The End of Ponies

by shortskirtsandexplosions

- ACT THREE: CIRCLE OF KINDNESS - Chapter Nineteen: Everlast

The End of Ponies
by shortskirtsandexplosions

Chapter Nineteen – Everlast

Special thanks to Vimbert for Editing

Extra Special Thanks to Valhalla-Studios for Cover Art

Scootaloo grew deaf from the sound of her own endless panting. The nine-year-old foal floundered across the hollow of a fresh cave burrowed in the torn womb of Equestria. Piles of freshly scavenged junk were thrown into a rattling heap in the corner. There was no order about it, no semblance of a proper pattern—merely speed and desperation as the girl raced against time, practically tripping on her hooves with the last-second scramble. Under flickering torchlight, Scootaloo dragged in the last of a myriad of things that she had scavenged from the crashed royal zeppelin upon the outskirts of fallen Cloudsdale.

From beyond the open grave of the rock cleft, the gray world billowed and roared. There was a rumbling thunder—building—like white noise riding upon the mangy necks of unseen nightmares, marching closer and closer towards where the tiny filly was presently struggling to seal herself from the ravenous Wasteland outside. With a grunting breath, she pulled at one of half-a-dozen black barricades, the shells of the charred and singed arcane vaults. With a final scraping noise, she successfully dragged closed the solid wall of black metal, beyond which a canvas tarp covered in white snow and soot hopefully... hopefully camouflaged the entrance to her pathetic little hovel.

Hyperventilating, the last little pony scooted towards the rear of the cave and away from the rising waves of noise. She shivered; she sputtered. Her bright orange coat was bruised and splotched over with dust and dried blood. Her bright pink locks hung in frayed tatters over pulsing violet eyes as she remained locked in a death-gaze upon the rattling rows of arcane vaults acting as her only barrier to the abominations beyond.

Their clawsteps grew louder; the air melted with their rancid breaths. Every now and then, the perpetual roar of chaos was permeated by a random shriek, whoop, or holler from their bloodthirsty maws.

In a muted yelp, Scootaloo scrambled and clasped onto her torch. She stuck its burning end into a puddle of melted snow, plunging the frigid cave into dead darkness. The pegasus did it to hide herself; she wasn't prepared for the horrific sensations to follow.

With all light extinguished from within, a dim gray haze filtered in from outside, and dozens upon dozens of very real shadows swam across her, paralyzing her. They were the shadows of dreadful things, horrible things, leather skinned and pale-eyed ravenous things that passed like thunderclouds before the bands of twilight that twinkled in through the cracks of the arcane vaults. These creatures blanketed the Wasteland, and the last pony was all alone... all alone in the sea of their hunger.

Scootaloo whimpered. Curling into a fetal position, she breathed past the scent of her own fluids and shuddered to find a melodious voice—a voice she once knew—a gentle and loving voice that caressed her like silk, long ago, when nightmares were things that could be hugged away, as she struggled right then and there to embrace the gentle warm breath that used to lull her. She couldn't find those dulcet tones, but she found somepony else's, and hers was close enough, soft enough, loving enough.

The stammering breath that tried to emulate it squeaked like a dying songbird from deep within Scootaloo, choking on sobs and fears as she shivered into the core of her own self.

“Hush now, quiet n-now, it's time to lay your sl-sleepy head. H-Hush now, quiet now, it's time to go to bed...”

Scootaloo's voice rang dully off the cold cavern walls. It struggled to drown out the rising cacophony of the Wasteland horrors shuffling closer from all around the sparsely hidden burrow. It failed, but she whimpered and half-sang anyways.

“Drift, drift off to sleep. Leave the exciting day b-behind you. Drift, drift off t-to sleep. Let the golden dreams find y-you...”

---

Twenty-five years later, in a deep, winding ravine of the western Wastes, a petrified forest of giant mushroom stalks lingered in the shadow of the high earthen walls surrounding them. A blanket of white snow lined the soft, pillowy ground at the base of these pale structures. The world hung in perpetual silence, at least until a heavy group of shadows shuffled and scraped down the narrow trench.

One after another, accompanied by fumes of green breath and heavy panting noises, several sets of gnarled wooden limbs scuffled across the dusty floor. Paws of living lumber creaked and groaned, leaving claw marks in swishing pattterns across the otherwise immaculate snow. There was a yelping noise, sharp and laced with growls. The wooden paws quickened, stomping over the landscape, making the spongy mushrooms sway from the weight of their carniverous charge.

