound of the ocean. When my thoughts calmed down a bit, I focused on the one thing that I absolutely knew for sure. "I'm glad," I said.

Zecora tilted her head at me.

"That I'm not chosen after all." I flashed her a smile.

"Ah," Zecora sat down beside me. "I never said that was not so." She answered, voice as grim as a gravestone.

"But--;"

"Everyone is chosen," she added gently. "But for what? We cannot know."

Author's Note

SUPPORT: Hooves of Fate is a labor of love. However, I also have mouths to feed. If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you in any way, and you can manage to spare a few bits, I'd very much appreciate your support on Patreon. I could really use the assistance.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

The Big Question

CHAPTER FORTY - THE BIG QUESTION
"A goal without a plan is just a wish." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

By the time I got home the sun was almost down, and I was exhausted. Not only had I gotten the news that I was a living playing card; not only had I tracked down Kettle Corn and given her a heartrending apology (after her dad had slammed a door in my face); not only had I suffered a great big existential crisis of conscience right in the middle of the hospital over Bananas' changelingly behavior; I'd also traveled through the Everfree Forest, and endured woodland-eyeball-voices in my head. I'd caught Zecora up on my long, long, long, long story (which sounds easy, but is actually pretty tiring). I'd travelled with her into the realm of dreams, fallen into Lake What-the-Fuck, and gotten my consciousness ripped from my own brainself.

And after that madness, I'd had to drag my flank all the way home again. Through the fog of foresty eyeballs clouding up my brain. And Cranky blah blah blah'ed on top of it too. Yammering instructions at me for how to make it back to Zecora's without him. Lecturing me that he couldn't. Keep. Matilda. Waiting.

All in all, it was an exhausting trip back to Ponyville.And last but thankfully least, there was Cliff, freaking out the whole way over the zebrish truths I'd imparted to him.

* * *

"You didn't ask her?!" Cliff leapt up and down like a bouncy ball. Energized by sheer indignation.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't think of it."

"Zecora tells you that every pony you ever met. In the past, or in the future…"

"Ugh. I've never been to the past." I rubbed my temple with a free hoof. The headache was just barely starting to fade.

"Not the point," Cliff snapped. "She tells you that you're all entwined in the saaaaame relative timeline - proving Frostingsweet's Theorem by the way - and you don't stop to wonder whether or not the shadows and their castles are on the same timeline too?!"

"Keep it down," Cranky snapped at us from ten yards behind. "You're supposed to be paying attention to landmarks."

"Sorry," I called over my shoulder, and gave Cliff an aggravated nudge. But Cranky kept barking.

"You're not going through these woods on your own 'till you show me that you know the way. Got that, kid?" Cranky commanded, unusually authoritarian-like.

"Yeeesss," Cliff and I groaned in unison.

"Hold up," Cranky called out to us.

We did.

"Now," he said, clip-clopping his way up the Everfree path. "Look around you. Which direction does the moss in the Everfree Forest face?"

"Whichever direction it feels like," Cliff and I droned.

"And how do you use it to find your way?"

"You don't," we both replied.

"Good, now keep going, and eyes open!" Cranky hung back and let us get a head start again.

Once the old donkey was far enough behind, Cliff leaned up next to me and whispered, "Okay, I been thinking."

"Uh-oh."

"You can ask Zecora all about this tomorrow when you officially sign up for her classes or whatever."

"There is no sign up sheet," I groaned.

I hadn't worked up the nerve to tell Cliff the truth yet. That I wasn't even sure I wanted to go back.

"I said classes...'or whatever'," Cliff retorted, making quotation marks with his flailing hooves. "The point is that you should ask her. But, I think I've got it figured out anyway. The shadows must be on the same wavelength as you. Or you would be dead by now."

I perked my head up at that. Actually paid attention despite the mind-cloudening forest voices."Say what again?"

"They're totally out. To. Get. You," he said.

"I figured that out on my own, thanks."

"...They attacked Ponyville after you escaped them in the slave mines. After!" He repeated. "If you weren't tethered to them in some way, they coulda just gone back in time and killed you when you were a foal."

"Makes sense," I groaned.

"Presuming they can time travel at all." Cliff scratched his chin. "Maybe they only know how to go through time because they're following you."

I gasped. What if I was the key to their breaking into other timelines. Other worlds! What if I had only survived so many encounters because they'd been keeping me alive on purpose. To open time-doors for them.

The very notion was terrifying!

...But it couldn't be true. Not after what I had seen in the desert. What Bananas Foster had seen. And if they'd been faking trying to gobble up my soul, I kiiiiiinda think that Princess Luna woulda cottoned on to it.

"No," I said aloud. "They can travel on their own."

"Oh," Cliff said.

"I'm sure of it," I assertified.

"Well, no wonder they keep coming after you then." Cliff straightened his hat with a spare hoof, loosened his scarf, all super nervous-like.

"Huh? Why?"

"Don't you see? If your timeline and their timelines are stuck together, then anywhere you've been to, they can't go anymore."

"Holy Celestia," I said, suddenly awestruck.

My very existence was a threat to them! The realization made me want to scream. It made me want to cheer. It made me want to hide in some forgotten corner of some forgotten world. Or maybe run out to every corner of the world. Mess up every timeline. 'Cause fuck you, shadowy jerks. Fuck you.

"They're tethered to your friends now too," Cliff added. And suddenly I felt my heart plunge. "That's what Zecora said, right? That our timelines are connected?"

"Yes," I whispered, as all that old guilt over the shadow blizzard came rushing back.

"No, no, no!" Cliff said excitedly. "I don't mean it like that. This is great news!"

"What?" I squeaked. "How?!"

"Pay attention!" Cranky hollered.

I cringed. "Sorry!" I called out over my shoulder. Again. (So much for earning merit badges in Dangerous Travel.)

"Why is it a good thing that I've gone and entangled all of my friends with the shadows?"

"Because," Cliff replied. "Misty Mountain. He's traveling spacetime just like you!"

"...And now the shadows can't go to any of those places either," I whispered, totally astonished.

"Exactly!"

The idea, obvious though it should have been, blew my mind. But before I could even begin to digest it, Cliff hit me with another doozy of a question.

"Hey!" He said. "How far down-the-line do you think it goes?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think you're, like, tethered to everypony that Misty ever met?"

"I don't k--;"

"Ooh! And everypony that they ever met? And everyone that they ever met that they've ever met?"

I thought about it for a moment - the chain of dominoes that touching somepony's life could create. The truth was: I had no idea how many of those ponies my timeline was tethered to. But I knew it couldn't go on forever.

"Strawberry Lemonade," I said. "I helped her personally. And she left a big impression on the world that the soldiers of No Mare's Land inherited. And I was able to visit them. So we know the connection can't go on forever."

Cliff furrowed his brow. Walked beside me in thinkitty silence for a while. Long enough for my Everfree headache to vanish completely, and for the light of Ponyville to start creeping through the wall of trees up ahead. The edge of the woods grew near. So near, that by the time Cliff turned to me at last, I was back to feeling like my old self again.

"Hey, Rose Petal," he said. "When you get sent forward in time, do you, get the impression that, like, maybe there's a plan?"

"Yeah," I answered quietly. "Of course. All those voices. And hornets. And directions. There's always something that's supposed to happen.

"Well, do you, uh, think there might be someone behind it? Or something? I mean, like, not just in theory. Uh...how do I put this?" Cliff paused to pretend to tighten his scarf while he struggled for words. "Has anything ever actually happened to give you that impression? Any clues about where any of this stuff might be coming from?"

"None," I answered without missing a beat. "Unless you count Pinkie Pie's card game, none at all. Why?"

Cliff shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense, that's all," he said solemnly. "If there is a plan, then...like...It's a stupid plan that makes absolutely no sense."

I cocked my head sideways in curiosity. Not because I thought that The Plan was particularly logical. But 'cause I couldn't figure out what, in particular, was itching at Cliff Diver.

"If you and Misty Mountain are actually getting sent on missions...together - then it's, like, the worst idea ever!...Strategically speaking. Every place that he's been to...you can't go now. And vice versa. Tethering you on purpose would be like, um...um…" Cliff looked around us at the branches, and the trees, and the ground as he scraped the back of his brain to try and cobble together an analogy. "...Like pulling random squares off a chess board and saying 'these spots are totally off limits; and like, only my enemies can land here.' It doesn't make any sense!" Cliff squeaked with enthusiasm.

"Hmm," I answered, and walked on in silence.

"What? That's all you have to say? Don't you think this is important, Rose?"

"Yeah," I said. "Actually, I do. And it's weird. Everypony who knows anything about this time-traveling dream stuff says that me and Misty journeying together is not. Supposed. To. Happen."

"So I'm telling you what you already know," Cliff sighed.

"No!" I cried. "You're the only one who actually figured out why it's not supposed to happen."

Cliff's lips stretched wide across his face into a giant beaming smile.

* * *

Reaching the edge of the woods was not a big surprise. We could see it coming from quite a while away. But when I finally got there - when my boot actually felt the crunch of the snow - it stunned me. Just a little. 'Cause we'd made it. We'd actually made it. Back to Ponyville.

And looking out over the pastoral landscape - blanketed in white, with a herd of foals snowball fighting way off in the distance, and a mare towing her cart down the road with a bright and cheerful gait - it gave me a feeling of unease.

Something was wrong. Just beneath the surface. Really wrong. I hadn't noticed it back when I'd been immersed in the ebb and flow of the Ponyville lifestyle. But once an afternoon of shadow silence had passed (courtesy of the Everfree eyeballs), I came back with fresh senses. And now? Ponyville felt off somehow. It made my blood run cold.

"Hey, Rose Petal?" Cliff mumbled at me.

"Yeah?" I answered, gazing absent-mindedly over the South side of town, thinking of shadow-stuff.

"Can I, like...ask you something?" He mumbled into his scarf.

I didn't notice at first. And for a while, he stayed silent - so silent that it startled me when he worked up the nerve to speak up again.

"Rose?"

"Huh?!" I leaped up. "What?"

"Nevermind," he shrunk back again - hid behind his scarf.

"What's wrong?" I said

"Nothing!" He answered. "I'm totally fine. I was just wondering, uh…" Cliff got nervous all of a sudden. Like spazz nervous. The same kinda awkward he'd been when we first became friends. When he first asked if he could walk me home.

It was weird.

"What?" I pressed him.

Cliff sighed. "Promise not to laugh?"

"Yeah," I answered somberly.

"Well, um I was hoping…that...um..."

Cliff nervously took to straightening out his scarf. Buying time while he worked up the nerve to say whatever the Hell it was he had to say. But he never got the chance.

"Hey!" Cranky grumbled as he came up behind us. "You two chowderheads haven't been paying attention at all."

"Ahh!" Cliff leapt straight up in the air.

"Sorry," I said, apologizing for both of us.

"What am I supposed to do now, kid?" He turned to me and sighed, threw his hooves up in exasperation. "I can't just chaperone you day in and day out. But you've got to be back there tomorrow," Cranky tossed his donkey head back in the direction of the forest. "Or Zecora won't take you on as a pupil - believe me, kid, I know the zebra witch, and how she works." Cranky added with an eye roll.

It made me wonder about their history together. If maybe there was more to it than drunken vomit in Zecora's garden.

"You ain't ready to travel the woods by yourself - even if Zecora's place is the most direct path that the Everfree has to offer. Butwhat am I going to tell Matilda, huh, kid?" There was iron in his voice now. The thought of hurting Matilda's feelings, or risking his standing with her brought out a rage I hadn't seen in him before. "I can't keep rearranging our plans, and rearranging our lives. I can't be forward and tell her what's going on with you. And I can't lie to her either."

"I'm sorry," Cliff interjected. "I'm very, very sorry. I can take Rose Petal. I, uh...I really think I can do it."

"You think--;"

"I can," Cliff squeaked. "I mean I will. I mean, I'm sorry. I shoulda paid more attention. I shouldn't'a been so stupid. Maybe if, like--;"

"I'm not going," the words spilled out of my mouth, all-of-a-sudden-like. I hadn't even been thinking it!

And then there was Cranky and Cliff Diver, eyeballing me in disbelief.

"What?" Cliff said sadly. "No."

"Don't be ridiculous, kid," Cranky shook his head and said.

"It's not you," I added. "I just don't think Zecora and I are a good fit. That's all."

A weird silence filled up the air between us. Punctuated only by the occasional laugh of fillies way off in the distance.

"Bah, I'll take you, kid," Cranky muttered.

"I'll lead the way," Cliff Diver added. "You know, as a trial run to see if I can do it next time."

He turned to Cranky. Promised him with a glance. If eyeballs could talk, Cliff Diver's would say, 'I got this.'

I smiled a little. But Cranky and Cliff were still just making it harder for me. "No, really," I said. "Zecora and me kiiinda had a disagreement, and like, I'm not sure I should study under her."

"You ain't sure, kid?"

"No, I am," I said. "I mean--;"

"So this was 'cause of me," Cliff interrupted.

"What? No! It's just...I think that...Ugh," I sighed. "I don't know."

"Well, kid. Ya got 'till tomorrow to figure it out," Cranky said bluntly. "I'll be right here." He stomped his hoof on the ground, indicating that he would meet us at this exact spot. "Whatever you decide."

I nodded in silence.

"In the meantime, come on back to my house for a minute. I got something for ya."

Cliff and I exchanged confusitty glances. By the time we looked back, Cranky had already turned his flank to us, and started heading on down the road that ultimately lead to his cottage.

* * *

It wasn't far to Cranky and Matilda's place. And when we got there, Matilda had tea ready. Not because she'd been waiting up for us, but 'cause she'd just gotten home herself, and had barely finished warming up the pot when we came stomping through the door, trying to shake snow off our boots by force of habit, even though we'd barely tracked any in snow at all.

"Oh, what luck!" She said as she rocked by the fire. "Perfect timing. Come! Sit. Sit."

Before long, Cliff and I were right there with her, sipping cocoa while Cranky disappeared into the next room.

"It's very kind of you, you know," Matilda said softly once Cranky, her special somepony, was out of earshot. "...To take the time to listen to that old donkey's stories."

I froze. 'Cause I had no idea what Matilda knew, or what she didn't know - what version of the truth Cranky had told her! I skimmed my brain for some dim memory. Any clue at all.

...But came up empty.

"It's our pleasure!" Cliff jumped in.

"I'll bet," Matilda said with a crafty smile. "He's led quite the life. And he doesn't talk about it to just anypony."

"Does he talk about it to you?" I said - a not terribly subtle attempt to find out what she already knew.

"In bits and pieces," Matilda answered contentedly. Rock-rock-rocking on her chair. "I think one good thing - probably the only good thing - about us being apart for so long, is that now, I get to learn something new about Cranky Doodle Donkey everyday.

"That's...kind of cool."

"It most certainly is."

She smiled. Gazed at the fire. Hummed a little tune to herself. Where she knew it from, or what the melody meant to her? I'll never know. But she mrrrrrr'd it all the way through. At least twice before hitting me with serious talk. Totally out of the blue.

"It's no secret you've been having some trouble, Rose Petal," Matilda said.

"Who, me?!"

"I don't know what you three have been up to," she replied, referring of course to Cranky, Cliff Diver, and me. "Don't need to know.I'll find out when the time is right. If it's ever right.You see Rose, when you get a little older…"

Before she could finish that thought, a clang and a shunk came from the other room where Cranky was apparently rummaging. "Hey, Matilda!" He hollered. "Have you seen that pouch I was showing you the other day?"

"It's out here!" She called back to him without hesitation.

"What in Celestia's name is it doing out there?" Cranky appeared. "I've been looking for it all this time."

"Come on. You couldn't give it to her like that," Matilda whispered those last few words. Scandalized.

"Like what?"

"The way it looked," Matilda tsked. Held up a hoof (to tell us all to wait a second). And delicately plunged her face into a sash hanging off the side of her rocking chair. She came back with a little pouch clutched in her mouth. All black. Some kind of densely woven cloth. Sturdy. Utilitarian. She turned it over to reveal a needlepoint design embroidered on the surface: A single rose. Framed by a laurels and vines interwoven into a sort of knot work pattern. All tiny. And intricate. The detail was breathtaking.

Cranky came up from behind, and leaned over the side of her rocking chair. Squinting. "When did you have time to do all that?"

"Before breakfast," she replied.

Cliff Diver shimmied across the floor to try to get a peek from underneath. It was the only way he could see - what with Matilda, Cranky, and me all crowding over the pouch from above.

"You did that before breakfast?" Cliff exclaimed.

Next thing I know, Matilda has one of her scrapbooks out. And she starts showing us pictures.

"I know you must think that knitting, and crocheting, and needlepoint are all old crone's work. But I didn't earn those plaques on the wall from the Mare's League by sitting around and rocking all day."

Inside her book were pictures of Matilda in her youth. Running what seemed to be a marathon. One of the photos captured her leaping off a cliff. Another showed her weaving rope as she fell.

Matilda turned the page, and there was a photo of her young self again. Wrestling a hydra with knitting needles gripped between her teeth. Each shot told a story of how the match had unfolded. By the end, all five heads were tangled up in a gorgeous web of yarn. And on the last one, there was a young donkey posing in front of her five-headed captive, smile on her face a mile wide as she propped up a plaque that read, "Third Place." An older donkey mare wearing a headband over her mane and a whistle around her neck stood beside Young Matilda. Presumably, her coach.

Matilda turned the page to reveal several faded old ribbons. Second Place. Third Place. First Place, First Place, First Place. The category? Speed. Each of the sepia photographs were of a young Matilda embroidering satchels by hoof, needles moving faster than the camera could capture. It was all a blur.

"How did you do all that?" Cliff asked, eyes sparkling with wonder.

"Well," Matilda answered. "Some folks said I was a natural - that I had a gift. But they only saw the ease with which I sewed, or stitched, or knitted. They didn't see the training. The work..."

"The coaching," I said. Zecora still on my mind.

"Yes," Matilda smiled and said. "Don't think I woulda gotten far without old Yarn Spinner, that's for sure." She let out a nostalgic little chuckle. "Oh, but enough about me." Matilda snapped the scrapbook shut.

(Personally, I think she reveled in giving us young folk a jaw-dropper of a new perspective, only to tease it away from us.)

"Cranky wants you to have this." Matilda smirked, and brought everypony's attention back to the pouch. "...But I wasn't going to let you go wearing that ugly old thing around your neck all day. I just couldn't! Not as it was."

"Thank you," I replied, still utterly awestruck.

"Cranky," Matilda chimed in again. "Why don't you go on and give Rose Petal that speech you were practicing?"

"It's not a speech, and I wasn't practicing it," Cranky blushed. "...But okay." He turned to me, and passed the pouch my way. "This here's a mojo bag, kid. We all carry them with us on the road. To keep our memories in. To keep our friends with us. It'll help keep your...um...lucky charms safe."

Cliff gasped. Stared at the thing with a kind of hope that I could not explain. While I tugged on the pink pocket watch hanging around my neck. Ran my hoof over Misty's hair, and Twinkle Eyes' twig.

Cranky was right. My system wouldn't exactly be the safest way to hold on to important stuff. Especially once I started carrying Screw Loose's pet sock around with me again.

I took the pouch from Matilda's teeth. Dropped it into my hooves and examined it closely. I don't know much about stitching, or needlework, or knitting. So I couldn't begin to tell you what the craftsponyship was like. Not in a way that did it justice. But it was small. Exquisite. Sharper in detail than a cutie mark eight times its size.

"I'll treasure it," I said as I slid the fancy pouch over the watch, and the hair, and the twig. Tightened the little drawstring. 'Till it just looked like a black pendant hanging off of a pink chain. "I'll treasure it always."

"Yeah, well," Cranky blushed again. "Don't lose it, kid."

* * *

Cliff Diver and I stuck around for another round of cocoa after that, but it was getting late, and nodonkey pressured us to stay. So we said our goodbyes and our thank-yous and our really, we mean it, thanks so much's, and we headed on our way.

The sun was hanging low by the time we actually got a move on. The hills to the West hummed bright with pinks and oranges. The horizon on the East lit up with vague promises of nightfall. And a mild dread crept up on me. Cliff too, judging by the look on his face.

It was almost supper time, you see. And neither one of us could afford to be late. Not today.

You take too long getting home - even on a normal evening - and grownups are gonna start asking questions. It doesn't matter if it's Roseluck's mix of irritation and concern, or Cliff Driver's parents' artisanal brand of psychotic manipulative bullshit. The end result would be exactly the same.

Having to dish out a bunch of rambling excuses.

Then the adults would get all suspicious, and start asking deeper questions. Harder questions. Why we had been out so long. Where we had gone to. What we'd been doing.

The sun still had a little while to go yet, but Cliff and I had all of Ponyville to cross. Without saying a single solitary word to one another, we both broke into a trot.

Stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp.

We covered ground pretty quickly that way without having to dash at full gallop. And for a while, the two of us moved as one in silent understanding. But the nearer we got to Cliff's place, the more he slowed down. Grew uneasy. Shied away from me for reasons I couldn't guess.

"Hey Rose?" Cliff broke the silence at last.

"Yeah?"

He cast his eyes downward. Kicked a pebble.

"Nothing," he answered. "Never mind. Don't worry about it."

"Don't worry about what?" He was acting fucking weird again, and it was starting to annoy me.

"I was gonna ask you something," he replied. "But...it's stupid."

"It's not stupid," I retorted.

"How do you know?"

"'Cause I do," I reassured him. Quietly hoping that this wasn't gonna be some dumb shit about aliens.

"Well...okay," he continued. "So you're still not sure about becoming Zecora's student, right? But, like...that tail hair of Misty Mountain's. It has to have happened for...you know...a reason or something."

"I guess."

"...Even if the reason doesn't make any sense," Cliff grumbled, obsessing on that old point again. "So the way I see it, even if you don't become Zecora's student, you should still totally learn to get good at, like, reaching out, and building...y'know, dream bridges or whatever..."

"Sounds like a good idea."

The town square loomed up ahead - the halfway point between Cranky's cottage and mine.

"I don't get why you're all worked up about it though," I added.

"Oh," he answered with a nervous little laugh. "I was just getting to that."

Cliff Diver let his gaze drift downwards again, and we were back to that tiresome silence between us, punctuated by the sound of our boots grinding against a crusty road, now slowed down to a mere power walk.

Crunch-crunch. Crunch-crunch. Crunch-crunch.

"Can I live in your pouch?" He blurted out randomly. "I mean, you know, something of mine. Not literally me. But like, so you can maybe build a bridge or whatever, and find me in your dreams?"

I didn't get a chance to think about Cliff's proposal, let alone answer it. 'Cause he jumped right into interruptifying me again. As though I had answered.

"I know! I know!" He held up a hoof and rolled his eyes at himself. "It's stupid. I can't really help you in your dreams. I don't know what I'm doing. But I figure maaaaybe we can still practice and stuff. 'Till you...like...learn how to move around on your own a little better. 'Till you're good enough to find Misty Mountain. And then, like, perhaps--;"

"Cool," I replied briskly.

"What? Really?"

"Sure. I mean...I'll try," I said.

But even as the words left my mouth, the idea kinda bugged me. Would it be irresponsible to try and tackle that kinda thing on my own?

Or was it irresponsible not to?

I thought back to what Princess Luna had said. How the shadows were gonna come for my friends. How it was up to me to teach them to defend themselves. But I hadn't done that. Any of it! I needed to buckle down. Pony up! Protect those I cared about. Like Princess Luna told me to.

...I just wasn't sure if The Land of My Weird and Unstable Dreamlife was really the safest place to start.

"I still don't know if I'm giving up on Zecora, though," I added.

"Oh," Cliff replied with a sigh. "Yeah, well...you should really figure that out."

We came to a crossroads, and Cliff Diver stopped. I stopped too, following his lead. The two of us stood there, right in the center of the intersection, with paths stretching out in all directions. Each leading to unseen destinations that hid behind curves of the road, and over hills.

I thought Cliff Diver was gonna make some kinda symbolic point about decisiveness. But he just took a deep breath, sighed, and said, "My house is that way."

His hoof pointed West.

"Oh," I replied. "Mine's that way." I gestured North.

"I know," he replied. "So, uh, see you tomorrow."

"Yeah."

Cliff turned around and sulked away. I couldn't blame him for dragging his hooves. I know I wouldn't be eager to get home if I had to deal with his crazy parents.

"Wait!" I called out. Ran after him.

He turned around, and I skidded to a halt. We came so close our knees practically knocked together. But I leaned in even closer anyway. Took a calm deep breath, licked my lips in preparation for what I was about to do, and...chomp! Bit down on a stray hair that'd been hanging out the side of his hat.

The idea was to tug it loose. Make a show of plucking it off, and tucking it away into my new pouch. And assuring Cliff Diver that our friendship was magical too. That I was just as enthusiastic about our being dream buddies as he was!

But it didn't pan out that way.

"Ow!" He yelped. Tugged in the other direction.

When the hair still didn't come loose from his scalp, it zipped out of my mouth like rusty piano wire. I tumbled forward to the ground as my hooves failed me.

He stumbled backwards, knees wobbling.

"What the hay!" He said.

"I'm sorry," I cried. "I was trying to yank one of your hairs loose."

"What for?" He rubbed his head in pain.

"Because," I answered, rubbing my burning lips with my boot. "I wanna be dream buddies."

"...Oh," he replied. "Really?"

"Yeah."

I rose to my hooves and brushed the snow off my side.

"Cool," Cliff Diver plunged his face into his saddlebags, and...

Rummage rummage rummage. Rummage rummage rummage. Until Voila! He produced a blue hair of his, and a warped marble that looked kinda like a flying saucer.

I took them from him. "What's with the marble?"

"For good luck!" He said brightly.

But then his smile faded. He took to peering over my shoulder at the sinking sun. His eyes stretched big and wide when he realized how late it had gotten.

"Blast!" He said to himself, and dashed away in a hurry. "See you, tonight!" He called back over his shoulder. Still giddy at our newly forged partnership, despite being in a great big old rush.

And before I could mull over what Cliff Diver'd just said, he was already halfway up the hill. "Tonight?" I called out. "No. Wait! I don't know how!"

But Cliff kept on galloping. I had no idea whether or not he'd heard me. I just knew I wasn't ready to take him dream surfing. I didn't even know how to do it on my own!

The notion ate at me. I. Wasn't. Ready. It left me wondering. lf I did decide to continue without Zecora, would I ever learn to master my dreams? To step outside my door! To find Misty. Explore the Duckyverse?

There were so many possibilities. So much I could learn to do on my dream travels. The only question was: how?

Author's Note

SUPPORT: Hooves of Fate is a labor of love. However, I also have mouths to feed. If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you in any way, and you can manage to spare a few bits, I'd very much appreciate your support on Patreon. I could really use the assistance.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

For personal reasons, this chapter is dedicated to St. Guinefort - the holy greyhound of Lyon, the only dog ever to be venerated as a saint. Guinefort was a good dog. (All dogs are saints if you ask me.)

The Blood Curse

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE - THE BLOOD CURSE
"Like a bird on a wire - like a drunk in a midnight choir - I have tried in my way to be free." - Leonard Cohen

For the rest of the walk home, I didn't think about Cliff, or Cranky, or my impending conversation with Roseluck. I didn't reflect on the nature of time, or space, or fate, or dreams. As I crossed the square, bustling with cart ponies and shopkeepers (all packing up and heading home for the evening), my brain fixated instead on a teeny tiny stupid little detail from my lesson with Zecora.

The fact that she had called me a mare. It bugged me! 'Cause I wasn't. I wasn't a fucking mare!

Mares do taxes and stuff like that. A little voice inside my head spoke out as I ambled my way past Town Hall. Mares have boring conversations about dumb stuff that doesn't matter. They tell jokes that aren't funny. Mares' idea of a good time is to go to the spa, and lie around doing nothing at all!

But even as those thoughts sloshed around my consciousness, I knew they weren't true.

'Cause Zecora wasn't boring. Pinkie Pie wasn't boring. Cranky was almost as old as the princesses themselves, and he wasn't boring. Even Roseluck wasn't boring (so long as she wasn't hanging out with her flower friends).

Adults are every bit as exciting as anyfilly else. I knew that. So why did it bother me so much to be called one?

With Zecora's words hanging around my neck like a weight, I scoured my memories for clues - some fucking way to make sense of it.

I remembered the shock on Princess Luna's face when I'd looked around my own dreamscape and given her a detailed risk-assessment, rather than enjoying the moment. I'd noticed every rock where an enemy might be hiding, and every path for potential retreat, but hadn't paid any attention at all to my own Crystal Empire sparkle, still shining bright from my trip to No Mare's Land.

Then I thought back to all the horrible things I'd seen. In the trenches. In the mines. In visions.

There was no question that I had lost my innocence. But I still didn't feel like a mare. I had overcome those challenges by thinking like a filly. By maintaining that purity. That sense that the world was supposed to be better. That it actually could be better.

As I reached the end of the square and headed up the North Road, the words for a zillion retorts rushed into my brain. Played themselves out in countless satisfying ways.

But I couldn't say any of it. Zecora was loooong behind me, and the appropriate moment, even further gone.

So my throat grew tight. And I took to muttering angrily to myself instead. That's what happens when you hold your tongue for practicality's sake. When you tell yourself 'it doesn't matter' - that you don't mind at all - that you feel totally fine about dodging a meaningless semantic argument. Eventually, a little time passes, and your brain takes its vengeance - stages a mind-riotinside your skull.

I rambled furiously all the way to my front door. Until I found myself actually standing there on the stoop, staring blankly at the fading rose vines painted along the edges of our doorframe.

You did it. One of my Rose Voices exclaimed. You made it home on time!

There wasn't gonna be a what-took-you-so-long, or a where-the-hay-have-you-been. I was in the clear!

But it didn't matter. As soon as I lifted a hoof to push the door open, terror gripped me anyway. Like one of those blood pressure cuffs your doctor uses on your leg. Except it tightened around my entire body, squeeeezed all my internal organs into moosh, and left me trembling.

'Cause I was definitely gonna get asked how my day went, and no matter what my answer was, I was gonna have to lie to Roseluck. Not like, what happened to the last cookie lying. Real lies. The kind of lies that Cranky refused to tell Matilda. The kind of lies that no family should ever, ever, ever tell.

Fuck.

I had betrayed my sister's trust. Promised her that I wouldn't go seeking zebra wisdom, and then gone and done it anyway. The implications of that decision were just now finally hitting me - stampeding all over my heart like a panic-stricken marching band wearing spiky boots that ground all of my heart-meat into sludge.

What if she found out? What would she do? How would she feel?

I could see it all in my head.

How could you? Roseluck'd say to me when she found out. How could you?!

Then crash! She'd dive out the second floor bedroom window without warning. And fall, slow-motion-like, whinnying in anguish all the way down.

I could see myself rushing to the windowsill, and Roseluck would look up at me with haunted eyes, and cough out 20,000 gallons of blood.

How could you? She'd gargle to me one last time. Then her eyes would turn to x's, and she'd become Roseluck-no-more.

"Oh, Luna. Oh, Luna. Oh, Luna!"

I paced around my tiny little front stoop in teeny little circles like an anxiety-ridden pug chasing its itsy bitsy little tail. 'Till another Rose Voice spoke up. A sinister voice.

Of course you can lie to Roseluck. It said. After all, she's been lying to you.

"No, she hasn't," I snapped.

Oh? The dark voice said sarcastically. Then why did she hide your medical papers from you?

"That's not fair," I parried. "Knowing Roseluck, she did it to protect me...I guess."

And why did you hide your intentions today?

"To protect her," I whispered.

The voice went silent. Just to be a total jerk, and let it all sink in on its own.

"To protect her,"I mouthed the words again without making a sound.

See? The voice replied. Now you're even.

And it made sense. Perfect sense. But I didn't want to be even with my sister. I wanted to be open with her.

I quit my pacing, and stared down the front door.

"What am I doing?" I said aloud. "I can't live like this."

I rested my hoof against the door, ran its tip along the little roses that had been painted there, connecting the flowers to the vines painted along the door frame. And made up my mind. I was gonna fess up to my sister.I had to.

So after a long, deep breath, and a great big sigh, I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

* * *

The house seemed quiet at first. The lamps were burning oil real low. And the living room was lit almost entirely by the fireplace. It didn't even look like anypony was home.

Part of me was worried at first. 'Cause it's super weird for my house to be so still so early in the evening. But it wasn't shadow trouble. I could tell. So I didn't call out for Roseluck.

Instead, I took the quiet as a sort of blessing. If anything, it gave me more time to sort myself out. My coat, my hat, my scarf, the growing impulse to dash out the door from whence I came, and book a train ride all the way to the End of Equestria rather than confess to Roseluck.

I kicked off my boots. Cla dunk dunk. Cla dunk dunk. Cla dunk dunk. Cla dunk dunk.

"Rose?" My sister called out to me from somewhere upstairs. She was probably in her little office doing paperwork - flower inventory and stuff.

"Yeah?" I answered.

"There's oat burgers in the kitchen!" She shouted. "I'll be down in a little while."

"Okay," I hollered back. Feeling somewhat relieved that I didn't have to lie. But also kinda nervous 'cause I wanted it out of the way.

I approached the fireplace. The logs flickered a faint little flame that hadn't been tended to in quite a while. So I gripped the poker with my teeth, and prodded it just to watch the embers fly.

Across the den and through the doorway to the kitchen I could see a bag of burgers sitting there on the counter. Take out. Roseluck must have been very, very busy.

This was my chance.

I stole a quick glance at the staircase. The coast was still clear (of course) so I dashed to the wall and made for the book that Roseluck hid her secret papers in sometimes. A Brief History of Paint, by Crusty Palette.

The shelf where Roseluck kept it had traces in the dust. Like the book had been slid out recently. But when I grabbed the beat up old tome with my teeth, and opened it up, there was nothing inside. Just diagrams and formulas for mixing paint.

I sighed. Put A Brief History of Paint back exactly the way I had found it. And sprawled out over the floor to watch the fire again.

I hated sneaking around. Prying for whatever it was that my sister might have been hiding. I hated even more that I had to hide from her. Wondered how long I could keep it up.

Crackle crackle hiss. The fire grew hungry. As I turned to throw another log on, I suddenly found myself face-to-face with my mother's old chair. The one that none of us ever sat in.

It seemed to stare into my soul. As if waiting for me to do something.

"What?" I said.

But of course it didn't reply.

"What should I do?"

Again there was silence.

Just go upstairs and talk to her. My conscience spoke up. Cut through the nonsense.

"And say what?" I asked out loud.

The truth.

"Ugh. Don't wanna," I grumbled. Knowing full well what I had to do. Even if my timing sucked. Even if Roseluck was busy. Even if it was dead last on my list of Things I Wanted to Do. "What do you think?" I turned to the chair and asked.

Of course it didn't answer. Not with direct advice anyway. It just sorta looked at me. Let me know that things couldn't go on the way they were.

"Fiiiiine," I said. "...But I'm eating first."

* * *

Half a burger later, I was at the top of the stairs. Working up the nerve to approach Roseluck's office.

The part of the oat patty I hadn't eaten was tucked in its wrapper and resting on top of my back. In case I needed a prop to bury my face into.

The office door was half open, and I could see my sister really going to town with the pencil in her teeth. She also had one of those green visors on. Why grown ups need them to do paperwork was, to me, a great mystery. All I knew was that Roseluck was super busy.

So I paced around a bit, hoping she'd say something first. Clop-clop, clop-clop, clop-clop, clop-clop, clop-clop.

But it grew really painfully obvious that she wasn't gonna notice me. So I cleared my throat. Scraped my forehoof against the floor. And rapped upon the door.

"Yeah," Roseluck replied without looking up. "Little busy right now, sweetie. What is it?"

"Never mind," I said and spun around to walk away.

But I didn't take a single step. I just sort of hovered there. While half of my Rose Voices yelled at me to stop being such a nuisance. And the other half yelled at me to charge in there and fucking talk to her already. "Um...it can wait." I added with a whine, and headed back down again.

I only made it about halfway to the living room. 'Cause Mom's arm chair was in there. Looking at me. Chair-ishly. Disapproving-like.

"Okay, okay, okay." I marched back up the stairs and knocked on the door to my sister's office again. This time without hesitation.

"Hey, Roseluck, I'm really, really sorry, but...um...it can't wait. Can we talk?"

I turned and looked away from her in embarrassment before I'd even finished asking. At the floor, at the ceiling, at the oat burger as I shook it off my back and fiddled with the wrapper. Anywhere but my sister's eyes.

Roseluck dropped her pencil on the desk. "What's going on?"

"Well, I'm confused," I said. "About something you said yesterday...You know, about, um...zebras."

I crinkled the burger wrapper nervously.

"Zebras?"

"Yeah. You said you don't trust them because of all the weird herbs they use and stuff. But, like, we use herbs all the time. At least we did before the stupid hospital made you throw them all away."

"I'm still sorry about that," she replied. And in that moment, I realized that Roseluck had never really apologized for tossing the herbs before. "But..." She continued. "Zebra herbs are not like pony herbs. They aren't safe. They do things to your mind. Weird things."

"Like what?"

My sister rubbed her temples with her hooves. It knocked her visor all around like a boat on rough waters. "Rose Petal," she sighed and said. "I'm very busy right now. I've got designs for this wedding that need to be ready by tomorrow so that I can get the approval and finally place the order for the supplies. You know how much work that is."

"I know." I said. "And I'm sorry. I wouldn't ask you if it wasn't urgent."

"Rose Petal," she said with an unusual coldness to her voice. Exasperation. "Are you thinking about this Zecora nonsense again?"

"No," I replied. And crinkled that burger wrapper some more with my hooves, all nervous-like, as my heart raced in anticipation of what I knew I had to say next. "I already went."

"You what?"

"There are things only she can teach me."

"I told you not to." She rose up out of her chair.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I am!" My throat twisted itself like a rung-out towel, and the words started twisting too - strangling themselves into raspy whispers. "But I have to," I coughed. "I don't have a choice."

It was only in that moment - when I was forced to defend my decision - that I actually admitted to myself how much I totally needed Zecora's help.

"Did you take any herbs?" Roseluck lunged at me, started grabbing my shoulders, smelling my breath, examining my eyeballs."

"No," I said in disgust. "Jeez."

"Rose Petal, some herbs are dangerous."

"So is having shadow monsters after you all the time, and not knowing how to do anything about it!" I dropped the burger wrapper, and flailed my hooves in the air.

"So you did have herbs," Roseluck said, not even angry anymore. Just plain terrified.

"Arggg! No! I didn't say that." My voice cracked in anger. "But so what if I did? You think the hospital's gonna come and lock me away? Pinkie Pie got the whole town singing about me. Princess Luna knows I'm not crazy. And even inside the hospital, Bananas Foster can…" My voice trailed off before I could finish that thought.

"You think this is about the hospital?! Other ponies' opinions of you?"

"I don't know." I shouted. "I don't know what's going on, 'cause you. Won't. Tell. Me. You show me this stack of papers that's supposed to scare me, and make me forgive you for tossing all of our herbs. All of Mom's herbs."

"Don't you dare bring Mom into this."

"And you tear a page out the back like I'm not supposed to notice, and then you act all paranoid about zebras. Like they're a bunch of evil enchantresses or whatever. And I hate it. 'Cause we're gonna go to war over that stuff. Stupid judgey stuff between ponies and zebras that's dumb, and doesn't make any sense. Meanwhile, I've got doctor-certified evil after me and everypony I love because our fates and our timelines are all tangled up with each other. And Zecora. Can. Help me. Actually help me. In ways you can't."

Roseluck sat down. Raised her trembling hooves to her head, slid the visor off. And started to cry.

Not like, reading-a-sad-book crying. Her whole damn face turned red. She buried it in her forehooves, and sobbed. But only for a moment. With a frustrated stomp of her hoof, she summoned her composure, rubbed her sorrowful eyes, and looked to the ceiling, whispering words I could not hear.

Part of me wanted to reach out and put a hoof on her shoulder. But I was too afraid that she would shrug it away. Since I was the one causing her so much grief.

I plopped my flank down on the floor. And for a few silent minutes, the two of us were totally still. My eyes stapled to the floor. Hers fixed on the ceiling.

“I’m sorry,” Roseluck whispered one last time to somepony unseen, and opened one of her desk drawers. Produced the missing hospital page.

Two words stood out in bold letters on top: FAMILY HISTORY.

* * *

There was a lot to take in, so I'm just gonna start at the beginning.

Great Aunt Roseroot had been plagued with visions. Just like me. They used to yank her all over the place. Past, future, duckies beyond imagining. They showed her beautiful things. Terrible things. Exhilarating things. And sometimes, the brain hornets showed her stuff that made no damn sense at all.

The paperwork didn't mention this, of course. It only showed discharge dates, and diagnoses, and treatments, and notes etched in some secret scribbly nurse alphabet. But Roseluck took me downstairs. Into the greenhouse on the back porch. So we could be with all of the roses that had descended from the oldest bushes in our family gardens. Dating back long before there was a Ponyville.

It felt right somehow.

My sister lit some oil lamps. Dragged out a bunch of photo albums, and filled in the blanksbased on what Mom had told her long, long ago. About Roseroot. About my cousin Vine Snipper. About some other aunt I didn't even know I had. All of them, dream travelers. All of them, regulars down at the mental ward once upon a time.

"Wait, so they just lock up anypony who has visions?" I squeaked when first I heard. Leapt to my hooves inrighteous indignation.

"No." Roseluck let out a faint, sad little chuckle. Shook her head. Gestured for me to sit back down.

And slowly, cautiously, I lowered my flank back onto the embroidered cushion I'd brought from the living room. My sister scooted up to me on hers. Real close. Her nose practically brushed against mine.

"Okay," she said. "Have you ever heard of rehab?"

I shook my head 'no.'

"Well," she sighed. "Let's see." Roseluck licked her teeth and puffed out her cheeks. She did that whenever she had trouble trying to explainify something. It took her a while, but eventually, her face lit up, and quit its fidgeting as quick as a book slamming shut. "Ahh!" She exclaimed out of the blue. "Do you know how some families produce more mares with red hair, or...more pegasi, or maybe share a cutie mark in common - or at least some kind of theme in their cutie marks?"

I thought about it for a minute. "Yeah," I replied. "I guess so."

"Our family is like that, but we share a common problem. It runs in our blood, you could say."

"Travelling through time in our dreams?"

"Okay, two problems," Roseluck answered. "We are more likely than most to look for answers in, um...substances outside of ourselves. It's kind of natural when you think about it since we all tend to deal with plants so much, and 'cause so many of us have this sort of…" She stopped to look up at the glass ceiling -visibly struggled to find the right word. As if picking the wrong one would somehow prove dire. "...Gift," she said at last. "But our bloodline, I guess, also sorta predisposes us to grow, um...attached to substances. And that's what you're seeing there in the medical chart."

She pointed to the missing page of the discharge paperwork she'd showed me. It was resting on a bin full of gardening supplies. I'd only had a chance to glance at it upstairs before Roseluck had dragged me down to the greenhouse for a proper 'Family Meeting.'

Surrounded by the flowers of Rose Family matriarchs long passed.

"Sometimes we check into 'rehab'," Roseluck continued. "Because it all gets too overwhelming. Or sometimes there's a drought, or a shortage, or some weird phenomenon that makes a certain herb hard to come by. And then, um...we come apart like Great Aunt Roseroot did."

"Oh," I said.

I didn't have much to add, what with all the new information flooding my brain. It seemed too damn weird to be true, honestly. I mean, it's bad enough that some kinda fate-a-majig tosses us all around like ships against rocky shores. Sending us through time just to tinker with the little things that they probably messed up to begin with, and smashing our brains to smithereens in the process.

The idea that our personal fates? Our personal lives? Our basic patterns of behavior? Our very personalities were also somehow predestined? Curses written in our blood?! It was a lot to swallow.

"What happened exactly?" I asked.

"Our aunt did a lot of research. Teas, incenses, potions, concoctions. It's anypony's guess what Great Aunt Roseroot actually went through. By the time I was born, she wouldn't talk about it. Not in a way that made sense anyhow. But, as I understand it, whatever happened in her dream-travels left her pretty shook up. And somewhere along the line, Great Aunt Roseroot turned to plant-magic to ease her suffering. To look for answers. She had teas to help her remember. Incenses to help her forget. Brews to enhance performance in the realm of dreams."

"Dream brews?" I interrupted.

"Yeah," Roseluck replied. "Apparently, if you're already, um...gifted...they give you visions that pack quite a punch. But then, of course, the next morning, Aunt Roseroot'd end up countering them with herbs to help her focus in 'The Waking World.'" Roseluck made quotation marks with her hooves. "Aunt Roseroot took it all. To give her strength. She said it was so she could continue to pursue her 'life's quest'."

Again my sister made the hoof quotation marks.

"What quest?" I asked

"She thought she could get ahead of the visions. And the voices. Aunt Roseroot tried to figure out a pattern. Unravel everything. What they wanted from her. What their plan was. She couldn't handle simply being a background pony.

‘For a while, the teas helped her function better. And she even reported having more powerful visions. Discovering 'deep truths.' (Whatever that meant). But the more she claimed she knew, the less sense she made to anypony else." Roseluck sighed. "Honestly, whatever benefit or comfort she may have gotten from her herbs in the beginning didn't really show. By the time I knew her as an adult, Great Aunt Roseroot was taking every tea and herb imaginable just to get through the day."

"Wasn't there anything the hospital could do?" I asked.

"They treated her substance dependency. Gave her the tools to help her cope and function without them. But the core obsession never went away. Even when she wasn't using."

"Oh,” I said. And thought of my own obsessions.

It seemed like such a natural thing! I mean, who wouldn't need answers? What were us Rose-dreamers supposed to do? Just float around through time, and run whatever errand was demanded of us, and then just go back to our lives, and pretend like none of it had ever happened?!

"Did she learn anything at all?" I said. "I mean, I know she didn't make much sense by the time you talked to her, but are there, like...any answers she had to show for her quest for knowledge or whatever?"

"Not really." Roseluck plunged her face into the box that she'd brought down from the attic, and produced a manilla envelope,

Schooont. With a careful jiggle, an old journal spilled out onto the floor. I leaned over and examined the cheap wooden covers, the crumbling pages, the binding cords that were stretching and thinning, and coming loose. Then suddenly the smell hit me. Aging paste from under the covers.

"The notebook room,” I whispered.

"You remember the notebooks?!"

"Yeah,” I replied, somewhat in shock. 'Cause even I had forgotten about them until that very moment.

Deep in the clutter of Great Aunt Roseroot's house, passed the rotting furniture, there was a whole room filled with massive piles of what seemed to be garbage. But it was organized, all meticulous-like. In a schema that couldn't possibly make sense to anypony of right mind.

The Notebook Room. Stacks and stacks of notebooks. Homemade. Shoddily made. Everywhere. They formed a maze so high that its walls loomed right over my head like Manehattan skyscrapers, and they ran soooo deep! The notebook corridors musta stretched out for miles. And every single journal stank of homemade book paste.

"I got lost in the book labyrinth,” I said aloud, half expecting a gasp of horror from my sister. But I didn't get one.

"The book labyrinth?" Roseluck said dryly.

"Yeah,” I replied. "It kinda freaked me out. Like, I wandered in and lost my way. I never told you this, but I totally freaked when I couldn't figure how to get back out again."

There had been towers of decrepit old pages that'd seemed to ooze out dust, and they'd all closed in on me so suddenly! At the time, I thought that I might end up trapped in there forever. Surrounded by stinky, stinky pages.

"Labyrinth," she repeated.

"Yeah," I squeaked. "There were, like, these huuuuge citadels of books, and journals, and tied up stacks of paper. And they all moved. And…

"Citadels."

"Yeah."

"Rose Petal, they were two feet tall." Roseluck interrupted.

"What?"

She smiled and held up her hoof just a few feet off the ground. About up to my belly.

"How old were you at the time?" She snickered.

I thought about it for a moment. And clop. Brought my hoof to my face in embarrassment. Realizing they hadn't been mountainous towers after all. But once my hoof was out of the way, my eyes landed on the journal on the floor.

"Wait a minute. What did all those notebooks say?" I actually thought to ask for the first time since it had happened.

Suddenly, I was horrified, not by the size of the stacks, or the smell of the paste, but by the realization that my great aunt had actually spent hundreds of hours writing in them. I drew the journal closer to me asRoseluck shook her head.

"Jibberish,” she replied. "Thousands, and thousands, and thousands of pages of jibberish."

"Wait, the entire Notebook Citadel was jibberish?!"

"Yeah," my sister answered gravely. "I went through a lot of it. Trying to make sense of her life. Wishing I could have done more for her when I'd had the chance."

I looked up from the journal. "You didn't do anything wrong,” I assured her.

Roseluck waved her forehoof at me dismissively. "It's okay,” she said. "I'm fine. It just...sucks that Aunt Roseroot was so lonely in her final years."

I nodded solemnly. The journal stacks might not have been great looming towers, or a maze with impenetrable notebook-walls. But the idea that they were all nonsense? That my Great Aunt Roseroot had spent decades and decades and decades making frantic notes about nothing at all?! It hurt just to think about it. And it must have been so much worse for my sister who actually remembered it all.

"Have a look," she said, gesturing at the floor-notebook. "That one at least makes sense...in fragments. Little sentences, as opposed to random words and scribblings."

I nodded.And opened it up.

The inside of Aunt Roseroot's journal looked like random quill-and-pencil-strokes to me. With words floating on them, and occasional letters of the alphabet completely detached and devoid of context. But I turned the pages. One by one.

And though it's hard to quantify exactly what I saw, the quillmanship alone had an angry feel to it. Every stroke told a story of its own. As I ran my hoof over the pages, I could see Aunt Roseroot working on them late into the night. Chiseling hard grooves into the paper.

With every page I turned, I felt her mounting frustration. Her rage. Her desire to lash out at the universe, (even if I couldn't make heads or tails of what the words or symbols actually meant).Until at last, I stumbled across an actual coherent phrase. Right near the end of the book. A single lucid sentence. Framed by a collage of aggressive pencil scratchings.

'Who guides the hooves of fate?' It read.

I turned the page over. But it posed no answer. So I turned the next page. And the next one. And the one after that. scanned through the whole damn book over and over again. Start to finish.

Not a single clue, or articulate idea.

But then again, how weird must my art class picture of Strawberry Lemonade must have looked out of context? Just a whole bunch of frenzied jagged lines, and an eye in the middle.

* * *

There were other Rose folks on the medical chart that I had never heard of - ponies that even my sister had barely known. And others still that were not listed at all, but Roseluck had their whole life stories in her scrapbook.

Like our Great Great Grandmother, Roseseed. The oldest Rose in memory to have suffered the family curse. Legend has it that she had gone to happy places in her dreams - places that had made Equestria look like the Wasteland.

Worlds so bright, and so fanciful, that when the visions suddenly stopped, she didn't know how to cope. She spent the rest of her life trying to make it come back. To get "home."

Roseseed, like the others, eventually turned to herbs. To heighten sleep experiences. To attempt to induce visions. To open up her mind to brand new realities. But no matter what she did, she still couldn't get back to where she wanted to go. Couldn't get herself sent on another mission.

It was more than just a trip to a happy fantasyland for her. Her journeys had embodied her life with cosmic purpose.

But the brain hornets had chewed her up and spit her out again. Without so much as a parting gift. Or a goodbye letter explaining why she was no longer useful to them.

The thought terrified me, to be honest. I'd fucked up my life pretty bad over the course of just a couple of weeks. And even though the hornets had brought me so much trouble - so much loss - I couldn't imagine it just...stopping out of the blue. And having to pretend like none of it had ever happened.

Trottica was a part of me. No Mare's Land was a part of me. Twink, and Misty, and Colonel Wormwood, and that little boy I saw the first night of my awakening - the one who I'll never know if I saved. Sub Mine F. The Crystal Door. They were all a part of me too. The good, the bad, and the weird.

As odd as it may sound, after hearing all of those family horror stories, I was actually a lot scared-er of losing touch with the duckyverse than i was of turning into Great Aunt Roseroot.

'Cause I had ponies counting on me!

Princess Luna herself had told me it was my job to teach my friends how to protect themselves. What if I let her down? What if I let them down?

Oh, Luna. Oh, Luna. Oh, Luna. Oh, Luna. Oh, Luna.

My stomach started tossing that hayburger all around. Gurgling nervously. 'Till it dawned on me. Out of the blue.

Princess Luna!

She hadn't been protecting the dream realm back in the old days when my whole family had gone cuckoo. And there hadn't been any zebra contact either, at least none that I knew about. So things were different now.

"They didn't have teachers." I said aloud. "Did they?" I lifted my eyes from the notebook, and turned to Roseluck.

She gave me a quizzical look.

"Our relatives,” I said. "They all tried to do it alone. No teachers. No time-battling friends. No Princess Luna to guide them and guard the dream."

"Princess what?"

That's right! Roseluck didn't know. Nobody did. I hadn't told a soul.

"Yeah," I answered timidly. It was clear that I needed to tell my sister about what'd happened with Luna. But I still felt kinda shy about spilling the beans. "The princess,” I added. "Now that she's back, she patrols the realm of dreams."

"She does what now?" Roseluck blinkitty bloinked her eyelids.

"I met her,” I attempted to explain.

"You met Princess Luna."

"Yeah."

"The Princess Luna?"

"Yeah."

"You sure you didn't just…like...have a dream about her,” Roseluck stammered.

"No," I said. "It was her."

"How did you know?"

"I know,” I answered dryly.

Roseluck nodded to herself. Got all quiet and super mega pensive. I could practically hear the gears in her brain turning. Then, outta nowhere her whole face started to glow.

"What was she like?" Roseluck bounced up and down in excitement. Like a foal.

"Sad,” I replied without thinking.

"Oh."

"...But regal,” I added quickly. Hoping I hadn't given my sister a bad impression of the princess.
"It was kinda cosmic actually,” I explained, or at least tried to. "And totally serious. But she was also really caring. Um...in a...you know, stern, cosmic, serious kinda way."

Roseluck looked at me, all confuseitty.

"Arg!" I exclaimed. "You had to be there."

"I understand." She put her hoof on my shoulder.

I nodded back at her. Caught my breath. And once we had both calmed down a little, my sister took my hoof gently and asked, "What did she say?"

I thought back to my stroll with Princess Luna along my dream shores. How she'd warned me that all of my friends would be tested that night.

The shadows will use your conscience against you. She'd said. If they cannot drag you into their castle, they'll make you desperate enough to try to storm it all by yourself, and trick you into thinking that you can.

But I couldn't tell Roseluck any of that. She was smiling eagerly. She literally had her hooves crossed for luck, in anticipation of my answer. So I searched my memory for a softer version of the truth that my sister could handle.

"Princess Luna told me it was my job to teach my friends to protect themselves. You know, against…"

I held up my shadow hoof. And smiled ironically.

"I see," she replied. And nodded to herself.

She looked up at the spire of roses entwining around the wooden beam at the center of the greenhouse. As if they could guide her. She sat, and she thought about what I had said very, very carefully. Until at last, she turned to me and said, "The choice is yours, Rose Petal. If you want to go train with this zebra, I won't stop you."

"Really?" I asked meekly. I would have gotten more excited, but she looked so damn upset that it was actually kind of contagious.

"Yes, really." She nodded. "You're grown enough to make that decision for yourself now."

"Okay.”

"But first there is one last thing I think you need to see,” Roseluck spoke in a whisper.

"Okay."

My sister produced a piece of paper. Another medical chart. From that same packet that had gotten me all suspicious to begin with.

FAMILY HISTORY CONT'D

I snatched up the page. And as soon as I laid eyes upon it, my heart started racing. And my stomach turned itself inside out.

The whole thing was all about Mom.

Her erratic behavior. Her time in the mental ward. Her stays at rehab. Three weeks. Three moons. Two days. Eleven moons.Seemed like her whole life was in and out, and in and out, and in again.

Madly, frantically, I panted as I turned the sheet of paper around. Right side up. Upside down. Sideways. I read it again, and again, and again, and again, and again. To be sure I understood it correctly.

But no matter how I looked at it, the answer was always plain as day. My mother had been all different kinds of fucked up.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I whispered.

But my sister wouldn't answer.

"Rose?" I pled. "Why. Didn't. You. Tell me?"

"She made me promise,” Roseluck said softly. "Not to tell you the bad stuff."

"To lie!" I shouted as tears welled up in my eyes.

Roseluck shook her head. "To give you a role model )." My sister slid off her cushion, and knelt down low to the floor so she could look into my eyes on my own level. "Rose Petal, listen carefully. Mom loved you so much. The day you were born was the happiest I had ever seen her. And that's the truth. I swear." Roseluck raised her hoof to her heart. "When Mom got the diagnosis, she told me to protect you. To tell you stories of the best of her - all of which were true.

‘But she didn't want you to grow up the way she had - under the weight of what our family had been through. She didn't want you to know about her failings because of how insecure it would make you feel. She didn't want you to suffer because she knew how hard it would be without her there to explain it all, and help you though. She made me swear to keep the bad stuff from you as long as I possibly could. Because she said that you were the one thing in the whole world that she loved, that she hadn't managed to mess up."

"Well," I lashed out in bitterness and confusion. "So much for that plan."

But as much as I wanted to stay angry. To feel righteous in my feelings of betrayal, to hate my mom even, a tidal wave of every other emotion imaginable clobbered me - sadness, guilt, abandonment, homesickness, pity for Mom, pity for myself, loss, fear of becoming yet another Rose Family Maniac - it all crashed into me. Hard. And I just plain broke down and cried.

Roseluck dropped to her knees. And I hurled myself at her. Buried my face in her chest, as she cried too.

We held each other for a long, long time. Sister and sister. The last of a bloodline of lunatics and sob stories. And when it was all over, I pulled my face away.

"What was Mom like?" I asked. "I mean really like?"

"She was..." Roseluck looked up to the ceiling. A dim smile propped up her sorrow-heavy cheeks as she searched her memories of Mom for a word that could aptly describe her.

"Fun," she said. "Mom was a lot of fun. She let me have pie for breakfast...well, when Dad wasn't looking anyway." Roseluck snorted out a little laugh. "And she would take me out of school with no notice at all just to go on nature hikes. Or to let me draw all day long. She loved to watch me draw.

‘Hmm, what else? She'd sing little songs about whatever it was she was doing. Even in the middle of the night…Ooh, and she taught me to howl at the Moon!"

"Like wolves?!" I squealed.

If there are any city folks reading this, you gotta understand that timberwolves are not whimsical creatures. Wolves'll straight up eat you. And everypony in Ponyville knows that. They linger right on our borders, waiting for the opportunity.

"When I was really little, I was scared of wolves,” Roseluck said.

"Uh, everypony is scared of wolves,” I said.

"Not like this,” Roseluck retorted. "I wouldn't step into a room until a grown up had checked it for me, and declared it wolf-free."

"Oh."

"I don't know why." She blushed. "It might have been a book I read, or that somepony had read to me. Anyway, one night, Mom took me outside and taught me to howl. 'Wolves respect a good howl.' She told me. 'You ever heard of a wolf gobbling up a pony who howled?'

‘And, of course, I hadn't. So she nudged me with a chuckle, and got howling. It freaked me out at first, 'cause that's just one of those things you're not supposed to do. But she cheered me on, so I copied her. And we howled together. It felt like nothing in the world could touch us! Even the neighbors who yelled at us to quiet down." Roseluck giggled. "We even made this timber wolf out of popsicle sticks together. 'An ally on the inside,' Mom said. It was pink and purple and orange and had googly eyes.

‘Yeah, Mom was fun." Roseluck repeated with a sigh. "When she was there."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, sometimes she would just up and disappear for a few days."

"At the hospital?"

"Yeeess, but sometimes she'd also just...wander back into the house after having been missing, brush some pinecones out of her mane and collapse on the couch. And the next day pretend like nothing had happened. I kinda thought it was normal. 'Till my Kindergarten graduation. For weeks it was all she could talk about. How proud she was of me. How she couldn't wait to see me up there. How I'd have nothing to fear from being on stage 'cause she would cheer me on."

"She didn't come?"

Roseluck shook her head. "Hours later, I found her under the bed. Terrified. Crying. Dad sent me to my room. Yelled at me not to come out."

"Jeez," I said. "I'm sorry."

"Mom did her best,” Roseluck replied. "It wasn't her fault. It wasn't anypony's fault. None of this was."

She waved a hoof at our box of family mess-upped-ness.

"Not every Rose goes crazy, you know,” she added hastily. "Not every Rose dances with herbs, either. But we gotta be careful of the warning signs, you know?"

"I will," I said firmly.

"So you're, um, still gonna keep seeing Zecora, then, aren't you?"

"I dunno,” I answered. "To be perfectly honest, I probably will, yeah. But I don't wanna think about that right now."

"Okay," Roseluck said. Wearing her bravest face for me.

"Can you tell me more?" I said softly. "You know, about Mom?"

Roseluck closed her eyes and conjured a faint little smile. "Of course,” she replied. "But can you do me a favor?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Lemme make some tea for us first. I think it's gonna be a long night."

* * *

Hours later, I lay awake in bed. Tired, but unable to sleep. Head flooded with brain-thoughts, but still unable to think.

My heart was like an oven baking me an emotion-brownie made out of terror, and betrayal, and joy, and love, and dread, - with sprinkles made out of pure bewilderment scattered on top.

"Ugh!" I threw my blanket off of me and sat straight up.

The air was bitter cold. But I didn't retreat back under the covers like I should have. 'Cause I suddenly found myself locked in a staring contest with my own Sapphire Shores poster. She was looking right at me from the other side of the room. Wearing an outfit of pure gold. It was raining glitter everywhere. And she was framed by a chorus line of background dancers.

She seemed to be mocking me somehow. Because all that glamor that used to inspire me. To dance. To giggle. To strike a pose. It just seemed so...empty now.

With a sigh, I flung my legs over the side of the bed, and ambled over to the mirror. I don't know why. I just sorta ended up staring at myself instead of Sapphire. I looked deep, deep, deep, deep into my own eyes, and searched for traces of the Roses who had come before me. Tried to make sense of everything I had gotten from my ancestors. Gifts and curses. Good and bad.

But all I saw was the same Rose-face I'd always known, and a scraggly tumbleweed of a mane.

I slid open my jewelry cabinet drawer, and pulled out Screw Loose's beloved sock. Tucked it away into my mojo bag so it would be easier for her to reach me. Maybe even for me to reach her!

As my hooves rubbed the chewed up old wool, I thought of Great Aunt Roseroot. How she had quested for knowledge. Wisdom. Answers. So fucking intensely. But nothing she said or did made a damn lick of sense to anypony else.

Had Screw Loose started out like Aunt Roseroot?

What if they both had actually found their answers? Was there such thing as a knowledge so powerful that it could break your fucking brain into a million trillion pieces if you ever managed to figure it out?

Had Roseroot or Screw Loose really gone insane? Or were they just acting according to some weird higher truth they'd found? What if we were really the ones living delusions?

It seemed possible. In a world where Mom isn't Mom, and your blood makes you drink tea and go crazy, anything's possible.

Thunk! A great big heavy noise startled me out of my thinkitty trance. It came from the hallway just outside my door.

"Roseluck?" I asked.

"Sorry. Did I wake you?" She whispered. As if speaking softly would undo the noise she'd just made.

I poked my head out the door. Roseluck was nudging that big heavy box across the hallway. The one with all the family memorabilia.

"No,” I answered. "What are you doing with that?"

"Putting it back in the attic."

"Don't!" I exclaimed. And actually kind of surprised myself with how viscerally I'd protested.

"Why not?"

But I didn't know why not. I just knew it felt wrong.

"Because," I said. "That's our family."

"Rose, sweetie, I'm just putting them in storage. They'll be fine."

She stole a sideways glance at her office across the hall. She still had all that green visor work to do before she could call it a night.

"No, they won't,” I said. "We can't just hide them away like dirty little secrets."

"What? It's not like that. It's…" Roseluck struggled to explain, but cut herself off before she could finish. Sighed, and said, "Tell you what. You want some of it?"

I nodded back to her.

"Okay. Go through it. Whatever you don't want, just leave in the box, and I'll hoist it into the attic tomorrow morning,” she said, and ambled back to her office.

"That's it?" I asked.

Roseluck stopped in the doorway, and craned her neck to face me.

"What's what?" Her nose wrinkled in confusion.

"You're not gonna tell me what I can and can't have, or, like, warn me about how to take care of brittle old paper or anything?"

"I trust you." She came over, rubbed my mane. Noogie style. Helped nudge the box into my room. "And I'm proud of you for taking charge of it."

"Thanks," I said.

Roseluck nodded, and smiled, and yawned, and shut the door behind her.

Once alone, I dropped to my knees and eagerly rummaged through the box. Pulled out an old pencil sketch of my great great grandma. The one who'd gotten kicked out of her duckyverse. The drawing wasn't very good, but it was the closest thing we had to a likeness.

I grabbed Great Aunt Roseroot's journal. And another old book beside it, along with a few pieces of jewelry, (nothing fancy), a photograph or two, and a funeral card for a distant cousin of mine - little Garden Breeze - a foal who'd died tragically in her sleep a long, long time ago at age 11.

I had no idea what I was gonna do with any of those things. I had this image in my head of what it would be like to try to stuff it all into my mojo bag - the one tied around my neck. Can you imagine lugging it around school? Or the Wasteland? Or the Everfree Forest? Dragging it around like a boulder?!

I chuckled lightly to myself.

Then my eyes caught that Sapphire Shores poster again, and the laughter faded. I rose steadily to my hooves. Looked at all the glitz and the gold once more. Suddenly, I knew what to do.

I grabbed a table from the corner of my room, swept all the books, and schoolwork, and random toys off of it, and slid the whole thing over to Sapphire. Then I scrambled up on top. Scraped the corners of the poster off with my teeth.

I wasn't looking to tear her down in anger or anything - you know, like kids sometimes do in books where like they're, like, super upset and disillusioned, and suddenly hate their heroes or whatever because they've gotten all whiny.

It wasn't that. Sapphire simply couldn't stay.

In her place, I piled all the Rose Family artifacts. Propped them up. Arranged them. Rearranged them. Re-rearranged them. Re-re-rearranged them. Again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

But no matter what I did, it wasn't quite right. It wasn't enough.

So back into the box I went. Pulled out an old chess board that belonged to Luna-knows-who. And an unidentified childhood drawing from Celestia-knows-when. I integrated them into the organized chaos. Stacked, and displayed. Even ran outside into the hall to steal a whole other picture frame.

Crash! Bang! Roseluck didn't even notice.

I opened up the back of the frame, took the boring old sailboat picture out, slid it into the family box, and started fumbling through scrapbooks to find something else to put in its place.

I came upon an old sepia photo of Great Aunt Roseroot - one I hadn't even noticed when my sister had first flipped through the photo albums. The picture dated back to when Roseroot was young. Her mane was like a great, big bird's nest. Her eyes, fiery and confident. She was at some kinda traveling fair judging by the background. That was the only way folks could get their pictures taken back then.She wore a tight, fearless little smile. Like she'd just bullied the camera into submission.

There was something haunting about her. Maybe it was 'cause, unlike my other ancestors, I had actually met Roseroot. I knew what she would eventually become. Or maybe it was just the intensity of her stare- a kind of bravado bought by pain.

I framed the photo of Young Roseroot and placed it on top of Old Roseroot's notebook o' lunatic scribblings. And then sat on my flank and focused on it. Wondered how she'd gotten from Point A to Point B.

What had she seen in her dreams? Where had she gone? What mysteries had she uncovered? What friends had she made? What friends had she lost?

Roseroot had been a warrior once. I could tell by the way she held herself. Her smirk reminded me of Sterry, the young onion-thief back in No Mare's Land. And her eyes were sharp like Wormwood's.

I lost myself in the photo, and tumbled these thoughts around the inside of my skull, 'til an idea finally hit me.

"No Mare's Land,” I whispered to myself. "Omigosh, No Mare's Land!" I exclaimed again in an ecstasy of sorts.

I bolted downstairs. Past the den, and into the kitchen. I slid on my knees across the floor like a dancer, and scrambled for the very last cabinet in the corner. Inside there were platters, and table cloths, and big serving spoons we only used when entertaining company, and - a ha! Candles.

I pulled out a bunch. First the fancy kind - the type that fits in candelabras, but then I found some that were even better - the kind that come in little glass jars that stand up by themselves. I could light candles for everypony in the Rose Family! Just like I had done for Twink in the trenches of No Mare's Land. And I could have one of those one-on-one braintalks with the flame. Just like the gryphon had taught me.

I rolled all the candles up in a dish towel for easy carrying, and ran into the den to fetch some matchsticks.

They were on top of the mantle, so I kicked a hoofstool over to the fireplace, and leaped up on to my hind legs to grab them. So eager was I to light my candles! To initiate a flame talk! To reach out to the misfit Rose's, all but forgotten except in medical charts, the dimmest of memories, and a few musty old scrapbooks that hadn't seen the light of day in about a decade.

But when I stepped off of the stool, my legs froze completely. 'Cause once again I found myself face-to-face with Mom's old reclining chair. The one we kept sacred in her memory.

Stunned, I dropped the sticks on the floor. Fell to my flank. Forgot to breathe.

Every time I had looked to that chair before, it had been a sort of earthly manifestation of a sublime being - an impossibly perfect pony that I had imagined my mother to be. And even though I had just spent hours learning about Real Mom - flawed Mom - the smell of her perfume was still in the upholstery. And it sent me back. Summoned all those old feelings of foalhood safety.

I knew my memories were distorted. But it didn't matter. I couldn't help it. All I could think was how unfair the whole thing was to my real mother. The one who'd tried so hard to be a better pony for me despite all the demons she'd had to wrestle inside of her own brain. Her dying wish had been for me to grow up without inheriting her pain. But that plan was in ruins now. 'Cause of the fight Roseluck and I had just had.

"Hi," I said meekly. That was all I could think of to say. Just, Hi.

The reclining chair, of course, did not reply.

"Um, listen…I know this isn't what you wanted," I said. "But it's fine. Really. Don't be mad at Roseluck, okay? She's doing her best."

Again, silence from the chair. It occurred to me then that I had never truly known my mother. Roseluck could pass down as many anecdotes as I asked for, but no matter what, the mare who had once sat in that chair would always, on some level, be a stranger.

I started to cry again. I babbled to her about Trottica. The escape from the mines. How we had all hustled through the dark to escape the cloak-o's; how a shadowmajig had gotten its claws on me in the chaos of the stampede that followed; how it was my love for her that had gotten me out alive! My righteous defense of the memory that they'd tried to invade. And even though my heart was aching and I still felt so very alone, one thing became clear to me.

"You made a good call," I said as I threw my head on the cushion of the chair. Imagined it was her lap. "You did. You really did. I'm sorry I flipped out at Roseluck about the lie. It saved me," I sobbed. "You saved me. I wish I could tell you that face to face, but it did."

Perfect Mom had given me the strength I'd needed to survive.

I broke down. Heaved a bit. Clutched at the cushion, and bawled into it. 'Till a fiery pop from the fireplace snapped, and jolted me to attention.

With a quivering sigh, I sat up. Sniffled. Wiped my face clean. And chuckled faintly as one of Roseluck's stories randomly sprung to mind. About how she and Mom had both won a pie eating contest together.

It must have been mega-difficult for Mom. Loving us, but not knowing when she was gonna be there to win her daughter the blue ribbon, and when she was gonna run off into the woods screaming. She'd tried so hard to hold it together. And she'd succeeded in so many ways! But Mom had still called me the one thing she loved that she hadn't messed up.

The guilt that she'd felt about letting Roseluck down must have been like dragging an anchor through gravel.

"I'm glad you did what you did," I said softly. "But you know what?" I chuckled again as salty tears spilled from my cheeks into my mouth. "I like the real you better."

The room fell silent. Peaceful. Whatever weird invisible tension had existed between me and the Momchair was now gone.

I smiled meekly to myself. "Um, goodnight," I said.

And bent down to the floor to scoop up all the matchsticks I'd dropped. Rolled them all carefully to me, aware of both the fire hazard of leaving one behind, and of the need to get upstairs, and light those family candles so I could finally get to sleep!

I pressed my cheek all the way to the ground. To make sure none of the matchsticks were hiding. Even did a feel test by lifting the sham of Mom's chair, and probing around with my hoof.

There were no matches, but I discovered something else hiding back there. A little tiny piece of wood. My heart skipped a beat 'cause, at first, I thought it was piece of the chair that had broken off when I'd collapsed on it moments before. But it wasn't. The frame of the recliner felt rock solid underneath, and the little scrap I'd found was small and light and loose. I squirmed, and stretched my hoof. 'Till at last, I managed to sweep it out from under Mom's recliner.

When I held it up to the light the fire, I saw the wooden thing, at last, for what it was. A popsicle stick wolf. White and yellow and red and pink. Like the streaks in my mane. Written in tiny letters on its belly were the words: Rose Petal.

End Book Four
The Sound of Silence

Author's Note

SUPPORT: Hooves of Fate is a labor of love. However, I also have mouths to feed. If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you in any way, and you can manage to spare a few bits, I'd very much appreciate your support on Patreon. I could really use the assistance.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS and REFLECTIONS
This chapter is very much about respect for the dead, and one's ancestry, so I have chosen to release it on All Souls' Day , aka. Day of the Dead aka. the final day of the Dias de los Muertos.

It's also the last chapter in Book Four, as I'm sure you noticed from the little announcement on the bottom. For those of you who have been reading since the beginning, this is probably new to you, but over the last few months, I've gone back and divided this fic up into books, so as to help contextualize what's going on, and make the pacing feel as natural as possible.

The first ten chapters are Book One: The Great Escape
Then comes, Book Two: No Mare's Land
Book Three: After the Storm is the shortest in the series, and it encompasses everything that happens after Rose's adventure in No Mare's Land, but before she gets released from the hospital.
Book Four: The Sound of Silence makes up everything that happened from the moment she set hoof outside of the hospital until now. This is Rose's readjustment period.

Anyway, thank you all for reading. Time to start Book Five! (Title to be announced when it's complete).

It's amazing to me that the story has come this far, and that so many of you have been following it for so long. Thank you all!

Sorcerers Are Annoying

* * *

BOOK FIVE
DOORS

* * *

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO - SORCERERS ARE ANNOYING

"There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." -Douglas Adams

“When despair for the world grows in me and
I wake in the night at the least sound…
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.
For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."
—"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendall Berry

There are times I'm very grateful to be a small town girl. Hearth's Warming break is one of them. Big city Canterlot kids only get three weeks off of school. Manehattan kids, two. Here in Ponyville, we get nine. Something to do with farming communities, and Winter Wrap Up, and all that stuff. Same reason we get harvest time off. And Running of the Leaves.

I never really bothered to do the math and actually figure out how much time we spend in that little red schoolhouse each year, but on your average Ponyville day, you're more likely to see kids running all over the place, getting into filly adventures than cloistered away inside doing classwork. It's 'cause of all our small town school vacations.

So after I got out of the hospital, even though I'd had a rocky start, (what with the family teas getting thrown out, and that creepily silent musical number, and my fight with Roseluck, and all that), I still had weeks and weeks and weeks all to myself to do whatever the hell I wanted.

And it was great! I didn't have a single time mission dream. Each morning, I visited Bananas Foster. We hung out, played chess with the board that my ancestors had left me. We talked, and laughed, and put our shadow business aside - at least for a while. Almost like a couple of normal fillies.

And after that, I would journey into the Everfree Forest with Cliff Diver as my guide. I got to study under Zecora. Intensely. Every single day. And over time, I learned to master that terrifying void outside of my dream door - the one where I'd once fallen outside of my body, outside of my mind, and outside of myself. Zecora taught me how to gain control, and eventually, how to step into other ponies' dreams (if I had a strong enough connection with them).

Cliff was my first dream buddy. Zecora had given him some tea to invite vivid dreams - the first of many occasions he would partake of herbs and act as an assistant of sorts in my apprenticeship. We had each lain down in her tree-hut. Cliff had fallen asleep like normal, and I'd gone to the dreambeach like Zecora and Princess Luna had taught me. I delved into my mind-cave just like before, and stepped into the void outside of my dream door. But when everything else went dark, I focused on the hair in my mojo bag. Reached for it as time and space themselves spiralled out of existence around me - gripped it like a rope as my body tried its damnedest to flee my consciousness. I'd chomped down on the strand and used my legs to pull myself along, thinking about Cliff's caring heart the whole time - our friendship - our connection. In that state, Cliff Diver was almost like a physical land that I could reach for. I just had to concentrate on the idea of him. Picture his face. Remember how his kindness made me feel. I'd tug and tug and tug on the rope through the mind-rapids of the dream void, reaching for Cliff Diver, until whoosh. I found myself in a quiet place. Totally still.

It had an invisible floor, surrounded on all sides by stars and cosmic purple mists and stuff. It was like standing up in the middle of the night sky. Right in front of me was this plain wooden door - Cliff's door. And the hair I had used to get me there ran straight from my teeth into the keyhole. On the other side, was Cliff Diver himself. Waiting for me. Half-dreaming up on the surface world, thanks to some tricks that Zecora had taught him.

The first time I successfully made it through his door, he hugged me. Shed tears of joy. 'Cause we were finally dream buddies.

* * *

With practice, I learned to find other doors too. Like Misty Mountain's. The process of getting there was exactly the same, though I didn't dare set hoof inside. The entanglement of our fates was still too much of a mystery.

I found Zecora's door too, but only during our practice sessions. The rest of the time, she kept it well hidden. When you juggle as much mojo as she does, it just isn't safe to have a door that can be reached on anypony else's terms.

I even found Screw Loose's door once. While practicing on my own time. I'd stepped into the void, clutched the mangled old sock that she had given me, and pulled my way to safety just like I'd done a dozen times before with Cliff and Zecora. But this time, when I opened my eyes, there was no door anywhere to be seen. Just an empty outer space hallway. Stars and nebulae and galaxies in all directions - left, right, forward, back, up, and down. It was totally empty, except for a single thread entangled around my hoof. I knelt to examine it. Sock wool.

I tried to tug it - to tuck it back into my mojo bag - but the strand kept going - stretching out into the darkness. I followed it. Deep into the twinkly mists. Down, down, down an empty hallway until, at last, I saw a speck. That speck eventually became a door. A tiny diagonal door, warped into an unearthly shape - and bolted down with a hundred chains, and giant bars, and padlocks.

The sight of it made my blood run cold. I stooped down to gather the thread and get outta there, but it had instead become a key - as though the sock-wool had petrified.

Everything about that door said Don't Open Me. But I had a handy dandy little key that could break through all of that security with a single click! My hoof started to tremble. I didn't even like to be in the same room as my sister's diary, let alone read it. And there I was - one key-turn away from invading the very depths of Screw Loose's mind.

What if I stepped into her dreams and exposed her deepest fears and nightmares that she kept locked away?

What if the whole reason that Screw Loose wandered from dream to dream to dream was that she couldn't bear to climb back inside her own head? To look behind that door?

No. I said to myself, tucking the Wool Key safely back into my mojo bag. That's not what the sock is for.

I retreated to my own dreamscape. Back through my own door, and my own cave, and my own beach, and all of that. Plopped down on a rock and caught my breath. Watched the moon hang over the ocean in my brain. The waves smashed against the rocks below - made a constant rrrshhhh sound that filled the air, all ambient-like. It was so loud, that when the waters briefly receded, the air grew eerily silent.

I shimmied the mojo bag open with my teeth and shook the sock loose onto my lap. Stroked the mangled wool with my forehoof and wondered if Screw Loose was okay. All alone in the hospital without her favorite chew-toy. Her spirit meanwhile wandering around, making itself at home in every dreamexcept her own.

"Poor Queenie," I whispered, remembering the dog name I once had given her - (that perhaps I shouldn't have).

And Wham! I got swept off my rocky perch - rammed onto the squishy bed of sand and seaweed below. And assaulted with a rapid barrage of licks to the face. The dogmare was on top of me. The sock had called to her.

"Ahh, ahh!" I said. "Down, girl."

So she stopped what she was doing. And lay down. Right on top of me.

I rolled my eyes and grumbled. But when I looked at her face - really looked at her - I was awestruck.

I had forgotten that, in the realm of dreams, she was basically a giant gray dog. It shouldn't have surprised me. After all, when my physical self was too sick to get out of bed, Dream Rose was busy running up and down trenches trying to end an entire fucking war. Luna had straight up told me that our bodies don't always match our spirits - and that any Duckyverse we entered would even force our bodies to conform to its rules. Like how a journey to Sandwichia would make a pony take the shape of a sandwich, or how a world with no dragons might turn one into a puppy.

What's more, I already fucking knew that Screw Loose was a great big pony-sized dog in the land of dreams. I had seen her! But never quite so close. Or while holding quite as still as she was just then. Her nose was sharp and long and shaggy. Her teeth, strangely jagged. Her eyes, so canine and innocent, yet still so equine. So aware.

"Roll over," I said.

And she did as I asked. 'Cause she understood exactly what I meant. So I rubbed her exposed belly with my hooves and watched the crescent moon set over the ocean.

* * *

That's how I spent my winter break. Playing fetch under the moonlight with a giant dogmare, swinging around the Land of Dreams, practicing zebra magic. And on my down time, I hung around the hospital listening to classical music with a changeling.

I didn't write that in my "winter break" homework essay. But I could talk about it for days. The times we had. The places I visited. The dreams, and visions, and lessons I learned under Zecora's tutelage. But that alone could take up an entire book.

No. I'm just gonna tell you about one. The time that Zecora showed me how to find my way back to the Pit of Infinite Duckies.

* * *

It was a bright Everfree afternoon. Way warmer than winter break had any business being. I staggered into the little oasis that passed for Zecora's front lawn. Just like I had every single other day - clutching onto Cliff Diver - wincing in agony as the woodland voices finally started fucking off.

But this time, Zecora wasn't waiting inside like usual. She was out front, fiddling with some shrub or another. So when I dropped to my flank and rubbed my throbbing temples in pain, she actually noticed.

"What a sorry sight I see," Zecora trotted up to me. At first I thought she was gonna get all concernitty, but she didn't kneel down to my level to see if I was alright, nor did she offer a hoof to help. Merely looked over me, all judgey like. "You've been keeping something hid from me," she said.

"What?" I groaned. "Me? No, it's not like that. It's--"

Boom. Boom. Boom.

I lost my train of thought. Zecora was tapping her hoof at me impatiently. And each rap was like a little explosion inside my aching brain.

"Okay," I admitted. "I get these...headaches...whenever I walk through the Everfree Forest, okay? It's 'cause of all these stupid voices I hear...well, they're not reeeally voices. They don't speak in words. More like eyeballs. Whispering eyeballs! Looking at me and stuff." I let out a nervous little laugh.

Both Cliff and Zecora declined to laugh with me.

"...But it's not like a problem or anything," I added. "I'm fine once I get to this little area over here." I gesticulatized at the clearing surrounding Zecora's tree-hut.

"Clearly," Cliff Diver said sarcastically.

"Okay, smart guy," I retorted. "I'm fine a few minutes after I get here."

"I wish you'd learn to trust me more," Zecora replied bluntly. "I can teach you a simple cure."

"It's not that I don't trust you, it's...um...not like that...it’s just…"

I tried to explain that I simply didn't want to be a complainitty burden, but Zecora turned her flank on me and headed straight into her hut. She wasn't even mad or anything - simply dismissive of all excuses. Reluctantly, I followed her inside. By the time I got there, she was already way up on a step stool, bringing a jar down with her teeth.

"Oh, it's okay," I said awkwardly. "I don't need anything. I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Cliff insisted as he came up behind me.

"Am too!" I snapped. "The headache's mostly gone!"

Zecora dropped the jar into a great big giant saddlebag full of other zebra stuff, slid the whole thing on her back, and sauntered proudly out the door. She meant for me to follow her.

I turned to Cliff and looked daggers at him.

"What?" He said. "You think I haven't noticed?"

I grumbled in reply, and followed Zecora. She was halfway across the clearing by the time I set hoof out the front door. It was fucking weird. Not like her at all. Our other lessons, and quests, and stuff all happened from inside the safety of her tree hut.

"Where are we going?" I asked nervously. But she didn't answer. Just lead me out of the oasis and back into the woods. "Oh, come on!" I said. "We're headed to Headache Town?!"

"I thought you said you were fine," Cliff quipped.

"Shut up," I said.

"Rose," Zecora commanded attention. "Listen to my words quite plain. / As we walk, describe your pain."

"Fine," I said. "Just step into the hurt-zone and talk about how much it sucks. Great."

Did I mention that having Zecora as a teacher is a thorn in the flank? It's hard to convey this with the written word. In fact, when I was little, I used to read Pinkbeard and the Fallen Mysts again and again and again, dreaming of having a teacher just like the great Sorcerer Planktoneth. He was wise and tricky, and even though he pushed Daisy the Cabin Filly around, and made her clean everything, and do all this hard work, and grueling study and stuff, it fucking worked. One day, her magic was strong enough on its own to confront the Whale of Perpetual Sadness, who had swallowed her brother. And she won the day! 'Cause the Great Sorcerer Planktoneth had tricked her into learning stuff!

His cruelty was really wisdom. His discipline, love in disguise. I used to fantasize about it so much. Craving such sagely guidance. Imagining the potential I could unlock in myself. But when you actually have to deal with somepony like the Sorcerer Planktoneth, it doesn't feel quite so romantic. It's fucking annoying.

"Okay," I said. Then I thought about the forest voices for a minute. Listened carefully as the Everfree-drama-in-my-brain slowly mounted.

"You know that eyeball-feeling I was talking about? Well, it's like they're everywhere. Looking at me. Because I don't belong." I gritted my teeth. Concentrated real hard on my own headache. "It is kind of like...they hate me. And they want me dead...It's weird, though," I added. "They're not at all like the shadows. In fact, I'm totally cut off from the shadows whenever I'm here in the Everfree. I don't even feel cold in my hoof. Nothing. Instead, I sense all of this weird, woodsy hatred and fear pointed at me."

"Your view is far too narrow, and too slight," Zecora replied. "There's more magic in this world than darkness versus light."

"But what is it?"

Zecora closed her eyes, and lifted her head as if to smell the forest air. Savor it. Then she explained forest mojo to me without opening her eyes.

"Hunting, fighting, fleeing, making child. / These struggles make the music of the wild," she said.

"Ewww!" I shrieked.

Zecora's eyes snapped suddenly open like a pair of old window shades.

"Are all the woodland creatures making child with each other right now?"

I spun around looking in the trees and bushes and fallen logs. Gross.

Zecora roared out a laugh so hearty it shook the ground. "No," she chuckled. Struggled to catch her breath. "Not where there's a stranger to be found. / That's why they hate so much when you're around." Zecora straight up pointed at me and cackled.

"Very funny." I rubbed my aching head. Recoiled at the thought of the nasty stuff those Everfree eyeballs apparently wanted to do to each other.

When I opened my own eyes, there was Zecora with an outstretched hoof. Offering me what looked like a strip of bark that she'd brought with her from home. The empty jar sat on the ground beside her.

"To hear them, here's what you must do. / Put this inside your cheek, but do not chew."

"I hear them too much. That's the problem." I leaned forward and examined the bark more closely. "This one's safe?" I asked with raised eyebrow.

Zecora answered by thrusting her hoof at me further. She and I had an understanding about herbs. Zecora was well aware of my situation. My family history. My blood curse. And most of our lessons didn't involve plants at all - just me, my brain, and I.

But there were also times when botanical intervention proved not only necessary for progress, but also, a basic safety precaution. It's all fine and good to worry about eventually growing dependent upon herbs to give you a little edge in your mystical travels. It's quite another thing to refuse to take them all together, and put yourself at risk 'cause you were stumbling blind in dangerous realms.

I'd learned from experience that when Zecora shoved a plant at you, you fucking did as you were told. So I put the bark in my mouth, plopped my flank on a nearby fallen log, and waited. Tap click. Tap click. Tap click. My hooves fidgeted impatiently against the surface of the log.

But nothing else happened. Not at first. Just those same eyeball voices. Woodland creatures that apparently wanted to do gross stuff to each other all the time. And kill me. Oh, yeah. They definitely wanted to kill me.

"Listen," Zecora said. "Pinpoint which are far and which are near. / Reflect on everything you hear."

"Okay." I closed my eyes. Felt that wall of angry forces surrounding me. It was like getting yelled at by a hundred different ponies at the same time. I couldn't tell one from another. And it fucking hurt to try. "Ahhhh!" I squirmed. Opened my eyes, and rubbed my throbbing temples with my hooves.

But Zecora stared me down sternly. Like Sorcerer Planktoneth.

"Fine," I pouted and tried again. Listened for the difference between near and far. At first, it was nothing but an overload of all my senses, but I kept focusing on the idea of "near," and the concept of "far." Slowly, the angry eyeball voices started taking shape. Dimension. None of it was pictures. None of it was words. It all came as weird feelings and smells.

As Zecora's magic bark slowly took hold of my brain, each one of the sensations separated itself from the one next to it. Like opening a pop-up book

A panicked whisper from the log beneath me. There was a mouse under there. Hiding. Waiting for me to go away.

A sudden sting of pure hatred. Coming at me from behind. Some kinda Everfree death pigeon. Mad at me for disrupting her mouse hunt.

Above us all were leaves. Not just the ones that clung to the branches despite the bitter cold. Freelance leaves. Floating on the slightest breeze like sails made of delicate gossamer. They, too, straight up wanted to kill me. I have no clue why.

And, last but not least, just to my left was a regular old squirrel. Furious that my arrival had interrupted his wooing of a girl-squirrel somewhere not too far from the log I was sitting on. He wanted to get gross with her.

But all these desires - all the drives and wills and forces of the Everfree - every plant and every creature - they amplified one another. There was, like, a roaring river of power running through the air above. A pulsing rhythm surging from the earth below. A current that flowed right through me, and made all my hairs stand up under my jacket. It made me taste rhythms. Hear colors. Smell voices. And feel everything.

Except a headache. No pain. No doom cloud of eyeballs shouting inarticulately at me. Instead, there was a strange sort of clarity.

Zecora looked down on me smugly. "Tomorrow, you can do this if you try," she said. "No bark nor tea, just listen with your eyes."

"Listen with your what now?" Cliff said.

Zecora and I both turned to him. I did my best to keep a straight face, though it was hard to keep from smiling.

"What?" He said. "What's going on?"

"The time is right, you're both equipped," Zecora announced. "The time has come to set off on a trip."

"A trip?" It was my turn to be confused.

"A trip," Zecora rhymed right back at me.

She set her giant saddlebag on the ground, and produced a big round wooden object from it.

"A drum?" I asked.

"A drum," she replied.

She set it down gently in front of me. "You're right," she said. "The shadows cannot track you here. / Too much magic interferes."

She pointed her nose above us. There were streams of purple light pouring sideways through the branches. Moving like a stream. Chugging along in gusts with the rhythm of the magic of every critter and every plant.

"You've been initiated to the bark," she continued. "So we must use it wisely before dark. / There are other doors that you must learn to find. / So copy me, as you unclench your mind."

She gave Cliff a piece of bark too. A big one. Without question, he put it in his cheek. Cliff didn't have the same blood curse I did. Also, he needed more help than me. So, during our lessons, he ended up taking a whooooooole lot of herbs. He was cool with just about anything. He only objected when Zecora sat her flank down on an adjacent log. Made herself comfortable.

"Wait," he said. "Here?" He whipped his head around in every direction. "What about the animals, and the poison, and the...the, you know, killer forest stuff?"

Zecora smiled. Brought her hoof to her lips, and mimed a ssshh gesture.

"There are so many worlds out there to show," she turned to me. "Our senses chain us to the world we know. / So when the time is right we shut them down, / revealing what is hidden all around.

'When shuttered eyes deprive you of your sight, / Your mind can seek and find another light. / Your ears and flesh are far more stubborn, though. / We must distract them with a rhythmic flow."

She pounded a gentle beat on her drum. Cliff followed her example and started banging on his. Just a simple beat. Nothing fancy.

Bomm. Bomm. Bomm.

Zecora turned to me, expectantly, but my mind was too distracted by the very concept.

"A rhythmic flow," I repeated in astonishment. Something about it seemed so very familiar!

Zecora kept on urging me with her eyes. So I took the drum between my knees and started tapping it. Every other note. Just to sort of accentuate the important beats without actually mimicking her and Cliff exactly.

BOOM bum bum bum. BOOM bum bum bum. BOOM bum bum bum. BOOM.

After a while, I felt my body relax and my attention start to slip away. My thoughts and feelings rode the groove like a wave. I could almost feel my whole body getting carried away. 'Till suddenly, out of the blue, I remembered the sensation!

"The Crystal Empire wall!" I leapt to my hooves and exclaimed. "The Crystal Empire wall!"

"What?" Cliff asked, clearly annoyed. And kind of hazy judging by the glazed look in his eyes.

"When I was stuck inside the Crystal Empire wall, I fell into another place." I turned to Zecora and said. "All this time, I thought it happened because of some weird magic inside the city's defense mechanism. But it was this! It was rhythm."

Cliff looked at me all dumbfounded-like. Zecora too.

"Remember I told you about that hallway inside the wall?!" I exclaimed. "It was so dark, and I couldn't hear anything either. Except a loud hum that dulled my senses! Oh! Oh! And my hoofsteps had taken on a sort of rhythm that made me forget my own ears and forgot my own skin, and my own coat. My own bones! Distracting my senses! That's what sent me out into the Duckyverse!"

"Good," Zecora replied with a smile. "Sit down then if you will, / and learn to seek these travels with intent and skill."

I plopped my flank back down. And the drumming started up again.

BOOM dum dum dum. BOOM dum dum dum.
BOOM dum dum dum. BOOM dum dum dum.

I focused on the vibe of it. Not just in my ears, but in my hooves. In my belly as the body of the drum vibrated against me. Pbbbt. Pbbbt. Pbbbt. Pbbt. Pbbt. I felt the groove. It made those trails of energy in the air come to life like a moving train, or a river. It seemed like all I had to do was leap straight up, and prepare to get swept away.

So I banged on the skin of the drum. And closed my eyes, imagining in my brain the desert that the Crystal Empire wall had sent me to with its strange hypnotic hums. I pictured the look of it, with its strange red sands, and unearthly dust. The feel of it - the heat. The warmth of the realm's eternal daylight despite the fact that there was no sun to be found in the purple cloudless sky.

And it occurred to me then. There was gonna be so much to see! So much to do! So much to fucking learn now that I could finally go there ‘with intent and skill’ as Zecora had put it.

But there was one problem. After minutes and minutes and minutes of banging away, nothing happened.

"I can't reach it," I said.

"Please tell me, do you follow this vibration?" Zecora asked, referring of course to the rhythmic flow of the drums. "Or do you seek your destination?"

"Um, I'm kinda thinking about this place I've been before. The last time I got drum-hypontized at the Crystal Emp--;"

"Well, stop," she snapped.

"Stop?"

"Stop," she flicked my ear emphatically with her hoof.

And it worked. It got my fucking attention. And the word hung in the air. Stop. She'd rhymed it with itself, for Celestia's sake. For some reason that made the command hit me like a hammer.

"Ow," I answered. "Okay, okay, okay."

I glanced at Cliff for support, but he was drumming up a storm, and his eyes flickered wildly under their lids. So I shut mine again. Pounded my rhythms. Tried not to think about the desert really really really really hard. But then, of course, all I did was concentrate on not thinking about the damn desert.

Fuck.

I screamed internally in frustration. Struggled not to let my desperation show, lest Sorcerer Planktoneth over there flick me again.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! I said fuck inside my brain a lot. So much that it kinda became part of the beat.

BOOM fucka fucka fucka. BOOM fucka fucka fucka. BOOM fucka fucka fucka. BOOM fucka fucka fucka.

It was oddly soothing. So I banged away and mouthed along with all the fucka-fucka-fucka's. Felt them flow from my hooves to my heart. 'Till, at last, my eyes opened, I and happened to glance upon a moth. It was flapping clumsily all around. Right in front of my face. Bobbing up and down with its spazzy little moth wings.

Then it perched itself on the log right beside me. It wasn't startled or scared. Even though I was still pounding up thunder on my drum.

It looked at me. At least I think it did. Then it stretched out his wings. A moth-yawn perhaps? And just sort of flapped its way upward.

I craned my neck to follow. And saw him dancing around up there. But the interweaving branches above me made a weird checker-pattern over the sky. Some leaves, some bare branches; some low, some high. If I focused my eyes on one aspect of it too hard, it would shift around like those eyeball-dizzying puzzle posters. But I still followed the moth. Up-and-up-and-up. 'Till that stream of light above - the energy in the wind and the branches - started to warp, and twist, and turn with the moth's every motion.

At some point - I can't say when or how - the forest and the trees themselves just sorta melted away. And suddenly it was just me. And Gary. The moth.

Don’t ask me why, but he seemed like a Gary.

Anyway, he kept on flapping, and I felt like he was pulling me with him. Up, up, up, up, up. 'Till at last, he disappeared into the light above. And when I looked down again, there was Zecora. Standing beside me.

Neither of us had drums in our laps. Or logs under our flanks. We both stood upright. Surrounded by a great big plateau of nothing. White as far as the eye could see.

"I see you've left behind the wood," she said. "Just like I always knew you could."

I smiled. "Yeah, I guess so. There was this...moth. He was like...my dude. And I followed his flapping wings 'till...it...made this place, like, you know, appear."

"Ah," Zecora smiled. "So it was Gary who has brought you here," she rhymed her words with mine.

"You know him?"

It shouldn't have come as a surprise. But it did. All that mystic crap makes super obvious stuff seem really obtuse, and the deepest esoteric mysteries seem somehow simple.

"What was up with that?" I looked around the void for some trace of the moth, but found none. That's what makes it a void. "What's up with Gary?"

"He’s a moth," Zecora answered bluntly, not even bothering to rhyme.

The silence that followed was deafening.

"Well, okay then," I said.

…

...

"Hey, where's Cliff?" I asked out of the blue.

Zecora stretched out a hoof, and touched my mojo bag. And in there, I felt this...warmth. "He'll feel for us from far away. / That is how he'll spend the day. / He cannot join us as we roam," she answered. "That hair of his is your way home."

"Ah," I replied.

Her plan made a certain kinda sense. During those weeks of training, Cliff would sometimes stay behind in a twilight state of sorts - a daydream - and no matter where Zecora and I travelled to, we could use him as an anchor. The hair was like a life rope. Once we'd pulled our way up to his door, and climbed into his head, we could wake ourselves up and be safe.

But that was dreaming. This journey was different. It was like, some crazy moth limbo duckyverse shit.

"So, what do we do now?" I said, looking all around me at the field of white.

Zecora gazed at the emptiness too. White, white, white, white, white. Everywhere. There was noplace to go. She lowered her flank to the fine silt below. Patted the ground with her hoof until I did the same. But then the two of us just fucking sat there. Doing nothing. Saying nothing.

There was a certain kind of silence Zecora commanded. A look she gave. I don't know what it was exactly. Maybe the way she narrowed her eyelids? But I'd learned that those glances always meant something. That her little silences usually had a reason.

So I shut my face-hole about the situation we were in. Even though I had soooooooooooooooooooooo many questions about what the fuck was going on. And I took a moment to turn my attention toward the past instead. To gather my thoughts on everything that had happened so far. The treks through the woods. The voices. The headaches. The glowering forest eyeballs. The magic mind bark I'd stuffed in my cheek toclear my head, and of course, the crazy rhythms of the Everfree that the bark had revealed to me.

All these ideas and pictures slid over my brain like water running off a tin rooftop. But one question kept nagging at me. A thought that refused to wash away. "The Everfree Forest," I said aloud. "Um...Enemies can't find me there 'cause it's too crowded with other magic and stuff, right?"

I was careful not to refer to the shadows directly. Especially while sitting in a void that I didn't quite trust or even understand yet.

Zecora nodded.

"Soooooooo," I continued. "Like...if you hypothetically had a friend who had escaped um...you know...a bad place. And that pony had gone crazy and thought that they were a dog...or something. And, like, that friend was later found in the Everfree Forest...it miiiight be 'cause they were hiding out there, right? Because it was safe?"

Zecora cocked her head at me in confusion. But gave me a straight answer anyway. "It is ideal to hide amongst the trees and ferns. / That's why I set up camp - to live on my own terms."

"Your own terms?"

She nodded.

I hummed in reply. Deep in thinkitty mode.It took a solid minute or two for me to realize what she was really saying.

But then it hit me like an iron pail to the face. "The brain hornets," I whispered in shock and awe. "They bug you too. And the Everfree! It lets you...be like a free agent or whatever." I remembered that term from all our family's weird business entanglements - contracting out with the other flower ponies. Free agent.

It painted a whole new picture of Zecora's entire life. Made me wonder what it musta been like for her before she'd sought refuge in the woods. Had she been wrestling with the same kind of insanity that ran rampant up-and-down my family tree?

And what about her family? Where was she from? What was it like? Did she still have friends and relatives who yearned to see her? She had been gone for such a long while! Did she miss them as well?

"So..." I asked. "If you're not from the Everfree, you're, like, from...Zebraland?"

Zecora chuckled at the term.

"Do you ever miss it?" I pressed her. "Don't you, like...you know, get lonely out here?"

She smiled. The very air around us seemed to grow warmer, just from the sight of her face. "I may be far from my own childhood home, / but rest assured that I am not alone."

Zecora looked up at the sky. Even though there wasn't much of one (what with all the white everywhere and all).And shesighed, contented-like. She was so at peace with everything. It made me wonder if those forest eyeballs were her friends and company. Or maybe she spent all her time hanging out with weird spirits like Gary?

This image sprang into my brain. Of Zecora at a moth-party. Laughing. Serving punch. It was kinda cute.

"Now it's time for you and me / to look beyond what we can see." Actual Zecora patted the ground yet again.

"Is this gonna involve more drums?"

Zecora rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Okay, um, sure. I'll give it a try," I said. And craned my neck to look over her shoulder. But all I saw was a valley of white silt and a silvery gray sky. "So what are we looking beyond again?"

Knock! Zecora rapped my noggin with her hoof.

"Ow!"

"The world's a patchwork you can peak through at the seams," she said referring to prior lessons. "You know how. You've done it in your dreams." Then she looked at me all super stern. Disapproving-like. Enough to make me physically cower.

"Okay, okay!" I said. "Fine."

And I did as she said. I thought of previous lessons. How she had taught me - first thing - before I even tried journeying anywhere, to find a focal point. And let everything else sorta fall away from it. The trick wasn't to try to force anything to happen. The trick was to forget.

Now before I tell you what I saw when I stretched my mind outward beyond the void, let me just say that forgetting on purpose isn't easy. My entire first week of training had been wasted. Pressuring myself to empty my stupid mind. Failing hard.

So if you ever find yourself in a Great Sorcerer Planktoneth scenario, take my advice. Ignore all the stupid riddles and stuff your oh-so-wise instructor throws at you. The sound of one hoof clopping. Whether or not lonely trees make sound when they fall down. Emptying your brain like a cup of tea waiting to get filled. By...like...some other kind of knowledge-tea or whatever.

It's fucking dumb. If you really wanna trick your brain into ignoring what's going on, just do what I did. Pretend you're in the middle of Miss Cheerilee's class and she's talking about something really really really really boring.

'Cause the gateway to brain doors and dream magic and that ducky stuff? It's not some mysterious thing. It all begins with plain old ordinary daydreaming. Something everypony already knows how to do.

* * *

So I sat in the void with Zecora and brain drifted. The first thing I saw was that desert again. Red sands. Purple skies. But I wasn't actually there. I was looking in on it. Like you might peer into a snow globe.

I probed a little deeper. Sent my vision hovering over the dusty planes. Empty, empty, empty, empty, empty. Bananas Foster's voice spoke up from inside my head. Telling the story of her hive getting lost in that desert. "Mareheart!" She had pleaded desperately with her mother and queen. "Tell me! The goggles. Did they have the inscription, 'Amelia Mareheart'?"

My brain got excited at the notion, and sent my eyeballs soaring across the desert in search of the crash site. In search of her journal. Vwoom. It all flew by so fast that the red sands and purple skies blurred and shifted and warped until I could kinda sorta sense it. The smell was getting stronger. I could feel myself getting closer. I could almost see Mareheart's crash site. Until a hoof landed on my shoulder out of nowhere.

"Ahh!" I said.

Suddenly there was Zecora. Sitting across from me. Just like she had been before. I could still see the big red dust desert, faintly - like a hazy bubble over her shoulder. But I realized then that I was still sitting on the ground of that silvery white void that the moth had brought me to. I had been there the whole time.

"Rose, I do not understand," Zecora said gravely. "How you came upon this land!"

"Oh," I said, totally taken aback. I hadn't realized that her brain had been drifting with me. "I guess I've just been thinking about it...You know, 'cause you said that we were going to other worlds, and like, that annoying dusty desert place is where you start, right?"

Zecora shook her head. Slowly. Horrifiedishly.

"The fabric of each world is specked with holes, / and folks fall through into a desert of lost souls. / It stretches flat ten thousand miles wide / and then ten thousand more upon the other side. / It's not a place we're meant to go. / It's not a place we're meant to know. / How is it that you've gone and yet come back? / That barren waste of dust has neither hill nor crack."

"It does have a crack, though," I yammered reflexively. "A big one. Full of shadow fog. They're spreading from their own country, and swallowing up the dusty land!"

Zecora stared at me in even more disbelief. Wondering how the fuck I could have gotten close enough to observe such a phenomenon and yet escaped.

"Or so I'm told," I added smoothly. I couldn't have her thinking that I had gotten swept away by shadows, and tagged and released from the dark castle on a great big evil Mission o' Evil the way Bananas Foster had.

"These things that have been told to you," Zecora narrowed her eyes and inserted a long, potent silence into the rhythm of her poetry before asking the dreaded question. "Told, they were, by who?"

Damn it.

"I don't know," I said. "I musta...heard it around somewhere. But ooh!" I exclaimed, eager to change the subject. "You wanted to know how I was connected to the dusty-barren-wasteland-where-lost-souls-go-to-die, didn't'cha? Well, I first put myself in one of those trances I was telling you about. By marching in the dark, and getting hypnotized by the rhythm. And I found myself there."

I pointed at the horrible dusty limbo that Zecora and I both looked in on.

She stared me down with hard, impatient eyes. I laughed nervously. She could be intimidating when she needed to be. But it didn't matter. I couldn't betray Bananas Foster. No matter what. So I kept rambling on about absolutely everything else.

"Then my...uh...vision just sorta flew over that red and purple desert. You know, the ten thousand miles of nothingness or whatever." I flashed a meek little smile. "And I found myself on the edge of it all, and everything was cold. The castle on a cloud that the shadows had taken. It floated over the abyss at the edge of the cliff, and there was, like, this lightning and ice and shadowy stuff."

Zecora opened her mouth to interrupt, but I just kept on going.

"Soon my eyeballs were flying even further away! A platform on the edge of creation. And I fell right off of it. Bouncing down into all these different universes and different times and places. Each realm was shaped like a rubber ducky, and as I fell down the Ducky Pit, they squeaked whenever I knocked into one!"

Plompf. Zecora shoved her hoof in my mouth. Everypony does that eventually.

"Keep your secrets," she said - totally on to me that I was changing the subject on purpose. "And focus on what you must learn. / So to the 'Ducky Pit' you can return."

"We're going there?"

Zecora nodded.

"Now?"

She patted my forehoof with hers. "Whenever you may travel, you might find / yourself pursuing that which springs to mind. / And though this feels like power, and a thrill. / Your motions are not truly your own will."

"Um, sooo...we're not going there?"

Zecora sighed. Gave me a we're gonna be here a while face.

But who could blame me for getting confuzzled? Her warning was like, totally random and devoid of context. If my motions weren't my own will, then who’s were they? And what was wrong with pursuing what springs to mind? Hadn't many of our lessons been about that very thing? Teaching my brain to let go?

Zecora cleared her throat and started telling a story to clarify. Out of nowhere. A zebra myth.

"There was a filly by the name of Z'orange." She said…

* * *

What followed after was the most extraordinary piece of poetry I'd ever heard. Epic folklore of the zebra ancients. The rhythm and the wordplay alone sounded like music - long and beautiful passages ornamented with hundreds of melodious words that rhymed with "Z'orange."

But since I can't remember any of those rhymes, I'm gonna retell it here in plain old ordinary Ponish...

Z'orange was a promising student. Practicing eagerly under the great dream instructor, Zewu. From the moment he agreed to teach her, Z'orange threw herself into her studies in the hopes that one day, he would teach her how to fly.

So she pushed herself. Every hour. Every day. And by the time night rolled around, she would just come home, shove a simple meal down her throat, and then head straight to bed.

Her parents and kid sister hardly ever saw her.

She went on an entire year like this. Which sucks if you ask me. And in that time, Z'orange got really really really good at dream trotting. Better than any of Zewu's other students. (Even those who were older, and had been practicing far longer).

But still, Z'orange was no closer to learning how to fly.

When the harvest finally came around, the whole village partied themselves silly with public festivities, (which Z'orange didn't bother to take part in). Once the confetti settled, the great teacher took his small cabal of students aside. Called their names, and one by one, he presented them each with a coin.

A black coin meant moving on to the next level of study. White coins meant staying on another year as a novice.

Z'orange bounced with gitty anticipation - struggled to maintain her poise as she waited for Zewu to call her to him. She was so very excited to advance - to move beyond mere dream trotting, and finally learn to fly! Soar from world to world to world. (Or ducky to ducky to ducky). Like she'd dreamed of ever since she was little.

But when her name was called, and Zewu actually shook his rattles, chanted his chant, and gave Z'orange her coin, her heart sank at the sight of it.

"White?" She said.

Zewu nodded.

"Why white?" She asked. It was the first time she'd ever questioned her teacher's judgment.

He replied merely by saying, "You are not ready."

Z'orange was devastated to hear this. "But haven't I gone further than every other child here?" She asked. "I delved into the void, and followed a whole line of dream doors - twelve in a row through twelve different zebras' minds!"

"You have," the teacher replied.

"Haven't I succeeded in all my exercises?"

"You have," the teacher answered again.

"Haven't I trained harder than absolutely anypony else?"

"You have," the teacher replied yet again. "But there is more you need to do before you can be ready."

"I'll do anything," she said.

"Your classmate Xenova's moving on," the teacher answered. "She volunteered at the temple to clean and maintain the grounds. Perhaps if you did the same, then this time next year, you would also be ready."

So Z'orange did. She started helping out. Tending herbs. Picking sacred flowers. Cleaning the wooden masks adorning every wall. And though she didn't complain through any of it, her mind was always on practice. On magic. She dreamed of flying to far away lands, and spent her time in the temple garden wishing simply for a better view of the sky. Just so she could see a little further. Imagine herself soaring a little bit higher.

When actually inside of the temple, Z'orange quietly observed how the magic tinctures and brews and potions were made. Super secret-like. She watched her friend Xenova advance. But never got jealous. Because Z'orange knew in her heart that, come next harvest, she would be given the black coin, and all her time spent gathering herbs and dusting masks would come in handy. Somehow.

Her teacher simply had to have a reason. A plan. There was a mystery to be solved here. Z'orange was sure of it! Zewu wouldn't just send her there to clean masks. Not when she was so very awesome!

So for a full year, she pushed on in good faith. Dutiful. Eager, (even if a little distracted). But when harvest time came around, her stupid teacher gave her the damn white coin. Again. And again, she pleaded with him for a reason.

And again, he replied by saying, "You're not ready."

Can you fucking believe how vague that is? I literally screamed in frustration when I heard the story told.

Anyway, this time, the teacher suggested that Z'orange spend more time at home with her family. Her kid sister missed her terribly, after all. And Zewu felt that this change of scenery might actually help with her studies.

At this point, Z'orange got really frustrated. And I gotta tell you, I was right there with her. These Sorcerer Planktoneth types are gigantic pains in the flank. They never give you straight answers about anything! When Z'orange asked her teacher directly, "Why? Are you throwing me away?" Do you know what he said?

He told Z'orange that there were things he couldn't teach her, but that she actually stood a chance of learning from her own sister. And when Z'orange begged him to tell her more - what sorts of things she should stay alert for; what she should be studying; what sorts of questions she needed to be asking - that wise zebra sorcerer dude said nothing at all.

It's no wonder that when the third year came around, and Zewu pulled the same shit, Z'orange freaked out. Stole a bunch of herbs from the temple. Made her own damn mixture. And set off on her own damn journey.

To find other worlds. To explore. To fly.

And you know what? It worked! She was a total natural when it came to dream magic. And she had studied everything else so hard, that flying turned out to be no trouble at all! She sent her mind far off into the sky. Careening over the forests and deserts and oceans of strange new lands. And she laughed and smiled. And flew! Really fucking flew!

'Till at last, she made it to the cliff at the edge of the known universe. The Pit of Infinite Duckies.

It was there she found Zewu. Waiting for her.

"See!" She laughed. "I can do it! I can fly."

"I never doubted that you could," he replied woodenly.

This, of course, only enraged Z'orange. "Then why didn't you teach me?!" She cried out as tears flooded down her cheeks to her own surprise.

"Because flying is easy, but nopony can teach you how to land," he replied. "Until you figure out where your hooves belong."

It was at this point in the story that I stopped Zecora to ask her what the fuck was going on with all the stupid riddles. And she explained to me that, just as my eyes had first hovered over the Lost Lands, and then fired like shooting stars across the whole damn landscape, ducky traveling could likewise zip you anywhere.

It does strange things to your brain. You fly so fucking fast. And then, outta nowhere some stray world in the duckyverse senses the energy of your random-ass stray thoughts. And the next thing you know, you're in a totally different place and you've forgotten the way you came.

It's only with a firm feeling of belonging - of home - grounded in our own world - that we can ever find our way back again. And even then, you have to be careful not to fly too far from wherever you started.

"Like those stupid puzzle cubes!" I said, all of a sudden-like, right in the middle of Zecora's explanation.

She squinted at me in confusion.

"You know," I said. "Each side has nine boxes and they're a bunch of different colors and then you have to twist, and turn, and rearrange-ify them...try to figure out how to set things right again?"

Zecora batted her eyes at me. Blink bloink. Blink bloink.

"Ugh!" I rolled my eyes in frustration. "My point is: when you're dealing with a puzzle cube, even if you're just a few twists from where you started, you're pretty much bound to lose your place eventually, and then you'll never ever ever solve it. Unless you're some kinda cube wizard."

Zecora booped me on the nose, and shushed me so she could finish the damn zebra story (which is almost done by the way). Here goes...

So Z'orange stood on the precipice of the cliff. And Zewui knewthat nothing he could say or do would stop her from making the leap. So instead, he gave her the best advice he could on the slim chance that she'd actually listen.

"Jump if you feel you must," he said. "But listen carefully. You must visit one world, and one world only. Then return at once...if you can figure out how."

He produced a black coin from out of his saddlebag. Hoping he could appeal to her pride. And it worked. She fixated on the sight of it. Before she could even ask, Zewu answered the question that was burning at her. "All will be forgiven if you return," he said. "I swear."

She nodded gravely. Taken off guard by the gravity of this sudden trust her teacher was placing in her. But when she peered back over the edge, she sensed the ducky-shaped worlds below. The colors. The lights. Their songs. Those universes were calling to her, or so it seemed.

"I won't let you down," she said. And jumped without any foo-for-ah or ceremony of any kind.

The first ducky she entered put her in a forest overlooking a mountain lake. Its still waters reflected the clouds above. She saw an older sister and younger sister playing in the water. The youngest slowly worked up the nerve to remove her inflatable water wings. Squeaking them off. One leg at a time. And for just a moment, Z'orange thought of home.

You should go back to them, she thought. Your sister must be worried. And then Zewu's words came back to her also. One world, and one world only. Then return at once...if you can figure out how.

But even as she reflected on his advice, she could feel herself being lifted up. And a twinkle in the sky caught her eye, and she thought. "I'll just have a look. One teeny tiny brief little look. See what's going on up there."

And the magic brew coursing through her blood made her confident. The urge to fly was almost a physical compulsion. She obeyed, and soon she was soaring across the stars. Doing barrel rolls through spirals of light.

But she still knew the way home. She would be fine! She was certain of it!

She flew everywhere. Above an ocean. Over a valley. Across a vast metropolis full of creatures she couldn't begin to explain. She journeyed from world to world to world to world to world. Entranced by her mere ability to do so. And she thought, what if this is home? What if journeying itself is my destiny? What if the sky is where my hooves belong?

So she kept going, and going, and going, and going, and going. 'Till the magic brew wore off.

And she found herself a stranger in a strange land. Grounded. Not only unable to find her way back. But with no access to herbs at all. No training in how to ducky-hop without them. And not a soul in the world to help her.

She cried every night until the day she died. Z'orange never flew again. Ever. The End.

* * *

Now I know what you're thinking. That's fucking bullshit. It was the teacher's fault. The whole damn thing could have been avoided had he given her any actual instruction.

Yeah, sure, he thought she would ignore it. Blah blah blah. She needed to discover it on her own. Yadda yadda yadda. But Zewu was still a dick.

The moral of the story is supposed to be to stay true to your training. To find meaning here in real life as well as in your cosmic ducky one. To learn to land, you apparently have to know where your hooves belong. All that stuff. But Z'orange still didn't deserve what happened to her.

And I told Zecora as much…

* * *

"That's dumb!" I protested. "Why even tell me that?"

"The tale exists for your own sake," she said. "Before you ride the 'duckies' you must know the stakes."

"But what was the point?" I squeaked. "Listen to your teacher or die?"

"The point," she retorted. "Is not to fly too far or too high."

"But that's so stupid!" I said. "Zewu didn't even try to communicate. Z'orange couldn't have known. And her sister! What about her sister?! In the end, Z'orange reformed! She realized how much she loved. Her. Sister," I said that last part emphatically.

Sisterly love was the root of all magic. Every pony knew that!

"The universe is very rough," Zecora replied. "Sometimes love is not enough."

"Well, then the universe is dumb."

Zecora went quiet. Refused to debate me any further. Just tapped her hoof on the ground, and waited for me to drop it and move on.

"Okay," I said. "So, um…you were gonna, like...show me how to get to the Ducky Pit or something?

Zecora shook her head. "I will not tell you how to go / to places you already know."

Blink-bloink, blink-bloink went my blinkitty bloinkitty eyelids. "Then why did we bother with any of this?!" I reared up on my hindquarters and flailed my forehooves in the air.

"It's your quest," Zecora replied, almost smugly. "Go and see. / When you get back, you tell me."

* * *

So I did the trick again. Where my eyeballs hovered over the great big evil desert and fired like shooting stars across the vast expanse of purple skies. I didn't know what sorts of brain thoughts I was supposed to keep in my head. And didn't know how to keep it empty either. But I sure as fuck didn't wanna end up like Z'orange. So I flew with caution, for what little good it did.

'Cause the land below me sped up into a crimson blur as I zoomed on by, caution or no. I had no idea how fast I was going. It was all just...flat. Miles, and miles, and miles, and miles, and miles, and miles of nothing.

Dust. Limbo. Death.

And I was really fucking afraid of flying too high. Too far. Of losing my way. But still, I pushed my eyes further across the landscape. Faster. Faster. Faster.

'Cause of a feeling. A presence I was flying toward like a magnet. Drawing me to something I didn't even have words for. But the mystery didn't last long. The second I started to even question that strange feeling, the answer came right to me. In the form of a grey and black fog. Looming enormous in the distance.

"Ahh!" I said. 'Cause I couldn't slow down. Whooosh! I was already there. Right smack dab in the middle of Shadow Country.

The fog completely surrounded me. When I felt that old familiar chill, I screamed some more inside my head. AaAaaAaAaAAahhhHhh! AaAhh! AaAAAh! AaaaaaaAaaaAaAaaaAAAahhhHhh! AaaaAaaAaaAaAaAhhhhaAahhhhh! AaaaAAhh!

...But nothing fucking happened. I just kept flying. Untouched for some bizarre reason. None of the usual hoof pain - none of the scratchy voices clawing at the inside of my skull. Zilch.

It's like they weren't even trying to get me. Like they didn't even know I was there!

It shouldn't have been possible. The very idea of it shocked me. Jostled me so hard, that my brain said What the fuck? Why? And started to let its guard down. It tried to listen. To hear what the shadows were saying. To find out why they weren't following me.

It was just a brief little thought. Like a flash. Or a picture, or an idea. But the second it crossed my mind, I felt like I had just shouted from the hills, and announced my presence. "Hey, do any of you shadowy fucks know where I can find Rose Petal?"

I cringed. Tried to turn back. Braced myself for the surrounding fog to close in tight, and drag me down.

But to my surprise, I got an answer. An actual fucking answer.

I saw them looking for me. Frantically. There were boiling globules of tar shaking with anger. Reaching their tendrils out of the Shadowlands. Out through magic doors I couldn't see. Reaching from deep within the castle. Probing all of the worlds. All the duckies. Near and far. Trying to figure out where the fuck Rose Petal could be.

They scoured every timeline. And every land.

Except their own.

Zecora was right. I thought. A few steps into the Everfree Forest, and I was totally fucking lost to them.

It didn't take me long to realize that, if they were looking that hard for me in worlds with names I couldn't even pronounce, they were probably waiting, real super eager-like, on the edge of the forest, anticipating my return.

My eyeballs veered left and shot out of the shadowy mists. Reaching out, just like the shadows were, to faraway Ponyville. They'd sent a whole ton of shadowy mist to lurk over there. Not to destroy me. But to spy. It hung over the air, invisible to the naked eye. With a presence that was everywhere. However faintly.

It confirmed what I had already known deep in my gut. What Cranky had known. What Zecora had known. That something wasn't right. Ever since that damn blizzard. The shadows had their eye on my home.

I saw it clearly. Only for an instant. And then I freaked the hell out.

"Fuck!" I said. "Ponyville!"

I snapped out of my trance. Tried to skid myself to a halt and turn around, but that scattered my mind - sent me spiralling out of control - tumbling straight on up through the bubble that holds the skies together. The ratosphere, or whatever the fuck scientists call it. I cartwheeled out of the shadow mist, flailed around with no idea how to tell up from down. 'Till…

Squeeeeeak. I slammed into an adjacent ducky. Not bright or rainbowy, how I'd remembered other duckies to be. This ducky was ashy grey like the used-up ends of the paper fire sticks that the soldiers of No Mare's Land used to puff on.

Fwomp, Squeaka-deeka-deeka.

I was in.

* * *

I found myself standing on the ruins of a building. Columns spiralled all the way up to the sky. Broken at the top. No roof. No ceiling. Just sorta stretching upward, like trees trying to grab a hold of the clouds. The cobblestones beneath me were cracked almost to dust, and it was like that everywhere - spanning across a huge platform the size of twenty buckball fields. It once had been the foundation to a building so large, it musta been some kinda palace.

Everything was silent all around. (Except for the wind whistling against the broken pillars). I didn't see anything either. Just a giant ruin. Surrounded by a ton of nothing. Battered roads lead off to desolate horizons in every conceivable direction. Except for one side. A hill of broken stones stood at the far end of the "palace" and I couldn't see over it.

"Ugh! Can I once - just once - land in a world that isn't a shithole?!" I exclaimed. "A world made out of water slides, or cotton candy, or something?'

A moment later, I heard my own voice slapping back off the broken remains of a wall. After that, it carried over the vast emptiness. Echoed diffusely over the lifeless mountains way off in the distance.

Sweet Celestia, I thought. I'm here.

In my previous journey into the Ducky Pit, I had jumped in and out of different worlds, in and out of different times - eras and epochs thousands of years apart. Like a bouncy ball in a tiny room, knocking into every single thing at random. But they were experiences of the senses. Of the mind. I couldn't move, or speak, or touch anything on my own.I certainly couldn't make a noise.

But here in Columnland, my voice carried. Echoed right back to me.

In amazement, I looked to my hooves. (That's what Zecora had always taught me. When you're lost in a dream, and trying to make sense of things, and you need to get a hold of reality - to gain control - you've got to try to force yourself to look down at your own hooves). But this time, I had no problem at all bringing them to focus. It was just like being back at home. You lift your hoof, and there it is. Solid. Present. Tangible.

This awful world was more than a vision, or a glimpse. I was there. In Columnland. Physically.

My legs seized up. Like four stone columns of their own. And my heart bucked at the inside of my chest like the pounding rhythm of dance music played on a phonograph that spun too fast because its motor was powered by lightning that had struck it, and cursed it to play super fast and super loud, and super duper annoyingly until it burnt out, exploded and died.

I panted a thousand shallow breaths a minute.

I just made a sound, I thought. A very, very, very loud sound. If there was anything alive in that stupid world - anything at all - it had fucking heard me. It knew where I was.

I spun around in all directions. My hooves cruuuunched against the cobblestones that had practically been shattered into gravel by the ravages of time. The scraping was so shrill that I froze all over again. As still as a dragonequus imprisoned in stone.

I watched the battered roads that lead from the empty mountain ranges straight to the ruins of the "palace" where I stood. I darted glances at the columns a hundred yards away. The piles of rubble beneath them. The cracked stairwell that lead up to a broken platform way off in the corner. I shifted my eyeballs anywhere a bad guy might conceivably hide.

And I listened too. The sudden gusts of wind. The haunting silences in between. I waited, and I waited, and I waited, and I waited. And then, just when I thought I was alone...

…

...Absolutely nothing fucking happened. 'Cause I actually was alone. In the middle of nowhere!

I sighed. And took to pacing around. Crunch crunch crunch crunch. I couldn't just...stay still. Not forever.

Alright, think, Rose Petal, think! How did you get here? How'd'ja get here? How'd'ja get here? My brain was a bit foggy from the ducky shift. But it only took a moment to get my bearings.

"The puzzle cube!" I exclaimed out loud.

Zecora'd said that the questions that plague our souls attract a certain kinda energy. (Which totally makes sense considering that my first trip to the Ducky Pit had given me sooooo many fucking visions that were oddly relevant.)

But it also made me wonder what the hell was wrong with my soul that I kept on attracting these awful fucking wastelands?

It didn't matter. This was no time for whiny piratetry! I couldn't fly my way out of Columnland no matter what the answer was. I pretty much had to hoof it and figure out what I was dealing with. Hope to Celestia that the magic bark hadn't totally worn off.

I crunched my way across the foundations of the palace ruins. Crkkk crkkk crkkkk. All the while sucking in air that tasted like a stale old basement closet. There were no signs of danger. No signs of life. No signs of anything!

And any toppled pillar or pile of debris that I dared to stray near turned out to be just as deserted as the rest of that fucking dump. So I kept moving. Headed across the long field of stone. Toward that warped staircase of broken marble all the way on the edge of the platform. It lead upward, to the top of a giant mound of rubble. If I climbed it, I might, at the very least, get a better view of the surrounding lands - a better understanding of how fucked I was.

Crkkk crkkk crkkkk crkk crkkk. The sound of my own hooves continued to creep me out. There was just no getting used to it. The way it echoed back to me like a ping pong ball. The way it cut through the silence.
The random gusts of wind were almost a relief. The whistling sound actually made Columnland feel less empty somehow.

I shoulda been figuring out how to leave. How to fly again. How to backtrack through the puzzle cube and find my way home. I shoulda been worried that Cliff Diver was my lifeline - my safety net - and that I couldn't risk reaching out to him like I'd done in prior dreams. 'Cause there was a million miles of shadows between Columnland and Equestria, and that meant that there was a very real possibility that climbing my way into Cliff's brain would wake up all the shadowmajigs in between.

I fixed my eyes on that staircase instead. There was purpose in it. As miserable as that palace ruin was, I couldn't turn away from the whole stupid ducky. Not yet. Not until I knew for sure that there was nothing to be learned there - not 'till I saw just a little bit more of it with my own eyes.

I ascended the steps. One by one by one by one by one. Without disruption. No brigands in flowery cloaks. No bandits. No nightmare monsters from the Dimension of Pain. All I had to do was climb on up there and be careful not to trip along the way.

By the time I reached the summit, I wasn't thinking about shadows, or duckies, or the apocalypse, or any of that stuff at all. Not even the fact that I appeared to be stranded right the fuck in the middle of Nowheresville. It was my aching lungs that consumed my every thought.

"Too." Pant. "Many." Pant. "Stairs." Pant. I said out loud as I splayed across the stone platform, struggling for breath.

Coughing and wheezing stale air, I rolled over on my back and breathed in real mega deep. Looked straight up at the pale grey sky.

A tall stone towered over me. Not a column. Some kinda pedestal. There were marble talons or claws dangling off the edge of it. I coughed some ducky dust out of my lungs and squinted. From the base of the claw, a leg reached out to the sky. But the statue ended there. No fragments lying around it either. No face. No body. No wings. It was hard to tell what race that thing was supposed to be. A griffin? A dragon? Some kinda weird lizard thing?

I got up and brushed myself off, got a closer look at the pedestal right side up. There was something haunting about it. Maybe it was the reminder that Columnland had been a real kingdom once. With living, sentient creatures. With princesses and generals who ordered statues of themselves to be made, overlooking vast halls where they greeted guards, and dignitaries, and artists, and masses of common everyday folk who had built the damn thing.

I pressed my hoof against the pedestal, and fwish! A cold silence washed over my heart. My brain went totally blank as my lips whispered mysterious words that came to me from somewhere far, far away. "Look on my works ye mighty and despair." I said.

I drifted past the remains of the statue. In a haze of sorts. Like a pirate entranced by sirens' songs. There wasn't much left of the second floor of what once had been a grand fancy party hall. But beyond it was an unnatural landscape. A vast concave groove in the ground ran all the way from the base of the "palace" straight to the horizon.

An ocean. All dried up except for a slick oily film lining the bottom. Black and tarry like rancid rubber.

Straight below me were the petrified remains of a fragment of a ship. After the years I'd spent studying diagrams in the backs of Pinkbeard books, I'd recognize that shape anywhere, mutilated though it may have been.

Further out was a twisted bramble of metal beams, turned to rust, and almost disintegrated completely, except for the sticky black oily substance congealing to the outside, giving it some semblance of a shape. It looked like some kinda construction equipment, but what it was doing in the middle of (what used to be) an ocean was anypony's guess.

What struck me was that that mass of hideous blackness wasn't shadow tar. It wasn't made of nightmares or malice or evil. At least not in the traditional sense. It was just...nasty black stuff, reaching far out into the distant ocean, glistening ever so slightly with a hideous rainbow.

But worse than any of that was what floated above the horizon like a Sun, or a Moon. Far away, hanging in the sky, was the Evil Castle. Yes, that castle.

It was kind of sideways-ish, like the gravity of Columnland didn't apply - and it took the form of a silhouette 'cause it was so very far away. But I still knew it for what it was.

And I had a pretty good idea where I was too.

Bananas Foster had described her trip from the Lost Lands through Shadow Country all the way to that awful castle. She'd said it was like a thousand miles of rail moving through shadowy mists faster than the equine eye could keep track of. Passing dead worlds along the way. Places where the shadows had won. And totally abandoned once destroyed.

I was standing in a world like that - a civilization that the shadows had sucked dry. A ducky left barren and oily and gross.

No creatures. No love. No light.

They'd killed it all. And then just forgotten about it entirely.Like totally fucking ignored it.

Those shadowy clitweasels had inky claws stretching across the entire universe looking for me. And there I was. Practically at their front door, making a ruckus so loud it could be heard across Luna-damned mountain ranges, and they didn't even notice!

Looking out over that ex-ocean, and seeing the castle hanging there like a star in the sky, I realized that it was my evil hoof that had gotten me through the door. My evil hoof that had kept me from being noticed. And gotten me passed all the mists, and physically to Columnland - a world so forsaken even the shadows didn't care about it anymore.

"Sweet Celestia," I whispered to myself.

That zebra medic back in No Mare's Land was right. My cursed hoof held a kind of dominion over them.They feared me because I was a loose end. A breech in their nightmareitty clitweasel security.

I felt a burst of power surge through me. A confidence of sorts. And in an instant - like the flash of a camera - I got hit with a brief but blinding realization - a vision of every single fucking thing that had happened between then and now. And I remembered each turn of the puzzle cube that had gotten me to that Dumpsville, Columnland. It was a window of opportunity. A door about to close!

So I shut my eyes. And fwomp. Willed myself right the fuck out of that ducky.

So long, columns. So long, oily ruins. So long, mountain passes leading to nowhere! I transformed myself back into a pair of eyeballs up above. Floating. Watching. Firing like canons.

'Cause now the question eating at my soul was totally different. Guided by a whole other kind of light. I sent my vision straight toward the evil castle. Without fear.

They couldn't fucking see me anyway.

And I perceived it clearly for the first time ever. All of the abandoned fragments floating around beneath it. All the debris hovering around as the castle just sorta hung there on its black cloud o' doom. All the duckies. Gray and useless. Used up. Even as that bone-cold evil stretched its many smoky claws from the castle out into the odd cosmic thoroughfare, it weaved over and under and around all the wretched worlds that they'd discarded like candy wrappers.

A sort of hate boiled in my heart as I watched that fucking place. Those broken duckies floating lifeless in its orbit had each been home to millions - maybe even billions of creatures. But the scale of their interduckymensional conquest was way too vast to wrap my brain around.

Sending my sight toward the castle itself, on the other hoof, knowing what they did to individuals. Like Foster. Like me. Like Cranky's traveler friends, and Screw Loose.

It set off a little voice in my brain that told me to storm the castle. Break down all the walls. Free the kids that musta been trapped inside. You can't just hover around, luxuriating in the ether. It scolded me. Not while there are ponies enduring unspeakable tortures in there!

I saw that little boy all over again. The one I'd abandoned to the mercies of the cloak-o's on my first night in the Wasteland. Was this the same? If I flew home again without doing something, would the pain the shadows inflicted afterwards be like blood on my hooves?!

The impulse to act - to charge over there and fucking do something - was strong. But I didn't. 'Cause that stupid Z'orange story got stuck in my head. I was flying too far. Too high. I'd made promises to Zecora. Who was no doubt waiting for me. Worrying. And Princess Luna herself had warned me that the shadows would try to bait me into attacking their castle.

Even if I did know things now that she probably hadn't at the time, I still couldn't just charge right up to the castle door. I had to think of Cliff. Of Foster. Of Roseluck.

I had an altar full of candles burning in my room. And the second I turned my mind toward family, I could feel their light. Their warmth. Come home. They said. Come home now!

So I yanked my eyeballs back. Way way way way waaaaay back through the shadows. Through the fog. Over the great big evil chasm that Bananas Foster had warned me about. Through the ink and the hate and the bitter cold and fear. Back into the desert of nothingness.

And right away, I started to fall. To crash. As my eyeballs ran out of steam, I saw my hooves start to take form. Felt the burn of the dry desert air on my back. Like a slow awakening from a dream, my mind was starting to remember my body, and the Lost Lands were pulling on that body. Hard. Trying to drag me down like it had to Amelia Mareheart.

I closed my eyes, clutched the mojo bag around my chest, and used the last of my focus to call Cliff Diver. To grab that rope made out of his mane hair, chomp down on it like a mad dog and fwoiing.

It jerked me outta there like a rubber band.

AaaAAaAaAaahH! I somersaulted through time, and space, and duckies, and states of being I can't even begin to understand, let alone explain.

Imagine having your head stuck in the middle of a kaleidoscope while your body rode the teacup ride at the town fair. l screamed and spun as my brain turned itself inside out. And all the while, I clutched that hair-rope for dear life. Zigging and Zagging all around. 'Till wham!

* * *

Suddenly I was in the Everfree Forest again. Cliff Diver as on the ground, and I was on top of him.

I jerked my head around. Looking for signs of danger. But it was all just the same nature stuff as always. The foresty whispers that had given me that awful headache only a few hours before were piping up again. But it didn't hurt this time.

Zecora sat on a log across from the one I'd just toppled off of. She scrunched her nose and looked at me sour-like. "To ducky's edge you were supposed to go," she scowled. "I waited and you did not show."

I rolled off of Cliff. Staggered around to get my bearings, and shrunk back at the sight of Zecora's disapproving glower. "I...I...I…" I tried to apologize - to explain - but the words just wouldn't come.

"It's not her fault!" Cliff Diver leaped up. "There were shadows everywhere, and it was cold and scary. And there were these worlds floating around like islands. And they were dead. And Rose Petal was stuck there. Oh, and Ponyville!"

He spun around in blind panic. "There is a bunch of evil there now! Right now!" He added. "And that's why she lost control! When she saw what all that evil stuff was up to back in Ponyville, she flipped out and then...Oh Luna!" He shivered. "It was so cold, and dead, and there was a dried up sticky old ocean, and a crumbled kingdom, and an empire made by creatures who had been destroyed so long ago that there was no sign of them left! I don't know why everything was so deserted," he sobbed. "But Rose Petal had to find out whatever she could while she still had the chance. She had to!"

Zecora came to him and laid a reassuring hoof on his head. Cliff looked to me with these weird gigantic eyes. Pupils the size of bowling balls. And then threw his face into the zebra's chest, sobbing.

I wish I had gone to him. Hugged him like Zecora did. Held him tight and told him that everything was gonna be okay. But instead, I backed away. Jaw agape. Watching in horror as Cliff Diver wailed and keened.

He had been there. With me. The whole damn time. Shadows, and fog, and worlds laid waste. He'd felt it all.

Because I'd dragged him there.

* * *

Even though the day was dying, and the shadows of the trees were stretching long and low against the forest floor, Zecora took the time to lead us back to her tree hut. Get some nice warm peppermint tea in Cliff. While I told her everything that had happened. As clearly as I could.

It was a long rambling mess. But Cliff just stared at the floor. The whole damn time. Eyes a hundred miles away. Like those soldiers, huddling in the trenches of No Mare's Land.

Zecora stopped me now and again to throw him some random reassurances. She'd hold up her hoof and offer Cliff Diver refills on his tea. Though, really, she was just checking on him. Watching him to see how distant he really was.

When at last, my story was over, and Zecora's questions answered, she pointedly left the two of us alone for a little while. That's when the air grew heavy. Every crackle of the cauldron fire cut through the silence like canon shots. Booming inside my ears.

It bugged me. 'Cause we shouldn't have been silent in the first place. Cliff was my best friend. We shoulda been talking it out! I'd dragged him to the Shadowlands and back, and I was so ashamed, I had nothing to say for myself. Even though there was so much that fucking needed saying.

"I'm sorry," I spoke up at last.

"Don't be," he replied, lightning fast, before the words could even finish leaving my mouth.

Then he stared at the fire. Watched it pop and spark as he sipped his tea. "I never told you how I broke my wings," he said. "Did I?"

Cricka crocks POK a cricka. Went the fire as I worked up the nerve to answer.

"No," I replied at long last.

"I was a little foal. Too young to fly. To fly reliably, at least. But I had gotten these ideas in my head. That I was destined for greatness. So one day, I just...leapt."

"Off a cliff?" I said, reminded of his namesake.

"Off a cloud," he answered. "Turns out I couldn't fly at all. I hit a tree on the way down. Every branch." He laughed lightly to himself. "Doctors said they couldn't fix my wing. That I was lucky to be alive.

'I shouldn't have done it. Just like I shouldn't have leaped headfirst into this shadow business," he said. "I thought it was a game, you know? I was so in love with the idea of good guys versus bad guys And the idea that all my theoretical science stuff was actually right. About all the other worlds out there. Other timelines. Other...duckies." He smiled weakly at that last word.

Then he sighed. "I wish I was wrong," he looked me in the eye, and said. "I wish I hadn't treated this like an adventure or a mystery. Or a game." He said that word again, this time with acid on his tongue. Game.

"It's okay. I wish I hadn't dragged you into this," I said, even though it wasn't true. The fact of the matter was, I'd have been lost without Cliff. The weight of that realization was really clobbering me now. I couldn't have made it this far alone.

The shadows woulda made Rosemeat of me ages ago without him. But I couldn't say that. This wasn't about me. It was about him. For once.

Cliff Diver stared at the fire again. Though this time, his eyes didn't seem quite so far away. He was present. Lips muttering to themselves. The sight of it made me start to cry. And I batted my squishy eyelids, rubbed my face casually, pretending to scratch at an itch as I stealthily wiped away the tears.

I don't know how long the two of us went on like that. But it was Cliff Diver who broke the spell with a sigh. He took the world's deepest breath, and said, "Same time tomorrow, okay?"

Cliff turned to me, looked me in the eye, and offered me his hoof, and his help. Even though he was terrified. Even though he finally knew what I was up against.

"You don't have to," I said.

"Yeah, well I wanna, okay? So there," he snapped at me, all grumpy-like.

Clop. He bumped my hoof sardonically without my having a chance to reciprocate, or even think about it. And turned away from me to look at the fire again. "I want to," he said again, this time in a whisper to himself.

So I scooched over. And leaned my head against his shoulder. "Thanks," I said. It felt like my throat was full of gravel. He ran his hoof over my mane. And the two of us watched the fire side by side. In a strange sort of peace.

The air between us was no longer awkward. We just sipped our tea in silence, and waited for Zecora to guide us home.

Author's Note

ALL OF THE PATREON PROCEEDS GENERATED BY THIS CHAPTER WILL BE DONATED TO RAICES, A CHARITY PROVIDING LEGAL AID TO CHILDREN IMPRISONED ON THE SOUTHERN BORDER.

For future chapters and essays, I would encourage you to please pledge even a dollar. Hooves of Fate is a labor of love. However, I also have mouths to feed. If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you in any way, and you can manage to spare a few bits, I'd very much appreciate your support on Patreon. It adds up, and makes a difference.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS and REFLECTIONS
Well, here we are. Book FIve. Like the one before it, I won't know the title until the end, but that's part of the fun.

This is an exciting time, as a lot of larger story arcs are finally starting to move into place. As annoying as composing rhyme dialogue can be, and as tricky as getting the pacing right on visions are, this chapter was a total delight for me. I'm so proud of Cliff Diver. He's grown so much, he's not the character I ever thought he would be. I couldn't be happier with him as he is, and I can't wait to find out who he's going to become.

Thank you all for following this story. Your comments and reactions mean a lot to me.

The Final Day

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - THE FINAL DAY
“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

Time rolled by until at last, we came to the most horrible of days. The one right before you have to go back to school. Sure, actually dragging yourself there on Monday morning sucks, but in a way, the day before sucks even worse. There's a dread hanging in the air. A sense that no matter what you do, you're not making the most of your final hours of freedom.

At least on Monday, when you and your classmates are all moaning and groaning as you hang your coats up in your cubbies, and drag your notebooks out of your bags, there's a solidarity to it. Everypony suffers together. But on the last day of vacation, you nurse your private regrets. Your private fears.

For me it was the notion of going back to "normal."

The town had long forgiven me for attacking Kettle Corn in the middle of their musical number. But flashing smiley greetings to ponies I passed on the road was very very different from actually facing my peers - looking a dozen of my gossipy classmates in the eye as they peppered me with questions.

Then there was the hospital! The last I'd heard from most of my classmates was a Get Well card. What the hay was I supposed to tell them when they asked me about that? Sweet Luna, I didn't even know if they had any clue why I had been hospitalized in the first place! The idea of having to explain myself to them made me wanna run away and join Cranky's band of Traveller friends and sleep under bridges for the rest of my life.

But that wasn't even the worst of it.Hooves down, the most horrible thing about Hearth's Warming Vacation coming to an end was the plain and simple fact that I wasn't gonna have free time anymore.

Cliff and I had sooooo much to do. And we only managed because we built our lives around a routine. Every single day, the two of us would visit Bananas in the hospital; then stop for lunch; head into the Everfree; study with Zecora 'till dinner; maybe kill an hour or two at Cranky's afterwards if we had time; and then finally, when we were all done, Cliff and I would go our separate ways, and get ready to do it all again the next day.

Our lives were a well-oiled machine. A schedule machine that was about to get a wrench rammed into it. All of its gears were gonna grind together 'till the teeth break, and send pieces of schedule-metal flying into the furnace of our Duckyverse responsibilities. Flames and sparks were gonna fly out. And it was gonna be bad. Really bad.

But none of that hit home. Not at first. The day before the first day back to school was a mess. Full of terrible things. Wondrous things. Things that confuzzled my brain into a bubbling pool of brain slush.

But it actually started out pretty normal.

* * *

I dragged my hooves down the stairs, through the living room, and into the kitchen to find Cliff Diver already sitting at the breakfast table with Roseluck. Like usual. He was always skipping out at dawn to get away from his folks.

"Ugh ng ng," I grunted at the two of them.

"Happy Breeaakfaaast," Roseluck sang cheerily.

"Uhhhng ng ng humnugh," I replied. My sister was a morning person. That was the one thing I truly hated about her.

Poomf! I plopped my flank down on a cushioned stool and thwunk! Dropped my head onto the table. Buried it in my forehooves.

Cliff extended a sympathetic hoof. Wrapped a leg around me. Stroked my mane.

"Why does Princess Celestia do this to us?" I croaked.

Cliff let loose a mighty snort. "Because she hates you."

I chuckled faintly in reply. Relieved that Cliff was at least in a good mood.

