//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: Incident on a Forest Road in Equestria 
// by Maxmanta 
//------------------------------//

I didn’t arrive back in Ponyville until early the next morning.  Carrot—the wonderful pony that she is—still had the porch lights on for me.  I entered without a word and I found her curled up on her old couch, snuggled with Pinchy.  I gently nuzzled Pinchy and lightly hoofed past them and slept in my own bed.

I slept for longer than I ever have and didn’t wake up until late that afternoon.  I opened my eyes and found myself staring into Carrot’s.  She was holding my soiled and torn, brand-new dress in her mouth.  She dropped it and it fluttered to the floor.  It landed in a clump and I just sat and stared at it as it lay there.  It was once purple and beautiful and it was now just a dirty pile of rags on the floor.

I didn’t want to look up but I knew I had to.  Carrot looked furious but when my eyes teared up and I started to sob, she softened.  She bent, took my dress back in her mouth and placed it on the bed next to me. 

I kept my eyes on the floor.  Carrot placed her hoof under my chin and lifted my eyes to hers.  She said to me, “I don’t know what happened to you, Berry, but I think it was something very very bad.  I want you to tell me about it, but I want it to be the truth.  And after that, there’s another discussion we have to have.”    

Well, I told Carrot the truth, just not all of it.  I told her about my alcoholism and about how I ruined my niece’s graduation.  About how I got tossed from the train, and how I had to walk home.  I left out the…other stuff.  I could tell she was suspicious, like she knew I wasn’t telling the whole story, but she let herself be satisfied.  After that, we talked for a long time.  I promised to stop drinking.  I meant it.  It was morning by that time, and Pinchy came into the room and put her forelegs around me.

“Mommy!  I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too, dear!”

Carrot smiled and left us alone.

My dress?  Rarity was horrified when I showed it to her, but she said of course she’d fix it.  She did, and it looked even better than new.  My sister and niece?  Well, it took a while, but they forgave me, too.  Family is like that.  I quit drinking for the most part.  It was tough.  I couldn’t sleep for a few nights and I spent a lot of time dry heaving into a toilet.  The shakes were bad, too.  But it all passed and I sleep soundly now.  I still get hammered now and then, but instead of waking up and drinking to take the edge off, I take my punishment as nature intended.  

I never saw those creatures again, and I doubt they’re very interested in seeing me, either.  They’re on my mind a lot, though.  I wonder what other kinds of creatures are out there and what they’re like.  Have they met each other?  Do they do the same kinds of things to other ponies, or even to each other?  The thought frightens me, and keeps me up alot at night.

So I’ll leave you with this: if you’re ever alone at night, and you get the sense that you being watched, and there’s some star in the sky that looks like it has no business being there, I got bad news for you.  It just may be one of them.

But if it is, and one of them has two hoofprints permanently embedded in his flat face, you just tell him that Berry Punch sent you.  That just may just be enough to scare ‘em off!