Soon, all was silent once again, save for the distant shriek of an unlucky creature meeting its bloody end at the claws of these wooden attackers. After several seconds, a piece of the earthen floor moved.

Dust and ash slid away from a tiny patch of ground, no greater than one meter squared. Lifting her masked muzzle, the last pony poked her face out from beneath thick burlap cloak that had covered her in hiding. Gazing ahead, Scootaloo focused on a green aura of light that lingered exactly where the wooden monstrosities had rushed off to.

Cracking her joints from an interminable period of waiting, Scootaloo unfurled the rest of the cloak and hopped out of the ditch she had dug and camouflaged in the earth. She was heavily armored, with thick layers of brown leather covering her body and wings. Reaching into the ditch, she pulled loose a copper rifle and murmured quietly into its magazine of runes. She covered the weapon with her cloak before the moonrocks could glow, and already she was breaking into a stealthy gallop, trailing the effluent glow left by the creatures.

The ravine entombing the last pony was steep, labyrinthine, and doubly-dark beneath the cloudy sky of twilight above. However, all the last pony needed to do was follow her nose; the stench of her targets was unbearable. She sniffed the air liberally with each trot. The more nauseated she felt, the closer she knew she was to her prey.

To label herself as a “carnivore” in this case would have been overestimating things slightly. However, Scootaloo trusted in her skills far more than her hubris. She made each step with utmost caution, careful not to make a noise as she planted her leathered self against a wall and slid icily towards a break in the ravine that led to where the green aura was the brightest.

Already, even before peering around the corner of the earthen partition, she could tell that her targets would be in front of her. What she didn't expect was the sheer number of them. The moment Scootaloo saw six shapes, she jerked back behind the granite corner, hissing a silent curse beneath her breath. Inhaling deeply, she slowly peered around once more until six sources of green light reflected off her goggles. Her brow furrowed as she took a survey of the scene.

The timberwolves were twice as large as she had imagined, but at the time, it hardly mattered. The last thing on their minds was the presence of horse meat. All six of them were snarling, groveling, fighting over the same chunk of flesh. It was a good kill: the ragged remnants of a grizzly bear, or so Scootaloo judged. Its organs were still pumping blood out onto the alabaster dust of the canyon floor while the six elemental canines ripped the bear's body to pieces.

There was a time, Scootaloo imagined, when grizzly bears were the most frightening creatures in the wilderness. The Cataclysm changed all of that. The food chain had become simpler, and yet grander: a needlessly epic thing ever since the explosion that rocked the world also sundered the gates to Tartarus and let loose all sorts of huge and unquestionably vicious horrors upon the world.

But while the landscape was cursed with the monsters of Equestria's past, there was also a bizarre blessing that came with it, and in a world without magical ponies, “bizarre” equated to “lucrative.”

Scootaloo reached a hoof up and adjusted her goggles. She squinted through the lenses, studying the emerald glow in the eyes of the living wolves of wood. Their breaths channeled enchanted gases into the air as they dug into their crimson-soaked meal. One of them howled to the moonless sky, and through his gaping maw Scootaloo could see a twinge of flickering brown energy.

Her nostrils flared. The creatures were almost done devouring; they wouldn't stay still for long. Scootaloo had set everything up just right, all it took now was to pull the trigger.

In a manner of speaking, she did just that. Whipping the cloak off her gun and exposing the runes' glow to the air, she stood up on her hindquarters, leaned her spine against an outcropping of rock, and aimed directly at the furthestmost wolf of the group. She chose the target because its legs were the thickest, which told her that it was likely the fastest runner of the pack.

After all, what she would do next could only stand to get the creatures' attention.

“H'rhnum!”

The sound of the manabullet whistling through the air drowned out her own shout. The glowing projectile screamed past the other five timberwolves and sailed straight into the neck of their sibling. The monster's green eyes spun—along with the rest of its severed skull—until it smashed into a wall behind it and shattered to kindling. After half-a-second of stunned silence, its body fell along with it and shattered to twigs and bark. A cloud of brown ash lifted, sparkled, and settled in place.

In a flash, all five of the remaining abominations spun and snarled at the shooter.

