Part Three
It is hard to believe how much can change in just a few months. It seems an eternity since we first learned of the threat—of Typhus’ mad hunger. We still do not know why He attacked us. Our people do not worry about the reason. It is enough that He was defeated. They have turned to rebuilding with zeal formed in the forge of war.
It is a fragile bond, and I fear the truth will break them.
Twenty-Five
“YOU AIN'T in any condition to make that trip,” Bill said.
“Ah don’t care.” Applejack glared at the sheriff. He stood in the doorway, blocking her way out into the mid-morning light of Appleloosa. From here, just inside the doorway, she could see the deserted streets. It looked wrong.
“I didn’t bring ya back here, patch you up and give ya water just so you can waste it all running off into the desert.” Bill gritted his teeth. “I’m sorry, lass, but they’ve gone, and no fault of yers.”
“Of course it’s my fault. I brought water. I brought hope.”
“Ya couldn’t have known what was happening here.”
“So what?” snarling, now, directing her anger outward, lest it burn her inside.
Bill just shook his head. “I ain’t letting you kill yourself out there--especially when ya can’t possibly make a difference. Not now.”
“Why didn’t you go, then? How’d you let Braeburn charge off with that lot?!”
“If Ah’d known there was a mob brewing, Ah’d have done something about it.”
“But ya didn’t, did you?”
“I ain’t getting mad with ya,” Bill said.
Applejack turned away, snorting. Lifting a foreleg, she gazed at a hoof for a moment--scarred over with small scratches and scrapes, laden with grit and dirt, the whites of a bandage coloured pink and gray just above it. Then she plunged it forward, straight into and through the wall beside her, clenching her jaw. Tremors ran up the limb, shaking her shoulders, and she had to press her eyes shut to hold back the sudden tears. Bill was right: she was in no condition to make the trek—not even charged with anger, not even with the knowledge of her failures driving her on.
Even she had limits. Though far, far above those of most any other pony, they were there. She’d only run into them twice before, but she had enough experience with this sort of exhaustion to know what her body was telling her.
Coromancy wasn’t a perfect art. Applejack could pump herself on emotion--use her own drives to push her body to unimaginable heights. But that didn’t stop her body from taking damage, at least, not entirely. The pain she’d shrugged off last night—the pain of the storm, itself—in a desperate bid to procure Appleloosan help for the buffalo, had finally caught up with her.
She’d been so sure of herself. So confident that she could help . . . no, more than that. That she could fix the problem, just like that. Simply walk in and solve something that had stumped an entire town. Hubris, plain and simple. Somehow, she’d gotten to thinking of herself as special.
Celestia above, she’d brought just Fluttershy. Two ponies, marching in to save the day. And, nothing against Fluttershy—she, at least, had somehow prevailed, had procured an answer to this mess, distilled from all the chaos—but one pegasus was never going to be able to handle something this big. Even a princess would have had difficulty, facing that storm.
Not that she could have known. After all, the letter Braeburn had sent her had only mentioned the drought. But that only made it worse. She’d willingly marched forward in ignorance, trusting to her own arrogant beliefs to see her through.
Applejack took a deep breath, crossed back to the bedroom she’d awoken in, and sat down on the mattress. She recognised the tendrils of despair, of course. She’d spent far too much time mulling over her own emotions to be ignorant of what she was going through. But knowledge wasn’t enough to give her hope. Despair wasn’t exactly unwarranted, in the end.
Since she’d arrived, she had successfully managed to assist the apple orchard through the drought, to breathe a few more days of life into those trees. She’d also discovered, with help, a possible source of all this turmoil. Against that small tally, however, she’d also gotten friends, and the friends of friends, killed, turning loose on them a storm that might have broken Canterlot itself. Then, because that wasn’t good enough, she’d turned loose a marauding mob of parched Appleloosans on the survivors. The buffalo would look to the dust cloud expecting aid. Applejack couldn’t believe—could hardly even think—that her cousin would be capable of dealing more pain to the buffalo, but then, she’d never have thought him capable of whipping a crowd into a frenzy, either.
Sometimes, being the Element of Honesty sucked.
