//------------------------------//
// 10. Far from the Tree 
// Story: Faultlines 
// by FawkesThePhoney 
//------------------------------//

 
            There was a dead rat in the ditch that morning, drowned in the rain from the night before. It lay belly up in the stagnant water, eyes open and glassy, tongue out. It was big, one of the biggest she’d ever seen, but it was no match for the deluge.
            Jonagold barely paid it any mind. It was normal. Dead things were always accumulating in the ditches along the Red Town main road; the Hub City municipality saw fit to ignore the Red districts in their midst, and there wasn’t a lot of time for the ponies who lived there to do it themselves. Sometimes it was a rat. Sometimes it was something much bigger. It never concerned her much either way. She slung her bag higher up over her shoulder and kept walking, her hooves catching on the chipped cobblestones or slipping in the mud.
            Along the street, Red ponies were preparing for the day. She saw stallions and mares, fillies and colts, bundling up and leaving their apartments, locking the doors behind them and eyeing the street as if expecting a fight. On street corners, ragtag gangs of young stallions stood, eyeing passerby with hollow eyes, smoking cheap rolls. Along the alleys, ponies bundled in rags shivered in front of small cups, waiting for a passing cap or anything a pony could spare. Most passersby ignored them both.
            Jonagold was no exception. She walked past the other ponies without looking at them, keeping her eyes straight ahead, humming a small tune from a time long ago. She knew the drill. She couldn’t look. The clothes she was wearing already made her a target.
            “…brothers and sisters, the wicked Blues know their time is near an end! They know that soon, a great Red tide will sweep them down, and we will reclaim our birthright! The Blues know this, brothers and sisters, and that is why they strike so hard on the vanguard! Now is the time to join up! Now is the time of renewal!”
            She rounded a corner and came to Cinnamon Park, where a burly Red stallion with wild eyes stood on top of a wooden crate, shouting at the ponies that walked past him. Ever since the flames at the nightclub last week, someone would be there, harking to the end times. A small crowd had gathered around the pony, nodding as he spoke. A few guards watched the crowd with a wary eye. Jonagold walked past without looking. He wasn’t worth the trouble. 
Across the street and another block away, the ruin of Red town began to fade. Within the span of a couple blocks, the broken down apartments and abandoned stores vanished, replaced with larger, brighter buildings that did not have boarded windows and graffiti. She began to see Blue ponies, young ones, sometimes pushing carriages with foals in them. She smiled at all of them. Some of them smiled back. Some didn’t.
            At the corners leading into the financial district stood two guards, smoking and looking bored. They glanced at her, looked at her clothes, glanced away. She walked past without incident, and then she was in. The buildings rose tall around her, Auroran Gothic architecture in full splendor.  Now she saw nothing but Blue ponies and the occasional Andalusian. They were becoming more prominent in the banking section of late. 
She walked to her office building, showed her ID at the door and entered. The majesty of the lobby was breathtaking, ten stories high with an enormous shining chandelier perched above, glimmering in the new electric lights. The floor was polished so thoroughly she could see every inch of her reflection. The sight was powerful enough to take a newcomer’s breath away. Jonagold was not impressed. She’d stopped being impressed many years ago.
 
            “You can’t leave us!” she shouted, louder now, as if the anger could stop the tears that threatened to break beneath her eyes. “We need you! What about Honeycrisp?” What about me?
            “You can’t look at me like that, now, Jonagold,” her brother said, pausing from his packing. He didn’t look at her. “There’s no jobs left in this town. There’s no jobs left anywhere. That’s why I’ve got to quit this place.”
            “You’re abandoning us!”
            “I ain’t doing nothing of the sort! I’ll send for y’all soon as I got a place to work, promise! Listen to me, Jonagold, things here just ain’t working out.”
            “You can’t give up so easy now.”
            “This just ain’t the way,” he said. “It just can’t be the way. I refuse to live like this. I either rot in a mine, rot on a farm, or rot in a factory for the rest of my life, making Blue folks richer than you wouldn’t believe. You would not believe how rich they are, Jonagold. The manager, Pisces, he let me into his office one time, and I couldn’t—they have gold inlaid onto the ceiling in there, Jona! Why, if we had even a scraping of what they’ve got in that place, we’d never have to work another day in our lives!”
            “You don’t got to tell me that, Jersey,” she said. “But you got to suck it up. This here ain’t no time for theatrics or running off. Honey’s about to start school, and she’s going to need supplies and—and a normal life! I can’t do that! If I can take a firing or two, the heavens know you can!”
            “You just don’t understand,” Jersey said, and then Jonagold noticed the fear in his eyes, a true fear, the sort that bubbles up from time to time but is always around, always hovering, always a threat. “You just don’t—“
            A low suspicion began to stir in the back of her mind. “Jersey,” she said, “what exactly happened today? What’d they fire you for?”
            He didn’t look at her. “I need to go,” he said.
            “No you sure don’t,” she said. “You’d better start talking to me before you walk out on your sisters like some coward.”
            “I AIN’T NO COWARD!” he roared at her, whirling around, spittle flying from his lips. “Don’t you NEVER call me a coward, Jonagold, so help me…”
            “Or what? ‘Cause you’re sure acting like one, running off like this.”
            “They was gonna—they was gonna—“
            Jersey seemed to be struggling with some great force that swelled within him, pushing out on all sides. His face was like stone, his eyes clenched shut, his teeth bared. His whole body shook.
            “Jersey Mac, what on earth—“
            “They was gonna make me hurt him, Jona!”