Scootaloo was already galloping down the far end of the ravine; she didn't need to observe the aftermath of her assault. As five sets of clawed limbs charged after her, she could feel the hairs of her coat rising from the magic in the air. She knew that her victim was reassembling in the distance, twice as angry as its five pack mates.

Scootaloo breathed evenly, veering left and right as she navigated every twist and turn of the winding ravine. She had practiced running this trench for days in advance; she knew exactly how to preserve her breaths and for how long. All she had to focus on was keeping a constant pace, gazing straight ahead, and ignoring the rancid breaths of the growling predators thundering closer and closer to her haunches.

Her ears flicked from the swishing sounds of the gigantic mushrooms blurring past either side of her. Scootaloo could feel her thick armor heating up from the sweat and adrenaline of the moment. The smell of the wooden canines' jaws dragged bile up her throat, but then something happened that she did not expect. She heard a seventh set of pattering claws, and it was directly above her.

Scootaloo's scarlet eyes twitched as she gazed up through her goggles. A shadow crossed over her as a large shape jumped down from the barren landscape above the ravine. In the next second, she saw a grand twimberwolf with a mange of red leaves occupying the entire width of the trench ahead.

The last pony hissed at herself. The pack had an alpha canine positioned above the ravine. Undoubtedly it was there to monitor the entire hunt; Scootaloo was an idiot to have not taken this into account.

In the milliseconds that followed, all that mattered was preserving herself. Already, the monster was lunging at her with thick, thorny teeth. Scootaloo juked to the right, spun on her rear limbs, and jumped to the left in time to avoid the massive jaws of the beast. With expert agility, the last pony jumped sideways, kicked all four legs off the wall of the ravine, and dove past the gnarled tail of the giant timberwolf.

She wasn't quick enough—however—to avoid a massive kick from the creature's rear paw. The sound of ripping leather filled the air, and the ravine spun before Scootaloo. She landed on her back, tumbled, and bounced back up to her hooves—dizzy, for she had literally spun three times from the blow.

Her body was too numb to register anything but panic. Spurred on by the rabid thunder of the alpha wolf's paws joining the pursuing pack, Scootaloo ran the last curved length of the path ahead of her. She blurred—panting—around a blind spot, a blind spot which she had specifically chosen as the end of her run. Threading through a narrow slit of mushroom-lined walls, she approached the looming body of the Harmony, which was tightly moored by a single rope fastened to a metal peg in the earth.

No less than two seconds after Scootaloo had broken into the clearing, the seven timberwolves spilled out of the ravine's exit. They were greeted by the image of the floating zeppelin, but that didn't stop their charge. What did grind them to a halt, however, was what came next. Skidding to a stop, Scootaloo spun around, raised her bracelet of unicorn horns to her mask, and shouted, “M'rhymyrr!”

Mounted on the bow of the Harmony was an enormous speaker, and fastened to it was a solid ring of runestones. In answer to Scootaloo's runic command, the moon rocks strobed with a pulse of light, powering up the speaker so that an agonizingly loud siren discharged a wave of pure sound across the ashen landscape.

Immediately, the timberwolves' one weakness kicked in, and they shuffled backwards from the unrelenting sonic punishment. Their eyes flickered painfully with green confusion as their panic caused them to bunch up together in a tangled mess of wooden limbs and tails. Soon, they were so tightly packed within the exit of the ravine that they couldn't move any further.

Scootaloo raised her goggles and took a deep breath. She wasn't gazing at the awkwardly imprisoned pack of canines so much as she was staring at the cluster of explosive chemicals clinging to the granite slabs on either side of them. Swiveling the bracelet of glowing horns around her forelimb, she spoke once more unto the unicorn fossils. “W'rhynnym.”

The moonrock caps to the explosives lit like burning fuses, and each strategically placed vial went off in a rapid flash of flame. Scootaloo shielded herself from the spray of rock and wooden bits that flew her way. She gazed into the clearing smoke, squinting, waiting.

As the ash settled, all seven timberwolves were gone, replaced instead by a pile of seemingly innocuous twigs and branches. Then, as she watched—breathing steadily—she saw clouds of brown energy coalescing into a faint, twinkling aura.

This was it. Scootaloo didn't have much time.

Scampering, she slid forward and squatted in the middle of the monsters' wooden effluence. She reached into her armor and pulled out the first of many glass, mooncapped bottles. She set them out on the floor beneath the brown cloud of unearthly smoke and murmured repeatedly: “W'lyrmym... W'lyrmym... W'lyrmym...”