Applejack backed away from Bill, sinking down to the ground and closed her eyes. She didn’t hear Bill leave the room, heading out into the morning.
Everything had just . . . gotten away from her—spun out of her control, so fast she hadn’t seen it happening. Applejack clenched her jaw. She couldn’t give up, not even now, not even here, except that she had no idea how she could help. Worse, she couldn’t trust herself to help, anymore. She needed to be more careful—to think through everything she did.
She lay there, on the ground, until she lost track of time; struggling to come up with something, anything, she could do, or dozing when she couldn’t stand to think on it anymore.
The storm hung in her mind; vast and terrifying, holding her gaze until she was paralysed from fear, legs trembling, chest heaving in huge gasps of air. Lightning—sheer power rendered incarnate pouring down onto her, showering her in golden light, so that her coat hummed, and the very air crackled all around her.
Could she really go through something like that again? She’d been able to push it from her mind, to refuse to consider it, while there had always been something more she could do, some new way she could help. Now the storm, always in the back of her head, always hanging over her, a dark cloud on the horizon, rose up to meet her in the sudden stillness.
The truth was: she didn’t know. It was the most intense, most horrifying, most painful experience of her life. It wasn’t just the physicality of it that caused her to shiver, though, nor press her eyes shut. No, Applejack wasn’t afraid of pain. What haunted her now was waking up—limbs sore beyond all aches, torso still ablaze with electric fire—to find her efforts spent in vain. To wake amidst the dead and the dying; all those she had failed.
Small wonder she had run away. That’s what she’d done, though she only realized it now. Run away from the buffalo encampment, from the wounded and the debris and the gratitude in their eyes. The praise they heaped upon her—praise earned by virtue of failure, adulation that was a lie—she didn’t deserve it. She couldn’t accept it, or them, and, lying here in Bill’s house in Appleloosa, surrounded by ruin of her own making, she couldn’t accept herself.
“Applejack,” Bill said. “There’s other ways you can help.”
She hadn’t heard him come back, caught up in her own indulgent self-loathing. Now Applejack looked up to see yet another compassionate face, and found herself on her hooves, pushing past him roughly, out into the hard noon sunlight.
“Applejack,” Bill called.
She didn’t stop walking. It didn’t matter where she went—all that mattered was that she get away.
“Applejack! Something happened here—something changed them. Braeburn, and the others. Ya don’t think—not for a second, not an instant—that they could'a done all that themselves?!”
She paused. That was true. From the beginning, there had been something wrong here. Something in the air, and the ground, that hadn’t sat right. Fluttershy had felt it too, Applejack was sure of it. Could that have been the source of all the anger?
Take that reasoning a step further. If a . . . a spell, or a curse was turning everypony against each other—against the buffalo, then couldn’t that same spell be turning her against herself?
“There’s somethin’ here,” Bill said as Applejack thought it through. “Sucking the water into the ground. Ruining the orchard. Causin’ anger—hate, even. Ah think, before we can do anythin’ ta start healing, we gotta do somethin’ about that.”
“Why isn’t it affecting you, then?” Applejack whispered.
“What?”
“How come you're immune?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
Applejack glanced over her shoulder, held Bill’s eyes for a moment, and then turned away. Open and honest—she truly believed he was trying to help, though hopelessly inexperienced. She could relate to that. And ultimately, it didn’t matter. Should Bill prove to be a false friend, she’d deal with it then. For now, she’d accept his help.
“The orchard,” Applejack said. “Bill, have you checked the orchard since Ah left?”
“No. But without water, it ain’t gonna have changed.”
Applejack grinned humourlessly. “Ya’d be surprised,” she said, stepping forward into a trot, trusting Bill to follow. “That was somethin’ I could do, before I left. It’s a . . . it’s a type of earth pony magic. Ah can invest emotion into the ground—heal the trees, give them strength, life!”
“Earth ponies cain’t use magic,” Bill said, casting his eyes to the side uneasily.
“It ain’t your typical magic,” Applejack agreed. “There’s no horn, no flashy light-show. Just me, ma hooves and the ground. Earth pony Coromancy.”
