”...ose? Dusty Rose? You haven’t gone and died on me, have you?”
My ears eventually stop ringing enough to make out Prickly Pear’s voice.
“Uuurgh.”
I am Dusty Rose, and I do not seem to have gone and died. Though the various aches all over my body remind me that I'm not a young mare anymore.
I crack open an eye. The dark orange blur that is Pear looms above me, silhouetted against the crystal blue sky. No sign of the tunnel or the Dust Devil.
Upon seeing me awake, a wave of relief washes over Prickly’s expression. He quickly hides it under his usual frown, but not fast enough to fool me. I grin up at him.
“You’re - cough - not getting rid of me that easily.”
”So I see. Well, there’s always next time.”
He offers me a hoof. I accept it, gingerly pulling myself upright. Loose sand cascades off me, piling around my hooves. I must have been half buried!
A groan to my right draws my attention. I look over to see Fruit Punch wobbling on three hooves, a fourth covering her muzzle.
”Ooof... I think I’m gonna be sick. Flight instincts and - urp! - fake whirlwinds are not a fun mix...”
I'm feeling a bit dizzy myself. Earth ponies are not meant to be plucked off the ground like that! Though it could just as easily be the heat affecting me. We seem to be back in the desert again. The sun blazes overhead, and I’ve gone and lost dear Sandy’s hat. I’ll have to apologise later. But for now I’ve got more important things to worry about.
I cough a few times to clear my throat.
“Ok everypony, status report. Any injuries?”
”I’m fine.” Pear looks a bit hot and dishevelled, but no worse for wear. He seems a little lost without his signature sheriff hat, constantly fussing with his mane.
”Urgh, same. More or less.” Fruit Punch still looks a little queasy, but seems to be recovering. She’s more orange than purple, thanks to all the sand in her coat. She flicks an ear, sending a rivulet down her neck.
”How about you? Looks like you had a rough landing.”
I absently rub my sore ribs. My hoof bumps against the rope still wrapped tight around me. We’d all tied ourselves together to keep from getting separated. It seems to have worked.
“Oh, I’m fine, dearie. Just a little bruised where the rope pulled on me.”
”Hmm. You haven’t broken anything, have you? Should I take a look?”
She’s already pulling out her first aid kit. I wave her away.
“None o’ that, now. I’ll be fine with a drink and a few moments rest.”
I pointedly open my canteen and take a long swig. Pear follows suit. Fruit frowns, but soon joins us. We spend a few moments washing the sand from our faces and getting thoroughly rehydrated. I finish off my first canteen in the process. Luckily I’d insisted everypony bring a spare.
I take the opportunity to look around. After the Dust Devil had swept into the mine and sucked us all up, for a while there was only tumbling and noise and darkness. But it seems we were ultimately deposited back out into the desert. It’s hard to say where exactly. The ever-present Macintosh mountains are still visible, though noticeably further away. But I can’t see anything else beyond the sea of sand.
Fruit puts her canteen away and kicks the ground with a huff.
”This is getting bloody ridiculous. Three Dust Devils now? Three!? What did I do, personally offend the Sand Witch or something?”
I give her a sympathetic smile.
“Mmm, I’d like to know that, too.”
I turn to Pear, who’s looking towards the mountains.
“So, Sheriff. I’d say our little adventure is pretty conclusive proof that the Sand Witch is real. Wouldn’t you agree?”
”Eyup.”
His ears flicker towards me, but he continues staring off into the distance.
“And if’n you remember the old stories, they say the Dust Devils are Her way of warning folk. Well, I ain’t fool enough to need to be warned twice - let alone three times. We’d best get on outta here.”
“Gotta agree with you there, Sheriff. Dust Devils, Sand Witches, shadow monsters - there’s something going on out here. We need to regroup and reassess. Come up with a new plan of attack.”
Pear grunts, and starts walking north, up the nearest sand dune. I notice the length of rope that was connecting the two of us is now hanging limply, trailing behind him in the sand.
I look around for my end of the rope. Eventually I find a short stub, barely a hoof long, dangling from where it connects to the loops around my chest.
Curious.
“Say, Pear. Did you cut this?”
He turns to see what I'm talking about.
”Huh? The rope? Nope, haven’t touched it. Guess it snapped in the whirlwind?”
He shrugs.
”Seems we didn’t need it after all.”
He continues up the slope. I frown.
The rope isn’t all that thick, but it should be plenty strong. While I certainly felt a few sharp tugs from it during the storm, surely that wouldn’t have been enough to snap it? And the break looks too… clean? I’d expect to see more fraying and unravelling if it had come apart naturally. It looks more like something sliced through it.