One by one, the caps on the jars flickered with hot-blue light, and they each absorbed a piece of the brown gas. The twinkling material condensed once it was drawn inside the multiple containers. Soon, each jar was strobing with a separate flame of pulsating, brown light.

Scootaloo gritted her teeth. Even though the job was being done, it wasn't happening quickly enough. Once again, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising up. The sticks and twigs around her shook and rattled. One by one, the branches levitated up as the brown energy was slowly replaced by the haunting, green aura.

“Come on... Come one...”

More and more branches coalesced all around her. To her left, a forelimb was solidifying. Behind her, a jaw was coming together, tooth by tooth.

“Come on... I friggin' built you to work better than this...”

Shadows tripled around her as the vague shapes of large canines came to life. Then, there was an amber flash of light as the first of several bottles finished collecting the brown flame.

“Yes!” Scootaloo hissed, immediately swiping the first bottle and shoving it beneath her armor. “Next! We can do better than that! Work!”

A second bottle shook, rattled, and flashed brown. She swiped it, just as a gaggle of drooling and hissing noises came to life all around her. Scootaloo was now lingering in a forest of thorny bodies rediscovering how to stand.

“Please... just two more! This won't give me enough strips...”

A third jar flickered to light. Scootaloo picked it up, and as she did so she saw the lunging reflection of a drooling wolf right behind her. With a gasp, she ducked to the right, rolled to a stop, and glanced up.

The stumbling timberwolf was still shaking the cobwebs out of its reformed skull. It stared angrily at Scootaloo while the eyes of one of its siblings flickered to life beside it.

Scootaloo gnashed her teeth. She felt the rancid breath of a creature behind her. She looked up at the Harmony, only to have her head nearly bitten off. She ducked just in time to duck the paw-swipe of a third reborn Timberwolf.

Sliding to a stop, Scootaloo pocketed her latest glowing jar and pulled out her copper rifle in its place. Lying prone, she shouted: “H'rhnum!”

The bullet flew, ricocheted off the stone floor, and shredded through two of the timberwolf's limbs. The half-dismembered canine fell in a slump, shattering one of the absorbing bottles and sending the other one rolling across the floor. As it did so, the last surviving container finished its task, flickering with a bright flash of brown light.

Scootaloo gasped at this, but couldn't hear herself from the whines and growls all around her. All of the timberwolves had revived. What was more, they were lucid. She glanced every which way, seeing nothing but wooden bodies converging on her with a flurry of fangs and claws.

“Nnngh!” Stupidly, Scootaloo dove into the heart of the splintery maelstrom. Through sheer speed, she avoided each lacerating limb. Jumping, ducking, and dodging her way through the legs of the monsters, she propelled herself towards the bottle, snatched it up in her teeth, and leapt straight for the rope tethering the Harmony to the earth. This last jump threaded her straight through one... two... three snapping jaws. Coming out the other end miraculously unscathed, Scootaloo dangled off the rope as she spat the bright jar into the crook of one hoof and shouted into the bracelet of horns adorning the other. “M'rhlym!”

On board the Harmony, a purple light shimmered, and the entire zeppelin lifted straight up towards the billowing gray clouds. It was a timely thing too; the timberwolves made several more leaping attempts to bite Scootaloo's body in half, only to fall meters short of her tail as she lifted higher and higher above the growling pack, and eventually the whole twisting ravine stretched out below.

With much struggle, Scootaloo climbed the dangling rope and pulled herself onto the metal platform before the catseye aperture of the lower gondola. She slumped against the bulkheads, panting and panting. Soon, those labored breaths turned into freakish chuckles as she slipped her armor clear off and freed her brown wings. Next came off her goggles and cap. Short bangs of violet hair billowed in the snowy wind as she gazed proudly at her four bottles brimming with victorious brown light, and her chuckles doubled.

Bearing a bitter smirk, she let her scarlet eyes fall to the discarded armor lying on the windy platform beside her. With a gulp, she saw something that melted her smile away.

The armor had been sliced clean through. Three deep slashes had gouged their way into the armor, deep enough for the last pony to see the metal of the bulkhead lying on the other side of the otherwise impermeable layers. It was obviously the damage dealt by the alpha timberwolf that had struck Scootaloo deep in the mushroom-laden trench. She just simply hadn't understood the extent of the damage until she examined it right there and then.