            “What are you talking about?”
        But Jersey wasn’t talking. He closed his eyes and for a moment, Jonagold thought he was going to cry. He looked just like their father in that moment, his deep red coat stained with sweat, his face scrunched with the burden of something he could not define. Jonagold was about to ask him about it again when he opened his mouth and began to talk.
            “Unlit Parsnip, he’s one of the workers at the plant. I don’t know how old he is, but he’s old. His vision’s going.” The words were tumbling out of Jersey’s mouth now. Jonagold licked her lips. “He can’t see like he used to, and… and it’s affecting his work. We’ve all seen it these last few months, but ain’t no one’s about to say anything and get him fired. Until today, when he slipped, mangled a small part. It wasn’t a big deal, really. Probably cost the company a couple caps. But Pisces saw it as his opportunity. They all knew that we were protecting him, even me.
            “So he called me up and said I wasn’t performing properly. Said that Parsnip’s mess-up was my fault, ‘cause I hadn’t been paying proper attention. So he gave me a choice. I could discipline Parsnip, or I could leave my job.”
            Jonagold’s mouth was dry, but Jersey wasn’t finished.
            “And he didn’t mean no stern talking-to, Jonagold. It’s how they keep us in line… Pisces knows he can't whips us, but he can look the other way if I do it. Then it's just another brutal Red keeping his own people in line, and he can act shocked as anyone when it comes out. I've seen it before, and I knew that if I stayed there I’d become even worse than him, ‘cause even my own people would hate me, and I’d get to hating myself so hard I’d never come out of it. So I walked out. And I know I’m finished here.”
            “Finished?” Jonagold said.
            “Pisces has my name,” Jersey said. “He’ll make sure I never get anything above a mine or floor job again. It don’t matter either way. I’ve already betrayed pap, betrayed us… y’all’d be best off without me anyway. Don’t want Honeycrisp growing up to hate her own brother.”
            “Ain’t no one around here’s ever going to hate you, Jersey,” Jonagold said. Her brother barked out something like a laugh, tears in his eyes. Then the siblings were embracing, Jonagold pulling her brother close and resting her chin on his shoulder like she used to do when she was a foal.
            “Where are you going to go?” she said, her voice thin.
            “I don’t know,” he said. “I reckon Fort Tain, or maybe even Prospolis. I hear ponies there don’t care one whit about fur color. Ain’t that something? You could just walk down the street without a care in the world.”
            “Sounds pretty nice,” Jonagold said.
            “I swear by Cestel in the sky  I’m going to send for y’all,” Jersey said as they pulled out of the embrace. “I don’t know when, but as soon as I’m settled. We’ll all get the hell out of this place and never, ever look back.”
            “I know you’ll keep that promise, too,” she said, trying to smile.
            Jersey picked up his suitcase and walked for the door. “Be seeing you, sis,” he said.
            “I reckon,” she said.
 
            “Jonagold…? Miss Jonagold? You in there?”
            The voice pulled Jonagold out of her memory. She looked up with a start. A well-dressed Blue pony smiled down at her. “Oh,” she said, “sorry about that, Mr. Gemini. Let me just buzz you in right quick here.”
            “It’s quite all right, Jonagold,” Gemini said, “I’d imagine this job can get pretty boring sometimes.”
            “Yes, sir,” she said, smiling along with him. “I mean, you know how it is: same old places, same old faces.”
            “Every time,” Gemini, said, laughing. “Well, you do a good job of it all the same. Say… I was wondering if you could help me with a little problem of mine?”
            “Well, certainly, sir, but I don’t know what sort of problem I could help you with.”
            “Don’t sell yourself short, girl! Here’s the thing.” Gemini leaned in closer, conspiratorially. Jonagold could smell his breath. Peppermint. “My son-in-law’s coming in to see me today about some business, and I’d like to play a little prank on him, you know how it is.”
            “Certainly,” Jonagold said.
            “So I’ve got this name tag especially made up for him, oh, where did I put it….” Gemini rustled around in his bags. “Where oh where… ah! Haha, here it is!”
            He pulled out a nametag that had been garishly decorated with bright pink sparkles and swirls. The name on it read Zephyr Booties. Jonagold looked at it.
            “His real name is Boötes,” Gemini said with a wink. “It’s like a joke between us. If you could just give this to him in lieu of the normal ones we give out, I’d really appreciate it.”
            What if I refuse? “An excellent choice, sir,” Jonagold said, taking the badge with a knowing grin. “I’d be delighted to.”
            “Oh, wonderful,” Gemini said, chortling to himself. “Be sure to give it to him straight, too! Oh, to see the look on his face! But I’m sure I’ll see it myself soon enough. Thanks Jonagold, you’re a real peach!”
            “Of course, sir,” Jonagold said, tipping her cap to him as he walked through the security door. Her eyes followed him until he got to the lift, noting the spring in his step. He was truly delighted by his little joke. She slumped back down into her chair and looked at the nametag. Zephyr Booties. Hilarious.
            “Wish you could see me now, Pap,” she murmured. “I wonder what you’d think? Playing pranks for rich Blues. Oh, if you could see me now…”
 
            “Straight and easy now, girl, just like that. Oop! Watch it, you don’t want to get too much ink on the side; there you go. Very nice!”
            Jonagold’s tongue was clenched between her teeth as she brought the top of the printing press down. Bits of ink flecked the sides of her coat; the assembled ponies in the room all looked like Dalmatians. She turned the last screw of the printing press and felt it tighten.