I think back to the shadowy figure I saw at the mouth of the tunnel, eyes gleaming in the dark. When the Dust Devil picked us up and dragged us out, we must have been carried right by it.
I look down at the rope. Severed inches from my neck.
A shiver runs down my back. I can all too easily imagine some unknown creature slashing at me in the dark, missing me by a split second.
I lick my lips, suddenly parched again.
But wait, wasn’t that creature the Sand Witch? The one who controls the Dust Devils? If She was trying to kill us, why would She simultaneously pull us out of the tunnel and carry us to safety? Surely it wasn’t actually trying to cut the rope? As Pear pointed out, the rope doesn’t seem to have done anything - the Dust Devil plopped us all down together anyway. So what really happened in the tunnel? What was that creature? Was it really trying to attack us, and if so, why did the Dust Devil save us?
My head swims as I try to process all these mysteries. Maybe the heat is getting to me?
I take another mouthful of water, deciding I'm far too hot and rattled to figure this right now. I need to focus on finding some shade.
There’s a soft ‘paf’ as something hits the sand. I turn to see Fruit Punch has untangled herself from the rope and dropped it to the ground, and is now fiddling with her armour. Noticing my questioning look, she gestures up at the sky.
”Just gimme a sec to take my armour off, and I’ll fly up and see where we are.”
I blink in confusion.
“What? No! You’ll do no such thing.”
Punch freezes, her ears standing up in surprise.
“You said it yourself, that wing needs rest. You are not putting any weight on it, private.”
She glances guiltily at her bandaged wing.
”It’s… not that bad-”
“No flying. That’s an order.”
”But then… how do we figure out where we are?”
The silly filly looks genuinely worried. I give her a reassuring smile while ruffling her mane.
“The earth pony way, of course!”
”Wait, what? You guys have a special way of doing that? How? Is it some cool earth pony magic?”
“Ha! No.”
I point over to Prickly Pear as he reaches the crest of the dune.
“We climb the nearest tall thing and look around.”
”...Oh.”
Red smoke billows out from the signal flare, forming a ruddy cloud over Hoofrest. Prickly Pear gives it one last check, making sure it won’t accidentally roll towards any buildings. Then he turns around and starts trotting back.
I watch him through the window of the Hoofrest eatery. The little shop has inadvertently become our base of operations. Several other ponies share the restaurant with us. A couple of locals, as well as two search teams who have already finished their morning expedition. No sign of Glacier from either of them. Fruit Punch is interrogating them for details, but I doubt she’ll find anything more.
The other teams are due back soon, but Pear insisted on signalling for them to return ASAP. He’s spooked by what happened. I can’t blame him.
After getting dumped back into the desert by the Dust Devil, the three of us had climbed the nearest sand dune to get our bearings. Only to find ourselves scarcely a hundred metres from Hoofrest.
The Sand Witch knows where we came from.
And if Her Dust Devil can transport us that far, then it stands to reason they can snatch a pony from that far. In other words: every single pony currently searching the desert is within Her reach.
We should have taken Fruit Punch’s warnings more seriously. I had initially believed - or wanted to believe - that there was no Dust Devil. That Punch had spent too long with the buffalo, filling her head with nonsense. That Glacier had simply become lost in a regular sandstorm.
And so neither I nor Pear bothered to warn the volunteers about Dust Devils. When he told them that Glacier was lost during some sort of sudden sandstorm - never explicitly mentioning Dust Devils - I let it be. Not worth worrying them needlessly, I thought.
It was a bad call.
Well, now I know better. Time to correct my mistake.
I'm completely onboard with calling back the volunteers and letting them know, even if it means eating humble pie. But Pear… He’s taking this much more personally.
I was a sergeant in the Royal Guard for many years. I know that bad calls - even ones that put ponies in danger - are a part of life. That doesn’t excuse them, but you can’t let them mess you up, either. You can’t stop trying to do what’s right for fear that you’ll get it wrong again.
I learned to take responsibility, and move on to the next task. But Pear - despite his many years as sheriff - has never had ponies under his command in serious danger. Even if the search teams all return safe and sound, even if the Dust Devils leave everypony else alone, I'm worried Pear might get a bit… overprotective.
The bell over the front door jingles. The stallion in question walks in.
He trots over, pulls up a chair, and sits down. Neither of us say a word.
I watch as he rests his hooves on the table. Then, on the back of the chair. Then, in his lap. His eyes flicker about the room. Taking note of every member of the search party. And the many more vacant seats. He keeps absently brushing his mane. The reddish-brown hair is sticking up in tufts. Still full of sand, no doubt. He just doesn’t look right without his hat.