Sensing a rapid increase in her heart rate, Scootaloo reached a hoof back and felt along her spine, upper wings, and lower flank. To her numb astonishment, there were no cuts to her skin, not even a bruise. The armor had taken the full brunt of the wolf's wrath, but barely.

With a cold shudder, Scootaloo leaned back against the body of the rising zeppelin and hung the four flimsy bottles of flame to her chest. They did not warm her.

---

“Well, call me a pony's uncle!” Pitt exclaimed with a yellow-stained grin. “And here I thought you had retired early!”

“Hmmm...” Scootaloo's nostrils flared as she leaned over the bar of the hazy M.O.D.D. She slid the last of the four bottles across the counter and into the babboon's hairy grasp. “And what makes you say that?” she muttered.

“This is the first time you've delivered me any sort of product in stormfronts, Miss Prancealot!” Pitt said, holding one container up to his eye and squinting at it closely. “Or traded with any creature, come to think of it.”

“I'm surprised you take your eyes off your brothers long enough to tell,” she droned.

“Well, you got me there. I can't get the stink off them either. Meh.” He slapped the jars back down onto the counter and folded his arms, smirking. “This is some good crud. And I don't say that because they're—y'know—the color of crud.”

“Uh huh...”

“I say that because Brown Flame is good for cleaning the soot out of our steam engines. So, as you can see, this is good crud to... get rid of bad crud with.”

“Right...”

“And... uhm.. sometimes on Saturdays, I like to put on a pink tutu and pretend I'm the Monkey Princess of Cinnamon Swirls Land.”

“Mmmmhmmm...” Scootaloo was gazing off towards the far end of the bar where a goblin, a dirigible dog, and a komodo dragon were glaring back at her.

Raising a dirty eyebrow, Pitt leaned forward. “Seriously, Harmony, are we even in the same room right now?”

“Huh?” Scootaloo glanced over at Pitt with a dazed expression. She snapped out of it long enough to frown. “Don't call me 'Harmony.' Only other ponies get to call me that.”

“Uhm... Sorry for the bleak headline, sweet-cheeks, but what other ponies?”

Scootaloo opened her mouth, faltered, and sighed. She ran a hoof over her forehead, as if diving deep into a continuous migraine.

Pitt's bulbous nose sniffed. He leaned back, rubbed his chin in thought, but ultimately shrugged. “Ah well. How's about ten and a half bars of silver for each?”

“My spirit may not be here, Pitt, but my brain sure as heck is,” Scootaloo muttered. “Those jars are worth two hundred strips each and you know it.”

“I've hit rough times, horse lady,” he said, polishing a mug with a rag that was browner than the glowing containers between them. “The kitchen has caught fire twice. I've got ogres badgering me something fierce. Willis has undoubtedly busted another kidney. So, long story short, I'm not exactly lathering myself in silver lately. Be easy on me, will ya?”

“Pitt, you're a walking pile of harpy excrement and a dirty rotten liar...”

“Fine! Twenty bars per container!” Pitt groaned. “Willis' kidneys are made of steel. That's why he gets generator duty and not any of my other sissy brothers who might make the bicycle rust.” He rubbed his balding skull with a sheepish smirk. “How is that I can never lie to you?”

Scootaloo gave him a bored glanced. “Because you're more acquainted with my personal charm than all the living carcasses that flock here for a sip of your vomit brew.”

Just then, a racoon with a metal leg jumped up, perched on Scootaloo's back, and began slamming his frail paws repeatedly into the base of her skull. “Nnnngh! Glue stick! You are spirit ill with the pony pony pony ghosts!” He clamped his jaws onto her leather cap, drooling. “Grrrrr—Back to burning uterus of mother life love! Hckkkt! Glue stick!”

Scootaloo sighed. She reached over to where her copper rifle was leaning against the bar counter. Giving it a little twirl, the last pony viciously smacked it against the racoon's cranium.

“Ooof!” The mangy little critter flew over the tables until he landed in the antlers of a mounted deer skull. Several drunken patrons cheered and tossed the ring-tailed bum strips of silver, which the slobbering creature struggled to pick up as it drooled for a much needed drink.

“I rest my case,” Scootaloo muttered as she leaned the rifle back down.