            “That’s perfect, Jonagold. Jersey, bring it up now, will you?”
            Her brother lifted the top of the press up again and pulled out the sheet of newspaper. Their father took it and held it up to the light. Jonagold read the words on it: The Red Review.
            “Now that’s a real thing of beauty,” her father said, a satisfied look on his face. “Excellent work, kids. Jonagold, that was a good first print.”
            “Thanks, Pap,” she said, beaming with pride.
            She was eleven years old. It was the first time she’d been allowed to work the printing press for herself, the first time she’d technically been allowed in the basement at all. She’d snuck down before and looked at the giant machine, wondering how it might work. Now that she’d seen it in action, she was less impressed. But the words her father spoke had made it exciting once again.
            Pap laid the completed newspaper to the side. “We’ll put this one in a special place,” he said. “You can keep it. Like a trophy.”
            “You never did that for me,” Jersey grumped. Their father laughed.
            “Well, that’s because I didn’t know what I was doing back then, my boy,” he said. “It’s been a long time since then. If I had your first print, I’d give it to you too.”
            Jonagold looked over the print. The headline story read, GUARD MURDERER OF TWO REDS FOUND INNOCENT OF CRIMES: A TOTAL INDICTMENT OF THE SYSTEM IS NECESSARY.Her father swooped it up from her again.
            “Maybe best you didn’t read it quite yet,” he said, glancing at Jersey. “No need for them to grow up too soon.”
            Jonagold huffed. She knew all about the Aster case. Her teacher at school wouldn’t stop talking about it. Sometimes she wondered if the Blues thought about it too, but she wasn’t sure. They were a mystery to her, living in the same city but never coming to the Red side of town. Jonagold didn’t mind. She had her hooves full with the other Red ponies as it was.
            Her father and brother continued to stamp newspapers for a while, and Jonagold helped, falling quickly into routine. The sounds in the press room put her in a sort of trance: the rustling of the paper, the jokes her father and brother made, the clop of their hooves on the stone basement floor…
        The sound of heavy knocking came from the front door. Her father looked up. “They’re early,” he said. “Well, it works for us. We’re just about finished anyway. Jersey, tie up the last of the bundles, will you? Jonagold, come with me.”
        “Where are we going, Pap?”
        “There are some ponies upstairs I’d like you to meet.”
        Jonagold’s face must have broadcasted her confusion, because her father laughed and laid a hoof on her back. 
        “It’s okay,” he said. “They’re good ponies, some of the finest I’ve ever met.”
        “What about Jersey?” 
        “He’ll be along shortly. Besides, he’s met them before.”
        Jonagold turned back to look at her big brother, wondering at this new information, but he seemed unperturbed. She turned back and began to follow her father up the stairs.
        “Coming, coming,” he said, hurrying down the hallway to the door. “Sorry, I was just in the basement, and-- howdy Copper, Rocky, Cardamom. How’re y’all doing?”
        Jonagold looked at the ponies standing in the doorway. They were all Red, of varying breeds. The one in the front was deep red, like her brother, his two-toned grey and white mane cropped short. Next to him was an orange unicorn with a darker mane, and behind them both was a Camargue earth pony with no mane at all. She caught Jonagold’s eye and winked. Her father smiled at them and greeted them all in turn. 
        “Come in, come in,” he said. “Jonagold, let me introduce you to some friends of mine. This is Copper Felt, Arrok Gastar, and Silten Cardamom. They’re all old friends.”
        “Hmm,” the pony in front, Copper, said, blowing the statement out his nose. “This is your youngest, right Hayward?”
        “That’s right,” her father said. “Jonagold turned eleven last month.”
        “Congratulations are in order, then,” he said. 
        “Thank you, sir,” she said. 
        “Come in, come in, get off the step then,” her father said, ushering them in. “Coat rack’s right behind you, Rocky, there you are. Jonagold, put on some tea, would you?”
        She nodded and raced into the kitchen, lighting the boiler and putting the kettle on. The newcomers followed her father into the living room, with the exception of the mare, Cardamom, who followed Jonagold into the kitchen.
        “What tea are you making?” she said.
        “Chamomile,” Jonagold said. “My pa says it’s the best for when guests are over.”
        “He’s taught you right then,” Cardamom said, looking over the tea leaves. “Do you mind if I smell?”
        “Go right ahead.”
        The mare leaned down and smelled the leaves deeply, a smile sliding across her face. “Oh, Hayward does know his teas,” she said. 
        Jonagold wanted to ask why she didn’t have a mane, but she thought her father would get mad at her for such a question. “Yes ma’am,” she said. “He gets the tea im-ported, but I don’t know what that means.”
        “You want to ask about my mane, don’t you?” Cardamom said.
        “I-- I didn’t mean--”
        “It’s alright,” she said, holding up a hoof and laughing. “Your Pa has taught you well, but I don’t mind. I keep it shaved, see?” She tilted her head, and now Jonagold could see the ridge along Cardamom’s spine where the fur changed to a light orange, the only remnants of her mane.
        “Why’d you do that?”
        “To remember something bad that happened to me a long time ago,” she said. “I suppose, in a way, that’s why I’m here. Did your Pa tell you about this meeting?”
        Jonagold shook her head no.
        “Then I’ll let him tell you when he’s ready,” she said. 
        “Cardie!” Hayward called from the other room. “You ready? We’re about to begin!”
        “Coming!” Cardamom called. “I’ll see you later… what was your name?”
        “Jonagold Winesap, ma’am,” Jonagold said.
