Ah remember that day all those years ago…when it all began.
The Summer Sun Celebration that year was held in Baltimare and the Princess had requested Sweet Apple Acres to cater for it. How word of our apples reached Canterlot, Ah don’t think I’ll ever know. Ah was honored, nonetheless, and more than happy for the business.
It went rather smoothly, considering an event of that size, and by the end of the celebration I was plum tuckered and ready to return home.
That day, Ah was set to take the mornin’ train back to Ponyville; it was a beautiful day, summer at its best, and nothing seemed like it could wrong.
But you know how Marephy’s Law goes…
The whistle train blew, signaling its departure from the station and startling the mare out of her thoughts.
Looking up, she just now noticed how unpopulated her car was. Only four other ponies beside herself populated the train car, all of them being ponies she recognized from around Ponyville. She was fairly certain one of those ponies was that crazy baker from Sugarcube Corner. But by Celestia’s light, she could not remember it at the moment.
Now that she thought about it, the baker was normally hyper and bouncing off of the walls, but now, she was being abnormally still.
A loud obnoxious snore came from the direction of the pink earth pony.
She chuckled.
But then again, now that she thought about it, it had been oddly quiet lately.
Looking around she saw that most of the other passengers were either already asleep, or making themselves comfortable.
She was still exhausted from the celebration, so a nice nap on the ride back home sounded pretty darn good to her.
Leaning her head back against the headrest, she closed her eyes and drifted off to the rhythmic chugging of the train.
Applejack was awoken by her face violently greeting a hard floor, having been thrown out of her seat by a particularly violent bit of turbulence.
Applejack picked herself up off the floor and shook off the impact.
Glancing around the train car, she saw it was in total chaos.
“I think I broke something!”
“Let’s do it again!”
“LOOK OUT!”
Applejack ducked. A blue figure flew overhead, narrowly missing hitting her in the head.
The figure paused briefly to look out her window before flying to the next.
“What’s goin’ on?!” She asked, hoping somepony had answers.
“I don’t know!” Replied the blue figure, who she could now make out as a sky blue pegasus with a rainbow mane. Before continuing, the pegasus darted off to another window. “Whatever it is, it woke me up from an awesome dream. Not coo-”
Another bit of turbulence hit the train, causing the blue pegasus to ram face first into the window.
From where she was thrown into the walkway, Applejack scrambled to her feet and rushed to the nearest window.
She saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Just your normal forest scenery of trees, grass and rocks blurring by.
Something was definitely not right though, if the ear-piercing metallic shriek and violent shake that followed it were any testimony.
A nasty grinding noise followed and before anypony could give any sort of warning, the train car jumped off the tracks.
All Tartarus broke loose as the train car started to tumble uncontrollably – limbs, luggage, and debris flying every which way.
As Applejack slowly came to, she found her body to be very sore.
But that’s to be expected when you’re tossed around like a rag doll and caught at the bottom of an avalanche of luggage.
A pained groan followed by movement above her made her realize that not all that had collapsed on top of her was luggage.
The pony above her carefully rose to her hooves. However, the pony was not so careful when it came to climbing over the luggage.
“Ow!”
“O-oh no, I-I’m so sorry.” The pony jumped off of the orange mare’s leg and started to clear away the luggage on top of her, starting with the baggage that had collapsed on her head.
With the luggage that mostly restricted her movement gone, Applejack shifted to begin to remove the luggage collapsed on her lower half.
Or at least she tried to.
The movement caused a sharp pain to shoot through her pinned leg, causing her to let out a cry of pain.
“Oh! D-don’t move, it’ll only make the injury worse.” Her rescuer, a butter yellow pegasus, attempted to lift heavy metal chair which had collapsed during the crash and now pinned down Applejack’s leg.
The scrawny mare did not have enough strength to lift it, however, and it wasn’t until a second pair of hooves, these blue, came to help that the chair was successfully lifted enough for Applejack to pull her leg out from underneath.
Standing, Applejack gently tested her leg.
It was stiff and a dull ache arched through her leg with each tentative step, most likely due to the nasty bruises that could be seen through her orange fur, but it was not the worst injury the mare has received.
“Is everypony okay?” Her other rescuer, the blue mare from earlier, asked.
“Ah…Ah think so.”
“That was fun! Let’s do it again!” The pink earth pony that Applejack had earlier popped up next to them. Inexplicably, she had made it out completely unscathed.
“Let’s not.” The blue pegasus turned to her fellow pegasus. “Fluttershy, are you okay?”
The yellow pegasus, Fluttershy, hid her face behind her mane. “Yes, Dash. I’m fine.”
“Uh huh. Sure. Fluttershy, let me see.”
‘Dash’ stepped closer to Fluttershy and, despite the shy pony’s protests, lifted her mane away, revealing a bloody jagged cut above her right eye.
Dash sighed.
Briefly searching the luggage contents that exploded across the floor, she walked to a nearby pile and pulled out a green scarf.
Returning to Fluttershy, she carefully worked the scarf around her head so that it covered the cut.
Stepping back, she examined her improvised bandage.
She smiled in approval. “There.”
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” A white blur tackled Dash to the floor. “That was a one-of-a-kind vintage cashmere scarf! Specially imported from Saddle Arabia! And YOU…YOU use it as a BANDAGE?!”
Dash attempted, unsuccessfully, to pull away from the crazed mare’s face that was inches from her own.
“Ummm…yes?”
Before any damage could befall Dash, a yellow hoof gently landed on the shoulder of Dash’s assailant, a white unicorn, and a soft voice killed the fury in the mare’s eyes.
“S-stop…please. I-I got hurt and she was just trying to help. She…um…she didn’t know how valuable your scarf was.”