“Among other things.” Pitt winked before whistling across the counter. A lemur crawled up dutifully, wearing an apron. “Take these jars to the back for the next stormfront's cleaning session. Tell Terry to have eight hundred strips delivered to Miss Sunshine here.”

The scrawny thing nodded to its older sibling, grabbed the containers, and scampered off.

“And while you're at it, get a haircut!” Pitt shouted. He smirked aside at the last pony as he returned to a stack of unwashed mugs. “Meh. Lemurs. All they're good for is gaining weight and depression.”

“Pitt...” Scootaloo muttered. Her eyes had been locked on the grimy bar counter this entire time. In the wooden surface, she imagined gnarled claws reaching out for her, slicing her skin apart. For the first time in twenty-four years, she heard those marching feet. The lonesome shivers of a little orange foal had caught up with her. “Can I ask you something?”

“If you wanted those silver bars done in ribbons, Harmony, you should have asked before you played Ogre football with one of my well-paying customers.” He chuckled while rearranging drinking glasses. “I don't care how much he smells.”

She glanced up, her scarlet eyes soft. “Why am I still alive?”

Pitt froze. He glanced back at her over a could shoulder.

She rolled her eyes, sighed, and pressed a hoof to her cheek. “Nevermind,” she muttered.

Pitt sniffed, his eyes thin. “Well, it's not so much a stupid question as it is a weird one.” He shrugged, then poured a drink before sliding it towards a patron who was sitting at a comfortable distance from the lone equine. “I mean... 'why' are you alive? Beats the heck out of me. A more reasonable question is 'how.'”

“Heh...” Scootaloo gulped, gazing once more into the counter. “I wouldn't mind that being answered too.”

“Did you have a nasty scrape recently or something?” Pitt asked. “Not that I'm concerned—mind you. Heh, you're the only moron in the whole Wasteland with heavy enough coconuts to rip apart timberwolves for brown flame. I don't even wanna think about how you do it...”

“Not easily,” she said. After swallowing, she hoarsely uttered, “They should have killed me. An alpha dog from the pack took a swipe at me. If it wasn't for my armor, I would have been cleaved in two.”

“I'd say that sounds like a case of monkey luck, though—by the gods—that doesn't exactly apply to you.” He finished slapping a sandwich together and smirked. “Heh... Unless you started flinging your manure around every time you got pissed off.” He sneezed, wiped his nose, and held the plate up on a tray. “Egg salad sandwich for table five!”

“That's just it, Pitt,” the last pony murmured, leaning aside as a marmoset waiter rushed over to grab and deliver the order. “It's not just on this one occasion, but my whole life I've had these insane scrapes that... I've survived somehow. I've fought hydras, phoenixes, and trolls tooth-and-nail, and yet I'm still alive. Why?”

“You've got plenty of horseshoes to spit on. Why you asking me?”

Ignoring him, she went on. “Look at all these freaks.” She pointed over her shoulder. “See how they all stare at me?”

“Who wouldn't? You've got the most curvaceous rump in the Wasteland.”

“Pitt...”

“Aside from Chimpanzettes. Hoo baby...” His nostrils flared as a red flush overcame his torso. “Boy, do I miss them. It's a shame what happened to that zeppelin full of mail-order brides. That was the sexiest hydrogen explosion ever.”

Scootaloo slammed her hoof onto the counter and leaned forward. “Pitt, there's nothing these patrons want any more than to kill me in cold blood!”

“Pfft. Tell me something I don't know.”

Her face stretched in confusion. “Then how come they haven't done it already?”

“Didn't a racoon just fly by recently?”

“Pitt, I'm serious. I look around lately, and I realize that...” Scootaloo bit her lip, glancing across the hazy, lanternlit establishment. “I realize that everybody here avoids coming into contact with me. It's as if they're afraid of me... as if I'm one of the many monsters of this Wasteland.” She took a deep breath, her eyes thin and jaded. “I used to be afraid of those monsters; I didn't think I would become one.”

He gave her a prolonged, cockeyed glance. His mouth lingered as if he was on the edge of saying something.

Scootaloo saw it. “What?”

“Uhhh... Eh heh heh...” Pitt stroked his hairy chin. “I wouldn't exactly say that you're a monster, though you're certainly freaking me out with all of this chatter.”

“Chatter?”

“Normally you just sit in stone silence as you wait for payment. Then you grab the silver and you're gone.”