After a few minutes of this, I can’t stand it any longer. I pull out a comb and handkerchief. His eyes widen as I approach. Tries to swat me away without causing a scene, but I will not be deterred. Resistance is futile.
By the time Fruit Punch returns, Prickly Pear is looking halfway presentable. Which is to say, about as presentable as he ever looks. He’s still scowling, but I count that as a success - if he’s busy being annoyed at me, that means he’s not busy fretting.
”No luck from either team,” Fruit announces glumly. She flops into the seat between us. "No tracks, no markings, no clues whatsoever.”
It’s what I expected, but it’s still disheartening to hear.
”At least they didn’t run into any Dust Devils,” she continues. “So that’s something, I guess. But I just don’t get it!”
“Don’t get what?”
She waves her hooves.
”The fricken Dust Devils, or Sand Witch, whatever - why do they hit when they do? One of the search teams was in the area Glacier and I explored yesterday. Why weren’t they hit by a Dust Devil? And why did our Dust Devil today take us back to Hoofrest, but Glacier’s didn’t yesterday?”
”You almost sound like you want more Dust Devils showing up,” Prickly grouses.
Fruit shakes her head.
”Ha. No way. But if they were at least consistent then we’d have a better shot at figuring them out.”
I think back to my own ponderings on the subject. There was one thing I'd been meaning to ask:
“You said you saw a dark figure yesterday, right? Just before the Dust Devil hit? And then today we saw another figure in the tunnel? I’m assuming it’s the Sand Witch, but whatever it is it’s obviously connected to the Dust Devils. Did you notice any differences in its appearance or behaviour today? Maybe it, I don’t know, panicked that we tracked it to its lair, and instinctively sent us away?”
To be honest, I'm grasping at straws here. But it sometimes pays to lay out all the details and talk them over.
”Hmm. Yesterday it was more… Huh.”
A frown crosses Fruit’s face. Her eyes drift down, unfocused, as she thinks.
”...Come to think of it, it seemed… Was that even…?”
She looks back up to me.
”The one from yesterday definitely looked like a pony. But it was sort of… Insubstantial? Rough around the edges? Like a… a pony made of cloud. But that thing in the tunnel - that was very substantial, right? It completely blocked off all light behind it. Had a very definite outline. And that outline didn’t look all that pony-ish to me.”
Oh? Interesting.
I turn to Prickly Pear.
“What do you think? My old eyes ain’t what they used to be.”
He shakes his head.
”Thing in the tunnel sure wasn’t no pony. I got a decent look at it. Was way too big, and all the wrong shape. Too wide, and low to the ground. If it hadn’ta been for those eyes, I’da thought it was a cave-in.”
He turns to Fruit Punch.
”You sure you saw somepony yesterday? Not that I’m doubtin’ yer story, not any more. But it’s plenty easy to start seeing things out in the desert. ‘Rough around the edges’ sounds an awful lot like a mirage, to me.”
Fruit hesitates. Bites her lip.
”...I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I still think there was somepony there. Even if I didn’t trust my own eyes, Glacier saw it too. And she’s a lot more perceptive about these things.”
Pear nods slowly, not looking entirely convinced but willing to take her word.
“So, we’ve got Sandy’s bipedal shadow monster. Fruit’s insubstantial cloud pony. Dust Devils. And now, something big but low to the ground in the mine.”
Fruit looks thoughtful. Pear looks grim.
“Something’s going on out there. Bucked if I know what, though.”
”So, what do we do next?” Fruit asks. “I mean, I guess we need to combine the search teams into larger groups, for safety, but… what else can we do to keep them safe? And where do we send them? Is it still worth scouring the desert, or should we focus on the mine?”
Pear shakes his head.
”’Fraid the only place we’ll be sending ‘em is back home.”
Fruit’s ears shoot up.
”Wait, what? Why?”
”It’s like Dusty said. We got a whole bunch o’ unknown monsters running around the desert. Maybe even the Sand Witch Herself. At least one of ‘em’s already tried to attack ponies. And now not only have we confirmed Dust Devils are real and disappearing folk, we know they can reach as far as Hoofrest. At least.”
He snorts.
”Ain’t no way I’m sending civilians out into all that. We’re heading back to Tranquility Springs, and waitin’ for the rest of the Guard to show up.”
I frown, but stay silent. I don’t like this one bit. But that doesn’t mean Pear is wrong, either.
”But- but what about Glacier?” Fruit isn’t willing to give up so easily. “We can’t just abandon her! It could be days until the Guard arrive! She needs our help now!”