Fwonk! Scrrrrrrr. Roseluck slid a bowl of fruit across the table. Slowly slowly slowly. Until it nudged my face. I swear she delighted in my misery. Morning ponies always do.

I picked my head up off the table. Just to make sure I showed gratitude for the fruit. Instinctual politeness was just about the only thing in all of Equestria that could force me upright. I had a nice long yawn, then got straight to work shoveling melons into my face-hole. Pineapples too. They were my favorite. Cliff slid a cup of bold black tea in front of me. Like he did every morning.

"Thanks," I slurped it greedily. Like it was the nectar of life. I guzzled that Ponish Breakfast blend pretty fast 'cause it was lukewarm. That meant that Cliff Diver had been hanging out in our kitchen for a really long time. Before Roseluck had even awoken.

"Better?" He said.

I grunted.

"Ah," he replied. Tilted his muzzle upward to keep an eye on my sister, all attentive-to-detail-like, and slid me the sugar bowl as soon as her back was turned.

Schlomp schlomp schlomp schlomp schlomp. I shoveled spoonfuls into my mostly empty tea cup. I could see Roseluck's shape messing with toast on the counter on the other end of the kitchen. Even through a web of dried-up eyeball crust that clung like paste to my lashes.

Schlomp schlomp schlomp schlomp schlomp.I nabbed a couple more scoops of sugar and Claaaannnggg! Slammed the spoon back into the bowl just before my sister spun around.

"Hay," Roseluck smile-mumbled as she set her plate down with her teeth.

I plunged my muzzle into that teacup. Pretended to drink. Even though there wasn't really any fluid left. Just soggy sugar. Which I slurped up instead.

My sister sat down beside us. "So what did you two learn from Zecora yesterday?"

I smacked my lips. Tried to swallow. Tried to speak through a throat that felt like it was full of cement. Really, really sweet cement.

"Ducky stuff," I coughed.

Roseluck turned to Cliff, who slid me a glass of water (that he had ready for just such an occasion). "Ducky stuff," he confirmed.

"I see," she replied.

I gulped the water. Coughed a little. Hack-hockitty hluk hlok hlok. "We've gotten really good at it," I said at last.

Roseluck set her toast down. Eyed me suspiciously.

Fuck. Distract her. Quick! My brain yelled at me from the inside of my mind-skull. "We're making progress," I said, "Mapping duckies. Observing the orbit of all the dead worlds...I don't really understand that part--;"

"Oh, yeah!" Cliff jumped in. "They don't move in elliptical orbits like the Sun or the Moon do when they circle 'round Equestria. But you can still predict their motions...Well, sorta."

"Sorta?" My sister said.

"It's totally safe," I threw my two bits in, mega fast. I knew concernittyness brewing in Roseluck when I saw it.

"Yeah, totally," Cliff said. "Omigosh, yes! Sorry...Just so long as we stay away from the purple energy field."

Roseluck raised an eyebrow. "Purple…"

"You know, under the--;"

I kicked Cliff's shin under the table.

"Ow!" He squealed out loud.

"Shut up," I whispered through gritted teeth.

If my sister knew that we were observing the castle that close almost every day - that we were observing this weird mass of mist and lightning under the cloud that the castle floated on, and that that purple mist moved of its own volition. Like those blurry wavy lines you see in the air above a barbecue. If she knew that we were going back there on purpose to study the castle. That dead duckies like Columnland got their orbits all fucked, and blurred temporarily out of existence if they strayed too close to that mass of power. She would never stop worrying.

"Zecora is with us the whooole time." I said with a smile.

A half-truth.

"Yeah, there's nothing we can't handle," Cliff added, laying it on just a little bit too thick. But even as he beamed with confidence, there came a knock on the door. It seemed to mock him.

The three of us looked at each other suspiciously. Nopony ever came around this early. Ever.

As if drawn by a single magnet in the ceiling, Roseluck, Cliff, and I all rose from our seats as one. But my sister threw up a hoof. Gestured for us kids to stay back. Not because she literally thought some squad of cloak-o's was gonna kick down our door, and try to kill us or anything.

That only happened in my dreams.

No. It was something primal. Something instinctual.

So Cliff and I nodded. Hung back. While Roseluck answered the door.

We heard the moan of the floorboards. The cry of the squeaky hinges as the door swung slowly open. And then silence. No sign of what the fuck was going on. Until a few moments later, Roseluck called out to us. "Kids, come here. We have a...um, visitor."

Her tone was prim. Polite. But devoid of its usual enthusiasm.

"Okay," I called out to her brightly, hiding my confusion. "Sure thiii-iing!"

Cliff put his hoof on mine. Reassuring-like. More confident than I was.

I hadn't even realized that my anxiety had been showing. But I was crazy-nervous. The last thing I needed was a visit from Miss Cheerilee or whatever, checking to make sure that I didn't come from a TeRrIbLe HoMe in advance of my rejoining the normaler children at school.

I smiled meekly at Cliff. Sighed.
Exasperatized by the idea of having to answer to someone sent to inspect me. In my own fucking house.

But our visitor wasn't anypony like that. She was far far far far far far worse.

"Rose Petal?" Said a voice so sour it could curdle milk before it even left the cow. "I have something for you...And Cliff Diver," the voice turned somehow even more acidic. "I raised you better than to keep company waiting."

Cliff froze. Ears falling to the sides of his head like deflated balloons. Eyes as wide as planets.

His hoof slid off of mine. And slowly, he seemed to shrink away. Like a grape shriveling into a raisin of despair. I hadn't seen anypony break down like that since the mine-o kids, cowering in the caves of Trottica. And by all logic, his mom's arrival shouldn't have affected him that badly. As bad as his parents were, he still saw them every. Single. Day. And he didn't fall apart whenever he laid eyes on them.

Yet there he was. A whimpering mess. Not here. His woobly hooves seemed to say. Anywhere but here.

"Um...Coo-ming!" I shouted, all sing-songy-like as I leapt to the ground and knelt in front of Cliff Diver.

"Run out the back," I whispered. "I'll stall her."

But Cliff just sat there on the kitchen floor.

"Come on!" I whisper-shouted. "We can meet at Zecora's later. It'll work. Trust me."

"No," he whimpered. "She knows where I live."

Cliff's throat apple swallowed real hard. Then he rose to his hooves, walked right past me, and sulked into the living room. "Hi, Mom," he said softly.

"Where's your little friend?" The sour voice feigned sweetness.

Oh, no. I rushed after Cliff. To come to his aid. Or at least to...you know...be there for him.

Gold Medal, Cliff's mom, was standing near the front door. Still draped in a gold jacket to match her mane. Scarf and boots still on. At first, that was a small relief. 'Cause I knew she wouldn't be staying very long.

But then it hit me. Like a freight train armed with cannons that shot friendship-shattering anvils out of them.

What if she aimed to leave...with Cliff?!

My knees locked. My heart slid backwards into my belly. A glance at Cliff Diver told me that he shared that same terror.

His mom smiled a wholesome smile - or at least what she thought would pass as one - and gestured at a multicolored little gift bag she had set down on the end table by the window.

"A present for you, Rose Petal." The sound of her voice - even when she was attempting to be pleasant - made my skin crawl. And though that bag seemed harmless - even festive - on the outside, I didn't want to know what it contained. My guess was that it was full of centipedes, and slime, and bats, and ghosts, and eels, and stuff.

"It's a pie," my sister said.

"A pie?" Cliff and I squeaked in unison.

"Yes," the pegasus replied stiffly. "As a thank you."

…

"Um...You're welcome?" I said.

Then the fire crackled, cutting through the silence between us. Pop pop cracklety pop pop pop.

"Thanks for what exactly?"

"Well, to be honest," she replied. "I had begun to lose hope in my poor son." She spoke of him as if he wasn't there.

Cliff shrunk back some more - trying desperately to actually disappear.

"He's not a poor anything," I said. "Cliff has always been awesome."

I turned to him. Expecting his spirits to be lifted. But he just looked at me with wild and fearful eyes. Againlike one of the mine-o kids. What the fuck are you doing? He seemed to say.

"Yes," Cliff's mother replied. "Well, anyway. I confess that we got off to a bad start when we met back at the hospital. But I wanted you to know that I approve of your good influence."

"My good influence?" My voice stretched upward in shock.

"Yes," Roseluck interrupted with an awkward little laugh. "Your good influence."

She shot eyeball-daggers at me. As if to say: Fucking go along with this, or this crazy woman is going to make Cliff Diver miserable.

"Since he started spending time with you, and your family." Gold Medal nodded approvingly at my sister. "My boy has matured. Torn down those ridiculous posters he had all over his room. Flying saucers, and books, and doors in the middle of outer space."

"You what?" I turned to Cliff in utter shock.

And then, fwoooomp! Just like that, all eyes were on him. Like an asshole, I'd put Cliff right in the spotlight.

…

...

"Yes," he whispered meekly. "I don't need that stupid stuff anymore."

Roseluck's kind and pleasant facade shattered. To see Cliff like that. So ashamed. So broken. It made her mad. I could see it in her twitchitty eye. But I just thought about how Cliff had gotten where he was in the first place. Whatever had happened to him was because of me. And my stupid travels. Our stupid studies with Zecora. The stupid shadow business I'd dragged him into.

My friend had lost a piece of himself. Right in front of my very eyes. And I hadn't even noticed how bad it was.

Cliff lowered his head. Ashamed. Not just because of his mom. (I knew him well). He felt like he had let me down. He'd been trying to protect me from whatever change he was going through. Whatever misery had made him tear his posters down, and rip his innocence up with it.

Crack crack crack. Went the fire as it all sunk in.

Until Cliff's mom, sufficiently at peace with herself, announced. "It's a cherry pie." She smiled brightly, gesturing again at the happy little gift bag. "Anyway, I've taken up enough of your time. I should be moving along."

She motioned toward the door. And I shook with rage.

'Cause that bitch had just shown up unannounced, in my home. Pretended to give a fuck. Then attempted to buy us with a fucking pie. All while belittling Cliff Diver before my eyes.

"Hay!" I said. Ready to give her a piece of my mind.

But Cliff leaped out of his raisin state. Dove in front of me. Don't don't don't! His face silently screamed. She's letting us stay friends. You'll make everything worse.

And Cliff's terror broke my heart. But it broke my concentration too. So when his mom turned around in the doorway to hear what I had to say, my mouth just hung open. And the fire in the fireplace split the silence once again like a box of crackers getting stomped on really really reeeally slowly.

"Thank you," I said at last through gritted teeth. "For the pie."

Cliff's mom smiled at me. And even though her teeth looked totally normal, they somehow gave the impression of being razor sharp. Like some kinda momster.

"No," she said tightening her lips, and nodding graciously. "Thank you. For being such a good influence." And as those final words left her mouth, she threw eyeball harpoons at Cliff. A sharp look that somehow managed to convey approval and disdain at the same time. Just to let Cliff know that whatever tiny sliver of favorability he may have gained with her was not to his own credit. The force of her stare made him droop to his knees.

And then, just like that, Cliff's mom flashed us all a happy, cordial little smile, and left.

It turned out that a great evil had come to our doorstep after all. And into our living room. Worse than cloak-o raiders. Worse than shadows. 'Cause those could be beaten.

Cliff's mom was a cruel force of darkness that we could never truly escape. No matter how hard we tried. No matter how much we fought, or practiced, or trained. She would always be there. Ready to mess with Cliff Diver's head when the day was done.

Cliff stared at the floor for a long, long time after she left. His ear twitched with every creak of a floorboard or pop of the fire. He was listening. Waiting for another knock.

But it never came.

"We should get going," Cliff said out of the blue, when it finally became clear that his mom wasn't planning on coming back, and turning him into a pathetic puddle of Cliffgoo all over again.

"Hey," I said tenderly. "Do you wanna ta--;"

"No," Cliff answered, all abrupt-like. "Let's just go." He went straight to the door and set about the business of suiting up. Boots. Coat. Hat. Scarf.

Roseluck gestured for me to follow him. So I did. Got myself ready, fumbled with my boots, and sweater and stuff, but I just kept watching Cliff pretend to be okay.

Click click click. Went the snaps of his jacket. And he was done. Before I was even close to ready.

"You should try the pie, Roseluck," he called across the living room. "It's really quite good."

* * *

Cliff Diver was quiet on the way to the hospital...at first. He bunched his shoulders up and walked all super stiff-like. Eyes straight ahead. As if walking down the same road that we took every single morning somehow required every ounce of his focus and attention now.

And I let him be. As much as it drove me crazy, I let him be. Partly 'cause I was waiting for the perfect moment. Partly 'cause I needed to say the perfect thing.

But what magic words could possibly make it better?

Are you okay? How you doin'? You don't, like, feel totally crushed by the fact that your mom showed up at my front door, do you? 'Cause that's what it seems like. And I couldn't help but notice that my house was totally, like, the one place you felt safe. Until she invaded the joint and turned you into a Cliff-raisin.

"Are ponies good?" Cliff asked me, totally outta nowhere.

"What?" I cocked my head in confusion.

"Ponies," he said grimly. "All the stuff we're doing. To save Equestria. To fight the shadows. It's all for ponies who are never even gonna know it. But, like...are they good?

"'Cause the kids at school?" Cliff's voice warbled. "They all ignore me. Or make fun of me...Then there's the ponies who look at Travelers like Cranky, and just think, 'Well, sure it's perfectly fine that they don't have a place to stay. Except under a bridge.'

'In cities populated by thousands and thousands!" His voice pitched upward. "They can't find enough good ponies to provide food and shelter for what? A few dozen Travelers out in the cold?"

"I don't know," I said. "I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"Ponies," he reiterated. Almost angrily. "Are they good?"

I sighed. "When they wanna be."

And as the words left my mouth, I heard echoes of Blueberry Milkshake. Telling me the same exact thing back when I'd asked her that same. Exact. Question. The morning after I fell into the Wasteland.

Are ponies good? I'd asked.

When they wanna be. She'd replied.

It felt like a dream from a million billion moons ago. And it reminded me of the note she'd scribbled in my get well card. Which was also, like...a million billion moons ago.

We need to talk. The note had read. But she'd covered it with paste and scratched it out. As though she'd changed her mind about what she wanted to say.

Cliff hung his head, and stomped on clumps of frozen earth as he thought real hard on it. Crkk. Crkkkh. Crkkk. Crkkkk. 'Till, at last, he sighed too.

"Thanks," he said.

"For what?"

"Being good," he answered. "You're the only one in school who is."

"That's not true," I tsked. And immediately set myself to the task of flipping through every page of every book inside my brain. Trying to find one example of a good, and normal classmate. But what real opportunity did we have for goodness in the first place? We were kids. It was all little things. Playground stuff. Then, suddenly it hit me...

"Kettle Corn!" I exclaimed. "She forgave me. After I brutally attacked her."

"Yeah," he replied. "I guess." Khnch crunch Crkkkh. Crkkk. Crkkkk. "...They're not soooo bad. Maybe it's just that...with you, and your sister, and Cranky, and Matilda, and Zecora, I've kinda gotten used to ponies being good...y'know...to me.

'And tomorrow, I gotta go back, and re-learn how to deal with ponies that, well...aren't."

Cliff stopped in his tracks. Ponyville General Hospital was in sight now. There was an orderly sorta hustle about that place. Nurses stepping outside on their breaks. Sick folks limping in. Healed folks getting wheeled out. A sort of current in the air.

It was hardly Manehattan, but it was enough to burst that quiet bubble of privacy that Cliff and I had enjoyed on the road. As a young doctor galloped past us, muttering, "Late, late, late, late, late," Cliff looked to me. Forced himself to hold his head high. The hospital was no place for whiny piratetry. Even if your feelings were totally justified.

Finally, he took a breath, looked me square in the eye, and gave me a nod, as if to say, Ready as I'm gonna get.

I held up a hoof for bumping. His stern face cracked, and out came a smile from underneath.

"You're awesome," I told him.

"Thanks," he said, suddenly bashful again. As if compliments stung him.

* * *

Once inside Ponyville General Hospital, the two of us moseyed casually past the receptionist, who, after weeks and weeks and weeks of regular visits, didn't even bother to sign us in anymore. A glance up from her newspaper. A warm isn't-it-oh-so-inspirational-that-these-kids-are-devoted-to-their-bubble-friend smile. And the two of us were in.

Through the double doors, and on our way down the first of two corridors we needed to navigate before we could get to Bananas Foster.

"I'm gonna beat her at chess this time," Cliff Diver said. That anger of his melting away like wax smacking right into the Sun and turning into liquidy nerd-slime. "I've been reading up on strategy," he added with a demonic little smile. "And I think she got her moves and strategies out of the same book!"

"I hate to sink your ship," I said. "But...if...like...she got her moves out of the same book that you did, then she also read the part about the strategies that you're gonna use to counter her."

Cliff Diver shut his eyes. Even though he was walking. "Darn," he said with a huff as he scuffed his boot against the floor in frustration.

But it turned out to be way louder than he expected. I mean really fucking loud. Screeeek! Went the rubber against the tile - a razor-on-chalkboard sound that neither of us had expected.

"Ahh!" I jumped up.

Cliff cringed. Blushed. Smiled a sheepish little smile. "Oops."

I rolled my eyes. Caught my breath.

And as we neared the end of the first corridor, we came upon Nurse Redheart, pushing a wheel-a-majig with tubes, and trays, and silvery tools, and clipboards, and other nurse-stuff on it.

"Hay," I said politely. Waving a hoof.

But she didn't reply. Didn't even look at us. She just sorta shuffled along. Her face cemented into a sort of mask. Like she was trying mega super hard to remember something.

Clip clop clip clop clip clop went her hooves, as she kept on walking past us. Oblivious-like.Creaka-deeka-deeka went the wheels on her cart. Down a corridor that led only to the main lobby. And not to any sort of place where the tubes, and medical doo-hickeys she was pushing would be of use to anypony at all.

"What's up with her?" Cliff said, as the nurse realized her mistake, turned around, and wandered back in our direction.

"Nurse Redheart?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

"What?" She said. "Oh yeah." The nurse looked around. Took note of her surroundings. A little dazed, but clearly herself again. "Somepony must have accidentally made decaf."

"Ok," said Cliff.

"Have a good day."

"You too." The nurse altered her course to bring the cart to wherever it was supposed to go. I hoped.

Cliff and I moved on. The hallway ended, the walls widened and expanded into a great big open space, and we found ourselves standing in front of the nurses' kiosk.

Everyone there seemed more or less normal. A yellow pegasus nurse-guy moved around, looking over several clipboards at once, darting back and forth to reference a ledger of some kind. The young doctor I'd once referred to as The Purple Professional weaved seamlessly around him. Checking charts of her own. Sipping coffee from a thermos. Not decaf.

Other medical ponies came and went. Ducked out of one another's way like sprockets on gears, interlocking and turning, and never quite crashing into one another. Even when it looked like they were going to.

It was all pretty smooth.

Except for this one guy - the nurse who'd been a jerk to me and Screw Loose so many weeks ago. I couldn't even remember his name at the moment. But that wasn't important. The only thing that mattered was the fact that he. Just. Fucking. Stood there. Staring. Worse off than Redheart.

Everypony else moved around him.Like he was a piece of furniture that they needed to reach around to get to their charts, and clipboards, and medications and stuff.

"Hay, what's up with him?" Cliff pointed at the dull-eyed nurse.

The yellow dude looked up from his desk. Broke his frantic hospital pace just long enough to turn to us slowly and say, "Everything's normal." He sounded like a bored filly reciting lines for a lackluster school play.

Then, he spun back toward the desk behind him - a motion as awkward as his answer to our question - and went right back to ignoring us. "No,” he told one of the junior nurses. “That's the wrong dosage. Show it to the doctor so we can write it correctly. "

"Ookaaay," I said with a great big phony smile.

And Cliff and I, without conferring, left the nurses behind, and went straight for Bananas Foster's hallway. As briskly as we could without actually breaking into a trot.

It was weird. The hospital was clearly running smoothly. The staff seemed to have everything under control, (as much as anypony in their profession could, anyways). But nopony noticed that their head nurse was running on decaf, or that a senior member of their staff was basically a statue.

Neither Cliff nor I wanted to consider the obvious explanation, so we racked our brains for alternative theories.

"What's going on?" I scanned the corridor for more signs of trouble.

"Shadows?" Cliff postulated.

"No. My evil hoof's too warm."

"Zombies?"

"They're not eating anypony," I replied.

"Right." Cliff put on his grimmest face. Tried to act stoic. But his voice cracked. And his legs started to quiver. I guess he couldn't handle my cottage getting invaded, and the hospital falling into chaos on the same day. "Well, what's going on then?" He whimpered. "What's making everypony act...weird?"

At that moment, we came to Bananas Foster's door. And for a teeny tiny instant, I let myself indulge the obvious answer - wondered if maybe, it was her. Feeding on the nurses more than usual. Making them act funny.

But I shook that thought right out of my head. Ashamed of having even considered it. Foster would never. There was a meticulous order to how she used her powers. When she fed. Who she fed off of. How much of their hearts she ate.

"I don't know," I answered.

And the two of us stood outside of Bananas' door for a moment. Trying to make sense of everything. Until suddenly, Cliff Diver, startled by his own private brain-thoughts, looked to me, all panic-struck. And flung open the door.

"Bananas?" He said. "Are you okay?"

I charged in after him. And we found Bananas Foster lying there in her bubble. On her side. Two right legs dangling limply off the edge of her bed

She never rests. I thought. Not even to sleep.

"Foster!" I called out to her.

"What? What?" She rolled out of bed and fell on the floor.

Cliff ran to her glowing purple dome. "Are you alright?"

"What?" Bananas leapt up to her hooves. "What's wrong?"

"The nurses," I said. "And...uh...one of the doctors, I think. They're zombies!"

"Zombies?" Foster's voice squeaked upward in disbelief.

"Yeah," Cliff added. "Wait…" He turned to me, and pointed an outstretched hoof. "You said they weren't zom--;"

"We saw Redheart staggering around with her cart," I interrupted. "She didn't even seem to know where she was."

"Oh, right. Yeah!" Cliff leapt in, no longer hung up on the z-word. "And then there was that other guy! I don't remember his name. But he was staring at the wall. Doing nothing."

"...And every pony else was acting weird too." I said. "Like they didn't notice him at all!"

"Are you okay?" Cliff and I said to Foster, both at once.

…

...

"Oh," Bananas replied. Running her hoof through her long, tan mane. "Heh heh. I think I mighta had something to do with that."

"What?" Cliff squealed. A sound so shrill it made Foster throw her hooves up in defense.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know you have moral issues with my…feeding. I try to understand that - really, I do. But I messed up this time. Lost control. I'm really really sorry."

Foster blushed. A distinctly equine social cue she couldn't possibly have done naturally in her changeling form. It was oddly off-putting. 'Cause I knew it was fake.

I slid my out of my jacket and kicked off my boots. Just to have something to do to hide my discomfort.

"You try to understand?" Cliff said, still trying to catch his breath from the scare she'd just put us both through.

Foster reeled. Blink-bloinked her eyelids for a moment. Taken aback by Cliff's intensity.

"Yeah," Bananas said. "I genuinely do. Equine ideas of ethical philosophy don't always make sense to me. But I still think you've expanded my horizons a bit, and overall, you've been a good influence."

Suddenly, the room fell still. So still that I swear, it seemed like every fleck of dust was gonna drop out of the air and fall to the ground. In that moment, I saw a flicker in Cliff's eyes. Of pain. Of rage. Just before the rest of his face hardened into an angular scowl.

"So," he said softly but bitterly, "You're only a good pony because of Rose and her influence." He sang that last word with sarcasm.

Bananas scrunched her face up, all confused-like. She looked to me as if to say What the fuck is his problem? But I didn't get to reply. I was too busy rushing to shut the door so no hospital ponies would hear the epic argument that was about to ensue.

"Um...Yes?" Foster turned to Cliff and said. "Except I never claimed to be good, and I'm...not even a pony..." She shrugged. "Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not okay. Ponies could have died!" Cliff exclaimed, determined not to acknowledge any of what Bananas had just said. "What if...if...if...one of those nurses just went and...zombied out while treating somepony else?"

"Can we not do this?" I butted in. "Foster already said she was sorry."

"But she isn't," Cliff snapped at me. More terrified than angry now. Panting like a wild animal. "What if we're the bad guys, Rose? If we're okay with this. If we say nothing. How can we even say that ponies deserve to be saved?"

Foster stood there. Dumbstruck. For a fraction of a moment, I could look into her eyes and see something shatter deep within her. I'd say it was her heart. Breaking as Cliff's jabs at the unworthiness of us all twisted a little knife inside.

"Maybe ponies don't deserve to be saved," Foster said, super calmly, gently, but still somehow seething with contempt.

"Oh, come on," I said.

"You are a goody four shoes." Foster retorted. "You wanna help everyone. And I respect that. A lot. Everypony else? Not so much." She turned to Cliff. "Except you. You're one of the most admirable creatures I've ever met. Your devotion to family? It's downright changeling-esque in its intensity."

Cliff's hooves trembled. The hair in his coat stood on end. That was the final straw.

"Family?" He said. "Family? What? You mean my dad who hardly ever says a word to me except to nudge me into ogling mares as they trot by, hoping that I'll get married someday and make him grandsons who actually know how to fly because apparently, 'greatness skips a generation.'" He threw up his forehooves and made quotation marks in the air.

"Celestia forbid that he should stop and ask me what I want, or even take one look at my collectibles and notice that I have an ooobvious crush on Zap from the Bearded Stallions of Space Station 11, (though they totally ruined him with that redemption arc that ran from issue 37 to 49)." Cliff muttered that last little piece of trivia out the side of his muzzle. Quibbling geekily even in the midst of his rage.

Foster and I exchanged startled glances with one another. Partially because neither of us had had any idea that Cliff liked colts, but mostly 'cause we had no idea what the Bearded Stallions of Space Station 11 were.

"Or do you mean my mom?" Cliff stomped his hoof. "Who hates my guts. And apparently isn't content to simply hate my guts at home. No, she absolutely had to follow me to Rose's cottage just so she could let me know that her judgments could reach me wherever I went. Is that the devotion to family you're talking about, Bananas? That family?!"

He flung off his coat. Hucked it across the room. And dropped to his knees. Started sobbing. Heaved and panted and tried to choke it all back down, so as not to make too much noise. But it was no use. He'd completely lost control. So he just threw himself at me instead. Buried his face in my ribs. Used my sweater to muffle his cries.

I put my hoof on his shoulder. It felt like such a useless gesture. It couldn't change anything, or help him, or be of much use at all. But it was the only thing I could think of to do.

When Cliff Diver's cries finally tapered down to a trickle, and his sobs faded to sniffles, Bananas Foster spoke up. "You know I meant us, right?"

Cliff picked his head up off of me. Looked at Bananas Foster like she had thirty-seven eyes.

"Your devotion to family," Foster clarified. "I meant us. Rose Petal and me, and Roseluck, and...I guess that weird friend of Rose Petal's who thinks she's a dog...You know, by extension."

Cliff kept on staring at Bananas. Astonished by the very idea. Foster sighed. Looked away in shame. For the pain she'd caused him in the first place. That's when I realized there was something going on with her too.

"What made you lose control?" I asked. "It's not like you."

Foster waved her hoof. "I don't wanna bother you."

"Tell me," Cliff spoke up at last. "Please?"

"I was stress eating." Bananas sighed, still staring at the flloor. "Because I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?" I asked.

"Of what's gonna happen tomorrow. When you all go back to school. And get normal lives again." Foster threw up her forehooves before either of us could interrupt her. "I know you'll swear you're gonna make time for me." She said. "And you'll mean it too. And you're even gonna try. (That's probably the worst part). But like it or not, things are going to change. And I don't know how to deal with that, so I...lost control." Foster squeezed her eyes shut in self-disgust. Stewed in silence for a minute.

Then, with a pitiful sigh, Bananas summoned her courage, took a few steps forward to the edge of her dome. Looked to me, all sullen-eyed. And then finally, to Cliff.

"I swear on my mother's memory, the thing with the nurses won't happen again." She shook her head and cried. "I'm sooo sorry. Really, I am. And if you must know, I gotta tell the truth. You're absolutely right, Cliff. I'm not like you.

'There's no fancy ethics behind my remorse - no compassion for all pony kind, or whatever. I'm sorry because it hurt you. And I care about you. 'Cause you're a brother to me." Foster sucked in a ragged breath. "...I just hope that's enough."

Bananas bit her lip and dipped her head so low it almost hit into the dome.

The room fell silent again. This time not out of tension or anger. But wonder! Cliff Diver knew as well as I did what that word meant to Foster. How seriously she took stuff like that. Being brothers. Being family. Being a hive.

Then, I reached out, though honestly, I couldn't tell you why. Cliff was leaning on my good leg, so I used the other one. Pressed that inky black hoof against the dome, and, soundlessly, it went right through. I felt Foster's mane. Actually touched it! It was soft. Like it had recently been brushed.

Reflexively, I jerked my leg back. Out of sheer surprise. But then Foster looked up. Jaw agape. Eyes twinkling with shock and hope and awe. I thrust my hoof back through in a hurry. Foster touched it with her own. Just a tap at first. Clop. Her cheeks curled into a smile. She laughed. And a tear leapt out of her eyeball and slid down the side of her cheek.

Cliff Diver picked his head up to see what was going on, and the sight of my hoof on the other side of the bubble startled him so badly that he slid right off of me, and thunk! Hit his head on the floor.

He scrambled right back to his hooves. Leaned real close to examine the spot where my evil hoof penetrated the dome. He got so close, he felt the sting of the bubble as it grazed against his cheek.

"It only blocks living matter," he said as he furrowed his brow, and got his brain-gears turning.

It should have come as a shock to me. It should have made me tremble, and hate the shadows all the more. If I was in any state of mind to absorb that information objectively - to realize that my hoof wasn't living matter, I'd probably shriek, "Ew, ew, ew," and cut the damn thing off, and run away screaming.

But Bananas Foster was giggling at that hoof. Booping herself with it. Relishing the feel of one-on-one contact. Laughing and smiling and crying as she leaned in, and it rustled her mane.

I thought back to Twinkle Eyes. How I'd felt so alone in my cage. So lost. So confused. How the simple act of stroking my head through the bars had filled me with warmth. Hope! Strength! Touch means so very much. It's more than a comfort. It makes other ponies real to us. It makes us feel real to ourselves. It saves our hearts from hardening.

So in that moment, I loved my hoof - truly fucking loved it - for the first time. I can only imagine what it meant to Foster.

"Family," Cliff whispered. No longer holding disdain for the word.

He put one forehoof against the dome.

"Family," Foster repeated as she sat up tall on her hindquarters, even as the tears kept flowing down her face like rain. She held my evil hoof in hers, and extended her free leg to Cliff. Even though there was still a barrier.

Finally, Cliff held his free hoof out to mine.

"Family," I said. And clop! The three of us formed a leg-triangle.

That's when I felt a surge of light. Of warmth. A glow of sorts. More than just the happiness of the moment. More than just a chuckle or a tear.

It was a tidal wave of magic. Real magic.

* * *

After a long, long, long, long while, the three of us found ourselves sitting on the floor, gathered around the edge of the dome like it was a campfire and we were all Filly Scouts.

"I've been thinking," Cliff said.

"Uh-oh," Foster snickered.

"You're right," he said. "There are gonna be times when life on the outside does pull us away. You know, like field trips, and stuff. Things my stupid mom needs me to do. There's no way around it. And I'm sorry. But that doesn't mean we should give up! Bananas, I will never stop visiting you. I promise. Whenever I can."

He crossed one leg, diagonal-like over his chest, and then flipped it up to his forehead in some kinda weird spazz-salute. "Until my final day," he added in his most solemn of tones.

Foster and I looked at one another. All shruggitty.

"What the hay was that?" Bananas imitated Cliff's stupid salute-a-majig. Jerking around awkwardly like a marionette with tangled strings.

"Hellooo?" Cliff retorted indignantly. "The Solemn Oath of the Bearded Stallions of Space Station 11? Ooh!" His face lit up like a foal on Hearth's Warming morning. "We should all--;"

"No," Foster said abruptly.

"Fine," he grumbled in reply.

"Wait a minute," I said. "I thought you got rid of all your space stuff."

"Well," his cheeks flushed red. "Not all of it."

Author's Note

PATREON
Hooves of Fate is a labor of love. However, I also have mouths to feed. If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you in any way, and you can manage to spare a few bits, I'd very much appreciate your support on Patreon. It adds up, and makes a difference.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

SPECIAL THANKS: As always, I would like to thank Seraphem as always for his tireless assistance providing feedback during the editing process, and Kkat for writing the original Fallout: Equestria story that inspired me to write Hooves of Fate in the first place.

THOUGHTS and REFLECTIONS

I don't have much to say this time around. I've waited about six years to write the final scene of this chapter, and I'm thrilled to finally be able to share it with all of you. I look forward to your thoughts and comments! :pinkiehappy:

Pieces

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR - PIECES
"Is any life so isolated that it lives only in the past and not in the present and future, too?" -Jackson Burnett

The Great Sorcerer Planktoneth once told Daisy the Cabin Girl that the world is a puzzle, and all of us, pieces. Even with our cutie marks, nopony can really see what we mean to the world. What it all builds. What it means. The only thing we know for sure is how we fit with one another. Our jagged edges. Our fragile voids. They all lock together, and transform us into something larger than ourselves.

That's why the world is only as strong as the bonds between us.

Now, I know what you're thinking, of course. The Great Cave of Golzakareth only opens once every 777 years. And the rest of the time, Planktoneth sits alone in his hermitage. What the fuck does he know about ponies fitting together? What could hepossibly know of the world itself for that matter, (since he had renounced all worldly things after the death of his sister in the Great Coral Wars)? And it's a totally valid criticism - one that all us fans have wondered at some point or another.

But the idea still gave me solace. And after everything I'd learned in the Wasteland and beyond - everything I'd seen - I had come to believe in the Great Puzzle more than ever.

But now it kinda worried me. Because friendship is a give and take. Edges and voids. Bananas Foster and I had just shared the most awesome experience - an intimacy that bordered on cosmic. The end result, however, was still frightening. 'Cause I was the only creature in the whole universe who could fulfill her basic fundamental need for touch.

How could we possibly be equal after that? What kinda friendship can you have with somepony who can, on a whim, deprive you of water if they wanted to - simply by not being there? Or air? Or sandwiches?

Even if they'd never, ever, ever do such a thing - even if they loved you - even if your joy was their joy - the bond between you two would still forever be imbalanced. Dependent.

I didn't have the words for it at the time, but it itched at me.

* * *

"Ooh! Ooh!" Cliff got so excited he bounced up-and-down all over the road. The sun was still low in the sky, and the trees cast long shadows along the northward path that led to the schoolhouse, and all Cliff wanted to talk about was the physics of my evil hoof. "What if your hoof...like...isn't a hoof. What if it's the image of a hoof projected from some other time or dimension?"

"Ow!" He exclaimed as I kicked him lightly, thus proving that my hoof was, in fact, real. "Okay, okay, okay. Point taken. But there's still so many different possibilities."

"Cliff," I grumbled.

"First we have to figure out if, like, the dome actually filters out living material."

"Cliff," I grunted.

"'Cause...was your hoof, like, an exception because it's legitimately not living? Or does the machine simply fail to register it because its parameters weren't designed to look for evil world-destroying shadow magic?"

"Cliff!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.

That shut him up.

Closing my eyes, even as I walked, I explained to him why I didn't wanna hear it. "I actually like my hoof for the first time in ever. So I really don't wanna think about what kind of evil, world-destroying whatnots are in there."

"Fine," he said. Though by the way he gritted his teeth, I could tell it ate him up inside not to be sciencing my hoof, even for one minute.

So we walked in silence a while. 'Till the Ponyville Schoolhouse peaked out at us from the distance. And suddenly, I remembered it from my dream. I could see the big red doors opening. Feel the freezing cold darkness and stuff inside. The memory of that place smacked my brain so hard, that my legs started to burn from the icy touch of the dead mine-o kids who had come spilling out, and swept me toward the door like an undertow, crying, It should have been you, it should have been you, it should have been you.

"Ahhh!" I shouted, shielding my face, seemingly out of nowhere.

But then it was all over. Just as suddenly as it had sprung on me.

"What?" Cliff squealed. "What is it?"

I looked up ahead. The schoolhouse wasn't evil. It had a bright Equestrian flag waving from its pole. It had strips of colored paper that Miss Cheerilee had hung everywhere to welcome us back. Its windows glistened as the long orange light of dawn bounced off of them.

"Nothing," I said. "I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Let's go."

The two of us veered off the main road at last, and onto the little path that led to our school. The shrill chatter of our peers rang out across the field. And so did the bell. Diiing. Diiiing. Diiiiing.

Fuck. We were late.

Cliff and I broke into a trot. But the other kids were already way ahead of us. All we could see were their flanks as they filed inside.

"Have some more pancakes," I muttered to myself sarcastically as I thought back to the breakfast table that had inspired our late start. "Just a few more can't hurt."

Lies! We were late. And it was all the fault of those delectable pancakes!

Featherweight was the last colt to the door, and the only one to turn around and notice us. With a gasp and a grin, he fumbled for the camera around his neck using his wings to hold it up. With a great big enthusiastic smile, he snapped our picture just as we approached the steps. I could see the headline now. Hospital Girl Back in School Almost as Though She Were Normal.

Click! Click, clickety click click click! Feather snapped a few more rapid fire shots before darting inside.

Then it was just Cliff and me. At the bottom of the stairs. Exchanging glances with one another.

"Well that's not a good sign," he said.

"No, I guess not."

Cliff stretched his foreleg out, and placed his boot on mine. As if to say, You can do this. A couple of deep breaths later, we were through the door.

From the moment we set hoof inside, all eyes were on us. I swear they darted in our direction so quickly, that it made an eyeball-swoosh sound.

But not Miss Cheerilee. She pointedly ignored Cliff and I as we crept along the walls - tip-hooving toward the back of the room - and continued with her good morning speech. "And over the next few days, we'll reacquaint ourselves with all of our old lessons, so you'll have plenty of time to get back into the swing of things at your own pace."

Creek. Creek. Creeeeeek. Went the floorboards under our hooves. It sounded like a whole buncha ghosts moaning. Really loud floor ghosts.

"...Today, we are going to focus on you."

Cliff and I reached the back of the room. Hugged the wall reeeal super tight. But crumple crumple poke! There were bits of construction paper jutting out, and string, and pipe cleaners with tissue-paper flowers on them. Protruding like spikes in the booby-trapped wall of a Daring Do temple.

"...If you look to the back of the room, you'll see all of your Hearth's Warming projects. Beaming with sunshine to brighten one another's day."

Shunk. Everypony shifted in their chairs.

"Ahh!" I darted to the far corner. Dodging paper flaps the whole way. And fwip! Got smacked in the face by a protruding page. A hoof-drawn diagram of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna riding flying saucer spaceships, with arrows made out of red and white bakery string, all pointing to a cut out of the Equestrian flag. The heading read: "On the Origin of Alicorns" by Rose Petal and Cliff Diver.

I pushed passed it, and lunged for the nook in the corner where all our cubbies were. Cliff came scurry-crashing right behind me.

"She did that on purpose," he whispered as he unclasped his jacket.

Miss Cheerilee beamed. "I know that, by now, Hearth's Warming must seem like a distant memory, but I'm still eager to hear how all of you spent yours."

Ca-chungk! My boot flopped off my hoof and fell onto the floor. Ca-chungk!

Diamond Tiara stretched her neck backward and snickered silently in our direction as the two of us fumbled with the last of our winter gear.

"...And I'd also like to hear your perspectives on how the lessons we learned on Hearth's Warming history enriched your appreciation of the holiday."

Looking across the room, there were only two empty desks. One right by Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara. The other, all the way up in the front of the class. Cliff's whole body tensed up at the sight. So I made straight for the desk next to Silver Spoon and Diamond. I was gonna hear from those two meanies no matter what. There was no sense in letting them get under Cliff Diver's hide.

Besides, I was the obvious choice. I had stood up to a slave-driving priestess, a castle full of shadow monsters, and the world's most intimidating colonel (before I knew she was a good guy). I was pretty sure Diamond Tiara's days of getting to me were over.

Plunk. I dropped my flank into the seat.

"So nice of you to join us," Silver Spoon whispered.

I folded my hooves across the top of my desk. Plastered my eyes to the front of the room. Tried so hard to appear attentive that I lost track of what Miss Cheerilee was actually saying.

"Blah blah blah-erty blah blah blah," went Miss Cherrilee. While I caught my breath. Got my bearings.

It's over. My Rose Voice said to me. I can't believe my Hearth's Warming break is finally over. And this room! I've spent so much of my life here, but it all seems like a distant memory now. Something not at all real. Like a play within a play.

If I, for instance, got soooooo bored that I decided I didn't wanna be here anymore, I could just...leave.

I stared at the door. The idea blew my mind.

There were no guards. No war on the other end. Miss Cheerilee wasn't gonna throw on a daisy cloak, yank a whip out of her desk, and start flogging me if I didn't feel like learning. There was literally nothing preventing me from walking right-the-fuck out.

But still, I had to stay. Why? Because. Just...because.

"Eck, gross!" Diamond Tiara squealed. "What's on your hoof?"

I snapped awake. My classmates were gasping. All around me. Everywhere.

"Omigosh, Rose Petal, are you okay?" Scootaloo leaned in from my right, while everypony else leaned as far away from me as they could get.

"It's black!" Said a voice from behind me.

"Leave her alone," hollered Cliff from up front.

"Alright, class, that's enough," Miss Cheerilee said gravely. "Settle down."

But it wasn't enough. The murmuring commotion continued. Black black black black black.

"I said settle down." Miss Cheerilee's eyeballs turned into starehammers, and she pounded every child in class with them until she had real quiet.

Once the room was still enough to hear an ant hiccup, Miss Cheerilee softened her ocular weapons, and turned to me. "Rose Petal," she said gently. "Are you alright?"

"Huh? What?" I asked. Genuinely taken aback. Miss Cheerilee had never shown so much concern over our social standing before, even when Diamond Tiara was actively bullying us. "Um...Yeah? Of course. I'm fine."

"Good." She whipped out that sunny smile of hers once again, and continued. "What I was trying to tell you is that everypony here is special, and I want to go around the room, and hear from all of you about how you spent your Hearth's Warming vacations."

She turned to me. Again.

"Rose, a lot of your classmates have questions about your hoof. Would you feel comfortable standing up and going first?"

"Sure," I said.

But I wasn't. I still didn't know what to tell them. At least in a way that they could understand. What's more, it weirded me out that Miss Cheerilee had asked me if I was comfortable getting up and talking. Normally she just called on you, and you had to...well...do it.

I rose to my hooves. Cleared my throat. Then cleared it again. Looked at the kids all around me. Watching me with troubled eyes.

"Uh...How I spent my vacation," I recited what I'd practiced at home. "This winter, I learned that old ponies have value - not that I thought they didn't have value before - but I had never really been friends with one either." I spoke in stilted, broken sentences, trying to remember all the alibi-stuff I'd written in my homework assignment, (rather than telling the truth and writing about my ventures into the Everfree, or the realms that lay beyond it). "I met Cranky by accident. He gave me hot soup when I was cold, and his fiancee, Matilda, is real nice too. I spent much of my vacation hanging out with them. Learning about, you know…old stuff. Getting hot cocoa that was real good. And hanging out, playing games with my friend Cliff. I also re-read a lot of my favorite Pinkbeard books because pirates are awesome."

I smiled nervously. Spun around. Everypony was still staring at my hoof, but pretending not to. Their eyes darted upward to my face the second they saw me looking.

"Right," I sighed. "My hoof."

With all those eyes on me - all those concernitty faces. Confused. Revolted. Curious. I shoulda been overtaken with the impulse to duck and hide. But I felt a delightful tingle in that hoof as it remembered the feel of Bananas Foster's tears of joy running down it. And a warmth filled my heart. Pride.

I held my entire foreleg up so the whole class could see it. "My hoof is black now. It's pretty much like any other hoof. It doesn't hurt." I knocked on the surface of my wooden desk with it. Everypony gasped. Like knocking on wood was some kinda magic trick. "It was weird at first," I continued. "But it's nothing to be afraid of. In fact, I think it's kinda cool."

The whole room was mesmerized by the sight of it.

"But how?" Scootaloo said. The only one not totally stunned into silence.

"I uh...don't really understand it," I said, lying my flank off. "That's doctor stuff."

"How does it feel?" She asked.

"Like a hoof," I said. Also lying. I wasn't about to get into the fact that it burned cold when shadowy clitweasels were near. Or that it still tingled with the sense-memory of my having plunged it through a dome and booped my immunocompromised changeling friend with it.

"Scootaloo, that's enough," Miss Cheerilee chimed in. Overprotective-like. Which I instantly fucking hated.

"It's okay," I said. And thrust my hoof out to Scootaloo. "See?"

She touched it lightly with her own. Clop. I spun around. Let Sweetie Belle touch it too. She was a little more hesitant, but she tapped it as well. Featherweight. Kettle Corn. One by one, all of my classmates touched my evil hoof. Saw it wasn't so evil. Even Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara reached out and gave it a tap. Just to save face.

"Well, isn't that sweet?" Miss Cheerilee said. "Thank you for that, Rose Petal. You can sit down now."

"Okay," I said. But before my flank even touched the chair, I shot to my hooves again. "Oh, um. Thank you, everypony, for um...Making me that card." I added awkwardly, embarrassed at having forgotten. "It was uh...great!" I forced a little chuckle.

After a few murmured your welcomes, it was Diamond Tiara's turn to stand up and share her story. "I spent my vacation wintering in a super exclusive ski resort in the Poconeighs. But that annoying blizzard made us leave, like...an entire week late. Those Cloudsdale pegasi don't know what they're doing. So I had to spend Hearth's Warming Eve...here."

She looked around the room, nose crinkled in disgust at the idea of having to spend Hearth's Warming at home. Like a peasant.

While she blah blah blah'd about the Poconeighs, I let my heart catch up with me. It pounded in my chest. Still exhilarated from the fear of public speaking. I clutched my desk. Took deep breaths. And revelled in how easy it had been. How my classmates had gone from freaked out to totally accepting in about two minutes flat. With a smile of relief on my face, I stole a glance at Cliff who mouthed a message of encouragement at me.

"You did amazing!" His silent lips seemed to say.

I sighed sighishly a sigh of deep sigh-y relief. But as the memories of the presentation I had just made a few minutes before settled inside my skull, I realized that something was wrong.

Looking down at my hoof, I remembered how everypony had touched it. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle to my right. Cliff and Apple Bloom in front. Featherweight and Peppermint Twist behind me, and Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara to my left. And every kid in between. All fifteen chairs if you didn't count mine. All fifteen kids.

But no Blueberry Milkshake.

I spun around to get a view again. To count everypony. To peek and see if maybe she was in the corner with the boot-and-coat cubbies, and Cliff and I had somehow managed to miss her or something.

No sign of her.

"Ahem," Miss Cheerilee cleared her throat, and looked at me sternly.

"Sorry," I said as I straightened my desk, and quit my squirming.

"I'm sorry, Silver Spoon," the teacher said. "I believe you were next?"

"Well," Silver Spoon looked down her muzzle at me, and said. "I spent much of my vacation in Canterlot. Doing high society stuff with my grandmother. She's a very important member of the Canterlot Garden Party Planning Committee, you know."

My eyes darted to the window. Was Blueberry late? Was she in trouble? Did it have something to do with that weird message she'd left in my get well card? "We need to talk."

I threw a glance at Cliff Diver, but he couldn't figure out what I was freaking out about, and I had no way of talking to him, so he just shook his head, all confuseitty.

"...And my grandmother got me another Silver Spoon. Like she does every year. Get it? Like me!" Silver Spoon clutched her own chest in pride.

Even Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes.

"But that's only the beginning." Silver Spoon continued. And continued...and continued, and continued, and continued, and continued, and continued.

As she rambled on about all of the material possessions she had gotten on Hearth's Warming - and believe me, they came in multitudes - I mulled the Blueberry question over in my head. But no matter what, it made no fucking sense. And I wasn't gonna get an answer out of anypony 'till I could open my mouth and ask. But I couldn't just yet because Silver Spoon was still rambling on, and Miss Cheerilee would totally freak out if I interrupted her. So I waited, and waited, and waited. While every nightmare scenario played in my head. Shadows. Cloak-o's. Illness. You name it, it plagued my brain. By the time that little bitch Silver Spoon shut up, I swear, I was jittering in my seat.

"Well," Miss Cheerilee said. "It sounds like your vacation was...eventful. Thank you, Ms. Spoon. Now, Featherweight, you're ne--;"

"Ooh! Ooh!" I threw my hoof up in the air and waved it all around.

"Rose Petal, you've already gone."

"No, no. I have a question."

Featherweight sighed in annoyance.

"Yes, Rose Petal?"

"Where's Blueberry Milkshake?"

Miss Cheerilee narrowed her eyes at me. "There will be plenty of time for snacks after class," she said. "Go on, Feather."

I was so flabbergasted, that I sat there in stunned silence while Featherweight started his presentation.

"This Hearth's Warming vacation, I went on a photography tour of Ponyville, and got some amazing shots. Not just sunsets, and clouds, but I captured moments between ponies. A sister's laughter. A secret kiss. A--;"

"No, Miss Cheerilee," I spoke up at last. "Blueberry Milkshake, the filly."

"Rose!" Miss Cheerilee barked. "You know better than to interrupt your classmates. Everypony deserves a chance to speak. I'm sorry, Feather." She nodded at Featherweight once again.

But before he could even open his mouth to speak, I hit Miss Cheerilee with a counter question.

"But is she coming?" I said. "I'm worried. Where is she?"

Miss Cheerilee came down the aisle between the desks and stood at my side. I wasn't sure if she was gonna snap at me, or give me quadruple-detention, or whatever. But that scowly face of hers softened when she actually looked into my eyes. I musta come off pretty scared.

"Class?" She said. "Rose Petal and I will be back in a moment. Be on your best behavior. Featherweight, I'm sorry - very sorry - we'll continue shortly."

Miss Cheerilee gestured for me to follow her. Next thing I knew, the two of us were standing just outside the door.

"Rose Petal, what's this all about?"

Her grave concern had a sort of weight to it. I had been so disruptive that I had somehow managed to transcend a state of being in trouble, and moved right on into Concernittyland. Somehow, that made me even more nervous.

"I just want to know why she's not in class," I said.

"Oh," she replied. "Is that the name of your little friend from the hospital? I know it must be hard to come to grips that she can't be here, bu--;"

"What? No," I said. "Blueberry Milkshake is a filly from your class. She's always been in your class. She used to sit…" I tried pleading with Miss Cheerilee desperately to remember, but when I stopped to think about it, I couldn't figure out which seat had been Blueberry's.

"It's a big day," my teacher knelt to my level and said. "And a big adjustment. But this isn't--;"

"No!" I said. "No. You honestly don't remember? She signed my get well card. The card you made the whole class put together."

"Rose, that's enough."

"Ask them," I said, flailing at the windows. Gesticulating wildly at my classmates inside.

But she didn't. She just knelt there, acting like something was wrong with me.

"Fine, I'll ask them."

I darted back inside. Ran straight to Cliff Diver. I'd only have time to ask one of my classmates, so it might as well be the kid I trusted most.

"Cliff, listen. You remember Blueberry Milkshake, right?"

I gripped him by the shoulders, but he just shook his head. "No. Who is she? What's wrong?"

"Rose Petal, enough." Miss Cheerilee was standing at the front of the class.

I turned to Apple Bloom, who sat right in front. My last hope for a straight answer.

But I didn't ask her. My eyes fell on the marble notebook she'd been doodling in, and I froze. Thinking of Great Aunt Roseroot's moldy old notebook room.

Is this how it all starts? The rambling? The shouting? The disconnect from those around me? The decades of solitude?

A small sea of troubled faces looked to me from their desks. They already thought I was crazy.

So in that moment, I decided I had to fake it. To plunge my flank into my chair and say, "Sorry, Miss Cheerilee. I um...had something stuck in my throat. I'm better now."

I flashed her a gigantic nervous smile. She raised an eyebrow at me, but thankfully, seemed willing to cut me a little slack.

"Well," she said. "If there are no further interruptions, Featherweight, please, continue. We'd all be delighted to hear how you spent your Hearth's Warming."

* * *

I sat there. For Celestia-only-knows how many hours, or years, or millennia. Empires could have risen and fallen outside the schoolhouse by the time it took Miss Cheerilee to get through the morning lesson. And I freaked out the whole time, tossing ideas around, and around, and around my head until I didn't even know what they were anymore. All I knew for sure was that Blueberry Milkshake was missing, and that nopony else seemed to notice.

Eventually, after countless duckyverses had had enough time to come into creation, evolve life, build massive civilizations, and crumble to dust like Columnland - after a billion infinities all tied together had passed - after sixeen kids told their Hearth's Warming stories, and Miss Cheerilee had finished with her own running commentary - morning lessons finally came to an end, and recess finally did roll around.

Everypony shot out the door. Made for the playground like ponies lost in a desert bolting suddenly at the first sign of water. But Miss Cheerilee stood at the door and stopped me before I could join them.

"Rose Petal, a moment of your time, please."

"Ooooooooh," went a murmur of faceless kids, already on the other side of the door.

Slam. Cheerilee closed it in their faces, and suddenly, we were alone. "You're not in trouble," she said. Though I saw through her trick. I totally was in trouble. "You've had a rough couple of months," she continued. "And there's clearly a lot on your mind."

Uh-oh.

"Do you want to tell me what's bothering you?"

I tried to tell you about Blueberry Milkshake, but you acted like I was crazy! My Rose Voice shouted indignantly from the inside of my brain. While I just shook my head in silence.

"I see," she replied. "Well, I'm here to help."

"Okay, thanks," I said meekly.

"Do you have other adults you can talk to?"

I nodded silently. But I realized how weird it musta looked. Cheerilee probably thought I was just nodding to get her off my back. So I threw out some names so she would know that I was telling the truth. "My sister, Roseluck," I said. "I tell her everything. And Cranky! I talk to him all the time." The word Zecora almost slipped right off my tongue. But I stopped it in time. 'Cause I'm not completely stupid.

"Well, good." Miss Cheerilee smiled. "In the meantime, maybe we can find some better way for you to express yourself so we can avoid future...outbursts."

"Sorry about that," I shrunk back and blushed.

"You're a very talented artist," she continued.

"I am?"

"Your eye-behind-the-wall picture was stunning."

"Oh, yeah," I said, suddenly recalling the prophetic portrait I'd scratched away during a dream-like frenzy in art class. "Strawberry Lemonade."

"Oh," Miss Cheerilee's face lit up. "She has a name? What's her story?"

My brain threw together a couple of quick calculations of what I could tell Miss Cheerilee, and what I couldn't. She clearly needed to hear something,or she was just gonna get more suspicious. More nosey-er.

"Strawberry Lemonade is a general who's gonna save Equestria someday," I said. "I just had to...you know...help her escape first."

"Such a lively cast of characters you have."

Harharharharhar. I laughed on the inside.

"Which is why," she continued. "During this afternoon's art class, I'd like it very much if you'd draw for me this...Blueberry Milkshake. It would be a great chance for you to share...whatever it is you're feeling...without disrupting the class."

I nodded. And then the room grew quiet. A silence punctuated by the raucous shouting of kids outside.

"Go on and play," Miss Cheerilee said at last.

"Thank you."

"And remember, I'm here if you want to talk, okay?" She added sweetly.

I nodded back at her. Out of respect. But she and I both knew I wasn't gonna take her up on it.

* * *

"What happened?" Cliff pounced me the second I got outside.

"Ahh!" I stumbled. Landed on my flank.

"Sorry." Cliff extended me a hoof. We locked forelegs and he pulled me up. "What happened?" He asked again, this time in a whisper.

"She wants me to...draw."

"Draw?"

"It's not important," I replied. "What matters is that Blueberry Milkshake disappeared, and nopony seems to remember that she even exists!"

"Who is Blueberry Milkshake?"

"My friend. She goes to our school. I swear she does."

"And Miss Cheerilee doesn't know her?"

"No," I said. "She thinks Blueberry is some...manifestation of...um...I don't even know! What do you think?" I pressed against him like I wanted his lunch money. "I really neeeeed one of your theories right now. And. I. Need. It. To. Make. Sense."

"Um...well…" Cliff laughed nervously. "You have been bouncing around time a bunch. Maybe you accidentally undid her existence?"

"What?!" I whisper-shouted. Trying desperately not to make a spectacle of myself.

"She's not dead! She's not dead," Cliff pleaded, using his most calming voice as he gestured with his neck that we should probably get as far away from everypony else as possible to try to steal ourselves a little privacy. "She's still around in your old universe."

"But now I'm here," I said. "In a Blueberry-Milkshake-less universe. And I never even got to talk to her about...well, I don't know what she needed to talk about. But I bet it was important!"

"Yeah," Cliff said. "That sucks." He kicked a tuft of grass as we strolled.

"But I only went into the future. How can I undo the present if I never messed with the past?"

"Well," Cliff paused to scratch his chin. "What if Blueberry Milkshake's grandmother was a time traveler, but you changed the course of her history when you rescued her in Trottica, and then she never met Blueberry's grandfather."

"No," I answered. "I got a note from Blueberry. In my get well card. In the hospital. Which means that she was still around after I got back from Trottica."

"That's not the point. It could have happened any number of ways."

"The blizzard," I said suddenly, stopping dead in my tracks. "Cliff, Princess Luna told me that she felt a disruption during the blizzard. But she didn't know what it was. Luna told me that the shadows would come after my friends as a way to try to get to me.

'All this time, we thought we won! But what if not all of my friends defeated them? Blueberry wasn't strong the way you and Foster and my sister are. What if she was the disturbance that Princess Luna felt? What if the shadows took her? And she's been in that castle this whole time. And I didn't even notice that she was gone?!"

I felt the ground drop from beneath me. Like one of those spinning carnival rides. I hadn't even noticed she was gone.

Cliff put a hoof on my shoulder. And I started to tremble.

"When the shadows take you they just..take you, right?" I muttered to myself. "They can't just go around erasing ponies. Emelia Mareheart was a legend because everypony noticed she was gone. They took Bananas Foster, and they killed her entire hive, but everypony in Equestria still remembers the changeling attack."

I looked up to Cliff, eyes wild and desperate.

"I dunno," he said, suddenly flustered. Nervous. I'd just put a lot of pressure on him. "That sounds right. But you're the shadow expert."

"It's gotta be them," I said. "Maybe they just put a spell on everypony to forget."

"But then it wouldn't work on me," Cliff said. "Or Luna. We beat them. Remember?"

"Yeah, but can you even name everypony in our class right now?" I challenged Cliff.

"Uhhh…"

"That's what I thought."

"Ooh. Ooh! I got it." Cliff Diver leapt up and down. "The get well card. I don't know who, uh...disappeared Blueberry Milkshake, or why, but if it's some kinda memory magic, her message will still be there on the card. But if this is a whole other dimension where she never existed at all, the card won't have her message on it."

"You're right." I leapt up. "Cover for me."

"What?"

"It's not that far if I gallop. I can make it back in time. I know I can."

I turned to run. But he threw a hoof in front of me. "You can't," he said grimly. Not like the oh-no, we'll get in trouble if we run away with the pirates character who showed up and almost ruined Pinkbeard and the Legend of the Sunken Meadow with his annoyingness.

No. Cliff wasn't whiny at all. He was dead. Fucking. Serious.

"This is a small town," he said. "Ponies talk. And right now my mom gets to talk about what a good influence you are. And Roseluck gets to talk about how helpful and responsible you are. And the whole town stopped their talking about what happened between you and Kettle Corn 'cause Pinkie Pie did some weird...Pinkie spell on them. But you can't let yourself become the kid who ditches school. You can't, Rose. You're running out of second chances."

"But Blueberry," I protested.

"Nothing you do in the next few hours is going to make a difference for Blueberry. We'll figure this out, but we have to lie low while we do it."

I sighed. Stomped the ground in frustration. 'Cause I knew he was right.

And for a moment, I even missed the Wasteland. Where, if I got a feeling, I just sorta acted on it. Where, if I saw something wrong, I got to...you know...fight it.

In the 'real world'? Where everything looks normal? You have to pretend that everything's okay. Even when it isn't.

You gotta treat fighting the good fight - saving Equestria - stomping shadow-majigs - like it's a fucking hobby. Even when it's a crushing responsibility. The only alternative is suffering the Rose family blood curse - ending up like Great Aunt Roseroot.

"Fine," I said softly. "I'll stay."

"We'll figure this out," Cliff repeated. "I promise."

I nodded back at him. And silently contemplated the words of the Great Sorcerer Planktoneth. About puzzle pieces. About the bonds between us - large and small - holding the world together.

What happens when a piece goes missing? It leaves a hole in the universe, that's what. And what does that mean for all of us? What did it mean for Blueberry?

I had no fucking idea.

* * *

We filed back into class. And I geared myself up for some doodling. 'Cause maybe Miss Cheerilee was right. Maybe drawing Blueberry Milkshake would do me some good. If only to prove that somepony remembered her face.

But art wasn't the first thing we did when we got back from lunch/recess.

"Okay, class," Miss Cheerilee said. "We talked about what you did for Hearth's Warming, and I was delighted to hear from all of you. Now I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about what you learned."

Everypony groaned. And I sighed in disappointment too, letting the colored pencils spill out of my mouth. But even though we weren't drawing yet, the lesson still got unexpectedly interesting from there.

"Now, who can tell me what the moral of the first Hearth's Warming is?"

Diamond Tiara's hoof shot up. Miss Cheerilee nodded in her direction.

"That earth ponies, like, control like, everything, and shouldn't be poor."

Leave it to the richest girl in town to find a way to play the victim.

"Um...yes," Miss Cheerilee replied. "That is true, but it's about more than just earth ponies. Anypony else?"

Sweetie Belle raised her hoof. "That earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns should get along," she squeaked that final word.

"And that it's up to common everyday ponies like you and me to lead the way," Apple Bloom added when called on.

"That's right," Miss Cheerilee replied.

While I yawned. Arched my back. Stretched out my forehooves. Next thing I know, I'm in the spotlight. Again.

"Yes, Rose Petal, what would you like to add?" Miss Cheerilee asked with a smile.

"What?" I said. "Me?"

"Mhm." Cheerilee nodded with an eager smile. She was giving me a chance to stand up in front of the class, and say something not totally crazy.

"Um, hi," I began. "Uhh...I actually did a lot of independent reading on the Founding Sisters during my vacation."

"Oh, really?" Miss Cheerilee lit up, smile brighter even than before.

"Yeah," I said. "This book called Ponies' History of Equestria. It tells the story not only of the Founding Sisters, but of everyday ponies living during that time period. I also read a bunch of excerpts of letters and stuff that the Founding Sisters sent to one another decades after the first Hearth's Warming."

One look around the classroom told me that my peers were unimpressed.

"No, really," I said. "It sounds totally boring, but it's not! Like, the whole reason Discord showed up in the first place was 'cause their kingdom was already falling apart."

The kids, naturally drawn to gossip, slowly - one-by-one - quit their slouching in their seats, and sat up to listen.

"It's true!" I said. "The Founding Sisters decided that the best way to govern a kingdom founded on friendship was to divide up all the responsibilities. Six founding sisters. Six cities. Smart Cookie got all wrapped up in trying to provide the most efficient production for everypony's needs. 'Tilling the land and all that. Chancellor Puddinghead founded Fillydelphia, and got all involved in parties, and banquets, and cakes and stuff to try to maintain morale, and raise funds. Commander Hurricane helped found the Wonderbolts, but judging by the letters that the Founding Sisters sent to each other, she also had all sorts of super secret projects....And, uh, nopony ever found out what happened to Clover the Clever. Who disappeared entirely. She had been the lynchpin that held their group of friends together - that held the nation together. Until she got super reclusive and stopped responding to letters."

"Clover the Clever stopped valuing her friends?" Miss Cheerilee raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"No, really," I said. "It's really, really, really, really true. It's all in the letters they sent each other. They met every Hearth's Warming. And that had helped ground them - not just as governors of these vast cities full of ponies, but also as friends. But over the years, they drifted apart, and once the nation wasn't held together by friendship anymore, that's when Discord came."

I looked around the room and saw hungry eyes. In the heat of the moment, I ground my teeth, and made the split second decision to drop the bomb. The most shocking piece of revelation to come out of the Ponies' History of Equestria. "Private Pansy," I said with something of a flare for the dramatic. "She's the one who invited Discord."

"Excuse me?" Miss Cheerile said.

"She did!" I replied. "There are all these letters that the Founding Sisters sent to one another. Wondering what Private Pansy thought she was doing. But actually, it was just hope. Desperation. She found Discord - somehow, nopony knows - and she saw his power as something strong enough to heal the wounds of an Equestria already deep in decline. Pansy thought his powers could be used for friendship. It didn't even occur to her that it would lead to conquest. You should read the letter Commander Hurricane wrote condemning Pansy! It's pretty harsh.

'But she was doing her best. 'Cause she always wanted the best for everypony. She was the kindest, most mild-mannered of the Founding Sisters. Maybe not even cut out for government and leadership. But when Pansy was with her friends, they gave her strength. And when they were with her, she empowered them with compassion, and acted as a voice for the voiceless.

'But she lost sight of that," I said suddenly crushed by an oppressive realization. "They all did. Can you imagine how much regret she musta felt? After ruining her country? Betraying her friends? I wonder if Blueberry Milkshake ever forgave her." I whispered that last part and hung my head in silence. Just for a moment.

"Uh...I mean, what I learned this Hearth's Warming was that it's not enough to simply defeat evil. The price of friendship is, like...eternal vigilance, or something. I think some smart mare said that once. And the point of discussing their decline isn't that the Founding Sisters are terrible because they failed. The point is that they're wonderful because they succeeded, and they're not these perfect beings history makes them out to be. They were flawed like you or me! Just 'cause what they built fell apart in the end doesn't mean that it wasn't worth building. It eventually became the Equestria we know today. 'Cause we had great princesses step up, and do awesome princessy things." The mere thought of Celestia and Luna warmed my heart. Filled it with faith in all ponykind. "But even they fought," I said, suddenly realizing that the problems the Founding Sisters faced were no different than the ones the princesses did. "Princess Luna's friendship with her sister fell apart, and that hurt Equestria too, but even a thousand years later, they got it together," I said. "And that's what we've all got to do if history isn't gonna repeat itself, and Equestria isn't gonna fall apart."

"Ugh. Why would what we do make Equestria fall apart? We're not, like, princesses, though I admit, I kinda come close." Diamond Tiara smirked.

"It could!" I exclaimed. "We all matter!"

"That's enough," Miss Cheerilee said. "Thank you, Rose. For a very...impassioned plea for friendship, and a thoroughly researched (if unorthodox) analysis. I didn't know you had such love for history."

"I didn't used to," I said shyly. "The, uh...hospital has a great library."

Next thing I knew, all my classmates were leaning up close to me. Asking questions.

"Commander Hurricane had secret projects?" Scootaloo said. "Tell me more. That sounds awesome."

"What about Princess Platinum?" Sweetie Belle asked. "You didn't mention what she did."

* * *

Eventually the excitement dissipated, everypony made their presentations, and art class rolled around. I doodled Blueberry Milkshake. Exactly as I remembered her. Blue. Happy. In a paper pirate hat. Just like we used to play.

I was a bit unsure at first, but once I started scratching my pencils against the paper, her face came back to me. Little details. Like her tiny blue freckles. Her stubby little eyelashes. The way her cheeks always blushed bright pink in the cold.

It made her all the more real to me. Banished any doubt I'd had about my own sanity. It painted a vivid picture of Blueberry and imprinted it directly into my brain. Never to be forgotten. Even if the scribbles themselves didn't look like much.

I drew us in a field. Me and her both. And utterly lost myself in those squiggly plains. As though I were actually there. Surrounded by smiley sunshine, and zigzaggy blades of grass. It was a happy vision. Borne of a sane mind.

Or so I thought.

"Ooh, how lovely," said Miss Cheerilee as she leaned over my shoulder.

"Ahh!" I nearly leapt out of my seat. She'd used her teacher powers to sneak up on me.

"What's that?" Miss Cheerilee extended a hoof, and pointed at a little rectangle behind Blueberry Milkshake that I didn't remember drawing.

"Uh...it looks like...a door," I said.

It was standing freely in the field. Cracked halfway open. With little spirals of color on the inside. Tendrils of energy reaching out. Black inky bits clawing from the depths of the cosmic purples.

"Well, isn't that creative?" She replied, almost condescendingly. "Where does it go?"

I stared at my own work. The abyss beyond the door. The layers of black crayon-wax piled over the aggressive pencil strokes. A small yellow shape seemed to float out from the doorway - a rubber ducky. Intruding where it didn't fucking belong.

"I don't know," I whispered.

"Well," she said. "I, for one, like that you left it up to the imagination. That's the mark of a true artiste."

"Thanks," I said reflexively as I stared at the page. Wondering where the door led. What kinda ducky was intruding upon our world. What the shadowy claws could have been up to. And most of all, how I'd managed to doodle it all without even realizing.

Gong. The school bell brought the class to its hooves. Pencils slid into saddle bags. Flanks leapt out of seats. Boots slid over forelegs, and scurried toward the door.

"Miss Cheerilee?" A little voice called out from behind us both. It was Kettle Corn, with a piece of construction paper gripped in her teeth. "I used ink on mine. Do you have a place that I can let it dry?"

"Of course," our teacher answered as she took the drawing - a plain and simple ring (that didn't quite complete itself) - and pinned it to the cork bulletin board in the corner. "It's lovely."

"Thanks." Kettle Corn beamed. "It's a circle!" Then Kettle Corn skipped out of the classroom as Cliff and I rushed to get our things.

* * *

Cliff and I hauled flank out of the schoolyard like our tails were on fire. Past the other kids. Down the road. Past the sofa and quills store.Galloping galloping galloping. Trees and bushes and meandering school fillies whizzing by.

Cliff was faster than me. And somehow, even more eager to find out what the fuck was going on than I was. "What do we do if her note isn't there?" He called to me over his shoulder.

"Thank Celestia that the shadows didn't get her," I panted. Though even as the words left my mouth, I wasn't so sure. 'Cause my scribble of the crayon claw had chiseled itself into my memory like some kinda brain scar.

Was it a message? A cry for help from Blueberry somewhere in the lands beyond? Or a fear? A mere projection of my most devastating anxieties and my darkest of nightmares?

"And if her note is there?" He said. "Do you think we can follow it like a hair in your mojo bag?"

I stumbled. Tripped. Came crashing down knees first onto the road, which thankfully, had started to thaw a little, and was no longer made of jagged icy dirt clumps.

"Whoa, are you okay?" Cliff skidded and spun around.

"Yeah," I said, as I grabbed a shrub with my teeth and pulled myself up to my hooves. "I just...hadn't thought of that. I hope we can!"

The two of us charged home as fast as we possibly could. Skidded on the rug passed the front door. Stumbled over one another, all pretzel-like as I whacked into the bannister post on my way in, and stormed the staircase like it was the Great Hill of Seaopolis in the Battle of Jagged Rock in Chapter 27 of Pinkbeard and the Liberation of the Barnacle Girls. Shedding articles of winter clothing as we ascended.

I flung open my bedroom door. Lunged over my bed, and plunged my face into the pile in the corner 'till I found what I needed. The get well card that Cheerilee's entire class had sent me.

I flung it open. Ran my hoof over the oak tag, and found the answer I was looking for.

"It's blank," I said.

"You sure?" Cliff panted.

"Yeah!" I exclaimed. "It was right here." I tapped the page. Pointed to the spot under Scootaloo's signature. "I hid Misty Mountain's tail hair in this card for days. Tucked it right into the dried up old paste that Blueberry had used to try to cover up her original message."

We need to talk.

"It's not there! The message. The paste. None of it. Look!" I pointed to the spot (that would, of course, mean nothing to Cliff 'cause he had never examined the card as thoroughly as me, nor had he depended on it to protect the only relic of his travels to the future). "I'm telling you. It was there!"

"Okay," Cliff said. "Let me just sit down a minute." He pulled up a stool. And stared into nothing.

"So is it one of those other dimension things?" I asked. "What do we do?"

"I don't know." Cliff rubbed his temples with his forehooves. "Give me a minute. I wasn't prepared for this."

"How do we find her?" I pressed him.

"I don't know," he repeated. "Give. Me. A. Minute. I. Was. Not. Prepared. For. This."
Cliff Diver panted. Caught his breath. Ran his hoof through his mane. "I...I...I, um…" Cliff struggled for words, but never got the chance to assemble them.

'Cause just then, my sister came storming in. "What is this? You two are just leaving your coats and boots all over the staircase, now?"

"Blueberry Milkshake's gone," I said somberly.

"Who?"

"Ugh!" I planted my face on the floor.

* * *

"I don't understand," Roseluck said as she led us both down the staircase.

"Neither do we," Cliff replied as he ran ahead of her, gathering up the layers of clothing we both had shed.

"Well, that was a nice 'hello,'" came a gruff voice from deep inside the living room.

"Cranky?"

"Who else?" He replied, not bothering to get up, or abandon the fire he was warming himself by.

"What brings you here?" Cliff was the one blunt enough to ask the obvious question.

"Just dropping off a cake Matilda baked you. I was gonna just leave it and go so that you kids would find it here when you got home from school. But these bones need a rest, and Roseluck was kind enough to make some tea, and…" Cranky leaned over, glanced at the clock on the mantel. "How'd you two get here so fast? School ended five minutes ago."

"We ran," I said.

"What's wrong?" He spun in the La-Z-Colt chair that had once belonged to my father.

"Blueberry Milkshake is missing!" Cliff and I said, both at once.

"Who?"

"An imaginary friend of theirs," my sister replied.

"She is not imaginary," I told her.

"She's from another dimension," Cliff answered.

"We don't know that," I said.

"But, come on! It's gotta be the answer," Cliff snapped. "It's the only answer."

"Then technically, wouldn't I be from another dimension, too?"

"Huh? Who? What now?" Cranky said. "Why don't you two start from the beginning?"

My sister looked to me. While Cliff Diver hung our stuff up. And I told them. About my experience in the classroom. How Blueberry Milkshake had signed my get well card. How her signature was gone. How, yes, I was 100% absolutely one-hundred percent positive that she had signed it in the first place. And yes, I knew for sure because it was Blueberry's clumsy pasting job that allowed me to wedge Misty Mountain's tail hair in there ('till I could find a better place for it).

To which Cranky, of course, replied, "Who in the hay is Misty Mountain, and why were you storing his tail for him?"

"It's not important," Cliff answered.

But I had already moved on from the subject altogether. The answer wasn't in the tail hair, but in my saddle bag.

I bolted for the pile that Cliff had made by the banister. And dug it out - the drawing I had scribbled in art class not ten minutes before.

I slapped it down on the coffee table. And clop! Pointed to my doodle of the door. The colors. The scribbley cosmos. The ducky. The shadowy claw.

"There." I smacked the page again. "I don't even remember drawing that."

And to my utter shock, when I looked up at Cranky, his complexion had gone totally, completely white.

"This is serious, kid."

"It is?!" Cliff and I exclaimed in unison. We were so accustomed to getting dismissed by Miss Cheerilee that we couldn't believe our ears.

"You kids have a seat," he said. "You too." He gestured at Roseluck. "You should know what's going on."

"Not long ago, under the bridges of Las Pegasus, there was a mare by the name of Shoestruck," Cranky said. "I'd stayed in her encampment for a couple of months. While investigating the hotels for signs of Matilda. Signatures in all the ledgers. Watching the influx of ponies. Coming in and out. It's such a hot vacation spot, I figured that Matilda would have to come there eventually. Anyway...

'Shoestruck was staying with a band of Travelers around that time. And we were all pretty tightly knit. Knew everything there was to know about one another. Our hopes, our dreams. What drove us. What haunted us.

'And all of us'd tangled with the shadows at some point or another, so we had our share of ghost stories - some real, some exaggerated, some completely imagined. (Though it was always easy to spot the difference). But I'll never forget the night the big storm came."

"A storm?" I whimpered. Knowing full well where his story was going.

"Yeah," Cranky said. "Unexpected. Unplanned for. Downright unnatural to strike in the middle of a desert town like Las Pegasus." The old donkey shook his head. "The rains were cold and heavy. The fog was dense as cotton. And the next morning, all our stuff was ruined. Washed away.

'Shoestruck was shouting. Turning boxes over frantically. Charging into storefronts. Even though Travelers'd always had an unspoken truce with shopkeepers - we'd leave them alone if they left us alone. Shoestruck barged through every door she could, and got thrown right back out of each and every one of them. Calling for somepony the whole time. "Candy Shine," she said again and again and again. "Candy Shine. Candy Shine. Candy Shine!"

'And when she came to me, all panicked, and crazy-eyed, she said, "Cranky, have you seen my daughter? Have you seen Candy Shine?"

'Before I could even say a word, she read the confusion on my face, and threw her hooves into the air. "Not you too," she cried. "Not you too.""

Cranky sighed. Rubbed his eyes. "Me and Shoe had been close. Slept in tents that were practically next to one another. But I had never heard her mention anypony named Candy Shine. Much less actually seen the kid.

'But Shoestruck was convinced," Cranky looked to each of us, eyes sharp and fiery. "She swore that Candy had been right there in the camp with us. For months! She told me stories of checker games I had lost with her. A bracelet that I had given her just the week before. But when I checked my suitcase, I saw that it was still there. In its original wrapping. I hadn't even told Shoestruck it existed."

Cranky stopped to stare at his own hooves. "I should have believed her earlier," he said. "I should have done more."

"What happened?" Cliff asked.

"Shoestruck up and disappeared," Cranky said softly. "Jumped off the Hoofer Dam. Or so they say," Cranky added softly. "One day, she's talking 'bout how her daughter has to be around somewhere. Next day, she's swearing the shadows musta took her. Erased all signs that Candy Shine had ever even existed. Memories from her closest friends. Loved ones. Family. The entire tribe of Travelers who supposedly knew poor Candy. Treated her like she was our own." Cranky shook his head. "Not one of us could remember. Except Shoe. And now she's gone too." The old donkey stopped, looked up at the ceiling. Made a gesture with his hooves that I didn't recognize. And shut his watery eyes.

Afterwards, he sat there - still as the saddest statue - for Luna-only-knows how long. While the three of us stewed in our quiet shock.

"There's nothing in the playbook for this," he said at last. "Nothing in the legends. Nothing in the stories. Or the songs." Cranky lifted his head and looked to Cliff Diver and me. "The shadows never done that before, kid. Just up and erased a pony. Out of thin air, like they never mattered - like they never existed."

Cranky's warbly voice drifted to silence. While my eyes drifted to that picture I'd drawn. To that door. To that claw. Reaching out of nowhere for Blueberry Milkshake. While we were busy being stupid. Unsuspecting. Happy. Innocent.

She'd been gone for over two months thanks to our long Ponyville school breaks. And nopony had noticed at all. Even now! Nopony remembered her but me.

Princess Luna had told me once that the shadows would use my friends. Turn my conscience against me. Make me desperate enough to try and storm their evil castle.

I promised her I wouldn't.

But that was before Blueberry was gone. Before the world forgot. The Sorcerer Planktoneth's Great Puzzle had shattered and shed one of its pieces, and left a great big Blueberry Milkshake-shaped hole in the world.

Open for those shadowy clitweasels to reach through. Until somepony fixed it.

Knock, knock, knock.

The four of us looked to one another. Too shocked and saddened to even think about getting up. Especially when Cranky was kinda sorta in the middle of a massively heavy moment.

"It's okay," Roseluck said. "Whoever it is can just come ba--;"

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

The door rumbled more urgently than before.

Cranky sighed. "You'd better get that."

"Are you sure?" Said my sister.

"Yes," he grumbled. "Of course I'm sure."

"What if it's my mom again?" Cliff cowered.

"What if it's Cheerilee?" My own voice trembled just as hard.

"It's probably just--" Roseluck attempted to sound reassuring, but got sidetracked. "...Wait a minute," she said suspiciously. "Rose Petal, what did you do?"

I grinned nervously in reply.

"Oh, for the love of…" Cranky groaned his way out of the chair. Rose to his hooves, stomped across the living room, swung open the door, and…

Squeak! A giant burst of confetti blew his wig clean off.

"Pinkie!" Cranky growled.

"Oh, gee," came that familiar voice from just outside my door. "I'm reeeally sorry, Cranky. That party canon was meant for Rose Petal."

"It was?" I clopped my way over to the foyer.

"Yes, of course, silly!" She said. "You wouldn't believe what happened just a few minutes ago at the ice cream parlor! I was topping off my fifth magical surprise super special banana split sundae with butterscotch and cherries on top - like I do every Monday - when suddenly, both my ears started flopping, and my eyes went crazy like this," Pinkie shook her head and let her eyeballs roll around like a googly puppet. "And then my tail straightened!"

"Oh, dear," Roseluck said, suddenly taking cover under the doorframe. "What does that mean?"

"It's a new one," Pinkie Pie replied. "And a doozy. And I don't reeeally understand yet, but I knew I had to get you this!"

Pinkie reached into her mane, and produced a paper bag. Passed it to me with her teeth.

"Um, thanks," I mumbled, mouthful of bag.

"Careful," she said. "Keep it right side up."

I lowered the bag onto the ground. Gingerly. "What is it?" I asked.

"Well," Pinkie Pie replied. "After my ears started flopping, and my eyes went crazy like this," Pinkie shook her head and let her eyes roll around like a googly puppet again. "And my tail straightened, I knew you desperately needed a gift."

I pulled a to-go cup out of the bag.

"It's a blueberry milkshake," she said. "I don't know why, but I got the feeling you were missing one."

Author's Note

CHARITY
All Patreon proceeds for this chapter will be donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

SPECIAL THANKS: As always, I would like to thank Seraphem for his tireless assistance providing feedback during the editing process, and Kkat for writing the original Fallout: Equestria story that inspired me to write Hooves of Fate in the first place.

THOUGHTS and REFLECTIONS
As you've probably noticed, this chapter came out faster than ever before. We have quarantine to thank for that, but sadly, (and thankfully) that furlough is coming to an end, so it's unlikely that I'll be able to produce the next chapter in a mere two weeks.

Also, something about this chapter simply wrote itself. Normally, I drive my proofreader friends crazy, but this time around, there were hardly any adjustments to make in my second draft.

Once again, I find myself tackling storylines that I planned very, very, very long ago, and it's unspeakably exciting. After years of laying down groundwork, and developing smaller stories within Hooves of Fate, the big one is finally taking shape in ways I'd never dreamt of before.

Watching it all come together is an exhilarating experience, and I'm thrilled to be sharing it with all of you, who have been so patiently following Rose's adventures over the last seven years. I can't wait to hear your comments.

Also, this chapter is being released today in honor of Walpurgisnacht / May Day.

CONTINUITY NOTE:
In the show, the Ponyville Schoolhouse is generally depicted as having three rows of three - nine chairs total. Schoolfillies cycle in and out of the background pony seats depending on their importance to the plot. This is a visual choice made by animators, but we know from recess scenes that there are actually a lot more kids in school than that.

I made a conscious decision to characterize Rose's class as having sixteen kids (four rows of four) so that it would be believably crowded, but not too crowded. Keeping it as nine would raise a lot of weird questions like "where are Snips and Snails, why didn't you mention them by name, are they gone too?" I always got the impression from the show that Miss Cheerilee's class was implied to be larger than it appears, and that the nine seats were merely a visual choice made for ascetic/simplicity's sake. So I kindly ask you not to look too deeply into this particular detail.

What Scares Me Most

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE - WHAT SCARES ME MOST
"The idea was fantastically, wildly improbable. But like most fantastically, wildly improbable ideas it was at least as worthy of consideration as a more mundane one to which the facts had been strenuously bent to fit." - Douglas Adams

"Oh, no!" Said Pinkie Pie. "That's terrible! I never meant for my ear flappy, eye rolly, tail-straighty gift to remind you of something like that." She hung her head as her mane deflated. But before any of us could say a word, she shrieked. Leapt up in the air. "Oh my gosh! I hope Blueberry Milkshake is okay."

"We all do," I said.

"But there's hope now," Cliff exclaimed."Think, Pinkie! Are you sure you don't remember a filly named Blueberry Milkshake?"

"I'm sure," she replied broken-heartedly. "I know everypony in town."

"Maybe the information is hidden," Cliff added with just a hint of optimism. "Think about any dreams you might have had."

"Weelll," Pinkie Pie scratched her head. "There was this one dream. It was billions, and billions, and billions of moons in the future, and tapioca pudding ruled Equestria. But the Butterscotch Princess didn't like the Tapioca Queen. And a war seemed imminent. So I ate it all. And the problem was solved. And it was goooood." Pinkie Pie licked her lips and stared off into space

"Well, that's...a start," said Roseluck.

"Outta the way, let me try," Cranky said as he barged up to Pinkie Pie. "Hey kid, what's Blueberry Milkshake's birthday?"

"Um..."

"Her favorite ice cream topping?"

"Um..."

"What types of cupcake does she like?"

"Um..."

"She doesn't remember," Cranky said definitively.

"I'm so sorry," Pinkie replied. "I wish I could do more to help. If this is some kind of magic problem, you're better off talking to Twilight." Pinkie Pie slouched. Just for a moment before gasping yet again - leaping four feet in the air, and lunging at me with a smile. "Hey!" She said. "You'd be better off talking to Twilight! If anypony can answer a magic question it's her."

"I'm not sure it's that kind of magi--;" I replied.

But it was too late. Pinkie Pie had already slammed my coat on me, picked me up, dropped me into my boots, and dragged me out the door.

"Thank Matilda for the cake!" I cried out from halfway down the road.

Cliff wrestled with his coat, and hat, and scarf and boots, even as he attempted to run after us.

"Wait!" My sister called after me.

But there was no stopping Pinkie. She pogo-bounced down the road faster than I had ever run before. Faster even than a carriage, or the Friendship Express.

I had no choice. I'd have to touch base with Roseluck later. "I'll be back by dark!" I shouted. And hoped that she wouldn't be too mad at me.

But looking up at the sky, I remembered that the day was halfway over, and back by dark was a tough promise to fulfill. Because fucking school had eaten half the day. And I still had to talk to Twilight Sparkle, and Bananas Foster. And Zecora! And…

"Princess Luna!" Cliff Diver shouted.

"Where?!" Pinkie Pie skidded to a halt.

And Bam! We both went tumbling down.

"No," Cliff said, finally catching up to us - finally tugging loose the scarf that had gotten caught in his sleeve when he'd suited up. "She's not here. But maybe we can send for her!"

"I'm pretty sure you can't just summon a Princess and expect her to come running," Pinkie Pie rose to her hooves, suddenly the voice of reason.

"Well, obviously," Cliff babbled. "I mean, like, but Princess Luna would wanna know about this. And Spike can - I dunno - maybe send a letter or something."

"I'm preeeetty sure it doesn't work that way," Pinkie said. "But you can ask Spike yourself. The library is right there."

A lock of Pinkie's hair plunged itself into the rest of her cotton candy mane, and produced the to-go cup with the milkshake in it. "Here," she said. "Drink it before it melts."

"Um...thanks?" I took a shy little slip of the shake while Pinkie Pie's mane produced a whole other banana split sundae which she shoved into her own mouth. Whole.

"Helloo?" Knock knock knock, knock-knock. Cliff Diver ran ahead and pounded eagerly on the door of the Golden Oak Library. Knock knock knock, knock-knock! "Anypony there?"

"No, no, no-no no," Pinkie Pie said. "You can't just run up to Twilight's library, and bang on it like that."

Cliff shrunk back, coyed.

"You've got to run up to Twilight's library, and bang on it like this!" Pinkie hurled herself at the door. Flailing and pounding. "Twilight!" She hollered. "Twilight! You've gotta let me in!" Pound! Thud! Thud!

The door swung open, and Pinkie Pie fell forward. Out stepped Spike, who leaned over her as she lay prostrate on the ground. "What is it, Pinkie?" He said. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, hi, Spike," Pinkie laughed. "How are you doing?"

"Um...Okay, I guess. What's...going on?"

"My friends here have a super incredibly important question to ask Twilight." Pinkie sprung up to her hooves. "Is she around?"

"Yeah," Spike answered. "But she's kind of busy ri--;"

"Great!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed. She turned to Cliff and me. "Come on."

Mortified by the scene she'd just made, I flashed Spike a little smile. I barely knew the guy (or the town librarian he lived with), but he seemed unfazed by Pinkie Pie. If anything, it was Cliff Diver who got the little dragon's scales all in a bunch.

'Cause as Spike stepped aside to usher us into the library, he looked Cliff directly in the eyeballs. "Before you ask," Spike sighed. "No, the princesses aren't space aliens, and no, I'm not sending Celestia your fan mail."

"What about Luna?" Cliff chuckled anxiously.

Spike grunted in reply.

We made our way through this weird, winding hallway of a foyer which emptied out into the main library. There were books everywhere - and I don't mean on the shelves. Twilight Sparkle was sitting in the middle of the room - literally surrounded on all sides by piles and piles and piles of books. The ones that weren't sitting in heaping mounds on the ground were floating here and there, and left and right - around, and around, and around, and around, and around.

Seeing the chaos. The books all over the place. The empty shelves. The piles of disheveled papers. My brain's inner eye flashed suddenly alive. I remembered the horrors I saw the last time I'd tried to enter the library. The scorch marks on the walls. The battle damage. The blood.

And the solitary tome that had remained on the podium. A green book. Open. Unscathed. Those pages had called to me. In one of my first visions ever.

It'd happened on the day I met Cliff. And there I was, a million, billion, trillion adventures later, and I still had yet to find that stupid book. Or even gotten a second clue as to what it might mean.

"Oh, hi, Pinkie," Twilight Sparkle said.

I shrieked. Stumbled. Startled back to reality by the librarian's voice

"...And...um...friends," Twilight continued, looking confusedly at Cliff Diver and I. "As you can see, I'm very busy. I've got all of these books to organize."

"...Again," Spike added, a touch of bitterness in his voice.

"Yeah, that's great, Twilight." Pinkie Pie said hurriedly. "Listen. These kids have a super incredibly important question. Like reeeeeeeeeeally important."

"Oh, well, I'm always glad to help inquisitive young minds. What is it?"

Pinkie Pie leaned in to whisper. "Where is Blueberry Milkshake?"

"Um...Isn't that one right there?" Twilight pointed at the to-go cup I was slurping from. And my blue-stained lip.

"No. Not the delectable ice cream drink," Pinkie explained. "The pony."

"Blueberry's my friend," I said.

"Well, I don't know anypony by that name," Twilight replied.

"Of course you don't," said Cliff. "She's been erased from your memory, and Rose Petal's greeting card too! Which is why we need your help!"

"Come again?" All of Twilight's levitating books suddenly knocked into one another and came crashing to the ground.

"It's true!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed. "Rose Petal has been journeying through lots and lots and lots of duckies, and when she got back, there was that awful blizzard, remember? When I first saw it, I said 'Ahh!'...'Cause it wasn't supposed to happen!

'Anyway, now Rose Petal's friend, Blueberry Milkshake, is gone, but nopony remembers that she exists except for Rose Petal - not even Miss Cheerilee. Only really powerful magic could make that happen, so I brought them here. 'Cause nopony knows more about really powerful magic than you!"

I buried my face in my hooves.

"A missing child is very serious," Twilight said. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," Pinkie Pie squeaked. "Would I be here if I wasn't?"

"Ehhh…."

"Listen," I butted in. "I know it sounds crazy, but Blueberry Milkshake has been my friend for years. She went to my school. She signed my get well card when I was in the hospital. And now nopony remembers her at all. Miss Cheerilee doesn't know her. Pinkie Pie has no idea what her favorite cupcake flavor is. And my get well card is...well...blank where her message used to be. Is there any magic you know of that can do that?"

"I'm sorry," Twilight said. "That's simply impossible. To pull something like that off, you'd need some kind of...destiny spell. I think your imagination's running away with you, and taking Pinkie Pie's with it."

"No," I protested.

"Even Starswirl the Bearded couldn't do what you're talking about."

"But what if he could?" Cliff chimed in.

"I think I'd know about it," Twilight boasted. "I happen to have read every--;"

"What if he'd made the spell, and never cast it, and Blueberry Milkshake only disappeared now because, like, somecreature else got a hold of his beard magic?...Like nightmare demons! Who conquered the old wizard's secret...um, you know...beard castle!"

"Enough!" Twilight shouted. The sound of her voice echoed off the wooden walls until the air was still. "A missing child is a serious thing. You two shouldn't go around stirring up panic over it." Twilight turned to Pinkie Pie. "And you should know better than to get sucked into this nonsense. This is crazy, even for you."

"Heeey!" Pinkie Pie protested.

As they started to argue, I turned my tail and walked away.

"Where are you going?" Cliff Diver said.

"We don't have time for this. I've gotta talk to Bananas Foster - find out if she ever heard of this kinda pony erasure. And Zecora! She might know something too."

I stomped my way to the door. Feeling totally justified in storming out. After all, a librarian is supposed to be the ultimate pony you can turn to for finding out, like, book stuff, and knowledgosity. Just like a teacher is supposed to be the ultimate pony you can turn to if something is bothering you. 'Cause teachers are, like, the biggest, most important adult authority outside your family.

And even though I knew that what I was saying was crazy. Even though I had never expected to be believed at all, being rejected by both my teacher, and the town librarian in the span of just a few hours was actually kinda terrifying. It made me feel vulnerable. Exposed. Even more desperate than before. But most of all, it pissed me off.

So I flung the door open, ready to rage my way out of the library in Equestria's biggest huff. But I couldn't bring myself to set hoof on the other side.

"Pinkie Pie?" I hollered.

"Yeah?" Her neck stretched like a rubber band toward me, even as her body remained poised in full-argument-position facing Twilight.

"Thanks for your help," I said, slurping the milkshake she'd gotten me. Somehow, it made me feel like I was honoring Blueberry Milkshake. The pony. "I really do appreciate it."

"It was worth a try," she said with a sigh. "Sorry I wasn't able to help you more. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Okay."

Pinkie flashed us kids a smile before whipping back around, retracting her outstretched neck, and going back to shrieking at Twilight. "What do you mean, irrational?"

Cliff cringed so hard that he hugged up against me. Meanwhile, my stomach turned itself upside down in fear, and my Rose Voices formed a chorus that started chanting, What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?! Louder, and louder, and louder, and louder, and louder.

"Try not to take it personally," Spike appeared in the doorway suddenly, and said, "This kind of thing happens every now and again."

"Are you sure those two are gonna be okay?" Cliff Diver asked.

"...It's not scientifically possible!" Twilight Sparkle shouted at Pinkie Pie.

"Trust me," Spike used his best bragging voice in an attempt to sound reassuring. "In about twenty minutes or so, this will all be over and those two will be hugging up a storm."

"If you say so," I replied.

"Hey," he put a claw on my shoulder. Gently. "Whatever's happening, I'm sorry for what you're going through. And sorry we couldn't be more help to you."

"Thanks," It occured to me then how strange it was. To be given affection by a claw. It wasn't like a hoof, or even a griffon's talon. Dragons were deadly creatures - monstrous threats to all ponykind. But there he was. The most reasonable creature in the room.

"Does that mean you actually believe us?" Cliff asked, hope in his voice.

"Well, not exactly," Spike looked away awkwardly, and ran a claw over his head-scales as though they were a mane. "If Twilight says something's magically impossible, it probably is. But for what it's worth, I hope your friend turns up soon."

"Thanks," I hung my head and replied.

"In the meantime, you should take this!" Spike held up a sparkley blue book with diagrams of the stars all over it.

I lowered the milkshake, and took the beat up old tome in my teeth. "Starswirl the Bearded: His Life and Writings," I squinted and read the title out loud.

"It's an authoritative edition," Spike did his best Twilight Sparkle impression.

It was so spot on that Cliff snorted with laughter.

"Thank you," I said, lowering the book into Cliff's saddle bag. (Pinkie had left mine at home). "That's really kind of you."

Spike blushed. "It's nothing. We've got three copies. And Twilight would love to know that young minds are taking an interest."

"But you're the one lending it to us," Cliff said.

"I just hope you find what you're looking for." Spike answered somberly.

* * *

We wasted no time in getting to Bananas Foster's. It was the same walk we'd made every single day, but this time, Cliff and I were spurred by a silent urgency. The shadows cast by the trees were already leaning Eastward, and Cliff and I were sooo incredibly on the same page, that neither of us had anything in particular to say.

Bushes and cottages whizzed by. Then the Town Square. We dodged passers by, idle trotters, cart tuggers, and those who simply stood around socializing, enjoying the mild weather. We even had to weave between our own classmates.

"Oh, look," hollered Diamond Tiara. "It's Rose Petal - the filly who got her cutie mark in falling apart!" She erupted into laughter at the expense of the scattered petals that made up my cutie mark. And Silver Spoon joined in too.

But I didn't care.

Cliff Diver looked in my direction. Eager for a cue to see if he should care. But I just kept galloping. So he nodded at me as though it were a verbal instruction to ignore them, and then did the same.

But the mean girls kept calling out to us. "...No wonder she's still hanging out with a blank flank!" Silver Spoon jeered, pointing at Cliff Diver's bare rump sticking out the back of his winter coat.

And I looked to him. To see if he cared. To see if I should care. But he just kept on galloping. Like me. So I ignored Silver Spoon, and ran like my tail was on fire. We both had more important things to worry about.

* * *

It wasn't long before we made it to the South Road, and headed for Ponyville General Hospital. In no time at all, Cliff Diver and I were inside. Past the receptionist. Past the nurses' kiosk. Through the hallway into Foster's wing, and boom! Tumble! Crash!

Right there in Bananas Foster's room.

"Blueberry Milkshake is missing!" The two of us exclaimed in unison.

"WaAaAhHh!" Foster tumbled out of her bed and thwack! Hit the floor.

"Sorry." Cliff winced.

Bananas scrambled to her hooves. Looked the two of us over. "Um...I think it's leaking out of your pocket," she gestured at me with her nose.

And lo and behold.My milkshake had gotten blue all the fuck over my pink winter coat. "Oh, no," I said. Rushed to the hoof sanitizer pump by the door. Frantically flooded my pocket with goo. "Roseluck is gonna kill me."

"One second," I turned in Foster's direction and held up a hoof.

Then I disappeared out the door. Ran down the hallway straight for the nurse's kiosk.

"Do you have any paper towels?" I begged. Scrubbing my jacket against itself.

Nurse Redheart looked up from the desk. Herself again. Not zombified. For a moment, I considered asking her about Blueberry Milkshake. But Blue had never actually come to visit me in the hospital. So why would Redheart know her?

It hurt a little. Realizing that. 'Cause Blueberry and I had been best friends before this Wasteland shadowmajig stuff started happening. And the second that the going got weird, Blueberry Milkshake faded away like spilled salt on a rainy day. Even way back when I stood up to Diamond Tiara for picking on Cliff, Blueberry had hidden in the crowd, and come out to encourage me only after everypony else had.

There's no way she won against the shadows. I thought, as anger mixed strangely with sympathy in my heart. There's just no way.

"Right here," Nurse Redheart said, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Who? What?" I said. Spinning 'round and around in confusion.

Redheart slid a bundle of neatly folded paper towels over the kiosk desk.

"Oh," I laughed. "Right."

I got to scrubbing the milkshake stains.

"What happened?" The nurse asked.

"I got blue on me," I answered idly as I scrubbed my jacket with all of my might.

"Well, I'm glad you were able to make it here," she said. "Bananas Foster has been looking forward to seeing you all day. And I know how hectic it can be - readjusting to school after Hearth's Warming break."

"Thanks," I said, finally looking Redheart in the eye.

There was compassion in it. Warmth. But my brain bucked randomly at the inside of my skull just then. A reminder.

"Ooh!" I said. "Bananas Foster's waiting for me!"

"Go on, then," Redheart replied. "Run along."

* * *

I sprang into Bananas Foster's room.

"This shouldn't be possible," she said immediately.

Judging by the somber look in her eyes, Bananas had been filled in on all the details.

"I know," I said. "But it happened. And this isn't the first time either."

"Yeah," Foster's voice quivered. "I heard about Candy Shine too."

A hush fell over the room. A moment of silence for the lost.

For me, it was personal. 'Cause Blueberry Milkshake was my friend. And the shadows had come to Ponyville specifically because of me.They'd fucking hunted those I cared about to try to get to me.

But I could tell that the news was just as hard on Foster, who had survived the shadows. And Cliff too! What he'd seen on our Columnland journeys haunted him.

It didn't matter that Blueberry Milkshake was a filly that only I could remember. Or that none of us had ever even met Candy Shine. It still felt like we were losing sisters. We held a sort of reverence for them. Like the soldiers in the trenches of No Mare's Land had for their fallen comrades.

This shadow business - it was our war. And our hearts were scarred by every casualty of it.

Cliff Diver, Foster, and I meditated on that for a while. Which for me, meant working up the nerve to ask difficult questions. The kinda stuff nopony should ever have to talk about. But we couldn't afford to ignore.

"Bananas," I spoke up at long last.

"Yeah?" She croaked like her mouth was full of sand.

"I, um...know this is hard, but did you, ever...um...y'know, see anything...anywhere...that could begin to explain this? In the desert? In the, um, well...like the…" I trailed off in shame for even having to ask. 'Cause I knew what it was like to have bad memories set off a chain reaction of uncontrollable pictures and feelings inside your mindskull.

"When I was a prisoner in the castle?" Foster finished my thought for me.

"Yeah," I whispered.

"No," she answered.

"What about beard magic?" Cliff added.

Foster turned, and looked at him like he was crazy.

"There was a powerful wizard who used to run that castle with Princess Luna a long, long time ago. Before it was evil," I clarified. "Twilight Sparkle seemed to think that even he wouldn't be able to pull something like this off. But maybe the shadows found something. Maybe they, I dunno...modified it or whatever."

"Ooookay…" Bananas Foster crunched up her eyebrows trying to make sense of what I was saying.

"I'm an earth pony," I continued. "I don't know how beard magic works either. But maybe this wizard guy left some kinda relic, or notes or...What did Twilight call it?" I turned to Cliff and asked.

"Destiny spell," he replied.

"Yeah, one of those," I added.

"You wanna know if I saw any destiny spells lying around. While I was being tortured."

"Gee," Cliff said. "When you put it like that, it sounds kinda stupid."

"Yeah," Foster said. "It does."

"Okay," I sighed. "So what do we do?"

Again, that same grim hush fell over the room. And every passing moment of it drove home just how clueless we all really were.

…

...

"I say we friendship them to death," Foster answered, out-of-the-blue-ishly.

It was the same plan she had pushed for back when she first found out that I had managed to defeat the shadow-majigs.

Hell, it was the whole damn reason she'd revealed her changelingness to me in the first place.

Bananas Foster hadn't busted out of the castle on her own. She'd been released - sent out into Equestria on a mission to find The Inquisitor - some centuries-old torturer who had escaped the shadow castle and gone rogue. Bananas' changeling brain, with its weird buggish hive-mind powers, had shut itself off from the rest of her - making her impossible for the shadows to find.

But escape wasn't enough. No. Foster had vowed to fuck up the mission altogether, and kill The Inquisitor rather than deliver them to the shadows. Though she had no idea how she was gonna do it.

Then I came along. My stories had given her hope. Inspiration. She'd gotten totally stoked by the notion that, if we all banded together, we could...you know, friendship The Inquisitor to death.

And that was still her plan now.

Mulling it over - tossing it here and there, and letting it all rattle around inside my mind - I realized something. "Hey!" I spoke suddenly aloud. "What about The Inquisitor?"

"What?" Foster recoiled, taken aback by the mere mention of the title.

"The Inquisitor!" I exclaimed. "What if they're the one who did this? What if it's not beard magic at all? What if it's all just this one evil jerk? And ooh!" I jumped up in the air as more, and more, and more ideas flooded my brain. "Or maybe it's both, and like, The Inquisitor is the one who stole the beard magic in the first place, and started erasing ponies?"

"No one's that powerful on their own," Cliff replied. "That's one thing I believe Twilight Sparkle about."

"But inquisitors aren't normal ponies," Foster interjected, eyes wide with terror. "They're centuries old. - and they've been manipulating the nightmares of foals - mastering that primal magic - wielding it against them - for longer than any unicorn wizard could possibly spend studying spellbooks.

'The inside of a foal's mind is a wild and powerful place. I'm honestly not sure what the limits of um...beard magic are, but if inquisitors - (or shadows of any kind, really) - somehow managed to get a hold of an ancient relic or spell, who knows what they could do with it if they combined its power with their own?!"

"Fuck," I said aloud.

And the room fell silent.

I'd never uttered a futurism before - there in Ponyville. I'd thought it, sure. Catalogued it in my brain list of weird time-things that would eventually become this very book. But never spoken aloud.

Cliff and Foster had no way of knowing the word. What it meant, or where it came from.

But it had the energy of one of those collapsing stars I read about in one of Cliff Diver's books. Mysterious and powerful. Something that wasn't supposed to exist - like its very utterance violated the laws of physics.

"Okay," Cliff said at loooooonnnnnggg last. Choosing to ignore my futurism. "But we don't know anything yet. Not for sure."

"We know that shadow magic has changed, Foster whispered. Almost like she was afraid of being heard. Even though we had the whole damn room to ourselves. "We know that in that desert limbo, their chasm of shadow power - or whatever you wanna call it - has physically expanded...after centuries of staying the same. We know that one of their oldest inquisitors has escaped. And that the shadows are actually afraid of what this pony might do if left unchecked in the outside world.

'And we know that something has gained the power to erase a creature - to warp the fabric of our world until it's as though that creature had never existed at all!

'If there's even a chance that that magic is being wielded by The Inquisitor outside of the castle - then. We. Have. No. Choice. But. To. Kill. The. Monster - even if only to keep the shadows from getting their claws on that power."

"Yeah," Cliff retorted. "But like you said, the whole chasm in the desert is expanding. All of the shadows are gaining power. The Inquisitor doesn't matter if they've discovered beard magic on their own."

"Guys, we don't know what any of this means," I interrupted.

"Tell that to him," Bananas snapped at the same exact time that Cliff Diver pointed a hoof at Foster and exclaimed, "Tell that to her!"

They looked at one another. Bashfully. Realizing the absurdity of picking any side at all without more information. Then they both turned to me. In unison. As if I could somehow conjure that information out of thin fucking air. "So what do we do?" They asked me.

And I didn't know. 'Cause maybe Bananas Foster was right. Maybe it didn't matter how the shadows were doing what they were doing. Maybe Foster and me were meant to come together and stop them. Just like I was meant to save Strawberry Lemonade.

There were no voices this time. Or brain hornets. But maybe all it took was the three of us finding The Inquisitor, and friendshipping the fucking shadows to death.

Or maybe it was more complicated than that. 'Cause what if Cliff Diver was right? About some weird mojo or relic that the shadows had unlocked after inhabiting the castle for a thousand years.

We couldn't do a thing to stop them until we had some idea of what that relic was, where to find it, and how to undo it.

Who the fuck knew what the shadows could actually do?

The only thing that I could decipher for certain was the plain and simple fact that Blueberry Milkshake was missing, and that it had happened because of me.

I didn't have any answers. At all! But Cliff and Foster both looked to me for direction. Both needed me to come up with some sorta fucking plan.

While all I really wanted was for somepony to come along and tell me what to do. A grown up. A Rose Voice. Messages from beyond. Anything. Anyone.

I could look for Princess Luna like Cliff had suggested. But I knew of no way to find her. Or summon her. Besides, she'd straight up told me before that her intercession was a one time thing.

Zecora was my next stop, and my last hope too.

Foster and Cliff stared at me with hopeful eyeballs. Terrified eyeballs. Looking for truth. For reason. For direction.

And unlike all my other adventures, where voices, and hornets, and visions, and stuff laid it all out for me, I was on my own this time. And I didn't know what to do.

That scared me even more than the shadowmajigs did.

Author's Note

CHARITY
All Patreon proceeds for this chapter will be donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS: It seems I have completed another chapter in less than a month's time. The story is accelerating, and that excites me. I'm pleased and honored to share it with you, and eagerly await your feedback.

This chapter is dedicated to Joan of Arc, who was executed 590 years ago today. She, like Rose Petal, heard voices, and experienced visions, and led her people into battles they ought not to have been able to win.

A Council of Five

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX - A COUNCIL OF FIVE
"Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure." - Stephen King

We left the hospital with warmth in our hearts. 'Cause despite all the craziness that was going on - all the uncertainty - all the doom and dread that hung over us like that ancient legend about the llama king who got to sit on his throne, but in exchange, had to have a sword dangling over his head the whole time, (Llamacles was it?) - the three of us still took time to connect.

Literally. Bananas and I touched hooves through the dome. And I felt that warmth - that light. Just like the day before when my hoof'd touched her head for the first time, and everything had seemed so much simpler.

Something about Bananas Foster's touch was magical.

Cliff and I headed out into the world feeling on top of things. Ready to stomp down any problem. Friendship it to death.

Until we saw the sun.

Zecora was our last, best hope to get any kinda answers - any kinda direction, and whatever we ended up doing with her - journeying to the shadow castle, reaching out to Princess Luna, scouring the duckyverse - it was gonna take a long, long, long, long time. But we were already running outta sunlight.

So Cliff and I took off. Dashed down the South Road together without so much as a word or gesture.

The borders of Sweet Apple Acres whizzed by on our left. Untouched trees and shrubs and grasses on our right. While the dirt beneath our hooves became a blur.

We galloped, and galloped, and galloped as the road grew narrower, and narrower, and narrower. 'Till it curved southward and merged onto the main road that would eventually become the Everfree Path. We ran over the bridge that everypony stands on and gazes into the water from when they're sad. We passed Cranky's neighborhood, and bolted straight on down to the wall of wooded wilds that swallowed up the road.

We ran until the web of overhanging branches and brambles came into focus. Then bam! Standing right there in the Everfree Path was Cranky himself. Both tail and head hanging low.

Roseluck was next to him. Mane all disheveled. Torso jittering as though her legs were on springs. She seemed damn near ready to explode.

"Uh...hi?" I trotted up to them and said. Calm. Polite. Even as the Rose Voices in my head ranted and raved. What the fuck are they doing here? What the fuck's going on?

"Is everything okay?" Cliff asked. Infinitely calmer than I was.

"I'm coming with you," Roseluck said firmly.

Cranky averted his eyes. Clearly mortified.
I didn't know whether she had dragged him along, or if he'd volunteered. But either way, it was a lousy position for Cranky to be in.

"Why?" I asked. "What's wrong?"

"Pinkie Pie dragged you off before we could talk," my sister said.

"What do you wanna talk about?" I asked, eyes cast nervously at the sky. We had only a few hours of daylight left. Though with Roseluck right there we no longer had to worry about being home in time for dinner. And with Cranky right there, we no longer had to worry (as much) about trying to navigate the Everfree after nightfall.

"I'm...concerned," said Roseluck. And it took her just a liiiittle too long to think of that word. She was trying to be diplomatical-like. But it was totally obvious that she meant something else.

"We are too," Cliff replied, oblivious to the strange undercurrents in the conversation.

"That's great," Cranky said. And gestured at the forest with his head. "But daylight's a-wasting. We can talk as we go."

* * *

So the four of us headed into the Everfree Forest. But Roseluck and I did not, in fact, talk as we went. I mean, she tried. She started by lecturing me about running off with Pinkie Pie, (as though I'd had any say over it). And continued by breathing super fast, and freaking out while ranting at me about how worried she was. How we needed to all sit down have a rational talk about this - as though the disappearance of a filly was something we should mull over a pot of tea, and a basket of scones! But at the first hoot of a fire-breathing day-owl, Roseluck yelped. Leapt backwards, and shimmied up close to us. And from then on, my sister remained conspicuously silent.

Crunch crunch crunch crunch, went our hooves over the pebbles and branches that littered the Everfree Path.

It drove me crazy. 'Cause I knew she was having one of her fear attacks, and getting all concernitty. I couldn't stand to see Roseluck like that. Even on a good day. And we already had so many other things to worry about. Like Blueberry Milkshake getting tortured, and shadows hunting me, and beard magic, and weird disappearances, and inquisitors, and stuff! The last fucking thing I needed was those concernitty glances she kept throwing at me. The last fucking thing I needed was to have to pretend that everything was okay. To pretend that I was okay. Just to keep her from wigging out some more!

'Cause what was gonna happen when we got to Zecora's place?! Was Roseluck gonna babble out her grievances there, or was she just gonna hang around, silent and nervous. Getting in the way?

I needed to talk to Zecora. I needed the freedom to gallop at full speed into the clearing that passed for Zecora's front yard - to fling open the front door, and spill my guts. About how not okay I was. How not okay any-damn-thing was. How not okay the entire Universe might be if the shadows had torn a Blueberry-Milkshake-shaped hole in it.

"Eep!" Roseluck jumped at the sound of a twig cracking somewhere far away from the road. She threw me a nervous little smile. Seized the opportunity to break the ice.

"So, um...this is where you two go every day?" She said.

"Yup."

"And, er...you actually know how to deal with all this...fauna?" Again, she'd spent way too much time choosing that word.

"We've got it under control," I said.

Then Cliff spoke over me. "It's the flora you've actually gotta look out for," he added with a kindhearted, oblivious chuckle.

Thwunk. I kicked him in the ankle to shut him up.

"Ow," he said. "What?"

Then he looked to my sister. And at Cranky's weary face. And he understood. Cliff quietly picked up pace after that. Drifted ahead a couple of yards. Brought Cranky with him. Giving Roseluck and I some much needed privacy and space.

"We take the danger seriously," I said at last. "We do. But we're also really really really really really aware of our surroundings."

"Be that as it may--;" my sister began to retort.

"Look out for the side track roots," I pointed at the ground as her hooves started veering off the road.

"Oh," Roseluck blushed.

I'm not sure if she was embarrassed at having missed the roots. Or simply 'cause she knew on some level that she had no business tagging along to begin with. "What do those side roots do?" She asked.

"Eat you, mostly," I answered dryly.

(I loved my sister and all, but this was not the time for concernittyness.)

"Oh," she replied. Tiphooving over the ground like it was covered in earthworms made out of lava.

* * *

We marched on. And I tried to stay quiet about it - really, I did. But as we moved deeper into the Everfree, I felt the first throbs of those old familiar headaches creep into my skull.

The forest eyeballs. That chorus of voices. Each of them fighting, fleeing, making child. As Zecora had put it.

The clamor no longer shut my brain down, or brought me to my knees in pain like it used to. I'd learned to put up brain walls. But trying to talk my sister out of a freak out at the same time?

It was like listening to a record, reading a book, and having a conversation at the same time.

"You're scared I can't handle this," I said grouchily, as I rubbed my pulsing head with the heel of one of my boots.

Roseluck sucked in a deep breath. "Yes," she sighed. "We didn't get to talk before Pinkie Pie dragged you off, and you were so upset. I was worried you might do something…rash."

Again, she took forever to pick that final word. Some kinda weird sisterly diplomacy. But I knew what she meant. She thought I was gonna panic again, and do something stupid.

"Like eat a bunch of tea?" I asked.

"No," she replied. "I didn't say that."

But she'd been thinking it.

"You're dealing with too much right now." Roseluck continued. "And there's a lot of...well...panic and alarm - and for good reason," she added tactfully. "I just thought I could maybe come along to make sure you don't do anything, you know...rash." Roseluck used that word again. As though it somehow made not trusting me magically okay.

I reached up with my forehoof to her mane. But she flinched.

It kinda shocked me. To see her fearful like that. Though I didn't let on.

"Relax," I said as I brushed a tangley vine-leaf thingy out of her hair. "It's just a vampire vine."

"A vampire vi-;"

"Sshh," I said. "Hold still."

I reared up on my hind legs. Dug through her mane until I found it - a residual leaf. Mostly harmless. But once I gripped it with my teeth, it started writhing around like a fish out of water. It snapped, hissed - tried to bite down on my sister's scalp, but I fwipped it away before it had the chance to dig its tiny little plant-teeth in.

"There you go," I said.

And Roseluck didn't say anything after that. Just stared at me in shock and wonder.

"What?" I asked.

But she just stared some more.

* * *

So yeah. It was a long and awkward journey. But when we finally made it to that little oasis that I call Zecora's 'front lawn,' the headaches subsided. Just like that. Unfortunately, so did my sister's quiet spell.

"Oh, my." Roseluck craned her neck back, and marveled at the forest ceiling. All the little blades of light cutting through gaps in the leaves. The whole thing swished around like a giant hula skirt. And it made this soothing-as-fuck ffffwooshhh noise. Like a broom dragging lightly against the sky. "It's so...peaceful." My sister smiled.

Then clang! She whacked her head on one of the bottles dangling from Zecora's tree.

"What the?" Roseluck rubbed her scalp.

"It's for good luck," I said. "And protection."

Zecora'd told me all about them. How the bottles invited good mojo. And chased away the bad. And also lit up her herb garden like a stained glass window.

"Ah! What's this?" Roseluck pointed to a mask nailed to the trunk of the tree.

"That's Zecora's great great aunt," I answered.

"Oh," Roseluck blushed. Embarrassed for having asked. It seemed personal somehow.

"Are you two still yapping, or are we gonna go inside?" Cranky knocked on the front door without waiting to hear our answer.

But nopony came. At least not at first.

Cliff Diver poked his head out from behind Cranky while we waited. Mouthed the words: is everything okay?

I nodded so as not to worry him, but rolled my eyes to make my general annoyance at Roseluck known.

Then creeeak... The door swung open.

Cliff Diver trotted merrily inside without a word. Leaving Cranky, Roseluck and I standing in the doorway facing Zecora.

She narrowed her eyes in puzzlement. "I expected only one of you three," Zecora announced. "What do I owe the privilege of such company?"

All eyes shot to Roseluck.

"Heh heh." My sister gulped her throat-apple down hard. "Well, Cranky was my guide, and I thought I'd come along to...um...help."

Zecora turned to me, eyebrow raised. But all I could do was look away. Bury my face in my hoof.

"Well, surely you have a reason to confide," Zecora stared Roseluck down 'till she cringed. "Come, come, come with me, we'll talk inside."

From the moment we set hoof through the door, everything was different. The smell of irises. The fact that the giant cauldron that'd always boiled in the center of her living space was now cooling off to the side. A table took its place. With a candle lit dinner on it. Zebra style.

She had a vegetable platter laid out. And assorted flatbreads encircling several bowls full of weird pasty dips. Green, and brown, and white. Smelling of herbs, and cloves, and almonds, and flowers, and cinnamon, and other scents I couldn't begin to describe.

It occurred to me then that I had never actually seen Zecora eat before. Cliff and I always arrived just after lunch, and left just before supper.

"I'm sorry," Roseluck said, embarrassed for having interrupted. As fearful and overwhelmed as she may have felt, nothing could override her instinct to be polite at dinner.

"No, you're quite welcome. Please stay," Zecora answered us in no uncertain terms. "I assure you it will be okay." She closed the door and sat down in the chair. Facing the wall instead of us. Then Zecora concentrated on it. Heavily. For just a moment.

Opposite her was a shelf on the wall that was normally obscured by a curtain. On it were flowers, tiny stones carved into figurines, a bowl of dip like the ones Zecora had made for herself, three pieces of bread, and a candle. All encircling a pencil sketch of an older zebra mare. Neatly framed.

"No, I don't always eat this way," Zecora chuckled. Tackling my question before I even had the chance to ask it. "But this is a very special day. / My mother's portrait is unfurled / to mark the day she gave me to the world."

"It's your birthday?!" Cliff squeaked.

"Geez! I didn't get you anything," I exclaimed.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Cliff squeaked yet again.

"'Cause zebras don't believe what you believe. / We give on all our birthdays," Zecora gestured to the offerings on her mom-shrine. "Not receive."

"But even so," I said. "Maybe we should--;"

"Shh." Zecora held a hoof to her lips.

And when the room was still, she gestured at the table. We all crowded sluggishly around it - this tiny little thing, practically a plank on a spool. Not intended to support dinner for five.

"Zéluth, wontaka." Cranky nodded in Zecora's direction.

She nodded in reply. And he went and plunged right in. Dipped the bread in the goo, swallowed it, and stepped aside to allow us to do the same.

Zecora smirked as Roseluck approached the platter. And in that moment, I knew what she was up to.

Zecora was Great Sorceror Planktonething my sister. Manipulating her into calming down. And it worked! 'Cause Roseluck's etiquette-brain overpowered even her most primal of fears.

Zecora threw me a hard glance when Roseluck wasn't looking. She knew that I was anxious. She knew I was afraid. But she needed me to be patient. That's what her eyeballs told me.

So I bit my tongue. And waited. By the time we all had our bread, a calm had settled in.

"I know there's something grave you have to say," Zecora locked eyes with Roseluck directly. "Do tell me what brings you to me today."

"Oh," my sister replied. Actually surprised at having been deferred to. "Well, um…" She looked to me. Practically asked permission to go first. Even though just ten minutes before, she'd been ready to charge in here and demand to be heard. "I'm worried. About Rose Petal. You see, something terrible has happened. A friend of hers disappeared on the night of the blizzard. Only nopony remembers that she ever existed at all. And Rose Petal, and Cliff, and Cranky over here figured out what happened - that this filly was erased somehow - and I came here to make sure that Rose Petal was…you know...safe. If you know what I mean."

Zecora took her cup with both forehooves, and slurped her tea. While under the table, her tail swished. Nopony seemed to notice but me. "Now this is troubling for Rose, and me, and you," she answered. "But I don't know what you mean, or what you fear that Rose would do."

Zecora leaned forward over the table. In eager anticipation of an answer.

"Something rash." Roseluck sat up stiffly. Scowled indignantly. I'd seen her make that face before. Back when I broke Carrot Top's window by mistake. And the two of them got into this crazy argument where Roseluck was, like furious at me, determined to make me work off the damage, and yet defending me at the same time 'cause Carrot Top had yelled at me, and made me cry.

Roseluck was fixing for a fight. But she didn't get one.

"I've known Rose a month or two, and learned / that rashness is a serious concern."

"What?!" All three of us said at once - Roseluck in confusion, Cliff Diver in surprise, and me, totally blind with fury.

"I'm not gonna do anything rash!" I leapt to my hooves, and said. "Blueberry Milkshake is being tortured by shadowy clitweasels right now."

Roseluck clutched her chest in shock at my use of a futurism. I didn't care.

"She's getting tortured because of me," I shrieked. "And all that matters to you is that I'm being rash?! I'm not being rash! I'm being...appropriately determined not to let my friend get tortured!"

I panted. Caught my breath. Cliff Diver put a hoof on my back. While the grown ups just looked at me like I was being "rash."

And I couldn't deal. I couldn't fucking deal. 'Cause Zecora was. My. Last. Hope. She was supposed to be there for me. She was supposed to help.

What the fuck was the point of all that training if she was just gonna pat me on the head and treat me like I was crazy when danger reared its head?!

A tear rolled down my cheek.

That was when Zecora spoke up in her obnoxious Sorcerer Planktoneth voice. "We cannot help your friend until / your mind is clear and calm and still. / I don't know yet what we can do. / I'd need to hear much more from you."

I brushed my face against my leg to wipe away the tear. But I didn't dare sniffle. "Her name was Blueberry Milkshake," I said. "And she vanished without a trace…"

* * *

I was a lot calmer by the time I finished telling the story. But nothing could make me hunky dory.

Zecora sat in contemplatey silence for a long, long time, weighing her reply. While the rest of us waited with bated breath. "I've never ever heard of such a thing," she said at long last. "I don't know what misfortune this will bring."

"Can we find her?" I asked. "Can we save her?"

Zecora let out a heartbreaking sigh. The kind that says a thousand words, all of them, 'no.'

"Without a token," she gestured at my mojo bag full of Misty's tail hair, Screw Loose's sock, Twink's candle-twig, and a single strand from Cliff Diver's mane. "...Tracking her will be too tough / unless your bond with her was strong enough. / Lost souls are near impossible to find / unless the hearts of sought and seeker are entwined."

"We weren't that close," I answered softly. Wishing that we had been - that I'd given Blueberry a chance - trusted her from the start.

Zecora breathed in deep. "If there's any truth to what you've spoken, / our Universe itself is broken." She stopped, and mused, so entrenched in her own thoughts, that she didn't even look at any of us. "The erasure of just one tiny foal / can tear a hundred thousand tiny holes."

"But why? They've taken kids before," I said.

"It runs far deeper than one missing child," Zecora retorted. "Everyone whose life she touched has been defiled."

"But what if they didn't?" Cliff spoke out, smile creeping cautiously across his face.

"What?" I said.

"What if they didn't erase anypony?!"

And for a moment - just a moment - I felt like I'd been stabbed in the heart with a butter knife. Dull. Painful. Crammed in between the ribs where it didn't belong.

"She's real," I stated firmly. Throat dried out from pure frustration.

"Not in this world," he replied. "But what if the shadows didn't erase her? What if you're in a timeline where she never existed at all? And somewhere out there is a whole other Universe where you two are friends? And in that Blueberry Dimension is a Rose Petal who's totally confused. 'Cause she's dealing with Blueberry Milkshake and she doesn't remember her at all?

"Then I'm the lost soul," I said to myself quietly.

"Exactly!" Cliff Diver exclaimed. “They're doing it to trick you. To drive you to despair. Like they did to Candy Shine's mom."

"That's some trick." Cranky hung his head low.

And just like that, Cliff Diver's excitement faded. As the whole room flooded with Cranky's palpable, tangible pain. Like when you're in a closet that's so hot, and dry, and stuffy that you can't breathe. The air around us was heavy with regret.

We sat in silence a while. Out of respect for Candy Shine's mom. And sympathy for Cranky. Not even the sounds of the Everfree would dare pierce through the door and interrupt.

I nursed my own regrets in that time. 'Till Zecora spoke up at last.

"If shadows could untether from their fate," she shook her head. "Our fight would be pre-written - both too early and too late."

"I don't like the sound of that either, kid," Cranky huffed. "If that's true, there'd be no point to anything at all. My journey to find Matilda. Your shadow trouble. None of it would amount to anything. Our whole lives would all be some sorta sick joke."

"We still have to consider the possibility," Cliff murmured to himself. Thoroughly cowed.

Then we were back to the drawing board. Staring at a table full of tea and bread and zebra dipping goo. Uncertain of what we needed to do.

"Who guides the hooves of fate?" My sister said softly. Out-of-nowhere-ishly.

"Pardon?" Cranky asked.

"It's something my great aunt wrote in her journal," Roseluck answered. "She was a background pony. Travelling to different worlds, and points in history like me. And Rose Petal."

Cranky looked to my sister in confusion, since he knew so little of what went on between us. But shrugged it off seconds later, determined to hear what she had to say.

"Over time," Roseluck continued. "Roseroot got obsessed with finding answers, lost her mind, and ceased to make any sense at all. She wrote hundreds of journals - all inarticulate ramblings and word salad - except for one sentence in the middle of journal number seventy-eight. Who guides the hooves of fate?"

I realized then that Roseluck had obsessed as much about that journal as I had. Probably more. 'Cause she had known Great Aunt Roseroot much, much, much, much longer.

Did the mystery ever keep her up at night, back when she was still dream traveling? Or when she'd first found out that I had inherited those same gifts? That same blood curse.

"My whole life, I thought it was a question," she continued. "Aunt Roseroot driving herself mad trying to figure out what motivated The Powers That Be." Roseluck shook her head. "But what if it's actually the answer? What if it's a revelation?"

"I don't get it," I replied.

"Maybe that's what all this is about. The shadows and The Powers That Be struggling, fighting one another to determine...who guides the hooves of fate."

Zecora listened very very very carefully. Nodded a sage-like zebra-nod before finally choosing to weigh in. "That theory is all well and good, / but does not make our problems understood."

"So," Cliff chimed in, all deductive-like. "The question is: are the shadows using beard magic to untether themselves from the normal restrictions of fate, and leap between alternate universes to try to mess with Rose Petal? Or are they using beard magic to rip holes in the world, and tear out every trace of the fillies and colts that they steal? Either way, they're defying what we think we know of the Universe."

"And either way," my sister put her hoof gently on my shoulder. "The only trace of Blueberry Milkshake is in your memories."

"Not the only trace." Cranky chimed in. "You got that greeting card don't you, kid?"

"Yeah, but it's empty - at least the spot where her signature was."

"That's what I'm getting at," Cranky replied. "A lotta Travelers keep a scrapbook. We don't have much by way of possessions, but we give each other little somethings. Even if only a signature, or a scribble. It's how we remember one another. And how we know that when we're gone, we'll be remembered."

"I had not pictured it from that position," Zecora said. "That truly is a lovely tradition."

"Gosh, thank you." Cranky said with a smile. He and Zecora weren't usually the type to exchange compliments. "But the point I'm making is this. Signatures fill up a page pretty fast - especially when lots of folks leave little messages for one another.

"I can't count the number of times when I got stuck trying to cram my own joke (or Limerick or what have you) into a tiny little space surrounded by everypony else's pithy commentary.

'Now kid," he turned to me, and said. "Your get well card's from the whole class, isn't it?"

I nodded. Totally confused by what he was getting at.

"And everypony tried to cram their well-wishes into the same tight spot, didn't they?" He said.

"Yeah."

"Well, why don't you close your eyes, and try and think back real careful-like?"

I did.

"The spot where Blueberry Milkshake's message used to be," Cranky continued. "Is there a lot of empty space there, or somepony else's signature?"

I thought about it. Real hard. Even though I didn't need to. The sight of that empty spot where the crusty old paste once had been. It was burned into my brain.

"Blank," Cliff shouted out. "The space was blank."

"Oh, dear," my sister let out a heartbroken little whisper.

"What?" I cried. "What does that mean?"

"If Blueberry had never existed, then everypony else's signatures would have spread out evenly across the page," Roseluck answered. Eyes wide with horror. "There wouldn't be a space."

"But because there is..." Cliff swallowed hard. "That means that Blueberry Milkshake used to be here. In this world." He turned away from the table. Eyes cast downward on the floor as he sniffled. "The shadows did steal her after all."

"No," I replied. "No."

"Yeah," Cranky shook his head and sighed. "'Fraid that's what I was getting at."

"I don't know how to bear this news to you," Zecora whispered. "But I concur that Cranky's theory must be true."

"We gotta do something!" I leapt up to my hooves. "What's the plan?"

One-by-one, all the grown-ups looked away. Cranky, then Roseluck, then Zecora. 'Cause they didn't have a plan at all!

"There's gotta be a way!" I squeaked.

"We may never know the riddles of our fate," Zecora answered somberly. "But it's certain that they're using her as bait."

"So what?" I hollered. "We can still stop them, we can like...well...friendship them to death."

"I don't know from spooky castles, kid," Cranky said to me. "I never dreamt my way through time. But I been around the block before, and I danced with a shadow or two." Cranky shook his head. "They can't be killed. They're not flesh and blood. They're energy, like sunlight, or magnets.” The old donkey shook his head. “But most importantly, in the end, shadows ain't nothin'…"

"...but ourselves." Cliff Diver finished Cranky's sentence.

Cranky cocked his head. Like a confuzzed spaniel, stars all bright and shining in his eyeballs. A glimmery look of optimism that I would never have thought Cranky was capable of.

"Like the Screamin' Possum Glisterheart song," Cliff Diver said, shoulders all bunched, head turned meekly away.

Roseluck and I looked to one another in confusion. My sister held up a hoof, and tried to speak, but it was too late. The singing had already started.

Cliff opened with an airy, hesitant voice. And Cranky joined in with a death yodel - voice like a rusty nail.

Only I didn't hate it like I hated the blues records I'd tried listening to. Coming from Cranky, that raspy caterwauling was sorrowful. Creepy. Beautiful even. It broke my heart. Every warble of his twisted old vocal cords told a story of ponies he knew, places he'd seen, and loved ones he'd lost. He and Cliff sang it together like they'd practiced a thousand times. Stomping and clopping a paddy cake rhythm as they both moaned out the words.

"Our shadows ain't nothing but ourselves

Blocking the bright light of day.

The monkey on your back

Pouring liquor in your sack

Won't never ever ever go away."

Then something strange happened. I felt the rhythm of it come over me. I started stomping. Singing out words I'd never heard before. Like a trance. Or a spell...

"You can try to outrun her

Wit-yer mareathon trophies on the shelf.

But you aint saved,

She'll catch you in the grave.

Our shadows ain't nothing but ourselves."

Cranky closed his eyes. Shook his head. Stood up and grooved to the rhythm of his own hoof clops. Just as Zecora took a bongo solo with a pair of drums she'd dug outta Luna-knows-where. (She musta grabbed them off the wall while I'd been focusing on Cranky). The spirit of the moment had grabbed a hold of her too. And her syncopated rhythms added a totally different flavor to the vibes in the air. But still, it fit somehow.

My sister was the only one not taking part. She sat stiffly. Smiled. Nodded her head super polite-like. But clearly wasn't feeling the pulse of it. It wasn't as awkward as it coulda been, though.

'Cause the song was just a moment - a brief little flash of spontaneous grief and joy. We sang and danced, and pounded our hooves. And when it was all over, Cranky laughed like I'd never seen him laugh before. Threw a foreleg around Cliff. "You got taste, kid."

Cliff Diver beamed with pride.

"And you," Cranky cast a hoof in my direction. "You too. I thought you hated the blues."

"Actually," I pulled my mane in front of my face to hide my red-flushed cheeks. "I've never heard that song before."

The laughing stopped. And everyone just sorta looked at me. Which just made me blush all the harder.
...
...
...

"It seems that, after all these weeks so long," Zecora said with a devious little grin. "You've not fallen out of every song."

"I guess you're right," I replied as a laugh welled up inside my chest.

I'll never forget that terror and isolation I'd felt when I found myself in the middle of that snow-shoveling musical number. Cut off from the music entirely! The hopelessness that weighed me down in the days and weeks that followed. The uncertainty.

But as Zecora had pointed out during our very first meeting: Music is around us always. Just because I couldn't feel the magic of that one song, (and I ended up freaking the fuck out, and tackling poor Kettle Corn), it didn't mean that music itself had abandoned me entirely.

"I guess all it took was a song about shadows hunting me to the grave," I laughed.

Cranky laughed too. But Cliff's face tightened over his skull. 'Cause he was keeping an eye on my sister. And she wasn't happy at all.

"Oh. Sorry," I said.

She shook her head. Whispered. "Don't worry."

And we were left with that stupid uncertain silence again. All five of us.

Zecora took the opportunity to clunk around, and put her bongos away, making as much noise as possible in the process. To cut through the tension.

Clonk, boom, drag, rattle, scratch.

We all waited for her to finish. Or at least pretended to wait. Truth was: none of us had anything insightful to say.

When, finally, at long last, Zecora sat down beside us again with a smile, she refilled our cups of tea, turned to my sister with respect, and asked a favor. "If you feel that it's alright," she said. "I'd like for Rose to spend the night."

"What?!"

"You are justified in all your fears," Zecora was quick to reassure. "The darkness sniffs out grief and tears." Zecora turned and pointed a leg at me. "And this one is unstable still. / They'll find her if she stays in Ponyville."

The color ran from Roseluck's face. A bold white turned sickly gray.

"I see," my sister said. As stunned by Zecora's logic as I was.

Just 'I see.'

Roseluck took her teaspoon in between her teeth and stirred. Clang. Clang. Clang...Went the steel against the terra cotta teacup. Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang.

Then it started to rattle. As my sister shook from a case of bad nerves. Cllclclclcang-ang-ang.

Finally, she lowered the spoon. Took a few ragged, shivery breaths, eyes still fixed downward at her swirling tea. "I shouldn't be here," she said. "Should I?"

Then, even though Roseluck was giving me an out - even though she was giving me the space I desperately wanted - the space I really fucking needed - a little something inside of me died anyway. A certain kinda fear. It broke my heart to know the answer to my sister's painful question. And to truly understand that I had to speak up and tell it to her. I couldn't just…lie.

But I wasn't afraid any longer.

"I...um…" I stammered a bit...Summoned my strength. To tell my sister that I didn't want her around. That her concernittyness was nothing but a colossal distraction.

"To keep her safe," Zecora jumped in with advice more helpful than I ever could have hoped for. "...What you must do / is a task that falls on only you."

Roseluck pulled her eyes up off her tea.

"With shrinking night and growing day," Zecora continued. "Spring is almost underway. / Tonight has power if you look for life anew, / so look to those who gave your life to you. / Go home and kneel upon your sister's bedroom floor / and light a fire for all the Roses that have come before. / Call on those who bear your name / and keep a vigil by that holy flame. / It's essential that you heed these rhymes. / And burn a firey beacon home in these dark times / Your light is needed by us all, / so don't you budge." Zecora shook her head grimly. "Not even if the sky should fall."

Roseluck looked around at every last one of us. A room full of nodding heads and dire faces. Confirming that this wasn't just some random thing that Zecora had made up to get rid of her.

And I have to admit: the idea of candles burning on my altar at home. It really was a kind of solace. A beacon.

"What are you three going to do?" Roseluck asked.

"Cliff and I will team up as a double / to keep Rose out of dire trouble," Zecora answered.

My sister sighed. 'Cause she knew what she had to do. And it totally sucked for her.

"Please," I said. "The thought of your tending to our family altar - I don't know - it just feels right somehow."

"But what are you gonna do?" She pressed a little firmer. "To keep out of trouble?"

"I don't know yet." I reached out, and put my hoof in hers. "But I need you to trust me."

She looked to me with tear-drenched eyes. "Okay," she said. "Fuck it."

A futurism.

It shocked me. 'Cause my sister had never been to the future. Who knew where in the Hell she'd picked up that word?! I didn't get a chance to ask.

'Cause Roseluck broke into tearful laughter. And I went to her. It took a little scooching and maneuvering to get around the table, but the second I was within reach, Roseluck sprang like a mouse trap, and threw her hooves around me.

"You're so grown up," she said. Even as she ran her hoof frantically over my mane. And kissed my head like I was a little lost foal returning home.

I cried too. 'Cause my eyeballs didn't know what else to do.

"You're so grown up," she sobbed. "So grown up."

* * *

When at last we parted ways, Zecora warned my sister yet again. Not to leave home for any reason. To tend my altar with care. To burn as many candles as we had, and even to sit by my mother's chair near the fire if need be.

And no matter what, to stay there even if the sky itself should fall.

"Don't worry, that's not really gonna happen," Cliff laughed confidently.

Zecora and I joined in, and chuckled as well.

Roseluck gave us a weak little smile, but a warm one nevertheless. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said to me. Then she turned to Cliff Diver. "And don't you worry about your parents. I'll come up with some lie or another."

"Thank you!" Cliff exclaimed.

"I got just the thing," Cranky said. "I'll dig up an old trophy out of the shed. Tell 'em you're with me, winning a Helping-Out-Tired-Old-Donkeys Award.”

"They might just buy that," Cliff laughed.

"Of course they will, kid. I'll have you know that you're looking at an excellent liar. And single-minded ponies like your folks only hear what they want to anyways."

Cliff's face split into a giant toothy grin. While Cranky threw a cloak over my sister for comfort. Like an old fashioned gentlecolt. Roseluck acted like she didn't need it, of course. Held her head just a little bit higher than usual. Puffed her chest out just a little bit further than usual. To make a show out of being okay. For my sake.

I pretended not to see through it. Held my politest, relaxy-est smile 'till they were gone. But then, as Cranky led Roseluck out into the Everfree, Zecora's eyes went suddenly wide with fear.

"Oh, no," she said. So petrified that her stripes turned white, and she just plain forgot to rhyme.

"What?!" I said. "What's wrong?"

But Zecora didn't answer. Just bolted to the door, and flung it open. "Waaaaaiiiiiit!" She cried.

Cliff and I followed, and got to the doorway just fast enough to see Cranky and my sister stop dead in their tracks. They were every bit as alarmed by Zecora as we were.

"You all must swear by Sun, and Moon, and Earth. / Don't let Pinkie know my date of birth!"

"Of course," my sister said.

"You have my word," Cranky added.

Then Zecora spun around to face us kids. Stared us down with eyeballs that said, I'll bury you in my herb garden if you even think of leaking this information.

"Okay, okay, okay!" Cliff and I both hollered. Forehooves way up high in the air.

Pinkie Pie must never know.

Author's Note

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS: This chapter, as you may already know, is being released tonight in honor of the Full Moon, and the penumbral lunar eclipse. I know it may seem odd since this chapter has no Princess Luna in it, and Cliff's idea of trying to reach out to her never even gets followed up on, but, try as I may, the cosmic occasions don't always match perfectly to the occurrences in the story.

I feel it still fits. The castle was once hers after all, and the entire story is about dreams, so it falls under her patronage regardless.

All that being said, my general thoughts on the story as it unfolds: this is exciting for me. So exciting. The story is moving along so quickly now (even if the last few chapters have simply been about trying to figure out what to do. I hope it's exciting for you as well. I'm eager to read your comments!

Happy Moon!

...And Then There Were Three

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN - ...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." - Sir Terry Pratchett

Once the door was closed and my sister long gone - and once Zecora's anxieties were soothed, and she was thoroughly convinced that neither Cliff nor I would tattle to Pinkie Pie about her birthday - we were left once again with that same pressing question.

"So..." I said. "What are we gonna do?"

"We are going to take a seat," Zecora replied. "And then, the three of us will eat."

There was still plenty of vegetables, and bread, and tasty dipping-goo left.

"What about Blueberry Milkshake?" I asked.

"Please," Zecora replied, gesturing to the table with her head. "Sit, and eat, and wait. / This is something I must contemplate."

So I made my way back to what passed for her dining room table, and sat quietly in front of it. Plunged my bread in the almond-tasting-goo. Since I had nothing better to do. Then I plunged it in again. And again. And again. And again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. To pass the time. To occupy myself with anything other than freaking out.

'Cause this was a test. A trick to see how rash I'd become. But I'd show her! Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom. I'd show her how not-fucking-rash I was! NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Calm down," Cliff whispered to me.

"Mmm nmmm mmm!" I snapped back at him, particles of crumbs spilling from my mouth.

While Zecora just sipped her tea like some kinda smug planktony sorceress. "We must find out all we can," she said. "But you're in no shape to scout the Shadow Lands."

"Mmm! Mmmmm!" I tried to protest.

Zecora held up a hoof before I could swallow the flatbread that I'd stuffed into my mouth.

"What I told your sister was right." Zecora continued. "With turmoil in your heart, they'll come for you tonight."

"Wait a minute. This is the Everfree!" Cliff Diver exclaimed.

"They can't find me here," I swallowed my last hunk of bread and said. "Can they?"

"The Everfree's a port from which our souls can sail," Zecora answered. "And not be tracked or followed by our tails. / But projecting consciousness through worlds and deeps / is not the same as when you sleep."

"So they can't follow me if we go ducky-hopping from here?" I asked.

Zecora nodded.

"But they can still catch me if I fall asleep like normal."

Zecora nodded yet again.

"But for some reason, you still think we should make our move while we sleep tonight...'cause if i go ducky-hopping, I'm doomed to mess it all up 'cause I'm too 'rash' or whatever." I threw my hooves up and made quotation marks with them.

"There is no answer nor an easy road." Zecora added with a sigh. "But still you're safer here in my abode."

"How?!" I shrieked in frustration. "I'm doomed either way!"

Zecora didn't answer. But Cliff did.

"Or maybe..." He said, face lit up like a Hearth's Warming Tree. "Maybe you're not doomed at all!"

Zecora looked at me with the most sardonic eyeballs I'd ever seen. "Cliff…" she groaned while rubbing her temples with her hooves. But she didn't get to finish her rhyme...

"No, seriously," Cliff Diver said. "Rose, your hoof. Right now. Does it feel, like, icy or shadowy, or whatever?"

"No." I replied.

"Then you're not doomed!" He laughed. He looked to me, all eager-like. Waiting for me to agree. And I had to admit it: he was right. All my previous shadow troubles had been foreshadowed by a cold feeling.

The guilt that I felt now over Blueberry Milkshake? The fear? Confusion? It was every bit as strong as when they'd attacked me before. But when I looked down at my forehooves, no icy feeling at all!!! In fact, I could still feel the faint touch of Foster's hoof on mine. The glow.

"Bananas." I whispered to myself.

Zecora cocked her head. Her face became a giant question mark.

"Bananas!" I let loose a burst of nervous laughter. "I've been eating soooooo many bananas. It must be all that, um...bananium. I hear it's good for, uh...hoof health. You know what they say...A banana a day, keeps the...shadow demons away."

I laughed. Or at least pretended to. And Cliff laughed with me. "Ha ha ha ha ha!" He said out loud. As though saying the word 'ha' were the same thing as actual laughter.

I sighed. Buried my face in my forehooves.

"If you hide what's going on with you," Zecora said gravely. "I can't advise you on what we should do."

"I know." I replied, face still hidden. "But I have to. Some secrets aren't mine to tell."