“Never heard of it,” Bill said. “Though Ah don’t think I’m supposed to ‘ave.”
Applejack glanced at Bill. She wasn’t supposed to go around running her mouth about this. Twilight—Celestia herself—thought there was nothing to be gained by spreading Coromancy around. It would only serve to tempt ponies—to draw them into destructive emotions, bad decisions. Celestia had told them, bluntly, that she had never intended to train them in its use. Coromancy was an addictive source of power, and it always had a cost—a balance, good against bad, waging eternal war in a storm of emotion. Coromancy amplified, nothing more, brought turmoil from the mind out into the world.
And yet, she found, at that particular moment, she didn’t care. She wouldn’t hide from Bill, not after everything that had happened. If there was any chance she could fix what was going wrong around here, find who had caused it—hell, even if there wasn’t—Bill deserved to know what she doing.
Applejack nodded. “Twilight says it’s a part of all o’ us. Every pony in Equestria has a little bit. Gives a little strength, here and there. Helps us push over the edge.”
Bill didn’t reply.
“It’s a lot to take in,” Applejack said.
“Please,” Bill said, rolling his eyes.
“Alright. So unicorns have magic, an’ pegasi fly. Earth ponies—us—what we got is a little more subtle.”
“That’s basic stuff. We’re of the ground.”
“Right. We’re the farmers, the settlers, the pioneers. We don’t so much do the social theories or complicated spells. We don’t like being in the air, an’ we can’t grab the clouds. But there ain’t nopony who can match us with four hooves on solid earth. But what just about all ponies miss is that that link, that’s comin’ from the same source—as far as Ah can tell, anyways—the same source of magic as unicorns an’ pegasi.”
“It ain’t magic,” Bill said, snorting. “We just know a lot more about it. Farmin’s our history, after all.”
“Yeah, but why? The earth is our passion—an’ passion is magic. That’s Coromancy, and that’s what Ah used to help the orchard along. The same thing we all do, but on a grander scale.”
They crested the ridge overlooking the orchard. Applejack halted. She’d been expecting improvement. She hadn’t been expecting this.
Bill halted beside her. “Oh,” he said. “Oh my.”
Applejack grinned, spinning her head to glance at Bill. Her mane whipped out, catching the wind as it rose around her. A fierce joy spread through her, rising through her chest, warming her and washing away her doubts.
“Bloomberg . . .” Applejack breathed, her mind turning to that morning, two days ago. Had she really invested that much emotion into the trees? She remembered feeling sorrow, a terrible pain at the state of the orchard—wrought by the draught.
Coromancy was addictive.
The orchard was laid out before her, reaching out miles in every direction. And all of that land—that grey, cracked, dusty earth that had greeted her so bare when she had arrived—was gleaming; rich brown loam, thick branches laded with fields of green leaves and specked with red apples. It was almost as if she was viewing a valley of roses.
Bill took the first step forward, down the incline. Then both of them were running, sprinting forwards, racing each other into the orchard, laughing with the relief of it, and the sudden freedom afforded them. Applejack’s side was still sore, her hooves throbbed with each step and in just moments, her breath was rasping in her throat and constricting her chest. But she ran with a smile on her face, and she didn’t stop until she found herself at the base of a great tree in the center of the orchard.
“Bloomberg,” Applejack said, placing a hoof against the tree-trunk in front of her. She found a low-hanging apple—placed almost as if it were an offering—and, plucking it from its branch, sank her teeth into it.
The apple tasted of an arid wasteland, where the rolling dunes went for days in all directions. It tasted of dry winds, sweeping forward in vast walls of air, blasting sand into swirling storms its wake, and of heavy rains, drowning the valley in water, and of the sun, baking the ground until it split open. Fresh juice spilled over Applejack’s lips and ran down her chin, carrying with it knowledge of the ponies that cultivated it, nurtured it with their lives and souls. Tender flesh split beneath her teeth, gladly yielding to its creator. In the apple, Applejack tasted just a piece—the smallest piece—of her love; the love she had given to the orchard just days ago.
And as she ate, she felt that love reawaken inside her.