        “Jonagold,” Cardamom said. “That’s a very nice name.”
        “Thank you ma’am,” Jonagold said. “It was my grandma’s.”
        “Well, I had better see what the fuss is about,” Cardamom said. “I’m looking forward to that tea.”
        “Yes ma’am.”
        Cardamom giggled at Jonagold’s mannerisms and left the room. Jonagold turned back to her tea. The kettle was boiling now. She separated the flowers into their separate cups and poured the water. Her brother walked in the room, his face still covered in ink splots.
        “He got you making tea?” he said.
        “Yup,” she said. “I’m making chamomile.”
        “Figures,” Jersey said, slumping on the wall.
        “What’s the matter, Jersey?”
        “He never lets us sit in on anything,” Jersey said. “Watch. He’s going to let you bring that tea in there and then send us both to bed.”
        “But it’s not even late!”
        “That’s to keep us from snooping,” Jersey said. 
        Jonagold poured the tea and watched the leaves change the color of the water. “I’m sure he’ll tell us everything when we’re ready, Jersey.”
        “I’m ready now,” her brother said. “I’m almost fifteen! I know they’re trying to fight the Blues, and I want in!”
        “What are you talking about?”
        “Pa’s part of some sort of resistance,” Jersey said. “I read the letter on his desk.”
        “You read--”
        “It’s not a big deal. Just don’t tell him, okay? We get to have secrets too, you know.”
        Jonagold scrunched up her face. “I don’t like it,” she said, picking up the platter of cups and balancing them on her head. 
        Her brother shrugged. “Whatever,” he said.
        Jonagold didn’t say anything else. She took the tray into the room, where her father was pouring over some papers that the newcomers had brought. He looked up from the papers and smiled. “Thank you kindly, Jonagold. Just set them down on the table there.” Jonagold did as she was told, keeping her head down. She glanced up for a moment at Cardamom, who smiled at her and winked. Jonagold smiled. 
        “Now listen here, Jona,” her father said. “You don’t have to go to sleep right now but I want both of you upstairs for a while. This meeting’s very important. Understand?
        “Yes, sir,” Jonagold said, backing out of the room. Her eyes caught Jersey’s, who was slinking at the edge of the door, just out of sight.
        “And tell your damned brother that the same goes for him!” her father called, a smile on his face.
        “Ooh, you’re caught now, Jersey” Jonagold said, unable to keep the glee from her voice.
        “Shut up,” he muttered, and the two of them walked up the stairs. Jonagold checked in on the nursery, listening to Honeycrisp’s light snores. She closed the door.
        “What’re you going to do now, Jersey?” she said.
        Her brother walked past her in a huff and closed the door to his room. Jonagold shrugged and went to her own room. She pulled her copy of AMAZING TALES! from underneath her bed, sat down, and began to read. The knight was about to brave the haunted castle for his princess, and she wanted to see the end of the story….
        She must have fallen asleep at some point, because sometime later shouts from downstairs roused her. She sat up, blinking, bleary-eyed. It was impossible to know how much time had passed.
        “You’ve gone soft, Hayward! I’ve never seen such bullshit! And you were supposed to make this paper something special!”
        Definitely from downstairs. Jonagold poked her head out from the door and looked down the hall. Jersey was doing the same; they looked at each other. Jersey shrugged. Jonagold stepped out of her room.
        “Please, Copper,” her father’s voice said, calm but with an edge of steel, “you’ll wake my family.”
        “Well, maybe they need to hear this too, then!” the voice of Copper shouted back. 
        “Come on, Copper,” the soft voice of Cardamom said. “I think you have a point, but there’s no need to bring Hayward’s family into this.”
        “Into this? What are you saying, Cardamom? This is our lives, and it’s going to be his kids’ lives too if we don’t do something about it.”
        “I agree with you, Copper--” Hayward said, but that was all he could get in.
        “No, I don’t think you do, Hayward,” Copper said. “I think you’ve gone soft. I mean, look at this place!”
        “Are you implying something about the place I live?” Hayward said.
        “I’m saying it’s a fucking mansion compared to what some of us are living in. Hey Rocky, remember when we lived in that hovel in the attic of the old Hub City renovation projects? Because apparently Hayward doesn’t at all!”
        “Listen, Hayward,” the gruff voice of Rocky said, “I can understand you not wanting to sacrifice what you have, but you have to see how this is frustrating for us.”
        Jersey and Jonagold crept down the stairs, inching closer to the fight. 
        “Not all of us get to pretend we’re rich and well off,” Copper growled. “Some of us are still in the trenches, fighting the good fight.”
        “I’m not--”
        “You see it every time, don’t you, Rocky? One of us gets lucky, stumbles into a little money, maybe the Blue in charge of them feels guilty and gives them a raise, I don’t know, and suddenly they’re prancing around like they’re better than the rest of us, like the guards wouldn’t beat their heads into a pulp if given the slightest chance. You even talk different now! All the money in the world won’t wash that Red off of you, Hayward. Don’t you ever forget it!”
        “I would NEVER forget where I came from, Copper!” Hayward roared, louder than Jonagold had ever heard him shout. A jolt of fear ran through her veins. She leaned forward. “And don’t you NEVER imply that I’m a traitor to my race! You say I’ve gone soft, I say you’ve lost your mind! You want a war! Your bloodlust is going to rend this entire city apart!”