Zecora nodded grimly. It had been a well-established rule of my apprenticeship that she did not want to hear any details about the future. But I hadn't realized until just then how much present day stuff I'd kept from her too.

Zecora ran a hoof through her spiky mane. While Cliff fiddled with his own. The sound of nervous hoof-tapping rattled from under the table. Rap tap clop tap. Rap tap clop tap. Rap tap clop tap, clop. I yearned to call out. But what was there to say? How could Zecora help us form a plan if she didn't even know about Foster, or the Inquisitor?

A terrible loneliness fell over me. Like a blanket that weighed six-hundred-and-forty-seven tons. 'Cause no matter who I got my advice from, I was gonna have to make this call by myself.

"What about Princess Luna?" Cliff Diver broke the silence.

"She said all the exact same stuff that you told me." I pointed to Zecora with the tip of my muzzle. "That something went wrong the night of the blizzard. That the shadows would come for my friends. And use them as bait."

"But can we reach her?" Cliff pressed.

"I'm truly sorry. I'm afraid that I / Don't know how to catch her eye." Zecora shook her head.

I sighed. "I don't think she'll do anything anyway. She told me from the beginning that she can't fight my battles for me - that her intervention was a one-time thing."

"But she didn't know about Blueberry Milkshake back then!" Cliff exclaimed.

"None of us did." I replied.

"Exactly! She knew the shadows would try to get to you through your friends, but she didn't know that they were wiping out all traces of them! We need to tell her."

"That sounds great, but she didn't want me to--;"

"'Cause. She. Didn't. Know." Cliff leapt out of his seat. "Even a princess needs to know what's actually happening if her advice is to mean anything."

My eyes strayed to Zecora's. (I didn't mean for them to. It just sorta happened). And I saw hopelessness there. She knew that I had a whole lot more going on than I'd told her about. And she knew that, without all the facts, her advice was, at best, an educated guess.

Oh, sweet Luna! I was tempted to spill the beans right then and there. All of the beans. Just dump every single fucking one of my mind-beans on the floor, and leave Zecora to sort it all out, and come up with an answer. But what kinda pony would I be if I blabbed the deepest secrets of my closest friends? What kinda magic dreaming student would I be?! Sure, I'd get the very best of advice. Sure, I wouldn't have to endure the stare of those saddened zebra eyeballs anymore. But magic is about quieting your brain voices. Focusing your will.

If I tattled on Screw Loose, and Bananas Foster, I wouldn't even be able to look myself in the mirror anymore.
…
…
…

"Luna is the only one," Zecora said slowly, solemnly. "Who might have some idea what has been done. / If bearded magic's what they stole, / she might know what was on his scroll."

"But is there anything we can do to reach her?" I said.

Zecora narrowed her eyes. "Even a Princess has a door." Zecora cracked a hair-thin, devious little smile. "We'll have to study, practice, and explore." She looked to me with confidence again. That stern, inscrutable Planktony mischief.

She was tricking me. Distractifying me into throwing my heart at the task. To kindle hope. To keep me afloat so the darkness couldn't bust its way into my dreams. But even so, her advice still made a certain kinda sense. 'Cause Luna already knew about the Wanderer. And I didn't need to tattle on Bananas Foster's changeling-ness to share what she'd taught me about the castle.

"Okay," said Cliff, eagerly clopping his forehooves together. "Where do we start?"

***

It took hours to sort out a plan. And even longer to get Zecora on board. She insisted that safety be our top priority.

The whole thing was like that long, frustrating chapter that always showed up in early Pinkbeard books where, like, the pirates all hold council, and spend a billion words arguing about all the obvious stuff that you know isgonna happen. Only in real life, it's twice as long, twice as annoying, and involves a whole lot more rhyming.

But when we were done, we did have an actual plan, an actual mission, and a couple of ground rules to keep us all safe. And then, once we'd figured it aaaall out - just when I was starting to maybe kinda sorta think that all our business was settled, Zecora whips out a book...

"Arg!" I arg'ed argishly. "What now?"

She smiled. "Night time visitors are rare for me indeed. / I borrowed this in anticipation of your needs." She gripped the book with her teeth, and held it up proudly for us kids to see.

"Slumber 101." Cliff Diver read aloud. "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Slumber Parties But Were Afraid to Ask."

"You know," I said. "I've never actually been to a slumber party before. Have you?"

"Nope." Cliff added.

Zecora grinned, mouth full of book. "I have never been in a position / to explore these pony rituals and traditions." She placed the book on the table, and flipped it open gleefully.
…
…
…

"Chapter One." Cliff said, looking over her stripey shoulder. "Scary Stories."

Zecora sighed. Looked at me. Then at Cliff. All three of us darted our eyes in one another's directions like a weird triangular game of ping pong.

"Uhh, Chapter Two." Cliff seized the book. Flipped the pages. Leaned in and squinted over the words. "Games..."

***

We passed the evening learning new zebra card games, keeping our spirits high. As high as we could under the circumstances, anyway. Herbal smoke slowly filled her abode. And herbal tea slowly filled our bellies.

Then we dared each other to do things. (Neither Cliff nor I ever chose truth because of all the secrets we had to keep). And Zecora seized the opportunity to keep us on our toes. Dared me to contemplate absence of self for three minutes straight. Told me riddles about trees falling in the woods with nopony around to hear them. Stuff like that. It was mega-annoying.

Cliff, on the other hoof, got challenged to entertain the notion that the world was exactly as it seems. No crackpot theories. Just imagining the world as it is - distilled down to absolute simplicity. Just like...you know...stuff. As you see it.

It drove him nuts. He didn't last forty-five seconds. But all in all, the dares gave us a feeling of expansion. Like our minds were trying something completely new.

Leave it to Zecora to find a way to actually teach us stuff in the middle of a slumber party game.

When her turn came to choose, Zecora picked 'truth.'

I thought long and hard on what to ask her - she who had already devoted her life to Truth with a capital 'T.' She who hid nothing, except in that teacherly way, where she tried to lead us sideways-like to come to the right conclusions on our own.

This was a chance to ask a question unfettered, uncensored. It was a profound moment. An opportunity! The very idea gave me a new kinda appreciation - a new respect for her wisdom. It left me breathless. 'Cause now Zecora was a totally open book. But what to ask? What to ask? What to ask?

"Did you ever have a crush?" Cliff Diver blurted out before I could concoct an appropriately transcendental question.

"Cliiiiff!" I snapped.

"What? I'm curious."

"Hmpph." I replied.

Zecora laughedat us both. "There was a time sooo many moons ago, / I had a love as pure as untouched snow."

My anger subsided. Something about the girlish wistfulness in Zecora's voice. "What was his name?" I asked. "Or, you know, her name?"

"He was known as sweet Zerqays. / I knew him from my schoolyard days. / We dreamt of growing old in a quaint house, / and dreamt of future wedding vows."

"Oh, jeez." Cliff said. "I'm so sorry."

Zecora cocked her head. Confuzzled. Just for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, she burst out laughing. "No, no, no. He did not pass away. / I write him letters to this very day."

"Oh...Then why didn't you marry him?" Cliff said.

"I would have if I could." Zecora replied. "But a higher calling drew me to this wood."

"So you just...left?" I asked.

She nodded.

"What about love?"

Zecora shook her head. "It takes more than love to see your way through strife. / You both have to build a common life. / It was hard to leave my poor Zerquays, / but harder it would be to stay."

That news hit me like a buck to the face. Her attitude was so strange. So alien.

I had never been the type to fantasize about being in love. To drip a drop of candle wax into a bowl of ice water, and watch it congeal into some weird shape, and giggle at what the symbol it formed might foreshadow about my future partner. I couldn't even stand the few chapters in Pinkbeard books that have romance in them. Boring. Boring. Boring. Boring. Boring!

But the idea that you could be totally in love with your best friend from fillyhood, and then just...choose to live alone? Unthinkable. Undreamable!

Part of me wondered if it was some zebra culture thing. That valued herbs and cauldrons over friendship.

"How did you do it?" I asked. "Just walk away?"

Zecora kept on answering our questions unflinchingly. Even though the rules of the game only compelled her to 'truth' us once. "Both of us would suffer if I'd stayed much longer." She said. "I love him dearly but my love of this, my life, is stronger."

Zecora pointed to the ground. The tree we were in. Her home.

And I remembered what she'd said a few weeks back. About seeking refuge in the Everfree. To silence the brain hornets. About discovering the rhythm of the forest - hearing its voice. Savoring the solace that it granted from the chaos of belonging to the kinda brain that attracted every spirit, and voice, and fate-a-majig around.

It got me wondering: Was that what Great Aunt Roseroot had done when she'd retired to her cabin in the woods all by herself? Was that how I was gonna end up?

You know...fucking crazy?

I pressed Zecora a little harder. "Don't you ever get...you know, lonely?"

"This hermitage is a quiet place," she replied. "But I am not alone. I feel its grace."

I nodded. Not because I truly understood what it's like to have nothing but mojo for company. But 'cause I had so very much thought-stuff in my brain. Flickering around like a broken slide show. And I wanted Zecora to know that I hadn't tuned her out like a zombie.

"What's Zerqays doing now?" Cliff asked. "Your coltfriend?"

"He has a practice of his own, Zerqays. / And a family that I send gifts to on the holy days."

"A practice?" I asked. Eyeballs straying all around the room. Masks and candles and tchotchkes. "Does he do...you know, sacred stuff too?"

"Every job is sacred, and it's not a contest," Zecora smiled. "Though magic's seldom used by orthodontists."

"What?" I squeaked. "Like with teeth and wires and stuff?"

She nodded.

"Zebras have all that?!"

"Why wouldn't they?" Cliff asked me, honestly confused.

"You know…" I said. Afraid to state the obvious. "...'Cause."

Cliff Diver just shook his head at me.

"What?"
…
…
…

I cringed. Clearly I had missed something.

Zecora replied. "You'll find that much is being said / while you retreat inside your head."

"Don't be ridiculous. I don't do that...Do I?"

Cliff snickered.

"Do I?!"

It freaked me out. That Zecora was apparently some kinda rebel hermit, pursuing the ways of her ancestors while the other zebras were becoming orthodontists and stuff. And all this time, I didn't know. I didn't fucking know!

What kinda student did that make me? What kinda dream traveler? What kind of friend?!
One who doesn't fucking listen when ponies are talking to me.

I wondered what everypony else saw whenever I got to monologuing inside of my brain-skull. Did I look stupid? Did I stare off into space? Was I rude? What if I--;

POMF! A pillow hit me right in the face. From totally outta nowhere.

I heard a giggle. Saw that Cliff and Zecora were pillow sparring. They musta moved on to Chapter Three of the sleepover book without me.

I took the discarded cushion in my teeth. (It was colorful, and zig-zag-stripey, not boring and white like mine).

I chomped down. Gripped it tightly. And for some reason, thought of pirates. Their love of battle. Adventure. Song. Their passion for the moment.

"Yarrr!" I said out loud. "Ye have incurred the wrath of the Fierce Pirate Rosebeard!"

And with a laugh, and a battlecry, I leapt into the fray.

***

Yeah, we had a great time. My first ever slumber party. Nothing's quite like one to put your soul at ease. There's something magical about lying under the covers. Late at night. And just...talking as you wind down. Sharing your most unguarded thoughts.

Experiencing it for the first time ever was glorious! But as we settled down - as Zecora readied her special incense, smeared our heads with ground up flowers and roots, chanted as she made sure we were tucked in tight - the gravity of what we were facing - of what we were planning -seeped in.

"Psst." Cliff whispered. "Hey, Rose?"

"Yeah?" I murmured.

"What's Rule Number One?" He asked annoyingly.

"Really?" I groaned.

"Pleeease?" He said. "It would make me feel better to know you remember."

"Fine." I sighed. "No ducky-hopping." I droned. "And you don't have to worry about me doing that 'cause I totally get that I'm not up for ducky-hopping right now. I get that I can't help Blueberry Milkshake until I know a bit more. And I get that Princess Luna's the only one who can tell us more. That's the whole point of this mission."

"Thank you." Cliff said.

And after a few moments of pregnant silence, he decided that that wasn't enough. "Well," he whispered. "What about Rule Number Two?"

"To remember that Zecora can't help us." I recited dispassionately. "She's gonna be up here on the surface. Keeping an eye on things. Using Zebra ancestral flower plant magic mojo stuff. To make sure we don't get, like, you know...erased."

I didn't mention the fact that, once the two of us got to dreaming, she wouldn't be able to wake us up either. Even if we appeared to be in distress. Cliff already knew that part. And even if he didn't, it wouldn't change our end of the plan one bit.

Bottom line? If a shadow got a hold of us, there was a chance that we could tear ourselves free. But if Zecora woke us up in the middle of it, the shadows might just drag our spirit selves with them. Abandoning our bodies to forever become hollow, zombie-like shells in the waking world.

"And, yeah." I added. "I also know Rule Number Three: not to separate from you. For any reason."

"Good." Cliff said. And though I couldn't see him from under my covers, I was pretty certain he was nodding his head.

This wasn't a ducky hop, where Cliff Diver maintained a weird trance-like state. Half-waking, half-dreaming - an in between place where I could reach out to him. An anchor that I could use to pull myself back to the waking world if ever I got all tangled up with crazy ducky stuff.

We would both be sleeping. Which meant that it'd be a lot easier to lose that connection if we weren't careful.

I clutched my mojo bag with my hoof.

"You can do this," Cliff said, trying to be reassuring, but only betraying the mega obvious fact that he was nervous.

"Geez," I said. "I know I can. Now would you stop getting worked up about it already?"

"Sorry," he answered.

And then, that was that. At least I thought it was.

…

"What about Rule Number Four?" Cliff asked.

"Oh, yeah," I said, having totally forgotten. "No calling out to Luna 'till we're together."

"'Till you're in my dream." Cliff clarified.

"Yeah," I said. "That. She might come to your aid, 'cause, like, she's never helped you before."

"Hmpph." Cliff replied. He'd never met a princess before. And clearly really wanted to.

Then we both lay there. Staring at the wall, or at the ceiling. Feeling ourselves drift off to sleep, despite our mutual anxiety. 'Cause the smell of that herb-smoke was just so darn soothing.

And the taste of the tea I'd had a little while before still lingered. It made me feel warm from my chest to my hooves.

The plan was to reach out to Princess Luna. The plan was to learn all about beard magic. The plan was to learn enough to come up with an actual plan, and then hurry home.

But it didn't work out that way. Everything went wrong.

***

My dream started out much like any other. Miss Cheerilee was a talking croissant, and she was giving Starswirl the Bearded and I a pop quiz on the history of Equestrian bonnet making.

It was stressful as all hell, but eventually, I remembered the trick that Zecora had taught me. To hold up your forehooves and just look at them.

If ever you wanna try to dream on purpose. Travel. To other duckies. To other ponies' brains. Or just fly around and have fun inside your own dream…you always gotta start by looking at your own hooves.

That's the moment when you take control of the dream, and stop letting it control you.

So I focused on my forehooves. The little details. Clumps of fur. Veins and stuff. For a moment, everything else fell away. I forgot about Starswirl. I forgot about the talking croissant named Cheerilee. I forgot about the quiz on bonnets, and all of my waking troubles.

Those two hooves of mine became the very center of my world.

When I finally looked up from them, I saw grasses. Tall and wild. A field that stretched all the way out to the black. Swishing around in waves as the cool evening breeze swept over the brush.

I was in that plain again. The one that led to the beach that led to the cave that led to the door that led to the void that led to that weird outer space hallway with other ponies' dream doors in it.

But this time, the roar of the ocean was really really far away. Like a distant toothbrush scraping slowly against a piece of construction paper.

Shhhhh. Shhhhh. Shhhhh.

I rose to my hooves. Followed the sound. Shivered a little as a gust of cool air prickled my hide. But a good kinda shiver. Like when a chill hits you unexpected-like on a summer night.

Then I noticed the sky. Silvery stars shimmering against a blackness so thick that my eyeballs felt like they got stuck in it.

"Wow," I whispered to myself, as I spun around. "Luna?"

I ambled forward, head cocked upward. Hooves stomping blindly on the tall grasses as I probed the skies with my eyeballs.

It was foalish.

I had been in the Dream Field for less than thirty-seven seconds, and already, I'd forgotten the plan that Zecora, Cliff, and I had laid out. Not to try to contact Princess Luna 'till after I got inside of Cliff's head.

But when I got a good, solid look around, I discovered that the point was moot. There was no moon at all.

I looked left. I looked right. I twirled all around. But it was gone. The moon was just...gone

"Luna?" I whispered again.

Silence.

My hooves picked up pace. I galloped through the field for a good long while. Sky, motionless above. Plains same-ish below. I ran and ran and ran through waves of undulating grass until I tasted salt in the air.

Damnit.

I skidded to a halt. The ocean was near. If I remembered correctly, that meant that there was a ravine around there someplace too. The field just sorta ended, and if you weren't careful, you could fall straight to the rocky shores below.

I felt my way around under the pale starlight. Thrunch thrunch thrunch went my hesitant hooves against the grass. Thrunch thrunch thrunch thrunch thrunch. I scouted further. And further, and further, and further. Until, at last, I saw a glimmer.

The ocean. Reflecting a tiny bit of the light above, and distorting it as its waters ebbed and flowed.

I crept up to the edge of the cliff with caution. Let my hooves get a feel for where the safety was, and where the dying was. And once I was confident of the location of that edge, I leaned ever so slightly over. Got a good hard view of the sea, and caught just a tiny flash of light. Something brighter than the stars. Just barely above the horizon.

It was the moon! A thin hair of a crescent moon. Shaped like a smile. And a dim sparkle floating just above it. I could almost imagine somepony riding it like a chariot. Or a floating cradle-majig.

I dropped to my knees. "Luna?!" I said once again, this time calling out at the top of my lungs.

But the moon gave no reply. It just sorta flirted with the boundary of the waters and slowly sank behind them.

"Oh no." I said. And galloped down the beaten path that ran along the side of the ravine. Until the field became a hill, and the hill became a slope, and the slope became a rocky beach.

I made my way to that little platform of stone that jutted out. Like a tiny peninsula just opposite my cave. That's where you can get the absolute best view of the dream ocean. I inched my way to the very tip of the rock. I gazed out just as the last corner of the crescent moon slowly submitted to the horizon.

It actually made me wonder. Are Luna's powers limited?

I know it sounds crazy, but think about it! Everypony knows that during the Full Moon, her energy is ecstatic - all encompassing - all protecting. But what about those nights when her Moon looks like a frail little hook? When it barely shows up at all? Could the opposite be true?

Smash! The water hit really hard against the jagged rocks below me. And woosh! Sent a wall of water up my way.

It crashed back down again, and left a tiny little puddle on the rock platform.

I knelt down. Instinctive-like. Took one hoof. Wetted it, and used that ocean juice to anoint my face. Like Zecora sometimes does with her magic oils.

I couldn't tell you why I did it.

But I felt somehow cleaner afterwards. In sync with Luna's world o' dreams. The way Zecora was in sync with the rhythm of the forest.

"Princess Luna?" I looked to the sea, and called out yet again. But it was too late. The moon was totally gone. And so was the magic. The glimmer.

I sighed. Squinted at the line where the sky met the distant waters.

Had that really been her? Had I actually just seen Princess Luna herself riding the fucking moon? Or was it just a stupid star or something? And I had simply let my imagination run wild?

Kneeling there with a dripping wet forehead, watching the horizon, it suddenly dawned on me. The greatest idea in the history of ever!

"A hair." I said out loud. "I could find Princess Luna if I got a hold of one of her hairs!" And since the princess' mane was made of twinklies, all I needed was one of the dream stars hanging up there in the moonless sky, and I could call to her!

So, with a new vigor, I reached out as hard as I could. Figuring, why not?! This is a dream! Anything's possible, right? Maybe I can grab one somehow.

"Nnnnnnng!" I said as I strained to reach out and touch the sky. But that strange ocean had laws of its own. And I ended up just sorta flailing my hooves around like a moron.

It was only after I'd collapsed on the damp stone, and caught my breath, that, out of nowhere, I remembered. "The plan." I said to myself. "Zecora's rules!"

My mission to get inside of Cliff Diver's head. And call out to the princess from his dreamscape since Luna had never been there before.

(We had a whole great big play planned out. where I was gonna pretend to be a shadow monster, and perform a fake nightmare. It's a dumb idea, I know, but it's all we had. At the very least, it gave Cliff and I real power. To make a mockery of monsters. Just like the blues made a mockery of shadows through music. If they were gonna attack no matter what, we might as well shield ourselves, right?)

I turned around. The cave that had been looming behind me seemed bigger than before. Like it was eager to swallow me up.

My hooves echoed as I neared. Clopping against the walls. Returning with news of hoofsteps past - sounds slowly simmering down, blurring over one another.

In order to get inside of Cliff's brain, I needed to step outside of my own. That meant going through that cave. Again. Stepping through my dream-door. Out into the void. Again. And tugging on Cliff's hair-rope. Again.

Leaving the night sky and that mystic ocean behind me was damn hard. Not just because of its beauty. But 'cause the twinklies seemed to actually be speaking to me. Don't leave. They said. Don't leave. Stay and stare at us all night long. Whatever you do...don't leave.

But with a deep breath, I took my final turn. And headed inside anyway. Drifted forward into the cave's belly. Even as the dim blue light turned gray; even as the path sloped downward, and the weak gray aura died altogether, and faded to black. I kept inching further and further in, following the sound of water trickling in the cavern's underground stream. Tracking that faint gurgle all the way down to the door. Just like I had a hundred times before.

And when I finally reached my door, it was framed by the blue glow of a luminescent pool. A little stone bridge led me right over the waters without much ceremony, and before I knew it, I was standing right in front of the wooden frame, staring down all the locks and latches and stuff.

I sucked in a deep breath. And clutched at my mojo bag with a single forehoof. (This part was never easy. Stepping out of your head and into the void. I had Cliff Diver's hair in that bag. To help. To guide my way, like it always had during our training exercises. But as I gripped it in my hoof, the whole thing felt...different somehow.

Was this plan really going to work?

Zecora had done the very best that she could. But as I found myself just a few latches away from the void, it struck me harder than ever that I was flying blind.

"Shit." I sighed. Stared at the door as the waters splashed in the little pools around me, lighting up the archway in a weird glow that should not have been.

I could still hear the stars. Calling to me from well outside the cave. Begging me not to go.

But 'in for a bit, in for a jewel,' I got to turning the latches on my dream door. Even though it didn't feel right. 'Cause, well, that was the fucking plan. And I'd sworn to upkeep it.

I couldn't exactly chicken out at the last minute, could I?

The truth was: I really, honestly, did have a history of doing dumb things when I was rash. (Whether I like to admit it or not). So following the rules we'd all agreed upon actually was the bestthing to do - the safest thing to do - even if it felt...wrong..

I sighed. Stared at the last latch. A tiny hook and eye lock. Flimsy as crumb cake.

Even on a good day, it took a certain amount of nerve to flip that last little hook. 'Cause the void outside your brain never stops being weird - never stops scrambling your senses. It's never ever ever easy.

But I took a deep breath. Forcefully exhaled the words. "For Blueberry." Flipped the latch, pushed the door open and stepped outside.

***

There was a void at first. Same as always. A dark empty sky, reflected by dark empty waters below.

When I was little, I used to swing my closet door open, and point it at my dresser so the two mirrors would face one another. And I'd try to angle them juuuust right so I could catch a glimpse at infinity.

That's what this was like. The infinite pool below reflecting the infinite emptiness above. The line between them drawn only by the waters rippling under the tremors of my hoofsteps.

It was an uneasy feeling. A calm before the storm. Splish. Splush. Splish. Went my hooves, as I stepped out into the void.

Then fwunk! The water swallowed me. And I fell into the abyss below. It tore my brain apart. Scattered pieces of it in every direction. While I reached out with a scrambled consciousness, flailing for a rope. An anchor. A magnet to pull myself together with.

Then suddenly, poof! It materialized right there in front of me. A hair. A rope. A lifeline. I reached out and touched it, but sensed that it wasn't Cliff's.

Yank! I pulllllllled myself up anyway. Out of the abyss. And into that space hallway with all the dream-doors in it where everything's normally so serene, and so quiet.

I found myself facing a plain wooden bedroom door, painted red, keyhole framed with shining brass. Misty Mountain's door. The one I was, like, totally forbidden to open. 'Cause we didn't know what the fuck the future was planning. What it wanted. Why two background ponies had ended up on the same mission. How badly our fates were tangled up in the fabric of time. And what craziness might ensue if the two of us were ever reckless enough to meet again.

I backed up slowly. Cautiously. Getting myself the fuck away, step by careful step. Until klang! I felt burning cold steel on my flank.

"Ahhh!" I shrieked. Spun around.

It was the chains wrapping around Screw Loose's door.

I stopped. Looked around. There were no shadows here. No cause for immediate alarm.

But still, it was really, really, really weird. 'Cause why these doors? I looked to Misty Mountain's door. Then to Screw Loose's. Then back to Misty's again. Then Screw Loose's. Misty. Screw Loose. Misty. Screw Loose. Misty. Screw Loose. Misty. Screw Loose. Misty. Screw Loose.

"These are the lies." I said at last. "The stuff I wouldn't tell Zecora about." The stuff I couldn't tell Zecora about.

I glanced down. Gripped in between my forehooves was a skeleton key made out of Screw Loose's sock. Stiff. Like the cloth had been dipped in invisible cement or something. And it was cold to the touch. (Though not shadow cold. Just, you know, cold-cold.)

"Is this what I'm meant to do?" I asked the spacey void. "Is this where I'm meant to go?"

I waited, but of course, got no answer. Not from Princess Luna. Not from the stars. Not from the voices, or the brain hornets, or any of that.

Maybe I hadn't been sent there after all. Maybe I just ended up at those particular doors because that's where my focus had been when I'd stepped out into the void. My biggest secrets. My biggest lies.

In my mind's eye, I could see Zecora's face shaking again. In disappointment. Sadness. Frustration. 'Cause we both knew that she couldn't help me. That I couldn't tell her the truth.

I looked to the vast expanses of space all around me. The stars. The mists. The twinkly nebulae. I was desperate for some kinda sign.

But all I got was more of that creepy quiet.

…

...

"Well, you were a lot of help." I spun around. Tossed my mane defiantly at the cosmos.

And found myself back at square one. Screw Loose's door. I did not want to open it. I mean I really really really really reeeeeeeallly didn't.

But I couldn't help but wonder: would it be selfish of me to walk away? Didn't I owe it to Blueberry Milkshake to try? After all, if anyone could help me track her down, it had to be The Wanderer.

I studied the key in my hooves. It only takes one turn. I thought. One little, tiny turn and the whole massive complex of chains and bolts would come undone.

I knelt down. Pressed my ear to the cold, iron door. But I only heard my own stomach, gurgling and turning, uneasy at the idea.

"This is crazy." I said out loud to myself. "This is wrong." But before I could finish that thought, I heard a scream coming from inside.

My teeth grabbed the key and thrust it into the hole without stopping to ask my brain what it thought about any of this. 'Cause my stupid brain was busy realizing that I hadn't actually seen Screw Loose in days. Neither in dreams nor in the hospital.

What if something had gone wrong? What if she was in trouble just like Blueberry, and I hadn't even noticed?!'

"Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no." I whispered to myself. Mouth full of key. 'Till click! It turned. Suddenly, all the chains crumbled away like soup crackers. Dissolved when they hit the floor.

Then the door creaked open. And a gust of freezing cold wind swept the ground. Like the air itself was the undertow in some horrible ocean.

I peered inside. But couldn't see a thing. The darkness in Screw Loose's head choked out even the starlight that tried to spill in from the dream hallway.

Then came that throat-ripping scream again. Still faint. Still distant. Coming from somewhere in the depths of Screw Loose's mind. I shivered. I swallowed my own throat-apple down real hard. Took a long, shivering breath. And stepped inside.

***

It wasn't much brighter in there, but I could still see the air in front of my nose turn to a pale silvery mist with every exhale. I went in a little further. Clop-clop. Clop-clop. Clop-clop. Clop-clop. Clop-clop. My hooves slapped against the hard stone floor. And the sound came echoing back to me. Louder than before. Almost like a second set of hoofsteps.

My chest tightened. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Be stealthy, Rose. Be quiet. I stopped. Listened. Hesitated even to breathe as the tail end of the reverberations simmered slowly down. 'Till I was left with only the sound of my own heartbeat thundering inside my head.

This is a bad idea. I thought. And spun around to go back. But the door was already gone. I thrust myself at the spot where it shoulda been. And Slam! - found only stone walls. Cold to the touch. I thrust the key blindly at the wall, but found that it was just a floppy old sock again.

I panicked, groped around in the dark. My frantic hooves made a thousand tiny clip-clop sounds as they probed the wall. But no matter what I did, there was still no door to be found. No place a door could even possibly be! I was at the beginning of an extraordinarily narrow hallway.

And my hoof was burning cold.

I shook it. As if that was gonna accomplishanything. I breathed real fast and frenzy-like. Every voice inside my head shouting: What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?

Then I heard Screw Loose's scream again. Somewhere far off in the distance.

I stopped. Slowed myself. Forced my lungs the-fuck-back-to-normal. Caught my breath, and puffed out my chest. This was no time to fall apart. She needed my help.

I stumbled forward - slowly, carefully - feeling my way around in the dark. 'Till the wailing stopped, and I was suddenly aware of how loud my echoey hoofsteps were.

I froze. Listened.Waited. Knowing that my only advantage was the element of surprise. I shook during those silences. As my Rose Voices shouted at me not to wait - demanded that I either charge toward the danger, or run away from it. But still, I stayed quiet. Still, I didn't move.

When the screams and sobs started up again, it gave me goosebumps. Made me shiver. I could hear every tortured creak of Screw Loose's vocal cords amplified by the stones around me.

The outrage spurred me forward. Drove me so hard, I practically broke into a gallop.

Slower. I told myself, grinding my teeth. You only get one shot at…whatever it is you're gonna do.

It was in this way that I managed to get all the way down that deep, deep, deep dark hallway. Bit by terrifying bit. Until finally, I saw a tiny sliver of sickly light. A doorway, cracked slightly open. Far off at the distant end of Screw Loose's corridor.

I took to tiphooving. The closer to the door I got, the stronger the pain in my hoof grew. Until my whole damn leg felt like a block of ice. Then, I just plain started to limp.

Oh, fuck. I dragged it along the rocky floor. Fuck. I dragged it some more. Oh, fuck. Drag. Fuck. Drag. Fuck. Drag. Fuck. Drag. Fuck.

The wailing and the sobbing was downright oppressive now. It seemed to echo not just against the stones, but to get caught inside of my own head. Shrill as a rusty nail scrrrraping a pane of glass.

Hang on. I forced myself forward. I'm coming!

As I neared the end of the hallway, I crept up. Real super careful-like. Until I found myself juuust outside the door where the screams had come from. That weak light I'd seen seeping from the cracks in the wood seemed almost blinding now. My eyeballs had gotten so accustomed to the dark. But still, I knelt down gingerly, carefully - as though my back were balancing a pyramid of crystal animal figurines - and I sucked in a deep, deep, deep, deep breath - prepared to peek inside. As quietly as I could.

I pressed my eye against the gap in the doorway. And I saw a pony strapped to a chair. Like the kind you sit in when you go to the dentist. But worse. She was wearing some sorta weird fucking helmet. Wires sticking out of it - tubes. The room was so bright, I couldn't make anything else out. So I pushed the door ever so slightly open. Careful not to make the hinges creak.

The screams worsened. So loud, it felt like they were bucking at me from inside my ear drums.

I had to help her. With a trembling hoof, I reached up, and tried to push the door just a little bit further open. But it made a hollow rattle - my hoof clapping against the wood as my legs shook.

The screamer quieted down to a soft whimper. Just a moment. Long enough to catch her breath.

I touched my chest. As though I could somehow quiet my own lungs - as though holding my hoof against my ribs could keep my heart from slamming against them like a dance party kick drum. And for a long, long, long, long, long, long moment, it was totally silent in there. Until at last, I worked up the courage to lean forward again. Press my eyeball against the crack in the doorway once more.

I finally saw the dentist chair more clearly. A green filly was strapped to it. About my age. Not Screw Loose at all.

Her chest was pumping rapidly. Like she had just galloped full speed from Canterlot to Las Pegasus. Sweat poured down her face in buckets. Drool fell freely from her chin. She stared at the ceiling. Or rather, beyond it. At horrors unseen. And whimpered meekly.

Two hooves pressed down on her shoulders. And their presence cast a bigger shadow over her than physically made sense for the light in the room. The hooves cranked a tiny mechanism, tightening a screw in the back of the helmet. And the filly's eyes grew wide. She started to scream.

The hooves above her touched her face softly. Savored the moment. Though the poor thing didn't notice. Only saw what was beyond.

A light flickered against the wall. As though her brain itself were some kinda magic slide show projector. I leaned in just a little harder. To get a peak at whatever memory the filly was reliving. It made the door crack open. Just a little bit more.

That's when I saw her.A wild-eyed gray mare with a light blue mane. Unmistakably Screw Loose. Towering over her victim with a savage focus in her eyes. Devoid of the dog-like innocence I knew. Screw Loose brushed the sweaty locks of green mane away from the victim's forehead. And her lips spread in a calm, satisfied smile as the girl in the chair started to blubber and sob.

I started shaking. Screw Loose is one of them. I thought. And gritted my teeth in rage. Feeling betrayed.

But the feeling passed as quickly as it had come. The castle had made fillies turn themselves into torturers. The monster in front of me wasn't Screw Loose. The dogmare I knew would never hurt anypony. At all. Ever.

Screw Loose had escaped. Probably shattered her whole fucking brain in the process. But she'd gotten free.

Which is why the shadows couldn't find her. They weren't looking for a missing dogmare. They were looking for a missing Inquisitor!

Creeeak. Went the door as my quivering hooves nudged it. Just a little bit too far.

And whoosh. Suddenly that predator's eyes were fixed on me. She stood on her hind legs, and rose tall - still just a filly herself, but somehow seeming like a great big spindly tree. She watched me with interest, and let the door swing casually open. To get a better view.

I backed away slowly.

She followed. But she didn't move like a normal pony. She crept. Low to the ground like a wolf sniffing tiny prey. Her silky legs moved so fluidly, it gave the impression of floating. While her joints bent and twisted in unnatural angles.

Everything around her was darkness. Yes, that darkness. It spread out like it had a mind of its own. Inky liquid flooded the walls and ceiling - swallowed any light whatsoever that had dared escape the dentist room - and then oozed out into the corridor.

My hoof burned so cold - just from being near it - that I toppled over. Clutched it in pain. Pain that made Screw Loose smile. But it wasn't Screw Loose. This pony - this sadist - this shadowy clitweasel - it wasn't the mare I'd grown to love.

Slash. A crumbling, scratching sound came from behind me.

I gasped. Spun around. Keeping Evil Screw Loose to my right, while I quickly scanned my left for other shadowmajigs. Afraid to turn my back on either one. Screeccch! Another deafening sound like a broken bottle scraped against a chalkboard 'till it crumbled to pieces. Shhheennk! Went the wall of the corridor as some unseen force carved gashes in the stone.

Screw Loose stalked forward. One patient step at a time. And I crept backwards. Afraid to break into a run. Knowing that I'd be caught the second that I tried.

The two of us slid. Moving together like dancers. Toward the wall that was spitting out crumbly rocks, and sediment, and pebbles as the slashing sound quickened. Until at last, the invisible axe that had been hacking away at the masonry, just...stopped, leaving only a crude, jagged carving in the wall as the dust settled.

HELLO, ROSE. It said.

I tumbled backwards. Landed belly up. And clutched at my mojo bag with both forehooves. Hollered out blindly. Called for help with my very heart and soul.

And my black, evil hoof suddenly felt a sensation beyond the pain. A meek little light that seemed worlds away. It was Bananas Foster's glow. I dimly remembered that feeling - that cosmic sensation that we were both one when our hooves had touched. A family. A hive.

I found myself holding the sock key again. This time on a keychain with all my other tokens. I looked away from the carving, and from the version of Screw Loose that was more shadow than pony. And I saw it. The door had returned! At the end of the hallway, which was now somehow closer than it should have been.

I leapt up. Ran. Made for the exit. But that black stuff had anticipated my move. It was already swishing around me. Like some great wave spiraling along the walls and ceiling.

I galloped, and charged, and threw everything I had into my legs, but within seconds, I felt the burning cold graze my tail. I couldn't outrun it. The door was close. But the evil was closer.

So I stopped, and spun around. Don't ask me why, but I did. I clutched at my mojo bag. Held it in front of me. And it shone. Like a candle. Or a lantern. As I screamed at the darkness with all my might. "Stay back, or I'll fucking friendship you to death!"

And the tidal wave of shadow goo stopped. Inches before my face. As I panted, more with outrage than with fear.

"Stay back!" I yelled again.

And the oily tidal wave hovered there. Growling. A rumble so deep that I felt it in the floor.

It wasn't afraid of me, or my bag, or of getting friendshipped to death. But it hadn't expected anything like it either. Delicately, the shadow took shape once more, and slinked up to me. Again, like a timberwolf waiting for just the right moment to pounce.

I slid backwards. Slowly. Carefully. And it followed.

So I howled. I fucking howled. Just like my mom had taught Roseluck to do when she was little. I howled the world's greatest fuck you. To the darkness and all of its shadowy bullshit. To the Screw-Loose-that-used-to-be. To the Inquisitor that haunted the dogmare I knew and loved, and shattered her brain, and made her into a crazy broken mirror full of love, and trust, and innocence, and whimpering, helpless sadness.

I howled like hell. And I planted my freezing evil hoof on the quaking stone floor. And then wham! I kicked the door with my hindlegs. And leapt back as it swung open. The key had worked, whether I'd jiggled it in the stupid keyhole mechanism or not.

The creature startled. Like it hadn't known there was a way out at all. And a massive tsunami of shadow rushed forward, just as I - slam! - swung the door shut.

And I found myself back in that outer space hallway. Panting for breath.

The force of that shadow wave - of Screw Loose in her full Inquisitorness charged that iron door. Making the bolts shake. The chains rattle.

"Sweet Luna." I panted. Wheezed.

And took the mojo bag back in my mouth. I clamped down hard. Even as my teeth chattered.

Slam! The door shook. Dented. Hinges rattled.

I backed away. Shaking. Afraid to look away. Afraid to blink. I focused everything I had on that mojo bag between my teeth. Held it up like a lantern. Slid back step by trembling step.

Slam! Screw Loose's door shook yet again.

"Ahh!" I yelled as loud as I could. Reached out with my Rosebrain as hard as I could. For anything that could help me. Anyone. And then clunk. I backed into something wooden.

I spun around, and there was Misty Mountain's door. With no time left to weigh the pros and cons of our unexplained connection, I used his tail hair as a key. Gripped it with my teeth, even as my jaw twitched and shook with fear. I flung Misty's door open. Leapt inside. Crying out for help the whole damn way.

***

I heard the million screams again. The bomb. The future. I felt it every time that I traveled. You never get used to the sound. You never stop and go, "Oh, that's just a billion ponies dying at once. Don't worry about it."

'Cause voices stand out. Of the countless, nameless masses that are going to die in that one awful moment. Little voices still leap out at you. A sister saying she's sorry for a lifetime of rivalry, but never getting to finish the thought. A foal, crying for her mother. A withered old stallion. Wishing he wasn't so alone.

And pain. So much pain.

It claws at you. Feels like it's tearing you apart - skin and muscle and blood and bone and flesh. Until you evaporate into this great big blinding light. The big boom. The bomb.

And then you hurtle further. This time, 200 years or so. Spiraling out of control. Unable to tell up from down.

'Till shoOoowOnk!

It's over. So abrupt, it's like being strapped to the front of a train, and driven full speed into a mountain.

***

I was suddenly in some sort of quiet space. Peaceful...almost. There were echoes ringing still in my ears of one last desperate cry. The sobs of Misty himself. But he wasn't anywhere to be seen. Stone, and metal, and concrete encased me on one side. Like a little cubby. It left only one tiny hole for light to get through. So I squeezed my way toward it.

Scrambled like a maniac to get out. I landed on a busted sidewalk. And then spun around, ready to fight. But there were no shadows following.

There was nothing at all. Just broken buildings. Twisted metal. Piles of rubble warping their way around a gnarled old jungle gym. And it was quiet. Real fucking quiet.

My hooves felt totally normal. No freezing cold sensation. No evil.

Maybe The Inquisitor never escaped Screw Loose's door? Or maybe the shadows just had no idea where to find me? I couldn't be sure.

I turned and stared at the broken jungle gym that I'd shimmied out of. Waited nervously for something to slither out from behind the brick fragments - to ooze from the pores of its rusted exoskeleton. You know, like Evil Screw Loose, or snakes, or monsters or whatever.

But nothing happened. Nothing had apparently followed me. Or so I thought at first.

Crumble crumble! The sound of cement chunks tumbling down a heap. I froze. Clutched my mojo bag again. Readied myself for a fight. Eyeballed potential escape routes.

Behind me - far past all the twisted playground equipment - was a long stretch of road. Battered, but navigable. I could make a decent amount of distance pretty fast if I had to, but not without being seen.

There was wreckage everywhere. Of old disused buildings. Warped by the war. The bomb. Generations of neglect. I could hide behind them, of course, but I'd still need a head start, and they left no viable escape route. My more immediate surroundings were speckled with huge heaps and mounds of busted concrete. And I could maybe run to some of the larger piles. Just long enough to take cover. But it wasn't much of a defense.

Not against shadows. Or even cloak-o's or potatoes, or corns, or whatever crazy factions the Wasteland had to offer me this time around.

I backed up. Clutched that mojo back again as the cinder blocks started to part. Hunks of cement at the base of that twisted old jungle gym shook themselves loose. And a colt poked his head out of the hole.

"Cliff?" I said, running to him eagerly.

"What is this?" He replied. Coughing. "You had one job!" He snapped. "And what was all that awful screaming?" He rubbed his temples, squinted his eyes. Shook his head in utter confoundment.

"It was terrible." He started to cry. "So much screaming."

I put my forehooves up on his shoulders, prepared myself to coach him into getting it together. To tell him how sorry I was - how really really really fucking sorry I was, but that we didn't have time to cry. Not yet, anyway.

But then he thrust himself at me. Sobbed into my chest. Heaved so hard it didn't make a sound.

And as I stroked his mane with my hooves, I scanned the landscape with my eyeballs. Or rather, cityscape. There was a hill about five blocks to my left. We needed shelter, food, and clean drinking water, and the top of that hill was bound to be the best spot to get a look around, so long as we were careful. A few blocks to my right was a great big towering wall. A relic of the war, no doubt. But in better repair than the rest of the city.

The top was mounted with fresh spirals of that razor wire stuff I'd seen in No Mare's Land. The area is inhabited. Its security, active.

I cheated my shoulders to the side. Spun a little in each direction, even as I held Cliff tight. Shhhhh'd him soothingly. And got a good look behind me: buildings - broken buildings. Everywhere. I couldn't tell how far the row of them stretched 'cause the road didn't run straight.

I had no fucking idea who or what might be lurking in or behind any of those structures. I didn't like it.

Shlogk! A rumbling sound from behind. Cliff Diver jerked. Pulled himself away from me. And before he could voice his justifiable confusion, I plunged a hoof into Cliff's mouth.

"Shhh!" I said.

He nodded.

I checked my evil hoof first. No cold. No shadows. At least as far as I could tell. But Misty's dream door had dragged us to the Wasteland, and who the Hell knew what crazy bullshit might be waiting for us here?

A coughing sound came from the rubble. A wheezing. And the bricks suddenly toppled down a mound, and out crawled a creature, black as night.

It stared blankly at the shattered city. More confused than we were. It looked at us for a moment. Still stunned. Tears ran down its bulbous green eyes. And then fwish. It noticed me. And like a needle dropping on a record, suddenly its consciousness sprang to life.

"What the?" It said. And in a burst of green flame, transformed into a pony. One I knew very well.

"Foster?" Cliff asked, more dumbfounded than ever.

"Cliff?" She replied. Then turned to me. "Rose?"

Bananas Foster patted herself down. Spun around, head flailing everywhere. Tasting that dank Wasteland air. Ogling the ruined city. Trying to take it all in at once.

Then her big brown eyes landed on me. "Rose Petal," she pleaded. "What did you do?"

End Book Five
Doors

Author's Note

PATREON
If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you in any way, and you can manage to spare a few bits, consider supporting me on Patreon. I have mouths to feed, and even small contributions add up, and makes a difference.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS:
Whenever I write Zecora, I make a point of putting extra care into her dialogue - of making her speech more than just talking crammed into a rhythmic meter with sloppy rhymes. Her rhyming is a mystical thing, and while I don't fancy myself much of a poet, I have still put a great deal of effort into making everything that she says as lyrical as possible. I hope that I have done her character at least a fraction of the justice she deserves.

Now, here we are after months of building up the storyline, and Rose is in the Wasteland with her friends. A whole new adventure is opening up for her, and I feel like rejoicing because I don't have to drive myself crazy writing rhymes anymore!!!!!! :pinkiehappy:

Okay, all joking aside, there's a lot to be excited about here, and I can't wait to explore it. There's a lot to digest as well which is why I can't wait to hear from all of you about the twists and turns that this chapter took, and about the path that lies ahead.

This is it. The big one. The penultimate adventure. I'm both ecstatic to see the story finally falling into place after all these years, and saddened by the long, hard road that Rose & Friends now have to traverse.

Bean-Secrets

* * *

BOOK SIX
US AND THEM

* * *

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT - BEAN-SECRETS
"We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity." - H.G. Wells
"If I cease searching, then woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may," - Vincent Van Gogh

Foster stood there, dumbfounded. Staring off into space. A million, billion, zillion miles away. Her forehooves clutched at her chest. Her head shook back and forth as she whispered the same words to herself, again and again and again. But I couldn't tell what they were. Nothing cheery, I imagine.

Cliff approached. Rested a hoof on Bananas Foster's shoulder. Meant to be reassuring. But it only startled her worse.

"Ahh!" She said. Scrambling away suddenly. "Don't touch me."

She threw her eyeballs around. Tilted her head up. Down. Twirled herself around in every conceivable direction before finally skidding to a clumsy stop, and shooting her accusatory eyeballs back at Cliff. "Stay away!" She cried.

"Sorry," said Cliff, backing off so fast that he tripped over the rubble beneath his hooves.

"What did you do?" Foster turned to me, and asked yet again.

"Me?"

"Ahhhh!" Bananas startled. This time at the sight of her own hooves and forelegs. And the shoulder that Cliff had just touched.

Flash! She made that green fire thing happen, and suddenly, Bananas Foster was back in her changeling form. Staring at the same spot as before - this time, studying her shiny black carapace instead of a bright yellow hide.

Then poof! She was a pony yet again. "You've gotta send me back!" Foster panted hard, chest pumping at the psychotic pace of a polka accordion.

She lunged back at the hole in the rubble that she'd crawled out of. "Send me back, Rose!" She shouted over her shoulder. "Send me back!"

"Shhhh!" I said. Scanning the buildings around us for movement. And the mounds. And the roads.

If there are any bad news ponies around, by now, they know we're here.

Bananas threw her hooves into the pile o' cement chunks. Shoveled brick and stone out of her way as best she could. "O mother!" She said to herself in the way that a pony might invoke Princess Celestia or Princess Luna's intercession. "O, Mother! O, Mother! O, Mother! O, Mother! O Mother!" She cried out again. Desperately hoofing at the rubble.

"I can't send you back," I replied.

"Whattaya mean you can’t?!" Foster snapped. "You've got to, Rose. Send. Me--;"

"Shh!" I lunged forward, ready to throw a hoof over her lips.

In a puff of green flame, she transformed into a changeling yet again. Scrambled backwards. "I'll be quiet, I'll be quiet, I'll be quiet!" She whisper-shouted. "Just don't touch me."

"Okay," I held my forehooves up and whispered. "Listen. Remember when I was in the hospital with you? How I could barely move, or get out of bed for days?"

Foster -or should I say, Changeling Scout Thirteen - was so busy checking her bughooves, her buglegs, and frantically examining the entirety of her freaky insect exoskeleton, that she didn't respond.

"Look at me," I said gently.

And she did.

Maybe it was the calmness in my voice. Or maybe I'd somehow managed to grab her attention at just the right moment. But whatever I'd done, it'd worked. "Do you remember?" I asked.

She nodded - even as she shook with fear.

"I went to No Mare's Land," I added. "I ran around. And I felt fine. Do you understand? Whatever sickness you have is your body." I pointed to the sky, meant to indicate that the waking world was somewhere up there.

But when Thirteen followed my hoof with her eyes, and caught a glimpse of the dull gray clouds above, she stumbled. And lay flat on her back. "WhoOoOaaa," she said.

"What?"

"The sky," she answered. "Is it always this...open?"

"Yeah," Cliff chimed in. "Sometimes opener when it's not so bleh outside."

Thirteen gazed up, eyes wide as moons. Fixed on the high-up Wasteland ceiling - the impossibility of it - the infinity of it. "Cooool."

"Are you okay?" Cliff asked.

"Yeah," Thirteen replied, stretching her bughooves upwards as though the sky itself were a thing that she could grab. "Wait a minute…"

"What?" Cliff asked.

The changeling rolled over onto her belly. Examined those same forehooves closely. "If I was gonna flare from this, I'd have little microblisters in my shell by now." She patted her own chest. "And I wouldn't be able to breathe very well either. Look at this!" Thirteen turned to me with a smile. And breathed deep. In and out. In and out. In and out. As though it were some kinda magic trick.

"I've been out of the cocoon for short periods before. And I always blistered. After only a few minutes, even the air burns. But watch!" Again, she sucked in the dank, smoky Wasteland breeze, and licked her lips as though she'd just eaten a marzipan-stuffed donut. "I think you're right!" She laughed. "I'm cured!"

"Shhh!" I lunged forward. Ready to shove a hoof in her mouth.

But she leapt back again. "Okay, okay, I'll be quiet," Thirteen whisper-shouted. "Just don't touch me...I mean, hold on a minute...can you?"

Again, she burst into green flame and transformed. Examined her other body for rashes. As though her pony hide might show signs of allergic reaction differently than her exoskeleton.

"Would you stop making so much light?!" Cliff Diver snapped, casting suspicious glances in all directions. Even though he was unsure of what exactly he was supposed to be on the lookout for.

"What?" Bananas replied. "Oh, that," she laughed. Sticking her tongue out to taste the air again. "Wait a minute! I can change form. Easier than ever before."

"Don't," I whispered in a panic.

"Rose Petal," Cliff asked. "What do we do?"

Of course I didn't know. I'd never been there. I'd spent most of my Wasteland time inside an innocence-hating cult mine, and when I did break outside of its walls, I still hadn't been right smack dab in the middle of a city!

I didn't even know how to find my way around a regular city, let alone a Wasteland one. But, at the very least, I had grown accustomed to surveying for danger. "Well," I said. "Um...we need food, water, shelter, and cover. This isn't like the Equestria we know. You can't just wander around hapless-like, and be safe. Anypony could be watching us from those buildings." I probed them again with my eyeballs. In search of strategic vantage points. The windows. The alleyways. The cracks-in-walls, and rubble-mounds. But there was nothing. We were alone.

"So what do we do?" Cliff asked yet again.

I pointed to a slope about five blocks to our left. It had what used to be a public park at the top of it. Or at least, a clearing.It was hard to tell the difference because there were no fucking trees anywhere.

"We can get a better view from there," I said. "If we're quiet along the way. And careful."

All eyes shifted to Foster.

"What?" She replied.

* * *

We headed for the hill. Slowly. Hugging the sides of buildings whenever we could. So as not to be seen coming down the road. But the ground warped at unreasonable angles. And walking straight wasn't always possible.

Did you ever get curious, and put a whole bunch of cereal in a paper bag, stomp it like crazy, and then empty the contents of the bag into your bowl to see how small the pieces had gotten? You know...for science? Well, that's what the streets of this forgotten city looked like. Frosted Science Flakes.

But even as we walked (or rather, maneuvered)over the flaky terrain - even as I tried to stay aware of the immediate threats - ruins of buildings, piles of rubble, nooks and crannies - any place at all that could potentially be hiding watchful ponies with sinister intentions - my eyes still kept straying to the fresh razor wire that adorned the top of the city wall.

The fact that the wall itself hadn't collapsed while so many other structures around it had been reduced to gnarled metal skeletons and heaps of broken concrete. That alone was unsettling. But the razor wire?

Who put it there? Why did it look brand new? What threat were they trying to discourage? Sweet Celestia, it was leaning inwards! Why was it tilted inwards instead of at the outside world? If the point of the wire wasn't to protect the area from foreign invasion, what exactly were they trying to keep inside?!

I redoubled my efforts to spot any evil so-and-so that might be lurking or stalking us. But still, I saw nothing. Not even a bug, or a bird.

"Hey, Rose," Cliff whispered. "What's our mission?"

"Well, there's that hill over there." I pointed.

"No," he replied. "I mean what are we supposed to do? What do your, uh...brain hornets tell you?"

I froze. It was only then that I realized that Cliff hadn't seen any of the crazy shit that had gone down between me and Screw Loose. The shadow presence. My escape into Misty Mountain's door.

Duh. Why would he have seen it? I hadn't established my connection with Cliff - hadn't actually reached out with his hair - until the moment I leapt through Misty's door.

And hell! Was there even a mission?!

In all of my other travels, the way to get home had always been to complete an objective. But here? There was no fucking objective at all! I was just a stowaway on Misty's.

And there were no fucking brain hornets in my head to nag me, or lead the way. Kinda like being in the Everfree. No shadow speak. No Powers That Be with their vague, confusing missions. Just me, my brain, and the echoes of the cries I'd heard on my way over.

Misty Mountain's cries. Bouncing 'round the inside of my head-skull.

Luna fuck me with moon rocks! What if Misty Mountain completed his mission before we found him? Would there even be a way home?!

"It's a long story," I said to Cliff Diver as I climbed carefully over a small mound of science flakes. "I'll tell you when we're someplace safe."

"Rose," Cliff said uneasily. "What did you do?"

I laughed nervous-like. Didn't answer. Just clutched my mojo bag.

"...Once we're someplace safe," I repeated. And we ambled on.

When we came to the first street corner, all twelve of our hooves shuffled to a halt at the same time. Even Bananas, (who was still so stunned, that we needed to foalsit her every inch of the way), was able to take a hint.

I gestured with my head that they should press themselves up against the wall harder. And they did.

Then slowly, carefully, I stuck my head out and peered down the road. In one direction, it stretched far, warping in weird origami angles all the way to that great, big wall with the wire on top. And in the other, it simply curved around a row of what had once been buildings. Either way, I couldn't see very far. At least not from that angle.

But it was a wide boulevard, after all. Open. Exposed. The central point of about five converging, disused roads. And we might get to see more when we crossed it. The problem was: we might also get spotted from any one of a gajillion hiding spots once we set hoof off the sidewalk.

"I think our best bet is to hang low," I said. "Just sorta dash across as fast as we can...while at the same time, oh, you know...crawling."

"That doesn't make any sense," Foster said, finally aware of the danger of her surroundings. And the stupidity of my statement.

"Why don't you just turn into a bird, and fly ahead, then?" Cliff Diver snapped, half-annoyed, but still leaning in close, not-so-subtle-like, hoping to find out if such a solution would actually be possible.

"Birds are too small," Bananas replied. "And it has to be something I've seen with my own two eyes."

"You've never seen a bird before?" Cliff asked.

"Not that I can remember," Foster answered with a shrug. "Not in the flesh anyway. But I do have wings of my own."

And before she could change into her bug-self again, I threw my forelegs around her. "No!" I whisper-shouted. "No splitting up. No green flames."

Foster seized up. Her torso started trembling with fear. I was touching her again.

"Ahh!" I backed away. Horrified at what I'd done.

Foster plopped down on her flank, and lifted up her quaking forehooves. She turned them over. Front and back. Front and back. Front and back. Then changeling-ized herself, and did the same with her bughooves.

"What?" Cliff probed. "What's going on?"

Then Thwomp! Without warning, Thirteen hurled herself at Cliff. Hugged him. Leaned her changeling-face against Cliff's chest.

"Oh my gosh, Rose, check this out!" She said. "I can hear his heart! I. Can. Hear. His. Heart!"

Thirteen leaned against Cliff so hard that they both toppled over. Cliff threw his forelegs around her reflexively as he fell. And, "Oof!" Landed pretty hard on his side in the process. But Thirteen just kept marveling at the fuzzy gray legs that encircled her. 'Till, at last, she just plain burst into laughter.

I would not have thought it possible for an exoskeleton to actually be expressive, but in that moment, I saw a joy in Thirteen's eyes, brighter and purer than I'd ever witnessed in anypony before.

My own eyes started to water. Just seeing it happen. And a squeak of laughter burst out of my throat. Like Pinkbeard shattering the bars on the brig of the H.M.S Pirate-Hater, surging to the deck, all unexpected-like, and diving overboard into the embrace of First Mate Squidamajig. I clapped my forehooves over my mouth so fast, I almost toppled forward. As I started to teeter, I suddenly remembered. We were out in the open!

"This is amazing," I said, struggling to contain my giggles. Throwing my eyeballs up and down the city block in search of danger. "Quick," I said. "Let's find someplace saf…" and next thing I knew, Thirteen flashed herself back into the shape of Bananas Foster, and pounced me.

"Ahhh!" I said. And tumbled sideways. Not nearly as gracefully as Cliff.

Both Bananas Foster and I banged ourselves against the corn flake sidewalk as we fell. But she didn't seem to notice. She clutched me hard. Enveloped me completely, being older and larger than I was.

"Omigosh, you're so floofy!" She said, prodding me.

"Alright, that's enough," I said wryly, though I didn't have the heart to pour boiling oil on her parade. "Let's find some cover."

We set ourselves up inside the lobby of a nearby building that hadn't totally crumbled. Piles of bricks and rain-eroded concrete guarded the gaping hole that had been the entranceway. But once we'd climbed over, we found a little natural grotto inside. There were also holes on the far end of the lobby where pillars had toppled, and caught some of the roof with it. The crevice they made was just big enough for all of us to fit through. Even Cliff. So we could escape if we needed to. That was important.

The three of us rushed in there giggling. And allowed ourselves to act like fools for a few minutes. To forget the Wasteland. And the shadows. And just...be kids.

But when those few minutes were over, we lay there. On the filthy floor. Staring at the warped tin ceiling of what we had ascertained to be the remains of an ice cream shop. Ogling the corrosion marks and the holes in the metal - like they were constellations.

Eventually, that itching feeling came back, though. A voice. Not from the great beyond. Just a regular Rose Voice. From somewhere inside my own annoying head.

"We need to find Misty," I whispered.

Cliff Diver sat up slowly. "Misty Mountain? Like the unicorn kid from Trottica?"

"Yeah," I replied. "We need to find him. So we should search this place for any canned food, or, you know, whatever might have survived. Water. Tools. Rope. That kinda thing. And get moving."

Cliff nodded. And I could see the gears turning in his brain. "You got paired up with Misty Mountain. Twice!" He cried out. Laughing in pure astonishment.

I looked away. Awkward-like. Clutched my mojo bag instinctively. It was a little tiny micro-gesture. Like an ant shrugging. But my eyes landed on Foster. And she saw the uncertainty in me. She knew.

"Wait 'till we tell Zecora!" Cliff exclaimed.

"Uh, yeah," I said, never prying my gaze from Bananas Foster's intense, on-to-me eyes. "Let's get foraging though, and move on while there's still daylight."

Cliff dove behind the counter of the decrepit old ice cream shop, and started clanging a bunch of metal stuff together as he rummaged. But Foster just stared at me some more.

I laughed nervously in reply.

...While she stared.

...And I laughed

...And she stared.

...And I laughed.

...And still, she stared

'Till crack! The sound of wood splintering. "Ahh!" Cliff cried out.

Foster and I dashed to the counter. Found a collapsed floorboard behind it. But Cliff Diver stood off to the side. Legs pressed firmly against the walls for support. Hooves strategically not weighing down upon the wooden section of the floor. "Sorry," he said as I ran around the counter to meet him. "I'm fine," he continued. "It only startled me. I'm not stupid enough to actually--;"

CRACK! My own hindhoof fell into the stupid floorboards as I tried to dash to his aid.

"Rose!" Both Cliff and Foster cried in unison as they flanked me on either side.

And that old dread sank in. Of being a liability. Of making everypony around me all concernitty."I'm fine," I said. "Nothing serious." But as I tried to yank my hind leg up out of the hole, the broken floorboards, pointing downward, dug into my flesh.

"Don't move!" Foster lunged forward, hooves extended toward me in fear and desperation.

"If I don't move," I said with rolling eyes. "I'll never leave."

Foster shook her head gravely. "You can't let that cut get any deeper. This wood is rotten." She flailed her hooves, gesticulating at the warped floorboards that ran alongside the serving counter of the-ice-cream-parlor-that-once-was. "Infection. Can. Kill. You," she continued. "Without access to modern medicine."

"Over so small a cut?" I scoffed.

"Yes," Foster spoke in a voice so quiet, and so dire that somehow, it felt like yelling.

"I thought you knew all about Wasteland stuff," Cliff chimed in.

"I'm sorry," I snapped. "The crazy cult that tried to sacrifice us to the God of Jewel Mines at the very least had the basic decency to keep normal floors that didn't just...attack you for stepping on them!"

I winced in pain as my passions had me moving and flailing wildly. The splintered wood dug in deeper.

"Stop!" Cliff shouted. "You're making it worse."

Meanwhile, Foster crept around the back of the counter to wedge herself real, super-cose to me. She lay across the floor so as to distribute her weight properly, and not break the wood herself. "Are you cut deep?"

"Not really," I said. "I'm just stuck. How do you know about this stuff, anyway?"

"I've read every book in the hospital library at least six times, including the first aid manuals and reference materials when they had nothing else to give me," Foster replied. "Now hold still."

She let loose a flash of green flame and became Scout Thirteen again. Then leaned in close. Found a section of the broken floor board she liked, and started nibbling on it with her rock-hard bug-jaws.

And as I stood there. Helpless. Stupid. Watching Cliff's eyes widen with concernitty fear, it finally sunk in just how foalish I was. How much could actually go wrong if we didn't find Misty, and fast! How much…

Poof! Suddenly, Nurse Redheart was right there. In the ice cream parlor. Standing over me. Stern-like. "Hold still," she said.

And I did. I seized up like a foal forgetting her lines right smack dab in the middle of her first school play.

Before my brain could even begin to formulate a clue, Nurse Redheart was a changeling again, om-nom-nom'ing on that nasty old wood 'till snap! The floorboard broke, and my leg was freed. Thirteen gently guided it out of the hole, and sighed, splaying across the warped floor once I was good and free.

"Don't make me turn into an adult again," she said grumpily, rising to her hooves, rubbing her temples in pain.

"You mean, like, mentally, or physically?" Cliff leaned forward, eager-like, bracing himself on the counter.

"Yes," Thirteen replied.

Thirteen left Cliff Diver inside to rummage for anything resembling alcohol, or clean cloth for bandages - supplies I hadn't even thought of - while she took me into the grey light of day, and examined my leg.

"You're lucky it didn't break the skin," she said.

"I told you," I sighed with rollity eyeballs. "It's not a big deal."

"It is a big deal," Foster leapt up and stood over me. "What would you do if it got infected? Do you have any idea what tetanus does?"

I shook my head. Knowing only that I'd hated getting the shot as a foal.

"It's a bacterial toxin," Foster said. "The chemicals that it releases into your body causes your muscles to contract. Usually starting with your neck. And your jaw." She gestured at my head without touching it. "As the infection progresses, every muscle in your body seizes up at the same time, and stays that way for several minutes. Sometimes it happens 'cause you got startled by a bright light or a loud noise, and sometimes it just hits you for no reason at all. But when it does, you lock up, and every muscle feels like it's on fire for minutes on end, and there's no way to stop it, and you don't know how long it's going to last. Your jaws mash together, and your teeth grind themselves down - that is if you're lucky enough not to have bitten your tongue off first. Once you get to a certain point, there's no treatment - even in the best hospital in Equestria. You just die, Rose. Either you waste away 'cause you can't open your mouth to eat. Or you go into shock from the pain. All from a cut no deeper than a little scratch."

I rubbed my jaw without realizing it. Craned my neck to get another look at my hind hoof. The one that got floorboarded. It seemed fine. But what the hell did I know?

"Sorry, girls," Cliff scrambled out of the ice cream parlor empty-hooved. "Nothing in there."

Foster closed her eyes. Nodded. And out of nowhere, thwomp. Threw her legs around me. Smothered my face with her chest and ran a hoof through my mane. It reminded me of Roseluck's protect-y-ness.

Then, after a long, deep, trembling breath, she held me at legs' length, looked me square in the eye, and said, "Okay, Rose. What's the safest way to cross the big street?"

After a little deliberation, I ultimately decided that the best way to cross the boulevard of death was simply to cross it. Casual-like. At normal speed. So as not to draw attention to ourselves.

The three of us made our way to the other side of that massive thoroughfare. And finally got a peek at what those long stretches of road had to offer. But as I gazed out, tossing my eyeballs left and right, up and down, near and far, and everywhere in between, I saw no sign of life. No camp that Misty Mountain might have joined. No compound, nor war zone that he might need rescuing from. No hospitals to loot. No raiding hordes, nor enemy soldiers, nor child-hating zealots to flee.

Just rows and rows of dilapidated buildings that stretched out into the void. It reminded me of the dead world I'd visited. Columnland. And its empire o' dust.

My thumping heart sank into my stomach. Waiting for the catch. The bullet storm that would rip us all apart like in No Mare's Land. (Even though the very idea was fucking stupid. 'Cause, seriously, all three of us were naked. Unarmed. Harmless. Not a threat. And anypony looking to kidnap us, and throw us into a slave mine probably wasn't gonna shoot us full of holes first).

But old paranoia dies hard.

So I did my best to hack through all the screaming fears inside of my brain-head. To get a grip on where we actually were. What perils we might actually face. Like, you know, fucking doom-splinters that turn you into a statue of torment and grind your own damn jaw down to dust.

And with my friends beside me, I made it uneventfully to the other side of the widest road I'd ever crossed, all the while, wondering what the Hell Misty Mountain was doing in a world that was just so damn empty.

* * *

Once on the other side of the boulevard, the three of us kept going. Headed up the block in silence. Made for the hill. Where hopefully, we'd learn something useful about this particular ducky-future.

I patted my mojo bag with my forehoof. Closed my eyes. Hoped for a sign. Or a feeling. Or a direction. Anything, really. But all I sensed was a strange quiet. A hornet-less void. With no guiding forces at all. Just a sort of...loneliness.

"Hey Rose?" Cliff said gently.

"Huh? What?" I replied.I hadn't even noticed that my friends had slowed down, conspiratorially-like to flank me. One on each side.

"Cliff and I have been talking," Bananas said ominously.

"Oookay?" I said.

Foster looked to Cliff Diver. Cliff Diver looked away. A little unsure of himself. Embarrassed by whatever-the-hell-it-was that he felt he had to say.

But after a moment of our dozen hooves clopping awkwardly over the broken concrete, Cliff finally craned his neck around, and looked to me, super-direct - almost confrontational-like - and said, "This is Misty's door, isn't it?"

"What?" I laughed as though it were a great big joke. "What do you mean?"

...

When nopony else joined me, I just sorta smiled. Blushed. Averted my eyes.

"What was chasing you, Rose?" Cliff asked gently.

I seized up. Completely unprepared to get called out like that. My legs kept walking as if by magic. But everything from my belly up just sorta hardened like crusty paste.

"You wouldn't've gone through the wrong door for no reason," Cliff continued. "So what was chasing you? It's not gonna, like, follow us here, is it?"

"What? No," I protested. "At least...I don't think so."

I pretended to check my evil hoof. As though it had an invisible watch on it. Let them think that it was just regular shadows. 'Cause I couldn't betray Screw Loose's secret. Not when Bananas Foster's main ambition was to kill the Inquisitor out of spite.

I mean: Was there even a way to make her understand that Screw Loose wasn't that pony anymore? That the Inquisitor was functionally already dead, and was gonna stay that way so long as the locks held on Screw Loose's dream door?

Or was spilling the beans just gonna open up a giant can of worms who would then proceed to eat up all of my spilt beans, and make an even bigger mess outta everything?

Did I even have a right to keep my beans to myself any longer? After all they'd been through, didn't my friends deserve to know those bean-secrets?

"It was your dog-friend wasn't it?" Bananas Foster, said matter-of-fact-ish-like.

"What?" I replied, oh-so-cunningly. "How did you...Wha...How...Are you hive-minding my brain?" Thunk. I knocked myself in the head with my hoof. As though that would do anything. Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk.

"What? No!" Foster said indignantly. "Hive mind doesn't work like that, and even if it did, I wouldn't just go rooting around your head without telling you! What kinda monster do you take me for?"

"Sorry," I kicked a pebble in frustration. Feeling like a total jerk. The truth was, I didn't actually know what kinda monster I'd taken her for. I didn't know anything at all about changeling magic, let alone their taboos about personal brain-space.

"I'm the one who figured it out," Cliff said.

"You did?"

My hind hoof sunk into a pocket in the rubble. I tripped. Stumbled forward. And even as Bananas threw her forelegs open, and caught me, I could already hear the sound of the clop slapping back from the rubble around us like a brittle echo.

"You alright?" Foster asked.

"Yeah," I answered softly. "But maybe we should continue this conversation when we're..."

I spun around, checking all the structures on the block for enemies yet again.

"Alone?" Foster said.

…
…
…

Her words hung over a silence. Even the breeze slowed to a halt. As if to mock me. And show off how very alone we were.

"Fine," I said.

Cliff leapt in front of me without missing a beat. "Okay," he said excitedly. "If it was only the shadows chasing you, you'd have told us by now. And Screw Loose is the only missing piece of the puzzle. So if she's the escaped Inquisitor, then that explains why Bananas Foster - a girl who can't leave the hospital - got tasked with finding and capturing her.

'Aaaand she's the only one you coulda reached for in your dreams, and ended up panic-diving into Misty's door. I mean, who else is there? Gary the Moth?" Cliff kicked a little hunk of broken cement off the sidewalk into a giant hole in the busted up street, as if to punctuate the thought. While I was left dumbfounded.

"I...I…I, um..." I looked to Cliff and Bananas both. "You're right," I sighed. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Cliff said, laying a hoof on my shoulder.

"I...didn't know how to tell you. And I'm worried about her," I hung my head. Letting all those new ideas swish around inside of it. Screw Loose. Changelings' cultural etiquette around hive-mind boundaries and stuff. Cliff's analysis of, well...everything. The fact that none of my bean-secrets were really secrets at all anymore. "Wait," I said. "The shadows don't know that Screw Loose is, um...used to be...the Inquisitor."

"Are you sure?" Bananas said.

"Positive."

"How do you know?" Foster leaned in close.

"For starters, wouldn't they have told you? I mean, why send you to find an 'Inquisitor'..." I reared up on my hind legs to throw my forehooves into the shape of quotation marks. "If they knew that she wouldn't be recognizable as one?"

"But Rose," Cliff spoke up. "Didn't the Powers That Be also send you really vague messages on your mission? Isn't it always bare minimum on the details?"

"Yeah, I guess so," I replied. "But the shadows still don't know about Screw Loose."

"How can you be so certain?"

"Because Screw Loose doesn't live inside her own dream door. Princess Luna calls her the Wanderer. 'Cause Screw Loose dashes all over the dream realm going from door-to-door-to-door. Anywhere but inside her own head."

"Like a dream nomad?" Foster asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "But she does it in the shape of a, you know...sort of a...giant dog-looking thing. That no one - not even Luna - would think to recognize as a pony."

"But can't the shadows still trace her like they do with your hoof?" Cliff asked.

"No," I said. "Her inquisitor-sona has been locked up all this time. Because her actual dream door - which she never goes in - is covered with bolts, and bars, and locks, and chains and stuff."

"...That you took it upon yourself to open," Bananas Foster said dryly.

"Well, when you put it like that, it sounds…" My voice slowed to a trickle.

Cliff looked at me in horror, and I couldn't bear to face him, so I turned my head away.

And even then, I could still feel his Say-It-Ain't-So eyeballs boring into the back of my skull. Drilling shame-craters into my brain until I just couldn't take it anymore. "I heard a scream in there, okay?" I snapped, all defensive-like. "I hadn't seen Screw Loose in days, and I thought she was in trouble." I shook my head. "I didn't know that the scream wasn't hers."

I sighed. Cast my eyes upon the ground. Half in shame. Half just to keep from stumbling on the awkwardly-sloping sidewalk.

"What did you see?" Bananas inquired at last, tremors in her throat.

"Young Screw Loose...inquisitizing somepony," I whimpered. "With, like, this...chair. And this...helmet. It had a bunch weird dials, and stuff, and a screw in the back. When the Inquisitor turned it, the poor girl screamed, and stared off into space, fixated on something far beyond the wall. And there was, like, this flickering light. Like the girl's brain itself had turned into some kinda magical film strip projector."

"A projector?" Cliff asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I think that it was replaying the filly's memories. Though I couldn't see what they were."

Cliff cocked his head. "Why do magical nightmare beings need a machine to get inside somepony's head?"

"I have no idea," I replied. It'd all happened so quickly, and so horribly that I hadn't really gotten a chance to stop and think about it.

"Are you sure what you saw was a memory?" Cliff said. "Maybe Screw Loose was just, I dunno, having a weird dream or something."

I held up my evil forehoof as if to refute his argument with a cunning rebuttal of my own. But the truth was: I didn't know. I could say for certain that the shadow presence was real. That the inquisitor I saw at the end of that awful stone corridor was, in fact, the pony that Screw Loose used to be. Of that, I was as sure as anyone in the universe could ever possibly be. I'd felt it. But when it came to the technology? I had no idea what was going on.

"The torment was genuine," I said, holding up my black hoof as evidence once again. "The Inquisitor-y-ness of it, at least. But I admit, I don't understand the tech. Maybe it had to do with beard magic or something?"

"No way," Cliff said. "Starswirl wasn't like that."

"How do you know?"

"I read that book that Spike gave me this morning," he retorted.

"When did you have time to do that?"

"Okay, maybe not the whole thing." Cliff kicked another hunk of eroded concrete down a long groove in the broken remains of the street. It skipped over to the dusty 'sidewalk' as the road started curving to the left. "I read the intro and first chapter before we went to bed. And Starswirl was not a big fan of technology. He said that, from what little he saw of it amongst his younger protégés, the whole experiment was a dangerous shortcut. Intelligence without wisdom, according to Starswirl, would be the death of us all."

I took a look around. At the building-skeletons. At the heaps and mounds of worthless nothing that Equestria had been reduced to. "He had a point," I said, gesturing at The Everything with my head.

Cliff gazed around him. Nodded grimly. "So, the chair wasn't Starswirl's," he said, throat as dry as gravel. "It had no reason to be there. So it probably was just like, you know...a dream detail or something."

"I dunno," I replied. "I guess. Maybe?"

We walked in silence a little further. Following the natural curve of the road. Until at last, Bananas Foster spoke up. She'd drifted behind us. Deep in thought while Cliff and I had been busy analyzing everything.

"The chair's real," she said.

We stopped dead in our tracks, and turned to see what Foster'd meant.

"I remember," she said. Her stare into nothingness reminded me of Rainbow Glimmer - that guy in the trenches who'd survived No Mare's Land (sorta), and lost both his only friend, and his only mind. "You don't notice the chair when you're stuck inside the memory. But every couple-of-hundred times, you snap out of it. Heart pounding. Like waking up from a nightmare. And you're in this, this...well, this chair." Bananas swallowed her throat-apple down hard. "And you've got this helmet bolted to your head, and your inquisitor starts asking questions. Sort of like a rate your experience survey you get after dealing with some big city bureaucracy like the Canterlot Public Archives. Except that she lives for your tears. Feeds on your agony. And calmly asks you if you wanna try out a new career in the Shadow Industry."

Foster ran a hoof through her mane and added, "Fucking bitch."

It startled me. To hear Foster use a 'colorful futurism,' as Luna had once called it. But changelings got around, I guess. She coulda picked it up from anywhere.

"If you're wondering how the helmet works," Bananas continued. "I don't know. 'Cause you're right, Cliff. The shadows don't need a machine to get inside your head. And neither does their army of filly inquisitors.

'But they are using it to collect something." Foster stopped. Thought long and hard. Like there was some special word that could somehow explain everything if only she could summon it past the tip of her tongue. "It's kinda like when you crank a phonograph reeeal hard," she said at last, aggressively miming the motion she'd just described. "And it has enough kinetic energy to play an entire record...The inquisitors cranked us to our breaking points. And used the machine to harvest our fears - bottle our nightmares.

'I'll never forget my inquisitor. She was teeny tiny. Barely old enough to get into Kindergarten, from the looks of it. But her shadow could fill a room. No matter where the torchlight was coming from. And her eyes!" Foster shuddered. "She may be no bigger than a foal, but those fucking eyes have seen centuries. Generations and generations of other kids' nightmares. I don't know how to describe it. She wasn't an adult. In fact, she was very much a kid. Tantruming at a moment's notice.

'...Cause after all the ages that she'd spent in that castle, my inquisitor had never ever learned how to cope with the word, 'no' when it was said to her." Foster lowered her head. Stared at her own hooves for a moment. "When she got mad, she'd tighten the machine, and push it to its limits."

Foster smacked her lips. Like her mouth was full of sawdust. "I can't describe what it was like," she whispered. "But after what felt like weeks, I'd wake up in that chair again. Suddenly aware that my back muscles had swollen, and atrophied from disuse - that my scalp was sore from the helmet, and my head was throbbing from the pressure...Then, she'd inquire again. How would you rate your service?

'The cycle repeated, and repeated, and repeated. 'Till my sanity started fraying like rope, and I finally said, 'Yes'. Just to keep the shadows out of my hive mind - a corner of consciousness that they weren't probing 'cause they hadn't thought to look for it.

'It's my sacred space. Where love is pure. Where Mother used to sing my mind to sleep...The space where you two are now." Bananas picked her head up and gave us each a weak little smile.

Cliff and I looked to one another. Frozen in shock at the vaulted honor, and crushing responsibility of being allowed inside Bananas Foster's head.

"You know," she added in an inappropriately bright and bouncy tone. "When I finally told my inquisitor that I'd given up - that I'd take whatever shadow job she had to offer - there was this look of satisfaction that stretched itself unnaturally across her face. And the thought of that smile – used to wake me from my dreams at night in a cold sweat.

'The only thing worse than surviving one of her tantrums is the carnivorous grin she makes when she gets what she wants."

'But I'm not afraid of her face anymore." Bananas chuckled defiantly. "It has no power over me."

Foster looked to each of us. Nodded smugly, chest puffed out, all floofy and such. Pride radiating off of her like color flying off of the rising sun.

"Wow, that's awesome," Cliff said.

"Yeah, I'm really proud of you." I added.

"You wanna know how I did it?" She asked. "Do ya? Do ya? Do ya? You're my hive now, so no more secrets!" Bananas Foster smiled so hard it made a squeaky sound.

Cliff and I nodded enthusiastically. And judging by Bananas' wholesome smile, I thought she was gonna say that she, like...remembered her family - her hive - or her friends, or something.

But that wasn't it.

Foster flashed a burst of green flame. Turned from pony-to-changeling-to-pony again. "I made it my own." Bananas threw us a duck face. Coiffed her mane proudly. Gestured at her own face with her forehooves.

"You mean…" Cliff said, jaw agape.

"With a few adjustments, of course." Foster first held her hoof down low, then raised it up high, indicating that she had made herself look exactly like her torturer, only, you know, a fuck of a lot bigger.

Then she drew Cliff and me together in a three-way hug. While I stared off into space. Imagining the inside of the doom castle, with a tiny, evil version of Bananas Foster in it. Tantruming over her victim's escape, vowing vengeance, and annihilating the psyches of all the children who got condemned into her care.

* * *

The three of us came to another street. A wide street. Not as massive as the one before. But an open stretch nonetheless. And there was a great big gash running across the center of the road. Like a giant had stabbed it with her enormous sword, and dragged the blade over the entire length of the road, exposing a network of metal veins that had once been pipes, and cables, and other infrastructurey stuff.

The drop was only about ten feet down, but it would be a hard climb. And Luna-only-knew how stable the street-guts at the bottom would be. If stepping on a Wasteland splinter could get you so sick that your own jaw killed you, I didn't wanna think about what a jagged, rusty old pipe would do.

"There has to be a safe place to cross," I said. "The road-chasm can't cut through the city wall. We should make a detour that way." I gestured with my head toward the city wall, eight or nine blocks sideways of where we were going.

"I could just fly across," Bananas said. "Or even better, fly up. There's nothing you'll be able to see from that hill that I won't be able to see from the top of one of these buildings."

The three of us spun our heads in unison. To have a look at a nearby spire, jutting up out of the rubble of a collapsed school like an angry hoof shaking itself at the sky. Refusing to go down with the rest of the structure.

"Yeah," I said. "But what if somepony sees you?"

"So what if they do?" Bananas retorted. "I don't know what Misty's mission is, but fair bet? It's going to involve other ponies. We'll never find Misty if we shy away from all signs of civilization."

"Have you ever actually flown before?" Cliff said.

"No," she licked her lips as though there was a giant maraschino cherry atop that spire. "But I wanna try."

"I get a splinter, and you freak out because there are no splinter-hospitals, but you think now's a good time to go all Junior Wonderbolt?"

"I can do it," she said. "Just straight up and down. To see if I can. No fancy moves."

"A splinter!" I said yet again.

"Do it," Cliff gazed upwards at the spire like it was made of magnets, and his eyeballs made of nails.

Everything fell quiet. I didn't dare challenge him. Not on this.

Bananas Foster rested her hoof on Cliff Diver's, all serious-like. An I won't let you down gesture.

"Discover whatever you can," I said. A gentle reminder that she had a practical reason for going up there too.

"Uh-huh." Foster fought back a smile.

"And, like, when we do find other ponies, we should follow them back to their...camp, or slave mine, or whatever it is that they have, and try to figure it out from there. It would be crazy to just walk right up to the first pony we saw, and say--"

"Hello," A stranger approached us from behind.

"Ahhhh!" All three of us leapt back.

He was lime green - at least his horn and snout were. Every other part of him was either decked up in a jumpsuit and boots, or strapped into a series of vests and utility belts strategically loaded with tools and padding. His back was weighed down by saddle bags, brimming with weird shit I couldn't identify. His head, obscured by a dirty old construction helmet with goggles attached to it.

He'd approached us from somewhere in the gash in the middle of the street while we were busy looking at the spire. But he wasn't sneaking up on us. In fact, he held his forehooves way up high to try to assure us that we shouldn't be alarmed.

"Don't be scared. You kids alright?" The stranger brushed himself off and came closer. Bursting with urgency. "What are you doing all the way out here?" He looked left. Looked right. Like he was afraid that somepony might see.

"Um…"

"Kids?!" Coughed a gruff voice from somewhere unseen. Moments later, a mare's head popped up out of the gash in the road. She wore the same helmet as the green stallion, (minus the hole for a unicorn horn), only her entire face was covered in soot. All we could make out were the whites of her eyes, and her tangerine irises that shoink! Narrowed to terrified pinpoints the second that she caught sight of us. "What are they doing all the way out here?" She said through gritted teeth the color of parchment.

Her partner with the goggles didn't answer. Just smiled nervously at us. Forced a friendly little chuckle through a grin the size of Manehattan. But the smile - big and toothy as it was - did not make a squeaking noise.

"This is freaky," I whispered to Cliff.

"What do we do?" He whispered back.

The soot-covered one scrambled over the edge, her jumpsuit every bit as blackened as her helmet and face. She stomped over to her partner, and thwapped him in the flank.

"Oh!" The lime stallion startled.

Sooty smiled in our direction. A bit too brightly - a bit too wide - but unlike Mr. Goggles, she didn't dare make eye contact.

As the silence grew longer, and weirder, Sooty once again muttered at her partner through her gritted brown teeth, though this time, I couldn't make out what she said.

"You really shouldn't be here," Goggles laughed. "Ow!"

Sooty kicked him in the shin, and gave him glowering eyeballs of doom.

"I mean. It's not safe. Not that we don't want you," he laughed. "You wouldn't think that...would you?"

Suddenly, silence yet again. As Goggles expanded his phony smile, and Sooty leaned forward so eager-like, I thought she might topple.

Cliff and I shrugged at one another. "No," I said. "Of course not."

Both grown-ups breathed a sigh of relief. Sooty threw a forehoof around Goggles's neck. He leaned against her for comfort.

Then, silence. Again. More bizarre than the first.
…
…
…

"I don't trust them," Cliff whispered at me through a smile he wore for show.

"Me neither," I said under my breath.

"Should we run?"

"No, they might know something."

"Like how to cook us," Cliff said.

"They seem more afraid that we'll eat them."

"Well, then what are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know," I snapped. And flashed the two grownups a phony smile. Then, just when I thought things couldn't get any weirder, I heard a sniffle. And a squeak. It was Bananas Foster. Crying.

Sooty and Goggles looked at one another in pure terror.

"I'm sorry," Bananas Foster blubbered, stumbling over to Goggles, who froze in place, as if by some kinda spell. "I don't mean to bother you," Foster continued. "It's just...it's just, j-j-just that…" she went silent for a moment. And once the four of us - friends and strangers alike - were all leaning toward her, hanging on whatever her next word was gonna be, Bananas threw her hooves around Mr. Goggle's leg, buried her face against him, and bawled, "We're lo-o-o-ost!"

Ms. Sooty backed away in horror.

Goggles awkwardly patted Foster's head like she was made out of egg shells. "There, there," he said. "There, there," trying - and failing - to convey warmth and safety. "I'll help you."

He turned to Sooty, grim-faced. Resigned as a pirate about to walk the plank. "You keep working, and don't wait up." He sounded like his throat was made out of ghosts. "I'll take them home."

Author's Note

PATREON
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:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS

I've already got a head start on the next chapter. It's all so exciting. I'm writing rather a lot.

I don't have much to say in my reflections section here because I feel that this chapter really speaks for itself. More questions than answers really. I have only to convey the usual excitement and dread for what happens next.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and reactions.

Safety

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE - SAFETY
"It is the obligation of every person born in a safer room to open the door when someone in danger knocks.” — Dina Nayeri

The three of us ended up riding with the Wasteland stranger in this weird, self-driving carriage-type thingie.

It wasn't anything like a train. Nor like one of those giant "trucks" that us Trottica kids had escaped in. No. Mr. Goggles' rusty steel carriage looked like a mechanical incarnation of those what's-wrong-with-this-picture puzzles you find in magazines at the dentist's office.

It had six trapezoidal conveyor-belt-a-majigs where wheels ought to have been. A giant rusty dog cage where the buggy should have been. And a sheet metal door-flap in the back that looked like it had been ripped off some other buggy entirely, and secured to this one with an ounce of chewing gum and a pound of hope.

But we climbed in without protest. 'Cause Mr. Goggles - weird and twitchy and terrified though he may have been - was something of a magical find in the Wasteland: somepony who seemed almost obsequiously determined to ensure our safety.

* * *

"Maybe the future isn't as unfriendly as you thought," Cliff spoke into my ear. Loud enough for me to hear him over the deafening rattle of Mr. Goggles' contraption. But not so loud as to betray our privacy.

I turned my head and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Think about it!" Cliff said. "Last time you were here, how much of the Wasteland did you actually see?"

"It's not just what I saw," I snapped. "It's what I heard - the stories that those Trottica kids shared. About what their lives had been like before the cloak-o's...And the soldiers in the trenches! They told stories too. About how much everything had totally sucked before the Lightbringer Littlebill had come along."

Cliff sat back in his seat. Thought about it for a solid minute as we both vibrated in place - and by 'vibrated,' I mean 'thumped around violently'.

"Maybe we just lucked out," he said at last. "Found the good part of town?"

"Hay, what're you two talking about?" Foster leaned over me. All bright and bouncy and eager for gossip.

"We're talking about the Wasteland," I said.

"...How it might not be what we expected." Cliff added.

"I know!" Foster giggled. "Isn't it the best!"

She twisted herself around in her safety belt. Put her back on my lap and her belly in the air.

I smiled faintly. It was good to see Bananas Foster so happy. So free. Even if the circumstances were a bit unsettling. I ran a hoof through her mane. And thargrgrgrgrrrrp!!! The buggy veered hard right. Mashed the three of us into one another.

"Sorry, kids." Mr. Goggles winced as he craned his neck to look our way.

"We're fine!" Cliff hollered.

I peeked between the bars that made up the walls of Mr. Goggles' buggy, and the splintered glass that passed for a window, and the chicken wire that held it all together.

The outside was nothing but brick walls and ruins. Super mega close to us on both sides.

"He's trying to avoid being seen," I said to Cliff under the grinding hum of the machinery.

We'd taken yet another turn down yet another crummy side street.

Cliff nodded. "Okay, so it's not exactly Ponyville out there."

"What do you think he's hiding from?" Foster sat up and asked.

"I don't know," I said. "But if it can hurt us while we're inside this big metal box, I don't wanna know."

"Honestly, I think he is more afraid of me than anything," Cliff Diver added. "He keeps staring in his mirror. It's weird."

"I think he's staring at all of us." I watched the mirror carefully as the stallion's eyes darted in our direction. Then pretended not to.

* * *

Eventually the buggy ground to a halt. And with a shunk of a couple of levers, the grinding sound stopped too. Us kids sat there for a moment. Heads tingling. Chests still rumbling in the aftermath of the shaky ride, even after the carriage had gone deafeningly quiet. Then, as if by hive-mind, Click! Off with our safety belts. And zip! The three of us dashed straight for the "windows." Teeny slots in the side of the buggy that actually provided an unobstructed view.

But all we saw was more of the same. Crumbly brick walls on both sides.

"Sorry, kids!" Mr. Goggles called out over the ringing in our ears. "We'll get you to safety soon. Just gotta charge up the old wagon." He laughed. Stole a nervous glance at Cliff in the process.

"Umm... that's okay," Cliff replied, equally unsettled. He pressed his face against the slot and tried to lay a decent eyeball on the world outside.

"Gee. You don't have to apologize, mister," Bananas said, radiating saccharine out of her every pore. "We're just reeeaally happy that you decided to help."

Mr. Goggles' false grin softened into an actual smile. He breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm so glad to hear that. You have no idea."

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, you know," he stammered a bit, utterly perplexed by the question. "I guess it's like they say, Innocence is Sacred."

He added a firm nod. To emphasize that he had stated the obvious - that there could not possibly be anything more to say on the subject.

But I just sorta plopped my flank down in shock. "Innocence is sacred," I whispered to myself as memories of the High Priestess of Trottica kicked me in the brain-eyes. Her annoying speeches. Her motivational posters. Her tribe of brainwashed townsponies, all proclaiming Innocence is sin.

When I'd first crashed through the portal of a million screams, and landed in this weird world, my brain clock had placed us at roughly twenty years after Trottica. Could this be the world that the mine-o kids had made for themselves? One that did the polar fucking opposite, and worshipped their young instead of blaming them for the world's ills?

No. Impossible. I was tethered to their timeline.I couldn't just...run into them again twenty years later. Could I?

A tidal wave of confusing ducky-time-thoughts blasted into my brain.

Strawberry Lemonade had to survive. Didn't she? That was the whole point of the fucking mission. But there I was. In the Wasteland. Twenty years later. Occupying the same universe as her.

How was that even possible? Was she fucking dead now?! Had I somehow undone all that we'd accomplished in Trottica...simply by opening Misty's door?

Or was the duckyverse flexible enough to stick us on a mission soooo faaar away from her that we couldn't possibly run into any weird time glitches and stuff?

I mused and mused and mused and mused and mused. But my speculation got cut short. 'Cause an odd smell flooded the buggy. Like if you put an empty baking pan in the oven, and forgot about it for a couple of hours.

"Fire!" I said, and leaped up in the air, spinning all around, looking for signs of danger. But all I found was a buggy full of ponies who thought I was crazy. Even Mr. Goggles raised an eyebrow.

Clearly I'd missed something.

The driver got back to what he was doing. Picked up a pair of steel tongs with his teeth. Plunged his face into some panel or other. And emerged with what looked like a spear-blade made out of coal.

Clink. He dropped it into a slot. And Shunk. Jerked a heavy lever. Then Fwoosh! Ping. The smoky black thing dropped to somewhere unseen beneath the buggy.

Mr. Goggles went over to a box, and produced a lavender crystal, which he gripped casually with his teeth. No salad tongs necessary.

"Gem power," Cliff said, eyes sparkling with awe.

"Wait," I said. "This buggy is powered by gems like that?"

I rushed forward to have a better look. Caught sight of the fresh, unspent crystal just before Mr. Goggles jerked a series of levers and latches to secure it in place, and seal up the panel.

The whole thing left my heart racing. "What would happen if you ran out of gems?" I asked aloud.

Mr. Goggles raised a hoof as if to answer, but I didn't let him get a word in.

"I mean if everypony ran out of gems? Not just you."

"You mean the whole world? I don't think you have to worry about that."

"But like, what about a town? Built around a remote gem mine. And their...I dunno...economy, or whatever you call it, relied on trucks?"

"Oh, dear," said Mr. Goggles, cheeks as pale as fog.

The horror written all over his face told me everything.

Trottica had resorted to child slavery to keep its gem mine going after the grown-ups couldn't fit down the shafts anymore. To do otherwise meant getting cut off from the rest of the world. To do otherwise meant condemning the whole town to poverty, starvation and death. Mare, and stallion - filly, colt, and foal alike.

A moment of sympathy flickered across my heart. Just a moment.

I hated myself for it. And hated Trottica all the more for having a reason. For taking away the one good thing that our revolution had left me with - moral certainty.

But it was just a glimmer. A spasm of the spirit. It hurt way too much for me to allow it to become anything more.

"I am sooo sorry." Mr. Goggles looked to me, for once not with fear, but with kindness. "I know how hard it can be whe--;"

"Fuck 'em," I said.
…

…

"Well," Mr. Goggles sighed. Put his hoof on my shoulder. "That's a feeling we all know."

Then, even as the echoes of a whole bunch of conflictifying emotions still lingered in my blood - too complicated to give themselves names - this stranger's voice. His calm. Somehow cut through it all. 'Cause heunderstood.

Really, truly, verily, actually, profoundly understood.

Mr. Goggles knelt down to my level without ever prying his eyes away from mine. "But you know what?" Hope stirred in his warbly vocal chords.

I shook my head in reply.

"You're in a much better place now," he answered. "And they're not."

Goggles smiled at me softly. And I hugged him. I didn't mean to hurl myself at him. I just sorta did it.

And he hugged me back. Weird as this whole trip had been for him. Afraid as he was of...whatever the fuck was going on...he hugged me back without so much as a moment to think twice about it.

* * *

After that, Goggles invited me to ride up front with him. With my friends' enthusiastic approval, I obliged. The front "passenger seat" - if it could be called such a thing - was just a crate facing a whole bunch of panels and weird glass rectangles that had lights and displays and stuff all over them. It was filthy. Even by Wasteland standards. So I'd bet anything that this seat was where Mr. Goggles' friend, Sooty, usually sat.

There were no special perks to riding in the grownup seat. Except a cool helmet. A construction style hard hat that was really, really, really, really big on me. But still totally fucking neat. We could talk to each other in it and everything! Without needing to shout.

"So what are you doing out here?" I said. Knowing that it was a safe thing to ask. Because wherever we were, it was obviously far off from wherever this guy called home.

"Oh, this and that," he said. Back to his nervous old self. Pretending to focus on the road for longer than he could possibly have needed to. "Science things mostly," he added at long last.

"Oh," I said. "That's good, I guess...Like these panels and stuff." I gestured - non-specific-like - at Sooty's station of magic rectangles.

"Yeah," he replied.

We rolled through the abandoned city in rumbly silence. (If such a thing can be said to exist). I didn't wanna press Mr. Goggles too hard for answers. He had been kind to me. But after the cage-buggy had plowed over a couple more miles of cornflake asphalt, he spoke up again on his own.

"I'm surveying," he said. But just as it was starting to kinda, sorta look like I would finally get some answers...maybe, Goggles nodded to himself. As if that - in and of itself - had been a thorough and sufficient reply.

He just...went quiet again after that, offering no further details at all! No matter how long I waited.

"Yeeeah," I finally remarked. "Your friend seems pretty good with that, you know, science stuff." I gestured at the glass rectangles on the dashboard that looked like the tools that she had been carrying. Covered with the same kind of dirt.

"Let's not draw too much attention to her," he said. Calm, and gentle, and warm. Just like our hug had been. It was a total shutdown of any and all information sharing. But somehow, he made it brotherly.

"How about you?" Mr. Goggles retorted. "I could ask you the same question. Did you kids just feel like exploring? Get out of your element?"

"You could say that," I replied. Equally neutral.

* * *

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

It was hypnotic - watching the road get beaten into submission beneath us. I stared in silence as it rolled by. The streets. The structures. It all became a blur.

Until I saw it. Another buggy thing. An actual truck. Just like the ones that us Trottica kids had escaped in. I only caught a fleeting glimpse before it went about its trucky business, sailing down some faraway road that kept itself well hidden behind a forest of broken buildings. But it was still a sign of life!

"...Well, you know you shouldn't," Goggles picked up our old conversation as though no time had passed at all.

"What?"

"You really shouldn't go sneaking off like that. It's dangerous."

"I know," I muttered.

"What if you'd cut your leg on a piece of rotted wood or something? Think of the infection!"

"Yeah, um...There is that," I said, rubbing the spot where my hoof had gone through the floorboards a few hours before.

The stranger kicked a lever sideways, and the buggy jerked left. Out of the ruins, down some tiny street or another, and swung hard right onto a wide thoroughfare. Murky with dust.

I couldn't make anything out at all, but I sensed that there might've been some kinda vehicle up ahead.

"Looks different up close, doesn't it?" Mr. Goggles said with a grin. He didn't even seem to notice the dust rolling into the buggy.

"Yeah." I hacked and wheezed and spat. "I don't even recognize it."

My friends joined me in a chorus of coughing.

"We've almost made it to safety!" Mr. Goggles shouted to them.

The buggy drifted out of the dust cloud, eased off the boulevard onto a tight little street. We chugged away, loud and noxious as ever, but slower now. Gliding over the roads like a duck on a pond filled with olive oil.

The terrain was no longer made out of jagged cornflakes. More like lumpy oatmeal.

"Hay, Rose!" Cliff Diver called out to me. Just a little too loudly now that the buggy noise had died down a little. "Whattaya see?"

"Uh, buildings and stuff!" I replied, careful not to expose ourselves as foreigners.

"Right," Cliff said. "Of course." He winked at me.

"You'll recognize it soon enough." Goggles jerked a bunch of levers, sending the wagon bobbing and weaving through yet more side streets.

The aforementioned buildings and stuff that whizzed by turned out to be pretty damn remarkable after all. Peering out the front "window" of the buggy was like seeing the world through wet cheesecloth in the dark, but the structures on this side of town had shape. You know, normal rectangles. Instead of beat up old skeletons with their rubble-guts spilling out onto the street.

Half a dozen zigs, and about twenty-seven zags later, the buggy slammed to a halt. Mr. Goggles pivoted the final dial, and everything went spookily-fucking-tranquil.

The air around us was silent. The floor, motionless beneath our hooves and flanks.

"Phew." Mr. Goggles sank into his chair like drooping candle wax. Sighed at the ceiling. "Some ride, huh?"

"Yeah," said Cliff.

"Thanks a lot," Foster added. "You're the bestest."

With a moan and a stretch, Goggles emerged from his chair. Twisted his neck till it crackled like bubble wrap. "Okay." He yanked a chain with his teeth. A light above us came on. "Let's have a look at you."

He smiled at my friends. Approached. Leaned in close to make sure they weren't all fucked up. Blew on their manes as though they were made out of ancient library books. "No dust residue," he said. "Good. Good."

Then he just sorta...nodded, and...kept on nodding. Until at last, he closed his eyes. Chuckled nervously to himself, and told us what was really on his mind. "I, um...I don't know how to put this, so I'll just be direct with you. Before we get you kids...um...situated, it's important that we're all on the same page. Do you understand?"

Foster nodded.

Cliff and I shook our heads no.

Goggles laughed. "Okay." He rubbed his forehooves together. "Let's start from the beginning. When we first ran into each other, what exactly did you see?"

My friends and I shot one another glances. Like a game of hot potato, but with our eyeballs.

"There was, like, a...you know...a gash in the road?" Cliff answered. "And you and your friend crawled out of it to introduce yourselves. Well, technically, you didn't introduce yourself. I still don't know your name. Your friend's name either." Cliff smiled. Extended a forehoof. "I'm Cliff Diver. Nice to meet you."

Mr. Goggles bumped it. "Rock Breaker," he said. "And...what friend are you talking about?"

"You know," Cliff answered. "The mare you were wi---;"

Foster nudged him. Threw him a couple of eye daggers. "What friend?"

"Ow. Hey!" He snapped. "Oh. Um. Yeah. What friend?" Cliff nodded at Rock Breaker aka Mr. Goggles. "You don't have any friends."

"That's right!" Goggles exploded with a great big fat grin. "I don't! And any friends that I do have - or might have had -remained in that chasm in the street. Where you couldn't see them, hear them, or notice them."

"Of course." Cliff put his forehoof to his heart like he was making one of those oaths of old. When pirates swore to abandon the land, and the law. To live the rest of their days as fugitives. To lie and cheat and steal and plunder. But never from one another.

"And on the ride over," Rock Breaker spun around to me. "You and I talked about…" He held his breath. Smiled. Waited for me to answer.

"Um...Nothing?"

"That's right! I did not interfere with your emotional education in any way."

"Emotional what?" I said.

"Exactly!" He clopped his forehooves together, and flashed a yellow-toothed smile a mile wide. "You ready?" Rock Breaker bucked open the flap in the back of the buggy. Pointed at the outside world.

"Yeah!" Us kids said in unison. Even though we hadn't the faintest idea what we were getting into.

Probably some kinda Trottica compound. I thought. Judging by Rock Breaker's obvious terror, his false enthusiasm, and penchant for creepy buzz words.

But I followed him out the 'door' just the same. Prepared for anything. Prepared for nothing. 'Cause what other choice did we have?

* * *

The world outside of Rock Breaker's buggy was...weird. Rows upon rows of clotheslines were draped between buildings. Like a giant spider web. White shirts browned with age. Blue jumpsuits like the one that Rock Breaker was wearing. And very little else. The clothes were all...same-ish. They flapped in the breeze like banners at a used carriage dealership, and parted to reveal buildings with infinitely more variety than the wardrobes on the clotheslines.

Each one looked like some kinda mosaic of chaos. Bricks of different shapes and sizes had been cut and mashed together to reconstruct the walls of the ancient apartment complexes, and storefronts, and depots.

But the streets were empty. Not a pony in sight.

"Where is everypony?" Cliff said.

"I dunno," I whispered back.

Bzzzztt! The buildings hummed like they were packed full of cicadas. And Ckkkkk! The boulevard hissed with the sound of distantbuggies.

Life. Activity. Civilization. Everywhere. But it was a ghost town to look at.

"Bet you're not used to walking the streets this time of day," Rock Breaker said.

All three of us kids shook our heads in unison.

"Me neither," he replied. "It's weird how quiet it gets." Rock Breaker sucked in a deep breath. Savored the rotten egg smell as though it were crisp mountain air.

Brrrring. A distant bell rang. And from somewhere opposite the big ugly warehouse at the end of the block, a familiar roar spilled out over the Wasteland air. Children. Laughing. Playing. Stampeding out of some unseen schoolhouse door.

Recess. I'd know that sound anywhere.

"Aww," Cliff grumbled under his breath. "Don't tell me we traveled all over time and space just to have to go to school."

We reached the end of the warehouse, rounded the corner, and there it was. A playground. Framed by the narrow archway between two storage facilities. Like a filthy window into a courtyard filled with color.

There were fillies. Colts. Running around. Kicking balls. Playing some game I'd never seen before. Digging in dirt. Swinging. Climbing. Dancing to songs they made up as they went along. And other tunes they knew by heart, but I had never heard.

Foster threw her forelegs around me and clutched my shoulder tight. "I get to go to school!" Her eyes sparkled with wonder.

We all drifted in. Awestruck. The archway had big pink letters painted on it. A single word: SAFETY.

And the second we crossed that threshold, it lived up to its promise. The very air we breathed seemed to change. To sparkle. The buildings looked new. (And all made of the same material too.)

I spun around. Even that run down warehouse looked different on this side. A mural fifty feet high brought life to its great northern wall. Flowers. Animals prancing. Colors swirling all around.

It seemed like a totally different city.

"Hello," a voice from behind.

"Ahh!" I spun around.

There stood a mare. Orange coat. Lavender mane. Eyelashes to match, forty miles long. "Sorry to startle you," she said. "What's going on?" She threw her eyeballs over me to stare Rock Breaker down, who still stood all the way back at the threshold. Averting his gaze. Trembling. "You're not authorized to be here." The orange mare continued.

"Uh...uh...uh…" Rock stammered and babbled. 'Til his voice disintegrated into a helpless whimper. The kinda sound that only a foal makes.

"He helped us!" Foster jumped in. Super urgent-liike. "We were lost, and he saved us."

Rock Breaker struggled to catch his breath. While the big orange mare weighed Foster's words carefully. Until at last, she let loose a bright and sunny smile. "Oh! That's delightful." She turned to Rock Breaker. "Thank you for your service."

He gave a polite simper in return. But still shrunk his shoulders back. Cowered.

"What about you?" She chided me. "Why in Equestria did you wander off? Whose class are you in?"

"Um…"

A hundred, thousand, billion, zillion, million potential answers flashed through my brain. Explanations of where we were going. Where we'd been. Inquiries about Misty Mountain...and by the way, could you point us to his whereabouts before he completes his mission, and accidentally leaves us stranded here in this Celestia-forsaken corner of the ducky-time continuum forever?

But my tongue just mashed the inside of my face, all clumsy-like. "Um….uhhh.".

'Til the strange mare turned her attention away from me entirely. Gasped in awe.Literally brought her forehooves to her teeth and nibbled on them, all nervous-like. "A pegasus!" She exclaimed.

Suddenly, fwoosh! All of our eyeballs fired themselves in Cliff Diver's direction. Like ocular arrows.

Cliff spun around expecting to see...I don't know…a Wonderbolt or something behind him. But the orange mare was ogling him.

Just for being a pegasus.

A cluster of three or four fillies abandoned their hopscotch game to come on over, and do the same. Then a pair of bookish colts. Then a loner girl who'd been doodling in the dirt. Like water down a drain, the children of this strange little community all gravitated closer.

Cliff lifted a forehoof to his chest. As if to say, who me?

"Whoa." Rock Breaker snapped out of his trance o' terror. "Wait a minute. You're not from here?!" He looked to Cliff. Then to me. Then Foster. Then Wham! He jolted upright. As though a ghost had kicked him in the head, totally out of nowhere. "You mean... They're not from here?" His eyes shot back to the big orange mare. The lady who was obviously a teacher.

"Where did you find them?" She asked.

"Downtown," Rock answered. "Sector seventeen. What used to be Princess Luna Boulevard."

The mass of children closed in around us, forming a full circle that blocked the exit. Gossip spread through the crowd like flame racing over a puddle of rubbing alcohol.

"Something something something. Pegasus," one of them said.

"Something something something snuck inside," whispered another.

"Strangers," said a squeaky little voice in the back.

And all of it crescendo'd into a thunderstorm o' obnoxious kid noise that surrounded us on all sides.

"How'd they get over the wall?" One murmur jumped out of the static. Louder than the rest.

"He musta flown them over," said another voice so shrill, that it was impossible not to notice.

"No way. Check out his wings."

Cliff Diver recoiled. Hid his face behind his mane, and his head behind his blocky shoulders. Like a newly captured stray dog, cowering in the corner. Freaked out by everypony.

"Hay!" Bananas Foster threw herself in front of him. As if her body could shield him from words. "Leave him alone!"

The sea of students erupted like water bubbling at the surface of a pot. Totally out of control. The kids were mostly younger than us. But that just made it worse somehow. They seemed to shake and burst like popcorn kernels dancing on a hot pan. And they were everywhere! Pointing and staring and babbling about Cliff.

'Til it all just sorta stopped.

The mass of children fell needle-scraped-off-a-record-silent. Completely out of nowhere.

All that was left was the clonk-clonk, clonk-clonk, clonk-clonk sound of flat-heeled shoes clapping against pavement.

The crowd parted like a pair of curtains. At the end of it was a purple unicorn mare. Almost as small as us kids. Her mane was black and cropped short. Her blazer, tightly tailored, and prim.

The air seemed to hum all around her. Six dozen hooves all shuffled out of her way at once. It sounded like the dull shhh of a distant ocean.

And she approached leisurely-like. As though there were nothing unusual about any of this at all.

Clonk-clonk, clonk-clonk. Clonk-clonk, clonk-clonk. Clonk-clonk, clonk-clonk

Even the orange mare slid to the side.

Finally, the purple lady came straight up to me. Face to face. At eye level without even having to stoop.

"Hey, there, sweetie pie," she somehow managed to say without condescension.

"Um...hi?" I replied.

The kids all hurried away while the matronly figure had her back turned. The grown-ups made their escape too, herding the younger students toward the door in orderly clusters.

"May I?" The headmare gestured with her chin. Pointing at Cliff and Foster behind me.

"Oh, um. Yeah. Of course," I babbled, and shifted off to the side.

But Foster stood fast. Like she was itching to morph into a dragon and slash everypony into ribbons. All she needed was an excuse.

"I'm sorry," said the strange purple mare. Oozing a freaky amount of humility for somepony whose mere presence had just shocked a playground full of students and faculty into submission.

Cliff peeked his eyes out from behind his mane, and his head out from behind his shoulder.

"My name is Headmare Honeysuckle," the grown up said. "Though everypony calls me Miss Honey."

"Cliff Diver." Cliff straightened himself out. Rose up. Extended a hoof to bump.

Foster watched closely - ever protective of him - and studied Miss Honey too. Suspicion-rays blasted off of Foster like light from the Sun (if the Sun were standing right next to you, burning out your eyeballs with suspicion). But ultimately, she stepped aside. 'Cause Cliff Diver seemed at ease.

"Pleased to meet you," Miss Honey continued. "And you, and you."

She pointed to Foster and me.

"Rose Petal," I said.

"Welcome," she replied.

"Bananas Foster."

"I'm delighted to meet you," the headmare said. "All of you. And I'm very sorry for the conduct of my students. They know better...Faculty too." Miss Honey flashed a smile at the orange mare.

But Orange just recoiled in terror. Eyes the size of planets, and irises like little green grains of sand.

"It's not her fault," I snapped to her defense, purely on instinct. And immediately regretted it. 'Cause Headmare Honeysuckle turned her attention toward me. Smiling.

"Um…" I said. "Uh...I mean, I don't want anypony punished because of us….You know? It's not everyday you see a pegasus."

"Yeah," Cliff added. "I'm, er...weird."

"Who said anything about punishment?" Miss Honey replied. She smiled warmly.
And confidence oozed off of her - soothing confidence - compassionate confidence - confidence that made me feel stupid for even suggesting that punishment had ever been on the table. "Miss Mango," she said. "Take a thorough report from the gentleman over there." The headmare gestured at Rock Breaker as though he were furniture. "And I mean thorough. We need to know our borders are secure."

Miss Mango nodded firmly.

"When you're done," Headmare Honeysuckle added. "Do make sure he gets a commendation. I hope you can handle that?"

Miss Mango swallowed her throat apple and nodded again. "Yes, ma'am."

Headmare Honeysuckle tilted her nose up in the air - the only way to point over the crowd in Mr. Goggles' direction. "You! What's your name?"

"Rock Breaker, ma'am."

"Well, Rock Breaker," she said, all smiles and sunshine again. "Thank you for your service. You've done an honorable thing. It won't be forgotten."

Rock nodded enthusiastically. Like a captured pirate thrilled to have avoided the plank, but not yet returned to the safety of his own ship.

"Walk with me," Miss Honey said to us.

We obliged.

She led my friends and I across the playground. Which was really just a ring of tall buildings with a bunch of empty space in the middle, and a jungle gym for climbing on. But we had it all to ourselves. The other teachers were busy herding the kids into a sky blue building.

"Are you children alright?" Miss Honey asked.

"Yeah," we replied in unison, as if by reflex.

She chuckled. "That'd make you the first. Nopony here is alright." She gazed at the herd of kids. "But it's alright not to be alright." Miss Honey turned herself back around. Eyeballed us closely. "I'm gonna be straight with you," she said. "You three showing up the way you did - it's something strange. I'm not gonna lie.

'But I'm gonna treat you like everypony else...Unless there's a reason not to." She raised an eyebrow of doom. The kind of look that makes you want to hide under the kitchen table. "Now lemme tell you a little something about who we are and what we've accomplished here," she continued. "Safety is a haven for children. Our campus represents years of work, and acres of urban rejuvenation. We--;"

"Safety? 'Safety' is what this place is actually called?" Foster interrupted.

"Yes, of course, sugar."

"Why Safety?" Cliff asked.

"It stands for Students And Faculty Emancipating Today's Youth," Miss Honey replied. "And we take that word seriously. Emancipation. Ponies are more than hunks of flesh. We are our very own hearts. And that makes us tough to fix. Inside." She brought her hoof to her chest. "You hear what I'm saying? So, no matter who you are, or where you come from, or how long it's been since your chains were broken, we view emancipation as a work in progress." Miss Honey laughed to herself. "But who am I kidding? You don't care about highfalutin ideas right now. You wanna know where the food is. What's expected of you on the day-to-day. Whether or not we have blankets."

"How many kids there are," I said.

Miss Honey stopped. Gave me side-eye.

"Uh...We're sorta looking for somepony," I said. "And this place seems pretty big. If a random pony ended up here, I'm not sure how, well, you know…"

"We have three-hundred-and-forty-seven students here on our campus," Miss Honey replied. "I know all of them by name."

"All of them?" Foster asked.

"If you wanna know, just ask."

"Blueberry Milkshake," Cliff called out. Before I could say Misty. Not that I was going to say Misty. Merely mentioning his name could potentially fuck up his mission.

What we really needed was, like...a directory or something. A way to investigate his whereabouts in private.

"I'm so sorry," Miss Honey said with a heavy sigh. "No Blueberry Milkshakes here."

"I didn't think so," I said somberly. "Thanks."

Genuine sadness shrouded my heart like a doom-blanket. 'Cause the real Blueberry Milkshake was still out there. Suffering in that shadow castle. And I had fucked up so bad in making this massive detour into the future! I should have been out there helping her, and I couldn't even figure out how to get home.

"So sorry, child," Miss Honey said to me.

I bit my lip and nodded at her.

* * *

Miss Honey led us perpendicular-like from the way we'd come in. To hear her talk, it totally seemed like she was showing us around the place. But we didn't actually get very far into Safetyland. At all. We just sorta hugged the wall.

By the time I noticed what was going on, we were already there.

"This facility," Miss Honey gestured at a single story pink building attached to the warehouse that walled Safety's border. "...Is where we greet our newest students. There's warm meals inside, a place to relax, and when you're done, we've got some medics here who are gonna look you over. Make sure you're not injured, or in danger. And make sure you're not gonna bring anything contagious into our community that'll make our other students sick. It's just a precaution."

There was a big sign that said WELCOME! Beneath it, a pair of double doors swung open. And out stepped a blue mare. Red mane like a tangled rope. A laminated badge hung from a lanyard. Clipboard slung haphazard-like over her back, dangling by a string. A larger mare - green and smiling - stepped out behind her. Her long white lab coat flapped around like a flag in the breeze.

Bananas Foster backed away. Step by cautious step.

I gripped Cliff's foreleg. Without even realizing that I was doing it. If these weirdos figured out that Bananas was a changeling, we were all doomed. I mean, could they even figure it out? Foster had fooled Ponyville General Hospital, and she'd even stayed at Canterlot at some point too. So she'd fooled the best of the best.

"Nothing to be afraid of, sweetie pie," said Miss Honey. That calm, velvet voice that seemed as sturdy as the ground beneath our feet. But its magic didn't work on Bananas Foster. Her knees were shaking.

"I promise you, we're not looking to hurt you," Miss Honey added. "You have my word."

Foster nodded grimly.

I felt like I should say something. Do something. But what could I do besides dig my hooves into the ground and wait for the right moment? To strike. To run. To distract Miss Honey and her goons with a polka dance.

A tender smile eased across the headmare's face. But the second that she glanced away to gesture the "intake ponies" over, Foster broke into a gallop. Cheeks red. Tears streaming down her face. Primal terror in her eyes.

She made for the exit. The way we'd come in.

"Foster!" I ran too. Right past Miss Honey. But it was too late.

Thwoong! Bananas Foster was already enveloped in a bubble of unicorn magic. Her hooves scrambled against the pavement. Smashing themselves against the ground in blind panic. "No!" She shrieked so hard her vocal cords stretched and strained and tore. The sound could curdle milk.

I spotted the clipboard lady with the messy mane. Horn aglow. She was the one making the bubble.

I remembered what I'd done back in Trottica. With the rock that I'd hurled at Misty Mountain's' captor's head.

That's when the entire duckyverse went silent. Black. Everything just sorta...fwomp - narrowed down to a tiny little pinhole. Just like it had back in Trottica.

It was just me. And that glowing horn. And a smooth tiny rock on the pavement just beside my hooves.

I bent my knee back. Got ready to kick.

Somewhere far off I could hear Foster's cries. Indecipherable. Like being underwater. But the distant sound turned my stomach to a boiling pot, and my heart into a volcano that flooded my every vein with lava. Burning with blind, visceral rage.

"Let her go," I said through gritted teeth. As every ounce of my fury condensed at once into a single point at the tip of my swinging hoof - the part that connected with the rock.

My love. My fear. My anger. It all became a single projectile. Soaring through the air. Angry as a pirate's cannonball.

'Till, clunk! The damn thing landed three feet away from Clipboard Mare, and skipped off to somewhere unseen.

"Stop!" Cliff cried. "She used to be a prisoner. In a doctor's office!"

Bananas kept on struggling. Thrashing and wailing. As though she were in the bitter grip of the shadows themselves.

But the grown-ups all froze. Even Miss Honey.

The bubble stopped moving. And we were left standing there. Silent as the grave. As Bananas Foster sobbed and scratched against the walls of the bubble-prison.

"Get a table, four chairs and a kit," Miss Honey commanded of the earth pony in white. "We're doing it here."

The green orderly nodded. Dashed inside like she was running from a fire. And out of those same double doors stepped an older mare. Wearing battered tweed. Gold rimmed spectacles. She rushed to Foster's side.

Miss Clipboard held Foster and the magic bubble perfectly still. But looked away. Mortified. Waiting for orders one way or another. To keep holding on to Foster, or let her go.

"Child," Miss Honey leaned in close and said. "We didn't know." Her voice sounded like gravel crunching under iron horseshoes.

Foster struggled to catch her breath. And when the heaving stopped, she looked Miss Honey in the eyes.

"We're going to have a talk. And a doctor's going to scan you," the headmare assured her. "And that's all we're going to do. I swear. On the memory of my own child. I swear to you."

The already horrified silence of the grown-ups got even silencey-er. Gravity-er.

Miss Honey wasn't bullshitting.

"Now I'm gonna burst the bubble," she said. "There won't be any pain. You may need a shot depending on what our tests say - I gotta be honest with you about that. But it'll be fast and gentle. We have teeny tiny little needl--;"

"I'm not afraid of needles," Foster interrupted. Wiping the tears away, summoning what dignity she could muster. But when her soggy eyeballs drifted my way, utter shame and disgrace was written all over them.

"It's okay," I said.

But she just turned her head away again. Cast her gaze upon the floor. "No hospitals," she said. "No hospital beds. No locked...Rooms. No bubbles." She tapped the inside of the force field with scorn.

Miss Honeysuckle gave the nod. And with a sigh of relief, the Clipboard Lady let the bubble burst.

Bananas Foster stood there a moment. Seeing the world through her own eyes again instead of the force field's violet hue. But she didn't celebrate. Or even show a drop of relief. Instead, Foster sulked over to us. In disgrace and defeat.

Cliff and I rushed over to meet her. Threw our forelegs around her. 'Til she heaved. And sobbed. And wheezed. As I ran a hoof through her mane.

Meanwhile, Miss Honeysuckle frantically commanded her crew through a series of gestures and sour looks. They ran all around, grabbing weird devices and yelling into them.

When, at long last, Bananas Foster was herself again, she rolled over. Patted our heads, and pried herself away. As if to say, I'm gonna be alright. By the time she was upright, there was already a table and chair set up. The pony in tweed sat there waiting. The seat opposite her was empty.

A yellow unicorn that I didn't recognize at all stood beside a second table. Some kinda white suitcase sat unopened on it.

Foster looked to Miss Honey. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be, child," Miss Honey replied. "Everypony's got something that sets 'em off."

Bananas Foster's eyelids flipped open wide like a pair of shades after you tug on the cord. Of all the reactions she'd prepared herself for, the normalcy of completely freaking the fuck out was not one of them.

"...But I do want you to see something," Miss Honeysuckle beckoned Bananas Foster over with her hooves.

Foster obliged.

"Now I'm not gonna make you go in there. But I want you to take a good, hard look." She extended a forehoof. Pointed in the direction of the double doors (which Clipboard Lady immediately swung open). "That's not a doctor's office. If you have a good look, you'll see it's just a normal place to hang out."

The inside looked like a lounge. Couches. Long hallways full of doors. Not like the wing at Ponyville General. More like one of those fancy buildings rich city folks live in.

It even had a chandelier.

Foster stared and stared and stared and stared. While the grown-ups all moved around her. Preparing us for an expedited in take. Al fresco.

* * *

The "tests" were weird little beepy things that they swiped over our hides without touching us. According to Miss Honeysuckle, we "got the good stuff." Equipment that they'd borrowed from the actual infirmary for emergencies. So we could pass our screenings quickly rather than having to wait in quarantine at the Welcoming Center that Bananas had panicked over.

Then there was the pony in tweed. She asked us questions. Lots of questions. But not the kind that mattered. Her intake was all about playing with blocks. Like we were little foals. And geography questions we didn't know the answers to. And showing us a bunch of ink blotches and stuff. Asking us to draw her some pictures of ourselves.

I failed my test. Miss Tweed told me it was impossible to pass or fail, but I know for a fact that I flunked.

I was real super careful not to doodle anything too revealing. No Roseluck - even though I was asked about my family. I wouldn't be able to explain her absence, nor could I lie and pretend to mourn her convincingly. So I only drew Foster, Cliff Diver, and me.

But Miss Tweed blink-bloinked when she saw the finished product. Face all micro-twitchitty as she did her best to disguise the fact that she found it unusual. "What's that big yellow thing right there?" She summoned her composure and asked.

I froze. Sensing that she was trying to ensnare me.

"Hey," Tweed said. "There are no wrong answers."

And of course she was lying her ass off. There were lots of potentially wrong answers. But I told what I thought to be a harmless truth. "The Sun."

"And what made you want to draw the sun?"

I just shrugged...The best answer possible. But my eyes drifted upwards. At the clouds. As dull and grey and dense as the hour the three of us had first arrived.

It had been like that in Trottica too. Both sneaking in, and busting out. The weather had been exactly the same.

Had Wastelanders ever seen the Sun?!! I shifted my chair. Fidgeted with my pencil. Avoided eye contact. Everything short of painting LIAR on my forehead.

"Thank you, Miss Rose Petal," Tweed said. "You passed."

"I did?"

"No," Tweed replied, gathering her papers into her saddlebag. "Because there is no passing or failing." She smirked. Just a little. "But now that we know a little bit more, we can place you with other children like you. So it'll be easier to make friends."

"Children like me," I said dryly.

"Mmhmm," Miss Tweed replied.

"And what kinda kid did the test tell you I was?"

"Well, altruistic for one," Miss Tweed set her saddlebag back down on the table. "You're smart. Stubborn."

"Trouble with authority," I replied.

"Actually, Rose, I was going to say that you're familiar with structure, and well-suited to an academic environment."

"Great." Just what I needed. More school.

"Most importantly, that you're coping with trauma - like everypony else here. And you've done a better job of it than you may think."

"Pffffffffffttttttttttttttttt!" I snorted.

"...And that you've been loved," she said. "By somepony."

Suddenly, it wasn't funny anymore. I wanted to ask how she knew. But instead, my Rose Voices were dumbstruck. All I could think of were the Trottica kids who had never known love. Twink - who had been sold by her own parents. Strawberry Lemonade, who cringed at the very suggestion of physical touch. Even in Ponyville, Cliff Diver had known very little affection before he met Bananas and me.

How bad off were the other Safety kids if my being loved was worth mentioning at all? If Miss Tweed thought that I - of all ponies - was a fucking academic? Well suited to structure??!

"It's okay," said Miss Tweed, rising to her hooves. "You've still got a lot to take in. Why don't you have a seat over there with your friends while I confer with Miss Honey, and while the nurses process your lab results."

She extended her hoof. I bumped it in return. Automatic-like.

"Oh, and don't worry," Tweed added. "Wherever we place you, you won't be separated from your friends. That's not how we operate."

* * *

Cliff and Foster were already seated at a third table they'd dragged outside for us. A makeshift waiting room of sorts. Cliff shoveled some kinda mooshy substance - not entirely unlike cinnamon porridge - into his mouth. Foster had her head down on the table.

"Mmwhat do you thimk?" Cliff whispered to me, careful not to disturb her.

"I don't know," I answered. "I don't reckon they're gonna send us to the mines...At least not yet."

I bit into one of the bruised apples they'd left for us in a basket. Nothing like the fresh produce back home, but pretty damn impressive under the circumstances.

"...Blueberry Milkshake has got to be here, though," I continued, mouth full of honeycrisp, careful not to mention Misty's name, even though there were no grownups within ear shot.

"Yeah," Cliff replied, all ruminate-y. "We have to find him."

I sunk my teeth further into my apple, and ChoOoOmp! It exploded with the thunder of a million billion cannons.

I cringed. Pretended like it wasn't me. But Foster heard, and groaned in reply.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Bananas turned her head over. Buried her face deeper under her folded forehooves. "I wasn't asleep," she croaked.

Cliff and I swapped eyes with one another.He was thinking the same thing as me: It was time to speak up.

"You don't have anything to be ashamed of, you know," I reached out. Put a hoof on her head.

"Please don't," she replied.

Iwithdrew my hoof in shock. "Sorry," I tried to say, but couldn't find the breath for it.

"It was a totally normal reaction," Cliff added. "I woulda done the same if, like, they'd wanted to throw me from a height or something."

He stretched out one of his mangled wings. Winced in pain as it unfolded. But still managed to land a few feathers on Foster's shoulder.

Bananas picked her head up. Made sure her senses weren't lying to her.

She didn't have the heart to shrug his wing away. Not after all the work Cliff had put into getting it there. So she sighed instead. "No. You wouldn't do the same."

"You think I never freak out?!" Cliff whisper-shouted.

"I think you wouldn't abandon your friends."

"You messed up," I said. "You didn't even mess up. It was some messed up shit that messed you up."

"...And we don't hold it against you," Cliff added.

"I know," Foster whispered. "That's the worst part."

A hush fell over the table. Cliff Diver looked to me with giant puppy dog eyes. He desperately wanted to know what we should do, but I hadn't a clue what to tell him.

Fwoosh! A frosty breeze washed over us.

I pulled one of the blankets they'd given us over my shoulders. Cliff retracted his wing and used his teeth to drag a blanket over Bananas Foster.

But she just sat there. As indifferent to the blanket as she was to the cold.

"Bananas?" I prodded her with my words.

"I don't expect you to understand," she replied. "I've dreamt of this moment all my life. What I would do if I ever, by some phenomenal feat of magic, could move around. Freely. By myself. On a real mission...But now I know. The second I can finally move my legs around in the outside world. All they know how to do is run away. Your forgiveness can't fix that. It doesn't make me any less a coward. Any less a traitor." Foster spoke that last word to herself. I'm not even sure that we were meant to hear it at all. But in that moment, something inside of me snapped.

Clonk! I clocked Bananas Foster right in the head. Pretty hard too.

"Oww!" She sprung out of her seat. But I leapt after her. Got right in her face.

"Rose!" Cliff scrambled around the table to try and reach me.

But it was too late. My eyes were locked with Bananas Foster's. My hoof inches from her muzzle.

"You're my friend," I said. "And no one talks that way about my friends. Not even you."

And as I waved that hoof at Bananas Foster, threatening that 2x4 o' Friendship, something flickered to life in her eyes. Like a spell being broken.

"Okay," she said. Rubbing her scalp in pain.

Before I even realized what the fuck had just happened I found myself hugging her tightly. Like Twink would have.

When all was said and done, Bananas Foster pulled Cliff in reeeeal close. In what looked like a comforting hug. "Okay, listen," she whispered, fully herself again. "Tell me everything you said to them during your intake. They don't trust us any more than we trust them. If we're gonna get through this, we've got to get our stories straight…"

Author's Note

PATREON
If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, and you can manage to spare a few bits, consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS

Tonight, during the Winter Solstice, Jupiter and Saturn will align for the first time since 1623. It's an incredible occurrence. Those of you who have been following this story for a while know that I like to choose significant dates as deadlines for my chapter releases. This is a pretty big one, and while I could never hope to do such an occasion justice, I like to think that this "Christmas Star" guides Rose and Foster and Cliff into the next stage of their journey. All of the Patreon proceeds from this chapter will go to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

It feels appropriate.

I wish you all a Happy Hearth's Warming, and look forward to your comments. I can't wait to hear from you

A Private Party

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE - A PRIVATE PARTY
"Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone." - Fred Rogers

The Powers That Be. Had they known all along? Was this whole thing just another mission? A step in their transcendental plan?

If Red Eye was predict-ified in Pinkie's tarot deck, then that meant that I was destined to meet him here. And if I was destined to be here, then logically, I'd also been destined to sneak into Screw Loose's door. Destined to find out her horrible brain secret. Destined to drag my friends through Misty Mountain's door, and plummet several centuries into the future.

Did Fate know all of that? Did I ever have a choice? Does anypony make any choices? If everything that's ever going to happen is completely fucking scripted in some giant book floating around in the cosmos somewhere, then what's the point of anything at all?

* * *

"Maybe it's like the blues," said Cliff Diver after hearing a thousand of my rants, fears, and existential what-the-fucks.

"That rusty old donkey music?" Foster said.

"Hear me out," Cliff replied.

I strained to listen to him through a haze of my own thought-mist.

"Legs was a band leader," Cliff continued. "Back when record players were still pretty new. So all this Traveler Music of his got heard for the first time. A lot of folks loved it. But a lotta ponies didn't understand it.

'You see, when Legs did a magazine interview with some Manehattan socialites, they asked him some of the dumbest questions in the world.

"'Don't you ever get tired of playing the same three chords over and over again?'" Cliff mimicked the voice of a socialite - or at least what he imagined a socialite might sound like. "And do you know what Legs said?" He snorted indignantly in his own voice.

"I confess that I do not," Foster replied.

"He said, 'Blues is like a journey,'" Cliff Diver started doing bad impersonations again. Strangely enough, it didn't detract from the story being told. "'...With the blues, you know where you're starting. You got a good idea of where you're gonna finish. And yeah, if yer just counting chords, there's a pretty clear path from Point A to Point B. But when you gather the right ponies together, it's magic. And it's different every time.'

'Maybe all of this fate stuff is like that," Cliff continued, speaking as himself again. "Pinkie Pie did your tarot reading. She told you that you're The Foal card. We know you're not the first Foal card. And you won't be the last. But think! What else did Pinkie tell you? She said that the universe is like a kid who wants to hear the same story every night. But...each time, there's a different pony playing the characters in the deck. Remember? Different Foal. Different Magician. Different Empress. Different Emperor.

'Maybe whatever force sends you on these missions doesn't actually know everything. Maybe they just know, like, three or four blues chords, and all they do is set up who's in the band?

'What if after that, the actual magic is up to us?"

Hearing Cliff's theory somehow snapped me out of my trance. It chipped away just a little bit of that pointless existencey dread, and replaced it with a far more practical dread. Of Safety. Of Red Eye. Of being lost - unable to find Misty Mountain, (who was clearly the key to everything going on) - and to get the hell out of there. Not to mention the fact that we were in Filly-fucking-delphia - a city so terrible that mere mention of its name had made the cage kids of Trottica squirm!

One-by-one, my senses returned, and I started to feel like myself again.

The walls were plum-colored. The paint, thick, hiding cracks and crevices in the wall. But Safety spared no expense making sure our dorm had everything we really needed. Cots. Desks. A little table for snacks. A sofa for relaxation. Even a latch that locked the door from the inside so we wouldn't feel like prisoners.

"Do you think they can hear us?" I asked.

Foster shook her head no. I don't know how she knew for sure. But Foster was confident. So I was too.

"How are we gonna find Misty?" I asked.

"Blueberry Milkshake," Bananas said. "Get in the habit."

"Sorry."

"And I have no idea," she added. "Why are you asking me?"

"'Cause you're like...amazing at this deep cover stuff."

"No, I'm not." Foster scoffed at us so hard she actually started to choke. "You just don't know the difference because you're both so bad at it."

"Exactly," I said.

Foster facehooved. Sighed like there was a one-ton anchor tied to her neck. "We can't keep this up for very long. We have to find Blueberry soon."

My hoof drifted to the mojo pouch around my neck without even thinking. I closed my eyes. Thought real hard about Misty Mountain's hair. About our bond as survivors. As time travelers. As friends.

But there were no clues in that headspace. No scent to track. No trail of breadcrumbs. That hair of his had led us into the correct ducky. The correct future. The correct town. But now we were on our own.

"What if you pretend to be Miss Honey?" Cliff said.

Bananas Foster pried her hoof off her face. Brushed her bangs aside. "No," she said.

"Why not?"

"We'd have to kill or incapacitate the real Miss Honey first."

"What? Why?" I asked. "All we need is answers. You'd only have to be her for, like, a minute. And in some part of Safety we know that she's not gonna be."

"What then?" Foster started pacing. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back again. "I go around asking the teachers about Misty Mountain? When everypony here knows that Miss Honey has an eidetic memory...That means photographic, by the way."

"I know what eidetic means." Cliff puffed out his chest.

"I didn't," I replied.

"Really?" Cliff said. "You're usually good with the big words."

"No, I didn't know that one."

"Agh!" Foster grunted in frustration. "What happens when the real Miss Honey finds out about the weird conversations that she's supposedly been having?"

"What about turning into a different grown up?" I asked.

"Believe me," Foster said. "I've been thinking about it."

"What we really need is access to those devices they were holding," said Cliff. "Glowing clipboards, I guess? Every time they needed to jot down information, they did it on one of those. Every time they had to look up information, they did it with one of those. If Misty - I mean Blueberry - is here at all, then those clipboards will tell us where."

"Any idea how to operate one?" I asked.

No answer what-the-fuck-ever.

"So what do we do, then?"

More silence. Once again our eyeballs drifted toward Bananas Foster.

"What?" She snapped. "Why are you looking at me? I'm no good at plans." Foster shot me a don't you dare fucking compliment me look. "...And even if I were the filly for the job, we'd still need to know more about this place first. You can't just make stuff up as you go along. In order to run a good con, you've first got to figure out how to use the local surroundings and culture to your advantage."

"But…" Cliff fidgeted with his forehooves. "They're gonna emotionally educate us tomorrow. After breakfast."

"Fuck," I said. "You're right. Do you think we'll even be able to look for Misty after that? Dammit. I mean Blueberry."

"What do you mean?" Foster asked.

"...What if it's like that time when Pinkbeard's whole crew got jellyfish on their brains, and the jellyfish told them to surrender their treasure?"

"I don't think Safety has access to those kinds of jellyfish," Foster answered dryly. "True, there are techniques of mind control they might be using. But Elderberry Sunset said that emotional education was a kind of class. Which means that whatever they're planning, it's gonna be a slow burn. If it was as simple as a magic potion or an evil jellyfish, they wouldn't bother to brace us for it. Whatever they're doing needs at least some cooperation from the other ponies."

"They're using food to buy that trust," Cliff added.

"It would seem so, yes, and we have the advantage of bellies that are not yet empty enough to be bought. So let's not hinge everything on emotional education. We're gonna have to keep cool, and take it one step at a time." Foster held up a hoof to indicate the number one. "Comb every crowd. Attend every class. Keep our eyes open. That was good work you did in the cafeteria - both of you. Safety only has three-hundred-some-odd kids, and we looked over a sizable portion of that in a very short time. If we keep that up, we're bound to find Blueberry Milkshake tomorrow."

"What if he's not with the other kids at all?" I asked.

Bananas Foster looked at me like she had a mouth full of lemons. "You think he's in the building without windows?"

"What building?" Cliff asked.

"The one with the mural on it," said Foster. "There's a lot of pain in there."

"How do you know?"

"Same way that you know not to bite into a rancid sandwich," Bananas replied. "Emotivores have a nose for this sort of thing."

"Wait," I said. "I thought that you were picking up on what my Rose Brain was sensing...'Cause of your hive mind or whatever. Are you saying that it wasn't my Rose Brain? But your bug-nose? And that I was actually picking it up from you instead?"

"Now you're just hurting my head," Foster plopped down on the couch.

Cliff Diver opened up a shiny black box by the kitchen table. Fog like winter's breath spilled mysteriously out of it. He produced a juice box. "Do you think Misty's in there because he's in trouble?" Cliff said. "Or because his mission is sending him there to rescue other kids?"

"Mission," said Foster.

"Trouble," I said, equally sure of myself.

Cliff looked to me. Concernitty. His juice box went slurrrrrrrrrrp. But he didn't take his eyes off me. Foster outdid Cliff, and looked at me with screaming eyeballs that demanded to know: What horrors had I seen???

"Well," I gulped. "Uh...when I stepped into his dream door. And fell through time and space...Right before I woke up in that hole in the ground, I actually heard Misty...He was crying."

"You think he's in trouble?" Cliff mumbled, mouth full of juicebox and straw.

"Yeah, kinda. I can't explain it. I just know it's really important that nopony finds out that we know Misty. I mean Blueberry!"

I cringed. Waited for Foster to throw me one of her disapproveitty looks. But she didn't. "I'm tired," she said. "We'll figure out the rest in the morning."

"What? You okay?" Cliff asked.

"Yeah," she replied. "I just need to rest, and meditate on our options. " She laid herself down gently. Right there on the sofa. Ignoring her cot completely.

"You sure?" I asked.

"Yeah."

Cliff and I dimmed the magic lights, and fiddled with some snacks in the kitchen area - chips, and juice, and oranges - while Foster lay in bed, (or rather, in sofa).

"Is she okay?" Cliff whispered.

I shook my head no. "Let her rest," I said. "It's been a long day." And before I could even finish that thought, a yawn leapt right up out of my fucking soul and ripped its way out of my mouth. Exhaustion had caught up with me too.

* * *

So we called it a night, and hoped for better luck in the morning. But here's the thing: hours later, I still couldn't get any rest. No matter how tired I was. I just lay there in the dark like a lump-of-not-sleeping. Till a whisper came from the direction of the sofa.

"Hay," said Foster.

"Yeah?"

"Are you awake?" Her voice trembled even as she whispered.

I reflected on the obviousness of the question. Decided against a sarcastic reply. "Yeah, I guess I am."

The room fell quiet again. I stared at the ceiling tiles. In the dull gray light, I could just barely make out the seams.

"I have a confession to make," Foster said.

"What's wrong?"

"Do you remember right before we got here? There was this...screaming?"

"Yeah," I answered.

"I can't get it out of my head, Rose."

"I know what you mean," I said.

"No, you don't," Foster replied. "When we were falling through the tunnel. Those screams, those voices, those souls? They got in. I heard them. I felt them. Deep in that secret room in the back of my brain - the place that not even the shadows could find. Mother used to come to us there with love - with food. And comfort." Foster whimpered. "It's where you and Cliff live now." Donk donk donk. Foster tapped her noggin. "I heard the screaming from in there."

"That's awful," I whispered.

"I'm really sorry." Foster sat up. Pled with me, "It's not even supposed to be possible. I don't know how I let it happen."

"You passed through a fucking apocalypse hole in the blanket of time," I said. "It happened because it happened. Not because you let it."

"Nice of you to say."

"You did nothing wrong in the first place!"

"Ungmum nugum znom zz," Cliff mumbled in his sleep.

"Sorry," I threw my hooves over my mouth and whispered.

Cliff's mumbling faded as if in reply. Then that deep dark quiet sunk in all over again. Foster brooded for a bit. While I watched the patterns in the ceiling warp and move in the dark as my eyes failed to focus on them.

"You know the weirdest thing about it?" She said.

"No. Tell me."

"I got the most surreal feeling. Where there's, like...something terrible happening to all these other beings. But it makes you feel really bad somehow. Even though it's not happening to you. Or anyone that you know."

"Empathy," I said.

"Is that what it is?" She cried. "You ponies actually live with that kind of feeling? Like, all the time?"

"Not every second of every day but, kind of, yeah."

"Ugh," she said. "That must be dreadful. I'm so sorry."

I snorted. Just a tiny fraction of chuckle - the kind of laugh you need a microscope to see. But when Foster rolled over in her sofa, and asked, "What's so funny?" Something about her confusion just sorta set me off. For no reason.

A real laugh exploded out of me, like a cannonball ripping through an enemy ship. "Bwahahaha!"

"What?" Foster said. Not even offended, just puzzled.

I shook my head, cackling. "We're gonna die here," my lips said out loud (without even bothering to consult my brain first).

"Ugh," Cliff groaned. "What's up with you two?"

Then Foster started to snicker. "We're going to die here," she said. A laugh honked its way out of her too. Like an elephant blaring its trunk.

Cliff sighed, all long-suffering-like. Which, of course, just fired that laugh-cannon through both of us all over again.

"Unng." Cliff rolled out of his cot, and dragged his weary hooves across the floor.

Click. He mashed a button on the wall, and the magic lights came on. Shunk. He yanked open a drawer. Crinkle. Out came a little burlap sack full of pretzels. Cliff plunged his face into it.

Foster and I kept on laughing. For no reason at all. On and on and on. Till at last, our chuckle-ships sunk, and we got air through our lungs again. "It's nice to have somepony to talk to at night." She smiled.

Cliff quit his snack mid-chomp, and threw me a sorrowful look.

This could be it. Our last night as roommates.

We didn't know what was gonna happen once we found Misty Mountain. Whether we'd ever have the opportunity to just sorta...be alone together again.

Once we actually finished the mission and got home? It was totally gonna be worse. There are no sleepover visitors allowed at the hospital. For all we knew, this was the last chance we were ever gonna get.

"You two wanna have a slumber party?" Cliff Diver said.

"What?" Foster replied.

"You know," he squeaked. "A slumber party."

"Isn't that what we're doing right now?"

"Yeah, sorta," said Cliff. "But if we do, like, slumber party stuff, it's different."

Foster poked her head up from behind the couch. "Different how?"

Pomf! A pillow flew across the room, straight into Foster's head.

"Hay!" She leapt over the back of the sofa, big thick couch cushion in her teeth.

"No, wait!" I cried. That thing was like a sack full of bricks.

"Aah!" Cliff threw his hooves up to protect his face.

But the pillow never came down. Foster just stood over him. Until at long last, Cliff got the courage to peek.

"Pbbbt," Bananas' tongue wagged.

And dompf. The Giant Sofa Pillow o' Doom dropped to the ground. Anticlimatical-like.

"I understand how sleepovers work," Bananas boasted. "I've had a lot of time to read up on the bonding rituals of your cultur--"

Pomf! I tossed my pillow at her too. A grip of the teeth, a whip of the head, and it hit her right in the back of the neck. But Foster didn't react, just leaned in close to Cliff Diver for a conspiratorial whisper.

I couldn't hear a word of it, but when he flashed her a villain's smile in return, I knew I was in trouble. On the count of three, they both charged me, whirling pillows around like fan blades.

"Eee!" I rolled off my cot. Right on to the floor. Scrambled to my hooves shaking a hind leg loose from a sheet that'd tried to grapple me like an octopus.

But it was too late. Cliff rounded the sofa. Foster cleared it in one leap. And they both flanked me.

Pomf! Pomf! Pomf! Pomf! Pomf!

Like Muleius Caesar, I lay there. Dressed in bed sheets. Assaulted by my closest of friends.

Dooonk. I took a pillow to the head.

"Et tu, Cliff Diver?" I strained against the urge to laugh; against the post-clobbering-dizziness - the urge to collapse on the floor and shield myself like a doodle bug getting pummeled by pillows at a doodle bug sleepover.

"Pony Latin?" Foster paused. "Limguam alienam loqueris? Quia tu, cum legitur textus antiquorum?"