“I... I've had a lot on my mind as of late...”

“Yeah, no crap. What, is it a new business deal?”

Scootaloo chewed on her lip, gazing aside. The lanterns lining the walls flickered liked red apples and dimmed in her eyesight. “You could call it something like that...”

“Uh huh...” Pitt nodded. Casually, he leaned over the bar and said, “They're afraid of you, Harmony, that's for sure. But it ain't about you being a monster or whatcrap. Heck, a lot of these melon fudges fear you 'cuz of something else.”

She simply stared at him.

After a few seconds, he rewarded her by saying, “They know that you're the last pony, the only 'glue stick' there ever is or ever will be. And yet someway, somehow, after so many years of everything with a brain or balls wishing that you would just just roll over and die, you've done the exact opposite. You've beaten the odds. And that's really frightening... cuz nobody can answer the question you asked me, girl. And, quite frankly, I don't think anyone wants to.”

“What if it's fate, Pitt?” Scootaloo asked. “What if my being alive is something that was meant to be? That... th-that something immutable has designed me to be here... in this place and time... as I am now?”

“I think somepony's getting high on her own supply.” He stifled a chuckle. “You're supposed to deliver the brown crud, not snort it.”

“I used to think that everything was all incident and happenstance,” Scootaloo said. “But what if there's a plan to everything, and it's our place to look back and see how all the pieces fit together in spite of ourselves?” She shivered. “You start to realize that everything that was ever fragile or precious could just as well have been ironclad.”

“Hmmm... Sounds like a good way of excusing all the crap in history.”

Scootaloo sighed, then mumbled, “It's not my place to excuse the past. I've been doing that all my life. Now, I have a job to make light of it, and shine it into the future.”

Pitt was presently occupied with the act of digging a tiny finger into his ear. “I'm sorry, could you repeat that nonsense again?” he asked, leaning towards her.

Just then, the lemur returned with four metal trays full of rattling, silver strips.

“Hey! Will you look at that!” Pitt chuckled with a bright smile as he slapped the containers with hairy palms. “Nothing like the rich sound of clattering money to end an awkward conversation.”

“I can take a hint, Pitt,” Scootaloo grumbled, proceeding to slip the strips one bar at a time into her leather-reinforced saddlebag. “Even if it's a smelly, heavy-fisted one.”

“Well, I always knew you could take some heavy-fisting, at least until now.” He smirked her way. “Though I enjoyed our delicate little chat, for what it was worth. We should do this more often.”

“Eat a bag of troll cheese.”

“Then again...”

“So long, Pitt,” Scootaloo muttered as she shouldered the money, the rifle, and her sighs. “Thanks for the business... and stuff...”

“Hey! Pleasure to shake hooves again! I mean it!” He called out as she trotted away from the bar. “And next time you feel skittish about risking your neck for bottled flame, think about Gilda, why don'tcha?! With her Golden Gang around, you've got your flank covered in this Wasteland, ya lucky sap!”

“Gilda does not look after me!” Scootaloo growled. As she opened the swinging doors and marched out into the ashen wind, she exhaled heavily. “Only one soul ever has...”

---

A thunderous stormfront billowed below the Harmony. The dirigible floated high in the twilight altitude, away from the regularly scheduled lightning and chaos. With the cockpit controls set on autopilot, the gondola swayed gently and comfortably in the wind.

Scootaloo sat alone at her workbench, meticulously patching up the gashes that the timberwolf had left in her armor. Centimeter by centimeter, she sewed a stretch of cougar leather into the thick material that had been cleaved.

After an hour of work, she sat straight up on her stool, removed the tool-brace from her hoof, and shook her aching forelimb. Wincing slightly, she allowed her eyes to drift across the interior of her boiler-lit abode.

Her scarlet eyes lingered on a sliver of glinting metal. Glancing down, she stared at the scooter that had been scavenged from the treehouse outside Sweet Apple Acres. For the last two weeks, she had gone about repairing the item, piece by piece, so that it looked and shone as good as new.

She hesitated at first, but with the creaking of weathered limbs, she stood up, trotted over, and lifted the object in her grasp. It was a tiny thing, dwarfed by her adult body. She was afraid that standing on it might crunch the brittle metal in half, but it didn't matter. It existed; it was within her grasp. After two decades of being apart, she and her beloved mode of transportation had been reunited.