All that power . . . would this have been enough to halt the storm? Applejack wasn’t sure, but as the desert's warmth spread through her, touched on all the little things that enamoured her here—her family and friends, the orchard, the pain she felt at the desperation the drought caused and the horror sparked by the destruction following the storm’s wake—all of it added colour to her memories, as if someone had angled the light ever so slightly, placing highlights where she hadn’t expected them. And her mind’s eye was not kind.
Applejack had been lectured repeatedly, by Twilight, as well as Luna. Coromancy was dangerous. Abusing it, even for the smallest things, could have vast repercussions. She’d felt the effects of overreaching herself before: running completely dry had left her bedridden for days. But she hadn’t considered the other effects. She hadn’t considered what might happen if she tried to operate with an unstable emotional condition.
She’d spent so much of herself here, on this orchard. It showed in the trees, the apples—even the ground looked as if it had had years of perfect weather and care. Then, instead of resting, recovering, she’d simply burnt away the parallel emotions, tossed aside sorrow and fear and trusted that to balance out in her mind.
It wasn’t that she didn’t have enough left. Each situation was different, each invoked its own set of responses. She felt just as strongly about the devastation she had failed to prevent as she did before. No, Applejack realised. She’d simply been out of control.
Shocked, she thought back to Hassun. She’d treated him like . . . nothing. An obstacle to be taken apart. She couldn’t believe she’d thought it appropriate to bull her way past him like that—justify his fears so emphatically. She'd imagined herself an arbiter of peace, and had found nothing wrong with forcing that peace on them.
Waking up, in the aftermath. She’d run, yes, but from what? From the buffalo, and their adoration? Or from Fluttershy, who in acting the way she should have, for feeling the love that had disappeared from her mind, had planted some small seed of misgiving in Applejack?
The storm itself. Oh, Celestia, the storm itself. She’d attempted to tackle it head-on . . . charged into it the same way she had Hassun. She could never have hoped to hold all that power, would never have tried, were she entirely sane. But would it have been so hard to take that energy and use it for something else? To turn the destructive power held in the wall of wind blasting down the dunes, the charged plasma arcing onto her from overhead, the arctic hail pelting her sides to life—grow a garden where she stood, flowers nurtured by hate.
For that was what it was, Applejack thought. That bitter taste in her mouth, the stinging the lightning had left over her coat. It wasn’t a natural storm—that she already knew.
It was sent. It was directed. And a Coromancer had directed it. Hate gathered the water together—sucked it from the desert, across thousands of miles. Hate sent it into the sky, hung it high above, and flung it back south.
The apple fell from her hoof. Applejack turned, spotted Bill among the trees. As she ran to him, a smile spread over her face. Finally, after so many mistakes, here was something she knew how to do.
***
Fluttershy bent backwards, stretching her spine, and raised a foreleg to carefully wipe her forehead. She hated the blood that clung to her fur, hated the way her sweat caused it to run in rivulets around her hooves, and the way it spread to everything she touched. She was sure she looked a nightmarish mess. Still, better than the patient before her.
A piece of wood—likely torn from some support, or structure in the camp—had struck him in the flank, throwing him to the ground. The strike had opened up a large gash down his leg, broken that same leg in three places, and fractured the hip joint such that the femoral head had undergone osteonecrosis in the hours before he was found. Further, the ground—already littered with jagged edges—had lacerated his side when he fell, and the storm had then proceeded to wreak havoc, splintering four ribs and rupturing his spleen and kidney. To cap it off, infection had been eating away at his wounds for nearly a full day. In short, Fluttershy wasn’t the slightest bit surprised that he was still unconscious.
She bent her head back down, squinted at the buffalo. There was barely enough light left to see by. Achak had already stopped by several times; trying to force her to rest, sleep through to morning. Fluttershy had refused. She was aware of her limits, and the perils of overstepping them: life had made that lesson abundantly clear. But she was loathe to leave while there were still those in critical condition, and the lack of light didn’t pose an obstacle to that.
On the other hoof, her splitting headache, blurred eyes, burning wing and general fatigue almost gave her pause.