        “My bloodlust?” Copper shouted back. “It’s not my bloodlust that kills our people every day! It’s not my bloodlust that ensures we never have enough to eat, so that our foals starve right in their mothers’ hooves! It’s not MY bloodlust that killed my parents! You say I want to start a war? I say we’re already in one! We’ve been in a war since the day we were born and nothing you or I say will ever, EVER change that! And you want to sit down and let them kill us! Why, what would Jeanton think of this--”
        “Don’t you say his name like you knew a damned thing about him,” Hayward said, his voice low and threatening. “Don’t you talk to me about things I already know. I have worked hard all my life to ensure that my children live better than he did, than I did, growing up. Now we have some luck, some things coming our way. I will NOT jeopardize that. Not for you, not for anything on this earth. Jersey’s going to go to college next year, and in a few years Jonagold’s going to go too. And they’re going to grow and have a better life than you or I could dream of! And in the meantime I’ll keep fighting, because I hope they never have to. But I’m going to do it my way, and I’m going to use this paper how I please.”
        Jonagold leaned a bit more forward and slipped, tumbling down the last few steps and crashing into the foyer. Behind her, she heard Jersey curse. She looked up, blinking stars out of her eyes. The four ponies in the hallway were staring at her. Her father’s face was red, beads of sweat on his brow. He wore an expression of mounting regret. “Jonagold,” he said. “How much did you hear?”
        “I--” she stammered. He closed his eyes. Upstairs, Honeycrisp began to cry.
        “I think that will be all for tonight, Copper,” Hayward said. “We appear to have woken my entire family. Jersey?”
        There was another curse, and her brother stepped down the stairs. “I’m sorry, children,” Hayward said. “I didn’t want y’all to hear that.” He glanced at Copper, who was still seething with rage. “Copper, I am truly sorry, but I cannot help you here. You’ll have to look elsewhere.”
        Copper shook his head. “You think you can change ponies’ minds,” he said. “You think you can talk them down. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”
        “Believe it,” Hayward said.
        “Fine. I’ll be going then. Cardamom? Rocky? We’ve wasted enough time here already. Come on.” The other two ponies followed suit as he opened the door, filing out. Cardamom glanced at Jonagold one final time, her face sadder than Jonagold had ever seen before. Copper went to left, but paused. He glanced back, looking at Jona and Jersey.
        “We used to say we’d teach each other’s kids, right Hay? We’ll I’ve got one lesson for them. You ain’t never going to change a mind that don’t want to be changed. Ponies don’t just have opinions, they live in them. I learned that a long time ago, and I thought your Pa had too. Good night.” And he left the house without another word.


                       There was a pony staring at her from across the lobby. Jonagold blinked, looked away, then back. She was still there, staring at Jonagold like she was afraid the Red pony would disappear. She was quite sure she’d never seen this particular unicorn before; Blue ponies were always coming in and out of here but she knew all the regulars. The pony was a unicorn mare, purple, with a darker mane of a similar color. She wore a thick sweater and a saddlebag that looked too big for her. As Jonagold watched, the pony came closer, then backed up again, as if she was afraid Jonagold would spook.
            Well, that’s unlikely, girl. Seems to me like you’re the one out of place.
            After what seemed like an eternity, the pony trotted up to her. Jonagold put on her best smile.
            “Yes ma’am? How can I help you?”
            “Um hi, yes,” the pony said, sounding flustered. “I’m sorry, this is going to seem terribly rude… are you Jonagold Winesap?”
            A spike of adrenaline shot up Jonagold’s spine, but she kept her smile flawless. “I’m afraid not,” she said. “My name is Jonagold Smith. There aren’t any ponies here with the name Winesap. What can I help you with? Are you looking for a banker? Maybe you wish to start an account?”
            But the pony’s eyes told Jonagold that she wanted none of those things. The unicorn was looking at Jonagold with something almost… desperate in her eyes. She looked like she was on the brink of a meltdown. Jonagold leaned back. This Blue knew who she was, or thought she did. If the bank found out she had kicked out a potential customer, she might lose her job. But if they found out who she really was, she’d lose a whole lot more.
            “My name is Evenstar Boral,” the unicorn said. “I’ve been looking for you all over town. The file said you were a receptionist but it didn’t clarify where….”
            Now the spike of adrenaline had turned into a river. They were keeping tabs on her. But now this unicorn was here, and….
            “Anyway,” the mare, Evenstar was saying, “we’ve been tracking you and a few others for a while now, not in a bad way or anything! But just to make sure that we knew you were who you thought we were—“ She broke off, apparently noticing the look on Jonagold’s face. “Oh, Eden, you are an idiot. Winesap, Smith… I’ve blown your cover! This doesn’t have anything to do with your father, and I’m not with the Hub City government, I swear! I just--”
            “I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Jonagold said. Evenstar froze.
            “But—“
                   A shimmering anger was rising inside of Jonagold. At the mention of her father’s paper, all of the fear she’d been feeling fell away, replaced by a desire to get this foolish Blue out of her face, job be damned.
            “Please, ma’am,” Jonagold said, trying to keep the growl out of her voice. “My father’s paper has nothing to do with me. What he printed in that paper were the ramblings of a deluded pony, and neither I nor my sister know or care about what he had to say. I don’t know who you are, or who you work for, but you’re too incompetent to be with Hub City. If you truly mean me no harm, you will walk out that door right now.”
            “But—you’re supposed to be Applejack,” the unicorn said, almost to herself. “I... I figured, if any of us would be ready to fight evil at the drop of a hat, it would be you.”