Cliff quit wailing on me. Crunched his face in confusion.

"I don't know," I replied. "I just saw it in a play once. Roseluck is a theater nerd."

"Wait a minute." Cliff dropped his murder-pillow. "You taught yourself Pony Latin?!"

"Well, sort of, yeah." Foster blushed. "I couldn't physically scope out locations like my brothers did, so when I got to Canterlot to scout Equestria as a potential invasion site, I researched everything."

Bananas looked to our slack-jawed faces, and realized that we were more-than-just-a-little-bit fixated on her for being a super scholar mutant freak. "Languages come naturally to us." Foster reared back and threw up her forehooves. "Even the dumbest of my brothers - that's number Forty-seven," she chuckled - a knowing laugh at private family jokes we'd never hear. "He knew...maybe...two dozen tongues and dialects."

"Hay," Cliff Diver interupted. "You never told us about your time in Canterlot. What was it like?"

"A dump," Foster replied without batting an eye.

"What?!" I shook my head so hard that my eyeballs made a googly rattling noise. "What, what?!"

"Big cities are always cramped," Foster explained. "My room was tiny. My bubble? Tinier. I hated every minute of it, except, of course, for one thing." Her lips curled into a devious smile. "Canterlot has a totally amazing interlibrary loan system. I took the form of a sickly old scholar doing research from my bubble, and got the opportunity to read everything."

"How?" I asked.

"It wasn't terribly difficult," she said. "I forged the paperwork."

"No, I mean how did you stay in the shape of an old pony for so long. I thought being a grown-up was hard for you."

"It's the size," she replied. "Not the shape."

"So you could turn into Miss Honey," Cliff said. "For a long, long time if you had to. She's short!"

"Let it go, Cliff. It's a bad idea."

Cliff Diver harumphed.

"...Aaanyway I got to read so much about your history, and your culture. Mother initially considered Equestria too formidable a target. Until I did some digging and discovered the caves." Foster beamed with pride.

"Caves?" I said.

"You know, the crystal caves under Canterlot Castle."

We looked at her blankly.

"...Where my mother imprisoned the real Princess Cadence?"

"The newspapers didn't mention anything about caves," Cliff scratched his head.

"Neither did Cheerilee," I added.

"Weird," Foster said. "I guess they don't want anypony to know…Which is why learning about them was so hard to do in the first place. Kind of a security breach, I guess."

"Wait, so there's a network of caves under the castle?" Cliff squeaked.

"Well yeah," Foster snorted. As though the answer was obvious. "That's the point of a castle. They're meant to withstand a siege, but also to allow escape routes in case citizens need to sneak out. In the event of a prolonged attack, tunnels are typically used to smuggle food supplies back in. Canterlot may not have much of a military history, but they still thought of stuff like that. Every castle everywhere is built with sieges in mind. Always. Staircases spiral in one direction to make it easier to defend rather than to attack. The windows are easier to shoot out of than into. Oh! And of course, there's the location."

"The location?"

"Why did you think they built Equestria's capital on a mountain top? The view?"

"Well, yeah, kinda."

"...So everypony tugging a supply cart has to do it uphill...just so the castle can look cool?"

"I never thought of that," Cliff sighed. "We all just take the train."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Every castle?"

The room fell silent.

"...So...logically there's got to be a way in and out of...you know."

"I don't think the shadows designed it for escape," Foster replied grimly.

"Yeah but the shadows didn't design it," I said. "We don't even know who did. Princess Luna found it floating around somewhere. I had a vision of the inside, remember? I saw what it was like when Luna was in charge. There were...these...kids...hiding. 'Cause they'd broken into the beard wizard's room to look for a weapon. And he was mad." I shook my head. "It turned out that they were just scared. Terrified that Luna wouldn't be able to fight the nightmares all by herself. So I guess, the castle must have been under siege. Even the beard wizard seemed worried about it."

"But they didn't evacuate," Cliff said.

"I don't know. What I saw was, like, a two minute conversation between three ponies. Who knows what went down on the night that the castle actually fell? My point is that, even back when it was a dream castle, it was designed to withstand a prolonged attack. So there might very well be a way in through abandoned hatches or whatever."

Foster shook her head. "If there were tunnels in or out, the shadows would have shored them up."

"Tunnels that they know about," I said. "Screw Loose got out, didn't she?"

"Yeah, but did she grow a conscience first, go insane out of guilt over what she'd done, and then escape; or did she leave the castle as an inquisitor, only to snap, and turn into a dogmare somewhere on the outside? The distinction is important. Especially if we're making wild guesses about their security."

"Well...Fuck, now I'm confused."

"Let's just ditch the shadow talk altogether and focus on one epic task at a time," Foster said.

"Right," I said. "So...Misty - sorry, I mean Blueberry Milkshake."

"I was referring to the slumber party," she replied.

"Huh? Seriously?" Cliff said.

"I like learning about your customs." Bananas shrugged. "What do we hit each other with next?"

"Makeup," Cliff said dryly.

I laughed through my nose.

"Huh?" Foster said.

"Makeovers," Cliff said. "That's when--"

"I know what makeovers are," Foster snapped. Grumpy that Cliff had dared to insinuate that she might not know something.

"Well, we don't have any makeup," Cliff said. "And that's just as well 'cause it wouldn't be a good look on me anyhow."

"To be honest, I've always found your beautification rituals intriguing."

"Intriguing how?" I scoffed. "You just sorta goof off and mess with each other's manes and stuff."

"You ponies go through such extraordinary lengths to alter your appearance...manually." Bananas Foster somehow make that sound both exotic and quaint at the same time. "Can I let you in on a little secret?" Foster leaned in close, beckoned us forward till we were all huddled together real tight. Primed for conspiracy. "My hive has conquered a lot of worlds. And I've had the chance to observe a lot of cultures - even from the inside of my cocoon. Every civilization that has ever had contact with ponies - everycreature who's ever even heard of ponies. They. All. Really. Want. To. Brush. Your. Hair."

"Um...What?" Cliff said.

I could see it. The changelings. The windigo. That Sombra guy who came out of nowhere just a few months ago to attack the Crystal Empire, (which we also only heard of a couple months ago). Every villain that Equestria has ever faced - they really only wanted to trap us in some sort of torture salon of eternal brushing. Except maybe Discord. I couldn't imagine that guy getting friendly with a pony - any pony. Ever.

"Wait," I said. "So changelings tried to take us over... to...groom us?"

"No, no, no," Foster said. "The love-based societies that we conquered did. Our motivations were pretty straightforward."

An old dagger that had been stuck in my heart a long time - suddenly twisted - reminded me of what her hive had done. How Foster'd moralized it with her us versus them philosophy.

Not ten minutes ago, Bananas had confided in me on how awful it was to feel a world dying. But even now, she still had no problem doing that to other creatures. Other worlds!

"Rose." Foster waved her hoof in my face to get my attention.

"Huh?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm trying."

I nodded.

Tok. Tok. Tok. A hoof knocked lightly on our door. My friends and I exchanged eyeballs. Then looked to the bolt that secured our door from the inside. I don't know why, but my heart started racing. I instantly gained a deeper appreciation for why that bolt was there.

Cliff Diver nudged me with his shoulder. I nudged Foster. But she just shrugged and nudged me right back.

"Hello?" I said.

"Hi. You don't know me," said a squeaky little voice, trying its darnedest to whisper. "I live next door."

"Oh my gosh," I said. "Did we keep you up? I'm so sorry."

"It's not that," The Whisper replied. "Can you open up a sec? I promise I don't bite."

While my friends and I looked to one another for answers that none of us had, the voice quickly added in a panicked tone, "But if you don't want to, that's totally okay."

With a flip of the latch, the door was open and there stood a filly. Purple. Unicorn. Yellow hair all done up in ribbons and stuff.

"Okay. Again, I'm real sorry to bother you," the girl bounced up and down Pinkie Pie-ishly, even as she whispered. It was an odd combination. "And I know we're supposed to leave you alone the first night. 'Cause getting settled in is totally overwhelming. Lemme tell you, I was soooo freaked out when I got here that I--;" The girl shook her head like a ketchup bottle, struggling to squeeze the right thoughts out. "Oh, yeah. Anyway, we're having a party on the roof right now. And, well...your lights were on, and I didn't want you to miss it, and then find out about it later, and get real sad." The girl threw up her hooves and waved them all around to reassure us. "Buuuut it's okay to miss the party if you want to. I'd never tell you how to feel. That's not how we do things around here."

Blink-blink. All of our eyelids clapped up and down like a circle of castanets.

"We'd be delighted," Bananas said. "Just give us a second to grab our coats."

"Cool," the purple unicorn whispered. "I'm Bubblegum, by the way."

The three of us gave our names in exchange.

"Great!" She replied. "Meet me in the stairwell."

We all nodded politely as Foster eased the door shut. But Bubblegum thrust her head in at the last second. "One last thing," she said. "Elderberry shouldn't know. She's a party pooper, and well, teeeeeechnically we're not supposed to be doing this."

"Cross my heart, and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," I said. And mimed zipping my mouth shut.

Bubblegum just looked at me like I was crazy. "Yeah, so, uh, see you in a few minutes, I guess," she said, and disappeared into the hallway.

Once the door was shut, Cliff spoke up. "What do you think?"

"If they're breaking the rules, maybe they're not as brainwashed as we thought," I said.

"Or they've been emotionally educated into thinking that they're breaking the rules," said Cliff. "Or they're testing us."

"From what I've read of boarding school culture," Bananas said. "This is the part where we get hazed." She grabbed a coat off the hook on the wall. Slung it on her back. "But the lack of social pressure? The idea that she's supposed to respect our space? I believe her when she says that intruding is not their way."

"What is their way, anyhow?" Cliff asked. "These Safety ponies never shut up about it."

"I'm not a hundred percent sure," Foster replied, "But everyone here seems to treat it like something sacred. I think we should be careful. But I also trust Bubblegum - her good intentions anyway. All we have to do is keep cool, and we might learn something."

"But should we even be going?" Cliff protested. "Do you really think that Misty - I mean Blueberry Milkshake - would spend his time partying in the middle of the night when he's on a mission?"

"Yeah, kinda," I replied.

And that was that.

Fully dressed, we made our way out. The door to our room had the kind of hinges you never notice until you start sneaking around. EeeeEeEeEeeee, it screamed as though it had legs and they were being twisted off by some kinda evil leg thief who preyed upon helpless young hinges.

But nopony came running. No guards. No soldiers. No Elderberry Sunset.

Bananas Foster poked her head out the door. Cliff and I followed. The corridor was long and green. The floor, cold and brown. It mighta kinda almost sorta had a foresty effect. Except for the buzzing lights. And the waxy antiseptic smell.

The three of us shuffled our way down the hall in our standard issue bedroom slippers. I'd like to say that we'd left our boots behind 'cause we were super stealthy and smart. But we just plain forgot.

Shuuuush shuuuush shuuuush, the slippers rubbed against the floor. Like a tooth getting brushed really really slowly.

"Don't worry," Cliff whispered. "They can't hear us."

Shhhhhuuush. Shuuusssh. Shuuush.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Did you hear Bubblegum coming?"

"Good point."

As we made our way down the hall, we passed a bunch of doors. Just like ours. Only covered with drawings and messages written in paint.

Lemon Drop Rules, said the first door.

Keep Out, said the second.

Unicorns Only, said the third, scrawled in blue lettering, only to get crossed out in green. Just kidding said the replacement message right below it. Silver Shimmer is a Doofus, the green paint expounded. After that, it was just a series of scribbles, crossing out Silver Shimmer and replacing it with Pistachio. And vice versa. An epic battle that covered the entire door - a war to establish once and for all who the true doofus was.

The door at the end of the hallway had Elderberry Sunset's name on it, written in that strange shade of green that all of their technology seemed to glow with. The letters were drawn in a pattern made up of razor-perfect squares.

Cliff and I tiphooved. 'Cause Elderberry was a party-pooper, apparently. We oooooozed passed that doorway at the pace of a snail who'd just finished guzzling a gallon of camomile tea and then decided to see how fast it could drag a wagon full of anvils across the room.

Just in case we woke Elderberry and ruined everypony's party.

But Foster darted ahead in a hurry.

Damnit! Sneaking around quietly only works if everypony does it. So Cliff and I hauled flank over the finish line. Straight through the door that led to the stairwell. And eased it shut behind us.

One by one, we poked our heads up over the window in the stairwell door. Cliff. Then me. Then Foster. And finally, Bubblegum, who popped up from out of nowhere

"Whatcha lookin' at?" She asked.

"Oh, hi," I said.

"Hi." She smiled at me. Then went back to the extremely serious business of spying through the window to the corridor. "So what are we looking for?"

"We wanna make sure we weren't followed," Foster replied.

"You're fine," she said. "Come on!" Bubblegum led us up the stairs - the kind of staircase that zigs and zags around and around and around. Till we came to a kid. Orange. Earth pony. Sprawled out across the floor of the stairwell. Doodling on a sketch pad with a stick of charcoal gripped in her teeth.

"Hey, you got the bunker stunkers," she mumbled without taking her eyes off her work, or her mouth off the coal.

"What are you doing here?" Bubblegum said. "Party's upstairs."

"I just took a little break," the artist pony mumbled.

"That's Scribbles," Bubblegum turned to me and said. "Always drawing. They actually managed to get her some paper. Can you believe it? Paper!"

"Wow," Foster feigned disbelief.

But I was genuinelly speechless. A world without paper?! Were there no trees left? Had the big bomb wiped out everything?

I knew, of course, that millions of ponies had died. I knew that it would take centuries to recover. I knew the Wastelands were barren (from what little I'd seen, and from what the ponies in the trenches of No Mare's Land had told me). But I had never actually stopped to think about the trees before. Trees are just sort of...a constant. They'd been hanging around Equestria long before ponies got there, and we all just sorta thought they'd keep hanging around long after we were gone.

Did these Wasteland ponies even know that we were supposed to be running leaves off them in Autumn. Wrapping up Winter the day before Spring? Had they any idea at all that it was our job to take care of the land? And the sky? And the trees and rivers and fields and stuff? That that's what makes ponies who we are?

Did they even remember that that's who we used to be?

"I'm almost done," Scribbles mumbled, teeth still gripping her charcoal. "I jusht need oooone momemt."

She took a final look at her sketch, grimaced, and slid the charcoal right into her coat pocket. "So," she said, finally looking us in the eyeballs. "You must be the new kids." She grinned a black-toothed grin.

"That's us," Cliff said.

We ascended the stairs to her level. Exchanged names.

"If you hold on a sec, I'll go with you." Scribbles stretched herself out. Motioned to close the sketch pad. Ever so delicately. But not before I leapt up and thrust my muzzle into it. Getting nosey.

She'd drawn bird cages. Rows of them. The metal doors were all bursting open; birds were flying free. I can't say it was a perfect photographic likeness or anything. But it had been scrawled with passion. It had a lot of sharp, angry edges. And tiny ponies, drawn in pencil on the bottom, were pulling levers to open up even more cage doors that lined the margins of the page. One filly smashed an entire pile of empty cages. As a building in the distance labeled "CAGE FACTORY" burnt to the ground.

"I love it," I said.

"Thanks," she blushed. "I messed up the shading on the cage factory, and the second filly on the left - her head's too big. But I'm glad you--;"

"It reminds me of my escape," I blurted out, already forgetting Foster's advice. Don't give too much away. Listen more than you speak.

Scribbles' eyes lit up like fireworks, even as she shied away. "You just made my day."

"Well," Cliff interjected before I spilled any more bean secrets. "Uh, we should be going. You know, to the roof...for um...reasons."

"Sure." Scribbles slipped the sketchpad into her saddle bag. And joined us on our climb up the final flight of stairs.

It was grated metal instead of concrete, and noisy under our hooves. Tang-tang, tang-tang, tang-tang. We all moved slowly. One step at a time. Like tiny foals still figuring out what stairs were.

At the top was a narrow platform and a rickety metal door. Bubblegum reached it first. "Okay," she turned around and whisper-squeaked. "Is everypony ready?

"Can the theatrics, will ya?" Scribbles snapped at our escort all the way from the bottom step. She was a lot more assertive now that nopony was complimenting her on her drawings.

"Pbbt. You're no fun." Bubblegum nudged the door open with her flank.

A wave of unnatural light poured in behind her. Pink. No, blue. No, pink again. Almost like a dance party. It caught the yellow highlights in Bubblegum's hair and made her head glow.

None of us could see what was going on, but the strobe effect was enough to get all of my hairs standing on end. Cliff musta felt super weird about it too. 'Cause he spun around to throw me a what-the-hell look.

Bananas Foster, on the other hoof, managed to play it cool.

"C'Mon," Bubblegum commanded us with a giggle. "Check it out!"

She disappeared into the haze. Cliff followed. And Foster behind him. Clang clang clang. Up the stairs we went. Braced for anything.

When Cliff Diver made it to the top, however, he stopped dead in the doorframe, as if paralyzed by the mysterious light, and shrieked. "What the--?!"

"Stay cool," Foster growled, and shoved him out the door.

Scribbles came up from behind. Rammed both me and Foster up the last of the stairs, and out the door, chiding us, "Shh! Shh! Shhhhh!" All the way till we staggered out into the open air.

That's when I finally saw what all the fuss was about. Off in the distance was a bazillion lights. They moved around and tickled the underbelly of the clouds above. Like the special effects at a Sapphire Shores concert.

Below all the dazzle was an amusement park. A fucking amusement park. It had a roller coaster and everything! But it wasn't a happy park full of cheer and wonder like Las Pegasus. No. The rides were all flanked by brick towers, springing up all over the place like weeds. And each one had army guns mounted to it - so big, I could see their steely muzzles from blocks away.

Fworrrsh! A burst of flame erupted from Luna-only-knows-where, casting an ominous light below the giant balloons surrounding the perimeter. Monstrous things that loomed over the four corners of the park like guardian spirits. Each one had eyes painted on it that somehow managed to stare right into your fucking soul. All of them, shaped like...

"Pinkie Pie?" Cliff said.

The Safety kids rushed forward as all three of us stumbled onto the rooftop and stared at the park in horror. "Are you alright?" One of the children said.

"I told you the new kids wouldn't be ready," snapped another voice.

"I'm sorry!" Bubblegum cringed. "I thought they'd already seen it in on their way in!"

"It's okay," some random colt said to Cliff Diver soothingly. "Pinkie can't hurt you."

"Pinkie Pie wouldn't hurt anyone!" Foster cried out suddenly, and stunned the entire party into silence.

The Safety kids backed off. Even as Bananas Foster dropped to her knees.

Scribbles looked to me as if to say, What weird fucking island have you been shipwrecked on your whole lives that you don't realize that Pinkie Pie's face should inspire terror in all who see it?

But how could I explain? How could I get these kids to understand that Pinkie Pie was courageous, and kind? A pony who'd do anything - anything! To make someone else smile. The sort of pony who'd show up to the hospital, and try to bring cheer to the utterly miserable. Even when she couldn't get a smile in return. The sort of pony who did it just because it was worth a try.

Scribbles put a hoof on my shoulder. But it wasn't to offer me comfort. She darted her eyes sideways. Gestured at Bananas Foster with her orange head. "Go to her," she whispered.

Instantly, I saw the Safety Kids in a whole new light. They weren't gawking at us blankly like pirates entranced by the toxic green glow of the Talking Lighthouse of Hypnotizia. One of them ran to get a blanket. Another dashed for a thermos of water. Yet another guarded the rooftop door for signs of grownups. And they all stood on standby. Waiting to follow my lead and Cliff's - the kids who knew Foster. The kids who understood her suffering.

I dashed to Bananas. Knelt by her side. Cliff was already there. We hugged her as she huddled there.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

I shushed her, and ran a hoof over her mane.

Cliff beckoned the blanket girl over. And draped the dull tan fleece over Foster. Not to shield her from cold. But 'cause he knew that Bananas had a nautical fuck ton of shame to hide.

"It happens to everypony eventually," said Bubblegum.

I nodded back at her so Foster wouldn't have to.

The door creaked open, and every head turned - even Foster's. A pistachio green colt stepped out, and waved a pip-bucked forehoof in the air.

The whole crowd sighed and slouched, and murmured a bunch of relief-y sounds.

"What?" Cliff said. "What's going on?"

"Pistachio scouted downstairs," said Scribbles. "And you're good. No grown-ups. No party poopers. The coast is clear. When you're ready - and not a second before you're ready," Scribbles added. "Pistachio will make sure you get back to your room without getting in trouble. I don't know if you've met him yet. But he's a Stable Tec kid like you, and he lives on your floor. And he's good at this."

A small crowd of kids nodded in silence. They seemed content to let Scribbles and Bubblegum do all of the talking. Since we actually knew them, or at least had some prior rapport, however small.

"I'm ready." Foster rose to her hooves, slinging the blanket over her back.

"You don't have to--;" Bubblegum tried to reassure her.

"I'm ready," Foster said firmly. Dryly. As though nothing had happened at all.

She ambled over to a random unicorn in the crowd, produced the blanket, folded it delicately with her teeth, and passed it to her. "Thank you for your hospitality," she said.

Foster had actually managed to take note of who had given her the blanket. Even though she'd been huddled up at the time. A total wreck.

I didn't even remember who it was, and I'd been looking right at the kid.

"You're welcome," the blanket girl levitated it into her saddle bag. "You're one of us now."

Foster walked past her toward the ledge. She took one final look at the amusement park. A staring contest that she definitely won. She didn't flinch. Even as flames burst yet again, casting boogie mare shadows on the evil Pinkie balloons, like they were telling spooky campfire stories. Foster didn't blink. Didn't budge. Even as the giant guns spun around in search of prey below.Not a flicker of expression from Foster at all.

But it sent shivers across my spine.

Our escort back "home" was gracious, and the trip uneventful. Pistachio let it be known that he'd be there for us if we wanted to talk, but was also content to guide us quietly.

We chose the latter.

* * *

Later on that night, I found myself lying awake in bed, staring into the darkness again. Every event of the last twelve-hours-or-so clobbered me in the head, one after another. Like one of those mechanical clobber-majigs with a whole lot of boxing gloves on a wheel that just keep punching you and punching you and punching you over and over and over and over and over again. Till it all blurred together.

But one thing popped out above the surface. One memory stared back at me from the deep dark gray that shrouded our ceiling.

Scribbles. The way she'd looked at me back on the rooftop. At the time, I'd thought that she was appalled - scandalized by the fact that I'd dared to think of Pinkie Pie as anything other than a monster. I'd presumed that Scribbles was just like the kids back home. Sensing how weird I was. How foreign. Unrelatable. Impossible to understand.

But Scribbles didn't care about any of that. She was horrified at me. For not running to Bananas Foster's aid. That was the Safety way. A model of friendship built on a cycle of trauma, crisis, and support. They had it down to a science.

But I didn't. That look on Scribbles' face - it itched at me like a cut at the roof of my mouth that I couldn't stop tonguing.

'Cause she was right. No matter how supportive Cliff Diver was - no matter how good of a leader Bananas Foster was turning out to be - no matter how much she loved being out in the open air, moving on her own four legs - we were still in danger. And that breakdown on the rooftop? That was on me. Everything was.

'Cause I'm the one who brought them there.

Bananas Foster coughed. Turned over. The uneven springs of her cot croooooaked beneath her weight.

"Psst," I said.

"I'm awake." Foster replied.

"I've been thinking."

"Don't do that," Cliff jumped in. "It's bad for you."

"Probably."

I stared at the shadows on the ceiling a little more. Hoping for a clue. But all I got was a kick in the face. Twinkle Eyes' old 2 x 4 o' Friendship telling me to quit moping around. "There's another way out," I blurted out.

Both of my friends turned to face me.

Roooooaoaoakakkkckk, Creeeeeewwweeeee, went their two cots in terrible harmony.

"...At least I, uh...think there is."

"Out with it," Foster said.

"Okay. When I got back from No Mare's Land, Princess Luna met me in my dreamscape - told me that 'The Wanderer' had been scratching outside my brain-door the whole time - thrashing against it so badly that it had to be reinforced or she woulda run into my dreamworld. Or worse, straight into the future." I rubbed my mojo bag idly with my forehooves. The sock was in there. Screw Loose's favorite toy. "I think I can call her. Even through time. My brain'll bridge the way."

"What about the Inquisitor?" Foster said.

"Maybe she didn't get out."

"Maybe?!"

"I don't know. Probably. The point is...it's an option. And if we can't figure out what exactly happened after Screw Loose's door slammed shut, we can at least make a pretty good guess about it."

"You mean it's a way out. In case we don't find Misty - I mean Blueberry - in time?" Cliff asked.

I nodded.

"...In case we're stuck here...." Cliff added.

I nodded again.

"...There might still be hope."

"Yeah," I chuckled nervously. "Or if you wanted to...you know, go right now, we could try it."
…
…
…

"What about fate?" Foster said. "The cards?"

"Yeah," I answered. "I'm probably gonna have to face Red Eye at some point. There's no way around that. But there's a lot going on here, and I just wanted to give you two the option to, you know, go somewhere safer. Like Cliff's dream or something, where you could still walk around and do stuff outside your bubble...only with no weird future-history looming over you. It's not fair to you to have to endure this weird Pinkie-hating city."

"Nothing's fair," Foster said indignantly. "Who cares about fair?"

"She's just Rose Petal'ing again." Cliff softened the mood.

"Rose Pe--?"

"I'm not mad," Foster interrupted before I even had a chance to register my own shock at having been transformed into a verb. "I know you have a lot going on. I know you've lost friends on missions before, and you don't wanna lose us. I get that. Really, I do. But you need to figure out - like soon, or even better...Right. Now. You gotta decide. Are the three of us a pirate crew, or aren't we?"

"Pirate crew?" I whispered to myself.

It dawned on me then and there: everything that I loved about pirates. Sisterhood. Loyalty. Pride. Standing tall, even with the whole world out to get you, knowing that the only thing that matters in this universe is staying true to your crew, (and flipping your tail at the East Equestria Trading Company).

I had it all right there. In my friends.

As terrified as we were. As twisted as that Pinkie Pie theme park was. As creepy as emotional education, and that weird windowless building were - Cliff, Foster and I had each other. Like pirates.

The very first thought of it sparked a little lantern inside of me. Melted away the anchor that had been crushing my chest - a weight I hadn't even realized was there. I felt myself floating above it all.

A smile rose up from my lantern-heart to the surface of my face, and tingled like cool breeze under a hot sun. But I didn't have words for how I felt. It just wasn't possible to tell them how touched I was to know that I needn't blame myself for their fate anymore.

'Cause we were pirates together! Through thick and thin. From the Isle of the Oracle Crab to the Port of Sunken Dreams.

A magnificent feeling swept over me like a wave. And I couldn't think of a damn thing to say except, "Yaarrrrr."

"Yarrr?" Cliff chuckled.

"Yarrrr." I replied.

"Glad you've come around." Foster said.

"Yarrrrr."

"You can stop that now," she said.

"Yarrrrrrrrrr."

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, and you can manage to spare a few bits, consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

All of the Patreon proceeds from this chapter will go to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS

When I read FO:E nine years ago, my favorite parts were the chapters that took place after major fights - the calm after the storm - characters processing their trauma, and trying to figure out what they were going to do next. Here we are. A simple campfire talk - only in a dorm.

Foster, Cliff, and Rose continue to surprise me, and now, the Safety Kids too. This has been a process of discovery for me, and I'm learning more about the culture of Safety every day, and I'm delighted to share my findings with you. Please let me know what you think so far. I'd love to hear from you.

Emotional Education

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO: EMOTIONAL EDUCATION
"Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red." - Clive Barker

The strangest of the letters archived in Bananas Foster's book on the Founding Sisters was addressed to Commander Hurricane, from Clover the Clever. Being only two words long, it is the subject of rather a lot of debate amongst scholars. The letter simply read:

MEET ME.

Nopony knows whether or not Commander Hurricane actually followed the instructions, and it's even less certain where exactly she was supposed to go, or why. Even the when is tricky to nail down. Believed to have come from the late Discordian era, traditional science-y techniques used to date documents, (you know...sciencely), are said to be faulty.

If conventional methods are to be believed, Clover was 110 when it was written.

I think about that letter sometimes. What it must have been like to receive it - if Hurricane was alive to receive it at all. Did she dismiss it with anger at Clover for having retired - a recluse, abandoning her friends? Did it reignite a tired old joy over the friendship that she and the Founding Sisters had once had? Did Hurricane brush it aside? Did she come running?

And what about Clover herself? Was this part of some failed Overthrow Discord plan? Did Clover even know how to find Commander Hurricane after so many decades? Or was this simply an act of desperation? A paper hang-glider, folded up, and sent sailing into the dark. A blind hope.

I felt that way about Misty Mountain. I had reached out across time and space, and hitched a ride on Misty's mission. And all I'd heard from him was crying.

It made me wonder. Was I the one tossing the paper hang-glider into the deep dark cave o' nothingness? Or was he reaching out to me?

* * *

The morning started out hopeful, despite that nagging Misty-flavored itch in my soul. Cliff and Foster and I got up together. Brushed our teeth together. Walked to breakfast together. Like siblings.

We were gonna save Blueberry Milkshake from the shadows. My pirate crew and me. We were gonna find Misty, and figure out a way to break into the Shadow Castle escape hatch, (presuming, of course, that it existed). We'd take on Red Eye if we had to. Discord. Sombra. Shadows. Emperors. Future. Past. We'd sail to the ends of the duckyverse, skeleton flag flapping. And nothing was gonna stop us. 'Cause we were super invincible best friends forever. And pirates! Did I mention that we were pirates?!

"Yaarrrr," I said as I scraped the excess breakfast goop around my plate.

Bananas Foster buried her face in her hooves. "Could you stop that? It's been, like, a hundred times."

Cliff turned to me and chuckled. "Yarrrr," we said to her in unison. Just to be jerks.

"Finish up your peach cobbler there, sweetie," the old lunch mare said as she passed us on her rounds. Prepping everypony to polish off their meals, and get out of there.

"Yarrr," I whispered almost to myself.

"Shhh." Foster butted me with her side. Gestured her eyes at Bubblegum, who was headed our way.

I tidied the smile off my face, and joined Bananas Foster in looking grim. Cliff did too.

Hooves dragging, head hung low, Bubblegum slinked up to our table. "Sorry," she said. "No sign of her."

Cliff threw his eyeballs at me, as if to say, Rose Petal, what in Celestia's name is wrong with you?!!

But Foster nodded, stoic as a princess, "Thanks for looking," she said. "I really appreciate it. We all do."

"Yeah," I added.

"Thanks," Cliff added nervously. "So um...how many kids did you ask?"

Bubblegum swept her foreleg across the air, indicating the entire fucking cafeteria.

"No news?" Cliff asked.

Bubblegum shook her head. "There's still some hope, though," she added hastily. "Our schedules are all jumbled up. Maybe Blueberry Milkshake just doesn't know...anypony here. Like, uh...anypony...at all." She sagged like a slowly-deflating balloon, each word out of her mouth draining just a little more hope from her.

"Thanks again for all your help," said Foster.

"It's the least I could do." Bubblegum slipped somberly away.

The incident on the rooftop had allowed my friends and I a certain distance from the Safety kids. They were twice as eager to help, and half as likely to invade our privacy. Bananas Foster had weaponized that awkwardness like a social megaspell bomb, all by asserting a quiet sort of dignity.

Thunk. She kicked me under the table the second that Bubblegum was gone.

"Ow!"

"She?" Foster snapped.

"Huh?"

"Bubblegum said there was no sign of her," Cliff elaborated.

Sweet mother of Celestia.

"You know how many more kids we're gonna have to…" Cliff started to lecture me, but Bananas Foster cut him off.

"Forget that," she said. "Did we ever say we were looking for a boy? Earlier, I mean," Foster tapped her hooves three or four times, and then exclaimed. "No! We never did. Except...yesterday, when you two first came into the cafeteria, and ran off to look. And Lucky followed you to make sure that you were okay. Think. Think hard. What did you tell him? Did you say he or she?"

Cliff and I turned to one another. Uncertain.

"Come on. You can remember. Just take a breath and think. What exactly did you say?"

Cliff's eyeballs went straight to the ceiling, and I shut mine real tight as the three of us sat in silence.

"Don't overthink it," said Foster.

"I don't know!" I snapped.

"I think I just said 'friend'?" Cliff added. "...Probably."

Foster donked her head into her hoof. As if remembering every single microscopic detail of every conversation we'd ever had was not only possible, but totally normal.

"Hay!" Cliff protested. "I'm not the one who went and told everypony that Misty was a girl."

"It's Blueberry Milkshake," I said. "And I've known her my whole life, so yeah, I guess I slipped up and said she at some point. Maybe I shouldn't-a been the one to go asking about her. I mean him. I mean...Gah!" I threw my forehooves up in annoyance. Mostly at myself for having screwed up in the first place. "Foster, come on. You're the one who's good at this."

"After last night, I have to remain aloof," she answered. "Or none of this works. All you had to do was strike up a conversation. We don't even want them to know who we're actually looking for. The point is to poke around and not look suspicious for it. Inconsistencies in our story are going to make us look suspicious."

"Hay." Iris, our tour-guide from yesterday, trotted up to us.

"Ahhh!" I fell off my stool non-suspiciously.

"Whoa, you alright?" He said.

"Fine," I answered from the floor. "I'm...um...fine...How are you?"

I cringed. Hid behind my own shoulders and turned away. That's when I saw Bubblegum. Watching us anxiously from across the cafeteria. Literally chewing on her own forehooves. And she wasn't alone. That whole table looked like a row of jack in the boxes, all cranked up and ready to spring.

They were the rooftop kids, and their eyes were on Foster. Though what exactly they planned on doing if she got visibly uncomfortable? That was anypony's guess.

Iris knelt down. Propped me up to my hooves.

"Thanks," I said.

"Don't mention it." He guided me back into my seat with both forehooves - the prosthetic one and the biological. It was the first time that I actually got a good hard look at his false leg. How well it fit. How well it functioned. How shiny and new it was - for real new, not like, you know, battered-old-Wasteland-buildings-that-got-cobbled-back-together-and-splashed-with-paint new.

"They did an amazing job," I said.

"Yeah," he blushed a little. "I'm very lucky. Our infirmary is state of the art."

He held the mechanical leg out for a hoof bump. And as I lifted up my own to meet his, it dawned on me. My shadow leg. The one that garnered stares outta everypony: from doctors to Ponyville schoolfillies to hard-bitten soldiers like Colonel Wormwood. Nopony at Safety had seemed to notice it, or care.

"This doesn't alarm you?" I said, waving my evil leg around.

Iris eyed me strangely. Like I had octopuses growing out of my ears. "Should it?"

"I guess not."

A bell rang.

In half an instant, everypony was out of their seats, and headed for the doors. The crowd flowed like a river, everypony moving as one - the kind of organized chaos built on daily routine. Even Bubblegum and the rooftop kids seemed to scatter and dissolve away, (confident that we were gonna be alright).

"So do you all know where you're going next? How to get there?" Iris asked. "That's what I came to check on."

"Emotional education," Foster replied.

"Me too." Elderberry Sunset appeared suddenly.

"Ahh!" I startled.

"Green building?" Elderberry asked.

Cliff Diver plunged his muzzle into his saddle bag and rummaged for the schedule. While Foster simply replied from memory, "Yes."

"Great," Elderberry said in that dronish voice of hers that made it sound anything but great. "I'll show you the way."

"Cool," Iris laughed, and before any of us could get a word in, he was already trotting to the door. "I'm late for math class," he hollered. "But you're in good hooves."

The last of the kids trickled out of the double doors. Faster than I thought possible. Before we knew it, we were alone. Following Elderberry Sunset.

"Why was Bubblegum upset a moment ago?" She asked.

Cliff Diver tripped on his own hooves, stumbled like a jerk-itty marionette dance. But Foster answered plainly, as deadpan as Elderberry herself. "I'm not sure," she said. "I don't know Bubblegum very well."

Elderberry led us out. And dodged every crack in the floor along the way. She didn't even seem to notice them. The perilous veins of surging lava betwixt the floor tiles were still to be avoided at all costs, of course, but for her, the terrain was well-charted.

Before we reached the doors at the far end of the cafeteria, my ears pricked up. A rustling, brushing sound. Somewhere behind us. It was those grown-ups. The ones in the blue jumpsuits. They were scurrying around. Sweeping. Picking up breakfast-debris.

The Safety kids had done a damn good job of cleaning up after themselves, but the jumpsuit grown ups frantically finished the job. Like dogs lunging for fallen pie.

Cliff Diver came up beside me. "Are they okay?" He asked. And he was right to be alarmed. Something about the way those grown-ups moved. The way they hustled. There was fear in every step.

"You're not supposed to notice them," Elderberry whispered.

Lucky had said pretty much the same thing. When I met that stranger in the alleyway the night before. "They don't like it when you talk to them."

It was a profound and omnipresent truth known to all the kids at Safety. That it was best not to notice the jumpsuit ponies. For their own protection.

"Don't worry," said Elderberry. "I know what you're thinking.

"Uh, you do?" I asked.

"If innocence is sacred here at Safety, what happens when we graduate?"

Cliff Diver looked to me with scandalized eyeballs. Emphasizing that that was not, in fact, what he had been thinking.

"Don't worry." Elderberry led us out the door. Out into the Great Wide Open - a forest of rehabilitated city buildings. Painted up, all colorful-like. She gestured with her muzzle at yet another grown up in a jumpsuit, who was carrying planks into one of those doorways labeled with the letter 'R.' For restricted. Or renovations. Or whatever. "We won't end up like them. Safety kids are the best of the best. Depending on your talents, we're all going to grow into leadership positions in Red Eye's army, or better yet, his administration."

When all three of us - even Foster - answered Elderberry with a confusitty sort of silence, she elaborated. "All of this..." She waved a hoof at the buildings surrounding us - the development, the reconstruction, the colorful decor. "...It's all for us."

"I see," said Cliff Diver.

The streets were alive with hoof traffic. Children making their way to classes. Running around in all different directions, goofing off along the journey, laughing with their friends, kicking balls around. But none of them seemed to notice the jumpsuit ponies at all. Even when children of Safety navigated their way around the plank-carriers, they just sorta...did it...without noticing. Like the workers were totally invisible.

"Follow me." Elderberry Sunset disappeared around the corner of a building.

"Did you see her?" Cliff whispered to me.

"Who?"

"Blueberry Milkshake, duh."

"Him," I said. "Blueberry's a him, and no, I didn't."

"Cliff's right," Foster replied. "It's too late. We have to say 'her' now."

We rounded the corner and found Elderberry sitting on a stoop. "Here we are," she said. An actual smile on her face for once. "This is the first step. To inherit the future. I think you're really going to like emotional education. Are you excited?"

"Yes," Bananas Foster answered quickly, (before either of us could concoct a smart aleck retort).

The Green Building was unimpressive in its shape and design. I think they're called brownstones. Only there was nothing brown about it. The only thing remarkable about The Green Building was the fact that it was...well...really, really, really green.

We followed Elderberry inside. Down a bunch of narrow, winding hallways. Like when somepony converts a barn into a haunted house for Nightmare Night, and puts up a bunch of flimsy, temporary walls inside. Clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop, all sixteen of our hooves combined to form a dissonant sort of rattling sound that echoed around before vanishing into the depths of the winding path ahead.

"So, how does emotional education work?" Cliff Diver asked cautiously.

"It's where we learn how to be our better selves," Elderberry made a point to turn around. Meet us all eye-to-eye. "Where we learn how to build the kind of future that Fillydelphia needs," she added. "That Equestria needs."

"Sounds fun," I said.

"Yeah," Cliff added. "But what exactly is it?"

"Oh," said Elderberry. "Ancient magic."

"What?!" Cliff squeaked.

Bloink. Even Foster threw open her alarmitty eyelids.

"It's nothing to be afraid of," Elderberry tried - and failed - to be reassuring.

"But, but--;" Cliff stammered.

"What kind of magic?" Foster asked.

"The kind that comes in old tomes," Elderberry replied. "But I can't really describe the process. Different ponies react to it differently. I, for one, love it,but some kids resist, and…"

Just then, a pair of fillies appeared from around the flimsy plywood corner. One of the girls sobbed all over the other's shoulder - I mean really bawled her eyes out. They inched passed us. Radiating sorrow and pain. Like the sun shoots out light.

The sound of her wails buzzed against the walls.

When they were gone, Elderberry conducted us around the same rickety corner that they'd come from. It was a dead end that led to an archway with a sign hanging over it: EMOTIONAL EDUCATION. The door was open. On the other side of it was a plain room. Green. And a tribe of kids, forming a circle. One by one, their heads all turned to us, and a hush fell over them.

I waved. 'Cause I didn't know what else to do.

"No need to be scared," came a smooth, gentle voice. As deep as a whale's. "Come in," it said. "Nocreature will hurt you. I promise."

But whoever cooed us remained anonymous. Hiding suspiciously behind the door.

"Should we--;" Foster started to whisper conspiratorially, but Elderberry Sunset skipped in ahead. Beckoned us to follow.

"Come on," she said. "I'll save you a spot."

"Should we go in?" Foster finished her thought.

"No," Cliff answered.

"Of course we go in," I said. "What choice do we have?"

"They've got ancient magic," Foster protested.

"And we've got you and your freaky impenetrable bug mind."

"Don't be shy," said the voice. Out stepped a griffin. Feathers black as oil. Emerald eyes that shone out against the dark plumage. "Cliff Diver?" He said. "Bananas Foster? Rose Petal, I presume?"

"That's us," Foster replied.

The griffin made a point of looking each of my friends in the eye. And getting some kind of gesture in return. So we wouldn't have the option of shrinking away.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all," said the griffin. "My name is Glenn." He curled his talons into a fist, proffered it for a bump.

Foster was the first to hoof bump him back. Then Cliff, who seemed to just want to get the whole thing over with. And that left me. Just sorta standing there like a dope. No matter what I did, I couldn't stop staring. "You're a griffin," I said at last.

"You don't think highly of griffins?" He asked, matter-of-fact-like.

"What?"

"I wouldn't blame you. The Wasteland mercenaries are most ponies' first impression."

I felt a deep-wounding shame. Appalled that Glenn thought I was anything like those zebra-hating ponies, or pony-hating zebras, or those trenchpotatoes back in No Mare's Land who hated the trenchcorns for the dumbest of all possible reasons. I wasn't hatey like that.

"No," I said. "I don’t have anything against griffins at all. I know a griffin. He stood up for me. Looked out for me in the trenches. Taught me how to light a candle in mourning, even though we didn't have candles, and had to use sticks. I was just surprised that you're a griffin because Elderberry told us there would be magic.”

"Not all magic fires from the tip of a horn," he said. "Join us, and you'll see."

Glenn stretched out a wing and pointed inside. The other kids were settling into their circle formation. A blood red cushion beneath each flank. Elderberry had saved us three cushions right next to her.

Cliff and Foster took deep breaths and guided one another inside, past the EMOTIONAL EDUCATION sign, and into the circle. I took a few steps toward the door, but Glenn called out to me, "Rose Petal?"

"Huhwhat?"

Click-clack, click-clack went his claws upon the tile. Till he was by my side, and knelt down to my level. "I'm truly sorry to have made such a presumption about you," he said softly. "It's not our way."

"Uh...okay."

"I'm glad we've come to that understanding, Rose Petal. It also reminds me of Lesson Number One of Emotional Education. And what is Lesson Number One?" He stopped whispering suddenly, and called out, through the open doorway, to the class.

"No judgments," they answered in unison.

"Good," he replied. "Are you ready?" He whispered to me once again.

I nodded.

"Go on and have a seat, Rose Petal." He gestured with his shiny black wing.

For a moment, I stared that doorway down. Like it was gonna grow teeth and gobble me up the second I stepped inside. But that was stupid. Besides, I didn't have a choice. My friends were already in there. There was nothing left to do but trust in Foster's bug brain to protect us all.

As I made my way around the circle, Glenn gave the world's briefest introduction. "Okay, everypony. We are limited on time. So Rose Petal, Cliff Diver, and Bananas Foster, while you are welcome to join if you want to, it is not required. Everypony who wants to will get a chance to talk, and that does include you three. We ask that you listen; that you be respectful; and that you wait your turn. Now Grape Fizz, why don't you start us off."

"Talk?" Cliff whispered to me.

"Shh," Foster snapped, determined to play along.

A purple unicorn boy stood up. "Hey, everypony. Most of you already know me, but I'm Grape Fizz." He looked to me and my friends directly, as if introducing himself. Like a spazz, I waved back. "11 years in. 1 year out. Six months here at Safety." He took a deep breath and continued, "I feel like a lot of my old anger is coming back. Yesterday, my friend took an apple off my tray at the cafeteria."

Everypony gasped. From the shock on their faces, I gathered that stealing food was not the Safety way.

"No, no, no, no, no," Grape Fizz said. "He wasn't really stealing it. He was borrowing it for a juggling trick he wanted to show off. It's something he does every day. And I'm not gonna name any names, but he's, like, my best friend. So of course I trust him to give it back. But this time…" Grape lowered his head to the ground. "I don't know. He didn't ask permission this time, or maybe he did and I didn't hear him, but the point is...Something inside of me snapped. I felt like I was back in the Wasteland again. I almost hit him," his voice cracked in dismay. "My best friend. I almost…" Grape Fizz babbled a bit, and trailed off.

"But you didn't," Glenn interjected softly.

Grape shook his head.

"Well I think that's a cause for some celebration, don't you?"

"I just wanna, you know, not be like this anymore," he answered.

"We all have hiccups along the way," said Glenn. "Think of how you were when you first got here. Think of your first day, even. What would…"

Grape and Glenn back-and-forthed it for a bit. Like a hypnotic game of brain ping pong. But as I watched the little mind ball volley back and forth, something dawned on me.

It should have been obvious from the start, of course. But me, being stupid, only caught on during the 20,000th exchange betwixt Glenn and Grape Fizz. This was therapy. We didn't have one of those talk doctors back home in Ponyville - not even at the hospital - but I'd read all about the process.

'Cause in this side comic to the Pinkbeard series, there was, like, a public service announcement from the Equestrian Department of Mental Hygiene - there was this weird story about how Pinkbeard had had these nightmares once, and she was forced to seek out Dr. Squidmund Frod to get them out of her brain, but then, when she found out that his treatment actually involved talking about feelings and stuff, she was like, 'Yarrr that be not the way of a captain,' and Dr. Squidmond Frod was like, 'No, really, you need to let me do my talk magic on you,' and when Pinkbeard finally agreed, the nightmares were gone, and she learned not hate her parents anymore.

"Rose Petal?" Came that velvety griffin voice.

"Yeah?" I snapped to attention.

"You look a little confused," said Glenn. "Now that Grape Fizz has shared, would you like to take a moment to ask whatever questions might be on your mind?"

Foster and Cliff looked to me with eyeballs that screamed unequivocally: don't you fucking dare. So I said, "No."

"Are you sure?" Glenn said, his ridiculously green eyes sparkling with kindness. "There's no shame in asking questions, and now is the time."

The other students were all looking my way. A weird sorta patience and understanding emanated from that ring of children. Like each and every one of them was actually eager to hear what I had to say.

"Yeah," I said. "Well, I'm just kind of surprised is all. That this is, like, you know, therapy."

Glenn opened up a claw, and scratched his chin. "I suppose you could call it that, yes. Though we prefer emotional education. 'Therapy' is a medical term - a treatment for those who are sick. But you're not sick. There's nothing wrong with any of you. What we are doing here instead is a kind of learning. Do you understand the difference?"

"I see."

"Does that answer your question?"

"Shouldn't we…" I scanned the room, nervous that I was stealing a slot from somepony else.

"This is your time too," said Pistachio, the kid who'd guided us back to our dorms after the incident on the rooftop.

"Oh, hi." I waved.

He waved back.

"I um...well, I just kinda thought there'd be more brain jellyfish involved. You know, like the kind that eat your thoughts, and make you do stuff you don't want to do."

Cliff buried his face in his hoof.

But Glenn replied without batting an eye. "That's a normal fear."

"It is?"

"You have every reason and every right to be suspicious."

"We do?" Said Cliff.

Only Bananas managed to keep a straight face.

"All the ponies of the Wasteland have suffered," said Glenn. "But you here in this room - you Children of the Stables - you all had whole lives torn out from under you. Nopony expects you to adjust overnight."

"Yeah," Pistachio said. "I remember the -- may I?" He looked to Glenn, and then to me. Just to make sure he wasn't interrupting. We both nodded at him to continue. "The day I got my pip buck." He stroked it tenderly as he spoke. "In my stable, they awarded you with a pip buck after you got your cutie mark." He lifted up his flank. It bore the image of a pair of binoculars, and, of course, a pistachio nut. "I discovered my special talent while playing a game of tag. Can you believe it? Tag! It turns out I'm good at being the lookout - organizing the other kids to coordinate their evasion of whoever is 'it'. And I thought. 'Great! What kinda career is that?'" Pistachio laughed, sighed. "I know the Stables aren't perfect. In fact, some of them are even more messed up than the outside. But I really liked mine. We got to...you know, be kids. Have fun." Slowly, the warm nostalgic smile faded from his face like sagging wax. He examined his pip buck once more. "You know, I never even finished getting lessons on how to use the damn thing. The very next day I...well...how I found the door and got stuck outside of it is a really long story, as most of you know."

The ring of Stable Kids nodded and murmured in reply.

Pistachio looked me in the eyeballs. "I'll tell you new kids some other time...but the point is...growing up, we didn't even know there was a world outside Stable 37, let alone a door to it. And once out there, in the cold, everything was just...Hell stretching out to the horizon forever and ever and ever. And there was no getting back home." Pistachio shook his head. "It turns out the talent I'd found while playing tag - of all things - ended up keeping me alive. You know what they say, survival of the fittest, right?"

The circle of kids chuckled softly. Unexpected-like. As if all of Safety was in on a running joke.

"But looking back," Pistachio continued. "It wasn't even the hiding. The Scouting. The fighting. The starving. None of that burns me now. We've all been there. It's, like, the most totally normal thing. No. What bugs me is that there'd been a world outside our stable all along. And my whole life on the inside was a lie. Just like you said, Glenn."

The ring of children once again nodded in agreement. Even gave out light applause.

"Everypony here knows that feeling," said Glenn.

"I wish I could share Stable 37 with you," Pistachio said spreading out his forehooves. Looking to each and every one of us. "'Cuz it was a beautiful lie. So beautiful that I couldn't let it go. I tried to shape the Wasteland in its image. Figuring if I could only make a difference - in some small way, to some small pony - anypony - then that lie - that dream would become real. But I couldn't. It's impossible. The Wasteland always wins."

The yellow unicorn sitting next to Pistachio put a hoof on his shoulder. Pistachio tapped it reassuringly.

"Last night I had the dream again," he continued. "Where I'm back home in my Stable. I'm in class. And all my old friends are there. Cotton Candy, and Fluffy Emerald, and Lily Breeze. But nopony wants to play with me anymore. 'Cause I'm filthy and covered in Wasteland gunk. I'm a total outcast. Except to one little foal, dressed all in white. She sees past all that, you see? She tries to play - tag, of course. And she touches me. But she tags me...I dunno...in just the wrong way, I guess.

'I get startled, and next thing I know, I see a blow-torch-wielding raider where the foal used to be. So I tackle her down a conveyer slope. And when we hit the ground, I slit her throat before she can kill me."Pistachio fell silent for a moment. It stretched into what could have been a minute or an hour or a year. Who could tell? We only knew it was over when Glenn spoke up.

"Does the dream end any differently this time?" His voice dipped real low. Till it was felt more than heard.

Pistachio simply shook his head.

"I know exactly how you feel," I blurted out.

Cliff tried to protest. But Foster rested a hoof on his leg. He took it as a signal - a signal to shut the fuck up. But at the same time, Foster's eyes never left mine. They were orbs o' caution.

I cleared my throat. Proceeded carefully. "Like, um, I didn't know the Wasteland existed until a few months ago," I said. "And I think about home all the time."

The circle of kids nodded and "mmmhmm'd" in approval.

"And it really eats at me. Trying to figure out, like, how can I fit in again? After everything I've seen? You know, hypothetically, of course. If I could go back. What do I tell them? How do I make them understand?"

"Yeah," Pistachio said.

"Make us understand," Glenn said.

"Excuse me?"

"Why don't you tell the circle what you'd like to say to the folks at your stable back home?"

Every student looked to me. Encourage-ish-ly. Except Cliff and Foster. Orbs o' Caution.

"I guess I'd say 'I'm sorry,'" I mused out loud. "For not being able to blend in anymore. For ruining their good time. For making folks worry."

"It sounds like you're sorry for rather a lot, doesn't it?" Glenn said.

"Yeah, um, like, yeah," I replied. "It's actually a long story. I--I couldn't help it.…"

Glenn stared at me. Calmly. Patiently. But I didn't have any more to say. It was just babble after that.

"Couldn't help what?" He prodded me gently at long last.

"Interrupting their musical number," I said. "Ruining their innocence. Making them worry because I'm freaking out all the time."

"Is there a reason for your freaking out?" Glenn said.

"Yes, of course there's a reason."

Glenn looked at me blankly. Challenged me to name them. But I couldn't reply. Not without giving too much away.

"Okay, I've got an idea," said Glenn. He crossed the room, and came back with a slate, and a piece of chalk, which he laid in my lap. "I'd like you to take a moment to write down everything you're sorry for. Everything. Don't worry. Nopony will see. Your secrets are your own if you choose to keep them. But for now, just write it all down. Everypony. Grab a slab and make a list.

Staring down that slate, I realized that I could write in code if I had to. Just the first syllable of each word. Super secret spy stuff. In case it was a trick.

I made a list of all the things I'd done - everything I was sorry for. Worrying my sister, and Cranky, and Zecora, and Cliff, and Foster, and Cheerilee. Attacking Kettle Corn. Freaking out my class. Freaking out Ponyville. Doctors. Nurses.

It went on and on and on. Till finally, I ran outta room. So I spit the chalk out.

"Ready?" Glenn asked.

I nodded. Leaning over my slate, just in case somepony there could decipher my secret spy code. But it wasn't just fear of my story coming out inconsistently. No. Just thinking about everything I'd written down - everything I'd done. It made my stomach churn.

"I want you to look over your list carefully," Glenn said. "And imagine that a close friend or loved one came to you, and apologized for everything that you just wrote down."

"But--;" I fell silent. His sharp green eyes meant business. "Okay, um…"

I studied the list closely. Couldn't picture Cliff or Foster or Misty in my horseshoes. They were all nearby, mixed up in the here and now. For some reason, my brain conjured Twink. As if by magic spell.

"Your friend," said Glenn. "How do you feel about them now that they've confessed these things?"

"That's not fair," I said. "That's different. None of this is her fault. Twink would never--;"

I trailed off.

"Never what?" Glenn pressed me gently, but firmly.

"It's not her fault," I said, imagining Twinkle Eyes trying to integrate into polite Ponyville society. After what she'd been through. Her profanity . Her violence. Her abhorrence for authority. It would never work.

"Why not?"

"'Cause it's my fault," I said at last. "Everything is."

And just then, Twink's 2 x 4 o' Friendship clobbered me right between the eyes. Nobody. Speaks. That. Way. About. My. Friends. But it was different this time. Somehow, it split my mind wide open, and let the air inside. I dropped my slate on the ground.

"It's not," I said in a hushed voice. "It's not my fault at all, is it?"

I expected Glenn to offer reassurances in reply. Platitudes. Or at the very least, wisdom. But he didn't. "Look over the list," he said. "You tell me."

So I did. I read it over. Twice. Three times. Five. Seven. Expecting to find a loophole. But there was none. "Its not my fault," I said again. And that brain wind rushed in so hard, it made every hair on my coat stand up on end.

"Are you sure?" Glenn asked carefully.

I nodded.

"So, given the opportunity to go back into your stable - to talk to everypony there - what would you say to them now?"

"I'd tell them all about Twinkle Eyes," I said. "So somepony would remember her, and know how fucking awesome she was."

"Very good," said Glenn. A smile cracked across his beak.

"But they wouldn't understand that either," I said. "I mean really...How could they? The kind of friendship that me and Twink had? It was life or death. Slavery or freedom. Not, like, typical little kid stuff. We met in a cage for Celestia's sake."

"I understand," said Pistachio.

"What?"

"Me too," said the yellow unicorn next to him.

"Me three," came a third voice. Then a fourth. And a fifth. And a sixth.

Before I knew it, I was surrounded. Completely engulfed by a ring of encouraging faces. None of them pitied me. Not one! They weren't concernitty. Or scared or freaked out. Or anything. It was just a room full of kids who'd been there. Kids who knew.

Kids like me.

My eyes watered. To see so many children who just plain understood.

I turned to Bananas Foster. A moral compass. A safety net. Our expert in not blowing our cover. Even she dipped her head. Gave a hoof up. Urged me to continue. She was proud of me. Not just for my brain wind, but my ability to lie and tell the truth at the same time. To keep from giving myself away.

"Twinkle Eyes was the best friend a kid could have," I said. "She taught me to survive. She taught me everything…"

Author's Note

PATREON

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For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS

As some of you have probably noticed, I like to release chapters on holidays, full moons, or to commemorate significant events. I may have missed the deadline for last week's Lunar Eclipse, but today is important in another way. It is the 590th anniversary of Joan of Arc's execution.

Joan and Rose actually have rather a lot in common if you stop and think about it. They are both teenage girls who changed the course of history with the help of mystical visions and voices.

As for the chapter itself, I'm really happy for Rose Petal to have made this breakthrough. It went better than I'd planned. I'm also delighted to have discovered Glenn. When I first started writing this chapter, I really wasn't sure who was going to end up running Emotional Education. 'Till suddenly, there he was!

I look forward to hearing feedback from you all. Don't be shy about commenting.

How We Treat Our Own

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE - HOW WE TREAT OUR OWN

"The test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members." - Pearl Buck

Cliff Diver wasn't feeling emotional education.

Sure, I'd had my moment in the sun. Or rather, I'd let the sun shine into me when Twink and her 2 x 4 o' Friendship split my brain wide open and let the light shine in. Hopefully for good this time.

I didn't need to take the blame for everything anymore. Didn't need to kick myself.

And with Foster's blessing, I moved forward. Told the kids of Safety about the glory of Twinkle Eyes, all without giving away any details that might set any red flags a-flyin'.

Just feelings. The patented Bananas Foster Method for Lying Your Fucking Ass Off About Having Journeyed from Impossible Locations in Equestria's Past.

But Cliff Diver just folded his hooves and resisted the whole thing. He was the weirdo of the group. The pegasus. Nopony knew where he came from. And everypony wanted to know.

So when, toward the end of a long, long, long, long, long group session, Glenn finally said, "How about you, Cliff Diver? Is there anything you'd like to say to the kids back home?" All the children who'd tenderly coaxed a confession out of me were suddenly silent. Eerily awaiting his answer.

Where did Cliff Diver, the gonzo pegasus kid with the broken wings, actually come from? Had he even been a Child of the Stables at all? What was he doing in Safety with a bunch of Stable kids like me?

"I've got nothing to say to them," he replied curtly.

"Nothing?" Glenn inquired, leaning forward on his curled up talons.

"No," Cliff answered. "The kids in the past are all jerks. All my real friends are right here."

He stretched one forehoof out to me. The other to Bananas Foster. And we shared a three way hoof bump.

He wasn't lying either. Cliff Diver really didn't have a use for any of our classmates back home. I'd never given it very much thought, but the Ponyville that I had idealized - that temporal Fortress of Innocence that was to be guarded and protected at all costs. To Cliff? It was just Jerk Town.

Who did he have, really? Me? Foster? Zecora? A couple of geriatric donkeys to play blues music with?

The Safety kids who'd all perched on the edge of their cushions, waiting to see if the Mystery Pegasus was gonna open up, and spill his bean secrets - they just sorta sunk back. Disappointed-like.

Cliff wasn't ready to talk. And every single one of them - even Glenn - was totally 100% prepared to respect that. It was the Safety way.

But damned if they weren't curious.

"I hear you," came a voice. "I don't miss my stable either. No offense to those here who do. Safety is just way better."

Some of the kids around us murmured vaguely in approval.

"We've got skee ball," said the yellow kid sitting next to Pistachio.

Everypony chuckled. Skee-Ball was apparently a tremendous hit.

"Anything else?" Glenn asked the room. "Would anypony like to share before we wrap things up?"

Elderberry Sunset's hoof shot up into the air.

"Of course," Glenn replied. "Go on."

"I just want to say how excited I am to be here," she said, though her voice showed no signs of actual excitement. "...And to share emotional education with the new kids. I'm so happy for you, Rose Petal."

"Oh, um. Thanks." I blushed a little.

"In my stable, we weren't allowed to share our emotions at all. We were discouraged from having them too. So I know how you feel, Cliff Diver."

Cliff recoiled. The stern, resolute expression fell from his face like a boulder that - kaploonk - dropped in the River of Facial Expressions That Are No More "Discouraged from…having emotions?"

"Oh, yes," she replied. "There were a lot of rules in Stable 64."

"But...how did they...how did you...?"

"Everything's regimented," she answered. "And we liked it that way - at least I think we did. We never really talked about what we liked, and what we didn't." A smile spread across Elderberry's face. And a nostalgic sigh escaped her grinning lips as she dreamt of simpler times back in her nightmarish doom stable.

"I'm so sorry," Cliff replied. A simple condolence.

"I know this is hard to accept," Elderberry Sunset answered. "Nopony really understands Stable 64. I don't expect you to. But one thing I've learned here is that every stable kid comes from a different culture, created with a different mission. I don't know why it ended up that way. That's just what the Stable designers did.

'My home was inspired by the marvel of shapes and numbers. Everything had a place. Every inch of ground - marked off with squares. Stand here. Don't stand there."

"That's awful," Cliff said.

Elderberry's eyes sparkled with wonder. "You don't understand!" She said. "It's beautiful. I talk about this every week - but no one really gets it. Staying within your squares is like...a whole universe of order. Of stability. A feeling of home.

'Not like the Wasteland. Where nothing matters. Where everything matters. Where anything can happen, and there's no rules to protect you...I guess that's why I like Safety so much. We have rules. We have classes. We have order. It's kinda mystical really. To be able to sit here. In this circle. Even if I've got no progress to report - nothing in particular to say! This is the one place where you have to feel your feelings. It's the rules."

"But everyone has feelings," Cliff said.

"I know," Elderberry replied, totally nonchalant. "And I understand this is weird for you. But back in Stable 64, so long as nopony felt their feelings, you always knew exactly what to expect. You could always trust Elderberry Sunset to have your best interest at heart. To keep you safe."

"Elderberry Sunset?" I said.

"Oh, yeah," she snorted. "In my stable, none of us had names. I was called 1417-G."

"Pardon?" Foster said.

"1417-G," Elderberry repeated. "We all called each other by our numbers. The only one of us with a real name, didn’t actually have a name at all. Elderberry Sunset was just what we called the eldest amongst us - our matriarch - a title passed down since the war.

'All of us were numbers. Living our lives in humble service to the great mother, Elderberry Sunset." She sighed. "I know it creeps everypony out, but--;"

"No," Foster interrupted.

Elderberry stopped. While all heads turned to Bananas Foster. Like some creepy dance move in a synchronized swimming competition.

"It sounds beautiful," Foster continued. "To have a mother like that. Or a mother figure, I guess."

"It doesn't creep you out?" Elderberry asked.

Bananas Foster shook her head. "Nah. You don't really need a name."

Elderberry giggled. A child's giggle. A normal fucking giggle. The kinda thing you'd expect to hear on the playground back in Ponyville.

"So when you came here," Foster said. "Elderberry Sunset was the name you chose? 'Cause of the memories."

"No," she gasped. "I would never!"

"Oh, geez. I'm sorry."

"The name Elderberry Sunset is a dignity reserved only for the oldest of the herd."

"Oldest?" I said. Looking her up and down. She couldn't be a day over seven. (And probably wasn't even that).

"That's me," said Elderberry Sunset. "Well, the oldest one left."

* * *

Once dismissed, everypony dragged their big red cushions to the wall. Like a wave o' kids sweeping driftwood ashore.

"Hay." Pistachio extended a hoof for bumping.

"Oh, um, hi," I replied. Only to get another hoof in my face. Coming at me from the other side.

Clop. "Thanks." I blushed a little. It was Lemon Drop, the yellow kid who'd sat next to Pistachio. Then Elderberry. Then some kid I didn't know at all. Followed by even more barely-familiar faces. Till at last, I was faced with the mountain of shiny black plumage colloquially known as 'Glenn.'

Massive as he was, he'd somehow managed to sneak up on me in the chaos. "Thank you," he said.

"Huh? For what?"

"For being so open and honest today."

My eyes darted to Foster. And Cliff. Who knew that I had not, in fact, been honest. At least about, you know, having traveled forward in time with my brain.

"Thanks," I replied. "For...uh...thanking me."

"Yes, well, anyway, if ever you have a problem, or even if you just want to talk, we have private emotional education sessions as well." He turned to Cliff and Foster. "Same goes for you. My office is open all day." He gestured a wing at a door in the back of the room. "Drop by any time. If I'm not in session with somepony else, my ears are all yours. Oh!" He clapped his talons together. "And thank you two as well."

"Me?" Cliff said. "For what?"

"You were very good listeners today - both of you."

"That's very kind of you," Foster replied.

We wrapped up our salutations, and conversations, congratulations and celebrations, and drifted out the door. Me and Cliff. Pistachio and Lemon Drop, the girl who'd sat next to him. A whole bunch of other kids whose names I still didn’t fucking know, (even though I had, over the course of two short hours, learned their deepest shames and fears).

Glenn himself slipped into his 'office' - which was basically a broom closet with a desk in it, and walls overflowing with books. Real books. The kind we had back home. Ancient tomes, as Elderberry had so ominously put it. Made out of paper.

The herd swept us toward the door at a lazy pace. But I shoved my way back in.

Oof! "Excuse me….Sorry...eep. If I could just...excuse..." Unngh.

I squiggled on through. Till at last, I made it back to the empty space where the circle o' cushions had been. And found Elderberry standing there all alone. She closed her eyes. Sighed contentedly. Like when you're watching the sunset over a lake, and you really really really reeeeally want it to last forever. But you've gotta say goodbye, so you linger just long enough to steal one final moment in the sun.

I let her be. Wandered to Glenn's office. The flimsy metal door was open only a crack. But a shiny plaque on one of the shelves tossed my eyeballs a reflection of something they clearly weren't meant to see.

Glenn at his desk. Head buried in his wing feathers. Stressed. Or ashamed. I couldn't tell. But the act of watching him twisted a rusty crowbar in my stomach.

It was wrong. Just plain wrong. To spy on his private moment like that! So I took a step back.

Squeak. My hoof slipped on the tile. Glenn jolted up in alarm. Damnit. I lunged forward and knocked quickly. Pretended not to have seen. Floor squeaks are totally normal noises to make if you're...like, approaching confidently. They're only suspicious if you act stupid and try to pretend that they didn't happen.

"Come in," he said. Voice as smooth as butter.

"Ok, um. Hi." I creaked the door open further. Poked my head in.

By the time the griffin caught my eye, he was sitting upright. Calm as the monks of the Chanting Isles. "Oh, hello again, Rose Petal," he said, "What can I do for you?"

"Oh. Um, I dunno." I laughed awkwardly. "I forgot."

"It's okay," he replied. "Take your time."

I tried to shake the answer loose from my brain. Attacked its brain-doors with the battering ram of my conscious will. But it locked up. Tight as Tartarus. While my eyeballs fixated on all the beat up old "tomes" on the walls: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Research and Practice, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Field Guide for the Battle Worn; DSM - VII ; In Search of Closure.

"You really taught yourself psycholog...I mean emotional education out of all these old books?"

Glenn nodded. "I'd been doing similar work with griffin soldiers for some time. When we discovered the library of Stable 93, it made a great deal more possible."

"That's pretty awesome," I said with a smile. But that smile soon faded. Mere seconds ago, Glenn had been in distress, and I'd been a jerk and intruded. "Uh...anyway. I should be going. Thanks."

"Wait," said Glenn, a bit too sudden-like. A teensy little gleam of panic flashed across his eyes, then vanished with a blink.

The shock of it nailed my hooves to the floor.

"Can we talk for a second?" He gestured conspiratorially at the door.

I stuck my head out. Found Elderberry still standing around doing nothing. And my friends still waiting in the doorway, glowering at me what-the-fuckishly.

I held up a hoof, mouthed, "Gimme a minute," and shut the door behind me.

Glenn studied me for a moment. Ground his pointy-beak-bits together. It was just a microexpression - the kinda thing I wouldn't have noticed at all if Colonel Wormwood hadn't taught me how. But it felt off. And then, as quickly as it had come, Glenn was his cordial, soothing-ass self again. "You're free to borrow any of the books on the bottom shelf," he said, all soothing and casual-like.

"Uh...That's what you wanna talk to me about?"

Glenn nodded. "Your friends too. Make sure they know."

He unclenched his beak. Unbunched his wings. A sigh of relief. He'd succeeded in avoiding telling me whatever the fuck was really bothering him.

"This is about Cliff Diver, isn't it?"

He held up a wing. As if to tell me, You don't need to say a word.

But I kinda did. 'Cause something had been eating at Glenn. And this was obviously it. Yet still, he'd chosen to shove his library at me rather than, you know, break his code or whatever, and ask me directly.

"Where are the other pegasuses?" I asked. A dumb fucking question that my mouth posed without consulting my brain first.

We're supposed to be blending in! A Rose Voice yelled at me from inside my skull. He's gonna realize we're not from here.

Duh. He already knows we're not from here, Another Rose Voice retorted.

But it's obviouser now! Rose Voice Number Three yelled. We're, like, reeeally not from here.

"Arg! Nopony's from here!" I snapped at myself out loud.

Glenn folded his wings inward. Touched his chest. Scandalized. "The other pegasi?"

One by one, his head feathers stood on their ends like some kinda punk rock griffin or something. "Nopony ever…" He geared up for a line of inquiry, but stopped himself mid-sentence. Ran a wingtip across his scalp. "No, I suppose they didn't. Well, you see, the pegasi are in the clouds."

"Yeah, but...wait, like...all of them? All the time?"

Glenn nodded. "Cliff Diver is only the third pegasus I've ever met face to face."

"But you can fly."

"Below the clouds, certainly. But if I were to breach the cumulus?" Glenn let slip a mirthless chuckle. "The Enclave would not welcome us with open hooves."

"So everypony thinks Cliff is…"

"We don't make presumptions here," Glenn said. "Nopony thinks Cliff is anything. What you need to do is focus on yourself, and your friends. You've been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours. Given your progress during our session today, I'd say you have a lot to reflect upon. Would you agree?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm just worried about what all this pegasus stuff means for Cliff."

Glenn sighed. "I'll be honest with you, Rose Petal. Fillydelphia is worried right now because they don't know how you three got in, and they're eager to fix the breach in security. It has nothing to do with Cliff Diver, or his wings." Glenn leaned forward over his desk. Spoke in this magic sorta tone that somehow managed to be assertive and calming at the same time. "It's okay to be a pegasus, you understand?"

I nodded. Mesmerized by the sheer gravity of what should have been an obvious fucking statement.

"If anypony here makes Cliff feel otherwise - anypony - I want you to come to me, or Miss Honey right away. Can you do that?"

The emeralds in his eyesockets shimmered with the refraction of some weird flame. They seemed to stab me, and hug me at the same time. Pinning my brain to the spot with a needle of light that somehow pierced my very soul and paralyzed me as eyeball fire poured out of him, burning with a single unmistakable message. I won't let them hurt you. Any of you.

"Okay," I said.

"Now listen very carefully. You've taken the whole world on your shoulders."

"Yeah," I said. "I know. I need to stop that."

"Not at all," Glenn retorted. Casual and conversational-like. His green eyeball lasers gone without a trace. "Sometimes it's all we have. Our drive to save the world. But you need to save the world in manageable doses."

Hearing that - it felt like my face split wide open right down the middle. Like a pair of double doors. And Glenn was reading my entire brain. All at once. And I could see it too.

Every act of desperation. From Trottica to No Mare's Land to the bright idea that I just had to check out Screw Loose's dream-door and discover the demon shadow inquisitor torturer pony thing that she used to be.

It was all the same shit. Rose Petal the Hero biting off more than she could chew.

"That...makes sense," I said.

"Why don't you start by reflecting on what you learned today."

"Okay." I nodded. Slowly. Still adjusting to the strange sensation of having a great big door-face that exposed the secret machinations of my brain to the open air.

"Good. I'm very happy for you." Glenn's beak shifted into a warm smile. "Now, do you have any questions?"

"Yeah."

My heart took to racing. Should I ask about Misty? I mean, Blueberry Milkshake? Oof!
Was she supposed to be a boy or a girl? Or...wait...damnit...we weren't supposed to be letting on at all! Fuck. Damn. Stupid.

"Rose Petal?" Glenn asked.

"Who were the other two pegasi?" I blurted out. "You said Cliff was the third you ever met."

"Oh. Well, a long time ago, I met a pegasus at The Market. It was a brief encounter, so I didn’t get the opportunity to learn very much about her, but she sported a 'Fuck the Enclave' hat to put us all at ease, and much like Cliff Diver, her wings weren't quite right. It's not difficult to imagine what happened."

"They broke her wings? Just cause she didn't like the um...Enclave?"

"Sadly, no," he said.

"They kicked her out," I whispered. "For being broken."

Glenn nodded.

It wasn't just cruel. It was backwards! Against all reason! The Stables were worlds unto themselves - each with a fucked up reality that they inflicted upon the ponies who lived there - but they were still communities. The Wasteland, on the other hoof, was chaos, but it didn't know how to be anything else. Even Trottica enslaved all those kids for the benefit of the jerkfaced grown-ups that they considered citizens.

But the pegasi? They were organized enough to blanket the entire fucking sky with clouds at all times. That meant they had resources. They had structure. They had order. And simply refused to take care of those who needed it the most.

The very thought made me sick. I was gonna have to tell Cliff. It would break his heart to hear it, but he needed to know. To help him fib better. To fit in. To get some of those pesky eyeballs off his back.

"It's awful," Glenn said. "To do that to your own."

"What about the second pegasus?" I asked. "Was she um...broken too?"

"No," Glenn chuckled. "Just the mailmare, Ditzy Doo."

"Oh, yeah. Of course," I said. "Wait, what?!"

"Eeee!" A squeal from the other room.

Glenn swept past me like flowing water. Flung open the door. And there was Elderberry Sunset, leaping up to hug Foster's neck.

"Gah!" Foster plopped down. Elderberry had hugged her too tight. Warmth blasted off of the little filly like fireworks.

Glenn hid his grinning beaklips behind a fan of wingfeathers. While Elderberry strengthened her grip - squeezed Foster till her eyes burst out of her head like ping pong balls,.and blood flew out of the sockets like a fountain, and then Elderberry squeezed her some more and the rest of Foster exploded like she was stuffed full of dynamite and rainbows.

...Okay, that didn't actually happen. But I swear, it looked like it might.

When Elderberry Sunset was done with her monster hug, she extended a hoof for bumping. Foster laughed, coughed, caught her breath, and Clop! Met Elderberry's hoof.

And then, poof! In the blink of an eye, Elderberry was back to her stone cold self again. She walked out the door past an extremely-fucking-bewildered Cliff Diver, and nodded to him politely. Neutrally. As though everything was normal.

"What happened?" Glenn said.

"I'm sorry," Foster rubbed her throat. "It's a secret."

Glenn eyed Bananas Foster. Then me. Then Cliff Diver. Then Foster again. "Well, you certainly are an extraordinary bunch."

"Excuse me," some random colt brushed past Cliff. Into the room. Then another. And another.

Glenn checked the clock on the wall. "I'm terribly sorry," he said to me. "We'll continue this later. In the meantime, try to reflect on what you learned today...And you too." He turned to Cliff and Foster. "Thank you for your…participation."

Glenn stole one final glance at Elderberry as she slipped out the door. The girl seemed to drift. Like some kinda ghost. Back to her old self now that Emo Ed was over.

* * *

Once alone in that shabby hallway, and the last of the stragglers had rushed past us to make it to the next Emotional Education session on time, Cliff finally asked the obvious question.

"What in Celestia's name did you say to Elderberry?"

"Nothing important, really," Foster answered. "I certainly didn't expect a reaction like that."

"But what did you say?"

"Nothing."

Cliff threw Foster a look that could have pierced iron.

"Fine," she sighed. "I told her my real name, okay?"

I couldn't believe it. "You mean, like--;"

"She needed to know she's not alone."

Cliff leaned in close and whispered, even though we had the hallway all to ourselves, "Won't that arouse suspicion?"

Bananas Foster waved a dismissive hoof. Refused to say another word about it.

...Which, of course, left me - the bearer of bad news - painfully aware of the conversation void. Cliff needed to know about the Enclave. And this was obviously the time tell him.

But I didn't wanna.

Clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop. The sound of our hoofsteps slapped against the cheap "walls" of the renovation hallway maze, and echoed back to us. Hollow and thin. Each step blasted enormous holes in our conversation void. Like cannonballs from an enemy ship. Clip-clop clip-clop. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! It blew my hull apart and drowned me in a sea of furious Rose Voices.

Come on. Tell Cliff Diver already!

Let him know that future pegasi are total jerks who huck wing-broke kids like him off of clouds!

He needs to know that the pegasi go on to be birdhorse supremacists who don't even take care of their own.

Tell him! Tell him! Tell him!

"Shut up!" I said out loud. And found my friends watching me. Patiently awaiting the punchline. "Uhh...I mean, Cliff?"

"Yes?"

"I um...managed to find some stuff out about the Wasteland."

"What kinda stuff?" Foster and Cliff said together. Slow and steady. Like a pair of preschool teachers trying to guide a foal gently toward an understanding of calculus. They were so accustomed to my weird random outbursts, it was scary.

"Bad stuff," I replied. "About the pegasi."

Clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop.

"Well, come on," Cliff said. "Are you gonna tell me or what?"

"Okay, well, for starters, they've walled off the clouds entirely. Not even griffins like Glenn can get up there. It's, like, some kinda fortress. They call themselves the Enclave or something stupid like that. And they're all a bunch of jerks."

"Yeah," Cliff said. "I get the impression we're not well-liked. It sucks."

We stepped out of the green building. Down the steps, into the dull gray light of day. And all of us turned our gaze to the cloud ceiling. Teeming, apparently, with unseen meanie pegasus fuckheads.

"It's not who we are," Cliff said.

The same words that rang through my head the night before. When Scribbles had told me about the scarcity of paper. Of trees. And I'd realized that nopony knewthat they were supposed to run the leaves every autumn. That they were supposed to wrap up Winter the day before Spring started.

Our stewardship. Our symbiosis. Our kinship with the land itself. It defines who we are as ponies. Who we're supposed to be.

But I hadn't even thought of the pegasi. Their connection to the clouds. Their duty. Their identity. Or even that Cliff might consider that identity his own.

"There's more," I said.

Foster and Cliff both pried their contemplatey eyeballs from the clouds. Just to look at me in dread.

'Cause what could be worse, right?

"Um...Glenn said that he'd only actually ever met two other pegasi in his entire life. And, well...one of them had broken wings. It turns out that the Enclave, kinda, you know, kicks ponies out just for being...um…"

"Like me," said Cliff Diver.

"Yeah."

Bananas Foster kicked a hunk of broken concrete. Her cheeks boiled red. The kinda face that would make steam if you splashed just a little bit of water on her.

But Cliff grew a mask. Expressionless as Elderberry Sunset's. His dull eyes looked to the clouds. Just sorta staring at nothing in particular. Like those No Mare's Land ponies who'd been in the trenches for too damn long. "So I guess I know now what my cover story ought to be."

"Cliff, do you want--;" I tried to offer comfort. A break from the subject. Anything.

But he insisted on finding out more. "What do we know about the second pegasus?" He snapped.

"The second--;"

"The other pegasus that Glenn met," Foster clarified so that Cliff wouldn't have to.

"Oh, well, not very much. Just that she's a mailmare."

"The Wasteland has a mailmare?" Foster said.

"Yeah," I replied. "Her name is Ditzy Doo."

…

"Ditzy Doo," said Cliff. Suddenly awake from his staring contest with Trauma.

"Yeah."

"Like, the same Ditzy Doo?"

"There's more than one?"

"There could be." He scratched his head. "It might be a title...or something."

"Gee, I'm not sure. I didn't think to ask."

"Someone…" Cliff huffed out the very beginnings of a tirade. But it got cut short. A bunch of kids darted by, laughing and shoving one another playfully. And Cliff seized up. Alerted to the plain and obvious fact that we were not in the privacy and comfort of our dorms anymore. And couldn't just blab any old thing bouncing around the insides of our heads.

Bananas Foster spotted an alleyway and whisked us toward it. A quick gallop, a few harried glances over our shoulders later, and we were finally alone. (Well, alone enough).

Cliff picked up his rant exactly where he left off. Let it all out in one big gust. Like he'd been holding his breath the whole time. "So someone from two centuries in the future told you that they met somepony from our home town, and you didn't think to ask more about it?!"

"Well, when you put it like that, it sounds pretty stupid," I said.

Foster and Cliff damned me with their silent eyeballs.

"I didn't get the chance!" I squeaked. "Elderberry squee'd and threw herself at Foster, and then we all came running."

"Okay," said Bananas, slow and steady. Like she was speaking to a creature from some foreign land who'd learned all their Ponish through the kinda phrase book that only talks about restaurants. "Think. Very. Carefully. Okay?"

"Okay."

"What did Glenn say...exactly?"

"Uh...only that he'd met a mailmare named Ditzy Doo. He dropped her name casually, though, come to think of it. Like he thought I might have heard of her."

"So maybe it is a title," Foster mused. "You said yourself that rather a lot of Ponyvilleians go on to achieve a sort of legendary status during the war. If Ponyville is pivotal, it stands to reason --;"

"Not Ditzy Doo," Cliff interrupted. "She's too klutzy. There's no way."

"But it's the only explanation," I said. "Maybe she...I dunno...did something epicly famous."

"Like what?" Cliff scoffed. "A sonic rainboom?"

"What do you think happened?" Foster said.

"I don't know. What if we messed with time?" Cliff replied. "What if we tore a hole in the fabric of the universe? What if Ditzy….you know...ditzed her way through that hole, and ended up in the Wasteland at a point in time just a few years earlier than where we are right now. And, like, became a mailmare. 'Cause it's all she knows how to do?"

A dread clamped down on my heart, like one of those blood pressure cuffs they put on your leg at the doctor's office. Only made outta nails, and fire, and the physical incarnation of really really really bad breath. Did we just rip all of the timefabric? How many random Ponyvilleians from my time were scattered throughout the Wasteland now?! How many lives had we ruined?

My heart fell through my ribcage like a lump of coal burning its way through newspaper. It panicked aimlessly as only disembodied hearts can - freaking the fuck out over every possible implication of my having screwed up the fabric of time itself. But then I realized: Cliff's hypothesis was impossible. "There's no shadow pain." I lifted my evil hoof. Waved it around at Cliff.

"I don't follow," said Foster.

"She's right," Cliff exclaimed. "Zecora says that if Rose touches anypony's life - their timelines are tethered to hers. She can't go back and meet Colonel Wormwood as a foal. She can't go forward and meet Strawberry Lemonade as a grown-up - though technically speaking, Strawberry's got to be around in this timeline someplace, right?"

"Yeah," I replied nervously. "She should be...at least according to what I was told. But we're not supposed to be here."

"What has any of this got to do with the shadows?" Foster grumbled.

"They're tethered to me too. Since they...y'know...tainted my hoof, and I got away. Every ducky I go to is a door closed to them forever. Which is why they're so eager to capture me in the first place. If we had torn a hole in the fabric of timestuff simply by coming here, they would have followed." I stopped dead in my tracks. Held up my hoof.

"Look," said Foster. "We can't drive ourselves crazy over this. No matter what happened, or how, our course of action is still the same…"

"Find Blueberry," we all declared at once.

"Okay," I said. "But where do we look?"

We stepped out of the alleyway, and found ourselves face-to-face with the windowless building. The one with the happy mural painted on it. It depicted a yellow foal giggling under a jolly old tree with apples all over its branches, and a pair of zany appley eyeballs right in the thick of the brush. The girl in the painting seemed to stare right at us. Smile unnaturally wide.

Foster clutched me. Her touch sent jolts of lightning into my brain. Like flaming bouncy balls trapped inside my head, ricocheting everywhere till my entire skull softened into liquid hot skull lava, and dripped boiling brain goo into the backs of my eyes.

It was the pain of whoever was stuck on the inside.

"Are you alright?" Said Cliff.

Before I could answer, the dumpster hissed at us. "Shhh!!!" It said, all judgmental-like.

My friends and I consulted one another with our eyeballs. Foster's eyes told Cliff's eyes, 'I got Rose Petal. You go check out the shushing dumpster.'

To which Cliff Diver's eyeballs replied, 'Are you sure?' All concernitty.

Till my eyeballs jumped in on the ocular conversation, and said, 'Would you just go and check out the damn dumpster already? I'll be fine. I just need a minute.'

Cliff Diver nodded and slinked ahead whilst I got my bearings.

"I'm sorry." Foster reared back. Held up her forehooves. Careful not to touch me again. "Are you okay?"

"Just peachy," I replied. My brain cooled almost as quickly as the pain had hit me. "How do you live like this?"

Bananas Foster shrugged. "Live like what?"

"I dunno," I said. "This." It dawned on me how different changelings and ponies had to be. Not just culturally. Not just 'cause of their love diet. No. That hive mind stuff. The extreme empathy for those within the hive. The numbing of even horrific skull lava sensations for those who were not hive.

It made me wonder how big a leap it must have been for her. To approach Elderberry Sunset as an us instead of a them.

"Would you two get over here already?!" The dumpster snapped at us in hushed tones.

It was Cliff Diver. His hoof barely stuck out from behind the dumpster. But it was flailing like crazy. Beckoning us forward.

I hunched over and tiphooved across the dead end street. Shooting paranoid glances over my shoulder in case somepony was watching.

But Foster just strolled over there. Like she was the Imperial Dumpster Inspector. Carrying out official dumpster business that only a fool - wholly ignorant of the ways of trash receptacles - would question.

It made me feel stupid.

So I rushed to catch up.

"I'm so glad it's you," came a voice from behind the dumpster. Pistachio's voice. "Come on. Hurry." He stepped out into the open, radiating confidence from mane to hoof. Like it was somehow totally natural for him to hang around behind a dumpster for perfectly legitimate reasons. But his eyeballs screamed, 'Hurry, hurry, hurry the fuck up!' in secret eyeball talk.

The hiding spot was a little nook between two dumpsters and the building we were all scared of. That bouncy, happy nightmare mural towered over us now. Twisting the painted image into unnatural angles.

Pistachio stood in front of a metal service door marked with the letter R. It had no handles on the outside.

"What's going on?" Foster asked.

"Scribbles snuck in the other way," said Pistachio. "She's gonna let me in any minute now. What are you doing back here?"

"Wandering aimlessly," Foster replied.

"Wait," I said. "Aren't you the sneaker-arounder? Why is Scribbles the one letting you in?"

"It's a two-pony job. I've got to deliver this personally." Pistachio whipped out a key he kept on a chain around his neck. Mostly non-descript. Except for its pinkness.

I found my own hoof straying to the timepiece I wore around my neck. The Most Accurate Watch Ever, given to me by Pinkie, with strict instructions never to open it except if I was lost and confused - when I reeeeeally needed to know precisely when I was.

"Deliver it to who?" Cliff asked.

"Silver Shimmer's in there," Pistachio whimpered. "You gotta be my lookouts for once, okay?" There was real fear in his voice. Real vulnerability.

"Okay," I said without hesitation.

"Who's Silver Shimmer?" Cliff asked.

"The doofus," Foster answered.

Pistachio let out a mirthless laugh.

"The graffiti on their dorm room door," Foster explained. "Unicorns Only," she recited the door battle. "...Silver Shimmer is a doofus. Pistachio is a doofus. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. Ad infinitum."

Pistachio folded his forelegs. "Yeah, well, he's my doofus, and I'm worried about him."

The door swung open. And there was Scribbles, the girl I had met in the stairwell drawing pictures of cages exploding. "Okay," she whispered. "Let's...oh, hay, Rose Petal, how's it going?" She blushed just a little at my friend's and I.

"Uh, okay. I guess."

"You three wait here," said Pistachio. "I'm gonna wedge the door open with this piece of sheet metal." He lifted some random scrap off the floor. "If anypony comes by, just pull it out so we know it's not safe to escape this way. Can we trust you?"

Foster saluted. Cliff did the same.

But I lunged after Pistachio and Scribbles - already halfway through the door. "Wait!" I cried.

The two sneaker arounders spun around.

"My friend's in there. Can you help me find them?"

"How do you know?" Pistachio's face crinkled up like a pug's.

But Scribbles just lunged forward and swept me in, "Come on."

We found ourselves in a hallway lined with crates. At the end of it was a wide open maintenance facility. Mops. Ladders. Pipes running up and down the far wall. Zig-zagging all over the place.

Everything was either brown or gray. Except the lights above, sizzling out a sickly green glow. And a pair of swinging double doors in the corner that had been painted white once upon a time.

Clang! Metal hit the floor. It sounded like pots and pans getting into a wrestling match.

I whipped my head around. But saw only the tail of one of those blue jumpsuit mares. Galloping off in panic to some unseen exit, obscured by crates.

"Damnit," said Scribbles. And zip!

She and Pistachio made for the double doors on the far end of the room. Swept me with them. I scrambled to keep pace. Tripped on a drainage grate on the floor. Tumbled, slid, somersaulted, sprung to my hooves once more, and thunk! Whacked my head on some low hanging copper piping jutting out of the wall.

Scribbles and Pistachio skidded. Rambling inarticulately in hushed tones. Scribbles' forelegs wrapped around me. Yanked me under the cover of the pipes. But it was too late. Hoofsteps were coming our way.

The three of us tucked ourselves into the weird little pocket between the row of pipes and the wall.But my legs still stuck out. So I squirmed, and I squirmed, and I squirmed. Struggling to pull them out of sight while those stampitty hoofsteps wandered the floor in search of whatever the fuck was going on.

Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. The sound of heavy work boots.

Pistachio rested a hoof on my shoulder. A reminder to stay calm. To stop squiggling. After all, a hoof that's slightly protruding from under some pipes is less fucking noticeable than a crazy flurry of flailitty motion

Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. The stomping drew closer. But I could barely hear it over the sound of my own racing heart. Pounding blood all the fuck over my body. Blood that screamed at me to pull my legs in. To make a dash for those dirty white doors, only twenty feet away. To attack. To do something. Anything but sit there like a lump and wait to get caught!

The boots were near. Damn near. Each cla-dunk felt like a thundering cannon. They were gonna find us. Any second. I couldn't stop it.

There was only one thing left to do.

I slid out from behind the pipes. Even as Pistachio groped at my mane, begging me to stay.

I scurried a bit and rolled over. And there she was. A mountain of a mare. As big as the sun and twice as yellow. Her buzz cut speckled with whitening hairs. She wore beaten up black boots. A saddlebag o' tools. Simple white blouse that obscured a massive chasm of a scar that ran down her neck and ended Luna-knows-where.

"I'm really really really sorry," I said. Still on my back. Shimmying away like some kinda spastic crab.

I managed to circle the mare. Spin her around as she pursued me. Anything to keep her head pointed at me, and her flank facing my comrades. They were stillstuck in the world's worst hiding spot.

"I'm new and I'm lost and I don't think I'm supposed to be here," I whined.

"How'd you get back here?" The Maintenance Mare asked in a grizzled voice.

"Um...um…" I backed away further.

She followed. Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk.

Pistachio and Scribbles slinked out from behind the pipes.

"It's dangerous for students to be in restricted areas," said the Maintenance Mare. "How did you get in?"

"Um...um…" My brain fumbled for words while my forehoof stretched out behind me. Pointed at the way we'd come in. The obvious fucking exit.

The sneaker-arounders tiphooved along the pipe wall. Inched quietly toward the double doors.

Keep leading her away from Pistachio and Scribbles! Shouted one Rose Voice inside my brain.

What if she storms outside and finds Cliff and Foster? Said another.

"Umm...ummm...umm…"

Pistachio and Scribbles made it to the doorway. Finally. Opened it really really reeeeeeally slowly so as not to make any noise. Looking to me the whole time with eyeballs that screamed: thank you; I'm sorry; and we'll get you out of this, we swear! - all at the same time.

But the door squeaked. And Maintenance Mare spun around - or at least started to.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!" I shrieked. Both an imitation of the hinge sound, and a cry of distress. My comrades dashed through the door, and eased it shut whilst I screeched some more. "....eeeeeee!"

Maintenance Mare just looked at me like I was crazy. "Look, kid. You're not in trouble, okay? Can we stop with the screaming?"

"Eeeeee -- I'm not in trouble?"

"Of course not," she said. "But somepony's been busting in here, spooking my staff, and I'd like to know how."

"Oh. Um. The door was just sorta open," I said, hoping that I wasn't giving away any secrets. "I kinda...just...wandered in."

"Figures." The old mare stomped her clunky boot. "She's probably already inside. Break-ins always seem to happen just before visiting hours."

"Visiting hours?" I said.

"Yeah. Infirmary opens to student visitors at 11."

"This is an infirmary?!"

"Yeah. What'd you think it was?"

Oh, I don't know. A house of pain where you torture disobedient students until their heads get filled with searing hot skull lava that boils out every last one of their rebellious thoughts until they forget who they are, or why they're there to begin with. You know, normal, every day stuff.

I shrugged. Grunted. "A place to hide," I said. My mouth spontaneously took the reins, strategizing way better than my brain ever could. "We were playing hide and go seek."

"Don't you know better than to wander into a restricted area? We got equipment back here." She gestured vaguely in the direction of some mops. "You could've gotten hurt."

"Sorry," my mouth said. "It's my first day."

"Oh," Maintenance Mare replied. Just oh. "Your actual first day?"

"Orientation was last night," I replied.

She sighed. Dropped her bunched-up shoulders. It sounded like popcorn exploding. "Well, that explains a few things."

"I'm really sorry," my mouth said. Even as my eyeballs strayed to those dirty white double doors.

Was there a normal hospital on the other side of those doors? If visiting hours were about to start, why did Pistachio and Scribbles have to move in secret? What did Silver Shimmer need that key for? It didn't add up.

"But, like, is it okay if I go inside?" I asked. "Since, you know, visiting hours start in a few minutes anyway? I kinda came to Safety looking for one of my friends, and I still haven't found them. And now I'm worried they're, um...hurt, or something, and might be in here."

The Maintenance Mare hardened into a stone cold, featureless statue. Radiating disapproval out of her eyeballs like cannon blasts. She stared me down, just to let me know how ridiculously out of line it was for me to have asked. Then turned toward the double doors that Pistachio and Scribbles had slipped through a few moments before. Approached them super stern-like, gestured with her head, and said, "I don't want to see you back here again."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

* * *

The inside of the Scary Building looked like, well...a hospital. A normal fucking hospital. The tiles squeaked with busy nurse-hooves. And the air hung heavy with bleach.

It wasn't like Ponyville General, though. With its winding hallways and elaborate wings that you needed a degree in map-ology to navigate. No. There was a nurse's kiosk, a couple of patient suites, some unusually wide walkways between them, and another set of double doors on the far wall, labeled "Intensive Care."

That's it.

I hugged the wall. Tip-hooved along it carefully. This building may not have been a torturepalooza full of disobedient children, crying out in hope of rescue. But I still had to stay stealthy.

The clock said 10:56.

The entire hospital buzzed with the hustle of its staff. Nurses moving this way and that. Blue jumpsuit ponies hurrying carts o' cleaning supplies off the hospital floor and back to that maintenance area.

The total absence of children really drove-it-the-fuck-home that I wasn't supposed to be there. Not yet.

I crept along. Peeked into the window of Room #1. An orange unicorn. Her leg was bound in a cast and suspended from one of those pulley things. She kept herself busy fiddling with her Pip Buck.

I moved on in search of Misty. Or "Blueberry Milkshake." Or even Scribbles and Pistachio so I could pounce them, and ask what the fuck this mission was actually about. But there was no sign of them either.

The second door had a purple kid behind it. Coughing. Wheezing. She rolled over in bed; her tired eyes caught mine, and flung open in surprise.

I leapt away. Mortified to have startled her. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, I thought. I don't belong here. I'm bothering kids who are trying to rest. I'm being a jerk!

But it was too late to turn back. I didn't even know the way out.

So I just squeaked on. Scuffing up the newly waxed floor with my hesitant hoofsteps.

A third door opened. Just a smidge. And out popped a pair of eyeballs. Bloink! Their blue irises shrunk at the sight of me.

Scribbles leapt out. Grabbed me. Yanked me inside.

"You made it!" She said. "How?"

"Wit and guile," I replied. "Now what the hell is going on?"

On the far side of the suite was a hospital bed. In it lay a shimmering silver colt who lived up to his name. Pistachio stood beside him. "Who's this?" Said the boy in bed.

"Rose Petal," I answered.

"She's new," Pistachio said. "...Don't worry!" He hurried to add. "She's one of us."

Silver Shimmer nodded in approval. Pistachio's meaning was clear. This was not the usual 'us'. You know, Safety kids. Members of our home dorm. Fillydelphians or whatever. Pistachio meant that I was a fellow sneaker-arounder. That I could be trusted.

"Thanks," I said. "Now can somepony tell me why we broke into an infirmary ten minutes before visiting hours??"

Pistachio checked his Pip Buck. "A minute and a half now."

Silver Shimmer reached under his robe and produced a necklace. Hanging from it was the pink key that Pistachio had been so keen to deliver. "...So that this doofus over here could give me the key to his heart."

"You're the doofus," Pistachio proclaimed, plopping his face on Silver Shimmer's lap, grin the size of Manehattan.

"Nuh-uh."

"Doofus."

"You're the doofus."

"Nevermind these love birds." Scribbles nudged me. "I'm just in it for the breaking...and of course the entering," she laughed. Nudged me again. But the smile shattered off her face the moment that her eyes met mine. "Rose Petal," she whispered. "Where'd you think we were?"

"It...doesn't matter," I said. But even as the words tumbled out of my mouth, my whole face clenched up like a towel getting rung out. I had to fight my eyeballs to keep them from crying.

Silver Shimmer and Pistachio fell utterly silent. I didn't dare look at them. All that concernitty-ness. It pressed on me like a sack of anvils. Even from the far end of the room.

"Look, uh, I'm just gonna try to find my friend, okay? He might still be here."

"Yeah," Scribbles said. "Of course."

The door swung open behind me, and in came hoofsteps. "Oh. I'm sorry," said a small voice. "I didn't mean to interrupt." It was a little filly. A badge labeled, VISITOR, hung from a lanyard around her neck.

"It's all good!" Silver Shimmer called out. "Great to see ya, half pint. Just give us a minute."

Another head popped in the doorway. A colt. Eager to come in and say 'hello.' But the filly whispered something at him. He nodded in solemn understanding, and they both receded.

The corridor beyond them moved with a quiet sort of commotion. Tiphooves and whispers. I drifted out there. Marveled at the orderly queues forming outside the door of each patient suite. The sound of pencil scratching came from every direction as all the kids quietly signed in on little slates that hung from the doors.

I moved forward. To my right was laughter. A mauve unicorn in Room #4, all hooked up to tubes like a marionette. A familiar sight. Except that she smiled. A little foal was presenting her with some kinda drawing.

But I didn't see much more of them. A green earth pony from the queue leapt forward and slid the door all the way shut. And suddenly the laughter was too muffled to hear.

The green girl looked to me. "Psst! New kid."

I approached.

"Make sure you leave the middle lane clear." She waved her hoof at the hallway we were standing in.

Just then, a nurse swept by. Straight down the middle 'lane'. She whisked past us straight into Room 6. While us kids hugged the walls.

"Thanks," I whispered to the green kid. And moved on.

I probably shoulda stopped to ask questions. How many patients were in the Super Happy Fun Infirmary? Did any of them happen to be blue? How to blend in without a special lanyard and visitor badge. Blah blah blah. Shit that makes sense to ask.

But I was eager to keep in motion. So I rushed ahead. Peeked through the open door of Room #5. There, an orange filly clutched the hoof of her near-identical older sister.

But no Misty.

I kept moving. Across the hall, the nurse who'd hurried into Room #6 just a minute before, now stood outside its door. "Sorry, kids. Buttercup needs her rest."

"Awwww!" Said the crowd of children. Like they just got told there'd be no Hearth's Warming this year.

Door after door after door. Everypony everywhere was showering love and attention on their bed-ridden friends. The very air seemed to tingle with magic. Like that Crystal Empire glow. (Only my shadow leg didn't seize up in pain this time). The love. The compassion. The support. It was thick enough to breathe.

I floated through it, and passed a few suites, each one more joyous than the room before. But none had anypony blue on the other end.

At last, I came to a bottleneck at the end of the hall. The only room with an actual serious queue to get inside.

It was those double doors that said, INTENSIVE CARE.

"Okay, everypony to your right," a nurse spoke softly, but held the students' rapt attention nevertheless. Like the world's gentlest drill sergeant. "You know the routine."

The kids all slid to the side. Good little soldiers. And suddenly there he was. Right in front of me.

"Cliff?"

"Rose!"

Bananas Foster was there too. But she didn't say a word. She just spun to us slowly. Jaw agape. Eyes open wide. Like a pirate gazing upon the Lost Jewel of Amazementia for the first time.

"What's going on?" Cliff and I asked one another at the same time.

"It's visiting hours," I replied. "How'd you get in? How'd you find me?"

"She led us," Cliff nudged Bananas Foster.

"I smelled this crazy feeling," Foster leaned in and whispered. "Hope. Love."

…
…
…

When Foster failed to elucidate, Cliff filled in the blanks, "We came in the same way you did. I thought you'd found Blueberry Milkshake."

"No. No sign of him."

"So you didn't accomplish his mission?" Cliff got all interrogational.

"No."

"And he's not about to get sent back to his time?"

"How the hell should I know?" I whisper-snapped.

"They're visiting," Foster spoke up at last. "All of them. Everypony's visiting."

"Yes. It's the Safety way," said Scribbles as she trotted up beside us with a smile. But eyeing the queue, that smile soon faded. "So, did you find your friend?" Her eyes strayed to the Intensive Care door.

"Not yet," I answered. "His name is, I mean her. I mean his…"

Cliff jumped in to finish that thought. "Do you know of any patients who are cerulean blue?"

"Cerulean?" Scribbles looked us over carefully. Like we might be pulling his leg.

"Uh, yeah," I said. "Um...blue."

"Wait one second. Don't. Move." Scribbles pointed a warning hoof at each of us, and dashed ahead. Skipped seven or eight kids - moved straight to the front of the line. Tapped the nurse on the shoulder. Whispered something in her ear.

The nurse perked up. Scanned the queue until her eyes landed on us. "Ooh," she said silently, and beckoned us forward.

Foster, Cliff and I, of course, followed.

"This way," she said, and led us through that final doorway. Unceremonious-like. Leaving Scribbles and the other kids behind.

The ICU was a mini-wing of the hospital. Cut off from the rest of the ward. Like its own little island.

The magic in the air no longer tingled with joy.

"I'm Nurse Chamomile. You must be Cliff Diver, Bananas Foster, and Rose Petal?"

"Yeah," said Cliff. "What's going on?"

Nurse Chamomile leaned in. Real close. "A few weeks ago, Red Eye's troops found a boy in the wide open Wasteland." She shook her head. Somber-like. "Radiation poisoning. Poor thing. We were able to save him - only barely - but he hasn't woken up."

"Geez," I said.

"There's a chance, however slim, that you might be able to identify him," the nurse took a moment to meet each of our eyeballs - to press on us how gravityish this all was. "But you don't have to if you don't want to."

"Let's go," I said without hesitation.

Cliff nodded in agreement. While Foster drifted back toward the door. Distracted. Like she was doing trigonometry in her head.

"Are you okay?" I went to her.

She recoiled in panic. "Don't touch me. You really don't want to touch me right now."

"Skull lava?" I whimpered.

Foster didn't answer. But her eyeballs screamed, 'sweet mother of changelings, you have no idea!'

Nurse Chamomile approached her. "Would you like to wait outside?"

"No," Foster said, suddenly calm as a clear night sky. "Let's go."

"Okay," said the nurse. "Well, if you're all sure."

She turned and led us down a cold, somber hallway. A mural adorned its walls, but like the happy monstrosity outside, it spread no cheer. At the end of the corridor was a curtain. A whirring sound came from the other side of it. Humming. Beeping. And a rhythmic hiss. (Like somepony stepping on a snake every three seconds).

Underneath it all was a faint, whispering voice. Only heard between the hisses - and even then, only barely.

Nurse Chamomile looked to Foster, Cliff, and me. We all nodded back in unison.It was time.

At last, she slid the curtain open. Just a crack. And slipped inside.

We followed.

Most of the room was a glass enclosure with a child inside - more wires and tubes than flesh and bone. His blue hide was speckled with sores that had scabbed and started to heal, ever so slightly. An accordion-looking thing beside him compressed. Made that hissing sound. And his chest rose. Moments later, it eased itself down again.

"That's not him." I said. And watched in silence as the boy encased in the giant fishtank struggled to breathe.

"I don't recognize him either," Cliff said to the nurse.

But Foster didn't play along. Didn't lie and pretend to know what Misty was supposed to look like. She just approached the glass, and raised a trembling hoof to it.

She didn't even notice the tiny green filly sitting on a stool beside her.

None of us did till she spoke up. "He likes it when you read to him," said the little girl. She offered Foster a decrepit old paper book. Like the kind from Glenn's collection.

The boy in the bubble winced. Just a little. And Foster leapt back. Spun around to face us, but ended up dumbstruck instead. She opened her mouth as if to speak. But instead, choked as tears of pure awe streamed down her cheeks. Her blurring eyeballs fixed on the wall right behind us.

There were drawings on it. Everywhere. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. The Safety kids didn't have access to paper, so their art was done on weird bits of scrap metal. Or any material that could be found. It made an utterly insane wall collage that ran from floor to ceiling. And wrapped around in every direction.

'Get Well Soon.' 'Welcome, friend!' Nonsense pictures of flowers - or what the Wasteland kids imagined flowers might look like. Crayon self portraits of different Safety kids introducing themselves. Optimistic doodles of the mystery blue boy one day joining them in class, and having lots and lots of friends.

"They don't even know him," Bananas Foster said.

"We don't have to," answered the little girl. "He's one of us."

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:

Normally, I have a whole lot to say after a chapter is completed, but this one speaks for itself.

I'm delighted to see minor characters coming to life. I feel for Elderberry Sunset way more than I expected to.

I can't wait to hear from you all with your impressions.

The White Knight

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR - THE WHITE KNIGHT
"Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future." - Elie Wiesel

Correspondence from Pansy to Hurricane. Letter §361.5B.

Civilization is kindnesse. That, deare friend, is the entirety of the point - that we, through cooperation, can enjoy a greater bountey than if we all chose to toyl alone.

I am not naive. I, lyke you, haf seen war. We've alle seen hungre. We've all seen powre struggles that servd the intrests of no mare, save for the already powerful. That, however, is a perversion of civilization's intended purpouse - an arguably unavoidable perversion, but a deviation nonethelesse.

When the nomadic herrds of the Equiolithic Era first fashoned instruments of agricoulture, do you suppose that they dreamt of war? Did they combyne their efforts, and raise barns for one another out of a common dream that one day, ponies would design new and exciting ways to kill one another - new and exciting institutions to extract the wealth o'the land, and syphon it into the hooves of the privileged few?

No.

That is the law of the jungle - the verry impulses that any worthwhile civilization must constantly seek to restrain.

We built Equestria for a higher purpose. The windigo shocked that purpose into our spines so very long ago.

I don't intend to forget it.

That is why I must head out into the West, dearest Hurricane. There's rumor of a power there, awakening, as you well knowe: strange reports of flying fish and swimming birdes; seas of tapioca; clouds mayd of accordion dust; and shouers of choclate raine.

I go there now - against your counsel and your judgment - because our civilization is in perill. Even as you muster your armies, I heade into the frontiers, naked and unarrmed. My intent is to find the source of this chaos, and befriend it.

It sounds ludicrous, I know - that's why I embarked upon my journey weeks ago, and left explicitt instructions for this letter not to be delivered until the next Full Moon.

There was no other waye.

Our dreams are dying, Hurricane. Even if we could fynd and destroy this chaos that threatens our Western bordres, how much tyme will that buy us ere we also destroy ourselves?

It was friendship that founded our brave new world - friendship that defeated the windigo - friendship that transformed our civilization into an actual cause - a common dreame with greter meaning and purpouse.

Over the yeers, I've watched that dreame unravel as you, and I, and the other "founding sisters" forgot ourselves - led astray by the cold reality of dayly administration.

Tonight, I head into the dangers of the Weste, not out of some innocent presumption that we will all be saved by simpel kindnesses, but rather, out of brutall pragmatism.

There is rumor of a dragon-like being who reigns Supreme over the Westernlands - an agent of chaos.

If I were to allow you five to warre with this mysterious being whom you do not understand, then even if you somehow defeated him, our civilization would already be lost.

War transforms poneys - destroys everything civilized about civilization.

I do not intend to allow Equestria to go the way of the windigo. I gallop into the land of the setting sun on a mission of friendship: to invite this creatoure back here to our homelande, and throw him a tee party. An alliance such as his may be the very thing that Equestria needs to steer us back on course.

Should I fail - as well I might - knowe that it was all for Equestria.

Jungles come, and jungles go, but civilization - actual civilization serving the dreame of a common goode - is far rarer. It is that dreame that I intend to save - if not for this generatioun, then the next, or the one that followes. Someday somepony will look upon the annals of our tyme and realize that war is madness. That poverty is madness. That civilization itself is an act of love - that, to settle for anything lesse is a death sentence.

I have to go, Hurricane. I have to try - if only to reassert who we, as Equestrians, are; to rescue the dreame of who we once intended to be.

Without that dreame, then I fear that we are no civilization at all. If we were to move forward against an unknown foe without first considering friendship, then in the end, we would find ourselves with nothing left worth fighting for.

Wish me luck, old friend.

Pansy.

* * *

The founding sister formerly known as "Private" Pansy is largely believed to have ushered in the Discordian Era by seeking out the dangers on Equestria's border, and inviting the dragonequus over for tea. Some ponies believe it a naive maneuver made by a scared and desperate fool. But her letters show more than that. They show bravery. Faith that Equestria could still amount to more than its failings.

And if there's one thing that huddling in the trenches taught me - it's that hope reaches far beyond its time. That stories have power.

Yes. Attempting to befriend Discord was, of course, a ludicrous endeavor. But those very failings - those treatises that Pansy wrote to her former commander - they were foundational in the post-Discordian era.

When our wise and sovereign princesses sought to forge a new society. On hope. On sharing. On the idea that civilization itself was an act of love - a longing for collective meaning - a cosmic realization that we can accomplish more together than any individual ever could alone. It was the writings of Pansy that laid the foundations for their reign.

And thousands of years later, the Safety kids had rediscovered that dream too. Without ever having read a single word. It was an oasis of civilization in a world of jungles. A world shaped by conflict. Just like Ancient Equestria. The founding sisters themselves had forged friendships under the threat of the windigo. Built an entire society on that bond. A love between unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi. Born of crisis. Of struggle.

Trottica was the same way. Yeah, there were kids who dropped each other. Stampeded in the dark. Scary times show us scary things about ourselves. But they also transform you, making warriors out of slaves.

We kids had created a fucking civilization right then and there. A spark of friendship down in the mines. An act of love. For ourselves. For one another. It had erupted into something bigger than any of us could have dreamt of on our own.

It made Strawberry Lemonade who she was supposed to be. It transformed everypony.

I wonder what kind of society they built after I was gone. What kind of culture that revolution created. What kind of nation.

The children of Safety had that same exact vibe. Everywhere I went, everypony was thrilled to be a part of something. Not just a school. Not just a playground that grown-ups had built to entertain us. We looked out for each other 'cause there was this electrifying sense that we were building something for ourselves.

Plus, apparently, there's skee ball.

* * *

"Hey, Rose!" Pistachio plopped down on the seat across from me, lowering his tray o' glop gently onto the cafeteria table.

"Huh? What?"

"Still searching for your friend, huh?"

"Yeah," I replied. Even though I'd spent the last half hour reflectifying on the fall of empires. "I haven't seen them."

I scanned the cafeteria. As though Misty was just gonna pop up the moment I remembered to look.

"Well, keep up hope,'' said Pistachio in a tone that suggested anything but hope.

I was beginning to lose my optimism too. One orientation, one rooftop party, one dinner, one breakfast, one emo ed class, one hospital, and half of a lunch break later - still no sign of Misty Mountain.

Pistachio fidgeted with a scroll - an actual paper scroll. "Uh, anyways," he said. "I just wanted to let you know that it's, like...pretty brave what you did back there. When you hit your head on the pipes, and --;"

"Yeah," I said. "Real cool."

"Okay, so you're a dork," said Pistachio. "But you're a brave dork." He snorted out a warthog chuckle.

"Thanks," I laughed right back.

"So, here you go, dork. This is from Scribbles." He slid the scroll to me.

"One of her paper drawings?" I squeaked, knowing damn well what a scarcity paper was.

"Yeah, it's her way of saying 'Thanks for being a dork.'"

"Anytime," I said.

Pistachio grabbed his tray, and hurried out of the seat. "You should come sit with us."

"I've gotta wait for Bananas Foster and Cliff Diver first, but that sounds good."

"Wairt forrrm mme to what?" Cliff gripped his tray with his teeth, and sat down beside me.

"Haha, later losers," said Pistachio as he zipped off.

Cliff scowled.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing," he replied. "I just hate that word."

"It's their way, he didn't mean--;"

"I know," he snapped. "That's why I'm only telling you instead of going over there and...Hey, is that paper?" Cliff Diver leaned over me.

"Oh yeah," I said,pulling the rolled-up parchment close to me.

"What's it say?"

"I dunno," I replied.And gazed across the cafeteria some more.

Scribbles was still cringing at the sight of me. Hiding behind Pistachio. But no sign of Misty.

Carefully, I laid the parchment down on the table, and unfurled it: A colored pencil drawing of a dragon with flaming nostrils. And huge horns with axes growing out of them. And lightning erupting from its mouth.

I unrolled it further: a white filly stood before the dragon. Bold. Unafraid. Her red, yellow, and pink mane waved heroically in the wind. Her cutie mark was emblazoned on a silver shield. A scattering of rose petals.

In the background were pipes and crates and mops and stuff. And two kids sneaking their way out the door.

"Are you...fighting a dragon...in the hospital boiler room?" Said Cliff.

I buried my face in my forehooves.

"I think I musta missed something," said Cliff.

"Mm mmnnmm mmnnmmm," I said, face still buried.

"What?"

"I said, 'This is embarrassing.'"

"Scribbles seems to be taking it worse," Cliff replied.

I tried to look without turning my head and being super obvious. But there was no way to do it. So I just plunged my face down again.

"She's practically under the table," Cliff described. "What happened in that boiler room?"

"I made an ass of myself."

Just then, a donkey boy strolled passed us. Tray in mouth.

"No offense," I said.

"None taken," he muttered, and moved on.

"I dunno," Cliff said. "They seem to think highly of you."

He pointed at the parchment, illustrating the heroic deeds of Rose Petal, Dragonslayer.

"It's a joke,'' I replied. "I thought we were under attack. It turned out to be a Maintenance Mare. The worst thing she did was lecture me before letting me inside."

"I really don't think they're making fun of you," Cliff said.

"Where the Hell is Foster?" I threw my eyeballs all around the room again.

"Quit changing the subject," Cliff said. "Wait, that's a good question."

I got up. Walked table to table to table. (Careful to avoid eye contact with Pistachio and Scribbles of course). But I found no sign of Misty. No Foster either.

...Until I heard her laugh. All the way on the other side of the cafeteria, Bananas Foster sat alone with Elderberry Sunset, aka 1417-G.

I approached. Head bent halfway down. Careful not to announce my presence. You never knew when Foster might be onto something. Gathering info. Establishing trust. That kinda thing. I couldn't risk screwing it up.

"Excuse me," I said, maneuvering my way past a unicorn colt and his four levitating trays.

Little by little, I got closer to Foster and Elderberry. From the looks of things they seemed to be playing checkers on an old lunch tray with lines drawn on it. Using waffle fries as pieces. Red and gold potatoes.

Elderberry stood up on her stool. And eyed the board. Like she was under some kinda spell. She was fascinated by the mechanics of the game.

After careful deliberation, Elderberry skipped her potatoes over Foster's. Grabbed her "enemy's" chips and ate them.

"You're a natural!" Foster said, beaming with pride.

That's when she noticed me. Foster held up a single hoof to indicate 'one moment.' And silently urged me for some space.

So I headed all the way back.Giving that same hoof signal to Cliff Diver. That we should sit and wait.

But I took the long way around the cafeteria. Pretending not to notice that Pistachio was watching me the whole time.

Go over there and fucking say something! My Rose Voice commanded. Explain that you're waiting for Foster who got caught up in a checkers game (of all things).

….What are you doing?...Don't ignore them. They're gonna think you hate them - that you hate Scribbles' drawing and want her face to explode so she can never grip a pencil, brush, marker, or quill ever again.

She wasted parchment on you! Another Rose Voice guilted me. Parchment!

No, a third Rose Voice chimed in. She used a parchment to make fun of you.

"Aaah!" I said out loud.

And then, all the little ponies around me stopped and stared.

"Are you alright?" Said Lucky, that country girl I hadn't seen since orientation. Without her jacket, her entire body was a mass of scars. Like a wicker basket fraying, scratchy-like in all directions.

"Who me?" I said. "I'm fine. I'm just, uh…practicing my screaming. 'Cause I plan to go out...screaming...tomorrow."

"Sounds like a blast," Lucky said. "Can I come?"

"What?"

"Screaming," Lucky replied. "Ooh. I got a hooded sweatshirt shaped like a dire possum. It'll be perfect!"

"That sounds, um, kinda cool actually," I said. "I haven't really thought about the details. But I should go for now. My friends are waiting."

"Of course."

I tried to spin around, but Lucky had one last thing to say. "Hay, Rose?" Her voice was hard as diamonds.

"Yeah, huh, what?"

"If you ever have a problem or whatever, just...knock on my door, okay? Or Glenn, or Miss Honey's, or even just your friends. Nopony should go out possum-screaming alone. Do you understand?"

I nodded silently. Knowing that, despite my smooth social maneuvering, I'd still made everypony around me concernitty.
Then I slunk back to my table.

"What's going on?" Cliff said.

"Nothing," I sat back down. "Foster's establishing trust. She seemed to be...bonding with Elderberry Sunset.

"For real? Or for…"

"I don't know," I answered. "But either way it's a good thing."

"I guess so," said Cliff. "Good for her."

"Hay," Foster sat down right in front of me.

"Ahh!"

"Sorry about that," she said. "You know they never taught checkers here? They have a cultural memory of skee ball, but they don't know what a checker is."

Cliff leaned forward. Gripped Foster's forehooves with his own. "Blueberry Milkshake?"

"No sign of her," Foster said. "But let me tell you about Elderberry Sunset. She tells the funniest story about mashed potatoes."

"Are you taking this seriously?" Cliff said.

Foster's smile faded from her face. She leaned forward. "We passed 11 kids during orientation, not counting the 58 at dinner. 12 at the rooftop party, not counting 3 we'd seen before in the other aforementioned locations. 41 new faces at breakfast, plus 27 familiar ones. 5 at Emotional Education, plus the 11 who trickled in as we left. 15 on the streets. 16 new faces in the hospital - that's counting both visitors and patients. Plus 21 new faces in this lunchroom. That's 191 kids, 14 of which have been blue. 2 of those, cerulean. One was female. The other was the boy in intensive care who Rose already said isn't Blueberry Milkshake.

'That puts us at a little more than half of the student body in a little less than 24 hours. I'd say we're doing well."

"Geez," Cliff threw his forehooves up. "Sorry."

"Hay," Foster said. "Is that parchment?"

"What?" I said.

She pointed at the bundled up scroll in my bag.

"Oh, um...yeah. It's a gift from Scribbles."

"Real paper," Foster smirked. "Good job endearing yourself to the Safety kids."

"She did it to make fun of me."

Foster squished her face in disbelief. "Gimme that." She pried the parchment from under my hooves. Laid it out nice and smooth. Examined the dragon and the Rose Knight carefully. Like a jeweler scoping out a diamond with one of those monocle thingies.

"Yes," Foster said grimly. "I see what you mean."

"You do?"

"Clearly she wasted precious parchment to depict you as a dragon-slaying hero…entirely because she hates you."

"Shut up."

"Well, let's put it this way. What did Scribbles say when you thanked her?"
…
…
…

"Pistachio snuck it to her," Cliff said.

"And then…"

"Then invited us to their table," I murmured.

"And you saaaid…"

"I told him I needed to wait for you and Cliff."

Foster blinked her bloinkitty eyes at me, and without saying a word, snatched my tray, and whisked it across the cafeteria.

"Hay!"

Cliff grabbed his own tray and followed. Leaving me trailing behind.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I followed. Cringing with every step. Like there were nails in my hooves.

"Uh, hey, Rose," said Pistachio. "Are you okay?"

Scribbles lifted her head up. Forced a cursory glance in my direction.

"Yeah. It's been...an intense day," I said.

I waved a meek little hi at Scribbles. She waved back.

That's when Foster stomped on my hoof.

"Thanks for the drawing," I squeaked in pain.

"It was nothing," said Scribbles.

Three ponies scooted over so me and my friends could face Pistachio and Scribbles.

"So! What did Rose Petal do to deserve this honor?" Bananas Foster said. Mischievous stars sparkled in her eyes

'Shut up!' I said through my teeth. Nudging her under-the-table.

"Oh," said Pistachio. "Well, Rose believed we were breaking into someplace dangerous, you see...Where exactly did you think we were again?" Pistachio turned to me.

But I just buried my head under my forehooves again.

"Anyway, we were gonna get caught, and she sorta leapt out and made a diversion.

"You did what?" Cliff said.

To my surprise, he had genuine shock and betrayal all the fuck over his face.

We're supposed to be trying to get out of here. His eyeballs said. To get home. To fight Shadows. The fate of the duckyerse is in the balance, and you're risking it all?

"It's not a big deal," I said. "I knew that you could break me out later if you needed to." I pointed to Scribbles. "You broke in easily enough, right?"

Pistachio and Scribbles both blushed a little, but agreed. "Yeah."

"Well, thanks," said Bananas Foster. Bringing the conversation around full circle. All nice and smooth-like. "Rose has been a true friend to me. And to Cliff Diver. It means a lot to us that you think so highly of her."

"I'm a dork,'' I said.

"Even if she is a dork." Cliff added.

"I'm glad you like the drawing," said Scribbles' tangerine cheeks flushing red. "I thought for a minute that you mistook it for me making fun of you."

"Never!" Cliff, Foster, and I said in unity.

"No," I said. "It's great."

I unrolled it again. Just to get a peek. The dragon was actually pretty awesome. It reminded me of the cover art for one of the Pone-o-War albums that Roseluck listened to as a teen. She thought she'd kept it hidden from me. Up in the attic. But rummaging children have a way of finding forbidden treasures.

"I see talking, but I don't see eating." The old lunch mare passed our table. She pointed to the clock on the wall.

Surprisingly, it was almost the top of the hour. We'd spent so much time at the hospital reading to the boy with accordion lungs that we'd missed the beginning of our lunch period.

Cliff shoveled pesto-flavored protein goop into his muzzle to make up for lost minutes. I did the same.

"So where are you three headed next?" Pistachio said. "Back to the dorms to take it easy?"

"No," Foster answered. "We wanted to jump right in. So we asked Cherry Fizz to schedule us for classes."

Scribbles saw right through us. Looked me square in the eye. "I hope you find your friend."

"Oh, um. Thanks."

* * *

After the bell rang, and we parted from our new friends, the three of us headed for our first real class.

"History," Foster said aloud from memory.

Cliff rummaged through his saddlebag, digging for the schedule as he walked. Rustle rustle clunk squeak clang! "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Foster replied. "The yellow building. It's that way." She pointed down the main street that ran along the middle of the Safety campus. Back toward where we first started our orientation tour the day before.

Foster led. We followed.

"Good," I said. "Maybe we can learn something. Just talking to Glenn for five minutes taught me so much about the pegasi."

Cliff glanced at the sky for a moment, decided against saying anything pegas-ish. And instead turned his attention to Safety's streets. "Maybe we can find out what's going on with those ponies in blue jumpsuits."

I looked around. Noticed a few scurrying workers I hadn't spotted before. "I dunno if history class is gonna explain that," I said. "I get the impression we're not even supposed to talk about them."

"But they're everywhere," Cliff said.

"Oh, yeah," said Foster, suddenly awake to the jumpsuit ponies shuffling past us, carrying a ladder.

"You noticed 181 stranger k--:"

"191," Foster interrupted.

"191 stranger kids," Cliff continued. "But not the grownups right in front of you?"

"They're not relevant," Foster replied.

"But you notice everything," I retorted.

"Everything relevant," she replied.

Clip clop clip clop. Clip clop clip clop. Our hooves knocked against the pavement as the three of us held an awkward contemplatey silence.

"I'm sorry I didn't notice," Foster said at last. Staring at the ground. Pensive-like. "I was thinking about him."

Clip clop clip clop. Clip clop clip clop.

"The boy with the accordion lungs?" I said.

Foster nodded silently.

"I didn't notice them either," I said. "I was uh...thinking about all that stuff Glenn told me."

"About the pegasi?" Asked Cliff.

"About me," I said.

Suddenly all of the Foster-eyeballs, and all of the Cliff-eyeballs were pointed my way.

"You know." I cringed. "About blaming myself for everything. About the 2 x 4 o' Friendship…"

Cliff and Foster turned to one another - shared a what the fuck is Rose Petal talking about now glance.

"...About trying to save the world at a reasonable pace."

Just then, I happened to glance in a window. There was a blue jumpsuit pony inside. Mopping. Our eyes met.

She hid from me like I was dragon made out of fire-breathing spiders and that scummy stuff you find on your teeth when you first wake up.

My hooves stumbled and shuffled to a halt. "The spell. That's how they get you."

Foster's face crumpled like a sock puppet turned inside out.

"Yesterday," I said. "I was horrified at how everypony seemed, you know, totally ready to ignore blue jumpsuit ponies who are clearly oppressed...somehow." I reared up and flailed my forehooves in frustration. "But just now, we didn't notice them! Safety has little ways of making you feel good. Making you heal. And you get wrapped up in the whole Safety lifestyle, and forget about the ponies making it all happen."

"Nopony ever thinks about who's making anything happen, or how," Foster said.

"Huh?" Said Cliff.

"I've studied civilizations from all over," Foster explained. "It's rare for somecreature to step into a building and think of the thousands of hours of labor that went into its creation."

"That's different," Cliff retorted. "The grownups in blue are clearly oppressed."

"Somehow?" Foster said.

"Yes," I said. "Somehow."

Clip clop clip clop. Clip clop clip clop.

Foster craned her neck backwards. Sighed at the bottoms of the clouds. Out of regret for the point she was about to make, "What about sheep and cows?" Foster retorted.

"What?"

"In Equestria," Foster clarified. "What say do sheep really have over their own lives?"

"The sheep aren't oppressed," I snapped. "They're just...sheep."

"Sentient beings," Foster replied. "Herded into pens like animals."

"That's different," I retorted.

"How?"

All the clockwork gears and wheels in my brain ground to a halt. Sure the sheep are sentient. They could talk. But they were in pens for their own safety. Or so I'd been taught. I never really thought beyond it. Never talked to one. Single. Sheep. Never asked how they felt.

"When you're an us," I whispered aloud. "It's easy not to think about them."

We passed another window. And saw the silhouette of two more of those worker ponies. Hustling. Scared. Even though nopony could really see much inside.

It twisted my stomach.

"Here we are!" Announced Cliff Diver. "The Yellow Building."

"How do you know?" I asked.

He pointed at the two story brownstone that had been converted into one of many school buildings. "Because it's yellow."

"Okay everypony," Foster said. "I know that thinking about the plight of the ponies in blue, and our debate on the sheep question has got us all a little rattled. But we need to focus. Pay attention. We could learn a lot in this class. About their world. About their culture. We might even learn about Blueberry Milkshake, (or clues that could lead us to him)."

"Yeah," I said. "You're right." Even though my heart still burned for answers about the worker ponies. And struggled with ethical quandaries regarding sheep.

"How many new faces have you seen so far?" Cliff asked.

"The total's up to 204," Foster replied. "Students of course."

I nodded. Forced to temporarily acknowledge the efficiency of Foster's "relevant / not-relevant" method of examining the world.

* * *

The Yellow Building was finished. Unlike the green one with its flimsy labyrinthian halls. So as we walked in thinkitty silence, the sound of our clopping hooves came back at us. A lush dense echo. Like we were in a hospital.

Okay, Rose. Focus. Fucking focus. One of my Rose Voices said to me. Take Foster's advice. Learn what we can.

But what about the sheep? Another Rose Voice protested. Are they really Ponyville's version of blue jumpsuit ponies? The creatures who make everything happen? And if so, what the fuck, Ponyville? What kinda world are we even fighting for?

The kinda world where we survive long enough to get home. Said athird, more practical Rose Voice. We're. Fighting. To. Get. Home. We're fighting to get outta here so we can rescue Blueberry Milkshake. And to do that, we need to blend in. Lie low. And above all, keep our eyes peeled wide for any signs - any clues at all - about what might have happened to Misty Mountain.

"Hay, Rose," said a cerulean pony as he passed us in the hallway.

"Oh, hay, Misty," I said. And kept on walking.

Clip clop clip clop clip clop. Went the hooves of my friends and I. Foster's head turned to me. Then Cliff's. Then wham! It hit me like a planet to the face.

I would have turned my own head around to stare at myself and say, Rose, what the fuck? If my head hadn't been so poorly positioned to do so.

I shuffled. Skidded. Found Misty Mountain staring at me just as speechlessly as I, him. His purple mane fell out of a pointy hat. And dangled like jungle vines in front of his face.

"Rose?" He said, eyes darting between Cliff and Foster like bouncy balls of suspicion. "Uh...Rose Petal...My friend from gym class, thees is where I know you from, yes?" He winked at me.

"Uh…"

Cliff rushed in. "We're from the past," he whispered. "Like Rose Petal. Like you."

Misty skidded back.

"We came to help you on your mission."

Misty pressed his flank against the wall. "Rose, what have you done?"

His eyeballs pierced me like the Thousand Arrows of Betrayal on Pinkbeard's voyage to the Isle of the Amethyst Skull.

He knew! He knew I'd fucked with time and duckies and dreams. And he got this terrible look on his face. Like his own Sub Mine F was sparking to life behind his watering eyes.

"It was an accident!" I said.

Clip clop. Clip clop. Clip clop. Other ponies headed up the hallway.

"An accident?" Said Misty, shaking his head no in horror.

Clip clop. Clip clop. Clip clop. Clip clop.

I leaned in close. Explained myself in hushed tones. "I was running for my life down this corridor in outer space, and I kinda panicked and fell through your dream door, and called for help and dragged my friends with me."

His horn lit up. A blue forcefield yanked me closer. "You can do all dat?" He whispered.

The hoofsteps came closer. We weren't alone anymore.

"Elderberry!" Foster leapt forward with a great big Smile o' Diversion. "Great to see you!"

Foster switched gears so quickly that Cliff jumped back just a little.

Elderberry sauntered over to Foster, and gave a stiff little hoof bump. Her version of affection. "Hello."

"I can, and I can't," I answered Misty in a whisper. "It's complicated."

"How?" Misty demanded. The kind of whisper so desperate it could crack open the earth by sheer force of its urgency. "How?"

Iris, our other tour guide from the orientation, came up behind Elderberry. "Rose Petal. Cliff Diver! Glad to see you jumping right in. Ready for classes? Already? Wow!" He snickered and snorted.

"That's us," said Cliff, laughing awkwardly.

Iris turned to Misty Mountain. Pointed at him with his prosthetic hoof. "Watch out for this guy with the hat, Rose. He's a real Starswirl with that horn of his."

Misty swallowed hard. Forced a smile more mechanical than Elderberry's shows of affection. With a deep breath, he summoned the wits to straighten out his pointy hat, covered in moons and shimmery stars, and to brush his mane away from his face.

"I won hat in magic archery match," he explained. Then turned to Iris. "Starswirl ees nothing! Een my country we have magicians twenty times better than your Starswirl with beard." He puffed his chest out. Forced his head up high. Put on a show of bravado that anypony who knew Misty would undoubtedly expect from him.

"We're going to be late," said Elderberry dryly.

"Uh, okay, Elderberry," I said. "Just gimme a minute. I wanna hear about this magician ten times--;"

"Twenty!" Misty interrupted.

"Twenty times better than Starswirl," I corrected myself. Wondering how any memory of Starswirl had managed to survive the Wasteland at all. (That was, like, obscure nerd stuff, even at home).

"Don't take too long," said Iris. "Class is about to start."

Iris gave us a moment of privacy, shepherded Elderberry inside. Assuring her that, yes, it was okay not to be early every now and again.

Once they were gone, my friends and I all huddled together.

"I am een roohm 4G of building at ent-of-roadt," Misty whispered in a hurry.

"The tall one with the rooftop view of the amusement park?" Said Cliff.

Misty nodded back.

"We're in 7F," said Foster. "Same building."

"Perfect!" Misty exclaimed. "Now we can find each other. If everythink fails, we meet there tonight."

"We should try to talk before then," I said. "I've been looking for you for a long time. I have so many questions!"

Misty held up a hoof. "Thereees field trip to market today at three. Anypony who wants can sign up and go. We will have privacy een dee crowd."

"Privacy is good," said Cliff.

"Look for me at roll call before we leef. We talk den."

My friends nodded. All frank, and harried, and business-like. But I just watched his ridiculous pointy hat jiggle atop his head.
And a calm came over me. Out of the blue. A sense that, for once, things might actually be playing out the way they were supposed to. "You really are The Magician," I said, remembering the tarot card Pinkie Pie had drawn to represent him.

"Dee best!" Misty replied. Standing up tall again. As if by reflex.

I laughed. Hugged him tight. "I missed you."

He put a hesitant hoof around my shoulder, hugging back the best way he knew how.

That's when I realized something. Misty may not have been at the forefront of my mind every single day like Twink, (or even Strawberry Lemonade, with her great mysterious fate). But that braggartry of his - that arrogance that drove us all so fucking crazy in Trottica - hearing it again after all I'd been through - somehow, it felt like home.

"I...missed you too," Misty replied, voice all confuseitty. Like he had surprised himself by feeling anything at all.

A tinny bell clanged from somewhere out of sight.

"Hurry," Misty said, but as I spun around to dart my way into the classroom, he called out to me one more time, "Rose!"

I scrambled back to hear what he had to say. Tripping on my own hooves till Clonk! I knocked my head on the floor.

Next thing I know, Misty leans over me. That primordial fear was back in his eyeballs again. They looked a thousand years old. Eyes that had seen too many shadows for one lifetime.

"Lie low," he warned. "Please! No revolutions. No speeches. No Rose Petal-ing!" His voice quaked like the fate of the duckyverse depended on it.

"Rose Petal-ing?"

"Don't fuck dees up," he said, and walked away. "Please. Just...don't fuck dees."

I got up. Rubbed my head as my friends rushed over to scoop me to my hooves.

"What was that about?" Said Cliff.

Before I could answer, a grown up popped her head out the door. "Oh, there you are," said the orange mare. "Come on inside."

"Okay," I said. "I'm fine. I just, uh...fell."

* * *

The classroom was twice as big as any reasonable classroom should have been. I swear, it musta had eighteen ponies in it!! The desks were arranged in a circle too. Closed off so the chalkboard was an afterthought.

Cliff shimmied around in his desk at first. Looked to me for reassurances.

But, like...what were we supposed to do? We couldn't pass notes. Couldn't whisper. In that damn circle, everypony saw everything.

Meanwhile, my brain was screaming. Aaaahhhhh!!!!! 'Cause Misty was here. Unharmed. In Safety. Not tortured. Not imprisoned. Not crying like I'd heard him when I fell through the time portal.

Misty Mountain was winning pointy hats and making friends. But even so, something wasn't quite right. He was fearful. Desperate.

Had I just given him false hope? Did he think that my friends and I could simply zip around the duckyverse as we pleased?

Damnit! I was so stupid! I'd blabbed about that stuff - knowing we didn't have time for a great big old explain-o-rama. Misty must be so alarmed. So confused!

And arg! So was I. But I had no idea how to deal with all of that confuse-osity. Misty'd shaken me and pressed me not to draw attention to myself. Not to go Rose Petal-ing!

I felt like my head was about to explode - a smashed anxiety melon, splattering my brain-worries over every wall of the classroom. But I still had to do the one fucking thing I hated more than war. More than shadows. More than whack-a-doo innocence-hating cults who sacrificed kids to their bullshit god of gem mines.

I had to act normal.

"Rose Petal," said Miss Mango.

"Huh? What?" I replied.

"You've been quiet this whole time. What do you think?"

Cliff buried his head in his hoof. While I just babbled. "Uh, umm. Ummm."

"It's okay," said the teacher. "Everypony in the Wasteland has different Hearth's Warming traditions. And we'd love to hear about yours."

"Hearth's Warming?" I said. "Again?"

Foster nudged me under the desk with her knee - and by nudged, I mean cudgeled.

"Ow."

"We celebrated Hearth's Warming early," Foster explained. Once all eyes were on her, she deigned to elaborate. "We weren't sure we'd survive December. So we built a fire, sang our favorite carols, and talked about home."

The class murmured and nodded in general approval.

"You're safe now," said Iris from across the circle.

"I know," I replied.

But Cliff shot his eyeballs at Miss Mango in surprise. 'Cause Iris had just called out an answer. Without raising his hoof.

"Don't worry," the teacher laughed. "In this classroom, we all help each other learn. That's why there are so many students of different ages and education levels here. You're not the first stable kid to find it a little odd, but I think you'll find an open classroom environment helps nurture an open mind."

"Oh, uh. Okay," said Cliff.

"Everypony comes here with different ideas," said a purple kid next to him. "'Cause we all come from, you know, different backgrounds. It's okay if you don't feel ready to share. But it's useful if you do! 'Cause, like, Safety has ponies who specialize in taking everypony's story, and piecing it together with what our troops find."

"Our troops?" I said.

"Yeah. Red Eye's armies wander the Wasteland in search of clues."

I imagined an elite squad of Celestia's Royal Guard running around with magnifying glasses and Sherclop Pones hats.

"Fillydelphia has a lot of experts," Miss Mango explained. "Every time a new stable is found - or a new maneframe in an old wartime building - they take the information they find, and use it to broaden our understanding of the world."

"Oh."

I stopped and wondered what kinda information they might have found. What might have been lost.

The soldiers of No Mare's Land knew a bunch of Sweetie Belle recordings of Hearth's Warming carols, but had never heard the actual story of Hearth's Warming itself. Meanwhile, everypony in Safety knew about skeeball, but Elderberry had never heard of checkers.

It seemed so random! Yet, from this chaotic lottery of "ancient" information unearthed, Glenn had still managed to somehow revitalize the field of Psychology all by himself. (And do a really good job of it).

"Would you like to tell us about Hearth's Warming in your stable?" Miss Mango asked.

And suddenly that circle o' children was looking my way.

I cringed. Turned to Cliff Diver for support, wondering if we should tell them, but he just threw me a don't you dare look. We still didn't know what kinda details were gonna stand out, and make us seem suspicious.
Like…who knows? Maybe Hearth's Warming dolls weren't a thing since the Great Doll Famine or whatever.

"Do we have to?" Foster interjected, knowing damn well that prying was not the Safety Way.

"Of course not," Miss Mango replied. "Do I have a volunteer to catch our new friends up on what we've learned so far? Hooves up this time please, so you're not all calling out at once."

A bunch of forelegs shot into the air. Like in a normal classroom.

"Yes, Lemon Drop," the teacher called out.

"Okay," said Lemon. "Back in my stable, Hearth's Warming was really about songs, and, like, these amazing cakes they made out of reconstituted sugarplum compost, and like, I remember this one time my grandmother told me it had something to do with unicorns, and earth ponies, and pegasi. But I don't know what exactly."

Everypony sort of snuck a peek at Cliff Diver. To see how he'd react to the word pegasi.

He stiffened in his chair. Ground his teeth.

"We sang songs too," I said, changing the subject in a hurry.

It forced a little mumble of approval from the other kids.

"Me too," Cliff added.

Everypony leaned in close. Moving as a herd. Closing the giant circle tighter. Even if only by a couple of inches.

"Anyway," I said. "What did our...um...troops find? You know, when they scoured the Wasteland in search of Hearth's Warming history?"

Iris chuckled. "They don't go out there just because of the holiday. Think of it as how we build the future. History, math, science. We piece it together from the past."

"That's right,'' Miss Mango said. "Now let me tell you the real story of Hearth's Warming."

"I'd love to hear it," I said.

"Once upon a time, all of Equestria had three distinct tribes - not like now where everypony is spread out all over the place. The earth ponies stuck to their own kind. The unicorns had their own country, and the pegasi hid themselves up among the clouds.

'One day, a mighty princess named Celestia showed up and saw the three tribes fighting all the time. Going hungry. Struggling." Miss Mango tsked. "So you know what she did?"

I shook my head no. Cliff and Foster did the same.

"Princess Celestia conquered the three tribes. She took the best and the brightest among them, and formed the kingdom of Equestria."

"Um...What?" Said Cliff.

I nudged him gently. Remembering our real mission - to lie low and rendezvous with Misty at the field trip.

"That's right,'' Miss Mango answered.

"What happened to the rest of the ponies?" Cliff asked.

"Pardon me?" Said Miss Mango.

"The ones who weren't the best or the brightest?"

"Oh," Miss Mango chuckled. "The wise and powerful princess saw that they were toiling and suffering with no purpose at all. Sometimes even dying because they couldn't feed themselves."

"That's awful," said Foster sympathetically.

"So she took pity on their wretched existence and made slaves of them all."

Miss Mango smiled a great big squeaky smile. Wholesome as pie. The students nodded in general agreement once more.

While my jaw hit the floor.

"Hearth's Warming," Miss Mango continued. "Is a celebration of the banquet they held to kick off their new civilization."

My brain spun around inside my skull. A thousand question marks. A thousand exclamation points. All knocking into one another in every gangley bit of brain.

And I just sat there, totally paralyzed by the craziness of it all.

"No it isn't," said Cliff. "Hearth's Warming is a celebration of the earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi coming together. On their own." He stood up out of his chair. "And Princess Celestia?" He squeaked. "She didn't enslave anypony! What's wrong with you? What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Cliff was shaking.

"Oh, dear," said Miss Mango. "I know that this can be a sensitive subject - especially after what a lot of you kids have been through. I understand exactly how you feel, Cliff Diver."

"The fuck you do," he snapped.

"I was a slave once," a green unicorn filly stood up.

Cliff caught his panting breath. Nodded to the green kid triumphantly.

"But we're not anymore," the filly continued. "It's better here."

"There are slaves serving you right now," Cliff said. "Aren't there?"

Nopony answered, so Cliff just snapped, "Aren't there?!"

"Cliff," I whispered, put my hoof on his shoulder, but he just shrugged it off.

And stunned as I was by the nonchalantiness of the entire school's attitude toward fucking slavery, Cliff Diver still shocked me more.

"Slavery is what they call a constant," said Iris. "It's not a happy constant, but it's the one thing that holds every civilization together. Ours. Ancient Equestria's. The griffins. The pegasi," he pleaded with Cliff. "At least something good is finally coming of it. For the first time in a long time."

The other students gave a small round of hoof applause against the linoleum floor.

I turned to Bananas Foster. Desperate for some kinda direction - some kinda plan. Cliff was coming apart quickly. Cliff was Rose Petal-ing. And we needed to do something!

But Foster just shot to her hooves and clapped Cliff Diver on the back. Backing his play. Even if it was a bad one.

We were a hive.

Out of the blue, Cliff Diver looked to me. With watery eyes. As if to scream at me: You're the rebel. You're the one who freed all those kid slaves. Say something. For the love of Celestia and Luna and Equestria and everything we hold sacred...fucking SAY SOMETHING!

And shocked as I was - determined as I was to lie low - to meet Misty Mountain later, free of suspicion - I couldn't turn away from those hopeless eyes.

Cliff needed me.

So I rose to my hooves too. "The blue jumpsuit ponies," I said angrily. "Who are they? Why are they afraid of us? Are they slaves?"

"Yes," Miss Mango replied.

Both Cliff and I froze. Totally unprepared for her blunt honesty.