Fluttershy reached forward, placed a hoof on his side, and stretched her uninjured wing to the largest of the lacerations. Feeling again the creeping horror, the tense revulsion of gore against her feathers, the sickness spreading before her in the aftermath of this disaster—the spark that had kept her toiling away for the last fourteen hours—she pulsed. A dim, golden light spread down her wing, sinking into the wound, and when she pulled back, reclaiming her power, the gashes had lessened, lost their angry purple, so that the injury resembled nothing more than a rough fall.
She took a deep breath, bracing herself against the backlash. It wasn’t much, no more than the flinch that comes just before an expected blow fails to land. But it staggered her, shook her knees and drove her a step back from the table.
Conduit, Nephele said, hovering over her shoulder. This is not sustainable.
Fluttershy shook her head fiercely, clenched her teeth. She couldn’t rest, not yet.
She moved back to the table, placed her hoof and wing against his torso. She flexed her shoulders, suppressed a yawn, and dove back into that ocean of emotion that hid beneath the surface. This time she tapped rage, a bone-deep frustration at the impossibility of the task she set herself. At first it had been easy to keep up with those scouring the ruins of the camp. But she had flagged well before the stream of wounded had slowed, and the more she put back on their hooves, the more were out there, helping.
The golden light flowed down her wing, pooled against the buffalo’s chest, and returned. It was like the tide, in and out, back and forth. She’d seen it so many times before. Always then, it had been a comfort—an affirmation of her ability. Now, though, all she saw were the tremors, interrupting the steady, rhythmic beat. In and out, the heartbeat of her healing.
Conduit! Nephele said.
Was her shoulder cold, suddenly? Fluttershy glanced down, blinked twice as the misty lines swam into focus. In and out. Another rib sealed, shards of bone embedded in the spleen vaporised, and the holes fused shut.
You must listen to us. What sense is there in this?
“What sense?”
It is not in our interests.
That flashed Fluttershy awake. “Not in our interests! How . . . how can you say that?! It’s . . . it’s our responsibility to help. That’s . . . it’s everypony’s responsibility. If you can. What about you? You helped me before! You . . . you should be . . .”
What aid can we offer them? Our allegiance does not rest with these earthen kin, nor do they hold any boon we desire.
“Th-that’s not the point!”
In and out, back and forth.
We fail to see the point.
“Then . . . then help me! I can’t . . . I-“
We will not enable your destruction. Nephele said. You must cease this.
The coldness spread across her, wrapped around her chest, wrenched her back from the body. Fluttershy gasped, sucked the tendrils of herself back. The kidney repaired; the internal haemorrhaging halted; the progressive necrosis of organs reversed and infectious agents obliterated. This time, the backlash was more like a kick in the chest, stinging her with its imprint, and driving her to the ground, a gasp echoing from her wide-open mouth.
Nephele caught her, of course, laid her gently on the ground beside the table. The cloud nymph, totally invisible now, wiped her face, leaving an odd dampness in her wake. Sleep, Nephele crooned. Rest now, Conduit.
Outside the tent, the night wind blew over the camp, sending up little waves onto the shore. On the far side, by the lake, the young and the old, the weak, and those still recovering, slept, peacefully whispering their own dreams into the night. The buffalo on the table groaned, adding his own whimper to the music. Beside them, steps sounded as Achak approached, leaning down to where Fluttershy lay.
“How is she?”
Do not make any more demands of her.
“I hadn’t planned to make any demands of her at all,” Achak said, brushing Fluttershy’s mane from her face.
And yet, you bring the wounded to her. Still they come, lining up for treatment. As if she is infinite in capacity.
“I-“
You saw the Warden’s attempts at halting the storm. You did not see the Conduit survive it.
“Fluttershy’s choices are her own.”
Spirit, cease your temptation. Take her away from here, from these bodies. She has naught more to offer.
“I have a place prepared,” Achak said . Standing, she glanced over her shoulder, and called to two buffalo bearing a makeshift stretcher between them, with yet another motionless body suspended upon it. In short order, Fluttershy was held between them, with thin sounds of protest coming from her lips. Achak had none of it, holding her limbs down as they carried her away, out into the night.
