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.

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:
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! 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.