"And the reason they're afraid is that working for Safety is both an honor, and a privilege," Miss Mango retorted. "They won't talk to any of you kids because they don't want to lose their jobs."

The students heads bobbed in agreement - or at least seemed to. A strange quiet had fallen over them. A silent agreement that the subjugation of the blue jumpsuit ponies had been for the best.

But some kids lowered their heads in discomfort. Kids who didn't like the idea of slavery, but didn't wanna have to think about it either.

"Now who have you been talking to, Rose Petal? Cliff Diver?" Miss Mango said. "Which one of them has put these ideas in your head?"

"My ideas are my own," Cliff snapped. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was about to leap at her like some kinda timber wolf, and rip her throat out.

"Hay!" Lemon Drop shot out of his seat.

But Miss Mango just held up a hoof. "Calm down," she said. "Cliff Diver raises some interesting questions," Miss Mango conceded. "But unfortunately, this is not the time or place for alternative history."

"It's a fucking history class!" Cliff's voice cracked.

"Real history isn't pretty," said the green unicorn - the girl who'd been a slave once. "Like it or not, sometimes there are winners, and there are losers."

Cliff's eyelid twitched. And the feathers on his twisted wing stood on end. Then, suddenly, he roared through clenched teeth, "They're not losers!" He whipped around. Bucked his desk right over in one fluid motion.

But a unicorn's magic caught it mid air; lowered it gently while two other kids jumped up and flanked us.

I leapt closer to Cliff. Foster did the same. But Miss Mango brushed the desks aside, broke out of the circle, and swept toward us.

She charged right up close to Cliff. Eyeball to eyeball. And, at first, didn't say a word. Just stared him down. Waiting. Daring him to hit her.

Cliff didn't know what to do. He couldn't back down. But he wasn't about to kick a teacher either. So he just stared and stared and stared through tear-soaked eyes while the rest of him turned apple red.

Having nailed Cliff to the spot, Miss Mango pressed in closer. "Miss Honey's office," she said softly. "Now."

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:

While I wouldn't say there's anything particularly spooky about this classroom, it still somehow feels appropriate to release this chapter on Halloween/Nightmare Night weekend.

It is, after all, fundamentally about disguises - particularly those that whole societies wear. The bright and sunny mask that hides the monster underneath.

On a personal note, while I was, of course, planning for Rose and Misty to meet, their reactions to one another really took me by surprise. It's been so long since I wrote Misty, and the person that I (loosely) based him on has since died. Revisiting this character has been very satisfying and cathartic. Like Rose, I didn't realize how much I missed Misty until I actually started writing him again.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. I look forward to your comments!

The Lesser

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE - THE LESSER

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." - George Orwell

"Real eyes
Realize
Real lies." - Tupac Shakur

"What is the point of reference for the new world in gestation? The world of production; work." - Antonio Gramsci

History teaches us who we are. Where we come from. What we as a society should be striving to become.

To lie about history - to distort it on purpose - is to disgrace that vital dialogue between past and future. To twist the very fabric of the equine soul.

When the kids of Safety step out on their rooftops on a cool autumn night, and wonder about their purpose in this world, it is those lies that tell them what to dream. When they pass small armies of slaves in blue jumpsuits on their way to class each and every day, it's those lies that keep them from noticing.

How can you even begin to concieve that a better world might maybe kinda sorta be just a little teeny tiny bit possible if you don't even know what that better world is supposed to fucking look like? How do you rebuild Equestria if you don't even know what Equestria used to be?

It made me wonder about history class back home. How the Hearth's Warming chapter in Miss Cheerilee's book teaches us all the good stuff that aligns with what we already believe, but completely fucking ignores what happened to the Founding Sisters afterwards.

That thought planted a haunted seed in my heart - a lingering queasiness.

'Cause I'd been lied to too.

Bananas Foster was right. Nopony ever seems to know the social history of sheep - their lore, their dreams, their values. 'Cause none of us ever even thought to ask. It was all because of a tale we'd been told - a lie about what civilization was. A story that left sheep out entirely.

* * *

My friends and I sat on crates all lined up for us in the center off Miss Honey's cavernous office. It had been some kinda mogul's business-y throne room once upon a time. But the moulding on the big fancy columns was crumbling. And the copper dragon statues had turned green with age.

All that remained was a gargantuan metal desk - way too big for Miss Honey to sit at - and a console the size of a pipe organ, taking up most of the office's western wall. The two fixtures had all sorts of cables and stuff running between them.

That big machine musta been the reason Miss Honey staged her base of operation in some business-jerk's power cave. Every other surface was either painted pastel, speckled with googly eyes, or plastered with macaroni art from Safety's student body.

Miss Honey typed away at the pipe organ console while the three of us sat, silently digesting our own dread.

Our passions had had time to settle down a bit. And my brain seized the opportunity to yell at me for being so damn stupid.

What the fuck, Rose? You're supposed to be lying low.

You're supposed to be meeting up with Misty Mountain. To aid his mission. To get home. To live to fight the shadowmajigs another day, and fucking free Blueberry Milkshake, who's getting subjected to unspeakable tortures. Because of you.

Miss Honey fiddled with dial and knob and button and screen on that great big old console of hers. While my brain went to war with itself for what seemed like a million billion trillion years.
...
...
...
...
...
Finally, Miss Honey hopped off her stool. Totally abruptish. And crossed the gargantuan office to approach us. Grim as coal.

She didn't say a word - not at first. Just turned her eyeballs into drills and pointed them straight at me. Then at Foster. Then Cliff. While her pipe organ console-a-majig filled the silence between us with a low hum. Bvvvvvmmmm.

"Well?" Miss Honey said at last. "Let's hear it."

My friends and I looked to one another in confusion. None of us had ever been to a principal's office before, let alone a post-apocalyptic one. We didn't know what to expect, but it sure wasn't this.

"From what I've been told," Miss Honey continued. "Y'all are pretty vocal about the way things ought to be run around here. Well," she clipped her hooves together. "Here I am. Let's hear it."

Foster cleared her throat in the awkward quietude that followed.

"Come on," Miss Honey said. "This is my school. I make the rules. Not Miss Mango. Not your friends. Not Red Eye. She pointed to a giant flag that hung from the wall: a big red eye looming over the old Equestrian flag I knew.

"I'm always straight with you kids," she said. "So come on, be straight with me. Do you have a problem with the way Safety is run? Yes or no?"

I bit my lip. Dug my hooves into the crate beneath me.

"Well, not the way it's run in particular," Foster jumped in, all diplomatical-like. Trying to draw the fire to herself. "It's actually pretty great what you have accomplished here, it's just…"

"Slavery," said Cliff Diver. "It's all made possible by slavery. Isn't it?"

"Thank you," Miss Honey said, eyeballing me and Foster. Voice like stone. "Thank you, sugar pie," she said to Cliff. Voice like nectar. "Now we're getting somewhere."

She sauntered over to Cliff. "I'm gonna be real with you," she said. “I hate it. Possibly more than you do." She threw her eyeballs at each of us. One at a time. The stable kids. Well-fed bunker-stunkers. Who had, supposedly, known Wasteland hardship only briefly.

I had to choke back a smirk. 'Cause in that moment, I knew that Glenn hadn't ratted us out. That the confidentiality of emotional education was real. At least somewhat. Or she would never have presumed to hate the institution of servitude more than I did.

"Slavery is a terrible evil," Miss Honey continued.

"Then why do you have slaves working here?'' I demanded.

I shot up out of my seat. Legs trembling with rage. Itching to take a swing at her. Or to run. Or... something.

Miss Honey spun and pointed at me. "Good," she said. "Now you're being honest. That's when you ask the smart questions. Come on."

She turned her flank to us, and head-gestured that we were meant to follow. Foster, and Cliff slid off their crates, and Miss Honey led us all to that pipe organ console full of screens and buttons and dials and things.

A few flicks of a few switches later, and Miss Honey was showing us Safety's main street on one of the screens.

The picture moved. It felt like we were walking down the sidewalk. Or floating. Seeing the world through the eyeballs of one of those mechanical sprite bot things that Safety kept around.

Two blue jumpsuit slaves stepped into frame. They were carrying a pane of glass.

"See those two mares right there?"

"Yeah," we all answered.

"What do you think they were doing before they came to Safety?"

Cliff, Foster, and I shot our eyes at one another. Like this was some kinda final exam, and we all had to steal answers from each other without the teacher noticing.

"Either slaving, or starving," answered Miss Honey. "That's what. You know what they'll be doing if I call old Red Eye up, and send 'em back?" She pointed to that big old flag again. As if his presence were somehow everywhere. "Nothing fun."

Miss Honey closed her eyes. Shook her head. A small act of mourning.

"The best of the best come here," she continued. "The luckiest of the lucky."

"But they're always terrified," Cliff said. "That's not luck. That's not any kind of life."

Miss Honey held up a hoof. "I'm gonna stop you right there, child."

She faced the big old pipe organ again. Fiddled with some dials. Next thing I know, we're watching blue jumpsuit ponies gathered around a table. Playing cards. They laugh. They hold up dingy cups. Toast one another. They greedily feast on nachos covered in some kind of mysterious nutrient paste.

"They don't spend their entire lives in terror," said Miss Honey.

"They're just afraid of us," I said. Falling to my flank. Clutching my chest. Remembering the look in the eye of that one slave I'd met in the alleyway during my orientation. Reliving that fear on Kettle Corn's face when I'd tackled her down a hill in the middle of a musical number, and reared up, ready to trample her skull to pudding.

I couldn't bear the thought of anypony fearing me like that.

"They're afraid of getting sent back," said Miss Honey.

"Sent back?" Bananas Foster said.

"A while ago," Miss Honey explained. "Back when Safety was brand new, what you call 'blue jumpsuit ponies' used to fraternize freely with the children of Safety.

'That all ended when one student came along and started talking rebellion." Miss Honey hung her head low. Like it was her own personal failing. "It didn't end well."

In that moment, I could feel the stareitty eye of the dude in the flag. It seemed to look down on me. Stirring up nightmares and wonders of what could have happened to those rebel slaves. Or the kid who'd helped them organize. It made my skin crawl - the power in that flag. Like when I first touched the Emperor card in Pinkie Pie's tarot deck, and felt his presence.

"They run from kids now," Miss Honey said. "'Cause they know that if they talk to you - any of you - then they can't work for me anymore." After a brief moment of silence, our principal worked up a faint little smile. "And everypony wants to work for Miss Honey."

My stomach got all blurbley and my heart shattered into a trillion million pieces. If the fear that those jumpsuit ponies endured was actually the best life they could ever hope for, I didn't wanna imagine what the alternative was. What cruelty went on in that fucked up Pinkie Pie amusement park just beyond Safety's borders.

FWOOOONG. I could suddenly smell the stale air of the Trottica mines all over again. The sweat. The taste of coppery blood, and rock dust on my tongue.

I could hear the thunderous sound of children stampeding against their captors.

I could see the look in the eyes of that poor Wasteland boy who got taken away from his burning village the night I first set hoof in the Wasteland. The kid I never saw again.

I never knew if he lived to see the freedom that the Trottica kids won for themselves. It all came back. And it made a horrible sound that pounded in my ears. FWOOOONG.

"...But it's still slavery," Cliff insisted. "Still evil." He trembled so hard, his knees knocked together like a clonkitty New Years party favor.

Foster put a hoof on his shoulder. Pet his mane to calm him down.

"Don't I know it," Miss Honey replied. "But if you wanna change the world you've gotta start with the world you got. Not the world you want."

She fiddled with the big pipe organ thing again. Switched a couple of dials, punched some keys till we had a view of someplace indoors. Not the sprite bot. Not the slave quarters.

The hospital. Intensive Care Unit. The boy with the accordion lungs.

Bananas Foster pressed closer, mesmerized by the sight of him - the sight of children coming from all over Safety, waiting for the privilege of keeping him company.

"Y'all know him?" Asked Miss Honey.

"No," whispered Foster. "Not personally, anyway."

"We visited just before lunch," I clarified.

"Well, you see that pump there?" Miss Honey asked. "That tubing, that screen? Those wires running below? Do you see it?" Miss Honey waited for a reply that never came. "Everything there was made possible by seventeen different factories, three refineries, two power plants, and four processing centers. All operated by slave labor. I know because I requisitioned those parts. I secured the horsepower. I petitioned Red Eye for the resources to build a real future for Equestria's children. One that serves the greater good."

"It's not the greater good," Cliff sniffled, eyes fixed on the screen with Accordion Boy. "It's still slavery. It's still horrible. It's still evil."

I put my hoof on his shoulder too. 'Cause I felt his outrage. I wanted to stand up and shout it all down. But couldn't. 'Cause we had a time traveling unicorn kid in a wizard hat to rendezvous with. And we needed to make that our number one priority.

"Maybe, son," said Miss Honey, shaking her head. "Maybe you'll even be the one to abolish it someday. But this right here - this right now - is the lesser evil. And it's all we got to work with."

Bzzzmmmm. The grinding hum of the giant-pipe-organ-console-thing cut the air between us as those words hung heavy in my head. The lesser evil.

I had never considered such a thing. Even for a moment.

The very idea was fucking insane! Worse than the Wasteland. Worse than the mines. Worse than trenches and pointy wire and war. Because even in the face of horror - even as we stared down death and torment and slaughter and cloaks and stuff, we'd still had another option - another hope.

Burn the whole fucking thing down.

But this? Just...chilling out? Casually reaping the benefits of a world built on horror? Simply 'cause it was better than the alternative?

It made my liver boil over with bile.

The lesser evil may not have robbed us of our bodies the way that slavery did. But it robbed us of our consciences. Our souls. Ourselves.

What it meant to be pony.

Were we just supposed to live our lives like those townsponies under the reign of the cloak-o priestess? With their tchotchkes and their creepy needlepoint quotations hanging over broken fireplaces?

Were we just supposed to...go about our day? Pretend that everything was okay? Like those villagers had pretended we weren't getting tortured and murdered for gems under Trottica?

It's fucking unthinkable.

And still, I couldn't bear to look at the screen. And imagine what would happen to that bubble boy without his accordion lungs. Without Safety.

Without slavery.

"You don't have to agree with me, children," Miss Honey spoke up.

I blink-bloinked.Grownups never say that kinda thing.

"But," she continued. "I can't have you tossing desks around either."

Cliff Diver tightened up. Unsure whether to hang his head in shame. Or hold it way up high in defiance.

Foster noticed him trembling, and leapt in. Drawing attention to herself instead. "Where does that leave us?"

"In a bit of a pickle," Miss Honey replied. "Under ordinary circumstances, you'd have all the time in the world to adjust. Like everypony else."

In the brief moment that our principal took to shake her head and suck in a fresh breath, I couldn't help but wonder what all the other kids must have done when they first found out how Safety runs.

"But these aren't ordinary circumstances," Miss Honey continued. "And you're no ordinary kids. Are you?"

Miss Honey's cheekbones dropped their rosey smile. And her eyes turned cold and gray. Like some kinda button had been pushed to switch her face up. Transform her into the Miss Honey that everypony feared.

I looked to Foster. Desperate to hide my discomfort. Together, we shook our heads and shrugged. As if to say, 'what in Equestria is she talking about? We're just three ordinary bunker stunkers. Not time traveling dream-wizards at all.

But she didn't buy it. "The circumstances of your arrival were peculiar," said Miss Honey, voice like ice. "You know it. I know it. And so do certain ponies who have a whole lot more power than I do."

My friends and I looked again to that Red Eye flag. Knowing damn well what she meant.

"I've personally vouched for you - all of you," she added, eyeing Cliff Diver in particular. "And we're doing things The Safety Way...for now."

"Thank you for that," said Foster with a smile, and a faint little laugh.

"You're very welcome, sugar." Miss Honey squinted her eyes, and stretched her cheeks into a pained smile. "But there's gonna come a time when Miss Honey can no longer help you. You understand?"

None of us replied. That pipe organ console thingy just hummed some more. Bvvvvvmmmm.

"Do you understand?"

"Uh, yes."

"Yeah."

"Of course."

We all stammered out our replies.

"I don't think you do," said Miss Honey. "If word gets out that you've been raising a fuss. Trying to stir folks up against the way Fillydelphia is run, I won't. Be. Able. To. Help. You. Do you understand that, children?"

We all nodded in silent terror.

Listening to Miss Honey plead was way worse than threats or logic or reason ever could be.

"I'm gonna get a little heavy now," said Miss Honey. (As though our conversation thus far had been nothing more than chit chat over brunch). "I need to know. How'd y'all do it? How'd you get in?"

…

"W-what?" Said Cliff.

"But that's not your way," I stammered.

"It's not the Safety Way," Foster squeaked.

"Yet...here we are," said Miss Honey.

The console-a-majig seemed to roar a whole lot more now. Bvvvvvmmmm. Bvvvvvmmmm. The quieter we got, the more oppressive that buzzing grew.

"How did you three get under the wall?" She asked again.

"Under?" Cliff said.

And as all of our brains stopped dead in their brain-tracks, Miss Honey took a moment to dissect us with her eyeballs.

Like a squiggle-majig trapped beneath a microscope, I shrunk under her gaze.

"We just sorta...passed through this weird tunnel," Cliff said hurriedly. "And then we woke up in some rubble."

"That's all?" She said, this time looking right at me, the worst liar in the room.

"I, um, yeah," I replied. "I mean...yeah."

"We're really not sure," Foster added. "It was long, and dark, and I was half asleep."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, ma'am," Foster replied.

"Yeah."

We all played along. Bobbed our heads enthusiastically. In its own strange way, what Foster said actually was the truth.

But deep down inside I was screaming. 'Cause, like, what the fuck? What did Miss Honey know? What did she think that we knew? This was clearly some kinda pop quiz. But, like...the kinda quiz you get in dreams where the schoolhouse is suspended over an active volcano, and all of your classmates will melt to death in a pool of lava if you give a wrong answer, and the lava has piranhas in it for some reason, and the piranhas wanna eat your flesh off as you're melting to death, and by the way...you forgot your pencil.

"Here's what I'm gonna do," said Miss Honey, looking on all three of us with approval. (Apparently, we'd passed the volcano quiz). "No more classes." She spun to face her console again and studied some kind of graph. Names, dates, times. A few clicks of a button, and the squares on her schedule grid changed color. "Go home,'' she said. "Get some rest. You've had a hard day."

"Wait. Are we grounded?" Cliff asked.

"No, you're not in trouble," she replied. "If anything, I blame myself for signing off on the schedule in the first place."

A hush fell over us kids. A grim hopelessness as we watched our grid go gray. There was no way she was gonna let us go to that field trip.

Miss Honey raised an eyebrow. "What? Y'all got plans already?"

I cleared my throat. In that super conspicuous way where you try to pretend that it's just a little dust in your throat, but really you're hiding guilt 'cause you don't want your principal to know that you're on a mission, and you're supposed to rendezvous with your timefriend at the market at 3 o'clock.

"Children, I need you to lay low for a while," said Miss Honey. "Until this whole thing blows over."

"What blows over?" Foster asked.

Miss Honey narrowed her eyes. Got into a staring contest with Foster.

But Bananas didn't flinch.

Then Miss Honey turned to Cliff who just sorta...shrugged all confuseitty-like.

When her eyeballs hit mine, and saw what musta been pure confusion on my face, Miss Honey lit up like a birthday cake. Out of nowhere. Like she was relieved by my utter cluelessness.

"Hearth's Warming," she said. "Red Eye will be Guest of Honor at our jubilee. All eyes will be on Safety until it's over, and we do not want any of those eyes on you."

"Red Eye?" I said. "Here?"

"Oh, don't y'all be scared," she said. "It's not like that. Red Eye adores children. He just--;"

Before she could answer, a knocking sound came from the door. Knock knock knock knock knock, the knocking sound said.

"Arg," Miss Honey grumbled.

"He just what?" Said Foster.

Knock, knock, knock. The door repeated itself.

"One moment!" Miss Honey erupted at the invisible knocker on the other side. Then, with what patience she had left, turned to Foster. "Let's just say that Red Eye loves Safety so much that he'd do anything to protect it."

Glug. Cliff Diver swallowed his throat apple. "Anything?"

"Anything."

Bzzzzt. A light on Miss Honey's desk lit up.

"Ugh." She trotted over to the giant pre-war monstrosity desk - a relic that some industry mogul had perched behind (once upon a time) and passed judgment from like an emperor. She hopped up a little step stool. Mashed a button built into the desk itself. "I'm with children right now," she said. "This had better be good."

"You called me over, ma'am," a tinny voice answered.

Miss Honey pounded that button. "Come in, come in," she said. "And be quick about it."

The ancient door creaked open. In poked a beak. "I came as soon as I heard," it said.

"Glenn!" I exclaimed.

He set talon through the door, and my heart lifted. My hooves itched to take off and gallop in his direction. To throw myself under his shimmery black wing for a great big griffon hug. And to cry right into his feathers.

But a Rose Voice clobbered me from the inside of my own skull. And urged me to follow those feelings to the worst possible conclusion.

Do it, said the voice, super cynical-like. Do it! It's good for Miss Honey to see you trust in an adult. Run to him! Lessen her suspicion!

But as my hindquarters fidgeted, eager to spring into a gallop, another Rose Voice chimed in. That makes Glenn a part of it, doesn't it?

Elderberry's words sprang back into my brain. From when she'd first described emotional education as something that "taught you to be okay with everything that goes on around here."

I froze as all my Rose Voices duked it out inside my head, biting and bucking my neurons into incoherent clouds of brain dust.

And Glenn just looked at me. Clucked his tongue against the inside of his beak. Neither smile nor frown nor grimace nor laugh - an expression altogether alien to equestrian anatomy. But his eyeballs said, I'm so sorry, Rose. I'm so sorry.

"You all know Glenn, of course," said Miss Honey. "He's here to help."

Glenn nodded.

"If any of you ever feel like throwing a desk," Miss Honey continued. "Or shouting at the top of your lungs, please come to me. Or to Glenn. There are so many places in Safety where that's not only appropriate, but encouraged."

"Encouraged?" Cliff said.

"Emotional education is about finding constructive ways to let those feelings out," Glenn answered.

It was then that something in me snapped. Made me want to jump up there and flip that giant pipe organ console upside down. Like Cliff had done to his classroom desk. 'Cause this wasn't about feelings. It was about obedience. Compliance. "Ways that don't interfere with all of the slavery," I said under my breath.

And even as the words crossed my lips, I could feel Bananas Foster wince. And hope with all of her might that I would shut the hell up.

"I've arranged some emergency counseling for you three," said Miss Honey.

"I thought you wanted us to go home," Foster protested.

"I do," Miss Honey answered. "But you could really use some emotional education right now. It's best if you go with Glenn and let him help you."

Glenn swung the door open for us. Gestured at it with a wingtip. Like a gentlecolt. Or gentlegriffon. Or whatever.

None of us followed.

Glenn clucked his beak. "We're only going back to my office where we can talk more privately."

My friends and I all looked to one another. Acutely aware of the fact that our chances of meeting up with Misty before sundown were getting slimmer and slimmer.

"Do you not feel comfortable taking the walk?" Glenn asked. "Are you concerned about your peers?"

I shook my head no.

"Miss Honey?" Bananas Foster asked.

"Yes?"

"You said we're not in trouble. But we still have to get emergency education, and then go straight home? If we're not grounded, as Cliff put it, then what activities are we allowed to do?"

Miss Honey eyed all of us briefly. One last time. And sighed, "Whichever activities you're ready for. I'll trust in Glenn's judgment on that one."

The griffin swallowed his throat apple, and nodded sternly. Like this was some kinda grave responsibility.

My eyes strayed to the flag one last time, and wondered what kinda pressure Emperor Red Eye was putting on all the adults. What would happen to Glenn if he fucked up, and the mystery pegasus kid became trouble.

* * *

After we headed out, to my surprise, Glenn let us be. At least for the trot over to the Green Building, where his tiny office hid.

Cliff, Foster, and me all clustered together to talk, and...just sort of...you know...recuperate in privacy while Glenn held a respectful distance back.

"You didn't have to do that," Cliff leaned over me and whispered to Foster.

I whipped my head around nervously. But found Glenn trailing us by half a city block.

"Do what?" Said Foster.

"Join me," Cliff retorted. "In my, you know...freedom...indignation...uprising...thing."

"Well...I did," Foster replied.

Cliff took a couple more steps, letting Foster's non-answer stew in his brain for a bit as the pavement clopped against our hooves. "It was dumb of you." He leaned in closer, making a Rose Sandwich out of me. "You coulda stayed silent. You coulda stayed behind. You coulda found out more, and busted us out of whatever trouble we mighta gotten in."

"We didn't get in any trouble," Foster's voice pitched way up high, like a foal's.

"But you didn't know that," said Cliff.

Bananas cringed. Hung her head low. Kicked a pebble. Reflecting on the dangers of her actions.

Cliff was right. Playing along with history class would have been the logical thing to do. The sneaky thing to do. The Fosterish thing to do.

"Yeah," said Bananas. "Well, I guess we all let our emotions get the best of us sometimes."

Clippity clop. Clippity clop. Clippity clop. Clippity clop. Galloping hooves came barrelling around the corner, and we all fell silent.

A yellow filly emerged, saddlebag bursting with books, mouth clutching a slice of toast. 3.6 moments later, and she was gone without ever having glanced in our direction.

…

Bananas Foster was the first to exhale in relief.

"We're not some kinda public enemy," I said.

"Sure feels like it," said Cliff.

"Miss Honey is very concerned about Red Eye," Foster leaned over me and whispered. "And what he'd think if we rebelled."

Cliff pressed toward me from the other direction, and made another Rose Sandwich.

"To the kids," Foster continued. "We're still just...kids."

"We need to convince Glenn to let us go to that market," I said.

"How?" Cliff said.

"Maybe if we all just tell him... I don't know...slavery is great...or...something, he'll sign off on the trip."

"He'll never buy it," said Cliff.

"It's not about liking slavery anyway," said Foster. "It's about blending in."

The three of us fell silent. Up ahead was that happy old mural. The infirmary where Accordion Boy was being kept alive by machines that slavery had built.

We passed it slow. Reverent-like. But the happy filly painted on the wall seemed to mock me with her giant smile. Differently than before. Now I imagined those prancing hooves were perched on a mountain of bones.

I wanted to puke.

"Damnit," I said. "The lesser of two evils fucking sucks."

"Yeah," Cliff said somberly. And once that mural had passed, his lips twisted into a deep sneer. "What about the lesser ponies, you know? The ones who aren't the best of the best?!" He sing-songedly mocked Miss Mango's words. "The ones who make all of this happen." Cliff's voice trembled and trailed into a whisper, "History's losers."

I looked away from Cliff. And found Foster beside me, stoically silent. Trying damn hard not to flinch, or say anything, or show how she really felt.

This slavery stuff didn't hit her like it did us. Hell, she'd enslaved her fair share of sentient beings herself if you counted the nurses under her control.

But before I could call her out on it, Foster lunged across me. Thrust herself at Cliff and hugged him tight with her forelegs.

I stumbled to an awkward halt. Spinning around to make sure Glenn wasn't gaining on us. But he kept a respectful distance, and let us do our thing.

By the time I twisted myself back around again to Cliff and Foster, he was sobbing against her chest. She raised a forehoof o' comfort, and ran it through his hair.

"How could they do this?" Cliff wailed, mouth full of mane. "How?"

"Life just sucks that way sometimes," Foster's eyeballs drifted apologetically to mine.

"Food first," I said to myself. "Morals follow on."

The High Priestess of Trottica's words. Haunting me all over again.

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:

While I have certain events and themes in the story planned out in advance, I never quite know how Rose Petal is going to react until it happens. Exploring her insights, both as a survivor of exploitation in Trottica, and as a beneficiary of it in Safety, has been an enlightening experience for me.

I would love to hear your thoughts on it as well!

I'm also thrilled to release this on the Full Moon, right on the tail of an eclipse! Praise Luna!

A Voice in the Dark

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX - A VOICE IN THE DARK
"A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization. A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a
dying civilization." - Aimé Césaire.

I know I said this before, but the whole "lesser of two evils" idea fucking irked me. I mean, like...really really really really really really reeeeally really irked me.

'Cause you've got aaaallll these resources, and aaaall these ponies working together.

They should be fighting for a better world! A greater good! Why the hell would anypony devote their entire lives to laboring away in support of a society that's, like...you know...fucking evil?! Even a lesser one?

It's crazy.

I thought back to my conversation with Blueberry Milkshake the day after I first discovered the Wasteland.

'Are ponies good?' I'd asked, desperate to make sense of the horrors that I'd seen.

And after a long, quiet, deliberation, she'd concluded: 'When they want to be.'

It seemed pretty sagely at the time. But the more I learned about the Wasteland - the deeper I delved into the secrets of Safety - the stronger it grew on me that Blueberry Milkshake had been totally wrong.

Ponies don't become good simply because they wanna be. It's way more complicated than that. The real tragedy of Safety, and its underclass of slave laborers, is that it's pretty much impossible to opt out of. You can't fight for the greater good within its walls. Nopony has any choice at all!

Our morals were nothing more than luxuries.

Safety children couldn't rise up against their meal ticket. Safety teachers couldn't fight for a world without slavery, no matter what they personally believed.

We were stuck. All of us. By circumstance.

'Cause the lesser evil - in the end - is the one that hurts somepony else.

* * *

And that's the evil that Glenn tried to sell us on. We talked for hours. About making the best of it. Some shit about accepting what we couldn't change, strengthening ourselves to fight for whatever we could, and learning to discern the difference.

But I didn't care. And neither did Cliff Diver.

The field of psychology - of emotional education - was being bastardized to measure sanity by how well we fit in with assholes that were totally in favor of fucking slavery.

It made me wonder if maybe Screw Loose was saner than everypony thought she was - if turning into a dog was actually the most reasonable reaction in the world to confronting your past as a torturer - to fleeing the monsters who made you torment others in the first place.

"Rose Petal," said Glenn. "What do you think?"

I'd missed the set up of course, but for once, I didn't feel guilty about it. Didn't flinch. 'Cause fuck Glenn. He was a traitor to everything good and decent in this world.

"I think we should all try to get along," I answered mechanically.

Delicate-like, he ran the feathers on his open wing tips against one another. "I understand what you're going through," he said. "And you're not alone, but for right now, we have to focus on keeping you hidden. Keeping you safe. I know that this is a shock to you. And we can take all the time in the world to sort it out...after we get through the next couple of days. Can you do that?"

Foster interjected, "Yes." She raised a forehoof in salute - a gesture of false respect for authority.

"Cliff?" Glenn pleaded. "Rose?"

I nodded, though it pained me to. "I'll lie low."

Glenn tilted his big avian head to Cliff.

"Yeah," whispered Cliff Diver. Just sorta starting off into space.

It had been hours of talking, and explainifying, and arguing. We were all pretty worn down. But Glenn had finally gotten us where he wanted us - calm enough not to throw furniture around.

"Good," he said.

"So, what activities are we cleared for?" Foster asked, always the strategist. "What are we allowed to do?"

"Well," Glenn got up out of his stool and streeeeetched till all his feathers poked up like a hedgehog. "I'd say it's safe for you to participate in any activities within Safety's walls, though I'm going to hold off on okay-ing you for actual classes until the holiday's over."

I closed my eyes. Pictured Misty wandering the marketplace without me. Frustrated. Scared. My presence earlier had rattled him bad. Misty needed to talk to me. Even more than I needed to talk to him, (which is quite a feat).

By now, rumor had probably reached him of my 'Rose Petal'ing' in class, so who knew what fresh worries he'd piled on top of it.

"Sorry about the market," said Glenn. "Under normal circumstances, I'd say it's the best thing for you."

"How so?" said Foster.

"There's more to Fillydelphia than slaves and armies and children," Glenn answered. "The market itself attracts artisans and merchants who sell their wares under the protection of Fillydelphia's walls. Fillydelphia also has a class of free administrators who help keep this empire running - ponies and griffons who are willing to spend their bottle caps on fine foods, and clean clothes, and new innovations that Fillydelphia makes possible."

"So free ponies," said Cliff. "Selling stuff made with materials produced by slaves."

"Yes," Glenn tightened his beak. "It can be most, um...informative."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Bottle caps?"

Glenn cocked his head in confusion. He reminded me of my neighbor's parrot.

"You work for bottle caps?"

"Yes," replied the griffon. And before he could explain, I busted out laughing.

"Well, you see--;" Glenn raised a talon o' pedantry.

But I erupted into a wild cackle, fell to my knees, and strained to catch my breath. "You're...enslaving...ponies...for...bottle caps." I fought to catch my breath. "That's...so...so...so...stupid."

* * *

So yeah. Our session went about as well as you might imagine. And when all was said and done, Glenn had each of us sign a contract - an agreement to behave. He also offered us another peek into his library (which we declined).

With a sigh o' disappointment, Glenn escorted us to the door.

"Alright kids," he said. "Why don't you go home and try to get some rest. I'm sure you're eager to talk with one another in private too. Without a bunch of adults everywhere. It'll be good for you."

"Yeah," Foster rolled her teenagerly eyeballs. "It'll be good for Miss Honey as she listens in on our conversation."

The griffon flinched. Crunched up the feathers above his beak, and recoiled in shock. But there was no hint of fear. No worry over being unmasked. His eyes just narrowed what-the-fuck-ishly.

"Miss Honey would never," he said, and meant it.

"Miss Honey also swore she wouldn't ask us how we got here," said Foster. “But she did that when she interrogated us. How can we trust her promises anymore?"

Cliff put a hoof to Foster's chest. Like she might need to be restrained at any moment.

But Glenn tightened up. Like every muscle in his face was spring-loaded. He was sure as hell holding back some secret or another. "You're not being spied on," he said. "You have my word."

"Hmph," Foster replied.

Glenn rotated his head to me at an angle no mammal could possibly manage. "I'll arrange to have your meals brought to your dorm room, if that's what you prefer?"

"Yes," I said. "Thank you."

"Good," he said, rotating back around to face Cliff and Foster. "You've clearly been through a lot. Take care of yourselves. We'll start fresh in the morning."

* * *

The three of us trudged down the long circuitous hallway of the Green Building. Once Glenn's office was far, far, far behind, Cliff whispered to Foster, "What was that all about?"

"Yeah," I said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she replied, chipper as morning birds. "I needed to know if our rooms were being spied on, like the slave quarters, or the boy in the coma. Glenn showed no sign of defensiveness or fear of being found out."

"He's keeping something from us," I said. "That's for sure."

"Obviously," Foster replied. "But it's safe to hold court with our special friend this evening, and that's all that matters."

Apart from a brief Foster-y smile o' self-satisfaction, we went back to dragging ourselves home in silence. It's easy to forget sometimes that Foster has this weird switch in her brain that lets her turn her manipulatey powers on and off at will. Like magic.

* * *

Pomf! Bananas Foster, now thoroughly exhausted, collapsed on our couch. While Cliff and I hovered over the big white crate right outside our door. It was made of a strange material - beaten, discolored, and worn from use, but hygienic nevertheless. Its flappitty lid was tied shut with twine.

Cliff nudged the mystery box into our room with his head. Once the door was closed safely behind us, he chomped the twine and opened the flap.

"It's dinner," I said as the scent of potatoes burst out with a poof.

Glenn had told us that he'd arrange for food to be delivered, but I didn't expect that stuff to get home before we did.

I plunged my head in. Pulled out a bowl of chunky mashed potatoes with bits of skin everywhere, and a quesadilla-type thing with pesto goo. It had been hours and hours and hours since I'd eaten, so I whisked my helping over to the table and plunged my face right in.

"Mmmph," Bananas Foster groaned into a pillow.

While Cliff just paced. Back and forth, and forth and back, and forth again.

I fixed him a plate. Some potatoes, and one of those quesadilla-looking things covered in mystery sludge, this one smelling of dill. "You should eat," I said, and slid it in front of the empty chair beside me.

"Thanks," he said. "But I'm not hungry."

Pace pace pace pace pace.

"Rose is right," Foster mumbled, face-still-in-pillow. "You should definitely eat."

"No, thanks," he replied.

The couch groaned under Foster's weight as she scooped herself up. "We're gonna meet Misty soon, and we don't know what we'll be called upon to do." Foster pointed to the kitchen table with her face. "Eat. You can't afford not to."

"What about you?" Cliff snapped. "You haven't been eating. There are no, uh...nurses here…or...anything."

"I'm getting love from you two," Foster replied.

"Really? Is that enough?" I said. "You're not even hypnotizing us, or making us drowsy or anything."

"You love me for who I am," she said. "Like Mother used to."

Cliff stopped pacing.

The room fell silent.

"...That's probably why I'm better at changing than I used to be back when I was hungry."

Cliff shuffled over to the kitchen table. Sat beside me. Eyed his quesadilla with pity like it was a dying puppy. "I'm sorry," he said. "I...I can't. Slaves made this."

I lowered my own quesadilla-majig. Suddenly unsure whether or not it was okay to eat.

But Bananas Foster rose to her hooves. Came right up between Cliff and me, and mournfully reasoned: "It'll go to waste if you don't."

Staring down the appetizing goop, I knew she had a point. "Foster's right," I sighed. "In No Mare's Land, I ran around the whole night with nothing but a single onion to chomp on. Anything can happen tonight, and you should probably conserve your energy, and eat something. Misty could be here any minute."

Knock knock knock.

"Ah!" I threw my forehooves in front of my mouth.

Knock knock knock, went the door yet again.

Cliff and I tossed glances at one another while Foster crept to the door. Hooves like feathers. Limbs like rubber.

"It's Scribbles," said the door in muffled whispers. "I'm not here to judge you. I promise."

Foster looked to Cliff and me, unsure of what to do.

"Let her in," I said. "Quick."

There was no telling what the other kids had been told about us. Or if Scribbles was gonna get in trouble for tryst-ifying in our dorm room.

Bananas Foster twisted the deadbolt with her teeth and shook the chain loose with her hoof. The door wedged open. Just a crack.

"Can I please come in?" Scribbles tossed her head over her shoulders. Watching the hallway. Scared of being seen.

"Of course," said Foster.

Scribbles slipped inside, and closed the door behind her. Her saddle bag overflowed with weird wires and stuff.

"Are you okay?" said Cliff, abandoning the meal he hadn't even touched.

"Yeah," said Scribbles. "How about you?"

A hush fell over the room. It was a damn good question. Were we okay? I didn't even know.

"Pistachio told me what happened," Scribbles added.

"He did?" Cliff tightened up like a sock puppet pulled inward on itself.

"I'm not here to judge!" Scribbles waved her forehooves in the air.

"You stated as much," said Foster, gesturing for Scribbles to come further inside.

Our guest feigned a smile. Took five or six hesitant steps into (what passed for) our living room before Cliff rushed in, and pressed her. "So what are you here for?"

"I, um...um...um…moral support, I guess." Scribbles flashed a nervous little smile. "And also, I, um...wanna show you something," Scribbles pitched her voice upwards like she was asking a question.

"Okay," said Foster.

Scribbles kaplonked her saddle bag down on the coffee table. In it was a basket o' wires. A box full of tiny glass bottles. And...

"A potato," I said dryly.

"There's an old mare running an oddity shop at the market," said Scribbles. "Her health isn't so good, and she doesn't give a damn what Red Eye thinks anymore. She doesn't give a damn about anything come to think of it."

"And she gave you…" Foster pointed at the pile of junk on our table. "…A potato."

Scribbles nodded. "I felt you all should know."

"Um...okay," I said. "So that's a contraband potato?"

"Oh!" Scribbles looked to all of our confusitty faces. "You don't know. Here let me…"

Scribbles nudged her way in between Cliff and me, leaned over the table, and started arranging the junk. The book-sized frame had a row of little glass bottles inside. It stood front and center on the table, branching out to an array of wires that Scribbles got fast to work twisting and tightening.

"You can draw, and do all this?" I said.

"Drawing's my special talent," she answered. "This is just basic... everyday…stuff. You bunker stunkers really don't know shit, do ya?" Scribbles snorted out a laugh.

"No," Foster answered dryly. "We really don't."

"Fuck, what time is it?" Scribbles asked.

My hoof drifted instinctively to the pocket watch that lived in the mojo bag around my neck. Even though it wasn't, like...a regular watch, and more of a use only in dire temporal emergency Pinkie Pie watch.

"Anypony?" said Scribbles.

We all shrugged.

"What's going on?" asked Foster. "Why?"

"I wanna show you something." Scribbles dove into her saddle bag once again, this time in a frenzy. From all the clanking around, it sounded like she had an entire fucking drum kit in there. After a lengthy cacophonic percussion solo, Scribbles finally produced a little clamshell that looked like one of my sister's pocket mirrors. She opened it up, and read a display. "5:56?!"

Scribbles threw herself into her work. Assembling all of the pieces till they were just so. While I eyed the door. Half expecting Misty Mountain to knock on it any second, and freak poor Scribbles out.

"I'm sorry," she said sensing our confusion. "I can't explain it. Just give me three minutes. And you'll have all your answers.”

Without any direction from our guest, my friends and I all sat down simultaneously on the chairs and couch surrounding Scribbles' table o' junk. As if to collectively say, 'Okay, I'm intrigued.'

None of us had any idea what was going on. We only knew that she was earnest in her enthusiasm.

"Does Pistachio know about this?" Foster asked.

"No," Scribbles replied with a horseshoe magnet in her teeth.

"You're always sneaking around together," I said.

"Pistachio loves the thrill of sneaking around. He doesn't actually have an ideology."

"And you do?" Cliff leaned forward.

Scribbles bent over the contraption again, distracted by the fine work of twisting frayed wire-ends together. "6:58," she muttered.

"What is that ideology?" Cliff repeated the question.

"No cages." Scribbles flashed a devious smile, and leapt back to observe her work. With a quick enthusiastic nod, she dove back in, raised a fork, and jammed it into the potato. "6:59," she whispered; and at long last, straightened out the box she'd assembled, and flipped a little switch on.

The contraption started making unnatural noises. Like ghosts howling. And eggs crackling on a pan held way too close to the fire.

Scribbles made a few fine adjustments to the wires, and the ghosts and eggs started to bobbing and weaving and dancing around one another. Until at last, a voice pierced the ether. Dark and rich and clear.

"...oooood evening, wastelanders! I'm DJ Pon3, and you're listening to the Evening Report. If you heard it at all, you heard it here first, and you heard it from me, 'cause there sure ain't nopony else on the air." The Voice chuckled at his own joke.

"There's a lot going on in those cold, windy barrens lately, and I gotta tell you folks, it's bleak. In Los Pegasus yesterday, a brawl broke out as Mayor Daisy Belle's goons tried to evict local merchant, Silver Cream Sundae, from her booth. Sundae put up a damn good fight, and took out one of the bastard's eyes, but ultimately was overtaken. Mayor Daisy Belle's forces dragged Sundae by her mane, dropped her from the top of the town wall, and left her to languish broken-legged in the cold.

'I'm getting similar reports in Whinnyapolis, about a merchant named Lavender Cloud. In South Hoofton, resident Sunset Frosting was evicted from her own home for the crime of being sick and coming up three bottle caps short on her rent. In Bucklyn, it was Blade Sparkle, Sandy Beaches, Gem Digger, and Frosty Dawn. All separate incidents. All residential. All in one day. Beaten, bruised, broken. Every single one of them. The details of the brutality differ, but the story's always the same.

'These parasite "mayors" lay claim to some heap of ancient rubble - any plot anywhere that could conceivably act as a wall - and they staff it with the scum of Equestria."

The machine crackled a bit. And all of us leaned in reeeeal super close to hear. It was then that I noticed that the 'bottles' in Scribbles’ box were glowing faintly and giving off warmth.

CkcKkKkK

"...They lure us in with their promises to 'keep us safe' as we gather to trade our bodies for bread - or to sell what little we can build, and scavenge for. Or even something simple like a safe place to sleep for the night.

'But all those guards - all that noble violence that they swear up and down is gonna keep you safe - the worst of it gets turned on you the second you're a single bottle cap short.

'We've all seen it. It's a story so common, a lot of folks wonder why I even consider it news.

'Well, I have a message for the neighsayers out there. The roadlords and the warlords and the landlords and the whorelords. I have a message for the ponies who stick up for these thugs too. You toadies who'd rather kiss flank than look down and notice the blood on their hooves. Are you listening?

'Turn up your dials and lean in reeeeal close to the speakers 'cause this is important…You ready?...Good."

The DJ stopped to clear his throat and get all intimate with the microphone. Like he was whispering a secret into our ears. “Fuck...you.These ponies matter. They have friends. Sisters. Mothers. Daughters. Sons...They have names. Lives. They work, they struggle. Every last one of them fucking matters.

'And before we go any further - to all you decent ponies out there - if you take only one message to heart out of anything I've ever had to say - it should be exactly this.

'You. Matter. Your neighbor matters. So I want you to say it. Get up off your stools, and say it out loud. Say, I matter, damnit.”

Scribbles, entranced by the potato machine, whispered softly to herself, "I matter, damnit.
I matter. "

DJ Pon3 stopped, and let the silence fizz and crackle for a moment. I could see him - in my mind's eye - sucking on one of those fire sticks that'd stunk up the trenches back in No Mare's Land. "It's happening more often, you know," his firey voice grew somber.
"Remember that autonomous village way up north in the hills of Cataloneigha? You long-time-listeners have got to know. It was all I talked about for a whole year - how they fended off raiders all by themselves. No rent. No protection fees. Well, folks, we lost contact a few months now. Same with the merchant-run village out West by Appaloosa." DJ Pon3 sighed. "Sightings have finally confirmed that both compounds are empty.

'...But they weren't burned or sacked at random like typical raiders do. No. Just hundreds of doors left swinging open in the wind.

'These attacks were disciplined. Targeted.

'And at the end of the breadcrumb trail are all these new caravans you see. Captured slaves getting driven into Fillydelphia."

Suddenly the DJ's voice cut out, and a different recording fizzed to life. A darker voice. Harsh and thick like grinding tree roots. "Progress," it said. "You are all here to build a better Equestria. It is your labor - your contributions - that will pave the road to freedom for Equestria's children. Your toil will not be in vain. Your sweat will rejuvenate the soil. Your blood will fertilize it. You have all been gifted with the noble task of constructing the future. A future, my little ponies, made possible by you, Fillydelphia's proud essential workers."

The box took a few seconds to make some more sizzly frying pan noises before the DJ jumped back in.

"This is the shit that Red Eye blares out of the speakers in Fillydelphia's factories and mines," DJ Pon3 continued. "This is the bullshit that the once-free workers of Cataloneigha have to listen to as Red Eye breaks their backs.

'He believes it too. That's the sick part. Red Eye blabbing on and on about the future. While his army rapes the present. Waxing on about fucking freedom. While his thugs explicitly target the free. Why?

'Because it's easier than going to war with every gang in Equestria.

'My little ponies, there's a new kinda raider in town. Every town. All across Equestria, sieges like this have grown more deliberate. More organized.

'And these marketplace tyrants and paramilitary landlords? They fucking love it. That's what all these crackdowns are really about - these evictions. With pockets of free Equestria falling under Red Eye's control, even tenants hundreds of miles away lose their bargaining power.

'They have no other place to go. And they no longer have the kind of hope - the kind of drive that made these shining dreams possible in the first place.

'And what's worse, you hear these two-bottle-cap brutes laughing it up over bathtub gin. How ponies like you and me can't self-govern. How we're powerless to defend ourselves without big strong murderers everywhere swaggering around to keep the peace.

'Yeah, Wastelanders, it's grim out there. But you know what? The goons are losing their grip too. They didn't stop Red Eye from growing back when they had the chance. And now they're stuck with him.

'The world they know is dying. It was only a matter of time. But they finally sense it now, and they're afraid.

'I don't know, folks. It's hard to keep hope alive in times like these - when the nights grow long and the days grow faint - but we'll have a summer again. Wait and see.

'Red Eye's not the first stooge to get big ideas about the way Equestria should be run. I should know. I've been around forever, baby. But ponies like Red Eye always fall, and their big shot colonels and generals don't give a fuck about their visions of brave new worlds. The confederacy of gangs that have recently sworn allegiance to that big ugly flag of his? They're gonna tear each other up in the aftermath.

'So keep building communities as best you can. Keep caring for one another. Keep fighting. 'Cause the Red Eyes of the world always fall. Landlords and gangsters always murder one another in the aftermath. And you know what? Their crisis is our opportunity.

'And in the meantime, Wastelanders, keep telling each other's stories. Listen to the voices that cry out in the night. And, if nothing else, remember that you matter."

Suddenly, music started to play. The intro was a gentle melody, with a light jingle of sleigh bells keeping the beat.

"I'm DJ Pon3, and this concludes the Evening Report. How about a nice Hearth's Warming tune of old? To rekindle your brightest hopes in these darkest nights. That's what the holiday's all about, isn't it? Here's Sweetie Belle with 'Good Princess Whinnyslaus.' May you follow the hoofsteps of the righteous, and always be warm."

My friends and I watched the device in stunned silence as the DJ's voice gave way to song. Bright and crisp staccato melody softened by velvety vocals. My heart pounded in my chest as the verse bounced along, and I leaned in closer, listening, hoping that the voice would come back with just one more thing to add.

"That's some potato," said Bananas Foster.

"Yeah," Scribbles exhaled a breath she'd held for Luna-only-knows-how-long.

I didn't say a word. I just fixated on the machine. That voice was like cool water in the middle of a desert. I needed more!

But the song just wafted on and on and on with no sign of narration. No sign of DJ-Pon3. When at last, it drew to a close, 'Good Princess Whinnycslaus' was followed by yet another tinny recording. Some old timey jazz stuff.

DJ Pon3 wasn't coming back. The only voice I heard was my own. Pestering me inside of my mindskull. To get out there. Help those ponies. Stop Red Eye and the landlords from fucking up everypony's lives.

It bucked at my brain. Yelled at me to run outside that very instant - to dash up to the first blue jumpsuit slave pony I could find, and set her free, and…raise an army...or something.

"So," I said, clipping my forehooves together. "What are we gonna do?" I said aloud.

Scribbles was the first to pry her eyes from the machine. "Do?"

"Yeah," said Cliff. "We have to do something. Don't we?"

"Like what?"

Cliff shrugged. Grunted vaguely to the tune of 'idunno.' "Stop Red Eye or whatever," he said.

"And all the landlords," I added.

Scribbles laughed. But my friends didn't.

"No," said Cliff. "When Red Eye falls, the landlord problem will take care of itself. DJ Pon3 said so."

"Wait, are you serious?" said Scribbles.

The alarm in her eyes seemed to grow limbs of its own, and reach out and chop my head in two with a great big Scimitar O' Panic. Scribbles wasn't planning an insurrection. She wasn't planning anything at all!

"Nah," said Foster, thinking quickly. "They're just messing around."

"Red Eye's gonna be here - in Safety - for Hearth's Warming," said Cliff. "That'd be the perfect time to strike."

Foster threw her eyeballs at Cliff - eyeballs that screamed, 'Would you shut the fuck up?'

"Well you shouldn't joke about that.” Scribbles yanked the fork out of her potato, and coiled the wires up with her teeth. "It's a dangerous habit."

She got to work, frantically disconnecting all the miscellaneous dangly bits from the box o' glowy glass tubes. Once they were all free, Scribbles slid the magnet into her saddlebag.

"Why not?" said Foster, soft and steady.

"You never heard about Rabble Rouser?" Scribbles answered.

My friends and I shook our heads.

"She was a student here a few years ago,"Scribbles' voice fell to a whisper.

"Before my time. Miss Honey's prized pupil…Till Rabble tried to organize the staff - the slaves - against Miss Honey, and all of Fillydelphia too!...She caused a lot of trouble."

"With a name like 'Rabble Rouser,' you think Miss Honey would see that coming," Foster observed.

Scribbles squinted in confusion.

"Nevermind," said Foster. "Nopony ever notices that shit."

I held up a hoof, ready to interruptify. To point out that I, a pony, totally did notice that shit. It had bugged me forever. This connection between names and cutie marks.

Did our parents just sorta psychically know? Or did the name alter fate itself? Either way it happened too damn often. I had Rose Petals on my flank that had nothing to do with the talent I discovered the night I first fell into the Wasteland. Even my very first cutie mark attempts - months before that - had been in gardening, trying to get a fate to match my name.

"Anyway," said Scribbles. "When Red Eye's griffons finally got a hold of Rabble Rouser, they dragged her away, and she never came back."

Cliff looked to me with troubled eyeballs. Miss Honey had told us both her half of that same story. And hung her head with regret the whole time.

She knew what had happened to Rabble Rouser.

"So please," said Scribbles as she scooped up the last of her talking potato machine. "Don't joke like that."

"Sorry," I said. "I figured...you know, it's just between us."

"I get that," said Scribbles. "But it's still a bad habit. These walls are thin. You never know when trouble might be waiting on the other side."

Knock knock knock knock knock! Went the door.

All four of us leapt up, and screamed, "Ahhhh!"

I clutched my heart. Just for a second or two before it dawned on me: "I'm expecting somepony." I made for the door.

Scribbles clutched her saddlebag. Violently stuffing the stray wires inside as though they were the tentacles of a particularly feisty squid.

"Don't worry," said Foster. "He's a friend." She projected a certain kinda calm. Gravity. The kinda voice that could put a manticore to sleep after it'd had sixteen cups of pep tea and a donut.

Knock knock knock knock, went the door, softer than before, as if it knew that we were nervous.

"Coming!" I leaned my flank up against the door and surveyed the room.

Cliff had pressed closer. Eager to meet Misty Mountain right and proper. And Foster had held back to soothe Scribbles if she needed to.

Scribbles herself just held perfectly still. Determined to get it together. "A friend?" she squeaked.

"A friend," Foster asserted, voice hard as granite.

Scribbles moistened her lips, and plunged her throat apple down her neck like a doom-yoyo. She knew what Foster meant. That the pony on the other end of that door was a 'friend' - not only to me - but to The Cause - the rebellion - the mission (whatever the hell that was gonna turn out to be).

"Okay," squeaked Scribbles. "I trust you." She lifted her head up high to force our attention away from her throbbing heart and panting chest. And gave us the go-ahead nod.

"Hay," I said soothingly.

Scribbles slowed her panicky breathing down and forced herself to look me in the eyeballs.

"No cages," I said.

"No cages," she summoned a mini-smile.

And at that, I opened the door a crack...

Misty Mountain shoved his way straight in. A giant Equestrian flag scarf hung loosely over his shoulders. A pendant bearing the likeness of Red Eye dangled from his neck. And he wore a pair of novelty glasses made outta coat-hanger-wire twisted into the shape of Hearth's Warming trees.

"Are you crazy?" he said. "No, wait. Why do I ask? I know answer. You are crazy! I say, 'no Rose Petal'ingk'. 'Den you are Rose Petal'ingk!"

"No, she wasn't," Cliff stepped forward. "I was Cliff-ing."

"What zhe Hell does dat mean?"

"My name is Cliff," he answered. "I'm the one who threw my desk."

"Great," Misty pointed a hoof at me. "Is everypony you hang out with crazy, too?" He glanced over my shoulder, noticing Scribbles for the first time. "...Oh, hello."

Scribbles waved a hoof. "I'm not crazy."

Misty Mountain froze. Suddenly aware of the danger that the presence of a stranger actually posed.

"She's cool," I said. "She won't get us in trouble."

With a deep deep breath, Misty summoned his composure, levitated his wizard hat, revealing a vast tangle of purple hair. It looked like a twisted bush of razor wire from No Mare's Land, only somehow, even more horrific.

He tipped the pointy cap to Scribbles - a gesture of gentlecoltly polite-itude. "Excuse me. Moment," he said to her gently before spinning around and shouting at me again. "Three hours! All you had to do was go three hours with no Rose Petal'ingk. No Cliff-ingk."

"Uh...I should be goingk," said Scribbles. "I mean, going."

Before I could even say 'thank you' or 'goodbye,' she swept her way out the door.

"Thanks for potato time!" I called out, even though she was already gone. It was that old Rose Family training - to fear being perceived as an inhospitable host more than death or torture or shadows.

"Oh no," said Cliff. "Is she gonna tell? Is she gonna tell on us?"

"I wouldn't worry about it,'' said Foster, cucumber cool.

"How do you know?" Misty snapped.

"I know."

"Great," said Misty. "Dees one knows!"

I was about to yell right back at him, but he whipped around. Gripped my shirt with his hooves.

"For fuck's sake," he said. "Do you have idea what you have done?"

His eyeballs burned as beads of coal. Not with mere frustration. But fear. Real fear. The kind that made my evil hoof start to shrivel into a stump of frosty cold. And trickle dread up my spine like some kinda doom icicle.

"Rose," Misty pressed closer, quivering as he spoke. "We can't reesk dees attention."

"W-What do you mean?" I stammered.

Misty Mountain pierced me with a feral gaze. Like a wild animal backed into a corner, clawing at the air, defending its young. "I have beezness in Red Eye compound," he said, voice as cold as the shadows themselves. "I have a plan. And you cannot fuck it up, you are understandink?"

I shook my head.

"Rose Petal," he said. "I have to act tonight."

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:
I hope you all had a Happy Hearth’s Warming, and have a safe New Year. Thank you all for your readership and support, and your comments.

I always related to the Wastelanders, and their reliance on DJ Pon3 - their thirst not only for news, but for the kinds of ideas that tied their struggles together, and made sense of their very lives. We live in troubled and confusing times, and I think a lot of us are reaching around in the darkness, trying to find that voice, especially as our old systems prove increasingly incapable of dealing with crisis, and our existing power structures fight only to prevent real change.

I’m not looking to ignite a political debate, but suffice it to say that writing DJ Pon3 was a great joy. I deeply feel both Littlepip and Rose Petals’ longing for clarity.

I dedicate this chapter to the innocent who suffered needlessly in 2021. May they know justice, and may 2022 bring us brighter days.

The Curse of a Thousand Emus

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN - CURSE OF A THOUSAND EMUS
"It is better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them. Although I risk the likelihood of death, there is at least the possibility, if not the probability, of changing intolerable conditions. This possibility is important, because much in human existence is based upon hope without any real understanding of the odds." - Dr. Huey P. Newton

There's a world out there beyond those walls. Ponies who work, who love, who hope, and struggle, and thirst, and dream, and fear. Desperate ponies. Ponies who listen to potato machines simply to hear their own stories told.

In Safety, you're exposed to dozens of survival tales of the Wasteland. But they sound like fever dreams. Distant trauma remembered with a shudder. None of them paint a coherent picture of the wide wide wide wide world. Not like DJ Pon3 did. The landlords. The merchants. The tenants. The independent alcoves who dared to function on their own, only to get slaughtered. It was a giant ecosystem of fucked-up-itude.

And the whole time, while Red Eye painted himself as the only alternative to the madness of that ecosystem, he was actively making everything worse!

Sometimes it takes a special voice to pull that all together - to connect the dots and turn personal struggles into collective ones.

DJ Pon3 made me want to storm Red Eye's throne room, or evil lair, or whatever, and kick him in his big ugly head until he stopped!

But my friends and I weren't there to fix Fillydelphia's entire society. We had to follow Misty Mountain's objective. And that turned out to be not as black and white as I'd hoped and dreamed.

* * *

Misty had come to us, trembling. Horrified. Dripping in Fillydelphia swag. Babbling about his mission. Afraid that we'd fucked it up for him.

Foster and I sat him down in front of the kitchen table, where a plate of food - still untouched by Cliff - sat, slowly losing its steam.

Don't just stand there! All my Rose Voices chastised me at once. Make him some tea!

It was a Rose Family instinct - ingrained from generations immemorial. My hooves itched, desperate to grab a hoof full of dried leaves, pour boiling water over them, and shove the cup in Misty's face until all was magically well.

But I had no leaves. No hot water. Only Cliff's quesadilla-majig.

"Okay, so what's the plan?" I said.

"Plan?" He asked, tortilla crumbs tumbling from his muzzle.

"Let us help," Cliff pleaded.

Misty blink-bloinked his eyelids. "You are leap-before-look kind of colt, aren't you?"

Cliff's wings twisted even further inward than usual. "I'm the one who messed up," he muttered softly, almost to himself.

"Dees ees true," said Misty.

"I should make it right," said Cliff.

"Dees ees not true."

"What happens tonight?" Foster leapt in to change the subject in a hurry.

"Tonight?" Misty froze. Like a foal with one hoof halfway into a cookie jar. "Um…um…uhhhh..." he opened his mouth to speak, but for once, nothing dickish came out.

"You said it was urgent - that we had to act tonight," I pressed him. "Like, two minutes ago."

"Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay," he said. "So…" Misty sighed. De-levitated his quesadilla. Held up a hoof, like he was about to initiate a lecture. Then just buried his face in it.

Cliff Diver looked to me what-the-fuck-ishly. But I just shrugged right back at him. Misty wasn't normally like this.

"What's going on?" I said.

"Your friends - they are from your own time, yes? Dey know everythingk?"

"Yeah."

"And dey are not wuss?" He whispered conspiratorily. "You know, shy about dee fucking up of shit?"

"No," said Foster.

Cliff blushed a little. Averted his eyes. And didn't comment. Till pow!
Foster clopped him upside the head.

"Ow, what the--;"

"You threw a desk at a teacher," Foster said. "You're not a wuss."

"Fine," Cliff rubbed his head. "Yes, let's make with the 'fucking up of shit'. Now would you please tell us what's going on?"

"Okay," said Misty after a long, deep breath. "Every year, dee eve before Hearth's Warming's Eve."

"Hearth's Warming's Eve Eve," I said.

"Yes, double eve," Misty replied. "Red Eye's guards prepare for party. Dey can't do dees on dee eve itself because of other responsibility, but dee night before, the guards - they all change rotation pattern." Misty illustrated their movements by sweeping his forehooves across the table and pointing them in every conceivable direction. "Some go here. Some go there. Some get drunk. Some supervise decorations.

'During dee eve-eve, there are parts of park left unguarded."

"How do you know?" Foster asked.

It was a reasonable question. Brain hornets just sorta yell at you to do vague stuff. They don't give you dossiers on troop movements.

"Dee children of Safety know," Misty replied. "Once a year," he leaned in close - like he was whispering a great big secret. "A group of keeds break in."

"What for?" Cliff said.

"They're Wastelanders." Misty shrugged. "Ees only thing they're good at...Anyway, how much you know about amusement parks?"

I shrugged, (having never actually been to one). Cliff Diver too.

"I've read a thing or two," said Foster.

"Good," said Misty. "Den you know about dee ponies in character costume."

"Uh, vaguely," Foster admitted.

"During amusement park golden age," Misty explained. "Staff would dress up, just like famous figure from popular stories, popular books. But to keep from breaking of character, and to move from Point A to B, amusement parks had tunnels underneath. Vast networks of dem. But only one tunnel there is that goes as far as Safety, and dat part of theme park ees guarded every night...except tonight."

"Why abandon that post if it's so important?" I said. "Why not post another guard over the tunnel entrance?"

"Ah!" He smiled. "Because dey do not know about dee tunnel at all. I suspect Red Eye might have found a few of them, but he has no clue what's under dee whole park. Keeds break eento dees particular tunnel every year, and never they are caught. Dee guard posted nearby - on normal day - ees coincidence."

"What's she guarding?" Foster asked.

Misty shrugged. "Stuff? I don't know. Dee point ees: dee coast - how you say? Ees clear."

"Great," I said. "So what do we do from there?"

"Ah, we," Misty laughed nervously. "We break away from dee group. And make for bumper plows."

"Your plan is to ride the bumper plow," Cliff said dryly.

"No," Misty replied. "Dat ees slave quarters."

"Now you're talking," I said.

Ponies in need. Ponies we could help!

"No," Misty snapped. "I know what you're thinkingk. We cannot free all Fillydelphia. No Rose Petal'ingk!"

"Then what's the objective?" Foster said, get-down-to-businessly.

"There ees, um...just one slave," Misty sighed and hung his head, all dejected-like. Not the bolstering jackass-iness I'd grown to expect of him.

It was puzzling for a tiny sliver of a moment. But then, abruptishly, Misty's uncertainitude melted away. And his eyeballs got firey and feral. "I have to free her."

"I understand," I said. "But you never know. Sometimes the best way to free one pony is to free everypony. Remember?" I flashed Misty a grin.

"Eet won't work," Misty hmphed.

"That's what you said last time."

"Ees different now."

"Why?"

"Because it is!" Misty snapped.

My friends and I exchanged concernitty eyeballs. I secretly hoped that Bananas Foster would speak up - offer us some of that changeling social genius of hers. But she seemed as clueless as me.

"What's wrong?" I said.

Misty Mountain closed his eyes. His lips mouthed a countdown. '3-2-1'...and when it was over, a long, ragged breath filled his lungs. Right before he exhaled the truth. "I'm not supposed to be here."
…
…
…

"Huh?" I replied.

"I'm not on meession, Rose." Misty Mountain buried his face in his hooves. Then plunged his muzzle into the quesadilla and came up, mouth totally full. "At least," he continued. "Not dee kind of mission weeth instructions on the brain."

My stomach twisted inside me like a wet towel getting rung out. But instead of beach water, it squeezed acid all over my insides.

Our whole exit strategy - all this time - was to hitch a ride on Misty Mountain's magical mission, and...you know...surf him back to his dream beach or whatever.

"What did you do?" I whispered.

"I'm lost," he replied. "Een time."

"What?!" All three of us exclaimed at once. Even though it shoulda been obvious by that point.

Misty gawked at the floor. And fell into a sort of trance. A gloom.

He didn't look at me. Or any of us. All he said was, "There's a mare," and then that doomquiet overtook him once more. It wasn't until twenty million billion hundred thousand kajillion years of awkward silence had passed that he finally continued that thought. "On my last meession, she was...captured." Misty chose that word very carefully. "Red Eye's griffons got her. But dee Universe...will not help."

Misty spat on the floor in anger.

"Eww, gross," said Cliff.

"When meesion was over," Misty continued. "I draw line-een-sand. I was done. No more steenging een the head. No more bloodshed. No getting used and broken and tossed aside like tissue.

'So I stopped listening to voices. "Fuck dem," I say! There ees magic pill from before the war - party time mints. They make you twenty times better at whatever it is you are already good at.

'On one mission, I happenedt to find whole tin full of dem. And saved dem for rainy day.

'When Universe betrayed her," Misty shuddered. "...And they...let her be captured and enslaved, I took dee mints - two of dem. I tell you, Rose Petal. I could see beyond time. With their mint power, I reached out to other worlds. In search of her.

'But where and when I landed was always random. I tried hundreds of realms. Worlds of ponies. Of deer. One was made of candy. Sentient marshmallows. I meet peasant gumdrops. I meet dee Brittle King."

"Brittle King?" said Bananas Foster.

"Yes, but don't let name fool you. He's actually very sturdy. Made of peanut brittle. Anyway…"

Foster stumbled forward in a hurry. "I passed a sign once," she said. "When I was captured by the shadows! They carried me through many worlds - dead worlds." She propped her forehooves up on the table. Pressed her eyeballs so close to Misty's eyeballs that I thought everypony's eyeballs were gonna kiss each other. "It all went by so fast. There's only one thing that I saw clearly as we zoomed by. A sign: THIS WAY TO THE BRITTLE KING."

Misty cocked his head at Foster, and looked to me in disbelief.

"It's true," I said.

"What can you tell me about the Brittle King?'' Foster pleaded.

"I don't know! He is asshole. How about you? How did you escape?"

"I tricked them," she said. "Into letting me go."

"Dee shadows," Misty said.

"Yes."

"They...let you go?"

"Yes," said Foster. "They thought I'd spy for them, but I slipped out of their sight."

"Rose Petal! Where do you meet such ponies?" Misty turned to me, eyes as wide as moons.

"It's complicated," I replied.

"But I don't understand," said Cliff. "You took these...magic mints, and they sent you hurtling through time and space - to whole other worlds!"

"Yes," Misty confirmed. "They go squeak like rubber emu."

"You mean ducky," I said.

"Een old country, we squeak rubber emu," Misty insisted. "Dee point is thees, how you say? Universe emus - I learned to squeak dem myself - to control my course, just a leeeettle bit, and aim for specific emus. But I never found dee one I was looking for. I ran out of mints." Misty shrugged. "After dat, it was just falling. Falling. Falling...years of falling. A different world. A day at a time, week at a time.

'Sometimes, I know the language. Sometimes, I don't. Sometimes it's ponies, sometimes? Land of talking pudding. And I am pudding too."

"Pudding?" said Cliff.

"Ooh," I said. "Did you go to Sandwichia? Did you get to be a sandwich?"

Luna had told me once that The Universe won't let intruders into worlds where it wouldn't make any sense for them to be. She'd told me that dragons might even turn into dogs. But I fixated instead on the idea of journeying to the Sandwich Realm, and becoming a delectable sandwich!

"No," Misty replied. "But dee emu-verse ees very weird place. I thought I had seen everythingk. Been everywhere. After while, I am thinking: maybe I should make kill of myself. You know, so dee emus stop."

"My gosh," said Cliff.

"But then, I landed een Trottica!" Misty smiled faintly."And I heard dee voices again! I thought: I am saved! I thought: I am back on meession. And I had hope - real hope - even though I hate dee messions," Misty laughed. Shook his head somber-like. "But the voices - they were for you."

"Wait, so you were never meant to be in Trottica at all?" said Cliff.

Misty shook his head. "No."

"So if fate never paired you two, then the whole thing isn't meant to be at all! You're squeaking hundreds of emus." Cliff pointed at Misty, then swung around and directed that same forehoof at me. "And you are making your way through duckies...and all of them are places the shadows can never go again. This explains everything!"

"What dee Hell?" Misty shook his head, and shrugged in confusion. Totally smacked out of his traumatic memory by the sheer what-the-fuckishness of Clff Diver's propositions. "What are you talkingk about?"

"Tethered timelines!" Cliff answered. "Every life that you touch is a timeline that you're bound to. Just look at Rose Petal. You two could have crossed each other's paths again at any time. Her as a foal, and you as an old stallion. But here you are - still the same age. Together...It's that way with everyone."

"Everyone?" Misty tightened his lips like he'd just licked a moldy clementine.

"Yeah," said Cliff. "That's like the First Rule of ducky traveling. No do overs."

"There are rules?" Misty growled.

"They're more like...natural laws."

Misty shot his eyeballs across the room. To Cliff, to Foster, and ultimately to me. They were accusatory eyes that narrowed with fear and anger and betrayal. "There are natural laws to travelling the emu-verse, and you never told me?!"

"I didn't know!" I said. "Trottica was my first mission ever. I only found a teacher after I got back."

"What, so you have dee time-dream, and den you wake up, and just...waltz over to local emu-instructor, and learn secrets of universe?"

"No," I snorted. "It's not like that. I almost died shoveling sleepy tea into my mouth to try to find Twink again, and then I went to the hospital, and the shadows attacked me in my dreams while attacking my friends in real life, and I went to a war, and stopped the war, but, like, this Colonel wanted to start it up again, but really didn't because she was actually a good guy, and when I got back, everypony thought I was crazy, and I attacked a little girl because I thought we were back in that same warzone again, and I ran away, and almost got killed in the Everfree Forest until a donkey helped me. And then, finally, I found Zecora who taught me ancient zebra dream magic. And I studied really really really really reeeeally hard, and tried special dreaming to protect my friends because it's the last night of Winter, and shadows loooove Winter apparently. And still I screwed it up and landed here...in your ducky emu dream or whatever." I stopped to catch my breath. Held my inky shadowy death-hoof bitterly in the air. "This hasn't been easy for me either."

Misty stared at me, with foalish awe and wonder. While Cliff and Foster flanked me and pressed up against my sides. To let me know I had their support.

"I'm sorry," said Misty. "It's just that...Never would I have taken such mints had I known."

In my head, I suddenly heard that crying sound again. The wails that had haunted me. They hit my brain the second I'd landed in Fillydelphia. I somehow knew even then that they came from Misty.

"But I took mints," Misty continued. "Long before Trottica, so ees not your fault either way."

"I heard you crying," I said.

Misty looked to me with forelorn eyes.

"When we first got here," I said. "In this emu, I heard you. After all the other screams had faded."

"Ees true," he said. "I cried when I got here. Dat ees when I realized I was inside of dee correct emu - the one I make search for - but eet was still too late for do over." Misty hung his head, staring at the remains of his quesadilla. "I have to try," he said softly. "I messed up. It's too late to undo, but I have to try to make better. Dees - tonight - ees as close a chance as I can get. I should not be here. I cannot ask you to come and endanger yourself on meession with no hope, and no guidance from above. But still, it's somethingk I have to...try."

I thought of the boy I saw in the Wasteland. My very first night. I never did find out whether or not he survived Trottica. Then there were the slaughtered children of Sub Mine F, who I knew were dead and gone.

Most of all, I thought of Pinkie Pie and her determination to bring smiles, even in the most miserable of places. How she needed to try.

"Fuck that," I put my hoof on Misty's shoulder. "I'm in."

"What?"

"Fuck the Universe," I replied. "All of it. The Universe doesn't care about your mare friend. The Universe doesn't care about my family. The Universe killed Twink. Fuck it all. I'm with you."

"I'm in," said Cliff.

Foster closed her eyes. Buried her head in her hooves. Totally aware of how rash and stupid I was being. Totally powerless to stop us. "Me too," she sighed.

Misty Mountain smiled. "Now dat you are here, I do theenk dees is meant to be after all. Fate or...whatever."

"Really?" I said. "You believe that? After all you've been through?"

"First, dere ees Brittle King road sign your friend saw. Then dere is your training."

"My training?"

"Eet was zebra who helped you. And ees zebra I must save."

"A zebra slave?" I said. "Here?"

Misty nodded. "Her name is Xenith."

The name, of course, meant nothing to me, but to hear it spoken out loud filled me with dread I could not explain. A faint, but sharp discomfort that seemed to come from far away. Like a sword dangling from a thread above me, only hundreds of miles in the air.

"Hay," said Cliff Diver. "And it was also a zebra legend that you totally...You know… lived!"

Misty pointed at Cliff, while keeping his eyes fixed on me. "What ees with dees friend of yours?"

"Your whole mission," Cliff continued. "Through time and space and duckies - I mean, emus. The zebras have a cautionary tale about it - a girl named Z'orange. Who did exactly that."

"Exactly what?"

"Took a bunch of magic herbs to travel through the emuverse or whatever. She gets totally lost forever, never ever ever ever ever to be seen or heard from again."

"Yeah, let's not harp on that part," said Foster.

"You should harp," Misty replied. "I don't know how you can get home."

Suddenly, a totally random thought galloped up to me, and smashed my brain with a hammer. A memory-hammer of the destiny prophesized for me by Pinkie Pie's tarot card game. "I'm fated to meet Red Eye," the words escaped my mouth almost too fast for me to make sense of them.

"What?"

"I saw him," I said softly. "In the tarot deck. It predicted so much."

"What are you talkingk about?" Said Misty.

"There's a magic tarot deck. It predicted everything that's happened so far. Trottica. No Mare's Land. All that stuff. But The Emperor - it wasn't a card of Fillydelphia. It was him. RedEye. That means I'm destined to meet him - destined to get captured." My heart skipped a beat. "Fuck, Misty, if I go with you, your mission is destined to fail."

"Not necessarily," said Cliff. "Maybe the Universe itself has changed course."

A sudden hush fell over the room as we all contemplatized that.

"Think!" Cliff threw his hooves up and said. "Misty's not supposed to be here; we're not supposed to be here. We got to Fillydelphia through his dream door using a tail hair of his that Rose Petal keeps around her neck - a hair she's not supposed to have in the first place."

"You have my tail hair?" Misty turned to me, utterly confuzzled.

"Whatever plan the universe had," Cliff continued. "...The brain hornets, or The Powers That Be, or whatever? What if that plan is ruined by now?"

"Ees only a guess," said Misty. "Dere is no way to know."

We all nodded grimly, musing on the implications of such a fate working either for or against us - a power that controlled our very lives, but refused to let itself be seen. Or let it be known whose side it was on.

What if we had fucked up The Plan so badly that destiny was totally fucking making shit up as it went along? Like one of Cliff Diver's blues idols.

"Why you have my tail hair?" said Misty, unconsciously checking his flank to see if anything was missing.

"It got stuck in my teeth."

Misty crinkled his face. "Gross."

"Yeah, yeah yeah," I said. "So what do we do now?"

"The right thing," answered Bananas Foster.

"Really?" said Cliff.

"Yes," Foster replied coldly. "In absence of any clear course of action from above - a mother, a brain hornet, a voice from beyond the emu-verse - it seems that the only objective rubric is...doing what's right."

Cliff looked at Bananas like she had forty-seven-and-a-half eyeballs.

"For the family," Foster clarified. "Of course. What's right for the family."

"The plan then?" I said. "While the guards are all pouring their Wasteland egg nog or whatever, we find Xenith, and then what, Misty? What do we do once we find her?"

"My plan was sewer system," he replied. "Even further below than dee tunnels. All the troops in Fillydelphia couldn't find us weeth team of bloodhound."

"Then how would we find the way?" Cliff asked.

"Ah! I used to play there with my sister," Misty beamed. "Before dee war came to our doorstep. Before dee theme park. Before…" The smile on Misty's face faded. A darkness seemed to come over him. A brief flicker. But he never did finish that thought. Instead he shook his head. Forced himself to stand upright. "Trust me," he said, twice as arrogant as ever. "You drop me in sewer, I'll get us out of the city."

"Good," Cliff replied.

"Buuuut…" Misty continued. "Now dat I have new friends, maybe we can do somethingk better." A mischievous smirk creased its way across his muzzle.

"Like what?" I said.

"I find Xenith, and you get us all out of here with your zebra magic," Misty replied.

"It doesn't work like that,'' said Foster.

"Yeah," I added. "I can, like, use your hair to find your dream door, but I don't know how to get out of your dreams from where we are now. And I have no idea how to teach you to get out of it yourself."

"Why not?" Misty whimpered.

"This isn't a normal dream. It's a ducky...emu...thing. Dream traveling means finding a neutral landscape in your mind, and searching for a door to the outside of your brain."

"What if you napped?" said Foster. "Here and now in Safety. That'd be like a regular dream! Wouldn't it?"

Misty's face lit up like a Hearth's Warming tree. "Yes!" he exclaimed. "I sleep. Here in Safety. I have dee regular dreams."

"I still can't find your door again," I said. "I'm already in it."

"Teach me to make find of yours!" Misty cried. "If I go in your dream door…"

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no," said Cliff Diver. "That's bad...Like...really bad."

"Boolsheet," said Misty. "Eet will work. It has to!" He planted his hooves against the ground and dug in like a bull, prepping to charge. He had found his tiny shred of hope, damnit, and was prepared to defend it.

"Hell-ooo!" Cliff sang out. "Frostingsweet's Theorem!"

Misty, Foster, and I all just sort of turned to one another at once. A strange solidarity born of confusion.

"Ugh," said Cliff as he clopped his hoof to his forehead. "Okay, so...the fabric of space and time is like...well, um...fabric!" He darted to his cot, gripped a blanket in his teeth and dragged it back to us, knocking over everything in its path: clothes, saddlebags, a lamp. He laid it out over the coffee table where the potato device had been assembled only a short while earlier. "Okay, you see that red stitch?"

Cliff pointed to some of the embroidery. It was a plain brown blanket, kinda ratty and fuzzy - but it had border stitches of different colors, machine sewn, running parallel to one another.

"Yes," said Misty.

"That's you."

"I don't want to be the red one."

"Why not?"

Misty pointed to his cerulean self with vigorous indignance.

"Fine," groaned Cliff. "You're the blue one, and Rose is the red one." Cliff pointed to another zig-zaggedy stitch made of red thread, running parallel.

"Better," said Misty.

"You two are in sync, even when you're apart." He ran his forehooves across both threads. "And when you meet - which isn't supposed to happen at all - your timelines fold, and line up."

He bent the time-blanket neatly, pressed the threads against one another, and then unfolded it back to normal.

The tips of his forehooves continued to trace parallel lines along the seams of the blanket. Like two wagons riding along side one another.

"When we went through your door, it, like…undid the thread, and sewed Rose over to this side." Cliff pressed the two seams of the blanket further together. "If we were to somehow get you through Rose Petal's door…" Cliff looped one corner of the blanket around, crumpled it up, and mashed it so hard into itself, that he lost track of his own tongue and let it hang out the side of his mouth. "And then, like, your thread would rip a hole over here, and get stuck and turn the whole blanket into a knot!" He paused to pant and catch his breath.

"Dee blanket, meaning…" Misty examined it closely, as though the fleece itself had cosmic secrets woven into it.

"The Universe! The duckyverse! Emus! Time! Everything!" Cliff jumped up and down, losing his breath all over again. "You're gonna rip it!"

All four of us gawked at the crumpled up blanket. As though it were a warrant for our own execution. My own heart slammed at the inside of my ribcage like a wild hydra flailing its gazillion heads against the inside of a cave. Boom boom boom boom boom. We were doomed. Deeply and truly doomed.

"Alright," said Bananas Foster. "Let's not do that, then."

"So, how do we get the fuck out of here?" I uncrumpled Cliff Diver's time-blanket. Laid it out neatly on the coffee table. As though that would help. Somehow.
…
…
…

"There's, uh...one other pony you can call," said Cliff.

A chill fell over the room. A sort of silent dread between my Ponyville friends and I.

"No," said Foster. "Absolutely not. She's the Inquisitor."

"She might not be Inquisiting anymore when she comes to our door," Cliff rebutted.

"Rose," Foster pled. "We can't trust that. Tell him."

"I don't know," I said, clutching my mojo bag with the sock inside. "I guess it's 50-50."

"You saw her turn into a shadowy...thing, and chase you through the halls of the dream realm!" Foster exclaimed. "And you say it's 50-50?!"

"I don't know who's in charge of her mind right now," I said. "The dog, or the monster."

"What in Equestria everypony ees talking about?!" Misty shouted.

"I have a friend," I said, stroking the outline of Screw Loose's sock through my mojo bag. "She can move between dreams - better than anypony in the emu-verse - but she's fragile, and broken. The inside of her head is full of shadows. If I call to her, I don't know if she'll come, or if they will," I spoke slowly, choosing my words carefully. Screw Loose's inner demons were her own business, and my friends had already said too much.

I didn't even know if she was okay! If that shadow demon inquisamajig had managed to escape her mind, and rampage across the land of dreams. If the evil castle itself had seen and found her, and strapped her into the chair all over again. I didn't know anything!

Foster put a hoof on my shoulder. But I just stared off into space. Worrying about my dog.

"So," Cliff's tail deflated. "What now?"

Another contemplatey hush fell over the room. Totally silent but for the sound of distant laughter in the halls.

Then, out of nowhere, Misty Mountain went fucking nuts. He threw himself at Cliff's blanket and started tugging and chomping and stamping it.

"Get fucked," he growled. "Get fucked, time blanket! Get fucked!"

Stomp, stomp, chew, tear.

Cliff leapt in and tugged the fleece away, but Misty bit down like an angry dog.

"Stop it," Cliff said.

"No," said Misty. "Time ees dumb! I hate it."

"Yeah, but I need this to keep warm," Cliff snapped.

Misty froze, opened his mouth casually, and let his corner of the blanket tumble out of it.

Cliff held the ragged fleece up, and grimaced at the patches that got slobbered on.

"Maybe the mission is still the way out," I said.

"No," whispered Misty.

"Hear me out," I said. "You're not supposed to be here; I'm not supposed to be here. Our whole friendship fucks with the master plan of…" I stopped mid-sentence, tongue-tied. I reared up in frustration, flailed my legs as my brain-mouth struggled to come up with words - the kinda words that formed actual sentence that made some fucking sense. "...The Hooves of Fate," I said at last, borrowing a phrase from Great Aunt Roseroot's notebook o' lunatic ramblings. "None of this is supposed to happen. Every step we take screws up the Powers that Be, and their chess game against the shadows."

"Yes," said Misty. "Welcome to being foresaken. I know."

"Listen," I said. "Fate might still be with us. Our coming together like this. Your zebra friend. My zebra mentor. All this dream magic and stuff. The Brittle King. It all lines up." I gestured to Cliff Diver, "You pointed out that fate might be like the leader of a blues band. The basic outline of a song is there, and the rest is all improv."

"Yeah," Cliff affirmed.

"So maybe I'm not gonna meet Red Eye after all. Maybe I will. Maybe moving forward with this mission - us, here right now - is the new plan."

"Eet isn't," said Misty.

"It might be," I said. "And if that's the case, we do what Foster said, and try anyway. Do the right thing. Rescue your friend."

We all stood there in a circle, somber-like. Trying to make sense of...well...everything. While the distant laughter in the hallways slowly simmered down to a gentle hush.

"Your analysis ees not complete," said Misty at last.

Our heads all creaked toward him.

"What eef dee, um... Fate Hooves are not like jazzy musicians," Misty continued. "What eef they are rigid in plans, and want we should fail?"

I thought of Mom, driven mad by her brain hornets. Of Great Aunt Roseroot, whose mental decline was way way way way waaaay worse. I thought of Misty's zebra friend toiling away in some hellish Trottica-like mine. And the torment that Misty himself had gone through, bouncing from emu to emu to emu, desperate to undo a tragic mistake. I thought of Twinkle Eyes, lying bleeding in my lap. Begging me not to leave her. All because that was the way it was supposed to be.

"I want no part of them," I said. "If Fate wants to stop us from rescuing a slave, I want no part of it - any of it."

"Don't be stupid," Misty said. "Don't end up like me."

"At first sign of trouble," I said. "I'll call Screw Loose." I gripped my mojo bag. Felt the sock squish inside. "But we should still give it a shot."

"And if the Inquisitor comes through instead?" said Foster. "What then?"

"We'll, I dunno...improvise," I said. "Make blues music or whatever. Our alternative is to stay here, and go to stupid Red Eye class for the rest of our lives."

"Improvise?!" squeaked Bananas Foster. "One does not simply walk into Fillydelphia, summon the shadows when things go South, and then improvise."

"Your loud friend has point," said Misty. "Ees not like Trottica. You can not just...kick rock, and expect it to land one-een-meellion shot, and shatter your captor's horn. Foal's luck: it only works on messions."

"You don't know Screw Loose like I do." I clutched my mojo bag close to my chest like it was a wounded kitten. "I can get through to her."

"Then call her now," said Cliff.

…
…
…

"Um…"

"Call her."

My grip tightened around the mojo bag. Suddenly, I wasn't so sure.

"Wait!" Foster interrupted my thoughts, or lack thereof. "What if I'm doing the shadows' will right now? What if this is how I deliver them The Inquisitor?"

"Dees ees way too much shadow business," said Misty.

"Screw Loose is not a monster," I said. "She's a victim."

"I'm not going back there," said Foster. "Not for anything."

"Calling her is only a last resort," I said.

"We don't even have a first resort other than 'improvise'."

"So what's our alternative?" I said. "Wait it out? Hang around for a year going to Red Eye class? Try again next Hearth's Warming?"

"We'd have each other," Foster whispered.

Like a cart on fire, it hit me. The thing that should have been obvious. When Foster wakes up, she'll be back in Ponyville General Hospital. Entombed in her bubble. Allergic to touch.

She'd been playing it down. This whole time. She did it so well, I'd almost forgotten. These last few days with her and Cliff. It felt like we'd always been that way. Together.

But the moment we got home, she was gonna lose everything. And still, she never once questioned our plans.

We were her hive.

Cliff rushed in to hug her. I followed. Foster closed her eyes and leaned into both of us. A warmth seemed to course between us. 'Cause in her touch, there was a sad and desperate sort of magic. Knowing that this or any hug could be our last.

Foster's hoof drifted to mine. And I felt a tingly spark. A glow. Same as the day when my evil shadowhoof first pierced her bubble.

"I know how you feel," said Misty, who stood on the periphery. "...To not want to go home," he clarified.

Foster set her tingly magic hoof down. Drifted away from the hug, and towards Misty.

"I...I'm sorry," Misty said to her. Not an apology, but a condolence.

And it stung. 'Cause, like...Misty was lost in time and space and emus. For years! And his only concern that whole fucking time was Xenith. It made me wonder what was so wrong with Misty's home life that he had no thought at all of going back to it. What had happened to his sister who he used to play in the sewers with?

Misty closed his eyes. Swallowed his throat apple hard, and continued. "...But you couldn't stay here even eef you wanted to. Dee emus - they get anger-y. Spit you out sooner or later." Misty took a step back, marveling at the ceiling, and bare walls of our dorm room, as if he expected them to fizzle away at any moment. "Ees miracle I have been in Safety thees long. Eef there ees chance that we escape thees place, we should take. Even eef we piss off fate. Or have to make run from shadows. Anything beats life as bowl of tapioca pudding."

Foster stared at her hooves for a good long while. Scraping them against the dorm's hard floor. Had they been claws or monkeys' fists, she would have clenched them.

Then, a sort of calm fell over her. She didn't move a muscle. But I felt it. Maybe cause we hive-minded or something. Or maybe just 'cause feelings are like that sometimes.

But it was like a great storm suddenly fading to a drizzle.

"Okay," she said. "Let's do it."

Her voice was cold. Alarmingly cold. So fucking cold that it actually made me do a total 180, and second guess our entire 'plan', or lack thereof.

"We don't have to run in blind," said Cliff. "When we get home, we'll find a way. We'll--;"

Foster flicked a hoof of dismissal at Cliff. She was on a roll. "We have no idea how fate will react, or the shadows. Or Screw Loose. We have no idea if we can pull any of this off. But Misty has to act tonight. So let's just...try...and get it over with."

"I don't know you," Misty replied. "Or what hell you have at home waiting, but, for me, you don't haff to do anythingk."

"I'm doing it for me," Foster replied. "I finally have a body that I can put to use. Even if I could stay - even if I could avoid turning into tapioca pudding, it would be insane to spend this body cowering in some classroom, idling away my time!" Foster shook her head. "Such a waste."

She seemed to harden somehow. Like one of those statues you see in museums - historical figures looking boldly toward the horizon. Unshakable. Resolute.

A chill ran right across my spine.

Foster was prepared to go back to her bubble prison if it meant getting us home. She was also ready to die saving us in the act of "improvising" if that's what it took.

It kinda scared me.Given a choice of those two fates, Foster was clearly hoping for the latter.

"There's just one thing," Foster turned to Misty Mountain and said.

An awkward moment passed. And it grew awkwarder and awkwarder and awkwarder and awkwarder and awkwarder. It was super weird 'cause she'd held herself like a fucking queen just a few moments before. But the uncertain silence only grew worse. Till, at last, Misty replied, "Uh...yes?"

"I need you to understand that I'm not evil," she said.

"I know dees."

"No," Foster held her head up, like a stubborn pirate traitor walking the plank imperiously, determined to drown with dignity. "I've only known you a very short time, Misty. But you're family to Rose, and you've been decent to me."

Misty grumbled at the sentimentality.

"So I'm going to show you something, so that you're not surprised if it, um...happens while we're out in the field."

"Okay."

Foster took a deep breath. Then another one. And another one. She whispered a little message to the heavens, for her dead mom's ears. From what little I could make out, it was an exasperated sigh, Sweet Mother, I've only known him a day.

Then Foster closed her eyes. And in a single flash of green flame, she took on the shape of Doppleganger Misty.

The real Misty didn't blink. Just stared. Took slow, deliberate motions, expecting Foster to mirror him, but of course, she didn't. She just poof! Turned into me. Doppleganger Rose Petal. And before I could even process how fucking weird it was to see a copy of myself...poof! Foster transformed into her true self. Changeling Scout Thirteen. Complete with bulbous green eyes and dull glossy exoskeleton. "I'm a changeling," she said.

"Nice," Misty replied. "Good to know. Very very useful, this could be."

Thirteen cocked her head like a confuesitty dog. "That's it?" she squeaked. "No, 'ahhh', or 'how do I know you're not a shadow,' or...get away from me, or...anything?!"

"Meh," Misty shrugged. "I've seen weirder."

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:
Happy Lunar New Year!

In honor of Princess Luna's love of children, and this story's theme of lost children, I will be donating the Patreon proceeds for those chapters to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Battle Math

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT - BATTLE MATH
"Pick your battles. Nope. That's too many battles. Put some battles back." - Anonymous Meme

You ever heard the phrase: you've got to pick your battles? Like...you're supposed to take a good hard look at everything that matters in the whole wide world and then just sort of pretend not to give a damn about half of that.

I used to hate that phrase. 'Cause it's fucking dumb. The more battles you fight, the more you're going to win! That's just…you know…basic battle math.

But it's different when the ideas you're fighting for are actual real life ponies. It's different when the enemies you're fighting use actual real bullets against you.

It felt weird to be planning a jail break in a slave compound - risking fire and death and torture under the ominous stare of the Pinkie Pie Balloons o' Doom - just to save one lady. It felt wrong. Like we shoulda been toppling the whole damn thing. Roller coaster, Fillydelphia, Red Eye, and all.

I mean…isn't that what I'd hated about the Powers That Be in the first place? That they valued one life over another? That they'd murder Twink just to save Strawberry Lemonade. That they'd sacrificed the kids of Sub Mine F in the process?

But Misty and I - we couldn't save everybody. Not this time. At least probably not.

This time, the universe wasn't on our side. It sucked! And the sucky cherry on top of the sucky whipped cream on top of the sucky ice cream was the fact that this zebra that we hinged all our hopes on? I had a bad feeling about her. Something I couldn't put into words.

But what could we do…except follow the plan?

* * *

The Safety Super-Secret Society of Sneakers, (or S.S.S.S.S.), had arranged to rendezvous at 11:00 pm. New kids - inductees who hadn't been around a full year, (or had simply never journeyed Fillydelphia's tunnels into the amusement park before) - were to assemble at the Magenta Building three clicks South of my dorm. The idea was that we could all leave in time to get "initiated" by midnight.

What the fuck any of that actually meant was totally beyond me. I had no idea what our "initiation'' was gonna entail. And as far as I could tell, a "click" is just what you call a city block whenever you're being reeeeal strategical and military and sneaky.

Misty didn't have a fucking clue either. Our plan was to break away from the S.S.S.S.S. entirely, and make for the bumper plows. But we still needed them to get in. And that meant we had a couple of hours to kill.

* * *

Cliff Diver, Bananas Foster, Misty Mountain, and me wasted the evening away, just sorta...hanging around. Napping in shifts. Playing cards - weird versions of Go Fish, and Rummy that I hadn't played before. 'Cause it was an old wartime deck. Six suits. One for each "ministry," (which, apparently, were governing bodies led by a bunch of grownups from my hometown).

"Ha! Four of Eemage," said Misty, laying a card down on the table, bearing the emblem of a militarized banner: Rarity's cutie mark.

"Not so fast!" said Cliff. "You thought you had the final Seven Card in the deck. But you're forgetting: Pinkie's wild."

Cliff Diver laid down a card depicting Pinkie Pie, somewhat gray-haired, bursting out of a giant birthday present full of confetti. "I declare this...a seven! Mwahahah!"

"Gah!" Misty humphed.

"How long have you been holding on to that Pinkie card?" I said.

"I don't know," Cliff grinned a wicked little grin. "How long have we been playing?"

"Oooh!" said Misty, suddenly alarmed. "Too long! We should wake Bananas Foster."

"She's not really asleep," Cliff replied.

"Yes, but she deserves time to herself like anypony else...er...anychangeling...um..."

"Technically," Foster called out from the couch, eyes still closed. "The term is anycreature. But we should stick to 'anypony' for simplicity's sake. It's a stupid thing to trip up on."

"How long have you been awake?" Misty snorted.

"I told you," Foster rolled off the couch, stretched, and rose to her hooves. "I rarely sleep. But I do appreciate the time to think."

"You alright?" Cliff asked.

"Of course," Foster twisted her neck, and spine, crunching all her bones together. It sounded like a maraca getting slowly crushed beneath an elephant's hoof. "How about you?" she added hastily. "Have you eaten?"

Cliff Diver lowered his hoof, and the cards with them. Laid 'em face-down flat on the table. "I can't."

"Still?" said Foster. "You really should."

"We've been over this," I said. "He's not gonna."

"This isn't just about you," Foster jumped in. "It's about the mission." Bananas Foster got all statuesque. Again. As if to say, 'I'm totally gonna die tonight, and it's going to be 'cause I saved you. The least you could do is take care of yourself, and bring your A-game.'

"I'll be fine," Cliff replied. "I go to bed without supper, like, you know, all the time." He hung his head.

Foster looked to me. Appalled. Furious as ever at Cliff Diver's parents, who were, you know, punitively not fucking feeding him. It was obvious. But we didn't say anything. It would be positively awful to rub it in.

"Whoa," said Misty, totally fucking rubbing it in. "Eet sounds like your parents - they are asshole who don't love you at all."

Clonk! Foster smacked Misty upside the head.

"Oww!"

"Dude, shut up," Foster snapped.

"He's right," said Cliff Diver, staring down at his overturned cards like they were crystal balls, about to reveal the secrets of the universe. He gazed really really reeeeally really hard. Until, at last, his eyes flung open. Like windows getting their shutters blasted off into a thousand tiny pieces by a giant firecracker. "If my parents did love me," he said. "Then...I would never have ended up here, would I?"

I rushed to apologize for the millionth time. For dragging him and Foster into this. But Cliff wouldn't let me.

"I'd never have found my way here!" Cliff giggled. "...With the best friends anypony could ever hope for. Haha!"

Cliff plowed into us both, sweeping us into a giant hug.

"Eep!" I eeped eepishly in surprise.

While Foster sighed. Leaned in. Pressed her head against Cliff Diver's big gray neck.

It was a relief. A massively gargantuan super big deal, in fact! I'd never seen Cliff Diver actually happy after talking about his parents!

"Dee sights of Fillydelphia - they might make you wish you never come," Misty said.

And one by one, we all turned our heads to him. Then, drearily, to one another.

"It's almost time, you know," said Cliff Diver.

"Yeah," I replied.

We eyed the door in silence. As if a clan of Safety kids was gonna swoop in at any minute, and sweep us off to the slave pits of Pinkie Land for a Sneaker Secret Society adventure.

But they didn't, of course. And in a way, that only made it worse. To have to...sorta...work up the energy to go out there on our own. Knowing that the four of us had only just gotten together a couple of hours ago - that Misty had only barely met my friends.

That this was probably the last time we'd all get to play cards together.

"Okay," Misty clopped his forehooves together. "We should be goingk." But he didn't stand up. Or do much of...anything really. He sat there. Like the rest of us.

"Yep," said Cliff, fidgeting with his mane. "We should."

"Alright!" said Foster. "Let's do it." And suddenly she was back to being all noble and…statuey again.

I didn't like it. But I didn't like anything about this.

There were no hornets yelling at me to save anypony in particular, nor voices urging me to get to any doors or anything, but it all felt wrong somehow. Whenever my brain tried to picture the slave compound, and the zebra who needed rescuing, I got a headache. And the entire plan just felt kinda sorta, you know…off.

"Dee bug ees right," said Misty. "We go!"

"You should get outta the habit of calling her that," I said.

"Rose has a point. You don't wanna slip up," Foster added. Totally unfazed by getting referred to as 'the bug.' Her only concern was blending in.

"Bah,'' said Misty. "I've been stranger een a hundred lands. I can keep my facts straight."

"It'll mess Rose Petal up," Foster leaned in and whispered. As though I couldn't hear.

Misty's eyes met mine.

"It's true," I shrugged.

"Okay,'' said Misty. "No bug talk. But we should make movingk. 3...2...1…Go!"

Cliff and Foster made for the door, but Misty still didn't move. Neither did I.

"Why the hesitation?" I said to Misty as if my own passivity - my own braindoubts - weren't also nailing my hooves to the floor. "You're the one who's all: I must save my zebra friend! I must try!"

"There's somethingk I'm forgettingk," he replied, deep in thought.

"We don't have time for forgetting," said Cliff Diver, gesticulating wildly at the door.

But nopony listened. A hush sunk into the air, as Misty neither remembered, nor moved to action. While I twittled my hooves in indecision.

Twittle twittle.

"Ugh!" I cried out at last. "This sucks. It's like…" I paused to correlate my feelings, but totally failed to do anything of the sort. "It's like…, um...like…" My brain searched far and wide across the Plains of Brainitude for the right word, even as my mouth kept babbling the wrong ones. "Like, like, like…"

Gahhhhhh! There had to be something I could say. To make it all better. To get everypony charged up, galloping confidently toward the mission (that I had dragged half of us into to begin with). But I couldn't. I didn't even know how to express how I felt. Until, outta nowhere, it hit me.

"Ooh!" I cried out suddenly. "It's like that time when Pinkbeard and her first mate got marooned on the Lost Isle of Inertium. And Clam Clam, the nerdy navigator had to command the rest of the mission all by himself. Even though he's always been the math guy.

'And in the meantime, everycreature is just sorta stuck where they are after breathing the Cursed Fog of Eternal Ennui. And it takes the Lost Crystal of--;"

"Dat ees eet!" Misty leapt from his stool laughing. "I remember!"

He dashed for his saddlebag, all-of-a-sudden-like, and plunged his face inside. "I forgot to mention," he cackled. "Dees fate. Dees theeng that makes bring of us together! Yesterday, I discover pre-war text in Glenn's library, and immediately, I think of you, Rose Petal."

"Me?"

"Yes, you, stupid. Before I even knew you were here! Ahaha!"

Cliff stepped away from the door, and approached Misty. "That makes sense," he said. "We've actually been in this ducky--;"

"Emu," said Misty.

"Sorry, emu," Cliff corrected himself. "We've been in...Fillydelphia for two days now. We got here yesterday. You say you found this book yesterday?"

"That explains it!" said Misty, totally sure of our mystical connection. "Yes!"

"What did you find?'' Foster asked.

Misty Mountain kept a meticulous saddlebag. I could tell just by glancing in it. A bundle of rope, a canteen of water, little balls of tin foil (presumably wrapped around some foodish substance or another), all spaced out evenly. Super orderly-like. But he levitated the only item in there not of practical value to survival.

It was a beat up old book. No binding. (It looked like it had never even had one - just a bundle of pages held together with rotting, ancient ribbons).

"Thees," said Misty. "Thees remind me of you."

"What is it?" I said, but even before Misty floated it to me, my heart stopped and my lungs choked for air. 'Cause I saw the title plain as day.

"Pinkbeard and the Princess of Stripes?!'' I said.

"Ees pirate book,'' said Misty. "I figured you would like."

"I've never seen this one," I whispered in awe. "And wait, how did you know I liked these books? I never mentioned it until now."

"Uhh...You make run up and down mines of Trottica. Saying, 'Yarrr, yarr, YARRR. I am pirate, but not whiny pirate, yarrrrr.'"

"I never said that!" I exclaimed. "I mean, not out loud."

Foster snickered. And Cliff made a point of turning away.

"Hold on, do I do that?"

Foster shrugged. While Cliff Diver coiled up and shrunk.

"Cliff, do I? Do I yarrrr?"

"Well, no...not that I've noticed, I mean uh...yeah...kinda...sometimes…well, all the time actually."

Misty busted out laughing. Foster too. They clutched one another, cackling at me all the while.

"Hmmph," I said, laying the decrepit old book gently on the coffee table. I plunged my muzzle into its pages, starting with the preface at the very beginning - a heartfelt open letter from the author to her readers:

When I was a little filly, I wanted nothing more than to grow a beard - a big, fat, bushy beard; or perhaps, a long, straight one that I could braid like some manner of barbarian king. Every day, and every night, I wore a false one. (It had been part of a lumberjack costume that I'd stolen from my brother after he'd finished using it on Nightmare Night).

Against my mother's wishes, I snuck it to school on my first day of Kindergarten. As you can probably imagine, it did not go well for me. The other children were quite cruel, and that night, I cried myself to sleep for the first (of many) times. However, I did not stop smuggling beards to class. For years, I found a way, whether through cheap costumery, or clever make-up tricks, (speckling my chin with "stubble" fashioned from my sister's eyeliner pencil).

Though my acquaintances were few, and my friends fewer - though I came home often with sour milk clumped in my mane, or paint splashed upon my coat - markings made by sadistic classmates unchecked by the educational authorities - it paled in comparison to the experience of looking in the mirror each day, and seeing a bald, unbearded chin.

From the primordial depths of this childhood longing - from the scars - (literal scars) - I'd won for daring to express it - a pirate named Pinkbeard was born.

This rugged sea captain had a lot in common with that scared little girl who couldn't fit in, only Pinkbeard managed to grow her mighty beard by sheer force of will.

Those of you who have been reading and following her saga for all this time should know that this series is about freedom - not only from oppressive institutions like the East Equestria Trading Company, but from social mores as well. Captain Pinkbeard's hallmark phrase, "I am what I am what I am," is more than a motto. It is a way of life.

As I sit now, fifty years after publishing my first novel, I do not regret selling my house to finance the publication of this very book that you now hold in your hooves, dear reader, for though easy financing was to be had for soulless pulp, (should I choose to write some), it was far more important to me to stay true to the values that made Pinkbeard special in the first place.

You have probably heard the buzz - read the headlines calling me a "traitor" for daring to write a children's book in praise of zebras in these admittedly troubled times. However, it was precisely my experience as that little girl who cried herself to sleep at night that made it impossible for me to remain silent in the face of the injustices that zebras face today. This novel, which will undoubtedly mean my financial ruin, if not outright arrest, is a story that must be told.

We all need Pinkbeard, now more than ever, to whisk us misfits away from the fillies who pour sour milk upon our manes - away from the parents who decry our beards and "zebra-loving" ways - and carry us off to a real family, and show us the sort of love that can only be found on the open sea amongst fellow outcasts.

Though I strongly suspect that this book will be the series' final installment, I'd rather the S.S. Beardo go down in flames than die with a whisper, subordinated to this jingoistic atrocity we call "the war effort."

To all of my fans who have supported me these long years, you have my eternal gratitude. Though you owe me nothing, I ask one small favor of you - that you give this book a chance, and consider the zebrish race, not as mere enemies, but as reflections of that scared little girl who only ever wanted to grow a beard.

"Ees amazing dat copy survived," said Misty. "I remember when thees book come out. There were burnings in every city and town."

"What?!" said me, and Cliff, and Foster. All together at once.

Foster may have survived the Shadow Castle. And Cliff may have survived...well…Cliff's parents. But the notion of burning books?! On fucking purpose? It was monstrous. Insane! And Pinkbeard? Burning Pinkbeard?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Why would anyone burn Pinkbeard?" I whispered. "Just 'cause of a stupid zebra character?"

"Dee war - dee patriotic fever - is impossible to describe," Misty shook his head. "But at dee time, eet was unthinkable to praise zebra. Which is why no publisher would touch thees book. Dee parents - dey gathered in school playgrounds, and made dee Pinkbeard fires."

"Which emu did that happen in?" I said, clutching the stack of shoddily bound pages to my chest as though it were a newborn foal.

"My home emu," answered Misty. "I remember dee burnings - dee anger at dee zebra princess character - but never could I read them. I didn't know how copy could be found.

'But here it ees now - een Safety of all places - and eet made me think of you. Not just because of YARR, but also, dee stubbornness of author."

Slowly, gently, I eased Pinkbeard and the Princess of Stripes closed. Carried it to the door, and slipped it in my own saddle bag.

Without saying a word, I suited up for the cold. Coat and scarf and boots and hat. "Let's save your zebra friend," I said at last.

Sometimes you just gotta fight like a pirate.

* * *

We slipped out back so none of the grown-ups would see us. Misty led the way. First through the alleyway where I'd spied a jumpsuit slave the night before; then down the mane thoroughfare. All of the long rainbow rows of crazy-colored buildings were shades of gray now, except for the blades of light cast by lampposts, and gashes of shadow in the alleyways.

'Three clicks South' apparently means three blocks further away from the amusement park. Further away from the wall. Further away from the logical fucking place to stick an entranceway to a tunnel meant for mascot-headed park employees.

I didn't like it.

"Why would they build a tunnel all the way over here?" I whispered.

Cliff tossed his head left and right, and up and down, and spun himself around. "Yeah," he said. "You've got a point. It makes no sense."

"Shush," said Misty. "I don't know. I wasn't told much theengs. Or else I would seemply go by myself."

"Shut up!" Foster grabbed me and Cliff by our tails. And zoink! Yanked us behind a dumpster. She covered my mouth so I couldn't yelp.

"What, you need to--;" said Misty, ready to scold us. But his eyes flew open suddenly. "Damnit!"

He dove behind the dumpster too.

"What?" I tried to whisper through Foster's hoof, but Misty threw another hoof over my mouth. To double shut me up.

That's when a sprite bot floated by. Eerily silent. Completely ignorify-able. Till bzzzt! It rotated one of its periscope-a-majigs. The Eyes of Safety.

I crunched myself into a ball. Peeked an eyeball between two locks of my own hair, and fixated on that lens-ish-looking thing. Hoping it wouldn't turn our way.

Slowly, steadily, the spritebot passed us by, drifting like a fluffkin shed from the head of a dandelion. And after a few hundred heartbeats, it slid all the way down Mane Street, rounded a corner, and was gone.

Misty poked his head out first. Followed by Foster. Then Cliff, then me. Pop, pop, pop, pop. Like a broken whack-a-mole table where, like, all the moles stayed out once they emerged, and, you know, played sentry-or-whatever to make sure that a sprite bot didn't catch them wandering around outside of their mole holes at night.

My friends and I stepped out onto the sidewalk, and tip-hooved forward. That's when we saw a whole other herd of kids. Half a block away. Five or six of them. Emerging from an archway.

Cliff pointed, but Foster grabbed him by the hoof.

"Come," Misty whispered. "Quickly!"

We trailed the herd. Or tried to. They moved damn fast, even though their hooves didn't make a sound. While Cliff and I cla-dunked along in our Safety-issued winter boots.

Cla-dunk, cla-dunk, cla-dunk, cla-dunk, cla-dunk.

The dark figures slid further and further and further and further and further and further and further and further ahead, but we didn't dare trot, lest the cla-dunkening intensify.

"I thought you knew the way," Cliff whispered to Misty.

"I know dee building," Misty replied. "Not dee exact way in, or what to do once eenside--:"

We cla-dunked after them some more. Jerking our limbs around like kindergarteners playing with tissue boxes on their hooves...Till Fwoomf! A little boy popped his head out at us from above. Hanging upside down like a bat.

"Shhh!" he brought his upside down hoof to his upside down lips, and said.

We all leapt back. Foster instinctively threw her hoof over my mouth again so I wouldn't yelp. I brushed it away, thoroughly insulted.

I had sneaking experience, damnit!

Upsidedown Boy looked us over carefully. I stepped forward, and did the same to him. His hindquarters were entangled around the ladder of a fire escape. In the lamplight, he seemed to have a yellow complexion; long purple hair that gravity pulled away from his head; and eyes green like grapes. "Yer gonna get us all caught," he said.

"We only want make join of your club," said Misty.

"Why?" Upsidedown Boy narrowed his eyes at Misty, then at me.

"To see theme park," Misty replied.

"You can see the park on field trips." The colt somersaulted off of the fire escape. Landed without a sound. It was only then that I got a sense of just how small he was. Maybe half Bananas Foster's size.

"Why tonight?" Formerly Upsidedown Boy grilled Misty. "Why us?"

"'Cause it's sneakier that way," said Cliff Diver.

The little boy scratched his chin. Smirked. "I like the way you think, New Kid. Lose the clonkers," he pointed to Cliff's boots. "And you're in."

We rushed to shuffle, and kick our boots off. I ended up on my back, squirming. Tuuugggging at my final clonker. Till Misty came right up to me, tugged on my shoelace with a gentle bit of magic, and the whole thing slid right off.

"Carry them with you till I can find a safe place to stash 'em," said the little boy, already dashing ahead.

He led us around the corner. Down a thin walkway between buildings. Steamy mist poured out of an exhaust pipe jutting from a nearby wall. But the fog didn't slow us down. A few zigs, and a half dozen zags later, and we were in some kinda courtyard, surrounded by the back ends of a bunch of buildings.

The one on the far end was magenta.

"How'd you hear about us?" Formerly Upsidedown Boy whispered to Misty.

"I haff good ears."

Formerly Upsidedown Boy nodded, apparently pleased with Misty's answer.

He led us silently along the perimeter of the courtyard, hugging the sides of buildings as he went. Other kids did the same on the wall opposite us. Slinking like...well...like Wastelanders. Nothing in the world is sneakier. (Except maybe ninjas).

Before we reached the Magenta Building, our guide steered us into a little crevice. He gestured at a nearby dumpster - a place to hide our boots, (which we did without question).

It was then, in that deep city quiet, that Formerly Upside Down Boy gave us a little speech. "Listen," he said. "The Secret Society of Safety Super Sneakers is very serious about security. I could get in trouble with the Order just for bringing you here."

The Order.

"...But it beats letting you all clonk around Safety on your own.”

"I do not clunk,'' said Misty. "Dees one - maybe." He pointed at me

"Hay, I'm plenty sneaky," I protested. "You, of all ponies, should remember!"

"Shhhhh!" everypony said to me. Friends, stranger and all.

I recoiled. Whispered, "Sorry," and blushed a little. Point taken.

"Just follow my lead," the little kid groaned. We tip-hooved along the final stretch of the courtyard, taking cover behind the jagged shadows of creaky old playground equipment. The Boy circled us like a sheep dog nipping at our heels, herding us from front and back. Making sure we were sneaky enough.

That's when it hit me. Creeping around a bunch of drunken slave guards. Getting shot at, or whatever. That was easy.

But the Safety kids?! They were a different story. They were on the ball - and by the ball, I, of course, mean that they were gonna have their eyes on us 'new kids' to make sure we didn't slip away, and try to rescue any zebras out of the bumper plow pen, slip into the sewers, escort them to freedom, and disappear into the recesses of time and space, and duckies, and stuff.

We were gonna have to outsneak the sneakers. And I was only medium sneaky. At best.

The boy threw a hoof out. Signaled for us to stop. "The leader of our group, Meadow Blade," he said. "He graduated last year, and, he was, like, super strict. But I don't know the new leaders very good, so I'm not sure they're gonna let you in or not."

"What do we do?" Foster said.

"Sneak," the little boy replied.

We came to a cluster of other kids. Six or seven of them. Standing outside a steel door - the kind with the letter R painted on it.

One of them raised a forehoof. Checked on the pip buck growing out of her wrist. "Two minutes," she whispered.

And so we stood there. For two whole minutes. As the wind whisked our coats against our backs, and other kids' sneaking panchos flapped around their legs.

Cliff looked to me. Nervous-like. While Foster stayed kinda statuey cold.

But Misty had a fire in his belly. He looked ready to charge through everypony, and storm the tunnel by force if that's what it came to.

This mission. This zebra lady. It was his line in the sand. The battle he'd chosen long before he even met me. Xenith was the whole reason Misty got himself in this mess to begin with.

And while the strategist inside my brain had her doubts, I could only imagine what it'd be like to have a chance - a real fucking chance - to rescue the boy I saw on my first night in the Wasteland. To know for sure that he'd survived.

The girl with the pip buck gave the hooves-up signal. And our little (formerly upside down) escort leaned in, reeeeal super close to the door, and knocked.

Tap tap tap tap tap.

There was no reply. Not at first.

On the count of three, all the sneakers around us let out one continuous hiss. "Sssssssssssssss," they said.

"What was that?" Cliff whispered in the boy's ear.

"Secret password. Shh!"

After a moment's consideration, the door creaked open and we all slipped inside. Single file. Nopony told us to form a line that way. Everypony just sort of knew.

We crept like shadows down a long, dimly lit hallway full of dripping pipes, and crates and stuff. It smelled like bleach and it looked a lot like the back room of the infirmary that we'd snuck into earlier. But all the doors were closed. The faint silhouette of mops flashed to life in the corner, and disappeared again as little blinky machinery-lights made halos behind them.

But it still wasn't enough light for a pony to see where the fuck she was going.

After a tedious trek down the winding corridor, the crowd filed into one of the many unmarked doors. I don't remember which - they all looked exactly the same. But once the last of us was inside, it closed behind us, and...Click! Latch! Shhuunk! locked good and tight.

I didn't even get a chance to spin around before somepony called from the opposite end of the room, "Perimeter secure!"

"Good," answered a booming voice. "New Blood, step forward."

The small herd of kids delicately parted. Making way for me and my friends and a few other initiates. I couldn't see a damn thing thanks to the Puffy-Maned-Tall-Kid in front of me - a veritable wall o' pony, the color of key lime pie. But we inched forward, step by careful step, until at last, we came before the S.S.S.S.S.'s leaders.

Three figures stood up on a table. Hoods hung over their faces. Flowery robes draped over their backs.

Cloak-o's!!!!!!! My brain shouted at me from inside of my mindskull.

Suddenly it all made sense. The ceremony, the secret password! The "order," as our new upside down friend had called it. The Super Safety Secret Club or...whatever - it was cloak-o's. All cloak-o's.

Ahhh!!! my brain shouted at me. Ahh, ahh, aaaahh!

I fell to my flank. Tumbled backwards. Misty caught me. But not in the usual spazz way - you know, when I'm...like...totally being a dork. He clutched me tight.

He was fearful too.

'Cause even though Misty had been all over the duckyverse - even though he'd once been transformed into a bowl of sentient tapioca pudding - Misty also knew what secret orders of cloaked ponies really meant.

His horn sparkled to life. Threw a dome of magic purple light around us.

The crowd parted. The tallest cloak-o leapt off the table, and charged toward my friends and I.

Ckkk! The dome flared with magic lightning as Misty Mountain gritted his teeth, and clutched me tightly. Protective-like.

Suddenly, the head cloak-o's hooves staggered to a halt.

A light flickered on from the ceiling, and the whole room became clear. There, beneath the cloak, was Iris - the kid who gave us our tour during orientation.

"Rose Petal?" he said. "Cliff Diver?! Oh my gosh, I heard what happened, are you okay?"

"Um…" Cliff froze.

Iris' eyes darted upwards in horror at the sight of his own hood - his own cloak. It was gray now in the ordinary light. Not pink. The yellow daisies? Nothing but white circles. A polka dot bathrobe cleverly tailored into a ceremonial cloak.

Iris flung the thing off as though it were made out of eels. He'd been in my Emotional Education class. He knew my story. My history with Trottica - with cloaks.

Three or four other kids took their cues from Iris. Hurried to shed their makeshift ceremonial robes.

It was only then that Misty lowered his lightning dome. Though he positioned himself right in front of me, as if to shield me from danger.

But, the 'cloak-o's' weren't dangerous at all. They were busy muttering apologies - "sorry"; and "oh my gosh"; and, of course, "fuck" - as they shook off the last entanglements of their robes.

"No," I pleaded. "It's fine. It's…You don't have to…"

Lucky, the other kid from our orientation - the one with all the scars - ignored me, and ran straight to Cliff Diver, all concernitty. Cliff shrunk back with a squeak and a whimper. Like that scared little kid in the playground. The day we first met. All over again.

"We want to join your club," Foster stepped forward, drawing all the eyeballs in the room away from Cliff.

"We were all so worried about you," said Iris.

I cringed. Planted my face in my hoof. I only dared to sneak a teeny tiny little peek from behind it. Everypony was watching. It felt like I was sinking in a maelstrom of eyeballs that...like…punched me with their eyeball hammers, and grabbed me, and dragged me down into some kinda Ocular Abyss of…you know, getting stared at a whole lot.

I wanted to burst. To run away. To rush right past them, and just...sorta...gallop straight down their secret passageways - straight for the Pinkie Pie compound. And start fighting our way towards Xenith, the zebra slave. Dodging bullets. Hacking through slavers. Risking capture and torture and death and fire and stuff.

Anything would be better than this!

"Please," said Foster. "It's been a long day. We just wanna belong."

One by one, the eyeballs softened. Bobbed up and down as the two dozen kids surrounding us all nodded in approval.

Except for one filly. She wasn't one of the cloak-o's. She didn't belong to the sea of anonymous eyeballs either. She was right next to me. Amongst the 'new recruits.'

It was Scribbles. Watching me with absolute horror. "Sweet fucking Mercy," her eyes seemed to say. "What are you doing here? What are you planning?"

"We accept anypony," Iris continued. "That's our way. But the Rite of Initiation is hard. Are you sure you want to go through with this? You've endured so much toda--;"

"We want to belong," said Cliff Diver, stepping forward. "We want to join."

"Of course," said Iris. "Um...Lucky? Take over."

Lucky raised a hoof in salute.

Iris turned to us. "A moment alone," he said gravityishly. "You too, Mr. Magic Dome." He glowered at Misty, as if to say, 'You shoulda known better, and by the way…what the fuck are you up to, and why are you entrenched in New Kid Drama?'

We all slipped out the door we'd come through. Back into the hallway. The rest of the Secret Sneaker Super Safety Squad or Whatever carried on. Neither scandalized by our presence, nor shocked by our need for a little private talk.

Except Scribbles. Her Eyeballs O' Dread were still fucking velcroed to us. And they stayed that way till the very last second when the door swung shut.

The hallway buzzed with fritz-itty light. Pale. Green. Dreary. Iris, my friends, and I were finally alone.

"Are you okay?" said the secret society leader in an awful hurry. "What happened?"

None of us answered. Iris had been there in the classroom when Cliff tossed that desk. He'd seen what happened. It was an odd question.

Iris looked to each of us. It took him a moment to figure out just how fucking confused we all were. "...You know," he said. "After they threw you out of class?"

"Miss Honey showed us the boy behind the glass," answered Foster. "In the infirmary." Her voice was thick with grief. She sounded like she had nails in her throat.

"Yeah," Iris sighed.

And for a moment, I wondered about Miss Honey. How she'd requisition-ized two dozen factories worth of parts, and sixteen refineries or whatever to build that boy his accordion lungs.

How much of that had really been for him? How much of it was just to convince herself - to convince us all - that this project - this society that Miss Honey was building - was worth the blood and sacrifice of its slaves?

Was that boy Miss Honey's line in the sand? The battle she refused to lose?

"Look," said Iris. "I really really really don't wanna exclude you, but you do know where we're going, right?"

"Of course," Misty said proudly.

Iris rolled his eyes. "And you! What was with that dome stunt? Huh?" Iris demanded.

Misty blushed. Said nothing.

"Well?" Iris insisted. But Misty just sorta seized up some more.

"I know him," I blurted out. It was probably a stupid thing not say. 'Cause I had no idea what Misty had told the other Safety kids, or if I was about to contradict his story, but out it came. "We were in cages together."

Misty hung his head. "I, um, well…not dee same cage, but…cloaks. They make scare of Rose Petal, so I pretend to protect–;"

I stomped on his hoof.

"Ow," he yelped. "Okay, I theenk you are cloak cult colt. And I make dome of anger. Not because I am to be afraid. In my home country, we have much scarier theengs - cult leaders twenty times more–"

"I'm sorry," said Iris.

Misty fell silent. And simply nodded in reply.

We all stood there. Contemplateishly listening to the slow drip of a leaky pipe trickling into an overflowing bucket at the end of the hall.

"Look," Iris said, running his hoof through his mane. "All of you have been through…well…a lot today." His eyes started to water. "What are you gonna do if you come with us, and you see something that you know...sets you off? It's dangerous. For everypony."

"That won't happen!" I stomped and squeaked at the same time. The hallway boomed with the echo of it.

Iris cringed. Plunged his hoof into my mouth to shut me up. Everyone does that eventually.

"I'm the one who threw the chair," said Cliff. "I've got it under control now."

"And I am not scared," Misty announced with bravado.

"Please," said Foster. "We don't want to be the kids that everypony pities. The kids who got sent away."

Iris flinched. As though Bananas Foster's words had just stabbed him in the ribs.

I seized the moment, and brushed Iris' hoof out of my mouth. Spat out the dirt. "Pleeeeease," I said. "We can do this."

"Fuck," Iris ran a hoof through his mane. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuck. I can't. I'm sorry. I can't, it's...it's...just... Fuck!" Iris hooved at his mane, tugging at his own hair like the answers were gonna fall out. He looked like he was about to cry.

...Till Bananas Foster caught his eye.

"We should stick together," said Foster calmly. Firmly. "It's the Safety Way."

Iris stopped his fussing. Stared off into nothing. "We should...stick together," he said, rubbing his head, looking all around him to figure out where the hell he was. "It's...the Safety Way."

A pale reflection of green flame shimmered in Foster's eyes. As a ckkkkk sound came from below. Like the hiss of sauna water splashed over hot coals.

It was Cliff Diver's hoof. Scrrrraping against the floor in anger. But he didn't say a word. Just averted his eyes.

Damnit. I'd felt the same way. Back when I first saw Foster do weird changeling magic stuff to the nurses back at Ponyville General Hospital.

I hadn't been able to cope back then either.

Cliff'd been understanding at the time, but, you know, neutral. It was different now.
It's harder to mess around with free will once you've caught a glimpse of slavery - actual, for real slavery - even a tiny glimpse.

I reached my hoof out to Cliff. Brushed it up against his stamping, scraping, stomping hoof. And he froze. Looked to me with great big forlorn eyeballs. Bit his lip and nodded.

He didn't have the luxury of freaking out, and he knew it. Not enough time. Not enough space. Not enough privacy.

We were on a mission to rescue a real slave. The kind with real chains attached to their real necks, and real guns pointed at their real heads.

We had no choice but to push forward. No matter what. And to follow Iris as he shook the confuseitty brainwashitude out of his head, and led us back the way we came.

* * *

The room was empty. Like, totally empty. The super sneaker kids who'd congregated there just a few minutes before had left no trace. Iris blink-bloinked. Spun around as though twenty kids might randomly be hiding right behind us somewhere. "They must have gone ahead without us," he said. "Don't worry. We'll catch up."

My friends and I all motioned forward to follow him. But Iris didn't lead us any further. He just threw a foreleg up instead. "That means we gotta do the oath. Here."

"We should really get moving," said Foster.

"Oath first," said Iris, hooves planted firmly on the ground. Head held high. The sudden change was striking. A marauding army of squids woulda had to cut off his head and all of his limbs with their squid-scimitars, and chop him into a hundred million billion tiny bits before any of those dismembered Iris-chunks would roll over a single inch without first hearing THE OATH.

"Fine," said Misty. "What ees oath?"

"Hooves on your hearts." Iris clutched his chest.

We did the same.

"Since time immemorial," Iris said in a great big majestic voice. "The Mystic Knights of the Super Sneaker Secret Society of Safety have been the keepers of secrets - wisdom of the ancients! Wisdom unearthed from the Forgotten Age - wisdom that holds the key to the rejuvenation of civilization itself.

'It is time for these secrets - and more - to be bequeathed unto these four initiates here - our next generation of mystic super sneaker knights. Who are ye who do now seek such wisdom?"

Iris fell silent. And looked to each of us expectantly.

Cliff cast his eyes down some more, still burying his rage over the hypno-slavery. While Foster and Misty visibly quaked, fighting to contain their urgency. I didn't understand at first until I took a second to think about it.

Breaking away from an entire herd of kids - even smart and sneaky ones - was totally doable. All four of us leaving Iris in the dust? Impossible! We had to catch up with the rest of the Sneaky Society if we were to have any hope of running off on our mission.

"I'm Rose," I said hurried-like. "That's Cliff and Foster, and…"

"Can we make speed of this?" snapped Misty. "We need catch up with others."

"Fine," said Iris. "I'll skip the prelude."

My friends and I let out a sigh of relief. It sounded like steam escaping.

Iris rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling, and rapidly mouthed a bunch of mystical words or whatever - like when you have to sing a whole song to yourself just to recall the lyrics of the final verse. "Aha!" he exclaimed at last. "Do you, Cliff Diver, Bananas Foster, Rose Petal, and Misty Mountain, vow never to reveal the secret way that you are about to be shown?"

"Yes…Sure…Fine…Yep," we all murmured our oath.

"Do you swear to treasure the secrets of the past, and impart them responsibly to all who seek entrance to the Safety Super Secret Sneaker Society?"

"Yuh-huh," we all (more or less) replied.

"Do you pledge allegiance to Red Eye, and to use the wisdom of the ancients to further the expansion of Safety and of Fillydelphia, and the Great Empire of Equestria we seek to restore?"

Misty and Foster affirmed, "Yes," impatiently.

But Cliff squeaked out a "What?!"

Iris batted his eyes in surprise. "Is there a problem?" Iris said. Totally confused.

"No," Foster replied, shoving her hooves over Cliff's mouth instead of mine for once. "We agree."

"Hold on," Cliff brushed the hoof aside. "You all are breaking the rules."

"We're doing it for Safety. For Fillydelphia. We may be super secret sneakers, but we're still believers in The Cause." A horror suddenly crept onto Iris' face. "Aren't you?"

"Yes! Yes, of course," said Foster.

"Yeah,'' I added. "We love Safety."

And Cliff looked at me. With eyes that seemed ready to cry. A say-it-ain't-so face. Like he expected me to...I don't know…leap up, and just start slashing Iris with a sword or something, and go free all the slaves myself.

But the reality was: if we were lucky - like, really fucking lucky, we might kinda maybe stand a chance of saving just one. And to do that, we needed to bullshit our way through this stupid pledge.

Cliff saw the fear in my eyes, and suddenly the fire in him was gone. He nodded. I don't know what exactly I did, or what the hell my face musta looked like to get him to understand, but Cliff turned to face Iris. "Yeah," he said. "Of course. I was just kind of surprised." Cliff pretended to laugh. Wiped a tear from his eye. Slouched a little like he did whenever his stupid mom was around.

I rested a hoof on his shoulder. "It's just a little confusing," I said to Iris. "You know, 'cuz we're breaking the rules."

"...And we don't want to betray Safety," Foster rushed to add.

Iris twitched. Just an itty bitty eyelid flutter. But it freaked me out. Had Bananas Foster just used her flaming green eyeball magic again? I couldn't tell.

"I hear you," Iris replied, un-brainwashedly, or so it seemed. "It's a lot to take in, but you'll understand once you see the power of Greater Fillydelphia for yourself. I was confused too, at first, you know - torn between my need to know more, and my fear of betraying the folks who'd saved my life."

Misty silently chewed on his own mane, inpatient with all of the talkittyness. But Cliff, of all ponies, stepped forward, no longer mad, but earnestly curious. "What do you mean?" he asked softly.

"Well," Iris blushed. "I don't have much time for the full story. We should get going."

"Yes!" snapped Misty.

Iris ignored him. "Let's just say that pip bucks go for a lot of bottle caps on the black market," Iris held up his prosthetic leg - the right leg, where all the other bunker-stunkers had their pip bucks. He waved it around with a warm chuckle. "I woulda bled out if our troops hadn't found me at just the right moment."

Silence filled the room. Like a dense fog made outta gaseous iron that weighed a million tons, choked up our lungs, and made all four of us stare in disbelief at the pony before us, as we all pictured him getting his leg sawed off by bandits or whatever, and left to die.

Even Misty who'd travelled the Duckyverse. Even Foster, who was physiologically incapable of empathy except for those whom she embraced as her "hive." Even Cliff, whose righteous indignation had lit a raging fire in his soul just a moment before.

A profound air of what-the-fuck made us all forget ourselves. Just for a moment.

"You're in good hooves now," said Iris with a warm and heartfelt smile. "We all are."

And at that, the S.S.S.S.S. leader patted Cliff on the shoulder, and led us through the final door. The room that hid the secret passageway to the Pinkie Park o' Fire and Slavery and Doom and Stuff.

Nothing could prepare us for what we were to discover.

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:

I'm very excited to watch this all come together, and I can't wait to hear your reactions. Fillydelphia is a very juicy setting to explore, and to nuance moral questions that are trickier than...say... Trottica.

Yet, that makes the moral imperatives and the underlying stakes all the more urgent, in my opinion.

As our own world spirals out of control, and the contradictions inherent in our own society intensify, I find myself asking these sorts of Battle Math questions all the time - imagining worst cast scenarios in the doubtlessly grim future before us, and wondering...at what point do I make my stand? Furthermore, how?

A lot of us have been thinking the same thing, though honestly, I believe this individualistic outlook is ultimately not what changes history, but rather, our ability to unite and make a stand together.

In solidarity. In friendship.

HOLIDAY.

It's the eve of the Quarter Moon. A good time to turn over a new leaf. It's also the eve of St. George's Day. I'm not the type to blither on about faith, but I do think it's a good occasion for slaying dragons (Spike, Smoulder, and Dragonlord Ember excluded of course), and to reflect on battle math in general.

I'm loving watching these characters wrestle with these questions in their own way. They always surprise me.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Thanks for reading!

A Bridge Over Troubled Water

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE - A BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER

"When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you
I'll take your part
Oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down" - Paul Simon

"People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad." – Stephen King

Safety was the town of, like, a bazillion secrets. Secret doors, splashed with the letter 'R.' Secret agendas. Secret history. Secret societies of super sneaks. And now, secret tunnels.

…Because, of course!

No journey into a war torn hellscape ducky would be complete without a trek into the darkness through a dusty old wormhole. But at least this time, nopony was shooting at us. No Crystal Empire Wall Machines to swallow us up either. We even had a guide, and plenty of advanced warning, since, you know, tunnels were part of Misty's plan right from the beginning.

But I still wasn't thrilled about it. 'Cause tunnels are stupid and they suck and I really really reeeeally fucking hate them 'cause they're evil and annoying and dumb.

But the Pinkie Park tunnel wasn't even the first real secret of the evening, or of the Sneaker Society. The very first room that Iris led us all into, (after we'd said the oath of course), was…

* * *

"A skee ball room?" said Cliff. "Seriously?"

"Greatest game in the world," Iris squeaked with excitement. He reared up, and threw his hooves into a grand 'Ta-da!!!' gesture.

There was a whole row of skee ball lanes with skee ball ramps at the end of them, and concentric circles and all that other…you know…skee ball…stuff. But no tickets. No lights. No machinery. They were hodgepodge patchworks of hammered down sheet metal.

"The entrance to the tunnels is down one of those holes?" I stared at the smallest ring on the skee ball lane. Imagining two dozen super sneakers climbing into that tiny hole, four inches wide, marked: 10,000 pts. "So, uh...do we just…climb in?"

Iris snorted a laugh out through his nostrils. "Follow me."

He led us behind the row of skeeball lanes to a narrow walkway barred only by a single rickety door with the letter 'R' on it.

We followed him through it, past stacks of chairs, and rows of neatly coiled-cables. The faint light from the rec room was distant back there. It filtered through the mesh that lined the backs of the skee ball lanes, and cast a dull gray haze on us from above.

The ambience reminded me of the Hall of Eternal Twilight - where Pinkbeard had once brokered peace between the Walrus Queen and Lord Oystersworth of Coralopolis. It got me thinking about war. About peace. Walruses. Oysters. Ponies. Zebras. How Pinkbeard herself would one day become a symbol of resistance. Real resistance to a real war. Right here in actual Equestria.

"Yarr," I sighed to myself. A listless whistle through my lungs. And then…

DUUUJ! Suddenly my heart slammed into my rib cage. A battering ram of pure panic.

Oh, no! I was on my way to Fillydelphia to rescue a slave. And to escape into the Duckyverse (hopefully). And I had with me, in my saddlebag, the only copy of Pinkbeard and the Princess of Stripes. That book had survived the fires of history. Actual, literal fires. It survived the war. The bomb. 200 years of Wasteland. And it was gonna get lost forever to future generations. Because of me.

The sacrifices that the author made to stand tall against 'the jingoistic atrocity they call the war effort' - that was gonna get forgotten. Because of me. Memory of Pinkbeard herself would be erased too. Can you imagine that? A world without Pinkbeard????!!! All because of me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sweet merciful Celesti–

"...Aaahhh!" I snagged a hoof. Stumbled forward. Landed on my knees. And found myself face to face with that secret I was telling you about a minute ago.

Underneath the sheet metal skee ball lanes was wood. Real wood. Centuries old. Propped up with iron reinforcements, like those crumbling science-skeletons you see at the Equestrian Museum of Natural History. I could make out the framework. Even in that faint Hall of Eternal Twilight kinda lighting.

These structures had always been skee ball machines. That meant that the secret tunnels that'd been built for amusement park employees - they'd always emptied out into a rec center.

A brain-thought clobbered me. Like one of those wrecking balls you see at construction sites on the edge of town.

All the secret underground passages - they were designed by Pinkie Pie herself. The real Pinkie Pie. Not just a Doom Pinkie mascot floating around the skies, spitting flame, and bullets, and raining down vampire snails and incomprehensible terror. This was the Pinkie Pie that I knew.

Who else would spend weeks of extra effort extending a tunnel several blocks into the residential area of (what we now call) Safety, just so the park employees could end up in a rec center. Where they could party and have fun!

"Pinkie," I whispered to myself.

"Are you okay?" Iris spun around to rush to my side. My friends had knelt down and surrounded me too. I hadn't noticed at first.

"Pinkie Pie made this," I whispered in amazement. "All of this."

Iris shuddered. "Don't remind me."

Bananas Foster held her head high. Refused to emote outwardly in any way at all. Even in the dark.

But it hurt her to hear folks talk about Pinkie Pie like that. I could sense it.

And frankly, I felt the same way too. The whole thing pierced my heart with a question mark - the kinda question mark that haunts you, and then spills all of your heart-blood on the floor as thousands of little tiny question marks gush out of your chest with it, and you end up with this nasty puddle of question guts that you have to lie around and die in.

At what point did Pinkie Pie's cotton candy legacy turn to iron? How? Why? What had she done? What had she failed to do? Why was she so misunderstood? Who turned her into…this…this legend? This monster?

It's a secret I'd never learn. I still don't fucking know.

* * *

The entrance to the Pinkie Park tunnels was hiding in a maintenance room at the end of the walkway, behind a workbench which had been unbolted from the floor, and slid aside to reveal a loose wall panel.

And those tunnels sucked. Like all tunnels suck.

It smelled like a basement died of choking on its own vomit down there. If I didn't know any better, I'd say somepony had snuck into my mouth and stapled a nasty old gym sock to my tonsils.

The concrete beneath my hooves was splintered and slimy and nasty and every bit as gross as the air in my lungs. Even with Misty's unicorn light, I still stumbled everywhere like a doof.

But worst of all was Cliff and Foster. They both decided to hang back. Guard me from the rear. Just to make sure I felt safe. You know, 'cause I fucking hate tunnels, and have a tendency to kinda sorta overreact a teensy weensy little bit sometimes.

It should have been comforting to have my friends there. But something was wrong between them. Like, really wrong.

There was this silence. Not the sneaky kind. Like, the really really loud kinda silence. The kind of silence that screams. The kind of silence you feel in your chest. Like a greasy old vice twisting your internal organs into goo that comes bubbling up your throat in a volcano of organ lava.

We kept on going down. Always down. Stairwells leading to deeper tunnels, winding hallways. That gym sock basement air choking me the whole damn time.

Foster and Cliff's stupid fucking silence went on and on and on and on and on. Till we came to a patch of broken concrete - clumps the size of golf balls - and started shuffling carefully over them. Ckkkk. Ckkkk. Ckkkkk! Went our hooves. The perfect cover for secret conversation...

"Gah!" Cliff Diver let loose a muffled cry. "I can't hold my tongue anymore. I can't hold it in. I'm really sorry. I don't wanna be the…you know, whiny pirate, but something's really bothering me, and if I don't get this off my chest now, I'm gonna keep thinking about it, and thinking about it, and thinking about it, and ruin the whole mission."

Foster nodded at Cliff, urging him to continue.

"You enslaved Iris," Cliff whispered.

Ckkkkkkk! Cliff's hoof slid across a particularly loud pocket of broken concrete. Foster waited for him to regain his hoofing, then replied.

"I didn't enslave anypony," said Foster. "I made a suggestion."

"Your eyes lit up with green fire magic," Cliff said through gritted teeth.

"My suggestion had a…kick," Foster admitted without shame. "But I only just met Iris yesterday. I couldn't 'enslave him,'" she reared up and made quotation marks with her hooves. "...If I tried. That's nuts. Not even Mother could do that!"

Foster fell into a reverent silence for her mom. Punctuated only by the crunchitty gravel beneath our hooves. After a breath or two, or a thousand, (I couldn't tell), she continued with a sigh. "It's really quite simple. The easiest way to bend somepony to your will…is to tell them what they desperately want to hear.

'You saw how conflicted Iris was. My suggestion was a mercy. It put him at ease. And I didn't need magic to do it. Either one of you could have accomplished the same thing if you put your wits to it, and if we had the time, but we don't. We don't have the time. We don't have the optio–;"

"Do it to me," said Cliff.

"What?" Foster blinked and stared at Cliff like he had seventy two noses.

"If it's such a mercy," Cliff replied. "Do it to me. I'm conflicted. I don't want to feel this way about you."

Bananas flinched like she'd been slapped.

"I don't wanna interfere with the mission either," Cliff continued. "So do it if it really is a mercy."

Cliff stared Foster down. And I honestly couldn't tell if it was a challenge - a dare to throw Foster off her guard and illuminate the double standard - or if Cliff really did want his brain noodled with.

"I couldn't," Foster replied.

"Why not?"

"'Cause. You're...family. I can't just go rooting around inside your head."

"So there is a difference!" Cliff whisper-shouted in excitement.

"Yeah, there's a difference," said Foster. "I'm not going to treat some guy that I just met like he's family."

Cliff sighed, "Us and Them."

"Yes," Foster replied matter-of-fact-ishly.

"This whole city is us and them," I said, no longer able to hold my own Rosetongue. "Kids get to escape slavery, and…you know…live in comfort and luxury. And it seems like, you know, a silver lining or whatever to Red Eye's empire. But Red Eye's troops are the same ones doing all of this…this…slavening in the first place. You heard the broadcast. This is what we're supposed to be fighting against."

"We're fighting to get you home,'' Foster replied.

My mouth, already poised with a retort, opened itself big and wide, and then just sorta froze in disbelief.

Bananas Foster wasn't talking about getting herself home. Just Cliff and me.

"We're fighting to rescue Xenith," Foster continued. "Who is one of us; and to protect her from the tyranny of Fillydelphia, i.e. them."

Our hooves crackled like pop rocks against the gravelly path.

"Look," said Foster. "I know you want a brighter tomorrow, and unity and friendship for all. And that's what I love about you. Both of you," Foster's voice creaked and warbled. "But you have to survive first. And occasionally putting ourselves first does not make us the same as hordes of ravaging slavers."

"I guess so," I answered.

Cliff, pointedly, didn't say a word.

* * *

The gravelly bits beneath our hooves smoothened into water-worn bedrock, and we three picked up pace. The light ahead grew brighter. It was Misty Mountain's horn. He and Iris had stopped. Given us a chance to catch up.

"We missed ya," cackled Iris. "Slowpokes."

"Not me," said Misty. "I mees no one. Come! We go!"

"No," Iris threw an outstretched leg in Misty's way. "We should tighten our formation from this point on." The laughter fled his eyes.

He leaned in, all super grim and serious-like. Stared each of us down. One at a time to make his point. When he finally got to me, those eyeballs seemed to stab me in the head, and drill a thought straight into my brain: Be careful.

"Uh, how much further?" said Cliff.

"A while," Iris replied. "Not because it's far. But we gotta move slower now."

Right around the bend, the tunnel straightened out. And for the first time, we could see the rest of the Sneaker Safety Society. The unicorns' horns lit the way. It looked like a faraway jar full of fireflies, flickering in the darkness.

"They've already passed the first trial without us," said Iris. "So follow me carefully. We're nearing The Bridge of Peril."

Foster and Cliff looked to one another what-the-fuckishly. Until Iris suddenly whooped.

"Heyyooo," he called out to the S.S.S.S.S kids up ahead. The very air in the tunnel seemed to pulsate with the humming echo of his voice.

Moments later, our answer came, "Awooo!" A Secret Sneaker Society bird-call that made dust rain down from the ceiling.

"Blarghhchhkkkkkk," I said gracefully, hacking particles of ancient concrete out of my lungs.

"Shh," said Iris pointing up ahead.

The fireflies had quit their dancing. The gang of sneakers had stopped and waited for us. It looked like a lone constellation hanging in an otherwise starless night.

"Why is it called the Bridge of Peril?" said Cliff.

"It's perilous."

"I see."

Iris grabbed Misty and they both pressed on. Step by hesitant step as the path beneath our hooves shrunk to a narrow band.

We all hugged the wall to our left as the walls to our right receded. The floor too. One second it was there. The next? It gave way to a deep dark cavernous hole that opened up below without warning. Like some dragon had just taken a bite out of the side of the tunnel.

We inched our way forward. Creep creep. Creep creep. Creep creep.

Eyes on the ground. Mindful of the terrifying lack of ground just a few feet away.

Creep creep. Creep creep. Creep creep. Step-step, step-step, step-step. Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.

Till outta nowhere, Misty Mountain stopped. Leaned over the precipice.

"What are you doing?!" Cliff whisper-shouted.

"Shh," answered Misty. The light left his horn like a bubble blown from one of those wands with a hole at the end. "Don't move."

Suddenly, our path darkened.

The little ball o' light wafted down into the abyss like dandelion wishes.