The tent fell silent for a time, Nephele hovering still, as if waiting for the dawn, while Achak moved from table to stretcher, body to body, comforting those who lay awake, tormented by their own impotence, and grieving for those who did not move. It was a queer vigil, held in near complete darkness. But . . . now unable to tell face from face, each of the wounded became nothing more than a voice in her ear; nameless and friendless. Even her own son, lost somewhere here in the dark, stranded and hurt, became just another body. Achak shared in their loneliness, touched each tiny island in the night. It shamed her that she could not do more.
How long this continued, she could not say; hours, certainly, well into the morning, so that the first rays of light touched the horizon, splashing across the lake. Eventually, Achak turned to find no more stretchers—no more beds, or tables, or bodies. She rubbed her face, and stepped from the tent. There was still so much to do . . .
“Achak!”
“What now?” she grumbled, glancing askance at the buffalo sprinting towards her, and paused. One of the scouts, she realised, his breath coming hard from what appeared to be a flat-out run here. He would not bother her without good cause, she knew.
““The Appleloosans,” he panted, coming to a halt in front of her. “They’ve come. They’re here.”
Achak started. “So soon?”
But the scout was shaking his head, and glancing around to make sure they were not overheard. “Achak,” he said, leaning towards her. “It’s a war party.”
Achak rocked back on her hooves. A war party? Her mind spun, teasing out the possibilities; sorting through what little information she had available. She didn’t waste time denying her scout’s report, she trusted him more than that.
Why. That was key, clearly. For all that the settler-ponies knew little and cared less about her tribe’s customs and lives, they were decent sorts. If the drought hadn’t been so pervasive, she might have trusted them to help earlier—they had leaned on each other many times in the past. She knew they’d suffered as well, though the storm had passed them by. Surely they must be coming here for water. Desperation would allow them nothing else—if they knew about it. Could Applejack have somehow made it all the way there last night?
“Did you get a close look?” Achak asked.
The scout shook his head, wordlessly.
“Okay. Okay, then,” Achak said, closing her eyes. “How many?”
“Four, five hundred ponies, easily. Unarmed, but looking for a fight. They’ll be here in a few minutes. They looked like they’d been moving all night.”
It didn’t matter. Achak doubted that they came with murderous intent, no matter what her scout said. It just wasn’t in their nature. However it had happened, they knew there was water here. That was what they came for. The question, then, was whether or not she could afford to give it up.
Five hundred. Even tired, there was no way the buffalo could stop that many, not with the number of injured they had. But they couldn’t run, either, lest they face a slow death wandering the desert. She’d had a few buffalo check the nearest waterholes yesterday. The storm had left them untouched.
She could no more flee the ponies’ charge than she could withstand it.
Achak opened her eyes. “We’re moving. Get as many as you can down to the shore, then start moving south. We’ll try to circle around, keep our backs to the water. “
“They’ll just pin us down,” the scout said, dubiously.
“Better than being surrounded,” Achak replied. “And we don’t know what they want, yet. Show no outright hostility. Not until I’ve had a chance to talk. Achak hesitated. “But . . . do what you can. We must be ready for anything.”
For what good it would do them.
“Yes, Achak.” He turned away, hurrying towards the nearby tents.
Achak, meanwhile, stepped back inside the triage. All these beds, painstakingly cobbled together, all the stretchers and tables and bodies, had to be moved. She shook her head, despairing. It would take hours, even if she had every other buffalo in the tribe here to help, much less the minutes before the ponies arrived.
Too much. They had come at the worst possible time—many still asleep, many more wounded and gathered together. She had to do something to halt them, slow them down. Anything.
So Achak turned away from her peoples, and strode out, away from the camp. Taking deliberate steps, she used the walk to centre herself, to bring an unnatural calm into her mind. Air flowed through her lungs, blood pounded around her body, and the desert held her being, carried it as a mother cradles a babe. The wind picked up the short mane that tumbled down from her scalp. The sun glimmered on the horizon, lancing from behind her towards the west. From all around her, dust rose, gathered in the air in response to her presence as Spirit of the buffalo walked out to meet with the intruders.