Pear shifts uncomfortably.
”Look, I hate leaving a pony out there, too. But with how far the Dust Devils can travel, for all we know she could be on the other side of the mountains. And the longer we keep sending folk out there, the more chance that some of them won’t make it back, too. We need-”
”We’ll be careful!” Fruit insists desperately. “We’ll take every precaution we can think of! I don’t want civilians in danger either, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up entirely!”
”How do you stop a Dust Devil from swallowing a pony?” Pear asks flatly.
”We… Uh… Maybe with some rope we could…?”
Fruit falters. Her gaze lowers, ears folded back. Pear sighs.
”I’m sorry, private, but I can’t endanger dozens of civilians to maybe save one Royal Guard. It may sound harsh, but it’s the Guard’s job to keep everypony else safe. If that means risking one Guard to protect dozens of others, then... so be it.”
Fruit looks towards me. Golden eyes blinking back tears.
”...Rose?”
“I…”
I want to look away. I feel like a mule for what I'm about to say, but it can’t be helped. I force myself to return her gaze.
“I think the sheriff’s right. We don’t know what we’re up against. And what little we do know we still can’t fight. It isn’t right, sending civilians out there. Even if it’s to save a fellow Guard.”
She shuts her eyes. But not fast enough; I saw the pain and betrayal in them.
“Listen, we can still look for Glacier,” I promise. “If you want, the two of us can keep searching. Maybe Pear can even spare some of his deputies to come help - they’re not Royal Guard, but they’re not exactly civilians either.”
I gently press a hoof to her shoulder.
“We’re not giving up, ok? This is just… a delay.”
I know how hollow the reassurance must sound. Fruit Punch is a medic. She knows how quickly dehydration can set in. Without a source of fresh water, the sergeant may only have hours left. Assuming she’s even lasted this long. We just have to hope that our Parks and Wilderness Guard veteran is as hardy as reputation makes them out to be.
The front door bell jingles. I look up to see another search team has returned. I count them quickly. Thankfully, nopony is missing. None of them seem to be hurt, either. That's about as much as we could hope for.
The ponies are as hot and sweaty as I’d expect after trudging through the desert for hours. They immediately stumble into some empty seats, grateful for the shade and a chance to rest their hooves. The proprietor emerges, a tray of cool drinks on his back.
One of the volunteers - a copper coated mare named Bright Vein - gives us an exhausted wave.
”Hey, - huff - Rose. What’s with the - huff - smoke? Did did you - huff - find her?”
I shake my head.
“No such luck. We’ve got some new information you all need to hear. But it can wait - you go ahead and rest up.”
She nods, too busy downing her drink to answer. The group begins unslinging their saddlebags and shaking the sand from their coats.
Pear wearily gets to his hooves.
”Guess I’ll go tell the other teams to start packing up. No need to keep them away from their jobs and families longer than need be.”
”Wait.”
Fruit puts a hoof on his shoulder.
”You were right before. It is a Guard’s job to keep civilians safe.”
Her voice has steadied.
”But it’s a pony’s duty to help those in need. Especially their friends.”
Pear wearily shakes his head.
”Private, it’s not your call to-”
”I know. But it’s not your call, either. It’s theirs.”
She stands, face to face with the sheriff.
”I’m going to tell everypony the truth. The whole truth. About the dangers, about my screw ups, everything. They deserve to know. And then, they deserve to make their own decisions.”
She smiles softly.
”Princess Twilight once told our class, ‘You should never deny a pony a chance to do the right thing.’” I believe in these ponies. Whatever choice they make, leave or stay, I’ll believe it’s the right one.”
”What’s this about a choice?” Bright Vein pipes up, looking over from her table. “And dangerous screw ups?”
Prickly Pear scowls.
”We’re talking about a lot more than denying a chance to help. You really want to invite civilians back out into that?”
Despite his huffing, I can tell he’s conflicted. He glances over to me, wordlessly asking my opinion.
I grin at Fruit Punch, feeling kinda proud of the little filly.
“Well, it’s not like we can stop them if they choose to stay.”
Her whole face lights up in a smile.
”Hmph. I could have them all arrested,” Pear mutters.
I chuckle.
”No, seriously, what’s this about being arrested?” Vein insists.
Just then, the front door jingles open. Conversation cease as all eyes turn to the gleaming figure in the doorway. And then up, following the massive spear resting against her shoulder.
The large pegasus steps into the room, wooden floorboards groaning beneath her armoured weight. She turns to our table.
”Private Punch? I’ve been looking for you.”