Misty dug his hooves into the ground. Leaned over the edge, and watched as his magic light drifted down down down down down down down down down.

It was like a bottomless pit, but with huge columns and strange shadows cast by Misty's falling orb.

There was an intersection of sewer tunnels down there. Concrete corridors converging under archways. The walls shimmered with icicle sweat. But no floor was to be seen. Just stairs, smoothened by age. Narrow walkways that hugged the walls, wrapped around the gargantuan pony-made cavern, all the way down to infinity.

Clonk! Misty kicked a random hunk of concrete over the edge. Watched it fall past his floating magic lamp. For a moment, it eclipsed the orb, and darkness flickered on the ceiling. But it kept falling after that. Further and further and further into the depths below until it disappeared.

But there came no thwack. No splash. No sign that the rock ever hit the bottom.

If there even was a fucking bottom.

The gravityishness of that moment robbed us of our breaths. Clobbered us into reverent silence.

Except for Cliff.

He sat, back pressed firmly against the only wall, panting wildly, like a squirrel getting chased by ten thousand manticores. Pant-pant, pant-pant, pant-pant-pant.

Misty's horn lit up again. "Sorry," he said.

"I'm fine," Cliff insisted. Rising to his hooves.

I rushed over to him, but he held up a forehoof. "I'm fine," he repeated. Holding his head high. Even as his chest pounded like it was full of bowling balls throwing a dance party.

Misty Mountain leaned over the pit once more to steal a final peek at the abyss. He squinted. Focused really really really really really really reeeeeeeeally intensely. Like a surgeon who can't mop her own brow.

And Iris leaned forward too, jaw agape as Misty's little orb faded to a single speck of glitter far below.

The new light from Misty's horn settled on the ground beneath our hooves, and glowed a periwinkle blue. The Bridge of Peril, brightly lit, seemed wider now. Safer. But that didn't shake the mood.

"Let's go," Iris said gravely. Still staring downward into nothingness.

Foster came up beside Cliff. Flanked him. Forming a buffer between him and the edge.

"I'm fine," he snapped. Holding his head up high.

"I'm not," Foster replied.

"What?"

"You're gonna laugh, but…uh…" Foster shuffled her hooves. "When my family used to cross dangerous terrain, we travelled in pairs. Side by side. A buddy system. So none of us got left behind." Foster held out a hoof for bumping.

Cliff eyed it in disbelief.

"I know, it's silly," Foster let out a nervous little chuckle. "It would make me feel better."

Still, Cliff did not reply.

"Please?" Foster added.

At last, Cliff Diver lifted a timid hoof, and gave her a bump.

Once everypony was moving again, I flanked Cliff from the rear, just as he had done for me when we'd first entered the tunnels. And as we all crept forward at last, I stole one final glance at the great sea of darkness below.

The memory of all the columns and tunnels and arches and stairs seemed to glow faintly against the black. Like when you stare at a lamp and then slam your eyelids shut, and still see its shape humming softly in the void.

We inched forward in silence. And Foster pressed herself close to Cliff the whole way. A buffer between him and the edge. While I followed him close behind.

None of us said a word.

When at last, the bridge widened and the gaping hole o' death shrank away behind us, and turned into a regular old tunnel again, Cliff sighed. His shoulders loosened like they'd just shed two sacks of cement.

"We made it," said Foster.

"Yup," Cliff let out a chuckle of relief.

"Thanks for humoring me," Foster added. "I couldn't have done it without you."

Suddenly, a rumbling came. Like the echo of a distant canon.

I whipped around. Looking for soldiers, or cloak-o's, or Red Eye troops.

Misty did the same. "What dee fuck was that?" he cried out.

Iris put a hoof on his shoulder. "The rock you kicked. Hitting the bottom."

Misty's eyes widened. Foster's too. But Cliff remained expressionless as the color ran from his face. "We should go," he whispered.

"Yeah," I replied, throwing one last glance over my shoulder at the darkness we left behind.

We pressed on. The constellation of unicorn horns slowly expanding - taking shape in the darkness as we drew near to the S.S.S.S.S.

That Us and Them stuff? Abstractions of ethics? Intellectual constructs of social-dynamic-y-junk?

It didn't seem to matter anymore. Cliff and Foster pressed up close against one another, just as they had on the Bridge of Peril.

Amongst them, I heard the faintest whisper. A frail little, "thank you." But which one of them said it to the other, I couldn't tell.

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

DEDICATION:

Rejoice! It's the Full Moon. Praise Luna, to whom this chapter is dedicated!!!

THOUGHTS:

Rather than release the journey into Pinkie Park as one, enormous, cumbersome mega-chapter, I'm breaking it up for ease of reading. This has also given Rose the chance to reflect a bit more. There's as much going on with the characters emotionally as there is in their perilous physical journey into the Hells of Fillydelphia. These little moments are the ones where I really get to know them - what they're thinking; what they're feeling.

I'm also maddened with anticipation of what is to come, but that's going to have to wait.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

The Worst Generation

CHAPTER SIXTY - THE WORST GENERATION
"Our leaders never learn from the mistakes of history because it's only ever the poor who pay the price." -Nicky Reid

That aqueduct-a-majig beneath the Bridge of Peril had been glorious once upon a time. Channels for water. Tunnels to access them. Thin bands of winding stairs smoothened by age, wrapping all the way around and around and around and around and around.

The sheer depth of it was a modern wonder of the world.

But already, it was shrouded in darkness. A forgotten history. Gobbled up by time.

If not for Misty Mountain's little glowy orb stunt, nopony woulda known about it at all - not even the Secret Sneaker Safety kids.

It reminded me of Columnland - the ducky that the shadows had stripped bare of everything except for crumbled statues and jagged columns reaching like broken claws toward empty skies.

How far off was a fate like that for the Equestrian Wasteland?

How close had we come the first time around? With our hate, and our bombs, and our megaspells, and wars, and schoolyard pyres of Pinkbeard books, and riots that sent zebra children scattering into alleyways.

We didn't even need the fucking shadows. We destroyed Equestria all on our own.

For the first time, I stopped to wonder: had Columnland done it to themselves too? I'd been venturing there with Cliff and Zecora for weeks, and never once had it occurred to me! The sight of those dried up oily oceans. The feel of those broken, dusty old stairs. The sound of your own breath slashing through a heavy silence. It's easy to think, "those shadowy bastards swallowed this world whole."

Especially 'cause their great big evil Shadow Castle is floating right fucking there in the sky above the ruins. On an island made of storm clouds. And you can watch that weird purple glow right at the bottom of it swallow up asteroids and wreckage - from Luna-only-knows how many other duckies - as they float over there like driftwood, and disappear forever into the vapors underneath.

Columnland could have been like us once upon a time. And we'd never know. Those statue fragments - those broken palaces. History's hoofprints of power and glory - that's all that was left of their entire civilization.

Whoever they were.

But marble doesn't rot like flesh does. It doesn't warp and decay into nothing like whittled wooden carvings do, (or any of the other stuff that regular folks make for themselves).

When you stumble into the shattered ruins of a long dead palace, you think of the kings and queens and princesses that used to live there. You think of the commanders of great armies that used to protect it. Not the bakers, and the cakes they made, nor the laughter of their children as they blew out their birthday candles.

You don't think about the folks who made it all happen. The weavers of clothes. The diggers of holes. The folks who actually built things.

Like Bananas Foster pointed out - nopony ever really stops to think about where it all comes from. Or like the sheep of Equestria. A history buried right under our noses! Or the slaves of future wastelands. Forever nameless.

No one stops to think about…you know…background ponies. Our dreams. Our love. Our passions. Our hopes. What we get to leave behind. How we push through hard times knowing damn well that there will never ever ever be any statues of us to survive the ages.

All we have is each other. And a kind of blind hope that some way, somehow, the good that we do adds up to something in the end.

I was lucky. I, at the very least, got to find out the truth about Strawberry Lemonade. What I'd been fighting for. What she was destined for.

Strawberry was probably up there on the surface of the Wasteland right now. All grown up. Doing Strawberry Lemonade…type…stuff. I wondered if she ever thought of me and Misty - the kids who'd busted her out of Trottica, only to disappear into thin air as soon as the escape truck was in the clear.

* * *

The pinpoints of unicorn light up ahead gradually took shape. Halos and silhouettes. Like a gaggle of lighthouses gathered for some kinda lighthouse party, but not, like…you know…a jubilant one. A somber occasion. A funeral for lighthouses.

As we got closer, those points of light kept on expanding and expanding and expanding into shapes. And eventually, the lighthouses became talking lighthouses.

"Took ya long enough," hollered a lighthouse that sounded an awful lot like Lucky.

"Omigosh," Iris exclaimed. "You need to check out what's under the Bridge of Peril."

"Later. We gotta get moving," Lighthouse Lucky snapped. "We're running late, and Midnight has a way of sneaking up on you."

"Damn," Iris spun around. Gestured to us new kids with his head. Let's go.

We hurried to follow.

The lighthouses up ahead quickly became actual unicorns, and the silhouettes in front of them took the shape of actual, living breathing earth ponies. Kids like Formerly Upsidedown Boy, who'd escorted us to the Magenta Building in the first place. Lemon Drop. And the other new kid, Scribbles.

They all greeted us with a chorus of good cheer.

"Glad you're here."

"Great to have you back!"

"What did you see back there under the bridge?'' a few voices whispered urgently.

"Shh," said Lucky. "Everypony stay close."

We all convergified into a cluster. Moved as a herd. Lucky in front. Iris watching the rear. My friends and I clumped together somewhere in the middle, flanked by strangers on all sides.

The Safety kids around us didn't so much walk as they marched. It was oddly military for, you know, a bunch of kids who didn't like to play by the rules. But they did it naturally. Without even thinking about it. I wondered what Safety gym classes were like. How many drills they practiced. What foul future they were being trained for, without even knowing it.

My friends and I struggled. We had to force ourselves to keep up. To keep rhythm. To keep from fucking up the formation that the rest of the kids had effortlessly made. All hooves moved in unison. All eyes were forward. Even as we sneaked.

Except for one kid. Scribbles.

She was waaay up front, but she kept looking back over her shoulder. Stealing glances at us. What the fuck glances of accusation-y-ness. I averted my eyes. Pretended not to notice.

But my hiding eyeballs were crummy liars. Scribbles knew that my friends and I were anti-Red-Eye, anti-slavery, anti-Fillydelphia. She herself reveled in the idea of rebellion, without ever considering the reality of it.

What was she thinking? What was she up to?

Did she want to stop us? Could I convince her not to if I spoke to her? Would that make everything better or worse? What the Hell was I supposed to say?

A Rose Voice started barking at me, Call out to her, damnit! Plead with her. Make her see that she can't just spend the rest of her life eating food prepared by slaves, wearing clothes sewn by slaves, enjoying streets cleaned by slaves, sleeping in buildings furnished by slave labor. Do it, Rose. Talk to her. Now!!! Make her see!!!!!!! The hopeful, eager, super-mega-virtuous Rose Petal in my head plunged down into my chest. Started doing somersaults. Kicking me with her metaphysical Rose hooves. Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it. Do it!

But I couldn't! It's not like my friends and I could take Scribbles with us. We were gonna have a hard enough time shaking the rest of the Super Sneakers. A kid who knew that we abhorred slavery, and planned to act? Fucking impossible to get away from.

"We've got to be careful with that one," Foster whispered.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Scribbles is conflicted." Foster tapped her own nose. "...Confused."

"Does that mean she won't try to stop us?"

"No," Foster replied. "It means she's unpredictable."

Scribbles craned her neck backwards. Stole a glance at us. And like super fast neck-lightning, all of our necks jerked our heads in opposite directions as we hurried to look away.

* * *

The glow of the herd up ahead revealed a dead end. Or what looked like one. The tunnel veered left. Winded upwards. Then there were stairs. Lots and lots and lots of stairs. Wiggling this way and that. Some sturdy. Some loose. Some diagonal. Some sideways. Some crumbled down to dust.

We struggled upwards. Every last one of us. Coughing up dust and stumbling. But we took it slow, and caught one another as we faltered. Helping our classmates was The Safety Way.

When at last, we all reached the top, the path widened. And led straight to a dark and jagged archway.

Everypony tensed up. Slowed down. Crept toward its entrance, murmuring and whispering.

When the archway came under our unicorn light, those edges took form. They were rusted metal cut outs. Teeth. Lips.

The whole entrance looked like a mouth. Pinkie Pie's mouth.

A hush fell over the herd. Even our 'leaders,' who'd doubtlessly seen this spectacle before.

Shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle, went a hundred hooves. The entrance seemed to widen. Patient, yet eager to gobble us all up.

The closer we got, the more rust I saw on Pinkie's face. The more chipped paint. And the clearer the sign became, spelt out on her mildew-stained teeth.

SMILE, it said.

We inched our way inside, and the air grew cooler. The rings of the archway seemed as wrinkles on the roof of Pinkie Pie's mouth.

"Her image has not aged well," said Cliff, eyeing the rust-teeth as we passed under them. "Do you think–;" he started to pose a question. But thought better of it when the Pinkie throat that surrounded us echoed back his every whisper.

Do you think–; Do you think–;
Do you think–; Do you think–;
Do you think–; Do you think–;
Do you think…

Nopony had to tell us to hush. We just did.

My friends and I slinked in. Like everypony else. Slowly, steadily, the tonsils approached us. Or what looked like tonsils. It was actually a sign hanging askew from the ceiling. Dangling from some ancient chain that had somehow survived the centuries.

NOW ENTERING PARK GROUNDS, it said.

The tunnel curved downward again, and we all shuffled down Pinkie Pie's gullet. Shuffle shuffle, shuffle shuffle, shuffle shuffle. I could see now why the whole school spoke her name in whispers.

Part of me wanted to leap up and explain. That Pinkie was jubilant. That Pinkie was selfless! That Pinkie would do anything to bring a smile to the absolutely hopeless, just because she felt it was her duty to try.

But the tunnel itself was nauseating. The rings that made up the entrance's 'throat' put you in a sort of trance as you walked through them. And every sound - even our own tender hoof steps - came back to us as a chorus of echoes - an eerie choir of cacophony. To stand in a hall like that and argue that it was built out of anything but malice seemed unthinkable.

The esophagus narrowed at long last, and we all came upon a third sign. Larger than the others. Clearer.

It stood on its own. A cutout of Pinkie Pie herself, or at least, what remained of one. The pink figure, corroded now into a tie dye spiral of greens and rusty browns, seemed to wave a banner up in the air. Its message was just two ominous words: MANDATORY FUN.

Foster pressed herself closely against me, and choked back a whimper. I leaned my head up against her. To let her know that she was not alone.

* * *

Eventually, the path split. A crossroads, or cross-tunnels rather. Seven paths. All intersecting like the lines of an asterisk.

Lucky veered all the way right. And the herd followed.

Or tried to. The new tunnel narrowed. And we all sorta got nudged together, bottlenecking our way in.

Even the experienced Safety kids - those accustomed to marching - mashed into one another like sheep in a pen. And those of us toward the back of the crowd just sorta…got stuck...waiting. (Luckily not packed together too tightly).

"Argrgrgrg," I grumbled, stealing peeks down the other paths as we oozed past them. But none of it made sense. Just a bunch of intersecting tunnel-majigs that all looked exactly the same.

Misty, however - he studied the Labyrinth with sharper eyeballs. I could almost hear the gears in Misty's head turning - almost feel the strain of his brain muscles flexing as he struggled to figure out the way.

You see, there were pipes overhead now. Pipes meant that at least one of these stupid paths had been part of the sewer system that Misty had played in as a child.

We kept going. Step by hesitant step.

Cliff plastered himself to me the whole time. But Bananas Foster strayed off a little, and wedged her way towards an adjacent tunnel - one that didn't lead anywhere at all. It was blocked off - filled to the brim with rubble. Mounds of broken stone, clogging the whole damn path.

All that remained was an arch, and a little nook.

Foster stepped into it, extended a hoof, and touched the sediment. A wall of stones and boulders that buried whatever history that hallway once had held.

She shivered at the feel of it.

And I shivered too. I don't know how or why, but Foster's dread seemed to flood the air like a smoke bomb in an armoire full of fillies who really really really didn't want a smoke bomb in there with them.

I coughed. Wheezed a little just from the thought of it What must it might be like to get stuck in a tunnel? To suffocate or die of thirst in a space smaller than Foster's bubble back home?

Fuck! Maybe fifteen minutes earlier, dust had rained down on us from the ceiling. Just before the Bridge of Peril.

All it had taken to shake those pebbles loose was us kids calling out to one another!

My eyes drifted to the beams and pipes above us. What would it take for this tunnel to give way? How many chunks could the ceiling afford to lose before the whole damn thing collapsed?

I'm sure that some sorta math wizard could figure it out - calculate just how unlikely it'd be for this exact tunnel to collapse at this exact instant after hundreds of years. But still, it was freaky to know that that possibility was on the menu.

Did I mention that I fucking hate tunnels? Like…really really really really really really really really reeeeeeally hate them.

"Stupid tunnels," I whispered to myself.

And followed Foster into the nook.
I approached the pile of boulders she was touching. Slowly, steadily, I extended a hoof. Laid it lightly on Foster's shoulder.

She jumped. Spun around. Looking left and right and up and down. Panic-stricken. As if roused from some terrible nightmare. Like the one where you're sitting down to eat some hay-and-green-apple sandwiches with mayonnaise, but the mayonnaise starts yelling at you, and throwing the apple slices; and the apple slices cut you like ninja stars, and then the sandwich turns into a giant badger and eats you.

Foster's eyes landed on mine. Aware again.

I searched deep into my soul for the perfect words to offer her comfort. Understanding. Hope! I thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it.

Until, out of nowhere, the words just tumbled out of my mouth without stopping to consult my brain. "Fucking killer sandwich tunnels," I said.

Bananas Foster nodded back at me. "Fucking killer sandwich tunnels," she sighed.

A gentle tug on my tail told me the herd was moving again. And Misty Mountain was eager to move with it.

"Give us a minute," I said.

But Foster didn't need a minute. With the power of a single breath, she got herself nice and composurely, swept me out of that stupid nook, and wedged us both back into the herd.

In an instant, we were together again. Cliff, Foster, Misty, and me. Shuffle-shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.

Then Bam!

Suddenly, Scribbles was there too. Right beside us. Outta the blue.

"Ahh!" said Cliff Diver. Before I could.

(Though to be clear, I also said, "aaahhh"...so it was more like a chorus of ahhh'ing 'cause we were both startled and freaked out).

Scribbles was on to us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!¡!! Scribbles knew we planned to do sneaky anti-Fillydelphia liberatory…stuff.

I looked to Foster. Desperate for help. But she didn't intervene. She just threw her urgent eyeballs at me. Pressing me (of all ponies) to smooth things over.

"Ahhhhhh…my gosh." I whipped back around. "So, uhh...Scribbles…hay, how's it goin'? Good to…um…see you?"

"What are you three doing here?" Scribbles shot panicky glares at all of us.

"Sneaking," I replied.

Scribbles groaned. Raised a crooked coat hanger of an eyebrow.

"We need to fit in," Bananas Foster interrupted before I, or anypony else, could say anything stupid. "Cliff Diver tossed a desk…at a teacher."

Foster leaned in close, up against Scribbles, trying to impress upon her the social urgency of our…you know…being in a stinky old tunnel for some reason.

"I guess that makes sense," said Scribbles.

Iris and the few kids lingering behind us pressed against our flanks. Herded us closer together. 'Till we found ourselves crammed in Lucky's tunnel with the rest of the herd.

We all slid forward sluggishly like an army of slugs. Slug-shoulder to slug-shoulder to slug-shoulder. Chatting and murmuring all the way. The fog o' dense moodyness had totally lifted now that there was no chance of falling to our horrific doom, or wandering astray.

"Psst," said Scribbles. "Rose?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't do anything stupid," she whisper-commanded.

(The other kids were blah blah blah'ing up a storm, so we actually had a bit of anonymity so long as we didn't leap up and down and holler, "We're here to sneak off and free a zebra slave from the evil clutches of that mechanized-red-eyeball pony you all seem to accept as your savior! And by the way, we hate him 'cause he's a jerk and he's bad and mean and his entire empire is dumb!")

"Okay," I whispered in reply. "Do nothing stupid. I can manage that."

"Good," said Scribbles.

Our hooves shuffled along the cramped old tunnel. Shuffle-shuffle shuffle-shuffle, shuffle-shuffle, shuffle. While everypony blathered on softly to one another: blather blather blather blather blather.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" I said at last.

"No," Scribbles replied. "What? Of course not. It's just...I don't know…scary. And...yeah, kinda stupid actually. Trying to change things. You're not going to win."

I winced. 'Cause there was no denying it. We were being stupid - maybe even suicidally stupid - to think that we could save even just one slave from the Fillydelphia machine, let alone liberate everypony.

But still. A Rose Voice in the back of my brain screamed at me. Slammed its words like some kinda word-hammer at the inside of my skull-brain. Drilled into me the idea that maybe, somehow what we were doing could maybe kinda sorta amount to something more.

We had to try. Like Pinkie Pie said.

"You are!" Scribbles exclaimed. "You are planning something."

"What?" I squeaked. "No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are! You just said we have to try."

"I didn't say that part out loud," I snapped. "Quit probing my brain."

"Rose, what are you telling everypony?" Cliff threw accusatory eyeballs at me.

"Nothing," I squeaked. "Just that we have to try…to, um…fit in. Like Foster said."

"You're gonna get us all in trouble," Scribbles protested.

"Will not."

"Will too."

I sulked. Got into the rhythm of the shuffle. Buried my brain in the crowd's anonymous murmuring. As if that could banish the annoying conversation elephants from the room.

Shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle, went our hooves.

And I kept waiting for Foster to leap in, and save the day with her smooth talk. Or…I don't know. Say something. Anything.

But she didn't. No matter how much I begged and pleaded with Fate for a way
out of the conversation ropes I'd entangled myself in. It wouldn't save me. And neither would Bananas Foster.

Instead, she smacked her own eyes straight at me as though they were ping pong balls. 'Fix this,' one of those eyeballs seemed to say. 'Damn it, fix this!'

But the other eye pelted me. Ensnared me in a gaze that seemed to say, 'You can do it! You can do it! You can do it!'

And like magnets to my own eyeballs, Foster held me with her stare. Grabbed me. Drilled her confidence straight into my bones like confidence-building bone tubes.

(And before you get any ideas, no, there was no green flame, no mind control bug magic. Just a friend and her faith in me).

"Hay, uh...Scribbles," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Look, I know what you're thinking. But, uh…Fuck," I sighed. "We're not here to topple Red Eye, free all the slaves, and bring down Fillydelphia from within."

I hung my head. Saying it out loud gave the whole thing a certain finality. We really weren't gonna topple an entire civilization overnight.

"Whoa," said Scribbles. "I never said you were gonna do that."

I blink-bloinked my bloinkitty eyelids. "Oh, uh. Yeah, I know. It's just that, well…the truth is, uh…"

For a moment, my brain scrambled. All Rose Voices on full alert. But then something came over me. Bananas Foster's confidence - I could feel it.

It was still stuck somewhere in the center of my bones.

And my lips sorta…took over. And did the craziest thing imaginable. They told the truth.

"It's just that…I really wish I could, you know?" I snickered to myself. "I hate all this slavery stuff so much, and I hate that it feeds and clothes us, and I hate everything."

"Me too," said Scribbles. "But why'd you come? Why'd you come here really?"

"Misty dragged me," I said. Also truthful. "We go back a long way. It's…complicated."

Scribbles kicked a pebble. Super gently. It didn't even knock into some other kid's ankle. "Are you gonna be okay?" she asked. "Y'know. When we get to the surface?"

"I dunno," I said. "I hope so. But either way, I gotta see it for myself.Up close."

Scribbles flashed me a meek little smile.

"Here we are!" Lucky called out from way up ahead.

All the sneaker kids murmured their excitements amongst themselves.

"The Tomb of the Ancients!" Lucky used his spookiest, wobbliest voice. It echoed ominously against the tunnel stones.

"Ugh, damn it," Scribbles said. "Another stupid trial. I wish they'd get on with it already."

I chuckled. "Yeah."

We filed into the tomb. Two by two by two. Over the mound of splintery mulch on the floor that had once been a pair of wooden doors.

The Tomb of the Ancients was a locker room. Crumbling benches. Cubbies with the doors rusted off. The air was just a little bit sweeter now, though I couldn't say why. And cooler too.

We all fanned out. Just enough to avoid pressing up against everypony else. Clink-clink clink-clink clink-clink went the broken tiles beneath our hooves.

The walls were lined with rows upon rows of odd helmet-looking things with wire frames on the outside, twisted into vague shapes of faces. Masks. Mascot heads. Only all of the cloth had rotted away.

They loomed over us as we passed. Watching our every move.

"Eep!" Scribbles startled at the sight of one of them. It still had its eyes. She pressed herself against me. Instinctual-like.

But everypony else kept walking. Moving as a herd.

Scribbles laughed, apologetical-like. Pried herself off of me. And glanced at the mask once again. The one that had startled her.

It had a long snout. And unlike the others, its shape remained intact. 'Cause it wasn't cloth. It was scales. An alligator. With no teeth.

"Hay," I said. "That's Gummy."

"What?"

"Oh, uh…nothing. That's just Pinkie Pie's…alligator…friend…pet…thing."

"What's an alligator?"

"Nevermind."

We proceeded past the last of the masks. Two rows of lockers parted to reveal a giant mural on the far wall. Or at least…what remained of one. The flaking paint and brittle plaster left only the vaguest shape: two gigantic eyes. Ferocious. Glaring.

I felt uncomfortable just looking at them. 'Cause those eyeballs had stared at folks once upon a time, watching them get dressed.

The colors on the mural were faded down to shades of gray, but I knew by the faintest hints of pink and blue that those eyes were Pinkie Pie's.

Beneath the glowering portrait was a single word: REVER.

I stopped. Ogled the mural, even as the rest of the kids drifted around the corner. It was an L-shaped locker room. And their destination was somewhere on the other side. But still, I took pause - just for a moment - and got into a staring contest (of sorts) with that Pinkie mural.

I lost myself in its faded colors. Those faint remnants of pink around the eyelids. The subtle hints of blue around the irises.

I stared. I just…fucking…stared. Until, at last, the obvious question tumbled from my lips, "Why?"

Cliff came up beside me. "I don't know," he said.

Foster had no answers either. She just looked into the mural's crusty old eyes, and didn't say a word.

Scribbles, on the other hoof, cleared her throat to get our attention, 'Ahem, ahem, ahem.'

"Huh?" I said. "What?"

Scribbles gestured with her head at the rest of the herd, which had gathered in a semicircle.

"Stop with dees," Misty whispered. "Come! Make join!"

Slowly, we proceeded. As the herd looked back at us - the new kids. Cliff and Foster and Scribbles and Misty and me. Struggling behind.

"Go on,'' said Iris to his crew.

The crowd parted to make way. Just for us. And those broken tiles beneath our hooves sounded crazy loud now. Clink-clink, clink-clink, clink-clink.

We came forward. Past creepy masks and staring Super Sneaker Safety Society eyeballs. Until all of us caught up, and saw at last what they'd all gathered around.

It was a pair of skeletons. Real skeletons. Dressed in withered felt that looked like a paper bag that had been left out in the rain and trampled upon. Their mascot helmets rested beside them.

Cliff gawked. And not from shattered innocence, or anything like that. He'd seen his share of horrors. The dusts of Columnland. Oceans dried up. Shadow castles. The whole nine yards.

This shouldn't have shocked him.

But it's different to come up real close, and see dead folks. Folks who'd just curled up on the floor in desperation. Trying not to end up dead.

The skeletons had Foster a little taken aback too. Something about their huddled positions. The fear. The agony. The futility of it.

"Who were they?" I said.

Silence. No answer at all.

'Till Lucky stepped forward. Cloaked again. The scars all over her face cast weird zig-zaggity shadows. Like a picture in a newspaper that had been slashed and torn into tiny fragments.

"A lot of folks…" she stopped. Looked at her own hood. She musta suddenly remembered that it'd freaked me out before, 'cause she hastened to pull the whole damn thing down, and reveal her head.

"It's fine,'' I tried to say. "Really."

But she just threw an apology at me like a buckball pitch, "Sorry, sorry, sorry," she said. And turned to contemplatize the skeletons once more. "Lots of folks ran underground when the megaspell hit. Us scavenger kids have seen our fair share - don't even notice 'em anymore, to be honest - but we pay respect to these two."

Lucky's eyes drifted to the mural with the angry Pinkie Pie stare. "We think they were some kinda holy mares," she said. "Fleeing to their sacred temple."

I lost myself. Eyeballing those skeletons for Luna-only-knows how long.

It hurt. To see them all wrinkled up. Like they'd died in pain.

This "temple" hadn't saved them. I wished it had. But the bomb sucked ass and spared nopony.

"Fuck," I whispered.

These were ponies. Real ponies. With lives. Mothers. Sisters probably. Friends. They'd had a lousy job at a creepy amusement park, and hundreds of years later, all they got remembered for was how they died. And they were remembered wrong too.

Holy mares. Can you fucking believe that?

One by one, the sneaker kids all paid their respects, and readied themselves to move on. But I fixated on a bony eye socket of this one skeleton. It pointed at the ceiling. Like it was begging - pleading with fate for some relief. Just as I had done countless times since this whole background pony…thing…started.

Something about that one skull just sorta…drew me in somehow.

"What were their names?" I said aloud, not expecting an answer.

The other kids looked around at each other in total silence. Knowing damn well they couldn't produce an answer - that my question was an absurd one.

In the Wasteland, apparently, there were no names. No fucking answers.

Just death and death and death and death and death and pain and folks hacking Pip Bucks off of kids' legs, and landlords, and Red Eye's army raiding compounds and stuff.

"We call this one, The Dragon," said Lucky, pointing at the helmet at the skeleton's side. Scaly. Purple (vaguely). Shaped kinda like Spike from back home.

But that job's not who she was. What she'd want to be remembered for. That would be like my body turning up, a million years from now, in Cheerilee's class, and forever getting nicknamed Ms. Homework.

Who was she really? What had her cutie mark been? Her talent? Her destiny?

Did it even matter anymore?

After centuries go by, the only thing that regular folk can do to get themselves remembered is to have the Good Fortune of dying in the right fucking place.

But still, she'd had a life once. And deserved to be remembered for it.

"What were her dreams?" I whispered to myself. "Her destiny?"

Shuffling hooves clink-clanked on the locker room floor. But no answer.

...
...
...

"Poetic," said Scribbles, outta nowhere-ishly. "I like that."

And then, like a puff of smoke vanishing in the wind, suddenly, my questions weren't awkward anymore in their kindergarten naivete.

The air itself seemed to grow lighter. As the rest of the herd figured out what to do with me. What box to put me in. A way to understand me. I, apparently, was "poetic."

"Well,'' said Iris with a sigh. "You've certainly given the dead their due respect. That's the whole point of the Tomb of the Ancients."

"These ain't just ordinary skeletons." Lucky shot a fearful glance at the eyeball mural and shuddered. As though Pinkie Pie were looking right at her. Watching. Judging.

With a deep breath in, and a deep breath out, Lucky plunged the depths of her own soul and dug herself up a smile. A faint one.

"Come on, Poet," she said. "We're almost at the end."

She bent a knee and gave the skeletons a tiny bow out of respect, and headed deeper into the locker room towards a doorway at the very end.

The others did the same.

* * *

The hallway narrowed - wedged me right next to Scribbles and Misty. Even as Bananas Foster threw me eyeballs. What the fuck are you doing kind of eyeballs. 'Cause the path was drifting upwards now. And the air was growing cooler. Fresher. We didn't have much time left before we'd hit the surface, and have to leave Scribbles behind.

Beside me, Misty Mountain seemed poised and ready. Like one of those shepherd dogs with eyes made out of daggers and legs made of springs. He'd figured out where we were. He might even kinda sorta have the slightest ghost-of-a-clue where the fuck we were headed, and how to get there-and-back again without getting shot by Red Eye's heroic troops.

Alright, Rose, one of my voices said. This is it. Enough slacking off. Keep an eye on Misty Mountain. Wait for him to break off. Don't hesitate. Don't fuck it up, and above, all…don't you dare get distracted.

"Hey, Rose Petal," came a voice. Outside of my head.

"Huh? What?"

It was Scribbles. "Mind if I ask ya something?"

"Um, yeah," I said. "Go ahead."

"I never really considered this stuff before. But you got me, uh…well…considering. It's kinda silly, but, like, what if our skeletons got found some day? What will future ponies make of us?"

I thought about the trenches. The soldiers. Their idolization of the Lightbringer, and Strawberry Lemonade, and the folks who were gonna turn Equestria around…or at least start to.

They'd been so jaw-droppingly horrified to learn that I'd escaped a slave mine. That slavery even still existed at all. But these Safety kids - they lived and breathed it. They'd escaped its horrors. Yet accepted them as normal. And even found themselves an oasis where they could be its beneficiaries.

But all that was all gonna end soon. In the Safety kids' lifetimes, if I had my timelines straight.

There'd even be battles and stuff.

I couldn't possibly begin to guess any of the details, but these kids - most of them anyway - weren't gonna be good guys.

"I dunno what folks are gonna think of our, um…skeletons," I said nervously. "Does it matter?"

"I guess not," Scribbles hung her head. "But what you said still got me thinking though."

"Uh, what did I say again?"

"These skeletons you find all over the Wasteland. The assholes who broke Equestria. Maybe even they mighta had, like, feelings and friendships and cutie marks and stuff."

"The…assholes who broke Equestria?"

Fuck. That was me. And Cliff. And Apple Bloom and Scootaloo and Featherweight and Kettle Corn and everypony I knew! It was us. We were the generation that broke Equestria! For all I knew those skeletons in the mascot suits coulda been kids I knew from school!

"Yeah, you know, they had it so good. Food. Water. No radiation. And they fucked it up. For all of us."

"Not all of them fucked it up."

"They sure as fuck didn't stop it, am I right?" Scribbles chuckled.

"Oh yeah?" I snapped. "Well maybe we'll get remembered for being assholes too. When slavery's over and future ponies dig up all the cages and chains. What will they think of you?"

Scribbles recoiled like she'd been kicked in the teeth.

"Us," I added hastily.

Scribbles looked away, red in the face. And before I could even say anything, she squeezed behind us. Wedging her way past the other kids, all the way towards Iris in the back.

"Scribbles, I didn't mean–;"

I spun around, every hair on my coat standing on end. Screaming at me. To fix this. To make it right. I'd been rude. Mean. Fucking cruel.

Scribbles was a really cool kid, and she was always super nice to me, and had tried to be my friend and everything, and now I'd gone and hurt her feelings.

...Something only a member of the asshole skeleton generation would do.

But even as my heart exploded with guilt, and filled my head with throbbing guilt-blood that was probably gonna burst out of my eyeballs any second, I still couldn't make it right.

It'd be stupid even to try. We had a zebra to save. And we needed distance from Scribbles to do it.

A light was growing up ahead now. And not the unicorn kind. We were nearing the end of the tunnel.

Foster put a hoof on my shoulder. She didn't say, "it's for the best," or "you did the right thing," or any of the other stupid shit that folks tell you to try to get you to feel better. She just let me lean on her the rest of the way.

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

DEDICATION:

Rejoice! It's the Full Moon. Praise Luna, to whom this chapter is dedicated!!!

THOUGHTS:

I was debating with someone recently who argued that humanity was in a race against the clock to settle other planets before our Sun exploded billions of years from now. So urgent was his desire, that he was willing to destroy the present Earth to achieve it, and he stated so plainly.

I needn't point out here the logical fallacies of destroying your home just for the sake of eventually getting to a theoretical new one, but the compulsive need to establish an immortal legacy in order to lend meaning to the present is as old as humanity itself.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest surviving piece of major human literature, and it's all about the hubris of one man's quest for immortality.

Destroying every living thing on Earth in order to entertain some intellectual abstract that lends us a moment of existential relief - it's insane - the sort of thinking that makes villains of the entire human race.

We have each other in the here and now. We have our friendships. We have a vast humanity desperately crying out for love - for dignity - for solidarity.

If we value one another, and aid in each other's struggles right now, we create a golden age that cannot help but be remembered.

When we make serving humanity our goal, our very lives explode with meaning and vibrance and love for one another.

Chasing some Gilgameshian fantasy, on the other hand - destroying everything beautiful in this world out of fear of what might happen a billion years from now? That kind of thinking makes monsters of us all.

It's fucking insane.

Obviously I'm not writing this story in rebuttal of one Internet buffoon's ill-conceived hot takes, but legacy is an important them in FO:E, and it's important to Rose Petal too.

While I would not presume to offer answers, I do think the difference between personal legacy and collective legacy is worth reflecting upon.

It's an open ended question that permeates more aspects of our existence than we may be conscious of. It's a question worth asking.

Happy Full Moon, everypony.

Light and Shadow and a Secret Third Thing

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE - LIGHT AND SHADOW AND A SECRET THIRD THING
"I was so naive as a kid, I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing." - Johnny Carson

Friendship is supposed to matter. Friendship is supposed to win. Friendship is supposed to light up the gloom with purpose - a sparkly rainbow destiny lightning that defies all hopelessness, and all reason. That's. How. The. Universe. Works. Even Zecora said so. And the Great Sorcerer Planktoneth too!

But I'd fucked all that up. I'd hurt Scribbles. She was a really really really really reeeeally cool kid! And I'd gone and hurt her. By saying dumb stuff about her generation.

She was gonna hate me forever now - long after I was gone - and there was nothing to be done for it. No grand speeches or gestures or gifts of caramel apples and jewels and chocolate-covered popcorn to show how sorry I was.

But the worst thing about it was: I didn't even feel like myself. I mean, what the fuck was I thinking???!!!

How could I say something like that? So selfish! So stupid.

It made me wonder if I was even myself at all anymore, or if...like...there was some magic at play - like, maybe, the shadow energy haunting my hoof had made it into my bloodstream or whatever, and bolted straight up to my lips. To make me say mean things to Scribbles.

Or the brain hornets! Like, maybe that...misstep of my tongue - that...misfire of my brain - was their method of getting me to push Scribbles away.

My friends and I had a mission to do, after all. Scribbles avoiding me - like it or not - was actually the best thing for everypony.

The army of voices in my mind slowly faded to the background like phonograph static. One voice drowning it all out - the voice that laid the blame upon fate. It grew louder and louder and louder and louder and louder. Blame the shadows. Blame fate. Blame the shadows! Blame fate!

'Till POW!

The 2 x 4 o' Friendship killed it once and for all. 'You fucked up, Rose,' said the Twink inside my brain. 'You fucked up, and you're lying to yourself. No. Pony. Lies. To. My. Friends.'

She whacked me with every single word. And she was right to.

I'd spent the whole damn winter fighting against the Powers That Be - scraping together whatever scraps of dignity I could - even as I tumbled down the Staircase O' Destiny.

I couldn't just, all of a sudden, turn around and pretend like I'm some innocent puppet. Just 'cause I'd messed up and acted like a jerk.

Maybe the whole universe can't get boiled down to Forces of Light versus Tides of Shadow. Maybe, sometimes it's a third thing, every bit as stupid.

Ourselves.

* * *

"Okay, listen up," Lucky said to all of us new kids.

The whole herd of super sneakers was gathered in a warehouse at the end of Pinkie Pie's secret tunnel. We were above ground now. A gust of wind stabbed at us from a crack in the walls. Blades of light ripped through that gap too. They alternated colors like some kinda dance party. Bright blue. Then bright pink. Then blue. Then pink. Then blue. Then pink. Then blue again.

"...This amusement park ain't like normal sneakin'," Lucky continued. "Our Brave Troops are disciplined, and coordinated, and known to stick to certain routes - at least on the night before Hearth's Warming Eve when they throw their great big ol' shindig. So we should have this corner of the park to ourselves."

"We do," said a voice from above. The pink ray of light fluttered. A tiny figure slipped in through the crack in the walls, did a flawless triple back flip off the rafters, and landed in a ta-da!!! pose. It was Formerly Upside-down Boy - the kid who'd spotted us sneaking around back in Safety. "It's all secure."

"Thanks for the sitrep," Lucky continued, firing Eyeball-Cannons of Annoyance at F.U.B. "We probably have this corner of the park to ourselves. But we can't count on that.

'The closer we get to our destination, everypony, the more chance we're gonna have of running into trouble - even if those chances do remain slim. So!" Lucky clopped his forehooves together for emphasis. "...It doesn't matter if you're the sneakiest sneaker who ever sneaked, or if you're brand spankin' new to this." Lucky stole a glance at me - the kid who was, apparently, brand spankin' new to this. "We all have to work together to keep from gettin' caught. That means following a few basic rules that the Super Sneaking Secret Safety Society has established through our experiences with this kinda terrain…

'First: we can't move in a giant herd, or we'll get spotted. So there's a buddy system, and New Blood? You're getting paired up with seasoned Safety Sneakers. Stay low. Stay quiet. Stay patient. And most of all…stay close to your partner, and everything will be fine."

Cliff threw me a panicked glance that looked like this:

"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I threw one right back at him:

"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

If all of us new blood kids buddied up with mega-experienced sneaky kids instead of with each other, none of us would ever get a chance to break off!

My friends and I. Needed. To. Get. Away. From all of it. And fast!

I shot my panicked eyeballs at Misty and Foster. But they were both cool as cucumbers frozen under seventy-nine feet of special cucumber-chilling ice.
…
…
…
The light turned blue once more. And Formerly Upside-down Boy swung a great big barn door wide open.

"Ahhhhh!" The entire Super Safety Secret Society of Sneakers winced and squirmed like we had all been stabbed in the head with swords and lasers and searing hot railroad spikes at the same time.

"Give it a minute," Lucky snickered.

"Gah!" Said Cliff. "You're doing this on purpose?"

"Better your eyes adjust now, than to go running out there blind," F.U.B. retorted.

I held a hoof over my brow. Squinted into the light as a chill bit my nose. Little by little, the outside world came into focus. There was a cinder block storefront across the street with a heap of crumbling plaster blocking the threshold, and an awning dangling over it that looked like a broken umbrella's twisted metal skeleton.

It was as blue as the light that blinded us. Everything out there was. Blue blue blue blue blue blue blue.

One by one, all the S.S.S.S.S. kids - old and new - closed in and drew nearer to the door. To steal a peek.

"You, Poet! Come with me," Formerly Upside Down Boy pointed my way.

"Who? What? Me?" I said, all smoooooth, and intelligible-like.

"Yeah, you," the boy replied. "And you, Feathers," he pointed to Cliff. "Go wit' Lucky."

Cliff whipped his head around. Left and right, and up and down. But there was no escape.

He pressed himself against me. Afraid of getting separated. Terrified-to-the-very-Cliffcore by the very idea of running off with one of the S.S.S.S.S.'s leaders, and left tofigure out an escape all by himself.

"Bananas," Formerly Upside-down Boy pointed at Foster. "You go wit'--;"

"Hay," Lucky whisper-whined. "I'm giving the assignments."

F.U.B. tapped his hoof, and bobbed his head. "Look, you and Iris can split up Meadow Blade's duties however you want," he retorted. "But security's still my department."

Lucky grumbled, but didn't try to stop him. I gathered that F.U.B. must be deeply respected in sneakerly circles for his aptitude in the field of sneakosity.

Next thing I know, he's making a bunch of hoof-and-head gestures telling folks where to go, and where not to.

Iris came up right beside Foster and bumped hooves with her. Misty ended up paired with Some Blue Filly I'd never seen before. The Other New Kid Whose Name I Didn't Know was lime green, so she got paired with some periwinkle kid. (Who shall henceforth get referred to by me as Lime-O and Perry).

And Scribbles? I lost track of her entirely.

"But wait," I squeaked out. "We're friends. We need to stick together."

"You don't know the park," said Iris. "It's only 'till we get where we're going."

"Where are we a-goingk?" Asked Misty with an urgency he couldn't quite conceal.

Bzzzzt! The outside light turned pink once again.

Iris grinned and leaned in with the kinda spark you get in your eyeballs when you've gathered 'round a campfire, and it's your turn to tell a spooky story. "About a thousand yards in," Iris said, soft and conspiratorial-like. "There's an old fountain. Legend has it that–;"

"Fountain?" Misty lit up - choked back a smirk. "Ees big one, yes?" He looked to me with a giant, I know where that fountain is smile.

"Used to be," said Lucky. "It was sealed off a long time ago to keep the parasprites in."

Iris raised his prosthetic hoof like a professor about to commence with a lecture. But he didn't get a chance to speak.

"Parasprites?!" Me and Cliff squealed, simultaneous-like.

I remembered those little fuckers! They demolished the whole damn town. Worst disaster Ponyville ever faced. More dire even than the Great Bunny Stampede!

"Wouldja knock it off?'' Formerly Upside Down Boy snapped at Lucky. "You're scaring the New Blood."

Iris opened his mouth to speak once again, but F.U.B. slid dramatically across the room, looked me in the eye directly, and spoke in a voice that was both eulogy-grim and gentle as a lullaby. "Yeah, there's parasprites, but don'tcha worry - the fountain's sealed off good and tight. So the poison can't getcha." He winked reassuringly.

But it wasn't at all reassuring. Not even a little bit.

"Poisonous parasites?!" I said.

"Trust us, okay?" Iris jumped in. Radiating a warmth that rivaled even Matilda's back home. It was contagious somehow, even though it made no sense to trust him.

So Cliff and I nodded.

"Stay quiet," said Lucky. "Stay close to your partner. And all y'all will git to the party before you know it. Everypony have a partner?"

A quick glance around the warehouse: everypony was, more or less, already standing in pairs. We all drifted toward the door, two-by-two, eager to get the fuck on with it already. But Lucky threw himself in our way.

"Rule Number Two," she said. "We move with the light, not against it. That means warm-colored ponies go when it's pink out there. Cool colors when it's blue." Lucky flipped her own polka dotted cloak inside out and draped herself in its blue lining.

"Wait. Shouldn't we uh, do the…opposite of that?" Said Cliff.

"From a distance, we look like simple tricks of the light," said Iris. "…If we're the same color as the light. But if we're not, we look like suspicious shadowy figures."

"But I'm white," I said.

"I'm not," F.U.B. gestured to his own yellowish hue. "And you're with me."

"Okay, but—;"

"You also don't have a hat." F.U.B. pointed to my mane - red and pink and yellow. All warm colors that would, apparently, look like 'simple tricks of the light' once we were out there, dashing down Strawberry Lane.

Iris, who was also white, busied himself flipping his polka dot cape inside out to cloak himself in the pinkish tint of its lining. He was partnered with Foster, and would, apparently, be running alongside us warm-colored folks.

"We can't just–;" Cliff protested. But Misty cut him off.

"Ees okay," said Misty with a great big old bear hug. "We have each other."

Cliff Diver looked to me with panicked eyeballs. And I swallowed my own scaredy eyeballs - presented Cliff with better eyeballs - more confident eyeballs - eyeballs that said, 'you got this, Cliff'; and, 'we'll be fine. I promise.'

"Rule Number Three," said Lucky. "Stick close to the walls when you can, but it's more important to trot over softer ground. A little bit of clopping might blend into the din when y'all are out there sneaking by your lonesome, but there's no way we can hide the sound of a hundred galloping hooves."

"So, unless you're crossing an open square or thoroughfare," Iris added. "Silence before speed."

"Right!" Said Lucky. "Rule Four: whatever you do–;"

"There's too many rules," came a grumbling voice. The herd parted a little. I could just barely make out Scribbles, standing on the fringe of the crowd. "Rules are for school," she snickered out loud.

I sighed a sighing sigh of relief…sigh-ish-ly. It was good to see her keeping her spirits - you know, after I'd been such a colossal jerk to her.

But it didn't last long. Scribbles froze once she cast her eyes across the herd. Nopony else was laughing.

Lucky looked like she'd seen a damn dragon. "Rule Four," she repeated. "If you're spotted - if their searchlight lands on you - that's it. T's'all over. Sit down. Raise your forehooves. And wait. Do not run."

"Yeah, our troops are trained to assess the situation before opening fire," F.U.B added. "It keeps 'em from shooting one another accidentally."

"If you stay put," Lucky continued. "And if you keep a calm head, then, with any luck, they'll come n' collect you, and the worst thing that'll happen is that we'll all be in a fuck ton of trouble with Miss Honey tomorrow."

Scribbles shuttered at the thought.

"But if you run…" Lucky paused to survey the herd - to make damn sure that every single eyeball was fixed on her - Scribbles' included - "...If you panic and you run, then every last one of us is dead."

Scribbles swallowed her throat apple. Looked my way out of the corner of her eye, and shrunk back in shame.

* * *

The instant that the light turned blue again, Lucky gave a hoof signal, and folks rushed out in a hurry.

Half of them anyway.

Misty and Cliff and their respective foalsitters dashed into the open.

Cliff Diver threw me one final glance on his way out - a pair of What-The-Hell-Am-I-Supposed-To-Do-Now? eyes that somehow seemed to defy all physics and trail behind him.

Then, fwoosh! He was gone. Dashing down the street with the other cool kids.

Us warm-colored kids stayed behind. F.U.B, Iris, Foster, Scribbles - along with about seven other sneakers - all left in the dust. Waiting for the pink light to return.

The room fell silent but for the vague humming of some distant machine. We all gazed out that door at the beat up old street. The odor of spent gunfire blew our way.

"The name's Flip," Formerly Upsidedown Boy introduced himself properly at last.

"Hi."

I ogled his flank. His cutie mark - a spiral sort of scribble with an arrow at the end of it. Like the motion you make when you…you know…do a flip.

"Oh," I said. "Like your cutie mark."

Flip squinted at me. Confuseitty. Like I'd just accused him of being made out of radishes and armadillos and paper clips.

"You, uh…never noticed how ponies' names, and their talents, and their cutie marks all match?" I said.

Flip blinked, and looked at me be-puzzled-ish-ly.

"Aww, fuck it." I rolled my eyes. "Nevermind."

Bananas Foster threw me a knowing glance. She was the only other creature who ever seemed to detect stuff like that. Other ponies simply…didn't. Even though it was totally fucking obvious.

I wondered - just for half a second - if that was one of my Rose Family powers - if all this, what do you call it? - mind magic - was actually just noticing the obvious. Stuff that wasn't obvious to everypony else for some weird reason.

"Okay listen up, Poet,'' said Flip. "You don't have to do somersaults and cartwheels and stuff like me to be a good sneaker. But you gotta have your head on straight."

I raised a hoof to touch my own head - instinctual-like - just to make sure it wasn't falling off.

Flip facehooved. "Look, just...stick close to me, and you'll be fine, okay?

I nodded.

"The rules are less annoying than they sound," he led us closer to the door. "Just remember: there's only one secret - one trick you really need to know in order to be good at sneaking. It works, like, pretty much anywhere…"

"What's that?"

He leaned in close - the keeper of the clandestine knowledge of his trade. "Wherever you sneak," he whispered. "…Whatever you do…don't let anyone know you're there."

Flip drew back, nodded the sternest of nods, and gave me an oddly paternal pat on the shoulder (for a kid half my size). His eyes locked firmly on mine to impress the gravity of this great wisdom that he was entrusting unto me.

"Uh…thanks."

The outside light turned pink again, and just like that, we were off. Flip's solemn advice still echoing in my brain skull. "Don't let anyone know you're there."

* * *

The inside of the Fillydelphia Pinkie Pie Park O' Doom looks reeeeal different up close than it does far away. There were no towers to be seen. No barbed wire. No geysers belching up flames way up high in the sky, nor Pinkie heads looming over us like dark overmares. (At least not where we were).

Just a long, long road lined with more of those cinder block structures, and heaps of rotting wood and crumbling plaster littered at their bases.

Forgotten façades. Forgotten fantasies. The t-shirt shop that'd once looked like a castle. The gallery of busted knick knacks that had once borne the shape of an octopus - a twisted wreck of wireframe tentacles collapsing over the doorway, like vines before a secret garden. There was even a bookshop that had been shaped like Twilight Sparkle's head once upon a time (either that or a rhododendron wearing a wig - I couldn't quite tell).

We snuck past them all, hopscotching over loud and crunchitty splinters of cobblestone - leaping instead from one patch of silent dirt to another. Bounding as though all the broken street-fragments were lava.

When we came to the end of the block, Flip herded me toward the only store with an actual surviving awning. It looked like the top of a cupcake.

"Good job, kid," Flip said with a smile.

"Uh, thanks."

We took cover underneath the cupcake and waited.

The other warm-colored kids caught up with us. They'd crept across the river of pink so well, that I could barely see them myself. Bananas Foster kept one eyeball on me, and the other eyeball on her own hooves as she leapfrogged over the ground-lava.

Scribbles just focused on her task. A Wasteland veteran back in the groove. If there'd been even the teeniest tiniest microscopiest pirate whining inside her head, she'd already kicked its ass and moved on.

Good.

I turned to the courtyard square that lay ahead. There was a great big neon pink sign on the opposite end of it. Buzzing riotously through the night like a swarm of cicadas. But none of us crossed. Not yet.

We'd make our break for it when the blue-pink-cycle-or-whatever began anew. Till then, we just waited.

"Sooo," I said to Flip. "Uh, what're you gonna do with your, um…sneaking powers when you grow up?"

"I dunno," he replied. "Maybe sneak for Uncle Red Eye if he'll have me. Or maybe go solo."

"They'll let you do that?"

"Yeah, sure," he said. "We're all free to leave when we graduate…But, of course, nopony ever wants to."

He gazed out across the empty courtyard. Had it been a lake, he'd have skipped a stone upon it.

"Food first," I said to myself. "Morals follow on."

"Nah, I can get my own food," he replied. "I just wouldn't feel right about ditching out, y'know?"

"You think it's immoral not to work for Red Eye? I mean...Uncle Red Eye?

"Nah, not that," he replied. "I don't get wrapped up in hero worship."

"What then?"

He gestured at the tricks of the light all around us. The warm-colored fillies tucking themselves into nooks, and the strange, cool-colored kids in double hiding - waiting for the light to turn. "I don't think I could leave them all behind."

Bzzzzt! Blue. The great big courtyard square lit up like the ocean.

The cool kids emerged from their hiding spots and dashed across the courtyard. Galloping at full speed. The buzzing sign seemed to swallow up the noise of their stampede.

"Up ahead is one of those…speed before silence occasions?" I spoke directly into Flip's ear.

He nodded back at me. "You got it figured out."

Misty and Cliff and their guides all hauled flank over the vast open space before us - what appeared to be some kinda town square - not a real town square (of course) - but a part of the theme park meant to look homely.

Vague cottage shapes encircled the open field. Oddly familiar ones.

Ancient benches and ruins of foodhuts all lay scattered throughout the fairgrounds. They were storage sheds now. Wheelbarrows and crates and stuff.

Misty and Cliff and all the other cool kids used them as cover, darting this-way-and-that as they galloped full speed across.

It looked almost like my own home town, only with, like, stupid military junk everywhere. And a guard tower way off in the distance built atop a structure shaped exactly like Ponyville Town Hall.

Wait, Ponyville Town Hall???????!!!!

My chest tightened in panic. My lungs forgot to breathe. Everything around us looked fake. Felt fake. Like a dream gone sour. But for a moment - fleeting like the flash of a camera - I could swear I was back home. Ponyville.

Everypony had been invaded and occupied by some belligerent force that smashed everything and scattered military junk everywhere.

Have they gotten Roseluck?!! One of my voices shouted at me. Cranky? Matilda?

What happened to Ponyville?! Another Rose Voice stampeded around the inside of my head, screaming. My house? My family scrap book? Mom's chair!

"Home," I whispered to myself. "What happened to home?"

Then the blue light flickered a bit. Bzzt.

"Get ready," said Flip.

I suddenly remembered where I was. Remind-ified that, no matter what else happened, Roseluck was still back home. Safe. Minding my Rose Family altar - tending to the candles like Zecora had told her to.

Bzzzkzkzkkzzt! The light turned pink once again. And off we went - Flip and me.

Bananas Foster and her guide soon emerged from the shadows too. About twenty feet away.

Scribbles not far behind.

We ran and we ran and we ran and we ran and we ran. For the first time - exposed. All of us. A Pinkie Pie balloon haunted the air somewhere way off in the distance.

I could see the Ponyville Town Hall Guard Tower better now. They had big lights and even bigger guns. Both pointed away from Fake Ponyville. A pair of guards leaned against the rails, flanks facing us.

To my other side was a really long, empty stretch of pink light. The neon haze stretched its way down an abandoned corner of the park 'til darkness clawed it down to nothing. And beyond that darkness was a tiny flame, hiding behind hills and ruins and warehouses. Another Pinkie balloon probably.

I panted and galloped and panted and galloped and panted and galloped and panted some more. Tossing my head all over the place - desperate to get the lay of the land. "Come on, come on, come on," I said out-of-breath-ish-ly. Hoping that something - anything - might leap out at me, set off my brain hornets, my voices, or even just give me a fraction of an idea of what we should do next.

But no answers came. Just storefronts around the edges of the square.And stupid crates everywhere blocking my way.

That guard tower seemed to have eyes of its own too. Being within eyeball-range of it was vulnerablizing. Like having my hide flayed off and my guts flopped around all over the place on a clothesline on the front lawn of Ponyville Elementary. An ever-looming threat, even if the guards up there didn't bother to look our way.

But there were no fountains. No sewers, nor slave pens, nor signs telling us which way the zebra prisoners were being held. Not a single trace of anything, anywhere that might even give us even a micro-hint.

So I just kept on galloping, (Flip keeping pace beside me). And I hoped that Misty Mountain knew where the Hell we were going.

The buzzing light grew brighter and brighter and brighter. By the time we neared the end of the square, that sign was like a great big neon-pink sun. It hung over a grotesque caricature of a cottage - larger than any real cottage could ever hope to be.

In the mirage of its inarticulate pink glow, I saw a message, as clear and obnoxiously vague as anything the brain hornets might say.

BE CORN.

Be corn??? What the fuck did that mean? Was it, like, a reference to when I was in the trenches? Potatoes and 'corns? Was it a warning? To blend in? To look like the folks on the other side of 'enemy' lines?

Was it total nonsense? Brain hornets and Powers That Be and shadows and stuff, all trying to send me messages that got scrambled through time trying to find me and my friends, (who'd disappeared from their view)?

Or was I simply going nuts?

"What the–;" I said aloud.

My hoof snagged on a pothole, and Flip, by some miracle of physics, leapt - just in time to catch me, and use my own momentum to sling me in the correct direction. It was a weird kung fu do-si-do. But I landed on my hooves. And kept running.

"Good recovery," said Flip, surprisingly encouraging for somepony who'd just had to save my dumb ass from wiping out.

"Thanks," I said.

The pink light flickered. We were almost out of time.

"Final stretch," said Flip.

We both hauled flank - made straight for the underside of the gigantic fake cottage. To join all the other kids already ahead of us.

But just before the sign bathed the 'town square' in blue light again, it fritzed out one last time. And I caught a glimpse of the actual letters more clearly.

It read, not - BE CORN - but, SUGARCUBE CORNER. In ginormous letters.

We launched ourselves into its shadow, just as those letters burned to life. Its bright blue glow made a calm ocean out of the empty Town Square.

Flip and I caught up with the rest of the herd, and didn't look back.

* * *

It wasn't long before 'Ponyville' was behind us. The walkways grew wider. Darker. And a hill rose gently to our right, shrouding us all in shadow.

There was a whole lotta bright light halo-ing the hill from the other side.

Our brave troops. The thought of them made my hairs stand on end.

We ventured deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into the dark. Unicorn kids never daring to light up their horns. For fear of being seen.

It was kinda weird. Darkness meaning safety. Light meaning danger.

I'd been dealing with nightmare monsters from Dimension-What-The-Fuck for so long, that I'd almost forgotten what it was like to face the kinda danger that came from, you know…regular ponies.

The hill rose steadily as we hiked our way through the gray, sharpening upwards into a mini-cliff. And the light on the other side only grew brighter and brighter and brighter. Till finally, we approached a giant claw, built onto the summit of the cliff itself.

At first, it seemed a random, tangled mess of crumbling iron, but as we drew nearer, the twisted form began to take shape - a building - or what remained of one. A castle with crumbling turrets. Missing spires.

A cruel mockery of Canterlot.

As the wind blew, it creaked and moaned and complained in a language that only iron knows. But it didn't tumble off the cliff. Didn't crush us to death. It just sorta hung out, looking spooky.

Iris held up a hoof, and everypony stopped, just as we were passing under it's ruins.

Flip whispered to me, "Be right back."

"Huh?"

Before I could muster even half a clue, Flip had already galloped to the front of the herd. Silently saluted Iris, and dashed straight ahead - into the darkness. Scouting the final stretch.

Lucky perched herself atop a modest ledge at the base of the 'mountain', and took to counting all of our heads.

Once accounted for, little by little, everypony just sort of casually drifted from their assigned partners, and converged into one herd. Warm colors and cool colors. Together again at last.

Bananas Foster was the first kid I found. She'd never strayed far from me in the first place.

"Rose!" She whisper-shouted. "Hay, Rose!"

"Hay."

"So glad to see you," she hugged me for a good long time. Then pulled away - held me at leg's length. "Hay uh…hehe," she laughed awkwardly. "Can I ask you something dumb?"

"Sure."

Foster craned her neck and peered over her shoulder. "Sugarcube Corner," she whispered. "Does it…you know…Does it really look like that?"

She pointed up the road. Back the way we'd come.

"No," I said. "I mean…yeah, it's shaped like that….Kinda….But it feels less…"

"Monstrous?" Foster asked.

"Yeah," I nodded. "More like the Pinkie Pie we know. And less…um…like you said…monstrous."

Foster nodded gravely. Narrowed her eyes. Furrowed her brow. Like she had a really hard math problem in her head that she refused to give up on because the numbers were actually feelings, and the formulas were all emotion-math, and nothing added up the way it was supposed to, and by the way, now there's a bunch of calculus squiggles all over the place, and the letter 'f' for some stupid reason, and nobody knows what any of that stuff even means!

"If we ever make it home," Foster said. "I'm gonna need a picture of it - the real Sugarcube Corner." A tremor haunted her voice as she raised her head and looked to me with desperate eyeballs."Okay?"

It must have been so weird for her. To know Pinkie Pie. To see her two or three times a week. And still have to rely on rotting apocalypse architecture to fashion a guess as to what her home looked like.

"Okay," I replied.

"Thanks," she said.

A sadness hung in the air. Over us both. About Pinkie. Her fate. Her legacy of creepiness and terror. What she'd left behind.

But it was just a fleeting moment.

'Cause, outta nowhere, Foster suddenly lifted her head up to the sky, and sniffed alarmishly at the air, (though she didn't use her nose). "Misty?"

She took to surveying the crowd. And I followed her lead - scanning the whole herd with my eyeballs. Dim equine shape after dim equine shape.

Dark is it was, Misty was easily found. He stood apart from the others, staring down a sewer grate. Cliff Diver solemnly by his side.

Foster rushed over. "What's wrong?"

"Ees nothing," said Misty. "I'm fine."

A sour look crossed Bananas Foster's face. But she held her tongue.

"We have some idea where we are now," Cliff interject-ified. "Though we haven't quite figured out where the bumper plow slave quarters are, we do know that this part of the sewer," he pointed at the grate. "Is certified, by our local expert here," he smiled nervously at Misty. "To be parasprite-free."

Misty did not reciprocate.

"How about you, Rose?" Cliff changed the subject. "Are you okay? After running through all that weird, fake Ponyville stuff? It was kinda freaky, you know, seeing our hometown in ruins."

"Everything ees going well," Misty snapped. Totally out of nowhere. "Twenty times better than expected!"

Foster, Cliff, and I all exchanged eyeballs with one another.
…
…
…
Foster stepped up and broke the silence, "Where does this sewer hole lead?" She asked. Avoiding the obvious question on purpose.

Misty raised a hoof. Pointed deeper into the park - the road that Flip had gone down. Then he pointed the other way. At the fake-ass Canterlot Hill. Presumably 'cause the tunnels extended under the hill and all of that castle junk, and let out on the other side. Where the flood light blasted.

Blam! Kaplow! Suddenly, a great boom let loose on the other side of that very mountain, echoing against the walls and buildings in the distance like a snare drum in a cavern.

I threw myself on the floor. Tugged violently on Cliff's knee till he tipped over too. Pow pow pow went the gun - (and yes, it was totally, definitely, 100%, without a doubt, a fucking gun).

Kablonkerdunk! Went Cliff as he tumbled over me.

I threw my hooves over my head. Remembering No Mare's Land - the importance of taking cover. How a little twig teased over the edge of the trenches had been enough to get annihilated by a hundred-thousand simultaneous blasts of pure death.

I pulled Cliff Diver closer. Peeked from behind my forelegs to see what was going on. Misty had already hit the deck. And Foster had followed our lead. But almost all the other kids were still on their hooves. Unconcerned.

Through a forest of limbs, I saw only one other filly on the floor. Scribbles.

Her eyes met mine. Just for a second. In a flurry of eyeball panic, her fear turned to shame. And her shame turned to anger. She whipped her mane around so I couldn't see her face, leapt to her hooves, dusted herself off as though nothing had happened at all. And held her head overly high. To try and prove some weird kinda dignity.

"Conflicted," Bananas Foster whispered in my ear. "Unpredictable."

But none of it made any fucking sense to me at all. Why did Scribbles care so much? We were hallfway through the park, under a hail of gunfire, and my stupid comeback about The Asshole Generation still managed to cut her deeply. What the fuck?

"Good instinct!" said Iris with a chuckle. "It's alright though. Just happy fire."

"Happy…fire?" I said.

"Troops are having a party," said Lucky. "The louder they are, the safer we'll be."

Misty appeared out of nowhere. Offered me his hoof. And I offered Cliff Diver mine. Together we stood. Gazing up at 'Canterlot', and at the harsh lights behind it, cutting through the skies.

Pa-twang! The very tip of the 'castle' shed a cloud of dust as a bullet ripped into it from the other side.

Far away, a raucous roar broke out amidst the 'happy fire'-izing troops. Like somepony had just scored a goal at one of those sports stadium things.

I shivered. But not from the cold.

* * *

The last stretch of the journey was that long, dark road that Flip had scouted.
Iris and Flip led at the front. Lucky kept watch at the back. And we all casually intermingled in between, freed from the shackles of the buddy system at last.

But there was still no fucking way that my friends and I could escape, break off, and make for the bumper plow slave pen…wherever the hell that might be.

The roots of the fake-ass Canterlot Hill stretched out along the entire road, and hugged us on the right, walling us off from the 'happy fire' part of the park, while a solid wall of buildings-n-stuff met us on our left.

We made our way in silence - not just any silence - grim silence-y silence.

The further we went, the heavier the air became. A sort of dread hung over even the experienced sneakers now - a fear I couldn't quite explain. Foster sensed it too. Her gait stiffened, her ears pricked up like mailbox flags, and her eyeballs threw themselves in every conceivable direction.

Eventually, a distant light strobed at the end of the path. And the smell of gunsmoke carried on the wind.

Misty shoved his way forward the second he saw it. Pressed himself right against my side.

"Psst," he whispered.

I looked right at him. Nine inches away.

"Psst," he repeated.

"I'm right here," I craned my neck - spoke directly into his ear.

"Good," he snickered to himself.

But didn't elaborate.

Cloppa-cruncha-cloppa-cruncha-crunch went the sound of a hundred hooves on eroded cobblestone. Clop-clop-crunch-crunch-crunchity-clop-clop-clop, it kept on going and going and going and going and going. Till at last, Misty spoke up again. "You should know…I am understandink how you feel."

I wrinkled my face in confusion.

"...About seeing your Ponyville home in ruins." Misty turned his head skyward. Eyed the warped metal archway up ahead at the end of the road, and the Pinkie head that rotted above it. Her face was like a rusty anchor covered in barnacles.

"Thees Fillydelphia," said Cliff. "Thees Fillydelphia ees not home."

"Oh," I said, suddenly understanding. "I'm sorry."

"Ees okay," he said. "Thees is third time for me. Romaneia fell when war broke. Then Jerhoovesalem, being right on border of Equestria," Misty Mountain sighed. "I thought Fillydelphia was different."

He gazed at the hill. And again at the fucked up rusty old Pinkie Pie ahead.

"That's awful," I said softly.

"Eh," answered Misty with a shrug. "Such is life."

* * *

The rusty Pinkie Pie head was different up close. This version of her had a beard (for reasons I could not explain).

"Sweet Luna!" I whispered to myself. I bit down on the flap of my saddlebag. Instinctual-like. It still had the only surviving copy of Pinkbeard and the Zebra Princess in it.

We crept forward. Pinkie's eyes had long ago corroded down to nothing. But she seemed to look at me somehow. And though I felt no hornets in my brain - though I heard no voices - I took it as a sign.

Of what? I couldn't say.

Beyond Pinkie, the path opened up before a great big valley. Sands as white as the Moon. Splashed with violent blotches of shadow. Like one of those marble notebooks that teachers hate when you tear the pages out of.

It stretched out into the distance, and met a flickering orange glow - the fire beneath a distant Pinkie Pie balloon that…whoooosh!... unleashed a magnificent flame, and sprayed the night with mandarin light. It scattered every single shadow all-the-fuck over the place - just for a second - before vanishing in a cloud of cotton candy smoke.

I suddenly found myself next to Flip again. "Hay, Poet," he said. "Watch this." Flip winked at me, and stepped fearlessly out into the open. A tap dancer in the spotlight, he reared up, forehooves on hips - his tiny form casting a long, tall shadow over the valley before us.

Every muscle in my body tightened at the sight of it. Cliff too. His eyes were great big dinner plates that took up half his face. Even Foster and Misty drew closer to me. Concernitty that Flip had just violated, like, every single Super Sneaker don't-see-me rule.

"It's safe here," said Iris, also standing in the light. "At least for a time."

The kids all murmured to one another - even the ones who weren't new initiates like my friends and I.

"There is one final challenge that ye initiates must face," said Iris.

Grumble grumble grumble, I grumbled. These stupid challenges were getting old! But Foster gripped my shoulder in fear.

I couldn't smell feelings the way that she did, but a quick glance around the herd revealed a whole bunch of awkward Super Sneakers, shuffling their hooves and looking away. They didn't like the final challenge.

Flip gestured with his head. "Come see." He ambled out. Further into the open. And looked to me with eyeballs of steel. "Rose Petal, come on. It's cool."

I stuck a hoof out into the light. And zoink! Retracted it the second I saw how bright it shone.

But then a cool wind blew. And all the other blotchy shadows danced across the valley. Chaos moving over the plain like bubbles rising and bursting to the surface of a boiling stew.

Foster stepped into that stew. And Misty. And Cliff.

So I did too.

"Hehe," I giggled at the sight of it. We blended into the chaos. Perfectly! No matter what we did!

We coulda put on a grand Bridleway Chorus Line, complete with tap dancing, and it still woulda looked totally normal against the unearthly fritzing of light and dark that the Marble Notebook Valley made.

The only oddities were small structures scattered around the valley way off in the distance. A shack-shaped thing. A house-sized edifice. A tent-a-majig. They didn't move. And neither did their shadows. They were like rock solid leeks poking out of the stew. But those were few and far between.

The herd crossed half the valley.

Iris and Lucky had flipped their cloaks back around to the polka dotted side again. More tricks of the light.

We advanced, without incident, past the final roots of the hill that divided us from the land of happy fire.

Till finally, the source of the moving shadows became clear. Red Eye's troops had erected a flimsy makeshift barbed wire fence that walled off an entire section of the park. A gigantic spotlight flooded the valley from behind it. And the whole thing went fucking crazy every single time the barbed wire so much as fluttered.

My friends and I all looked to one another. Spontaneous-like. A nod from Foster. A nod from Cliff. A nod from me. This was the perfect place to break free, and sneak away from the Sneakers.

But Misty Mountain flung his eyes all over the valley. Panic-stricken.

"You don't know the way," whispered Foster.

Misty shook his head. "Not to bumper plows, no."

"Can you get us to the other side of the fence at least?" Foster said. "You'll have time to figure out the details in the sewers."

"Yeah, like it could jog your memory or something," squeaked Cliff, fighting to swallow the uncertainty in his own voice.

Everything depended upon Misty - his ability to find the slave pen. To find the zebra. To make our rescue mission, you know, an actual fucking rescue mission. Rather than a blind and aimless trek into deadly territory.

Misty Mountain took a great big deep breath, and surveyed the whole valley.

"Eeen old country," he said with a faint little smirk. "There are sewers twenty times more labyrinthian than here. I'll find the way."

"Good," I said.

A cloud of smoke rolled over the plain. Perfect cover. It stank of stale lantern oil and burned popcorn.

My friends and I all huddled close. Drifted with the cloud. Slowed gradually as the herd danced - literally danced - ahead of us across the shadow-spattered plain.

My friends and I all looked to one another. Nodded in unison. Counted to three. Together. Without even saying a word.

One…

Two…

"Hay there!" Flip popped in from out of nowhere.

"Ahhh!" I replied.

"Shh!" Said Misty.

"It's okay," Flip replied with a wholly unnecessary cartwheel, and a smile. "Lalalala!" A stunning operatic voice burst out of his tiny little chest.

He paused, clownishly cocking his head to the left, then the right. Listening for attackers.

"The generator they use to power that spotlight is really fucking loud," said Flip.

"So are we," said Misty.

"Relax," said Flip. "We're almost there."

Suddenly, the earth rumbled beneath our hooves. And the Pinkie balloon made a terrible sound - like a locomotive engine coughing and hacking and choking on its own coal.

Cliff Diver threw me a what the hell look.

I shrugged in reply.

Another fog-smoke-cloud rolled over the valley, and swept over us. It stank worse than the others. I felt sticky just being near it. Like that time Roseluck and I tried to cook french fries from scratch in a vat of corn oil, and our wallpaper ended up getting all tacky and yellow and gross, and our manes smelt like potato chips for a week.

Foster coughed. And Misty too. While I just reared up on my hind legs. Whinnied and flailed. As though swatting at the nasty potato fog would somehow make it go away.

"She's pretty loud too," Flip snickered, pointing to the great big Pinkie Pie balloon.

It towered. Lit from below by a faint but ever-burning flame. Pinkie was firmly anchored in place by chains, but the closer we got, the more it felt as though the balloon were
advancing on us.

Somehow.

"Almost there," said Flip. "Remember: nopony - and I mean nopony - can see us from all the way back there. But if you're nervous, just dance and skip and jump stuff. The crazier your motions are, the more you blend in. Even up close."

I pried my eyeballs away from Pinkie Pie, and watched the light and shadows do-si-do over the valley once again. They moved like dancers in a grand cotillion. Except for a two solid blocks of pure black up ahead.

Lonely leeks piercing the surface of the bubbling stew.

"Are you sure nocreature can see?" Said Misty, flinging his eyeballs waaaay over his shoulders to steal a glance or two or three at the spotlight at our flanks.

"I toldja," said Flip triumphantly. "The key to sneaking…is not to be anticipated in the first place."

He busted into a breakdance - certain to emulate the strobing jiggly chaos all around us - and flashed me a giganto-grin, complete with missing teeth.

I smiled meekly in return.

We moved forward through the marbley valley. Towards one of the few stable structures that didn't ebb and flow with the barbed wire winds.

The sight of it made my heart buck at me from inside my chest.

We were running outta time! Luna-only-knew how many breaks we would get - how few chances we'd have to sneak away and disappear.

With every wasted moment, all of those opportunities slipped from our grip like sand pouring out of a polished hoof that had…like, opportunity-repellant wax all over it.

Flip was right by our sides, herding us the whole way. It sucked. A lot!

But just when I thought we'd never catch a break, the fog parted, and showed us a lone filly, looming between us and the rest of the herd.

It was Scribbles. Her eyes were like grappling hooks slicing into mine. Eyeballs o' rage n' sadness n' shame n' fear n' hope. Eyeballs that refused to look away.

She was on to us. She knew we were gonna get all slave-liberatey. And she wanted to join. Or stop us. Or yell at me. I couldn't tell which. But she moved with a determined gait.

"You're going the wrong way!" Said Flip, who somersaulted into the Marble Notebook Stew O' Light n' Shadow to go chase down Scribbles.

"Now now now now!" said Cliff and Foster in unison, as if of one mind.

And all of us veered off in the other direction. Together. As a team.

We broke into a gallop. Well…a sort of jittery spastic gallop anyway, as Flip had just taught us moments ago that that was the key to not being seen - even up close.

But then Pinkie Pie belched, and her flames lit up the night - scattering all of the shadow blotches - flattening the marble notebook stew into a field of furious fiery orange.

In the fresh light, I saw it. A crooked old shack. Big enough to swallow my cottage back home. The Safety kids were gathered 'round its graffitied ruins, filing behind a chain link fence that - through some unsavory miracle or another - still stood upright.

Misty threw his forelegs around me tight.

"What?" I whispered.

The fires faded. Misty stretched out a hoof and pointed at a totally different structure - now just another stubborn potato that refused to spasm dance in the stew.

It stood halfway betwixt us and that uninviting shack. A map. A great big giant map. The kind that says, YOU ARE HERE.

Misty's eyes sparkled with wonder. Hope.

"We can't risk it,'' said Foster.

"We cannot make risk of getting lost either," Misty retorted.

"There could be another map," said Cliff Diver. "It's a park, right? There's gotta be hundreds of–;"

"I am not knowingk where we are," Misty snapped.

Suddenly, silence between us.

More smoke rolled over the valley. The wind whistled against the barbed wire. The marble shadows danced.

I pleaded with Misty, "But you told us you could–;"

"I'm lost," he said. A squeak pierced his baritone voice. "Please."

We all stopped, and turned, and gazed drearily upon that freestanding map. And the Safety Sneakers maybe fifty yards beyond it, gathering 'round their creepy party shack.

The final challenge.

The thought made my stomach twist itself into a pretzel, and my heart scream at me from deep inside my chest.

"Something isn't right," I said.

"Shadows?" Cliff gestured at my hoof.

"No."

An unexpected cheer ripped out of the Safety Sneaker herd. It made my hairs stand on end.

"They'll notice we're missing soon," said Foster, throat full of dust.

"Yeah," I replied.

Another hush fell over all four of us. My friends' eyes were on me now. Foster's unease. Cliff's uncertainty. Misty's anguish. All pointed my way. Waiting for me to make the call.

"Fuck it," I sighed. "Let's go."

We all slid over the valley of dancing shadows - each of us, galleons slashing away at haunted waters. Making for port at that great big YOU ARE HERE sign lurking on the periphery of the Secret Society's shindig.

Every step awakened more and more Rose Voices.

"Huh? What?"

"You're headed where?????!!!!"

"Are you crazy??????!"

I didn't say a word out loud. But Misty looked to me, and I, to him - even as we ran. Our throat apples gulped our dread down. In unison.

His fears were the same as mine.

In a final burst of courage, Misty Mountain bolted ahead anyway - galloping full speed into danger. Eager to study that map. Dying to save that zebra. Desperate to figure out where the fuck we were.

All four of us dashed through the shadow and fog too, but Misty came to the YOU ARE HERE monolith before any of us.

We found him frantically wiping away the grime. He lit up his horn, ever so faintly. And studied the map - what remained of it. Misty's hoof traced a line over the corroded patches that time had gobbled up.

All the while, he fixated on the parts that were legible, and mumbled to himself in concentration. Mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble, he said again and again and again. Until at last, he burst into laughter. And turned to the rest of us with a teeth-itty grin.

"I know!" He whisper-shouted. "I know where to go."

He chuckled and bursted and heaved and glowed with warmth and mirth and cheer.

Till a figure emerged from the drifting smoke. Dark and tall.

It was a grown-up. Dressed in brown, fitted with some kinda gun-saddle - huge, portable armaments draped in a harness that hugged his sides.

His face was riddled with the kinda pock-mark craters you could bury treasure in. A scar ran from cheek to ear.

Cliff and Foster did as previously instructed - they sat on their flanks and raised their forehooves. But I stumbled backwards. And Misty lit his horn up. Ready for battle.

I didn't know whether to throw dirt in his eye, or run, or kick him, or step back and let Misty Mountain blast him to a million trillion smithereens. So I dug my hooves into the flour-white sands, and waited for gunpony to make his move.

Flip somersaulted in from outta nowhere, as only Flip could. "Stay cool, stay cool, stay cool, stay cool, stay cool," he said. Flip gestured with a laugh, enthusiastical-like, at the soldier. "It's Meadow Blade!"

Bananas Foster twitched her hindquarters.
Shuffled in place. Tensed till every muscle in her body tightened around her vigilant bones. But still, she kept her forehooves raised high.

"Whoa there, hay now." The soldier dropped to his knees. "It's alright, my little ponies."

Cliff blink-bloinked his eyelids so hard, they made a xylophone sound.

Meadow Blade shifted his weight, and the battle saddle thingamajig swung back and forth and wriggled with his every move.

He was top heavy.

A little Rose Voice inside of my head yelled at me, 'Rush him! Rush him! Rush him NOW!'

And I could see it in my mind's eyeballs. Me. Tackling Meadow Blade all by myself. Tipping him over. Leaving him helpless like a turtle. Belly up.

I would zip away heroically with all of my friends - leaving the Safety kids behind - vanishing into the strobe light valley.

Off we would go! To save Xenith the Zebra! To get back home. To maybe - I dunno - liberate all the slaves of Fillydelphia or something while we were at it.

'Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! DO IT!!!' My brain screamed at me in frustration.

Till HoOoOoOOonNk! The soldier snorted out a dorky little laugh. And woke me right outta my trance.

"Huh? What?"

Meadow Blade smiled and peered deep into my eyes. "There's no way I'm gonna miss out on the sacred initiation of a whole new generation of Super Sneakers," he exclaimed. "What kinda monster do you take me for?"

Cliff Diver shrugged, uncertain of what exact kind of monster Meadow Blade happened to be.

Flip threw himself at Meadow. Hugged his face. Like a kid brother, overjoyed by an older sibling's return from summer camp.

And the great big soldier did tip over! Just like what I saw inside my head!
Flip climbed on Meadow's neck and they both just sorta…rolled over to one side.

In that moment, I spun around, thinking, this is it! Our last chance!

My friends all did the same. An about face - like some kind of choreographed dance move, readying us to spring into action.

But none of us ran.

'Cause we were surrounded. Encircled by Safety kids on all sides. Lucky, and, like, a dozen strangers had flanked us from behind.

Meadow patted Flip until the little acrobat let go of his neck. Our Brave Troop shimmied back into an upright position, and rose to his hooves.

There was no escape now.

As he drew closer, I saw the patch sewn onto his overcoat - a red eye, framed by seven unicorn horns, shooting lightning out of all sides. His wide saddle-thingy stretched out on both sides - all the better to herd us along.

"Come on," Meadow Blade chuckled. "Check it out!"

Next thing we know, my friends and I are heading toward that final leek in the marble notebook soup. A boxy structure that cast a long, unflickering shadow toward the Pinkie Pie balloon.

Instinctual-like, I checked my hoof. But no shadows were in there. It didn't freeze - didn't twitch or shutter or spasm in pain. Nope. Just a regular old blackened hoof - with the normal amount of evil inside of it.

But the rest of me freaked the fuck out.

The closer we got to that…structure-majig poking out of all the boogieing shadows - the more my heart sank. The more my liver turned itself inside out and squeezed bile into my guts like a soggy towel getting rung out. The more my bones chilled, deep in their marrowy goo.

I once read that the equine spine is full of thousands of noodles - tiny hairs called nerve-ons that would fly out in a spaghetti explosion if ever you cut into the spine-column - you know, for surgery or whatever.

Every single one of my nerve-ons was tingling now. They felt like they would fly out all by themselves, and spill spine noodles all over Wasteland Equestria. Just to avoid having to get any closer.

That building seemed to stretch and twist itself as it bent over us. It was wrong somehow. Like a lopsided piece of scenery in a school play.

"Hay, Poet," a voice cried out.

"Hay, Feathers," said another.

"Hay, Wizard," said a third.

"Hay, Foster!"

A bunch of Secret Society kids were already up ahead, gathered 'round the haunted leek. They saw us and waved their hooves enthusiastical-like in the air. Shadow puppets beckoning us closer.

Misty clung to me - gripping my shoulder with his hoof. Watching the Final Challenge Building the whole time.

Whatever was going on over there, he felt it too, and didn't like it.

"Don'tcha worry, my little ponies," said Meadow Blade. "It's just the final challenge. Everypony gets nervous outside the final challenge."

Once again, I looked to my friends. And they to me. All of us, hopeless.

There really was no way out now. The fog and smoke drifted over the fields behind us. Their convulsing shadows faded away.

The herd up ahead stood waiting.

Meadow Blade nudged us forward. The barrels of all the guns strapped to his weird mechanical saddlebag may have been pointed upwards for safety's sake, but he was still, like, six-hundred-forty-seven ladders wide, and he used his girth to corral us.

Lucky and a hoofful of her friends did the rest. We were flanked on all sides, and led into an enclosure, cut off from escape by some twisted chain link fence bits, and, of course, the building itself - short and boxy, but wide enough to fit three little red schoolhouses in.

I didn't have a Luna-damned clue what we were headed toward. But my brain was screaming at me about it. One by one, the Secret Sneaker Society parted before us - a red carpet path leading straight to the weird building. The final challenge.

Me, and Cliff, and Foster, and Misty, and Scribbles, and Lime-0 all stood before the leek now - a beat up old building. The shape of a cardboard slipperbox somepony had stomped on and bent. Three long, wide steps led to an entrance platform. And arching over everything was a sign covered in graffiti and bullet holes. I could still make out the two-century-old words under all the damage: HOUSE OF MIRRORS.

My brain screamed.

There was a presence inside that mirror house. Not just ominous interplay of light and shadow. Magic. Real magic. A kind I'd never sensed before in any dream or ducky or vision - a force neither fate nor shadow, but something else entirely. A third thing. A bad thing.

Hard as flint, I felt that presence, scratching at the inside of my skull, trying to get a flame going. I heard it.

Calling me. Like a whisper in my ear. But without words.

"Go on, now," said Meadow Blaze in a gentle, almost grandfatherly tone.

The very dirt beneath my hooves seemed to pull me forward. Like some kinda undertow.

I reached out and grabbed Misty. Wrapped my forelegs around his neck. Clutching him, I looked around. But nothing around us had moved or changed at all. The dirt. The herd. The creepy house of mirrors. It was all normal.

The wind blew silently, with nothing to whistle against but the insides of our ears and a few broken fragments of chain link fences.

I spun around. Found myself facing a semi circle of safety society super sneakers.

"What's in there?" I said.

"Pinkie Sorcery," answered Flip, voice cold as a winter stream. "She shows you who you are."

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

This chapter has involved a lot of editing, so double thanks to Seraphem this time around!

DEDICATION:

Happy Lunar New Year! Praise our glorious princess. May she reign eternal.

THOUGHTS:

Those of you following my blog saw that this chapter was a lot of work in the making. Discovering the inside of the park involved a lot of topographical world building, and unlike Rose's previous adventures, this is well-known terrain in FoE canon.

I'm very pleased that every character really had room to grow in this chapter - and that was, of course, the most important thing.

Big stuff ahead for Rose n' Friends. I'm very excited for everything that happens next, but that will have to wait for the next chapter. Thank you all for your continued support.

I can't wait for your comments.

Trauma Anvils

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO - TRAUMA ANVILS
In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order. - C.G. Jung

Over the last few months, I'd touched a whole bunch of lives. The hundreds - liberated from the mines of Trottica. The innocents - slaughtered on the floor of Sub Mine F.

The hard won peace that sparkled over the trenches of No Mare's Land as the gates of the Crystal Empire opened wide. The fear in Kettle Corn's eyes when I tackled her down a hill for accidentally reminding me of the horrors of those very same trenches.

A changeling girl - redefining friendship. Cliff Diver redefining family.

I used to think that all that stuff added up to who I was. That the sum total of anypony was nothing more than what they leave behind. The good. The bad. The weird.

It was that notionthat helped me sleep some nights - that idea that kept me wide awake on others. That principle that drove me to tear down the Sapphire Shores poster in my bedroom, and erect, in its place, stacks of picture frames and diaries and trinkets to honor all the Roses that came before, alongside the popsicle stick timberwolf made by my wonderful, loving, out-of-her-mind mother.

I lit a candle to it all! To remember what they had left behind in the world, and in me - the inheritor of the Rose Family blood curse - the Rose Family duty to hold the duckyverse together, or go bonkers trying.

But that idea of self - hinging everything on legacy - it's still only a half-truth.

I never knew my mother. Not really. I knew stories.

And the Safety kids? They didn't know Pinkie Pie. They knew a giant mouth that swallows you into a theme park/military base. And a creepy sign on the wall that watches you as you sneak. And the monstrous pink balloons that belch centuries-old popcorn smoke into the night.

But that wasn't who Pinkie Pie was. It's just the crushing weight of the trauma that she left behind.

* * *

Us new initiates stood on the platform that led to the mirror house's entrance. Cliff, Foster, Misty, Scribbles, Lime-o, and me. The seasoned Super Secret Safety Sneaker Society kids closed in further. Gathered 'round beneath us.

Fwoooosh!!! The flame from the Pinkie Pie balloon let loose. With the fun house blocking the way, all I could see of it was a squiggly lock of rubber hair and two bulging, balloonitty eyes.

But the heat licked my cheeks. The crowd of Super Sneakers glowed orange. And a few reflections from the shattered glass deep inside the house sparkled like tangerine stars flashing briefly, and burning out against an inky sky.

Meadow Blade, the Red Eye soldier / Safety School graduate, was busy making a little speech - the kind that Iris and Lucky had tried - and failed - to pull off. Way back before we even entered the tunnel. It was a fervent monologue full of wonder and ritual. It had an air of ancient ceremony. Secrets. Pride. Power.

But I didn't hear a single word. My ears, my nose, my fucking hide - all of me felt the nagging call of the mirror house instead.

It muted everything else.

I clutched my head. Tried to figure left from right, and up from down. But all I saw was a herd full of Safety kids - looking up at Meadow Blade, eyeballs twinkling in awe like rows of sparklers.

WoOoOOooOo!!! The wind carried smoke across the valley. It bit the inside of my nostrils - hard enough to finally snap me out of the carnival attraction's spell.

I found Misty beside me on my right, staring zombie-ishly at the entrance to the mirror house - just like I had moments before. His chest throbbed like his heart was trying to kick its way out.

Foster stood to my left. Shivering. Her hide - white with terror. She felt it too! Even though she didn't have time hornets in her brain like me and Misty did.

Fuck. What if all my stupid sorceror quest bullshit was bleeding over into Foster's hive mind? She was gonna get smacked with an axe-to-the-brain every single time that I got brain-axed.

Foster didn't have any experience with ducky mojo, missions. Voices and stuff. Not like me, or Misty, or even Cliff. All she ever knew of the duckyverse was horrific shadow tortures.

As Bananas Foster stared down the mouth of the mirror house, her face grew paler and paler and paler. Her chest tightened into shallow little breaths. Her eyes shimmered with tears that she refused to shed.

Till I reached out and put my forehoof on hers.

She startled at first, casting her eyeballs in every possible direction, as if awakening from some confuesitty dream. But then they fell on my charcoal hoof. As it patted her.

"It's not that," I said.

Foster sighed, and leaned against me - her complexion slowly warming back to a healthy yellow hue.

Meanwhile, Cliff pressed in close to Misty. Set a hoof on his shoulder. To calm him down. To break the spell of…whatever the hell was going on.

"Good luck!" said Meadow Blade, outta nowhere. He raised a foreleg to salute.

A hush fell over the entire herd.

"What?!" Foster and I cried out in unison.

But he wasn't talking to us. Lime-O saluted at Meadow, and crept past me, muttering nervously to herself as she slunk toward the House o' Screaming Mirrors o' Doom n' Magic.

With a shuddering breath, Lime-O stepped over the threshold. Step by hesitant step, she crept deeper, and deeper, and deeper into the attraction. Till she was nothing more than a vague shape, absorbed by the dull shimmering inside.

I stood in silence, listening for screams. But none came.

"Did you see that?" whispered Cliff.

Nopony said a word. We were all too stunned to answer.

"Rose!" Cliff whisper-shouted.

"Huh? What?"

"Did. You. See. That?" Cliff Diver pointed to the lands beyond the mirror house. More broken chain link fences on the other side. An exit ramp that petered off into darkness.

"See what?"

"When the fire went all, 'wooOOOoOrRrRsShH'," Cliff explained. "There was a path leading to a sealed-off fountain."

"The parasprites," I said.

"I'm not sure," said Cliff. "It was covered in, like, steel and stuff. There were a bunch of stairs opposite it. Giant stairs. On the other side of the road. Like...weird, curvy indentations and stuff."

"Curvy?" said Misty, pulling his eyeballs away from the creepy old fun house long enough to gaze out into the flickering marble notebook valley. "Cement stair? Ees shape like crescent moon?"

"Yes!" Cliff bounced with excitement.

"Down dee road?"

"Yes!"

"Halfway between mirror house and fountain?"

"More like sixty percent...but yes!" squeaked Cliff Diver. "You know it, don't you?"

Misty fought back a smirk. "Perhaps."

"Are the parasprites–;" I tried to ask.

"No!" Misty exclaimed with glee. Out loud. "There are no–;"

"Sorry," said Lucky.

The Safety kids below all advanced - pulling even closer to the platform. Their eyes turned into cannonballs, and shot at us - all at once.

"Really sorry," Lucky repeated herself. She could barely even muster the courage to look in our direction.

"What?" said Misty Mountain.

"Beggin' yer pardon, but 'No' ain't an option no more." Lucky hung her head. "I'm afraid you've passed the point of no return."

"Yeah, my little ponies," said Meadow Blade. "If you run away now, Pinkie Pie will have a claim on ya. She'll come to collect you…after you die. And your ghost will never know a wink of peace."

Bananas Foster broke her silence - busted out laughing. Lunatic laughter. Like that time Pinkbeard and her crew landed in the haunted Chuckle Patch, and had to escape its perilous spell of making you laugh yourself to death for no reason.

The balloon let loose another flame, and we all caught sight of Meadow's face. Waxy. Mirthless. Milky white. He wasn't joking. He was dead fucking serious.

"Ckk!" Foster choked on her own cackles, pursing her lips in sudden serious-ity.

Misty pressed himself up against me. Shoved his muzzle in my ear. "Dee sewer," he said. "I see it. Ees safe. Thees one never connect to Parasprite Fountain."

"You sure?" I asked.

Misty stepped forward to the very front of the 'stage.'

"We'll go!" he leapt gleefully into the air, and exclaimed. "I haff no fear of dees Pinkie." Misty whipped around, and stabbed us with his eyeballs. All of us.

"Oh, uh, yeah," I said.

"Totally," said Cliff. "Let's do it."

Foster looked to me again, and gazed at my evil hoof. She paused to take about two-and-a-half deep breaths - maybe two-and-three-quarters - and then, nodded sternly to Meadow Blade below us. "Okay," she said. "Let's go."

Foster spun around and charged straight toward the mirror house.

I rushed to follow her. Cliff and Misty too.

But Iris hopped up onto the platform. Leapt in front of us. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait." He held up a hoof.

We all skidded to a halt.

Like a filly with a checkered flag at a race track, Iris stood there, hooves up high, (eyes on the fun house), waiting for just the right moment to let the flag drop.

So we stood there too. Quietly.

We waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. I looked to Foster, and Foster looked to Misty, and Misty looked to Cliff and me.

All four of us shrugged at one another. There was no sign what-so-fucking-ever of what we were supposed to be waiting for.

Till at last, Scribbles emerged from the other side of the mirror house. Broken. Sad. A silhouette stumbling over the dancing shadows of the Marble Notebook Valley.

Oof.

We'd been so enraptured by Pinkie Pie Stuff, that I hadn't even seen Scribbles go in. I didn't get to wish her Good Luck or anything!

Scribbles' shadow hung its head low. Its knees wobbled as she walked.

It pissed me off! That she'd been put through that. Why?!

I turned, looked right past Iris, and got into a staring contest with the entrance of the fun house. What the fuck did it want? What had it done to poor Scribbles? What ancient magic was in there that had somehow managed to fuck up the reputation of Pinkie Pie's own ghost, and turn her into a boogeymare? And why-the-shit were these Safety Sneaker kids subjecting each other to it?!

"Excuse me." Meadow Blade galloped off. Circled around the labyrinth of platforms; clank clank clank - stomped over a bed of fallen fences; and came all the way around to the fun house exit.

His shadow knelt down beside Scribbles'. Hugged her. Ushered her away, through the darkness - in the direction of the fountain.

Lucky led about half of the sneaker kids to go follow them. She didn't even have to say a word.

In a mass of gray undulating bodies, the herd rounded the fences and drifted down the valley like a log rolling on a gentle river of shadow.

The rest of the S.S.S.S.S. stayed behind to make sure my friends and I didn't chicken out - didn't run away, and get our souls gobbled up by Pinkie sorcery.

"It's another kind of emotional education," said Foster, studying the body language of the silhouettes in the distance - Scribbles and Meadow Blade. "A trauma-based bonding ritual."

Just then, Lime-O slinked out from behind the fun house, her once gigantic poofy mane sagged now at her shoulders. Already, she was surrounded by friends. Dragging their hooves, they too made their way down the long shadow that the fun house cut across the Marble Notebook Valley - and disappeared into the dark gash it carved across the landscape.

"What's actually in there?" said Cliff, gesturing at the mouth of the mirror house.

"I don't know," Foster replied.

"I'm fucking tired of trauma," I said.

"Life ees trauma," said Misty, gazing into the deep dark funhouse attraction. "Whatever eet ees, let us get over with, and move on to part of life that ees more fun. You know. Crime."

My friends and I all nodded in agreement.

"Can we go?" Foster asked super-mega-loudly, turning to face the mass of Secret Society kids below us.

The herd nodded in return. Like rows of bobblehead action figures teetering in the flickering light.

Foster then spun to face Iris, who still stood beside the doorway. Playing gatekeeper.

"Yeah." Iris bowed his head and stepped aside. "The rest of the new kids are done. So, I guess…in you go. All of you. Together as friends. We don't separate friends. It's not The Safety Way."

The last thing I saw of Scribbles was a gleam of light catching her eye. Like a sunken diamond sparkling in the deep dark depths of the ocean. Refractions from Luna-only-knows where.

She seemed to be judging me. Even now.

With a collective sigh, Cliff and Foster crept along the platform, toward the entrance without a whole lot of ceremony. But I made one step - just one tap of a hoof on busted concrete - and the angry mirror demons inside my brain started screaming at me all over again.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Stumbled another hoof forward. And oomph!

Bumped into Misty, who was rubbing his temples just the same.

The call of the fun house grew louder. As soon as I motioned toward it, I lost all control. My legs started moving on their own. As though the very platform we stood upon was some kinda conveyor-belt-a-majig.

I drifted and drifted, and drifted, and slid, and slid.

Till thonk! My hooves hit a two-inch ledge on the floor, I tumbled forward into the mirror house, somersaulted - like, eleven-hundred times - and klonnggg! -knocked my head against a wall.

"Rose!" Cliff bounded in, and rushed to my side. But I threw my forehooves in the air.

"I'm fine," I said, as the ceiling poofed out a gentle cloud of dust and plaster overhead. "Really!" I exclaimed, coughing up centuries-old soot. "I'm okay."

Cliff stood back. While I rose to my hooves, and tossed my eyeballs all over the place in search of danger.

There were dim shapes. All around me. Winding walls. Cold air.

But no shadows. No more mirror voices shouting at my brain either. Just the dust, misting the ground like snowfall, caught by a single dagger of light.

Most of all, it was quiet in there.

The air grew frosty in that weird way that cabins in the woods do when you travel to them in the dead of winter, and open up the door, and step inside before anypony else has had a chance to kindle up a fire.

Everything in that fun house was like that. Silent. No sorcery. No Pinkie Pie. No magic. Nothing at all but log-cabin-cold.

The doorway to the outside - the one that I'd just stumbled through, was maybe only ten feet away, but already, it looked like it was miles off. It cast a soft, fluttery glow on everything. Lighting up a message that had been painted - blood red - on the walls: FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL 718-623…

Another painted message exclaimed in big gold letters: SUGAR SHAMROCK RULEZ!!!

A third note cut through them all. It was brighter. Recent paint. A great big, metallic-purple arrow, with a single word scrawled above it in pink: FATE.

Iris rushed to the doorway, and ate up all of our light. "Everypony okay in there?"

"Yeah," I coughed again.

"Good." Iris' haloed silhouette ran a nervous hoof through its shadowy mane. "Hey, uh, listen. Something you should know. It's totally cool that you all go in together. You know, as friends. That's great, actually! It is The Safety Way, after all." Iris snorted out a fragile little laugh. "But, it's not the Pinkie Way."

Cliff looked to me in broken hearted horror - like a foal who just found out there's no such thing as the Tooth Breezie.

But Foster didn't take her eyes off of Iris. She just stared him down - totally calm from the belly up, even as her legs furiously ground a hunk of chalky plaster into the floor. Ckkkkkk! Ckkkkkk! Ckkkkkk!

"It sucks, I know," said Iris, super apologetical-like. "But you all gotta face the mirror, well…alone. That's just how it works. So make sure each and every one of you touches it!"

"Understood," Foster said through gritted teeth. She raised a hoof to salute.

Iris turned to me. I gave a hooves-up signal. (Though I had no idea what the fuck he meant by any of this).

Next, he turned his interrogationy gaze to Cliff. And Misty. Then back to me again.

We all gave Iris a Dude-get-the-fuck outta-here-already nod. Till he obliged, and backed away. His prosthetic leg tonk-ing against the platform step-by-step until it faded to a muffled clamoring outside.

Then down to nothing.

We were left, puzzling over Iris' cryptic words. The Pinkie Way? Wanting us to act alone? 'The Mirror'? Singular? Was there really only one of them?

And why should we have to touch it? That didn't make any sense at all.

* * *

Alone at last, my friends and I, once again, shared that single beam of sickly light that oozed in through the doorway.

Cliff Diver eased me up off the ground with his shoulder. And pomf pomf pomf! brushed the dust right off of me.

"Ready?" said Foster, looking up at the great big shiny FATE arrow painted on the wall with dripping letters.

"Yeah," I coughed. "Ready."

Misty Mountain stepped forward. Nodded that he was ready too.

All four of us huddled close to one another, and followed the silvery purple-ish arrow around one bend, and then another. And another. And another. And another. Until the wall ran out.

After that, the fun house was nothing but rows upon rows of flimsy metal frames. Shattered mirror walls. Jagged edges.

"Well," said Cliff. "'You must face the mirrors alone,'" he did a bad impression of Iris. "That's not creepy at all."

Misty snorted out a feeble little chuckle. But I couldn't. Foster neither.

"Mirror," said Foster. "Just one."

Misty stopped. Gagged on his own laughter. And mused on this.

We were being warned. Not against the House o' Mirrors. But one mirror in particular. None of us had any idea what kinda 'Pinkie Sorcery' was hiding in that singular mirror.

But it was bad news. Really bad news. The kind of news that could fuck up everything.

What if it woke up the shadows inside my leg?

What if the mirror magic shattered Misty's equilibrium-or-whatever, and catapulted him back into the duckyverse without us?! What if it turned us all into starfish like the Ancient Ruby of Starfishia did to Pinkbeard and her crew - only we didn't have the Pearl of Katzarh'dongrath to undo the spell!!?

I checked my evil leg. Again. And again. And again.

Nothing.

So the four of us tip-hooved forward. Shattered glass glistened dimly on the ground all the fuck over the place, catching little flashes of light like sinister shooting stars. But a path forward had been swept aside. And we followed it.

Clonk, clonk, clonk, went our hooves against the stone slate that passed for a floor. Clonk-clonk. Clonk-clonk. Clonk-clonk. Clonk-clonk. Clonk-clonk. Sad castanets moaning out a mournful samba as we inched our way into the dark. Till finally, one of our hooves stumbled onto a crrrrrunch.

We stopped - all four of us - and listened. But the air was still.

Slowly, we backed up into one another. Instinctual-like. Flank to flank to flank to flank. So nothing could sneak up on us. And like a living compass, we peered outward at the four corners of the room.

But there was nothing there either. Just silver gashes in the darkness, running up and down - metal framework where mirrors once had stood, and the glittery floor beneath it. Playing tricks on our eyeballs.

At the far end of the broken-glass-room, was another hallway. Lit by more of that shimmery arrow paint, (though what light it could possibly be reflecting all the way in there - I still can't imagine).

We broke our formation and edged forward. Into the next hallway.

At the end of it came a tiny gleam. Way off in the corner. Like when you shut your eyes and vaguely see the shape of whatever had been in front of you a moment before -a weird blob of an eyeball ghost left behind.

Misty's horn lit up the path. But the little gray light up ahead withered away, rather than grew. It liked the dark. Whatever it was.

We made our way to the end of the hall. Till the four of us stood in the final doorway.

Misty dimmed his horn without having to be asked.

Gazing at that pale silver glow in the corner, none of us dared to move. We just…listened - to each other's breaths - to each other's heartbeats - to the rustling of the straps of our saddlebags as they slid against our hides.

"Still no voices," whispered Misty.

"No undertow either," I added.

There was nothing at all. Not even ducky mojo. Just more of that freaky silence.

"I'll go first," said Cliff Diver.

"You don't ha–;" I started to protest.

"If this magic is the kinda magic that's gonna throw off your ducky-compass or whatever," Cliff reasoned. "Then it's gonna mess you up - you and Misty Mountain both. Foster too, because of her hive mind."

Cliff pointed an accusatory hoof at each of us. One at a time.

"You don't have to–;" I repeated, but my voice trailed down to nothing.

Cliff was already ahead of us. He was not interested in a debate.

Misty shut his horn down completely. But we weren't in total darkness. Something in there had a strange gleam of its own. The very sight of it made all of my hairs stand up. Like a porcu-pony.

Cliff made his way toward that light. The floor creaked and moaned and clanked with his every motion - a sheet of aluminum, sliding and scraping and warping against the slate below.

Till at last, his murky Cliff-silhouette came face to face with, what had to be 'The Mirror.' He reached out a quaking hoof, and tapped it. As instructed.

I felt a chill. And an unnatural quiet. Like my ears had fallen out, and taken all of my inner ear guts with them.

Cliff didn't move. Didn't speak. He was utterly transfixed by whatever the Hell he saw in there.

And for a long, long while, the Mirror House, too, was quietas it had been before…

But then the plaster debris on the floor took to tremolo'ing - clonking beneath Cliff Diver's shiver-y hooves.

"No," he whispered. And stumbled backwards onto his flank. He scrambled away, flank against the floor - legs flailing and dragging him all chaotical-like until he hit the wall.

But he didn't shrivel, or turn his gaze from the mirror. He didn't tuck himself into a little ball or anything like that. His eyes were fixed upon the looking glass the whole damn time. Like ocular trout struggling against a line and hook that refused to let go.

Misty Mountain leapt forward, and lit up the room, revealing a floor full of skid marks. Streaks of dust that had been swept toward the back of the room by all the poor fillies who'd skittered away from the mirror over the years, reeling from shock at whatever…Pinkie Sorcery…it held.

Foster threw herself between the mirror and the rest of us. She reared up, forehooves wide apart, and formed a living shield.

But Cliff looked right past her.

"No," he whispered at the mirror again - this time through gritted teeth. "That's not me."

I rushed forward, and dove onto the ground beside him. "Cliff! Are you okay? What's wrong?" I begged him. "What did you see?"

I spun around to look at the mirror. But couldn't catch Cliff's reflection in it. Just Foster, blocking the way with her body, tossing her head around, scouring every corner of the room for shadows.

But even when she shifted, and I finally caught a glimpse of the magic mirror, it showed off reflections of the whole room. But no reflections of ponies at all. Like we were all vampires or whatever.

"It's nothing," answered Cliff at last. "I'll be okay."

As Foster's flailing forelegs parted yet again, something else in the mirror caught my eye. A twinkle of light that hadn't been there before.

I inched forward.

"Be careful," Cliff called out to me. But his voice sounded muffled and dull. Like I was underwater.

I eased my wayover the streaks of dust left behind by countless Safety Society kids before me. Toward that ancient gray light - dim as the memory of some half-forgotten dream.

My friends and I were like moths. Not interdimensional moths like Gary. Regular moths. Moths who didn't know how to look away from a light.

"Foster! Misty! Cliff!" I tried to call out to all of them. But my lips were still. My throat - dry. And my eyes refused to let themselves get pried from their mirror trance.

'This is crazy,' one Rose Voice reasoned at me from inside my brain.'That mirror is dumb. Why should we give it what it wants? Why not just walk away?'

'Nopony'll ever know. Just fake it to the Safety kids,' said another Rose Voice, more assertive than the first.

But still, my hooves kept moving on their own.

Slowly, my own voice returned. From somewhere deep inside my gut, I felt the words come roaring to the surface, even though my throat felt like it was full of sawdust.

"Yeah," I whispered to myself. Out loud at last. "What am I doing? This is crazy. I should turn around. I should walk away. I should…"

Thonk!

"Ow!" I walked right into the damn thing. Muzzle first.

"Stupid mirror." I backed off, rubbing my face. Peering deep into the glass for signs of whatever-the-fuck Cliff Diver had just seen.

But Cliff's reflection still wasn't there. I found no sign of his teary eyes, nor his cherry red face, nor his teeth bared with indignation. No sign of Foster's watchful eyeballs either. Nor of Misty's…anything.

The only reflection was my own.

I plopped my flank down. And sat there. In the dark. Thinking about an old slumber party game I once heard about, but never got to play. You're supposed to stare into the mirror and say Nightmare Moon's name seven times. And then she's supposed to appear, and, you know, eat you.

Nightmare Moon may not have been inside the fun house mirror. But it felt like some kinda monster might still leap through it, and gobble us up.

The light behind the glass began to swirl. Like the surface of a pond, disturbed only by a single flick of a mosquito's leg.

When the ripples cleared, I finally saw myself.

I was wearing a reeeeeally stupid outfit. It had a big droopy hat with lots of bells on the end. Pointed slippers too. I rose to my hooves (in real life). And saw, in the reflection, my-silly-old-self in full, floppity, colorful regalia. Just like the card that Pinkie Pie had drawn for me.

"The Foal?" I whispered to myself.

"Why do I hold stupid candle?" Misty Mountain exclaimed.

Candle? The world was suddenly real to me again. Foster and Misty were both beside me, each staring into the mirror. Cliff was alone in the corner, dusting himself off, watching us all nervously.

But I couldn't see their reflections.

Any of them.

"Candle?" said Cliff Diver. "You're holding a candle?"

"Yes," said Misty. "And I wear stupid robe. Like moron."

"A cup!" said Cliff Diver, sparkles in his eyes. "Is there a cup in front of you? And…Ooh! Are you pointing up with one hoof and down with another?"

"You can see me?" Misty turned to Cliff Diver. Then back to the mirror again. "Why can't I see you? "

"No, I can't see you," Cliff wiped his tears away, and chuckled. "You're just The Magician!"

"The what?"

"The Magician," I said, thinking back to Pinkie Pie's card game. "The Magician always looks stupid."

"What ees going on?" snapped Misty. "Ees thees dee magic card game you were making tell of me about?" He looked to me for answers.

"Yes!" Cliff laughed and squeaked with joy, even as his saddened eyeballs grew soggy with tears all over again.

"You see–;" I started to explain.

But before my brain could even rub two thoughts together, I heard a dark and reverberant sound…The bark of distant dogs. Just like on my first night in the Wasteland! (And again, when I fell from the platform in Trottica's mines, Misty's tail hair still in my teeth!)

"Fuck!" I cried out loud.

And tackled Misty - swept him toward Foster. And Cliff Diver too! All three of them complained as we mashed together to form a sixteen-legged friend-blob.

"Hey what are you–;?"

"What the Hell?"

"What's wrong?"

But I held my friends close. In case the dogs swept me back home. Like they'd swept me into the Wasteland the very first time.

…

Only there was no sweeping at all. Everything was quiet again. No dogs barking. No portals full of screams.

Huddling there amongst my friends, I spun around to get a better look in the mirror. But the Foal was gone too.

There was nothing left in that mirror but grime. And a tiny light behind the surface.

"So that's it?" I said aloud. "That…Is my 'who I really am'?" I reared up. Made sarcastic quotation marks with my forehooves.

"What ees going on?" said Misty.

"I heard dogs," I replied.

"Dogs?"

"Dogs!" I repeated, and let out a great big old sigh. "There are dogs on my stupid tarot card, okay? So, I hear them whenever I tumble into a mission."

"So...everythingk's card?" said Misty.

"It would seem so," Foster answered on my behalf.

Though it occured to me then that I had not heard any dogs when I'd charged through Misty's door, and fallen into the Wasteland. But that just made everything worse somehow - that those dumb dogs had managed to find me. Here, in a busted old fun house. In the middle of Equestria's biggest slave compound.

Misty whipped around and glowered at the mirror. Got into a staring contest with it. Even though it was…empty.

"These missions. Fate." He spat upon the ground. "I do not like thees game."

"Nopony does," I said. And scowled at the stupid Self Mirror, drawing myself closer and closer and closer and closer and closer. To stare it the fuck down.

It shone no lights. Gave no clue about 'who I really was' - whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. My Mirrorsona didn't haunt me like it did Cliff, or Scribbles, or Lime-O.

'Cause that stupid piece of glass didn't see me as a living, breathing pony at all. Just a card that gets dealt out of the Universe's deck. Played and reshuffled again and again.

'I'm a pony too, damnit,' a Rose Voice screamed at the Mirror House, all the way from the darkest depths of my Rosebrain.

'Show me my deepest fucking fears, you stupid mirror,' the Rose Voice ranted. 'I'll set them all on fire! I've done it before. Send me all the shadows you've got! I'll punch them in their shadowy eyeballs - even though they don't have any eyeballs! I'll make them GROW eyeballs just so I can punch them there. I'll prove that I can conquer them. Again.

All the voices inside my head convulsed. I wanted nothing more than to scream.

But Cliff Diver interrupt-ified them. He leapt forward. Inappropriate-ishly and totally outta nowhere. "Don't you see?" he said, laughing, wiping yet more tears from his eyes. "The mirror doesn't think you matter...As individuals. It just picked up on your role. You know, in the game."

"How is that good?" I grumbled.

"Rose!" he exclaimed. "Listen!" Cliff leaned in reeeeal close - a huddle - just Foster and Misty and Cliff and me. Super mega secretive. Even though there was nopony near us who could possibly be listening. "Rose!" he whisper-exclaimed. "Listen. If the mirror sees you and Misty as your cards...That means that fate, or the Powers-That-Be-or-whatever, are still with us. We might actually stand a real chance." Cliff turned to Misty. "Maybe it's even fated that we save Xenith!"

Cliff had to fight to catch his breath. He huffed, and smiled a weak and desperate smile.

But Misty just averted his eyes, and shrunk away.

"It's possible," said Foster to Cliff. "...We shouldn't count on it of course, but I'd like to hope so." Foster rubbed Cliff's shoulder, reassuring-like with her forehooves. But her eyes never left Misty Mountain, who still recoiled. And twitched. And, oddly enough, kept his eyeballs to himself.

"Are you alright?" I said.

He didn't answer.

"Misty?" said Cliff. "You okay?"

"Yes," answered Misty, gazing over our shoulders - looking in the mirror with new, narrow-eyed suspicion. Like it was gonna leap off of the wall, grow hooves, and start kicking him. "We should go."

A tiny streak of light licked Misty's face - spilled from another hallway beyond the stupid fate-mirror - (a hallway we'd all somehow missed before).

Its busted-up walls shimmered meekly with more of that metallic reflecty paint. Another arrow. The exit.

The magic mirror lost its glow entirely now. And the whole room felt sorta dull and dim, and normal.

"We should go," Misty looked to me, and said.

"Yeah," said Foster dryly, still side-eyeing Misty. "...Let's."

Misty slunk off ahead, leaving us all what-the-fuck'ing in his absence.

Foster tossed her eyeballs back and forth. First at the hallway Misty had disappeared into. Then at Cliff Diver. Then at the hallway. Then Cliff Diver again. Then at the hallway.

"Listen, Cliff," she said at last. "This mirror - the things it shows. It's not–;"

"Misty's acting weird," said Cliff. Stiff as iron.

"Yeah, but–;"

"I'll be fine," Cliff interrupted.

Foster looked to me. I reared up and shooed her with my forehooves. Misty was behaving oddly, and Foster had a good chance of using her bug intuition to figure out why. And Cliff? He'd just shut all himself down. On purpose. Before our very eyes. The one thing he didn't need was someone smelling all of his emotions. Even a friend.

"Okay," said Bananas Foster, saluting us both. "I won't be far."

Foster trotted ahead in a hurry, and disappeared into the next corridor - determined to catch up with Misty.

Which left Cliff and I alone. He sighed in relief the moment Foster was gone, but still didn't say a word.

And neither did I. 'Cause I couldn't tell what was worse: asking Cliff what was wrong, and reopening the wound; or not saying anything at all. So we just stood there. For a good solid minute. In total silence. Even as the air between us seemed to scream.

But eventually, Cliff licked his lips. Turned his head. Shuffled his hooves. Opened his mouth as if to speak, and then...nothing came out. His words had lost all momentum. Like a windup toy slowly grinding to a halt.

"Hey, Cliff," I said. "Listen, if you–;"

"I won't let you down," Cliff replied.

"What?" I said.

"I won't let you down." He looked me in the eye this time. Resolve-ishly. To him, this was a sacred promise.

"I know that," I said. "Why would you think anything different?"

"I'm sorry," Cliff averted his eyes again. "It just needed to be said."

The room grew dim again. The sound of our friends' hoofsteps dwindled down to a muffled pulse. Misty Mountain and Bananas Foster had rounded some distant corner.

"Hay, Cliff," I said. "Are you okay?"

"No," he replied. "But that doesn't matter right now."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Cliff cut me off.

"Don't–;" he said, holding up a hoof. "I'll tell you all about it. I promise. Just not here. I've gotta keep it together till we're someplace safe. I am not gonna be a whiny pirate." A fragile smile curled at the ends of his lips, and a frightened little laugh escaped them.
…
…
…
Aaaaaahhhhhhhh! My heart screamed silently.

I couldn't bear seeing Cliff in pain. (Or hearing my own damn words used against me!) But he also had an irrefutable point. Whatever was going on - whatever the mirror had shown him - we couldn't afford to deal with it right now.

"Yarr," I said softly.

"Yarr," said Cliff warmly in return. And gesturing with his head, he led me toward the exit - which was way smarter than, you know…standing around, hugging, and talking about feelings like I wanted to do.

The light all but disappeared from the mirror room. Foster and Misty were winding further and further along the labyrinth ahead, and taking Misty's glowing horn with him.

"Come on," said Cliff. And we hurried to catch up.

* * *

The corridors weren't all that long, but they zigged and zagged a lot. We wouldn't have been able to see at all if not for all the holes in the busted up walls, scattering beams of Misty's light from up ahead.

Cliff and I moved quickly, and didn't say much. Except for when I, you know, tripped on rubble and smacked my face into a wall, and exclaimed, "Ow, fuck!"

"Hold up, you two!" Cliff hollered.

"Sorry," Misty hollered back, several turns of the fun house maze ahead of us.

An orb of light suddenly floated above us, drifting over all the holes in the hallways, way up high, where the walls didn't quite meet the ceiling beams, and cast its glow down in all directions - a chandelier that splashed weird shadow shapes over everything.

"Thanks!" Cliff called out to Misty. And knelt down to help me off the ground.

"Thanks," I said.

Together we peered down the Hallway o' Jagged Darkness.

"Hay, Misty?" Cliff called out. "Can we get our own orb?"

"I can't make dee light follow two targets," Misty replied. "Only one at a time."

"Darn," said Cliff.

He and I continued on, passing through beams of purple light, and pools of shadow. Weaving our way around fallen planks, and shuffling over little mounds of crumbling debris.

It was weird when I thought about it: this was the first time that Cliff and I had really been alone together since this whole Safety business started. It was nice, oddly enough. Fumbling around. Choking on ancient plaster dust. Just the two of us.

I only wished that Cliff didn't have to struggle so hard. To hold himself together.

Bloorrb. His stomach grumbled. Loud enough to echo against the hollow walls. He hadn't eaten all night.

"Hay, uh, Cliff," I said.

"I'll be okay," he replied.

"No, not that," I said. "I just wanted to, you know, tell you something."

"Oh, sorry."

Our crunchitty hoofsteps rung out. As I struggled to think of what that something should be.

Crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch.

"Hay, Cliff?" I said at last.

"Yeah?"

"I'm, uh... I'm really really really glad you're here."

Cliff Diver leaned up next to me, and pressed his side against mine. I rested my head on his shoulder. As we stumbled over more stupid rubble. Together.

* * *

Misty and Foster's hoofsteps up ahead finally stopped. A strobing light appeared from around the bend. A breeze whipped down the corridor and whistled through the little swiss cheese puncture marks in its walls.

Cliff stopped. Licked his lips. Swallowed his throat apple down real hard. "Hay, Rose, can you do me a favor? Like, a big favor?"

"Of course," I said.

"Keep them off of me."

A soft commotion spilled down the hallway. It was the sound of Safety kids outside. Urging Foster and Misty to come out.

"Give to me one minute!" Misty called out to them.

Next thing I know he's galloped back around the bendy halls to me and Cliff. "Are you ready?" He turned to each of us, one at a time.

I nodded. But Cliff didn't move or answer.

"Aqdhcisbfifhsjpidpbeizksbagyehdn," the Safety kids rumbled inarticulately outside.

I tilted my head up, and put my muzzle awkwardly right into Cliff Diver's twitching ear. "I got you," I whispered to him.

In that moment, Cliff sighed the kinda sigh you sigh when you drop a saddlebag full of anvils.

"Okay," he whispered back.

Then, lifting his head up high, Cliff answered Misty, "Ready." He was suddenly back to his Cliff-self - so much so that he seemed to glow with Cliffness.

But I was left holding the sack full of anvils. Wondering how the hell I was gonna keep, like, ten kids off of him. They were gonna try to emotionally educate him. Trauma-based bonding. And that meant five-hundred-and-sixty-three-thousand hugs, and words of encouragement, and questions about all of the trauma-anvils in his heart.

We made it to the exit, and paused before stepping out into the strobing light.

"I'll go first," I said.

"No," he chomped my saddle bag. "I won't work up the nerve if I'm alone."

"Okay," I said. Prying myself off of him, looking straight into his eyeballs as they flashed with the dancing reflection of the lights up ahead. "On three?"

He nodded.

"One…"

'Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh fuck,' one of my Rose Voices said.

'Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh shit,' said another.

"Two…"

'How am I gonna keep them off Cliff?!' a third Rose Voice shrieked at me. 'I promised him, I promised him, I promised him, I promised him!!!!!!!'

"Three."

'AaAaAHhHhHhHh!'shouted all of my voices at once. As Cliff and I stepped outside together.

We were in the shadow of the fun house. It stretched out across the strobe light valley. But my eyes still strained. There were shapes out there. Huddled figures. A kid kneeling down on the floor. A dozen more silhouettes encircled around her.

FWOOSH! The balloon's flames licked the sky. Made my face all warm - even from afar, and cast phantasms of light and shadow across the giant Pinkie Pie who loomed over us now, more menacing than ever before.

My eyeballs recoiled at the shock. But a flash of what I'd seen below still burned its way through my irises, and into my brain.

It was Foster. On the ground. Drawing Safety kids to her like fruit flies to a sack of moldy avocados.While Misty stood off to the side. More or less ignored.

She was creating a diversion. Exactly the kind of thing that I needed to be doing. Right now.

I took a deep breath and imagined how it might go. I could see the whole thing play out in my mind's eyeballs! I'd rear up, hold my forehoof to my head, and cry out, "Oh, no! What horrors I've seen!"

And the Safety Sneaker kids would rush to me, and ignore-ify Cliff. I'd squirm and cry, and wail, and explode - literally explode - sending Rose bits careening all over the valley. It would take them weeks just to clean up all of the bone shards, not to mention the chunks of my pancreas and eyeballs; and to comb the brain-goo out of what little remained of my mane.

This would, in turn, give Cliff Diver enough time to sneak past the other kids, get it together, rescue the zebra, and save the day. The perfect plan!

But even as I sucked in that huge gargantuan breath - even as I got my lungs good and ready to wail, and cry, and explode--;

Foster's eyes caught mine. She couldn't hive mind her way directly into my brain. She couldn't know all the details of my plan - but still, she was on to me. Her eyes shot like arrows with an impassioned eyeball message tied to them: "Don't you fucking dare."

So I froze. Swallowed all my drama explosions and stuff. As the Safety kids' eyes all turned my way - little by little - two at a time.

With trembling hooves, and knocking knees, I took a few steps forward. Shielding Cliff as best I could.

"You can do this, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this," I whispered to myself.

"Rose Petal!" a voice called out from the crowd. Iris sprinted forward. A few more followed him till he skidded to a halt, and…

Klunk. His prosthetic hoof drove into the crunchitty soil. Before I could even blink, Iris was right in front of me.

With a welcoming hoof, he escorted me and Cliff aside, bent his neck downward to talk to me eyeball-to-eyeball.

"You did it!" he said.

"Great."

"I know the mirror's rough," he said. "But it all gets better from here."

"Uhhhhh….." I replied. "It does?"

Iris smiled. "There's a party at The Fountain. Just a little further. You're gonna love it. We've got emotional education. Rum, (if that's your thing…no pressure)." He stopped to whip his cloak open, and proudly wag a swish-itty canteen around. "We'll sing songs. Flip's gonna juggle. Or you can just chill, or whatever, and watch the clouds turn colors from all the fires and lights of Fillydelphia. The fountain's got an awesome view."

I looked to the sky. Saw the cloudy ceiling change; blue and pink from the neon sign; white from the alternating spotlights; orange from the majestic bursts of flame that Pinkie periodically belched out.

These kids have seriously never seen the stars, I thought. Not even once.

A sadness fell over me. Not the fake kind of sadness you get from trying to make yourself explode in order to create a diversion. A real sadness. A flood of sympathy for all the ponies of the Wasteland.

Fixing Equestria was gonna take big work. Big aspirations. Big hope. It's no wonder the best anypony could rally behind was Red Eye. How could anypony be expected to learn how to dream if they had never even laid eyes upon the Moon?

"Beautiful, isn't it?" said Iris with a warm and caring smile.

"Yeah," I whispered.

"Listen, it's really close to midnight - I gotta go lead the way," Iris gestured vaguely in the direction of where we were headed. "Do you and your friends wanna walk up front with me, or hang back and–;"

"Hang back!" I answered in a hurry.

And Iris blink-bloinked at my panicked answer, while Cliff buried his face in his forehooves.

Damnit! I'd been stupid! Eager! Suspicious as a one-eyed, peg-legged sailor with a skull tattoo on her forehead, and a parrot on her shoulder, yarr-ing her way through a job interview with the head of the East Equestria Trading Company for totally-not-pirate-spy-related-reasons.

"I mean, uh, I need a minute," I said. "Some time alone with friends."

"Alright then," said Iris. "That's the Safety Way. Just gimme a second." He turned to Cliff Diver, pulled him aside conspiratorial-like. Whispering. Eyeing me the whole time. When he was done, Iris turned to me, and said, "Okay, see you at the party. You need anything, you gimme a holler, okay?"

"Okay."

"Awesome," said Iris, and galloped off.

The moment he was gone, Cliff started laughing. A snicker at first. But then a maniacal hyena cackle. Complete with heaving and snorting.

He stopped suddenly to catch his breath. Stared grimly at a random hunk of dirt on the ground. And wiped tears from his eyes.

When he saw my be-puzzlement, Cliff smiled meekly.

"What?" I said. "What did Iris say?"

"He wanted to make sure I was together enough, to, you know…'carry your emotional saddlebag'," Cliff made quotation marks with his forehooves, and did a terrible, terrible, terrible Iris impersonation.

"Oh," I replied. "Well, um..are you?"

"Yeah," said Cliff. "I got you."

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

The Patreon earnings from this particular chapter will be donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, since the plight of lost and exploited kids have been a consistent theme of Hooves of Fate since the beginning.

This chapter, like the one before it, has involved rather a lot of editing, so double thanks to Seraphem this time around!

DEDICATION:

It's the 592nd anniversary of the execution of Joan of Arc. Like the author of Pinkbeard, she dressed in traditionally male garb; and like Rose Petal, she had rather a lot of brain hornets guiding her extraordinary feats that changed the course of history.

THOUGHTS:

It's been a rough couple of months for me personally, and this chapter has been developing slower than usual. Physically, Rose n' Friends are no closer to succeeding in their mission than they were last chapter, and I hope this does not prove frustrating to you.

Everypony faced some big questions that will be very important moving forward.

I look forward to hearing from you all.

Rivers

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE - RIVERS
"We fear many kinds of darkness, and we often feel that we don’t deserve any kind of light." - Craig D. Lounsbrough

When Daisy the Cabin Girl came to the Great Sorcerer Planktoneth in tears because her courage failed her at the Battle of Anemone Bay, she cried, "I don't even know who I am anymore."

And Planktoneth, predictably responded with a riddle, or rather, a super annoying train of thought.

"What is a river?" he asked.

"Huh?" said Daisy.

"What is a river?" he repeated.

"Huh?" said Daisy yet again.

"What is a river?"

"Huh?"

"What is…"

They went back and forth like this for about seventeen pages or so before Planktoneth conjured up an illusion - showing, well, you know...a river.

Daisy first defined it as the water.

The Great Sorcerer Planktoneth responded by standing above the river, and pouring his own goblet of water into it. The illusion followed - tracked the fluid all the way down to the river's mouth.

"Ah," the sorcerer said sorcererishly. "But water is fleeting. See? My water is no longer the river. Now it is the sea."

Daisy scratched her chin, having already forgotten her troubles, completely distracted by Planktoneth and his annoying wisdom bullshit.

She then reasoned that the water itself wasn't the river - merely wet stuff passing through it. The real river had to be the firmament - the cradle of Earth that ushered wet stuff from the mountains - a giant swirly straw leading into the ocean.

"Ah," the sorcerer said sorcererishly. His illusion suddenly turned to a dried up riverbed. A sad gash in the earth. "Is this a river?"

"Arg!" The Cabin Girl exclaimed. "What has this got to do with me? I lost the Pearl of Katzarh'dongrath! I chickened out under the cannon fire of Admiral Clammo, and worst of all - Captain Pinkbeard's favorite hat fell into the evil appendages of the Great Algae Assassin's Guild. And it's all my fault!"

Daisy wailed. Daisy cried.

"Self is an unstable thing," Planktoneth answered at last. “You are neither your failures nor your successes; you are not merely your thoughts and feelings and deeds of the moment, scattering like droplets of water - fleeting toward the Ocean of Death. Nor are you the riverbed - some static firmament - eroding only ever slowly as your own feelings wear you down." The Great Sorcerer Planktoneth leapt up, floated, and touched Daisy's heart with an antenna-majig. "You are the tension between the two," he said. "An unspoken argument."

"B-b-but how does that help me find my courage?" Daisy sniffled. "How does that help me get Cap'n's hat back?"

"It doesn't," Planktoneth replied dryly. "Best not to dwell on it."

* * *

The Safety Sneaker herd followed the long shadow that the fun house cast. Into a gash in the earth - a narrow little trench that light couldn't have found its way into, even when the Pinkie balloon let loose its flames. Its concrete had collapsed under some strange fault line, and its edges had long since smoothened under centuries of rain.

We all trudged through. Two at a time. Making for a hill up on the horizon. And the whole way, I thought about Daisy and Planktoneth. How you can't just condense a pony into a singular image of self - not even with a cutie mark. How nothing is ever really static. How everypony - absolutely everypony - is, in reality, actually made out of rivers.

But somehow, that stupid mirror had found a way to climb into Cliff Diver's head anyway - to swish the river water in his brain around, and stir up some kinda nightmare.

What the Hell could Cliff have seen that would make him think he'd ever 'let us down'? What fake-river-funhouse bullshit put that idea inside his head in the first place? And why did the mirror haunt him in particular, and not Foster?

Cliff sulked alongside me. Dragging his hooves like each one was hitched to a kiddie pool full of boulders. But he held his head up high. Determined to pass for one of the kids that the fun house visions hadn't hurt too badly.

I wanted to tell him that he was wrong about all that stupid mirror stuff. I needed to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and say, 'Hay, Cliff! You're awesome and loyal and honest and funny and generous and kind. And I know you'd never "let me down". No matter what that stupid piece of glass showed you!'

But I'd sworn that I would protect him - that I'd swat away any concernitty attention from the Safety kids. That I'd wait until he was good and ready - in some deep, dark, ultra-private corner of the Wasteland, where he could have a proper meltdown in peace.

And that's what I was gonna do.

"Hay," I said to him. "Psst, hay, Cliff."

He looked to me out of the corner of his eye, and whispered out of the corner of his mouth. "What?"

"You're a good river," I told him.

"Huh?"

I pressed a hoof on his shoulder. "I said, 'You're a good river'."

"Uh, thanks," he replied.

Fwoooorsh! The clouds above us bloomed orange as Pinkie's flames reached for the sky like fiery dragon claws, flailing for freedom.

A gust of popcorn-smoke rolled down the ditch, sending waves of coughitty fits across the herd. The balloon was close. Damn near overhead.

As I squeezed my watery eyes shut, all I could think about was Pinkie Pie. The one who'd built all this creepy shit for some messed up reason I'd never fully understand.

And the mirror! The mirror weighed on me most of all. It was the whole reason that Cliff Diver had gone existentially upside down in the first place!

That stupid piece of glass was a great big giant what-the-fuck. But it still knew Misty and me from our tarot cards. So for all its crazy nonsense, only one thing about that mirror was absolutely certain: there was no way that anypony but Pinkie Pie coulda built it.

"Okay," Foster crept up on me, and whispered from behind. "...So only one thing about that mirror is absolutely certain. There's no way that Pinkie Pie could have built it."

"Huh, what?" I said. "But–;"

"The tarot cards don't matter," Foster replied. "That may be Pinkie's card game, but what we saw in there?" Foster craned her neck backwards. Looked over the section of the herd that followed us. Gestured in the vague direction of the mirror house, now a shadowy lump on a distant hill, haloed by the marble notebook strobe light. "That doesn't smell like Pinkie Pie."

"I mean…sure," I said. "It's not her usual style, but nothing here is like Pinkie. Not the Pinkie Pie that we know."

"No," Foster leaned over, and peered at me from behind Cliff Diver's hulking, sulking form. "You don't understand. This literally doesn't smell like Pinkie Pie." Bananas Foster tapped her nose. "Pinkie left a trail of emotion behind in absolutely everything that she did. Even this messed up amusement park." Foster reared up. Pointed all around her with thrashing hooves, (though there was nothing to see at the moment but dirt and empty sky). "This park - twisted though it may be - it still smells like her. But that–" Foster pointed her nose at the fun house behind us. Way up high on a hill. "--That. Wasn't. Pinkie. Pie."

Foster's eyeballs bored holes into my head. Like this was a matter of life or death.

"Okay, okay, okay," I said. "It wasn't her."

Cliff's lumpy shoulders drooped down in a great big heaving sigh of relief. "Good to know."

It dawned on me - just how fucked up it must be for Cliff Diver. To get your river self hurt so badly by a mirrorvision. And on top of that, to think that it was your local party planner who did that to you.

But then the obvious question arose out of my mouth. Like bubbles frothing over a boiling pot. "If not Pinkie, where did it come from?"

I looked to Foster. So did Cliff. As did Misty, who caught up with us just in time to weigh in. "I do not like thees mirror," said the unicorn. "...Transcending dee magic of The Pink One. Is bad."

My friends and I all turned to him silently. As our hooves pierced the quiet with their crunchitty clopping noises. Crkkk! Crkkk! Crkkk! went the frozen dirt beneath us.

"My hat!" Misty continued. "Een mirror vision. It is dumb hat. Not like thees one." Misty straightened out the pointy magician's cap that the Safety kids had given him. I'd totally forgotten that he was wearing it.

"Can't you use your magic hat - or, you know, the horn underneath it - to teleport us to the sewer entrance?" Cliff asked.

"Yes!" Misty replied. "Of course."

"Then what are you waiting for?" I squeaked.

"Shhh," came some voices ahead of us. Other Sneakers.

I clapped my hoof to my mouth. We were surrounded. Kids in front. Kids behind. Walls of dirt and eroded concrete on each side - wide enough not to cramp us, but too tall to scale without creating a great big commotion.

"I cannot make teleport of what I cannot see."

"But the sewers," I said. "The fountain? The crescent ledge?"

Misty pointed at Cliff Diver. "He described them. I did not see it."

"What about when we got out of the mirror house?" said Cliff. "The flames were brighter than ever! You didn't think to look?"

Misty shrugged.

"And you didn't notice the great big letter Y?"

Misty shook his head.

"...you know, the giant Y-shaped hill at the end of this exact trench?...The fountain full of Safety kids on one end? …Canyon with giant crescent steps on the other?"

Misty was dead silent. His face - blank.

"You saw nOnE oF iT?!" Cliff's voice cracked.

"Shhhhhh!" went the ponies ahead of us yet again. While the kids behind us hung even further back, timid and quiet.

Crkk crkk crkk, went our hooves against the ground.

"I was distracted!" Misty whisper-snapped. And hung his head in shame.

That mirror house hadn't shown him anything special. Just an inferior hat. But afterwards, Cliff had suggested that Fate might still be playing a role in our zebra heist. And Misty had been 'distracted' ever since.

After killing Twink, and driving my mom insane, (along with every single one of my relatives), Fate was high up on my List o' Stuff That Pissed Me Off. Just under the shadowmajigs, and slavers. But Misty hated them even more.

I couldn't imagine how that could even be possible. But then again, I'd never been transformed into a bowl of sentient tapioca pudding.

"Bananas Foster, why not…make change of yourself?" Misty spoke out at last.

I spun to Foster. To see what she'd say. Cliff did too.

She didn't flinch under the pressing weight of our eyeballs. She just got all prim, and announced, "It's an option that I'm keeping in reserves."

"You do not even need to turn into dragon, and make kill of them," said Misty. "They just need scaring away."

"No," said Foster.

"Ees only to distract them for me to find vantage point, and teleport there."

"No."

"You could be Miss Honey," I said.

"No."

"Why not?" said Cliff. "We'll be gone either way. We won't have to worry about tripping up anymore."

"Because I said, 'no',"Foster whisper-shouted.

A hush fell over us. A really, really, really, really, really, really, reeeeeallly confusing hush.

Foster sucked in a monster-of-a-breath - the kind of breath that could swallow a whole train car - and huffed out a sigh. "If the Safety kids scatter, they might get spotted by guards, who will be on alert after that point. This would rob our mission of the element of surprise - which, right now, is the only advantage that we've got."

I could see it in my brain's eye. Iris and Lucky and Flip. They'd stay put and stick their hooves up. Just like they'd practiced a hundred times before. But Scribbles? That mirror had left her wounded. And she was already unstable. Unpredictable.

There was no telling what she might do!

And what if there were other kids in the herd who'd panic too?

Flip's words came back to me, and spilled right out of my mouth - a little whimper. "You run, you die."

"I'm a scout," Foster continued. "Not a drone. We do deep cover. Investigation. Research. I have no experience sowing chaos, or using multiple ponysonas to disorient our opponents. You couldn't count on me to pull it off."

Cliff recoiled. Like a whip had struck his nose, ripping its noseflesh with those words: You couldn't count on me.

Foster held her tongue, and studied Cliff with sideways eyeballs as he clenched his jaw, stiffened his gait, and shut his eyes.

"We're all outside our comfort zones," Foster said carefully. "And we're all fully capable of the task at hoof."

Cliff exhaled good and hard, opened his eyes, and held his head upright again. It's impossible to say whether he was genuinely reassured or just hiding his pain better.

But it unnerved the fuck out of me. A lot. It unnervified me so hard that my nerves weren't even, like, real nerves anymore, but, unnerves. The evil opposite of nerves.

'Cause his river water thoughts hadgotten all obsessiony about the riverbed-static-selfhood that the mirror had put in his brain. And the currents were roaring rapids - brain-thoughts. Going all over the place, tearing Cliff apart.

And damnit, he'd know not to do that if only he'd read Pinkbeard and the River of Eternal Doubt.

If only he saw that Daisy the Cabin Girl was able to overcome her case of whitewater-rapid-brain without a single magical artifact, or dolphin ex machina. Then he'd know that he could do the same! That he didn't need any stupid dolphins to fix what that ancient mirror had done to his river self.

And the fact that there weren't any dolphins in the Wasteland wouldn't matter anymore, and Cliff wouldn't be so hopeless!

"Here we are!" A distant voice exclaimed.

"Aaahh!" I leapt up. Twirled in circles. Found Misty beside me. Facehoofing.

The voice belonged to Iris. He was way up ahead. Rearing up and flailing his legs, victorious-like, atop a slope at the very end of our trench. The ridge of the aforementioned "Y."

Light blasted behind him. And I could see a sort of shadow play in the glow that hugged the top of the hill. Other fillies. Moving around on the opposite side.

A second figure emerged on the hill, and staggered over to Iris. She had a thin green aura. Gigantic poofy mane.

It was Lime-o. The other new kid. "Hay, come on down," she said, apparently no longer mourning her mirror house vision. "Let's get emotionally edumacated!" She stumbled into Iris. And turned it into an impromptu hug. "Safety Sneakers forever!" Lime-O cried out with joy.

Even from a distance, I could smell Berry Punch belches when the wind caught her breath just right.

My friends and I looked to one another, what-do-we-do-now-ishly. But nopony had any answers.

Misty tossed his eyeballs all over the place, knowing that every second counted - sick to death of playing along with the Safety kids who'd already fulfilled their usefulness.

Meanwhile, Foster kept her eyeballs squarely on Cliff Diver, who was tensing up all over again.

I stepped in front of him. Turned myself into a living shield betwixt Cliff Diver and the Safety Sneaker party up ahead. I didn't know exactly how I was gonna protect him. But I'd sworn that I'd carry his trauma anvils for him, and…well
…I had to start somewhere.

"Hay," came a voice from behind.

"Ahh!" I spun around. Scrambled to tapdance back to where I'd started. Tripped. Rolled. Slammed my chin on the frozen dirt, and leapt back up, hooves pedaling.

But there was nopony there. Not yet.

Not till a bunch of Secret Sneaker Society kids came out of the shadows, catching up with us from the rear of the herd.

It was a small gang - the same exact kids who'd crowded concernish-like around Bananas Foster after she'd stepped out of the Mirror House, and faked a breakdown.

"Hay, why are y'all stopped?" said one troubled unicorn.

"Are you okay?" said a little blue earth pony.

Foster slid in between Cliff and the Concern Squad. Shielding him a trillion times more gracefully than I had. "We're fine," she said - absolutely un-fine-ishly. Drooping her tail. Averting her eyeballs.

Misty Mountain rolled his own eyes and tapped his hoof, impatient-like. But the Safety kids ate Foster's act right up.

Each and every one of them flinched and squirmed and cringed, and shuffled their hooves. It sounded like sandpaper grinding against a pile of bricks.

"The party's um, like…right over that hill," said an orange filly. "Just hang in there. It'll do you some good to, y'know...talk it over. Our club is all about making sense of what we see when we look in the mirror."

Foster twitched - a simple trick of the eye muscles that somehow managed to devastate everypony - as if the word 'mirror' had transformed into a giant word-monster-thingy that stomped on her head, and clawed out her kidneys and brains and pancreas and guts and stuff while playing hacky sack with her liver.

The Concern Herd froze in horrified silence. But the crunchitty clopping of the rest of the Sneakers' hooves grew dimmer and dimmer and dimmer and dimmer and dimmer up ahead - crackling like a faraway pot of popcorn on a sailboat as it drifted off to sea - till they all caught up with Iris and disappeared into the light on the other side of the hill.

"Hay, uh…listen," a little purple girl stepped forward. "It gets better from here, okay? Really, it does." She held a trembling hoof over Foster's shoulder, but chickened out, and didn't dare give it a pat.

Bananas Foster nodded grimly. "I know," she said. "I'll be okay."

The kids eyed one another. Obviously unconvinced that Foster was, at all, okay.

Misty, meanwhile, peeked over the edge of the trench, and the split up ahead. One side of the "Y" hill curved upward, herding Iris and the S.S.S.S.S. over the ridge, toward some vague campfire glow; the other side of the "Y" swung around and led to a high point - the steel grates that Cliff had seen earlier, (all the way from the Mirror House), and a crescent-shaped step that still flashed with marble notebook light before descending into an unseen abyss beneath its edge.

Some yellow kid with an eye patch squeaked Foster a question, "Do you wanna, um, maybe…I dunno…turn back?...Sorta?"

"Oh, no," said Foster. "I shouldn't. I really shouldn't."