The unicorn stepped off of Dash and turned away from her, but not without shooting Dash a glare over her shoulder first.
“Yes, well…I suppose.” The unicorn turned to the rest of the mares. “Shall we leave this dreadful place? Seeing as we’re all fine, it would be best that we help those of the other cars.”
“Three steps ahead of ya, sister!”
The ponies all turned to see the pink mare had climbed out of a busted window and was already outside.
Applejack soon followed and helped those left safely climb out of the wreckage. The white unicorn was the last out, and she had a new accessory.
“Why the hay did ya grab a scarf?”
“Well, a proper mare always has to look her best, regardless of her situation.” The mare responded. “Besides, I wanted to make myself feel better after somepony ruined my favorite scarf.”
Applejack rolled her eyes and decided not to argue with her, after all, there were more pressing matters at hand.
Applejack and the unicorn joined the others where they were gathered, surveying the wreckage.
Looking around the area, what she saw startled her.
There were three other train cars laid spread out around their car. But, miraculously, theirs was the only passenger car.
All the others were cargo cars, judging by their lack of windows.
No pony said anything for a while, just taking it in.
Until a pink blur tackled them all into a hug.
“Come on, silly fillies!” The pink menace let them go and started hopping in front of them with a huge cheerful smile. “No time to mope around! Let’s goooo!”
She turned and bounded off into the forest that surround the wreckage.
Applejack blinked.
Standing, she tilted her hat forward and followed after the mare. “Well…best not let ‘er go off alone.”
The others soon followed Applejack’s lead, leaving behind Fluttershy who was nervously glancing between where they were heading and behind her, in the opposite direction they were going.
With a small ‘eep’, she raced to catch up to the group.
“Um…e-excuse me, but…uh…wouldn’t it make sense to go the other way?” Fluttershy glanced dubiously over her shoulder. “In the direction of the tracks?”
Her words, muttered barely above a whisper, went unheard by the others.
Fluttershy just sighed and followed the group as they traveled further into the forest.
“I’m telling you, we’re lost.”
“No we’re not, silly!”
“Oh, yeah? We’ve been traveling for hours and we’ve seen nothing but trees and rocks!” Rainbow Dash countered back to their pink guide, Pinkie Pie (as they’ve all learned each other’s names during their trek).
“…Ah’m pretty sure we’ve passed that tree three times already.”
Pinkie just giggled innocently.
“That’s it! I’m taking the lead!” Dash darted in front of the mare and started running in a direction slightly off to the right.
“Hey! We gotta stick t’gether!” The colorful mare ignored Applejack’s call and continued running.
“Consarnit!” Applejack took off after Rainbow, the others following behind her.
Dash looked over her shoulder to see the others chasing after her, Applejack leading them by some distance but still able to catch up to the speedy mare.
She smirked and faced forward again, just as she turned into a clearing.
What she beheld in the clearing in front of her made her skid to a sudden halt.
She heard a set of hoofsteps come up behind her and stop just as suddenly, followed shortly after by three other sets.
“Whoa.” Came the breathless whisper of the farmer as she came up next to Dash.
Whoa was right. In front of the group was a massive structure, constructed of stone and obviously several centuries old. It was built sturdily, like a castle or fortress, but its architecture was somewhere between the two, lacking the simplicity of a fortress and the elegancy of a castle. The impressiveness that is common to castles was not lost however, for the sheer size of the structure could rival that of Canterlot’s royal castle.
Dash appeared to have shaken off her stupor as she began to advance toward the two massive elegantly carved doors that served as the main entrance of the structure.
This caught Applejack by surprise. “Sugarcube, are ya sure that’s such a good idea?”
Dash turned back around to face the group. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to sleep out in the forest tonight.”
Only now did Applejack realize the lateness of the day. The hour of twilight was almost upon them and despite how creepy and possibly unsafe the structure before her seemed, she had to agree with the pegasus, she really did not want to spend the night in the forest.
Applejack looked to the rest of their group for their opinions. They all nodded their head in approval, even Fluttershy who, despite her obvious fear, reluctantly agreed.
Dash turned around and continued the rest of the way to the door.
Up close she could now see that the doors were made of wood that, although obviously aged, was still as sturdy as ever. She figured it must have been due to some sort of enchantment.
As she lifted her hoof and brought it down on the wooden surface, an echo could be heard on the other side of the door. An apprehensive silence overcame the group behind her.
Just before she brought down her hoof a third time, the heavy door slowly creaked open.
With a small ‘eep’, Fluttershy dove behind Applejack and cowered behind the mare.
Applejack heard the unicorn next to her, Rarity, gulp. “Well…that isn’t ominous.”
A careless giggle came from their left and Pinkie fearlessly bounced through the doors.
“HEEEELLOOOOOOOOOO!” An echo was the mare’s only response from the empty room, only causing her to smile wider.
“HELLOOOO!”
“What-”
“PIIIINKIIIIEEEE!”
“Hey!”
“P-mph!”
Rainbow had rushed forward and clamped Pinkie’s mouth shut. “Are you trying to draw attention to us?!”
The others had made their way through the doors as well and were standing some distance away, warily eyeing Pinkie.
Pinkie pried herself out of Dash’s grasp and laughed. “Silly filly, there’s no pony here!”
Everyone in the room jumped as the heavy wooden door they just came through slammed shut, leaving only enough light in the room to see the outline of the objects around them. Followed shortly after by a malicious chuckle that belonged to none of those present.
“I beg to differ.”
No pony bothered to look back as they all scurried out of the room at top speed. Not one ran in the same direction as another as the only thought that preoccupied their mind was to escape the wicked laughter that echoed after them.