            Jonagold’s anger only rose at Evenstar’s statement. That she could lecture Jonagold about evil…. “I reckon you heard wrong,” she said, “and this is your final chance.”
            The unicorn seemed to wilt under these words.
 “I—I understand,” she said, almost in tears. “I should have known—I’m sorry for the intrusion. I just—here.” She slid a small card over her desk. “I’ll be going now. I swear I mean you no harm. Please don’t call security.” With that, she gathered herself and walked out the doors, head down. Jonagold watched her go, then looked at the card.
            There was a small drawing of three apples on it, in bright autumn colors. Jonagold tilted her head. She’d seen it before… somewhere…. She shook the mood off. It didn’t matter. She went to throw it in the trash, but paused. Then she shoved it in her desk. That was a sign. Sometime soon, she and Honeycrisp would have to vanish. If someone knew her identity, it was only a matter of time before Hub City knew as well. She began to run out a plan for the night head.
            The rest of her shift was uneventful. She gave Gemini’s son-in-law the nametag, keeping a straight face as he immediately saw through the ruse. Gemini came out and clapped her on the back for it, as if they were old friends. She felt something akin to warmth at the gesture, but distant, muted.
            There was an altercation on the park corner when she walked home. The pony on the corner had gone too far, and now a pair of guards stood to the side, watching him. As Jonagold walked by they decided it was time to act. She kept her head down as they approached the stallion.
             “Excuse me…”
            “Get your goddamn hooves off me!”
            “Alright, pops, time to go.”
            “You’ve had your fun.”
            “—better enjoy your spoils while you can, pigs! The end is coming!”
            “Yeah, yeah, save it for the jail cell. Plenty of your kinsmen in there would love to hear it.”
            Jonagold risked a look, slowing down for just a moment. The guards were trying to coerce the pony off of the crate, and as she watched one of them became impatient. He tried to shove him at the exact moment the pony decided he’d better comply, sending him toppling over and onto the other guard.
 An explosion of flyers blossomed from his jacket, spilling out onto the street. He tried to get up, but the guards reacted with lightning speed, pinning him on the ground and pushing his snout into the dirt. The pony cried out.
            “That’s right,” one of the guards said. “Stay down.”
            Jonagold watched as they picked him up, cuffed him, and began hustling him down the street. None of the other Reds said anything. They kept their heads down. Jonagold bent down and grabbed a flyer, tucking it into her coat. She began to walk again. Pick your battles, Jonagold, and don’t look back. Don’t ever look back.
 
           She didn’t know what was wrong, only that her father had burst into the room and told her to hide in the basement. It was cold here, and damp. Her brother’s coat pressed into her side. She cradled the warm form of her sleeping sister in her arms.
       In the darkness, the printing press loomed like a horrifying monster, its girth sucking the air from the room. The stacks of newspapers were tied up for tomorrow’s distribution. Somehow, Jonagold knew that they would never leave the basement.
            Through the boards of the ceiling, she could hear the squeak of the rocking chair, moving back and forth. Her father was upstairs, saying nothing. When she remembered it later, that moment was frozen in time, an eternity, the last moment of her life before it was changed forever.
             A knock sounded at the door, loud and powerful. She heard her father’s footsteps walk across the floor to the door, and the creak as it opened. Silence. Then she heard a voice talking. Her father replied.
            She had to know what they were saying. Perhaps a part of her, the part that knew to always watch for guards and to keep her head down when she walked to school, already knew, but the rest of her refused to acknowledge it. She would have to see firsthand.
            “Hold Honeycrisp,” she whispered to her brother. His eyes were wide and fearful.
              "What the hell are you thinking?” he hissed back, but he took the sleeping girl when Jona passed her to him. Jonagold turned and crept up the ladder to the main floor. 
              “The Red Review is not seditious, Constable Nadir, and it is not involved whatsoever with the actions of any Red nationalist group.”
            “You know I want to believe that, Hayward, I really do.”
             The second voice had the cool inflection of an outskirts Sagittarian, the Blues that lived between Redtown and the main city proper. Worse, Jonagold recognized it. Orion Nadir, the constable. Her father had invited him over once for drinks and he’d been cordial, if nothing else. Later her father had told her it was to make the Blues know the paper was harmless. “Just part of the game,” he said.
            But now Orion’s voice felt tense in a way that Jonagold did not understand, as if there was an underlying joke beneath it that everyone but her understood. She leaned forward, ear pressed against the cellar door.
            “I don’t see what the problem is here,” her father said, his voice still level. “We’ve been putting this paper out for years now.”
            “But you haven’t been putting it out like this, Hayward,” Orion said. “And frankly, you’ve got a lot of folks in this neighborhood worried about you. We don’t want you Reds getting ideas in your heads that’ll get you hurt.”
            “There is nothing in my paper that is not of the highest journalism,” Hayward said, “and all of our research is independently verified.”
            “That so?” Orion said. There was a rustling, and Jonagold realized he was holding up one of her father’s newspapers. “Says right here on page three. ‘The Camarguan Kingdoms: Once, long ago, before the arrival of the Blue Aurorans to the Mare, we Camargue ruled the plains. We had a sophisticated writing system, language, and our own kings and queens, powerful and beautiful. When the Aurorans came, desperate and in exile, we gave them shelter. In return, the Aurorans betrayed and enslaved us....” Jonagold heard the sound of a pony spitting.