Cliff maneuvered his way out of the kid-cluster gathering around Bananas Foster. And took a giant step back. To get a view of everypony.

That's when a tiny hint of green flame flickered in the squeaky girl's singular eye.

Cliff saw it quite clearly. But he didn't gasp. Or jump. Or grab Bananas Foster, and start shaking her, and shout n her ear that bug magic was slavery, or anything like that. His face simply…went dead. Like a plaster mask.

"They can't just turn back now," said the blue kid to the girl with changeling fire in her eyeball.

"Yeah," said another voice. "It's too late. Heading home now would be a very bad idea."

Foster emerged from the herd gathering around her, and went straight to Cliff. Patted his hoof. Held it. Until he met her gaze. "Yeah, you're right," Foster said to the crowd, though her eyes never left Cliff Diver's. "You're absolutely right. That would be a very very bad idea."

Cliff withdrew his hoof from Foster's touch. "Just do it," he mouthed silently.

Foster shook her head.

"Do it," Cliff mouthed yet again. A tear ran down his cheek.

"Not without you to keep me in line."

Cliff rubbed his eyes with his sleeve. "What?"

The Concern Squad behind us turned away, and did their very best to give our whispery huddle some much needed privacy.

"We need you," whispered Foster.

Cliff blink-bloinked his bloinkitty eyelids as a gust of wind whistled down the trench. The whole herd pulled their coats up, and Cliff used it as an excuse to hide his face and huddle in silence. As the cracks of the trench whistled against the gale.

WoooOOoOoO!!!

WooOooOOOooOO!!!

WoOOOooOoOooooOoOO!!!

"Oh, for the sake of fuck!" Misty cried out. Then, PWASH! A burst of light,and Misty was gone.

Just…gone.
…
…
…

Foster and I whipped around. Twirling in circles like frantic dogs. As though Misty might be hiding somewhere behind us if only we spun fast enough to catch him.

I jerked and I turned and I pirouetted.

Till bam! I found myself face-to-face with Cliff Diver. His great big eyeballs o' terror were flung wide open. As if to say, 'Sweet merciful Celestia, did Misty Mountain actually just fucking ditch us???!!!!!' in eyeball-speak.

I shook my head, 'no'. Even as I scoured the trench for signs of him. The whole thing made me dizzy, and scrambled the fuck out of my now-fuck-less brain. Until, at last, I caught another burst of light out of the corner of my eye.

Fwshwwwfwing! It erupted on the 'Y' ledge just above the trenches - the perfect vantage point for looking out over the fountain where the Super Safety Sneaker Squad held their drunken emotional education party. …Aaaaand for gazing into the other valley opposite it - the crescent-shaped steps that, supposedly, led down into Fillydelphia's ancient sewers.

But it only caught my eye for a fraction of an instant. I was barely starting to kinda sorta maaayyyybe make sense of it, when Poof! Light erupted again. This time, inside my own eyeballs.

Pop! One disoriented blink later, and I wasn't in the trenches at all anymore! I was standing in the dark, on a curved precipice, suspended over a deep black pit below.

It had descending ledges. Like the ridges in a throat that gobble you up. Getting darker and darker and darker the deeper you gaze into its depths.

My eyeballs swirled around my skull. Knocking into my brain. While my hooves held firm to the concrete beneath me. Like anchors keeping a pirate ship in place as it involuntarily breakdanced on the ocean's stormy surface.

Somepony grabbed me from behind and swept me backwards. "Eep!" I tried to say, but Misty thrust his hoof over my mouth. Looked me square in my spinning eyeballs, and said, "Shhhhh!"

Careful-like, he guided me backwards towards Cliff and Foster. They were already pressed against a shadowy wall. It had traces of faded spray paint all over it, and bits of broken steel rods jutting out.

"What the Hell was that?" said Foster. Pointing an accusatory hoof at Misty. "We were having an important moment."

"Bleeegggghhhh," said Cliff Diver, as he dropped to his knees, and dry heaved, desperately trying to vomit out of a stomach that hadn't eaten all day.

"This is serious," Foster snapped at Misty some more. "You can't just…" She stopped ranting mid sentence. Blink-bloinked her eyelids, and suddenly dropped to her knees, beside Cliff, all concernitty-like. "Jeez! Are you okay?"

"Sssshhh!" said Misty. He pointed upwards..

There, above us, was a whole bunch more crescent ridges, climbing toward the sky like the concentric rows of an amphitheater. The top ledge bordered the horizon, and flickered with wild, strobe-itty light.

I gasped. Clutched my muzzle with my forehooves and plopped down upon my flank.

That flickering ridge - it looked like a great big crescent Moon, swallowing the night with its crazy flashes!

For an instant - neigh, half an instant - I thought I was back in that field from my dreams. Where I'd met Luna.

Ahhhh! Had the Wasteland somehow climbed inside my head and apocalyzed my dreamscape too?! My heart slammed into my ribcage what-the-fuck-ishly as dread kicked me in the forehead. But my heart was being dumb. The crescent above us was not a moon at all, nor a vision conveying some hornet message about the Realm of Dreams.

It was part of Marble Notebookland. Getting strobed all over the place by distant floodlights, and the barbed wire mesh that danced in front of them.

A ridge on that Y-shaped hill - separating Crescent Canyon from the Safety Sneaker Fountain Party on the other side.

A gang of silhouettes sprung up on the 'moon' above us.

"Cliff? Rose? Misty? Foster?" a voice called out as the shadowy figures peered down into the dark chasm, where we all hid.

"They're gone," squeaked a voice I recognized from the Concern Squad - the eyepatch kid with the changeling fire in her eye.

"What do you mean they're gone?" said Iris.

"They're not feeling good," the poor kid tried to explain. "So I think they, uh…went away?"

"Fuck!" said Meadow Blade, the one grown up.

I closed my eyes. Pressed my flank against the stony wall. Even harder. Meadow's voice was tinged with rage as much as worry. Fear more than anything. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"

Rustle. Stomp! Crack!

"Oww!" cried the shrill little voice of Eyepatch Kid.

"Leave her alone," Flip cried out. "It's not her fault!"

"Just find them!" Meadow Blade roared.

As galloping hooves scattered to the four winds in search of us, Meadow Blade himself leaned out over the strobing crescent edge.

I could feel him. Watching the abyss, raw panic boiling underneath his silence.

Then Wooooorrrrrshhh! The Pinkie balloon let loose a burst of flame once again. And Meadow Blade's crazed shadow struck the crescent-moon-shaped-chasm-thing my friends and I were huddled in. His silhouette panted out manic breaths as the Pinkie fires above blasted everything everywhere with stray heat, and wild, mandarin light.

But then it was dark again. The air stank like the butt of a pile of flaming garbage (if flaming garbage piles actually had butts), and Meadow Blade whimpered out a fragile little exclamation, "Damnit."

A sigh and a gallop later, and he was off.

Misty Mountain held his foreleg across my chest, urging me to freeze in place. No matter what. His other leg pressed against Cliff Diver, who sat huddled on the ground.

Misty didn't dare breathe. Even as my heart pounded against his hoof. He just listened. And waited. Long and slow.

When the Safety kids were gone. All gone. Distant hoofsteps. Fading voices, calling to one another from further and furtheraway. Misty Mountain sorta...waited some more. And more. And more and more and more and more and more.

Till Finally, Foster brushed his leg aside, and extended a helping hoof toward Cliff Diver.

Cliff didn't say a word, and neither did she. But he let Foster help him to his hooves. And that was enough.

"What do we do now?" I whisper-shouted at Misty, who remained perched upon a rock, waiting for some kinda signal. Even though the Safety kids had already skedaddled. It seemed kinda dumb, till…

...WHRRRMMMMMMMMM. A great and powerful hum filled the air, drowning out every clop and whisper. I felt it in the very concrete beneath my hooves.

Even the pebbles chittered with vibrations.

"What the fuck is that?" I yelled out loud.

"Turbines," said Foster.

"What?" said Cliff.

We all took a moment to cluster really, really, reeeeeaaaallly close together. So we could actually fucking hear one another

"Turbines," Foster repeated. "They switch on automatically at midnight. The Sneaker Society chose the fountain over there because of the acoustics." Foster gestured with her nose, vaguely in the direction of the ridge, and whatever lay beyond the Y. "They can sing and dance and yell and party, and hear each other without being heard."

I gazed down the crescent stairs below, descending into darkness. It was a giant punchbowl-of-a-canyon, and it boomed all around us with crazy vibrations. The opposite of good acoustics for, you know...not going deaf when you've got giant turbines humming into them.

"What is this place?" I said to Misty.

"Eet make connect to old water treatment plant," he replied. "Already out of commission in my home time. Teenagers used to do scooter tricks here. And illegal community theater troupes make use of it as performance space. When not getting arrested, of course."

"Community theater?" I said. "Illegal?!"

"Some were," Misty shrugged.

I recoiled. Wartime Equestria was so weird and evil and horrible! Sure, Wastelanders may have killed and enslaved one another left and right, but they didn't have any kind of civilization to unite under. They didn't have the first clue how to build one.

But Wartime Equestria? They had like, vast armies, and crazy technology, and super advanced magic, and stuff. Yet they chose to use all that power to murder zebras, and burn pirate books, and outlaw community theater troupes.

"We didn't let it stop us." Misty winked at me. The kinda wink that makes a ding sound.

"Uh…us?" I said?

"You were a theater nerd?!" said Cliff.

"I am not nerd," balked Misty. "Could nerd use magic for lighting of effects, and make sing of the 'Princess and I' at same time?" Misty smirked.

"Yes," we all replied in unison.

Misty harrumphed.

* * *

It was a slow trip down, and the hum of the turbines didn't let up. At all. Misty led us down some stairs, or what remained of them: crumbling planks of stone that led from one giant crescent platform to the next.

My hooves stumbled with every uncertain step, but it wasn't just me. We were all super mega careful not to trip. Not to leave any trace behind that could be used to track us. Not to generate light. Or make great big booming noises that might get heard over the turbines somehow, and attract Sneakers or slavers or shadows or soldiers…or anything else that started with the letter 'S.'

But we could talk at least. If we stayed within a wagon's length of one another.

"So, uh…Foster?" said Cliff. His voice squeaked with uncertainty.

"Yeah?" Bananas Foster carefully lowered a hoof from one splintered stair to the next.

"How did you figure all that out? The fountain and the acoustics and the turbines and stuff? Did your powers tell you that?" Cliff Diver chuckled nervously.

Foster flopped her own ears in reply. "You'd be surprised the secrets that you can learn using only these." She twiddled her ears once again.

Cliff nodded, but didn't smile, Foster sighed, and hung her head so low I thought she was gonna trip on it.

"What do the turbines do?" I asked, changing-the-subject-ish-ly.

"What?" Foster perked up her head.

"The turbines," I repeated. "What do you reckon they….y'know….do?"

I descended the last step. A wobbly, crunchy one.

"How should I know?" Foster eased herself onto that same step.

"You're the one who overheard." I sprang off that ricketty slab, and landed on the solid ground beneath it. The very bottom of Community Theater Canyon. There were rocks all over the place. Hunks of gravel the size of magic crystal balls.

Foster's hooves hit the dirt beside me. "I didn't overhear anything," she replied. "I simply talked to the Safety kids. And listened."

"It's gotta be a cooling system," said Cliff.

"A cooling system?" Misty asked.

"Yeah." Cliff pulled his mane out of his face. "Pinkie's fires wouldn't have kept running for centuries unless there was a way to keep the machinery from overheating. If this used to be some kinda water treatment plant, then it's probably still pumping some from below, maybe even powered by it...

'Now," he raised a hoof, and added. "I doubt that these turbines are coated with tri-magnesium crystal like the long term perma-fuel core that the Bearded Stallions of Space Station 11 are researching and developing. But the principles still apply."

"Beard pirates." Misty threw his eyeballs at me. "Beard spaceships." Misty pointed them at Cliff Diver next. "What ees it with you ponies and the beard literature?"

I shrugged. Honestly, I'd never thought about it before.

But Cliff lowered his ears, all bashful-like. "Beards are cute," he said.

I gave him a playful shove. He giggled, and shoved me right back. A bit of his old self again.

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:

Those of you who read my blog already know this, but, after over four months' worth of writing, and a great deal of frustration at my own sluggish pace, I took a look at the word count. It was 18,000+ words long.

So this chapter is the result of breaking that earlier draft into smaller fragments. At first, this was sheer practicality, but as I got to tweaking this chapter, and trying to make it coherent on its own, I found myself discovering how right it felt as a short, little transition chapter that really laser-focused on the characters, and the issues between them.

I hope you enjoy what you read, and tell me what you think.

Also, new chapter is well on its way because I have a big head start!

Pivotyness

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR - PIVOTYNESS
“Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it's often only found in moments of truth.” - Alan Rudolph

Misty started sniffing around. Not like, literally sniffing. Well, maybe a little. But mostly he just paced in tight circles and zig-zaggity lines, studying the ground.

I examined it too. The concrete was busted to shreds. Broken hunks driven into tender soil not cold enough to freeze. The soft earthstuff musta absorbified the sound of all those turbine growls above - 'cause it created a weird little oasis of quiet at the punchbowl's basin. While that aggressive hummmm hung over us like a ceiling of sound you could leap up and almost touch with your forehoof.

We were there for quite a while. Waiting for Misty to orient himself. But he didn't. He couldn't. He simply…paced. For a really really really long time.

"Uh…this is the right place, right?" said Cliff.

Misty stopped in his tracks. And stood there. Staring at the ground. "The clown hole," he replied at last. "Am lookink for clown hole."

"What?" said Foster.

"A clown…hole?" said Cliff. "Now you're talking like Rose."

"Haaayyy," I protested.

"Ees book from my mother's shelf. About evil clown who live in sewer and make eat of children. I was forbidden to read it because it's 'too scary for colts.'" Misty scoffed. And marched along the splintered edge of the final stair, eyes hunting for a gap in the debris. "I was not scared," he added.

Cliff, Foster, and me all snickered, and exchanged skeptical eyeballs.

"Shut up and help me make find of clown hole!" said Misty.

We fanned out, traced the broken outline of the bottom stair, squinting at rubble in the dark. It was pretty pointless. There was nothing to see but vague shapes. Jagged shadows. Black, and grey, and black, and grey, and black and black, and grey.

Till FWooOrRrrrrssSsshhh!

The sky erupted with Pinkie fire - like neon splashes on a black velvet painting. The entire punchbowl amphitheater canyon-a-majig glowed. From the zigzagitty edge of the collapsed bottom stair to the flashing crescent at the tippy top.

"Here!" Misty dashed and skidded, and stooped to examine the gap he'd found underneath the stair.

Then, poof! The flames were gone, leaving only darkness and smoke.

Foster and Cliff fumbled after Misty, over the amphitheater's frosted flake floor.

But a pebble pa-twang'ed out of the darkness and grazed my hindquarters. As a cloud of grit and dust rolled down the amphitheater stairs and stung my face.

"Ow!" I stopped, rubbed my eyes, and gazed up at those long rings of crescent stairs towering above. But there was no motion. No sign of Super Sneakers descending the punchbowl in search of us. No sound, either. Except for the wubbing hum of nearby turbines.

I lingered a moment, expecting Meadow Blade to emerge, and smack us like he did to that poor filly. Or for Red Eye himself to leap out of the shadows, stab my liver out, and laugh maniacally as he added my liver to his evil throne made out of livers. Or the worst fate of all: for Scribbles to spring forward and tell me what a horrible friend I had been.

But even after my eyes had adjusted, they couldn't see anything at all. Just the crescent rim of the canyon, strobing like a giant, fake-ass Moon.

"What are you looking at?" I snapped.

The fake ass Moon, of course, didn't answer. Not even in feelings, or in intuition like the actual Moon does. The punchbowl simply went about its business.

"Rose," came a voice from somewhere off to my side. "Come on!"

It was Misty - deep under the bottom stair, halfway into the clown hole. He waved his forelegs all over the place. "Over here!"

I trotted up to him. Dodging all the cement hunks that jutted out of the soil like broken nacho-splinters stuck in a bowl of salsa.

Misty retreated further into the hole and turned into a pair of disembodied eyes floating in the darkness below. I crouched down on all four knees. Stuck my head inside.

"Down here...here...here...here," came an echoey voice from below. It was Foster.

"Shhh!" I said.

"Nopony can hear us...hear us
...hear us...hear us," echoed Cliff.

Misty lit up his horn, and extended a helping hoof. I could see now that he was standing on a platform. It spiraled down the inner wall of something like a silo.

Cliff and Foster were all the way at the bottom already. Their heads poked out from under a cloud of rolling fog.

"Kill the light," I whisper-shouted.

Yoink! I pulled my head out of the hole, and hucked my eyeballs upwards, searching the punchbowl stairs yet again.

But nothing had changed. It was empty out there. Just me, the turbine hum, the darkness, and some stupid wind.

"I think we're being followed," I shoved my head back into the hole, and proclaimed.

"How do you know?" asked Foster.

"A pebble," I replied. "It rolled all the way down the punchbowl."

"Punchbowl?" said Misty.

"You know," I replied. "The moon stairs."

"Moon stairs?"

"Arg!" I grunted. "The amphitheater. The crescent steps. Whatever!"

Misty, Cliff, and Foster tossed confuse-itty glances to one another, all the way from opposite ends of the silo.

But Misty shook the confuzzlement out of his head, and stretched a hoof out toward me. "Come on,” he said. “If thees ees true, we can still make lose of them in the dark if we get a head start."

I made my way down the spiraling ledge inside the clown silo. Round and around and around. When at last, I reached the end of the ramp, there was no floor. Just mist.

"Make careful of last step," said Misty. "Ees doozy."

I planted my forelegs on the stone ledge, and lowered a hind leg into the eerie cloud. Down down down down down. Inch by delicate inch. Reaching for some unseen floor. Till sploosh! My hoof hit the water below.

Oily and warm and super gross.

"Eee!" I screeched, lost my grip and plunked down, all four hooves into the nasty water.

Misty lunged at me, and threw a hoof into my mouth. While the entire silo boomed with the echo of my squeaky cry.

EeeeeeEEEEeeeEEEeeee!

And even though Misty's hoof tasted like nasty drainage water, and stale popcorn, I didn't dare spit it out.

I just…froze.

All of us did. One by one, my friends and I each lifted our heads, and cast our gaze at the tiny rectangular splinter-of-light - way up high by the ceiling. The clown hole.

It flickered and fritzed like a film strip. Cool air spilled through it too - a gentle breeze, whistling against the uneven bricks.

But no sign of any ponies, or creatures, or shadows storming the sewers to come down and capture us, or torture us, or tell us what terrible friends we were.

Cliff Diver snorted out a tiny little laugh. But the joy ran from his face the second he spun around and saw Foster, gazing upwards at the light. Eyes wide with terror.

"What?" Cliff squeaked.

"Someone's up there," she said.

"Where?"

"I don't know," Foster replied. "I think they came in through the clown hole."

"Fuck," I said.

"We need to go," said Misty. "Now."

He trotted ahead. Cliff followed, not far behind.

But I just kept staring at the clown hole till Foster swept me away. “Come on!" she whisper-shouted.

We all splooshed, and splashed, and powerwalked together in the dark. It was only an inch of water. But every step sprayed my legs with totally gross gook that smelled like popcorn and ashes and mildew and kerosene and sour apple candy crammed together in a gym sock. I wished we hadn't jettisoned our boots back in Safety.

"Do you know where we're going?" Cliff asked Misty.

"Of course! I've navigated sewers twenty times more confusing than..."

"No," Cliff snapped, voice like flint. "Do you know where we're going for real?"

Misty peered down the path ahead.

The fog seemed to follow a lazy current. The water beneath it rolled faster now - making sssshhhhhhhhh noises all over the place as it rushed down a subtle decline in the ground beneath our hooves, and disappeared into the dark.

"Yes," said Misty. "I know the way. The path splits up ahead, and soon become like labyrinth. We just need to escape around the corner, and nopony will make find of us. I'm positive."

"Shh!" said Foster, quickening her pace.

Splish-splosh. Splish-splosh. Splish-splosh. Splish-splosh.

We all slushed our way down the hall, following the gray haze in the air as shadows whirled around and danced with random streaks of light that came seeping in from Luna-knows-where. It was like descending into a dream. Claustrophobic and infinite - all at once. There was no space, nor time. Just endless layers of gray.

…Till Misty's silhouette suddenly pointed his muzzle at a spot dead ahead. Where the fog washed against some unseen wall at the end of the tunnel, and the vague shape of water crashed and foamed and bubbled underneath it, super angry-like. "That's it!" Misty whisper-shouted.

He and Cliff glided ahead. Way faster than Foster and me. But nopony dared to break into a full gallop. (It was one thing to whisper-shout over the shhhhhhhh of the flowing popcorn waters. It was quite another to go stampedifying with sixteen clonkitty hooves).

Foster and I just powertrotted as best we could, while Misty Mountain and Cliff scouted up ahead, powertrotting even more powerishly. We all rushed and rushed and rushed and rushed and rushed.

Eventually, the darkness up ahead began to take shape. Gray came into focus against the black. I could even make out the end of the sewer-corridor that Misty had told us about. All of the fog was mashing up against a wall ahead. A crossroads - like the bar atop a capital letter 'T.' The water below it raged and foamed and bubbled against the bricks before disappearing down some unseen channel.

Misty and Cliff made it to those crossroads, and disappeared around the T corner. While Foster hurried me forward with quiet, careful, erratic steps. Like the floor was made of lava.

"What?" I whispered. "What's wrong?"

"Listen," she said.

I pricked up my ears. Sploosh sploosh, sploosh-sploosh sploosh-sploosh, sploosh-sploosh, sploosh-sploosh, sploosh-sploosh, sploosh-sploosh, went a set of hooves that wasn't ours at all.

"It's Scribbles," said Foster.

"What?!"

"It would appear she's no longer…conflicted."

"Waaaaait!" screeched a bitter voice from far behind. Though all I could see back there was a whole lotta black, and the pale glow of the distant clown hole, straining to pierce the fog.

Bananas Foster threw a hoof around my shoulder and rushed me forward. The end of the water-corridor was clearer now. I could even make out the brick wall, and the belly-high chute at the bottom of it where all the angry water ran down.

“Fucking wait!" said the voice once again. Stomping. Splashing. Galloping to catch up.

Bananas Foster grabbed my saddlebag and chomped down on it. Whirled around, and swung me.

I spun in the air - a starfish doing clumsy cartwheels, around and around and around till…

Cla-donk-donk-donk! My staggering hooves hit solid ground - scrambled chaos-ishly. Like a deer learning to ice skate, I tripped and fumbled and swayed. But Cliff Diver leapt outta nowhere and grabbed me. Yaaaanked me into a little nook built deep into the slimy brick walls of the new hallway.

We were on dry ground.

"Foster's a good tosser," I mumbled to myself as birds and stars circled my head.

"Shhh," said Cliff, cramming a nasty hoof straight into my mouth.

But before I could gag or squirm or spit, Foster came racing down the watery hallway like a herd of manticores was on her tail, and every one of those manitcores spat fire-breathing bees.

When she reached the intersection, Foster leapt up, and splashed! Hard. A wave crashed against the chute that channeled all the popcorn water to Luna-only-knows-where.

And for a moment, the darkness sparkled with mist, exploding everywhere. Trillions of tiny droplets glimmered with pale refractions of some faraway light. And from that glittery cloud, Foster reemerged. Suddenly right beside me.

"Ahhhhhh!" I tried to say, but the second that Cliff removed his nasty hoof from my mouth, Foster thrust her nasty hoof into it. And yanked us both deeper into the nook where Cliff and Misty hid.

There, we huddled together. While Foster panted. Gasping. Heaving. Fighting a hopeless battle to catch her breath. But she still didn't dare to unplug her hoof from my mouth. 'Cause in moments like this, everypony knew I was liable to blurt out something stupid.

So I winced. Gagged. Tried really really hard not to choke on the ashy water trickling off of Bananas Foster's hoof. And she just kept on struggling in silence to catch her breath. While her free hoof clutched her chest - as though her heart might beat loud enough to tattle on us all.

Sploosh. Sploosh. Sploosh. Sploosh. Sploosh, went Scribbles' hoofsteps.

Doom! Doom! Doom! Doom! Doom! went Bananas Foster's heart.

"..., …, …, …, …," went Cliff Diver and Misty Mountain. They’d both seized up - as still as villains turned to stone. Nopony knew whatto do.

…Which was totally crazy! 'Cause Scribbles was just, like, one kid. Not a demon. Or a dragon. Or a slaver.

But that just...made it worse somehow. 'Cause yeah, sure, we could escape her if we needed to. And she probably wasn't gonna try to hurt us.

But Scribbles also had the power to ring, like…175,000 warning bells; draw a tidal wave of attention our way; and fuck everything up for that poor zebra, Xenith - who was undoubtedly shivering in servitude, waiting to be rescued.

The element of surprise was the only advantage we had. We couldn't afford to let Xenith down.

Sploosh. Sploosh. Sploosh. Sploosh. Sploosh.Scribbles stepped into the sparkling mists and followed the drainage canal to the mystery chute. She seemed to flash in and out of the darkness, glistering like a disco ball as the fog parted, and the droplets around her caught the last traces of light from some distant clown hole.

"Rose?" said Scribbles. Calling towards us.

"Ose…ose…ose," answered the walls. Echoing all over the place.

"Rose Petal?" she called again, this time facing the opposite way. "Cliff? Foster? Misty?"

When no answer came, she called out once more, "I just wanna talk!"

"...anna talk…anna talk…anna talk…anna talk," the walls seemed to mock her with her own voice.

Scribbles sighed, and shoved her head halfway down the drainage chute. "Rose Petal?" She put one hoof in.

She was gonna follow the chute! And ride it towards a horrible fate. Lost, afraid, and alone in the middle of a sewer that nopony even knew was there! Was she crazy? Was she stupid? What the hell was she doing???

Scribbles raised another forehoof. Leaned it against the arch of the world's most abandoned-est water slide, and eeeeased her shoulder in.

"No," I leapt out. "Don't!"

Donk! Scribbles jumped up - banged her head on the roof of the arch. "Oww!"

"Jeez, careful!" I said.

The next thing I knew, Scribbles and I were face-to-face. Like an Appleoosa standoff.

She was a silhouette to me. Except for a random haze of super-dim light brushing her face through the fog. Her coat was soaked. Her eyes were sad. And angry. And hurt and afraid. And a gazillion other feelings that I didn't know how to read.

Bananas Foster had been correct. Whatever desperationmay have plagued Scribbles, she was no longer uncertain.

"I'm sorry," both of us said at once.

"What?" I asked.

"You were right," Scribbles replied. "I'm a coward."

"No, you're not! You're–;"

"Shut up, Rose." Scribbles lowered her head. "I've got something to say."

She fixed her eyeballs on the vague shape of water hushhhhhh'ing against her hooves, and sighed. "Everyday I think about what it might be like...To live in a world without slavers - to have real communities without landlords demanding protection-pay all the fucking time." Scribbles chuckled to herself. And ran a soaking wet hoof through her frizzed-up mane. "It sounds so dumb when you say it out loud, doesn't it? So impossible. But I've always thought we should at least…like…try, you know? To do something better. To be something better."

The waters whispered against her hooves some more as she sucked in a shuddering breath.

I could almost feel my friends creeping up behind me in the quietude that followed. So I threw a hoof out. Waving them back.
Thankfully, Scribbles didn't notice.

"I thought I was soooo fucking special for figuring it all out." She spat out a laugh that might as well have been made outta hydrofluoric acid. "But I never put up a fight either. "I'm no better."

"What were you supposed to do?" I replied. "We're just kids!"

"Yeah," she replied. "I know. But I look down on all the other kids. And grown ups too. For going along with it."

Scribbles fell silent again.
...
...
...
"The Hard Yellow Line," I whispered to myself.

"Huh?"

"When I was crammed into a cage," I said. "Waiting to be processed. And sent down into the Mines of Tro—" my tongue stopped short - stumbled all over itself as my brain realized that naming Trottica might be super anachronismy. "Tro, tro, tro…trouble!" I said. "The Mines of Trouble!

‘They lined us kids up, and told us we were going to 'class.'" I made quotation marks with my hooves. "None of us actually believed it. We thought they were gonna slaughter us. But nopony could be totally sure. So when the cloak-o's threatened to–;"

"The what?" said Scribbles.

"The cloak-o's…uh, you know. The slavers. The soldiers. The Knights of the Ancient Secret Order of Hating Children or Whatever. They warned us not to cross this stupid yellow line that they'd painted on the floor. And we all just sorta…stood behind it. Waiting. Like they told us to."

"Why?"

"There was no signal," I said. "No flag at the start of the race. No sign that the time was ripe to rush all the cloak-o's, and free ourselves. Even though there were totally enough of us to pull it off. Even though we suspected that death would be right around the corner if we allowed ourselves to get herded."

"What did you do?" A weak, reflecty halo lit up Scribbles' face as she pressed forward, eager to hear more. She wasn't categorized as a bunker stunker. So she’d never heard my Trottica stories in Emotional Education class.

"Oh," I said. "Um…I did as I was told."
My brain scrambled its way through a hundred memories. To sort out the possible from the impossible. The probable from the unlikely. To come up with something I could tell Scribbles that wouldn't involve voices and visions and shadows attacking us, and Twink dying cause Fate took her instead of Strawberry Lemonade, who was destined to become somepony so important that she'd get a medal of honor named after her and that medal would end up getting poisoned with a nerve-o-toxin that a hero Colonel (who I'd originally presumed to be a villain) would use to extort a peace treaty out of Major What's-His-Face, and get every soldier cheering till the Crystal Empire doors opened up and made everypony magic and shimmery and semi-transparent.

"We got lucky," I said at last. "Eventually, a moment opened up - a pivoty moment - and we all just…kinda…took it, I guess. If that makes any sense?"

"It does." The whites of Scribbles' eyes erupted with eyeball lightning. “It was a…do-or-die moment."

"Literally," I laughed. "Yeah."

Scribbles stepped out of the last light of the watery tunnel, and drew even closer. "Rose," her shadow whispered. "This is gonna sound stupid, but I need to know - do you believe in fate?"

"Fate?" I squeaked. And hacked. And coughed. Like the word itself was made out of peppercorns, and my lungs were filling up with them as some invisible waitress stood over me, grinding pepper down my throat and never ever ever stopping because I was choking too hard to say 'when'.

"Are you okay?" said Scribbles.

A magic orb suddenly appeared outta nowhere, illuminatizing the gloom.

"You should not be here," said Misty. He stepped forward into the brand new light. As the orb wafted downwards, it threw violent shadows against his face.

"Neither should you," Scribbles retorted without batting an eye.

I kept on coughing.

"Do you need water?" Scribbles produced a canteen.

I waved it away, and got a good glimpse of my friends for the first time since we hit the sewers. Misty was stabbing Scribbles with eyeballs o' rage. Eyeballs of steel. Eyeballs chock full of the coldest fire I'd ever seen in him.

…While Foster hung back. Hiding in the shadows of an infinite web of winding tunnels. Her eyeballs were quivery. Floating in a sea of darkness.

…Cliff took cautious steps forward. Weighing absolutely everypony with his concernitty eyes

"A moment," begged Scribbles. "Please."

But nopony budged. Till Cliff Diver jabbed Misty in the ribs with his knee.

"Ow."

"Come on," said Cliff.

"Fine," answered Misty. "But when you're done, Scribbles, make fucking-of-the-off."

"Dude, back off!" I snapped.

Misty receded into the dark with a huff. And Cliff followed. The glowy orb remained with me.

"Sorry," I said to Scribbles.

"It's okay," she replied.

But then a gloom hung over us again. I didn't know what the Hell I was supposed to say. So I just sorta…stood there. As the sewers boomed with echoey shhhhhhh noises.

"What did you see?" Scribbles broke the silence between us. "You know, when you looked into the mirror?"

"A foal," I answered honestly.

"Hmm," said Scribbles, brushing her mane aside to get a better look at me. "Was it you?"

"Yeah," I said. "I guess so."

Shhhhhh, said the sewer waters some more. Shhhhhh. Shhhhhh. Shhhhhh.

"You don't believe in fate," said Scribbles at last. "Do you?"

I shrugged in reply. There was no way to lie convincingly while using my mouthwords.

"Rose," she said. "I'm really sorry to jump in like this with you and your friends." She threw a sour glance over my shoulder - Misty's general direction. "I know I'm putting a lot on you, but this moment…right now. It's…pivotish."

"Pivoty," I corrected her.

"I can't go back," Scribbles' voice squeaked with fear. "I can't! If I turn around now, I'll go back to being a coward all over again. Forever and ever. And I'll end up fighting in Red Eye's Army and being a slaver just like my mom used to be. Please," her voice crumbled in on itself like a ball of crinkly wrapping paper scratching against gravel.

I froze. As my heart kicked me from inside my chest, and my head pounded in reply.

Whatever Scribbles had seen in the mirror house? It would've happened whether I’d showed up in Safety or not. That meant that Scribbles was destined to see that pivotish vision no matter what. Destined to get scared out of her mind. Destined to flee her own cowardice, and seek a way to make a stand.

But my friends and I had made a mess of everything by showing up in Safety. By messing with future history. By getting so entanglified in Scribbles’ life that she believed that the only way to make a stand against tyranny was through us.

Damnit. Unless we found a way to grab a hold of her pivoty moment right now, and steer it elsewhere, we'd fuck up Scribbles' life forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever!

"I cannot hear what you are saying, but you should still make the fucking off," Misty called out at us from far behind.

"Dude, shut up," said Cliff. Thonk! Misty got whacked so loud that his horn flickered, and the orb that lit the way for all of us sputtered out of existence.

Scribbles was just a pair of eyeballs floating in the darkness now. Staring me down.

Cliff and Misty may have been squabbling and bickering and fighting behind me, but the commotion of it seemed a thousand miles away. The only things that felt real to me were Scribbles' glowing white eyeballs.

"Come on," she begged me in a whisper. "I can help. You're gonna need a sneaker."

"I, I, I…I, I," my voice tremored as my brain struggled for a logical rebuttal.

'Cause Scribbles was right about that part. We would benefit from bringing an experienced sneaker along. But she still couldn't come. And I had no idea how to explain that to her.

“Time is a blanket," my mouth said without bothering to consult my brain.

"Huh?"

Fuck fuck fuck, what the ass are you doing? Screamed a Rose Voice from inside my head. Shut up!

But Scribbles' eyeballs were too confusitty to stop now.

"Well, you see,” I said. “Me, and my friends. We…um…we're not from a Stable. We lied about that. We're actually from two hundred years in the past. That's why I got all accusation-y and upset at you when you called us pre-war ponies the worst generation.

‘We're from Ponyville twenty years or so before the war, and I have the ability to sorta…dream my way into the future - pivoty moments in the future. And these hornets in my brain - they yell at me to make sure stuff happens the way fate wants it to, and they sting me in my brain until I do what they say.

‘But I'm lost this time. I’m trying to get home to Ponyville. And I accidentally dragged my friends with me. Except for Misty, of course. He was already here and he's not from Ponyville. He's from a bunch of places: Fillydelphia and Romaneia and Jerhoovesalem. But…like, you know, actually during the war, not before it, so we're trying to get him home too. By rescuing this one slave he couldn't save back on his last brain hornet mission before he escaped the brain hornets altogether and tried to leap through time on his own like Z'orange the zebra shaman apprentice did back when she got lost in the Duckyverse. And now Misty is lost in the duckyverse too - or the emuverse, as he calls it. (Which is a totally stupid name, I know)." I snickered. "And we have to try to rescue this one slave 'cause like, we hope it'll get us unlost, and send us home. Or at the very least, give us a reason to, like, right an old wrong. So that Misty can be a river again, 'cause you know, deep down inside, we aren't running waters nor dried up basins, but the riversthemselves."

I panted. Struggled for breath as I opened up my heart and spilled my guts all over Scribbles. But she just staggered back. Startled and confused.

"Listen," I said. "The important part is that I think you're a really cool filly and I'm sooo sorry I hurt your feelings by calling you the worst generation. And I wish you could come with us. You'd be helpful and awesome and great company because I don't think you're at all comparable to the Worst Generation. In fact, it's fucking amazing that you've found…you know…morals and stuff. On your own. All by yourself. When everypony else around here seems to only care about other Safety kids.

‘Us and them.

'You're really really really really really cool! And I know that you are fated for great things. Cage-smashing things. Maybe you'll be a rebel or something when the toaster repair pony saves Equestria and brings back the Sun - which has gotta be a few years off at most. Or maybe you'll help rebuild it all after Red Eye falls. You’re an amazing pony, and I truly believe you can make something amazing of your life. Just not, you know…with us. I'm sorry.”

Scribbles' eyeballs dipped down. Gazed mopey-like at the floor. I could almost hear the tink! of glass shattering as her heart broke.

But it got cut off by the sound of Misty Mountain hollering at us from somewhere deeper in the tunnels. "Tell Scribbles to make a changingk of heart and soul somewhere else, and just go home already."

"Dude, shut up!" Foster, Scribbles, Cliff, and me all snapped at the same time.

"I'm sorry," I spun back around to apologize.

But Scribbles' eyes were no longer mopey. They were furious balls of fire now. "You coulda just said you don't want me around."

"No!" I said. "I'm telling the truth."

"Whatever." Scribbles' eyeballs went from red with flames to pink with tears. "Fuck you, Rose."

And just like that, her eyes disappeared. As her clip-cloppity hooves turned around and splished their way back into the watery tunnel.

"I'm sorry!" I called out.

Scribbles didn't stop or slow down or anything. I didn't follow either. My hooves simply locked into position, determined to keep me from doing anything stupid, while she slipped from me, deeper and deeper into the mists.

I could make out only the faintest glow reflecting off the shimmery muck below her. Just enough to give form to a lingering silhouette. It draggedits splishing hooves like anchors.

But she didn't look back. Not once. Scribbles simply disappeared around the corner. And was gone.

I gazed into the darkness. As the sad fwooshing sound of her hooves drifted further and further away.

When, at last, her hoof splashes got swallowed up by the din of the sewer’s rushing waters, I was left listening to - and staring at - nothing,

Then, at last, Misty's horn lit up once again. "I liked her," he said. "She was alright."

Cliff, Foster, and me all turned our heads to glower at Misty in unison.

…
…
…

"What the Hell was all that? Can you go just five minutes without being a total jerk?" -erk, -erk, -erk, -erk. My words reverberated against all the long rows of arches lining the sewer corridors.

But Misty didn't reply. He didn't snap at me. Nor defend himself. Nor say he was sorry. He just stiffened. And looked me over with dispassionate eyeballs. Like nothing was going on behind them.

"We ruined Scribbles' future, you know?" I said. "This was a pivoty moment for her. Really fucking pivoty!"

"I do not know what thees means," Misty replied. "Pivoty."

"It means that whatever Scribbles saw in the mirror - it changed her! And she had a very very very narrow window to choose a different course for her life, and I fucking ruined it. And you ruined it too. By making it impossible for me to unruin what I had ruined 'cause you wouldn't shut the fuck up."

"Pfft," said Misty. "Scribbles is a bright girl. And mirrors - they are not smart."

"Mirrors don't need to be smart," said Cliff. "They just need to know how to hurt you."

The rest of us fell silent. While RrrrrssSsshhhhhhhh. The whispering waters rang out against the walls.

"Omigosh," Cliff whispered to himself.
"Scribbles would have seen the mirror tonight. No matter what. But...we changed how she would have reacted. Just by showing up.”

“By giving her hope," I added.

"We need to help her!" said Cliff. He threw his panicked eyeballs down the corridor - gazing intentishly at the corner where Scribbles had last been seen.

"The damage," said Misty. "Sadly, eet is done."

"Then we undo it," Cliff squeaked.

"What will you say to her?" said Misty. "Hello. We are from the past and we are freeing slave. You cannot make join with us because you'll die? But just so you know, eet ees cool that you hate slavery, and you must keep doingk that?!"

"No," said Cliff. "I'm not stupid!"

"Yeah," I said. "Nopony could be that stupid. Aha! Ha! Ha-ha-ha!" I laughed - totally unsuspicious-ish-ly.

Then all of my friends' eyeballs turned to me. Two at a time.

"...Rose Petal," said Cliff.

“Uh, yeah?”

"What did you say to Scribbles?"

"Nothing," I answered, turning away, averting my eyes.

"You told her about time travel?" Foster spoke up at last. She was white with fear - really fucking white - like flour white.

I finally realized - just then - how quiet Bananas Foster had been up to that point.

"Will this hurt the time blanket?" said Misty.

"No," I said.

"Maybe," Cliff replied. "It theoretically could. Rose, what did you say to Scribbles?"

"Nothing!" I snapped, defensive-like. "I mean, yeah. I told her about time stuff. Maybe a little. Or a lot. I'm not sure."

"Think," Cliff said. All signs of mopeyness and fear and sadness and terror and dread were totally gone now. Cliff seemed to have forgotten about the mirror entirely. He only cared about making absolutely, positively, 100,000,000% certain that I hadn't just broken the entire duckyverse by shooting my stupid mouth. "What did you say to Scribbles. Exactly?"

"I don't fucking know!" I explained. "There were a lot of, you know, words and stuff that came out of my mouth. I don't remember all of them. It just sorta...well...happened."

Misty facehooved so hard he got mud on his wizard hat.

"Hay," I snapped at him. "I would havebeen able to explain, and get through to Scribbles. I could have made her understand that we really are from the past if you hadn't been shouting so many insults. What the fuck was that?"

"Rose, that's not important right now," said Cliff. "We need to–;"

"I was doing for you favor," Misty replied matter-of-fact-ish-like.

"A favor?!" I snapped. "You were a total jerk!"

"Goodbyes are hard," Misty answered. "Thees way ees less hard," he shrugged. "You? You do not have experience with such theengs. You cannot make good saying of goodbyes, so I help you."

-elp you, -elp you, -elp you, -elp you…A hush fell over the sewer yet again, but Misty's voice still echoed all over the place.

We all took a moment to contemplatize how many goodbyes Misty Mountain must have said in all his travels - or failed to say.
How hard that must have been for him.

Misty didn't flinch at the scrutiny. He just held his head high. Determined to face me with dignity. A practiced hardening - like he'd walked this kind of plank a hundred times before.

"Thanks," I said at long last.

Misty Mountain, totally unprepared for affection of any sort, blink-bloinked his eyes at me. And became himself again. "Yes, well, uh, we cannot make travellingk through time and space and emu if we are whining like pirate. So, um…you're welcome? I suppose?"

"Omigosh," I said.

"What?" Misty replied.

"Omigosh omigosh omigosh omigosh omigosh," I repeated. "You're right!"

"I am?"

“Pirates!” I cried out.

“...Pirates,” Misty said dryly.

"Keep the light on me," I said to him. Then I whipped around, and sprinted back the way we'd come. Down the dry corridor. Towards the splashy part, and the fog and all that.

I had to catch up with Scribbles. For her own sake. For the time blanket's sake, and the duckyverse's! It wasn't too late! There was still a tiny chance that I could make things right!!!! That I could fix her pivoty moment. That I could…

CLONK! I slammed into something, and tumbled down hard into the nasty waters.

My legs flailed. My head reeled. My mane got soaking wet. And I sprung up. Ready to fight. But I found no cloak-o's or shadows or slavers - only the mists of the Fillydelphia Sewer System, and Scribbles, laying in the nasty slush. Rubbing her head in pain.

"I'm sooo sorry!" we both said in unison.

"I believe you, Rose." Scribbles threw her forehooves up in the air, apologetical-like.

I didn't have a chance to figure out left from right or up from down. Partly because Scribbles had just splashed some nasty water in my eye with her gesture and I tried to rub it clean but my hoof was also nasty so I just blinked my eyelids like a moth panic-flapping its wings while Scribbles kept on going...

"You're the worst liar I've ever met," she said. "But you seemed totally convinced of everything you were telling me about Equestria’s past. And duckies…or something?”

"Actually," I replied.

But Scribbles didn't let up. "So I got to thinking! Rose actually believes this stuff. Why?" She snorted out a tiny laugh through her gaping, flappity nostrils. "Is this bunker stunker out of her damn mind, or what?!"

The water below shimmered with reflections of Misty's distant orb, making Scribbles’ eyes sparkle with a million billion trillion stars. "Then I remembered your cutie mark," she said. "And all of a sudden, everything made sense!"

"My cutie m--;"

"So I turned around and listened," Scribbles interruptified. "And I heard you and your friends arguing. 'Cause everypony was so loud. And they were all saying the same. Exact. Thing. You all believed it."

My heart slammed against my ribs. Like cannon fire. Boom! Boom! Doom!

What the fuck was Scribbles talking about? What had she noticed? What did she know?!

"My cutie ma--;" I tried to cut in yet again, but Scribbles wouldn't stop.

"What's it like?" she said. "Is it true that before the war, there was less slavery under Princess Celestia? Some kids told me once that they'd learned that as foals. But the Safety teachers, and their Army historians - they all say that Red Eye's teams had better access to information - that they'd poured through all the recovered documents - everywhere, all over Equestria, and pieced history together properly. To show that it was the princesses' systematic implementation of slavery that made Equestria great in the first place."

"No," I said. "Now about my cutie mar-;"

"That's not true!" Cliff came charging from behind. Cloppa cloppa cloppa cloppa cloppa. "Celestia would never do that!"

Scribbles squealed. "I knew it!" She looked to me - smile so wide I thought her face would split in half, and we'd have to duct tape her head back together.

"Are frogs real?" she asked.

"Frogs?" said Cliff.

"Yeah," said Scribbles. "They bend kinda weird," she flapped her hooves around, trying - and failing - to imitate the shape of a frog. "And they live in swamps and have big giant eyes like in this book I borrowed from Glenn once.”

"Wait!" I exclaimed. And the walls exclaimified it right back to me, -ait, -ait, -ait, -ait.

I panted to catch my breath. "Yes," I stumbled forward. "Frogs. Are. Real," I gasped for breath. "Now please! About my cutie mark?"

Scribbles wrinkled her nose. Squinted at me like I was a speck of dust with math homework written on it and she couldn't tell the 1’s from the 7’s.

Then, boom. Suddenly, it musta dawned on her what I’d meant. 'Cause she shamed her eyelids open and closed at me in purest astonishment. "You…don't…know what your own cutie mark means?"

I shook my head.

"Isn't that like, the opposite of how cutie marks are supposed to wor…" Scribbles froze when her eyeballs met mine. She gasped, and nodded back at me in a hurry. "Yes! Yeah, I'm sorry. Well, uh… I'm not an expert. I'm just an artist who's used to…y'know…coming up with cutie marks for the characters that I draw.

‘But it's like…you're scattered to the wind. And roses are flowers, and like…they only come in one color at a time. At least, I think they do."

"They do," I said.

"So that gust on your cutie mark. It's kinda picking up…uh, Rose bits. Rose Petals. They're coming from all over the place. Just like you, and your, time ducks…or whatever you call 'em…That's my theory, anyway,” Scribbles cringed like she thought I was gonna lash out at her or something. "I'm sorry,” she added. “I hope that isn't a bad thing?"

I shook my head no. While the rest of Scribbles' cutiewords swirled around the inside of my brain. Was it true? What Scribbles had said about scattering to the wind? It felt like it might be.But I couldn't be sure.

Were…all of my friends that I'd dragged with me across time and space and duckies - were they the petals of different colors? From, you know, different flowerverses or whatever? Or was I, myself, scattered to the wind? A tapestry of overlapping roses? Overlapping worlds? A spirit in a thousand places at once. Like a broken mirror.

My brain brained so hard that it lost control of my body. My legs shook so hard that they forgot how to be legs. I plopped my flank down. Forgetting, of course, that there was nasty sewer-water down there.

"Ahh!" I leapt back up. Spun around.

"I'm sorry," said Scribbles.

"No," I said. "Don't be." I chuckled. Then I turned around and hollered back to Misty and Foster, who still hung waaayyy the fuck back in the dry hallway around the corner, "Hay, guess what! I'm scattered to the winds!"

Saying it out loud, everything all made sense somehow. I gripped my winter coat. Tugged at it. Yanked so hard I tipped over, and staggered into the wall.

Oof! One final yank, and my flank was free from that soggy, nasty jacket. And I could see for myself. My cutie mark. My namesake. My rose petals. They were scattered to the wind. Just like I was!

Tears ripped down my cheeks as I snorted, and cackled, and coughed, and wiped a river of laughter-snot from my nose.

"Are you okay?" Scribbles crept in closer. "I'm so–;"

I leapt in her direction. Hugged her. Threw my forelegs around her shoulders, and laughed. "Sweet merciful Luna, I think you're right!"

But she didn't hug me back. She just went rigid. Like a pirate turned to stone by the Ancient Emerald of Petrificatia.

Fuck. I eased off. Threw my forehooves up in the air. Caught my breath a little. And said, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to, um..."

Next thing I knew, Scribbles broke whatever petrifcation curse had been bolting her into place, and she lunged forward. Hugged me back. And planted a kiss square on my lips.

All my muscles and bones clenched up. Locking together. Like I myself had been cursed by the Emerald of Petrificia!

275,346 thoughts rushed through my head at that moment. And I'm not going to trouble you, O Book of Magical Things That Have Happened to Me, with every single one of them. It's kind of a thought-slurry to me anyway. To jot it all down would end up being longer than everything I've written in you about my adventures so far.

But I can say this: I never dreamt in a thousand years that my first kiss - my first ever kiss - would be with a girl. Or a boy for that matter. I hadn't given either much thought.

I hadn't given any of it much thought! I'd never imagined that we would both be drenched in popcorn-oil balloon-coolant water-muck at the time. In a stank and ancient sewer. That mere minutes later, she and I would part ways forever - never to speak to one another again.

Or that, later on that night, I would actually lay eyes on her one final time. Under circumstances that neither of us could ever have predicted.

But I will say that when Scribbles finally withdrew her kiss, a brief moment of terror flashed across her eyeballs. Like she'd made me mad, or done something wrong, or whatever.

So I kissed her back. And we both tumbled over like cackling morons. Chuckle-snorting all over the ground in a dried up patch of sludgey old muck.

And when we finally caught our breaths, there was Bananas Foster. Standing over us. No longer pale. No longer terrified. No longer cautiously hanging back in the distance, biting her Foster-tongue to keep the Foster-words from spilling out of her Foster-mouth.

She just took a deep, deep breath and sighed. "Predictable."

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

The earnings for this particular chapter will go towards American Near East Refugee Aid, (a highly rated charity currently providing humanitarian aid in Gaza to those who need it most [they do not work or coordinate with Hamas]).

THOUGHTS:

When I first started writing this story I created a series of guidelines to abide by.

I'd fight for happy endings and positive spins on events but wouldn't force them. (Sorry, Twink)
I wouldn't pull punches (Sorry, Twink)
I'd let the characters be themselves.
No Romance.

I've been conflicted throughout the Safety storyline because, for the first time since I started writing Hooves of Fate, two of my rules were in direct, unresolvable conflict with one another. Sure, there had always been the tension between honesty and optimism, but that tension has driven the story fairly well so far, and has never come down to a binary decision.

I noticed early on in this storyline, however, that something different was happening. Scribbles had a crush on Rose Petal, and I didn't know what to do about it. Try though I may, there was simply no way to be true to the life of the story, and abide by the No Romance rule I'd set for myself.

Ultimately, Scribbles chose to act on her feelings. Who was I to stop her?

I'm glad Rose got to experience this, and, while I have no intention of writing a whole lot of whiny piratetry, exploring Rose's feelings about it as the Safety storyline finally starts seeing action? That's exciting for me.

She also knows what her cutie mark means now. How's that for a Hearth's Warming Eve's Eve gift?

Happy belated Hearths Warming, everypony. I hope you're all doing well, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on all this!

Also...this is the only chapter not to use one of these...***

Make of that what you may.

What We Leave Behind

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE - WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND
“You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.” - Kurt Vonnegut

I spend a lot of time thinking about legacy. You know, bakers of birthday cakes, carvers of toys, tailors, farmers, sailors, accountants, florists, and dressmakers, and polishers of princesses' silver slippers - all forgotten by Time - reduced to mere dust blowing at the stone hooves of busted up statues in the middle of nowhere.

I’d ruminatized over Pinkie Pie - how her cupcakes fared no better. Nothing remained of her but ghost stories, rusty carvings, and a gigantic doom balloon that spat fire at the skies.

But 'what we leave behind' also involves…well…leaving folks behind.

Herds of liberated slave children. Legions of soldiers celebrating a bright and shiny future to go along with their bright and shiny Crystalpeace. Friends. Memories. A message, taken to heart. A gift. A twig. A photograph.

A kiss.

* * *

Scribbles and I were soaked in sludge water. Recklessly, hopelessly, disgustingly wet.

Urgency or no, we couldn't just…part ways. We had to dry off, or we'd both catch colds, or worse - hypothermia. Or even worse than that! Double Hypothermia. Where…like, your eyeballs turn into ice cubes and your lungs fly out of your face!!!

(Cliff assured me that that was strictly an outer space sort of hyperthermia. But I didn't wanna take any chances.)

Misty conjured a flaming orb for Scribbles and I to huddle around - kinda like a campfire, except it smelt of lightning, and huffed hot air at us like one of those salon-a-majigs that make your mane poof out.

Scribbles knelt over it and rubbed her hooves together. So did I.

But everything got mega-weird after that. Because Scribbles didn't say anything.

She just, you know…gazed into the "fire" and pretended not to notice me..

What's wrong with her? one of my Rose Voices said from deep inside my brain.

Why isn't she looking at me? fretted another.

What if she hates you! a Third Rose Voice screamed in blind panic.

Why does she hate me? a fourth one panicked all over the inside of my brain-head. Was it something I said? Something I did? Something I didn't-said, and didn't-did?…Does my breath stink?

Don't be stupid, the Rose Voice of Reason chimed in. Scribbles' breath smells like unwholesome cheese. Did that keep you from falling in love with her?

"Wait," I whisper-mumbled inarticulate-like under my breath. "Am I in love with Scribbles?"

The voices in my head pulled the emergency-brake-cord inside the dining car of my Train of Thought, and all of my brainwheels screeched to a violent halt.
...
…
…

How am I supposed to know? The Rose Voice of Reason said at last. I've never done this before.

I looked to Bananas Foster with desperate eyeballs. She was an expert on feelings! She could smell them, taste them, and tell a thousand confusing emotions apart from one another like those fancy perfume ponies who come by Roseluck's booth at the Ponyville Market sometimes and refer to all of the nuances in an aroma as "notes."

But Foster shook her head, as if to say, 'No. Nu-uh. Absolutely not.' And refused to help at all.

Damnit! My Rose Voices all exclaimed at once. Stupid Foster! She wanted me to figure this love stuff out. All on my own. Like a chump!

So I turned to Cliff, who was gesturing wildly at me with his head. Freaking out. Nudging. Muzzle-pointing at Scribbles as if to say, 'Rose Petal, you idiot. You haven't looked at her in forever!'

Oh, no. Oh, sweet merciful Celestia.

How long had it been? A minute? A year? The epochs it takes for entire empires to rise and fall and turn into Columnland ruins full of dust and broken statues?

I counted and counted and counted and counted and counted and counted and counted and counted and counted - trying to figure out exactly how long I had ignored Scribbles - how long I'd been stuck inside my own head.

But all I could think was: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I turned to Scribbles at long last, and found her already looking my way.

Fuck. I cleared my throat while all of my Rose Voices continued to scream. This went on for about forty-seven-hours-or-so till my parched lips took over, and formed words of their own, "So, um…er…uh…What's up?"

C-c-clop! Misty, Foster, and Cliff all smacked their foreheads at the same time. Cringing on my behalf.

Meanwhile Scribbles just shrugged a reply. "Stuff," she said.

I looked to my friends for help yet again. Cues. Signals. Advice via giant flags waved in the air telling me - in secret code - what I was supposed to say. Anything!

But they all just leaned forward, and watched us from the other side of the 'fire.'

I turned back to Scribbles. She was keeping busy. Staring into the fire orb. Rubbing her hooves together to get nice and warm and dry.

She stole a little sideways glance at me, so I jerked my head away in purest panic, and took to glancing at her sideways too - as if through stolen eyeballs.

What the Hell was happening? Love wasn't supposed to be like this.

I'm no expert, of course. I never paid much attention to stories with too much love in them, or ones where the pirates get too whiny. (That's why I'd ditched The Adventures of Marshmallow Brokenheart and moved to Pinkbeard in the first place!)

So I had no fucking idea how your first kiss was supposed to go. I just knew I was screwing up all the afterwards-stuff.

Wham! I hit myself with the 2x4 o' Friendship, and made myself look Scribbles in the eyes again, and this time, I actually said the words that clogged me up inside.

"I don't wanna leave," Scribbles and I both blurted out at the same time.

I laughed. While she laughed.

I half-expected Cliff to jump in with a lecture about the Time Blanket. How I was destroying the universe by dragging out our goodbyes. But Cliff’s eyes were full of stars and sparkles and hearts and stuff. Flooding with tears as he watched Scribbles' parting unfold.

"I know you have to go," said Scribbles. "It's okay. Really. Everyone goes away eventually."

I gasped.

"Relax,” she laughed. "I'm a Wastelander. We're all kinda used to it. I just...don't know what to do. When I get back."

Scribbles looked to the ceiling. As if the answers might be written in the fuzzy old mold up there. "I know I can't be the same pony I was before. Not after what I saw in the Mirror House. Not after being here with you."

She patted my hoof.

"You win," I blurted out of nowhere.

"What?"

"...We win."

"Huh?" Scribbles wrinkled her face like an old, crumpled up, deeply-confused tissue.

"Slavery ends," I said. "When the sunshine and the rainbows come."

"Don't joke about that."

"No, really," I said. "Listen. I may be from the Past, but I have been to the Future. And something good is going to happen. Soon."

I squeezed my eyes shut. Tried to concentrate. Tried to remember the feeling that’d hit me when I fell through the Portal of Screams, and ended up here. Something like 200 years after the big boom.

Weeks ago, I'd passed the equally cataclysmic Sunshine and Rainbows on my way to No Mare's Land. And that had to be an extra…I don't know…five years ahead of where Scribbles and I were…Or maybe it was two? Or ten? Or six-and-a-half? Fuck!

"I don't know the exact year," I said at last. "But in your lifetime, things are gonna get better. You are part of the generation that gets to pick a side when the fight goes down."

Scribbles squinted and watched me carefully. Like when you try to read a sentence in a grown-up philosophy book, but just end up tossing the words around inside your brain - over and over and over again till you're more confused than when you started.

"There's a light ringer," I said. "A toaster repair pony."

"Toaster repair," Scribbles snorted.

"Yeah, toaster repair. I know it doesn't make any sense, but her name is Littlepip, and all you gotta do is listen for news of her. That's when you know the Sunshine and the Rainbows are coming soon.”

"A toaster repair pony. Who brings…sunshine and rainbows?"

"Yes! I mean, no. The toaster repair pony just brings hope. The sunshine and rainbows part - ponies all over Equestria make that happen for themselves." I chuckled as it hit me. Just how big a part Scribbles could play if she wanted to. How much there would be to look forward to. To hope for. To fight for. "You know what?” I said with a giant, ridiculous grin. “You're the Best Generation!”

Scribbles didn't smile back. She didn't laugh, or cheer, or leap up in the air, or…anything. "Wow," she said, mouth full of sawdust. "That's…a lot."

She gazed into the heat orb like it was a campfire. Even though it didn't flicker or crack or pop or do anything particularly fire-ish. She just stared into its bland light and fretteduntil a whisper escaped her lips. "I'm gonna have to go to war with my friends. Aren't i?"

"What?" My lungs turned to stone and refused to breathe.

‘Cause Scribbles was right. She was gonna have to go to war with everypony she knew.

And so would I.

In all my talk about societies going wrong, and the need to rise up and fight them, I'd never stopped to consider what that would actually mean.

Cliff and I were gonna have to confront ponies we otherwise respected. Like Cheerilee, and Nurse Redheart, and Lily Blossom, and Mayor Mare. Someday, zebra hate is gonna be everywhere, and we're gonna stand against it. All alone.

"You're not gonna stand all alone," Cliff Diver said to Scribbles.
…
…
…
"I know it's hard to believe," Cliff continued. "'Cause I'm, you know, in the same boat. Every time I look at my neighbors and my classmates and the guy who makes milkshakes near my parents' house, I worry about the kinds of ponies they'll turn into when the war hits. What I would say to them if they start hating zebras…" Cliff lowered his head. "...Or if I'll turn out to be the kind of pony who says nothing at all."

"Dude," Scribbles laughed. "Come on. You threw a chair at a teacher!"

Cliff bunched up his shoulders and tried to retreat behind them. "Well…I'm kind of... um...that's different!"

Bananas Foster stepped forward. To relieve some of Cliff’s trauma anvils. But didn't say anything at all. She didn't have to. ‘Cause Cliff, out of nowhere, shook it off like a dog whipping beach water from its fur. "The point is...” he said. “You'll have friends. And you can get through to them if you try.”

"And if you're careful," Foster added.

“Yeah, of course,” said Cliff. “You've gotta be cautious about who you open up to if you're talking about…you know, overthrowing entire slave empires that everypony you know happens to be a part of.”

“...And benefits from,” added Foster.

Scribbles winced, and looked to me with the fragile eyeballs of a foal.

“But it can be done,” said Foster. “Cliff Diver here got through to me."

“I did?”

“I'm not going to lie and pretend to totally understand your way - your vision of friendship. But you challenge me, and that's good.”

“And you got through to me,” said Cliff eyeballing Scribbles, totally out of nowhere.

“Me?!” she squeaked, (quite reasonably).

“Huh?!” Everypony else replied, all at once.

Cliff Diver laughed to himself. “That mirror - what I saw - it really did a number on me, you know? And, Scribbles, it messed you up too. I can tell. But somehow, you managed to come down here anyway. To fight whatever that fun house showed you - to be better than it.

‘That proves that the mirror doesn't really know you, and it doesn't really know me either. It just knows…”

“How to be a dick,” said Scribbles, eyeballs astonishmentishly wide as the implications of her own words dawned on her.

Foster, Misty, and me all snorted out laughter. 'Cause, like...yeah, that mirror really was a total dick.

But Cliff grew grim as grave moss, and continued exactly where he'd left off. “When I saw myself in that mirror,” he whispered. “I was a little kid again - a really little kid. And I was…falling.” He turned to Foster and me.

Foster didn't react at all. Not a flinch. But I gasped so hard that I had to raise my forehooves to my face just to keep from sucking the entire sewer up into my mouth.

Cliff’s cheeks blushed bright red. Yet somehow they managed to conjure a smile. “It's okay,” he said. “That's not really me.”

I lunged at him; hugged him.

Foster did the same. And we held each other. The three of us. Nice and warm. For a good long while.

When we were finally done, I looked to Scribbles. The heat orb was blowing her mane upwards in every direction. And her flailing locks of frizzy hair were dry as salt. Like the rest of her. But she just stood there. Stone-faced as tears cut through the dirt caked on her cheeks.

“Oh, no,” I said.

“I really should, um, get going,” she stated plainly. “By now, the Sneakers have gotta be looking for me too.”

“What are you going to tell them?” asked Foster.

“That I caught a fleeting glimpse of magic light,” Scribbles replied without pausing to think about it. “...That I followed it just in time to see you bunker stunkers teleport back to Safety.”

She sighed. Hard. As though she were belly up, and there were bowling balls piled high upon her chest, squashing the air right out of her. But when her eyeballs met my eyeballs, Scribbles swallowed her sorrow, and perked right up.

It reminded me of this one time, when I was little, and I snuck into the kitchen late at night for a snack, and accidentally caught my sister crying.

Roseluck's head was buried in a mountain of grownup papers and abacuses and stuff. She was weeping silently. Bawling without so much as a squeak. Till she saw me.

Then she bolted upright. Like a firecracker burst, the change was instantaneous. My sister's face shed its frailty. Her eyeballs somehow pierced the shimmer of her tears, and she transformed into a totally different pony. Warm. Caring. Concernitty. For me.

Scribbles stiffened. And bucked up. In. That. Exact. Same. Way.

A deep breath later, she launched into a well-practiced speech - explainifying her absence. (Complete with dramatic flare). "I tried to rush back to the fountain and tell you all, I swear! But a buncha guards swung by, and I had to hide. I ended up spending half a fucking hour in a barrel, but the good news is: I am totally certain that I didn't get spotted.”

“Oooh, that's good,” said Cliff.

“Hold on, what abo–;” I had a million questions, and tried to ask just one of them. But I couldn't get a word in.

“Don't over-apologize,” Foster emerged from the friend-huddle to go lecture Scribbles face-to-face. “Don’t overthink it either. Everypony-who-knows-you is accustomed to seeing you play it cool. All the time. So just do that.”

Scribbles opened her mouth to protest, while I tried, once again, to wedge a word in there - to pose the question that was ripping me from the inside of my brain to the tip of my stuttering tongue, “What abou–;”

Foster cut me off. Again. “If you're nervous, and it shows,” she placed a hoof on Scribbles’ shoulder. ”That's good, actually. Nopony is going to think that you followed us bunker-stunkers into an abandoned sewer so that you could kiss Rose Petal.”

“Eep,” I said.

Cliff nudged me and giggled.

“If anypony sees you sweat,” Foster continued. “They'll just presume that you're shaken up because you had to hide in a barrel from Red Eye’s troops, so don't complicate it; don't oversell it.”

“I don't scare so fucking easy,” said Scribbles.

“Great alibi by the way!” Foster added.

“Thanks,” said Scribbles. “But I don't sca–;”

“Hold the fuck on!” I snapped. And finally, finally, finally, finally, finally got everypony to shut up.

“...Your story doesn't make sense,” I said. “How could Misty have teleported us all the way back to Safety? He's not some kinda Super Wizard.”

“Am too,” said Misty, defiant on general principle. “But making teleport to Safety ees easy from where we were! Not very far from Mirror House. On Mondays, we have field trips with math class at Alpha Omega Hotel.”

“Then why did we spend all that time in a tunnel?!” I squeaked. “And how did we end up walking soooo fucking far?”

I let loose a mad scientist’s cackle - a screechy laugh, shrill enough to wake the dead. ‘Cause I fucking hated tunnels. And tunnels fucking hated me. And even though I was, for the time being, stuck in a nasty old sewer out of absolute necessity, the thought of having trekked through The Dank for a single moment that hadn't been an absolute necessity??? It was enough to make me insane!

Cliff stepped forward. “Um…guards are stationed near the spot where the amusement park meets the hotel?”

“Oh, hehehe,” I forced a nervous chuckle. “Yeah. Of course. I totally knew that. A lot. I knew it a lot.

Foster, Misty, and Scribbles looked at me. Hard. Stabbing me in the heart with a red hot fireplace-poker made entirely out of eyeballs. And all the eyeballs were screaming at me.

Then my own brain started screaming at me too. 'Cause, like…what else had I missed?!

Had I screwed up back in No Mare’s Land? In Trottica?

Fuck. What if there was some detail - some clue - that I'd spaced out on, and missed entirely? A secret word - a secret deed - that coulda saved Twink, or the kids of Sub Mine F, or kept me from messing with Screw Loose’s brain.

What if I'd missed it?! What if it had gone over my stupid head because my stupid head was too busy freaking out?!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! my thoughts shrieked and wailed and shouted at mein ways-that-were-totally-helpful-and-productive. Till…

“Hay.”

A soothing voice.

I blinked, and suddenly, right there in front of me, was Scribbles, lifting up my chin. “Take a breath, okay?”

I did.

“Ya smell that?”

I sucked the foggy sewer air into my nostrils. Coughed.

“You're here now,” she said. “Here.” Scribbles gently stamped a hoof for emphasis.

The waters below us swished against my ankles. And my brain abruptly forgot how to get lost in its own brain-labyrinth of brainitty brain-thoughts. Instead, it fixated on the real popcorn smoke and real kerosene stinging in my nostrils. Real oil and real water whipping against my hooves.

“You're here,” said Scribbles yet again. “With friends.”

Foster and Misty nodded in agreement. While Cliff just ogled Scribbles in absolute awe. I could almost hear the gears turning in his head as he ruminated, and cognatized, and tumbled all his thoughts around and around and around. Till ding! His eyes flashed to life like shooting stars.

Note to self, he seemed to say. Periodically remind Rose Petal that she's real.

“I'm so sorry,” I said.

“Hay, you survived,” said Scribbles. I could almost hear Glenn the Griffin’s voice, guiding hers. “Maybe you coulda done something different; maybe you coulda done something better. You'll never ever ever ever ever ever ever know. None of us get to know that.” Her voice turned cold. Hardened by some distant memory. For a tiny moment her eyeballs looked past me. Into the furthest reaches of the sewer tunnel - a darkness that Misty’s light could not pierce. She stared it down intently.

But then, with a blink and a flutter, that moment was gone. When Scribbles' eyeballs looked into my eyeballs again, her whole face lit up. “You're here,” she said with desperate urgency. “Now. And you have a chance to do better.”

“Thanks,” I said wiping a tear from my cheeks.

“I have a chance now too,” she said. “Thanks to you.”

“Awww,” I replied. And hugged her tight, my hooves gripping the back of her neck for Luna-only-knows how long.

When finally, we pulled away from one another, Scribbles said, “Rose, are you gonna be alright?"

“Yeah,” I sniffed.

She edged up to me reeeal close, and studied my eyeballs for signs of tears to come.

“Geez, yes. I'm fine!”

“Good," she said. “‘Cause I got lies to tell, and you've got duckies to save.”

“Emus,” Misty muttered under his breath.

“...And before any of that can happen, Scribbles continued. “I gotta give you something.”

I cocked my head like a bepuzzled dog. While Scribbles leaned forward. To offer me a kiss. A goodbye kiss.

Omigosh omigosh omigosh omigosh omigosh. I panicked so hard I forgot how to curse. I can't believe it! A Marshmallow Brokenheart Farewell.

I hate those! They're so perfect! So sappy. So impossible. So…wrong!

Like everything else about stupid romance stories, those farewell kisses were wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!

Pirates aren't supposed to sweep each other off their hooves and smooch each other goodbye! They're supposed to sail The Sebben Seas, and celebrate their bond of eternal friendship.

“Pirates?” I said aloud. “Fuck!” Having suddenly remembered how to curse, I leaped up in a blind panic.

“WhOoOooAaa!” Scribbles stumbled back. Knocked into Foster, who swayed and tripped and toppled straight into Cliff.

He caught them both. “Ro-ose!” he cried out in protest.

But I ignored him, and lunged for my saddlebag, which sat on the ground beside the heat orb. It hadn’t gotten terribly wet in the first place, so I got straight to work, and plunged my face inside. Rummaging. Tossing. Excavating like some kinda dig-psycho-maniac.

“Aha!” I said at last. “I got it! And it's dry!" I clamped my teeth onto Glenn's old copy of Pinkbeard and the Princess of Stripes, and held it up in the air triumphantly.

I couldn't believe I'd almost forgotten. That book had been the very reason I’d chased after Scribbles in the first place!

She needed to know the story of the author, and why the preface was so important! She needed to know about the crew of the Beardo! To understand that she too could amass a tribe of rebels if she put her heart into it.

All of Equestria needed to know! To cherish the legacy of Pinkbeard. To preserve. To remember. To learn.

"I meant to give you this," I mumbled, and laid the stack of papers on a bit of dry ground near Scribbles' hooves. It had been bound with ancient ribbons, so it wasn't going to fly apart or anything, but it hardly looked like a proper book at all.

“Pinkbeard and the Princess of Stripes?” she said, squinting to read it.

I smiled back at her. “This book is gonna help you sooooooo much. ‘Cause it is the most important book ever written. It’ll give you a glimpse of what hope looks like, and how friendship amongst pirates can foil the East Equestria Trading Company, which is - omigosh, fuck wow - totally like Red Eye now that I think about it - only they don't have a gated compound to protect and brainwash kids at the same time. (The EETC only does the slavery part).”

“Okay?” said Scribbles. “Sooo…this book will tell me how to –;”

“Yes!” I squeaked so high that it echoed against the cavernous sewer walls. Everypony winced, so I hushed myself to a conspiratorial whisper. “Scribbles, it will teach you how to Everything! Pinkbeard is all about freedom and love and joy and hope and beards and boats and magic and stuff. The Great Sorcerer Planktoneth may be annoying but he'll, like…show you how to wisdom your way through the world...At least he shows Daisy how to do that till he dies in this book. Oh wait, no, I ruined it. Forget I said that. He doesn't die. Or, like, maybe he comes back. I don't know I haven't read it.”

“Wait, you haven't–;”

“She hasn't read it,” said Misty dryly.

“Ooh!” I screeched. “And you miiiiight need to dive into the other sixty-seven volumes first in order to fully appreciate Planktoneth’s sacrifice.”

“Sixty-sev–;?”

“Oh, nevermind, don't you worry about those,” I said, shaking my head to knock any stray ideas loose.

Once my brain stopped rattling around like a BINGO cage full of clonky metal bolts, I saw Scribbles in a totally new light. A glimmer of distress warbled over her eyeballs as she peered at the manuscript, and tried really really hard to digest all the news I'd just given her on the Glory that is Pinkbeard.

It was kinda cute actually. Watching her get into a staring contest with that bound up pile o’ pages.

“The point is,” I said slowly. Gently. “These pirate books made me who I am today, and this is the last one in existence. You're the only way anypony is gonna remember it.”

“Then I'll cherish the fuck out of it,” Scribbles bit the book carefully by the ribbon, and lowered it into her saddlebag. All nice and neat and…ready to go.

“Oh, um,” I fidgeted with my hooves and babbled. “I guess it's actually, you know, time that you, uh…go save all of our flanks and lie to the Safety kids, and–;”

Zoom. In the twitch of an eyelash, Scribbles lunged toward me. So fast, she turned into a bunch of blurry streaks ripping through the air. And zing! She kissed me. Hugged me. Held me close, and ran both her forehooves through my mane. While I did the same.

The whole kiss might have lasted a second; or maybe it lasted a year. It felt like both at the same time. But when Scribbles finally peeled away, she whispered, “Be safe, you wonderful dork,” and burst into a snicker and a smile.

“You too,” I replied.

Scribbles parted with a final peck on my forehead, then turned and walked away.
“See you later, Time Punks,” she called out to my friends, without turning to face us.

Cliff, Misty, and Foster all called out their polite goodbyes as Scribbles disappeared into the mists.

It was a strange little moment. The fog rolled around, and the water made that echoey ssssshhh noise. And I could feel my friends behind me. Actually. Feel them. (Though they’d taken a few steps back to give me and Scribbles some space).

Cliff’s eyes were holding back tears to give me space to shed my own. Foster and Misty were simply waiting. While I gazed pointlessly into the vapors.

My friends woulda let me stand there and stare at nothing for an entire week if I'd stayed. I’m sure of that. Despite everything else we had in front of us that night, I was absolutely positively completely totally 120,000% sure of that. But there would be no quiet meditation over Scribbles’ hoofprints. No fog-ogling, no dreaming of what I left behind.

A long deep sigh, and I was ready.

“Come on,” I said, strolling right up to them. “That Zebra isn't going to free herself.”

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:

Sad to see Scribbles go. Excited for adventure that is to follow. Without any brain hornets to drive Rose forward, this particular storyline has developed in ways I could neither have planned nor imagined. The characters have taken the reigns even more than usual, and that has turned out to produce a weird mixture of slice-of-life fiction, socio-political dystopian drama, and the long beginnings of adventure.

They are finally alone now, and while they have a lot to talk out, they also have a lot to do.

I'm nervous-cited about the danger they're in, and I'm eager to watch it unfold. But for now, I'm still just digesting how much I like Scribbles, and how this love story - which I never expected to write - has turned out to be so childlike and so adult at the same time.

I'd love to hear from you.

Happy Winter Wrap Up! (Slightly belated).

Foster and Me

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX - FOSTER AND ME
“Perhaps very late / our dreams joined / at the top or at the bottom, / up above like branches moved by a common wind, / down below like roots that touch.” - Pablo Neruda

Tromping off confidently on my own, I marched down the splashitty hallway, all resolute and determined and stuff. I had to find that zebra. To rescue her. To prove to myself that we could finish this fucking mission. Without Fate to guide us. Without master plans. Without love-y feelings getting in the way. Just me, my friends, and the power of my own will.

“Uh…which way do we go?” I spun around in circles.

I’d reached the spot where Scribbles had first investigated the water chute. It was brightly lit now. Up ahead, just beyond those nooks that we’d hidden ourselves in (just half an hour before), was three paths: one wet, one dry, and one practically a water slide.

“Ees none of those," said Misty, ambling from behind.

“I knew that,” I replied.

“You don't have to pretend to be okay,” said Cliff with eyes like maelstroms - wide enough to swallow an entire pirate ship. “That was really tough - what you did just now. It was difficult even to watch.”

“Very sweet of you," I said, averting my own eyeballs, distracting myself, pretending to probe the sewers in search of The Right Way to Go. “...But I am okay,” I added. “And right now we have a zebra to rescue.”

Even as the words escaped my mouth, my mind drifted far far away from the zebra rescue, the sewer labyrinth, or anything even remotely resembling the task at hoof.

I needed to know where Scribbles was. What she was doing. How she was doing. Had she made it to the end of the sewer tunnel? And wound her way up that silo toward the clown hole? Or was she maybe going really super slow ‘cause it was pitch black down there without Misty's orb nearby?

My brain resorted to sewer math: a desperate struggle to calculatize where Scribbles was; how fast she was progressing; how long it'd take before she found the Sneaker Society, led them off our trail, and made her way back to Safety.

I ruminatized the whole time. Scanning the sewer for a way out - a way forward - a way through. While my stupid brain just kept on looking back.

Damnit! cried a voice inside my head. Get a hold of yourself. Focus on your actual fucking surroundings. For once.

A gentle breeze, as if in reply, wafted down the hallway from some distant crack or clown hole, and tickled my mane. Reminded me of the world outside my head. The sights of grease-stained walls. The sound of water running over stone.

“Hay, Misty,” I said aloud. “Where the fuck is–;” I spun on my hooves, expecting to holler back at the unicorn. But Bananas Foster was there instead. Inches from my face.

“Ahh!” I startled. Knocking the last of sewer math right out of my head.

The yellow filly before me didn't flinch at my shrieks. Her face was a mask. Full of stoicism. Stillness. Calm. All stitched tightly over her Fosterskull.

The same air-of-collected-y-ness that she'd projected throughout my entire encounter with Scribbles still hung over her. But we were alone now. So the mask finally began to crack. First, as a faint little flicker in the whites of her eyes. Next as a twitch in her temples. And then, at last...

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!" Foster erupted in a giddy squeal. "I'm soooo happy for you!" She clutched me, eyeballs wide as the sea and even wetter with tears. "Oh, and sorry! Omigosh, I'm so sorry..." she leaned back on her hindquarters, prepared to lunge a hug at me - like a snake-in-a-can ready to spring - but she stopped at the last moment. Caught herself. Rocked backwards on her rear hooves and plopped down on her flank. "I'm happy…and sad,” she said. “At the same time. Ooh! And a third thing. A third thing too! Both…happy and sad and…neither. All at the same time. Sweet Mother, what do I call it?"

Foster laughed. She sniffled. She whined. She sighed. And then, in an instant, was herself again. Neither a stodgy mask, nor a cackling mess. Just Bananas Foster. The Foster I knew. "Whew," she said. “Wow.” She panted, catching her breath.

Cliff stood in silent awe of her. We both knew that she hadn't eaten my love in the parasitical sense. That much was beyond question. But what actually had happened?

“I've smelled puppy love before,” Scribbles answered for us. “Sensed it - analyzed it. Even tasted it. But it’s not the same as feeling it. In your heart and in your hive,” she tapped her own head, which held a mind chock full of hivethoughts that I still couldn't comprehend. “Changelings feel much deeper than ponies do, believe it or not.”

Cliff raised an eyebrow.

“But it’s all very uncomplicated!” Foster was quick to add. “The love that Mother feeds us has been distilled. Digested if you will - (though I understand that that word has very different - very gross - connotations for ponies). Our love is purer of course, but only because it's been purified. By Mother.”

Foster looked longingly upward at the sewer-ceiling as though Queen Chrysalis was to be found there. Then she let out a shuddering breath. And slowly lowered her sorrowful eyeballs to me, still aglow with thin green flames.

Those eyeballs saw through me. Like my coat and hide and ribs were all made out of glass, and my heart was totally visible. Vulnerable.Exposed.

“Oh, Rose Petal,” Bananas Foster threw her forelegs open wide, and hugged me against her chest.

Her jacket was still toasty from the heat orb. And it swallowed me up like a pillow that was way too downy and soft. But when I felt her forehooves against my mane, I started weeping. Heaving. Though my eyes had already run out of tears.

Foster's touch, for a moment, felt like home. Like my skin had a memory of its own. My hide sparkled to life, reminiscing over sensations I had long forgotten. A feeling of refuge. Of sanctuary. Like when Mom used to hold me.

It wasn't a spell. (It wasn't some weird changeling illusion, or a transference of Foster’s feelings about Queen Chrysalis. Nothing like that).

Foster simply loved me - felt for me. Profoundly. And she wept too. Real tears - shed from eyes not red and raw like mine.

And when we finally released one another, everything was different.

I didn't stop feeling sorrow for Scribbles’ parting. I didn't stop feeling joy at the memory of her kiss. I didn't even stop feeling disoriented about the chaos of it all.

But I felt seen. And that, somehow, made its own kind of sense, even when very little else seemed to.

Cliff smiled weakly at us. His face seemed to flicker between offering me gentle reassurances, and flashing Foster urgent eyeballs that demanded urgent answers to his urgent-est ocular questions.

“Thees way!” Misty brushed past all three of us. Disappeared into another one of those nooks we’d hidden behind. CLONK! TWANG-A-WANG! A metal panel came loose, and rolled out into the sewer hallway, wobbling like a frisbee.

The rest of us rushed forward and gathered around.

Misty sent his orb into a crawlspace that I would never have noticed in a million, billion years.

“Ees thees way,” he repeated.

“Oh for fuck’s sake…” I squeaked. “Did our tunnel just get…tunneleyer?”

Foster patted my back reassuringly while Misty got to work wiggling his way inside.

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:

As I mentioned in my announcement, and as I'm sure you've noticed, this chapter is short. Really really really really really really really really really, really, really short. Even shorter than the last time that I decided to break up chapters to help move the story along.

The next release should be ready another week or two.

As for the content, I was taken aback by what happened, and I'm really pleased that I was able to learn more about how Foster functions, and the inner life of changelings more broadly

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

DEDICATION;
This chapter is dedicated to St. Joan of Arc - a teenage girl who had her own brain hornets to deal with. Listening to them changed the course of history.

593 years ago today, she paid the ultimate price, and was burnt at the stake.

The Tunnel Whisperer

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN - THE TUNNEL WHISPERER
"The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make." - William Morris

Misty wasted no time in leading the way. He slithered right into that crawl space, took the light-orb with him, and the whole world went dark for the rest of us.

Bananas Foster patted my back reassure-istically as I ogled the glowing hole-in-the-wall. It led to a burrow that ought not to have been there - one that no sane urban designer (or sewerologist or whatever the fuck they're called) would have built.

It was tighter than usual too. Tunneleyer.
Not a casual walkway at all.

“Stupid tunnel,” I said. ”Getting tunnelyer.”

The light from the hole faded - diffused to an uneven flicker - as Misty disappeared. Deeper and deeper inside.

Soon, those of us left behind were scarcely more than disembodied eyes floating on the black. Cliff drew closer. He didn't utter a single word, but his peepers managed to say quite a lot (if you’re fluent in Cliff Diver’s dialect of eyeball-talk).

They shot back and forth. Worried. Confused. When they looked my way, those eyeballs were all soft and concernitty. Like Cliff wanted to offer me condolences on the deaths of everypony I'd ever met. When they shifted towards Foster, they were like arrows made out of a whole bunch of question marks.

"Jeez," I said. "I'm fine."

“I know," he said solemnly. “I'll go into the hole next. That'll, uh…give you a moment."

His eyeballs spun towards Foster. "Hay, do you feel up to covering the rear?” Cliff didn't look at me directly. But his message was clear. I needed to be watched. Herded. Protected. Like I was some kind of brittle old treasure map made out of crumbling paper.

Just ‘cause I’d fallen in love! And had my heart ripped out by Fate. And gotten my soul hugged by Bananas Foster's insect-brain.

…Just ‘cause Scribbles was probably on the surface already. Lying her tail off to the Safety kids…or at least looking for them by now. And I was liable to be distractified - wondering what she was doing. What she was thinking. What she was feeling.

“Yes,” said Foster. “I’ll manage.”

“I'm fine!” I said.

“I know.” Cliff summoned his courage, puffed out his chest, and made to climb into the crawl space. Just to buy me some time before I'd have to.

But before Cliff could even stick his head in, Misty popped out of it all over again.

"Ahh!" said Cliff as the light-orb blasted him right in his face.

"Pfft," Misty snorted.

I braced myself for a lecture. On how we’d lost too much time. How we all needed to get it together. How the ponies in Old Country could maneuver their way through labyrinthine sewers twenty times faster than we could.

But Misty froze when his eyes met mine. He saw through me. No concernittyness. Nor soft and tender pity for the fate of my love life. Just a gravity of sorts.

All of the impatience simply…fell from his face. Like a sack full of bowling balls that had been filled with cement and nails and elephants and stuff.

“Rose,” said Misty. “I need you up front. Cliff Diver,” he added. “You take the back.”

“But we were gonna have a Rose sandwich,” Cliff protested.

“Height order,” Misty commanded. “In case parts of the tunnel get narrow, larger pony cannot be in front and block thelight.”

Cliff shrunk back. Lowered his head and bunched his shoulders.

Misty Mountain returned his oddly patient eyeballs to me. “Come on,” he said. And held out his hoof.

* * *

Once inside, the crawlspace was somewhat more spacious than I'd expected. Somewhat. It may have been narrow, but there were fewer fallen bricks to trip on; less rubble everywhere. But it still wound around all over the place. Like it had been built around existing infrastructure.

“Thees part was built around existing infrastructure,” said Misty. He pointed to the sloping wall beside us. It changed shape - gradual-like - as we made our way up the sharply-winding path.

The orb hovered somewhere up ahead - enough to light the way without blinding our eyes. “We are headed for steam tunnel,” Misty added. “Making like central heat duct for to warm the entire theme park above. These crawlspaces were clever improvisations by sewer worker ponies. Making bridge between the two systems - steam and sewer. Thees crawlspace…” he gestured his head at our surroundings. Ancient bricks, and rusted metal archways. “...Did not exist in my time.”

“So…how can you find your way around with all the new…stuff…down here?” I asked.

“I know the Fillydelphia sewer - even if blindfolded,” boasted Misty. “Literally! My sister and I practiced together with scarves tied around our faces. She predicted StableTec before it happened, and she knew that there was no way that ponies like us would ever get inside.”

“Ponies like you?”

Misty paused to catch up as the path widened a bit. Once he was walking by my side, he turned to me and shrugged. “Miners," he said. "Workers. Ponies who get too many Disharmony Points on the job.”

“Disharmony…points?”

“You know,” said Misty. “Too sick to work. Late because local bombing. The usual excuse-making.”

I heard the apocalypse screams again. Just for a moment. That sound - like a nail against a chalkboard, scratching away at the inside of my ears as millions of ponies died horribly. It was the fate that awaited us all. “So Fillydelphia was gonna lock you out on the surface, and doom you all to–;”

“Yes, yes,” said Misty. “War is terrible. But anyway, there ees more important stuff! What matters ees that I learned the principles of tunnel-spelunking because of the practice that my sister made me do.

‘After that, everythingk ees simple! Just a matter of understandingk subterranean engineering. Steam tunnels. Coal mines. Fillydelphia grew very quickly once the war effort started - much construction under the ground! And all on top of old sewers, old subways, and long-abandoned water-treatment plants.

‘When I see a new hatch?" Misty boasted. "I make good guess where it goes because I know reasons why it might be there. You could say that I am Whisperer of Tunnels. Very very good. Twenty times better at whispering to tunnels than you!” Misty gave a hardy nod.

We navigated the next zag in silence. Hoof clopping filled the air. And the walls echoed with it. Along with the faint murmurs of Foster and Cliff Diver following close behind.

But a darkness fell over Misty. His hooves began to drag - just a little. Then the walls narrowed, and we slipped into single file formation. Me at the lead. Just for a minute or two.

I felt like I should say something. About - you know - having relatives who do shit that seems crazy. Like practicing sewer living, or amassing a library of doomsday scribblings in some forelorn cabin. But I never got the chance to speak up.

“It should have been me," Misty said softly. "Back in the mines...You should not have had to do that all alone.”

In the quietude that followed, the sound of own hooves filled the stale tunnel air.

Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.

My mind reached back to the tunnels of Trottica. How my own hooves had scrambled as I ran from machine to machine, listening for Strawberry Lemonade’s voice to guide me through the labyrinth while the slave mine-o’s amassed, and revolted, and stampeded for their own freedom.

Strawberry. The technology wizard. Strawberry, our guardian. Strawberry, the hero.

For the first time, I stopped to consider what Misty had been doing that whole time. The mine schematics probably didn't have insurrection instructions codified into them. Or maps that were easy-to-make-sense-of, no matter how good Strawberry Lemonade was with technology.

I could see Trottica Misty now, (draped in The Priestess’ ridiculous jewelry), pouring over logs and charts and blueprints and stuff while Strawberry worked her tech magic.

Trottica Misty was diligent. Frustrated. Powerless. He knew in his dumb, foolish heart that my chances of subterranean survival were one-twentieth that of his.

That it should have been him down there.

“I wasn't all alone,” I replied at last. “I had you.”

“And Strawberry,” he said softly.

“Yeah, and Strawberry, of course,” I said. “But you shouldn't–;”

“And Twink,” he whispered.

Clup-cloppa-clop-clunkuppa-cloppity-clippity-cloppa-ktunk-appa-clop. All sixteen of our hooves proceeded. Down a tunnel as stifling as the mines.

Piercing through the echoes and the dinn, I could hear Twinkle Eyes’ laughter again - those bright joyous cackles that erupted from her chest as she stuck her head out of the careening escape truck and blasted dozens of cloak-o’s to smithereens.

I could feel her touch. How she pet my mane through the bars of our cages.

How she leapt up and held me tight when I first burst out of the mine tunnel. How Misty grabbed us both and hugged us half to death.

How Twink later begged me to hold her as she lay dying in my lap. How she pleaded with me to stay.

The tunnel started to slope upwards, and curve sideways. Its support beams cast longer and harsher ceiling-shadows as the orb wove its way up the path ahead of us.

“Twinkle Eyes never knew,” said Misty solemnly.

“What?”

“That you…disappear from truck,” answered Misty.

“How? I–;”

“Ponies see what they expect to see,” he said. “Some theengs - well…the universe does not want them to know - like how often our names make mirror of our cutie marks. Or when ponies disappear out of time and space.

‘In Trottica, when you make vanish into the air.” Misty gesticulated a poof motion, like a stage magician blowing into his empty hoof. “I caught Twinkle Eyes’ head. She was confused. So I held on to her. I held on to the world. To the emu. To Time.

‘I've been ripped through emuverse often enough to know that tug just before it tears you away. So I held on. Just for a moment. As Twinkle looked to the roof of the truck.

‘Do you know the last thing Twink said? No, of course you don't. The last thing she said was, ‘You made it, Rose.’ And her cheeks made a faint - very faint smile.” Misty held a hoof up in a teeny tiny pinching gesture. To show how faint that smile had been. “Twink kept looking to the ceiling. To the sky. Even after the light behind her eyes was gone.

‘You should be aware of that. Twink never knew you disappeared. Never. She did not know.”

My heart stood still. Twink hadn't died wondering where I’d gone - why I’d gone. She hadn't spent her last moments lost and alone and abandoned and afraid.

I spun around and threw my forelegs around Misty’s neck. And held him tight. “I wasted a lot of tea,” I murmured into his coat. And started laughing. Then blubbering. “Fuck, that was dumb,” I snorted.

Misty clutched my head with his forehoof.

“Yes,” he replied gently. Without having the first clue what the Hell I was talking about. “Yes, it was.”

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
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For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:

Another chapter that's really really really really really really really really really, really, really really short.

I'm enjoying writing these character-oriented snip-its, I'm enjoying learning more and more and more about Misty as he lets himself be known. His general gestalt was always a conglomeration of several Eastern European old men that I have known throughout my life, but what he's got going on under the surface is a whole other universe entirely. I love watching it come to the surface in these tiny moments when he lets himself be seen.

I hope you enjoy it too.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

DEDICATION;
Happy Summer Sun Celebration!

Laid Bare

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE - LAID BARE
“Stuff that works, stuff that holds up,
The kind of stuff you don't hang on the wall.
Stuff that's real. Stuff you feel.
The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall.” - Guy Clark
"All great truths behind as blasphemies." - George Bernard Shaw

"Everypony's a liar when ye be playin' poker with 'em," Slop, the ship's resident resident chef once told Daisy the Cabin Girl. "That's the beauty o’ the game."

Daisy, who was still new to a pirate’s life at the time, pointed out that everycreature else was simply fooling around. Joking. Saying nothing of any importance whatsoever.

"Arrrr,” the grizzled old cook replied pirateishly. “The truth be in thar eyeballs. You can smell it…if ever ye figgre out how."

"Smell their...eyeballs?" said Daisy with quite reasonable confusion.

Slop went on to explain his philosophy of the game. That everyone had secrets. Hiding behind their laughter.

Poker, according to Slop, teaches you to sniff for truths through the eyeholes of other folks' masks. It teaches you to mask yourself better than your opponent, and to guard your own truth with "unsmellable eyeballs."

'The great equalizer' he called it. "Whether ye be playin' 'gainst kings or cap'ns or swabbers of decks, it all come tumblin' down to just three things. Your lies, your luck, and your legs."

When Daisy inevitably asked what the hell legs had to do with it, Slop licked his lips and replied with a great big brown-toothed grin. "For fightin' n' flightin'," he told her.

“Should ye get caught cheatin’; or conversely, if’n ye should win right fayr-n-squayr, and one o’ them aforementioned kings take umbrage wit’ ye fer daring t’do so." Slop snickered and gazed at one of his peg legs fondly. "No, Miss. Royalty can't hardly stomach gettin' equalized."

Clam-Clam laid their cards upon the table. And suddenly all the joking and nonsense-talk stopped.

Slop savored the quiet. He closed his eyes, and sniffed gently at the air. As if he could smell the echo of oaktag slapping against the splintered old wood. "The purest moment in all the world," he sighed.
"When the thwap o’ the cards rings out o’er every chest, and pierces ev’ry beatin’ heart. When Truth - at long last - be laid bare fer all to see."

* * *

The stream tunnel was wide and open and nasty. Gunk had pooled in odd corners - spillage from the surprisingly high ceilings above - trapped without a channel to make its way down to the actual sewers.

It was a fast route. No obstructions. No climbing. Misty Mountain darted back and forth as we all made our way down the path. He checked walls and ceilings and floors for signs of danger. Constantly.

But he found none.

No rats. No holes. No swarms of evil wasteland ants that are…like…50 feet wide, and spit lava, and eat your face off with their ant-mandibles.(Or whatever the hell Wastelanders have to worry about when they deal with stupid apocalypse ants).

All that lay before us was a long path that followed a single, slow-arcing curve. Stretching out into the darkness ahead.

Once Misty was finally satisfied with the safety of our surroundings, he stopped pinballing all over the place. And approached Foster.

“So…ees nice night, eh?”

“I can't tell,” she replied.

“Yes," said Misty. “Of course.” As though inquiring about the weather while deep in an underground labyrinth were the normalest thing in the world. “Anyway, earlier, when I was doing Lindburger-rat-net-teleportation spelI, I heard your cries inside my head, but I didn't know the reason for your fear.” He paused to straighten his wizard hat. Sheepish-like. “You understand how thees sort of thingk go - how vague it can be in here.” Misty tapped his noggin.

“You’ve hive-minded before?” asked Foster.

“Bat pony sonar,” Misty shrugged. “Mycelium collective, the sacred consciousness of the eternal pudding…

‘...I would not describe of myself as fluent in these magics, buuuut I dabble as necessity demands.

‘The point is: I am very, very sorry that I did not make answer of your call.”

“It's okay,” said Foster.

“Had I known that you have immune disease, I would have…” Misty shook his head. As if to rescramble his thoughts. “Eh...This disease - eet is from when you are awake, yes?”

“Yeah,” Foster narrowed her eyeorbs at Misty.

“Then there is good news!” Misty reared up and clopped his hooves together. “Your fears are stupid!”

Cliff grumbled at Misty’s choice of words.

“If disease did not make kill of you upon arrival,” Misty continued. “Eet will not make kill of you now. There is no halfway with these thingks.”

“Even when there's thousands of rats?”

“Even with rats.” he answered. “And don’t worry about bringingk sickness home either. If germs could survive the Emu Travel, whole populations would fall to plague wherever we went.” Misty nudged me in the ribs and laughed. As though this were an inside joke between us.

“Interesting,” said Cliff.

“I can go anywhere,” Foster whispered to herself. “I can touch everything.” Her eye orbs widened, consuming half her face in purest foal-like awe till…

Squish. Foster’s bughoof hit a goopy puddle of tunnelmuck. She recoiled, and tightened up. Like her mouth was full of lemons. “...Of course that doesn't mean that I should touch everything…” Foster winced as her hoof shook itself free of glop. “...Or that I will.”

“Yes," said Misty without a hint of sarcasm. “Dat ees good tunnel wisdom. Now wait here a minute.”

The unicorn trotted way up ahead while the rest of us drew to a halt. I couldn't make out much detail about Misty’s distant silhouette, but he seemed to have found a nook of some sort, and was sticking his head into it.

Another exit hatch most likely.

Tap…tap…tap…tap….tap. His hoof inspected the surface. And the tunnel walls sang out with echoes.

Foster scraped the last of the hoof-guck against a jagged little brick on the floor, and raised her hoof to examine it.

As she turned that bughoof over - front and back and sides - an unexpected smile tugged at her cheeks. She didn't exactly leap up in the air and sing, but I could hear the music in her heart as loud as a dance party. Just from rotating her own hoof and studying it.

Foster peered through the holes in her ankles, then followed her hoof with her eyes till it patted her own chest. To assure herself that she was, in fact, real.

Hooves have power. To tell us who we are.

That's what Zecora taught me in my very first mojo lesson. The initial trick that you have to learn when navigating your dreams and visions - is to become conscious of yourself. By summoning the will to look down at your own hooves.

Our teeth and our hooves are ourselves. They're how we touch the world. (At least those of us fortunate enough to still have teeth and hooves).

It made me wonder what it must have been like for Foster. All this time in ponymode. Clopping on the floor, holding a mug, pointing at every creature she met…with hooves that were not her own.

She’d never seemed to mind being in deep cover, of course. But now, things were different. Bananas Foster’s cards were flat on the table - the truth of her, laid bare.

There were sparkles in her eyes now. A giddy bounce to her every motion. And joy in the simple act of wiping clean a dirty hoof.

Or maybe it was all just astonishment. That her hoof could get dirty in the first place.

Cliff made a squeaky sound of pure excited-osity. Simply from watching Bananas Foster smile at the sight of her own body.

But when Foster spun, and caught Cliff and me looking at her heartwarmishly, that beautiful smile of hers faded.

“I can't believe I misjudged you,” she said.

“Huh?”

“I’ve been reading you wrong this whole time. And don't worry-;” she held a hoof up. To silence me and Cliff before we could leap to comfort her. “I’m not being a whiny pirate. You don't need to reassure me or anything like that.

‘In fact, I'm really quite lucky. I never in a million moons thought that I'd live this long. Never thought I'd escape the shadows. I certainly never dreamt I’d ever find a second Hive, or that I’d…be…well, you know…loved.”

“Awwwwwww,” Cliff and I awwwww’d in unison and leaned in against her.

Foster chuckled and nuzzled us in return. With a sigh, she continued. “What I'm getting at is: this is very different from any love that I’ve ever experienced. It's all so messy. Even with the hivemind that we share, there's still so much guesswork with pony friendship. You ponies have to talk everything out. All the time.”

“Yup,” said Cliff, almost - but not quite - proudly.

“It's hard for everypony,” I said, trying my damnedest to show her solidarity. “Everycreature.”

“Thanks,” Foster murmured. “Intellectually, I get that. But it helps to hear it said aloud.”

“See?” said Cliff. “Talking. Everything. Over.”

“Yeah, I know, I get it,” said Foster.

Another wave of echoes came from Misty way up ahead. Tap-tap-tap-tap tttttaaaaappaaaaaappaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap

We all turned to see if he was covered in rats or roaches, or making frantic motions to either run away, or to come to him quickly. But he just knocked and listened. This time, at an entirely different hatch across from the other one.

The sounds of his ruckus washed over us - blurred to a quiet din. Ssssssssssssssshhhhhhhh

“When we all gazed into the fun house mirror,” Foster continued, eyes fixed up ahead. “Nothing surprised me. I saw you,” Foster glanced down at me. “In your tarot card form. And you,” she turned to Cliff Diver and sighed. “...I didn't mean to intrude upon your privacy. I know how awful that experience was for you. But, I saw…well, everything that you saw. I'm so very sorry.”

“It's okay,” said Cliff, though he couldn't keep from shuffling his hooves and tucking his tail between his legs. “But…how?”

“I was able to see Misty in the mirror,” I jumped in. “Even though he was invisible to you, Cliff. ‘Cause both of our stupid fates are tarot cards for some reason.”

“You two are, indeed, entwined,” said Foster.

“And you?” I asked. “You’re entwined with us?”

“Well, obviously,” Foster replied. “We are Hive, you know.”

“What about Misty?” said Cliff. “Could you see him?”

“Misty’s hive-adjacent - or was at the time,” answered Foster. “So yes. But he was vague…hazy. Like a photograph out of focus. There's only one creature whose reflection was entirely allusive…Mine.” She lifted a hoof. Peered into the swiss cheese holes in her own shin. “In that mirror, my reflection was nowhere to be seen…And, I know what you must be thinking, Cliff, but it was all okay by me - amazing, actually!”

Cliff cocked an uncertain eyebrow.

“It confirmed what I already knew," said Foster. “That I am my hive. I am you.”

“Don't you want to be an individual?” Cliff asked. “At least on some level? You said yourself that you had to fight for your own research back in your hive. Your own relevance!”

“I was always relevant in the hive,” Foster reminisced, eye orbs ablaze like Cranky’s eyes got whenever he reminisced about the night he’d met Matilda. “That's what I've been trying to get you to understand. It's not some monstrous entity that swallows you whole, and enslaves you. I served the hive then - as I serve it now,” she looked lovingly on Cliff and I. “‘Cause the hive is me. In every possible way. I fought for my research - not out of ego - but because my methods could strengthen us all. Or they would have, had the wedding gone as planned.”

Foster closed her eyes and mourned. The sight of it shook me. That changeling face - though lacking in some of the mammalian features that I was accustomed to - was more expressive somehow. Opener. Transparenter…Foster-er.

“The point is,” she continued at last. “I've been thinking about the fun house mirror. Whether I would have seen my reflection had I been…” she gestured up and down at her own body.

“Yourself?” said Cliff.

“Yeah,” said Foster. “That.”

“Does it matter what a stupid mirror thinks of you?” I said.

“No,” said Foster. “The mirror hurt you.” She faced Cliff, rage and compassion boiling in her eyeorbs. “Fuck that mirror. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up.”

“I'm glad that you did,” said Cliff. “It's given me a lot to think about.”

“Me too,” Foster replied, gazing once again at the holes in her legs as a gust of wind whistled through them. OooOoOooOooooOOoooooo!

“That's so cool,” I said.

“I know, right?” she giggled.

She peered at Cliff through her shin-hole. Then at me.

I snorted out a laugh. To see her so dorkish. So foal-like in her fascination.

Then Misty stomped back to us, taking us all by surprise. “Ees safe,” he said all-of-a-sudden-ishly. “We go now. Come on, we are almost there. Almost there!”

* * *

There were two hatches, about a hundred feet apart and on opposite sides of the tunnel. Misty led us straight to the furthest one - the deadly one - and taught us what to listen for - should we ever get separated and need to survive on our own.

Behind the panel was a murmuring sound - like what you hear in a theater just before the curtain goes up. Except the mezzanine was full of squeaky toys. And the orchestra pit sounded like a kettle of water puttering away.

It was parasprites. Thousands of them. Bonk’ing against one another. Wastelandishly. Which probably meant that they were made out of teeth and venom and chainsaws and fangs and blood and fire and teeth and stuff.

The other hatch sounded…well…empty.

At least until Misty bucked it open. Then a gust of air pushed past us, and hastened in.

On the other side of the (now broken) hatch was one of those inartistic tunnels that wartime maintenance workers had constructed. But it wasn't dull and quiet like the Rat Corridor.

A gentle roar echoed all around its hollow walls - the dull burble of sewer waters far below mixing with the thin howl of winds still rushing in from behind us.

One by one, we all followed Misty inside.

The tunnel spiraled down. And the uncanny breeze grew colder. Wetter. Stronger, oddly enough. Till we found ourselves back in a proper sewer. A wide open canal like a city street (except underground and made out of liquid).

It even had trotting paths on either side. Just like sidewalks. Sturdy too. Not a single pothole nor scrap of rubble littering the way.

So we picked up pace. Cantered down those sidewalkitty paths, and pushed lightly against an explicable current of wind.

Wshhh, shhhh, wrrshh! It went.

I scanned the whole sewer trying to make sense of that draft. Where it was coming from. Where it was going. What its favorite color might be if sewer breezes were somehow capable of visual preference.

But to no avail. I had to quit my eyeballery premature-ish-like 'cause the geometric patterns in the brickwork seemed to swirl all around us as we dashed by. Every wall, every ceiling, every archway. Rows upon rows upon rows of bricks intertwined with one another in long stretches of nauseating symmetry.

I averted my gaze.

Eventually, we all slowed down to collect ourselves. A small bridge loomed up ahead, half-shrouded in mist.

“Can you believe this?” Foster came up beside me. Giggling with excitement.

“Uh, what?”

“This…symmetry!” She raised a forehoof to her smirking buglips, and made a face that somehow gave the impression of blushing. “This brickwork.”

Cliff Diver gazed at the arches on the ceiling as we passed under them, ever-so-slowly. “Those sure are bricks alright.”

“I didn't know ponies were capable of creating such beauty,” said Foster.

“I'm glad somecreature appreciates tunnels.” Misty gave her a hearty nod. “You could learn a lot from this one,” he scolded Cliff and me.

“Eee!” Foster squealed, sending a cascade of reverberations everywhere. “Is that a real keystone bridge?”

“Yes,” said Misty. “Give to me moment. I scout ahead now. Foster, you keep an eye on these two.”

Bananas Foster saluted enthusiastically, while Misty ran ahead and inspected the bridge and the path just beyond it - a Y-shaped intersection that led to a smaller, tributary canal.

Misty's light orb followed him upstream, leaving the rest of us in a dull haze as the sewer waters struggled to shimmer. But Cliff Diver used every last ray of that light to look to Bananas Foster whatthefuck-ishly.

“You've been to Canterlot,” he said. “You studied the schematics of every castle spire. Every turret. And this–” Cliff cast his eyeballs all over the shadowy sewer walls and ceiling. “...you think that a bunch of sewer bricks are peak Equestrian architecture?”

“Which structure is still in one piece two centuries later?” Foster asked.

Cliff recoiled a bit.

In the silence which followed, that strange sewer wind brushed against my ear some more. Wrrrrsssshhhhh. Wrrrrrshhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Wrrrrrrrrrrsssssshhhhhhhhhhh!

“I'm sorry,” Foster spoke up at last. “…I knew better.”

“No.” Cliff paused to run his eyeballs over the same arches that had bewildered him mere moments before. A frail little smile crept across his lips. “Come to think of it, you're right. Equestria doesn't need monuments. They're all just gonna become theme park attractions anyway - stuff to rally behind when the war comes,” he chuckled to himself. “No. What we really need is stuff that works."

“Everypony okay?” Misty trotted back to us, and looked to each of our eyeballs. One at a time. “Everypony done having the feelingks?”

Cliff spoke up as our ambassador. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good! We are very close to exit time! Very close! Come on.”

* * *

We followed the long path up that tributary canal - totally dark at first except for Misty’s orb - but little by little, he let that magic dim and we grew aware of a pale, faraway light. First as a blotch on the horizon. Then as a disc-shaped glisten in Foster’s eyeorbs, shining like the uncanny eyes of a cat photographed at night.

Finally, it became a noticeable gleam on the surface of (otherwise) murky waters. A light spilling down from above.

"We are very close," Misty proclaimed. "Very close!"

We followed the glow until we came to a silo staircase, then wound our way upwards into the haze. It was like spiraling around the inside of a spool of thread.

When we reached the top, we found ourselves in yet another tunnel. Long. Empty. Dry. Its walls were made of giant pipes. And its ceiling was a metal grate.

"Very close," Misty informed us. Yet again. "Very close!"

Fwosh! His orb evaporated. Leaving us in the gray.

Misty’s silhouette pointed upwards. At a decaying concrete ceiling way up high above the grate. It was riddled with pin holes that shone like stars, and cast blades of harsh light down into the foggy air.

"Ugh." My stomach turned. That was outside light up there. Fillydelphia light.

It wouldn't be long before we’d have to leave behind the dangers of suffocation; the looming dread of getting lost in the dark forever; the omnipresent threat of rats and chainsaw-fanged parasprites made out of poison and fire and lava and death and lasers and stuff.

We’d be leaving all that foal’s play behind. To face the real horrors. The kind that ponies inflict on each other.

“What happens next?” asked Foster, eyeing the pinhole lights high above us.

“We go up to surface as soon as we can,” answered Misty as though Foster were stupid. He got walking and the rest of us followed.

“I mean: what happens when we actually get to the surface?”

“Oh,” said Misty, as he passed through a small beam of light. “First, we crawl out from new clown hole - which is very very close - then, we must sneak to bumper plow to find Xenith –;”

“Wait. Hold on,” I said. “Sneak to the bumper plows? After we reach the surface? I thought the whole point of all this stupid sewer-tunnel-stuff was to come up underneath Xenith, and liberate her from there.”

“Not every inch of the park has a sewer entrance positioned for our convenience,” Misty retorted. “So yes, we need to make sneak across the surface - close enough to get the bumper plow in line-of-sight, and to teleport inside. Hopefully, we can find a spot where we will not be noticed.”

“Hopefully?!” said Cliff, charging his way to the front.

“Yes," grumbled Misty. “Hopefully. Then, once in slave quarters - and this ees the part where you are actually useful, so please pay attention.” He spun around and wagged a hoof at me and Foster. “You must convince Xenith to come with us to freedom. Which is right back the way we came.” He gestured vaguely behind us. “...Back to the big canal. We follow the wind and the water until it leads to an exit.”

“Why would we need to convince Xenith?” Foster asked bluntly. “Why wouldn't she want to follow you?”

“Because it's my fault that she's here,” said Misty.

As our hoofsteps echoed all around us, a calm fell over him. As though his blame for Xenith’s capture were not the gut-wrenching cry for help that it seemed to be, but rather, a mere statement of fact taken straight out of the Encyclopedia Mistæ Mountainica.

“Don't say that,” I pleaded. “The Universe doesn't give a damn about what happens to background ponies. It doesn't care who gets killed or ruined or enslaved. It doesn't care about anycreature at all so long as whatever's ‘supposed to happen’...” I reared up and made sardonic quotation marks with my forehooves. “...happens.”

“That’s just the theeng,” said Misty. “The Powers That Be did care what happened to Xenith. They cared a lot. They wanted her to get captured, and they tricked me into helping them.”

“The Powers did what now?” Cliff halted. Dead in his tracks.

Foster and I did the same, pressing close against Cliff from both sides. To show him solidarity in his what-the-fuck-ishness. We stood there. The three of us. Shrouded in a patch of darkness. Whilst Misty spun around into a stray beam of light that seemed to slash his face in two.

“My mission,” he said dispassionately. “Was to make sure that Xenith was een Precisely Right Place at Precisely Right Time when dee slavers arrived.”

“Oh jeez,” said Cliff with a gasp.

“No,” said Misty. “Do not make pity of me. I knew there would be slavers. I am guilty of that. But I also underestimated Xenith’s innocence. The stories from back home - how zebras were bad. How they make war. Kill foals. Stir cauldron. Steal jobs. I did not believe these lies - even when I was small. But when the Voice of Time started stinging my mind like bee, saying ‘thees zebra friend you met - she needs to be captured,’ I started to wonder. To doubt. To make theorize that maybe a small fraction of the stories from back home miiiight have very, very, very small chance of being at least a leeetle bit somewhat kind of maybe true.

‘So I betrayed Xenith. Because I trusted the voices.

‘Because I did not know how cruel Fillydelphia would be.” He hung his head, way down low, where he could hide his face in shadow. “My travels were still very new to me then. Dee Wasteland had not yet hardened me - the emuverse neither.”

Looking up at the metal grate above our heads, I thought back to Trottica again. When me and Twink and Misty and Strawberry Lemonade were still in our cages.

How Misty had flinched when the other kids called him a liar for claiming to be from Fillydelphia. How his heart had seemed to sink when he learned the truth of it - that nopony, apparently, ever escaped Fillydelphia at all.

That it was a slave camp.

I contemplated the implications of his fate-mission. The entire point of which was to betray Xenith. On purpose.

The Powers That Be had always been cruel in their indifference, of course. They’d sacrificed Twink. They'd driven half of my family crazy - generation after generation after generation. They threw children at Equestria’s problems, even though adults were always the ones to blame.

But the brain hornets and their diabolical quests - despite all of that - had always always alwaysmoved towards some kinda worthwhile purpose.

This was different. What reason could they possibly have for enslaving zebras? For enslaving anypony?

It made no sense. It was too damn pointless. Too fucking cruel.

“The lesser of two evils,” my mouth whispered all on its own. “Just like Safety.”

“Safety is part of Fillydelphia,” Cliff retorted. “The biggest evil of all.”

“Yet there is still some good in it," said Foster. Speaking slowly. Carefully. “Not for us, of course.” She gestured to me and Cliff and Misty. “But good for the bubble kid. And for Elderberry Sunset.”

Foster stared at the busted up pipes on the wall. For just a moment. And the tunnel wwwwhhhsssshhhh’ed in our silence. Echoing unseen waters somewhere far below us.

“You care about what happens outside of the hive?” said Cliff, careful not to phrase it as an accusation.

“I care about Elderberry,” said Foster. “She was a friend.”

“She’s still your friend,” I said.

“She won't consider me a friend once news hits Safety about our disappearance.” Foster stiffened.

The faraway waters continued to wrrrrsh and roar and echo from below. Till Foster spoke up again. "What do we do about Xenith?” she asked. And like a coin flipped suddenly upside down, Bananas Foster wore a totally different face now. Super detached. Pragmatic.Focused. Her eyeorbs probed each of us individually for answers, and shimmered in the dark with an unearthly glow that pony eyes could never hope to imitate. “The Duckyverse,” she continued. “Is not merely indifferent to Xenith’s future, but actively conspiring against it. That means that any rescue attempt we make could very well lead to our dooms. We’d be tying our fate to hers.”

Foster let that great big old question mark hang ominously over our heads like the Sword of Damaclop, and posed a different query to Misty Mountain directly. “Is she Hive to you? Xenith. Is she family?”

“No,” he answered without hesitation, and before Foster could prod him with the obvious followup question: why the fuck are we doing this? Misty offered his answer freely. “Xenith ees a debt that must be paid. You do not have to make follow of me all the way. I don't have knowledge of what will happen. And the door that brought you here? I don't understand that either. So I cannot say what the risks are. But I have to try.” Pinkie Pie’s words echoing through the ages once again.

“So it's for Honor,” said Bananas Foster, straining to understand.

“You could say so,” Misty shrugged. “That, and spite.”

Foster remained stiff as a ship’s plank. The total opposite of scrutable. But I could still feel her sense of duty swelling up to match Misty's. It was its own sensation - a very specific flavor of hivemindeyness that, in my experience, always spelt obstinance.

I braced for Bananas Foster to leap forward. To volunteer to help in the name of The Hive. To offer her opinion, or…I dunno…something.

Instead, she looked to me - the kid who had the most experience with Time. With duckies. With Fate. And waited to see what I would say or do.

“For honor?” I said to Misty. “And, for uh…spite?”

“Yes,” he replied matter-of-fact-ishly. “Much spite.”

“Hmm,” I said, super thoughtful-like, even though it only took but a moment to decide. “Fuck it.” I sighed. “Good enough for me.”

“Same,” said Cliff.

Misty raised his head back into the light and cracked a warm but tiny smile at us both.

“Alright,” said Foster with a hearty nod. “It's unanimous. We try.”

“We try,” said the rest of us. Oddly in unison.

That's when I felt something stir within me. A voice without words. Deep inside yet faraway. Like a whisper ringing out against the walls of an echoey cavern.

The brain hornets hadn't followed me into Misty’s dream door when I'd fled into it. Their harsh voices hadn't called to me in Wasteland Fillydelphia, nor in Safety, nor even in the creepy-ass carnival mirror.

But the Powers that Be were searching for me now. They were mad.

In that moment, I felt a thwack in my chest. And heard the slap of oaktag on wood. Not from them. No. Fate hadn't spotted me yet. It was the sound of cards being laid down across some great stone table.

Cards that could never be taken back.

The truth of us had just been laid bare. For all to see.

Misty looked at me, eyeballs as hard as steel. Yet almost ready to cry. He knew that sound. That kicking sensation. That shifting of brain-gears.

That pivoty moment when the difference between Lesser and Greater evils suddenly ceases to matter - when one great cosmic power (that's totally out to fucking ruin you)…starts to look and feel much like another.

He knew it because he'd experienced it all before.

We four stood in silence.

Just like that, our fates had become one. Each of us, cards of the same poker hoof - making our play.

“We should go,” said Misty with a tremble in his voice.

Without saying another word, we all got moving again. Against a strange wind. Whistling at us from somewhere up ahead.

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:
I didn't see this coming, I swear. This ending. The Powers That Be.

I'm so excited to dig deeper and see where the rabbit hole leads. What new clarity and what new confusion it will bring to the path Rose n' Friends are on.

I'm so excited to finally share it with you after months of ironing out the kinks.

Last but not least, I'm excited that Hooves of Fate has finally crossed the big threshold. 500,000 words!

Wow. Like...wow! :pinkiegasp: It's just about 12 years since I first started writing this story, intending the whole thing to be maybe 100k, tops.

And now it's longer than Lord of the Rings.

Luna, fuck me with moon rocks. What a long strange trip it's been.

Thank you all so much for being there with Rose Petal and her friends on their journey.

Your comments and encouragement are a huge part of what gives me the drive to see this thing through to the end.

The Wasteland

PROLOGUE

There's always the bomb - the megaspell that's destined to obliterate Equestria. When I first saw the Wasteland in my dreams, I thought it was my job to stop it. To stop the war, to stop the megaspells, to stop us ponies from becoming the monsters I saw in visions of our dark future.

The trouble is: I can't stop it. Nopony can. You can change the future; you can change the present. Rumor has it that, with the right spells, you can even change the past, but some things simply won't budge. The apocalypse, sad to say, is one of them. It is going to happen. No matter what you do, the doomsday clock just keeps on ticking.

There's always the bomb.

* * *

BOOK ONE
THE GREAT ESCAPE

* * *

CHAPTER ONE – THE WASTELAND
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust." -T.S. Eliot

My story starts where so many other stories get started, and so many beginnings get begun - the quest for a cutie mark. What sets my experience apart from others' is that when I finally did achieve my cutie mark, it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life. It's supposed to be the happiest time in your childhood. You discover your purpose, your meaning, the one thing in the whole wide world you do better than anypony else.

Not me. I still don't know what the stupid symbol means.

Here’s the thing, though. That confusion wasn’t what made me miserable. Sure, it sucked, but it was a cover up – an excuse. What really ate at me was my secret life. I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really just wanted to be like every other kid.

I didn’t realize that that was what I wanted until the complete opposite happened. I found the Wasteland, or rather, it found me. I had to pass through every fire in Hell to do it, but I came out with a picture on my flank.

I was a totally changed pony, but I wasn’t sure it was for the better.

* * *

You see, I'd spent months trying to figure out what my special talent was. I wanted to be the first in my class to get one, so I laid out a plan. Have you ever noticed that a lot of ponies' names are pretty much just descriptions of their cutie marks? Well, I did, but nopony believed me, so while everypony was off joining clubs and sports and pursuing bizarre and irrelevant interests, I started right with my name - Rose Petal. I mean, that had to be it, right? Think about it! I looked almost identical to my sister Roseluck, except for the yellow, white, and pink streaks running through my red mane – all the different colors a rose could possibly be. It didn’t take a genius to figure out my destiny.

"Sis," I said. "Can you teach me to garden?"

She spat out her tea at the mention of it.

"Um…Are you sure?" She said, dabbing her chin with a napkin. It concealed her awkward smile.

I just grinned widely and nodded. My smile was cute enough to make a squeaky sound, so I knew I had her wrapped around my hoof.

Roseluck stared me down for a good long while, furrowing her brow, stroking her chin for dramatic effect as she silently weighed me with her eyeballs.

"Well," She said at long last. "If you really want to give it another try."

"I do! I do!" I bounced around her in circles.

After breakfast she led me into the garden - a cathedral of roses of every conceivable color. Bushes guarded the corners of each walkway like temple statues, or those big kitties I’d seen pictures of perched at the entranceway to the Manehattan Public Library. I don’t know why, but I pet them as I passed by, even though they were just regular old bushes. I even decided to name one of them. “Larry,” I called it, though I have no idea where the idea for the name came from. It just sounded like a funny word to me.

When you’re standing in Roseluck’s garden, great big vines arch over you from all directions - giant buttresses of flower. Sometimes, when the dew on the pedals catches the sunlight just right, it shines like a stained glass window. In fact, Roseluck says they're even brighter than Celestia’s windows, but she said we shouldn't tell Princess Celestia that, of course, because that's not very nice. Plus she's the princess and you don't say things like that to princesses. So far, I have not met any princesses, but if it ever does come up, I feel totally ready to be civil about the whole window thing.

Anyway, it was one of those stained glass window mornings. The sun was still low in the sky, the flowers were shining, and my sister was yelling at me again.

"Rose Petal, no!"

Before I knew it, the giant shears that I'd picked up were snatched right out of my hooves.

"But - but," I started to whine. A stern look zipped my lip pretty fast, and told me that that line of complaining wasn't going to get me anywhere. My poor sister looked exhausted. She tried to hide it, but she never was very good at that sort of thing.

"Why don't we start you out with…" Roseluck looked around at all of the various gardening tools, desperate for something she could give me that I wouldn't hurt myself with.

"Relax." I threw on my smoothest smile. "I can handle myself."

"Oh! I know!"

A big old sack of soil plopped down in front of me. A cloud of dust burst out when it hit the ground.

"Dirt?"

This time it was her turn to give the adorable squeaky smile. Older sisters shouldn't be able to do that! It’s not fair.

"See? All you gotta do is stomp out the clumps until they're nice and soft."

"That's it?" I said dryly.

Desperate as I was, I really didn't want to end up with a cutie mark in dirt. Luckily, as it turned out, I was in no danger of that. No sooner had Big Sis disappeared into the shed to get some supplies than I found myself face first in a pile of soil, and covered with thorn scratches from head to hoof. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but it started with a garden hose I tripped on, a rake to the face, a whirlwind of I don't even remember what, and, well, let's just say it escalated from there. I am not a graceful pony.

Gardening was out. Check.

* * *

Over the months that followed, I volunteered to help out in just about every shop and farm. My friend Blueberry Milkshake came with me every now and again, but she wasn’t as passionate in her search as I was, especially after she found her own cutie mark which was, as you may have already guessed, a blueberry milkshake. To her credit, she tagged along for my sake, but I was the one who really threw my heart into it, and pitched in toward every local activity I could think of.

Except school.

I liked Miss Cheerilee and all, but I wasn't about to spend any more time in that big red house than I had to. I'm not crazy! At least I wasn't crazy yet. I didn't start losing my mind until the dreams started happening.

Anyway, on the night I got my cutie mark, Roseluck tucked me in as always, and I was reluctant to let her, as usual. It wasn’t ‘cause I was afraid of nightmares or anything like that. At that point, I didn’t have any idea what awaited me on the other side of the veil, and the only nightmares I’d ever had had involved being late for school, or dropping a pile of dishes in front of everypony I knew, or something to do with that bitch* Diamond Tiara.

(Okay, I’m really, really, really not supposed to use that word, but since neither Diamond Tiara nor Roseluck are ever going to read this, I might as well get it out of my system now. Diamond Tiara is the bitchiest bitch who ever bitched in from Bitch Street down by the Bitch District of midtown Bitchville. Why? Because she’s just that big of a bitch, and even her cutie mark indicates that her special talent is being a spoiled bitch. I bet she will die alone. She will die alone of being a bitch. There, I said it.)

“Time for bed.” My sister called out in a sing-songy voice. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to soothe or insult me, but I didn’t care. I was in too bubbly a mood.

“What about sandwiches?”

“Not before bed.”

“What about a story?”

“Another one?”

“The other story wasn’t about sandwiches.” I whined as I literally tried to leap out of bed. Roseluck pulled me back down and pinned me gently but firmly under the covers.

“You can’t have a sandwich so you want me to tell you a story about sandwiches.”

“Can the story have pickles on it? And mayonnaise?”

Roseluck didn’t bat an eye. She’s just that used to me. “Sure,” she said, on condition of my going to sleep afterward.

I don’t remember what the story was about. I just know it started with, “Once upon a time there was a sandwich named Ryelight Sparkle, who journeyed to Sandwichville to oversee the planning for the Summer Sandwich Celebration.” Then I fell asleep.

* * *

At first it was black. Black as black blackitty black black. Then I saw a blinding green flash, and heard the screams of millions of ponies. It was like having a chalkboard inside your brain with countless razors scraping against it, only worse because every scratch was actually somepony crying.

I think I screamed. Yes, I must’ve. But I couldn’t hear my own voice. At all.

The next thing I knew, I found myself shivering, huddled against cold brick on every side. Celestia only knows how long I had been crouched there. I don’t even think I realized I had been huddling – that I was even cold. I didn’t realize I was anywhere at all. I had totally shut down after the chalkboard-full-of-explosions thingy that had happened in my brain. It was only nostrils full of smoke that slapped me in the face and made me come to.

I opened my eyes. I was alive. Out in the cold somewhere, surrounded by brick, I must have been in a broken old chimney or something, but I couldn’t tell. It was too damn dark. Covered in ash and dust, I squeezed out of a hole in the side of the chimney, and wriggled on out of there, snagging my mane on the jagged bricks as I fell. A dry yelp climbed out of my throat. I rubbed my sore scalp. It was definitely night time, but it had to be like, the darkest night in the history of ever. Luna’s beautiful moon was gone. Just gone. That’s how thick the clouds were.

I looked for a fire to determine if I was in any immediate danger, but found none – only clouds of smoke wafting aimlessly across a field. I stumbled around, looking desperately for signs of life - a place I might recognize, any sign of civilization at all, but there were only silhouettes of twisted metal framework around, and partially crumbled brick walls.

“Hello?” I called out with a cough.

The dust in my throat probably saved my life. Everypony in the Wasteland knows you don’t just call out blindly like that. You’re a whole lot safer if whoever is out there doesn’t find you. But I didn’t know that. I wasn’t from the Wasteland, was I? I cleared my throat meekly and went out in search of water.

Stumbling out over brick and rocks, I made my way over a toppled wall, and came down with a big stupid clumsy crash. I rode the skin of my knee all the way down a nasty little pile of rubble, and came up crying. Again I was saved by a small miracle. As banged up and bruised as I was, the moment I looked up, I saw something that knocked the wind right the buck out of me, and actually made me forget for a while that I had a great big ol' bleeding knee.

Right in front of me was that touch of civilization I’d been looking for - a bit of familiarity. But I was sorry I’d found it.

A sign bigger than a cottage loomed over me - at least the parts of it that were in tact. There was a zebra depicted in the center - unlike any zebra I’d ever seen. Okay, so I’d only ever seen one zebra back in Ponyville, but she was nothing like this. The zebra in the picture had features so exaggerated that she was hardly recognizable as pony at all! Giant white teeth and eyes, more rings on her ears and neck than any actual zebra could fit on her whole body, and a bone driven straight through her muzzle. She lurked maliciously in the back room of a bookstore, cackling over a cauldron full of skulls. An entire battalion of strangely dressed royal guards seized her, and reached into her satchel, but even then, she didn’t seem to want to take her attention off of that skull pot. It was as though it would take a dozen of Equestria’s Finest just to take out a single zebra by the sheer malice of her personality, and terrifying Evil of her intent. Standing in the corner was a concerned citizen, smiling like a dope, hoof pointed nobly at the zebra’s direction, and a crowd of proud onlookers patting him on the back.

The caption on the poster, in gigantic yellow letters, read “IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING.”

There was a lot about that picture I didn’t understand at the time, and still don’t understand today. All I know is that it was clearly designed for grown-ups. I mean, look at it! It would have to be.

Sitting there in the middle of a wasteland, staring slack-jawed at this crazy image, I was reminded of how stupid adults are. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t understand them. I hope I never have to. I didn’t know who drew that ridiculous thing, but I did know that you were supposed to look at that Concerned Citizen, and think he’s a swell guy – a bucking hero. I couldn’t. All I saw in him was the worst thing anypony in the whole wide world could ever possibly hope to be – a tattletale. Any kid in the world could look at that poster and tell you that, but grown-ups - a lot of them anyway - just aren’t too bright.

I turned it over in my head a while, but it was just baffling. I mean, sure, there was this zebra lady everypony was terrified of when I was little, but she turned out to be okay, and even if she hadn’t, we hid from her. We didn’t attack her! Ponies don’t do things like that.

That’s the thing I had the hardest time understanding. The poster was like nothing that anypony in Ponyville would ever have dreamt up in their wildest nightmares.

I mean, the gleam in that zebra’s eye was so evil that you couldn’t possibly feel anything for her. Like she wasn’t a real pony at all – just a caricature - a thing. I was in a world where Celestia’s guards could rummage through your bag just because you were funny looking and stripy. Nopony saw a problem with this. You were actually rewarded for turning on your fellow horse!

It was too bewildering.

No. I decided. Celestia’s guards would never do anything like this! Luna’s neither.

I didn’t know where I was, or how I would ever manage to get home, but one thing was absolutely certain – this place was some new kind of hell, and I wasn’t in Equestria anymore.

* * *

It was only when I stared at that poster for a good long while that it dawned on me how far away from home I really was. I backed away slowly in disgust, knocking crumbling hunks of brick into one another as I stumbled. Nothing I’d ever seen in Equestria had ever lead me to believe that such a thing would even be possible – this kind of recklessness, this kind of hate.

That darn poster was to blame! I wanted to tear it down, or throw a rock at it or…something, but sadly, I didn’t get the chance. Instead, my hoof caught on a metal wire jutting out from a broken wall fragment, and I found myself flat on my back.

As suddenly as I had fallen, I heard hoof steps, or more precisely, that rattling sound when a rock tumbles down a pile of other rocks. I laid myself back down again. Slowly. I didn’t know what had happened to the world in the poster – the world I had, in my own head, named Jerkland – but I sure as hay didn’t trust anypony around here – the descendents of those left around to tell the tale.

The rocks tumbled closer. I remained dead silent. I didn’t even know what I was afraid of. I mean, anypony I ran into would logically want to get away from there as much as I did! But still something inside of me screamed. Hold still, hold still, hold still, omigosh, what the hay is going on, hold still! For once in my life, I listened and was quiet.

Tiny pebbles and particles of dust kicked up by the strangers’ hooves started raining on me. They were that close. I heard no talking, just tedious stomping. I wasn’t sure how many of them there were, but they weren’t friends, and they weren’t enjoying each other’s company. Scared as I was, I found that kind of sad.

I lay there quietly. I didn’t scream. It didn’t occur to me to scream. I would have coughed, but it didn’t occur to me to cough either. It didn’t even occur to me to breathe. I just sat there listening to my own heartbeat thundering in my head, terrified that its stupid thumping would give me away.

Then a hoof stomped inches from my forehead, and I flung my eyes open in terror. I couldn’t help it. I thought it would be the end. They passed right by me. Just like that. Before the dust cloud started stinging and my eyes began to water, I caught a quick glimpse of them.

There were two bad guys, each wearing matching pink cloaks with yellow daisies on them. That sounds cheerful, but their robes were tattered and covered with blood. Not the red stuff you see when you first bang yourself up, but that black stuff you see when you throw away the bandage. Whatever these guys were up to, it didn’t seem to bother them that they had nasty crusty old blood on their robes. They surely woulda had time to wash it off. They just didn’t care. The thought sent shivers up my spine.

Draped over one of their backs was a colt just barely older than I was. His hooves were bound. There was fresh blood in his mane, and he was looking right the buck at me. I don’t know how he saw me, but he did. In fact, he downright lit up at the sight of me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and wrinkled my nose, desperate not to sneeze as the dust and ash settled in full force on my face. What in Jerkland was going on? Why were they towing around some kid? What were they going to do to him?
It didn’t even make any sense. Why?!

As I squeezed my eyelids shut to keep the dust out, I started to shake with anger. I had to squeeze down even tighter just to keep from crying or screaming. Right in front of me, something horrible was happening, and there was nopony around to do anything about it! I was powerless to stop this colt from getting – well, I didn’t know what they were going to do to him, but I knew I needed to stop the Jerks from Jerkland from doing it.

I opened my eyes again just in time to watch the strange boy’s head sink. I’d let him down. I’d done nothing. Nopony had ever looked at me like that before. I mean, sure Roseluck had been disappointed in me from time time to time, but this was not that “we are mad at you for stealing from the cookie jar and knocking over the cookie jar, and trying to cover it up by pasting the cookie jar back together and sweet Celestia, look at you, how did you even manage to get entire cookies pasted into your mane?” kinda disappointment. No. I gave that strange little boy a glimpse of hope for a tiny moment – maybe even the last feeling of hope he would ever know before they locked him up in a dungeon with no toys and no books and no friends (or whatever it was they were planning to do to him). I gave him hope. Then I broke his heart.

To make matters more confusing, I heard a voice just then. It sounded like my voice, but I have no idea where the idea came from at all. It just sort of surfaced inside my head like a bubble coming up in the middle of the ocean.

“Follow them.” It said.

It sounded just like me.

“Follow them, are you crazy?” I snapped back at myself. I also sounded just like me.

“Follow them.” The voice repeated.

I watched the silhouettes disappear behind the billboard. I could still hear them, but the sound was still all shuffling, and no talking. The two cloak-headed meanies were definitely not friends.

But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I was out of their line of sight, and I needed to find some kind of safety. I rose to my hooves, brushed myself off, and tip-hooved out of there. I wanted to run. I wanted to gallop wildly in the total opposite direction, but everything in Jerkland was equally awful all around, so I made my way across the most even ground, and tried not to kick loose any rubble.

I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do, but I knew that it had to involve moving. I may not have had the guts to charge after that poor boy, slung helpless over the cloak-head’s back, but I didn’t have the heart to let him out of my sight either.

Steadily, I made for higher ground. The bad guys had come from the other side of a hill. I hadn’t heard a peep from them till they’d emerged over the top. That meant that, whatever else I might find on the other side, there had to be ground that I could move on quietly.

Maybe there would even be a village or something!

“Follow them.” I told myself again, but couldn’t figure out why.

“Maybe the boy has parents over there.” I reasoned with myself.

“Follow them.”

There was a pale light on the other side. Maybe somepony could help!

“Follow them.” The voice repeated firmly. It was still my voice. Why did I keep saying that?
The ground gradually became more earth and less rubble, so I broke out into a trot. The hill was steep, and I was already running out of breath. But I didn’t care. Anything to make the voice stop.

“Follow them.” It said yet again, louder than before.

“Follow them,” I parroted what it said under my breath in a nasal sing-songy voice. Maybe if I teased it, it would go away.

It didn’t. The voice just repeated itself.

“For the last time,” I shouted inside my head as I broke into a silent gallop. “There’s nothing I can do to save him.” A few more steps and I would reach the top of the hill.

Then the voice replied quietly and calmly. “He’s not the one you have to save.”

I stopped in my tracks, and looked back over my shoulder. “What?” I actually said aloud. No answer came.

I could see the bad guys down there, far past the billboard – their shapes anyway. If I’m not supposed to save him, what in the hoof was I supposed to do then? Just follow them and watch?

Watch him die? Is that what they were going to do? Could ponies actually do that? Kill each other? Even Jerkland couldn’t be that terrible a place. Sure, this place had a tarnished past. Hate. Fear. All that fun stuff I’d seen in that stupid poster – that air of wrongness I could still smell in the air 190 years later. (How did I know it had been 190 years?) But killing children? And I was expected to watch it?

I kept my eye on the figures moving slowly and steadily across a vast gray wasteland. I kept walking without looking where I was going; I was so intent on staring down those strangers. They were actually going to kill him.

For some stupid reason I had to follow them, not even to save him, but to save somepony else who I hadn’t even seen. I wanted to scream, but instead, I walked right into the remains of a cement wall. It only went as high as my scuffed up knee. I’d reached the top of the hill, and hadn’t even noticed. Immediately, I whipped around to see what life was like on the other side.

There was a village, alright. I wouldn’t be getting any help from them any time soon. It was only a blotch in the distance, but it was a blotch that was on fire. Nopony was stampeding around trying to put it out. Nopony was rushing in or out of buildings, because anypony who could possibly have cared about the fate of the village was already gone. There were only figures moving calmly and dutifully away, towing some sort of cargo – as if the fires didn’t faze them. The bastards had done it on purpose. This is what ponydom had come to in Jerkland.

Looking past the village, or what remained of it, I saw something far worse. It was a mountainside. Built against the side of it was the silhouette of a castle – a skyline that I’d seen pictures of before lit up by millions of magic lamps. There were no lights now. It was just a shadow, but its shape was positively unmistakable. I was looking at the ruins of Canterlot.

The dirt in my hooves, the ash in my face – it was us. Not a bunch of jerks from some far away land where jerkiness was somehow more possible than in Equestria. The dust was Equestria. I was home, and somehow, the jerks had been us all along.

The ground gave way beneath me.

I felt weightless for a moment before I realized that I was falling. Falling off some cliff or some precipice I must not have seen. Falling into some Celestia-forsaken darkness. Falling, falling, falling. I couldn’t see a damn thing, and all I could hear was the barking of angry dogs.

* * *

I found myself on the floor of my bedroom screaming. Roseluck came rushing in. She knelt beside me. “Rose Petal, Rose Petal, answer me.” She said, gripping me by the shoulders. It was the first real terror I’d heard in her voice since Dad left. “Rose Petal!”

Suddenly, I looked around. I was home. Actual home, not some weird future home where everything sucks and is covered in ponydust.

I was back in Ponyville. I reached out and touched Roseluck’s cheek with my hoof. She was real. She ran her hoof over my mane, not a clue what had happened, but clearly terrified for me.

I threw myself against her chest and finally allowed myself to weep. She didn’t say a word.

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

Column: My Derpy Hooves News column about Love, Tolerance, and Friendship, “Help! My Heart is Full of Pony!” is now archived at http://heartfullofpony.tumblr.com

Music: Check out my pony music (rock, jazz, hip-hop, blues, classical, and experimental). http://www.youtube.com/sdoggingsworth

Cover Art: http://shadesofeverfree.deviantart.com/art/The-Rose-Queen-334850063

The Way It's Supposed to Happen

CHAPTER TEN - THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN
"To change the fate of one individual is to change the world." - Terry Pratchett

The trucks were loaded with food, water, weapons, ammunition, gems for trading safe passage, medical supplies, and potions. After a few gulps of one o’ dem potions, I started to actually feel healthy - energetic. At least on the inside. My hoof, however, was still black, and weak, and creepy.

More importantly, Turnip Truck the 14th had access to real medical care – real hope. No more oozy leg. No more desperate measures. Not only would Turnip be able to survive the giant exodus that lay ahead, he would be able to do so from the relative comfort of the back of a truck. That meant that the other kids could too. The mine-o’s, the druggo’s. The sick. The injured. All of us were looking at freedom. Real freedom. Not the kind that lies at the other end of a one-hundred-fifty-mile trot. The kind that was ours for the taking.

It was time to get the fuck out of Trottica.

The five trucks vroooomed as hard as they could down that bounce-itty road. One was full of supplies. The other four were packed full of kids. Morning Flower drove the small one with the big cannon. She’d squee’d like a filly on Hearth’s Warming morning when she first climbed into that driver’s seat. Her job was to annihilate anything that stood in our path. The rest of us simply followed and blasted away any remaining signs of trouble.

I rode in front seat of the big yellow truck. Don’t ask me why it was yellow. It just was. Misty Mountain sat at the wheel because he actually knew how, and was big enough to reach the pedals. Strawberry sat next to him and navigated using some doohickey she’d plucked off the severed limb of dead cloak-o that had been lying on the ground. Twinkle Eyes “rode shotgun.” That meant that she got to use the truck's cannon-majig to blow away obstacles and random structures she thought would look cooler on fire. It wasn't as big as the one mounted on Morning Flower's truck, but it was still a force to be reckoned with.

She hooted and hollered all the way down the road. I thought about saying something, but I'd never seen her like this. Giggling. Happy.

I wasn't about to be a stick in the mud over a bunch of sheds and empty towers and stuff. Twinkle was okay. I was okay. The kids in the back were actually okay too. There was this incredible magic in the air - this contagious feeling that we were right, and that anything we did in the name of freedom must also be right.

Most of all, I thought. They’re just sheds, not ponies or anything. And they do look cool on fire.

Fuck sheds.

"Your turn!" Said Twink, as she passed me the controls of the giant cannon mounted on top of the truck.

"What?"

"Come oo-ooon."

She grabbed my hooves and placed them over a series of levers.

"Come on!" She said. "It'll be fun."

"Oh, no, no, no." I blushed. "No thanks."

I couldn't fathom blowing something up.

"Do it," said Twink.

"She doesn't want to do it," said Strawberry.

"She's gotta!"

Twinkle turned to me. "What if I'm not around? What if you're surrounded by bad guys, and you need to splatter one of their brains all over the place?"

I winced.

"Twinkle!" Protested Misty.

"What? Rose may need to someday," she snorted. "To survive."

"Dee brains are safer on dee outside, ees true," he conceded.

"Like she's ever going to be surrounded by bad guys with nothing but a giant tank to defend her." Strawberry Lemonade snorted.

"Yet here we are," said Misty dryly.

I turned to Twinkle Eyes. She was just sorta looking at me with her big bright cerulean eyes.

"Do you trust me?" She said.

I stared at her silently. She guided my hooves over the levers. With every little motion, the barrel on top of the truck made a great big motion. I seized up every time. I couldn't help it, it was a panicked reaction. I'd actually made something 40 times my weight move. It was freaky.

Finally, Twink got fed up and tugged on my mane.

"Ow!"

"Have some fun with it, fuckhead."

Fun. I let that stew in my brain for a minute. This was a game to her. Violence. Destruction. It was the best way to blow off steam in the Wasteland. Those craters behind us. Those flaming hunks o' shed. They were the aftermath of Twinkle Eyes at play.

"Keep an eye on your target."

She pointed the cannon thing toward a big empty tower dead ahead. At least I hoped it was empty.

"When you're moving like we are, you gotta lead it a little bit." She guided me gently, easing my shoulder, rather than grabbing my hooves. "Then you just gotta focus, and wait for the right moment. Listen to that little giggle in your head as you're aiming. There's, like, this weird little whisper that comes afterwards that says now."

She'd been a slave her whole life, and probably wasn't allowed to touch a nail, let alone a gun, but Twink understood how this worked. She was a natural. To hear her talk about it, the explodification of random structures by the side of the road - it sounded a lot like my attempts to brain Skull Stomper with a rock back in the cage room. Only Twink didn't have any mystical forces guiding her toward destiny. Just a lot of anger and a sharp eye.

I watched that giant tower carefully. I was hesitant to pull the thingy and attack it, but Twinkle, out of nowhere, shouted "Now!" and yanked on my leg.

Boom! A streak of something-or-other whistled through the air. A few moments later, that empty guard tower was a burning pile of sticks. I couldn't believe it. I clambered over Twink like a jittery-tea-crazed monkey just to get a better view as we zoomed by. That rubble. That destruction. I'd done that.

"Hahaha!" She smiled at me. "Cool, huh?"

I nodded in awe.

"It's all in the timing, Shedkiller."

It was a longer time than expected, and Twink took the time to explain a few technical details about small arms, and the big ratatatatat-ers too, but we all agreed that a live demo inside a moving truck was a bad idea. And by that, I mean that Strawberry Lemonade threw stuff at Twink until she put the damn thing away.