It was almost as if it had always meant to be, as if her scooter was lost in the first place just so that she could find it now, now that so many things were shattered and broken, and now that so few of them were being pieced together by the bands of green flame.

Scootaloo sighed. She saw a reflection of herself in the metallic surface of the scooter. A mat of violet hair had formed on her head over time. She had plenty of opportunities for shaving her mane since meeting Spike, but for some reason—she hadn't. Now she was witnessing an even brighter phantom staring back at her from the scooter's shiny surface, still haunted by the coat that had molded into a dull brown to match the wasted landscape, as well as the eyes that had lost all of their violet vibrance in so many years since the Cataclysm had sapped Equestria of magic.

Scootaloo's legs twitched. She dared not pivot the scooter or else she might be reminded of exactly how blank the lengths of her brown coat were. In a surrending breath, she leaned forward, closed her scarlet eyes, and nuzzled the handles to the scooter like a mother might embrace her foal.

In that very instant, she was elsewhere, shivering, trotting under candle light. There was a warm place, a happy place, and it receded from her. Before it vanished, however, she got a good look at a golden body lying on a green cushion. Then—in the flicker of a fireplace—a bright shape floated down a set of stairs—

Scootaloo's eyes flew open with a gasp. The scooter rattled in her grasp. She looked down to see the handles dripping with cold sweat.

Quickly—though carefully—Scootaloo layed the scooter down onto the floor, leaning it against the bulkheads beneath her workbench. Shuffling, she trotted towards her hammock, preparing to retire for the duration of the stormfront. At one point, however, she paused. Gnawing pensively on her lip, Scootaloo glanced at the record player on the starboard side, then at the rune-locked cabinets adjacent to the boiler behind her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Scootaloo had over four dozen vinyl records in her possession: all scavenged from the furthest corners of dead ponydom. However, there were two or three of them that had barely felt the kiss of lanternlight.

Right now, Scootaloo was kneeling at the rear of the gondola, reaching for the deepest recesses of her starboard side cabinet. She felt below the rows of books, beneath the immaculately kept journals of Luna and Celestia. Dust filled the air as she finally slid a pastel-colored record cover out from hiding. The faded image depicted prancing fillies and giggling colts atop a cloud, in the center of which a mare cradled what may have once been a newborn foal, at least before mold and decay had tarnished the infantile illustration forever.

Stretching her brown wings out for balance, Scootaloo trotted across the cabin, careful not to drop and shatter the antique record. She slid the glossy object out, gave it a single unemotional glance, then placed it onto the center spindle of her player. After cranking the device and placing the needle down, the iron-wrought cabin resonated with the gentlest of melodies.

A soothing lullaby filled the womb of the Harmony. Scootaloo's ears instantly drooped. She gnashed her teeth and reached her hoof over to stop the record. She paused in the gesture, however, and stood in place, breathing in and out slowly as the soft instrumental continued its raindrop echoes. She closed her eyes. The record had no lyrics, but Scootaloo heard singing nonetheless.

After a minute, Scootaloo finally trotted over to the hammock. She wrapped a dangling brown blanket around herself, and still she shivered. The music persisted, soft and heavenly, and yet it resonated with more haunting chords than a flock of shrieking harpies.

Scootaloo listened to the lullabye, and she curled into a fetal position as she did so, shivering like a little foal. As the stormfront rumbled outside, sleep would not find her. However, tears did.

---

Act Three: Circle of Kindness

---

Comments

[Zephandolf]

That sermon reminded me of a similar sermon from a 1960 live action Disney film: link.

[Csquared08]

Needs more sinners in the hands of an angry god.

[Rainbow_Dashtruction]

[center~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Good job Short Skirts, your self editting skills would be proud.

[Rainbow_Dashtruction]

I was so close, but damn, I couldn't read the entire of the chapter without giving up and skipping a few paragraphs. Dreadmane is just dreadfully slow.

[IDontKnowYouAnymore]

"Suis tsbd" Took me TVTropes to get the reference.

[RoboRed]

Ah, definitely something new here. I never recall timberwolves being mentioned in the story originally.

[DitzyDooDinky]

I have to say... I LUFFED IT!!!!

[71M073J]

Scootaloo listened to the lullabye=> lullaby
Also great story.

[Prismic]

Finally up to Circle of Kindness! About time for a change of pace and scenery