            “Now,” Orion continued, “I know that an honest, educated pony like yourself doesn’t believe in this sort of garbage. But the ponies who read this newspaper, the ones who can read, anyway, are more likely to, and it’s creating quite a disturbance around the precinct. Can’t have ponies with a false sense of their own history starting trouble. And, to make matters worse, this is remarkably similar to the propaganda the Red nationalist groups like the Pheonix teach their followers, groups, I may remind you, that have been outlawed for terrorist actions, treason, and cold-blooded murder.”
            There was a long silence. Jonagold decided to risk it further. She cracked the door of the cellar open, revealing the scene at the door. There was her father, standing, facing out. A small assembly of ponies stood on the front steps and out on the yard. Some of them held torches. All were blue. Orion stood in front, casually sizing up her father.
            After a long moment, her father spoke. “We can go for a reprint,” he said. “The press is in the basement. It’ll only take a day or two.” He sounded choked, as if each word had fought hard not to be said. 
        Orion sighed. “I’d like to do that, Hayward, I really would, but the truth is we just don’t trust you anymore. This has happened one too many times at this point. So we’ve come to take the press away.”
        “What--” Hayward’s eyes widened. “You can’t--”
        “I’m sorry,” Orion said, the words dripping off his tongue.  He smiled a lazy smile. “If there were any other way….”
        One of the ponies began to push through past Hayward, and he pushed back, blocking the entrance. The pony pushed harder and with a grunt Hayward sent him flying back into the crowd. There was a low hiss from the assembled ponies. 
            The smile dropped off Orion’s face. “You clayhides are getting a lot of nerve. Get him.”
            The guards jumped at Hayward, who reared back, his teeth bared. He kicked the first one down hard; he fell and did not move. Another guard jumped into the fray. The fight was in the hall now; the entryway mirror fell with a crash. The thumps against the ground reverberated through the basement. Hayward fought, but they grabbed him around the neck and didn’t let go.
             “Stop!” Jonagold shouted, jumping from behind the door. “Let my daddy go!”
            For as long as she lived, Jonagold would never forget the look on her father’s face when he saw her there. It held such a mix of desperation, of anger, and of raw, naked fear that she nearly turned tail and ran herself.
              “Someone get this clug bitch out of here!” Orion shouted, and now a guard was advancing on her. She fell back in fear.
              “Jonagold!” her father shouted, struggling to breathe under the weight of the ponies on top of him, “Jonagold, you have to listen to me! Run, get your brother and your sister, and run! Don’t look back! Don’t you ever look back!”
            Then the guards pulled him out onto the front lawn. Jonagold kicked, but they were too strong, grabbing her and dragging her out as well.
             A crowd had gathered there, guards and Blue civilians, jeering and shouting at her father as he tried to fight the guards.
              “Look at him buck!”
            "He’s quite the bull, isn’t he?”
              “About time the guards took Big Hay out back for some lessons.”
             Jonagold stood frozen, watching.	 The guards held him in front of Orion.[/	i]
            “I’m gonna teach you a lesson now,	 clayhide,” Orion said, his voice low and breathless. His eyes were alight with a fire that seemed to transform his whole face.
             He reared back and struck Hayward across the face. The crowd roared. Jonagold shouted, cried, but the guards held her fast. 
“I’m gonna teach your whole family.” Orion struck her father again. He spat blood on the ground. Orion’s face was distorted by some emotion that welled inside of himself. He looked ghoulish in the torchlight. 
“We build nice schools for your clug children, but you never learn!” His entire body was trembling, sweat running down his face. Hayward looked at him, dazed. Blood dribbled from his mouth. 
“We treat you right, even after your betrayal. We’re kind to your people, we uplifted you!” Orion shouted. His shadow danced in the light of the torch. The crowd leaned forward, captured by the same spell that held Orion. They knew what was coming. 
 “You just—“ he struck again “—never—“ again “—learn—“ he reared back and turned, bucking Hayward in the chest as hard as he could. Something snapped, and her father slumped over, unconscious. Orion stood over him. Slowly, his eyes turned upwards towards Jonagold, and in that moment she had never felt fear in quite the same way. She saw, in those eyes, something deep, deeper than Orion, deeper than any pony there could know or could begin to understand.
“Torch it,” Orion said, and the guards threw their torches through the windows, breaking the glass that she and her brother spent so much time keeping clean. 
The guards were trying to move her to the side, towards the circle.She had to do something. She twisted around and bit the guard’s arm, sinking her teeth into fur and flesh. He shouted out, loosened his grip. She twisted around and bucked him in the jaw as hard as she could. His head snapped back and he went limp. She didn’t have time to think about it. The house was on fire. She ran inside, the crowd at her tale and flew through the basement door, barricading it behind her.
Honeycrisp was crying. Jersey looked at her. “We need to leave,” Jonagold said.
“The cellar door,” he said. “Where’s pap?”
“They got him,” she said. “It’s just us now.” Jersey gulped but took a strong stance.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Upstairs, she could hear shouts at the door. Something was hammering at the barricade. She pushed past Jersey to the back of the cellar, where the passage to the backyard was covered. She kicked it open.
 The ponies upstairs thundered over the floors she’d swept just earlier that day. They pounded on the barricade. Jonagold stepped through, Jersey right behind her. She took the foal while he closed and latched the door behind them. Then they ran down the dark, earthen tunnel that ran under the backyard to the woods at their edge. Jonagold pushed the exit open and climbed out, taking the foal so that Jersey could leave. Honeycrisp wailed.