Then we saw somepony scurrying for cover as we came. The first sign that we were approaching what, in the Wasteland, passed for civilization. We all snapped nervously back to our posts - Twink the gunner, Misty the driver, Strawberry the navigator, and Rose Petal - the kid who just sort of hung around the front seat being useless.

Twink waited a bit more patiently once we saw houses up ahead.

"Don't fire till you're sure this time." Said Strawberry.

"Hey, Misty was the one who shot up all those villagers." Snapped Twink.

"Dey were coming at us with guns!"

"We were coming at them with guns." Strawberry yelled. "They were scared. They didn't know we weren't charging up there to kill them."

"We weren't charging up there to kill them?" Said Misty, genuinely confused by the notion of not shooting first and asking questions later.

"Shut up, both of you cunts." Said Twinkle Eyes.

She narrowed her eyes, took aim. As though not talking would somehow help us sneak up on them in a small fleet of the world's loudest trucks.

Then we came across our first jerkface. He was shooting at our truck from the window of his tin-roofed shack-cottage.

“That the best you can do?” Laughed Twinkle. “Take that, dickmuffin!”

Kaboom! The cottage was no more.

I shut my eyes. It wasn't a random shed. There'd been a pony in there.

Next Twink took aim at a bunch of confused villagers who were literally just standing around.

I just winced. I had made a promise to myself never to turn my back on injustice and stuff, but we were all in the heat of a passionate escape. And the final push was terrifying. It was happening so fast! This wasn't just about a small circle of friends anymore. There were 300 kids in the back counting on us to do everything we could to get them out of this. We couldn't exactly pull over and ask every villager we saw whether or not they planned on enslaving us, now could we? Besides, nopony in the whole damn town had done anything to indicate that they might be anything other than selfish enslave-itty douchebags.

Except for Nursey.

What choice did we have?

We approached the cluster of villagers that I could only presume were unarmed. I closed my eyes - waited for that ratatatatat sound.

But we just drove by. It never came. Finally, I peeked a little, and a hoof landed on my shoulder.

Twinkle looked me right in the eye and sighed. She knew I hated violence and stuff, so she held back.

Nopony could really judge her for having a bad case of slave rage. Twinkle had come from an entire lifetime of slavery and abuse. All I'd had was one hell of a bad day. Still, she put me first, and spared them.

I smiled at her.

Not one of the good ones, my ass. Twinkle was probably the best pony I had ever met.

BAM!

Villagers on a rooftop pointed ratatatatatat-ers at us. Rooftop no more.

"Choke on that, chum lickers!"

Twink still had a job to do of course.

The tower burned, and folks leapt right the fuck out of it. They were so desperate to bail out of that fiery mess, that they didn't even care where they landed.

"Ugh!" I yelled at them. "You wouldn't die so much if you'd all just stop being jerks for half a second!"

Stupid Wasteland. Stupid tower ponies.

* * *

So we charged down that mountain pass - all five trucks. And it was pretty smooth sailing at first, even as we started to see a little more life around us. But "the gauntlet" was looming up ahead. They could attack us from above over there, and there wouldn't be nothing we could do about it. Cause of the way the road dipped into this weird little chasm, and the way all the town's structures loomed over it from above. The space was so narrow and the trucks so wide that we wouldn't even be able to aim our party cannons of destruction.

"I see it," said Misty.

Strawberry Lemonade, of all ponies, grabbed me by the shoulder. "Don't try anything stupid," she said.

The real reason that they had all wedged me up front in the "bitch seat" of that stupid truck was that nopony trusted me not to run off and do something reckless.

"What do you think I'm gonna do, leap out the window and take on all the villagers one-by-one?"

"Yes!" Said everypony at once.

"Humph!" I pouted.

Nearing up on the final stretch, I could tell that it wasn't quite the death trap it would have been had we ended up walking, but it was still nerve-wracking. All they would have to do is block the road.

We’re gonna make it anyway. I thought. I just knew we were. We'd come so far! As my aching stomach started to churn with unease, I reached out for Twinkle’s hoof. To my shock, she jerked back from me - recoiled at my touch.

"That's fucking cold!" She said.

The other half of the reason I was riding up front: my friends were worried out of their fucking minds. The healing potions hadn't worked. The medical supplies hadn't worked. None of it. The hoof just seemed to be getting colder and colder and colder, and my friends just got worried-er and worried-er and worried-er and worried-er.

I looked down at my hooves, feeling ashamed. The bad one was even blacker than before.

"I'm sorry," I said, wrapping it in the Priestess' old daisy cloak.

The original daisy cloak.

"It's nothing," said Twinkle Eyes. "Really."

She made a point to put her hooves on mine. Just to show that she wasn't afraid to. It was oddly reassuring. Then totally out of the blue, she started babbling nonsense.

"The Cutastically Fantastics."

"What?"

She held up the embroidery on the inside of the cloak. "Property of Happy-Sad, Questor of the Ancient Secret Order of the Cutastically Fantastics."

"Who dee fok are the Cutastically what you call dem?"

I turned the cloak over in my hooves. It looked like it must have been a million years old.

"The Priestess and her BFFs apparently." I said.

I thought of how desperately she had howled for that cloak. Give that back! Gimme me fucking cloak you motherless cunt.

This stupid cape thing was all that remained of the friendships she’d once had. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the rest of the Cutastically Fantastics.

"Weird." Said Twink.

We rode on in silence toward the gauntlet. It was awkward thinking of what the Priestess must have been like when she was a kid. I wondered if, now that she was gone, part of her was with the rest of the Cutastically Fantastics again. If they had waited for her on the other side, or at least, for the filly they used to know.

Or did they turn her away instead for what she had become. Strawberry Lemonade, Twinkle Eyes, and I all looked at one another. Without saying a word, our hooves came together and interlocked. We were thinking the same thing.

Never ever ever grow up to be like Priestess Happy-Sad.

* * *

"Faster, faster, faster!" I shouted

"Dees cannot go any faster!" Misty shouted right back.

"Twink, gunners at 2 o'clock," Strawberry yelled.

"I can't tell time!" Replied Twinkle Eyes.

"That way, that way, that way!" I shouted.

But it was too late. I could see the pony with the massive ratatatat-tat-a-majig. He had already taken aim, and Twink hadn't even swung her big cannon around to find him yet. I clutched Strawberry Lemonade cause Twink was aiming and Misty was driving, and there wasn't nopony else to hold on to. But the gunshot never came. Some random mare from the town kicked the gunner right into the chasm. She turned to us, still just a figure in the distance, but I could make out her body language. She was waving her hoof around as if to say "Go! Go! Go!" I honestly don't know what happened to her after that. Whether the other villagers got her or not. But the gunner was slurry under our wheels, and she still holds a special place in my memory.

"Did you see that?" I said.

"See what?" Said Twink.

The Gauntlet lived up to its reputation. This truck was already jumping around, swerving, and skimming the walls cause of the park benches that it had run down, and the sheet of chicken wire that it somehow ended up dragging all over the place.

The remaining villagers that the cloak-o's hadn't killed were all running back and forth, cloak-o weapons in their hooves. Luckily they weren't all organized and trained and drilled and stuff like the goons were. They didn't even set up a wall or a barricade or anything to try and stop us. Just a bunch of villagers. They had been expecting to meet us down at the bottom and just kind of swoop us up into some sort of great big old net of weepy whiny cowering slave-o’s. They hadn't expected for us to plow through them like cardboard cut-outs.

With all the junk the ponies left behind as they scattered, the terrain started getting real rocky. We bounced around against each other like rubber balls, but Misty and the other drivers still managed to charge through at a steady pace.

If we were bouncing around all over the place, I could only imagine what the kids in the back were going through.

Bang.

Suddenly there was a hole in our window. The head cushion above me had a hole in it too, and it was raining down stuffing. Somepony had shot into our truck. Had I been a grown-up, that stuffing would've been my brains.

Twinkle pushed my head down with one hoof, and grabbed a lever with the other, even though she couldn't aim too well that way.

"Die, die, die, die, die!" Twink didn't take powerlessness well.

Misty floored it and Strawberry ducked down with me.

"What's going on?" I shouted.

"We're doing fine!" Said Twink.

But we weren't fine. Suddenly, we were in darkness.

* * *

Next thing I knew, Strawberry Lemonade was on top of me, pinning me to the seat. I'd apparently been flailing wildly.

"What the fuck, Rose?" Said Twinkle.

I found Misty's spare hoof on my head.

"There are no shadows!” He said. “No shadows!"

He'd known exactly what I'd been thinking.

"Ees just tunnel. Stop with yelling and dee kicking."

I was kicking, wasn't I? I closed my eyes with a sigh and stopped squirming. Strawberry eased off me. Everypony stared. I laughed nervously.

"Hi," I said.

"You okaaaay?" Said Twinkle Eyes.

"Yeah."

It was so fucking humiliating. It's bad enough my friends had to worry about me when I ran off into danger alone. Now I couldn't even blink without wigging out over stupid darkness.

I poked my head up to get a peek, and got eyeballs full of freezing cold wind, but we were coming out into the open again - into the light.

I held my bad hoof up to my face, and stared at the daisy cloak wrapped around it. Under there, was a bunch of inky black stuff that that stupid thing had left on me. The fact that I couldn’t just wash it off was starting to drive me nuts. My own hoof wasn’t even mine anymore. Fucking shadows.

"Sorry, I'm fine."

Strawberry Lemonade fussed with the dials and screens of her doo-hickey. She’d lost her place in all the commotion and was trying to figure out where in the hoof we all were.

Bang!

Something hit the side of our truck.

"We got one more tunnel guys then we're outta here." Said Strawberry at last.

"Good!" Shouted Misty. "I'm tired of dem shooting my truck."

I could see it up ahead. The only road out of town. According to Straw Lem's surveillance, they hadn't bothered to defend it, which is good cause that tunnel would totally be yet another easy way to ambush us. But these were angry villagers, not soldiers. They rushed in toward what they wanted all angry-like. It was all they knew how to do.

You can't really tell a raging mob, "one third of you stay here and wait, just in case a bunch of armed orphans get a hold of the cloak-o trucks for some reason, and break through our defenses."

I could see the mouth of the tunnel. It was so close. I gripped on to Twinkle Eyes tight, determined not to freak out again.

"Come on, come on, come on." I whispered.

We hadn’t even gotten there yet, and already it felt like drowning.

“Hey, Rose.” She said.

“Yeah?” I did my best not to whimper.

“Fucking swim.” She knew exactly what I was thinking.

I looked right at her, and found her staring me down with hard eyes. She’d used my own words against me. When you feel like you’re drowning, fucking swim. I nodded.

Bang.

Strawberry Lemonade ducked and pulled me down with her. I buried my head in my hooves.

Bang! Again. Another hole in the window.

Misty hit the pedal as hard as it would go, and then just like that, we passed into darkness.

"Yeehaa!" I cheered, determined not to let the dark get the best of me.

Misty shouted something in foreign that I couldn't understand. Straw huddled on the floor and paid fierce attention to the doo-hickey. And Twinkle Eyes fell on top of me covered in blood.

My heart plunged into my stomach. I wanted to scream her name, but I couldn’t even find the breath. Twink clenched on to my shoulder as hard as she could and looked up at me with wide, terrified eyes.

“Help me,” She whispered.

It snapped me out of my shock.

“I will, I will, I will!” I said.

I frantically wiped the mine dust from her mane and the blood from her face. I pressed the old priestess cloak down on her wound. It was the cleanest thing I had.

“She needs a potion!” I shouted.

The artificial light in the tunnel flickered, and for a moment, I caught a glimpse of Twinkle Eyes there in the dim. That look. That hole in her chest. Those pebbles. That exact bad lighting. I’d seen it all before. It was the vision. The one I’d seen in the Town Hall basement - the one Misty had seen. Strawberry Lemonade, covered in mine dust, lying in the dark. Only Twinkle Eyes was in her place.

I whipped around and stared at Straw, who was rummaging frantically through her bags. Safe and sound, right on the floor beside me.

The way it’s supposed to happen. Whispers in my head

“Shut up! No it isn’t!” I said out loud.

The truck burst out from under the mountain, into the bright light.

“Ahh, fuck. Fuck! Fuck!” Twink was howling in pain.

Misty made a bit of distance from Trottica's borders, and then skidded to a halt the second he could to stabilize her. The moment we stopped, Twink quit flailing. Just for a moment. I could tell it took all her strength just to hold still and look at me.

“Don’t go anywhere.” She clutched on to me tightly.

I pressed down on her wound as best as I could, but I couldn’t stop the bleeding.

“I’m not.” I said.

She was turning white now.

"Don't leave me. Stick a cupcake in your eye, don't run off. Don't do nothing stupid. Please, please, please just stay."

"I won't. I won't. I won't!” I said, tears running down my face. “Stick a cupcake in my eye."

Strawberry Lemonade whipped out a vial. “Found it!”

I yanked the potion from her hooves, and nudged Twinkle’s mouth open.

“You’re gonna be okay.”

I tipped it back. She sipped on it slowly.

“You’re gonna be okay.” I ran my good hoof over her face. Her head was getting cold.

She nodded and focused her efforts on breathing.

I turned to Misty. The guy who’d been avoiding me ever since we’d shared a vision about this very thing.

“Did you know?” I growled at him.

He started at me in shock.

“Did you. Fucking. Know?!”

Misty broke into tears. Heaving sobs. He reached over me and touched one of her hooves.

He didn't know either.

“Hey, Misty.” Said Twink.

She barely had any voice left at all. He looked at her.

“Made ya cry.”

She winced in pain.

Misty just wailed and caterwauled.

“Pussy,” she whispered.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, there came a great big old kaboom!

“What the fuck?” Said Strawberry who dropped her doo-hickey full of useless medical files and scrambled to look out the driver’s window.

Twinkle’s face wrinkled. She had the same concerns I did. What the fuck now?

Misty swung the door open, and wandered out of the truck, flabbergasted.

“Looks like Nurse-o blew up mountain.” He said.

Twink smiled for a moment.

And then, everything was as it’s supposed to be. We were finally safe. No hornets. No voices. Just this tension leaving the air - leaving my brain.

Everything was at peace - everything but Twinkle.

“Rose,” she said.

“Yeah,” I sobbed at her. “I’m here.”

She struggled to speak, so I leaned in closer.

“Don’t worry, Rose.” She whispered. “I’ll see you later.”

At that, Twinkle closed her eyes. She was still breathing. She was still alive. Barely. But that was all she had to say. I’ll see you later. Those words echoed through my head as I held poor Twink in my hooves. She was fading. Her heart. Her breath. I turned to Strawberry Lemonade, who just stared on in silent horror. She’d stopped fiddling with her doo-hickey. There was nothing more to do.

I clutched on to Twinkle’s hoof.

“Come on.” I said. “Come on. Please.”

I asked whatever was out there. Whatever had sent me on this stupid fucking mission in the first place. Please. Anything else. Not like this. Not like this. But the hornets were silent.

And so was Twinkle. She lied there, her chest struggling to rise just a little harder each time.

“Please.”

I stroked her pink little head.

“Twinkle?” I whimpered, but she didn’t answer.

* * *

And then just like that, I was back in Ponyvlle. Back in my room. Clutching my pillow.

"Twinkle," I sobbed, still a little dazed and confused. Then I realized what had happened. "Twinkle!"

Blankets. Warm pillows. A cozy bed. A poster of Sapphire Shores staring down on me. No Twinkle Eyes.

“No,” I said. “No, no, no, no, no!”

I turned my sheets and pillows upside down - as though she were a lost ribbon that might turn up if only I panicked hard enough. Roseluck rushed in and leapt up on my bed.

“It’s ok. You’re ok. You’re ok.” She said.

“Not without Twinkle!” I shouted and threw myself under the blanket.

I squeezed my eyes shut - tried to go back to sleep. I'd promised to stay with her. Promised not to leave. Sweet holy Celestia, I'd stuck a cupcake in my eye!!

What had Strawberry Lemonade seen? Had I disappeared? What about Misty? He had wandered off. Did he know it was coming? Why didn't he warn them?

Why didn’t that kielbasa-eating douche warn me?

And Twinkle. What if she’d opened her eyes just one last time, and found me gone. Just totally gone! No. It wasn't going to end like that. I wouldn't let it.

"I'm coming Twinkle!" I reassured my pillow. "Hold on, hold on, hold on!"

I pulled the whole blanket over my head, but nothing worked. I was too revved up to sleep.

Roseluck ran a hoof over my back and another through my mane. That sorta thing had always worked on me before. But Roseluck being there wasn't going to bring Twinkle Eyes back from the dead.

"She's gone." I said, pulling the blanket off.

Roseluck's stunned expression told me she understood. Maybe not the details. But that this was more than just a shock to the system - more than just bolting awake from a bad dream or bad traveling. This was loss.

"Oh, Rose. I'm so sorry." She said as she drew me closer.

I completely came apart. "I did everything I was supposed to. Everything!"

All the way downstairs I could hear the door slam shut. A moment later hooves pounded up the stairs and there was Cliff Diver standing in my doorway, staring in shock and awe. I must’ve looked a mess.

“Is she gonna be okay?”

“How long were you waiting down there?” Roseluck asked.

Apparently, he had no better place to be at six in the morning.

I looked at him through blurry salty eyes. The portrait of innocence – actual innocence. The way a kid is supposed to be. Everything we'd been fighting for.

“No.” I yelled. “It’s not over!”

This wasn’t right. We were the fucking good guys.

“I don’t care what the hornets say!” I shouted. “This is not over.”

The Universe had sent Misty and me thru time and space to right a wrong. To make a difference. And all that time, no matter what else was going on, we felt electrified. We were starting a revolution - a rescue of hundreds of children - and for a while, it felt like some deep secret force was on our side. Turned out it that the whole time we weren't righting a moral wrong, just fixing a clerical error. Working to make sure the right pony lived and the right pony died.

Well fuck that. It's not over till I say it's over.

"I'm going back." I said.

"I don't think you c--;"

"I'm. Going. Back."

I'd never spoken that way to Roseluck before. Defiant. Assertive. For the first time in my life, I didn't care what she thought. What she said. I didn't care about anything. I was gonna go back there. I was gonna fix it. I was gonna save Twinkle, or so help me, see to it that the last feeling she ever knew was comfort and the magic of fucking friendship.

I leapt out of bed. Past Roseluck. I darted for the door, but my legs wouldn't listen to me. I fell on my face, scrambled to my hooves and scurried past Cliff.

"Celestia!" He exclaimed. "What's wrong with your hoof?!"

Picking myself off the floor I saw that my condition in this world wasn't terribly different from my condition in Trottica.

"It's black." I said all matter-of-fact-like.

I scrambled down the stairs, or rather, tumbled. I came up trotting, swerving around three-legged, knocking over lamps and things. Finally, I got to the kitchen, flung open the cupboards, ransacked the shelves, tossed this and that on the floor.

"Where are you? Where are you?"

Finally I found it - a tin of sleepy tea. Without even pausing to catch my breath, I popped the lid, tilted the whole thing back, and started eating it raw.

"Hang in there, Twinkle." I coughed. "Hang in there."

My mouth was full of bitter leaves. What can I say? Fear makes you stupid.

I hobbled to the foot of the stairs and found Cliff and Roseluck perched on top looking down on me.

"I'm coming," I said to Twinkle, already too drowsy to climb the stairs good and proper.

Roseluck and Cliff rushed down.

"Rose!" My sister cried. Literally cried.

"Don't worry about me." Was just about the last thing I remember saying before I passed into a long dark dreamless sleep. "I'm fine."

End Book One
The Great Escape

Author's Note

If you can't, no pressure. For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

NOTE: When I first started writing this, I imagined that Hooves of Fate, despite its explorations into dark subject matter, would give people a reason to smile. For the most part, I like to think that I succeeded in this goal. However, this latest chapter took strange turns. For those of you who have been reading for those uplifting moments, I would like to start by assuring you that I have not drunk the grimdark Kool-aid. The events in this chapter played out that way for a reason that will become clearer as the story goes on. Both to me and to you.

Twinkle Eyes, of all the characters in this story, was by far the most fun to write, and I took no pleasure in her fate. If it were up to me, I would just write thousands upon thousands of pages of just Twinkle, Misty, and Rose bouncing off of one another. I love these characters like siblings, and feel that they make a great team.

However, Trottica was only the beginning, and at the end of the day, I write what my own brain hornets tell me to. There is still a much larger story unfolding. One that, as Pinkie Pie said in the original Fallout: Equestria, is building toward "sunshine and rainbows." I hope you'll stick around to discover it with me.

The Pit of Infinite Duckies

CHAPTER NINETEEN - THE PIT OF INFINITE DUCKIES

"There are other worlds than these." -Stephen King

Excerpt from The Ponies' History of Equestria:

The Discordian era was a Dark Age. We call it that not because of the suffering that was inflicted upon Discord's subjects, but rather, the joy that was deprived from them.

We have little to go on, save for a saddlebag full of accounts recorded by the first generation of survivors after The Great Petrification, but one point seems quite consistent from testimony to testimony. The ponies of that era were systematically, or rather, chaotically, robbed of their identity and culture. This was, by all first hoof accounts, far worse a crime than any of the admittedly comical physical violations perpetrated by the tyrant Discord.

'It wasn't all bad.' Reported Ivory Keys, an old mare by the time the royal archivists had started the P.R.E.S.E.R.V.E. oral history project. 'My husband was born blind, you see? 'Till he went and stepped on de empr'ers tail.

'From way I hear it told, Ol' Empr'er Discord, had whipped around, and said, "What are you blind?"

'Then he saw the whites in my poor hubby's eyes. And just bust out laughin', that Discord did.

'Ol' Empr'er touched my special somepony on the head, and made him see for the first time in ever. Even threw a couple-a extra eyeballs onto his face for good measure.

'Freaked 'im out something fierce at firss, but once he got used to it, it really did seem like a miracle. We were both so happy.

'That's one thing that folks who didn't actually live through such times don't never seem to get. Y'all think Discord's reign was a matter-a hardship n' physical torments, every hour, every day.

'Nope.

'Ol' Empr'er Discord was kind as often as cruel. So long as it was funny to 'im. That's the key.

'What really gets ya is something my folks used to call the not-knowin's.

'You couldn't count on sun nor moon to rise and set proper-like. Not like these newfangled innovations our sov-rin princesses worked up. You didn't never know what was gonna happen, or even how long a day was gonna last.

'You couldn't even count on your fellow pony the way you can today. If you went and met somepony you got along with, ya just didn't know if they were gonna to be blind from one day to the next, or if'n they might alla sudden start meowin' like a alley cat.

'So yeah, we all had our bad days and our good.

'But when our highnesses came along, (and I'm proud to call 'em that), dey not only told us stories about kindness, loyalty, laughter, and other et cet'ra's. Dey gave us somethin' to trust."

Ivory Keys' recording is just one of several dozen records to express that sentiment. The surviving testimonies unanimously confirm that Discord, as Emperor, had kept positively everyone intentionally disoriented - in the dark about their own history.

So we refer to this era as The Dark Age, for the ponies of the time were in the dark regarding so very many things. We also refer to it as "dark" because of how little we, in the modern era, know about it.

'There is no darkness as great as the unknown, for in every uncertainty, lies the potential for our greatest fears and insecurities to take root, and bring out the very worst in all of us.' So sayeth Cloprates.

In this vein, it is worthy of note, that Ivory Keys, upon finishing her final recording, left us all with a rather chilling reminder. When the interviewer inevitably inquired whether she or her husband had ever mourned the gift of his vision, she told the story of how her husband lost his sight again after the princesses took reign of the kingdom.

'He wept, of course. For days. Weeks. 'Till suddenly he just plain didn't.

'I didn't question it, being the type to let sleeping dogs lie.

'Whelp, after he had been blind again for quite a while, and the princesses had brought some order back to Equestria, old Ebony Mixolydian told me how lucky he was. For the friends he'd made, the family me and him'd built - for the miracles that happened around us every single day. I know they don't seem like miracles to you youngsters, but to hear kind words at the marketplace, to meet up with old buddies and have 'em remember ya, to be able to put some trust in your sisters, and to know that you got a bunch of someone's to catch you if'n you fall?

'That's a kinda magic I wouldn't never guess possible back in the day.

'Well, anyway, one night, when we knew the worst of it was long behind us – when we were both good and wrinkled, and our kids good and grown, I just up and woke all those sleeping dogs. I asked the old colt outright if he ever missed that short time when he could see – what with all them extra eyes and all.'

[The archivists of the day recorded a long, silence as Ivory rocked back and forth and looked up at the sky.]

'You know what he said to me?

'He put his withered ol' hoof right up against my face and he said, "Honey, I see more clearly now, than I ever done seen before.'"

-The Ponies' History of Equestria

* * *

I sobbed when I crawled through that tunnel. Wailed. Freaked out so blindly that I can barely even remember it now. I carried on and on and on and on and on, 'till eventually the terrors tired out.

After that, I just felt spent. Frayed.

I dragged myself forward, out-of-it as I was. Jittery as I was. And lurched like some kind of zombie. It was fucking awful. The not-knowin's.

That lady from the history books was right. When you don't know what's around the bend, every birthday candle is a potential red hot poker to the eye; every dark scary 300-year-old tunnel, a death trap of whirring spikey bits and flames; and every curve in your path has shadowy clitmuffins on the other end of it, waiting to pop out of nowhere and nom on your fucking soul.

I don't know how long I crawled through the darkness, but it sucked. The sound of my own breath was the only thing that might pass for company. One of the many reasons that I fucking hate tunnels.

Yank! I snagged my sleeve on some kind of ridge - an imperfection in the floor - and fell forward.

"Ahhh!" I cried, certain that I was going to drop away into some hole - some grindy spikey flaming octopus-filled abyss, never to be seen or heard from again.

Then, wham. The floor hit me. And nothing happened.

I'd fallen all of 18 inches.

I got up, rubbed the sore spot on my chin. It didn't even hurt all that much. I looked around, for what good it did. The outsides of my eyelids were as black as the insides.

"Fuck!" I cried out in frustration.

Cringed when the sound inevitably came echoing back at me. If so much as a whimper gets out in a place like that, it reverberatizes strangely - bounces back sounding like some kind of awful whale song.

When you get fed up and actually shout?

It's deafening.

I threw my hooves over my ears.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck." I whispered, growling under my breath, pressing my head against the floor.

I wished I could wake up. Like a normal pony. Like a normal dream.

"Stupid brain wind!" I slammed my head against the floor, whale echoes or no.

I cried. Sobbed. I broke down all over again. Hated myself for it. All over again.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Then I stopped. Just stopped. Picked myself up, and stared angrily at the darkness ahead of me.

“What if I stay here, instead, huh? Ruin your plans!” I raved under my breath. "How do I know you're not just gonna pull some One-I'm-Supposed-to-Save-and-fuck-everypony-else bullshit like last time? Huh? Huh?!"

There was, of course, no answer. So I blew a raspberry at the darkness.

"Pbbbbt."

Still no answer.

It made me so mad that, I forgot about how echoy the tunnel could get. Broke that growly whisper and raised my voice.

"Answer me, already. Answer me!" I commanded.

But once again, there was no answer. Except for my own voice, coming back at me to stab me in the ears. Like that whale song, only it hurt. Hurt so bad I had to stuff my entire mane in my ears just to shut it up.

And when it passed, there was that same old silence. And the hum coming from the wall.

MmmmmMMMMmmMMmm...

With a sigh, I picked myself up, and got to crawling again. Cause what would dying forgotten and alone in a tunnel prove?

* * *

"Stupid voices." I grumbled under my breath.

The fates had a bridle on me. No matter how much I chomped at the bit, I had no choice but to move forward. But it boiled up that slave rage all over again.

I was roasting in there. Sweating. Squirming for half a fucking mile through an ancient spooky Tunnel O' Suck, all 'cause of the whims of a bunch of voices, and images, and super-special/mystical-forcey-heads who took some kind of sick pleasure in shoving me every which way. Watching me like another squiggle majig under their microscope.

Those ineffable pricks never even bothered to give themselves a name - to say hello. To do me the basic common courtesy of saying, "Hay, we're sorry, but we really need ya, Rose, and here's why. Could you do us a solid and help us out?"

Nothing.

I stewed in my anger. Fermented bitter thoughts about The Powers That Be. About the Priestess. About Wormwood. Wondered how I even ended up in such a crawly, shadowy, not-knowin's-y mess anyway? I grumbled my way down the tunnel. Replaying the night's events in my head again, and again. Like a beat up old instructional film they show you in class. 'Till, finally, it struck me.

This wasn't about the folder. Or the war. I wasn't crawling through that forsaken tunnel 'cause of The Powers That Be.

I had done it to myself.

I'd done it to imagine the look on Wormwood's face when she flipped out and blew a gasket.

Fuck you, Colonel wormwood. Fuck you.

That's what drove me in here. Not voices. Not a sense of duty to the potatoes and the corns down in No Mare's Land – not any kind of hifalutin concern for all the lives at stake.

Just a simple, petty fuck you.

One of the good ones, my flank.

There were thousands out there counting on me to fight for them. And all I cared about was spite.

"I'm sorry, Twink." I cried.

l wasn't one of the good ones. Wasn't special. I'd let her down. Whatever it was that poor Twinkle Eyes had thought she'd seen in me was a lie.

I was just like everypony fucking else. Good when I want to be.

Then there was Colonel Wormwood. All that stuff about the Crystal Empire secrets falling into the wrong hooves? She believed it. Sure, she was a boiling kettle of grief-rage. Sure, she was doing a horrifically wrong thing. But she wasn't doing it blind. Wormwood had a reason, and she, at least, believed in it.

Fuck, I thought. If she’s doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, is my doing the right thing for the wrong reasons really any better?

* * *

I ran that fuck you through my head over and over. I had plenty of time to do it, too. In a place like that, your thoughts echo in your skull louder than your hoofsteps do.

Wormwood hadn't simply blown a gasket. She had panicked. The question that ate at me was: Why?

Think about it, Rose. If this tube's a dead end, she can just post a sentry at the entrance to the tunnel. Wait me out. If it's a death trap, she wouldn't have to worry about the folder coming to light.

Yeah, she might care about my well-being just enough not to want me to go inside - she wasn't a monster - but the way she'd acted?

That was no concernitty flail. She was angry. Afraid.

Wormwood knew - actually fucking knew that if I went in there, I would come out again eventually. She knew that I had everything I needed to expose her. Her team may not have cracked The Wall's ancient mojo, but Colonel Wormwood had figured out enough of it to get all flailitty on me. And that meant that if I kept crawling forward, I might actually stand a chance.

So I kept crawling. And crawling and crawling and crawling and crawling.

Left, right, left right.

Slip, slide, slip slide.

My trenchcoat dragging under my knees all the way.

Swish swishitty-swish, swish, swish.

With a little taste of hope, and the not-knowin’s tucked far away, at least for a while, I lost myself. I crawled 'till I forgot I was doing it.

Until my body forgot too. Until I was left with just the rhythm of my breathing, the rhythm of my motion, and the hum of the great big crystal whale wall I was inside of.

It made me forget that my body was even a thing. After my thoughts had finished chasing themselves around in circles, I forgot them too. And was left in a strange hypnotic silence.

Eventually, the rhythm of the crawling faded too.

Then there was the desert.

* * *

Red sands. Everywhere. Purple skies.

"What the fuck?"

I spun around, and saw only horizon. Miles and miles and miles of nothing stretching out as far as the eye can see.

I was somewhere else now. Somewhere alien.

"What the--?" I whispered again.

I closed my eyes. Looked deep down inside. Desperate for a brain hornet. A clue. Anything! Think, think, think, think, think.

But It was quiet in there. For the first time since I’d gotten my cutie mark, the inside of my brain was dead. Fucking. Quiet.

I checked my black evil hoof next. Felt it. Rubbed those red grains of sand against it.

Nothing.

I don't know what I'd expected. The stupid thing wasn't exactly made out of centipedes or anything - no evil mojo teeming around down there. No giant pools of black tar or smoke. But my hoof still felt quieter than usual somehow.

I can't explain it. The shadows' connection to me had been so faint, that I hadn't even noticed it myself. Until it was cut.

The brain hornets were gone. The shadows were gone. Wherever I was, it was outside of their reach.

I looked down. Saw only cracked zig zaggity sands. Looked up. Saw only sickly purple skies. Purple!

Think, Rose. Think! What do you actually know?

The time. Yeah, that's it. The time.

It was 280 years after the big bomb. Same as it was back in the tunnel.

The place? Somewhere un-Equestria.

But how did I know that? More importantly, if I wasn't in Equestria anymore, where was I?

I looked around again: at the sickly skies; at the cracked and broken ground. Scanned the landscape for some kind of clue - some kind of way out. As though there'd be a zipper just casually floating there in the air, that I could grip with my teeth, open up, hop on in, and just go right home. But there wasn't.

I had to calm down. I had to get logicky. It had worked in the tunnel when I'd picked apart Wormwood's motives, and figured out that there had to be an exit. So why not here?

Ok, Rose. I said to myself, yet again. Think!

I was in another place . A world outside of Equestria. That I'd gotten to all by myself. The powers that tugged on me - the hornets, the shadows - for whatever reason, they couldn't follow me here. The only voice I had helping me was totally my own. And all it knew was the time relative to the apocalypse. And it seemed to have an extremely vague concept about the place.

"Sweet Celestia," I whispered to myself.

That internal clock of mine? It wasn't a message from beyond like those other whispers.

It was something I perceived. All by my lonesome[. A fucking superpower. That I had control of.

I thought it over and smiled.

It made me wonder what else I could do.

I approached the nearest object. A rock. Well, not really a rock. More like a dried up clunk of sand. I bent down to look at it real close. Focused on it. Concentrated.

If I could clear my mind again like I had when I'd tranced out back in the tunnel, I stood a chance of maybe doing something, I don't know...else. Something cool!

So I examined every crevice of that rock. And cleared the everliving shit out of my mind. Just gritted my teeth, grunted, and cleared that fucker.

That's what you're supposed to do, right? Clear your mind? I think I read that somewhere.

Anyway, when it was good and clear, I focused. And I waited. 'Till I happened upon this moment - just a teeny tiny moment - where it was just me and the rock, you know? Nothing in the world else.

So I let 'er rip. Threw all my attention forward like a great big attention cannon. Ready to do something amazing. Ready to tap into my inner potential. Ready to get fucking magical. Ready to set fire to that damn rock...with my mind!

* * *

...

* * *

...

* * *

...

Nothing happened. Nothing at all.

"Arrrg!"

I kicked the stupid rock.

“Stupid rock!" I shouted.

When it landed, I had nothing better to do, so I tracked it down. Trudged on over to it, and kicked it again. Just to show it who was boss.

"Fucking desert! Fucking rock!"

I sighed. Plopped my flank down on the ground. And sighed again.

I had no water. No compass. There wasn't even a Sun in that freaky purple sky.

Only I could take something as simple as getting as lost in a tunnel, and turn it into something as complicated as getting lost in a desert.

I missed No Mare's Land. At least there I understood what I needed to do. I missed Ponyville. Dorky old Cliff Diver, and Bananas Foster, and Screw Loose. I worried about Roseluck. Where had she gone? Would she make it in time for Hearth's Warming Morning? I wondered what condition she 'd find my body in if I couldn't figure out how to escape from that stupid desert.

Somewhere in all that, I caught sight of a mountain range way off in the distance. One I hadn't noticed before. So I headed in that direction. Because why the hell not?

I picked myself up with a bit of a grunt, and got moving. The sands were hot under my hooves. The walk took me fucking nowhere. But I made for the mountains anyway cause it seemed like the thing to do.

I'm not sure how far I got. And it doesn't really matter. Because the desert up and disappeared on me.

Poof! Gone. The whole world. The whole universe. Pulled out from under me.

Like the plug in a bathtub. The next thing I know, I'm getting sucked down the drain. In this giant whirlpool of what the hell.

That little meter in my head that told me when and where I was? It went crazy. 300 years after the bomb. 200 years after the bomb. 100. 50. 20. 10.

Worlds flickered in front of me too. Ones not even Equestria. Ones I can't explain. Worlds that took the simple, beautiful primary colors of life, and ground them up into a gritty hideous mess, with not a drop of pastel in sight.

I saw a sock puppet and screamed.

"Fuck!"

I flailed, tried to grab a hold of something - to find a world I could land safely in - to find that rubber ducky that I had taken for granted back when this whole mess had still been a regular old bath. But I just kept swirling on down the drain.

"Ahhh!" I screamed.

'Till finally, I got sucked through the hole, and I fell. Zoom! I hurtled directionless through Luna probably wouldn't even know what, and I suddenly found myself totally surrounded by millions. Billions of these things - bubbles that looked like they were made out of chunks of the night sky - universes. They warped into these weird curvy shapes. Like little rubber duckies careening down the drain with me. But none of them was my ducky. None of them were home.

I concentrated – stretched out with all my might. Focused. The first "ducky" to come within my reach, I grabbed a hold of. Latched on for dear life. It made a squeaky sound. An actual squeaky sound.

"No way," I said.

Then, whoosh.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

Crack-a-doom. Lightning strike. All of a sudden I was in the universe I'd been holding.

That big evil shadow castle from my dreams was right in front of me, big and tall, floating on some kind of sky island.

Time: 1050 years before the bomb. Place: Some kinda space between worlds.

I screamed for dear life. "Aaaah! Ahh! Ahh! Ahhhhhh!"

The thought of setting hoof in that place made me want to grab my own mane, stuff it in my mouth, and swallow it just to avoid breathing the air inside. But I had no hooves to set. No mane to eat. No lungs. No body at all. I shot straight through the castle walls, all the way to the inside.

From there, I just sorta floated with my consciousness. And when I looked around, there were no shadowy clitweasels at all.

* * *

I was in some kind of great big reception hall. It was quiet. Cavernous. Cold. Until the colts came running.

They darted around, trying desperately to escape something. Their hoofsteps echoed all over the place.

"Quick! Hide in there!" One of them whisper-shouted at the other.

A pegasus. Green. About my age. He flew straight up the wall, careful not to be seen.

"Hide there." He said.

"Where?" The other one snapped from down below.

A yellow earth pony kid. The pegasus perched atop a ledge and shuffled his way behind a massive tapestry.

"Where?!" The smaller one repeated, spinning around like a dog chasing his tail.

The pegasus poked his head out from behind his ceiling tapestry just long enough to point at a floor level tapestry.

"Right yonder! Hurry!" His little voice trembled.

The earth pony kid ran for it as fast and as hard as he could. Dove behind the wall rug. Straightened it out. But he was winded, and bad at hiding. He breathed louder than donkey's snore.

The pegasus held dead still behind his ceiling tapestry. Closed his eyes.

"Run," I whispered, though I had no mouth.

A tense silence hung over the hall as the echoes of their hoofsteps faded. The boy at ground level struggled to quiet his breath. When the door thundered open, he gasped, and held it.

My brain wasn't flying around anymore. I was following the kid now. All I could see was the top of his head. All I could hear was the pounding of his heart.

A storm started brewing right there in the castle. The tapestries shook. The winds blew. The temperature of the whole room dropped so fast, the air seemed weird and unnatural. The ground even started to rumble. It was coming for them.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no." The earth pony kid whispered. His heart did a massive drum solo inside his chest.

Then whoosh. The tapestry blew away - folded itself all the way upward, straight to the ceiling, and the child was exposed.

He huddled. Helpless. And an unearthly jingling crept up on him. Like the sound of a Hearth's Warming ghost and his chains dragging over the floor. When the sound stopped, the kid looked up and saw a pony. Beard as long as the ages. Flowing robes adorned with bells and stars and moons.

"What is this?" Said the withered old stallion.

He plopped a poorly made plush toy on the floor.

"Coolface! You found him!"

The kid grabbed the toy with teeth, and hugged it tight.

"That I did." The old guy stared down his nose at the boy. "And how, pray tell, did Coolface find his way into my chambers?"

The beardo's robe jingled with anger.

"I, I, I..." The kid stuttered.

When he couldn't come up with a reply, he just up and burst into tears.

"Cloud Raiser? Would you care to answer?" The beardo turned to face the ceiling - the exact tapestry that the pegasus had hidden behind.

"We...um..."

The pegasus poked his head out from behind the tapestry. He wasn't as stealthy or as clever as he'd thought

"It was me." Said the little one. "Only me."

The beardo cocked an eyebrow. He wasn't buying it.

"A wizard's chambers is no place for child's play. You could've been hurt."

"I know." The little one sobbed.

"Then why were you in there?" Beardo roared, unmoved by the tears.

He knelt down, grabbed the kid by his shoulders.

"Why?" He pleaded angrily.

I got so mad at the old bastard. He seemed like such a jerk. But when I looked closer, I saw terror in his eyes. There was something going on here I didn't quite understand.

"Why?" The beardo bit his lip. Like he was about to cry himself.

"Because I was helping him." Said the pegasus from up above. "To...to...look for a weapon."

Beardo spun around, speechless.

"For the next time that they come back." Said Cloud Raiser.

The wizard's jaw dropped.

"I'm sorry." Said Cloud Raiser.

He leapt off the ledge and flapped his way down onto the ground. "Please don't...we only wanted to...It's just that..Cake Frosting has been afraid to sleep. It's been days."

The old stallion spun to face the little one, Cake Frosting. The earth pony just turned away in shame.

"Why?" Said the wizard. "The princess will protect you. Always. You know that, don't you, child?"

The little guy sniffed, nodded in agreement. After a long hard silence, he finally worked up the nerve to say what was really on his mind.

"But, Master Starswirl," Cake Frosting asked. "What if she can't?"

It hurt him to say it. It hurt the wizard even more to hear it. But it was one of those conversation elephants. A real fear on both of their minds. What if she can't?

"No, " I whispered, though I had no tongue.

Princesses protect you. It's what they fucking do.

What if she can't? What if she can't?! What's wrong with these ponies? I thought. How dare they? Luna can do anything.

It was bad enough that the potato soldiers in the future had to go princessless, but a child? In Luna's own castle?

The thought of it made me feel alone.

I got so mad I couldnt concentrate. My sight went all hazy on me. The whole world started crumbling away. It was like looking through cracked glass.

No. Not again! I struggled to get it together - to hold on - but It was like trying to grip a hoof full of rain.

I could still make out the old beardo. Just barely. He didn't say a word to the kids. Didn't offer any comfort. No hugs, or “it’ll-be-alright’s.” The three of them just sorta stood there, not sure what to do with one another. 'Till their mournful silence was finally broken by the sound of music. Beautiful music.

It's one of the last things I caught before the world flickered away and got all scrambley on me. A voice, dark and soulful. It seemed to whisper in my ear a message of love and acceptance meant for me and me alone. But Cake Frosting's face lit up at the sound of it too. And Cloud Raiser. The only one frowning was the beardo. Something weighed heavily on his mind.

The voice was Princess Luna's. The song, a melody I'll never forget.

"Come little children, I’ll take you away into a land of enchantment.

Come little children, the time’s come to play

Here in my garden of shadows."

The sound of laughing fillies carried in with it. I wished so hard that I could be one of them. I desperately tried to hold on - to focus - for just a moment longer. I had to see what was coming next. But I couldn't! The world was going down the drain way too fast. The absolute last thing I could make out was the ancient beardo.

“It would seem the new freshman class has arrived,” he said in a voice that warbled and flickered away into mush.

"You know what to do." Master Starswirl turned to Cloud Raiser.

Then everything went black.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

Patooey!

That universe spat me out, back into the pit of infinite duckies. It was just as disorienting as it had been the first time, but I was left in awe of what I had seen - of what I had heard.

That feeling I got when Princess Luna had sung to us - I wondered if that's what it felt like to have a mother sing you to sleep.

* * *

Bam!

"Ouch!"

I was going down the stupid hole so fast, I ended up knocking into duckies left and right.

Squeak-a, squeak-a, squeak-a! That same rubber ducky sound that had catapulted me into the castle's past.

"Not again," I said.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

Equestria. 1500 years before the bomb. A giant rock came crashing in from the sky burning with magic flame.

Yikes!

Whooom!

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I bounced out of there, just as quickly as I'd bounced in.

Wrong ducky.

I didn't even get to tumble around the ether this time. Squeak-a-squeak-a-squeak. I slammed into another one, and in I went.

"Stupid duck!" I shouted at the universe.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

The shadow castle again. 29 years after what I'd just seen. Beakers were scattered everywhere. Bunsen burners. A pony was strapped into some kind of freaky looking chair, trying to scream, but she couldn't. She turned black with shadow and mist. Disintegrated into smoke just a few feet in front of me. The sight was so terrible, I would have screamed with her if I could.

I don't know why, but I felt like, somehow, I knew her. In the moment just before her eyes fogged over, she reminded me of Twilight Sparkle. The librarian.

Swish.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I came out again, back in to the pit. The area around me looked like the night sky. Speckled with blue and purple, and a hundred gazillion stars. Flower petals floated around absoltuely everywhere for reasons I can't even begin to explain. I would have stopped to marvel at the beauty of it all, if I could only stop smacking into those stupid rubber duckies every five seconds.

Squeeeak! I hit bottom. The worst ducky of them all.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I found myself suddenly standing in a fancy hallway, only it was decrepit. Ruined. The air was not only dusty, but pink for some reason. It burned my tongue and throat

I can't believe it! I thought.

I have a tongue! And a throat!

I was in an actual body!

There was a catch though. It wasn't mine. I tried to move it. Couldn’t. Tried to steer it. Couldn't. I didn't know what was going on. All I knew for sure was that my host was taller than me, and wearing heavy clothes more uncomfortable than anything I would ever have dreamed possible.

“And you die,” said a booming voice from behind. She sounded almost casual about it, whoever it was.

We spun around, my body and me. Right in front of us was an alicorn. Big and mean. Not like Luna. Not like Blue. This one burned with a malice as bitter as ash, and floated some kind of black leather book over me.

Oh, dear.

My legs gave out. I dropped to my knees; they splashed into a thin pool of blood - my own blood - blood that was becoming saturated with...pink.

My lungs burned. My head throbbed. It had to be that pink stuff in the air.

Great! I hopped into a dying body. Can't I just catch a break for just one fucking minute?!

But a voice answered me from inside my head. Be Unwavering! It said.

Only it didn't sound like me. Or a brain hornet. It was my host. The Mare.

* * *

I could feel the physical effects of anger. Tension. Hatred. Rage. All focused on the alicorn who stood over us, ready to telekinetically thrust a thousand knives at our already failing body.

The Mare didn't care. She just watched the alicorn's adornments with the purest of all possible anger. It was bones around the Evil Alicorn's neck. A skeleton. With wings. And a horn.

My Rosie Sense kicked in.

Canterlot. 200 years after the bomb.

I knew this story. Big Blue had told it back in the trenches.

We were facing down the bitch who had killed Luna.

Suddenly The Mare's anger became my own.

"You fuck!" I sobbed though no one could hear. "You fucking, fucking fuck!"

The Mare held it together better than I. She focused coldly on Luna's skeleton, especially its long, slender horn.

A host of magical knives darted through the air at us, but The Mare didn't even care. She just focused. I could sense her horn coming to life as though it were my own.

The Evil Luna-Killing Bitch glanced downward as her necklace shifted. And we struck.

With a telekinetic thrust, Luna’s horn drove through the soft tissue under the Evil Bitch's muzzle, right up into her brain. Just fucking impaled it.

She twitched once, the spark of life remaining in her just long enough for her knives to strike home.

Most of those magic blades evaporated against my armor - Littlepip's armor - but several sunk in deep before vanishing as the alicorn crumpled to the ground.

"Aaaahhh!" I screamed.

And fell again into blackness.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I tumbled forward. Dropped off of that world into one where the air was bitter cold. No stars. No space. Just a frosty smack to the lungs. And wham. Landed face first on the ground.

* * *

It hurt. It hurt like Hell. But the fall hadn't killed me.

"Ugh."

My face burned with the ache of the impact. My cheek was left with a sharp sting - my head, a dull throb. Then I realized that it was my cheek! And my head!

I lay there a while. Coughing up what tasted like blood, staring off into nothing, working up the nerve to get on my hooves again.

There was a faint glow up ahead. The rest was black. I was getting really, really tired of black.

I groaned.

It sure felt great to be back in my own body again. Except that I was apparently bleeding. The pounding in my head gradually slowed down nice and easy. I was in no rush to get up. There didn't seem to be anything there that was actively trying to kill me.

Not bad as far as duckies go. I thought.

Then I heard it. The humming.

I was back inside the Crystal Wall. No Mare's Land. 280 years after the bomb.

I sighed in relief. I never thought that I would actually be happy to be back inside of the Crystal-fucking Wall. With a moan, I rolled over on my back, and looked up at the opening I'd fallen from.

Even though it was dark up there, it was no longer completely and totally pitch black. The long long tunnel I had trudged through for Luna only knows how long? All that fear? All that discomfort? All of those not knowin's? It amounted to a tiny hole in the wall. About seven feet up. Completely unremarkable. There wasn't even a ladder or a guard rail. No one was ever meant to go inside.

A cool breeze tickled the top of my head ever so softly. I rolled over to face it.

The darkness softened just a little bit. A faint purple glow was creeping in from somewhere outside The Wall.

The Way Out.

With a long slow groan, I picked myself up and headed for it. I hoped that I wasn't too late.

As I dragged myself forward, the black gradually got paler and paler. I even started tasting real air again. As my escape into the wide, wide world of No Mare's Land seemed more and more imminent, I made myself a vow.

No more tunnels. Tunnels are just too damn weird for me.

Author's Note

Special thanks to Seraphem and Deep Sky. You not only helped me edit and proofread this chapter, but put up with my obnoxious re-writing of it six times. I'm a pain in the ass. Thank you. This chapter would not have come together without your input. You're both awesome.

A Special Kind of Friendship

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - A SPECIAL KIND OF FRIENDSHIP
“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

After Kettle Corn and I parted ways, our next stop was Bananas Foster. AKA Thirteen.

I found the idea of it terrifying, to be honest. Not ‘cause she was a changeling. Not ‘cause she had been sent out into the world on a shadow mission by those inky clitweasels. Not because those said same clitweasels were currently hunting for Foster. Trying to figure out how she'd managed to disappear from their sight.

It was the hospital.

The idea of going back inside turned all my muscles into rocks. Transformed my chest into a cage full of angry butterflies with razor wings and super-anxiety-moth-lasers shooting out of their eyes.

‘Cause everypony in there - the nurses, the doctors, the orderlies, the paperwork ponies - they all thought I might be crazy. And they thought that before I had flipped out in front of the whole town!

I thought back to that discharge report that Roseluck had left on the kitchen table. Somepony in there had written that thing up. Somepony in that hospital had examined my head without my even realizing it.

I wasn't sure what exactly was going on in Ponyville General, but I knew I couldn’t trust anyone there who wasn’t wearing a gown.

“What is it?“ Cliff said.

I looked down. I hadn’t realized it before, but it turned out that I’d been clinging to the Ponyville General Hospital sign that stood at the edge of the grounds, clutching it for dear life. As though the hospital were some kind of malström looming beneath a sinking pirate ship. Trying to suck me down to my doom.

“Hehe.” I chuckled lightly. “Nothing.”

And as Cliff watched me, all concernitty. Again. I eyeballed the hospital entrance. Made a decision then and there. To get it the fuck together. I couldn't have a freak out every time I had to face something unpleasant. Kettle’s house. The hospital. Where was it gonna stop?

Was I gonna seize up and make an ass of myself when I had to go back to school? Just ‘cause I’d end up having to explain myself a little?

I shook my head.

No. There was no way I could live the rest of my life like that.

I turned to Cliff. Swallowed my throat-apple straight into my belly. "I’m fine," I said stiffly. Let's go.”

* * *

All was quiet in the waiting room. No hustle. No bustle. No bleeping or blooping sounds. Just a room full of empty chairs and a yellow mare I had never met before sitting behind a receptionist's desk, fiddling with some kinda paperwork.

“Where is everypony?” Cliff whispered to me.

“I guess no one got hurt today," I replied.

“Um, excuse me?” I spoke up. Tried to get the receptionist’s attention. “We're um, here to visit a friend.”

“One moment, please," the mare mumbled, pencil still in her mouth.

She delicately gathered up the scattered stacks of papers and nudged them into folders with her hooves. Aligned them slowly and meticulous-like. Until at last, she was ready to acknowledge our presence.

“Okay,” she said, letting the pencil drop from her lips as she spoke. “Now how can I help you, sweeti--;”

The receptionist stopped dead the moment she saw me. What had started as a hint of a smile in her cheeks drooped like wax. Slid down her skull, and melted into something of a scowl.

As if to say, Oh. It's you.

I shrunk back. In total shock.

The receptionist must've surprised herself too. ‘Cause she tightened her lips back. Sat up straight. And put on her best professional face. Clearing her throat, she said to me, “What can I do for you again?”

In a way, her politeness just made it worse. The fact that she wasn't even trying to be mean. The fact that her reaction to me was purely visceral.

“We're visiting a friend," Cliff said for both of us.

“Not family?” The receptionist asked.

Cliff and I exchanged glances.

“Um, no. We're friends," he said.

“I see," said the receptionist dryly.

She buried her face in her papers again. Took to rummaging.

“Um, hello?” Said Cliff.

But the receptionist did not reply.

“It never mattered before," Cliff added.

Shwack! The lady behind the desk slapped a clipboard down in front of us.

“Sign in here, and have a seat.”

“Um, okay," said Cliff.

We both did. Name, date, time, and patient. And then we sat in those squeaky chairs. As the waiting room fell still again.

Tick-tick tick-tick tick-tick tick-tick tick-tick. Went the second hoofof the clock on the wall.

“I don't understand.” Said Cliff Diver. “They usually just let me walk right in.”

“It’s me," I whispered. “She's trying to get rid of me.“

“What?” He recoiled. “No, don't be silly. Why would she do that?”

I raised an eyebrow at him. Waited for it to sink in. Tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick.

Suddenly, Cliff Diver gasped. Clutched his chest with his hooves like a delicate debutante. “You don’t think…”

He stopped. Crunched his face up real hard as his thinking gears got to turning. Then, without warning, he shot up out of his chair as though it were a catapult. Marched on over to the desk.

“Excuse me," he said.

“What can I do for you?” The receptionist said, not bothering to look up from her paperwork.

“I, um, understand that you're very busy, but we were kinda wondering about the wait.”

“We need to check to make sure the patient isn't occupied. Your friend could be with a doctor, or a therapist, or in the lab getting tests done, or any number of things," the receptionist answered. “We’ll call you when the coast is clear.”

Cliff glanced at the clock. Plunged his face into his coat pocket. Pulled out paper clips and rubber bands and lint. And finally, a crumpled up piece of paper, which he studied carefully. “I have her schedule," he said. “I know we didn't come at a bad time. And...and...and...you didn’t even glance at the sign in sheet!”

The receptionist sighed. Rolled her pencil aside. “Look, kid. There are other factors.” She stole a glance at me.

“What other factors?” Cliff said indignantly.

The mare rubbed her temples. Like she had a headache coming on. “This is a facility for the sick," she replied. “I understand that you want to get in there and see your little friend. But I have to wait ‘till my supervisor gets back. I can’t be held responsible for any…” She paused to look up and study the ceiling. As though the right word might be written on it. “…Disruptions.”

Again, she snuck a peek at me just as the words finished coming out of her mouth. This time, out of the corner of her eye.

“But it's a disruption if we don't go!” Cliff Diver's voice cracked indignantly. “Foster's expecting us.”

“Go right through those doors," the receptionist said out of the blue, suddenly devoid of all passion. “When you get to the end of the hallway, make a right.”

“You don't understand,” said Cliff. “You can't just--;”

He stopped. “What?”

He stretched his neck out in the direction of the double doors, following the receptionist’s directions in his head. Then he spun back around and turned to me. Shot me a what the fuck glance.

I shrugged in reply. I didn't know what was going on either.

“Wait, what?” Cliff said again.

“Right up that hall," the receptionist repeated. This time, she glanced my way. But all of her revulsion - all her veiled hostility - was totally gone.

That mare almost seemed to be looking right through me. Like those No Mare's Land soldiers who just sorta sat there in the cold. Gazing at nothing. “Down the hall and to the right," she said.

“Um...Thank you," I replied.

The receptionist turned to Cliff, and spoke in a dry, monotone voice. “Isn't she the sweetest, bravest little thing?”

“Huh?” I pointed to myself. Made a what, who, me? gesture at Cliff.

But he didn't know what was going on either. Cliff just wrinkled up his face, shrugged, and shook his head while I hurried stealthily past the front desk.

I couldn't quite put my hoof on it, but I Iiked that mare even less when she was being accommodating.

“You're very welcome," she replied coldly. Mechanically. So much time I passed since I had told her ‘thank you,’ that her reaction seemed almost totally random.

Cliff and I moved on.

Once the double doors shut safely behind us, we pressed our faces to the glass window. And watched the receptionist carefully.

She didn't seem to be up to anything. At least not anything interesting. She just sorta sat back down like normal. Rubbed her temples a bit. And got to organizing papers again. Corralling them with her hooves into neat little stacks.

“Weird," said Cliff.

“Let's go," I said. “Before she changes her mind.”

We made our way down the hall, swung a right like the receptionist lady had said. The first thing we saw was a nurse's kiosk. For a brief moment, I cringed. Hoping that none of them looked my way. That Nurse Redheart didn't see me, and stare down at me with disappointy eyes for what I had done.

I felt a strong impulse creep up in my belly. Urging me to run and hide.

But then the Twinkle Eyes in my head judged me harder than the nurses ever could.

I had just fucking sworn to myself, right outside, that I was gonna knock it off. Get it together. Have some damn dignity. And there I was, not ten minutes later, already starting to come apart at the seams all over again.

My Brain Twink put a stop to that. Just by making her presence known. The moment I sensed her, I snapped right out of my idiotic panic.

“Not the two-by-four of friendship!” I whimpered aloud, anticipating Brain Twink's wrath.

A bunch of the nurses turned. Looked my way. Not Redheart, thank Celestia! But Nurse Stethescope, (aka the Jerkface Who'd Taunted Screw Loose), and the fledgling young nurse I'd nicknamed the Purple Professional.

“What're you doing back here?” said the Jerkface.

Fearing the wrath of my Inner Brain Twink, I summoned all of my willpower not to cringe. Or show weakness of any kind. Especially in front of that guy.

“We're visiting Bananas Foster," I said.

“Isn't she the sweetest, bravest little thing?” He replied in a somewhat exhausted tone.

“Huh?” I said, getting all dé-ja-vu-ish and stuff. But before I could even begin to process the super-mega-weirdness of what was going on, something primal inside of me kicked in instead. Out of nowhere. And for just a brief, tiny moment, I was a little filly back on the playground again, taking offense at what the Jerkface had said, Isn't she sweetest little thing or whatever?

“She’s not little," I grumbled. “She's taller than me.”

“Not me,” said Cliff, in a sudden flash of smugness. “I'm taller than both of you.”

I glowered at Cliff. And we kept walking. But the Jerkface back at the kiosk - he just stared at the wall. All vacant-like.

It was freaky.

* * *

Cliff and I disappeared around the corner. After a few twists and turns, we found ourselves at my old hospital suite. Foster's permanent home.

It felt weird being on the outside. As I stood there, knocking on the door, it occurred to me that, even after spending two of the most intense weeks of my life in there, I would not have been able to find the place if Cliff hadn't lead the way.

“Come in," came a muffled voice from the inside. I could hear Foster's curtains too, sliding along their tracks.

When we stepped in, Cliff and I found the room totally empty. Well, my half anyway. They'd rolled the bed out, and left a big wide empty space. Cleared out everything but a couple of visitors’ chairs.

“Rose Petal!” Foster rushed to the edge of her bubble. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah," I said, a little taken aback. Instinctively, I inspected myself. To make sure there weren't any giant holes in me or anything.

“I heard about what happened.”

“Oh. Yeah," I said. “That.”

I nudged the door closed. Wiggled out of my winter coat and hung it on a hook on the wall.

“It's taken care of," I said. And as the words left my mouth, I slowly begin to realize the truth of them.

The incident was behind me. Finally.

Sure, I might still get a dirty look or two, and yeah, I was positive I'd end up reiterating the same explanation again, and again, and again.

But it really was taken care of. There was nothing left to do but move on.

“I'm kinda sick of talking about it," I told Foster. “All that matters is that I learned something about the Shadows.”

“You did?”

I hurriedly grabbed a chair and nudged it across the room with my face. Cliff did the same. We plopped our flanks down. Leaned in super close. And I asked Bananas Foster, “Have you ever heard of blues music?”

“Like Badwing Jubilee!” Cliff interjected with foal-ish exuberance.

Foster glanced at me. Hoping for a clue. But I just rolled my eyes.

“Uh, yeah," Bananas said. “I’m vaguely familiar with blues. It’s fringe Equestrian culture, but I’m thorough in my research.” She sat up tall. Knowing was a point of pride. “But, uh, I never actually heard any blues, now that you mention it.” Foster’s grin faded. “Just read about it. And this, um, Badowin, Badwum, Badw--;”

“Badwing!” Said Cliff.

“Yeah.”

Cliff smiled a mouthful of pearly whites.

“Never heard of him either.”

“Her,” said Cliff. “Badwing was a her. See, she's this awesome--;”

Fwomp. I stuffed a hoof in Cliff's mouth.

Foster masked a chuckle.

“The blues has the power to ward off shadows," I said. “It takes all of that darkness in a pony - fear, regret, sadness. That kinda stuff. And turns it into joy...Well, supposedly.” I added. (It had never actually worked for me).

'Anyway, a bunch of Travelers invented it as a way to sorta bring that pain to light so that the shadows couldn't use it against them.”

Foster laughed nervously. “Yeah, um, no offense, but I don't think I'll be listening to that.”

“Why not?” Said Cliff, spitting my hoof out of his mouth. “It's totally amazing. It's so raw, and real, and--;”

“That's not how it works for me," Bananas interrupted. “Turning pain into joy is probably great for a crowd of drifters huddling under a bridge, trying to ward off a shadow attack. But me?” Foster tapped her noggin. “The shadows have already been in here. Deep in here. My only hope at all is if I can keep them from finding me.”

Bananas held up her hoof. As if to say ‘hold on.’ She darted to the corner, plunged her face into that trunk of hers and produced a vinyl record. A few seconds later, she had it all set up and ready to go.

After a couple of crackles and pops, an orchestra began to play. Just like the last time that Foster and I had had a little shadow talk.

“It's music," Cliff whispered. “Music is a kind of magic that fends them off. It’s not about genre or whatever. It's what inspires you.”

“No," Foster chuckled as she sat back down in her chair. She leaned right up to the edge of the bubble. With passionate intensity. As eager as a foal on Hearth’s Warming Morn’. “Maybe that's true of ponies, and maybe it isn't. But when it comes to what I'm doing, you have no idea how wrong you are.” A mischievous smirk stretched across her face.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, Little Miss Smarty," I said. “What makes you so different?”

“First of all, I can't be Miss Smarty. I'm not even female.”

“What?!” Cliff said.

“None of us are," Foster replied. “Except, of course, for our glorious queen.”

Bananas sighed.

She missed her mother. He missed his mother.

“You mean you're…” Cliff’s jaw kept moving, but no sounds came out. He was at a total loss for words.

“Does it matter?” Foster folded his forelegs.

“No.” Cliff shuffled in his seat. “Of course not. I'm just, you know, surprised.”

“Aaaaanyway, a hive has one queen, a few dozen scouts, and about 7,000 soldiers.”

“All male?” I said.

“No. We're not exactly male either.”

“Okay, now I'm confused," I said. “First of all, he or she?” I couldn't even figure out how to phrase the thoughts running through my head without pronouns.

“She.” Foster replied. “Let's keep it simple so we don't slip up in front of outsiders. We have enough secrets to keep.”

I nodded.

“It doesn't matter anyway. Where I come from, there is no gender. There is no, ‘I'm a pegasus mare.’” Foster put on a Whinnysota accent. “There is no ‘I'm a unicorn stallion.’” Out came a heavy male Bucklyn voice. “You are your job. You are your rank and number. And only that.”

“Thirteen," said Cliff.

Foster blushed. Brushed the mane away from her eyes. “Not exactly. That's uh...more of a nicknumber.”

Cliff and I looked to one another. “A nicknumber?” We both said in monotone unison.

“My kind uses a lot of hexagons in our architecture. It's a sort of, um...sacred geometry.”

“I hate geometry," I said. But Foster just ignored me.

“And because everything comes in sixes, Thirteen is, to us, an accursed number. So, it’s a rank that we politely skip over.

'My big brother, Fourteen, got superstitious about it, so I agreed to take on the name Thirteen, as a sort of honorary title. I mean, how much more cursed could I get, right?” Foster laughed.

“A lot," said Cliff.

“Dude.” I gave him a shove.

“Sorry.”

“No," Foster said. “Cliff's right.”

The classical music in the background petered down to a faint hiss. And the silence put Foster on edge. She closed her eyes. Tapped her hoof against the chair. Tip tap. Tip tap. Tip tap. Waiting for the next song to play.

‘Till Boom! A big drum hit. And horns started ba-ba-baaa’ing.

With a sigh of relief, Foster changed the subject from her own cursed fate.

“I'm a scout," she said with pride. “We travel across realms in search of a new host. When you're trying to feed an entire hive, finding the right host is absolutely crucial.”

“And you picked Equestria," I said. Suddenly feeling sick to my stomach.

It shouldn't have mattered to me. But somehow, knowing a thing, and talking about it out in the open were totally different creatures.

“You picked us ‘cause of our love, and our friendship," Cliff added with a callous touch of intellectual enthusiasm.

“I picked you because of your social structure," Foster replied.

“Our what now?”

“Princesses," Bananas continued. “Ponies worship anyone with wings and a horn. It's part of your culture. If Mother could have harnessed that, it would’ve been enough to keep us all fed for years, and years, and years.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” Cliff interrupted. “How does the love she eats feed everyone else?”

“Were you at The Canterlot Wedding?” Foster said with a raised eyebrow. “Did you see my brothers smashing themselves against the dome to get inside? Did you see them swoop down on the streets of Canterlot?”

Both Cliff and I shook our heads no. We’d each been stuck at home. Unable to attend.

“Well that's what they did,” Foster continued. “How were seven-thousand drones supposed to find seven-thousand hosts, and trick them all while the city was occupied, and everypony was on the defense? There would have been a catastrophic love famine had all of my brothers been expected to feed themselves!”

'No," Bananas Foster added firmly. “It all comes from Mother. Everything comes from Mother.”

“But how?” Cliff reiteratized.

Foster closed her eyes. Licked her lips. Lifted her head up high. “Listen to that," she said.

Cliff and I stopped. Pricked our ears up. But we didn't hear much of anything.

“An Equestrian symphony orchestra has twenty, forty, sometimes two-hundred players," Foster explained. “All of them following a meticulously constructed script. All of them following a conductor. They move as one, even when each section has radically different tasks.

'The ensemble ebbs. It flows. When executed correctly, an orchestra is the closest thing pony culture has to a hive.

'My family is all connected," she added, smile on her face. “Mother’s voice in our heads. Like a maestro. Only we don't need weeks of rehearsal the way an orchestra does. We're already of one mind.

'We act instantly upon her will. And she transmits love. Nourishment.” Foster reclined back in her chair. “My brothers - we don't just love each other. We are each other. That's what friendship means to us,” she said as tears pooled up in her eyes. “I miss it. I really miss it. Her voice!”

Foster shook her head. “Your world is so quiet. So empty. How do you stand it?!” Her voice cracked.

Cliff shrugged. Not a nonchalant kinda shrug. A Holy Celestia, I wish I could help you but I have no clue what to say kinda shrug.

Then I had a realization.

“We do have something like that," I said softly.

“Huh?” Cliff looked at me like I had slugs growing out of my eyes.

“Musical numbers. I can't imagine what it must be like to live like you, Bananas. Caught up in the collective. All the time. But I have tasted what it feels like. To get swept away. To move as one. And I know what it’s like to get cut off...Well, at least a little bit," I added quickly, careful not to equate my setback with Foster's world-shattering loss.

She nodded back solemnly.

“But...musical numbers are temporary,” Cliff jumped in. “We don't live our everyday lives like that. How do you get stuff done? How do you focus? How do you do your homework? How do you read a book with all that stuff going on inside your head?”

“Our consciousness is different than yours. We're built for it.” Foster tapped her noggin. She was already out of her sentimental slump, and back into explainy mode.

“But how?” I said.

“Our minds are…well...” Bananas looked to the ceiling. Flailed her forelegs around wildly as she struggled to conjure the right words. “Compartmentalized," Foster said at last with uncertainty. She knew it was totally the wrong term. But still couldn't name it anything better.

“When the shadows probed me, I hid my hive mind. Like a secret room. They dug for weeks. Tortured me. For weeks. And I didn't cave.

'...Until they found it.” Foster shuttered. “After about the thousandth time they made me relive the attack. I actually felt those rusty voices. Scratching at the outside of my secret room.

‘I couldn't bear the thought of those scratchy metallic whispers speaking at me from the inside. From the deep place. The part of my head where Mother's voice had spoken from.

‘And it was only a matter of time. Before they realized what they had found. And broke down the walls. So I surrendered. Agreed to play their game. Made them think they won.

‘Then they released me into the world. Swearing a billion promises. None of which I kept.”

Foster stopped for just a moment. Closed her eyes as a single violin sang sweetly through the phonograph horn. Even I noticed how sad it sounded. How tender.

“I've been off their map ever since.”

“Good one," said Cliff.

“Thank you," she sighed. “Now to answer your earlier question, the records I play are more than a simple matter of taste. The orchestra wakes up that little corner of my brain. Keeps it secret so that you, and me, and Rose can talk freely about the shadows."

Cliff nodded intensely.

“So no,” Foster concluded. “I won'tbe inviting them back into my head with any blues music.”

“Shame. It’s soooooo awesome.”

No it isn't. I mouthed silently

…

“Pfff!” Foster broke out laughing. Had there been milk involved, it woulda come out her nose.

I snickered too.

“What?” Cliff said, looking back and forth. To Foster, then me. Then Foster, then me, then Foster, then me. “What?!”

Bananas and I just laughed all the harder. ‘Till there came a knock on the door.

It creaked open. And all three of us fell silent.

"Good news,” said the nurse that I had previously nicknamed the Purple Professional. “Your books finally arrived. All the way from Canterlot!”

She strode confidently in, pushing a fully loaded cart. Paperbacks mostly. Daring Do, Pinkbeard, romance novels. And two giant hardcover tomes.

“Canterlot?” Cliff and I asked at the same time.

The Purple Professional nodded. “Letters of the Founding Sisters: A Collection”

“Gosh,” said Foster. “That's super awesome!” Her voice suddenly bursting with wholesome fucking sunshine.

Purple approached the dome, laid the big old books on the floor, and slid them carefully into the bubble.

“Thanks," Foster said with a giggle and a smile. “I don't know what I'd do without you!”

“You're welcome,” the Purple Professional replied. And as she grabbed the cart with her unicorn magic, and spun it around, she snuck a peek at Foster. Who was already turning the pages eagerly.

Purple leaned in close to me and Cliff, and whispered, “Isn't she the sweetest, bravest little thing?”

I was left dumbfounded.

Those were the exact same words that the Jerkface nurse had catatonically recited to us not ten minutes before. And the receptionist too!

The sweetest, bravest little thing.

Purple nudged the book cart out the door. And Foster snorted a dorky little laugh. Blushing and smiling through her thank-yous.

‘Till click. The swinging, creakitty door finally latched shut. Then whoosh! That innocent smile dropped from her face like a falling curtain.

“Wait ‘till you see this stuff!” Bananas got down on the floor and spun Volume One around. “Rose, you should take a look at these. Ponies’ History of Equestria has snippets of original source material, but this has an exhaustive account of the details that went into the founding of Equestria. Not to mention its downfall under Emperor Discord. The footnotes are thorough too! Professor Dusty Tome did a great job of contextualizing everything.”

Foster slid the books back through the dome. Looked to me with a smile. A real one. But I was not in the mood to smile back.

“What about everyone who's not in your hive?” I said.

“Huh?”

“You guys are in each other's minds and stuff all the time," I reasoned. “You’re all one. But...How do you feel about everyone else?”

Foster blink-bloinked her eyes at me. Blink-bloink. Blink-bloink. Blink-bloink. “I don't understand the question.”

Cliff jumped in. "I think Rose is concerned about the hospital staff.”

Foster sighed. “Oh," she said. "I had a feeling that was gonna come up eventually."

“Are you controlling them?”

“Not really,” she answered with a shrug.

“The Purple Professional just used the same exact words that Jerkface Nurse and the receptionist did.”

Foster crinkled her face up in confusion. Like an old paper bag. She didn't know what the fuck I was talking about.

“Isn't she the sweetest bravest little thing?” I clarified.

“Oh. Her," Bananas Foster replied. “She’s fine. Why? Did she look unhappy to you?”

Bananas scooched in closer to the edge of the dome. She appeared to be genuinely concerned, so I took a moment to think about it carefully. To reread the events in my brain. The Purple Professional hadn't actually seemed unhappy. Like, at all. In fact, she’d been perkier dealing with Bananas than she had ever been while dealing with me.

“No,” I said.

“Good.”

“But the lady at the front desk did," I added. “And the Jerkface Nurse at the counter! He was totally wrecked.”

“I still gotta eat, Rose," Foster retorted casually. “That's just a reality.”

And out of the blue, I was reminded of the words of the High Priestess of Trottica. The quote from the ancient philosophersthat Foster had actually been able to identify. Food first, morals follow on.

I saw red.

"You don't gotta do it like that!” I squeaked.

“Like what?”

“Like, you know, messing with their brains and stuff.”

“But you hate him.”

“No, I don't.”

“He tormented your dog friend. For fun.”

“Okay, fine," I growled. “I hate him.”

“Exactly," Foster exclaimed. “Soooo, I've been feasting on him. So I can afford to leave the other nurses alone.”

“Wait. You're saying you actually care what happens to the other nurses?”

“No,” Foster replied, matter-of-fact-ishly. “But you do. You're a softy when it comes to, you know...innocents and stuff.” She rolled her eyes. “So I narrowed my pool of hosts to leave them out of it. I mean, yeah, sure, I've taken a nibble here and there on everypony else. Just enough to plant suggestions so they don't start suspecting me.”

I sighed. Ran my hoof through my mane. Foster made a certain amount of sense. I understood that she had to eat. I really did. I even got that she was probably kinda sorta maaaaybe eating conscientiously. For a changeling anyway.

But I still couldn't accept it.

“That's...that's...like...slavery," I whispered. “For the ponies you do feast on.”

Foster froze.

“Oh, boy," she said as she raised trembling forehooves to her face. Rubbed her temples. “It’s not," she sighed. “It’s really not.”

“You're making ponies do things they wouldn't ordinarily do.”

“I'm making them do things that are less terrible than what they’d ordinarily do. The triage nurse at the front desk?” Foster gritted her teeth. “I'm still working on her. You should hear her gossip when she's back here. The things she says!”

Gossip about me. I thought. The mean lady at the front desk spent her lunch breaks or whatever gossiping about crazy old me. Attacker of popcorn-themed fillies.

Bananas’d had the good taste not torub it in of course. But come on, it's not like Foster would have given a fuck if she was into Sapphire Shores gossip.

“You're okay with that?” Foster squeaked.

“No,” I said. “...I mean, yes! Like, if that's what she actually feels. ‘Cause, like, what happens when you take that away from her?” I pleaded with Foster. Tried desperately to make myself understood. “She's not the same pony.”

“Because she's not a jerk anymore?”

“‘Cause she doesn't have a choice anymore.”

“I never had a choice," Foster retorted.

“I'm so sorry," Cliff said, hanging his head low. If he’d had a hat, he'd have taken it off and clutched it to his chest, all solemn-like.

“Don't be sorry," Bananas rolled her eyes. “I don't want one.”

I sighed in relief. Chuckled nervously. Just a little. She’d been talking about her hive mind. Not her accursed shadowy fate with all the torture and stuff. This would be a much easier subject to tackle.

“Well, to us,” I said. “It's everything.”

"Yeah,” Cliff added. “If you don't, like...have the freedom to choose to be a jerk, you never learn. You don't grow to be better.”

"Or friendshippier," I said,

But Foster didn't wanna hear it. "Come on, Rose. I don't expect Cliff to understand, but you have to!”

“Why do I have to?” I gently mocked her tone.

“Uh, ‘cause you got hurtled through time and space by mystical forces, and thrust into amission with a predetermined outcome? Twice?!”

“Hey, I made all the decisions on my own!” I squeaked. Foster had officially pushed me too far. “You think the voices told me how to escape the Priestess, or the mines? Do you think they even gave me a clue what I was supposed to be doing in the trenches?”

“No," Bananas leaned forward and whispered consporatorily. “But they already knew what those decisions were gonna be. That's why they chose you to be their drone.”

"I'm not a drone!"

“I meant it as a compliment," Foster said.

“Ponies don't work that way," Cliff said, matter-of-fact-ishly.

“Look,” Foster fiddled with her mane, all exasperated-like. “I know this notion is contrary to your culture, but nocreature can help who they are. What they are. Every event in your life has made you the pony you are today.”

“What would you two be like if you were raised by Cliff's parents..." Bananas pointed at me. “And you were raised by Roseluck.” She shifted her hoof in Cliff's direction.

I shivered in revulsion. Cliff snickered and smirked. Then we both just stopped. Looked at one another. It was freaky and weird. Like in The Legend of Pinkbeard and the Curse of the Swapping Stone.

"I can fix these ponies," Foster said. “Make them not jerks to us anymore.”

I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. Jerks to us anymore. That’s what everything boiled down to with Foster. Us and them.

The scary thing was that I actually kinda understood it now. If everycreature you ever cared about lived inside your brain, then yeah, of course it would be impossible not to think of everyone else as a bunch of outsiders who didn't matter.

But that didn't make it any better. Foster's belief that we were all a bunch of puppets? It itched at my soul. Struck something primordial in me. A dread I couldn't name.

As I sat there contemplating it, the horns kicked in on Bananas Foster's record. I'd mostly been ignoring the music completely ‘till then, but those blaring trumpets - that noble fanfare - it made me think of Equestria's glories. Its triumphs.
And I realized that all of it had come from one thing.

“What about hope?" I said solemnly. “If you don't have the freedom to choose to be a jerk, you never learn. You don't grow to be better. Or friendshippier. Equestria was founded on that hope. That chance.”

Cliff nodded in enthusiastic approval.

Foster twisted her lower lip. Crunched up her cute filly forehead and thought about it. Real hard.

The music on the record grew stronger. Bolder. Climbed up high. ‘Till it finally hit its final epic crash-of-a-finale. Then, when the echoes of the concert hall decayed into nothingness, Foster broke the silence at last.

“Are you willing to gamble your dogmare friend on that hope?” She said.

To that, I gave no answer. I honestly didn't know. Screw Loose was so helpless. And Foster could protect her. At least a little bit.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I couldn't back down either. I had lost everything remotely resembling innocence. My principles? My purity? They were all I had. All that any of us had. Anyone who'd lived through mines and wars and stuff, anyway. Without it, ponies seemed to lose their way, and come out of their tragedies jaded like the soldiers of No Mare's Land, if not downright evil like the High Priestess of Trottica.

That moral bedrock had been the drive behind every victory I'd had.

My head started throbbing. A thousand ideas pounded around inside my skull. All at once. I closed my eyes. Thought about the coming war.

Ponies and zebras were gonna do horrific things to each other, and end the whole fucking world. All because they believed in their goals instead of believing in virtues.

I couldn't accept that. I couldn't become like that.

I felt a new resolve. A total confidence in my convictions. 'Till I heard a meal cart wheel screeching its way down the hallway. And for a brief moment, I thought it was Screw Loose. Crying. I remembered how helpless she was. How alone. How fragile.

I was the only pony in the whole wide world that that poor dogmare actually trusted. It would be totally evil and selfish for me not to do everything in my power to protect her.

With a heavy sigh, I opened up my eyes. Looked to Cliff Diver. Who was super mega concernitty. Then to Bananas.

"I don't know." I told her in all honesty. "I really don't know."

Author's Note

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support makes a difference, and it means a great deal to me. /]*[\

DISCLAIMER: I have no affiliation with Bethesda whatsoever. Fallout 76 isn't my fault. I swear.

A Familiar Face

CHAPTER FIFTY - A FAMILIAR FACE
"Is the deer crossing the road, or is the road crossing the forest?" - Freequill

The Pinkbeard series is weird when you think about it. Almost every other book in the history of equine literature has forgiveness in it. Lots and lots of forgiveness. You know, Pony #1 gets selfish. Promises to help Pony #2, but slacks off cause they're tired or whatever, and ends up fucking everything up by mistake. They say they're sorry. Make up for it somehow, and everything gets all forgiveitty. The end.

Pirates aren't like that. They don't do forgiveness. Because they don't fuck up like that in the first place. When you're on the run from the East Equestria Trading Company; when you're swapping canon balls with a ship that's literally made out of ghosts; when you piss off a talking volcano by stealing its magical spoon made out of rubies and it starts spitting fireballs at you as you try to row away - there's no room for betrayal. There's no room for cowardice.

Maybe that's what drew me to those kinds of stories in the first place. The dependability. The fact that pirates may lie and cheat and curse and steal and kill. But they can count on one another.

Maybe changelings are the same way. Protect the hive or die trying.

* * *

"There is an art to lying." Foster said. "You need to put a little bit of Truth into it or nopony's going to believe you." She leaned in close. Closer than close.

The nearest grownups may have been a hundred feet away - lab coat ponies processing our test results. Fiddling with scientifical gadgets and doo-dads and thingamajigs. But we still couldn't risk being overheard.

So the three of us huddled in that makeshift outdoor waiting room they'd constructed for us. Our heads lay halfway down on the table.

"But what does that mean for us?" Cliff replied. "You know, right now."

"Yeah," I added. "What exactly are we supposed to tell them?"

"Exactly what they expect to hear. Give them a sob story - a real one." Foster held up a hoof. "Just leave out all the details. We have no idea what their culture is like. Their history. Their experiences. Why there aren't any of you horsebirds around."

"Horsebird?" Cliff sat up, folded his forehooves disdainful-like, and gave Foster the evil eye.

"Trottica explains me," I said. "The reason I don't know Wasteland culture is 'cause I've been locked awa--;"

"No," Foster said. "Don't get cute with it. You don't act like a kid who's spent an entire lifetime in a mine. You were messed up by a single messed up experience. That's not the same."

"Okay."

"And more importantly, nothing 'explains you'. If you think like that, you're missing the point. You shouldn't be looking to explain yourself at all. Keep quiet. Listen more than you talk. Make them work to get you to open up about yourself. That way, they feel like they made progress when you do tell them something, and they won't press you too hard after that...hopefully."

"Hopefully?"

"I don't trust these ponies," Foster said. "Do you?"

Cliff and I shifted in our seats. "They do seem...nice," Cliff begrudgingly admitted.

"But they're already skeptical," I whispered to Cliff. Then turned to Foster to ask the big question. "What do you reckon they'll do to us?"

"Well, the good news is, they appear to sincerely believe in what they're doing here," Foster replied. "So maybe they won't do anything to us at all." Foster clopped her forehooves together, all fidgety-like. Unwilling to say out loud what she thought the alternative to that maybe might be.

"Okay, so what do we tell them about the wall?" Cliff asked. "How we got over it. How we ended up in the middle of nowhere? That's what the Safety ponies really wanna know anyhow."

Foster rubbed her temples. The way an old mare might. "I'm not sure," she sighed. "We don't have the lay of the land. They're going to send a whole herd of ponies out there to check out our story - look for breaches in the wall. They're going to get in Rock Breaker's business."

"Is he gonna get in trouble 'cause of us?!" Cliff squeaked.

"No," I answered before Foster could. "Miss Honey reeeeally believed way down deep in her heart that Rock Breaker was an idiot."

"Yeah," Cliff replied, scratching his chin. "She wouldn't have sent that-orange-teacher-she-was-mad-at to take his statement if she thought he was some kind of master mind."

"Miss Mango," Foster said grimly. "Her name was Miss Mango. You've got to get in the habit of memorizing names. Keep meticulous track of what ponies tell you about themselves. When you remember little details, they feel listened to, and that's when they start to trust you."

"That's great," I snapped. "So. How. Did. We. Get. Here? What. Are. We. Supposed. To. Tell. Them?"

"Nothing," Foster replied.

"Excuse me?" I blink-bloinked my blinkitty eyelids.

"That's the part they're gonna ask about the most," Cliff stated the obvious fucking thing that needed stating.

"Yeah," Foster replied. "And if we did somehow manage to come up with a believable story - which we can't - they'd wanna know every detail. If one of us slipped up, even a little, they'd notice."

"So what are we supposed to say?" Cliff scoffed. "'We'll never tell you. Neener neener neener'?"

Foster sighed in defeat. "We'll just have to say that we forgot."

"We forgot?!" A squeak poked through Cliff's whispering throat apple.

"You woke up in that ditch," Foster answered. "Which, by the way, you can describe in detail - and...we, um...don't remember anything before that."

"That’s it?!" I said.

"That's it," Foster said. "It's the only story either of you can tell convincingly."

"...But they're gonna wonder who sent us." Cliff said. "And what we're here to do."

"We don't even know what we're here to do," I added.

"Exactly!" Foster said, eyes sparkling with hope and wonder.

...Then Cliff and I just sorta...looked at one another, his eyeballs screaming at my eyeballs, 'Does Foster know how crazy she is?!’ My eyeballs screamed the same thing in return. Back and forth the ocular conversation went. ‘Til Cliff turned to Foster, and spoke up for real. "Um...But that just makes us suspicious."

"They're going to suspect us no matter what," Foster retorted.

A somber silence fell over the table. One-by-one, all of our sights drifted toward the grownups at the faraway medical table.

It was eerie. 'Cause they were thinking about us too.

Do you know that feeling you get when you grip a magnet in your teeth? And then, you, like, get close to some other magnet, and it starts pulling on you, and you feel...like...this tug? Even though there's nothing to see? That's what the Safety grownups were like. Their brains kept making magnet talk. About us. And I felt the pull of it. We all did.

"Okay," I begrudgingly admitted. "We are suspicious. And not knowing who sent us, why, or even how probably is the only way to go."

"Yeah," said Cliff. "But what happened, like, right before we woke up in the ditch? What's the last thing we supposedly remember?"

The question was a burning one. Just hearing it spoken aloud, even I got suspicious of us too.

Foster didn't have a smart reply either. Instead, Cliff's words simply hung in the air like fog.

"Yeah," I said. "Let's figure this out. What do we say?" I turned to Bananas Foster, again, hoping for a plan, but she was way too busy staring off into space. Like one of those potato soldiers huddling in the trenches of No Mare's Land. "Foster?"

"What? Huh?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah. I'm fine," she answered in that impossible-to-mistake tone that folks use whenever they're anything but alright.

"Are you sure?"

She swallowed hard. Turned her eyeballs toward the dreary Wasteland sky. "It's just…Well...Do you remember when we first got here, there was this...Y'know, before we landed in that broken old playground. There was a, well…a...sorta..." Foster stopped. Nervously scraped her hooves against the dusty concrete below the table. 'Til suddenly...

"Hey there!" A grownup voice called out to us.

"Ahh!" I ahhed ahh-ishly.

Two nurses, who had apparently been approaching us, stopped. Careful-like. "Not trying to sneak up on you," said a yellow unicorn in a lab coat. He reared back - threw his forehooves up in a we mean no harm gesture.

"Yeah," said the pistachio green nurse from before. "We don't want to intrude. Or overhear. That's not how we do things around here."

"Oooookay," I said, somewhat alarmed by their overabundance of caution.

With great care, the two finally approached. "We're here to give you some news," the yellow one announced. "Your tests are all done."

"And you passed your screening," added Pistachio Green. "You don't have any contagious diseases."

Cliff and I sighed in relief.

"But you are missing antibodies to a lot of fairly common ones around here. Bad Land Fever. Rad Flu. Zebra Pox--"

"Zebra Pox too?" The yellow one's horn flickered like a magic candle as some kinda clipboard levitated in front of her face, with green-glowing glass instead of pages. "They were vaccinating for that one back in the war."

"Yeah," answered Pistachio Green.

"Even the Stable Kids got antibodies for that." The yellow unicorn scrunched her nose like an accordion as she squinted at the magic clipboard. "Where'd you three say you were from again?"

"I don't remember," Cliff and I said same-exact-time-ishly. Like a pair of clockwork toys. Wound simultaneously. Starting off on the same hoof, then stumbling around knocking into each other shortly thereafter.

"Um, uh…"

"Like, er….you know…"

We babbled foolishly. 'Til, we both just sorta stopped. Outta nowhere. Like the crack of a whip, Cliff and I both turned to Bananas Foster. In hopes that she could help fib our way out of this.

But Foster was as dumbstruck as we were.

"Gee uh...Sorry," said the yellow nurse. "It's none of my business."

"Aaaanyways…" Pistachio Green continued as though nothing had happened. "You're all remarkably clear of diseases and parasites." She craned her neck downward to be at eye level with me. "So you pose no danger to the other kids…"

"...But they pose a danger to us," said Cliff.

"Essentially," Pistachio answered.

"Are we really that unusual?" Foster regained her composure. "Are we, like...weirdos or something?" Her voice cracked upwards with dread. Or at least the semblance of dread.

"No, no, no," the yellow unicorn babbled.

"Are we really the first kids to come along without these antibodies...or whatever you call 'em?" Foster said. "How long has it been since another kid joined Safety?"

"A week, maybe two," Pistachio answered. "We get a lot these days."

"What diseases were they immune to?"

"Sorry, Bananas. That's private," Pistachio Green shook her head. "May I call you Bananas, by the way?"

Foster nodded. "Of course."

"So what do we do now?" I said. "If we go into the compound, or whatever, there might be, like, horrible diseases?"

"Don't worry," Yellow unicorn said. "We've got you covered."

The solution? Boring medical stuff. Lots and lots of boring medical stuff. Serums. Ointments. Potions. Gemstones. Syringes. I'm not going to bore you with details, O Book of Magical Things That's Happened to Me. But I am gonna say this: the whole procedure had me worried. Every prick of a needle - every swig of a vial - filled me with terror that Foster was gonna burst into hives, or start shooting blood out of her eyeballs, or just plain explode into a billion pieces when her immune system realized what was happening.

Yeah, sure, she didn't need to be in a bubble anymore to breathe the air. But that was way different than putting stuff straight into your fucking blood.

I shot her glance after glance after glance. But every time, she held a hoof up. Or shook her head. Calm as the Monks of Monk Mountain, who sit and do nothing but hum all day long, and vow eternal silence, (unless of course, Pinkbeard and her crew happen to swing by, and need a place to hide.)

For reasons I still can't explain, Foster knew she was going to be alright. And to her credit, she totally was fine throughout all of it.

I guess it's like Princess Luna said. If you bust your knee traveling the Duckyverse, its gonna bleed all over your bed. If you die in your dream travels, you're gonna stay dead. But your dream body's always something different from your "real" one. You can't journey to Sandwichia, World of Sentient Sandwiches, without becoming one yourself. And Screw Loose got to be a giant dog whenever she Wanderer'd into my head.

So all of Foster's frailties were left behind - tied to her body-prison, stuck in that lonely bubble way up there in the Waking World. It made me wonder. If that small kindness of the Duckyverse made itself manifest here - in the Wasteland of all places - were the Powers that Be really as cruel as I had imagined? What if--;

"ROSE!!!"

"Huh? What?"

Cliff and Foster stood over me. Tapping their forehooves. Nopony else was around. No grownups at least. The medical stuff was all packed up. The tables, folded down. Except, of course, the one where I sat, daydreaming.

There were three strange kids standing patiently to the side. Smiling. Waiting for us.

"It's time for orientation," said Foster. "Come on. Pay attention."

Those last words cut deep. Pay attention. And she was right to slice at me with them. I couldn't afford to let my guard down.

I rose to my hooves, trotted on over to our 'tour guides.' A lanky boy in his teens, cursed with a white hide that exaggerated every pimple and blemish on his face. He sported a pink winter jacket and a custom prosthetic foreleg not entirely unlike the ones I'd occasionally seen back home. "Hi!" He said. "I'm Iris."

Next to him was a filly about my size. Piebald splotches of brown and white made up her coat. Like milk finding its way through coffee. Except not quite so smooth 'cause of the scars zig-zagging all the fuck over her. Like...every inch of her body except her Pip Buck. "Howdy," she exclaimed. "They call me Lucky."

Standing right in front of them both was a little blue filly, younger than any of us. She held her head up like one of those oddly regal librarians who look all dignified and aloof as they scribble in their ledger, but light up like a firework when you give them the chance to help you learn. "And I'm Elderberry Sunset," she said, despite being way too young to have anything to do with elder-berries or sunset.

"We're here to show you to your new home," Iris' voice cracked as he spoke.

"No grownups?" I said, scanning the empty courtyard.

"No grownups." Iris answered with pride.

* * *

They led us across the big empty square. Onto a totally normal city street. Just like before, all of the buildings looked like great care had gone into their reconstruction. But up close, it was evident that a lot of the bricks weren't perfect matches. The colorful paints did a damn good job of hiding the improvised masonry. (Unlike in Grownuptown where everything looked barely functional.)

Once we'd gawked a bit at the pastel-colored buildings that encircled us, and at the meticulously paved ground beneath our hooves - not at all like the jagged cornflakes of the city ruins, or the lumpy oatmeal streets just outside of Safety - our tour guides spoke up again.

"Okay. I know what you're thinking," said Lucky as our actual 'orientation' seemed finally ready to begin. "Who the hell are these strange ponies, and how come none of them have hit me yet?"

Cliff's eyes flew open so quickly it made a bloink sound.

But Lucky raised a reassuring hoof. "I swear to you, I thought the same thing my first day. First week. My first month even. And that's totally okay!"

"We've all been through it," Iris added. "And nopony expects anything of you here. Sure, there's like, classes, and clubs, and sports, and stuff - and we've even got this totally cool festival coming up - but you don't have to do any of it right away. This place is, like..." Iris paused to look up to the sky as though the word he yearned to remember might be written across the dreary clouds.

"Oasis," Elderberry croaked out an answer.

"Yeah," Iris literally leapt with enthusiasm. "That's it. Oasis. A refuge for children everywhere. Dedicated to the preservation and restoration of innocence..."

"...Because innocence is sacred," I said, all suspicious-like.

"Yeah," said Elderberry dryly. "It is."

The other two nodded quietly in approval. If Lucky had had a hat, she woulda taken it off and held it to her heart. The silence that they kept to honor the word "innocence" hung in the air just a little bit too long. Cliff looked to me and shrugged in confusion as we waited. Foster, on the other hoof, kept a totally straight face.

"Hold on," Elderberry said to Iris. "What you said isn't entirely true."

"Whattaya mean?" He crooked his neck downward to look her in the eye.

"You said they don't have to do any activities right away." Elderberry shuffled her hooves to avoid a crack in the pavement as though it had cooties. "But that's not so."

"Emotional education," Lucky chimed in.

"Oh, right!" Iris smacked his own head. "Yeah, tomorrow you all gotta get emotional education."

"What's that?" Foster asked, before Cliff or I could open our mouths and give away our suspicion.

"Nothing to be afraid of," Lucky answered. "It's a beautiful process, actually."

"But what is it?"

"Emotional Education is like a class," Elderberry answered in that dronish voice of hers. "It's where we learn how to be happy. That's all. Once you accept Safety - once you grow to embrace all that we hope to accomplish here - only happiness can follow."

"Okay," Cliff replied. "But...why wouldn't we be on board with what goes on around here?"

"Exactly!" Lucky chuckled, extending her Pip Buck hoof for a bump.

But Cliff didn't reciprocate. He just sorta stared Lucky down freaked-out-ishly. SoFoster thought quick. Launched her hoof out instead. Clop!

"There's skee ball too!" Elderberry interjected, obviously changing the subject, but still genuine in her passion for the game.

"Yeah, we got an amazing rec center." Iris said. "I don't think we'll get a chance to show it to you today, but trust me, you're gonna love it."

"It's got everything." Lucky added.

"But we should show them the cafeteria." Elderberry pointed her nose at a purple building across the street.

"Yeah!" Lucky pointed a scarred hoof at us new kids. "You've eaten, right? Tell me you've eaten. And don't be shy if you're still hungry."

"I'm stuffed, actually," Foster lied.

"Me too," said Cliff, actually telling the truth (if all that porridge I'd watched him guzzle was anything to go by).

"I'm okay," I answered, eager to get to our quarters, steal a moment in private with my friends, and figure out our next move. "Thank you."

"C'mere!" Lucky said. "Have a look!" She trotted gleefully toward a row of ground-level windows in the purple building. Beckoned us over with a waving hoof.

The inside of the cafeteria was what you might expect. Long metal tables. Bench style. Rows of kids aggressively shoveling bushel-sized loads of food into their mouths. The light of all the unicorns' hovering forks sparkled like Hearth's Warming tree lights. While all the earth ponies feverishly plunged food into their mouths like those weird construction site thingies made out of a whole lot of pulleys and one great big claw.

"Ain't that a beautiful sight to behold?" Lucky said.

"Let's go inside," I replied, utterly transfixed.

Cliff and Foster murmured something in approval.

"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist some grub." Lucky clapped me on the back, flashing a mischievous smile.

"Yeah," I said, totally ignoring him. Staring instead at all the kids inside. Reading each row of them like lines in a book. Looking everywhere for Misty Mountain. "I'm feeling hungry all of a sudden."

We rounded the corner and entered the building through a very old archway with a very new door. A few steps downward led us into a sunken corridor that smelt strongly of cleaning fluid and vaguely of pizza.

"Safety is a work in progress," Elderberry explained. And as she walked, her hooves once again avoided cracks in the tiles like a deadly game of hopscotch. "We get new students all the time. But there's a whole lot of space. Waiting to be filled."

"You'll have plenty of great spots for hide-and-seek." Iris swept his prosthetic hoof across the air to indicate our vast bounty of options.

"Or hide the horseshoe," Lucky added.

I couldn't get much of a peek. But I made note of the potentiality for hiding spots. In case my friends and I needed to sneak around. It was mostly metal doors with tiny glass windows exposing fragments of dark empty classrooms. 'Till we came to a solid door. With the letter R painted over it.

"If you see a door like this," Elderberry said. "Don't ever go inside."

"Yeah," Iris said. "We got a lot of freedom to move around. But that's, like, the one thing they're dead serious about. Stay away from the letter R."

"Um...okay," I said.

"What's wrong with the letter R?" Cliff asked.

"It stands for Renovation," Elderberry answered. "It means it's not safe inside."

"I thought it stood for Restricted," said Lucky.

"Come on," Iris said. "It means Renovation."

"You sure?"

"Yes," Elderberry answered firmly. She turned, and looked at me with eyes like beads of marble. Cold and pale. "The point is: the letter R is not safe, and they really do ask very little of us here. So this is something we all respect."

"Ah," I said, staring awkwardly at the big red letter painted on the clunky steel door. "Gotcha."

"...Not 'cause you got emotionally educated into avoiding it," Cliff muttered under his breath.

"So anyway," Foster changed the subject in a hurry. "Miss Honey says you've got over three hundred kids here."

"Miss Honey would know," Elderberry said, all reverence-y and such.

"When's the last time you got a new student?" Foster asked.

"Not long," she answered. "Maybe a week or two ago."

"Will we get a chance to meet some of the new kids?" Foster continued. "You know, so we can talk about acclimating?"

"You have each other for that," answered Iris. "You're very fortunate."

"We are," Cliff said with a smile.

Lucky threw a foreleg around Iris' shoulder, tall as it was. "I mean, we're not really set up to put all the new kids together into some kinda New Kids Club, or to separate you from the old timers like me and Iris." She beamed.

Iris chuckled. "Yeah. We don't do things like that. They group us together by, you know...experience. So a lot of your activities are gonna be scheduled with the other Stable Kids."

"Stable kids?" Cliff mouthed silently. Subtly. Foster and I kept quiet and rolled with it.

"But we're all in this together," Lucky added. "If you wanna make some friends with students from all over, go right ahead…"

We came to a pair of double doors, a hoofball-sized window in each one. Foster and Cliff rushed forward to press their faces against the glass. While I stood on my tippy hooves.

On the other side was chaos. Cacophony. Four tables, vibrant with motion, flickered like a flame.

"A real cafeteria," Foster whispered like she was peering into a sacred temple or something.

Cliff Diver seemed less sure. "How many kids are in there?"

"Sixty, maybe," Iris replied. "You need a moment?"

"No," my friends and I answered all at once.

The door opened and a gust of food-smell clobbered my muzzle. Dried ketchup. Oats. Fresh mozzarella cheese, slowly becoming unfresh as it dried under magic heatamajigs. And the kinda earthy musk you only get from cramming sixty ponies into one room. Along with the dirt they all dragged in on their hooves.

The sound was just as clobbery to the senses. Talking, laughing, crying, cheering, shouting. A wall of inarticulate noise, punctuated by occasional hollers.

It was overwhelming.

I couldn't believe it. As apocalyptic as this world was. As makeshift and weird as all their infrastructure may have been, Safety still managed to pull something together much bigger than I'd ever experienced. They had dug two hundred years into Equestria's past just to resurrect the institution known as the Big City School.

Ponyville Elementary had no cafeteria. No prepared food. We didn't even have a regimented class structure. It was basically just Miss Cheerilee doing...whatever. The kinda school that Miss Honey had built, on the other hoof, was a complex organism. The kind I'd only read about in books.

"Wow," Foster said, eyes sparkling. "A cafeteria. A real cafeteria."

The wall of sound warbled as each cluster of kids noticed Cliff Diver's pegasusness one-at-a-time. It sent little silences across the room like waves sweeping over the shore. And little bursts of conversation cropping up again as each clique got over their collective shock, and decided that it was rude to stare.

Cliff bravely held his hooves to the ground and resisted the urge to run. But the rest of him recoiled.

"I've read about this," Foster said. "We have to study all of the benches. Wherever we sit determines our social status within the herd. So we have to choose carefully. But first, we need to find a certain friend."

Cliff peeked out from behind his mane. Saw Foster gently craning her neck up to look him in the eye reassure-ishly.

"Fine," he said. "Let's get this over with." Two deep breaths and a sigh later, he had his head way up high. And his eyeballs darting back and forth, speed readingthe sea of kids. "What color is he again?" Cliff whispered.

"What?"

"The kid we're supposed to be looking for." He growled through smiling teeth.

"Oh, right. Blue. With a purple mane." I got back on track. Trying to spot Misty Mountain. But it was no easy task. The crowd was a blur of intermingling colours. Red. Yellow. Pink. Green. More pink. White. Orange. Lavender.

Blue and purple! Blue and purple! My brain shouted at me. Look over there! Blue and purple! A glimmer of hope in the corner of my eye.

But it was just some random colt.

"Stupid brain," I said out loud. "That kid is periwinkle. Misty's cerulean. How do you confuse periwinkle for--;"

"What was that?" Lucky asked with a smile.

"Nevermind."

Shut up, my brain said to my mouth. You're bungling everything.

"Get back to work," my mouth whispered under its breath. And my brain petulantly obeyed. Sought out a familiar face.

First, I spotted a purple mane. But it was a pair of pigtails. Then, I caught a glimpse of the Correct Shade of Blue! But it turned out to belong to a little filly.

"Come on, where are you?" I whispered to myself. Surveying aaall the different colors of aaaall the students' heads, even as they bobbed and weaved like balls getting tossed around a ball pit.

But Iris flanked me out of nowhere. Made me lose track. "Chow's this way."

Next thing I knew, my friends and I were being herded toward the buffet, which was, like, this big hallway with little islands of food hiding under barriers of glass.

Fuck fuck fuck. I giraffed my neck all over the place as the last of the cafeteria passed out of view. Still no sign of Misty! Still no reason to hope.

'Til Cliff cried out suddenly, "Yes!"

"What?" I leapt right at him. "Did you-- "

"I found him!" He whisper-shouted.

"Show me! Show me! Show me!" I said.

Cliff Diver turned to Iris. Bowed politely and said, "Excuse us juuuust a sec."

Cliff hooked a hoof around my shoulder and swept me back the way we'd come. Our tour guides didn't try to stop us or anything, but Lucky gasped, cocked an eyebrow, scratched his head. He hadn't been fazed by Cliff Diver's pegasusness, nor by the rumors of the circumstances of our arrival, nor by our constant suspicion and confusion. But he was weirded the fuck out now.

Cliff Diver skidded on to the main floor of the cafeteria. And dragged me with him. Then plop. His flank hit the floor, and oomph! I slid into him.

In one fluid motion he drew me close with his foreleg. Pointed with the other. "There!"

I followed his hoof. Across the dancing crowd. And squinted.

"There!" He said again. "There! Third from the end!"

All the other kids stepped aside for just a brief moment. In just the right way. Like curtains parting before a stage. And I could see the unicorn colt! Clear as day.

"Cliff," I sighed. "No. That one's periwinkle. Misty is cerulean."

"Are you two okay?" Elderberry Sunset trotted up to us.

"Yeah," Lucky said. "Everypony always has a big reaction to the smorgasbord. But I ain't never seen nopony run away from it."

"We're looking for a friend," Foster came up beside me. Finally herself again.

"Oh," Lucky hung her head. Already mourning our friend without having to hear another word.

"No luck?" Iris asked grimly.

"No," I replied.

"Well, there's still hope," he replied in a tone utterly devoid of anything remotely resembling a fraction of a hope.

The three tour guides gave us some space. And proceeded to the buffet.

"You didn't say anything about cerulean," Cliff snapped. "You just said blue."

* * *

The smorgasbord was staffed by a kindly old unicorn. She made sure we all got plenty, but also that none went to waste. She tended the little food islands all alone. Adjusting the glowing red gems above the hot food tables as needed.

It was incredible that Safety managed to have such abundance. All I'd seen of the future world had been total shit. Inhospitable to agriculture.

Where did they get cows for their milk, and chickens for their eggs, or even any of their plantstuffs?

More importantly: what the hell was all this mystery food? For every pizza slice, or oatburger I recognized, there were a dozen weird concoctions. Strange soups. Unfamiliar smells. And twenty or thirty different varieties of nutritional paste – at least that's how the old mare described them.

"Oh, no, no, no," said Bananas Foster. "Thank you. That's enough."

The lunch lady shoveled just a little bit more onto Foster's plate. She was fast. At least when wielding a ladle.

"...I'm just popping in for a light snack. Really. Thank you. Please."

"Okay. If you say so," she said, sneakily splashing an extra dollop of fuchsia paste next to Foster's pizza.

Then she fixed her eyeballs on me. "You two mind your friend here," the old mare said. "I don't want to see any of that go to waste. I won't stand empty bellies either."

Cliff Diver saluted her majestically. "I'm on it."

Foster smiled politely. But the second that her back was turned, Foster's lips twisted into a wince. Changelings can eat pony food when they need to. For show. But they don't enjoy stuffing themselves.

We reached the end of the hallway, and found ourselves back in the cafeteria again. Lucky led us toward an empty table in the corner. "Don't mind Old Ms. Pear Shine," she said. "It's her job to make sure everypony eats."

My eyes scanned the cafeteria. And saw nothing but heads bobbing like roosters over their plates and forks.

"They don't seem to have any trouble doing that on their own," Cliff Diver pointed out before I could.

"Most of them, yeah," Iris jumped in. "But there's a lotta kids here. And everypony has been through something different. Some folks can't wait to fatten up after what they've been through. And some kids...well, let's just say that some of us have a hard time working up that kind of appetite. Ms. Pear Shine really helped me with that when I first got here."

"I understand," said Foster.

Then, with a strange look of confusion - like she was transfixed by some great cosmic light that no one else could see. "I understand?" She said to herself.

"You okay?" I said.

She nodded meekly, rubbing her eyes with her foreleg.

"Oh my gosh, hi!" A little yellow filly came running up to us. And Poomf! Pounced Elderberry Sunset.

"Heeey!" Elderberry twisted around, laughing. Hugging her friend right back. Acting like a normal filly. For once.

"Who are the new kids?" The girl bounced up and down - almost Pinkie-Pie-ishly. "Oh wait." She giggled. "Me first! My name is Skull Gunner. Nice to meet you"

"Skull...?" Cliff startled.

"Mmmhmm. I've been here 762 days, 14 hours, and…" Skull Gunner paused to squint at the far wall all the way on the other end of the cafeteria. There was a clock there, too small for a hawk to read. "I dunno," she concluded at last. "A whole bunch of minutes."

"I'm Bananas Foster."

"I'm Rose Petal."

Cliff remained conspicuously silent. At least 'til Foster nudged him. "Oh, uh...Cliff Diver," he said. "Nice to meet you...Skull…"

"Yeah, I know," the little girl replied with a good-natured eyeroll. "The name throws folks off sometimes...Let's just say that I didn't turn out the way my parents hoped." She paused to kiss a plain brass locket that she kept on a chain around her neck. "That's what's so great about this place, though! It's a second chance. I haven't even gotten my cutie mark yet. But I'm reeeeally hoping it's in skee ball."

"Skee ball?" I said.

"We're all really excited about the skee ball." Lucky said.

"Well, nice to meet you." Skull Gunner continued. "Which stable are you three from?"

"What?"

"They paired you with these bunch of dweebs. so you've gotta be Stable Tec kids. So, which one was it?"

"I DON'T REMEMBER." Cliff and I answered mechanically.

Foster facehooved.

"Oooookay," Skull Gunner replied. "Well, uh, no pressure. That's not how we do things around here."

"No, Skully, it most certainly is not," Elderberry piped up.

"So what do you think of your dorms?" Skully changed the subject. "Pretty sweet, huh?"

"We actually haven't gotten there yet," Foster answered.

"This is just a little stop on the tour," Iris added.

"Oh, jeez," said Skull Gunner. "No wonder you three are so rattled. I'm sorry. I'll just fuck right off, then."

"It was our pleasure." Foster faked a smile. Brought a slice of pizza to her lips.

Skully and Elderberry embraced. And the room got juuuuust a little bit brighter because of it. Then the little yellow filly skipped off. "See ya later, bunker stunkers."

My friends and I sat in silence, watching Skully make her way out the door.

"You weren't actually hungry, were you?" Lucky said.

Cliff Diver lowered the unscathed oatburger he'd been balancing between his hooves. As I dropped the spoon I'd been fidgeting with.

"I'm sorry," Foster answered, mouth totally full. "We really just came here to check for Blueberry Milkshake."

"Go." Iris gestured with his muzzle.

"Do what you gotta do," Lucky added.

My friends and I moved carefully along the wall. Studying each table. We got closer than before. And at last, took a proper count. A really good look.

"Anything?" Foster said.

"Not yet," I replied.

"No," Cliff grumbled. Moving on to the next table.

The other children stared at him. Not all at once, of course. But in little stolen glances. Followed by averted eyes. Like he was a zoo exhibit. The rare elusive birdpone. Legend has it that he actually knows when you're gawking at him, and may even have feelings.

"Ooh!" Bananas Foster cried out. "Is that him over there?" She pointed with her eyes, careful not to draw too much attention to herself.

"No," Cliff said. "Don't you remember? Misty is cerulean. Not periwinkle."

* * *

By the time we were done combing the cafeteria in search of a Misty who wasn't there, the sky had faded. I wouldn't quite call it a sunset, but you got the vague impression that the sun - wherever it was - was tucking itself in and getting ready tocall it a night.

"Oooh," said Iris, producing a coat from his saddle bag. "We'd better get going." He passed out light jackets that he had apparently been entrusted with. All the right size, all color coordinated to match us. Foster's was a shade of yellow that didn't quite suit her. Mine was a pink that matched only the single streak in my mane. It wasn't perfect, but somepony had clearly put thought into it, and done the best they could with what they had.

"Yeah, there might be werewolves." Cliff snorted, sliding on a blue jacket with gray trim.

We moved at a brisk trot down the city streets. I wouldn't exactly call it a rush, but there was definitely an edge to it. No more drifting. No moseying neither. We all had places to be.

"What happens at dark?" Foster asked the obvious question.

"Just a headcount," Iris said. "We have a lotta freedom to move around the campus, but they take attendance a couple times a day."

"If you don't show up on time, they worry." Elderberry added.

"You don't want to see Miss Honey worry," Iris added.

I couldn't quite imagine what a worried Miss Honeysuckle might look like, but judging from the way that Lucky shuddered? Fair bet it wouldn't involve a fainting couch.

"Ain't nothin' to panic about," Lucky said. "We got plenty of time."

So the pastel-colored buildings glided by. And it finally sunk in just how big the campus was, even for a student body with a few hundred kids. So many structures. So many streets. So many windows with students behind them. Peeking at Cliff Diver, all curious-like.

So many mysteries. Like the sprite bot floating down the street. The same kind that the High Priestess of Trottica'd had.

"Fuck!" I skidded to a halt. Hooves tumbling over one another, all clip-cloppity. 'Til wham! The ground said hello to my face.

"Ugh," I groaned.

A thunderstorm of hooves rushed to my aid, unwittingly kicking dust in my face.

"Are you okay?" They all cried out. Not quite in unison.

"Get down," I coughed.

And oddly enough, all of them did. None of that what's going on? Why are you acting weird? Kinda stuff. They just hit the deck on my say-so, and were prepared to save the questions for later.

My hoof pointed. And all their heads followed the invisible line it made. 'Til...

Ahhhh. Our tour-guides let out a collective sigh of relief.

"No need to fear," Lucky said without a hint of condescension. "That's just Beatrice. She's on our side."

"She?" I said.

"We all voted on the name," Iris answered.

"What exactly does Beatrice do?" Foster asked, calmly brushing herself off.

"Keeps an eye on things."

Beatrice spun around to look at us. It was basically a floating sphere with panes of glowing green glass for eyes. Like those cute things that destroyed our fucking town last year. But sciencey. This one was wearing novelty glasses. The kind with a nose and mustache that Pinkie Pie sometimes wore.

"The costume was Skully's idea," Elderberry boasted.

With Cliff's help, I rose to my hooves. Never taking my eyes off the damn thing. Beatrice floated there momentarily. Keeping a respectful distance. Then dismissed us, and puttered on. A long diagonal trajectory up the road.

That's when I saw the strangest fucking building on campus. It wasn't content to stick to one or two solid colors like all of its friends. No. The whole thing was a giant mural. Fillies laughing. Doe-eyed critters of an indeterminate species, frolicking in rainbow rivers. Big pink hearts with smiley faces on them. Words like Hope and Friendship randomly floating in the clouds.

"No windows," I whispered to myself. It made the cutesy artwork seem even bolder. 'Cause none of it was interrupted by panes of glass. Just thin metal grates, spaced out where windows ought to be. That meant the inside got no natural light. No fresh air.

"Be careful." Elderberry leaned into my field of vision. "You don't want to end up in there."
…
…
…

That building drew me into a staring contest. And I was afraid to look away. There were no Rose Voices or brain hornets or anything like thatto direct me. But something deep in my gut still churned. Just to look at those exaggerated mural smiles. Those thin little slats of metal.

I sensed pain inside. A lot of it.

Bananas Foster came up behind me. Put a hoof on my shoulder. I could feel her heart thundering away. Even where I stood.

Whatever was going on in there, she sensed it too.

* * *

The air grew cold before the sky had even finished fading. A gust of wind funneled down the narrow city street and blasted like breath through a flute. It made us all glad we had those coats.

"Almost there," said Lucky.

Up ahead was a great big fucking wall. Not quite as gigantorily gargantuan as the one we saw when we'd first arrived. (You know, the one with all the crazy razor wire on top). More like another warehouse. Drawing a border between Safety and whatever was outside of it. More Grownuptown I can only presume.

"This way," Elderberry Sunset swung down one of the side streets, eager to escape the wind.

We all followed. Into this weird...alleyway, but not full of trash and smoke and stuff. A clean alley. Sure, there were crates and bins and pipes and other, you know, alley junk, but every scrap of it was arranged juuuuust so. Like when Sapphire Shores did that photo shoot outside of a Bucklyn loading dock to show off that she and her dancers had humble beginnings. On the Street they called it. Not her best album.

Anyway, everything - even the nitty gritty of everyday life in Safety - looked just a little bit too...orderly. Every curve. Every line. A dangling ladder caught my eye. I followed it and found myself staring straight upward. It's easy to underestimate how tall these buildings are until you stand in between them, look up at the sky, and get super dizzy.

I had never been to a big city before.

That alleyway was sooooo alien to me. Like a pony-made ravine. A chasm formed by two pony-made towers, easily five, or six, or even seven stories tall. It's impressive that Safety had managed to repair so much. Even more impressive that Equestria had ever built such structures in the first place.

Clang! A tin can rolled out from the shadows.

I had fallen behind just enough that nopony seemed to notice it but me. So I crept up. Thinking there might be a cute possum or raccoon or something.

That's when I noticed him.

A grownup in a blue jumpsuit. The kind of outfit that Mr. Goggles had worn. He reached for the can with his teeth, but froze the moment he saw me. For a teeny tiny sliver of a second, our eyes met. And his were paralyzed by terror. It hurt to be looked at like that. To be feared. It felt like I was standing over a cowering Kettle Corn all over again.

"Here you go," I kicked the can toward him. To show I meant no harm. But he bolted into the shadows again. Like a dragon was on his tail. Slammed one of the bins shut and darted into an adjacent building.

"Don't talk to them," Lucky whispered, voice chillier than the gusts of wind. "They don't like it."

"Sorry," I answered instinctively. "I was just trying to--;"

"Come on!" Elderberry Sunset turned around.

Lucky threw a foreleg around me. All buddy buddy. To get me to shut up about the terrified jumpsuit pony. I took the hint.

"The lights are on," Elderberry said, waving her hoof at the buzzing lanterns. "Let's get inside." She disappeared around a street corner.

"What's going on?" I whispered carefully to Lucky.

"Elderberry Sunset is like a sister to me," she replied. "You all are. But she don't know how to bend a rule, you know what I'm saying?"

"I won't tell if you won't," I said.

Lucky smiled at me. "You're alright."

"But what's up with the ponies in the blue jumpsuits?" I asked.

"I'll explain later," Lucky answered. "We should get inside."

* * *

Home at last, the lobby was pretty swank. Couches. Tables. A little cutting board with crackers and something-resembling-cheese, just lying around for anypony to snack on.

But the chairs were all empty. By the time we set hoof inside, headcount was already over. The elevator doors had creaked shut, and the arrow above them was climbing.

"Hay!" An adult male voice cried out. Laughing. Jubilant. "Ya made pretty good time."

Iris' eyeballs followed the elevator arrow in confusion.

"Bah!" The stranger chuckled. "Miss Honey said you was orienting, so I figgered you might run a little late." The stallion was thick. Middle aged. Hard-hat-yellow. With stubble like velcro. His voice sounded kinda crude, like a Manehattan cab driver's. "You must be Bananas Foster," he said, using his nose to poke at one of those clipboards that uses light instead of paper. "Aaand Cliff Diver." He nodded in Cliff's direction. "And...Rose Petal." He winked at me. "Did I get dat right?"

We nodded in agreement.

"Well, I'm Cherry Fizz. Nice to meetcha. Step into my office."

He led us to a circle of couches. Plopped himself down with a groan. We gathered 'round.

"You three get oriented okay?"

We looked to our tour guides. Nodded proudly. "Yeah, I think so."

"Good," Cherry Fizz replied. "So you know about emotional education then. I'm gonna schedule you for tomorrow morning after breakfast. That sound okay to you? You a morning pony?"

"Actually. I prefer to sleep in," I said, feeling the sudden desire to crash.

"It's fine," Foster cut me off.

"Okie dokie loki. After breakfast it is. We'll hold off on any classes 'till you've settled in a bit."

"We want classes," Foster said.

"Hmph," Cliff grunted in frustration.

"This place is full of so many interesting kids. I reeeally wanna meet them all. Don't you?" Foster turned away from Cherry Fizz and looked to Cliff with eyeballs like flaming coals.

"Oh, um. Yeah," Cliff replied. "I hadn't thought of it like that."

Cherry Fizz turned to me. Awaiting an answer. But I didn't say a word. 'Cause way on the other end of the lobby was a portrait.

It called to me. Like the haunted painting in Pinkbeard and the Isle of Hypnosia, there was a sort of madness to it.

I rose from my chair. A body possessed. And walked right past Cherry Fizz. All the sights around me. All the sounds. They faded. 'Til it was just me and the stallion in that picture. I recognized the face.

The strange figure was sitting in Safety's courtyard. Laughing. Petting a kitten. A foal sat giggling in his lap. And a streak of sunlight seemed to cut through the Wasteland's cloud ceiling just to shine on him. But half of him was made of metal. And he had an artificial eye that looked like it was made out of rubies.

I remembered that face from Pinkie Pie's tarot deck. Crudely drawn though it may have been. The Emperor.

"Who is this?" I said, struggling to make a sound.

"That's the guy who makes all this possible.” Cherry Fizz answered with just a touch of pride.

I leaned in closer. A small plaque adorned the bottom of the frame:

"Inherit the Future"

by Brush Stroke

Safety District, Fillydelphia

Author's Note

PATREON

If this story, or my Heart Full of Pony essays have touched you, and you can manage to spare a few bits, consider supporting me on Patreon.
:pinkiehappy:

For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

All of the Patreon proceeds from this chapter will go to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS

Eight years ago today, the first chapter of Hooves of Fate was released. I never thought I'd be at it for this long, or that Rose Petal's story would become so big. Then again, when I first started, I thought that the Trottica adventure would only take up a single chapter.

Thank you all for sticking with the story for so long - for leaving comments, and encouragement - without which, I'd have given up long ago.

Thank Princess Luna, for giving us a Full Moon tonight.

It's hard to believe how far Rose Petal has come. She and all of her friends have taken me by surprise more times than I can count. Getting to know them has given me great joy.

So much in this story came about because the characters simply refused to do what I had planned for them. Twinkle Eyes was never planned at all. It's funny to think that she ended up becoming so central to the story, (both in life and in death), but the entire reason she exists at all is because I figured, "There's got to somepony in the cage next to Rose. that kid should probably have a name."

It seems appropriate, though, that for this milestone - eight years, fifty chapters - I finally got to write one of the big twists that I'd been planning since the beginning.

What a long, strange trip it's been.
Discuss.

The Eye of the Beholder

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT - THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
“If you crush a cockroach, you're a hero. If you crush a beautiful butterfly, you're a villain. Morals have aesthetic criteria.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

The tunnel that I had initially mischaracterized as a “crawlspace” turned out to be long. Really really long. But eventually, the light of the orb stopped at the end of it. And waited for the four of us to catch up.

The path widened as we came to a concrete archway speckled with decaying flakes of paint. There was enough room for all four of us to finally stand side-by-side. The remains of a corroded warning sign somehow still clung to the frame:

CA T ON: HOT

“Not to worry,” said Misty, stepping forward. “Ees not hot anymore. Even with Pinkie balloons and fire. Fillydelphia has long way to go before its entire grid is - how you say? - up and running?”

Misty stood under the arch, light blasting him from behind. His silhouette paused to look each of us over, nodding in approval. Like we’d somehow met his tunnel-whispering-standards-or-whatever.

Then, muttering to himself, he spun on his hooves, and disappeared down the ‘HOT’ corridor.

The rest of us were left alone together.

“Hhhhhh!” I huffed out a breath, and smirked as my own mouth-air turned to steam. “Yeah, I know it's not hot,” I said, super sarcastic-like…to a Misty who wasn't even there anymore.

But when I snorted out a laugh and turned to Cliff Diver, he averted his eyes. Backed away.

“What?” I said.

Foster shoved him from behind. He staggered. And shot doom-eyeballs at her - what the hell is wrong with you eyeballs - eyeballs consumed with fear that his super-solemn news was gonna somehow break my heart and shatter my mind into a million billion trillion pieces and make me weep till my eyes shriveled into eye raisins.

“Would you pleeeease stop treating me like I'm made out of eye raisins?” I snapped.

Cliff blink-bloinked. As if awoken from a spell. “Okay,” he said. “Sorry. I'll um…”

“It's fine,” I hurried to reassure him.

“In that case,” he said. “Well…how do I put this?...Do you believe in true love?”

“True love?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Like…you know…the idea that everypony has a special somepony? The One? Foster doesn't seem worried about it,” Cliff held up a forehoof and whispered conspiratorially (even though Foster was literally standing right behind him). “And I keep telling her that that's just how pony love works. But I guess I'm…you know…worried about you. That's all.”

“Oh.”

“And I didn't wanna bring it up. In case you hadn't thought of it already, but, like…what if…”

“I don't think Scribbles is The One,” I said.

Cliff sighed in relief.

“I don't believe there is such a thing as ‘The One.’” I plopped my flank down and made quotation marks with my forehooves.

“What?” he squeaked. “You too?”

-too - too -tooo, the walls echoed back Cliff Diver’s voice. I flinched at the sound.

“Hay, you three,” hollered Misty. “Shut up for meenute. I need to make listen.”

Cliff sat down and raised his hooves to his mouth, all apologetical-like. And all of us fell totally silent. Not so much as a hoof shuffle. While Misty did his…Misty stuff.

If I peered carefully down the ‘HOT’ corridor, I could just barely make him out in the distance. The unicorn in the ridiculous wizard hat pressed his head against an indentation in the far wall. Probably a hatch or door or something. I couldn't quite tell.

As the reverberations of his faint tapping washed over the tunnel, I broke out of my statue-pose to toss eyeballs at Cliff and Foster. In case they had some clues or insights on whatever-the-hell-Misty-was-doing.

But Cliff Diver just ogled me like I was some kind of wacko eel from The Isle of the No Feel Eels.

That's the place where Daisy the Cabin Girl once had to rescue Slop the Mess Cook from. He’d lost a game of cards against an Eel Witch who’d stolen his heart away as payment - and she’d swept Slop’s feelings along with it - and locked them away in the Eel Fortress of Impenetrab’eel. Robbing him of everything that made him…pony in the process.

I jumped a little in surprise. ‘Cause Cliff’s eyeballs were super-mega-intense. Enough to make me second guess myself.

Was there something wrong with me? Was I some kind of numb and heartless eel?

What if Scribbles really was my one and only True Love after all? And I'd gotten to enjoy it for what? Half an hour?!

Cliff must have read the troubles on my face. ‘Cause he threw his forehooves up in the air, and mouthed, ‘I'm so sorry.’

But my panic passed as quickly as it had come. ‘Fate fucks with me in sooooo many ways,’ I growled at all of my Rose Voices at once - before any of them could get a word in. ‘It does not get to tell me how many times I’m gonna get kissed. Or who gets to do the kissing.’

I nodded firmly. Puffed out my chest. A victory pose. To assert social dominance over my own stupid brain, (which couldn't even see how badass and defiant I must have looked, but I did it anyway ‘cause I knew it woulda made my brain mad if my brain could have seen it).

“Great news!” Misty strode up the ‘HOT’ hallway bellowing.

“Ahh!” I startled.

“I have listened to dee hatch of steam tunnel - very carefully - for signs of rats. And I have determined - without doubt - that eet ees safe to proceed.”

“No rats then?” I said. Already on edge. 'Cause I hated rats. With every rosefiber of my rosebeing. My sister and I were always chasing them out of our garden. Fortifying our plants against them. Digging out their nasty old nests - before they could ruin absolutely everything. But no matter what you do, you can never win with rats! ‘Cause rats always manage to destroy something. Last summer, it was one of Mom’s favorite rose bushes!!!!!!!

“No, no,” Misty chuckled. “There's thousands of rats.”

“Thousands?!” Cliff, Foster, and I all screeched at once.

Misty clopped his forehooves against the floor. Applauding. And laughing in reply. Then he shook his head. “Where there is mammal, there is oxygen,” he said. “Everypony always imagines that sewers are full of Phantoms of Opera, or alligator, like in silly adventure stories.”

“What books are you reading?” said Cliff.

Misty flitted his Hooves in dismissal. As if to say: eet doesn't matter.

“The most dangerous thing about tunnels,” Misty continued. “Apart from getting lost - is the air.”

“So we have to crawl…” Foster trembled. “…through thousands of rats. And… breathe their air?”

“Don't be stupid,” said Misty. “We cannot do that. They would eat you, and you would die. Especially in Wasteland. Now shh!”

The light orb flickered and sparked and disappeared into darkness. In its place was Misty’s horn, glowing pink, casting a brand new spell as he charged down the ‘HOT’ corridor.

He was only halfway down the hall when a thin mist brewed all around. It shrouded Misty, drifted past him, and puffed out a horrible stench of moldy old garbage. The whole tunnel reeked just like the stinkbomb gust that erupts from the ground when your shovel first breaches the walls of an underground rat nest.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I snapped.

“Don't worry,” Misty called out from behind the fog. “Eet will lure them out. Going to be quick! You'll see! Twenty times faster than –;”

Crunch. I don't know what the hatch at the end of the corridor was made out of, but it gave way. And in gushed a tidal wave of screeching and clawing. Misty's pink mist took the form of a giant net, and swelled up big and tight, fluttering like a water balloon at the end of a garden hose.

Foster threw her hood over her head, and leapt behind Cliff. Her hooves danced uneasily - looking for ways not to touch the ground. (A busted crate and an ancient hard hat were all that she had to perch upon).

“Misty!” I shouted.

But the rat net kept growing. Like a sock full of angry firecrackers - squealing scratching firecrackers. Soon, it breached the concrete arch and blocked off the ‘HOT’ hallway altogether. I had no idea if Misty was even okay under all of that, or if he'd gotten knocked over and smothered to death in the chaos.

Either way, he didn't respond.

“Misty!!!” I shouted again, but to no avail.

The pink wall of claws and noses only got madder and madder and madder and madder and madder. Purple sparks started flying off the surface. Misty’s magic was struggling to hold them back.

“Fucking rats,” I spat.

I couldn't stand the frantic sound of them. Or the smell.

It made me feel like I was four years old again. Crying because a bunch of stupid rats had ruined the first tomato I’d ever planted.

Foster was taking it even worse than me. She’d climbed up on top of Cliff’s back. And he’d knelt down to let her.

She tightened her hood like a surgeon's mask. It was one thing to be able to breathe the open air outside of your hospital bubble. It was quite another to bury your immune system in 15,000 rats.

“For Celestia’s sake, Misty, stop!” Cliff shrieked.

“Misty!” I called out for the hundredth time.

But still no sign of him. Just more sparks flying from the magic net. The whole pack was gonna spill out any second. They were gonna eat us, and filth us, and rat us to death.

Foster threw her hooves up and cowered. Cliff winced as Foster’s manic motions brushed against his injured wing. While I leapt back and clung to the wall.

“Ahhh!” we cried out in unison. “Ahhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhh! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

‘Till…PWOF! The bubble burst and everything was gone. A gust rushed us from behind instead, hurrying to fill the void. Pushing away the last traces of rodent stink, and puffing out lightning smell instead - straight off of the ‘HOT’ hallway’s steaming bricks.

The world's most obnoxious unicorn emerged from the mists, pausing only to straighten out his hat.

“You idiot,” barked Cliff. “Foster has an immune disease.”

“What?” said Misty, suddenly pale. “How is nocreature telling me this? We are in sewer? How are you not dead?”

Foster didn't answer. She just panted and heaved and clutched at her chest as though her heart was gonna leap right out of it.

“Rats are dangerous mostly if they make chomp of you. If you can survive that muck back there,” Misty gestured his head vaguely toward the other end of the tunnel - the sewer from whence we came. “You should be safe.”

“Think about where those filthy things have been,” I said.

“The same place you have,” Misty pointed once again at the dark hall that we’d journeyed down.

Foster let her hood loosen, and stared off into space. Contemplating what all of this meant.

Instinctively, she sniffed her ribs. (For what? I don't know.) Then she patted down her chest. Confirming that she was, in fact, still in one piece. And that that singular piece wasn't bursting into massive allergic hives.

A flash of green later, and Foster was suddenly her bugself. Opening her winter jacket and studying her exoskeleton for signs of a flare up. Then she lifted her orbish eyes to stare down the ‘HOT’ tunnel. “You're sure you got them all?” she said to Misty with renewed urgency.

He opened his mouth to boast, but...

“EeeeEeEEe!” A horrific squeal echoed down the ‘HOT’ hall. Accompanied by the sound of furious scurrying and wailing.

Misty pointed a hoof at Cliff and Foster. “Stay here,” he commanded, and then spun to me. “Quickly,” was all he said to me before dashing up the ‘HOT’ hall.

Just ‘quickly.’

I followed. Without question or delay. ‘Cause Misty’s urgency was contagious, and left no room for messing around. I ran right behind him. Knowing that whatever-the-fuck awaited us at the end of that corridor would involve rats. Lots and lots of stupid, evil, rosebush-eating rats.

I galloped furiously towards the shrill sound ahead. Ready to leap into action - whatever that might entail. But when I came to Misty, he wasn't battling rats. He was down on the floor, hunched delicately over a dome of magic that he'd cast. “Stop!” he threw a hoof up, and called out to me. “You'll scare her.”

I shuffled to a halt. “Her?”

“No one making hurt of you,” he cooed and whispered at the ground.

“Is that a fucking rat?” I said.

I leaned in closer. Till I could finally see ‘her’ - a rat-shaped monster the size of a fucking terrier. Its red eyes bulged as it hissed. Scabs and sores speckled its bald flesh - wet and shiny. Oozing with Luna-knows-what. It heaved and contracted its chest rapidly as it breathed - like the world's vilest accordion, squealing out a polka.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I said.

The rat-strosity panicked inside the small shield that Misty had cast around it.

“Go eento my saddle bag,” he instructed me. “There is small white box. Second compartment on the inside.”

That urgency again. I nodded at Misty and plunged my face into his bag. “Uh…second compartment from the left, or…wait, I think I got it…no, that's not it. More of a yellow than white, and…oh, yeah, duh. This isit…I think.”

“Hurry,” said Misty. “She's hurt.”

“Misty, we have bigger–;”

“Ees my fault.” He shot me a look that could have slain a dragon.

I laid the box at his hooves. And didn't say a word.

Misty went back to hunching over ‘her,’ and ignoring my efforts. He squinted. Leaned in close. Crumpled his face like a sock puppet, focusing really really hard.

Then the polka stopped. The rat-strosity’s accordion breaths had slowed. For a long solemn moment, nothing seemed to be happening.

And in that silence, I felt totally fucking stupid. Useless. Like I was being kept on my tippy hooves for no reason at all. Or worse: for the sake of a nasty old rodent.

But I couldn't ask Misty, ‘Hay, what gives?’ He was entranced. I couldn't go back to Cliff and Foster either. ‘Cause getting up and walking away would distract Misty.

So I just sorta…watched the rat undulate. Till its bulbous eyes caught mine and its entire face tightened with hatred.

“Shhhhh,” said Misty. The dome contracted to stroke the rat. Soothe it.

It looked to me. Then to Misty. Then to me. Then to Misty.

“Maybe I should go,” I whispered.

“You're here for a reason,” said Misty, voice calm and steady. “I may need an extra set of hooves. Please, just wait.”

I sat my flank down. And stared down the little white box. Readied myself to leap forward and…help…open it, and deal with…whatever was in it…at a moment’s notice. Super helpful and important-like.

The rat, meanwhile, just eyed me suspiciously.

“Ees okay,” Misty reassured her. “Rose Petal is friend. She ees as scared of you as you are of her.”

If the rat had had any eyebrows at all, she would have raised one of them at me to express the very depths of her distrust. But the magic dome petted her till she nestled into a little crouch, and poutingly folded her forelegs.

“Yes, I know,” said Misty. “We are intrudingk on your home, and we are both very sorry, aren't we, Rose?”

I nodded grimly.

“We'll be gone soon,” Misty continued.

My eyeballs drifted to the concrete ceiling. And I imagined what it must be like for that ceiling to suddenly crumble away - out of nowhere - all at once - and leave your home in utter ruins.

Like I had done to the rats beneath my garden back home.

The rodent before us looked to Misty with a sort of trust. And fear. And pain.

Misty’s magic held her like a blanket, and rolled her over on her trusting back, till…YOINK! He plucked a shard of debris from her underside.

Eeeee! The rat screeched and wailed in blind panic for a minute, and then, just sorta…stopped. She looked down at herself. Experimented. Stretching out, bending around, licking her own belly till it was good and clean, (or at least, covered it rat saliva).

Once satisfied that her wound was okay, the rat leapt up and bounded around in circles like a puppy eager to fetch.

The dome of magic dissolved, and replaced itself with the old familiar light orb. The rat paused to sniff the air. With a fluttering nose, she crept up to Misty, and nuzzled against his cheek.

She looked to me next. Having no idea what to do, I just sorta waved back.

Finally, without any more fuss, the rat scampered up a ramp and back into the open hatch that she and her herd had come from.

I watched the empty hole for a moment. Not entirely sure what to make of what had just happened. But Misty wasted no time in opening up the box that I had brought him. From it, he produced a smaller box - one of many - labeled RAD-AWAY, which he stabbed with a straw.

SlurRrRrRrRrrp.

He proffered the final sip to me. It tasted like grape juice if some kinda dark and evil unicorn wizard had gotten it in her head to conjure some grape juice out of the ether, but had never actually seen, smelt, nor tasted an actual grape in all of her dark and evil days. I blink-bloinked in surprise at the sheer weirdness of it.

Meanwhile, Misty was already on his hooves again. "I'll scout ahead,” he said. “You get the others. Tell them that it's safe. Even for Foster.”

Already halfway up a shallow ramp, and already headed for the hatch that all those thousands of rats had burst out of in the first place.

“What happened to–;” I started to ask, but Misty charged ahead. Up a shallow ramp and into the hatch that all those rats had burst out of in the first place.

The light orb followed him juuuuust beyond the hole, and hovered there, so that it could cast a beam of light straight down the ‘HOT’ corridor, while also lighting his own way as he investigated whatever lay ahead.

* * *

I trotted back. Found Foster, still in bugform, seated on an old discarded hard hat, deep in thought. Cliff gently rubbed her back as she mused.

“You alright?” I asked.

“Yeah, of course we're alright,” snapped Cliff Diver. “What about you?”

“Oh, uh that?” I gestured behind me at the ‘HOT’ hallway. “It was just some, uhh, rat…business. Nothing to worry about.”

“Business must be booming,” said Foster, staring off at nothing in particular.

“It's all under control now,” I said. “Honest.”

Foster nodded, and spoke monotone. “I know. I felt it. When you, me, and Cliff were screaming over the….” Foster shuddered at the thought of that tidal wave of rats. “I could hear a little whisper in the back of my mind.”

“A whisper?” I said.

Foster nodded. “It was Misty. I sensed him. Like he was…Hive.”

“Whoa,” I said.

“My thoughts exactly,” said Cliff, looking to me with sympathetic eyeballs, as his hooves patted Foster, super comforting-like.

“I'm fine,” Foster blinked her green orbs, shook her head, and looked up into my eyes. “I'm just kinda stunned. With you two, it took such a long time. And there was a lot more…friendship first. But I felt Misty when I called out in distress. It’s not a bad thing. It's just so…unexpected. To hive with somepony you barely know.”

“I get what you mean,” I said. Even though there was no way for me to have a fraction of a clue how she might feel.

“Well, I know him now,” she said, slapping her thighs with a chuckle of resignation. “We should probably get going, shouldn't we?” Foster, rose to her hooves, and made to follow me down the ‘HOT’ corridor.

But I didn't lead. I just stood there, gazing at her. With fresh eyeballs. The faint light at the end of the tunnel cast a sheen on her exoskeleton. Her eyes, though totally lacking in white bits or even irises, had a sort of ethereal luster to them that I'd never noticed before.

“What?” said Foster. She glanced down at herself. “Oh! Sorry!”

Green flame enveloped her body and, in a flash, she was equine again. Laughing nervously. Like she'd somehow committed a great offense.

“There's nocreature down here but us,” I said. “You don't have to hide if you don't want to.”

“That’s sweet, but we don't mind it,” said Foster. “Really. Changelings are built for deep cover. It's fine.”

“But you're not undercover right now,” said Cliff Diver “The three of us are your hive.”

“Hmm,” said Foster.

Turning away from us, she marched ahead down the ‘HOT’ corridor, taking the lead. Deep in thought once again.

Cliff and I exchanged eyeballs and hurried to follow.

“I should maybe–;” Foster turned her head to look at me. Stopped and spun on her hooves when she realized how far behind I'd fallen. “No, that won't work,” she said. “You two freak out whenever I change.”

“That's not true,” said Cliff just as the two of us caught up.

Foster's wryly raised an eyebrow, and turned back into a bug.

Cliff flinched at the light of her magic flame. So did I. And when we both finished blink-bloinking our bloinkitty eyelids, Foster gave us a smug little smile.

“Mammals are hardwired to value that which they find adorable and cuddly, and to recoil from that which fails to meet those standards,” she said. “Not to worry. I don't take it personally. It's just survival instinct: why you protect your young; how you separate the us from the them.”

Cliff retorted, “No, you absolute dope. It's that fire…thing you do that startles me. Not your appearance. You really think I care about what you look like?” He squeaked indignantly.

“What?” said Foster. “No, of course not! You just always…you know, look at me differently. Even after the fire fades. Both of you.” Foster waved a hoof back and forth at me and Cliff. “You can't help it. Of course I don't think that you care about my appearance. At least not morally. But my appearance is still disarming. You can't help reacting to that.”

“‘Cause we've never seen you like that for more than thirty seconds at a time,” said Cliff Diver.

I nodded in agreement.

“It's never been safe for more than thirty seconds,” Foster retorted. “Why are you getting so worked up?”

“Because it's safe now,” Cliff snapped.

Foster stopped dead in her tracks. It didn't slow us down; we were coming up to the ramp that led to Misty's steam tunnel anyway. But she planted her hooves on the ground so abruptly that Cliff and I had to spin to face her.

“Oh,” she said, eyes fixed intently on nothing in particular.

Just…’oh.’

And while I had a whoooole lot on my mind about Foster’s appearance. About respecting whatever the hell she wanted to do - however the hell she chose to appear. While I had all of the same passion and fire for supporting her that Cliff Diver did, I just stared at Foster’s giant green eye orbs, and what little of her exoskeleton poked out from under her winter jacket. “You’readorable,” I said.

“Huh?”

“You're so shiny,” I studied her carefully as the magic light (from just outside the hatch) danced and sparkled all over Bananas Foster’s carapace.

She touched a forehoof to her chest. Unbuttoned her winter jacket, and studied her own body, as if it were wholly unfamiliar territory. “Really?”

Her face scrunched up super tight as she conducted her examination. Like there was a whole lot of trigonometry running around the inside of her head. But a smile pierced its way through. And her lashless eyelids fluttered just a little. “So…” Foster turned to Cliff, scratching her chin and contemplating. “The aesthetics of adorableness are externally conditioned then?”

“It's not conditioned, you dork,” said Cliff.

“I'm just surprised,” said Foster, suddenly back to being the equiologist that we all knew. “We’re usually considered hideous. ‘We’ meaning parasites, of course. The economy of love consumption is directly opposed to equine modes of…well, let's just say host species aren't supposed to find us adorable.”

Foster wagged a hoof at us sternly. “How do you ponies survive if you see the adorableness in…everything?” Her cheeks softened. It should not have been possible for exoskeleton cheeks to do that. But soften, indeed, they did. Had they been filly-cheeks, they'd have turned cherry red with blush.

“We don't survive,” said Cliff grimly. “That's the problem. Our world is going to fail. Because we don't see beauty in everycreature.”

The tunnel fell silent. We all exchanged somber glances, and Foster cast her gaze upon the floor. “Us and them,” she whispered. As a soft breeze wafted through the broken hatch.

“Ees safe!” Misty popped out of that hatch, all-of-a-suddenishly.

“Ahh!” I stumbled backwards.

While Foster shrunk back, and bunched her shoulders in. An almost Cliff-like motion.

“That means we go,” Misty admonished me. But then he spotted Foster, hiding behind the hoof of her own coat. “There are no rats,” he said gently. “I promise.” Misty straightened out his hat triumphantly for dramatic effect. “I…am rat whisperer.”

“You whisper at a lot of things,” I said.

Misty shrugged. “I try.”

Foster was still recoiling. Uncertainty emanated from her giant green eye globes. Like she expected Misty to flinch or be nasty to her about her…lack of adorableness…or whatever.

But he just cocked his head, and studied her unusual posture. “What? What did I miss?”

Author's Note

PATREON

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For those of you who already are pledging, seriously, and for real, thank you. Your support means a great deal to me. /]*[\

THOUGHTS:
Every time I think I know and understand Foster - every time I think I've got her pinned down (no entomology pun intended) - she reveals a whole other side to herself that takes me entirely by surprise.

DEDICATION;
Happy Lammas to Princess Celestia! And of course, thanks as always to Princess Luna, without whom dreams would not be possible.