“Come on,” Jersey said, pushing into the forest. Jonagold was about to follow, but something stopped her. She turned, looked back towards the house. It was burning in earnest now and would soon fall. The ponies inside had begun to clear out, and in their arms she saw her mother’s best china and her father’s favorite hat. She licked her lips. A fire deep inside of her pushed out, and for a moment she almost went back, but the shouts of Jersey and Honeycrisp’s cries pulled her back to her senses and she turned away, the forest swallowing her up like a dangerous secret.

 Jonagold pushed the key into the lock on her apartment door and walked in. She knew something was wrong at once; Honeycrisp’s pack was sitting by the couch. She wasn’t supposed to be home for another hour. Jonagold sighed, rubbing her temple with a hoof. She put her pack down and walked down the hall to her sister’s room.
“Honeycrisp? I saw your pack. Why’re you home, girl?”
There was a long silence. Jonagold imagined her sister trying to formulate an excuse. Then a small, hoarse voice replied: “Don’t come in, sis! I’m, uh, sick.” This statement was followed by a series of unconvincing coughs. Jonagold rolled her eyes and pushed open the door.
Her sister was sitting on her bed, still fully dressed. There was mud spattered down her overalls. One eye was swollen almost shut, and she was holding a chunk of ice against it. When Jonagold opened the door, Honeycrisp jumped, frantically looking for a place to hide before realizing the jig was up.
“Honeycrisp,” Jonagold sighed, “what on earth happened to your eye?”
“I fell,” her sister said.
“You fell.”
“Yup!” Honeycrisp said. “I fell on my way to class and hit a… a rock. Busted my eye up real good.”
“Sure looks like it,” Jonagold said.
“Yeah,” Honeycrisp said, becoming more convinced of the story as she told it. “And Miss Shields said that I could go home early to get some ice to put on it.”
Jonagold sat on the bed next to her. “Well, I’m real sorry to hear that,” she said, putting an arm “around her sister. “The path to that school is slippery; you know, I keep telling ponies that they ought to fix that road up but nothing ever gets done.” Honeycrisp relaxed a fraction and leaned into the hug, allowing Jonagold to snatch a piece of paper out of her pocket. “Oho, what’s this?”
Honeycrisp blanched. “Give that back!” she said, trying to grab the paper back, but Jona pushed her back with one arm while unfolding the note.
“Summons for Miss Jonagold Smith to a teacher conference to discuss delinquent behavior of her sister Honeycrisp… oh, Honey, what did you do this time?”
Honeycrisp stopped trying to snatch the paper back and crossed her arms, looking down at the bed. “He started it,” she said. “He said that Fjords were just mud ponies and that we just got lucky.”
“Who?”
“Tarken Clove. He’s this mean pony up a couple grades. He’s always harping on Fjords.”
“Well, Honeycrisp, you’re only half Fjord, so that should only make you half as angry. Does he like Ahkal-Teke?”
“He don’t know what they are.”
“No, I reckon he don’t. Camargue never care about the other red tribes. Honeycrisp, you can’t go about fighting every pony that don’t agree with you, or thinks you’re worthless. You’d be fighting this whole damn city.”
“Well, I can try,” Honeycrisp muttered.
“Listen to me, Honey,” Jonagold said. “This is the third time this month you’ve come home early because of a fight. Now, you’ve got to cut this out. Your education is more important. You can beat him by being successful.”
     “Now I know that’s a load of bull.”
            “Honeycrisp….”
            “It is though! You can’t tell me I can’t fight some bully when you’re out here glorifying all these historical Red ponies who’ve fought back against the Blues! I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I’m going to defend myself!”
            “I don’t give a damn what those ponies did. They were great mares and stallions, you’re just thirteen. You can’t go about picking fights like that, you hear? If I catch word of one more fight like this, you ain’t going to like what I’ll do, understand?”
             Honeycrisp fidgeted. “Yes, ma’am,” she said.
            Jonagold relaxed. “Good,” she said. “Now give me that ice; you’re dripping it all over the floor. Get yourself cleaned up, and when you come back out we’ll eat some food. I’ll put the stove on. Okay?”
            Honeycrisp rolled her eyes, but came in for the hug. The two sisters embraced. Jonagold stood up. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything else.”
She went to walk to the door. “Jona?” her sister said. She paused.
             “Yes?”
            “You think Pap and Ma would be disappointed in me?”
            “Oh, Honeycrisp,” Jonagold said. “I reckon they’d be just about as proud of you as a body can be. You’re growing up so fast.”
            “And Jersey? When he comes back, I mean.”
            Jonagold pushed a hot spike of anger back down. “I’m sure of it,” she said. “You go on and get cleaned up now.” Honeycrisp nodded and she closed the door.
             Jonagold walked into the kitchen and set a stove to boil. She leaned against the counter. “Bastard,” she said. “You couldn’t even have sent a note? She still expects you and—“ she cut herself off. She walked over to the couch where she’d thrown her coat and went to hang it up. The flyer from before fell out. She picked it up.
              ATTENTION REDS: THE TIME HAS COME TO ORGANIZE. THE BLUE MENACE THAT STRANGLES OUR NATION IS WEAK, DAMAGED BY INFIGHTING AND WASTE. WE HAVE THE POWER TO ACT NOW!
            Below the notice was a time, a few days from now, for an organization meeting. It was only a few blocks away. Jonagold picked the note up and threw it in the trash. She set a pot of water to boil and poured some oats in. Then she sat down at the kitchen table and began to write a letter.
        Cardamom,
        I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while, but I’m calling in that favor. Someone knows who we are, and I think Honeycrisp and I are going to have to disappear….